I have just returned from a visit to my landlordthe solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's Heavenand Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name. 'Mr. Heathcliff? I said. A nod was the answer. 'Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts 'Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir, he interrupted, wincing. 'I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder itwalk in! The 'walk in was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, 'Go to the Deuce! even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the words and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself. When he saw my horse's breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway, calling, as we entered the court,'Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse and bring up some wine. 'Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose, was the reflection suggested by this compound order. 'No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedgecutters. Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man, very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy. 'The Lord help us! he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent. Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed one may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones. Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date ', and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw. I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium. One step brought us into the family sittingroom, without any introductory lobby or passage they call it here 'the house preeminently. It includes kitchen and parlour, generally but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls. One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof. The latter had never been underdrawn its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it. Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horsepistols and, by way of ornament, three gaudily painted canisters disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone the chairs, highbacked, primitive structures, painted green one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade. In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, livercoloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies and other dogs haunted other recesses. The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in kneebreeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his armchair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner. But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a darkskinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of underbred pride I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feelingto manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I'm running on too fast I bestow my own attributes overliberally on him. Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a wouldbe acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one. While enjoying a month of fine weather at the seacoast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love vocally still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears she understood me at last, and looked a returnthe sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shameshrunk icily into myself, like a snail at every glance retired colder and farther till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness how undeserved, I alone can appreciate. I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl. 'You'd better let the dog alone, growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot. 'She's not accustomed to be spoilednot kept for a pet. Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, 'Joseph! Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of ascending so his master dived down to him, leaving me visvis the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheepdogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements. Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us. This proceeding aroused the whole hive halfadozen fourfooted fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt my heels and coatlaps peculiar subjects of assault and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in reestablishing peace. Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more dispatch a lusty dame, with tuckedup gown, bare arms, and fireflushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a fryingpan and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene. 'What the devil is the matter? he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure after this inhospitable treatment. 'What the devil, indeed! I muttered. 'The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers! 'They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing, he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. 'The dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine? 'No, thank you. 'Not bitten, are you? 'If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter. Heathcliff's countenance relaxed into a grin. 'Come, come, he said, 'you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. Here, take a little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your health, sir? I bowed and returned the pledge beginning to perceive that it would be foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs besides, I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense since his humour took that turn. Heprobably swayed by prudential consideration of the folly of offending a good tenantrelaxed a little in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me,a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement. I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched and before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit tomorrow. He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him. Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.I dine between twelve and one o'clock the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servantgirl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coalscuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back immediately I took my hat, and, after a fourmiles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's gardengate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow shower. On that bleak hill top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberrybushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled. 'Wretched inmates! I ejaculated, mentally, 'you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the daytime. I don't careI will get in! So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently. Vinegarfaced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn. 'What are ye for? he shouted. 'T' maister's down i' t' fowld. Go round by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him. 'Is there nobody inside to open the door? I hallooed, responsively. 'There's nobbut t' missis and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer flaysome dins till neeght. 'Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph? 'Norne me! I'll hae no hend wi't, muttered the head, vanishing. The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another trial when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a washhouse, and a paved area containing a coalshed, pump, and pigeoncot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received. It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the 'missis, an individual whose existence I had never previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and mute. 'Rough weather! I remarked. 'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance I had hard work to make them hear me. She never opened her mouth. I staredshe stared also at any rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable. 'Sit down, said the young man, gruffly. 'He'll be in soon. I obeyed and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my acquaintance. 'A beautiful animal! I commenced again. 'Do you intend parting with the little ones, madam? 'They are not mine, said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than Heathcliff himself could have replied. 'Ah, your favourites are among these? I continued, turning to an obscure cushion full of something like cats. 'A strange choice of favourites! she observed scornfully. Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening. 'You should not have come out, she said, rising and reaching from the chimneypiece two of the painted canisters. Her position before was sheltered from the light now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding small features, very fair flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The canisters were almost out of her reach I made a motion to aid her she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold. 'I don't want your help, she snapped 'I can get them for myself. 'I beg your pardon! I hastened to reply. 'Were you asked to tea? she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot. 'I shall be glad to have a cup, I answered. 'Were you asked? she repeated. 'No, I said, half smiling. 'You are the proper person to ask me. She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet her forehead corrugated, and her red underlip pushed out, like a child's ready to cry. Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house. In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my uncomfortable state. 'You see, sir, I am come, according to promise! I exclaimed, assuming the cheerful 'and I fear I shall be weatherbound for half an hour, if you can afford me shelter during that space. 'Half an hour? he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes 'I wonder you should select the thick of a snowstorm to ramble about in. Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings and I can tell you there is no chance of a change at present. 'Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange till morningcould you spare me one? 'No, I could not. 'Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity. 'Umph! 'Are you going to mak' the tea? demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady. 'Is he to have any? she asked, appealing to Heathcliff. 'Get it ready, will you? was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started. The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow. When the preparations were finished, he invited me with'Now, sir, bring forward your chair. And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal. I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn and it was impossible, however illtempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their everyday countenance. 'It is strange, I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea and receiving another'it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and ideas many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff yet, I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart 'My amiable lady! he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face. 'Where is shemy amiable lady? 'Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean. 'Well, yesoh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even when her body is gone. Is that it? Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years. The other did not look seventeen. Then it flashed upon me'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her husband Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being buried alive she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed! A sad pityI must beware how I cause her to regret her choice. The last reflection may seem conceited it was not. My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive. 'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughterinlaw, said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise. He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction a look of hatred unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul. 'Ah, certainlyI see now you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy, I remarked, turning to my neighbour. This was worse than before the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault. But he seemed to recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse, muttered on my behalf which, however, I took care not to notice. 'Unhappy in your conjectures, sir, observed my host 'we neither of us have the privilege of owning your good fairy her mate is dead. I said she was my daughterinlaw therefore, she must have married my son. 'And this young man is 'Not my son, assuredly. Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him. 'My name is Hareton Earnshaw, growled the other 'and I'd counsel you to respect it! 'I've shown no disrespect, was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself. He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible. I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time. The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow. 'I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide, I could not help exclaiming. 'The roads will be buried already and, if they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance. 'Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch. They'll be covered if left in the fold all night and put a plank before them, said Heathcliff. 'How must I do? I continued, with rising irritation. There was no reply to my question and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which had fallen from the chimneypiece as she restored the teacanister to its place. The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out'Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out! Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talkingyah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye! I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to me and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an intention of kicking him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer. 'You scandalous old hypocrite! she replied. 'Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name? I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special favour! Stop! look here, Joseph, she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The red cow didn't die by chance and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations! 'Oh, wicked, wicked! gasped the elder 'may the Lord deliver us from evil! 'No, reprobate! you are a castawaybe off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the limits I fix shallI'll not say what he shall be done tobut, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you! The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and ejaculating 'wicked as he went. I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress. 'Mrs. Heathcliff, I said earnestly, 'you must excuse me for troubling you. I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being goodhearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London! 'Take the road you came, she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her. 'It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give. 'Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault? 'How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden wall. 'You! I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night, I cried. 'I want you to tell me my way, not to show it or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide. 'Who? There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have? 'Are there no boys at the farm? 'No those are all. 'Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay. 'That you may settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it. 'I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills, cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance. 'As to staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do. 'I can sleep on a chair in this room, I replied. 'No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard! said the unmannerly wretch. With this insult my patience was at an end. I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other. At first the young man appeared about to befriend me. 'I'll go with him as far as the park, he said. 'You'll go with him to hell! exclaimed his master, or whatever relation he bore. 'And who is to look after the horses, eh? 'A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the horses somebody must go, murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected. 'Not at your command! retorted Hareton. 'If you set store on him, you'd better be quiet. 'Then I hope his ghost will haunt you and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin, she answered, sharply. 'Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on 'em! muttered Joseph, towards whom I had been steering. He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern. 'Maister, maister, he's staling t' lanthern! shouted the ancient, pursuing my retreat. 'Hey, Gnasher! Hey, dog! Hey Wolf, holld him, holld him! On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me outon their peril to keep me one minute longerwith several incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear. The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don't know what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my entertainer. This was Zillah, the stout housewife who at length issued forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar. She thought that some of them had been laying violent hands on me and, not daring to attack her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel. 'Well, Mr. Earnshaw, she cried, 'I wonder what you'll have agait next? Are we going to murder folk on our very doorstones? I see this house will never do for melook at t' poor lad, he's fair choking! Wisht, wisht you mun'n't go on so. Come in, and I'll cure that there now, hold ye still. With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness. I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed. While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered she had only lived there a year or two and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious. Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothespress, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows. Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of oldfashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else. The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and smallCatherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine EarnshawHeathcliffLinton, till my eyes closed but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectresthe air swarmed with Catherines and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candlewick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calfskin. I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty a flyleaf bore the inscription'Catherine Earnshaw, her book, and a date some quarter of a century back. I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all. Catherine's library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose scarcely one chapter had escaped a penandink commentaryat least the appearance of onecovering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics. 'An awful Sunday, commenced the paragraph beneath. 'I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitutehis conduct to Heathcliff is atrociousH. and I are going to rebelwe took our initiatory step this evening. 'All day had been flooding with rain we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable firedoing anything but reading their Bibles, I'll answer for itHeathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayerbooks, and mount we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, 'What, done already?' On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners. ''You forget you have a master here,' says the tyrant. 'I'll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by I heard him snap his fingers.' Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hourfoolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks ''T' maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o'ered, und t' sound o' t' gospel still i' yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill childer! there's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em sit ye down, and think o' yer sowls!' 'Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the faroff fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dogkennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub! ''Maister Hindley!' shouted our chaplain. 'Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy's riven th' back off 'Th' Helmet o' Salvation, un' Heathcliff's pawsed his fit into t' first part o' 'T' Brooad Way to Destruction! It's fair flaysome that ye let 'em go on this gait. Ech! th' owd man wad ha' laced 'em properlybut he's goan!' 'Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the backkitchen where, Joseph asseverated, 'owd Nick' would fetch us as sure as we were living and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the housedoor ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman's cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestionand then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verifiedwe cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.       I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject she waxed lachrymose. 'How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so! she wrote. 'My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow and still I can't give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally and swears he will reduce him to his right place       I began to nod drowsily over the dim page my eye wandered from manuscript to print. I saw a red ornamented title'Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the SeventyFirst. A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough. And while I was, halfconsciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I don't remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering. I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road and, as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim's staff telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavyheaded cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text'Seventy Times Seven and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the 'First of the SeventyFirst, and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated. We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice it lies in a hollow, between two hills an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto but as the clergyman's stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation and he preachedgood God! what a sermon divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character odd transgressions that I never imagined previously. Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done. I was condemned to hear all out finally, he reached the 'First of the SeventyFirst. At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon. 'Sir, I exclaimed, 'sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to departSeventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninetyfirst is too much. Fellowmartyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more! 'Thou art the Man! cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visageseventy times seven did I take counsel with my soulLo, this is human weakness this also may be absolved! The First of the SeventyFirst is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all His saints! With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me in a body and I, having no weapon to raise in selfdefence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings every man's hand was against his neighbour and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez's part in the row? Merely the branch of a firtree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an instant detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again if possible, still more disagreeably than before. This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. 'I must stop it, nevertheless! I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, icecold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me inlet me in! 'Who are you? I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. 'Catherine Linton, it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton)'I'm come home I'd lost my way on the moor! As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes still it wailed, 'Let me in! and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear. 'How can I! I said at length. 'Let me go, if you want me to let you in! The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! 'Begone! I shouted. 'I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years. 'It is twenty years, mourned the voice 'twenty years. I've been a waif for twenty years! Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up but could not stir a limb and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright. To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal hasty footsteps approached my chamber door somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering, yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself. At last, he said, in a halfwhisper, plainly not expecting an answer, 'Is any one here? I considered it best to confess my presence for I knew Heathcliff's accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet. With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced. Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up. 'It is only your guest, sir, I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation of exposing his cowardice further. 'I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I'm sorry I disturbed you. 'Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady. 'And who showed you up into this room? he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. 'Who was it? I've a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment! 'It was your servant Zillah, I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. 'I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it isswarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you. No one will thank you for a doze in such a den! 'What do you mean? asked Heathcliff, 'and what are you doing? Lie down and finish out the night, since you are here but, for Heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut! 'If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me! I returned. 'I'm not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again. Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on the mother's side? And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was calledshe must have been a changelingwicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt! Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory, till thus awakened. I blushed at my inconsideration but, without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add'The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in Here I stopped afreshI was about to say 'perusing those old volumes, then it would have revealed my knowledge of their written, as well as their printed, contents so, correcting myself, I went on'in spelling over the name scratched on that windowledge. A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or 'What can you mean by talking in this way to me! thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. 'Howhow dare you, under my roof?God! he's mad to speak so! And he struck his forehead with rage. I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams affirming I had never heard the appellation of 'Catherine Linton before, but reading it often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke finally sitting down almost concealed behind it. I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. Not liking to show him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night 'Not three o'clock yet! I could have taken oath it had been six. Time stagnates here we must surely have retired to rest at eight! 'Always at nine in winter, and rise at four, said my host, suppressing a groan and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm's shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes. 'Mr. Lockwood, he added, 'you may go into my room you'll only be in the way, coming downstairs so early and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me. 'And for me, too, I replied. 'I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I'll be off and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion. I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself. 'Delightful company! muttered Heathcliff. 'Take the candle, and go where you please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained and the houseJuno mounts sentinel there, andnay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you! I'll come in two minutes! I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. 'Come in! come in! he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, doonce more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last! The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice it gave no sign of being but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light. There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony though why was beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed in the backkitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together, enabled me to rekindle my candle. Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew. Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other. We were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through a trap the ascent to his garret, I suppose. He cast a sinister look at the little flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced the operation of stuffing a threeinch pipe with tobacco. My presence in his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for remark he silently applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and puffed away. I let him enjoy the luxury unannoyed and after sucking out his last wreath, and heaving a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as solemnly as he came. A more elastic footstep entered next and now I opened my mouth for a 'goodmorning, but closed it again, the salutation unachieved for Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison sotto voce, in a series of curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts. He glanced over the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat. I guessed, by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard couch, made a movement to follow him. He noticed this, and thrust at an inner door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality. It opened into the house, where the females were already astir Zillah urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows and Mrs. Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the blaze. She held her hand interposed between the furnaceheat and her eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation desisting from it only to chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog, now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face. I was surprised to see Heathcliff there also. He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah who ever and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and heave an indignant groan. 'And you, you worthless he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughterinlaw, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash. 'There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their breadyou live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sightdo you hear, damnable jade? 'I'll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse, answered the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair. 'But I'll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please! Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance, obviously acquainted with its weight. Having no desire to be entertained by a catanddog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the interrupted dispute. Each had enough decorum to suspend further hostilities Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his pockets Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay. That was not long. I declined joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an opportunity of escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as impalpable ice. My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor. It was well he did, for the whole hillback was one billowy, white ocean the swells and falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground many pits, at least, were filled to a level and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday's walk left pictured in my mind. I had remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren these were erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with the firmer path but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there, all traces of their existence had vanished and my companion found it necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road. We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there. Our adieux were limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own resources for the porter's lodge is untenanted as yet. The distance from the gate to the Grange is two miles I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow a predicament which only those who have experienced it can appreciate. At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed twelve as I entered the house and that gave exactly an hour for every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights. My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me exclaiming, tumultuously, they had completely given me up everybody conjectured that I perished last night and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my remains. I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged upstairs whence, after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a kitten almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my refreshment. What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticableI, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk. 'You have lived here a considerable time, I commenced 'did you not say sixteen years? 'Eighteen, sir I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper. 'Indeed. There ensued a pause. She was not a gossip, I feared unless about her own affairs, and those could hardly interest me. However, having studied for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of meditation over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated'Ah, times are greatly changed since then! 'Yes, I remarked, 'you've seen a good many alterations, I suppose? 'I have and troubles too, she said. 'Oh, I'll turn the talk on my landlord's family! I thought to myself. 'A good subject to start! And that pretty girlwidow, I should like to know her history whether she be a native of the country, or, as is more probable, an exotic that the surly indigenae will not recognise for kin. With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence so much inferior. 'Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order? I inquired. 'Rich, sir! she returned. 'He has nobody knows what money, and every year it increases. Yes, yes, he's rich enough to live in a finer house than this but he's very nearclosehanded and, if he had meant to flit to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he could not have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more. It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world! 'He had a son, it seems? 'Yes, he had onehe is dead. 'And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow? 'Yes. 'Where did she come from originally? 'Why, sir, she is my late master's daughter Catherine Linton was her maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing! I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would remove here, and then we might have been together again. 'What! Catherine Linton? I exclaimed, astonished. But a minute's reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine. 'Then, I continued, 'my predecessor's name was Linton? 'It was. 'And who is that Earnshaw Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff? Are they relations? 'No he is the late Mrs. Linton's nephew. 'The young lady's cousin, then? 'Yes and her husband was her cousin also one on the mother's, the other on the father's side Heathcliff married Mr. Linton's sister. 'I see the house at Wuthering Heights has 'Earnshaw' carved over the front door. Are they an old family? 'Very old, sir and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of usI mean, of the Lintons. Have you been to Wuthering Heights? I beg pardon for asking but I should like to hear how she is! 'Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome yet, I think, not very happy. 'Oh dear, I don't wonder! And how did you like the master? 'A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean. Is not that his character? 'Rough as a sawedge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him the better. 'He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl. Do you know anything of his history? 'It's a cuckoo's, sirI know all about it except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first. And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock! The unfortunate lad is the only one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated. 'Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbours I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed so be good enough to sit and chat an hour. 'Oh, certainly, sir! I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then I'll sit as long as you please. But you've caught cold I saw you shivering, and you must have some gruel to drive it out. The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire my head felt hot, and the rest of me chill moreover, I was excited, almost to a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain. This caused me to feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious effects from the incidents of today and yesterday. She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work and, having placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.      Before I came to live here, she commencedwaiting no farther invitation to her storyI was almost always at Wuthering Heights because my mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father, and I got used to playing with the children I ran errands too, and helped to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me to. One fine summer morningit was the beginning of harvest, I rememberMr. Earnshaw, the old master, came downstairs, dressed for a journey and, after he had told Joseph what was to be done during the day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and mefor I sat eating my porridge with themand he said, speaking to his son, 'Now, my bonny man, I'm going to Liverpool today, what shall I bring you? You may choose what you like only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back sixty miles each way, that is a long spell! Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy she was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. He did not forget me for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed his children, said goodbye, and set off. It seemed a long while to us allthe three days of his absenceand often did little Cathy ask when he would be home. Mrs. Earnshaw expected him by suppertime on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour after hour there were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look. Then it grew dark she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to be allowed to stay up and, just about eleven o'clock, the doorlatch was raised quietly, and in stepped the master. He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly killedhe would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms. 'And at the end of it to be flighted to death! he said, opening his greatcoat, which he held bundled up in his arms. 'See here, wife! I was never so beaten with anything in my life but you must e'en take it as a gift of God though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil. We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, blackhaired child big enough both to walk and talk indeed, its face looked older than Catherine's yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children. Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till peace was restored then, both began searching their father's pockets for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the greatcoat, he blubbered aloud and Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing earning for her pains a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners. They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family. On coming back a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I found they had christened him 'Heathcliff it was the name of a son who died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian and surname. Miss Cathy and he were now very thick but Hindley hated him and to say the truth I did the same and we plagued and went on with him shamefully for I wasn't reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged. He seemed a sullen, patient child hardened, perhaps, to illtreatment he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. This endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the poor fatherless child, as he called him. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite. So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house and at Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his privileges and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries. I sympathised a while but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed my idea. Heathcliff was dangerously sick and while he lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow I suppose he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it. However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly he was as uncomplaining as a lamb though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble. He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing to me, and praised me for my care. I was vain of his commendations, and softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus Hindley lost his last ally still I couldn't dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude. He was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes. As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the parish fair, and gave the lads each one. Heathcliff took the handsomest, but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley 'You must exchange horses with me I don't like mine and if you won't I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you've given me this week, and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder. Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears. 'You'd better do it at once, he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable) 'you will have to and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with interest. 'Off, dog! cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay. 'Throw it, he replied, standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly. Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it. 'Take my colt, Gipsy, then! said young Earnshaw. 'And I pray that he may break your neck take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan.And take that, I hope he'll kick out your brains! Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall he was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes were fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could. I was surprised to witness how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a bundle of hay to overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered the house. I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises on the horse he minded little what tale was told since he had what he wanted. He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive I was deceived completely, as you will hear. In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly and when he was confined to the chimneycorner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or domineer over, his favourite he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to him seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an illturn. It was a disadvantage to the lad for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary twice, or thrice, Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it. At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college and Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said'Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered. I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements as he would have it that it did really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two peopleMiss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest selfrighteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying him about his soul's concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine always minding to flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter. Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day from the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at highwater mark, her tongue always goingsinging, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she wasbut she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish and, after all, I believe she meant no harm for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him yet she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress using her hands freely, and commanding her companions she did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering and so I let her know. Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children he had always been strict and grave with them and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated mostshowing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness how the boy would do her bidding in anything, and his only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. 'Nay, Cathy, the old man would say, 'I cannot love thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee! That made her cry, at first and then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven. But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fireside. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all togetherI, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hairit pleased him rarely to see her gentleand saying, 'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy? And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father? But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as mute as mice a full halfhour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by name, and touched his shoulder but he would not move so he took the candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to 'frame upstairs, and make little dinthey might pray alone that eveninghe had summut to do. 'I shall bid father goodnight first, said Catherine, putting her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered her loss directlyshe screamed out'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead! And they both set up a heartbreaking cry. I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then. However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children's room their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together. Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral anda thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and lefthe brought a wife with him. What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father. She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account. Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her and every circumstance that took place about her except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners. I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly'Are they gone yet? Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell aweepingand when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn't know but she felt so afraid of dying! I imagined her as little likely to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and freshcomplexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes but I knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her. We don't in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first. Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed quite differently and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the backkitchen, and leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour but his wife expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and delfcase, and dogkennel, and the wide space there was to move about in where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort, and so dropped the intention. She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new acquaintance and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning. Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm. Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages the young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they kept clear of him. He would not even have seen after their going to church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his carelessness when they absented themselves and that reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper. But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at. The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached they forgot everything the minute they were together again at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of revenge and many a time I've cried to myself to watch them growing more reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures. One Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sittingroom, for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind and when I went to call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere. We searched the house, above and below, and the yard and stables they were invisible and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night. The household went to bed and I, too anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to hearken, though it rained determined to admit them in spite of the prohibition, should they return. In a while, I distinguished steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the gate. I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking. There was Heathcliff, by himself it gave me a start to see him alone. 'Where is Miss Catherine? I cried hurriedly. 'No accident, I hope? 'At Thrushcross Grange, he answered 'and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay. 'Well, you will catch it! I said 'you'll never be content till you're sent about your business. What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange? 'Let me get off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly, he replied. I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued'Cathy and I escaped from the washhouse to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly? 'Probably not, I responded. 'They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct. 'Don't cant, Nelly, he said 'nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park, without stoppingCatherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog tomorrow. We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a flowerplot under the drawingroom window. The light came from thence they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we sawah! it was beautifula splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimsoncovered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glassdrops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there Edgar and his sister had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what your good children were doing? IsabellaI believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathylay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running redhot needles into her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping which, from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots! That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things we did despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grangenot if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood! 'Hush, hush! I interrupted. 'Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind? 'I told you we laughed, he answered. 'The Lintons heard us, and with one accord they shot like arrows to the door there was silence, and then a cry, 'Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh, papa, oh!' They really did howl out something in that way. We made frightful noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge, because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee. I had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell down. 'Run, Heathcliff, run!' she whispered. 'They have let the bulldog loose, and he holds me!' The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly I heard his abominable snorting. She did not yell outno! she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow. I did, though I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast of a servant came up with a lantern, at last, shouting'Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!' He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker's game. The dog was throttled off his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man took Cathy up she was sick not from fear, I'm certain, but from pain. He carried her in I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. 'What prey, Robert?' hallooed Linton from the entrance. 'Skulker has caught a little girl, sir,' he replied 'and there's a lad here,' he added, making a clutch at me, 'who looks an outandouter! Very like the robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease. Hold your tongue, you foulmouthed thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don't lay by your gun.' 'No, no, Robert,' said the old fool. 'The rascals knew that yesterday was my rentday they thought to have me cleverly. Come in I'll furnish them a reception. There, John, fasten the chain. Give Skulker some water, Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too! Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don't be afraid, it is but a boyyet the villain scowls so plainly in his face would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?' He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping'Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He's exactly like the son of the fortuneteller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn't he, Edgar?' 'While they examined me, Cathy came round she heard the last speech, and laughed. Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient wit to recognise her. They see us at church, you know, though we seldom meet them elsewhere. 'That's Miss Earnshaw!' he whispered to his mother, 'and look how Skulker has bitten herhow her foot bleeds!' ''Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!' cried the dame 'Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy! And yet, my dear, the child is in mourningsurely it isand she may be lamed for life!' ''What culpable carelessness in her brother!' exclaimed Mr. Linton, turning from me to Catherine. 'I've understood from Shielders' (that was the curate, sir) ''that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism. But who is this? Where did she pick up this companion? Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpoola little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.' ''A wicked boy, at all events,' remarked the old lady, 'and quite unfit for a decent house! Did you notice his language, Linton? I'm shocked that my children should have heard it.' 'I recommenced cursingdon't be angry, Nellyand so Robert was ordered to take me off. I refused to go without Cathy he dragged me into the garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly, secured the door again. The curtains were still looped up at one corner, and I resumed my station as spy because, if Catherine had wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments, unless they let her out. She sat on the sofa quietly. Mrs. Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairymaid which we had borrowed for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I suppose she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her treatment and mine. Then the womanservant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping at a distance. Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire and I left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintonsa dim reflection from her own enchanting face. I saw they were full of stupid admiration she is so immeasurably superior to themto everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly? 'There will more come of this business than you reckon on, I answered, covering him up and extinguishing the light. 'You are incurable, Heathcliff and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if he won't. My words came truer than I desired. The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in earnest. Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sisterinlaw in due restraint when she returned home employing art, not force with force she would have found it impossible. Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her selfrespect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in. Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, 'Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should scarcely have known you you look like a lady now. Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she, Frances? 'Isabella has not her natural advantages, replied his wife 'but she must mind and not grow wild again here. Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her thingsStay, dear, you will disarrange your curlslet me untie your hat. I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments. She kissed me gently I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug and then she looked round for Heathcliff. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends. Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first. If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine's absence, he had been ten times more so since. Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a roughheaded counterpart of himself, as he expected. 'Is Heathcliff not here? she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors. 'Heathcliff, you may come forward, cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself. 'You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants. Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, 'Why, how very black and cross you look! and howhow funny and grim! But that's because I'm used to Edgar and Isabella Linton. Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me? She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable. 'Shake hands, Heathcliff, said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly 'once in a way, that is permitted. 'I shall not, replied the boy, finding his tongue at last 'I shall not stand to be laughed at. I shall not bear it! And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again. 'I did not mean to laugh at you, she said 'I could not hinder myself Heathcliff, shake hands at least! What are you sulky for? It was only that you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right but you are so dirty! She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his. 'You needn't have touched me! he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand. 'I shall be as dirty as I please and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty. With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper. After playing lady'smaid to the newcomer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmaseve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols, all alone regardless of Joseph's affirmations that he considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs. He had retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy's attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness. They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that 'naughty swearing boy. Under these circumstances I remained solitary. I smelt the rich scent of the heating spices and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready to be filled with mulled ale for supper and above all, the speckless purity of my particular carethe scoured and wellswept floor. I gave due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmasbox and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad's situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying. It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them I got up and walked into the court to seek him. He was not far I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom. 'Make haste, Heathcliff! I said, 'the kitchen is so comfortable and Joseph is upstairs make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime. He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me. 'Comeare you coming? I continued. 'There's a little cake for each of you, nearly enough and you'll need halfanhour's donning. I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him. Catherine supped with her brother and sisterinlaw Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back. In the morning he rose early and, as it was a holiday, carried his illhumour on to the moors not reappearing till the family were departed for church. Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit. He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed abruptly'Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good. 'High time, Heathcliff, I said 'you have grieved Catherine she's sorry she ever came home, I daresay! It looks as if you envied her, because she is more thought of than you. The notion of envying Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough. 'Did she say she was grieved? he inquired, looking very serious. 'She cried when I told her you were off again this morning. 'Well, I cried last night, he returned, 'and I had more reason to cry than she. 'Yes you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach, said I. 'Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in. You must go up and offer to kiss her, and sayyou know best what to say only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted into a stranger by her grand dress. And now, though I have dinner to get ready, I'll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look quite a doll beside you and that he does. You are younger, and yet, I'll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders you could knock him down in a twinkling don't you feel that you could? Heathcliff's face brightened a moment then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed. 'But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be! 'And cried for mamma at every turn, I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched, sink in the middle and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers. 'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes and even forehead, he replied. 'I doand that won't help me to them. 'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad, I continued, 'if you were a regular black and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulkingtell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer! So I chattered on and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court. He ran to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the Earnshaws dismount from their horses they often rode to church in winter. Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour into their white faces. I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he willingly obeyed but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other. They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph 'keep the fellow out of the roomsend him into the garret till dinner is over. He'll be cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute. 'Nay, sir, I could not avoid answering, 'he'll touch nothing, not he and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we. 'He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till dark, cried Hindley. 'Begone, you vagabond! What! you are attempting the coxcomb, are you? Wait till I get hold of those elegant lockssee if I won't pull them a bit longer! 'They are long enough already, observed Master Linton, peeping from the doorway 'I wonder they don't make his head ache. It's like a colt's mane over his eyes! He ventured this remark without any intention to insult but Heathcliff's violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce, the first thing that came under his gripe, and dashed it full against the speaker's face and neck who instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the place. Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to his chamber where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless. I got the dishcloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar's nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling. His sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all. 'You should not have spoken to him! she expostulated with Master Linton. 'He was in a bad temper, and now you've spoilt your visit and he'll be flogged I hate him to be flogged! I can't eat my dinner. Why did you speak to him, Edgar? 'I didn't, sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the remainder of the purification with his cambric pockethandkerchief. 'I promised mamma that I wouldn't say one word to him, and I didn't. 'Well, don't cry, replied Catherine, contemptuously 'you're not killed. Don't make more mischief my brother is coming be quiet! Hush, Isabella! Has anybody hurt you? 'There, there, childrento your seats! cried Hindley, bustling in. 'That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely. Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fistsit will give you an appetite! The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant feast. They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real harm had befallen them. Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the mistress made them merry with lively talk. I waited behind her chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her. 'An unfeeling child, I thought to myself 'how lightly she dismisses her old playmate's troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so selfish. She lifted a mouthful to her lips then she set it down again her cheeks flushed, and the tears gushed over them. She slipped her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion. I did not call her unfeeling long for I perceived she was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private mess of victuals. In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a firstrate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty. Catherine loved it too but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark I followed. They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made no stay at the stairs'head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellowservant had gone to a neighbour's, to be removed from the sound of our 'devil's psalmody, as it pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do! 'For shame, Heathcliff! said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people we should learn to forgive. 'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall, he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain. But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you. I'm annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliff's history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.      Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay aside her sewing but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding. 'Sit still, Mrs. Dean, I cried 'do sit still another halfhour. You've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like and you must finish it in the same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less. 'The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir. 'No matterI'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten. 'You shouldn't lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done onehalf his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone. 'Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair because tomorrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least. 'I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years during that space Mrs. Earnshaw 'No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper? 'A terribly lazy mood, I should say. 'On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present and, therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the lookeron. They do live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love for life here almost possible and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year's standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance. 'Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us, observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech. 'Excuse me, I responded 'you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion. Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class. I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think. You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles. Mrs. Dean laughed. 'I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body, she said 'not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end but I have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French and those I know one from another it is as much as you can expect of a poor man's daughter. However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's fashion, I had better go on and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summerthe summer of , that is nearly twentythree years ago. On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy with the hay in a faraway field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran. 'Oh, such a grand bairn! she panted out. 'The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says missis must go he says she's been in a consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr. Hindley and now she has nothing to keep her, and she'll be dead before winter. You must come home directly. You're to nurse it, Nelly to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night. I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis! 'But is she very ill? I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet. 'I guess she is yet she looks bravely, replied the girl, 'and she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man. She's out of her head for joy, it's such a beauty! If I were her I'm certain I should not die I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Kenneth. I was fairly mad at him. Dame Archer brought the cherub down to master, in the house, and his face just began to light up, when the old croaker steps forward, and says he'Earnshaw, it's a blessing your wife has been spared to leave you this son. When she came, I felt convinced we shouldn't keep her long and now, I must tell you, the winter will probably finish her. Don't take on, and fret about it too much it can't be helped. And besides, you should have known better than to choose such a rush of a lass!' 'And what did the master answer? I inquired. 'I think he swore but I didn't mind him, I was straining to see the bairn, and she began again to describe it rapturously. I, as zealous as herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part though I was very sad for Hindley's sake. He had room in his heart only for two idolshis wife and himself he doted on both, and adored one, and I couldn't conceive how he would bear the loss. When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door and, as I passed in, I asked, 'how was the baby? 'Nearly ready to run about, Nell! he replied, putting on a cheerful smile. 'And the mistress? I ventured to inquire 'the doctor says she's 'Damn the doctor! he interrupted, reddening. 'Frances is quite right she'll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going upstairs? will you tell her that I'll come, if she'll promise not to talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue and she musttell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet. I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily, 'I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won't speak but that does not bind me not to laugh at him! Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her health improved every day. When Kenneth warned him that his medicines were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn't put him to further expense by attending her, he retorted, 'I know you need notshe's wellshe does not want any more attendance from you! She never was in a consumption. It was a fever and it is gone her pulse is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool. He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought she should be able to get up tomorrow, a fit of coughing took hera very slight onehe raised her in his arms she put her two hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead. As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands. Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him cry, was contented, as far as regarded him. For himself, he grew desperate his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither wept nor prayed he cursed and defied execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I had not the heart to leave my charge and besides, you know, I had been his fostersister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would. Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers and because it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove. The master's bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. I could not half tell what an infernal house we had. The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent came near us, at last unless Edgar Linton's visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception. At fifteen she was the queen of the countryside she had no peer and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature! I own I did not like her, after infancy was past and I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance she never took an aversion to me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression. He was my late master that is his portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side, and his wife's on the other but hers has been removed, or else you might see something of what she was. Can you make that out? Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a softfeatured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples the eyes were large and serious the figure almost too graceful. I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend for such an individual. I marvelled much how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea of Catherine Earnshaw. 'A very agreeable portrait, I observed to the housekeeper. 'Is it like? 'Yes, she answered 'but he looked better when he was animated that is his everyday countenance he wanted spirit in general. Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her fiveweeks' residence among them and as she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother acquisitions that flattered her from the firstfor she was full of ambitionand led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a 'vulgar young ruffian, and 'worse than a brute, she took care not to act like him but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor praise. Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly. He had a terror of Earnshaw's reputation, and shrunk from encountering him and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility the master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came and if he could not be gracious, kept out of the way. I rather think his appearance there was distasteful to Catherine she was not artful, never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two friends meeting at all for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his presence, she could not half coincide, as she did in his absence and when Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff, she dared not treat his sentiments with indifference, as if depreciation of her playmate were of scarcely any consequence to her. I've had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide from my mockery. That sounds illnatured but she was so proud, it became really impossible to pity her distresses, till she should be chastened into more humility. She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and to confide in me there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an adviser. Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday on the strength of it. He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of. In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early education continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and any love for books or learning. His childhood's sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away. He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret but he yielded completely and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintance. Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite from labour but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him. On the beforenamed occasion he came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy to arrange her dress she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head to be idle and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother's absence, and was then preparing to receive him. 'Cathy, are you busy this afternoon? asked Heathcliff. 'Are you going anywhere? 'No, it is raining, she answered. 'Why have you that silk frock on, then? he said. 'Nobody coming here, I hope? 'Not that I know of, stammered Miss 'but you should be in the field now, Heathcliff. It is an hour past dinner time I thought you were gone. 'Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence, observed the boy. 'I'll not work any more today I'll stay with you. 'Oh, but Joseph will tell, she suggested 'you'd better go! 'Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags it will take him till dark, and he'll never know. So saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down. Catherine reflected an instant, with knitted browsshe found it needful to smooth the way for an intrusion. 'Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon, she said, at the conclusion of a minute's silence. 'As it rains, I hardly expect them but they may come, and if they do, you run the risk of being scolded for no good. 'Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy, he persisted 'don't turn me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours! I'm on the point, sometimes, of complaining that theybut I'll not 'That they what? cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled countenance. 'Oh, Nelly! she added petulantly, jerking her head away from my hands, 'you've combed my hair quite out of curl! That's enough let me alone. What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff? 'Nothingonly look at the almanack on that wall he pointed to a framed sheet hanging near the window, and continued, 'The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me. Do you see? I've marked every day. 'Yesvery foolish as if I took notice! replied Catherine, in a peevish tone. 'And where is the sense of that? 'To show that I do take notice, said Heathcliff. 'And should I always be sitting with you? she demanded, growing more irritated. 'What good do I get? What do you talk about? You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either! 'You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked my company, Cathy! exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation. 'It's no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing, she muttered. Her companion rose up, but he hadn't time to express his feelings further, for a horse's feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summons he had received. Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do that's less gruff than we talk here, and softer. 'I'm not come too soon, am I? he said, casting a look at me I had begun to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser. 'No, answered Catherine. 'What are you doing there, Nelly? 'My work, Miss, I replied. (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.) She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, 'Take yourself and your dusters off when company are in the house, servants don't commence scouring and cleaning in the room where they are! 'It's a good opportunity, now that master is away, I answered aloud 'he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence. I'm sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me. 'I hate you to be fidgeting in my presence, exclaimed the young lady imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff. 'I'm sorry for it, Miss Catherine, was my response and I proceeded assiduously with my occupation. She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm. I've said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her vanity now and then besides, she hurt me extremely so I started up from my knees, and screamed out, 'Oh, Miss, that's a nasty trick! You have no right to nip me, and I'm not going to bear it. 'I didn't touch you, you lying creature! cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage. She never had power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a blaze. 'What's that, then? I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to refute her. She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water. 'Catherine, love! Catherine! interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed. 'Leave the room, Ellen! she repeated, trembling all over. Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out complaints against 'wicked aunt Cathy, which drew her fury on to his unlucky head she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him. In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement. The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip. 'That's right! I said to myself. 'Take warning and begone! It's a kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition. 'Where are you going? demanded Catherine, advancing to the door. He swerved aside, and attempted to pass. 'You must not go! she exclaimed, energetically. 'I must and shall! he replied in a subdued voice. 'No, she persisted, grasping the handle 'not yet, Edgar Linton sit down you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all night, and I won't be miserable for you! 'Can I stay after you have struck me? asked Linton. Catherine was mute. 'You've made me afraid and ashamed of you, he continued 'I'll not come here again! Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle. 'And you told a deliberate untruth! he said. 'I didn't! she cried, recovering her speech 'I did nothing deliberately. Well, go, if you pleaseget away! And now I'll cryI'll cry myself sick! She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious earnest. Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court there he lingered. I resolved to encourage him. 'Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir, I called out. 'As bad as any marred child you'd better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to grieve us. The soft thing looked askance through the window he possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten. Ah, I thought, there will be no saving him he's doomed, and flies to his fate! And so it was he turned abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him and when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a closer intimacyhad broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess themselves lovers. Intelligence of Mr. Hindley's arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse, and Catherine to her chamber. I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master's fowlingpiece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun. He entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear and caught me in the act of stowing his son away in the kitchen cupboard. Hareton was impressed with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild beast's fondness or his madman's rage for in one he ran a chance of being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the other of being flung into the fire, or dashed against the wall and the poor thing remained perfectly quiet wherever I chose to put him. 'There, I've found it out at last! cried Hindley, pulling me back by the skin of my neck, like a dog. 'By heaven and hell, you've sworn between you to murder that child! I know how it is, now, that he is always out of my way. But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the carvingknife, Nelly! You needn't laugh for I've just crammed Kenneth, headdownmost, in the Blackhorse marsh and two is the same as oneand I want to kill some of you I shall have no rest till I do! 'But I don't like the carvingknife, Mr. Hindley, I answered 'it has been cutting red herrings. I'd rather be shot, if you please. 'You'd rather be damned! he said 'and so you shall. No law in England can hinder a man from keeping his house decent, and mine's abominable! Open your mouth. He held the knife in his hand, and pushed its point between my teeth but, for my part, I was never much afraid of his vagaries. I spat out, and affirmed it tasted detestablyI would not take it on any account. 'Oh! said he, releasing me, 'I see that hideous little villain is not Hareton I beg your pardon, Nell. If it be, he deserves flaying alive for not running to welcome me, and for screaming as if I were a goblin. Unnatural cub, come hither! I'll teach thee to impose on a goodhearted, deluded father. Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped? It makes a dog fiercer, and I love something fierceget me a scissorssomething fierce and trim! Besides, it's infernal affectationdevilish conceit it is, to cherish our earswe're asses enough without them. Hush, child, hush! Well then, it is my darling! wisht, dry thy eyesthere's a joy kiss me. What! it won't? Kiss me, Hareton! Damn thee, kiss me! By God, as if I would rear such a monster! As sure as I'm living, I'll break the brat's neck. Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father's arms with all his might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him upstairs and lifted him over the banister. I cried out that he would frighten the child into fits, and ran to rescue him. As I reached them, Hindley leant forward on the rails to listen to a noise below almost forgetting what he had in his hands. 'Who is that? he asked, hearing some one approaching the stairs'foot. I leant forward also, for the purpose of signing to Heathcliff, whose step I recognised, not to come further and, at the instant when my eye quitted Hareton, he gave a sudden spring, delivered himself from the careless grasp that held him, and fell. There was scarcely time to experience a thrill of horror before we saw that the little wretch was safe. Heathcliff arrived underneath just at the critical moment by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the accident. A miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five shillings, and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand pounds, could not show a blanker countenance than he did on beholding the figure of Mr. Earnshaw above. It expressed, plainer than words could do, the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge. Had it been dark, I daresay he would have tried to remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton's skull on the steps but, we witnessed his salvation and I was presently below with my precious charge pressed to my heart. Hindley descended more leisurely, sobered and abashed. 'It is your fault, Ellen, he said 'you should have kept him out of sight you should have taken him from me! Is he injured anywhere? 'Injured! I cried angrily 'if he is not killed, he'll be an idiot! Oh! I wonder his mother does not rise from her grave to see how you use him. You're worse than a heathentreating your own flesh and blood in that manner! He attempted to touch the child, who, on finding himself with me, sobbed off his terror directly. At the first finger his father laid on him, however, he shrieked again louder than before, and struggled as if he would go into convulsions. 'You shall not meddle with him! I continued. 'He hates youthey all hate youthat's the truth! A happy family you have and a pretty state you're come to! 'I shall come to a prettier, yet, Nelly, laughed the misguided man, recovering his hardness. 'At present, convey yourself and him away. And hark you, Heathcliff! clear you too quite from my reach and hearing. I wouldn't murder you tonight unless, perhaps, I set the house on fire but that's as my fancy goes. While saying this he took a pint bottle of brandy from the dresser, and poured some into a tumbler. 'Nay, don't! I entreated. 'Mr. Hindley, do take warning. Have mercy on this unfortunate boy, if you care nothing for yourself! 'Any one will do better for him than I shall, he answered. 'Have mercy on your own soul! I said, endeavouring to snatch the glass from his hand. 'Not I! On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to perdition to punish its Maker, exclaimed the blasphemer. 'Here's to its hearty damnation! He drank the spirits and impatiently bade us go terminating his command with a sequel of horrid imprecations too bad to repeat or remember. 'It's a pity he cannot kill himself with drink, observed Heathcliff, muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut. 'He's doing his very utmost but his constitution defies him. Mr. Kenneth says he would wager his mare that he'll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton, and go to the grave a hoary sinner unless some happy chance out of the common course befall him. I went into the kitchen, and sat down to lull my little lamb to sleep. Heathcliff, as I thought, walked through to the barn. It turned out afterwards that he only got as far as the other side the settle, when he flung himself on a bench by the wall, removed from the fire, and remained silent. I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began, It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat, The mither beneath the mools heard that, when Miss Cathy, who had listened to the hubbub from her room, put her head in, and whispered,'Are you alone, Nelly? 'Yes, Miss, I replied. She entered and approached the hearth. I, supposing she was going to say something, looked up. The expression of her face seemed disturbed and anxious. Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and she drew a breath but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence. I resumed my song not having forgotten her recent behaviour. 'Where's Heathcliff? she said, interrupting me. 'About his work in the stable, was my answer. He did not contradict me perhaps he had fallen into a doze. There followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two trickle from Catherine's cheek to the flags. Is she sorry for her shameful conduct?I asked myself. That will be a novelty but she may come to the point as she willI sha'n't help her! No, she felt small trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns. 'Oh, dear! she cried at last. 'I'm very unhappy! 'A pity, observed I. 'You're hard to please so many friends and so few cares, and can't make yourself content! 'Nelly, will you keep a secret for me? she pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it. 'Is it worth keeping? I inquired, less sulkily. 'Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I should do. Today, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been. 'Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know? I replied. 'To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him since he asked you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool. 'If you talk so, I won't tell you any more, she returned, peevishly rising to her feet. 'I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick, and say whether I was wrong! 'You accepted him! Then what good is it discussing the matter? You have pledged your word, and cannot retract. 'But say whether I should have done sodo! she exclaimed in an irritated tone chafing her hands together, and frowning. 'There are many things to be considered before that question can be answered properly, I said, sententiously. 'First and foremost, do you love Mr. Edgar? 'Who can help it? Of course I do, she answered. Then I put her through the following catechism for a girl of twentytwo it was not injudicious. 'Why do you love him, Miss Cathy? 'Nonsense, I dothat's sufficient. 'By no means you must say why? 'Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with. 'Bad! was my commentary. 'And because he is young and cheerful. 'Bad, still. 'And because he loves me. 'Indifferent, coming there. 'And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband. 'Worst of all. And now, say how you love him? 'As everybody lovesYou're silly, Nelly. 'Not at allAnswer. 'I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now! 'And why? 'Nay you are making a jest of it it is exceedingly illnatured! It's no jest to me! said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to the fire. 'I'm very far from jesting, Miss Catherine, I replied. 'You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing you would love him without that, probably and with it you wouldn't, unless he possessed the four former attractions. 'No, to be sure not I should only pity himhate him, perhaps, if he were ugly, and a clown. 'But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is. What should hinder you from loving them? 'If there be any, they are out of my way I've seen none like Edgar. 'You may see some and he won't always be handsome, and young, and may not always be rich. 'He is now and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally. 'Well, that settles it if you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton. 'I don't want your permission for thatI shall marry him and yet you have not told me whether I'm right. 'Perfectly right if people be right to marry only for the present. And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be pleased the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy where is the obstacle? 'Here! and here! replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and the other on her breast 'in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong! 'That's very strange! I cannot make it out. 'It's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it I can't do it distinctly but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel. She seated herself by me again her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trembled. 'Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams? she said, suddenly, after some minutes' reflection. 'Yes, now and then, I answered. 'And so do I. I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one I'm going to tell itbut take care not to smile at any part of it. 'Oh! don't, Miss Catherine! I cried. 'We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us. Come, come, be merry and like yourself! Look at little Hareton! he's dreaming nothing dreary. How sweetly he smiles in his sleep! 'Yes and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude! You remember him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to listen it's not long and I've no power to be merry tonight. 'I won't hear it, I won't hear it! I repeated, hastily. I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time. 'If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable. 'Because you are not fit to go there, I answered. 'All sinners would be miserable in heaven. 'But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there. 'I tell you I won't hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I'll go to bed, I interrupted again. She laughed, and held me down for I made a motion to leave my chair. 'This is nothing, cried she 'I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire. Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further. My companion, sitting on the ground, was prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or departure but I started, and bade her hush! 'Why? she asked, gazing nervously round. 'Joseph is here, I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his cartwheels up the road 'and Heathcliff will come in with him. I'm not sure whether he were not at the door this moment. 'Oh, he couldn't overhear me at the door! said she. 'Give me Hareton, while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you. I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that Heathcliff has no notion of these things. He has not, has he? He does not know what being in love is! 'I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you, I returned 'and if you are his choice, he'll be the most unfortunate creature that ever was born! As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all! Have you considered how you'll bear the separation, and how he'll bear to be quite deserted in the world? Because, Miss Catherine 'He quite deserted! we separated! she exclaimed, with an accent of indignation. 'Who is to separate us, pray? They'll meet the fate of Milo! Not as long as I live, Ellen for no mortal creature. Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that's not what I intendthat's not what I mean! I shouldn't be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded! He'll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime. Edgar must shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will, when he learns my true feelings towards him. Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother's power. 'With your husband's money, Miss Catherine? I asked. 'You'll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon and, though I'm hardly a judge, I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of young Linton. 'It is not, retorted she 'it is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims and for Edgar's sake, too, to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again it is impracticable and She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown but I jerked it forcibly away. I was out of patience with her folly! 'If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss, I said, 'it only goes to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying or else that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl. But trouble me with no more secrets I'll not promise to keep them. 'You'll keep that? she asked, eagerly. 'No, I'll not promise, I repeated. She was about to insist, when the entrance of Joseph finished our conversation and Catherine removed her seat to a corner, and nursed Hareton, while I made the supper. After it was cooked, my fellowservant and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr. Hindley and we didn't settle it till all was nearly cold. Then we came to the agreement that we would let him ask, if he wanted any for we feared particularly to go into his presence when he had been some time alone. 'And how isn't that nowt comed in fro' th' field, be this time? What is he about? girt idle seeght! demanded the old man, looking round for Heathcliff. 'I'll call him, I replied. 'He's in the barn, I've no doubt. I went and called, but got no answer. On returning, I whispered to Catherine that he had heard a good part of what she said, I was sure and told how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her brother's conduct regarding him. She jumped up in a fine fright, flung Hareton on to the settle, and ran to seek for her friend herself not taking leisure to consider why she was so flurried, or how her talk would have affected him. She was absent such a while that Joseph proposed we should wait no longer. He cunningly conjectured they were staying away in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing. They were 'ill eneugh for ony fahl manners, he affirmed. And on their behalf he added that night a special prayer to the usual quarterofanhour's supplication before meat, and would have tacked another to the end of the grace, had not his young mistress broken in upon him with a hurried command that he must run down the road, and, wherever Heathcliff had rambled, find and make him reenter directly! 'I want to speak to him, and I must, before I go upstairs, she said. 'And the gate is open he is somewhere out of hearing for he would not reply, though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could. Joseph objected at first she was too much in earnest, however, to suffer contradiction and at last he placed his hat on his head, and walked grumbling forth. Meantime, Catherine paced up and down the floor, exclaiming'I wonder where he isI wonder where he can be! What did I say, Nelly? I've forgotten. Was he vexed at my bad humour this afternoon? Dear! tell me what I've said to grieve him? I do wish he'd come. I do wish he would! 'What a noise for nothing! I cried, though rather uneasy myself. 'What a trifle scares you! It's surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie too sulky to speak to us in the hayloft. I'll engage he's lurking there. See if I don't ferret him out! I departed to renew my search its result was disappointment, and Joseph's quest ended in the same. 'Yon lad gets war und war! observed he on reentering. 'He's left th' gate at t' full swing, and Miss's pony has trodden dahn two rigs o' corn, and plottered through, raight o'er into t' meadow! Hahsomdiver, t' maister 'ull play t' devil tomorn, and he'll do weel. He's patience itsseln wi' sich careless, offald craterspatience itsseln he is! Bud he'll not be soa allusyah's see, all on ye! Yah mun'n't drive him out of his heead for nowt! 'Have you found Heathcliff, you ass? interrupted Catherine. 'Have you been looking for him, as I ordered? 'I sud more likker look for th' horse, he replied. 'It 'ud be to more sense. Bud I can look for norther horse nur man of a neeght loike thisas black as t' chimbley! und Heathcliff's noan t' chap to coom at my whistlehappen he'll be less hard o' hearing wi' ye! It was a very dark evening for summer the clouds appeared inclined to thunder, and I said we had better all sit down the approaching rain would be certain to bring him home without further trouble. However, Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquillity. She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no repose and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road where, heedless of my expostulations and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright. She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good passionate fit of crying. About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east chimneystack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchenfire. We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us and Joseph swung on to his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the patriarchs Noah and Lot, and, as in former times, spare the righteous, though he smote the ungodly. I felt some sentiment that it must be a judgment on us also. The Jonah, in my mind, was Mr. Earnshaw and I shook the handle of his den that I might ascertain if he were yet living. He replied audibly enough, in a fashion which made my companion vociferate, more clamorously than before, that a wide distinction might be drawn between saints like himself and sinners like his master. But the uproar passed away in twenty minutes, leaving us all unharmed excepting Cathy, who got thoroughly drenched for her obstinacy in refusing to take shelter, and standing bonnetless and shawlless to catch as much water as she could with her hair and clothes. She came in and lay down on the settle, all soaked as she was, turning her face to the back, and putting her hands before it. 'Well, Miss! I exclaimed, touching her shoulder 'you are not bent on getting your death, are you? Do you know what o'clock it is? Halfpast twelve. Come, come to bed! there's no use waiting any longer on that foolish boy he'll be gone to Gimmerton, and he'll stay there now. He guesses we shouldn't wait for him till this late hour at least, he guesses that only Mr. Hindley would be up and he'd rather avoid having the door opened by the master. 'Nay, nay, he's noan at Gimmerton, said Joseph. 'I's niver wonder but he's at t' bothom of a boghoile. This visitation worn't for nowt, and I wod hev' ye to look out, Missyah muh be t' next. Thank Hivin for all! All warks togither for gooid to them as is chozzen, and piked out fro' th' rubbidge! Yah knaw whet t' Scripture ses. And he began quoting several texts, referring us to chapters and verses where we might find them. I, having vainly begged the wilful girl to rise and remove her wet things, left him preaching and her shivering, and betook myself to bed with little Hareton, who slept as fast as if everyone had been sleeping round him. I heard Joseph read on a while afterwards then I distinguished his slow step on the ladder, and then I dropped asleep. Coming down somewhat later than usual, I saw, by the sunbeams piercing the chinks of the shutters, Miss Catherine still seated near the fireplace. The housedoor was ajar, too light entered from its unclosed windows Hindley had come out, and stood on the kitchen hearth, haggard and drowsy. 'What ails you, Cathy? he was saying when I entered 'you look as dismal as a drowned whelp. Why are you so damp and pale, child? 'I've been wet, she answered reluctantly, 'and I'm cold, that's all. 'Oh, she is naughty! I cried, perceiving the master to be tolerably sober. 'She got steeped in the shower of yesterday evening, and there she has sat the night through, and I couldn't prevail on her to stir. Mr. Earnshaw stared at us in surprise. 'The night through, he repeated. 'What kept her up? not fear of the thunder, surely? That was over hours since. Neither of us wished to mention Heathcliff's absence, as long as we could conceal it so I replied, I didn't know how she took it into her head to sit up and she said nothing. The morning was fresh and cool I threw back the lattice, and presently the room filled with sweet scents from the garden but Catherine called peevishly to me, 'Ellen, shut the window. I'm starving! And her teeth chattered as she shrank closer to the almost extinguished embers. 'She's ill, said Hindley, taking her wrist 'I suppose that's the reason she would not go to bed. Damn it! I don't want to be troubled with more sickness here. What took you into the rain? 'Running after t' lads, as usuald! croaked Joseph, catching an opportunity from our hesitation to thrust in his evil tongue. 'If I war yah, maister, I'd just slam t' boards i' their faces all on 'em, gentle and simple! Never a day ut yah're off, but yon cat o' Linton comes sneaking hither and Miss Nelly, shoo's a fine lass! shoo sits watching for ye i' t' kitchen and as yah're in at one door, he's out at t'other and, then, wer grand lady goes acourting of her side! It's bonny behaviour, lurking amang t' fields, after twelve o' t' night, wi' that fahl, flaysome divil of a gipsy, Heathcliff! They think I'm blind but I'm noan nowt ut t' soart!I seed young Linton boath coming and going, and I seed yah (directing his discourse to me), 'yah gooid fur nowt, slattenly witch! nip up and bolt into th' house, t' minute yah heard t' maister's horsefit clatter up t' road. 'Silence, eavesdropper! cried Catherine 'none of your insolence before me! Edgar Linton came yesterday by chance, Hindley and it was I who told him to be off because I knew you would not like to have met him as you were. 'You lie, Cathy, no doubt, answered her brother, 'and you are a confounded simpleton! But never mind Linton at present tell me, were you not with Heathcliff last night? Speak the truth, now. You need not be afraid of harming him though I hate him as much as ever, he did me a good turn a short time since that will make my conscience tender of breaking his neck. To prevent it, I shall send him about his business this very morning and after he's gone, I'd advise you all to look sharp I shall only have the more humour for you. 'I never saw Heathcliff last night, answered Catherine, beginning to sob bitterly 'and if you do turn him out of doors, I'll go with him. But, perhaps, you'll never have an opportunity perhaps, he's gone. Here she burst into uncontrollable grief, and the remainder of her words were inarticulate. Hindley lavished on her a torrent of scornful abuse, and bade her get to her room immediately, or she shouldn't cry for nothing! I obliged her to obey and I shall never forget what a scene she acted when we reached her chamber it terrified me. I thought she was going mad, and I begged Joseph to run for the doctor. It proved the commencement of delirium Mr. Kenneth, as soon as he saw her, pronounced her dangerously ill she had a fever. He bled her, and he told me to let her live on whey and watergruel, and take care she did not throw herself downstairs or out of the window and then he left for he had enough to do in the parish, where two or three miles was the ordinary distance between cottage and cottage. Though I cannot say I made a gentle nurse, and Joseph and the master were no better, and though our patient was as wearisome and headstrong as a patient could be, she weathered it through. Old Mrs. Linton paid us several visits, to be sure, and set things to rights, and scolded and ordered us all and when Catherine was convalescent, she insisted on conveying her to Thrushcross Grange for which deliverance we were very grateful. But the poor dame had reason to repent of her kindness she and her husband both took the fever, and died within a few days of each other. Our young lady returned to us saucier and more passionate, and haughtier than ever. Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the thunderstorm and, one day, I had the misfortune, when she had provoked me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his disappearance on her where indeed it belonged, as she well knew. From that period, for several months, she ceased to hold any communication with me, save in the relation of a mere servant. Joseph fell under a ban also he would speak his mind, and lecture her all the same as if she were a little girl and she esteemed herself a woman, and our mistress, and thought that her recent illness gave her a claim to be treated with consideration. Then the doctor had said that she would not bear crossing much she ought to have her own way and it was nothing less than murder in her eyes for any one to presume to stand up and contradict her. From Mr. Earnshaw and his companions she kept aloof and tutored by Kenneth, and serious threats of a fit that often attended her rages, her brother allowed her whatever she pleased to demand, and generally avoided aggravating her fiery temper. He was rather too indulgent in humouring her caprices not from affection, but from pride he wished earnestly to see her bring honour to the family by an alliance with the Lintons, and as long as she let him alone she might trample on us like slaves, for aught he cared! Edgar Linton, as multitudes have been before and will be after him, was infatuated and believed himself the happiest man alive on the day he led her to Gimmerton Chapel, three years subsequent to his father's death. Much against my inclination, I was persuaded to leave Wuthering Heights and accompany her here. Little Hareton was nearly five years old, and I had just begun to teach him his letters. We made a sad parting but Catherine's tears were more powerful than ours. When I refused to go, and when she found her entreaties did not move me, she went lamenting to her husband and brother. The former offered me munificent wages the latter ordered me to pack up he wanted no women in the house, he said, now that there was no mistress and as to Hareton, the curate should take him in hand, byandby. And so I had but one choice left to do as I was ordered. I told the master he got rid of all decent people only to run to ruin a little faster I kissed Hareton, said goodby and since then he has been a stranger and it's very queer to think it, but I've no doubt he has completely forgotten all about Ellen Dean, and that he was ever more than all the world to her and she to him!      At this point of the housekeeper's story she chanced to glance towards the timepiece over the chimney and was in amazement on seeing the minutehand measure halfpast one. She would not hear of staying a second longer in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of her narrative myself. And now that she is vanished to her rest, and I have meditated for another hour or two, I shall summon courage to go also, in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs. A charming introduction to a hermit's life! Four weeks' torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring! Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grousethe last of the season. Scoundrel! He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine and that I had a great mind to tell him. But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches? This is quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale? I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone. Yes I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years and the heroine was married. I'll ring she'll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully. Mrs. Dean came. 'It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine, she commenced. 'Away, away with it! I replied 'I desire to have 'The doctor says you must drop the powders. 'With all my heart! Don't interrupt me. Come and take your seat here. Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials. Draw your knitting out of your pocketthat will donow continue the history of Mr. Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day. Did he finish his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get a sizar's place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by drawing blood from his fostercountry? or make a fortune more promptly on the English highways? 'He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood but I couldn't give my word for any. I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk but, with your leave, I'll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not weary you. Are you feeling better this morning? 'Much. 'That's good news.      I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange and, to my agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to expect. She seemed almost overfond of Mr. Linton and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no mutual concessions one stood erect, and the others yielded and who can be illnatured and badtempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deeprooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it. Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness as she was never subject to depression of spirits before. The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him. I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts. On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the housesteps by the kitchendoor, and lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say,'Nelly, is that you? It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar. I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps. Something stirred in the porch and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. 'Who can it be? I thought. 'Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no! The voice has no resemblance to his. 'I have waited here an hour, he resumed, while I continued staring 'and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I'm not a stranger! A ray fell on his features the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers the brows lowering, the eyes deepset and singular. I remembered the eyes. 'What! I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement. 'What! you come back? Is it really you? Is it? 'Yes, Heathcliff, he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within. 'Are they at home? where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! you needn't be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with heryour mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her. 'How will she take it? I exclaimed. 'What will she do? The surprise bewilders meit will put her out of her head! And you are Heathcliff! But altered! Nay, there's no comprehending it. Have you been for a soldier? 'Go and carry my message, he interrupted, impatiently. 'I'm in hell till you do! He lifted the latch, and I entered but when I got to the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed. At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door. They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour but our old house was invisible it rather dips down on the other side. Both the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously peaceful. I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter, 'A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma'am. 'What does he want? asked Mrs. Linton. 'I did not question him, I answered. 'Well, close the curtains, Nelly, she said 'and bring up tea. I'll be back again directly. She quitted the apartment Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was. 'Some one mistress does not expect, I replied. 'That Heathcliffyou recollect him, sirwho used to live at Mr. Earnshaw's. 'What! the gipsythe ploughboy? he cried. 'Why did you not say so to Catherine? 'Hush! you must not call him by those names, master, I said. 'She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her. Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that overlooked the court. He unfastened it, and leant out. I suppose they were below, for he exclaimed quickly 'Don't stand there, love! Bring the person in, if it be anyone particular. Ere long, I heard the click of the latch, and Catherine flew upstairs, breathless and wild too excited to show gladness indeed, by her face, you would rather have surmised an awful calamity. 'Oh, Edgar, Edgar! she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. 'Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff's come backhe is! And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze. 'Well, well, cried her husband, crossly, 'don't strangle me for that! He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to be frantic! 'I know you didn't like him, she answered, repressing a little the intensity of her delight. 'Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now. Shall I tell him to come up? 'Here, he said, 'into the parlour? 'Where else? she asked. He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for him. Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expressionhalf angry, half laughing at his fastidiousness. 'No, she added, after a while 'I cannot sit in the kitchen. Set two tables here, Ellen one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders. Will that please you, dear? Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere? If so, give directions. I'll run down and secure my guest. I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real! She was about to dart off again but Edgar arrested her. 'You bid him step up, he said, addressing me 'and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother. I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently anticipating an invitation to enter. He followed my guidance without waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking. But the lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton and then she seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his. Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, wellformed man beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youthlike. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A halfcivilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued and his manner was even dignified quite divested of roughness, though too stern for grace. My master's surprise equalled or exceeded mine he remained for a minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him. Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak. 'Sit down, sir, he said, at length. 'Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her. 'And I also, answered Heathcliff, 'especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly. He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his to her often a quick glance now and then sufficed but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar he grew pale with pure annoyance a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself. 'I shall think it a dream tomorrow! she cried. 'I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me! 'A little more than you have thought of me, he murmured. 'I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this planjust to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure afterwards settle my score with Hindley and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you'll not drive me off again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause. I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you! 'Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table, interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness. 'Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge tonight and I'm thirsty. She took her post before the urn and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the bell then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room. The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine's cup was never filled she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful. Their guest did not protract his stay that evening above an hour longer. I asked, as he departed, if he went to Gimmerton? 'No, to Wuthering Heights, he answered 'Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I called this morning. Mr. Earnshaw invited him! and he called on Mr. Earnshaw! I pondered this sentence painfully, after he was gone. Is he turning out a bit of a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak? I mused I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better have remained away. About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs. Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling me by the hair to rouse me. 'I cannot rest, Ellen, she said, by way of apology. 'And I want some living creature to keep me company in my happiness! Edgar is sulky, because I'm glad of a thing that does not interest him he refuses to open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches and he affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and sleepy. He always contrives to be sick at the least cross! I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry so I got up and left him. 'What use is it praising Heathcliff to him? I answered. 'As lads they had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to hear him praised it's human nature. Let Mr. Linton alone about him, unless you would like an open quarrel between them. 'But does it not show great weakness? pursued she. 'I'm not envious I never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella's yellow hair and the whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the family exhibit for her. Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes, you back Isabella at once and I yield like a foolish mother I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper. It pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me. But they are very much alike they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them all the same. 'You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton, said I. 'They humour you I know what there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires. You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal consequence to both sides and then those you term weak are very capable of being as obstinate as you. 'And then we shall fight to the death, sha'n't we, Nelly? she returned, laughing. 'No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton's love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate. I advised her to value him the more for his affection. 'I do, she answered, 'but he needn't resort to whining for trifles. It is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone's regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently! 'What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights? I inquired. 'He is reformed in every respect, apparently quite a Christian offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around! 'He explained it, she replied. 'I wonder as much as you. He said he called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you resided there still and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living and finally, desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at cards Heathcliff joined them my brother lost some money to him, and, finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance prudently he doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights and doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms he was always greedy though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other. 'It's a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in! said I. 'Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton? 'None for my friend, she replied 'his strong head will keep him from danger a little for Hindley but he can't be made morally worse than he is and I stand between him and bodily harm. The event of this evening has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence. Oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly! If that creature knew how bitter, he'd be ashamed to cloud its removal with idle petulance. It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it alone had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I. However, it's over, and I'll take no revenge on his folly I can afford to suffer anything hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I'd not only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it and, as a proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Goodnight! I'm an angel! In this selfcomplacent conviction she departed and the success of her fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow Mr. Linton had not only abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by Catherine's exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon and she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as made the house a paradise for several days both master and servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine. HeathcliffMr. Heathcliff I should say in futureused the liberty of visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first he seemed estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion. Catherine, also, deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him and he gradually established his right to be expected. He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling. My master's uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space. His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest. She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated. Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference. Leaving aside the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one's power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff's disposition to know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged. And he dreaded that mind it revolted him he shrank forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping. He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate designing. We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of illhealth she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did not do what she told them that the mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get to bed and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine's harshness which made her unhappy. 'How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling? cried the mistress, amazed at the unreasonable assertion. 'You are surely losing your reason. When have I been harsh, tell me? 'Yesterday, sobbed Isabella, 'and now! 'Yesterday! said her sisterinlaw. 'On what occasion? 'In our walk along the moor you told me to ramble where I pleased, while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff! 'And that's your notion of harshness? said Catherine, laughing. 'It was no hint that your company was superfluous we didn't care whether you kept with us or not I merely thought Heathcliff's talk would have nothing entertaining for your ears. 'Oh, no, wept the young lady 'you wished me away, because you knew I liked to be there! 'Is she sane? asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me. 'I'll repeat our conversation, word for word, Isabella and you point out any charm it could have had for you. 'I don't mind the conversation, she answered 'I wanted to be with 'Well? said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence. 'With him and I won't be always sent off! she continued, kindling up. 'You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself! 'You are an impertinent little monkey! exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in surprise. 'But I'll not believe this idiocy! It is impossible that you can covet the admiration of Heathcliffthat you consider him an agreeable person! I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella? 'No, you have not, said the infatuated girl. 'I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him! 'I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then! Catherine declared, emphatically and she seemed to speak sincerely. 'Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamonda pearlcontaining oyster of a rustic he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, 'Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them' I say, 'Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged' and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture and I'm his friendso much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap. Miss Linton regarded her sisterinlaw with indignation. 'For shame! for shame! she repeated, angrily. 'You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend! 'Ah! you won't believe me, then? said Catherine. 'You think I speak from wicked selfishness? 'I'm certain you do, retorted Isabella 'and I shudder at you! 'Good! cried the other. 'Try for yourself, if that be your spirit I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence. 'And I must suffer for her egotism! she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room. 'All, all is against me she has blighted my single consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn't she? Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her? 'Banish him from your thoughts, Miss, I said. 'He's a bird of bad omen no mate for you. Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can't contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides and she never would represent him as worse than he is. Honest people don't hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came. They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink I heard only a week agoit was Joseph who told meI met him at Gimmerton 'Nelly,' he said, 'we's hae a crowner's 'quest enow, at ahr folks'. One on 'em 's a'most getten his finger cut off wi' hauding t' other fro' stickin' hisseln loike a cawlf. That's maister, yah knaw, 'at 's soa up o' going tuh t' grand 'sizes. He's noan feared o' t' bench o' judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on 'em, not he! He fair likeshe langs to set his brazened face agean 'em! And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he's a rare 'un. He can girn a laugh as well 's onybody at a raight divil's jest. Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t' Grange? This is t' way on 'tup at sundown dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can'lelight till next day at noon then, t' fooil gangs banning un raving to his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shame un' the knave, why he can caint his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off to his neighbour's to gossip wi' t' wife. I' course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur's goold runs into his pocket, and her fathur's son gallops down t' broad road, while he flees afore to oppen t' pikes!' Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal, but no liar and, if his account of Heathcliff's conduct be true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you? 'You are leagued with the rest, Ellen! she replied. 'I'll not listen to your slanders. What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me that there is no happiness in the world! Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say she had little time to reflect. The day after, there was a justicemeeting at the next town my master was obliged to attend and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his absence, called rather earlier than usual. Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her. She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window. I was sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips. Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have done had it been practicable. 'Come in, that's right! exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire. 'Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the ice between them and you are the very one we should both of us choose. Heathcliff, I'm proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself. I expect you to feel flattered. Nay, it's not Nelly don't look at her! My poor little sisterinlaw is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power to be Edgar's brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha'n't run off, she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen indignantly. 'We were quarrelling like cats about you, Heathcliff and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and admiration and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion! 'Catherine! said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, 'I'd thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression. As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor. 'By no means! cried Mrs. Linton in answer. 'I won't be named a dog in the manger again. You shall stay now then! Heathcliff, why don't you evince satisfaction at my pleasant news? Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. I'm sure she made some speech of the kind did she not, Ellen? And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterday's walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable. 'I think you belie her, said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them. 'She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate! And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. The poor thing couldn't bear that she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of red. 'There's a tigress! exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain. 'Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him. Can't you fancy the conclusions he'll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do executionyou must beware of your eyes. 'I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me, he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. 'But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not speaking the truth, were you? 'I assure you I was, she returned. 'She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But don't notice it further I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all. I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up. 'And I like her too ill to attempt it, said he, 'except in a very ghoulish fashion. You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two they detestably resemble Linton's. 'Delectably! observed Catherine. 'They are dove's eyesangel's! 'She's her brother's heir, is she not? he asked, after a brief silence. 'I should be sorry to think so, returned his companion. 'Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present you are too prone to covet your neighbour's goods remember this neighbour's goods are mine. 'If they were mine, they would be none the less that, said Heathcliff 'but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad and, in short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise. From their tongues they did dismiss it and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts. The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening. I saw him smile to himselfgrin ratherand lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment. I determined to watch his movements. My heart invariably cleaved to the master's, in preference to Catherine's side with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable and sheshe could not be called the opposite, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff, quietly leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were a continual nightmare to me and, I suspected, to my master also. His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy. Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I've got up in a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm. I've persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people talked regarding his ways and then I've recollected his confirmed bad habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from reentering the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word. One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to Gimmerton. It was about the period that my narrative has reached a bright frosty afternoon the ground bare, and the road hard and dry. I came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your left hand a rough sandpillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north side, on the east, G., and on the southwest, T. G. It serves as a guidepost to the Grange, the Heights, and village. The sun shone yellow on its grey head, reminding me of summer and I cannot say why, but all at once a gush of child's sensations flowed into my heart. Hindley and I held it a favourite spot twenty years before. I gazed long at the weatherworn block and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom still full of snailshells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing there with more perishable things and, as fresh as reality, it appeared that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf his dark, square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth with a piece of slate. 'Poor Hindley! I exclaimed, involuntarily. I started my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the child lifted its face and stared straight into mine! It vanished in a twinkling but immediately I felt an irresistible yearning to be at the Heights. Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse supposing he should be dead! I thoughtor should die soon!supposing it were a sign of death! The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew and on catching sight of it I trembled in every limb. The apparition had outstripped me it stood looking through the gate. That was my first idea on observing an elflocked, browneyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the bars. Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, my Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since. 'God bless thee, darling! I cried, forgetting instantaneously my foolish fears. 'Hareton, it's Nelly! Nelly, thy nurse. He retreated out of arm's length, and picked up a large flint. 'I am come to see thy father, Hareton, I added, guessing from the action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognised as one with me. He raised his missile to hurl it I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay his hand the stone struck my bonnet and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity. You may be certain this grieved more than angered me. Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him. He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold as if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him. I showed another, keeping it out of his reach. 'Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn? I inquired. 'The curate? 'Damn the curate, and thee! Gie me that, he replied. 'Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it, said I. 'Who's your master? 'Devil daddy, was his answer. 'And what do you learn from daddy? I continued. He jumped at the fruit I raised it higher. 'What does he teach you? I asked. 'Naught, said he, 'but to keep out of his gait. Daddy cannot bide me, because I swear at him. 'Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy? I observed. 'Aynay, he drawled. 'Who, then? 'Heathcliff. 'I asked if he liked Mr. Heathcliff. 'Ay! he answered again. Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the sentences'I known't he pays dad back what he gies to mehe curses daddy for cursing me. He says I mun do as I will. 'And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then? I pursued. 'No, I was told the curate should have his  teeth dashed down his  throat, if he stepped over the thresholdHeathcliff had promised that! I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate. He went up the walk, and entered the house but, instead of Hindley, Heathcliff appeared on the doorstones and I turned directly and ran down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained the guidepost, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin. This is not much connected with Miss Isabella's affair except that it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to check the spread of such bad influence at the Grange even though I should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs. Linton's pleasure. The next time Heathcliff came my young lady chanced to be feeding some pigeons in the court. She had never spoken a word to her sisterinlaw for three days but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and we found it a great comfort. Heathcliff had not the habit of bestowing a single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew. Now, as soon as he beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping survey of the housefront. I was standing by the kitchenwindow, but I drew out of sight. He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said something she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away to prevent it, he laid his hand on her arm. She averted her face he apparently put some question which she had no mind to answer. There was another rapid glance at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her. 'Judas! Traitor! I ejaculated. 'You are a hypocrite, too, are you? A deliberate deceiver. 'Who is, Nelly? said Catherine's voice at my elbow I had been overintent on watching the pair outside to mark her entrance. 'Your worthless friend! I answered, warmly 'the sneaking rascal yonder. Ah, he has caught a glimpse of ushe is coming in! I wonder will he have the heart to find a plausible excuse for making love to Miss, when he told you he hated her? Mrs. Linton saw Isabella tear herself free, and run into the garden and a minute after, Heathcliff opened the door. I couldn't withhold giving some loose to my indignation but Catherine angrily insisted on silence, and threatened to order me out of the kitchen, if I dared to be so presumptuous as to put in my insolent tongue. 'To hear you, people might think you were the mistress! she cried. 'You want setting down in your right place! Heathcliff, what are you about, raising this stir? I said you must let Isabella alone!I beg you will, unless you are tired of being received here, and wish Linton to draw the bolts against you! 'God forbid that he should try! answered the black villain. I detested him just then. 'God keep him meek and patient! Every day I grow madder after sending him to heaven! 'Hush! said Catherine, shutting the inner door. 'Don't vex me. Why have you disregarded my request? Did she come across you on purpose? 'What is it to you? he growled. 'I have a right to kiss her, if she chooses and you have no right to object. I am not your husband you needn't be jealous of me! 'I'm not jealous of you, replied the mistress 'I'm jealous for you. Clear your face you sha'n't scowl at me! If you like Isabella, you shall marry her. But do you like her? Tell the truth, Heathcliff! There, you won't answer. I'm certain you don't. 'And would Mr. Linton approve of his sister marrying that man? I inquired. 'Mr. Linton should approve, returned my lady, decisively. 'He might spare himself the trouble, said Heathcliff 'I could do as well without his approbation. And as to you, Catherine, I have a mind to speak a few words now, while we are at it. I want you to be aware that I know you have treated me infernallyinfernally! Do you hear? And if you flatter yourself that I don't perceive it, you are a fool and if you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot and if you fancy I'll suffer unrevenged, I'll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while! Meantime, thank you for telling me your sisterinlaw's secret I swear I'll make the most of it. And stand you aside! 'What new phase of his character is this? exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in amazement. 'I've treated you infernallyand you'll take your revenge! How will you take it, ungrateful brute? How have I treated you infernally? 'I seek no revenge on you, replied Heathcliff, less vehemently. 'That's not the plan. The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him they crush those beneath them. You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style, and refrain from insult as much as you are able. Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home. If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabel, I'd cut my throat! 'Oh, the evil is that I am not jealous, is it? cried Catherine. 'Well, I won't repeat my offer of a wife it is as bad as offering Satan a lost soul. Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery. You prove it. Edgar is restored from the illtemper he gave way to at your coming I begin to be secure and tranquil and you, restless to know us at peace, appear resolved on exciting a quarrel. Quarrel with Edgar, if you please, Heathcliff, and deceive his sister you'll hit on exactly the most efficient method of revenging yourself on me. The conversation ceased. Mrs. Linton sat down by the fire, flushed and gloomy. The spirit which served her was growing intractable she could neither lay nor control it. He stood on the hearth with folded arms, brooding on his evil thoughts and in this position I left them to seek the master, who was wondering what kept Catherine below so long. 'Ellen, said he, when I entered, 'have you seen your mistress? 'Yes she's in the kitchen, sir, I answered. 'She's sadly put out by Mr. Heathcliff's behaviour and, indeed, I do think it's time to arrange his visits on another footing. There's harm in being too soft, and now it's come to this. And I related the scene in the court, and, as near as I dared, the whole subsequent dispute. I fancied it could not be very prejudicial to Mrs. Linton unless she made it so afterwards, by assuming the defensive for her guest. Edgar Linton had difficulty in hearing me to the close. His first words revealed that he did not clear his wife of blame. 'This is insufferable! he exclaimed. 'It is disgraceful that she should own him for a friend, and force his company on me! Call me two men out of the hall, Ellen. Catherine shall linger no longer to argue with the low ruffianI have humoured her enough. He descended, and bidding the servants wait in the passage, went, followed by me, to the kitchen. Its occupants had recommenced their angry discussion Mrs. Linton, at least, was scolding with renewed vigour Heathcliff had moved to the window, and hung his head, somewhat cowed by her violent rating apparently. He saw the master first, and made a hasty motion that she should be silent which she obeyed, abruptly, on discovering the reason of his intimation. 'How is this? said Linton, addressing her 'what notion of propriety must you have to remain here, after the language which has been held to you by that blackguard? I suppose, because it is his ordinary talk you think nothing of it you are habituated to his baseness, and, perhaps, imagine I can get used to it too! 'Have you been listening at the door, Edgar? asked the mistress, in a tone particularly calculated to provoke her husband, implying both carelessness and contempt of his irritation. Heathcliff, who had raised his eyes at the former speech, gave a sneering laugh at the latter on purpose, it seemed, to draw Mr. Linton's attention to him. He succeeded but Edgar did not mean to entertain him with any high flights of passion. 'I've been so far forbearing with you, sir, he said quietly 'not that I was ignorant of your miserable, degraded character, but I felt you were only partly responsible for that and Catherine wishing to keep up your acquaintance, I acquiescedfoolishly. Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous for that cause, and to prevent worse consequences, I shall deny you hereafter admission into this house, and give notice now that I require your instant departure. Three minutes' delay will render it involuntary and ignominious. Heathcliff measured the height and breadth of the speaker with an eye full of derision. 'Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull! he said. 'It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God! Mr. Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down! My master glanced towards the passage, and signed me to fetch the men he had no intention of hazarding a personal encounter. I obeyed the hint but Mrs. Linton, suspecting something, followed and when I attempted to call them, she pulled me back, slammed the door to, and locked it. 'Fair means! she said, in answer to her husband's look of angry surprise. 'If you have not courage to attack him, make an apology, or allow yourself to be beaten. It will correct you of feigning more valour than you possess. No, I'll swallow the key before you shall get it! I'm delightfully rewarded for my kindness to each! After constant indulgence of one's weak nature, and the other's bad one, I earn for thanks two samples of blind ingratitude, stupid to absurdity! Edgar, I was defending you and yours and I wish Heathcliff may flog you sick, for daring to think an evil thought of me! It did not need the medium of a flogging to produce that effect on the master. He tried to wrest the key from Catherine's grasp, and for safety she flung it into the hottest part of the fire whereupon Mr. Edgar was taken with a nervous trembling, and his countenance grew deadly pale. For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion mingled anguish and humiliation overcame him completely. He leant on the back of a chair, and covered his face. 'Oh, heavens! In old days this would win you knighthood! exclaimed Mrs. Linton. 'We are vanquished! we are vanquished! Heathcliff would as soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice. Cheer up! you sha'n't be hurt! Your type is not a lamb, it's a sucking leveret. 'I wish you joy of the milkblooded coward, Cathy! said her friend. 'I compliment you on your taste. And that is the slavering, shivering thing you preferred to me! I would not strike him with my fist, but I'd kick him with my foot, and experience considerable satisfaction. Is he weeping, or is he going to faint for fear? The fellow approached and gave the chair on which Linton rested a push. He'd better have kept his distance my master quickly sprang erect, and struck him full on the throat a blow that would have levelled a slighter man. It took his breath for a minute and while he choked, Mr. Linton walked out by the back door into the yard, and from thence to the front entrance. 'There! you've done with coming here, cried Catherine. 'Get away, now he'll return with a brace of pistols and halfadozen assistants. If he did overhear us, of course he'd never forgive you. You've played me an ill turn, Heathcliff! But gomake haste! I'd rather see Edgar at bay than you. 'Do you suppose I'm going with that blow burning in my gullet? he thundered. 'By hell, no! I'll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazelnut before I cross the threshold! If I don't floor him now, I shall murder him some time so, as you value his existence, let me get at him! 'He is not coming, I interposed, framing a bit of a lie. 'There's the coachman and the two gardeners you'll surely not wait to be thrust into the road by them! Each has a bludgeon and master will, very likely, be watching from the parlourwindows to see that they fulfil his orders. The gardeners and coachman were there but Linton was with them. They had already entered the court. Heathcliff, on the second thoughts, resolved to avoid a struggle against three underlings he seized the poker, smashed the lock from the inner door, and made his escape as they tramped in. Mrs. Linton, who was very much excited, bade me accompany her upstairs. She did not know my share in contributing to the disturbance, and I was anxious to keep her in ignorance. 'I'm nearly distracted, Nelly! she exclaimed, throwing herself on the sofa. 'A thousand smiths' hammers are beating in my head! Tell Isabella to shun me this uproar is owing to her and should she or any one else aggravate my anger at present, I shall get wild. And, Nelly, say to Edgar, if you see him again tonight, that I'm in danger of being seriously ill. I wish it may prove true. He has startled and distressed me shockingly! I want to frighten him. Besides, he might come and begin a string of abuse or complainings I'm certain I should recriminate, and God knows where we should end! Will you do so, my good Nelly? You are aware that I am no way blamable in this matter. What possessed him to turn listener? Heathcliff's talk was outrageous, after you left us but I could soon have diverted him from Isabella, and the rest meant nothing. Now all is dashed wrong by the fool's craving to hear evil of self, that haunts some people like a demon! Had Edgar never gathered our conversation, he would never have been the worse for it. Really, when he opened on me in that unreasonable tone of displeasure after I had scolded Heathcliff till I was hoarse for him I did not care hardly what they did to each other especially as I felt that, however the scene closed, we should all be driven asunder for nobody knows how long! Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friendif Edgar will be mean and jealous, I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own. That will be a prompt way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity! But it's a deed to be reserved for a forlorn hope I'd not take Linton by surprise with it. To this point he has been discreet in dreading to provoke me you must represent the peril of quitting that policy, and remind him of my passionate temper, verging, when kindled, on frenzy. I wish you could dismiss that apathy out of that countenance, and look rather more anxious about me. The stolidity with which I received these instructions was, no doubt, rather exasperating for they were delivered in perfect sincerity but I believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence and I did not wish to 'frighten her husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for the purpose of serving her selfishness. Therefore I said nothing when I met the master coming towards the parlour but I took the liberty of turning back to listen whether they would resume their quarrel together. He began to speak first. 'Remain where you are, Catherine, he said without any anger in his voice, but with much sorrowful despondency. 'I shall not stay. I am neither come to wrangle nor be reconciled but I wish just to learn whether, after this evening's events, you intend to continue your intimacy with 'Oh, for mercy's sake, interrupted the mistress, stamping her foot, 'for mercy's sake, let us hear no more of it now! Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever your veins are full of icewater but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance. 'To get rid of me, answer my question, persevered Mr. Linton. 'You must answer it and that violence does not alarm me. I have found that you can be as stoical as anyone, when you please. Will you give up Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me? It is impossible for you to be my friend and his at the same time and I absolutely require to know which you choose. 'I require to be let alone! exclaimed Catherine, furiously. 'I demand it! Don't you see I can scarcely stand? Edgar, youyou leave me! She rang the bell till it broke with a twang I entered leisurely. It was enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages! There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters! Mr. Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear. He told me to fetch some water. She had no breath for speaking. I brought a glass full and as she would not drink, I sprinkled it on her face. In a few seconds she stretched herself out stiff, and turned up her eyes, while her cheeks, at once blanched and livid, assumed the aspect of death. Linton looked terrified. 'There is nothing in the world the matter, I whispered. I did not want him to yield, though I could not help being afraid in my heart. 'She has blood on her lips! he said, shuddering. 'Never mind! I answered, tartly. And I told him how she had resolved, previous to his coming, on exhibiting a fit of frenzy. I incautiously gave the account aloud, and she heard me for she started upher hair flying over her shoulders, her eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally. I made up my mind for broken bones, at least but she only glared about her for an instant, and then rushed from the room. The master directed me to follow I did, to her chamberdoor she hindered me from going further by securing it against me. As she never offered to descend to breakfast next morning, I went to ask whether she would have some carried up. 'No! she replied, peremptorily. The same question was repeated at dinner and tea and again on the morrow after, and received the same answer. Mr. Linton, on his part, spent his time in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's occupations. Isabella and he had had an hour's interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for Heathcliff's advances but he could make nothing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily adding, however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship between herself and him. While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears and her brother shut himself up among books that he never openedwearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliationand she fasted pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. I wasted no condolences on Miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady's name, since he might not hear her voice. I determined they should come about as they pleased for me and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress as I thought at first. Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a speech meant for Edgar's ears I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning. 'Oh, I will die, she exclaimed, 'since no one cares anything about me. I wish I had not taken that. Then a good while after I heard her murmur, 'No, I'll not diehe'd be gladhe does not love me at allhe would never miss me! 'Did you want anything, ma'am? I inquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange, exaggerated manner. 'What is that apathetic being doing? she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face. 'Has he fallen into a lethargy, or is he dead? 'Neither, replied I 'if you mean Mr. Linton. He's tolerably well, I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought he is continually among his books, since he has no other society. I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder. 'Among his books! she cried, confounded. 'And I dying! I on the brink of the grave! My God! does he know how I'm altered? continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall. 'Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a petin play, perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I'll choose between these two either to starve at oncethat would be no punishment unless he had a heartor to recover, and leave the country. Are you speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my life? 'Why, ma'am, I answered, 'the master has no idea of your being deranged and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die of hunger. 'You think not? Cannot you tell him I will? she returned. 'Persuade him! speak of your own mind say you are certain I will! 'No, you forget, Mrs. Linton, I suggested, 'that you have eaten some food with a relish this evening, and tomorrow you will perceive its good effects. 'If I were only sure it would kill him, she interrupted, 'I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lidsand oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. And they have all turned to enemies in a few hours. They have, I'm positive the people here. How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces! Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be so dreadful to watch Catherine go. And Edgar standing solemnly by to see it over then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to his house, and going back to his books! What in the name of all that feels has he to do with books, when I am dying? She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr. Linton's philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the northeast, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her face, and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly and brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she should not be crossed. A minute previously she was violent now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different species her mind had strayed to other associations. 'That's a turkey's, she murmured to herself 'and this is a wild duck's and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillowsno wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moorcock's and thisI should know it among a thousandit's a lapwing's. Bonny bird wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot we saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he'd never shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn't. Yes, here are more! Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look. 'Give over with that babywork! I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. 'Lie down and shut your eyes you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow. I went here and there collecting it. 'I see in you, Nelly, she continued dreamily, 'an aged woman you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone Crags, and you are gathering elfbolts to hurt our heifers pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really were that withered hag, and I should think I was under Penistone Crags and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet. 'The black press? where is that? I asked. 'You are talking in your sleep! 'It's against the wall, as it always is, she replied. 'It does appear oddI see a face in it! 'There's no press in the room, and never was, said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her. 'Don't you see that face? she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own so I rose and covered it with a shawl. 'It's behind there still! she pursued, anxiously. 'And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone! I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass. 'There's nobody here! I insisted. 'It was yourself, Mrs. Linton you knew it a while since. 'Myself! she gasped, 'and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then! that's dreadful! Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband but I was summoned back by a piercing shriekthe shawl had dropped from the frame. 'Why, what is the matter? cried I. 'Who is coward now? Wake up! That is the glassthe mirror, Mrs. Linton and you see yourself in it, and there am I too by your side. Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually passed from her countenance its paleness gave place to a glow of shame. 'Oh, dear! I thought I was at home, she sighed. 'I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I'm weak, my brain got confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don't say anything but stay with me. I dread sleeping my dreams appal me. 'A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am, I answered 'and I hope this suffering will prevent your trying starving again. 'Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house! she went on bitterly, wringing her hands. 'And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice. Do let me feel itit comes straight down the moordo let me have one breath! To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast rushed through I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child. 'How long is it since I shut myself in here? she asked, suddenly reviving. 'It was Monday evening, I replied, 'and this is Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, at present. 'What! of the same week? she exclaimed. 'Only that brief time? 'Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and illtemper, observed I. 'Well, it seems a weary number of hours, she muttered doubtfully 'it must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oakpanelled bed at home and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at all. I was a child my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside it struck the tabletop! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched it must have been temporary derangement for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move? 'Because I won't give you your death of cold, I answered. 'You won't give me a chance of life, you mean, she said sullenly. 'However, I'm not helpless yet I'll open it myself. And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife. I entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire. But I soon found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings). There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago and those at Wuthering Heights were never visiblestill she asserted she caught their shining. 'Look! she cried eagerly, 'that's my room with the candle in it, and the trees swaying before it and the other candle is in Joseph's garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn't he? He's waiting till I come home that he may lock the gate. Well, he'll wait a while yet. It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep you. I'll not lie there by myself they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will! She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. 'He's consideringhe'd rather I'd come to him! Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard. You are slow! Be content, you always followed me! Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the doorhandle, and Mr. Linton entered. He had only then come from the library and, in passing through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour. 'Oh, sir! I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber. 'My poor mistress is ill, and she quite masters me I cannot manage her at all pray, come and persuade her to go to bed. Forget your anger, for she's hard to guide any way but her own. 'Catherine ill? he said, hastening to us. 'Shut the window, Ellen! Catherine! why He was silent. The haggardness of Mrs. Linton's appearance smote him speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified astonishment. 'She's been fretting here, I continued, 'and eating scarcely anything, and never complaining she would admit none of us till this evening, and so we couldn't inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it ourselves but it is nothing. I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly the master frowned. 'It is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean? he said sternly. 'You shall account more clearly for keeping me ignorant of this! And he took his wife in his arms, and looked at her with anguish. At first she gave him no glance of recognition he was invisible to her abstracted gaze. The delirium was not fixed, however having weaned her eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her. 'Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton? she said, with angry animation. 'You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty of lamentations nowI see we shallbut they can't keep me from my narrow home out yonder my restingplace, where I'm bound before spring is over! There it is not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapelroof, but in the open air, with a headstone and you may please yourself whether you go to them or come to me! 'Catherine, what have you done? commenced the master. 'Am I nothing to you any more? Do you love that wretch Heath 'Hush! cried Mrs. Linton. 'Hush, this moment! You mention that name and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window! What you touch at present you may have but my soul will be on that hilltop before you lay hands on me again. I don't want you, Edgar I'm past wanting you. Return to your books. I'm glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone. 'Her mind wanders, sir, I interposed. 'She has been talking nonsense the whole evening but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and she'll rally. Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her. 'I desire no further advice from you, answered Mr. Linton. 'You knew your mistress's nature, and you encouraged me to harass her. And not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days! It was heartless! Months of sickness could not cause such a change! I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for another's wicked waywardness. 'I knew Mrs. Linton's nature to be headstrong and domineering, cried I 'but I didn't know that you wished to foster her fierce temper! I didn't know that, to humour her, I should wink at Mr. Heathcliff. I performed the duty of a faithful servant in telling you, and I have got a faithful servant's wages! Well, it will teach me to be careful next time. Next time you may gather intelligence for yourself! 'The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen Dean, he replied. 'You'd rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton? said I. 'Heathcliff has your permission to come acourting to Miss, and to drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison the mistress against you? Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our conversation. 'Ah! Nelly has played traitor, she exclaimed, passionately. 'Nelly is my hidden enemy. You witch! So you do seek elfbolts to hurt us! Let me go, and I'll make her rue! I'll make her howl a recantation! A maniac's fury kindled under her brows she struggled desperately to disengage herself from Linton's arms. I felt no inclination to tarry the event and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I quitted the chamber. In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly, evidently by another agent than the wind. Notwithstanding my hurry, I stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world. My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than vision, Miss Isabella's springer, Fanny, suspended by a handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp. I quickly released the animal, and lifted it into the garden. I had seen it follow its mistress upstairs when she went to bed and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what mischievous person had treated it so. While untying the knot round the hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses' feet galloping at some distance but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought though it was a strange sound, in that place, at two o'clock in the morning. Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient in the village as I came up the street and my account of Catherine Linton's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately. He was a plain rough man and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before. 'Nelly Dean, said he, 'I can't help fancying there's an extra cause for this. What has there been to do at the Grange? We've odd reports up here. A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a trifle and that sort of people should not either. It's hard work bringing them through fevers, and such things. How did it begin? 'The master will inform you, I answered 'but you are acquainted with the Earnshaws' violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all. I may say this it commenced in a quarrel. She was struck during a tempest of passion with a kind of fit. That's her account, at least for she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up. Afterwards, she refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half dream knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all sorts of strange ideas and illusions. 'Mr. Linton will be sorry? observed Kenneth, interrogatively. 'Sorry? he'll break his heart should anything happen! I replied. 'Don't alarm him more than necessary. 'Well, I told him to beware, said my companion 'and he must bide the consequences of neglecting my warning! Hasn't he been intimate with Mr. Heathcliff lately? 'Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange, answered I, 'though more on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than because the master likes his company. At present he's discharged from the trouble of calling owing to some presumptuous aspirations after Miss Linton which he manifested. I hardly think he'll be taken in again. 'And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him? was the doctor's next question. 'I'm not in her confidence, returned I, reluctant to continue the subject. 'No, she's a sly one, he remarked, shaking his head. 'She keeps her own counsel! But she's a real little fool. I have it from good authority that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and Heathcliff were walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two hours and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse and away with him! My informant said she could only put him off by pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after that when it was to be he didn't hear but you urge Mr. Linton to look sharp! This news filled me with fresh fears I outstripped Kenneth, and ran most of the way back. The little dog was yelping in the garden yet. I spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have escaped to the road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me. On ascending to Isabella's room, my suspicions were confirmed it was empty. Had I been a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton's illness might have arrested her rash step. But what could be done now? There was a bare possibility of overtaking them if pursued instantly. I could not pursue them, however and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the place with confusion still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second grief! I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to take their course and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly composed countenance to announce him. Catherine lay in a troubled sleep her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy he now hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her painfully expressive features. The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve around her perfect and constant tranquillity. To me, he signified the threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of intellect. I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton indeed, we never went to bed and the servants were all up long before the usual hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations. Every one was active but Miss Isabella and they began to remark how sound she slept her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her sisterinlaw. I trembled lest he should send me to call her but I was spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight. One of the maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton, came panting upstairs, openmouthed, and dashed into the chamber, crying 'Oh, dear, dear! What mun we have next? Master, master, our young lady 'Hold your noise! cried I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner. 'Speak lower, MaryWhat is the matter? said Mr. Linton. 'What ails your young lady? 'She's gone, she's gone! Yon' Heathcliff's run off wi' her! gasped the girl. 'That is not true! exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation. 'It cannot be how has the idea entered your head? Ellen Dean, go and seek her. It is incredible it cannot be. As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand to know her reasons for such an assertion. 'Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here, she stammered, 'and he asked whether we weren't in trouble at the Grange. I thought he meant for missis's sickness, so I answered, yes. Then says he, 'There's somebody gone after 'em, I guess?' I stared. He saw I knew nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse's shoe fastened at a blacksmith's shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith's lass had got up to spy who they were she knew them both directly. And she noticed the manHeathcliff it was, she felt certain nob'dy could mistake him, besidesput a sovereign in her father's hand for payment. The lady had a cloak about her face but having desired a sup of water, while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning. I ran and peeped, for form's sake, into Isabella's room confirming, when I returned, the servant's statement. Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by the bed on my reentrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a word. 'Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back, I inquired. 'How should we do? 'She went of her own accord, answered the master 'she had a right to go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only my sister in name not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me. And that was all he said on the subject he did not make a single inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I knew it. For two months the fugitives remained absent in those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever. No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her. Day and night he was watching, and patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant future anxietyin fact, that his health and strength were being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanityhe knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherine's life was declared out of danger and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self. The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the following March. Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a handful of golden crocuses her eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them eagerly together. 'These are the earliest flowers at the Heights, she exclaimed. 'They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow. Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone? 'The snow is quite gone down here, darling, replied her husband 'and I only see two white spots on the whole range of moors the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full. Catherine, last spring at this time, I was longing to have you under this roof now, I wish you were a mile or two up those hills the air blows so sweetly, I feel that it would cure you. 'I shall never be there but once more, said the invalid 'and then you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever. Next spring you'll long again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you were happy today. Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her by the fondest words but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the tears collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding. We knew she was really better, and, therefore, decided that long confinement to a single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be partially removed by a change of scene. The master told me to light a fire in the manyweeks' deserted parlour, and to set an easychair in the sunshine by the window and then he brought her down, and she sat a long while enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the objects round her which, though familiar, were free from the dreary associations investing her hated sick chamber. By evening she seemed greatly exhausted yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that apartment, and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till another room could be prepared. To obviate the fatigue of mounting and descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at presenton the same floor with the parlour and she was soon strong enough to move from one to the other, leaning on Edgar's arm. Ah, I thought myself, she might recover, so waited on as she was. And there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another we cherished the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger's gripe, by the birth of an heir. I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks from her departure, a short note, announcing her marriage with Heathcliff. It appeared dry and cold but at the bottom was dotted in with pencil an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, she had now no power to repeal it. Linton did not reply to this, I believe and, in a fortnight more, I got a long letter, which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honeymoon. I'll read it for I keep it yet. Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.      DEAR ELLEN, it begins,I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and heard, for the first time, that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too distressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you. Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face againthat my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twentyfour hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him, and Catherine! I can't follow it though(these words are underlined)they need not expect me, and they may draw what conclusions they please taking care, however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection. The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask you two questions the first is,How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot recognise any sentiment which those around share with me. The second question I have great interest in it is thisIs Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married that is, when you call to see me and you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar. Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an unnatural dream! The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors by that, I judged it to be six o'clock and my companion halted half an hour, to inspect the park, and the gardens, and, probably, the place itself, as well as he could so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farmhouse, and your old fellowservant, Joseph, issued out to receive us by the light of a dip candle. He did it with a courtesy that redounded to his credit. His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my face, squint malignantly, project his underlip, and turn away. Then he took the two horses, and led them into the stables reappearing for the purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in an ancient castle. Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchena dingy, untidy hole I daresay you would not know it, it is so changed since it was in your charge. By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth. 'This is Edgar's legal nephew, I reflected'mine in a manner I must shake hands, andyesI must kiss him. It is right to establish a good understanding at the beginning. I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said'How do you do, my dear? He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend. 'Shall you and I be friends, Hareton? was my next essay at conversation. An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not 'frame off rewarded my perseverance. 'Hey, Throttler, lad! whispered the little wretch, rousing a halfbred bulldog from its lair in a corner. 'Now, wilt thou be ganging? he asked authoritatively. Love for my life urged a compliance I stepped over the threshold to wait till the others should enter. Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and replied'Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it? Mincing un' munching! How can I tell whet ye say? 'I say, I wish you to come with me into the house! I cried, thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness. 'None o' me! I getten summut else to do, he answered, and continued his work moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt. I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty annihilated. 'What's your business here? he demanded, grimly. 'Who are you? 'My name was Isabella Linton, I replied. 'You've seen me before, sir. I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me hereI suppose by your permission. 'Is he come back, then? asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf. 'Yeswe came just now, I said 'but he left me by the kitchen door and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bulldog. 'It's well the hellish villain has kept his word! growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the 'fiend deceived him. I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and refastened the door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey and the once brilliant pewterdishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom! Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again. You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth and there might as well be the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles I could not overpass them! I questioned with myselfwhere must I turn for comfort? andmind you don't tell Edgar, or Catherineabove every sorrow beside, this rose preeminent despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally against Heathcliff! I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with him but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear their intermeddling. I sat and thought a doleful time the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals. I listened to detect a woman's voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping. I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newlyawakened surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed'I'm tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the maidservant? Direct me to her, as she won't come to me! 'We have none, he answered 'you must wait on yourself! 'Where must I sleep, then? I sobbed I was beyond regarding selfrespect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness. 'Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber, said he 'open that doorhe's in there. I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone'Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your boltdon't omit it! 'Well! I said. 'But why, Mr. Earnshaw? I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff. 'Look here! he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiouslyconstructed pistol, having a doubleedged spring knife attached to the barrel. 'That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him. You fight against that devil for love as long as you may when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him! I surveyed the weapon inquisitively. A hideous notion struck me how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument! I took it from his hand, and touched the blade. He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second it was not horror, it was covetousness. He snatched the pistol back, jealously shut the knife, and returned it to its concealment. 'I don't care if you tell him, said he. 'Put him on his guard, and watch for him. You know the terms we are on, I see his danger does not shock you. 'What has Heathcliff done to you? I asked. 'In what has he wronged you, to warrant this appalling hatred? Wouldn't it be wiser to bid him quit the house? 'No! thundered Earnshaw 'should he offer to leave me, he's a dead man persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess! Am I to lose all, without a chance of retrieval? Is Hareton to be a beggar? Oh, damnation! I will have it back and I'll have his gold too and then his blood and hell shall have his soul! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before! You've acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master's habits. He is clearly on the verge of madness he was so last night at least. I shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant's illbred moroseness as comparatively agreeable. He now recommenced his moody walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen. Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable so, crying out sharply, 'I'll make the porridge! I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and ridinghabit. 'Mr. Earnshaw, I continued, 'directs me to wait on myself I will. I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve. 'Gooid Lord! he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. 'If there's to be fresh ortheringsjust when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev' a mistress set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I niver did think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld placebut I doubt it's nigh at hand! This lamentation drew no notice from me I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation. 'Thear! he ejaculated. 'Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge toneeght they'll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I'd fling in bowl un' all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un' then ye'll hae done wi't. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t' bothom isn't deaved out! It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety assuring me, repeatedly, that 'the barn was every bit as good as I, 'and every bit as wollsome, and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking and glowered up at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug. 'I shall have my supper in another room, I said. 'Have you no place you call a parlour? 'Parlour! he echoed, sneeringly, 'parlour! Nay, we've noa parlours. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's un' if yah dunnut loike maister, there's us. 'Then I shall go upstairs, I answered 'show me a chamber. I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent we mounted to the garrets he opened a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed. 'Here's a rahm, he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges. 'It's weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in. There's a pack o' corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane if ye're feared o' muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' t' top on't. The 'rahm was a kind of lumberhole smelling strong of malt and grain various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle. 'Why, man, I exclaimed, facing him angrily, 'this is not a place to sleep in. I wish to see my bedroom. 'Bedrume! he repeated, in a tone of mockery. 'Yah's see all t' bedrumes thear isyon's mine. He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed, with an indigocoloured quilt, at one end. 'What do I want with yours? I retorted. 'I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he? 'Oh! it's Maister Hathecliff's ye're wanting? cried he, as if making a new discovery. 'Couldn't ye ha' said soa, at onst? un' then, I mud ha' telled ye, baht all this wark, that that's just one ye cannut seehe allas keeps it locked, un' nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln. 'You've a nice house, Joseph, I could not refrain from observing, 'and pleasant inmates and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purposethere are other rooms. For heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere! He made no reply to this adjuration only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting before an apartment which, from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one. There was a carpeta good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust a fireplace hung with cutpaper, dropping to pieces a handsome oakbedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make but they had evidently experienced rough usage the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them severely and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls. I was endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession, when my fool of a guide announced,'This here is t' maister's. My supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience exhausted. I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of refuge, and means of repose. 'Whear the divil? began the religious elder. 'The Lord bless us! The Lord forgie us! Whear the hell wold ye gang? ye marred, wearisome nowt! Ye've seen all but Hareton's bit of a cham'er. There's not another hoile to lig down in i' th' hahse! I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground and then seated myself at the stairs'head, hid my face in my hands, and cried. 'Ech! ech! exclaimed Joseph. 'Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss Cathy! Howsiver, t' maister sall just tum'le o'er them brocken pots un' then we's hear summut we's hear how it's to be. Gooidfornaught madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Churstmas, flinging t' precious gifts uh God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages! But I'm mista'en if ye shew yer sperrit lang. Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye? I nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky. I nobbut wish he may. And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle with him and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects. An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I now recognised as a son of our old Skulker it had spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley. I fancy it knew me it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, and then hastened to devour the porridge while I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pockethandkerchief. Our labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage my assistant tucked in his tail, and pressed to the wall I stole into the nearest doorway. The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful as I guessed by a scutter downstairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping. I had better luck he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door. Directly after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had found shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,'They's rahm for boath ye un' yer pride, now, I sud think i' the hahse. It's empty ye may hev' it all to yerseln, un' Him as allas maks a third, i' sich ill company! Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation and the minute I flung myself into a chair, by the fire, I nodded, and slept. My slumber was deep and sweet, though over far too soon. Mr. Heathcliff awoke me he had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing there? I told him the cause of my staying up so latethat he had the key of our room in his pocket. The adjective our gave mortal offence. He swore it was not, nor ever should be, mine and he'dbut I'll not repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct he is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence! I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity that deadens my fear yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens. He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him. I do hate himI am wretchedI have been a fool! Beware of uttering one breath of this to any one at the Grange. I shall expect you every daydon't disappoint me!ISABELLA. As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire to see him with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me. 'Forgiveness! said Linton. 'I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen. You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I'm sorry to have lost her especially as I can never think she'll be happy. It is out of the question my going to see her, however we are eternally divided and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country. 'And you won't write her a little note, sir? I asked, imploringly. 'No, he answered. 'It is needless. My communication with Heathcliff's family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not exist! Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless her hair uncurled some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocketbook but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that seemed decent and I thought he never looked better. So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman and his wife as a thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manuvres, and said'If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it we have no secrets between us. 'Oh, I have nothing, I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once. 'My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his love, ma'am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up. Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by crossexamination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton's example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil. 'Mrs. Linton is now just recovering, I said 'she'll never be like she was, but her life is spared and if you really have a regard for her, you'll shun crossing her way again nay, you'll move out of this country entirely and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as that young lady is different from me. Her appearance is changed greatly, her character much more so and the person who is compelled, of necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty! 'That is quite possible, remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm 'quite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his duty and humanity? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an interview with her consent, or refuse, I will see her! What do you say? 'I say, Mr. Heathcliff, I replied, 'you must not you never shall, through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether. 'With your aid that may be avoided, he continued 'and should there be danger of such an eventshould he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existencewhy, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till thenif you don't believe me, you don't know metill then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head! 'And yet, I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress. 'You suppose she has nearly forgotten me? he said. 'Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my futuredeath and hell existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have the sea could be as readily contained in that horsetrough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me how can she love in him what he has not? 'Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be, cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. 'No one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence! 'Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he? observed Heathcliff, scornfully. 'He turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity. 'He is not aware of what I suffer, she replied. 'I didn't tell him that. 'You have been telling him something, then you have written, have you? 'To say that I was married, I did writeyou saw the note. 'And nothing since? 'No. 'My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition, I remarked. 'Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously whose, I may guess but, perhaps, I shouldn't say. 'I should guess it was her own, said Heathcliff. 'She degenerates into a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You'd hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad. 'Well, sir, returned I, 'I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn't have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you. 'She abandoned them under a delusion, he answered 'picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. Can I trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one possibly she took that exception for herself. But no brutality disgusted her I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury! Now, was it not the depth of absurdityof genuine idiocy, for that pitiful, slavish, meanminded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton and I've sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back! But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease that I keep strictly within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation and, what's more, she'd thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her! 'Mr. Heathcliff, said I, 'this is the talk of a madman your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord? 'Take care, Ellen! answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner's endeavours to make himself detested. 'Don't put faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being! I've been told I might leave him before and I've made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Ellen, promise you'll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him and he sha'n't obtain itI'll die first! I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me! The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead! 'Therethat will do for the present! said Heathcliff. 'If you are called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly! And take a good look at that countenance she's near the point which would suit me. No you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be. Go upstairs I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private. That's not the way upstairs, I tell you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child! He seized, and thrust her from the room and returned muttering'I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain. 'Do you understand what the word pity means? I said, hastening to resume my bonnet. 'Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life? 'Put that down! he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart. 'You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm I don't desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there tonight and every night I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily. I'd warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm you would be hindering mischief. I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's house and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction. 'The commonest occurrence startles her painfully, I said. 'She's all nerves, and she couldn't bear the surprise, I'm positive. Don't persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs and he'll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions! 'In that case I'll take measures to secure you, woman! exclaimed Heathcliff 'you shall not leave Wuthering Heights till tomorrow morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me and as to surprising her, I don't desire it you must prepare herask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxiouslooking is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity! He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares! Let us settle it at once will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footman? Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request? Decide! because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn illnature! Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress and should she consent, I promised to let him have intelligence of Linton's next absence from home, when he might come, and get in as he was able I wouldn't be there, and my fellowservants should be equally out of the way. Was it right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance and I thought, too, it might create a favourable crisis in Catherine's mental illness and then I remembered Mr. Edgar's stern rebuke of my carrying tales and I tried to smooth away all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last. Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton's hand. But here is Kenneth I'll go down, and tell him how much better you are. My history is dree, as we say, and will serve to while away another morning.      Dree, and dreary! I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse me. But never mind! I'll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean's bitter herbs and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff's brilliant eyes. I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother. Another week overand I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour's history, at different sittings, as the housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations. I'll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her style.      In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my pocket, and didn't want to be threatened or teased any more. I had made up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not guess how its receipt would affect Catherine. The consequence was, that it did not reach her before the lapse of three days. The fourth was Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to church. There was a man servant left to keep the house with me, and we generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of service but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be paid for on the morrow. He departed, and I went upstairs. Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual. Her thick, long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff but when she was calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change. The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyondyou would have said out of this world. Then, the paleness of her faceits haggard aspect having vanished as she recovered fleshand the peculiar expression arising from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes, added to the touching interest which she awakened andinvariably to me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should thinkrefuted more tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to decay. A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible wind fluttered its leaves at intervals. I believe Linton had laid it there for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her amusement. She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of smiles and kisses. At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily and then he took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good. Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a season of steady rain. And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was thinking as she listened that is, if she thought or listened at all but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed no recognition of material things either by ear or eye. 'There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton, I said, gently inserting it in one hand that rested on her knee. 'You must read it immediately, because it wants an answer. Shall I break the seal? 'Yes, she answered, without altering the direction of her eyes. I opened itit was very short. 'Now, I continued, 'read it. She drew away her hand, and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it should please her to glance down but that movement was so long delayed that at last I resumed'Must I read it, ma'am? It is from Mr. Heathcliff. There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it and when she came to the signature she sighed yet still I found she had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply, she merely pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and questioning eagerness. 'Well, he wishes to see you, said I, guessing her need of an interpreter. 'He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know what answer I shall bring. As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall the open house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in most likely he supposed that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own audacity. With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance of her chamber. He did not hit the right room directly she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his arms. He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I daresay but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face! The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery thereshe was fated, sure to die. 'Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it? was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes but they burned with anguish they did not melt. 'What now? said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. 'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed meand thriven on it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone? Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down. 'I wish I could hold you, she continued, bitterly, 'till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, 'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her but it is past. I've loved many others since my children are dearer to me than she was and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her I shall be sorry that I must leave them!' Will you say so, Heathcliff? 'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself, cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth. The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin. 'Are you possessed with a devil, he pursued, savagely, 'to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell? 'I shall not be at peace, moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over then she continued, more kindly 'I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won't you come here again? Do! Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent round to look at him he would not permit it turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us. Mrs. Linton's glance followed him suspiciously every movement woke a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment 'Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave. That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet and take him with me he's in my soul. And, added she musingly, 'the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart but really with it, and in it. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I in full health and strength you are sorry for mevery soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for you. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I wonder he won't be near me! She went on to herself. 'I thought he wished it. Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff. In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species it appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to him so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity. A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little presently she put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly 'You teach me now how cruel you've beencruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry and wring out my kisses and tears they'll blight youthey'll damn you. You loved methen what right had you to leave me? What rightanswer mefor the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heartyou have broken it and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when youoh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave? 'Let me alone. Let me alone, sobbed Catherine. 'If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too but I won't upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me! 'It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands, he answered. 'Kiss me again and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murdererbut yours! How can I? They were silenttheir faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this. I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile for the afternoon wore fast away, the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch. 'Service is over, I announced. 'My master will be here in half an hour. Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer she never moved. Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind he opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer. 'Now he is here, I exclaimed. 'For heaven's sake, hurry down! You'll not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick and stay among the trees till he is fairly in. 'I must go, Cathy, said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from his companion's arms. 'But if I live, I'll see you again before you are asleep. I won't stray five yards from your window. 'You must not go! she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed. 'You shall not, I tell you. 'For one hour, he pleaded earnestly. 'Not for one minute, she replied. 'I mustLinton will be up immediately, persisted the alarmed intruder. He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the actshe clung fast, gasping there was mad resolution in her face. 'No! she shrieked. 'Oh, don't, don't go. It is the last time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die! 'Damn the fool! There he is, cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat. 'Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips. And there they were fast again. I heard my master mounting the stairsthe cold sweat ran from my forehead I was horrified. 'Are you going to listen to her ravings? I said, passionately. 'She does not know what she says. Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done formaster, mistress, and servant. I wrung my hands, and cried out and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the noise. In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down. 'She's fainted, or dead, I thought 'so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a miserymaker to all about her. Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifelesslooking form in his arms. 'Look there! he said. 'Unless you be a fiend, help her firstthen you shall speak to me! He walked into the parlour, and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me, and with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to restore her to sensation but she was all bewildered she sighed, and moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated friend. I did not. I went, at the earliest opportunity, and besought him to depart affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night. 'I shall not refuse to go out of doors, he answered 'but I shall stay in the garden and, Nelly, mind you keep your word tomorrow. I shall be under those larchtrees. Mind! or I pay another visit, whether Linton be in or not. He sent a rapid glance through the halfopen door of the chamber, and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence. About twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights a puny, sevenmonths' child and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar. The latter's distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on its aftereffects showed how deep the sorrow sunk. A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir. I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan and I mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son's. An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence. We redeemed the neglect afterwards but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be. Next morningbright and cheerful out of doorsstole softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed but his was the hush of exhausted anguish, and hers of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before 'Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God! I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafterthe Eternity they have enteredwhere life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant. Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I'd give a great deal to know. I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as something heterodox. She proceeded Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is but we'll leave her with her Maker. The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch in reality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished, yet feared, to find him. I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over but how to do it I did not know. He was thereat least, a few yards further in the park leant against an old ashtree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke'She's dead! he said 'I've not waited for you to learn that. Put your handkerchief awaydon't snivel before me. Damn you all! she wants none of your tears! I was weeping as much for him as her we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others. When I first looked into his face, I perceived that he had got intelligence of the catastrophe and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled and he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground. 'Yes, she's dead! I answered, checking my sobs and drying my cheeks. 'Gone to heaven, I hope where we may, every one, join her, if we take due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good! 'Did she take due warning, then? asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer. 'Did she die like a saint? Come, give me a true history of the event. How did? He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching, ferocious stare. 'How did she die? he resumed, at lastfain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very fingerends. 'Poor wretch! I thought 'you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride cannot blind God! You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation. 'Quietly as a lamb! I answered, aloud. 'She drew a sigh, and stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more! 'Anddid she ever mention me? he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded the answer to his question would introduce details that he could not bear to hear. 'Her senses never returned she recognised nobody from the time you left her, I said. 'She lies with a sweet smile on her face and her latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days. Her life closed in a gentle dreammay she wake as kindly in the other world! 'May she wake in torment! he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. 'Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not therenot in heavennot perishedwhere? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayerI repeat it till my tongue stiffensCatherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living you said I killed youhaunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me alwaystake any formdrive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul! He dashed his head against the knotted trunk and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night. It hardly moved my compassionit appalled me still, I felt reluctant to quit him so. But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console! Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawingroom. Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian anda circumstance concealed from all but meHeathcliff spent his nights, at least, outside, equally a stranger to repose. I held no communication with him still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the windows moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu. He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed, I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face, and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together. Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his sister to the grave he sent no excuse, but he never came so that, besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants. Isabella was not asked. The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside. It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirkyard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberryplants have climbed over it from the moor and peatmould almost buries it. Her husband lies in the same spot now and they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the graves. That Friday made the last of our fine days for a month. In the evening the weather broke the wind shifted from south to northeast, and brought rain first, and then sleet and snow. On the morrow one could hardly imagine that there had been three weeks of summer the primroses and crocuses were hidden under wintry drifts the larks were silent, the young leaves of the early trees smitten and blackened. And dreary, and chill, and dismal, that morrow did creep over! My master kept his room I took possession of the lonely parlour, converting it into a nursery and there I was, sitting with the moaning doll of a child laid on my knee rocking it to and fro, and watching, meanwhile, the still driving flakes build up the uncurtained window, when the door opened, and some person entered, out of breath and laughing! My anger was greater than my astonishment for a minute. I supposed it one of the maids, and I cried'Have done! How dare you show your giddiness here? What would Mr. Linton say if he heard you? 'Excuse me! answered a familiar voice 'but I know Edgar is in bed, and I cannot stop myself. With that the speaker came forward to the fire, panting and holding her hand to her side. 'I have run the whole way from Wuthering Heights! she continued, after a pause 'except where I've flown. I couldn't count the number of falls I've had. Oh, I'm aching all over! Don't be alarmed! There shall be an explanation as soon as I can give it only just have the goodness to step out and order the carriage to take me on to Gimmerton, and tell a servant to seek up a few clothes in my wardrobe. The intruder was Mrs. Heathcliff. She certainly seemed in no laughing predicament her hair streamed on her shoulders, dripping with snow and water she was dressed in the girlish dress she commonly wore, befitting her age more than her position a low frock with short sleeves, and nothing on either head or neck. The frock was of light silk, and clung to her with wet, and her feet were protected merely by thin slippers add to this a deep cut under one ear, which only the cold prevented from bleeding profusely, a white face scratched and bruised, and a frame hardly able to support itself through fatigue and you may fancy my first fright was not much allayed when I had had leisure to examine her. 'My dear young lady, I exclaimed, 'I'll stir nowhere, and hear nothing, till you have removed every article of your clothes, and put on dry things and certainly you shall not go to Gimmerton tonight, so it is needless to order the carriage. 'Certainly I shall, she said 'walking or riding yet I've no objection to dress myself decently. Andah, see how it flows down my neck now! The fire does make it smart. She insisted on my fulfilling her directions, before she would let me touch her and not till after the coachman had been instructed to get ready, and a maid set to pack up some necessary attire, did I obtain her consent for binding the wound and helping to change her garments. 'Now, Ellen, she said, when my task was finished and she was seated in an easychair on the hearth, with a cup of tea before her, 'you sit down opposite me, and put poor Catherine's baby away I don't like to see it! You mustn't think I care little for Catherine, because I behaved so foolishly on entering I've cried, too, bitterlyyes, more than any one else has reason to cry. We parted unreconciled, you remember, and I sha'n't forgive myself. But, for all that, I was not going to sympathise with himthe brute beast! Oh, give me the poker! This is the last thing of his I have about me she slipped the gold ring from her third finger, and threw it on the floor. 'I'll smash it! she continued, striking it with childish spite, 'and then I'll burn it! and she took and dropped the misused article among the coals. 'There! he shall buy another, if he gets me back again. He'd be capable of coming to seek me, to tease Edgar. I dare not stay, lest that notion should possess his wicked head! And besides, Edgar has not been kind, has he? And I won't come suing for his assistance nor will I bring him into more trouble. Necessity compelled me to seek shelter here though, if I had not learned he was out of the way, I'd have halted at the kitchen, washed my face, warmed myself, got you to bring what I wanted, and departed again to anywhere out of the reach of my accursedof that incarnate goblin! Ah, he was in such a fury! If he had caught me! It's a pity Earnshaw is not his match in strength I wouldn't have run till I'd seen him all but demolished, had Hindley been able to do it! 'Well, don't talk so fast, Miss! I interrupted 'you'll disorder the handkerchief I have tied round your face, and make the cut bleed again. Drink your tea, and take breath, and give over laughing laughter is sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition! 'An undeniable truth, she replied. 'Listen to that child! It maintains a constant wailsend it out of my hearing for an hour I sha'n't stay any longer. I rang the bell, and committed it to a servant's care and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining with us. 'I ought, and I wished to remain, answered she, 'to cheer Edgar and take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right home. But I tell you he wouldn't let me! Do you think he could bear to see me grow fat and merrycould bear to think that we were tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our comfort? Now, I have the satisfaction of being sure that he detests me, to the point of its annoying him seriously to have me within earshot or eyesight I notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred partly arising from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for him, and partly from original aversion. It is strong enough to make me feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England, supposing I contrived a clear escape and therefore I must get quite away. I've recovered from my first desire to be killed by him I'd rather he'd kill himself! He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I'm at my ease. I can recollect yet how I loved him and can dimly imagine that I could still be loving him, ifno, no! Even if he had doted on me, the devilish nature would have revealed its existence somehow. Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well. Monster! would that he could be blotted out of creation, and out of my memory! 'Hush, hush! He's a human being, I said. 'Be more charitable there are worse men than he is yet! 'He's not a human being, she retorted 'and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him and I would not, though he groaned from this to his dying day, and wept tears of blood for Catherine! No, indeed, indeed, I wouldn't! And here Isabella began to cry but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she recommenced. 'You asked, what has driven me to flight at last? I was compelled to attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity. Pulling out the nerves with red hot pincers requires more coolness than knocking on the head. He was worked up to forget the fiendish prudence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous violence. I experienced pleasure in being able to exasperate him the sense of pleasure woke my instinct of selfpreservation, so I fairly broke free and if ever I come into his hands again he is welcome to a signal revenge. 'Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purposetolerably sober not going to bed mad at six o'clock and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently, he rose, in suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls. 'HeathcliffI shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house from last Sunday till today. Whether the angels have fed him, or his kin beneath, I cannot tell but he has not eaten a meal with us for nearly a week. He has just come home at dawn, and gone upstairs to his chamber locking himself inas if anybody dreamt of coveting his company! There he has continued, praying like a Methodist only the deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes and God, when addressed, was curiously confounded with his own black father! After concluding these precious orisonsand they lasted generally till he grew hoarse and his voice was strangled in his throathe would be off again always straight down to the Grange! I wonder Edgar did not send for a constable, and give him into custody! For me, grieved as I was about Catherine, it was impossible to avoid regarding this season of deliverance from degrading oppression as a holiday. 'I recovered spirits sufficient to hear Joseph's eternal lectures without weeping, and to move up and down the house less with the foot of a frightened thief than formerly. You wouldn't think that I should cry at anything Joseph could say but he and Hareton are detestable companions. I'd rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than with 't' little maister' and his staunch supporter, that odious old man! When Heathcliff is in, I'm often obliged to seek the kitchen and their society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers when he is not, as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one corner of the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy himself and he does not interfere with my arrangements. He is quieter now than he used to be, if no one provokes him more sullen and depressed, and less furious. Joseph affirms he's sure he's an altered man that the Lord has touched his heart, and he is saved 'so as by fire.' I'm puzzled to detect signs of the favourable change but it is not my business. 'Yesterevening I sat in my nook reading some old books till late on towards twelve. It seemed so dismal to go upstairs, with the wild snow blowing outside, and my thoughts continually reverting to the kirkyard and the newmade grave! I dared hardly lift my eyes from the page before me, that melancholy scene so instantly usurped its place. Hindley sat opposite, his head leant on his hand perhaps meditating on the same subject. He had ceased drinking at a point below irrationality, and had neither stirred nor spoken during two or three hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed. It was very, very sad and while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy had vanished from the world, never to be restored. 'The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen latch Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm. That entrance was fastened, and we heard him coming round to get in by the other. I rose with an irrepressible expression of what I felt on my lips, which induced my companion, who had been staring towards the door, to turn and look at me. ''I'll keep him out five minutes,' he exclaimed. 'You won't object?' ''No, you may keep him out the whole night for me,' I answered. 'Do! put the key in the lock, and draw the bolts.' 'Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front he then came and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning over it, and searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that gleamed from his as he both looked and felt like an assassin, he couldn't exactly find that but he discovered enough to encourage him to speak. ''You, and I,' he said, 'have each a great debt to settle with the man out yonder! If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to discharge it. Are you as soft as your brother? Are you willing to endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?' ''I'm weary of enduring now,' I replied 'and I'd be glad of a retaliation that wouldn't recoil on myself but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.' ''Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!' cried Hindley. 'Mrs. Heathcliff, I'll ask you to do nothing but sit still and be dumb. Tell me now, can you? I'm sure you would have as much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend's existence he'll be your death unless you overreach him and he'll be my ruin. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he were master here already! Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock strikesit wants three minutes of oneyou're a free woman!' 'He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from his breast, and would have turned down the candle. I snatched it away, however, and seized his arm. ''I'll not hold my tongue!' I said 'you mustn't touch him. Let the door remain shut, and be quiet!' ''No! I've formed my resolution, and by God I'll execute it!' cried the desperate being. 'I'll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and Hareton justice! And you needn't trouble your head to screen me Catherine is gone. Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though I cut my throat this minuteand it's time to make an end!' 'I might as well have struggled with a bear, or reasoned with a lunatic. The only resource left me was to run to a lattice and warn his intended victim of the fate which awaited him. ''You'd better seek shelter somewhere else tonight!' I exclaimed, in rather a triumphant tone. 'Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you persist in endeavouring to enter.' ''You'd better open the door, you' he answered, addressing me by some elegant term that I don't care to repeat. ''I shall not meddle in the matter,' I retorted again. 'Come in and get shot, if you please. I've done my duty.' 'With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire having too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any anxiety for the danger that menaced him. Earnshaw swore passionately at me affirming that I loved the villain yet and calling me all sorts of names for the base spirit I evinced. And I, in my secret heart (and conscience never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be for him should Heathcliff put him out of misery and what a blessing for me should he send Heathcliff to his right abode! As I sat nursing these reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked blightingly through. The stanchions stood too close to suffer his shoulders to follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security. His hair and clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth, revealed by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark. ''Isabella, let me in, or I'll make you repent!' he 'girned,' as Joseph calls it. ''I cannot commit murder,' I replied. 'Mr. Hindley stands sentinel with a knife and loaded pistol.' ''Let me in by the kitchen door,' he said. ''Hindley will be there before me,' I answered 'and that's a poor love of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow! We were left at peace in our beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of winter returns, you must run for shelter! Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world is surely not worth living in now, is it? You had distinctly impressed on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life I can't imagine how you think of surviving her loss.' ''He's there, is he?' exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap. 'If I can get my arm out I can hit him!' 'I'm afraid, Ellen, you'll set me down as really wicked but you don't know all, so don't judge. I wouldn't have aided or abetted an attempt on even his life for anything. Wish that he were dead, I must and therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for the consequences of my taunting speech, when he flung himself on Earnshaw's weapon and wrenched it from his grasp. 'The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into its owner's wrist. Heathcliff pulled it away by main force, slitting up the flesh as it passed on, and thrust it dripping into his pocket. He then took a stone, struck down the division between two windows, and sprang in. His adversary had fallen senseless with excessive pain and the flow of blood, that gushed from an artery or a large vein. The ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags, holding me with one hand, meantime, to prevent me summoning Joseph. He exerted preterhuman selfdenial in abstaining from finishing him completely but getting out of breath, he finally desisted, and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle. There he tore off the sleeve of Earnshaw's coat, and bound up the wound with brutal roughness spitting and cursing during the operation as energetically as he had kicked before. Being at liberty, I lost no time in seeking the old servant who, having gathered by degrees the purport of my hasty tale, hurried below, gasping, as he descended the steps two at once. ''What is ther to do, now? what is ther to do, now?' ''There's this to do,' thundered Heathcliff, 'that your master's mad and should he last another month, I'll have him to an asylum. And how the devil did you come to fasten me out, you toothless hound? Don't stand muttering and mumbling there. Come, I'm not going to nurse him. Wash that stuff away and mind the sparks of your candleit is more than half brandy!' ''And so ye've been murthering on him?' exclaimed Joseph, lifting his hands and eyes in horror. 'If iver I seed a seeght loike this! May the Lord' 'Heathcliff gave him a push on to his knees in the middle of the blood, and flung a towel to him but instead of proceeding to dry it up, he joined his hands and began a prayer, which excited my laughter from its odd phraseology. I was in the condition of mind to be shocked at nothing in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors show themselves at the foot of the gallows. ''Oh, I forgot you,' said the tyrant. 'You shall do that. Down with you. And you conspire with him against me, do you, viper? There, that is work fit for you!' 'He shook me till my teeth rattled, and pitched me beside Joseph, who steadily concluded his supplications, and then rose, vowing he would set off for the Grange directly. Mr. Linton was a magistrate, and though he had fifty wives dead, he should inquire into this. He was so obstinate in his resolution, that Heathcliff deemed it expedient to compel from my lips a recapitulation of what had taken place standing over me, heaving with malevolence, as I reluctantly delivered the account in answer to his questions. It required a great deal of labour to satisfy the old man that Heathcliff was not the aggressor especially with my hardlywrung replies. However, Mr. Earnshaw soon convinced him that he was alive still Joseph hastened to administer a dose of spirits, and by their succour his master presently regained motion and consciousness. Heathcliff, aware that his opponent was ignorant of the treatment received while insensible, called him deliriously intoxicated and said he should not notice his atrocious conduct further, but advised him to get to bed. To my joy, he left us, after giving this judicious counsel, and Hindley stretched himself on the hearthstone. I departed to my own room, marvelling that I had escaped so easily. 'This morning, when I came down, about half an hour before noon, Mr. Earnshaw was sitting by the fire, deadly sick his evil genius, almost as gaunt and ghastly, leant against the chimney. Neither appeared inclined to dine, and, having waited till all was cold on the table, I commenced alone. Nothing hindered me from eating heartily, and I experienced a certain sense of satisfaction and superiority, as, at intervals, I cast a look towards my silent companions, and felt the comfort of a quiet conscience within me. After I had done, I ventured on the unusual liberty of drawing near the fire, going round Earnshaw's seat, and kneeling in the corner beside him. 'Heathcliff did not glance my way, and I gazed up, and contemplated his features almost as confidently as if they had been turned to stone. His forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud his basilisk eyes were nearly quenched by sleeplessness, and weeping, perhaps, for the lashes were wet then his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief. In his case, I was gratified and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't miss this chance of sticking in a dart his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong. 'Fie, fie, Miss! I interrupted. 'One might suppose you had never opened a Bible in your life. If God afflict your enemies, surely that ought to suffice you. It is both mean and presumptuous to add your torture to his! 'In general I'll allow that it would be, Ellen, she continued 'but what misery laid on Heathcliff could content me, unless I have a hand in it? I'd rather he suffered less, if I might cause his sufferings and he might know that I was the cause. Oh, I owe him so much. On only one condition can I hope to forgive him. It is, if I may take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth for every wrench of agony return a wrench reduce him to my level. As he was the first to injure, make him the first to implore pardon and thenwhy then, Ellen, I might show you some generosity. But it is utterly impossible I can ever be revenged, and therefore I cannot forgive him. Hindley wanted some water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was. ''Not as ill as I wish,' he replied. 'But leaving out my arm, every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of imps!' ''Yes, no wonder,' was my next remark. 'Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm she meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her. It's well people don't really rise from their grave, or, last night, she might have witnessed a repulsive scene! Are not you bruised, and cut over your chest and shoulders?' ''I can't say,' he answered 'but what do you mean? Did he dare to strike me when I was down?' ''He trampled on and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground,' I whispered. 'And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth because he's only half man not so much, and the rest fiend.' 'Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual foe who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him the longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features. ''Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I'd go to hell with joy,' groaned the impatient man, writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the struggle. ''Nay, it's enough that he has murdered one of you,' I observed aloud. 'At the Grange, every one knows your sister would have been living now had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff. After all, it is preferable to be hated than loved by him. When I recollect how happy we werehow happy Catherine was before he cameI'm fit to curse the day.' 'Most likely, Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said, than the spirit of the person who said it. His attention was roused, I saw, for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes, and he drew his breath in suffocating sighs. I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision. ''Get up, and begone out of my sight,' said the mourner. 'I guessed he uttered those words, at least, though his voice was hardly intelligible. ''I beg your pardon,' I replied. 'But I loved Catherine too and her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply. Now that she's dead, I see her in Hindley Hindley has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red and her' ''Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!' he cried, making a movement that caused me to make one also. ''But then,' I continued, holding myself ready to flee, 'if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a similar picture! She wouldn't have borne your abominable behaviour quietly her detestation and disgust must have found voice.' 'The back of the settle and Earnshaw's person interposed between me and him so instead of endeavouring to reach me, he snatched a dinnerknife from the table and flung it at my head. It struck beneath my ear, and stopped the sentence I was uttering but, pulling it out, I sprang to the door and delivered another which I hope went a little deeper than his missile. The last glimpse I caught of him was a furious rush on his part, checked by the embrace of his host and both fell locked together on the hearth. In my flight through the kitchen I bid Joseph speed to his master I knocked over Hareton, who was hanging a litter of puppies from a chairback in the doorway and, blessed as a soul escaped from purgatory, I bounded, leaped, and flew down the steep road then, quitting its windings, shot direct across the moor, rolling over banks, and wading through marshes precipitating myself, in fact, towards the beaconlight of the Grange. And far rather would I be condemned to a perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night, abide beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again. Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea then she rose, and bidding me put on her bonnet, and a great shawl I had brought, and turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to remain another hour, she stepped on to a chair, kissed Edgar's and Catherine's portraits, bestowed a similar salute on me, and descended to the carriage, accompanied by Fanny, who yelped wild with joy at recovering her mistress. She was driven away, never to revisit this neighbourhood but a regular correspondence was established between her and my master when things were more settled. I believe her new abode was in the south, near London there she had a son born a few months subsequent to her escape. He was christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an ailing, peevish creature. Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where she lived. I refused to tell. He remarked that it was not of any moment, only she must beware of coming to her brother she should not be with him, if he had to keep her himself. Though I would give no information, he discovered, through some of the other servants, both her place of residence and the existence of the child. Still, he didn't molest her for which forbearance she might thank his aversion, I suppose. He often asked about the infant, when he saw me and on hearing its name, smiled grimly, and observed 'They wish me to hate it too, do they? 'I don't think they wish you to know anything about it, I answered. 'But I'll have it, he said, 'when I want it. They may reckon on that! Fortunately its mother died before the time arrived some thirteen years after the decease of Catherine, when Linton was twelve, or a little more. On the day succeeding Isabella's unexpected visit I had no opportunity of speaking to my master he shunned conversation, and was fit for discussing nothing. When I could get him to listen, I saw it pleased him that his sister had left her husband whom he abhorred with an intensity which the mildness of his nature would scarcely seem to allow. So deep and sensitive was his aversion, that he refrained from going anywhere where he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff. Grief, and that together, transformed him into a complete hermit he threw up his office of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the village on all occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within the limits of his park and grounds only varied by solitary rambles on the moors, and visits to the grave of his wife, mostly at evening, or early morning before other wanderers were abroad. But he was too good to be thoroughly unhappy long. He didn't pray for Catherine's soul to haunt him. Time brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy. He recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the better world where he doubted not she was gone. And he had earthly consolation and affections also. For a few days, I said, he seemed regardless of the puny successor to the departed that coldness melted as fast as snow in April, and ere the tiny thing could stammer a word or totter a step it wielded a despot's sceptre in his heart. It was named Catherine but he never called it the name in full, as he had never called the first Catherine short probably because Heathcliff had a habit of doing so. The little one was always Cathy it formed to him a distinction from the mother, and yet a connection with her and his attachment sprang from its relation to her, far more than from its being his own. I used to draw a comparison between him and Hindley Earnshaw, and perplex myself to explain satisfactorily why their conduct was so opposite in similar circumstances. They had both been fond husbands, and were both attached to their children and I could not see how they shouldn't both have taken the same road, for good or evil. But, I thought in my mind, Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has shown himself sadly the worse and the weaker man. When his ship struck, the captain abandoned his post and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel. Linton, on the contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul he trusted God and God comforted him. One hoped, and the other despaired they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them. But you'll not want to hear my moralising, Mr. Lockwood you'll judge, as well as I can, all these things at least, you'll think you will, and that's the same. The end of Earnshaw was what might have been expected it followed fast on his sister's there were scarcely six months between them. We, at the Grange, never got a very succinct account of his state preceding it all that I did learn was on occasion of going to aid in the preparations for the funeral. Mr. Kenneth came to announce the event to my master. 'Well, Nelly, said he, riding into the yard one morning, too early not to alarm me with an instant presentiment of bad news, 'it's yours and my turn to go into mourning at present. Who's given us the slip now, do you think? 'Who? I asked in a flurry. 'Why, guess! he returned, dismounting, and slinging his bridle on a hook by the door. 'And nip up the corner of your apron I'm certain you'll need it. 'Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely? I exclaimed. 'What! would you have tears for him? said the doctor. 'No, Heathcliff's a tough young fellow he looks blooming today. I've just seen him. He's rapidly regaining flesh since he lost his better half. 'Who is it, then, Mr. Kenneth? I repeated impatiently. 'Hindley Earnshaw! Your old friend Hindley, he replied, 'and my wicked gossip though he's been too wild for me this long while. There! I said we should draw water. But cheer up! He died true to his character drunk as a lord. Poor lad! I'm sorry, too. One can't help missing an old companion though he had the worst tricks with him that ever man imagined, and has done me many a rascally turn. He's barely twentyseven, it seems that's your own age who would have thought you were born in one year? I confess this blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs. Linton's death ancient associations lingered round my heart I sat down in the porch and wept as for a blood relation, desiring Mr. Kenneth to get another servant to introduce him to the master. I could not hinder myself from pondering on the question'Had he had fair play? Whatever I did, that idea would bother me it was so tiresomely pertinacious that I resolved on requesting leave to go to Wuthering Heights, and assist in the last duties to the dead. Mr. Linton was extremely reluctant to consent, but I pleaded eloquently for the friendless condition in which he lay and I said my old master and fosterbrother had a claim on my services as strong as his own. Besides, I reminded him that the child Hareton was his wife's nephew, and, in the absence of nearer kin, he ought to act as its guardian and he ought to and must inquire how the property was left, and look over the concerns of his brotherinlaw. He was unfit for attending to such matters then, but he bid me speak to his lawyer and at length permitted me to go. His lawyer had been Earnshaw's also I called at the village, and asked him to accompany me. He shook his head, and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone affirming, if the truth were known, Hareton would be found little else than a beggar. 'His father died in debt, he said 'the whole property is mortgaged, and the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he may be inclined to deal leniently towards him. When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see everything carried on decently and Joseph, who appeared in sufficient distress, expressed satisfaction at my presence. Mr. Heathcliff said he did not perceive that I was wanted but I might stay and order the arrangements for the funeral, if I chose. 'Correctly, he remarked, 'that fool's body should be buried at the crossroads, without ceremony of any kind. I happened to leave him ten minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard him snorting like a horse and there he was, laid over the settle flaying and scalping would not have wakened him. I sent for Kenneth, and he came but not till the beast had changed into carrion he was both dead and cold, and stark and so you'll allow it was useless making more stir about him! The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered 'I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t' doctor! I sud ha' taen tent o' t' maister better nor himand he warn't deead when I left, naught o' t' soart! I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff said I might have my own way there too only, he desired me to remember that the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket. He maintained a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow if anything, it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something like exultation in his aspect it was just when the people were bearing the coffin from the house. He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, 'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it! The unsuspecting thing was pleased at this speech he played with Heathcliff's whiskers, and stroked his cheek but I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, 'That boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir. There is nothing in the world less yours than he is! 'Does Linton say so? he demanded. 'Of coursehe has ordered me to take him, I replied. 'Well, said the scoundrel, 'we'll not argue the subject now but I have a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young one so intimate to your master that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he attempt to remove it. I don't engage to let Hareton go undisputed but I'll be pretty sure to make the other come! Remember to tell him. This hint was enough to bind our hands. I repeated its substance on my return and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement, spoke no more of interfering. I'm not aware that he could have done it to any purpose, had he been ever so willing. The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights he held firm possession, and proved to the attorneywho, in his turn, proved it to Mr. Lintonthat Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming and he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee. In that manner Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father's inveterate enemy and lives in his own house as a servant, deprived of the advantage of wages quite unable to right himself, because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been wronged. The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were the happiest of my life my greatest troubles in their passage rose from our little lady's trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in common with all children, rich and poor. For the rest, after the first six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton's dust. She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws' handsome dark eyes, but the Lintons' fair skin and small features, and yellow curling hair. Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart sensitive and lively to excess in its affections. That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother still she did not resemble her for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice and pensive expression her anger was never furious her love never fierce it was deep and tender. However, it must be acknowledged, she had faults to foil her gifts. A propensity to be saucy was one and a perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire, whether they be good tempered or cross. If a servant chanced to vex her, it was always'I shall tell papa! And if he reproved her, even by a look, you would have thought it a heartbreaking business I don't believe he ever did speak a harsh word to her. He took her education entirely on himself, and made it an amusement. Fortunately, curiosity and a quick intellect made her an apt scholar she learned rapidly and eagerly, and did honour to his teaching. Till she reached the age of thirteen she had not once been beyond the range of the park by herself. Mr. Linton would take her with him a mile or so outside, on rare occasions but he trusted her to no one else. Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears the chapel, the only building she had approached or entered, except her own home. Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her she was a perfect recluse and, apparently, perfectly contented. Sometimes, indeed, while surveying the country from her nursery window, she would observe 'Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills? I wonder what lies on the other sideis it the sea? 'No, Miss Cathy, I would answer 'it is hills again, just like these. 'And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them? she once asked. The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow. I explained that they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish a stunted tree. 'And why are they bright so long after it is evening here? she pursued. 'Because they are a great deal higher up than we are, replied I 'you could not climb them, they are too high and steep. In winter the frost is always there before it comes to us and deep into summer I have found snow under that black hollow on the northeast side! 'Oh, you have been on them! she cried gleefully. 'Then I can go, too, when I am a woman. Has papa been, Ellen? 'Papa would tell you, Miss, I answered, hastily, 'that they are not worth the trouble of visiting. The moors, where you ramble with him, are much nicer and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world. 'But I know the park, and I don't know those, she murmured to herself. 'And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that tallest point my little pony Minny shall take me some time. One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head with a desire to fulfil this project she teased Mr. Linton about it and he promised she should have the journey when she got older. But Miss Catherine measured her age by months, and, 'Now, am I old enough to go to Penistone Crags? was the constant question in her mouth. The road thither wound close by Wuthering Heights. Edgar had not the heart to pass it so she received as constantly the answer, 'Not yet, love not yet. I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her husband. Her family were of a delicate constitution she and Edgar both lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts. What her last illness was, I am not certain I conjecture, they died of the same thing, a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but incurable, and rapidly consuming life towards the close. She wrote to inform her brother of the probable conclusion of a fourmonths' indisposition under which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to her, if possible for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu, and deliver Linton safely into his hands. Her hope was that Linton might be left with him, as he had been with her his father, she would fain convince herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his maintenance or education. My master hesitated not a moment in complying with her request reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls, he flew to answer this commending Catherine to my peculiar vigilance, in his absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of the park, even under my escort he did not calculate on her going unaccompanied. He was away three weeks. The first day or two my charge sat in a corner of the library, too sad for either reading or playing in that quiet state she caused me little trouble but it was succeeded by an interval of impatient, fretful weariness and being too busy, and too old then, to run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she might entertain herself. I used to send her on her travels round the groundsnow on foot, and now on a pony indulging her with a patient audience of all her real and imaginary adventures when she returned. The summer shone in full prime and she took such a taste for this solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast till tea and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful tales. I did not fear her breaking bounds because the gates were generally locked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone, if they had stood wide open. Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced. Catherine came to me, one morning, at eight o'clock, and said she was that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan and I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts a horse, and three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers. I got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one side of the saddle and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by her widebrimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off with a merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping, and come back early. The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea. One traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any direction I despatched emissaries down this path, and that path, and at last went wandering in search of her myself. There was a labourer working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds. I inquired of him if he had seen our young lady. 'I saw her at morn, he replied 'she would have me to cut her a hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight. You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me directly she must have started for Penistone Crags. 'What will become of her? I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making straight to the highroad. I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights but no Catherine could I detect, far or near. The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them. 'And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them, I reflected, 'and been killed, or broken some of her bones? My suspense was truly painful and, at first, it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered she had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw. 'Ah, said she, 'you are come aseeking your little mistress! Don't be frightened. She's here safe but I'm glad it isn't the master. 'He is not at home then, is he? I panted, quite breathless with quick walking and alarm. 'No, no, she replied 'both he and Joseph are off, and I think they won't return this hour or more. Step in and rest you a bit. I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child. Her hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Haretonnow a great, strong lad of eighteenwho stared at her with considerable curiosity and astonishment comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth. 'Very well, Miss! I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry countenance. 'This is your last ride, till papa comes back. I'll not trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl! 'Aha, Ellen! she cried, gaily, jumping up and running to my side. 'I shall have a pretty story to tell tonight and so you've found me out. Have you ever been here in your life before? 'Put that hat on, and home at once, said I. 'I'm dreadfully grieved at you, Miss Cathy you've done extremely wrong! It's no use pouting and crying that won't repay the trouble I've had, scouring the country after you. To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in and you stealing off so! It shows you are a cunning little fox, and nobody will put faith in you any more. 'What have I done? sobbed she, instantly checked. 'Papa charged me nothing he'll not scold me, Ellenhe's never cross, like you! 'Come, come! I repeated. 'I'll tie the riband. Now, let us have no petulance. Oh, for shame! You thirteen years old, and such a baby! This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head, and retreating to the chimney out of my reach. 'Nay, said the servant, 'don't be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs. Dean. We made her stop she'd fain have ridden forwards, afeard you should be uneasy. Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he should it's a wild road over the hills. Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his pockets, too awkward to speak though he looked as if he did not relish my intrusion. 'How long am I to wait? I continued, disregarding the woman's interference. 'It will be dark in ten minutes. Where is the pony, Miss Cathy? And where is Phoenix? I shall leave you, unless you be quick so please yourself. 'The pony is in the yard, she replied, 'and Phoenix is shut in there. He's bittenand so is Charlie. I was going to tell you all about it but you are in a bad temper, and don't deserve to hear. I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it but perceiving that the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round the room and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and behind the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue. Hareton and the woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent still till I cried, in great irritation,'Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware whose house this is you'd be glad enough to get out. 'It's your father's, isn't it? said she, turning to Hareton. 'Nay, he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully. He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were just his own. 'Whose thenyour master's? she asked. He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and turned away. 'Who is his master? continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me. 'He talked about 'our house,' and 'our folk.' I thought he had been the owner's son. And he never said Miss he should have done, shouldn't he, if he's a servant? Hareton grew black as a thundercloud at this childish speech. I silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for departure. 'Now, get my horse, she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of the stableboys at the Grange. 'And you may come with me. I want to see where the goblinhunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about the fairishes, as you call them but make haste! What's the matter? Get my horse, I say. 'I'll see thee damned before I be thy servant! growled the lad. 'You'll see me what? asked Catherine in surprise. 'Damnedthou saucy witch! he replied. 'There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company, I interposed. 'Nice words to be used to a young lady! Pray don't begin to dispute with him. Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone. 'But, Ellen, cried she, staring fixed in astonishment, 'how dare he speak so to me? Mustn't he be made to do as I ask him? You wicked creature, I shall tell papa what you said.Now, then! Hareton did not appear to feel this threat so the tears sprang into her eyes with indignation. 'You bring the pony, she exclaimed, turning to the woman, 'and let my dog free this moment! 'Softly, Miss, answered the addressed. 'You'll lose nothing by being civil. Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master's son, he's your cousin and I was never hired to serve you. 'He my cousin! cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh. 'Yes, indeed, responded her reprover. 'Oh, Ellen! don't let them say such things, she pursued in great trouble. 'Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London my cousin is a gentleman's son. That my she stopped, and wept outright upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown. 'Hush, hush! I whispered 'people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it only they needn't keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad. 'He's nothe's not my cousin, Ellen! she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea. I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff and feeling as confident that Catherine's first thought on her father's return would be to seek an explanation of the latter's assertion concerning her rudebred kindred. Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crookedlegged terrier whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought. Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew. I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor fellow who was a wellmade, athletic youth, goodlooking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far overtopped their neglected growth yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances. Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically ill thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that course of oppression he had none of the timid susceptibility that would have given zest to illtreatment, in Heathcliff's judgment. He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute he was never taught to read or write never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his keeper never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration, by a narrowminded partiality which prompted him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their 'offald ways, so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property. If the lad swore, he wouldn't correct him nor however culpably he behaved. It gave Joseph satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths he allowed that the lad was ruined that his soul was abandoned to perdition but then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it. Hareton's blood would be required at his hands and there lay immense consolation in that thought. Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his lineage he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the present owner of the Heights but his dread of that owner amounted to superstition and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations. I don't pretend to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering Heights I only speak from hearsay for I saw little. The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was near, and a cruel hard landlord to his tenants but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in Hindley's time were not now enacted within its walls. The master was too gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad and he is yet. This, however, is not making progress with my story. Miss Cathy rejected the peaceoffering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs, Charlie and Phoenix. They came limping and hanging their heads and we set out for home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us. I could not wring from my little lady how she had spent the day except that, as I supposed, the goal of her pilgrimage was Penistone Crags and she arrived without adventure to the gate of the farmhouse, when Hareton happened to issue forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train. They had a smart battle, before their owners could separate them that formed an introduction. Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where she was going and asked him to show her the way finally, beguiling him to accompany her. He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave, and twenty other queer places. But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by addressing him as a servant and Heathcliff's housekeeper hurt hers by calling him her cousin. Then the language he had held to her rankled in her heart she who was always 'love, and 'darling, and 'queen, and 'angel, with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a stranger! She did not comprehend it and hard work I had to obtain a promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father. I explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how sorry he would be to find she had been there but I insisted most on the fact, that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps be so angry that I should have to leave and Cathy couldn't bear that prospect she pledged her word, and kept it for my sake. After all, she was a sweet little girl. A letter, edged with black, announced the day of my master's return. Isabella was dead and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter, and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew. Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back and indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellencies of her 'real cousin. The evening of their expected arrival came. Since early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs and now attired in her new black frockpoor thing! her aunt's death impressed her with no definite sorrowshe obliged me, by constant worrying, to walk with her down through the grounds to meet them. 'Linton is just six months younger than I am, she chattered, as we strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under shadow of the trees. 'How delightful it will be to have him for a playfellow! Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair it was lighter than minemore flaxen, and quite as fine. I have it carefully preserved in a little glass box and I've often thought what a pleasure it would be to see its owner. Oh! I am happyand papa, dear, dear papa! Come, Ellen, let us run! come, run. She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober footsteps reached the gate, and then she seated herself on the grassy bank beside the path, and tried to wait patiently but that was impossible she couldn't be still a minute. 'How long they are! she exclaimed. 'Ah, I see some dust on the roadthey are coming! No! When will they be here? May we not go a little wayhalf a mile, Ellen, only just half a mile? Do say yes, to that clump of birches at the turn! I refused staunchly. At length her suspense was ended the travelling carriage rolled in sight. Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched out her arms as soon as she caught her father's face looking from the window. He descended, nearly as eager as herself and a considerable interval elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves. While they exchanged caresses I took a peep in to see after Linton. He was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, furlined cloak, as if it had been winter. A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had. The latter saw me looking and having shaken hands, advised me to close the door, and leave him undisturbed for the journey had fatigued him. Cathy would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to come, and they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to prepare the servants. 'Now, darling, said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they halted at the bottom of the front steps 'your cousin is not so strong or so merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very short time since therefore, don't expect him to play and run about with you directly. And don't harass him much by talking let him be quiet this evening, at least, will you? 'Yes, yes, papa, answered Catherine 'but I do want to see him and he hasn't once looked out. The carriage stopped and the sleeper being roused, was lifted to the ground by his uncle. 'This is your cousin Cathy, Linton, he said, putting their little hands together. 'She's fond of you already and mind you don't grieve her by crying tonight. Try to be cheerful now the travelling is at an end, and you have nothing to do but rest and amuse yourself as you please. 'Let me go to bed, then, answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine's salute and he put his fingers to his eyes to remove incipient tears. 'Come, come, there's a good child, I whispered, leading him in. 'You'll make her weep toosee how sorry she is for you! I do not know whether it was sorrow for him, but his cousin put on as sad a countenance as himself, and returned to her father. All three entered, and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready. I proceeded to remove Linton's cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair by the table but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh. My master inquired what was the matter. 'I can't sit on a chair, sobbed the boy. 'Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea, answered his uncle patiently. He had been greatly tried, during the journey, I felt convinced, by his fretful ailing charge. Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay down. Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side. At first she sat silent but that could not last she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby. This pleased him, for he was not much better he dried his eyes, and lightened into a faint smile. 'Oh, he'll do very well, said the master to me, after watching them a minute. 'Very well, if we can keep him, Ellen. The company of a child of his own age will instil new spirit into him soon, and by wishing for strength he'll gain it. 'Ay, if we can keep him! I mused to myself and sore misgivings came over me that there was slight hope of that. And then, I thought, how ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights? Between his father and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be. Our doubts were presently decidedeven earlier than I expected. I had just taken the children upstairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleephe would not suffer me to leave him till that was the caseI had come down, and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom candle for Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and informed me that Mr. Heathcliff's servant Joseph was at the door, and wished to speak with the master. 'I shall ask him what he wants first, I said, in considerable trepidation. 'A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the instant they have returned from a long journey. I don't think the master can see him. Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words, and now presented himself in the hall. He was donned in his Sunday garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the mat. 'Goodevening, Joseph, I said, coldly. 'What business brings you here tonight? 'It's Maister Linton I mun spake to, he answered, waving me disdainfully aside. 'Mr. Linton is going to bed unless you have something particular to say, I'm sure he won't hear it now, I continued. 'You had better sit down in there, and entrust your message to me. 'Which is his rahm? pursued the fellow, surveying the range of closed doors. I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very reluctantly I went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable visitor, advising that he should be dismissed till next day. Mr. Linton had no time to empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my heels, and, pushing into the apartment, planted himself at the far side of the table, with his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and began in an elevated tone, as if anticipating opposition 'Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn't goa back 'bout him. Edgar Linton was silent a minute an expression of exceeding sorrow overcast his features he would have pitied the child on his own account but, recalling Isabella's hopes and fears, and anxious wishes for her son, and her commendations of him to his care, he grieved bitterly at the prospect of yielding him up, and searched in his heart how it might be avoided. No plan offered itself the very exhibition of any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory there was nothing left but to resign him. However, he was not going to rouse him from his sleep. 'Tell Mr. Heathcliff, he answered calmly, 'that his son shall come to Wuthering Heights tomorrow. He is in bed, and too tired to go the distance now. You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired him to remain under my guardianship and, at present, his health is very precarious. 'Noa! said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air. 'Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther but he'll hev his lad und I mun tak' himsoa now ye knaw! 'You shall not tonight! answered Linton decisively. 'Walk down stairs at once, and repeat to your master what I have said. Ellen, show him down. Go And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room of him and closed the door. 'Varrah weell! shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off. 'Tomorn, he's come hisseln, and thrust him out, if ye darr! To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine's pony and, said he'As we shall now have no influence over his destiny, good or bad, you must say nothing of where he is gone to my daughter she cannot associate with him hereafter, and it is better for her to remain in ignorance of his proximity lest she should be restless, and anxious to visit the Heights. Merely tell her his father sent for him suddenly, and he has been obliged to leave us. Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five o'clock, and astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further travelling but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going to spend some time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see him so much, he did not like to defer the pleasure till he should recover from his late journey. 'My father! he cried, in strange perplexity. 'Mamma never told me I had a father. Where does he live? I'd rather stay with uncle. 'He lives a little distance from the Grange, I replied 'just beyond those hills not so far, but you may walk over here when you get hearty. And you should be glad to go home, and to see him. You must try to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you. 'But why have I not heard of him before? asked Linton. 'Why didn't mamma and he live together, as other people do? 'He had business to keep him in the north, I answered, 'and your mother's health required her to reside in the south. 'And why didn't mamma speak to me about him? persevered the child. 'She often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago. How am I to love papa? I don't know him. 'Oh, all children love their parents, I said. 'Your mother, perhaps, thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him often to you. Let us make haste. An early ride on such a beautiful morning is much preferable to an hour's more sleep. 'Is she to go with us, he demanded, 'the little girl I saw yesterday? 'Not now, replied I. 'Is uncle? he continued. 'No, I shall be your companion there, I said. Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study. 'I won't go without uncle, he cried at length 'I can't tell where you mean to take me. I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing reluctance to meet his father still he obstinately resisted any progress towards dressing, and I had to call for my master's assistance in coaxing him out of bed. The poor thing was finally got off, with several delusive assurances that his absence should be short that Mr. Edgar and Cathy would visit him, and other promises, equally illfounded, which I invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the way. The pure heatherscented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle canter of Minny, relieved his despondency after a while. He began to put questions concerning his new home, and its inhabitants, with greater interest and liveliness. 'Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange? he inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a light mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue. 'It is not so buried in trees, I replied, 'and it is not quite so large, but you can see the country beautifully all round and the air is healthier for youfresher and drier. You will, perhaps, think the building old and dark at first though it is a respectable house the next best in the neighbourhood. And you will have such nice rambles on the moors. Hareton Earnshawthat is, Miss Cathy's other cousin, and so yours in a mannerwill show you all the sweetest spots and you can bring a book in fine weather, and make a green hollow your study and, now and then, your uncle may join you in a walk he does, frequently, walk out on the hills. 'And what is my father like? he asked. 'Is he as young and handsome as uncle? 'He's as young, said I 'but he has black hair and eyes, and looks sterner and he is taller and bigger altogether. He'll not seem to you so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way still, mind you, be frank and cordial with him and naturally he'll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own. 'Black hair and eyes! mused Linton. 'I can't fancy him. Then I am not like him, am I? 'Not much, I answered not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large languid eyeshis mother's eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit. 'How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me! he murmured. 'Has he ever seen me? If he has, I must have been a baby. I remember not a single thing about him! 'Why, Master Linton, said I, 'three hundred miles is a great distance and ten years seem very different in length to a grownup person compared with what they do to you. It is probable Mr. Heathcliff proposed going from summer to summer, but never found a convenient opportunity and now it is too late. Don't trouble him with questions on the subject it will disturb him, for no good. The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse gardengate. I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the carved front and lowbrowed lattices, the straggling gooseberrybushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining there might be compensation within. Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door. It was halfpast six the family had just finished breakfast the servant was clearing and wiping down the table. Joseph stood by his master's chair telling some tale concerning a lame horse and Hareton was preparing for the hayfield. 'Hallo, Nelly! said Mr. Heathcliff, when he saw me. 'I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself. You've brought it, have you? Let us see what we can make of it. He got up and strode to the door Hareton and Joseph followed in gaping curiosity. Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the three. 'Surely, said Joseph after a grave inspection, 'he's swopped wi' ye, Maister, an' yon's his lass! Heathcliff, having stared his son into an ague of confusion, uttered a scornful laugh. 'God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing! he exclaimed. 'Hav'n't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my soul! but that's worse than I expectedand the devil knows I was not sanguine! I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter. He did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father's speech, or whether it were intended for him indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim, sneering stranger was his father. But he clung to me with growing trepidation and on Mr. Heathcliff's taking a seat and bidding him 'come hither he hid his face on my shoulder and wept. 'Tut, tut! said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin. 'None of that nonsense! We're not going to hurt thee, Lintonisn't that thy name? Thou art thy mother's child, entirely! Where is my share in thee, puling chicken? He took off the boy's cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt his slender arms and his small fingers during which examination Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector. 'Do you know me? asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the limbs were all equally frail and feeble. 'No, said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear. 'You've heard of me, I daresay? 'No, he replied again. 'No! What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me! You are my son, then, I'll tell you and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed. Now, don't wince, and colour up! Though it is something to see you have not white blood. Be a good lad and I'll do for you. Nelly, if you be tired you may sit down if not, get home again. I guess you'll report what you hear and see to the cipher at the Grange and this thing won't be settled while you linger about it. 'Well, replied I, 'I hope you'll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff, or you'll not keep him long and he's all you have akin in the wide world, that you will ever knowremember. 'I'll be very kind to him, you needn't fear, he said, laughing. 'Only nobody else must be kind to him I'm jealous of monopolising his affection. And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some breakfast. Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work. Yes, Nell, he added, when they had departed, 'my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his successor. Besides, he's mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendant fairly lord of their estates my child hiring their children to till their fathers' lands for wages. That is the sole consideration which can make me endure the whelp I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives! But that consideration is sufficient he's as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master tends his own. I have a room upstairs, furnished for him in handsome style I've engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from twenty miles' distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn. I've ordered Hareton to obey him and in fact I've arranged everything with a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his associates. I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the trouble if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a worthy object of pride and I'm bitterly disappointed with the wheyfaced, whining wretch! While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of milkporridge, and placed it before Linton who stirred round the homely mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it. I saw the old manservant shared largely in his master's scorn of the child though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour. 'Cannot ate it? repeated he, peering in Linton's face, and subduing his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard. 'But Maister Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little 'un and what wer gooid eneugh for him's gooid eneugh for ye, I's rayther think! 'I sha'n't eat it! answered Linton, snappishly. 'Take it away. Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us. 'Is there aught ails th' victuals? he asked, thrusting the tray under Heathcliff's nose. 'What should ail them? he said. 'Wah! answered Joseph, 'yon dainty chap says he cannut ate 'em. But I guess it's raight! His mother wer just soawe wer a'most too mucky to sow t' corn for makking her breead. 'Don't mention his mother to me, said the master, angrily. 'Get him something that he can eat, that's all. What is his usual food, Nelly? I suggested boiled milk or tea and the housekeeper received instructions to prepare some. Come, I reflected, his father's selfishness may contribute to his comfort. He perceives his delicate constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably. I'll console Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff's humour has taken. Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly sheepdog. But he was too much on the alert to be cheated as I closed the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words 'Don't leave me! I'll not stay here! I'll not stay here! Then the latch was raised and fell they did not suffer him to come forth. I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot and so my brief guardianship ended. We had sad work with little Cathy that day she rose in high glee, eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon he added, however, 'if I can get him and there were no hopes of that. This promise poorly pacified her but time was more potent and though still at intervals she inquired of her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him. When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master got on for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together. There seldom passed much talk between them Linton learnt his lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the parlour or else lay in bed all day for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort. 'And I never knew such a fainthearted creature, added the woman 'nor one so careful of hisseln. He will go on, if I leave the window open a bit late in the evening. Oh! it's killing, a breath of night air! And he must have a fire in the middle of summer and Joseph's baccapipe is poison and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk, milk for everheeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter and there he'll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at and if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse himHareton is not badnatured, though he's roughthey're sure to part, one swearing and the other crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a mummy, if he were not his son and I'm certain he would be fit to turn him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But then he won't go into danger of temptation he never enters the parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him upstairs directly. I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally and my interest in him, consequently, decayed though still I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village? She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days afterwards. That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years after he came and another, whom I did not know, was her successor she lives there still. Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the library and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble on the edge of the moor with me Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour. 'So make haste, Ellen! she cried. 'I know where I wish to go where a colony of moorgame are settled I want to see whether they have made their nests yet. 'That must be a good distance up, I answered 'they don't breed on the edge of the moor. 'No, it's not, she said. 'I've gone very near with papa. I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content. 'Well, said I, 'where are your moorgame, Miss Cathy? We should be at them the Grange parkfence is a great way off now. 'Oh, a little furtheronly a little further, Ellen, was her answer, continually. 'Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds. But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself. Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he was reproving the poacher. 'I've neither taken any nor found any, she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. 'I didn't mean to take them but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs. Heathcliff glanced at me with an illmeaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who 'papa was? 'Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange, she replied. 'I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way. 'You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then? he said, sarcastically. 'And what are you? inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker. 'That man I've seen before. Is he your son? She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age he seemed as awkward and rough as ever. 'Miss Cathy, I interrupted, 'it will be three hours instead of one that we are out, presently. We really must go back. 'No, that man is not my son, answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside. 'But I have one, and you have seen him before too and, though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little rest. Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house? You'll get home earlier for the ease and you shall receive a kind welcome. I whispered Catherine that she mustn't, on any account, accede to the proposal it was entirely out of the question. 'Why? she asked, aloud. 'I'm tired of running, and the ground is dewy I can't sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I have seen his son. He's mistaken, I think but I guess where he lives at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags. Don't you? 'I do. Come, Nelly, hold your tongueit will be a treat for her to look in on us. Hareton, get forwards with the lass. You shall walk with me, Nelly. 'No, she's not going to any such place, I cried, struggling to release my arm, which he had seized but she was almost at the doorstones already, scampering round the brow at full speed. Her appointed companion did not pretend to escort her he shied off by the roadside, and vanished. 'Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong, I continued 'you know you mean no good. And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as ever we return and I shall have the blame. 'I want her to see Linton, he answered 'he's looking better these few days it's not often he's fit to be seen. And we'll soon persuade her to keep the visit secret where is the harm of it? 'The harm of it is, that her father would hate me if he found I suffered her to enter your house and I am convinced you have a bad design in encouraging her to do so, I replied. 'My design is as honest as possible. I'll inform you of its whole scope, he said. 'That the two cousins may fall in love, and get married. I'm acting generously to your master his young chit has no expectations, and should she second my wishes she'll be provided for at once as joint successor with Linton. 'If Linton died, I answered, 'and his life is quite uncertain, Catherine would be the heir. 'No, she would not, he said. 'There is no clause in the will to secure it so his property would go to me but, to prevent disputes, I desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about. 'And I'm resolved she shall never approach your house with me again, I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our coming. Heathcliff bade me be quiet and, preceding us up the path, hastened to open the door. My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could not exactly make up her mind what to think of him but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury. Linton stood on the hearth. He had been out walking in the fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry shoes. He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of sixteen. His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun. 'Now, who is that? asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy. 'Can you tell? 'Your son? she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and then the other. 'Yes, yes, answered he 'but is this the only time you have beheld him? Think! Ah! you have a short memory. Linton, don't you recall your cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing to see? 'What, Linton! cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the name. 'Is that little Linton? He's taller than I am! Are you Linton? The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself she kissed him fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in the appearance of each. Catherine had reached her full height her figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel, and her whole aspect sparkling with health and spirits. Linton's looks and movements were very languid, and his form extremely slight but there was a grace in his manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not unpleasing. After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between the objects inside and those that lay without pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone. 'And you are my uncle, then! she cried, reaching up to salute him. 'I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don't you visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such close neighbours, and never see us, is odd what have you done so for? 'I visited it once or twice too often before you were born, he answered. 'Theredamn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton they are thrown away on me. 'Naughty Ellen! exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her lavish caresses. 'Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering. But I'll take this walk every morning in future may I, uncle? and sometimes bring papa. Won't you be glad to see us? 'Of course, replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace, resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors. 'But stay, he continued, turning towards the young lady. 'Now I think of it, I'd better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity and, if you mention coming here to him, he'll put a veto on your visits altogether. Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it. 'Why did you quarrel? asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen. 'He thought me too poor to wed his sister, answered Heathcliff, 'and was grieved that I got her his pride was hurt, and he'll never forgive it. 'That's wrong! said the young lady 'some time I'll tell him so. But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I'll not come here, then he shall come to the Grange. 'It will be too far for me, murmured her cousin 'to walk four miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then not every morning, but once or twice a week. The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt. 'I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour, he muttered to me. 'Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from her love. I'll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly. We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh, confound the vapid thing! He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her.Linton! 'Yes, father, answered the boy. 'Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a weasel's nest? Take her into the garden, before you change your shoes and into the stable to see your horse. 'Wouldn't you rather sit here? asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again. 'I don't know, she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active. He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire. Heathcliff rose, and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently the two reentered. The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair. 'Oh, I'll ask you, uncle, cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the housekeeper's assertion. 'That is not my cousin, is he? 'Yes, he replied, 'your mother's nephew. Don't you like him? Catherine looked queer. 'Is he not a handsome lad? he continued. The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff's ear. He laughed Hareton darkened I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming 'You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are aWhat was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with her round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don't use any bad words and don't stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is and, when you speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can. He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed studying the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's interest. Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration. She then turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation. 'I've tied his tongue, observed Heathcliff. 'He'll not venture a single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect me at his agenay, some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid so 'gaumless,' as Joseph calls it? 'Worse, I replied, 'because more sullen with it. 'I've a pleasure in him, he continued, reflecting aloud. 'He has satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it half so much. But he's no fool and I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though. And he'll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance. I've got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I've taught him to scorn everything extraanimal as silly and weak. Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine. But there's this difference one is gold put to the use of pavingstones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had firstrate qualities, and they are lost rendered worse than unavailing. I have nothing to regret he would have more than any, but I, are aware of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own that I've outmatched Hindley there. If the dead villain could rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring's wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world! Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea. I made no reply, because I saw that he expected none. Meantime, our young companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue. His father remarked the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap. 'Get up, you idle boy! he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness. 'Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of hives. Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown. 'It's some damnable writing, he answered. 'I cannot read it. 'Can't read it? cried Catherine 'I can read it it's English. But I want to know why it is there. Linton giggled the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited. 'He does not know his letters, he said to his cousin. 'Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce? 'Is he all as he should be? asked Miss Cathy, seriously 'or is he simple not right? I've questioned him twice now, and each time he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me. I can hardly understand him, I'm sure! Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly who certainly did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment. 'There's nothing the matter but laziness is there, Earnshaw? he said. 'My cousin fancies you are an idiot. There you experience the consequence of scorning 'booklarning,' as you would say. Have you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation? 'Why, where the devil is the use on't? growled Hareton, more ready in answering his daily companion. He was about to enlarge further, but the two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment my giddy miss being delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to matter of amusement. 'Where is the use of the devil in that sentence? tittered Linton. 'Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your mouth without one. Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do! 'If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would pitiful lath of a crater! retorted the angry boor, retreating, while his face burnt with mingled rage and mortification for he was conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it. Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled when he saw him go but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the doorway the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the illnature they evinced. I began to dislike, more than to compassionate Linton, and to excuse his father in some measure for holding him cheap. We stayed till afternoon I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained ignorant of our prolonged absence. As we walked home, I would fain have enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced against them. 'Aha! she cried, 'you take papa's side, Ellen you are partial I know or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the notion that Linton lived a long way from here. I'm really extremely angry only I'm so pleased I can't show it! But you must hold your tongue about my uncle he's my uncle, remember and I'll scold papa for quarrelling with him. And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince her of her mistake. She did not mention the visit that night, because she did not see Mr. Linton. Next day it all came out, sadly to my chagrin and still I was not altogether sorry I thought the burden of directing and warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me. But he was too timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun connection with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good reasons for every restraint that harassed her petted will. 'Papa! she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, 'guess whom I saw yesterday, in my walk on the moors. Ah, papa, you started! you've not done right, have you, now? I sawbut listen, and you shall hear how I found you out and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet pretended to pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was always disappointed about Linton's coming back! She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her? Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy? 'It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff, she answered. 'Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours, Cathy? he said. 'No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me and is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity. I knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without being brought into contact with him and I knew he would detest you on my account so for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that you should not see Linton again. I meant to explain this some time as you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed it. 'But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa, observed Catherine, not at all convinced 'and he didn't object to our seeing each other he said I might come to his house when I pleased only I must not tell you, because you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for marrying aunt Isabella. And you won't. You are the one to be blamed he is willing to let us be friends, at least Linton and I and you are not. My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her uncleinlaw's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property. He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic for though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton's death. 'She might have been living yet, if it had not been for him! was his constant bitter reflection and, in his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a murderer. Miss Cathyconversant with no bad deeds except her own slight acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committedwas amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and shocked at this new view of human natureexcluded from all her studies and all her ideas till nowthat Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to pursue the subject. He merely added 'You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his house and family now return to your old employments and amusements, and think no more about them. Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons for a couple of hours, according to custom then she accompanied him into the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual but in the evening, when she had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found her crying, on her knees by the bedside. 'Oh, fie, silly child! I exclaimed. 'If you had any real griefs you'd be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety. You never had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine. Suppose, for a minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the world how would you feel, then? Compare the present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of coveting more. 'I'm not crying for myself, Ellen, she answered, 'it's for him. He expected to see me again tomorrow, and there he'll be so disappointed and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come! 'Nonsense! said I, 'do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in a hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no further about you. 'But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come? she asked, rising to her feet. 'And just send those books I promised to lend him? His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely, when I told him how interesting they were. May I not, Ellen? 'No, indeed! no, indeed! replied I with decision. 'Then he would write to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No, Miss Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely so papa expects, and I shall see that it is done. 'But how can one little note? she recommenced, putting on an imploring countenance. 'Silence! I interrupted. 'We'll not begin with your little notes. Get into bed. She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her goodnight at first I covered her up, and shut her door, in great displeasure but, repenting halfway, I returned softly, and lo! there was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my entrance. 'You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine, I said, 'if you write it and at present I shall put out your candle. I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my hand and a petulant 'cross thing! I then quitted her again, and she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours. The letter was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milkfetcher who came from the village but that I didn't learn till some time afterwards. Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper though she grew wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently desirous to hide it and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out beyond the leaves. She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival of something and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took special care to remove when she left it. One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions were roused I determined to take a peep at her mysterious treasures so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my house keys one that would fit the lock. Having opened, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure in my own chamber. Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondencedaily almost, it must have beenfrom Linton Heathcliff answers to documents forwarded by her. The earlier dated were embarrassed and short gradually, however, they expanded into copious loveletters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source. Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied Cathy I don't know but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer. Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the kitchen I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little boy and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I went round by the garden, and laid wait for the messenger who fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk between us but I succeeded in abstracting the epistle and, threatening serious consequences if he did not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's affectionate composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her cousin's very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert herself with rambling about the park so, at the conclusion of her morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father sat reading at the table and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some unripped fringes of the windowcurtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her single 'Oh! and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance. Mr. Linton looked up. 'What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself? he said. His tone and look assured her he had not been the discoverer of the hoard. 'No, papa! she gasped. 'Ellen! Ellen! come upstairsI'm sick! I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out. 'Oh, Ellen! you have got them, she commenced immediately, dropping on her knees, when we were enclosed alone. 'Oh, give them to me, and I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not told papa, Ellen? say you have not? I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do it any more! With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up. 'So, I exclaimed, 'Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems you may well be ashamed of them! A fine bundle of trash you study in your leisure hours, to be sure why, it's good enough to be printed! And what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him? I hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets. For shame! and you must have led the way in writing such absurdities he would not have thought of beginning, I'm certain. 'I didn't! I didn't! sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. 'I didn't once think of loving him till 'Loving! cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. 'Loving! Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life! Now here is the babyish trash. I'm going with it to the library and we'll see what your father says to such loving. She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn themdo anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much inclined to laugh as scoldfor I esteemed it all girlish vanityI at length relented in a measure, and asked,'If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings? 'We don't send playthings, cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her shame. 'Nor anything at all, then, my lady? I said. 'Unless you will, here I go. 'I promise, Ellen! she cried, catching my dress. 'Oh, put them in the fire, do, do! But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too painful to be borne. She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her one or two. 'One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake! I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney. 'I will have one, you cruel wretch! she screamed, darting her hand into the fire, and drawing forth some halfconsumed fragments, at the expense of her fingers. 'Very welland I will have some to exhibit to papa! I answered, shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door. She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to finish the immolation. It was done I stirred up the ashes, and interred them under a shovelful of coals and she mutely, and with a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while. She wouldn't dine but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued in outward aspect. Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, 'Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them. And, thenceforth, the little boy came with vacant pockets. Summer drew to an end, and early autumn it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission. Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no longer I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine an inefficient substitute for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his. On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of Novembera fresh watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by cloudsdark grey streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rainI requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of showers. She refused and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park a formal walk which she generally affected if lowspiritedand that she invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly on there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure the soil was too loose for the latter and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie in her breezerocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songsmy nursery loreto herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express. 'Look, Miss! I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree. 'Winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa? Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length'No, I'll not touch it but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen? 'Yes, I observed, 'about as starved and sackless as you your cheeks are bloodless let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low, I daresay I shall keep up with you. 'No, she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face. 'Catherine, why are you crying, love? I asked, approaching and putting my arm over her shoulder. 'You mustn't cry because papa has a cold be thankful it is nothing worse. She now put no further restraint on her tears her breath was stifled by sobs. 'Oh, it will be something worse, she said. 'And what shall I do when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your words, Ellen they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead. 'None can tell whether you won't die before us, I replied. 'It's wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come before any of us go master is young, and I am strong, and hardly fortyfive. My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr. Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you have counted, Miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand? 'But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa, she remarked, gazing up with timid hope to seek further consolation. 'Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her, I replied. 'She wasn't as happy as Master she hadn't as much to live for. All you need do, is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you cheerful and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject mind that, Cathy! I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless, and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who would be glad to have him in his grave and allowed him to discover that you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make. 'I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness, answered my companion. 'I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll neverneveroh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to vex him. I love him better than myself, Ellen and I know it by this I pray every night that I may live after him because I would rather be miserable than that he should be that proves I love him better than myself. 'Good words, I replied. 'But deeds must prove it also and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear. As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road and my young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wildrose trees shadowing the highway side the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy's present station. In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off and as the door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy matter the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rosebushes and blackberry stragglers could yield no assistance in reascending. I, like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming'Ellen! you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side! 'Stay where you are, I answered 'I have my bundle of keys in my pocket perhaps I may manage to open it if not, I'll go. Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last, and found that none would do so, repeating my desire that she would remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse Cathy's dance stopped also. 'Who is that? I whispered. 'Ellen, I wish you could open the door, whispered back my companion, anxiously. 'Ho, Miss Linton! cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and obtain. 'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff, answered Catherine. 'Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me and Ellen says the same. 'That is nothing to the purpose, said Heathcliff. (He it was.) 'I don't hate my son, I suppose and it is concerning him that I demand your attention. Yes you have cause to blush. Two or three months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder and less sensitive, as it turns out. I've got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I'll send them to your father. I presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't you? Well, you dropped Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest in love, really. As true as I live, he's dying for you breaking his heart at your fickleness not figuratively, but actually. Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his idiocy, he gets worse daily and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him! 'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child? I called from the inside. 'Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone you won't believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible that a person should die for love of a stranger. 'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers, muttered the detected villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your doubledealing, he added aloud. 'How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the 'poor child'? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my doorstones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week go and see if I have not spoken truth do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours then think how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father himself entreated him and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none but you can save him! The lock gave way and I issued out. 'I swear Linton is dying, repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me. 'And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return till this time next week and I think your master himself would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin. 'Come in, said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to reenter for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit. He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed 'Miss Catherine, I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh set. He pines for kindness, as well as love and a kind word from you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call. I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in holding it and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath for the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home but I divined instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness. Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers she evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true. The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to his room to inquire how he was he had fallen asleep. She returned, and asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together and afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed me absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping it appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy it a while then I expostulated deriding and ridiculing all Mr. Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would coincide. Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had produced it was just what he intended. 'You may be right, Ellen, she answered 'but I shall never feel at ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't write, and convince him that I shall not change. What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity? We parted that nighthostile but next day beheld me on the road to Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony. I couldn't bear to witness her sorrow to see her pale, dejected countenance, and heavy eyes and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was founded on fact. The rainy night had ushered in a misty morninghalf frost, half drizzleand temporary brooks crossed our pathgurgling from the uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted I was cross and low exactly the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We entered the farmhouse by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent because I put slight faith in his own affirmation. Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of toasted oatcake and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in? My question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had grown deaf, and repeated it louder. 'Naay! he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. 'Naay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough. 'Joseph! cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner room. 'How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now. Joseph! come this moment. Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible one gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably. We knew Linton's tones, and entered. 'Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death! said the boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant. He stopped on observing his error his cousin flew to him. 'Is that you, Miss Linton? he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined. 'Nodon't kiss me it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call, continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace while she stood by looking very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open and thosethose detestable creatures won't bring coals to the fire. It's so cold! I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The invalid complained of being covered with ashes but he had a tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper. 'Well, Linton, murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed, 'are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good? 'Why didn't you come before? he asked. 'You should have come, instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I'd far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you (looking at me) 'step into the kitchen and see? I had received no thanks for my other service and being unwilling to run to and fro at his behest, I replied 'Nobody is out there but Joseph. 'I want to drink, he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. 'Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went it's miserable! And I'm obliged to come down herethey resolved never to hear me upstairs. 'Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff? I asked, perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances. 'Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least, he cried. 'The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all they are odious beings. Cathy began searching for some water she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table and having swallowed a small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind. 'And are you glad to see me? asked she, reiterating her former question, and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile. 'Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours! he replied. 'But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come. And papa swore it was owing to me he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing and said you despised me and if he had been in my place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you don't despise me, do you, Miss? 'I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy, interrupted my young lady. 'Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though and I dare not come when he returns will he stay away many days? 'Not many, answered Linton 'but he goes on to the moors frequently, since the shooting season commenced and you might spend an hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be peevish with you you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help me, wouldn't you? 'Yes, said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair, 'if I could only get papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother. 'And then you would like me as well as your father? observed he, more cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him and all the world, if you were my wife so I'd rather you were that. 'No, I should never love anybody better than papa, she returned gravely. 'And people hate their wives, sometimes but not their sisters and brothers and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you as he is of me. Linton denied that people ever hated their wives but Cathy affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false. 'Papa told me and papa does not tell falsehoods, she answered pertly. 'My papa scorns yours! cried Linton. 'He calls him a sneaking fool. 'Yours is a wicked man, retorted Catherine 'and you are very naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did. 'She didn't leave him, said the boy 'you sha'n't contradict me. 'She did, cried my young lady. 'Well, I'll tell you something! said Linton. 'Your mother hated your father now then. 'Oh! exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue. 'And she loved mine, added he. 'You little liar! I hate you now! she panted, and her face grew red with passion. 'She did! she did! sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant, who stood behind. 'Hush, Master Heathcliff! I said 'that's your father's tale, too, I suppose. 'It isn't you hold your tongue! he answered. 'She did, she did, Catherine! she did, she did! Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the mischief she had done though she said nothing. I held him till the fit exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire. 'How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff? I inquired, after waiting ten minutes. 'I wish she felt as I do, he replied 'spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton never touches me he never struck me in his life. And I was better today and there his voice died in a whimper. 'I didn't strike you! muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent another burst of emotion. He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a quarter of an hour on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos into the inflexions of his voice. 'I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton, she said at length, racked beyond endurance. 'But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had no idea that you could, either you're not much, are you, Linton? Don't let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer! speak to me. 'I can't speak to you, he murmured 'you've hurt me so that I shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you'd know what it was but you'll be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony, and nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights! And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself. 'Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights, I said, 'it won't be Miss who spoils your ease you'd be the same had she never come. However, she shall not disturb you again and perhaps you'll get quieter when we leave you. 'Must I go? asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. 'Do you want me to go, Linton? 'You can't alter what you've done, he replied pettishly, shrinking from her, 'unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever. 'Well, then, I must go? she repeated. 'Let me alone, at least, said he 'I can't bear your talking. She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt humouring him. Not so my companion she ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of breath by no means from compunction at distressing her. 'I shall lift him on to the settle, I said, 'and he may roll about as he pleases we can't stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him and that his condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then, there he is! Come away as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still. She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water he rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably. 'I can't do with that, he said 'it's not high enough. Catherine brought another to lay above it. 'That's too high, murmured the provoking thing. 'How must I arrange it, then? she asked despairingly. He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support. 'No, that won't do, I said. 'You'll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already we cannot remain five minutes longer. 'Yes, yes, we can! replied Cathy. 'He's good and patient now. He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will tonight, if I believe he is the worse for my visit and then I dare not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton for I mustn't come, if I have hurt you. 'You must come, to cure me, he answered. 'You ought to come, because you have hurt me you know you have extremely! I was not as ill when you entered as I am at presentwas I? 'But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.I didn't do it all, said his cousin. 'However, we'll be friends now. And you want me you would wish to see me sometimes, really? 'I told you I did, he replied impatiently. 'Sit on the settle and let me lean on your knee. That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons together. Sit quite still and don't talk but you may sing a song, if you can sing or you may say a nice long interesting balladone of those you promised to teach me or a story. I'd rather have a ballad, though begin. Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections and so they went on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court, returning for his dinner. 'And tomorrow, Catherine, will you be here tomorrow? asked young Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly. 'No, I answered, 'nor next day neither. She, however, gave a different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear. 'You won't go tomorrow, recollect, Miss! I commenced, when we were out of the house. 'You are not dreaming of it, are you? She smiled. 'Oh, I'll take good care, I continued 'I'll have that lock mended, and you can escape by no way else. 'I can get over the wall, she said laughing. 'The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost seventeen I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing. He's a pretty little darling when he's good. I'd make such a pet of him, if he were mine. We should never quarrel, should we, after we were used to each other? Don't you like him, Ellen? 'Like him! I exclaimed. 'The worsttempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty. I doubt whether he'll see spring, indeed. And small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it is for us that his father took him the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be. I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine. My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his death so regardlessly wounded her feelings. 'He's younger than I, she answered, after a protracted pause of meditation, 'and he ought to live the longest he willhe must live as long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came into the north I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails him, the same as papa has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he? 'Well, well, I cried, 'after all, we needn't trouble ourselves for listen, Miss,and mind, I'll keep my word,if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be revived. 'It has been revived, muttered Cathy, sulkily. 'Must not be continued, then, I said. 'We'll see, was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to toil in the rear. We both reached home before our dinnertime my master supposed we had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings but sitting such a while at the Heights had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say, since. My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and cheer my solitude the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is wearisome, to a stirring active body but few have slighter reasons for complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton's room she appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us no amusement usurped a minute she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said her days were divided between us but the master retired early, and I generally needed nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea. And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me goodnight, I remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers, instead of fancying the hue borrowed from a cold ride across the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library. At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about the house. And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak. We were in the library, the master having gone to bed she consented, rather unwillingly, I fancied and imagining my sort of books did not suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused. She selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an hour then came frequent questions. 'Ellen, are not you tired? Hadn't you better lie down now? You'll be sick, keeping up so long, Ellen. 'No, no, dear, I'm not tired, I returned, continually. Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her disrelish for her occupation. It changed to yawning, and stretching, and 'Ellen, I'm tired. 'Give over then and talk, I answered. That was worse she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient still and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a headache, and left me. I thought her conduct odd and having remained alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of upstairs in the dark. No Catherine could I discover upstairs, and none below. The servants affirmed they had not seen her. I listened at Mr. Edgar's door all was silence. I returned to her apartment, extinguished my candle, and seated myself in the window. The moon shone bright a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and I reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head to walk about the garden, for refreshment. I did detect a figure creeping along the inner fence of the park but it was not my young mistress on its emerging into the light, I recognised one of the grooms. He stood a considerable period, viewing the carriageroad through the grounds then started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and reappeared presently, leading Miss's pony and there she was, just dismounted, and walking by its side. The man took his charge stealthily across the grass towards the stable. Cathy entered by the casementwindow of the drawingroom, and glided noiselessly up to where I awaited her. She put the door gently to, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her hat, and was proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay aside her mantle, when I suddenly rose and revealed myself. The surprise petrified her an instant she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and stood fixed. 'My dear Miss Catherine, I began, too vividly impressed by her recent kindness to break into a scold, 'where have you been riding out at this hour? And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale? Where have you been? Speak! 'To the bottom of the park, she stammered. 'I didn't tell a tale. 'And nowhere else? I demanded. 'No, was the muttered reply. 'Oh, Catherine! I cried, sorrowfully. 'You know you have been doing wrong, or you wouldn't be driven to uttering an untruth to me. That does grieve me. I'd rather be three months ill, than hear you frame a deliberate lie. She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round my neck. 'Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of you being angry, she said. 'Promise not to be angry, and you shall know the very truth I hate to hide it. We sat down in the windowseat I assured her I would not scold, whatever her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course so she commenced 'I've been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I've never missed going a day since you fell ill except thrice before, and twice after you left your room. I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny every evening, and to put her back in the stable you mustn't scold him either, mind. I was at the Heights by halfpast six, and generally stayed till halfpast eight, and then galloped home. It was not to amuse myself that I went I was often wretched all the time. Now and then I was happy once in a week perhaps. At first, I expected there would be sad work persuading you to let me keep my word to Linton for I had engaged to call again next day, when we quitted him but, as you stayed upstairs on the morrow, I escaped that trouble. While Michael was refastening the lock of the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and told him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick, and couldn't come to the Grange and how papa would object to my going and then I negotiated with him about the pony. He is fond of reading, and he thinks of leaving soon to get married so he offered, if I would lend him books out of the library, to do what I wished but I preferred giving him my own, and that satisfied him better. 'On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits and Zillah (that is their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire, and told us that, as Joseph was out at a prayermeeting and Hareton Earnshaw was off with his dogsrobbing our woods of pheasants, as I heard afterwardswe might do what we liked. She brought me some warm wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly goodnatured and Linton sat in the armchair, and I in the little rocking chair on the hearthstone, and we laughed and talked so merrily, and found so much to say we planned where we would go, and what we would do in summer. I needn't repeat that, because you would call it silly. 'One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive and he said mine would be drunk I said I should fall asleep in his and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came and then we kissed each other and were friends. 'After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its smooth uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play in, if we removed the table and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us, and we'd have a game at blindman'sbuff she should try to catch us you used to, you know, Ellen. He wouldn't there was no pleasure in it, he said but he consented to play at ball with me. We found two in a cupboard, among a heap of old toys, tops, and hoops, and battledores and shuttlecocks. One was marked C., and the other H. I wished to have the C., because that stood for Catherine, and the H. might be for Heathcliff, his name but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn't like it. I beat him constantly and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to his chair. That night, though, he easily recovered his good humour he was charmed with two or three pretty songsyour songs, Ellen and when I was obliged to go, he begged and entreated me to come the following evening and I promised. Minny and I went flying home as light as air and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and my sweet, darling cousin, till morning. 'On the morrow I was sad partly because you were poorly, and partly that I wished my father knew, and approved of my excursions but it was beautiful moonlight after tea and, as I rode on, the gloom cleared. I shall have another happy evening, I thought to myself and what delights me more, my pretty Linton will. I trotted up their garden, and was turning round to the back, when that fellow Earnshaw met me, took my bridle, and bid me go in by the front entrance. He patted Minny's neck, and said she was a bonny beast, and appeared as if he wanted me to speak to him. I only told him to leave my horse alone, or else it would kick him. He answered in his vulgar accent, 'It wouldn't do mitch hurt if it did' and surveyed its legs with a smile. I was half inclined to make it try however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation 'Miss Catherine! I can read yon, now.' ''Wonderful,' I exclaimed. 'Pray let us hear youyou are grown clever!' 'He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name'Hareton Earnshaw.' ''And the figures?' I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came to a dead halt. ''I cannot tell them yet,' he answered. ''Oh, you dunce!' I said, laughing heartily at his failure. 'The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my mirth whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was, contempt. I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him. He reddenedI saw that by the moonlightdropped his hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity. He imagined himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, because he could spell his own name and was marvellously discomfited that I didn't think the same. 'Stop, Miss Catherine, dear! I interrupted. 'I shall not scold, but I don't like your conduct there. If you had remembered that Hareton was your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how improper it was to behave in that way. At least, it was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton and probably he did not learn merely to show off you had made him ashamed of his ignorance before, I have no doubt and he wished to remedy it and please you. To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding. Had you been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude? He was as quick and as intelligent a child as ever you were and I'm hurt that he should be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so unjustly. 'Well, Ellen, you won't cry about it, will you? she exclaimed, surprised at my earnestness. 'But wait, and you shall hear if he conned his A B C to please me and if it were worth while being civil to the brute. I entered Linton was lying on the settle, and half got up to welcome me. ''I'm ill tonight, Catherine, love,' he said 'and you must have all the talk, and let me listen. Come, and sit by me. I was sure you wouldn't break your word, and I'll make you promise again, before you go.' 'I knew now that I mustn't tease him, as he was ill and I spoke softly and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way. I had brought some of my nicest books for him he asked me to read a little of one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the door open having gathered venom with reflection. He advanced direct to us, seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat. ''Get to thy own room!' he said, in a voice almost inarticulate with passion and his face looked swelled and furious. 'Take her there if she comes to see thee thou shalln't keep me out of this. Begone wi' ye both!' 'He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing him into the kitchen and he clenched his fist as I followed, seemingly longing to knock me down. I was afraid for a moment, and I let one volume fall he kicked it after me, and shut us out. I heard a malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld that odious Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering. ''I wer sure he'd sarve ye out! He's a grand lad! He's getten t' raight sperrit in him! He knawsay, he knaws, as weel as I do, who sud be t' maister yonderEch, ech, ech! He made ye skift properly! Ech, ech, ech!' ''Where must we go?' I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old wretch's mockery. 'Linton was white and trembling. He was not pretty then, Ellen oh, no! he looked frightful for his thin face and large eyes were wrought into an expression of frantic, powerless fury. He grasped the handle of the door, and shook it it was fastened inside. ''If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!' he rather shrieked than said. 'Devil! devil!I'll kill youI'll kill you!' 'Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again. ''Thear, that's t' father!' he cried. 'That's father! We've allas summut o' either side in us. Niver heed, Hareton, laddunnut be 'feardhe cannot get at thee!' 'I took hold of Linton's hands, and tried to pull him away but he shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed. At last his cries were choked by a dreadful fit of coughing blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell on the ground. I ran into the yard, sick with terror and called for Zillah, as loud as I could. She soon heard me she was milking the cows in a shed behind the barn, and hurrying from her work, she inquired what there was to do? I hadn't breath to explain dragging her in, I looked about for Linton. Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief he had caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing upstairs. Zillah and I ascended after him but he stopped me at the top of the steps, and said I shouldn't go in I must go home. I exclaimed that he had killed Linton, and I would enter. Joseph locked the door, and declared I should do 'no sich stuff,' and asked me whether I were 'bahn to be as mad as him.' I stood crying till the housekeeper reappeared. She affirmed he would be better in a bit, but he couldn't do with that shrieking and din and she took me, and nearly carried me into the house. 'Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head! I sobbed and wept so that my eyes were almost blind and the ruffian you have such sympathy with stood opposite presuming every now and then to bid me 'wisht,' and denying that it was his fault and, finally, frightened by my assertions that I would tell papa, and that he should be put in prison and hanged, he commenced blubbering himself, and hurried out to hide his cowardly agitation. Still, I was not rid of him when at length they compelled me to depart, and I had got some hundred yards off the premises, he suddenly issued from the shadow of the roadside, and checked Minny and took hold of me. ''Miss Catherine, I'm ill grieved,' he began, 'but it's rayther too bad' 'I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder me. He let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped home more than half out of my senses. 'I didn't bid you goodnight that evening, and I didn't go to Wuthering Heights the next I wished to go exceedingly but I was strangely excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead, sometimes and sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering Hareton. On the third day I took courage at least, I couldn't bear longer suspense, and stole off once more. I went at five o'clock, and walked fancying I might manage to creep into the house, and up to Linton's room, unobserved. However, the dogs gave notice of my approach. Zillah received me, and saying 'the lad was mending nicely,' showed me into a small, tidy, carpeted apartment, where, to my inexpressible joy, I beheld Linton laid on a little sofa, reading one of my books. But he would neither speak to me nor look at me, through a whole hour, Ellen he has such an unhappy temper. And what quite confounded me, when he did open his mouth, it was to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the uproar, and Hareton was not to blame! Unable to reply, except passionately, I got up and walked from the room. He sent after me a faint 'Catherine!' He did not reckon on being answered so but I wouldn't turn back and the morrow was the second day on which I stayed at home, nearly determined to visit him no more. But it was so miserable going to bed and getting up, and never hearing anything about him, that my resolution melted into air before it was properly formed. It had appeared wrong to take the journey once now it seemed wrong to refrain. Michael came to ask if he must saddle Minny I said 'Yes,' and considered myself doing a duty as she bore me over the hills. I was forced to pass the front windows to get to the court it was no use trying to conceal my presence. ''Young master is in the house,' said Zillah, as she saw me making for the parlour. I went in Earnshaw was there also, but he quitted the room directly. Linton sat in the great armchair half asleep walking up to the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly meaning it to be true ''As you don't like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose to hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last meeting let us say goodbye and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you have no wish to see me, and that he mustn't invent any more falsehoods on the subject.' ''Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine,' he answered. 'You are so much happier than I am, you ought to be better. Papa talks enough of my defects, and shows enough scorn of me, to make it natural I should doubt myself. I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he calls me, frequently and then I feel so cross and bitter, I hate everybody! I am worthless, and bad in temper, and bad in spirit, almost always and, if you choose, you may say goodbye you'll get rid of an annoyance. Only, Catherine, do me this justice believe that if I might be as sweet, and as kind, and as good as you are, I would be as willingly, and more so, than as happy and as healthy. And believe that your kindness has made me love you deeper than if I deserved your love and though I couldn't, and cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret it and repent it and shall regret and repent it till I die!' 'I felt he spoke the truth and I felt I must forgive him and, though we should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again. We were reconciled but we cried, both of us, the whole time I stayed not entirely for sorrow yet I was sorry Linton had that distorted nature. He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease himself! I have always gone to his little parlour, since that night because his father returned the day after. 'About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we were the first evening the rest of my visits were dreary and troubled now with his selfishness and spite, and now with his sufferings but I've learned to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as the latter. Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids me I have hardly seen him at all. Last Sunday, indeed, coming earlier than usual, I heard him abusing poor Linton cruelly for his conduct of the night before. I can't tell how he knew of it, unless he listened. Linton had certainly behaved provokingly however, it was the business of nobody but me, and I interrupted Mr. Heathcliff's lecture by entering and telling him so. He burst into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view of the matter. Since then, I've told Linton he must whisper his bitter things. Now, Ellen, you have heard all. I can't be prevented from going to Wuthering Heights, except by inflicting misery on two people whereas, if you'll only not tell papa, my going need disturb the tranquillity of none. You'll not tell, will you? It will be very heartless, if you do. 'I'll make up my mind on that point by tomorrow, Miss Catherine, I replied. 'It requires some study and so I'll leave you to your rest, and go think it over. I thought it over aloud, in my master's presence walking straight from her room to his, and relating the whole story with the exception of her conversations with her cousin, and any mention of Hareton. Mr. Linton was alarmed and distressed, more than he would acknowledge to me. In the morning, Catherine learnt my betrayal of her confidence, and she learnt also that her secret visits were to end. In vain she wept and writhed against the interdict, and implored her father to have pity on Linton all she got to comfort her was a promise that he would write and give him leave to come to the Grange when he pleased but explaining that he must no longer expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights. Perhaps, had he been aware of his nephew's disposition and state of health, he would have seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation. 'These things happened last winter, sir, said Mrs. Dean 'hardly more than a year ago. Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve months' end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them! Yet, who knows how long you'll be a stranger? You're too young to rest always contented, living by yourself and I some way fancy no one could see Catherine Linton and not love her. You smile but why do you look so lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you asked me to hang her picture over your fireplace? and why? 'Stop, my good friend! I cried. 'It may be very possible that I should love her but would she love me? I doubt it too much to venture my tranquillity by running into temptation and then my home is not here. I'm of the busy world, and to its arms I must return. Go on. Was Catherine obedient to her father's commands? 'She was, continued the housekeeper. 'Her affection for him was still the chief sentiment in her heart and he spoke without anger he spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that he could bequeath to guide her. He said to me, a few days afterwards, 'I wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call. Tell me, sincerely, what you think of him is he changed for the better, or is there a prospect of improvement, as he grows a man?' ''He's very delicate, sir,' I replied 'and scarcely likely to reach manhood but this I can say, he does not resemble his father and if Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be beyond her control unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent. However, master, you'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him and see whether he would suit her it wants four years and more to his being of age.' Edgar sighed and, walking to the window, looked out towards Gimmerton Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone dimly, and we could just distinguish the two firtrees in the yard, and the sparelyscattered gravestones. 'I've prayed often, he half soliloquised, 'for the approach of what is coming and now I begin to shrink, and fear it. I thought the memory of the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less sweet than the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or, possibly, weeks, to be carried up, and laid in its lonely hollow! Ellen, I've been very happy with my little Cathy through winter nights and summer days she was a living hope at my side. But I've been as happy musing by myself among those stones, under that old church lying, through the long June evenings, on the green mound of her mother's grave, and wishingyearning for the time when I might lie beneath it. What can I do for Cathy? How must I quit her? I'd not care one moment for Linton being Heathcliff's son nor for his taking her from me, if he could console her for my loss. I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing! But should Linton be unworthyonly a feeble tool to his fatherI cannot abandon her to him! And, hard though it be to crush her buoyant spirit, I must persevere in making her sad while I live, and leaving her solitary when I die. Darling! I'd rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before me. 'Resign her to God as it is, sir, I answered, 'and if we should lose youwhich may He forbidunder His providence, I'll stand her friend and counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl I don't fear that she will go wilfully wrong and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded. Spring advanced yet my master gathered no real strength, though he resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter. To her inexperienced notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence and then his cheek was often flushed, and his eyes were bright she felt sure of his recovering. On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit the churchyard it was raining, and I observed 'You'll surely not go out tonight, sir? He answered,'No, I'll defer it this year a little longer. He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him and, had the invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would have permitted him to come. As it was, being instructed, he returned an answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the Grange but his uncle's kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to meet him sometimes in his rambles, and personally to petition that his cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided. That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own. Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine's company, then. 'I do not ask, he said, 'that she may visit here but am I never to see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid her to come to mine? Do, now and then, ride with her towards the Heights and let us exchange a few words, in your presence! We have done nothing to deserve this separation and you are not angry with me you have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself. Dear uncle! send me a kind note tomorrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except at Thrushcross Grange. I believe an interview would convince you that my father's character is not mine he affirms I am more your nephew than his son and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also. You inquire after my healthit is better but while I remain cut off from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those who never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and well? Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his request because he could not accompany Catherine. He said, in summer, perhaps, they might meet meantime, he wished him to continue writing at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able by letter being well aware of his hard position in his family. Linton complied and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations but his father kept a sharp watch over him and, of course, insisted on every line that my master sent being shown so, instead of penning his peculiar personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from his friend and love and gently intimated that Mr. Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with empty promises. Cathy was a powerful ally at home and between them they at length persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors nearest the Grange for June found him still declining. Though he had set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retainor at least return in a short time tothe house of her ancestors and he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir he had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself nor had any one, I believe no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us. I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in pursuing his object. I could not picture a father treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened with defeat by death. Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guidestone, by the crossroads. On arriving there, however, a little herdboy, despatched as a messenger, told us that,'Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights and he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further. 'Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle, I observed 'he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once. 'Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him, answered my companion 'our excursion shall lie towards home. But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse and we were forced to dismount, and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath, awaiting our approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards. Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,'Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning. How ill you do look! Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment she changed the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm and the congratulation on their longpostponed meeting to an anxious inquiry, whether he were worse than usual? 'Nobetterbetter! he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed. 'But you have been worse, persisted his cousin 'worse than when I saw you last you are thinner, and 'I'm tired, he interrupted, hurriedly. 'It is too hot for walking, let us rest here. And, in the morning, I often feel sickpapa says I grow so fast. Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her. 'This is something like your paradise, said she, making an effort at cheerfulness. 'You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the place and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours, only there are clouds but then they are so soft and mellow it is nicer than sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park, and try mine. Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the selfabsorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the goodhumoured mirth of others as an insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company and she made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart. That proposal, unexpectedly, roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of agitation. He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would remain another halfhour, at least. 'But I think, said Cathy, 'you'd be more comfortable at home than sitting here and I cannot amuse you today, I see, by my tales, and songs, and chatter you have grown wiser than I, in these six months you have little taste for my diversions now or else, if I could amuse you, I'd willingly stay. 'Stay to rest yourself, he replied. 'And, Catherine, don't think or say that I'm very unwell it is the heavy weather and heat that make me dull and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me. Tell uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you? 'I'll tell him that you say so, Linton. I couldn't affirm that you are, observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of what was evidently an untruth. 'And be here again next Thursday, continued he, shunning her puzzled gaze. 'And give him my thanks for permitting you to comemy best thanks, Catherine. Andand, if you did meet my father, and he asked you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been extremely silent and stupid don't look sad and downcast, as you are doinghe'll be angry. 'I care nothing for his anger, exclaimed Cathy, imagining she would be its object. 'But I do, said her cousin, shuddering. 'Don't provoke him against me, Catherine, for he is very hard. 'Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff? I inquired. 'Has he grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active hatred? Linton looked at me, but did not answer and, after keeping her seat by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me she did not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would only weary and annoy. 'Is it halfanhour now, Ellen? she whispered in my ear, at last. 'I can't tell why we should stay. He's asleep, and papa will be wanting us back. 'Well, we must not leave him asleep, I answered 'wait till he wakes, and be patient. You were mighty eager to set off, but your longing to see poor Linton has soon evaporated! 'Why did he wish to see me? returned Catherine. 'In his crossest humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in his present curious mood. It's just as if it were a task he was compelled to performthis interviewfor fear his father should scold him. But I'm hardly going to come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure whatever reason he may have for ordering Linton to undergo this penance. And, though I'm glad he's better in health, I'm sorry he's so much less pleasant, and so much less affectionate to me. 'You think he is better in health, then? I said. 'Yes, she answered 'because he always made such a great deal of his sufferings, you know. He is not tolerably well, as he told me to tell papa but he's better, very likely. 'There you differ with me, Miss Cathy, I remarked 'I should conjecture him to be far worse. Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and asked if any one had called his name. 'No, said Catherine 'unless in dreams. I cannot conceive how you manage to doze out of doors, in the morning. 'I thought I heard my father, he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab above us. 'You are sure nobody spoke? 'Quite sure, replied his cousin. 'Only Ellen and I were disputing concerning your health. Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we separated in winter? If you be, I'm certain one thing is not strongeryour regard for me speak,are you? The tears gushed from Linton's eyes as he answered, 'Yes, yes, I am! And, still under the spell of the imaginary voice, his gaze wandered up and down to detect its owner. Cathy rose. 'For today we must part, she said. 'And I won't conceal that I have been sadly disappointed with our meeting though I'll mention it to nobody but you not that I stand in awe of Mr. Heathcliff. 'Hush, murmured Linton 'for God's sake, hush! He's coming. And he clung to Catherine's arm, striving to detain her but at that announcement she hastily disengaged herself, and whistled to Minny, who obeyed her like a dog. 'I'll be here next Thursday, she cried, springing to the saddle. 'Goodbye. Quick, Ellen! And so we left him, scarcely conscious of our departure, so absorbed was he in anticipating his father's approach. Before we reached home, Catherine's displeasure softened into a perplexed sensation of pity and regret, largely blended with vague, uneasy doubts about Linton's actual circumstances, physical and social in which I partook, though I counselled her not to say much for a second journey would make us better judges. My master requested an account of our ongoings. His nephew's offering of thanks was duly delivered, Miss Cathy gently touching on the rest I also threw little light on his inquiries, for I hardly knew what to hide and what to reveal. Seven days glided away, every one marking its course by the henceforth rapid alteration of Edgar Linton's state. The havoc that months had previously wrought was now emulated by the inroads of hours. Catherine we would fain have deluded yet but her own quick spirit refused to delude her it divined in secret, and brooded on the dreadful probability, gradually ripening into certainty. She had not the heart to mention her ride, when Thursday came round I mentioned it for her, and obtained permission to order her out of doors for the library, where her father stopped a short time dailythe brief period he could bear to sit upand his chamber, had become her whole world. She grudged each moment that did not find her bending over his pillow, or seated by his side. Her countenance grew wan with watching and sorrow, and my master gladly dismissed her to what he flattered himself would be a happy change of scene and society drawing comfort from the hope that she would not now be left entirely alone after his death. He had a fixed idea, I guessed by several observations he let fall, that, as his nephew resembled him in person, he would resemble him in mind for Linton's letters bore few or no indications of his defective character. And I, through pardonable weakness, refrained from correcting the error asking myself what good there would be in disturbing his last moments with information that he had neither power nor opportunity to turn to account. We deferred our excursion till the afternoon a golden afternoon of August every breath from the hills so full of life, that it seemed whoever respired it, though dying, might revive. Catherine's face was just like the landscapeshadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more transient and her poor little heart reproached itself for even that passing forgetfulness of its cares. We discerned Linton watching at the same spot he had selected before. My young mistress alighted, and told me that, as she was resolved to stay a very little while, I had better hold the pony and remain on horseback but I dissented I wouldn't risk losing sight of the charge committed to me a minute so we climbed the slope of heath together. Master Heathcliff received us with greater animation on this occasion not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy it looked more like fear. 'It is late! he said, speaking short and with difficulty. 'Is not your father very ill? I thought you wouldn't come. 'Why won't you be candid? cried Catherine, swallowing her greeting. 'Why cannot you say at once you don't want me? It is strange, Linton, that for the second time you have brought me here on purpose, apparently to distress us both, and for no reason besides! Linton shivered, and glanced at her, half supplicating, half ashamed but his cousin's patience was not sufficient to endure this enigmatical behaviour. 'My father is very ill, she said 'and why am I called from his bedside? Why didn't you send to absolve me from my promise, when you wished I wouldn't keep it? Come! I desire an explanation playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind and I can't dance attendance on your affectations now! 'My affectations! he murmured 'what are they? For heaven's sake, Catherine, don't look so angry! Despise me as much as you please I am a worthless, cowardly wretch I can't be scorned enough but I'm too mean for your anger. Hate my father, and spare me for contempt. 'Nonsense! cried Catherine in a passion. 'Foolish, silly boy! And there! he trembles, as if I were really going to touch him! You needn't bespeak contempt, Linton anybody will have it spontaneously at your service. Get off! I shall return home it is folly dragging you from the hearthstone, and pretendingwhat do we pretend? Let go my frock! If I pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should spurn such pity. Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is. Rise, and don't degrade yourself into an abject reptiledon't! With streaming face and an expression of agony, Linton had thrown his nerveless frame along the ground he seemed convulsed with exquisite terror. 'Oh! he sobbed, 'I cannot bear it! Catherine, Catherine, I'm a traitor, too, and I dare not tell you! But leave me, and I shall be killed! Dear Catherine, my life is in your hands and you have said you loved me, and if you did, it wouldn't harm you. You'll not go, then? kind, sweet, good Catherine! And perhaps you will consentand he'll let me die with you! My young lady, on witnessing his intense anguish, stooped to raise him. The old feeling of indulgent tenderness overcame her vexation, and she grew thoroughly moved and alarmed. 'Consent to what? she asked. 'To stay! tell me the meaning of this strange talk, and I will. You contradict your own words, and distract me! Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your heart. You wouldn't injure me, Linton, would you? You wouldn't let any enemy hurt me, if you could prevent it? I'll believe you are a coward, for yourself, but not a cowardly betrayer of your best friend. 'But my father threatened me, gasped the boy, clasping his attenuated fingers, 'and I dread himI dread him! I dare not tell! 'Oh, well! said Catherine, with scornful compassion, 'keep your secret I'm no coward. Save yourself I'm not afraid! Her magnanimity provoked his tears he wept wildly, kissing her supporting hands, and yet could not summon courage to speak out. I was cogitating what the mystery might be, and determined Catherine should never suffer to benefit him or any one else, by my good will when, hearing a rustle among the ling, I looked up and saw Mr. Heathcliff almost close upon us, descending the Heights. He didn't cast a glance towards my companions, though they were sufficiently near for Linton's sobs to be audible but hailing me in the almost hearty tone he assumed to none besides, and the sincerity of which I couldn't avoid doubting, he said 'It is something to see you so near to my house, Nelly. How are you at the Grange? Let us hear. The rumour goes, he added, in a lower tone, 'that Edgar Linton is on his deathbed perhaps they exaggerate his illness? 'No my master is dying, I replied 'it is true enough. A sad thing it will be for us all, but a blessing for him! 'How long will he last, do you think? he asked. 'I don't know, I said. 'Because, he continued, looking at the two young people, who were fixed under his eyeLinton appeared as if he could not venture to stir or raise his head, and Catherine could not move, on his account'because that lad yonder seems determined to beat me and I'd thank his uncle to be quick, and go before him! Hallo! has the whelp been playing that game long? I did give him some lessons about snivelling. Is he pretty lively with Miss Linton generally? 'Lively? nohe has shown the greatest distress, I answered. 'To see him, I should say, that instead of rambling with his sweetheart on the hills, he ought to be in bed, under the hands of a doctor. 'He shall be, in a day or two, muttered Heathcliff. 'But firstget up, Linton! Get up! he shouted. 'Don't grovel on the ground there up, this moment! Linton had sunk prostrate again in another paroxysm of helpless fear, caused by his father's glance towards him, I suppose there was nothing else to produce such humiliation. He made several efforts to obey, but his little strength was annihilated for the time, and he fell back again with a moan. Mr. Heathcliff advanced, and lifted him to lean against a ridge of turf. 'Now, said he, with curbed ferocity, 'I'm getting angryand if you don't command that paltry spirit of yoursdamn you! get up directly! 'I will, father, he panted. 'Only, let me alone, or I shall faint. I've done as you wished, I'm sure. Catherine will tell you that Ithat Ihave been cheerful. Ah! keep by me, Catherine give me your hand. 'Take mine, said his father 'stand on your feet. There nowshe'll lend you her arm that's right, look at her. You would imagine I was the devil himself, Miss Linton, to excite such horror. Be so kind as to walk home with him, will you? He shudders if I touch him. 'Linton dear! whispered Catherine, 'I can't go to Wuthering Heights papa has forbidden me. He'll not harm you why are you so afraid? 'I can never reenter that house, he answered. 'I'm not to reenter it without you! 'Stop! cried his father. 'We'll respect Catherine's filial scruples. Nelly, take him in, and I'll follow your advice concerning the doctor, without delay. 'You'll do well, replied I. 'But I must remain with my mistress to mind your son is not my business. 'You are very stiff, said Heathcliff, 'I know that but you'll force me to pinch the baby and make it scream before it moves your charity. Come, then, my hero. Are you willing to return, escorted by me? He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial. However I disapproved, I couldn't hinder her indeed, how could she have refused him herself? What was filling him with dread we had no means of discerning but there he was, powerless under its gripe, and any addition seemed capable of shocking him into idiocy. We reached the threshold Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately when Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed'My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly and I have a mind to be hospitable today sit down, and allow me to shut the door. He shut and locked it also. I started. 'You shall have tea before you go home, he added. 'I am by myself. Hareton is gone with some cattle to the Lees, and Zillah and Joseph are off on a journey of pleasure and, though I'm used to being alone, I'd rather have some interesting company, if I can get it. Miss Linton, take your seat by him. I give you what I have the present is hardly worth accepting but I have nothing else to offer. It is Linton, I mean. How she does stare! It's odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me! Had I been born where laws are less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement. He drew in his breath, struck the table, and swore to himself, 'By hell! I hate them. 'I am not afraid of you! exclaimed Catherine, who could not hear the latter part of his speech. She stepped close up her black eyes flashing with passion and resolution. 'Give me that key I will have it! she said. 'I wouldn't eat or drink here, if I were starving. Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table. He looked up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness or, possibly, reminded, by her voice and glance, of the person from whom she inherited it. She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in getting it out of his loosened fingers but her action recalled him to the present he recovered it speedily. 'Now, Catherine Linton, he said, 'stand off, or I shall knock you down and that will make Mrs. Dean mad. Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its contents again. 'We will go! she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts to cause the iron muscles to relax and finding that her nails made no impression, she applied her teeth pretty sharply. Heathcliff glanced at me a glance that kept me from interfering a moment. Catherine was too intent on his fingers to notice his face. He opened them suddenly, and resigned the object of dispute but, ere she had well secured it, he seized her with the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been able to fall. At this diabolical violence I rushed on him furiously. 'You villain! I began to cry, 'you villain! A touch on the chest silenced me I am stout, and soon put out of breath and, what with that and the rage, I staggered dizzily back, and felt ready to suffocate, or to burst a bloodvessel. The scene was over in two minutes Catherine, released, put her two hands to her temples, and looked just as if she were not sure whether her ears were off or on. She trembled like a reed, poor thing, and leant against the table perfectly bewildered. 'I know how to chastise children, you see, said the scoundrel, grimly, as he stooped to repossess himself of the key, which had dropped to the floor. 'Go to Linton now, as I told you and cry at your ease! I shall be your father, tomorrowall the father you'll have in a few daysand you shall have plenty of that. You can bear plenty you're no weakling you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your eyes again! Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud. Her cousin had shrunk into a corner of the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I dare say, that the correction had alighted on another than him. Mr. Heathcliff, perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made the tea himself. The cups and saucers were laid ready. He poured it out, and handed me a cup. 'Wash away your spleen, he said. 'And help your own naughty pet and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. I'm going out to seek your horses. Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit somewhere. We tried the kitchen door, but that was fastened outside we looked at the windowsthey were too narrow for even Cathy's little figure. 'Master Linton, I cried, seeing we were regularly imprisoned, 'you know what your diabolical father is after, and you shall tell us, or I'll box your ears, as he has done your cousin's. 'Yes, Linton, you must tell, said Catherine. 'It was for your sake I came and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse. 'Give me some tea, I'm thirsty, and then I'll tell you, he answered. 'Mrs. Dean, go away. I don't like you standing over me. Now, Catherine, you are letting your tears fall into my cup. I won't drink that. Give me another. Catherine pushed another to him, and wiped her face. I felt disgusted at the little wretch's composure, since he was no longer in terror for himself. The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided as soon as ever he entered Wuthering Heights so I guessed he had been menaced with an awful visitation of wrath if he failed in decoying us there and, that accomplished, he had no further immediate fears. 'Papa wants us to be married, he continued, after sipping some of the liquid. 'And he knows your papa wouldn't let us marry now and he's afraid of my dying if we wait so we are to be married in the morning, and you are to stay here all night and, if you do as he wishes, you shall return home next day, and take me with you. 'Take you with her, pitiful changeling! I exclaimed. 'You marry? Why, the man is mad! or he thinks us fools, every one. And do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you? Are you cherishing the notion that anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a husband? You want whipping for bringing us in here at all, with your dastardly puling tricks anddon't look so silly, now! I've a very good mind to shake you severely, for your contemptible treachery, and your imbecile conceit. I did give him a slight shaking but it brought on the cough, and he took to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping, and Catherine rebuked me. 'Stay all night? No, she said, looking slowly round. 'Ellen, I'll burn that door down but I'll get out. And she would have commenced the execution of her threat directly, but Linton was up in alarm for his dear self again. He clasped her in his two feeble arms sobbing'Won't you have me, and save me? not let me come to the Grange? Oh, darling Catherine! you mustn't go and leave, after all. You must obey my fatheryou must! 'I must obey my own, she replied, 'and relieve him from this cruel suspense. The whole night! What would he think? He'll be distressed already. I'll either break or burn a way out of the house. Be quiet! You're in no danger but if you hinder meLinton, I love papa better than you! The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff's anger restored to the boy his coward's eloquence. Catherine was near distraught still, she persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn, persuading him to subdue his selfish agony. While they were thus occupied, our jailor reentered. 'Your beasts have trotted off, he said, 'andnow Linton! snivelling again? What has she been doing to you? Come, comehave done, and get to bed. In a month or two, my lad, you'll be able to pay her back her present tyrannies with a vigorous hand. You're pining for pure love, are you not? nothing else in the world and she shall have you! There, to bed! Zillah won't be here tonight you must undress yourself. Hush! hold your noise! Once in your own room, I'll not come near you you needn't fear. By chance, you've managed tolerably. I'll look to the rest. He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass, and the latter achieved his exit exactly as a spaniel might which suspected the person who attended on it of designing a spiteful squeeze. The lock was resecured. Heathcliff approached the fire, where my mistress and I stood silent. Catherine looked up, and instinctively raised her hand to her cheek his neighbourhood revived a painful sensation. Anybody else would have been incapable of regarding the childish act with sternness, but he scowled on her and muttered'Oh! you are not afraid of me? Your courage is well disguised you seem damnably afraid! 'I am afraid now, she replied, 'because, if I stay, papa will be miserable and how can I endure making him miserablewhen hewhen heMr. Heathcliff, let me go home! I promise to marry Linton papa would like me to and I love him. Why should you wish to force me to do what I'll willingly do of myself? 'Let him dare to force you, I cried. 'There's law in the land, thank God! there is though we be in an outoftheway place. I'd inform if he were my own son and it's felony without benefit of clergy! 'Silence! said the ruffian. 'To the devil with your clamour! I don't want you to speak. Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable I shall not sleep for satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twentyfour hours than informing me that such an event would follow. As to your promise to marry Linton, I'll take care you shall keep it for you shall not quit this place till it is fulfilled. 'Send Ellen, then, to let papa know I'm safe! exclaimed Catherine, weeping bitterly. 'Or marry me now. Poor papa! Ellen, he'll think we're lost. What shall we do? 'Not he! He'll think you are tired of waiting on him, and run off for a little amusement, answered Heathcliff. 'You cannot deny that you entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of his injunctions to the contrary. And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement at your age and that you would weary of nursing a sick man, and that man only your father. Catherine, his happiest days were over when your days began. He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world (I did, at least) and it would just do if he cursed you as he went out of it. I'd join him. I don't love you! How should I? Weep away. As far as I can see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter unless Linton make amends for other losses and your provident parent appears to fancy he may. His letters of advice and consolation entertained me vastly. In his last he recommended my jewel to be careful of his and kind to her when he got her. Careful and kindthat's paternal. But Linton requires his whole stock of care and kindness for himself. Linton can play the little tyrant well. He'll undertake to torture any number of cats, if their teeth be drawn and their claws pared. You'll be able to tell his uncle fine tales of his kindness, when you get home again, I assure you. 'You're right there! I said 'explain your son's character. Show his resemblance to yourself and then, I hope, Miss Cathy will think twice before she takes the cockatrice! 'I don't much mind speaking of his amiable qualities now, he answered 'because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and you along with her, till your master dies. I can detain you both, quite concealed, here. If you doubt, encourage her to retract her word, and you'll have an opportunity of judging! 'I'll not retract my word, said Catherine. 'I'll marry him within this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards. Mr. Heathcliff, you're a cruel man, but you're not a fiend and you won't, from mere malice, destroy irrevocably all my happiness. If papa thought I had left him on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live? I've given over crying but I'm going to kneel here, at your knee and I'll not get up, and I'll not take my eyes from your face till you look back at me! No, don't turn away! do look! you'll see nothing to provoke you. I don't hate you. I'm not angry that you struck me. Have you never loved anybody in all your life, uncle? never? Ah! you must look once. I'm so wretched, you can't help being sorry and pitying me. 'Keep your eft's fingers off and move, or I'll kick you! cried Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her. 'I'd rather be hugged by a snake. How the devil can you dream of fawning on me? I detest you! He shrugged his shoulders shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh crept with aversion and thrust back his chair while I got up, and opened my mouth, to commence a downright torrent of abuse. But I was rendered dumb in the middle of the first sentence, by a threat that I should be shown into a room by myself the very next syllable I uttered. It was growing darkwe heard a sound of voices at the gardengate. Our host hurried out instantly he had his wits about him we had not. There was a talk of two or three minutes, and he returned alone. 'I thought it had been your cousin Hareton, I observed to Catherine. 'I wish he would arrive! Who knows but he might take our part? 'It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange, said Heathcliff, overhearing me. 'You should have opened a lattice and called out but I could swear that chit is glad you didn't. She's glad to be obliged to stay, I'm certain. At learning the chance we had missed, we both gave vent to our grief without control and he allowed us to wail on till nine o'clock. Then he bid us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah's chamber and I whispered my companion to obey perhaps we might contrive to get through the window there, or into a garret, and out by its skylight. The window, however, was narrow, like those below, and the garret trap was safe from our attempts for we were fastened in as before. We neither of us lay down Catherine took her station by the lattice, and watched anxiously for morning a deep sigh being the only answer I could obtain to my frequent entreaties that she would try to rest. I seated myself in a chair, and rocked to and fro, passing harsh judgment on my many derelictions of duty from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes of my employers sprang. It was not the case, in reality, I am aware but it was, in my imagination, that dismal night and I thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than I. At seven o'clock he came, and inquired if Miss Linton had risen. She ran to the door immediately, and answered, 'Yes. 'Here, then, he said, opening it, and pulling her out. I rose to follow, but he turned the lock again. I demanded my release. 'Be patient, he replied 'I'll send up your breakfast in a while. I thumped on the panels, and rattled the latch angrily and Catherine asked why I was still shut up? He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away. I endured it two or three hours at length, I heard a footstep not Heathcliff's. 'I've brought you something to eat, said a voice 'oppen t' door! Complying eagerly, I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last me all day. 'Tak' it, he added, thrusting the tray into my hand. 'Stay one minute, I began. 'Nay, cried he, and retired, regardless of any prayers I could pour forth to detain him. And there I remained enclosed the whole day, and the whole of the next night and another, and another. Five nights and four days I remained, altogether, seeing nobody but Hareton once every morning and he was a model of a jailor surly, and dumb, and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion. On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step approachedlighter and shorter and, this time, the person entered the room. It was Zillah donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her head, and a willowbasket swung to her arm. 'Eh, dear! Mrs. Dean! she exclaimed. 'Well! there is a talk about you at Gimmerton. I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you'd been found, and he'd lodged you here! What! and you must have got on an island, sure? And how long were you in the hole? Did master save you, Mrs. Dean? But you're not so thinyou've not been so poorly, have you? 'Your master is a true scoundrel! I replied. 'But he shall answer for it. He needn't have raised that tale it shall all be laid bare! 'What do you mean? asked Zillah. 'It's not his tale they tell that in the villageabout your being lost in the marsh and I calls to Earnshaw, when I come in'Eh, they's queer things, Mr. Hareton, happened since I went off. It's a sad pity of that likely young lass, and cant Nelly Dean.' He stared. I thought he had not heard aught, so I told him the rumour. The master listened, and he just smiled to himself, and said, 'If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah. Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room. You can tell her to flit, when you go up here is the key. The bogwater got into her head, and she would have run home quite flighty, but I fixed her till she came round to her senses. You can bid her go to the Grange at once, if she be able, and carry a message from me, that her young lady will follow in time to attend the squire's funeral.' 'Mr. Edgar is not dead? I gasped. 'Oh! Zillah, Zillah! 'No, no sit you down, my good mistress, she replied 'you're right sickly yet. He's not dead Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another day. I met him on the road and asked. Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things, and hastened below, for the way was free. On entering the house, I looked about for some one to give information of Catherine. The place was filled with sunshine, and the door stood wide open but nobody seemed at hand. As I hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a slight cough drew my attention to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle, sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugarcandy, and pursuing my movements with apathetic eyes. 'Where is Miss Catherine? I demanded sternly, supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence, by catching him thus, alone. He sucked on like an innocent. 'Is she gone? I said. 'No, he replied 'she's upstairs she's not to go we won't let her. 'You won't let her, little idiot! I exclaimed. 'Direct me to her room immediately, or I'll make you sing out sharply. 'Papa would make you sing out, if you attempted to get there, he answered. 'He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine she's my wife, and it's shameful that she should wish to leave me. He says she hates me and wants me to die, that she may have my money but she shan't have it and she shan't go home! She never shall!she may cry, and be sick as much as she pleases! He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant to drop asleep. 'Master Heathcliff, I resumed, 'have you forgotten all Catherine's kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time through wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening, because you would be disappointed and you felt then that she was a hundred times too good to you and now you believe the lies your father tells, though you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That's fine gratitude, is it not? The corner of Linton's mouth fell, and he took the sugarcandy from his lips. 'Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you? I continued. 'Think for yourself! As to your money, she does not even know that you will have any. And you say she's sick and yet you leave her alone, up there in a strange house! You who have felt what it is to be so neglected! You could pity your own sufferings and she pitied them, too but you won't pity hers! I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you seean elderly woman, and a servant merelyand you, after pretending such affection, and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease. Ah! you're a heartless, selfish boy! 'I can't stay with her, he answered crossly. 'I'll not stay by myself. She cries so I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn't sleep. 'Is Mr. Heathcliff out? I inquired, perceiving that the wretched creature had no power to sympathise with his cousin's mental tortures. 'He's in the court, he replied, 'talking to Doctor Kenneth who says uncle is dying, truly, at last. I'm glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn't hers! It's mine papa says everything she has is mine. All her nice books are mine she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out but I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine. And then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should have that two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle, when they were young. That was yesterdayI said they were mine, too and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing wouldn't let me she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked outthat frightens hershe heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother's portrait the other she attempted to hide but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained it. He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me she refused, and hehe struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot. 'And were you pleased to see her struck? I asked having my designs in encouraging his talk. 'I winked, he answered 'I wink to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at firstshe deserved punishing for pushing me but when papa was gone, she made me come to the window and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her teeth, and her mouth filling with blood and then she gathered up the bits of the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she has never spoken to me since and I sometimes think she can't speak for pain. I don't like to think so but she's a naughty thing for crying continually and she looks so pale and wild, I'm afraid of her. 'And you can get the key if you choose? I said. 'Yes, when I am upstairs, he answered 'but I can't walk upstairs now. 'In what apartment is it? I asked. 'Oh, he cried, 'I shan't tell you where it is. It is our secret. Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know. There! you've tired mego away, go away! And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut his eyes again. I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and bring a rescue for my young lady from the Grange. On reaching it, the astonishment of my fellowservants to see me, and their joy also, was intense and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two or three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar's door but I bespoke the announcement of it myself. How changed I found him, even in those few days! He lay an image of sadness and resignation awaiting his death. Very young he looked though his actual age was thirtynine, one would have called him ten years younger, at least. He thought of Catherine for he murmured her name. I touched his hand, and spoke. 'Catherine is coming, dear master! I whispered 'she is alive and well and will be here, I hope, tonight. I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence he half rose up, looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon. As soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at the Heights. I said Heathcliff forced me to go in which was not quite true. I uttered as little as possible against Linton nor did I describe all his father's brutal conductmy intentions being to add no bitterness, if I could help it, to his already overflowing cup. He divined that one of his enemy's purposes was to secure the personal property, as well as the estate, to his son or rather himself yet why he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master, because ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together. However, he felt that his will had better be altered instead of leaving Catherine's fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children, if she had any, after her. By that means, it could not fall to Mr. Heathcliff should Linton die. Having received his orders, I despatched a man to fetch the attorney, and four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my young lady of her jailor. Both parties were delayed very late. The single servant returned first. He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he arrived at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his reentrance and then Mr. Green told him he had a little business in the village that must be done but he would be at Thrushcross Grange before morning. The four men came back unaccompanied also. They brought word that Catherine was ill too ill to quit her room and Heathcliff would not suffer them to see her. I scolded the stupid fellows well for listening to that tale, which I would not carry to my master resolving to take a whole bevy up to the Heights, at daylight, and storm it literally, unless the prisoner were quietly surrendered to us. Her father shall see her, I vowed, and vowed again, if that devil be killed on his own doorstones in trying to prevent it! Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble. I had gone downstairs at three o'clock to fetch a jug of water and was passing through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front door made me jump. 'Oh! it is Green, I said, recollecting myself'only Green, and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it but the knock was repeated not loud, and still importunately. I put the jug on the banister and hastened to admit him myself. The harvest moon shone clear outside. It was not the attorney. My own sweet little mistress sprang on my neck sobbing, 'Ellen, Ellen! Is papa alive? 'Yes, I cried 'yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe with us again! She wanted to run, breathless as she was, upstairs to Mr. Linton's room but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink, and washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron. Then I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival imploring her to say, she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She stared, but soon comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured me she would not complain. I couldn't abide to be present at their meeting. I stood outside the chamberdoor a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed, then. All was composed, however Catherine's despair was as silent as her father's joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance and he fixed on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy. He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood he died so. Kissing her cheek, he murmured,'I am going to her and you, darling child, shall come to us! and never stirred or spoke again but continued that rapt, radiant gaze, till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed. None could have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a struggle. Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too weighty to let them flow, she sat there dryeyed till the sun rose she sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose. It was well I succeeded in removing her, for at dinnertime appeared the lawyer, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how to behave. He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff that was the cause of his delay in obeying my master's summons. Fortunately, no thought of worldly affairs crossed the latter's mind, to disturb him, after his daughter's arrival. Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the place. He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit. He would have carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with his family. There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud protestations against any infringement of its directions. The funeral was hurried over Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered to stay at the Grange till her father's corpse had quitted it. She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur the risk of liberating her. She heard the men I sent disputing at the door, and she gathered the sense of Heathcliff's answer. It drove her desperate. Linton who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon after I left, was terrified into fetching the key before his father reascended. He had the cunning to unlock and relock the door, without shutting it and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep with Hareton, and his petition was granted for once. Catherine stole out before break of day. She dared not try the doors lest the dogs should raise an alarm she visited the empty chambers and examined their windows and, luckily, lighting on her mother's, she got easily out of its lattice, and on to the ground, by means of the firtree close by. Her accomplice suffered for his share in the escape, notwithstanding his timid contrivances. The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in the library now musing mournfullyone of us despairinglyon our loss, now venturing conjectures as to the gloomy future. We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine would be a permission to continue resident at the Grange at least during Linton's life he being allowed to join her there, and I to remain as housekeeper. That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for and yet I did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of retaining my home and my employment, and, above all, my beloved young mistress when a servantone of the discarded ones, not yet departedrushed hastily in, and said 'that devil Heathcliff was coming through the court should he fasten the door in his face? If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not time. He made no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name he was master, and availed himself of the master's privilege to walk straight in, without saying a word. The sound of our informant's voice directed him to the library he entered and motioning him out, shut the door. It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before the same moon shone through the window and the same autumn landscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall the splendid head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband. Heathcliff advanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person either. There was the same man his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference. Catherine had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him. 'Stop! he said, arresting her by the arm. 'No more runnings away! Where would you go? I'm come to fetch you home and I hope you'll be a dutiful daughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience. I was embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him but you'll see by his look that he has received his due! I brought him down one evening, the day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched him afterwards. I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves. In two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again and since then my presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost and I fancy he sees me often, though I am not near. Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in the night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me and, whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come he's your concern now I yield all my interest in him to you. 'Why not let Catherine continue here, I pleaded, 'and send Master Linton to her? As you hate them both, you'd not miss them they can only be a daily plague to your unnatural heart. 'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange, he answered 'and I want my children about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass owes me her services for her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after Linton is gone. Make haste and get ready, now and don't oblige me to compel you. 'I shall, said Catherine. 'Linton is all I have to love in the world, and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and me to him, you cannot make us hate each other. And I defy you to hurt him when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me! 'You are a boastful champion, replied Heathcliff 'but I don't like you well enough to hurt him you shall get the full benefit of the torment, as long as it lasts. It is not I who will make him hateful to youit is his own sweet spirit. He's as bitter as gall at your desertion and its consequences don't expect thanks for this noble devotion. I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were as strong as I the inclination is there, and his very weakness will sharpen his wits to find a substitute for strength. 'I know he has a bad nature, said Catherine 'he's your son. But I'm glad I've a better, to forgive it and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves younobody will cry for you when you die! I wouldn't be you! Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph she seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies. 'You shall be sorry to be yourself presently, said her fatherinlaw, 'if you stand there another minute. Begone, witch, and get your things! She scornfully withdrew. In her absence I began to beg for Zillah's place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her but he would suffer it on no account. He bid me be silent and then, for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures. Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said'I shall have that home. Not because I need it, but He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile'I'll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there when I saw her face againit is hers yet!he had hard work to stir me but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too I'll have it made so and then by the time Linton gets to us he'll not know which is which! 'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff! I exclaimed 'were you not ashamed to disturb the dead? 'I disturbed nobody, Nelly, he replied 'and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now and you'll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen yearsincessantlyremorselesslytill yesternight and yesternight I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers. 'And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have dreamt of then? I said. 'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still! he answered. 'Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid, but I'm better pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winterall round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself'I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills me and if she be motionless, it is sleep.' I got a spade from the toolhouse, and began to delve with all my mightit scraped the coffin I fell to work with my hands the wood commenced cracking about the screws I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. 'If I can only get this off,' I muttered, 'I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!' and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleetladen wind. I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me it remained while I refilled the grave, and led me home. You may laugh, if you will but I was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her. Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door. It was fastened and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my entrance. I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then hurrying upstairs, to my room and hers. I looked round impatientlyI felt her by meI could almost see her, and yet I could not! I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearningfrom the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton's. When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her when I walked on the moors I should meet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return she must be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept in her chamberI was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a nightto be always disappointed! It racked me! I've often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me. Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacifieda little. It was a strange way of killing not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years! Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead his hair clung to it, wet with perspiration his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the fire, the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject. He only half addressed me, and I maintained silence. I didn't like to hear him talk! After a short period he resumed his meditation on the picture, took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at better advantage and while so occupied Catherine entered, announcing that she was ready, when her pony should be saddled. 'Send that over tomorrow, said Heathcliff to me then turning to her, he added 'You may do without your pony it is a fine evening, and you'll need no ponies at Wuthering Heights for what journeys you take, your own feet will serve you. Come along. 'Goodbye, Ellen! whispered my dear little mistress. As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice. 'Come and see me, Ellen don't forget. 'Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean! said her new father. 'When I wish to speak to you I'll come here. I want none of your prying at my house! He signed her to precede him and casting back a look that cut my heart, she obeyed. I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden. Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his though she disputed the act at first evidently and with rapid strides he hurried her into the alley, whose trees concealed them. I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she left Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her, and wouldn't let me pass. He said Mrs. Linton was 'thrang, and the master was not in. Zillah has told me something of the way they go on, otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living. She thinks Catherine haughty, and does not like her, I can guess by her talk. My young lady asked some aid of her when she first came but Mr. Heathcliff told her to follow her own business, and let his daughterinlaw look after herself and Zillah willingly acquiesced, being a narrowminded, selfish woman. Catherine evinced a child's annoyance at this neglect repaid it with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her enemies, as securely as if she had done her some great wrong. I had a long talk with Zillah about six weeks ago, a little before you came, one day when we foregathered on the moor and this is what she told me. 'The first thing Mrs. Linton did, she said, 'on her arrival at the Heights, was to run upstairs, without even wishing goodevening to me and Joseph she shut herself into Linton's room, and remained till morning. Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she entered the house, and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent for? her cousin was very ill. ''We know that!' answered Heathcliff 'but his life is not worth a farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him.' ''But I cannot tell how to do,' she said 'and if nobody will help me, he'll die!' ''Walk out of the room,' cried the master, 'and let me never hear a word more about him! None here care what becomes of him if you do, act the nurse if you do not, lock him up and leave him.' 'Then she began to bother me, and I said I'd had enough plague with the tiresome thing we each had our tasks, and hers was to wait on Linton Mr. Heathcliff bid me leave that labour to her. 'How they managed together, I can't tell. I fancy he fretted a great deal, and moaned hisseln night and day and she had precious little rest one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes. She sometimes came into the kitchen all wildered like, and looked as if she would fain beg assistance but I was not going to disobey the master I never dare disobey him, Mrs. Dean and, though I thought it wrong that Kenneth should not be sent for, it was no concern of mine either to advise or complain, and I always refused to meddle. Once or twice, after we had gone to bed, I've happened to open my door again and seen her sitting crying on the stairs'top and then I've shut myself in quick, for fear of being moved to interfere. I did pity her then, I'm sure still I didn't wish to lose my place, you know. 'At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened me out of my wits, by saying, 'Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dyingI'm sure he is, this time. Get up, instantly, and tell him.' 'Having uttered this speech, she vanished again. I lay a quarter of an hour listening and trembling. Nothing stirredthe house was quiet. 'She's mistaken, I said to myself. He's got over it. I needn't disturb them and I began to doze. But my sleep was marred a second time by a sharp ringing of the bellthe only bell we have, put up on purpose for Linton and the master called to me to see what was the matter, and inform them that he wouldn't have that noise repeated. 'I delivered Catherine's message. He cursed to himself, and in a few minutes came out with a lighted candle, and proceeded to their room. I followed. Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside, with her hands folded on her knees. Her fatherinlaw went up, held the light to Linton's face, looked at him, and touched him afterwards he turned to her. ''NowCatherine,' he said, 'how do you feel?' 'She was dumb. ''How do you feel, Catherine?' he repeated. ''He's safe, and I'm free,' she answered 'I should feel wellbut,' she continued, with a bitterness she couldn't conceal, 'you have left me so long to struggle against death alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!' 'And she looked like it, too! I gave her a little wine. Hareton and Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and heard our talk from outside, now entered. Joseph was fain, I believe, of the lad's removal Hareton seemed a thought bothered though he was more taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton. But the master bid him get off to bed again we didn't want his help. He afterwards made Joseph remove the body to his chamber, and told me to return to mine, and Mrs. Heathcliff remained by herself. 'In the morning, he sent me to tell her she must come down to breakfast she had undressed, and appeared going to sleep, and said she was ill at which I hardly wondered. I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he replied,'Well, let her be till after the funeral and go up now and then to get her what is needful and, as soon as she seems better, tell me.' Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah who visited her twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her attempts at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled. Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton's will. He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his father the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week's absence, when his uncle died. The lands, being a minor, he could not meddle with. However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept them in his wife's right and his also I suppose legally at any rate, Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession. 'Nobody, said Zillah, 'ever approached her door, except that once, but I and nobody asked anything about her. The first occasion of her coming down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon. She had cried out, when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in the cold and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending so, as soon as she heard Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a Quaker she couldn't comb them out. 'Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays the kirk, (you know, has no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean and they call the Methodists' or Baptists' place, I can't say which it is, at Gimmerton, a chapel.) 'Joseph had gone, she continued, 'but I thought proper to bide at home. Young folks are always the better for an elder's overlooking and Hareton, with all his bashfulness, isn't a model of nice behaviour. I let him know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had been always used to see the Sabbath respected so he had as good leave his guns and bits of indoor work alone, while she stayed. He coloured up at the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes. The trainoil and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute. I saw he meant to give her his company and I guessed, by his way, he wanted to be presentable so, laughing, as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion. He grew sullen, and began to swear. 'Now, Mrs. Dean, Zillah went on, seeing me not pleased by her manner, 'you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton and happen you're right but I own I should love well to bring her pride a peg lower. And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her, now? She's as poor as you or I poorer, I'll be bound you're saving, and I'm doing my little all that road. Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid and she flattered him into a good humour so, when Catherine came, half forgetting her former insults, he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper's account. 'Missis walked in, she said, 'as chill as an icicle, and as high as a princess. I got up and offered her my seat in the armchair. No, she turned up her nose at my civility. Earnshaw rose, too, and bid her come to the settle, and sit close by the fire he was sure she was starved. ''I've been starved a month and more,' she answered, resting on the word as scornful as she could. 'And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from both of us. Having sat till she was warm, she began to look round, and discovered a number of books on the dresser she was instantly upon her feet again, stretching to reach them but they were too high up. Her cousin, after watching her endeavours a while, at last summoned courage to help her she held her frock, and he filled it with the first that came to hand. 'That was a great advance for the lad. She didn't thank him still, he felt gratified that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to stand behind as she examined them, and even to stoop and point out what struck his fancy in certain old pictures which they contained nor was he daunted by the saucy style in which she jerked the page from his finger he contented himself with going a bit farther back and looking at her instead of the book. She continued reading, or seeking for something to read. His attention became, by degrees, quite centred in the study of her thick silky curls her face he couldn't see, and she couldn't see him. And, perhaps, not quite awake to what he did, but attracted like a child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to touching he put out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it were a bird. He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started round in such a taking. ''Get away this moment! How dare you touch me? Why are you stopping there?' she cried, in a tone of disgust. 'I can't endure you! I'll go upstairs again, if you come near me.' 'Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do he sat down in the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes another half hour finally, Earnshaw crossed over, and whispered to me. ''Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah? I'm stalled of doing naught and I do likeI could like to hear her! Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask of yourseln.' ''Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma'am,' I said, immediately. 'He'd take it very kindhe'd be much obliged.' 'She frowned and looking up, answered ''Mr. Hareton, and the whole set of you, will be good enough to understand that I reject any pretence at kindness you have the hypocrisy to offer! I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you! When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off. But I won't complain to you! I'm driven down here by the cold not either to amuse you or enjoy your society.' ''What could I ha' done?' began Earnshaw. 'How was I to blame?' ''Oh! you are an exception,' answered Mrs. Heathcliff. 'I never missed such a concern as you.' ''But I offered more than once, and asked,' he said, kindling up at her pertness, 'I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you' ''Be silent! I'll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have your disagreeable voice in my ear!' said my lady. 'Hareton muttered she might go to hell, for him! and unslinging his gun, restrained himself from his Sunday occupations no longer. He talked now, freely enough and she presently saw fit to retreat to her solitude but the frost had set in, and, in spite of her pride, she was forced to condescend to our company, more and more. However, I took care there should be no further scorning at my good nature ever since, I've been as stiff as herself and she has no lover or liker among us and she does not deserve one for, let them say the least word to her, and she'll curl back without respect of any one. She'll snap at the master himself, and as good as dares him to thrash her and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows. At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to leave my situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live with me but Mr. Heathcliff would as soon permit that as he would set up Hareton in an independent house and I can see no remedy, at present, unless she could marry again and that scheme it does not come within my province to arrange.      Thus ended Mrs. Dean's story. Notwithstanding the doctor's prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength and though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights, to inform my landlord that I shall spend the next six months in London and, if he likes, he may look out for another tenant to take the place after October. I would not pass another winter here for much. Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as I proposed my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not conscious of anything odd in her request. The front door stood open, but the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit I knocked and invoked Earnshaw from among the gardenbeds he unchained it, and I entered. The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took particular notice of him this time but then he does his best apparently to make the least of his advantages. I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home? He answered, No but he would be in at dinnertime. It was eleven o'clock, and I announced my intention of going in and waiting for him at which he immediately flung down his tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a substitute for the host. We entered together Catherine was there, making herself useful in preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal she looked more sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same disregard to common forms of politeness as before never returning my bow and goodmorning by the slightest acknowledgment. 'She does not seem so amiable, I thought, 'as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true but not an angel. Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen. 'Remove them yourself, she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done and retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures of birds and beasts out of the turnipparings in her lap. I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden and, as I fancied, adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean's note on to her knee, unnoticed by Haretonbut she asked aloud, 'What is that? And chucked it off. 'A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange, I answered annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful lest it should be imagined a missive of my own. She would gladly have gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beat her he seized and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first. Thereat, Catherine silently turned her face from us, and, very stealthily, drew out her pockethandkerchief and applied it to her eyes and her cousin, after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could. Catherine caught and perused it eagerly then she put a few questions to me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home and gazing towards the hills, murmured in soliloquy 'I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to be climbing up there! Oh! I'm tiredI'm stalled, Hareton! And she leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness neither caring nor knowing whether we remarked her. 'Mrs. Heathcliff, I said, after sitting some time mute, 'you are not aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that I think it strange you won't come and speak to me. My housekeeper never wearies of talking about and praising you and she'll be greatly disappointed if I return with no news of or from you, except that you received her letter and said nothing! She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked, 'Does Ellen like you? 'Yes, very well, I replied, hesitatingly. 'You must tell her, she continued, 'that I would answer her letter, but I have no materials for writing not even a book from which I might tear a leaf. 'No books! I exclaimed. 'How do you contrive to live here without them? if I may take the liberty to inquire. Though provided with a large library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange take my books away, and I should be desperate! 'I was always reading, when I had them, said Catherine 'and Mr. Heathcliff never reads so he took it into his head to destroy my books. I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks. Only once, I searched through Joseph's store of theology, to his great irritation and once, Hareton, I came upon a secret stock in your roomsome Latin and Greek, and some tales and poetry all old friends. I brought the last hereand you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing! They are of no use to you or else you concealed them in the bad spirit that, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall. Perhaps your envy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But I've most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those! Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of his private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her accusations. 'Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge, I said, coming to his rescue. 'He is not envious, but emulous of your attainments. He'll be a clever scholar in a few years. 'And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime, answered Catherine. 'Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders he makes! I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday it was extremely funny. I heard you and I heard you turning over the dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then cursing because you couldn't read their explanations! The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be laughed at for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove it. I had a similar notion and, remembering Mrs. Dean's anecdote of his first attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I observed,'But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and each stumbled and tottered on the threshold had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet. 'Oh! she replied, 'I don't wish to limit his acquirements still, he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice. Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute he laboured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress. I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood. He followed my example, and left the room but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Catherine's lap, exclaiming,'Take them! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again! 'I won't have them now, she answered. 'I shall connect them with you, and hate them. She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner then laughed, and threw it from her. 'And listen, she continued, provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion. But his selflove would endure no further torment I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen. I fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, and the triumph and everincreasing pleasure he had anticipated from them and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result. 'Yes, that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them! cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration with indignant eyes. 'You'd better hold your tongue, now, he answered fiercely. And his agitation precluded further speech he advanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he had crossed the doorstones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder asked,'What's to do now, my lad? 'Naught, naught, he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude. Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed. 'It will be odd if I thwart myself, he muttered, unconscious that I was behind him. 'But when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more! How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see him. He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was a restless, anxious expression in his countenance, I had never remarked there before and he looked sparer in person. His daughterinlaw, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone. 'I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood, he said, in reply to my greeting 'from selfish motives partly I don't think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I've wondered more than once what brought you here. 'An idle whim, I fear, sir, was my answer 'or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London next week and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall not live there any more. 'Oh, indeed you're tired of being banished from the world, are you? he said. 'But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won't occupy, your journey is useless I never relent in exacting my due from any one. 'I'm coming to plead off nothing about it, I exclaimed, considerably irritated. 'Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now, and I drew my notebook from my pocket. 'No, no, he replied, coolly 'you'll leave sufficient behind to cover your debts, if you fail to return I'm not in such a hurry. Sit down and take your dinner with us a guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome. Catherine! bring the things in where are you? Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks. 'You may get your dinner with Joseph, muttered Heathcliff, aside, 'and remain in the kitchen till he is gone. She obeyed his directions very punctually perhaps she had no temptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them. With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade adieu early. I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish. 'How dreary life gets over in that house! I reflected, while riding down the road. 'What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town! .This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ostler at a roadside publichouse was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,'Yon's frough Gimmerton, nah! They're allas three wick' after other folk wi' ther harvest. 'Gimmerton? I repeatedmy residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy. 'Ah! I know. How far is it from this? 'Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills and a rough road, he answered. A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading the neighbourhood again. Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to inquire the way to the village and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours. I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The grey church looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a moorsheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It was sweet, warm weathertoo warm for travelling but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below had I seen it nearer August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath. I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue wreath, curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I rode into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe. 'Is Mrs. Dean within? I demanded of the dame. 'Mistress Dean? Nay! she answered, 'she doesn't bide here shoo's up at th' Heights. 'Are you the housekeeper, then? I continued. 'Eea, Aw keep th' hause, she replied. 'Well, I'm Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder? I wish to stay all night. 'T' maister! she cried in astonishment. 'Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming? Yah sud ha' send word. They's nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t' place nowt there isn't! She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed. I would go out for a walk and, meantime she must try to prepare a corner of a sittingroom for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in. No sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary. She seemed willing to do her best though she thrust the hearthbrush into the grates in mistake for the poker, and malappropriated several other articles of her craft but I retired, confiding in her energy for a restingplace against my return. Wuthering Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion. An afterthought brought me back, when I had quitted the court. 'All well at the Heights? I inquired of the woman. 'Eea, f'r owt ee knaw! she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot cinders. I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along, with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in frontone fading, and the other brighteningas I quitted the park, and climbed the stony byroad branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knockit yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I noticed another, by the aid of my nostrils a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruittrees. Both doors and lattices were open and yet, as is usually the case in a coaldistrict, a fine red fire illumined the chimney the comfort which the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable. But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence and accordingly what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and listened in consequence being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered. 'Contrary! said a voice as sweet as a silver bell. 'That for the third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you again. Recollect, or I'll pull your hair! 'Contrary, then, answered another, in deep but softened tones. 'And now, kiss me, for minding so well. 'No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake. The male speaker began to read he was a young man, respectably dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of inattention. Its owner stood behind her light, shining ringlets blending, at intervals, with his brown locks, as she bent to superintend his studies and her faceit was lucky he could not see her face, or he would never have been so steady. I could and I bit my lip in spite, at having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something besides staring at its smiting beauty. The task was done, not free from further blunders but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses which, however, he generously returned. Then they came to the door, and from their conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors. I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart, if not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I showed my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then and feeling very mean and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen. There was unobstructed admittance on that side also and at the door sat my old friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song which was often interrupted from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far from musical accents. 'I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev' 'em swearing i' my lugs fro'h morn to neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver! said the tenant of the kitchen, in answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's. 'It's a blazing shame, that I cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to sattan, and all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th' warld! Oh! ye're a raight nowt and shoo's another and that poor lad 'll be lost atween ye. Poor lad! he added, with a groan 'he's witched I'm sartin on't. Oh, Lord, judge 'em, for there's norther law nor justice among wer rullers! 'No! or we should be sitting in flaming fagots, I suppose, retorted the singer. 'But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a Christian, and never mind me. This is 'Fairy Annie's Wedding'a bonny tuneit goes to a dance. Mrs. Dean was about to recommence, when I advanced and recognising me directly, she jumped to her feet, crying'Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood! How could you think of returning in this way? All's shut up at Thrushcross Grange. You should have given us notice! 'I've arranged to be accommodated there, for as long as I shall stay, I answered. 'I depart again tomorrow. And how are you transplanted here, Mrs. Dean? tell me that. 'Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you went to London, and stay till you returned. But, step in, pray! Have you walked from Gimmerton this evening? 'From the Grange, I replied 'and while they make me lodging room there, I want to finish my business with your master because I don't think of having another opportunity in a hurry. 'What business, sir? said Nelly, conducting me into the house. 'He's gone out at present, and won't return soon. 'About the rent, I answered. 'Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle, she observed 'or rather with me. She has not learnt to manage her affairs yet, and I act for her there's nobody else. I looked surprised. 'Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff's death, I see, she continued. 'Heathcliff dead! I exclaimed, astonished. 'How long ago? 'Three months since but sit down, and let me take your hat, and I'll tell you all about it. Stop, you have had nothing to eat, have you? 'I want nothing I have ordered supper at home. You sit down too. I never dreamt of his dying! Let me hear how it came to pass. You say you don't expect them back for some timethe young people? 'NoI have to scold them every evening for their late rambles but they don't care for me. At least, have a drink of our old ale it will do you good you seem weary. She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph asking whether 'it warn't a crying scandal that she should have followers at her time of life? And then, to get them jocks out o' t' maister's cellar! He fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it. She did not stay to retaliate, but reentered in a minute, bearing a reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming earnestness. And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of Heathcliff's history. He had a 'queer end, as she expressed it.      I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your leaving us, she said and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake. My first interview with her grieved and shocked me she had altered so much since our separation. Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons for taking a new mind about my coming here he only told me he wanted me, and he was tired of seeing Catherine I must make the little parlour my sittingroom, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged to see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement and, by degrees, I smuggled over a great number of books, and other articles, that had formed her amusement at the Grange and flattered myself we should get on in tolerable comfort. The delusion did not last long. Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring drew on for another, in following the house, I was forced to quit her frequently, and she complained of loneliness she preferred quarrelling with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude. I did not mind their skirmishes but Hareton was often obliged to seek the kitchen also, when the master wanted to have the house to himself and though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing himand though he was always as sullen and silent as possibleafter a while, she changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone talking at him commenting on his stupidity and idleness expressing her wonder how he could endure the life he livedhow he could sit a whole evening staring into the fire, and dozing. 'He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen? she once observed, 'or a carthorse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if you do, what is it about? But you can't speak to me! Then she looked at him but he would neither open his mouth nor look again. 'He's, perhaps, dreaming now, she continued. 'He twitched his shoulder as Juno twitches hers. Ask him, Ellen. 'Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you upstairs, if you don't behave! I said. He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his fist, as if tempted to use it. 'I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen, she exclaimed, on another occasion. 'He is afraid I shall laugh at him. Ellen, what do you think? He began to teach himself to read once and, because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it was he not a fool? 'Were not you naughty? I said 'answer me that. 'Perhaps I was, she went on 'but I did not expect him to be so silly. Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now? I'll try! She placed one she had been perusing on his hand he flung it off, and muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck. 'Well, I shall put it here, she said, 'in the tabledrawer and I'm going to bed. Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed. But he would not come near it and so I informed her in the morning, to her great disappointment. I saw she was sorry for his persevering sulkiness and indolence her conscience reproved her for frightening him off improving himself she had done it effectually. But her ingenuity was at work to remedy the injury while I ironed, or pursued other such stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me. When Hareton was there, she generally paused in an interesting part, and left the book lying about that she did repeatedly but he was as obstinate as a mule, and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to smoking with Joseph and they sat like automatons, one on each side of the fire, the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense, as he would have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to disregard it. On fine evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the court or garden the moment I began and, as a last resource, cried, and said she was tired of living her life was useless. Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment. Owing to an accident at the commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen. His gun burst while out on the hills by himself a splinter cut his arm, and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. The consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and tranquillity, till he made it up again. It suited Catherine to have him there at any rate, it made her hate her room upstairs more than ever and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might accompany me. On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle and, in the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen. Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the windowpanes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations, and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate. At a notice that I could do with her no longer intercepting my light, she removed to the hearthstone. I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but, presently, I heard her begin'I've found out, Hareton, that I wantthat I'm gladthat I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not grown so cross to me, and so rough. Hareton returned no answer. 'Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear? she continued. 'Get off wi' ye! he growled, with uncompromising gruffness. 'Let me take that pipe, she said, cautiously advancing her hand and abstracting it from his mouth. Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the fire. He swore at her and seized another. 'Stop, she cried, 'you must listen to me first and I can't speak while those clouds are floating in my face. 'Will you go to the devil! he exclaimed, ferociously, 'and let me be! 'No, she persisted, 'I won't I can't tell what to do to make you talk to me and you are determined not to understand. When I call you stupid, I don't mean anything I don't mean that I despise you. Come, you shall take notice of me, Hareton you are my cousin, and you shall own me. 'I shall have naught to do wi' you and your mucky pride, and your damned mocking tricks! he answered. 'I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I look sideways after you again. Side out o' t' gate, now, this minute! Catherine frowned, and retreated to the windowseat chewing her lip, and endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency to sob. 'You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. Hareton, I interrupted, 'since she repents of her sauciness. It would do you a great deal of good it would make you another man to have her for a companion. 'A companion! he cried 'when she hates me, and does not think me fit to wipe her shoon! Nay, if it made me a king, I'd not be scorned for seeking her goodwill any more. 'It is not I who hate you, it is you who hate me! wept Cathy, no longer disguising her trouble. 'You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and more. 'You're a damned liar, began Earnshaw 'why have I made him angry, by taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at and despised me, andGo on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder, and say you worried me out of the kitchen! 'I didn't know you took my part, she answered, drying her eyes 'and I was miserable and bitter at everybody but now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me what can I do besides? She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand. He blackened and scowled like a thundercloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catherine, by instinct, must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this dogged conduct for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. The little rogue thought I had not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former station by the window, quite demurely. I shook my head reprovingly, and then she blushed and whispered'Well! what should I have done, Ellen? He wouldn't shake hands, and he wouldn't look I must show him some way that I like himthat I want to be friends. Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell he was very careful, for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did raise it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes. Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to 'Mr. Hareton Earnshaw, she desired me to be her ambassadress, and convey the present to its destined recipient. 'And tell him, if he'll take it, I'll come and teach him to read it right, she said 'and, if he refuse it, I'll go upstairs, and never tease him again. I carried it, and repeated the message anxiously watched by my employer. Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee. He did not strike it off, either. I returned to my work. Catherine leaned her head and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle of the covering being removed then she stole away, and quietly seated herself beside her cousin. He trembled, and his face glowed all his rudeness and all his surly harshness had deserted him he could not summon courage, at first, to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning look, and her murmured petition. 'Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by speaking that little word. He muttered something inaudible. 'And you'll be my friend? added Catherine, interrogatively. 'Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life, he answered 'and the more ashamed, the more you know me and I cannot bide it. 'So you won't be my friend? she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and creeping close up. I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on both sides and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies. The work they studied was full of costly pictures and those and their position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home. He, poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated on the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his shoulder and confounded at his favourite's endurance of her proximity it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night. His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty banknotes from his pocketbook, the produce of the day's transactions. At length he summoned Hareton from his seat. 'Tak' these in to t' maister, lad, he said, 'and bide there. I's gang up to my own rahm. This hoile's neither mensful nor seemly for us we mun side out and seearch another. 'Come, Catherine, I said, 'we must 'side out' too I've done my ironing. Are you ready to go? 'It is not eight o'clock! she answered, rising unwillingly. 'Hareton, I'll leave this book upon the chimneypiece, and I'll bring some more tomorrow. 'Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak' into th' hahse, said Joseph, 'and it'll be mitch if yah find 'em agean soa, yah may plase yerseln! Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers and, smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing upstairs lighter of heart, I venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before except, perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton. The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly though it encountered temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience but both their minds tending to the same pointone loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemedthey contrived in the end to reach it. You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff's heart. But now, I'm glad you did not try. The crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding day there won't be a happier woman than myself in England! On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his ordinary employments, and therefore remaining about the house, I speedily found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me, as heretofore. She got downstairs before me, and out into the garden, where she had seen her cousin performing some easy work and when I went to bid them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a large space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were busy planning together an importation of plants from the Grange. I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief halfhour the blackcurrant trees were the apple of Joseph's eye, and she had just fixed her choice of a flowerbed in the midst of them. 'There! That will be all shown to the master, I exclaimed, 'the minute it is discovered. And what excuse have you to offer for taking such liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the head of it see if we don't! Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit than to go and make that mess at her bidding! 'I'd forgotten they were Joseph's, answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled 'but I'll tell him I did it. We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff. I held the mistress's post in making tea and carving so I was indispensable at table. Catherine usually sat by me, but today she stole nearer to Hareton and I presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than she had in her hostility. 'Now, mind you don't talk with and notice your cousin too much, were my whispered instructions as we entered the room. 'It will certainly annoy Mr. Heathcliff, and he'll be mad at you both. 'I'm not going to, she answered. The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in his plate of porridge. He dared not speak to her there he dared hardly look and yet she went on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh. I frowned, and then she glanced towards the master whose mind was occupied on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced and she grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity. Afterwards she turned, and recommenced her nonsense at last, Hareton uttered a smothered laugh. Mr. Heathcliff started his eye rapidly surveyed our faces. Catherine met it with her accustomed look of nervousness and yet defiance, which he abhorred. 'It is well you are out of my reach, he exclaimed. 'What fiend possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal eyes? Down with them! and don't remind me of your existence again. I thought I had cured you of laughing. 'It was me, muttered Hareton. 'What do you say? demanded the master. Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession. Mr. Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast and his interrupted musing. We had nearly finished, and the two young people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further disturbance during that sitting when Joseph appeared at the door, revealing by his quivering lip and furious eyes that the outrage committed on his precious shrubs was detected. He must have seen Cathy and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech difficult to understand, he began 'I mun hev' my wage, and I mun goa! I hed aimed to dee wheare I'd sarved fur sixty year and I thowt I'd lug my books up into t' garret, and all my bits o' stuff, and they sud hev' t' kitchen to theirseln for t' sake o' quietness. It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but I thowt I could do that! But nah, shoo's taan my garden fro' me, and by th' heart, maister, I cannot stand it! Yah may bend to th' yoak an ye willI noan used to 't, and an old man doesn't sooin get used to new barthens. I'd rayther arn my bite an' my sup wi' a hammer in th' road! 'Now, now, idiot! interrupted Heathcliff, 'cut it short! What's your grievance? I'll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly. She may thrust you into the coalhole for anything I care. 'It's noan Nelly! answered Joseph. 'I sudn't shift for Nellynasty ill nowt as shoo is. Thank God! shoo cannot stale t' sowl o' nob'dy! Shoo wer niver soa handsome, but what a body mud look at her 'bout winking. It's yon flaysome, graceless quean, that's witched our lad, wi' her bold een and her forrard waystillNay! it fair brusts my heart! He's forgotten all I've done for him, and made on him, and goan and riven up a whole row o' t' grandest curranttrees i' t' garden! and here he lamented outright unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and Earnshaw's ingratitude and dangerous condition. 'Is the fool drunk? asked Mr. Heathcliff. 'Hareton, is it you he's finding fault with? 'I've pulled up two or three bushes, replied the young man 'but I'm going to set 'em again. 'And why have you pulled them up? said the master. Catherine wisely put in her tongue. 'We wanted to plant some flowers there, she cried. 'I'm the only person to blame, for I wished him to do it. 'And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place? demanded her fatherinlaw, much surprised. 'And who ordered you to obey her? he added, turning to Hareton. The latter was speechless his cousin replied'You shouldn't grudge a few yards of earth for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land! 'Your land, insolent slut! You never had any, said Heathcliff. 'And my money, she continued returning his angry glare, and meantime biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast. 'Silence! he exclaimed. 'Get done, and begone! 'And Hareton's land, and his money, pursued the reckless thing. 'Hareton and I are friends now and I shall tell him all about you! The master seemed confounded a moment he grew pale, and rose up, eyeing her all the while, with an expression of mortal hate. 'If you strike me, Hareton will strike you, she said 'so you may as well sit down. 'If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I'll strike him to hell, thundered Heathcliff. 'Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse him against me? Off with her! Do you hear? Fling her into the kitchen! I'll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again! Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go. 'Drag her away! he cried, savagely. 'Are you staying to talk? And he approached to execute his own command. 'He'll not obey you, wicked man, any more, said Catherine 'and he'll soon detest you as much as I do. 'Wisht! wisht! muttered the young man, reproachfully 'I will not hear you speak so to him. Have done. 'But you won't let him strike me? she cried. 'Come, then, he whispered earnestly. It was too late Heathcliff had caught hold of her. 'Now, you go! he said to Earnshaw. 'Accursed witch! this time she has provoked me when I could not bear it and I'll make her repent it for ever! He had his hand in her hair Hareton attempted to release her locks, entreating him not to hurt her that once. Heathcliff's black eyes flashed he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, and I was just worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden his fingers relaxed he shifted his grasp from her head to her arm, and gazed intently in her face. Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine, said, with assumed calmness'You must learn to avoid putting me in a passion, or I shall really murder you some time! Go with Mrs. Dean, and keep with her and confine your insolence to her ears. As to Hareton Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I'll send him seeking his bread where he can get it! Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar. Nelly, take her and leave me, all of you! Leave me! I led my young lady out she was too glad of her escape to resist the other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till dinner. I had counselled Catherine to dine upstairs but, as soon as he perceived her vacant seat, he sent me to call her. He spoke to none of us, ate very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that he should not return before evening. The two new friends established themselves in the house during his absence where I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin, on her offering a revelation of her fatherinlaw's conduct to his father. He said he wouldn't suffer a word to be uttered in his disparagement if he were the devil, it didn't signify he would stand by him and he'd rather she would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr. Heathcliff. Catherine was waxing cross at this but he found means to make her hold her tongue, by asking how she would like him to speak ill of her father? Then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the master's reputation home to himself and was attached by ties stronger than reason could breakchains, forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen. She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both complaints and expressions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff and confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit between him and Hareton indeed, I don't believe she has ever breathed a syllable, in the latter's hearing, against her oppressor since. When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again, and as busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and teacher. I came in to sit with them, after I had done my work and I felt so soothed and comforted to watch them, that I did not notice how time got on. You know, they both appeared in a measure my children I had long been proud of one and now, I was sure, the other would be a source of equal satisfaction. His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been bred and Catherine's sincere commendations acted as a spur to his industry. His brightening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility to their aspect I could hardly fancy it the same individual I had beheld on the day I discovered my little lady at Wuthering Heights, after her expedition to the Crags. While I admired and they laboured, dusk drew on, and with it returned the master. He came upon us quite unexpectedly, entering by the front way, and had a full view of the whole three, ere we could raise our heads to glance at him. Well, I reflected, there was never a pleasanter, or more harmless sight and it will be a burning shame to scold them. The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces animated with the eager interest of children for, though he was twentythree and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity. They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff perhaps you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no other likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain arch of the nostril that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or not. With Hareton the resemblance is carried farther it is singular at all times, then it was particularly striking because his senses were alert, and his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity. I suppose this resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff he walked to the hearth in evident agitation but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young man or, I should say, altered its character for it was there yet. He took the book from his hand, and glanced at the open page, then returned it without any observation merely signing Catherine away her companion lingered very little behind her, and I was about to depart also, but he bid me sit still. 'It is a poor conclusion, is it not? he observed, having brooded a while on the scene he had just witnessed 'an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives I could do it and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don't care for striking I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing. 'Nelly, there is a strange change approaching I'm in its shadow at present. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left the room are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me and that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony. About her I won't speak and I don't desire to think but I earnestly wish she were invisible her presence invokes only maddening sensations. He moves me differently and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I'd never see him again! You'll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so, he added, making an effort to smile, 'if I try to describe the thousand forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies. But you'll not talk of what I tell you and my mind is so eternally secluded in itself, it is tempting at last to turn it out to another. 'Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a human being I felt to him in such a variety of ways, that it would have been impossible to have accosted him rationally. In the first place, his startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every treefilling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by dayI am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and womenmy own featuresmock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her! Well, Hareton's aspect was the ghost of my immortal love of my wild endeavours to hold my right my degradation, my pride, my happiness, and my anguish 'But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you only it will let you know why, with a reluctance to be always alone, his society is no benefit rather an aggravation of the constant torment I suffer and it partly contributes to render me regardless how he and his cousin go on together. I can give them no attention any more. 'But what do you mean by a change, Mr. Heathcliff? I said, alarmed at his manner though he was neither in danger of losing his senses, nor dying, according to my judgment he was quite strong and healthy and, as to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on dark things, and entertaining odd fancies. He might have had a monomania on the subject of his departed idol but on every other point his wits were as sound as mine. 'I shall not know that till it comes, he said 'I'm only half conscious of it now. 'You have no feeling of illness, have you? I asked. 'No, Nelly, I have not, he answered. 'Then you are not afraid of death? I pursued. 'Afraid? No! he replied. 'I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and probably shall, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathealmost to remind my heart to beat! And it is like bending back a stiff spring it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought and by compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I'm convinced it will be reachedand soonbecause it has devoured my existence I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfilment. My confessions have not relieved me but they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour which I show. O God! It is a long fight I wish it were over! He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things to himself, till I was inclined to believe, as he said Joseph did, that conscience had turned his heart to an earthly hell. I wondered greatly how it would end. Though he seldom before had revealed this state of mind, even by looks, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt he asserted it himself but not a soul, from his general bearing, would have conjectured the fact. You did not when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood and at the period of which I speak, he was just the same as then only fonder of continued solitude, and perhaps still more laconic in company. For some days after that evening, Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at meals yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy. He had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing rather to absent himself and eating once in twentyfour hours seemed sufficient sustenance for him. One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and out at the front door. I did not hear him reenter, and in the morning I found he was still away. We were in April then the weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the two dwarf appletrees near the southern wall in full bloom. After breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting with my work under the firtrees at the end of the house and she beguiled Hareton, who had perfectly recovered from his accident, to dig and arrange her little garden, which was shifted to that corner by the influence of Joseph's complaints. I was comfortably revelling in the spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead, when my young lady, who had run down near the gate to procure some primrose roots for a border, returned only half laden, and informed us that Mr. Heathcliff was coming in. 'And he spoke to me, she added, with a perplexed countenance. 'What did he say? asked Hareton. 'He told me to begone as fast as I could, she answered. 'But he looked so different from his usual look that I stopped a moment to stare at him. 'How? he inquired. 'Why, almost bright and cheerful. No, almost nothingvery much excited, and wild, and glad! she replied. 'Nightwalking amuses him, then, I remarked, affecting a careless manner in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to ascertain the truth of her statement for to see the master looking glad would not be an everyday spectacle. I framed an excuse to go in. Heathcliff stood at the open door he was pale, and he trembled yet, certainly, he had a strange joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole face. 'Will you have some breakfast? I said. 'You must be hungry, rambling about all night! I wanted to discover where he had been, but I did not like to ask directly. 'No, I'm not hungry, he answered, averting his head, and speaking rather contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the occasion of his good humour. I felt perplexed I didn't know whether it were not a proper opportunity to offer a bit of admonition. 'I don't think it right to wander out of doors, I observed, 'instead of being in bed it is not wise, at any rate this moist season. I daresay you'll catch a bad cold, or a fever you have something the matter with you now! 'Nothing but what I can bear, he replied 'and with the greatest pleasure, provided you'll leave me alone get in, and don't annoy me. I obeyed and, in passing, I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat. 'Yes! I reflected to myself, 'we shall have a fit of illness. I cannot conceive what he has been doing. That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heapedup plate from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous fasting. 'I've neither cold nor fever, Nelly, he remarked, in allusion to my morning's speech 'and I'm ready to do justice to the food you give me. He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when the inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct. He laid them on the table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went out. We saw him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal, and Earnshaw said he'd go and ask why he would not dine he thought we had grieved him some way. 'Well, is he coming? cried Catherine, when her cousin returned. 'Nay, he answered 'but he's not angry he seemed rarely pleased indeed only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice and then he bid me be off to you he wondered how I could want the company of anybody else. I set his plate to keep warm on the fender and after an hour or two he reentered, when the room was clear, in no degree calmer the same unnaturalit was unnaturalappearance of joy under his black brows the same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible, now and then, in a kind of smile his frame shivering, not as one shivers with chill or weakness, but as a tightstretched cord vibratesa strong thrilling, rather than trembling. I will ask what is the matter, I thought or who should? And I exclaimed'Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff? You look uncommonly animated. 'Where should good news come from to me? he said. 'I'm animated with hunger and, seemingly, I must not eat. 'Your dinner is here, I returned 'why won't you get it? 'I don't want it now, he muttered, hastily 'I'll wait till supper. And, Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away from me. I wish to be troubled by nobody I wish to have this place to myself. 'Is there some new reason for this banishment? I inquired. 'Tell me why you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff? Where were you last night? I'm not putting the question through idle curiosity, but 'You are putting the question through very idle curiosity, he interrupted, with a laugh. 'Yet I'll answer it. Last night I was on the threshold of hell. Today, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it hardly three feet to sever me! And now you'd better go! You'll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you, if you refrain from prying. Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed more perplexed than ever. He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on his solitude till, at eight o'clock, I deemed it proper, though unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him. He was leaning against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out his face was turned to the interior gloom. The fire had smouldered to ashes the room was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening and so still, that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable, but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large stones which it could not cover. I uttered an ejaculation of discontent at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the casements, one after another, till I came to his. 'Must I close this? I asked, in order to rouse him for he would not stir. The light flashed on his features as I spoke. Oh, Mr. Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view! Those deep black eyes! That smile, and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me, not Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin and, in my terror, I let the candle bend towards the wall, and it left me in darkness. 'Yes, close it, he replied, in his familiar voice. 'There, that is pure awkwardness! Why did you hold the candle horizontally? Be quick, and bring another. I hurried out in a foolish state of dread, and said to Joseph'The master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire. For I dared not go in myself again just then. Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went but he brought it back immediately, with the suppertray in his other hand, explaining that Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed, and he wanted nothing to eat till morning. We heard him mount the stairs directly he did not proceed to his ordinary chamber, but turned into that with the panelled bed its window, as I mentioned before, is wide enough for anybody to get through and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion, of which he had rather we had no suspicion. 'Is he a ghoul or a vampire? I mused. I had read of such hideous incarnate demons. And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost through his whole course and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to that sense of horror. 'But where did he come from, the little dark thing, harboured by a good man to his bane? muttered Superstition, as I dozed into unconsciousness. And I began, half dreaming, to weary myself with imagining some fit parentage for him and, repeating my waking meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations at last, picturing his death and funeral of which, all I can remember is, being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it and, as he had no surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, 'Heathcliff. That came true we were. If you enter the kirkyard, you'll read, on his headstone, only that, and the date of his death. Dawn restored me to common sense. I rose, and went into the garden, as soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his window. There were none. 'He has stayed at home, I thought, 'and he'll be all right today. I prepared breakfast for the household, as was my usual custom, but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere the master came down, for he lay late. They preferred taking it out of doors, under the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them. On my reentrance, I found Mr. Heathcliff below. He and Joseph were conversing about some farming business he gave clear, minute directions concerning the matter discussed, but he spoke rapidly, and turned his head continually aside, and had the same excited expression, even more exaggerated. When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place he generally chose, and I put a basin of coffee before him. He drew it nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped breathing during half a minute together. 'Come now, I exclaimed, pushing some bread against his hand, 'eat and drink that, while it is hot it has been waiting near an hour. He didn't notice me, and yet he smiled. I'd rather have seen him gnash his teeth than smile so. 'Mr. Heathcliff! master! I cried, 'don't, for God's sake, stare as if you saw an unearthly vision. 'Don't, for God's sake, shout so loud, he replied. 'Turn round, and tell me, are we by ourselves? 'Of course, was my answer 'of course we are. Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure. With a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease. Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall for when I regarded him alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards' distance. And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes at least the anguished, yet raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object was not fixed, either his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim. I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from its engrossing speculation till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait I might set the things down and go. Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly sauntered down the garden path, and disappeared through the gate. The hours crept anxiously by another evening came. I did not retire to rest till late, and when I did, I could not sleep. He returned after midnight, and, instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room beneath. I listened, and tossed about, and, finally, dressed and descended. It was too irksome to lie there, harassing my brain with a hundred idle misgivings. I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step, restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also the only one I could catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering and spoken as one would speak to a person present low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. I had not courage to walk straight into the apartment but I desired to divert him from his reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and began to scrape the cinders. It drew him forth sooner than I expected. He opened the door immediately, and said'Nelly, come hereis it morning? Come in with your light. 'It is striking four, I answered. 'You want a candle to take upstairs you might have lit one at this fire. 'No, I don't wish to go upstairs, he said. 'Come in, and kindle me a fire, and do anything there is to do about the room. 'I must blow the coals red first, before I can carry any, I replied, getting a chair and the bellows. He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction his heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for common breathing between. 'When day breaks I'll send for Green, he said 'I wish to make some legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those matters, and while I can act calmly. I have not written my will yet and how to leave my property I cannot determine. I wish I could annihilate it from the face of the earth. 'I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff, I interposed. 'Let your will be a while you'll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet! I never expected that your nerves would be disordered they are, at present, marvellously so, however and almost entirely through your own fault. The way you've passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do take some food, and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes bloodshot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss of sleep. 'It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest, he replied. 'I assure you it is through no settled designs. I'll do both, as soon as I possibly can. But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water rest within arms' length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest. Well, never mind Mr. Green as to repenting of my injustices, I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy and yet I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself. 'Happy, master? I cried. 'Strange happiness! If you would hear me without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you happier. 'What is that? he asked. 'Give it. 'You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff, I said, 'that from the time you were thirteen years old you have lived a selfish, unchristian life and probably hardly had a Bible in your hands during all that period. You must have forgotten the contents of the book, and you may not have space to search it now. Could it be hurtful to send for some onesome minister of any denomination, it does not matter whichto explain it, and show you how very far you have erred from its precepts and how unfit you will be for its heaven, unless a change takes place before you die? 'I'm rather obliged than angry, Nelly, he said, 'for you remind me of the manner in which I desire to be buried. It is to be carried to the churchyard in the evening. You and Hareton may, if you please, accompany me and mind, particularly, to notice that the sexton obeys my directions concerning the two coffins! No minister need come nor need anything be said over me.I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me. 'And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk? I said, shocked at his godless indifference. 'How would you like it? 'They won't do that, he replied 'if they did, you must have me removed secretly and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the dead are not annihilated! As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired to his den, and I breathed freer. But in the afternoon, while Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a wild look, bid me come and sit in the house he wanted somebody with him. I declined telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his companion alone. 'I believe you think me a fiend, he said, with his dismal laugh 'something too horrible to live under a decent roof. Then turning to Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he added, half sneeringly,'Will you come, chuck? I'll not hurt you. No! to you I've made myself worse than the devil. Well, there is one who won't shrink from my company! By God! she's relentless. Oh, damn it! It's unutterably too much for flesh and blood to beareven mine. He solicited the society of no one more. At dusk he went into his chamber. Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him groaning and murmuring to himself. Hareton was anxious to enter but I bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him. When he came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it locked and Heathcliff bid us be damned. He was better, and would be left alone so the doctor went away. The following evening was very wet indeed, it poured down till daydawn and, as I took my morning walk round the house, I observed the master's window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. He cannot be in bed, I thought those showers would drench him through. He must either be up or out. But I'll make no more ado, I'll go boldly and look. Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose the panels, for the chamber was vacant quickly pushing them aside, I peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was therelaid on his back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started and then he seemed to smile. I could not think him dead but his face and throat were washed with rain the bedclothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill no blood trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could doubt no more he was dead and stark! I hasped the window I combed his black long hair from his forehead I tried to close his eyes to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, lifelike gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it. They would not shut they seemed to sneer at my attempts and his parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too! Taken with another fit of cowardice, I cried out for Joseph. Joseph shuffled up and made a noise, but resolutely refused to meddle with him. 'Th' divil's harried off his soul, he cried, 'and he may hev' his carcass into t' bargin, for aught I care! Ech! what a wicked 'un he looks, girning at death! and the old sinner grinned in mockery. I thought he intended to cut a caper round the bed but suddenly composing himself, he fell on his knees, and raised his hands, and returned thanks that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights. I felt stunned by the awful event and my memory unavoidably recurred to former times with a sort of oppressive sadness. But poor Hareton, the most wronged, was the only one who really suffered much. He sat by the corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest. He pressed its hand, and kissed the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from contemplating and bemoaned him with that strong grief which springs naturally from a generous heart, though it be tough as tempered steel. Mr. Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master died. I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four days, fearing it might lead to trouble, and then, I am persuaded, he did not abstain on purpose it was the consequence of his strange illness, not the cause. We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished. Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended the whole attendance. The six men departed when they had let it down into the grave we stayed to see it covered. Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion moundsand I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly. But the country folks, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he walks there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house. Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em looking out of his chamber window on every rainy night since his deathand an odd thing happened to me about a month ago. I was going to the Grange one eveninga dark evening, threatening thunderand, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him he was crying terribly and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided. 'What is the matter, my little man? I asked. 'There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab, he blubbered, 'un' I darnut pass 'em. I saw nothing but neither the sheep nor he would go on, so I bid him take the road lower down. He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents and companions repeat. Yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark now and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house I cannot help it I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange. 'They are going to the Grange, then? I said. 'Yes, answered Mrs. Dean, 'as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year's Day. 'And who will live here then? 'Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company. They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up. 'For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it? I observed. 'No, Mr. Lockwood, said Nelly, shaking her head. 'I believe the dead are at peace but it is not right to speak of them with levity. At that moment the garden gate swung to the ramblers were returning. 'They are afraid of nothing, I grumbled, watching their approach through the window. 'Together, they would brave Satan and all his legions. As they stepped on to the doorstones, and halted to take a last look at the moonor, more correctly, at each other by her lightI felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the housedoor and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellowservant's gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet. My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms. I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor the middle one grey, and half buried in heath Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot Heathcliff's still bare. I lingered round them, under that benign sky watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned Introibo ad altare Dei. Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit! Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly. Back to barracks! he said sternly. He added in a preacher's tone For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all. He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm. Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you? He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips. The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek! He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck. Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on. My name is absurd too Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid? He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried Will he come? The jejune jesuit! Ceasing, he began to shave with care. Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly. Yes, my love? How long is Haines going to stay in this tower? Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder. God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you is the best Kinch, the knifeblade. He shaved warily over his chin. He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is his guncase? A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk? I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If he stays on here I am off. Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily. Scutter! he cried thickly. He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper pocket, said Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor. Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you? He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly. God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look. Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of Kingstown. Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said. He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's face. The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't let me have anything to do with you. Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily. You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you.... He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant smile curled his lips. But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest mummer of them all! He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously. Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coatsleeve. Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade. Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks? They fit well enough, Stephen answered. Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip. The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look damn well when you're dressed. Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey. He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers. He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the smooth skin. Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes. That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says you have g. p. i. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General paralysis of the insane! He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk. Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard! Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too. I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula. Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes. The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you! Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant. Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had thrust them. It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God knows you have more spirit than any of them. Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The cold steel pen. Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it. Cranly's arm. His arm. And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe. Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the tailor's shears. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't want to be debagged! Don't you play the giddy ox with me! Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos. Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at night. Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm quite frank with you. What have you against me now? They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly. Do you wish me to tell you? he asked. Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything. He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow, fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety in his eyes. Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's death? Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God? You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to get more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room. Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget. You said, Stephen answered, O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead. A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck Mulligan's cheek. Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that? He shook his constraint from him nervously. And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It's a beastly thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I didn't mean to offend the memory of your mother. He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly I am not thinking of the offence to my mother. Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked. Of the offence to me, Stephen answered. Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel. O, an impossible person! he exclaimed. He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post, gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt the fever of his cheeks. A voice within the tower called loudly Are you up there, Mulligan? I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered. He turned towards Stephen and said Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers. His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level with the roof Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the moody brooding. His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of the stairhead And no more turn aside and brood Upon love's bitter mystery For Fergus rules the brazen cars. Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide. A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen love's bitter mystery. Where now? Her secrets old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he sang I am the boy That can enjoy Invisibility. Phantasmal mirth, folded away muskperfumed. And no more turn aside and brood. Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's shirts. In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat. Ghoul! Chewer of corpses! No, mother! Let me be and let me live. Kinch ahoy! Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry, heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words. Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is apologising for waking us last night. It's all right. I'm coming, Stephen said, turning. Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our sakes. His head disappeared and reappeared. I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean. I get paid this morning, Stephen said. The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one. If you want it, Stephen said. Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns. He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of tune with a Cockney accent O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine! On coronation, Coronation day! O, won't we have a merry time On coronation day! Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone, forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all day, forgotten friendship? He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant. In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from the high barbacans and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning. We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you? Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open the inner doors. Have you the key? a voice asked. Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked! He howled, without looking up from the fire Kinch! It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward. The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set them down heavily and sighed with relief. I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk. Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet. What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight. We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the locker. O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove milk. Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly That woman is coming up with the milk. The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can't go fumbling at the damned eggs. He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates, saying In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Haines sat down to pour out the tea. I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you? Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's wheedling voice When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water. By Jove, it is tea, Haines said. Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma'am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don't make them in the one pot. He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled on his knife. That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind. He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his brows Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads? I doubt it, said Stephen gravely. Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray? I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann. Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight. Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming! Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf For old Mary Ann She doesn't care a damn. But, hising up her petticoats... He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned. The doorway was darkened by an entering form. The milk, sir! Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug. An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow. That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God. To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure! Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker. The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the collector of prepuces. How much, sir? asked the old woman. A quart, Stephen said. He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell but scorned to beg her favour. It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups. Taste it, sir, she said. He drank at her bidding. If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits. Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked. I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered. Look at that now, she said. Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman me she slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes. Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her. Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines. Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently. Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you? I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the west, sir? I am an Englishman, Haines answered. He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland. Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows. Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am? No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the milkcan on her forearm and about to go. Haines said to her Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we? Stephen filled again the three cups. Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That's a shilling and one and two is two and two, sir. Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his trouser pockets. Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling. Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his fingers and cried A miracle! He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give. Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand. We'll owe twopence, he said. Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good morning, sir. She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet. He turned to Stephen and said Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland expects that every man this day will do his duty. That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your national library today. Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said. He turned to Stephen and asked blandly Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch? Then he said to Haines The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month. All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey trickle over a slice of the loaf. Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me. Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience. Yet here's a spot. That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol of Irish art is deuced good. Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with warmth of tone Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines. Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just thinking of it when that poor old creature came in. Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked. Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of the hammock, said I don't know, I'm sure. He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and said with coarse vigour You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for? Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think. I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes. I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him. Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm. From me, Kinch, he said. In a suddenly changed tone he added To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us get out of the kip. He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying resignedly Mulligan is stripped of his garments. He emptied his pockets on to the table. There's your snotrag, he said. And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them, chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and rummaged in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God, we'll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of his talking hands. And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said. Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the doorway Are you coming, you fellows? I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out, Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow And going forth he met Butterly. Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket. At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked Did you bring the key? I have it, Stephen said, preceding them. He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses. Down, sir! How dare you, sir! Haines asked Do you pay rent for this tower? Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said. To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder. They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it? Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on the sea. But ours is the omphalos. What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen. No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas Aquinas and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I have a few pints in me first. He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his primrose waistcoat You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you? It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer. You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox? Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father. What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself? Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father! We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is rather long to tell. Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands. The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said. I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. That beetles o'er his base into the sea, isn't it? Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires. It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again. Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the smokeplume of the mailboat vague on the bright skyline and a sail tacking by the Muglins. I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused. The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father. Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard. My mother's a jew, my father's a bird. With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree. So here's to disciples and Calvary. He held up a forefinger of warning. If anyone thinks that I amn't divine He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine But have to drink water and wish it were plain That I make when the wine becomes water again. He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all I said And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead. What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly And Olivet's breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye! He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries. Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and said We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner? The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered. O, Haines said, you have heard it before? Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily. You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a personal God. There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said. Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it. Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette. Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards Stephen in the shell of his hands. Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or you don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a personal God. You don't stand for that, I suppose? You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible example of free thought. He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his eyes. After all, Haines began... Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not all unkind. After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your own master, it seems to me. I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian. Italian? Haines said. A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me. And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs. Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean? The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church. Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke. I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame. The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of their brazen bells et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry Photius and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's host, who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields. Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu! Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, and I feel as one. I don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now. Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching businessman, boatman. She's making for Bullock harbour. The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain. There's five fathoms out there, he said. It'll be swept up that way when the tide comes in about one. It's nine days today. The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite. Here I am. They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise his green legs in the deep jelly of the water. Is the brother with you, Malachi? Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons. Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young thing down there. Photo girl he calls her. Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure. Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging loincloth. Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips and breastbone. Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army. Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said. Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily? Yes. Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with money. Is she up the pole? Better ask Seymour that. Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said. He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying tritely Redheaded women buck like goats. He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt. My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the bermensch. Toothless Kinch and I, the supermen. He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his clothes lay. Are you going in here, Malachi? Yes. Make room in the bed. The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached the middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a stone, smoking. Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked. Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast. Stephen turned away. I'm going, Mulligan, he said. Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat. Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped clothes. And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there. Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake Zarathustra. His plump body plunged. We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the path and smiling at wild Irish. Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon. The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve. Good, Stephen said. He walked along the upwardcurving path. Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet. Iubilantium te virginum. The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round. Usurper. You, Cochrane, what city sent for him? Tarentum, sir. Very good. Well? There was a battle, sir. Very good. Where? The boy's blank face asked the blank window. Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then? I forget the place, sir.  B. C. Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the gorescarred book. Yes, sir. And he said Another victory like that and we are done for. That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear. You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus? End of Pyrrhus, sir? I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said. Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus? A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico Road, Dalkey. Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier. All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay. Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, what is a pier. A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a bridge. Kingstown pier, sir. Some laughed again mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench whispered. Yes. They knew had never learned nor ever been innocent. All. With envy he watched their faces Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the struggle. Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. The words troubled their gaze. How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river. For Haines's chapbook. Noone here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other too often heard, their land a pawnshop. Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not been knifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has branded them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass? Weave, weaver of the wind. Tell us a story, sir. O, do, sir. A ghoststory. Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book. Weep no more, Comyn said. Go on then, Talbot. And the story, sir? After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot. A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor... It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is the soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent form of forms. Talbot repeated Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, Through the dear might... Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything. What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward. His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again, having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the church's looms. Ay. Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro. My father gave me seeds to sow. Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel. Have I heard all? Stephen asked. Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir. Half day, sir. Thursday. Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked. They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling. Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling gaily A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir. O, ask me, sir. A hard one, sir. This is the riddle, Stephen said The cock crew, The sky was blue The bells in heaven Were striking eleven. 'Tis time for this poor soul To go to heaven. What is that? What, sir? Again, sir. We didn't hear. Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence Cochrane said What is it, sir? We give it up. Stephen, his throat itching, answered The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush. He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries echoed dismay. A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called Hockey! They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and clamour of their boots and tongues. Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open copybook. His tangled hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his cheek, dull and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped, recent and damp as a snail's bed. He held out his copybook. The word Sums was written on the headline. Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent his name and seal. Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them to you, sir. Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility. Do you understand how to do them now? he asked. Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to copy them off the board, sir. Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked. No, sir. Ugly and futile lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no more the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped. Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. Sargent peered askance through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the lumberroom the hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field. Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands, traverse, bow to partner so imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend. Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself? Yes, sir. In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a word of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue of shame flickering behind his dull skin. Amor matris subjective and objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands. Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts secrets weary of their tyranny tyrants, willing to be dethroned. The sum was done. It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up. Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered. He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his copybook back to his bench. You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said as he followed towards the door the boy's graceless form. Yes, sir. In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield. Sargent! Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you. He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the scrappy field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet. When he had reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to him. He turned his angry white moustache. What is it now? he cried continually without listening. Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen said. Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I restore order here. And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man's voice cried sternly What is the matter? What is it now? Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides their many forms closed round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his illdyed head. Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded leather of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As it was in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins, base treasure of a bog and ever shall be. And snug in their spooncase of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached to all the gentiles world without end. A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table. First, our little financial settlement, he said. He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid them carefully on the table. Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away. And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen's embarrassed hand moved over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar whelks and money cowries and leopard shells and this, whorled as an emir's turban, and this, the scallop of saint James. An old pilgrim's hoard, dead treasure, hollow shells. A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth. Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand. These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is for shillings. Sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See. He shot from it two crowns and two shillings. Three twelve, he said. I think you'll find that's right. Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers. No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it. Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket symbols soiled by greed and misery. Don't carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You'll pull it out somewhere and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You'll find them very handy. Answer something. Mine would be often empty, Stephen said. The same room and hour, the same wisdom and I the same. Three times now. Three nooses round me here. Well? I can break them in this instant if I will. Because you don't save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don't know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? Put but money in thy purse. Iago, Stephen murmured. He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man's stare. He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes, but an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman's mouth? The seas' ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay it seems history is to blame on me and on my words, unhating. That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets. Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That's not English. A French Celt said that. He tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail. I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I paid my way. Good man, good man. I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can you feel that? I owe nothing. Can you? Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties. Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings. Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob Reynolds, half a guinea, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five weeks' board. The lump I have is useless. For the moment, no, Stephen answered. Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox. I knew you couldn't, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it. We are a generous people but we must also be just. I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy. Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the shapely bulk of a man in tartan fillibegs Albert Edward, prince of Wales. You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O'Connell's time. I remember the famine in '. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the planters' covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie down. Stephen sketched a brief gesture. I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are all Irish, all kings' sons. Alas, Stephen said. Per vias rectas, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to do so. Lal the ral the ra The rocky road to Dublin. A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!... Day!... Day!... Two topboots jog dangling on to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy. That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press. Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end. He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter. Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, the dictates of common sense. Just a moment. He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error. Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek heads poised in air lord Hastings' Repulse, the duke of Westminster's Shotover, the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris, . Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds, backing king's colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished crowds. Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of this allimportant question... Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the canteen, over the motley slush. Even money Fair Rebel. Ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying caps and jackets and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher's dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange. Shouts rang shrill from the boys' playfield and a whirring whistle. Again a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a medley, the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother's darling who seems to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, a shout of spearspikes baited with men's bloodied guts. Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising. He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up. I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It's about the foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two opinions on the matter. May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of laissez faire which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme. European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue. I don't mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on. Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch's preparation. Serum and virus. Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor's horses at Mrzsteg, lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous offer a fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for the hospitality of your columns. I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with the department. Now I'm going to try publicity. I am surrounded by difficulties, by... intrigues by... backstairs influence by... He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke. Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the jews. In all the highest places her finance, her press. And they are the signs of a nation's decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation's vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction. Old England is dying. He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again. Dying, he said again, if not dead by now. The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old England's windingsheet. His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which he halted. A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or gentile, is he not? They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the earth to this day. On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud, uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats. Not theirs these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but knew the rancours massed about them and knew their zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew their years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh. Who has not? Stephen said. What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked. He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me. History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle goal. What if that nightmare gave you a back kick? The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God. Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying That is God. Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee! What? Mr Deasy asked. A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders. Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his nose tweaked between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free. I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the strangers to our shore here, MacMurrough's wife and her leman, O'Rourke, prince of Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many errors, many failures but not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the end of my days. But I will fight for the right till the end. For Ulster will fight And Ulster will be right. Stephen raised the sheets in his hand. Well, sir, he began. I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long at this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am wrong. A learner rather, Stephen said. And here what will you learn more? Mr Deasy shook his head. Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher. Stephen rustled the sheets again. As regards these, he began. Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them published at once. Telegraph. Irish Homestead. I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two editors slightly. That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field, M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders' association today at the City Arms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You see if you can get it into your two papers. What are they? The Evening Telegraph... That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to answer that letter from my cousin. Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket. Thank you. Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I like to break a lance with you, old as I am. Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back. He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees, hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub me a new name the bullockbefriending bard. Mr Dedalus! Running after me. No more letters, I hope. Just one moment. Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate. Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath. I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why? He frowned sternly on the bright air. Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile. Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly. A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his lifted arms waving to the air. She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why. On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins. Ineluctable modality of the visible at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see. Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six the nacheinander. Exactly and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o'er his base, fell through the nebeneinander ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends of his legs, nebeneinander. Sounds solid made by the mallet of Los Demiurgos. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a'. Won't you come to Sandymount, Madeline the mare? Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A catalectic tetrameter of iambs marching. No, agallop deline the mare. Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. Basta! I will see if I can see. See now. There all the time without you and ever shall be, world without end. They came down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your omphalos. Hello. Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha nought, nought, one. Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to everlasting. Womb of sin. Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. From before the ages He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A lex eterna stays about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred heresiarch! In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last euthanasia. With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of a widowed see, with upstiffed omophorion, with clotted hinderparts. Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves. The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of Mananaan. I mustn't forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile. Yes, I must. His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara's or not? My consubstantial father's voice. Did you see anything of your artist brother Stephen lately? No? Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with his aunt Sally? Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And and and and tell us, Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the things I married into! De boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little costdrawer and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectable gondoliers! And skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. Jesus wept and no wonder, by Christ! I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage and wait. They take me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage. It's Stephen, sir. Let him in. Let Stephen in. A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me. We thought you were someone else. In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over the hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the upper moiety. Morrow, nephew. He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and common searches and a writ of Duces Tecum. A bogoak frame over his bald head Wilde's Requiescat. The drone of his misleading whistle brings Walter back. Yes, sir? Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she? Bathing Crissie, sir. Papa's little bedpal. Lump of love. No, uncle Richie... Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky! Uncle Richie, really... Sit down or by the law Harry I'll knock you down. Walter squints vainly for a chair. He has nothing to sit down on, sir. He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair. Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the better. We have nothing in the house but backache pills. All'erta! He drones bars of Ferrando's aria di sortita. The grandest number, Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen. His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the air, his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees. This wind is sweeter. Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom? The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his kind ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the moon, his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine faces, Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas father, furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! Descende, calve, ut ne nimium decalveris. A garland of grey hair on his comminated head see him me clambering down to the footpace (descende!), clutching a monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down, baldpoll! A choir gives back menace and echo, assisting about the altar's horns, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat. And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx. Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that, invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his second bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and, rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang in diphthong. Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the wet street. O si, certo! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned round a squaw. More tell me, more still! On the top of the Howth tram alone crying to the rain Naked women! Naked women! What about that, eh? What about what? What else were they invented for? Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! Noone saw tell noone. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once... The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore at the land a maze of dark cunning nets farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells. He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not. Noone about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand towards the Pigeonhouse. Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position? C'est le pigeon, Joseph. Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face. Lap, lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de Jsus by M. Lo Taxil. Lent it to his friend. C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire  mon pre. Il croit? Mon pre, oui. Schluss. He laps. My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other devil's name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know physiques, chimiques et naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural tone when I was in Paris boul' Mich', I used to. Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February  the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c'est moi. You seem to have enjoyed yourself. Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget a dispossessed. With mother's money order, eight shillings, the banging door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger toothache. Encore deux minutes. Look clock. Must get. Ferm. Hired dog! Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not hurt? O, that's all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that's all right. Shake a shake. O, that's all only all right. You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt from their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing Euge! Euge! Pretending to speak broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the slimy pier at Newhaven. Comment? Rich booty you brought back Le Tutu, five tattered numbers of Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge a blue French telegram, curiosity to show Mother dying come home father. The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That's why she won't. Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt And I'll tell you the reason why. She always kept things decent in The Hannigan famileye. His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is there, the slender trees, the lemon houses. Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife, the kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In Rodot's Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth chaussons of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the pus of flan brton. Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased pleasers, curled conquistadores. Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. Un demi stier! A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me at his beck. Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais, nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui! She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well slainte! Around the slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. You're your father's son. I know the voice. His fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at his secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. Vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, La Patrie, M. Millevoye, Flix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, bonne  tout faire, who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. Moi faire, she said, Tous les messieurs. Not this Monsieur, I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn't let my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people. The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose tobaccoshreds catch fire a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw facebones under his peep of day boy's hat. How the head centre got away, authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms, drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost leaders, the betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not here. Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell you. I'll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree he hides, Egan of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his day's stations, the dingy printingcase, his three taverns, the Montmartre lair he sleeps short night in, rue de la Goutted'Or, damascened with flyblown faces of the gone. Loveless, landless, wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy without her outcast man, madame in rue GtleCur, canary and two buck lodgers. Peachy cheeks, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young thing's. Spurned and undespairing. Tell Pat you saw me, won't you? I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time. Mon fils, soldier of France. I taught him to sing The boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades. Know that old lay? I taught Patrice that. Old Kilkenny saint Canice, Strongbow's castle on the Nore. Goes like this. O, O. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by the hand. O, O the boys of Kilkenny... Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them. Remembering thee, O Sion. He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots. The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship, am I? He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the quaking soil. Turn back. Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my feet are sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait, their pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will not sleep there when this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombing their blind bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call no answer. He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon's midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing Elsinore's tempting flood. The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a grike. A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. Un coche ensabl Louis Veuillot called Gautier's prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren of weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout's toys. Mind you don't get one bang on the ear. I'm the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz an Iridzman. A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand. Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who? Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers' knives, running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering resin fires. I spoke to noone none to me. The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. Terribilia meditans. A primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders live their lives. The Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of... We don't want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. Natrlich, put there for you. Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his death. I... With him together down... I could not save her. Waters bitter death lost. A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet. Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a lowskimming gull. The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves. Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping, soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a calf's gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like a dog all over the dead dog's bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody's body. Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel! The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His hindpaws then scattered the sand then his forepaws dabbled and delved. Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand, dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in spousebreach, vulturing the dead. After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my face. Smiled creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red carpet spread. You will see who. Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed the ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair trailed. Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides her body's flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues' rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. Fumbally's lane that night the tanyard smells. White thy fambles, red thy gan And thy quarrons dainty is. Couch a hogshead with me then. In the darkmans clip and kiss. Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, frate porcospino. Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him thy quarrons dainty is. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber on their girdles roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets. Passing now. A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun's flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps, trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering, moondrawn, in her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not mine, oinopa ponton, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon. In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled. Omnis caro ad te veniet. He comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying the sea, mouth to her mouth's kiss. Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss. No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth's kiss. His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air mouth to her moomb. Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched ooeeehah roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy's letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off. Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and scribbled words. That's twice I forgot to take slips from the library counter. His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field. Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat veil of space with coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the more. She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges Figgis' window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie a pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple dumplings, piuttosto. Where are your wits? Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me. He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the scribbled note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his eyes. That is Kevin Egan's movement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. Et vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona. Alo! Bonjour. Welcome as the flowers in May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far. And no more turn aside and brood. His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck's castoffs, nebeneinander. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein another's foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's shoe went on you girl I knew in Paris. Tiens, quel petit pied! Staunch friend, a brother soul Wilde's love that dare not speak its name. His arm Cranly's arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all. In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen a fourworded wavespeech seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops flop, slop, slap bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling. Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day night by night lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary and, whispered to, they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, awaiting the fullness of their times, diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit. To no end gathered vainly then released, forthflowing, wending back loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws a toil of waters. Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward. There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. We have him. Easy now. Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to the sun. A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths known to man. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris beware of imitations. Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there? Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect, Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum. No. My cockle hat and staff and hismy sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself. He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest day. Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet. Gi. For the old hag with the yellow teeth. And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. Gi. My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch, the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps? My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up? His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one. He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock, carefully. For the rest let look who will. Behind. Perhaps there is someone. He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship. Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish. The coals were reddening. Another slice of bread and butter three, four right. She didn't like her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high. Mkgnao! O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire. The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr. Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees. Milk for the pussens, he said. Mrkgnao! the cat cried. They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me. Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens. Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly. She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor. Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap. He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps. He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday not a good day either for a mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round him. No. On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she likes in the morning. Still perhaps once in a way. He said softly in the bare hall I'm going round the corner. Be back in a minute. And when he had heard his voice say it he added You don't want anything for breakfast? A sleepy soft grunt answered Mn. No. She didn't want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor's auction. Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was farseeing. His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps stickyback pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do. The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely Plasto's high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip of paper. Quite safe. On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I come back anyhow. He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn't go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked in happy warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east early morning set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well, meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among the pillars priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark language. High wall beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of those instruments what do you call them dulcimers. I pass. Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read in the track of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that homerule sun rising up in the northwest. He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however just the end of the city traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there n. g. as position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot. Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm going to tell you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they'd only be an eight o'clock breakfast for the Japanese. Stop and say a word about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor Dignam, Mr O'Rourke. Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the doorway Good day, Mr O'Rourke. Good day to you. Lovely weather, sir. 'Tis all that. Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think of the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we'll split the job, see? How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph's National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom. He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened in his mind, unsolved displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links, packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs' blood. A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish the last. He stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the items from a slip in her hand? Chapped washingsoda. And a pound and a half of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each whack. The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there like a stallfed heifer. He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets the model farm at Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him interesting read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt swinging, whack by whack by whack. The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red grimace. Now, my miss, he said. She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out. Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you, please? Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed down his nose they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For another a constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles' Lane. They like them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I'm lost in the wood. Threepence, please. His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket. Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by disc, into the till. Thank you, sir. Another time. A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze after an instant. No better not another time. Good morning, he said, moving away. Good morning, sir. No sign. Gone. What matter? He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim planters' company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper oranges need artificial irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse , Berlin, W. . Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it. He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowdered olivetrees. Quiet long days pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched high prices too, Moisel told me. Arbutus place Pleasants street pleasant old times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way Spain, Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them barefoot in soiled dungarees. There's whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do you? Doesn't see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back is like that Norwegian captain's. Wonder if I'll meet him today. Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven. A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far. No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down the cities of the plain Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead an old woman's the grey sunken cunt of the world. Desolation. Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes. Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind. Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs Marion. Poldy! Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellow twilight towards her tousled head. Who are the letters for? He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly. A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for you. He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees. Do you want the blind up? Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow. That do? he asked, turning. She was reading the card, propped on her elbow. She got the things, she said. He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back slowly with a snug sigh. Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched. The kettle is boiling, he said. But he delayed to clear the chair her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed. As he went down the kitchen stairs she called Poldy! What? Scald the teapot. On the boil sure enough a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took off the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they won't eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup. Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks new tam Mr Coghlan lough Owel picnic young student Blazes Boylan's seaside girls. The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby, smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No, wait four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring. O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling. You are my lookingglass from night to morning. I'd rather have you without a farthing Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden. Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was. He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over then fitted the teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle. Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on the chair by the bedhead. What a time you were! she said. She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured. A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread. Who was the letter from? he asked. Bold hand. Marion. O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme. What are you singing? L ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song. Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day. Like foul flowerwater. Would you like the window open a little? She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking What time is the funeral? Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper. Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a stocking rumpled, shiny sole. No that book. Other stocking. Her petticoat. It must have fell down, she said. He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorrei. Wonder if she pronounces that right voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the orangekeyed chamberpot. Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to ask you. She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with the hairpin till she reached the word. Met him what? he asked. Here, she said. What does that mean? He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail. Metempsychosis? Yes. Who's he when he's at home? Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek from the Greek. That means the transmigration of souls. O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words. He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes. The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the smudged pages. Ruby the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim from him with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Hengler's. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we'll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man's soul after he dies. Dignam's soul... Did you finish it? he asked. Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the first fellow all the time? Never read it. Do you want another? Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has. She poured more tea into her cup, watching it flow sideways. Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they'll write to Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation that's the word. Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives. The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better remind her of the word metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example? The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number of Photo Bits Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down slimmer. Three and six I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked nymphs Greece and for instance all the people that lived then. He turned the pages back. Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance. What they called nymphs, for example. Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her, inhaling through her arched nostrils. There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire? The kidney! he cried suddenly. He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping hastily down the stairs with a flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke shot up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its back. Only a little burnt. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the scanty brown gravy trickle over it. Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of bread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about some young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at his side, reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread in the gravy and raising it to his mouth. Dearest Papli Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me splendid. Everyone says I am quite the belle in my new tam. I got mummy's lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me and Mrs. Will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair day and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday. There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan's (I was on the pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about those seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondest love Your fond daughter Milly P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby. M. Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old woman. Lot of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew from the first poor little Rudy wouldn't live. Well, God is good, sir. She knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived. His vacant face stared pityingly at the postscript. Excuse bad writing. Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the XL Caf about the bracelet. Wouldn't eat her cakes or speak or look. Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she might do worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again twice. O, well she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild piece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. Ripening now. Vain very. He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a little. Was given milk too long. On the Erin's King that day round the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue scarf loose in the wind with her hair. All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your head it simply swirls. Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers' pockets, jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. Pier with lamps, summer evening, band. Those girls, those girls, Those lovely seaside girls. Milly too. Young kisses the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion. Reading, lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling, braiding. A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, yes. Prevent. Useless can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full gluey woman's lips. Better where she is down there away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two and six return. Six weeks off, however. Might work a press pass. Or through M'Coy. The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper, nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing. Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear with her back to the fire too. He felt heavy, full then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him. Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I'm ready. Heaviness hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the landing. A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as I'm. In the tabledrawer he found an old number of Titbits. He folded it under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed. Listening, he heard her voice Come, come, pussy. Come. He went out through the backdoor into the garden stood to listen towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The maid was in the garden. Fine morning. He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall. Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this that is? The hens in the next garden their droppings are very good top dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies' kid gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still gardens have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday. He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don't remember that. Hallstand too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox there got away James Stephens, they say. O'Brien. Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss. Enthusiast. He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in his countinghouse. Nobody. Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit. Our prize titbit Matcham's Masterstroke. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers' Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds, thirteen and six. Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive. One tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six. Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. .. Did Roberts pay you yet? .. What had Gretta Conroy on? .. What possessed me to buy this comb? .. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot. Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the hours. Explain that morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow. Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then black with daggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still, true to life also. Day then the night. He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it. Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the air. In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully his black trousers the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time is the funeral? Better find out in the paper. A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's church. They tolled the hour loud dark iron. Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Quarter to. There again the overtone following through the air. A third. Poor Dignam! By lorries along sir John Rogerson's quay Mr Bloom walked soberly, past Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the postal telegraph office. Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked, smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour won't be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes house of Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom. In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets choice blend, finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan. Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their dropped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a card behind the headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket. So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and hair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved and read again choice blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must be the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in dolce far niente, not doing a hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in the dead sea floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the what? Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It's a law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second per second. Law of falling bodies per second per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It's the force of gravity of the earth is the weight. He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded Freeman from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air just drop in to see. Per second per second. Per second for every second it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. Noone. In. He handed the card through the brass grill. Are there any letters for me? he asked. While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting poster with soldiers of all arms on parade and held the tip of his baton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably. Went too far last time. The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a letter. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope. Henry Flower Esq, co P. O. Westland Row, City. Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket, reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment? Castoff soldier. There bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a grenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now an army rotten with venereal disease overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table able. Bed ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes. He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk as if that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the letter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something pinned on photo perhaps. Hair? No. M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when you. Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to? Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular. How's the body? Fine. How are you? Just keeping alive, M'Coy said. His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're... O, no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today. To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time? A photo it isn't. A badge maybe. E...eleven, Mr Bloom answered. I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy? I know. Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless stand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once take the starch out of her. I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what do you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were. Doran Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath his vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the braided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps. Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will she get up? And he said Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? I said. Poor little Paddy Dignam, he said. Off to the country Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces dangling. Wellturned foot. What is he foostering over that change for? Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two strings to her bow. Why? I said. What's wrong with him? I said. Proud rich silk stockings. Yes, Mr Bloom said. He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a minute. What's wrong with him? He said. He's dead, he said. And, faith, he filled up. Is it Paddy Dignam? I said. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in the Arch. Yes, he said. He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow. Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch! A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between. Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace street hallway Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering the display of. Esprit de corps. Well, what are you gaping at? Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone. One of the best, M'Coy said. The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker the laceflare of her hat in the sun flicker, flick. Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said. O, yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks. He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Incomplete. With it an abode of bliss. My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet. Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks. Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness. My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth. That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it up? Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark lady and fair man. Letter. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope. Love's Old Sweet Song Comes loove's old... It's a kind of a tour, don't you see, Mr Bloom said thoughtfully. Sweeeet song. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part profits. M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble. O, well, he said. That's good news. He moved to go. Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around. Yes, Mr Bloom said. Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral, will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I'm not there, will you? I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all right. Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do. That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly. Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him his for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that good day to this. Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its way for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know in the same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't he hear the difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that smallpox up there doesn't get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife. Wonder is he pimping after me? Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's Summer Sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. Leah tonight. Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Like to see her again in that. Hamlet she played last night. Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed suicide. Poor papa! How he used to talk of Kate Bateman in that. Outside the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before I was born that was sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the right name is? By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was always talking about where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his face. Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his father and left the God of his father. Every word is so deep, Leopold. Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his face. That day! O, dear! O, dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was best for him. Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met that M'Coy fellow. He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded too a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their neigh can be very irritating. He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer. He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies. All weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e non. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying syllables as they pass. He hummed L ci darem la mano La la lala la la. He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the lee of the station wall. Noone. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's. And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper. A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not annoyed then? What does she say? Dear Henry I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the real meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell me more. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, I have such a bad headache. today. and write by return to your longing Martha P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to know. He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because noone can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then walking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his sidepocket. Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did she wrote it herself. Doing the indignant a girl of good family like me, respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go further next time. Naughty boy punish afraid of words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time. Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it. Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses without thorns. Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in the Coombe, linked together in the rain. O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers. She didn't know what to do To keep it up, To keep it up. It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife use. Now could you make out a thing like that? To keep it up. Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the two sluts in the Coombe would listen. To keep it up. Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there quiet dusk let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been, strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like the hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her more and more all. Then a sigh silence. Long long long rest. Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away, sank in the dank air a white flutter, then all sank. Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. One and four into twenty fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter. What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the same. An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach. Barrels bumped in his head dull porter slopped and churned inside. The bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth. He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy for a pass to Mullingar. Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J. on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the true religion. Save China's millions. Wonder how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for them. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? Conmee Martin Cunningham knows him distinguishedlooking. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't. They're taught that. He's not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose. The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps, pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere. Something going on some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her hat sank at once. Then the next one a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? Corpus body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it only swallow it down. Rum idea eating bits of a corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it. He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth it's that sort of bread unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next year. He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back I.N.R.I? No I.H.S. Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned or no I have suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in. Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, now that's a good name for them, there's always something shiftylooking about them. They're not straight men of business either. O, no, she's not here the flower no, no. By the way, did I tear up that envelope? Yes under the bridge. The priest was rinsing out the chalice then he tossed off the dregs smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley's Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale (aromatic). Doesn't give them any of it shew wine only the other. Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right otherwise they'd have one old booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is. Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music. Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that instrument talk, the vibrato fifty pounds a year they say he had in Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ, but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up Quis est homo. Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante seven last words. Mozart's twelfth mass Gloria in that. Those old popes keen on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting, regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don't they? Gluttons, tall, long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it. He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a card O God, our refuge and our strength... Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Glorious and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God's little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome they work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too? Bequests also to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors. Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in the witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything. Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the church they mapped out the whole theology of it. The priest prayed Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God restrain him, we humbly pray!) and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women remained behind thanksgiving. Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate perhaps. Pay your Easter duty. He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don't. Why didn't you tell me before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water. Trams a car of Prescott's dyeworks a widow in her weeds. Notice because I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day. He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. O well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions book. The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor Whack. He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least expect it. Clever of nature. About a fortnight ago, sir? Yes, Mr Bloom said. He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, the dusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches and pains. Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then orangeflower water... It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax. And white wax also, he said. Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best strawberries for the teeth nettles and rainwater oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skinfood. One of the old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your? Peau d'Espagne. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner. Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time for massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum. Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought a bottle? No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day and I'll take one of these soaps. How much are they? Fourpence, sir. Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax. I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny. Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you come back. Good, Mr Bloom said. He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the coolwrappered soap in his left hand. At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said Hello, Bloom. What's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a minute. Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am. Bantam Lyons's yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling. I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam Lyons said. Where the bugger is it? He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper and get shut of him. You can keep it, Mr Bloom said. Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the second. I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said. Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly. What's that? his sharp voice said. I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away that moment. Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms. I'll risk it, he said. Here, thanks. He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut. Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt. He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park cyclist doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. Then the spokes sports, sports, sports and the hub big college. Something to catch the eye. There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How do you do, sir? Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Heatwave. Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. Enjoy a bath now clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid stream. This is my body. He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow his navel, bud of flesh and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after him, curving his height with care. Come on, Simon. After you, Mr Bloom said. Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying Yes, yes. Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom. Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside an old woman peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same after. Unclean job. All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity. All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning then nearer then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking pace. They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the doorframes. What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows. Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street. Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out. That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died out. All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat. There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. Who is that? Your son and heir. Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across. The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell back, saying Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates! No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone. Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the wise child that knows her own father. Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the bottleworks Dodder bridge. Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady's two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on him now that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he'll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent profit. He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me. He cried above the clatter of the wheels I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper's son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely. He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying for it. How life begins. Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her. I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn German too. Are we late? Mr Power asked. Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch. Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes a woman too. Life, life. The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying. Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said. He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him. Do you follow me? He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away crustcrumbs from under his thighs. What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs? Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power said. All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and said Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin? It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said. Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better. Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world. Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of his beard gently. Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes. And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked. At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said. I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come. The carriage halted short. What's wrong? We're stopped. Where are we? Mr Bloom put his head out of the window. The grand canal, he said. Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss this chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave. A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men's dogs usually are. A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now. The weather is changing, he said quietly. A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said. Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There's the sun again coming out. Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled a mute curse at the sky. It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said. We're off again. The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard. Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking him off to his face. O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear him, Simon, on Ben Dollard's singing of The Croppy Boy. Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. His singing of that simple ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the whole course of my experience. Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He's dead nuts on that. And the retrospective arrangement. Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Martin Cunningham asked. I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it? In the paper this morning. Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change for her. No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on please. Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the deaths Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? no, Sexton, Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of his. Aged  after a long and tedious illness. Month's mind Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy. It is now a month since dear Henry fled To his home up above in the sky While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him on high. I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it in the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry fled. Before my patience are exhausted. National school. Meade's yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding. Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their hats. A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Couldn't they invent something automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job making the new invention? Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law perhaps. They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the railway bridge, past the Queen's theatre in silence. Hoardings Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see Leah tonight, I wonder. I said I. Or the Lily of Killarney? Elster Grimes Opera Company. Big powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. Fun on the Bristol. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a drink or two. As broad as it's long. He's coming in the afternoon. Her songs. Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Who was he? How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in salute. He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do? Who? Mr Dedalus asked. Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff. Just that moment I was thinking. Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the white disc of a straw hat flashed reply spruce figure passed. Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees? Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am just looking at them well pared. And after thinking alone. Body getting a bit softy. I would notice that from remembering. What causes that? I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the flesh falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind. He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant glance over their faces. Mr Power asked How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom? O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good idea, you see... Are you going yourself? Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other. Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now. Have you good artists? Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact. And Madame, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least. Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and clasped them. Smith O'Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there. Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. Oot a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his mouth opening oot. Four bootlaces for a penny. Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street. Same house as Molly's namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake. O'Callaghan on his last legs. And Madame. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing her hair, humming voglio e non vorrei. No vorrei e non. Looking at the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. Mi trema un poco il. Beautiful on that tre her voice is weeping tone. A thrush. A throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that. His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over the ears. Madame smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way. Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury's. Or the Moira, was it? They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form. Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power. Of the tribe of Reuben, he said. A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his spine. In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said. Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly The devil break the hasp of your back! Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as the carriage passed Gray's statue. We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly. His eyes met Mr Bloom's eyes. He caressed his beard, adding Well, nearly all of us. Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces. That's an awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J and the son. About the boatman? Mr Power asked. Yes. Isn't it awfully good? What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn't hear it. There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to send him to the Isle of Man out of harm's way but when they were both..... What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it? Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried to drown..... Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did! Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils. No, Mr Bloom said, the son himself..... Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely Reuben J and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on their way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey. For God's sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead? Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father on the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there. Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is..... And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for saving his son's life. A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power's hand. O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin. Isn't it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly. One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily. Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage. Nelson's pillar. Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny! We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said. Mr Dedalus sighed. Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a laugh. Many a good one he told himself. The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and he was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this. He's gone from us. As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went very suddenly. Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart. He tapped his chest sadly. Blazing face redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose. Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent colouring it. Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension. He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said. The best death, Mr Bloom said. Their wide open eyes looked at him. No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep. Noone spoke. Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents, temperance hotel, Falconer's railway guide, civil service college, Gill's, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the late Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart. White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner, galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for a nun. Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child. A dwarf's face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy's was. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant nothing. Mistake of nature. If it's healthy it's from the mother. If not from the man. Better luck next time. Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It's well out of it. The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns. In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said. But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own life. Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back. The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added. Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We must take a charitable view of it. They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said. It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said. Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham's large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. Like Shakespeare's face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy on that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the riverbed clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of a wife of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday morning. Start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have looked a sight that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about the place and capering with Martin's umbrella. And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The geisha. He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones. That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner's sunlit ears, big and hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. Verdict overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son Leopold. No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns. The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones. We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said. God grant he doesn't upset us on the road, Mr Power said. I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrow in Germany. The Gordon Bennett. Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith. As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has anybody here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from Saul. He's as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The Mater Misericordiae. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady's Hospice for the dying. Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They look terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He's gone over to the lyingin hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other. The carriage galloped round a corner stopped. What's wrong now? A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear. Emigrants, Mr Power said. Huuuh! the drover's voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks. Huuuh! out of that! Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for old England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter lost all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train at Clonsilla. The carriage moved on through the drove. I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken in trucks down to the boats. Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite right. They ought to. Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to have municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and all. Don't you see what I mean? O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloon diningroom. A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added. Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn't it be more decent than galloping two abreast? Well, there's something in that, Mr Dedalus granted. And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn't have scenes like that when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin on to the road. That was terrible, Mr Power's shocked face said, and the corpse fell about the road. Terrible! First round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup. Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously. Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too large for him. Red face grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what's up now. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. The sphincter loose. Seal up all. Dunphy's, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right. Dunphy's corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. A pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we'll pull up here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation. Elixir of life. But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in the knocking about? He would and he wouldn't, I suppose. Depends on where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It would be better to bury them in red a dark red. In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted by, coming from the cemetery looks relieved. Crossguns bridge the royal canal. Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his dropping barge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a slacktethered horse. Aboard of the Bugabu. Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now. I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said. Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said. How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose? Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear. The carriage steered left for Finglas road. The stonecutter's yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. Passed. On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown yawning boot. After life's journey. Gloomy gardens then went by one by one gloomy houses. Mr Power pointed. That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house. So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said. The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said. Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That's the maxim of the law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be wrongfully condemned. They looked. Murderer's ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned. Murder. The murderer's image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading about it. Man's head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large. Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out. Cramped in this carriage. She mightn't like me to come that way without letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with their pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen. The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars, rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the air. The felly harshed against the curbstone stopped. Martin Cunningham put out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed. Change that soap now. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still held. Paltry funeral coach and three carriages. It's all the same. Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together cakes for the dead. Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out. He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy. Where is that child's funeral disappeared to? A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted. Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye collar tight on his neck, pressing on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here every day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in the world. Mourners came out through the gates woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy, hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl's face stained with dirt and tears, holding the woman's arm, looking up at her for a sign to cry. Fish's face, bloodless and livid. The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First the stiff then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy followed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the brotherinlaw. All walked after. Martin Cunningham whispered I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom. What? Mr Power whispered. How so? His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the Queen's hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare. Anniversary. O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself? He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed towards the cardinal's mausoleum. Speaking. Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked. I believe so, Mr Kernan answered. But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane. How many children did he leave? Five. Ned Lambert says he'll try to get one of the girls into Todd's. A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children. A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added. Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed. Has the laugh at him now. He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back, waiting. It never comes. One must go first alone, under the ground and lie no more in her warm bed. How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't seen you for a month of Sundays. Never better. How are all in Cork's own town? I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy. And how is Dick, the solid man? Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered. By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald? Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said, pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the insurance is cleared up. Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front? Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is behind. He put down his name for a quid. I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world. How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what? Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh. They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three shillings to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel. Which end is his head? After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously. A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly. Who'll read the book? I, said the rook. They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book with a fluent croak. Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Dominenamine. Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn burst sideways. Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance they get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes blue. One whiff of that and you're a goner. My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better. The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you were before you rested. It's all written down he has to do it. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course ... Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day a fresh batch middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls with little sparrows' breasts. All the year round he prayed the same thing over them all and shook water on top of them sleep. On Dignam now. In paradisum. Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something. The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brotherinlaw. All followed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here. The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him. Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone. He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon! Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'll soon be stretched beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes. Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little in his walk. Mr Power took his arm. She's better where she is, he said kindly. I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in heaven if there is a heaven. Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely. Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head. The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place. They covered their heads. The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think? Mr Kernan said with reproof. Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think not sure. Beside him again. We are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else. Mr Kernan added The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more impressive I must say. Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing. Mr Kernan said with solemnity I am the resurrection and the life. That touches a man's inmost heart. It does, Mr Bloom said. Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections. Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying around here lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps damn the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure. Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side. Everything went off A, he said. What? He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With your tooraloom tooraloom. As it should be, Mr Kernan said. What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said. Mr Kernan assured him. Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I know his face. Ned Lambert glanced back. Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the soprano. She's his wife. O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good armful she was. He looked behind through the others. What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls. Ned Lambert smiled. Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper. In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like that for? She had plenty of game in her then. Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads. John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead. The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps. John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend. Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said I am come to pay you another visit. My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want your custom at all. Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his back. Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe? I did not, Martin Cunningham said. They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the drunks spelt out the name Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He resumed And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, Not a bloody bit like the man, says he. That's not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it. Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he walked. That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. I know, Hynes said. I know that. To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure goodheartedness damn the thing else. Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys like Keyes's ad no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. Habeas corpus. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death. Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o' the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they'd kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway. He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must be oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too trim grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic Gardens are just over there. It's the blood sinking in the earth gives new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds thirteen and six. With thanks. I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh, nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing out of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed on feed on themselves. But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life. Cracking his jokes too warms the cockles of his heart. The one about the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven  a.m. this morning.  p.m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what's in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life. How many have you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked. Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven. The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its nose on the brink, looping the bands round it. Burying him. We come to bury Csar. His ides of March or June. He doesn't know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know? Now I'd give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he could. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too. First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you come to look at it. O, poor Robinson Crusoe! How could you possibly do so? Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow's. They're so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible even in the earth. The Irishman's house is his coffin. Embalming in catacombs, mummies the same idea. Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads. Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen. Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him. The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the gravetrestles. They struggled up and out and all uncovered. Twenty. Pause. If we were all suddenly somebody else. Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away. Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel. Must be damned unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be someone else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid all your life. The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he's doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing him a woman. Dying to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold thee? Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit forget you. Don't forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow dropping into a hole, one after the other. We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire of purgatory. Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma, poor mamma, and little Rudy. The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no he is dead, of course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there's no. The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he traversed the dismal fields. Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he knows them all. No coming to me. I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your christian name? I'm not sure. L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too. He asked me to. Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the Freeman once. So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley, you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does no harm. I saw to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap much obliged. Leave him under an obligation costs nothing. And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was over there in the... He looked around. Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now? M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don't know who he is. Is that his name? He moved away, looking about him. No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes! Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord, what became of him? A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade. O, excuse me! He stepped aside nimbly. Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over. A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath against a corner the brotherinlaw his on a lump. The gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. The brotherinlaw, turning away, placed something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir trouble. Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just. The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read a name on a tomb. Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time. Let us, Mr Power said. They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr Power's blank voice spoke Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled with stones. That one day he will come again. Hynes shook his head. Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was mortal of him. Peace to his ashes. Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you what they were. So and So, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it. Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Marriage ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles. A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him. Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder. SillyMilly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave. The Sacred Heart that is showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the boy. Apollo that was. How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As you are now so once were we. Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the voice, yes gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather. Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died when I was in Wisdom Hely's. Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop! He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he goes. An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the pebbles. An old stager greatgrandfather he knows the ropes. The grey alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good hidingplace for treasure. Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds. Tail gone now. One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication. We learned that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for them. Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse smell, taste like raw white turnips. The gates glimmered in front still open. Back to the world again. Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds warm fullblooded life. Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely. Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office. Mat Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of mine the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women are by. Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably. Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them. They stopped. Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said pointing. John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving. There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also. John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again. It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said. John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment. Thank you, he said shortly. They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without his seeing it. Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him. Get the pull over him that way. Thank you. How grand we are this morning! Before Nelson's pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway Company's timekeeper bawled them off Rathgar and Terenure! Come on, Sandymount Green! Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided parallel. Start, Palmerston Park! Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion mailcars, bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received loudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery. Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores. There it is, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes. Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to the Telegraph office. The door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier. Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste. I'll go through the printingworks, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut square. Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behind his ear, we can do him one. Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. We. Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered Brayden. Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a stately figure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and National Press and the Freeman's Journal and National Press. Dullthudding Guinness's barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase, steered by an umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back ascended each step back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck. Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered. The door of Ruttledge's office whispered ee cree. They always build one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out. Our Saviour beardframed oval face talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha. Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights Mario the tenor. Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said. Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our Saviour. Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his heart. In Martha. Coome thou lost one, Coome thou dear one! His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely. They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck. A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and stepped off posthaste with a word Freeman! Mr Bloom said slowly Well, he is one of our saviours also. A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed in through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping. Thumping. He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards Nannetti's reading closet. Hynes here too account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. This morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand fermenting. Working away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in. Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy crown. Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth. It's the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale news in the official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year one thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle Toby's page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P. Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand. World's biggest balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish than the Irish. The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if he got paralysed there and noone knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the whole thing. Want a cool head. Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said. Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him, they say. The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the dirty glass screen. Right thanks, Hynes said moving off. Mr Bloom stood in his way. If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said, pointing backward with his thumb. Did you? Hynes asked. Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him. Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too. He hurried on eagerly towards the Freeman's Journal. Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint. Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk. Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember? Mr Nannetti considered the cutting awhile and nodded. He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said. The foreman moved his pencil towards it. But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants two keys at the top. Hell of a racket they make. He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves. Maybe he understands what I. The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket. Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top. Let him take that in first. Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels various uses, thousand and one things. Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew swiftly on the scarred woodwork. Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name. Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on. Better not teach him his own business. You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the top in leaded the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea? The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched there quietly. The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor, the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that? I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that voglio. But then if he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not. We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design? I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that and just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. Highclass licensed premises. Longfelt want. So on. The foreman thought for an instant. We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal. A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the silent typesetters at their cases. Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed pedlar while gauging au the symmetry with a y of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on account of the symmetry. I should have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought to have said something about an old hat or something. No. I could have said. Looks as good as new now. See his phiz then. Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward its flyboard with sllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost human the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. That door too sllt creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its own way. Sllt. The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the Telegraph. Where's what's his name? He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines. Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox. Ay. Where's Monks? Monks! Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out. Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a good place I know. Monks! Yes, sir. Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it anyhow. Rub in August good idea horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists over for the show. He walked on through the caseroom passing an old man, bowed, spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must have put through his hands in his time obituary notices, pubs' ads, speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now. Sober serious man with a bit in the savingsbank I'd say. Wife a good cook and washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn nonsense. He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice that. mangiD kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that's the other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher. And then the angel of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat. Sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. How quickly he does that job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his fingers. Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch him out perhaps. Better phone him up first. Number? Yes. Same as Citron's house. Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four. He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over those walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy smell there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door when I was there. He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief he took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned, into the hip pocket of his trousers. What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still tram something I forgot. Just to see before dressing. No. Here. No. A sudden screech of laughter came from the Evening Telegraph office. Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it is. He entered softly. The ghost walks, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to the dusty windowpane. Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing face, asked of it sourly Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse? Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on its way, tho' quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling waters of Neptune's blue domain, 'mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest zephyrs, played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast o'er its pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest. What about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his newspaper. How's that for high? Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said. Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage. O boys! O boys! And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea. That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want to hear any more of the stuff. He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and, hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand. High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see. Rather upsets a man's day, a funeral does. He has influence they say. Old Chatterton, the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle. Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death written this long time perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first himself. Johnny, make room for your uncle. The right honourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes him an odd shaky cheque or two on gale days. Windfall when he kicks out. Alleluia. Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said. What is it? Mr Bloom asked. A recently discovered fragment of Cicero, professor MacHugh answered with pomp of tone. Our lovely land. Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply. Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With an accent on the whose. Dan Dawson's land Mr Dedalus said. Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked. Ned Lambert nodded. But listen to this, he said. The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was pushed in. Excuse me, J. J. O'Molloy said, entering. Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside. I beg yours, he said. Good day, Jack. Come in. Come in. Good day. How are you, Dedalus? Well. And yourself? J. J. O'Molloy shook his head. Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline, poor chap. That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's in the wind, I wonder. Money worry. Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks. You're looking extra. Is the editor to be seen? J. J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the inner door. Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in his sanctum with Lenehan. J. J. O'Molloy strolled to the sloping desk and began to turn back the pink pages of the file. Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T. Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show the grey matter. Brains on their sleeve like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the Express with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began on the Independent. Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn't know which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for one another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hail fellow well met the next moment. Ah, listen to this for God' sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks... Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated windbag! Peaks, Ned Lambert went on, towering high on high, to bathe our souls, as it were... Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he taking anything for it? As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio, unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and luscious pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent translucent glow of our mild mysterious Irish twilight... The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet. That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence... O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan. Shite and onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short. He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers. Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's unshaven blackspectacled face. Doughy Daw! he cried. All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn't he? Why they call him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of them by the stomach. The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared about them and the harsh voice asked What is it? And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh said grandly. Getonouthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition. Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink after that. Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass. Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned. Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile. Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked. North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece. We won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers! Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at his toecaps. In Ohio! the editor shouted. So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed. Passing out he whispered to J. J. O'Molloy Incipient jigs. Sad case. Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face. My Ohio! A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long. He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant unwashed teeth. Bingbang, bangbang. Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door. Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an ad. He went in. What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder. That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you fret. Hello, Jack. That's all right. Good day, Myles, J. J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today? The telephone whirred inside. Twentyeight... No, twenty... Double four... Yes. Lenehan came out of the inner office with Sport's tissues. Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O. Madden up. He tossed the tissues on to the table. Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was flung open. Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops. Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the steps. The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air blue scrawls and under the table came to earth. It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir. Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a hurricane blowing. Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he stooped twice. Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat Farrell shoved me, sir. He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe. Him, sir. Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly. He hustled the boy out and banged the door to. J. J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking Continued on page six, column four. Yes, Evening Telegraph here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner office. Is the boss...? Yes, Telegraph... To where? Aha! Which auction rooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him. The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue. Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and making a grimace. My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a hurry. Knee, Lenehan said. He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee The accumulation of the anno Domini. Sorry, Mr Bloom said. He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J. J. O'Molloy slapped the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps We are the boys of Wexford Who fought with heart and hand. I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in Dillon's. He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who, leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand, suddenly stretched forth an arm amply. Begone! he said. The world is before you. Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out. J. J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them, blowing them apart gently, without comment. He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through his blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps after him. Show. Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window. Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail of white bowknots. Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said, and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk. Small nines. Steal upon larks. He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding feet past the fireplace to J. J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his receiving hands. What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other two gone? Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night. Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat? He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the air and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer. He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice. Seems to be, J. J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarettecase in murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most matches? He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J. J. O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it. Thanky vous, Lenehan said, helping himself. The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh 'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, 'Twas empire charmed thy heart. The professor grinned, locking his long lips. Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said. He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him with quick grace, said Silence for my brandnew riddle! Imperium romanum, J. J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire. Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling. That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire. We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell. Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome, imperial, imperious, imperative. He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow but vile. Cloacae sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset. Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial to the running stream. They were nature's gentlemen, J. J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have also Roman law. And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded. Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? J. J. O'Molloy asked. It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly ... First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready? Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered. Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan cried. I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by Experience visits Notoriety. How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your governor is just gone. Lenehan said to all Silence! What opera resembles a railwayline? Reflect, ponder, excogitate, reply. Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and signature. Who? the editor asked. Bit torn off. Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said. That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken? On swift sail flaming From storm and south He comes, pale vampire, Mouth to my mouth. Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...? Bullockbefriending bard. Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to... O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. The bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's face in the Star and Garter. Oho! A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni. Is he a widower? Stephen asked. Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes, every time. Don't you forget that! The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O'Molloy said quietly, turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job. Professor MacHugh turned on him. And if not? he said. I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one day... We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim time is money. Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westend club. But the Greek! A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long lips. The Greek! he said again. Kyrios! Shining word! The vowels the Semite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! The closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause. He strode away from them towards the window. They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they always fell. Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in the latter half of the matine. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus! He whispered then near Stephen's ear There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh Who wears goggles of ebony hue. As he mostly sees double To wear them why trouble? I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you? In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead. Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket. That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be all right. Lenehan extended his hands in protest. But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline? Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled. Lenehan announced gladly The Rose of Castile. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee! He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp. Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness. Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling tissues. The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties. Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards. Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O'Molloy said in quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff. We were only thinking about it, Stephen said. All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics... The turf, Lenehan put in. Literature, the press. If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of advertisement. And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's prime favourite. Lenehan gave a loud cough. Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a cold in the park. The gate was open. The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder. I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. In the lexicon of youth... See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer. Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great nationalist meeting in BorrisinOssory. All balls! Bulldosing the public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy. We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare. He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O'Molloy said. You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in emphasis. Wait a minute. We'll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher used to say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the Clarence. Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You know how he made his mark? I'll tell you. That was the smartest piece of journalism ever known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of the invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I suppose. I'll show you. He pushed past them to the files. Look at here, he said turning. The New York World cabled for a special. Remember that time? Professor MacHugh nodded. New York World, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and the rest of them. Where SkintheGoat drove the car. Whole route, see? SkintheGoat, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that cabman's shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. You know Holohan? Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said. And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for the corporation. A night watchman. Stephen turned in surprise. Gumley? he said. You don't say so? A friend of my father's, is it? Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind the stones, see they don't run away. Look at here. What did Ignatius Gallaher do? I'll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away. Have you Weekly Freeman of  March? Right. Have you got that? He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point. Take page four, advertisement for Bransome's coffee, let us say. Have you got that? Right. The telephone whirred. I'll answer it, the professor said, going. B is parkgate. Good. His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating. T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroon gate. The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock's wattles. An illstarched dicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into his waistcoat. Hello? Evening Telegraph here... Hello?... Who's there?... Yes... Yes... Yes. F to P is the route SkintheGoat drove the car for an alibi, Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F.A.B.P. Got that? X is Davy's publichouse in upper Leeson street. The professor came to the inner door. Bloom is at the telephone, he said. Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Davy's publichouse, see? Clever, Lenehan said. Very. Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole bloody history. Nightmare from which you will never awake. I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present. Dick Adams, the besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, and myself. Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing Madam, I'm Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba. History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince's street was there first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of an advertisement. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him the leg up. Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the Star. Now he's got in with Blumenfeld. That's press. That's talent. Pyatt! He was all their daddies! The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and the brotherinlaw of Chris Callinan. Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he's here still. Come across yourself. Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried. He flung the pages down. Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O'Madden Burke. Very smart, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Professor MacHugh came from the inner office. Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some hawkers were up before the recorder... O yes, J. J. O'Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home through the park to see all the trees that were blown down by that cyclone last year and thought she'd buy a view of Dublin. And it turned out to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or SkintheGoat. Right outside the viceregal lodge, imagine! They're only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said. Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like those fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O'Hagan. Eh? Ah, bloody nonsense. Psha! Only in the halfpenny place. His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain. Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did you write it then? Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must be some. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes two men dressed the same, looking the same, two by two. ........................ la tua pace .................. che parlar ti piace Mentre che il vento, come fa, si tace. He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, in russet, entwining, per l'aer perso, in mauve, in purple, quella pacifica oriafiamma, gold of oriflamme, di rimirar f pi ardenti. But I old men, penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night mouth south tomb womb. Speak up for yourself, Mr O'Madden Burke said. J. J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage. My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a false construction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for the third profession qua profession but your Cork legs are running away with you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes and Edmund Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod boss, Harmsworth of the farthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery guttersheet not to mention Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences and our watchful friend The Skibbereen Eagle. Why bring in a master of forensic eloquence like Whiteside? Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof. Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established . Dr Lucas. Who have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha! Well, J. J. O'Molloy said, Bushe K.C., for example. Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes Bushe, yes. He has a strain of it in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe. He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only for .... But no matter. J. J. O'Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my life fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide, the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him. And in the porches of mine ear did pour. By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other story, beast with two backs? What was that? the professor asked. He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O'Molloy said, of Roman justice as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And he cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican. Ha. A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence! Pause. J. J. O'Molloy took out his cigarettecase. False lull. Something quite ordinary. Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar. I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives. J. J. O'Molloy resumed, moulding his words He said of it that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and of prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live, deserves to live. His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall. Fine! Myles Crawford said at once. The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said. You like it? J. J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He took a cigarette from the case. J. J. O'Molloy offered his case to Myles Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his trophy, saying Muchibus thankibus. Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. J. O'Molloy said to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal hush poets A. E. the mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the morning to ask him about planes of consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have been pulling A. E.'s leg. He is a man of the very highest morale, Magennis. Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say about me? Don't ask. No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarettecase aside. Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I ever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the college historical society. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days), advocating the revival of the Irish tongue. He turned towards Myles Crawford and said You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of his discourse. He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O'Molloy said, rumour has it, on the Trinity college estates commission. He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford said, in a child's frock. Go on. Well? It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator, full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, therefore worthless. He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised an outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and ringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new focus. In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O'Molloy Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed. That he had prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy beard round it. He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he looked (though he was not) a dying man. His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O'Molloy's towards Stephen's face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His unglazed linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his withering hair. Still seeking, he said When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply. Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these. He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more. Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet. He began Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen Great was my admiration in listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported into a country far away from this country, into an age remote from this age, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses. His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. And let our crooked smokes. Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself? And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard his words and their meaning was revealed to me. It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine. Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen we are a mighty people. You have no cities nor no wealth our cities are hives of humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity. Nile. Child, man, effigy. By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes a man supple in combat stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone. You pray to a local and obscure idol our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called the world trembles at our name. A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it boldly But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw. He ceased and looked at them, enjoying a silence. J. J. O'Molloy said not without regret And yet he died without having entered the land of promise. Asuddenatthemomentthoughfromlingeringillnessoftenpreviouslyexpectorateddemise, Lenehan added. And with a great future behind him. The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway and pattering up the staircase. That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted. Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles of ears of porches. The tribune's words, howled and scattered to the four winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him me no more. I have money. Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may I suggest that the house do now adjourn? You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? Mr O'Madden Burke asked. 'Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug, metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry. That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All that are in favour say ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To which particular boosing shed...? My casting vote is Mooney's! He led the way, admonishing We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not? Yes, we will not. By no manner of means. Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally's lunge of his umbrella Lay on, Macduff! Chip of the old block! the editor cried, clapping Stephen on the shoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys? He fumbled in his pocket pulling out the crushed typesheets. Foot and mouth. I know. That'll be all right. That'll go in. Where are they? That's all right. He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office. J. J. O'Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment. He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him. Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn't it? It has the prophetic vision. Fuit Ilium! The sack of windy Troy. Kingdoms of this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today. The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and rushed out into the street, yelling Racing special! Dublin. I have much, much to learn. They turned to the left along Abbey street. I have a vision too, Stephen said. Yes? the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford will follow. Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran Racing special! Dubliners. Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived fifty and fiftythree years in Fumbally's lane. Where is that? the professor asked. Off Blackpitts, Stephen said. Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker, darlint! On now. Dare it. Let there be life. They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson's pillar. They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox. They shake out the threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennies with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven in coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their umbrellas for fear it may come on to rain. Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said. They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf at the north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins, proprietress... They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from a girl at the foot of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the brawn. They give two threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile and begin to waddle slowly up the winding staircase, grunting, encouraging each other, afraid of the dark, panting, one asking the other have you the brawn, praising God and the Blessed Virgin, threatening to come down, peeping at the airslits. Glory be to God. They had no idea it was that high. Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has the lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady who got a bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday. Antithesis, the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can see them. What's keeping our friend? He turned. A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in all directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them Myles Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet face, talking with J. J. O'Molloy. Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm. He set off again to walk by Stephen's side. Yes, he said. I see them. Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near the offices of the Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal, called Mr Crawford! A moment! Telegraph! Racing special! What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace. A newsboy cried in Mr Bloom's face Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows! Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps, puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyes just now. He'll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he'll see. But he wants a par to call attention in the Telegraph too, the Saturday pink. And he wants it copied if it's not too late I told councillor Nannetti from the Kilkenny People. I can have access to it in the national library. House of keys, don't you see? His name is Keyes. It's a play on the name. But he practically promised he'd give the renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will I tell him, Mr Crawford? Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said throwing out his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable. A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm. Lenehan's yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in muck somewhere. Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown? Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I suppose it's worth a short par. He'd give the ad, I think. I'll tell him... He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over his shoulder. Any time he likes, tell him. While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on jerkily. Nulla bona, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I'm up to here. I've been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to back a bill for me no later than last week. Sorry, Jack. You must take the will for the deed. With a heart and a half if I could raise the wind anyhow. J. J. O'Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught up on the others and walked abreast. When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty fingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the railings. Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two old Dublin women on the top of Nelson's pillar. That's new, Myles Crawford said. That's copy. Out for the waxies' Dargle. Two old trickies, what? But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see the roofs and argue about where the different churches are Rathmines' blue dome, Adam and Eve's, saint Laurence O'Toole's. But it makes them giddy to look so they pull up their skirts... Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We're in the archdiocese here. And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue of the onehandled adulterer. Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the idea. I see what you mean. It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between them and eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off with their handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and spitting the plumstones slowly out between the railings. He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O'Madden Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's. Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse. You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope. Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich. They made ready to cross O'Connell street. At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper Rathmines, all still, becalmed in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water floats with rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn, rapidly. But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get the plums? Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it deus nobis hc otia fecit. No, Stephen said. I call it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of The Plums. I see, the professor said. He laughed richly. I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land. We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O'Molloy. J. J. O'Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and held his peace. I see, the professor said. He halted on sir John Gray's pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson through the meshes of his wry smile. Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must say. Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty's truth was known. Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red jujubes white. A sombre Y. M. C. A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom. Heart to heart talks. Bloo... Me? No. Blood of the Lamb. His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, druids' altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of the church in Zion is coming. Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!! All heartily welcome. Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix. Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall, hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron Nails Ran In. Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good for the brain. From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk. Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father. Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their theology or the priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on the fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear he'd collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows if you could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting . s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one. Watching his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence mum's the word. Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it. Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution. As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that! Rats vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things. Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he comes out with the things. Knows how to tell a story too. They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait. He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin's King picked it up in the wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping. The hungry famished gull Flaps o'er the waters dull. That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has no rhymes blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts. Solemn. Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth. Two apples a penny! Two for a penny! His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels polishes them up with a rag or a handkerchief. Wait. Those poor birds. He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel. Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them. They wheeled flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more. Penny quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are not salty? How is that? His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board. Kino's  Trousers Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST  PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him. If he...? O! Eh? No... No. No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely? No, no. Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time. Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her about the transmigration. O rocks! Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She's right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound. She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking. Still, I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing into a barrel. Now, isn't that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out. A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like that priest they are this morning we have sinned we have suffered. He read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl no, M'Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either. I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she's writing. Get twenty of them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn't have it of course because he didn't think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What? Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's Ltd,  Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes. Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world. Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name too caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for them. My heart's broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the pawnbroker's daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire. He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait was in Thom's. Got the job in Wisdom Hely's year we married. Six years. Ten years ago ninetyfour he died yes that's right the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the inner alderman. Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with selfcovered buttons. She didn't like it because I sprained my ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old Goodwin's tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies' picnic too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we had that day. People looking after her. Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper. Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American soap I bought elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste. He walked along the curbstone. Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron's saint Kevin's parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen ...? Of course it's years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he couldn't remember the dayfather's name that he sees every day. Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her that song Winds that blow from the south. Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supperroom or oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky it didn't. Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth unclamping the busk of her stays white. Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. That was the night... O, Mr Bloom, how do you do? O, how do you do, Mrs Breen? No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for ages. In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know. Go away! Isn't that grand for her? Yes. In a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How are all your charges? All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said. How many has she? No other in sight. You're in black, I see. You have no... No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral. Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did he die of? Turn up like a bad penny. O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn't any near relation. May as well get her sympathy. Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning. Your funeral's tomorrow While you're coming through the rye. Diddlediddle dumdum Diddlediddle... Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. Now that's quite enough about that. Just quietly husband. And your lord and master? Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow. O, don't be talking! she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me heartscalded. Wait till I show you. Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom's gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the table. Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin ought to have a guard on those things. Stick it in a chap's eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. Husband barging. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are you feeding your little brother's family? Soiled handkerchief medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she?... There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you know what he did last night? Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in alarm, yet smiling. What? Mr Bloom asked. Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me. Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare. Indiges. Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs. The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said. She took a folded postcard from her handbag. Read that, she said. He got it this morning. What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U. P.? U. p up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It's a great shame for them whoever he is. Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said. She took back the card, sighing. And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take an action for ten thousand pounds, he says. She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch. Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque three old grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than Molly. See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex. He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent. Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I'm hungry too. Flakes of pastry on the gusset of her dress daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell that was. In Luke Doyle's long ago. Dolphin's Barn, the charades. U. p up. Change the subject. Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked. Mina Purefoy? she said. Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers' Club. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act. Yes. I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She's in the lyingin hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three days bad now. O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It's a very stiff birth, the nurse told me. O, Mr Bloom said. His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in compassion. Dth! Dth! I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That's terrible for her. Mrs Breen nodded. She was taken bad on the Tuesday... Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her Mind! Let this man pass. A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride. Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. Watch! Who is he if it's a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty? His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Bloom said smiling. Watch! He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these days. She broke off suddenly. There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to Molly, won't you? I will, Mr Bloom said. He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison's hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke earnestly. Meshuggah. Off his chump. Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world. And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have with him. U. p up. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton's office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the gods. He passed the Irish Times. There might be other answers lying there. Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who made the world. The way they spring those questions on you. And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good fortune to meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo. Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of poetry. Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop. James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big deal on Coates's shares. Ca' canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the Irish Field now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for Joe. First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood mare some of those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss off a glass of brandy neat while you'd say knife. That one at the Grosvenor this morning. Up with her on the car wishswish. Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of spite. Who is this she was like? O yes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that sold me her old wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel. Divorced Spanish American. Didn't take a feather out of her my handling them. As if I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when Stubbs the park ranger got me in with Whelan of the Express. Scavenging what the quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the plums thinking it was custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few weeks after. Want to be a bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work for her, thanks. Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore's cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family. Hardy annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the Three Jolly Topers marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t's are. Dog in the manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please. He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval. A sixpenny at Rowe's? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in the Burton. Better. On my way. He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot to tap Tom Kernan. Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out. Phew! Dreadful simply! Child's head too big forceps. Doubled up inside her trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me that would. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent something to stop that. Life with hard labour. Twilight sleep idea queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman that lived in a shoe she had so many children. Suppose he was consumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to feed fools on. They could easily have big establishments whole thing quite painless out of all the taxes give every child born five quid at compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more than you think. Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for nothing. Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs Moisel. Mothers' meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then returns. How flat they look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes. Weight off their mind. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies, she said. The spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O, that's nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old Tom Wall's son. His first bow to the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People knocking them up at all hours. For God' sake, doctor. Wife in her throes. Then keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on your wife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them. Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here's good luck. Must be thrilling from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees near Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me. A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the station. Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive soup. He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. They did right to put him up over a urinal meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women. Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. There is not in this wide world a vallee. Great song of Julia Morkan's. Kept her voice up to the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she? He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack Power could a tale unfold father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. Can't blame them after all with the job they have especially the young hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did! His horse's hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had the presence of mind to dive into Manning's or I was souped. He did come a wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I oughtn't to have got myself swept along with those medicals. And the Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for trouble. Still I got to know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater and now he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why he fixed on me. Give me in charge. Right here it began. Up the Boers! Three cheers for De Wet! We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree. Silly billies mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill. The Butter exchange band. Few years' time half of them magistrates and civil servants. War comes on into the army helterskelter same fellows used to. Whether on the scaffold high. Never know who you're talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on the invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to get in the know all the time drawing secret service pay from the castle. Drop him like a hot potato. Why those plainclothes men are always courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform. Squarepushing up against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the next thing on the menu. And who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was the young master saying anything? Peeping Tom through the keyhole. Decoy duck. Hotblooded young student fooling round her fat arms ironing. Are those yours, Mary? I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Out half the night. There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see. Ah, gelong with your great times coming. Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls. James Stephens' idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that a fellow couldn't round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey's daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the Buckingham Palace hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi. You must have a certain fascination Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Or gas about our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company's tearoom. Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government. That the language question should take precedence of the economic question. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here's a good lump of thyme seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk with the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap pays best sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show us over those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day. Homerule sun rising up in the northwest. His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly, shadowing Trinity's surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing, outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same, day after day squads of police marching out, back trams in, out. Those two loonies mooching about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a bed groaning to have a child tugged out of her. One born every second somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes. Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born, washing the blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa. Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too other coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan's mushroom houses built of breeze. Shelter, for the night. Noone is anything. This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy hate this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed. Provost's house. The reverend Dr Salmon tinned salmon. Well tinned in there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn't live in it if they paid me. Hope they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum. The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silverware opposite in Walter Sexton's window by which John Howard Parnell passed, unseeing. There he is the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that's a coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don't meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. Noone knows him. Must be a corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal's uniform since he got the job. Charley Kavanagh used to come out on his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a pain. Great man's brother his brother's brother. He'd look nice on the city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play chess there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his. That's the fascination the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright like surgeon M'Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath. Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The patriot's banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the grave and lead him out of the house of commons by the arm. Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with a Scotch accent. The tentacles... They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. Young woman. And there he is too. Now that's really a coincidence second time. Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the eminent poet, Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A. E. what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the world with a Scotch accent. Tentacles octopus. Something occult symbolism. Holding forth. She's taking it all in. Not saying a word. To aid gentleman in literary work. His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only weggebobbles and fruit. Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it's healthier. Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting by the tap all night. Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that so tasteless. Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts you couldn't squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don't know what poetry is even. Must be in a certain mood. The dreamy cloudy gull Waves o'er the waters dull. He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of Yeates and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris's and have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at his lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Goerz lenses six guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on easy terms to capture trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in the railway lost property office. Astonishing the things people leave behind them in trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too. Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer's daughter's bag and hand it to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimed money too. There's a little watch up there on the roof of the bank to test those glasses by. His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can't see it. If you imagine it's there you can almost see it. Can't see it. He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right hand at arm's length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. Must be the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses. Interesting. There was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we were in Lombard street west. Looking up from the back garden. Terrific explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year autumn some time. Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It's the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman proud to be descended from some king's mistress. His foremother. Lay it on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and blurt out what you know you're not to what's parallax? Show this gentleman the door. Ah. His hand fell to his side again. Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about, crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas then solid then world then cold then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she said. I believe there is. He went on by la maison Claire. Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly there is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon. She was humming. The young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's laamp is gleaming, love. Touch. Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes. Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must. Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here middle of the day of Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend, M'Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the rest of the year sober as a judge. Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the Queen's. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies, eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking, laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat. Coarse red fun for drunkards guffaw and smoke. Take off that white hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp that once did starve us all. I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was. She twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library. Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints, silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of plumb. He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. Cascades of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that here. La causa  santa! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara. Must be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara bom bom bom. Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all over the place. Needles in window curtains. He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape nearly gone. Not today anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps. Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn't like it. Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo. Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk stockings. Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all. High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home and houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath Netaim. Wealth of the world. A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded. Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore. Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then. He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds. Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded in deep summer fields, tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas, creaking beds. Jack, love! Darling! Kiss me, Reggy! My boy! Love! His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink gripped his trembling breath pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See the animals feed. Men, men, men. Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes. A man with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate halfmasticated gristle gums no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser's eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don't! O! A bone! That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn't swallow it all however. Roast beef and cabbage. One stew. Smells of men. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarettesmoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale of ferment. His gorge rose. Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the plate, man! Get out of this. He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of his nose. Two stouts here. One corned and cabbage. That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a silver knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost. An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the head bailiff, standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well up it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something with his mouth full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith? Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said Not here. Don't see him. Out. I hate dirty eaters. He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap. Keep me going. Had a good breakfast. Roast and mashed here. Pint of stout. Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff. He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat or be eaten. Kill! Kill! Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother's son don't talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops. From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queen in a bathchair. My plate's empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir Philip Crampton's fountain. Rub off the microbes with your handkerchief. Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O'Flynn would make hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number one. Children fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as big as the Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it. Hate people all round you. City Arms hotel table d'hte she called it. Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Then who'd wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids that time. Teeth getting worse and worse. After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobbly lights. Give us that brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, young one. Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed. Insidious. Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts. Ah, I'm hungry. He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once. What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff? Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook. Hello, Flynn. How's things? Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me see. Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam's potted meat. Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. There was a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the reverend Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and war depend on some fellow's digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese. Have you a cheese sandwich? Yes, sir. Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber, Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab. Wife well? Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you? Yes, sir. Nosey Flynn sipped his grog. Doing any singing those times? Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match. Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. Does no harm. Free ad. She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard perhaps. No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up? The curate served. How much is that? Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir. Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. Mr MacTrigger. Easier than the dreamy creamy stuff. His five hundred wives. Had the time of their lives. Mustard, sir? Thank you. He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Their lives. I have it. It grew bigger and bigger and bigger. Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part shares and part profits. Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in it? A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart. He raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet. His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly, longingly. Wine. He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his wineglass delicately down. Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact. No fear no brains. Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal. He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks. By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling me... Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up. For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a hairy chap. Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the parsnips. And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give us a good one for the Gold cup? I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a horse. You're right there, Nosey Flynn said. Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the chill off. Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like the way it curves there. I wouldn't do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruined many a man, the same horses. Vintners' sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose. True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you're in the know. There's no straight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He's giving Sceptre today. Zinfandel's the favourite, Lord Howard de Walden's, won at Epsom. Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before. That so? Davy Byrne said... He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned its pages. I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit of horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm, Rothschild's filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow cap. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt. He put me off it. Ay. He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the flutes. Ay, he said, sighing. Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull. Will I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him forget. Go and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again. Cold nose he'd have kissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly beards they like. Dogs' cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling stomach's Skye terrier in the City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in her lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy! Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She... Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins sardines, gaudy lobsters' claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this morning. Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high. Tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up the price. Cheap noone would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The lite. Crme de la crme. They want special dishes to pretend they're. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage  la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I remember. Du de la is French. Still it's the same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of making money hand over fist finger in fishes' gills can't write his name on a cheque think he was painting the landscape with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds. Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck. Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy I ate it joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. Noone. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her eyes, her lips, her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me. Me. And me now. Stuck, the flies buzzed. His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab. Beauty it curves curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno curves the world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall, naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don't care what man looks. All to see. Never speaking. I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose she did Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you in your proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods golden dishes, all ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots and turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar imagine it drinking electricity gods' food. Lovely forms of women sculped Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we stuffing food in one hole and out behind food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have no. Never looked. I'll look today. Keeper won't see. Bend down let something fall see if she. Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to do there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and walked, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a youth enjoyed her, to the yard. When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book What is this he is? Isn't he in the insurance line? He's out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for the Freeman. I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble? Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why? I noticed he was in mourning. Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all at home. You're right, by God. So he was. I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their minds. It's not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home to his better half. She's well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast. And is he doing for the Freeman? Davy Byrne said. Nosey Flynn pursed his lips. He doesn't buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of that. How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book. Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He winked. He's in the craft, he said. Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said. Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He's an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I was told that by awell, I won't say who. Is that a fact? O, it's a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you're down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they're as close as damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it. Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint Legers of Doneraile. Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here and I never once saw himyou know, over the line. God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips off when the fun gets too hot. Didn't you see him look at his watch? Ah, you weren't there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does he outs with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to God he does. There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He's a safe man, I'd say. He's not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He's been known to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O, Bloom has his good points. But there's one thing he'll never do. His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog. I know, Davy Byrne said. Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said. Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Tom Rochford followed frowning, a plaining hand on his claret waistcoat. Day, Mr Byrne. Day, gentlemen. They paused at the counter. Who's standing? Paddy Leonard asked. I'm sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered. Well, what'll it be? Paddy Leonard asked. I'll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said. How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God' sake? What's yours, Tom? How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping. For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and hiccupped. Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said. Certainly, sir. Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates. Lord love a duck, he said. Look at what I'm standing drinks to! Cold water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg. He has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip. Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked. Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set before him. That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking. Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said. Tom Rochford nodded and drank. Is it Zinfandel? Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I'm going to plunge five bob on my own. Tell us if you're worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy Leonard said. Who gave it to you? Mr Bloom on his way out raised three fingers in greeting. So long! Nosey Flynn said. The others turned. That's the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered. Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we'll take two of your small Jamesons after that and a... Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly. Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby. Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth smooth. Something green it would have to be spinach, say. Then with those Rntgen rays searchlight you could. At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the cobblestones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks having fully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom coasted warily. Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they move. Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything with that invention of his? Wasting time explaining it to Flynn's mouth. Lean people long mouths. Ought to be a hall or a place where inventors could go in and invent free. Course then you'd have all the cranks pestering. He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the bars Don Giovanni, a cenar teco M'invitasti. Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap in the blues. Dutch courage. That Kilkenny People in the national library now I must. Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller, plumber, turned back his thoughts. They could and watch it all the way down, swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the time with his insides entrails on show. Science. A cenar teco. What does that teco mean? Tonight perhaps. Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited To come to supper tonight, The rum the rumdum. Doesn't go properly. Keyes two months if I get Nannetti to. That'll be two pounds ten about two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott's dyeworks van over there. If I get Billy Prescott's ad two fifteen. Five guineas about. On the pig's back. Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new garters. Today. Today. Not think. Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton, Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. Will eat anything. Mr Bloom turned at Gray's confectioner's window of unbought tarts and passed the reverend Thomas Connellan's bookstore. Why I left the church of Rome? Birds' Nest. Women run him. They say they used to give pauper children soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato blight. Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor jews. Same bait. Why we left the church of Rome. A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No tram in sight. Wants to cross. Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked. The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He moved his head uncertainly. You're in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is opposite. Do you want to cross? There's nothing in the way. The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom's eye followed its line and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's. Where I saw his brillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in John Long's. Slaking his drouth. There's a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it's not moving. I'll see you across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street? Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street. Come, Mr Bloom said. He touched the thin elbow gently then took the limp seeing hand to guide it forward. Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust what you tell them. Pass a common remark. The rain kept off. No answer. Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child's hand, his hand. Like Milly's was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand. Wonder if he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse's legs tired drudge get his doze. That's right. Clear. Behind a bull in front of a horse. Thanks, sir. Knows I'm a man. Voice. Right now? First turn to the left. The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing his cane back, feeling again. Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? Must have felt it. See things in their forehead perhaps kind of sense of volume. Weight or size of it, something blacker than the dark. Wonder would he feel it if something was removed. Feel a gap. Queer idea of Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he walk in a beeline if he hadn't that cane? Bloodless pious face like a fellow going in to be a priest. Penrose! That was that chap's name. Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers. Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly's birthday. Hates sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men they call them. Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched together. Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the spring, the summer smells. Tastes? They say you can't taste wines with your eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also smoke in the dark they say get no pleasure. And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have them all on. Must be strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his mind's eye. The voice, temperatures when he touches her with his fingers must almost see the lines, the curves. His hands on her hair, for instance. Say it was black, for instance. Good. We call it black. Then passing over her white skin. Different feel perhaps. Feeling of white. Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two shillings, half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer's just here too. Wait. Think over it. With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above his ears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt the skin of his right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough. The belly is the smoothest. Noone about. There he goes into Frederick street. Perhaps to Levenston's dancing academy piano. Might be settling my braces. Walking by Doran's publichouse he slid his hand between his waistcoat and trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of his belly. But I know it's whitey yellow. Want to try in the dark to see. He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to. Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would he have, not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being born that way? All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned and drowned in New York. Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration for sins you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike hoses. Dear, dear, dear. Pity, of course but somehow you can't cotton on to them someway. Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons' hall. Solemn as Troy. After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies cracking a magnum. Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat school. I sentenced him to ten years. I suppose he'd turn up his nose at that stuff I drank. Vintage wine for them, the year marked on a dusty bottle. Has his own ideas of justice in the recorder's court. Wellmeaning old man. Police chargesheets crammed with cases get their percentage manufacturing crime. Sends them to the rightabout. The devil on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J a great strawcalling. Now he's really what they call a dirty jew. Power those judges have. Crusty old topers in wigs. Bear with a sore paw. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His Excellency the lord lieutenant. Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. The Messiah was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out there Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know someone on the gate. Mr Bloom came to Kildare street. First I must. Library. Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is. His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved to the right. Is it? Almost certain. Won't look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too heady. Yes, it is. The walk. Not see. Get on. Making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes. Handsome building. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me? Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes. The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold statues quiet there. Safe in a minute. No. Didn't see me. After two. Just at the gate. My heart! His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir Thomas Deane was the Greek architecture. Look for something I. His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded Agendath Netaim. Where did I? Busy looking. He thrust back quick Agendath. Afternoon she said. I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. Freeman. Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where? Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart. His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap lotion have to call tepid paper stuck. Ah soap there I yes. Gate. Safe! Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of Wilhelm Meister. A great poet on a great brother poet. A hesitating soul taking arms against a sea of troubles, torn by conflicting doubts, as one sees in real life. He came a step a sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking and a step backward a sinkapace on the solemn floor. A noiseless attendant setting open the door but slightly made him a noiseless beck. Directly, said he, creaking to go, albeit lingering. The beautiful ineffectual dreamer who comes to grief against hard facts. One always feels that Goethe's judgments are so true. True in the larger analysis. Twicreakingly analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most zealous by the door he gave his large ear all to the attendant's words heard them and was gone. Two left. Monsieur de la Palice, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes before his death. Have you found those six brave medicals, John Eglinton asked with elder's gall, to write Paradise Lost at your dictation? The Sorrows of Satan he calls it. Smile. Smile Cranly's smile. First he tickled her Then he patted her Then he passed the female catheter For he was a medical Jolly old medi... I feel you would need one more for Hamlet. Seven is dear to the mystic mind. The shining seven W.B. calls them. Glittereyed his rufous skull close to his greencapped desklamp sought the face bearded amid darkgreener shadow, an ollav, holyeyed. He laughed low a sizar's laugh of Trinity unanswered. Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood Tears such as angels weep. Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta. He holds my follies hostage. Cranly's eleven true Wicklowmen to free their sireland. Gaptoothed Kathleen, her four beautiful green fields, the stranger in her house. And one more to hail him ave, rabbi the Tinahely twelve. In the shadow of the glen he cooees for them. My soul's youth I gave him, night by night. God speed. Good hunting. Mulligan has my telegram. Folly. Persist. Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet though I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry. All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. Clergymen's discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys. A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer. Wall, tarnation strike me! The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Stephen said superpolitely. Aristotle was once Plato's schoolboy. And has remained so, one should hope, John Eglinton sedately said. One can see him, a model schoolboy with his diploma under his arm. He laughed again at the now smiling bearded face. Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who suffers in us at every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon the altar. I am the sacrificial butter. Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A.E., Arval, the Name Ineffable, in heaven hight K.H., their master, whose identity is no secret to adepts. Brothers of the great white lodge always watching to see if they can help. The Christ with the bridesister, moisture of light, born of an ensouled virgin, repentant sophia, departed to the plane of buddhi. The life esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P. must work off bad karma first. Mrs Cooper Oakley once glimpsed our very illustrious sister H.P.B.'s elemental. O, fie! Out on't! Pfuiteufel! You naughtn't to look, missus, so you naughtn't when a lady's ashowing of her elemental. Mr Best entered, tall, young, mild, light. He bore in his hand with grace a notebook, new, large, clean, bright. That model schoolboy, Stephen said, would find Hamlet's musings about the afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant and undramatic monologue, as shallow as Plato's. John Eglinton, frowning, said, waxing wroth Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle with Plato. Which of the two, Stephen asked, would have banished me from his commonwealth? Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God noise in the street very peripatetic. Space what you damn well have to see. Through spaces smaller than red globules of man's blood they creepycrawl after Blake's buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past. Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague. Haines is gone, he said. Is he? I was showing him Jubainville's book. He's quite enthusiastic, don't you know, about Hyde's Lovesongs of Connacht. I couldn't bring him in to hear the discussion. He's gone to Gill's to buy it. Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick To greet the callous public. Writ, I ween, 'twas not my wish In lean unlovely English. The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined. We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone. I smoked his baccy. Green twinkling stone. An emerald set in the ring of the sea. People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg of Russell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside. For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the living mother. The rarefied air of the academy and the arena produce the sixshilling novel, the musichall song. France produces the finest flower of corruption in Mallarm but the desirable life is revealed only to the poor of heart, the life of Homer's Phacians. From these words Mr Best turned an unoffending face to Stephen. Mallarm, don't you know, he said, has written those wonderful prose poems Stephen MacKenna used to read to me in Paris. The one about Hamlet. He says il se promne, lisant au livre de luimme, don't you know, reading the book of himself. He describes Hamlet given in a French town, don't you know, a provincial town. They advertised it. His free hand graciously wrote tiny signs in air. Hamlet ou Le Distrait Pice de Shakespeare He repeated to John Eglinton's newgathered frown Pice de Shakespeare, don't you know. It's so French. The French point of view. Hamlet ou... The absentminded beggar, Stephen ended. John Eglinton laughed. Yes, I suppose it would be, he said. Excellent people, no doubt, but distressingly shortsighted in some matters. Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder. A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him, Stephen said. Not for nothing was he a butcher's son, wielding the sledded poleaxe and spitting in his palms. Nine lives are taken off for his father's one. Our Father who art in purgatory. Khaki Hamlets don't hesitate to shoot. The bloodboltered shambles in act five is a forecast of the concentration camp sung by Mr Swinburne. Cranly, I his mute orderly, following battles from afar. Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none But we had spared... Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp. The devil and the deep sea. He will have it that Hamlet is a ghoststory, John Eglinton said for Mr Best's behoof. Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our flesh creep. List! List! O List! My flesh hears him creeping, hears. If thou didst ever... What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris lies from virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from limbo patrum, returning to the world that has forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet? John Eglinton shifted his spare body, leaning back to judge. Lifted. It is this hour of a day in mid June, Stephen said, begging with a swift glance their hearing. The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings. Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices. Shakespeare has left the huguenot's house in Silver street and walks by the swanmews along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the pen chivying her game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon has other thoughts. Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me! The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in the castoff mail of a court buck, a wellset man with a bass voice. It is the ghost, the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare who has studied Hamlet all the years of his life which were not vanity in order to play the part of the spectre. He speaks the words to Burbage, the young player who stands before him beyond the rack of cerecloth, calling him by a name Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit, bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince, young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has died in Stratford that his namesake may live for ever. Is it possible that that player Shakespeare, a ghost by absence, and in the vesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, speaking his own words to his own son's name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he would have been prince Hamlet's twin), is it possible, I want to know, or probable that he did not draw or foresee the logical conclusion of those premises you are the dispossessed son I am the murdered father your mother is the guilty queen, Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway? But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began impatiently. Art thou there, truepenny? Interesting only to the parish clerk. I mean, we have the plays. I mean when we read the poetry of King Lear what is it to us how the poet lived? As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de l'Isle has said. Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, the poet's drinking, the poet's debts. We have King Lear and it is immortal. Mr Best's face, appealed to, agreed. Flow over them with your waves and with your waters, Mananaan, Mananaan MacLir... How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry? Marry, I wanted it. Take thou this noble. Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's daughter. Agenbite of inwit. Do you intend to pay it back? O, yes. When? Now? Well... No. When, then? I paid my way. I paid my way. Steady on. He's from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner. You owe it. Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound. Buzz. Buzz. But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under everchanging forms. I that sinned and prayed and fasted. A child Conmee saved from pandies. I, I and I. I. A.E.I.O.U. Do you mean to fly in the face of the tradition of three centuries? John Eglinton's carping voice asked. Her ghost at least has been laid for ever. She died, for literature at least, before she was born. She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born. She saw him into and out of the world. She took his first embraces. She bore his children and she laid pennies on his eyes to keep his eyelids closed when he lay on his deathbed. Mother's deathbed. Candle. The sheeted mirror. Who brought me into this world lies there, bronzelidded, under few cheap flowers. Liliata rutilantium. I wept alone. John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp. The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got out of it as quickly and as best he could. Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian, softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous. A shrew, John Eglinton said shrewdly, is not a useful portal of discovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did Socrates learn from Xanthippe? Dialectic, Stephen answered and from his mother how to bring thoughts into the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (absit nomen!), Socratididion's Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever know. But neither the midwife's lore nor the caudlelectures saved him from the archons of Sinn Fein and their naggin of hemlock. But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best's quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seem to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her. His look went from brooder's beard to carper's skull, to remind, to chide them not unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard, guiltless though maligned. He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant memory. He carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling The girl I left behind me. If the earthquake did not time it we should know where to place poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds, the studded bridle and her blue windows. That memory, Venus and Adonis, lay in the bedchamber of every lightoflove in London. Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and beautiful. Do you think the writer of Antony and Cleopatra, a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal? Good he left her and gained the world of men. But his boywomen are the women of a boy. Their life, thought, speech are lent them by males. He chose badly? He was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way. By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet and twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself. And my turn? When? Come! Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book, gladly, brightly. He murmured then with blond delight for all Between the acres of the rye These pretty countryfolk would lie. Paris the wellpleased pleaser. A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its cooperative watch. I am afraid I am due at the Homestead. Whither away? Exploitable ground. Are you going? John Eglinton's active eyebrows asked. Shall we see you at Moore's tonight? Piper is coming. Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back? Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper. I don't know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get away in time. Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers. Isis Unveiled. Their Pali book we tried to pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an Aztec logos, functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. The faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, ringroundabout him. Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies tend them i'the eyes, their pineal glands aglow. Filled with his god, he thrones, Buddh under plantain. Gulfer of souls, engulfer. Hesouls, shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailing creecries, whirled, whirling, they bewail. In quintessential triviality For years in this fleshcase a shesoul dwelt. They say we are to have a literary surprise, the quaker librarian said, friendly and earnest. Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering together a sheaf of our younger poets' verses. We are all looking forward anxiously. Anxiously he glanced in the cone of lamplight where three faces, lighted, shone. See this. Remember. Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his ashplanthandle over his knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with two index fingers. Aristotle's experiment. One or two? Necessity is that in virtue of which it is impossible that one can be otherwise. Argal, one hat is one hat. Listen. Young Colum and Starkey. George Roberts is doing the commercial part. Longworth will give it a good puff in the Express. O, will he? I liked Colum's Drover. Yes, I think he has that queer thing genius. Do you think he has genius really? Yeats admired his line As in wild earth a Grecian vase. Did he? I hope you'll be able to come tonight. Malachi Mulligan is coming too. Moore asked him to bring Haines. Did you hear Miss Mitchell's joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is Martyn's wild oats? Awfully clever, isn't it? They remind one of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. Moore is the man for it. A knight of the rueful countenance here in Dublin. With a saffron kilt? O'Neill Russell? O, yes, he must speak the grand old tongue. And his Dulcinea? James Stephens is doing some clever sketches. We are becoming important, it seems. Cordelia. Cordoglio. Lir's loneliest daughter. Nookshotten. Now your best French polish. Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will be so kind as to give the letter to Mr Norman... O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so much correspondence. I understand, Stephen said. Thanks. God ild you. The pigs' paper. Bullockbefriending. Synge has promised me an article for Dana too. Are we going to be read? I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope you will come round tonight. Bring Starkey. Stephen sat down. The quaker librarian came from the leavetakers. Blushing, his mask said Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating. He creaked to and fro, tiptoing up nearer heaven by the altitude of a chopine, and, covered by the noise of outgoing, said low Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet? Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light? Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have been first a sundering. Yes. Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks, from hue and cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women he won to him, tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices, bully tapsters' wives. Fox and geese. And in New Place a slack dishonoured body that once was comely, once as sweet, as fresh as cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow grave and unforgiven. Yes. So you think... The door closed behind the outgoer. Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and brooding air. A vestal's lamp. Here he ponders things that were not what Csar would have lived to do had he believed the soothsayer what might have been possibilities of the possible as possible things not known what name Achilles bore when he lived among women. Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will. Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the most enigmatic. We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so much. Others abide our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest. But Hamlet is so personal, isn't it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, a kind of private paper, don't you know, of his private life. I mean, I don't care a button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty... He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his defiance. His private papers in the original. Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim in mo shagart. Put beurla on it, littlejohn. Quoth littlejohn Eglinton I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but I may as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that Shakespeare is Hamlet you have a stern task before you. Bear with me. Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes glinting stern under wrinkled brows. A basilisk. E quando vede l'uomo l'attosca. Messer Brunetto, I thank thee for the word. As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where it was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff time after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father the image of the unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be. Drummond of Hawthornden helped you at that stile. Yes, Mr Best said youngly. I feel Hamlet quite young. The bitterness might be from the father but the passages with Ophelia are surely from the son. Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is in my father. I am in his son. That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing. John Eglinton made a nothing pleasing mow. If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a drug in the market. The plays of Shakespeare's later years which Renan admired so much breathe another spirit. The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed. There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a sundering. Said that. If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over the hell of time of King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, look to see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a man, shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, prince of Tyre? Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded. A child, a girl, placed in his arms, Marina. The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they lead to the town. Good Bacon gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon's wild oats. Cypherjugglers going the highroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town, good masters? Mummed in names A. E., eon Magee, John Eglinton. East of the sun, west of the moon Tir na nog. Booted the twain and staved. How many miles to Dublin? Three score and ten, sir. Will we be there by candlelight? Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing period. Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his name is, say of it? Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him his daughter's child. My dearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid. Will any man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother? The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. L'art d'tre grand... Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added, another image? Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all men. Amor vero aliquid alicui bonum vult unde et ea quae concupiscimus ... His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of all experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself. The benign forehead of the quaker librarian enkindled rosily with hope. I hope Mr Dedalus will work out his theory for the enlightenment of the public. And we ought to mention another Irish commentator, Mr George Bernard Shaw. Nor should we forget Mr Frank Harris. His articles on Shakespeare in the Saturday Review were surely brilliant. Oddly enough he too draws for us an unhappy relation with the dark lady of the sonnets. The favoured rival is William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. I own that if the poet must be rejected such a rejection would seem more in harmony withwhat shall I say?our notions of what ought not to have been. Felicitously he ceased and held a meek head among them, auk's egg, prize of their fray. He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam? Dost love thy man? That may be too, Stephen said. There's a saying of Goethe's which Mr Magee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because you will get it in middle life. Why does he send to one who is a buonaroba, a bay where all men ride, a maid of honour with a scandalous girlhood, a lordling to woo for him? He was himself a lord of language and had made himself a coistrel gentleman and he had written Romeo and Juliet. Why? Belief in himself has been untimely killed. He was overborne in a cornfield first (ryefield, I should say) and he will never be a victor in his own eyes after nor play victoriously the game of laugh and lie down. Assumed dongiovannism will not save him. No later undoing will undo the first undoing. The tusk of the boar has wounded him there where love lies ableeding. If the shrew is worsted yet there remains to her woman's invisible weapon. There is, I feel in the words, some goad of the flesh driving him into a new passion, a darker shadow of the first, darkening even his own understanding of himself. A like fate awaits him and the two rages commingle in a whirlpool. They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour. The soul has been before stricken mortally, a poison poured in the porch of a sleeping ear. But those who are done to death in sleep cannot know the manner of their quell unless their Creator endow their souls with that knowledge in the life to come. The poisoning and the beast with two backs that urged it King Hamlet's ghost could not know of were he not endowed with knowledge by his creator. That is why the speech (his lean unlovely English) is always turned elsewhere, backward. Ravisher and ravished, what he would but would not, go with him from Lucrece's bluecircled ivory globes to Imogen's breast, bare, with its mole cinquespotted. He goes back, weary of the creation he has piled up to hide him from himself, an old dog licking an old sore. But, because loss is his gain, he passes on towards eternity in undiminished personality, untaught by the wisdom he has written or by the laws he has revealed. His beaver is up. He is a ghost, a shadow now, the wind by Elsinore's rocks or what you will, the sea's voice, a voice heard only in the heart of him who is the substance of his shadow, the son consubstantial with the father. Amen! was responded from the doorway. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Entr'acte. A ribald face, sullen as a dean's, Buck Mulligan came forward, then blithe in motley, towards the greeting of their smiles. My telegram. You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not? he asked of Stephen. Primrosevested he greeted gaily with his doffed Panama as with a bauble. They make him welcome. Was Du verlachst wirst Du noch dienen. Brood of mockers Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most. He Who Himself begot middler the Holy Ghost and Himself sent Himself, Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends, stripped and whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on crosstree, Who let Him bury, stood up, harrowed hell, fared into heaven and there these nineteen hundred years sitteth on the right hand of His Own Self but yet shall come in the latter day to doom the quick and dead when all the quick shall be dead already. He lifts his hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bells aquiring. Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive discussion. Mr Mulligan, I'll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of Shakespeare. All sides of life should be represented. He smiled on all sides equally. Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name. A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features. To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like Synge. Mr Best turned to him. Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He'll see you after at the D. B. C. He's gone to Gill's to buy Hyde's Lovesongs of Connacht. I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here? The bard's fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather tired perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining held that the prince was a woman. Has noone made him out to be an Irishman? Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He swears (His Highness not His Lordship) by saint Patrick. The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde's, Mr Best said, lifting his brilliant notebook. That Portrait of Mr W. H. where he proves that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues. For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked. Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself. W. H. who am I? I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily. Of course it's all paradox, don't you know, Hughes and hews and hues, the colour, but it's so typical the way he works it out. It's the very essence of Wilde, don't you know. The light touch. His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe. Tame essence of Wilde. You're darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan Deasy's ducats. How much did I spend? O, a few shillings. For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry. Wit. You would give your five wits for youth's proud livery he pranks in. Lineaments of gratified desire. There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool ruttime send them. Yea, turtledove her. Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in's kiss. Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking. The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious. They talked seriously of mocker's seriousness. Buck Mulligan's again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head wagging, he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His mobile lips read, smiling with new delight. Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull! He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done. Signed Dedalus. Where did you launch it from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four quid? The aunt is going to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram! Malachi Mulligan, The Ship, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer! O, you priestified Kinchite! Joyfully he thrust message and envelope into a pocket but keened in a querulous brogue It's what I'm telling you, mister honey, it's queer and sick we were, Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. 'Twas murmur we did for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I'm thinking, and he limp with leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery's sitting civil waiting for pints apiece. He wailed And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us your conglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the drouthy clerics do be fainting for a pussful. Stephen laughed. Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down. The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He heard you pissed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He's out in pampooties to murder you. Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature. Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping ceiling. Murder you! he laughed. Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash of lights in rue SaintAndrdesArts. In words of words for words, palabras. Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, brandishing a winebottle. C'est vendredi saint! Murthering Irish. His image, wandering, he met. I mine. I met a fool i'the forest. Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar. ... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in his Diary of Master William Silence has found the hunting terms... Yes? What is it? There's a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward and offering a card. From the Freeman. He wants to see the files of the Kilkenny People for last year. Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?... He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down unglanced, looked, asked, creaked, asked Is he?... O, there! Brisk in a galliard he was off, out. In the daylit corridor he talked with voluble pains of zeal, in duty bound, most fair, most kind, most honest broadbrim. This gentleman? Freeman's Journal? Kilkenny People? To be sure. Good day, sir. Kilkenny... We have certainly... A patient silhouette waited, listening. All the leading provincial... Northern Whig, Cork Examiner, Enniscorthy Guardian, ... Will you please?... Evans, conduct this gentleman... If you just follow the atten... Or, please allow me... This way... Please, sir... Voluble, dutiful, he led the way to all the provincial papers, a bowing dark figure following his hasty heels. The door closed. The sheeny! Buck Mulligan cried. He jumped up and snatched the card. What's his name? Ikey Moses? Bloom. He rattled on Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more. I found him over in the museum where I went to hail the foamborn Aphrodite. The Greek mouth that has never been twisted in prayer. Every day we must do homage to her. Life of life, thy lips enkindle. Suddenly he turned to Stephen He knows you. He knows your old fellow. O, I fear me, he is Greeker than the Greeks. His pale Galilean eyes were upon her mesial groove. Venus Kallipyge. O, the thunder of those loins! The god pursuing the maiden hid. We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best's approval. We begin to be interested in Mrs S. Till now we had thought of her, if at all, as a patient Griselda, a Penelope stayathome. Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias, Stephen said, took the palm of beauty from Kyrios Menelaus' brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy in whom a score of heroes slept, and handed it to poor Penelope. Twenty years he lived in London and, during part of that time, he drew a salary equal to that of the lord chancellor of Ireland. His life was rich. His art, more than the art of feudalism as Walt Whitman called it, is the art of surfeit. Hot herringpies, green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar of roses, marchpane, gooseberried pigeons, ringocandies. Sir Walter Raleigh, when they arrested him, had half a million francs on his back including a pair of fancy stays. The gombeenwoman Eliza Tudor had underlinen enough to vie with her of Sheba. Twenty years he dallied there between conjugial love and its chaste delights and scortatory love and its foul pleasures. You know Manningham's story of the burgher's wife who bade Dick Burbage to her bed after she had seen him in Richard III and how Shakespeare, overhearing, without more ado about nothing, took the cow by the horns and, when Burbage came knocking at the gate, answered from the capon's blankets William the conqueror came before Richard III. And the gay lakin, mistress Fitton, mount and cry O, and his dainty birdsnies, lady Penelope Rich, a clean quality woman is suited for a player, and the punks of the bankside, a penny a time. Cours la Reine. Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries. Minette? Tu veux? The height of fine society. And sir William Davenant of Oxford's mother with her cup of canary for any cockcanary. Buck Mulligan, his pious eyes upturned, prayed Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock! And Harry of six wives' daughter. And other lady friends from neighbour seats as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings. But all those twenty years what do you suppose poor Penelope in Stratford was doing behind the diamond panes? Do and do. Thing done. In a rosery of Fetter lane of Gerard, herbalist, he walks, greyedauburn. An azured harebell like her veins. Lids of Juno's eyes, violets. He walks. One life is all. One body. Do. But do. Afar, in a reek of lust and squalor, hands are laid on whiteness. Buck Mulligan rapped John Eglinton's desk sharply. Whom do you suspect? he challenged. Say that he is the spurned lover in the sonnets. Once spurned twice spurned. But the court wanton spurned him for a lord, his dearmylove. Love that dare not speak its name. As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved a lord. Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them. It seems so, Stephen said, when he wants to do for him, and for all other and singular uneared wombs, the holy office an ostler does for the stallion. Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother as he had a shrew to wife. But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a bedvow. Two deeds are rank in that ghost's mind a broken vow and the dullbrained yokel on whom her favour has declined, deceased husband's brother. Sweet Ann, I take it, was hot in the blood. Once a wooer, twice a wooer. Stephen turned boldly in his chair. The burden of proof is with you not with me, he said frowning. If you deny that in the fifth scene of Hamlet he has branded her with infamy tell me why there is no mention of her during the thirtyfour years between the day she married him and the day she buried him. All those women saw their men down and under Mary, her goodman John, Ann, her poor dear Willun, when he went and died on her, raging that he was the first to go, Joan, her four brothers, Judith, her husband and all her sons, Susan, her husband too, while Susan's daughter, Elizabeth, to use granddaddy's words, wed her second, having killed her first. O, yes, mention there is. In the years when he was living richly in royal London to pay a debt she had to borrow forty shillings from her father's shepherd. Explain you then. Explain the swansong too wherein he has commended her to posterity. He faced their silence. To whom thus Eglinton You mean the will. But that has been explained, I believe, by jurists. She was entitled to her widow's dower At common law. His legal knowledge was great Our judges tell us. Him Satan fleers, Mocker And therefore he left out her name From the first draft but he did not leave out The presents for his granddaughter, for his daughters, For his sister, for his old cronies in Stratford And in London. And therefore when he was urged, As I believe, to name her He left her his Secondbest Bed. Punkt. Leftherhis Secondbest Leftherhis Bestabed Secabest Leftabed. Woa! Pretty countryfolk had few chattels then, John Eglinton observed, as they have still if our peasant plays are true to type. He was a rich country gentleman, Stephen said, with a coat of arms and landed estate at Stratford and a house in Ireland yard, a capitalist shareholder, a bill promoter, a tithefarmer. Why did he not leave her his best bed if he wished her to snore away the rest of her nights in peace? It is clear that there were two beds, a best and a secondbest, Mr Secondbest Best said finely. Separatio a mensa et a thalamo, bettered Buck Mulligan and was smiled on. Antiquity mentions famous beds, Second Eglinton puckered, bedsmiling. Let me think. Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen sage, Stephen said, who when dying in exile frees and endows his slaves, pays tribute to his elders, wills to be laid in earth near the bones of his dead wife and bids his friends be kind to an old mistress (don't forget Nell Gwynn Herpyllis) and let her live in his villa. Do you mean he died so? Mr Best asked with slight concern. I mean... He died dead drunk, Buck Mulligan capped. A quart of ale is a dish for a king. O, I must tell you what Dowden said! What? asked Besteglinton. William Shakespeare and company, limited. The people's William. For terms apply E. Dowden, Highfield house... Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously. I asked him what he thought of the charge of pederasty brought against the bard. He lifted his hands and said All we can say is that life ran very high in those days. Lovely! Catamite. The sense of beauty leads us astray, said beautifulinsadness Best to ugling Eglinton. Steadfast John replied severe The doctor can tell us what those words mean. You cannot eat your cake and have it. Sayest thou so? Will they wrest from us, from me, the palm of beauty? And the sense of property, Stephen said. He drew Shylock out of his own long pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself a cornjobber and moneylender, with ten tods of corn hoarded in the famine riots. His borrowers are no doubt those divers of worship mentioned by Chettle Falstaff who reported his uprightness of dealing. He sued a fellowplayer for the price of a few bags of malt and exacted his pound of flesh in interest for every money lent. How else could Aubrey's ostler and callboy get rich quick? All events brought grist to his mill. Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging and quartering of the queen's leech Lopez, his jew's heart being plucked forth while the sheeny was yet alive Hamlet and Macbeth with the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster with a turn for witchroasting. The lost armada is his jeer in Love's Labour Lost. His pageants, the histories, sail fullbellied on a tide of Mafeking enthusiasm. Warwickshire jesuits are tried and we have a porter's theory of equivocation. The Sea Venture comes home from Bermudas and the play Renan admired is written with Patsy Caliban, our American cousin. The sugared sonnets follow Sidney's. As for fay Elizabeth, otherwise carrotty Bess, the gross virgin who inspired The Merry Wives of Windsor, let some meinherr from Almany grope his life long for deephid meanings in the depths of the buckbasket. I think you're getting on very nicely. Just mix up a mixture of theolologicophilolological. Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere. Prove that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared, expectantly. Your dean of studies holds he was a holy Roman. Sufflaminandus sum. He was made in Germany, Stephen replied, as the champion French polisher of Italian scandals. A myriadminded man, Mr Best reminded. Coleridge called him myriadminded. Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit amicitia inter multos. Saint Thomas, Stephen began... Ora pro nobis, Monk Mulligan groaned, sinking to a chair. There he keened a wailing rune. Pogue mahone! Acushla machree! It's destroyed we are from this day! It's destroyed we are surely! All smiled their smiles. Saint Thomas, Stephen smiling said, whose gorbellied works I enjoy reading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different from that of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in his wise and curious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that the love so given to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some stranger who, it may be, hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with avarice, are of all races the most given to intermarriage. Accusations are made in anger. The christian laws which built up the hoards of the jews (for whom, as for the lollards, storm was shelter) bound their affections too with hoops of steel. Whether these be sins or virtues old Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday leet. But a man who holds so tightly to what he calls his rights over what he calls his debts will hold tightly also to what he calls his rights over her whom he calls his wife. No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his manservant or his maidservant or his jackass. Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned. Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently. Which will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed. The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will's widow, is the will to die. Requiescat! Stephen prayed. What of all the will to do? It has vanished long ago... She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as rare as a motorcar is now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven parishes. In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed with her at New Place and drank a quart of sack the town council paid for but in which bed he slept it skills not to ask) and heard she had a soul. She read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the Merry Wives and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she thought over Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches and The most Spiritual Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze. Venus has twisted her lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit remorse of conscience. It is an age of exhausted whoredom groping for its god. History shows that to be true, inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos. The ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man's worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that Russell is right. What do we care for his wife or father? I should say that only family poets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family man. I feel that the fat knight is his supreme creation. Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it him. Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there's a gentleman to see you. Me? Says he's your father, sir. Give me my Wordsworth. Enter Magee Mor Matthew, a rugged rough rugheaded kern, in strossers with a buttoned codpiece, his nether stocks bemired with clauber of ten forests, a wand of wilding in his hand. Your own? He knows your old fellow. The widower. Hurrying to her squalid deathlair from gay Paris on the quayside I touched his hand. The voice, new warmth, speaking. Dr Bob Kenny is attending her. The eyes that wish me well. But do not know me. A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary evil. He wrote the play in the months that followed his father's death. If you hold that he, a greying man with two marriageable daughters, with thirtyfive years of life, nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, with fifty of experience, is the beardless undergraduate from Wittenberg then you must hold that his seventyyear old mother is the lustful queen. No. The corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the night. From hour to hour it rots and rots. He rests, disarmed of fatherhood, having devised that mystical estate upon his son. Boccaccio's Calandrino was the first and last man who felt himself with child. Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to man. It is a mystical estate, an apostolic succession, from only begetter to only begotten. On that mystery and not on the madonna which the cunning Italian intellect flung to the mob of Europe the church is founded and founded irremovably because founded, like the world, macro and microcosm, upon the void. Upon incertitude, upon unlikelihood. Amor matris, subjective and objective genitive, may be the only true thing in life. Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son? What the hell are you driving at? I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons. Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea. Are you condemned to do this? They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminal annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities, hardly record its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters, lesbic sisters, loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with grandmothers, jailbirds with keyholes, queens with prize bulls. The son unborn mars beauty born, he brings pain, divides affection, increases care. He is a new male his growth is his father's decline, his youth his father's envy, his friend his father's enemy. In rue MonsieurlePrince I thought it. What links them in nature? An instant of blind rut. Am I a father? If I were? Shrunken uncertain hand. Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the field, held that the Father was Himself His Own Son. The bulldog of Aquin, with whom no word shall be impossible, refutes him. Well if the father who has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a father be a son? When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the same name in the comedy of errors wrote Hamlet he was not the father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token, never was born, for nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors perfection. Eglintoneyes, quick with pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly glancing, a merry puritan, through the twisted eglantine. Flatter. Rarely. But flatter. Himself his own father, Sonmulligan told himself. Wait. I am big with child. I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena! A play! The play's the thing! Let me parturiate! He clasped his paunchbrow with both birthaiding hands. As for his family, Stephen said, his mother's name lives in the forest of Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in Coriolanus. His boyson's death is the deathscene of young Arthur in King John. Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare. Who the girls in The Tempest, in Pericles, in Winter's Tale are we know. Who Cleopatra, fleshpot of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus are we may guess. But there is another member of his family who is recorded. The plot thickens, John Eglinton said. The quaker librarian, quaking, tiptoed in, quake, his mask, quake, with haste, quake, quack. Door closed. Cell. Day. They list. Three. They. I you he they. Come, mess. STEPHEN He had three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund, Richard. Gilbert in his old age told some cavaliers he got a pass for nowt from Maister Gatherer one time mass he did and he seen his brud Maister Wull the playwriter up in Lunnon in a wrastling play wud a man on's back. The playhouse sausage filled Gilbert's soul. He is nowhere but an Edmund and a Richard are recorded in the works of sweet William. MAGEEGLINJOHN Names! What's in a name? BEST That is my name, Richard, don't you know. I hope you are going to say a good word for Richard, don't you know, for my sake. (Laughter) BUCKMULLIGAN (Piano, diminuendo) Then outspoke medical Dick To his comrade medical Davy... STEPHEN In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago, Richard Crookback, Edmund in King Lear, two bear the wicked uncles' names. Nay, that last play was written or being written while his brother Edmund lay dying in Southwark. BEST I hope Edmund is going to catch it. I don't want Richard, my name ... (Laughter) QUAKERLYSTER (A tempo) But he that filches from me my good name... STEPHEN (Stringendo) He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in the sonnets where there is Will in overplus. Like John o'Gaunt his name is dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth. It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the recumbent constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars. His eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the bear, as he walked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight returning from Shottery and from her arms. Both satisfied. I too. Don't tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched. And from her arms. Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you? Read the skies. Autontimorumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos. Where's your configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D sua donna. Gi di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amare S. D. What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a celestial phenomenon? A star by night, Stephen said. A pillar of the cloud by day. What more's to speak? Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots. Stephanos, my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my feet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too. You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name is strange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour. Me, Magee and Mulligan. Fabulous artificer. The hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? NewhavenDieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus. Pater, ait. Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing be. Mr Best eagerquietly lifted his book to say That's very interesting because that brother motive, don't you know, we find also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three brothers Shakespeare. In Grimm too, don't you know, the fairytales. The third brother that always marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best prize. Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best. The quaker librarian springhalted near. I should like to know, he said, which brother you... I understand you to suggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers... But perhaps I am anticipating? He caught himself in the act looked at all refrained. An attendant from the doorway called Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants... O, Father Dineen! Directly. Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone. John Eglinton touched the foil. Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund. You kept them for the last, didn't you? In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie and nuncle Edmund, Stephen answered, I feel I am asking too much perhaps. A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella. Lapwing. Where is your brother? Apothecaries' hall. My whetstone. Him, then Cranly, Mulligan now these. Speech, speech. But act. Act speech. They mock to try you. Act. Be acted on. Lapwing. I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink. On. You will say those names were already in the chronicles from which he took the stuff of his plays. Why did he take them rather than others? Richard, a whoreson crookback, misbegotten, makes love to a widowed Ann (what's in a name?), woos and wins her, a whoreson merry widow. Richard the conqueror, third brother, came after William the conquered. The other four acts of that play hang limply from that first. Of all his kings Richard is the only king unshielded by Shakespeare's reverence, the angel of the world. Why is the underplot of King Lear in which Edmund figures lifted out of Sidney's Arcadia and spatchcocked on to a Celtic legend older than history? That was Will's way, John Eglinton defended. We should not now combine a Norse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. Que voulezvous? Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and makes Ulysses quote Aristotle. Why? Stephen answered himself. Because the theme of the false or the usurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to Shakespeare, what the poor are not, always with him. The note of banishment, banishment from the heart, banishment from home, sounds uninterruptedly from The Two Gentlemen of Verona onward till Prospero breaks his staff, buries it certain fathoms in the earth and drowns his book. It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe. It repeats itself again when he is near the grave, when his married daughter Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of adultery. But it was the original sin that darkened his understanding, weakened his will and left in him a strong inclination to evil. The words are those of my lords bishops of Maynooth. An original sin and, like original sin, committed by another in whose sin he too has sinned. It is between the lines of his last written words, it is petrified on his tombstone under which her four bones are not to be laid. Age has not withered it. Beauty and peace have not done it away. It is in infinite variety everywhere in the world he has created, in Much Ado about Nothing, twice in As you like It, in The Tempest, in Hamlet, in Measure for Measureand in all the other plays which I have not read. He laughed to free his mind from his mind's bondage. Judge Eglinton summed up. The truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He is all in all. He is, Stephen said. The boy of act one is the mature man of act five. All in all. In Cymbeline, in Othello he is bawd and cuckold. He acts and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or a perversion, like Jos he kills the real Carmen. His unremitting intellect is the hornmad Iago ceaselessly willing that the moor in him shall suffer. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear! Dark dome received, reverbed. And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed. When all is said Dumas fils (or is it Dumas pre?) is right. After God Shakespeare has created most. Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns after a life of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where he has always been, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey of life ended, he plants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The motion is ended. Gravediggers bury Hamlet pre and Hamlet fils. A king and a prince at last in death, with incidental music. And, what though murdered and betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, Dane or Dubliner, sorrow for the dead is the only husband from whom they refuse to be divorced. If you like the epilogue look long on it prosperous Prospero, the good man rewarded, Lizzie, grandpa's lump of love, and nuncle Richie, the bad man taken off by poetic justice to the place where the bad niggers go. Strong curtain. He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible. Maeterlinck says If Socrates leave his house today he will find the sage seated on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps will tend. Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothersinlove, but always meeting ourselves. The playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom the most Roman of catholics call dio boia, hangman god, is doubtless all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too but that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself. Eureka! Buck Mulligan cried. Eureka! Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton's desk. May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi. He began to scribble on a slip of paper. Take some slips from the counter going out. Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor. Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his variorum edition of The Taming of the Shrew. You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe your own theory? No, Stephen said promptly. Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a dialogue, don't you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote. John Eclecticon doubly smiled. Well, in that case, he said, I don't see why you should expect payment for it since you don't believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is some mystery in Hamlet but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man Piper met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes that the secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to visit the present duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor wrote the plays. It will come as a surprise to his grace. But he believes his theory. I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? Egomen. Who to unbelieve? Other chap. You are the only contributor to Dana who asks for pieces of silver. Then I don't know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an article on economics. Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics. For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview. Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing and then gravely said, honeying malice I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upper Mecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the Summa contra Gentiles in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly and Rosalie, the coalquay whore. He broke away. Come, Kinch. Come, wandering ngus of the birds. Come, Kinch. You have eaten all we left. Ay. I will serve you your orts and offals. Stephen rose. Life is many days. This will end. We shall see you tonight, John Eglinton said. Notre ami Moore says Malachi Mulligan must be there. Buck Mulligan flaunted his slip and panama. Monsieur Moore, he said, lecturer on French letters to the youth of Ireland. I'll be there. Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walk straight? Laughing, he... Swill till eleven. Irish nights entertainment. Lubber... Stephen followed a lubber... One day in the national library we had a discussion. Shakes. After. His lub back I followed. I gall his kibe. Stephen, greeting, then all amort, followed a lubber jester, a wellkempt head, newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a shattering daylight of no thought. What have I learned? Of them? Of me? Walk like Haines now. The constant readers' room. In the readers' book Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item was Hamlet mad? The quaker's pate godlily with a priesteen in booktalk. O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased... Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself, selfnodding A pleased bottom. The turnstile. Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?... The curving balustrade smoothsliding Mincius. Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling John Eglinton, my jo, John, Why won't you wed a wife? He spluttered to the air O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to their playbox, Haines and I, the plumbers' hall. Our players are creating a new art for Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey Theatre! I smell the pubic sweat of monks. He spat blank. Forgot any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And left the femme de trente ans. And why no other children born? And his first child a girl? Afterwit. Go back. The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling, minion of pleasure, Phedo's toyable fair hair. Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he... Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there... Puck Mulligan footed featly, trilling I hardly hear the purlieu cry Or a Tommy talk as I pass one by Before my thoughts begin to run On F. M'Curdy Atkinson, The same that had the wooden leg And that filibustering filibeg That never dared to slake his drouth, Magee that had the chinless mouth. Being afraid to marry on earth They masturbated for all they were worth. Jest on. Know thyself. Halted, below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt. Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black. A laugh tripped over his lips. Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jewjesuit! She gets you a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. Couldn't you do the Yeats touch? He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time. One thinks of Homer. He stopped at the stairfoot. I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly. The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men's morrice with caps of indices. In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet Everyman His Own Wife or A Honeymoon in the Hand (a national immorality in three orgasms) by Ballocky Mulligan. He turned a happy patch's smirk to Stephen, saying The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen. He read, marcato Characters He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, multicoloured, multitudinous vomit! The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted them. About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside. Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today, if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must come to, ineluctably. My will his will that fronts me. Seas between. A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting. Good day again, Buck Mulligan said. The portico. Here I watched the birds for augury. ngus of the birds. They go, they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see. The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown's awe. Did you see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad. Manner of Oxenford. Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge. A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway, under portcullis barbs. They followed. Offend me still. Speak on. Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw of softness softly were blown. Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline hierophantic from wide earth an altar. Laud we the gods And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils From our bless'd altars. The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S. J. reset his smooth watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again? Dignam. Yes. Vere dignum et iustum est. Brother Swan was the person to see. Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical catholic useful at mission time. A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for alms towards the very reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his purse held, he knew, one silver crown. Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have abandoned me in my old days. He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. Very well, indeed, father. And you, father? Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still sitting, to be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful indeed. Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, yes a very great success. A wonderful man really. Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. Iooking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P. Yes, he would certainly call. Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy. Father Conmee doffed his silk hat and smiled, as he took leave, at the jet beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again, in going. He had cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste. Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father Bernard Vaughan's droll eyes and cockney voice. Pilate! Wy don't you old back that owlin mob? A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish. Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not? O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial. Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy square. Yes they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have. Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street. But mind you don't post yourself into the box, little man, he said. The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed O, sir. Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said. Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee's letter to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square east. Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing c, in silk hat, slate frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave deportment most respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady Maxwell at the corner of Dignam's court. Was that not Mrs M'Guinness? Mrs M'Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the farther footpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and saluted. How did she do? A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to think that she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a... what should he say?... such a queenly mien. Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the shutup free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will (D.V.) speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They acted according to their lights. Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be. A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly. Christian brother boys. Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint Joseph's church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. Father Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous but occasionally they were also badtempered. Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift nobleman. And now it was an office or something. Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an act of perfect contrition. Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin's publichouse against the window of which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted. Father Conmee passed H. J. O'Neill's funeral establishment where Corny Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay. A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted the constable. In Youkstetter's, the porkbutcher's, Father Conmee observed pig's puddings, white and black and red, lie neatly curled in tubes. Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above him. It was idyllic and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs whence men might dig it out and bring it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor people. On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S. J. of saint Francis Xavier's church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound tram. Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of saint Agatha's church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge. At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island. Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse. Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket inspector usually made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away the ticket. The solemnity of the occupants of the car seemed to Father Conmee excessive for a journey so short and cheap. Father Conmee liked cheerful decorum. It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly. Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the seat. Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head. At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and a marketnet and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and basket down and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had always to be told twice bless you, my child, that they have been absolved, pray for me. But they had so many worries in life, so many cares, poor creatures. From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at Father Conmee. Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men and of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African mission and of the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit, Le Nombre des lus, seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those were millions of human souls created by God in His Own likeness to whom the faith had not (D.V.) been brought. But they were God's souls, created by God. It seemed to Father Conmee a pity that they should all be lost, a waste, if one might say. At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the conductor and saluted in his turn. The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name. The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide, immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining. Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day. Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times in the barony. Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book Old Times in the Barony and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and of Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere. A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel, Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening, not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed adultery fully, eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris, with her husband's brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned as women did. Only God knew and she and he, her husband's brother. Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for man's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways. Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble, were impalmed by Don John Conmee. It was a charming day. The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages, curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of small white clouds going slowly down the wind. Moutonner, the French said. A just and homely word. Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He was their rector his reign was mild. Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An ivory bookmark told him the page. Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come. Father Conmee read in secret Pater and Ave and crossed his breast. Deus in adiutorium. He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he came to Res in Beati immaculati Principium verborum tuorum veritas in eternum omnia iudicia iustiti tu. A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised his cap abruptly the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig. Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his breviary. Sin Principes persecuti sunt me gratis et a verbis tuis formidavit cor meum.    Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out. Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge. Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat downtilted, chewing his blade of hay. Constable C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day. That's a fine day, Mr Kelleher. Ay, Corny Kelleher said. It's very close, the constable said. Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a coin. What's the best news? he asked. I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with bated breath.    A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards Larry O'Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably For England... He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted and growled home and beauty. J. J. O'Molloy's white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the warehouse with a visitor. A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four strides. He halted and growled angrily For England... Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths. He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head towards a window and bayed deeply home and beauty. The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased. The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card Unfurnished Apartments slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A woman's hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the path. One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the minstrel's cap, saying There, sir.    Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen. Did you put in the books? Boody asked. Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice with her potstick and wiped her brow. They wouldn't give anything on them, she said. Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles tickled by stubble. Where did you try? Boody asked. M'Guinness's. Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table. Bad cess to her big face! she cried. Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes. What's in the pot? she asked. Shirts, Maggy said. Boody cried angrily Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat? Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked And what's in this? A heavy fume gushed in answer. Peasoup, Maggy said. Where did you get it? Katey asked. Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said. The lacquey rang his bell. Barang! Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily Give us it here. Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her mouth random crumbs A good job we have that much. Where's Dilly? Gone to meet father, Maggy said. Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added Our father who art not in heaven. Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed Boody! For shame! A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between the Customhouse old dock and George's quay.    The blond girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a small jar. Put these in first, will you? he said. Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top. That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said. She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe shamefaced peaches. Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red tomatoes, sniffing smells. H. E. L. Y.'S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, plodding towards their goal. He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from his fob and held it at its chain's length. Can you send them by tram? Now? A darkbacked figure under Merchants' arch scanned books on the hawker's cart. Certainly, sir. Is it in the city? O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes. The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil. Will you write the address, sir? Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her. Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid. Yes, sir. I will, sir. Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket. What's the damage? he asked. The blond girl's slim fingers reckoned the fruits. Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took a red carnation from the tall stemglass. This for me? he asked gallantly. The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie a bit crooked, blushing. Yes, sir, she said. Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches. Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the red flower between his smiling teeth. May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.    Ma! Almidano Artifoni said. He gazed over Stephen's shoulder at Goldsmith's knobby poll. Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men's arms frankly round their stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed. Anch'io ho avuto di queste idee, Almidano Artifoni said, quand' ero giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo  una bestia.  peccato. Perch la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via. Invece, Lei si sacrifica. Sacrifizio incruento, Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly. Speriamo, the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. Ma, dia retta a me. Ci rifletta. By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band. Ci rifletter, Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg. Ma, sul serio, eh? Almidano Artifoni said. His heavy hand took Stephen's firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram. Eccolo, Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. Venga a trovarmi e ci pensi. Addio, caro. Arrivederla, maestro, Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand was freed. E grazie. Di che? Almidano Artifoni said. Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose! Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal, trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted, signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling implements of music through Trinity gates.    Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of The Woman in White far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her typewriter. Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion? Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye. The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them six. Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard  June . Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny's corner and the slab where Wolfe Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L. Y.'S and plodded back as they had come. Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking, is she? The way she's holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle's. They kick out grand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he won't keep me here till seven. The telephone rang rudely by her ear. Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five. Only those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go after six if you're not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and six. I'll tell him. Yes one, seven, six. She scribbled three figures on an envelope. Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from Sport was in looking for you. Mr Lenehan, yes. He said he'll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five.    Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch. Who's that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty? Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold. Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there. The vesta in the clergyman's uplifted hand consumed itself in a long soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died and mouldy air closed round them. How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom. Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic council chamber of saint Mary's abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed himself a rebel in . This is the most historic spot in all Dublin. O'Madden Burke is going to write something about it one of these days. The old bank of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and the original jews' temple was here too before they built their synagogue over in Adelaide road. You were never here before, Jack, were you? No, Ned. He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court. That's right, Ned Lambert said. That's quite right, sir. If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to allow me perhaps... Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I'll get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here or from here. In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the piled seedbags and points of vantage on the floor. From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard. I'm deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won't trespass on your valuable time... You're welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Next week, say. Can you see? Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you. Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered. He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away among the pillars. With J. J. O'Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary's abbey where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut meal, O'Connor, Wexford. He stood to read the card in his hand. The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address Saint Michael's, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He's writing a book about the Fitzgeralds he told me. He's well up in history, faith. The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig. I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O'Molloy said. Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air. God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildare after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? I'm bloody sorry I did it, says he, but I declare to God I thought the archbishop was inside. He mightn't like it, though. What? God, I'll tell him anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot members they were all of them, the Geraldines. The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried Woa, sonny! He turned to J. J. O'Molloy and asked Well, Jack. What is it? What's the trouble? Wait awhile. Hold hard. With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an instant, sneezed loudly. Chow! he said. Blast you! The dust from those sacks, J. J. O'Molloy said politely. No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before... blast your soul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of draught... He held his handkerchief ready for the coming... I was... Glasnevin this morning... poor little... what do you call him... Chow!... Mother of Moses!    Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his claret waistcoat. See? he said. Say it's turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On. He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased, ogling them six. Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the admiralty division of king's bench to the court of appeal an elderly female with false teeth smiling incredulously and a black silk skirt of great amplitude. See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here Turns Over. The impact. Leverage, see? He showed them the rising column of disks on the right. Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late can see what turn is on and what turns are over. See? Tom Rochford said. He slid in a disk for himself and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle, stop four. Turn Now On. I'll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good turn deserves another. Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I'm Boylan with impatience. Goodnight, M'Coy said abruptly. When you two begin... Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it. But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked. Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later. He followed M'Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court. He's a hero, he said simply. I know, M'Coy said. The drain, you mean. Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole. They passed Dan Lowry's musichall where Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile. Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall Lenehan showed M'Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes like a bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it, half choked with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky's vest and all, with the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope round the poor devil and the two were hauled up. The act of a hero, he said. At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past them for Jervis street. This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam's to see Sceptre's starting price. What's the time by your gold watch and chain? M'Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses' sombre office, then at O'Neill's clock. After three, he said. Who's riding her? O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is. While he waited in Temple bar M'Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark. The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal cavalcade. Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons in there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn't an earthly. Through here. They went up the steps and under Merchants' arch. A darkbacked figure scanned books on the hawker's cart. There he is, Lenehan said. Wonder what he's buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind. Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye, Lenehan said. He's dead nuts on sales, M'Coy said. I was with him one day and he bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about. Lenehan laughed. I'll tell you a damn good one about comets' tails, he said. Come over in the sun. They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the riverwall. Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks. There was a long spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said eagerly. The annual dinner, you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord mayor was there, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan Dawson spoke and there was music. Bartell d'Arcy sang and Benjamin Dollard... I know, M'Coy broke in. My missus sang there once. Did she? Lenehan said. A card Unfurnished Apartments reappeared on the windowsash of number  Eccles street. He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh. But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had the catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were there. Lashings of stuff we put up port wine and sherry and curacoa to which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies... I know, M'Coy said. The year the missus was there... Lenehan linked his arm warmly. But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock the morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started singing glees and duets Lo, the early beam of morning. She was well primed with a good load of Delahunt's port under her bellyband. Every jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that. He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time. Know what I mean? His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips. The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey the great bear and Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure that's only what you might call a pinprick. By God, he wasn't far wide of the mark. Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft laughter. I'm weak, he gasped. M'Coy's white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M'Coy. He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not one of your common or garden... you know... There's a touch of the artist about old Bloom.    Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, then of Aristotle's Masterpiece. Crooked botched print. Plates infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all over the world. All butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every minute somewhere. Mrs Purefoy. He laid both books aside and glanced at the third Tales of the Ghetto by Leopold von Sacher Masoch. That I had, he said, pushing it by. The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter. Them are two good ones, he said. Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth. He bent to make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain. On O'Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay apparel of Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing c. Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes. He opened it. Thought so. A woman's voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen the man. No she wouldn't like that much. Got her it once. He read the other title Sweets of Sin. More in her line. Let us see. He read where his finger opened. All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For Raoul! Yes. This. Here. Try. Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands felt for the opulent curves inside her dshabill. Yes. Take this. The end. You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare. The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly. Mr Bloom read again The beautiful woman. Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply amid rumpled clothes whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (for him! For Raoul!). Armpits' oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (her heaving embonpoint!). Feel! Press! Crished! Sulphur dung of lions! Young! Young! An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of chancery, king's bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in the lord chancellor's court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the admiralty division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal reservation of judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation. Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it, and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired. Mr Bloom beheld it. Mastering his troubled breath, he said I'll take this one. The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum. Sweets of Sin, he said, tapping on it. That's a good one.    The lacquey by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet. Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings. The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it Barang! Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint. J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College library. Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams's row. He halted near his daughter. It's time for you, she said. Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said. Are you trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon shoulder? Melancholy God! Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and held them back. Stand up straight, girl, he said. You'll get curvature of the spine. Do you know what you look like? He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders and dropping his underjaw. Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you. Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache. Did you get any money? Dilly asked. Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is noone in Dublin would lend me fourpence. You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes. How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek. Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along James's street. I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now? I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns taught you to be so saucy? Here. He handed her a shilling. See if you can do anything with that, he said. I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that. Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You're like the rest of them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I was stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man upstairs is dead. He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat. Well, what is it? he said, stopping. The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs. Barang! Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him. The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell but feebly Bang! Mr Dedalus stared at him. Watch him, he said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to talk. You got more than that, father, Dilly said. I'm going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, there's all I have. I got two shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the funeral. He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously. Can't you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said. Mr Dedalus thought and nodded. I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O'Connell street. I'll try this one now. You're very funny, Dilly said, grinning. Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk for yourself and a bun or a something. I'll be home shortly. He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on. The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of Parkgate. I'm sure you have another shilling, Dilly said. The lacquey banged loudly. Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing mincing mouth gently The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica!    From the sundial towards James's gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James's street, past Shackleton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive. Lovely weather we're having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors ever allowed a boat like that... Now, you're talking straight, Mr Crimmins. You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look at that. And America they say is the land of the free. I thought we were bad here. I smiled at him. America, I said quietly, just like that. What is it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true? That's a fact. Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there's money going there's always someone to pick it up. Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy appearance. Bowls them over. Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things? Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping. Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built under three guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he remembered me. Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road. Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying has it. North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains, sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the ferrywash, Elijah is coming. Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course. Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned Lambert's brother over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He's as like it as damn it. No. The windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash like that. Damn like him. Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his fat strut. Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope. Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant's wife drove by in her noddy. Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too. Fourbottle men. Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the wall. Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn down here. Make a detour. Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by the corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin Distillers Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood, the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse. Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the office of Messrs Collis and Ward. Mr Kernan approached Island street. Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all now in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the table by a dagger. Somewhere here lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major Sirr. Stables behind Moira house. Damn good gin that was. Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that sham squire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were on the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad touchingly. Masterly rendition. At the siege of Ross did my father fall. A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades. Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily. His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a pity!    Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones. Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest them. She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman, rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg. Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating on a stolen hoard. And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words of sophists Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat standing from everlasting to everlasting. Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella, one with a midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled. The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I. Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me you who can. Bawd and butcher were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A look around. Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You say right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed. Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded  print of Heenan boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing heroes' hearts. He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart. Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence. Tattered pages. The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Cur of Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney. I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. Stephano Dedalo, alumno optimo, palmam ferenti. Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers. Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses. Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages read and read. Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love. For me this. Say the following talisman three times with hands folded Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen. Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll wool your wool. What are you doing here, Stephen? Dilly's high shoulders and shabby dress. Shut the book quick. Don't let see. What are you doing? Stephen said. A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her of Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token. Nebrakada femininum. What have you there? Stephen asked. I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing nervously. Is it any good? My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring. Shadow of my mind. He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer. What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French? She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips. Show no surprise. Quite natural. Here, Stephen said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't pawn it on you. I suppose all my books are gone. Some, Dilly said. We had to. She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, my heart, my soul. Salt green death. We. Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite. Misery! Misery!    Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things? Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping. They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's. Father Cowley brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand. What's the best news? Mr Dedalus said. Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I'm barricaded up, Simon, with two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance. Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it? O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance. With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked. The same, Simon, Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I'm just waiting for Ben Dollard. He's going to say a word to long John to get him to take those two men off. All I want is a little time. He looked with vague hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in his neck. I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Poor old bockedy Ben! He's always doing a good turn for someone. Hold hard! He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant. There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets. Ben Dollard's loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops crossed the quay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards them at an amble, scratching actively behind his coattails. As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted Hold that fellow with the bad trousers. Hold him now, Ben Dollard said. Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben Dollard's figure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he muttered sneeringly That's a pretty garment, isn't it, for a summer's day? Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, I threw out more clothes in my time than you ever saw. He stood beside them beaming, on them first and on his roomy clothes from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow. Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard said. Thanks be to God he's not paid yet. And how is that basso profondo, Benjamin? Father Cowley asked. Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, murmuring, glassyeyed, strode past the Kildare street club. Ben Dollard frowned and, making suddenly a chanter's mouth, gave forth a deep note. Aw! he said. That's the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone. What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not too dusty? What? He turned to both. That'll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also. The reverend Hugh C. Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint Mary's abbey past James and Charles Kennedy's, rectifiers, attended by Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the ford of hurdles. Ben Dollard with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them forward, his joyful fingers in the air. Come along with me to the subsheriff's office, he said. I want to show you the new beauty Rock has for a bailiff. He's a cross between Lobengula and Lynchehaun. He's well worth seeing, mind you. Come along. I saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega just now and it will cost me a fall if I don't... Wait awhile... We're on the right lay, Bob, believe you me. For a few days tell him, Father Cowley said anxiously. Ben Dollard halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button of his coat wagging brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the heavy shraums that clogged his eyes to hear aright. What few days? he boomed. Hasn't your landlord distrained for rent? He has, Father Cowley said. Then our friend's writ is not worth the paper it's printed on, Ben Dollard said. The landlord has the prior claim. I gave him all the particulars.  Windsor avenue. Love is the name? That's right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love. He's a minister in the country somewhere. But are you sure of that? You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard said, that he can put that writ where Jacko put the nuts. He led Father Cowley boldly forward, linked to his bulk. Filberts I believe they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his glasses on his coatfront, following them.    The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they passed out of the Castleyard gate. The policeman touched his forehead. God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily. He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on towards Lord Edward street. Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head, appeared above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel. Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to Father Conmee and laid the whole case before him. You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward. Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not. John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them quickly down Cork hill. On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending. The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street. Look here, Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the Mail office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings. Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down the five shillings too. Without a second word either, Mr Power said. Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added. John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes. I'll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted, elegantly. They went down Parliament street. There's Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh's. Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes. Outside la Maison Claire Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney's brotherinlaw, humpy, tight, making for the liberties. John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took the elbow of a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit, who walked uncertainly, with hasty steps past Micky Anderson's watches. The assistant town clerk's corns are giving him some trouble, John Wyse Nolan told Mr Power. They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh's winerooms. The empty castle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, speaking always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not glance. And long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as life. The tall form of long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood. Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and greeted. Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all their faces. Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he said with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk. Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly, about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to know, to keep order in the council chamber. And old Barlow the macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order, no quorum even, and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little Lorcan Sherlock doing locum tenens for him. Damned Irish language, language of our forefathers. Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips. Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to the assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his peace. What Dignam was that? long John Fanning asked. Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot. O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness' sake till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind! Testily he made room for himself beside long John Fanning's flank and passed in and up the stairs. Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don't think you knew him or perhaps you did, though. With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in. Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of long John Fanning ascending towards long John Fanning in the mirror. Rather lowsized. Dignam of Menton's office that was, Martin Cunningham said. Long John Fanning could not remember him. Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air. What's that? Martin Cunningham said. All turned where they stood. John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, harness and glossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past before his cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the leaders, leaping leaders, rode outriders. What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the staircase. The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John Wyse Nolan answered from the stairfoot.    As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his Panama to Haines Parnell's brother. There in the corner. They chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man whose beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard. Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat. Yes, Mulligan said. That's John Howard, his brother, our city marshal. John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw went up again to his forehead whereat it rested. An instant after, under its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and fell once more upon a working corner. I'll take a mlange, Haines said to the waitress. Two mlanges, Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and butter and some cakes as well. When she had gone he said, laughing We call it D.B.C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missed Dedalus on Hamlet. Haines opened his newbought book. I'm sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all minds that have lost their balance. The onelegged sailor growled at the area of  Nelson street England expects... Buck Mulligan's primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter. You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance. Wandering ngus I call him. I am sure he has an ide fixe, Haines said, pinching his chin thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it would be likely to be. Such persons always have. Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely. They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. The joy of creation... Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It's rather interesting because professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an interesting point out of that. Buck Mulligan's watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to unload her tray. He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny, of retribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea. Does he write anything for your movement? He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its smoking pith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily. Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write something in ten years. Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon. Still, I shouldn't wonder if he did after all. He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup. This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don't want to be imposed on. Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping street past Benson's ferry, and by the threemasted schooner Rosevean from Bridgwater with bricks.    Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell's yard. Behind him Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, with stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith's house and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly behind him a blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College park. Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as Mr Lewis Werner's cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along Merrion square, his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling. At the corner of Wilde's house he halted, frowned at Elijah's name announced on the Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of duke's lawn. His eyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth bared he muttered Coactus volui. He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word. As he strode past Mr Bloom's dental windows the sway of his dustcoat brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards, having buffeted a thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly face after the striding form. God's curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder nor I am, you bitch's bastard!    Opposite Ruggy O'Donohoe's Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the pound and a half of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, porksteaks he had been sent for, went along warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney's. And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruitcake, jawing the whole blooming time and sighing. After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, courtdress milliner, stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their pelts and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin's pet lamb, will meet sergeantmajor Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty sovereigns. Gob, that'd be a good pucking match to see. Myler Keogh, that's the chap sparring out to him with the green sash. Two bar entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk on ma. Master Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That's me in mourning. When is it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, his collar sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he saw the image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the two puckers. One of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out. Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going for strength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out of him, dodging and all. In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff's mouth and a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was telling him and grinning all the time. No Sandymount tram. Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not going tomorrow either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I'm in mourning? Uncle Barney said he'd get it into the paper tonight. Then they'll all see it in the paper and read my name printed and pa's name. His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a fly walking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they were screwing the screws into the coffin and the bumps when they were bringing it downstairs. Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling the men how to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and heavylooking. How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was standing on the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to Tunney's for to boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt. Never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He told me to be a good son to ma. I couldn't hear the other things he said but I saw his tongue and his teeth trying to say it better. Poor pa. That was Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he's in purgatory now because he went to confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night.    William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley, accompanied by lieutenantcolonel Heseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal lodge. In the following carriage were the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. in attendance. The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix park saluted by obsequious policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern quays. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the metropolis. At Bloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan beyond the river greeted him vainly from afar. Between Queen's and Whitworth bridges lord Dudley's viceregal carriages passed and were unsaluted by Mr Dudley White, B. L., M. A., who stood on Arran quay outside Mrs M. E. White's, the pawnbroker's, at the corner of Arran street west stroking his nose with his forefinger, undecided whether he should arrive at Phibsborough more quickly by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or on foot through Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In the porch of Four Courts Richie Goulding with the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward saw him with surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the doorstep of the office of Reuben J Dodd, solicitor, agent for the Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly female about to enter changed her plan and retracing her steps by King's windows smiled credulously on the representative of His Majesty. From its sluice in Wood quay wall under Tom Devan's office Poddle river hung out in fealty a tongue of liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel, gold by bronze, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and admired. On Ormond quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse for the subsheriff's office, stood still in midstreet and brought his hat low. His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus' greeting. From Cahill's corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M. A., made obeisance unperceived, mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held of yore rich advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M'Coy, taking leave of each other, watched the carriages go by. Passing by Roger Greene's office and Dollard's big red printinghouse Gerty MacDowell, carrying the Catesby's cork lino letters for her father who was laid up, knew by the style it was the lord and lady lieutenant but she couldn't see what Her Excellency had on because the tram and Spring's big yellow furniture van had to stop in front of her on account of its being the lord lieutenant. Beyond Lundy Foot's from the shaded door of Kavanagh's winerooms John Wyse Nolan smiled with unseen coldness towards the lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland. The Right Honourable William Humble, earl of Dudley, G. C. V. O., passed Micky Anderson's all times ticking watches and Henry and James's wax smartsuited freshcheeked models, the gentleman Henry, dernier cri James. Over against Dame gate Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynn watched the approach of the cavalcade. Tom Rochford, seeing the eyes of lady Dudley fixed on him, took his thumbs quickly out of the pockets of his claret waistcoat and doffed his cap to her. A charming soubrette, great Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and lifted skirt smiled daubily from her poster upon William Humble, earl of Dudley, and upon lieutenantcolonel H. G. Heseltine, and also upon the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck Mulligan gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage over the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes's street Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare. John Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from winebig oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch not looked at in his fat left hand not feeling it. Where the foreleg of King Billy's horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband back from under the hoofs of the outriders. She shouted in his ear the tidings. Understanding, he shifted his tomes to his left breast and saluted the second carriage. The honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C., agreeably surprised, made haste to reply. At Ponsonby's corner a jaded white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons halted behind him, E.L.Y.'S, while outriders pranced past and carriages. Opposite Pigott's music warerooms Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing c, gaily apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by a viceroy and unobserved. By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of My girl's a Yorkshire girl. Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue frontlets and high action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a suit of indigo serge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and the red flower between his lips. As they drove along Nassau street His Excellency drew the attention of his bowing consort to the programme of music which was being discoursed in College park. Unseen brazen highland laddies blared and drumthumped after the cortge But though she's a factory lass And wears no fancy clothes. Baraabum. Yet I've a sort of a Yorkshire relish for My little Yorkshire rose. Baraabum. Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H. Shrift, T. M. Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F. Stevenson, C. Adderly and W. C. Huggard, started in pursuit. Striding past Finn's hotel Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a fierce eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr M. E. Solomons in the window of the AustroHungarian viceconsulate. Deep in Leinster street by Trinity's postern a loyal king's man, Hornblower, touched his tallyho cap. As the glossy horses pranced by Merrion square Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, waiting, saw salutes being given to the gent with the topper and raised also his new black cap with fingers greased by porksteak paper. His collar too sprang up. The viceroy, on his way to inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds for Mercer's hospital, drove with his following towards Lower Mount street. He passed a blind stripling opposite Broadbent's. In Lower Mount street a pedestrian in a brown macintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly and unscathed across the viceroy's path. At the Royal Canal bridge, from his hoarding, Mr Eugene Stratton, his blub lips agrin, bade all comers welcome to Pembroke township. At Haddington road corner two sanded women halted themselves, an umbrella and a bag in which eleven cockles rolled to view with wonder the lord mayor and lady mayoress without his golden chain. On Northumberland and Lansdowne roads His Excellency acknowledged punctually salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two small schoolboys at the garden gate of the house said to have been admired by the late queen when visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the prince consort, in  and the salute of Almidano Artifoni's sturdy trousers swallowed by a closing door. Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing. Imperthnthn thnthnthn. Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. Horrid! And gold flushed more. A husky fifenote blew. Blew. Blue bloom is on the. Goldpinnacled hair. A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile. Trilling, trilling Idolores. Peep! Who's in the... peepofgold? Tink cried to bronze in pity. And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call. Decoy. Soft word. But look the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping answer. O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking. Jingle jingle jaunted jingling. Coin rang. Clock clacked. Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. La cloche! Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye! Jingle. Bloo. Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum. A sail! A veil awave upon the waves. Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now. Horn. Hawhorn. When first he saw. Alas! Full tup. Full throb. Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring. Martha! Come! Clapclap. Clipclap. Clappyclap. Goodgod henev erheard inall. Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up. A moonlit nightcall far, far. I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming. Listen! The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each, and for other, plash and silent roar. Pearls when she. Liszt's rhapsodies. Hissss. You don't? Did not no, no believe Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra. Black. Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do. Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee. But wait! Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Naminedamine. Preacher is he All gone. All fallen. Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair. Amen! He gnashed in fury. Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding. Bronzelydia by Minagold. By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom. One rapped, one tapped, with a carra, with a cock. Pray for him! Pray, good people! His gouty fingers nakkering. Big Benaben. Big Benben. Last rose Castile of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone. Pwee! Little wind piped wee. True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll. Ay, ay. Like you men. Will lift your tschink with tschunk. Fff! Oo! Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs? Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl. Then not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt. Done. Begin! Bronze by gold, miss Douce's head by miss Kennedy's head, over the crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel. Is that her? asked miss Kennedy. Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and eau de Nil. Exquisite contrast, miss Kennedy said. When all agog miss Douce said eagerly Look at the fellow in the tall silk. Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly. In the second carriage, miss Douce's wet lips said, laughing in the sun. He's looking. Mind till I see. She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against the pane in a halo of hurried breath. Her wet lips tittered He's killed looking back. She laughed O wept! Aren't men frightful idiots? With sadness. Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair behind an ear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a hair. Sadly she twined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear. It's them has the fine times, sadly then she said. A man. Bloowho went by by Moulang's pipes bearing in his breast the sweets of sin, by Wine's antiques, in memory bearing sweet sinful words, by Carroll's dusky battered plate, for Raoul. The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came. For them unheeding him he banged on the counter his tray of chattering china. And There's your teas, he said. Miss Kennedy with manners transposed the teatray down to an upturned lithia crate, safe from eyes, low. What is it? loud boots unmannerly asked. Find out, miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint. Your beau, is it? A haughty bronze replied I'll complain to Mrs de Massey on you if I hear any more of your impertinent insolence. Imperthnthn thnthnthn, bootssnout sniffed rudely, as he retreated as she threatened as he had come. Bloom. On her flower frowning miss Douce said Most aggravating that young brat is. If he doesn't conduct himself I'll wring his ear for him a yard long. Ladylike in exquisite contrast. Take no notice, miss Kennedy rejoined. She poured in a teacup tea, then back in the teapot tea. They cowered under their reef of counter, waiting on footstools, crates upturned, waiting for their teas to draw. They pawed their blouses, both of black satin, two and nine a yard, waiting for their teas to draw, and two and seven. Yes, bronze from anear, by gold from afar, heard steel from anear, hoofs ring from afar, and heard steelhoofs ringhoof ringsteel. Am I awfully sunburnt? Miss bronze unbloused her neck. No, said miss Kennedy. It gets brown after. Did you try the borax with the cherry laurel water? Miss Douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their midst a shell. And leave it to my hands, she said. Try it with the glycerine, miss Kennedy advised. Bidding her neck and hands adieu miss Douce Those things only bring out a rash, replied, reseated. I asked that old fogey in Boyd's for something for my skin. Miss Kennedy, pouring now a fulldrawn tea, grimaced and prayed O, don't remind me of him for mercy' sake! But wait till I tell you, miss Douce entreated. Sweet tea miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears with little fingers. No, don't, she cried. I won't listen, she cried. But Bloom? Miss Douce grunted in snuffy fogey's tone For your what? says he. Miss Kennedy unplugged her ears to hear, to speak but said, but prayed again Don't let me think of him or I'll expire. The hideous old wretch! That night in the Antient Concert Rooms. She sipped distastefully her brew, hot tea, a sip, sipped, sweet tea. Here he was, miss Douce said, cocking her bronze head three quarters, ruffling her nosewings. Hufa! Hufa! Shrill shriek of laughter sprang from miss Kennedy's throat. Miss Douce huffed and snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a snout in quest. O! shrieking, miss Kennedy cried. Will you ever forget his goggle eye? Miss Douce chimed in in deep bronze laughter, shouting And your other eye! Bloowhose dark eye read Aaron Figatner's name. Why do I always think Figather? Gathering figs, I think. And Prosper Lor's huguenot name. By Bassi's blessed virgins Bloom's dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white under, come to me. God they believe she is or goddess. Those today. I could not see. That fellow spoke. A student. After with Dedalus' son. He might be Mulligan. All comely virgins. That brings those rakes of fellows in her white. By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets. Of sin. In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other, high piercing notes. Ah, panting, sighing, sighing, ah, fordone, their mirth died down. Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and gigglegiggled. Miss Douce, bending over the teatray, ruffled again her nose and rolled droll fattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping, her fair pinnacles of hair, stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed, spluttered out of her mouth her tea, choking in tea and laughter, coughing with choking, crying O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that! she cried. With his bit of beard! Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman, delight, joy, indignation. Married to the greasy nose! she yelled. Shrill, with deep laughter, after, gold after bronze, they urged each each to peal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold, goldbronze, shrilldeep, to laughter after laughter. And then laughed more. Greasy I knows. Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and pinnacled by glossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O!), panting, sweating (O!), all breathless. Married to Bloom, to greaseabloom. O saints above! miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I wished I hadn't laughed so much. I feel all wet. O, miss Douce! miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing! And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly. By Cantwell's offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi's virgins, bright of their oils. Nannetti's father hawked those things about, wheedling at doors as I. Religion pays. Must see him for that par. Eat first. I want. Not yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On. Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets of sin. Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled. Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled. O, welcome back, miss Douce. He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays? Tiptop. He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor. Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the strand all day. Bronze whiteness. That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males. Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away. O go away! she said. You're very simple, I don't think. He was. Well now I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they christened me simple Simon. You must have been a doaty, miss Douce made answer. And what did the doctor order today? Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I'll trouble you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky. Jingle. With the greatest alacrity, miss Douce agreed. With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane's she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from her crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought pouch and pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky fifenotes. By Jove, he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at last, they say. Yes. Yes. Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid's, into the bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute. None nought said nothing. Yes. Gaily miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas! Was Mr Lidwell in today? In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write. Buy paper. Daly's. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue bloom is on the rye. He was in at lunchtime, miss Douce said. Lenehan came forward. Was Mr Boylan looking for me? He asked. She answered Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs? She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her gaze upon a page No. He was not. Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard, not seen, read on. Lenehan round the sandwichbell wound his round body round. Peep! Who's in the corner? No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her stops. To read only the black ones round o and crooked ess. Jingle jaunty jingle. Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork Will you put your bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone? He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside. He sighed aside Ah me! O my! He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod. Greetings from the famous son of a famous father. Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked. Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who? Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard. Dry. Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe. I see, he said. I didn't recognise him for the moment. I hear he is keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately? He had. I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In Mooney's en ville and in Mooney's sur mer. He had received the rhino for the labour of his muse. He smiled at bronze's teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes The lite of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh MacHugh, Dublin's most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel boy of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the O'Madden Burke. After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see. He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his glass. He looked towards the saloon door. I see you have moved the piano. The tuner was in today, miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smoking concert and I never heard such an exquisite player. Is that a fact? Didn't he, miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too, poor fellow. Not twenty I'm sure he was. Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said. He drank and strayed away. So sad to look at his face, miss Douce condoled. God's curse on bitch's bastard. Tink to her pity cried a diner's bell. To the door of the bar and diningroom came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond. Lager for diner. Lager without alacrity she served. With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for jinglejaunty blazes boy. Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action. Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom in Daly's Henry Flower bought. Are you not happy in your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means something, language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. Respectable girl meet after mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming lovelorn. For some man. For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat riding on a jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence. Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay. Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out. Twopence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say. Aha... I was forgetting... Excuse... And four. At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go. Ternoon. Think you're the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all. For men. In drowsy silence gold bent on her page. From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. A call again. That he now poised that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly and softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call. Pat paid for diner's popcorked bottle and over tumbler, tray and popcorked bottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with miss Douce. The bright stars fade... A voiceless song sang from within, singing ... the morn is breaking. A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording, called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love's leavetaking, life's, love's morn. The dewdrops pearl... Lenehan's lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy. But look this way, he said, rose of Castile. Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped. She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castile fretted, forlorn, dreamily rose. Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her. She answered, slighting Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies. Like lady, ladylike. Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode. Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and hailed him See the conquering hero comes. Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on warm. Black wary hecat walked towards Richie Goulding's legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting. And I from thee... I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan. He touched to fair miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer hair, a bosom and a rose. Smart Boylan bespoke potions. What's your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a sloegin for me. Wire in yet? Not yet. At four she. Who said four? Cowley's red lugs and bulging apple in the door of the sheriff's office. Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting. Wait. Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What, Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there. See, not be seen. I think I'll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom followed bag. Dinner fit for a prince. Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her bust, that all but burst, so high. O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O! But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph. Why don't you grow? asked Blazes Boylan. Shebronze, dealing from her oblique jar thick syrupy liquor for his lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat who gave him?), and syrupped with her voice Fine goods in small parcels. That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe. Here's fortune, Blazes said. He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang. Hold on, said Lenehan, till I... Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale. Sceptre will win in a canter, he said. I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, you know. Fancy of a friend of mine. Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss Douce's lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled. Idolores. The eastern seas. Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave), bearing away teatray. Clock clacked. Miss Douce took Boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till and hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For me. What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four? O'clock. Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged Blazes Boylan's elbowsleeve. Let's hear the time, he said. The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited. Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure's skyblue bow and eyes. Go on, pressed Lenehan. There's noone. He never heard. ... to Flora's lips did hie. High, a high note pealed in the treble clear. Bronzedouce communing with her rose that sank and rose sought Blazes Boylan's flower and eyes. Please, please. He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal. I could not leave thee... Afterwits, miss Douce promised coyly. No, now, urged Lenehan. Sonnez la cloche! O do! There's noone. She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling faces watched her bend. Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord, and lost and found it, faltering. Go on! Do! Sonnez! Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes. Sonnez! Smack. She set free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter smackwarm against her smackable a woman's warmhosed thigh. La cloche! cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdust there. She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren't men?), but, lightward gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan. You're the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said. Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by mirrors, gilded arch for ginger ale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, a spiky shell, where it concerted, mirrored, bronze with sunnier bronze. Yes, bronze from anearby. ... Sweetheart, goodbye! I'm off, said Boylan with impatience. He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change. Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell you. Tom Rochford... Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going. Lenehan gulped to go. Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I'm coming. He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the threshold, saluting forms, a bulky with a slender. How do you do, Mr Dollard? Eh? How do? How do? Ben Dollard's vague bass answered, turning an instant from Father Cowley's woe. He won't give you any trouble, Bob. Alf Bergan will speak to the long fellow. We'll put a barleystraw in that Judas Iscariot's ear this time. Sighing Mr Dedalus came through the saloon, a finger soothing an eyelid. Hoho, we will, Ben Dollard yodled jollily. Come on, Simon. Give us a ditty. We heard the piano. Bald Pat, bothered waiter, waited for drink orders. Power for Richie. And Bloom? Let me see. Not make him walk twice. His corns. Four now. How warm this black is. Course nerves a bit. Refracts (is it?) heat. Let me see. Cider. Yes, bottle of cider. What's that? Mr Dedalus said. I was only vamping, man. Come on, come on, Ben Dollard called. Begone dull care. Come, Bob. He ambled Dollard, bulky slops, before them (hold that fellow with the hold him now) into the saloon. He plumped him Dollard on the stool. His gouty paws plumped chords. Plumped, stopped abrupt. Bald Pat in the doorway met tealess gold returning. Bothered, he wanted Power and cider. Bronze by the window, watched, bronze from afar. Jingle a tinkle jaunted. Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He's off. Light sob of breath Bloom sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He's gone. Jingle. Hear. Love and War, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. God be with old times. Miss Douce's brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind, smitten by sunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting light), she lowered the dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down pensive (why did he go so quick when I?) about her bronze, over the bar where bald stood by sister gold, inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreen sliding depth of shadow, eau de Nil. Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley reminded them. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the Collard grand. There was. A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn't stop him. He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink. God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the punished keyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment. They laughed all three. He had no wed. All trio laughed. No wedding garment. Our friend Bloom turned in handy that night, Mr Dedalus said. Where's my pipe, by the way? He wandered back to the bar to the lost chord pipe. Bald Pat carried two diners' drinks, Richie and Poldy. And Father Cowley laughed again. I saved the situation, Ben, I think. You did, averred Ben Dollard. I remember those tight trousers too. That was a brilliant idea, Bob. Father Cowley blushed to his brilliant purply lobes. He saved the situa. Tight trou. Brilliant ide. I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano in the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and who was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you remember? We had to search all Holles street to find them till the chap in Keogh's gave us the number. Remember? Ben remembered, his broad visage wondering. By God, she had some luxurious operacloaks and things there. Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand. Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. He wouldn't take any money either. What? Any God's quantity of cocked hats and boleros and trunkhose. What? Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of all descriptions. Jingle jaunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres. Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat. Mrs Marion. Met him pike hoses. Smell of burn. Of Paul de Kock. Nice name he. What's this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion... Tweedy. Yes. Is she alive? And kicking. She was a daughter of... Daughter of the regiment. Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor. Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after Irish? I don't know, faith. Is she, Simon? Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling. Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My Irish Molly, O. He puffed a pungent plumy blast. From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way. They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze by maraschino, thoughtful all two. Mina Kennedy,  Lismore terrace, Drumcondra with Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent. Pat served, uncovered dishes. Leopold cut liverslices. As said before he ate with relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods' roes while Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward ate steak and kidney, steak then kidney, bite by bite of pie he ate Bloom ate they ate. Bloom with Goulding, married in silence, ate. Dinners fit for princes. By Bachelor's walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun in heat, mare's glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the? Horn. Have you the? Haw haw horn. Over their voices Dollard bassooned attack, booming over bombarding chords When love absorbs my ardent soul... Roll of Bensoulbenjamin rolled to the quivery loveshivery roofpanes. War! War! cried Father Cowley. You're the warrior. So I am, Ben Warrior laughed. I was thinking of your landlord. Love or money. He stopped. He wagged huge beard, huge face over his blunder huge. Sure, you'd burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said through smoke aroma, with an organ like yours. In bearded abundant laughter Dollard shook upon the keyboard. He would. Not to mention another membrane, Father Cowley added. Half time, Ben. Amoroso ma non troppo. Let me there. Miss Kennedy served two gentlemen with tankards of cool stout. She passed a remark. It was indeed, first gentleman said, beautiful weather. They drank cool stout. Did she know where the lord lieutenant was going? And heard steelhoofs ringhoof ring. No, she couldn't say. But it would be in the paper. O, she need not trouble. No trouble. She waved about her outspread Independent, searching, the lord lieutenant, her pinnacles of hair slowmoving, lord lieuten. Too much trouble, first gentleman said. O, not in the least. Way he looked that. Lord lieutenant. Gold by bronze heard iron steel. ............ my ardent soul I care not foror the morrow. In liver gravy Bloom mashed mashed potatoes. Love and War someone is. Ben Dollard's famous. Night he ran round to us to borrow a dress suit for that concert. Trousers tight as a drum on him. Musical porkers. Molly did laugh when he went out. Threw herself back across the bed, screaming, kicking. With all his belongings on show. O saints above, I'm drenched! O, the women in the front row! O, I never laughed so many! Well, of course that's what gives him the base barreltone. For instance eunuchs. Wonder who's playing. Nice touch. Must be Cowley. Musical. Knows whatever note you play. Bad breath he has, poor chap. Stopped. Miss Douce, engaging, Lydia Douce, bowed to suave solicitor, George Lidwell, gentleman, entering. Good afternoon. She gave her moist (a lady's) hand to his firm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the old dingdong again. Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell. George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand. Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the Burton, gummy with gristle. Noone here Goulding and I. Clean tables, flowers, mitres of napkins. Pat to and fro. Bald Pat. Nothing to do. Best value in Dub. Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together, mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the bowend, sawing the cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore. Night we were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between the acts, other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor's legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do right to hide them. Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty. Only the harp. Lovely. Gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a lovely. Gravy's rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that once or twice. Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their harps. I. He. Old. Young. Ah, I couldn't, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless. Strongly. Go on, blast you! Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits. M'appari, Simon, Father Cowley said. Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long arms outheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly he sang to a dusty seascape there A Last Farewell. A headland, a ship, a sail upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her. Cowley sang M'appari tutt'amor Il mio sguardo l'incontr... She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil, to one departing, dear one, to wind, love, speeding sail, return. Go on, Simon. Ah, sure, my dancing days are done, Ben... Well... Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting, touched the obedient keys. No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat. The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused. Up stage strode Father Cowley. Here, Simon, I'll accompany you, he said. Get up. By Graham Lemon's pineapple rock, by Elvery's elephant jingly jogged. Steak, kidney, liver, mashed, at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom and Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank, Power and cider. Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said Sonnambula. He heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, what M'Guckin! Yes. In his way. Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like. Never forget it. Never. Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain. Backache he. Bright's bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile. Sings too Down among the dead men. Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign in dribs and drabs. And when he's wanted not a farthing. Screwed refusing to pay his fare. Curious types. Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived never. In the gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note. Speech paused on Richie's lips. Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. Believes his own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good memory. Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom. All is lost now. Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee murmured all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth he's proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two notes in one there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my motives he twined and turned them. All most too new call is lost in all. Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done? All lost now. Mournful he whistled. Fall, surrender, lost. Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase. Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence in the moon. Brave. Don't know their danger. Still hold her back. Call name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That's why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes all is lost. A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well. Never in all his life had Richie Goulding. He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me? Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his eye. Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I did sir. Wouldn't trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise. Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably. Stopped again. Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it. With it, Simon. It, Simon. Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind solicitations. It, Simon. I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down. By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze and rose, a lady's grace, gave and withheld as in cool glaucous eau de Nil Mina to tankards two her pinnacles of gold. The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord, longdrawn, expectant, drew a voice away. When first I saw that form endearing... Richie turned. Si Dedalus' voice, he said. Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to Pat, bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the bar. The door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting to hear, for he was hard of hear by the door. Sorrow from me seemed to depart. Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves in murmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem dulcimers touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear sorrow from them each seemed to from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw, lost Richie Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn't expect it in the least, her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word. Love that is singing love's old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the elastic band of his packet. Love's old sweet sonnez la gold. Bloom wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast. Full of hope and all delighted... Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his feet. When will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He can't sing for tall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him. What perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last look at mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How do you? I do well. There? What? Or? Phial of cachous, kissing comfits, in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for the opulent. Alas the voice rose, sighing, changed loud, full, shining, proud. But alas, 'twas idle dreaming... Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out his wife now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he doesn't break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind soup stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy. Tenderness it welled slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That's the chat. Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect. Words? Music? No it's what's behind. Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded. Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o'er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now! Language of love. ... ray of hope is... Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse unsqueaked a ray of hopk. Martha it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel's song. Lovely name you have. Can't write. Accept my little pres. Play on her heartstrings pursestrings too. She's a. I called you naughty boy. Still the name Martha. How strange! Today. The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting to wait. How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part, how look, form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom's heart. Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in Drago's always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still hear it better here than in the bar though farther. Each graceful look... First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's in Terenure. Yellow, black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her. Fate. Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she sat. All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees. Charmed my eye... Singing. Waiting she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume of what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in shadow Dolores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring. Martha! Ah, Martha! Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where. Somewhere. Coome, thou lost one! Coome, thou dear one! Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return! Come! It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the etherial bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness... To me! Siopold! Consumed. Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to her, you too, me, us. Bravo! Clapclap. Good man, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclap clap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap, said, cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat, Mina Kennedy, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank and bronze Miss Douce and gold Miss Mina. Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before. Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, reverend father Theobald Mathew, jaunted, as said before just now. Atrot, in heat, heatseated. Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare. An afterclang of Cowley's chords closed, died on the air made richer. And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank, Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two more tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind. Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you'd sing, Simon, like a garden thrush. Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in. Lydia, admired, admired. But Bloom sang dumb. Admiring. Richie, admiring, descanted on that man's glorious voice. He remembered one night long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang 'Twas rank and fame in Ned Lambert's 'twas. Good God he never heard in all his life a note like that he never did then false one we had better part so clear so God he never heard since love lives not a clinking voice lives not ask Lambert he can tell you too. Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the night, Si in Ned Lambert's, Dedalus house, sang 'Twas rank and fame. He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom, of the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing 'Twas rank and fame in his, Ned Lambert's, house. Brothersinlaw relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. The night Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky chords, wonderful, more than all others. That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It's in the silence after you feel you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air. Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzz, it twanged. While Goulding talked of Barraclough's voice production, while Tom Kernan, harking back in a retrospective sort of arrangement talked to listening Father Cowley, who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While big Ben Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus, lighting, who nodded as he smoked, who smoked. Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other lure them on. Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus paradisum. Corncrake croaker belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing. Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her get tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevyhair un comb'd. Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in your? Twang. It snapped. Jingle into Dorset street. Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased. Don't make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted. George Lidwell told her really and truly but she did not believe. First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And second tankard told her so. That that was so. Miss Douce, miss Lydia, did not believe miss Kennedy, Mina, did not believe George Lidwell, no miss Dou did not the first, the first gent with the tank believe, no, no did not, miss Kenn Lidlydiawell the tank. Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted. Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat. Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line. It certainly is. Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, envelope unconcerned. It's so characteristic. Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said. It is, Bloom said. Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two divided by half is twice one. Vibrations chords those are. One plus two plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always find out this equal to that. Symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn't see my mourning. Callous all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you think you're listening to the etherial. But suppose you said it like Martha, seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite flat. It's on account of the sounds it is. Instance he's playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like, till you hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right then hear chords a bit off feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks, over barrels, through wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood you're in. Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls learning. Two together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos for that. Blumenlied I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, a girl, night I came home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both, I mean. Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went. It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. Queenstown harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the moonlight with those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such music, Ben. Heard as a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole. Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying. Down the edge of his Freeman baton ranged Bloom's, your other eye, scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking... Hope he's not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his Freeman. Can't see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur dear sir. Dear Henry wrote dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I put? Some pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline imposs. To write today. Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting fingers on flat pad Pat brought. On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accep my poor litt pres enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor little pres p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you despise? Jingle, have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the string of her. Bye for today. Yes, yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call me that other. Other world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. You must believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True. Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives. Because I'm away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don't see. Woman. Sauce for the gander. A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing a straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great Brunswick street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and jingled. By Dlugacz' porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a gallantbuttocked mare. Answering an ad? keen Richie's eyes asked Bloom. Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect. Bloom mur best references. But Henry wrote it will excite me. You know how. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he playing now? Improvising. Intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will you pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want to. Know. O. Course if I didn't I wouldn't ask. La la la ree. Trails off there sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. P. S. La la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So lonely. Dee. He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper. Murmured Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote Miss Martha Clifford co P. O. Dolphin's Barn Lane Dublin. Blot over the other so he can't read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit. Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. P up. Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms. Shakespeare said. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be. Wisdom while you wait. In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. One life is all. One body. Do. But do. Done anyhow. Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now. Enough. Barney Kiernan's I promised to meet them. Dislike that job. House of mourning. Walk. Pat! Doesn't hear. Deaf beetle he is. Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn't. Settling those napkins. Lot of ground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then he'd be two. Wish they'd sing more. Keep my mind off. Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of his hearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. He waits while you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He waits while you wait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. Hoh. Wait while you wait. Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose. She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell she brought. To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear. Listen! she bade him. Under Tom Kernan's ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow. Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband took him by the throat. Scoundrel, said he, You'll sing no more lovesongs. He did, faith, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. Cowley lay back. Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. Wonderful. She held it to her own. And through the sifted light pale gold in contrast glided. To hear. Tap. Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for other, hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar. Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened. Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside. Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream first make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn't forget. Fever near her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over shell with seaweed. Why do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks the mouth, why? Her eyes over the sheet. Yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. No admittance except on business. The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse in the ear sometimes. Well, it's a sea. Corpuscle islands. Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur, hearing then laid it by, gently. What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled. Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled. Tap. By Larry O'Rourke's, by Larry, bold Larry O', Boylan swayed and Boylan turned. From the forsaken shell miss Mina glided to her tankards waiting. No, she was not so lonely archly miss Douce's head let Mr Lidwell know. Walks in the moonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly answered with a gentleman friend. Bob Cowley's twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord has the prior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben. Lightly he played a light bright tinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling, and for their gallants, gentlemen friends. One one, one, one, one, one two, one, three, four. Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattlemarket, cocks, hens don't crow, snakes hissss. There's music everywhere. Ruttledge's door ee creaking. No, that's noise. Minuet of Don Giovanni he's playing now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle chambers dancing. Misery. Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating dockleaves. Nice that is. Look look, look, look, look, look you look at us. That's joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other joy. But both are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows you are. Often thought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt. Then know. M'Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing cat. Like tearing silk. Tongue when she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can't manage men's intervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I'm warm, dark, open. Molly in quis est homo Mercadante. My ear against the wall to hear. Want a woman who can deliver the goods. Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan socks skyblue clocks came light to earth. O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. It is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. Tinkling. Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the resonance changes according as the weight of the water is equal to the law of falling water. Like those rhapsodies of Liszt's, Hungarian, gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain. Diddleiddle addleaddle ooddleooddle. Hissss. Now. Maybe now. Before. One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de Kock with a loud proud knocker with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock. Tap. Qui sdegno, Ben, said Father Cowley. No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered. The Croppy Boy. Our native Doric. Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true. Do, do, they begged in one. I'll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To me. How much? What key? Six sharps? F sharp major, Ben Dollard said. Bob Cowley's outstretched talons griped the black deepsounding chords. Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must. Got money somewhere. He's on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence tip. Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting Patty come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait while they wait. But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic. The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth's fatigue made grave approach and painful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men and true. The priest he sought. With him would he speak a word. Tap. Ben Dollard's voice. Base barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. Croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big ships' chandler's business he did once. Remember rosiny ropes, ships' lanterns. Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh home. Cubicle number so and so. Number one Bass did that for him. The priest's at home. A false priest's servant bade him welcome. Step in. The holy father. With bows a traitor servant. Curlycues of chords. Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their days in. Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die. The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered a lonely hall, told them how solemn fell his footsteps there, told them the gloomy chamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive. Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he'll win in Answers, poets' picture puzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting hatching in a nest. Lay of the last minstrel he thought it was. See blank tee what domestic animal? Tee dash ar most courageous mariner. Good voice he has still. No eunuch yet with all his belongings. Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf Pat, bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened. The chords harped slower. The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous. Ben's contrite beard confessed. in nomine Domini, in God's name he knelt. He beat his hand upon his breast, confessing mea culpa. Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion corpus for those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey, corpusnomine. Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape. Tap. They listened. Tankards and miss Kennedy. George Lidwell, eyelid well expressive, fullbusted satin. Kernan. Si. The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since Easter he had cursed three times. You bitch's bast. And once at masstime he had gone to play. Once by the churchyard he had passed and for his mother's rest he had not prayed. A boy. A croppy boy. Bronze, listening, by the beerpull gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn't half know I'm. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking. Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face? They always know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate. Cockcarracarra. What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes. Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked that best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. Custom his country perhaps. That's music too. Not as bad as it sounds. Tootling. Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Doublebasses helpless, gashes in their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile music hath jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin's name. She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore lowcut, belongings on show. Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. Told her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa's. Hypnotised, listening. Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle staring down into her with his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you must hear twice. Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the tune. Met him pike hoses. Philosophy. O rocks! All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all his brothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last of his name and race. I too. Last of my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still? He bore no hate. Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old. Big Ben his voice unfolded. Great voice Richie Goulding said, a flush struggling in his pale, to Bloom soon old. But when was young? Ireland comes now. My country above the king. She listens. Who fears to speak of nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough. Bless me, father, Dollard the croppy cried. Bless me and let me go. Tap. Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill on eighteen bob a week. Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those girls, those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl's romance. Letters read out for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy's owny Mumpsypum. Laughter in court. Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name you. Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all by heart. The thrill they itch for. Yeoman cap. Tap. Tap. Thrilled she listened, bending in sympathy to hear. Blank face. Virgin should say or fingered only. Write something on it page. If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young. Even admire themselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white woman, a flute alive. Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes, all women. Goddess I didn't see. They want it. Not too much polite. That's why he gets them. Gold in your pocket, brass in your face. Say something. Make her hear. With look to look. Songs without words. Molly, that hurdygurdy boy. She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Or because so like the Spanish. Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Gift of nature. Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What? Will? You? I. Want. You. To. With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed, swelling in apoplectic bitch's bastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour's your time to live, your last. Tap. Tap. Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs that want to, dying to, die. For all things dying, for all things born. Poor Mrs Purefoy. Hope she's over. Because their wombs. A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes, calmly, hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red rose rose slowly sank red rose. Heartbeats her breath breath that is life. And all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair. But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castile. The morn. Ha. Lidwell. For him then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from here though. Popped corks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties. On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand, lightly, plumply, leave it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to to, fro over the polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger passed in pity passed, reposed and, gently touching, then slid so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding through their sliding ring. With a cock with a carra. Tap. Tap. Tap. I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing. The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be. Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat. Pass by her. Can leave that Freeman. Letter I have. Suppose she were the? No. Walk, walk, walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall Farrell. Waaaaaaalk. Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O'er ryehigh blue. Ow. Bloom stood up. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have sweated music. That lotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card inside. Yes. By deaf Pat in the doorway straining ear Bloom passed. At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid. Dolor! O, he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to dolorous prayer. By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties, by popped corks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze and faint gold in deepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so lonely Bloom. Tap. Tap. Tap. Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy boy. Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway heard the growls and roars of bravo, fat backslapping, their boots all treading, boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill to wash it down. Glad I avoided. Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus cried. By God, you're as good as ever you were. Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad, upon my soul and honour it is. Lablache, said Father Cowley. Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed and all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering castagnettes in the air. Big Benaben Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben. Rrr. And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer. You're looking rubicund, George Lidwell said. Miss Douce composed her rose to wait. Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben's fat back shoulderblade. Fit as a fiddle only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his person. Rrrrrrrsss. Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled. Richie rift in the lute alone sat Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly he waited. Unpaid Pat too. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankard one. Mr Dollard, they murmured low. Dollard, murmured tankard. Tank one believed miss Kenn when she that doll he was she doll the tank. He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of. Dollard, was it? Dollard, yes. Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely, murmured Mina. Mr Dollard. And The last rose of summer was a lovely song. Mina loved that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina. 'Tis the last rose of summer dollard left bloom felt wind wound round inside. Gassy thing that cider binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J's one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. Wish I hadn't promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your nerves. Beerpull. Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth. That rules the world. Far. Far. Far. Far. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady, with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went Poldy on. Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap. Cowley, he stuns himself with it kind of drunkenness. Better give way only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All ears. Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time. Dotty. You daren't budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking shop. Fiddlefaddle about notes. All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year. Queer up there in the cockloft, alone, with stops and locks and keys. Seated all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself or the other fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek cursing (want to have wadding or something in his no don't she cried), then all of a soft sudden wee little wee little pipy wind. Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom's little wee. Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning with fetched pipe. I was with him this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam's... Ay, the Lord have mercy on him. By the bye there's a tuningfork in there on the... Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked. O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw, forgot it when he was here. Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast bronzelid, minagold. Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out! 'lldo! cried Father Cowley. Rrrrrr. I feel I want... Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine. Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely, last sardine of summer. Bloom alone. Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Bloom went by Barry's. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had. Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Counted them. Litigation. Love one another. Piles of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of attorney. Goulding, Collis, Ward. But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation Mickey Rooney's band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home after pig's cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing his band part. Pom. Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses' skins. Welt them through life, then wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be what you call yashmak or I mean kismet. Fate. Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by Daly's window where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn't see) blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn't), mermaid, coolest whiff of all. Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even comb and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in Lombard street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its own, don't you see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? Cloche. Sonnez la. Shepherd his pipe. Pwee little wee. Policeman a whistle. Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o'clock's all's well! Sleep! All is lost now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait. I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff. Long John. Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little nominedomine. Pom. It is music. I mean of course it's all pom pom pom very much what they call da capo. Still you can hear. As we march, we march along, march along. Pom. I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same he must have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap. Muffled up. Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown macin. O, the whore of the lane! A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the day along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing? Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had the? Heehaw shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she. Psst! Any chance of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with you in the brown costume. Put you off your stroke, that. Appointment we made knowing we'd never, well hardly ever. Too dear too near to home sweet home. Sees me, does she? Looks a fright in the day. Face like dip. Damn her. O, well, she has to live like the rest. Look in here. In Lionel Marks's antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged battered candlesticks melodeon oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain six bob. Might learn to play. Cheap. Let her pass. Course everything is dear if you don't want it. That's what good salesman is. Make you buy what he wants to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish razor he shaved me with. Wanted to charge me for the edge he gave it. She's passing now. Six bob. Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund. Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia's tempting last rose of summer, rose of Castile. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a fifth Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and big Ben Dollard. Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall. Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks's window. Robert Emmet's last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is. True men like you men. Ay, ay, Ben. Will lift your glass with us. They lifted. Tschink. Tschunk. Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor Richie nor Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see. Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. When my country takes her place among. Prrprr. Must be the bur. Fff! Oo. Rrpr. Nations of the earth. Noone behind. She's passed. Then and not till then. Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I'm sure it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. Let my epitaph be. Kraaaaaa. Written. I have. Pprrpffrrppffff. Done. I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only Joe Hynes. Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush? Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to? Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give that fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and ladders. What are you doing round those parts? says Joe. Devil a much, says I. There's a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the garrison church at the corner of Chicken laneold Troy was just giving me a wrinkle about himlifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a hopofmythumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street. Circumcised? says Joe. Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny out of him. That the lay you're on now? says Joe. Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful debts. But that's the most notorious bloody robber you'd meet in a day's walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of rain. Tell him, says he, I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him to send you round here again or if he does, says he, I'll have him summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a licence. And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Jesus, I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. He drink me my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he no pay me my moneys? For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of  Saint Kevin's parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, esquire, of  Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward, gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pence sterling and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall be and remain and be held to be the sole and exclusive property of the said vendor to be disposed of at his good will and pleasure until the said amount shall have been duly paid by the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein set forth as this day hereby agreed between the said vendor, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the other part. Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe. Not taking anything between drinks, says I. What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe. Who? says I. Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man. Drinking his own stuff? says Joe. Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain. Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the citizen. Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe? Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms. What was that, Joe? says I. Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want to give the citizen the hard word about it. So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a licence, says he. In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land it is in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the gurnard, the plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the grilse, the dab, the brill, the flounder, the pollock, the mixed coarse fish generally and other denizens of the aqueous kingdom too numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of the west and of the east the lofty trees wave in different directions their firstclass foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes voyage from afar to woo them, from Eblana to Slievemargy, the peerless princes of unfettered Munster and of Connacht the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and of Cruachan's land and of Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of Boyle, princes, the sons of kings. And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for that purpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits of that land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain descended from chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and red green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples and chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy and pelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their canes. I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, you notorious bloody hill and dale robber! And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and roaring mares and polled calves and longwools and storesheep and Cuffe's prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime premiated milchcows and beeves and there is ever heard a trampling, cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy vales of Thomond, from the M'Gillicuddy's reeks the inaccessible and lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with this dun. So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there, sure enough, was the citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would drop in the way of drink. There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his load of papers, working for the cause. The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps. Be a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper about a licence. Stand and deliver, says he. That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here. Pass, friends, says he. Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he What's your opinion of the times? Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to the occasion. I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his fork. So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says Foreign wars is the cause of it. And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket It's the Russians wish to tyrannise. Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I've a thirst on me I wouldn't sell for half a crown. Give it a name, citizen, says Joe. Wine of the country, says he. What's yours? says Joe. Ditto MacAnaspey, says I. Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, citizen? says he. Never better, a chara, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win? Eh? And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck and, by Jesus, he near throttled him. The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of his body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (Ulex Europeus). The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and tremble. He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castile, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone. So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid. O, as true as I'm telling you. A goodlooking sovereign. And there's more where that came from, says he. Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I. Sweat of my brow, says Joe. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze. I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and Greek street with his cod's eye counting up all the guts of the fish. Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, the son of Rory it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son he of the prudent soul. For the old woman of Prince's street, says the citizen, the subsidised organ. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look at this blasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. The Irish Independent, if you please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman's friend. Listen to the births and deaths in the Irish all for Ireland Independent, and I'll thank you and the marriages. And he starts reading them out Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's on Sea the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How's that, eh? Wright and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the late George Alfred Gillett,  Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and Ridsdale at Saint Jude's, Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest, dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London Carr, Stoke Newington, of gastritis and heart disease Cockburn, at the Moat house, Chepstow... I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience. Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty Miller, Tottenham, aged eightyfive Welsh, June , at  Canning street, Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How's that for a national press, eh, my brown son! How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber? Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they had the start of us. Drink that, citizen. I will, says he, honourable person. Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form. Ah! Ow! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click. And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred scrolls of law and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage, fairest of her race. Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney's snug, squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in the corner that I hadn't seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob Doran. I didn't know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman, trotting like a poodle. I thought Alf would split. Look at him, says he. Breen. He's traipsing all round Dublin with a postcard someone sent him with U. p up on it to take a li... And he doubled up. Take a what? says I. Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds. O hell! says I. The bloody mongrel began to growl that'd put the fear of God in you seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs. Bi i dho husht, says he. Who? says Joe. Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton's and then he went round to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to the subsheriff's for a lark. O God, I've a pain laughing. U. p up. The long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody old lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man. When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe. Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan? Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen long John's eye. U. p .... And he started laughing. Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan? Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf. Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat. Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born, that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals. But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the wellbeloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop. What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up and down outside? What's that? says Joe. Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging, I'll show you something you never saw. Hangmen's letters. Look at here. So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his pocket. Are you codding? says I. Honest injun, says Alf. Read them. So Joe took up the letters. Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust. Bob's a queer chap when the porter's up in him so says I just to make talk How's Willy Murray those times, Alf? I don't know, says Alf. I saw him just now in Capel street with Paddy Dignam. Only I was running after that... You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who? With Dignam, says Alf. Is it Paddy? says Joe. Yes, says Alf. Why? Don't you know he's dead? says Joe. Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf. Ay, says Joe. Sure I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as a pikestaff. Who's dead? says Bob Doran. You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm. What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim's... What? Dignam dead? What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who's talking about...? Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are. Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow. Paddy? says Alf. Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him. Good Christ! says Alf. Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted. In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of the etheric double being particularly lifelike owing to the discharge of jivic rays from the crown of the head and face. Communication was effected through the pituitary body and also by means of the orangefiery and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar plexus. Questioned by his earthname as to his whereabouts in the heavenworld he stated that he was now on the path of prly or return but was still submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirsty entities on the lower astral levels. In reply to a question as to his first sensations in the great divide beyond he stated that previously he had seen as in a glass darkly but that those who had passed over had summit possibilities of atmic development opened up to them. Interrogated as to whether life there resembled our experience in the flesh he stated that he had heard from more favoured beings now in the spirit that their abodes were equipped with every modern home comfort such as tlfn, lvtr, htkld, wtklst and that the highest adepts were steeped in waves of volupcy of the very purest nature. Having requested a quart of buttermilk this was brought and evidently afforded relief. Asked if he had any message for the living he exhorted all who were still at the wrong side of My to acknowledge the true path for it was reported in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the eastern angle where the ram has power. It was then queried whether there were any special desires on the part of the defunct and the reply was We greet you, friends of earth, who are still in the body. Mind C. K. doesn't pile it on. It was ascertained that the reference was to Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H. J. O'Neill's popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of the defunct, who had been responsible for the carrying out of the interment arrangements. Before departing he requested that it should be told to his dear son Patsy that the other boot which he had been looking for was at present under the commode in the return room and that the pair should be sent to Cullen's to be soled only as the heels were still good. He stated that this had greatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and earnestly requested that his desire should be made known. Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was intimated that this had given satisfaction. He is gone from mortal haunts O'Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was his foot on the bracken Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with your wind and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind. There he is again, says the citizen, staring out. Who? says I. Bloom, says he. He's on point duty up and down there for the last ten minutes. And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again. Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was. Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him. And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest blackguard in Dublin when he's under the influence Who said Christ is good? I beg your parsnips, says Alf. Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little Willy Dignam? Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He's over all his troubles. But Bob Doran shouts out of him. He's a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam. Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn't want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob Doran starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you're there. The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character. The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat. Fitter for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married, Mooney, the bumbailiff's daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street, that used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour. The noblest, the truest, says he. And he's gone, poor little Willy, poor little Paddy Dignam. And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that beam of heaven. Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round the door. Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the citizen. So Bloom slopes in with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was Martin Cunningham there. O, Christ M'Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to this, will you? And he starts reading out one.  Hunter Street, Liverpool. To the High Sheriff of Dublin, Dublin. Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful case i hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the  of Febuary  and i hanged... Show us, Joe, says I. ... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit in Pentonville prison and i was assistant when... Jesus, says I. ... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith... The citizen made a grab at the letter. Hold hard, says Joe, i have a special nack of putting the noose once in he can't get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my terms is five ginnees. H. Rumbold, Master Barber. And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen. And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you have? So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and he couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake. Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe. And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with a black border round it. They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses. And he was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull. In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their deadly coil they grasp yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so saith the Lord. So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the business and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on. There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf. What's that? says Joe. The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf. That so? says Joe. God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker. Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said. That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the... And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon. The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus, thereby causing the elastic pores of the corpora cavernosa to rapidly dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis. So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a new dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all round the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get. So of course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw here! Give us the paw! Arrah, bloody end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and intelligent dog give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry bloody mongrel. And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet and die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and she's far from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown cigar putting on swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley. Time they were stopping up in the City Arms pisser Burke told me there was an old one there with a cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and Bloom trying to get the soft side of her doing the mollycoddle playing bzique to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and not eating meat of a Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw and taking the lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds of Dublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought him home as drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him the evils of alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn't near roast him, it's a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd that kept the hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them off chewing the fat. And Bloom with his but don't you see? and but on the other hand. And sure, more be token, the lout I'm told was in Power's after, the blender's, round in Cope street going home footless in a cab five times in the week after drinking his way through all the samples in the bloody establishment. Phenomenon! The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and glaring at Bloom. Ay, ay, says Joe. You don't grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is... Sinn Fein! says the citizen. Sinn Fein amhain! The friends we love are by our side and the foes we hate before us. The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the lowest computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers Lnhn and Mllgn who sang The Night before Larry was stretched in their usual mirthprovoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the scene were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day's entertainment and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the Poor for their excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal houseparty which included many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grandstand while the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation, present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed doyen of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitpatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von SchwanzenbadHodenthaler, Countess Marha Virga Kisszony Putrpesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Seor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans ChuechliSteuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentgeneralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland's patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars, boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas, catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending parties. The readywitted ninefooter's suggestion at once appealed to all and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily congratulated by all the F. O. T. E. I., several of whom were bleeding profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies' and gentlemen's gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme. Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the Gladiolus Cruentus. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitateshort, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was exactly seventeen o'clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given by megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore's patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who administered the last comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when about to pay the death penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication. Hard by the block stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially supplied by the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield), a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of the duodenum, colon, blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully extracted and two commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most precious blood of the most precious victim. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats' and dogs' home was in attendance to convey these vessels when replenished to that beneficent institution. Quite an excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, fried steak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls and invigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for the consumption of the central figure of the tragedy who was in capital spirits when prepared for death and evinced the keenest interest in the proceedings from beginning to end but he, with an abnegation rare in these our times, rose nobly to the occasion and expressed the dying wish (immediately acceded to) that the meal should be divided in aliquot parts among the members of the sick and indigent roomkeepers' association as a token of his regard and esteem. The nec and non plus ultra of emotion were reached when the blushing bride elect burst her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders and flung herself upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be launched into eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in a loving embrace murmuring fondly Sheila, my own. Encouraged by this use of her christian name she kissed passionately all the various suitable areas of his person which the decencies of prison garb permitted her ardour to reach. She swore to him as they mingled the salt streams of their tears that she would ever cherish his memory, that she would never forget her hero boy who went to his death with a song on his lips as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park. She brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhood together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present, they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including the venerable pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster audience simply rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst from their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being the aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye in that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the day, and was accepted on the spot. Every lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion and when the gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most timehonoured names in Albion's history) placed on the finger of his blushing fiance an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of a fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay, even the stern provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel TomkinMaxwell ffrenchmullan Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without flinching, could not now restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard, by those privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediate entourage, to murmur to himself in a faltering undertone God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause I thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way. So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can't speak their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that he cadged off of Joe and talking about the Gaelic league and the antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is about the size of it. Gob, he'd let you pour all manner of drink down his throat till the Lord would call him before you'd ever see the froth of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh entertainment, don't be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with the females, hitting below the belt. So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty starts mousing around by Joe and me. I'd train him by kindness, so I would, if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again where it wouldn't blind him. Afraid he'll bite you? says the citizen, jeering. No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost. So he calls the old dog over. What's on you, Garry? says he. Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera. Such growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone that has nothing better to do ought to write a letter pro bono publico to the papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of that. Growling and grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the hydrophobia dropping out of his jaws. All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not missing the really marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the famous old Irish red setter wolfdog formerly known by the sobriquet of Garryowen and recently rechristened by his large circle of friends and acquaintances Owen Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of years of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary system, comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse. Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and compare the verse recited and has found it bears a striking resemblance (the italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic bards. We are not speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with which the writer who conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym of the Little Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but rather (as a contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting communication published by an evening contemporary) of the harsher and more personal note which is found in the satirical effusions of the famous Raftery and of Donal MacConsidine to say nothing of a more modern lyrist at present very much in the public eye. We subjoin a specimen which has been rendered into English by an eminent scholar whose name for the moment we are not at liberty to disclose though we believe that our readers will find the topical allusion rather more than an indication. The metrical system of the canine original, which recalls the intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has been well caught. Perhaps it should be added that the effect is greatly increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat slowly and indistinctly in a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour. The curse of my curses Seven days every day And seven dry Thursdays On you, Barney Kiernan, Has no sup of water To cool my courage, And my guts red roaring After Lowry's lights. So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have another. I will, says he, a chara, to show there's no ill feeling. Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for man and beast. And says Joe Could you make a hole in another pint? Could a swim duck? says I. Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won't have anything in the way of liquid refreshment? says he. Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam's. Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn't serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and nominally under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the policy. Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what? Well, that's a point, says Bloom, for the wife's admirers. Whose admirers? says Joe. The wife's advisers, I mean, says Bloom. Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that Dignam owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow contested the mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled with his mortgagor under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you're there. O, commend me to an israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery. So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and to tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy that's dead to tell her. Choking with bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom's hand doing the tragic to tell her that. Shake hands, brother. You're a rogue and I'm another. Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to request of you this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits of reserve let the sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my boldness. No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup. Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart, I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of speech. And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five o'clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the bobby, A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard, drinking porter out of teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he serving mass in Adam and Eve's when he was young with his eyes shut, who wrote the new testament, and the old testament, and hugging and smugging. And the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed and the two shawls screeching laughing at one another. How is your testament? Have you got an old testament? Only Paddy was passing there, I tell you what. Then see him of a Sunday with his little concubine of a wife, and she wagging her tail up the aisle of the chapel with her patent boots on her, no less, and her violets, nice as pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney's sister. And the old prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street couples. Gob, Jack made him toe the line. Told him if he didn't patch up the pot, Jesus, he'd kick the shite out of him. So Terry brought the three pints. Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen. Slan leat, says he. Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen. Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small fortune to keep him in drinks. Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe. Friend of yours, says Alf. Nannan? says Joe. The mimber? I won't mention any names, says Alf. I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William Field, M. P., the cattle traders. Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of all countries and the idol of his own. So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen sending them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a knacker's yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here's my head and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn't loosen her farting strings but old cod's eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do it. What's your programme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor animals suffer and experts say and the best known remedy that doesn't cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. Gob, he'd have a soft hand under a hen. Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her fresh egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons. Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see him, as it happens. Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight. That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure? Nannan's going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the park. What do you think of that, citizen? The Sluagh na hEireann. Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.) Arising out of the question of my honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that these animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming as to their pathological condition? Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.) Honourable members are already in possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole house. I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the honourable member's question is in the affirmative. Mr Orelli O'Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.) Have similar orders been issued for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the Phoenix park? Mr Allfours The answer is in the negative. Mr Cowe Conacre Has the right honourable gentleman's famous Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury bench? (O! O!) Mr Allfours I must have notice of that question. Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.) Don't hesitate to shoot. (Ironical opposition cheers.) The speaker Order! Order! (The house rises. Cheers.) There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best throw, citizen? Na bacleis, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow. Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better. Is that really a fact? says Alf. Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Did you not know that? So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That's a straw. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady. A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of Brian O'Ciarnain's in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag, under the auspices of Sluagh na hEireann, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancient Panceltic forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected worker in the cause of our old tongue, Mr Joseph M'Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best traditions of manly strength and prowess handed down to us from ancient ages. L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses, having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the discussion to a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis' evergreen verses (happily too familiar to need recalling here) A nation once again in the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish CarusoGaribaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of the press and the bar and the other learned professions. The proceedings then terminated. Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L. L. D. the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D. the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S. Sp. the rev. T. Waters, C. C. the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P. the rev. P. J. Cleary, O. S. F. the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P. the very rev. Fr. Nicholas, O. S. F. C. the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C. the rev. T. Maher, S. J. the very rev. James Murphy, S. J. the rev. John Lavery, V. F. the very rev. William Doherty, D. D. the rev. Peter Fagan, O. M. the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A. the rev. J. Flavin, C. C. the rev. M. A. Hackett, C. C. the rev. W. Hurley, C. C. the rt rev. Mgr M'Manus, V. G. the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I. the very rev. M. D. Scally, P. P. the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P. the very rev. Timothy canon Gorman, P. P. the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc. Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that KeoghBennett match? No, says Joe. I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf. Who? Blazes? says Joe. And says Bloom What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training the eye. Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up the odds and he swatting all the time. We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put English gold in his pocket. True for you, says Joe. And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the blood, asking Alf Now, don't you think, Bergan? Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made him puke what he never ate. It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he was by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by superlative skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet's nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally drenched with water and when the bell went came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a terrific left to Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight. He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's running a concert tour now up in the north. He is, says Joe. Isn't he? Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer tour, you see. Just a holiday. Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe. My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success too. He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent. Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the bucko that'll organise her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddareesh. Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The gardens of Alameda knew her step the garths of olives knew and bowed. The chaste spouse of Leopold is she Marion of the bountiful bosoms. And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O'Molloy's, a comely hero of white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty's counsel learned in the law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of Lambert. Hello, Ned. Hello, Alf. Hello, Jack. Hello, Joe. God save you, says the citizen. Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned? Half one, says Ned. So J. J. ordered the drinks. Were you round at the court? says Joe. Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he. Hope so, says Ned. Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's. Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where noone would know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and done says I. Gob, he'll come home by weeping cross one of those days, I'm thinking. Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p up. Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective. Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court only Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined first. Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I'd give anything to hear him before a judge and jury. Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson. Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character. Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence against you. Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not compos mentis. U. p up. Compos your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he's balmy? Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on with a shoehorn. Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law. Ha ha, Alf, says Joe. Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife. Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half and half. How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he... Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish nor flesh. Nor good red herring, says Joe. That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what that is. Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him, bringing down the rain. And she with her nose cockahoop after she married him because a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the pope. Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street. And who was he, tell us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings a week, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to the world. And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my opinion an action might lie. Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our pints in peace. Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself. Well, good health, Jack, says Ned. Good health, Ned, says J. J. There he is again, says Joe. Where? says Alf. And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a secondhand coffin. How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe. Remanded, says J. J. One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see any green in the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? Swindled them all, skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and his own kidney too. J. J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew Zaretsky or something weeping in the witnessbox with his hat on him, swearing by the holy Moses he was stuck for two quid. Who tried the case? says Joe. Recorder, says Ned. Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes. Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about arrears of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he'll dissolve in tears on the bench. Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children? Ten, did you say? Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid. And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court immediately, sir. No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. How dare you, sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking industrious man! I dismiss the case. And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and in the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first quarter, it came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the halls of law. There master Courtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave his rede and master Justice Andrews, sitting without a jury in the probate court, weighed well and pondered the claim of the first chargeant upon the property in the matter of the will propounded and final testamentary disposition in re the real and personal estate of the late lamented Jacob Halliday, vintner, deceased, versus Livingstone, an infant, of unsound mind, and another. And to the solemn court of Green street there came sir Frederick the Falconer. And he sat him there about the hour of five o'clock to administer the law of the brehons at the commission for all that and those parts to be holden in and for the county of the city of Dublin. And there sat with him the high sinhedrim of the twelve tribes of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the tribe of Patrick and of the tribe of Hugh and of the tribe of Owen and of the tribe of Conn and of the tribe of Oscar and of the tribe of Fergus and of the tribe of Finn and of the tribe of Dermot and of the tribe of Cormac and of the tribe of Kevin and of the tribe of Caolte and of the tribe of Ossian, there being in all twelve good men and true. And he conjured them by Him who died on rood that they should well and truly try and true deliverance make in the issue joined between their sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar and true verdict give according to the evidence so help them God and kiss the book. And they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, and they swore by the name of Him Who is from everlasting that they would do His rightwiseness. And straightway the minions of the law led forth from their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended in consequence of information received. And they shackled him hand and foot and would take of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge against him for he was a malefactor. Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland filling the country with bugs. So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, telling him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first but if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high and holy by this and by that he'd do the devil and all. Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have repetition. That's the whole secret. Rely on me, says Joe. Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We want no more strangers in our house. O, I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just that Keyes, you see. Consider that done, says Joe. Very kind of you, says Bloom. The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in. We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon robbers here. Decree nisi, says J. J. And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider's web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when. A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of all our misfortunes. And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the Police Gazette with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint. Give us a squint at her, says I. And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be late after she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor. O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is! There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off of that one, what? So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on him as long as a late breakfast. Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action? What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide about the Irish language? O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael. It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal Sassenachs and their patois. So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and their colonies and their civilisation. Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with them! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature worthy of the name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us. Tonguetied sons of bastards' ghosts. The European family, says J. J.... They're not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin Egan of Paris. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language anywhere in Europe except in a cabinet d'aisance. And says John Wyse Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion! He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg Abu, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless gods. What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had lost a bob and found a tanner. Gold cup, says he. Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry. Throwaway, says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest nowhere. And Bass's mare? says Terry. Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid on my tip Sceptre for himself and a lady friend. I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on Zinfandel that Mr Flynn gave me. Lord Howard de Walden's. Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. Throwaway, says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy name is Sceptre. So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangy snout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard. Not there, my child, says he. Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for the other dog. And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom sticking in an odd word. Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they can't see the beam in their own. Raimeis, says the citizen. There's noone as blind as the fellow that won't see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax and our damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world. Where are the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple to sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble, silver from Tipperary, second to none, our farfamed horses even today, the Irish hobbies, with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs duties for the right to fish in our waters. What do the yellowjohns of Anglia owe us for our ruined trade and our ruined hearths? And the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption? As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was reading a report of lord Castletown's... Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire, O. Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan. The fashionable international world attended en masse this afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty DeweyMosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty motif of plume rose being worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of Woodman, spare that tree at the conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre in Horto after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest. And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway. And will again, says Joe. And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the citizen, clapping his thigh. Our harbours that are empty will be full again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom of Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with a fleet of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the O'Kennedys of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with the emperor Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to the fore, none of your Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, the flag of the province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue field, the three sons of Milesius. And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude in Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant. Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have? An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion. Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you asleep? Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir. Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead of attending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying to crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head down like a bull at a gate. And another one Black Beast Burned in Omaha, Ga. A lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a Sambo strung up in a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under him. Gob, they ought to drown him in the sea after and electrocute and crucify him to make sure of their job. But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at bay? I'll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is. Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about flogging on the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself Disgusted One. So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a gun. A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on the breech. And says John Wyse 'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad till he yells meila murder. That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the earth. The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber on the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about of drudges and whipped serfs. On which the sun never rises, says Joe. And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The unfortunate yahoos believe it. They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid. But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn't it be the same here if you put force against force? Didn't I tell you? As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living. We'll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the black . Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid low by the batteringram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America. Even the Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, they drove out the peasants in hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in the coffinships. But those that came to the land of the free remember the land of bondage. And they will come again and with a vengeance, no cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen ni Houlihan. Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was... We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at Killala. Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. But what did we ever get for it? The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren't they trying to make an Entente cordiale now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were. Conspuez les Franais, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer. And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead? Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one with the winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every night of God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting her up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about Ehren on the Rhine and come where the boose is cheaper. Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now. Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more pox than pax about that boyo. Edward GuelphWettin! And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode. The earl of Dublin, no less. They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little Alf. And says J. J. Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision. Will you try another, citizen? says Joe. Yes, sir, says he. I will. You? says Joe. Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less. Repeat that dose, says Joe. Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about. Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred among nations. But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse. Yes, says Bloom. What is it? says John Wyse. A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place. By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that's so I'm a nation for I'm living in the same place for the past five years. So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck out of it Or also living in different places. That covers my case, says Joe. What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen. Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland. The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner. After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to swab himself dry. Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and repeat after me the following words. The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, Ireland's Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Caveall these moving scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time. Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which? That's mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman. And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. Also now. This very moment. This very instant. Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar. Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle. Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen. I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom. Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men. That's an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he'd adorn a sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. And then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag. But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life. What? says Alf. Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there. If he comes just say I'll be back in a second. Just a moment. Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning. A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love. Well, says John Wyse. Isn't that what we're told. Love your neighbour. That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love, moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet. Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody. Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, citizen. Hurrah, there, says Joe. The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen. And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle. We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit in the United Irishman today about that Zulu chief that's visiting England? What's that? says Joe. So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts reading out A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely translated by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire, stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of England's greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the Royal Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to the toast Black and White from the skull of his immediate predecessor in the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after which he visited the chief factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in the visitors' book, subsequently executing a charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the course of which he swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girl hands. Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would. Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly. Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse. No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only initialled P. And a very good initial too, says Joe. That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag. Well, says J. J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what's this his name is? Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman. Yes, that's the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them. I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers. Who? says I. Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on Throwaway and he's gone to gather in the shekels. Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a horse in anger in his life? That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse. He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe. Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out. There you are, says Terry. Goodbye Ireland I'm going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was letting off my (Throwaway twenty to) letting off my load gob says I to myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in Slattery's off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings is five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube she's better or she's (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there's the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos. So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No security. Gob, he's like Lanty MacHale's goat that'd go a piece of the road with every one. Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham. Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the collector general's, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the king's expense. Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their palfreys. Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party. Saucy knave! To us! So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice. Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard. Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow. Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds. And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it. Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare larder. I know not what to offer your lordships. How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant countenance, So servest thou the king's messengers, master Taptun? An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage. Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king's messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The king's friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house I warrant me. Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us? Mine host bowed again as he made answer What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of old Rhenish? Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios! Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue. So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom. Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans. Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen about Bloom and the Sinn Fein? That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege. Who made those allegations? says Alf. I, says Joe. I'm the alligator. And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country like the next fellow? Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is. Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton. Who is Junius? says J. J. We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian. He's a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that in the castle. Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power. Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the father's name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the father did. That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints and sages! Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that matter so are we. Yes, says J. J., and every male that's born they think it may be their Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till he knows if he's a father or a mother. Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan. O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered. En ventre sa mre, says J. J. Do you call that a man? says the citizen. I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe. Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power. And who does he suspect? says the citizen. Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I'm telling you? It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your eye. Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't wait. A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is. Virag from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God. Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned. Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S. You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry. Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our shores. Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my prayer. Amen, says the citizen. And I'm sure He will, says Joe. And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and monks and friars the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines, Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter Nolasco and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other and friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers, minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara and the sons of Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent and the monks of S. Wolstan and Ignatius his children and the confraternity of the christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors S. Cyr and S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S. Leugarde and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent de Paul and S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and S. Joseph and S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S. Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole and S. James of Dingle and Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S. Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S. Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan and S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of Brittany and S. Michan and S. HermanJoseph and the three patrons of holy youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes, trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys, dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches, forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way by Nelson's Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little Britain street chanting the introit in Epiphania Domini which beginneth Surge, illuminare and thereafter most sweetly the gradual Omnes which saith de Saba venient they did divers wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the reverend Father O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the good fathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co, limited, ,  and  little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine and brandy shippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of His light to inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the beverages and the company of all the blessed answered his prayers. Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini. Qui fecit clum et terram. Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo. And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed and they all with him prayed Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde super creaturas istas et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et anim tutelam Te auctore percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum. And so say all of us, says Jack. Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford. Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish. I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry. I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope I'm not... No, says Martin, we're ready. Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to five. Don't tell anyone, says the citizen. Beg your pardon, says he. Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now. Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a secret. And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl. Bye bye all, says Martin. And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car. Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey. The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam and the bark clave the waves. But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him. Let me alone, says he. And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls out of him Three cheers for Israel! Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would. And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts singing If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew and a slut shouts out of her Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister! And says he Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God. He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead. Whose God? says the citizen. Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me. Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop. By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here. Stop! Stop! says Joe. A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid farewell to Nagyasgos uram Lipti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant clime of SzzharminczbrojgulysDuguls (Meadow of Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great clat was characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob agus Jacob. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come Back to Erin, followed immediately by Rakczsy's March. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of M'Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light. Visszontltsra, kedvs bartom! Visszontltsra! Gone but not forgotten. Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's royal theatre Where is he till I murder him? And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing. Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel. But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other way and off with him. Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop! Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street. The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of , the year of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by west. Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously pleased to decree that a special missa pro defunctis shall be celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of dbris, human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son,  Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, , ,  and  North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry under the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. C. B., M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I. You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he let a volley of oaths after him. Did I kill him, says he, or what? And he shouting to the bloody dog After him, Garry! After him, boy! And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise you. When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling Elijah! Elijah! And He answered with a main cry Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel. The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea. The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with caps to match and the name H. M. S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little fellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They were dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, building castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happy as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple in his chin. Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of water. And baby prattled after her A jink a jink a jawbo. Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at the quaint language of little brother. But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman's house is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose that the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends. Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you, Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I catch you for that. His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was too after his misadventure. His little mano'war top and unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near him she wouldn't be far from him, her eyes dancing in admonition. Nasty bold Jacky! she cried. She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly What's your name? Butter and cream? Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your sweetheart? Nao, tearful Tommy said. Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried. Nao, Tommy said. I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart. Gerty is Tommy's sweetheart. Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears. Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman couldn't see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes. But who was Gerty? Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of late had done her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's female pills and she was much better of those discharges she used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and queen of ointments could make them though it was not true that she used to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told her not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed meaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful eyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful page of the Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing scientifically cured and how to be tall increase your height and you have a beautiful face but your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of the new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And just now at Edy's words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet girlish shyness that of a surety God's fair land of Ireland did not hold her equal. For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue. Inclination prompted her to speak out dignity told her to be silent. The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out into a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May morning. She knew right well, noone better, what made squinty Edy say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a lovers' quarrel. As per usual somebody's nose was out of joint about the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a doctor when he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he might learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his family and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would know anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn't go and ride up and down in front of her bit of a garden. Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it was expected in the Lady's Pictorial that electric blue would be worn) with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue chenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she found what she wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it, slightly shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny. She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her! And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very petite but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount and no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with highspliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty's chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen, and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the wash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't trust those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things. She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and because she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out and that was for luck and lovers' meeting if you put those things on inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so long as it wasn't of a Friday. And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain. Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a marriage has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T. C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in love, a woman's birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer's (he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of character had never been Reggy Wylie's strong point and he who would woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting, always waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward. And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she would be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature comforts too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue and queen Ann's pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden opinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same direction, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of eggs though she didn't like the eating part when there were any people that made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn't eat something poetical like violets or roses and they would have a beautifully appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was so human and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in Clery's summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a husband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed sweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for their honeymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down in a nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they would both have brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two selves and before he went out to business he would give his dear little wifey a good hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes. Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run off and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the ball and if he took it there'd be wigs on the green but Tommy said it was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him. You're not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It's my ball. But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and Tommy after it in full career, having won the day. Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss. And she tickled tiny tot's two cheeks to make him forget and played here's the lord mayor, here's his two horses, here's his gingerbread carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way like that from everyone always petting him. I'd like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won't say. On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily. Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she'd be ashamed of her life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared Ciss. Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at him. Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes. For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea and jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men's faces on her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to go where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the Miss White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget her the evening she dressed up in her father's suit and hat and the burned cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a cigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But she was sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome. And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men's temperance retreat conducted by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered together without distinction of social class (and a most edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves, after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her to intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had her father only avoided the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of kindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low. And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful, Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a father because he was too old or something or on account of his face (it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me, Mary, how to woo thee or My love and cottage near Rochelle and they had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for supper and when he sang The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her mother's birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have had a group taken. Noone would have thought the end was so near. Now he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him the letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright and cheery in the home. A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn't like her mother's taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime Mr Tunney the grocer's christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in a soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and thought about those times because she had found out in Walker's pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the halcyon days what they meant. The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it to her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and stopped right under Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the rock. The twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadn't come rolling down to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed. If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said. Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had ever seen. Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary, the most pious Virgin's intercessory power that it was not recorded in any age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever abandoned by her. The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word, didn't the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say papa. Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa. And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out to be something great, they said. Haja ja ja haja. Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa. And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was quickly appeased. Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out, the evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they burned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer. She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred because she wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they two to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not see whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly retrouss from where he was sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story of a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given worlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still, and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with the toes down. She was glad that something told her to put on the transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him because she felt instinctively that he was like noone else. The very heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flighty girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what they hadn't got and she just yearned to know all, to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, make him forget the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for herself alone. Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis. Well has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy can never be lost or cast away and fitly is she too a haven of refuge for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue banners of the blessed Virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was helping Canon O'Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time when she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature's laws, he said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came from the nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the mantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the forty hours' adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a present to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place. The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned. Jacky! Tommy! Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very last time she'd ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn't get it to grow long because it wasn't natural so she could just go and throw her hat at it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a lot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and just because she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could see all the end of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as possible. It would have served her just right if she had tripped up over something accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. Tableau! That would have been a very charming expos for a gentleman like that to witness. Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints, they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed the thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn't because she thought he might be watching but she never made a bigger mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking that he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O'Hanlon handed the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the Tantum ergo and she just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to the Tantumer gosa cramen tum. Three and eleven she paid for those stockings in Sparrow's of George's street on the Tuesday, no the Monday before Easter and there wasn't a brack on them and that was what he was looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his head to see the difference for himself. Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her petticoat hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a moment to settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on a girl's shouldersa radiant little vision, in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was eying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman's instinct told her that she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a glorious rose. Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty, half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why noone could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of hers. And she said to Gerty A penny for your thoughts. What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. I was only wondering was it late. Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snottynosed twins and their babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know because they were told to be in early. Wait, said Cissy, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the time by his conundrum. So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment he had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and the next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure. Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the sun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones. Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said his waterworks were out of order. Then they sang the second verse of the Tantum ergo and Canon O'Hanlon got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he told Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire to the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and she could see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the works and she swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting darker but he could see and he was looking all the time that he was winding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands back into his pockets. She felt a kind of a sensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel of her scalp and that irritation against her stays that that thing must be coming on because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account of the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in a man's passionate gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man's face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it. Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the card to read off and he read out Panem de coelo praestitisti eis and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and asking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just answered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurtO yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet way of saying things like that she knew would wound like the confounded little cat she was. Gerty's lips parted swiftly to frame the word but she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless, so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see. O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it's leap year. Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast as much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into a dozen pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give him one look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot. Miss puny little Edy's countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty could see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shaft had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she was something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it. Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because the sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told him too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and baby looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby, without as much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all and sundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib. O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed. The slight contretemps claimed her attention but in two twos she set that little matter to rights. Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed it off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction because just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet seashore because Canon O'Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the Blessed Sacrament in his hands. How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of the lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of paints because it was easier than to make a man and soon the lamplighter would be going his rounds past the presbyterian church grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walked and lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn his freewheel like she read in that book The Lamplighter by Miss Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other tales. For Gerty had her dreams that noone knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasure trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change when her things came home from the wash and there were some beautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the potherbs. Art thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J Walsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about twilight, wilt thou ever? and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But even ifwhat then? Would it make a very great difference? From everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and coarse men with no respect for a girl's honour, degrading the sex and being taken up to the police station. No, no not that. They would be just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free. Canon O'Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and genuflected and the choir sang Laudate Dominum omnes gentes and then he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out O, look, Cissy! And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple. It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said. And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church, helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't fall running. Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks. But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were left alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall back looking up and there was noone to see only him and her when she revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion of men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead secret and made her swear she'd never about the gentleman lodger that was staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he used to do something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in the bed. But this was altogether different from a thing like that because there was all the difference because she could almost feel him draw her face to his and the first quick hot touch of his handsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn't do the other thing before being married and there ought to be women priests that would understand without your telling out and Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyes so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors' photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on the way it did. And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was and she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full view high up above her knee where noone ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow, the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft! Then all melted away dewily in the grey air all was silent. Ah! She glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl. He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been! He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and sinned and wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there was none to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly through the evening to and fro and little bats don't tell. Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to show what a great person she was and then she cried Gerty! Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up. Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses. She slipped a hand into her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of course without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too far to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet again, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her dream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile, a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted. Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy, to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic of her but with care and very slowly becausebecause Gerty MacDowell was... Tight boots? No. She's lame! O! Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. Something in the air. That's the moon. But then why don't all women menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends on the time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out of step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of that. Damned glad I didn't do it in the bath this morning over her silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this morning. That gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices. Reserve better. Don't want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. Pity they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy's hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake? Lingerie does it. Felt for the curves inside her dshabill. Excites them also when they're. I'm all clean come and dirty me. And they like dressing one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly's new blouse. At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her the violet garters. Us too the tie he wore, his lovely socks and turnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met. His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy lost the pin of her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just changes when you're on the track of the secret. Except the east Mary, Martha now as then. No reasonable offer refused. She wasn't in a hurry either. Always off to a fellow when they are. They never forget an appointment. Out on spec probably. They believe in chance because like themselves. And the others inclined to give her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms round each other's necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up and down, vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write to me. And I'll write to you. Now won't you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr Right comes along, then meet once in a blue moon. Tableau! O, look who it is for the love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing with yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in each other's appearance. You're looking splendid. Sister souls. Showing their teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn't lend each other a pinch of salt. Ah! Devils they are when that's coming on them. Dark devilish appearance. Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my foot. O that way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest once in a way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one way. Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she's a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel like that you often meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a fellow courting collars and cuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone or something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me. Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap with bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn't let her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took off her hat to show her hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face, meeting someone might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money. Why not? All a prejudice. She's worth ten, fifteen, more, a pound. What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand Mrs Marion. Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sent to Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie's without a necktie. Wrangle with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding he's another. Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark liver oil they use to clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he, she? O, he did. Into her. She did. Done. Ah! Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care. Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers with the kiddies. Well, aren't they? See her as she is spoil all. Must have the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music. The name too. Amours of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel. The strength it gives a man. That's the secret of it. Good job I let off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam's. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn't have. Makes you want to sing after. Lacaus esant taratara. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you don't know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question they ask you another. Good idea if you're stuck. Gain time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if you say good evening, and you see she's on for it good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they harden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings. Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn't called me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with a single girl! That's what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman. Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from other chap's wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton today spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook. Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, I don't think. Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they change the venue when it's not what they like. Ask you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask you what someone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. Yet if I went the whole hog, say I want to, something like that. Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. The propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till their dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when we drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic. There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be, waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in mother's clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world. And the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she could whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass whore in Jammet's wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind, please, telling me the right time? I'll tell you the right time up a dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game. Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line. Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't give that satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that out not so much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond a dog's jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call that innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her. Never see them sit on a bench marked Wet Paint. Eyes all over them. Look under the bed for what's not there. Longing to get the fright of their lives. Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like, twigged at once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that? Typist going up Roger Greene's stairs two at a time to show her understandings. Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean. Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the mirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman's eye on a mirror. And when I sent her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Prescott's by the way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her stocking! Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way she carries parcels too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it, to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did you learn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don't they know! Three years old she was in front of Molly's dressingtable, just before we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins anyway not like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are. Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel. A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see and Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the rocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, I saw, your. I saw all. Lord! Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's. For this relief much thanks. In Hamlet, that is. Lord! It was all things combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt of my tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He's right. Might have made a worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It couldn't be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name however like my name and the address Dolphin's barn a blind. Her maiden name was Jemina Brown And she lived with her mother in Irishtown. Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush. Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping and papa's pants will soon fit Willy and fuller's earth for the baby when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them out of harm's way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam. Children's hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds. Oughtn't to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up with wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is nurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly was in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his coat. And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in the morning was I drunk last night? Bad policy however to fault the husband. Chickens come home to roost. They stick by one another like glue. Maybe the women's fault also. That's where Molly can knock spots off them. It's the blood of the south. Moorish. Also the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript, wouldn't know what to call her. Always see a fellow's weak point in his wife. Still there's destiny in it, falling in love. Have their own secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, height of a shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them he matched them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought makes one. Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May and repent in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is not back. Better detach. Ow! Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch. Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I suppose, at once. Cat's away, the mice will play. I remember looking in Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. And time, well that's the time the movement takes. Then if one thing stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it's all arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what's going on in the sun, the stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up and look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if you're a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly. Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Fine voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Like flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her slipper on the floor so they wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all round over me and half down my back. Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it? Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that kind. Sweet and cheap soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her, with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. For instance if you go into a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself, slow but sure. Suppose it's ever so many millions of tiny grains blown across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It's like a fine fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and they're always spinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers little kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years. Dogs at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that way. We're the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on. Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the grass. Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink gives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to. That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life. And it's extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me. Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat. Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that's the soap. O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could mention Meagher's just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph. Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into somewhere else. Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out had a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't mock what matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he now. The Mystery Man on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body feels the atmosphere. Old Betty's joints are on the rack. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills seem coming nigh. Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against. Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv Vance taught us red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet. Two. When three it's night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom ship. No. Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native land, goodnight. Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it's the only time we cross legs, seated. Also the library today those girl graduates. Happy chairs under them. But it's the evening influence. They feel all that. Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat Dillon's garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length oilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again. Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity. They take advantage. All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change that's all. Lovers yum yum. Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's Barn. Are you not happy in your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the old major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I an only child. So it returns. Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip tear in Henny Doyle's overcoat. Van breadvan delivering. Winkle cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from the dew. Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I'm a tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition. Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there's the light in the priest's house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom's. Twentyeight it is. Two houses they have. Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder why they come out at night like mice. They're a mixed breed. Birds are like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit still. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white. Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example like the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants to stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning on the staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with three colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the City Arms with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty different colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That's how that wise man what's his name with the burning glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can't be tourists' matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles in the furze act as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My memory's not so bad. Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That bee last week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be the one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what they say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they have to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms, telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of oceangoing steamers floundering along in the dark, lowing out like seacows. Faugh a ballagh! Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake when the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because it's round. Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it till Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor's weighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well. And the tephilim no what's this they call it poor papa's father had on his door to touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when you go out never know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of a beam for grim life, lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and that's the last of his nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick? Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid, crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker, moon looking down so peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum. A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster of violet but one white stars. They floated, fell they faded. The shepherd's hour the hour of folding hour of tryst. From house to house, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o'clock postman, the glowworm's lamp at his belt gleaming here and there through the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy's terrace. By screens of lighted windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races! and from the door of Dignam's house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat flew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept, grey. Howth settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons (he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom. Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin's King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in their faces. Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know what death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean. But being lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that. After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What do they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking. Little hand it was now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when you touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I remember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is more sensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves out if fat is in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening me. Frightened she was when her nature came on her first. Poor child! Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista. O'Hara's tower. The seabirds screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all his family. Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking out over the sea she told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I'd marry a lord or a rich gentleman coming with a private yacht. Buenas noches, seorita. El hombre ama la muchacha hermosa. Why me? Because you were so foreign from the others. Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for Leah, Lily of Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital to see. Hope she's over. Long day I've had. Martha, the bath, funeral, house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. Then that bawler in Barney Kiernan's. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sisterinlaw he hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty. Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of the wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow. But Dignam's put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so depressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must call to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for granted we're going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer's that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow's mite. Well? What do you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O'Connor wife and five children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face and a large apron. Ladies' grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say. Ugly no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the trick. U. p up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed. Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does? Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes's. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in them. What's that? Might be money. Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can't read. Better go. Better. I'm tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the waters. What's this? Bit of stick. O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers do. Will I? Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write a message for her. Might remain. What? I. Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide comes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark mirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and letters. O, those transparent! Besides they don't know. What is the meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not like. AM. A. No room. Let it go. Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand. Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here. Except Guinness's barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by design. He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't. Chance. We'll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made me feel so young. Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone. Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I won't go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a moment. Won't sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat again. No harm in him. Just a few. O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave under embon seorita young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in her next her next. A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just for a few Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo. The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest's house cooed where Canon O'Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup and talking about Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo. Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature's incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature's boon can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future not with similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance or with diminution's menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined? It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature admirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured. Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, their greatest doctors, the O'Shiels, the O'Hickeys, the O'Lees, have sedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work which in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with importance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted (whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it is difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent inquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest) whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chiefly required and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument was provided. To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised that they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt! Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in that one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended with wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though forthbringing were now done and by wise foresight set but to this no less of what drugs there is need and surgical implements which are pertaining to her case not omitting aspect of all very distracting spectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered together with images, divine and human, the cogitation of which by sejunct females is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the high sunbright wellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone and reproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in, her term up. Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night's oncoming. Of Israel's folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house. Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so God's angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters in ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing in twelve moons thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne holding wariest ward. In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping lightens in eyeblink Ireland's westward welkin. Full she drad that God the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. Christ's rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe infare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went in Horne's house. Loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow he ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in townhithe meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he craved with good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face, hers, so young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning. As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his limbs. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death the dead man was died and the nun answered him and said that he was died in Mona Island through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held hat sad staring. So stood they there both awhile in wanhope sorrowing one with other. Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came. The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in throes now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to bear but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that she had seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that woman's birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knew the man that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened to her words for he felt with wonder women's woe in the travail that they have of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fair face for any man to see but yet was she left after long years a handmaid. Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her childless. And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there came against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady was of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed well that the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But the learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne have him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a marvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marches environing in divers lands and sometime venery. And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic of Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that he blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And also it was a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits that they do in to it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead. And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle with them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God. This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing for there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time hied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware and saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was older than any of the tother and for that they both were knights virtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke to him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said, Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as far as he might to their both's health for he was a passing good man of his lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever sat in scholars' hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knight of the world one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman's woe with wonder pondering. Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary Merciable's with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was at head of the board and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all long of a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved young Stephen, he was the most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and beside the meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that he promised to have come and such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow. And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast friendship to sir Simon and to this his son young Stephen and for that his languor becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch as they feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave. For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each gen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining that put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen out a matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne's house that now was trespassed out of this world and the self night next before her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her case). And they said farther she should live because in the beginning, they said, the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they that were of this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth for he had conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was young Lynch were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it was never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor his judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was scant said but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother, the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed hot upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that at the least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the whole affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religion sake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to Saint Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby they were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words following Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purgefire. But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead. Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi's praise of that beast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the other all this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they did malice him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his engines that he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir Leopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour which he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare whoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, effectu secuto, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the second month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy mother foldeth ever souls for God's greater glory whereas that earthly mother which was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he that holdeth the fisherman's seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow had birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant word. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he averred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he was of a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in that taking it appeared eftsoons. But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of lamb's wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now sir Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him his friend's son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness and as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for all accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his goods with whores. About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge the vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink we, quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed parcel of my body but my soul's bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for this will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he showed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the worth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song which he writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of money as was herebefore. His words were then these as followeth Know all men, he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions. What means this? Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark me now. In woman's womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the postcreation. Omnis caro ad te veniet. No question but her name is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptly that She hath an omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem, that is to wit, an almightiness of petition because she is the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other, our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin. But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was but creature of her creature, vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio, or she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and with Joseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages, parceque M. Lo Taxil nous a dit que qui l'avait mise dans cette fichue position c'tait le sacr pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder transubstantiality oder consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without blemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will we withstand, withsay. Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would sing a bawdy catch Staboo Stabella about a wench that was put in pod of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack The first three months she was not well, Staboo, when here nurse Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most sacred and most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne's house rest should reign. To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he had not cided to take friar's vows and he answered him obedience in the womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more and they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain, with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries and the anthem Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium till she was there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is in their Maid's Tragedy that was writ for a like twining of lovers To bed, to bed was the burden of it to be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approved with it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. Orate, fratres, pro memetipso. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of servants. Return, return, Clan Milly forget me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk my moon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for ever in the dark ways of my bitterness and with a kiss of ashes hast thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to say, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much as mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell's gates visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates atrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father showeth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon of life is an Egypt's plague which in the nights of prenativity and postmortemity is their most proper ubi and quomodo. And as the ends and ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with their inceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis that minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into life we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die over us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness. Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly Etienne chanson but he loudly bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast majestic longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all in applepie order, a penny for him who finds the pea. Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack See the malt stored in many a refluent sack, In the proud cirque of Jackjohn's bivouac. A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on left Thor thundered in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he was indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But the braggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was muchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this was only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne's hall. He drank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any grace for it thundered long rumblingly over all the heavens so that Master Madden, being godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack of doom and Master Bloom, at the braggart's side, spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon. But was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words? No, for he had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the bottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard? Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tube Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw that he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one day die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not accept to die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he though he must nor would he make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that other land which is called BelieveonMe, that is the land of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had told him of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason was that in the way he fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she said, is BirdintheHand and she beguiled him wrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a brave place, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grot which is named TwointheBush or, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore BirdintheHand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and know her. For regarding BelieveonMe they said it was nought else but notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first, TwointheBush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they cared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield of oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and spill their souls for their abuses and their spillings done by them contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth. So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won't sprout, fields athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too. Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without sprinkle this long while back as no man remembered to be without. The rosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought but dry flag and faggots that would catch at first fire. All the world saying, for aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year that did havoc the land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness. But by and by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon's door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman that had but come from Mr Moore's the writer's (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford's journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy's, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will. Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D. Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he having dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put to it and can't deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very heavy more than good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they say, but God give her soon issue. 'Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear, and Lady day bit off her last chick's nails that was then a twelvemonth and with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand in the king's bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the sacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and will much increase the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and water fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi's almanac (and I hear that Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm of the same gist out of the Hindustanish for his farmer's gazette) to have three things in all but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and bairns yet sometimes they are found in the right guess with their queerities no telling how. With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the letter was in that night's gazette and he made a show to find it about him (for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but on Stephen's persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sit near by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman that went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of women, horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he was mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the coffeehouses and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul's men, runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues of the game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at nights till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets much loose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook's and if he had but gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a bare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every mother's son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that is, hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank (that was his name), 'tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered along of the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a wink, for me with their bully beef, a pox on it. There's as good fish in this tin as ever came out of it and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that stood by which he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place which was indeed the chief design of his embassy as he was sharpset. Mort aux vaches, says Frank then in the French language that had been indentured to a brandyshipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a gentleman too. From a child this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough, who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use of the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him from the bearpit and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to hoof it on the roads with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire's heir by favour of moonlight or fecking maids' linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more to his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he saw him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across, that was earnest to know the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them but this day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarce believe 'tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having been some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low's yard in Prussia street. I question with you there, says he. More like 'tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a little moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and that he had dispatches from the emperor's chief tailtickler thanking him for the hospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to take the bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. He'll find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a bull that's Irish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr Stephen, and he sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English chinashop. I conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was sent to our island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them all, with an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent cross the table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and a portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns galore, a coat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his nostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs and rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains. What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholas that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors who were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all my cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer's blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his word And they dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat with a tippet and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him at every turn of the road with a gold manger in each full of the best hay in the market so that he could doss and dung to his heart's content. By this time the father of the faithful (for so they called him) was grown so heavy that he could scarce walk to pasture. To remedy which our cozening dames and damsels brought him his fodder in their apronlaps and as soon as his belly was full he would rear up on his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow out of him in bulls' language and they all after him. Ay, says another, and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in all the land but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to his mind) and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of the island with a printed notice, saying By the Lord Harry, Green is the grass that grows on the ground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he got scent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as a handful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he'd run amok over half the countryside rooting up with his horns whatever was planted and all by lord Harry's orders. There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, and the lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and an old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house and I'll meddle in his matters, says he. I'll make that animal smell hell, says he, with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but the first rule of the course was that the others were to row with pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull and on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry he found sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous champion bull of the Romans, Bos Bovum, which is good bog Latin for boss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his head into a cow's drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers and pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with the water running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that had belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls' language to study but he could never learn a word of it except the first personal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if ever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write it upon what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale of cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland were soon as fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, of the composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty Pope Peter's but a pissabed. A man's a man for a' that. Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a project of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched on. Whereat he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend printed in fair italics Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator. Lambay Island. His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. 'Tis as cheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation and, expatiating upon his design, told his hearers that he had been led into this thought by a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the inhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges and to reflect upon so many agreeable females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide their flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made his heart weep. To curb this inconvenient (which he concluded due to a suppression of latent heat), having advised with certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this matter, he had resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of note much in favour with our ascendancy party. He proposed to set up there a national fertilising farm to be named Omphalos with an obelisk hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life soever who should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the functions of her natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he take a penny for his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the opulent lady of fashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers were warm persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. For his nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a diet of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum chillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth of asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief with which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken by the rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as might be observed by Mr Mulligan's smallclothes of a hodden grey which was now somewhat piebald. His project meanwhile was very favourably entertained by his auditors and won hearty eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of Mary's excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did he purpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however made court to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, as it dwelt upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support of his contention Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, ut matresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt, while for those of ruder wit he drove home his point by analogies of the animal kingdom more suitable to their stomach, the buck and doe of the forest glade, the farmyard drake and duck. Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper man of person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with animadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics while the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he had advanced. The young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at a passage that had late befallen him, could not forbear to tell it his nearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked for whom were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made him a civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professional assistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him very heartily, though preserving his proper distance, and replied that he was come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne's house, that was in an interesting condition, poor body, from woman's woe (and here he fetched a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken place. Mr Dixon, to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself whether his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened an ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due, as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the stomach. For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smote himself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable droll mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though 'tis pity she's a trollop) There's a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the antechamber. Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion with the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient point, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the obligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by a questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent but contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was ever done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it. Mais bien sr, noble stranger, said he cheerily, et mille compliments. That you may and very opportunely. There wanted nothing but this cup to crown my felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust in my wallet and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would accept of them and find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and give thanks to the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver of good things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein. Gazing upon those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he said, had you but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affecting instant with her dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for her feastday as she told me prettily) in such an artless disorder, of so melting a tenderness, 'pon my conscience, even you, Monsieur, had been impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the hands of such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I was never so touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days! Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with her favours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, having replaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again. Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take my cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me, he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and, thousand thunders, I know of a marchand de capotes, Monsieur Poyntz, from whom I can have for a livre as snug a cloak of the French fashion as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le Fcondateur, tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller (I have just cracked a half bottle avec lui in a circle of the best wits of the town), is my authority that in Cape Horn, ventre biche, they have a rain that will wet through any, even the stoutest cloak. A drenching of that violence, he tells me, sans blague, has sent more than one luckless fellow in good earnest posthaste to another world. Pooh! A livre! cries Monsieur Lynch. The clumsy things are dear at a sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one. My dear Kitty told me today that she would dance in a deluge before ever she would starve in such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushing piquantly and whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words but giddy butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted it in our hearts and it has become a household word that il y a deux choses for which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a breach of the proprieties, is the fittest, nay, the only garment. The first, said she (and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her tilbury, to fix my attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer chamber of my ear), the first is a bath... But at this point a bell tinkling in the hall cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for the enrichment of our store of knowledge. Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while all were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and, having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with a profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among a party of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and not less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even of the most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of ribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled. A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I'll be sworn she has rendezvoused you. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad's bud, immensely so, said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in the Mater hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under the chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I'm all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you're as bad as dear little Father Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a lady what's got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The young surgeon, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as the nurse had just then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful providence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady who was enceinte which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she had given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those who, without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling profession which, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future of a race where the seeds of such malice have been sown and where no right reverence is rendered to mother and maid in house of Horne. Having delivered himself of this rebuke he saluted those present on the by and repaired to the door. A murmur of approval arose from all and some were for ejecting the low soaker without more ado, a design which would have been effected nor would he have received more than his bare deserts had he not abridged his transgression by affirming with a horrid imprecation (for he swore a round hand) that he was as good a son of the true fold as ever drew breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them was always the sentiments of honest Frank Costello which I was bred up most particular to honour thy father and thy mother that had the best hand to a rolypoly or a hasty pudding as you ever see what I always looks back on with a loving heart. To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of some impudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruits of that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not pity. The young sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies as overgrown children the words of their tumultuary discussions were difficultly understood and not often nice their testiness and outrageous mots were such that his intellects resiled from nor were they scrupulously sensible of the proprieties though their fund of strong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of Mr Costello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch that seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born out of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into the world, which the dint of the surgeon's pliers in his skull lent indeed a colour to, so as to put him in thought of that missing link of creation's chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was now for more than the middle span of our allotted years that he had passed through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of a wary ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, he had enjoined his heart to repress all motions of a rising choler and, by intercepting them with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast that plenitude of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn and all find tolerable and but tolerable. To those who create themselves wits at the cost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind which he never did hold with) to them he would concede neither to bear the name nor to herit the tradition of a proper breeding while for such that, having lost all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained the sharp antidote of experience to cause their insolency to beat a precipitate and inglorious retreat. Not but what he could feel with mettlesome youth which, caring nought for the mows of dotards or the gruntlings of the severe, is ever (as the chaste fancy of the Holy Writer expresses it) for eating of the tree forbid it yet not so far forth as to pretermit humanity upon any condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was about her lawful occasions. To conclude, while from the sister's words he had reckoned upon a speedy delivery he was, however, it must be owned, not a little alleviated by the intelligence that the issue so auspicated after an ordeal of such duress now testified once more to the mercy as well as to the bounty of the Supreme Being. Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express his notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to express one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius not to be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of her confinement since she had been in such pain through no fault of hers. The dressy young blade said it was her husband's that put her in that expectation or at least it ought to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her. I bade him hold himself in readiness for that the event would burst anon. 'Slife, I'll be round with you. I cannot but extol the virile potency of the old bucko that could still knock another child out of her. All fell to praising of it, each after his own fashion, though the same young blade held with his former view that another than her conjugial had been the man in the gap, a clerk in orders, a linkboy (virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles needed in every household. Singular, communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, he further added, it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for I have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together. But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is a tenant at will while he trembled for the security of his four per cents? Has he forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or is it that from being a deluder of others he has become at last his own dupe as he is, if report belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer? Far be it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of a gallant major, or to cast the most distant reflections upon her virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it was indeed highly his interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy woman, she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata of society! Nay, had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel, it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the want of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste to restore to health a generation of unfledged profligates let his practice consist better with the doctrines that now engross him. His marital breast is the repository of secrets which decorum is reluctant to adduce. The lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for a consort neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in its native orient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost their quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant, acid and inoperative. The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial usage of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the junior medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to the delegation that an heir had been born. When he had betaken himself to the women's apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of the afterbirth in the presence of the secretary of state for domestic affairs and the members of the privy council, silent in unanimous exhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the length and solemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence would palliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and obstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring to urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for the display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union among tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was successively eviscerated the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that rarer form, with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as the Childs Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the rights of primogeniture and king's bounty touching twins and triplets, miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the acardiac foetus in foetu and aprosopia due to a congestion, the agnathia of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan) in consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along the medial line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the other spoke, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongation of labour pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on the vein, the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in the actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt, the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parentsin a word all the cases of human nativity which Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations. The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her person which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation. The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro's inkle, strawberry mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a prima facie and natural hypothetical explanation of those swineheaded (the case of Madame Grissel Steevens was not forgotten) or doghaired infants occasionally born. The hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of the metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for, envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic development at some stage antecedent to the human. An outlandish delegate sustained against both these views, with such heat as almost carried conviction, the theory of copulation between women and the males of brutes, his authority being his own avouchment in support of fables such as that of the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet has handed down to us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression made by his words was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily as it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein of pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously, a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate Madden and Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma created in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, the difficulty by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom for instant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, he delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God has joined. But Malachias' tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up the scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and in the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh creep! He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the other a phial marked Poison. Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted on all faces while he eyed them with a ghostly grin. I anticipated some such reception, he began with an eldritch laugh, for which, it seems, history is to blame. Yes, it is true. I am the murderer of Samuel Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has no terrors for me. This is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, what way would I be resting at all, he muttered thickly, and I tramping Dublin this while back with my share of songs and himself after me the like of a soulth or a bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland's, is in this life. It is what I tried to obliterate my crime. Distractions, rookshooting, the Erse language (he recited some), laudanum (he raised the phial to his lips), camping out. In vain! His spectre stalks me. Dope is my only hope... Ah! Destruction! The black panther! With a cry he suddenly vanished and the panel slid back. An instant later his head appeared in the door opposite and said Meet me at Westland Row station at ten past eleven. He was gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of the dissipated host. The seer raised his hand to heaven, murmuring The vendetta of Mananaun! The sage repeated Lex talionis. The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased. The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the third brother. His real name was Childs. The black panther was himself the ghost of his own father. He drank drugs to obliterate. For this relief much thanks. The lonely house by the graveyard is uninhabited. No soul will live there. The spider pitches her web in the solitude. The nocturnal rat peers from his hole. A curse is on it. It is haunted. Murderer's ground. What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas! a thing now of the past!) and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but, more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address, brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever remember the night first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath 'twas done buthold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold. Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was taken from theeand in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph. The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence silence that is the infinite of space and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her mother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilight phantoms are they, yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slim shapely haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull. They fade, sad phantoms all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a home of screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more. And on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder of rebellion, the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks behind and goads them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow are scorpions. Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they come trooping to the sunken sea, Lacus Mortis. Ominous revengeful zodiacal host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned and capricorned, the trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned, the giantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all their moving moaning multitude, murderers of the sun. Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo, wonder of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost one, Millicent, the young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and loose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on currents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign upon the forehead of Taurus. Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at school together in Conmee's time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades, Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the past and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them into life across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to my call? Who supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending bard, am lord and giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hair with a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and those leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when something more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to see you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you Stephaneforos. I heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent Lenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. He could not leave his mother an orphan. The young man's face grew dark. All could see how hard it was for him to be reminded of his promise and of his recent loss. He would have withdrawn from the feast had not the noise of voices allayed the smart. Madden had lost five drachmas on Sceptre for a whim of the rider's name Lenehan as much more. He told them of the race. The flag fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ran out freshly with O. Madden up. She was leading the field. All hearts were beating. Even Phyllis could not contain herself. She waved her scarf and cried Huzzah! Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the run home when all were in close order the dark horse Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. All was lost now. Phyllis was silent her eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she cried, I am undone. But her lover consoled her and brought her a bright casket of gold in which lay some oval sugarplums which she partook. A tear fell one only. A whacking fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and three today. What rider is like him? Mount him on the camel or the boisterous buffalo the victory in a hack canter is still his. But let us bear it as was the ancient wont. Mercy on the luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said with a light sigh. She is not the filly that she was. Never, by this hand, shall we behold such another. By gad, sir, a queen of them. Do you remember her, Vincent? I wish you could have seen my queen today, Vincent said. How young she was and radiant (Lalage were scarce fair beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of muslin, I do not know the right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded us were in bloom the air drooped with their persuasive odour and with pollen floating by us. In the sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone a batch of those buns with Corinth fruit in them that Periplipomenes sells in his booth near the bridge. But she had nought for her teeth but the arm with which I held her and in that she nibbled mischievously when I pressed too close. A week ago she lay ill, four days on the couch, but today she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. She is more taking then. Her posies too! Mad romp that she is, she had pulled her fill as we reclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you will not think who met us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, a witty letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet creature turned all colours in her confusion, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her dress a slip of underwood clung there for the very trees adore her. When Conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely echo in that little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going by he had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had poor luck with Bass's mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me more propensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar Malachi saw it and withheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label. Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos told me so, Stephen answered, whom in a previous existence Egyptian priests initiated into the mysteries of karmic law. The lords of the moon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shipload from planet Alpha of the lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles and these were therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the second constellation. However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which was entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was not the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the above was going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of animation was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody that conjectured the contrary would have found themselves pretty speedily in the wrong shop. During the past four minutes or thereabouts he had been staring hard at a certain amount of number one Bass bottled by Messrs Bass and Co at BurtononTrent which happened to be situated amongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which was certainly calculated to attract anyone's remark on account of its scarlet appearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequently transpired for reasons best known to himself, which put quite an altogether different complexion on the proceedings, after the moment before's observations about boyhood days and the turf, recollecting two or three private transactions of his own which the other two were as mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however, both their eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other was endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily determined to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of the neck of the mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid sought after and made a capacious hole in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the same time, however, a considerable degree of attentiveness in order not to upset any of the beer that was in it about the place. The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the course of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The debaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on the loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne's house had never beheld an assembly so representative and so varied nor had the old rafters of that establishment ever listened to a language so encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers was there at the foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, his face glowing from the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, opposite to him, was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of early depravity and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place assigned to Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated in stolid repose the squat form of Madden. The chair of the resident indeed stood vacant before the hearth but on either flank of it the figure of Bannon in explorer's kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhide brogues contrasted sharply with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the board was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours of pedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socratic discussion, while to right and left of him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelible dishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come. It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) contentions would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to accepted scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, deals with tangible phenomena. The man of science like the man in the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked and explain them as best he can. There may be, it is true, some questions which science cannot answerat presentsuch as the first problem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is it, as most embryologists incline to opine, such as Culpepper, Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold and Valenti, a mixture of both? This would be tantamount to a cooperation (one of nature's favourite devices) between the nisus formativus of the nemasperm on the one hand and on the other a happily chosen position, succubitus felix, of the passive element. The other problem raised by the same inquirer is scarcely less vital infant mortality. It is interesting because, as he pertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr M. Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blames the sanitary conditions in which our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by inhaling the bacteria which lurk in dust. These factors, he alleged, and the revolting spectacles offered by our streets, hideous publicity posters, religious ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers and sailors, exposed scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennasthese, he said, were accountable for any and every fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all these little attentions would enable ladies who were in a particular condition to pass the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner. Mr J. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.) attributes some of these demises to abdominal trauma in the case of women workers subjected to heavy labours in the workshop and to marital discipline in the home but by far the vast majority to neglect, private or official, culminating in the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminal abortion or in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former (we are thinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he cites of nurses forgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity is too rare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the wonder is that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they do, all things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings which often baulk nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is that thrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality and mortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidal movements, lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general, everything, in fine, in nature's vast workshop from the extinction of some remote sun to the blossoming of one of the countless flowers which beautify our public parks is subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. Still the plain straightforward question why a child of normally healthy parents and seemingly a healthy child and properly looked after succumbs unaccountably in early childhood (though other children of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet's words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at an increasingly earlier stage of development, an arrangement which, though productive of pain to some of our feelings (notably the maternal), is nevertheless, some of us think, in the long run beneficial to the race in general in securing thereby the survival of the fittest. Mr S. Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) remark (or should it be called an interruption?) that an omnivorous being which can masticate, deglute, digest and apparently pass through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenous females emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, not to speak of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possibly find gastric relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals as nought else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency above alluded to. For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimately acquainted with the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as this morbidminded esthete and embryo philosopher who for all his overweening bumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali prides himself on being, it should perhaps be stated that staggering bob in the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensed victuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother. In a recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in the commons' hall of the National Maternity Hospital, ,  and  Holles street, of which, as is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the able and popular master, he is reported by eyewitnesses as having stated that once a woman has let the cat into the bag (an esthete's allusion, presumably, to one of the most complicated and marvellous of all nature's processesthe act of sexual congress) she must let it out again or give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. At the risk of her own, was the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor, none the less effective for the moderate and measured tone in which it was delivered. Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a happy accouchement. It had been a weary weary while both for patient and doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave woman had manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and now she was very very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone before, are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touching scene. Reverently look at her as she reclines there with the motherlight in her eyes, that longing hunger for baby fingers (a pretty sight it is to see), in the first bloom of her new motherhood, breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the Universal Husband. And as her loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only one blessing more, to have her dear Doady there with her to share her joy, to lay in his arms that mite of God's clay, the fruit of their lawful embraces. He is older now (you and I may whisper it) and a trifle stooped in the shoulders yet in the whirligig of years a grave dignity has come to the conscientious second accountant of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. O Doady, loved one of old, faithful lifemate now, it may never be again, that faroff time of the roses! With the old shake of her pretty head she recalls those days. God! How beautiful now across the mist of years! But their children are grouped in her imagination about the bedside, hers and his, Charley, Mary Alice, Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, Budgy (Victoria Frances), Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little Bobsy (called after our famous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs of Waterford and Candahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a Purefoy if ever there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful will be christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of Mr Purefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer's office, Dublin Castle. And so time wags on but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no sigh break from that bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the ashes from your pipe, the seasoned briar you still fancy when the curfew rings for you (may it be the distant day!) and dout the light whereby you read in the Sacred Book for the oil too has run low, and so with a tranquil heart to bed, to rest. He knows and will call in His own good time. You too have fought the good fight and played loyally your man's part. Sir, to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithful servant! There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful. The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of that false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an unhealthiness, a flair, for the cruder things of life. A scene disengages itself in the observer's memory, evoked, it would seem, by a word of so natural a homeliness as if those days were really present there (as some thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven space of lawn one soft May evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs at Roundtown, purple and white, fragrant slender spectators of the game but with much real interest in the pellets as they run slowly forward over the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with a brief alert shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves at times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of them pendent from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin so daintily against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in linseywoolsey (blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearth when ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on the urn secured by that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a little just as this young man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment of the danger but must needs glance at whiles towards where his mother watches from the piazzetta giving upon the flowerclose with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach (alles Vergngliche) in her glad look. Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their faces. Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of custody, rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilant watch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago. But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended, compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parched field and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in an instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of the thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the word. Burke's! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and bobtail of all them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor, punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear, ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and what not. A dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. Nurse Callan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeon coming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a full pound if a milligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They are out, tumultuously, off for a minute's race, all bravely legging it, Burke's of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving them sharp language but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays with nurse a thought to send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling up there. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Ward of watching in Horne's house has told its tale in that washedout pallor. Then all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispers close in going Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee? The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher's bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod's slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and neverdo. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trbsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die ssse Milch des Euters. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother's milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan's land. Thy cow's dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum! All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides. Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole Billyo. Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil's sawbones and ole clo? Sorra one o' me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward to the ribbon counter. Where's Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. A make, mister. The Denzille lane boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Lou heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. En avant, mes enfants! Fire away number one on the gun. Burke's! Burke's! Thence they advanced five parasangs. Slattery's mounted foot. Where's that bleeding awfur? Parson Steve, apostates' creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead. Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What's on you? Ma mre m'a marie. British Beatitudes! Retamplatan digidi boumboum. Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. Silentium! Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (attitudes!) parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggery and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt! Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most amazingly sorry! Query. Who's astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the bermensch. Dittoh. Five number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby's caudle. Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy? Caramba! Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular's got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated awful. Don't mention it. Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin I do. Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don't wait to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine! Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. Sir? Spud again the rheumatiz? All poppycock, you'll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Your corporosity sagaciating O K? How's the squaws and papooses? Womanbody after going on the straw? Stand and deliver. Password. There's hair. Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye, boss! Mummer's wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. Jesified, orchidised, polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine's writing Pa Kinch. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi. Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw Hielentman's your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil! My tipple. Merci. Here's to us. How's that? Leg before wicket. Don't stain my brandnew sitinems. Give's a shake of peppe, you there. Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence. Every cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. Les petites femmes. Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name. What do you want for ninepence? Machree, macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull all together. Ex! Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He've got the chink ad lib. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchy bilks? Won't wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. We're nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you. 'Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. Gum, I'm jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he'd like? Rose of Castile. Rows of cast. Police! Some HO for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers. Gemini. He's going to holler. The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden's a maddening back. O lust our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse. No fake, old man Leo. S'elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if I had. There's a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord, Amen. You move a motion? Steve boy, you're going it some. More bluggy drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inaugurated libation? Give's a breather. Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree. Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria. Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous. Play low, pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And snares of the poxfiend. Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e'en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed  night. Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item, curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none! Not a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander through the world. Health all!  la vtre! Golly, whatten tunket's yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep at his wearables. By mighty! What's he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by James. Wants it real bad. D'ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the Richmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies. Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o' yourn passed in his checks? Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou'll no be telling me thot, Pold veg! Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was took off in black bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like since I was born. Tiens, tiens, but it is well sad, that, my faith, yes. O, get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live axle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor any Rooshian. Time all. There's eleven of them. Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah the Excellent One your soul this night ever tremendously conserve. Your attention! We're nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook. Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You not come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap! Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o' me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Righto, any old time. Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis. You coming long? Whisper, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world by fire. Pflaap! Ut implerentur scripturae. Strike up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. Christicle, who's this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion hall? Elijah is coming! Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Come on you winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, you doggone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that's my name, that's yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to Vladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that He's on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You'll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket. Just you try it on. (The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green willo'thewisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly. Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer.) THE CALLS Wait, my love, and I'll be with you. THE ANSWERS Round behind the stable. (A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children 's hands imprisons him.) THE CHILDREN Kithogue! Salute! THE IDIOT (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute! THE CHILDREN Where's the great light? THE IDIOT (Gobbling.) Ghaghahest. (They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both hands the railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch in shouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate crashes a woman screams a child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice, still young, sings shrill from a lane.) CISSY CAFFREY I gave it to Molly Because she was jolly, The leg of the duck, The leg of the duck. (Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.) THE VIRAGO Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl. CISSY CAFFREY More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. (She sings.) I gave it to Nelly To stick in her belly, The leg of the duck, The leg of the duck. (Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the redcoats.) PRIVATE COMPTON (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson. PRIVATE CARR (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson! CISSY CAFFREY (Her voice soaring higher.) She has it, she got it, Wherever she put it, The leg of the duck. (Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy the introit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow, attends him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.) STEPHEN Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia. (The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.) THE BAWD (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tell you. Maidenhead inside. Sst! STEPHEN (Altius aliquantulum.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista. THE BAWD (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals. Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence. (Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl across her nostrils.) EDY BOARDMAN (Bickering.) And says the one I seen you up Faithful place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal Oliphant. STEPHEN (Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti sunt. (He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering light over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him, growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.) LYNCH So that? STEPHEN (Looks behind.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. LYNCH Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street! STEPHEN We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love. LYNCH Ba! STEPHEN Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar. Hold my stick. LYNCH Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going? STEPHEN Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam. (Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands, his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down turned, in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being higher.) LYNCH Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk. (They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset. Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward, cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther side under the railway bridge Bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image. A concave mirror at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy. At Antonio Rabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.) BLOOM Fish and taters. N. g. Ah! (He disappears into Olhausen's, the porkbutcher's, under the downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one side he presses a parcel against his ribs and groans.) BLOOM Stitch in my side. Why did I run? (He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding. The glow leaps again.) BLOOM What is that? A flasher? Searchlight. (He stands at Cormack's corner, watching.) BLOOM Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course. South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're safe. (He hums cheerfully.) London's burning, London's burning! On fire, on fire! (He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the farther side of Talbot street.) I'll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here. (He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.) THE URCHINS Mind out, mister! (Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling.) THE BELLS Haltyaltyaltyall. BLOOM (Halts erect, stung by a spasm.) Ow! (He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs his footgong.) THE GONG Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. (The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.) THE MOTORMAN Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick? (Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.) BLOOM No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. (He feels his trouser pocket.) Poor mamma's panacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. (He closes his eyes an instant.) Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow! (A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O'Beirne's wall, a visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.) BLOOM Buenas noches, seorita Blanca, que calle es esta? THE FIGURE (Impassive, raises a signal arm.) Password. Sraid Mabbot. BLOOM Haha. Merci. Esperanto. Slan leath. (He mutters.) Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater. (He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps left, ragsackman left.) BLOOM I beg. (He leaps right, sackragman right.) BLOOM I beg. (He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on.) BLOOM Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost my way and contributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off his sins of the world. (Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.) BLOOM O. (Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoke, sweets of sin, potato soap.) BLOOM Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch your purse. (The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn face.) RUDOLPH Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with drunken goy ever. So you catch no money. BLOOM (Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi. RUDOLPH What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (With feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom.) Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob? BLOOM (With precaution.) I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that's left of him. RUDOLPH (Severely.) One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money. What you call them running chaps? BLOOM (In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side of him coated with stiffening mud.) Harriers, father. Only that once. RUDOLPH Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps. BLOOM (Weakly.) They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I slipped. RUDOLPH (With contempt.) Goim nachez! Nice spectacles for your poor mother! BLOOM Mamma! ELLEN BLOOM (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand, and cries out in shrill alarm.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling salts! (She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all? (Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.) A VOICE (Sharply.) Poldy! BLOOM Who? (He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.) At your service. (He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. A white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and raven hair.) BLOOM Molly! MARION Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. (Satirically.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long? BLOOM (Shifts from foot to foot.) No, no. Not the least little bit. (He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.) MARION Nebrakada! Femininum! (The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit, offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops his back for leapfrog.) BLOOM I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs Marion... if you... MARION So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over her trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes.) O Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world. BLOOM I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the morning. (He pats divers pockets.) This moving kidney. Ah! (He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.) THE SOAP We're a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the earth. I polish the sky. (The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the soapsun.) SWENY Three and a penny, please. BLOOM Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe. MARION (Softly.) Poldy! BLOOM Yes, ma'am? MARION Ti trema un poco il cuore? (In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) BLOOM Are you sure about that Voglio? I mean the pronunciati... (He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.) THE BAWD Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched. Fifteen. There's noone in it only her old father that's dead drunk. (She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie Kelly stands.) BRIDIE Hatch street. Any good in your mind? (With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.) THE BAWD (Her wolfeyes shining.) He's getting his pleasure. You won't get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't be all night before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch. (Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling, and shows coyly her bloodied clout.) GERTY With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. (She murmurs.) You did that. I hate you. BLOOM I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you. THE BAWD Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. GERTY (To Bloom.) When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer. (She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Dirty married man! I love you for doing that to me. (She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.) MRS BREEN Mr... BLOOM (Coughs gravely.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter dated the sixteenth instant... MRS BREEN Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you nicely! Scamp! BLOOM (Hurriedly.) Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me? Don't give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It's ages since I. You're looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary... MRS BREEN (Holds up a finger.) Now, don't tell a big fib! I know somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (Slily.) Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you! BLOOM (Looks behind.) She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming. The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money. Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter. (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks, upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes, leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.) TOM AND SAM There's someone in the house with Dina There's someone in the house, I know, There's someone in the house with Dina Playing on the old banjo. (They whisk black masks from raw babby faces then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.) BLOOM (With a sour tenderish smile.) A little frivol, shall we, if you are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a second? MRS BREEN (Screams gaily.) O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself! BLOOM For old sake' sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft corner for you. (Gloomily.) 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle. MRS BREEN Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. (She puts out her hand inquisitively.) What are you hiding behind your back? Tell us, there's a dear. BLOOM (Seizes her wrist with his free hand.) Josie Powell that was, prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this snuffbox? MRS BREEN You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the ladies. BLOOM (Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and motherofpearl studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty. MRS BREEN The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song. BLOOM (Meaningfully dropping his voice.) I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little teapot at present. MRS BREEN (Gushingly.) Tremendously teapot! London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me! (She rubs sides with him.) After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company. BLOOM (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which she surrenders gently.) The witching hour of night. I took the splinter out of this hand, carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby ring.) L ci darem la mano. MRS BREEN (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.) Voglio e non. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the heart. BLOOM When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the beast. I can never forgive you for that. (His clenched fist at his brow.) Think what it means. All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely.) Woman, it's breaking me! (Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwichboards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.) ALF BERGAN (Points jeering at the sandwichboards.) U. p up. MRS BREEN (To Bloom.) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him the glad eye.) Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to. BLOOM (Shocked.) Molly's best friend! Could you? MRS BREEN (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.) Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there? BLOOM (Offhandedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without potted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Feel. (Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills.) RICHIE Best value in Dub. (Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.) PAT (Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.) Steak and kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait. RICHIE Goodgod. Inev erate inall... (With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by, gores him with his flaming pronghorn.) RICHIE (With a cry of pain, his hand to his back.) Ah! Bright's! Lights! BLOOM (Points to the navvy.) A spy. Don't attract attention. I hate stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament. MRS BREEN Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. BLOOM I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here. But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular reason. MRS BREEN (All agog.) O, not for worlds. BLOOM Let's walk on. Shall us? MRS BREEN Let's. (The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.) THE BAWD Jewman's melt! BLOOM (In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a grey billycock hat.) Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it? MRS BREEN (In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider veil.) Leopardstown. BLOOM I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I'll lay you what you like she did it on purpose... MRS BREEN She did, of course, the cat! Don't tell me! Nice adviser! BLOOM Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of a fullstop. MRS BREEN (Squeezes his arm, simpers.) Naughty cruel I was! BLOOM (Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.) And Molly was eating a sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style. She was... MRS BREEN Too... BLOOM Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across... MRS BREEN (Eagerly.) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. (She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight.) THE GAFFER (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan's plasterers. THE LOITERERS (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays! (Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him.) BLOOM Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman. THE LOITERERS Jays, that's a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the men's porter. (Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.) THE WHORES Are you going far, queer fellow? How's your middle leg? Got a match on you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. (He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.) THE NAVVY (Belching.) Where's the bloody house? THE SHEBEENKEEPER Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. Respectable woman. THE NAVVY (Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.) Come on, you British army! PRIVATE CARR (Behind his back.) He aint half balmy. PRIVATE COMPTON (Laughs.) What ho! PRIVATE CARR (To the navvy.) Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for Carr. Just Carr. THE NAVVY (Shouts.) We are the boys. Of Wexford. PRIVATE COMPTON Say! What price the sergeantmajor? PRIVATE CARR Bennett? He's my pal. I love old Bennett. THE NAVVY (Shouts.) The galling chain. And free our native land. (He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault. The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.) BLOOM Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What am I following him for? Still, he's the best of that lot. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met. Kismet. He'll lose that cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only for presence of mind. Can't always save you, though. If I had passed Truelock's window that day two minutes later would have been shot. Absence of body. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper. (He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a phallic design.) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. What's that like? (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow round ovalling wreaths.) THE WREATHS Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin. BLOOM My spine's a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too much. (The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his tail.) Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better speak to him first. Like women they like rencontres. Stinks like a polecat. Chacun son got. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! (The wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out.) Influence of his surroundings. Give and have done with it. Provided nobody. (Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by the setter into a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.) Sizeable for threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six. (With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. They murmur together.) THE WATCH Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom. (Each lays hand on Bloom's shoulder.) FIRST WATCH Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance. BLOOM (Stammers.) I am doing good to others. (A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their beaks.) THE GULLS Kaw kave kankury kake. BLOOM The friend of man. Trained by kindness. (He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the munching spaniel.) BOB DORAN Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw. (The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran falls silently into an area.) SECOND WATCH Prevention of cruelty to animals. BLOOM (Enthusiastically.) A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. (Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a curling carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging boarhound.) SIGNOR MAFFEI (With a sinister smile.) Ladies and gentlemen, my educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. (He glares.) I possess the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. (With a bewitching smile.) I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring. FIRST WATCH Come. Name and address. BLOOM I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! (He takes off his high grade hat, saluting.) Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. Donnerwetter! Owns half Austria. Egypt. Cousin. FIRST WATCH Proof. (A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.) BLOOM (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and offers it.) Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors Messrs John Henry Menton,  Bachelor's Walk. FIRST WATCH (Reads.) Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully watching and besetting. SECOND WATCH An alibi. You are cautioned. BLOOM (Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.) This is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don't know his name. (Plausibly.) You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The change of name. Virag. (He murmurs privately and confidentially.) We are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. (He shoulders the second watch gently.) Dash it all. It's a way we gallants have in the navy. Uniform that does it. (He turns gravely to the first watch.) Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. (To the second watch gaily.) I'll introduce you, inspector. She's game. Do it in the shake of a lamb's tail. (A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.) THE DARK MERCURY The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of the army. MARTHA (Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the Irish Times in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Henry! Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name. FIRST WATCH (Sternly.) Come to the station. BLOOM (Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned. MARTHA (Sobbing behind her veil.) Breach of promise. My real name is Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I'll tell my brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt. BLOOM (Behind his hand.) She's drunk. The woman is inebriated. (He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Shitbroleeth. SECOND WATCH (Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.) You ought to be thoroughly well ashamed of yourself. BLOOM Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his majority for the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift. FIRST WATCH Regiment. BLOOM (Turns to the gallery.) The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan police, guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as physique, in the service of our sovereign. A VOICE Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain? BLOOM (His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.) My old dad too was a J. P. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. (With quiet feeling.) Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank. FIRST WATCH Profession or trade. BLOOM Well, I follow a literary occupation, authorjournalist. In fact we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected with the British and Irish press. If you ring up... (Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.) MYLES CRAWFORD (His cock's wattles wagging.) Hello, seventyseven eightfour. Hello. Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here. Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom? (Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes.) BEAUFOY (Drawls.) No, you aren't. Not by a long shot if I know it. I don't see it, that's all. No born gentleman, noone with the most rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak masquerading as a literateur. It's perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom. BLOOM (Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.) That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... BEAUFOY (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.) You funny ass, you! You're too beastly awfully weird for words! I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university. BLOOM (Indistinctly.) University of life. Bad art. BEAUFOY (Shouts.) It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral rottenness of the man! (He extends his portfolio.) We have here damning evidence, the corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY Moses, Moses, king of the jews, Wiped his arse in the Daily News. BLOOM (Bravely.) Overdrawn. BEAUFOY You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you rotter! (To the court.) Why, look at the man's private life! Leading a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be mentioned in mixed society! The archconspirator of the age! BLOOM (To the court.) And he, a bachelor, how... FIRST WATCH The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll. THE CRIER Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid! (Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.) SECOND WATCH Another! Are you of the unfortunate class? MARY DRISCOLL (Indignantly.) I'm not a bad one. I bear a respectable character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave owing to his carryings on. FIRST WATCH What do you tax him with? MARY DRISCOLL He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself as poor as I am. BLOOM (In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled softly.) I treated you white. I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station. Incautiously I took your part when you were accused of pilfering. There's a medium in all things. Play cricket. MARY DRISCOLL (Excitedly.) As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oylsters! FIRST WATCH The offence complained of? Did something happen? MARY DRISCOLL He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your honour, when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he interfered twict with my clothing. BLOOM She counterassaulted. MARY DRISCOLL (Scornfully.) I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he remarked keep it quiet. (General laughter.) GEORGE FOTTRELL (Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Order in court! The accused will now make a bogus statement. (Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths' child, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the whipping post, to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated by the affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. An acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever.... (Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that they cannot hear.) LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND (Without looking up from their notebooks.) Loosen his boots. PROFESSOR MACHUGH (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Cough it up, man. Get it out in bits. (The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad. A plasterer's bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A Titbits back number.) (Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of stickingplaster across his nose, talks inaudibly.) J. J. O'MOLLOY (In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with a voice of pained protest.) This is no place for indecent levity at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client's native place, the land of the Pharaoh. Prima facie, I put it to you that there was no attempt at carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would deal in especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's family. If the accused could speak he could a tale unfoldone of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact. BLOOM (Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar's vest and trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and looks about him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches his belt sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court, pointing one thumb heavenward.) Him makee velly muchee fine night. (He begins to lilt simply.) Li li poo lil chile Blingee pigfoot evly night Payee two shilly... (He is howled down.) J. J. O'MOLLOY (Hotly to the populace.) This is a lonehand fight. By Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically, without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. (Bloom takes J. J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his lips.) I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. He wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I know. He is down on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be shown. (To Bloom.) I suggest that you will do the handsome thing. BLOOM A penny in the pound. (The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an orange citron and a pork kidney.) DLUGACZ (Hoarsely.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. . (J. J. O'Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with sunken eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor. He applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepink blood.) J. J. O'MOLLOY (Almost voicelessly.) Excuse me. I am suffering from a severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. (He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the doubt. (A paper with something written on it is handed into court.) BLOOM (In court dress.) Can give best references. Messrs Callan, Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest... Queens of Dublin society. (Carelessly.) I was just chatting this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I said... MRS YELVERTON BARRY (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair.) Arrest him, constable. He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays. MRS BELLINGHAM (In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the nose, steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzingglasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.) Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited the information that it was a blossom of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm. MRS YELVERTON BARRY Shame on him! (A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward.) THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS (Screaming.) Stop thief! Hurrah there, Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo! SECOND WATCH (Produces handcuffs.) Here are the darbies. MRS BELLINGHAM He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck's head couped or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (Stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me.) to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity. THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (In amazon costume, hard hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes her welt constantly.) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still. It represents a partially nude seorita, frail and lovely (his wife, as he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping. MRS BELLINGHAM Me too. MRS YELVERTON BARRY Me too. (Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Stamps her jingling spurs in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) I will, by the God above me. I'll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive. BLOOM (His eyes closing, quails expectantly.) Here? (He squirms.) Again! (He pants cringing.) I love the danger. THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS Very much so! I'll make it hot for you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. MRS BELLINGHAM Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and stripes on it! MRS YELVERTON BARRY Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him! A married man! BLOOM All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Laughs derisively.) O, did you, my fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. MRS BELLINGHAM (Shakes her muff and quizzingglasses vindictively.) Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his life. The cato'ninetails. Geld him. Vivisect him. BLOOM (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands with hangdog mien.) O cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let me off this once. (He offers the other cheek.) MRS YELVERTON BARRY (Severely.) Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! He should be soundly trounced! THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.) I'll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! To dare address me! I'll flog him black and blue in the public streets. I'll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. (She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air.) Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready? BLOOM (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm. (Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.) DAVY STEPHENS Messenger of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph with Saint Patrick's Day supplement. Containing the new addresses of all the cuckolds in Dublin. (The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. bend low.) THE TIMEPIECE (Unportalling.) Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. (The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.) THE QUOITS Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag. (A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of a Nameless One.) THE NAMELESS ONE Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised her. THE JURORS (All their heads turned to his voice.) Really? THE NAMELESS ONE (Snarls.) Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five. THE JURORS (All their heads lowered in assent.) Most of us thought as much. FIRST WATCH He is a marked man. Another girl's plait cut. Wanted Jack the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward. SECOND WATCH (Awed, whispers.) And in black. A mormon. Anarchist. THE CRIER (Loudly.) Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes the most honourable... (His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his arms an umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.) THE RECORDER I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! (He dons the black cap.) Let him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. (A black skullcap descends upon his head.) (The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry Clay.) LONG JOHN FANNING (Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.) Who'll hang Judas Iscariot? (H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.) RUMBOLD (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing. (The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron.) THE BELLS Heigho! Heigho! BLOOM (Desperately.) Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence. Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. (Breathlessly.) Pelvic basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. (Overcome with emotion.) I left the precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes, may I speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you want a little more... HYNES (Coldly.) You are a perfect stranger. SECOND WATCH (Points to the corner.) The bomb is here. FIRST WATCH Infernal machine with a time fuse. BLOOM No, no. Pig's feet. I was at a funeral. FIRST WATCH (Draws his truncheon.) Liar! (The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.) PADDY DIGNAM (In a hollow voice.) It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes. (He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.) BLOOM (In triumph.) You hear? PADDY DIGNAM Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list! BLOOM The voice is the voice of Esau. SECOND WATCH (Blesses himself.) How is that possible? FIRST WATCH It is not in the penny catechism. PADDY DIGNAM By metempsychosis. Spooks. A VOICE O rocks. PADDY DIGNAM (Earnestly.) Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of  Bachelor's Walk. Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of sherry. (He looks round him.) A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. That buttermilk didn't agree with me. (The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding sleepily a staff of twisted poppies.) FATHER COFFEY (Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.) Namine. Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen. JOHN O'CONNELL (Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.) Dignam, Patrick T, deceased. PADDY DIGNAM (With pricked up ears, winces.) Overtones. (He wriggles forward and places an ear to the ground.) My master's voice! JOHN O'CONNELL Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand. Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one. (Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail stiffpointed, his ears cocked.) PADDY DIGNAM Pray for the repose of his soul. (He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffled, is heard baying under ground Dignam's dead and gone below. Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned machine.) TOM ROCHFORD (A hand to his breastbone, bows.) Reuben J. A florin I find him. (He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.) My turn now on. Follow me up to Carlow. (He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes. Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog. A piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house, listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers, fly about him, twittering, warbling, cooing.) THE KISSES (Warbling.) Leo! (Twittering.) Icky licky micky sticky for Leo! (Cooing.) Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! (Warbling.) Big comebig! Pirouette! Leopopold! (Twittering.) Leeolee! (Warbling.) O Leo! (They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins.) BLOOM A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here. (Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips down the steps and accosts him.) ZOE Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend. BLOOM Is this Mrs Mack's? ZOE No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. You might go farther and fare worse. Mother Slipperslapper. (Familiarly.) She's on the job herself tonight with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today. (Suspiciously.) You're not his father, are you? BLOOM Not I! ZOE You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight? (His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over his left thigh.) ZOE How's the nuts? BLOOM Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose. One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says. ZOE (In sudden alarm.) You've a hard chancre. BLOOM Not likely. ZOE I feel it. (Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips.) BLOOM A talisman. Heirloom. ZOE For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh? (She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed with kohol. His smile softens.) ZOE You'll know me the next time. BLOOM (Forlornly.) I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to... (Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.) ZOE (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim. BLOOM (Fascinated.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent. ZOE And you know what thought did? (She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.) BLOOM (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat awkward hand.) Are you a Dublin girl? ZOE (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.) No bloody fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot? BLOOM (As before.) Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish device. (Lewdly.) The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder of rank weed. ZOE Go on. Make a stump speech out of it. BLOOM (In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh brought from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will, understanding, all. That is to say he brought the poison a hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the food. Suicide. Lies. All our habits. Why, look at our public life! (Midnight chimes from distant steeples.) THE CHIMES Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin! BLOOM (In alderman's gown and chain.) Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, from the cattlemarket to the river. That's the music of the future. That's my programme. Cui bono? But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship of finance... AN ELECTOR Three times three for our future chief magistrate! (The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.) THE TORCHBEARERS Hooray! (Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. They nod vigorously in agreement.) LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON (In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and large white silk scarf.) That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK Carried unanimously. BLOOM (Impassionedly.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev... (Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob Melek Israel spans the street. All the windows are thronged with sightseers, chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The pillar of the cloud appears. A fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society of friends. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great chamberlain, the earl marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff, the orb and sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with golden headstall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men cheer. Bloom's boys run amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.) BLOOM'S BOYS The wren, the wren, The king of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day Was caught in the furze. A BLACKSMITH (Murmurs.) For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He scarcely looks thirtyone. A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER That's the famous Bloom now, the world's greatest reformer. Hats off! (All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.) A MILLIONAIRESS (Richly.) Isn't he simply wonderful? A NOBLEWOMAN (Nobly.) All that man has seen! A FEMINIST (Masculinely.) And done! A BELLHANGER A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker. (Bloom's weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.) THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR I here present your undoubted emperorpresident and kingchairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First! ALL God save Leopold the First! BLOOM (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor, with dignity.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? BLOOM (Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.) So may the Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do. MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold, Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed! (Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.) THE PEERS I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly worship. (Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the KohiNoor diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.) BLOOM My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the splendour of night. (The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of cheering.) JOHN HOWARD PARNELL (Raises the royal standard.) Illustrious Bloom! Successor to my famous brother! BLOOM (Embraces John Howard Parnell.) We thank you from our heart, John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of our common ancestors. (The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all that he is wearing green socks.) TOM KERNAN You deserve it, your honour. BLOOM On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry Bonafide Sabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man. THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS Hear! Hear! JOHN WYSE NOLAN There's the man that got away James Stephens. A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY Bravo! AN OLD RESIDENT You're a credit to your country, sir, that's what you are. AN APPLEWOMAN He's a man like Ireland wants. BLOOM My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future. (Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red with the letters L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.) THE SIGHTSEERS (Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.) (A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points an elongated finger at Bloom.) THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH Don't you believe a word he says. That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins. BLOOM Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh! (A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees, are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps,  days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World's Twelve Worst Books Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic),  Meals for  (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser's Vade Mecum (journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who's Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise's Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.) THE WOMEN Little father! Little father! THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone. (Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.) BABY BOARDMAN (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.) Hajajaja. BLOOM (Shaking hands with a blind stripling.) My more than Brother! (Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.) Dear old friends! (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.) Peep! Bopeep! (He wheels twins in a perambulator.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? (He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his mouth.) Roygbiv.  feet per second. (He consoles a widow.) Absence makes the heart grow younger. (He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics.) Leg it, ye devils! (He kisses the bedsores of a palsied veteran.) Honourable wounds! (He trips up a fat policeman.) U. p up. U. p up. (He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly.) Ah, naughty, naughty! (He eats a raw turnip offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.) Fine! Splendid! (He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.) My dear fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar.) Please accept. (He takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.) Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls! THE CITIZEN (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald muffler.) May the good God bless him! (The rams' horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.) BLOOM (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly.) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. (An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.) JIMMY HENRY The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal advice, solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. Given at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year  of the Paradisiacal Era. PADDY LEONARD What am I to do about my rates and taxes? BLOOM Pay them, my friend. PADDY LEONARD Thank you. NOSEY FLYNN Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? BLOOM (Obdurately.) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five pounds. J. J. O'MOLLOY A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O'Brien! NOSEY FLYNN Where do I draw the five pounds? PISSER BURKE For bladder trouble? BLOOM Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil.,  minims Tinct. nux vom.,  minims Extr. taraxel. lig.,  minims. Aq. dis. ter in die. CHRIS CALLINAN What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran? BLOOM Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. . JOE HYNES Why aren't you in uniform? BLOOM When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours? BEN DOLLARD Pansies? BLOOM Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens. BEN DOLLARD When twins arrive? BLOOM Father (pater, dad) starts thinking. LARRY O'ROURKE An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I'm sending around a dozen of stout for the missus. BLOOM (Coldly.) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no presents. CROFTON This is indeed a festivity. BLOOM (Solemnly.) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament. ALEXANDER KEYES When will we have our own house of keys? BLOOM I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay state. O'MADDEN BURKE Free fox in a free henroost. DAVY BYRNE (Yawning.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! BLOOM Mixed races and mixed marriage. LENEHAN What about mixed bathing? (Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration. All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare street museum appears, dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and plaster figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.) FATHER FARLEY He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith. MRS RIORDAN (Tears up her will.) I'm disappointed in you! You bad man! MOTHER GROGAN (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) You beast! You abominable person! NOSEY FLYNN Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs. BLOOM (With rollicking humour.) I vowed that I never would leave her, She turned out a cruel deceiver. With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. HOPPY HOLOHAN Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all. PADDY LEONARD Stage Irishman! BLOOM What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of Casteele. (Laughter.) LENEHAN Plagiarist! Down with Bloom! THE VEILED SIBYL (Enthusiastically.) I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it. I believe in him in spite of all. I'd give my life for him, the funniest man on earth. BLOOM (Winks at the bystanders.) I bet she's a bonny lassie. THEODORE PUREFOY (In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.) He employs a mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature. THE VEILED SIBYL (Stabs herself.) My hero god! (She dies.) (Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.) ALEXANDER J DOWIE (Violently.) Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. Caliban! THE MOB Lynch him! Roast him! He's as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox! (Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's tails, odd pieces of fat.) BLOOM (Excitedly.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. He is my double. He lives in number  Dolphin's Barn. Slander, the viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall. I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf. DR MULLIGAN (In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow.) Dr Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to  anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be virgo intacta. (Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.) DR MADDEN Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits of wine in the national teratological museum. DR CROTTHERS I have examined the patient's urine. It is albuminoid. Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent. DR PUNCH COSTELLO The fetor judaicus is most perceptible. DR DIXON (Reads a bill of health.) Professor Bloom is a finished example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby. (General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I. O. U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly collected.) BLOOM O, I so want to be a mother. MRS THORNTON (In nursetender's gown.) Embrace me tight, dear. You'll be soon over it. Tight, dear. (Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindore, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.) A VOICE Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? BLOOM (Darkly.) You have said it. BROTHER BUZZ Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. BANTAM LYONS Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger. (Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the top ledge by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.) BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio. Moses begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat JonesSmith and JonesSmith begat Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel. A DEADHAND (Writes on the wall.) Bloom is a cod. CRAB (In bushranger's kit.) What did you do in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack? A FEMALE INFANT (Shakes a rattle.) And under Ballybough bridge? A HOLLYBUSH And in the devil's glen? BLOOM (Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears falling from his left eye.) Spare my past. THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook fair shillelaghs.) Sjambok him! (Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms, his feet protruding. He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.) THE ARTANE ORPHANS You hig, you hog, you dirty dog! You think the ladies love you! THE PRISON GATE GIRLS If you see Kay Tell him he may See you in tea Tell him from me. HORNBLOWER (In ephod and huntingcap, announces.) And he shall carry the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham. (All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their beards at Bloom.) MASTIANSKY AND CITRON Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah! Abulafia! Recant! (George R Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears, a tailor's goose under his arm, presenting a bill.) MESIAS To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. BLOOM (Rubs his hands cheerfully.) Just like old times. Poor Bloom! (Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.) REUBEN J (Whispers hoarsely.) The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. Nip the first rattler. THE FIRE BRIGADE Pflaap! BROTHER BUZZ (Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.) Forgive him his trespasses. (Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. Lamentations.) THE CITIZEN Thank heaven! BLOOM (In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid phoenix flames.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin. (He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of Erin, in black garments, with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles in their hands, kneel down and pray.) THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN Kidney of Bloom, pray for us Flower of the Bath, pray for us Mentor of Menton, pray for us Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us Charitable Mason, pray for us Wandering Soap, pray for us Sweets of Sin, pray for us Music without Words, pray for us Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us Friend of all Frillies, pray for us Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. (A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O'Brien, sings the chorus from Handel's Messiah Alleluia for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes mute, shrunken, carbonised.) ZOE Talk away till you're black in the face. BLOOM (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.) Let me be going now, woman of the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a bating. (With a tear in his eye.) All insanity. Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not to be. Life's dream is o'er. End it peacefully. They can live on. (He gazes far away mournfully.) I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly.) No more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell. ZOE (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.) Honest? Till the next time. (She sneers.) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts! BLOOM (Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle. I'm sick of it. Let everything rip. ZOE (In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that's insincere. Give a bleeding whore a chance. BLOOM (Repentantly.) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil. Where are you from? London? ZOE (Glibly.) Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I'm Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.) I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a short time? Ten shillings? BLOOM (Smiles, nods slowly.) More, houri, more. ZOE And more's mother? (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll peel off. BLOOM (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled pears.) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed monster. (Earnestly.) You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you. ZOE (Flattered.) What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for. (She pats him.) Come. BLOOM Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle. ZOE Babby! BLOOM (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair, fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.) One two tlee tlee tlwo tlone. THE BUCKLES Love me. Love me not. Love me. ZOE Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she captures his hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor, luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard. (He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.) THE MALE BRUTES (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro.) Good! (Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated. They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.) ZOE (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) Hoopsa! Don't fall upstairs. BLOOM The just man falls seven times. (He stands aside at the threshold.) After you is good manners. ZOE Ladies first, gentlemen after. (She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall hang a man's hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is flung open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an ape's gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the piano.) KITTY (Coughs behind her hand.) She's a bit imbecillic. (She signs with a waggling forefinger.) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect yourself. (She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair glows, red with henna.) O, excuse! ZOE More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier and turns the gas full cock.) KITTY (Peers at the gasjet.) What ails it tonight? LYNCH (Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins. ZOE Clap on the back for Zoe. (The wand in Lynch's hand flashes a brass poker. Stephen stands at the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.) KITTY (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse! ZOE (Promptly.) Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift. (Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled catterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.) STEPHEN As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet's rest. It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Cla enarrant gloriam Domini. It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his almightiness. Mais nom de nom, that is another pair of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, points at Lynch's cap, smiles, laughs.) Which side is your knowledge bump? THE CAP (With saturnine spleen.) Bah! It is because it is. Woman's reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of life. Bah! STEPHEN You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone! THE CAP Bah! STEPHEN Here's another for you. (He frowns.) The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which... THE CAP Which? Finish. You can't. STEPHEN (With an effort.) Interval which. Is the greatest possible ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which. THE CAP Which? (Outside the gramophone begins to blare The Holy City.) STEPHEN (Abruptly.) What went forth to the ends of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Ecco! LYNCH (With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe Higgins.) What a learned speech, eh? ZOE (Briskly.) God help your head, he knows more than you have forgotten. (With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.) FLORRY They say the last day is coming this summer. KITTY No! ZOE (Explodes in laughter.) Great unjust God! FLORRY (Offended.) Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my foot's tickling. (Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling.) THE NEWSBOYS Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist. (Stephen turns and sees Bloom.) STEPHEN A time, times and half a time. (Reuben J Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.) ALL What? THE HOBGOBLIN (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il vient! C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigne! (He whirls round and round with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.) Rien va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He springs off into vacuum.) FLORRY (Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) The end of the world! (A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.) THE GRAMOPHONE Jerusalem! Open your gates and sing Hosanna... (A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it, proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah. Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the Three Legs of Man.) THE END OF THE WORLD (With a Scotch accent.) Wha'll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row? (Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh as a corncrake's, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.) ELIJAH No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's time is .. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? O. K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. (He shouts.) Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! (He sings.) Jeru... THE GRAMOPHONE (Drowning his voice.) Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh... (The disc rasps gratingly against the needle.) THE THREE WHORES (Covering their ears, squawk.) Ahhkkk! ELIJAH (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top of his voice, his arms uplifted.) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. (He winks at his audience.) Our Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. KITTYKATE I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the brown scapular. My mother's sister married a Montmorency. It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was pure. ZOEFANNY I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it. FLORRYTERESA It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the bed. STEPHEN In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes. (The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.) THE BEATITUDES (Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum barnum buggerum bishop. LYSTER (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says discreetly.) He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the light. (He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda hat.) BEST (Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.) I was just beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know, Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. JOHN EGLINTON (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner with carping accent.) Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them. (In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave, holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun MacLir broods, chin on knees. He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its two talons.) MANANAUN MACLIR (With a voice of waves.) Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor! Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. (With a voice of whistling seawind.) Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won't have my leg pulled. It has been said by one beware the left, the cult of Shakti. (With a cry of stormbirds.) Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! (He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with the vehemence of the ocean.) Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter. (A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.) THE GASJET Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii! (Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle.) ZOE Who has a fag as I'm here? LYNCH (Tossing a cigarette on to the table.) Here. ZOE (Her head perched aside in mock pride.) Is that the way to hand the pot to a lady? (She stretches up to light the cigarette over the flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie's green. She puffs calmly at her cigarette.) Can you see the beautyspot of my behind? LYNCH I'm not looking ZOE (Makes sheep's eyes.) No? You wouldn't do a less thing. Would you suck a lemon? (Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom, then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Two quills project over his ears.) VIRAG (Heels together, bows.) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. (He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived? Good. BLOOM Granpapachi. But... VIRAG Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a word. Hippogriff. Am I right? BLOOM She is rather lean. VIRAG (Not unpleasantly.) Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today. Parallax! (With a nervous twitch of his head.) Did you hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax! BLOOM (An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek.) She seems sad. VIRAG (Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left eye with a finger and barks hoarsely.) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (More genially.) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel. BLOOM (Regretfully.) When you come out without your gun. VIRAG We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either... BLOOM With...? VIRAG (His tongue upcurling.) Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in it. Lycopodium. (His throat twitches.) Slapbang! There he goes again. BLOOM The stye I dislike. VIRAG (Arches his eyebrows.) Contact with a goldring, they say. Argumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. (He twitches.) It is a funny sound. (He coughs encouragingly.) But possibly it is only a wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. BLOOM (Reflecting.) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said... VIRAG (Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking.) Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten. Exercise your mnemotechnic. La causa  santa. Tara. Tara. (Aside.) He will surely remember. BLOOM Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a deadhand cures. Mnemo? VIRAG (Excitedly.) I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. (He taps his parchmentroll energetically.) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (With a dry snigger.) You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of  to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? (He crows derisively.) Keekeereekee! (Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.) BLOOM I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. VIRAG (Prompts in a pig's whisper.) Insects of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the inferiorly pulchritudinous female possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! (His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally.) They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. Bear's buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. (He coughs and, bending his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand.) You shall find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L. B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley! (He blows into Bloom's ear.) Buzz! BLOOM Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I... VIRAG (His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key.) Splendid! Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. (He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles.) Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! (He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the letters which he claws.) Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. I'm the best o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. (He wags his head with cackling raillery.) Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. (He sneezes.) Amen! BLOOM (Absently.) Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Always open sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. VIRAG (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.) That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known... BLOOM I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. (He repeats.) Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. (Profoundly.) Instinct rules the world. In life. In death. VIRAG (Head askew, arches his back and hunched wingshoulders, peers at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a horning claw and cries.) Who's moth moth? Who's dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O dear, he is Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin? (He mews.) Puss puss puss puss! (He sighs, draws back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw.) Well, well. He doth rest anon. (He snaps his jaws suddenly on the air.) THE MOTH I'm a tiny tiny thing Ever flying in the spring Round and round a ringaring. Long ago I was a king Now I do this kind of thing On the wing, on the wing! Bing! (He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily.) Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. (From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob's pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his amorous tongue.) HENRY (In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar.) There is a flower that bloometh. (Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck. Henry gallant turns with pendant dewlap to the piano.) STEPHEN (To himself.) Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially drunk, by the way. (He touches the keys again.) Minor chord comes now. Yes. Not much however. (Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework.) ARTIFONI Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto. FLORRY Sing us something. Love's old sweet song. STEPHEN No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute? FLORRY (Smirking.) The bird that can sing and won't sing. (The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew Arnold's face.) PHILIP SOBER Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's. Eh? I am watching you. PHILIP DRUNK (Impatiently.) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? (His lawnmower begins to purr.) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no? FLORRY And the song? STEPHEN Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. FLORRY Are you out of Maynooth? You're like someone I knew once. STEPHEN Out of it now. (To himself.) Clever. PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER (Their lawnmowers purring with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) Clever ever. Out of it out of it. By the bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us. ZOE There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his coat buttoned up. You needn't try to hide, I says to him. I know you've a Roman collar. VIRAG Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. (Harshly, his pupils waxing.) To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why I left the church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Penrose. Flipperty Jippert. (He wriggles.) Woman, undoing with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man's lingam. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. (He cries.) Coactus volui. Then giddy woman will run about. Strong man grapses woman's wrist. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman's fat yadgana. (He chases his tail.) Piffpaff! Popo! (He stops, sneezes.) Pchp! (He worries his butt.) Prrrrrht! LYNCH I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. ZOE (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) He couldn't get a connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush. BLOOM Poor man! ZOE (Lightly.) Only for what happened him. BLOOM How? VIRAG (A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) Verfluchte Goim! He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the pope's bastard. (He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his eye agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world.) A son of a whore. Apocalypse. KITTY And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral. PHILIP DRUNK (Gravely.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe? PHILIP SOBER (Gaily.) C'tait le sacr pigeon, Philippe. (Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair. And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whore's shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.) LYNCH (Laughs.) And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes. FLORRY (Nods.) Locomotor ataxy. ZOE (Gaily.) O, my dictionary. LYNCH Three wise virgins. VIRAG (Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony epileptic lips.) She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. (He sticks out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork.) Messiah! He burst her tympanum. (With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the cynical spasm.) Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk! (Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fatpapped, stands forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing bagslops.) BEN DOLLARD (Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone.) When love absorbs my ardent soul. (The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.) THE VIRGINS (Gushingly.) Big Ben! Ben my Chree! A VOICE Hold that fellow with the bad breeches. BEN DOLLARD (Smites his thigh in abundant laughter.) Hold him now. HENRY (Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs.) Thine heart, mine love. (He plucks his lutestrings.) When first I saw... VIRAG (Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting.) Rats! (He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward push of his parchmentroll.) After having said which I took my departure. Farewell. Fare thee well. Dreck! (Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.) THE FLYBILL K. . Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. HENRY All is lost now. (Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.) VIRAG'S HEAD Quack! (Exeunt severally.) STEPHEN (Over his shoulder to Zoe.) You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The agony in the closet. LYNCH All one and the same God to her. STEPHEN (Devoutly.) And sovereign Lord of all things. FLORRY (To Stephen.) I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Or a monk. LYNCH He is. A cardinal's son. STEPHEN Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw. (His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp) THE CARDINAL Conservio lies captured He lies in the lowest dungeon With manacles and chains around his limbs Weighing upwards of three tons. (He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour) O, the poor little fellow Hihihihihis legs they were yellow He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake But some bloody savage To graize his white cabbage He murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. (A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches himself with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims) I'm suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd walk me off the face of the bloody globe. (His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers, imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, merciful male, melodious) Shall carry my heart to thee, Shall carry my heart to thee, And the breath of the balmy night Shall carry my heart to thee! (The trick doorhandle turns.) THE DOORHANDLE Theeee! ZOE The devil is in that door. (A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.) ZOE (Sniffs his hair briskly.) Hmmm! Thank your mother for the rabbits. I'm very fond of what I like. BLOOM (Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep, pricks his ears.) If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event? ZOE (Tears open the silverfoil.) Fingers was made before forks. (She breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch.) No objection to French lozenges? (He nods. She taunts him.) Have it now or wait till you get it? (He opens his mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.) Catch! (She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it through with a crack.) KITTY (Chewing.) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with his lady. The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. I'm giddy still. BLOOM (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you, whoever you are! (A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside. Bloom's features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.) BLOOM (Solemnly.) Thanks. ZOE Do as you're bid. Here! (A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs.) BLOOM (Takes the chocolate.) Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But I bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red influences lupus. Colours affect women's characters, any they have. This black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. (He eats.) Influence taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at Andrews. (The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.) BELLA My word! I'm all of a mucksweat. (She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.) THE FAN (Flirting quickly, then slowly.) Married, I see. BLOOM Yes. Partly, I have mislaid... THE FAN (Half opening, then closing.) And the missus is master. Petticoat government. BLOOM (Looks down with a sheepish grin.) That is so. THE FAN (Folding together, rests against her left eardrop.) Have you forgotten me? BLOOM Nes. Yo. THE FAN (Folded akimbo against her waist.) Is me her was you dreamed before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now we? (Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.) BLOOM (Wincing.) Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which women love. THE FAN (Tapping.) We have met. You are mine. It is fate. BLOOM (Cowed.) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as you probably... (He winces.) Ah! RICHIE GOULDING (Bagweighted, passes the door.) Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince's. Liver and kidney. THE FAN (Tapping.) All things end. Be mine. Now. BLOOM (Undecided.) All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause. THE FAN (Points downwards slowly.) You may. BLOOM (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.) We are observed. THE FAN (Points downwards quickly.) You must. BLOOM (With desire, with reluctance.) I can make a true black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah! (Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.) BLOOM (Murmurs lovingly.) To be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris. THE HOOF Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight. BLOOM (Crosslacing.) Too tight? THE HOOF If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you. BLOOM Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. That night she met... Now! (He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.) BLOOM (Mumbles.) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen,... BELLO (With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.) Hound of dishonour! BLOOM (Infatuated.) Empress! BELLO (His heavy cheekchops sagging.) Adorer of the adulterous rump! BLOOM (Plaintively.) Hugeness! BELLO Dungdevourer! BLOOM (With sinews semiflexed.) Magmagnificence! BELLO Down! (He taps her on the shoulder with his fan.) Incline feet forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. On the hands down! BLOOM (Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps.) Truffles! (With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most excellent master.) BELLO (With bobbed hair, purple gills, fat moustache rings round his shaven mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his hands stuck deep in his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in.) Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness. BLOOM (Enthralled, bleats.) I promise never to disobey. BELLO (Laughs loudly.) Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for you. I'm the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted in gym costume. (Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.) ZOE (Widening her slip to screen her.) She's not here. BLOOM (Closing her eyes.) She's not here. FLORRY (Hiding her with her gown.) She didn't mean it, Mr Bello. She'll be good, sir. KITTY Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir. BELLO (Coaxingly.) Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. (Bloom puts out her timid head.) There's a good girly now. (Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward.) I only want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready. BLOOM (Fainting.) Don't tear my... BELLO (Savagely.) The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging hook, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old. You're in for it this time! I'll make you remember me for the balance of your natural life. (His forehead veins swollen, his face congested.) I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness's porter. (He belches.) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you. (He twists her arm. Bloom squeals, turning turtle.) BLOOM Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't! BELLO (Twisting.) Another! BLOOM (Screams.) O, it's hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches like mad! BELLO (Shouts.) Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you! (He slaps her face.) BLOOM (Whimpers.) You're after hitting me. I'll tell... BELLO Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. ZOE Yes. Walk on him! I will. FLORRY I will. Don't be greedy. KITTY No, me. Lend him to me. (The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib, men's grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.) MRS KEOGH (Ferociously.) Can I help? (They hold and pinion Bloom.) BELLO (Squats with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg.) I see Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen three quarters. Curse me for a fool that didn't buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, curse it. And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one. (He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear.) Where's that Goddamned cursed ashtray? BLOOM (Goaded, buttocksmothered.) O! O! Monsters! Cruel one! BELLO Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never prayed before. (He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar.) Here, kiss that. Both. Kiss. (He throws a leg astride and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls in a hard voice.) Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I'll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. (He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting.) Ho! Off we pop! I'll nurse you in proper fashion. (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the, in the saddle.) The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop. FLORRY (Pulls at Bello.) Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked before you. ZOE (Pulling at Florry.) Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress? BLOOM (Stifling.) Can't. BELLO Well, I'm not. Wait. (He holds in his breath.) Curse it. Here. This bung's about burst. (He uncorks himself behind then, contorting his features, farts loudly.) Take that! (He recorks himself.) Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters. BLOOM (A sweat breaking out over him.) Not man. (He sniffs.) Woman. BELLO (Stands up.) No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too! BLOOM (Shrinks.) Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I tiptouch it with my nails? BELLO (Points to his whores.) As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you... BLOOM (A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and nose, leering mouth.) I tried her things on only twice, a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift. BELLO (Jeers.) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel, eh? BLOOM Miriam. Black. Demimondaine. BELLO (Guffaws.) Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this! You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be violated by lieutenant SmytheSmythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. (He guffaws again.) Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh? BLOOM (Her hands and features working.) It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful. BELLO (With wicked glee.) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne. BLOOM Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (Earnestly.) And really it's better the position... because often I used to wet... BELLO (Sternly.) No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds. THE SINS OF THE PAST (In a medley of voices.) He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D'Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? BELLO (Whistles loudly.) Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be candid for once. (Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny, Cassidy's hag, blind stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other, the...) BLOOM Don't ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath... BELLO (Peremptorily.) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... BLOOM (Docile, gurgles.) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant... BELLO (Imperiously.) O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when you're spoken to. BLOOM (Bows.) Master! Mistress! Mantamer! (He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.) BELLO (Satirically.) By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won't that be nice? (He places a ruby ring on her finger.) And there now! With this ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress. BLOOM Thank you, mistress. BELLO You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the hairbrush. You'll be taught the error of your ways. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old laid down their lives. (He chuckles.) My boys will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I'll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (He points.) For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. (He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva.) There's fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (He shoves his arm in a bidder's face.) Here wet the deck and wipe it round! A BIDDER A florin. (Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell.) THE LACQUEY Barang! A VOICE One and eightpence too much. CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean. BELLO (Gives a rap with his gavel.) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine shis points. Handle hrim. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa, my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! (He brands his initial C on Bloom's croup.) So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen? A DARKVISAGED MAN (In disguised accent.) Hoondert punt sterlink. VOICES (Subdued.) For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid. BELLO (Gaily.) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the blas man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. BLOOM (Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth.) O, I know what you're hinting at now! BELLO What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (He stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds of Bloom's haunches.) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. (Loudly.) Can you do a man's job? BLOOM Eccles street... BELLO (Sarcastically.) I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That makes you wild, don't it? Touches the spot? (He spits in contempt.) Spittoon! BLOOM I was indecently treated, I... Inform the police. Hundred pounds. Unmentionable. I... BELLO Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your drizzle. BLOOM To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll... We... Still... BELLO (Ruthlessly.) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Return and see. (Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.) SLEEPY HOLLOW Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle! BLOOM (In tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond panes, cries out.) I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he... BELLO (Laughs mockingly.) That's your daughter, you owl, with a Mullingar student. (Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her blue scarf in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and calls, her young eyes wonderwide.) MILLY My! It's Papli! But, O Papli, how old you've grown! BELLO Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. The Cuckoos' Rest! Why not? How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander O. BLOOM They... I... BELLO (Cuttingly.) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art's sake. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. BLOOM Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. I will prove... A VOICE Swear! (Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowieknife between his teeth.) BELLO As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are down and out and don't you forget it, old bean. BLOOM Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody...? (He bites his thumb.) BELLO Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury you in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers' names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. (He explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh.) We'll manure you, Mr Flower! (He pipes scoffingly.) Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli! BLOOM (Clasps his head.) My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have suff... (He weeps tearlessly.) BELLO (Sneers.) Crybabby! Crocodile tears! (Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom.) THE CIRCUMCISED (In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, no flowers.) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. VOICES (Sighing.) So he's gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, yes. (From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.) THE YEWS (Their leaves whispering.) Sister. Our sister. Ssh! THE NYMPH (Softly.) Mortal! (Kindly.) Nay, dost not weepest! BLOOM (Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with dignity.) This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit. THE NYMPH Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to the married. BLOOM (Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.) We have met before. On another star. THE NYMPH (Sadly.) Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. BLOOM You mean Photo Bits? THE NYMPH I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame. BLOOM (Humbly kisses her long hair.) Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray. THE NYMPH During dark nights I heard your praise. BLOOM (Quickly.) Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. (He sighs.) 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage. THE NYMPH (Her fingers in her ears.) And words. They are not in my dictionary. BLOOM You understood them? THE YEWS Ssh! THE NYMPH (Covers her face with her hands.) What have I not seen in that chamber? What must my eyes look down on? BLOOM (Apologetically.) I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago. THE NYMPH (Bends her head.) Worse, worse! BLOOM (Reflects precautiously.) That antiquated commode. It wasn't her weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. (The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.) THE WATERFALL Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. THE YEWS (Mingling their boughs.) Listen. Whisper. She is right, our sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer days. JOHN WYSE NOLAN (In the background, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland! THE YEWS (Murmuring.) Who came to Poulaphouca with the High School excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade? BLOOM (Scared.) High School of Poula? Mnemo? Not in full possession of faculties. Concussion. Run over by tram. THE ECHO Sham! BLOOM (Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a red schoolcap with badge.) I was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the mingling odours of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the throng penned tight on the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes, instinct of the herd, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice), even a pricelist of their hosiery. And then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school. And tipsycake. Halcyon days. (Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.) THE HALCYON DAYS Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray! (They cheer.) BLOOM (Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise.) Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark! Let's ring all the bells in Montague street. (He cheers feebly.) Hurray for the High School! THE ECHO Fool! THE YEWS (Rustling.) She is right, our sister. Whisper. (Whispered kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the boles and among the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.) Who profaned our silent shade? THE NYMPH (Coyly, through parting fingers.) There? In the open air? THE YEWS (Sweeping downward.) Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward. THE WATERFALL Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca. THE NYMPH (With wide fingers.) O, infamy! BLOOM I was precocious. Youth. The fauna. I sacrificed to the god of the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing time. Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. She climbed their crooked tree and I... A saint couldn't resist it. The demon possessed me. Besides, who saw? (Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with humid nostrils through the foliage.) STAGGERING BOB (Large teardrops rolling from his prominent eyes, snivels.) Me. Me see. BLOOM Simply satisfying a need I... (With pathos.) No girl would when I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play... (High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.) THE NANNYGOAT (Bleats.) Megeggaggegg! Nannannanny! BLOOM (Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine.) Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. (He gazes intently downwards on the water.) Thirtytwo head over heels per second. Press nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government printer's clerk. (Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, rolled in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion's Head cliff into the purple waiting waters.) THE DUMMYMUMMY Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg! (Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the land.) COUNCILLOR NANNETTI (Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims.) When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have... BLOOM Done. Prff! THE NYMPH (Loftily.) We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat electric light. (She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in her mouth.) Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then could you...? BLOOM (Pawing the heather abjectly.) O, I have been a perfect pig. Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's syringe, the ladies' friend. THE NYMPH In my presence. The powderpuff. (She blushes and makes a knee.) And the rest! BLOOM (Dejected.) Yes. Peccavi! I have paid homage on that living altar where the back changes name. (With sudden fervour.) For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules...? (Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems, cooeeing.) THE VOICE OF KITTY (In the thicket.) Show us one of them cushions. THE VOICE OF FLORRY Here. (A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.) THE VOICE OF LYNCH (In the thicket.) Whew! Piping hot! THE VOICE OF ZOE (From the thicket.) Came from a hot place. THE VOICE OF VIRAG (A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull! BLOOM It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. So womanly, full. It fills me full. THE WATERFALL Phillaphulla Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. THE YEWS Ssh! Sister, speak! THE NYMPH (Eyeless, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, with remote eyes.) Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. (She reclines her head, sighing.) Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o'er the waters dull. (Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.) THE BUTTON Bip! (Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.) THE SLUTS O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers He didn't know what to do, To keep it up, To keep it up. BLOOM (Coldly.) You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy but willing like an ass pissing. THE YEWS (Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms aging and swaying.) Deciduously! THE NYMPH (Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit.) Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! (A large moist stain appears on her robe.) Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman. (She clutches again in her robe.) Wait. Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (She draws a poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins.) Nekum! BLOOM (Starts up, seizes her hand.) Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o' nine lives! Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? (He clutches her veil.) A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard? THE NYMPH (With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks.) Poli...! BLOOM (Calls after her.) As if you didn't get it on the double yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness. What's our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. (The fleeing nymph raises a keen.) Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me. (He sniffs.) Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease. (The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.) BELLA You'll know me the next time. BLOOM (Composed, regards her.) Passe. Mutton dressed as lamb. Long in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of your other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw propeller. BELLA (Contemptuously.) You're not game, in fact. (Her sowcunt barks.) Fbhracht! BLOOM (Contemptuously.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself. BELLA I know you, canvasser! Dead cod! BLOOM I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor! BELLA (Turns to the piano.) Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul? ZOE Me. Mind your cornflowers. (She darts to the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms.) The cat's ramble through the slag. (She glances back.) Eh? Who's making love to my sweeties? (She darts back to the table.) What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own. (Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom approaches Zoe.) BLOOM (Gently.) Give me back that potato, will you? ZOE Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing. BLOOM (With feeling.) It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma. ZOE Give a thing and take it back God'll ask you where is that You'll say you don't know God'll send you down below. BLOOM There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it. STEPHEN To have or not to have that is the question. ZOE Here. (She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.) Those that hides knows where to find. BELLA (Frowns.) Here. This isn't a musical peepshow. And don't you smash that piano. Who's paying here? (She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.) STEPHEN (With exaggerated politeness.) This silken purse I made out of the sow's ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. (He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.) We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch. Dans ce bordel o tenons nostre tat. LYNCH (Calls from the hearth.) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me. STEPHEN (Hands Bella a coin.) Gold. She has it. BELLA (Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty.) Do you want three girls? It's ten shillings here. STEPHEN (Delightedly.) A hundred thousand apologies. (He fumbles again and takes out and hands her two crowns.) Permit, brevi manu, my sight is somewhat troubled. (Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over Zoe's neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds his head to the group.) FLORRY (Strives heavily to rise.) Ow! My foot's asleep. (She limps over to the table. Bloom approaches.) BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM (Chattering and squabbling.) The gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a moment... this gentleman pays separate... who's touching it?... ow! ... mind who you're pinching... are you staying the night or a short time?... who did?... you're a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid down like a gentleman... drink... it's long after eleven. STEPHEN (At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.) No bottles! What, eleven? A riddle! ZOE (Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top of her stocking.) Hard earned on the flat of my back. LYNCH (Lifting Kitty from the table.) Come! KITTY Wait. (She clutches the two crowns.) FLORRY And me? LYNCH Hoopla! (He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.) STEPHEN The fox crew, the cocks flew, The bells in heaven Were striking eleven. 'Tis time for her poor soul To get out of heaven. BLOOM (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between Bella and Florry.) So. Allow me. (He takes up the poundnote.) Three times ten. We're square. BELLA (Admiringly.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss you. ZOE (Points.) Him? Deep as a drawwell. (Lynch bends Kitty back over the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.) BLOOM This is yours. STEPHEN How is that? Le distrait or absentminded beggar. (He fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object falls.) That fell. BLOOM (Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches.) This. STEPHEN Lucifer. Thanks. BLOOM (Quietly.) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more? STEPHEN (Hands him all his coins.) Be just before you are generous. BLOOM I will but is it wise? (He counts.) One, seven, eleven, and five. Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost. STEPHEN Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. (He laughs loudly.) Burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her. BLOOM That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say. STEPHEN Doesn't matter a rambling damn. BLOOM No, but... STEPHEN (Comes to the table.) Cigarette, please. (Lynch tosses a cigarette from the sofa to the table.) And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. (A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it.) Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. (He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) LYNCH (Watching him.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer. STEPHEN (Brings the match near his eye.) Lynx eye. Must get glasses. Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. (He draws the match away. It goes out.) Brain thinks. Near far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. (He frowns mysteriously.) Hm. Sphinx. The beast that has two backs at midnight. Married. ZOE It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him. FLORRY (Nods.) Mr Lambe from London. STEPHEN Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. LYNCH (Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply.) Dona nobis pacem. (The cigarette slips from Stephen's fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it in the grate.) BLOOM Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. (To Zoe.) You have nothing? ZOE Is he hungry? STEPHEN (Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the bloodoath in the Dusk of the Gods.) Hangende Hunger, Fragende Frau, Macht uns alle kaputt. ZOE (Tragically.) Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! (She takes his hand.) Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand. (She points to his forehead.) No wit, no wrinkles. (She counts.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage. (Stephen shakes his head.) No kid. LYNCH Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and shake. (To Zoe.) Who taught you palmistry? ZOE (Turns.) Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. (To Stephen.) I see it in your face. The eye, like that. (She frowns with lowered head.) LYNCH (Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice.) Like that. Pandybat. (Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, the bald little round jackinthebox head of Father Dolan springs up.) FATHER DOLAN Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little schemer. See it in your eye. (Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises from the pianola coffin.) DON JOHN CONMEE Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very good little boy! ZOE (Examining Stephen's palm.) Woman's hand. STEPHEN (Murmurs.) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. ZOE What day were you born? STEPHEN Thursday. Today. ZOE Thursday's child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand.) Line of fate. Influential friends. FLORRY (Pointing.) Imagination. ZOE Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... (She peers at his hands abruptly.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know? BLOOM (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.) More harm than good. Here. Read mine. BELLA Show. (She turns up Bloom's hand.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles for the women. ZOE (Peering at Bloom's palm.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money. BLOOM Wrong. ZOE (Quickly.) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That wrong? (Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks.) BLACK LIZ Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook. (She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.) BLOOM (Points to his hand.) That weal there is an accident. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen. ZOE I see, says the blind man. Tell us news. STEPHEN See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. (He winces.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money? (Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.) FLORRY What? (A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.) THE BOOTS (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) Haw haw have you the horn? (Bronze by gold they whisper.) ZOE (To Florry.) Whisper. (They whisper again.) (Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman's cap and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.) LENEHAN Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims? BOYLAN (Sated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey. LENEHAN A good night's work. BOYLAN (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell that. LENEHAN (Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah! ZOE AND FLORRY (Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha. BOYLAN (Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear.) Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet? BLOOM (In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.) I'm afraid not, sir. The last articles... BOYLAN (Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. (He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) Show me in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? BLOOM Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. MARION He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing out of the water.) Raoul darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my new hat and a carriage sponge. BOYLAN (A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping! BELLA What? What is it? (Zoe whispers to her.) MARION Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt. BOYLAN (Clasps himself.) Here, I can't hold this little lot much longer. (He strides off on stiff cavalry legs.) BELLA (Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho. BOYLAN (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times. BLOOM Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds out an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...? KITTY (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What... (Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.) MINA KENNEDY (Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck together! Covered with kisses! LYDIA DOUCE (Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. KITTY (Laughing.) Hee hee hee. BOYLAN'S VOICE (Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah! Godblazeqrukbrukarchkrasht! MARION'S VOICE (Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat.) O! Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? BLOOM (His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself.) Show! Hide! Show! Plough her! More! Shoot! BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee! LYNCH (Points.) The mirror up to nature. (He laughs.) Hu hu hu hu hu! (Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.) SHAKESPEARE (In dignified ventriloquy.) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible. Gaze. (He crows with a black capon's laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo! BLOOM (Smiles yellowly at the three whores.) When will I hear the joke? ZOE Before you're twice married and once a widower. BLOOM Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements were taken next the skin after his death... (Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds a Scottish widow's insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.) FREDDY Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! SUSY Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over! SHAKESPEARE (With paralytic rage.) Weda seca whokilla farst. (The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.) MRS CUNNINGHAM (Sings.) And they call me the jewel of Asia! MARTIN CUNNINGHAM (Gazes on her, impassive.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep! STEPHEN Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls. Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open. BELLA None of that here. Come to the wrong shop. LYNCH Let him alone. He's back from Paris. ZOE (Runs to stephen and links him.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo. (Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on his face.) LYNCH (Pommelling on the sofa.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmmm. STEPHEN (Gabbles with marionette jerks.) Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clacks his tongue loudly.) Ho, l l! Ce pif qu'il a! LYNCH Vive le vampire! THE WHORES Bravo! Parleyvoo! STEPHEN (Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself.) Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to.) Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the belly pice de Shakespeare. BELLA (Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of laughter.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... omelette on the... STEPHEN (Mincingly.) I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman tongue for double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup. How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset. (He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.) BELLA (Laughing.) Omelette... THE WHORES (Laughing.) Encore! Encore! STEPHEN Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon. ZOE Go abroad and love a foreign lady. LYNCH Across the world for a wife. FLORRY Dreams goes by contraries. STEPHEN (Extends his arms.) It was here. Street of harlots. In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the red carpet spread? BLOOM (Approaching Stephen.) Look... STEPHEN No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World without end. (He cries.) Pater! Free! BLOOM I say, look... STEPHEN Break my spirit, will he? O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture talons sharpened.) Hola! Hillyho! (Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.) SIMON That's all right. (He swoops uncertainly through the air, wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.) Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! (He makes the beagle's call, giving tongue.) Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy! (The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.) THE CROWD Card of the races. Racing card! Ten to one the field! Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay! Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one! Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Ten to one bar one! Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey! I'll give ten to one! Ten to one bar one! (A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky road.) THE ORANGE LODGES (Jeering.) Get down and push, mister. Last lap! You'll be home the night! GARRETT DEASY (Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.) Per vias rectas! (A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes.) THE GREEN LODGES Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour! (Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the windows, singing in discord.) STEPHEN Hark! Our friend noise in the street. ZOE (Holds up her hand.) Stop! PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY Yet I've a sort of a Yorkshire relish for... ZOE That's me. (She claps her hands.) Dance! Dance! (She runs to the pianola.) Who has twopence? BLOOM Who'll...? LYNCH (Handing her coins.) Here. STEPHEN (Cracking his fingers impatiently.) Quick! Quick! Where's my augur's rod? (He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium.) ZOE (Turns the drumhandle.) There. (She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights start forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's grace, his bowknot bobbing.) ZOE (Twirls round herself, heeltapping.) Dance. Anybody here for there? Who'll dance? Clear the table. (The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve falling from gracing arms, reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and buttons.) MAGINNI The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Fancy dress balls arranged. Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean abilities. (He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.) Tout le monde en avant! Rvrence! Tout le monde en place! (The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade gold rosy violet.) THE PIANOLA Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, Sweethearts they'd left behind... (From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms.) MAGINNI (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Carr! Avant deux! Breathe evenly! Balance! (The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from their shoulders.) HOURS You may touch my. CAVALIERS May I touch your? HOURS O, but lightly! CAVALIERS O, so lightly! THE PIANOLA My little shy little lass has a waist. (Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.) MAGINNI Avant huit! Travers! Salut! Cours de mains! Crois! (The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.) THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho! ZOE (Twirling, her hand to her brow.) O! MAGINNI Les tiroirs! Chane de dames! La corbeille! Dos  dos! (Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.) ZOE I'm giddy! (She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns with her.) MAGINNI Boulangre! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots! (Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.) MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit bouquet  votre dame! Remerciez! THE PIANOLA Best, best of all, Baraabum! KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus bazaar! (She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.) THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl. ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all! (She seizes Florry and waltzes her.) STEPHEN Pas seul! (He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his ashplant from the table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.) THE PIANOLA Though she's a factory lass And wears no fancy clothes. (Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!) TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore! SIMON Think of your mother's people! STEPHEN Dance of death. (Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin steel shark stone onehandled Nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling bawling. Gum he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!) (The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.) STEPHEN Ho! (Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) THE CHOIR Liliata rutilantium te confessorum... Iubilantium te virginum... (From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.) BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi! THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead. STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman's trick is this? BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten butter fall from his eyes on to the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi oinopa ponton. THE MOTHER (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the world. You too. Time will come. STEPHEN (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They say I killed you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny. THE MOTHER (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.) You sang that song to me. Love's bitter mystery. STEPHEN (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word known to all men. THE MOTHER Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen. STEPHEN The ghoul! Hyena! THE MOTHER I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb. ZOE (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I'm melting! FLORRY (Points to Stephen.) Look! He's white. BLOOM (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy. THE MOTHER (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell! STEPHEN (Panting.) His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones. THE MOTHER (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger.) Beware God's hand! (A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart.) STEPHEN (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey and old.) BLOOM (At the window.) What? STEPHEN Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam! FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.) THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred Heart! STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I'll bring you all to heel! THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary. STEPHEN Nothung! (He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.) THE GASJET Pwfungg! BLOOM Stop! LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't run amok! BELLA Police! (Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.) BELLA (Screams.) After him! (The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.) THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there. ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up. BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) Here, you were with him. The lamp's broken. BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman? A WHORE He tore his coat. BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for that? Ten shillings. You're a witness. BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you lifted enough off him? Didn't he...? BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A ten shilling house. BLOOM (His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the chimney's broken. Here is all he... BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't! BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings! FLORRY (With a glass of water, enters.) Where is he? BELLA Do you want me to call the police? BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You don't want a scandal. BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I'll charge him! Disgrace him, I will! (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe! BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford? (Warningly.) I know. BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are. Incog! ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on. BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and starts.) That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader  C,  C, night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V. B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T. M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row postmistress, C. P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collectorgeneral's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwidebehindinClonskea tram, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles street corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.) THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterpelterwelter.) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom! Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner! (At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.) STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are my guests. Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory. PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you? STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter. Ungenitive. VOICES No, he didn't. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs Cohen's. What's up? Soldier and civilian. CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to doyou know, and the young man run up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore. STEPHEN (Catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus. (He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Uropoetic. VOICES Shes faithfultheman. CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend. PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff him one, Harry. PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss? LORD TENNYSON (Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded.) Theirs not to reason why. PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry. STEPHEN (To Private Compton.) I don't know your name but you are quite right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole. CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the privates. STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every lady for example... PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advances to Stephen.) Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw? STEPHEN (Looks up to the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand.) Hand hurts me slightly. Enfin ce sont vos oignons. (To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely? DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. (The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.) BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.) Come now, professor, that carman is waiting. STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself.) Why should I not speak to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. Retaining the perpendicular. (He staggers a pace back.) BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own. STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king. BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor out of the college. CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that. BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology. CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite trenchancy. PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're saying about my king? (Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which is printed Dfense d'uriner. A roar of welcome greets him.) EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak. (He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.) PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again. STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point. You die for your country. Suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say Let my country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn't want it to die. Damn death. Long live life! EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.) My methods are new and are causing surprise. To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes. STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and we'll... What was that girl saying?... PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one into Jerry. BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying. Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right. STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors. PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't give a bugger who he is. STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull. (Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peepo'day boy's hat signs to Stephen.) KEVIN EGAN H'lo! Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes. (Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.) PATRICE Socialiste! DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the privates.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble. STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence. BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician lineage. THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone. THE BAWD The red's as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers! Up King Edward! A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet. THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.) May the God above Send down a dove With teeth as sharp as razors To slit the throats Of the English dogs That hanged our Irish leaders. THE CROPPY BOY (The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing bowels with both hands.) I bear no hate to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the king. RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, advances with gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon to the gallows. (He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently.) THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest. (He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.) RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. (He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now been done. God save the king! EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and sings with soft contentment.) On coronation day, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine! PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king? STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it to someone. PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money? STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will someone tell me where I am least likely to meet these necessary evils? a se voit aussi  Paris. Not that I... But, by Saint Patrick...! (The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.) STEPHEN Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats her farrow! OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! (She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.) You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand? STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow. CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting! A ROUGH Our men retreated. PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king. BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure misunderstanding. THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! (Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.) PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer. STEPHEN Did I? When? BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our monarch. THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a krowawr! O! Bo! (Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.) MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them! Mahar shalal hashbaz. PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in. PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger. (Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King.) CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me! CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair. BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best. CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me! STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king. BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver! CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you? Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police! STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.) White thy fambles, red thy gan And thy quarrons dainty is. VOICES Police! DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire! (Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons' teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the fieldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O'Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli. THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young days. FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) Corpus meum. THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck.) My body. THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella! (From on high the voice of Adonai calls.) ADONAI Dooooooooooog! THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! (From on high the voice of Adonai calls.) ADONAI Goooooooooood! (In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.) PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe! (The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.) OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him, acushla. At . a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She prays.) O good God, take him! BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away? LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.) Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.) STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit. BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens. Here's your stick. STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason. CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for insulting me. BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable. PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him. (He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.) MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute! THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute. THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's fainted! A HAG What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers! THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward's blow. (They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.) THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow. BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back! PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here's the cops! (Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.) FIRST WATCH What's wrong here? PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And assaulted my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke? CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding! A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right. BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily... SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him? PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend. BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness. Constable, take his regimental number. SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off Harry. Or Bennett'll shove you in the lockup. PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett. He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him. FIRST WATCH (Takes out his notebook.) What's his name? BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me a hand a second, sergeant... FIRST WATCH Name and address. (Corny Kelleher, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand, appears among the bystanders.) BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back. SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher. CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty to one. Do you follow me? FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at? Move on out of that. (The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.) CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. What? Eh, what? FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so. CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me? SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too. CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there. SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night. CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that. BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand. FIRST WATCH O. I understand, sir. SECOND WATCH That's all right, sir. FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station. BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty. SECOND WATCH It's our duty. CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men. THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with slow heavy tread.) BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?... CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to... CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah! BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow, he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just making my way home... (The horse neighs.) THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome! CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what? BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop. (Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the horse. Bloom, in gloom, looms down.) CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him. BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick. CORNY KELLEHER Ah, well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the dead. Safe home! THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome. BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few... (Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse harness jingles.) CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night. BLOOM Night. (The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephen's hat, festooned with shavings, and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by the shoulder.) BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and, hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen! (There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen! STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther. Vampire. (He sighs and stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus now And pierce... wood's woven shade?... (He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.) BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers.) One pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What? STEPHEN (Murmurs.) ... shadows... the woods ... white breast... dim sea. (He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom, holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on Stephen's face and form.) BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. (He murmurs.)... swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts... (He murmurs.)... in the rough sands of the sea... a cabletow's length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows ... (Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.) BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy! RUDY (Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.) Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His (Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in their then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier's and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice. This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though, entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company's sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his companion  propos of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station. Between this point and the high at present unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's the stonecutter's in his mind somehow in Talbot place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as his fidus Achates inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, situated quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke's the baker's it is said. En route to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the demimonde ran away with a lot of . s. d. into the bargain and the greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting confrres but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of his brother medicos under all the circs. And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any kind. Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a quondam friend of his father's, Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge. Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said. A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches saluted again, calling Night! Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but nevertheless remained on the qui vive with just a shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted. Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters, though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley's breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley. Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell. Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to tell him where on God's earth he could get something, anything at all, to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn't a complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he was all in. I wouldn't ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows I'm on the rocks. There'll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys' school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You may mention my name. Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck twice in the junior at the christian brothers. I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him. Corley at the first gooff was inclined to suspect it was something to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney's, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M'Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he hadn't said a word about it. Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew that Corley's brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly deserving of much credence. However haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco etcetera as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect. About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave them he wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket he came across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously however, as it turned out. Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him. And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him one of them. Thanks, Corley answered, you're a gentleman. I'll pay you back one time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good word for us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you've to book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don't give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a crossing sweeper. Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the shipchandler's, bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and refusing to go with the constable. Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman's sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine would be a very rara avis altogether. In any case he had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly. The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said, laughingly, Stephen, that is He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman. At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana, moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair, whereupon he observed evasively Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive? Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep somewhere. Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of the question. And even supposing you did you won't get in after what occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don't mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's house? To seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer. I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of conversation that he had moved. I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. Why? A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion, which they did. There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or something like that. No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn't notice as much as I did. But it wouldn't occasion me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some ulterior object. He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple. Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking your brains, he ventured to throw out. The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by friendliness which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet. Adjacent to the men's public urinal they perceived an icecream car round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the parties. Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto! Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano pi... Dice lui, per! Mezzo. Farabutto! Mortacci sui! Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa pi... Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous SkintheGoat Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus homo already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity. Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description. Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual, portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over voglio, remarked to his protg in an audible tone of voice  propos of the battle royal in the street which was still raging fast and furious A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not write your poetry in that language? Bella Poetria! It is so melodious and full. Belladonna. Voglio. Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering from lassitude generally, replied To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money. Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it. The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this ttette put a boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed. After which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to have a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For which reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him. Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time, like names. Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle. Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name? Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across. The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely by asking And what might your name be? Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected quarter, answered Dedalus. The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes, rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old Hollands and water. You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length. I've heard of him, Stephen said. Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently eavesdropping too. He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same way and nodding. All Irish. All too Irish, Stephen rejoined. As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the sailor of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the shelter with the remark I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his shoulder. The lefthand dead shot. Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain. Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles. Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims. He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then he screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the night with an unprepossessing cast of countenance. Pom! he then shouted once. The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation, there being still a further egg. Pom! he shouted twice. Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding bloodthirstily Buffalo Bill shoots to kill, Never missed nor he never will. A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the Bisley. Beg pardon, the sailor said. Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth. Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in Stockholm. Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively. Murphy's my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe. Know where that is? Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied. That's right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's where I hails from. I belongs there. That's where I hails from. My little woman's down there. She's waiting for me, I know. For England, home and beauty. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now, sailing about. Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones, a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way of poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way. Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, post mortem child. With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband W. B. Murphy. The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one of the jarvies with the request You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you? The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was passed from hand to hand. Thank you, the sailor said. He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow stammers, proceeded We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster Rosevean from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this afternoon. There's my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S. In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document. You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked, leaning on the counter. Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I've circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. Gospodi pomilyou. That's how the Russians prays. You seen queer sights, don't be talking, put in a jarvey. Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor same as I chew that quid. He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his teeth, bit ferociously Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent me. He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed to be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table. The printed matter on it stated Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia. All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of them) outside some primitive shanties of osier. Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear no more children. See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse's liver raw. His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for several minutes if not more. Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally. Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying Glass. That boggles 'em. Glass. Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran as follows Tarjeta Postal, Seor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, Chile. There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the LazarilloDon Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in Maritana on which occasion the former's ball passed through the latter's hat) having detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some suspicions of our friend's bona fides nevertheless it reminded him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking down the needful and breaking Boyd's heart it was not so dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back. The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was out of order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement, tower, abbey, wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts, Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne, Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative. Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies on the job, witness Mrs C P M'Coy type lend me your valise and I'll post you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star Irish caste, the TweedyFlower grand opera company with his own legal consort as leading lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes and MoodyManners, perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of success, providing puffs in the local papers could be managed by some fellow with a bit of bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and thus combine business with pleasure. But who? That was the rub. Also, without being actually positive, it struck him a great field was to be opened up in the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with the times apropos of the FishguardRosslare route which, it was mooted, was once more on the tapis in the circumlocution departments with the usual quantity of red tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e. Brown, Robinson and Co. It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead of being always and ever cooped up since my old stickinthemud took me for a wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum months of it and merited a radical change of venue after the grind of city life in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her spectacular best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around Dublin and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which there was a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen so long as it didn't come down, and in the wilds of Donegal where if report spoke true the coup d'il was exceedingly grand though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that the influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering the signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley, George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when young men's fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour's run from the pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen. I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, the chinks does. Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures. And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his back. Knife like that. Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in keeping with his character and held it in the striking position. In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers. Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. Prepare to meet your God, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt. His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further questions even should they by any chance want to. That's a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable stiletto. After which harrowing dnouement sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket. They're great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite in the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them using knives. At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance is bliss Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the strictly entre nous variety however, towards where SkintheGoat, alias the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the impression that he didn't understand one jot of what was going on. Funny, very! There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the natives choza de, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen. Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers. The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape. Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired. The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or no. Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust, and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn. What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the boats? Our soidisant sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before answering I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships. Salt junk all the time. Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring quite obliviously at it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new as someone somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was really no secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the season when duty called Ireland expects that every man and so on and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather. There was a fellow sailed with me in the Rover, the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper's in Cork where he could be drawing easy money. What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage. Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son, Danny? He'd be about eighteen now, way I figure it. The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an anchor. There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts. I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It's them black lads I objects to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does. Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the mariner's hope and rest they had a full view of the figure  and a young man's sideface looking frowningly rather. Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek. Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor. That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the. Someway in his. Squeezing or. See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn. And in point of fact the young man named Antonio's livid face did actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the unreserved admiration of everybody including SkintheGoat, who this time stretched over. Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He's gone too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay. He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression of before. Neat bit of work, one longshoreman said. And what's the number for? loafer number two queried. Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor. Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this time with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the direction of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was. And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged end As bad as old Antonio, For he left me on my ownio. The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment round the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.) and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to admit he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles street and women would and did too a man's similar garments initialled with Bewley and Draper's marking ink (hers were, that is) if they really loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female's room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more of her. The gunboat, the keeper said. It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking, how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition. Still no matter what the cause is from... Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely remarking In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap. The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude, said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a stop to instanter to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, were not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, he could truthfully state, he, as a paterfamilias, was a stalwart advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of the sort, he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned. You as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul, believe in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you? Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try and concentrate and remember before he could say They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by court etiquette. Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly rejoining Simple? I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for instance to invent those rays Rntgen did or the telescope like Edison, though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean, and the same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as electricity but it's a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God. O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial evidence. On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in their respective ages, clashed. Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his original point with a smile of unbelief. I'm not so sure about that. That's a matter for everyman's opinion and, without dragging in the sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you in toto there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it's the big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them like Hamlet and Bacon, as, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It's like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still noone can give what he hasn't got. Try a bit. Couldn't, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the moment refusing to dictate further. Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or nay did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower orders. On the other hand he had a distinct and painful recollection they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration indeed for her pianoplaying. The idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to speak of. Sulphate of copper poison SO or something in some dried peas he remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical inspection, of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary which possibly accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble's ViCocoa on account of the medical analysis involved. Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being stirred. Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and took a sip of the offending beverage. Still it's solid food, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but regular meals as the sine qua non for any kind of proper work, mental or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different man. Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, oblige me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history. Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated article, a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly Roman or antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the least conspicuous point about it. Our mutual friend's stories are like himself, Mr Bloom apropos of knives remarked to his confidante sotto voce. Do you think they are genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and lie like old boots. Look at him. Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly accurate gospel. He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage of identical name who sprang from the pen of our national poet) who expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above described. On the other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera. And when all was said and done the lies a fellow told about himself couldn't probably hold a proverbial candle to the wholesale whoppers other fellows coined about him. Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention, he resumed. Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn't straighten their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you see, he proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the sinews or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as gods. There's an example again of simple souls. However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who reminded him a bit of Ludwig, alias Ledwidge, when he occupied the boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the management in the Flying Dutchman, a stupendous success, and his host of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually fell a bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good old succulent tuckin with garlic de rigueur off him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap. Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in (technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate accounts for character. That's why I asked you if you wrote your poetry in Italian. The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very passionate about ten shillings. Roberto ruba roba sua. Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed. Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san Tommaso Mastino. It's in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare street museum today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call it, and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don't knock against those kind of women here. An exception here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a way you find but what I'm talking about is the female form. Besides they have so little taste in dress, most of them, which greatly enhances a woman's natural beauty, no matter what you say. Rumpled stockings, it may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it's a thing I simply hate to see. Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then the others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog, collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him. So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt's rock, wreck of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell remembered it Palme on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of the town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original verse of distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish Times), breakers running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion petrified with horror. Then someone said something about the case of the s. s. Lady Cairns of Swansea run into by the Mona which was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all hands on deck. No aid was given. Her master, the Mona's, said he was afraid his collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it appears, in her hold. At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat. Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just gently dropping off into a peaceful doze. He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the door, stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and, applying its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manuvre after the counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor, evidently giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise of his bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporation stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none other in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent home comforts all his life who came in for a cool   a year at one time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make general ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver. He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of business ifa big if, howeverhe had contrived to cure himself of his particular partiality. All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin, the only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no ships ever called. There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently au fait. What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he advised them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that day's work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line. Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after his private potation and the rest of his exertions. That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in he rolled after his successful libationcumpotation, introducing an atmosphere of drink into the soire, boisterously trolling, like a veritable son of a seacook The biscuits was as hard as brass And the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse. O, Johnny Lever! Johnny Lever, O! After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form provided. SkintheGoat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to grind, was airing his grievances in a forciblefeeble philippic anent the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on the face of God's earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every year, ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained out of it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through the nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot more surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly became general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was that colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England was toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel, which he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the Greek hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he completely gripped their attention by showing the tendon referred to on his boot. His advice to every Irishman was stay in the land of your birth and work for Ireland and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of her sons. Silence all round marked the termination of his finale. The impervious navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed. Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism. To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper concurred but nevertheless held to his main view. Who's the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and generals we've got? Tell me that. The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial blemishes apart. That's right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic peasant. He's the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins? While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing to the listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long as they didn't indulge in recriminations and come to blows. From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for, pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies, equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human soul if anything, the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, who probably wasn't the other person at all, he (B.) couldn't help feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a party to any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south, have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently, after some words passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging his knife into her, until it just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed SkintheGoat, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skintheetcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell positively last performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some . s. d. in the course of his perambulations round the docks in the congenial atmosphere of the Old Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the other he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the offender. He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his family like me though in reality I'm not. That was one for him. A soft answer turns away wrath. He hadn't a word to say for himself as everyone saw. Am I not right? He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly. Ex quibus, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name is or after all any other, secundum carnem. Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments plan. It's a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, in the next house so to speak. Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes' war, Stephen assented, between Skinner's alley and Ormond market. Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of thing. You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn't remotely... All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of everything, greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop. They accuse, remarked he audibly. He turned away from the others, who probably and spoke nearer to, so as the others in case they Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any because you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as you are. But in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with goahead America. Turks. It's in the dogma. Because if they didn't believe they'd go straight to heaven when they die they'd try to live better, at least so I think. That's the juggle on which the p.p.'s raise the wind on false pretences. I'm, he resumed with dramatic force, as good an Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes pro rata having a comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something in the neighbourhood of   per annum. That's the vital issue at stake and it's feasible and would be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least that's my idea for what it's worth. I call that patriotism. Ubi patria, as we learned a smattering of in our classical days in Alma Mater, vita bene. Where you can live well, the sense is, if you work. Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or didn't say the words the voice he heard said, if you work. Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work. The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all must work, have to, together. I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That's work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important. You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the faubourg Saint Patrice called Ireland for short. I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated. But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me. What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps under some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the latter portion. What was it you...? Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding We can't change the country. Let us change the subject. At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked down but in a quandary, as he couldn't tell exactly what construction to put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he hadn't been familiarised with the right sort of people. With a touch of fear for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an air of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris, the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister, failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly nipped in the bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For instance there was the case of O'Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual dnouement after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got landed into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to be made amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment act, certain names of those subpnaed being handed in but not divulged for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, putting two and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to, Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the house of lords because early in life the occupant of the throne, then heir apparent, the other members of the upper ten and other high personages simply following in the footsteps of the head of the state, he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running counter to morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before under their veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy, as the law stands, was terribly down on though not for the reason they thought they were probably whatever it was except women chiefly who were always fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing should, and every welltailored man must, trying to make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to the original, there were on the other hand others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir. For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the bad having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food for reflection would amply repay any small. Intellectual stimulation, as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind. Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, old salt of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the world we live in especially as the lives of the submerged tenth, viz. coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much under the microscope lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the common groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one guinea per column. My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman's Shelter. The pink edition extra sporting of the Telegraph tell a graphic lie lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly over the respective captions which came under his special province the allembracing give us this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a start but it turned out to be only something about somebody named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle, Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish,   damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration Swindle. Letter from His Grace. William . Ascot meeting, the Gold Cup. Victory of outsider Throwaway recalls Derby of ' when Capt. Marshall's dark horse Sir Hugo captured the blue ribband at long odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address anyway. This morning (Hynes put it in of course) the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no  Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the deceased were present, were carried out (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny) by Messrs H. J. O'Neill and Son,  North Strand Road. The mourners included Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan (brotherinlaw), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John Power, eatondph  ador dorador douradora (must be where he called Monks the dayfather about Keyes's ad) Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, Stephen Dedalus B. A., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph M'C Hynes, L. Boom, C P M'Coy,M'Intosh and several others. Nettled not a little by L. Boom (as it incorrectly stated) and the line of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M'Coy and Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by their total absence (to say nothing of M'Intosh) L. Boom pointed it out to his companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness, not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints. Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his bottom jaw would let him, in? Text open thy mouth and put thy foot in it. It is. Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing to. There. While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, his side. Value  sovs with  sovs in specie added. For entire colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander's Throwaway, b. h. by RightawayThrale,  yrs,  st  lbs (W. Lane) . Lord Howard de Walden's Zinfandel (M. Cannon) . Mr W. Bass's Sceptre . Betting  to  on Zinfandel,  to  Throwaway (off). Sceptre a shade heavier. It was anybody's race then the rank outsider drew to the fore, got long lead, beating Lord Howard de Walden's chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre on a   mile course. Winner trained by Braime so that Lenehan's version of the business was all pure buncombe. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length.  sovs with  in specie. Also ran J de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons was anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) Maximum II. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced itself to eventually. There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom, said. Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said. One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read Return of Parnell. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it was killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for a time after committee room no  until he was his old self again with noone to point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone down on their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered his senses. Dead he wasn't. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they brought over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on. All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in his death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when his various different political arrangements were nearing completion or whether it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to change his boots and clothes after a wetting when a cold resulted and failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his room till he eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find the job was taken out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted with his movements even before there was absolutely no clue as to his whereabouts which were decidedly of the Alice, where art thou order even prior to his starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and Stewart so the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as a born leader of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure, a sixfooter or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet, whereas Messrs So and So who, though they weren't even a patch on the former man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay, and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the understudy in the title rle how to. He saw him once on the auspicious occasion when they broke up the type in the Insuppressible or was it United Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said Thank you, excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior notwithstanding the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip what's bred in the bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if they didn't set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of shillyshally usually followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And then, number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to produce your credentials like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, Bella was the boat's name to the best of his recollection he, the heir, went down in as the evidence went to show and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, lord Bellew was it, as he might very easily have picked up the details from some pal on board ship and then, when got up to tally with the description given, introduce himself with Excuse me, my name is So and So or some such commonplace remark. A more prudent course, as Bloom said to the not over effusive, in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion beside him, would have been to sound the lie of the land first. That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor commented. She put the first nail in his coffin. Fine lump of a woman all the same, the soidisant townclerk Henry Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. She loosened many a man's thighs. I seen her picture in a barber's. The husband was a captain or an officer. Ay, SkintheGoat amusingly added, he was and a cottonball one. This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom he, without the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them full of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them till bit by bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of the town till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few evildisposed, however, who were resolved upon encompassing his downfall though the thing was public property all along though not to anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed into. Since their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared her bedroom which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was it was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch, with nothing in common between them beyond the name, and then a real man arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms and forgetting home ties, the usual sequel, to bask in the loved one's smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped up. Can real love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, exist between married folk? Poser. Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with affection, carried away by a wave of folly. A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a high order, as compared with the other military supernumerary that is (who was just the usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the th hussars to be accurate) and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents, and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his head much in the same way as the fabled ass's kick. Looking back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of dream. And then coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it went without saying you would feel out of place as things always moved with the times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he had not been in for quite a number of years looked different somehow since, as it happened, he went to reside on the north side. North or south, however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so, types that wouldn't do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting every shred of decency to the winds. Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don't greatly mistake she was Spanish too. The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and so many. Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it was as she lived there. So, Spain. Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket Sweets of, which reminded him by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out his pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained rapidly finally he. Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type? Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth, standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which was In Old Madrid, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her (the lady's) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin's premier photographic artist, being responsible for the esthetic execution. Mrs Bloom, my wife the prima donna Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like her then. Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking likeness in expression but it did not do justice to her figure which came in for a lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the best advantage in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the. He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, puritanisme, it does though, Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors (Bandez!) Figne toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply wasn't art in a word. The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar's good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak for itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm. And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving embonpoint. In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp which she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of his because he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (sic) in it which must have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray. The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated, distingu and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the bunch though you wouldn't think he had it in him yet you would. Besides he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was though at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course intimate. Then the decree nisi and the King's proctor tries to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, nisi was made absolute. But as for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on the historic fracas when the fallen leader's, who notoriously stuck to his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery, (leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the Insuppressible or no it was United Ireland (a by no means by the by appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from the facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. Though palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell's) a silk one was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect aplomb, saying Thank you, sir, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave. On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial moment in a loving position locked in one another's arms, drawing attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical bias, believed and didn't make the smallest bones about saying so either that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life and was on for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred on another, the cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt. It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim ladies' society was a conditio sine qua non though he had the gravest possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea and the company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and walking out leading up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things he popped out with attracted the elder man who was several years the other's senior or like his father but something substantial he certainly ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled. At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired though unwrinkled face. Some time yesterday, Stephen said. Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow Friday. Ah, you mean it's after twelve! The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself. Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected. Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of years previously when he had been a quasi aspirant to parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had a sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely in people's mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which wouldn't exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all events was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the trend of modern opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his mistake, he was subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted with going a step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one time inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he, though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word. Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue (somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which of the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved him to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things considered. His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or not over effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn't what you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him was he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. A move had to be made because that merry old soul, the grasswidower in question who appeared to be glued to the spot, didn't appear in any particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no bar off Sheriff street lower would be the best clue to that equivocal character's whereabouts for a few days to come, alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids') with sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra remarks passim. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they appeared to imagine he came from CarrickonShannon or somewhereabouts in the county Sligo. I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while prudently pocketing her photo, as it's rather stuffy here you just come home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the vicinity. You can't drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I'll just pay this lot. The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper of the shanty who didn't seem to. Yes, that's the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less. All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B's) busy brain, education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from the housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. Because he more than suspected he had his father's voice to bank his hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of that particular red herring just to. The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers' association dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect. To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why. Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner put in, manifesting some natural impatience. And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed. The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears. Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk queried. Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading. Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, manner of speaking. The Arabian Nights Entertainment was my favourite and Red as a Rose is She. Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what, found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial remark. To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him in unmistakable figures, coffee d, confectionery do, and honestly well worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark. Come, he counselled to close the sance. Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the shelter or shanty together and the lite society of oilskin and company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their dolce far niente. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door. One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs upside down, on the tables in cafs. To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment's hesitation, saying straight off To sweep the floor in the morning. So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same time apologetic to get on his companion's right, a habit of his, by the bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit weak on his pins. It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in a moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. Come. It's not far. Lean on me. Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen's right and led him on accordingly. Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all that. Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming of fresh fields and pastures new. And apropos of coffin of stones the analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings. So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to follow at the first gooff but the music of Mercadante's Huguenots, Meyerbeer's Seven Last Words on the Cross and Mozart's Twelfth Mass he simply revelled in, the Gloria in that being, to his mind, the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such as those Moody and Sankey hymns or Bid me to live and I will live thy protestant to be. He also yielded to none in his admiration of Rossini's Stabat Mater, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laurels and putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers' church in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors to hear her with virtuosos, or virtuosi rather. There was the unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring preferably light opera of the Don Giovanni description and Martha, a gem in its line, he had a penchant, though with only a surface knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old favourites, he mentioned par excellence Lionel's air in Martha, M'appari, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the lips of Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in reply to a politely put query, said he didn't sing it but launched out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at least of in or about that period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus, an instrument he was contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite recall though the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their dux and comes conceits and Byrd (William) who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen's chapel or anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull. On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground, brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a striking coincidence. By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving, Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other's sleeve gently, jocosely remarking Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller. They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but, as he wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that might crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy horror to face. But it was no animal's fault in particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was manuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old. What's this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging in medias res, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind. He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen, image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as he was perhaps not that way built. Still, supposing he had his father's gift as he more than suspected, it opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall's Irish industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general. Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air Youth here has End by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows come from. Even more he liked an old German song of Johannes Jeep about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, which boggled Bloom a bit Von der Sirenen Listigkeit Tun die Poeten dichten. These opening bars he sang and translated extempore. Bloom, nodding, said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which he did. A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons, which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate possessor in the near future an entre into fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large way of business and titled people where with his university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were on recordin fact, without giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that, different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their genus omne. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win a high place in the city's esteem where he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big if, however, with some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped up a too much fted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat of any sort, hung on to him at all. The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on the fools step in where angels principle, advising him to sever his connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it which in Bloom's humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of a person's character, no pun intended. The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had ended, patient in his scythed car. Side by side Bloom, profiting by the contretemps, with Stephen passed through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad. Und alle Schiffe brcken. The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black, one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, to be married by Father Maher. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again continuing their tte  tte (which, of course, he was utterly out of) about sirens, enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the sleeper car who in any case couldn't possibly hear because they were too far simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street and looked after their lowbacked car. What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning? Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and Mountjoy square, west then, at reduced pace, each bearing left, Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of Temple street then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching, disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before George's church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than the arc which it subtends. Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary? Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman, prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church, ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the presabbath, Stephen's collapse. Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective like and unlike reactions to experience? Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual magnetism. Were their views on some points divergent? Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's views on the importance of dietary and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen's views on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom assented covertly to Stephen's rectification of the anachronism involved in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus, son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year  in the reign of Leary to the year  or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt (  A.D.), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first no bigger than a woman's hand. Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative? The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees. Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in the past? In  with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's corner and Leonard's corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue. In  with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony of Uppercross. In  occasionally with casual acquaintances and prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class railway carriages of suburban lines. In  frequently with major Brian Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and separately on the lounge in Matthew Dillon's house in Roundtown. Once in  and once in  with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both occasions in the parlour of his (Bloom's) house in Lombard street, west. What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates , , , , , ,  did Bloom make before their arrival at their destination? He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations. As in what ways? From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received existence with existence he was with any as any with any from existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived. What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination? At the housesteps of the th of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number  Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey. Was it there? It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on the day but one preceding. Why was he doubly irritated? Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget. What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly (respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple? To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock. Bloom's decision? A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches of the area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in space by separating himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for the impact of the fall. Did he fall? By his body's known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman, pharmaceutical chemist of  Frederick street, north, on the last feast of the Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year one thousand nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five thousand six hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand three hundred and twentytwo), golden number , epact , solar cycle , dominical letters C B, Roman indiction , Julian period , MCMIV. Did he rise uninjured by concussion? Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable coal gas by turning on the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a portable candle. What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive? Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of  CP, a man lighting a candle of  CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man leaving the kitchen holding a candle. Did the man reappear elsewhere? After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle. Did Stephen obey his sign? Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed softly along the hallway the man's back and listed feet and lighted candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom's house. What did Bloom do? He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs Flower and M'Donald of  D'Olier street, kindled it at three projecting points of paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing its carbon and hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen of the air. Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think? Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two, had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the county of Kildare of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street of his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss Julia Morkan at  Usher's Island of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie (Richard) Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at  Clanbrassil street of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of Saint Francis Xavier  of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the physics' theatre of university College,  Stephen's Green, north of his sister Dilly (Delia) in his father's house in Cabra. What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from the fire towards the opposite wall? Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope, stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of ladies' grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer extremities and the third at their point of junction. What did Bloom see on the range? On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan on the left (larger) hob a black iron kettle. What did Bloom do at the range? He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to let it flow. Did it flow? Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of  million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial plant cost of   per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen of the Downs and Callowhill to the  acre reservoir at Stillorgan, a distance of  statute miles, and thence, through a system of relieving tanks, by a gradient of  feet to the city boundary at Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth and daily supply of   million gallons the water had fallen below the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of recourse being had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals as in ) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding their ration of  gallons per day per pauper supplied through a  inch meter, had been convicted of a wastage of , gallons per night by a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers, solvent, sound. What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? Its universality its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's projection its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding  fathoms the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard the independence of its units the variability of states of sea its hydrostatic quiescence in calm its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides its subsidence after devastation its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic its climatic and commercial significance its preponderance of  to  over the dry land of the globe its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn the multisecular stability of its primeval basin its luteofulvous bed its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the most precious metals its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories its alluvial deposits its weight and volume and density its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen its healing virtues its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation its infallibility as paradigm and paragon its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail its strength in rigid hydrants its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe its ubiquity as constituting   of the human body the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon. Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he return to the stillflowing tap? To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of Barrington's lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller. What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom's offer? That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by submersion in cold water, (his last bath having taken place in the month of October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous substances of glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and language. What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a preliminary wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region in case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most sensitive to cold being the nape, stomach and thenar or sole of foot? The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius. What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress? Dietary concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed. Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest? Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and recuperation. What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the agency of fire? The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat (radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous ether. Heat (convected), a mode of motion developed by such combustion, was constantly and increasingly conveyed from the source of calorification to the liquid contained in the vessel, being radiated through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the metal iron, in part reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually raising the temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of  thermal units needed to raise  pound of water from  to  Fahrenheit. What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature? A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at both sides simultaneously. For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled? To shave himself. What advantages attended shaving by night? A softer beard a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from shave to shave in its agglutinated lather a softer skin if unexpectedly encountering female acquaintances in remote places at incustomary hours quiet reflections upon the course of the day a cleaner sensation when awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock, a paper read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might cause a faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with precision cut and humected and applied adhered which was to be done. Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noise? Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine feminine passive active hand. What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting influence? The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human blood even when the end justified the means, preferring, in their natural order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic surgery. What lay under exposure on the lower, middle and upper shelves of the kitchen dresser, opened by Bloom? On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white goldrimmed eggcups, an open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly copper, and a phial of aromatic (violet) comfits. On the middle shelf a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of Plumtree's potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and Co's white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue paper, a packet of Epps's soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch's choice tea at  per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one, the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy's cream, a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a quarter of soured adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr Bloom's and Mrs Fleming's breakfasts, made one imperial pint, the total quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish containing a slice of fresh ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of jamjars (empty) of various sizes and proveniences. What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser? Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets, numbered  ,  . What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow? Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction, preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official and definitive result of which he had read in the Evening Telegraph, late pink edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge. Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected, been received by him? In Bernard Kiernan's licensed premises ,  and  little Britain street in David Byrne's licensed premises,  Duke street in O'Connell street lower, outside Graham Lemon's when a dark man had placed in his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah, restorer of the church in Zion in Lincoln place outside the premises of F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited), dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and restituted the copy of the current issue of the Freeman's Journal and National Press which he had been about to throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths,  Leinster street, with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction. What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations? The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding originally from a successful interpretation. His mood? He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he was satisfied. What satisfied him? To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to others. Light to the gentiles. How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile? He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps's soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed on the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity prescribed. What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his guest? Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly), he substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion (Molly). Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of hospitality? His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he accepted them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps's massproduct, the creature cocoa. Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed, reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to complete the act begun? The reparation of a fissure of the length of   inches in the right side of his guest's jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four lady's handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable condition. Who drank more quickly? Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation and taking, from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a steady flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent's one, six to two, nine to three. What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act? Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life. Had he found their solution? In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages, aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, the answers not bearing in all points. What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him, potential poet, at the age of  in  on the occasion of the offering of three prizes of ,  and  respectively for competition by the Shamrock, a weekly newspaper? An ambition to squint At my verses in print Makes me hope that for these you'll find room. If you so condescend Then please place at the end The name of yours truly, L. Bloom. Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him? Name, age, race, creed. What anagrams had he made on his name in youth? Leopold Bloom Ellpodbomool Molldopeloob Bollopedoom Old Ollebo, M. P. What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic poet) sent to Miss Marion (Molly) Tweedy on the  February ? Poets oft have sung in rhyme Of music sweet their praise divine. Let them hymn it nine times nine. Dearer far than song or wine. You are mine. The world is mine. What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G. Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual, years, entitled If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now, commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, , , ,  South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the valley of diamonds, of the second edition ( January ) of the grand annual Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor (produced by R. Shelton  December , written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by George A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan under the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie Noir, harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist, principal girl? Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest, the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born , acceded ) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses the duke and duchess of York (real) and of His Majesty King Brian Boru (imaginary) thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly Bouverist's nonintellectual, nonpolitical, nontopical expression of countenance and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist's revelations of white articles of nonintellectual, nonpolitical, nontopical underclothing while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles fifthly, the difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and humorous allusions from Everybody's Book of Jokes ( pages and a laugh in every one) sixthly, the rhymes, homophonous and cacophonous, associated with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket Barton. What relation existed between their ages?  years before in  when Bloom was of Stephen's present age Stephen was .  years after in  when Stephen would be of Bloom's present age Bloom would be . In  when Bloom would be  and Stephen  their ages initially in the ratio of  to  would be as   to  , the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in  had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then  when Stephen was  Bloom would be  and in  when Stephen would be , as Bloom then was, Bloom would be  while in  when Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of  Bloom, being  years alive having been born in the year , would have surpassed by  years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah,  years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would attain that age in the year  A.D., Bloom would have been obliged to have been alive , years, having been obliged to have been born in the year , B.C. What events might nullify these calculations? The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a new era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable. How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance? Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon's house, Medina Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in , in the company of Stephen's mother, Stephen being then of the age of  and reluctant to give his hand in salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel on a rainy Sunday in the January of , in the company of Stephen's father and Stephen's granduncle, Stephen being then  years older. Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and afterwards seconded by the father? Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined. Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a third connecting link between them? Mrs Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the house of Stephen's parents from  September  to  December  and had also resided during the years ,  and  in the City Arms Hotel owned by Elizabeth O'Dowd of  Prussia street where, during parts of the years  and , she had been a constant informant of Bloom who resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the employment of Joseph Cuffe of  Smithfield for the superintendence of sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle market on the North Circular road. Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her? He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business where she had remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from the city to the Phoenix Park and vice versa. Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity? Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds, velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe. What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years deceased? The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient catarrhal deafness the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the statue of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers. Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the more desirable? The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow's Physical Strength and How to Obtain It which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of juvenile agility. Had any special agility been his in earlier youth? Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High school scholar he had excelled in his stable and protracted execution of the half lever movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally developed abdominal muscles. Did either openly allude to their racial difference? Neither. What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom's thoughts about Stephen? He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was not. What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective parentages? Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag (subsequently Rudolph Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London and Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Stephen, eldest surviving male consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of Mary, daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier). Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or layman? Bloom (three times), by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A., alone, in the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe, by James O'Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump in the village of Swords, and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., alone, in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Did they find their educational careers similar? Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively through a dame's school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for Stephen Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory, junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the matriculation, first arts, second arts and arts degree courses of the royal university. Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the university of life? Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to him. What two temperaments did they individually represent? The scientific. The artistic. What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards applied, rather than towards pure, science? Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump. Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of kindergarten? Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard, catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls, historically costumed dolls. What also stimulated him in his cogitations? The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James, the former by his d bazaar at  George's street, south, the latter at his  d shop and world's fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at  Henry street, admission d, children d and the infinite possibilities hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed in triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility (divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to convince, to decide. Such as? K. . Kino's  Trousers. House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes. Such as not? Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive gratis  pair of our special noncompo boots, guaranteed  candle power. Address Barclay and Cook,  Talbot street. Bacilikil (Insect Powder). Veribest (Boot Blacking). Uwantit (Combined pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and pipecleaner). Such as never? What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Incomplete. With it an abode of bliss. Manufactured by George Plumtree,  Merchants' quay, Dublin, put up in  oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P., Rotunda Ward,  Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree in a meatpot, registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. Plamtroo. Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably conduce to success? His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be seated engaged in writing. What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen? Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She sits. She goes to window. She stands. She sits. Twilight. She thinks. On solitary hotel paper she writes. She thinks. She writes. She sighs. Wheels and hoofs. She hurries out. He comes from his dark corner. He seizes solitary paper. He holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads. Solitary. What? In sloping, upright and backhands Queen's Hotel, Queen's Hotel, Queen's Hotel. Queen's Ho... What suggested scene was then reconstructed by Bloom? The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf Virag) died on the evening of the  June , at some hour unstated, in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered in the form of a neuralgic liniment composed of  parts of aconite liniment to  of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at . a.m. on the morning of  June  at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy,  Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at . p.m. on the afternoon of  June  a new boater straw hat, extra smart (after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin aforesaid), at the general drapery store of James Cullen,  Main street, Ennis. Did he attribute this homonymity to information or coincidence or intuition? Coincidence. Did he depict the scene verbally for his guest to see? He preferred himself to see another's face and listen to another's words by which potential narration was realised and kinetic temperament relieved. Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to him, described by the narrator as A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums? It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms (e.g. My Favourite Hero or Procrastination is the Thief of Time) composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and in conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially collected and selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent merit) for the use of preparatory and junior grade students or contributed in printed form, following the precedent of Philip Beaufoy or Doctor Dick or Heblon's Studies in Blue, to a publication of certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as intellectual stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of successful narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement, during the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer solstice on the day but three following, videlicet, Tuesday,  June (S. Aloysius Gonzaga), sunrise . a.m., sunset . p.m. Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other frequently engaged his mind? What to do with our wives. What had been his hypothetical singular solutions? Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess or backgammon) embroidery, darning or knitting for the policeaided clothing society musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano and flute, guitar and piano legal scrivenery or envelope addressing biweekly visits to variety entertainments commercial activity as pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress proprietress in a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan the clandestine satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled social visits, at regular infrequent prevented intervals and with regular frequent preventive superintendence, to and from female acquaintances of recognised respectability in the vicinity courses of evening instruction specially designed to render liberal instruction agreeable. What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution? In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. After completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned the implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment, exposed to the corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by false analogy or by both metempsychosis (met him pike hoses), alias (a mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture). What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things? The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her proficiency of judgment regarding one person, proved true by experiment. How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance? Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a certain page by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent knowledge by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other's ignorant lapse. With what success had he attempted direct instruction? She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered, rerepeated with error. What system had proved more effective? Indirect suggestion implicating selfinterest. Example? She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat. Accepting the analogy implied in his guest's parable which examples of postexilic eminence did he adduce? Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, author of More Nebukim (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn of such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn) there arose none like Moses (Maimonides). What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by Stephen? That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher, name uncertain. Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a selected or rejected race mentioned? Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher), Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist). What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts by guest to host and by host to guest? By Stephen suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin (walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care). By Bloom Kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m'baad l'zamatejch (thy temple amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate). How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages made in substantiation of the oral comparison? By juxtaposition. On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior literary style, entituled Sweets of Sin (produced by Bloom and so manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of the table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence of mem) a substituted qoph, explaining their arithmetical values as ordinal and cardinal numbers, videlicet , , , and . Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical? Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary. What points of contact existed between these languages and between the peoples who spoke them? The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and servile letters in both languages their antiquity, both having been taught on the plain of Shinar  years after the deluge in the seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland their archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works of rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara), Massor, Pentateuch, Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, Book of Kells their dispersal, persecution, survival and revival the isolation of their synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. Mary's Abbey) and masshouse (Adam and Eve's tavern) the proscription of their national costumes in penal laws and jewish dress acts the restoration in Chanah David of Zion and the possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution. What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple, ethnically irreducible consummation? Kolod balejwaw pnimah Nefesch, jehudi, homijah. Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich? In consequence of defective mnemotechnic. How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency? By a periphrastic version of the general text. In what common study did their mutual reflections merge? The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions (Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic). Did the guest comply with his host's request? Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters. What was Stephen's auditive sensation? He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation of the past. What was Bloom's visual sensation? He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a future. What were Stephen's and Bloom's quasisimultaneous volitional quasisensations of concealed identities? Visually, Stephen's The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted by Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair. Auditively, Bloom's The traditional accent of the ecstasy of catastrophe. What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with what exemplars? In the church, Roman, Anglican or Nonconformist exemplars, the very reverend John Conmee S. J., the reverend T. Salmon, D. D., provost of Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish exemplars, Seymour Bushe, K. C., Rufus Isaacs, K. C. On the stage, modern or Shakespearean exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian, Osmond Tearle ( ), exponent of Shakespeare. Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a strange legend on an allied theme? Reassuringly, their place, where none could hear them talk, being secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream plus cocoa, having been consumed. Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend. Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all Went out for to play ball. And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played He drove it o'er the jew's garden wall. And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played He broke the jew's windows all. How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part? With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew, he heard with pleasure and saw the unbroken kitchen window. Recite the second part (minor) of the legend. Then out there came the jew's daughter And she all dressed in green. 'Come back, come back, you pretty little boy, And play your ball again. I can't come back and I won't come back Without my schoolfellows all. For if my master he did hear He'd make it a sorry ball. She took him by the lilywhite hand And led him along the hall Until she led him to a room Where none could hear him call. She took a penknife out of her pocket And cut off his little head. And now he'll play his ball no more For he lies among the dead. How did the father of Millicent receive this second part? With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew's daughter, all dressed in green. Condense Stephen's commentary. One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by inadvertence twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting. Why was the host (victim predestined) sad? He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him should by him not be told. Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still? In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy. Why was the host (secret infidel) silent? He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder the incitations of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism. From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not totally immune? From hypnotic suggestion once, waking, he had not recognised his sleeping apartment more than once, waking, he had been for an indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From somnambulism once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain, sleeping. Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member of his family? Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent (Milly) at the ages of  and  years had uttered in sleep an exclamation of terror and had replied to the interrogations of two figures in night attire with a vacant mute expression. What other infantile memories had he of her?  June . A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks her moneybox counted his three free moneypenny buttons, one, tloo, tlee a doll, a boy, a sailor she cast away blond, born of two dark, she had blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, Austrian army, proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British navy. What endemic characteristics were present? Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct line of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant intervals to more distant intervals to its most distant intervals. What memories had he of her adolescence? She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke's lawn, entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and take away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South Circular road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an individual of sinister aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and turned abruptly back (reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the th anniversary of her birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county Westmeath, making a brief allusion to a local student (faculty and year not stated). Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him? Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped. What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly, if differently? A temporary departure of his cat. Why similarly, why differently? Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male (Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently, because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the habitation. In other respects were their differences similar? In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness. As? Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it for her (cf neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake in Stephen's green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented spit, describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the constancy of its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf mousewatching cat). Again, in order to remember the date, combatants, issue and consequences of a famous military engagement she pulled a plait of her hair (cf earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf hearthdreaming cat). Hence, in passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness, their differences were similar. In what way had he utilised gifts () an owl, ) a clock, given as matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her? As object lessons to explain ) the nature and habits of oviparous animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of vision, the secular process of imbalsamation ) the principle of the pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions of clockwise moveable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour when the longer and the shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination, videlicet,   minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression. In what manners did she reciprocate? She remembered on the th anniversary of his birth she presented to him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware. She provided at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases had been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired a natural phenomenon having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part. What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist, make to Stephen, noctambulist? To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of his host and hostess. What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation of such an extemporisation? For the guest security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the host rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the hostess disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation. Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and a hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew's daughter? Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother through daughter. To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest return a monosyllabic negative answer? If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at Sydney Parade railway station,  October . What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the host? A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus (born Goulding),  June , vigil of the anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag). Was the proposal of asylum accepted? Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined. What exchange of money took place between host and guest? The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money ( ), one pound seven shillings sterling, advanced by the latter to the former. What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified, declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed? To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place the residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal instruction, place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate a series of static, semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues, places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers were resident in the same place), the Ship hotel and tavern,  Lower Abbey street (W. and E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland,  Kildare street, the National Maternity Hospital, ,  and  Holles street, a public garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a conjunction of two or more public thoroughfares, the point of bisection of a right line drawn between their residences (if both speakers were resident in different places). What rendered problematic for Bloom the realisation of these mutually selfexcluding propositions? The irreparability of the past once at a performance of Albert Hengler's circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin, an intuitive particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had publicly declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his (the clown's) papa. The imprevidibility of the future once in the summer of  he (Bloom) had marked a florin () with three notches on the milled edge and tendered it in payment of an account due to and received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers,  Charlemont Mall, Grand Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible, circuitous or direct, return. Was the clown Bloom's son? No. Had Bloom's coin returned? Never. Why would a recurrent frustration the more depress him? Because at the critical turningpoint of human existence he desired to amend many social conditions, the product of inequality and avarice and international animosity. He believed then that human life was infinitely perfectible, eliminating these conditions? There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct from human law, as integral parts of the human whole the necessity of destruction to procure alimentary sustenance the painful character of the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and death the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly) human females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause inevitable accidents at sea, in mines and factories certain very painful maladies and their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital criminality, decimating epidemics catastrophic cataclysms which make terror the basis of human mentality seismic upheavals the epicentres of which are located in densely populated regions the fact of vital growth, through convulsions of metamorphosis, from infancy through maturity to decay. Why did he desist from speculation? Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena to be removed. Did Stephen participate in his dejection? He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational reagent between a micro and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon the incertitude of the void. Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom? Not verbally. Substantially. What comforted his misapprehension? That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void. In what order of precedence, with what attendant ceremony was the exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation effected? Lighted Candle in Stick borne by BLOOM Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by STEPHEN With what intonation secreto of what commemorative psalm? The th, modus peregrinus In exitu Isral de Egypto domus Jacob de populo barbaro. What did each do at the door of egress? Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his head. For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress? For a cat. What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden? The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit. With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his companion of various constellations? Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster of the moon invisible in incipient lunation, approaching perigee of the infinite lattiginous scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft  ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth of Sirius (alpha in Canis Maior)  lightyears (,,,, miles) distant and in volume  times the dimension of our planet of Arcturus of the precession of equinoxes of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula in which  of our solar systems could be contained of moribund and of nascent new stars such as Nova in  of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving wanderers from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity. Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast? Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the earth of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa of the incalculable trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead of the universe of human serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached. Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result? Because some years previously in  when occupied with the problem of the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such magnitude and of so many places, e.g., the th power of the th power of , that, the result having been obtained,  closely printed volumes of  pages each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to be requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its printed integers of units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, the nucleus of the nebula of every digit of every series containing succinctly the potentiality of being raised to the utmost kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its powers. Did he find the problems of the inhabitability of the planets and their satellites by a race, given in species, and of the possible social and moral redemption of said race by a redeemer, easier of solution? Of a different order of difficulty. Conscious that the human organism, normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of  tons, when elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as the line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was approximated from nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian, Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent conditions, though an apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms with finite differences resulting similar to the whole and to one another would probably there as here remain inalterably and inalienably attached to vanities, to vanities of vanities and to all that is vanity. And the problem of possible redemption? The minor was proved by the major. Which various features of the constellations were in turn considered? The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality (white, yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar) their degrees of brilliancy their magnitudes revealed up to and including the th their positions the waggoner's star Walsingham way the chariot of David the annular cinctures of Saturn the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns the interdependent gyrations of double suns the independent synchronous discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel, Galle the systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes of distances and squares of times of revolution the almost infinite compressibility of hirsute comets and their vast elliptical egressive and reentrant orbits from perihelion to aphelion the sidereal origin of meteoric stones the Libyan floods on Mars about the period of the birth of the younger astroscopist the annual recurrence of meteoric showers about the period of the feast of S. Lawrence (martyr,  August) the monthly recurrence known as the new moon with the old moon in her arms the posited influence of celestial on human bodies the appearance of a star (st magnitude) of exceeding brilliancy dominating by night and day (a new luminous sun generated by the collision and amalgamation in incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about the period of the birth of William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent neversetting constellation of Cassiopeia and of a star (nd magnitude) of similar origin but of lesser brilliancy which had appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of the Corona Septentrionalis about the period of the birth of Leopold Bloom and of other stars of (presumably) similar origin which had (effectively or presumably) appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of Andromeda about the period of the birth of Stephen Dedalus, and in and from the constellation of Auriga some years after the birth and death of Rudolph Bloom, junior, and in and from other constellations some years before or after the birth or death of other persons the attendant phenomena of eclipses, solar and lunar, from immersion to emersion, abatement of wind, transit of shadow, taciturnity of winged creatures, emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular animals, persistence of infernal light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, pallor of human beings. His (Bloom's) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and allowing for possible error? That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from the known to the unknown an infinity renderable equally finite by the suppositious apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same and of different magnitudes a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in space, remobilised in air a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a present before its probable spectators had entered actual present existence. Was he more convinced of the esthetic value of the spectacle? Indubitably in consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the delirium of the frenzy of attachment or in the abasement of rejection invoking ardent sympathetic constellations or the frigidity of the satellite of their planet. Did he then accept as an article of belief the theory of astrological influences upon sublunary disasters? It seemed to him as possible of proof as of confutation and the nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as attributable to verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy the lake of dreams, the sea of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean of fecundity. What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and woman? Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian generations her nocturnal predominance her satellitic dependence her luminary reflection her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning the forced invariability of her aspect her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation her potency over effluent and refluent waters her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency the tranquil inscrutability of her visage the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity her omens of tempest and of calm the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence her splendour, when visible her attraction, when invisible. What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom's, who attracted Stephen's, gaze? In the second storey (rere) of his (Bloom's) house the light of a paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected on a screen of roller blind supplied by Frank O'Hara, window blind, curtain pole and revolving shutter manufacturer,  Aungier street. How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person, his wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp? With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations with subdued affection and admiration with description with impediment with suggestion. Both then were silent? Silent, each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces. Were they indefinitely inactive? At Stephen's suggestion, at Bloom's instigation both, first Stephen, then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, their gazes, first Bloom's, then Stephen's, elevated to the projected luminous and semiluminous shadow. Similarly? The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations were dissimilar Bloom's longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form of the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter, who in his ultimate year at High School () had been capable of attaining the point of greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the institution,  scholars Stephen's higher, more sibilant, who in the ultimate hours of the previous day had augmented by diuretic consumption an insistent vesical pressure. What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the invisible audible collateral organ of the other? To Bloom the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity, reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity. To Stephen the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised ( January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails. What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed? A star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the stargroup of the Tress of Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo. How did the centripetal remainer afford egress to the centrifugal departer? By inserting the barrel of an arruginated male key in the hole of an unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the bow of the key and turning its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt from its staple, pulling inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and revealing an aperture for free egress and free ingress. How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation? Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles. What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of their (respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands? The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the bells in the church of Saint George. What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard? By Stephen Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet. Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus excipiat. By Bloom Heigho, heigho, Heigho, heigho. Where were the several members of the company which with Bloom that day at the bidding of that peal had travelled from Sandymount in the south to Glasnevin in the north? Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power (in bed), Simon Dedalus (in bed), Ned Lambert (in bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Joe Hynes (in bed), John Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed), Patsy Dignam (in bed), Paddy Dignam (in the grave). Alone, what did Bloom hear? The double reverberation of retreating feet on the heavenborn earth, the double vibration of a jew's harp in the resonant lane. Alone, what did Bloom feel? The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Raumur the incipient intimations of proximate dawn. Of what did bellchime and handtouch and footstep and lonechill remind him? Of companions now in various manners in different places defunct Percy Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River), Philip Gilligan (phthisis, Jervis Street hospital), Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin Bay), Philip Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street), Michael Hart (phthisis, Mater Misericordiae hospital), Patrick Dignam (apoplexy, Sandymount). What prospect of what phenomena inclined him to remain? The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the apparition of a new solar disk. Had he ever been a spectator of those phenomena? Once, in , after a protracted performance of charades in the house of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited with patience the apparition of the diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his gaze turned in the direction of Mizrach, the east. He remembered the initial paraphenomena? More active air, a matutinal distant cock, ecclesiastical clocks at various points, avine music, the isolated tread of an early wayfarer, the visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous body, the first golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the horizon. Did he remain? With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room, hallfloor, and reentered. What suddenly arrested his ingress? The right temporal lobe of the hollow sphere of his cranium came into contact with a solid timber angle where, an infinitesimal but sensible fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was located in consequence of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered. Describe the alterations effected in the disposition of the articles of furniture. A sofa upholstered in prune plush had been translocated from opposite the door to the ingleside near the compactly furled Union Jack (an alteration which he had frequently intended to execute) the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite the door in the place vacated by the prune plush sofa the walnut sideboard (a projecting angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had been moved from its position beside the door to a more advantageous but more perilous position in front of the door two chairs had been moved from right and left of the ingleside to the position originally occupied by the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table. Describe them. One a squat stuffed easychair, with stout arms extended and back slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing discolouration. The other a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed directly opposite the former, its frame from top to seat and from seat to base being varnished dark brown, its seat being a bright circle of white plaited rush. What significances attached to these two chairs? Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of circumstantial evidence, of testimonial supermanence. What occupied the position originally occupied by the sideboard? A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed keyboard, its closed coffin supporting a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves and an emerald ashtray containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed cigarette and two discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the music in the key of G natural for voice and piano of Love's Old Sweet Song (words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications ad libitum, forte, pedal, animato, sustained pedal, ritirando, close. With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects? With strain, elevating a candlestick with pain, feeling on his right temple a contused tumescence with attention, focussing his gaze on a large dull passive and a slender bright active with solicitation, bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe with amusement, remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the gradation of green with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility the consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual discolouration. His next proceeding? From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus (illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to facilitate total combustion. What followed this operation? The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense. What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the mantelpiece? A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of . a.m. on the  March , matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon a dwarf tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper. What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and Bloom? In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle. What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his attention? The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man. Why solitary (ipsorelative)? Brothers and sisters had he none. Yet that man's father was his grandfather's son. Why mutable (aliorelative)? From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal procreator. What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror? The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles on the two bookshelves opposite. Catalogue these books. Thom's Dublin Post Office Directory, . Denis Florence M'Carthy's Poetical Works (copper beechleaf bookmark at p. ). Shakespeare's Works (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled). The Useful Ready Reckoner (brown cloth). The Secret History of the Court of Charles II (red cloth, tooled binding). The Child's Guide (blue cloth). The Beauties of Killarney (wrappers). When We Were Boys by William O'Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly faded, envelope bookmark at p. ). Thoughts from Spinoza (maroon leather). The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth). Ellis's Three Trips to Madagascar (brown cloth, title obliterated). The StarkMunro Letters by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of Dublin Public Library,  Capel street, lent  May (Whitsun Eve) , due  June ,  days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white letternumber ticket). Voyages in China by 'Viator (recovered with brown paper, red ink title). Philosophy of the Talmud (sewn pamphlet). Lockhart's Life of Napoleon (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories, aggrandising defeats of the protagonist). Soll und Haben by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters, cigarette coupon bookmark at p. ). Hozier's History of the RussoTurkish War (brown cloth,  volumes, with gummed label, Garrison Library, Governor's Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover). Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland by William Allingham (second edition, green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner's name on recto of flyleaf erased). A Handbook of Astronomy (cover, brown leather, detached,  plates, antique letterpress long primer, author's footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica). The Hidden Life of Christ (black boards). In the Track of the Sun (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent title intestation). Physical Strength and How to Obtain It by Eugen Sandow (red cloth). Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry written in French by F. Ignat. Pardies and rendered into Englih by John Harris D. D. London, printed for R. Knaplock at the Bihop's Head, MDCCXI, with dedicatory epitle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, equire, Member of Parliament for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, dated this th day of May  and requeting the peron who should find it, if the book should be lot or go atray, to retore it to Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Ennicorthy, county Wicklow, the finet place in the world. What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of the inverted volumes? The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its place the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella inclined in a closestool the insecurity of hiding any secret document behind, beneath or between the pages of a book. Which volume was the largest in bulk? Hozier's History of the RussoTurkish War. What among other data did the second volume of the work in question contain? The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered). Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question? Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic secondly, because after an interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to consult the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of the military engagement, Plevna. What caused him consolation in his sitting posture? The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, sex, counsel of a statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus purchased by auction from P. A. Wren,  Bachelor's Walk. What caused him irritation in his sitting posture? Inhibitory pressure of collar (size ) and waistcoat ( buttons), two articles of clothing superfluous in the costume of mature males and inelastic to alterations of mass by expansion. How was the irritation allayed? He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He unbuttoned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, shirt and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black hairs extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over the circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the medial line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral vertebrae, thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in circles described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the summits of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of six minus one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which one incomplete. What involuntary actions followed? He compressed between  fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice in the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a sting inflicted  weeks and  days previously ( May ) by a bee. He scratched imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of prurition, various points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly abluted skin. He inserted his left hand into the left lower pocket of his waistcoat and extracted and replaced a silver coin ( shilling), placed there (presumably) on the occasion ( October ) of the interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade. Compile the budget for  June . Did the process of divestiture continue? Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded the laceknots, unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots for the second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again effracted, raised his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding part of the great toenail, raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of the quick, then, with satisfaction, threw away the lacerated ungual fragment. Why with satisfaction? Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other ungual fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs Ellis's juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation. In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions now coalesced? Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English, or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation  ), of grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa, described as Rus in Urbe or Qui si sana, but to purchase by private treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped  storey dwellinghouse of southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor, connected with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy or Virginia creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish and neat doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and gable, rising, if possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable prospect from balcony with stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and unoccupyable interjacent pastures and standing in  or  acres of its own ground, at such a distance from the nearest public thoroughfare as to render its houselights visible at night above and through a quickset hornbeam hedge of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not less than  statute mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time limit of not more than  minutes from tram or train line (e.g., Dundrum, south, or Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by trial to resemble the terrestrial poles in being favourable climates for phthisical subjects), the premises to be held under feefarm grant, lease  years, the messuage to consist of  drawingroom with baywindow ( lancets), thermometer affixed,  sittingroom,  bedrooms,  servants' rooms, tiled kitchen with close range and scullery, lounge hall fitted with linen wallpresses, fumed oak sectional bookcase containing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and New Century Dictionary, transverse obsolete medieval and oriental weapons, dinner gong, alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone receiver with adjacent directory, handtufted Axminster carpet with cream ground and trellis border, loo table with pillar and claw legs, hearth with massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel chronometer clock, guaranteed timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with hygrographic chart, comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered in ruby plush with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured leather, gloss renewable with a minimum of labour by use of linseed oil and vinegar) and pyramidically prismatic central chandelier lustre, bentwood perch with fingertame parrot (expurgated language), embossed mural paper at  per dozen with transverse swags of carmine floral design and top crown frieze, staircase, three continuous flights at successive right angles, of varnished cleargrained oak, treads and risers, newel, balusters and handrail, with steppedup panel dado, dressed with camphorated wax bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining and shower water closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong window, tipup seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod and brace, armrests, footstool and artistic oleograph on inner face of door ditto, plain servants' apartments with separate sanitary and hygienic necessaries for cook, general and betweenmaid (salary, rising by biennial unearned increments of  , with comprehensive fidelity insurance, annual bonus ( ) and retiring allowance (based on the  system) after  years' service), pantry, buttery, larder, refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with winebin (still and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if entertained to dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply throughout. What additional attractions might the grounds contain? As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner, a rockery with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James W. Mackey (Limited) wholesale and retail seed and bulb merchants and nurserymen, agents for chemical manures,  Sackville street, upper), an orchard, kitchen garden and vinery, protected against illegal trespassers by glasstopped mural enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock for various inventoried implements. As? Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder,  tooth rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, brush, hoe and so on. What improvements might be subsequently introduced? A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory,  hammocks (lady's and gentleman's), a sundial shaded and sheltered by laburnum or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese tinkle gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious waterbutt, a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler with hydraulic hose. What facilities of transit were desirable? When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart phaeton with good working solidungular cob (roan gelding,  h). What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence? Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold's. Flowerville. Could Bloom of  Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville? In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price , and useful garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling a weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the scent of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom, achieving longevity. What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible? Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the celestial constellations. What lighter recreations? Outdoor garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways, ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation), vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with inspection of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers' fires of smoking peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor discussion in tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal problems lecture of unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces house carpentry with toolbox containing hammer, awl, nails, screws, tintacks, gimlet, tweezers, bullnose plane and turnscrew. Might he become a gentleman farmer of field produce and live stock? Not impossibly, with  or  stripper cows,  pike of upland hay and requisite farming implements, e.g., an endtoend churn, a turnip pulper etc. What would be his civic functions and social status among the county families and landed gentry? Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto (Semper paratus), duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C., K. P., L. L. D. (honoris causa), Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned in court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left Kingstown for England). What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity? A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour the dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes, incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social inequality, of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with mitigants of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost farthing with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to the crown. Loyal to the highest constituted power in the land, actuated by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality. Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth. To Master Percy Apjohn at High School in  he had divulged his disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his father Rudolf Virag (later Rudolph Bloom) had been converted from the Israelitic faith and communion in  by the Society for promoting Christianity among the jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of Roman catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony in . To Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in  during a juvenile friendship (terminated by the premature emigration of the former) he had advocated during nocturnal perambulations the political theory of colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, expounded in The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species. In  he had publicly expressed his adherence to the collective and national economic programme advocated by James Fintan Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel, J. F. X. O'Brien and others, the agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the constitutional agitation of Charles Stewart Parnell (M. P. for Cork City), the programme of peace, retrenchment and reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M. P. for Midlothian, N. B.) and, in support of his political convictions, had climbed up into a secure position amid the ramifications of a tree on Northumberland road to see the entrance ( February ) into the capital of a demonstrative torchlight procession of , torchbearers, divided into  trade corporations, bearing  torches in escort of the marquess of Ripon and (honest) John Morley. How much and how did he propose to pay for this country residence? As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated ), a maximum of   per annum, being  of an assured income, derived from giltedged securities, representing at   simple interest on capital of   (estimate of price at  years' purchase), of which  to be paid on acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz.   plus    interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal annual instalments until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for purchase within a period of  years, amounting to an annual rental of  , headrent included, the titledeeds to remain in possession of the lender or lenders with a saving clause envisaging forced sale, foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event of protracted failure to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to become the absolute property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period of years stipulated. What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate purchase? A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash system the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase) of  or more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of  to  at  hr  m p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time), the message being received and available for betting purposes in Dublin at . p.m. (Dunsink time). The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value (precious stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps ( schilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg,   pence, rose, blue paper, perforate, Great Britain,   franc, stone, official, rouletted, diagonal surcharge, Luxemburg, ), antique dynastical ring, unique relic) in unusual repositories or by unusual means from the air (dropped by an eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised remains of an incendiated edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict), on earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl). A Spanish prisoner's donation of a distant treasure of valuables or specie or bullion lodged with a solvent banking corporation  years previously at  compound interest of the collective worth of  ,, stg (five million pounds sterling). A contract with an inconsiderate contractee for the delivery of  consignments of some given commodity in consideration of cash payment on delivery per delivery at the initial rate of d to be increased constantly in the geometrical progression of  (d, d, d, d, d, d, s d, s d to  terms). A prepared scheme based on a study of the laws of probability to break the bank at Monte Carlo. A solution of the secular problem of the quadrature of the circle, government premium  ,, sterling. Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels? The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. , by the cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation. The utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the first, vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third, every normal human being of average vitality and appetite producing annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum total of  lbs. (mixed animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by ,,, the total population of Ireland according to census returns of . Were there schemes of wider scope? A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power), obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main streams for the economic production of , W. H. P. of electricity. A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of the North Bull at Dollymount and erect on the space of the foreland, used for golf links and rifle ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting galleries, hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for mixed bathing. A scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the delivery of early morning milk. A scheme for the development of Irish tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between Island bridge and Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure steamers for coastwise navigation ( per person per day, guide (trilingual) included). A scheme for the repristination of passenger and goods traffics over Irish waterways, when freed from weedbeds. A scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle Market (North Circular road and Prussia street) with the quays (Sheriff street, lower, and East Wall), parallel with the Link line railway laid (in conjunction with the Great Southern and Western railway line) between the cattle park, Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great Western Railway  to  North Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of Great Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and Glasgow Steam Packet Company, Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam Packet Company (Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company, Dublin and Morecambe Steamers, London and North Western Railway Company, Dublin Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and transit sheds of Palgrave, Murphy and Company, steamship owners, agents for steamers from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland and for Liverpool Underwriters' Association, the cost of acquired rolling stock for animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the Dublin United Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers' fees. Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes become a natural and necessary apodosis? Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of gift and transfer vouchers during donor's lifetime or by bequest after donor's painless extinction, of eminent financiers (Blum Pasha, Rothschild, Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller) possessing fortunes in  figures, amassed during a successful life, and joining capital with opportunity the thing required was done. What eventuality would render him independent of such wealth? The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore. For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation? It was one of his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and renovated vitality. His justifications? As a physicist he had learned that of the  years of complete human life at least , viz.  years are passed in sleep. As a philosopher he knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an infinitesimal part of any person's desires has been realised. As a physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant agencies chiefly operative during somnolence. What did he fear? The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence situated in the cerebral convolutions. What were habitually his final meditations? Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded, reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life. What did the first drawer unlocked contain? A Vere Foster's handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent) Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked Papli, which showed a large globular head with  hairs erect,  eyes in profile, the trunk full front with  large buttons,  triangular foot  fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud Branscombe, actress and professional beauty a Yuletide card, bearing on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend Mizpah, the date Xmas , the name of the senders from Mr  Mrs M. Comerford, the versicle May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and peace and welcome glee a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax, obtained from the stores department of Messrs Hely's, Ltd., , , and  Dame street a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt 'J pennibs, obtained from same department of same firm an old sandglass which rolled containing sand which rolled a sealed prophecy (never unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in  concerning the consequences of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule bill of  (never passed into law) a bazaar ticket, No , of S. Kevin's Charity Fair, price d,  prizes an infantile epistle, dated, small em monday, reading capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you note of interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new paragraph signature with flourishes capital em Milly no stop a cameo brooch, property of Ellen Bloom (born Higgins), deceased a cameo scarfpin, property of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag), deceased  typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, co. P. O. Westland Row, addresser, Martha Clifford, co. P. O. Dolphin's Barn the transliterated name and address of the addresser of the  letters in reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated quadrilinear cryptogram (vowels suppressed) N. IGS.WI. UU. OXW. OKS. MHY. IM a press cutting from an English weekly periodical Modern Society, subject corporal chastisement in girls' schools a pink ribbon which had festooned an Easter egg in the year  two partly uncoiled rubber preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased by post from Box , P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.  pack of  dozen creamlaid envelopes and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by  some assorted AustrianHungarian coins  coupons of the Royal and Privileged Hungarian Lottery a lowpower magnifying glass  erotic photocards showing a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere presentation, superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation, inferior position) b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by post from Box , P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C. a press cutting of recipe for renovation of old tan boots a d adhesive stamp, lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria a chart of the measurements of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after  months' consecutive use of SandowWhiteley's pulley exerciser (men's , athlete's ) viz. chest  in and   in, biceps  in and  in, forearm   in and  in, thigh  in and  in, calf  in and  in  prospectus of The Wonderworker, the world's greatest remedy for rectal complaints, direct from Wonderworker, Coventry House, South Place, London E C, addressed (erroneously) to Mrs L. Bloom with brief accompanying note commencing (erroneously) Dear Madam. Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for this thaumaturgic remedy. It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant relief in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural action, an initial outlay of  making a new man of you and life worth living. Ladies find Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise when they note delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring water on a sultry summer's day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen friends, lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker. Were there testimonials? Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar. How did absentminded beggar's concluding testimonial conclude? What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been! What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects? A th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.) from Martha Clifford (find M. C.). What pleasant reflection accompanied this action? The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic face, form and address had been favourably received during the course of the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie Powell), a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid, Gertrude (Gerty, family name unknown). What possibility suggested itself? The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the not immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin. What did the nd drawer contain? Documents the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom an endowment assurance policy of   in the Scottish Widows' Assurance Society, intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at  years as with profit policy of  ,   and   at  years or death,  years or death and death, respectively, or with profit policy (paidup) of   together with cash payment of  , at option a bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch showing statement of ac for halfyear ending  December , balance in depositor's favour   (eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence, sterling), net personalty certificate of possession of  , Canadian  (inscribed) government stock (free of stamp duty) dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries' (Glasnevin) Committee, relative to a graveplot purchased a local press cutting concerning change of name by deedpoll. Quote the textual terms of this notice. I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no  Clanbrassil street, Dublin, formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice that I have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all times to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom. What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the nd drawer? An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolf Virag and his father Leopold Virag executed in the year  in the portrait atelier of their (respectively) st and nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar, Hungary. An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual prayers for Pessach (Passover) a photocard of the Queen's Hotel, Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom an envelope addressed To My Dear Son Leopold. What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words evoke? Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be ... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... all for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always... of me... das Herz... Gott... dein... What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom? An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered, sighing an infirm dog, Athos aconite, resorted to by increasing doses of grains and scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia the face in death of a septuagenarian, suicide by poison. Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse? Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain beliefs and practices. As? The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal the hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots the circumcision of male infants the supernatural character of Judaic scripture the ineffability of the tetragrammaton the sanctity of the sabbath. How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him? Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than other beliefs and practices now appeared. What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)? Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged ) a retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely with statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresia, empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). Leopold Bloom (aged ) had accompanied these narrations by constant consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in the various centres mentioned. Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these migrations in narrator and listener? In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of narcotic toxin in listener by the access of years and in consequence of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences. What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of amnesia? Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat. Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper. What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent? The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon repletion. What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences? The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the possession of scrip. Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity. Successively, in descending helotic order Poverty that of the outdoor hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying d in the , sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated bailiff's man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded perforated umbrella. Destitution the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal Hospital), Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of misery the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic pauper. With which attendant indignities? The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less than nothing. By what could such a situation be precluded? By decease (change of state) by departure (change of place). Which preferably? The latter, by the line of least resistance. What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable? Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest. What considerations rendered departure not irrational? The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication, which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting parties, which was impossible. What considerations rendered departure desirable? The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad, as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or in special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and hachures. In Ireland? The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the pastures of royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney. Abroad? Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for Pulbrook, Robertson and Co,  Mincing Lane, London, E. C.,  Dame street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues of nude Grecian divinities), the Wall street money market (which controlled international finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where O'Hara of the Camerons had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no human being had passed with impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die), the Dead Sea. Under what guidance, following what signs? At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Maior produced and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the rightangled triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the line alpha delta of Ursa Maior. On land, meridional, a bispherical moon, revealed in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the posterior interstice of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose negligent perambulating female, a pillar of the cloud by day. What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the departed?   reward, lost, stolen or strayed from his residence  Eccles street, missing gent about , answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy), height  ft   inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will be paid for information leading to his discovery. What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and nonentity? Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman. What tributes his? Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman. Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear? Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of peregrination return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark crusader, a sleeper awakened, with financial resources (by supposition) surpassing those of Rothschild or the silver king. What would render such return irrational? An unsatisfactory equation between an exodus and return in time through reversible space and an exodus and return in space through irreversible time. What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable? The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory the obscurity of the night, rendering invisible the uncertainty of thoroughfares, rendering perilous the necessity for repose, obviating movement the proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research the anticipation of warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and rendering desirable the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo, desired desire. What advantages were possessed by an occupied, as distinct from an unoccupied bed? The removal of nocturnal solitude, the superior quality of human (mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction, the stimulation of matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the premises in the case of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise between the spring mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit section). What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate? The preparation of breakfast (burnt offering) intestinal congestion and premeditative defecation (holy of holies) the bath (rite of John) the funeral (rite of Samuel) the advertisement of Alexander Keyes (Urim and Thummim) the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchisedek) the visit to museum and national library (holy place) the bookhunt along Bedford row, Merchants' Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah) the music in the Ormond Hotel (Shira Shirim) the altercation with a truculent troglodyte in Bernard Kiernan's premises (holocaust) a blank period of time including a cardrive, a visit to a house of mourning, a leavetaking (wilderness) the eroticism produced by feminine exhibitionism (rite of Onan) the prolonged delivery of Mrs Mina Purefoy (heave offering) the visit to the disorderly house of Mrs Bella Cohen,  Tyrone street, lower, and subsequent brawl and chance medley in Beaver street (Armageddon) nocturnal perambulation to and from the cabman's shelter, Butt Bridge (atonement). What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about to rise in order to go so as to conclude lest he should not conclude involuntarily apprehend? The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by the insentient material of a strainveined timber table. What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen, going, gathering multicoloured multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily apprehending, not comprehend? Who was M'Intosh? What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during  years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the extinction of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend? Where was Moses when the candle went out? What imperfections in a perfect day did Bloom, walking, charged with collected articles of recently disvested male wearing apparel, silently, successively, enumerate? A provisional failure to obtain renewal of an advertisement to obtain a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan (agent for Pulbrook, Robertson and Co,  Dame Street, Dublin, and  Mincing Lane, London E. C.) to certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal orifice in the case of Hellenic female divinities to obtain admission (gratuitous or paid) to the performance of Leah by Mrs Bandmann Palmer at the Gaiety Theatre, , , ,  South King street. What impression of an absent face did Bloom, arrested, silently recall? The face of her father, the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, of Gibraltar and Rehoboth, Dolphin's Barn. What recurrent impressions of the same were possible by hypothesis? Retreating, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, with constant uniform acceleration, along parallel lines meeting at infinity, if produced along parallel lines, reproduced from infinity, with constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, returning. What miscellaneous effects of female personal wearing apparel were perceived by him? A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies' hose, a pair of new violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies' drawers of India mull, cut on generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti's Turkish cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded curvilinear, a camisole of batiste with thin lace border, an accordion underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed irregularly on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened, having capped corners, with multicoloured labels, initialled on its fore side in white lettering B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy). What impersonal objects were perceived? A commode, one leg fractured, totally covered by square cretonne cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady's black straw hat. Orangekeyed ware, bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware and ironmongery manufacturer, , ,  Moore street, disposed irregularly on the washstand and floor and consisting of basin, soapdish and brushtray (on the washstand, together), pitcher and night article (on the floor, separate). Bloom's acts? He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, removed his remaining articles of clothing, took from beneath the bolster at the head of the bed a folded long white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the proper apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow from the head to the foot of the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and entered the bed. How? With circumspection, as invariably when entering an abode (his own or not his own) with solicitude, the snakespiral springs of the mattress being old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii loose and tremulous under stress and strain prudently, as entering a lair or ambush of lust or adders lightly, the less to disturb reverently, the bed of conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of marriage, of sleep and of death. What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter? New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed. If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity. What preceding series? Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so on to no last term. What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and late occupant of the bed? Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a billsticker), commercial ability (a bester), impressionability (a boaster). Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal proportion and commercial ability? Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding members of the same series the same concupiscence, inflammably transmitted, first with alarm, then with understanding, then with desire, finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene comprehension and apprehension. With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections affected? Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity. Envy? Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental female organism, passive but not obtuse. Jealousy? Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately the agent and reagent of attraction. Because attraction between agent(s) and reagent(s) at all instants varied, with inverse proportion of increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial reentrance. Because the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of attraction produced, if desired, a fluctuation of pleasure. Abnegation? In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September  in the establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter,  Eden Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d) extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial prerogative, e) an imminent provincial musical tour, common current expenses, net proceeds divided. Equanimity? As as natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in accordance with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar similarity. As not so calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the planet in consequence of a collision with a dark sun. As less reprehensible than theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and animals, obtaining money under false pretences, forgery, embezzlement, misappropriation of public money, betrayal of public trust, malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal libel, blackmail, contempt of court, arson, treason, felony, mutiny on the high seas, trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, practice of unnatural vice, desertion from armed forces in the field, perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence with the king's enemies, impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter, wilful and premeditated murder. As not more abnormal than all other parallel processes of adaptation to altered conditions of existence, resulting in a reciprocal equilibrium between the bodily organism and its attendant circumstances, foods, beverages, acquired habits, indulged inclinations, significant disease. As more than inevitable, irreparable. Why more abnegation than jealousy, less envy than equanimity? From outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially violated had not been outraged by the adulterous violator of the adulterously violated. What retribution, if any? Assassination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice (automatic bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witnesses), not yet. Suit for damages by legal influence or simulation of assault with evidence of injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly. Hushmoney by moral influence, possibly. If any, positively, connivance, introduction of emulation (material, a prosperous rival agency of publicity moral, a successful rival agent of intimacy), depreciation, alienation, humiliation, separation protecting the one separated from the other, protecting the separator from both. By what reflections did he, a conscious reactor against the void of incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments? The preordained frangibility of the hymen the presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself the incongruity and disproportion between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done the fallaciously inferred debility of the female the muscularity of the male the variations of ethical codes the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct feminine object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice the continued product of seminators by generation the continual production of semen by distillation the futility of triumph or protest or vindication the inanity of extolled virtue the lethargy of nescient matter the apathy of the stars. In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge? Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored (the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of Greece, the land of promise), of adipose anterior and posterior female hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and seminal warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude, insusceptible of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression, expressive of mute immutable mature animality. The visible signs of antesatisfaction? An approximate erection a solicitous adversion a gradual elevation a tentative revelation a silent contemplation. Then? He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation. The visible signs of postsatisfaction? A silent contemplation a tentative velation a gradual abasement a solicitous aversion a proximate erection. What followed this silent action? Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation, catechetical interrogation. With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation? Negative he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and in the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co, Limited, ,  and  Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), surname unknown. Positive he included mention of a performance by Mrs Bandmann Palmer of Leah at the Gaiety Theatre, , , ,  South King street, an invitation to supper at Wynn's (Murphy's) Hotel, ,  and  Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency entituled Sweets of Sin, anonymous author a gentleman of fashion, a temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement in the course of a postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since completely recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author, eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a witness, the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of decision and gymnastic flexibility. Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications? Absolutely. Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration? Stephen Dedalus, professor and author. What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration? By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been celebrated  calendar month after the th anniversary of her birth ( September ), viz.  October, and consummated on the same date with female issue born  June , having been anticipatorily consummated on the  September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse, with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last taken place  weeks previous, viz.  November , to the birth on  December  of second (and only male) issue, deceased  January , aged  days, there remained a period of  years,  months and  days during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ. By the narrator a limitation of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete mental intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place since the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the female issue of narrator and listener,  September , there remained a period of  months and  day during which, in consequence of a preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of action had been circumscribed. How? By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration for which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences, projected or effected. What moved visibly above the listener's and the narrator's invisible thoughts? The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow. In what directions did listener and narrator lie? Listener, S. E. by E. Narrator, N. W. by W. on the rd parallel of latitude, N., and th meridian of longitude, W. at an angle of  to the terrestrial equator. In what state of rest or motion? At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of neverchanging space. In what posture? Listener reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right leg extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the attitude of GeaTellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the index finger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in the attitude depicted in a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the childman weary, the manchild in the womb. Womb? Weary? He rests. He has travelled. With? Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer. When? Going to dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc's auk's egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad the Brightdayler. Where?  Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day I wore that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to never see thy face again though he looked more like a man with his beard a bit grown in the bed father was the same besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns afraid hed get bloodpoisoning but if it was a thing I was sick then wed see what attention only of course the woman hides it not to give all the trouble they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her so either it was one of those night women if it was down there he was really and the hotel story he made up a pack of lies to hide it planning it Hynes kept me who did I meet ah yes I met do you remember Menton and who else who let me see that big babbyface I saw him and he not long married flirting with a young girl at Pooles Myriorama and turned my back on him when he slinked out looking quite conscious what harm but he had the impudence to make up to me one time well done to him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of all the big stupoes I ever met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle in bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the front room to show him Dignams death in the paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business so very probably that was it to somebody who thinks she has a softy in him because all men get a bit like that at his age especially getting on to forty he is now so as to wheedle any money she can out of him no fool like an old fool and then the usual kissing my bottom was to hide it not that I care two straws now who he does it with or knew before that way though Id like to find out so long as I dont have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his coat without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending he was drinking water  woman is not enough for them it was all his fault of course ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table on Christmas day if you please O no thank you not in my house stealing my potatoes and the oysters  per doz going out to see her aunt if you please common robbery so it was but I was sure he had something on with that one it takes me to find out a thing like that he said you have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt was very fond of oysters but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to go out to be alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a little bit too much her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave her her weeks notice I saw to that better do without them altogether do out the rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out the dirt I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I couldnt even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the place in the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back singing the young May moon shes beaming love because he has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God knows hes a change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat unless I paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this that and the other with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about some dean or bishop was sitting beside me in the jews temples gardens when I was knitting that woollen thing a stranger to Dublin what place was it and so on about the monuments and he tired me out with statues encouraging him making him worse than he is who is in your mind now tell me who are you thinking of who is it tell me his name who tell me who the german Emperor is it yes imagine Im him think of him can you feel him trying to make a whore of me what he never will he ought to give it up now at this age of his life simply ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it till he comes and then finish it off myself anyway and it makes your lips pale anyhow its done now once and for all with all the talk of the world about it people make its only the first time after that its just the ordinary do it and think no more about it why cant you kiss a man without going and marrying him first you sometimes love to wildly when you feel that way so nice all over you you cant help yourself I wish some man or other would take me sometime when hes there and kiss me in his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and have done with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever way he put it I forget no father and I always think of the real father what did he want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had a nice fat hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know me in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed never turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre lost for a woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone them Id like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense off him like the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if youre married hes too careful about himself then give something to H H the pope for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I didnt like his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall though I laughed Im not a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking of his fathers I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in it who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they stick their bills up with some liqueur Id like to sip those richlooking green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with the opera hats I tasted once with my finger dipped out of that American that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took the port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt lovely and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped straight into bed till that thunder woke me up God be merciful to us I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish us when I blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in Gibraltar as if the world was coming to an end and then they come and tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that evening in Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it brought its luck though hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to church mass or meeting he says your soul you have no soul inside only grey matter because he doesnt know what it is to have one yes when I lit the lamp because he must have come  or  times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is not so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my hours dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole sheep after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us or like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all they want out of you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull out and do it on me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me nice invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if someone gave them a touch of it themselves theyd know what I went through with Milly nobody would believe cutting her teeth too and Mina Purefoys husband give us a swing out of your whiskers filling her up with a child or twins once a year as regular as the clock always with a smell of children off her the one they called budgers or something like a nigger with a shock of hair on it Jesusjack the child is a black the last time I was there a squad of them falling over one another and bawling you couldnt hear your ears supposed to be healthy not satisfied till they have us swollen out like elephants or I dont know what supposing I risked having another not off him though still if he was married Im sure hed have a fine strong child but I dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him off well he can think what he likes now if thatll do him any good I know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene he was dancing and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons housewarming and then he wanted to ram it down my neck it was on account of not liking to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup row over politics he began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a carpenter at last he made me cry of course a woman is so sensitive about everything I was fuming with myself after for giving in only for I knew he was gone on me and the first socialist he said He was he annoyed me so much I couldnt put him into a temper still he knows a lot of mixedup things especially about the body and the inside I often wanted to study up that myself what we have inside us in that family physician I could always hear his voice talking when the room was crowded and watch him after that I pretended I had a coolness on with her over him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he asked who are you going to and I said over to Floey and he made me the present of Byrons poems and the three pairs of gloves so that finished that I could quite easily get him to make it up any time I know how Id even supposing he got in with her again and was going out to see her somewhere Id know if he refused to eat the onions I know plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the collar of my blouse or touch him with my veil and gloves on going out  kiss then would send them all spinning however alright well see then let him go to her she of course would only be too delighted to pretend shes mad in love with him that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and ask her do you love him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool me but he might imagine he was and make a declaration to her with his plabbery kind of a manner like he did to me though I had the devils own job to get it out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could hold in and wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking me too the night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres something I want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was in a temper with my hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let out too much the night before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let him know more than was good for him she used to be always embracing me Josie whenever he was there meaning him of course glauming me over and when I said I washed up and down as far as possible asking me and did you wash possible the women are always egging on to that putting it on thick when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit putting on the indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is what spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at that time trying to look like Lord Byron I said I liked though he was too beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged afterwards though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of laughing with the giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling out one after another with the mass of hair I had youre always in great humour she said yes because it grigged her because she knew what it meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my fault she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the moment she was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk about him to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes he used to go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him just imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that that might murder you any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes mad Poldy anyhow whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like then and now hes going about in his slippers to look for   for a postcard U p up O sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff to extinction actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what could you make of a man like that Id rather die  times over than marry another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man yes it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and do a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek leave us as wise as we were before she must have been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance of being hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what could she do besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely are they theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both ordered  teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got after some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the turning door he was looking when I looked back and I went there for tea  days after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him because I was crossing them when we were in the other room first he meant the shoes that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that if I only had a ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill stick him for one and a gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still I made him spend once with my foot the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert so cold and windy it was well we had that rum in the house to mull and the fire wasnt black out when he asked to take off my stockings lying on the hearthrug in Lombard street west and another time it was my muddy boots hed like me to walk in all the horses dung I could find but of course hes not natural like the rest of the world that I what did he say I could give  points in  to Katty Lanner and beat her what does that mean I asked him I forget what he said because the stoppress edition just passed and the man with the curly hair in the Lucan dairy thats so polite I think I saw his face before somewhere I noticed him when I was tasting the butter so I took my time Bartell DArcy too that he used to make fun of when he commenced kissing me on the choir stairs after I sang Gounods Ave Maria what are we waiting for O my heart kiss me straight on the brow and part which is my brown part he was pretty hot for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was always raving about if you can believe him I liked the way he used his mouth singing then he said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a place like that I dont see anything so terrible about it Ill tell him about that some day not now and surprise him ay and Ill take him there and show him the very place too we did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks nothing can happen without him knowing he hadnt an idea about my mother till we were engaged otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did he was  times worse himself anyhow begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off my drawers that was the evening coming along Kenilworth square he kissed me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off asking me questions is it permitted to enquire the shape of my bedroom so I let him keep it as if I forgot it to think of me when I saw him slip it into his pocket of course hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their skirts blowing up to their navels even when Milly and I were out with him at the open air fete that one in the cream muslin standing right against the sun so he could see every atom she had on when he saw me from behind following in the rain I saw him before he saw me however standing at the corner of the Harolds cross road with a new raincoat on him with the muffler in the Zingari colours to show off his complexion and the brown hat looking slyboots as usual what was he doing there where hed no business they can go and get whatever they like from anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions but they want to know where were you where are you going I could feel him coming along skulking after me his eyes on my neck he had been keeping away from the house he felt it was getting too warm for him so I halfturned and stopped then he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly watching him he said my openwork sleeves were too cold for the rain anything for an excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers the whole blessed time till I promised to give him the pair off my doll to carry about in his waistcoat pocket O Maria Santisima he did look a big fool dreeping in the rain splendid set of teeth he had made me hungry to look at them and beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat I had on with the sunray pleats that there was nobody he said hed kneel down in the wet if I didnt so persevering he would too and ruin his new raincoat you never know what freak theyd take alone with you theyre so savage for it if anyone was passing so I lifted them a bit and touched his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner after with my ring hand to keep him from doing worse where it was too public I was dying to find out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want to do everything too quick take all the pleasure out of it and father waiting all the time for his dinner he told me to say I left my purse in the butchers and had to go back for it what a Deceiver then he wrote me that letter with all those words in it how could he have the face to any woman after his company manners making it so awkward after when we met asking me have I offended you with my eyelids down of course he saw I wasnt he had a few brains not like that other fool Henny Doyle he was always breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an unlucky man and if I knew what it meant of course I had to say no for form sake dont understand you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course it used to be written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in Gibraltar with that word I couldnt find anywhere only for children seeing it too young then writing every morning a letter sometimes twice a day I liked the way he made love then he knew the way to take a woman when he sent me the  big poppies because mine was the th then I wrote the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth but he never knew how to embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on Monday as he said at the same time four I hate people who come at all hours answer the door you think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all undressed or the door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old frostyface Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me professor I had to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in his way it was impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out you have to peep out through the blind like the messengerboy today I thought it was a putoff first him sending the port and the peaches first and I was just beginning to yawn with nerves thinking he was trying to make a fool of me when I knew his tattarrattat at the door he must have been a bit late because it was  after  when I saw the  Dedalus girls coming from school I never know the time even that watch he gave me never seems to go properly Id want to get it looked after when I threw the penny to that lame sailor for England home and beauty when I was whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even put on my clean shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week were to go to Belfast just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers anniversary the th it wouldnt be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms at the hotel were beside each other and any fooling went on in the new bed I couldnt tell him to stop and not bother me with him in the next room or perhaps some protestant clergyman with a cough knocking on the wall then hed never believe the next day we didnt do something its all very well a husband but you cant fool a lover after me telling him we never did anything of course he didnt believe me no its better hes going where he is besides something always happens with him the time going to the Mallow concert at Maryborough ordering boiling soup for the two of us then the bell rang out he walks down the platform with the soup splashing about taking spoonfuls of it hadnt he the nerve and the waiter after him making a holy show of us screeching and confusion for the engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it the two gentlemen in the rd class carriage said he was quite right so he was too hes so pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a good job he was able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd have taken us on to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him O I love jaunting in a train or a car with lovely soft cushions I wonder will he take a st class for me he might want to do it in the train by tipping the guard well O I suppose therell be the usual idiots of men gaping at us with their eyes as stupid as ever they can possibly be that was an exceptional man that common workman that left us alone in the carriage that day going to Howth Id like to find out something about him  or  tunnels perhaps then you have to look out of the window all the nicer then coming back suppose I never came back what would they say eloped with him that gets you on on the stage the last concert I sang at where its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall Clarendon St little chits of missies they have now singing Kathleen Kearney and her like on account of father being in the army and my singing the absentminded beggar and wearing a brooch for Lord Roberts when I had the map of it all and Poldy not Irish enough was it him managed it this time I wouldnt put it past him like he got me on to sing in the Stabat Mater by going around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up to that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and he was going about with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves talking his usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he showed me without the neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffiths is he well he doesnt look it thats all I can say still it must have been him he knew there was a boycott I hate the mention of their politics after the war that Pretoria and Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner lieut Stanley G th Bn nd East Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely fellow in khaki and just the right height over me Im sure he was brave too he said I was lovely the evening we kissed goodbye at the canal lock my Irish beauty he was pale with excitement about going away or wed be seen from the road he couldnt stand properly and I so hot as I never felt they could have made their peace in the beginning or old oom Paul and the rest of the other old Krugers go and fight it out between them instead of dragging on for years killing any finelooking men there were with their fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have been so bad I love to see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the Spanish cavalry at La Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay from Algeciras all the lights of the rock like fireflies or those sham battles on the  acres the Black Watch with their kilts in time at the march past the th hussars the prince of Wales own or the lancers O the lancers theyre grand or the Dublins that won Tugela his father made his money over selling the horses for the cavalry well he could buy me a nice present up in Belfast after what I gave him theyve lovely linen up there or one of those nice kimono things I must buy a mothball like I had before to keep in the drawer with them it would be exciting going round with him shopping buying those things in a new city better leave this ring behind want to keep turning and turning to get it over the knuckle there or they might bell it round the town in their papers or tell the police on me but theyd think were married O let them all go and smother themselves for the fat lot I care he has plenty of money and hes not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him if I could find out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when I looked close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the expression besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with his big hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat always having to lie down for them better for him put it into me from behind the way Mrs Mastiansky told me her husband made her like the dogs do it and stick out her tongue as far as ever she could and he so quiet and mild with his tingating cither can you ever be up to men the way it takes them lovely stuff in that blue suit he had on and stylish tie and socks with the skyblue silk things on them hes certainly welloff I know by the cut his clothes have and his heavy watch but he was like a perfect devil for a few minutes after he came back with the stoppress tearing up the tickets and swearing blazes because he lost  quid he said he lost over that outsider that won and half he put on for me on account of Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits that sponger he was making free with me after the Glencree dinner coming back that long joult over the featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor looking at me with his dirty eyes Val Dillon that big heathen I first noticed him at dessert when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I wished I could have picked every morsel of that chicken out of my fingers it was so tasty and browned and as tender as anything only for I didnt want to eat everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into my muff when I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for money in a restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to be thankful for our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be noticed the way the world is divided in any case if its going to go on I want at least two other good chemises for one thing and but I dont know what kind of drawers he likes none at all I think didnt he say yes and half the girls in Gibraltar never wore them either naked as God made them that Andalusian singing her Manola she didnt make much secret of what she hadnt yes and the second pair of silkette stockings is laddered after one days wear I could have brought them back to Lewers this morning and kicked up a row and made that one change them only not to upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and ruining the whole thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want advertised cheap in the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips he saved the one I have but thats no good what did they say they give a delightful figure line  obviating that unsightly broad appearance across the lower back to reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill have to knock off the stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it the last they sent from ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money easy Larry they call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or I must do a few breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good might overdo it the thin ones are not so much the fashion now garters that much I have the violet pair I wore today thats all he bought me out of the cheque he got on the first O no there was the face lotion I finished the last of yesterday that made my skin like new I told him over and over again get that made up in the same place and dont forget it God only knows whether he did after all I said to him Ill know by the bottle anyway if not I suppose Ill only have to wash in my piss like beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax and violet I thought it was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the skin underneath is much finer where it peeled off there on my finger after the burn its a pity it isnt all like that and the four paltry handkerchiefs about  in all sure you cant get on in this world without style all going in food and rent when I get it Ill lash it around I tell you in fine style I always want to throw a handful of tea into the pot measuring and mincing if I buy a pair of old brogues itself do you like those new shoes yes were they Ive no clothes at all the brown costume and the skirt and jacket and the one at the cleaners  whats that for any woman cutting up this old hat and patching up the other the men wont look at you and women try to walk on you because they know youve no man then with all the things getting dearer every day for the  years more I have of life up to  no Im what am I at all Ill be  in September will I what O well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than me I saw her when I was out last week her beautys on the wane she was a lovely woman magnificent head of hair on her down to her waist tossing it back like that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street st thing I did every morning to look across see her combing it as if she loved it and was full of it pity I only got to know her the day before we left and that Mrs Langtry the jersey lily the prince of Wales was in love with I suppose hes like the first man going the roads only for the name of a king theyre all made the one way only a black mans Id like to try a beauty up to what was she  there was some funny story about the jealous old husband what was it at all and an oyster knife he went no he made her wear a kind of a tin thing round her and the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster knife cant be true a thing like that like some of those books he brings me the works of Master Francois Somebody supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for any priest to write and her ae as if any fool wouldnt know what that meant I hate that pretending of all things with that old blackguards face on him anybody can see its not true and that Ruby and Fair Tyrants he brought me that twice I remember when I came to page  the part about where she hangs him up out of a hook with a cord flagellate sure theres nothing for a woman in that all invention made up about he drinking the champagne out of her slipper after the ball was over like the infant Jesus in the crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms sure no woman could have a child that big taken out of her and I thought first it came out of her side because how could she go to the chamber when she wanted to and she a rich lady of course she felt honoured H R H he was in Gibraltar the year I was born I bet he found lilies there too where he planted the tree he planted more than that in his time he might have planted me too if hed come a bit sooner then I wouldnt be here as I am he ought to chuck that Freeman with the paltry few shillings he knocks out of it and go into an office or something where hed get regular pay or a bank where they could put him up on a throne to count the money all the day of course he prefers plottering about the house so you cant stir with him any side whats your programme today I wish hed even smoke a pipe like father to get the smell of a man or pretending to be mooching about for advertisements when he could have been in Mr Cuffes still only for what he did then sending me to try and patch it up I could have got him promoted there to be the manager he gave me a great mirada once or twice first he was as stiff as the mischief really and truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old rubbishy dress that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Burns as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if I went by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes take that thats alright the one like a weddingcake standing up miles off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very hard at my chest when he stood up to open the door for me it was nice of him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me without making it too marked the first time after him being insulted and me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled I know my chest was out that way at the door when he said Im extremely sorry and Im sure you were yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long he made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one anyhow stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep that up and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out for him what are all those veins and things curious the way its made  the same in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there like those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with her hand are they so beautiful of course compared with what a man looks like with his two bags full and his other thing hanging down out of him or sticking up at you like a hatrack no wonder they hide it with a cabbageleaf that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market or that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue of the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing standing out for me to see it with his babyclothes up to one side the Queens own they were a nice lot its well the Surreys relieved them theyre always trying to show it to you every time nearly I passed outside the mens greenhouse near the Harcourt street station just to try some fellow or other trying to catch my eye as if it was  of the  wonders of the world O and the stink of those rotten places the night coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party oranges and lemonade to make you feel nice and watery I went into  of them it was so biting cold I couldnt keep it when was that  the canal was frozen yes it was a few months after a pity a couple of the Camerons werent there to see me squatting in the mens place meadero I tried to draw a picture of it before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder theyre not afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang of something there the woman is beauty of course thats admitted when he said I could pose for a picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee palace would I be like that bath of the nymph with my hair down yes only shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish photo he has nymphs used they go about like that I asked him about her and that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent they fearful trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly enough for two what was the reason of that he said I could have got a pound a week as a wet nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate looking student that stopped in no  with the Citrons Penrose nearly caught me washing through the window only for I snapped up the towel to my face that was his studenting hurt me they used to weaning her till he got doctor Brady to give me the belladonna prescription I had to get him to suck them they were so hard he said it was sweeter and thicker than cows then he wanted to milk me into the tea well hes beyond everything I declare somebody ought to put him in the budget if I only could remember the one half of the things and write a book out of it the works of Master Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin much an hour he was at them Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big infant I had at me they want everything in their mouth all the pleasure those men get out of a woman I can feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch myself I wished he was here or somebody to let myself go with and come again like that I feel all fire inside me or if I could dream it when he made me spend the nd time tickling me behind with his finger I was coming for about  minutes with my legs round him I had to hug him after O Lord I wanted to shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all only not to look ugly or those lines from the strain who knows the way hed take it you want to feel your way with a man theyre not all like him thank God some of them want you to be so nice about it I noticed the contrast he does it and doesnt talk I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose from the tumbling and my tongue between my lips up to him the savage brute Thursday Friday one Saturday two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait till Monday frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere whistling the strength those engines have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and out of them all sides like the end of Loves old sweeeetsonnnng the poor men that have to be out all the night from their wives and families in those roasting engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the half of those old Freemans and Photo Bits leaving things like that lying about hes getting very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W C I'll get him to cut them tomorrow for me instead of having them there for the next year to get a few pence for them have him asking wheres last Januarys paper and all those old overcoats I bundled out of the hall making the place hotter than it is that rain was lovely and refreshing just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get like Gibraltar my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on black as night and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant compared with their  Rock mountain they think is so great with the red sentries here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the smell of the rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time weltering down on you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs Stanhope sent me from the B Marche paris what a shame my dearest Doggerina she wrote on it she was very nice whats this her other name was just a p c to tell you I sent the little present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything to be back in Gib and hear you sing Waiting and in old Madrid Concone is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some word I couldnt make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing still there lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she left out regards to your father also Captain Grove with love yrs affly Hester x x x x x she didnt look a bit married just like a girl he was years older than her wogger he was awfully fond of me when he held down the wire with his foot for me to step over at the bullfight at La Linea when that matador Gomez was given the bulls ear these clothes we have to wear whoever invented them expecting you to walk up Killiney hill then for example at that picnic all staysed up you cant do a blessed thing in them in a crowd run or jump out of the way thats why I was afraid when that other ferocious old Bull began to charge the banderilleros with the sashes and the  things in their hats and the brutes of men shouting bravo toro sure the women were as bad in their nice white mantillas ripping all the whole insides out of those poor horses I never heard of such a thing in all my life yes he used to break his heart at me taking off the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it sick what became of them ever I suppose theyre dead long ago the  of them its like all through a mist makes you feel so old I made the scones of course I had everything all to myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair mine was thicker than hers she showed me how to settle it at the back when I put it up and whats this else how to make a knot on a thread with the one hand we were like cousins what age was I then the night of the storm I slept in her bed she had her arms round me then we were fighting in the morning with the pillow what fun he was watching me whenever he got an opportunity at the band on the Alameda esplanade when I was with father and Captain Grove I looked up at the church first and then at the windows then down and our eyes met I felt something go through me like all needles my eyes were dancing I remember after when I looked at myself in the glass hardly recognised myself the change he was attractive to a girl in spite of his being a little bald intelligent looking disappointed and gay at the same time he was like Thomas in the shadow of Ashlydyat I had a splendid skin from the sun and the excitement like a rose I didnt get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have been nice on account of her but I could have stopped it in time she gave me the Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins East Lynne I read and the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by that other woman I lent him afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as he see I wasnt without and Lord Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave me by Mrs Hungerford on account of the name I dont like books with a Molly in them like that one he brought me about the one from Flanders a whore always shoplifting anything she could cloth and stuff and yards of it O this blanket is too heavy on me thats better I havent even one decent nightdress this thing gets all rolled under me besides him and his fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the heat my shift drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on the chair when I stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on the sofa cushions to see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them at night and the mosquito nets I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago it seems centuries of course they never came back and she didnt put her address right on it either she may have noticed her wogger people were always going away and we never I remember that day with the waves and the boats with their high heads rocking and the smell of ship those Officers uniforms on shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything he was very serious I had the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was blowing she kissed me six or seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I did or near it my lips were taittering when I said goodbye she had a Gorgeous wrap of some special kind of blue colour on her for the voyage made very peculiarly to one side like and it was extremely pretty it got as dull as the devil after they went I was almost planning to run away mad out of it somewhere were never easy where we are father or aunt or marriage waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me waiting nor speeeed his flying feet their damn guns bursting and booming all over the shop especially the Queens birthday and throwing everything down in all directions if you didnt open the windows when general Ulysses Grant whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son then the same old bugles for reveille in the morning and drums rolling and the unfortunate poor devils of soldiers walking about with messtins smelling the place more than the old longbearded jews in their jellibees and levites assembly and sound clear and gunfire for the men to cross the lines and the warden marching with his keys to lock the gates and the bagpipes and only captain Groves and father talking about Rorkes drift and Plevna and sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum lighting their pipes for them everytime they went out drunken old devil with his grog on the windowsill catch him leaving any of it picking his nose trying to think of some other dirty story to tell up in a corner but he never forgot himself when I was there sending me out of the room on some blind excuse paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky talking of course but hed do the same to the next woman that came along I suppose he died of galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a letter from a living soul except the odd few I posted to myself with bits of paper in them so bored sometimes I could fight with my nails listening to that old Arab with the one eye and his heass of an instrument singing his heah heah aheah all my compriment on your hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now with the hands hanging off me looking out of the window if there was a nice fellow even in the opposite house that medical in Holles street the nurse was after when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out not a notion what I meant arent they thick never understand what you say even youd want to print it up on a big poster for them not even if you shake hands twice with the left he didnt recognise me either when I half frowned at him outside Westland row chapel where does their great intelligence come in Id like to know grey matter they have it all in their tail if you ask me those country gougers up in the City Arms intelligence they had a damn sight less than the bulls and cows they were selling the meat and the coalmans bell that noisy bugger trying to swindle me with the wrong bill he took out of his hat what a pair of paws and pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken bottles for a poor man today and no visitors or post ever except his cheques or some advertisement like that wonderworker they sent him addressed dear Madam only his letter and the card from Milly this morning see she wrote a letter to him who did I get the last letter from O Mrs Dwenn now what possessed her to write from Canada after so many years to know the recipe I had for pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since she wrote to say she was married to a very rich architect if Im to believe all I hear with a villa and eight rooms her father was an awfully nice man he was near seventy always goodhumoured well now Miss Tweedy or Miss Gillespie theres the piannyer that was a solid silver coffee service he had too on the mahogany sideboard then dying so far away I hate people that have always their poor story to tell everybody has their own troubles that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of acute neumonia well I didnt know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend more than mine poor Nancy its a bother having to answer he always tells me the wrong things and no stops to say like making a speech your sad bereavement symphathy I always make that mistake and newphew with  double yous in I hope hell write me a longer letter the next time if its a thing he really likes me O thanks be to the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no chances at all in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody would write me a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he could write what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in old Madrid stuff silly women believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life always something to think about every moment and see it all round you like a new world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me short just a few words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used to write to the fellow that was something in the four courts that jilted her after out of the ladies letterwriter when I told her to say a few simple words he could twist how he liked not acting with precipat precipitancy with equal candour the greatest earthly happiness answer to a gentlemans proposal affirmatively my goodness theres nothing else its all very fine for them but as for being a woman as soon as youre old they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ashpit. Mulveys was the first when I was in bed that morning and Mrs Rubio brought it in with the coffee she stood there standing when I asked her to hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of the word a hairpin to open it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it staring her in the face with her switch of false hair on her and vain about her appearance ugly as she was near  or a  her face a mass of wrinkles with all her religion domineering because she never could get over the Atlantic fleet coming in half the ships of the world and the Union Jack flying with all her carabineros because  drunken English sailors took all the rock from them and because I didnt run into mass often enough in Santa Maria to please her with her shawl up on her except when there was a marriage on with all her miracles of the saints and her black blessed virgin with the silver dress and the sun dancing  times on Easter Sunday morning and when the priest was going by with the bell bringing the vatican to the dying blessing herself for his Majestad an admirer he signed it I near jumped out of my skin I wanted to pick him up when I saw him following me along the Calle Real in the shop window then he tipped me just in passing but I never thought hed write making an appointment I had it inside my petticoat bodice all day reading it up in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill instructing to find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps singing I remember shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the old stupid clock to near the time he was the first man kissed me under the Moorish wall my sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what kissing meant till he put his tongue in my mouth his mouth was sweetlike young I put my knee up to him a few times to learn the way what did I tell him I was engaged for for fun to the son of a Spanish nobleman named Don Miguel de la Flora and he believed me that I was to be married to him in  years time theres many a true word spoken in jest there is a flower that bloometh a few things I told him true about myself just for him to be imagining the Spanish girls he didnt like I suppose one of them wouldnt have him I got him excited he crushed all the flowers on my bosom he brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and the perragordas till I taught him Cappoquin he came from he said on the black water but it was too short then the day before he left May yes it was May when the infant king of Spain was born Im always like that in the spring Id like a new fellow every year up on the tiptop under the rockgun near OHaras tower I told him it was struck by lightning and all about the old Barbary apes they sent to Clapham without a tail careering all over the show on each others back Mrs Rubio said she was a regular old rock scorpion robbing the chickens out of Inces farm and throw stones at you if you went anear he was looking at me I had that white blouse on open in the front to encourage him as much as I could without too openly they were just beginning to be plump I said I was tired we lay over the firtree cove a wild place I suppose it must be the highest rock in existence the galleries and casemates and those frightful rocks and Saint Michaels cave with the icicles or whatever they call them hanging down and ladders all the mud plotching my boots Im sure thats the way down the monkeys go under the sea to Africa when they die the ships out far like chips that was the Malta boat passing yes the sea and the sky you could do what you liked lie there for ever he caressed them outside they love doing that its the roundness there I was leaning over him with my white ricestraw hat to take the newness out of it the left side of my face the best my blouse open for his last day transparent kind of shirt he had I could see his chest pink he wanted to touch mine with his for a moment but I wouldnt let him he was awfully put out first for fear you never know consumption or leave me with a child embarazada that old servant Ines told me that one drop even if it got into you at all after I tried with the Banana but I was afraid it might break and get lost up in me somewhere because they once took something down out of a woman that was up there for years covered with limesalts theyre all mad to get in there where they come out of youd think they could never go far enough up and then theyre done with you in a way till the next time yes because theres a wonderful feeling there so tender all the time how did we finish it off yes O yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to be excited but I opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my petticoat because I had a skirt opening up the side I tormented the life out of him first tickling him I loved rousing that dog in the hotel rrrsssstt awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was shy all the same I liked him like that moaning I made him blush a little when I got over him that way when I unbuttoned him and took his out and drew back the skin it had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons men down the middle on the wrong side of them Molly darling he called me what was his name Jack Joe Harry Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant he was rather fair he had a laughing kind of a voice so I went round to the whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit moustache had he he said hed come back Lord its just like yesterday to me and if I was married hed do it to me and I promised him yes faithfully Id let him block me now flying perhaps hes dead or killed or a captain or admiral its nearly  years if I said firtree cove he would if he came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes to guess who I might recognise him hes young still about  perhaps hes married some girl on the black water and is quite changed they all do they havent half the character a woman has she little knows what I did with her beloved husband before he ever dreamt of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole world you might say they could have put an article about it in the Chronicle I was a bit wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in from Benady Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and pigeons screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle hill round by the old guardhouse and the jews burialplace pretending to read out the Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he didnt know what to make of me with his peak cap on that he always wore crooked as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat that old Bishop that spoke off the altar his long preach about womans higher functions about girls now riding the bicycle and wearing peak caps and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money I suppose theyre called after him I never thought that would be my name Bloom when I used to write it in print to see how it looked on a visiting card or practising for the butcher and oblige M Bloom youre looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well its better than Breen or Briggs does brig or those awful names with bottom in them Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom Mulvey I wouldnt go mad about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my mother whoever she was might have given me a nicer name the Lord knows after the lovely one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running along Williss road to Europa point twisting in and out all round the other side of Jersey they were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like Millys little ones now when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down at them I was jumping up at the pepper trees and the white poplars pulling the leaves off and throwing them at him he went to India he was to write the voyages those men have to make to the ends of the world and back its the least they might get a squeeze or two at a woman while they can going out to be drowned or blown up somewhere I went up Windmill hill to the flats that Sunday morning with captain Rubios that was dead spyglass like the sentry had he said hed have one or two from on board I wore that frock from the B Marche paris and the coral necklace the straits shining I could see over to Morocco almost the bay of Tangier white and the Atlas mountain with snow on it and the straits like a river so clear Harry Molly darling I was thinking of him on the sea all the time after at mass when my petticoat began to slip down at the elevation weeks and weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow for the smell of him there was no decent perfume to be got in that Gibraltar only that cheap peau dEspagne that faded and left a stink on you more than anything else I wanted to give him a memento he gave me that clumsy Claddagh ring for luck that I gave Gardner going to south Africa where those Boers killed him with their war and fever but they were well beaten all the same as if it brought its bad luck with it like an opal or pearl still it must have been pure  carrot gold because it was very heavy but what could you get in a place like that the sandfrog shower from Africa and that derelict ship that came up to the harbour Marie the Marie whatyoucallit no he hadnt a moustache that was Gardner yes I can see his face cleanshaven Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train again weeping tone once in the dear deaead days beyondre call close my eyes breath my lips forward kiss sad look eyes open piano ere oer the world the mists began I hate that istsbeg comes loves sweet sooooooooooong Ill let that out full when I get in front of the footlights again Kathleen Kearney and her lot of squealers Miss This Miss That Miss Theother lot of sparrowfarts skitting around talking about politics they know as much about as my backside anything in the world to make themselves someway interesting Irish homemade beauties soldiers daughter am I ay and whose are you bootmakers and publicans I beg your pardon coach I thought you were a wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their feet if ever they got a chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm like me on the bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God help their poor head I knew more about men and life when I was  than theyll all know at  they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no man could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that and not think of it I was afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all father left me in spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure anyhow he always said theyre so snotty about themselves some of those cads he wasnt a bit like that he was dead gone on my lips let them get a husband first thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine or see if they can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose whoever he wants like Boylan to do it  or  times locked in each others arms or the voice either I could have been a prima donna only I married him comes looooves old deep down chin back not too much make it double My Ladys Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange at twilight and vaunted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the south that he gave after the choirstairs performance Ill change that lace on my black dress to show off my bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get that big fan mended make them burst with envy my hole is itching me always when I think of him I feel I want to I feel some wind in me better go easy not wake him have him at it again slobbering after washing every bit of myself back belly and sides if we had even a bath itself or my own room anyway I wish hed sleep in some bed by himself with his cold feet on me give us room even to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes hold them like that a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train far away pianissimo eeeee one more song that was a relief wherever you be let your wind go free who knows if that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was quite good with the heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that queerlooking man in the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not smoking fill my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on all night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter its more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was only about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes dressing her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those mountains the something Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with the little bit of a short shift I had up to heat myself I loved dancing about in it then make a race back into bed Im sure that fellow opposite used to be there the whole time watching with the lights out in the summer and I in my skin hopping around I used to love myself then stripped at the washstand dabbing and creaming only when it came to the chamber performance I put out the light too so then there were  of us goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I hope hes not going to get in with those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again coming in at  in the morning it must be if not more still he had the manners not to wake me what do they find to gabber about all night squandering money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they drink water then he starts giving us his orders for eggs and tea and Findon haddy and hot buttered toast I suppose well have him sitting up like the king of the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up and down in his egg wherever he learned that from and I love to hear him falling up the stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then play with the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their claws I wonder do they see anything that we cant staring like that when she sits at the top of the stairs so long and listening as I wait always what a robber too that lovely fresh plaice I bought I think Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange with black currant jam like long ago not those  lb pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as far only for the bones I hate those eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece of cod Im always getting enough for  forgetting anyway Im sick of that everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys loin chops and leg beef and rib steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck the very name is enough or a picnic suppose we all gave  each and or let him pay it and invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drove out to the furry glen or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails first like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there yes with some cold veal and ham mixed sandwiches there are little houses down at the bottom of the banks there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he says not a bank holiday anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes out for the day Whit Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit him better the seaside but Id never again in this life get into a boat with him after him at Bray telling the boatman he knew how to row if anyone asked could he ride the steeplechase for the gold cup hed say yes then it came on to get rough the old thing crookeding about and the weight all down my side telling me pull the right reins now pull the left and the tide all swamping in floods in through the bottom and his oar slipping out of the stirrup its a mercy we werent all drowned he can swim of course me no theres no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in his flannel trousers Id like to have tattered them down off him before all the people and give him what that one calls flagellate till he was black and blue do him all the good in the world only for that longnosed chap I dont know who he is with that other beauty Burke out of the City Arms hotel was there spying around as usual on the slip always where he wasnt wanted if there was a row on youd vomit a better face there was no love lost between us thats  consolation I wonder what kind is that book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white shoes all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather all blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the smell of the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan bay round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa and the tall old chap with the earrings I dont like a man you have to climb up to to get at I suppose theyre all dead and rotten long ago besides I dont like being alone in this big barracks of a place at night I suppose Ill have to put up with it I never brought a bit of salt in even when we moved in the confusion musical academy he was going to make on the first floor drawingroom with a brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested go and ruin himself altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like all the things he told father he was going to do and me but I saw through him telling me all the lovely places we could go for the honeymoon Venice by moonlight with the gondolas and the lake of Como he had a picture cut out of some paper of and mandolines and lanterns O how nice I said whatever I liked he was going to do immediately if not sooner will you be my man will you carry my can he ought to get a leather medal with a putty rim for all the plans he invents then leaving us here all day youd never know what old beggar at the door for a crust with his long story might be a tramp and put his foot in the way to prevent me shutting it like that picture of that hardened criminal he was called in Lloyds Weekly news  years in jail then he comes out and murders an old woman for her money imagine his poor wife or mother or whoever she is such a face youd run miles away from I couldnt rest easy till I bolted all the doors and windows to make sure but its worse again being locked up like in a prison or a madhouse they ought to be all shot or the cat of nine tails a big brute like that that would attack a poor old woman to murder her in her bed Id cut them off him so I would not that hed be much use still better than nothing the night I was sure I heard burglars in the kitchen and he went down in his shirt with a candle and a poker as if he was looking for a mouse as white as a sheet frightened out of his wits making as much noise as he possibly could for the burglars benefit there isnt much to steal indeed the Lord knows still its the feeling especially now with Milly away such an idea for him to send the girl down there to learn to take photographs on account of his grandfather instead of sending her to Skerrys academy where shed have to learn not like me getting all at school only hed do a thing like that all the same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did it Im certain the way he plots and plans everything out I couldnt turn round with her in the place lately unless I bolted the door first gave me the fidgets coming in without knocking first when I put the chair against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove get on your nerves then doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase with two at a time to look at her if he knew she broke off the hand off that little gimcrack statue with her roughness and carelessness before she left that I got that little Italian boy to mend so that you cant see the join for  shillings wouldnt even teem the potatoes for you of course shes right not to ruin her hands I noticed he was always talking to her lately at the table explaining things in the paper and she pretending to understand sly of course that comes from his side of the house he cant say I pretend things can he Im too honest as a matter of fact and helping her into her coat but if there was anything wrong with her its me shed tell not him I suppose he thinks Im finished out and laid on the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well see well see now shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons imitating me whistling with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can Milly come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well he sent her where she is she was just getting out of bounds wanting to go on the skatingrink and smoking their cigarettes through their nose I smelt it off her dress when I was biting off the thread of the button I sewed on to the bottom of her jacket she couldnt hide much from me I tell you only I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a parting and the last plumpudding too split in  halves see it comes out no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your blouse is open too low she says to me the pan calling the kettle blackbottom and I had to tell her not to cock her legs up like that on show on the windowsill before all the people passing they all look at her like me when I was her age of course any old rag looks well on you then a great touchmenot too in her own way at the Only Way in the Theatre royal take your foot away out of that I hate people touching me afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the pleats a lot of that touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark theyre always trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the Gaiety for Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be squashed like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me there and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to get near two stylishdressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same little game I recognised him on the moment the face and everything but he didnt remember me yes and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the Broadstone going away well I hope shell get someone to dance attendance on her the way I did when she was down with the mumps and her glands swollen wheres this and wheres that of course she cant feel anything deep yet I never came properly till I was what  or so it went into the wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense and giggling that Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper sealed with sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because he looked so handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and supper I thought to myself afterwards it must be real love if a man gives up his life for her that way for nothing I suppose there are a few men like that left its hard to believe in it though unless it really happened to me the majority of them with not a particle of love in their natures to find two people like that nowadays full up of each other that would feel the same way as you do theyre usually a bit foolish in the head his father must have been a bit queer to go and poison himself after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost shes always making love to my things too the few old rags I have wanting to put her hair up at  my powder too only ruin her skin on her shes time enough for that all her life after of course shes restless knowing shes pretty with her lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too but theres no use going to the fair with the thing answering me like a fishwoman when I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes the day we met Mrs Joe Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to see us in her trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough till I gave her  damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that now for answering me like that and that for your impudence she had me that exasperated of course contradicting I was badtempered too because how was it there was a weed in the tea or I didnt sleep the night before cheese I ate was it and I told her over and over again not to leave knives crossed like that because she has nobody to command her as she said herself well if he doesnt correct her faith I will that was the last time she turned on the teartap I was just like that myself they darent order me about the place its his fault of course having the two of us slaving here instead of getting in a woman long ago am I ever going to have a proper servant again of course then shed see him coming Id have to let her know or shed revenge it arent they a nuisance that old Mrs Fleming you have to be walking round after her putting the things into her hands sneezing and farting into the pots well of course shes old she cant help it a good job I found that rotten old smelly dishcloth that got lost behind the dresser I knew there was something and opened the area window to let out the smell bringing in his friends to entertain them like the night he walked home with a dog if you please that might have been mad especially Simon Dedalus son his father such a criticiser with his glasses up with his tall hat on him at the cricket match and a great big hole in his sock one thing laughing at the other and his son that got all those prizes for whatever he won them in the intermediate imagine climbing over the railings if anybody saw him that knew us I wonder he didnt tear a big hole in his grand funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt enough for anybody hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he right in his head I ask pity it wasnt washing day my old pair of drawers might have been hanging up too on the line on exhibition for all hed ever care with the ironmould mark the stupid old bundle burned on them he might think was something else and she never even rendered down the fat I told her and now shes going such as she was on account of her paralysed husband getting worse theres always something wrong with them disease or they have to go under an operation or if its not that its drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every day I get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose Ill have some peace I want to get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday wouldnt that pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men do God knows theres always something wrong with us  days every  or  weeks usual monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it came on me like that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael Gunn gave him to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he did about insurance for him in Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I wouldnt give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with his glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his soul thats dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I could all in a swamp leaning forward as if I was interested having to sit it out then to the last tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in a hurry supposed to be a fast play about adultery that idiot in the gallery hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I suppose he went and had a woman in the next lane running round all the back ways after to make up for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo I bet the cat itself is better off than us have we too much blood up in us or what O patience above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt make me pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets I just put on I suppose the clean linen I wore brought it on too damn it damn it and they always want to see a stain on the bed to know youre a virgin for them all thats troubling them theyre such fools too you could be a widow or divorced  times over a daub of red ink would do or blackberry juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh sweets of sin whoever suggested that business for women what between clothes and cooking and children this damned old bed too jingling like the dickens I suppose they could hear us away over the other side of the park till I suggested to put the quilt on the floor with the pillow under my bottom I wonder is it nicer in the day I think it is easy I think Ill cut all this hair off me there scalding me I might look like a young girl wouldnt he get the great suckin the next time he turned up my clothes on me Id give anything to see his face wheres the chamber gone easy Ive a holy horror of its breaking under me after that old commode I wonder was I too heavy sitting on his knee I made him sit on the easychair purposely when I took off only my blouse and skirt first in the other room he was so busy where he oughtnt to be he never felt me I hope my breath was sweet after those kissing comfits easy God I remember one time I could scout it out straight whistling like a man almost easy O Lord how noisy I hope theyre bubbles on it for a wad of money from some fellow Ill have to perfume it in the morning dont forget I bet he never saw a better pair of thighs than that look how white they are the smoothest place is right there between this bit here how soft like a peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman O Lord what a row youre making like the jersey lily easy easy O how the waters come down at Lahore who knows is there anything the matter with my insides or have I something growing in me getting that thing like that every week when was it last I Whit Monday yes its only about  weeks I ought to go to the doctor only it would be like before I married him when I had that white thing coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick Dr Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called it I suppose thats how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting round those rich ones off Stephens green running up to him for every little fiddlefaddle her vagina and her cochinchina theyve money of course so theyre all right I wouldnt marry him not if he was the last man in the world besides theres something queer about their children always smelling around those filthy bitches all sides asking me if what I did had an offensive odour what did he want me to do but the one thing gold maybe what a question if I smathered it all over his wrinkly old face for him with all my compriments I suppose hed know then and could you pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking about the rock of Gibraltar the way he put it thats a very nice invention too by the way only I like letting myself down after in the hole as far as I can squeeze and pull the chain then to flush it nice cool pins and needles still theres something in it I suppose I always used to know by Millys when she was a child whether she had worms or not still all the same paying him for that how much is that doctor one guinea please and asking me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all the words they have omissions with his shortsighted eyes on me cocked sideways I wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform or God knows what else still I liked him when he sat down to write the thing out frowning so severe his nose intelligent like that you be damned you lying strap O anything no matter who except an idiot he was clever enough to spot that of course that was all thinking of him and his mad crazy letters my Precious one everything connected with your glorious Body everything underlined that comes from it is a thing of beauty and of joy for ever something he got out of some nonsensical book that he had me always at myself  and  times a day sometimes and I said I hadnt are you sure O yes I said I am quite sure in a way that shut him up I knew what was coming next only natural weakness it was he excited me I dont know how the first night ever we met when I was living in Rehoboth terrace we stood staring at one another for about  minutes as if we met somewhere I suppose on account of my being jewess looking after my mother he used to amuse me the things he said with the half sloothering smile on him and all the Doyles said he was going to stand for a member of Parliament O wasnt I the born fool to believe all his blather about home rule and the land league sending me that long strool of a song out of the Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy O beau pays de la Touraine that I never even sang once explaining and rigmaroling about religion and persecution he wont let you enjoy anything naturally then might he as a great favour the very st opportunity he got a chance in Brighton square running into my bedroom pretending the ink got on his hands to wash it off with the Albion milk and sulphur soap I used to use and the gelatine still round it O I laughed myself sick at him that day I better not make an alnight sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a natural size so that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to do it I suppose there isnt in all creation another man with the habits he has look at the way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he without a hard bolster its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out all my teeth breathing with his hand on his nose like that Indian god he took me to show one wet Sunday in the museum in Kildare street all yellow in a pinafore lying on his side on his hand with his ten toes sticking out that he said was a bigger religion than the jews and Our Lords both put together all over Asia imitating him as hes always imitating everybody I suppose he used to sleep at the foot of the bed too with his big square feet up in his wifes mouth damn this stinking thing anyway wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I hope the old press doesnt creak ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a good time somewhere still she must have given him great value for his money of course he has to pay for it from her O this nuisance of a thing I hope theyll have something better for us in the other world tying ourselves up God help us thats all right for tonight now the lumpy old jingly bed always reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched himself in it often enough and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that I used to admire when I was a little girl because I told him easy piano O I like my bed God here we are as bad as ever after  years how many houses were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the men with our  sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the landing always somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after them always know who was in there last every time were just getting on right something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the freemasons then well see if the little man he showed me dribbling along in the wet all by himself round by Coadys lane will give him much consolation that he says is so capable and sincerely Irish he is indeed judging by the sincerity of the trousers I saw on him wait theres Georges church bells wait  quarters the hour wait two oclock well thats a nice hour of the night for him to be coming home at to anybody climbing down into the area if anybody saw him Ill knock him off that little habit tomorrow first Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill see if he has that French letter still in his pocketbook I suppose he thinks I dont know deceitful men all their  pockets arent enough for their lies then why should we tell them even if its the truth they dont believe you then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece he brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in real life without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs thats the kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about with not another thing in their empty heads they ought to get slow poison the half of them then tea and toast for him buttered on both sides and newlaid eggs I suppose Im nothing any more when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one night man man tyrant as ever for the one thing he slept on the floor half the night naked the way the jews used when somebody dies belonged to them and wouldnt eat any breakfast or speak a word wanting to be petted so I thought I stood out enough for one time and let him he does it all wrong too thinking only of his own pleasure his tongue is too flat or I dont know what he forgets that wethen I dont Ill make him do it again if he doesnt mind himself and lock him down to sleep in the coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder was it her Josie off her head with my castoffs hes such a born liar too no hed never have the courage with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan though as for her Denis as she calls him that forlornlooking spectacle you couldnt call him a husband yes its some little bitch hes got in with even when I was with him with Milly at the College races that Hornblower with the childs bonnet on the top of his nob let us into by the back way he was throwing his sheeps eyes at those two doing skirt duty up and down I tried to wink at him first no use of course and thats the way his money goes this is the fruits of Mr Paddy Dignam yes they were all in great style at the grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in if they saw a real officers funeral thatd be something reversed arms muffled drums the poor horse walking behind in black L Boom and Tom Kernan that drunken little barrelly man that bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk in some place or other and Martin Cunningham and the two Dedaluses and Fanny MCoys husband white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in her eye trying to sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and her old green dress with the lowneck as she cant attract them any other way like dabbling on a rainy day I see it all now plainly and they call that friendship killing and then burying one another and they all with their wives and families at home more especially Jack Power keeping that barmaid he does of course his wife is always sick or going to be sick or just getting better of it and hes a goodlooking man still though hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all of them well theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches if I can help it making fun of him then behind his back I know well when he goes on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to squander every penny piece he earns down their gullets and looks after his wife and family goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam all the same Im sorry in a way for him what are his wife and  children going to do unless he was insured comical little teetotum always stuck up in some pub corner and her or her son waiting Bill Bailey wont you please come home her widows weeds wont improve her appearance theyre awfully becoming though if youre goodlooking what men wasnt he yes he was at the Glencree dinner and Ben Dollard base barreltone the night he borrowed the swallowtail to sing out of in Holles street squeezed and squashed into them and grinning all over his big Dolly face like a wellwhipped childs botty didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure enough that must have been a spectacle on the stage imagine paying  in the preserved seats for that to see him trotting off in his trowlers and Simon Dedalus too he was always turning up half screwed singing the second verse first the old love is the new was one of his so sweetly sang the maiden on the hawthorn bough he was always on for flirtyfying too when I sang Maritana with him at Freddy Mayers private opera he had a delicious glorious voice Phoebe dearest goodbye sweetheart sweetheart he always sang it not like Bartell DArcy sweet tart goodbye of course he had the gift of the voice so there was no art in it all over you like a warm showerbath O Maritana wildwood flower we sang splendidly though it was a bit too high for my register even transposed and he was married at the time to May Goulding but then hed say or do something to knock the good out of it hes a widower now I wonder what sort is his son he says hes an author and going to be a university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons what is he driving at now showing him my photo its not good of me I ought to have got it taken in drapery that never looks out of fashion still I look young in it I wonder he didnt make him a present of it altogether and me too after all why not I saw him driving down to the Kingsbridge station with his father and mother I was in mourning thats  years ago now yes hed be  though what was the good in going into mourning for what was neither one thing nor the other the first cry was enough for me I heard the deathwatch too ticking in the wall of course he insisted hed go into mourning for the cat I suppose hes a man now by this time he was an innocent boy then and a darling little fellow in his lord Fauntleroy suit and curly hair like a prince on the stage when I saw him at Mat Dillons he liked me too I remember they all do wait by God yes wait yes hold on he was on the cards this morning when I laid out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either besides my face was turned the other way what was the th card after that the  of spades for a journey by land then there was a letter on its way and scandals too the  queens and the  of diamonds for a rise in society yes wait it all came out and  red s for new garments look at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about poetry in it I hope he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or standing up like a red Indian what do they go about like that for only getting themselves and their poetry laughed at I always liked poetry when I was a girl first I thought he was a poet like lord Byron and not an ounce of it in his composition I thought he was quite different I wonder is he too young hes about wait  I was married  Milly is  yesterday  what age was he then at Dillons  or  about  I suppose hes  or more Im not too old for him if hes  or  I hope hes not that stuckup university student sort no otherwise he wouldnt go sitting down in the old kitchen with him taking Eppss cocoa and talking of course he pretended to understand it all probably he told him he was out of Trinity college hes very young to be a professor I hope hes not a professor like Goodwin was he was a potent professor of John Jameson they all write about some woman in their poetry well I suppose he wont find many like me where softly sighs of love the light guitar where poetry is in the air the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa the lighthouse at Europa point the guitar that fellow played was so expressive will I ever go back there again all new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill sing that for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young star itll be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to talk to about yourself not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad then if anything goes wrong in their business we have to suffer Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young those fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathingplace from the side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or something and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he bought I could look at him all day long curly head and his shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock there so simple I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was looking as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looks with his boyish face I would too in  a minute even if some of it went down what its only like gruel or the dew theres no danger besides hed be so clean compared with those pigs of men I suppose never dream of washing it from  years end to the other the most of them only thats what gives the women the moustaches Im sure itll be grand if I can only get in with a handsome young poet at my age Ill throw them the st thing in the morning till I see if the wishcard comes out or Ill try pairing the lady herself and see if he comes out Ill read and study all I can find or learn a bit off by heart if I knew who he likes so he wont think me stupid if he thinks all women are the same and I can teach him the other part Ill make him feel all over him till he half faints under me then hell write about me lover and mistress publicly too with our  photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous O but then what am I going to do about him though no thats no way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because I didnt call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a cabbage thats what you get for not keeping them in their proper place pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so barefaced without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar way in the half of a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a butcher or those old hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course hes right enough in his way to pass the time as a joke sure you might as well be in bed with what with a lion God Im sure hed have something better to say for himself an old Lion would O well I suppose its because they were so plump and tempting in my short petticoat he couldnt resist they excite myself sometimes its well for men all the amount of pleasure they get off a womans body were so round and white for them always I wished I was one myself for a change just to try with that thing they have swelling up on you so hard and at the same time so soft when you touch it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those cornerboys saying passing the comer of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has a thing hairy because it was dark and they knew a girl was passing it didnt make me blush why should it either its only nature and he puts his thing long into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera and turns out to be you put the handle in a sweepingbrush men again all over they can pick and choose what they please a married woman or a fast widow or a girl for their different tastes like those houses round behind Irish street no but were to be always chained up theyre not going to be chaining me up no damn fear once I start I tell you for their stupid husbands jealousy why cant we all remain friends over it instead of quarrelling her husband found it out what they did together well naturally and if he did can he undo it hes coronado anyway whatever he does and then he going to the other mad extreme about the wife in Fair Tyrants of course the man never even casts a nd thought on the husband or wife either its the woman he wants and he gets her what else were we given all those desires for Id like to know I cant help it if Im young still can I its a wonder Im not an old shrivelled hag before my time living with him so cold never embracing me except sometimes when hes asleep the wrong end of me not knowing I suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my hat at him after that hed kiss anything unnatural where we havent  atom of any kind of expression in us all of us the same  lumps of lard before ever Id do that to a man pfooh the dirty brutes the mere thought is enough I kiss the feet of you senorita theres some sense in that didnt he kiss our halldoor yes he did what a madman nobody understands his cracked ideas but me still of course a woman wants to be embraced  times a day almost to make her look young no matter by who so long as to be in love or loved by somebody if the fellow you want isnt there sometimes by the Lord God I was thinking would I go around by the quays there some dark evening where nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be hot on for it and not care a pin whose I was only do it off up in a gate somewhere or one of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their camp pitched near the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if they could I only sent mine there a few times for the name model laundry sending me back over and over some old ones odd stockings that blackguardlooking fellow with the fine eyes peeling a switch attack me in the dark and ride me up against the wall without a word or a murderer anybody what they do themselves the fine gentlemen in their silk hats that K C lives up somewhere this way coming out of Hardwicke lane the night he gave us the fish supper on account of winning over the boxing match of course it was for me he gave it I knew him by his gaiters and the walk and when I turned round a minute after just to see there was a woman after coming out of it too some filthy prostitute then he goes home to his wife after that only I suppose the half of those sailors are rotten again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that for the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so well he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora if he knew how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between  s too in prison for Lord knows what he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around down in the kitchen to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled up like a mummy will I indeed did you ever see me running Id just like to see myself at it show them attention and they treat you like dirt I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they wouldnt be in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to be a woman and a mother how could they where would they all of them be if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what I never had thats why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away from his books and studies and not living at home on account of the usual rowy house I suppose well its a poor case that those that have a fine son like that theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to make one it wasnt my fault we came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have another our st death too it was we were never the same since O Im not going to think myself into the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night I felt all the time it was somebody strange he brought in instead of roving around the city meeting God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets his poor mother wouldnt like that if she was alive ruining himself for life perhaps still its a lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after dances the air of the night they have friends they can talk to weve none either he wants what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife in you I hate that in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a dreadful lot of bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us so snappy Im not like that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa in the other room I suppose he was as shy as a boy he being so young hardly  of me in the next room hed have heard me on the chamber arrah what harm Dedalus I wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz Delagracia they had the devils queer names there father Vilaplana of Santa Maria that gave me the rosary Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las Siete Revueltas and Pisimbo and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like her O my and all the bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and Rodgers ramp and Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small blame to me if I am a harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I dont feel a day older than then I wonder could I get my tongue round any of the Spanish como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted see I havent forgotten it all I thought I had only for the grammar a noun is the name of any person place or thing pity I never tried to read that novel cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can tell him the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not so ignorant what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead tired and wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his breakfast in bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the watercress and something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of them in Abrines I could do the criada the room looks all right since I changed it the other way you see something was telling me all the time Id have to introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im his wife or pretend we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods notion where he is dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things come into my head sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us why not theres the room upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back room he could do his writing and studies at the table in there for all the scribbling he does at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning like me as hes making the breakfast for  he can make it for  Im sure Im not going to take in lodgers off the street for him if he takes a gesabo of a house like this Id love to have a long talk with an intelligent welleducated person Id have to get a nice pair of red slippers like those Turks with the fez used to sell or yellow and a nice semitransparent morning gown that I badly want or a peachblossom dressing jacket like the one long ago in Walpoles only  or  Ill just give him one more chance Ill get up early in the morning Im sick of Cohens old bed in any case I might go over to the markets to see all the vegetables and cabbages and tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of splendid fruits all coming in lovely and fresh who knows whod be the st man Id meet theyre out looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used to say they are and the night too that was her massgoing Id love a big juicy pear now to melt in your mouth like when I used to be in the longing way then Ill throw him up his eggs and tea in the moustachecup she gave him to make his mouth bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what Ill do Ill go about rather gay not too much singing a bit now and then mi fa pieta Masetto then Ill start dressing myself to go out presto non son piu forte Ill put on my best shift and drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him Ill let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is fucked yes and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him  or  times handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt bother to even iron it out that ought to satisfy him if you dont believe me feel my belly unless I made him stand there and put him into me Ive a mind to tell him every scrap and make him do it out in front of me serve him right its all his own fault if I am an adulteress as the thing in the gallery said O much about it if thats all the harm ever we did in this vale of tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody only they hide it I suppose thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or He wouldnt have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue  miles up my hole as hes there my brown part then Ill tell him I want   or perhaps  Ill tell him I want to buy underclothes then if he gives me that well he wont be too bad I dont want to soak it all out of him like other women do I could often have written out a fine cheque for myself and write his name on it for a couple of pounds a few times he forgot to lock it up besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on me behind provided he doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do the indifferent  or  questions Ill know by the answers when hes like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes O wait now sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O but I was forgetting this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldnt know which to laugh or cry were such a mixture of plum and apple no Ill have to wear the old things so much the better itll be more pointed hell never know whether he did it or not there thats good enough for you any old thing at all then Ill wipe him off me just like a business his omission then Ill go out Ill have him eying up at the ceiling where is she gone now make him want me thats the only way a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus theyve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two for his night office or the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of itself let me see if I can doze off      what kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again so as I can get up early Ill go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first I want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im asleep then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him first I must clean the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear a white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich big shop at  d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them and the pinky sugar d a couple of lbs of those a nice plant for the middle of the table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes  years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas  glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. TriesteZurichParis 
To S.L.O., an American gentleman in accordance with whose classic taste the following narrative has been designed, it is now, in return for numerous delightful hours, and with the kindest wishes, dedicated by his affectionate friend, the author. TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER If sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons, And buccaneers, and buried gold, And all the old romance, retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of today So be it, and fall on! If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave So be it, also! And may I And all my pirates share the grave Where these and their creations lie! QUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace  and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his seachest following behind him in a handbarrowa tall, strong, heavy, nutbrown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old seasong that he sang so often afterwards 'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard. 'This is a handy cove, says he at length 'and a pleasant sittyated grogshop. Much company, mate? My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity. 'Well, then, said he, 'this is the berth for me. Here you, matey, he cried to the man who trundled the barrow 'bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit, he continued. 'I'm a plain man rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're atthere and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. 'You can tell me when I've worked through that, says he, looking as fierce as a commander. And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest. He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope all evening he sat in a corner of the parlour next the fire and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and blow through his nose like a foghorn and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when he came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did put up at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol) he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlour and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter, for I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I would only keep my 'weathereye open for a seafaring man with one leg and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough when the first of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through his nose at me and stare me down, but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my fourpenny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for 'the seafaring man with one leg. How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies. But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head would carry and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild seasongs, minding nobody but sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house shaking with 'Yohoho, and a bottle of rum, all the neighbours joining in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark. For in these fits he was the most overriding companion ever known he would slap his hand on the table for silence all round he would fly up in a passion of anger at a question, or sometimes because none was put, and so he judged the company was not following his story. Nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed. His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories they wereabout hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a 'true seadog and a 'real old salt and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea. In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up the heart to insist on having more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through his nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and stared my poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened his early and unhappy death. All the time he lived with us the captain made no change whatever in his dress but to buy some stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat having fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though it was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his coat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, and which, before the end, was nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, and he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the most part, only when drunk on rum. The great seachest none of us had ever seen open. He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end, when my poor father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horse should come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old Benbow. I followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting, far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly hethe captain, that isbegan to pipe up his eternal song 'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! At first I had supposed 'the dead man's chest to be that identical big box of his upstairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares with that of the onelegged seafaring man. But by this time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song it was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a moment quite angrily before he went on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain gradually brightened up at his own music, and at last flapped his hand upon the table before him in a way we all knew to mean silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's he went on as before speaking clear and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath, 'Silence, there, between decks! 'Were you addressing me, sir? says the doctor and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, 'I have only one thing to say to you, sir, replies the doctor, 'that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel! The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened a sailor's claspknife, and balancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatened to pin the doctor to the wall. The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him as before, over his shoulder and in the same tone of voice, rather high, so that all the room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady 'If you do not put that knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall hang at the next assizes. Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog. 'And now, sir, continued the doctor, 'since I now know there's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'll have an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only I'm a magistrate and if I catch a breath of complaint against you, if it's only for a piece of incivility like tonight's, I'll take effectual means to have you hunted down and routed out of this. Let that suffice. Soon after, Dr. Livesey's horse came to the door and he rode away, but the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come. T was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without paying much regard to our unpleasant guest. It was one January morning, very earlya pinching, frosty morningthe cove all grey with hoarfrost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual and set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I heard of him as he turned the big rock was a loud snort of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey. Well, mother was upstairs with father and I was laying the breakfasttable against the captain's return when the parlour door opened and a man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand, and though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I had always my eye open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too. I asked him what was for his service, and he said he would take rum but as I was going out of the room to fetch it, he sat down upon a table and motioned me to draw near. I paused where I was, with my napkin in my hand. 'Come here, sonny, says he. 'Come nearer here. I took a step nearer. 'Is this here table for my mate Bill? he asked with a kind of leer. I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for a person who stayed in our house whom we called the captain. 'Well, said he, 'my mate Bill would be called the captain, as like as not. He has a cut on one cheek and a mighty pleasant way with him, particularly in drink, has my mate Bill. We'll put it, for argument like, that your captain has a cut on one cheekand we'll put it, if you like, that that cheek's the right one. Ah, well! I told you. Now, is my mate Bill in this here house? I told him he was out walking. 'Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone? And when I had pointed out the rock and told him how the captain was likely to return, and how soon, and answered a few other questions, 'Ah, said he, 'this'll be as good as drink to my mate Bill. The expression of his face as he said these words was not at all pleasant, and I had my own reasons for thinking that the stranger was mistaken, even supposing he meant what he said. But it was no affair of mine, I thought and besides, it was difficult to know what to do. The stranger kept hanging about just inside the inn door, peering round the corner like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself into the road, but he immediately called me back, and as I did not obey quick enough for his fancy, a most horrible change came over his tallowy face, and he ordered me in with an oath that made me jump. As soon as I was back again he returned to his former manner, half fawning, half sneering, patted me on the shoulder, told me I was a good boy and he had taken quite a fancy to me. 'I have a son of my own, said he, 'as like you as two blocks, and he's all the pride of my 'art. But the great thing for boys is discipline, sonnydiscipline. Now, if you had sailed along of Bill, you wouldn't have stood there to be spoke to twicenot you. That was never Bill's way, nor the way of sich as sailed with him. And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with a spyglass under his arm, bless his old 'art, to be sure. You and me'll just go back into the parlour, sonny, and get behind the door, and we'll give Bill a little surprisebless his 'art, I say again. So saying, the stranger backed along with me into the parlour and put me behind him in the corner so that we were both hidden by the open door. I was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, and it rather added to my fears to observe that the stranger was certainly frightened himself. He cleared the hilt of his cutlass and loosened the blade in the sheath and all the time we were waiting there he kept swallowing as if he felt what we used to call a lump in the throat. At last in strode the captain, slammed the door behind him, without looking to the right or left, and marched straight across the room to where his breakfast awaited him. 'Bill, said the stranger in a voice that I thought he had tried to make bold and big. The captain spun round on his heel and fronted us all the brown had gone out of his face, and even his nose was blue he had the look of a man who sees a ghost, or the evil one, or something worse, if anything can be and upon my word, I felt sorry to see him all in a moment turn so old and sick. 'Come, Bill, you know me you know an old shipmate, Bill, surely, said the stranger. The captain made a sort of gasp. 'Black Dog! said he. 'And who else? returned the other, getting more at his ease. 'Black Dog as ever was, come for to see his old shipmate Billy, at the Admiral Benbow inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, since I lost them two talons, holding up his mutilated hand. 'Now, look here, said the captain 'you've run me down here I am well, then, speak up what is it? 'That's you, Bill, returned Black Dog, 'you're in the right of it, Billy. I'll have a glass of rum from this dear child here, as I've took such a liking to and we'll sit down, if you please, and talk square, like old shipmates. When I returned with the rum, they were already seated on either side of the captain's breakfasttableBlack Dog next to the door and sitting sideways so as to have one eye on his old shipmate and one, as I thought, on his retreat. He bade me go and leave the door wide open. 'None of your keyholes for me, sonny, he said and I left them together and retired into the bar. For a long time, though I certainly did my best to listen, I could hear nothing but a low gattling but at last the voices began to grow higher, and I could pick up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain. 'No, no, no, no and an end of it! he cried once. And again, 'If it comes to swinging, swing all, say I. Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion of oaths and other noisesthe chair and table went over in a lump, a clash of steel followed, and then a cry of pain, and the next instant I saw Black Dog in full flight, and the captain hotly pursuing, both with drawn cutlasses, and the former streaming blood from the left shoulder. Just at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut, which would certainly have split him to the chine had it not been intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral Benbow. You may see the notch on the lower side of the frame to this day. That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the road, Black Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful clean pair of heels and disappeared over the edge of the hill in half a minute. The captain, for his part, stood staring at the signboard like a bewildered man. Then he passed his hand over his eyes several times and at last turned back into the house. 'Jim, says he, 'rum and as he spoke, he reeled a little, and caught himself with one hand against the wall. 'Are you hurt? cried I. 'Rum, he repeated. 'I must get away from here. Rum! Rum! I ran to fetch it, but I was quite unsteadied by all that had fallen out, and I broke one glass and fouled the tap, and while I was still getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall in the parlour, and running in, beheld the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came running downstairs to help me. Between us we raised his head. He was breathing very loud and hard, but his eyes were closed and his face a horrible colour. 'Dear, deary me, cried my mother, 'what a disgrace upon the house! And your poor father sick! In the meantime, we had no idea what to do to help the captain, nor any other thought but that he had got his deathhurt in the scuffle with the stranger. I got the rum, to be sure, and tried to put it down his throat, but his teeth were tightly shut and his jaws as strong as iron. It was a happy relief for us when the door opened and Doctor Livesey came in, on his visit to my father. 'Oh, doctor, we cried, 'what shall we do? Where is he wounded? 'Wounded? A fiddlestick's end! said the doctor. 'No more wounded than you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins, just you run upstairs to your husband and tell him, if possible, nothing about it. For my part, I must do my best to save this fellow's trebly worthless life Jim, you get me a basin. When I got back with the basin, the doctor had already ripped up the captain's sleeve and exposed his great sinewy arm. It was tattooed in several places. 'Here's luck, 'A fair wind, and 'Billy Bones his fancy, were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm and up near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from itdone, as I thought, with great spirit. 'Prophetic, said the doctor, touching this picture with his finger. 'And now, Master Billy Bones, if that be your name, we'll have a look at the colour of your blood. Jim, he said, 'are you afraid of blood? 'No, sir, said I. 'Well, then, said he, 'you hold the basin and with that he took his lancet and opened a vein. A great deal of blood was taken before the captain opened his eyes and looked mistily about him. First he recognized the doctor with an unmistakable frown then his glance fell upon me, and he looked relieved. But suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise himself, crying, 'Where's Black Dog? 'There is no Black Dog here, said the doctor, 'except what you have on your own back. You have been drinking rum you have had a stroke, precisely as I told you and I have just, very much against my own will, dragged you headforemost out of the grave. Now, Mr. Bones 'That's not my name, he interrupted. 'Much I care, returned the doctor. 'It's the name of a buccaneer of my acquaintance and I call you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I have to say to you is this one glass of rum won't kill you, but if you take one you'll take another and another, and I stake my wig if you don't break off short, you'll diedo you understand that?die, and go to your own place, like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make an effort. I'll help you to your bed for once. Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him upstairs, and laid him on his bed, where his head fell back on the pillow as if he were almost fainting. 'Now, mind you, said the doctor, 'I clear my consciencethe name of rum for you is death. And with that he went off to see my father, taking me with him by the arm. 'This is nothing, he said as soon as he had closed the door. 'I have drawn blood enough to keep him quiet awhile he should lie for a week where he isthat is the best thing for him and you but another stroke would settle him. BOUT noon I stopped at the captain's door with some cooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited. 'Jim, he said, 'you're the only one here that's worth anything, and you know I've been always good to you. Never a month but I've given you a silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low, and deserted by all and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey? 'The doctor I began. But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. 'Doctors is all swabs, he said 'and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land aheaving like the sea with earthquakeswhat to the doctor know of lands like that?and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab and he ran on again for a while with curses. 'Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges, he continued in the pleading tone. 'I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have a dram o' rum, Jim, I'll have the horrors I seen some on 'em already. I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you as plain as print, I seen him and if I get the horrors, I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise Cain. Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim. He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my father, who was very low that day and needed quiet besides, I was reassured by the doctor's words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by the offer of a bribe. 'I want none of your money, said I, 'but what you owe my father. I'll get you one glass, and no more. When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out. 'Aye, aye, said he, 'that's some better, sure enough. And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old berth? 'A week at least, said I. 'Thunder! he cried. 'A week! I can't do that they'd have the black spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this blessed moment lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour, now, I want to know? But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it neither and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again. As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry out, and moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting position on the edge. 'That doctor's done me, he murmured. 'My ears is singing. Lay me back. Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again to his former place, where he lay for a while silent. 'Jim, he said at length, 'you saw that seafaring man today? 'Black Dog? I asked. 'Ah! Black Dog, says he. 'He's a bad 'un but there's worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my old seachest they're after you get on a horseyou can, can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go towell, yes, I will!to that eternal doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all handsmagistrates and sichand he'll lay 'em aboard at the Admiral Benbowall old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm the on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he lay adying, like as if I was to now, you see. But you won't peach unless they get the black spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a seafaring man with one leg, Jimhim above all. 'But what is the black spot, captain? I asked. 'That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get that. But you keep your weathereye open, Jim, and I'll share with you equals, upon my honour. He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker but soon after I had given him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, 'If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me, he fell at last into a heavy, swoonlike sleep, in which I left him. What I should have done had all gone well I do not know. Probably I should have told the whole story to the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell out, my poor father died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other matters on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be carried on in the meanwhile kept me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of the captain, far less to be afraid of him. He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his meals as usual, though he ate little and had more, I am afraid, than his usual supply of rum, for he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and blowing through his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the night before the funeral he was as drunk as ever and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to hear him singing away at his ugly old seasong but weak as he was, we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with a case many miles away and was never near the house after my father's death. I have said the captain was weak, and indeed he seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength. He clambered up and down stairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and back again, and sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea, holding on to the walls as he went for support and breathing hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain. He never particularly addressed me, and it is my belief he had as good as forgotten his confidences but his temper was more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weakness, more violent than ever. He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table. But with all that, he minded people less and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather wandering. Once, for instance, to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a different air, a kind of country lovesong that he must have learned in his youth before he had begun to follow the sea. So things passed until, the day after the funeral, and about three o'clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon, I was standing at the door for a moment, full of sad thoughts about my father, when I saw someone drawing slowly near along the road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with a stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge old tattered seacloak with a hood that made him appear positively deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadfullooking figure. He stopped a little from the inn, and raising his voice in an odd singsong, addressed the air in front of him, 'Will any kind friend inform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defence of his native country, Englandand God bless King George!where or in what part of this country he may now be? 'You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, my good man, said I. 'I hear a voice, said he, 'a young voice. Will you give me your hand, my kind young friend, and lead me in? I held out my hand, and the horrible, softspoken, eyeless creature gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was so much startled that I struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close up to him with a single action of his arm. 'Now, boy, he said, 'take me in to the captain. 'Sir, said I, 'upon my word I dare not. 'Oh, he sneered, 'that's it! Take me in straight or I'll break your arm. And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out. 'Sir, said I, 'it is for yourself I mean. The captain is not what he used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman 'Come, now, march, interrupted he and I never heard a voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's. It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. 'Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this, and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice. The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had enough force left in his body. 'Now, Bill, sit where you are, said the beggar. 'If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right. We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon it instantly. 'And now that's done, said the blind man and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick go taptaptapping into the distance. It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply into the palm. 'Ten o'clock! he cried. 'Six hours. We'll do them yet, and he sprang to his feet. Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole height face foremost to the floor. I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man's moneyif he had anywas certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bareheaded as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and the frosty fog. The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view, on the other side of the next cove and what greatly encouraged me, it was in an opposite direction from that whence the blind man had made his appearance and whither he had presumably returned. We were not many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and hearken. But there was no unusual soundnothing but the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood. It was already candlelight when we reached the hamlet, and I shall never forget how much I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and windows but that, as it proved, was the best of the help we were likely to get in that quarter. Foryou would have thought men would have been ashamed of themselvesno soul would consent to return with us to the Admiral Benbow. The more we told of our troubles, the moreman, woman, and childthey clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of Captain Flint, though it was strange to me, was well enough known to some there and carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who had been to fieldwork on the far side of the Admiral Benbow remembered, besides, to have seen several strangers on the road, and taking them to be smugglers, to have bolted away and one at least had seen a little lugger in what we called Kitt's Hole. For that matter, anyone who was a comrade of the captain's was enough to frighten them to death. And the short and the long of the matter was, that while we could get several who were willing enough to ride to Dr. Livesey's, which lay in another direction, not one would help us to defend the inn. They say cowardice is infectious but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener and so when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless boy 'If none of the rest of you dare, she said, 'Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way we came, and small thanks to you big, hulking, chickenhearted men. We'll have that chest open, if we die for it. And I'll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, to bring back our lawful money in. Of course I said I would go with my mother, and of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness, but even then not a man would go along with us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were attacked, and to promise to have horses ready saddled in case we were pursued on our return, while one lad was to ride forward to the doctor's in search of armed assistance. My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in the cold night upon this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise and peered redly through the upper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste, for it was plain, before we came forth again, that all would be as bright as day, and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear anything to increase our terrors, till, to our relief, the door of the Admiral Benbow had closed behind us. I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for a moment in the dark, alone in the house with the dead captain's body. Then my mother got a candle in the bar, and holding each other's hands, we advanced into the parlour. He lay as we had left him, on his back, with his eyes open and one arm stretched out. 'Draw down the blind, Jim, whispered my mother 'they might come and watch outside. And now, said she when I had done so, 'we have to get the key off that and who's to touch it, I should like to know! and she gave a kind of sob as she said the words. I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side. I could not doubt that this was the black spot and taking it up, I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message 'You have till ten tonight. 'He had till ten, Mother, said I and just as I said it, our old clock began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly but the news was good, for it was only six. 'Now, Jim, she said, 'that key. I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder box were all that they contained, and I began to despair. 'Perhaps it's round his neck, suggested my mother. Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph we were filled with hope and hurried upstairs without delay to the little room where he had slept so long and where his box had stood since the day of his arrival. It was like any other seaman's chest on the outside, the initial 'B burned on the top of it with a hot iron, and the corners somewhat smashed and broken as by long, rough usage. 'Give me the key, said my mother and though the lock was very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling. A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the interior, but nothing was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded. They had never been worn, my mother said. Under that, the miscellany begana quadrant, a tin canikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and hunted life. In the meantime, we had found nothing of any value but the silver and the trinkets, and neither of these were in our way. Underneath there was an old boatcloak, whitened with seasalt on many a harbourbar. My mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay before us, the last things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth, and looking like papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of gold. 'I'll show these rogues that I'm an honest woman, said my mother. 'I'll have my dues, and not a farthing over. Hold Mrs. Crossley's bag. And she began to count over the amount of the captain's score from the sailor's bag into the one that I was holding. It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were of all countries and sizesdoubloons, and louis d'ors, and guineas, and pieces of eight, and I know not what besides, all shaken together at random. The guineas, too, were about the scarcest, and it was with these only that my mother knew how to make her count. When we were about halfway through, I suddenly put my hand upon her arm, for I had heard in the silent frosty air a sound that brought my heart into my mouththe taptapping of the blind man's stick upon the frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer, while we sat holding our breath. Then it struck sharp on the inn door, and then we could hear the handle being turned and the bolt rattling as the wretched being tried to enter and then there was a long time of silence both within and without. At last the tapping recommenced, and, to our indescribable joy and gratitude, died slowly away again until it ceased to be heard. 'Mother, said I, 'take the whole and let's be going, for I was sure the bolted door must have seemed suspicious and would bring the whole hornet's nest about our ears, though how thankful I was that I had bolted it, none could tell who had never met that terrible blind man. But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consent to take a fraction more than was due to her and was obstinately unwilling to be content with less. It was not yet seven, she said, by a long way she knew her rights and she would have them and she was still arguing with me when a little low whistle sounded a good way off upon the hill. That was enough, and more than enough, for both of us. 'I'll take what I have, she said, jumping to her feet. 'And I'll take this to square the count, said I, picking up the oilskin packet. Next moment we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle by the empty chest and the next we had opened the door and were in full retreat. We had not started a moment too soon. The fog was rapidly dispersing already the moon shone quite clear on the high ground on either side and it was only in the exact bottom of the dell and round the tavern door that a thin veil still hung unbroken to conceal the first steps of our escape. Far less than halfway to the hamlet, very little beyond the bottom of the hill, we must come forth into the moonlight. Nor was this all, for the sound of several footsteps running came already to our ears, and as we looked back in their direction, a light tossing to and fro and still rapidly advancing showed that one of the newcomers carried a lantern. 'My dear, said my mother suddenly, 'take the money and run on. I am going to faint. This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought. How I cursed the cowardice of the neighbours how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness! We were just at the little bridge, by good fortune and I helped her, tottering as she was, to the edge of the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength to do it at all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, but I managed to drag her down the bank and a little way under the arch. Farther I could not move her, for the bridge was too low to let me do more than crawl below it. So there we had to staymy mother almost entirely exposed and both of us within earshot of the inn. Y curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed me that I was right. 'Down with the door! he cried. 'Aye, aye, sir! answered two or three and a rush was made upon the Admiral Benbow, the lanternbearer following and then I could see them pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind man again issued his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were afire with eagerness and rage. 'In, in, in! he shouted, and cursed them for their delay. Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on the road with the formidable beggar. There was a pause, then a cry of surprise, and then a voice shouting from the house, 'Bill's dead. But the blind man swore at them again for their delay. 'Search him, some of you shirking lubbers, and the rest of you aloft and get the chest, he cried. I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so that the house must have shook with it. Promptly afterwards, fresh sounds of astonishment arose the window of the captain's room was thrown open with a slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out into the moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed the blind beggar on the road below him. 'Pew, he cried, 'they've been before us. Someone's turned the chest out alow and aloft. 'Is it there? roared Pew. 'The money's there. The blind man cursed the money. 'Flint's fist, I mean, he cried. 'We don't see it here nohow, returned the man. 'Here, you below there, is it on Bill? cried the blind man again. At that another fellow, probably him who had remained below to search the captain's body, came to the door of the inn. 'Bill's been overhauled a'ready, said he 'nothin' left. 'It's these people of the innit's that boy. I wish I had put his eyes out! cried the blind man, Pew. 'There were no time agothey had the door bolted when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find 'em. 'Sure enough, they left their glim here, said the fellow from the window. 'Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out! reiterated Pew, striking with his stick upon the road. Then there followed a great todo through all our old inn, heavy feet pounding to and fro, furniture thrown over, doors kicked in, until the very rocks reechoed and the men came out again, one after another, on the road and declared that we were nowhere to be found. And just the same whistle that had alarmed my mother and myself over the dead captain's money was once more clearly audible through the night, but this time twice repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man's trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault, but I now found that it was a signal from the hillside towards the hamlet, and from its effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger. 'There's Dirk again, said one. 'Twice! We'll have to budge, mates. 'Budge, you skulk! cried Pew. 'Dirk was a fool and a coward from the firstyou wouldn't mind him. They must be close by they can't be far you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul, he cried, 'if I had eyes! This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the fellows began to look here and there among the lumber, but halfheartedly, I thought, and with half an eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest stood irresolute on the road. 'You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and I did ita blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch them still. 'Hang it, Pew, we've got the doubloons! grumbled one. 'They might have hid the blessed thing, said another. 'Take the Georges, Pew, and don't stand here squalling. Squalling was the word for it Pew's anger rose so high at these objections till at last, his passion completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them right and left in his blindness and his stick sounded heavily on more than one. These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp. This quarrel was the saving of us, for while it was still raging, another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the hamletthe tramp of horses galloping. Almost at the same time a pistolshot, flash and report, came from the hedge side. And that was plainly the last signal of danger, for the buccaneers turned at once and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of them remained but Pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic or out of revenge for his ill words and blows I know not but there he remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping and calling for his comrades. Finally he took a wrong turn and ran a few steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying, 'Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk, and other names, 'you won't leave old Pew, matesnot old Pew! Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight and swept at full gallop down the slope. At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and ran straight for the ditch, into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a second and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest of the coming horses. The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face and moved no more. I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders. They were pulling up, at any rate, horrified at the accident and I soon saw what they were. One, tailing out behind the rest, was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to Dr. Livesey's the rest were revenue officers, whom he had met by the way, and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once. Some news of the lugger in Kitt's Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance and set him forth that night in our direction, and to that circumstance my mother and I owed our preservation from death. Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when we had carried her up to the hamlet, a little cold water and salts and that soon brought her back again, and she was none the worse for her terror, though she still continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the meantime the supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to Kitt's Hole but his men had to dismount and grope down the dingle, leading, and sometimes supporting, their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes so it was no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the Hole the lugger was already under way, though still close in. He hailed her. A voice replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight or he would get some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his arm. Soon after, the lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance stood there, as he said, 'like a fish out of water, and all he could do was to dispatch a man to B to warn the cutter. 'And that, said he, 'is just about as good as nothing. They've got off clean, and there's an end. Only, he added, 'I'm glad I trod on Master Pew's corns, for by this time he had heard my story. I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow, and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash the very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain's moneybag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we were ruined. Mr. Dance could make nothing of the scene. 'They got the money, you say? Well, then, Hawkins, what in fortune were they after? More money, I suppose? 'No, sir not money, I think, replied I. 'In fact, sir, I believe I have the thing in my breast pocket and to tell you the truth, I should like to get it put in safety. 'To be sure, boy quite right, said he. 'I'll take it, if you like. 'I thought perhaps Dr. Livesey I began. 'Perfectly right, he interrupted very cheerily, 'perfectly righta gentleman and a magistrate. And, now I come to think of it, I might as well ride round there myself and report to him or squire. Master Pew's dead, when all's done not that I regret it, but he's dead, you see, and people will make it out against an officer of his Majesty's revenue, if make it out they can. Now, I'll tell you, Hawkins, if you like, I'll take you along. I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back to the hamlet where the horses were. By the time I had told mother of my purpose they were all in the saddle. 'Dogger, said Mr. Dance, 'you have a good horse take up this lad behind you. As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger's belt, the supervisor gave the word, and the party struck out at a bouncing trot on the road to Dr. Livesey's house. E rode hard all the way till we drew up before Dr. Livesey's door. The house was all dark to the front. Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid. 'Is Dr. Livesey in? I asked. No, she said, he had come home in the afternoon but had gone up to the hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire. 'So there we go, boys, said Mr. Dance. This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with Dogger's stirrupleather to the lodge gates and up the long, leafless, moonlit avenue to where the white line of the hall buildings looked on either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance dismounted, and taking me along with him, was admitted at a word into the house. The servant led us down a matted passage and showed us at the end into a great library, all lined with bookcases and busts upon the top of them, where the squire and Dr. Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side of a bright fire. I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, roughandready face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick and high. 'Come in, Mr. Dance, says he, very stately and condescending. 'Good evening, Dance, says the doctor with a nod. 'And good evening to you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here? The supervisor stood up straight and stiff and told his story like a lesson and you should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forward and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and interest. When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, Dr. Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the squire cried 'Bravo! and broke his long pipe against the grate. Long before it was done, Mr. Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire's name) had got up from his seat and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if to hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig and sat there looking very strange indeed with his own closecropped black poll. At last Mr. Dance finished the story. 'Mr. Dance, said the squire, 'you are a very noble fellow. And as for riding down that black, atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act of virtue, sir, like stamping on a cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a trump, I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have some ale. 'And so, Jim, said the doctor, 'you have the thing that they were after, have you? 'Here it is, sir, said I, and gave him the oilskin packet. The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were itching to open it but instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the pocket of his coat. 'Squire, said he, 'when Dance has had his ale he must, of course, be off on his Majesty's service but I mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at my house, and with your permission, I propose we should have up the cold pie and let him sup. 'As you will, Livesey, said the squire 'Hawkins has earned better than cold pie. So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a sidetable, and I made a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was further complimented and at last dismissed. 'And now, squire, said the doctor. 'And now, Livesey, said the squire in the same breath. 'One at a time, one at a time, laughed Dr. Livesey. 'You have heard of this Flint, I suppose? 'Heard of him! cried the squire. 'Heard of him, you say! He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint. The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him that, I tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I've seen his topsails with these eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rumpuncheon that I sailed with put backput back, sir, into Port of Spain. 'Well, I've heard of him myself, in England, said the doctor. 'But the point is, had he money? 'Money! cried the squire. 'Have you heard the story? What were these villains after but money? What do they care for but money? For what would they risk their rascal carcasses but money? 'That we shall soon know, replied the doctor. 'But you are so confoundedly hotheaded and exclamatory that I cannot get a word in. What I want to know is this Supposing that I have here in my pocket some clue to where Flint buried his treasure, will that treasure amount to much? 'Amount, sir! cried the squire. 'It will amount to this If we have the clue you talk about, I fit out a ship in Bristol dock, and take you and Hawkins here along, and I'll have that treasure if I search a year. 'Very well, said the doctor. 'Now, then, if Jim is agreeable, we'll open the packet and he laid it before him on the table. The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get out his instrument case and cut the stitches with his medical scissors. It contained two thingsa book and a sealed paper. 'First of all we'll try the book, observed the doctor. The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me to come round from the sidetable, where I had been eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a man with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was the same as the tattoo mark, 'Billy Bones his fancy then there was 'Mr. W. Bones, mate, 'No more rum, 'Off Palm Key he got itt, and some other snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible. I could not help wondering who it was that had 'got itt, and what 'itt was that he got. A knife in his back as like as not. 'Not much instruction there, said Dr. Livesey as he passed on. The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series of entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a sum of money, as in common accountbooks, but instead of explanatory writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two. On the th of June, , for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become due to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain the cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added, as 'Offe Caraccas, or a mere entry of latitude and longitude, as '  ,   . The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount of the separate entries growing larger as time went on, and at the end a grand total had been made out after five or six wrong additions, and these words appended, 'Bones, his pile. 'I can't make head or tail of this, said Dr. Livesey. 'The thing is as clear as noonday, cried the squire. 'This is the blackhearted hound's accountbook. These crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel's share, and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added something clearer. 'Offe Caraccas,' now you see, here was some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast. God help the poor souls that manned hercoral long ago. 'Right! said the doctor. 'See what it is to be a traveller. Right! And the amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank. There was little else in the volume but a few bearings of places noted in the blank leaves towards the end and a table for reducing French, English, and Spanish moneys to a common value. 'Thrifty man! cried the doctor. 'He wasn't the one to be cheated. 'And now, said the squire, 'for the other. The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of seal the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain's pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine landlocked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked 'The Spyglass. There were several additions of a later date, but above all, three crosses of red inktwo on the north part of the island, one in the southwestand beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain's tottery characters, these words 'Bulk of treasure here. Over on the back the same hand had written this further information Tall tree, Spyglass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of N.N.E. Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. Ten feet. The bar silver is in the north cache you can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it. The arms are easy found, in the sandhill, N. point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a quarter N. J.F. That was all but brief as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight. 'Livesey, said the squire, 'you will give up this wretched practice at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks' timethree weeks!two weeksten dayswe'll have the best ship, sir, and the choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabinboy. You'll make a famous cabinboy, Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship's doctor I am admiral. We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We'll have favourable winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in finding the spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play duck and drake with ever after. 'Trelawney, said the doctor, 'I'll go with you and I'll go bail for it, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking. There's only one man I'm afraid of. 'And who's that? cried the squire. 'Name the dog, sir! 'You, replied the doctor 'for you cannot hold your tongue. We are not the only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked the inn tonightbold, desperate blades, for sureand the rest who stayed aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and all, through thick and thin, bound that they'll get that money. We must none of us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick together in the meanwhile you'll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and from first to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we've found. 'Livesey, returned the squire, 'you are always in the right of it. I'll be as silent as the grave. T was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, and none of our first plansnot even Dr. Livesey's, of keeping me beside himcould be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice the squire was hard at work at Bristol and I lived on at the hall under the charge of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of seadreams and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction I explored every acre of its surface I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spyglass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures. So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed to Dr. Livesey, with this addition, 'To be opened, in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth or young Hawkins. Obeying this order, we found, or rather I foundfor the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading anything but printthe following important news Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March ,  Dear LiveseyAs I do not know whether you are at the hall or still in London, I send this in double to both places. The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined a sweeter schoonera child might sail hertwo hundred tons name, Hispaniola. I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved himself throughout the most surprising trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved in my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we sailed fortreasure, I mean. 'Redruth, said I, interrupting the letter, 'Dr. Livesey will not like that. The squire has been talking, after all. 'Well, who's a better right? growled the gamekeeper. 'A pretty rum go if squire ain't to talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think. At that I gave up all attempts at commentary and read straight on Blandly himself found the Hispaniola, and by the most admirable management got her for the merest trifle. There is a class of men in Bristol monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They go the length of declaring that this honest creature would do anything for money, that the Hispaniola belonged to him, and that he sold it me absurdly highthe most transparent calumnies. None of them dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship. So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sureriggers and what notwere most annoyingly slow but time cured that. It was the crew that troubled me. I wished a round score of menin case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious Frenchand I had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the very man that I required. I was standing on the dock, when, by the merest accident, I fell in talk with him. I found he was an old sailor, kept a publichouse, knew all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to get to sea again. He had hobbled down there that morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt. I was monstrously touchedso would you have beenand, out of pure pity, I engaged him on the spot to be ship's cook. Long John Silver, he is called, and has lost a leg but that I regarded as a recommendation, since he lost it in his country's service, under the immortal Hawke. He has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the abominable age we live in! Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, but it was a crew I had discovered. Between Silver and myself we got together in a few days a company of the toughest old salts imaginablenot pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of the most indomitable spirit. I declare we could fight a frigate. Long John even got rid of two out of the six or seven I had already engaged. He showed me in a moment that they were just the sort of freshwater swabs we had to fear in an adventure of importance. I am in the most magnificent health and spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree, yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear my old tarpaulins tramping round the capstan. Seaward, ho! Hang the treasure! It's the glory of the sea that has turned my head. So now, Livesey, come post do not lose an hour, if you respect me. Let young Hawkins go at once to see his mother, with Redruth for a guard and then both come full speed to Bristol. John Trelawney PostscriptI did not tell you that Blandly, who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if we don't turn up by the end of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing mastera stiff man, which I regret, but in all other respects a treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey so things shall go mano'war fashion on board the good ship Hispaniola. I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of substance I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker's account, which has never been overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old bachelors like you and I may be excused for guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the health, that sends him back to roving. J. T. P.P.S.Hawkins may stay one night with his mother. J. T. You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me. I was half beside myself with glee and if ever I despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the undergamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him but such was not the squire's pleasure, and the squire's pleasure was like law among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even to grumble. The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow, and there I found my mother in good health and spirits. The captain, who had so long been a cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the wicked cease from troubling. The squire had had everything repaired, and the public rooms and the sign repainted, and had added some furnitureabove all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while I was gone. It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first time, my situation. I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me, not at all of the home that I was leaving and now, at sight of this clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my place beside my mother, I had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog's life, for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them. The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were afoot again and on the road. I said goodbye to Mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born, and the dear old Admiral Benbowsince he was repainted, no longer quite so dear. One of my last thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode along the beach with his cocked hat, his sabrecut cheek, and his old brass telescope. Next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight. The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath. I was wedged in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the swift motion and the cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from the very first, and then slept like a log up hill and down dale through stage after stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing still before a large building in a city street and that the day had already broken a long time. 'Where are we? I asked. 'Bristol, said Tom. 'Get down. Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far down the docks to superintend the work upon the schooner. Thither we had now to walk, and our way, to my great delight, lay along the quays and beside the great multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and nations. In one, sailors were singing at their work, in another there were men aloft, high over my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a spider's. Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been near the sea till then. The smell of tar and salt was something new. I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over the ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, clumsy seawalk and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I could not have been more delighted. And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a piping boatswain and pigtailed singing seamen, to sea, bound for an unknown island, and to seek for buried treasure! While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney, all dressed out like a seaofficer, in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his face and a capital imitation of a sailor's walk. 'Here you are, he cried, 'and the doctor came last night from London. Bravo! The ship's company complete! 'Oh, sir, cried I, 'when do we sail? 'Sail! says he. 'We sail tomorrow! HEN I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to John Silver, at the sign of the Spyglass, and told me I should easily find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in question. It was a bright enough little place of entertainment. The sign was newly painted the windows had neat red curtains the floor was cleanly sanded. There was a street on each side and an open door on both, which made the large, low room pretty clear to see in, in spite of clouds of tobacco smoke. The customers were mostly seafaring men, and they talked so loudly that I hung at the door, almost afraid to enter. As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, and at a glance I was sure he must be Long John. His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a hamplain and pale, but intelligent and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his guests. Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention of Long John in Squire Trelawney's letter I had taken a fear in my mind that he might prove to be the very onelegged sailor whom I had watched for so long at the old Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind man, Pew, and I thought I knew what a buccaneer was likea very different creature, according to me, from this clean and pleasanttempered landlord. I plucked up courage at once, crossed the threshold, and walked right up to the man where he stood, propped on his crutch, talking to a customer. 'Mr. Silver, sir? I asked, holding out the note. 'Yes, my lad, said he 'such is my name, to be sure. And who may you be? And then as he saw the squire's letter, he seemed to me to give something almost like a start. 'Oh! said he, quite loud, and offering his hand. 'I see. You are our new cabinboy pleased I am to see you. And he took my hand in his large firm grasp. Just then one of the customers at the far side rose suddenly and made for the door. It was close by him, and he was out in the street in a moment. But his hurry had attracted my notice, and I recognized him at glance. It was the tallowfaced man, wanting two fingers, who had come first to the Admiral Benbow. 'Oh, I cried, 'stop him! It's Black Dog! 'I don't care two coppers who he is, cried Silver. 'But he hasn't paid his score. Harry, run and catch him. One of the others who was nearest the door leaped up and started in pursuit. 'If he were Admiral Hawke he shall pay his score, cried Silver and then, relinquishing my hand, 'Who did you say he was? he asked. 'Black what? 'Dog, sir, said I. 'Has Mr. Trelawney not told you of the buccaneers? He was one of them. 'So? cried Silver. 'In my house! Ben, run and help Harry. One of those swabs, was he? Was that you drinking with him, Morgan? Step up here. The man whom he called Morganan old, greyhaired, mahoganyfaced sailorcame forward pretty sheepishly, rolling his quid. 'Now, Morgan, said Long John very sternly, 'you never clapped your eyes on that BlackBlack Dog before, did you, now? 'Not I, sir, said Morgan with a salute. 'You didn't know his name, did you? 'No, sir. 'By the powers, Tom Morgan, it's as good for you! exclaimed the landlord. 'If you had been mixed up with the like of that, you would never have put another foot in my house, you may lay to that. And what was he saying to you? 'I don't rightly know, sir, answered Morgan. 'Do you call that a head on your shoulders, or a blessed deadeye? cried Long John. 'Don't rightly know, don't you! Perhaps you don't happen to rightly know who you was speaking to, perhaps? Come, now, what was he jawingv'yages, cap'ns, ships? Pipe up! What was it? 'We was atalkin' of keelhauling, answered Morgan. 'Keelhauling, was you? And a mighty suitable thing, too, and you may lay to that. Get back to your place for a lubber, Tom. And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat, Silver added to me in a confidential whisper that was very flattering, as I thought, 'He's quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on'y stupid. And now, he ran on again, aloud, 'let's seeBlack Dog? No, I don't know the name, not I. Yet I kind of think I'veyes, I've seen the swab. He used to come here with a blind beggar, he used. 'That he did, you may be sure, said I. 'I knew that blind man too. His name was Pew. 'It was! cried Silver, now quite excited. 'Pew! That were his name for certain. Ah, he looked a shark, he did! If we run down this Black Dog, now, there'll be news for Cap'n Trelawney! Ben's a good runner few seamen run better than Ben. He should run him down, hand over hand, by the powers! He talked o' keelhauling, did he? I'll keelhaul him! All the time he was jerking out these phrases he was stumping up and down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving such a show of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey judge or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on finding Black Dog at the Spyglass, and I watched the cook narrowly. But he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver. 'See here, now, Hawkins, said he, 'here's a blessed hard thing on a man like me, now, ain't it? There's Cap'n Trelawneywhat's he to think? Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my own house drinking of my own rum! Here you comes and tells me of it plain and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights! Now, Hawkins, you do me justice with the cap'n. You're a lad, you are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when you first come in. Now, here it is What could I do, with this old timber I hobble on? When I was an A B master mariner I'd have come up alongside of him, hand over hand, and broached him to in a brace of old shakes, I would but now And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had remembered something. 'The score! he burst out. 'Three goes o' rum! Why, shiver my timbers, if I hadn't forgotten my score! And falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. I could not help joining, and we laughed together, peal after peal, until the tavern rang again. 'Why, what a precious old seacalf I am! he said at last, wiping his cheeks. 'You and me should get on well, Hawkins, for I'll take my davy I should be rated ship's boy. But come now, stand by to go about. This won't do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. I'll put on my old cockerel hat, and step along of you to Cap'n Trelawney, and report this here affair. For mind you, it's serious, young Hawkins and neither you nor me's come out of it with what I should make so bold as to call credit. Nor you neither, says you not smartnone of the pair of us smart. But dash my buttons! That was a good un about my score. And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that though I did not see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth. On our little walk along the quays, he made himself the most interesting companion, telling me about the different ships that we passed by, their rig, tonnage, and nationality, explaining the work that was going forwardhow one was discharging, another taking in cargo, and a third making ready for seaand every now and then telling me some little anecdote of ships or seamen or repeating a nautical phrase till I had learned it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the best of possible shipmates. When we got to the inn, the squire and Dr. Livesey were seated together, finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it, before they should go aboard the schooner on a visit of inspection. Long John told the story from first to last, with a great deal of spirit and the most perfect truth. 'That was how it were, now, weren't it, Hawkins? he would say, now and again, and I could always bear him entirely out. The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog had got away, but we all agreed there was nothing to be done, and after he had been complimented, Long John took up his crutch and departed. 'All hands aboard by four this afternoon, shouted the squire after him. 'Aye, aye, sir, cried the cook, in the passage. 'Well, squire, said Dr. Livesey, 'I don't put much faith in your discoveries, as a general thing but I will say this, John Silver suits me. 'The man's a perfect trump, declared the squire. 'And now, added the doctor, 'Jim may come on board with us, may he not? 'To be sure he may, says squire. 'Take your hat, Hawkins, and we'll see the ship. HE Hispaniola lay some way out, and we went under the figureheads and round the sterns of many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a squint. He and the squire were very thick and friendly, but I soon observed that things were not the same between Mr. Trelawney and the captain. This last was a sharplooking man who seemed angry with everything on board and was soon to tell us why, for we had hardly got down into the cabin when a sailor followed us. 'Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with you, said he. 'I am always at the captain's orders. Show him in, said the squire. The captain, who was close behind his messenger, entered at once and shut the door behind him. 'Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to say? All well, I hope all shipshape and seaworthy? 'Well, sir, said the captain, 'better speak plain, I believe, even at the risk of offence. I don't like this cruise I don't like the men and I don't like my officer. That's short and sweet. 'Perhaps, sir, you don't like the ship? inquired the squire, very angry, as I could see. 'I can't speak as to that, sir, not having seen her tried, said the captain. 'She seems a clever craft more I can't say. 'Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer, either? says the squire. But here Dr. Livesey cut in. 'Stay a bit, said he, 'stay a bit. No use of such questions as that but to produce ill feeling. The captain has said too much or he has said too little, and I'm bound to say that I require an explanation of his words. You don't, you say, like this cruise. Now, why? 'I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed orders, to sail this ship for that gentleman where he should bid me, said the captain. 'So far so good. But now I find that every man before the mast knows more than I do. I don't call that fair, now, do you? 'No, said Dr. Livesey, 'I don't. 'Next, said the captain, 'I learn we are going after treasurehear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work I don't like treasure voyages on any account, and I don't like them, above all, when they are secret and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told to the parrot. 'Silver's parrot? asked the squire. 'It's a way of speaking, said the captain. 'Blabbed, I mean. It's my belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are about, but I'll tell you my way of itlife or death, and a close run. 'That is all clear, and, I dare say, true enough, replied Dr. Livesey. 'We take the risk, but we are not so ignorant as you believe us. Next, you say you don't like the crew. Are they not good seamen? 'I don't like them, sir, returned Captain Smollett. 'And I think I should have had the choosing of my own hands, if you go to that. 'Perhaps you should, replied the doctor. 'My friend should, perhaps, have taken you along with him but the slight, if there be one, was unintentional. And you don't like Mr. Arrow? 'I don't, sir. I believe he's a good seaman, but he's too free with the crew to be a good officer. A mate should keep himself to himselfshouldn't drink with the men before the mast! 'Do you mean he drinks? cried the squire. 'No, sir, replied the captain, 'only that he's too familiar. 'Well, now, and the short and long of it, captain? asked the doctor. 'Tell us what you want. 'Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go on this cruise? 'Like iron, answered the squire. 'Very good, said the captain. 'Then, as you've heard me very patiently, saying things that I could not prove, hear me a few words more. They are putting the powder and the arms in the fore hold. Now, you have a good place under the cabin why not put them there?first point. Then, you are bringing four of your own people with you, and they tell me some of them are to be berthed forward. Why not give them the berths here beside the cabin?second point. 'Any more? asked Mr. Trelawney. 'One more, said the captain. 'There's been too much blabbing already. 'Far too much, agreed the doctor. 'I'll tell you what I've heard myself, continued Captain Smollett 'that you have a map of an island, that there's crosses on the map to show where treasure is, and that the island lies And then he named the latitude and longitude exactly. 'I never told that, cried the squire, 'to a soul! 'The hands know it, sir, returned the captain. 'Livesey, that must have been you or Hawkins, cried the squire. 'It doesn't much matter who it was, replied the doctor. And I could see that neither he nor the captain paid much regard to Mr. Trelawney's protestations. Neither did I, to be sure, he was so loose a talker yet in this case I believe he was really right and that nobody had told the situation of the island. 'Well, gentlemen, continued the captain, 'I don't know who has this map but I make it a point, it shall be kept secret even from me and Mr. Arrow. Otherwise I would ask you to let me resign. 'I see, said the doctor. 'You wish us to keep this matter dark and to make a garrison of the stern part of the ship, manned with my friend's own people, and provided with all the arms and powder on board. In other words, you fear a mutiny. 'Sir, said Captain Smollett, 'with no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth. No captain, sir, would be justified in going to sea at all if he had ground enough to say that. As for Mr. Arrow, I believe him thoroughly honest some of the men are the same all may be for what I know. But I am responsible for the ship's safety and the life of every man Jack aboard of her. I see things going, as I think, not quite right. And I ask you to take certain precautions or let me resign my berth. And that's all. 'Captain Smollett, began the doctor with a smile, 'did ever you hear the fable of the mountain and the mouse? You'll excuse me, I dare say, but you remind me of that fable. When you came in here, I'll stake my wig, you meant more than this. 'Doctor, said the captain, 'you are smart. When I came in here I meant to get discharged. I had no thought that Mr. Trelawney would hear a word. 'No more I would, cried the squire. 'Had Livesey not been here I should have seen you to the deuce. As it is, I have heard you. I will do as you desire, but I think the worse of you. 'That's as you please, sir, said the captain. 'You'll find I do my duty. And with that he took his leave. 'Trelawney, said the doctor, 'contrary to all my notions, I believed you have managed to get two honest men on board with youthat man and John Silver. 'Silver, if you like, cried the squire 'but as for that intolerable humbug, I declare I think his conduct unmanly, unsailorly, and downright unEnglish. 'Well, says the doctor, 'we shall see. When we came on deck, the men had begun already to take out the arms and powder, yohoing at their work, while the captain and Mr. Arrow stood by superintending. The new arrangement was quite to my liking. The whole schooner had been overhauled six berths had been made astern out of what had been the afterpart of the main hold and this set of cabins was only joined to the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side. It had been originally meant that the captain, Mr. Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the doctor, and the squire were to occupy these six berths. Now Redruth and I were to get two of them and Mr. Arrow and the captain were to sleep on deck in the companion, which had been enlarged on each side till you might almost have called it a roundhouse. Very low it was still, of course but there was room to swing two hammocks, and even the mate seemed pleased with the arrangement. Even he, perhaps, had been doubtful as to the crew, but that is only guess, for as you shall hear, we had not long the benefit of his opinion. We were all hard at work, changing the powder and the berths, when the last man or two, and Long John along with them, came off in a shoreboat. The cook came up the side like a monkey for cleverness, and as soon as he saw what was doing, 'So ho, mates! says he. 'What's this? 'We're achanging of the powder, Jack, answers one. 'Why, by the powers, cried Long John, 'if we do, we'll miss the morning tide! 'My orders! said the captain shortly. 'You may go below, my man. Hands will want supper. 'Aye, aye, sir, answered the cook, and touching his forelock, he disappeared at once in the direction of his galley. 'That's a good man, captain, said the doctor. 'Very likely, sir, replied Captain Smollett. 'Easy with that, meneasy, he ran on, to the fellows who were shifting the powder and then suddenly observing me examining the swivel we carried amidships, a long brass nine, 'Here you, ship's boy, he cried, 'out o' that! Off with you to the cook and get some work. And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the doctor, 'I'll have no favourites on my ship. I assure you I was quite of the squire's way of thinking, and hated the captain deeply. LL that night we were in a great bustle getting things stowed in their place, and boatfuls of the squire's friends, Mr. Blandly and the like, coming off to wish him a good voyage and a safe return. We never had a night at the Admiral Benbow when I had half the work and I was dogtired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe and the crew began to man the capstanbars. I might have been twice as weary, yet I would not have left the deck, all was so new and interesting to methe brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ship's lanterns. 'Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave, cried one voice. 'The old one, cried another. 'Aye, aye, mates, said Long John, who was standing by, with his crutch under his arm, and at once broke out in the air and words I knew so well 'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest And then the whole crew bore chorus 'Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! And at the third 'Ho! drove the bars before them with a will. Even at that exciting moment it carried me back to the old Admiral Benbow in a second, and I seemed to hear the voice of the captain piping in the chorus. But soon the anchor was short up soon it was hanging dripping at the bows soon the sails began to draw, and the land and shipping to flit by on either side and before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slumber the Hispaniola had begun her voyage to the Isle of Treasure. I am not going to relate that voyage in detail. It was fairly prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things had happened which require to be known. Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared. He had no command among the men, and people did what they pleased with him. But that was by no means the worst of it, for after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness. Time after time he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably. In the meantime, we could never make out where he got the drink. That was the ship's mystery. Watch him as we pleased, we could do nothing to solve it and when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh if he were drunk, and if he were sober deny solemnly that he ever tasted anything but water. He was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence amongst the men, but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself outright, so nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more. 'Overboard! said the captain. 'Well, gentlemen, that saves the trouble of putting him in irons. But there we were, without a mate and it was necessary, of course, to advance one of the men. The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest man aboard, and though he kept his old title, he served in a way as mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his knowledge made him very useful, for he often took a watch himself in easy weather. And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything. He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our ship's cook, Barbecue, as the men called him. Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible. It was something to see him wedge the foot of the crutch against a bulkhead, and propped against it, yielding to every movement of the ship, get on with his cooking like someone safe ashore. Still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the widest spacesLong John's earrings, they were called and he would hand himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing it alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk. Yet some of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see him so reduced. 'He's no common man, Barbecue, said the coxswain to me. 'He had good schooling in his young days and can speak like a book when so minded and bravea lion's nothing alongside of Long John! I seen him grapple four and knock their heads togetherhim unarmed. All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in a cage in one corner. 'Come away, Hawkins, he would say 'come and have a yarn with John. Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the news. Here's Cap'n FlintI calls my parrot Cap'n Flint, after the famous buccaneerhere's Cap'n Flint predicting success to our v'yage. Wasn't you, cap'n? And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, 'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! till you wondered that it was not out of breath, or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage. 'Now, that bird, he would say, 'is, maybe, two hundred years old, Hawkinsthey live forever mostly and if anybody's seen more wickedness, it must be the devil himself. She's sailed with England, the great Cap'n England, the pirate. She's been at Madagascar, and at Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence, and Portobello. She was at the fishing up of the wrecked plate ships. It's there she learned 'Pieces of eight,' and little wonder three hundred and fifty thousand of 'em, Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the viceroy of the Indies out of Goa, she was and to look at her you would think she was a babby. But you smelt powderdidn't you, cap'n? 'Stand by to go about, the parrot would scream. 'Ah, she's a handsome craft, she is, the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. 'There, John would add, 'you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o' mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you may lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before chaplain. And John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had that made me think he was the best of men. In the meantime, the squire and Captain Smollett were still on pretty distant terms with one another. The squire made no bones about the matter he despised the captain. The captain, on his part, never spoke but when he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and not a word wasted. He owned, when driven into a corner, that he seemed to have been wrong about the crew, that some of them were as brisk as he wanted to see and all had behaved fairly well. As for the ship, he had taken a downright fancy to her. 'She'll lie a point nearer the wind than a man has a right to expect of his own married wife, sir. But, he would add, 'all I say is, we're not home again, and I don't like the cruise. The squire, at this, would turn away and march up and down the deck, chin in air. 'A trifle more of that man, he would say, 'and I shall explode. We had some heavy weather, which only proved the qualities of the Hispaniola. Every man on board seemed well content, and they must have been hard to please if they had been otherwise, for it is my belief there was never a ship's company so spoiled since Noah put to sea. Double grog was going on the least excuse there was duff on odd days, as, for instance, if the squire heard it was any man's birthday, and always a barrel of apples standing broached in the waist for anyone to help himself that had a fancy. 'Never knew good come of it yet, the captain said to Dr. Livesey. 'Spoil forecastle hands, make devils. That's my belief. But good did come of the apple barrel, as you shall hear, for if it had not been for that, we should have had no note of warning and might all have perished by the hand of treachery. This was how it came about. We had run up the trades to get the wind of the island we were afterI am not allowed to be more plainand now we were running down for it with a bright lookout day and night. It was about the last day of our outward voyage by the largest computation some time that night, or at latest before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. We were heading S.S.W. and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft everyone was in the bravest spirits because we were now so near an end of the first part of our adventure. Now, just after sundown, when all my work was over and I was on my way to my berth, it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I ran on deck. The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at the helm was watching the luff of the sail and whistling away gently to himself, and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against the bows and around the sides of the ship. In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and found there was scarce an apple left but sitting down there in the dark, what with the sound of the waters and the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen asleep or was on the point of doing so when a heavy man sat down with rather a clash close by. The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders against it, and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak. It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for from these dozen words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone. O, not I, said Silver. 'Flint was cap'n I was quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated meout of college and allLatin by the bucket, and what not but he was hanged like a dog, and sundried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts' men, that was, and comed of changing names to their shipsRoyal Fortune and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let her stay, I says. So it was with the Cassandra, as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after England took the viceroy of the Indies so it was with the old Walrus, Flint's old ship, as I've seen amuck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold. 'Ah! cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on board, and evidently full of admiration. 'He was the flower of the flock, was Flint! 'Davis was a man too, by all accounts, said Silver. 'I never sailed along of him first with England, then with Flint, that's my story and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That ain't bad for a man before the mastall safe in bank. 'Tain't earning now, it's saving does it, you may lay to that. Where's all England's men now? I dunno. Where's Flint's? Why, most on 'em aboard here, and glad to get the duffbeen begging before that, some on 'em. Old Pew, as had lost his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he's dead now and under hatches but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, the man was starving! He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers! 'Well, it ain't much use, after all, said the young seaman. ''Tain't much use for fools, you may lay to itthat, nor nothing, cried Silver. 'But now, you look here you're young, you are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I'll talk to you like a man. You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel. Meantime, he ran on, little supposing he was overheard. 'Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fightingcocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it's hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that's not the course I lay. I puts it all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason of suspicion. I'm fifty, mark you once back from this cruise, I set up gentleman in earnest. Time enough too, says you. Ah, but I've lived easy in the meantime, never denied myself o' nothing heart desires, and slep' soft and ate dainty all my days but when at sea. And how did I begin? Before the mast, like you! 'Well, said the other, 'but all the other money's gone now, ain't it? You daren't show face in Bristol after this. 'Why, where might you suppose it was? asked Silver derisively. 'At Bristol, in banks and places, answered his companion. 'It were, said the cook 'it were when we weighed anchor. But my old missis has it all by now. And the Spyglass is sold, lease and goodwill and rigging and the old girl's off to meet me. I would tell you where, for I trust you, but it'd make jealousy among the mates. 'And can you trust your missis? asked the other. 'Gentlemen of fortune, returned the cook, 'usually trusts little among themselves, and right they are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his cableone as knows me, I meanit won't be in the same world with old John. There was some that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint's the devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. Well now, I tell you, I'm not a boasting man, and you seen yourself how easy I keep company, but when I was quartermaster, lambs wasn't the word for Flint's old buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of yourself in old John's ship. 'Well, I tell you now, replied the lad, 'I didn't half a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you, John but there's my hand on it now. 'And a brave lad you were, and smart too, answered Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, 'and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on. By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a 'gentleman of fortune they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest handsperhaps of the last one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved, for Silver giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sat down by the party. 'Dick's square, said Silver. 'Oh, I know'd Dick was square, returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. 'He's no fool, is Dick. And he turned his quid and spat. 'But look here, he went on, 'here's what I want to know, Barbecue how long are we agoing to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat? I've had a'most enough o' Cap'n Smollett he's hazed me long enough, by thunder! I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and wines, and that. 'Israel, said Silver, 'your head ain't much account, nor ever was. But you're able to hear, I reckon leastways, your ears is big enough. Now, here's what I say you'll berth forward, and you'll live hard, and you'll speak soft, and you'll keep sober till I give the word and you may lay to that, my son. 'Well, I don't say no, do I? growled the coxswain. 'What I say is, when? That's what I say. 'When! By the powers! cried Silver. 'Well now, if you want to know, I'll tell you when. The last moment I can manage, and that's when. Here's a firstrate seaman, Cap'n Smollett, sails the blessed ship for us. Here's this squire and doctor with a map and suchI don't know where it is, do I? No more do you, says you. Well then, I mean this squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and help us to get it aboard, by the powers. Then we'll see. If I was sure of you all, sons of double Dutchmen, I'd have Cap'n Smollett navigate us halfway back again before I struck. 'Why, we're all seamen aboard here, I should think, said the lad Dick. 'We're all forecastle hands, you mean, snapped Silver. 'We can steer a course, but who's to set one? That's what all you gentlemen split on, first and last. If I had my way, I'd have Cap'n Smollett work us back into the trades at least then we'd have no blessed miscalculations and a spoonful of water a day. But I know the sort you are. I'll finish with 'em at the island, as soon's the blunt's on board, and a pity it is. But you're never happy till you're drunk. Split my sides, I've a sick heart to sail with the likes of you! 'Easy all, Long John, cried Israel. 'Who's acrossin' of you? 'Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now, have I seen laid aboard? And how many brisk lads drying in the sun at Execution Dock? cried Silver. 'And all for this same hurry and hurry and hurry. You hear me? I seen a thing or two at sea, I have. If you would on'y lay your course, and a p'int to windward, you would ride in carriages, you would. But not you! I know you. You'll have your mouthful of rum tomorrow, and go hang. 'Everybody knowed you was a kind of a chapling, John but there's others as could hand and steer as well as you, said Israel. 'They liked a bit o' fun, they did. They wasn't so high and dry, nohow, but took their fling, like jolly companions every one. 'So? says Silver. 'Well, and where are they now? Pew was that sort, and he died a beggarman. Flint was, and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, they was a sweet crew, they was! On'y, where are they? 'But, asked Dick, 'when we do lay 'em athwart, what are we to do with 'em, anyhow? 'There's the man for me! cried the cook admiringly. 'That's what I call business. Well, what would you think? Put 'em ashore like maroons? That would have been England's way. Or cut 'em down like that much pork? That would have been Flint's, or Billy Bones's. 'Billy was the man for that, said Israel. ''Dead men don't bite,' says he. Well, he's dead now hisself he knows the long and short on it now and if ever a rough hand come to port, it was Billy. 'Right you are, said Silver 'rough and ready. But mark you here, I'm an easy manI'm quite the gentleman, says you but this time it's serious. Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my votedeath. When I'm in Parlyment and riding in my coach, I don't want none of these sealawyers in the cabin acoming home, unlooked for, like the devil at prayers. Wait is what I say but when the time comes, why, let her rip! 'John, cries the coxswain, 'you're a man! 'You'll say so, Israel when you see, said Silver. 'Only one thing I claimI claim Trelawney. I'll wring his calf's head off his body with these hands, Dick! he added, breaking off. 'You just jump up, like a sweet lad, and get me an apple, to wet my pipe like. You may fancy the terror I was in! I should have leaped out and run for it if I had found the strength, but my limbs and heart alike misgave me. I heard Dick begin to rise, and then someone seemingly stopped him, and the voice of Hands exclaimed, 'Oh, stow that! Don't you get sucking of that bilge, John. Let's have a go of the rum. 'Dick, said Silver, 'I trust you. I've a gauge on the keg, mind. There's the key you fill a pannikin and bring it up. Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this must have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him. Dick was gone but a little while, and during his absence Israel spoke straight on in the cook's ear. It was but a word or two that I could catch, and yet I gathered some important news, for besides other scraps that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was audible 'Not another man of them'll jine. Hence there were still faithful men on board. When Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin and drankone 'To luck, another with a 'Here's to old Flint, and Silver himself saying, in a kind of song, 'Here's to ourselves, and hold your luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff. Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzentop and shining white on the luff of the foresail and almost at the same time the voice of the lookout shouted, 'Land ho! HERE was a great rush of feet across the deck. I could hear people tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle, and slipping in an instant outside my barrel, I dived behind the foresail, made a double towards the stern, and came out upon the open deck in time to join Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow. There all hands were already congregated. A belt of fog had lifted almost simultaneously with the appearance of the moon. Away to the southwest of us we saw two low hills, about a couple of miles apart, and rising behind one of them a third and higher hill, whose peak was still buried in the fog. All three seemed sharp and conical in figure. So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had not yet recovered from my horrid fear of a minute or two before. And then I heard the voice of Captain Smollett issuing orders. The Hispaniola was laid a couple of points nearer the wind and now sailed a course that would just clear the island on the east. 'And now, men, said the captain, when all was sheeted home, 'has any one of you ever seen that land ahead? 'I have, sir, said Silver. 'I've watered there with a trader I was cook in. 'The anchorage is on the south, behind an islet, I fancy? asked the captain. 'Yes, sir Skeleton Island they calls it. It were a main place for pirates once, and a hand we had on board knowed all their names for it. That hill to the nor'ard they calls the Foremast Hill there are three hills in a row running south'ardfore, main, and mizzen, sir. But the mainthat's the big un, with the cloud on itthey usually calls the Spyglass, by reason of a lookout they kept when they was in the anchorage cleaning, for it's there they cleaned their ships, sir, asking your pardon. 'I have a chart here, says Captain Smollett. 'See if that's the place. Long John's eyes burned in his head as he took the chart, but by the fresh look of the paper I knew he was doomed to disappointment. This was not the map we found in Billy Bones's chest, but an accurate copy, complete in all thingsnames and heights and soundingswith the single exception of the red crosses and the written notes. Sharp as must have been his annoyance, Silver had the strength of mind to hide it. 'Yes, sir, said he, 'this is the spot, to be sure, and very prettily drawed out. Who might have done that, I wonder? The pirates were too ignorant, I reckon. Aye, here it is 'Capt. Kidd's Anchorage'just the name my shipmate called it. There's a strong current runs along the south, and then away nor'ard up the west coast. Right you was, sir, says he, 'to haul your wind and keep the weather of the island. Leastways, if such was your intention as to enter and careen, and there ain't no better place for that in these waters. 'Thank you, my man, says Captain Smollett. 'I'll ask you later on to give us a help. You may go. I was surprised at the coolness with which John avowed his knowledge of the island, and I own I was halffrightened when I saw him drawing nearer to myself. He did not know, to be sure, that I had overheard his council from the apple barrel, and yet I had by this time taken such a horror of his cruelty, duplicity, and power that I could scarce conceal a shudder when he laid his hand upon my arm. 'Ah, says he, 'this here is a sweet spot, this islanda sweet spot for a lad to get ashore on. You'll bathe, and you'll climb trees, and you'll hunt goats, you will and you'll get aloft on them hills like a goat yourself. Why, it makes me young again. I was going to forget my timber leg, I was. It's a pleasant thing to be young and have ten toes, and you may lay to that. When you want to go a bit of exploring, you just ask old John, and he'll put up a snack for you to take along. And clapping me in the friendliest way upon the shoulder, he hobbled off forward and went below. Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking together on the quarterdeck, and anxious as I was to tell them my story, I durst not interrupt them openly. While I was still casting about in my thoughts to find some probable excuse, Dr. Livesey called me to his side. He had left his pipe below, and being a slave to tobacco, had meant that I should fetch it but as soon as I was near enough to speak and not to be overheard, I broke immediately, 'Doctor, let me speak. Get the captain and squire down to the cabin, and then make some pretence to send for me. I have terrible news. The doctor changed countenance a little, but next moment he was master of himself. 'Thank you, Jim, said he quite loudly, 'that was all I wanted to know, as if he had asked me a question. And with that he turned on his heel and rejoined the other two. They spoke together for a little, and though none of them started, or raised his voice, or so much as whistled, it was plain enough that Dr. Livesey had communicated my request, for the next thing that I heard was the captain giving an order to Job Anderson, and all hands were piped on deck. 'My lads, said Captain Smollett, 'I've a word to say to you. This land that we have sighted is the place we have been sailing for. Mr. Trelawney, being a very openhanded gentleman, as we all know, has just asked me a word or two, and as I was able to tell him that every man on board had done his duty, alow and aloft, as I never ask to see it done better, why, he and I and the doctor are going below to the cabin to drink your health and luck, and you'll have grog served out for you to drink our health and luck. I'll tell you what I think of this I think it handsome. And if you think as I do, you'll give a good seacheer for the gentleman that does it. The cheer followedthat was a matter of course but it rang out so full and hearty that I confess I could hardly believe these same men were plotting for our blood. 'One more cheer for Cap'n Smollett, cried Long John when the first had subsided. And this also was given with a will. On the top of that the three gentlemen went below, and not long after, word was sent forward that Jim Hawkins was wanted in the cabin. I found them all three seated round the table, a bottle of Spanish wine and some raisins before them, and the doctor smoking away, with his wig on his lap, and that, I knew, was a sign that he was agitated. The stern window was open, for it was a warm night, and you could see the moon shining behind on the ship's wake. 'Now, Hawkins, said the squire, 'you have something to say. Speak up. I did as I was bid, and as short as I could make it, told the whole details of Silver's conversation. Nobody interrupted me till I was done, nor did any one of the three of them make so much as a movement, but they kept their eyes upon my face from first to last. 'Jim, said Dr. Livesey, 'take a seat. And they made me sit down at table beside them, poured me out a glass of wine, filled my hands with raisins, and all three, one after the other, and each with a bow, drank my good health, and their service to me, for my luck and courage. 'Now, captain, said the squire, 'you were right, and I was wrong. I own myself an ass, and I await your orders. 'No more an ass than I, sir, returned the captain. 'I never heard of a crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before, for any man that had an eye in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. But this crew, he added, 'beats me. 'Captain, said the doctor, 'with your permission, that's Silver. A very remarkable man. 'He'd look remarkably well from a yardarm, sir, returned the captain. 'But this is talk this don't lead to anything. I see three or four points, and with Mr. Trelawney's permission, I'll name them. 'You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to speak, says Mr. Trelawney grandly. 'First point, began Mr. Smollett. 'We must go on, because we can't turn back. If I gave the word to go about, they would rise at once. Second point, we have time before usat least until this treasure's found. Third point, there are faithful hands. Now, sir, it's got to come to blows sooner or later, and what I propose is to take time by the forelock, as the saying is, and come to blows some fine day when they least expect it. We can count, I take it, on your own home servants, Mr. Trelawney? 'As upon myself, declared the squire. 'Three, reckoned the captain 'ourselves make seven, counting Hawkins here. Now, about the honest hands? 'Most likely Trelawney's own men, said the doctor 'those he had picked up for himself before he lit on Silver. 'Nay, replied the squire. 'Hands was one of mine. 'I did think I could have trusted Hands, added the captain. 'And to think that they're all Englishmen! broke out the squire. 'Sir, I could find it in my heart to blow the ship up. 'Well, gentlemen, said the captain, 'the best that I can say is not much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It's trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But there's no help for it till we know our men. Lay to, and whistle for a wind, that's my view. 'Jim here, said the doctor, 'can help us more than anyone. The men are not shy with him, and Jim is a noticing lad. 'Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you, added the squire. I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether helpless and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there were only seven out of the twentysix on whom we knew we could rely and out of these seven one was a boy, so that the grown men on our side were six to their nineteen. HE appearance of the island when I came on deck next morning was altogether changed. Although the breeze had now utterly ceased, we had made a great deal of way during the night and were now lying becalmed about half a mile to the southeast of the low eastern coast. Greycoloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, outtopping the otherssome singly, some in clumps but the general colouring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spyglass, which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest in configuration, running up sheer from almost every side and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on. The Hispaniola was rolling scuppers under in the ocean swell. The booms were tearing at the blocks, the rudder was banging to and fro, and the whole ship creaking, groaning, and jumping like a manufactory. I had to cling tight to the backstay, and the world turned giddily before my eyes, for though I was a good enough sailor when there was way on, this standing still and being rolled about like a bottle was a thing I never learned to stand without a qualm or so, above all in the morning, on an empty stomach. Perhaps it was thisperhaps it was the look of the island, with its grey, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beachat least, although the sun shone bright and hot, and the shore birds were fishing and crying all around us, and you would have thought anyone would have been glad to get to land after being so long at sea, my heart sank, as the saying is, into my boots and from the first look onward, I hated the very thought of Treasure Island. We had a dreary morning's work before us, for there was no sign of any wind, and the boats had to be got out and manned, and the ship warped three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island. I volunteered for one of the boats, where I had, of course, no business. The heat was sweltering, and the men grumbled fiercely over their work. Anderson was in command of my boat, and instead of keeping the crew in order, he grumbled as loud as the worst. 'Well, he said with an oath, 'it's not forever. I thought this was a very bad sign, for up to that day the men had gone briskly and willingly about their business but the very sight of the island had relaxed the cords of discipline. All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John never hesitated once. 'There's a strong scour with the ebb, he said, 'and this here passage has been dug out, in a manner of speaking, with a spade. We brought up just where the anchor was in the chart, about a third of a mile from each shore, the mainland on one side and Skeleton Island on the other. The bottom was clean sand. The plunge of our anchor sent up clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods, but in less than a minute they were down again and all was once more silent. The place was entirely landlocked, buried in woods, the trees coming right down to highwater mark, the shores mostly flat, and the hilltops standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one here, one there. Two little rivers, or rather two swamps, emptied out into this pond, as you might call it and the foliage round that part of the shore had a kind of poisonous brightness. From the ship we could see nothing of the house or stockade, for they were quite buried among trees and if it had not been for the chart on the companion, we might have been the first that had ever anchored there since the island arose out of the seas. There was not a breath of air moving, nor a sound but that of the surf booming half a mile away along the beaches and against the rocks outside. A peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchoragea smell of sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed the doctor sniffing and sniffing, like someone tasting a bad egg. 'I don't know about treasure, he said, 'but I'll stake my wig there's fever here. If the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat, it became truly threatening when they had come aboard. They lay about the deck growling together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the honest hands must have caught the infection, for there was not one man aboard to mend another. Mutiny, it was plain, hung over us like a thundercloud. And it was not only we of the cabin party who perceived the danger. Long John was hard at work going from group to group, spending himself in good advice, and as for example no man could have shown a better. He fairly outstripped himself in willingness and civility he was all smiles to everyone. If an order were given, John would be on his crutch in an instant, with the cheeriest 'Aye, aye, sir! in the world and when there was nothing else to do, he kept up one song after another, as if to conceal the discontent of the rest. Of all the gloomy features of that gloomy afternoon, this obvious anxiety on the part of Long John appeared the worst. We held a council in the cabin. 'Sir, said the captain, 'if I risk another order, the whole ship'll come about our ears by the run. You see, sir, here it is. I get a rough answer, do I not? Well, if I speak back, pikes will be going in two shakes if I don't, Silver will see there's something under that, and the game's up. Now, we've only one man to rely on. 'And who is that? asked the squire. 'Silver, sir, returned the captain 'he's as anxious as you and I to smother things up. This is a tiff he'd soon talk 'em out of it if he had the chance, and what I propose to do is to give him the chance. Let's allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all go, why we'll fight the ship. If they none of them go, well then, we hold the cabin, and God defend the right. If some go, you mark my words, sir, Silver'll bring 'em aboard again as mild as lambs. It was so decided loaded pistols were served out to all the sure men Hunter, Joyce, and Redruth were taken into our confidence and received the news with less surprise and a better spirit than we had looked for, and then the captain went on deck and addressed the crew. 'My lads, said he, 'we've had a hot day and are all tired and out of sorts. A turn ashore'll hurt nobodythe boats are still in the water you can take the gigs, and as many as please may go ashore for the afternoon. I'll fire a gun half an hour before sundown. I believe the silly fellows must have thought they would break their shins over treasure as soon as they were landed, for they all came out of their sulks in a moment and gave a cheer that started the echo in a faraway hill and sent the birds once more flying and squalling round the anchorage. The captain was too bright to be in the way. He whipped out of sight in a moment, leaving Silver to arrange the party, and I fancy it was as well he did so. Had he been on deck, he could no longer so much as have pretended not to understand the situation. It was as plain as day. Silver was the captain, and a mighty rebellious crew he had of it. The honest handsand I was soon to see it proved that there were such on boardmust have been very stupid fellows. Or rather, I suppose the truth was this, that all hands were disaffected by the example of the ringleadersonly some more, some less and a few, being good fellows in the main, could neither be led nor driven any further. It is one thing to be idle and skulk and quite another to take a ship and murder a number of innocent men. At last, however, the party was made up. Six fellows were to stay on board, and the remaining thirteen, including Silver, began to embark. Then it was that there came into my head the first of the mad notions that contributed so much to save our lives. If six men were left by Silver, it was plain our party could not take and fight the ship and since only six were left, it was equally plain that the cabin party had no present need of my assistance. It occurred to me at once to go ashore. In a jiffy I had slipped over the side and curled up in the foresheets of the nearest boat, and almost at the same moment she shoved off. No one took notice of me, only the bow oar saying, 'Is that you, Jim? Keep your head down. But Silver, from the other boat, looked sharply over and called out to know if that were me and from that moment I began to regret what I had done. The crews raced for the beach, but the boat I was in, having some start and being at once the lighter and the better manned, shot far ahead of her consort, and the bow had struck among the shoreside trees and I had caught a branch and swung myself out and plunged into the nearest thicket while Silver and the rest were still a hundred yards behind. 'Jim, Jim! I heard him shouting. But you may suppose I paid no heed jumping, ducking, and breaking through, I ran straight before my nose till I could run no longer. WAS so pleased at having given the slip to Long John that I began to enjoy myself and look around me with some interest on the strange land that I was in. I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bulrushes, and odd, outlandish, swampy trees and I had now come out upon the skirts of an open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted with a few pines and a great number of contorted trees, not unlike the oak in growth, but pale in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shining vividly in the sun. I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. The isle was uninhabited my shipmates I had left behind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumb brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither among the trees. Here and there were flowering plants, unknown to me here and there I saw snakes, and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Little did I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous rattle. Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike treeslive, or evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they should be calledwhich grew low along the sand like brambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the foliage compact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down from the top of one of the sandy knolls, spreading and growing taller as it went, until it reached the margin of the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest of the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage. The marsh was steaming in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spyglass trembled through the haze. All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among the bulrushes a wild duck flew up with a quack, another followed, and soon over the whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and circling in the air. I judged at once that some of my shipmates must be drawing near along the borders of the fen. Nor was I deceived, for soon I heard the very distant and low tones of a human voice, which, as I continued to give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer. This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest liveoak and squatted there, hearkening, as silent as a mouse. Another voice answered, and then the first voice, which I now recognized to be Silver's, once more took up the story and ran on for a long while in a stream, only now and again interrupted by the other. By the sound they must have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely but no distinct word came to my hearing. At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have sat down, for not only did they cease to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves began to grow more quiet and to settle again to their places in the swamp. And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business, that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourable ambush of the crouching trees. I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly, not only by the sound of their voices but by the behaviour of the few birds that still hung in alarm above the heads of the intruders. Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them, till at last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to face in conversation. The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the ground, and his great, smooth, blond face, all shining with heat, was lifted to the other man's in a kind of appeal. 'Mate, he was saying, 'it's because I thinks gold dust of yougold dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn't took to you like pitch, do you think I'd have been here awarning of you? All's upyou can't make nor mend it's to save your neck that I'm aspeaking, and if one of the wild uns knew it, where'd I be, Tomnow, tell me, where'd I be? 'Silver, said the other manand I observed he was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook too, like a taut rope'Silver, says he, 'you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it and you've money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me you'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? Not you! As sure as God sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand. If I turn agin my dooty And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise. I had found one of the honest handswell, here, at that same moment, came news of another. Far away out in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound like the cry of anger, then another on the back of it and then one horrid, longdrawn scream. The rocks of the Spyglass reechoed it a score of times the whole troop of marshbirds rose again, darkening heaven, with a simultaneous whirr and long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had reestablished its empire, and only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon. Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur, but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, watching his companion like a snake about to spring. 'John! said the sailor, stretching out his hand. 'Hands off! cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemed to me, with the speed and security of a trained gymnast. 'Hands off, if you like, John Silver, said the other. 'It's a black conscience that can make you feared of me. But in heaven's name, tell me, what was that? 'That? returned Silver, smiling away, but warier than ever, his eye a mere pinpoint in his big face, but gleaming like a crumb of glass. 'That? Oh, I reckon that'll be Alan. And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero. 'Alan! he cried. 'Then rest his soul for a true seaman! And as for you, John Silver, long you've been a mate of mine, but you're mate of mine no more. If I die like a dog, I'll die in my dooty. You've killed Alan, have you? Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you. And with that, this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach. But he was not destined to go far. With a cry John seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence, right between the shoulders in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gave a sort of gasp, and fell. Whether he were injured much or little, none could ever tell. Like enough, to judge from the sound, his back was broken on the spot. But he had no time given him to recover. Silver, agile as a monkey even without leg or crutch, was on the top of him next moment and had twice buried his knife up to the hilt in that defenceless body. From my place of ambush, I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows. I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do know that for the next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling mist Silver and the birds, and the tall Spyglass hilltop, going round and round and topsyturvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells ringing and distant voices shouting in my ear. When I came again to myself the monster had pulled himself together, his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his bloodstained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes. But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought out a whistle, and blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated air. I could not tell, of course, the meaning of the signal, but it instantly awoke my fears. More men would be coming. I might be discovered. They had already slain two of the honest people after Tom and Alan, might not I come next? Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again, with what speed and silence I could manage, to the more open portion of the wood. As I did so, I could hear hails coming and going between the old buccaneer and his comrades, and this sound of danger lent me wings. As soon as I was clear of the thicket, I ran as I never ran before, scarce minding the direction of my flight, so long as it led me from the murderers and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into a kind of frenzy. Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe's? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, I thought. Goodbye to the Hispaniola goodbye to the squire, the doctor, and the captain! There was nothing left for me but death by starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers. All this while, as I say, I was still running, and without taking any notice, I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two peaks and had got into a part of the island where the liveoaks grew more widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing and dimensions. Mingled with these were a few scattered pines, some fifty, some nearer seventy, feet high. The air too smelt more freshly than down beside the marsh. And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with a thumping heart. ROM the side of the hill, which was here steep and stony, a spout of gravel was dislodged and fell rattling and bounding through the trees. My eyes turned instinctively in that direction, and I saw a figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine. What it was, whether bear or man or monkey, I could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and shaggy more I knew not. But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand. I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides behind me the murderers, before me this lurking nondescript. And immediately I began to prefer the dangers that I knew to those I knew not. Silver himself appeared less terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods, and I turned on my heel, and looking sharply behind me over my shoulder, began to retrace my steps in the direction of the boats. Instantly the figure reappeared, and making a wide circuit, began to head me off. I was tired, at any rate but had I been as fresh as when I rose, I could see it was in vain for me to contend in speed with such an adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature flitted like a deer, running manlike on two legs, but unlike any man that I had ever seen, stooping almost double as it ran. Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in doubt about that. I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of escape and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind. As soon as I remembered I was not defenceless, courage glowed again in my heart and I set my face resolutely for this man of the island and walked briskly towards him. He was concealed by this time behind another tree trunk but he must have been watching me closely, for as soon as I began to move in his direction he reappeared and took a step to meet me. Then he hesitated, drew back, came forward again, and at last, to my wonder and confusion, threw himself on his knees and held out his clasped hands in supplication. At that I once more stopped. 'Who are you? I asked. 'Ben Gunn, he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock. 'I'm poor Ben Gunn, I am and I haven't spoke with a Christian these three years. I could now see that he was a white man like myself and that his features were even pleasing. His skin, wherever it was exposed, was burnt by the sun even his lips were black, and his fair eyes looked quite startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggarmen that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship's canvas and old seacloth, and this extraordinary patchwork was all held together by a system of the most various and incongruous fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. About his waist he wore an old brassbuckled leather belt, which was the one thing solid in his whole accoutrement. 'Three years! I cried. 'Were you shipwrecked? 'Nay, mate, said he 'marooned. I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of punishment common enough among the buccaneers, in which the offender is put ashore with a little powder and shot and left behind on some desolate and distant island. 'Marooned three years agone, he continued, 'and lived on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for himself. But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheesetoasted, mostlyand woke up again, and here I were. 'If ever I can get aboard again, said I, 'you shall have cheese by the stone. All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my jacket, smoothing my hands, looking at my boots, and generally, in the intervals of his speech, showing a childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow creature. But at my last words he perked up into a kind of startled slyness. 'If ever you can get aboard again, says you? he repeated. 'Why, now, who's to hinder you? 'Not you, I know, was my reply. 'And right you was, he cried. 'Now youwhat do you call yourself, mate? 'Jim, I told him. 'Jim, Jim, says he, quite pleased apparently. 'Well, now, Jim, I've lived that rough as you'd be ashamed to hear of. Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had had a pious motherto look at me? he asked. 'Why, no, not in particular, I answered. 'Ah, well, said he, 'but I hadremarkable pious. And I was a civil, pious boy, and could rattle off my catechism that fast, as you couldn't tell one word from another. And here's what it come to, Jim, and it begun with chuckfarthen on the blessed gravestones! That's what it begun with, but it went further'n that and so my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman! But it were Providence that put me here. I've thought it all out in this here lonely island, and I'm back on piety. You don't catch me tasting rum so much, but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have. I'm bound I'll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jimlooking all round him and lowering his voice to a whisper'I'm rich. I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face, for he repeated the statement hotly 'Rich! Rich! I says. And I'll tell you what I'll make a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you'll bless your stars, you will, you was the first that found me! And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over his face, and he tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger threateningly before my eyes. 'Now, Jim, you tell me true that ain't Flint's ship? he asked. At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to believe that I had found an ally, and I answered him at once. 'It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead but I'll tell you true, as you ask methere are some of Flint's hands aboard worse luck for the rest of us. 'Not a manwith oneleg? he gasped. 'Silver? I asked. 'Ah, Silver! says he. 'That were his name. 'He's the cook, and the ringleader too. He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he give it quite a wring. 'If you was sent by Long John, he said, 'I'm as good as pork, and I know it. But where was you, do you suppose? I had made my mind up in a moment, and by way of answer told him the whole story of our voyage and the predicament in which we found ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had done he patted me on the head. 'You're a good lad, Jim, he said 'and you're all in a clove hitch, ain't you? Well, you just put your trust in Ben GunnBen Gunn's the man to do it. Would you think it likely, now, that your squire would prove a liberalminded one in case of helphim being in a clove hitch, as you remark? I told him the squire was the most liberal of men. 'Aye, but you see, returned Ben Gunn, 'I didn't mean giving me a gate to keep, and a suit of livery clothes, and such that's not my mark, Jim. What I mean is, would he be likely to come down to the toon of, say one thousand pounds out of money that's as good as a man's own already? 'I am sure he would, said I. 'As it was, all hands were to share. 'And a passage home? he added with a look of great shrewdness. 'Why, I cried, 'the squire's a gentleman. And besides, if we got rid of the others, we should want you to help work the vessel home. 'Ah, said he, 'so you would. And he seemed very much relieved. 'Now, I'll tell you what, he went on. 'So much I'll tell you, and no more. I were in Flint's ship when he buried the treasure he and six alongsix strong seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us standing off and on in the old Walrus. One fine day up went the signal, and here come Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head done up in a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and the six all deaddead and buried. How he done it, not a man aboard us could make out. It was battle, murder, and sudden death, leastwayshim against six. Billy Bones was the mate Long John, he was quartermaster and they asked him where the treasure was. 'Ah,' says he, 'you can go ashore, if you like, and stay,' he says 'but as for the ship, she'll beat up for more, by thunder!' That's what he said. 'Well, I was in another ship three years back, and we sighted this island. 'Boys,' said I, 'here's Flint's treasure let's land and find it.' The cap'n was displeased at that, but my messmates were all of a mind and landed. Twelve days they looked for it, and every day they had the worse word for me, until one fine morning all hands went aboard. 'As for you, Benjamin Gunn,' says they, 'here's a musket,' they says, 'and a spade, and pickaxe. You can stay here and find Flint's money for yourself,' they says. 'Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and not a bite of Christian diet from that day to this. But now, you look here look at me. Do I look like a man before the mast? No, says you. Nor I weren't, neither, I says. And with that he winked and pinched me hard. 'Just you mention them words to your squire, Jim, he went on. 'Nor he weren't, neitherthat's the words. Three years he were the man of this island, light and dark, fair and rain and sometimes he would maybe think upon a prayer (says you), and sometimes he would maybe think of his old mother, so be as she's alive (you'll say) but the most part of Gunn's time (this is what you'll say)the most part of his time was took up with another matter. And then you'll give him a nip, like I do. And he pinched me again in the most confidential manner. 'Then, he continued, 'then you'll up, and you'll say this Gunn is a good man (you'll say), and he puts a precious sight more confidencea precious sight, mind thatin a gen'leman born than in these gen'leman of fortune, having been one hisself. 'Well, I said, 'I don't understand one word that you've been saying. But that's neither here nor there for how am I to get on board? 'Ah, said he, 'that's the hitch, for sure. Well, there's my boat, that I made with my two hands. I keep her under the white rock. If the worst come to the worst, we might try that after dark. Hi! he broke out. 'What's that? For just then, although the sun had still an hour or two to run, all the echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of a cannon. 'They have begun to fight! I cried. 'Follow me. And I began to run towards the anchorage, my terrors all forgotten, while close at my side the marooned man in his goatskins trotted easily and lightly. 'Left, left, says he 'keep to your left hand, mate Jim! Under the trees with you! Theer's where I killed my first goat. They don't come down here now they're all mastheaded on them mountings for the fear of Benjamin Gunn. Ah! And there's the cetemerycemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? I come here and prayed, nows and thens, when I thought maybe a Sunday would be about doo. It weren't quite a chapel, but it seemed more solemn like and then, says you, Ben Gunn was shorthandedno chapling, nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you says. So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting nor receiving any answer. The cannonshot was followed after a considerable interval by a volley of small arms. Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me, I beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air above a wood. T was about half past onethree bells in the sea phrasethat the two boats went ashore from the Hispaniola. The captain, the squire, and I were talking matters over in the cabin. Had there been a breath of wind, we should have fallen on the six mutineers who were left aboard with us, slipped our cable, and away to sea. But the wind was wanting and to complete our helplessness, down came Hunter with the news that Jim Hawkins had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore with the rest. It never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins, but we were alarmed for his safety. With the men in the temper they were in, it seemed an even chance if we should see the lad again. We ran on deck. The pitch was bubbling in the seams the nasty stench of the place turned me sick if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery, it was in that abominable anchorage. The six scoundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail in the forecastle ashore we could see the gigs made fast and a man sitting in each, hard by where the river runs in. One of them was whistling 'Lillibullero. Waiting was a strain, and it was decided that Hunter and I should go ashore with the jollyboat in quest of information. The gigs had leaned to their right, but Hunter and I pulled straight in, in the direction of the stockade upon the chart. The two who were left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance 'Lillibullero stopped off, and I could see the pair discussing what they ought to do. Had they gone and told Silver, all might have turned out differently but they had their orders, I suppose, and decided to sit quietly where they were and hark back again to 'Lillibullero. There was a slight bend in the coast, and I steered so as to put it between us even before we landed we had thus lost sight of the gigs. I jumped out and came as near running as I durst, with a big silk handkerchief under my hat for coolness' sake and a brace of pistols ready primed for safety. I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade. This was how it was a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a knoll. Well, on the knoll, and enclosing the spring, they had clapped a stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loopholed for musketry on either side. All round this they had cleared a wide space, and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high, without door or opening, too strong to pull down without time and labour and too open to shelter the besiegers. The people in the loghouse had them in every way they stood quiet in shelter and shot the others like partridges. All they wanted was a good watch and food for, short of a complete surprise, they might have held the place against a regiment. What particularly took my fancy was the spring. For though we had a good enough place of it in the cabin of the Hispaniola, with plenty of arms and ammunition, and things to eat, and excellent wines, there had been one thing overlookedwe had no water. I was thinking this over when there came ringing over the island the cry of a man at the point of death. I was not new to violent deathI have served his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and got a wound myself at Fontenoybut I know my pulse went dot and carry one. 'Jim Hawkins is gone, was my first thought. It is something to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been a doctor. There is no time to dillydally in our work. And so now I made up my mind instantly, and with no time lost returned to the shore and jumped on board the jollyboat. By good fortune Hunter pulled a good oar. We made the water fly, and the boat was soon alongside and I aboard the schooner. I found them all shaken, as was natural. The squire was sitting down, as white as a sheet, thinking of the harm he had led us to, the good soul! And one of the six forecastle hands was little better. 'There's a man, says Captain Smollett, nodding towards him, 'new to this work. He came nighhand fainting, doctor, when he heard the cry. Another touch of the rudder and that man would join us. I told my plan to the captain, and between us we settled on the details of its accomplishment. We put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin and the forecastle, with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress for protection. Hunter brought the boat round under the sternport, and Joyce and I set to work loading her with powder tins, muskets, bags of biscuits, kegs of pork, a cask of cognac, and my invaluable medicine chest. In the meantime, the squire and the captain stayed on deck, and the latter hailed the coxswain, who was the principal man aboard. 'Mr. Hands, he said, 'here are two of us with a brace of pistols each. If any one of you six make a signal of any description, that man's dead. They were a good deal taken aback, and after a little consultation one and all tumbled down the fore companion, thinking no doubt to take us on the rear. But when they saw Redruth waiting for them in the sparred galley, they went about ship at once, and a head popped out again on deck. 'Down, dog! cries the captain. And the head popped back again and we heard no more, for the time, of these six very fainthearted seamen. By this time, tumbling things in as they came, we had the jollyboat loaded as much as we dared. Joyce and I got out through the sternport, and we made for shore again as fast as oars could take us. This second trip fairly aroused the watchers along shore. 'Lillibullero was dropped again and just before we lost sight of them behind the little point, one of them whipped ashore and disappeared. I had half a mind to change my plan and destroy their boats, but I feared that Silver and the others might be close at hand, and all might very well be lost by trying for too much. We had soon touched land in the same place as before and set to provision the block house. All three made the first journey, heavily laden, and tossed our stores over the palisade. Then, leaving Joyce to guard themone man, to be sure, but with half a dozen musketsHunter and I returned to the jollyboat and loaded ourselves once more. So we proceeded without pausing to take breath, till the whole cargo was bestowed, when the two servants took up their position in the block house, and I, with all my power, sculled back to the Hispaniola. That we should have risked a second boat load seems more daring than it really was. They had the advantage of numbers, of course, but we had the advantage of arms. Not one of the men ashore had a musket, and before they could get within range for pistol shooting, we flattered ourselves we should be able to give a good account of a halfdozen at least. The squire was waiting for me at the stern window, all his faintness gone from him. He caught the painter and made it fast, and we fell to loading the boat for our very lives. Pork, powder, and biscuit was the cargo, with only a musket and a cutlass apiece for the squire and me and Redruth and the captain. The rest of the arms and powder we dropped overboard in two fathoms and a half of water, so that we could see the bright steel shining far below us in the sun, on the clean, sandy bottom. By this time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the ship was swinging round to her anchor. Voices were heard faintly halloaing in the direction of the two gigs and though this reassured us for Joyce and Hunter, who were well to the eastward, it warned our party to be off. Redruth retreated from his place in the gallery and dropped into the boat, which we then brought round to the ship's counter, to be handier for Captain Smollett. 'Now, men, said he, 'do you hear me? There was no answer from the forecastle. 'It's to you, Abraham Grayit's to you I am speaking. Still no reply. 'Gray, resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder, 'I am leaving this ship, and I order you to follow your captain. I know you are a good man at bottom, and I dare say not one of the lot of you's as bad as he makes out. I have my watch here in my hand I give you thirty seconds to join me in. There was a pause. 'Come, my fine fellow, continued the captain 'don't hang so long in stays. I'm risking my life and the lives of these good gentlemen every second. There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of blows, and out burst Abraham Gray with a knife cut on the side of the cheek, and came running to the captain like a dog to the whistle. 'I'm with you, sir, said he. And the next moment he and the captain had dropped aboard of us, and we had shoved off and given way. We were clear out of the ship, but not yet ashore in our stockade. HIS fifth trip was quite different from any of the others. In the first place, the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded. Five grown men, and three of themTrelawney, Redruth, and the captainover six feet high, was already more than she was meant to carry. Add to that the powder, pork, and breadbags. The gunwale was lipping astern. Several times we shipped a little water, and my breeches and the tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a hundred yards. The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her to lie a little more evenly. All the same, we were afraid to breathe. In the second place, the ebb was now makinga strong rippling current running westward through the basin, and then south'ard and seaward down the straits by which we had entered in the morning. Even the ripples were a danger to our overloaded craft, but the worst of it was that we were swept out of our true course and away from our proper landingplace behind the point. If we let the current have its way we should come ashore beside the gigs, where the pirates might appear at any moment. 'I cannot keep her head for the stockade, sir, said I to the captain. I was steering, while he and Redruth, two fresh men, were at the oars. 'The tide keeps washing her down. Could you pull a little stronger? 'Not without swamping the boat, said he. 'You must bear up, sir, if you pleasebear up until you see you're gaining. I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward until I had laid her head due east, or just about right angles to the way we ought to go. 'We'll never get ashore at this rate, said I. 'If it's the only course that we can lie, sir, we must even lie it, returned the captain. 'We must keep upstream. You see, sir, he went on, 'if once we dropped to leeward of the landingplace, it's hard to say where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can dodge back along the shore. 'The current's less a'ready, sir, said the man Gray, who was sitting in the foresheets 'you can ease her off a bit. 'Thank you, my man, said I, quite as if nothing had happened, for we had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves. Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I thought his voice was a little changed. 'The gun! said he. 'I have thought of that, said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort. 'They could never get the gun ashore, and if they did, they could never haul it through the woods. 'Look astern, doctor, replied the captain. We had entirely forgotten the long nine and there, to our horror, were the five rogues busy about her, getting off her jacket, as they called the stout tarpaulin cover under which she sailed. Not only that, but it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the roundshot and the powder for the gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe would put it all into the possession of the evil ones abroad. 'Israel was Flint's gunner, said Gray hoarsely. At any risk, we put the boat's head direct for the landingplace. By this time we had got so far out of the run of the current that we kept steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing, and I could keep her steady for the goal. But the worst of it was that with the course I now held we turned our broadside instead of our stern to the Hispaniola and offered a target like a barn door. I could hear as well as see that brandyfaced rascal Israel Hands plumping down a roundshot on the deck. 'Who's the best shot? asked the captain. 'Mr. Trelawney, out and away, said I. 'Mr. Trelawney, will you please pick me off one of these men, sir? Hands, if possible, said the captain. Trelawney was as cool as steel. He looked to the priming of his gun. 'Now, cried the captain, 'easy with that gun, sir, or you'll swamp the boat. All hands stand by to trim her when he aims. The squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased, and we leaned over to the other side to keep the balance, and all was so nicely contrived that we did not ship a drop. They had the gun, by this time, slewed round upon the swivel, and Hands, who was at the muzzle with the rammer, was in consequence the most exposed. However, we had no luck, for just as Trelawney fired, down he stooped, the ball whistled over him, and it was one of the other four who fell. The cry he gave was echoed not only by his companions on board but by a great number of voices from the shore, and looking in that direction I saw the other pirates trooping out from among the trees and tumbling into their places in the boats. 'Here come the gigs, sir, said I. 'Give way, then, cried the captain. 'We mustn't mind if we swamp her now. If we can't get ashore, all's up. 'Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir, I added 'the crew of the other most likely going round by shore to cut us off. 'They'll have a hot run, sir, returned the captain. 'Jack ashore, you know. It's not them I mind it's the roundshot. Carpet bowls! My lady's maid couldn't miss. Tell us, squire, when you see the match, and we'll hold water. In the meanwhile we had been making headway at a good pace for a boat so overloaded, and we had shipped but little water in the process. We were now close in thirty or forty strokes and we should beach her, for the ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of sand below the clustering trees. The gig was no longer to be feared the little point had already concealed it from our eyes. The ebbtide, which had so cruelly delayed us, was now making reparation and delaying our assailants. The one source of danger was the gun. 'If I durst, said the captain, 'I'd stop and pick off another man. But it was plain that they meant nothing should delay their shot. They had never so much as looked at their fallen comrade, though he was not dead, and I could see him trying to crawl away. 'Ready! cried the squire. 'Hold! cried the captain, quick as an echo. And he and Redruth backed with a great heave that sent her stern bodily under water. The report fell in at the same instant of time. This was the first that Jim heard, the sound of the squire's shot not having reached him. Where the ball passed, not one of us precisely knew, but I fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have contributed to our disaster. At any rate, the boat sank by the stern, quite gently, in three feet of water, leaving the captain and myself, facing each other, on our feet. The other three took complete headers, and came up again drenched and bubbling. So far there was no great harm. No lives were lost, and we could wade ashore in safety. But there were all our stores at the bottom, and to make things worse, only two guns out of five remained in a state for service. Mine I had snatched from my knees and held over my head, by a sort of instinct. As for the captain, he had carried his over his shoulder by a bandoleer, and like a wise man, lock uppermost. The other three had gone down with the boat. To add to our concern, we heard voices already drawing near us in the woods along shore, and we had not only the danger of being cut off from the stockade in our halfcrippled state but the fear before us whether, if Hunter and Joyce were attacked by half a dozen, they would have the sense and conduct to stand firm. Hunter was steady, that we knew Joyce was a doubtful casea pleasant, polite man for a valet and to brush one's clothes, but not entirely fitted for a man of war. With all this in our minds, we waded ashore as fast as we could, leaving behind us the poor jollyboat and a good half of all our powder and provisions. E made our best speed across the strip of wood that now divided us from the stockade, and at every step we took the voices of the buccaneers rang nearer. Soon we could hear their footfalls as they ran and the cracking of the branches as they breasted across a bit of thicket. I began to see we should have a brush for it in earnest and looked to my priming. 'Captain, said I, 'Trelawney is the dead shot. Give him your gun his own is useless. They exchanged guns, and Trelawney, silent and cool as he had been since the beginning of the bustle, hung a moment on his heel to see that all was fit for service. At the same time, observing Gray to be unarmed, I handed him my cutlass. It did all our hearts good to see him spit in his hand, knit his brows, and make the blade sing through the air. It was plain from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt. Forty paces farther we came to the edge of the wood and saw the stockade in front of us. We struck the enclosure about the middle of the south side, and almost at the same time, seven mutineersJob Anderson, the boatswain, at their headappeared in full cry at the southwestern corner. They paused as if taken aback, and before they recovered, not only the squire and I, but Hunter and Joyce from the block house, had time to fire. The four shots came in rather a scattering volley, but they did the business one of the enemy actually fell, and the rest, without hesitation, turned and plunged into the trees. After reloading, we walked down the outside of the palisade to see to the fallen enemy. He was stone deadshot through the heart. We began to rejoice over our good success when just at that moment a pistol cracked in the bush, a ball whistled close past my ear, and poor Tom Redruth stumbled and fell his length on the ground. Both the squire and I returned the shot, but as we had nothing to aim at, it is probable we only wasted powder. Then we reloaded and turned our attention to poor Tom. The captain and Gray were already examining him, and I saw with half an eye that all was over. I believe the readiness of our return volley had scattered the mutineers once more, for we were suffered without further molestation to get the poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade and carried, groaning and bleeding, into the loghouse. Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one word of surprise, complaint, fear, or even acquiescence from the very beginning of our troubles till now, when we had laid him down in the loghouse to die. He had lain like a Trojan behind his mattress in the gallery he had followed every order silently, doggedly, and well he was the oldest of our party by a score of years and now, sullen, old, serviceable servant, it was he that was to die. The squire dropped down beside him on his knees and kissed his hand, crying like a child. 'Be I going, doctor? he asked. 'Tom, my man, said I, 'you're going home. 'I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun first, he replied. 'Tom, said the squire, 'say you forgive me, won't you? 'Would that be respectful like, from me to you, squire? was the answer. 'Howsoever, so be it, amen! After a little while of silence, he said he thought somebody might read a prayer. 'It's the custom, sir, he added apologetically. And not long after, without another word, he passed away. In the meantime the captain, whom I had observed to be wonderfully swollen about the chest and pockets, had turned out a great many various storesthe British colours, a Bible, a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink, the logbook, and pounds of tobacco. He had found a longish firtree lying felled and trimmed in the enclosure, and with the help of Hunter he had set it up at the corner of the loghouse where the trunks crossed and made an angle. Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colours. This seemed mightily to relieve him. He reentered the loghouse and set about counting up the stores as if nothing else existed. But he had an eye on Tom's passage for all that, and as soon as all was over, came forward with another flag and reverently spread it on the body. 'Don't you take on, sir, he said, shaking the squire's hand. 'All's well with him no fear for a hand that's been shot down in his duty to captain and owner. It mayn't be good divinity, but it's a fact. Then he pulled me aside. 'Dr. Livesey, he said, 'in how many weeks do you and squire expect the consort? I told him it was a question not of weeks but of months, that if we were not back by the end of August Blandly was to send to find us, but neither sooner nor later. 'You can calculate for yourself, I said. 'Why, yes, returned the captain, scratching his head 'and making a large allowance, sir, for all the gifts of Providence, I should say we were pretty close hauled. 'How do you mean? I asked. 'It's a pity, sir, we lost that second load. That's what I mean, replied the captain. 'As for powder and shot, we'll do. But the rations are short, very shortso short, Dr. Livesey, that we're perhaps as well without that extra mouth. And he pointed to the dead body under the flag. Just then, with a roar and a whistle, a roundshot passed high above the roof of the loghouse and plumped far beyond us in the wood. 'Oho! said the captain. 'Blaze away! You've little enough powder already, my lads. At the second trial, the aim was better, and the ball descended inside the stockade, scattering a cloud of sand but doing no further damage. 'Captain, said the squire, 'the house is quite invisible from the ship. It must be the flag they are aiming at. Would it not be wiser to take it in? 'Strike my colours! cried the captain. 'No, sir, not I and as soon as he had said the words, I think we all agreed with him. For it was not only a piece of stout, seamanly, good feeling it was good policy besides and showed our enemies that we despised their cannonade. All through the evening they kept thundering away. Ball after ball flew over or fell short or kicked up the sand in the enclosure, but they had to fire so high that the shot fell dead and buried itself in the soft sand. We had no ricochet to fear, and though one popped in through the roof of the loghouse and out again through the floor, we soon got used to that sort of horseplay and minded it no more than cricket. 'There is one good thing about all this, observed the captain 'the wood in front of us is likely clear. The ebb has made a good while our stores should be uncovered. Volunteers to go and bring in pork. Gray and Hunter were the first to come forward. Well armed, they stole out of the stockade, but it proved a useless mission. The mutineers were bolder than we fancied or they put more trust in Israel's gunnery. For four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores and wading out with them to one of the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to hold her steady against the current. Silver was in the sternsheets in command and every man of them was now provided with a musket from some secret magazine of their own. The captain sat down to his log, and here is the beginning of the entry Alexander Smollett, master David Livesey, ship's doctor Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate John Trelawney, owner John Hunter and Richard Joyce, owner's servants, landsmenbeing all that is left faithful of the ship's companywith stores for ten days at short rations, came ashore this day and flew British colours on the loghouse in Treasure Island. Thomas Redruth, owner's servant, landsman, shot by the mutineers James Hawkins, cabinboy And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins' fate. A hail on the land side. 'Somebody hailing us, said Hunter, who was on guard. 'Doctor! Squire! Captain! Hullo, Hunter, is that you? came the cries. And I ran to the door in time to see Jim Hawkins, safe and sound, come climbing over the stockade. S soon as Ben Gunn saw the colours he came to a halt, stopped me by the arm, and sat down. 'Now, said he, 'there's your friends, sure enough. 'Far more likely it's the mutineers, I answered. 'That! he cried. 'Why, in a place like this, where nobody puts in but gen'lemen of fortune, Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, you don't make no doubt of that. No, that's your friends. There's been blows too, and I reckon your friends has had the best of it and here they are ashore in the old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was the man to have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his match were never seen. He were afraid of none, not he on'y SilverSilver was that genteel. 'Well, said I, 'that may be so, and so be it all the more reason that I should hurry on and join my friends. 'Nay, mate, returned Ben, 'not you. You're a good boy, or I'm mistook but you're on'y a boy, all told. Now, Ben Gunn is fly. Rum wouldn't bring me there, where you're goingnot rum wouldn't, till I see your born gen'leman and gets it on his word of honour. And you won't forget my words 'A precious sight (that's what you'll say), a precious sight more confidence'and then nips him. And he pinched me the third time with the same air of cleverness. 'And when Ben Gunn is wanted, you know where to find him, Jim. Just wheer you found him today. And him that comes is to have a white thing in his hand, and he's to come alone. Oh! And you'll say this 'Ben Gunn,' says you, 'has reasons of his own.' 'Well, said I, 'I believe I understand. You have something to propose, and you wish to see the squire or the doctor, and you're to be found where I found you. Is that all? 'And when? says you, he added. 'Why, from about noon observation to about six bells. 'Good, said I, 'and now may I go? 'You won't forget? he inquired anxiously. 'Precious sight, and reasons of his own, says you. Reasons of his own that's the mainstay as between man and man. Well, thenstill holding me'I reckon you can go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see Silver, you wouldn't go for to sell Ben Gunn? Wild horses wouldn't draw it from you? No, says you. And if them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what would you say but there'd be widders in the morning? Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannonball came tearing through the trees and pitched in the sand not a hundred yards from where we two were talking. The next moment each of us had taken to his heels in a different direction. For a good hour to come frequent reports shook the island, and balls kept crashing through the woods. I moved from hidingplace to hidingplace, always pursued, or so it seemed to me, by these terrifying missiles. But towards the end of the bombardment, though still I durst not venture in the direction of the stockade, where the balls fell oftenest, I had begun, in a manner, to pluck up my heart again, and after a long detour to the east, crept down among the shoreside trees. The sun had just set, the sea breeze was rustling and tumbling in the woods and ruffling the grey surface of the anchorage the tide, too, was far out, and great tracts of sand lay uncovered the air, after the heat of the day, chilled me through my jacket. The Hispaniola still lay where she had anchored but, sure enough, there was the Jolly Rogerthe black flag of piracyflying from her peak. Even as I looked, there came another red flash and another report that sent the echoes clattering, and one more roundshot whistled through the air. It was the last of the cannonade. I lay for some time watching the bustle which succeeded the attack. Men were demolishing something with axes on the beach near the stockadethe poor jollyboat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the mouth of the river, a great fire was glowing among the trees, and between that point and the ship one of the gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I had seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But there was a sound in their voices which suggested rum. At length I thought I might return towards the stockade. I was pretty far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to the east, and is joined at halfwater to Skeleton Island and now, as I rose to my feet, I saw, some distance further down the spit and rising from among low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly white in colour. It occurred to me that this might be the white rock of which Ben Gunn had spoken and that some day or other a boat might be wanted and I should know where to look for one. Then I skirted among the woods until I had regained the rear, or shoreward side, of the stockade, and was soon warmly welcomed by the faithful party. I had soon told my story and began to look about me. The loghouse was made of unsquared trunks of pineroof, walls, and floor. The latter stood in several places as much as a foot or a foot and a half above the surface of the sand. There was a porch at the door, and under this porch the little spring welled up into an artificial basin of a rather odd kindno other than a great ship's kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out, and sunk 'to her bearings, as the captain said, among the sand. Little had been left besides the framework of the house, but in one corner there was a stone slab laid down by way of hearth and an old rusty iron basket to contain the fire. The slopes of the knoll and all the inside of the stockade had been cleared of timber to build the house, and we could see by the stumps what a fine and lofty grove had been destroyed. Most of the soil had been washed away or buried in drift after the removal of the trees only where the streamlet ran down from the kettle a thick bed of moss and some ferns and little creeping bushes were still green among the sand. Very close around the stockadetoo close for defence, they saidthe wood still flourished high and dense, all of fir on the land side, but towards the sea with a large admixture of liveoaks. The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken, whistled through every chink of the rude building and sprinkled the floor with a continual rain of fine sand. There was sand in our eyes, sand in our teeth, sand in our suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the bottom of the kettle, for all the world like porridge beginning to boil. Our chimney was a square hole in the roof it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and the rest eddied about the house and kept us coughing and piping the eye. Add to this that Gray, the new man, had his face tied up in a bandage for a cut he had got in breaking away from the mutineers and that poor old Tom Redruth, still unburied, lay along the wall, stiff and stark, under the Union Jack. If we had been allowed to sit idle, we should all have fallen in the blues, but Captain Smollett was never the man for that. All hands were called up before him, and he divided us into watches. The doctor and Gray and I for one the squire, Hunter, and Joyce upon the other. Tired though we all were, two were sent out for firewood two more were set to dig a grave for Redruth the doctor was named cook I was put sentry at the door and the captain himself went from one to another, keeping up our spirits and lending a hand wherever it was wanted. From time to time the doctor came to the door for a little air and to rest his eyes, which were almost smoked out of his head, and whenever he did so, he had a word for me. 'That man Smollett, he said once, 'is a better man than I am. And when I say that it means a deal, Jim. Another time he came and was silent for a while. Then he put his head on one side, and looked at me. 'Is this Ben Gunn a man? he asked. 'I do not know, sir, said I. 'I am not very sure whether he's sane. 'If there's any doubt about the matter, he is, returned the doctor. 'A man who has been three years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, can't expect to appear as sane as you or me. It doesn't lie in human nature. Was it cheese you said he had a fancy for? 'Yes, sir, cheese, I answered. 'Well, Jim, says he, 'just see the good that comes of being dainty in your food. You've seen my snuffbox, haven't you? And you never saw me take snuff, the reason being that in my snuffbox I carry a piece of Parmesan cheesea cheese made in Italy, very nutritious. Well, that's for Ben Gunn! Before supper was eaten we buried old Tom in the sand and stood round him for a while bareheaded in the breeze. A good deal of firewood had been got in, but not enough for the captain's fancy, and he shook his head over it and told us we 'must get back to this tomorrow rather livelier. Then, when we had eaten our pork and each had a good stiff glass of brandy grog, the three chiefs got together in a corner to discuss our prospects. It appears they were at their wits' end what to do, the stores being so low that we must have been starved into surrender long before help came. But our best hope, it was decided, was to kill off the buccaneers until they either hauled down their flag or ran away with the Hispaniola. From nineteen they were already reduced to fifteen, two others were wounded, and one at leastthe man shot beside the gunseverely wounded, if he were not dead. Every time we had a crack at them, we were to take it, saving our own lives, with the extremest care. And besides that, we had two able alliesrum and the climate. As for the first, though we were about half a mile away, we could hear them roaring and singing late into the night and as for the second, the doctor staked his wig that, camped where they were in the marsh and unprovided with remedies, the half of them would be on their backs before a week. 'So, he added, 'if we are not all shot down first they'll be glad to be packing in the schooner. It's always a ship, and they can get to buccaneering again, I suppose. 'First ship that ever I lost, said Captain Smollett. I was dead tired, as you may fancy and when I got to sleep, which was not till after a great deal of tossing, I slept like a log of wood. The rest had long been up and had already breakfasted and increased the pile of firewood by about half as much again when I was wakened by a bustle and the sound of voices. 'Flag of truce! I heard someone say and then, immediately after, with a cry of surprise, 'Silver himself! And at that, up I jumped, and rubbing my eyes, ran to a loophole in the wall. URE enough, there were two men just outside the stockade, one of them waving a white cloth, the other, no less a person than Silver himself, standing placidly by. It was still quite early, and the coldest morning that I think I ever was abroad ina chill that pierced into the marrow. The sky was bright and cloudless overhead, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But where Silver stood with his lieutenant, all was still in shadow, and they waded kneedeep in a low white vapour that had crawled during the night out of the morass. The chill and the vapour taken together told a poor tale of the island. It was plainly a damp, feverish, unhealthy spot. 'Keep indoors, men, said the captain. 'Ten to one this is a trick. Then he hailed the buccaneer. 'Who goes? Stand, or we fire. 'Flag of truce, cried Silver. The captain was in the porch, keeping himself carefully out of the way of a treacherous shot, should any be intended. He turned and spoke to us, 'Doctor's watch on the lookout. Dr. Livesey take the north side, if you please Jim, the east Gray, west. The watch below, all hands to load muskets. Lively, men, and careful. And then he turned again to the mutineers. 'And what do you want with your flag of truce? he cried. This time it was the other man who replied. 'Cap'n Silver, sir, to come on board and make terms, he shouted. 'Cap'n Silver! Don't know him. Who's he? cried the captain. And we could hear him adding to himself, 'Cap'n, is it? My heart, and here's promotion! Long John answered for himself. 'Me, sir. These poor lads have chosen me cap'n, after your desertion, sirlaying a particular emphasis upon the word 'desertion. 'We're willing to submit, if we can come to terms, and no bones about it. All I ask is your word, Cap'n Smollett, to let me safe and sound out of this here stockade, and one minute to get out o' shot before a gun is fired. 'My man, said Captain Smollett, 'I have not the slightest desire to talk to you. If you wish to talk to me, you can come, that's all. If there's any treachery, it'll be on your side, and the Lord help you. 'That's enough, cap'n, shouted Long John cheerily. 'A word from you's enough. I know a gentleman, and you may lay to that. We could see the man who carried the flag of truce attempting to hold Silver back. Nor was that wonderful, seeing how cavalier had been the captain's answer. But Silver laughed at him aloud and slapped him on the back as if the idea of alarm had been absurd. Then he advanced to the stockade, threw over his crutch, got a leg up, and with great vigour and skill succeeded in surmounting the fence and dropping safely to the other side. I will confess that I was far too much taken up with what was going on to be of the slightest use as sentry indeed, I had already deserted my eastern loophole and crept up behind the captain, who had now seated himself on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as it bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand. He was whistling 'Come, Lasses and Lads. Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll. What with the steepness of the incline, the thick tree stumps, and the soft sand, he and his crutch were as helpless as a ship in stays. But he stuck to it like a man in silence, and at last arrived before the captain, whom he saluted in the handsomest style. He was tricked out in his best an immense blue coat, thick with brass buttons, hung as low as to his knees, and a fine laced hat was set on the back of his head. 'Here you are, my man, said the captain, raising his head. 'You had better sit down. 'You ain't agoing to let me inside, cap'n? complained Long John. 'It's a main cold morning, to be sure, sir, to sit outside upon the sand. 'Why, Silver, said the captain, 'if you had pleased to be an honest man, you might have been sitting in your galley. It's your own doing. You're either my ship's cookand then you were treated handsomeor Cap'n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang! 'Well, well, cap'n, returned the seacook, sitting down as he was bidden on the sand, 'you'll have to give me a hand up again, that's all. A sweet pretty place you have of it here. Ah, there's Jim! The top of the morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here's my service. Why, there you all are together like a happy family, in a manner of speaking. 'If you have anything to say, my man, better say it, said the captain. 'Right you were, Cap'n Smollett, replied Silver. 'Dooty is dooty, to be sure. Well now, you look here, that was a good lay of yours last night. I don't deny it was a good lay. Some of you pretty handy with a handspikeend. And I'll not deny neither but what some of my people was shookmaybe all was shook maybe I was shook myself maybe that's why I'm here for terms. But you mark me, cap'n, it won't do twice, by thunder! We'll have to do sentrygo and ease off a point or so on the rum. Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober I was on'y dog tired and if I'd awoke a second sooner, I'd 'a caught you at the act, I would. He wasn't dead when I got round to him, not he. 'Well? says Captain Smollett as cool as can be. All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but you would never have guessed it from his tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling. Ben Gunn's last words came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he had paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk together round their fire, and I reckoned up with glee that we had only fourteen enemies to deal with. 'Well, here it is, said Silver. 'We want that treasure, and we'll have itthat's our point! You would just as soon save your lives, I reckon and that's yours. You have a chart, haven't you? 'That's as may be, replied the captain. 'Oh, well, you have, I know that, returned Long John. 'You needn't be so husky with a man there ain't a particle of service in that, and you may lay to it. What I mean is, we want your chart. Now, I never meant you no harm, myself. 'That won't do with me, my man, interrupted the captain. 'We know exactly what you meant to do, and we don't care, for now, you see, you can't do it. And the captain looked at him calmly and proceeded to fill a pipe. 'If Abe Gray Silver broke out. 'Avast there! cried Mr. Smollett. 'Gray told me nothing, and I asked him nothing and what's more, I would see you and him and this whole island blown clean out of the water into blazes first. So there's my mind for you, my man, on that. This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver down. He had been growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together. 'Like enough, said he. 'I would set no limits to what gentlemen might consider shipshape, or might not, as the case were. And seein' as how you are about to take a pipe, cap'n, I'll make so free as do likewise. And he filled a pipe and lighted it and the two men sat silently smoking for quite a while, now looking each other in the face, now stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward to spit. It was as good as the play to see them. 'Now, resumed Silver, 'here it is. You give us the chart to get the treasure by, and drop shooting poor seamen and stoving of their heads in while asleep. You do that, and we'll offer you a choice. Either you come aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped, and then I'll give you my affydavy, upon my word of honour, to clap you somewhere safe ashore. Or if that ain't to your fancy, some of my hands being rough and having old scores on account of hazing, then you can stay here, you can. We'll divide stores with you, man for man and I'll give my affydavy, as before to speak the first ship I sight, and send 'em here to pick you up. Now, you'll own that's talking. Handsomer you couldn't look to get, now you. And I hoperaising his voice'that all hands in this here block house will overhaul my words, for what is spoke to one is spoke to all. Captain Smollett rose from his seat and knocked out the ashes of his pipe in the palm of his left hand. 'Is that all? he asked. 'Every last word, by thunder! answered John. 'Refuse that, and you've seen the last of me but musketballs. 'Very good, said the captain. 'Now you'll hear me. If you'll come up one by one, unarmed, I'll engage to clap you all in irons and take you home to a fair trial in England. If you won't, my name is Alexander Smollett, I've flown my sovereign's colours, and I'll see you all to Davy Jones. You can't find the treasure. You can't sail the shipthere's not a man among you fit to sail the ship. You can't fight usGray, there, got away from five of you. Your ship's in irons, Master Silver you're on a lee shore, and so you'll find. I stand here and tell you so and they're the last good words you'll get from me, for in the name of heaven, I'll put a bullet in your back when next I meet you. Tramp, my lad. Bundle out of this, please, hand over hand, and double quick. Silver's face was a picture his eyes started in his head with wrath. He shook the fire out of his pipe. 'Give me a hand up! he cried. 'Not I, returned the captain. 'Who'll give me a hand up? he roared. Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest imprecations, he crawled along the sand till he got hold of the porch and could hoist himself again upon his crutch. Then he spat into the spring. 'There! he cried. 'That's what I think of ye. Before an hour's out, I'll stove in your old block house like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by thunder, laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll laugh upon the other side. Them that die'll be the lucky ones. And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, ploughed down the sand, was helped across the stockade, after four or five failures, by the man with the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant afterwards among the trees. S soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had been closely watching him, turned towards the interior of the house and found not a man of us at his post but Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen him angry. 'Quarters! he roared. And then, as we all slunk back to our places, 'Gray, he said, 'I'll put your name in the log you've stood by your duty like a seaman. Mr. Trelawney, I'm surprised at you, sir. Doctor, I thought you had worn the king's coat! If that was how you served at Fontenoy, sir, you'd have been better in your berth. The doctor's watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is. The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then he spoke. 'My lads, said he, 'I've given Silver a broadside. I pitched it in redhot on purpose and before the hour's out, as he said, we shall be boarded. We're outnumbered, I needn't tell you that, but we fight in shelter and a minute ago I should have said we fought with discipline. I've no manner of doubt that we can drub them, if you choose. Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said, that all was clear. On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two loopholes on the south side where the porch was, two again and on the north side, five. There was a round score of muskets for the seven of us the firewood had been built into four pilestables, you might sayone about the middle of each side, and on each of these tables some ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged. 'Toss out the fire, said the captain 'the chill is past, and we mustn't have smoke in our eyes. The iron firebasket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the embers smothered among sand. 'Hawkins hasn't had his breakfast. Hawkins, help yourself, and back to your post to eat it, continued Captain Smollett. 'Lively, now, my lad you'll want it before you've done. Hunter, serve out a round of brandy to all hands. And while this was going on, the captain completed, in his own mind, the plan of the defence. 'Doctor, you will take the door, he resumed. 'See, and don't expose yourself keep within, and fire through the porch. Hunter, take the east side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, you are the best shotyou and Gray will take this long north side, with the five loopholes it's there the danger is. If they can get up to it and fire in upon us through our own ports, things would begin to look dirty. Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting we'll stand by to load and bear a hand. As the captain had said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking and the resin melting in the logs of the block house. Jackets and coats were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the neck and rolled up to the shoulders and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat and anxiety. An hour passed away. 'Hang them! said the captain. 'This is as dull as the doldrums. Gray, whistle for a wind. And just at that moment came the first news of the attack. 'If you please, sir, said Joyce, 'if I see anyone, am I to fire? 'I told you so! cried the captain. 'Thank you, sir, returned Joyce with the same quiet civility. Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, straining ears and eyesthe musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his mouth very tight and a frown on his face. So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket and fired. The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like a string of geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several bullets struck the loghouse, but not one entered and as the smoke cleared away and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musketbarrel betrayed the presence of our foes. 'Did you hit your man? asked the captain. 'No, sir, replied Joyce. 'I believe not, sir. 'Next best thing to tell the truth, muttered Captain Smollett. 'Load his gun, Hawkins. How many should say there were on your side, doctor? 'I know precisely, said Dr. Livesey. 'Three shots were fired on this side. I saw the three flashestwo close togetherone farther to the west. 'Three! repeated the captain. 'And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney? But this was not so easily answered. There had come many from the northseven by the squire's computation, eight or nine according to Gray. From the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It was plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north and that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold. Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway and knocked the doctor's musket into bits. The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys. Squire and Gray fired again and yet again three men fell, one forwards into the enclosure, two back on the outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly disappeared among the trees. Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good their footing inside our defences, while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight men, each evidently supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though useless fire on the loghouse. The four who had boarded made straight before them for the building, shouting as they ran, and the men among the trees shouted back to encourage them. Several shots were fired, but such was the hurry of the marksmen that not one appears to have taken effect. In a moment, the four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us. The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle loophole. 'At 'em, all handsall hands! he roared in a voice of thunder. At the same moment, another pirate grasped Hunter's musket by the muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole, and with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor. Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around the house, appeared suddenly in the doorway and fell with his cutlass on the doctor. Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we were firing, under cover, at an exposed enemy now it was we who lay uncovered and could not return a blow. The loghouse was full of smoke, to which we owed our comparative safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and reports of pistolshots, and one loud groan rang in my ears. 'Out, lads, out, and fight 'em in the open! Cutlasses! cried the captain. I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back with a great slash across the face. 'Round the house, lads! Round the house! cried the captain and even in the hurlyburly, I perceived a change in his voice. Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards, and with my cutlass raised, ran round the corner of the house. Next moment I was face to face with Anderson. He roared aloud, and his hanger went up above his head, flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to be afraid, but as the blow still hung impending, leaped in a trice upon one side, and missing my foot in the soft sand, rolled headlong down the slope. When I had first sallied from the door, the other mutineers had been already swarming up the palisade to make an end of us. One man, in a red nightcap, with his cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the top and thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been the interval that when I found my feet again all was in the same posture, the fellow with the red nightcap still halfway over, another still just showing his head above the top of the stockade. And yet, in this breath of time, the fight was over and the victory was ours. Gray, following close behind me, had cut down the big boatswain ere he had time to recover from his last blow. Another had been shot at a loophole in the very act of firing into the house and now lay in agony, the pistol still smoking in his hand. A third, as I had seen, the doctor had disposed of at a blow. Of the four who had scaled the palisade, one only remained unaccounted for, and he, having left his cutlass on the field, was now clambering out again with the fear of death upon him. 'Firefire from the house! cried the doctor. 'And you, lads, back into cover. But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired, and the last boarder made good his escape and disappeared with the rest into the wood. In three seconds nothing remained of the attacking party but the five who had fallen, four on the inside and one on the outside of the palisade. The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for shelter. The survivors would soon be back where they had left their muskets, and at any moment the fire might recommence. The house was by this time somewhat cleared of smoke, and we saw at a glance the price we had paid for victory. Hunter lay beside his loophole, stunned Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move again while right in the centre, the squire was supporting the captain, one as pale as the other. 'The captain's wounded, said Mr. Trelawney. 'Have they run? asked Mr. Smollett. 'All that could, you may be bound, returned the doctor 'but there's five of them will never run again. 'Five! cried the captain. 'Come, that's better. Five against three leaves us four to nine. That's better odds than we had at starting. We were seven to nineteen then, or thought we were, and that's as bad to bear.  The mutineers were soon only eight in number, for the man shot by Mr. Trelawney on board the schooner died that same evening of his wound. But this was, of course, not known till after by the faithful party. HERE was no return of the mutineersnot so much as another shot out of the woods. They had 'got their rations for that day, as the captain put it, and we had the place to ourselves and a quiet time to overhaul the wounded and get dinner. Squire and I cooked outside in spite of the danger, and even outside we could hardly tell what we were at, for horror of the loud groans that reached us from the doctor's patients. Out of the eight men who had fallen in the action, only three still breathedthat one of the pirates who had been shot at the loophole, Hunter, and Captain Smollett and of these, the first two were as good as dead the mutineer indeed died under the doctor's knife, and Hunter, do what we could, never recovered consciousness in this world. He lingered all day, breathing loudly like the old buccaneer at home in his apoplectic fit, but the bones of his chest had been crushed by the blow and his skull fractured in falling, and some time in the following night, without sign or sound, he went to his Maker. As for the captain, his wounds were grievous indeed, but not dangerous. No organ was fatally injured. Anderson's ballfor it was Job that shot him firsthad broken his shoulderblade and touched the lung, not badly the second had only torn and displaced some muscles in the calf. He was sure to recover, the doctor said, but in the meantime, and for weeks to come, he must not walk nor move his arm, nor so much as speak when he could help it. My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a fleabite. Doctor Livesey patched it up with plaster and pulled my ears for me into the bargain. After dinner the squire and the doctor sat by the captain's side awhile in consultation and when they had talked to their hearts' content, it being then a little past noon, the doctor took up his hat and pistols, girt on a cutlass, put the chart in his pocket, and with a musket over his shoulder crossed the palisade on the north side and set off briskly through the trees. Gray and I were sitting together at the far end of the block house, to be out of earshot of our officers consulting and Gray took his pipe out of his mouth and fairly forgot to put it back again, so thunderstruck he was at this occurrence. 'Why, in the name of Davy Jones, said he, 'is Dr. Livesey mad? 'Why no, says I. 'He's about the last of this crew for that, I take it. 'Well, shipmate, said Gray, 'mad he may not be but if he's not, you mark my words, I am. 'I take it, replied I, 'the doctor has his idea and if I am right, he's going now to see Ben Gunn. I was right, as appeared later but in the meantime, the house being stifling hot and the little patch of sand inside the palisade ablaze with midday sun, I began to get another thought into my head, which was not by any means so right. What I began to do was to envy the doctor walking in the cool shadow of the woods with the birds about him and the pleasant smell of the pines, while I sat grilling, with my clothes stuck to the hot resin, and so much blood about me and so many poor dead bodies lying all around that I took a disgust of the place that was almost as strong as fear. All the time I was washing out the block house, and then washing up the things from dinner, this disgust and envy kept growing stronger and stronger, till at last, being near a breadbag, and no one then observing me, I took the first step towards my escapade and filled both pockets of my coat with biscuit. I was a fool, if you like, and certainly I was going to do a foolish, overbold act but I was determined to do it with all the precautions in my power. These biscuits, should anything befall me, would keep me, at least, from starving till far on in the next day. The next thing I laid hold of was a brace of pistols, and as I already had a powderhorn and bullets, I felt myself well supplied with arms. As for the scheme I had in my head, it was not a bad one in itself. I was to go down the sandy spit that divides the anchorage on the east from the open sea, find the white rock I had observed last evening, and ascertain whether it was there or not that Ben Gunn had hidden his boat, a thing quite worth doing, as I still believe. But as I was certain I should not be allowed to leave the enclosure, my only plan was to take French leave and slip out when nobody was watching, and that was so bad a way of doing it as made the thing itself wrong. But I was only a boy, and I had made my mind up. Well, as things at last fell out, I found an admirable opportunity. The squire and Gray were busy helping the captain with his bandages, the coast was clear, I made a bolt for it over the stockade and into the thickest of the trees, and before my absence was observed I was out of cry of my companions. This was my second folly, far worse than the first, as I left but two sound men to guard the house but like the first, it was a help towards saving all of us. I took my way straight for the east coast of the island, for I was determined to go down the sea side of the spit to avoid all chance of observation from the anchorage. It was already late in the afternoon, although still warm and sunny. As I continued to thread the tall woods, I could hear from far before me not only the continuous thunder of the surf, but a certain tossing of foliage and grinding of boughs which showed me the sea breeze had set in higher than usual. Soon cool draughts of air began to reach me, and a few steps farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove, and saw the sea lying blue and sunny to the horizon and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the beach. I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure Island. The sun might blaze overhead, the air be without a breath, the surface smooth and blue, but still these great rollers would be running along all the external coast, thundering and thundering by day and night and I scarce believe there is one spot in the island where a man would be out of earshot of their noise. I walked along beside the surf with great enjoyment, till, thinking I was now got far enough to the south, I took the cover of some thick bushes and crept warily up to the ridge of the spit. Behind me was the sea, in front the anchorage. The sea breeze, as though it had the sooner blown itself out by its unusual violence, was already at an end it had been succeeded by light, variable airs from the south and southeast, carrying great banks of fog and the anchorage, under lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and leaden as when first we entered it. The Hispaniola, in that unbroken mirror, was exactly portrayed from the truck to the waterline, the Jolly Roger hanging from her peak. Alongside lay one of the gigs, Silver in the sternsheetshim I could always recognizewhile a couple of men were leaning over the stern bulwarks, one of them with a red capthe very rogue that I had seen some hours before stridelegs upon the palisade. Apparently they were talking and laughing, though at that distanceupwards of a mileI could, of course, hear no word of what was said. All at once there began the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first startled me badly, though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint and even thought I could make out the bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon her master's wrist. Soon after, the jollyboat shoved off and pulled for shore, and the man with the red cap and his comrade went below by the cabin companion. Just about the same time, the sun had gone down behind the Spyglass, and as the fog was collecting rapidly, it began to grow dark in earnest. I saw I must lose no time if I were to find the boat that evening. The white rock, visible enough above the brush, was still some eighth of a mile further down the spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up with it, crawling, often on all fours, among the scrub. Night had almost come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right below it there was an exceedingly small hollow of green turf, hidden by banks and a thick underwood about kneedeep, that grew there very plentifully and in the centre of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goatskins, like what the gipsies carry about with them in England. I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and there was Ben Gunn's boathomemade if ever anything was homemade a rude, lopsided framework of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of goatskin, with the hair inside. The thing was extremely small, even for me, and I can hardly imagine that it could have floated with a fullsized man. There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion. I had not then seen a coracle, such as the ancient Britons made, but I have seen one since, and I can give you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn's boat than by saying it was like the first and the worst coracle ever made by man. But the great advantage of the coracle it certainly possessed, for it was exceedingly light and portable. Well, now that I had found the boat, you would have thought I had had enough of truantry for once, but in the meantime I had taken another notion and become so obstinately fond of it that I would have carried it out, I believe, in the teeth of Captain Smollett himself. This was to slip out under cover of the night, cut the Hispaniola adrift, and let her go ashore where she fancied. I had quite made up my mind that the mutineers, after their repulse of the morning, had nothing nearer their hearts than to up anchor and away to sea this, I thought, it would be a fine thing to prevent, and now that I had seen how they left their watchmen unprovided with a boat, I thought it might be done with little risk. Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a hearty meal of biscuit. It was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose. The fog had now buried all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island. And when, at last, I shouldered the coracle and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow where I had supped, there were but two points visible on the whole anchorage. One was the great fire on shore, by which the defeated pirates lay carousing in the swamp. The other, a mere blur of light upon the darkness, indicated the position of the anchored ship. She had swung round to the ebbher bow was now towards methe only lights on board were in the cabin, and what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog of the strong rays that flowed from the stern window. The ebb had already run some time, and I had to wade through a long belt of swampy sand, where I sank several times above the ankle, before I came to the edge of the retreating water, and wading a little way in, with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle, keel downwards, on the surface. HE coracleas I had ample reason to know before I was done with herwas a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight, both buoyant and clever in a seaway but she was the most crossgrained, lopsided craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more leeway than anything else, and turning round and round was the manoeuvre she was best at. Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was 'queer to handle till you knew her way. Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in every direction but the one I was bound to go the most part of the time we were broadside on, and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tide was still sweeping me down and there lay the Hispaniola right in the fairway, hardly to be missed. First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went, the brisker grew the current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold. The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my seagully and the Hispaniola would go humming down the tide. So far so good, but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the Hispaniola from her anchor, I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water. This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again particularly favoured me, I should have had to abandon my design. But the light airs which had begun blowing from the southeast and south had hauled round after nightfall into the southwest. Just while I was meditating, a puff came, caught the Hispaniola, and forced her up into the current and to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water. With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth, and cut one strand after another, till the vessel swung only by two. Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain should be once more lightened by a breath of wind. All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin, but to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts that I had scarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothing else to do, I began to pay more heed. One I recognized for the coxswain's, Israel Hands, that had been Flint's gunner in former days. The other was, of course, my friend of the red nightcap. Both men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were still drinking, for even while I was listening, one of them, with a drunken cry, opened the stern window and threw out something, which I divined to be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy it was plain that they were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and then there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lower for a while, until the next crisis came and in its turn passed away without result. On shore, I could see the glow of the great campfire burning warmly through the shoreside trees. Someone was singing, a dull, old, droning sailor's song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had heard it on the voyage more than once and remembered these words 'But one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventyfive. And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning. But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed on. At last the breeze came the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the dark I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a good, tough effort, cut the last fibres through. The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was almost instantly swept against the bows of the Hispaniola. At the same time, the schooner began to turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, across the current. I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be swamped and since I found I could not push the coracle directly off, I now shoved straight astern. At length I was clear of my dangerous neighbour, and just as I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across a light cord that was trailing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I grasped it. Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere instinct, but once I had it in my hands and found it fast, curiosity began to get the upper hand, and I determined I should have one look through the cabin window. I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and when I judged myself near enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height and thus commanded the roof and a slice of the interior of the cabin. By this time the schooner and her little consort were gliding pretty swiftly through the water indeed, we had already fetched up level with the campfire. The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash and until I got my eye above the windowsill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient and it was only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand upon the other's throat. I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for I was near overboard. I could see nothing for the moment but these two furious, encrimsoned faces swaying together under the smoky lamp, and I shut my eyes to let them grow once more familiar with the darkness. The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished company about the campfire had broken into the chorus I had heard so often 'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil were at that very moment in the cabin of the Hispaniola, when I was surprised by a sudden lurch of the coracle. At the same moment, she yawed sharply and seemed to change her course. The speed in the meantime had strangely increased. I opened my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also was wheeling to the southward. I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped against my ribs. There, right behind me, was the glow of the campfire. The current had turned at right angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and the little dancing coracle ever quickening, ever bubbling higher, ever muttering louder, it went spinning through the narrows for the open sea. Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent yaw, turning, perhaps, through twenty degrees and almost at the same moment one shout followed another from on board I could hear feet pounding on the companion ladder and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster. I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff and devoutly recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the end of the straits, I made sure we must fall into some bar of raging breakers, where all my troubles would be ended speedily and though I could, perhaps, bear to die, I could not bear to look upon my fate as it approached. So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten to and fro upon the billows, now and again wetted with flying sprays, and never ceasing to expect death at the next plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon me a numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my mind even in the midst of my terrors, until sleep at last supervened and in my seatossed coracle I lay and dreamed of home and the old Admiral Benbow. T was broad day when I awoke and found myself tossing at the southwest end of Treasure Island. The sun was up but was still hid from me behind the great bulk of the Spyglass, which on this side descended almost to the sea in formidable cliffs. Haulbowline Head and Mizzenmast Hill were at my elbow, the hill bare and dark, the head bound with cliffs forty or fifty feet high and fringed with great masses of fallen rock. I was scarce a quarter of a mile to seaward, and it was my first thought to paddle in and land. That notion was soon given over. Among the fallen rocks the breakers spouted and bellowed loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and falling, succeeded one another from second to second and I saw myself, if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore or spending my strength in vain to scale the beetling crags. Nor was that all, for crawling together on flat tables of rock or letting themselves drop into the sea with loud reports I beheld huge slimy monsterssoft snails, as it were, of incredible bignesstwo or three score of them together, making the rocks to echo with their barkings. I have understood since that they were sea lions, and entirely harmless. But the look of them, added to the difficulty of the shore and the high running of the surf, was more than enough to disgust me of that landingplace. I felt willing rather to starve at sea than to confront such perils. In the meantime I had a better chance, as I supposed, before me. North of Haulbowline Head, the land runs in a long way, leaving at low tide a long stretch of yellow sand. To the north of that, again, there comes another capeCape of the Woods, as it was marked upon the chartburied in tall green pines, which descended to the margin of the sea. I remembered what Silver had said about the current that sets northward along the whole west coast of Treasure Island, and seeing from my position that I was already under its influence, I preferred to leave Haulbowline Head behind me and reserve my strength for an attempt to land upon the kindlierlooking Cape of the Woods. There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea. The wind blowing steady and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken. Had it been otherwise, I must long ago have perished but as it was, it is surprising how easily and securely my little and light boat could ride. Often, as I still lay at the bottom and kept no more than an eye above the gunwale, I would see a big blue summit heaving close above me yet the coracle would but bounce a little, dance as if on springs, and subside on the other side into the trough as lightly as a bird. I began after a little to grow very bold and sat up to try my skill at paddling. But even a small change in the disposition of the weight will produce violent changes in the behaviour of a coracle. And I had hardly moved before the boat, giving up at once her gentle dancing movement, ran straight down a slope of water so steep that it made me giddy, and struck her nose, with a spout of spray, deep into the side of the next wave. I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back into my old position, whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again and led me as softly as before among the billows. It was plain she was not to be interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no way influence her course, what hope had I left of reaching land? I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept my head, for all that. First, moving with all care, I gradually baled out the coracle with my seacap then, getting my eye once more above the gunwale, I set myself to study how it was she managed to slip so quietly through the rollers. I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth glossy mountain it looks from shore or from a vessel's deck, was for all the world like any range of hills on dry land, full of peaks and smooth places and valleys. The coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side, threaded, so to speak, her way through these lower parts and avoided the steep slopes and higher, toppling summits of the wave. 'Well, now, thought I to myself, 'it is plain I must lie where I am and not disturb the balance but it is plain also that I can put the paddle over the side and from time to time, in smooth places, give her a shove or two towards land. No sooner thought upon than done. There I lay on my elbows in the most trying attitude, and every now and again gave a weak stroke or two to turn her head to shore. It was very tiring and slow work, yet I did visibly gain ground and as we drew near the Cape of the Woods, though I saw I must infallibly miss that point, I had still made some hundred yards of easting. I was, indeed, close in. I could see the cool green treetops swaying together in the breeze, and I felt sure I should make the next promontory without fail. It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with thirst. The glow of the sun from above, its thousandfold reflection from the waves, the seawater that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with salt, combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache. The sight of the trees so near at hand had almost made me sick with longing, but the current had soon carried me past the point, and as the next reach of sea opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the nature of my thoughts. Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I beheld the Hispaniola under sail. I made sure, of course, that I should be taken but I was so distressed for want of water that I scarce knew whether to be glad or sorry at the thought, and long before I had come to a conclusion, surprise had taken entire possession of my mind and I could do nothing but stare and wonder. The Hispaniola was under her mainsail and two jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver. When I first sighted her, all her sails were drawing she was lying a course about northwest, and I presumed the men on board were going round the island on their way back to the anchorage. Presently she began to fetch more and more to the westward, so that I thought they had sighted me and were going about in chase. At last, however, she fell right into the wind's eye, was taken dead aback, and stood there awhile helpless, with her sails shivering. 'Clumsy fellows, said I 'they must still be drunk as owls. And I thought how Captain Smollett would have set them skipping. Meanwhile the schooner gradually fell off and filled again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead in the wind's eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and down, north, south, east, and west, the Hispaniola sailed by swoops and dashes, and at each repetition ended as she had begun, with idly flapping canvas. It became plain to me that nobody was steering. And if so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk or had deserted her, I thought, and perhaps if I could get on board I might return the vessel to her captain. The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward at an equal rate. As for the latter's sailing, it was so wild and intermittent, and she hung each time so long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if she did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up and paddle, I made sure that I could overhaul her. The scheme had an air of adventure that inspired me, and the thought of the water breaker beside the fore companion doubled my growing courage. Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another cloud of spray, but this time stuck to my purpose and set myself, with all my strength and caution, to paddle after the unsteered Hispaniola. Once I shipped a sea so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart fluttering like a bird, but gradually I got into the way of the thing and guided my coracle among the waves, with only now and then a blow upon her bows and a dash of foam in my face. I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about, and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose with the ship. For some time she had been doing the worse thing possible for mestanding still. She headed nearly due south, yawing, of course, all the time. Each time she fell off, her sails partly filled, and these brought her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said this was the worst thing possible for me, for helpless as she looked in this situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon and the blocks trundling and banging on the deck, she still continued to run away from me, not only with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount of her leeway, which was naturally great. But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze fell for some seconds, very low, and the current gradually turning her, the Hispaniola revolved slowly round her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the table still burning on into the day. The mainsail hung drooped like a banner. She was stockstill but for the current. For the last little while I had even lost, but now redoubling my efforts, I began once more to overhaul the chase. I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming like a swallow. My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was towards joy. Round she came, till she was broadside on to meround still till she had covered a half and then two thirds and then three quarters of the distance that separated us. I could see the waves boiling white under her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to me from my low station in the coracle. And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I had scarce time to thinkscarce time to act and save myself. I was on the summit of one swell when the schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit was over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping the coracle under water. With one hand I caught the jibboom, while my foot was lodged between the stay and the brace and as I still clung there panting, a dull blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon and struck the coracle and that I was left without retreat on the Hispaniola. HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack, with a report like a gun. The schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse, but next moment, the other sails still drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle. This had nearly tossed me off into the sea and now I lost no time, crawled back along the bowsprit, and tumbled head foremost on the deck. I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the afterdeck. Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers. Suddenly the Hispaniola came right into the wind. The jibs behind me cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, and at the same moment the mainboom swung inboard, the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee afterdeck. There were the two watchmen, sure enough redcap on his back, as stiff as a handspike, with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix and his teeth showing through his open lips Israel Hands propped against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands lying open before him on the deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle. For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again too there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark and a heavy blow of the ship's bows against the swell so much heavier weather was made of it by this great rigged ship than by my homemade, lopsided coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea. At every jump of the schooner, redcap slipped to and fro, butwhat was ghastly to beholdneither his attitude nor his fixed teethdisclosing grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump too, Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the deck, his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting towards the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid from me and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet of one whisker. At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark blood upon the planks and began to feel sure that they had killed each other in their drunken wrath. While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm moment, when the ship was still, Israel Hands turned partly round and with a low moan writhed himself back to the position in which I had seen him first. The moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his jaw hung open went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I had overheard from the apple barrel, all pity left me. I walked aft until I reached the mainmast. 'Come aboard, Mr. Hands, I said ironically. He rolled his eyes round heavily, but he was too far gone to express surprise. All he could do was to utter one word, 'Brandy. It occurred to me there was no time to lose, and dodging the boom as it once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft and down the companion stairs into the cabin. It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly fancy. All the lockfast places had been broken open in quest of the chart. The floor was thick with mud where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after wading in the marshes round their camp. The bulkheads, all painted in clear white and beaded round with gilt, bore a pattern of dirty hands. Dozens of empty bottles clinked together in corners to the rolling of the ship. One of the doctor's medical books lay open on the table, half of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for pipelights. In the midst of all this the lamp still cast a smoky glow, obscure and brown as umber. I went into the cellar all the barrels were gone, and of the bottles a most surprising number had been drunk out and thrown away. Certainly, since the mutiny began, not a man of them could ever have been sober. Foraging about, I found a bottle with some brandy left, for Hands and for myself I routed out some biscuit, some pickled fruits, a great bunch of raisins, and a piece of cheese. With these I came on deck, put down my own stock behind the rudder head and well out of the coxswain's reach, went forward to the waterbreaker, and had a good deep drink of water, and then, and not till then, gave Hands the brandy. He must have drunk a gill before he took the bottle from his mouth. 'Aye, said he, 'by thunder, but I wanted some o' that! I had sat down already in my own corner and begun to eat. 'Much hurt? I asked him. He grunted, or rather, I might say, he barked. 'If that doctor was aboard, he said, 'I'd be right enough in a couple of turns, but I don't have no manner of luck, you see, and that's what's the matter with me. As for that swab, he's good and dead, he is, he added, indicating the man with the red cap. 'He warn't no seaman anyhow. And where mought you have come from? 'Well, said I, 'I've come aboard to take possession of this ship, Mr. Hands and you'll please regard me as your captain until further notice. He looked at me sourly enough but said nothing. Some of the colour had come back into his cheeks, though he still looked very sick and still continued to slip out and settle down as the ship banged about. 'By the by, I continued, 'I can't have these colours, Mr. Hands and by your leave, I'll strike 'em. Better none than these. And again dodging the boom, I ran to the colour lines, handed down their cursed black flag, and chucked it overboard. 'God save the king! said I, waving my cap. 'And there's an end to Captain Silver! He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all the while on his breast. 'I reckon, he said at last, 'I reckon, Cap'n Hawkins, you'll kind of want to get ashore now. S'pose we talks. 'Why, yes, says I, 'with all my heart, Mr. Hands. Say on. And I went back to my meal with a good appetite. 'This man, he began, nodding feebly at the corpse 'O'Brien were his name, a rank Irelanderthis man and me got the canvas on her, meaning for to sail her back. Well, he's dead now, he isas dead as bilge and who's to sail this ship, I don't see. Without I gives you a hint, you ain't that man, as far's I can tell. Now, look here, you gives me food and drink and a old scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do, and I'll tell you how to sail her, and that's about square all round, I take it. 'I'll tell you one thing, says I 'I'm not going back to Captain Kidd's anchorage. I mean to get into North Inlet and beach her quietly there. 'To be sure you did, he cried. 'Why, I ain't sich an infernal lubber after all. I can see, can't I? I've tried my fling, I have, and I've lost, and it's you has the wind of me. North Inlet? Why, I haven't no ch'ice, not I! I'd help you sail her up to Execution Dock, by thunder! So I would. Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in this. We struck our bargain on the spot. In three minutes I had the Hispaniola sailing easily before the wind along the coast of Treasure Island, with good hopes of turning the northern point ere noon and beating down again as far as North Inlet before high water, when we might beach her safely and wait till the subsiding tide permitted us to land. Then I lashed the tiller and went below to my own chest, where I got a soft silk handkerchief of my mother's. With this, and with my aid, Hands bound up the great bleeding stab he had received in the thigh, and after he had eaten a little and had a swallow or two more of the brandy, he began to pick up visibly, sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer, and looked in every way another man. The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed before it like a bird, the coast of the island flashing by and the view changing every minute. Soon we were past the high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country, sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were beyond that again and had turned the corner of the rocky hill that ends the island on the north. I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased with the bright, sunshiny weather and these different prospects of the coast. I had now plenty of water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which had smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I had made. I should, I think, have had nothing left me to desire but for the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. It was a smile that had in it something both of pain and weaknessa haggard old man's smile but there was, besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of treachery, in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, and watched me at my work. HE wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the west. We could run so much the easier from the northeast corner of the island to the mouth of the North Inlet. Only, as we had no power to anchor and dared not beach her till the tide had flowed a good deal farther, time hung on our hands. The coxswain told me how to lay the ship to after a good many trials I succeeded, and we both sat in silence over another meal. 'Cap'n, said he at length with that same uncomfortable smile, 'here's my old shipmate, O'Brien s'pose you was to heave him overboard. I ain't partic'lar as a rule, and I don't take no blame for settling his hash, but I don't reckon him ornamental now, do you? 'I'm not strong enough, and I don't like the job and there he lies, for me, said I. 'This here's an unlucky ship, this Hispaniola, Jim, he went on, blinking. 'There's a power of men been killed in this Hispaniolaa sight o' poor seamen dead and gone since you and me took ship to Bristol. I never seen sich dirty luck, not I. There was this here O'Brien nowhe's dead, ain't he? Well now, I'm no scholar, and you're a lad as can read and figure, and to put it straight, do you take it as a dead man is dead for good, or do he come alive again? 'You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the spirit you must know that already, I replied. 'O'Brien there is in another world, and may be watching us. 'Ah! says he. 'Well, that's unfort'nateappears as if killing parties was a waste of time. Howsomever, sperrits don't reckon for much, by what I've seen. I'll chance it with the sperrits, Jim. And now, you've spoke up free, and I'll take it kind if you'd step down into that there cabin and get me awell, ashiver my timbers! I can't hit the name on 't well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jimthis here brandy's too strong for my head. Now, the coxswain's hesitation seemed to be unnatural, and as for the notion of his preferring wine to brandy, I entirely disbelieved it. The whole story was a pretext. He wanted me to leave the deckso much was plain but with what purpose I could in no way imagine. His eyes never met mine they kept wandering to and fro, up and down, now with a look to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon the dead O'Brien. All the time he kept smiling and putting his tongue out in the most guilty, embarrassed manner, so that a child could have told that he was bent on some deception. I was prompt with my answer, however, for I saw where my advantage lay and that with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily conceal my suspicions to the end. 'Some wine? I said. 'Far better. Will you have white or red? 'Well, I reckon it's about the blessed same to me, shipmate, he replied 'so it's strong, and plenty of it, what's the odds? 'All right, I answered. 'I'll bring you port, Mr. Hands. But I'll have to dig for it. With that I scuttled down the companion with all the noise I could, slipped off my shoes, ran quietly along the sparred gallery, mounted the forecastle ladder, and popped my head out of the fore companion. I knew he would not expect to see me there, yet I took every precaution possible, and certainly the worst of my suspicions proved too true. He had risen from his position to his hands and knees, and though his leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when he movedfor I could hear him stifle a groanyet it was at a good, rattling rate that he trailed himself across the deck. In half a minute he had reached the port scuppers and picked, out of a coil of rope, a long knife, or rather a short dirk, discoloured to the hilt with blood. He looked upon it for a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried the point upon his hand, and then, hastily concealing it in the bosom of his jacket, trundled back again into his old place against the bulwark. This was all that I required to know. Israel could move about, he was now armed, and if he had been at so much trouble to get rid of me, it was plain that I was meant to be the victim. What he would do afterwardswhether he would try to crawl right across the island from North Inlet to the camp among the swamps or whether he would fire Long Tom, trusting that his own comrades might come first to help himwas, of course, more than I could say. Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, since in that our interests jumped together, and that was in the disposition of the schooner. We both desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a sheltered place, and so that, when the time came, she could be got off again with as little labour and danger as might be and until that was done I considered that my life would certainly be spared. While I was thus turning the business over in my mind, I had not been idle with my body. I had stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more into my shoes, and laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine, and now, with this for an excuse, I made my reappearance on the deck. Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together in a bundle and with his eyelids lowered as though he were too weak to bear the light. He looked up, however, at my coming, knocked the neck off the bottle like a man who had done the same thing often, and took a good swig, with his favourite toast of 'Here's luck! Then he lay quiet for a little, and then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid. 'Cut me a junk o' that, says he, 'for I haven't no knife and hardly strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I've missed stays! Cut me a quid, as'll likely be the last, lad, for I'm for my long home, and no mistake. 'Well, said I, 'I'll cut you some tobacco, but if I was you and thought myself so badly, I would go to my prayers like a Christian man. 'Why? said he. 'Now, you tell me why. 'Why? I cried. 'You were asking me just now about the dead. You've broken your trust you've lived in sin and lies and blood there's a man you killed lying at your feet this moment, and you ask me why! For God's mercy, Mr. Hands, that's why. I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with. He, for his part, took a great draught of the wine and spoke with the most unusual solemnity. 'For thirty years, he said, 'I've sailed the seas and seen good and bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out, knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy dead men don't bite them's my viewsamen, so be it. And now, you look here, he added, suddenly changing his tone, 'we've had about enough of this foolery. The tide's made good enough by now. You just take my orders, Cap'n Hawkins, and we'll sail slap in and be done with it. All told, we had scarce two miles to run but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot, for we went about and about and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that were a pleasure to behold. Scarcely had we passed the heads before the land closed around us. The shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded as those of the southern anchorage, but the space was longer and narrower and more like, what in truth it was, the estuary of a river. Right before us, at the southern end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the last stages of dilapidation. It had been a great vessel of three masts but had lain so long exposed to the injuries of the weather that it was hung about with great webs of dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore bushes had taken root and now flourished thick with flowers. It was a sad sight, but it showed us that the anchorage was calm. 'Now, said Hands, 'look there there's a pet bit for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees all around of it, and flowers ablowing like a garding on that old ship. 'And once beached, I inquired, 'how shall we get her off again? 'Why, so, he replied 'you take a line ashore there on the other side at low water, take a turn about one of them big pines bring it back, take a turn around the capstan, and lie to for the tide. Come high water, all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as sweet as natur'. And now, boy, you stand by. We're near the bit now, and she's too much way on her. Starboard a littlesosteadystarboardlarboard a littlesteadysteady! So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly obeyed, till, all of a sudden, he cried, 'Now, my hearty, luff! And I put the helm hard up, and the Hispaniola swung round rapidly and ran stem on for the low, wooded shore. The excitement of these last manoeuvres had somewhat interfered with the watch I had kept hitherto, sharply enough, upon the coxswain. Even then I was still so much interested, waiting for the ship to touch, that I had quite forgot the peril that hung over my head and stood craning over the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life had not a sudden disquietude seized upon me and made me turn my head. Perhaps I had heard a creak or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's but, sure enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, already halfway towards me, with the dirk in his right hand. We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes met, but while mine was the shrill cry of terror, his was a roar of fury like a charging bully's. At the same instant, he threw himself forward and I leapt sideways towards the bows. As I did so, I let go of the tiller, which sprang sharp to leeward, and I think this saved my life, for it struck Hands across the chest and stopped him, for the moment, dead. Before he could recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had me trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the mainmast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound the priming was useless with seawater. I cursed myself for my neglect. Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this butcher. Wounded as he was, it was wonderful how fast he could move, his grizzled hair tumbling over his face, and his face itself as red as a red ensign with his haste and fury. I had no time to try my other pistol, nor indeed much inclination, for I was sure it would be useless. One thing I saw plainly I must not simply retreat before him, or he would speedily hold me boxed into the bows, as a moment since he had so nearly boxed me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of the bloodstained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity. I placed my palms against the mainmast, which was of a goodish bigness, and waited, every nerve upon the stretch. Seeing that I meant to dodge, he also paused and a moment or two passed in feints on his part and corresponding movements upon mine. It was such a game as I had often played at home about the rocks of Black Hill Cove, but never before, you may be sure, with such a wildly beating heart as now. Still, as I say, it was a boy's game, and I thought I could hold my own at it against an elderly seaman with a wounded thigh. Indeed my courage had begun to rise so high that I allowed myself a few darting thoughts on what would be the end of the affair, and while I saw certainly that I could spin it out for long, I saw no hope of any ultimate escape. Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the Hispaniola struck, staggered, ground for an instant in the sand, and then, swift as a blow, canted over to the port side till the deck stood at an angle of fortyfive degrees and about a puncheon of water splashed into the scupper holes and lay, in a pool, between the deck and bulwark. We were both of us capsized in a second, and both of us rolled, almost together, into the scuppers, the dead redcap, with his arms still spread out, tumbling stiffly after us. So near were we, indeed, that my head came against the coxswain's foot with a crack that made my teeth rattle. Blow and all, I was the first afoot again, for Hands had got involved with the dead body. The sudden canting of the ship had made the deck no place for running on I had to find some new way of escape, and that upon the instant, for my foe was almost touching me. Quick as thought, I sprang into the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over hand, and did not draw a breath till I was seated on the crosstrees. I had been saved by being prompt the dirk had struck not half a foot below me as I pursued my upward flight and there stood Israel Hands with his mouth open and his face upturned to mine, a perfect statue of surprise and disappointment. Now that I had a moment to myself, I lost no time in changing the priming of my pistol, and then, having one ready for service, and to make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to draw the load of the other and recharge it afresh from the beginning. My new employment struck Hands all of a heap he began to see the dice going against him, and after an obvious hesitation, he also hauled himself heavily into the shrouds, and with the dirk in his teeth, began slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of time and groans to haul his wounded leg behind him, and I had quietly finished my arrangements before he was much more than a third of the way up. Then, with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him. 'One more step, Mr. Hands, said I, 'and I'll blow your brains out! Dead men don't bite, you know, I added with a chuckle. He stopped instantly. I could see by the working of his face that he was trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in my newfound security, I laughed aloud. At last, with a swallow or two, he spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreme perplexity. In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth, but in all else he remained unmoved. 'Jim, says he, 'I reckon we're fouled, you and me, and we'll have to sign articles. I'd have had you but for that there lurch, but I don't have no luck, not I and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard, you see, for a master mariner to a ship's younker like you, Jim. I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went his right hand over his shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air I felt a blow and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the momentI scarce can say it was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious aimboth my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They did not fall alone with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds and plunged head first into the water. WING to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water, and from my perch on the crosstrees I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was in consequence nearer to the ship and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood and then sank again for good. As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on the clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides. A fish or two whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering of the water, he appeared to move a little, as if he were trying to rise. But he was dead enough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish in the very place where he had designed my slaughter. I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, and terrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk, where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hot iron yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me, for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without a murmur it was the horror I had upon my mind of falling from the crosstrees into that still green water, beside the body of the coxswain. I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if to cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulses quieted down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possession of myself. It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk, but either it stuck too hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent shudder. Oddly enough, that very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had come the nearest in the world to missing me altogether it held me by a mere pinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the faster, to be sure, but I was my own master again and only tacked to the mast by my coat and shirt. These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained the deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I have again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds from which Israel had so lately fallen. I went below and did what I could for my wound it pained me a good deal and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, and as the ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began to think of clearing it from its last passengerthe dead man, O'Brien. He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet, lifesize, indeed, but how different from life's colour or life's comeliness! In that position I could easily have my way with him, and as the habit of tragical adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took him by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran and with one good heave, tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge the red cap came off and remained floating on the surface and as soon as the splash subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by side, both wavering with the tremulous movement of the water. O'Brien, though still quite a young man, was very bald. There he lay, with that bald head across the knees of the man who had killed him and the quick fishes steering to and fro over both. I was now alone upon the ship the tide had just turned. The sun was within so few degrees of setting that already the shadow of the pines upon the western shore began to reach right across the anchorage and fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had sprung up, and though it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon the east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the idle sails to rattle to and fro. I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and brought tumbling to the deck, but the mainsail was a harder matter. Of course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung outboard, and the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought this made it still more dangerous yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon the water, and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhall, that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest, the Hispaniola must trust to luck, like myself. By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadowthe last rays, I remember, falling through a glade of the wood and shining bright as jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill the tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more on her beamends. I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, and holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist the sand was firm and covered with ripple marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits, leaving the Hispaniola on her side, with her mainsail trailing wide upon the surface of the bay. About the same time, the sun went fairly down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines. At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence emptyhanded. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the recapture of the Hispaniola was a clenching answer, and I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time. So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for the block house and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage ran from the twopeaked hill upon my left, and I bent my course in that direction that I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was pretty open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner of that hill, and not long after waded to the midcalf across the watercourse. This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side. The dusk had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where, as I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show himself so careless. For if I could see this radiance, might it not reach the eyes of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the marshes? Gradually the night fell blacker it was all I could do to guide myself even roughly towards my destination the double hill behind me and the Spyglass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter the stars were few and pale and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping among bushes and rolling into sandy pits. Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up a pale glimmer of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spyglass, and soon after I saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees, and knew the moon had risen. With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my journey, and sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drew near to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that lies before it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and went a trifle warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get shot down by my own party in mistake. The moon was climbing higher and higher, its light began to fall here and there in masses through the more open districts of the wood, and right in front of me a glow of a different colour appeared among the trees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a little darkenedas it were, the embers of a bonfire smouldering. For the life of me I could not think what it might be. At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western end was already steeped in moonshine the rest, and the block house itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks of light. On the other side of the house an immense fire had burned itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation, contrasted strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not a soul stirring nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze. I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror also. It had not been our way to build great fires we were, indeed, by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to fear that something had gone wrong while I was absent. I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow, and at a convenient place, where the darkness was thickest, crossed the palisade. To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees and crawled, without a sound, towards the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, my heart was suddenly and greatly lightened. It is not a pleasant noise in itself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just then it was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud and peaceful in their sleep. The seacry of the watch, that beautiful 'All's well, never fell more reassuringly on my ear. In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing they kept an infamous bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it was, thought I, to have the captain wounded and again I blamed myself sharply for leaving them in that danger with so few to mount guard. By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there was the steady drone of the snorers and a small occasional noise, a flickering or pecking that I could in no way account for. With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my own place (I thought with a silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when they found me in the morning. My foot struck something yieldingit was a sleeper's leg and he turned and groaned, but without awaking. And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the darkness 'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! and so forth, without pause or change, like the clacking of a tiny mill. Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard pecking at a piece of bark it was she, keeping better watch than any human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain. I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp, clipping tone of the parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up and with a mighty oath, the voice of Silver cried, 'Who goes? I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled, and ran full into the arms of a second, who for his part closed upon and held me tight. 'Bring a torch, Dick, said Silver when my capture was thus assured. And one of the men left the loghouse and presently returned with a lighted brand. HE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block house, showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized. The pirates were in possession of the house and stores there was the cask of cognac, there were the pork and bread, as before, and what tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to perish with them. There were six of the buccaneers, all told not another man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon his elbow he was deadly pale, and the bloodstained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and had run back among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John's shoulder. He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler and more stern than I was used to. He still wore the fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed with clay and torn with the sharp briers of the wood. 'So, said he, 'here's Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers! Dropped in, like, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly. And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and began to fill a pipe. 'Give me a loan of the link, Dick, said he and then, when he had a good light, 'That'll do, lad, he added 'stick the glim in the wood heap and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves to! You needn't stand up for Mr. Hawkins he'll excuse you, you may lay to that. And so, Jimstopping the tobacco'here you were, and quite a pleasant surprise for poor old John. I see you were smart when first I set my eyes on you, but this here gets away from me clean, it do. To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer. They had set me with my back against the wall, and I stood there, looking Silver in the face, pluckily enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but with black despair in my heart. Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great composure and then ran on again. 'Now, you see, Jim, so be as you are here, says he, 'I'll give you a piece of my mind. I've always liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the picter of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentleman, and now, my cock, you've got to. Cap'n Smollett's a fine seaman, as I'll own up to any day, but stiff on discipline. 'Dooty is dooty,' says he, and right he is. Just you keep clear of the cap'n. The doctor himself is gone dead again you'ungrateful scamp' was what he said and the short and the long of the whole story is about here you can't go back to your own lot, for they won't have you and without you start a third ship's company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you'll have to jine with Cap'n Silver. So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, and though I partly believed the truth of Silver's statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by what I heard. 'I don't say nothing as to your being in our hands, continued Silver, 'though there you are, and you may lay to it. I'm all for argyment I never seen good come out o' threatening. If you like the service, well, you'll jine and if you don't, Jim, why, you're free to answer nofree and welcome, shipmate and if fairer can be said by mortal seaman, shiver my sides! 'Am I to answer, then? I asked with a very tremulous voice. Through all this sneering talk, I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast. 'Lad, said Silver, 'no one's apressing of you. Take your bearings. None of us won't hurry you, mate time goes so pleasant in your company, you see. 'Well, says I, growing a bit bolder, 'if I'm to choose, I declare I have a right to know what's what, and why you're here, and where my friends are. 'Wot's wot? repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep growl. 'Ah, he'd be a lucky one as knowed that! 'You'll perhaps batten down your hatches till you're spoke to, my friend, cried Silver truculently to this speaker. And then, in his first gracious tones, he replied to me, 'Yesterday morning, Mr. Hawkins, said he, 'in the dogwatch, down came Doctor Livesey with a flag of truce. Says he, 'Cap'n Silver, you're sold out. Ship's gone.' Well, maybe we'd been taking a glass, and a song to help it round. I won't say no. Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, and by thunder, the old ship was gone! I never seen a pack o' fools look fishier and you may lay to that, if I tells you that looked the fishiest. 'Well,' says the doctor, 'let's bargain.' We bargained, him and I, and here we are stores, brandy, block house, the firewood you was thoughtful enough to cut, and in a manner of speaking, the whole blessed boat, from crosstrees to kelson. As for them, they've tramped I don't know where's they are. He drew again quietly at his pipe. 'And lest you should take it into that head of yours, he went on, 'that you was included in the treaty, here's the last word that was said 'How many are you,' says I, 'to leave?' 'Four,' says he 'four, and one of us wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where he is, confound him,' says he, 'nor I don't much care. We're about sick of him.' These was his words. 'Is that all? I asked. 'Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son, returned Silver. 'And now I am to choose? 'And now you are to choose, and you may lay to that, said Silver. 'Well, said I, 'I am not such a fool but I know pretty well what I have to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it's little I care. I've seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there's a thing or two I have to tell you, I said, and by this time I was quite excited 'and the first is this here you are, in a bad wayship lost, treasure lost, men lost, your whole business gone to wreck and if you want to know who did itit was I! I was in the apple barrel the night we sighted land, and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson, and Hands, who is now at the bottom of the sea, and told every word you said before the hour was out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, and it was I that killed the men you had aboard of her, and it was I who brought her where you'll never see her more, not one of you. The laugh's on my side I've had the top of this business from the first I no more fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please, or spare me. But one thing I'll say, and no more if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when you fellows are in court for piracy, I'll save you all I can. It is for you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves no good, or spare me and keep a witness to save you from the gallows. I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and to my wonder, not a man of them moved, but all sat staring at me like as many sheep. And while they were still staring, I broke out again, 'And now, Mr. Silver, I said, 'I believe you're the best man here, and if things go to the worst, I'll take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I took it. 'I'll bear it in mind, said Silver with an accent so curious that I could not, for the life of me, decide whether he were laughing at my request or had been favourably affected by my courage. 'I'll put one to that, cried the old mahoganyfaced seamanMorgan by namewhom I had seen in Long John's publichouse upon the quays of Bristol. 'It was him that knowed Black Dog. 'Well, and see here, added the seacook. 'I'll put another again to that, by thunder! For it was this same boy that faked the chart from Billy Bones. First and last, we've split upon Jim Hawkins! 'Then here goes! said Morgan with an oath. And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had been twenty. 'Avast, there! cried Silver. 'Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you thought you was cap'n here, perhaps. By the powers, but I'll teach you better! Cross me, and you'll go where many a good man's gone before you, first and last, these thirty year backsome to the yardarm, shiver my timbers, and some by the board, and all to feed the fishes. There's never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a'terwards, Tom Morgan, you may lay to that. Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others. 'Tom's right, said one. 'I stood hazing long enough from one, added another. 'I'll be hanged if I'll be hazed by you, John Silver. 'Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with me? roared Silver, bending far forward from his position on the keg, with his pipe still glowing in his right hand. 'Put a name on what you're at you ain't dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. Have I lived this many years, and a son of a rum puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawse at the latter end of it? You know the way you're all gentlemen o' fortune, by your account. Well, I'm ready. Take a cutlass, him that dares, and I'll see the colour of his inside, crutch and all, before that pipe's empty. Not a man stirred not a man answered. 'That's your sort, is it? he added, returning his pipe to his mouth. 'Well, you're a gay lot to look at, anyway. Not much worth to fight, you ain't. P'r'aps you can understand King George's English. I'm cap'n here by 'lection. I'm cap'n here because I'm the best man by a long seamile. You won't fight, as gentlemen o' fortune should then, by thunder, you'll obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now I never seen a better boy than that. He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is this let me see him that'll lay a hand on himthat's what I say, and you may lay to it. There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, my heart still going like a sledgehammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the tail of it on his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew gradually together towards the far end of the block house, and the low hiss of their whispering sounded in my ear continuously, like a stream. One after another, they would look up, and the red light of the torch would fall for a second on their nervous faces but it was not towards me, it was towards Silver that they turned their eyes. 'You seem to have a lot to say, remarked Silver, spitting far into the air. 'Pipe up and let me hear it, or lay to. 'Ax your pardon, sir, returned one of the men 'you're pretty free with some of the rules maybe you'll kindly keep an eye upon the rest. This crew's dissatisfied this crew don't vally bullying a marlinspike this crew has its rights like other crews, I'll make so free as that and by your own rules, I take it we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, acknowledging you for to be captaing at this present but I claim my right, and steps outside for a council. And with an elaborate seasalute, this fellow, a long, illlooking, yelloweyed man of five and thirty, stepped coolly towards the door and disappeared out of the house. One after another the rest followed his example, each making a salute as he passed, each adding some apology. 'According to rules, said one. 'Forecastle council, said Morgan. And so with one remark or another all marched out and left Silver and me alone with the torch. The seacook instantly removed his pipe. 'Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins, he said in a steady whisper that was no more than audible, 'you're within half a plank of death, and what's a long sight worse, of torture. They're going to throw me off. But, you mark, I stand by you through thick and thin. I didn't mean to no, not till you spoke up. I was about desperate to lose that much blunt, and be hanged into the bargain. But I see you was the right sort. I says to myself, you stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins'll stand by you. You're his last card, and by the living thunder, John, he's yours! Back to back, says I. You save your witness, and he'll save your neck! I began dimly to understand. 'You mean all's lost? I asked. 'Aye, by gum, I do! he answered. 'Ship gone, neck gonethat's the size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim Hawkins, and seen no schoonerwell, I'm tough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their council, mark me, they're outright fools and cowards. I'll save your lifeif so be as I canfrom them. But, see here, Jimtit for tatyou save Long John from swinging. I was bewildered it seemed a thing so hopeless he was askinghe, the old buccaneer, the ringleader throughout. 'What I can do, that I'll do, I said. 'It's a bargain! cried Long John. 'You speak up plucky, and by thunder, I've a chance! He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped among the firewood, and took a fresh light to his pipe. 'Understand me, Jim, he said, returning. 'I've a head on my shoulders, I have. I'm on squire's side now. I know you've got that ship safe somewheres. How you done it, I don't know, but safe it is. I guess Hands and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed in neither of them. Now you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won't let others. I know when a game's up, I do and I know a lad that's staunch. Ah, you that's youngyou and me might have done a power of good together! He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin. 'Will you taste, messmate? he asked and when I had refused 'Well, I'll take a dram myself, Jim, said he. 'I need a caulker, for there's trouble on hand. And talking o' trouble, why did that doctor give me the chart, Jim? My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of further questions. 'Ah, well, he did, though, said he. 'And there's something under that, no doubtsomething, surely, under that, Jimbad or good. And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head like a man who looks forward to the worst. HE council of buccaneers had lasted some time, when one of them reentered the house, and with a repetition of the same salute, which had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for a moment's loan of the torch. Silver briefly agreed, and this emissary retired again, leaving us together in the dark. 'There's a breeze coming, Jim, said Silver, who had by this time adopted quite a friendly and familiar tone. I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out. The embers of the great fire had so far burned themselves out and now glowed so low and duskily that I understood why these conspirators desired a torch. About halfway down the slope to the stockade, they were collected in a group one held the light, another was on his knees in their midst, and I saw the blade of an open knife shine in his hand with varying colours in the moon and torchlight. The rest were all somewhat stooping, as though watching the manoeuvres of this last. I could just make out that he had a book as well as a knife in his hand, and was still wondering how anything so incongruous had come in their possession when the kneeling figure rose once more to his feet and the whole party began to move together towards the house. 'Here they come, said I and I returned to my former position, for it seemed beneath my dignity that they should find me watching them. 'Well, let 'em come, ladlet 'em come, said Silver cheerily. 'I've still a shot in my locker. The door opened, and the five men, standing huddled together just inside, pushed one of their number forward. In any other circumstances it would have been comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he set down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in front of him. 'Step up, lad, cried Silver. 'I won't eat you. Hand it over, lubber. I know the rules, I do I won't hurt a depytation. Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth more briskly, and having passed something to Silver, from hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly back again to his companions. The seacook looked at what had been given him. 'The black spot! I thought so, he observed. 'Where might you have got the paper? Why, hillo! Look here, now this ain't lucky! You've gone and cut this out of a Bible. What fool's cut a Bible? 'Ah, there! said Morgan. 'There! Wot did I say? No good'll come o' that, I said. 'Well, you've about fixed it now, among you, continued Silver. 'You'll all swing now, I reckon. What softheaded lubber had a Bible? 'It was Dick, said one. 'Dick, was it? Then Dick can get to prayers, said Silver. 'He's seen his slice of luck, has Dick, and you may lay to that. But here the long man with the yellow eyes struck in. 'Belay that talk, John Silver, he said. 'This crew has tipped you the black spot in full council, as in dooty bound just you turn it over, as in dooty bound, and see what's wrote there. Then you can talk. 'Thanky, George, replied the seacook. 'You always was brisk for business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I'm pleased to see. Well, what is it, anyway? Ah! 'Deposed'that's it, is it? Very pretty wrote, to be sure like print, I swear. Your hand o' write, George? Why, you was gettin' quite a leadin' man in this here crew. You'll be cap'n next, I shouldn't wonder. Just oblige me with that torch again, will you? This pipe don't draw. 'Come, now, said George, 'you don't fool this crew no more. You're a funny man, by your account but you're over now, and you'll maybe step down off that barrel and help vote. 'I thought you said you knowed the rules, returned Silver contemptuously. 'Leastways, if you don't, I do and I wait hereand I'm still your cap'n, mindtill you outs with your grievances and I reply in the meantime, your black spot ain't worth a biscuit. After that, we'll see. 'Oh, replied George, 'you don't be under no kind of apprehension we're all square, we are. First, you've made a hash of this cruiseyou'll be a bold man to say no to that. Second, you let the enemy out o' this here trap for nothing. Why did they want out? I dunno, but it's pretty plain they wanted it. Third, you wouldn't let us go at them upon the march. Oh, we see through you, John Silver you want to play booty, that's what's wrong with you. And then, fourth, there's this here boy. 'Is that all? asked Silver quietly. 'Enough, too, retorted George. 'We'll all swing and sundry for your bungling. 'Well now, look here, I'll answer these four p'ints one after another I'll answer 'em. I made a hash o' this cruise, did I? Well now, you all know what I wanted, and you all know if that had been done that we'd 'a been aboard the Hispaniola this night as ever was, every man of us alive, and fit, and full of good plumduff, and the treasure in the hold of her, by thunder! Well, who crossed me? Who forced my hand, as was the lawful cap'n? Who tipped me the black spot the day we landed and began this dance? Ah, it's a fine danceI'm with you thereand looks mighty like a hornpipe in a rope's end at Execution Dock by London town, it does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson, and Hands, and you, George Merry! And you're the last above board of that same meddling crew and you have the Davy Jones's insolence to up and stand for cap'n over meyou, that sank the lot of us! By the powers! But this tops the stiffest yarn to nothing. Silver paused, and I could see by the faces of George and his late comrades that these words had not been said in vain. 'That's for number one, cried the accused, wiping the sweat from his brow, for he had been talking with a vehemence that shook the house. 'Why, I give you my word, I'm sick to speak to you. You've neither sense nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mothers was that let you come to sea. Sea! Gentlemen o' fortune! I reckon tailors is your trade. 'Go on, John, said Morgan. 'Speak up to the others. 'Ah, the others! returned John. 'They're a nice lot, ain't they? You say this cruise is bungled. Ah! By gum, if you could understand how bad it's bungled, you would see! We're that near the gibbet that my neck's stiff with thinking on it. You've seen 'em, maybe, hanged in chains, birds about 'em, seamen p'inting 'em out as they go down with the tide. 'Who's that?' says one. 'That! Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him well,' says another. And you can hear the chains ajangle as you go about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that's about where we are, every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four, and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn't he a hostage? Are we agoing to waste a hostage? No, not us he might be our last chance, and I shouldn't wonder. Kill that boy? Not me, mates! And number three? Ah, well, there's a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don't count it nothing to have a real college doctor to see you every dayyou, John, with your head brokeor you, George Merry, that had the ague shakes upon you not six hours agone, and has your eyes the colour of lemon peel to this same moment on the clock? And maybe, perhaps, you didn't know there was a consort coming either? But there is, and not so long till then and we'll see who'll be glad to have a hostage when it comes to that. And as for number two, and why I made a bargainwell, you came crawling on your knees to me to make iton your knees you came, you was that downheartedand you'd have starved too if I hadn'tbut that's a trifle! You look therethat's why! And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I instantly recognizednone other than the chart on yellow paper, with the three red crosses, that I had found in the oilcloth at the bottom of the captain's chest. Why the doctor had given it to him was more than I could fancy. But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another and by the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they accompanied their examination, you would have thought, not only they were fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it, besides, in safety. 'Yes, said one, 'that's Flint, sure enough. J. F., and a score below, with a clove hitch to it so he done ever. 'Mighty pretty, said George. 'But how are we to get away with it, and us no ship. Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting himself with a hand against the wall 'Now I give you warning, George, he cried. 'One more word of your sauce, and I'll call you down and fight you. How? Why, how do I know? You had ought to tell me thatyou and the rest, that lost me my schooner, with your interference, burn you! But not you, you can't you hain't got the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak, and shall, George Merry, you may lay to that. 'That's fair enow, said the old man Morgan. 'Fair! I reckon so, said the seacook. 'You lost the ship I found the treasure. Who's the better man at that? And now I resign, by thunder! Elect whom you please to be your cap'n now I'm done with it. 'Silver! they cried. 'Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap'n! 'So that's the toon, is it? cried the cook. 'George, I reckon you'll have to wait another turn, friend and lucky for you as I'm not a revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this black spot? 'Tain't much good now, is it? Dick's crossed his luck and spoiled his Bible, and that's about all. 'It'll do to kiss the book on still, won't it? growled Dick, who was evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself. 'A Bible with a bit cut out! returned Silver derisively. 'Not it. It don't bind no more'n a balladbook. 'Don't it, though? cried Dick with a sort of joy. 'Well, I reckon that's worth having too. 'Here, Jimhere's a cur'osity for you, said Silver, and he tossed me the paper. It was around about the size of a crown piece. One side was blank, for it had been the last leaf the other contained a verse or two of Revelationthese words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon my mind 'Without are dogs and murderers. The printed side had been blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers on the blank side had been written with the same material the one word 'Depposed. I have that curiosity beside me at this moment, but not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a man might make with his thumbnail. That was the end of the night's business. Soon after, with a drink all round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside of Silver's vengeance was to put George Merry up for sentinel and threaten him with death if he should prove unfaithful. It was long ere I could close an eye, and heaven knows I had matter enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own most perilous position, and above all, in the remarkable game that I saw Silver now engaged uponkeeping the mutineers together with one hand and grasping with the other after every means, possible and impossible, to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet that awaited him. WAS wakenedindeed, we were all wakened, for I could see even the sentinel shake himself together from where he had fallen against the doorpostby a clear, hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the wood 'Block house, ahoy! it cried. 'Here's the doctor. And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the sound, yet my gladness was not without admixture. I remembered with confusion my insubordinate and stealthy conduct, and when I saw where it had brought meamong what companions and surrounded by what dangersI felt ashamed to look him in the face. He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come and when I ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like Silver once before, up to the midleg in creeping vapour. 'You, doctor! Top o' the morning to you, sir! cried Silver, broad awake and beaming with good nature in a moment. 'Bright and early, to be sure and it's the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations. George, shake up your timbers, son, and help Dr. Livesey over the ship's side. All adoin' well, your patients wasall well and merry. So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop with his crutch under his elbow and one hand upon the side of the loghousequite the old John in voice, manner, and expression. 'We've quite a surprise for you too, sir, he continued. 'We've a little stranger herehe! he! A noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit and taut as a fiddle slep' like a supercargo, he did, right alongside of Johnstem to stem we was, all night. Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty near the cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he said, 'Not Jim? 'The very same Jim as ever was, says Silver. The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, and it was some seconds before he seemed able to move on. 'Well, well, he said at last, 'duty first and pleasure afterwards, as you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul these patients of yours. A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and with one grim nod to me proceeded with his work among the sick. He seemed under no apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these treacherous demons, depended on a hair and he rattled on to his patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted on the men, for they behaved to him as if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship's doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast. 'You're doing well, my friend, he said to the fellow with the bandaged head, 'and if ever any person had a close shave, it was you your head must be as hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You're a pretty colour, certainly why, your liver, man, is upside down. Did you take that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men? 'Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough, returned Morgan. 'Because, you see, since I am mutineers' doctor, or prison doctor as I prefer to call it, says Doctor Livesey in his pleasantest way, 'I make it a point of honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!) and the gallows. The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the homethrust in silence. 'Dick don't feel well, sir, said one. 'Don't he? replied the doctor. 'Well, step up here, Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did! The man's tongue is fit to frighten the French. Another fever. 'Ah, there, said Morgan, 'that comed of sp'iling Bibles. 'That comesas you call itof being arrant asses, retorted the doctor, 'and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probablethough of course it's only an opinionthat you'll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many, take you all round but you don't appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health. 'Well, he added after he had dosed them round and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity schoolchildren than bloodguilty mutineers and pirates'well, that's done for today. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, please. And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly. George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some badtasted medicine but at the first word of the doctor's proposal he swung round with a deep flush and cried 'No! and swore. Silver struck the barrel with his open hand. 'Silence! he roared and looked about him positively like a lion. 'Doctor, he went on in his usual tones, 'I was athinking of that, knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy. We're all humbly grateful for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes the drugs down like that much grog. And I take it I've found a way as'll suit all. Hawkins, will you give me your word of honour as a young gentlemanfor a young gentleman you are, although poor bornyour word of honour not to slip your cable? I readily gave the pledge required. 'Then, doctor, said Silver, 'you just step outside o' that stockade, and once you're there I'll bring the boy down on the inside, and I reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our dooties to the squire and Cap'n Smollett. The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but Silver's black looks had restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver was roundly accused of playing doubleof trying to make a separate peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and victims, and, in one word, of the identical, exact thing that he was doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man the rest were, and his last night's victory had given him a huge preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, fluttered the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to break the treaty the very day they were bound atreasurehunting. 'No, by thunder! he cried. 'It's us must break the treaty when the time comes and till then I'll gammon that doctor, if I have to ile his boots with brandy. And then he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch, with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced by his volubility rather than convinced. 'Slow, lad, slow, he said. 'They might round upon us in a twinkle of an eye if we was seen to hurry. Very deliberately, then, did we advance across the sand to where the doctor awaited us on the other side of the stockade, and as soon as we were within easy speaking distance Silver stopped. 'You'll make a note of this here also, doctor, says he, 'and the boy'll tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed for it too, and you may lay to that. Doctor, when a man's steering as near the wind as meplaying chuckfarthing with the last breath in his body, likeyou wouldn't think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word? You'll please bear in mind it's not my life only nowit's that boy's into the bargain and you'll speak me fair, doctor, and give me a bit o' hope to go on, for the sake of mercy. Silver was a changed man once he was out there and had his back to his friends and the block house his cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his voice trembled never was a soul more dead in earnest. 'Why, John, you're not afraid? asked Dr. Livesey. 'Doctor, I'm no coward no, not Inot so much! and he snapped his fingers. 'If I was I wouldn't say it. But I'll own up fairly, I've the shakes upon me for the gallows. You're a good man and a true I never seen a better man! And you'll not forget what I done good, not any more than you'll forget the bad, I know. And I step asidesee hereand leave you and Jim alone. And you'll put that down for me too, for it's a long stretch, is that! So saying, he stepped back a little way, till he was out of earshot, and there sat down upon a treestump and began to whistle, spinning round now and again upon his seat so as to command a sight, sometimes of me and the doctor and sometimes of his unruly ruffians as they went to and fro in the sand between the firewhich they were busy rekindlingand the house, from which they brought forth pork and bread to make the breakfast. 'So, Jim, said the doctor sadly, 'here you are. As you have brewed, so shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows, I cannot find it in my heart to blame you, but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind when Captain Smollett was well, you dared not have gone off and when he was ill and couldn't help it, by George, it was downright cowardly! I will own that I here began to weep. 'Doctor, I said, 'you might spare me. I have blamed myself enough my life's forfeit anyway, and I should have been dead by now if Silver hadn't stood for me and doctor, believe this, I can dieand I dare say I deserve itbut what I fear is torture. If they come to torture me 'Jim, the doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed, 'Jim, I can't have this. Whip over, and we'll run for it. 'Doctor, said I, 'I passed my word. 'I know, I know, he cried. 'We can't help that, Jim, now. I'll take it on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy but stay here, I cannot let you. Jump! One jump, and you're out, and we'll run for it like antelopes. 'No, I replied 'you know right well you wouldn't do the thing yourselfneither you nor squire nor captain and no more will I. Silver trusted me I passed my word, and back I go. But, doctor, you did not let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of where the ship is, for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking, and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, and just below high water. At half tide she must be high and dry. 'The ship! exclaimed the doctor. Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he heard me out in silence. 'There is a kind of fate in this, he observed when I had done. 'Every step, it's you that saves our lives and do you suppose by any chance that we are going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor return, my boy. You found out the plot you found Ben Gunnthe best deed that ever you did, or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and talking of Ben Gunn! Why, this is the mischief in person. Silver! he cried. 'Silver! I'll give you a piece of advice, he continued as the cook drew near again 'don't you be in any great hurry after that treasure. 'Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain't, said Silver. 'I can only, asking your pardon, save my life and the boy's by seeking for that treasure and you may lay to that. 'Well, Silver, replied the doctor, 'if that is so, I'll go one step further look out for squalls when you find it. 'Sir, said Silver, 'as between man and man, that's too much and too little. What you're after, why you left the block house, why you given me that there chart, I don't know, now, do I? And yet I done your bidding with my eyes shut and never a word of hope! But no, this here's too much. If you won't tell me what you mean plain out, just say so and I'll leave the helm. 'No, said the doctor musingly 'I've no right to say more it's not my secret, you see, Silver, or, I give you my word, I'd tell it you. But I'll go as far with you as I dare go, and a step beyond, for I'll have my wig sorted by the captain or I'm mistaken! And first, I'll give you a bit of hope Silver, if we both get alive out of this wolftrap, I'll do my best to save you, short of perjury. Silver's face was radiant. 'You couldn't say more, I'm sure, sir, not if you was my mother, he cried. 'Well, that's my first concession, added the doctor. 'My second is a piece of advice keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help, halloo. I'm off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I speak at random. Goodbye, Jim. And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the stockade, nodded to Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood. IM, said Silver when we were alone, 'if I saved your life, you saved mine and I'll not forget it. I seen the doctor waving you to run for itwith the tail of my eye, I did and I seen you say no, as plain as hearing. Jim, that's one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe it you. And now, Jim, we're to go in for this here treasurehunting, with sealed orders too, and I don't like it and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we'll save our necks in spite o' fate and fortune. Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an ox, and it was now grown so hot that they could only approach it from the windward, and even there not without precaution. In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked, I suppose, three times more than we could eat and one of them, with an empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way of doing and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though they were bold enough for a brush and be done with it, I could see their entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged campaign. Even Silver, eating away, with Captain Flint upon his shoulder, had not a word of blame for their recklessness. And this the more surprised me, for I thought he had never shown himself so cunning as he did then. 'Aye, mates, said he, 'it's lucky you have Barbecue to think for you with this here head. I got what I wanted, I did. Sure enough, they have the ship. Where they have it, I don't know yet but once we hit the treasure, we'll have to jump about and find out. And then, mates, us that has the boats, I reckon, has the upper hand. Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of the hot bacon thus he restored their hope and confidence, and, I more than suspect, repaired his own at the same time. 'As for hostage, he continued, 'that's his last talk, I guess, with them he loves so dear. I've got my piece o' news, and thanky to him for that but it's over and done. I'll take him in a line when we go treasurehunting, for we'll keep him like so much gold, in case of accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we got the ship and treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions, why then we'll talk Mr. Hawkins over, we will, and we'll give him his share, to be sure, for all his kindness. It was no wonder the men were in a good humour now. For my part, I was horribly cast down. Should the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare escape from hanging, which was the best he had to hope on our side. Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was forced to keep his faith with Dr. Livesey, even then what danger lay before us! What a moment that would be when the suspicions of his followers turned to certainty and he and I should have to fight for dear lifehe a cripple and I a boyagainst five strong and active seamen! Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the behaviour of my friends, their unexplained desertion of the stockade, their inexplicable cession of the chart, or harder still to understand, the doctor's last warning to Silver, 'Look out for squalls when you find it, and you will readily believe how little taste I found in my breakfast and with how uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors on the quest for treasure. We made a curious figure, had anyone been there to see usall in soiled sailor clothes and all but me armed to the teeth. Silver had two guns slung about himone before and one behindbesides the great cutlass at his waist and a pistol in each pocket of his squaretailed coat. To complete his strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless seatalk. I had a line about my waist and followed obediently after the seacook, who held the loose end of the rope, now in his free hand, now between his powerful teeth. For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear. The other men were variously burthened, some carrying picks and shovelsfor that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore from the Hispaniolaothers laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the midday meal. All the stores, I observed, came from our stock, and I could see the truth of Silver's words the night before. Had he not struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the ship, must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds of their hunting. Water would have been little to their taste a sailor is not usually a good shot and besides all that, when they were so short of eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush of powder. Well, thus equipped, we all set outeven the fellow with the broken head, who should certainly have kept in shadowand straggled, one after another, to the beach, where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore trace of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a broken thwart, and both in their muddy and unbailed condition. Both were to be carried along with us for the sake of safety and so, with our numbers divided between them, we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage. As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the chart. The red cross was, of course, far too large to be a guide and the terms of the note on the back, as you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran, the reader may remember, thus Tall tree, Spyglass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of N.N.E. Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. Ten feet. A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before us the anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high, adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the Spyglass and rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy eminence called the Mizzenmast Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly with pinetrees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours, and which of these was the particular 'tall tree of Captain Flint could only be decided on the spot, and by the readings of the compass. Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the boats had picked a favourite of his own ere we were halfway over, Long John alone shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were there. We pulled easily, by Silver's directions, not to weary the hands prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed at the mouth of the second riverthat which runs down a woody cleft of the Spyglass. Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope towards the plateau. At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, marish vegetation greatly delayed our progress but by little and little the hill began to steepen and become stony under foot, and the wood to change its character and to grow in a more open order. It was, indeed, a most pleasant portion of the island that we were now approaching. A heavyscented broom and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place of grass. Thickets of green nutmegtrees were dotted here and there with the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines and the first mingled their spice with the aroma of the others. The air, besides, was fresh and stirring, and this, under the sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful refreshment to our senses. The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape, shouting and leaping to and fro. About the centre, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and I followedI tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, among the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed, I had to lend him a hand, or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward down the hill. We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the brow of the plateau when the man upon the farthest left began to cry aloud, as if in terror. Shout after shout came from him, and the others began to run in his direction. 'He can't 'a found the treasure, said old Morgan, hurrying past us from the right, 'for that's clean atop. Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground. I believe a chill struck for a moment to every heart. 'He was a seaman, said George Merry, who, bolder than the rest, had gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing. 'Leastways, this is good seacloth. 'Aye, aye, said Silver 'like enough you wouldn't look to find a bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of a way is that for bones to lie? 'Tain't in natur'. Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to fancy that the body was in a natural position. But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of the birds that had fed upon him or of the slowgrowing creeper that had gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straighthis feet pointing in one direction, his hands, raised above his head like a diver's, pointing directly in the opposite. 'I've taken a notion into my old numbskull, observed Silver. 'Here's the compass there's the tiptop p'int o' Skeleton Island, stickin' out like a tooth. Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them bones. It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island, and the compass read duly E.S.E. and by E. 'I thought so, cried the cook 'this here is a p'inter. Right up there is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder! If it don't make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of his jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here he killed 'em, every man and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver my timbers! They're long bones, and the hair's been yellow. Aye, that would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan? 'Aye, aye, returned Morgan 'I mind him he owed me money, he did, and took my knife ashore with him. 'Speaking of knives, said another, 'why don't we find his'n lying round? Flint warn't the man to pick a seaman's pocket and the birds, I guess, would leave it be. 'By the powers, and that's true! cried Silver. 'There ain't a thing left here, said Merry, still feeling round among the bones 'not a copper doit nor a baccy box. It don't look nat'ral to me. 'No, by gum, it don't, agreed Silver 'not nat'ral, nor not nice, says you. Great guns! Messmates, but if Flint was living, this would be a hot spot for you and me. Six they were, and six are we and bones is what they are now. 'I saw him dead with these here deadlights, said Morgan. 'Billy took me in. There he laid, with pennypieces on his eyes. 'Deadaye, sure enough he's dead and gone below, said the fellow with the bandage 'but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint's. Dear heart, but he died bad, did Flint! 'Aye, that he did, observed another 'now he raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now he sang. 'Fifteen Men' were his only song, mates and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin' out as clear as clearand the deathhaul on the man already. 'Come, come, said Silver 'stow this talk. He's dead, and he don't walk, that I know leastways, he won't walk by day, and you may lay to that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons. We started, certainly but in spite of the hot sun and the staring daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits. ARTLY from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained the brow of the ascent. The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west, this spot on which we had paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us, over the treetops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, but sawclear across the spit and the eastern lowlandsa great field of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail, upon the sea the very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude. Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass. 'There are three 'tall trees' said he, 'about in the right line from Skeleton Island. 'Spyglass shoulder,' I take it, means that lower p'int there. It's child's play to find the stuff now. I've half a mind to dine first. 'I don't feel sharp, growled Morgan. 'Thinkin' o' FlintI think it wereas done me. 'Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's dead, said Silver. 'He were an ugly devil, cried a third pirate with a shudder 'that blue in the face too! 'That was how the rum took him, added Merry. 'Blue! Well, I reckon he was blue. That's a true word. Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted the silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck up the wellknown air and words 'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest Yohoho, and a bottle of rum! I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than the pirates. The colour went from their six faces like enchantment some leaped to their feet, some clawed hold of others Morgan grovelled on the ground. 'It's Flint, by ! cried Merry. The song had stopped as suddenly as it beganbroken off, you would have said, in the middle of a note, as though someone had laid his hand upon the singer's mouth. Coming through the clear, sunny atmosphere among the green treetops, I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly and the effect on my companions was the stranger. 'Come, said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips to get the word out 'this won't do. Stand by to go about. This is a rum start, and I can't name the voice, but it's someone skylarkingsomeone that's flesh and blood, and you may lay to that. His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of the colour to his face along with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to this encouragement and were coming a little to themselves, when the same voice broke out againnot this time singing, but in a faint distant hail that echoed yet fainter among the clefts of the Spyglass. 'Darby M'Graw, it wailedfor that is the word that best describes the sound'Darby M'Graw! Darby M'Graw! again and again and again and then rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out 'Fetch aft the rum, Darby! The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes starting from their heads. Long after the voice had died away they still stared in silence, dreadfully, before them. 'That fixes it! gasped one. 'Let's go. 'They was his last words, moaned Morgan, 'his last words above board. Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly. He had been well brought up, had Dick, before he came to sea and fell among bad companions. Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head, but he had not yet surrendered. 'Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby, he muttered 'not one but us that's here. And then, making a great effort 'Shipmates, he cried, 'I'm here to get that stuff, and I'll not be beat by man or devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, by the powers, I'll face him dead. There's seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of a mile from here. When did ever a gentleman o' fortune show his stern to that much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mugand him dead too? But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers, rather, indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words. 'Belay there, John! said Merry. 'Don't you cross a sperrit. And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would have run away severally had they dared but fear kept them together, and kept them close by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had pretty well fought his weakness down. 'Sperrit? Well, maybe, he said. 'But there's one thing not clear to me. There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow well then, what's he doing with an echo to him, I should like to know? That ain't in natur', surely? This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can never tell what will affect the superstitious, and to my wonder, George Merry was greatly relieved. 'Well, that's so, he said. 'You've a head upon your shoulders, John, and no mistake. 'Bout ship, mates! This here crew is on a wrong tack, I do believe. And come to think on it, it was like Flint's voice, I grant you, but not just so clearaway like it, after all. It was liker somebody else's voice nowit was liker 'By the powers, Ben Gunn! roared Silver. 'Aye, and so it were, cried Morgan, springing on his knees. 'Ben Gunn it were! 'It don't make much odds, do it, now? asked Dick. 'Ben Gunn's not here in the body any more'n Flint. But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn. 'Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn, cried Merry 'dead or alive, nobody minds him. It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned and how the natural colour had revived in their faces. Soon they were chatting together, with intervals of listening and not long after, hearing no further sound, they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Merry walking first with Silver's compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton Island. He had said the truth dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn. Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as he went, with fearful glances but he found no sympathy, and Silver even joked him on his precautions. 'I told you, said he'I told you you had sp'iled your Bible. If it ain't no good to swear by, what do you suppose a sperrit would give for it? Not that! and he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his crutch. But Dick was not to be comforted indeed, it was soon plain to me that the lad was falling sick hastened by heat, exhaustion, and the shock of his alarm, the fever, predicted by Dr. Livesey, was evidently growing swiftly higher. It was fine open walking here, upon the summit our way lay a little downhill, for, as I have said, the plateau tilted towards the west. The pines, great and small, grew wide apart and even between the clumps of nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine. Striking, as we did, pretty near northwest across the island, we drew, on the one hand, ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spyglass, and on the other, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed and trembled in the coracle. The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the wrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwooda giant of a vegetable, with a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a company could have manoeuvred. It was conspicuous far to sea both on the east and west and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the chart. But it was not its size that now impressed my companions it was the knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere buried below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned in their heads their feet grew speedier and lighter their whole soul was bound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them. Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch his nostrils stood out and quivered he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance he plucked furiously at the line that held me to him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look. Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I read them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten his promise and the doctor's warning were both things of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispaniola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches. Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up with the rapid pace of the treasurehunters. Now and again I stumbled, and it was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us and now brought up the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses as his fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and to crown all, I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue facehe who died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drinkhad there, with his own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove that was now so peaceful must then have rung with cries, I thought and even with the thought I could believe I heard it ringing still. We were now at the margin of the thicket. 'Huzza, mates, all together! shouted Merry and the foremost broke into a run. And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld them stop. A low cry arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away with the foot of his crutch like one possessed and next moment he and I had come also to a dead halt. Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft of a pick broken in two and the boards of several packingcases strewn around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron, the name Walrusthe name of Flint's ship. All was clear to probation. The cache had been found and rifled the seven hundred thousand pounds were gone! HERE never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these six men was as though he had been struck. But with Silver the blow passed almost instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set fullstretch, like a racer, on that money well, he was brought up, in a single second, dead and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan before the others had had time to realize the disappointment. 'Jim, he whispered, 'take that, and stand by for trouble. And he passed me a doublebarrelled pistol. At the same time, he began quietly moving northward, and in a few steps had put the hollow between us two and the other five. Then he looked at me and nodded, as much as to say, 'Here is a narrow corner, as, indeed, I thought it was. His looks were not quite friendly, and I was so revolted at these constant changes that I could not forbear whispering, 'So you've changed sides again. There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers, with oaths and cries, began to leap, one after another, into the pit and to dig with their fingers, throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect spout of oaths. It was a twoguinea piece, and it went from hand to hand among them for a quarter of a minute. 'Two guineas! roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. 'That's your seven hundred thousand pounds, is it? You're the man for bargains, ain't you? You're him that never bungled nothing, you woodenheaded lubber! 'Dig away, boys, said Silver with the coolest insolence 'you'll find some pignuts and I shouldn't wonder. 'Pignuts! repeated Merry, in a scream. 'Mates, do you hear that? I tell you now, that man there knew it all along. Look in the face of him and you'll see it wrote there. 'Ah, Merry, remarked Silver, 'standing for cap'n again? You're a pushing lad, to be sure. But this time everyone was entirely in Merry's favour. They began to scramble out of the excavation, darting furious glances behind them. One thing I observed, which looked well for us they all got out upon the opposite side from Silver. Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other, the pit between us, and nobody screwed up high enough to offer the first blow. Silver never moved he watched them, very upright on his crutch, and looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave, and no mistake. At last Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters. 'Mates, says he, 'there's two of them alone there one's the old cripple that brought us all here and blundered us down to this the other's that cub that I mean to have the heart of. Now, mates He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant to lead a charge. But just thencrack! crack! crack!three musketshots flashed out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation the man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching and the other three turned and ran for it with all their might. Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into the struggling Merry, and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the last agony, 'George, said he, 'I reckon I settled you. At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us, with smoking muskets, from among the nutmegtrees. 'Forward! cried the doctor. 'Double quick, my lads. We must head 'em off the boats. And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging through the bushes to the chest. I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us. The work that man went through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled and so thinks the doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the verge of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope. 'Doctor, he hailed, 'see there! No hurry! Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau, we could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as they had started, right for Mizzenmast Hill. We were already between them and the boats and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, mopping his face, came slowly up with us. 'Thank ye kindly, doctor, says he. 'You came in in about the nick, I guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it's you, Ben Gunn! he added. 'Well, you're a nice one, to be sure. 'I'm Ben Gunn, I am, replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his embarrassment. 'And, he added, after a long pause, 'how do, Mr. Silver? Pretty well, I thank ye, says you. 'Ben, Ben, murmured Silver, 'to think as you've done me! The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pickaxes deserted, in their flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded leisurely downhill to where the boats were lying, related in a few words what had taken place. It was a story that profoundly interested Silver and Ben Gunn, the halfidiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end. Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the skeletonit was he that had rifled it he had found the treasure he had dug it up (it was the haft of his pickaxe that lay broken in the excavation) he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the twopointed hill at the northeast angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in safety since two months before the arrival of the Hispaniola. When the doctor had wormed this secret from him on the afternoon of the attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage deserted, he had gone to Silver, given him the chart, which was now uselessgiven him the stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied with goats' meat salted by himselfgiven anything and everything to get a chance of moving in safety from the stockade to the twopointed hill, there to be clear of malaria and keep a guard upon the money. 'As for you, Jim, he said, 'it went against my heart, but I did what I thought best for those who had stood by their duty and if you were not one of these, whose fault was it? That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run all the way to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray and the maroon and started, making the diagonal across the island to be at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he saw that our party had the start of him and Ben Gunn, being fleet of foot, had been dispatched in front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work upon the superstitions of his former shipmates, and he was so far successful that Gray and the doctor had come up and were already ambushed before the arrival of the treasurehunters. 'Ah, said Silver, 'it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a thought, doctor. 'Not a thought, replied Dr. Livesey cheerily. And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor, with the pickaxe, demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other and set out to go round by sea for North Inlet. This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we passed out of the straits and doubled the southeast corner of the island, round which, four days ago, we had towed the Hispaniola. As we passed the twopointed hill, we could see the black mouth of Ben Gunn's cave and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket. It was the squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, in which the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any. Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet, what should we meet but the Hispaniola, cruising by herself? The last flood had lifted her, and had there been much wind or a strong tide current, as in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or found her stranded beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss beyond the wreck of the mainsail. Another anchor was got ready and dropped in a fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasurehouse and then Gray, singlehanded, returned with the gig to the Hispaniola, where he was to pass the night on guard. A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave. At the top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial and kind, saying nothing of my escapade either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver's polite salute he somewhat flushed. 'John Silver, he said, 'you're a prodigious villain and impostera monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well, then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like millstones. 'Thank you kindly, sir, replied Long John, again saluting. 'I dare you to thank me! cried the squire. 'It is a gross dereliction of my duty. Stand back. And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place, with a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns. The floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett and in a far corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to seek and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there were still three upon that islandSilver, and old Morgan, and Ben Gunnwho had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in vain to share in the reward. 'Come in, Jim, said the captain. 'You're a good boy in your line, Jim, but I don't think you and me'll go to sea again. You're too much of the born favourite for me. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here, man? 'Come back to my dooty, sir, returned Silver. 'Ah! said the captain, and that was all he said. What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me and what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn's salted goat and some delicacies and a bottle of old wine from the Hispaniola. Never, I am sure, were people gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when anything was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughterthe same bland, polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out. HE next morning we fell early to work, for the transportation of this great mass of gold near a mile by land to the beach, and thence three miles by boat to the Hispaniola, was a considerable task for so small a number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the island did not greatly trouble us a single sentry on the shoulder of the hill was sufficient to ensure us against any sudden onslaught, and we thought, besides, they had had more than enough of fighting. Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben Gunn came and went with the boat, while the rest during their absences piled treasure on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a rope's end, made a good load for a grown manone that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part, as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave packing the minted money into breadbags. It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones's hoard for the diversity of coinage, but so much larger and so much more varied that I think I never had more pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider's web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your necknearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out. Day after day this work went on by every evening a fortune had been stowed aboard, but there was another fortune waiting for the morrow and all this time we heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers. At lastI think it was on the third nightthe doctor and I were strolling on the shoulder of the hill where it overlooks the lowlands of the isle, when, from out the thick darkness below, the wind brought us a noise between shrieking and singing. It was only a snatch that reached our ears, followed by the former silence. 'Heaven forgive them, said the doctor ''tis the mutineers! 'All drunk, sir, struck in the voice of Silver from behind us. Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and in spite of daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as quite a privileged and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore these slights and with what unwearying politeness he kept on trying to ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think, none treated him better than a dog, unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to thank him for although for that matter, I suppose, I had reason to think even worse of him than anybody else, for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor answered him. 'Drunk or raving, said he. 'Right you were, sir, replied Silver 'and precious little odds which, to you and me. 'I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane man, returned the doctor with a sneer, 'and so my feelings may surprise you, Master Silver. But if I were sure they were ravingas I am morally certain one, at least, of them is down with feverI should leave this camp, and at whatever risk to my own carcass, take them the assistance of my skill. 'Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong, quoth Silver. 'You would lose your precious life, and you may lay to that. I'm on your side now, hand and glove and I shouldn't wish for to see the party weakened, let alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. But these men down there, they couldn't keep their wordno, not supposing they wished to and what's more, they couldn't believe as you could. 'No, said the doctor. 'You're the man to keep your word, we know that. Well, that was about the last news we had of the three pirates. Only once we heard a gunshot a great way off and supposed them to be hunting. A council was held, and it was decided that we must desert them on the islandto the huge glee, I must say, of Ben Gunn, and with the strong approval of Gray. We left a good stock of powder and shot, the bulk of the salt goat, a few medicines, and some other necessaries, tools, clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of rope, and by the particular desire of the doctor, a handsome present of tobacco. That was about our last doing on the island. Before that, we had got the treasure stowed and had shipped enough water and the remainder of the goat meat in case of any distress and at last, one fine morning, we weighed anchor, which was about all that we could manage, and stood out of North Inlet, the same colours flying that the captain had flown and fought under at the palisade. The three fellows must have been watching us closer than we thought for, as we soon had proved. For coming through the narrows, we had to lie very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of them kneeling together on a spit of sand, with their arms raised in supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that wretched state but we could not risk another mutiny and to take them home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were to find them. But they continued to call us by name and appeal to us, for God's sake, to be merciful and not leave them to die in such a place. At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course and was now swiftly drawing out of earshot, one of themI know not which it wasleapt to his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot whistling over Silver's head and through the mainsail. After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked out they had disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost melted out of sight in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end of that and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round of sea. We were so short of men that everyone on board had to bear a handonly the captain lying on a mattress in the stern and giving his orders, for though greatly recovered he was still in want of quiet. We laid her head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we could not risk the voyage home without fresh hands and as it was, what with baffling winds and a couple of fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it. It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a most beautiful landlocked gulf, and were immediately surrounded by shore boats full of Negroes and Mexican Indians and halfbloods selling fruits and vegetables and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of so many goodhumoured faces (especially the blacks), the taste of the tropical fruits, and above all the lights that began to shine in the town made a most charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the island and the doctor and the squire, taking me along with them, went ashore to pass the early part of the night. Here they met the captain of an English manofwar, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, and, in short, had so agreeable a time that day was breaking when we came alongside the Hispaniola. Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began, with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession. Silver was gone. The maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago, and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly have been forfeit if 'that man with the one leg had stayed aboard. But this was not all. The seacook had not gone emptyhanded. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved and had removed one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three or four hundred guineas, to help him on his further wanderings. I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him. Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on board, made a good cruise home, and the Hispaniola reached Bristol just as Mr. Blandly was beginning to think of fitting out her consort. Five men only of those who had sailed returned with her. 'Drink and the devil had done for the rest, with a vengeance, although, to be sure, we were not quite in so bad a case as that other ship they sang about With one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventyfive. All of us had an ample share of the treasure and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures. Captain Smollett is now retired from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but being suddenly smit with the desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is now mate and part owner of a fine fullrigged ship, married besides, and the father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had feared upon the island and he still lives, a great favourite, though something of a butt, with the country boys, and a notable singer in church on Sundays and saints' days. Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life but I dare say he met his old Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small. The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wainropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears 'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!
'But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? . . . Are we or they Lords of the World? . . . And how are all things made for man?' KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy) No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of ,, miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence. Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end. The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a presentday problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only ,, of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navycrowded seas. And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them. And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit? The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtletytheir mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of oursand to have carried out their preparations with a wellnigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planetit is odd, bythebye, that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of warbut failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready. During the opposition of  a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August . I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions. The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, 'as flaming gases rushed out of a gun. A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the wellknown astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet. In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roofan oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warma pin's head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view. As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from usmore than forty millions of miles of void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims. Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile. That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us. That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twentyfour hours after the first one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till one, and then gave it up and we lit the lantern and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace. He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets. 'The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one, he said. Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust, visible through a powerful telescope on earth as little grey, fluctuating patches, spread through the clearness of the planet's atmosphere and obscured its more familiar features. Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular notes appeared here, there, and everywhere concerning the volcanoes upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical Punch, I remember, made a happy use of it in the political cartoon. And, all unsuspected, those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthward, rushing now at a pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space, hour by hour and day by day, nearer and nearer. It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did. I remember how jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenthcentury papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride the bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed. One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been ,, miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight and I explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so many telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil. Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to him that it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him. I was at home at that hour and writing in my study and although my French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it. Yet this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night. But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sandpits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against the dawn. The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly duncoloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling of its surface for at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be hollow. He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common. Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth. For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, although the heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to see the Thing more clearly. He fancied even then that the cooling of the body might account for this, but what disturbed that idea was the fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder. And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movement that he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had been near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the circumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. The cylinder was artificialhollowwith an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top! 'Good heavens! said Ogilvy. 'There's a man in itmen in it! Half roasted to death! Trying to escape! At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with the flash upon Mars. The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands on the stillglowing metal. At that he stood irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into Woking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock. He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told and his appearance were so wildhis hat had fallen off in the pitthat the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the potman who was just unlocking the doors of the publichouse by Horsell Bridge. The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him a little and when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in his garden, he called over the palings and made himself understood. 'Henderson, he called, 'you saw that shooting star last night? 'Well? said Henderson. 'It's out on Horsell Common now. 'Good Lord! said Henderson. 'Fallen meteorite! That's good. 'But it's something more than a meteorite. It's a cylinderan artificial cylinder, man! And there's something inside. Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand. 'What's that? he said. He was deaf in one ear. Ogilvy told him all that he had seen. Henderson was a minute or so taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and came out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to the common, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound. They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and, meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside must be insensible or dead. Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and disordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as the shop folks were taking down their shutters and people were opening their bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway station at once, in order to telegraph the news to London. The newspaper articles had prepared men's minds for the reception of the idea. By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already started for the common to see the 'dead men from Mars. That was the form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about a quarter to nine when I went out to get my Daily Chronicle. I was naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the Ottershaw bridge to the sandpits. I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay. I have already described the appearance of that colossal bulk, embedded in the ground. The turf and gravel about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion. No doubt its impact had caused a flash of fire. Henderson and Ogilvy were not there. I think they perceived that nothing was to be done for the present, and had gone away to breakfast at Henderson's house. There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the Pit, with their feet dangling, and amusing themselvesuntil I stopped themby throwing stones at the giant mass. After I had spoken to them about it, they began playing at 'touch in and out of the group of bystanders. Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to hang about the railway station. There was very little talking. Few of the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical ideas in those days. Most of them were staring quietly at the big table like end of the cylinder, which was still as Ogilvy and Henderson had left it. I fancy the popular expectation of a heap of charred corpses was disappointed at this inanimate bulk. Some went away while I was there, and other people came. I clambered into the pit and fancied I heard a faint movement under my feet. The top had certainly ceased to rotate. It was only when I got thus close to it that the strangeness of this object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowishwhite metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue. 'Extraterrestrial had no meaning for most of the onlookers. At that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the Thing had come from the planet Mars, but I judged it improbable that it contained any living creature. I thought the unscrewing might be automatic. In spite of Ogilvy, I still believed that there were men in Mars. My mind ran fancifully on the possibilities of its containing manuscript, on the difficulties in translation that might arise, whether we should find coins and models in it, and so forth. Yet it was a little too large for assurance on this idea. I felt an impatience to see it opened. About eleven, as nothing seemed happening, I walked back, full of such thought, to my home in Maybury. But I found it difficult to get to work upon my abstract investigations. In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very much. The early editions of the evening papers had startled London with enormous headlines 'A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS. 'REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING, and so forth. In addition, Ogilvy's wire to the Astronomical Exchange had roused every observatory in the three kingdoms. There were half a dozen flys or more from the Woking station standing in the road by the sandpits, a basketchaise from Chobham, and a rather lordly carriage. Besides that, there was quite a heap of bicycles. In addition, a large number of people must have walked, in spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there was altogether quite a considerable crowdone or two gaily dressed ladies among the others. It was glaringly hot, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind, and the only shadow was that of the few scattered pine trees. The burning heather had been extinguished, but the level ground towards Ottershaw was blackened as far as one could see, and still giving off vertical streamers of smoke. An enterprising sweetstuff dealer in the Chobham Road had sent up his son with a barrowload of green apples and ginger beer. Going to the edge of the pit, I found it occupied by a group of about half a dozen menHenderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fairhaired man that I afterwards learned was Stent, the Astronomer Royal, with several workmen wielding spades and pickaxes. Stent was giving directions in a clear, highpitched voice. He was standing on the cylinder, which was now evidently much cooler his face was crimson and streaming with perspiration, and something seemed to have irritated him. A large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered, though its lower end was still embedded. As soon as Ogilvy saw me among the staring crowd on the edge of the pit he called to me to come down, and asked me if I would mind going over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of the manor. The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to their excavations, especially the boys. They wanted a light railing put up, and help to keep the people back. He told me that a faint stirring was occasionally still audible within the case, but that the workmen had failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no grip to them. The case appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the faint sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior. I was very glad to do as he asked, and so become one of the privileged spectators within the contemplated enclosure. I failed to find Lord Hilton at his house, but I was told he was expected from London by the six o'clock train from Waterloo and as it was then about a quarter past five, I went home, had some tea, and walked up to the station to waylay him. When I returned to the common the sun was setting. Scattered groups were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons were returning. The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the skya couple of hundred people, perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my mind. As I drew nearer I heard Stent's voice 'Keep back! Keep back! A boy came running towards me. 'It's amovin', he said to me as he passed 'ascrewin' and ascrewin' out. I don't like it. I'm agoin' 'ome, I am. I went on to the crowd. There were really, I should think, two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling one another, the one or two ladies there being by no means the least active. 'He's fallen in the pit! cried some one. 'Keep back! said several. The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through. Every one seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit. 'I say! said Ogilvy 'help keep these idiots back. We don't know what's in the confounded thing, you know! I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. The crowd had pushed him in. The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion. I stuck my elbow into the person behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again. For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I had the sunset in my eyes. I think everyone expected to see a man emergepossibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous diskslike eyes. Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards meand then another. A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, Stent among them. I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified and staring. A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather. Two large darkcoloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar Vshaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earthabove all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyeswere at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread. Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather. I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture. I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees, perhaps a hundred yards away but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could not avert my face from these things. There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped, panting, and waited further developments. The common round the sandpits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a halffascinated terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay. And then, with a renewed horror, I saw a round, black object bobbing up and down on the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman who had fallen in, but showing as a little black object against the hot western sun. Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me. I had a momentary impulse to go back and help him that my fears overruled. Everything was then quite invisible, hidden by the deep pit and the heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made. Anyone coming along the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed at the sighta dwindling multitude of perhaps a hundred people or more standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches, behind bushes, behind gates and hedges, saying little to one another and that in short, excited shouts, and staring, staring hard at a few heaps of sand. The barrow of ginger beer stood, a queer derelict, black against the burning sky, and in the sandpits was a row of deserted vehicles with their horses feeding out of nosebags or pawing the ground. After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing kneedeep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of fear and curiosity. I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate longing to peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sandheaps that hid these newcomers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there? Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groupsone a little crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near me. One man I approachedhe was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his nameand accosted. But it was scarcely a time for articulate conversation. 'What ugly brutes! he said. 'Good God! What ugly brutes! He repeated this over and over again. 'Did you see a man in the pit? I said but he made no answer to that. We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side, deriving, I fancy, a certain comfort in one another's company. Then I shifted my position to a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was walking towards Woking. The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. The crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and I heard now a faint murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chobham dispersed. There was scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit. It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent movement upon the sandpits began, a movement that seemed to gather force as the stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained unbroken. Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin irregular crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit. Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sandpits, and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty yards of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag. This was the Deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent. Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet distances. Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air. This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible. Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run. I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still and as the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight. It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied to stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sandpits and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather between me and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the sandpits the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a crash far away to the left where the road from Woking station opens out on the common. Forthwith the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, domelike object sank slowly out of sight into the pit. All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in my surprise. But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me suddenly dark and unfamiliar. The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except where its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the early night. It was dark, and suddenly void of men. Overhead the stars were mustering, and in the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost greenish blue. The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell came out sharp and black against the western afterglow. The Martians and their appliances were altogether invisible, save for that thin mast upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated trees here and there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of the evening air. Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had scarcely been broken. It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected, and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, camefear. With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather. The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare to look back. I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this mysterious deathas swift as the passage of lightwould leap after me from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down. It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute nonconductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam. That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze. The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and Ottershaw about the same time. In Woking the shops had closed when the tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so forth, attracted by the stories they had heard, were walking over the Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at last upon the common. You may imagine the young people brushed up after the labours of the day, and making this novelty, as they would make any novelty, the excuse for walking together and enjoying a trivial flirtation. You may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the road in the gloaming. . . . As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder had opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to the post office with a special wire to an evening paper. As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they found little knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the spinning mirror over the sandpits, and the newcomers were, no doubt, soon infected by the excitement of the occasion. By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may have been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place, besides those who had left the road to approach the Martians nearer. There were three policemen too, one of whom was mounted, doing their best, under instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter them from approaching the cylinder. There was some booing from those more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an occasion for noise and horseplay. Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision, had telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians emerged, for the help of a company of soldiers to protect these strange creatures from violence. After that they returned to lead that illfated advance. The description of their death, as it was seen by the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions the three puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame. But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine. Only the fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of the HeatRay saved them. Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then, with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of the house nearest the corner. In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the panicstricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some moments. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and dresses caught fire. Then came a crying from the common. There were shrieks and shouts, and suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with his hands clasped over his head, screaming. 'They're coming! a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to Woking again. They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep. Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks the crowd jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not escape three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the darkness. For my own part, I remember nothing of my flight except the stress of blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather. All about me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians that pitiless sword of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead before it descended and smote me out of life. I came into the road between the crossroads and Horsell, and ran along this to the crossroads. At last I could go no further I was exhausted with the violence of my emotion and of my flight, and I staggered and fell by the wayside. That was near the bridge that crosses the canal by the gasworks. I fell and lay still. I must have remained there some time. I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I could not clearly understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like a garment. My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from its fastener. A few minutes before, there had only been three real things before methe immensity of the night and space and nature, my own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now it was as if something turned over, and the point of view altered abruptly. There was no sensible transition from one state of mind to the other. I was immediately the self of every day againa decent, ordinary citizen. The silent common, the impulse of my flight, the starting flames, were as if they had been in a dream. I asked myself had these latter things indeed happened? I could not credit it. I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge. My mind was blank wonder. My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their strength. I dare say I staggered drunkenly. A head rose over the arch, and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran a little boy. He passed me, wishing me good night. I was minded to speak to him, but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless mumble and went on over the bridge. Over the Maybury arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying southclatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone. A dim group of people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I told myself, could not be. Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to my dream. But the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity and the swift death flying yonder, not two miles away. There was a noise of business from the gasworks, and the electric lamps were all alight. I stopped at the group of people. 'What news from the common? said I. There were two men and a woman at the gate. 'Eh? said one of the men, turning. 'What news from the common? I said. 'Ain't yer just been there? asked the men. 'People seem fair silly about the common, said the woman over the gate. 'What's it all abart? 'Haven't you heard of the men from Mars? said I 'the creatures from Mars? 'Quite enough, said the woman over the gate. 'Thenks and all three of them laughed. I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I could not tell them what I had seen. They laughed again at my broken sentences. 'You'll hear more yet, I said, and went on to my home. I startled my wife at the doorway, so haggard was I. I went into the dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so soon as I could collect myself sufficiently I told her the things I had seen. The dinner, which was a cold one, had already been served, and remained neglected on the table while I told my story. 'There is one thing, I said, to allay the fears I had aroused 'they are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl. They may keep the pit and kill people who come near them, but they cannot get out of it. . . . But the horror of them! 'Don't, dear! said my wife, knitting her brows and putting her hand on mine. 'Poor Ogilvy! I said. 'To think he may be lying dead there! My wife at least did not find my experience incredible. When I saw how deadly white her face was, I ceased abruptly. 'They may come here, she said again and again. I pressed her to take wine, and tried to reassure her. 'They can scarcely move, I said. I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on the earth. In particular I laid stress on the gravitational difficulty. On the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, would weigh three times more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same. His own body would be a cope of lead to him, therefore. That, indeed, was the general opinion. Both The Times and the Daily Telegraph, for instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both overlooked, just as I did, two obvious modifying influences. The atmosphere of the earth, we now know, contains far more oxygen or far less argon (whichever way one likes to put it) than does Mars'. The invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians indisputably did much to counterbalance the increased weight of their bodies. And, in the second place, we all overlooked the fact that such mechanical intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able to dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch. But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine and food, the confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring my wife, I grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure. 'They have done a foolish thing, said I, fingering my wineglass. 'They are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror. Perhaps they expected to find no living thingscertainly no intelligent living things. 'A shell in the pit, said I, 'if the worst comes to the worst, will kill them all. The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in a state of erethism. I remember that dinner table with extraordinary vividness even now. My dear wife's sweet anxious face peering at me from under the pink lamp shade, the white cloth with its silver and glass table furniturefor in those days even philosophical writers had many little luxuriesthe crimsonpurple wine in my glass, are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the Martians. So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of animal food. 'We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear. I did not know it, but that was the last civilised dinner I was to eat for very many strange and terrible days. The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong. If on Friday night you had taken a pair of compasses and drawn a circle with a radius of five miles round the Woking sandpits, I doubt if you would have had one human being outside it, unless it were some relation of Stent or of the three or four cyclists or London people lying dead on the common, whose emotions or habits were at all affected by the newcomers. Many people had heard of the cylinder, of course, and talked about it in their leisure, but it certainly did not make the sensation that an ultimatum to Germany would have done. In London that night poor Henderson's telegram describing the gradual unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a canard, and his evening paper, after wiring for authentication from him and receiving no replythe man was killeddecided not to print a special edition. Even within the fivemile circle the great majority of people were inert. I have already described the behaviour of the men and women to whom I spoke. All over the district people were dining and supping working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children were being put to bed, young people were wandering through the lanes lovemaking, students sat over their books. Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, a novel and dominant topic in the publichouses, and here and there a messenger, or even an eyewitness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of excitement, a shouting, and a running to and fro but for the most part the daily routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on as it had done for countless yearsas though no planet Mars existed in the sky. Even at Woking station and Horsell and Chobham that was the case. In Woking junction, until a late hour, trains were stopping and going on, others were shunting on the sidings, passengers were alighting and waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most ordinary way. A boy from the town, trenching on Smith's monopoly, was selling papers with the afternoon's news. The ringing impact of trucks, the sharp whistle of the engines from the junction, mingled with their shouts of 'Men from Mars! Excited men came into the station about nine o'clock with incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might have done. People rattling Londonwards peered into the darkness outside the carriage windows, and saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious than a heath fire was happening. It was only round the edge of the common that any disturbance was perceptible. There were half a dozen villas burning on the Woking border. There were lights in all the houses on the common side of the three villages, and the people there kept awake till dawn. A curious crowd lingered restlessly, people coming and going but the crowd remaining, both on the Chobham and Horsell bridges. One or two adventurous souls, it was afterwards found, went into the darkness and crawled quite near the Martians but they never returned, for now and again a lightray, like the beam of a warship's searchlight swept the common, and the HeatRay was ready to follow. Save for such, that big area of common was silent and desolate, and the charred bodies lay about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day. A noise of hammering from the pit was heard by many people. So you have the state of things on Friday night. In the centre, sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart, was this cylinder. But the poison was scarcely working yet. Around it was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. Here and there was a burning bush or tree. Beyond was a fringe of excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years. The fever of war that would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, had still to develop. All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and ever and again a puff of greenishwhite smoke whirled up to the starlit sky. About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second company marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and was busy questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities were certainly alive to the seriousness of the business. About eleven, the next morning's papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started from Aldershot. A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking, saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder. Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating barometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in sleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfast and stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring but a lark. The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me that during the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns were expected. Thena familiar, reassuring noteI heard a train running towards Woking. 'They aren't to be killed, said the milkman, 'if that can possibly be avoided. I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then strolled in to breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. My neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or to destroy the Martians during the day. 'It's a pity they make themselves so unapproachable, he said. 'It would be curious to know how they live on another planet we might learn a thing or two. He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, for his gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the same time he told me of the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf Links. 'They say, said he, 'that there's another of those blessed things fallen therenumber two. But one's enough, surely. This lot'll cost the insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled. He laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to me. 'They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick soil of pine needles and turf, he said, and then grew serious over 'poor Ogilvy. After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to walk down towards the common. Under the railway bridge I found a group of soldierssappers, I think, men in small round caps, dirty red jackets unbuttoned, and showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots coming to the calf. They told me no one was allowed over the canal, and, looking along the road towards the bridge, I saw one of the Cardigan men standing sentinel there. I talked with these soldiers for a time I told them of my sight of the Martians on the previous evening. None of them had seen the Martians, and they had but the vaguest ideas of them, so that they plied me with questions. They said that they did not know who had authorised the movements of the troops their idea was that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards. The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated than the common soldier, and they discussed the peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some acuteness. I described the HeatRay to them, and they began to argue among themselves. 'Crawl up under cover and rush 'em, say I, said one. 'Get aht! said another. 'What's cover against this 'ere 'eat? Sticks to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground'll let us, and then drive a trench. 'Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches you ought to ha' been born a rabbit Snippy. 'Ain't they got any necks, then? said a third, abruptlya little, contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe. I repeated my description. 'Octopuses, said he, 'that's what I calls 'em. Talk about fishers of menfighters of fish it is this time! 'It ain't no murder killing beasts like that, said the first speaker. 'Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish 'em? said the little dark man. 'You carn tell what they might do. 'Where's your shells? said the first speaker. 'There ain't no time. Do it in a rush, that's my tip, and do it at once. So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on to the railway station to get as many morning papers as I could. But I will not weary the reader with a description of that long morning and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting a glimpse of the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in the hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I addressed didn't know anything the officers were mysterious as well as busy. I found people in the town quite secure again in the presence of the military, and I heard for the first time from Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son was among the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the people on the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave their houses. I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the day was extremely hot and dull and in order to refresh myself I took a cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the railway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers had contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent, Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn't know. The Martians did not show an inch of themselves. They seemed busy in their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting ready for a struggle. 'Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without success, was the stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told me it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the lowing of a cow. I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this preparation, greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent, and defeated the invaders in a dozen striking ways something of my schoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a fair fight to me at that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit of theirs. About three o'clock there began the thud of a gun at measured intervals from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smouldering pine wood into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled, in the hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was only about five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against the first body of Martians. About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the summerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering upon us, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediately after a gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a violent rattling crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground and, starting out upon the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of the little church beside it slide down into ruin. The pinnacle of the mosque had vanished, and the roof line of the college itself looked as if a hundredton gun had been at work upon it. One of our chimneys cracked as if a shot had hit it, flew, and a piece of it came clattering down the tiles and made a heap of broken red fragments upon the flower bed by my study window. I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest of Maybury Hill must be within range of the Martians' HeatRay now that the college was cleared out of the way. At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her out into the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for. 'We can't possibly stay here, I said and as I spoke the firing reopened for a moment upon the common. 'But where are we to go? said my wife in terror. I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead. 'Leatherhead! I shouted above the sudden noise. She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their houses, astonished. 'How are we to get to Leatherhead? she said. Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway bridge three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College two others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything. 'Stop here, said I 'you are safe here and I started off at once for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart. I ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to him. 'I must have a pound, said the landlord, 'and I've no one to drive it. 'I'll give you two, said I, over the stranger's shoulder. 'What for? 'And I'll bring it back by midnight, I said. 'Lord! said the landlord 'what's the hurry? I'm selling my bit of a pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What's going on now? I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the dog cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife and servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such plate as we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house were burning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red. While I was occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He was going from house to house, warning people to leave. He was going on as I came out of my front door, lugging my treasures, done up in a tablecloth. I shouted after him 'What news? He turned, stared, bawled something about 'crawling out in a thing like a dish cover, and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest. A sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a moment. I ran to my neighbour's door and rapped to satisfy myself of what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had locked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, to get my servant's box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail of the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the driver's seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear of the smoke and noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old Woking. In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the doctor's cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of black smoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the east and westto the Byfleet pine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machinegun that was presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles. Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of their HeatRay. I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my attention to the horse. When I looked back again the second hill had hidden the black smoke. I slashed the horse with the whip, and gave him a loose rein until Woking and Send lay between us and that quivering tumult. I overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send. Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill. The scent of hay was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyrford, and the hedges on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dogroses. The heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down Maybury Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very peaceful and still. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine o'clock, and the horse had an hour's rest while I took supper with my cousins and commended my wife to their care. My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed oppressed with forebodings of evil. I talked to her reassuringly, pointing out that the Martians were tied to the pit by sheer heaviness, and at the utmost could but crawl a little out of it but she answered only in monosyllables. Had it not been for my promise to the innkeeper, she would, I think, have urged me to stay in Leatherhead that night. Would that I had! Her face, I remember, was very white as we parted. For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised community had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very sorry that I had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that that last fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of our invaders from Mars. I can best express my state of mind by saying that I wanted to be in at the death. It was nearly eleven when I started to return. The night was unexpectedly dark to me, walking out of the lighted passage of my cousins' house, it seemed indeed black, and it was as hot and close as the day. Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath stirred the shrubs about us. My cousins' man lit both lamps. Happily, I knew the road intimately. My wife stood in the light of the doorway, and watched me until I jumped up into the dog cart. Then abruptly she turned and went in, leaving my cousins side by side wishing me good hap. I was a little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife's fears, but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that time I was absolutely in the dark as to the course of the evening's fighting. I did not know even the circumstances that had precipitated the conflict. As I came through Ockham (for that was the way I returned, and not through Send and Old Woking) I saw along the western horizon a bloodred glow, which as I drew nearer, crept slowly up the sky. The driving clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there with masses of black and red smoke. Ripley Street was deserted, and except for a lighted window or so the village showed not a sign of life but I narrowly escaped an accident at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people stood with their backs to me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I do not know what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill, nor do I know if the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping securely, or deserted and empty, or harassed and watching against the terror of the night. From Ripley until I came through Pyrford I was in the valley of the Wey, and the red glare was hidden from me. As I ascended the little hill beyond Pyrford Church the glare came into view again, and the trees about me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that was upon me. Then I heard midnight pealing out from Pyrford Church behind me, and then came the silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its treetops and roofs black and sharp against the red. Even as I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. I felt a tug at the reins. I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were by a thread of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and falling into the field to my left. It was the third falling star! Close on its apparition, and blindingly violet by contrast, danced out the first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst like a rocket overhead. The horse took the bit between his teeth and bolted. A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill, and down this we clattered. Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a succession of flashes as I have ever seen. The thunderclaps, treading one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling accompaniment, sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric machine than the usual detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and confusing, and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the slope. At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then abruptly my attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill. At first I took it for the wet roof of a house, but one flash following another showed it to be in swift rolling movement. It was an elusive visiona moment of bewildering darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, and this problematical object came out clear and sharp and bright. And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand. Then suddenly the trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted, as brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them they were snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared, rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard to meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went altogether. Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse's head hard round to the right and in another moment the dog cart had heeled over upon the horse the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung sideways and fell heavily into a shallow pool of water. I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in the water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck was broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black bulk of the overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still spinning slowly. In another moment the colossal mechanism went striding by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford. Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an instant it was gone. So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in blinding highlights and dense black shadows. As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the thunder'Aloo! Aloo!and in another minute it was with its companion, half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt this Thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had fired at us from Mars. For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness watching, by the intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moving about in the distance over the hedge tops. A thin hail was now beginning, and as it came and went their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness again. Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the night swallowed them up. I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below. It was some time before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to a drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril. Not far from me was a little oneroomed squatter's hut of wood, surrounded by a patch of potato garden. I struggled to my feet at last, and, crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a run for this. I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people hear (if there were any people inside), and after a time I desisted, and, availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way, succeeded in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into the pine woods towards Maybury. Under cover of this I pushed on, wet and shivering now, towards my own house. I walked among the trees trying to find the footpath. It was very dark indeed in the wood, for the lightning was now becoming infrequent, and the hail, which was pouring down in a torrent, fell in columns through the gaps in the heavy foliage. If I had fully realised the meaning of all the things I had seen I should have immediately worked my way round through Byfleet to Street Cobham, and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead. But that night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness, prevented me, for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened and blinded by the storm. I had a vague idea of going on to my own house, and that was as much motive as I had. I staggered through the trees, fell into a ditch and bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed out into the lane that ran down from the College Arms. I say splashed, for the storm water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy torrent. There in the darkness a man blundered into me and sent me reeling back. He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed on before I could gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him. So heavy was the stress of the storm just at this place that I had the hardest task to win my way up the hill. I went close up to the fence on the left and worked my way along its palings. Near the top I stumbled upon something soft, and, by a flash of lightning, saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of boots. Before I could distinguish clearly how the man lay, the flicker of light had passed. I stood over him waiting for the next flash. When it came, I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily dressed his head was bent under his body, and he lay crumpled up close to the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it. Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was quite dead. Apparently his neck had been broken. The lightning flashed for a third time, and his face leaped upon me. I sprang to my feet. It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose conveyance I had taken. I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my way by the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. Nothing was burning on the hillside, though from the common there still came a red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about me were mostly uninjured. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the road. Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of feet, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I let myself in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, staggered to the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against the fence. I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, shivering violently. I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some whisky, and then I was moved to change my clothes. After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway. The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a vivid red glare, the common about the sandpits was visible. Across the light huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to and fro. It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on firea broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red reflection upon the cloud scud above. Every now and then a haze of smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied upon. Neither could I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of it danced on the wall and ceiling of the study. A sharp, resinous tang of burning was in the air. I closed the door noiselessly and crept towards the window. As I did so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the hill, on the railway, near the arch, and several of the houses along the Maybury road and the streets near the station were glowing ruins. The light upon the railway puzzled me at first there were a black heap and a vivid glare, and to the right of that a row of yellow oblongs. Then I perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part smashed and on fire, the hinder carriages still upon the rails. Between these three main centres of lightthe houses, the train, and the burning county towards Chobhamstretched irregular patches of dark country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and smoking ground. It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set with fire. It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries at night. At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I peered intently for them. Later I saw against the light of Woking station a number of black figures hurrying one after the other across the line. And this was the little world in which I had been living securely for years, this fiery chaos! What had happened in the last seven hours I still did not know nor did I know, though I was beginning to guess, the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish lumps I had seen disgorged from the cylinder. With a queer feeling of impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, and stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three gigantic black things that were going to and fro in the glare about the sandpits. They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal. The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west, when a soldier came into my garden. I heard a slight scraping at the fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings. At the sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the window eagerly. 'Hist! said I, in a whisper. He stopped astride of the fence in doubt. Then he came over and across the lawn to the corner of the house. He bent down and stepped softly. 'Who's there? he said, also whispering, standing under the window and peering up. 'Where are you going? I asked. 'God knows. 'Are you trying to hide? 'That's it. 'Come into the house, I said. I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the door again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat was unbuttoned. 'My God! he said, as I drew him in. 'What has happened? I asked. 'What hasn't? In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of despair. 'They wiped us outsimply wiped us out, he repeated again and again. He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room. 'Take some whisky, I said, pouring out a stiff dose. He drank it. Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a perfect passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of my own recent despair, stood beside him, wondering. It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second cylinder under cover of a metal shield. Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fightingmachines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sandpits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of charred dead men and dead horses. 'I lay still, he said, 'scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter of a horse atop of me. We'd been wiped out. And the smellgood God! Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of the horse, and there I had to lie until I felt better. Just like parade it had been a minute beforethen stumble, bang, swish! 'Wiped out! he said. He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out furtively across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. Then the monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely to and fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its headlike hood turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human being. A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the HeatRay. In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Maxims rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last then in a moment the HeatRay was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the HeatRay, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit. The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock his head against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway embankment. Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking village and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water bubbling out like a spring upon the road. That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew calmer telling me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about us came darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose trees outside the window grew distinct. It would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also. When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley had become a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been there were now streamers of smoke but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. Yet here and there some object had had the luck to escapea white railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh amid the wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were surveying the desolation they had made. It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the brightening dawnstreamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished. Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day. As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs. The artilleryman agreed with me that the house was no place to stay in. He proposed, he said, to make his way Londonward, and thence rejoin his batteryNo. , of the Horse Artillery. My plan was to return at once to Leatherhead and so greatly had the strength of the Martians impressed me that I had determined to take my wife to Newhaven, and go with her out of the country forthwith. For I already perceived clearly that the country about London must inevitably be the scene of a disastrous struggle before such creatures as these could be destroyed. Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with its guarding giants. Had I been alone, I think I should have taken my chance and struck across country. But the artilleryman dissuaded me 'It's no kindness to the right sort of wife, he said, 'to make her a widow and in the end I agreed to go with him, under cover of the woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him. Thence I would make a big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead. I should have started at once, but my companion had been in active service and he knew better than that. He made me ransack the house for a flask, which he filled with whisky and we lined every available pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out of the house, and ran as quickly as we could down the illmade road by which I had come overnight. The houses seemed deserted. In the road lay a group of three charred bodies close together, struck dead by the HeatRay and here and there were things that people had droppeda clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and the like poor valuables. At the corner turning up towards the post office a little cart, filled with boxes and furniture, and horseless, heeled over on a broken wheel. A cash box had been hastily smashed open and thrown under the debris. Except the lodge at the Orphanage, which was still on fire, none of the houses had suffered very greatly here. The HeatRay had shaved the chimney tops and passed. Yet, save ourselves, there did not seem to be a living soul on Maybury Hill. The majority of the inhabitants had escaped, I suppose, by way of the Old Woking roadthe road I had taken when I drove to Leatherheador they had hidden. We went down the lane, by the body of the man in black, sodden now from the overnight hail, and broke into the woods at the foot of the hill. We pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a soul. The woods across the line were but the scarred and blackened ruins of woods for the most part the trees had fallen, but a certain proportion still stood, dismal grey stems, with dark brown foliage instead of green. On our side the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees it had failed to secure its footing. In one place the woodmen had been at work on Saturday trees, felled and freshly trimmed, lay in a clearing, with heaps of sawdust by the sawingmachine and its engine. Hard by was a temporary hut, deserted. There was not a breath of wind this morning, and everything was strangely still. Even the birds were hushed, and as we hurried along I and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked now and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped to listen. After a time we drew near the road, and as we did so we heard the clatter of hoofs and saw through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers riding slowly towards Woking. We hailed them, and they halted while we hurried towards them. It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of the th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the artilleryman told me was a heliograph. 'You are the first men I've seen coming this way this morning, said the lieutenant. 'What's brewing? His voice and face were eager. The men behind him stared curiously. The artilleryman jumped down the bank into the road and saluted. 'Gun destroyed last night, sir. Have been hiding. Trying to rejoin battery, sir. You'll come in sight of the Martians, I expect, about half a mile along this road. 'What the dickens are they like? asked the lieutenant. 'Giants in armour, sir. Hundred feet high. Three legs and a body like 'luminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir. 'Get out! said the lieutenant. 'What confounded nonsense! 'You'll see, sir. They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire and strikes you dead. 'What d'ye meana gun? 'No, sir, and the artilleryman began a vivid account of the HeatRay. Halfway through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me. I was still standing on the bank by the side of the road. 'It's perfectly true, I said. 'Well, said the lieutenant, 'I suppose it's my business to see it too. Look hereto the artilleryman'we're detailed here clearing people out of their houses. You'd better go along and report yourself to BrigadierGeneral Marvin, and tell him all you know. He's at Weybridge. Know the way? 'I do, I said and he turned his horse southward again. 'Half a mile, you say? said he. 'At most, I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward. He thanked me and rode on, and we saw them no more. Farther along we came upon a group of three women and two children in the road, busy clearing out a labourer's cottage. They had got hold of a little hand truck, and were piling it up with uncleanlooking bundles and shabby furniture. They were all too assiduously engaged to talk to us as we passed. By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight. We were far beyond the range of the HeatRay there, and had it not been for the silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring movement of packing in others, and the knot of soldiers standing on the bridge over the railway and staring down the line towards Woking, the day would have seemed very like any other Sunday. Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily along the road to Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across a stretch of flat meadow, six twelvepounders standing neatly at equal distances pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns waiting, and the ammunition waggons were at a businesslike distance. The men stood almost as if under inspection. 'That's good! said I. 'They will get one fair shot, at any rate. The artilleryman hesitated at the gate. 'I shall go on, he said. Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were a number of men in white fatigue jackets throwing up a long rampart, and more guns behind. 'It's bows and arrows against the lightning, anyhow, said the artilleryman. 'They 'aven't seen that firebeam yet. The officers who were not actively engaged stood and stared over the treetops southwestward, and the men digging would stop every now and again to stare in the same direction. Byfleet was in a tumult people packing, and a score of hussars, some of them dismounted, some on horseback, were hunting them about. Three or four black government waggons, with crosses in white circles, and an old omnibus, among other vehicles, were being loaded in the village street. There were scores of people, most of them sufficiently sabbatical to have assumed their best clothes. The soldiers were having the greatest difficulty in making them realise the gravity of their position. We saw one shrivelled old fellow with a huge box and a score or more of flower pots containing orchids, angrily expostulating with the corporal who would leave them behind. I stopped and gripped his arm. 'Do you know what's over there? I said, pointing at the pine tops that hid the Martians. 'Eh? said he, turning. 'I was explainin' these is vallyble. 'Death! I shouted. 'Death is coming! Death! and leaving him to digest that if he could, I hurried on after the artilleryman. At the corner I looked back. The soldier had left him, and he was still standing by his box, with the pots of orchids on the lid of it, and staring vaguely over the trees. No one in Weybridge could tell us where the headquarters were established the whole place was in such confusion as I had never seen in any town before. Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing miscellany of conveyances and horseflesh. The respectable inhabitants of the place, men in golf and boating costumes, wives prettily dressed, were packing, riverside loafers energetically helping, children excited, and, for the most part, highly delighted at this astonishing variation of their Sunday experiences. In the midst of it all the worthy vicar was very pluckily holding an early celebration, and his bell was jangling out above the excitement. I and the artilleryman, seated on the step of the drinking fountain, made a very passable meal upon what we had brought with us. Patrols of soldiershere no longer hussars, but grenadiers in whitewere warning people to move now or to take refuge in their cellars as soon as the firing began. We saw as we crossed the railway bridge that a growing crowd of people had assembled in and about the railway station, and the swarming platform was piled with boxes and packages. The ordinary traffic had been stopped, I believe, in order to allow of the passage of troops and guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a savage struggle occurred for places in the special trains that were put on at a later hour. We remained at Weybridge until midday, and at that hour we found ourselves at the place near Shepperton Lock where the Wey and Thames join. Part of the time we spent helping two old women to pack a little cart. The Wey has a treble mouth, and at this point boats are to be hired, and there was a ferry across the river. On the Shepperton side was an inn with a lawn, and beyond that the tower of Shepperton Churchit has been replaced by a spirerose above the trees. Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives. As yet the flight had not grown to a panic, but there were already far more people than all the boats going to and fro could enable to cross. People came panting along under heavy burdens one husband and wife were even carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of their household goods piled thereon. One man told us he meant to try to get away from Shepperton station. There was a lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting. The idea people seemed to have here was that the Martians were simply formidable human beings, who might attack and sack the town, to be certainly destroyed in the end. Every now and then people would glance nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over there was still. Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big ferryboat had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without offering to help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours. 'What's that? cried a boatman, and 'Shut up, you fool! said a man near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thudthe sound of a gun. The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight. 'The sojers'll stop 'em, said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A haziness rose over the treetops. Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river, a puff of smoke that jerked up into the air and hung and forthwith the ground heaved under foot and a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing two or three windows in the houses near, and leaving us astonished. 'Here they are! shouted a man in a blue jersey. 'Yonder! D'yer see them? Yonder! Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the flat meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly towards the river. Little cowled figures they seemed at first, going with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds. Then, advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth. Their armoured bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward upon the guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer. One on the extreme left, the remotest that is, flourished a huge case high in the air, and the ghostly, terrible HeatRay I had already seen on Friday night smote towards Chertsey, and struck the town. At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures the crowd near the water's edge seemed to me to be for a moment horrorstruck. There was no screaming or shouting, but a silence. Then a hoarse murmur and a movement of feeta splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung round and sent me staggering with a blow from the corner of his burden. A woman thrust at me with her hand and rushed past me. I turned with the rush of the people, but I was not too terrified for thought. The terrible HeatRay was in my mind. To get under water! That was it! 'Get under water! I shouted, unheeded. I faced about again, and rushed towards the approaching Martian, rushed right down the gravelly beach and headlong into the water. Others did the same. A boatload of people putting back came leaping out as I rushed past. The stones under my feet were muddy and slippery, and the river was so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet scarcely waistdeep. Then, as the Martian towered overhead scarcely a couple of hundred yards away, I flung myself forward under the surface. The splashes of the people in the boats leaping into the river sounded like thunderclaps in my ears. People were landing hastily on both sides of the river. But the Martian machine took no more notice for the moment of the people running this way and that than a man would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his foot has kicked. When, half suffocated, I raised my head above water, the Martian's hood pointed at the batteries that were still firing across the river, and as it advanced it swung loose what must have been the generator of the HeatRay. In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wading halfway across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther bank, and in another moment it had raised itself to its full height again, close to the village of Shepperton. Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to anyone on the right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that village, fired simultaneously. The sudden near concussion, the last close upon the first, made my heart jump. The monster was already raising the case generating the HeatRay as the first shell burst six yards above the hood. I gave a cry of astonishment. I saw and thought nothing of the other four Martian monsters my attention was riveted upon the nearer incident. Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell. The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and glittering metal. 'Hit! shouted I, with something between a scream and a cheer. I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me. I could have leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation. The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant but it did not fall over. It recovered its balance by a miracle, and, no longer heeding its steps and with the camera that fired the HeatRay now rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shepperton. The living intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain and splashed to the four winds of heaven, and the Thing was now but a mere intricate device of metal whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight line, incapable of guidance. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have done, swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tremendous force into the river out of my sight. A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam, mud, and shattered metal shot far up into the sky. As the camera of the HeatRay hit the water, the latter had immediately flashed into steam. In another moment a huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore but almost scaldingly hot, came sweeping round the bend upstream. I saw people struggling shorewards, and heard their screaming and shouting faintly above the seething and roar of the Martian's collapse. For a moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent need of selfpreservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water, pushing aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the bend. Half a dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. The fallen Martian came into sight downstream, lying across the river, and for the most part submerged. Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through the tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and vaguely, the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash and spray of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck like living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of these movements, it was as if some wounded thing were struggling for its life amid the waves. Enormous quantities of a ruddybrown fluid were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine. My attention was diverted from this death flurry by a furious yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. A man, kneedeep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me and pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with gigantic strides down the riverbank from the direction of Chertsey. The Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly. At that I ducked at once under water, and, holding my breath until movement was an agony, blundered painfully ahead under the surface as long as I could. The water was in a tumult about me, and rapidly growing hotter. When for a moment I raised my head to take breath and throw the hair and water from my eyes, the steam was rising in a whirling white fog that at first hid the Martians altogether. The noise was deafening. Then I saw them dimly, colossal figures of grey, magnified by the mist. They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing, tumultuous ruins of their comrade. The third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one perhaps two hundred yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the HeatRays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and that. The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of noisesthe clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the crackling and roaring of fire. Dense black smoke was leaping up to mingle with the steam from the river, and as the HeatRay went to and fro over Weybridge its impact was marked by flashes of incandescent white, that gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames. The nearer houses still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy, faint and pallid in the steam, with the fire behind them going to and fro. For a moment perhaps I stood there, breasthigh in the almost boiling water, dumbfounded at my position, hopeless of escape. Through the reek I could see the people who had been with me in the river scrambling out of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through grass from the advance of a man, or running to and fro in utter dismay on the towing path. Then suddenly the white flashes of the HeatRay came leaping towards me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out flames the trees changed to fire with a roar. The Ray flickered up and down the towing path, licking off the people who ran this way and that, and came down to the water's edge not fifty yards from where I stood. It swept across the river to Shepperton, and the water in its track rose in a boiling weal crested with steam. I turned shoreward. In another moment the huge wave, wellnigh at the boilingpoint had rushed upon me. I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded, agonised, I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore. Had my foot stumbled, it would have been the end. I fell helplessly, in full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare gravelly spit that runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames. I expected nothing but death. I have a dim memory of the foot of a Martian coming down within a score of yards of my head, driving straight into the loose gravel, whirling it this way and that and lifting again of a long suspense, and then of the four carrying the debris of their comrade between them, now clear and then presently faint through a veil of smoke, receding interminably, as it seemed to me, across a vast space of river and meadow. And then, very slowly, I realised that by a miracle I had escaped. After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelvepounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance of the tidings of their approach as sudden, dreadful, and destructive their advent would have been as the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon a century ago. But they were in no hurry. Cylinder followed cylinder on its interplanetary flight every twentyfour hours brought them reinforcement. And meanwhile the military and naval authorities, now fully alive to the tremendous power of their antagonists, worked with furious energy. Every minute a fresh gun came into position until, before twilight, every copse, every row of suburban villas on the hilly slopes about Kingston and Richmond, masked an expectant black muzzle. And through the charred and desolated areaperhaps twenty square miles altogetherthat encircled the Martian encampment on Horsell Common, through charred and ruined villages among the green trees, through the blackened and smoking arcades that had been but a day ago pine spinneys, crawled the devoted scouts with the heliographs that were presently to warn the gunners of the Martian approach. But the Martians now understood our command of artillery and the danger of human proximity, and not a man ventured within a mile of either cylinder, save at the price of his life. It would seem that these giants spent the earlier part of the afternoon in going to and fro, transferring everything from the second and third cylindersthe second in Addlestone Golf Links and the third at Pyrfordto their original pit on Horsell Common. Over that, above the blackened heather and ruined buildings that stretched far and wide, stood one as sentinel, while the rest abandoned their vast fightingmachines and descended into the pit. They were hard at work there far into the night, and the towering pillar of dense green smoke that rose therefrom could be seen from the hills about Merrow, and even, it is said, from Banstead and Epsom Downs. And while the Martians behind me were thus preparing for their next sally, and in front of me Humanity gathered for the battle, I made my way with infinite pains and labour from the fire and smoke of burning Weybridge towards London. I saw an abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting downstream and throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it, gained it, and so escaped out of that destruction. There were no oars in the boat, but I contrived to paddle, as well as my parboiled hands would allow, down the river towards Halliford and Walton, going very tediously and continually looking behind me, as you may well understand. I followed the river, because I considered that the water gave me my best chance of escape should these giants return. The hot water from the Martian's overthrow drifted downstream with me, so that for the best part of a mile I could see little of either bank. Once, however, I made out a string of black figures hurrying across the meadows from the direction of Weybridge. Halliford, it seemed, was deserted, and several of the houses facing the river were on fire. It was strange to see the place quite tranquil, quite desolate under the hot blue sky, with the smoke and little threads of flame going straight up into the heat of the afternoon. Never before had I seen houses burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive crowd. A little farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing, and a line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late field of hay. For a long time I drifted, so painful and weary was I after the violence I had been through, and so intense the heat upon the water. Then my fears got the better of me again, and I resumed my paddling. The sun scorched my bare back. At last, as the bridge at Walton was coming into sight round the bend, my fever and faintness overcame my fears, and I landed on the Middlesex bank and lay down, deadly sick, amid the long grass. I suppose the time was then about four or five o'clock. I got up presently, walked perhaps half a mile without meeting a soul, and then lay down again in the shadow of a hedge. I seem to remember talking, wanderingly, to myself during that last spurt. I was also very thirsty, and bitterly regretful I had drunk no more water. It is a curious thing that I felt angry with my wife I cannot account for it, but my impotent desire to reach Leatherhead worried me excessively. I do not clearly remember the arrival of the curate, so that probably I dozed. I became aware of him as a seated figure in sootsmudged shirt sleeves, and with his upturned, cleanshaven face staring at a faint flickering that danced over the sky. The sky was what is called a mackerel skyrows and rows of faint downplumes of cloud, just tinted with the midsummer sunset. I sat up, and at the rustle of my motion he looked at me quickly. 'Have you any water? I asked abruptly. He shook his head. 'You have been asking for water for the last hour, he said. For a moment we were silent, taking stock of each other. I dare say he found me a strange enough figure, naked, save for my watersoaked trousers and socks, scalded, and my face and shoulders blackened by the smoke. His face was a fair weakness, his chin retreated, and his hair lay in crisp, almost flaxen curls on his low forehead his eyes were rather large, pale blue, and blankly staring. He spoke abruptly, looking vacantly away from me. 'What does it mean? he said. 'What do these things mean? I stared at him and made no answer. He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone. 'Why are these things permitted? What sins have we done? The morning service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain for the afternoon, and thenfire, earthquake, death! As if it were Sodom and Gomorrah! All our work undone, all the work What are these Martians? 'What are we? I answered, clearing my throat. He gripped his knees and turned to look at me again. For half a minute, perhaps, he stared silently. 'I was walking through the roads to clear my brain, he said. 'And suddenlyfire, earthquake, death! He relapsed into silence, with his chin now sunken almost to his knees. Presently he began waving his hand. 'All the workall the Sunday schoolsWhat have we donewhat has Weybridge done? Everything goneeverything destroyed. The church! We rebuilt it only three years ago. Gone! Swept out of existence! Why? Another pause, and he broke out again like one demented. 'The smoke of her burning goeth up for ever and ever! he shouted. His eyes flamed, and he pointed a lean finger in the direction of Weybridge. By this time I was beginning to take his measure. The tremendous tragedy in which he had been involvedit was evident he was a fugitive from Weybridgehad driven him to the very verge of his reason. 'Are we far from Sunbury? I said, in a matteroffact tone. 'What are we to do? he asked. 'Are these creatures everywhere? Has the earth been given over to them? 'Are we far from Sunbury? 'Only this morning I officiated at early celebration 'Things have changed, I said, quietly. 'You must keep your head. There is still hope. 'Hope! 'Yes. Plentiful hopefor all this destruction! I began to explain my view of our position. He listened at first, but as I went on the interest dawning in his eyes gave place to their former stare, and his regard wandered from me. 'This must be the beginning of the end, he said, interrupting me. 'The end! The great and terrible day of the Lord! When men shall call upon the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and hide themhide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne! I began to understand the position. I ceased my laboured reasoning, struggled to my feet, and, standing over him, laid my hand on his shoulder. 'Be a man! said I. 'You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent. For a time he sat in blank silence. 'But how can we escape? he asked, suddenly. 'They are invulnerable, they are pitiless. 'Neither the one nor, perhaps, the other, I answered. 'And the mightier they are the more sane and wary should we be. One of them was killed yonder not three hours ago. 'Killed! he said, staring about him. 'How can God's ministers be killed? 'I saw it happen. I proceeded to tell him. 'We have chanced to come in for the thick of it, said I, 'and that is all. 'What is that flicker in the sky? he asked abruptly. I told him it was the heliograph signallingthat it was the sign of human help and effort in the sky. 'We are in the midst of it, I said, 'quiet as it is. That flicker in the sky tells of the gathering storm. Yonder, I take it are the Martians, and Londonward, where those hills rise about Richmond and Kingston and the trees give cover, earthworks are being thrown up and guns are being placed. Presently the Martians will be coming this way again. And even as I spoke he sprang to his feet and stopped me by a gesture. 'Listen! he said. From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull resonance of distant guns and a remote weird crying. Then everything was still. A cockchafer came droning over the hedge and past us. High in the west the crescent moon hung faint and pale above the smoke of Weybridge and Shepperton and the hot, still splendour of the sunset. 'We had better follow this path, I said, 'northward. My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking. He was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he heard nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity. The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a number of people with a quickfiring gun, so the story ran. The telegram concluded with the words 'Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative strength of the earth's gravitational energy. On that last text their leaderwriter expanded very comfortingly. Of course all the students in the crammer's biology class, to which my brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no signs of any unusual excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers puffed scraps of news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight. Then the St. James's Gazette, in an extraspecial edition, announced the bare fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication. This was thought to be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the line. Nothing more of the fighting was known that night, the night of my drive to Leatherhead and back. My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the description in the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from my house. He made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order, as he says, to see the Things before they were killed. He dispatched a telegram, which never reached me, about four o'clock, and spent the evening at a music hall. In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my brother reached Waterloo in a cab. On the platform from which the midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature of the accident he could not ascertain indeed, the railway authorities did not clearly know at that time. There was very little excitement in the station, as the officials, failing to realise that anything further than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction had occurred, were running the theatre trains which usually passed through Woking round by Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth Sunday League excursions. A nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother for the traffic manager, to whom he bears a slight resemblance, waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting the railway officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians. I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday morning 'all London was electrified by the news from Woking. As a matter of fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant phrase. Plenty of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Those who did took some time to realise all that the hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed. The majority of people in London do not read Sunday papers. The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the Londoner's mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors 'About seven o'clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder, and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims have been absolutely useless against their armour the field guns have been disabled by them. Flying hussars have been galloping into Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey or Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are being thrown up to check the advance Londonward. That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt 'handbook article in the Referee compared the affair to a menagerie suddenly let loose in a village. No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be sluggish 'crawling, 'creeping painfullysuch expressions occurred in almost all the earlier reports. None of the telegrams could have been written by an eyewitness of their advance. The Sunday papers printed separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in default of it. But there was practically nothing more to tell people until late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press agencies the news in their possession. It was stated that the people of Walton and Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the roads Londonward, and that was all. My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning, still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night. There he heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for peace. Coming out, he bought a Referee. He became alarmed at the news in this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if communication were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by the strange intelligence that the newsvendors were disseminating. People were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only on account of the local residents. At the station he heard for the first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted. The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had abruptly ceased. My brother could get very little precise detail out of them. 'There's fighting going on about Weybridge was the extent of their information. The train service was now very much disorganised. Quite a number of people who had been expecting friends from places on the SouthWestern network were standing about the station. One greyheaded old gentleman came and abused the SouthWestern Company bitterly to my brother. 'It wants showing up, he said. One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, containing people who had gone out for a day's boating and found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. A man in a blue and white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings. 'There's hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and things, with boxes of valuables and all that, he said. 'They come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there's been guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have told them to get off at once because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What the dickens does it all mean? The Martians can't get out of their pit, can they? My brother could not tell him. Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to the clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday excursionists began to return from all over the SouthWestern 'lungBarnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forthat unnaturally early hours but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Everyone connected with the terminus seemed illtempered. About five o'clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost invariably closed, between the SouthEastern and the SouthWestern stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and carriages crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was an exchange of pleasantries 'You'll get eaten! 'We're the beasttamers! and so forth. A little while after that a squad of police came into the station and began to clear the public off the platforms, and my brother went out into the street again. The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with long transverse stripes of reddishpurple cloud. There was talk of a floating body. One of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering in the west. In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who had just been rushed out of Fleet Street with stillwet newspapers and staring placards. 'Dreadful catastrophe! they bawled one to the other down Wellington Street. 'Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger! He had to give threepence for a copy of that paper. Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full power and terror of these monsters. He learned that they were not merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds swaying vast mechanical bodies and that they could move swiftly and smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand against them. They were described as 'vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot out a beam of intense heat. Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns, had been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially between the Woking district and London. Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the HeatRays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was optimistic. The Martians had been repulsed they were not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwicheven from the north among others, long wireguns of ninetyfive tons from Woolwich. Altogether one hundred and sixteen were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly covering London. Never before in England had there been such a vast or rapid concentration of military material. Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed at once by high explosives, which were being rapidly manufactured and distributed. No doubt, ran the report, the situation was of the strangest and gravest description, but the public was exhorted to avoid and discourage panic. No doubt the Martians were strange and terrible in the extreme, but at the outside there could not be more than twenty of them against our millions. The authorities had reason to suppose, from the size of the cylinders, that at the outside there could not be more than five in each cylinderfifteen altogether. And one at least was disposed ofperhaps more. The public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger, and elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of the people in the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with reiterated assurances of the safety of London and the ability of the authorities to cope with the difficulty, this quasiproclamation closed. This was printed in enormous type on paper so fresh that it was still wet, and there had been no time to add a word of comment. It was curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the usual contents of the paper had been hacked and taken out to give this place. All down Wellington Street people could be seen fluttering out the pink sheets and reading, and the Strand was suddenly noisy with the voices of an army of hawkers following these pioneers. Men came scrambling off buses to secure copies. Certainly this news excited people intensely, whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map shop in the Strand were being taken down, my brother said, and a man in his Sunday raiment, lemonyellow gloves even, was visible inside the window hastily fastening maps of Surrey to the glass. Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his hand, my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in a cart such as greengrocers use. He was driving from the direction of Westminster Bridge and close behind him came a hay waggon with five or six respectablelooking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbathbest appearance of the people on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them out of cabs. They stopped at the Square as if undecided which way to take, and finally turned eastward along the Strand. Some way behind these came a man in workday clothes, riding one of those oldfashioned tricycles with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white in the face. My brother turned down towards Victoria, and met a number of such people. He had a vague idea that he might see something of me. He noticed an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of the refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses. One was professing to have seen the Martians. 'Boilers on stilts, I tell you, striding along like men. Most of them were excited and animated by their strange experience. Beyond Victoria the publichouses were doing a lively trade with these arrivals. At all the street corners groups of people were reading papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday visitors. They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the roads, my brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day. My brother addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers from most. None of them could tell him any news of Woking except one man, who assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on the previous night. 'I come from Byfleet, he said 'a man on a bicycle came through the place in the early morning, and ran from door to door warning us to come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look, and there were clouds of smoke to the southnothing but smoke, and not a soul coming that way. Then we heard the guns at Chertsey, and folks coming from Weybridge. So I've locked up my house and come on. At that time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the invaders without all this inconvenience. About eight o'clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible all over the south of London. My brother could not hear it for the traffic in the main thoroughfares, but by striking through the quiet back streets to the river he was able to distinguish it quite plainly. He walked from Westminster to his apartments near Regent's Park, about two. He was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at the evident magnitude of the trouble. His mind was inclined to run, even as mine had run on Saturday, on military details. He thought of all those silent, expectant guns, of the suddenly nomadic countryside he tried to imagine 'boilers on stilts a hundred feet high. There were one or two cartloads of refugees passing along Oxford Street, and several in the Marylebone Road, but so slowly was the news spreading that Regent Street and Portland Place were full of their usual Sundaynight promenaders, albeit they talked in groups, and along the edge of Regent's Park there were as many silent couples 'walking out together under the scattered gas lamps as ever there had been. The night was warm and still, and a little oppressive the sound of guns continued intermittently, and after midnight there seemed to be sheet lightning in the south. He read and reread the paper, fearing the worst had happened to me. He was restless, and after supper prowled out again aimlessly. He returned and tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination notes. He went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, feet running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour of bells. Red reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment he lay astonished, wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad. Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the window. His room was an attic and as he thrust his head out, up and down the street there were a dozen echoes to the noise of his window sash, and heads in every kind of night disarray appeared. Enquiries were being shouted. 'They are coming! bawled a policeman, hammering at the door 'the Martians are coming! and hurried to the next door. The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from the Albany Street Barracks, and every church within earshot was hard at work killing sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin. There was a noise of doors opening, and window after window in the houses opposite flashed from darkness into yellow illumination. Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting abruptly into noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax under the window, and dying away slowly in the distance. Close on the rear of this came a couple of cabs, the forerunners of a long procession of flying vehicles, going for the most part to Chalk Farm station, where the NorthWestern special trains were loading up, instead of coming down the gradient into Euston. For a long time my brother stared out of the window in blank astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at door after door, and delivering their incomprehensible message. Then the door behind him opened, and the man who lodged across the landing came in, dressed only in shirt, trousers, and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his hair disordered from his pillow. 'What the devil is it? he asked. 'A fire? What a devil of a row! They both craned their heads out of the window, straining to hear what the policemen were shouting. People were coming out of the side streets, and standing in groups at the corners talking. 'What the devil is it all about? said my brother's fellow lodger. My brother answered him vaguely and began to dress, running with each garment to the window in order to miss nothing of the growing excitement. And presently men selling unnaturally early newspapers came bawling into the street 'London in danger of suffocation! The Kingston and Richmond defences forced! Fearful massacres in the Thames Valley! And all about himin the rooms below, in the houses on each side and across the road, and behind in the Park Terraces and in the hundred other streets of that part of Marylebone, and the Westbourne Park district and St. Pancras, and westward and northward in Kilburn and St. John's Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury and Haggerston and Hoxton, and, indeed, through all the vastness of London from Ealing to East Hampeople were rubbing their eyes, and opening windows to stare out and ask aimless questions, dressing hastily as the first breath of the coming storm of Fear blew through the streets. It was the dawn of the great panic. London, which had gone to bed on Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened, in the small hours of Monday morning, to a vivid sense of danger. Unable from his window to learn what was happening, my brother went down and out into the street, just as the sky between the parapets of the houses grew pink with the early dawn. The flying people on foot and in vehicles grew more numerous every moment. 'Black Smoke! he heard people crying, and again 'Black Smoke! The contagion of such a unanimous fear was inevitable. As my brother hesitated on the doorstep, he saw another newsvendor approaching, and got a paper forthwith. The man was running away with the rest, and selling his papers for a shilling each as he rana grotesque mingling of profit and panic. And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch of the CommanderinChief 'The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapour by means of rockets. They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way. It is impossible to stop them. There is no safety from the Black Smoke but in instant flight. That was all, but it was enough. The whole population of the great sixmillion city was stirring, slipping, running presently it would be pouring en masse northward. 'Black Smoke! the voices cried. 'Fire! The bells of the neighbouring church made a jangling tumult, a cart carelessly driven smashed, amid shrieks and curses, against the water trough up the street. Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the houses, and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps. And overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm. He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down stairs behind him. His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl her husband followed, ejaculating. As my brother began to realise the import of all these things, he turned hastily to his own room, put all his available moneysome ten pounds altogetherinto his pockets, and went out again into the streets. It was while the curate had sat and talked so wildly to me under the hedge in the flat meadows near Halliford, and while my brother was watching the fugitives stream over Westminster Bridge, that the Martians had resumed the offensive. So far as one can ascertain from the conflicting accounts that have been put forth, the majority of them remained busied with preparations in the Horsell pit until nine that night, hurrying on some operation that disengaged huge volumes of green smoke. But three certainly came out about eight o'clock and, advancing slowly and cautiously, made their way through Byfleet and Pyrford towards Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of the expectant batteries against the setting sun. These Martians did not advance in a body, but in a line, each perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest fellow. They communicated with one another by means of sirenlike howls, running up and down the scale from one note to another. It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George's Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford. The Ripley gunners, unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been placed in such a position, fired one wild, premature, ineffectual volley, and bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village, while the Martian, without using his HeatRay, walked serenely over their guns, stepped gingerly among them, passed in front of them, and so came unexpectedly upon the guns in Painshill Park, which he destroyed. The St. George's Hill men, however, were better led or of a better mettle. Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest to them. They laid their guns as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about a thousand yards' range. The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few paces, stagger, and go down. Everybody yelled together, and the guns were reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martian set up a prolonged ululation, and immediately a second glittering giant, answering him, appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem that a leg of the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells. The whole of the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground, and, simultaneously, both his companions brought their HeatRays to bear on the battery. The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about the guns flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already running over the crest of the hill escaped. After this it would seem that the three took counsel together and halted, and the scouts who were watching them report that they remained absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight, and apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had finished, for his cowl was then seen above the trees again. It was a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick black tube. A similar tube was handed to each of the three, and the seven proceeded to distribute themselves at equal distances along a curved line between St. George's Hill, Weybridge, and the village of Send, southwest of Ripley. A dozen rockets sprang out of the hills before them so soon as they began to move, and warned the waiting batteries about Ditton and Esher. At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly armed with tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against the western sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we hurried wearily and painfully along the road that runs northward out of Halliford. They moved, as it seemed to us, upon a cloud, for a milky mist covered the fields and rose to a third of their height. At this sight the curate cried faintly in his throat, and began running but I knew it was no good running from a Martian, and I turned aside and crawled through dewy nettles and brambles into the broad ditch by the side of the road. He looked back, saw what I was doing, and turned to join me. The two halted, the nearer to us standing and facing Sunbury, the remoter being a grey indistinctness towards the evening star, away towards Staines. The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased they took up their positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute silence. It was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns. Never since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the same effectthe Martians seemed in solitary possession of the darkling night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St. George's Hill and the woods of Painshill. But facing that crescent everywhereat Staines, Hounslow, Ditton, Esher, Ockham, behind hills and woods south of the river, and across the flat grass meadows to the north of it, wherever a cluster of trees or village houses gave sufficient coverthe guns were waiting. The signal rockets burst and rained their sparks through the night and vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a tense expectation. The Martians had but to advance into the line of fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into a thunderous fury of battle. No doubt the thought that was uppermost in a thousand of those vigilant minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was the riddlehow much they understood of us. Did they grasp that we in our millions were organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they interpret our spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees? Did they dream they might exterminate us? (At that time no one knew what food they needed.) A hundred such questions struggled together in my mind as I watched that vast sentinel shape. And in the back of my mind was the sense of all the huge unknown and hidden forces Londonward. Had they prepared pitfalls? Were the powder mills at Hounslow ready as a snare? Would the Londoners have the heart and courage to make a greater Moscow of their mighty province of houses? Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us, crouching and peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report that made the ground heave. The one towards Staines answered him. There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation. I was so excited by these heavy minuteguns following one another that I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such evidence of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and low beneath. And there had been no crash, no answering explosion. The silence was restored the minute lengthened to three. 'What has happened? said the curate, standing up beside me. 'Heaven knows! said I. A bat flickered by and vanished. A distant tumult of shouting began and ceased. I looked again at the Martian, and saw he was now moving eastward along the riverbank, with a swift, rolling motion. Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery to spring upon him but the evening calm was unbroken. The figure of the Martian grew smaller as he receded, and presently the mist and the gathering night had swallowed him up. By a common impulse we clambered higher. Towards Sunbury was a dark appearance, as though a conical hill had suddenly come into being there, hiding our view of the farther country and then, remoter across the river, over Walton, we saw another such summit. These hilllike forms grew lower and broader even as we stared. Moved by a sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I perceived a third of these cloudy black kopjes had risen. Everything had suddenly become very still. Far away to the southeast, marking the quiet, we heard the Martians hooting to one another, and then the air quivered again with the distant thud of their guns. But the earthly artillery made no reply. Now at the time we could not understand these things, but later I was to learn the meaning of these ominous kopjes that gathered in the twilight. Each of the Martians, standing in the great crescent I have described, had discharged, by means of the gunlike tube he carried, a huge canister over whatever hill, copse, cluster of houses, or other possible cover for guns, chanced to be in front of him. Some fired only one of these, some twoas in the case of the one we had seen the one at Ripley is said to have discharged no fewer than five at that time. These canisters smashed on striking the groundthey did not explodeand incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour, coiling and pouring upward in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud, a gaseous hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the surrounding country. And the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of its pungent wisps, was death to all that breathes. It was heavy, this vapour, heavier than the densest smoke, so that, after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills, and streaming into the valleys and ditches and watercourses even as I have heard the carbonicacid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do. And where it came upon water some chemical action occurred, and the surface would be instantly covered with a powdery scum that sank slowly and made way for more. The scum was absolutely insoluble, and it is a strange thing, seeing the instant effect of the gas, that one could drink without hurt the water from which it had been strained. The vapour did not diffuse as a true gas would do. It hung together in banks, flowing sluggishly down the slope of the land and driving reluctantly before the wind, and very slowly it combined with the mist and moisture of the air, and sank to the earth in the form of dust. Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue of the spectrum is concerned, we are still entirely ignorant of the nature of this substance. Once the tumultuous upheaval of its dispersion was over, the black smoke clung so closely to the ground, even before its precipitation, that fifty feet up in the air, on the roofs and upper stories of high houses and on great trees, there was a chance of escaping its poison altogether, as was proved even that night at Street Cobham and Ditton. The man who escaped at the former place tells a wonderful story of the strangeness of its coiling flow, and how he looked down from the church spire and saw the houses of the village rising like ghosts out of its inky nothingness. For a day and a half he remained there, weary, starving and sunscorched, the earth under the blue sky and against the prospect of the distant hills a velvetblack expanse, with red roofs, green trees, and, later, blackveiled shrubs and gates, barns, outhouses, and walls, rising here and there into the sunlight. But that was at Street Cobham, where the black vapour was allowed to remain until it sank of its own accord into the ground. As a rule the Martians, when it had served its purpose, cleared the air of it again by wading into it and directing a jet of steam upon it. This they did with the vapour banks near us, as we saw in the starlight from the window of a deserted house at Upper Halliford, whither we had returned. From there we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill going to and fro, and about eleven the windows rattled, and we heard the sound of the huge siege guns that had been put in position there. These continued intermittently for the space of a quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at the invisible Martians at Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of the electric light vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow. Then the fourth cylinder fella brilliant green meteoras I learned afterwards, in Bushey Park. Before the guns on the Richmond and Kingston line of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade far away in the southwest, due, I believe, to guns being fired haphazard before the black vapour could overwhelm the gunners. So, setting about it as methodically as men might smoke out a wasps' nest, the Martians spread this strange stifling vapour over the Londonward country. The horns of the crescent slowly moved apart, until at last they formed a line from Hanwell to Coombe and Malden. All night through their destructive tubes advanced. Never once, after the Martian at St. George's Hill was brought down, did they give the artillery the ghost of a chance against them. Wherever there was a possibility of guns being laid for them unseen, a fresh canister of the black vapour was discharged, and where the guns were openly displayed the HeatRay was brought to bear. By midnight the blazing trees along the slopes of Richmond Park and the glare of Kingston Hill threw their light upon a network of black smoke, blotting out the whole valley of the Thames and extending as far as the eye could reach. And through this two Martians slowly waded, and turned their hissing steam jets this way and that. They were sparing of the HeatRay that night, either because they had but a limited supply of material for its production or because they did not wish to destroy the country but only to crush and overawe the opposition they had aroused. In the latter aim they certainly succeeded. Sunday night was the end of the organised opposition to their movements. After that no body of men would stand against them, so hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of the torpedoboats and destroyers that had brought their quickfirers up the Thames refused to stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive operation men ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and spasmodic. One has to imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries towards Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight. Survivors there were none. One may picture the orderly expectation, the officers alert and watchful, the gunners ready, the ammunition piled to hand, the limber gunners with their horses and waggons, the groups of civilian spectators standing as near as they were permitted, the evening stillness, the ambulances and hospital tents with the burned and wounded from Weybridge then the dull resonance of the shots the Martians fired, and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and houses and smashing amid the neighbouring fields. One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadeningout of the opaque cone of smoke. And then night and extinctionnothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead. Before dawn the black vapour was pouring through the streets of Richmond, and the disintegrating organism of government was, with a last expiring effort, rousing the population of London to the necessity of flight. So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawningthe stream of flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward. By ten o'clock the police organisation, and by midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body. All the railway lines north of the Thames and the SouthEastern people at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on Sunday, and trains were being filled. People were fighting savagely for standingroom in the carriages even at two o'clock. By three, people were being trampled and crushed even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple of hundred yards or more from Liverpool Street station revolvers were fired, people stabbed, and the policemen who had been sent to direct the traffic, exhausted and infuriated, were breaking the heads of the people they were called out to protect. And as the day advanced and the engine drivers and stokers refused to return to London, the pressure of the flight drove the people in an everthickening multitude away from the stations and along the northwardrunning roads. By midday a Martian had been seen at Barnes, and a cloud of slowly sinking black vapour drove along the Thames and across the flats of Lambeth, cutting off all escape over the bridges in its sluggish advance. Another bank drove over Ealing, and surrounded a little island of survivors on Castle Hill, alive, but unable to escape. After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a NorthWestern train at Chalk Farmthe engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there ploughed through shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnacemy brother emerged upon the Chalk Farm road, dodged across through a hurrying swarm of vehicles, and had the luck to be foremost in the sack of a cycle shop. The front tire of the machine he got was punctured in dragging it through the window, but he got up and off, notwithstanding, with no further injury than a cut wrist. The steep foot of Haverstock Hill was impassable owing to several overturned horses, and my brother struck into Belsize Road. So he got out of the fury of the panic, and, skirting the Edgware Road, reached Edgware about seven, fasting and wearied, but well ahead of the crowd. Along the road people were standing in the roadway, curious, wondering. He was passed by a number of cyclists, some horsemen, and two motor cars. A mile from Edgware the rim of the wheel broke, and the machine became unridable. He left it by the roadside and trudged through the village. There were shops half opened in the main street of the place, and people crowded on the pavement and in the doorways and windows, staring astonished at this extraordinary procession of fugitives that was beginning. He succeeded in getting some food at an inn. For a time he remained in Edgware not knowing what next to do. The flying people increased in number. Many of them, like my brother, seemed inclined to loiter in the place. There was no fresh news of the invaders from Mars. At that time the road was crowded, but as yet far from congested. Most of the fugitives at that hour were mounted on cycles, but there were soon motor cars, hansom cabs, and carriages hurrying along, and the dust hung in heavy clouds along the road to St. Albans. It was perhaps a vague idea of making his way to Chelmsford, where some friends of his lived, that at last induced my brother to strike into a quiet lane running eastward. Presently he came upon a stile, and, crossing it, followed a footpath northeastward. He passed near several farmhouses and some little places whose names he did not learn. He saw few fugitives until, in a grass lane towards High Barnet, he happened upon two ladies who became his fellow travellers. He came upon them just in time to save them. He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner, saw a couple of men struggling to drag them out of the little ponychaise in which they had been driving, while a third with difficulty held the frightened pony's head. One of the ladies, a short woman dressed in white, was simply screaming the other, a dark, slender figure, slashed at the man who gripped her arm with a whip she held in her disengaged hand. My brother immediately grasped the situation, shouted, and hurried towards the struggle. One of the men desisted and turned towards him, and my brother, realising from his antagonist's face that a fight was unavoidable, and being an expert boxer, went into him forthwith and sent him down against the wheel of the chaise. It was no time for pugilistic chivalry and my brother laid him quiet with a kick, and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the slender lady's arm. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the whip stung across his face, a third antagonist struck him between the eyes, and the man he held wrenched himself free and made off down the lane in the direction from which he had come. Partly stunned, he found himself facing the man who had held the horse's head, and became aware of the chaise receding from him down the lane, swaying from side to side, and with the women in it looking back. The man before him, a burly rough, tried to close, and he stopped him with a blow in the face. Then, realising that he was deserted, he dodged round and made off down the lane after the chaise, with the sturdy man close behind him, and the fugitive, who had turned now, following remotely. Suddenly he stumbled and fell his immediate pursuer went headlong, and he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of antagonists again. He would have had little chance against them had not the slender lady very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help. It seems she had had a revolver all this time, but it had been under the seat when she and her companion were attacked. She fired at six yards' distance, narrowly missing my brother. The less courageous of the robbers made off, and his companion followed him, cursing his cowardice. They both stopped in sight down the lane, where the third man lay insensible. 'Take this! said the slender lady, and she gave my brother her revolver. 'Go back to the chaise, said my brother, wiping the blood from his split lip. She turned without a wordthey were both pantingand they went back to where the lady in white struggled to hold back the frightened pony. The robbers had evidently had enough of it. When my brother looked again they were retreating. 'I'll sit here, said my brother, 'if I may and he got upon the empty front seat. The lady looked over her shoulder. 'Give me the reins, she said, and laid the whip along the pony's side. In another moment a bend in the road hid the three men from my brother's eyes. So, quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting, with a cut mouth, a bruised jaw, and bloodstained knuckles, driving along an unknown lane with these two women. He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the Martian advance. He had hurried home, roused the womentheir servant had left them two days beforepacked some provisions, put his revolver under the seatluckily for my brotherand told them to drive on to Edgware, with the idea of getting a train there. He stopped behind to tell the neighbours. He would overtake them, he said, at about half past four in the morning, and now it was nearly nine and they had seen nothing of him. They could not stop in Edgware because of the growing traffic through the place, and so they had come into this side lane. That was the story they told my brother in fragments when presently they stopped again, nearer to New Barnet. He promised to stay with them, at least until they could determine what to do, or until the missing man arrived, and professed to be an expert shot with the revolvera weapon strange to himin order to give them confidence. They made a sort of encampment by the wayside, and the pony became happy in the hedge. He told them of his own escape out of London, and all that he knew of these Martians and their ways. The sun crept higher in the sky, and after a time their talk died out and gave place to an uneasy state of anticipation. Several wayfarers came along the lane, and of these my brother gathered such news as he could. Every broken answer he had deepened his impression of the great disaster that had come on humanity, deepened his persuasion of the immediate necessity for prosecuting this flight. He urged the matter upon them. 'We have money, said the slender woman, and hesitated. Her eyes met my brother's, and her hesitation ended. 'So have I, said my brother. She explained that they had as much as thirty pounds in gold, besides a fivepound note, and suggested that with that they might get upon a train at St. Albans or New Barnet. My brother thought that was hopeless, seeing the fury of the Londoners to crowd upon the trains, and broached his own idea of striking across Essex towards Harwich and thence escaping from the country altogether. Mrs. Elphinstonethat was the name of the woman in whitewould listen to no reasoning, and kept calling upon 'George but her sisterinlaw was astonishingly quiet and deliberate, and at last agreed to my brother's suggestion. So, designing to cross the Great North Road, they went on towards Barnet, my brother leading the pony to save it as much as possible. As the sun crept up the sky the day became excessively hot, and under foot a thick, whitish sand grew burning and blinding, so that they travelled only very slowly. The hedges were grey with dust. And as they advanced towards Barnet a tumultuous murmuring grew stronger. They began to meet more people. For the most part these were staring before them, murmuring indistinct questions, jaded, haggard, unclean. One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on the ground. They heard his voice, and, looking back at him, saw one hand clutched in his hair and the other beating invisible things. His paroxysm of rage over, he went on his way without once looking back. As my brother's party went on towards the crossroads to the south of Barnet they saw a woman approaching the road across some fields on their left, carrying a child and with two other children and then passed a man in dirty black, with a thick stick in one hand and a small portmanteau in the other. Then round the corner of the lane, from between the villas that guarded it at its confluence with the high road, came a little cart drawn by a sweating black pony and driven by a sallow youth in a bowler hat, grey with dust. There were three girls, East End factory girls, and a couple of little children crowded in the cart. 'This'll tike us rahnd Edgware? asked the driver, wildeyed, whitefaced and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks. My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the houses in front of them, and veiling the white faade of a terrace beyond the road that appeared between the backs of the villas. Mrs. Elphinstone suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards from the crossroads. 'Good heavens! cried Mrs. Elphinstone. 'What is this you are driving us into? My brother stopped. For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of human beings rushing northward, one pressing on another. A great bank of dust, white and luminous in the blaze of the sun, made everything within twenty feet of the ground grey and indistinct and was perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense crowd of horses and of men and women on foot, and by the wheels of vehicles of every description. 'Way! my brother heard voices crying. 'Make way! It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting point of the lane and road the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust was hot and pungent. And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa was burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road to add to the confusion. Two men came past them. Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy bundle and weeping. A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue, circled dubiously round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my brother's threat. So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses to the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent in between the villas on either side the black heads, the crowded forms, grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust. 'Go on! Go on! cried the voices. 'Way! Way! One man's hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the pony's head. Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace, down the lane. Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a riotous tumult, but this was a whole population in movement. It is hard to imagine that host. It had no character of its own. The figures poured out past the corner, and receded with their backs to the group in the lane. Along the margin came those who were on foot threatened by the wheels, stumbling in the ditches, blundering into one another. The carts and carriages crowded close upon one another, making little way for those swifter and more impatient vehicles that darted forward every now and then when an opportunity showed itself of doing so, sending the people scattering against the fences and gates of the villas. 'Push on! was the cry. 'Push on! They are coming! In one cart stood a blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army, gesticulating with his crooked fingers and bawling, 'Eternity! Eternity! His voice was hoarse and very loud so that my brother could hear him long after he was lost to sight in the dust. Some of the people who crowded in the carts whipped stupidly at their horses and quarrelled with other drivers some sat motionless, staring at nothing with miserable eyes some gnawed their hands with thirst, or lay prostrate in the bottoms of their conveyances. The horses' bits were covered with foam, their eyes bloodshot. There were cabs, carriages, shopcarts, waggons, beyond counting a mail cart, a roadcleaner's cart marked 'Vestry of St. Pancras, a huge timber waggon crowded with roughs. A brewer's dray rumbled by with its two near wheels splashed with fresh blood. 'Clear the way! cried the voices. 'Clear the way! 'Eternity! Eternity! came echoing down the road. There were sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed, with children that cried and stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in dust, their weary faces smeared with tears. With many of these came men, sometimes helpful, sometimes lowering and savage. Fighting side by side with them pushed some weary street outcast in faded black rags, wideeyed, loudvoiced, and foulmouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shopmen, struggling spasmodically a wounded soldier my brother noticed, men dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one wretched creature in a nightshirt with a coat thrown over it. But varied as its composition was, certain things all that host had in common. There were fear and pain on their faces, and fear behind them. A tumult up the road, a quarrel for a place in a waggon, sent the whole host of them quickening their pace even a man so scared and broken that his knees bent under him was galvanised for a moment into renewed activity. The heat and dust had already been at work upon this multitude. Their skins were dry, their lips black and cracked. They were all thirsty, weary, and footsore. And amid the various cries one heard disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue the voices of most of them were hoarse and weak. Through it all ran a refrain 'Way! Way! The Martians are coming! Few stopped and came aside from that flood. The lane opened slantingly into the main road with a narrow opening, and had a delusive appearance of coming from the direction of London. Yet a kind of eddy of people drove into its mouth weaklings elbowed out of the stream, who for the most part rested but a moment before plunging into it again. A little way down the lane, with two friends bending over him, lay a man with a bare leg, wrapped about with bloody rags. He was a lucky man to have friends. A little old man, with a grey military moustache and a filthy black frock coat, limped out and sat down beside the trap, removed his boothis sock was bloodstainedshook out a pebble, and hobbled on again and then a little girl of eight or nine, all alone, threw herself under the hedge close by my brother, weeping. 'I can't go on! I can't go on! My brother woke from his torpor of astonishment and lifted her up, speaking gently to her, and carried her to Miss Elphinstone. So soon as my brother touched her she became quite still, as if frightened. 'Ellen! shrieked a woman in the crowd, with tears in her voice'Ellen! And the child suddenly darted away from my brother, crying 'Mother! 'They are coming, said a man on horseback, riding past along the lane. 'Out of the way, there! bawled a coachman, towering high and my brother saw a closed carriage turning into the lane. The people crushed back on one another to avoid the horse. My brother pushed the pony and chaise back into the hedge, and the man drove by and stopped at the turn of the way. It was a carriage, with a pole for a pair of horses, but only one was in the traces. My brother saw dimly through the dust that two men lifted out something on a white stretcher and put it gently on the grass beneath the privet hedge. One of the men came running to my brother. 'Where is there any water? he said. 'He is dying fast, and very thirsty. It is Lord Garrick. 'Lord Garrick! said my brother 'the Chief Justice? 'The water? he said. 'There may be a tap, said my brother, 'in some of the houses. We have no water. I dare not leave my people. The man pushed against the crowd towards the gate of the corner house. 'Go on! said the people, thrusting at him. 'They are coming! Go on! Then my brother's attention was distracted by a bearded, eaglefaced man lugging a small handbag, which split even as my brother's eyes rested on it and disgorged a mass of sovereigns that seemed to break up into separate coins as it struck the ground. They rolled hither and thither among the struggling feet of men and horses. The man stopped and looked stupidly at the heap, and the shaft of a cab struck his shoulder and sent him reeling. He gave a shriek and dodged back, and a cartwheel shaved him narrowly. 'Way! cried the men all about him. 'Make way! So soon as the cab had passed, he flung himself, with both hands open, upon the heap of coins, and began thrusting handfuls in his pocket. A horse rose close upon him, and in another moment, half rising, he had been borne down under the horse's hoofs. 'Stop! screamed my brother, and pushing a woman out of his way, tried to clutch the bit of the horse. Before he could get to it, he heard a scream under the wheels, and saw through the dust the rim passing over the poor wretch's back. The driver of the cart slashed his whip at my brother, who ran round behind the cart. The multitudinous shouting confused his ears. The man was writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to rise, for the wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay limp and dead. My brother stood up and yelled at the next driver, and a man on a black horse came to his assistance. 'Get him out of the road, said he and, clutching the man's collar with his free hand, my brother lugged him sideways. But he still clutched after his money, and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering at his arm with a handful of gold. 'Go on! Go on! shouted angry voices behind. 'Way! Way! There was a smash as the pole of a carriage crashed into the cart that the man on horseback stopped. My brother looked up, and the man with the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist that held his collar. There was a concussion, and the black horse came staggering sideways, and the carthorse pushed beside it. A hoof missed my brother's foot by a hair's breadth. He released his grip on the fallen man and jumped back. He saw anger change to terror on the face of the poor wretch on the ground, and in a moment he was hidden and my brother was borne backward and carried past the entrance of the lane, and had to fight hard in the torrent to recover it. He saw Miss Elphinstone covering her eyes, and a little child, with all a child's want of sympathetic imagination, staring with dilated eyes at a dusty something that lay black and still, ground and crushed under the rolling wheels. 'Let us go back! he shouted, and began turning the pony round. 'We cannot cross thishell, he said and they went back a hundred yards the way they had come, until the fighting crowd was hidden. As they passed the bend in the lane my brother saw the face of the dying man in the ditch under the privet, deadly white and drawn, and shining with perspiration. The two women sat silent, crouching in their seat and shivering. Then beyond the bend my brother stopped again. Miss Elphinstone was white and pale, and her sisterinlaw sat weeping, too wretched even to call upon 'George. My brother was horrified and perplexed. So soon as they had retreated he realised how urgent and unavoidable it was to attempt this crossing. He turned to Miss Elphinstone, suddenly resolute. 'We must go that way, he said, and led the pony round again. For the second time that day this girl proved her quality. To force their way into the torrent of people, my brother plunged into the traffic and held back a cab horse, while she drove the pony across its head. A waggon locked wheels for a moment and ripped a long splinter from the chaise. In another moment they were caught and swept forward by the stream. My brother, with the cabman's whip marks red across his face and hands, scrambled into the chaise and took the reins from her. 'Point the revolver at the man behind, he said, giving it to her, 'if he presses us too hard. No!point it at his horse. Then he began to look out for a chance of edging to the right across the road. But once in the stream he seemed to lose volition, to become a part of that dusty rout. They swept through Chipping Barnet with the torrent they were nearly a mile beyond the centre of the town before they had fought across to the opposite side of the way. It was din and confusion indescribable but in and beyond the town the road forks repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the stress. They struck eastward through Hadley, and there on either side of the road, and at another place farther on they came upon a great multitude of people drinking at the stream, some fighting to come at the water. And farther on, from a lull near East Barnet, they saw two trains running slowly one after the other without signal or ordertrains swarming with people, with men even among the coals behind the enginesgoing northward along the Great Northern Railway. My brother supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that time the furious terror of the people had rendered the central termini impossible. Near this place they halted for the rest of the afternoon, for the violence of the day had already utterly exhausted all three of them. They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger the night was cold, and none of them dared to sleep. And in the evening many people came hurrying along the road nearby their stopping place, fleeing from unknown dangers before them, and going in the direction from which my brother had come. Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have annihilated the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly through the home counties. Not only along the road through Barnet, but also through Edgware and Waltham Abbey, and along the roads eastward to Southend and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames to Deal and Broadstairs, poured the same frantic rout. If one could have hung that June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue above London every northward and eastward road running out of the tangled maze of streets would have seemed stippled black with the streaming fugitives, each dot a human agony of terror and physical distress. I have set forth at length in the last chapter my brother's account of the road through Chipping Barnet, in order that my readers may realise how that swarming of black dots appeared to one of those concerned. Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. The legendary hosts of Goths and Huns, the hugest armies Asia has ever seen, would have been but a drop in that current. And this was no disciplined march it was a stampedea stampede gigantic and terriblewithout order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind. Directly below him the balloonist would have seen the network of streets far and wide, houses, churches, squares, crescents, gardensalready derelictspread out like a huge map, and in the southward blotted. Over Ealing, Richmond, Wimbledon, it would have seemed as if some monstrous pen had flung ink upon the chart. Steadily, incessantly, each black splash grew and spread, shooting out ramifications this way and that, now banking itself against rising ground, now pouring swiftly over a crest into a newfound valley, exactly as a gout of ink would spread itself upon blotting paper. And beyond, over the blue hills that rise southward of the river, the glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and methodically spreading their poison cloud over this patch of country and then over that, laying it again with their steam jets when it had served its purpose, and taking possession of the conquered country. They do not seem to have aimed at extermination so much as at complete demoralisation and the destruction of any opposition. They exploded any stores of powder they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked the railways here and there. They were hamstringing mankind. They seemed in no hurry to extend the field of their operations, and did not come beyond the central part of London all that day. It is possible that a very considerable number of people in London stuck to their houses through Monday morning. Certain it is that many died at home suffocated by the Black Smoke. Until about midday the Pool of London was an astonishing scene. Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the enormous sums of money offered by fugitives, and it is said that many who swam out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and drowned. About one o'clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a cloud of the black vapour appeared between the arches of Blackfriars Bridge. At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront. People were actually clambering down the piers of the bridge from above. When, an hour later, a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and waded down the river, nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse. Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell. The sixth star fell at Wimbledon. My brother, keeping watch beside the women in the chaise in a meadow, saw the green flash of it far beyond the hills. On Tuesday the little party, still set upon getting across the sea, made its way through the swarming country towards Colchester. The news that the Martians were now in possession of the whole of London was confirmed. They had been seen at Highgate, and even, it was said, at Neasden. But they did not come into my brother's view until the morrow. That day the scattered multitudes began to realise the urgent need of provisions. As they grew hungry the rights of property ceased to be regarded. Farmers were out to defend their cattlesheds, granaries, and ripening root crops with arms in their hands. A number of people now, like my brother, had their faces eastward, and there were some desperate souls even going back towards London to get food. These were chiefly people from the northern suburbs, whose knowledge of the Black Smoke came by hearsay. He heard that about half the members of the government had gathered at Birmingham, and that enormous quantities of high explosives were being prepared to be used in automatic mines across the Midland counties. He was also told that the Midland Railway Company had replaced the desertions of the first day's panic, had resumed traffic, and was running northward trains from St. Albans to relieve the congestion of the home counties. There was also a placard in Chipping Ongar announcing that large stores of flour were available in the northern towns and that within twentyfour hours bread would be distributed among the starving people in the neighbourhood. But this intelligence did not deter him from the plan of escape he had formed, and the three pressed eastward all day, and heard no more of the bread distribution than this promise. Nor, as a matter of fact, did anyone else hear more of it. That night fell the seventh star, falling upon Primrose Hill. It fell while Miss Elphinstone was watching, for she took that duty alternately with my brother. She saw it. On Wednesday the three fugitivesthey had passed the night in a field of unripe wheatreached Chelmsford, and there a body of the inhabitants, calling itself the Committee of Public Supply, seized the pony as provisions, and would give nothing in exchange for it but the promise of a share in it the next day. Here there were rumours of Martians at Epping, and news of the destruction of Waltham Abbey Powder Mills in a vain attempt to blow up one of the invaders. People were watching for Martians here from the church towers. My brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at once to the coast rather than wait for food, although all three of them were very hungry. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which, strangely enough, seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save for a few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they suddenly came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all sorts that it is possible to imagine. For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came on to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and afterwards to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people. They lay in a huge sickleshaped curve that vanished into mist at last towards the Naze. Close inshore was a multitude of fishing smacksEnglish, Scotch, French, Dutch, and Swedish steam launches from the Thames, yachts, electric boats and beyond were ships of larger burden, a multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships, passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white transport even, neat white and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg and along the blue coast across the Blackwater my brother could make out dimly a dense swarm of boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which also extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon. About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a waterlogged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child. It was the only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the seafor that day there was a dead calmlay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it. At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the assurances of her sisterinlaw, gave way to panic. She had never been out of England before, she would rather die than trust herself friendless in a foreign country, and so forth. She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar. She had been growing increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed during the two days' journeyings. Her great idea was to return to Stanmore. Things had been always well and safe at Stanmore. They would find George at Stanmore.... It was with the greatest difficulty they could get her down to the beach, where presently my brother succeeded in attracting the attention of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames. They sent a boat and drove a bargain for thirtysix pounds for the three. The steamer was going, these men said, to Ostend. It was about two o'clock when my brother, having paid their fares at the gangway, found himself safely aboard the steamboat with his charges. There was food aboard, albeit at exorbitant prices, and the three of them contrived to eat a meal on one of the seats forward. There were already a couple of score of passengers aboard, some of whom had expended their last money in securing a passage, but the captain lay off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, picking up passengers until the seated decks were even dangerously crowded. He would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of guns that began about that hour in the south. As if in answer, the ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of flags. A jet of smoke sprang out of her funnels. Some of the passengers were of opinion that this firing came from Shoeburyness, until it was noticed that it was growing louder. At the same time, far away in the southeast the masts and upperworks of three ironclads rose one after the other out of the sea, beneath clouds of black smoke. But my brother's attention speedily reverted to the distant firing in the south. He fancied he saw a column of smoke rising out of the distant grey haze. The little steamer was already flapping her way eastward of the big crescent of shipping, and the low Essex coast was growing blue and hazy, when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the remote distance, advancing along the muddy coast from the direction of Foulness. At that the captain on the bridge swore at the top of his voice with fear and anger at his own delay, and the paddles seemed infected with his terror. Every soul aboard stood at the bulwarks or on the seats of the steamer and stared at that distant shape, higher than the trees or church towers inland, and advancing with a leisurely parody of a human stride. It was the first Martian my brother had seen, and he stood, more amazed than terrified, watching this Titan advancing deliberately towards the shipping, wading farther and farther into the water as the coast fell away. Then, far away beyond the Crouch, came another, striding over some stunted trees, and then yet another, still farther off, wading deeply through a shiny mudflat that seemed to hang halfway up between sea and sky. They were all stalking seaward, as if to intercept the escape of the multitudinous vessels that were crowded between Foulness and the Naze. In spite of the throbbing exertions of the engines of the little paddleboat, and the pouring foam that her wheels flung behind her, she receded with terrifying slowness from this ominous advance. Glancing northwestward, my brother saw the large crescent of shipping already writhing with the approaching terror one ship passing behind another, another coming round from broadside to end on, steamships whistling and giving off volumes of steam, sails being let out, launches rushing hither and thither. He was so fascinated by this and by the creeping danger away to the left that he had no eyes for anything seaward. And then a swift movement of the steamboat (she had suddenly come round to avoid being run down) flung him headlong from the seat upon which he was standing. There was a shouting all about him, a trampling of feet, and a cheer that seemed to be answered faintly. The steamboat lurched and rolled him over upon his hands. He sprang to his feet and saw to starboard, and not a hundred yards from their heeling, pitching boat, a vast iron bulk like the blade of a plough tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge waves of foam that leaped towards the steamer, flinging her paddles helplessly in the air, and then sucking her deck down almost to the waterline. A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were clear again he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward. Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping. Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the giant was even such another as themselves. The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her to the bottom forthwith with the HeatRay. She was steaming at such a pace that in a minute she seemed halfway between the steamboat and the Martiansa diminishing black bulk against the receding horizontal expanse of the Essex coast. Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians. They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the cameralike generator of the HeatRay. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship's side like a whitehot iron rod through paper. A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the other, and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer, ricocheted towards the other flying ships to the north, and smashed a smack to matchwood. But no one heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian's collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer's stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and funnels spouting fire. She was alive still the steering gear, it seems, was intact and her engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was within a hundred yards of him when the HeatRay came to bear. Then with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of cardboard. My brother shouted involuntarily. A boiling tumult of steam hid everything again. 'Two! yelled the captain. Everyone was shouting. The whole steamer from end to end rang with frantic cheering that was taken up first by one and then by all in the crowding multitude of ships and boats that was driving out to sea. The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third Martian and the coast altogether. And all this time the boat was paddling steadily out to sea and away from the fight and when at last the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened, and nothing of the Thunder Child could be made out, nor could the third Martian be seen. But the ironclads to seaward were now quite close and standing in towards shore past the steamboat. The little vessel continued to beat its way seaward, and the ironclads receded slowly towards the coast, which was hidden still by a marbled bank of vapour, part steam, part black gas, eddying and combining in the strangest way. The fleet of refugees was scattering to the northeast several smacks were sailing between the ironclads and the steamboat. After a time, and before they reached the sinking cloud bank, the warships turned northward, and then abruptly went about and passed into the thickening haze of evening southward. The coast grew faint, and at last indistinguishable amid the low banks of clouds that were gathering about the sinking sun. Then suddenly out of the golden haze of the sunset came the vibration of guns, and a form of black shadows moving. Everyone struggled to the rail of the steamer and peered into the blinding furnace of the west, but nothing was to be distinguished clearly. A mass of smoke rose slanting and barred the face of the sun. The steamboat throbbed on its way through an interminable suspense. The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed up into the sky out of the greynessrushed slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western sky something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the land. In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two chapters I and the curate have been lurking in the empty house at Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke. There I will resume. We stopped there all Sunday night and all the next daythe day of the panicin a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black Smoke from the rest of the world. We could do nothing but wait in aching inactivity during those two weary days. My mind was occupied by anxiety for my wife. I figured her at Leatherhead, terrified, in danger, mourning me already as a dead man. I paced the rooms and cried aloud when I thought of how I was cut off from her, of all that might happen to her in my absence. My cousin I knew was brave enough for any emergency, but he was not the sort of man to realise danger quickly, to rise promptly. What was needed now was not bravery, but circumspection. My only consolation was to believe that the Martians were moving Londonward and away from her. Such vague anxieties keep the mind sensitive and painful. I grew very weary and irritable with the curate's perpetual ejaculations I tired of the sight of his selfish despair. After some ineffectual remonstrance I kept away from him, staying in a roomevidently a children's schoolroomcontaining globes, forms, and copybooks. When he followed me thither, I went to a box room at the top of the house and, in order to be alone with my aching miseries, locked myself in. We were hopelessly hemmed in by the Black Smoke all that day and the morning of the next. There were signs of people in the next house on Sunday eveninga face at a window and moving lights, and later the slamming of a door. But I do not know who these people were, nor what became of them. We saw nothing of them next day. The Black Smoke drifted slowly riverward all through Monday morning, creeping nearer and nearer to us, driving at last along the roadway outside the house that hid us. A Martian came across the fields about midday, laying the stuff with a jet of superheated steam that hissed against the walls, smashed all the windows it touched, and scalded the curate's hand as he fled out of the front room. When at last we crept across the sodden rooms and looked out again, the country northward was as though a black snowstorm had passed over it. Looking towards the river, we were astonished to see an unaccountable redness mingling with the black of the scorched meadows. For a time we did not see how this change affected our position, save that we were relieved of our fear of the Black Smoke. But later I perceived that we were no longer hemmed in, that now we might get away. So soon as I realised that the way of escape was open, my dream of action returned. But the curate was lethargic, unreasonable. 'We are safe here, he repeated 'safe here. I resolved to leave himwould that I had! Wiser now for the artilleryman's teaching, I sought out food and drink. I had found oil and rags for my burns, and I also took a hat and a flannel shirt that I found in one of the bedrooms. When it was clear to him that I meant to go alonehad reconciled myself to going alonehe suddenly roused himself to come. And all being quiet throughout the afternoon, we started about five o'clock, as I should judge, along the blackened road to Sunbury. In Sunbury, and at intervals along the road, were dead bodies lying in contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and luggage, all covered thickly with black dust. That pall of cindery powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii. We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of strange and unfamiliar appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were relieved to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating drift. We went through Bushey Park, with its deer going to and fro under the chestnuts, and some men and women hurrying in the distance towards Hampton, and so we came to Twickenham. These were the first people we saw. Away across the road the woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still afire. Twickenham was uninjured by either HeatRay or Black Smoke, and there were more people about here, though none could give us news. For the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull to shift their quarters. I have an impression that many of the houses here were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even for flight. Here too the evidence of a hasty rout was abundant along the road. I remember most vividly three smashed bicycles in a heap, pounded into the road by the wheels of subsequent carts. We crossed Richmond Bridge about half past eight. We hurried across the exposed bridge, of course, but I noticed floating down the stream a number of red masses, some many feet across. I did not know what these werethere was no time for scrutinyand I put a more horrible interpretation on them than they deserved. Here again on the Surrey side were black dust that had once been smoke, and dead bodiesa heap near the approach to the station but we had no glimpse of the Martians until we were some way towards Barnes. We saw in the blackened distance a group of three people running down a side street towards the river, but otherwise it seemed deserted. Up the hill Richmond town was burning briskly outside the town of Richmond there was no trace of the Black Smoke. Then suddenly, as we approached Kew, came a number of people running, and the upperworks of a Martian fightingmachine loomed in sight over the housetops, not a hundred yards away from us. We stood aghast at our danger, and had the Martian looked down we must immediately have perished. We were so terrified that we dared not go on, but turned aside and hid in a shed in a garden. There the curate crouched, weeping silently, and refusing to stir again. But my fixed idea of reaching Leatherhead would not let me rest, and in the twilight I ventured out again. I went through a shrubbery, and along a passage beside a big house standing in its own grounds, and so emerged upon the road towards Kew. The curate I left in the shed, but he came hurrying after me. That second start was the most foolhardy thing I ever did. For it was manifest the Martians were about us. No sooner had the curate overtaken me than we saw either the fightingmachine we had seen before or another, far away across the meadows in the direction of Kew Lodge. Four or five little black figures hurried before it across the greengrey of the field, and in a moment it was evident this Martian pursued them. In three strides he was among them, and they ran radiating from his feet in all directions. He used no HeatRay to destroy them, but picked them up one by one. Apparently he tossed them into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder. It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any other purpose than destruction with defeated humanity. We stood for a moment petrified, then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a walled garden, fell into, rather than found, a fortunate ditch, and lay there, scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were out. I suppose it was nearly eleven o'clock before we gathered courage to start again, no longer venturing into the road, but sneaking along hedgerows and through plantations, and watching keenly through the darkness, he on the right and I on the left, for the Martians, who seemed to be all about us. In one place we blundered upon a scorched and blackened area, now cooling and ashen, and a number of scattered dead bodies of men, burned horribly about the heads and trunks but with their legs and boots mostly intact and of dead horses, fifty feet, perhaps, behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun carriages. Sheen, it seemed, had escaped destruction, but the place was silent and deserted. Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion suddenly complained of faintness and thirst, and we decided to try one of the houses. The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with the window, was a small semidetached villa, and I found nothing eatable left in the place but some mouldy cheese. There was, however, water to drink and I took a hatchet, which promised to be useful in our next housebreaking. We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake. Here there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the pantry of this domicile we found a store of foodtwo loaves of bread in a pan, an uncooked steak, and the half of a ham. I give this catalogue so precisely because, as it happened, we were destined to subsist upon this store for the next fortnight. Bottled beer stood under a shelf, and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp lettuces. This pantry opened into a kind of washup kitchen, and in this was firewood there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly a dozen of burgundy, tinned soups and salmon, and two tins of biscuits. We sat in the adjacent kitchen in the darkfor we dared not strike a lightand ate bread and ham, and drank beer out of the same bottle. The curate, who was still timorous and restless, was now, oddly enough, for pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength by eating when the thing happened that was to imprison us. 'It can't be midnight yet, I said, and then came a blinding glare of vivid green light. Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly visible in green and black, and vanished again. And then followed such a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor against the oven handle and stunned. I was insensible for a long time, the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again, and he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from a cut forehead, was dabbing water over me. For some time I could not recollect what had happened. Then things came to me slowly. A bruise on my temple asserted itself. 'Are you better? asked the curate in a whisper. At last I answered him. I sat up. 'Don't move, he said. 'The floor is covered with smashed crockery from the dresser. You can't possibly move without making a noise, and I fancy they are outside. We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other breathing. Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near us, some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling sound. Outside and very near was an intermittent, metallic rattle. 'That! said the curate, when presently it happened again. 'Yes, I said. 'But what is it? 'A Martian! said the curate. I listened again. 'It was not like the HeatRay, I said, and for a time I was inclined to think one of the great fightingmachines had stumbled against the house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of Shepperton Church. Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved. And then the light filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through a triangular aperture between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in the wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for the first time. The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which flowed over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our feet. Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe. The floor was littered with smashed hardware the end of the kitchen towards the house was broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was evident the greater part of the house had collapsed. Contrasting vividly with this ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, pale green, and with a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering from the walls above the kitchen range. As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the body of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still glowing cylinder. At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly as possible out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the scullery. Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind. 'The fifth cylinder, I whispered, 'the fifth shot from Mars, has struck this house and buried us under the ruins! For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered 'God have mercy upon us! I heard him presently whimpering to himself. Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery I for my part scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint light of the kitchen door. I could just see the curate's face, a dim, oval shape, and his collar and cuffs. Outside there began a metallic hammering, then a violent hooting, and then again, after a quiet interval, a hissing like the hissing of an engine. These noises, for the most part problematical, continued intermittently, and seemed if anything to increase in number as time wore on. Presently a measured thudding and a vibration that made everything about us quiver and the vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and shivering, until our tired attention failed. . . . At last I found myself awake and very hungry. I am inclined to believe we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that awakening. My hunger was at a stride so insistent that it moved me to action. I told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way towards the pantry. He made me no answer, but so soon as I began eating the faint noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling after me. After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone. The thudding vibration continued with wearisome persistence. I whispered for the curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of the kitchen. It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the room, lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the Martians. His shoulders were hunched, so that his head was hidden from me. I could hear a number of noises almost like those in an engine shed and the place rocked with that beating thud. Through the aperture in the wall I could see the top of a tree touched with gold and the warm blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or so I remained watching the curate, and then I advanced, crouching and stepping with extreme care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor. I touched the curate's leg, and he started so violently that a mass of plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact. I gripped his arm, fearing he might cry out, and for a long time we crouched motionless. Then I turned to see how much of our rampart remained. The detachment of the plaster had left a vertical slit open in the debris, and by raising myself cautiously across a beam I was able to see out of this gap into what had been overnight a quiet suburban roadway. Vast, indeed, was the change that we beheld. The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the house we had first visited. The building had vanished, completely smashed, pulverised, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder lay now far beneath the original foundationsdeep in a hole, already vastly larger than the pit I had looked into at Woking. The earth all round it had splashed under that tremendous impact'splashed is the only wordand lay in heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved exactly like mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had collapsed backward the front portion, even on the ground floor, had been destroyed completely by a chance the kitchen and scullery had escaped, and stood buried now under soil and ruins, closed in by tons of earth on every side save towards the cylinder. Over that aspect we hung now on the very edge of the great circular pit the Martians were engaged in making. The heavy beating sound was evidently just behind us, and ever and again a bright green vapour drove up like a veil across our peephole. The cylinder was already opened in the centre of the pit, and on the farther edge of the pit, amid the smashed and gravelheaped shrubbery, one of the great fightingmachines, deserted by its occupant, stood stiff and tall against the evening sky. At first I scarcely noticed the pit and the cylinder, although it has been convenient to describe them first, on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy in the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were crawling slowly and painfully across the heaped mould near it. The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one of those complicated fabrics that have since been called handlingmachines, and the study of which has already given such an enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder. These, as it extracted them, were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface of earth behind it. Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The fightingmachines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen these structures, and have only the illimagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eyewitnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely realise that living quality. I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the fightingmachines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet would have been much better without them. At first, I say, the handlingmachine did not impress me as a machine, but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab's cerebral portion. But then I perceived the resemblance of its greybrown, shiny, leathery integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me. With that realisation my interest shifted to those other creatures, the real Martians. Already I had had a transient impression of these, and the first nausea no longer obscured my observation. Moreover, I was concealed and motionless, and under no urgency of action. They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive. They were huge round bodiesor, rather, headsabout four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrilsindeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large darkcoloured eyes, and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or bodyI scarcely know how to speak of itwas the single tight tympanic surface, since known to be anatomically an ear, though it must have been almost useless in our dense air. In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight each. These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the hands. Even as I saw these Martians for the first time they seemed to be endeavouring to raise themselves on these hands, but of course, with the increased weight of terrestrial conditions, this was impossible. There is reason to suppose that on Mars they may have progressed upon them with some facility. The internal anatomy, I may remark here, as dissection has since shown, was almost equally simple. The greater part of the structure was the brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile tentacles. Besides this were the bulky lungs, into which the mouth opened, and the heart and its vessels. The pulmonary distress caused by the denser atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only too evident in the convulsive movements of the outer skin. And this was the sum of the Martian organs. Strange as it may seem to a human being, all the complex apparatus of digestion, which makes up the bulk of our bodies, did not exist in the Martians. They were headsmerely heads. Entrails they had none. They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, and injected it into their own veins. I have myself seen this being done, as I shall mention in its place. But, squeamish as I may seem, I cannot bring myself to describe what I could not endure even to continue watching. Let it suffice to say, blood obtained from a still living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run directly by means of a little pipette into the recipient canal. . . . The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at the same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit. The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are undeniable, if one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and energy occasioned by eating and the digestive process. Our bodies are half made up of glands and tubes and organs, occupied in turning heterogeneous food into blood. The digestive processes and their reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our minds. Men go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy livers, or sound gastric glands. But the Martians were lifted above all these organic fluctuations of mood and emotion. Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment is partly explained by the nature of the remains of the victims they had brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Two or three of these seem to have been brought in each cylinder, and all were killed before earth was reached. It was just as well for them, for the mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every bone in their bodies. And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in this place certain further details which, although they were not all evident to us at the time, will enable the reader who is unacquainted with them to form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures. In three other points their physiology differed strangely from ours. Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man sleeps. Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate, that periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or no sense of fatigue, it would seem. On earth they could never have moved without effort, yet even to the last they kept in action. In twentyfour hours they did twentyfour hours of work, as even on earth is perhaps the case with the ants. In the next place, wonderful as it seems in a sexual world, the Martians were absolutely without sex, and therefore without any of the tumultuous emotions that arise from that difference among men. A young Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon earth during the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially budded off, just as young lilybulbs bud off, or like the young animals in the freshwater polyp. In man, in all the higher terrestrial animals, such a method of increase has disappeared but even on this earth it was certainly the primitive method. Among the lower animals, up even to those first cousins of the vertebrated animals, the Tunicates, the two processes occur side by side, but finally the sexual method superseded its competitor altogether. On Mars, however, just the reverse has apparently been the case. It is worthy of remark that a certain speculative writer of quasiscientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion, did forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian condition. His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December, , in a longdefunct publication, the Pall Mall Budget, and I recall a caricature of it in a preMartian periodical called Punch. He pointed outwriting in a foolish, facetious tonethat the perfection of mechanical appliances must ultimately supersede limbs the perfection of chemical devices, digestion that such organs as hair, external nose, teeth, ears, and chin were no longer essential parts of the human being, and that the tendency of natural selection would lie in the direction of their steady diminution through the coming ages. The brain alone remained a cardinal necessity. Only one other part of the body had a strong case for survival, and that was the hand, 'teacher and agent of the brain. While the rest of the body dwindled, the hands would grow larger. There is many a true word written in jest, and here in the Martians we have beyond dispute the actual accomplishment of such a suppression of the animal side of the organism by the intelligence. To me it is quite credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves, by a gradual development of brain and hands (the latter giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles at last) at the expense of the rest of the body. Without the body the brain would, of course, become a mere selfish intelligence, without any of the emotional substratum of the human being. The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. Microorganisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary science eliminated them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life. And speaking of the differences between the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may allude here to the curious suggestions of the red weed. Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant colour, is of a vivid bloodred tint. At any rate, the seeds which the Martians (intentionally or accidentally) brought with them gave rise in all cases to redcoloured growths. Only that known popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in competition with terrestrial forms. The red creeper was quite a transitory growth, and few people have seen it growing. For a time, however, the red weed grew with astonishing vigour and luxuriance. It spread up the sides of the pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment, and its cactuslike branches formed a carmine fringe to the edges of our triangular window. And afterwards I found it broadcast throughout the country, and especially wherever there was a stream of water. The Martians had what appears to have been an auditory organ, a single round drum at the back of the headbody, and eyes with a visual range not very different from ours except that, according to Philips, blue and violet were as black to them. It is commonly supposed that they communicated by sounds and tentacular gesticulations this is asserted, for instance, in the able but hastily compiled pamphlet (written evidently by someone not an eyewitness of Martian actions) to which I have already alluded, and which, so far, has been the chief source of information concerning them. Now no surviving human being saw so much of the Martians in action as I did. I take no credit to myself for an accident, but the fact is so. And I assert that I watched them closely time after time, and that I have seen four, five, and (once) six of them sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar hooting invariably preceded feeding it had no modulation, and was, I believe, in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to the suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter I am convincedas firmly as I am convinced of anythingthat the Martians interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation. And I have been convinced of this in spite of strong preconceptions. Before the Martian invasion, as an occasional reader here or there may remember, I had written with some little vehemence against the telepathic theory. The Martians wore no clothing. Their conceptions of ornament and decorum were necessarily different from ours and not only were they evidently much less sensible of changes of temperature than we are, but changes of pressure do not seem to have affected their health at all seriously. Yet though they wore no clothing, it was in the other artificial additions to their bodily resources that their great superiority over man lay. We men, with our bicycles and roadskates, our Lilienthal soaringmachines, our guns and sticks and so forth, are just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked out. They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet. And of their appliances, perhaps nothing is more wonderful to a man than the curious fact that what is the dominant feature of almost all human devices in mechanism is absentthe wheel is absent among all the things they brought to earth there is no trace or suggestion of their use of wheels. One would have at least expected it in locomotion. And in this connection it is curious to remark that even on this earth Nature has never hit upon the wheel, or has preferred other expedients to its development. And not only did the Martians either not know of (which is incredible), or abstain from, the wheel, but in their apparatus singularly little use is made of the fixed pivot or relatively fixed pivot, with circular motions thereabout confined to one plane. Almost all the joints of the machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over small but beautifully curved friction bearings. And while upon this matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic sheath these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions, which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was attained. Such quasimuscles abounded in the crablike handlingmachine which, on my first peeping out of the slit, I watched unpacking the cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians lying beyond it in the sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual tentacles, and moving feebly after their vast journey across space. While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the sunlight, and noting each strange detail of their form, the curate reminded me of his presence by pulling violently at my arm. I turned to a scowling face, and silent, eloquent lips. He wanted the slit, which permitted only one of us to peep through and so I had to forego watching them for a time while he enjoyed that privilege. When I looked again, the busy handlingmachine had already put together several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own and down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all. The arrival of a second fightingmachine drove us from our peephole into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian might see down upon us behind our barrier. At a later date we began to feel less in danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the dazzle of the sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank blackness, but at first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery in heartthrobbing retreat. Yet terrible as was the danger we incurred, the attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible. And I recall now with a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in which we were between starvation and a still more terrible death, we could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight. We would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way between eagerness and the dread of making a noise, and strike each other, and thrust and kick, within a few inches of exposure. The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought his weak tears in some way efficacious. And I would sit in the darkness unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his importunities. He ate more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed out that our only chance of life was to stop in the house until the Martians had done with their pit, that in that long patience a time might presently come when we should need food. He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals. He slept little. As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed doing it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows. That brought him to reason for a time. But he was one of those weak creatures, void of pride, timorous, anmic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves. It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame for they know what is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things, will have a wider charity. And while within we fought out our dark, dim contest of whispers, snatched food and drink, and gripping hands and blows, without, in the pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the unfamiliar routine of the Martians in the pit. Let me return to those first new experiences of mine. After a long time I ventured back to the peephole, to find that the newcomers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer than three of the fightingmachines. These last had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly manner about the cylinder. The second handlingmachine was now completed, and was busied in serving one of the novel contrivances the big machine had brought. This was a body resembling a milk can in its general form, above which oscillated a pearshaped receptacle, and from which a stream of white powder flowed into a circular basin below. The oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of the handlingmachine. With two spatulate hands the handlingmachine was digging out and flinging masses of clay into the pearshaped receptacle above, while with another arm it periodically opened a door and removed rusty and blackened clinkers from the middle part of the machine. Another steely tentacle directed the powder from the basin along a ribbed channel towards some receiver that was hidden from me by the mound of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver a little thread of green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As I looked, the handlingmachine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended, telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment before a mere blunt projection, until its end was hidden behind the mound of clay. In another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, untarnished as yet, and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit. Between sunset and starlight this dexterous machine must have made more than a hundred such bars out of the crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose steadily until it topped the side of the pit. The contrast between the swift and complex movements of these contrivances and the inert panting clumsiness of their masters was acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter were indeed the living of the two things. The curate had possession of the slit when the first men were brought to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up, listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backward, and I, fearful that we were observed, crouched in a spasm of terror. He came sliding down the rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic. His gesture suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him, and clambered up to it. At first I could see no reason for his frantic behaviour. The twilight had now come, the stars were little and faint, but the pit was illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from the aluminiummaking. The whole picture was a flickering scheme of green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows, strangely trying to the eyes. Over and through it all went the bats, heeding it not at all. The sprawling Martians were no longer to be seen, the mound of bluegreen powder had risen to cover them from sight, and a fightingmachine, with its legs contracted, crumpled, and abbreviated, stood across the corner of the pit. And then, amid the clangour of the machinery, came a drifting suspicion of human voices, that I entertained at first only to dismiss. I crouched, watching this fightingmachine closely, satisfying myself now for the first time that the hood did indeed contain a Martian. As the green flames lifted I could see the oily gleam of his integument and the brightness of his eyes. And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the little cage that hunched upon its back. Then somethingsomething struggling violentlywas lifted high against the sky, a black, vague enigma against the starlight and as this black object came down again, I saw by the green brightness that it was a man. For an instant he was clearly visible. He was a stout, ruddy, middleaged man, well dressed three days before, he must have been walking the world, a man of considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams of light on his studs and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence. And then began a shrieking and a sustained and cheerful hooting from the Martians. I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my ears, and bolted into the scullery. The curate, who had been crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion of him, and came running after me. That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of escape but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider our position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite incapable of discussion this new and culminating atrocity had robbed him of all vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to the level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I gripped myself with both hands. It grew upon my mind, once I could face the facts, that terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for absolute despair. Our chief chance lay in the possibility of the Martians making the pit nothing more than a temporary encampment. Or even if they kept it permanently, they might not consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of escape might be afforded us. I also weighed very carefully the possibility of our digging a way out in a direction away from the pit, but the chances of our emerging within sight of some sentinel fightingmachine seemed at first too great. And I should have had to do all the digging myself. The curate would certainly have failed me. It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw the lad killed. It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the Martians feed. After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall for the better part of a day. I went into the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as possible but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue. I lost heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no spirit even to move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by excavation. It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that at first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought about by their overthrow through any human effort. But on the fourth or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns. It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The Martians had taken away the excavatingmachine, and, save for a fightingmachine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a handlingmachine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them. Except for the pale glow from the handlingmachine and the bars and patches of white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for the clinking of the handlingmachine, quite still. That night was a beautiful serenity save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the sky to herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was that made me listen. Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly like the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and after a long interval six again. And that was all. It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back quickly and quietly into the scullery. In the darkness I heard the curate drinking. I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a bottle of burgundy. For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening each other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told him of my determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let him eat any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort to get at the food. I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake. All day and all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and a day, but to me it seemedit seems nowan interminable length of time. And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict. For two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of burgundy, for there was a rainwater pump from which I could get water. But neither force nor kindness availed he was indeed beyond reason. He would neither desist from his attacks on the food nor from his noisy babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I began to realise the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane. From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man. On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and nothing I could do would moderate his speech. 'It is just, O God! he would say, over and over again. 'It is just. On me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen short. There was poverty, sorrow the poor were trodden in the dust, and I held my peace. I preached acceptable follymy God, what folly!when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and called upon them to repentrepent! . . . Oppressors of the poor and needy . . . ! The wine press of God! Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld from him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to raise his voiceI prayed him not to. He perceived a hold on mehe threatened he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time that scared me but any concession would have shortened our chance of escape beyond estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance that he might not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part of the eighth and ninth daysthreats, entreaties, mingled with a torrent of halfsane and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham of God's service, such as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and began again with renewed strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist. 'Be still! I implored. He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near the copper. 'I have been still too long, he said, in a tone that must have reached the pit, 'and now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful city! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! To the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet 'Shut up! I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the Martians should hear us. 'For God's sake 'Nay, shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing likewise and extending his arms. 'Speak! The word of the Lord is upon me! In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen. 'I must bear my witness! I go! It has already been too long delayed. I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall. In a flash I was after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was halfway across the kitchen I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He went headlong forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled over him and stood panting. He lay still. Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I looked up and saw the lower surface of a handlingmachine coming slowly across the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris another limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood petrified, staring. Then I saw through a sort of glass plate near the edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large dark eyes of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of tentacle came feeling slowly through the hole. I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in the room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this way and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance. Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery. I trembled violently I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness staring at the faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening. Had the Martian seen me? What was it doing now? Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly every now and then it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a faint metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a splitring. Then a heavy bodyI knew too well whatwas dragged across the floor of the kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted, I crept to the door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright outer sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handlingmachine, scrutinizing the curate's head. I thought at once that it would infer my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him. I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the darkness, among the firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through the opening again. Then the faint metallic jingle returned. I traced it slowly feeling over the kitchen. Presently I heard it nearerin the scullery, as I judged. I thought that its length might be insufficient to reach me. I prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly across the cellar door. An age of almost intolerable suspense intervened then I heard it fumbling at the latch! It had found the door! The Martians understood doors! It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door opened. In the darkness I could just see the thinglike an elephant's trunk more than anything elsewaving towards me and touching and examining the wall, coals, wood and ceiling. It was like a black worm swaying its blind head to and fro. Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of screaming I bit my hand. For a time the tentacle was silent. I could have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click, it gripped somethingI thought it had me!and seemed to go out of the cellar again. For a minute I was not sure. Apparently it had taken a lump of coal to examine. I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which had become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate prayers for safety. Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again. Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping the furniture. While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar door and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuittins rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against the cellar door. Then silence that passed into an infinity of suspense. Had it gone? At last I decided that it had. It came into the scullery no more but I lay all the tenth day in the close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even to crawl out for the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day before I ventured so far from my security. My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty every scrap of food had gone. Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on the previous day. At that discovery I despaired for the first time. I took no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day. At first my mouth and throat were parched, and my strength ebbed sensibly. I sat about in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of despondent wretchedness. My mind ran on eating. I thought I had become deaf, for the noises of movement I had been accustomed to hear from the pit had ceased absolutely. I did not feel strong enough to crawl noiselessly to the peephole, or I would have gone there. On the twelfth day my throat was so painful that, taking the chance of alarming the Martians, I attacked the creaking rainwater pump that stood by the sink, and got a couple of glassfuls of blackened and tainted rain water. I was greatly refreshed by this, and emboldened by the fact that no enquiring tentacle followed the noise of my pumping. During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much of the curate and of the manner of his death. On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and thought disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of escape. Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death of the curate, or of sumptuous dinners but, asleep or awake, I felt a keen pain that urged me to drink again and again. The light that came into the scullery was no longer grey, but red. To my disordered imagination it seemed the colour of blood. On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in the wall, turning the halflight of the place into a crimsoncoloured obscurity. It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious, familiar sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as the snuffing and scratching of a dog. Going into the kitchen, I saw a dog's nose peering in through a break among the ruddy fronds. This greatly surprised me. At the scent of me he barked shortly. I thought if I could induce him to come into the place quietly I should be able, perhaps, to kill and eat him and in any case, it would be advisable to kill him, lest his actions attracted the attention of the Martians. I crept forward, saying 'Good dog! very softly but he suddenly withdrew his head and disappeared. I listenedI was not deafbut certainly the pit was still. I heard a sound like the flutter of a bird's wings, and a hoarse croaking, but that was all. For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but not daring to move aside the red plants that obscured it. Once or twice I heard a faint pitterpatter like the feet of the dog going hither and thither on the sand far below me, and there were more birdlike sounds, but that was all. At length, encouraged by the silence, I looked out. Except in the corner, where a multitude of crows hopped and fought over the skeletons of the dead the Martians had consumed, there was not a living thing in the pit. I stared about me, scarcely believing my eyes. All the machinery had gone. Save for the big mound of greyishblue powder in one corner, certain bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the skeletons of the killed, the place was merely an empty circular pit in the sand. Slowly I thrust myself out through the red weed, and stood upon the mound of rubble. I could see in any direction save behind me, to the north, and neither Martians nor sign of Martians were to be seen. The pit dropped sheerly from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish afforded a practicable slope to the summit of the ruins. My chance of escape had come. I began to tremble. I hesitated for some time, and then, in a gust of desperate resolution, and with a heart that throbbed violently, I scrambled to the top of the mound in which I had been buried so long. I looked about again. To the northward, too, no Martian was visible. When I had last seen this part of Sheen in the daylight it had been a straggling street of comfortable white and red houses, interspersed with abundant shady trees. Now I stood on a mound of smashed brickwork, clay, and gravel, over which spread a multitude of red cactusshaped plants, kneehigh, without a solitary terrestrial growth to dispute their footing. The trees near me were dead and brown, but further a network of red thread scaled the still living stems. The neighbouring houses had all been wrecked, but none had been burned their walls stood, sometimes to the second story, with smashed windows and shattered doors. The red weed grew tumultuously in their roofless rooms. Below me was the great pit, with the crows struggling for its refuse. A number of other birds hopped about among the ruins. Far away I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces of men there were none. The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the sweetness of the air! For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security. I had not realised what had been happening to the world, had not anticipated this startling vision of unfamiliar things. I had expected to see Sheen in ruinsI found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of another planet. For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide the fear and empire of man had passed away. But so soon as this strangeness had been realised it passed, and my dominant motive became the hunger of my long and dismal fast. In the direction away from the pit I saw, beyond a redcovered wall, a patch of garden ground unburied. This gave me a hint, and I went kneedeep, and sometimes neckdeep, in the red weed. The density of the weed gave me a reassuring sense of hiding. The wall was some six feet high, and when I attempted to clamber it I found I could not lift my feet to the crest. So I went along by the side of it, and came to a corner and a rockwork that enabled me to get to the top, and tumble into the garden I coveted. Here I found some young onions, a couple of gladiolus bulbs, and a quantity of immature carrots, all of which I secured, and, scrambling over a ruined wall, went on my way through scarlet and crimson trees towards Kewit was like walking through an avenue of gigantic blood dropspossessed with two ideas to get more food, and to limp, as soon and as far as my strength permitted, out of this accursed unearthly region of the pit. Some way farther, in a grassy place, was a group of mushrooms which also I devoured, and then I came upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow water, where meadows used to be. These fragments of nourishment served only to whet my hunger. At first I was surprised at this flood in a hot, dry summer, but afterwards I discovered that it was caused by the tropical exuberance of the red weed. Directly this extraordinary growth encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of unparalleled fecundity. Its seeds were simply poured down into the water of the Wey and Thames, and its swiftly growing and Titanic water fronds speedily choked both those rivers. At Putney, as I afterwards saw, the bridge was almost lost in a tangle of this weed, and at Richmond, too, the Thames water poured in a broad and shallow stream across the meadows of Hampton and Twickenham. As the water spread the weed followed them, until the ruined villas of the Thames valley were for a time lost in this red swamp, whose margin I explored, and much of the desolation the Martians had caused was concealed. In the end the red weed succumbed almost as quickly as it had spread. A cankering disease, due, it is believed, to the action of certain bacteria, presently seized upon it. Now by the action of natural selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting power against bacterial diseasesthey never succumb without a severe struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead. The fronds became bleached, and then shrivelled and brittle. They broke off at the least touch, and the waters that had stimulated their early growth carried their last vestiges out to sea. My first act on coming to this water was, of course, to slake my thirst. I drank a great deal of it and, moved by an impulse, gnawed some fronds of red weed but they were watery, and had a sickly, metallic taste. I found the water was sufficiently shallow for me to wade securely, although the red weed impeded my feet a little but the flood evidently got deeper towards the river, and I turned back to Mortlake. I managed to make out the road by means of occasional ruins of its villas and fences and lamps, and so presently I got out of this spate and made my way to the hill going up towards Roehampton and came out on Putney Common. Here the scenery changed from the strange and unfamiliar to the wreckage of the familiar patches of ground exhibited the devastation of a cyclone, and in a few score yards I would come upon perfectly undisturbed spaces, houses with their blinds trimly drawn and doors closed, as if they had been left for a day by the owners, or as if their inhabitants slept within. The red weed was less abundant the tall trees along the lane were free from the red creeper. I hunted for food among the trees, finding nothing, and I also raided a couple of silent houses, but they had already been broken into and ransacked. I rested for the remainder of the daylight in a shrubbery, being, in my enfeebled condition, too fatigued to push on. All this time I saw no human beings, and no signs of the Martians. I encountered a couple of hungrylooking dogs, but both hurried circuitously away from the advances I made them. Near Roehampton I had seen two human skeletonsnot bodies, but skeletons, picked cleanand in the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones of several cats and rabbits and the skull of a sheep. But though I gnawed parts of these in my mouth, there was nothing to be got from them. After sunset I struggled on along the road towards Putney, where I think the HeatRay must have been used for some reason. And in the garden beyond Roehampton I got a quantity of immature potatoes, sufficient to stay my hunger. From this garden one looked down upon Putney and the river. The aspect of the place in the dusk was singularly desolate blackened trees, blackened, desolate ruins, and down the hill the sheets of the flooded river, redtinged with the weed. And over allsilence. It filled me with indescribable terror to think how swiftly that desolating change had come. For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. Hard by the top of Putney Hill I came upon another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and removed several yards from the rest of the body. As I proceeded I became more and more convinced that the extermination of mankind was, save for such stragglers as myself, already accomplished in this part of the world. The Martians, I thought, had gone on and left the country desolated, seeking food elsewhere. Perhaps even now they were destroying Berlin or Paris, or it might be they had gone northward. I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to Leatherhead. I will not tell the needless trouble I had breaking into that houseafterwards I found the front door was on the latchnor how I ransacked every room for food, until just on the verge of despair, in what seemed to me to be a servant's bedroom, I found a ratgnawed crust and two tins of pineapple. The place had been already searched and emptied. In the bar I afterwards found some biscuits and sandwiches that had been overlooked. The latter I could not eat, they were too rotten, but the former not only stayed my hunger, but filled my pockets. I lit no lamps, fearing some Martian might come beating that part of London for food in the night. Before I went to bed I had an interval of restlessness, and prowled from window to window, peering out for some sign of these monsters. I slept little. As I lay in bed I found myself thinking consecutivelya thing I do not remember to have done since my last argument with the curate. During all the intervening time my mental condition had been a hurrying succession of vague emotional states or a sort of stupid receptivity. But in the night my brain, reinforced, I suppose, by the food I had eaten, grew clear again, and I thought. Three things struggled for possession of my mind the killing of the curate, the whereabouts of the Martians, and the possible fate of my wife. The former gave me no sensation of horror or remorse to recall I saw it simply as a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but quite without the quality of remorse. I saw myself then as I see myself now, driven step by step towards that hasty blow, the creature of a sequence of accidents leading inevitably to that. I felt no condemnation yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted me. In the silence of the night, with that sense of the nearness of God that sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood my trial, my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear. I retraced every step of our conversation from the moment when I had found him crouching beside me, heedless of my thirst, and pointing to the fire and smoke that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge. We had been incapable of cooperationgrim chance had taken no heed of that. Had I foreseen, I should have left him at Halliford. But I did not foresee and crime is to foresee and do. And I set this down as I have set all this story down, as it was. There were no witnessesall these things I might have concealed. But I set it down, and the reader must form his judgment as he will. And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate body, I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife. For the former I had no data I could imagine a hundred things, and so, unhappily, I could for the latter. And suddenly that night became terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. I found myself praying that the HeatRay might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity but now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding placea creature scarcely larger, an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pitypity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion. The morning was bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink, and was fretted with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from the top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of the panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night after the fighting began. There was a little twowheeled cart inscribed with the name of Thomas Lobb, Greengrocer, New Malden, with a smashed wheel and an abandoned tin trunk there was a straw hat trampled into the now hardened mud, and at the top of West Hill a lot of bloodstained glass about the overturned water trough. My movements were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I had an idea of going to Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the poorest chance of finding my wife. Certainly, unless death had overtaken them suddenly, my cousins and she would have fled thence but it seemed to me I might find or learn there whither the Surrey people had fled. I knew I wanted to find my wife, that my heart ached for her and the world of men, but I had no clear idea how the finding might be done. I was also sharply aware now of my intense loneliness. From the corner I went, under cover of a thicket of trees and bushes, to the edge of Wimbledon Common, stretching wide and far. That dark expanse was lit in patches by yellow gorse and broom there was no red weed to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating, on the verge of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all with light and vitality. I came upon a busy swarm of little frogs in a swampy place among the trees. I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from their stout resolve to live. And presently, turning suddenly, with an odd feeling of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a clump of bushes. I stood regarding this. I made a step towards it, and it rose up and became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached him slowly. He stood silent and motionless, regarding me. As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and filthy as my own he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged through a culvert. Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him. There was a red cut across the lower part of his face. 'Stop! he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I stopped. His voice was hoarse. 'Where do you come from? he said. I thought, surveying him. 'I come from Mortlake, I said. 'I was buried near the pit the Martians made about their cylinder. I have worked my way out and escaped. 'There is no food about here, he said. 'This is my country. All this hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge of the common. There is only food for one. Which way are you going? I answered slowly. 'I don't know, I said. 'I have been buried in the ruins of a house thirteen or fourteen days. I don't know what has happened. He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed expression. 'I've no wish to stop about here, said I. 'I think I shall go to Leatherhead, for my wife was there. He shot out a pointing finger. 'It is you, said he 'the man from Woking. And you weren't killed at Weybridge? I recognised him at the same moment. 'You are the artilleryman who came into my garden. 'Good luck! he said. 'We are lucky ones! Fancy you! He put out a hand, and I took it. 'I crawled up a drain, he said. 'But they didn't kill everyone. And after they went away I got off towards Walton across the fields. But It's not sixteen days altogetherand your hair is grey. He looked over his shoulder suddenly. 'Only a rook, he said. 'One gets to know that birds have shadows these days. This is a bit open. Let us crawl under those bushes and talk. 'Have you seen any Martians? I said. 'Since I crawled out 'They've gone away across London, he said. 'I guess they've got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It's like a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving. By daylight you can't. But nearerI haven't seen them (he counted on his fingers) 'five days. Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night before lasthe stopped and spoke impressively'it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they've built a flyingmachine, and are learning to fly. I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes. 'Fly! 'Yes, he said, 'fly. I went on into a little bower, and sat down. 'It is all over with humanity, I said. 'If they can do that they will simply go round the world. He nodded. 'They will. But It will relieve things over here a bit. And besides He looked at me. 'Aren't you satisfied it is up with humanity? I am. We're down we're beat. I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this facta fact perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a vague hope rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated his words, 'We're beat. They carried absolute conviction. 'It's all over, he said. 'They've lost onejust one. And they've made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world. They've walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These green starsI've seen none these five or six days, but I've no doubt they're falling somewhere every night. Nothing's to be done. We're under! We're beat! I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to devise some countervailing thought. 'This isn't a war, said the artilleryman. 'It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants. Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory. 'After the tenth shot they fired no moreat least, until the first cylinder came. 'How do you know? said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought. 'Something wrong with the gun, he said. 'But what if there is? They'll get it right again. And even if there's a delay, how can it alter the end? It's just men and ants. There's the ants builds their cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the way, and then they go out of the way. That's what we are nowjust ants. Only 'Yes, I said. 'We're eatable ants. We sat looking at each other. 'And what will they do with us? I said. 'That's what I've been thinking, he said 'that's what I've been thinking. After Weybridge I went souththinking. I saw what was up. Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or twice I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, deathit's just death. And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, 'Food won't last this way,' and I turned right back. I went for the Martians like a sparrow goes for man. All roundhe waved a hand to the horizon'they're starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other. . . . He saw my face, and halted awkwardly. 'No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France, he said. He seemed to hesitate whether to apologise, met my eyes, and went on 'There's food all about here. Canned things in shops wines, spirits, mineral waters and the water mains and drains are empty. Well, I was telling you what I was thinking. 'Here's intelligent things,' I said, 'and it seems they want us for food. First, they'll smash us upships, machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation. All that will go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we're not. It's all too bulky to stop. That's the first certainty.' Eh? I assented. 'It is I've thought it out. Very well, thennext at present we're caught as we're wanted. A Martian has only to go a few miles to get a crowd on the run. And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth, picking houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage. But they won't keep on doing that. So soon as they've settled all our guns and ships, and smashed our railways, and done all the things they are doing over there, they will begin catching us systematic, picking the best and storing us in cages and things. That's what they will start doing in a bit. Lord! They haven't begun on us yet. Don't you see that? 'Not begun! I exclaimed. 'Not begun. All that's happened so far is through our not having the sense to keep quietworrying them with guns and such foolery. And losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn't any more safety than where we were. They don't want to bother us yet. They're making their thingsmaking all the things they couldn't bring with them, getting things ready for the rest of their people. Very likely that's why the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of hitting those who are here. And instead of our rushing about blind, on the howl, or getting dynamite on the chance of busting them up, we've got to fix ourselves up according to the new state of affairs. That's how I figure it out. It isn't quite according to what a man wants for his species, but it's about what the facts point to. And that's the principle I acted upon. Cities, nations, civilisation, progressit's all over. That game's up. We're beat. 'But if that is so, what is there to live for? The artilleryman looked at me for a moment. 'There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at restaurants. If it's amusement you're after, I reckon the game is up. If you've got any drawingroom manners or a dislike to eating peas with a knife or dropping aitches, you'd better chuck 'em away. They ain't no further use. 'You mean 'I mean that men like me are going on livingfor the sake of the breed. I tell you, I'm grim set on living. And if I'm not mistaken, you'll show what insides you've got, too, before long. We aren't going to be exterminated. And I don't mean to be caught either, and tamed and fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh! Fancy those brown creepers! 'You don't mean to say 'I do. I'm going on, under their feet. I've got it planned I've thought it out. We men are beat. We don't know enough. We've got to learn before we've got a chance. And we've got to live and keep independent while we learn. See! That's what has to be done. I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man's resolution. 'Great God! cried I. 'But you are a man indeed! And suddenly I gripped his hand. 'Eh! he said, with his eyes shining. 'I've thought it out, eh? 'Go on, I said. 'Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I'm getting ready. Mind you, it isn't all of us that are made for wild beasts and that's what it's got to be. That's why I watched you. I had my doubts. You're slender. I didn't know that it was you, you see, or just how you'd been buried. All thesethe sort of people that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down that waythey'd be no good. They haven't any spirit in themno proud dreams and no proud lusts and a man who hasn't one or the otherLord! What is he but funk and precautions? They just used to skedaddle off to workI've seen hundreds of 'em, bit of breakfast in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little seasonticket train, for fear they'd get dismissed if they didn't working at businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand skedaddling back for fear they wouldn't be in time for dinner keeping indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little miserable skedaddle through the world. Lives insured and a bit invested for fear of accidents. And on Sundaysfear of the hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, the Martians will just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful. They'll be quite glad after a bit. They'll wonder what people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and mashers, and singersI can imagine them. I can imagine them, he said, with a sort of sombre gratification. 'There'll be any amount of sentiment and religion loose among them. There's hundreds of things I saw with my eyes that I've only begun to see clearly these last few days. There's lots will take things as they arefat and stupid and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it's all wrong, and that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make for a sort of donothing religion, very pious and superior, and submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you've seen the same thing. It's energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And those of a less simple sort will work in a bit ofwhat is it?eroticism. He paused. 'Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them train them to do trickswho knows?get sentimental over the pet boy who grew up and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to hunt us. 'No, I cried, 'that's impossible! No human being 'What's the good of going on with such lies? said the artilleryman. 'There's men who'd do it cheerful. What nonsense to pretend there isn't! And I succumbed to his conviction. 'If they come after me, he said 'Lord, if they come after me! and subsided into a grim meditation. I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring against this man's reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one would have questioned my intellectual superiority to hisI, a professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier and yet he had already formulated a situation that I had scarcely realised. 'What are you doing? I said presently. 'What plans have you made? He hesitated. 'Well, it's like this, he said. 'What have we to do? We have to invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yeswait a bit, and I'll make it clearer what I think ought to be done. The tame ones will go like all tame beasts in a few generations they'll be big, beautiful, richblooded, stupidrubbish! The risk is that we who keep wild will go savagedegenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . . You see, how I mean to live is underground. I've been thinking about the drains. Of course those who don't know drains think horrible things but under this London are miles and mileshundreds of milesand a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then there's cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a bandablebodied, cleanminded men. We're not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out again. 'As you meant me to go? 'WellI parleyed, didn't I? 'We won't quarrel about that. Go on. 'Those who stop obey orders. Ablebodied, cleanminded women we want alsomothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladiesno blasted rolling eyes. We can't have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race. And they can't be happy. Moreover, dying's none so dreadful it's the funking makes it bad. And in all those places we shall gather. Our district will be London. And we may even be able to keep a watch, and run about in the open when the Martians keep away. Play cricket, perhaps. That's how we shall save the race. Eh? It's a possible thing? But saving the race is nothing in itself. As I say, that's only being rats. It's saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men like you come in. There's books, there's models. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books we can not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science books. That's where men like you come in. We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through. Especially we must keep up our sciencelearn more. We must watch these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When it's all working, perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great thing is, we must leave the Martians alone. We mustn't even steal. If we get in their way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. Yes, I know. But they're intelligent things, and they won't hunt us down if they have all they want, and think we're just harmless vermin. The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm. 'After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn beforeJust imagine this four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting offHeatRays right and left, and not a Martian in 'em. Not a Martian in 'em, but menmen who have learned the way how. It may be in my time, eventhose men. Fancy having one of them lovely things, with its HeatRay wide and free! Fancy having it in control! What would it matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martians'll open their beautiful eyes! Can't you see them, man? Can't you see them hurrying, hurryingpuffing and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs? Something out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! Just as they are fumbling over it, swish comes the HeatRay, and, behold! man has come back to his own. For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension. We talked in this manner through the early morning time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week uponit was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney HillI had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day. But I believed in him sufficiently to work with him all that morning until past midday at his digging. We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed against the kitchen range. We refreshed ourselves with a tin of mockturtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. I found a curious relief from the aching strangeness of the world in this steady labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in my mind, and presently objections and doubts began to arise but I worked there all the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a purpose again. After working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go before the cloaca was reached, the chances we had of missing it altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at once down one of the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to me, too, that the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a needless length of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these things, the artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me. 'We're working well, he said. He put down his spade. 'Let us knock off a bit he said. 'I think it's time we reconnoitred from the roof of the house. I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his spade and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so did he at once. 'Why were you walking about the common, I said, 'instead of being here? 'Taking the air, he said. 'I was coming back. It's safer by night. 'But the work? 'Oh, one can't always work, he said, and in a flash I saw the man plain. He hesitated, holding his spade. 'We ought to reconnoitre now, he said, 'because if any come near they may hear the spades and drop upon us unawares. I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof and stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to be seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under shelter of the parapet. From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the low parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters. It was strange how entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for their propagation. About us neither had gained a footing laburnums, pink mays, snowballs, and trees of arborvitae, rose out of laurels and hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond Kensington dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the northward hills. The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still remained in London. 'One night last week, he said, 'some fools got the electric light in order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze, crowded with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting till dawn. A man who was there told me. And as the day came they became aware of a fightingmachine standing near by the Langham and looking down at them. Heaven knows how long he had been there. It must have given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road towards them, and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened to run away. Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe! From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his grandiose plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently of the possibility of capturing a fightingmachine that I more than half believed in him again. But now that I was beginning to understand something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid on doing nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no question that he personally was to capture and fight the great machine. After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed disposed to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was nothing loath. He became suddenly very generous, and when we had eaten he went away and returned with some excellent cigars. We lit these, and his optimism glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming as a great occasion. 'There's some champagne in the cellar, he said. 'We can dig better on this Thamesside burgundy, said I. 'No, said he 'I am host today. Champagne! Great God! We've a heavy enough task before us! Let us take a rest and gather strength while we may. Look at these blistered hands! And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing cards after we had eaten. He taught me euchre, and after dividing London between us, I taking the northern side and he the southern, we played for parish points. Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to the sober reader, it is absolutely true, and what is more remarkable, I found the card game and several others we played extremely interesting. Strange mind of man! that, with our species upon the edge of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the 'joker with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit a lamp. After an interminable string of games, we supped, and the artilleryman finished the champagne. We went on smoking the cigars. He was no longer the energetic regenerator of his species I had encountered in the morning. He was still optimistic, but it was a less kinetic, a more thoughtful optimism. I remember he wound up with my health, proposed in a speech of small variety and considerable intermittence. I took a cigar, and went upstairs to look at the lights of which he had spoken that blazed so greenly along the Highgate hills. At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley. The northern hills were shrouded in darkness the fires near Kensington glowed redly, and now and then an orangered tongue of flame flashed up and vanished in the deep blue night. All the rest of London was black. Then, nearer, I perceived a strange light, a pale, violetpurple fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze. For a space I could not understand it, and then I knew that it must be the red weed from which this faint irradiation proceeded. With that realisation my dormant sense of wonder, my sense of the proportion of things, awoke again. I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear, glowing high in the west, and then gazed long and earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead and Highgate. I remained a very long time upon the roof, wondering at the grotesque changes of the day. I recalled my mental states from the midnight prayer to the foolish cardplaying. I had a violent revulsion of feeling. I remember I flung away the cigar with a certain wasteful symbolism. My folly came to me with glaring exaggeration. I seemed a traitor to my wife and to my kind I was filled with remorse. I resolved to leave this strange undisciplined dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony, and to go on into London. There, it seemed to me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my fellowmen were doing. I was still upon the roof when the late moon rose. After I had parted from the artilleryman, I went down the hill, and by the High Street across the bridge to Fulham. The red weed was tumultuous at that time, and nearly choked the bridge roadway but its fronds were already whitened in patches by the spreading disease that presently removed it so swiftly. At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge station I found a man lying. He was as black as a sweep with the black dust, alive, but helplessly and speechlessly drunk. I could get nothing from him but curses and furious lunges at my head. I think I should have stayed by him but for the brutal expression of his face. There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards, and it grew thicker in Fulham. The streets were horribly quiet. I got foodsour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatablein a baker's shop here. Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of powder, and I passed a white terrace of houses on fire the noise of the burning was an absolute relief. Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet again. Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies. I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham Road. They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly past them. The black powder covered them over, and softened their outlines. One or two had been disturbed by dogs. Where there was no black powder, it was curiously like a Sunday in the City, with the closed shops, the houses locked up and the blinds drawn, the desertion, and the stillness. In some places plunderers had been at work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine shops. A jeweller's window had been broken open in one place, but apparently the thief had been disturbed, and a number of gold chains and a watch lay scattered on the pavement. I did not trouble to touch them. Farther on was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep the hand that hung over her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed magnum of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed asleep, but she was dead. The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew the stillness. But it was not so much the stillness of deathit was the stillness of suspense, of expectation. At any time the destruction that had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis, and had annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses and leave them smoking ruins. It was a city condemned and derelict. . . . In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of black powder. It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling. It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses. It was a sobbing alternation of two notes, 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla, keeping on perpetually. When I passed streets that ran northward it grew in volume, and houses and buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off again. It came in a full tide down Exhibition Road. I stopped, staring towards Kensington Gardens, wondering at this strange, remote wailing. It was as if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude. 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla, wailed that superhuman notegreat waves of sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit roadway, between the tall buildings on each side. I turned northwards, marvelling, towards the iron gates of Hyde Park. I had half a mind to break into the Natural History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in order to see across the park. But I decided to keep to the ground, where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition Road. All the large mansions on each side of the road were empty and still, and my footsteps echoed against the sides of the houses. At the top, near the park gate, I came upon a strange sighta bus overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean. I puzzled over this for a time, and then went on to the bridge over the Serpentine. The voice grew stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above the housetops on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke to the northwest. 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla, cried the voice, coming, as it seemed to me, from the district about Regent's Park. The desolating cry worked upon my mind. The mood that had sustained me passed. The wailing took possession of me. I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry and thirsty. It was already past noon. Why was I wandering alone in this city of the dead? Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and in its black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely. My mind ran on old friends that I had forgotten for years. I thought of the poisons in the chemists' shops, of the liquors the wine merchants stored I recalled the two sodden creatures of despair, who so far as I knew, shared the city with myself. . . . I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here again were black powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the houses. I grew very thirsty after the heat of my long walk. With infinite trouble I managed to break into a publichouse and get food and drink. I was weary after eating, and went into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horsehair sofa I found there. I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears, 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla. It was now dusk, and after I had routed out some biscuits and a cheese in the barthere was a meat safe, but it contained nothing but maggotsI wandered on through the silent residential squares to Baker StreetPortman Square is the only one I can nameand so came out at last upon Regent's Park. And as I emerged from the top of Baker Street, I saw far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. I was not terrified. I came upon him as if it were a matter of course. I watched him for some time, but he did not move. He appeared to be standing and yelling, for no reason that I could discover. I tried to formulate a plan of action. That perpetual sound of 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla, confused my mind. Perhaps I was too tired to be very fearful. Certainly I was more curious to know the reason of this monotonous crying than afraid. I turned back away from the park and struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went along under the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling Martian from the direction of St. John's Wood. A couple of hundred yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus, and saw, first a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws coming headlong towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the wailing sound of 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla, reasserted itself. I came upon the wrecked handlingmachine halfway to St. John's Wood station. At first I thought a house had fallen across the road. It was only as I clambered among the ruins that I saw, with a start, this mechanical Samson lying, with its tentacles bent and smashed and twisted, among the ruins it had made. The forepart was shattered. It seemed as if it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been overwhelmed in its overthrow. It seemed to me then that this might have happened by a handlingmachine escaping from the guidance of its Martian. I could not clamber among the ruins to see it, and the twilight was now so far advanced that the blood with which its seat was smeared, and the gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had left, were invisible to me. Wondering still more at all that I had seen, I pushed on towards Primrose Hill. Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the Zoological Gardens, and silent. A little beyond the ruins about the smashed handlingmachine I came upon the red weed again, and found the Regent's Canal, a spongy mass of darkred vegetation. As I crossed the bridge, the sound of 'Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla, ceased. It was, as it were, cut off. The silence came like a thunderclap. The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim the trees towards the park were growing black. All about me the red weed clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. But while that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable by virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the passing of somethingI knew not whatand then a stillness that could be felt. Nothing but this gaunt quiet. London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John's Wood Road, and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a cabmen's shelter in Harrow Road. But before the dawn my courage returned, and while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more towards Regent's Park. I missed my way among the streets, and presently saw down a long avenue, in the halflight of the early dawn, the curve of Primrose Hill. On the summit, towering up to the fading stars, was a third Martian, erect and motionless like the others. An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the road. I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund's Terrace (I waded breasthigh across a torrent of water that was rushing down from the waterworks towards the Albert Road), and emerged upon the grass before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of itit was the final and largest place the Martians had madeand from behind these heaps there rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky line an eager dog ran and disappeared. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore. In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned warmachines, some in the now rigid handlingmachines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martiansdead!slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared slain as the red weed was being slain slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth. For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of thingstaken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to manythose that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instanceour living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain. Here and there they were scattered, nearly fifty altogether, in that great gulf they had made, overtaken by a death that must have seemed to them as incomprehensible as any death could be. To me also at that time this death was incomprehensible. All I knew was that these things that had been alive and so terrible to men were dead. For a moment I believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night. I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously, even as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his rays. The pit was still in darkness the mighty engines, so great and wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows towards the light. A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the bodies that lay darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me. Across the pit on its farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flyingmachine with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when decay and death arrested them. Death had come not a day too soon. At the sound of a cawing overhead I looked up at the huge fightingmachine that would fight no more for ever, at the tattered red shreds of flesh that dripped down upon the overturned seats on the summit of Primrose Hill. I turned and looked down the slope of the hill to where, enhaloed now in birds, stood those other two Martians that I had seen overnight, just as death had overtaken them. The one had died, even as it had been crying to its companions perhaps it was the last to die, and its voice had gone on perpetually until the force of its machinery was exhausted. They glittered now, harmless tripod towers of shining metal, in the brightness of the rising sun. All about the pit, and saved as by a miracle from everlasting destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities. Those who have only seen London veiled in her sombre robes of smoke can scarcely imagine the naked clearness and beauty of the silent wilderness of houses. Eastward, over the blackened ruins of the Albert Terrace and the splintered spire of the church, the sun blazed dazzling in a clear sky, and here and there some facet in the great wilderness of roofs caught the light and glared with a white intensity. Northward were Kilburn and Hampsted, blue and crowded with houses westward the great city was dimmed and southward, beyond the Martians, the green waves of Regent's Park, the Langham Hotel, the dome of the Albert Hall, the Imperial Institute, and the giant mansions of the Brompton Road came out clear and little in the sunrise, the jagged ruins of Westminster rising hazily beyond. Far away and blue were the Surrey hills, and the towers of the Crystal Palace glittered like two silver rods. The dome of St. Paul's was dark against the sunrise, and injured, I saw for the first time, by a huge gaping cavity on its western side. And as I looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and churches, silent and abandoned as I thought of the multitudinous hopes and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to build this human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that had hung over it all when I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead city of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of emotion that was near akin to tears. The torment was over. Even that day the healing would begin. The survivors of the people scattered over the countryleaderless, lawless, foodless, like sheep without a shepherdthe thousands who had fled by sea, would begin to return the pulse of life, growing stronger and stronger, would beat again in the empty streets and pour across the vacant squares. Whatever destruction was done, the hand of the destroyer was stayed. All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened skeletons of houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the hill, would presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and ringing with the tapping of their trowels. At the thought I extended my hands towards the sky and began thanking God. In a year, thought Iin a year. . . . With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and the old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased for ever. And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly, all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget. Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned since that, so far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow, several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the previous night. One manthe firsthad gone to St. Martin'sleGrand, and, while I sheltered in the cabmen's hut, had contrived to telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly flashed into frantic illuminations they knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the verge of the pit. Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard, shouting and staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making up trains, even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church bells that had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news, until all England was bellringing. Men on cycles, leanfaced, unkempt, scorched along every country lane shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair. And for the food! Across the Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn, bread, and meat were tearing to our relief. All the shipping in the world seemed going Londonward in those days. But of all this I have no memory. I drifteda demented man. I found myself in a house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St. John's Wood. They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about 'The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! The Last Man Left Alive! Troubled as they were with their own affairs, these people, whose name, much as I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they had learned something of my story from me during the days of my lapse. Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me what they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I was imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian. He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness of power. I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I was a lonely man and a sad one, and they bore with me. I remained with them four days after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing craving to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to return to them, and parting, as I will confess, from these fourday friends with tears, I went out again into the streets that had lately been so dark and strange and empty. Already they were busy with returning people in places even there were shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water. I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed as I went back on my melancholy pilgrimage to the little house at Woking, how busy the streets and vivid the moving life about me. So many people were abroad everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible that any great proportion of the population could have been slain. But then I noticed how yellow were the skins of the people I met, how shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes, and that every other man still wore his dirty rags. Their faces seemed all with one of two expressionsa leaping exultation and energy or a grim resolution. Save for the expression of the faces, London seemed a city of tramps. The vestries were indiscriminately distributing bread sent us by the French government. The ribs of the few horses showed dismally. Haggard special constables with white badges stood at the corners of every street. I saw little of the mischief wrought by the Martians until I reached Wellington Street, and there I saw the red weed clambering over the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge. At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts of that grotesque timea sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket of the red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place. It was the placard of the first newspaper to resume publicationthe Daily Mail. I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing had amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on the back page. The matter he printed was emotional the news organisation had not as yet found its way back. I learned nothing fresh except that already in one week the examination of the Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the 'Secret of Flying, was discovered. At Waterloo I found the free trains that were taking people to their homes. The first rush was already over. There were few people in the train, and I was in no mood for casual conversation. I got a compartment to myself, and sat with folded arms, looking greyly at the sunlit devastation that flowed past the windows. And just outside the terminus the train jolted over temporary rails, and on either side of the railway the houses were blackened ruins. To Clapham Junction the face of London was grimy with powder of the Black Smoke, in spite of two days of thunderstorms and rain, and at Clapham Junction the line had been wrecked again there were hundreds of outofwork clerks and shopmen working side by side with the customary navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty relaying. All down the line from there the aspect of the country was gaunt and unfamiliar Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton, by virtue of its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along the line. The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped mass of red weed, in appearance between butcher's meat and pickled cabbage. The Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of the red climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in certain nursery grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the sixth cylinder. A number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were busy in the midst of it. Over it flaunted a Union Jack, flapping cheerfully in the morning breeze. The nursery grounds were everywhere crimson with the weed, a wide expanse of livid colour cut with purple shadows, and very painful to the eye. One's gaze went with infinite relief from the scorched greys and sullen reds of the foreground to the bluegreen softness of the eastward hills. The line on the London side of Woking station was still undergoing repair, so I descended at Byfleet station and took the road to Maybury, past the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to the hussars, and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in the thunderstorm. Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find, among a tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with the whitened bones of the horse scattered and gnawed. For a time I stood regarding these vestiges. . . . Then I returned through the pine wood, neckhigh with red weed here and there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found burial, and so came home past the College Arms. A man standing at an open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed. I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. The door had been forced it was unfast and was opening slowly as I approached. It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt empty. The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs. I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writingtable still, with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder. For a space I stood reading over my abandoned arguments. It was a paper on the probable development of Moral Ideas with the development of the civilising process and the last sentence was the opening of a prophecy 'In about two hundred years, I had written, 'we may expect The sentence ended abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my mind that morning, scarcely a month gone by, and how I had broken off to get my Daily Chronicle from the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the garden gate as he came along, and how I had listened to his odd story of 'Men from Mars. I came down and went into the dining room. There were the mutton and the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle overturned, just as I and the artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long. And then a strange thing occurred. 'It is no use, said a voice. 'The house is deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to torment yourself. No one escaped but you. I was startled. Had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the French window was open behind me. I made a step to it, and stood looking out. And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were my cousin and my wifemy wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry. 'I came, she said. 'I knewknew She put her hand to her throatswayed. I made a step forward, and caught her in my arms. I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little I am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly provoke criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy. My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but it seems to me that Carver's suggestions as to the reason of the rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body of my narrative. At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance of the putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no means a proven conclusion. Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the HeatRays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that it combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly effect upon some constituent in the blood. But such unproven speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader, to whom this story is addressed. None of the brown scum that drifted down the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the time, and now none is forthcoming. The results of an anatomical examination of the Martians, so far as the prowling dogs had left such an examination possible, I have already given. But everyone is familiar with the magnificent and almost complete specimen in spirits at the Natural History Museum, and the countless drawings that have been made from it and beyond that the interest of their physiology and structure is purely scientific. A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we should be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the arrival of the next attack. In that case the cylinder might be destroyed with dynamite or artillery before it was sufficiently cool for the Martians to emerge, or they might be butchered by means of guns so soon as the screw opened. It seems to me that they have lost a vast advantage in the failure of their first surprise. Possibly they see it in the same light. Lessing has advanced excellent reasons for supposing that the Martians have actually succeeded in effecting a landing on the planet Venus. Seven months ago now, Venus and Mars were in alignment with the sun that is to say, Mars was in opposition from the point of view of an observer on Venus. Subsequently a peculiar luminous and sinuous marking appeared on the unillumined half of the inner planet, and almost simultaneously a faint dark mark of a similar sinuous character was detected upon a photograph of the Martian disk. One needs to see the drawings of these appearances in order to appreciate fully their remarkable resemblance in character. At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not without its ultimate benefit for men it has robbed us of that serene confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of mankind. It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians have watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs and learned their lesson, and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be that as it may, for many years yet there will certainly be no relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk, and those fiery darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall an unavoidable apprehension to all the sons of men. The broadening of men's views that has resulted can scarcely be exaggerated. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. If the Martians can reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet within its toils. Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a remote dream. It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of the Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, perhaps, is the future ordained. I must confess the stress and danger of the time have left an abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and desolate. I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass me, a butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a bicycle, children going to school, and suddenly they become vague and unreal, and I hurry again with the artilleryman through the hot, brooding silence. Of a night I see the black powder darkening the silent streets, and the contorted bodies shrouded in that layer they rise upon me tattered and dogbitten. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, uglier, mad distortions of humanity at last, and I wake, cold and wretched, in the darkness of the night. I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill, as I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the sightseers about the Martian machine that stands there still, to hear the tumult of playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it all bright and clearcut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last great day. . . . And strangest of all is it to hold my wife's hand again, and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.
Note See also 'The Republic by Plato, Jowett, eBook  The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp, especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to afterages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessarythese and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep. Polit. Cratyl. ,  ff), although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings (e.g. Rep.). But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae,logic is still veiled in metaphysics and the science which he imagines to 'contemplate all truth and all existence' is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. Elenchi, . ). Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a worldfamous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim.  C), intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathising with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws, iii.  ff.), singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus (v. ) where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire'How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!' or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to Critias). Again, Plato may be regarded as the 'captain' ('arhchegoz') or leader of a goodly band of followers for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St. Augustine's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognised, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of and probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his words when 'repeated at secondhand' (Symp.  D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him. The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old manthen discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchusthen caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socratesreduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which 'no man calls anything his own,' and in which there is neither 'marrying nor giving in marriage,' and 'kings are philosophers' and 'philosophers are kings' and there is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this world and quickly degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honour, this again declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When 'the wheel has come full circle' we do not begin again with a new period of human life but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life. The division into books, like all similar divisions (Cp. Sir G.C. Lewis in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p .), is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number() Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, 'I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus,' which is introductory the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the questionWhat is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division () includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division () consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books () the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book () is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another. Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted the first (Books I  IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V  X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus (see Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole the higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan or from the imperfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are now first brought together by him or, perhaps, from the composition of the work at different timesare questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from one work to another and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognise the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another. The second title, 'Concerning Justice,' is not the one by which the Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same truth for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the state is the reality of which justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom of God is within, and yet developes into a Church or external kingdom 'the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions of states and in motions of the heavenly bodies (cp. Tim. ). The Timaeus, which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature, and over man. Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author's hand new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines himself to have found the true argument 'in the representation of human life in a State perfected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good.' There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subjectmatter. To Plato himself, the enquiry 'what was the intention of the writer,' or 'what was the principal argument of the Republic' would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the Introduction to the Phaedrus). Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to Plato's own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State? Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or 'the day of the Lord,' or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the 'Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings' only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which is the idea of goodlike the sun in the visible worldabout human perfection, which is justiceabout education beginning in youth and continuing in later yearsabout poets and sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankindabout 'the world' which is the embodiment of themabout a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life. No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane it easily passes from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic whole they take possession of him and are too much for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest 'marks of design'justice more than the external framework of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science of dialectic or the organisation of ideas has no real content but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the 'summit of speculation,' and these, although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work. It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was held (the year  B.C. which is proposed by him will do as well as any other) for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously careless of chronology (cp. Rep., Symp.,  A, etc.), only aims at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas) and need not greatly trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer 'which is still worth asking,' because the investigation shows that we cannot argue historically from the dates in Plato it would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing farfetched reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C.F. Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato (cp. Apol.  A), or the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his Dialogues were written. The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantidesthese are mute auditors also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus. Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a wellspent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. ), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus in the Laches). His 'son and heir' Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not 'let him off' on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life rather than principles and he quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph. Clouds) as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them he belongs to the preSocratic or predialectical age. He is incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth.) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens. The 'Chalcedonian giant,' Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato's conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates but a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next 'move' (to use a Platonic expression) will 'shut him up.' He has reached the stage of framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow upthey are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in Thucydides but we are concerned at present with Plato's description of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humour of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put 'bodily into their souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent goodwill, and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks. When attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates 'as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend.' From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle's Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus (Aris. Rhet.), 'thou wast ever bold in battle,' seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude. When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene here, as in Greek tragedy (cp. Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can 'just never have enough of fechting' (cp. the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. ) the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love the 'juvenis qui gaudet canibus,' and who improves the breed of animals the lover of art and music who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a state of simplicity is 'a city of pigs,' who is always prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of theatricals, or in the fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara (anno ?)...The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grownup man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their consequences and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children. It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent but he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end. Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated. The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world. He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem. Phaedo) and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem.) The Socratic method is nominally retained and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of enquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another. Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic (cp. Apol.) nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration    , 'Let us apply the test of common instances.' 'You,' says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, 'are so unaccustomed to speak in images.' And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog, or the marriage of the portionless maiden, or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions. Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as 'not of this world.' And with this representation of him the ideal state and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truthwords which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head. This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and amid the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates. Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic, and then proceed to consider () The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of the State, () The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read. BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scenea festival in honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus to this is added the promise of an equestrian torchrace in the evening. The whole work is supposed to be recited by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small party, consisting of Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another this we learn from the first words of the Timaeus. When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained, the attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience nor is the reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of the numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion nor are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torchrace, or talked, as in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the conversation has arisen is described as followsSocrates and his companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained by a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain, promising them not only the torchrace, but the pleasure of conversation with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction. They return to the house of Cephalus, Polemarchus' father, now in extreme old age, who is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. 'You should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you and at my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for conversation.' Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich. 'And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they imagineas Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, 'Neither you, if you had been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian, would ever have been famous, I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.' Socrates remarks that Cephalus appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the belief in the world below grows upon you, and then to have done justice and never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to have deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of the word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than this? Or must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when he was in his right mind? 'There must be exceptions.' 'And yet,' says Polemarchus, 'the definition which has been given has the authority of Simonides.' Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument to his heir, Polemarchus... The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has touched the keynote of the whole work in asking for the definition of justice, first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues respecting external goods, and preparing for the concluding mythus of the world below in the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just man is a natural frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which follows, and may perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature of justice, there is no difficulty in discerning 'who is a just man.' The first explanation has been supported by a saying of Simonides and now Socrates has a mind to show that the resolution of justice into two unconnected precepts, which have no common principle, fails to satisfy the demands of dialectic. ...He proceeds What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? 'No, not in that case, not if the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were to do what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.' Every act does something to somebody and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What is this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is answered that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in what way good or harm? 'In making alliances with the one, and going to war with the other.' Then in time of peace what is the good of justice? The answer is that justice is of use in contracts, and contracts are money partnerships. Yes but how in such partnerships is the just man of more use than any other man? 'When you want to have money safely kept and not used.' Then justice will be useful when money is useless. And there is another difficulty justice, like the art of war or any other art, must be of opposites, good at attack as well as at defence, at stealing as well as at guarding. But then justice is a thief, though a hero notwithstanding, like Autolycus, the Homeric hero, who was 'excellent above all men in theft and perjury'to such a pass have you and Homer and Simonides brought us though I do not forget that the thieving must be for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. And still there arises another question Are friends to be interpreted as real or seeming enemies as real or seeming? And are our friends to be only the good, and our enemies to be the evil? The answer is, that we must do good to our seeming and real good friends, and evil to our seeming and real evil enemiesgood to the good, evil to the evil. But ought we to render evil for evil at all, when to do so will only make men more evil? Can justice produce injustice any more than the art of horsemanship can make bad horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final conclusion is, that no sage or poet ever said that the just return evil for evil this was a maxim of some rich and mighty man, Periander, Perdiccas, or Ismenias the Theban (about B.C. )... Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be inadequate to the wants of the age the authority of the poets is set aside, and through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to the Christian precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are applied by the Persian mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning spirit is stirred within him'If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by evil, what is the difference between Thee and me?' In this both Plato and Kheyam rise above the level of many Christian (?) theologians. The first definition of justice easily passes into the second for the simple words 'to speak the truth and pay your debts' is substituted the more abstract 'to do good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Either of these explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions of morality. The 'interrogation' of moral ideas the appeal to the authority of Homer the conclusion that the maxim, 'Do good to your friends and harm to your enemies,' being erroneous, could not have been the word of any great man, are all of them very characteristic of the Platonic Socrates. ...Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but has hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause and rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar. 'Socrates,' he says, 'what folly is this?Why do you agree to be vanquished by one another in a pretended argument?' He then prohibits all the ordinary definitions of justice to which Socrates replies that he cannot tell how many twelve is, if he is forbidden to say  x , or  x , or  x , or  x . At first Thrasymachus is reluctant to argue but at length, with a promise of payment on the part of the company and of praise from Socrates, he is induced to open the game. 'Listen,' he says, 'my answer is that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger now praise me.' Let me understand you first. Do you mean that because Polydamas the wrestler, who is stronger than we are, finds the eating of beef for his interest, the eating of beef is also for our interest, who are not so strong? Thrasymachus is indignant at the illustration, and in pompous words, apparently intended to restore dignity to the argument, he explains his meaning to be that the rulers make laws for their own interests. But suppose, says Socrates, that the ruler or stronger makes a mistakethen the interest of the stronger is not his interest. Thrasymachus is saved from this speedy downfall by his disciple Cleitophon, who introduces the word 'thinks'not the actual interest of the ruler, but what he thinks or what seems to be his interest, is justice. The contradiction is escaped by the unmeaning evasion for though his real and apparent interests may differ, what the ruler thinks to be his interest will always remain what he thinks to be his interest. Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new interpretation accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not disposed to quarrel about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his adversary has changed his mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact withdraw his admission that the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms that the ruler as a ruler is infallible. Socrates is quite ready to accept the new position, which he equally turns against Thrasymachus by the help of the analogy of the arts. Every art or science has an interest, but this interest is to be distinguished from the accidental interest of the artist, and is only concerned with the good of the things or persons which come under the art. And justice has an interest which is the interest not of the ruler or judge, but of those who come under his sway. Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, when he makes a bold diversion. 'Tell me, Socrates,' he says, 'have you a nurse?' What a question! Why do you ask? 'Because, if you have, she neglects you and lets you go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never think of their own interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, whereas the truth is that they fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike. And experience proves that in every relation of life the just man is the loser and the unjust the gainer, especially where injustice is on the grand scale, which is quite another thing from the petty rogueries of swindlers and burglars and robbers of temples. The language of men proves thisour 'gracious' and 'blessed' tyrant and the likeall which tends to show () that justice is the interest of the stronger and () that injustice is more profitable and also stronger than justice.' Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. But the others will not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. 'And what can I do more for you?' he says 'would you have me put the words bodily into your souls?' God forbid! replies Socrates but we want you to be consistent in the use of terms, and not to employ 'physician' in an exact sense, and then again 'shepherd' or 'ruler' in an inexact,if the words are strictly taken, the ruler and the shepherd look only to the good of their people or flocks and not to their own whereas you insist that rulers are solely actuated by love of office. 'No doubt about it,' replies Thrasymachus. Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that their interest is not comprehended in their art, and is therefore the concern of another art, the art of pay, which is common to the arts in general, and therefore not identical with any one of them? Nor would any man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishmentthe reward is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State (or Church) were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by the last motive only and there would be as much 'nolo episcopari' as there is at present of the opposite... The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not like being in office, and that therefore they demand pay. ...Enough of this the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more importantthat the unjust life is more gainful than the just. Now, as you and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him but if we try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for us we had better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the truth to one another. Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates to admit the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice vice. Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is weaving a net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is elicited from him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage over either. Socrates, in order to test this statement, employs once more the favourite analogy of the arts. The musician, doctor, skilled artist of any sort, does not seek to gain more than the skilled, but only more than the unskilled (that is to say, he works up to a rule, standard, law, and does not exceed it), whereas the unskilled makes random efforts at excess. Thus the skilled falls on the side of the good, and the unskilled on the side of the evil, and the just is the skilled, and the unjust is the unskilled. There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point the day was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in his life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was stronger than justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds to the consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus, he hopes to clear up the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious hands of Socrates is soon restored to goodhumour Is there not honour among thieves? Is not the strength of injustice only a remnant of justice? Is not absolute injustice absolute weakness also? A house that is divided against itself cannot stand two men who quarrel detract from one another's strength, and he who is at war with himself is the enemy of himself and the gods. Not wickedness therefore, but semiwickedness flourishes in states,a remnant of good is needed in order to make union in action possible,there is no kingdom of evil in this world. Another question has not been answered Is the just or the unjust the happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or virtue by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul happiness, and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is attained? Justice and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the question whether the just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared. Thrasymachus replies 'Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the festival of Bendis.' Yes and a very good entertainment with which your kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not a good entertainmentbut that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry, and then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly and then the comparative advantages of just and unjust and the sum of all is that I know not what justice is how then shall I know whether the just is happy or not?... Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to the analogy of the arts. 'Justice is like the arts () in having no external interest, and () in not aiming at excess, and () justice is to happiness what the implement of the workman is to his work.' At this the modern reader is apt to stumble, because he forgets that Plato is writing in an age when the arts and the virtues, like the moral and intellectual faculties, were still undistinguished. Among early enquirers into the nature of human action the arts helped to fill up the void of speculation and at first the comparison of the arts and the virtues was not perceived by them to be fallacious. They only saw the points of agreement in them and not the points of difference. Virtue, like art, must take means to an end good manners are both an art and a virtue character is naturally described under the image of a statue and there are many other figures of speech which are readily transferred from art to morals. The next generation cleared up these perplexities or at least supplied after ages with a further analysis of them. The contemporaries of Plato were in a state of transition, and had not yet fully realized the commonsense distinction of Aristotle, that 'virtue is concerned with action, art with production' (Nic. Eth.), or that 'virtue implies intention and constancy of purpose,' whereas 'art requires knowledge only'. And yet in the absurdities which follow from some uses of the analogy, there seems to be an intimation conveyed that virtue is more than art. This is implied in the reductio ad absurdum that 'justice is a thief,' and in the dissatisfaction which Socrates expresses at the final result. The expression 'an art of pay' which is described as 'common to all the arts' is not in accordance with the ordinary use of language. Nor is it employed elsewhere either by Plato or by any other Greek writer. It is suggested by the argument, and seems to extend the conception of art to doing as well as making. Another flaw or inaccuracy of language may be noted in the words 'men who are injured are made more unjust.' For those who are injured are not necessarily made worse, but only harmed or illtreated. The second of the three arguments, 'that the just does not aim at excess,' has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form. That the good is of the nature of the finite is a peculiarly Hellenic sentiment, which may be compared with the language of those modern writers who speak of virtue as fitness, and of freedom as obedience to law. The mathematical or logical notion of limit easily passes into an ethical one, and even finds a mythological expression in the conception of envy (Greek). Ideas of measure, equality, order, unity, proportion, still linger in the writings of moralists and the true spirit of the fine arts is better conveyed by such terms than by superlatives. 'When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness.' (King John. Act. iv. Sc. .) The harmony of the soul and body, and of the parts of the soul with one another, a harmony 'fairer than that of musical notes,' is the true Hellenic mode of conceiving the perfection of human nature. In what may be called the epilogue of the discussion with Thrasymachus, Plato argues that evil is not a principle of strength, but of discord and dissolution, just touching the question which has been often treated in modern times by theologians and philosophers, of the negative nature of evil. In the last argument we trace the germ of the Aristotelian doctrine of an end and a virtue directed towards the end, which again is suggested by the arts. The final reconcilement of justice and happiness and the identity of the individual and the State are also intimated. Socrates reassumes the character of a 'knownothing' at the same time he appears to be not wholly satisfied with the manner in which the argument has been conducted. Nothing is concluded but the tendency of the dialectical process, here as always, is to enlarge our conception of ideas, and to widen their application to human life. BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on continuing the argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner in which, at the end of the last book, Socrates had disposed of the question 'Whether the just or the unjust is the happier.' He begins by dividing goods into three classesfirst, goods desirable in themselves secondly, goods desirable in themselves and for their results thirdly, goods desirable for their results only. He then asks Socrates in which of the three classes he would place justice. In the second class, replies Socrates, among goods desirable for themselves and also for their results. 'Then the world in general are of another mind, for they say that justice belongs to the troublesome class of goods which are desirable for their results only. Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of Thrasymachus which he rejects. Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too ready to listen to the voice of the charmer, and proposes to consider the nature of justice and injustice in themselves and apart from the results and rewards of them which the world is always dinning in his ears. He will first of all speak of the nature and origin of justice secondly, of the manner in which men view justice as a necessity and not a good and thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of this view. 'To do injustice is said to be a good to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil is discovered by experience to be greater than the good, the sufferers, who cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have neither, and this compact or mean is called justice, but is really the impossibility of doing injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let us suppose that the just and unjust have two rings, like that of Gyges in the wellknown story, which make them invisible, and then no difference will appear in them, for every one will do evil if he can. And he who abstains will be regarded by the world as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in public out of fear for themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts (Cp. Gorgias.) 'And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily correcting them having gifts of money, speech, strengththe greatest villain bearing the highest character and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness and simplicitybeing, not seemingwithout name or rewardclothed in his justice onlythe best of men who is thought to be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. I might add (but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of the panegyrists of injusticethey will tell you) that the just man will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last be crucified (literally impaled)and all this because he ought to have preferred seeming to being. How different is the case of the unjust who clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a ruler he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and hurt his enemies having got rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.' I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been omitted'Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards parents and guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other advantages are promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy marriages and high offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of fat sheep and heavy fleeces, rich cornfields and trees toppling with fruit, which the gods provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic poets add a similar picture of another. The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival, with garlands on their heads, enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal drunkenness. Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the third and fourth generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry water in a sieve and in this life they attribute to them the infamy which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to be unjust. 'Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose'Virtue, as Hesiod says, 'is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and profitable. You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at rich men's doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a small chargethey appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise to 'get souls out of purgatory and if we refuse to listen to them, no one knows what will happen to us. 'When a livelyminded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his conclusion? 'Will he, in the language of Pindar, 'make justice his high tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit? Justice, he reflects, without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin injustice has the promise of a glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To appearance then I will turn,I will put on the show of virtue and trail behind me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying that 'wickedness is not easily concealed, to which I reply that 'nothing great is easy. Union and force and rhetoric will do much and if men say that they cannot prevail over the gods, still how do we know that there are gods? Only from the poets, who acknowledge that they may be appeased by sacrifices. Then why not sin and pay for indulgences out of your sin? For if the righteous are only unpunished, still they have no further reward, while the wicked may be unpunished and have the pleasure of sinning too. But what of the world below? Nay, says the argument, there are atoning powers who will set that matter right, as the poets, who are the sons of the gods, tell us and this is confirmed by the authority of the State. 'How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others for he knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable of injustice. 'The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets, instructors of youth, have always asserted 'the temporal dispensation, the honours and profits of justice. Had we been taught in early youth the power of justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen by any human or divine eye, we should not have needed others to be our guardians, but every one would have been the guardian of himself. This is what I want you to show, Socratesother men use arguments which rather tend to strengthen the position of Thrasymachus that 'might is right but from you I expect better things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation let the just be thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you still prove to us the superiority of justice'... The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by Glaucon, is the converse of that of Thrasymachusnot right is the interest of the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the same premises he carries the analysis of society a step further backmight is still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against the strength of the few. There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which have a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon e.g. that power is the foundation of right or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or ill or that virtue is selflove or the love of power or that war is the natural state of man or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point of view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine right of kings, or more generally of governments, is one of the forms under which this natural feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil which has not some accompaniment of good or pleasure nor any good which is free from some alloy of evil nor any noble or generous thought which may not be attended by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of selfinterest or of selflove. We know that all human actions are imperfect but we do not therefore attribute them to the worse rather than to the better motive or principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and false, like that opinion of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to be like himself. And theories of this sort do not represent the real nature of the State, which is based on a vague sense of right gradually corrected and enlarged by custom and law (although capable also of perversion), any more than they describe the origin of society, which is to be sought in the family and in the social and religious feelings of man. Nor do they represent the average character of individuals, which cannot be explained simply on a theory of evil, but has always a counteracting element of good. And as men become better such theories appear more and more untruthful to them, because they are more conscious of their own disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man a cynic a great deal will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of the mixed nature of himself and his fellow men. The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy when they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily supposed to consist. Not that there is () any absurdity in the attempt to frame a notion of justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must always be a paradox when compared with the ordinary conditions of human life. Neither the Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact, but they may serve as a basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling influence. An ideal is none the worse because 'some one has made the discovery' that no such ideal was ever realized. And in a few exceptional individuals who are raised above the ordinary level of humanity, the ideal of happiness may be realized in death and misery. This may be the state which the reason deliberately approves, and which the utilitarian as well as every other moralist may be bound in certain cases to prefer. Nor again, () must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing his own final conclusion, but rather seeking to dramatize one of the aspects of ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series of positions or situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time undergoing the Socratic interrogation. Lastly, () the word 'happiness' involves some degree of confusion because associated in the language of modern philosophy with conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not equally present to his mind. Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is the answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just that is 'the homage which vice pays to virtue.' But now Adeimantus, taking up the hint which had been already given by Glaucon, proceeds to show that in the opinion of mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of rewards and reputation, and points out the advantage which is given to such arguments as those of Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional morality of mankind. He seems to feel the difficulty of 'justifying the ways of God to man.' Both the brothers touch upon the question, whether the morality of actions is determined by their consequences and both of them go beyond the position of Socrates, that justice belongs to the class of goods not desirable for themselves only, but desirable for themselves and for their results, to which he recalls them. In their attempt to view justice as an internal principle, and in their condemnation of the poets, they anticipate him. The common life of Greece is not enough for them they must penetrate deeper into the nature of things. It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more truly say that the oldfashioned notion of justice is enlarged by Socrates, and becomes equivalent to universal order or wellbeing, first in the State, and secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to his old question (Protag.), 'whether the virtues are one or many,' viz. that one is the ordering principle of the three others. In seeking to establish the purely internal nature of justice, he is met by the fact that man is a social being, and he tries to harmonise the two opposite theses as well as he can. There is no more inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country there is no use in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent. Plato does not give the final solution of philosophical questions for us nor can he be judged of by our standard. The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the sons of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately followsFirst, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He does not say that happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of justice, and still less will he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox that the just man can be happy on the rack. But first he dwells on the difficulty of the problem and insists on restoring man to his natural condition, before he will answer the question at all. He too will frame an ideal, but his ideal comprehends not only abstract justice, but the whole relations of man. Under the fanciful illustration of the large letters he implies that he will only look for justice in society, and that from the State he will proceed to the individual. His answer in substance amounts to this,that under favourable conditions, i.e. in the perfect State, justice and happiness will coincide, and that when justice has been once found, happiness may be left to take care of itself. That he falls into some degree of inconsistency, when in the tenth book he claims to have got rid of the rewards and honours of justice, may be admitted for he has left those which exist in the perfect State. And the philosopher 'who retires under the shelter of a wall' can hardly have been esteemed happy by him, at least not in this world. Still he maintains the true attitude of moral action. Let a man do his duty first, without asking whether he will be happy or not, and happiness will be the inseparable accident which attends him. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character of Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the individual. First ethics, then politicsthis is the order of ideas to us the reverse is the order of history. Only after many struggles of thought does the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not ONE, but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him and he has no notion of good or evil apart from the law of his country or the creed of his church. And to this type he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the influence of custom, or of party spirit, or the recollection of the past becomes too strong for him. Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek speculation, and even in modern times retains a certain degree of influence. The subtle difference between the collective and individual action of mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action, whenever we either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics. The good man and the good citizen only coincide in the perfect State and this perfection cannot be attained by legislation acting upon them from without, but, if at all, by education fashioning them from within. ...Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, 'inspired offspring of the renowned hero,' as the elegiac poet terms them but he does not understand how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their character shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He knows not how to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice in the hour of need. He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller, that is, he must look for justice in the State first, and will then proceed to the individual. Accordingly he begins to construct the State. Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food his second a house his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot and this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent, although necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman, secondly a builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler. Four or five citizens at least are required to make a city. Now men have different natures, and one man will do one thing better than many and business waits for no man. Hence there must be a division of labour into different employments into wholesale and retail trade into workers, and makers of workmen's tools into shepherds and husbandmen. A city which includes all this will have far exceeded the limit of four or five, and yet not be very large. But then again imports will be required, and imports necessitate exports, and this implies variety of produce in order to attract the taste of purchasers also merchants and ships. In the city too we must have a market and money and retail trades otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet, and the valuable time of the producers will be wasted in vain efforts at exchange. If we add hired servants the State will be complete. And we may guess that somewhere in the intercourse of the citizens with one another justice and injustice will appear. Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. 'But,' said Glaucon, interposing, 'are they not to have a relish?' Certainly they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ''Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.' Why, I replied, what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.' I see you want not only a State, but a luxurious State and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then the fine arts must go to workevery conceivable instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tirewomen, nurses, artists swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will be some warlike natures who have this aptitudedogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education? But what shall their education be? Is any better than the oldfashioned sort which is comprehended under the name of music and gymnastic? Music includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false. 'What do you mean?' he said. I mean that children hear stories before they learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn when they grow up we must therefore have a censorship of nursery tales, banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper, as we may see in the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies but bad lies stories about Uranus and Saturn, which are immoral as well as false, and which should never be spoken of to young persons, or indeed at all or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal. Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife among the gods? Shall they listen to the narrative of Hephaestus binding his mother, and of Zeus sending him flying for helping her when she was beaten? Such tales may possibly have a mystical interpretation, but the young are incapable of understanding allegory. If any one asks what tales are to be allowed, we will answer that we are legislators and not bookmakers we only lay down the principles according to which books are to be written to write them is the duty of others. And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is not as the author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the poets to say that he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two casks full of destiniesor that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to break the treaty or that God caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of Pelops, or the Trojan war or that he makes men sin when he wishes to destroy them. Either these were not the actions of the gods, or God was just, and men were the better for being punished. But that the deed was evil, and God the author, is a wicked, suicidal fiction which we will allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is our first and great principleGod is the author of good only. And the second principle is like unto itWith God is no variableness or change of form. Reason teaches us this for if we suppose a change in God, he must be changed either by another or by himself. By another?but the best works of nature and art and the noblest qualities of mind are least liable to be changed by any external force. By himself?but he cannot change for the better he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who prowl about at night in strange disguises all that blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be suppressed. But some one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take a form in relation to us. Why should he? For gods as well as men hate the lie in the soul, or principle of falsehood and as for any other form of lying which is used for a purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain exceptional caseswhat need have the gods of this? For they are not ignorant of antiquity like the poets, nor are they afraid of their enemies, nor is any madman a friend of theirs. God then is true, he is absolutely true he changes not, he deceives not, by day or night, by word or sign. This is our second great principleGod is true. Away with the lying dream of Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis against Apollo in Aeschylus... In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds to trace the first principles of mutual need and of division of labour in an imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this community increases the division of labour extends to countries imports necessitate exports a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit in the marketplace to save the time of the producers. These are the steps by which Plato constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the elements of political economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second or civilized State, the simple naturally comes before the complex. He indulges, like Rousseau, in a picture of primitive lifean idea which has indeed often had a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind, but he does not seriously mean to say that one is better than the other (Politicus) nor can any inference be drawn from the description of the first state taken apart from the second, such as Aristotle appears to draw in the Politics. We should not interpret a Platonic dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too literal or matteroffact a style. On the other hand, when we compare the lively fancy of Plato with the driedup abstractions of modern treatises on philosophy, we are compelled to say with Protagoras, that the 'mythus is more interesting' (Protag.) Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of Plato especially Laws, Population Free Trade Adulteration Wills and Bequests Begging Eryxias, (though not Plato's), Value and Demand Republic, Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic. But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never seems to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of the State and of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior sort of citizens (Rep., Laws), though he remarks, quaintly enough (Laws), that 'if only the best men and the best women everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on retail trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant and agreeable all these things are.' The disappointment of Glaucon at the 'city of pigs,' the ludicrous description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined State, and the afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the nature of the guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering some almost unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be celebrated, the behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his mother, are touches of humour which have also a serious meaning. In speaking of education Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child must be trained in falsehood first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is not very different from saying that children must be taught through the medium of imagination as well as reason that their minds can only develope gradually, and that there is much which they must learn without understanding. This is also the substance of Plato's view, though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat differently from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood. To us, economies or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were required by the human faculties or necessary for the communication of knowledge to the simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was inseparable from the intention, and that we must not be 'falsely true,' i.e. speak or act falsely in support of what was right or true. But Plato would limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should have a good moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood should be employed by the rulers alone and for great objects. A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be conscious that the past had a history but he could see nothing beyond Homer and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not seriously affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to suspect that they were fictions when they recognised them to be immoral. And so in all religions the consideration of their morality comes first, afterwards the truth of the documents in which they are recorded, or of the events natural or supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times, and in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too much inclined to identify the historical with the moral and some have refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient or religious history are amongst the most important of all facts but they are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson which is to be gathered from them when we place ourselves above them. These reflections tend to show that the difference between Plato and ourselves, though not unimportant, is not so great as might at first sight appear. For we should agree with him in placing the moral before the historical truth of religion and, generally, in disregarding those errors or misstatements of fact which necessarily occur in the early stages of all religions. We know also that changes in the traditions of a country cannot be made in a day and are therefore tolerant of many things which science and criticism would condemn. We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ by Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and here, as in the Phaedrus, though for a different reason, was rejected by him. That anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men have reached another stage of civilization, should be got rid of by fictions is in accordance with universal experience. Great is the art of interpretation and by a natural process, which when once discovered was always going on, what could not be altered was explained away. And so without any palpable inconsistency there existed side by side two forms of religion, the tradition inherited or invented by the poets and the customary worship of the temple on the other hand, there was the religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of ideas, but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Aesculapius, or to be seen saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the antagonism between the popular and philosophical religion, never so great among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the difference between the religion of the educated and uneducated among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into the 'royal mind' of Plato (Philebus) the giant Heracles became the knighterrant and benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and neoPlatonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ. The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of philosophy having lost their ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry and morality and probably were never purer than at the time of their decay, when their influence over the world was waning. A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie in the soul this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering himself. For example, to represent God as false or immoral, or, according to Plato, as deluding men with appearances or as the author of evil or again, to affirm with Protagoras that 'knowledge is sensation,' or that 'being is becoming,' or with Thrasymachus 'that might is right,' would have been regarded by Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness of the greatest untruth, e.g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John), 'he who was blind' were to say 'I see,' is another aspect of the state of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in the soul may be further compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke), allowing for the difference between Greek and Christian modes of speaking. To this is opposed the lie in words, which is only such a deception as may occur in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech, or in any sort of accommodation,which though useless to the gods may be useful to men in certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question which he had himself raised about the propriety of deceiving a madman and he is also contrasting the nature of God and man. For God is Truth, but mankind can only be true by appearing sometimes to be partial, or false. Reserving for another place the greater questions of religion or education, we may note further, () the approval of the old traditional education of Greece () the preparation which Plato is making for the attack on Homer and the poets () the preparation which he is also making for the use of economies in the State () the contemptuous and at the same time euphemistic manner in which here as below he alludes to the 'Chronique Scandaleuse' of the gods. BOOK III. There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to banish fear for no man can be courageous who is afraid of death, or who believes the tales which are repeated by the poets concerning the world below. They must be gently requested not to abuse hell they may be reminded that their stories are both untrue and discouraging. Nor must they be angry if we expunge obnoxious passages, such as the depressing words of Achilles'I would rather be a servingman than rule over all the dead' and the verses which tell of the squalid mansions, the senseless shadows, the flitting soul mourning over lost strength and youth, the soul with a gibber going beneath the earth like smoke, or the souls of the suitors which flutter about like bats. The terrors and horrors of Cocytus and Styx, ghosts and sapless shades, and the rest of their Tartarean nomenclature, must vanish. Such tales may have their use but they are not the proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric heroesAchilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or pacing up and down the seashore in distraction or Priam, the cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him and therefore lamentations over the dead should not be practised by men of note they should be the concern of inferior persons only, whether women or men. Still worse is the attribution of such weakness to the gods as when the goddesses say, 'Alas! my travail!' and worst of all, when the king of heaven himself laments his inability to save Hector, or sorrows over the impending doom of his dear Sarpedon. Such a character of God, if not ridiculed by our young men, is likely to be imitated by them. Nor should our citizens be given to excess of laughter'Such violent delights' are followed by a violent reaction. The description in the Iliad of the gods shaking their sides at the clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. 'Certainly not.' Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state the common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler any more than the patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain. In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists in selfcontrol and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer teaches in some places 'The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in silent awe of their leaders'but a very different one in other places 'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.' Language of the latter kind will not impress selfcontrol on the minds of youth. The same may be said about his praises of eating and drinking and his dread of starvation also about the verses in which he tells of the rapturous loves of Zeus and Here, or of how Hephaestus once detained Ares and Aphrodite in a net on a similar occasion. There is a nobler strain heard in the words'Endure, my soul, thou hast endured worse.' Nor must we allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to say, 'Gifts persuade the gods, gifts reverend kings' or to applaud the ignoble advice of Phoenix to Achilles that he should get money out of the Greeks before he assisted them or the meanness of Achilles himself in taking gifts from Agamemnon or his requiring a ransom for the body of Hector or his cursing of Apollo or his insolence to the rivergod Scamander or his dedication to the dead Patroclus of his own hair which had been already dedicated to the other rivergod Spercheius or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre such a combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron's pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these socalled sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by those who have the blood of heaven flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their example. Enough of gods and heroeswhat shall we say about men? What the poets and storytellers saythat the wicked prosper and the righteous are afflicted, or that justice is another's gain? Such misrepresentations cannot be allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition of justice, and had therefore better defer the enquiry. The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated next follows style. Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come and narrative is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of the two. An instance will make my meaning clear. The first scene in Homer is of the last or mixed kind, being partly description and partly dialogue. But if you throw the dialogue into the 'oratio obliqua,' the passage will run thus The priest came and prayed Apollo that the Achaeans might take Troy and have a safe return if Agamemnon would only give him back his daughter and the other Greeks assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and so onThe whole then becomes descriptive, and the poet is the only speaker left or, if you omit the narrative, the whole becomes dialogue. These are the three styleswhich of them is to be admitted into our State? 'Do you ask whether tragedy and comedy are to be admitted?' Yes, but also something moreIs it not doubtful whether our guardians are to be imitators at all? Or rather, has not the question been already answered, for we have decided that one man cannot in his life play many parts, any more than he can act both tragedy and comedy, or be rhapsodist and actor at once? Human nature is coined into very small pieces, and as our guardians have their own business already, which is the care of freedom, they will have enough to do without imitating. If they imitate they should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only for the mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face. We cannot allow men to play the parts of women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the gods,least of all when making love or in labour. They must not represent slaves, or bullies, or cowards, drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or neighing horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea. A good or wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised and he will prefer to employ the descriptive style with as little imitation as possible. The man who has no selfrespect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything sounds of nature and cries of animals alike his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. Now in the descriptive style there are few changes, but in the dramatic there are a great many. Poets and musicians use either, or a compound of both, and this compound is very attractive to youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our State in which one man plays one part only is not adapted for complexity. And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself and his poetry we will show him every observance of respect, but at the same time tell him that there is no room for his kind in our State we prefer the rough, honest poet, and will not depart from our original models (Laws). Next as to the music. A song or ode has three parts,the subject, the harmony, and the rhythm of which the two last are dependent upon the first. As we banished strains of lamentation, so we may now banish the mixed Lydian harmonies, which are the harmonies of lamentation and as our citizens are to be temperate, we may also banish convivial harmonies, such as the Ionian and pure Lydian. Two remainthe Dorian and Phrygian, the first for war, the second for peace the one expressive of courage, the other of obedience or instruction or religious feeling. And as we reject varieties of harmony, we shall also reject the manystringed, variouslyshaped instruments which give utterance to them, and in particular the flute, which is more complex than any of them. The lyre and the harp may be permitted in the town, and the Pan'spipe in the fields. Thus we have made a purgation of music, and will now make a purgation of metres. These should be like the harmonies, simple and suitable to the occasion. There are four notes of the tetrachord, and there are three ratios of metre, , , , which have all their characteristics, and the feet have different characteristics as well as the rhythms. But about this you and I must ask Damon, the great musician, who speaks, if I remember rightly, of a martial measure as well as of dactylic, trochaic, and iambic rhythms, which he arranges so as to equalize the syllables with one another, assigning to each the proper quantity. We only venture to affirm the general principle that the style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style and that the simplicity and harmony of the soul should be reflected in them all. This principle of simplicity has to be learnt by every one in the days of his youth, and may be gathered anywhere, from the creative and constructive arts, as well as from the forms of plants and animals. Other artists as well as poets should be warned against meanness or unseemliness. Sculpture and painting equally with music must conform to the law of simplicity. He who violates it cannot be allowed to work in our city, and to corrupt the taste of our citizens. For our guardians must grow up, not amid images of deformity which will gradually poison and corrupt their souls, but in a land of health and beauty where they will drink in from every object sweet and harmonious influences. And of all these influences the greatest is the education given by music, which finds a way into the innermost soul and imparts to it the sense of beauty and of deformity. At first the effect is unconscious but when reason arrives, then he who has been thus trained welcomes her as the friend whom he always knew. As in learning to read, first we acquire the elements or letters separately, and afterwards their combinations, and cannot recognize reflections of them until we know the letters themselvesin like manner we must first attain the elements or essential forms of the virtues, and then trace their combinations in life and experience. There is a music of the soul which answers to the harmony of the world and the fairest object of a musical soul is the fair mind in the fair body. Some defect in the latter may be excused, but not in the former. True love is the daughter of temperance, and temperance is utterly opposed to the madness of bodily pleasure. Enough has been said of music, which makes a fair ending with love. Next we pass on to gymnastics about which I would remark, that the soul is related to the body as a cause to an effect, and therefore if we educate the mind we may leave the education of the body in her charge, and need only give a general outline of the course to be pursued. In the first place the guardians must abstain from strong drink, for they should be the last persons to lose their wits. Whether the habits of the palaestra are suitable to them is more doubtful, for the ordinary gymnastic is a sleepy sort of thing, and if left off suddenly is apt to endanger health. But our warrior athletes must be wideawake dogs, and must also be inured to all changes of food and climate. Hence they will require a simpler kind of gymnastic, akin to their simple music and for their diet a rule may be found in Homer, who feeds his heroes on roast meat only, and gives them no fish although they are living at the seaside, nor boiled meats which involve an apparatus of pots and pans and, if I am not mistaken, he nowhere mentions sweet sauces. Sicilian cookery and Attic confections and Corinthian courtezans, which are to gymnastic what Lydian and Ionian melodies are to music, must be forbidden. Where gluttony and intemperance prevail the town quickly fills with doctors and pleaders and law and medicine give themselves airs as soon as the freemen of a State take an interest in them. But what can show a more disgraceful state of education than to have to go abroad for justice because you have none of your own at home? And yet there IS a worse stage of the same diseasewhen men have learned to take a pleasure and pride in the twists and turns of the law not considering how much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician, not for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus after he has been wounded drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a heating nature and yet the sons of Asclepius blame neither the damsel who gives him the drink, nor Patroclus who is attending on him. The truth is that this modern system of nursing diseases was introduced by Herodicus the trainer who, being of a sickly constitution, by a compound of training and medicine tortured first himself and then a good many other people, and lived a great deal longer than he had any right. But Asclepius would not practise this art, because he knew that the citizens of a wellordered State have no leisure to be ill, and therefore he adopted the 'kill or cure' method, which artisans and labourers employ. 'They must be at their business,' they say, 'and have no time for coddling if they recover, well if they don't, there is an end of them.' Whereas the rich man is supposed to be a gentleman who can afford to be ill. Do you know a maxim of Phocylidesthat 'when a man begins to be rich' (or, perhaps, a little sooner) 'he should practise virtue'? But how can excessive care of health be inconsistent with an ordinary occupation, and yet consistent with that practice of virtue which Phocylides inculcates? When a student imagines that philosophy gives him a headache, he never does anything he is always unwell. This was the reason why Asclepius and his sons practised no such art. They were acting in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve useless lives, or raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. Honest diseases they honestly cured and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper remedies, and then let him eat and drink what he liked. But they declined to treat intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made large fortunes out of them. As to the story of Pindar, that Asclepius was slain by a thunderbolt for restoring a rich man to life, that is a liefollowing our old rule we must say either that he did not take bribes, or that he was not the son of a god. Glaucon then asks Socrates whether the best physicians and the best judges will not be those who have had severally the greatest experience of diseases and of crimes. Socrates draws a distinction between the two professions. The physician should have had experience of disease in his own body, for he cures with his mind and not with his body. But the judge controls mind by mind and therefore his mind should not be corrupted by crime. Where then is he to gain experience? How is he to be wise and also innocent? When young a good man is apt to be deceived by evildoers, because he has no pattern of evil in himself and therefore the judge should be of a certain age his youth should have been innocent, and he should have acquired insight into evil not by the practice of it, but by the observation of it in others. This is the ideal of a judge the criminal turned detective is wonderfully suspicious, but when in company with good men who have experience, he is at fault, for he foolishly imagines that every one is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of virtue, but cannot know virtue. This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of law which will prevail in our State they will be healing arts to better natures but the evil body will be left to die by the one, and the evil soul will be put to death by the other. And the need of either will be greatly diminished by good music which will give harmony to the soul, and good gymnastic which will give health to the body. Not that this division of music and gymnastic really corresponds to soul and body for they are both equally concerned with the soul, which is tamed by the one and aroused and sustained by the other. The two together supply our guardians with their twofold nature. The passionate disposition when it has too much gymnastic is hardened and brutalized, the gentle or philosophic temper which has too much music becomes enervated. While a man is allowing music to pour like water through the funnel of his ears, the edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited element is melted out of him. Too little spirit is easily exhausted too much quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid he is like a wild beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy. There are two principles in man, reason and passion, and to these, not to the soul and body, the two arts of music and gymnastic correspond. He who mingles them in harmonious concord is the true musician,he shall be the presiding genius of our State. The next question is, Who are to be our rulers? First, the elder must rule the younger and the best of the elders will be the best guardians. Now they will be the best who love their subjects most, and think that they have a common interest with them in the welfare of the state. These we must select but they must be watched at every epoch of life to see whether they have retained the same opinions and held out against force and enchantment. For time and persuasion and the love of pleasure may enchant a man into a change of purpose, and the force of grief and pain may compel him. And therefore our guardians must be men who have been tried by many tests, like gold in the refiner's fire, and have been passed first through danger, then through pleasure, and at every age have come out of such trials victorious and without stain, in full command of themselves and their principles having all their faculties in harmonious exercise for their country's good. These shall receive the highest honours both in life and death. (It would perhaps be better to confine the term 'guardians' to this select class the younger men may be called 'auxiliaries.') And now for one magnificent lie, in the belief of which, Oh that we could train our rulers!at any rate let us make the attempt with the rest of the world. What I am going to tell is only another version of the legend of Cadmus but our unbelieving generation will be slow to accept such a story. The tale must be imparted, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, lastly to the people. We will inform them that their youth was a dream, and that during the time when they seemed to be undergoing their education they were really being fashioned in the earth, who sent them up when they were ready and that they must protect and cherish her whose children they are, and regard each other as brothers and sisters. 'I do not wonder at your being ashamed to propound such a fiction.' There is more behind. These brothers and sisters have different natures, and some of them God framed to rule, whom he fashioned of gold others he made of silver, to be auxiliaries others again to be husbandmen and craftsmen, and these were formed by him of brass and iron. But as they are all sprung from a common stock, a golden parent may have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son, and then there must be a change of rank the son of the rich must descend, and the child of the artisan rise, in the social scale for an oracle says 'that the State will come to an end if governed by a man of brass or iron.' Will our citizens ever believe all this? 'Not in the present generation, but in the next, perhaps, Yes.' Now let the earthborn men go forth under the command of their rulers, and look about and pitch their camp in a high place, which will be safe against enemies from without, and likewise against insurrections from within. There let them sacrifice and set up their tents for soldiers they are to be and not shopkeepers, the watchdogs and guardians of the sheep and luxury and avarice will turn them into wolves and tyrants. Their habits and their dwellings should correspond to their education. They should have no property their pay should only meet their expenses and they should have common meals. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God, and this divine gift in their souls they must not alloy with that earthly dross which passes under the name of gold. They only of the citizens may not touch it, or be under the same roof with it, or drink from it it is the accursed thing. Should they ever acquire houses or lands or money of their own, they will become householders and tradesmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of helpers, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and the rest of the State, will be at hand. The religious and ethical aspect of Plato's education will hereafter be considered under a separate head. Some lesser points may be more conveniently noticed in this place. . The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave irony, Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a witness about ethics and psychology, as well as about diet and medicine attempting to distinguish the better lesson from the worse, sometimes altering the text from design more than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately, after the manner of the early logographers turning the Iliad into prose, and delighting to draw farfetched inferences from his words, or to make ludicrous applications of them. He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage with Homer and Archilochus (Heracl.), but uses their words and expressions as vehicles of a higher truth not on a system like Theagenes of Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times the Stoics, but as fancy may dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are sound, although the premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato's style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech. They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations. Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has been the art of interpretation. . 'The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.' Notwithstanding the fascination which the word 'classical' exercises over us, we can hardly maintain that this rule is observed in all the Greek poetry which has come down to us. We cannot deny that the thought often exceeds the power of lucid expression in Aeschylus and Pindar or that rhetoric gets the better of the thought in the Sophistpoet Euripides. Only perhaps in Sophocles is there a perfect harmony of the two in him alone do we find a grace of language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is nothing to add or to take away at least this is true of single plays or of large portions of them. The connection in the Tragic Choruses and in the Greek lyric poets is not unfrequently a tangled thread which in an age before logic the poet was unable to draw out. Many thoughts and feelings mingled in his mind, and he had no power of disengaging or arranging them. For there is a subtle influence of logic which requires to be transferred from prose to poetry, just as the music and perfection of language are infused by poetry into prose. In all ages the poet has been a bad judge of his own meaning (Apol.) for he does not see that the word which is full of associations to his own mind is difficult and unmeaning to that of another or that the sequence which is clear to himself is puzzling to others. There are many passages in some of our greatest modern poets which are far too obscure in which there is no proportion between style and subject, in which any halfexpressed figure, any harsh construction, any distorted collocation of words, any remote sequence of ideas is admitted and there is no voice 'coming sweetly from nature,' or music adding the expression of feeling to thought. As if there could be poetry without beauty, or beauty without ease and clearness. The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the state of language and logic which existed in their age. They are not examples to be followed by us for the use of language ought in every generation to become clearer and clearer. Like Shakespere, they were great in spite, not in consequence, of their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the infancy of literature. The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back to the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our own times has not outstripped language a want of Plato's 'art of measuring' is the rule cause of the disproportion between them. . In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a theory of art than anywhere else in Plato. His views may be summed up as followsTrue art is not fanciful and imitative, but simple and ideal,the expression of the highest moral energy, whether in action or repose. To live among works of plastic art which are of this noble and simple character, or to listen to such strains, is the best of influences,the true Greek atmosphere, in which youth should be brought up. That is the way to create in them a natural good taste, which will have a feeling of truth and beauty in all things. For though the poets are to be expelled, still art is recognized as another aspect of reasonlike love in the Symposium, extending over the same sphere, but confined to the preliminary education, and acting through the power of habit and this conception of art is not limited to strains of music or the forms of plastic art, but pervades all nature and has a wide kindred in the world. The Republic of Plato, like the Athens of Pericles, has an artistic as well as a political side. There is hardly any mention in Plato of the creative arts only in two or three passages does he even allude to them (Rep. Soph.). He is not lost in rapture at the great works of Phidias, the Parthenon, the Propylea, the statues of Zeus or Athene. He would probably have regarded any abstract truth of number or figure as higher than the greatest of them. Yet it is hard to suppose that some influence, such as he hopes to inspire in youth, did not pass into his own mind from the works of art which he saw around him. We are living upon the fragments of them, and find in a few broken stones the standard of truth and beauty. But in Plato this feeling has no expression he nowhere says that beauty is the object of art he seems to deny that wisdom can take an external form (Phaedrus) he does not distinguish the fine from the mechanical arts. Whether or no, like some writers, he felt more than he expressed, it is at any rate remarkable that the greatest perfection of the fine arts should coincide with an almost entire silence about them. In one very striking passage he tells us that a work of art, like the State, is a whole and this conception of a whole and the love of the newlyborn mathematical sciences may be regarded, if not as the inspiring, at any rate as the regulating principles of Greek art (Xen. Mem. and Sophist). . Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better not be in robust health and should have known what illness is in his own person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil he is to be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a judge should not be young, just as a young man according to Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad, on the other hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge of virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this train of reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws it is acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it. There is a directness of aim in virtue which gives an insight into vice. And the knowledge of character is in some degree a natural sense independent of any special experience of good or evil. . One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because unGreek and also very different from anything which existed at all in his age of the world, is the transposition of ranks. In the Spartan state there had been enfranchisement of Helots and degradation of citizens under special circumstances. And in the ancient Greek aristocracies, merit was certainly recognized as one of the elements on which government was based. The founders of states were supposed to be their benefactors, who were raised by their great actions above the ordinary level of humanity at a later period, the services of warriors and legislators were held to entitle them and their descendants to the privileges of citizenship and to the first rank in the state. And although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from the remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic stateor indeed to any state which has ever existed in the worldstill the rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the guardians of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell short of a fixed standard were either removed from the governing body, or not admitted to it and this 'academic' discipline did to a certain extent prevail in Greek states, especially in Sparta. He also indicates that the system of caste, which existed in a great part of the ancient, and is by no means extinct in the modern European world, should be set aside from time to time in favour of merit. He is aware how deeply the greater part of mankind resent any interference with the order of society, and therefore he proposes his novel idea in the form of what he himself calls a 'monstrous fiction.' (Compare the ceremony of preparation for the two 'great waves' in Book v.) Two principles are indicated by him first, that there is a distinction of ranks dependent on circumstances prior to the individual second, that this distinction is and ought to be broken through by personal qualities. He adapts mythology like the Homeric poems to the wants of the state, making 'the Phoenician tale' the vehicle of his ideas. Every Greek state had a myth respecting its own origin the Platonic republic may also have a tale of earthborn men. The gravity and verisimilitude with which the tale is told, and the analogy of Greek tradition, are a sufficient verification of the 'monstrous falsehood.' Ancient poetry had spoken of a gold and silver and brass and iron age succeeding one another, but Plato supposes these differences in the natures of men to exist together in a single state. Mythology supplies a figure under which the lesson may be taught (as Protagoras says, 'the myth is more interesting'), and also enables Plato to touch lightly on new principles without going into details. In this passage he shadows forth a general truth, but he does not tell us by what steps the transposition of ranks is to be effected. Indeed throughout the Republic he allows the lower ranks to fade into the distance. We do not know whether they are to carry arms, and whether in the fifth book they are or are not included in the communistic regulations respecting property and marriage. Nor is there any use in arguing strictly either from a few chance words, or from the silence of Plato, or in drawing inferences which were beyond his vision. Aristotle, in his criticism on the position of the lower classes, does not perceive that the poetical creation is 'like the air, invulnerable,' and cannot be penetrated by the shafts of his logic (Pol.). . Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest degree fanciful and ideal, and which suggest to him many reflections, are to be found in the third book of the Republic first, the great power of music, so much beyond any influence which is experienced by us in modern times, when the art or science has been far more developed, and has found the secret of harmony, as well as of melody secondly, the indefinite and almost absolute control which the soul is supposed to exercise over the body. In the first we suspect some degree of exaggeration, such as we may also observe among certain masters of the art, not unknown to us, at the present day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there seems to mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and numerical proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound and number are to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not dependent on the variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a connecting link with the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is describing what to him appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple and characteristic melody on the impressible mind of the Greek is more than we can easily appreciate. The effect of national airs may bear some comparison with it. And, besides all this, there is a confusion between the harmony of musical notes and the harmony of soul and body, which is so potently inspired by them. The second paradox leads up to some curious and interesting questionsHow far can the mind control the body? Is the relation between them one of mutual antagonism or of mutual harmony? Are they two or one, and is either of them the cause of the other? May we not at times drop the opposition between them, and the mode of describing them, which is so familiar to us, and yet hardly conveys any precise meaning, and try to view this composite creature, man, in a more simple manner? Must we not at any rate admit that there is in human nature a higher and a lower principle, divided by no distinct line, which at times break asunder and take up arms against one another? Or again, they are reconciled and move together, either unconsciously in the ordinary work of life, or consciously in the pursuit of some noble aim, to be attained not without an effort, and for which every thought and nerve are strained. And then the body becomes the good friend or ally, or servant or instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a wonderful and almost superhuman power of banishing disease and weakness and calling out a hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to form a single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting and the identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most part unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the body through the appetites, we acknowledge the responsibility of the one to the other. There is a tendency in us which says 'Drink.' There is another which says, 'Do not drink it is not good for you.' And we all of us know which is the rightful superior. We are also responsible for our health, although into this sphere there enter some elements of necessity which may be beyond our control. Still even in the management of health, care and thought, continued over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we do not exact too much of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that all human freedom is limited by the laws of nature and of mind. We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation which he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day, depreciates the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a definite character and capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of invalidism interfering with the business of life. He does not recognize that time is the great healer both of mental and bodily disorders and that remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little are safer than those which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does he see that there is no way in which the mind can more surely influence the body than by the control of eating and drinking or any other action or occasion of human life on which the higher freedom of the will can be more simple or truly asserted. . Lesser matters of style may be remarked. () The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato's way of expressing that he is passing lightly over the subject. () The tentative manner in which here, as in the second book, he proceeds with the construction of the State. () The description of the State sometimes as a reality, and then again as a work of imagination only these are the arts by which he sustains the reader's interest. () Connecting links, or the preparation for the entire expulsion of the poets in Book X. () The companion pictures of the lover of litigation and the valetudinarian, the satirical jest about the maxim of Phocylides, the manner in which the image of the gold and silver citizens is taken up into the subject, and the argument from the practice of Asclepius, should not escape notice. BOOK IV. Adeimantus said 'Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that you make your citizens miserable, and this by their own freewill they are the lords of the city, and yet instead of having, like other men, lands and houses and money of their own, they live as mercenaries and are always mounting guard.' You may add, I replied, that they receive no pay but only their food, and have no money to spend on a journey or a mistress. 'Well, and what answer do you give?' My answer is, that our guardians may or may not be the happiest of men,I should not be surprised to find in the longrun that they were,but this is not the aim of our constitution, which was designed for the good of the whole and not of any one part. If I went to a sculptor and blamed him for having painted the eye, which is the noblest feature of the face, not purple but black, he would reply 'The eye must be an eye, and you should look at the statue as a whole.' 'Now I can well imagine a fool's paradise, in which everybody is eating and drinking, clothed in purple and fine linen, and potters lie on sofas and have their wheel at hand, that they may work a little when they please and cobblers and all the other classes of a State lose their distinctive character. And a State may get on without cobblers but when the guardians degenerate into boon companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not talking of peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is expected to do his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class, but in the State as a whole. I have another remark to makeA middle condition is best for artisans they should have money enough to buy tools, and not enough to be independent of business. And will not the same condition be best for our citizens? If they are poor, they will be mean if rich, luxurious and lazy and in neither case contented. 'But then how will our poor city be able to go to war against an enemy who has money?' There may be a difficulty in fighting against one enemy against two there will be none. In the first place, the contest will be carried on by trained warriors against welltodo citizens and is not a regular athlete an easy match for two stout opponents at least? Suppose also, that before engaging we send ambassadors to one of the two cities, saying, 'Silver and gold we have not do you help us and take our share of the spoil'who would fight against the lean, wiry dogs, when they might join with them in preying upon the fatted sheep? 'But if many states join their resources, shall we not be in danger?' I am amused to hear you use the word 'state' of any but our own State. They are 'states,' but not 'a state'many in one. For in every state there are two hostile nations, rich and poor, which you may set one against the other. But our State, while she remains true to her principles, will be in very deed the mightiest of Hellenic states. To the size of the state there is no limit but the necessity of unity it must be neither too large nor too small to be one. This is a matter of secondary importance, like the principle of transposition which was intimated in the parable of the earthborn men. The meaning there implied was that every man should do that for which he was fitted, and be at one with himself, and then the whole city would be united. But all these things are secondary, if education, which is the great matter, be duly regarded. When the wheel has once been set in motion, the speed is always increasing and each generation improves upon the preceding, both in physical and moral qualities. The care of the governors should be directed to preserve music and gymnastic from innovation alter the songs of a country, Damon says, and you will soon end by altering its laws. The change appears innocent at first, and begins in play but the evil soon becomes serious, working secretly upon the characters of individuals, then upon social and commercial relations, and lastly upon the institutions of a state and there is ruin and confusion everywhere. But if education remains in the established form, there will be no danger. A restorative process will be always going on the spirit of law and order will raise up what has fallen down. Nor will any regulations be needed for the lesser matters of liferules of deportment or fashions of dress. Like invites like for good or for evil. Education will correct deficiencies and supply the power of selfgovernment. Far be it from us to enter into the particulars of legislation let the guardians take care of education, and education will take care of all other things. But without education they may patch and mend as they please they will make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to cure himself by some favourite remedy and will not give up his luxurious mode of living. If you tell such persons that they must first alter their habits, then they grow angry they are charming people. 'Charming,nay, the very reverse.' Evidently these gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which is like them. And such states there are which first ordain under penalty of death that no one shall alter the constitution, and then suffer themselves to be flattered into and out of anything and he who indulges them and fawns upon them, is their leader and saviour. 'Yes, the men are as bad as the states.' But do you not admire their cleverness? 'Nay, some of them are stupid enough to believe what the people tell them.' And when all the world is telling a man that he is six feet high, and he has no measure, how can he believe anything else? But don't get into a passion to see our statesmen trying their nostrums, and fancying that they can cut off at a blow the Hydralike rogueries of mankind, is as good as a play. Minute enactments are superfluous in good states, and are useless in bad ones. And now what remains of the work of legislation? Nothing for us but to Apollo the god of Delphi we leave the ordering of the greatest of all thingsthat is to say, religion. Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre and navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair of such magnitude. No foreign god shall be supreme in our realms... Here, as Socrates would say, let us 'reflect on' (Greek) what has preceded thus far we have spoken not of the happiness of the citizens, but only of the wellbeing of the State. They may be the happiest of men, but our principal aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They were to be guardians, not holidaymakers. In this pleasant manner is presented to us the famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy, touching the relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility. First duty, then happiness, is the natural order of our moral ideas. The utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of error, and shows to us a side of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further that right and utility are coextensive, and that he who makes the happiness of mankind his object has one of the highest and noblest motives of human action. But utility is not the historical basis of morality nor the aspect in which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest happiness of all is, as we believe, the faroff result of the divine government of the universe. The greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be of a divine purpose, that 'all mankind should be saved' and we infer the one from the other. And the greatest happiness of the individual may be the reverse of the greatest happiness in the ordinary sense of the term, and may be realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary death. Further, the word 'happiness' has several ambiguities it may mean either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness subjective or objective, in this world or in another, of ourselves only or of our neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the modern founder of Utilitarianism the selfregarding and disinterested motives of action are included under the same term, although they are commonly opposed by us as benevolence and selflove. The word happiness has not the definiteness or the sacredness of 'truth' and 'right' it does not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and conveniences of life too little with 'the goods of the soul which we desire for their own sake.' In a great trial, or danger, or temptation, or in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these reasons 'the greatest happiness' principle is not the true foundation of ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is like unto it, and is often of easier application. For the larger part of human actions are neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend to the happiness of mankind (Introd. to Gorgias and Philebus). The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For concerning political measures, we chiefly ask How will they affect the happiness of mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term expediency is merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human society. Right and truth are the highest aims of government as well as of individuals and we ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot directly enforce them. They appeal to the better mind of nations and sometimes they are too much for merely temporal interests to resist. They are the watchwords which all men use in matters of public policy, as well as in their private dealings the peace of Europe may be said to depend upon them. In the most commercial and utilitarian states of society the power of ideas remains. And all the higher class of statesmen have in them something of that idealism which Pericles is said to have gathered from the teaching of Anaxagoras. They recognise that the true leader of men must be above the motives of ambition, and that national character is of greater value than material comfort and prosperity. And this is the order of thought in Plato first, he expects his citizens to do their duty, and then under favourable circumstances, that is to say, in a wellordered State, their happiness is assured. That he was far from excluding the modern principle of utility in politics is sufficiently evident from other passages in which 'the most beneficial is affirmed to be the most honourable', and also 'the most sacred'. We may note () The manner in which the objection of Adeimantus here, is designed to draw out and deepen the argument of Socrates. () The conception of a whole as lying at the foundation both of politics and of art, in the latter supplying the only principle of criticism, which, under the various names of harmony, symmetry, measure, proportion, unity, the Greek seems to have applied to works of art. () The requirement that the State should be limited in size, after the traditional model of a Greek state as in the Politics of Aristotle, the fact that the cities of Hellas were small is converted into a principle. () The humorous pictures of the lean dogs and the fatted sheep, of the light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen at least, of the 'charming' patients who are always making themselves worse or again, the playful assumption that there is no State but our own or the grave irony with which the statesman is excused who believes that he is six feet high because he is told so, and having nothing to measure with is to be pardoned for his ignorancehe is too amusing for us to be seriously angry with him. () The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over when provision has been made for two great principles,first, that religion shall be based on the highest conception of the gods, secondly, that the true national or Hellenic type shall be maintained... Socrates proceeds But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston, tell me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother and the rest of our friends to help in seeking for her. 'That won't do,' replied Glaucon, 'you yourself promised to make the search and talked about the impiety of deserting justice.' Well, I said, I will lead the way, but do you follow. My notion is, that our State being perfect will contain all the four virtueswisdom, courage, temperance, justice. If we eliminate the three first, the unknown remainder will be justice. First then, of wisdom the State which we have called into being will be wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of skill,not the skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the husbandman, but the skill of him who advises about the interests of the whole State. Of such a kind is the skill of the guardians, who are a small class in number, far smaller than the blacksmiths but in them is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if this small ruling class have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise. Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in another classthat of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of salvationthe neverfailing salvation of the opinions which law and education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or lye will ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and the laws are the colours and if the ground is properly laid, neither the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them out. This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask you to call 'courage,' adding the epithet 'political' or 'civilized' in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a higher courage which may hereafter be discussed. Two virtues remain temperance and justice. More than the preceding virtues temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown upon the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as 'master of himself'which has an absurd sound, because the master is also the servant. The expression really means that the better principle in a man masters the worse. There are in cities whole classeswomen, slaves and the likewho correspond to the worse, and a few only to the better and in our State the former class are held under control by the latter. Now to which of these classes does temperance belong? 'To both of them.' And our State if any will be the abode of temperance and we were right in describing this virtue as a harmony which is diffused through the whole, making the dwellers in the city to be of one mind, and attuning the upper and middle and lower classes like the strings of an instrument, whether you suppose them to differ in wisdom, strength or wealth. And now we are near the spot let us draw in and surround the cover and watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell me, if you see the thicket move first. 'Nay, I would have you lead.' Well then, offer up a prayer and follow. The way is dark and difficult but we must push on. I begin to see a track. 'Good news.' Why, Glaucon, our dulness of scent is quite ludicrous! While we are straining our eyes into the distance, justice is tumbling out at our feet. We are as bad as people looking for a thing which they have in their hands. Have you forgotten our old principle of the division of labour, or of every man doing his own business, concerning which we spoke at the foundation of the Statewhat but this was justice? Is there any other virtue remaining which can compete with wisdom and temperance and courage in the scale of political virtue? For 'every one having his own' is the great object of government and the great object of trade is that every man should do his own business. Not that there is much harm in a carpenter trying to be a cobbler, or a cobbler transforming himself into a carpenter but great evil may arise from the cobbler leaving his last and turning into a guardian or legislator, or when a single individual is trainer, warrior, legislator, all in one. And this evil is injustice, or every man doing another's business. I do not say that as yet we are in a condition to arrive at a final conclusion. For the definition which we believe to hold good in states has still to be tested by the individual. Having read the large letters we will now come back to the small. From the two together a brilliant light may be struck out... Socrates proceeds to discover the nature of justice by a method of residues. Each of the first three virtues corresponds to one of the three parts of the soul and one of the three classes in the State, although the third, temperance, has more of the nature of a harmony than the first two. If there be a fourth virtue, that can only be sought for in the relation of the three parts in the soul or classes in the State to one another. It is obvious and simple, and for that very reason has not been found out. The modern logician will be inclined to object that ideas cannot be separated like chemical substances, but that they run into one another and may be only different aspects or names of the same thing, and such in this instance appears to be the case. For the definition here given of justice is verbally the same as one of the definitions of temperance given by Socrates in the Charmides, which however is only provisional, and is afterwards rejected. And so far from justice remaining over when the other virtues are eliminated, the justice and temperance of the Republic can with difficulty be distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only, and one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul. Yet on the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony, and in this respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from temperance in degree rather than in kind whereas temperance is the harmony of discordant elements, justice is the perfect order by which all natures and classes do their own business, the right man in the right place, the division and cooperation of all the citizens. Justice, again, is a more abstract notion than the other virtues, and therefore, from Plato's point of view, the foundation of them, to which they are referred and which in idea precedes them. The proposal to omit temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid monotony. There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of Plato (Protagoras Arist. Nic. Ethics), 'Whether the virtues are one or many?' This receives an answer which is to the effect that there are four cardinal virtues (now for the first time brought together in ethical philosophy), and one supreme over the rest, which is not like Aristotle's conception of universal justice, virtue relative to others, but the whole of virtue relative to the parts. To this universal conception of justice or order in the first education and in the moral nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms 'law,' 'order,' 'harmony' but while the idea of good embraces 'all time and all existence,' the conception of justice is not extended beyond man. ...Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But first he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul. His argument is as followsQuantity makes no difference in quality. The word 'just,' whether applied to the individual or to the State, has the same meaning. And the term 'justice' implied that the same three principles in the State and in the individual were doing their own business. But are they really three or one? The question is difficult, and one which can hardly be solved by the methods which we are now using but the truer and longer way would take up too much of our time. 'The shorter will satisfy me.' Well then, you would admit that the qualities of states mean the qualities of the individuals who compose them? The Scythians and Thracians are passionate, our own race intellectual, and the Egyptians and Phoenicians covetous, because the individual members of each have such and such a character the difficulty is to determine whether the several principles are one or three whether, that is to say, we reason with one part of our nature, desire with another, are angry with another, or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action. This enquiry, however, requires a very exact definition of terms. The same thing in the same relation cannot be affected in two opposite ways. But there is no impossibility in a man standing still, yet moving his arms, or in a top which is fixed on one spot going round upon its axis. There is no necessity to mention all the possible exceptions let us provisionally assume that opposites cannot do or be or suffer opposites in the same relation. And to the class of opposites belong assent and dissent, desire and avoidance. And one form of desire is thirst and hunger and here arises a new pointthirst is thirst of drink, hunger is hunger of food not of warm drink or of a particular kind of food, with the single exception of course that the very fact of our desiring anything implies that it is good. When relative terms have no attributes, their correlatives have no attributes when they have attributes, their correlatives also have them. For example, the term 'greater' is simply relative to 'less,' and knowledge refers to a subject of knowledge. But on the other hand, a particular knowledge is of a particular subject. Again, every science has a distinct character, which is defined by an object medicine, for example, is the science of health, although not to be confounded with health. Having cleared our ideas thus far, let us return to the original instance of thirst, which has a definite objectdrink. Now the thirsty soul may feel two distinct impulses the animal one saying 'Drink' the rational one, which says 'Do not drink.' The two impulses are contradictory and therefore we may assume that they spring from distinct principles in the soul. But is passion a third principle, or akin to desire? There is a story of a certain Leontius which throws some light on this question. He was coming up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, and he passed a spot where there were dead bodies lying by the executioner. He felt a longing desire to see them and also an abhorrence of them at first he turned away and shut his eyes, then, suddenly tearing them open, he said,'Take your fill, ye wretches, of the fair sight.' Now is there not here a third principle which is often found to come to the assistance of reason against desire, but never of desire against reason? This is passion or spirit, of the separate existence of which we may further convince ourselves by putting the following caseWhen a man suffers justly, if he be of a generous nature he is not indignant at the hardships which he undergoes but when he suffers unjustly, his indignation is his great support hunger and thirst cannot tame him the spirit within him must do or die, until the voice of the shepherd, that is, of reason, bidding his dog bark no more, is heard within. This shows that passion is the ally of reason. Is passion then the same with reason? No, for the former exists in children and brutes and Homer affords a proof of the distinction between them when he says, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.' And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to infer that the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same. For wisdom and courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom and courage and justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the three classes will do the work of its own class in the State, and each part in the individual soul reason, the superior, and passion, the inferior, will be harmonized by the influence of music and gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the head and the arm, will act together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the desires in proper subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality which preserves a right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and pains. The wisdom of the counsellor is that small part of the soul which has authority and reason. The virtue of temperance is the friendship of the ruling and the subject principles, both in the State and in the individual. Of justice we have already spoken and the notion already given of it may be confirmed by common instances. Will the just state or the just individual steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of impiety to gods and men? 'No.' And is not the reason of this that the several principles, whether in the state or in the individual, do their own business? And justice is the quality which makes just men and just states. Moreover, our old division of labour, which required that there should be one man for one use, was a dream or anticipation of what was to follow and that dream has now been realized in justice, which begins by binding together the three chords of the soul, and then acts harmoniously in every relation of life. And injustice, which is the insubordination and disobedience of the inferior elements in the soul, is the opposite of justice, and is inharmonious and unnatural, being to the soul what disease is to the body for in the soul as well as in the body, good or bad actions produce good or bad habits. And virtue is the health and beauty and wellbeing of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul. Again the old question returns upon us Is justice or injustice the more profitable? The question has become ridiculous. For injustice, like mortal disease, makes life not worth having. Come up with me to the hill which overhangs the city and look down upon the single form of virtue, and the infinite forms of vice, among which are four special ones, characteristic both of states and of individuals. And the state which corresponds to the single form of virtue is that which we have been describing, wherein reason rules under one of two namesmonarchy and aristocracy. Thus there are five forms in all, both of states and of souls... In attempting to prove that the soul has three separate faculties, Plato takes occasion to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the criterion which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties. The same faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly, no extraneous word must be introduced into either of the terms in which the contradictory proposition is expressed for example, thirst is of drink, not of warm drink. He implies, what he does not say, that if, by the advice of reason, or by the impulse of anger, a man is restrained from drinking, this proves that thirst, or desire under which thirst is included, is distinct from anger and reason. But suppose that we allow the term 'thirst' or 'desire' to be modified, and say an 'angry thirst,' or a 'revengeful desire,' then the two spheres of desire and anger overlap and become confused. This case therefore has to be excluded. And still there remains an exception to the rule in the use of the term 'good,' which is always implied in the object of desire. These are the discussions of an age before logic and any one who is wearied by them should remember that they are necessary to the clearing up of ideas in the first development of the human faculties. The psychology of Plato extends no further than the division of the soul into the rational, irascible, and concupiscent elements, which, as far as we know, was first made by him, and has been retained by Aristotle and succeeding ethical writers. The chief difficulty in this early analysis of the mind is to define exactly the place of the irascible faculty (Greek), which may be variously described under the terms righteous indignation, spirit, passion. It is the foundation of courage, which includes in Plato moral courage, the courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting intellectual difficulties, as well as of meeting dangers in war. Though irrational, it inclines to side with the rational it cannot be aroused by punishment when justly inflicted it sometimes takes the form of an enthusiasm which sustains a man in the performance of great actions. It is the 'lion heart' with which the reason makes a treaty. On the other hand it is negative rather than positive it is indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in the government of honour. It differs from anger (Greek), this latter term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle has retained the word, yet we may observe that 'passion' (Greek) has with him lost its affinity to the rational and has become indistinguishable from 'anger' (Greek). And to this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert, though not always. By modern philosophy too, as well as in our ordinary conversation, the words anger or passion are employed almost exclusively in a bad sense there is no connotation of a just or reasonable cause by which they are aroused. The feeling of 'righteous indignation' is too partial and accidental to admit of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted also to doubt whether Plato is right in supposing that an offender, however justly condemned, could be expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence this is the spirit of a philosopher or martyr rather than of a criminal. We may observe how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle's famous thesis, that 'good actions produce good habits.' The words 'as healthy practices (Greek) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,' have a sound very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental remark in Plato has become a farreaching principle in Aristotle, and an inseparable part of a great Ethical system. There is a difficulty in understanding what Plato meant by 'the longer way' he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and seventh books (compare Sophist and Parmenides) he has given us a sketch of such a metaphysic but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the idea of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied the preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued about such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture. Perhaps he hoped to find some a priori method of developing the parts out of the whole or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other ideas, and possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the 'ego' and the 'universal.' Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in some manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato the universal and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or opinion, just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole of induction and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always tended to pass beyond the limits of human thought and language they seem to have reached a height at which they are 'moving about in worlds unrealized,' and their conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own minds, become invisible or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore surprized to find that Plato himself has nowhere clearly explained his doctrine of ideas or that his school in a later generation, like his contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were unable to follow him in this region of speculation. In the Sophist, where he is refuting the scepticism which maintained either that there was no such thing as predication, or that all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the conclusion that some ideas combine with some, but not all with all. But he makes only one or two steps forward on this path he nowhere attains to any connected system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary relations of the sciences to one another. BOOK V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in states, when Polemarchushe was sitting a little farther from me than Adeimantustaking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off?' 'Certainly not,' said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Whom, I said, are you not going to let off? 'You,' he said. Why? 'Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting women and children, of whom you have slily disposed under the general formula that friends have all things in common.' And was I not right? 'Yes,' he replied, 'but there are many sorts of communism or community, and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you have just heard, are resolved to have a further explanation.' Thrasymachus said, 'Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to hear you discourse?' Yes, I said but the discourse should be of a reasonable length. Glaucon added, 'Yes, Socrates, and there is reason in spending the whole of life in such discussions but pray, without more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and how the interval between birth and education is to be filled up.' Well, I said, the subject has several difficultiesWhat is possible? is the first question. What is desirable? is the second. 'Fear not,' he replied, 'for you are speaking among friends.' That, I replied, is a sorry consolation I shall destroy my friends as well as myself. Not that I mind a little innocent laughter but he who kills the truth is a murderer. 'Then,' said Glaucon, laughing, 'in case you should murder us we will acquit you beforehand, and you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.' Socrates proceedsThe guardians of our state are to be watchdogs, as we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and sheswe do not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look after their puppies. They have the same employmentsthe only difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same educationthey must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits there was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment of the person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule. The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with the division of labour and the diversity of employments was based on the difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women? Nay, are they not wholly different? THERE was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can. The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal and accidental for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is such an inference erroneous? Simply because the opposition between them is partial only, like the difference between a male physician and a female physician, not running through the whole nature, like the difference between a physician and a carpenter. And if the difference of the sexes is only that the one beget and the other bear children, this does not prove that they ought to have distinct educations. Admitting that women differ from men in capacity, do not men equally differ from one another? Has not nature scattered all the qualities which our citizens require indifferently up and down among the two sexes? and even in their peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though in some cases superior to men, ridiculously enough surpassed by them? Women are the same in kind as men, and have the same aptitude or want of aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or war, but in a less degree. One woman will be a good guardian, another not and the good must be chosen to be the colleagues of our guardians. If however their natures are the same, the inference is that their education must also be the same there is no longer anything unnatural or impossible in a woman learning music and gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be the very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best women, and nothing can be more advantageous to the State than this. Therefore let them strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in the toils of war and in the defence of their country he who laughs at them is a fool for his pains. The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is rolling incommunity of wives and children is this either expedient or possible? The expediency I do not doubt I am not so sure of the possibility. 'Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.' I meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have detected the little stratagem I must even submit. Only allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I will return to the question of what can be. In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as legislator, have already selected the men and now you shall select the women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, holy marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the mating? 'Certainly.' And there is no reason to suppose that less care is required in the marriage of human beings. But then our rulers must be skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will meet at them and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those of inferior breed are paired with inferiorsthe latter will ascribe to chance what is really the invention of the rulers. And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants. 'Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children.' And quite right too, I said, that they should. The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty yearsfrom twentyfive, when he has 'passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,' to fiftyfive and at twenty years for a womanfrom twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety also every one who forms a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers. This latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages, after which they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. 'But how shall we know the degrees of affinity, when all things are common?' The answer is, that brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or nine months after the espousals, and their parents those who are then espoused, and every one will have many children and every child many parents. Socrates proceeds I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or interestswhere if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive and the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to the soul. For the true State, like an individual, is injured as a whole when any part is affected. Every State has subjects and rulers, who in a democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters but in our State they are called saviours and allies and the subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And whereas in other States members of the same government regard one of their colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to another for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding realitybrother, father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in the ears of children, will not be mere words. Then again the citizens will have all things in common, in having common property they will have common pleasures and pains. Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind or lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they call their own or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend himself? The permission to strike when insulted will be an 'antidote' to the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will strike an elder reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with blessings greater stillthey and their children having a better maintenance during life, and after death an honourable burial. Nor has the happiness of the individual been sacrificed to the happiness of the State our Olympic victor has not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any cobbler. At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that 'half is better than the whole.' 'I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life.' But is such a community possible?as among the animals, so also among men and if possible, in what way possible? About war there is no difficulty the principle of communism is adapted to military service. Parents will take their children to look on at a battle, just as potters' boys are trained to the business by looking on at the wheel. And to the parents themselves, as to other animals, the sight of their young ones will prove a great incentive to bravery. Young warriors must learn, but they must not run into danger, although a certain degree of risk is worth incurring when the benefit is great. The young creatures should be placed under the care of experienced veterans, and they should have wingsthat is to say, swift and tractable steeds on which they may fly away and escape. One of the first things to be done is to teach a youth to ride. Cowards and deserters shall be degraded to the class of husbandmen gentlemen who allow themselves to be taken prisoners, may be presented to the enemy. But what shall be done to the hero? First of all he shall be crowned by all the youths in the army secondly, he shall receive the right hand of fellowship and thirdly, do you think that there is any harm in his being kissed? We have already determined that he shall have more wives than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with 'long chines,' which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the bravemay they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod's guardian angels. He shall be worshipped after death in the manner prescribed by the oracle and not only he, but all other benefactors of the State who die in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. The next question is, How shall we treat our enemies? Shall Hellenes be enslaved? No for there is too great a risk of the whole race passing under the yoke of the barbarians. Or shall the dead be despoiled? Certainly not for that sort of thing is an excuse for skulking, and has been the ruin of many an army. There is meanness and feminine malice in making an enemy of the dead body, when the soul which was the owner has fledlike a dog who cannot reach his assailants, and quarrels with the stones which are thrown at him instead. Again, the arms of Hellenes should not be offered up in the temples of the Gods they are a pollution, for they are taken from brethren. And on similar grounds there should be a limit to the devastation of Hellenic territorythe houses should not be burnt, nor more than the annual produce carried off. For war is of two kinds, civil and foreign the first of which is properly termed 'discord,' and only the second 'war' and war between Hellenes is in reality civil wara quarrel in a family, which is ever to be regarded as unpatriotic and unnatural, and ought to be prosecuted with a view to reconciliation in a true philHellenic spirit, as of those who would chasten but not utterly enslave. The war is not against a whole nation who are a friendly multitude of men, women, and children, but only against a few guilty persons when they are punished peace will be restored. That is the way in which Hellenes should war against one anotherand against barbarians, as they war against one another now. 'But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question Is such a State possible? I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of being one familyfathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war together but I want to ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.' You are too unmerciful. The first wave and the second wave I have hardly escaped, and now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see the towering crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. 'Not a whit.' Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after justice, and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all the worse for being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any the worse because no such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the idea? Nature will not allow words to be fully realized but if I am to try and realize the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an approach may be made to the perfection of which I dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single onethe great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill no, nor the human race nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know that this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. 'Socrates, all the world will take off his coat and rush upon you with sticks and stones, and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.' You got me into the scrape, I said. 'And I was right,' he replied 'however, I will stand by you as a sort of donothing, wellmeaning ally.' Having the help of such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my position. And first, I must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these are who are to be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure, you will not have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments they love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The snubnosed youth is said to have a winning grace the beak of another has a royal look the featureless are faultless the dark are manly, the fair angels the sickly have a new term of endearment invented expressly for them, which is 'honeypale.' Lovers of wine and lovers of ambition also desire the objects of their affection in every form. Now here comes the pointThe philosopher too is a lover of knowledge in every form he has an insatiable curiosity. 'But will curiosity make a philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their ears to every chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?' They are not true philosophers, but only an imitation. 'Then how are we to describe the true?' You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as justice, beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are philosophers whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours, and understand their use in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or waking vision of absolute justice or beauty or truth they have not the light of knowledge, but of opinion, and what they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of whom we say the last will be angry with us can we pacify him without revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we say that, if he has knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of something which is, as ignorance is of something which is not and there is a third thing, which both is and is not, and is matter of opinion only. Opinion and knowledge, then, having distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties. And by faculties I mean powers unseen and distinguishable only by the difference in their objects, as opinion and knowledge differ, since the one is liable to err, but the other is unerring and is the mightiest of all our faculties. If being is the object of knowledge, and notbeing of ignorance, and these are the extremes, opinion must lie between them, and may be called darker than the one and brighter than the other. This intermediate or contingent matter is and is not at the same time, and partakes both of existence and of nonexistence. Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract beauty and justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether everything he sees is not in some point of view differentthe beautiful ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another? Everything is and is not, as in the old riddle'A man and not a man shot and did not shoot a bird and not a bird with a stone and not a stone.' The mind cannot be fixed on either alternative and these ambiguous, intermediate, erring, halflighted objects, which have a disorderly movement in the region between being and notbeing, are the proper matter of opinion, as the immutable objects are the proper matter of knowledge. And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only this uncertain perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion only... The fifth book is the new beginning of the Republic, in which the community of property and of family are first maintained, and the transition is made to the kingdom of philosophers. For both of these Plato, after his manner, has been preparing in some chance words of Book IV, which fall unperceived on the reader's mind, as they are supposed at first to have fallen on the ear of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The 'paradoxes,' as Morgenstern terms them, of this book of the Republic will be reserved for another place a few remarks on the style, and some explanations of difficulties, may be briefly added. First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme or plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and greatest wave come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can be said of the extravagance of Plato's proposals is anticipated by himself. Nothing is more admirable than the hesitation with which he proposes the solemn text, 'Until kings are philosophers,' etc. or the reaction from the sublime to the ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the new truth will be received by mankind. Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to the lower classes nor is the table of prohibited degrees capable of being made out. It is quite possible that a child born at one hymeneal festival may marry one of its own brothers or sisters, or even one of its parents, at another. Plato is afraid of incestuous unions, but at the same time he does not wish to bring before us the fact that the city would be divided into families of those born seven and nine months after each hymeneal festival. If it were worth while to argue seriously about such fancies, we might remark that while all the old affinities are abolished, the newly prohibited affinity rests not on any natural or rational principle, but only upon the accident of children having been born in the same month and year. Nor does he explain how the lots could be so manipulated by the legislature as to bring together the fairest and best. The singular expression which is employed to describe the age of fiveandtwenty may perhaps be taken from some poet. In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of Glaucon, the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings. They are partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth. That science is a whole, remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical philosophy and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of the philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times. At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in the history of philosophy. He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a word must answer to an idea and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to invent 'parallels and conjugates' and to overlook facts. To us some of his difficulties are puzzling only from their simplicity we do not perceive that the answer to them 'is tumbling out at our feet.' To the mind of early thinkers, the conception of notbeing was dark and mysterious they did not see that this terrible apparition which threatened destruction to all knowledge was only a logical determination. The common term under which, through the accidental use of language, two entirely different ideas were included was another source of confusion. Thus through the ambiguity of (Greek) Plato, attempting to introduce order into the first chaos of human thought, seems to have confused perception and opinion, and to have failed to distinguish the contingent from the relative. In the Theaetetus the first of these difficulties begins to clear up in the Sophist the second and for this, as well as for other reasons, both these dialogues are probably to be regarded as later than the Republic. BOOK VI. Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true being, and have no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and that philosophers have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or the many shall be rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers should be chosen, if they have the other qualities which are required in a ruler? For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth they are haters of falsehood their meaner desires are absorbed in the interests of knowledge they are spectators of all time and all existence and in the magnificence of their contemplation the life of man is as nothing to them, nor is death fearful. Also they are of a social, gracious disposition, equally free from cowardice and arrogance. They learn and remember easily they have harmonious, wellregulated minds truth flows to them sweetly by nature. Can the god of Jealousy himself find any fault with such an assemblage of good qualities? Here Adeimantus interposes'No man can answer you, Socrates but every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in argument. He is driven from one position to another, until he has nothing more to say, just as an unskilful player at draughts is reduced to his last move by a more skilled opponent. And yet all the time he may be right. He may know, in this very instance, that those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good. What do you say?' I should say that he is quite right. 'Then how is such an admission reconcileable with the doctrine that philosophers should be kings?' I shall answer you in a parable which will also let you see how poor a hand I am at the invention of allegories. The relation of good men to their governments is so peculiar, that in order to defend them I must take an illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller by a head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind, and rather ignorant of the seaman's art. The sailors want to steer, although they know nothing of the art and they have a theory that it cannot be learned. If the helm is refused them, they drug the captain's posset, bind him hand and foot, and take possession of the ship. He who joins in the mutiny is termed a good pilot and what not they have no conception that the true pilot must observe the winds and the stars, and must be their master, whether they like it or notsuch an one would be called by them fool, prater, stargazer. This is my parable which I will beg you to interpret for me to those gentlemen who ask why the philosopher has such an evil name, and to explain to them that not he, but those who will not use him, are to blame for his uselessness. The philosopher should not beg of mankind to be put in authority over them. The wise man should not seek the rich, as the proverb bids, but every man, whether rich or poor, must knock at the door of the physician when he has need of him. Now the pilot is the philosopherhe whom in the parable they call stargazer, and the mutinous sailors are the mob of politicians by whom he is rendered useless. Not that these are the worst enemies of philosophy, who is far more dishonoured by her own professing sons when they are corrupted by the world. Need I recall the original image of the philosopher? Did we not say of him just now, that he loved truth and hated falsehood, and that he could not rest in the multiplicity of phenomena, but was led by a sympathy in his own nature to the contemplation of the absolute? All the virtues as well as truth, who is the leader of them, took up their abode in his soul. But as you were observing, if we turn aside to view the reality, we see that the persons who were thus described, with the exception of a small and useless class, are utter rogues. The point which has to be considered, is the origin of this corruption in nature. Every one will admit that the philosopher, in our description of him, is a rare being. But what numberless causes tend to destroy these rare beings! There is no good thing which may not be a cause of evilhealth, wealth, strength, rank, and the virtues themselves, when placed under unfavourable circumstances. For as in the animal or vegetable world the strongest seeds most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the best of human characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an unsuitable soil whereas weak natures hardly ever do any considerable good or harm they are not the stuff out of which either great criminals or great heroes are made. The philosopher follows the same analogy he is either the best or the worst of all men. Some persons say that the Sophists are the corrupters of youth but is not public opinion the real Sophist who is everywhere presentin those very persons, in the assembly, in the courts, in the camp, in the applauses and hisses of the theatre reechoed by the surrounding hills? Will not a young man's heart leap amid these discordant sounds? and will any education save him from being carried away by the torrent? Nor is this all. For if he will not yield to opinion, there follows the gentle compulsion of exile or death. What principle of rival Sophists or anybody else can overcome in such an unequal contest? Characters there may be more than human, who are exceptionsGod may save a man, but not his own strength. Further, I would have you consider that the hireling Sophist only gives back to the world their own opinions he is the keeper of the monster, who knows how to flatter or anger him, and observes the meaning of his inarticulate grunts. Good is what pleases him, evil what he dislikes truth and beauty are determined only by the taste of the brute. Such is the Sophist's wisdom, and such is the condition of those who make public opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. The curse is laid upon them of being and doing what it approves, and when they attempt first principles the failure is ludicrous. Think of all this and ask yourself whether the world is more likely to be a believer in the unity of the idea, or in the multiplicity of phenomena. And the world if not a believer in the idea cannot be a philosopher, and must therefore be a persecutor of philosophers. There is another evilthe world does not like to lose the gifted nature, and so they flatter the young (Alcibiades) into a magnificent opinion of his own capacity the tall, proper youth begins to expand, and is dreaming of kingdoms and empires. If at this instant a friend whispers to him, 'Now the gods lighten thee thou art a great fool' and must be educateddo you think that he will listen? Or suppose a better sort of man who is attracted towards philosophy, will they not make Herculean efforts to spoil and corrupt him? Are we not right in saying that the love of knowledge, no less than riches, may divert him? Men of this class (Critias) often become politiciansthey are the authors of great mischief in states, and sometimes also of great good. And thus philosophy is deserted by her natural protectors, and others enter in and dishonour her. Vulgar little minds see the land open and rush from the prisons of the arts into her temple. A clever mechanic having a soul coarse as his body, thinks that he will gain caste by becoming her suitor. For philosophy, even in her fallen estate, has a dignity of her ownand he, like a bald little blacksmith's apprentice as he is, having made some money and got out of durance, washes and dresses himself as a bridegroom and marries his master's daughter. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard, devoid of truth and nature? 'They will.' Small, then, is the remnant of genuine philosophers there may be a few who are citizens of small states, in which politics are not worth thinking of, or who have been detained by Theages' bridle of ill health for my own case of the oracular sign is almost unique, and too rare to be worth mentioning. And these few when they have tasted the pleasures of philosophy, and have taken a look at that den of thieves and place of wild beasts, which is human life, will stand aside from the storm under the shelter of a wall, and try to preserve their own innocence and to depart in peace. 'A great work, too, will have been accomplished by them.' Great, yes, but not the greatest for man is a social being, and can only attain his highest development in the society which is best suited to him. Enough, then, of the causes why philosophy has such an evil name. Another question is, Which of existing states is suited to her? Not one of them at present she is like some exotic seed which degenerates in a strange soil only in her proper state will she be shown to be of heavenly growth. 'And is her proper state ours or some other?' Ours in all points but one, which was left undetermined. You may remember our saying that some living mind or witness of the legislator was needed in states. But we were afraid to enter upon a subject of such difficulty, and now the question recurs and has not grown easierHow may philosophy be safely studied? Let us bring her into the light of day, and make an end of the inquiry. In the first place, I say boldly that nothing can be worse than the present mode of study. Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth, and in the intervals of business, but they never master the real difficulty, which is dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a lecture on philosophy. Years advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike that of Heracleitus, sets never to rise again. This order of education should be reversed it should begin with gymnastics in youth, and as the man strengthens, he should increase the gymnastics of his soul. Then, when active life is over, let him finally return to philosophy. 'You are in earnest, Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest in withstanding youno more than Thrasymachus.' Do not make a quarrel between Thrasymachus and me, who were never enemies and are now good friends enough. And I shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the truth of my words, or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another life, we may again take part in similar discussions. 'That will be a long time hence.' Not long in comparison with eternity. The many will probably remain incredulous, for they have never seen the natural unity of ideas, but only artificial juxtapositions not free and generous thoughts, but tricks of controversy and quips of lawa perfect man ruling in a perfect state, even a single one they have not known. And we foresaw that there was no chance of perfection either in states or individuals until a necessity was laid upon philosophersnot the rogues, but those whom we called the useless classof holding office or until the sons of kings were inspired with a true love of philosophy. Whether in the infinity of past time there has been, or is in some distant land, or ever will be hereafter, an ideal such as we have described, we stoutly maintain that there has been, is, and will be such a state whenever the Muse of philosophy rules. Will you say that the world is of another mind? O, my friend, do not revile the world! They will soon change their opinion if they are gently entreated, and are taught the true nature of the philosopher. Who can hate a man who loves him? Or be jealous of one who has no jealousy? Consider, again, that the many hate not the true but the false philosophersthe pretenders who force their way in without invitation, and are always speaking of persons and not of principles, which is unlike the spirit of philosophy. For the true philosopher despises earthly strife his eye is fixed on the eternal order in accordance with which he moulds himself into the Divine image (and not himself only, but other men), and is the creator of the virtues private as well as public. When mankind see that the happiness of states is only to be found in that image, will they be angry with us for attempting to delineate it? 'Certainly not. But what will be the process of delineation?' The artist will do nothing until he has made a tabula rasa on this he will inscribe the constitution of a state, glancing often at the divine truth of nature, and from that deriving the godlike among men, mingling the two elements, rubbing out and painting in, until there is a perfect harmony or fusion of the divine and human. But perhaps the world will doubt the existence of such an artist. What will they doubt? That the philosopher is a lover of truth, having a nature akin to the best?and if they admit this will they still quarrel with us for making philosophers our kings? 'They will be less disposed to quarrel.' Let us assume then that they are pacified. Still, a person may hesitate about the probability of the son of a king being a philosopher. And we do not deny that they are very liable to be corrupted but yet surely in the course of ages there might be one exceptionand one is enough. If one son of a king were a philosopher, and had obedient citizens, he might bring the ideal polity into being. Hence we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they are also possible, though not free from difficulty. I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that we must go to the bottom of another question What is to be the education of our guardians? It was agreed that they were to be lovers of their country, and were to be tested in the refiner's fire of pleasures and pains, and those who came forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the argument put on her veil and turned into another path. I hesitated to make the assertion which I now hazard,that our guardians must be philosophers. You remember all the contradictory elements, which met in the philosopherhow difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit are not often combined with steadiness the stolid, fearless, nature is averse to intellectual toil. And yet these opposite elements are all necessary, and therefore, as we were saying before, the aspirant must be tested in pleasures and dangers and also, as we must now further add, in the highest branches of knowledge. You will remember, that when we spoke of the virtues mention was made of a longer road, which you were satisfied to leave unexplored. 'Enough seemed to have been said.' Enough, my friend but what is enough while anything remains wanting? Of all men the guardian must not faint in the search after truth he must be prepared to take the longer road, or he will never reach that higher region which is above the four virtues and of the virtues too he must not only get an outline, but a clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so precise about trifles, so careless about the highest truths!) 'And what are the highest?' You to pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often heard me speak of the idea of good, about which we know so little, and without which though a man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some people imagine that the good is wisdom but this involves a circle,the good, they say, is wisdom, wisdom has to do with the good. According to others the good is pleasure but then comes the absurdity that good is bad, for there are bad pleasures as well as good. Again, the good must have reality a man may desire the appearance of virtue, but he will not desire the appearance of good. Ought our guardians then to be ignorant of this supreme principle, of which every man has a presentiment, and without which no man has any real knowledge of anything? 'But, Socrates, what is this supreme principle, knowledge or pleasure, or what? You may think me troublesome, but I say that you have no business to be always repeating the doctrines of others instead of giving us your own.' Can I say what I do not know? 'You may offer an opinion.' And will the blindness and crookedness of opinion content you when you might have the light and certainty of science? 'I will only ask you to give such an explanation of the good as you have given already of temperance and justice.' I wish that I could, but in my present mood I cannot reach to the height of the knowledge of the good. To the parent or principal I cannot introduce you, but to the child begotten in his image, which I may compare with the interest on the principal, I will. (Audit the account, and do not let me give you a false statement of the debt.) You remember our old distinction of the many beautiful and the one beautiful, the particular and the universal, the objects of sight and the objects of thought? Did you ever consider that the objects of sight imply a faculty of sight which is the most complex and costly of our senses, requiring not only objects of sense, but also a medium, which is light without which the sight will not distinguish between colours and all will be a blank? For light is the noble bond between the perceiving faculty and the thing perceived, and the god who gives us light is the sun, who is the eye of the day, but is not to be confounded with the eye of man. This eye of the day or sun is what I call the child of the good, standing in the same relation to the visible world as the good to the intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees, and in the intellectual world where truth is, there is sight and light. Now that which is the sun of intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the cause of knowledge and truth, yet other and fairer than they are, and standing in the same relation to them in which the sun stands to light. O inconceivable height of beauty, which is above knowledge and above truth! ('You cannot surely mean pleasure,' he said. Peace, I replied.) And this idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause of growth, and the author not of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater far than either in dignity and power. 'That is a reach of thought more than human but, pray, go on with the image, for I suspect that there is more behind.' There is, I said and bearing in mind our two suns or principles, imagine further their corresponding worldsone of the visible, the other of the intelligible you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under the image of a line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide each part into two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge in either sphere. The lower portion of the lower or visible sphere will consist of shadows and reflections, and its upper and smaller portion will contain real objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the intelligible will also have two divisions,one of mathematics, in which there is no ascent but all is descent no inquiring into premises, but only drawing of inferences. In this division the mind works with figures and numbers, the images of which are taken not from the shadows, but from the objects, although the truth of them is seen only with the mind's eye and they are used as hypotheses without being analysed. Whereas in the other division reason uses the hypotheses as stages or steps in the ascent to the idea of good, to which she fastens them, and then again descends, walking firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas only, in her ascent as well as descent, and finally resting in them. 'I partly understand,' he replied 'you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical, metaphorical conceptions of geometry and the other arts or sciences, whichever is to be the name of them and the latter conceptions you refuse to make subjects of pure intellect, because they have no first principle, although when resting on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.' You understand me very well, I said. And now to those four divisions of knowledge you may assign four corresponding facultiespure intelligence to the highest sphere active intelligence to the second to the third, faith to the fourth, the perception of shadowsand the clearness of the several faculties will be in the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related... Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the philosopher. In language which seems to reach beyond the horizon of that age and country, he is described as 'the spectator of all time and all existence.' He has the noblest gifts of nature, and makes the highest use of them. All his desires are absorbed in the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the graces of a beautiful soul are wanting in him neither can he fear death, or think much of human life. The ideal of modern times hardly retains the simplicity of the antique there is not the same originality either in truth or error which characterized the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in the unseen, nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance nor does he regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by regular stages to the idea of good. The eagerness of the pursuit has abated there is more division of labour and less of comprehensive reflection upon nature and human life as a whole more of exact observation and less of anticipation and inspiration. Still, in the altered conditions of knowledge, the parallel is not wholly lost and there may be a use in translating the conception of Plato into the language of our own age. The philosopher in modern times is one who fixes his mind on the laws of nature in their sequence and connexion, not on fragments or pictures of nature on history, not on controversy on the truths which are acknowledged by the few, not on the opinions of the many. He is aware of the importance of 'classifying according to nature,' and will try to 'separate the limbs of science without breaking them' (Phaedr.). There is no part of truth, whether great or small, which he will dishonour and in the least things he will discern the greatest (Parmen.). Like the ancient philosopher he sees the world pervaded by analogies, but he can also tell 'why in some cases a single instance is sufficient for an induction' (Mill's Logic), while in other cases a thousand examples would prove nothing. He inquires into a portion of knowledge only, because the whole has grown too vast to be embraced by a single mind or life. He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and of their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients. Like Plato, he has a vision of the unity of knowledge, not as the beginning of philosophy to be attained by a study of elementary mathematics, but as the faroff result of the working of many minds in many ages. He is aware that mathematical studies are preliminary to almost every other at the same time, he will not reduce all varieties of knowledge to the type of mathematics. He too must have a nobility of character, without which genius loses the better half of greatness. Regarding the world as a point in immensity, and each individual as a link in a neverending chain of existence, he will not think much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of death. Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic reasoning, thus showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection of his own method. He brings the accusation against himself which might be brought against him by a modern logicianthat he extracts the answer because he knows how to put the question. In a long argument words are apt to change their meaning slightly, or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with rather too much certainty or universality the variation at each step may be unobserved, and yet at last the divergence becomes considerable. Hence the failure of attempts to apply arithmetical or algebraic formulae to logic. The imperfection, or rather the higher and more elastic nature of language, does not allow words to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this quality in language impairs the force of an argument which has many steps. The objection, though fairly met by Socrates in this particular instance, may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of reasoning. And here, as elsewhere, Plato seems to intimate that the time had come when the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be superseded by a positive and constructive one, of which examples are given in some of the later dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is wholly at variance with facts for experience proves philosophers to be either useless or rogues. Contrary to all expectation Socrates has no hesitation in admitting the truth of this, and explains the anomaly in an allegory, first characteristically depreciating his own inventive powers. In this allegory the people are distinguished from the professional politicians, and, as elsewhere, are spoken of in a tone of pity rather than of censure under the image of 'the noble captain who is not very quick in his perceptions.' The uselessness of philosophers is explained by the circumstance that mankind will not use them. The world in all ages has been divided between contempt and fear of those who employ the power of ideas and know no other weapons. Concerning the false philosopher, Socrates argues that the best is most liable to corruption and that the finer nature is more likely to suffer from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds of excellence which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution as is evidently true of the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often seems to depend on impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a certain atmosphere. The man of genius has greater pains and greater pleasures, greater powers and greater weaknesses, and often a greater play of character than is to be found in ordinary men. He can assume the disguise of virtue or disinterestedness without having them, or veil personal enmity in the language of patriotism and philosophy,he can say the word which all men are thinking, he has an insight which is terrible into the follies and weaknesses of his fellowmen. An Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a Napoleon the First, are born either to be the authors of great evils in states, or 'of great good, when they are drawn in that direction.' Yet the thesis, 'corruptio optimi pessima,' cannot be maintained generally or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The alien conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of culture to another. In general a man can only receive his highest development in a congenial state or family, among friends or fellowworkers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms them. And while weaker or coarser characters will extract good out of evil, say in a corrupt state of the church or of society, and live on happily, allowing the evil to remain, the finer or stronger natures may be crushed or spoiled by surrounding influencesmay become misanthrope and philanthrope by turns or in a few instances, like the founders of the monastic orders, or the Reformers, owing to some peculiarity in themselves or in their age, may break away entirely from the world and from the church, sometimes into great good, sometimes into great evil, sometimes into both. And the same holds in the lesser sphere of a convent, a school, a family. Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are overpowered by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will make to get possession of them. The world, the church, their own profession, any political or party organization, are always carrying them off their legs and teaching them to apply high and holy names to their own prejudices and interests. The 'monster' corporation to which they belong judges right and truth to be the pleasure of the community. The individual becomes one with his order or, if he resists, the world is too much for him, and will sooner or later be revenged on him. This is, perhaps, a onesided but not wholly untrue picture of the maxims and practice of mankind when they 'sit down together at an assembly,' either in ancient or modern times. When the higher natures are corrupted by politics, the lower take possession of the vacant place of philosophy. This is described in one of those continuous images in which the argument, to use a Platonic expression, 'veils herself,' and which is dropped and reappears at intervals. The question is asked,Why are the citizens of states so hostile to philosophy? The answer is, that they do not know her. And yet there is also a better mind of the many they would believe if they were taught. But hitherto they have only known a conventional imitation of philosophy, words without thoughts, systems which have no life in them a (divine) person uttering the words of beauty and freedom, the friend of man holding communion with the Eternal, and seeking to frame the state in that image, they have never known. The same double feeling respecting the mass of mankind has always existed among men. The first thought is that the people are the enemies of truth and right the second, that this only arises out of an accidental error and confusion, and that they do not really hate those who love them, if they could be educated to know them. In the latter part of the sixth book, three questions have to be considered st, the nature of the longer and more circuitous way, which is contrasted with the shorter and more imperfect method of Book IV nd, the heavenly pattern or idea of the state rd, the relation of the divisions of knowledge to one another and to the corresponding faculties of the soul . Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse. Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. He would probably have described his method as proceeding by regular steps to a system of universal knowledge, which inferred the parts from the whole rather than the whole from the parts. This ideal logic is not practised by him in the search after justice, or in the analysis of the parts of the soul there, like Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues from experience and the common use of language. But at the end of the sixth book he conceives another and more perfect method, in which all ideas are only steps or grades or moments of thought, forming a connected whole which is selfsupporting, and in which consistency is the test of truth. He does not explain to us in detail the nature of the process. Like many other thinkers both in ancient and modern times his mind seems to be filled with a vacant form which he is unable to realize. He supposes the sciences to have a natural order and connexion in an age when they can hardly be said to exist. He is hastening on to the 'end of the intellectual world' without even making a beginning of them. In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of absolute knowledge. In all science a priori and a posteriori truths mingle in various proportions. The a priori part is that which is derived from the most universal experience of men, or is universally accepted by them the a posteriori is that which grows up around the more general principles and becomes imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that the synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method of science can anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision of a priori knowledge he is sufficiently justified, or at least his meaning may be sufficiently explained by the similar attempts of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of Bacon himself, in modern philosophy. Anticipations or divinations, or prophetic glimpses of truths whether concerning man or nature, seem to stand in the same relation to ancient philosophy which hypotheses bear to modern inductive science. These 'guesses at truth' were not made at random they arose from a superficial impression of uniformities and first principles in nature which the genius of the Greek, contemplating the expanse of heaven and earth, seemed to recognize in the distance. Nor can we deny that in ancient times knowledge must have stood still, and the human mind been deprived of the very instruments of thought, if philosophy had been strictly confined to the results of experience. . Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist will fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid up in heaven, or mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with wondering eye? The answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the omission of particulars, partly by imagination perfecting the form which experience supplies (Phaedo). Plato represents these ideals in a figure as belonging to another world and in modern times the idea will sometimes seem to precede, at other times to cooperate with the hand of the artist. As in science, so also in creative art, there is a synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man will have the whole in his mind before he begins to another the processes of mind and hand will be simultaneous. . There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato's divisions of knowledge are based, first, on the fundamental antithesis of sensible and intellectual which pervades the whole preSocratic philosophy in which is implied also the opposition of the permanent and transient, of the universal and particular. But the age of philosophy in which he lived seemed to require a further distinctionnumbers and figures were beginning to separate from ideas. The world could no longer regard justice as a cube, and was learning to see, though imperfectly, that the abstractions of sense were distinct from the abstractions of mind. Between the Eleatic being or essence and the shadows of phenomena, the Pythagorean principle of number found a place, and was, as Aristotle remarks, a conducting medium from one to the other. Hence Plato is led to introduce a third term which had not hitherto entered into the scheme of his philosophy. He had observed the use of mathematics in education they were the best preparation for higher studies. The subjective relation between them further suggested an objective one although the passage from one to the other is really imaginary (Metaph.). For metaphysical and moral philosophy has no connexion with mathematics number and figure are the abstractions of time and space, not the expressions of purely intellectual conceptions. When divested of metaphor, a straight line or a square has no more to do with right and justice than a crooked line with vice. The figurative association was mistaken for a real one and thus the three latter divisions of the Platonic proportion were constructed. There is more difficulty in comprehending how he arrived at the first term of the series, which is nowhere else mentioned, and has no reference to any other part of his system. Nor indeed does the relation of shadows to objects correspond to the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has been led by the love of analogy (Timaeus) to make four terms instead of three, although the objects perceived in both divisions of the lower sphere are equally objects of sense. He is also preparing the way, as his manner is, for the shadows of images at the beginning of the seventh book, and the imitation of an imitation in the tenth. The line may be regarded as reaching from unity to infinity, and is divided into two unequal parts, and subdivided into two more each lower sphere is the multiplication of the preceding. Of the four faculties, faith in the lower division has an intermediate position (cp. for the use of the word faith or belief, (Greek), Timaeus), contrasting equally with the vagueness of the perception of shadows (Greek) and the higher certainty of understanding (Greek) and reason (Greek). The difference between understanding and mind or reason (Greek) is analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the parts and the contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a whole, and is at rest consistency and universality are the tests of truth. To this selfevidencing knowledge of the whole the faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But there is a knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in motion always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those ideas are called both images and hypothesesimages because they are clothed in sense, hypotheses because they are assumptions only, until they are brought into connexion with the idea of good. The general meaning of the passage, 'Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight...And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible...' so far as the thought contained in it admits of being translated into the terms of modern philosophy, may be described or explained as followsThere is a truth, one and selfexistent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from above, the human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the sun in the heavens, the light by which all things are seen, the being by which they are created and sustained. It is the IDEA of good. And the steps of the ladder leading up to this highest or universal existence are the mathematical sciences, which also contain in themselves an element of the universal. These, too, we see in a new manner when we connect them with the idea of good. They then cease to be hypotheses or pictures, and become essential parts of a higher truth which is at once their first principle and their final cause. We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable passage, but we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of thought which are common to us and to Plato such as () the unity and correlation of the sciences, or rather of science, for in Plato's time they were not yet parted off or distinguished () the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause or reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the Timaeus and elsewhere under the form of a person () the recognition of the hypothetical and conditional character of the mathematical sciences, and in a measure of every science when isolated from the rest () the conviction of a truth which is invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature, which permeates the intellectual rather than the visible world. The method of Socrates is hesitating and tentative, awaiting the fuller explanation of the idea of good, and of the nature of dialectic in the seventh book. The imperfect intelligence of Glaucon, and the reluctance of Socrates to make a beginning, mark the difficulty of the subject. The allusion to Theages' bridle, and to the internal oracle, or demonic sign, of Socrates, which here, as always in Plato, is only prohibitory the remark that the salvation of any remnant of good in the present evil state of the world is due to God only the reference to a future state of existence, which is unknown to Glaucon in the tenth book, and in which the discussions of Socrates and his disciples would be resumed the surprise in the answers the fanciful irony of Socrates, where he pretends that he can only describe the strange position of the philosopher in a figure of speech the original observation that the Sophists, after all, are only the representatives and not the leaders of public opinion the picture of the philosopher standing aside in the shower of sleet under a wall the figure of 'the great beast' followed by the expression of goodwill towards the common people who would not have rejected the philosopher if they had known him the 'right noble thought' that the highest truths demand the greatest exactness the hesitation of Socrates in returning once more to his wellworn theme of the idea of good the ludicrous earnestness of Glaucon the comparison of philosophy to a deserted maiden who marries beneath herare some of the most interesting characteristics of the sixth book. Yet a few more words may be added, on the old theme, which was so oft discussed in the Socratic circle, of which we, like Glaucon and Adeimantus, would fain, if possible, have a clearer notion. Like them, we are dissatisfied when we are told that the idea of good can only be revealed to a student of the mathematical sciences, and we are inclined to think that neither we nor they could have been led along that path to any satisfactory goal. For we have learned that differences of quantity cannot pass into differences of quality, and that the mathematical sciences can never rise above themselves into the sphere of our higher thoughts, although they may sometimes furnish symbols and expressions of them, and may train the mind in habits of abstraction and selfconcentration. The illusion which was natural to an ancient philosopher has ceased to be an illusion to us. But if the process by which we are supposed to arrive at the idea of good be really imaginary, may not the idea itself be also a mere abstraction? We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and associations of the elder deities. The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God. The God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of good they are aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression or language of mythology, the other of philosophy. This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good as conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony, development may also be said to enter into it. The paraphrase which has just been given of it goes beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better than he did himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some conception of the same kind, but higher than this, was the truth at which he was aiming, and the need which he sought to supply, he would gladly have recognized that more was contained in his own thoughts than he himself knew. As his words are few and his manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his interpreter be. We should not approach his meaning more nearly by attempting to define it further. In translating him into the language of modern thought, we might insensibly lose the spirit of ancient philosophy. It is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first principle of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in his writings except in this passage. Nor did it retain any hold upon the minds of his disciples in a later generation it was probably unintelligible to them. Nor does the mention of it in Aristotle appear to have any reference to this or any other passage in his extant writings. BOOK VII. And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or unenlightenment of our natureImagine human beings living in an underground den which is open towards the light they have been there from childhood, having their necks and legs chained, and can only see into the den. At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a raised way, and a low wall is built along the way, like the screen over which marionette players show their puppets. Behind the wall appear moving figures, who hold in their hands various works of art, and among them images of men and animals, wood and stone, and some of the passersby are talking and others silent. 'A strange parable,' he said, 'and strange captives.' They are ourselves, I replied and they see only the shadows of the images which the fire throws on the wall of the den to these they give names, and if we add an echo which returns from the wall, the voices of the passengers will seem to proceed from the shadows. Suppose now that you suddenly turn them round and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at the real images will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which they are able to behold without blinking? And suppose further, that they are dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the presence of the sun himself, will not their sight be darkened with the excess of light? Some time will pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all and at first they will be able to perceive only shadows and reflections in the water then they will recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the sun in his own proper place as he is. Last of all they will concludeThis is he who gives us the year and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them will seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further, that they descend into their old habitationsin that underground dwelling they will not see as well as their fellows, and will not be able to compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall there will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes, and if they find anybody trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death, if they can catch him. Now the cave or den is the world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with difficulty, but when seen is inferred to be the author of good and rightparent of the lord of light in this world, and of truth and understanding in the other. He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards he is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law for his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they behold in themhe cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never in their lives understood the relation of the shadow to the substance. But blindness is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out of darkness into light or out of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish between them, and will not laugh equally at both of them, but the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem blessed, and pity the other or if he laugh at the puzzled soul looking at the sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the inhabitants of the den at those who descend from above. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion other virtues are almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same manner, but intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible, turning either to good or evil according to the direction given. Did you never observe how the mind of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the more evil he does? Now if you take such an one, and cut away from him those leaden weights of pleasure and desire which bind his soul to earth, his intelligence will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so overeducated as to be unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? We must choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light and knowledge of the good but we must not allow them to remain in the region of light they must be forced down again among the captives in the den to partake of their labours and honours. 'Will they not think this a hardship?' You should remember that our purpose in framing the State was not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve the State for the common good of all. May we not fairly say to our philosopher,Friend, we do you no wrong for in other States philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes nothing to the gardener, but you have been trained by us to be the rulers and kings of our hive, and therefore we must insist on your descending into the den. You must, each of you, take your turn, and become able to use your eyes in the dark, and with a little practice you will see far better than those who quarrel about the shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a waking reality. It may be that the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may also be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must no longer live in the heaven of ideas. And this will be the salvation of the State. For those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule and, if you can offer to our citizens a better life than that of rulers generally is, there will be a chance that the rich, not only in this world's goods, but in virtue and wisdom, may bear rule. And the only life which is better than the life of political ambition is that of philosophy, which is also the best preparation for the government of a State. Then now comes the question,How shall we create our rulers what way is there from darkness to light? The change is effected by philosophy it is not the turning over of an oystershell, but the conversion of a soul from night to day, from becoming to being. And what training will draw the soul upwards? Our former education had two branches, gymnastic, which was occupied with the body, and music, the sister art, which infused a natural harmony into mind and literature but neither of these sciences gave any promise of doing what we want. Nothing remains to us but that universal or primary science of which all the arts and sciences are partakers, I mean number or calculation. 'Very true.' Including the art of war? 'Yes, certainly.' Then there is something ludicrous about Palamedes in the tragedy, coming in and saying that he had invented number, and had counted the ranks and set them in order. For if Agamemnon could not count his feet (and without number how could he?) he must have been a pretty sort of general indeed. No man should be a soldier who cannot count, and indeed he is hardly to be called a man. But I am not speaking of these practical applications of arithmetic, for number, in my view, is rather to be regarded as a conductor to thought and being. I will explain what I mean by the last expressionThings sensible are of two kinds the one class invite or stimulate the mind, while in the other the mind acquiesces. Now the stimulating class are the things which suggest contrast and relation. For example, suppose that I hold up to the eyes three fingersa fore finger, a middle finger, a little fingerthe sight equally recognizes all three fingers, but without number cannot further distinguish them. Or again, suppose two objects to be relatively great and small, these ideas of greatness and smallness are supplied not by the sense, but by the mind. And the perception of their contrast or relation quickens and sets in motion the mind, which is puzzled by the confused intimations of sense, and has recourse to number in order to find out whether the things indicated are one or more than one. Number replies that they are two and not one, and are to be distinguished from one another. Again, the sight beholds great and small, but only in a confused chaos, and not until they are distinguished does the question arise of their respective natures we are thus led on to the distinction between the visible and intelligible. That was what I meant when I spoke of stimulants to the intellect I was thinking of the contradictions which arise in perception. The idea of unity, for example, like that of a finger, does not arouse thought unless involving some conception of plurality but when the one is also the opposite of one, the contradiction gives rise to reflection an example of this is afforded by any object of sight. All number has also an elevating effect it raises the mind out of the foam and flux of generation to the contemplation of being, having lesser military and retail uses also. The retail use is not required by us but as our guardian is to be a soldier as well as a philosopher, the military one may be retained. And to our higher purpose no science can be better adapted but it must be pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, not of a shopkeeper. It is concerned, not with visible objects, but with abstract truth for numbers are pure abstractionsthe true arithmetician indignantly denies that his unit is capable of division. When you divide, he insists that you are only multiplying his 'one' is not material or resolvable into fractions, but an unvarying and absolute equality and this proves the purely intellectual character of his study. Note also the great power which arithmetic has of sharpening the wits no other discipline is equally severe, or an equal test of general ability, or equally improving to a stupid person. Let our second branch of education be geometry. 'I can easily see,' replied Glaucon, 'that the skill of the general will be doubled by his knowledge of geometry.' That is a small matter the use of geometry, to which I refer, is the assistance given by it in the contemplation of the idea of good, and the compelling the mind to look at true being, and not at generation only. Yet the present mode of pursuing these studies, as any one who is the least of a mathematician is aware, is mean and ridiculous they are made to look downwards to the arts, and not upwards to eternal existence. The geometer is always talking of squaring, subtending, apposing, as if he had in view action whereas knowledge is the real object of the study. It should elevate the soul, and create the mind of philosophy it should raise up what has fallen down, not to speak of lesser uses in war and military tactics, and in the improvement of the faculties. Shall we propose, as a third branch of our education, astronomy? 'Very good,' replied Glaucon 'the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once for husbandry, navigation, military tactics.' I like your way of giving useful reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a difficulty in proving to mankind that education is not only useful information but a purification of the eye of the soul, which is better than the bodily eye, for by this alone is truth seen. Now, will you appeal to mankind in general or to the philosopher? or would you prefer to look to yourself only? 'Every man is his own best friend.' Then take a step backward, for we are out of order, and insert the third dimension which is of solids, after the second which is of planes, and then you may proceed to solids in motion. But solid geometry is not popular and has not the patronage of the State, nor is the use of it fully recognized the difficulty is great, and the votaries of the study are conceited and impatient. Still the charm of the pursuit wins upon men, and, if government would lend a little assistance, there might be great progress made. 'Very true,' replied Glaucon 'but do I understand you now to begin with plane geometry, and to place next geometry of solids, and thirdly, astronomy, or the motion of solids?' Yes, I said my hastiness has only hindered us. 'Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am willing to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see that the contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.' I am an exception, then astronomy as studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Stargazing is just looking up at the ceilingno better a man may lie on his back on land or on waterhe may look up or look down, but there is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of which I speak is seen not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the magnificence of the heavens is but the embroidery of a copy which falls far short of the divine Original, and teaches nothing about the absolute harmonies or motions of things. Their beauty is like the beauty of figures drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other great artist, which may be used for illustration, but no mathematician would seek to obtain from them true conceptions of equality or numerical relations. How ridiculous then to look for these in the map of the heavens, in which the imperfection of matter comes in everywhere as a disturbing element, marring the symmetry of day and night, of months and years, of the sun and stars in their courses. Only by problems can we place astronomy on a truly scientific basis. Let the heavens alone, and exert the intellect. Still, mathematics admit of other applications, as the Pythagoreans say, and we agree. There is a sister science of harmonical motion, adapted to the ear as astronomy is to the eye, and there may be other applications also. Let us inquire of the Pythagoreans about them, not forgetting that we have an aim higher than theirs, which is the relation of these sciences to the idea of good. The error which pervades astronomy also pervades harmonics. The musicians put their ears in the place of their minds. 'Yes,' replied Glaucon, 'I like to see them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours' facessome saying, 'That's a new note, others declaring that the two notes are the same.' Yes, I said but you mean the empirics who are always twisting and torturing the strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the strings I am referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost equally in error. For they investigate only the numbers of the consonances which are heard, and ascend no higher,of the true numerical harmony which is unheard, and is only to be found in problems, they have not even a conception. 'That last,' he said, 'must be a marvellous thing.' A thing, I replied, which is only useful if pursued with a view to the good. All these sciences are the prelude of the strain, and are profitable if they are regarded in their natural relations to one another. 'I dare say, Socrates,' said Glaucon 'but such a study will be an endless business.' What study do you meanof the prelude, or what? For all these things are only the prelude, and you surely do not suppose that a mere mathematician is also a dialectician? 'Certainly not. I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.' And yet, Glaucon, is not true reasoning that hymn of dialectic which is the music of the intellectual world, and which was by us compared to the effort of sight, when from beholding the shadows on the wall we arrived at last at the images which gave the shadows? Even so the dialectical faculty withdrawing from sense arrives by the pure intellect at the contemplation of the idea of good, and never rests but at the very end of the intellectual world. And the royal road out of the cave into the light, and the blinking of the eyes at the sun and turning to contemplate the shadows of reality, not the shadows of an image onlythis progress and gradual acquisition of a new faculty of sight by the help of the mathematical sciences, is the elevation of the soul to the contemplation of the highest ideal of being. 'So far, I agree with you. But now, leaving the prelude, let us proceed to the hymn. What, then, is the nature of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither?' Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can be no revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in the previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am confident. For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and opinions and the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of true being, and never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the upper world, with the help of the sciences which we have been describingsciences, as they are often termed, although they require some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and this in our previous sketch was understanding. And so we get four namestwo for intellect, and two for opinion,reason or mind, understanding, faith, perception of shadowswhich make a proportion beingbecomingintellectopinionand sciencebeliefunderstanding perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a sleepy dream and many a man is in his grave before his is well waked up. And would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings, or stupid as posts? 'Certainly not the latter.' Then you must train them in dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the copingstone of the sciences. I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen and the process of selection may be carried a step furtherAs before, they must be constant and valiant, goodlooking, and of noble manners, but now they must also have natural ability which education will improve that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues not lame and onesided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely not a maimed soul, which hates falsehood and yet unintentionally is always wallowing in the mire of ignorance not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb, and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic trial of the mind. Justice herself can find no fault with natures such as these and they will be the saviours of our State disciples of another sort would only make philosophy more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive my enthusiasm I am becoming excited but when I see her trampled underfoot, I am angry at the authors of her disgrace. 'I did not notice that you were more excited than you ought to have been.' But I felt that I was. Now do not let us forget another point in the selection of our disciplesthat they must be young and not old. For Solon is mistaken in saying that an old man can be always learning youth is the time of study, and here we must remember that the mind is free and dainty, and, unlike the body, must not be made to work against the grain. Learning should be at first a sort of play, in which the natural bent is detected. As in training them for war, the young dogs should at first only taste blood but when the necessary gymnastics are over which during two or three years divide life between sleep and bodily exercise, then the education of the soul will become a more serious matter. At twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the more promising disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin. The sciences which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be brought into relation with each other and with true being for the power of combining them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And afterwards at thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to withdraw from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But at this point, judging from present experience, there is a danger that dialectic may be the source of many evils. The danger may be illustrated by a parallel caseImagine a person who has been brought up in wealth and luxury amid a crowd of flatterers, and who is suddenly informed that he is a supposititious son. He has hitherto honoured his reputed parents and disregarded the flatterers, and now he does the reverse. This is just what happens with a man's principles. There are certain doctrines which he learnt at home and which exercised a parental authority over him. Presently he finds that imputations are cast upon them a troublesome querist comes and asks, 'What is the just and good?' or proves that virtue is vice and vice virtue, and his mind becomes unsettled, and he ceases to love, honour, and obey them as he has hitherto done. He is seduced into the life of pleasure, and becomes a lawless person and a rogue. The case of such speculators is very pitiable, and, in order that our thirty years' old pupils may not require this pity, let us take every possible care that young persons do not study philosophy too early. For a young man is a sort of puppy who only plays with an argument and is reasoned into and out of his opinions every day he soon begins to believe nothing, and brings himself and philosophy into discredit. A man of thirty does not run on in this way he will argue and not merely contradict, and adds new honour to philosophy by the sobriety of his conduct. What time shall we allow for this second gymnastic training of the soul?say, twice the time required for the gymnastics of the body six, or perhaps five years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen years let the student go down into the den, and command armies, and gain experience of life. At fifty let him return to the end of all things, and have his eyes uplifted to the idea of good, and order his life after that pattern if necessary, taking his turn at the helm of State, and training up others to be his successors. When his time comes he shall depart in peace to the islands of the blest. He shall be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the Pythian oracle approves. 'You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our governors.' Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all things with the men. And you will admit that our State is not a mere aspiration, but may really come into being when there shall arise philosopherkings, one or more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will be the servants of justice only. 'And how will they begin their work?' Their first act will be to send away into the country all those who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are left... At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the previous discussion at the same time casting a glance onward at the dialectical process, which is represented by the way leading from darkness to light. The shadows, the images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally correspond,the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry,the second, to the world of sense,the third, to the abstractions or universals of sense, of which the mathematical sciences furnish the type,the fourth and last to the same abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new meaning and power. The true dialectical process begins with the contemplation of the real stars, and not mere reflections of them, and ends with the recognition of the sun, or idea of good, as the parent not only of light but of warmth and growth. To the divisions of knowledge the stages of education partly answerfirst, there is the early education of childhood and youth in the fancies of the poets, and in the laws and customs of the Statethen there is the training of the body to be a warrior athlete, and a good servant of the mindand thirdly, after an interval follows the education of later life, which begins with mathematics and proceeds to philosophy in general. There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato,first, to realize abstractions secondly, to connect them. According to him, the true education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to a comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human mind the faculty of seeing the universal in all things until at last the particulars of sense drop away and the universal alone remains. He then seeks to combine the universals which he has disengaged from sense, not perceiving that the correlation of them has no other basis but the common use of language. He never understands that abstractions, as Hegel says, are 'mere abstractions'of use when employed in the arrangement of facts, but adding nothing to the sum of knowledge when pursued apart from them, or with reference to an imaginary idea of good. Still the exercise of the faculty of abstraction apart from facts has enlarged the mind, and played a great part in the education of the human race. Plato appreciated the value of this faculty, and saw that it might be quickened by the study of number and relation. All things in which there is opposition or proportion are suggestive of reflection. The mere impression of sense evokes no power of thought or of mind, but when sensible objects ask to be compared and distinguished, then philosophy begins. The science of arithmetic first suggests such distinctions. The follow in order the other sciences of plain and solid geometry, and of solids in motion, one branch of which is astronomy or the harmony of the spheres,to this is appended the sister science of the harmony of sounds. Plato seems also to hint at the possibility of other applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions, such as we employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and even Aristotle make use of in Ethics and Politics, e.g. his distinction between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics (Book V), or between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics. The modern mathematician will readily sympathise with Plato's delight in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with himLet alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be dispensed with thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the possibility of working geometrical problems by a more general mode of analysis. He will remark with interest on the backward state of solid geometry, which, alas! was not encouraged by the aid of the State in the age of Plato and he will recognize the grasp of Plato's mind in his ability to conceive of one science of solids in motion including the earth as well as the heavens,not forgetting to notice the intimation to which allusion has been already made, that besides astronomy and harmonics the science of solids in motion may have other applications. Still more will he be struck with the comprehensiveness of view which led Plato, at a time when these sciences hardly existed, to say that they must be studied in relation to one another, and to the idea of good, or common principle of truth and being. But he will also see (and perhaps without surprise) that in that stage of physical and mathematical knowledge, Plato has fallen into the error of supposing that he can construct the heavens a priori by mathematical problems, and determine the principles of harmony irrespective of the adaptation of sounds to the human ear. The illusion was a natural one in that age and country. The simplicity and certainty of astronomy and harmonics seemed to contrast with the variation and complexity of the world of sense hence the circumstance that there was some elementary basis of fact, some measurement of distance or time or vibrations on which they must ultimately rest, was overlooked by him. The modern predecessors of Newton fell into errors equally great and Plato can hardly be said to have been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort of prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, by the help of which most astronomical discoveries have been made. The metaphysical philosopher from his point of view recognizes mathematics as an instrument of education,which strengthens the power of attention, developes the sense of order and the faculty of construction, and enables the mind to grasp under simple formulae the quantitative differences of physical phenomena. But while acknowledging their value in education, he sees also that they have no connexion with our higher moral and intellectual ideas. In the attempt which Plato makes to connect them, we easily trace the influences of ancient Pythagorean notions. There is no reason to suppose that he is speaking of the ideal numbers but he is describing numbers which are pure abstractions, to which he assigns a real and separate existence, which, as 'the teachers of the art' (meaning probably the Pythagoreans) would have affirmed, repel all attempts at subdivision, and in which unity and every other number are conceived of as absolute. The truth and certainty of numbers, when thus disengaged from phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the eyes of an ancient philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and fixedness may have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men, 'who,' in the words of the Timaeus, 'might learn to regulate their erring lives according to them.' It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical symbols still exist as figures of speech among ourselves. And those who in modern times see the world pervaded by universal law, may also see an anticipation of this last word of modern philosophy in the Platonic idea of good, which is the source and measure of all things, and yet only an abstraction (Philebus). Two passages seem to require more particular explanations. First, that which relates to the analysis of vision. The difficulty in this passage may be explained, like many others, from differences in the modes of conception prevailing among ancient and modern thinkers. To us, the perceptions of sense are inseparable from the act of the mind which accompanies them. The consciousness of form, colour, distance, is indistinguishable from the simple sensation, which is the medium of them. Whereas to Plato sense is the Heraclitean flux of sense, not the vision of objects in the order in which they actually present themselves to the experienced sight, but as they may be imagined to appear confused and blurred to the halfawakened eye of the infant. The first action of the mind is aroused by the attempt to set in order this chaos, and the reason is required to frame distinct conceptions under which the confused impressions of sense may be arranged. Hence arises the question, 'What is great, what is small?' and thus begins the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. The second difficulty relates to Plato's conception of harmonics. Three classes of harmonists are distinguished by himfirst, the Pythagoreans, whom he proposes to consult as in the previous discussion on music he was to consult Damonthey are acknowledged to be masters in the art, but are altogether deficient in the knowledge of its higher import and relation to the good secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as experimenting by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds. Both of these fall short in different degrees of the Platonic idea of harmony, which must be studied in a purely abstract way, first by the method of problems, and secondly as a part of universal knowledge in relation to the idea of good. The allegory has a political as well as a philosophical meaning. The den or cave represents the narrow sphere of politics or law (compare the description of the philosopher and lawyer in the Theaetetus), and the light of the eternal ideas is supposed to exercise a disturbing influence on the minds of those who return to this lower world. In other words, their principles are too wide for practical application they are looking far away into the past and future, when their business is with the present. The ideal is not easily reduced to the conditions of actual life, and may often be at variance with them. And at first, those who return are unable to compete with the inhabitants of the den in the measurement of the shadows, and are derided and persecuted by them but after a while they see the things below in far truer proportions than those who have never ascended into the upper world. The difference between the politician turned into a philosopher and the philosopher turned into a politician, is symbolized by the two kinds of disordered eyesight, the one which is experienced by the captive who is transferred from darkness to day, the other, of the heavenly messenger who voluntarily for the good of his fellowmen descends into the den. In what way the brighter light is to dawn on the inhabitants of the lower world, or how the idea of good is to become the guiding principle of politics, is left unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and divisions of dialectic, of which Glaucon impatiently demands to be informed, perhaps he would have said that the explanation could not be given except to a disciple of the previous sciences. (Symposium.) Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may be found in modern Politics and in daily life. For among ourselves, too, there have been two sorts of Politicians or Statesmen, whose eyesight has become disordered in two different ways. First, there have been great men who, in the language of Burke, 'have been too much given to general maxims,' who, like J.S. Mill or Burke himself, have been theorists or philosophers before they were politicians, or who, having been students of history, have allowed some great historical parallel, such as the English Revolution of , or possibly Athenian democracy or Roman Imperialism, to be the medium through which they viewed contemporary events. Or perhaps the long projecting shadow of some existing institution may have darkened their vision. The Church of the future, the Commonwealth of the future, the Society of the future, have so absorbed their minds, that they are unable to see in their true proportions the Politics of today. They have been intoxicated with great ideas, such as liberty, or equality, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the brotherhood of humanity, and they no longer care to consider how these ideas must be limited in practice or harmonized with the conditions of human life. They are full of light, but the light to them has become only a sort of luminous mist or blindness. Almost every one has known some enthusiastic halfeducated person, who sees everything at false distances, and in erroneous proportions. With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted anotherof those who see not far into the distance, but what is near only who have been engaged all their lives in a trade or a profession who are limited to a set or sect of their own. Men of this kind have no universal except their own interests or the interests of their class, no principle but the opinion of persons like themselves, no knowledge of affairs beyond what they pick up in the streets or at their club. Suppose them to be sent into a larger world, to undertake some higher calling, from being tradesmen to turn generals or politicians, from being schoolmasters to become philosophersor imagine them on a sudden to receive an inward light which reveals to them for the first time in their lives a higher idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by this sudden conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset and on the other hand will not many of their old prejudices and narrownesses still adhere to them long after they have begun to take a more comprehensive view of human things? From familiar examples like these we may learn what Plato meant by the eyesight which is liable to two kinds of disorders. Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a similar 'aufklrung.' We too observe that when young men begin to criticise customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are apt to lose hold of solid principle (    ). They are like trees which have been frequently transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots reaching far into the soil. They 'light upon every flower,' following their own wayward wills, or because the wind blows them. They catch opinions, as diseases are caughtwhen they are in the air. Borne hither and thither, 'they speedily fall into beliefs' the opposite of those in which they were brought up. They hardly retain the distinction of right and wrong they seem to think one thing as good as another. They suppose themselves to be searching after truth when they are playing the game of 'follow my leader.' They fall in love 'at first sight' with paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty or eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a time in their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The resolution of some philosophical or theological question seems to them more interesting and important than any substantial knowledge of literature or science or even than a good life. Like the youth in the Philebus, they are ready to discourse to any one about a new philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some eminent professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. They may be counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple truths which they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps, find to be worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws and which we only reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers which beset youth in times of transition, when old opinions are fading away and the new are not yet firmly established. Their condition is ingeniously compared by him to that of a supposititious son, who has made the discovery that his reputed parents are not his real ones, and, in consequence, they have lost their authority over him. The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the mathematician is quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense which recognizes and combines first principles. The contempt which he expresses for distinctions of words, the danger of involuntary falsehood, the apology which Socrates makes for his earnestness of speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic style and mode of thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the inventor of number Agamemnon could not have counted his feet the art by which we are made to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only the gravity with which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State, namely, the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age, in order to expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book, in which he expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the second generation.) BOOK VIII. And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common and the education and pursuits of men and women, both in war and peace, are to be common, and kings are to be philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the State are to live together, having all things in common and they are to be warrior athletes, receiving no pay but only their food, from the other citizens. Now let us return to the point at which we digressed. 'That is easily done,' he replied 'You were speaking of the State which you had constructed, and of the individual who answered to this, both of whom you affirmed to be good and you said that of inferior States there were four forms and four individuals corresponding to them, which although deficient in various degrees, were all of them worth inspecting with a view to determining the relative happiness or misery of the best or worst man. Then Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted you, and this led to another argument,and so here we are.' Suppose that we put ourselves again in the same position, and do you repeat your question. 'I should like to know of what constitutions you were speaking?' Besides the perfect State there are only four of any note in Hellasfirst, the famous Lacedaemonian or Cretan commonwealth secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils thirdly, democracy, which follows next in order fourthly, tyranny, which is the disease or death of all government. Now, States are not made of 'oak and rock,' but of flesh and blood and therefore as there are five States there must be five human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And first, there is the ambitious nature, which answers to the Lacedaemonian State secondly, the oligarchical nature thirdly, the democratical and fourthly, the tyrannical. This last will have to be compared with the perfectly just, which is the fifth, that we may know which is the happier, and then we shall be able to determine whether the argument of Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing. And as before we began with the State and went on to the individual, so now, beginning with timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then proceed to the other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to them. But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came division? 'Sing, heavenly Muses,' as Homer sayslet them condescend to answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in jest. 'And what will they say?' They will say that human things are fated to decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny, when 'the wheel comes full circle' in a period short or long. Plants or animals have times of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by sense will not enable them to ascertain, and children will be born out of season. For whereas divine creations are in a perfect cycle or number, the human creation is in a number which declines from perfection, and has four terms and three intervals of numbers, increasing, waning, assimilating, dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with each other. The base of the number with a fourth added (or which is ), multiplied by five and cubed, gives two harmoniesthe first a square number, which is a hundred times the base (or a hundred times a hundred) the second, an oblong, being a hundred squares of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which is five, subtracting one from each square or two perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This entire number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the rulers the State will decline, and education fall into decay gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold and silver and brass and iron will form a chaotic massthus division will arise. Such is the Muses' answer to our question. 'And a true answer, of coursebut what more have they to say?' They say that the two races, the iron and brass, and the silver and gold, will draw the State different waysthe one will take to trade and moneymaking, and the others, having the true riches and not caring for money, will resist them the contest will end in a compromise they will agree to have private property, and will enslave their fellowcitizens who were once their friends and nurturers. But they will retain their warlike character, and will be chiefly occupied in fighting and exercising rule. Thus arises timocracy, which is intermediate between aristocracy and oligarchy. The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers and contempt for trade, and having common meals, and in devotion to warlike and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into philosophy, and simplicity of character, which was once her note, is now looked for only in the military class. Arts of war begin to prevail over arts of peace the ruler is no longer a philosopher as in oligarchies, there springs up among them an extravagant love of gainget another man's and save your own, is their principle and they have dark places in which they hoard their gold and silver, for the use of their women and others they take their pleasures by stealth, like boys who are running away from their fatherthe law and their education is not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm of power. The leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and ambition. And what manner of man answers to such a State? 'In love of contention,' replied Adeimantus, 'he will be like our friend Glaucon.' In that respect, perhaps, but not in others. He is selfasserting and illeducated, yet fond of literature, although not himself a speaker,fierce with slaves, but obedient to rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms,fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian of men. His origin is as followsHis father is a good man dwelling in an illordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among other women she is disgusted at her husband's selfishness, and she expatiates to her son on the unmanliness and indolence of his father. The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth'When you grow up you must be more of a man than your father.' All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his father's words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes ambitious and a lover of honour. And now let us set another city over against another man. The next form of government is oligarchy, in which the rule is of the rich only nor is it difficult to see how such a State arises. The decline begins with the possession of gold and silver illegal modes of expenditure are invented one draws another on, and the multitude are infected riches outweigh virtue lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour misers of politicians and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from violence in order to effect their purposes. Thus much of the origin,let us next consider the evils of oligarchy. Would a man who wanted to be safe on a voyage take a bad pilot because he was rich, or refuse a good one because he was poor? And does not the analogy apply still more to the State? And there are yet greater evils two nations are struggling together in onethe rich and the poor and the rich dare not put arms into the hands of the poor, and are unwilling to pay for defenders out of their own money. And have we not already condemned that State in which the same persons are warriors as well as shopkeepers? The greatest evil of all is that a man may sell his property and have no place in the State while there is one class which has enormous wealth, the other is entirely destitute. But observe that these destitutes had not really any more of the governing nature in them when they were rich than now that they are poor they were miserable spendthrifts always. They are the drones of the hive only whereas the actual drone is unprovided by nature with a sting, the twolegged things whom we call drones are some of them without stings and some of them have dreadful stings in other words, there are paupers and there are rogues. These are never far apart and in oligarchical cities, where nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler, you will find abundance of both. And this evil state of society originates in bad education and bad government. Like State, like man,the change in the latter begins with the representative of timocracy he walks at first in the ways of his father, who may have been a statesman, or general, perhaps and presently he sees him 'fallen from his high estate,' the victim of informers, dying in prison or exile, or by the hand of the executioner. The lesson which he thus receives, makes him cautious he leaves politics, represses his pride, and saves pence. Avarice is enthroned as his bosom's lord, and assumes the style of the Great King the rational and spirited elements sit humbly on the ground at either side, the one immersed in calculation, the other absorbed in the admiration of wealth. The love of honour turns to love of money the conversion is instantaneous. The man is mean, saving, toiling, the slave of one passion which is the master of the rest Is he not the very image of the State? He has had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear and not by reason. Hence he leads a divided existence in which the better desires mostly prevail. But when he is contending for prizes and other distinctions, he is afraid to incur a loss which is to be repaid only by barren honour in time of war he fights with a small part of his resources, and usually keeps his money and loses the victory. Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy and they encourage expensive habits in order that they may gain by the ruin of extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose their property or rights of citizenship but they remain in the city, full of hatred against the new owners of their estates and ripe for revolution. The usurer with stooping walk pretends not to see them he passes by, and leaves his stingthat is, his moneyin some other victim and many a man has to pay the parent or principal sum multiplied into a family of children, and is reduced into a state of dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to limit a man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at his own risk. But the ruling class do not want remedies they care only for money, and are as careless of virtue as the poorest of the citizens. Now there are occasions on which the governors and the governed meet together,at festivals, on a journey, voyaging or fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of danger he is not despised he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and draws the conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions,'that our people are not good for much' and as a sickly frame is made ill by a mere touch from without, or sometimes without external impulse is ready to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least cause, or with none at all, the city falls ill and fights a battle for life or death. And democracy comes into power when the poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the rest. The manner of life in such a State is that of democrats there is freedom and plainness of speech, and every man does what is right in his own eyes, and has his own way of life. Hence arise the most various developments of character the State is like a piece of embroidery of which the colours and figures are the manners of men, and there are many who, like women and children, prefer this variety to real beauty and excellence. The State is not one but many, like a bazaar at which you can buy anything. The great charm is, that you may do as you like you may govern if you like, let it alone if you like go to war and make peace if you feel disposed, and all quite irrespective of anybody else. When you condemn men to death they remain alive all the same a gentleman is desired to go into exile, and he stalks about the streets like a hero and nobody sees him or cares for him. Observe, too, how grandly Democracy sets her foot upon all our fine theories of education,how little she cares for the training of her statesmen! The only qualification which she demands is the profession of patriotism. Such is democracya pleasing, lawless, various sort of government, distributing equality to equals and unequals alike. Let us now inspect the individual democrat and first, as in the case of the State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures. Perhaps I ought to explain this latter termNecessary pleasures are those which are good, and which we cannot do without unnecessary pleasures are those which do no good, and of which the desire might be eradicated by early training. For example, the pleasures of eating and drinking are necessary and healthy, up to a certain point beyond that point they are alike hurtful to body and mind, and the excess may be avoided. When in excess, they may be rightly called expensive pleasures, in opposition to the useful ones. And the drone, as we called him, is the slave of these unnecessary pleasures and desires, whereas the miserly oligarch is subject only to the necessary. The oligarch changes into the democrat in the following mannerThe youth who has had a miserly bringing up, gets a taste of the drone's honey he meets with wild companions, who introduce him to every new pleasure. As in the State, so in the individual, there are allies on both sides, temptations from without and passions from within there is reason also and external influences of parents and friends in alliance with the oligarchical principle and the two factions are in violent conflict with one another. Sometimes the party of order prevails, but then again new desires and new disorders arise, and the whole mob of passions gets possession of the Acropolis, that is to say, the soul, which they find void and unguarded by true words and works. Falsehoods and illusions ascend to take their place the prodigal goes back into the country of the Lotophagi or drones, and openly dwells there. And if any offer of alliance or parley of individual elders comes from home, the false spirits shut the gates of the castle and permit no one to enter,there is a battle, and they gain the victory and straightway making alliance with the desires, they banish modesty, which they call folly, and send temperance over the border. When the house has been swept and garnished, they dress up the exiled vices, and, crowning them with garlands, bring them back under new names. Insolence they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, waste magnificence, impudence courage. Such is the process by which the youth passes from the necessary pleasures to the unnecessary. After a while he divides his time impartially between them and perhaps, when he gets older and the violence of passion has abated, he restores some of the exiles and lives in a sort of equilibrium, indulging first one pleasure and then another and if reason comes and tells him that some pleasures are good and honourable, and others bad and vile, he shakes his head and says that he can make no distinction between them. Thus he lives in the fancy of the hour sometimes he takes to drink, and then he turns abstainer he practises in the gymnasium or he does nothing at all then again he would be a philosopher or a politician or again, he would be a warrior or a man of business he is 'Every thing by starts and nothing long.' There remains still the finest and fairest of all men and all Statestyranny and the tyrant. Tyranny springs from democracy much as democracy springs from oligarchy. Both arise from excess the one from excess of wealth, the other from excess of freedom. 'The great natural good of life,' says the democrat, 'is freedom.' And this exclusive love of freedom and regardlessness of everything else, is the cause of the change from democracy to tyranny. The State demands the strong wine of freedom, and unless her rulers give her a plentiful draught, punishes and insults them equality and fraternity of governors and governed is the approved principle. Anarchy is the law, not of the State only, but of private houses, and extends even to the animals. Father and son, citizen and foreigner, teacher and pupil, old and young, are all on a level fathers and teachers fear their sons and pupils, and the wisdom of the young man is a match for the elder, and the old imitate the jaunty manners of the young because they are afraid of being thought morose. Slaves are on a level with their masters and mistresses, and there is no difference between men and women. Nay, the very animals in a democratic State have a freedom which is unknown in other places. The shedogs are as good as their shemistresses, and horses and asses march along with dignity and run their noses against anybody who comes in their way. 'That has often been my experience.' At last the citizens become so sensitive that they cannot endure the yoke of laws, written or unwritten they would have no man call himself their master. Such is the glorious beginning of things out of which tyranny springs. 'Glorious, indeed but what is to follow?' The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy for there is a law of contraries the excess of freedom passes into the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery. You will remember that in the oligarchy were found two classesrogues and paupers, whom we compared to drones with and without stings. These two classes are to the State what phlegm and bile are to the human body and the Statephysician, or legislator, must get rid of them, just as the beemaster keeps the drones out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones, but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions there is moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people. When the people meet, they are omnipotent, but they cannot be brought together unless they are attracted by a little honey and the rich are made to supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves, giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist they are driven mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in selfdefence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is indicated in the old fable of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he who tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn into a wolf. Even so the protector, who tastes human blood, and slays some and exiles others with or without law, who hints at abolition of debts and division of lands, must either perish or become a wolfthat is, a tyrant. Perhaps he is driven out, but he soon comes back from exile and then if his enemies cannot get rid of him by lawful means, they plot his assassination. Thereupon the friend of the people makes his wellknown request to them for a bodyguard, which they readily grant, thinking only of his danger and not of their own. Now let the rich man make to himself wings, for he will never run away again if he does not do so then. And the Great Protector, having crushed all his rivals, stands proudly erect in the chariot of State, a fullblown tyrant Let us enquire into the nature of his happiness. In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody he is not a 'dominus,' no, not he he has only come to put an end to debt and the monopoly of land. Having got rid of foreign enemies, he makes himself necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus enabled to depress the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work and he can get rid of bolder spirits by handing them over to the enemy. Then comes unpopularity some of his old associates have the courage to oppose him. The consequence is, that he has to make a purgation of the State but, unlike the physician who purges away the bad, he must get rid of the highspirited, the wise and the wealthy for he has no choice between death and a life of shame and dishonour. And the more hated he is, the more he will require trusty guards but how will he obtain them? 'They will come flocking like birdsfor pay.' Will he not rather obtain them on the spot? He will take the slaves from their owners and make them his bodyguard these are his trusted friends, who admire and look up to him. Are not the tragic poets wise who magnify and exalt the tyrant, and say that he is wise by association with the wise? And are not their praises of tyranny alone a sufficient reason why we should exclude them from our State? They may go to other cities, and gather the mob about them with fine words, and change commonwealths into tyrannies and democracies, receiving honours and rewards for their services but the higher they and their friends ascend constitution hill, the more their honour will fail and become 'too asthmatic to mount.' To return to the tyrantHow will he support that rare army of his? First, by robbing the temples of their treasures, which will enable him to lighten the taxes then he will take all his father's property, and spend it on his companions, male or female. Now his father is the demus, and if the demus gets angry, and says that a great hulking son ought not to be a burden on his parents, and bids him and his riotous crew begone, then will the parent know what a monster he has been nurturing, and that the son whom he would fain expel is too strong for him. 'You do not mean to say that he will beat his father?' Yes, he will, after having taken away his arms. 'Then he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.' And the people have jumped from the fear of slavery into slavery, out of the smoke into the fire. Thus liberty, when out of all order and reason, passes into the worst form of servitude... In the previous books Plato has described the ideal State now he returns to the perverted or declining forms, on which he had lightly touched at the end of Book IV. These he describes in a succession of parallels between the individuals and the States, tracing the origin of either in the State or individual which has preceded them. He begins by asking the point at which he digressed and is thus led shortly to recapitulate the substance of the three former books, which also contain a parallel of the philosopher and the State. Of the first decline he gives no intelligible account he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race. His ideal was not to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour from the head of the legislator. When good laws had been given, he thought only of the manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how they might be filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original spirit. He appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own words, 'In the brief space of human life, nothing great can be accomplished' or again, as he afterwards says in the Laws, 'Infinite time is the maker of cities.' The order of constitutions which is adopted by him represents an order of thought rather than a succession of time, and may be considered as the first attempt to frame a philosophy of history. The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State this is a government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have disappeared. The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead. The individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature and although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances of his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics and his mother, who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him towards the life of political ambition. Such a character may have had this origin, and indeed Livy attributes the Licinian laws to a feminine jealousy of a similar kind. But there is obviously no connection between the manner in which the timocratic State springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident by which the timocratic man is the son of a retired statesman. The two next stages in the decline of constitutions have even less historical foundation. For there is no trace in Greek history of a polity like the Spartan or Cretan passing into an oligarchy of wealth, or of the oligarchy of wealth passing into a democracy. The order of history appears to be different first, in the Homeric times there is the royal or patriarchal form of government, which a century or two later was succeeded by an oligarchy of birth rather than of wealth, and in which wealth was only the accident of the hereditary possession of land and power. Sometimes this oligarchical government gave way to a government based upon a qualification of property, which, according to Aristotle's mode of using words, would have been called a timocracy and this in some cities, as at Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy. But such was not the necessary order of succession in States nor, indeed, can any order be discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the tides in the Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from monarchy to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be a similar inversion in the last step of the Platonic succession for tyranny, instead of being the natural end of democracy, in early Greek history appears rather as a stage leading to democracy the reign of Peisistratus and his sons is an episode which comes between the legislation of Solon and the constitution of Cleisthenes and some secret cause common to them all seems to have led the greater part of Hellas at her first appearance in the dawn of history, e.g. Athens, Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, and nearly every State with the exception of Sparta, through a similar stage of tyranny which ended either in oligarchy or democracy. But then we must remember that Plato is describing rather the contemporary governments of the Sicilian States, which alternated between democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history of Athens or Corinth. The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later Greek delighted to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as in the lives of mediaeval saints or mythic heroes, the conduct and actions of one were attributed to another in order to fill up the outline. There was no enormity which the Greek was not today to believe of them the tyrant was the negation of government and law his assassination was glorious there was no crime, however unnatural, which might not with probability be attributed to him. In this, Plato was only following the common thought of his countrymen, which he embellished and exaggerated with all the power of his genius. There is no need to suppose that he drew from life or that his knowledge of tyrants is derived from a personal acquaintance with Dionysius. The manner in which he speaks of them would rather tend to render doubtful his ever having 'consorted' with them, or entertained the schemes, which are attributed to him in the Epistles, of regenerating Sicily by their help. Plato in a hyperbolical and seriocomic vein exaggerates the follies of democracy which he also sees reflected in social life. To him democracy is a state of individualism or dissolution in which every one is doing what is right in his own eyes. Of a people animated by a common spirit of liberty, rising as one man to repel the Persian host, which is the leading idea of democracy in Herodotus and Thucydides, he never seems to think. But if he is not a believer in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and more serious condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of wickedness and also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and suspiciousness is leading an almost impossible existence, without that remnant of good which, in Plato's opinion, was required to give power to evil (Book I). This ideal of wickedness living in helpless misery, is the reverse of that other portrait of perfect injustice ruling in happiness and splendour, which first of all Thrasymachus, and afterwards the sons of Ariston had drawn, and is also the reverse of the king whose rule of life is the good of his subjects. Each of these governments and individuals has a corresponding ethical gradation the ideal State is under the rule of reason, not extinguishing but harmonizing the passions, and training them in virtue in the timocracy and the timocratic man the constitution, whether of the State or of the individual, is based, first, upon courage, and secondly, upon the love of honour this latter virtue, which is hardly to be esteemed a virtue, has superseded all the rest. In the second stage of decline the virtues have altogether disappeared, and the love of gain has succeeded to them in the third stage, or democracy, the various passions are allowed to have free play, and the virtues and vices are impartially cultivated. But this freedom, which leads to many curious extravagances of character, is in reality only a state of weakness and dissipation. At last, one monster passion takes possession of the whole nature of manthis is tyranny. In all of them excessthe excess first of wealth and then of freedom, is the element of decay. The eighth book of the Republic abounds in pictures of life and fanciful allusions the use of metaphorical language is carried to a greater extent than anywhere else in Plato. We may remark, (), the description of the two nations in one, which become more and more divided in the Greek Republics, as in feudal times, and perhaps also in our own (), the notion of democracy expressed in a sort of Pythagorean formula as equality among unequals (), the free and easy ways of men and animals, which are characteristic of liberty, as foreign mercenaries and universal mistrust are of the tyrant (), the proposal that mere debts should not be recoverable by law is a speculation which has often been entertained by reformers of the law in modern times, and is in harmony with the tendencies of modern legislation. Debt and land were the two great difficulties of the ancient lawgiver in modern times we may be said to have almost, if not quite, solved the first of these difficulties, but hardly the second. Still more remarkable are the corresponding portraits of individuals there is the family picture of the father and mother and the old servant of the timocratical man, and the outward respectability and inherent meanness of the oligarchical the uncontrolled licence and freedom of the democrat, in which the young Alcibiades seems to be depicted, doing right or wrong as he pleases, and who at last, like the prodigal, goes into a far country (note here the play of language by which the democratic man is himself represented under the image of a State having a citadel and receiving embassies) and there is the wildbeast nature, which breaks loose in his successor. The hit about the tyrant being a parricide the representation of the tyrant's life as an obscene dream the rhetorical surprise of a more miserable than the most miserable of men in Book IX the hint to the poets that if they are the friends of tyrants there is no place for them in a constitutional State, and that they are too clever not to see the propriety of their own expulsion the continuous image of the drones who are of two kinds, swelling at last into the monster drone having wings (Book IX),are among Plato's happiest touches. There remains to be considered the great difficulty of this book of the Republic, the socalled number of the State. This is a puzzle almost as great as the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, and though apparently known to Aristotle, is referred to by Cicero as a proverb of obscurity (Ep. ad Att.). And some have imagined that there is no answer to the puzzle, and that Plato has been practising upon his readers. But such a deception as this is inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks of the number (Pol.), and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the Republic who was acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is there for supposing that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions the obscurity arises from our want of familiarity with the subject. On the other hand, Plato himself indicates that he is not altogether serious, and in describing his number as a solemn jest of the Muses, he appears to imply some degree of satire on the symbolical use of number. (Compare Cratylus Protag.) Our hope of understanding the passage depends principally on an accurate study of the words themselves on which a faint light is thrown by the parallel passage in the ninth book. Another help is the allusion in Aristotle, who makes the important remark that the latter part of the passage (Greek) describes a solid figure. (Pol.'He only says that nothing is abiding, but that all things change in a certain cycle and that the origin of the change is a base of numbers which are in the ratio of  and this when combined with a figure of five gives two harmonies he means when the number of this figure becomes solid.') Some further clue may be gathered from the appearance of the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the numbers , , , and in which, as in every rightangled triangle, the squares of the two lesser sides equal the square of the hypotenuse (    ). Plato begins by speaking of a perfect or cyclical number (Tim.), i.e. a number in which the sum of the divisors equals the whole this is the divine or perfect number in which all lesser cycles or revolutions are complete. He also speaks of a human or imperfect number, having four terms and three intervals of numbers which are related to one another in certain proportions these he converts into figures, and finds in them when they have been raised to the third power certain elements of number, which give two 'harmonies,' the one square, the other oblong but he does not say that the square number answers to the divine, or the oblong number to the human cycle nor is any intimation given that the first or divine number represents the period of the world, the second the period of the state, or of the human race as Zeller supposes nor is the divine number afterwards mentioned (Arist.). The second is the number of generations or births, and presides over them in the same mysterious manner in which the stars preside over them, or in which, according to the Pythagoreans, opportunity, justice, marriage, are represented by some number or figure. This is probably the number . The explanation given in the text supposes the two harmonies to make up the number . This explanation derives a certain plausibility from the circumstance that  is the ancient number of the Spartan citizens (Herod.), and would be what Plato might have called 'a number which nearly concerns the population of a city' the mysterious disappearance of the Spartan population may possibly have suggested to him the first cause of his decline of States. The lesser or square 'harmony,' of , might be a symbol of the guardians,the larger or oblong 'harmony,' of the people, and the numbers , ,  might refer respectively to the three orders in the State or parts of the soul, the four virtues, the five forms of government. The harmony of the musical scale, which is elsewhere used as a symbol of the harmony of the state, is also indicated. For the numbers , , , which represent the sides of the Pythagorean triangle, also denote the intervals of the scale. The terms used in the statement of the problem may be explained as follows. A perfect number (Greek), as already stated, is one which is equal to the sum of its divisors. Thus , which is the first perfect or cyclical number,      . The words (Greek), 'terms' or 'notes,' and (Greek), 'intervals,' are applicable to music as well as to number and figure. (Greek) is the 'base' on which the whole calculation depends, or the 'lowest term' from which it can be worked out. The words (Greek) have been variously translated'squared and cubed' (Donaldson), 'equalling and equalled in power' (Weber), 'by involution and evolution,' i.e. by raising the power and extracting the root (as in the translation). Numbers are called 'like and unlike' (Greek) when the factors or the sides of the planes and cubes which they represent are or are not in the same ratio e.g.  and    cubed and  cubed and conversely. 'Waxing' (Greek) numbers, called also 'increasing' (Greek), are those which are exceeded by the sum of their divisors e.g.  and  are less than  and . 'Waning' (Greek) numbers, called also 'decreasing' (Greek) are those which succeed the sum of their divisors e.g.  and  exceed  and . The words translated 'commensurable and agreeable to one another' (Greek) seem to be different ways of describing the same relation, with more or less precision. They are equivalent to 'expressible in terms having the same relation to one another,' like the series , , , , each of which numbers is in the relation of ( and ) to the preceding. The 'base,' or 'fundamental number, which has  added to it' ( and )   or a musical fourth. (Greek) is a 'proportion' of numbers as of musical notes, applied either to the parts or factors of a single number or to the relation of one number to another. The first harmony is a 'square' number (Greek) the second harmony is an 'oblong' number (Greek), i.e. a number representing a figure of which the opposite sides only are equal. (Greek)  'numbers squared from' or 'upon diameters' (Greek)  'rational,' i.e. omitting fractions, (Greek), 'irrational,' i.e. including fractions e.g.  is a square of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which   , of an irrational diameter of the same. For several of the explanations here given and for a good deal besides I am indebted to an excellent article on the Platonic Number by Dr. Donaldson (Proc. of the Philol. Society). The conclusions which he draws from these data are summed up by him as follows. Having assumed that the number of the perfect or divine cycle is the number of the world, and the number of the imperfect cycle the number of the state, he proceeds 'The period of the world is defined by the perfect number , that of the state by the cube of that number or , which is the product of the last pair of terms in the Platonic Tetractys (a series of seven terms, , , , , , , ) and if we take this as the basis of our computation, we shall have two cube numbers (Greek), viz.  and  and the mean proportionals between these, viz.  and , will furnish three intervals and four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one another in the sesquialtera ratio, i.e. each term is to the preceding as . Now if we remember that the number    x    cubed   cubed   cubed, and  squared   squared   squared, we must admit that this number implies the numbers , , , to which musicians attach so much importance. And if we combine the ratio  with the number , or multiply the ratios of the sides by the hypotenuse, we shall by first squaring and then cubing obtain two expressions, which denote the ratio of the two last pairs of terms in the Platonic Tetractys, the former multiplied by the square, the latter by the cube of the number , the sum of the first four digits which constitute the Platonic Tetractys.' The two (Greek) he elsewhere explains as follows 'The first (Greek) is (Greek), in other words ( x ) all squared   x  squared over  squared. The second (Greek), a cube of the same root, is described as  multiplied (alpha) by the rational diameter of  diminished by unity, i.e., as shown above,  (beta) by two incommensurable diameters, i.e. the two first irrationals, or  and  and (gamma) by the cube of , or . Thus we have (    )    x  cubed. This second harmony is to be the cube of the number of which the former harmony is the square, and therefore must be divided by the cube of . In other words, the whole expression will be (), for the first harmony,  (), for the second harmony, .' The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and also with Schleiermacher in supposing that  is the Platonic number of births are () that it coincides with the description of the number given in the first part of the passage (Greek...) () that the number  with its permutations would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though unfamiliar to us () that  is the cube of , and also the sum of  cubed,  cubed,  cubed, the numbers , ,  representing the Pythagorean triangle, of which the sides when squared equal the square of the hypotenuse (    ) () that it is also the period of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis () the three ultimate terms or bases (, , ) of which  is composed answer to the third, fourth, fifth in the musical scale () that the number  is the product of the cubes of  and , which are the two last terms in the Platonic Tetractys () that the Pythagorean triangle is said by Plutarch (de Is. et Osir.), Proclus (super prima Eucl.), and Quintilian (de Musica) to be contained in this passage, so that the tradition of the school seems to point in the same direction () that the Pythagorean triangle is called also the figure of marriage (Greek). But though agreeing with Dr. Donaldson thus far, I see no reason for supposing, as he does, that the first or perfect number is the world, the human or imperfect number the state nor has he given any proof that the second harmony is a cube. Nor do I think that (Greek) can mean 'two incommensurables,' which he arbitrarily assumes to be  and , but rather, as the preceding clause implies, (Greek), i.e. two square numbers based upon irrational diameters of a figure the side of which is    x . The greatest objection to the translation is the sense given to the words (Greek), 'a base of three with a third added to it, multiplied by .' In this somewhat forced manner Plato introduces once more the numbers of the Pythagorean triangle. But the coincidences in the numbers which follow are in favour of the explanation. The first harmony of , as has been already remarked, probably represents the rulers the second and oblong harmony of , the people. And here we take leave of the difficulty. The discovery of the riddle would be useless, and would throw no light on ancient mathematics. The point of interest is that Plato should have used such a symbol, and that so much of the Pythagorean spirit should have prevailed in him. His general meaning is that divine creation is perfect, and is represented or presided over by a perfect or cyclical number human generation is imperfect, and represented or presided over by an imperfect number or series of numbers. The number , which is the number of the citizens in the Laws, is expressly based by him on utilitarian grounds, namely, the convenience of the number for division it is also made up of the first seven digits multiplied by one another. The contrast of the perfect and imperfect number may have been easily suggested by the corrections of the cycle, which were made first by Meton and secondly by Callippus (the latter is said to have been a pupil of Plato). Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be attributed to the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book IX (   x ), and the slight correction of the error in the number  (Laws), may furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising in the circumstance that those who were seeking for order in nature and had found order in number, should have imagined one to give law to the other. Plato believes in a power of number far beyond what he could see realized in the world around him, and he knows the great influence which 'the little matter of , , ' exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers depend upon numbers e.g.in population, the numbers of births and the respective numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of parents, i.e. on other numbers. BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence is he, and how does he livein happiness or in misery? There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful, and yet admit of being chastened and weakened in various degrees by the power of reason and law. 'What appetites do you mean?' I mean those which are awake when the reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and walk about naked without any selfrespect or shame and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however cruel or unnatural, of which, in imagination, they may not be guilty. 'True,' he said 'very true.' But when a man's pulse beats temperately and he has supped on a feast of reason and come to a knowledge of himself before going to rest, and has satisfied his desires just enough to prevent their perturbing his reason, which remains clear and luminous, and when he is free from quarrel and heat,the visions which he has on his bed are least irregular and abnormal. Even in good men there is such an irregular wildbeast nature, which peers out in sleep. To returnYou remember what was said of the democrat that he was the son of a miserly father, who encouraged the saving desires and repressed the ornamental and expensive ones presently the youth got into fine company, and began to entertain a dislike to his father's narrow ways and being a better man than the corrupters of his youth, he came to a mean, and led a life, not of lawless or slavish passion, but of regular and successive indulgence. Now imagine that the youth has become a father, and has a son who is exposed to the same temptations, and has companions who lead him into every sort of iniquity, and parents and friends who try to keep him right. The counsellors of evil find that their only chance of retaining him is to implant in his soul a monster drone, or love while other desires buzz around him and mystify him with sweet sounds and scents, this monster love takes possession of him, and puts an end to every true or modest thought or wish. Love, like drunkenness and madness, is a tyranny and the tyrannical man, whether made by nature or habit, is just a drinking, lusting, furious sort of animal. And how does such an one live? 'Nay, that you must tell me.' Well then, I fancy that he will live amid revelries and harlotries, and love will be the lord and master of the house. Many desires require much money, and so he spends all that he has and borrows more and when he has nothing the young ravens are still in the nest in which they were hatched, crying for food. Love urges them on and they must be gratified by force or fraud, or if not, they become painful and troublesome and as the new pleasures succeed the old ones, so will the son take possession of the goods of his parents if they show signs of refusing, he will defraud and deceive them and if they openly resist, what then? 'I can only say, that I should not much like to be in their place.' But, O heavens, Adeimantus, to think that for some newfangled and unnecessary love he will give up his old father and mother, best and dearest of friends, or enslave them to the fancies of the hour! Truly a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother! When there is no more to be got out of them, he turns burglar or pickpocket, or robs a temple. Love overmasters the thoughts of his youth, and he becomes in sober reality the monster that he was sometimes in sleep. He waxes strong in all violence and lawlessness and is ready for any deed of daring that will supply the wants of his rabblerout. In a wellordered State there are only a few such, and these in time of war go out and become the mercenaries of a tyrant. But in time of peace they stay at home and do mischief they are the thieves, footpads, cutpurses, manstealers of the community or if they are able to speak, they turn falsewitnesses and informers. 'No small catalogue of crimes truly, even if the perpetrators are few.' Yes, I said but small and great are relative terms, and no crimes which are committed by them approach those of the tyrant, whom this class, growing strong and numerous, create out of themselves. If the people yield, well and good, but, if they resist, then, as before he beat his father and mother, so now he beats his fatherland and motherland, and places his mercenaries over them. Such men in their early days live with flatterers, and they themselves flatter others, in order to gain their ends but they soon discard their followers when they have no longer any need of them they are always either masters or servants,the joys of friendship are unknown to them. And they are utterly treacherous and unjust, if the nature of justice be at all understood by us. They realize our dream and he who is the most of a tyrant by nature, and leads the life of a tyrant for the longest time, will be the worst of them, and being the worst of them, will also be the most miserable. Like man, like State,the tyrannical man will answer to tyranny, which is the extreme opposite of the royal State for one is the best and the other the worst. But which is the happier? Great and terrible as the tyrant may appear enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask and the answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical the most miserable of States. And may we not ask the same question about the men themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to penetrate the inner nature of man, and will not be panicstruck by the vain pomp of tyranny? I will suppose that he is one who has lived with him, and has seen him in family life, or perhaps in the hour of trouble and danger. Assuming that we ourselves are the impartial judge for whom we seek, let us begin by comparing the individual and State, and ask first of all, whether the State is likely to be free or enslavedWill there not be a little freedom and a great deal of slavery? And the freedom is of the bad, and the slavery of the good and this applies to the man as well as to the State for his soul is full of meanness and slavery, and the better part is enslaved to the worse. He cannot do what he would, and his mind is full of confusion he is the very reverse of a freeman. The State will be poor and full of misery and sorrow and the man's soul will also be poor and full of sorrows, and he will be the most miserable of men. No, not the most miserable, for there is yet a more miserable. 'Who is that?' The tyrannical man who has the misfortune also to become a public tyrant. 'There I suspect that you are right.' Say rather, 'I am sure' conjecture is out of place in an enquiry of this nature. He is like a wealthy owner of slaves, only he has more of them than any private individual. You will say, 'The owners of slaves are not generally in any fear of them.' But why? Because the whole city is in a league which protects the individual. Suppose however that one of these owners and his household is carried off by a god into a wilderness, where there are no freemen to help himwill he not be in an agony of terror?will he not be compelled to flatter his slaves and to promise them many things sore against his will? And suppose the same god who carried him off were to surround him with neighbours who declare that no man ought to have slaves, and that the owners of them should be punished with death. 'Still worse and worse! He will be in the midst of his enemies.' And is not our tyrant such a captive soul, who is tormented by a swarm of passions which he cannot indulge living indoors always like a woman, and jealous of those who can go out and see the world? Having so many evils, will not the most miserable of men be still more miserable in a public station? Master of others when he is not master of himself like a sick man who is compelled to be an athlete the meanest of slaves and the most abject of flatterers wanting all things, and never able to satisfy his desires always in fear and distraction, like the State of which he is the representative. His jealous, hateful, faithless temper grows worse with command he is more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous,the most wretched of men, a misery to himself and to others. And so let us have a final trial and proclamation need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result? 'Made the proclamation yourself.' The son of Ariston (the best) is of opinion that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal master of himself and that the unjust man is he who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further'seen or unseen by gods or men.' This is our first proof. The second is derived from the three kinds of pleasure, which answer to the three elements of the soulreason, passion, desire under which last is comprehended avarice as well as sensual appetite, while passion includes ambition, partyfeeling, love of reputation. Reason, again, is solely directed to the attainment of truth, and careless of money and reputation. In accordance with the difference of men's natures, one of these three principles is in the ascendant, and they have their several pleasures corresponding to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The moneymaker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour whereas the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call other pleasures necessary rather than good. Now, how shall we decide between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and knowledge? And which of the three has the truest knowledge and the widest experience? The experience of youth makes the philosopher acquainted with the two kinds of desire, but the avaricious and the ambitious man never taste the pleasures of truth and wisdom. Honour he has equally with them they are 'judged of him,' but he is 'not judged of them,' for they never attain to the knowledge of true being. And his instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only wealth and honour and if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the truest. And so we arrive at the result that the pleasure of the rational part of the soul, and a life passed in such pleasure is the pleasantest. He who has a right to judge judges thus. Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the third place, that of moneymaking. Twice has the just man overthrown the unjustonce more, as in an Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let him try a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise are true and pure all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this Is not pleasure opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which is neither? When a man is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found out while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain on the other hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus rest or cessation is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither become both? Again, pleasure and pain are motions, and the absence of them is rest but if so, how can the absence of either of them be the other? Thus we are led to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and witchery of the senses. And these are not the only pleasures, for there are others which have no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence of pain, nor pure pain the absence of pleasure although most of the pleasures which reach the mind through the body are reliefs of pain, and have not only their reactions when they depart, but their anticipations before they come. They can be best described in a simile. There is in nature an upper, lower, and middle region, and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines that he is going up and is already in the upper world and if he were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion happens with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. The man who compares grey with black, calls grey white and the man who compares absence of pain with pain, calls the absence of pain pleasure. Again, hunger and thirst are inanitions of the body, ignorance and folly of the soul and food is the satisfaction of the one, knowledge of the other. Now which is the purer satisfactionthat of eating and drinking, or that of knowledge? Consider the matter thus The satisfaction of that which has more existence is truer than of that which has less. The invariable and immortal has a more real existence than the variable and mortal, and has a corresponding measure of knowledge and truth. The soul, again, has more existence and truth and knowledge than the body, and is therefore more really satisfied and has a more natural pleasure. Those who feast only on earthly food, are always going at random up to the middle and down again but they never pass into the true upper world, or have a taste of true pleasure. They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust for they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (Gorgias). Their pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired and men go fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth. The same may be said of the passionate elementthe desires of the ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction. Only when under the guidance of reason do either of the other principles do their own business or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When not attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow of pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from philosophy and reason, the more distant they will be from law and order, and the more illusive will be their pleasures. The desires of love and tyranny are the farthest from law, and those of the king are nearest to it. There is one genuine pleasure, and two spurious ones the tyrant goes beyond even the latter he has run away altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure of his inferiority be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed from the oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the shadow of a shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from the king, and thus we get the formula  x , which is the number of a surface, representing the shadow which is the tyrant's pleasure, and if you like to cube this 'number of the beast,' you will find that the measure of the difference amounts to  the king is  times more happy than the tyrant. And this extraordinary number is NEARLY equal to the number of days and nights in a year ( x   ) and is therefore concerned with human life. This is the interval between a good and bad man in happiness only what must be the difference between them in comeliness of life and virtue! Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the reputation of justice. Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us make an image of the soul, which will personify his words. First of all, fashion a multitudinous beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of animals, tame and wild, and able to produce and change them at pleasure. Suppose now another form of a lion, and another of a man the second smaller than the first, the third than the second join them together and cover them with a human skin, in which they are completely concealed. When this has been done, let us tell the supporter of injustice that he is feeding up the beasts and starving the man. The maintainer of justice, on the other hand, is trying to strengthen the man he is nourishing the gentle principle within him, and making an alliance with the lion heart, in order that he may be able to keep down the manyheaded hydra, and bring all into unity with each other and with themselves. Thus in every point of view, whether in relation to pleasure, honour, or advantage, the just man is right, and the unjust wrong. But now, let us reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the God in man the ignoble, that which subjects the man to the beast? And if so, who would receive gold on condition that he was to degrade the noblest part of himself under the worst?who would sell his son or daughter into the hands of brutal and evil men, for any amount of money? And will he sell his own fairer and diviner part without any compunction to the most godless and foul? Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband's life for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. The real disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged in them have to flatter, instead of mastering their desires therefore we say that they should be placed under the control of the better principle in another because they have none in themselves not, as Thrasymachus imagined, to the injury of the subjects, but for their good. And our intention in educating the young, is to give them selfcontrol the law desires to nurse up in them a higher principle, and when they have acquired this, they may go their ways. 'What, then, shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world' and become more and more wicked? Or what shall he profit by escaping discovery, if the concealment of evil prevents the cure? If he had been punished, the brute within him would have been silenced, and the gentler element liberated and he would have united temperance, justice, and wisdom in his soula union better far than any combination of bodily gifts. The man of understanding will honour knowledge above all in the next place he will keep under his body, not only for the sake of health and strength, but in order to attain the most perfect harmony of body and soul. In the acquisition of riches, too, he will aim at order and harmony he will not desire to heap up wealth without measure, but he will fear that the increase of wealth will disturb the constitution of his own soul. For the same reason he will only accept such honours as will make him a better man any others he will decline. 'In that case,' said he, 'he will never be a politician.' Yes, but he will, in his own city though probably not in his native country, unless by some divine accident. 'You mean that he will be a citizen of the ideal city, which has no place upon earth.' But in heaven, I replied, there is a pattern of such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image. Whether such a state is or ever will be matters not he will act according to that pattern and no other... The most noticeable points in the th Book of the Republic are() the account of pleasure () the number of the interval which divides the king from the tyrant () the pattern which is in heaven. . Plato's account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural satisfaction he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the circumstance that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he also remarks in the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the pleasures of hope and anticipation. In the previous book he had made the distinction between necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated by Aristotle, and he now observes that there are a further class of 'wild beast' pleasures, corresponding to Aristotle's (Greek). He dwells upon the relative and unreal character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which arises out of the contrast of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority of the pleasures of reason, which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of sense and emotion. The preeminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact that reason is able to form a judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two lower parts of the soul are incapable of judging the pleasures of reason. Thus, in his treatment of pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy of Plato is 'sawn up into quantities' by Aristotle the analysis which was originally made by him became in the next generation the foundation of further technical distinctions. Both in Plato and Aristotle we note the illusion under which the ancients fell of regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality, and of confounding the permanence of the intellectual pleasures with the unchangeableness of the knowledge from which they are derived. Neither do we like to admit that the pleasures of knowledge, though more elevating, are not more lasting than other pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on the accidents of our bodily state (Introduction to Philebus). . The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant, and royal from tyrannical pleasures, is , the cube of . Which Plato characteristically designates as a number concerned with human life, because NEARLY equivalent to the number of days and nights in the year. He is desirous of proclaiming that the interval between them is immeasurable, and invents a formula to give expression to his idea. Those who spoke of justice as a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot.), saw no inappropriateness in conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the pleasure of the tyrant as separated from the pleasure of the king by the numerical interval of . And in modern times we sometimes use metaphorically what Plato employed as a philosophical formula. 'It is not easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except perhaps in this way,' says Plato. So we might say, that although the life of a good man is not to be compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure the difference between them by valuing one minute of the one at an hour of the other ('One day in thy courts is better than a thousand'), or you might say that 'there is an infinite difference.' But this is not so much as saying, in homely phrase, 'They are a thousand miles asunder.' And accordingly Plato finds the natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers this arithmetical formula he draws out with the utmost seriousness, and both here and in the number of generation seems to find an additional proof of the truth of his speculation in forming the number into a geometrical figure just as persons in our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it has been only thrown into an abstract form. In speaking of the number  as proper to human life, he probably intended to intimate that one year of the tyrannical   hours of the royal life. The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in explaining the steps by which the number  is obtained the oligarch is removed in the third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant in the third degree from the oligarchical but we have to arrange the terms as the sides of a square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning them not as   but as  . The square of  is passed lightly over as only a step towards the cube. . Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more convinced of the ideal character of his own speculations. At the end of the th Book the pattern which is in heaven takes the place of the city of philosophers on earth. The vision which has received form and substance at his hands, is now discovered to be at a distance. And yet this distant kingdom is also the rule of man's life. ('Say not lo! here, or lo! there, for the kingdom of God is within you.') Thus a note is struck which prepares for the revelation of a future life in the following Book. But the future life is present still the ideal of politics is to be realized in the individual. BOOK X. Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was nothing which I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The division of the soul throws a new light on our exclusion of imitation. I do not mind telling you in confidence that all poetry is an outrage on the understanding, unless the hearers have that balm of knowledge which heals error. I have loved Homer ever since I was a boy, and even now he appears to me to be the great master of tragic poetry. But much as I love the man, I love truth more, and therefore I must speak out and first of all, will you explain what is imitation, for really I do not understand? 'How likely then that I should understand!' That might very well be, for the duller often sees better than the keener eye. 'True, but in your presence I can hardly venture to say what I think.' Then suppose that we begin in our old fashion, with the doctrine of universals. Let us assume the existence of beds and tables. There is one idea of a bed, or of a table, which the maker of each had in his mind when making them he did not make the ideas of beds and tables, but he made beds and tables according to the ideas. And is there not a maker of the works of all workmen, who makes not only vessels but plants and animals, himself, the earth and heaven, and things in heaven and under the earth? He makes the Gods also. 'He must be a wizard indeed!' But do you not see that there is a sense in which you could do the same? You have only to take a mirror, and catch the reflection of the sun, and the earth, or anything elsethere now you have made them. 'Yes, but only in appearance.' Exactly so and the painter is such a creator as you are with the mirror, and he is even more unreal than the carpenter although neither the carpenter nor any other artist can be supposed to make the absolute bed. 'Not if philosophers may be believed.' Nor need we wonder that his bed has but an imperfect relation to the truth. ReflectHere are three beds one in nature, which is made by God another, which is made by the carpenter and the third, by the painter. God only made one, nor could he have made more than one for if there had been two, there would always have been a thirdmore absolute and abstract than either, under which they would have been included. We may therefore conceive God to be the natural maker of the bed, and in a lower sense the carpenter is also the maker but the painter is rather the imitator of what the other two make he has to do with a creation which is thrice removed from reality. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, like every other imitator, is thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The painter imitates not the original bed, but the bed made by the carpenter. And this, without being really different, appears to be different, and has many points of view, of which only one is caught by the painter, who represents everything because he represents a piece of everything, and that piece an image. And he can paint any other artist, although he knows nothing of their arts and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybodyshould we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be allwise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a similar delusion? they do not see that the poets are imitators, and that their creations are only imitations. 'Very true.' But if a person could create as well as imitate, he would rather leave some permanent work and not an imitation only he would rather be the receiver than the giver of praise? 'Yes, for then he would have more honour and advantage.' Let us now interrogate Homer and the poets. Friend Homer, say I to him, I am not going to ask you about medicine, or any art to which your poems incidentally refer, but about their main subjectswar, military tactics, politics. If you are only twice and not thrice removed from the truthnot an imitator or an imagemaker, please to inform us what good you have ever done to mankind? Is there any city which professes to have received laws from you, as Sicily and Italy have from Charondas, Sparta from Lycurgus, Athens from Solon? Or was any war ever carried on by your counsels? or is any invention attributed to you, as there is to Thales and Anacharsis? Or is there any Homeric way of life, such as the Pythagorean was, in which you instructed men, and which is called after you? 'No, indeed and Creophylus (Fleshchild) was even more unfortunate in his breeding than he was in his name, if, as tradition says, Homer in his lifetime was allowed by him and his other friends to starve.' Yes, but could this ever have happened if Homer had really been the educator of Hellas? Would he not have had many devoted followers? If Protagoras and Prodicus can persuade their contemporaries that no one can manage house or State without them, is it likely that Homer and Hesiod would have been allowed to go about as beggarsI mean if they had really been able to do the world any good?would not men have compelled them to stay where they were, or have followed them about in order to get education? But they did not and therefore we may infer that Homer and all the poets are only imitators, who do but imitate the appearances of things. For as a painter by a knowledge of figure and colour can paint a cobbler without any practice in cobbling, so the poet can delineate any art in the colours of language, and give harmony and rhythm to the cobbler and also to the general and you know how mere narration, when deprived of the ornaments of metre, is like a face which has lost the beauty of youth and never had any other. Once more, the imitator has no knowledge of reality, but only of appearance. The painter paints, and the artificer makes a bridle and reins, but neither understands the use of themthe knowledge of this is confined to the horseman and so of other things. Thus we have three arts one of use, another of invention, a third of imitation and the user furnishes the rule to the two others. The fluteplayer will know the good and bad flute, and the maker will put faith in him but the imitator will neither know nor have faithneither science nor true opinion can be ascribed to him. Imitation, then, is devoid of knowledge, being only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic and epic poets are imitators in the highest degree. And now let us enquire, what is the faculty in man which answers to imitation. Allow me to explain my meaning Objects are differently seen when in the water and when out of the water, when near and when at a distance and the painter or juggler makes use of this variation to impose upon us. And the art of measuring and weighing and calculating comes in to save our bewildered minds from the power of appearance for, as we were saying, two contrary opinions of the same about the same and at the same time, cannot both of them be true. But which of them is true is determined by the art of calculation and this is allied to the better faculty in the soul, as the arts of imitation are to the worse. And the same holds of the ear as well as of the eye, of poetry as well as painting. The imitation is of actions voluntary or involuntary, in which there is an expectation of a good or bad result, and present experience of pleasure and pain. But is a man in harmony with himself when he is the subject of these conflicting influences? Is there not rather a contradiction in him? Let me further ask, whether he is more likely to control sorrow when he is alone or when he is in company. 'In the latter case.' Feeling would lead him to indulge his sorrow, but reason and law control him and enjoin patience since he cannot know whether his affliction is good or evil, and no human thing is of any great consequence, while sorrow is certainly a hindrance to good counsel. For when we stumble, we should not, like children, make an uproar we should take the measures which reason prescribes, not raising a lament, but finding a cure. And the better part of us is ready to follow reason, while the irrational principle is full of sorrow and distraction at the recollection of our troubles. Unfortunately, however, this latter furnishes the chief materials of the imitative arts. Whereas reason is ever in repose and cannot easily be displayed, especially to a mixed multitude who have no experience of her. Thus the poet is like the painter in two ways first he paints an inferior degree of truth, and secondly, he is concerned with an inferior part of the soul. He indulges the feelings, while he enfeebles the reason and we refuse to allow him to have authority over the mind of man for he has no measure of greater and less, and is a maker of images and very far gone from truth. But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictmentthe power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet and yet in our own sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and unmanly (Ion). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what he hates and abominates in himself? Is he not giving way to a sentiment which in his own case he would control?he is off his guard because the sorrow is another's and he thinks that he may indulge his feelings without disgrace, and will be the gainer by the pleasure. But the inevitable consequence is that he who begins by weeping at the sorrows of others, will end by weeping at his own. The same is true of comedy,you may often laugh at buffoonery which you would be ashamed to utter, and the love of coarse merriment on the stage will at last turn you into a buffoon at home. Poetry feeds and waters the passions and desires she lets them rule instead of ruling them. And therefore, when we hear the encomiasts of Homer affirming that he is the educator of Hellas, and that all life should be regulated by his precepts, we may allow the excellence of their intentions, and agree with them in thinking Homer a great poet and tragedian. But we shall continue to prohibit all poetry which goes beyond hymns to the Gods and praises of famous men. Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall rule in our State. These are our grounds for expelling poetry but lest she should charge us with discourtesy, let us also make an apology to her. We will remind her that there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, of which there are many traces in the writings of the poets, such as the saying of 'the shedog, yelping at her mistress,' and 'the philosophers who are ready to circumvent Zeus,' and 'the philosophers who are paupers.' Nevertheless we bear her no illwill, and will gladly allow her to return upon condition that she makes a defence of herself in verse and her supporters who are not poets may speak in prose. We confess her charms but if she cannot show that she is useful as well as delightful, like rational lovers, we must renounce our love, though endeared to us by early associations. Having come to years of discretion, we know that poetry is not truth, and that a man should be careful how he introduces her to that state or constitution which he himself is for there is a mighty issue at stakeno less than the good or evil of a human soul. And it is not worth while to forsake justice and virtue for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the sake of honour or wealth. 'I agree with you.' And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. 'And can we conceive things greater still?' Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity? 'I do not understand what you mean?' Do you not know that the soul is immortal? 'Surely you are not prepared to prove that?' Indeed I am. 'Then let me hear this argument, of which you make so light.' You would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In all things there is an inherent corruption and if this cannot destroy them, nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy the soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be full of all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external affection of evil. The body, which is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body. Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence, or any other destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy and unjust. But no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust when they die. If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the answer isThen why do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and not die of themselves? 'Truly,' he said, 'injustice would not be very terrible if it brought a cessation of evil but I rather believe that the injustice which murders others may tend to quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust.' You are quite right. If sin which is her own natural and inherent evil cannot destroy the soul, hardly will anything else destroy her. But the soul which cannot be destroyed either by internal or external evil must be immortal and everlasting. And if this be true, souls will always exist in the same number. They cannot diminish, because they cannot be destroyed nor yet increase, for the increase of the immortal must come from something mortal, and so all would end in immortality. Neither is the soul variable and diverse for that which is immortal must be of the fairest and simplest composition. If we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice and injustice in their own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason pure as at birth, or as she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse with the divine and immortal and eternal. In her present condition we see her only like the seagod Glaucus, bruised and maimed in the sea which is the world, and covered with shells and stones which are incrusted upon her from the entertainments of earth. Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards and honours which the poets attribute to justice we have contented ourselves with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself, even if a man should put on a Gyges' ring and have the helmet of Hades too. And now you shall repay me what you borrowed and I will enumerate the rewards of justice in life and after death. I granted, for the sake of argument, as you will remember, that evil might perhaps escape the knowledge of Gods and men, although this was really impossible. And since I have shown that justice has reality, you must grant me also that she has the palm of appearance. In the first place, the just man is known to the Gods, and he is therefore the friend of the Gods, and he will receive at their hands every good, always excepting such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins. All things end in good to him, either in life or after death, even what appears to be evil for the Gods have a care of him who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of men? Is not honesty the best policy? The clever rogue makes a great start at first, but breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in dishonour whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the prize. And you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed to the fortunate unjustthey bear rule in the city, they marry and give in marriage to whom they will and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence. But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when compared with those which await good men after death. 'I should like to hear about them.' Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days afterwards his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for burial. On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below. He said that his soul went with a great company to a place, in which there were two chasms near together in the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in the heaven above. And there were judges sitting in the intermediate space, bidding the just ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand, having the seal of their judgment set upon them before, while the unjust, having the seal behind, were bidden to descend by the way on the left hand. Him they told to look and listen, as he was to be their messenger to men from the world below. And he beheld and saw the souls departing after judgment at either chasm some who came from earth, were worn and travelstained others, who came from heaven, were clean and bright. They seemed glad to meet and rest awhile in the meadow here they discoursed with one another of what they had seen in the other world. Those who came from earth wept at the remembrance of their sorrows, but the spirits from above spoke of glorious sights and heavenly bliss. He said that for every evil deed they were punished tenfoldnow the journey was of a thousand years' duration, because the life of man was reckoned as a hundred yearsand the rewards of virtue were in the same proportion. He added something hardly worth repeating about infants dying almost as soon as they were born. Of parricides and other murderers he had tortures still more terrible to narrate. He was present when one of the spirits askedWhere is Ardiaeus the Great? (This Ardiaeus was a cruel tyrant, who had murdered his father, and his elder brother, a thousand years before.) Another spirit answered, 'He comes not hither, and will never come. And I myself,' he added, 'actually saw this terrible sight. At the entrance of the chasm, as we were about to reascend, Ardiaeus appeared, and some other sinnersmost of whom had been tyrants, but not alland just as they fancied that they were returning to life, the chasm gave a roar, and then wild, fierylooking men who knew the meaning of the sound, seized him and several others, and bound them hand and foot and threw them down, and dragged them along at the side of the road, lacerating them and carding them like wool, and explaining to the passersby, that they were going to be cast into hell.' The greatest terror of the pilgrims ascending was lest they should hear the voice, and when there was silence one by one they passed up with joy. To these sufferings there were corresponding delights. On the eighth day the souls of the pilgrims resumed their journey, and in four days came to a spot whence they looked down upon a line of light, in colour like a rainbow, only brighter and clearer. One day more brought them to the place, and they saw that this was the column of light which binds together the whole universe. The ends of the column were fastened to heaven, and from them hung the distaff of Necessity, on which all the heavenly bodies turnedthe hook and spindle were of adamant, and the whorl of a mixed substance. The whorl was in form like a number of boxes fitting into one another with their edges turned upwards, making together a single whorl which was pierced by the spindle. The outermost had the rim broadest, and the inner whorls were smaller and smaller, and had their rims narrower. The largest (the fixed stars) was spangledthe seventh (the sun) was brightestthe eighth (the moon) shone by the light of the sevenththe second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) were most like one another and yellower than the eighththe third (Jupiter) had the whitest lightthe fourth (Mars) was redthe sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The whole had one motion, but while this was revolving in one direction the seven inner circles were moving in the opposite, with various degrees of swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and a Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at equal intervals, singing of past, present, and future, responsive to the music of the Sirens Clotho from time to time guiding the outer circle with a touch of her right hand Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner circles Lachesis in turn putting forth her hand from time to time to guide both of them. On their arrival the pilgrims went to Lachesis, and there was an interpreter who arranged them, and taking from her knees lots, and samples of lives, got up into a pulpit and said 'Mortal souls, hear the words of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. A new period of mortal life has begun, and you may choose what divinity you please the responsibility of choosing is with youGod is blameless.' After speaking thus, he cast the lots among them and each one took up the lot which fell near him. He then placed on the ground before them the samples of lives, many more than the souls present and there were all sorts of lives, of men and of animals. There were tyrannies ending in misery and exile, and lives of men and women famous for their different qualities and also mixed lives, made up of wealth and poverty, sickness and health. Here, Glaucon, is the great risk of human life, and therefore the whole of education should be directed to the acquisition of such a knowledge as will teach a man to refuse the evil and choose the good. He should know all the combinations which occur in lifeof beauty with poverty or with wealth,of knowledge with external goods,and at last choose with reference to the nature of the soul, regarding that only as the better life which makes men better, and leaving the rest. And a man must take with him an iron sense of truth and right into the world below, that there too he may remain undazzled by wealth or the allurements of evil, and be determined to avoid the extremes and choose the mean. For this, as the messenger reported the interpreter to have said, is the true happiness of man and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if he choose with understanding, have a good lot, even though he come last. 'Let not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.' He spoke and when he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny he did not see that he was fated to devour his own childrenand when he discovered his mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, and in his previous life had been a citizen of a wellordered State, but he had only habit and no philosophy. Like many another, he made a bad choice, because he had no experience of life whereas those who came from earth and had seen trouble were not in such a hurry to choose. But if a man had followed philosophy while upon earth, and had been moderately fortunate in his lot, he might not only be happy here, but his pilgrimage both from and to this world would be smooth and heavenly. Nothing was more curious than the spectacle of the choice, at once sad and laughable and wonderful most of the souls only seeking to avoid their own condition in a previous life. He saw the soul of Orpheus changing into a swan because he would not be born of a woman there was Thamyras becoming a nightingale musical birds, like the swan, choosing to be men the twentieth soul, which was that of Ajax, preferring the life of a lion to that of a man, in remembrance of the injustice which was done to him in the judgment of the arms and Agamemnon, from a like enmity to human nature, passing into an eagle. About the middle was the soul of Atalanta choosing the honours of an athlete, and next to her Epeus taking the nature of a workwoman among the last was Thersites, who was changing himself into a monkey. Thither, the last of all, came Odysseus, and sought the lot of a private man, which lay neglected and despised, and when he found it he went away rejoicing, and said that if he had been first instead of last, his choice would have been the same. Men, too, were seen passing into animals, and wild and tame animals changing into one another. When all the souls had chosen they went to Lachesis, who sent with each of them their genius or attendant to fulfil their lot. He first of all brought them under the hand of Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand from her they were carried to Atropos, who made the threads irreversible whence, without turning round, they passed beneath the throne of Necessity and when they had all passed, they moved on in scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness and rested at evening by the river Unmindful, whose water could not be retained in any vessel of this they had all to drink a certain quantitysome of them drank more than was required, and he who drank forgot all things. Er himself was prevented from drinking. When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all driven divers ways, shooting like stars to their birth. Concerning his return to the body, he only knew that awaking suddenly in the morning he found himself lying on the pyre. Thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved, and will be our salvation, if we believe that the soul is immortal, and hold fast to the heavenly way of Justice and Knowledge. So shall we pass undefiled over the river of Forgetfulness, and be dear to ourselves and to the Gods, and have a crown of reward and happiness both in this world and also in the millennial pilgrimage of the other. The Tenth Book of the Republic of Plato falls into two divisions first, resuming an old thread which has been interrupted, Socrates assails the poets, who, now that the nature of the soul has been analyzed, are seen to be very far gone from the truth and secondly, having shown the reality of the happiness of the just, he demands that appearance shall be restored to him, and then proceeds to prove the immortality of the soul. The argument, as in the Phaedo and Gorgias, is supplemented by the vision of a future life. Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to the dramatic poets why he should not have seen that truth may be embodied in verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable lights and shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetrysome elements of imagination which always entwine with reason why he should have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the impurities of the old Hellenic mythology why he should try Homer and Hesiod by the unfair and prosaic test of utility,are questions which have always been debated amongst students of Plato. Though unable to give a complete answer to them, we may showfirst, that his views arose naturally out of the circumstances of his age and secondly, we may elicit the truth as well as the error which is contained in them. He is the enemy of the poets because poetry was declining in his own lifetime, and a theatrocracy, as he says in the Laws, had taken the place of an intellectual aristocracy. Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic drama, and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the Sophist of tragedy. The old comedy was almost extinct the new had not yet arisen. Dramatic and lyric poetry, like every other branch of Greek literature, was falling under the power of rhetoric. There was no 'second or third' to Aeschylus and Sophocles in the generation which followed them. Aristophanes, in one of his later comedies (Frogs), speaks of 'thousands of tragedymaking prattlers,' whose attempts at poetry he compares to the chirping of swallows 'their garrulity went far beyond Euripides,''they appeared once upon the stage, and there was an end of them.' To a man of genius who had a real appreciation of the godlike Aeschylus and the noble and gentle Sophocles, though disagreeing with some parts of their 'theology' (Rep.), these 'minor poets' must have been contemptible and intolerable. There is no feeling stronger in the dialogues of Plato than a sense of the decline and decay both in literature and in politics which marked his own age. Nor can he have been expected to look with favour on the licence of Aristophanes, now at the end of his career, who had begun by satirizing Socrates in the Clouds, and in a similar spirit forty years afterwards had satirized the founders of ideal commonwealths in his Eccleziazusae, or Female Parliament (Laws). There were other reasons for the antagonism of Plato to poetry. The profession of an actor was regarded by him as a degradation of human nature, for 'one man in his life' cannot 'play many parts' the characters which the actor performs seem to destroy his own character, and to leave nothing which can be truly called himself. Neither can any man live his life and act it. The actor is the slave of his art, not the master of it. Taking this view Plato is more decided in his expulsion of the dramatic than of the epic poets, though he must have known that the Greek tragedians afforded noble lessons and examples of virtue and patriotism, to which nothing in Homer can be compared. But great dramatic or even great rhetorical power is hardly consistent with firmness or strength of mind, and dramatic talent is often incidentally associated with a weak or dissolute character. In the Tenth Book Plato introduces a new series of objections. First, he says that the poet or painter is an imitator, and in the third degree removed from the truth. His creations are not tested by rule and measure they are only appearances. In modern times we should say that art is not merely imitation, but rather the expression of the ideal in forms of sense. Even adopting the humble image of Plato, from which his argument derives a colour, we should maintain that the artist may ennoble the bed which he paints by the folds of the drapery, or by the feeling of home which he introduces and there have been modern painters who have imparted such an ideal interest to a blacksmith's or a carpenter's shop. The eye or mind which feels as well as sees can give dignity and pathos to a ruined mill, or a strawbuilt shed (Rembrandt), to the hull of a vessel 'going to its last home' (Turner). Still more would this apply to the greatest works of art, which seem to be the visible embodiment of the divine. Had Plato been asked whether the Zeus or Athene of Pheidias was the imitation of an imitation only, would he not have been compelled to admit that something more was to be found in them than in the form of any mortal and that the rule of proportion to which they conformed was 'higher far than any geometry or arithmetic could express?' (Statesman.) Again, Plato objects to the imitative arts that they express the emotional rather than the rational part of human nature. He does not admit Aristotle's theory, that tragedy or other serious imitations are a purgation of the passions by pity and fear to him they appear only to afford the opportunity of indulging them. Yet we must acknowledge that we may sometimes cure disordered emotions by giving expression to them and that they often gain strength when pent up within our own breast. It is not every indulgence of the feelings which is to be condemned. For there may be a gratification of the higher as well as of the lowerthoughts which are too deep or too sad to be expressed by ourselves, may find an utterance in the words of poets. Every one would acknowledge that there have been times when they were consoled and elevated by beautiful music or by the sublimity of architecture or by the peacefulness of nature. Plato has himself admitted, in the earlier part of the Republic, that the arts might have the effect of harmonizing as well as of enervating the mind but in the Tenth Book he regards them through a Stoic or Puritan medium. He asks only 'What good have they done?' and is not satisfied with the reply, that 'They have given innocent pleasure to mankind.' He tells us that he rejoices in the banishment of the poets, since he has found by the analysis of the soul that they are concerned with the inferior faculties. He means to say that the higher faculties have to do with universals, the lower with particulars of sense. The poets are on a level with their own age, but not on a level with Socrates and Plato and he was well aware that Homer and Hesiod could not be made a rule of life by any process of legitimate interpretation his ironical use of them is in fact a denial of their authority he saw, too, that the poets were not criticsas he says in the Apology, 'Any one was a better interpreter of their writings than they were themselves. He himself ceased to be a poet when he became a disciple of Socrates though, as he tells us of Solon, 'he might have been one of the greatest of them, if he had not been deterred by other pursuits' (Tim.) Thus from many points of view there is an antagonism between Plato and the poets, which was foreshadowed to him in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. The poets, as he says in the Protagoras, were the Sophists of their day and his dislike of the one class is reflected on the other. He regards them both as the enemies of reasoning and abstraction, though in the case of Euripides more with reference to his immoral sentiments about tyrants and the like. For Plato is the prophet who 'came into the world to convince men'first of the fallibility of sense and opinion, and secondly of the reality of abstract ideas. Whatever strangeness there may be in modern times in opposing philosophy to poetry, which to us seem to have so many elements in common, the strangeness will disappear if we conceive of poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as equivalent to thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word 'idea,' which to Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is associated in our minds with an element of subjectiveness and unreality. We may note also how he differs from Aristotle who declares poetry to be truer than history, for the opposite reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like history, with particulars (Poet). The things which are seen are opposed in Scripture to the things which are unseenthey are equally opposed in Plato to universals and ideas. To him all particulars appear to be floating about in a world of sense they have a taint of error or even of evil. There is no difficulty in seeing that this is an illusion for there is no more error or variation in an individual man, horse, bed, etc., than in the class man, horse, bed, etc. nor is the truth which is displayed in individual instances less certain than that which is conveyed through the medium of ideas. But Plato, who is deeply impressed with the real importance of universals as instruments of thought, attributes to them an essential truth which is imaginary and unreal for universals may be often false and particulars true. Had he attained to any clear conception of the individual, which is the synthesis of the universal and the particular or had he been able to distinguish between opinion and sensation, which the ambiguity of the words (Greek) and the like, tended to confuse, he would not have denied truth to the particulars of sense. But the poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning in all departments of life and knowledge, like the sophists and rhetoricians of the Gorgias and Phaedrus they are the false priests, false prophets, lying spirits, enchanters of the world. There is another count put into the indictment against them by Plato, that they are the friends of the tyrant, and bask in the sunshine of his patronage. Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of false ideas and false teachers at its servicein the history of Modern Europe as well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends solely upon force without some corruption of literature and moralssome appeal to the imagination of the massessome pretence to the favour of heavensome element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained. The Greek tyrants were not insensible to the importance of awakening in their cause a PseudoHellenic feeling they were proud of successes at the Olympic games they were not devoid of the love of literature and art. Plato is thinking in the first instance of Greek poets who had graced the courts of Dionysius or Archelaus and the old spirit of freedom is roused within him at their prostitution of the Tragic Muse in the praises of tyranny. But his prophetic eye extends beyond them to the false teachers of other ages who are the creatures of the government under which they live. He compares the corruption of his contemporaries with the idea of a perfect society, and gathers up into one mass of evil the evils and errors of mankind to him they are personified in the rhetoricians, sophists, poets, rulers who deceive and govern the world. A further objection which Plato makes to poetry and the imitative arts is that they excite the emotions. Here the modern reader will be disposed to introduce a distinction which appears to have escaped him. For the emotions are neither bad nor good in themselves, and are not most likely to be controlled by the attempt to eradicate them, but by the moderate indulgence of them. And the vocation of art is to present thought in the form of feeling, to enlist the feelings on the side of reason, to inspire even for a moment courage or resignation perhaps to suggest a sense of infinity and eternity in a way which mere language is incapable of attaining. True, the same power which in the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only, may be made to express the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan. But this only shows that art, like other outward things, may be turned to good and also to evil, and is not more closely connected with the higher than with the lower part of the soul. All imitative art is subject to certain limitations, and therefore necessarily partakes of the nature of a compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed for the sake of the representation, and something in the exactness of the representation is sacrificed to the ideal. Still, works of art have a permanent element they idealize and detain the passing thought, and are the intermediates between sense and ideas. In the present stage of the human mind, poetry and other forms of fiction may certainly be regarded as a good. But we can also imagine the existence of an age in which a severer conception of truth has either banished or transformed them. At any rate we must admit that they hold a different place at different periods of the world's history. In the infancy of mankind, poetry, with the exception of proverbs, is the whole of literature, and the only instrument of intellectual culture in modern times she is the shadow or echo of her former self, and appears to have a precarious existence. Milton in his day doubted whether an epic poem was any longer possible. At the same time we must remember, that what Plato would have called the charms of poetry have been partly transferred to prose he himself (Statesman) admits rhetoric to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes to find in the strain of law (Laws) a substitute for the old poets. Among ourselves the creative power seems often to be growing weaker, and scientific fact to be more engrossing and overpowering to the mind than formerly. The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. But may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy be some day exhausted? The modern English novel which is the most popular of all forms of reading is not more than a century or two old will the tale of love a hundred years hence, after so many thousand variations of the same theme, be still received with unabated interest? Art cannot claim to be on a level with philosophy or religion, and may often corrupt them. It is possible to conceive a mental state in which all artistic representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression, either of the religious ideal or of the philosophical ideal. The fairest forms may be revolting in certain moods of mind, as is proved by the fact that the Mahometans, and many sects of Christians, have renounced the use of pictures and images. The beginning of a great religion, whether Christian or Gentile, has not been 'wood or stone,' but a spirit moving in the hearts of men. The disciples have met in a large upper room or in 'holes and caves of the earth' in the second or third generation, they have had mosques, temples, churches, monasteries. And the revival or reform of religions, like the first revelation of them, has come from within and has generally disregarded external ceremonies and accompaniments. But poetry and art may also be the expression of the highest truth and the purest sentiment. Plato himself seems to waver between two opposite viewswhen, as in the third Book, he insists that youth should be brought up amid wholesome imagery and again in Book X, when he banishes the poets from his Republic. Admitting that the arts, which some of us almost deify, have fallen short of their higher aim, we must admit on the other hand that to banish imagination wholly would be suicidal as well as impossible. For nature too is a form of art and a breath of the fresh air or a single glance at the varying landscape would in an instant revive and reillumine the extinguished spark of poetry in the human breast. In the lower stages of civilization imagination more than reason distinguishes man from the animals and to banish art would be to banish thought, to banish language, to banish the expression of all truth. No religion is wholly devoid of external forms even the Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and images has a temple in which he worships the Most High, as solemn and beautiful as any Greek or Christian building. Feeling too and thought are not really opposed for he who thinks must feel before he can execute. And the highest thoughts, when they become familiarized to us, are always tending to pass into the form of feeling. Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But he feels strongly the unreality of their writings he is protesting against the degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the want of serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or extravagance of some of our poets or novelists, against the timeserving of preachers or public writers, against the regardlessness of truth which to the eye of the philosopher seems to characterize the greater part of the world. For we too have reason to complain that our poets and novelists 'paint inferior truth' and 'are concerned with the inferior part of the soul' that the readers of them become what they read and are injuriously affected by them. And we look in vain for that healthy atmosphere of which Plato speaks,'the beauty which meets the sense like a breeze and imperceptibly draws the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.' For there might be a poetry which would be the hymn of divine perfection, the harmony of goodness and truth among men a strain which should renew the youth of the world, and bring back the ages in which the poet was man's only teacher and best friend,which would find materials in the living present as well as in the romance of the past, and might subdue to the fairest forms of speech and verse the intractable materials of modern civilisation,which might elicit the simple principles, or, as Plato would have called them, the essential forms, of truth and justice out of the variety of opinion and the complexity of modern society,which would preserve all the good of each generation and leave the bad unsung,which should be based not on vain longings or faint imaginings, but on a clear insight into the nature of man. Then the tale of love might begin again in poetry or prose, two in one, united in the pursuit of knowledge, or the service of God and man and feelings of love might still be the incentive to great thoughts and heroic deeds as in the days of Dante or Petrarch and many types of manly and womanly beauty might appear among us, rising above the ordinary level of humanity, and many lives which were like poems (Laws), be not only written, but lived by us. A few such strains have been heard among men in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, whom Plato quotes, not, as Homer is quoted by him, in irony, but with deep and serious approval,in the poetry of Milton and Wordsworth, and in passages of other English poets,first and above all in the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Shakespeare has taught us how great men should speak and act he has drawn characters of a wonderful purity and depth he has ennobled the human mind, but, like Homer (Rep.), he 'has left no way of life.' The next greatest poet of modern times, Goethe, is concerned with 'a lower degree of truth' he paints the world as a stage on which 'all the men and women are merely players' he cultivates life as an art, but he furnishes no ideals of truth and action. The poet may rebel against any attempt to set limits to his fancy and he may argue truly that moralizing in verse is not poetry. Possibly, like Mephistopheles in Faust, he may retaliate on his adversaries. But the philosopher will still be justified in asking, 'How may the heavenly gift of poesy be devoted to the good of mankind?' Returning to Plato, we may observe that a similar mixture of truth and error appears in other parts of the argument. He is aware of the absurdity of mankind framing their whole lives according to Homer just as in the Phaedrus he intimates the absurdity of interpreting mythology upon rational principles both these were the modern tendencies of his own age, which he deservedly ridicules. On the other hand, his argument that Homer, if he had been able to teach mankind anything worth knowing, would not have been allowed by them to go about begging as a rhapsodist, is both false and contrary to the spirit of Plato (Rep.). It may be compared with those other paradoxes of the Gorgias, that 'No statesman was ever unjustly put to death by the city of which he was the head' and that 'No Sophist was ever defrauded by his pupils' (Gorg.)... The argument for immortality seems to rest on the absolute dualism of soul and body. Admitting the existence of the soul, we know of no force which is able to put an end to her. Vice is her own proper evil and if she cannot be destroyed by that, she cannot be destroyed by any other. Yet Plato has acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the incrustations of earth as to lose her original form and in the Timaeus he recognizes more strongly than in the Republic the influence which the body has over the mind, denying even the voluntariness of human actions, on the ground that they proceed from physical states (Tim.). In the Republic, as elsewhere, he wavers between the original soul which has to be restored, and the character which is developed by training and education... The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who is said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale has certainly an oriental character, and may be compared with the pilgrimages of the soul in the Zend Avesta (Haug, Avesta). But no trace of acquaintance with Zoroaster is found elsewhere in Plato's writings, and there is no reason for giving him the name of Er the Pamphylian. The philosophy of Heracleitus cannot be shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster, and still less the myths of Plato. The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and mythology the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a cylinder or box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed stars this is suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of Necessity the revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder are guided by the fates, and their harmonious motion produces the music of the spheres. Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the moon, is passed the spindle but it is doubtful whether this is the continuation of the column of light, from which the pilgrims contemplate the heavens the words of Plato imply that they are connected, but not the same. The column itself is clearly not of adamant. The spindle (which is of adamant) is fastened to the ends of the chains which extend to the middle of the column of lightthis column is said to hold together the heaven but whether it hangs from the spindle, or is at right angles to it, is not explained. The cylinder containing the orbits of the stars is almost as much a symbol as the figure of Necessity turning the spindlefor the outermost rim is the sphere of the fixed stars, and nothing is said about the intervals of space which divide the paths of the stars in the heavens. The description is both a picture and an orrery, and therefore is necessarily inconsistent with itself. The column of light is not the Milky Waywhich is neither straight, nor like a rainbowbut the imaginary axis of the earth. This is compared to the rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to the undergirders of a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow to stern in which the undergirders meet. The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and they move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction in the Republic as in the Timaeus they are all moving round the axis of the world. But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the earth. No distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the same and other although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion of the fixed stars is supposed to coincide with the motion of the whole. The relative thickness of the rims is perhaps designed to express the relative distances of the planets. Plato probably intended to represent the earth, from which Er and his companions are viewing the heavens, as stationary in place but whether or not herself revolving, unless this is implied in the revolution of the axis, is uncertain (Timaeus). The spectator may be supposed to look at the heavenly bodies, either from above or below. The earth is a sort of earth and heaven in one, like the heaven of the Phaedrus, on the back of which the spectator goes out to take a peep at the stars and is borne round in the revolution. There is no distinction between the equator and the ecliptic. But Plato is no doubt led to imagine that the planets have an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in order to account for their appearances in the heavens. In the description of the meadow, and the retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces of Homer. The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of the heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of the Fates. The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of them irreversible, which are ascribed to the three FatesLachesis, Clotho, Atropos, are obviously derived from their names. The element of chance in human life is indicated by the order of the lots. But chance, however adverse, may be overcome by the wisdom of man, if he knows how to choose aright there is a worse enemy to man than chance this enemy is himself. He who was moderately fortunate in the number of the loteven the very last comermight have a good life if he chose with wisdom. And as Plato does not like to make an assertion which is unproven, he more than confirms this statement a few sentences afterwards by the example of Odysseus, who chose last. But the virtue which is founded on habit is not sufficient to enable a man to choose he must add to virtue knowledge, if he is to act rightly when placed in new circumstances. The routine of good actions and good habits is an inferior sort of goodness and, as Coleridge says, 'Common sense is intolerable which is not based on metaphysics,' so Plato would have said, 'Habit is worthless which is not based upon philosophy.' The freedom of the will to refuse the evil and to choose the good is distinctly asserted. 'Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her.' The life of man is 'rounded' by necessity there are circumstances prior to birth which affect him (Pol.). But within the walls of necessity there is an open space in which he is his own master, and can study for himself the effects which the variously compounded gifts of nature or fortune have upon the soul, and act accordingly. All men cannot have the first choice in everything. But the lot of all men is good enough, if they choose wisely and will live diligently. The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years, by the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before the coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the meadow, and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of light the precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the twentieth lot the passing remarks that there was no definite character among the souls, and that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one rather than themselves or that some of the souls drank more than was necessary of the waters of Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered from drinking the desire of Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception of him in Dante and Tennyson the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to the body, when the other souls went shooting like stars to their birth,add greatly to the probability of the narrative. They are such touches of nature as the art of Defoe might have introduced when he wished to win credibility for marvels and apparitions. There still remain to be considered some points which have been intentionally reserved to the end () the Januslike character of the Republic, which presents two facesone an Hellenic state, the other a kingdom of philosophers. Connected with the latter of the two aspects are () the paradoxes of the Republic, as they have been termed by Morgenstern (a) the community of property (b) of families (c) the rule of philosophers (d) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the Republic, is carried too far. We may then proceed to consider () the subject of education as conceived by Plato, bringing together in a general view the education of youth and the education of afterlife () we may note further some essential differences between ancient and modern politics which are suggested by the Republic () we may compare the Politicus and the Laws () we may observe the influence exercised by Plato on his imitators and () take occasion to consider the nature and value of political, and () of religious ideals. . Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State (Book V). Many of his regulations are characteristically Spartan such as the prohibition of gold and silver, the common meals of the men, the military training of the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The life of Sparta was the life of a camp (Laws), enforced even more rigidly in time of peace than in war the citizens of Sparta, like Plato's, were forbidden to tradethey were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere else in Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State the time when he was to marry, the education of his children, the clothes which he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law. Some of the best enactments in the Republic, such as the reverence to be paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of men with one another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also Spartan in Sparta too a nearer approach was made than in any other Greek State to equality of the sexes, and to community of property and while there was probably less of licentiousness in the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded more lightly than in the rest of Greece. The 'suprema lex' was the preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The coarse strength of a military government was not favourable to purity and refinement and the excessive strictness of some regulations seems to have produced a reaction. Of all Hellenes the Spartans were most accessible to bribery several of the greatest of them might be described in the words of Plato as having a 'fierce secret longing after gold and silver.' Though not in the strict sense communists, the principle of communism was maintained among them in their division of lands, in their common meals, in their slaves, and in the free use of one another's goods. Marriage was a public institution and the women were educated by the State, and sang and danced in public with the men. Many traditions were preserved at Sparta of the severity with which the magistrates had maintained the primitive rule of music and poetry as in the Republic of Plato, the newfangled poet was to be expelled. Hymns to the Gods, which are the only kind of music admitted into the ideal State, were the only kind which was permitted at Sparta. The Spartans, though an unpoetical race, were nevertheless lovers of poetry they had been stirred by the Elegiac strains of Tyrtaeus, they had crowded around Hippias to hear his recitals of Homer but in this they resembled the citizens of the timocratic rather than of the ideal State. The council of elder men also corresponds to the Spartan gerousia and the freedom with which they are permitted to judge about matters of detail agrees with what we are told of that institution. Once more, the military rule of not spoiling the dead or offering arms at the temples the moderation in the pursuit of enemies the importance attached to the physical wellbeing of the citizens the use of warfare for the sake of defence rather than of aggressionare features probably suggested by the spirit and practice of Sparta. To the Spartan type the ideal State reverts in the first decline and the character of the individual timocrat is borrowed from the Spartan citizen. The love of Lacedaemon not only affected Plato and Xenophon, but was shared by many undistinguished Athenians there they seemed to find a principle which was wanting in their own democracy. The (Greek) of the Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the goodness of their laws, but the spirit of order and loyalty which prevailed. Fascinated by the idea, citizens of Athens would imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and manners they were known to the contemporaries of Plato as 'the persons who had their ears bruised,' like the Roundheads of the Commonwealth. The love of another church or country when seen at a distance only, the longing for an imaginary simplicity in civilized times, the fond desire of a past which never has been, or of a future which never will be,these are aspirations of the human mind which are often felt among ourselves. Such feelings meet with a response in the Republic of Plato. But there are other features of the Platonic Republic, as, for example, the literary and philosophical education, and the grace and beauty of life, which are the reverse of Spartan. Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of Athenian freedom as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline. His individual genius is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta and he is something more than eitherhe has also a true Hellenic feeling. He is desirous of humanizing the wars of Hellenes against one another he acknowledges that the Delphian God is the grand hereditary interpreter of all Hellas. The spirit of harmony and the Dorian mode are to prevail, and the whole State is to have an external beauty which is the reflex of the harmony within. But he has not yet found out the truth which he afterwards enunciated in the Lawsthat he was a better legislator who made men to be of one mind, than he who trained them for war. The citizens, as in other Hellenic States, democratic as well as aristocratic, are really an upper class for, although no mention is made of slaves, the lower classes are allowed to fade away into the distance, and are represented in the individual by the passions. Plato has no idea either of a social State in which all classes are harmonized, or of a federation of Hellas or the world in which different nations or States have a place. His city is equipped for war rather than for peace, and this would seem to be justified by the ordinary condition of Hellenic States. The myth of the earthborn men is an embodiment of the orthodox tradition of Hellas, and the allusion to the four ages of the world is also sanctioned by the authority of Hesiod and the poets. Thus we see that the Republic is partly founded on the ideal of the old Greek polis, partly on the actual circumstances of Hellas in that age. Plato, like the old painters, retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision of a city in the clouds. There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the texture of the work for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, but a Pythagorean league. The 'way of life' which was connected with the name of Pythagoras, like the Catholic monastic orders, showed the power which the mind of an individual might exercise over his contemporaries, and may have naturally suggested to Plato the possibility of reviving such 'mediaeval institutions.' The Pythagoreans, like Plato, enforced a rule of life and a moral and intellectual training. The influence ascribed to music, which to us seems exaggerated, is also a Pythagorean feature it is not to be regarded as representing the real influence of music in the Greek world. More nearly than any other government of Hellas, the Pythagorean league of three hundred was an aristocracy of virtue. For once in the history of mankind the philosophy of order or (Greek), expressing and consequently enlisting on its side the combined endeavours of the better part of the people, obtained the management of public affairs and held possession of it for a considerable time (until about B.C. ). Probably only in States prepared by Dorian institutions would such a league have been possible. The rulers, like Plato's (Greek), were required to submit to a severe training in order to prepare the way for the education of the other members of the community. Long after the dissolution of the Order, eminent Pythagoreans, such as Archytas of Tarentum, retained their political influence over the cities of Magna Graecia. There was much here that was suggestive to the kindred spirit of Plato, who had doubtless meditated deeply on the 'way of life of Pythagoras' (Rep.) and his followers. Slight traces of Pythagoreanism are to be found in the mystical number of the State, in the number which expresses the interval between the king and the tyrant, in the doctrine of transmigration, in the music of the spheres, as well as in the great though secondary importance ascribed to mathematics in education. But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom of Christ. Nothing actually existing in the world at all resembles Plato's ideal State nor does he himself imagine that such a State is possible. This he repeats again and again e.g. in the Republic, or in the Laws where, casting a glance back on the Republic, he admits that the perfect state of communism and philosophy was impossible in his own age, though still to be retained as a pattern. The same doubt is implied in the earnestness with which he argues in the Republic that ideals are none the worse because they cannot be realized in fact, and in the chorus of laughter, which like a breaking wave will, as he anticipates, greet the mention of his proposals though like other writers of fiction, he uses all his art to give reality to his inventions. When asked how the ideal polity can come into being, he answers ironically, 'When one son of a king becomes a philosopher' he designates the fiction of the earthborn men as 'a noble lie' and when the structure is finally complete, he fairly tells you that his Republic is a vision only, which in some sense may have reality, but not in the vulgar one of a reign of philosophers upon earth. It has been said that Plato flies as well as walks, but this falls short of the truth for he flies and walks at the same time, and is in the air and on firm ground in successive instants. Niebuhr has asked a trifling question, which may be briefly noticed in this placeWas Plato a good citizen? If by this is meant, Was he loyal to Athenian institutions?he can hardly be said to be the friend of democracy but neither is he the friend of any other existing form of government all of them he regarded as 'states of faction' (Laws) none attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects, which seems indeed more nearly to describe democracy than any other and the worst of them is tyranny. The truth is, that the question has hardly any meaning when applied to a great philosopher whose writings are not meant for a particular age and country, but for all time and all mankind. The decline of Athenian politics was probably the motive which led Plato to frame an ideal State, and the Republic may be regarded as reflecting the departing glory of Hellas. As well might we complain of St. Augustine, whose great work 'The City of God' originated in a similar motive, for not being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel might be afforded by the first Christians, who cannot fairly be charged with being bad citizens because, though 'subject to the higher powers,' they were looking forward to a city which is in heaven. . The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of according to the ordinary notions of mankind. The paradoxes of one age have been said to become the commonplaces of the next but the paradoxes of Plato are at least as paradoxical to us as they were to his contemporaries. The modern world has either sneered at them as absurd, or denounced them as unnatural and immoral men have been pleased to find in Aristotle's criticisms of them the anticipation of their own good sense. The wealthy and cultivated classes have disliked and also dreaded them they have pointed with satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in practice. Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of human intelligences, and of one who had done most to elevate morality and religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment at our hands. We may have to address the public, as Plato does poetry, and assure them that we mean no harm to existing institutions. There are serious errors which have a side of truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful consideration there are truths mixed with error of which we may indeed say, 'The half is better than the whole.' Yet 'the half' may be an important contribution to the study of human nature. (a) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is mentioned slightly at the end of the third Book, and seemingly, as Aristotle observes, is confined to the guardians at least no mention is made of the other classes. But the omission is not of any real significance, and probably arises out of the plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering into details. Aristotle censures the community of property much in the spirit of modern political economy, as tending to repress industry, and as doing away with the spirit of benevolence. Modern writers almost refuse to consider the subject, which is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common opinion of mankind. But it must be remembered that the sacredness of property is a notion far more fixed in modern than in ancient times. The world has grown older, and is therefore more conservative. Primitive society offered many examples of land held in common, either by a tribe or by a township, and such may probably have been the original form of landed tenure. Ancient legislators had invented various modes of dividing and preserving the divisions of land among the citizens according to Aristotle there were nations who held the land in common and divided the produce, and there were others who divided the land and stored the produce in common. The evils of debt and the inequality of property were far greater in ancient than in modern times, and the accidents to which property was subject from war, or revolution, or taxation, or other legislative interference, were also greater. All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred character. The early Christians are believed to have held their property in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost all ages of the Church. Nor have there been wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism in every age of religious excitement notions like Wycliffe's 'inheritance of grace' have tended to prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has appeared in politics. 'The preparation of the Gospel of peace' soon becomes the red flag of Republicanism. We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have upon his own contemporaries they would perhaps have seemed to them only an exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers would acknowledge that the right of private property is based on expediency, and may be interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any other mode of vesting property which was found to be more advantageous, would in time acquire the same basis of right 'the most useful,' in Plato's words, 'would be the most sacred.' The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages would have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they only meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount of resistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of the Church. When we consider the question, without any fear of immediate application to practice, in the spirit of Plato's Republic, are we quite sure that the received notions of property are the best? Is the distribution of wealth which is customary in civilized countries the most favourable that can be conceived for the education and development of the mass of mankind? Can 'the spectator of all time and all existence' be quite convinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will not have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the very notion of property, beyond what is necessary for personal maintenance, may not have disappeared? This was a distinction familiar to Aristotle, though likely to be laughed at among ourselves. Such a change would not be greater than some other changes through which the world has passed in the transition from ancient to modern society, for example, the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, or the abolition of slavery in America and the West Indies and not so great as the difference which separates the Eastern village community from the Western world. To accomplish such a revolution in the course of a few centuries, would imply a rate of progress not more rapid than has actually taken place during the last fifty or sixty years. The kingdom of Japan underwent more change in five or six years than Europe in five or six hundred. Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among ourselves quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have passed away and the most untenable propositions respecting the right of bequests or entail have been maintained with as much fervour as the most moderate. Some one will be heard to ask whether a state of society can be final in which the interests of thousands are perilled on the life or character of a single person. And many will indulge the hope that our present condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a higher, in which property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the few, may also furnish the means of the highest culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the public generally, and also more under the control of public authority. There may come a time when the saying, 'Have I not a right to do what I will with my own?' will appear to be a barbarous relic of individualismwhen the possession of a part may be a greater blessing to each and all than the possession of the whole is now to any one. Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman, but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of some individual, the notion of common property may or might have sunk as deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institution is not more than four or five thousand years old may not the end revert to the beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on practical politics. The objections that would be generally urged against Plato's community of property, are the old ones of Aristotle, that motives for exertion would be taken away, and that disputes would arise when each was dependent upon all. Every man would produce as little and consume as much as he liked. The experience of civilized nations has hitherto been adverse to Socialism. The effort is too great for human nature men try to live in common, but the personal feeling is always breaking in. On the other hand it may be doubted whether our present notions of property are not conventional, for they differ in different countries and in different states of society. We boast of an individualism which is not freedom, but rather an artificial result of the industrial state of modern Europe. The individual is nominally free, but he is also powerless in a world bound hand and foot in the chains of economic necessity. Even if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become disinterested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization which fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The same forces which have revolutionized the political system of Europe, may effect a similar change in the social and industrial relations of mankind. And if we suppose the influence of some good as well as neutral motives working in the community, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the mass of mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the higher possibilities of human life, when they learn how much more is attainable for all than is at present the possession of a favoured few, may pursue the common interest with an intelligence and persistency which mankind have hitherto never seen. Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no longer held fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance now that criticism has pierced the veil of tradition and the past no longer overpowers the present,the progress of civilization may be expected to be far greater and swifter than heretofore. Even at our present rate of speed the point at which we may arrive in two or three generations is beyond the power of imagination to foresee. There are forces in the world which work, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio of increase. Education, to use the expression of Plato, moves like a wheel with an evermultiplying rapidity. Nor can we say how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal,when it has been inherited by many generations,when it is freed from the trammels of superstition and rightly adapted to the wants and capacities of different classes of men and women. Neither do we know how much more the cooperation of minds or of hands may be capable of accomplishing, whether in labour or in study. The resources of the natural sciences are not halfdeveloped as yet the soil of the earth, instead of growing more barren, may become many times more fertile than hitherto the uses of machinery far greater, and also more minute than at present. New secrets of physiology may be revealed, deeply affecting human nature in its innermost recesses. The standard of health may be raised and the lives of men prolonged by sanitary and medical knowledge. There may be peace, there may be leisure, there may be innocent refreshments of many kinds. The everincreasing power of locomotion may join the extremes of earth. There may be mysterious workings of the human mind, such as occur only at great crises of history. The East and the West may meet together, and all nations may contribute their thoughts and their experience to the common stock of humanity. Many other elements enter into a speculation of this kind. But it is better to make an end of them. For such reflections appear to the majority farfetched, and to men of science, commonplace. (b) Neither to the mind of Plato nor of Aristotle did the doctrine of community of property present at all the same difficulty, or appear to be the same violation of the common Hellenic sentiment, as the community of wives and children. This paradox he prefaces by another proposal, that the occupations of men and women shall be the same, and that to this end they shall have a common training and education. Male and female animals have the same pursuitswhy not also the two sexes of man? But have we not here fallen into a contradiction? for we were saying that different natures should have different pursuits. How then can men and women have the same? And is not the proposal inconsistent with our notion of the division of labour?These objections are no sooner raised than answered for, according to Plato, there is no organic difference between men and women, but only the accidental one that men beget and women bear children. Following the analogy of the other animals, he contends that all natural gifts are scattered about indifferently among both sexes, though there may be a superiority of degree on the part of the men. The objection on the score of decency to their taking part in the same gymnastic exercises, is met by Plato's assertion that the existing feeling is a matter of habit. That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his own country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful independence of mind. He is conscious that women are half the human race, in some respects the more important half (Laws) and for the sake both of men and women he desires to raise the woman to a higher level of existence. He brings, not sentiment, but philosophy to bear upon a question which both in ancient and modern times has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom or feeling. The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the goddesses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual life. The Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her husband she was not the entertainer of his guests or the mistress of his house, but only his housekeeper and the mother of his children. She took no part in military or political matters nor is there any instance in the later ages of Greece of a woman becoming famous in literature. 'Hers is the greatest glory who has the least renown among men,' is the historian's conception of feminine excellence. A very different ideal of womanhood is held up by Plato to the world she is to be the companion of the man, and to share with him in the toils of war and in the cares of government. She is to be similarly trained both in bodily and mental exercises. She is to lose as far as possible the incidents of maternity and the characteristics of the female sex. The modern antagonist of the equality of the sexes would argue that the differences between men and women are not confined to the single point urged by Plato that sensibility, gentleness, grace, are the qualities of women, while energy, strength, higher intelligence, are to be looked for in men. And the criticism is just the differences affect the whole nature, and are not, as Plato supposes, confined to a single point. But neither can we say how far these differences are due to education and the opinions of mankind, or physically inherited from the habits and opinions of former generations. Women have been always taught, not exactly that they are slaves, but that they are in an inferior position, which is also supposed to have compensating advantages and to this position they have conformed. It is also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of generations through the mode of life and the weakness or delicacy, which was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of society, and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes of man other than that which exists in animals, because all other differences may be conceived to disappear in other states of society, or under different circumstances of life and training. The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the secondcommunity of wives and children. 'Is it possible? Is it desirable?' For as Glaucon intimates, and as we far more strongly insist, 'Great doubts may be entertained about both these points.' Any free discussion of the question is impossible, and mankind are perhaps right in not allowing the ultimate bases of social life to be examined. Few of us can safely enquire into the things which nature hides, any more than we can dissect our own bodies. Still, the manner in which Plato arrived at his conclusions should be considered. For here, as Mr. Grote has remarked, is a wonderful thing, that one of the wisest and best of men should have entertained ideas of morality which are wholly at variance with our own. And if we would do Plato justice, we must examine carefully the character of his proposals. First, we may observe that the relations of the sexes supposed by him are the reverse of licentious he seems rather to aim at an impossible strictness. Secondly, he conceives the family to be the natural enemy of the state and he entertains the serious hope that an universal brotherhood may take the place of private interestsan aspiration which, although not justified by experience, has possessed many noble minds. On the other hand, there is no sentiment or imagination in the connections which men and women are supposed by him to form human beings return to the level of the animals, neither exalting to heaven, nor yet abusing the natural instincts. All that world of poetry and fancy which the passion of love has called forth in modern literature and romance would have been banished by Plato. The arrangements of marriage in the Republic are directed to one objectthe improvement of the race. In successive generations a great development both of bodily and mental qualities might be possible. The analogy of animals tends to show that mankind can within certain limits receive a change of nature. And as in animals we should commonly choose the best for breeding, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made of the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved. We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the belief, first, that the higher feelings of humanity are far too strong to be crushed out secondly, that if the plan could be carried into execution we should be poorly recompensed by improvements in the breed for the loss of the best things in life. The greatest regard for the weakest and meanest of human beingsthe infant, the criminal, the insane, the idiot, truly seems to us one of the noblest results of Christianity. We have learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has an endless value in the sight of God, and that we honour Him when we honour the darkened and disfigured image of Him (Laws). This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable when He said, 'Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.' Such lessons are only partially realized in any age they were foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength in different countries or ages of the Christian world. To the Greek the family was a religious and customary institution binding the members together by a tie inferior in strength to that of friendship, and having a less solemn and sacred sound than that of country. The relationship which existed on the lower level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to the higher level of nature and reason while from the modern and Christian point of view we regard him as sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles of morality. The great error in these and similar speculations is that the difference between man and the animals is forgotten in them. The human being is regarded with the eye of a dog or birdfancier, or at best of a slaveowner the higher or human qualities are left out. The breeder of animals aims chiefly at size or speed or strength in a few cases at courage or temper most often the fitness of the animal for food is the great desideratum. But mankind are not bred to be eaten, nor yet for their superiority in fighting or in running or in drawing carts. Neither does the improvement of the human race consist merely in the increase of the bones and flesh, but in the growth and enlightenment of the mind. Hence there must be 'a marriage of true minds' as well as of bodies, of imagination and reason as well as of lusts and instincts. Men and women without feeling or imagination are justly called brutes yet Plato takes away these qualities and puts nothing in their place, not even the desire of a noble offspring, since parents are not to know their own children. The most important transaction of social life, he who is the idealist philosopher converts into the most brutal. For the pair are to have no relation to one another, except at the hymeneal festival their children are not theirs, but the state's nor is any tie of affection to unite them. Yet here the analogy of the animals might have saved Plato from a gigantic error, if he had 'not lost sight of his own illustration.' For the 'nobler sort of birds and beasts' nourish and protect their offspring and are faithful to one another. An eminent physiologist thinks it worth while 'to try and place life on a physical basis.' But should not life rest on the moral rather than upon the physical? The higher comes first, then the lower, first the human and rational, afterwards the animal. Yet they are not absolutely divided and in times of sickness or moments of selfindulgence they seem to be only different aspects of a common human nature which includes them both. Neither is the moral the limit of the physical, but the expansion and enlargement of it,the highest form which the physical is capable of receiving. As Plato would say, the body does not take care of the body, and still less of the mind, but the mind takes care of both. In all human action not that which is common to man and the animals is the characteristic element, but that which distinguishes him from them. Even if we admit the physical basis, and resolve all virtue into health of body 'la facon que notre sang circule,' still on merely physical grounds we must come back to ideas. Mind and reason and duty and conscience, under these or other names, are always reappearing. There cannot be health of body without health of mind nor health of mind without the sense of duty and the love of truth (Charm). That the greatest of ancient philosophers should in his regulations about marriage have fallen into the error of separating body and mind, does indeed appear surprising. Yet the wonder is not so much that Plato should have entertained ideas of morality which to our own age are revolting, but that he should have contradicted himself to an extent which is hardly credible, falling in an instant from the heaven of idealism into the crudest animalism. Rejoicing in the newly found gift of reflection, he appears to have thought out a subject about which he had better have followed the enlightened feeling of his own age. The general sentiment of Hellas was opposed to his monstrous fancy. The old poets, and in later time the tragedians, showed no want of respect for the family, on which much of their religion was based. But the example of Sparta, and perhaps in some degree the tendency to defy public opinion, seems to have misled him. He will make one family out of all the families of the state. He will select the finest specimens of men and women and breed from these only. Yet because the illusion is always returning (for the animal part of human nature will from time to time assert itself in the disguise of philosophy as well as of poetry), and also because any departure from established morality, even where this is not intended, is apt to be unsettling, it may be worth while to draw out a little more at length the objections to the Platonic marriage. In the first place, history shows that wherever polygamy has been largely allowed the race has deteriorated. One man to one woman is the law of God and nature. Nearly all the civilized peoples of the world at some period before the age of written records, have become monogamists and the step when once taken has never been retraced. The exceptions occurring among Brahmins or Mahometans or the ancient Persians, are of that sort which may be said to prove the rule. The connexions formed between superior and inferior races hardly ever produce a noble offspring, because they are licentious and because the children in such cases usually despise the mother and are neglected by the father who is ashamed of them. Barbarous nations when they are introduced by Europeans to vice die out polygamist peoples either import and adopt children from other countries, or dwindle in numbers, or both. Dynasties and aristocracies which have disregarded the laws of nature have decreased in numbers and degenerated in stature 'mariages de convenance' leave their enfeebling stamp on the offspring of them (King Lear). The marriage of near relations, or the marrying in and in of the same family tends constantly to weakness or idiocy in the children, sometimes assuming the form as they grow older of passionate licentiousness. The common prostitute rarely has any offspring. By such unmistakable evidence is the authority of morality asserted in the relations of the sexes and so many more elements enter into this 'mystery' than are dreamed of by Plato and some other philosophers. Recent enquirers have indeed arrived at the conclusion that among primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as of property, and that the captive taken by the spear was the only wife or slave whom any man was permitted to call his own. The partial existence of such customs among some of the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man two thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when removed to a distance , or , years, when the majority of mankind were lower and nearer the animals than any tribe now existing upon the earth, we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (Laws) and Aristotle (Metaph.) may have been more right than we imagine in supposing that some forms of civilisation were discovered and lost several times over. If we cannot argue that all barbarism is a degraded civilization, neither can we set any limits to the depth of degradation to which the human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to show that an institution which was thought to be a revelation from heaven, is only the growth of history and experience. We ask what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We stand face to face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. We are compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest account of the origin of human society. But on the other hand we may truly say that every step in human progress has been in the same direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of marriage and of the family has been more and more defined and consecrated. The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage tribes the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East the Christian nations have been stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of the ancients. In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back with regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the future. We must consecrate that which we believe to be the most holy, and that 'which is the most holy will be the most useful.' There is more reason for maintaining the sacredness of the marriage tie, when we see the benefit of it, than when we only felt a vague religious horror about the violation of it. But in all times of transition, when established beliefs are being undermined, there is a danger that in the passage from the old to the new we may insensibly let go the moral principle, finding an excuse for listening to the voice of passion in the uncertainty of knowledge, or the fluctuations of opinion. And there are many persons in our own day who, enlightened by the study of anthropology, and fascinated by what is new and strange, some using the language of fear, others of hope, are inclined to believe that a time will come when through the selfassertion of women, or the rebellious spirit of children, by the analysis of human relations, or by the force of outward circumstances, the ties of family life may be broken or greatly relaxed. They point to societies in America and elsewhere which tend to show that the destruction of the family need not necessarily involve the overthrow of all morality. Wherever we may think of such speculations, we can hardly deny that they have been more rife in this generation than in any other and whither they are tending, who can predict? To the doubts and queries raised by these 'social reformers' respecting the relation of the sexes and the moral nature of man, there is a sufficient answer, if any is needed. The difference about them and us is really one of fact. They are speaking of man as they wish or fancy him to be, but we are speaking of him as he is. They isolate the animal part of his nature we regard him as a creature having many sides, or aspects, moving between good and evil, striving to rise above himself and to become 'a little lower than the angels.' We also, to use a Platonic formula, are not ignorant of the dissatisfactions and incompatibilities of family life, of the meannesses of trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of the impediments which the family throws in the way of lofty aims and aspirations. But we are conscious that there are evils and dangers in the background greater still, which are not appreciated, because they are either concealed or suppressed. What a condition of man would that be, in which human passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there was no shame or decency, no higher affection overcoming or sanctifying the natural instincts, but simply a rule of health! Is it for this that we are asked to throw away the civilization which is the growth of ages? For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired there are the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. We know how human nature may be degraded we do not know how by artificial means any improvement in the breed can be effected. The problem is a complex one, for if we go back only four steps (and these at least enter into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the same family 'Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat' but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish children both from their parents and from one another. We are told of similar mental peculiarities running in families, and again of a tendency, as in the animals, to revert to a common or original stock. But we have a difficulty in distinguishing what is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and what is mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great men and great women have rarely had great fathers and mothers. Nothing that we know of in the circumstances of their birth or lineage will explain their appearance. Of the English poets of the last and two preceding centuries scarcely a descendant remains,none have ever been distinguished. So deeply has nature hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the fancy which has been entertained by some that we might in time by suitable marriage arrangements or, as Plato would have said, 'by an ingenious system of lots,' produce a Shakespeare or a Milton. Even supposing that we could breed men having the tenacity of bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, 'lacking the wit to run away in battle,' would the world be any the better? Many of the noblest specimens of the human race have been among the weakest physically. Tyrtaeus or Aesop, or our own Newton, would have been exposed at Sparta and some of the fairest and strongest men and women have been among the wickedest and worst. Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. Few persons would deny that we bring into the world an inheritance of mental and physical qualities derived first from our parents, or through them from some remoter ancestor, secondly from our race, thirdly from the general condition of mankind into which we are born. Nothing is commoner than the remark, that 'So and so is like his father or his uncle' and an aged person may not unfrequently note a resemblance in a youth to a longforgotten ancestor, observing that 'Nature sometimes skips a generation.' It may be true also, that if we knew more about our ancestors, these similarities would be even more striking to us. Admitting the facts which are thus described in a popular way, we may however remark that there is no method of difference by which they can be defined or estimated, and that they constitute only a small part of each individual. The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have received from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a family may be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a future generation. The parent will be most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is most sensible within himself. The whole of life may be directed to their prevention or cure. The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be wholly effaced the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be eradicated. And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a blessing. We acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there are previous circumstances which affect us. But upon this platform of circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have still the power of creating a life for ourselves by the informing energy of the human will. There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than ninetenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves. So emphatically does nature protest against the destruction of the family. What Plato had heard or seen of Sparta was applied by him in a mistaken way to his ideal commonwealth. He probably observed that both the Spartan men and women were superior in form and strength to the other Greeks and this superiority he was disposed to attribute to the laws and customs relating to marriage. He did not consider that the desire of a noble offspring was a passion among the Spartans, or that their physical superiority was to be attributed chiefly, not to their marriage customs, but to their temperance and training. He did not reflect that Sparta was great, not in consequence of the relaxation of morality, but in spite of it, by virtue of a political principle stronger far than existed in any other Grecian state. Least of all did he observe that Sparta did not really produce the finest specimens of the Greek race. The genius, the political inspiration of Athens, the love of libertyall that has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting among the Spartans. They had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato. The individual was not allowed to appear above the state the laws were fixed, and he had no business to alter or reform them. Yet whence has the progress of cities and nations arisen, if not from remarkable individuals, coming into the world we know not how, and from causes over which we have no control? Something too much may have been said in modern times of the value of individuality. But we can hardly condemn too strongly a system which, instead of fostering the scattered seeds or sparks of genius and character, tends to smother and extinguish them. Still, while condemning Plato, we must acknowledge that neither Christianity, nor any other form of religion and society, has hitherto been able to cope with this most difficult of social problems, and that the side from which Plato regarded it is that from which we turn away. Population is the most untameable force in the political and social world. Do we not find, especially in large cities, that the greatest hindrance to the amelioration of the poor is their improvidence in marriage?a small fault truly, if not involving endless consequences. There are whole countries too, such as India, or, nearer home, Ireland, in which a right solution of the marriage question seems to lie at the foundation of the happiness of the community. There are too many people on a given space, or they marry too early and bring into the world a sickly and halfdeveloped offspring or owing to the very conditions of their existence, they become emaciated and hand on a similar life to their descendants. But who can oppose the voice of prudence to the 'mightiest passions of mankind' (Laws), especially when they have been licensed by custom and religion? In addition to the influences of education, we seem to require some new principles of right and wrong in these matters, some force of opinion, which may indeed be already heard whispering in private, but has never affected the moral sentiments of mankind in general. We unavoidably lose sight of the principle of utility, just in that action of our lives in which we have the most need of it. The influences which we can bring to bear upon this question are chiefly indirect. In a generation or two, education, emigration, improvements in agriculture and manufactures, may have provided the solution. The state physician hardly likes to probe the wound it is beyond his art a matter which he cannot safely let alone, but which he dare not touch 'We do but skin and film the ulcerous place.' When again in private life we see a whole family one by one dropping into the grave under the Ate of some inherited malady, and the parents perhaps surviving them, do our minds ever go back silently to that day twentyfive or thirty years before on which under the fairest auspices, amid the rejoicings of friends and acquaintances, a bride and bridegroom joined hands with one another? In making such a reflection we are not opposing physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical we are seeking to make the voice of reason heard, which drives us back from the extravagance of sentimentalism on common sense. The late Dr. Combe is said by his biographer to have resisted the temptation to marriage, because he knew that he was subject to hereditary consumption. One who deserved to be called a man of genius, a friend of my youth, was in the habit of wearing a black ribbon on his wrist, in order to remind him that, being liable to outbreaks of insanity, he must not give way to the natural impulses of affection he died unmarried in a lunatic asylum. These two little facts suggest the reflection that a very few persons have done from a sense of duty what the rest of mankind ought to have done under like circumstances, if they had allowed themselves to think of all the misery which they were about to bring into the world. If we could prevent such marriages without any violation of feeling or propriety, we clearly ought and the prohibition in the course of time would be protected by a 'horror naturalis' similar to that which, in all civilized ages and countries, has prevented the marriage of near relations by blood. Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a superstitious awe. But, living as we do far on in the world's history, we are no longer able to stamp at once with the impress of religion a new prohibition. A free agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law and the execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to the uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be forbidden. Who can weigh virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental qualities against bodily? Who can measure probabilities against certainties? There has been some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering and there are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised a refining and softening influence on the character. Youth is too inexperienced to balance such nice considerations parents do not often think of them, or think of them too late. They are at a distance and may probably be averted change of place, a new state of life, the interests of a home may be the cure of them. So persons vainly reason when their minds are already made up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of individual attachment. Lastly, no one can have observed the first rising flood of the passions in youth, the difficulty of regulating them, and the effects on the whole mind and nature which follow from them, the stimulus which is given to them by the imagination, without feeling that there is something unsatisfactory in our method of treating them. That the most important influence on human life should be wholly left to chance or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform only to an external standard of proprietycannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory condition of human things. And still those who have the charge of youth may find a way by watchfulness, by affection, by the manliness and innocence of their own lives, by occasional hints, by general admonitions which every one can apply for himself, to mitigate this terrible evil which eats out the heart of individuals and corrupts the moral sentiments of nations. In no duty towards others is there more need of reticence and selfrestraint. So great is the danger lest he who would be the counsellor of another should reveal the secret prematurely, lest he should get another too much into his power or fix the passing impression of evil by demanding the confession of it. Nor is Plato wrong in asserting that family attachments may interfere with higher aims. If there have been some who 'to party gave up what was meant for mankind,' there have certainly been others who to family gave up what was meant for mankind or for their country. The cares of children, the necessity of procuring money for their support, the flatteries of the rich by the poor, the exclusiveness of caste, the pride of birth or wealth, the tendency of family life to divert men from the pursuit of the ideal or the heroic, are as lowering in our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer to look at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affections, the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of a family for the good of the others, which form one side of the picture, we must not quarrel with him, or perhaps ought rather to be grateful to him, for having presented to us the reverse. Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of morality, we may allow that there is an aspect of the world which has not unnaturally led him into error. We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, like all other abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. To us the State seems to be built up out of the family, or sometimes to be the framework in which family and social life is contained. But to Plato in his present mood of mind the family is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is needed except a political, which, regarded from another point of view, is a military one. The State is allsufficing for the wants of man, and, like the idea of the Church in later ages, absorbs all other desires and affections. In time of war the thousand citizens are to stand like a rampart impregnable against the world or the Persian host in time of peace the preparation for war and their duties to the State, which are also their duties to one another, take up their whole life and time. The only other interest which is allowed to them besides that of war, is the interest of philosophy. When they are too old to be soldiers they are to retire from active life and to have a second novitiate of study and contemplation. There is an element of monasticism even in Plato's communism. If he could have done without children, he might have converted his Republic into a religious order. Neither in the Laws, when the daylight of common sense breaks in upon him, does he retract his error. In the state of which he would be the founder, there is no marrying or giving in marriage but because of the infirmity of mankind, he condescends to allow the law of nature to prevail. (c) But Plato has an equal, or, in his own estimation, even greater paradox in reserve, which is summed up in the famous text, 'Until kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill.' And by philosophers he explains himself to mean those who are capable of apprehending ideas, especially the idea of good. To the attainment of this higher knowledge the second education is directed. Through a process of training which has already made them good citizens they are now to be made good legislators. We find with some surprise (not unlike the feeling which Aristotle in a wellknown passage describes the hearers of Plato's lectures as experiencing, when they went to a discourse on the idea of good, expecting to be instructed in moral truths, and received instead of them arithmetical and mathematical formulae) that Plato does not propose for his future legislators any study of finance or law or military tactics, but only of abstract mathematics, as a preparation for the still more abstract conception of good. We ask, with Aristotle, What is the use of a man knowing the idea of good, if he does not know what is good for this individual, this state, this condition of society? We cannot understand how Plato's legislators or guardians are to be fitted for their work of statesmen by the study of the five mathematical sciences. We vainly search in Plato's own writings for any explanation of this seeming absurdity. The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to ravish the mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes away the power of estimating its value. No metaphysical enquirer has ever fairly criticised his own speculations in his own judgment they have been above criticism nor has he understood that what to him seemed to be absolute truth may reappear in the next generation as a form of logic or an instrument of thought. And posterity have also sometimes equally misapprehended the real value of his speculations. They appear to them to have contributed nothing to the stock of human knowledge. The IDEA of good is apt to be regarded by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction but he forgets that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and will hereafter be filled up by the divisions of knowledge. When mankind do not as yet know that the world is subject to law, the introduction of the mere conception of law or design or final cause, and the faroff anticipation of the harmony of knowledge, are great steps onward. Even the crude generalization of the unity of all things leads men to view the world with different eyes, and may easily affect their conception of human life and of politics, and also their own conduct and character (Tim). We can imagine how a great mind like that of Pericles might derive elevation from his intercourse with Anaxagoras (Phaedr.). To be struggling towards a higher but unattainable conception is a more favourable intellectual condition than to rest satisfied in a narrow portion of ascertained fact. And the earlier, which have sometimes been the greater ideas of science, are often lost sight of at a later period. How rarely can we say of any modern enquirer in the magnificent language of Plato, that 'He is the spectator of all time and of all existence!' Nor is there anything unnatural in the hasty application of these vast metaphysical conceptions to practical and political life. In the first enthusiasm of ideas men are apt to see them everywhere, and to apply them in the most remote sphere. They do not understand that the experience of ages is required to enable them to fill up 'the intermediate axioms.' Plato himself seems to have imagined that the truths of psychology, like those of astronomy and harmonics, would be arrived at by a process of deduction, and that the method which he has pursued in the Fourth Book, of inferring them from experience and the use of language, was imperfect and only provisional. But when, after having arrived at the idea of good, which is the end of the science of dialectic, he is asked, What is the nature, and what are the divisions of the science? He refuses to answer, as if intending by the refusal to intimate that the state of knowledge which then existed was not such as would allow the philosopher to enter into his final rest. The previous sciences must first be studied, and will, we may add, continue to be studied tell the end of time, although in a sense different from any which Plato could have conceived. But we may observe, that while he is aware of the vacancy of his own ideal, he is full of enthusiasm in the contemplation of it. Looking into the orb of light, he sees nothing, but he is warmed and elevated. The Hebrew prophet believed that faith in God would enable him to govern the world the Greek philosopher imagined that contemplation of the good would make a legislator. There is as much to be filled up in the one case as in the other, and the one mode of conception is to the Israelite what the other is to the Greek. Both find a repose in a divine perfection, which, whether in a more personal or impersonal form, exists without them and independently of them, as well as within them. There is no mention of the idea of good in the Timaeus, nor of the divine Creator of the world in the Republic and we are naturally led to ask in what relation they stand to one another. Is God above or below the idea of good? Or is the Idea of Good another mode of conceiving God? The latter appears to be the truer answer. To the Greek philosopher the perfection and unity of God was a far higher conception than his personality, which he hardly found a word to express, and which to him would have seemed to be borrowed from mythology. To the Christian, on the other hand, or to the modern thinker in general, it is difficult, if not impossible, to attach reality to what he terms mere abstraction while to Plato this very abstraction is the truest and most real of all things. Hence, from a difference in forms of thought, Plato appears to be resting on a creation of his own mind only. But if we may be allowed to paraphrase the idea of good by the words 'intelligent principle of law and order in the universe, embracing equally man and nature,' we begin to find a meetingpoint between him and ourselves. The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a philosopher is one that has not lost interest in modern times. In most countries of Europe and Asia there has been some one in the course of ages who has truly united the power of command with the power of thought and reflection, as there have been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some kind of speculative power is necessary both in practical and political life like the rhetorician in the Phaedrus, men require to have a conception of the varieties of human character, and to be raised on great occasions above the commonplaces of ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopherstatesman has never been popular with the mass of mankind partly because he cannot take the world into his confidence or make them understand the motives from which he acts and also because they are jealous of a power which they do not understand. The revolution which human nature desires to effect step by step in many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims he may disregard the common feelings of humanity, he is too apt to be looking into the distant future or back into the remote past, and unable to see actions or events which, to use an expression of Plato's 'are tumbling out at his feet.' Besides, as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these philosophical statesmen. Either 'the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,' and at the moment when action above all things is required he is undecided, or general principles are enunciated by him in order to cover some change of policy or his ignorance of the world has made him more easily fall a prey to the arts of others or in some cases he has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys the luxury of holding liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a liberal action. No wonder that mankind have been in the habit of calling statesmen of this class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, visionaries. For, as we may be allowed to say, a little parodying the words of Plato, 'they have seen bad imitations of the philosopherstatesman.' But a man in whom the power of thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, reaching forward to the future, 'such a one,' ruling in a constitutional state, 'they have never seen.' But as the philosopher is apt to fail in the routine of political life, so the ordinary statesman is also apt to fail in extraordinary crises. When the face of the world is beginning to alter, and thunder is heard in the distance, he is still guided by his old maxims, and is the slave of his inveterate party prejudices he cannot perceive the signs of the times instead of looking forward he looks back he learns nothing and forgets nothing with 'wise saws and modern instances' he would stem the rising tide of revolution. He lives more and more within the circle of his own party, as the world without him becomes stronger. This seems to be the reason why the old order of things makes so poor a figure when confronted with the new, why churches can never reform, why most political changes are made blindly and convulsively. The great crises in the history of nations have often been met by an ecclesiastical positiveness, and a more obstinate reassertion of principles which have lost their hold upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a reactionary statesman may be compared to madness they grow upon him, and he becomes possessed by them no judgement of others is ever admitted by him to be weighed in the balance against his own. (d) Plato, labouring under what, to modern readers, appears to have been a confusion of ideas, assimilates the state to the individual, and fails to distinguish Ethics from Politics. He thinks that to be most of a state which is most like one man, and in which the citizens have the greatest uniformity of character. He does not see that the analogy is partly fallacious, and that the will or character of a state or nation is really the balance or rather the surplus of individual wills, which are limited by the condition of having to act in common. The movement of a body of men can never have the pliancy or facility of a single man the freedom of the individual, which is always limited, becomes still more straitened when transferred to a nation. The powers of action and feeling are necessarily weaker and more balanced when they are diffused through a community whence arises the often discussed question, 'Can a nation, like an individual, have a conscience?' We hesitate to say that the characters of nations are nothing more than the sum of the characters of the individuals who compose them because there may be tendencies in individuals which react upon one another. A whole nation may be wiser than any one man in it or may be animated by some common opinion or feeling which could not equally have affected the mind of a single person, or may have been inspired by a leader of genius to perform acts more than human. Plato does not appear to have analysed the complications which arise out of the collective action of mankind. Neither is he capable of seeing that analogies, though specious as arguments, may often have no foundation in fact, or of distinguishing between what is intelligible or vividly present to the mind, and what is true. In this respect he is far below Aristotle, who is comparatively seldom imposed upon by false analogies. He cannot disentangle the arts from the virtuesat least he is always arguing from one to the other. His notion of music is transferred from harmony of sounds to harmony of life in this he is assisted by the ambiguities of language as well as by the prevalence of Pythagorean notions. And having once assimilated the state to the individual, he imagines that he will find the succession of states paralleled in the lives of individuals. Still, through this fallacious medium, a real enlargement of ideas is attained. When the virtues as yet presented no distinct conception to the mind, a great advance was made by the comparison of them with the arts for virtue is partly art, and has an outward form as well as an inward principle. The harmony of music affords a lively image of the harmonies of the world and of human life, and may be regarded as a splendid illustration which was naturally mistaken for a real analogy. In the same way the identification of ethics with politics has a tendency to give definiteness to ethics, and also to elevate and ennoble men's notions of the aims of government and of the duties of citizens for ethics from one point of view may be conceived as an idealized law and politics and politics, as ethics reduced to the conditions of human society. There have been evils which have arisen out of the attempt to identify them, and this has led to the separation or antagonism of them, which has been introduced by modern political writers. But we may likewise feel that something has been lost in their separation, and that the ancient philosophers who estimated the moral and intellectual wellbeing of mankind first, and the wealth of nations and individuals second, may have a salutary influence on the speculations of modern times. Many political maxims originate in a reaction against an opposite error and when the errors against which they were directed have passed away, they in turn become errors. . Plato's views of education are in several respects remarkable like the rest of the Republic they are partly Greek and partly ideal, beginning with the ordinary curriculum of the Greek youth, and extending to afterlife. Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education begins again. This is the continuous thread which runs through the Republic, and which more than any other of his ideas admits of an application to modern life. He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws (Protag., Apol., Gorg.). Nor do the socalled Platonic ideas recovered from a former state of existence affect his theory of mental improvement. Still we observe in him the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which is better than ten thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest the second in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opinion, though admitted to be a shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do. A faint allusion to the doctrine of reminiscence occurs in the Tenth Book but Plato's views of education have no more real connection with a previous state of existence than our own he only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light. He treats first of music or literature, which he divides into true and false, and then goes on to gymnastics of infancy in the Republic he takes no notice, though in the Laws he gives sage counsels about the nursing of children and the management of the mothers, and would have an education which is even prior to birth. But in the Republic he begins with the age at which the child is capable of receiving ideas, and boldly asserts, in language which sounds paradoxical to modern ears, that he must be taught the false before he can learn the true. The modern and ancient philosophical world are not agreed about truth and falsehood the one identifies truth almost exclusively with fact, the other with ideas. This is the difference between ourselves and Plato, which is, however, partly a difference of words. For we too should admit that a child must receive many lessons which he imperfectly understands he must be taught some things in a figure only, some too which he can hardly be expected to believe when he grows older but we should limit the use of fiction by the necessity of the case. Plato would draw the line differently according to him the aim of early education is not truth as a matter of fact, but truth as a matter of principle the child is to be taught first simple religious truths, and then simple moral truths, and insensibly to learn the lesson of good manners and good taste. He would make an entire reformation of the old mythology like Xenophanes and Heracleitus he is sensible of the deep chasm which separates his own age from Homer and Hesiod, whom he quotes and invests with an imaginary authority, but only for his own purposes. The lusts and treacheries of the gods are to be banished the terrors of the world below are to be dispelled the misbehaviour of the Homeric heroes is not to be a model for youth. But there is another strain heard in Homer which may teach our youth endurance and something may be learnt in medicine from the simple practice of the Homeric age. The principles on which religion is to be based are two only first, that God is true secondly, that he is good. Modern and Christian writers have often fallen short of these they can hardly be said to have gone beyond them. The young are to be brought up in happy surroundings, out of the way of sights or sounds which may hurt the character or vitiate the taste. They are to live in an atmosphere of health the breeze is always to be wafting to them the impressions of truth and goodness. Could such an education be realized, or if our modern religious education could be bound up with truth and virtue and good manners and good taste, that would be the best hope of human improvement. Plato, like ourselves, is looking forward to changes in the moral and religious world, and is preparing for them. He recognizes the danger of unsettling young men's minds by sudden changes of laws and principles, by destroying the sacredness of one set of ideas when there is nothing else to take their place. He is afraid too of the influence of the drama, on the ground that it encourages false sentiment, and therefore he would not have his children taken to the theatre he thinks that the effect on the spectators is bad, and on the actors still worse. His idea of education is that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learnt the lessons of temperance and endurance, and the body and mind develope in equal proportions. The first principle which runs through all art and nature is simplicity this also is to be the rule of human life. The second stage of education is gymnastic, which answers to the period of muscular growth and development. The simplicity which is enforced in music is extended to gymnastic Plato is aware that the training of the body may be inconsistent with the training of the mind, and that bodily exercise may be easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give men a headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philosophy, and this they attribute not to the true cause, but to the nature of the subject. Two points are noticeable in Plato's treatment of gymnasticFirst, that the time of training is entirely separated from the time of literary education. He seems to have thought that two things of an opposite and different nature could not be learnt at the same time. Here we can hardly agree with him and, if we may judge by experience, the effect of spending three years between the ages of fourteen and seventeen in mere bodily exercise would be far from improving to the intellect. Secondly, he affirms that music and gymnastic are not, as common opinion is apt to imagine, intended, the one for the cultivation of the mind and the other of the body, but that they are both equally designed for the improvement of the mind. The body, in his view, is the servant of the mind the subjection of the lower to the higher is for the advantage of both. And doubtless the mind may exercise a very great and paramount influence over the body, if exerted not at particular moments and by fits and starts, but continuously, in making preparation for the whole of life. Other Greek writers saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan discipline (Arist. Pol Thuc.). But only Plato recognized the fundamental error on which the practice was based. The subject of gymnastic leads Plato to the sister subject of medicine, which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. The modern disbelief in medicine has led in this, as in some other departments of knowledge, to a demand for greater simplicity physicians are becoming aware that they often make diseases 'greater and more complicated' by their treatment of them (Rep.). In two thousand years their art has made but slender progress what they have gained in the analysis of the parts is in a great degree lost by their feebler conception of the human frame as a whole. They have attended more to the cure of diseases than to the conditions of health and the improvements in medicine have been more than counterbalanced by the disuse of regular training. Until lately they have hardly thought of air and water, the importance of which was well understood by the ancients as Aristotle remarks, 'Air and water, being the elements which we most use, have the greatest effect upon health' (Polit.). For ages physicians have been under the dominion of prejudices which have only recently given way and now there are as many opinions in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepticism and some want of toleration about both. Plato has several good notions about medicine according to him, 'the eye cannot be cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the mind' (Charm.). No man of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic and we heartily sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that 'the limbs of the rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor.' But we can hardly praise him when, in obedience to the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet, or approve of the inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid and useless lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have considered that the 'bridle of Theages' might be accompanied by qualities which were of far more value to the State than the health or strength of the citizens or that the duty of taking care of the helpless might be an important element of education in a State. The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle observation) should not be a man in robust health he should have, in modern phraseology, a nervous temperament he should have experience of disease in his own person, in order that his powers of observation may be quickened in the case of others. The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of law in which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden rule of simplicity. Greater matters are to be determined by the legislator or by the oracle of Delphi, lesser matters are to be left to the temporary regulation of the citizens themselves. Plato is aware that laissez faire is an important element of government. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a hydra they multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for them is not extirpation but prevention. And the way to prevent them is to take care of education, and education will take care of all the rest. So in modern times men have often felt that the only political measure worth havingthe only one which would produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of national education. And in our own more than in any previous age the necessity has been recognized of restoring the everincreasing confusion of law to simplicity and common sense. When the training in music and gymnastic is completed, there follows the first stage of active and public life. But soon education is to begin again from a new point of view. In the interval between the Fourth and Seventh Books we have discussed the nature of knowledge, and have thence been led to form a higher conception of what was required of us. For true knowledge, according to Plato, is of abstractions, and has to do, not with particulars or individuals, but with universals only not with the beauties of poetry, but with the ideas of philosophy. And the great aim of education is the cultivation of the habit of abstraction. This is to be acquired through the study of the mathematical sciences. They alone are capable of giving ideas of relation, and of arousing the dormant energies of thought. Mathematics in the age of Plato comprehended a very small part of that which is now included in them but they bore a much larger proportion to the sum of human knowledge. They were the only organon of thought which the human mind at that time possessed, and the only measure by which the chaos of particulars could be reduced to rule and order. The faculty which they trained was naturally at war with the poetical or imaginative and hence to Plato, who is everywhere seeking for abstractions and trying to get rid of the illusions of sense, nearly the whole of education is contained in them. They seemed to have an inexhaustible application, partly because their true limits were not yet understood. These Plato himself is beginning to investigate though not aware that number and figure are mere abstractions of sense, he recognizes that the forms used by geometry are borrowed from the sensible world. He seeks to find the ultimate ground of mathematical ideas in the idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily explain the connexion between them and in his conception of the relation of ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness attributed to him by Aristotle (Met.). But if he fails to recognize the true limits of mathematics, he also reaches a point beyond them in his view, ideas of number become secondary to a higher conception of knowledge. The dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man. The one, the selfproving, the good which is the higher sphere of dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and in which they finally repose. This selfproving unity or idea of good is a mere vision of which no distinct explanation can be given, relative only to a particular stage in Greek philosophy. It is an abstraction under which no individuals are comprehended, a whole which has no parts (Arist., Nic. Eth.). The vacancy of such a form was perceived by Aristotle, but not by Plato. Nor did he recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or more methods of investigation which are at variance with each other. He did not see that whether he took the longer or the shorter road, no advance could be made in this way. And yet such visions often have an immense effect for although the method of science cannot anticipate science, the idea of science, not as it is, but as it will be in the future, is a great and inspiring principle. In the pursuit of knowledge we are always pressing forward to something beyond us and as a false conception of knowledge, for example the scholastic philosophy, may lead men astray during many ages, so the true ideal, though vacant, may draw all their thoughts in a right direction. It makes a great difference whether the general expectation of knowledge, as this indefinite feeling may be termed, is based upon a sound judgment. For mankind may often entertain a true conception of what knowledge ought to be when they have but a slender experience of facts. The correlation of the sciences, the consciousness of the unity of nature, the idea of classification, the sense of proportion, the unwillingness to stop short of certainty or to confound probability with truth, are important principles of the higher education. Although Plato could tell us nothing, and perhaps knew that he could tell us nothing, of the absolute truth, he has exercised an influence on the human mind which even at the present day is not exhausted and political and social questions may yet arise in which the thoughts of Plato may be read anew and receive a fresh meaning. The Idea of good is so called only in the Republic, but there are traces of it in other dialogues of Plato. It is a cause as well as an idea, and from this point of view may be compared with the creator of the Timaeus, who out of his goodness created all things. It corresponds to a certain extent with the modern conception of a law of nature, or of a final cause, or of both in one, and in this regard may be connected with the measure and symmetry of the Philebus. It is represented in the Symposium under the aspect of beauty, and is supposed to be attained there by stages of initiation, as here by regular gradations of knowledge. Viewed subjectively, it is the process or science of dialectic. This is the science which, according to the Phaedrus, is the true basis of rhetoric, which alone is able to distinguish the natures and classes of men and things which divides a whole into the natural parts, and reunites the scattered parts into a natural or organized whole which defines the abstract essences or universal ideas of all things, and connects them which pierces the veil of hypotheses and reaches the final cause or first principle of all which regards the sciences in relation to the idea of good. This ideal science is the highest process of thought, and may be described as the soul conversing with herself or holding communion with eternal truth and beauty, and in another form is the everlasting question and answerthe ceaseless interrogative of Socrates. The dialogues of Plato are themselves examples of the nature and method of dialectic. Viewed objectively, the idea of good is a power or cause which makes the world without us correspond with the world within. Yet this world without us is still a world of ideas. With Plato the investigation of nature is another department of knowledge, and in this he seeks to attain only probable conclusions (Timaeus). If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only half explains to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the answer is that in his mind the two sciences are not as yet distinguished, any more than the subjective and objective aspects of the world and of man, which German philosophy has revealed to us. Nor has he determined whether his science of dialectic is at rest or in motion, concerned with the contemplation of absolute being, or with a process of development and evolution. Modern metaphysics may be described as the science of abstractions, or as the science of the evolution of thought modern logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere Aristotelian forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of both of them is contained in the Platonic dialectic all metaphysicians have something in common with the ideas of Plato all logicians have derived something from the method of Plato. The nearest approach in modern philosophy to the universal science of Plato, is to be found in the Hegelian 'succession of moments in the unity of the idea.' Plato and Hegel alike seem to have conceived the world as the correlation of abstractions and not impossibly they would have understood one another better than any of their commentators understand them (Swift's Voyage to Laputa. 'Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators but these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, 'That these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of these authors to posterity. I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him and he asked them 'whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves?'). There is, however, a difference between them for whereas Hegel is thinking of all the minds of men as one mind, which developes the stages of the idea in different countries or at different times in the same country, with Plato these gradations are regarded only as an order of thought or ideas the history of the human mind had not yet dawned upon him. Many criticisms may be made on Plato's theory of education. While in some respects he unavoidably falls short of modern thinkers, in others he is in advance of them. He is opposed to the modes of education which prevailed in his own time but he can hardly be said to have discovered new ones. He does not see that education is relative to the characters of individuals he only desires to impress the same form of the state on the minds of all. He has no sufficient idea of the effect of literature on the formation of the mind, and greatly exaggerates that of mathematics. His aim is above all things to train the reasoning faculties to implant in the mind the spirit and power of abstraction to explain and define general notions, and, if possible, to connect them. No wonder that in the vacancy of actual knowledge his followers, and at times even he himself, should have fallen away from the doctrine of ideas, and have returned to that branch of knowledge in which alone the relation of the one and many can be truly seenthe science of number. In his views both of teaching and training he might be styled, in modern language, a doctrinaire after the Spartan fashion he would have his citizens cast in one mould he does not seem to consider that some degree of freedom, 'a little wholesome neglect,' is necessary to strengthen and develope the character and to give play to the individual nature. His citizens would not have acquired that knowledge which in the vision of Er is supposed to be gained by the pilgrims from their experience of evil. On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philosophers and theologians when he teaches that education is to be continued through life and will begin again in another. He would never allow education of some kind to cease although he was aware that the proverbial saying of Solon, 'I grow old learning many things,' cannot be applied literally. Himself ravished with the contemplation of the idea of good, and delighting in solid geometry (Rep.), he has no difficulty in imagining that a lifetime might be passed happily in such pursuits. We who know how many more men of business there are in the world than real students or thinkers, are not equally sanguine. The education which he proposes for his citizens is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a time, by practical duties,a life not for the many, but for the few. Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of application to our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which can never be realized, it may have a great effect in elevating the characters of mankind, and raising them above the routine of their ordinary occupation or profession. It is the best form under which we can conceive the whole of life. Nevertheless the idea of Plato is not easily put into practice. For the education of after life is necessarily the education which each one gives himself. Men and women cannot be brought together in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of age and if they could the result would be disappointing. The destination of most men is what Plato would call 'the Den' for the whole of life, and with that they are content. Neither have they teachers or advisers with whom they can take counsel in riper years. There is no 'schoolmaster abroad' who will tell them of their faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty, or with the ambition of a true success in life no Socrates who will convict them of ignorance no Christ, or follower of Christ, who will reprove them of sin. Hence they have a difficulty in receiving the first element of improvement, which is selfknowledge. The hopes of youth no longer stir them they rather wish to rest than to pursue high objects. A few only who have come across great men and women, or eminent teachers of religion and morality, have received a second life from them, and have lighted a candle from the fire of their genius. The want of energy is one of the main reasons why so few persons continue to improve in later years. They have not the will, and do not know the way. They 'never try an experiment,' or look up a point of interest for themselves they make no sacrifices for the sake of knowledge their minds, like their bodies, at a certain age become fixed. Genius has been defined as 'the power of taking pains' but hardly any one keeps up his interest in knowledge throughout a whole life. The troubles of a family, the business of making money, the demands of a profession destroy the elasticity of the mind. The waxen tablet of the memory which was once capable of receiving 'true thoughts and clear impressions' becomes hard and crowded there is not room for the accumulations of a long life (Theaet.). The student, as years advance, rather makes an exchange of knowledge than adds to his stores. There is no pressing necessity to learn the stock of Classics or History or Natural Science which was enough for a man at twentyfive is enough for him at fifty. Neither is it easy to give a definite answer to any one who asks how he is to improve. For selfeducation consists in a thousand things, commonplace in themselves,in adding to what we are by nature something of what we are not in learning to see ourselves as others see us in judging, not by opinion, but by the evidence of facts in seeking out the society of superior minds in a study of lives and writings of great men in observation of the world and character in receiving kindly the natural influence of different times of life in any act or thought which is raised above the practice or opinions of mankind in the pursuit of some new or original enquiry in any effort of mind which calls forth some latent power. If any one is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic education of afterlife, some such counsels as the following may be offered to himThat he shall choose the branch of knowledge to which his own mind most distinctly inclines, and in which he takes the greatest delight, either one which seems to connect with his own daily employment, or, perhaps, furnishes the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the speculative side the profession or business in which he is practically engaged. He may make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Bacon the friends and companions of his life. He may find opportunities of hearing the living voice of a great teacher. He may select for enquiry some point of history or some unexplained phenomenon of nature. An hour a day passed in such scientific or literary pursuits will furnish as many facts as the memory can retain, and will give him 'a pleasure not to be repented of' (Timaeus). Only let him beware of being the slave of crotchets, or of running after a Will o' the Wisp in his ignorance, or in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts of a poet or assuming the air of a philosopher. He should know the limits of his own powers. Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, 'This is part of another subject' (Tim.) though we may also defend our digression by his example (Theaet.). . We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or the natural growth of institutions which fill modern treatises on political philosophy seem hardly ever to have attracted the attention of Plato and Aristotle. The ancients were familiar with the mutability of human affairs they could moralize over the ruins of cities and the fall of empires (Plato, Statesman, and Sulpicius' Letter to Cicero) by them fate and chance were deemed to be real powers, almost persons, and to have had a great share in political events. The wiser of them like Thucydides believed that 'what had been would be again,' and that a tolerable idea of the future could be gathered from the past. Also they had dreams of a Golden Age which existed once upon a time and might still exist in some unknown land, or might return again in the remote future. But the regular growth of a state enlightened by experience, progressing in knowledge, improving in the arts, of which the citizens were educated by the fulfilment of political duties, appears never to have come within the range of their hopes and aspirations. Such a state had never been seen, and therefore could not be conceived by them. Their experience (Aristot. Metaph. Plato, Laws) led them to conclude that there had been cycles of civilization in which the arts had been discovered and lost many times over, and cities had been overthrown and rebuilt again and again, and deluges and volcanoes and other natural convulsions had altered the face of the earth. Tradition told them of many destructions of mankind and of the preservation of a remnant. The world began again after a deluge and was reconstructed out of the fragments of itself. Also they were acquainted with empires of unknown antiquity, like the Egyptian or Assyrian but they had never seen them grow, and could not imagine, any more than we can, the state of man which preceded them. They were puzzled and awestricken by the Egyptian monuments, of which the forms, as Plato says, not in a figure, but literally, were ten thousand years old (Laws), and they contrasted the antiquity of Egypt with their own short memories. The early legends of Hellas have no real connection with the later history they are at a distance, and the intermediate region is concealed from view there is no road or path which leads from one to the other. At the beginning of Greek history, in the vestibule of the temple, is seen standing first of all the figure of the legislator, himself the interpreter and servant of the God. The fundamental laws which he gives are not supposed to change with time and circumstances. The salvation of the state is held rather to depend on the inviolable maintenance of them. They were sanctioned by the authority of heaven, and it was deemed impiety to alter them. The desire to maintain them unaltered seems to be the origin of what at first sight is very surprising to usthe intolerant zeal of Plato against innovators in religion or politics (Laws) although with a happy inconsistency he is also willing that the laws of other countries should be studied and improvements in legislation privately communicated to the Nocturnal Council (Laws). The additions which were made to them in later ages in order to meet the increasing complexity of affairs were still ascribed by a fiction to the original legislator and the words of such enactments at Athens were disputed over as if they had been the words of Solon himself. Plato hopes to preserve in a later generation the mind of the legislator he would have his citizens remain within the lines which he has laid down for them. He would not harass them with minute regulations, he would have allowed some changes in the laws but not changes which would affect the fundamental institutions of the state, such for example as would convert an aristocracy into a timocracy, or a timocracy into a popular form of government. Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress has been the exception rather than the law of human history. And therefore we are not surprised to find that the idea of progress is of modern rather than of ancient date and, like the idea of a philosophy of history, is not more than a century or two old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the human mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church, and to be due to the political and social improvements which they introduced into the world and still more in our own century to the idealism of the first French Revolution and the triumph of American Independence and in a yet greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth of population in England and her colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed in a measure to the greater study of the philosophy of history. The optimist temperament of some great writers has assisted the creation of it, while the opposite character has led a few to regard the future of the world as dark. The 'spectator of all time and of all existence' sees more of 'the increasing purpose which through the ages ran' than formerly but to the inhabitant of a small state of Hellas the vision was necessarily limited like the valley in which he dwelt. There was no remote past on which his eye could rest, nor any future from which the veil was partly lifted up by the analogy of history. The narrowness of view, which to ourselves appears so singular, was to him natural, if not unavoidable. . For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and the two other works of Plato which directly treat of politics, see the Introductions to the two latter a few general points of comparison may be touched upon in this place. And first of the Laws. () The Republic, though probably written at intervals, yet speaking generally and judging by the indications of thought and style, may be reasonably ascribed to the middle period of Plato's life the Laws are certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of them at any rate seem to have been written in extreme old age. () The Republic is full of hope and aspiration the Laws bear the stamp of failure and disappointment. The one is a finished work which received the last touches of the author the other is imperfectly executed, and apparently unfinished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth the other has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and knowledge of life which is characteristic of old age. () The most conspicuous defect of the Laws is the failure of dramatic power, whereas the Republic is full of striking contrasts of ideas and oppositions of character. () The Laws may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the Republic of a poem the one is more religious, the other more intellectual. () Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of ideas, the government of the world by philosophers, are not found in the Laws the immortality of the soul is first mentioned in xii the person of Socrates has altogether disappeared. The community of women and children is renounced the institution of common or public meals for women (Laws) is for the first time introduced (Ar. Pol.). () There remains in the Laws the old enmity to the poets, who are ironically saluted in highflown terms, and, at the same time, are peremptorily ordered out of the city, if they are not willing to submit their poems to the censorship of the magistrates (Rep.). () Though the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages in the Laws, such as the honour due to the soul, the evils of licentious or unnatural love, the whole of Book x. (religion), the dishonesty of retail trade, and bequests, which come more home to us, and contain more of what may be termed the modern element in Plato than almost anything in the Republic. The relation of the two works to one another is very well given () by Aristotle in the Politics from the side of the Laws 'The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato's later work, the Laws, and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution which is therein described. In the Republic, Socrates has definitely settled in all a few questions only such as the community of women and children, the community of property, and the constitution of the state. The population is divided into two classesone of husbandmen, and the other of warriors from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of the state. But Socrates has not determined whether the husbandmen and artists are to have a share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms and share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with discussions about the education of the guardians. In the Laws there is hardly anything but laws not much is said about the constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the exception of the community of women and property, he supposes everything to be the same in both states there is to be the same education the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to be common meals in both. The only difference is that in the Laws the common meals are extended to women, and the warriors number about , but in the Republic only .' () by Plato in the Laws (Book v.), from the side of the Republic 'The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying that 'Friends have all things in common. Whether there is now, or ever will be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and all men express praise and blame, and feel joy and sorrow, on the same occasions, and the laws unite the city to the utmost,whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such a state, whether inhabited by Gods or sons of Gods, will make them blessed who dwell therein and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and, as far as possible, to seek for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and unity in the next degree and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second.' The comparatively short work called the Statesman or Politicus in its style and manner is more akin to the Laws, while in its idealism it rather resembles the Republic. As far as we can judge by various indications of language and thought, it must be later than the one and of course earlier than the other. In both the Republic and Statesman a close connection is maintained between Politics and Dialectic. In the Statesman, enquiries into the principles of Method are interspersed with discussions about Politics. The comparative advantages of the rule of law and of a person are considered, and the decision given in favour of a person (Arist. Pol.). But much may be said on the other side, nor is the opposition necessary for a person may rule by law, and law may be so applied as to be the living voice of the legislator. As in the Republic, there is a myth, describing, however, not a future, but a former existence of mankind. The question is asked, 'Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, or a state like our own which possesses art and science and distinguishes good from evil, is the preferable condition of man.' To this question of the comparative happiness of civilized and primitive life, which was so often discussed in the last century and in our own, no answer is given. The Statesman, though less perfect in style than the Republic and of far less range, may justly be regarded as one of the greatest of Plato's dialogues. . Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the vehicle of thoughts which they could not definitely express, or which went beyond their own age. The classical writing which approaches most nearly to the Republic of Plato is the 'De Republica' of Cicero but neither in this nor in any other of his dialogues does he rival the art of Plato. The manners are clumsy and inferior the hand of the rhetorician is apparent at every turn. Yet noble sentiments are constantly recurring the true note of Roman patriotism'We Romans are a great people'resounds through the whole work. Like Socrates, Cicero turns away from the phenomena of the heavens to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the 'two Suns' of which all Rome was talking, when he can converse about 'the two nations in one' which had divided Rome ever since the days of the Gracchi. Like Socrates again, speaking in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he should assume too much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal who is discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He would confine the terms King or State to the rule of reason and justice, and he will not concede that title either to a democracy or to a monarchy. But under the rule of reason and justice he is willing to include the natural superior ruling over the natural inferior, which he compares to the soul ruling over the body. He prefers a mixture of forms of government to any single one. The two portraits of the just and the unjust, which occur in the second book of the Republic, are transferred to the statePhilus, one of the interlocutors, maintaining against his will the necessity of injustice as a principle of government, while the other, Laelius, supports the opposite thesis. His views of language and number are derived from Plato like him he denounces the drama. He also declares that if his life were to be twice as long he would have no time to read the lyric poets. The picture of democracy is translated by him word for word, though he had hardly shown himself able to 'carry the jest' of Plato. He converts into a stately sentence the humorous fancy about the animals, who 'are so imbued with the spirit of democracy that they make the passersby get out of their way.' His description of the tyrant is imitated from Plato, but is far inferior. The second book is historical, and claims for the Roman constitution (which is to him the ideal) a foundation of fact such as Plato probably intended to have given to the Republic in the Critias. His most remarkable imitation of Plato is the adaptation of the vision of Er, which is converted by Cicero into the 'Somnium Scipionis' he has 'romanized' the myth of the Republic, adding an argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the Phaedrus, and some other touches derived from the Phaedo and the Timaeus. Though a beautiful tale and containing splendid passages, the 'Somnium Scipionis is very inferior to the vision of Er it is only a dream, and hardly allows the reader to suppose that the writer believes in his own creation. Whether his dialogues were framed on the model of the lost dialogues of Aristotle, as he himself tells us, or of Plato, to which they bear many superficial resemblances, he is still the Roman orator he is not conversing, but making speeches, and is never able to mould the intractable Latin to the grace and ease of the Greek Platonic dialogue. But if he is defective in form, much more is he inferior to the Greek in matter he nowhere in his philosophical writings leaves upon our minds the impression of an original thinker. Plato's Republic has been said to be a church and not a state and such an ideal of a city in the heavens has always hovered over the Christian world, and is embodied in St. Augustine's 'De Civitate Dei,' which is suggested by the decay and fall of the Roman Empire, much in the same manner in which we may imagine the Republic of Plato to have been influenced by the decline of Greek politics in the writer's own age. The difference is that in the time of Plato the degeneracy, though certain, was gradual and insensible whereas the taking of Rome by the Goths stirred like an earthquake the age of St. Augustine. Men were inclined to believe that the overthrow of the city was to be ascribed to the anger felt by the old Roman deities at the neglect of their worship. St. Augustine maintains the opposite thesis he argues that the destruction of the Roman Empire is due, not to the rise of Christianity, but to the vices of Paganism. He wanders over Roman history, and over Greek philosophy and mythology, and finds everywhere crime, impiety and falsehood. He compares the worst parts of the Gentile religions with the best elements of the faith of Christ. He shows nothing of the spirit which led others of the early Christian Fathers to recognize in the writings of the Greek philosophers the power of the divine truth. He traces the parallel of the kingdom of God, that is, the history of the Jews, contained in their scriptures, and of the kingdoms of the world, which are found in gentile writers, and pursues them both into an ideal future. It need hardly be remarked that his use both of Greek and of Roman historians and of the sacred writings of the Jews is wholly uncritical. The heathen mythology, the Sybilline oracles, the myths of Plato, the dreams of NeoPlatonists are equally regarded by him as matter of fact. He must be acknowledged to be a strictly polemical or controversial writer who makes the best of everything on one side and the worst of everything on the other. He has no sympathy with the old Roman life as Plato has with Greek life, nor has he any idea of the ecclesiastical kingdom which was to arise out of the ruins of the Roman empire. He is not blind to the defects of the Christian Church, and looks forward to a time when Christian and Pagan shall be alike brought before the judgmentseat, and the true City of God shall appear...The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of antiquarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Christian ethics, but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender knowledge of the Greek literature and language. He was a great genius, and a noble character, yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding anything external to his own theology. Of all the ancient philosophers he is most attracted by Plato, though he is very slightly acquainted with his writings. He is inclined to believe that the idea of creation in the Timaeus is derived from the narrative in Genesis and he is strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato's saying that 'the philosopher is the lover of God,' and the words of the Book of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses (Exod.) He dwells at length on miracles performed in his own day, of which the evidence is regarded by him as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of the beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, which he conceives to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state and of the resurrection of the body. The book is not really what to most persons the title of it would imply, and belongs to an age which has passed away. But it contains many fine passages and thoughts which are for all time. The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable of mediaeval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom Italy and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of an Universal Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary government of the world, having a divine authority distinct from the Papacy, yet coextensive with it. It is not 'the ghost of the dead Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,' but the legitimate heir and successor of it, justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and the beneficence of their rule. Their right to be the governors of the world is also confirmed by the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged by St. Paul when he appealed to Caesar, and even more emphatically by Christ Himself, Who could not have made atonement for the sins of men if He had not been condemned by a divinely authorized tribunal. The necessity for the establishment of an Universal Empire is proved partly by a priori arguments such as the unity of God and the unity of the family or nation partly by perversions of Scripture and history, by false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the classics, and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But a more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world, which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace for mankind until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single empire. The whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire was fixed in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was needed to maintain the truth of a theory which to his own contemporaries seemed so natural and congenial. He speaks, or rather preaches, from the point of view, not of the ecclesiastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he is willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the Empire must submit to the Church. The beginning and end of all his noble reflections and of his arguments, good and bad, is the aspiration 'that in this little plot of earth belonging to mortal man life may pass in freedom and peace.' So inextricably is his vision of the future bound up with the beliefs and circumstances of his own age. The 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More is a surprising monument of his genius, and shows a reach of thought far beyond his contemporaries. The book was written by him at the age of about  or , and is full of the generous sentiments of youth. He brings the light of Plato to bear upon the miserable state of his own country. Living not long after the Wars of the Roses, and in the dregs of the Catholic Church in England, he is indignant at the corruption of the clergy, at the luxury of the nobility and gentry, at the sufferings of the poor, at the calamities caused by war. To the eye of More the whole world was in dissolution and decay and side by side with the misery and oppression which he has described in the First Book of the Utopia, he places in the Second Book the ideal state which by the help of Plato he had constructed. The times were full of stir and intellectual interest. The distant murmur of the Reformation was beginning to be heard. To minds like More's, Greek literature was a revelation there had arisen an art of interpretation, and the New Testament was beginning to be understood as it had never been before, and has not often been since, in its natural sense. The life there depicted appeared to him wholly unlike that of Christian commonwealths, in which 'he saw nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the Commonwealth.' He thought that Christ, like Plato, 'instituted all things common,' for which reason, he tells us, the citizens of Utopia were the more willing to receive his doctrines ('Howbeit, I think this was no small help and furtherance in the matter, that they heard us say that Christ instituted among his, all things common, and that the same community doth yet remain in the rightest Christian communities' (Utopia).). The community of property is a fixed idea with him, though he is aware of the arguments which may be urged on the other side ('These things (I say), when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refused those laws, whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the wise men did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a community, if equality of all things should be brought in and established' (Utopia).). We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, though veiled in another language and published in a foreign country, such speculations could have been endured. He is gifted with far greater dramatic invention than any one who succeeded him, with the exception of Swift. In the art of feigning he is a worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, starting from a small portion of fact, he founds his tale with admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must have been an eyewitness. We are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up real and imaginary persons his boy John Clement and Peter Giles, citizen of Antwerp, with whom he disputes about the precise words which are supposed to have been used by the (imaginary) Portuguese traveller, Raphael Hythloday. 'I have the more cause,' says Hythloday, 'to fear that my words shall not be believed, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I myself would have believed another man telling the same, if I had not myself seen it with mine own eyes.' Or again 'If you had been with me in Utopia, and had presently seen their fashions and laws as I did which lived there five years and more, and would never have come thence, but only to make the new land known here,' etc. More greatly regrets that he forgot to ask Hythloday in what part of the world Utopia is situated he 'would have spent no small sum of money rather than it should have escaped him,' and he begs Peter Giles to see Hythloday or write to him and obtain an answer to the question. After this we are not surprised to hear that a Professor of Divinity (perhaps 'a late famous vicar of Croydon in Surrey,' as the translator thinks) is desirous of being sent thither as a missionary by the High Bishop, 'yea, and that he may himself be made Bishop of Utopia, nothing doubting that he must obtain this Bishopric with suit and he counteth that a godly suit which proceedeth not of the desire of honour or lucre, but only of a godly zeal.' The design may have failed through the disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have 'very uncertain news' after his departure. There is no doubt, however, that he had told More and Giles the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at the same moment More's attention, as he is reminded in a letter from Giles, was drawn off by a servant, and one of the company from a cold caught on shipboard coughed so loud as to prevent Giles from hearing. And 'the secret has perished' with him to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown. The words of Phaedrus, 'O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or anything,' are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the originality of thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and far more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him who believes not in the immortality of the soul to share in the administration of the state (Laws), 'howbeit they put him to no punishment, because they be persuaded that it is in no man's power to believe what he list' and 'no man is to be blamed for reasoning in support of his own religion ('One of our company in my presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptised, began, against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom, to reason of Christ's religion, and began to wax so hot in his matter, that he did not only prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish, and the children of everlasting damnation. When he had thus long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people').' In the public services 'no prayers be used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.' He says significantly, 'There be that give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far above the capacity and reach of man's wit, dispersed throughout all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father of all. To Him alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine honours to any other than him.' So far was More from sharing the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he does not in all respects agree with the customs and opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we should let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to conceal himself. Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt he would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and 'sturdy and valiant beggars,' that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders his detestation of priests and lawyers (Compare his satirical observation 'They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few.) his remark that 'although every one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel maneaters, it is not easy to find states that are well and wisely governed,' are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life. There are many points in which he shows a modern feeling and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer he maintains that civilized states have a right to the soil of waste countries he is inclined to the opinion which places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but herein, as he thinks, not disagreeing from those other philosophers who define virtue to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea of happiness so as to include the happiness of others and he argues ingeniously, 'All men agree that we ought to make others happy but if others, how much more ourselves!' And still he thinks that there may be a more excellent way, but to this no man's reason can attain unless heaven should inspire him with a higher truth. His ceremonies before marriage his humane proposal that war should be carried on by assassinating the leaders of the enemy, may be compared to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming fancy, like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus, that the Utopians learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness because they were originally of the same race with them. He is penetrated with the spirit of Plato, and quotes or adapts many thoughts both from the Republic and from the Timaeus. He prefers public duties to private, and is somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. His citizens have no silver or gold of their own, but are ready enough to pay them to their mercenaries. There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous than the love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, and diamonds and pearls for children's necklaces (When the ambassadors came arrayed in gold and peacocks' feathers 'to the eyes of all the Utopians except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful. In so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lordspassing over the ambassadors themselves without any honour, judging them by their wearing of golden chains to be bondmen. You should have seen children also, that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon the ambassadors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them'Look, though he were a little child still. But the mother yea and that also in good earnest 'Peace, son, saith she, 'I think he be some of the ambassadors' fools.') Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments and princes on the state of the world and of knowledge. The hero of his discourse (Hythloday) is very unwilling to become a minister of state, considering that he would lose his independence and his advice would never be heeded (Compare an exquisite passage, of which the conclusion is as follows 'And verily it is naturally given...suppressed and ended.') He ridicules the new logic of his time the Utopians could never be made to understand the doctrine of Second Intentions ('For they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions, very wittily invented in the small Logicals, which here our children in every place do learn. Furthermore, they were never yet able to find out the second intentions insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as they call him, though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant, yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger.') He is very severe on the sports of the gentry the Utopians count 'hunting the lowest, the vilest, and the most abject part of butchery.' He quotes the words of the Republic in which the philosopher is described 'standing out of the way under a wall until the driving storm of sleet and rain be overpast,' which admit of a singular application to More's own fate although, writing twenty years before (about the year ), he can hardly be supposed to have foreseen this. There is no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet remark that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more at variance with the lives of ordinary Christians than the discourse of Utopia ('And yet the most part of them is more dissident from the manners of the world now a days, than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following your counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evilwilling to frame their manners to Christ's rule, they have wrested and wried his doctrine, and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men's manners, that by some means at the least way, they might agree together.') The 'New Atlantis' is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the 'Utopia.' The work is full of ingenuity, but wanting in creative fancy, and by no means impresses the reader with a sense of credibility. In some places Lord Bacon is characteristically different from Sir Thomas More, as, for example, in the external state which he attributes to the governor of Solomon's House, whose dress he minutely describes, while to Sir Thomas More such trappings appear simple ridiculous. Yet, after this programme of dress, Bacon adds the beautiful trait, 'that he had a look as though he pitied men.' Several things are borrowed by him from the Timaeus but he has injured the unity of style by adding thoughts and passages which are taken from the Hebrew Scriptures. The 'City of the Sun' written by Campanella (), a Dominican friar, several years after the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon, has many resemblances to the Republic of Plato. The citizens have wives and children in common their marriages are of the same temporary sort, and are arranged by the magistrates from time to time. They do not, however, adopt his system of lots, but bring together the best natures, male and female, 'according to philosophical rules.' The infants until two years of age are brought up by their mothers in public temples and since individuals for the most part educate their children badly, at the beginning of their third year they are committed to the care of the State, and are taught at first, not out of books, but from paintings of all kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls of the city. The city has six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall which is the seventh. On this outer wall are painted the figures of legislators and philosophers, and on each of the interior walls the symbols or forms of some one of the sciences are delineated. The women are, for the most part, trained, like the men, in warlike and other exercises but they have two special occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the boys soothe and relieve the wounded warriors also they encourage them with embraces and pleasant words. Some elements of the Christian or Catholic religion are preserved among them. The life of the Apostles is greatly admired by this people because they had all things in common and the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught men is used in their worship. It is a duty of the chief magistrates to pardon sins, and therefore the whole people make secret confession of them to the magistrates, and they to their chief, who is a sort of Rector Metaphysicus and by this means he is well informed of all that is going on in the minds of men. After confession, absolution is granted to the citizens collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There also exists among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed by a succession of priests, who change every hour. Their religion is a worship of God in Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but without any distinction of persons. They behold in the sun the reflection of His glory mere graven images they reject, refusing to fall under the 'tyranny' of idolatry. Many details are given about their customs of eating and drinking, about their mode of dressing, their employments, their wars. Campanella looks forward to a new mode of education, which is to be a study of nature, and not of Aristotle. He would not have his citizens waste their time in the consideration of what he calls 'the dead signs of things.' He remarks that he who knows one science only, does not really know that one any more than the rest, and insists strongly on the necessity of a variety of knowledge. More scholars are turned out in the City of the Sun in one year than by contemporary methods in ten or fifteen. He evidently believes, like Bacon, that henceforward natural science will play a great part in education, a hope which seems hardly to have been realized, either in our own or in any former age at any rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred. There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this work, and a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no charm of style, and falls very far short of the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon, and still more of the 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More. It is full of inconsistencies, and though borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial acquaintance with his writings. It is a work such as one might expect to have been written by a philosopher and man of genius who was also a friar, and who had spent twentyseven years of his life in a prison of the Inquisition. The most interesting feature of the book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the deep feeling which is shown by the writer, of the misery and ignorance prevailing among the lower classes in his own time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle's answer to Plato's community of property, that in a society where all things are common, no individual would have any motive to work (Arist. Pol.) he replies, that his citizens being happy and contented in themselves (they are required to work only four hours a day), will have greater regard for their fellows than exists among men at present. He thinks, like Plato, that if he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public feeling will take their place. Other writings on ideal states, such as the 'Oceana' of Harrington, in which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was, but as he ought to have been or the 'Argenis' of Barclay, which is an historical allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth mentioning. More interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot's 'Monarchy of Man,' in which the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able 'to be a politician in the land of his birth,' turns away from politics to view 'that other city which is within him,' and finds on the very threshold of the grave that the secret of human happiness is the mastery of self. The change of government in the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this class...The great original genius of Swift owes nothing to Plato nor is there any trace in the conversation or in the works of Dr. Johnson of any acquaintance with his writings. He probably would have refuted Plato without reading him, in the same fashion in which he supposed himself to have refuted Bishop Berkeley's theory of the nonexistence of matter. If we except the socalled English Platonists, or rather NeoPlatonists, who never understood their master, and the writings of Coleridge, who was to some extent a kindred spirit, Plato has left no permanent impression on English literature. . Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that they are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor the other are immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from them which tends to raise individuals above the common routine of society or trade, and to elevate States above the mere interests of commerce or the necessities of selfdefence. Like the ideals of art they are partly framed by the omission of particulars they require to be viewed at a certain distance, and are apt to fade away if we attempt to approach them. They gain an imaginary distinctness when embodied in a State or in a system of philosophy, but they still remain the visions of 'a world unrealized.' More striking and obvious to the ordinary mind are the examples of great men, who have served their own generation and are remembered in another. Even in our own family circle there may have been some one, a woman, or even a child, in whose face has shone forth a goodness more than human. The ideal then approaches nearer to us, and we fondly cling to it. The ideal of the past, whether of our own past lives or of former states of society, has a singular fascination for the minds of many. Too late we learn that such ideals cannot be recalled, though the recollection of them may have a humanizing influence on other times. But the abstractions of philosophy are to most persons cold and vacant they give light without warmth they are like the full moon in the heavens when there are no stars appearing. Men cannot live by thought alone the world of sense is always breaking in upon them. They are for the most part confined to a corner of earth, and see but a little way beyond their own home or place of abode they 'do not lift up their eyes to the hills' they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in Plato we have reached a height from which a man may look into the distance and behold the future of the world and of philosophy. The ideal of the State and of the life of the philosopher the ideal of an education continuing through life and extending equally to both sexes the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge the faith in good and immortalityare the vacant forms of light on which Plato is seeking to fix the eye of mankind. . Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek Philosophy, float before the minds of men in our own day one seen more clearly than formerly, as though each year and each generation brought us nearer to some great change the other almost in the same degree retiring from view behind the laws of nature, as if oppressed by them, but still remaining a silent hope of we know not what hidden in the heart of man. The first ideal is the future of the human race in this world the second the future of the individual in another. The first is the more perfect realization of our own present life the second, the abnegation of it the one, limited by experience, the other, transcending it. Both of them have been and are powerful motives of action there are a few in whom they have taken the place of all earthly interests. The hope of a future for the human race at first sight seems to be the more disinterested, the hope of individual existence the more egotistical, of the two motives. But when men have learned to resolve their hope of a future either for themselves or for the world into the will of God'not my will but Thine,' the difference between them falls away and they may be allowed to make either of them the basis of their lives, according to their own individual character or temperament. There is as much faith in the willingness to work for an unseen future in this world as in another. Neither is it inconceivable that some rare nature may feel his duty to another generation, or to another century, almost as strongly as to his own, or that living always in the presence of God, he may realize another world as vividly as he does this. The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived by us under similitudes derived from human qualities although sometimes, like the Jewish prophets, we may dash away these figures of speech and describe the nature of God only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a positive meaning. It would be well, if when meditating on the higher truths either of philosophy or religion, we sometimes substituted one form of expression for another, lest through the necessities of language we should become the slaves of mere words. There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which has a place in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of Christ, and in which men seem to find a nearer and more familiar truth, the Divine man, the Son of Man, the Saviour of mankind, Who is the firstborn and head of the whole family in heaven and earth, in Whom the Divine and human, that which is without and that which is within the range of our earthly faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither is this divine form of goodness wholly separable from the ideal of the Christian Church, which is said in the New Testament to be 'His body,' or at variance with those other images of good which Plato sets before us. We see Him in a figure only, and of figures of speech we select but a few, and those the simplest, to be the expression of Him. We behold Him in a picture, but He is not there. We gather up the fragments of His discourses, but neither do they represent Him as He truly was. His dwelling is neither in heaven nor earth, but in the heart of man. This is that image which Plato saw dimly in the distance, which, when existing among men, he called, in the language of Homer, 'the likeness of God,' the likeness of a nature which in all ages men have felt to be greater and better than themselves, and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture or nature, from the witness of history or from the human heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or without parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is and will always continue to be to mankind the Idea of Good. Socrates, who is the narrator. Glaucon. Adeimantus. Polemarchus. Cephalus. Thrasymachus. Cleitophon. And others who are mute auditors. The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the Timaeus. I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.) and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said Polemarchus desires you to wait. I turned round, and asked him where his master was. There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait. Certainly we will, said Glaucon and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession. Polemarchus said to me I perceive, Socrates, that you and your companion are already on your way to the city. You are not far wrong, I said. But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are? Of course. And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are. May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go? But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said. Certainly not, replied Glaucon. Then we are not going to listen of that you may be assured. Adeimantus added Has no one told you of the torchrace on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening? With horses! I replied That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race? Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse. Glaucon said I suppose, since you insist, that we must. Very good, I replied. Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. I replied There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly isI cannot eat, I cannot drink the pleasures of youth and love are fled away there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go onYes, Cephalus, I said but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter. You are right, he replied they are not convinced and there is something in what they say not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself. May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you? Acquired! Socrates do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at present and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received. That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said. Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth? One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age 'Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journeyhope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.' How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest. Well said, Cephalus, I replied but as concerning justice, what is it?to speak the truth and to pay your debtsno more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition. You are quite right, he replied. But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company. Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said. To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices. Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice? He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right. I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. True. Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return? Certainly not. When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case? Certainly not for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil. You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,that is what you would imagine him to say? Yes. And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them? To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to himthat is to say, evil. Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt. That must have been his meaning, he said. By heaven! I replied and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us? He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies. And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what? Seasoning to food. And what is that which justice gives, and to whom? If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies. That is his meaning then? I think so. And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness? The physician. Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea? The pilot. And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend? In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other. But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician? No. And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot? No. Then in time of peace justice will be of no use? I am very far from thinking so. You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war? Yes. Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn? Yes. Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,that is what you mean? Yes. And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace? In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use. And by contracts you mean partnerships? Exactly. But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts? The skilful player. And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder? Quite the reverse. Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harpplayer, as in playing the harp the harpplayer is certainly a better partner than the just man? In a money partnership. Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not? Certainly. And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better? True. Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred? When you want a deposit to be kept safely. You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie? Precisely. That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless? That is the inference. And when you want to keep a pruninghook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state but when you want to use it, then the art of the vinedresser? Clearly. And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician? Certainly. And so of all other thingsjustice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful? That is the inference. Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow? Certainly. And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one? True. And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy? Certainly. Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief? That, I suppose, is to be inferred. Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it. That is implied in the argument. Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that 'He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.' And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft to be practised however 'for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,'that was what you were saying? No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say but I still stand by the latter words. Well, there is another question By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming? Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That is true. Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True. And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good? Clearly. But the good are just and would not do an injustice? True. Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong? Nay, Socrates the doctrine is immoral. Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust? I like that better. But see the consequenceMany a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides. Very true, he said and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words 'friend' and 'enemy.' What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked. We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good. And how is the error to be corrected? We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies? Yes. And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil? Yes, that appears to me to be the truth. But ought the just to injure any one at all? Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies. When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated? The latter. Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs? Yes, of horses. And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses? Of course. And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man? Certainly. And that human virtue is justice? To be sure. Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust? That is the result. But can the musician by his art make men unmusical? Certainly not. Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen? Impossible. And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad? Assuredly not. Any more than heat can produce cold? It cannot. Or drought moisture? Clearly not. Nor can the good harm any one? Impossible. And the just is the good? Certainly. Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust? I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,to say this is not wise for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just. I agree with you, said Polemarchus. Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer? I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said. Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be? Whose? I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Most true, he said. Yes, I said but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered? Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panicstricken at the sight of him. He roared out to the whole company What folly, Socrates, has taken possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer, and you should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me I must have clearness and accuracy. I was panicstricken at his words, and could not look at him without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was therefore able to reply to him. Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were 'knocking under to one another,' and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us. How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laughthat's your ironical style! Did I not foreseehave I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering? You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,'then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one?is that your meaning?'How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. Why should they not be? I replied and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not? I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers? I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them. But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you? Done to me!as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wisethat is what I deserve to have done to me. What, and no payment! a pleasant notion! I will pay when I have the money, I replied. But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates. Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always doesrefuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else. Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing and who, even if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the speaker should be some one like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the company and of myself? Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was in reality eager to speak for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you. That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have and how ready I am to praise any one who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer for I expect that you will answer well. Listen, then, he said I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you won't. Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just for us? That's abominable of you, Socrates you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument. Not at all, my good sir, I said I am trying to understand them and I wish that you would be a little clearer. Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies? Yes, I know. And the government is the ruling power in each state? Certainly. And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger. Now I understand you, I said and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word 'interest' which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words 'of the stronger' are added. A small addition, you must allow, he said. Great or small, never mind about that we must first enquire whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say 'of the stronger' about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further. Proceed. I will and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers? I do. But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err? To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not? True. When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest you admit that? Yes. And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects,and that is what you call justice? Doubtless. Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse? What is that you are saying? he asked. I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted? Yes. Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger? Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus. Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness. But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice. Yes, Polemarchus,Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just. Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger. But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the stronger thought to be his interest,this was what the weaker had to do and this was affirmed by him to be justice. Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus. Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not? Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken? Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken. You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is unerring, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for his own interest and the subject is required to execute his commands and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger. Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an informer? Certainly, he replied. And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument? Nay, he replied, 'suppose' is not the wordI know it but you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail. I shall not make the attempt, my dear man but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should executeis he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term? In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer if you can I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never. And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat, Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion. Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed. Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a question Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now speaking of the true physician. A healer of the sick, he replied. And the pilotthat is to say, the true pilotis he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor? A captain of sailors. The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account neither is he to be called a sailor the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors. Very true, he said. Now, I said, every art has an interest? Certainly. For which the art has to consider and provide? Yes, that is the aim of art. And the interest of any art is the perfection of itthis and nothing else? What do you mean? I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is selfsufficing or has wants, I should reply Certainly the body has wants for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right? Quite right, he replied. But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearinghas art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exercise of their own art or of any other they have only to consider the interest of their subjectmatter. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining truethat is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right. Yes, clearly. Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body? True, he said. Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs they care only for that which is the subject of their art? True, he said. But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects? To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance. Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker? He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced. Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere moneymaker that has been admitted? Yes. And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor? That has been admitted. And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest? He gave a reluctant 'Yes.' Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does. When we had got to this point in the argument, and every one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied. Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant and injustice the opposite for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just he is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State when there is an incometax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserablethat is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgracethey who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and manstealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest. Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bathman, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him they insisted that he should remain and defend his position and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks! And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your eyesto determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage? And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry? You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachuswhether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself we are a large party and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls? Heaven forbid! I said I would only ask you to be consistent or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banquetter with a view to the pleasures of the table or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority. Think! Nay, I am sure of it. Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment, unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question Are not the several arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little progress. Yes, that is the difference, he replied. And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general onemedicine, for example, gives us health navigation, safety at sea, and so on? Yes, he said. And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you, that navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language? Certainly not. Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine? I should not. Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing? Certainly not. And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially confined to the art? Yes. Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use? True, he replied. And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him? He gave a reluctant assent to this. Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well? I suppose not. But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing? Certainly, he confers a benefit. Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the strongerto their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing. What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment. You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace? Very true. And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot helpnot under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of life, Glaucon, do you prefer? I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he answered. Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing? Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me. Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is saying what is not true? Most certainly, he replied. If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall want judges to decide but if we proceed in our enquiry as we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons. Very good, he said. And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said. That which you propose. Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice? Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons. And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice? Certainly. I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice? What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not. What else then would you say? The opposite, he replied. And would you call justice vice? No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. Then would you call injustice malignity? No I would rather say discretion. And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good? Yes, he said at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing states and nations but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cutpurses. Even this profession if undetected has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking. I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite. Certainly I do so class them. Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles but now I perceive that you will call injustice honourable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue. You have guessed most infallibly, he replied. Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at our expense. I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?to refute the argument is your business. Very true, I said that is what I have to do But will you be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just? Far otherwise if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature which he is. And would he try to go beyond just action? He would not. And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the unjust would that be considered by him as just or unjust? He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage but he would not be able. Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust? Yes, he would. And what of the unjustdoes he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just? Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men. And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the unjust man or action, in order that he may have more than all? True. We may put the matter thus, I saidthe just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike? Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement. And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither? Good again, he said. And is not the unjust like the wise and good and the just unlike them? Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a certain nature he who is not, not. Each of them, I said, is such as his like is? Certainly, he replied. Very good, Thrasymachus, I said and now to take the case of the arts you would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician? Yes. And which is wise and which is foolish? Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish. And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish? Yes. And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician? Yes. And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings? I do not think that he would. But he would claim to exceed the nonmusician? Of course. And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of medicine? He would not. But he would wish to go beyond the nonphysician? Yes. And about knowledge and ignorance in general see whether you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his like in the same case? That, I suppose, can hardly be denied. And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either the knowing or the ignorant? I dare say. And the knowing is wise? Yes. And the wise is good? True. Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but more than his unlike and opposite? I suppose so. Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both? Yes. But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words? They were. And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like but his unlike? Yes. Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant? That is the inference. And each of them is such as his like is? That was admitted. Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant. Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled but were we not also saying that injustice had strength do you remember? Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to storytelling old women, and will nod 'Yes' and 'No.' Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion. Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else would you have? Nothing in the world, I said and if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer. Proceed. Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance this can no longer be questioned by any one. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way You would not deny that a state may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection? True, he replied and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so. I know, I said, that such was your position but what I would further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior state can exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice. If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice but if I am right, then without justice. I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent. That is out of civility to you, he replied. You are very kind, I said and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evildoers could act at all if they injured one another? No indeed, he said, they could not. But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better? Yes. And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship is not that true, Thrasymachus? I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you. How good of you, I said but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action? Certainly. And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just? They will. And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power? Let us assume that she retains her power. Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case? Yes, certainly. And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus? Yes. And O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just? Granted that they are. But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend? Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company. Well then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action nay more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims they were but halfvillains in their enterprises for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given but still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life. Proceed. I will proceed by asking a question Would you not say that a horse has some end? I should. And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I do not understand, he said. Let me explain Can you see, except with the eye? Certainly not. Or hear, except with the ear? No. These then may be truly said to be the ends of these organs? They may. But you can cut off a vinebranch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in many other ways? Of course. And yet not so well as with a pruninghook made for the purpose? True. May we not say that this is the end of a pruninghook? We may. Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I understand your meaning, he said, and assent. And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask again whether the eye has an end? It has. And has not the eye an excellence? Yes. And the ear has an end and an excellence also? True. And the same is true of all other things they have each of them an end and a special excellence? That is so. Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own proper excellence and have a defect instead? How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see? You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only enquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own defect? Certainly, he replied. I might say the same of the ears when deprived of their own proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end? True. And the same observation will apply to all other things? I agree. Well and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other? To no other. And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul? Assuredly, he said. And has not the soul an excellence also? Yes. And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that excellence? She cannot. Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler? Yes, necessarily. And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul? That has been admitted. Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill? That is what your argument proves. And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse of happy? Certainly. Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable? So be it. But happiness and not misery is profitable. Of course. Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice. Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea. For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you nowHow would you arrange goodsare there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art also the various ways of moneymakingthese do us good but we regard them as disagreeable and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them? There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask? Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice? In the highest class, I replied,among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. Then the many are of another mind they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the justif what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal? Indeed I do nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse. I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice. They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good to suffer injustice, evil but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither hence there arise laws and mutual covenants and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justiceit is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same resultwhen he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court whereas soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookerson to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this. Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them there is no other way and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft like the skilful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice (he who is found out is nobody) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours and rewards therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst then he will have been put to the proof and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two. Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues. I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, boundwill have his eyes burnt out and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be, just the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality he does not live with a view to appearanceshe wants to be really unjust and not to seem only 'His mind has a soil deep and fertile, Out of which spring his prudent counsels.' In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just. I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his brother, interposed Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged? Why, what else is there? I answered. The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied. Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'if he fails in any part do you assist him although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice. Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more There is another side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just 'To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces,' and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer has a very similar strain for he speaks of one whose fame is 'As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice to whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish.' Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son vouchsafe to the just they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other. Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod 'Vice may be had in abundance without trouble the way is smooth and her dwellingplace is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil,' and a tedious and uphill road then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men for he also says 'The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed.' And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Musesthat is what they sayaccording to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us. He proceeded And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear Socrates,those of them, I mean, who are quickwitted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they should walk if they would make the best of life? Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar 'Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?' For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human thingswhy in either case should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by 'sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.' Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. 'But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.' Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony. On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truthbut no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justicebeginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own timeno one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakeslike sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional goodI would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara 'Sons of Ariston,' he sang, 'divine offspring of an illustrious hero.' The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convincedthis I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can. Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus suppose that a shortsighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were largerif they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesserthis would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State. True, he replied. And is not a State larger than an individual? It is. Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal. And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also. I dare say. When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered. Yes, far more easily. But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore. I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed. A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind no one is selfsufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined? There can be no other. Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State. True, he said. And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Certainly. The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like. True. And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weavershall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants? Quite right. The barest notion of a State must include four or five men. Clearly. And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants? Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything. Probably, I replied, that would be the better way and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. Very true. And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? When he has only one. Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time? No doubt. For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object. He must. And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things. Undoubtedly. Then more than four citizens will be required for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his toolsand he too needs many and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker. True. Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow? True. Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides,still our State will not be very large. That is true yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these. Then, again, there is the situation of the cityto find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible. Impossible. Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city? There must. But if the trader goes emptyhanded, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back emptyhanded. That is certain. And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied. Very true. Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required? They will. Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants? Yes. Then we shall want merchants? We shall. And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers? Yes, in considerable numbers. Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State. Clearly they will buy and sell. Then they will need a marketplace, and a moneytoken for purposes of exchange. Certainly. Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him,is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the marketplace? Not at all he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In wellordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy. This want, then, creates a class of retailtraders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the marketplace engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants? Yes, he said. And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour. True. Then hirelings will help to make up our population? Yes. And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected? I think so. Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up? Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else. I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the enquiry. Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barleymeal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means having an eye to poverty or war. But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal. True, I replied, I had forgotten of course they must have a relishsalt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans and they will roast myrtleberries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style. Yes, I said, now I understand the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at feverheat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured. True, he said. Then we must enlarge our borders for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours another will be the votaries of musicpoets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them. Certainly. And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? Much greater. And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough? Quite true. Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth? That, Socrates, will be inevitable. And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not? Most certainly, he replied. Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public. Undoubtedly. And our State must once more enlarge and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above. Why? he said are they not capable of defending themselves? No, I said not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success. Very true, he said. But is not war an art? Certainly. And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking? Quite true. And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builderin order that we might have our shoes well made but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavyarmed or any other kind of troops? Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price. And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him? No doubt, he replied. Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling? Certainly. Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city? It will. And the selection will be no easy matter, I said but we must be brave and do our best. We must. Is not the noble youth very like a wellbred dog in respect of guarding and watching? What do you mean? I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him. All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them. Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well? Certainly. And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable? I have. Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. True. And also of the mental ones his soul is to be full of spirit? Yes. But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. True, he said. What is to be done then? I said how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other? True. He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible. I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied. Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us. What do you mean? he said. I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities. And where do you find them? Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them our friend the dog is a very good one you know that wellbred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers. Yes, I know. Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities? Certainly not. Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? I do not apprehend your meaning. The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal. What trait? Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious? The matter never struck me before but I quite recognise the truth of your remark. And surely this instinct of the dog is very charmingyour dog is a true philosopher. Why? Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance? Most assuredly. And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy? They are the same, he replied. And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? That we may safely affirm. Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength? Undoubtedly. Then we have found the desired natures and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an enquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is our final endHow do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length. Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us. Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long. Certainly not. Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. By all means. And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort?and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means. And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not? I do. And literature may be either true or false? Yes. And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false? I do not understand your meaning, he said. You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics. Very true. That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics. Quite right, he said. You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Quite true. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot. Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. Of what tales are you speaking? he said. You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them. Very likely, he replied but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater. Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great storytellers of mankind. But which stories do you mean, he said and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable but what are the stories which you mean? First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed. Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods. I entirely agree with you, he said in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homerthese tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. There you are right, he replied but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speakinghow shall we answer him? I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business. Very true, he said but what are these forms of theology which you mean? Something of this kind, I repliedGod is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given. Right. And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? Certainly. And no good thing is hurtful? No, indeed. And that which is not hurtful hurts not? Certainly not. And that which hurts not does no evil? No. And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil? Impossible. And the good is advantageous? Yes. And therefore the cause of wellbeing? Yes. It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only? Assuredly. Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. That appears to me to be most true, he said. Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks 'Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots,' and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two 'Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good' but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill, 'Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth.' And again 'Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us.' And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall not have our approval neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that 'God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.' And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobethe subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occuror of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their miserythe poet is not to be permitted to say though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any wellordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious. I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. That will do, he said. And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in anothersometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image? I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought. Well, I said but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing? Most certainly. And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes. Of course. And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence? True. And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite thingsfurniture, houses, garments when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances. Very true. Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? True. But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect? Of course they are. Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes? He cannot. But may he not change and transform himself? Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. Very true, Adeimantus but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse? Impossible. Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form. That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment. Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that 'The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms' and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms 'For the lifegiving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos' let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these mythstelling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms' but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods. Heaven forbid, he said. But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms? Perhaps, he replied. Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself? I cannot say, he replied. Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men? What do you mean? he said. I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him. Still, he said, I do not comprehend you. The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least likethat, I say, is what they utterly detest. There is nothing more hateful to them. And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right? Perfectly right. The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men? Yes. Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful in dealing with enemiesthat would be an instance or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive also in the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speakingbecause we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account. Very true, he said. But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention? That would be ridiculous, he said. Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God? I should say not. Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies? That is inconceivable. But he may have friends who are senseless or mad? But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God. Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie? None whatever. Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood? Yes. Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed he changes not he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision. Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. I grant that. Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials 'Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said thishe it is who has slain my son.' These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws. Such then, I said, are our principles of theologysome tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another. Yes and I think that our principles are right, he said. But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? Certainly not, he said. And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible? Impossible. Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors. That will be our duty, he said. Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses, 'I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought.' We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared, 'Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals.' And again 'O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all!' Again of Tiresias '(To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,) that he alone should be wise but the other souls are flitting shades.' Again 'The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth.' Again 'And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth.' And, 'As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved.' And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death. Undoubtedly. Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world belowCocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them. There is a real danger, he said. Then we must have no more of them. True. Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us. Clearly. And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men? They will go with the rest. But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade. Yes that is our principle. And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible? He will not. Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men. True, he said. And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible. Assuredly. And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him. Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another. Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like. That will be very right. Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching, 'Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.' Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying, 'Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow.' But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say 'O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.' Or again Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius.' For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or selfcontrol, he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions. Yes, he said, that is most true. Yes, I replied but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has just proved to us and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better. It ought not to be. Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction. So I believe. Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed. Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how 'Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion.' On your views, we must not admit them. On my views, if you like to father them on me that we must not admit them is certain. Again, truth should be highly valued if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians private individuals have no business with them. Clearly not, he said. Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most true, he said. If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State, 'Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter,' he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State. Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out. In the next place our youth must be temperate? Certainly. Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and selfcontrol in sensual pleasures? True. Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer, 'Friend, sit still and obey my word,' and the verses which follow, 'The Greeks marched breathing prowess, ...in silent awe of their leaders,' and other sentiments of the same kind. We shall. What of this line, 'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag,' and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken? They are ill spoken. They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young menyou would agree with me there? Yes. And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than 'When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cupbearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups,' is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words? Or the verse 'The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?' What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one another 'Without the knowledge of their parents' or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite? Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing. But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear as, for example, what is said in the verses, 'He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart far worse hast thou endured!' Certainly, he said. In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money. Certainly not. Neither must we sing to them of 'Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.' Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so. Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved. Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says, 'Thou hast wronged me, O fardarter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power' or his insubordination to the rivergod, on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair, which had been previously dedicated to the other rivergod Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men. You are quite right, he replied. And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of godsboth in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than mensentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods. Assuredly not. And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by 'The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,' and who have 'the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins.' And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of morals among the young. By all means, he replied. But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down. Very true. And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject. Clearly so. But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend. Why not? Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and storytellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gainthese things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite. To be sure we shall, he replied. But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending. I grant the truth of your inference. That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not. Most true, he said. Enough of the subjects of poetry let us now speak of the style and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated. I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. Then I must make you understand and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come? Certainly, he replied. And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two? That again, he said, I do not quite understand. I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines, 'And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people,' the poet is speaking in his own person he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey. Yes. And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages? Quite true. But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak? Certainly. And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes? Of course. Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation? Very true. Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, 'I don't understand,' I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, 'The priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings' and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre), 'The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should be of no avail to himthe daughter of Chryses should not be released, he saidshe should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,'and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative. I understand, he said. Or you may suppose the opposite casethat the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left. That also, he said, I understand you mean, for example, as in tragedy. You have conceived my meaning perfectly and if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitativeinstances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only speakerof this the dithyramb affords the best example and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me? Yes, he said I see now what you meant. I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the style. Yes, I remember. In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts or should all imitation be prohibited? You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State? Yes, I said but there may be more than this in question I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go. And go we will, he said. Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one? He cannot. Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedydid you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both. Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once? True. Neither are comic and tragic actors the same yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their professionthe courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labour. Very right, he said. Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves? They must not. And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated. Very true, he replied. Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like? How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these? Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing? Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behaviour of madmen. You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character and education. And which are these two sorts? he asked. Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it. So I should expect, he replied. Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree? Certainly, he said that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily take. But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be nothing will be too bad for him and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration. That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. These, then, are the two kinds of style? Yes. And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm? That is quite true, he said. Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes. That is also perfectly true, he replied. And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in both together. They include all, he said. And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed? I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue. Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general. I do not deny it. But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only? Yes quite unsuitable. And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout? True, he said. And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or storyteller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers. We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished for the matter and manner have both been discussed. I think so too, he said. Next in order will follow melody and song. That is obvious. Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves. I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word 'every one' hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be though I may guess. At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three partsthe words, the melody, and the rhythm that degree of knowledge I may presuppose? Yes, he said so much as that you may. And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words which are and which are not set to music both will conform to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us? Yes. And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words? Certainly. We were saying, when we spoke of the subjectmatter, that we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow? True. And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me. The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the fulltoned or bass Lydian, and such like. These then, I said, must be banished even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men. Certainly. In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians. Utterly unbecoming. And which are the soft or drinking harmonies? The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian they are termed 'relaxed.' Well, and are these of any military use? Quite the reverse, he replied and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left. I answered Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance these, I say, leave. And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking. Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale? I suppose not. Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other manystringed curiouslyharmonised instruments? Certainly not. But what do you say to flutemakers and fluteplayers? Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute? Clearly not. There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument. The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments is not at all strange, I said. Not at all, he replied. And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious. And we have done wisely, he replied. Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your dutyyou must teach me them, as you have already taught me the harmonies. But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes (i.e. the four notes of the tetrachord.) out of which all the harmonies are composed that is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable to say. Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm or perhaps a combination of the two for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know? (Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of  in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of  in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of  or .) Rather so, I should say. But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm. None at all. And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them. Just so, he said, they should follow the words. And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul? Yes. And everything else on the style? Yes. Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly? Very true, he replied. And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? They must. And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture also nature, animal and vegetable,in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness. That is quite true, he said. But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a healthgiving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is illeducated ungraceful and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention. Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations not slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognise them wherever they are found True Or, as we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both Exactly Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study. Most assuredly. And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it? The fairest indeed. And the fairest is also the loveliest? That may be assumed. And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul? That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same. I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance? How can that be? he replied pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. Or any affinity to virtue in general? None whatever. Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? Yes, the greatest. And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love? No, nor a madder. Whereas true love is a love of beauty and ordertemperate and harmonious? Quite true, he said. Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true love? Certainly not. Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort? No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's consent and this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste. I quite agree, he said. Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty? I agree, he said. After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is,and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say? Yes, I agree. Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the body and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject. Very good. That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. Yes, he said that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed. But next, what shall we say of their food for the men are in training for the great contest of allare they not? Yes, he said. And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them? Why not? I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen? Yes, I do. Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health. That is my view. The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing. How so? Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is simple and good and especially the military gymnastic. What do you mean? My meaning may be learned from Homer he, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare they have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans. True. And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind. Yes, he said and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them. Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of Sicilian cookery? I think not. Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend? Certainly not. Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionary? Certainly not. All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms. Exactly. There complexity engendered licence, and here disease whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul and simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body. Most true, he said. But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them. Of course. And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of firstrate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of goodbreeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him? Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. Would you say 'most,' I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a lifelong litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice and all for what?in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful? Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh is not this, too, a disgrace? Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases. Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barleymeal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition. Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world. How was that? he said. By the invention of lingering death for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age. A rare reward of his skill! Yes, I said a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all wellordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort. How do you mean? he said. I mean this When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment and therefore bidding goodbye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble. Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only. Has he not, I said, an occupation and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation? Quite true, he said. But with the rich man this is otherwise of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live. He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue? Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner. Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said but rather ask ourselves Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides? Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue. Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state and, what is most important of all, irreconcileable with any kind of study or thought or selfreflectionthere is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body. Yes, likely enough. And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment such as these he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the State but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion he did not want to lengthen out goodfornothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting weaker sonsif a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him for such a cure would have been of no use either to himself, or to the State. Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman. Clearly and his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they 'Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies,' but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was healthy and regular in his habits and even though he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them. They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius. Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us bothif he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious or, if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god. All that, Socrates, is excellent but I should like to put a question to you Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures? Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good? Will you tell me? I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you join two things which are not the same. How so? he asked. Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing. That is very true, he said. But with the judge it is otherwise since he governs mind by mind he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own selfconsciousness the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls. Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience. Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question) for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke,he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions he cannot recognise an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish. Most true, he said. Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdomin my opinion. And in mine also. This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will sanction in your state. They will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State. And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law. Clearly. And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case. That I quite believe. The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develope his muscles. Very right, he said. Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the body. What then is the real object of them? I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul. How can that be? he asked. Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music? In what way shown? he said. The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness and effeminacy, I replied. Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal. That I quite think. On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate. True. And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities? Assuredly. And both should be in harmony? Beyond question. And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous? Yes. And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? Very true. And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul and he becomes a feeble warrior. Very true. If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitableon the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable. Exactly. And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was. Certainly. And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their mists? True, he said. And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace. That is quite true, he said. And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized. That appears to be the intention. And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings. You are quite right, Socrates. And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the government is to last. Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them. I dare say that there will be no difficulty. Very good, I said then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects? Certainly. There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. Clearly. And that the best of these must rule. That is also clear. Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry? Yes. And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians? Yes. And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State? True. And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves? To be sure. And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own? Very true, he replied. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. Those are the right men. And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. How cast off? he said. I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his will with his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he replied I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will. And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment? Still, he replied, I do not understand you. I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other and this I call theft. Now you understand me? Yes. Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. I understand, he said, and you are quite right. And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear? Yes, he said everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way? Yes. And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities. Very right, he replied. And then, I said, we must try them with enchantmentsthat is the third sort of testand see what will be their behaviour like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness. And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. And perhaps the word 'guardian' in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers. I agree with you, he said. How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spokejust one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said. Nothing new, I replied only an old Phoenician tale (Laws) of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell. True, I replied, but there is more coming I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in the present generation, he replied there is no way of accomplishing this but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. I see the difficulty, I replied yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earthborn heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings. Just so, he said. And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shopkeepers. What is the difference? he said. That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watchdogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd? Truly monstrous, he said. And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? Yes, great care should be taken. And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard? But they are welleducated already, he replied. I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. Very true, he replied. And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that. He must. Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and all other matters? Yes, said Glaucon. Here Adeimantus interposed a question How would you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practising hospitality moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard? Yes, I said and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in addition to their food, like other men and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness and many other accusations of the same nature might be added. But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge. You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer? Yes. If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the illordered State injustice and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole and byandby we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the bodythe eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them blackto him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like in this way we might make every class happyand then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. I think that you are quite right. I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me. What may that be? There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts. What are they? Wealth, I said, and poverty. How do they act? The process is as follows When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art? Certainly not. He will grow more and more indolent and careless? Very true. And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter? Yes he greatly deteriorates. But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well. Certainly not. Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate? That is evident. Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? Wealth, I said, and poverty the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. That is very true, he replied but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war. There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy but there is no difficulty where there are two of them. How so? he asked. In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men. That is true, he said. And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and welltodo gentlemen who were not boxers? Hardly, if they came upon him at once. What, now, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage? Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that. And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practise of boxing than they have in military qualities. Likely enough. Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number? I agree with you, for I think you right. And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities, telling them what is the truth Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have, but you may do you therefore come and help us in war, and take the spoils of the other city Who, on hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side, against fat and tender sheep? That is not likely and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one. But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own! Why so? You ought to speak of other States in the plural number not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich these are at war with one another and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater. That is most true, he said. And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go? What limit would you propose? I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity that, I think, is the proper limit. Very good, he said. Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and selfsufficing. And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them. And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still,I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when naturally superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be one and not many and so the whole city would be one and not many. Yes, he said that is not so difficult. The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be taken, as the saying is, of the one great thing,a thing, however, which I would rather call, not great, but sufficient for our purpose. What may that be? he asked. Education, I said, and nurture If our citizens are well educated, and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as other matters which I omit such, for example, as marriage, the possession of women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says. That will be the best way of settling them. Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals. Very possibly, he said. Then to sum up This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed,that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one says that mankind most regard 'The newest song which the singers have,' they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe himhe says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them. Yes, said Adeimantus and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your own. Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music? Yes, he said the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in. Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement and at first sight it appears harmless. Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public. Is that true? I said. That is my belief, he replied. Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into wellconducted and virtuous citizens. Very true, he said. And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen places in the State will raise them up again. Very true, he said. Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected. What do you mean? I mean such things as thesewhen the young are to be silent before their elders how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit what honour is due to parents what garments or shoes are to be worn the mode of dressing the hair deportment and manners in general. You would agree with me? Yes. But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters,I doubt if it is ever done nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting. Impossible. It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like? To be sure. Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and may be the reverse of good? That is not to be denied. And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them. Naturally enough, he replied. Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements with artisans about insult and injury, or the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and exactions of market and harbour dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets, police, harbours, and the like. But, oh heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars? I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves. Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them. And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection. You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no selfrestraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance? Exactly. Yes, I said and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try. Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort. Yes, I replied and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail. Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right. These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces. Assuredly not. Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not illordered States in which the citizens are forbidden under pain of death to alter the constitution and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesmando not these States resemble the persons whom I was describing? Yes, he said the States are as bad as the men and I am very far from praising them. But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption? Yes, he said, I do but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and these are not much to be admired. What do you mean? I said you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say? Nay, he said, certainly not in that case. Well, then, do not be angry with them for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra? Yes, he said that is just what they are doing. I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an illordered or in a wellordered State for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations. What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation? Nothing to us, I replied but to Apollo, the God of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all. Which are they? he said. The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind. You are right, and we will do as you propose. But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. Nonsense, said Glaucon did you not promise to search yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety? I do not deny that I said so, and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word but you must join. We will, he replied. Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect. That is most certain. And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just. That is likewise clear. And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue? Very good. If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there would be no further trouble or we might know the other three first, and then the fourth would clearly be the one left. Very true, he said. And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number? Clearly. First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity. What is that? The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel? Very true. And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well? Clearly. And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse? Of course. There is the knowledge of the carpenter but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel? Certainly not that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering. Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements? Certainly not. Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots, I said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge? Not by reason of any of them, he said. Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth that would give the city the name of agricultural? Yes. Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recentlyfounded State among any of the citizens which advises, not about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with other States? There certainly is. And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked. It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians. And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge? The name of good in counsel and truly wise. And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths? The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous. Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge? Much the smallest. And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to nature, will be wise and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least. Most true. Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered. And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied. Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage, and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State. How do you mean? Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf. No one, he replied, would ever think of any other. The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly, but their courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the other. Certainly not. The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them and this is what you term courage. I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that I perfectly understand you. I mean that courage is a kind of salvation. Salvation of what? Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education and I mean by the words 'under all circumstances' to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration? If you please. You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true seapurple, begin by selecting their white colour first this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour. Yes, he said I know that they have a washedout and ridiculous appearance. Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasuremightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree. But I agree, he replied for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slavethis, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name. Most certainly. Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe? Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words 'of a citizen,' you will not be far wronghereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are seeking not for courage but justice and for the purpose of our enquiry we have said enough. You are right, he replied. Two virtues remain to be discovered in the Statefirst, temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first. Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request. Then consider, he said. Yes, I replied I will and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding. How so? he asked. Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires this is curiously enough implied in the saying of 'a man being his own master' and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. No doubt, he said. There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself' for the master is also the servant and the servant the master and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted. Certainly. The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself and this is a term of praise but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worsein this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes, there is reason in that. And now, I said, look at our newlycreated State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words 'temperance' and 'selfmastery' truly express the rule of the better part over the worse. Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. Certainly, he said. Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. Very true. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. That I perceive, he said. Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation? Certainly, he replied. It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons? Yes. And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State? Undoubtedly. And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will temperance be foundin the rulers or in the subjects? In both, as I should imagine, he replied. Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony? Why so? Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in states and individuals. I entirely agree with you. And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice, if we only knew what that was. The inference is obvious. The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know. Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show himthat is about as much as I am good for. Offer up a prayer with me and follow. I will, but you must show me the way. Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing still we must push on. Let us push on. Here I saw something Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape. Good news, he said. Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows. Why so? Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their handsthat was the way with uswe looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance and therefore, I suppose, we missed her. What do you mean? I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her. I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adaptednow justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Yes, we said so. Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference? I cannot, but I should like to be told. Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one. That follows of necessity. If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palmthe question is not so easily answered. Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which. Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Yes, he said. And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice? Exactly. Let us look at the question from another point of view Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Certainly. And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Yes that is their principle. Which is a just principle? Yes. Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him? Very true. Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change do you think that any great harm would result to the State? Not much. But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State. Most true. Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evildoing? Precisely. And the greatest degree of evildoing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice? Certainly. This then is injustice and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. I agree with you. We will not, I said, be overpositive as yet but if, on trial, this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt if it be not verified, we must have a fresh enquiry. First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individualif they agree, we shall be satisfied or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will come back to the State and have another trial of the theory. The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls. That will be in regular course let us do as you say. I proceeded to ask When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same? Like, he replied. The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just State? He will. And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State severally did their own business and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes? True, he said. And so of the individual we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the State and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner? Certainly, he said. Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy questionwhether the soul has these three principles or not? An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good. Very true, I said and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous enquiry. May we not be satisfied with that? he saidunder the circumstances, I am quite content. I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied. Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said. Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State and that from the individual they pass into the State?how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spiritit would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e.g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Exactly so, he said. There is no difficulty in understanding this. None whatever. But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of actionto determine that is the difficulty. Yes, he said there lies the difficulty. Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different. How can we? he asked. I replied as follows The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different. Good. For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part? Impossible. Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same momentto such a mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest. Very true. And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference, and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest. That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied. Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways. Certainly not, according to my way of thinking. Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn. Yes, he said, that will be the best way. Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition)? Yes, he said, they are opposites. Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing,all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned. You would saywould you not?that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desire or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question? Very true. And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection? Certainly. Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them? Let us take that class, he said. The object of one is food, and of the other drink? Yes. And here comes the point is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink, and of drink only not of drink qualified by anything else for example, warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort but if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink or, if the thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be excessive or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be small but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger? Yes, he said the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object. But here a confusion may arise and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink and the same is true of every other desire. Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say. Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality attached to either term of the relation others are simple and have their correlatives simple. I do not know what you mean. Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less? Certainly. And the much greater to the much less? Yes. And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be? Certainly, he said. And so of more and less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double and the half, or again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower and of hot and cold, and of any other relativesis not this true of all of them? Yes. And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge I mean, for example, that the science of housebuilding is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture. Certainly. Because it has a particular quality which no other has? Yes. And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind and this is true of the other arts and sciences? Yes. Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone if one term is qualified, the other is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil but only that, when the term science is no longer used absolutely, but has a qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of medicine. I quite understand, and I think as you do. Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation Yes, thirst is relative to drink. And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only? Certainly. Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only drink for this he yearns and tries to obtain it? That is plain. And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same. Impossible. No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls. Exactly so, he replied. And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink? Yes, he said, it constantly happens. And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him? I should say so. And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease? Clearly. Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions? Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different. Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding? I should be inclined to sayakin to desire. Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight. I have heard the story myself, he said. The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things. Yes that is the meaning, he said. And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reasonbut for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed, is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else? Certainly not. Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon himthese he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. True, he said. But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. The illustration is perfect, he replied and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider. What point? You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle. Most assuredly. But a further question arises Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent or rather, as the State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason? Yes, he said, there must be a third. Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason. But that is easily provedWe may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough. Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul,' for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it. Very true, he said. And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number. Exactly. Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise? Certainly. Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues? Assuredly. And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just? That follows, of course. We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class? We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said. We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work? Yes, he said, we must remember that too. And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally? Certainly. And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony and rhythm? Quite true, he said. And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her naturalborn subjects, and overturn the whole life of man? Very true, he said. Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels? True. And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear? Right, he replied. And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole? Assuredly. And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel? Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual. And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what quality a man will be just. That is very certain. And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the State? There is no difference in my opinion, he said. Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying. What sort of instances do you mean? If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this? No one, he replied. Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country? Never. Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements? Impossible. No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties? No one. And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled? Exactly so. Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other? Not I, indeed. Then our dream has been realized and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified? Yes, certainly. And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use? Clearly. But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervalswhen he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business always thinking and calling that which preserves and cooperates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. You have said the exact truth, Socrates. Very good and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood? Most certainly not. May we say so, then? Let us say so. And now, I said, injustice has to be considered. Clearly. Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principlesa meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice? Exactly so. And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear? What do you mean? he said. Why, I said, they are like disease and health being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body. How so? he said. Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease. Yes. And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice? That is certain. And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order? True. And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order? Exactly so, he said. Then virtue is the health and beauty and wellbeing of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same? True. And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice? Assuredly. Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice assuming them both to be such as we have described? Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way. Certainly not, he replied. Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at. I am following you, he replied proceed. I said, The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are innumerable there being four special ones which are deserving of note. What do you mean? he said. I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State. How many? There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said. What are they? The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many. True, he replied. But I regard the two names as describing one form only for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained. That is true, he replied. Such is the good and true City or State, and the good and true man is of the same pattern and if this is right every other is wrong and the evil is one which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms. What are they? he said. I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him stretching forth his hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him towards him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off, or what shall we do?' Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off? You, he said. I repeated, Why am I especially not to be let off? Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding as if it were selfevident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children 'friends have all things in common.' And was I not right, Adeimantus? Yes, he said but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizenshow they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and childrenfor we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this. To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed. And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed. I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me What an argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it. For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus,to look for gold, or to hear discourse? Yes, but discourse should have a limit. Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us take heart yourself and answer the question in your own way What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be. Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our aspiration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only. Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you they are not sceptical or hostile. I said My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these words. Yes, he said. Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse the encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about to declare the truth about matters of high interest which a man honours and loves among wise men who love him need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind but to carry on an argument when you are yourself only a hesitating enquirer, which is my condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing and the danger is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws. And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies than among friends, and therefore you do well to encourage me. Glaucon laughed and said Well then, Socrates, in case you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the homicide, and shall not be held to be a deceiver take courage then and speak. Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument. Then why should you mind? Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you. For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd. True. Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations then we shall see whether the result accords with our design. What do you mean? What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them? No, he said, they share alike the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker. But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way? You cannot. Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education? Yes. The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic. Yes. Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men? That is the inference, I suppose. I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous. No doubt of it. Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia. Yes, indeed, he said according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous. But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation how they will talk of women's attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback! Very true, he replied. Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation. No doubt. But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good. Very true, he replied. First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion. That will be much the best way. Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended. Why not? he said. Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say 'Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.' And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. 'And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?' And we shall reply Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, 'Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?' Certainly they should. 'But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?'What defence will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections? That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side. These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children. By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy. Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same. Very true. And must not we swim and try to reach the shore we will hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us? I suppose so, he said. Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledgeddid we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now what are we saying?that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us. Precisely. Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction! Why do you say so? Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. Yes, he replied, such is very often the case but what has that to do with us and our argument? A great deal for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition. In what way? Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures. Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us. I said Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely? That would be a jest, he said. Yes, I said, a jest and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature. True. Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures? Certainly. And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits. Very true, he said. Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man? That will be quite fair. And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on the instant is not easy but after a little reflection there is no difficulty. Yes, perhaps. Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the State. By all means. Let us say to him Come now, and we will ask you a questionwhen you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets or again, did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance to him?would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted? No one will deny that. And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd? You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man. Very true. Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on women? That will never do. One woman has a gift of healing, another not one is a musician, and another has no music in her nature? Very true. And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics? Certainly. And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy one has spirit, and another is without spirit? That is also true. Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this sort? Yes. Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness. Obviously. And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character? Very true. And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits? They ought. Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardiansto that point we come round again. Certainly not. The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature. That appears to be true. We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial? Yes. And the possibility has been acknowledged? Yes. The very great benefit has next to be established? Quite so. You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian for their original nature is the same? Yes. I should like to ask you a question. What is it? Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another? The latter. And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling? What a ridiculous question! You have answered me, I replied Well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens? By far the best. And will not their wives be the best women? Yes, by far the best. And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible? There can be nothing better. And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in such manner as we have described, will accomplish? Certainly. Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State? True. Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country only in the distribution of labours the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking 'A fruit of unripe wisdom,' and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is aboutfor that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base. Very true. Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common to the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness. Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped. Yes, I said, but a greater is coming you will not think much of this when you see the next. Go on let me see. The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect,'that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.' Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable. I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed. I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility. But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both. Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favour let me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishesthat is a matter which never troubles themthey would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come truethat is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure and hereafter the question of possibility. I have no objection proceed. First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care. That is right, he said. You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to themthey must be as far as possible of like natures with them and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each othernecessity is not too strong a word, I think? Yes, he saidnecessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind. True, I said and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred? Exactly. And how can marriages be made most beneficial?that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding? In what particulars? Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others? True. And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only? From the best. And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? I choose only those of ripe age. And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate? Certainly. And the same of horses and animals in general? Undoubtedly. Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species! Certainly, the same principle holds but why does this involve any particular skill? Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. That is quite true, he said but to what are you alluding? I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. And we were very right. And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births. How so? Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in firstrate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. Very true. Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. Certainly, he replied. We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own illluck and not the rulers. To be sure, he said. And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. True. And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men Yes The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be. Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognises her own child and other wetnurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children. Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life? Very true. And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's? Which years do you mean to include? A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty a man may begin at fiveandtwenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fiftyfive. Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour. Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. Very true, he replied. And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated. Very true, he replied. This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on? They will never know. The way will be thisdating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to intermarry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. Quite right, he replied. Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be betterwould you not? Yes, certainly. Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State,what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? By all means. Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity? There cannot. And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and painswhere all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow? No doubt. Yes and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganizedwhen you have one half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens? Certainly. Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'his' and 'not his.' Exactly so. And is not that the bestordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same way to the same thing? Quite true. Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individualas in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. Very true, he replied and I agree with you that in the bestordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him? Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a wellordered State. It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles. Very good. Our State like every other has rulers and subjects? True. All of whom will call one another citizens? Of course. But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States? Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers. And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers? They are called saviours and helpers, he replied. And what do the rulers call the people? Their maintainers and fosterfathers. And what do they call them in other States? Slaves. And what do the rulers call one another in other States? Fellowrulers. And what in ours? Fellowguardians. Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend? Yes, very often. And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest? Exactly. But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger? Certainly he would not for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him. Capital, I said but let me ask you once more Shall they be a family in name only or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,' would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk? These, he said, and none other for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them? Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any one is well or ill, the universal word will be 'with me it is well' or 'it is ill.' Most true. And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common? Yes, and so they will. And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain? Yes, far more so than in other States. And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children? That will be the chief reason. And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a wellordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain? That we acknowledged, and very rightly. Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State? Certainly. And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians. Right, he replied. Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about 'mine' and 'not mine' each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a common end. Certainly, he replied. And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion. Of course they will. Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to be honourable and right we shall make the protection of the person a matter of necessity. That is good, he said. Yes and there is a further good in the law viz. that if a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths. Certainly. To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the younger. Clearly. Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation of parents fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers. That is true, he replied. Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with one another? Yes, there will be no want of peace. And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one another. None whatever. I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keepthe many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of. Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that. And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are. Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous discussion some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappythey had nothing and might have possessed all thingsto whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole? Yes, I remember. And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victorsis the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it? Certainly not. At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, 'half is more than the whole.' If he were to consult me, I should say to him Stay where you are, when you have the offer of such a life. You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have describedcommon education, common children and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together like dogs and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes. I agree with you, he replied. The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community be found possibleas among other animals, so also among menand if possible, in what way possible? You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest. There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them. How? Why, of course they will go on expeditions together and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when they are grown up and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel? Yes, I have. And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians will be? The idea is ridiculous, he said. There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valour. That is quite true, Socrates and yet if they are defeated, which may often happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover. True, I said but would you never allow them to run any risk? I am far from saying that. Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it? Clearly. Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be incurred. Yes, very important. This then must be our first step,to make our children spectators of war but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger then all will be well. True. Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are safe and what dangerous? That may be assumed. And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones? True. And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers? Very properly. Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen there is a good deal of chance about them? True. Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape. What do you mean? he said. I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. I believe that you are right, he said. Next, as to war what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think? By all means, I should say. And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him. Certainly. But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say? I approve. And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship? To that too, I agree. But you will hardly agree to my next proposal. What is your proposal? That he should kiss and be kissed by them. Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour. Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible? Agreed. Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave youths should be honoured for he tells how Ajax, after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing. Most true, he said. Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning also with 'seats of precedence, and meats and full cups' and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them. That, he replied, is excellent. Yes, I said and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race? To be sure. Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead 'They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speechgifted men'? Yes and we accept his authority. We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction and we must do as he bids? By all means. And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are deemed preeminently good, whether they die from age, or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours. That is very right, he said. Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this? In what respect do you mean? First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there is that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians? To spare them is infinitely better. Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave that is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe. Certainly, he said they will in this way be united against the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another. Next as to the slain ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but their armour? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of plunder. Very true. And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him,is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead? Very like a dog, he said. Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial? Yes, he replied, we most certainly must. Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself? Very true. Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses, what is to be the practice? May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion? Both should be forbidden, in my judgment I would take the annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why? Pray do. Why, you see, there is a difference in the names 'discord' and 'war,' and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war. That is a very proper distinction, he replied. And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians? Very good, he said. And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends and such enmity is to be called discord. I agree. Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever. Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other. And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city? It ought to be, he replied. Then will not the citizens be good and civilized? Yes, very civilized. And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples? Most certainly. And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by them as discord onlya quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war? Certainly not. Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled? Certainly. They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents they will be correctors, not enemies? Just so. And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a citymen, women, and childrenare equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction? I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another. Then let us enact this law also for our guardiansthat they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses. Agreed and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous enactments, are very good. But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust asideIs such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and meansthe rest may be left. If I loiter for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and have no mercy I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and investigate. The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible speak out and at once. Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice. True, he replied but what of that? I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men? The approximation will be enough. We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact. True, he said. Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed? He would be none the worse. Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State? To be sure. And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described? Surely not, he replied. That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions. What admissions? I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in language? Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say? I agree. Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every respect coincide with the ideal if we are only able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility which you demand and will be contented. I am sure that I should be contentedwill not you? Yes, I will. Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or, if not, of two at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible. Certainly, he replied. I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one. What is it? he said. Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the waves yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonour and do you mark my words. Proceed. I said 'Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,nor the human race, as I believe,and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what and if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be 'pared by their fine wits,' and no mistake. You got me into the scrape, I said. And I was quite right however, I will do all I can to get you out of it but I can only give you goodwill and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than anotherthat is all. And now, having such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right. I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State then we shall be able to defend ourselves There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders. Then now for a definition, he said. Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation. Proceed. I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole. I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory. Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face the hooknose of another has, you say, a royal look while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the springtime of youth. If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the argument, I assent. And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine. Very good. And the same is true of ambitious men if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file and if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people,but honour of some kind they must have. Exactly. Once more let me ask Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only? The whole. And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole? Yes, of the whole. And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one? Very true, he said. Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right? Glaucon said If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus whether the performance is in town or countrythat makes no differencethey are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers? Certainly not, I replied they are only an imitation. He said Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. That is also good, he said but I should like to know what you mean? To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make. What is the proposition? That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two? Certainly. And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one? True again. And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark holds taken singly, each of them is one but from the various combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many? Very true. And this is the distinction which I draw between the sightloving, artloving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers. How do you distinguish them? he said. The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. True, he replied. Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this. Very true. And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to followof such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object? I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming. But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objectsis he a dreamer, or is he awake? He is wide awake. And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion? Certainly. But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits? We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied. Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.) I answer that he knows something. Something that is or is not? Something that is for how can that which is not ever be known? And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly nonexistent is utterly unknown? Nothing can be more certain. Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being? Yes, between them. And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to notbeing, for that intermediate between being and notbeing there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such? Certainly. Do we admit the existence of opinion? Undoubtedly. As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty? Another faculty. Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties? Yes. And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division. What division? I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean? Yes, I quite understand. Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking? Yes. And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it? Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties. And is opinion also a faculty? Certainly, he said for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion. And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion? Why, yes, he said how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs? An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them. Yes. Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subjectmatters? That is certain. Being is the sphere or subjectmatter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being? Yes. And opinion is to have an opinion? Yes. And do we know what we opine? or is the subjectmatter of opinion the same as the subjectmatter of knowledge? Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subjectmatter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same. Then if being is the subjectmatter of knowledge, something else must be the subjectmatter of opinion? Yes, something else. Well then, is notbeing the subjectmatter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about notbeing? Reflect when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing? Impossible. He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing? Yes. And notbeing is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing? True. Of notbeing, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative of being, knowledge? True, he said. Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with notbeing? Not with either. And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge? That seems to be true. But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance? In neither. Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance? Both and in no small degree. And also to be within and between them? Yes. Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate? No question. But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute notbeing and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them? True. And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion? There has. Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and notbeing, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty,the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean. True. This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beautyin whose opinion the beautiful is the manifoldhe, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is oneto him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly or of the just, which will not be found unjust or of the holy, which will not also be unholy? No, he replied the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly and the same is true of the rest. And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another? Quite true. And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names? True both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them. And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this? He replied They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or notbeing, or both, or neither. Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and notbeing? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than notbeing, or more full of light and existence than being. That is quite true, he said. Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing about in some region which is halfway between pure being and pure notbeing? We have. Yes and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty. Quite true. Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge? That is certain. But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only? Neither can that be denied. The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty. Yes, I remember. Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them? I shall tell them not to be angry no man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. Assuredly. And thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view. I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened. I suppose not, I said and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider. And what is the next question? he asked. Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State? And how can we rightly answer that question? Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our Statelet them be our guardians. Very good. Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes? There can be no question of that. And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of themare not such persons, I ask, simply blind? Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition. And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing? There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest of all great qualities they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect. Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences. By all means. In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State. What do you mean? Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. Agreed. And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honourable, which they are willing to renounce as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition. True. And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess? What quality? Truthfulness they will never intentionally receive into their mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth. Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them. 'May be,' my friend, I replied, is not the word say rather 'must be affirmed' for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections. Right, he said. And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth? How can there be? Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood? Never. The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth? Assuredly. But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel. True. He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasureI mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. That is most certain. Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character. Very true. Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered. What is that? There should be no secret corner of illiberality nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human. Most true, he replied. Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life? He cannot. Or can such an one account death fearful? No indeed. Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy? Certainly not. Or again can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a cowardcan he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings? Impossible. Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical. True. There is another point which should be remarked. What point? Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress. Certainly not. And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel? That is certain. Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes. Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic natures we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory? Certainly. And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion? Undoubtedly. And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion? To proportion. Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally wellproportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything. Certainly. Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being? They are absolutely necessary, he replied. And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred? The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study. And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State. Here Adeimantus interposed and said To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol. Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong? I cannot tell, he replied but I should like to know what is your opinion. Hear my answer I am of opinion that they are quite right. Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them? You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. Yes, Socrates and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose. I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steeringevery one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a goodfornothing but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or notthe possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a stargazer, a goodfornothing? Of course, said Adeimantus. Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State for you understand already. Certainly. Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary. I will. Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by himthat is not the order of nature neither are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich'the ingenious author of this saying told a liebut the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them goodfornothings and stargazers. Precisely so, he said. For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless in which opinion I agreed. Yes. And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained? True. Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other? By all means. And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy. Yes, that was said. Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance with present notions of him? Certainly, he said. And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after beingthat is his nature he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go onthe keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail. Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him. And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie? He will. And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads? Impossible. Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after? True, he replied. Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher. Exactly. And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoilingI am speaking of those who were said to be useless but not wickedand, when we have done with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation of which we speak. What are these corruptions? he said. I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men. Rare indeed. And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare natures! What causes? In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praiseworthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them. That is very singular, he replied. Then there are all the ordinary goods of lifebeauty, wealth, strength, rank, and great connections in the Stateyou understand the sort of thingsthese also have a corrupting and distracting effect. I understand but I should like to know more precisely what you mean about them. Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way you will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer appear strange to you. And how am I to do so? he asked. Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not. Very true. There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is greater. Certainly. And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are illeducated, become preeminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil? There I think that you are right. And our philosopher follows the same analogyhe is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said. When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blameat such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general havehe will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be? Yes, Socrates necessity will compel him. And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been mentioned. What is that? The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless. Indeed they do and in right good earnest. Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest? None, he replied. No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinionI speak, my friend, of human virtue only what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say. I quite assent, he replied. Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation. What are you going to say? Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by himhe would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator? Indeed he would. And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the socalled necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not? No, nor am I likely to hear. You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind? Certainly not. Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher? Impossible. And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world? They must. And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them? That is evident. Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificencethese were admitted by us to be the true philosopher's gifts. Yes. Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones? Certainly, he said. And his friends and fellowcitizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes? No question. Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day possess. That often happens, he said. And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride? To be sure he will. Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen? Far otherwise. And even if there be some one who through inherent goodness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions? There can be no doubt of it. And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher? Impossible. Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be illeducated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other socalled goods of life? We were quite right. Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States. That is most true, he said. And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment. That is certainly what people say. Yes and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to thema land well stocked with fair names and showy titleslike prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable? Yes. Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance and come into a fortune he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate? A most exact parallel. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard? There can be no question of it. And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom? No doubt, he said. Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant perchance some noble and welleducated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to heror peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages' bridle for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy but illhealth kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beastshe will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and goodwill, with bright hopes. Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs. A great workyes but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to him for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself. The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained the injustice of the charges against her has been shownis there anything more which you wish to say? Nothing more on that subject, he replied but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her. Not any of them, I said and that is precisely the accusation which I bring against themnot one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estrangedas the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but humanand now, I know, that you are going to ask, What that State is No, he said there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another questionwhether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other? Yes, I replied, ours in most respects but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws. That was said, he replied. Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult and what still remains is the reverse of easy. What is there remaining? The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State All great attempts are attended with risk 'hard is the good,' as men say. Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete. I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power my zeal you may see for yourselves and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit. In what manner? At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their proper business at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch as they never light up again. (Heraclitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.) But what ought to be their course? Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another. How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said I am sure of that and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced Thrasymachus least of all. Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence. You are speaking of a time which is not very near. Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtuesuch a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of themdo you think that they ever did? No indeed. No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak. And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right? Quite right. If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and isyea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves. My opinion agrees with yours, he said. But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude? I should imagine not, he replied. O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude they will change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of overeducation, you show them your philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing their character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such as they supposedif they view him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain. Who can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind. I quite agree with you, he said. And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this. It is most unbecoming. For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men his eye is ever directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse? Impossible. And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction. Of course. And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue? Anything but unskilful. And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern? They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking? They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves made, a clean surface. They will be very right, he said. Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the constitution? No doubt. And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man and this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God. Very true, he said. And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, until they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God? Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture. And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such an one as we are praising at whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State and are they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard? Much calmer, if there is any sense in them. Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being? They would not be so unreasonable. Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest good? Neither can they doubt this. But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected? Surely not. Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realized? I think that they will be less angry. Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms? By all means, he said. Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers? Surely no man, he said. And when they have come into being will any one say that they must of necessity be destroyed that they can hardly be saved is not denied even by us but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escapewho will venture to affirm this? Who indeed! But, said I, one is enough let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous. Yes, one is enough. The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them? Certainly. And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility? I think not. But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best. We have. And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible. Very good. And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but more remains to be discussedhow and by what studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies? Certainly. I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotismhe was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face not liking to stir the question which has now arisen. I perfectly remember, he said. Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold word but now let me dare to saythat the perfect guardian must be a philosopher. Yes, he said, let that be affirmed. And do not suppose that there will be many of them for the gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together they are mostly found in shreds and patches. What do you mean? he said. You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same time highspirited and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them. Very true, he said. On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. Quite true. And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any office or command. Certainly, he said. And will they be a class which is rarely found? Yes, indeed. Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mentionhe must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises. Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge? You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom? Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more. And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion of them? To what do you refer? We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear but that we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner whether you were satisfied or not, it is for you to say. Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair measure of truth. But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further. Not an uncommon case when people are indolent. Yes, I said and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State and of the laws. True. The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer circuit, and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling. What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than thishigher than justice and the other virtues? Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline merely, as at presentnothing short of the most finished picture should satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy! A right noble thought but do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge? Nay, I said, ask if you will but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be troublesome for you have often been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness? Assuredly not. You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge? Yes. And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good? How ridiculous! Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of itfor the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term 'good'this is of course ridiculous. Most true, he said. And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good. Certainly. And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same? True. There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved. There can be none. Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality but no one is satisfied with the appearance of goodthe reality is what they seek in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one. Very true, he said. Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance? Certainly not, he said. I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them. That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours. And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered? Of course, he replied but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either? Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters. True, Socrates but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own. Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know? Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty he has no right to do that but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion. And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road? Very true. And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty? Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as you are reaching the goal if you will only give such an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied. Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hearotherwise, not. By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our debt for the account of the parent. I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only take, however, this latter by way of interest, and at the same time have a care that I do not render a false account, although I have no intention of deceiving you. Yes, we will take all the care that we can proceed. Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at many other times. What? The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and so of other things which we describe and define to all of them the term 'many' is applied. True, he said. And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each. Very true. The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen. Exactly. And what is the organ with which we see the visible things? The sight, he said. And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense? True. But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived? No, I never have, he said. Then reflect has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard? Nothing of the sort. No, indeed, I replied and the same is true of most, if not all, the other sensesyou would not say that any of them requires such an addition? Certainly not. But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen? How do you mean? Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see colour being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible. Of what nature are you speaking? Of that which you term light, I replied. True, he said. Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing? Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble. And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear? You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say. May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows? How? Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun? No. Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun? By far the most like. And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun? Exactly. Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight? True, he said. And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind Will you be a little more explicit? he said. Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? Very true. But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them? Certainly. And the soul is like the eye when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence? Just so. Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good the good has a place of honour yet higher. What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good? God forbid, I replied but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view? In what point of view? You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? Certainly. In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power. Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness By the light of heaven, how amazing! Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you for you made me utter my fancies. And pray continue to utter them at any rate let us hear if there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun. Yes, I said, there is a great deal more. Then omit nothing, however slight. I will do my best, I said but I should think that a great deal will have to be omitted. I hope not, he said. You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz'). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind? I have. Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like Do you understand? Yes, I understand. Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made. Very good. Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? Most undoubtedly. Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual is to be divided. In what manner? ThusThere are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the soul uses the figures given by the former division as images the enquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle descends to the other end in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images as in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves. I do not quite understand your meaning, he said. Then I will try again you will understand me better when I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several branches of science these are their hypotheses, which they and every body are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion? Yes, he said, I know. And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so onthe forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind? That is true. And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value. I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts. And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypothesesthat is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends. I understand you, he replied not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. You have quite conceived my meaning, I said and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soulreason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the lastand let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement. And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightenedBehold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows? Yes, he said. And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them? Very true. And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passersby spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? No question, he replied. To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. That is certain. And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he said. And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? Certainly. Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another and he will contemplate him as he is. Certainly. He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him. And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellowprisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would. And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, 'Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,' and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? To be sure, he said. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes and that it was better not even to think of ascending and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. No question, he said. This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument the prisonhouse is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressedwhether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted. Yes, very natural. And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice? Anything but surprising, he replied. Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. That, he said, is a very just distinction. But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. They undoubtedly say this, he replied. Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good. Very true. And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth? Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed. And whereas the other socalled virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever roguehow eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness? Very true, he said. But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are belowif, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now. Very likely. Yes, I said and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest. Very true, he replied. Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of allthey must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now. What do you mean? I mean that they remain in the upper world but this must not be allowed they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not. But is not this unjust? he said ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better? You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State. True, he said, I had forgotten. Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being selftaught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. Quite true, he replied. And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light? Impossible, he answered for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State. Yes, my friend, I said and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a wellordered State for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State. Most true, he replied. And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other? Indeed, I do not, he said. And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight. No question. Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics? They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied. And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods? By all means, he replied. The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oystershell (In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oystershell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.), but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy? Quite so. And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of effecting such a change? Certainly. What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes? Yes, that was said. Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality? What quality? Usefulness in war. Yes, if possible. There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not? Just so. There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption? True. Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? No. But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent into our former scheme? Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking. You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us? Undoubtedly and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the arts are also excluded, what remains? Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects and then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of universal application. What may that be? A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of education. What is that? The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and threein a word, number and calculationdo not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of them? Yes. Then the art of war partakes of them? To be sure. Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at Troy which implies that they had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of counting his own feethow could he if he was ignorant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been? I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say. Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic? Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all. I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of this study? What is your notion? It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seeking, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being. Will you explain your meaning? he said. I will try, I said and I wish you would share the enquiry with me, and say 'yes' or 'no' when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them. Explain, he said. I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds some of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them while in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further enquiry is imperatively demanded. You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade. No, I said, that is not at all my meaning. Then what is your meaning? When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from one sensation to the opposite inviting objects are those which do in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearerhere are three fingersa little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger. Very good. You may suppose that they are seen quite close And here comes the point. What is it? Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thinit makes no difference a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger. True. And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which invites or excites intelligence. There is not, he said. But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other senses do they give perfect intimations of such matters? Is not their mode of operation on this wisethe sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft? You are quite right, he said. And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light? Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious and require to be explained. Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects announced to her are one or two. True. And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different? Certainly. And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the two as in a state of division, for if there were undivided they could only be conceived of as one? True. The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused manner they were not distinguished. Yes. Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and not confused. Very true. Was not this the beginning of the enquiry 'What is great?' and 'What is small?' Exactly so. And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible. Most true. This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the intellect, or the reversethose which are simultaneous with opposite impressions, invite thought those which are not simultaneous do not. I understand, he said, and agree with you. And to which class do unity and number belong? I do not know, he replied. Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the answer for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks 'What is absolute unity?' This is the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being. And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude? Yes, I said and this being true of one must be equally true of all number? Certainly. And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number? Yes. And they appear to lead the mind towards truth? Yes, in a very remarkable manner. Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician. That is true. And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher? Certainly. Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe and we must endeavour to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only nor again, like merchants or retailtraders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being. That is excellent, he said. Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how charming the science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper! How do you mean? I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You know how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule any one who attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide, they multiply (Meaning either () that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of fractions or () that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the fractions of one continue to be units.), taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in fractions. That is very true. Now, suppose a person were to say to them O my friends, what are these wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible,what would they answer? They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those numbers which can only be realized in thought. Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called necessary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the attainment of pure truth? Yes that is a marked characteristic of it. And have you further observed, that those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would otherwise have been. Very true, he said. And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many as difficult. You will not. And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up. I agree. Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we enquire whether the kindred science also concerns us? You mean geometry? Exactly so. Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician. Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough the question relates rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometrywhether that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the idea of good and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold. True, he said. Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us if becoming only, it does not concern us? Yes, that is what we assert. Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians. How so? They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the likethey confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science. Certainly, he said. Then must not a further admission be made? What admission? That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient. That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true. Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down. Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect. Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover the science has indirect effects, which are not small. Of what kind? he said. There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not. Yes indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them. Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study? Let us do so, he replied. And suppose we make astronomy the thirdwhat do you say? I am strongly inclined to it, he said the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor. I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and reillumined and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation another class to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive. I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf. Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences. What was the mistake? he said. After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves whereas after the second dimension the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed. That is true, Socrates but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects. Why, yes, I said, and for two reasonsin the first place, no government patronises them this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult in the second place, students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and even if he could, as matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director of these studies and gave honour to them then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light. Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane surfaces? Yes, I said. And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward? Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry the ludicrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy, or motion of solids. True, he said. Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth. The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Every one but myself, I said to every one else this may be clear, but not to me. And what then would you say? I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards. What do you mean? he asked. You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back. I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking? I will tell you, I said The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied. The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviationthat would be absurd and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two? There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be? The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions and these are sister sciencesas the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? Yes, he replied. But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that? There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labour, like that of the astronomers, is in vain. Yes, by heaven! he said and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbour's wallone set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the sameeither party setting their ears before their understanding. You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problemsthat is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not. That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge. A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good but if pursued in any other spirit, useless. Very true, he said. Now, when all these studies reach the point of intercommunion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects otherwise there is no profit in them. I suspect so but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work. What do you mean? I said the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? Assuredly not, he said I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Neither can this be supposed. And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. Exactly, he said. Then this is the progress which you call dialectic? True. But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible worldthis power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described. I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain (A play upon the Greek word, which means both 'law' and 'strain.'), and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither for these paths will also lead to our final rest. Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say but you would have seen something like reality of that I am confident. Doubtless, he replied. But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last. And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true beinggeometry and the likethey only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Impossible, he said. Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider? Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness? At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being and so to make a proportion As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows. But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been. As far as I understand, he said, I agree. And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much? Yes, he said how can I deny it? And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argumentunless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by sciencedreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus. In all that I should most certainly agree with you. And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educatingif the ideal ever becomes a realityyou would not allow the future rulers to be like posts (Literally 'lines,' probably the startingpoint of a racecourse.), having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters? Certainly not. Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the copingstone of the sciences, and is set over them no other science can be placed higherthe nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered. Yes, clearly. You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? Certainly, he said. The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. And what are these? Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics the toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body. Very true, he replied. Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him. Certainly, he said he must have natural gifts. The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards. What do you mean? In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industryI mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness. Certainly, he said. And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected? To be sure. And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities states and individuals unconsciously err and the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard. That is very true, he said. All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. That would not be creditable. Certainly not, I said and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous. In what respect? I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace and my anger made me too vehement. Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so. But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many thingsfor he can no more learn much than he can run much youth is the time for any extraordinary toil. Of course. And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education. Why not? Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Very true. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. That is a very rational notion, he said. Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle on horseback and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them? Yes, I remember. The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these thingslabours, lessons, dangersand he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. At what age? At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected. Certainly, he replied. After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root. Yes, I said and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical. I agree with you, he said. These, I said, are the points which you must consider and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are most steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being And here, my friend, great caution is required. Why great caution? Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced? What evil? he said. The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. Quite true, he said. Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them? In what way make allowance? I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth he is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you? If you please. Then I should say, that while he is ignorant of the truth he will be likely to honour his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatterers he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter. He will. But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers their influence over him would greatly increase he would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations. Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy? In this way you know that there are certain principles about justice and honour, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honouring them. That is true. There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers. True. Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before? Impossible. And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires? He cannot. And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it? Unquestionably. Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable. Yes, he said and, I may add, pitiable. Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic. Certainly. There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them like puppydogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them. Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better. And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world. Too true, he said. But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honour of the pursuit. Very true, he said. And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder? Very true. Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercisewill that be enough? Would you say six or four years? he asked. Say five years, I replied at the end of the time they must be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold in this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch. And how long is this stage of their lives to last? Fifteen years, I answered and when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty and when they have brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honour them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if not, as in any case blessed and divine. You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty. Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures can go. There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men. Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honour that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city? How will they proceed? They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being. Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its imagethere is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him. There is no difficulty, he replied and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings? That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged. Yes, I said and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual and about their property, you remember what we agreed? Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole State. True, I said and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path. There is no difficulty in returning you implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the State you said that such a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false and of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word and you began again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived. Your recollection, I said, is most exact. Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then. Yes, if I can, I will, I said. I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking. That question, I said, is easily answered the four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded what is termed oligarchy comes next this is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians. Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them. Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them? Yes, he said, the States are as the men are they grow out of human characters. Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five? Certainly. Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good, we have already described. We have. Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice. Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say. Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honour?I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual and, after that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision. That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable. First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved. Very true, he said. In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest? How would they address us? After this mannerA city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolutionIn plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in shortlived existences pass over a short space, and in longlived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number (i.e. a cyclical number, such as , which is equal to the sum of its divisors , , , so that when the circle or time represented by  is completed, the lesser times or rotations represented by , ,  are also completed.), but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. (Probably the numbers , , ,  of which the three first  the sides of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be  cubed,  cubed,  cubed, which together   cubed  .) The base of these () with a third added () when combined with five () and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies the first a square which is a hundred times as great (   x ) (Or the first a square which is  x   ,. The whole number will then be ,  a square of , and an oblong of  by .), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five ( x    x   ), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. ) or less by (Or, 'consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters,' etc.  . For other explanations of the passage see Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five      ) and a hundred cubes of three ( x         ). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the Muses, first by undervaluing music which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising and this is their answer to us. Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly how can the Muses speak falsely? And what do the Muses say next? When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual owners and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants and they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them. I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change. And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy? Very true. Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said. In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military trainingin all these respects this State will resemble the former. True. But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting warsthis State will be for the most part peculiar. Yes. Yes, I said and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please. That is most true, he said. And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil. Why, there is a mixture, I said but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,the spirit of contention and ambition and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said. Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outline only the more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour. Very true, he replied. Now what man answers to this form of governmenthow did he come into being, and what is he like? I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point but there are other respects in which he is very different. In what respects? He should have more of selfassertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture and he should be a good listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority he is a lover of power and a lover of honour claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy. Such an one will despise riches only when he is young but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not singleminded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian. Who was that? said Adeimantus. Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life. Good, he said. Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State. Exactly. His origin is as followsHe is often the young son of a brave father, who dwells in an illgoverned city, of which he declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble. And how does the son come into being? The character of the son begins to develope when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easygoing adding all the other complaints about her own illtreatment which women are so fond of rehearsing. Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves. And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son and if they see any one who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busybodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these thingshearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and othersis drawn opposite ways while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious. You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second type of character? We have. Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says, 'Is set over against another State' or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State. By all means. I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. I understand, he replied. Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to oligarchy arises? Yes. Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other. How? The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy they invent illegal modes of expenditure for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. Likely enough. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. True. And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured. Clearly. And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected. That is obvious. And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man. They do so. They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work. Very true. And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established. Yes, he said but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking? First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot? You mean that they would shipwreck? Yes and is not this true of the government of anything? I should imagine so. Except a city?or would you include a city? Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all. This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy? Clearly. And here is another defect which is quite as bad. What defect? The inevitable division such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another. That, surely, is at least as bad. Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes. How discreditable! And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callingsthey are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well? Anything but well. There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable. What evil? A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature. Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State. The evil is certainly not prevented there for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. True. But think again In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift? As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift. May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive? Just so, Socrates. And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed. Most true, he said. Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cutpurses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors. Clearly. Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers? Yes, he said nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler. And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force? Certainly, we may be so bold. The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, illtraining, and an evil constitution of the State? True. Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy and there may be many other evils. Very likely. Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State. By all means. Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise? How? A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost he may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death, or exiled, or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him. Nothing more likely. And the son has seen and known all thishe is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion headforemost from his bosom's throne humbled by poverty he takes to moneymaking and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar? Most true, he replied. And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it. Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one. And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth? Yes, he said at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came. Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. Very good. First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth? Certainly. Also in their penurious, laborious character the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them his other desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable. True. He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents? He appears to me to be so at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State. You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honour. Excellent! I said. Yet consider Must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life? True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? Where must I look? You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan. Aye. It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions. To be sure. Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own. Yes, and they will be strong in him too. The man, then, will be at war with himself he will be two men, and not one but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True. For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him. I should expect so. And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition he will not spend his money in the contest for glory so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true. Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and moneymaker answers to the oligarchical State? There can be no doubt. Next comes democracy of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment. That, he said, is our method. Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?The good at which such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable? What then? The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance? To be sure. There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent one or the other will be disregarded. That is tolerably clear. And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary? Yes, often. And still they remain in the city there they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship a third class are in both predicaments and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution. That is true. On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their stingthat is, their moneyinto some one else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State. Yes, he said, there are plenty of themthat is certain. The evil blazes up like a fire and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by another remedy What other? One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their charactersLet there be a general rule that every one shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous moneymaking, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the State. Yes, they will be greatly lessened. At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. Very true. They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue. Yes, quite as indifferent. Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellowsoldiers or fellowsailors aye and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of dangerfor where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the richand very likely the wiry sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous fleshwhen he sees such an one puffing and at his wits'end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another 'Our warriors are not good for much'? Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking. And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise withinin the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself and may be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause. Yes, surely. And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw. And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man. Clearly, he said. In the first place, are they not free and is not the city full of freedom and franknessa man may say and do what he likes? 'Tis said so, he replied. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases? Clearly. Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures? There will. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States. Yes. Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government. Why? Because of the liberty which reigns therethey have a complete assortment of constitutions and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State. He will be sure to have patterns enough. And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposedthere being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you have a fancyis not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful? For the moment, yes. And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the worldthe gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares? Yes, he replied, many and many a one. See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the cityas when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a studyhow grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who professes to be the people's friend. Yes, she is of a noble spirit. These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. We know her well. Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being. Very good, he said. Is not this the wayhe is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father who has trained him in his own habits? Exactly. And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary? Obviously. Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures? I should. Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwardsof which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of goodshall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them? Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? Yes. But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health? Certainly. And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary? Very true. May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production? Certainly. And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good? True. And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical? Very true. Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What is the process? When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasurethen, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical? Inevitably. And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and alike? Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself. It must be so. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous. Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him. Very true. At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels. None better. False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. They are certain to do so. And so the young man returns into the country of the lotuseaters, and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth they persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with a will. And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is oversupposing that he then readmits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successorsin that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another he despises none of them but encourages them all equally. Very true, he said. Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the otherswhenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another. Yes, he said that is the way with him. Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute then he becomes a waterdrinker, and tries to get thin then he takes a turn at gymnastics sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom and so he goes on. Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. Yes, I said his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of manyhe answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him. Just so. Let him then be set over against democracy he may truly be called the democratic man. Let that be his place, he said. Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant these we have now to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, In what manner does tyranny arise?that it has a democratic origin is evident. Clearly. And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchyI mean, after a sort? How? The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealtham I not right? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of moneygetting was also the ruin of oligarchy? True. And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution? What good? Freedom, I replied which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of the Stateand that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. Yes the saying is in every body's mouth. I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny. How so? When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cupbearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs. Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence. Yes, I said and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit? Certainly not. By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. How do you mean? I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger is quite as good as either. Yes, he said, that is the way. And these are not the only evils, I saidthere are several lesser ones In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors young and old are all alike and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. Quite true, he said. The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips? That is what I am doing, I replied and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State for truly, the shedogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their shemistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them and all things are just ready to burst with liberty. When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing. And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten they will have no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well. Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny. Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step? The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracythe truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government. True. The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. Yes, the natural order. And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty? As we might expect. That, however, was not, as I believe, your questionyou rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both? Just so, he replied. Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings. A very just comparison. These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise beemaster, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. Yes, by all means, he said. Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State. That is true. And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. How so? Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. Very true, he said. Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass. What is that? They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest. Naturally so. They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones. Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little. And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them. That is pretty much the case, he said. The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. True, he said but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey. And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves? Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share. And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best can? What else can they do? And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy? True. And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds revolution in them. That is exactly the truth. Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another. True. The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. Yes, that is their way. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs when he first appears above ground he is a protector. Yes, that is quite clear. How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus. What tale? The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it? Oh, yes. And the protector of the people is like him having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen by the favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizens some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolfthat is, a tyrant? Inevitably. This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich? The same. After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown. That is clear. And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him. Yes, he said, that is their usual way. Then comes the famous request for a bodyguard, which is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career'Let not the people's friend,' as they say, 'be lost to them.' Exactly. The people readily assent all their fears are for himthey have none for themselves. Very true. And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus, 'By pebbly Hermus' shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a coward.' And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again. But if he is caught he dies. Of course. And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 'larding the plain' with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute. No doubt, he said. And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in which a creature like him is generated. Yes, he said, let us consider that. At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meetshe to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one! Of course, he said. But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. To be sure. Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly. And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. He must. Now he begins to grow unpopular. A necessary result. Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done. Yes, that may be expected. And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything. He cannot. And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is highminded, who is wise, who is wealthy happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State. Yes, he said, and a rare purgation. Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse. If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. What a blessed alternative, I saidto be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all! Yes, that is the alternative. And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require? Certainly. And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them? They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them. By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every land. Yes, he said, there are. But will he not desire to get them on the spot? How do you mean? He will rob the citizens of their slaves he will then set them free and enrol them in his bodyguard. To be sure, he said and he will be able to trust them best of all. What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be he has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends. Yes, he said they are quite of his sort. Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him. Of course. Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian. Why so? Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying, 'Tyrants are wise by living with the wise' and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions. Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets. And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny. Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us. But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies. Very true. Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honourthe greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further. True. But we are wandering from the subject Let us therefore return and enquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and everchanging army of his. If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people. And when these fail? Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's estate. You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will maintain him and his companions? Yes, he said they cannot help themselves. But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grownup son ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates. By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong. Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him? Yes, he will, having first disarmed him. Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery. True, he said. Very well and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to tyranny? Yes, quite enough, he said. Last of all comes the tyrannical man about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery? Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining. There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered. What question? I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused. Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission. Very true, I said and observe the point which I want to understand Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over themeither they are wholly banished or they become few and weak while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them. Which appetites do you mean? I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires and there is no conceivable folly or crimenot excepting incest or any other unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden foodwhich at such a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit. Most true, he said. But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, collecting himself in meditation after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from interfering with the higher principlewhich he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against any oneI say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions. I quite agree. In saying this I have been running into a digression but the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wildbeast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you agree with me. Yes, I agree. And now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament? True. And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch? Yes, he said that was our view of him, and is so still. And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father's principles. I can imagine him. Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the fatherhe is drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrantmakers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lustsa sort of monstrous winged dronethat is the only image which will adequately describe him. Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him. And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his dronelike nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation, and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full. Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated. And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant? I should not wonder. Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant? He has. And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods? That he will. And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when, either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so? Assuredly. Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live? Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me. I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtezans, and all that sort of thing Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul. That is certain. Yes and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their demands are many. They are indeed, he said. His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent. True. Then comes debt and the cutting down of his property. Of course. When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food and he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them? Yes, that is sure to be the case. He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and pangs. He must. And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs. No doubt he will. And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and deceive them. Very true. And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them. Yes, probably. And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them? Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents. But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some newfangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary connection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is brought under the same roof with her or that, under like circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some newlyfound blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable? Yes, indeed, he said I believe that he would. Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother. He is indeed, he replied. He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the bodyguard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life? Yes, indeed, he said. And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and become the bodyguard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war and if there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city. What sort of mischief? For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cutpurses, footpads, robbers of temples, manstealers of the community or if they are able to speak they turn informers, and bear false witness, and take bribes. A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in number. Yes, I said but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant. Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant. If the people yield, well and good but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires. Exactly. When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them they profess every sort of affection for them but when they have gained their point they know them no more. Yes, truly. They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship. Certainly not. And may we not rightly call such men treacherous? No question. Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice? Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right. Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man he is the waking reality of what we dreamed. Most true. And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes. That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer. And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable although this may not be the opinion of men in general? Yes, he said, inevitably. And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical State, and the democratical man like the democratical State and the same of the others? Certainly. And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to man? To be sure. Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue? They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst. There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panicstricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion. A fair invitation, he replied and I see, as every one must, that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest. And in estimating the men too, may I not fairly make a like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his dally life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public dangerhe shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men? That again, he said, is a very fair proposal. Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have before now met with such a person? We shall then have some one who will answer our enquiries. By all means. Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective conditions? What do you mean? he asked. Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State? Yes, he said, I see that there area few but the people, speaking generally, and the best of them are miserably degraded and enslaved. Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgaritythe best elements in him are enslaved and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. Inevitably. And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave? He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily? Utterly incapable. And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse? Certainly. And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor? Poor. And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable? True. And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear? Yes, indeed. Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain? Certainly not. And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires? Impossible. Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States? And I was right, he said. Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man, what do you say of him? I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men. There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong. What do you mean? I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery. Then who is more miserable? One of whom I am about to speak. Who is that? He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant. From what has been said, I gather that you are right. Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more certain, and should not conjecture only for of all questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest. Very true, he said. Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light upon this subject. What is your illustration? The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves the only difference is that he has more slaves. Yes, that is the difference. You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants? What should they fear? Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this? Yes the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual. Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help himwill he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves? Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear. The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his willhe will have to cajole his own servants. Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself. And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life? His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies. And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be boundhe who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest. Very true, he said. And amid evils such as these will not he who is illgoverned in his own personthe tyrannical man, I meanwhom you just now decided to be the most miserable of allwill not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men. Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact. Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst? Certainly. He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles and surely the resemblance holds? Very true, he said. Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. No man of any sense will dispute your words. Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow there are five of them in allthey are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical. The decision will be easily given, he replied they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery. Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston (the best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State? Make the proclamation yourself, he said. And shall I add, 'whether seen or unseen by gods and men'? Let the words be added. Then this, I said, will be our first proof and there is another, which may also have some weight. What is that? The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration. Of what nature? It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond also three desires and governing powers. How do you mean? he said. There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it also moneyloving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money. That is true, he said. If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money. I agree with you. Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame? True. Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitiouswould the term be suitable? Extremely suitable. On the other hand, every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame. Far less. 'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul? Certainly. One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in others, as may happen? Yes. Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of menlovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain? Exactly. And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects? Very true. Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others the moneymaker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver? True, he said. And the lover of honourwhat will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him? Very true. And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them? There can be no doubt of that, he replied. Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painlesshow shall we know who speaks truly? I cannot myself tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said. Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain? The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tastedor, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tastedthe sweetness of learning and knowing truth. Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience? Yes, very great. Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom? Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one? Far better. And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience? Certainly. Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher? What faculty? Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest. Yes. And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument? Certainly. If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy? Assuredly. Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest? Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life. Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life. And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next? Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour who is nearer to himself than the moneymaker. Last comes the lover of gain? Very true, he said. Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pureall others are a shadow only and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls? Yes, the greatest but will you explain yourself? I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions. Proceed. Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain? True. And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain? There is. A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about eitherthat is what you mean? Yes. You remember what people say when they are sick? What do they say? That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill. Yes, I know, he said. And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain? I have. And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure? Yes, he said at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest. Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful? Doubtless, he said. Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain? So it would seem. But can that which is neither become both? I should say not. And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not? Yes. But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion, and in a mean between them? Yes. How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain? Impossible. This then is an appearance only and not a reality that is to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleasant but all these representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real but a sort of imposition? That is the inference. Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. What are they, he said, and where shall I find them? There are many of them take as an example the pleasures of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them. Most true, he said. Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. No. Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sortthey are reliefs of pain. That is true. And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature? Yes. Shall I give you an illustration of them? Let me hear. You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region? I should. And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world? To be sure, he said how can he think otherwise? But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending? No doubt. All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions? Yes. Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state so that when they are only being drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of whitecan you wonder, I say, at this? No, indeed I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite. Look at the matter thusHunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the bodily state? Yes. And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul? True. And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either? Certainly. And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer? Clearly, from that which has more. What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgmentthose of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this wayWhich has a more pure beingthat which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal? Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable. And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence? Yes, of knowledge in the same degree. And of truth in the same degree? Yes. And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence? Necessarily. Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul? Far less. And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul? Yes. What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence and is less real? Of course. And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure? Unquestionably. Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the diningtable, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle. Their pleasures are mixed with painshow can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth. Something of that sort must inevitably happen. And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense? Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also. Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him? Yes, certainly the best is the most natural. And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? Exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own? True. And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure? Yes. And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly. And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance? Yes. And the royal and orderly desires are nearest? Yes. Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least? Certainly. But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly? Inevitably. Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them? Will you tell me? There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. How do you mean? I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch the democrat was in the middle? Yes. And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch? He will. And the oligarch is third from the royal since we count as one royal and aristocratical? Yes, he is third. Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three? Manifestly. The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure. Certainly. And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king. Yes the arithmetician will easily do the sum. Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living  times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval. What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain! Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and years. ( NEARLY equals the number of days and nights in the year.) Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them. Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue? Immeasurably greater. Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just? Yes, that was said. Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him. What shall we say to him? Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes. Of what sort? An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one. There are said of have been such unions. Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, manyheaded monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will. You suppose marvellous powers in the artist but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose. Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second. That, he said, is an easier task and I have made them as you say. And now join them, and let the three grow into one. That has been accomplished. Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said. And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and the lionlike qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one anotherhe ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another. Certainly, he said that is what the approver of injustice says. To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the entire human creature. He should watch over the manyheaded monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing he should be making the lionheart his ally, and in common care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself. Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice say. And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honour, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant? Yes, from every point of view. Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. 'Sweet Sir,' we will say to him, 'what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying Yescan he now? Not if he has any regard for my opinion. But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question 'Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.' Yes, said Glaucon, far worseI will answer for him. Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large? Clearly. And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength? Yes. And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him? Very true. And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey? True, he said. And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them. Such appears to be the reason. And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine rules not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. True, he said. And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways. Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest. From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness? From no point of view at all. What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body. Certainly, he said. To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will disregard others? Clearly, he said. In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul? Certainly he will, if he has true music in him. And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm? Certainly not, he said. He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means. Very true. And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man but those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid? Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman. By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call. I understand you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth? In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other. I think so, he said. Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry. To what do you refer? To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished. What do you mean? Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribebut I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them. Explain the purport of your remark. Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out. Very good, he said. Listen to me then, or rather, answer me. Put your question. Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know. A likely thing, then, that I should know. Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener. Very true, he said but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you enquire yourself? Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or formdo you understand me? I do. Let us take any common instance there are beds and tables in the worldplenty of them, are there not? Yes. But there are only two ideas or forms of themone the idea of a bed, the other of a table. True. And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the ideathat is our way of speaking in this and similar instancesbut no artificer makes the ideas themselves how could he? Impossible. And there is another artist,I should like to know what you would say of him. Who is he? One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen. What an extraordinary man! Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other thingsthe earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth he makes the gods also. He must be a wizard and no mistake. Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself? What way? An easy way enough or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and roundyou would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror. Yes, he said but they would be appearances only. Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such anothera creator of appearances, is he not? Of course. But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed? Yes, he said, but not a real bed. And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed? Yes, I did. Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of existence and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth. At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth. No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth. No wonder. Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is? If you please. Well then, here are three beds one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may sayfor no one else can be the maker? No. There is another which is the work of the carpenter? Yes. And the work of the painter is a third? Yes. Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them God, the maker of the bed, and the painter? Yes, there are three of them. God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God. Why is that? Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and not the two others. Very true, he said. God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only. So we believe. Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed? Yes, he replied inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things. And what shall we say of the carpenteris not he also the maker of the bed? Yes. But would you call the painter a creator and maker? Certainly not. Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make. Good, I said then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator? Certainly, he said. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth? That appears to be so. Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists? The latter. As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this. What do you mean? I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things. Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent. Now let me ask you another question Which is the art of painting designed to bean imitation of things as they are, or as they appearof appearance or of reality? Of appearance. Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter. Certainly. And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other manwhoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought allknowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation. Most true. And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well? The question, he said, should by all means be considered. Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the imagemaking branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him? I should say not. The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them. Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit. Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer not about medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at secondhand but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. 'Friend Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the thirdnot an image maker or imitatorand if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us but what city has anything to say about you?' Is there any city which he might name? I think not, said Glaucon not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator. Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive? There is not. Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him? There is absolutely nothing of the kind. But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him? Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive? Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankindif he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitatorcan you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries 'You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education'and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough? Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true. Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators they copy images of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures. Quite so. In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very wellsuch is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. Yes, he said. They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them? Exactly. Here is another point The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence he knows appearances only. Am I not right? Yes. Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation. Proceed. Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit? Yes. And the worker in leather and brass will make them? Certainly. But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them only the horseman who knows how to use themhe knows their right form. Most true. And may we not say the same of all things? What? That there are three arts which are concerned with all things one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them? Yes. And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. True. Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use for example, the fluteplayer will tell the flutemaker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions? Of course. The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him? True. The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge? True. But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw? Neither. Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations? I suppose not. The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations? Nay, very much the reverse. And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude? Just so. Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in Iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree? Very true. And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth? Certainly. And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed? What do you mean? I will explain The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance? True. And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic. True. And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understandingthere is the beauty of themand the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight? Most true. And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul? To be sure. And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction? True. But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossiblethe same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing? Very true. Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure? True. And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation? Certainly. And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul? No doubt. This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim. Exactly. The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring. Very true. And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry? Probably the same would be true of poetry. Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad. By all means. We may state the question thusImitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? No, there is nothing else. But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himselfor rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life? Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment? And we were right, he said. Yes, I said, thus far we were right but there was an omission which must now be supplied. What was the omission? Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another? Yes. But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow? The latter, he said, is the truer statement. Tell me will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone? It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not. When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do? True. There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow? True. But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him? Certainly. One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law? How do you mean? The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil and nothing is gained by impatience also, because no human thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required. What is most required? he asked. That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art. Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune. Yes, I said and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason? Clearly. And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly? Indeed, we may. And does not the latterI mean the rebellious principlefurnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers. Certainly. Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated? Clearly. And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truthin this, I say, he is like him and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a wellordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another smallhe is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth. Exactly. But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusationthe power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing? Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say. Hear and judge The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breastthe best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most. Yes, of course I know. But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite qualitywe would fain be quiet and patient this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman. Very true, he said. Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person? No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable. Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view. What point of view? If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poetsthe better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own. How very true! And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemlinessthe case of pity is repeatedthere is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home. Quite true, he said. And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every actionin all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue. I cannot deny it. Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honour those who say these thingsthey are excellent people, as far as their lights extend and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State. That is most true, he said. And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in the vain talk of fools,' and 'the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,' and the 'subtle thinkers who are beggars after all' and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation, that if she will only prove her title to exist in a wellordered State we shall be delighted to receive herwe are very conscious of her charms but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she appears in Homer? Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed. Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon this condition onlythat she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some other metre? Certainly. And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gainersI mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight? Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers. If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest but so long as she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you. Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue? Yes, he said I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been. And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue. What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness. Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity? Say rather 'nothing,' he replied. And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole? Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask? Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? He looked at me in astonishment, and said No, by heaven And are you really prepared to maintain this? Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you toothere is no difficulty in proving it. I see a great difficulty but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light. Listen then. I am attending. There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil? Yes, he replied. Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good? Yes. And you admit that every thing has a good and also an evil as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease? Yes, he said. And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies? True. The vice and evil which is inherent in each is the destruction of each and if this does not destroy them there is nothing else that will for good certainly will not destroy them, nor again, that which is neither good nor evil. Certainly not. If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no destruction? That may be assumed. Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul? Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in review unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance. But does any of these dissolve or destroy her?and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true? Yes. Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body? Certainly not. And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of its own? It is, he replied. Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infectionthis we shall absolutely deny? Very true. And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another? Yes, he said, there is reason in that. Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the body but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man. And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust in consequence of death. But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds? Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer aliveaye, and well awake too so far removed is her dwellingplace from being a house of death. True, I said if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction. Yes, that can hardly be. But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether inherent or external, must exist for ever, and if existing for ever, must be immortal? Certainly. That is the conclusion, I said and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality. Very true. But this we cannot believereason will not allow usany more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity. What do you mean? he said. The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements? Certainly not. Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the seagod Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where then? At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough. True, he replied. And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod but justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades. Very true. And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death. Certainly not, he said. Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument? What did I borrow? The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember? I should be much to blame if I had forgotten. Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own. The demand, he said, is just. In the first place, I saidand this is the first thing which you will have to give backthe nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods. Granted. And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning? True. And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins? Certainly. Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? Yes, he said if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him. And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed? Certainly. Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just? That is my conviction. And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the startingplace to the goal but not back again from the goal they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow. True. And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen they are beaten and then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true? Certainly, he said, what you say is true. These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides. Yes, he said and they are fair and lasting. And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them. Speak, he said there are few things which I would more gladly hear. Well, I said, I will tell you a tale not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell but the sum was thisHe said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold or once in a hundred yearssuch being reckoned to be the length of man's life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behaviour, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers, there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, 'Where is Ardiaeus the Great?' (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was 'He comes not hither and will never come. And this,' said he, 'was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals who had been great criminals they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passersby what were their crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell.' And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the undergirders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportionsthe sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth then comes the eighth the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest (or fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or sun) is brightest the eighth (or moon) coloured by the reflected light of the seventh the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding the third (Venus) has the whitest light the fourth (Mars) is reddish the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth next in swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion the fourth the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirensLachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other. When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows 'Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her the responsibility is with the chooserGod is justified.' When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary and there were lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise there was not, however, any definite character in them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and the all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the supreme peril of our human state and therefore the utmost care should be taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find some one who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue he should know what the effect of beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all the natural and acquired gifts of the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this is the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villainies, he do irremediable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse himself but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness. And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time 'Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.' And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a wellordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectaclesad and laughable and strange for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human naturesthe good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations. All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre. And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.
Copyright  by Kahlil Gibran All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce not more than three illustrations in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Published September  The Twelve Illustrations In This Volume Are Reproduced From Original Drawings By The Author 'His power came from some great reservoir of spiritual life else it could not have been so universal and so potent, but the majesty and beauty of the language with which he clothed it were all his own? Claude Bragdon The Madman.  Twenty Drawings.  The Forerunner.  The Prophet.  Sand and Foam.  Jesus the Son of Man.  The Forth Gods.  The Wanderer.  The Garden of the Prophet  Prose Poems.  Nymphs of the Valley.  Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth. And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielool, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward and he beheld his ship coming with the mist. Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul. But as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret? Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache. It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark. For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould. Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I? A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun. Now when he reached the foot of the hill, he turned again towards the sea, and he saw his ship approaching the harbour, and upon her prow the mariners, the men of his own land. And his soul cried out to them, and he said Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides, How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream. Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind. Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward, And then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers. And you, vast sea, sleepless mother, Who alone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream, Only another winding will this stream make, only another murmur in this glade, And then shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean. And as he walked he saw from afar men and women leaving their fields and their vineyards and hastening towards the city gates. And he heard their voices calling his name, and shouting from field to field telling one another of the coming of his ship. And he said to himself Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering? And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn? And what shall I give unto him who has left his plough in midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress? Shall my heart become a tree heavyladen with fruit that I may gather and give unto them? And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill their cups? Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me? A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence? If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons? If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein. Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, And the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also. These things he said in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak his deeper secret. And when he entered into the city all the people came to meet him, and they were crying out to him as with one voice. And the elders of the city stood forth and said Go not yet away from us. A noontide have you been in our twilight, and your youth has given us dreams to dream. No stranger are you among us, nor a guest, but our son and our dearly beloved. Suffer not yet our eyes to hunger for your face. And the priests and the priestesses said unto him Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory. You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces. Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and with veils has it been veiled. Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before you. And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. And others came also and entreated him. But he answered them not. He only bent his head and those who stood near saw his tears falling upon his breast. And he and the people proceeded towards the great square before the temple. And there came out of the sanctuary a woman whose name was Almitra. And she was a seeress. And he looked upon her with exceeding tenderness, for it was she who had first sought and believed in him when he had been but a day in their city. And she hailed him, saying Prophet of God, in quest of the uttermost, long have you searched the distances for your ship. And now your ship has come, and you must needs go. Deep is your longing for the land of your memories and the dwelling place of your greater desires and our love would not bind you nor our needs hold you. Yet this we ask ere you leave us, that you speak to us and give us of your truth. And we will give it unto our children, and they unto their children, and it shall not perish. In your aloneness you have watched with our days, and in your wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our sleep. Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death. And he answered, People of Orphalese, of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls? Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love. And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart. But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshingfloor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed For love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say, 'God is in my heart, but rather, 'I am in the heart of God. And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstacy To return home at eventide with gratitude And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips. Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage master? And he answered saying You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving. And he answered You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow? And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city? And what is fear of need but need itself? Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable? There are those who give little of the much which they haveand they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space. Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding And to the openhanded the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving. And is there aught you would withhold? All you have shall some day be given Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'. You often say, 'I would give, but only to the deserving. The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you. And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream. And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving? And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed? See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving. For in truth it is life that gives unto lifewhile you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness. And you receiversand you are all receiversassume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings For to be overmindful of your debt, is ito doubt his generosity who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father. Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating and Drinking. And he said Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship, And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man. When you kill a beast say to him in your heart, 'By the same power that slays you, I too am slain and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand. Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven. And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart, 'Your seeds shall live in my body, And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart, And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons. And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyards for the winepress, say in your heart, 'I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress, And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels. And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress. Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work. And he answered, saying You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness 'save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, 'He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet. But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow. And he answered Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, 'Joy is greater than sorrow, and others say, 'Nay, sorrow is the greater. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. When the treasurekeeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall. Then a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses. And he answered and said Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls. For even as you have homecomings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone. Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop? Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow. Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments. But these things are not yet to be. In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields. And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind? Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me, have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral. But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed. Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye. You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living. And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night. And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes. And he answered Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment, For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind. Some of you say, 'It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear. And I say, Ay, it was the north wind, But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread. And when his work was done he laughed in the forest. Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind? And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. And a merchant said, Speak to us of Buying and Selling. And he answered and said To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands. It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger. When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value. And suffer not the barrenhanded to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour. To such men you should say, 'Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us. And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,buy of their gifts also. For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul. And before you leave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands. For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied. Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, Speak to us of Crime and Punishment. And he answered, saying It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed. Like the ocean is your godself It remains for ever undefiled. And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your godself It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your godself dwells not alone in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man, But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening. And of the man in you would I now speak. For it is he and not your godself nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime. Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also. And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, So the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all. Like a procession you walk together towards your godself. You are the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone. And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder, And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed. The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked, And the whitehanded is not clean in the doings of the felon. Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured, And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed. You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together. And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also. If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife, Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements. And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended. And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth. And you judges who would be just, What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit? What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit? And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor, Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged? And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds? Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve? Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty. Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves. And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light? Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmyself and the day of his godself, And that the cornerstone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation. Then a lawyer said, But what of our Laws, master? And he answered You delight in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them. Like children playing by the ocean who build sandtowers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter. But while you build your sandtowers the ocean brings more sand to the shore, And when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you. Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent. But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and manmade laws are not sandtowers, But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness? What of the cripple who hates dancers? What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things? What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless? And of him who comes early to the weddingfeast, and when overfed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters lawbreakers? What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun? They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws. And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows? And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth? But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you? You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course? What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door? What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains? And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path? People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing? And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom. And he answered At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff. And my heart bled within me for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment. You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound. And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour? In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes. And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free? If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead. You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed. For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride? And if it is a care you would cast off, that cart has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you. And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared. Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom. And the priestess spoke again and said Speak to us of Reason and Passion. And he answered, saying Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements? Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in midseas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadowsthen let your heart say in silence, 'God rests in reason. And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky,then let your heart say in awe, 'God moves in passion. And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion. And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is selfchosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears. And a man said, Speak to us of SelfKnowledge. And he answered, saying Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thought. You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams. And it is well you should. The hidden wellspring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes. But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line. For self is a sea boundless and measureless. Say not, 'I have found the truth, but rather, 'I have found a truth. Say not, 'I have found the path of the soul. Say rather, 'I have met the soul walking upon my path. For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching. And he said 'No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man. And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth. And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. And he answered, saying Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the 'nay in your own mind, nor do you withhold the 'ay. And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth and only the unprofitable is caught. And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone. The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape. And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand. And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words. In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue. Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more. And an astronomer said, Master, what of Time? And he answered You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons. Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream. And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds? And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing. And one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil. And he answered Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters. You are good when you are one with yourself. Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil. For a divided house is not a den of thieves it is only a divided house. And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom. You are good when you strive to give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, 'Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance. For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root. You are good when you are fully awake in your speech, Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose. And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue. You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping. Even those who limp go not backward. But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness. You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good, You are only loitering and sluggard. Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles. In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness and that longing is in all of you. But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest. And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore. But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, 'Wherefore are you slow and halting? For the truly good ask not the naked, 'Where is your garment? nor the houseless, 'What has befallen your house? Then a priestess said, Speak to us of Prayer. And he answered, saying You pray in your distress and in your need would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart. And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet. Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion. For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard. It is enough that you enter the temple invisible. I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips. And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains. But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart, And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence, 'Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth. It is thy desire in us that desireth. It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also. We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us Thou art our need and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, Speak to us of Pleasure. And he answered, saying Pleasure is a freedomsong, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing, But it is not space encompassed. Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedomsong. And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing. Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure? And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted. And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it. But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands. But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit? Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow? Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. And your body is the harp of your soul, And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. And now you ask in your heart, 'How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good? Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty. And he answered Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, 'Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother halfshy of her own glory she walks among us. And the passionate say, 'Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us. The tired and the weary say, 'Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow. But the restless say, 'We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions. At night the watchmen of the city say, 'Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east. And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, 'We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset. In winter say the snowbound, 'She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills. And in the summer heat the reapers say, 'We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair. All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion. And he said Have I spoken this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom? Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, 'This for God and this for myself This for my soul, and this other for my body? All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self. He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his songbird in a cage. The freest song comes not through bars and wires. And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair. And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees. Then Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of Death. And he said You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose nightbound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. And now it was evening. And Almitra the seeress said, Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken. And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener? Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck. And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you. Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered. Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken. But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again, And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak. Yea, I shall return with the tide, And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding. And not in vain will I seek. If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts. I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness And if this day is not a fulfilment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day. Man's needs change, but not his love, nor his desire that his love should satisfy his needs. Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return. The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain. And not unlike the mist have I been. In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses, And your heartbeats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all. Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams. And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains. I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires. And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers. And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing. But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me. It was the boundless in you The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing. It is in the vast man that you are vast, And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you. For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere? What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight? Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you. His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless. You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy. Ay, you are like an ocean, And though heavygrounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides. And like the seasons you are also, And though in your winter you deny your spring, Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended. Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, 'He praised us well. He saw but the good in us. I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought. And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge? Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays, And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself, And of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion. Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom. It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself, While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days. It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave. There are no graves here. These mountains and plains are a cradle and a steppingstone. Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand. Verily you often make merry without knowing. Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have given but riches and power and glory. Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me. You have given me my deeper thirsting after life. Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain. And in this lies my honour and my reward, That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty And it drinks me while I drink it. Some of you have deemed me proud and overshy to receive gifts. Too proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts. And though I have eaten berries among the hills when you would have had me sit at your board, And slept in the portico of the temple when you would gladly have sheltered me, Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions? For this I bless you most You give much and know not that you give at all. Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse. And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness, And you have said, 'He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men. He sits alone on hilltops and looks down upon our city. True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places. How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance? How can one be indeed near unless he be far? And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said, 'Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests? Why seek you the unattainable? What storms would you trap in your net, And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky? Come and be one of us. Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine. In the solitude of their souls they said these things But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain, And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky. But the hunter was also the hunted For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast. And the flier was also the creeper For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle. And I the believer was also the doubter For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you. And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say, You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind. It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety, But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether. If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them. Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end, And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning. Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal. And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay? This would I have you remember in remembering me That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that builded your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound. But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well. The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it, And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see. And you shall hear. Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things, And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light. After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance. And he said Patient, over patient, is the captain of my ship. The wind blows, and restless are the sails Even the rudder begs direction Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence. And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently. Now they shall wait no longer. I am ready. The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast. Fare you well, people of Orphalese. This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the waterlily upon its own tomorrow. What was given us here we shall keep, And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me. Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky. So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward. And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose into the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting. Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist. And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the seawall, remembering in her heart his saying, 'A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Nicolo Machiavelli, born at Florence on rd May . From  to  held an official post at Florence which included diplomatic missions to various European courts. Imprisoned in Florence,  later exiled and returned to San Casciano. Died at Florence on nd June . Nicolo Machiavelli was born at Florence on rd May . He was the second son of Bernardo di Nicolo Machiavelli, a lawyer of some repute, and of Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli, his wife. Both parents were members of the old Florentine nobility. His life falls naturally into three periods, each of which singularly enough constitutes a distinct and important era in the history of Florence. His youth was concurrent with the greatness of Florence as an Italian power under the guidance of Lorenzo de' Medici, Il Magnifico. The downfall of the Medici in Florence occurred in , in which year Machiavelli entered the public service. During his official career Florence was free under the government of a Republic, which lasted until , when the Medici returned to power, and Machiavelli lost his office. The Medici again ruled Florence from  until , when they were once more driven out. This was the period of Machiavelli's literary activity and increasing influence but he died, within a few weeks of the expulsion of the Medici, on nd June , in his fiftyeighth year, without having regained office. Although there is little recorded of the youth of Machiavelli, the Florence of those days is so well known that the early environment of this representative citizen may be easily imagined. Florence has been described as a city with two opposite currents of life, one directed by the fervent and austere Savonarola, the other by the splendourloving Lorenzo. Savonarola's influence upon the young Machiavelli must have been slight, for although at one time he wielded immense power over the fortunes of Florence, he only furnished Machiavelli with a subject of a gibe in The Prince, where he is cited as an example of an unarmed prophet who came to a bad end. Whereas the magnificence of the Medicean rule during the life of Lorenzo appeared to have impressed Machiavelli strongly, for he frequently recurs to it in his writings, and it is to Lorenzo's grandson that he dedicates The Prince. Machiavelli, in his 'History of Florence, gives us a picture of the young men among whom his youth was passed. He writes 'They were freer than their forefathers in dress and living, and spent more in other kinds of excesses, consuming their time and money in idleness, gaming, and women their chief aim was to appear well dressed and to speak with wit and acuteness, whilst he who could wound others the most cleverly was thought the wisest. In a letter to his son Guido, Machiavelli shows why youth should avail itself of its opportunities for study, and leads us to infer that his own youth had been so occupied. He writes 'I have received your letter, which has given me the greatest pleasure, especially because you tell me you are quite restored in health, than which I could have no better news for if God grant life to you, and to me, I hope to make a good man of you if you are willing to do your share. Then, writing of a new patron, he continues 'This will turn out well for you, but it is necessary for you to study since, then, you have no longer the excuse of illness, take pains to study letters and music, for you see what honour is done to me for the little skill I have. Therefore, my son, if you wish to please me, and to bring success and honour to yourself, do right and study, because others will help you if you help yourself. The second period of Machiavelli's life was spent in the service of the free Republic of Florence, which flourished, as stated above, from the expulsion of the Medici in  until their return in . After serving four years in one of the public offices he was appointed Chancellor and Secretary to the Second Chancery, the Ten of Liberty and Peace. Here we are on firm ground when dealing with the events of Machiavelli's life, for during this time he took a leading part in the affairs of the Republic, and we have its decrees, records, and dispatches to guide us, as well as his own writings. A mere recapitulation of a few of his transactions with the statesmen and soldiers of his time gives a fair indication of his activities, and supplies the sources from which he drew the experiences and characters which illustrate The Prince. His first mission was in  to Catherina Sforza, 'my lady of Forli of The Prince, from whose conduct and fate he drew the moral that it is far better to earn the confidence of the people than to rely on fortresses. This is a very noticeable principle in Machiavelli, and is urged by him in many ways as a matter of vital importance to princes. In  he was sent to France to obtain terms from Louis XII for continuing the war against Pisa this king it was who, in his conduct of affairs in Italy, committed the five capital errors in statecraft summarized in The Prince, and was consequently driven out. He, also, it was who made the dissolution of his marriage a condition of support to Pope Alexander VI which leads Machiavelli to refer those who urge that such promises should be kept to what he has written concerning the faith of princes. Machiavelli's public life was largely occupied with events arising out of the ambitions of Pope Alexander VI and his son, Cesare Borgia, the Duke Valentino, and these characters fill a large space of The Prince. Machiavelli never hesitates to cite the actions of the duke for the benefit of usurpers who wish to keep the states they have seized he can, indeed, find no precepts to offer so good as the pattern of Cesare Borgia's conduct, insomuch that Cesare is acclaimed by some critics as the 'hero of The Prince. Yet in The Prince the duke is in point of fact cited as a type of the man who rises on the fortune of others, and falls with them who takes every course that might be expected from a prudent man but the course which will save him who is prepared for all eventualities but the one which happens and who, when all his abilities fail to carry him through, exclaims that it was not his fault, but an extraordinary and unforeseen fatality. On the death of Pius III, in , Machiavelli was sent to Rome to watch the election of his successor, and there he saw Cesare Borgia cheated into allowing the choice of the College to fall on Giuliano delle Rovere (Julius II), who was one of the cardinals that had most reason to fear the duke. Machiavelli, when commenting on this election, says that he who thinks new favours will cause great personages to forget old injuries deceives himself. Julius did not rest until he had ruined Cesare. It was to Julius II that Machiavelli was sent in , when that pontiff was commencing his enterprise against Bologna which he brought to a successful issue, as he did many of his other adventures, owing chiefly to his impetuous character. It is in reference to Pope Julius that Machiavelli moralizes on the resemblance between Fortune and women, and concludes that it is the bold rather than the cautious man that will win and hold them both. It is impossible to follow here the varying fortunes of the Italian states, which in  were controlled by France, Spain, and Germany, with results that have lasted to our day we are concerned with those events, and with the three great actors in them, so far only as they impinge on the personality of Machiavelli. He had several meetings with Louis XII of France, and his estimate of that monarch's character has already been alluded to. Machiavelli has painted Ferdinand of Aragon as the man who accomplished great things under the cloak of religion, but who in reality had no mercy, faith, humanity, or integrity and who, had he allowed himself to be influenced by such motives, would have been ruined. The Emperor Maximilian was one of the most interesting men of the age, and his character has been drawn by many hands but Machiavelli, who was an envoy at his court in , reveals the secret of his many failures when he describes him as a secretive man, without force of characterignoring the human agencies necessary to carry his schemes into effect, and never insisting on the fulfilment of his wishes. The remaining years of Machiavelli's official career were filled with events arising out of the League of Cambrai, made in  between the three great European powers already mentioned and the pope, with the object of crushing the Venetian Republic. This result was attained in the battle of Vaila, when Venice lost in one day all that she had won in eight hundred years. Florence had a difficult part to play during these events, complicated as they were by the feud which broke out between the pope and the French, because friendship with France had dictated the entire policy of the Republic. When, in , Julius II finally formed the Holy League against France, and with the assistance of the Swiss drove the French out of Italy, Florence lay at the mercy of the Pope, and had to submit to his terms, one of which was that the Medici should be restored. The return of the Medici to Florence on st September , and the consequent fall of the Republic, was the signal for the dismissal of Machiavelli and his friends, and thus put an end to his public career, for, as we have seen, he died without regaining office. On the return of the Medici, Machiavelli, who for a few weeks had vainly hoped to retain his office under the new masters of Florence, was dismissed by decree dated th November . Shortly after this he was accused of complicity in an abortive conspiracy against the Medici, imprisoned, and put to the question by torture. The new Medicean pope, Leo X, procured his release, and he retired to his small property at San Casciano, near Florence, where he devoted himself to literature. In a letter to Francesco Vettori, dated th December , he has left a very interesting description of his life at this period, which elucidates his methods and his motives in writing The Prince. After describing his daily occupations with his family and neighbours, he writes 'The evening being come, I return home and go to my study at the entrance I pull off my peasantclothes, covered with dust and dirt, and put on my noble court dress, and thus becomingly reclothed I pass into the ancient courts of the men of old, where, being lovingly received by them, I am fed with that food which is mine alone where I do not hesitate to speak with them, and to ask for the reason of their actions, and they in their benignity answer me and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me I am possessed entirely by those great men. And because Dante says Knowledge doth come of learning well retained, Unfruitful else, I have noted down what I have gained from their conversation, and have composed a small work on 'Principalities,' where I pour myself out as fully as I can in meditation on the subject, discussing what a principality is, what kinds there are, how they can be acquired, how they can be kept, why they are lost and if any of my fancies ever pleased you, this ought not to displease you and to a prince, especially to a new one, it should be welcome therefore I dedicate it to his Magnificence Giuliano. Filippo Casavecchio has seen it he will be able to tell you what is in it, and of the discourses I have had with him nevertheless, I am still enriching and polishing it. The 'little book suffered many vicissitudes before attaining the form in which it has reached us. Various mental influences were at work during its composition its title and patron were changed and for some unknown reason it was finally dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici. Although Machiavelli discussed with Casavecchio whether it should be sent or presented in person to the patron, there is no evidence that Lorenzo ever received or even read it he certainly never gave Machiavelli any employment. Although it was plagiarized during Machiavelli's lifetime, The Prince was never published by him, and its text is still disputable. Machiavelli concludes his letter to Vettori thus 'And as to this little thing his book, when it has been read it will be seen that during the fifteen years I have given to the study of statecraft I have neither slept nor idled and men ought ever to desire to be served by one who has reaped experience at the expense of others. And of my loyalty none could doubt, because having always kept faith I could not now learn how to break it for he who has been faithful and honest, as I have, cannot change his nature and my poverty is a witness to my honesty. Before Machiavelli had got The Prince off his hands he commenced his 'Discourse on the First Decade of Titus Livius, which should be read concurrently with The Prince. These and several minor works occupied him until the year , when he accepted a small commission to look after the affairs of some Florentine merchants at Genoa. In  the Medicean rulers of Florence granted a few political concessions to her citizens, and Machiavelli with others was consulted upon a new constitution under which the Great Council was to be restored but on one pretext or another it was not promulgated. In  the Florentine merchants again had recourse to Machiavelli to settle their difficulties with Lucca, but this year was chiefly remarkable for his reentry into Florentine literary society, where he was much sought after, and also for the production of his 'Art of War. It was in the same year that he received a commission at the instance of Cardinal de' Medici to write the 'History of Florence, a task which occupied him until . His return to popular favour may have determined the Medici to give him this employment, for an old writer observes that 'an able statesman out of work, like a huge whale, will endeavour to overturn the ship unless he has an empty cask to play with. When the 'History of Florence was finished, Machiavelli took it to Rome for presentation to his patron, Giuliano de' Medici, who had in the meanwhile become pope under the title of Clement VII. It is somewhat remarkable that, as, in , Machiavelli had written The Prince for the instruction of the Medici after they had just regained power in Florence, so, in , he dedicated the 'History of Florence to the head of the family when its ruin was now at hand. In that year the battle of Pavia destroyed the French rule in Italy, and left Francis I a prisoner in the hands of his great rival, Charles V. This was followed by the sack of Rome, upon the news of which the popular party at Florence threw off the yoke of the Medici, who were once more banished. Machiavelli was absent from Florence at this time, but hastened his return, hoping to secure his former office of secretary to the 'Ten of Liberty and Peace. Unhappily he was taken ill soon after he reached Florence, where he died on nd June . No one can say where the bones of Machiavelli rest, but modern Florence has decreed him a stately cenotaph in Santa Croce, by the side of her most famous sons recognizing that, whatever other nations may have found in his works, Italy found in them the idea of her unity and the germs of her renaissance among the nations of Europe. Whilst it is idle to protest against the worldwide and evil signification of his name, it may be pointed out that the harsh construction of his doctrine which this sinister reputation implies was unknown to his own day, and that the researches of recent times have enabled us to interpret him more reasonably. It is due to these inquiries that the shape of an 'unholy necromancer, which so long haunted men's vision, has begun to fade. Machiavelli was undoubtedly a man of great observation, acuteness, and industry noting with appreciative eye whatever passed before him, and with his supreme literary gift turning it to account in his enforced retirement from affairs. He does not present himself, nor is he depicted by his contemporaries, as a type of that rare combination, the successful statesman and author, for he appears to have been only moderately prosperous in his several embassies and political employments. He was misled by Catherina Sforza, ignored by Louis XII, overawed by Cesare Borgia several of his embassies were quite barren of results his attempts to fortify Florence failed, and the soldiery that he raised astonished everybody by their cowardice. In the conduct of his own affairs he was timid and timeserving he dared not appear by the side of Soderini, to whom he owed so much, for fear of compromising himself his connection with the Medici was open to suspicion, and Giuliano appears to have recognized his real forte when he set him to write the 'History of Florence, rather than employ him in the state. And it is on the literary side of his character, and there alone, that we find no weakness and no failure. Although the light of almost four centuries has been focused on The Prince, its problems are still debatable and interesting, because they are the eternal problems between the ruled and their rulers. Such as they are, its ethics are those of Machiavelli's contemporaries yet they cannot be said to be out of date so long as the governments of Europe rely on material rather than on moral forces. Its historical incidents and personages become interesting by reason of the uses which Machiavelli makes of them to illustrate his theories of government and conduct. Leaving out of consideration those maxims of state which still furnish some European and eastern statesmen with principles of action, The Prince is bestrewn with truths that can be proved at every turn. Men are still the dupes of their simplicity and greed, as they were in the days of Alexander VI. The cloak of religion still conceals the vices which Machiavelli laid bare in the character of Ferdinand of Aragon. Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to beand are ruined. In politics there are no perfectly safe courses prudence consists in choosing the least dangerous ones. Thento pass to a higher planeMachiavelli reiterates that, although crimes may win an empire, they do not win glory. Necessary wars are just wars, and the arms of a nation are hallowed when it has no other resource but to fight. It is the cry of a far later day than Machiavelli's that government should be elevated into a living moral force, capable of inspiring the people with a just recognition of the fundamental principles of society to this 'high argument The Prince contributes but little. Machiavelli always refused to write either of men or of governments otherwise than as he found them, and he writes with such skill and insight that his work is of abiding value. But what invests The Prince with more than a merely artistic or historical interest is the incontrovertible truth that it deals with the great principles which still guide nations and rulers in their relationship with each other and their neighbours. In translating The Prince my aim has been to achieve at all costs an exact literal rendering of the original, rather than a fluent paraphrase adapted to the modern notions of style and expression. Machiavelli was no facile phrasemonger the conditions under which he wrote obliged him to weigh every word his themes were lofty, his substance grave, his manner nobly plain and serious. Quis eo fuit unquam in partiundis rebus, in definiendis, in explanandis pressior? In The Prince, it may be truly said, there is reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word. To an Englishman of Shakespeare's time the translation of such a treatise was in some ways a comparatively easy task, for in those times the genius of the English more nearly resembled that of the Italian language to the Englishman of today it is not so simple. To take a single example the word intrattenere, employed by Machiavelli to indicate the policy adopted by the Roman Senate towards the weaker states of Greece, would by an Elizabethan be correctly rendered 'entertain, and every contemporary reader would understand what was meant by saying that 'Rome entertained the tolians and the Achaeans without augmenting their power. But today such a phrase would seem obsolete and ambiguous, if not unmeaning we are compelled to say that 'Rome maintained friendly relations with the tolians, etc., using four words to do the work of one. I have tried to preserve the pithy brevity of the Italian so far as was consistent with an absolute fidelity to the sense. If the result be an occasional asperity I can only hope that the reader, in his eagerness to reach the author's meaning, may overlook the roughness of the road that leads him to it. The following is a list of the works of Machiavelli Principal works. Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa,  Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati,  Del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino nell' ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, etc.,  Discorso sopra la provisione del danaro,  Decennale primo (poem in terza rima),  Ritratti delle cose dell' Alemagna,  Decennale secondo,  Ritratti delle cose di Francia,  Discorsi sopra la prima deca di T. Livio,  vols.,  Il Principe,  Andria, comedy translated from Terence,  (?) Mandragola, prose comedy in five acts, with prologue in verse,  Della lingua (dialogue),  Clizia, comedy in prose,  (?) Belfagor arcidiavolo (novel),  Asino d'oro (poem in terza rima),  Dell' arte della guerra,  Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze,  Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca,  Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca,  Istorie fiorentine,  books,  Frammenti storici, . Other poems include Sonetti, Canzoni, Ottave, and Canti carnascialeschi. Editions. Aldo, Venice,  della Tertina,  Cambiagi, Florence,  vols.,  dei Classici, Milan,   Silvestri,  vols.,  Passerini, Fanfani, Milanesi,  vols. only published, . Minor works. Ed. F. L. Polidori,  Lettere familiari, ed. E. Alvisi, ,  editions, one with excisions Credited Writings, ed. G. Canestrini,  Letters to F. Vettori, see A. Ridolfi, Pensieri intorno allo scopo di N. Machiavelli nel libro Il Principe, etc. D. Ferrara, The Private Correspondence of Nicolo Machiavelli, . To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De' Medici Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness. Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence. And although I may consider this work unworthy of your countenance, nevertheless I trust much to your benignity that it may be acceptable, seeing that it is not possible for me to make a better gift than to offer you the opportunity of understanding in the shortest time all that I have learnt in so many years, and with so many troubles and dangers which work I have not embellished with swelling or magnificent words, nor stuffed with rounded periods, nor with any extrinsic allurements or adornments whatever, with which so many are accustomed to embellish their works for I have wished either that no honour should be given it, or else that the truth of the matter and the weightiness of the theme shall make it acceptable. Nor do I hold with those who regard it as a presumption if a man of low and humble condition dare to discuss and settle the concerns of princes because, just as those who draw landscapes place themselves below in the plain to contemplate the nature of the mountains and of lofty places, and in order to contemplate the plains place themselves upon high mountains, even so to understand the nature of the people it needs to be a prince, and to understand that of princes it needs to be of the people. Take then, your Magnificence, this little gift in the spirit in which I send it wherein, if it be diligently read and considered by you, you will learn my extreme desire that you should attain that greatness which fortune and your other attributes promise. And if your Magnificence from the summit of your greatness will sometimes turn your eyes to these lower regions, you will see how unmeritedly I suffer a great and continued malignity of fortune. All states, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have been and are either republics or principalities. Principalities are either hereditary, in which the family has been long established or they are new. The new are either entirely new, as was Milan to Francesco Sforza, or they are, as it were, members annexed to the hereditary state of the prince who has acquired them, as was the kingdom of Naples to that of the King of Spain. Such dominions thus acquired are either accustomed to live under a prince, or to live in freedom and are acquired either by the arms of the prince himself, or of others, or else by fortune or by ability. I will leave out all discussion on republics, inasmuch as in another place I have written of them at length, and will address myself only to principalities. In doing so I will keep to the order indicated above, and discuss how such principalities are to be ruled and preserved. I say at once there are fewer difficulties in holding hereditary states, and those long accustomed to the family of their prince, than new ones for it is sufficient only not to transgress the customs of his ancestors, and to deal prudently with circumstances as they arise, for a prince of average powers to maintain himself in his state, unless he be deprived of it by some extraordinary and excessive force and if he should be so deprived of it, whenever anything sinister happens to the usurper, he will regain it. We have in Italy, for example, the Duke of Ferrara, who could not have withstood the attacks of the Venetians in ', nor those of Pope Julius in ', unless he had been long established in his dominions. For the hereditary prince has less cause and less necessity to offend hence it happens that he will be more loved and unless extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him and in the antiquity and duration of his rule the memories and motives that make for change are lost, for one change always leaves the toothing for another. But the difficulties occur in a new principality. And firstly, if it be not entirely new, but is, as it were, a member of a state which, taken collectively, may be called composite, the changes arise chiefly from an inherent difficulty which there is in all new principalities for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse. This follows also on another natural and common necessity, which always causes a new prince to burden those who have submitted to him with his soldiery and with infinite other hardships which he must put upon his new acquisition. In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those friends who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy them in the way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures against them, feeling bound to them. For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives. For these reasons Louis the Twelfth, King of France, quickly occupied Milan, and as quickly lost it and to turn him out the first time it only needed Lodovico's own forces because those who had opened the gates to him, finding themselves deceived in their hopes of future benefit, would not endure the illtreatment of the new prince. It is very true that, after acquiring rebellious provinces a second time, they are not so lightly lost afterwards, because the prince, with little reluctance, takes the opportunity of the rebellion to punish the delinquents, to clear out the suspects, and to strengthen himself in the weakest places. Thus to cause France to lose Milan the first time it was enough for the Duke Lodovico to raise insurrections on the borders but to cause him to lose it a second time it was necessary to bring the whole world against him, and that his armies should be defeated and driven out of Italy which followed from the causes above mentioned.  Duke Lodovico was Lodovico Moro, a son of Francesco Sforza, who married Beatrice d'Este. He ruled over Milan from  to , and died in . Nevertheless Milan was taken from France both the first and the second time. The general reasons for the first have been discussed it remains to name those for the second, and to see what resources he had, and what any one in his situation would have had for maintaining himself more securely in his acquisition than did the King of France. Now I say that those dominions which, when acquired, are added to an ancient state by him who acquires them, are either of the same country and language, or they are not. When they are, it is easier to hold them, especially when they have not been accustomed to selfgovernment and to hold them securely it is enough to have destroyed the family of the prince who was ruling them because the two peoples, preserving in other things the old conditions, and not being unlike in customs, will live quietly together, as one has seen in Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and Normandy, which have been bound to France for so long a time and, although there may be some difference in language, nevertheless the customs are alike, and the people will easily be able to get on amongst themselves. He who has annexed them, if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind two considerations the one, that the family of their former lord is extinguished the other, that neither their laws nor their taxes are altered, so that in a very short time they will become entirely one body with the old principality. But when states are acquired in a country differing in language, customs, or laws, there are difficulties, and good fortune and great energy are needed to hold them, and one of the greatest and most real helps would be that he who has acquired them should go and reside there. This would make his position more secure and durable, as it has made that of the Turk in Greece, who, notwithstanding all the other measures taken by him for holding that state, if he had not settled there, would not have been able to keep it. Because, if one is on the spot, disorders are seen as they spring up, and one can quickly remedy them but if one is not at hand, they are heard of only when they are great, and then one can no longer remedy them. Besides this, the country is not pillaged by your officials the subjects are satisfied by prompt recourse to the prince thus, wishing to be good, they have more cause to love him, and wishing to be otherwise, to fear him. He who would attack that state from the outside must have the utmost caution as long as the prince resides there it can only be wrested from him with the greatest difficulty. The other and better course is to send colonies to one or two places, which may be as keys to that state, for it is necessary either to do this or else to keep there a great number of cavalry and infantry. A prince does not spend much on colonies, for with little or no expense he can send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them to the new inhabitants and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered, are never able to injure him whilst the rest being uninjured are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled. In conclusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being poor and scattered, cannot hurt. Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge. But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much more, having to consume on the garrison all the income from the state, so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated, because the whole state is injured through the shifting of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their own ground, are yet able to do hurt. For every reason, therefore, such guards are as useless as a colony is useful. Again, the prince who holds a country differing in the above respects ought to make himself the head and defender of his less powerful neighbours, and to weaken the more powerful amongst them, taking care that no foreigner as powerful as himself shall, by any accident, get a footing there for it will always happen that such a one will be introduced by those who are discontented, either through excess of ambition or through fear, as one has seen already. The Romans were brought into Greece by the tolians and in every other country where they obtained a footing they were brought in by the inhabitants. And the usual course of affairs is that, as soon as a powerful foreigner enters a country, all the subject states are drawn to him, moved by the hatred which they feel against the ruling power. So that in respect to those subject states he has not to take any trouble to gain them over to himself, for the whole of them quickly rally to the state which he has acquired there. He has only to take care that they do not get hold of too much power and too much authority, and then with his own forces, and with their goodwill, he can easily keep down the more powerful of them, so as to remain entirely master in the country. And he who does not properly manage this business will soon lose what he has acquired, and whilst he does hold it he will have endless difficulties and troubles. The Romans, in the countries which they annexed, observed closely these measures they sent colonies and maintained friendly relations with the minor powers, without increasing their strength they kept down the greater, and did not allow any strong foreign powers to gain authority. Greece appears to me sufficient for an example. The Achaeans and tolians were kept friendly by them, the kingdom of Macedonia was humbled, Antiochus was driven out yet the merits of the Achaeans and tolians never secured for them permission to increase their power, nor did the persuasions of Philip ever induce the Romans to be his friends without first humbling him, nor did the influence of Antiochus make them agree that he should retain any lordship over the country. Because the Romans did in these instances what all prudent princes ought to do, who have to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy, because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them but if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time because the malady has become incurable for it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure. Thus it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that every one can see them, there is no longer a remedy. Therefore, the Romans, foreseeing troubles, dealt with them at once, and, even to avoid a war, would not let them come to a head, for they knew that war is not to be avoided, but is only to be put off to the advantage of others moreover they wished to fight with Philip and Antiochus in Greece so as not to have to do it in Italy they could have avoided both, but this they did not wish nor did that ever please them which is forever in the mouths of the wise ones of our timeLet us enjoy the benefits of the timebut rather the benefits of their own valour and prudence, for time drives everything before it, and is able to bring with it good as well as evil, and evil as well as good.  See remark in the introduction on the word 'intrattenere. But let us turn to France and inquire whether she has done any of the things mentioned. I will speak of Louis (and not of Charles) as the one whose conduct is the better to be observed, he having held possession of Italy for the longest period and you will see that he has done the opposite to those things which ought to be done to retain a state composed of divers elements.  Louis XII, King of France, 'The Father of the People, born , died .  Charles VIII, King of France, born , died . King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians, who desired to obtain half the state of Lombardy by his intervention. I will not blame the course taken by the king, because, wishing to get a foothold in Italy, and having no friends thereseeing rather that every door was shut to him owing to the conduct of Charleshe was forced to accept those friendships which he could get, and he would have succeeded very quickly in his design if in other matters he had not made some mistakes. The king, however, having acquired Lombardy, regained at once the authority which Charles had lost Genoa yielded the Florentines became his friends the Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivogli, my lady of Forli, the Lords of Faenza, of Pesaro, of Rimini, of Camerino, of Piombino, the Lucchese, the Pisans, the Sieneseeverybody made advances to him to become his friend. Then could the Venetians realize the rashness of the course taken by them, which, in order that they might secure two towns in Lombardy, had made the king master of twothirds of Italy. Let any one now consider with what little difficulty the king could have maintained his position in Italy had he observed the rules above laid down, and kept all his friends secure and protected for although they were numerous they were both weak and timid, some afraid of the Church, some of the Venetians, and thus they would always have been forced to stand in with him, and by their means he could easily have made himself secure against those who remained powerful. But he was no sooner in Milan than he did the contrary by assisting Pope Alexander to occupy the Romagna. It never occurred to him that by this action he was weakening himself, depriving himself of friends and of those who had thrown themselves into his lap, whilst he aggrandized the Church by adding much temporal power to the spiritual, thus giving it greater authority. And having committed this prime error, he was obliged to follow it up, so much so that, to put an end to the ambition of Alexander, and to prevent his becoming the master of Tuscany, he was himself forced to come into Italy. And as if it were not enough to have aggrandized the Church, and deprived himself of friends, he, wishing to have the kingdom of Naples, divided it with the King of Spain, and where he was the prime arbiter in Italy he takes an associate, so that the ambitious of that country and the malcontents of his own should have somewhere to shelter and whereas he could have left in the kingdom his own pensioner as king, he drove him out, to put one there who was able to drive him, Louis, out in turn. The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have attacked Naples with her own forces she ought to have done so if she could not, then she ought not to have divided it. And if the partition which she made with the Venetians in Lombardy was justified by the excuse that by it she got a foothold in Italy, this other partition merited blame, for it had not the excuse of that necessity. Therefore Louis made these five errors he destroyed the minor powers, he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in Italy, he brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the country, he did not send colonies. Which errors, had he lived, were not enough to injure him had he not made a sixth by taking away their dominions from the Venetians because, had he not aggrandized the Church, nor brought Spain into Italy, it would have been very reasonable and necessary to humble them but having first taken these steps, he ought never to have consented to their ruin, for they, being powerful, would always have kept off others from designs on Lombardy, to which the Venetians would never have consented except to become masters themselves there also because the others would not wish to take Lombardy from France in order to give it to the Venetians, and to run counter to both they would not have had the courage. And if any one should say 'King Louis yielded the Romagna to Alexander and the kingdom to Spain to avoid war, I answer for the reasons given above that a blunder ought never to be perpetrated to avoid war, because it is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage. And if another should allege the pledge which the king had given to the Pope that he would assist him in the enterprise, in exchange for the dissolution of his marriage and for the cap to Rouen, to that I reply what I shall write later on concerning the faith of princes, and how it ought to be kept.  Louis XII divorced his wife, Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI, and married in  Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII, in order to retain the Duchy of Brittany for the crown.  The Archbishop of Rouen. He was Georges d'Amboise, created a cardinal by Alexander VI. Born , died . Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries and wished to retain them. Nor is there any miracle in this, but much that is reasonable and quite natural. And on these matters I spoke at Nantes with Rouen, when Valentino, as Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna, and on Cardinal Rouen observing to me that the Italians did not understand war, I replied to him that the French did not understand statecraft, meaning that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach such greatness. And in fact it has been seen that the greatness of the Church and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin may be attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which never or rarely fails that he who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined because that predominancy has been brought about either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him who has been raised to power. Considering the difficulties which men have had to hold to a newly acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose among themselves from their own ambitions. I answer that the principalities of which one has record are found to be governed in two different ways either by a prince, with a body of servants, who assist him to govern the kingdom as ministers by his favour and permission or by a prince and barons, who hold that dignity by antiquity of blood and not by the grace of the prince. Such barons have states and their own subjects, who recognize them as lords and hold them in natural affection. Those states that are governed by a prince and his servants hold their prince in more consideration, because in all the country there is no one who is recognized as superior to him, and if they yield obedience to another they do it as to a minister and official, and they do not bear him any particular affection. The examples of these two governments in our time are the Turk and the King of France. The entire monarchy of the Turk is governed by one lord, the others are his servants and, dividing his kingdom into sanjaks, he sends there different administrators, and shifts and changes them as he chooses. But the King of France is placed in the midst of an ancient body of lords, acknowledged by their own subjects, and beloved by them they have their own prerogatives, nor can the king take these away except at his peril. Therefore, he who considers both of these states will recognize great difficulties in seizing the state of the Turk, but, once it is conquered, great ease in holding it. The causes of the difficulties in seizing the kingdom of the Turk are that the usurper cannot be called in by the princes of the kingdom, nor can he hope to be assisted in his designs by the revolt of those whom the lord has around him. This arises from the reasons given above for his ministers, being all slaves and bondmen, can only be corrupted with great difficulty, and one can expect little advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as they cannot carry the people with them, for the reasons assigned. Hence, he who attacks the Turk must bear in mind that he will find him united, and he will have to rely more on his own strength than on the revolt of others but, if once the Turk has been conquered, and routed in the field in such a way that he cannot replace his armies, there is nothing to fear but the family of this prince, and, this being exterminated, there remains no one to fear, the others having no credit with the people and as the conqueror did not rely on them before his victory, so he ought not to fear them after it. The contrary happens in kingdoms governed like that of France, because one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the kingdom, for one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change. Such men, for the reasons given, can open the way into the state and render the victory easy but if you wish to hold it afterwards, you meet with infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you and from those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you are unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost whenever time brings the opportunity. Now if you will consider what was the nature of the government of Darius, you will find it similar to the kingdom of the Turk, and therefore it was only necessary for Alexander, first to overthrow him in the field, and then to take the country from him. After which victory, Darius being killed, the state remained secure to Alexander, for the above reasons. And if his successors had been united they would have enjoyed it securely and at their ease, for there were no tumults raised in the kingdom except those they provoked themselves. But it is impossible to hold with such tranquillity states constituted like that of France. Hence arose those frequent rebellions against the Romans in Spain, France, and Greece, owing to the many principalities there were in these states, of which, as long as the memory of them endured, the Romans always held an insecure possession but with the power and long continuance of the empire the memory of them passed away, and the Romans then became secure possessors. And when fighting afterwards amongst themselves, each one was able to attach to himself his own parts of the country, according to the authority he had assumed there and the family of the former lord being exterminated, none other than the Romans were acknowledged. When these things are remembered no one will marvel at the ease with which Alexander held the Empire of Asia, or at the difficulties which others have had to keep an acquisition, such as Pyrrhus and many more this is not occasioned by the little or abundance of ability in the conqueror, but by the want of uniformity in the subject state. Whenever those states which have been acquired as stated have been accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are three courses for those who wish to hold them the first is to ruin them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute, and establishing within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you. Because such a government, being created by the prince, knows that it cannot stand without his friendship and interest, and does its utmost to support him and therefore he who would keep a city accustomed to freedom will hold it more easily by the means of its own citizens than in any other way. There are, for example, the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy nevertheless they lost them. The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them, and did not lose them. They wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it free and permitting its laws, and did not succeed. So to hold it they were compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth there is no safe way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them. And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. And whatever you may do or provide against, they never forget that name or their privileges unless they are disunited or dispersed, but at every chance they immediately rally to them, as Pisa after the hundred years she had been held in bondage by the Florentines. But when cities or countries are accustomed to live under a prince, and his family is exterminated, they, being on the one hand accustomed to obey and on the other hand not having the old prince, cannot agree in making one from amongst themselves, and they do not know how to govern themselves. For this reason they are very slow to take up arms, and a prince can gain them to himself and secure them much more easily. But in republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the memory of their former liberty to rest so that the safest way is to destroy them or to reside there. Let no one be surprised if, in speaking of entirely new principalities as I shall do, I adduce the highest examples both of prince and of state because men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach. I say, therefore, that in entirely new principalities, where there is a new prince, more or less difficulty is found in keeping them, accordingly as there is more or less ability in him who has acquired the state. Now, as the fact of becoming a prince from a private station presupposes either ability or fortune, it is clear that one or other of these things will mitigate in some degree many difficulties. Nevertheless, he who has relied least on fortune is established the strongest. Further, it facilitates matters when the prince, having no other state, is compelled to reside there in person. But to come to those who, by their own ability and not through fortune, have risen to be princes, I say that Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and such like are the most excellent examples. And although one may not discuss Moses, he having been a mere executor of the will of God, yet he ought to be admired, if only for that favour which made him worthy to speak with God. But in considering Cyrus and others who have acquired or founded kingdoms, all will be found admirable and if their particular deeds and conduct shall be considered, they will not be found inferior to those of Moses, although he had so great a preceptor. And in examining their actions and lives one cannot see that they owed anything to fortune beyond opportunity, which brought them the material to mould into the form which seemed best to them. Without that opportunity their powers of mind would have been extinguished, and without those powers the opportunity would have come in vain. It was necessary, therefore, to Moses that he should find the people of Israel in Egypt enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians, in order that they should be disposed to follow him so as to be delivered out of bondage. It was necessary that Romulus should not remain in Alba, and that he should be abandoned at his birth, in order that he should become King of Rome and founder of the fatherland. It was necessary that Cyrus should find the Persians discontented with the government of the Medes, and the Medes soft and effeminate through their long peace. Theseus could not have shown his ability had he not found the Athenians dispersed. These opportunities, therefore, made those men fortunate, and their high ability enabled them to recognize the opportunity whereby their country was ennobled and made famous. Those who by valorous ways become princes, like these men, acquire a principality with difficulty, but they keep it with ease. The difficulties they have in acquiring it rise in part from the new rules and methods which they are forced to introduce to establish their government and its security. And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them. It is necessary, therefore, if we desire to discuss this matter thoroughly, to inquire whether these innovators can rely on themselves or have to depend on others that is to say, whether, to consummate their enterprise, have they to use prayers or can they use force? In the first instance they always succeed badly, and never compass anything but when they can rely on themselves and use force, then they are rarely endangered. Hence it is that all armed prophets have conquered, and the unarmed ones have been destroyed. Besides the reasons mentioned, the nature of the people is variable, and whilst it is easy to persuade them, it is difficult to fix them in that persuasion. And thus it is necessary to take such measures that, when they believe no longer, it may be possible to make them believe by force. If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed they could not have enforced their constitutions for longas happened in our time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new order of things immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe. Therefore such as these have great difficulties in consummating their enterprise, for all their dangers are in the ascent, yet with ability they will overcome them but when these are overcome, and those who envied them their success are exterminated, they will begin to be respected, and they will continue afterwards powerful, secure, honoured, and happy. To these great examples I wish to add a lesser one still it bears some resemblance to them, and I wish it to suffice me for all of a like kind it is Hiero the Syracusan. This man rose from a private station to be Prince of Syracuse, nor did he, either, owe anything to fortune but opportunity for the Syracusans, being oppressed, chose him for their captain, afterwards he was rewarded by being made their prince. He was of so great ability, even as a private citizen, that one who writes of him says he wanted nothing but a kingdom to be a king. This man abolished the old soldiery, organized the new, gave up old alliances, made new ones and as he had his own soldiers and allies, on such foundations he was able to build any edifice thus, whilst he had endured much trouble in acquiring, he had but little in keeping.  Hiero II, born about  B.C., died  B.C. Those who solely by good fortune become princes from being private citizens have little trouble in rising, but much in keeping atop they have not any difficulties on the way up, because they fly, but they have many when they reach the summit. Such are those to whom some state is given either for money or by the favour of him who bestows it as happened to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and of the Hellespont, where princes were made by Darius, in order that they might hold the cities both for his security and his glory as also were those emperors who, by the corruption of the soldiers, from being citizens came to empire. Such stand simply elevated upon the goodwill and the fortune of him who has elevated themtwo most inconstant and unstable things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position because, unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not reasonable to expect that they should know how to command, having always lived in a private condition besides, they cannot hold it because they have not forces which they can keep friendly and faithful. States that rise unexpectedly, then, like all other things in nature which are born and grow rapidly, cannot leave their foundations and correspondencies fixed in such a way that the first storm will not overthrow them unless, as is said, those who unexpectedly become princes are men of so much ability that they know they have to be prepared at once to hold that which fortune has thrown into their laps, and that those foundations, which others have laid before they became princes, they must lay afterwards.  'Le radici e corrispondenze, their roots (i.e. foundations) and correspondencies or relations with other statesa common meaning of 'correspondence and 'correspondency in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Concerning these two methods of rising to be a prince by ability or fortune, I wish to adduce two examples within our own recollection, and these are Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia. Francesco, by proper means and with great ability, from being a private person rose to be Duke of Milan, and that which he had acquired with a thousand anxieties he kept with little trouble. On the other hand, Cesare Borgia, called by the people Duke Valentino, acquired his state during the ascendancy of his father, and on its decline he lost it, notwithstanding that he had taken every measure and done all that ought to be done by a wise and able man to fix firmly his roots in the states which the arms and fortunes of others had bestowed on him.  Francesco Sforza, born , died . He married Bianca Maria Visconti, a natural daughter of Filippo Visconti, the Duke of Milan, on whose death he procured his own elevation to the duchy. Machiavelli was the accredited agent of the Florentine Republic to Cesare Borgia () during the transactions which led up to the assassinations of the Orsini and Vitelli at Sinigalia, and along with his letters to his chiefs in Florence he has left an account, written ten years before The Prince, of the proceedings of the duke in his 'Descritione del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino nello ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, etc., a translation of which is appended to the present work. Because, as is stated above, he who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building. If, therefore, all the steps taken by the duke be considered, it will be seen that he laid solid foundations for his future power, and I do not consider it superfluous to discuss them, because I do not know what better precepts to give a new prince than the example of his actions and if his dispositions were of no avail, that was not his fault, but the extraordinary and extreme malignity of fortune. Alexander the Sixth, in wishing to aggrandize the duke, his son, had many immediate and prospective difficulties. Firstly, he did not see his way to make him master of any state that was not a state of the Church and if he was willing to rob the Church he knew that the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would not consent, because Faenza and Rimini were already under the protection of the Venetians. Besides this, he saw the arms of Italy, especially those by which he might have been assisted, in hands that would fear the aggrandizement of the Pope, namely, the Orsini and the Colonnesi and their following. It behoved him, therefore, to upset this state of affairs and embroil the powers, so as to make himself securely master of part of their states. This was easy for him to do, because he found the Venetians, moved by other reasons, inclined to bring back the French into Italy he would not only not oppose this, but he would render it more easy by dissolving the former marriage of King Louis. Therefore the king came into Italy with the assistance of the Venetians and the consent of Alexander. He was no sooner in Milan than the Pope had soldiers from him for the attempt on the Romagna, which yielded to him on the reputation of the king. The duke, therefore, having acquired the Romagna and beaten the Colonnesi, while wishing to hold that and to advance further, was hindered by two things the one, his forces did not appear loyal to him, the other, the goodwill of France that is to say, he feared that the forces of the Orsini, which he was using, would not stand to him, that not only might they hinder him from winning more, but might themselves seize what he had won, and that the king might also do the same. Of the Orsini he had a warning when, after taking Faenza and attacking Bologna, he saw them go very unwillingly to that attack. And as to the king, he learned his mind when he himself, after taking the Duchy of Urbino, attacked Tuscany, and the king made him desist from that undertaking hence the duke decided to depend no more upon the arms and the luck of others. For the first thing he weakened the Orsini and Colonnesi parties in Rome, by gaining to himself all their adherents who were gentlemen, making them his gentlemen, giving them good pay, and, according to their rank, honouring them with office and command in such a way that in a few months all attachment to the factions was destroyed and turned entirely to the duke. After this he awaited an opportunity to crush the Orsini, having scattered the adherents of the Colonna house. This came to him soon and he used it well for the Orsini, perceiving at length that the aggrandizement of the duke and the Church was ruin to them, called a meeting of the Magione in Perugia. From this sprung the rebellion at Urbino and the tumults in the Romagna, with endless dangers to the duke, all of which he overcame with the help of the French. Having restored his authority, not to leave it at risk by trusting either to the French or other outside forces, he had recourse to his wiles, and he knew so well how to conceal his mind that, by the mediation of Signor Pagolowhom the duke did not fail to secure with all kinds of attention, giving him money, apparel, and horsesthe Orsini were reconciled, so that their simplicity brought them into his power at Sinigalia. Having exterminated the leaders, and turned their partisans into his friends, the duke laid sufficiently good foundations to his power, having all the Romagna and the Duchy of Urbino and the people now beginning to appreciate their prosperity, he gained them all over to himself. And as this point is worthy of notice, and to be imitated by others, I am not willing to leave it out.  Sinigalia, st December . When the duke occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence and so, wishing to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he considered it necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he promoted Messer Ramiro d'Orco, a swift and cruel man, to whom he gave the fullest power. This man in a short time restored peace and unity with the greatest success. Afterwards the duke considered that it was not advisable to confer such excessive authority, for he had no doubt but that he would become odious, so he set up a court of judgment in the country, under a most excellent president, wherein all cities had their advocates. And because he knew that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so, to clear himself in the minds of the people, and gain them entirely to himself, he desired to show that, if any cruelty had been practised, it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the minister. Under this pretence he took Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on the piazza at Cesena with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the people to be at once satisfied and dismayed.  Ramiro d'Orco. Ramiro de Lorqua. But let us return whence we started. I say that the duke, finding himself now sufficiently powerful and partly secured from immediate dangers by having armed himself in his own way, and having in a great measure crushed those forces in his vicinity that could injure him if he wished to proceed with his conquest, had next to consider France, for he knew that the king, who too late was aware of his mistake, would not support him. And from this time he began to seek new alliances and to temporize with France in the expedition which she was making towards the kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards who were besieging Gaeta. It was his intention to secure himself against them, and this he would have quickly accomplished had Alexander lived. Such was his line of action as to present affairs. But as to the future he had to fear, in the first place, that a new successor to the Church might not be friendly to him and might seek to take from him that which Alexander had given him, so he decided to act in four ways. Firstly, by exterminating the families of those lords whom he had despoiled, so as to take away that pretext from the Pope. Secondly, by winning to himself all the gentlemen of Rome, so as to be able to curb the Pope with their aid, as has been observed. Thirdly, by converting the college more to himself. Fourthly, by acquiring so much power before the Pope should die that he could by his own measures resist the first shock. Of these four things, at the death of Alexander, he had accomplished three. For he had killed as many of the dispossessed lords as he could lay hands on, and few had escaped he had won over the Roman gentlemen, and he had the most numerous party in the college. And as to any fresh acquisition, he intended to become master of Tuscany, for he already possessed Perugia and Piombino, and Pisa was under his protection. And as he had no longer to study France (for the French were already driven out of the kingdom of Naples by the Spaniards, and in this way both were compelled to buy his goodwill), he pounced down upon Pisa. After this, Lucca and Siena yielded at once, partly through hatred and partly through fear of the Florentines and the Florentines would have had no remedy had he continued to prosper, as he was prospering the year that Alexander died, for he had acquired so much power and reputation that he would have stood by himself, and no longer have depended on the luck and the forces of others, but solely on his own power and ability. But Alexander died five years after he had first drawn the sword. He left the duke with the state of Romagna alone consolidated, with the rest in the air, between two most powerful hostile armies, and sick unto death. Yet there were in the duke such boldness and ability, and he knew so well how men are to be won or lost, and so firm were the foundations which in so short a time he had laid, that if he had not had those armies on his back, or if he had been in good health, he would have overcome all difficulties. And it is seen that his foundations were good, for the Romagna awaited him for more than a month. In Rome, although but half alive, he remained secure and whilst the Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Orsini might come to Rome, they could not effect anything against him. If he could not have made Pope him whom he wished, at least the one whom he did not wish would not have been elected. But if he had been in sound health at the death of Alexander, everything would have been different to him. On the day that Julius the Second was elected, he told me that he had thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had provided a remedy for all, except that he had never anticipated that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to die.  Alexander VI died of fever, th August .  Julius II was Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula, born , died . When all the actions of the duke are recalled, I do not know how to blame him, but rather it appears to be, as I have said, that I ought to offer him for imitation to all those who, by the fortune or the arms of others, are raised to government. Because he, having a lofty spirit and farreaching aims, could not have regulated his conduct otherwise, and only the shortness of the life of Alexander and his own sickness frustrated his designs. Therefore, he who considers it necessary to secure himself in his new principality, to win friends, to overcome either by force or fraud, to make himself beloved and feared by the people, to be followed and revered by the soldiers, to exterminate those who have power or reason to hurt him, to change the old order of things for new, to be severe and gracious, magnanimous and liberal, to destroy a disloyal soldiery and to create new, to maintain friendship with kings and princes in such a way that they must help him with zeal and offend with caution, cannot find a more lively example than the actions of this man. Only can he be blamed for the election of Julius the Second, in whom he made a bad choice, because, as is said, not being able to elect a Pope to his own mind, he could have hindered any other from being elected Pope and he ought never to have consented to the election of any cardinal whom he had injured or who had cause to fear him if they became pontiffs. For men injure either from fear or hatred. Those whom he had injured, amongst others, were San Pietro ad Vincula, Colonna, San Giorgio, and Ascanio. The rest, in becoming Pope, had to fear him, Rouen and the Spaniards excepted the latter from their relationship and obligations, the former from his influence, the kingdom of France having relations with him. Therefore, above everything, the duke ought to have created a Spaniard Pope, and, failing him, he ought to have consented to Rouen and not San Pietro ad Vincula. He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages to forget old injuries is deceived. Therefore, the duke erred in his choice, and it was the cause of his ultimate ruin.  San Giorgio is Raffaello Riario. Ascanio is Ascanio Sforza. Although a prince may rise from a private station in two ways, neither of which can be entirely attributed to fortune or genius, yet it is manifest to me that I must not be silent on them, although one could be more copiously treated when I discuss republics. These methods are when, either by some wicked or nefarious ways, one ascends to the principality, or when by the favour of his fellowcitizens a private person becomes the prince of his country. And speaking of the first method, it will be illustrated by two examplesone ancient, the other modernand without entering further into the subject, I consider these two examples will suffice those who may be compelled to follow them. Agathocles, the Sicilian, became King of Syracuse not only from a private but from a low and abject position. This man, the son of a potter, through all the changes in his fortunes always led an infamous life. Nevertheless, he accompanied his infamies with so much ability of mind and body that, having devoted himself to the military profession, he rose through its ranks to be Praetor of Syracuse. Being established in that position, and having deliberately resolved to make himself prince and to seize by violence, without obligation to others, that which had been conceded to him by assent, he came to an understanding for this purpose with Amilcar, the Carthaginian, who, with his army, was fighting in Sicily. One morning he assembled the people and the senate of Syracuse, as if he had to discuss with them things relating to the Republic, and at a given signal the soldiers killed all the senators and the richest of the people these dead, he seized and held the princedom of that city without any civil commotion. And although he was twice routed by the Carthaginians, and ultimately besieged, yet not only was he able to defend his city, but leaving part of his men for its defence, with the others he attacked Africa, and in a short time raised the siege of Syracuse. The Carthaginians, reduced to extreme necessity, were compelled to come to terms with Agathocles, and, leaving Sicily to him, had to be content with the possession of Africa.  Agathocles the Sicilian, born  B.C., died  B.C. Therefore, he who considers the actions and the genius of this man will see nothing, or little, which can be attributed to fortune, inasmuch as he attained preeminence, as is shown above, not by the favour of any one, but step by step in the military profession, which steps were gained with a thousand troubles and perils, and were afterwards boldly held by him with many hazardous dangers. Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellowcitizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion such methods may gain empire, but not glory. Still, if the courage of Agathocles in entering into and extricating himself from dangers be considered, together with his greatness of mind in enduring and overcoming hardships, it cannot be seen why he should be esteemed less than the most notable captain. Nevertheless, his barbarous cruelty and inhumanity with infinite wickedness do not permit him to be celebrated among the most excellent men. What he achieved cannot be attributed either to fortune or genius. In our times, during the rule of Alexander the Sixth, Oliverotto da Fermo, having been left an orphan many years before, was brought up by his maternal uncle, Giovanni Fogliani, and in the early days of his youth sent to fight under Pagolo Vitelli, that, being trained under his discipline, he might attain some high position in the military profession. After Pagolo died, he fought under his brother Vitellozzo, and in a very short time, being endowed with wit and a vigorous body and mind, he became the first man in his profession. But it appearing a paltry thing to serve under others, he resolved, with the aid of some citizens of Fermo, to whom the slavery of their country was dearer than its liberty, and with the help of the Vitelleschi, to seize Fermo. So he wrote to Giovanni Fogliani that, having been away from home for many years, he wished to visit him and his city, and in some measure to look upon his patrimony and although he had not laboured to acquire anything except honour, yet, in order that the citizens should see he had not spent his time in vain, he desired to come honourably, so would be accompanied by one hundred horsemen, his friends and retainers and he entreated Giovanni to arrange that he should be received honourably by the Fermians, all of which would be not only to his honour, but also to that of Giovanni himself, who had brought him up. Giovanni, therefore, did not fail in any attentions due to his nephew, and he caused him to be honourably received by the Fermians, and he lodged him in his own house, where, having passed some days, and having arranged what was necessary for his wicked designs, Oliverotto gave a solemn banquet to which he invited Giovanni Fogliani and the chiefs of Fermo. When the viands and all the other entertainments that are usual in such banquets were finished, Oliverotto artfully began certain grave discourses, speaking of the greatness of Pope Alexander and his son Cesare, and of their enterprises, to which discourse Giovanni and others answered but he rose at once, saying that such matters ought to be discussed in a more private place, and he betook himself to a chamber, whither Giovanni and the rest of the citizens went in after him. No sooner were they seated than soldiers issued from secret places and slaughtered Giovanni and the rest. After these murders Oliverotto, mounted on horseback, rode up and down the town and besieged the chief magistrate in the palace, so that in fear the people were forced to obey him, and to form a government, of which he made himself the prince. He killed all the malcontents who were able to injure him, and strengthened himself with new civil and military ordinances, in such a way that, in the year during which he held the principality, not only was he secure in the city of Fermo, but he had become formidable to all his neighbours. And his destruction would have been as difficult as that of Agathocles if he had not allowed himself to be overreached by Cesare Borgia, who took him with the Orsini and Vitelli at Sinigalia, as was stated above. Thus one year after he had committed this parricide, he was strangled, together with Vitellozzo, whom he had made his leader in valour and wickedness. Some may wonder how it can happen that Agathocles, and his like, after infinite treacheries and cruelties, should live for long secure in his country, and defend himself from external enemies, and never be conspired against by his own citizens seeing that many others, by means of cruelty, have never been able even in peaceful times to hold the state, still less in the doubtful times of war. I believe that this follows from severities being badly or properly used. Those may be called properly used, if of evil it is possible to speak well, that are applied at one blow and are necessary to one's security, and that are not persisted in afterwards unless they can be turned to the advantage of the subjects. The badly employed are those which, notwithstanding they may be few in the commencement, multiply with time rather than decrease. Those who practise the first system are able, by aid of God or man, to mitigate in some degree their rule, as Agathocles did. It is impossible for those who follow the other to maintain themselves.  Mr Burd suggests that this word probably comes near the modern equivalent of Machiavelli's thought when he speaks of 'crudelta than the more obvious 'cruelties. Hence it is to be remarked that, in seizing a state, the usurper ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily and thus by not unsettling men he will be able to reassure them, and win them to himself by benefits. He who does otherwise, either from timidity or evil advice, is always compelled to keep the knife in his hand neither can he rely on his subjects, nor can they attach themselves to him, owing to their continued and repeated wrongs. For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer. And above all things, a prince ought to live amongst his people in such a way that no unexpected circumstances, whether of good or evil, shall make him change because if the necessity for this comes in troubled times, you are too late for harsh measures and mild ones will not help you, for they will be considered as forced from you, and no one will be under any obligation to you for them. But coming to the other pointwhere a leading citizen becomes the prince of his country, not by wickedness or any intolerable violence, but by the favour of his fellow citizensthis may be called a civil principality nor is genius or fortune altogether necessary to attain to it, but rather a happy shrewdness. I say then that such a principality is obtained either by the favour of the people or by the favour of the nobles. Because in all cities these two distinct parties are found, and from this it arises that the people do not wish to be ruled nor oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles wish to rule and oppress the people and from these two opposite desires there arises in cities one of three results, either a principality, selfgovernment, or anarchy. A principality is created either by the people or by the nobles, accordingly as one or other of them has the opportunity for the nobles, seeing they cannot withstand the people, begin to cry up the reputation of one of themselves, and they make him a prince, so that under his shadow they can give vent to their ambitions. The people, finding they cannot resist the nobles, also cry up the reputation of one of themselves, and make him a prince so as to be defended by his authority. He who obtains sovereignty by the assistance of the nobles maintains himself with more difficulty than he who comes to it by the aid of the people, because the former finds himself with many around him who consider themselves his equals, and because of this he can neither rule nor manage them to his liking. But he who reaches sovereignty by popular favour finds himself alone, and has none around him, or few, who are not prepared to obey him. Besides this, one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, while the former only desire not to be oppressed. It is to be added also that a prince can never secure himself against a hostile people, because of there being too many, whilst from the nobles he can secure himself, as they are few in number. The worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him for they, being in these affairs more farseeing and astute, always come forward in time to save themselves, and to obtain favours from him whom they expect to prevail. Further, the prince is compelled to live always with the same people, but he can do well without the same nobles, being able to make and unmake them daily, and to give or take away authority when it pleases him. Therefore, to make this point clearer, I say that the nobles ought to be looked at mainly in two ways that is to say, they either shape their course in such a way as binds them entirely to your fortune, or they do not. Those who so bind themselves, and are not rapacious, ought to be honoured and loved those who do not bind themselves may be dealt with in two ways they may fail to do this through pusillanimity and a natural want of courage, in which case you ought to make use of them, especially of those who are of good counsel and thus, whilst in prosperity you honour them, in adversity you do not have to fear them. But when for their own ambitious ends they shun binding themselves, it is a token that they are giving more thought to themselves than to you, and a prince ought to guard against such, and to fear them as if they were open enemies, because in adversity they always help to ruin him. Therefore, one who becomes a prince through the favour of the people ought to keep them friendly, and this he can easily do seeing they only ask not to be oppressed by him. But one who, in opposition to the people, becomes a prince by the favour of the nobles, ought, above everything, to seek to win the people over to himself, and this he may easily do if he takes them under his protection. Because men, when they receive good from him of whom they were expecting evil, are bound more closely to their benefactor thus the people quickly become more devoted to him than if he had been raised to the principality by their favours and the prince can win their affections in many ways, but as these vary according to the circumstances one cannot give fixed rules, so I omit them but, I repeat, it is necessary for a prince to have the people friendly, otherwise he has no security in adversity. Nabis, Prince of the Spartans, sustained the attack of all Greece, and of a victorious Roman army, and against them he defended his country and his government and for the overcoming of this peril it was only necessary for him to make himself secure against a few, but this would not have been sufficient had the people been hostile. And do not let any one impugn this statement with the trite proverb that 'He who builds on the people, builds on the mud, for this is true when a private citizen makes a foundation there, and persuades himself that the people will free him when he is oppressed by his enemies or by the magistrates wherein he would find himself very often deceived, as happened to the Gracchi in Rome and to Messer Giorgio Scali in Florence. But granted a prince who has established himself as above, who can command, and is a man of courage, undismayed in adversity, who does not fail in other qualifications, and who, by his resolution and energy, keeps the whole people encouragedsuch a one will never find himself deceived in them, and it will be shown that he has laid his foundations well.  Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, conquered by the Romans under Flamininus in  B.C. killed  B.C.  Messer Giorgio Scali. This event is to be found in Machiavelli's 'Florentine History, Book III. These principalities are liable to danger when they are passing from the civil to the absolute order of government, for such princes either rule personally or through magistrates. In the latter case their government is weaker and more insecure, because it rests entirely on the goodwill of those citizens who are raised to the magistracy, and who, especially in troubled times, can destroy the government with great ease, either by intrigue or open defiance and the prince has not the chance amid tumults to exercise absolute authority, because the citizens and subjects, accustomed to receive orders from magistrates, are not of a mind to obey him amid these confusions, and there will always be in doubtful times a scarcity of men whom he can trust. For such a prince cannot rely upon what he observes in quiet times, when citizens have need of the state, because then every one agrees with him they all promise, and when death is far distant they all wish to die for him but in troubled times, when the state has need of its citizens, then he finds but few. And so much the more is this experiment dangerous, inasmuch as it can only be tried once. Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful. It is necessary to consider another point in examining the character of these principalities that is, whether a prince has such power that, in case of need, he can support himself with his own resources, or whether he has always need of the assistance of others. And to make this quite clear I say that I consider those who are able to support themselves by their own resources who can, either by abundance of men or money, raise a sufficient army to join battle against any one who comes to attack them and I consider those always to have need of others who cannot show themselves against the enemy in the field, but are forced to defend themselves by sheltering behind walls. The first case has been discussed, but we will speak of it again should it recur. In the second case one can say nothing except to encourage such princes to provision and fortify their towns, and not on any account to defend the country. And whoever shall fortify his town well, and shall have managed the other concerns of his subjects in the way stated above, and to be often repeated, will never be attacked without great caution, for men are always adverse to enterprises where difficulties can be seen, and it will be seen not to be an easy thing to attack one who has his town well fortified, and is not hated by his people. The cities of Germany are absolutely free, they own but little country around them, and they yield obedience to the emperor when it suits them, nor do they fear this or any other power they may have near them, because they are fortified in such a way that every one thinks the taking of them by assault would be tedious and difficult, seeing they have proper ditches and walls, they have sufficient artillery, and they always keep in public depots enough for one year's eating, drinking, and firing. And beyond this, to keep the people quiet and without loss to the state, they always have the means of giving work to the community in those labours that are the life and strength of the city, and on the pursuit of which the people are supported they also hold military exercises in repute, and moreover have many ordinances to uphold them. Therefore, a prince who has a strong city, and had not made himself odious, will not be attacked, or if any one should attack he will only be driven off with disgrace again, because that the affairs of this world are so changeable, it is almost impossible to keep an army a whole year in the field without being interfered with. And whoever should reply If the people have property outside the city, and see it burnt, they will not remain patient, and the long siege and selfinterest will make them forget their prince to this I answer that a powerful and courageous prince will overcome all such difficulties by giving at one time hope to his subjects that the evil will not be for long, at another time fear of the cruelty of the enemy, then preserving himself adroitly from those subjects who seem to him to be too bold. Further, the enemy would naturally on his arrival at once burn and ruin the country at the time when the spirits of the people are still hot and ready for the defence and, therefore, so much the less ought the prince to hesitate because after a time, when spirits have cooled, the damage is already done, the ills are incurred, and there is no longer any remedy and therefore they are so much the more ready to unite with their prince, he appearing to be under obligations to them now that their houses have been burnt and their possessions ruined in his defence. For it is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive. Therefore, if everything is well considered, it will not be difficult for a wise prince to keep the minds of his citizens steadfast from first to last, when he does not fail to support and defend them. It only remains now to speak of ecclesiastical principalities, touching which all difficulties are prior to getting possession, because they are acquired either by capacity or good fortune, and they can be held without either for they are sustained by the ancient ordinances of religion, which are so allpowerful, and of such a character that the principalities may be held no matter how their princes behave and live. These princes alone have states and do not defend them and they have subjects and do not rule them and the states, although unguarded, are not taken from them, and the subjects, although not ruled, do not care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability to alienate themselves. Such principalities only are secure and happy. But being upheld by powers, to which the human mind cannot reach, I shall speak no more of them, because, being exalted and maintained by God, it would be the act of a presumptuous and rash man to discuss them. Nevertheless, if any one should ask of me how comes it that the Church has attained such greatness in temporal power, seeing that from Alexander backwards the Italian potentates (not only those who have been called potentates, but every baron and lord, though the smallest) have valued the temporal power very slightlyyet now a king of France trembles before it, and it has been able to drive him from Italy, and to ruin the Venetiansalthough this may be very manifest, it does not appear to me superfluous to recall it in some measure to memory. Before Charles, King of France, passed into Italy, this country was under the dominion of the Pope, the Venetians, the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines. These potentates had two principal anxieties the one, that no foreigner should enter Italy under arms the other, that none of themselves should seize more territory. Those about whom there was the most anxiety were the Pope and the Venetians. To restrain the Venetians the union of all the others was necessary, as it was for the defence of Ferrara and to keep down the Pope they made use of the barons of Rome, who, being divided into two factions, Orsini and Colonnesi, had always a pretext for disorder, and, standing with arms in their hands under the eyes of the Pontiff, kept the pontificate weak and powerless. And although there might arise sometimes a courageous pope, such as Sixtus, yet neither fortune nor wisdom could rid him of these annoyances. And the short life of a pope is also a cause of weakness for in the ten years, which is the average life of a pope, he can with difficulty lower one of the factions and if, so to speak, one people should almost destroy the Colonnesi, another would arise hostile to the Orsini, who would support their opponents, and yet would not have time to ruin the Orsini. This was the reason why the temporal powers of the pope were little esteemed in Italy.  Charles VIII invaded Italy in . Alexander the Sixth arose afterwards, who of all the pontiffs that have ever been showed how a pope with both money and arms was able to prevail and through the instrumentality of the Duke Valentino, and by reason of the entry of the French, he brought about all those things which I have discussed above in the actions of the duke. And although his intention was not to aggrandize the Church, but the duke, nevertheless, what he did contributed to the greatness of the Church, which, after his death and the ruin of the duke, became the heir to all his labours. Pope Julius came afterwards and found the Church strong, possessing all the Romagna, the barons of Rome reduced to impotence, and, through the chastisements of Alexander, the factions wiped out he also found the way open to accumulate money in a manner such as had never been practised before Alexander's time. Such things Julius not only followed, but improved upon, and he intended to gain Bologna, to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. All of these enterprises prospered with him, and so much the more to his credit, inasmuch as he did everything to strengthen the Church and not any private person. He kept also the Orsini and Colonnesi factions within the bounds in which he found them and although there was among them some mind to make disturbance, nevertheless he held two things firm the one, the greatness of the Church, with which he terrified them and the other, not allowing them to have their own cardinals, who caused the disorders among them. For whenever these factions have their cardinals they do not remain quiet for long, because cardinals foster the factions in Rome and out of it, and the barons are compelled to support them, and thus from the ambitions of prelates arise disorders and tumults among the barons. For these reasons his Holiness Pope Leo found the pontificate most powerful, and it is to be hoped that, if others made it great in arms, he will make it still greater and more venerated by his goodness and infinite other virtues.  Pope Leo X was the Cardinal de' Medici. Having discoursed particularly on the characteristics of such principalities as in the beginning I proposed to discuss, and having considered in some degree the causes of there being good or bad, and having shown the methods by which many have sought to acquire them and to hold them, it now remains for me to discuss generally the means of offence and defence which belong to each of them. We have seen above how necessary it is for a prince to have his foundations well laid, otherwise it follows of necessity he will go to ruin. The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. I shall leave the laws out of the discussion and shall speak of the arms. I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were. Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand and he who told us that our sins were the cause of it told the truth, but they were not the sins he imagined, but those which I have related. And as they were the sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty.  'With chalk in hand, 'col gesso. This is one of the bons mots of Alexander VI, and refers to the ease with which Charles VIII seized Italy, implying that it was only necessary for him to send his quartermasters to chalk up the billets for his soldiers to conquer the country. Cf. 'The History of Henry VII, by Lord Bacon 'King Charles had conquered the realm of Naples, and lost it again, in a kind of a felicity of a dream. He passed the whole length of Italy without resistance so that it was true what Pope Alexander was wont to say That the Frenchmen came into Italy with chalk in their hands, to mark up their lodgings, rather than with swords to fight. I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms. The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way. And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way, whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms have to be resorted to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty of a captain the republic has to send its citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the laws so that he does not leave the command. And experience has shown princes and republics, singlehanded, making the greatest progress, and mercenaries doing nothing except damage and it is more difficult to bring a republic, armed with its own arms, under the sway of one of its citizens than it is to bring one armed with foreign arms. Rome and Sparta stood for many ages armed and free. The Switzers are completely armed and quite free. Of ancient mercenaries, for example, there are the Carthaginians, who were oppressed by their mercenary soldiers after the first war with the Romans, although the Carthaginians had their own citizens for captains. After the death of Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon was made captain of their soldiers by the Thebans, and after victory he took away their liberty. Duke Filippo being dead, the Milanese enlisted Francesco Sforza against the Venetians, and he, having overcome the enemy at Caravaggio, allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his masters. His father, Sforza, having been engaged by Queen Johanna of Naples, left her unprotected, so that she was forced to throw herself into the arms of the King of Aragon, in order to save her kingdom. And if the Venetians and Florentines formerly extended their dominions by these arms, and yet their captains did not make themselves princes, but have defended them, I reply that the Florentines in this case have been favoured by chance, for of the able captains, of whom they might have stood in fear, some have not conquered, some have been opposed, and others have turned their ambitions elsewhere. One who did not conquer was Giovanni Acuto, and since he did not conquer his fidelity cannot be proved but every one will acknowledge that, had he conquered, the Florentines would have stood at his discretion. Sforza had the Bracceschi always against him, so they watched each other. Francesco turned his ambition to Lombardy Braccio against the Church and the kingdom of Naples. But let us come to that which happened a short while ago. The Florentines appointed as their captain Pagolo Vitelli, a most prudent man, who from a private position had risen to the greatest renown. If this man had taken Pisa, nobody can deny that it would have been proper for the Florentines to keep in with him, for if he became the soldier of their enemies they had no means of resisting, and if they held to him they must obey him. The Venetians, if their achievements are considered, will be seen to have acted safely and gloriously so long as they sent to war their own men, when with armed gentlemen and plebians they did valiantly. This was before they turned to enterprises on land, but when they began to fight on land they forsook this virtue and followed the custom of Italy. And in the beginning of their expansion on land, through not having much territory, and because of their great reputation, they had not much to fear from their captains but when they expanded, as under Carmignuola, they had a taste of this mistake for, having found him a most valiant man (they beat the Duke of Milan under his leadership), and, on the other hand, knowing how lukewarm he was in the war, they feared they would no longer conquer under him, and for this reason they were not willing, nor were they able, to let him go and so, not to lose again that which they had acquired, they were compelled, in order to secure themselves, to murder him. They had afterwards for their captains Bartolomeo da Bergamo, Roberto da San Severino, the count of Pitigliano, and the like, under whom they had to dread loss and not gain, as happened afterwards at Vaila, where in one battle they lost that which in eight hundred years they had acquired with so much trouble. Because from such arms conquests come but slowly, long delayed and inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and portentous.  Battle of Caravaggio, th September .  Johanna II of Naples, the widow of Ladislao, King of Naples.  Giovanni Acuto. An English knight whose name was Sir John Hawkwood. He fought in the English wars in France, and was knighted by Edward III afterwards he collected a body of troops and went into Italy. These became the famous 'White Company. He took part in many wars, and died in Florence in . He was born about  at Sible Hedingham, a village in Essex. He married Domnia, a daughter of Bernabo Visconti.  Carmignuola. Francesco Bussone, born at Carmagnola about , executed at Venice, th May .  Bartolomeo Colleoni of Bergamo died . Roberto of San Severino died fighting for Venice against Sigismund, Duke of Austria, in . 'Primo capitano in Italia.Machiavelli. Count of Pitigliano Nicolo Orsini, born , died .  Battle of Vaila in . And as with these examples I have reached Italy, which has been ruled for many years by mercenaries, I wish to discuss them more seriously, in order that, having seen their rise and progress, one may be better prepared to counteract them. You must understand that the empire has recently come to be repudiated in Italy, that the Pope has acquired more temporal power, and that Italy has been divided up into more states, for the reason that many of the great cities took up arms against their nobles, who, formerly favoured by the emperor, were oppressing them, whilst the Church was favouring them so as to gain authority in temporal power in many others their citizens became princes. From this it came to pass that Italy fell partly into the hands of the Church and of republics, and, the Church consisting of priests and the republic of citizens unaccustomed to arms, both commenced to enlist foreigners. The first who gave renown to this soldiery was Alberigo da Conio, the Romagnian. From the school of this man sprang, among others, Braccio and Sforza, who in their time were the arbiters of Italy. After these came all the other captains who till now have directed the arms of Italy and the end of all their valour has been, that she has been overrun by Charles, robbed by Louis, ravaged by Ferdinand, and insulted by the Switzers. The principle that has guided them has been, first, to lower the credit of infantry so that they might increase their own. They did this because, subsisting on their pay and without territory, they were unable to support many soldiers, and a few infantry did not give them any authority so they were led to employ cavalry, with a moderate force of which they were maintained and honoured and affairs were brought to such a pass that, in an army of twenty thousand soldiers, there were not to be found two thousand foot soldiers. They had, besides this, used every art to lessen fatigue and danger to themselves and their soldiers, not killing in the fray, but taking prisoners and liberating without ransom. They did not attack towns at night, nor did the garrisons of the towns attack encampments at night they did not surround the camp either with stockade or ditch, nor did they campaign in the winter. All these things were permitted by their military rules, and devised by them to avoid, as I have said, both fatigue and dangers thus they have brought Italy to slavery and contempt.  Alberigo da Conio. Alberico da Barbiano, Count of Cunio in Romagna. He was the leader of the famous 'Company of St George, composed entirely of Italian soldiers. He died in . Auxiliaries, which are the other useless arm, are employed when a prince is called in with his forces to aid and defend, as was done by Pope Julius in the most recent times for he, having, in the enterprise against Ferrara, had poor proof of his mercenaries, turned to auxiliaries, and stipulated with Ferdinand, King of Spain, for his assistance with men and arms. These arms may be useful and good in themselves, but for him who calls them in they are always disadvantageous for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is their captive.  Ferdinand V (F. II of Aragon and Sicily, F. III of Naples), surnamed 'The Catholic, born , died . And although ancient histories may be full of examples, I do not wish to leave this recent one of Pope Julius the Second, the peril of which cannot fail to be perceived for he, wishing to get Ferrara, threw himself entirely into the hands of the foreigner. But his good fortune brought about a third event, so that he did not reap the fruit of his rash choice because, having his auxiliaries routed at Ravenna, and the Switzers having risen and driven out the conquerors (against all expectation, both his and others), it so came to pass that he did not become prisoner to his enemies, they having fled, nor to his auxiliaries, he having conquered by other arms than theirs. The Florentines, being entirely without arms, sent ten thousand Frenchmen to take Pisa, whereby they ran more danger than at any other time of their troubles. The Emperor of Constantinople, to oppose his neighbours, sent ten thousand Turks into Greece, who, on the war being finished, were not willing to quit this was the beginning of the servitude of Greece to the infidels.  Joannes Cantacuzenus, born , died . Therefore, let him who has no desire to conquer make use of these arms, for they are much more hazardous than mercenaries, because with them the ruin is ready made they are all united, all yield obedience to others but with mercenaries, when they have conquered, more time and better opportunities are needed to injure you they are not all of one community, they are found and paid by you, and a third party, which you have made their head, is not able all at once to assume enough authority to injure you. In conclusion, in mercenaries dastardy is most dangerous in auxiliaries, valour. The wise prince, therefore, has always avoided these arms and turned to his own and has been willing rather to lose with them than to conquer with the others, not deeming that a real victory which is gained with the arms of others. I shall never hesitate to cite Cesare Borgia and his actions. This duke entered the Romagna with auxiliaries, taking there only French soldiers, and with them he captured Imola and Forli but afterwards, such forces not appearing to him reliable, he turned to mercenaries, discerning less danger in them, and enlisted the Orsini and Vitelli whom presently, on handling and finding them doubtful, unfaithful, and dangerous, he destroyed and turned to his own men. And the difference between one and the other of these forces can easily be seen when one considers the difference there was in the reputation of the duke, when he had the French, when he had the Orsini and Vitelli, and when he relied on his own soldiers, on whose fidelity he could always count and found it ever increasing he was never esteemed more highly than when every one saw that he was complete master of his own forces. I was not intending to go beyond Italian and recent examples, but I am unwilling to leave out Hiero, the Syracusan, he being one of those I have named above. This man, as I have said, made head of the army by the Syracusans, soon found out that a mercenary soldiery, constituted like our Italian condottieri, was of no use and it appearing to him that he could neither keep them nor let them go, he had them all cut to pieces, and afterwards made war with his own forces and not with aliens. I wish also to recall to memory an instance from the Old Testament applicable to this subject. David offered himself to Saul to fight with Goliath, the Philistine champion, and, to give him courage, Saul armed him with his own weapons which David rejected as soon as he had them on his back, saying he could make no use of them, and that he wished to meet the enemy with his sling and his knife. In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast. Charles the Seventh, the father of King Louis the Eleventh, having by good fortune and valour liberated France from the English, recognized the necessity of being armed with forces of his own, and he established in his kingdom ordinances concerning menatarms and infantry. Afterwards his son, King Louis, abolished the infantry and began to enlist the Switzers, which mistake, followed by others, is, as is now seen, a source of peril to that kingdom because, having raised the reputation of the Switzers, he has entirely diminished the value of his own arms, for he has destroyed the infantry altogether and his menatarms he has subordinated to others, for, being as they are so accustomed to fight along with Switzers, it does not appear that they can now conquer without them. Hence it arises that the French cannot stand against the Switzers, and without the Switzers they do not come off well against others. The armies of the French have thus become mixed, partly mercenary and partly national, both of which arms together are much better than mercenaries alone or auxiliaries alone, but much inferior to one's own forces. And this example proves it, for the kingdom of France would be unconquerable if the ordinance of Charles had been enlarged or maintained.  Charles VII of France, surnamed 'The Victorious, born , died .  Louis XI, son of the above, born , died . But the scanty wisdom of man, on entering into an affair which looks well at first, cannot discern the poison that is hidden in it, as I have said above of hectic fevers. Therefore, if he who rules a principality cannot recognize evils until they are upon him, he is not truly wise and this insight is given to few. And if the first disaster to the Roman Empire should be examined, it will be found to have commenced only with the enlisting of the Goths because from that time the vigour of the Roman Empire began to decline, and all that valour which had raised it passed away to others.  'Many speakers to the House the other night in the debate on the reduction of armaments seemed to show a most lamentable ignorance of the conditions under which the British Empire maintains its existence. When Mr Balfour replied to the allegations that the Roman Empire sank under the weight of its military obligations, he said that this was 'wholly unhistorical.' He might well have added that the Roman power was at its zenith when every citizen acknowledged his liability to fight for the State, but that it began to decline as soon as this obligation was no longer recognised.Pall Mall Gazette, th May . I conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without having its own forces on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on good fortune, not having the valour which in adversity would defend it. And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength. And one's own forces are those which are composed either of subjects, citizens, or dependents all others are mercenaries or auxiliaries. And the way to make ready one's own forces will be easily found if the rules suggested by me shall be reflected upon, and if one will consider how Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and many republics and princes have armed and organized themselves, to which rules I entirely commit myself. A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art. Francesco Sforza, through being martial, from a private person became Duke of Milan and the sons, through avoiding the hardships and troubles of arms, from dukes became private persons. For among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised, and this is one of those ignominies against which a prince ought to guard himself, as is shown later on. Because there is nothing proportionate between the armed and the unarmed and it is not reasonable that he who is armed should yield obedience willingly to him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man should be secure among armed servants. Because, there being in the one disdain and in the other suspicion, it is not possible for them to work well together. And therefore a prince who does not understand the art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, cannot be respected by his soldiers, nor can he rely on them. He ought never, therefore, to have out of his thoughts this subject of war, and in peace he should addict himself more to its exercise than in war this he can do in two ways, the one by action, the other by study. As regards action, he ought above all things to keep his men well organized and drilled, to follow incessantly the chase, by which he accustoms his body to hardships, and learns something of the nature of localities, and gets to find out how the mountains rise, how the valleys open out, how the plains lie, and to understand the nature of rivers and marshes, and in all this to take the greatest care. Which knowledge is useful in two ways. Firstly, he learns to know his country, and is better able to undertake its defence afterwards, by means of the knowledge and observation of that locality, he understands with ease any other which it may be necessary for him to study hereafter because the hills, valleys, and plains, and rivers and marshes that are, for instance, in Tuscany, have a certain resemblance to those of other countries, so that with a knowledge of the aspect of one country one can easily arrive at a knowledge of others. And the prince that lacks this skill lacks the essential which it is desirable that a captain should possess, for it teaches him to surprise his enemy, to select quarters, to lead armies, to array the battle, to besiege towns to advantage. Philopoemen, Prince of the Achaeans, among other praises which writers have bestowed on him, is commended because in time of peace he never had anything in his mind but the rules of war and when he was in the country with friends, he often stopped and reasoned with them 'If the enemy should be upon that hill, and we should find ourselves here with our army, with whom would be the advantage? How should one best advance to meet him, keeping the ranks? If we should wish to retreat, how ought we to pursue? And he would set forth to them, as he went, all the chances that could befall an army he would listen to their opinion and state his, confirming it with reasons, so that by these continual discussions there could never arise, in time of war, any unexpected circumstances that he could not deal with.  Philopoemen, 'the last of the Greeks, born  B.C., died  B.C. But to exercise the intellect the prince should read histories, and study there the actions of illustrious men, to see how they have borne themselves in war, to examine the causes of their victories and defeat, so as to avoid the latter and imitate the former and above all do as an illustrious man did, who took as an exemplar one who had been praised and famous before him, and whose achievements and deeds he always kept in his mind, as it is said Alexander the Great imitated Achilles, Caesar Alexander, Scipio Cyrus. And whoever reads the life of Cyrus, written by Xenophon, will recognize afterwards in the life of Scipio how that imitation was his glory, and how in chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality Scipio conformed to those things which have been written of Cyrus by Xenophon. A wise prince ought to observe some such rules, and never in peaceful times stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way that they may be available to him in adversity, so that if fortune chances it may find him prepared to resist her blows. It remains now to see what ought to be the rules of conduct for a prince towards subject and friends. And as I know that many have written on this point, I expect I shall be considered presumptuous in mentioning it again, especially as in discussing it I shall depart from the methods of other people. But, it being my intention to write a thing which shall be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of it for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil. Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity. Therefore, putting on one side imaginary things concerning a prince, and discussing those which are real, I say that all men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise and thus it is that one is reputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious person in our language is still he who desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who deprives himself too much of the use of his own) one is reputed generous, one rapacious one cruel, one compassionate one faithless, another faithful one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave one affable, another haughty one lascivious, another chaste one sincere, another cunning one hard, another easy one grave, another frivolous one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that every one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good but because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state and also to keep himself, if it be possible, from those which would not lose him it but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. And again, he need not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity. Commencing then with the first of the abovenamed characteristics, I say that it would be well to be reputed liberal. Nevertheless, liberality exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation for it, injures you for if one exercises it honestly and as it should be exercised, it may not become known, and you will not avoid the reproach of its opposite. Therefore, any one wishing to maintain among men the name of liberal is obliged to avoid no attribute of magnificence so that a prince thus inclined will consume in such acts all his property, and will be compelled in the end, if he wish to maintain the name of liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax them, and do everything he can to get money. This will soon make him odious to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by any one thus, with his liberality, having offended many and rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and imperilled by whatever may be the first danger recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into the reproach of being miserly. Therefore, a prince, not being able to exercise this virtue of liberality in such a way that it is recognized, except to his cost, if he is wise he ought not to fear the reputation of being mean, for in time he will come to be more considered than if liberal, seeing that with his economy his revenues are enough, that he can defend himself against all attacks, and is able to engage in enterprises without burdening his people thus it comes to pass that he exercises liberality towards all from whom he does not take, who are numberless, and meanness towards those to whom he does not give, who are few. We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean the rest have failed. Pope Julius the Second was assisted in reaching the papacy by a reputation for liberality, yet he did not strive afterwards to keep it up, when he made war on the King of France and he made many wars without imposing any extraordinary tax on his subjects, for he supplied his additional expenses out of his long thriftiness. The present King of Spain would not have undertaken or conquered in so many enterprises if he had been reputed liberal. A prince, therefore, provided that he has not to rob his subjects, that he can defend himself, that he does not become poor and abject, that he is not forced to become rapacious, ought to hold of little account a reputation for being mean, for it is one of those vices which will enable him to govern. And if any one should say Caesar obtained empire by liberality, and many others have reached the highest positions by having been liberal, and by being considered so, I answer Either you are a prince in fact, or in a way to become one. In the first case this liberality is dangerous, in the second it is very necessary to be considered liberal and Caesar was one of those who wished to become preeminent in Rome but if he had survived after becoming so, and had not moderated his expenses, he would have destroyed his government. And if any one should reply Many have been princes, and have done great things with armies, who have been considered very liberal, I reply Either a prince spends that which is his own or his subjects' or else that of others. In the first case he ought to be sparing, in the second he ought not to neglect any opportunity for liberality. And to the prince who goes forth with his army, supporting it by pillage, sack, and extortion, handling that which belongs to others, this liberality is necessary, otherwise he would not be followed by soldiers. And of that which is neither yours nor your subjects' you can be a ready giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander because it does not take away your reputation if you squander that of others, but adds to it it is only squandering your own that injures you. And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either poor or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and hated. And a prince should guard himself, above all things, against being despised and hated and liberality leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for meanness which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for liberality to incur a name for rapacity which begets reproach with hatred. Coming now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.  During the rioting between the Cancellieri and Panciatichi factions in  and . And of all princes, it is impossible for the new prince to avoid the imputation of cruelty, owing to new states being full of dangers. Hence Virgil, through the mouth of Dido, excuses the inhumanity of her reign owing to its being new, saying 'Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri, et late fines custode tueri. Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable.  . . . against my will, my fate A throne unsettled, and an infant state, Bid me defend my realms with all my pow'rs, And guard with these severities my shores. Christopher Pitt. Upon this a question arises whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails. Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties. Among the wonderful deeds of Hannibal this one is enumerated that having led an enormous army, composed of many various races of men, to fight in foreign lands, no dissensions arose either among them or against the prince, whether in his bad or in his good fortune. This arose from nothing else than his inhuman cruelty, which, with his boundless valour, made him revered and terrible in the sight of his soldiers, but without that cruelty, his other virtues were not sufficient to produce this effect. And shortsighted writers admire his deeds from one point of view and from another condemn the principal cause of them. That it is true his other virtues would not have been sufficient for him may be proved by the case of Scipio, that most excellent man, not only of his own times but within the memory of man, against whom, nevertheless, his army rebelled in Spain this arose from nothing but his too great forbearance, which gave his soldiers more license than is consistent with military discipline. For this he was upbraided in the Senate by Fabius Maximus, and called the corrupter of the Roman soldiery. The Locrians were laid waste by a legate of Scipio, yet they were not avenged by him, nor was the insolence of the legate punished, owing entirely to his easy nature. Insomuch that someone in the Senate, wishing to excuse him, said there were many men who knew much better how not to err than to correct the errors of others. This disposition, if he had been continued in the command, would have destroyed in time the fame and glory of Scipio but, he being under the control of the Senate, this injurious characteristic not only concealed itself, but contributed to his glory. Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted.  'The present chapter has given greater offence than any other portion of Machiavelli's writings. Burd, 'Il Principe, p. . Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable. A prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer. If men were entirely good this precept would not hold, but because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them. Nor will there ever be wanting to a prince legitimate reasons to excuse this nonobservance. Of this endless modern examples could be given, showing how many treaties and engagements have been made void and of no effect through the faithlessness of princes and he who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.  'Contesting, i.e. 'striving for mastery. Mr Burd points out that this passage is imitated directly from Cicero's 'De Officiis 'Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore. But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he always found victims for there never was a man who had greater power in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet would observe it less nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of mankind.  'Nondimanco sempre gli succederono gli inganni (ad votum). The words 'ad votum are omitted in the Testina addition, . Alexander never did what he said, Cesare never said what he did. Italian Proverb. Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite. And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to fidelity, friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled, then to know how to set about it.  'Contrary to fidelity or 'faith, 'contro alla fede, and 'tutto fede, 'altogether faithful, in the next paragraph. It is noteworthy that these two phrases, 'contro alla fede and 'tutto fede, were omitted in the Testina edition, which was published with the sanction of the papal authorities. It may be that the meaning attached to the word 'fede was 'the faith, i.e. the Catholic creed, and not as rendered here 'fidelity and 'faithful. Observe that the word 'religione was suffered to stand in the text of the Testina, being used to signify indifferently every shade of belief, as witness 'the religion, a phrase inevitably employed to designate the Huguenot heresy. South in his Sermon IX, p. , ed. , comments on this passage as follows 'That great patron and Coryphaeus of this tribe, Nicolo Machiavel, laid down this for a master rule in his political scheme 'That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, but the reality of it hurtful and pernicious.' For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the abovenamed five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result. For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on. One prince of the present time, whom it is not well to name, never preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him of reputation and kingdom many a time.  Ferdinand of Aragon. 'When Machiavelli was writing The Prince it would have been clearly impossible to mention Ferdinand's name here without giving offence. Burd's 'Il Principe, p. . Now, concerning the characteristics of which mention is made above, I have spoken of the more important ones, the others I wish to discuss briefly under this generality, that the prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches. It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways. It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, meanspirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty. For this reason a prince ought to have two fears, one from within, on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of external powers. From the latter he is defended by being well armed and having good allies, and if he is well armed he will have good friends, and affairs will always remain quiet within when they are quiet without, unless they should have been already disturbed by conspiracy and even should affairs outside be disturbed, if he has carried out his preparations and has lived as I have said, as long as he does not despair, he will resist every attack, as I said Nabis the Spartan did. But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary for him to accomplish, as I said above at length. And one of the most efficacious remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people, for he who conspires against a prince always expects to please them by his removal but when the conspirator can only look forward to offending them, he will not have the courage to take such a course, for the difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite. And as experience shows, many have been the conspiracies, but few have been successful because he who conspires cannot act alone, nor can he take a companion except from those whom he believes to be malcontents, and as soon as you have opened your mind to a malcontent you have given him the material with which to content himself, for by denouncing you he can look for every advantage so that, seeing the gain from this course to be assured, and seeing the other to be doubtful and full of dangers, he must be a very rare friend, or a thoroughly obstinate enemy of the prince, to keep faith with you. And, to reduce the matter into a small compass, I say that, on the side of the conspirator, there is nothing but fear, jealousy, prospect of punishment to terrify him but on the side of the prince there is the majesty of the principality, the laws, the protection of friends and the state to defend him so that, adding to all these things the popular goodwill, it is impossible that any one should be so rash as to conspire. For whereas in general the conspirator has to fear before the execution of his plot, in this case he has also to fear the sequel to the crime because on account of it he has the people for an enemy, and thus cannot hope for any escape. Endless examples could be given on this subject, but I will be content with one, brought to pass within the memory of our fathers. Messer Annibale Bentivogli, who was prince in Bologna (grandfather of the present Annibale), having been murdered by the Canneschi, who had conspired against him, not one of his family survived but Messer Giovanni, who was in childhood immediately after his assassination the people rose and murdered all the Canneschi. This sprung from the popular goodwill which the house of Bentivogli enjoyed in those days in Bologna which was so great that, although none remained there after the death of Annibale who was able to rule the state, the Bolognese, having information that there was one of the Bentivogli family in Florence, who up to that time had been considered the son of a blacksmith, sent to Florence for him and gave him the government of their city, and it was ruled by him until Messer Giovanni came in due course to the government.  Giovanni Bentivogli, born in Bologna , died at Milan . He ruled Bologna from  to . Machiavelli's strong condemnation of conspiracies may get its edge from his own very recent experience (February ), when he had been arrested and tortured for his alleged complicity in the Boscoli conspiracy. For this reason I consider that a prince ought to reckon conspiracies of little account when his people hold him in esteem but when it is hostile to him, and bears hatred towards him, he ought to fear everything and everybody. And wellordered states and wise princes have taken every care not to drive the nobles to desperation, and to keep the people satisfied and contented, for this is one of the most important objects a prince can have. Among the best ordered and governed kingdoms of our times is France, and in it are found many good institutions on which depend the liberty and security of the king of these the first is the parliament and its authority, because he who founded the kingdom, knowing the ambition of the nobility and their boldness, considered that a bit to their mouths would be necessary to hold them in and, on the other side, knowing the hatred of the people, founded in fear, against the nobles, he wished to protect them, yet he was not anxious for this to be the particular care of the king therefore, to take away the reproach which he would be liable to from the nobles for favouring the people, and from the people for favouring the nobles, he set up an arbiter, who should be one who could beat down the great and favour the lesser without reproach to the king. Neither could you have a better or a more prudent arrangement, or a greater source of security to the king and kingdom. From this one can draw another important conclusion, that princes ought to leave affairs of reproach to the management of others, and keep those of grace in their own hands. And further, I consider that a prince ought to cherish the nobles, but not so as to make himself hated by the people. It may appear, perhaps, to some who have examined the lives and deaths of the Roman emperors that many of them would be an example contrary to my opinion, seeing that some of them lived nobly and showed great qualities of soul, nevertheless they have lost their empire or have been killed by subjects who have conspired against them. Wishing, therefore, to answer these objections, I will recall the characters of some of the emperors, and will show that the causes of their ruin were not different to those alleged by me at the same time I will only submit for consideration those things that are noteworthy to him who studies the affairs of those times. It seems to me sufficient to take all those emperors who succeeded to the empire from Marcus the philosopher down to Maximinus they were Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus. There is first to note that, whereas in other principalities the ambition of the nobles and the insolence of the people only have to be contended with, the Roman emperors had a third difficulty in having to put up with the cruelty and avarice of their soldiers, a matter so beset with difficulties that it was the ruin of many for it was a hard thing to give satisfaction both to soldiers and people because the people loved peace, and for this reason they loved the unaspiring prince, whilst the soldiers loved the warlike prince who was bold, cruel, and rapacious, which qualities they were quite willing he should exercise upon the people, so that they could get double pay and give vent to their own greed and cruelty. Hence it arose that those emperors were always overthrown who, either by birth or training, had no great authority, and most of them, especially those who came new to the principality, recognizing the difficulty of these two opposing humours, were inclined to give satisfaction to the soldiers, caring little about injuring the people. Which course was necessary, because, as princes cannot help being hated by someone, they ought, in the first place, to avoid being hated by every one, and when they cannot compass this, they ought to endeavour with the utmost diligence to avoid the hatred of the most powerful. Therefore, those emperors who through inexperience had need of special favour adhered more readily to the soldiers than to the people a course which turned out advantageous to them or not, accordingly as the prince knew how to maintain authority over them. From these causes it arose that Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander, being all men of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies to cruelty, humane, and benignant, came to a sad end except Marcus he alone lived and died honoured, because he had succeeded to the throne by hereditary title, and owed nothing either to the soldiers or the people and afterwards, being possessed of many virtues which made him respected, he always kept both orders in their places whilst he lived, and was neither hated nor despised. But Pertinax was created emperor against the wishes of the soldiers, who, being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus, could not endure the honest life to which Pertinax wished to reduce them thus, having given cause for hatred, to which hatred there was added contempt for his old age, he was overthrown at the very beginning of his administration. And here it should be noted that hatred is acquired as much by good works as by bad ones, therefore, as I said before, a prince wishing to keep his state is very often forced to do evil for when that body is corrupt whom you think you have need of to maintain yourselfit may be either the people or the soldiers or the noblesyou have to submit to its humours and to gratify them, and then good works will do you harm. But let us come to Alexander, who was a man of such great goodness, that among the other praises which are accorded him is this, that in the fourteen years he held the empire no one was ever put to death by him unjudged nevertheless, being considered effeminate and a man who allowed himself to be governed by his mother, he became despised, the army conspired against him, and murdered him. Turning now to the opposite characters of Commodus, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla, and Maximinus, you will find them all cruel and rapaciousmen who, to satisfy their soldiers, did not hesitate to commit every kind of iniquity against the people and all, except Severus, came to a bad end but in Severus there was so much valour that, keeping the soldiers friendly, although the people were oppressed by him, he reigned successfully for his valour made him so much admired in the sight of the soldiers and people that the latter were kept in a way astonished and awed and the former respectful and satisfied. And because the actions of this man, as a new prince, were great, I wish to show briefly that he knew well how to counterfeit the fox and the lion, which natures, as I said above, it is necessary for a prince to imitate. Knowing the sloth of the Emperor Julian, he persuaded the army in Sclavonia, of which he was captain, that it would be right to go to Rome and avenge the death of Pertinax, who had been killed by the praetorian soldiers and under this pretext, without appearing to aspire to the throne, he moved the army on Rome, and reached Italy before it was known that he had started. On his arrival at Rome, the Senate, through fear, elected him emperor and killed Julian. After this there remained for Severus, who wished to make himself master of the whole empire, two difficulties one in Asia, where Niger, head of the Asiatic army, had caused himself to be proclaimed emperor the other in the west where Albinus was, who also aspired to the throne. And as he considered it dangerous to declare himself hostile to both, he decided to attack Niger and to deceive Albinus. To the latter he wrote that, being elected emperor by the Senate, he was willing to share that dignity with him and sent him the title of Caesar and, moreover, that the Senate had made Albinus his colleague which things were accepted by Albinus as true. But after Severus had conquered and killed Niger, and settled oriental affairs, he returned to Rome and complained to the Senate that Albinus, little recognizing the benefits that he had received from him, had by treachery sought to murder him, and for this ingratitude he was compelled to punish him. Afterwards he sought him out in France, and took from him his government and life. He who will, therefore, carefully examine the actions of this man will find him a most valiant lion and a most cunning fox he will find him feared and respected by every one, and not hated by the army and it need not be wondered at that he, a new man, was able to hold the empire so well, because his supreme renown always protected him from that hatred which the people might have conceived against him for his violence. But his son Antoninus was a most eminent man, and had very excellent qualities, which made him admirable in the sight of the people and acceptable to the soldiers, for he was a warlike man, most enduring of fatigue, a despiser of all delicate food and other luxuries, which caused him to be beloved by the armies. Nevertheless, his ferocity and cruelties were so great and so unheard of that, after endless single murders, he killed a large number of the people of Rome and all those of Alexandria. He became hated by the whole world, and also feared by those he had around him, to such an extent that he was murdered in the midst of his army by a centurion. And here it must be noted that suchlike deaths, which are deliberately inflicted with a resolved and desperate courage, cannot be avoided by princes, because any one who does not fear to die can inflict them but a prince may fear them the less because they are very rare he has only to be careful not to do any grave injury to those whom he employs or has around him in the service of the state. Antoninus had not taken this care, but had contumeliously killed a brother of that centurion, whom also he daily threatened, yet retained in his bodyguard which, as it turned out, was a rash thing to do, and proved the emperor's ruin. But let us come to Commodus, to whom it should have been very easy to hold the empire, for, being the son of Marcus, he had inherited it, and he had only to follow in the footsteps of his father to please his people and soldiers but, being by nature cruel and brutal, he gave himself up to amusing the soldiers and corrupting them, so that he might indulge his rapacity upon the people on the other hand, not maintaining his dignity, often descending to the theatre to compete with gladiators, and doing other vile things, little worthy of the imperial majesty, he fell into contempt with the soldiers, and being hated by one party and despised by the other, he was conspired against and was killed. It remains to discuss the character of Maximinus. He was a very warlike man, and the armies, being disgusted with the effeminacy of Alexander, of whom I have already spoken, killed him and elected Maximinus to the throne. This he did not possess for long, for two things made him hated and despised the one, his having kept sheep in Thrace, which brought him into contempt (it being well known to all, and considered a great indignity by every one), and the other, his having at the accession to his dominions deferred going to Rome and taking possession of the imperial seat he had also gained a reputation for the utmost ferocity by having, through his prefects in Rome and elsewhere in the empire, practised many cruelties, so that the whole world was moved to anger at the meanness of his birth and to fear at his barbarity. First Africa rebelled, then the Senate with all the people of Rome, and all Italy conspired against him, to which may be added his own army this latter, besieging Aquileia and meeting with difficulties in taking it, were disgusted with his cruelties, and fearing him less when they found so many against him, murdered him. I do not wish to discuss Heliogabalus, Macrinus, or Julian, who, being thoroughly contemptible, were quickly wiped out but I will bring this discourse to a conclusion by saying that princes in our times have this difficulty of giving inordinate satisfaction to their soldiers in a far less degree, because, notwithstanding one has to give them some indulgence, that is soon done none of these princes have armies that are veterans in the governance and administration of provinces, as were the armies of the Roman Empire and whereas it was then more necessary to give satisfaction to the soldiers than to the people, it is now more necessary to all princes, except the Turk and the Soldan, to satisfy the people rather the soldiers, because the people are the more powerful. From the above I have excepted the Turk, who always keeps round him twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry on which depend the security and strength of the kingdom, and it is necessary that, putting aside every consideration for the people, he should keep them his friends. The kingdom of the Soldan is similar being entirely in the hands of soldiers, it follows again that, without regard to the people, he must keep them his friends. But you must note that the state of the Soldan is unlike all other principalities, for the reason that it is like the Christian pontificate, which cannot be called either an hereditary or a newly formed principality because the sons of the old prince are not the heirs, but he who is elected to that position by those who have authority, and the sons remain only noblemen. And this being an ancient custom, it cannot be called a new principality, because there are none of those difficulties in it that are met with in new ones for although the prince is new, the constitution of the state is old, and it is framed so as to receive him as if he were its hereditary lord. But returning to the subject of our discourse, I say that whoever will consider it will acknowledge that either hatred or contempt has been fatal to the abovenamed emperors, and it will be recognized also how it happened that, a number of them acting in one way and a number in another, only one in each way came to a happy end and the rest to unhappy ones. Because it would have been useless and dangerous for Pertinax and Alexander, being new princes, to imitate Marcus, who was heir to the principality and likewise it would have been utterly destructive to Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus to have imitated Severus, they not having sufficient valour to enable them to tread in his footsteps. Therefore a prince, new to the principality, cannot imitate the actions of Marcus, nor, again, is it necessary to follow those of Severus, but he ought to take from Severus those parts which are necessary to found his state, and from Marcus those which are proper and glorious to keep a state that may already be stable and firm. . Some princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects others have kept their subject towns distracted by factions others have fostered enmities against themselves others have laid themselves out to gain over those whom they distrusted in the beginning of their governments some have built fortresses some have overthrown and destroyed them. And although one cannot give a final judgment on all of these things unless one possesses the particulars of those states in which a decision has to be made, nevertheless I will speak as comprehensively as the matter of itself will admit. . There never was a new prince who has disarmed his subjects rather when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, because, by arming them, those arms become yours, those men who were distrusted become faithful, and those who were faithful are kept so, and your subjects become your adherents. And whereas all subjects cannot be armed, yet when those whom you do arm are benefited, the others can be handled more freely, and this difference in their treatment, which they quite understand, makes the former your dependents, and the latter, considering it to be necessary that those who have the most danger and service should have the most reward, excuse you. But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn to mercenaries, which are of the character already shown even if they should be good they would not be sufficient to defend you against powerful enemies and distrusted subjects. Therefore, as I have said, a new prince in a new principality has always distributed arms. Histories are full of examples. But when a prince acquires a new state, which he adds as a province to his old one, then it is necessary to disarm the men of that state, except those who have been his adherents in acquiring it and these again, with time and opportunity, should be rendered soft and effeminate and matters should be managed in such a way that all the armed men in the state shall be your own soldiers who in your old state were living near you. . Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia by factions and Pisa by fortresses and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily. This may have been well enough in those times when Italy was in a way balanced, but I do not believe that it can be accepted as a precept for today, because I do not believe that factions can ever be of use rather it is certain that when the enemy comes upon you in divided cities you are quickly lost, because the weakest party will always assist the outside forces and the other will not be able to resist. The Venetians, moved, as I believe, by the above reasons, fostered the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in their tributary cities and although they never allowed them to come to bloodshed, yet they nursed these disputes amongst them, so that the citizens, distracted by their differences, should not unite against them. Which, as we saw, did not afterwards turn out as expected, because, after the rout at Vaila, one party at once took courage and seized the state. Such methods argue, therefore, weakness in the prince, because these factions will never be permitted in a vigorous principality such methods for enabling one the more easily to manage subjects are only useful in times of peace, but if war comes this policy proves fallacious. . Without doubt princes become great when they overcome the difficulties and obstacles by which they are confronted, and therefore fortune, especially when she desires to make a new prince great, who has a greater necessity to earn renown than an hereditary one, causes enemies to arise and form designs against him, in order that he may have the opportunity of overcoming them, and by them to mount higher, as by a ladder which his enemies have raised. For this reason many consider that a wise prince, when he has the opportunity, ought with craft to foster some animosity against himself, so that, having crushed it, his renown may rise higher. . Princes, especially new ones, have found more fidelity and assistance in those men who in the beginning of their rule were distrusted than among those who in the beginning were trusted. Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, ruled his state more by those who had been distrusted than by others. But on this question one cannot speak generally, for it varies so much with the individual I will only say this, that those men who at the commencement of a princedom have been hostile, if they are of a description to need assistance to support themselves, can always be gained over with the greatest ease, and they will be tightly held to serve the prince with fidelity, inasmuch as they know it to be very necessary for them to cancel by deeds the bad impression which he had formed of them and thus the prince always extracts more profit from them than from those who, serving him in too much security, may neglect his affairs. And since the matter demands it, I must not fail to warn a prince, who by means of secret favours has acquired a new state, that he must well consider the reasons which induced those to favour him who did so and if it be not a natural affection towards him, but only discontent with their government, then he will only keep them friendly with great trouble and difficulty, for it will be impossible to satisfy them. And weighing well the reasons for this in those examples which can be taken from ancient and modern affairs, we shall find that it is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it. . It has been a custom with princes, in order to hold their states more securely, to build fortresses that may serve as a bridle and bit to those who might design to work against them, and as a place of refuge from a first attack. I praise this system because it has been made use of formerly. Notwithstanding that, Messer Nicolo Vitelli in our times has been seen to demolish two fortresses in Citta di Castello so that he might keep that state Guido Ubaldo, Duke of Urbino, on returning to his dominion, whence he had been driven by Cesare Borgia, razed to the foundations all the fortresses in that province, and considered that without them it would be more difficult to lose it the Bentivogli returning to Bologna came to a similar decision. Fortresses, therefore, are useful or not according to circumstances if they do you good in one way they injure you in another. And this question can be reasoned thus the prince who has more to fear from the people than from foreigners ought to build fortresses, but he who has more to fear from foreigners than from the people ought to leave them alone. The castle of Milan, built by Francesco Sforza, has made, and will make, more trouble for the house of Sforza than any other disorder in the state. For this reason the best possible fortress isnot to be hated by the people, because, although you may hold the fortresses, yet they will not save you if the people hate you, for there will never be wanting foreigners to assist a people who have taken arms against you. It has not been seen in our times that such fortresses have been of use to any prince, unless to the Countess of Forli, when the Count Girolamo, her consort, was killed for by that means she was able to withstand the popular attack and wait for assistance from Milan, and thus recover her state and the posture of affairs was such at that time that the foreigners could not assist the people. But fortresses were of little value to her afterwards when Cesare Borgia attacked her, and when the people, her enemy, were allied with foreigners. Therefore, it would have been safer for her, both then and before, not to have been hated by the people than to have had the fortresses. All these things considered then, I shall praise him who builds fortresses as well as him who does not, and I shall blame whoever, trusting in them, cares little about being hated by the people.  Catherine Sforza, a daughter of Galeazzo Sforza and Lucrezia Landriani, born , died . It was to the Countess of Forli that Machiavelli was sent as envoy on . A letter from Fortunati to the countess announces the appointment 'I have been with the signori, wrote Fortunati, 'to learn whom they would send and when. They tell me that Nicolo Machiavelli, a learned young Florentine noble, secretary to my Lords of the Ten, is to leave with me at once. Cf. 'Catherine Sforza, by Count Pasolini, translated by P. Sylvester, . Nothing makes a prince so much esteemed as great enterprises and setting a fine example. We have in our time Ferdinand of Aragon, the present King of Spain. He can almost be called a new prince, because he has risen, by fame and glory, from being an insignificant king to be the foremost king in Christendom and if you will consider his deeds you will find them all great and some of them extraordinary. In the beginning of his reign he attacked Granada, and this enterprise was the foundation of his dominions. He did this quietly at first and without any fear of hindrance, for he held the minds of the barons of Castile occupied in thinking of the war and not anticipating any innovations thus they did not perceive that by these means he was acquiring power and authority over them. He was able with the money of the Church and of the people to sustain his armies, and by that long war to lay the foundation for the military skill which has since distinguished him. Further, always using religion as a plea, so as to undertake greater schemes, he devoted himself with pious cruelty to driving out and clearing his kingdom of the Moors nor could there be a more admirable example, nor one more rare. Under this same cloak he assailed Africa, he came down on Italy, he has finally attacked France and thus his achievements and designs have always been great, and have kept the minds of his people in suspense and admiration and occupied with the issue of them. And his actions have arisen in such a way, one out of the other, that men have never been given time to work steadily against him. Again, it much assists a prince to set unusual examples in internal affairs, similar to those which are related of Messer Bernabo da Milano, who, when he had the opportunity, by any one in civil life doing some extraordinary thing, either good or bad, would take some method of rewarding or punishing him, which would be much spoken about. And a prince ought, above all things, always endeavour in every action to gain for himself the reputation of being a great and remarkable man. A prince is also respected when he is either a true friend or a downright enemy, that is to say, when, without any reservation, he declares himself in favour of one party against the other which course will always be more advantageous than standing neutral because if two of your powerful neighbours come to blows, they are of such a character that, if one of them conquers, you have either to fear him or not. In either case it will always be more advantageous for you to declare yourself and to make war strenuously because, in the first case, if you do not declare yourself, you will invariably fall a prey to the conqueror, to the pleasure and satisfaction of him who has been conquered, and you will have no reasons to offer, nor anything to protect or to shelter you. Because he who conquers does not want doubtful friends who will not aid him in the time of trial and he who loses will not harbour you because you did not willingly, sword in hand, court his fate. Antiochus went into Greece, being sent for by the tolians to drive out the Romans. He sent envoys to the Achaeans, who were friends of the Romans, exhorting them to remain neutral and on the other hand the Romans urged them to take up arms. This question came to be discussed in the council of the Achaeans, where the legate of Antiochus urged them to stand neutral. To this the Roman legate answered 'As for that which has been said, that it is better and more advantageous for your state not to interfere in our war, nothing can be more erroneous because by not interfering you will be left, without favour or consideration, the guerdon of the conqueror. Thus it will always happen that he who is not your friend will demand your neutrality, whilst he who is your friend will entreat you to declare yourself with arms. And irresolute princes, to avoid present dangers, generally follow the neutral path, and are generally ruined. But when a prince declares himself gallantly in favour of one side, if the party with whom he allies himself conquers, although the victor may be powerful and may have him at his mercy, yet he is indebted to him, and there is established a bond of amity and men are never so shameless as to become a monument of ingratitude by oppressing you. Victories after all are never so complete that the victor must not show some regard, especially to justice. But if he with whom you ally yourself loses, you may be sheltered by him, and whilst he is able he may aid you, and you become companions on a fortune that may rise again. In the second case, when those who fight are of such a character that you have no anxiety as to who may conquer, so much the more is it greater prudence to be allied, because you assist at the destruction of one by the aid of another who, if he had been wise, would have saved him and conquering, as it is impossible that he should not do with your assistance, he remains at your discretion. And here it is to be noted that a prince ought to take care never to make an alliance with one more powerful than himself for the purposes of attacking others, unless necessity compels him, as is said above because if he conquers you are at his discretion, and princes ought to avoid as much as possible being at the discretion of any one. The Venetians joined with France against the Duke of Milan, and this alliance, which caused their ruin, could have been avoided. But when it cannot be avoided, as happened to the Florentines when the Pope and Spain sent armies to attack Lombardy, then in such a case, for the above reasons, the prince ought to favour one of the parties. Never let any Government imagine that it can choose perfectly safe courses rather let it expect to have to take very doubtful ones, because it is found in ordinary affairs that one never seeks to avoid one trouble without running into another but prudence consists in knowing how to distinguish the character of troubles, and for choice to take the lesser evil. A prince ought also to show himself a patron of ability, and to honour the proficient in every art. At the same time he should encourage his citizens to practise their callings peaceably, both in commerce and agriculture, and in every other following, so that the one should not be deterred from improving his possessions for fear lest they be taken away from him or another from opening up trade for fear of taxes but the prince ought to offer rewards to whoever wishes to do these things and designs in any way to honour his city or state. Further, he ought to entertain the people with festivals and spectacles at convenient seasons of the year and as every city is divided into guilds or into societies, he ought to hold such bodies in esteem, and associate with them sometimes, and show himself an example of courtesy and liberality nevertheless, always maintaining the majesty of his rank, for this he must never consent to abate in anything.  'Guilds or societies, 'in arti o in tribu. 'Arti were craft or trade guilds, cf. Florio 'Arte . . . a whole company of any trade in any city or corporation town. The guilds of Florence are most admirably described by Mr Edgcumbe Staley in his work on the subject (Methuen, ). Institutions of a somewhat similar character, called 'artel, exist in Russia today, cf. Sir Mackenzie Wallace's 'Russia, ed.  'The sons . . . were always during the working season members of an artel. In some of the larger towns there are artels of a much more complex kind permanent associations, possessing large capital, and pecuniarily responsible for the acts of the individual members. The word 'artel, despite its apparent similarity, has, Mr Aylmer Maude assures me, no connection with 'ars or 'arte. Its root is that of the verb 'rotisya, to bind oneself by an oath and it is generally admitted to be only another form of 'rota, which now signifies a 'regimental company. In both words the underlying idea is that of a body of men united by an oath. 'Tribu were possibly gentile groups, united by common descent, and included individuals connected by marriage. Perhaps our words 'sects or 'clans would be most appropriate. The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them. There were none who knew Messer Antonio da Venafro as the servant of Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, who would not consider Pandolfo to be a very clever man in having Venafro for his servant. Because there are three classes of intellects one which comprehends by itself another which appreciates what others comprehended and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless. Therefore, it follows necessarily that, if Pandolfo was not in the first rank, he was in the second, for whenever one has judgment to know good and bad when it is said and done, although he himself may not have the initiative, yet he can recognize the good and the bad in his servant, and the one he can praise and the other correct thus the servant cannot hope to deceive him, and is kept honest. But to enable a prince to form an opinion of his servant there is one test which never fails when you see the servant thinking more of his own interests than of yours, and seeking inwardly his own profit in everything, such a man will never make a good servant, nor will you ever be able to trust him because he who has the state of another in his hands ought never to think of himself, but always of his prince, and never pay any attention to matters in which the prince is not concerned. On the other hand, to keep his servant honest the prince ought to study him, honouring him, enriching him, doing him kindnesses, sharing with him the honours and cares and at the same time let him see that he cannot stand alone, so that many honours may not make him desire more, many riches make him wish for more, and that many cares may make him dread chances. When, therefore, servants, and princes towards servants, are thus disposed, they can trust each other, but when it is otherwise, the end will always be disastrous for either one or the other. I do not wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, for it is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, unless they are very careful and discriminating. It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full, because men are so selfcomplacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into contempt. Because there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you but when every one may tell you the truth, respect for you abates. Therefore a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him, and then only of those things of which he inquires, and of none others but he ought to question them upon everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions. With these councillors, separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be preferred outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt. I wish on this subject to adduce a modern example. Fra Luca, the man of affairs to Maximilian, the present emperor, speaking of his majesty, said He consulted with no one, yet never got his own way in anything. This arose because of his following a practice the opposite to the above for the emperor is a secretive manhe does not communicate his designs to any one, nor does he receive opinions on them. But as in carrying them into effect they become revealed and known, they are at once obstructed by those men whom he has around him, and he, being pliant, is diverted from them. Hence it follows that those things he does one day he undoes the next, and no one ever understands what he wishes or intends to do, and no one can rely on his resolutions.  Maximilian I, born in , died , Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He married, first, Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold after her death, Bianca Sforza and thus became involved in Italian politics. A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but only when he wishes and not when others wish he ought rather to discourage every one from offering advice unless he asks it but, however, he ought to be a constant inquirer, and afterwards a patient listener concerning the things of which he inquired also, on learning that any one, on any consideration, has not told him the truth, he should let his anger be felt. And if there are some who think that a prince who conveys an impression of his wisdom is not so through his own ability, but through the good advisers that he has around him, beyond doubt they are deceived, because this is an axiom which never fails that a prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice, unless by chance he has yielded his affairs entirely to one person who happens to be a very prudent man. In this case indeed he may be well governed, but it would not be for long, because such a governor would in a short time take away his state from him. But if a prince who is not inexperienced should take counsel from more than one he will never get united counsels, nor will he know how to unite them. Each of the counsellors will think of his own interests, and the prince will not know how to control them or to see through them. And they are not to be found otherwise, because men will always prove untrue to you unless they are kept honest by constraint. Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels. The previous suggestions, carefully observed, will enable a new prince to appear well established, and render him at once more secure and fixed in the state than if he had been long seated there. For the actions of a new prince are more narrowly observed than those of an hereditary one, and when they are seen to be able they gain more men and bind far tighter than ancient blood because men are attracted more by the present than by the past, and when they find the present good they enjoy it and seek no further they will also make the utmost defence of a prince if he fails them not in other things. Thus it will be a double glory for him to have established a new principality, and adorned and strengthened it with good laws, good arms, good allies, and with a good example so will it be a double disgrace to him who, born a prince, shall lose his state by want of wisdom. And if those seigniors are considered who have lost their states in Italy in our times, such as the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and others, there will be found in them, firstly, one common defect in regard to arms from the causes which have been discussed at length in the next place, some one of them will be seen, either to have had the people hostile, or if he has had the people friendly, he has not known how to secure the nobles. In the absence of these defects states that have power enough to keep an army in the field cannot be lost. Philip of Macedon, not the father of Alexander the Great, but he who was conquered by Titus Quintius, had not much territory compared to the greatness of the Romans and of Greece who attacked him, yet being a warlike man who knew how to attract the people and secure the nobles, he sustained the war against his enemies for many years, and if in the end he lost the dominion of some cities, nevertheless he retained the kingdom. Therefore, do not let our princes accuse fortune for the loss of their principalities after so many years' possession, but rather their own sloth, because in quiet times they never thought there could be a change (it is a common defect in man not to make any provision in the calm against the tempest), and when afterwards the bad times came they thought of flight and not of defending themselves, and they hoped that the people, disgusted with the insolence of the conquerors, would recall them. This course, when others fail, may be good, but it is very bad to have neglected all other expedients for that, since you would never wish to fall because you trusted to be able to find someone later on to restore you. This again either does not happen, or, if it does, it will not be for your security, because that deliverance is of no avail which does not depend upon yourself those only are reliable, certain, and durable that depend on yourself and your valour. It is not unknown to me how many men have had, and still have, the opinion that the affairs of the world are in such wise governed by fortune and by God that men with their wisdom cannot direct them and that no one can even help them and because of this they would have us believe that it is not necessary to labour much in affairs, but to let chance govern them. This opinion has been more credited in our times because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of onehalf of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.  Frederick the Great was accustomed to say 'The older one gets the more convinced one becomes that his Majesty King Chance does threequarters of the business of this miserable universe. Sorel's 'Eastern Question. I compare her to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her. And if you will consider Italy, which is the seat of these changes, and which has given to them their impulse, you will see it to be an open country without barriers and without any defence. For if it had been defended by proper valour, as are Germany, Spain, and France, either this invasion would not have made the great changes it has made or it would not have come at all. And this I consider enough to say concerning resistance to fortune in general. But confining myself more to the particular, I say that a prince may be seen happy today and ruined tomorrow without having shown any change of disposition or character. This, I believe, arises firstly from causes that have already been discussed at length, namely, that the prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes. I believe also that he will be successful who directs his actions according to the spirit of the times, and that he whose actions do not accord with the times will not be successful. Because men are seen, in affairs that lead to the end which every man has before him, namely, glory and riches, to get there by various methods one with caution, another with haste one by force, another by skill one by patience, another by its opposite and each one succeeds in reaching the goal by a different method. One can also see of two cautious men the one attain his end, the other fail and similarly, two men by different observances are equally successful, the one being cautious, the other impetuous all this arises from nothing else than whether or not they conform in their methods to the spirit of the times. This follows from what I have said, that two men working differently bring about the same effect, and of two working similarly, one attains his object and the other does not. Changes in estate also issue from this, for if, to one who governs himself with caution and patience, times and affairs converge in such a way that his administration is successful, his fortune is made but if times and affairs change, he is ruined if he does not change his course of action. But a man is not often found sufficiently circumspect to know how to accommodate himself to the change, both because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to do, and also because, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be persuaded that it is well to leave it and, therefore, the cautious man, when it is time to turn adventurous, does not know how to do it, hence he is ruined but had he changed his conduct with the times fortune would not have changed. Pope Julius the Second went to work impetuously in all his affairs, and found the times and circumstances conform so well to that line of action that he always met with success. Consider his first enterprise against Bologna, Messer Giovanni Bentivogli being still alive. The Venetians were not agreeable to it, nor was the King of Spain, and he had the enterprise still under discussion with the King of France nevertheless he personally entered upon the expedition with his accustomed boldness and energy, a move which made Spain and the Venetians stand irresolute and passive, the latter from fear, the former from desire to recover the kingdom of Naples on the other hand, he drew after him the King of France, because that king, having observed the movement, and desiring to make the Pope his friend so as to humble the Venetians, found it impossible to refuse him. Therefore Julius with his impetuous action accomplished what no other pontiff with simple human wisdom could have done for if he had waited in Rome until he could get away, with his plans arranged and everything fixed, as any other pontiff would have done, he would never have succeeded. Because the King of France would have made a thousand excuses, and the others would have raised a thousand fears. I will leave his other actions alone, as they were all alike, and they all succeeded, for the shortness of his life did not let him experience the contrary but if circumstances had arisen which required him to go cautiously, his ruin would have followed, because he would never have deviated from those ways to which nature inclined him. I conclude, therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and illuse her and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, womanlike, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her. Having carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to a new prince, and whether there were elements that would give an opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present. And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should be captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses that the Persians should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the greatness of the soul of Cyrus and that the Athenians should be dispersed to illustrate the capabilities of Theseus then at the present time, in order to discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy should be reduced to the extremity that she is now in, that she should be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more scattered than the Athenians without head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, overrun and to have endured every kind of desolation. Although lately some spark may have been shown by one, which made us think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected him so that Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how she entreats God to send someone who shall deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it. Nor is there to be seen at present one in whom she can place more hope than in your illustrious house, with its valour and fortune, favoured by God and by the Church of which it is now the chief, and which could be made the head of this redemption. This will not be difficult if you will recall to yourself the actions and lives of the men I have named. And although they were great and wonderful men, yet they were men, and each one of them had no more opportunity than the present offers, for their enterprises were neither more just nor easier than this, nor was God more their friend than He is yours.  Giuliano de Medici. He had just been created a cardinal by Leo X. In  Giuliano was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement VII. With us there is great justice, because that war is just which is necessary, and arms are hallowed when there is no other hope but in them. Here there is the greatest willingness, and where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great if you will only follow those men to whom I have directed your attention. Further than this, how extraordinarily the ways of God have been manifested beyond example the sea is divided, a cloud has led the way, the rock has poured forth water, it has rained manna, everything has contributed to your greatness you ought to do the rest. God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us. And it is not to be wondered at if none of the abovenamed Italians have been able to accomplish all that is expected from your illustrious house and if in so many revolutions in Italy, and in so many campaigns, it has always appeared as if military virtue were exhausted, this has happened because the old order of things was not good, and none of us have known how to find a new one. And nothing honours a man more than to establish new laws and new ordinances when he himself was newly risen. Such things when they are well founded and dignified will make him revered and admired, and in Italy there are not wanting opportunities to bring such into use in every form. Here there is great valour in the limbs whilst it fails in the head. Look attentively at the duels and the handtohand combats, how superior the Italians are in strength, dexterity, and subtlety. But when it comes to armies they do not bear comparison, and this springs entirely from the insufficiency of the leaders, since those who are capable are not obedient, and each one seems to himself to know, there having never been any one so distinguished above the rest, either by valour or fortune, that others would yield to him. Hence it is that for so long a time, and during so much fighting in the past twenty years, whenever there has been an army wholly Italian, it has always given a poor account of itself the first witness to this is Il Taro, afterwards Allesandria, Capua, Genoa, Vaila, Bologna, Mestri.  The battles of Il Taro,  Alessandria,  Capua,  Genoa,  Vaila,  Bologna,  Mestri, . If, therefore, your illustrious house wishes to follow these remarkable men who have redeemed their country, it is necessary before all things, as a true foundation for every enterprise, to be provided with your own forces, because there can be no more faithful, truer, or better soldiers. And although singly they are good, altogether they will be much better when they find themselves commanded by their prince, honoured by him, and maintained at his expense. Therefore it is necessary to be prepared with such arms, so that you can be defended against foreigners by Italian valour. And although Swiss and Spanish infantry may be considered very formidable, nevertheless there is a defect in both, by reason of which a third order would not only be able to oppose them, but might be relied upon to overthrow them. For the Spaniards cannot resist cavalry, and the Switzers are afraid of infantry whenever they encounter them in close combat. Owing to this, as has been and may again be seen, the Spaniards are unable to resist French cavalry, and the Switzers are overthrown by Spanish infantry. And although a complete proof of this latter cannot be shown, nevertheless there was some evidence of it at the battle of Ravenna, when the Spanish infantry were confronted by German battalions, who follow the same tactics as the Swiss when the Spaniards, by agility of body and with the aid of their shields, got in under the pikes of the Germans and stood out of danger, able to attack, while the Germans stood helpless, and, if the cavalry had not dashed up, all would have been over with them. It is possible, therefore, knowing the defects of both these infantries, to invent a new one, which will resist cavalry and not be afraid of infantry this need not create a new order of arms, but a variation upon the old. And these are the kind of improvements which confer reputation and power upon a new prince. This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be allowed to pass for letting Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express the love with which he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered so much from these foreign scourings, with what thirst for revenge, with what stubborn faith, with what devotion, with what tears. What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse obedience to him? What envy would hinder him? What Italian would refuse him homage? To all of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, therefore, your illustrious house take up this charge with that courage and hope with which all just enterprises are undertaken, so that under its standard our native country may be ennobled, and under its auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch Virtu contro al Furore Prendera l'arme, e fia il combatter corto Che l'antico valore Negli italici cuor non e ancor morto. Virtue against fury shall advance the fight, And it i' th' combat soon shall put to flight For the old Roman valour is not dead, Nor in th' Italians' brests extinguished. Edward Dacre, . BY NICOLO MACHIAVELLI The Duke Valentino had returned from Lombardy, where he had been to clear himself with the King of France from the calumnies which had been raised against him by the Florentines concerning the rebellion of Arezzo and other towns in the Val di Chiana, and had arrived at Imola, whence he intended with his army to enter upon the campaign against Giovanni Bentivogli, the tyrant of Bologna for he intended to bring that city under his domination, and to make it the head of his Romagnian duchy. These matters coming to the knowledge of the Vitelli and Orsini and their following, it appeared to them that the duke would become too powerful, and it was feared that, having seized Bologna, he would seek to destroy them in order that he might become supreme in Italy. Upon this a meeting was called at Magione in the district of Perugia, to which came the cardinal, Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini, Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Gianpagolo Baglioni, the tyrant of Perugia, and Messer Antonio da Venafro, sent by Pandolfo Petrucci, the Prince of Siena. Here were discussed the power and courage of the duke and the necessity of curbing his ambitions, which might otherwise bring danger to the rest of being ruined. And they decided not to abandon the Bentivogli, but to strive to win over the Florentines and they sent their men to one place and another, promising to one party assistance and to another encouragement to unite with them against the common enemy. This meeting was at once reported throughout all Italy, and those who were discontented under the duke, among whom were the people of Urbino, took hope of effecting a revolution. Thus it arose that, men's minds being thus unsettled, it was decided by certain men of Urbino to seize the fortress of San Leo, which was held for the duke, and which they captured by the following means. The castellan was fortifying the rock and causing timber to be taken there so the conspirators watched, and when certain beams which were being carried to the rock were upon the bridge, so that it was prevented from being drawn up by those inside, they took the opportunity of leaping upon the bridge and thence into the fortress. Upon this capture being effected, the whole state rebelled and recalled the old duke, being encouraged in this, not so much by the capture of the fort, as by the Diet at Magione, from whom they expected to get assistance. Those who heard of the rebellion at Urbino thought they would not lose the opportunity, and at once assembled their men so as to take any town, should any remain in the hands of the duke in that state and they sent again to Florence to beg that republic to join with them in destroying the common firebrand, showing that the risk was lessened and that they ought not to wait for another opportunity. But the Florentines, from hatred, for sundry reasons, of the Vitelli and Orsini, not only would not ally themselves, but sent Nicolo Machiavelli, their secretary, to offer shelter and assistance to the duke against his enemies. The duke was found full of fear at Imola, because, against everybody's expectation, his soldiers had at once gone over to the enemy and he found himself disarmed and war at his door. But recovering courage from the offers of the Florentines, he decided to temporize before fighting with the few soldiers that remained to him, and to negotiate for a reconciliation, and also to get assistance. This latter he obtained in two ways, by sending to the King of France for men and by enlisting menatarms and others whom he turned into cavalry of a sort to all he gave money. Notwithstanding this, his enemies drew near to him, and approached Fossombrone, where they encountered some men of the duke and, with the aid of the Orsini and Vitelli, routed them. When this happened, the duke resolved at once to see if he could not close the trouble with offers of reconciliation, and being a most perfect dissembler he did not fail in any practices to make the insurgents understand that he wished every man who had acquired anything to keep it, as it was enough for him to have the title of prince, whilst others might have the principality. And the duke succeeded so well in this that they sent Signor Pagolo to him to negotiate for a reconciliation, and they brought their army to a standstill. But the duke did not stop his preparations, and took every care to provide himself with cavalry and infantry, and that such preparations might not be apparent to the others, he sent his troops in separate parties to every part of the Romagna. In the meanwhile there came also to him five hundred French lancers, and although he found himself sufficiently strong to take vengeance on his enemies in open war, he considered that it would be safer and more advantageous to outwit them, and for this reason he did not stop the work of reconciliation. And that this might be effected the duke concluded a peace with them in which he confirmed their former covenants he gave them four thousand ducats at once he promised not to injure the Bentivogli and he formed an alliance with Giovanni and moreover he would not force them to come personally into his presence unless it pleased them to do so. On the other hand, they promised to restore to him the duchy of Urbino and other places seized by them, to serve him in all his expeditions, and not to make war against or ally themselves with any one without his permission. This reconciliation being completed, Guido Ubaldo, the Duke of Urbino, again fled to Venice, having first destroyed all the fortresses in his state because, trusting in the people, he did not wish that the fortresses, which he did not think he could defend, should be held by the enemy, since by these means a check would be kept upon his friends. But the Duke Valentino, having completed this convention, and dispersed his men throughout the Romagna, set out for Imola at the end of November together with his French menatarms thence he went to Cesena, where he stayed some time to negotiate with the envoys of the Vitelli and Orsini, who had assembled with their men in the duchy of Urbino, as to the enterprise in which they should now take part but nothing being concluded, Oliverotto da Fermo was sent to propose that if the duke wished to undertake an expedition against Tuscany they were ready if he did not wish it, then they would besiege Sinigalia. To this the duke replied that he did not wish to enter into war with Tuscany, and thus become hostile to the Florentines, but that he was very willing to proceed against Sinigalia. It happened that not long afterwards the town surrendered, but the fortress would not yield to them because the castellan would not give it up to any one but the duke in person therefore they exhorted him to come there. This appeared a good opportunity to the duke, as, being invited by them, and not going of his own will, he would awaken no suspicions. And the more to reassure them, he allowed all the French menatarms who were with him in Lombardy to depart, except the hundred lancers under Mons. di Candales, his brotherinlaw. He left Cesena about the middle of December, and went to Fano, and with the utmost cunning and cleverness he persuaded the Vitelli and Orsini to wait for him at Sinigalia, pointing out to them that any lack of compliance would cast a doubt upon the sincerity and permanency of the reconciliation, and that he was a man who wished to make use of the arms and councils of his friends. But Vitellozzo remained very stubborn, for the death of his brother warned him that he should not offend a prince and afterwards trust him nevertheless, persuaded by Pagolo Orsini, whom the duke had corrupted with gifts and promises, he agreed to wait. Upon this the duke, before his departure from Fano, which was to be on th December , communicated his designs to eight of his most trusted followers, among whom were Don Michele and the Monsignor d'Euna, who was afterwards cardinal and he ordered that, as soon as Vitellozzo, Pagolo Orsini, the Duke di Gravina, and Oliverotto should arrive, his followers in pairs should take them one by one, entrusting certain men to certain pairs, who should entertain them until they reached Sinigalia nor should they be permitted to leave until they came to the duke's quarters, where they should be seized. The duke afterwards ordered all his horsemen and infantry, of which there were more than two thousand cavalry and ten thousand footmen, to assemble by daybreak at the Metauro, a river five miles distant from Fano, and await him there. He found himself, therefore, on the last day of December at the Metauro with his men, and having sent a cavalcade of about two hundred horsemen before him, he then moved forward the infantry, whom he accompanied with the rest of the menatarms. Fano and Sinigalia are two cities of La Marca situated on the shore of the Adriatic Sea, fifteen miles distant from each other, so that he who goes towards Sinigalia has the mountains on his right hand, the bases of which are touched by the sea in some places. The city of Sinigalia is distant from the foot of the mountains a little more than a bowshot and from the shore about a mile. On the side opposite to the city runs a little river which bathes that part of the walls looking towards Fano, facing the high road. Thus he who draws near to Sinigalia comes for a good space by road along the mountains, and reaches the river which passes by Sinigalia. If he turns to his left hand along the bank of it, and goes for the distance of a bowshot, he arrives at a bridge which crosses the river he is then almost abreast of the gate that leads into Sinigalia, not by a straight line, but transversely. Before this gate there stands a collection of houses with a square to which the bank of the river forms one side. The Vitelli and Orsini having received orders to wait for the duke, and to honour him in person, sent away their men to several castles distant from Sinigalia about six miles, so that room could be made for the men of the duke and they left in Sinigalia only Oliverotto and his band, which consisted of one thousand infantry and one hundred and fifty horsemen, who were quartered in the suburb mentioned above. Matters having been thus arranged, the Duke Valentino left for Sinigalia, and when the leaders of the cavalry reached the bridge they did not pass over, but having opened it, one portion wheeled towards the river and the other towards the country, and a way was left in the middle through which the infantry passed, without stopping, into the town. Vitellozzo, Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina on mules, accompanied by a few horsemen, went towards the duke Vitellozo, unarmed and wearing a cape lined with green, appeared very dejected, as if conscious of his approaching deatha circumstance which, in view of the ability of the man and his former fortune, caused some amazement. And it is said that when he parted from his men before setting out for Sinigalia to meet the duke he acted as if it were his last parting from them. He recommended his house and its fortunes to his captains, and advised his nephews that it was not the fortune of their house, but the virtues of their fathers that should be kept in mind. These three, therefore, came before the duke and saluted him respectfully, and were received by him with goodwill they were at once placed between those who were commissioned to look after them. But the duke noticing that Oliverotto, who had remained with his band in Sinigalia, was missingfor Oliverotto was waiting in the square before his quarters near the river, keeping his men in order and drilling themsignalled with his eye to Don Michelle, to whom the care of Oliverotto had been committed, that he should take measures that Oliverotto should not escape. Therefore Don Michele rode off and joined Oliverotto, telling him that it was not right to keep his men out of their quarters, because these might be taken up by the men of the duke and he advised him to send them at once to their quarters and to come himself to meet the duke. And Oliverotto, having taken this advice, came before the duke, who, when he saw him, called to him and Oliverotto, having made his obeisance, joined the others. So the whole party entered Sinigalia, dismounted at the duke's quarters, and went with him into a secret chamber, where the duke made them prisoners he then mounted on horseback, and issued orders that the men of Oliverotto and the Orsini should be stripped of their arms. Those of Oliverotto, being at hand, were quickly settled, but those of the Orsini and Vitelli, being at a distance, and having a presentiment of the destruction of their masters, had time to prepare themselves, and bearing in mind the valour and discipline of the Orsinian and Vitellian houses, they stood together against the hostile forces of the country and saved themselves. But the duke's soldiers, not being content with having pillaged the men of Oliverotto, began to sack Sinigalia, and if the duke had not repressed this outrage by killing some of them they would have completely sacked it. Night having come and the tumult being silenced, the duke prepared to kill Vitellozzo and Oliverotto he led them into a room and caused them to be strangled. Neither of them used words in keeping with their past lives Vitellozzo prayed that he might ask of the pope full pardon for his sins Oliverotto cringed and laid the blame for all injuries against the duke on Vitellozzo. Pagolo and the Duke di Gravina Orsini were kept alive until the duke heard from Rome that the pope had taken the Cardinal Orsino, the Archbishop of Florence, and Messer Jacopo da Santa Croce. After which news, on th January , in the castle of Pieve, they also were strangled in the same way. WRITTEN BY NICOLO MACHIAVELLI And sent to his friends ZANOBI BUONDELMONTI And LUIGI ALAMANNI It appears, dearest Zanobi and Luigi, a wonderful thing to those who have considered the matter, that all men, or the larger number of them, who have performed great deeds in the world, and excelled all others in their day, have had their birth and beginning in baseness and obscurity or have been aggrieved by Fortune in some outrageous way. They have either been exposed to the mercy of wild beasts, or they have had so mean a parentage that in shame they have given themselves out to be sons of Jove or of some other deity. It would be wearisome to relate who these persons may have been because they are well known to everybody, and, as such tales would not be particularly edifying to those who read them, they are omitted. I believe that these lowly beginnings of great men occur because Fortune is desirous of showing to the world that such men owe much to her and little to wisdom, because she begins to show her hand when wisdom can really take no part in their career thus all success must be attributed to her. Castruccio Castracani of Lucca was one of those men who did great deeds, if he is measured by the times in which he lived and the city in which he was born but, like many others, he was neither fortunate nor distinguished in his birth, as the course of this history will show. It appeared to be desirable to recall his memory, because I have discerned in him such indications of valour and fortune as should make him a great exemplar to men. I think also that I ought to call your attention to his actions, because you of all men I know delight most in noble deeds. The family of Castracani was formerly numbered among the noble families of Lucca, but in the days of which I speak it had somewhat fallen in estate, as so often happens in this world. To this family was born a son Antonio, who became a priest of the order of San Michele of Lucca, and for this reason was honoured with the title of Messer Antonio. He had an only sister, who had been married to Buonaccorso Cenami, but Buonaccorso dying she became a widow, and not wishing to marry again went to live with her brother. Messer Antonio had a vineyard behind the house where he resided, and as it was bounded on all sides by gardens, any person could have access to it without difficulty. One morning, shortly after sunrise, Madonna Dianora, as the sister of Messer Antonio was called, had occasion to go into the vineyard as usual to gather herbs for seasoning the dinner, and hearing a slight rustling among the leaves of a vine she turned her eyes in that direction, and heard something resembling the cry of an infant. Whereupon she went towards it, and saw the hands and face of a baby who was lying enveloped in the leaves and who seemed to be crying for its mother. Partly wondering and partly fearing, yet full of compassion, she lifted it up and carried it to the house, where she washed it and clothed it with clean linen as is customary, and showed it to Messer Antonio when he returned home. When he heard what had happened and saw the child he was not less surprised or compassionate than his sister. They discussed between themselves what should be done, and seeing that he was priest and that she had no children, they finally determined to bring it up. They had a nurse for it, and it was reared and loved as if it were their own child. They baptized it, and gave it the name of Castruccio after their father. As the years passed Castruccio grew very handsome, and gave evidence of wit and discretion, and learnt with a quickness beyond his years those lessons which Messer Antonio imparted to him. Messer Antonio intended to make a priest of him, and in time would have inducted him into his canonry and other benefices, and all his instruction was given with this object but Antonio discovered that the character of Castruccio was quite unfitted for the priesthood. As soon as Castruccio reached the age of fourteen he began to take less notice of the chiding of Messer Antonio and Madonna Dianora and no longer to fear them he left off reading ecclesiastical books, and turned to playing with arms, delighting in nothing so much as in learning their uses, and in running, leaping, and wrestling with other boys. In all exercises he far excelled his companions in courage and bodily strength, and if at any time he did turn to books, only those pleased him which told of wars and the mighty deeds of men. Messer Antonio beheld all this with vexation and sorrow. There lived in the city of Lucca a gentleman of the Guinigi family, named Messer Francesco, whose profession was arms and who in riches, bodily strength, and valour excelled all other men in Lucca. He had often fought under the command of the Visconti of Milan, and as a Ghibelline was the valued leader of that party in Lucca. This gentleman resided in Lucca and was accustomed to assemble with others most mornings and evenings under the balcony of the Podesta, which is at the top of the square of San Michele, the finest square in Lucca, and he had often seen Castruccio taking part with other children of the street in those games of which I have spoken. Noticing that Castruccio far excelled the other boys, and that he appeared to exercise a royal authority over them, and that they loved and obeyed him, Messer Francesco became greatly desirous of learning who he was. Being informed of the circumstances of the bringing up of Castruccio he felt a greater desire to have him near to him. Therefore he called him one day and asked him whether he would more willingly live in the house of a gentleman, where he would learn to ride horses and use arms, or in the house of a priest, where he would learn nothing but masses and the services of the Church. Messer Francesco could see that it pleased Castruccio greatly to hear horses and arms spoken of, even though he stood silent, blushing modestly but being encouraged by Messer Francesco to speak, he answered that, if his master were agreeable, nothing would please him more than to give up his priestly studies and take up those of a soldier. This reply delighted Messer Francesco, and in a very short time he obtained the consent of Messer Antonio, who was driven to yield by his knowledge of the nature of the lad, and the fear that he would not be able to hold him much longer. Thus Castruccio passed from the house of Messer Antonio the priest to the house of Messer Francesco Guinigi the soldier, and it was astonishing to find that in a very short time he manifested all that virtue and bearing which we are accustomed to associate with a true gentleman. In the first place he became an accomplished horseman, and could manage with ease the most fiery charger, and in all jousts and tournaments, although still a youth, he was observed beyond all others, and he excelled in all exercises of strength and dexterity. But what enhanced so much the charm of these accomplishments, was the delightful modesty which enabled him to avoid offence in either act or word to others, for he was deferential to the great men, modest with his equals, and courteous to his inferiors. These gifts made him beloved, not only by all the Guinigi family, but by all Lucca. When Castruccio had reached his eighteenth year, the Ghibellines were driven from Pavia by the Guelphs, and Messer Francesco was sent by the Visconti to assist the Ghibellines, and with him went Castruccio, in charge of his forces. Castruccio gave ample proof of his prudence and courage in this expedition, acquiring greater reputation than any other captain, and his name and fame were known, not only in Pavia, but throughout all Lombardy. Castruccio, having returned to Lucca in far higher estimation than he left it, did not omit to use all the means in his power to gain as many friends as he could, neglecting none of those arts which are necessary for that purpose. About this time Messer Francesco died, leaving a son thirteen years of age named Pagolo, and having appointed Castruccio to be his son's tutor and administrator of his estate. Before he died Francesco called Castruccio to him, and prayed him to show Pagolo that goodwill which he (Francesco) had always shown to HIM, and to render to the son the gratitude which he had not been able to repay to the father. Upon the death of Francesco, Castruccio became the governor and tutor of Pagolo, which increased enormously his power and position, and created a certain amount of envy against him in Lucca in place of the former universal goodwill, for many men suspected him of harbouring tyrannical intentions. Among these the leading man was Giorgio degli Opizi, the head of the Guelph party. This man hoped after the death of Messer Francesco to become the chief man in Lucca, but it seemed to him that Castruccio, with the great abilities which he already showed, and holding the position of governor, deprived him of his opportunity therefore he began to sow those seeds which should rob Castruccio of his eminence. Castruccio at first treated this with scorn, but afterwards he grew alarmed, thinking that Messer Giorgio might be able to bring him into disgrace with the deputy of King Ruberto of Naples and have him driven out of Lucca. The Lord of Pisa at that time was Uguccione of the Faggiuola of Arezzo, who being in the first place elected their captain afterwards became their lord. There resided in Paris some exiled Ghibellines from Lucca, with whom Castruccio held communications with the object of effecting their restoration by the help of Uguccione. Castruccio also brought into his plans friends from Lucca who would not endure the authority of the Opizi. Having fixed upon a plan to be followed, Castruccio cautiously fortified the tower of the Onesti, filling it with supplies and munitions of war, in order that it might stand a siege for a few days in case of need. When the night came which had been agreed upon with Uguccione, who had occupied the plain between the mountains and Pisa with many men, the signal was given, and without being observed Uguccione approached the gate of San Piero and set fire to the portcullis. Castruccio raised a great uproar within the city, calling the people to arms and forcing open the gate from his side. Uguccione entered with his men, poured through the town, and killed Messer Giorgio with all his family and many of his friends and supporters. The governor was driven out, and the government reformed according to the wishes of Uguccione, to the detriment of the city, because it was found that more than one hundred families were exiled at that time. Of those who fled, part went to Florence and part to Pistoia, which city was the headquarters of the Guelph party, and for this reason it became most hostile to Uguccione and the Lucchese. As it now appeared to the Florentines and others of the Guelph party that the Ghibellines absorbed too much power in Tuscany, they determined to restore the exiled Guelphs to Lucca. They assembled a large army in the Val di Nievole, and seized Montecatini from thence they marched to Montecarlo, in order to secure the free passage into Lucca. Upon this Uguccione assembled his Pisan and Lucchese forces, and with a number of German cavalry which he drew out of Lombardy, he moved against the quarters of the Florentines, who upon the appearance of the enemy withdrew from Montecarlo, and posted themselves between Montecatini and Pescia. Uguccione now took up a position near to Montecarlo, and within about two miles of the enemy, and slight skirmishes between the horse of both parties were of daily occurrence. Owing to the illness of Uguccione, the Pisans and Lucchese delayed coming to battle with the enemy. Uguccione, finding himself growing worse, went to Montecarlo to be cured, and left the command of the army in the hands of Castruccio. This change brought about the ruin of the Guelphs, who, thinking that the hostile army having lost its captain had lost its head, grew overconfident. Castruccio observed this, and allowed some days to pass in order to encourage this belief he also showed signs of fear, and did not allow any of the munitions of the camp to be used. On the other side, the Guelphs grew more insolent the more they saw these evidences of fear, and every day they drew out in the order of battle in front of the army of Castruccio. Presently, deeming that the enemy was sufficiently emboldened, and having mastered their tactics, he decided to join battle with them. First he spoke a few words of encouragement to his soldiers, and pointed out to them the certainty of victory if they would but obey his commands. Castruccio had noticed how the enemy had placed all his best troops in the centre of the line of battle, and his less reliable men on the wings of the army whereupon he did exactly the opposite, putting his most valiant men on the flanks, while those on whom he could not so strongly rely he moved to the centre. Observing this order of battle, he drew out of his lines and quickly came in sight of the hostile army, who, as usual, had come in their insolence to defy him. He then commanded his centre squadrons to march slowly, whilst he moved rapidly forward those on the wings. Thus, when they came into contact with the enemy, only the wings of the two armies became engaged, whilst the center battalions remained out of action, for these two portions of the line of battle were separated from each other by a long interval and thus unable to reach each other. By this expedient the more valiant part of Castruccio's men were opposed to the weaker part of the enemy's troops, and the most efficient men of the enemy were disengaged and thus the Florentines were unable to fight with those who were arrayed opposite to them, or to give any assistance to their own flanks. So, without much difficulty, Castruccio put the enemy to flight on both flanks, and the centre battalions took to flight when they found themselves exposed to attack, without having a chance of displaying their valour. The defeat was complete, and the loss in men very heavy, there being more than ten thousand men killed with many officers and knights of the Guelph party in Tuscany, and also many princes who had come to help them, among whom were Piero, the brother of King Ruberto, and Carlo, his nephew, and Filippo, the lord of Taranto. On the part of Castruccio the loss did not amount to more than three hundred men, among whom was Francesco, the son of Uguccione, who, being young and rash, was killed in the first onset. This victory so greatly increased the reputation of Castruccio that Uguccione conceived some jealousy and suspicion of him, because it appeared to Uguccione that this victory had given him no increase of power, but rather than diminished it. Being of this mind, he only waited for an opportunity to give effect to it. This occurred on the death of Pier Agnolo Micheli, a man of great repute and abilities in Lucca, the murderer of whom fled to the house of Castruccio for refuge. On the sergeants of the captain going to arrest the murderer, they were driven off by Castruccio, and the murderer escaped. This affair coming to the knowledge of Uguccione, who was then at Pisa, it appeared to him a proper opportunity to punish Castruccio. He therefore sent for his son Neri, who was the governor of Lucca, and commissioned him to take Castruccio prisoner at a banquet and put him to death. Castruccio, fearing no evil, went to the governor in a friendly way, was entertained at supper, and then thrown into prison. But Neri, fearing to put him to death lest the people should be incensed, kept him alive, in order to hear further from his father concerning his intentions. Ugucionne cursed the hesitation and cowardice of his son, and at once set out from Pisa to Lucca with four hundred horsemen to finish the business in his own way but he had not yet reached the baths when the Pisans rebelled and put his deputy to death and created Count Gaddo della Gherardesca their lord. Before Uguccione reached Lucca he heard of the occurrences at Pisa, but it did not appear wise to him to turn back, lest the Lucchese with the example of Pisa before them should close their gates against him. But the Lucchese, having heard of what had happened at Pisa, availed themselves of this opportunity to demand the liberation of Castruccio, notwithstanding that Uguccione had arrived in their city. They first began to speak of it in private circles, afterwards openly in the squares and streets then they raised a tumult, and with arms in their hands went to Uguccione and demanded that Castruccio should be set at liberty. Uguccione, fearing that worse might happen, released him from prison. Whereupon Castruccio gathered his friends around him, and with the help of the people attacked Uguccione who, finding he had no resource but in flight, rode away with his friends to Lombardy, to the lords of Scale, where he died in poverty. But Castruccio from being a prisoner became almost a prince in Lucca, and he carried himself so discreetly with his friends and the people that they appointed him captain of their army for one year. Having obtained this, and wishing to gain renown in war, he planned the recovery of the many towns which had rebelled after the departure of Uguccione, and with the help of the Pisans, with whom he had concluded a treaty, he marched to Serezzana. To capture this place he constructed a fort against it, which is called today Zerezzanello in the course of two months Castruccio captured the town. With the reputation gained at that siege, he rapidly seized Massa, Carrara, and Lavenza, and in a short time had overrun the whole of Lunigiana. In order to close the pass which leads from Lombardy to Lunigiana, he besieged Pontremoli and wrested it from the hands of Messer Anastagio Palavicini, who was the lord of it. After this victory he returned to Lucca, and was welcomed by the whole people. And now Castruccio, deeming it imprudent any longer to defer making himself a prince, got himself created the lord of Lucca by the help of Pazzino del Poggio, Puccinello dal Portico, Francesco Boccansacchi, and Cecco Guinigi, all of whom he had corrupted and he was afterwards solemnly and deliberately elected prince by the people. At this time Frederick of Bavaria, the King of the Romans, came into Italy to assume the Imperial crown, and Castruccio, in order that he might make friends with him, met him at the head of five hundred horsemen. Castruccio had left as his deputy in Lucca, Pagolo Guinigi, who was held in high estimation, because of the people's love for the memory of his father. Castruccio was received in great honour by Frederick, and many privileges were conferred upon him, and he was appointed the emperor's lieutenant in Tuscany. At this time the Pisans were in great fear of Gaddo della Gherardesca, whom they had driven out of Pisa, and they had recourse for assistance to Frederick. Frederick created Castruccio the lord of Pisa, and the Pisans, in dread of the Guelph party, and particularly of the Florentines, were constrained to accept him as their lord. Frederick, having appointed a governor in Rome to watch his Italian affairs, returned to Germany. All the Tuscan and Lombardian Ghibellines, who followed the imperial lead, had recourse to Castruccio for help and counsel, and all promised him the governorship of his country, if enabled to recover it with his assistance. Among these exiles were Matteo Guidi, Nardo Scolari, Lapo Uberti, Gerozzo Nardi, and Piero Buonaccorsi, all exiled Florentines and Ghibellines. Castruccio had the secret intention of becoming the master of all Tuscany by the aid of these men and of his own forces and in order to gain greater weight in affairs, he entered into a league with Messer Matteo Visconti, the Prince of Milan, and organized for him the forces of his city and the country districts. As Lucca had five gates, he divided his own country districts into five parts, which he supplied with arms, and enrolled the men under captains and ensigns, so that he could quickly bring into the field twenty thousand soldiers, without those whom he could summon to his assistance from Pisa. While he surrounded himself with these forces and allies, it happened at Messer Matteo Visconti was attacked by the Guelphs of Piacenza, who had driven out the Ghibellines with the assistance of a Florentine army and the King Ruberto. Messer Matteo called upon Castruccio to invade the Florentines in their own territories, so that, being attacked at home, they should be compelled to draw their army out of Lombardy in order to defend themselves. Castruccio invaded the Valdarno, and seized Fucecchio and San Miniato, inflicting immense damage upon the country. Whereupon the Florentines recalled their army, which had scarcely reached Tuscany, when Castruccio was forced by other necessities to return to Lucca. There resided in the city of Lucca the Poggio family, who were so powerful that they could not only elevate Castruccio, but even advance him to the dignity of prince and it appearing to them they had not received such rewards for their services as they deserved, they incited other families to rebel and to drive Castruccio out of Lucca. They found their opportunity one morning, and arming themselves, they set upon the lieutenant whom Castruccio had left to maintain order and killed him. They endeavoured to raise the people in revolt, but Stefano di Poggio, a peaceable old man who had taken no hand in the rebellion, intervened and compelled them by his authority to lay down their arms and he offered to be their mediator with Castruccio to obtain from him what they desired. Therefore they laid down their arms with no greater intelligence than they had taken them up. Castruccio, having heard the news of what had happened at Lucca, at once put Pagolo Guinigi in command of the army, and with a troop of cavalry set out for home. Contrary to his expectations, he found the rebellion at an end, yet he posted his men in the most advantageous places throughout the city. As it appeared to Stefano that Castruccio ought to be very much obliged to him, he sought him out, and without saying anything on his own behalf, for he did not recognize any need for doing so, he begged Castruccio to pardon the other members of his family by reason of their youth, their former friendships, and the obligations which Castruccio was under to their house. To this Castruccio graciously responded, and begged Stefano to reassure himself, declaring that it gave him more pleasure to find the tumult at an end than it had ever caused him anxiety to hear of its inception. He encouraged Stefano to bring his family to him, saying that he thanked God for having given him the opportunity of showing his clemency and liberality. Upon the word of Stefano and Castruccio they surrendered, and with Stefano were immediately thrown into prison and put to death. Meanwhile the Florentines had recovered San Miniato, whereupon it seemed advisable to Castruccio to make peace, as it did not appear to him that he was sufficiently secure at Lucca to leave him. He approached the Florentines with the proposal of a truce, which they readily entertained, for they were weary of the war, and desirous of getting rid of the expenses of it. A treaty was concluded with them for two years, by which both parties agreed to keep the conquests they had made. Castruccio thus released from this trouble, turned his attention to affairs in Lucca, and in order that he should not again be subject to the perils from which he had just escaped, he, under various pretences and reasons, first wiped out all those who by their ambition might aspire to the principality not sparing one of them, but depriving them of country and property, and those whom he had in his hands of life also, stating that he had found by experience that none of them were to be trusted. Then for his further security he raised a fortress in Lucca with the stones of the towers of those whom he had killed or hunted out of the state. Whilst Castruccio made peace with the Florentines, and strengthened his position in Lucca, he neglected no opportunity, short of open war, of increasing his importance elsewhere. It appeared to him that if he could get possession of Pistoia, he would have one foot in Florence, which was his great desire. He, therefore, in various ways made friends with the mountaineers, and worked matters so in Pistoia that both parties confided their secrets to him. Pistoia was divided, as it always had been, into the Bianchi and Neri parties the head of the Bianchi was Bastiano di Possente, and of the Neri, Jacopo da Gia. Each of these men held secret communications with Castruccio, and each desired to drive the other out of the city and, after many threatenings, they came to blows. Jacopo fortified himself at the Florentine gate, Bastiano at that of the Lucchese side of the city both trusted more in Castruccio than in the Florentines, because they believed that Castruccio was far more ready and willing to fight than the Florentines, and they both sent to him for assistance. He gave promises to both, saying to Bastiano that he would come in person, and to Jacopo that he would send his pupil, Pagolo Guinigi. At the appointed time he sent forward Pagolo by way of Pisa, and went himself direct to Pistoia at midnight both of them met outside the city, and both were admitted as friends. Thus the two leaders entered, and at a signal given by Castruccio, one killed Jacopo da Gia, and the other Bastiano di Possente, and both took prisoners or killed the partisans of either faction. Without further opposition Pistoia passed into the hands of Castruccio, who, having forced the Signoria to leave the palace, compelled the people to yield obedience to him, making them many promises and remitting their old debts. The countryside flocked to the city to see the new prince, and all were filled with hope and quickly settled down, influenced in a great measure by his great valour. About this time great disturbances arose in Rome, owing to the dearness of living which was caused by the absence of the pontiff at Avignon. The German governor, Enrico, was much blamed for what happenedmurders and tumults following each other daily, without his being able to put an end to them. This caused Enrico much anxiety lest the Romans should call in Ruberto, the King of Naples, who would drive the Germans out of the city, and bring back the Pope. Having no nearer friend to whom he could apply for help than Castruccio, he sent to him, begging him not only to give him assistance, but also to come in person to Rome. Castruccio considered that he ought not to hesitate to render the emperor this service, because he believed that he himself would not be safe if at any time the emperor ceased to hold Rome. Leaving Pagolo Guinigi in command at Lucca, Castruccio set out for Rome with six hundred horsemen, where he was received by Enrico with the greatest distinction. In a short time the presence of Castruccio obtained such respect for the emperor that, without bloodshed or violence, good order was restored, chiefly by reason of Castruccio having sent by sea from the country round Pisa large quantities of corn, and thus removed the source of the trouble. When he had chastised some of the Roman leaders, and admonished others, voluntary obedience was rendered to Enrico. Castruccio received many honours, and was made a Roman senator. This dignity was assumed with the greatest pomp, Castruccio being clothed in a brocaded toga, which had the following words embroidered on its front 'I am what God wills. Whilst on the back was 'What God desires shall be. During this time the Florentines, who were much enraged that Castruccio should have seized Pistoia during the truce, considered how they could tempt the city to rebel, to do which they thought would not be difficult in his absence. Among the exiled Pistoians in Florence were Baldo Cecchi and Jacopo Baldini, both men of leading and ready to face danger. These men kept up communications with their friends in Pistoia, and with the aid of the Florentines entered the city by night, and after driving out some of Castruccio's officials and partisans, and killing others, they restored the city to its freedom. The news of this greatly angered Castruccio, and taking leave of Enrico, he pressed on in great haste to Pistoia. When the Florentines heard of his return, knowing that he would lose no time, they decided to intercept him with their forces in the Val di Nievole, under the belief that by doing so they would cut off his road to Pistoia. Assembling a great army of the supporters of the Guelph cause, the Florentines entered the Pistoian territories. On the other hand, Castruccio reached Montecarlo with his army and having heard where the Florentines' lay, he decided not to encounter it in the plains of Pistoia, nor to await it in the plains of Pescia, but, as far as he possibly could, to attack it boldly in the Pass of Serravalle. He believed that if he succeeded in this design, victory was assured, although he was informed that the Florentines had thirty thousand men, whilst he had only twelve thousand. Although he had every confidence in his own abilities and the valour of his troops, yet he hesitated to attack his enemy in the open lest he should be overwhelmed by numbers. Serravalle is a castle between Pescia and Pistoia, situated on a hill which blocks the Val di Nievole, not in the exact pass, but about a bowshot beyond the pass itself is in places narrow and steep, whilst in general it ascends gently, but is still narrow, especially at the summit where the waters divide, so that twenty men side by side could hold it. The lord of Serravalle was Manfred, a German, who, before Castruccio became lord of Pistoia, had been allowed to remain in possession of the castle, it being common to the Lucchese and the Pistoians, and unclaimed by eitherneither of them wishing to displace Manfred as long as he kept his promise of neutrality, and came under obligations to no one. For these reasons, and also because the castle was well fortified, he had always been able to maintain his position. It was here that Castruccio had determined to fall upon his enemy, for here his few men would have the advantage, and there was no fear lest, seeing the large masses of the hostile force before they became engaged, they should not stand. As soon as this trouble with Florence arose, Castruccio saw the immense advantage which possession of this castle would give him, and having an intimate friendship with a resident in the castle, he managed matters so with him that four hundred of his men were to be admitted into the castle the night before the attack on the Florentines, and the castellan put to death. Castruccio, having prepared everything, had now to encourage the Florentines to persist in their desire to carry the seat of war away from Pistoia into the Val di Nievole, therefore he did not move his army from Montecarlo. Thus the Florentines hurried on until they reached their encampment under Serravalle, intending to cross the hill on the following morning. In the meantime, Castruccio had seized the castle at night, had also moved his army from Montecarlo, and marching from thence at midnight in dead silence, had reached the foot of Serravalle thus he and the Florentines commenced the ascent of the hill at the same time in the morning. Castruccio sent forward his infantry by the main road, and a troop of four hundred horsemen by a path on the left towards the castle. The Florentines sent forward four hundred cavalry ahead of their army which was following, never expecting to find Castruccio in possession of the hill, nor were they aware of his having seized the castle. Thus it happened that the Florentine horsemen mounting the hill were completely taken by surprise when they discovered the infantry of Castruccio, and so close were they upon it they had scarcely time to pull down their visors. It was a case of unready soldiers being attacked by ready, and they were assailed with such vigour that with difficulty they could hold their own, although some few of them got through. When the noise of the fighting reached the Florentine camp below, it was filled with confusion. The cavalry and infantry became inextricably mixed the captains were unable to get their men either backward or forward, owing to the narrowness of the pass, and amid all this tumult no one knew what ought to be done or what could be done. In a short time the cavalry who were engaged with the enemy's infantry were scattered or killed without having made any effective defence because of their unfortunate position, although in sheer desperation they had offered a stout resistance. Retreat had been impossible, with the mountains on both flanks, whilst in front were their enemies, and in the rear their friends. When Castruccio saw that his men were unable to strike a decisive blow at the enemy and put them to flight, he sent one thousand infantrymen round by the castle, with orders to join the four hundred horsemen he had previously dispatched there, and commanded the whole force to fall upon the flank of the enemy. These orders they carried out with such fury that the Florentines could not sustain the attack, but gave way, and were soon in full retreatconquered more by their unfortunate position than by the valour of their enemy. Those in the rear turned towards Pistoia, and spread through the plains, each man seeking only his own safety. The defeat was complete and very sanguinary. Many captains were taken prisoners, among whom were Bandini dei Rossi, Francesco Brunelleschi, and Giovanni della Tosa, all Florentine noblemen, with many Tuscans and Neapolitans who fought on the Florentine side, having been sent by King Ruberto to assist the Guelphs. Immediately the Pistoians heard of this defeat they drove out the friends of the Guelphs, and surrendered to Castruccio. He was not content with occupying Prato and all the castles on the plains on both sides of the Arno, but marched his army into the plain of Peretola, about two miles from Florence. Here he remained many days, dividing the spoils, and celebrating his victory with feasts and games, holding horse races, and foot races for men and women. He also struck medals in commemoration of the defeat of the Florentines. He endeavoured to corrupt some of the citizens of Florence, who were to open the city gates at night but the conspiracy was discovered, and the participators in it taken and beheaded, among whom were Tommaso Lupacci and Lambertuccio Frescobaldi. This defeat caused the Florentines great anxiety, and despairing of preserving their liberty, they sent envoys to King Ruberto of Naples, offering him the dominion of their city and he, knowing of what immense importance the maintenance of the Guelph cause was to him, accepted it. He agreed with the Florentines to receive from them a yearly tribute of two hundred thousand florins, and he sent his son Carlo to Florence with four thousand horsemen. Shortly after this the Florentines were relieved in some degree of the pressure of Castruccio's army, owing to his being compelled to leave his positions before Florence and march on Pisa, in order to suppress a conspiracy that had been raised against him by Benedetto Lanfranchi, one of the first men in Pisa, who could not endure that his fatherland should be under the dominion of the Lucchese. He had formed this conspiracy, intending to seize the citadel, kill the partisans of Castruccio, and drive out the garrison. As, however, in a conspiracy paucity of numbers is essential to secrecy, so for its execution a few are not sufficient, and in seeking more adherents to his conspiracy Lanfranchi encountered a person who revealed the design to Castruccio. This betrayal cannot be passed by without severe reproach to Bonifacio Cerchi and Giovanni Guidi, two Florentine exiles who were suffering their banishment in Pisa. Thereupon Castruccio seized Benedetto and put him to death, and beheaded many other noble citizens, and drove their families into exile. It now appeared to Castruccio that both Pisa and Pistoia were thoroughly disaffected he employed much thought and energy upon securing his position there, and this gave the Florentines their opportunity to reorganize their army, and to await the coming of Carlo, the son of the King of Naples. When Carlo arrived they decided to lose no more time, and assembled a great army of more than thirty thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalryhaving called to their aid every Guelph there was in Italy. They consulted whether they should attack Pistoia or Pisa first, and decided that it would be better to march on the lattera course, owing to the recent conspiracy, more likely to succeed, and of more advantage to them, because they believed that the surrender of Pistoia would follow the acquisition of Pisa. In the early part of May , the Florentines put in motion this army and quickly occupied Lastra, Signa, Montelupo, and Empoli, passing from thence on to San Miniato. When Castruccio heard of the enormous army which the Florentines were sending against him, he was in no degree alarmed, believing that the time had now arrived when Fortune would deliver the empire of Tuscany into his hands, for he had no reason to think that his enemy would make a better fight, or had better prospects of success, than at Pisa or Serravalle. He assembled twenty thousand foot soldiers and four thousand horsemen, and with this army went to Fucecchio, whilst he sent Pagolo Guinigi to Pisa with five thousand infantry. Fucecchio has a stronger position than any other town in the Pisan district, owing to its situation between the rivers Arno and Gusciana and its slight elevation above the surrounding plain. Moreover, the enemy could not hinder its being victualled unless they divided their forces, nor could they approach it either from the direction of Lucca or Pisa, nor could they get through to Pisa, or attack Castruccio's forces except at a disadvantage. In one case they would find themselves placed between his two armies, the one under his own command and the other under Pagolo, and in the other case they would have to cross the Arno to get to close quarters with the enemy, an undertaking of great hazard. In order to tempt the Florentines to take this latter course, Castruccio withdrew his men from the banks of the river and placed them under the walls of Fucecchio, leaving a wide expanse of land between them and the river. The Florentines, having occupied San Miniato, held a council of war to decide whether they should attack Pisa or the army of Castruccio, and, having weighed the difficulties of both courses, they decided upon the latter. The river Arno was at that time low enough to be fordable, yet the water reached to the shoulders of the infantrymen and to the saddles of the horsemen. On the morning of  June , the Florentines commenced the battle by ordering forward a number of cavalry and ten thousand infantry. Castruccio, whose plan of action was fixed, and who well knew what to do, at once attacked the Florentines with five thousand infantry and three thousand horsemen, not allowing them to issue from the river before he charged them he also sent one thousand light infantry up the river bank, and the same number down the Arno. The infantry of the Florentines were so much impeded by their arms and the water that they were not able to mount the banks of the river, whilst the cavalry had made the passage of the river more difficult for the others, by reason of the few who had crossed having broken up the bed of the river, and this being deep with mud, many of the horses rolled over with their riders and many of them had stuck so fast that they could not move. When the Florentine captains saw the difficulties their men were meeting, they withdrew them and moved higher up the river, hoping to find the river bed less treacherous and the banks more adapted for landing. These men were met at the bank by the forces which Castruccio had already sent forward, who, being light armed with bucklers and javelins in their hands, let fly with tremendous shouts into the faces and bodies of the cavalry. The horses, alarmed by the noise and the wounds, would not move forward, and trampled each other in great confusion. The fight between the men of Castruccio and those of the enemy who succeeded in crossing was sharp and terrible both sides fought with the utmost desperation and neither would yield. The soldiers of Castruccio fought to drive the others back into the river, whilst the Florentines strove to get a footing on land in order to make room for the others pressing forward, who if they could but get out of the water would be able to fight, and in this obstinate conflict they were urged on by their captains. Castruccio shouted to his men that these were the same enemies whom they had before conquered at Serravalle, whilst the Florentines reproached each other that the many should be overcome by the few. At length Castruccio, seeing how long the battle had lasted, and that both his men and the enemy were utterly exhausted, and that both sides had many killed and wounded, pushed forward another body of infantry to take up a position at the rear of those who were fighting he then commanded these latter to open their ranks as if they intended to retreat, and one part of them to turn to the right and another to the left. This cleared a space of which the Florentines at once took advantage, and thus gained possession of a portion of the battlefield. But when these tired soldiers found themselves at close quarters with Castruccio's reserves they could not stand against them and at once fell back into the river. The cavalry of either side had not as yet gained any decisive advantage over the other, because Castruccio, knowing his inferiority in this arm, had commanded his leaders only to stand on the defensive against the attacks of their adversaries, as he hoped that when he had overcome the infantry he would be able to make short work of the cavalry. This fell out as he had hoped, for when he saw the Florentine army driven back across the river he ordered the remainder of his infantry to attack the cavalry of the enemy. This they did with lance and javelin, and, joined by their own cavalry, fell upon the enemy with the greatest fury and soon put him to flight. The Florentine captains, having seen the difficulty their cavalry had met with in crossing the river, had attempted to make their infantry cross lower down the river, in order to attack the flanks of Castruccio's army. But here, also, the banks were steep and already lined by the men of Castruccio, and this movement was quite useless. Thus the Florentines were so completely defeated at all points that scarcely a third of them escaped, and Castruccio was again covered with glory. Many captains were taken prisoners, and Carlo, the son of King Ruberto, with Michelagnolo Falconi and Taddeo degli Albizzi, the Florentine commissioners, fled to Empoli. If the spoils were great, the slaughter was infinitely greater, as might be expected in such a battle. Of the Florentines there fell twenty thousand two hundred and thirtyone men, whilst Castruccio lost one thousand five hundred and seventy men. But Fortune growing envious of the glory of Castruccio took away his life just at the time when she should have preserved it, and thus ruined all those plans which for so long a time he had worked to carry into effect, and in the successful prosecution of which nothing but death could have stopped him. Castruccio was in the thick of the battle the whole of the day and when the end of it came, although fatigued and overheated, he stood at the gate of Fucecchio to welcome his men on their return from victory and personally thank them. He was also on the watch for any attempt of the enemy to retrieve the fortunes of the day he being of the opinion that it was the duty of a good general to be the first man in the saddle and the last out of it. Here Castruccio stood exposed to a wind which often rises at midday on the banks of the Arno, and which is often very unhealthy from this he took a chill, of which he thought nothing, as he was accustomed to such troubles but it was the cause of his death. On the following night he was attacked with high fever, which increased so rapidly that the doctors saw it must prove fatal. Castruccio, therefore, called Pagolo Guinigi to him, and addressed him as follows 'If I could have believed that Fortune would have cut me off in the midst of the career which was leading to that glory which all my successes promised, I should have laboured less, and I should have left thee, if a smaller state, at least with fewer enemies and perils, because I should have been content with the governorships of Lucca and Pisa. I should neither have subjugated the Pistoians, nor outraged the Florentines with so many injuries. But I would have made both these peoples my friends, and I should have lived, if no longer, at least more peacefully, and have left you a state without a doubt smaller, but one more secure and established on a surer foundation. But Fortune, who insists upon having the arbitrament of human affairs, did not endow me with sufficient judgment to recognize this from the first, nor the time to surmount it. Thou hast heard, for many have told thee, and I have never concealed it, how I entered the house of thy father whilst yet a boya stranger to all those ambitions which every generous soul should feeland how I was brought up by him, and loved as though I had been born of his blood how under his governance I learned to be valiant and capable of availing myself of all that fortune, of which thou hast been witness. When thy good father came to die, he committed thee and all his possessions to my care, and I have brought thee up with that love, and increased thy estate with that care, which I was bound to show. And in order that thou shouldst not only possess the estate which thy father left, but also that which my fortune and abilities have gained, I have never married, so that the love of children should never deflect my mind from that gratitude which I owed to the children of thy father. Thus I leave thee a vast estate, of which I am well content, but I am deeply concerned, inasmuch as I leave it thee unsettled and insecure. Thou hast the city of Lucca on thy hands, which will never rest contented under thy government. Thou hast also Pisa, where the men are of nature changeable and unreliable, who, although they may be sometimes held in subjection, yet they will ever disdain to serve under a Lucchese. Pistoia is also disloyal to thee, she being eaten up with factions and deeply incensed against thy family by reason of the wrongs recently inflicted upon them. Thou hast for neighbours the offended Florentines, injured by us in a thousand ways, but not utterly destroyed, who will hail the news of my death with more delight than they would the acquisition of all Tuscany. In the Emperor and in the princes of Milan thou canst place no reliance, for they are far distant, slow, and their help is very long in coming. Therefore, thou hast no hope in anything but in thine own abilities, and in the memory of my valour, and in the prestige which this latest victory has brought thee which, as thou knowest how to use it with prudence, will assist thee to come to terms with the Florentines, who, as they are suffering under this great defeat, should be inclined to listen to thee. And whereas I have sought to make them my enemies, because I believed that war with them would conduce to my power and glory, thou hast every inducement to make friends of them, because their alliance will bring thee advantages and security. It is of the greatest important in this world that a man should know himself, and the measure of his own strength and means and he who knows that he has not a genius for fighting must learn how to govern by the arts of peace. And it will be well for thee to rule thy conduct by my counsel, and to learn in this way to enjoy what my lifework and dangers have gained and in this thou wilt easily succeed when thou hast learnt to believe that what I have told thee is true. And thou wilt be doubly indebted to me, in that I have left thee this realm and have taught thee how to keep it. After this there came to Castruccio those citizens of Pisa, Pistoia, and Lucca, who had been fighting at his side, and whilst recommending Pagolo to them, and making them swear obedience to him as his successor, he died. He left a happy memory to those who had known him, and no prince of those times was ever loved with such devotion as he was. His obsequies were celebrated with every sign of mourning, and he was buried in San Francesco at Lucca. Fortune was not so friendly to Pagolo Guinigi as she had been to Castruccio, for he had not the abilities. Not long after the death of Castruccio, Pagolo lost Pisa, and then Pistoia, and only with difficulty held on to Lucca. This latter city continued in the family of Guinigi until the time of the greatgrandson of Pagolo. From what has been related here it will be seen that Castruccio was a man of exceptional abilities, not only measured by men of his own time, but also by those of an earlier date. In stature he was above the ordinary height, and perfectly proportioned. He was of a gracious presence, and he welcomed men with such urbanity that those who spoke with him rarely left him displeased. His hair was inclined to be red, and he wore it cut short above the ears, and, whether it rained or snowed, he always went without a hat. He was delightful among friends, but terrible to his enemies just to his subjects ready to play false with the unfaithful, and willing to overcome by fraud those whom he desired to subdue, because he was wont to say that it was the victory that brought the glory, not the methods of achieving it. No one was bolder in facing danger, none more prudent in extricating himself. He was accustomed to say that men ought to attempt everything and fear nothing that God is a lover of strong men, because one always sees that the weak are chastised by the strong. He was also wonderfully sharp or biting though courteous in his answers and as he did not look for any indulgence in this way of speaking from others, so he was not angered with others did not show it to him. It has often happened that he has listened quietly when others have spoken sharply to him, as on the following occasions. He had caused a ducat to be given for a partridge, and was taken to task for doing so by a friend, to whom Castruccio had said 'You would not have given more than a penny. 'That is true, answered the friend. Then said Castruccio to him 'A ducat is much less to me. Having about him a flatterer on whom he had spat to show that he scorned him, the flatterer said to him 'Fisherman are willing to let the waters of the sea saturate them in order that they may take a few little fishes, and I allow myself to be wetted by spittle that I may catch a whale and this was not only heard by Castruccio with patience but rewarded. When told by a priest that it was wicked for him to live so sumptuously, Castruccio said 'If that be a vice then you should not fare so splendidly at the feasts of our saints. Passing through a street he saw a young man as he came out of a house of ill fame blush at being seen by Castruccio, and said to him 'Thou shouldst not be ashamed when thou comest out, but when thou goest into such places. A friend gave him a very curiously tied knot to undo and was told 'Fool, do you think that I wish to untie a thing which gave so much trouble to fasten. Castruccio said to one who professed to be a philosopher 'You are like the dogs who always run after those who will give them the best to eat, and was answered 'We are rather like the doctors who go to the houses of those who have the greatest need of them. Going by water from Pisa to Leghorn, Castruccio was much disturbed by a dangerous storm that sprang up, and was reproached for cowardice by one of those with him, who said that he did not fear anything. Castruccio answered that he did not wonder at that, since every man valued his soul for what is was worth. Being asked by one what he ought to do to gain estimation, he said 'When thou goest to a banquet take care that thou dost not seat one piece of wood upon another. To a person who was boasting that he had read many things, Castruccio said 'He knows better than to boast of remembering many things. Someone bragged that he could drink much without becoming intoxicated. Castruccio replied 'An ox does the same. Castruccio was acquainted with a girl with whom he had intimate relations, and being blamed by a friend who told him that it was undignified for him to be taken in by a woman, he said 'She has not taken me in, I have taken her. Being also blamed for eating very dainty foods, he answered 'Thou dost not spend as much as I do? and being told that it was true, he continued 'Then thou art more avaricious than I am gluttonous. Being invited by Taddeo Bernardi, a very rich and splendid citizen of Luca, to supper, he went to the house and was shown by Taddeo into a chamber hung with silk and paved with fine stones representing flowers and foliage of the most beautiful colouring. Castruccio gathered some saliva in his mouth and spat it out upon Taddeo, and seeing him much disturbed by this, said to him 'I knew not where to spit in order to offend thee less. Being asked how Caesar died he said 'God willing I will die as he did. Being one night in the house of one of his gentlemen where many ladies were assembled, he was reproved by one of his friends for dancing and amusing himself with them more than was usual in one of his station, so he said 'He who is considered wise by day will not be considered a fool at night. A person came to demand a favour of Castruccio, and thinking he was not listening to his plea threw himself on his knees to the ground, and being sharply reproved by Castruccio, said 'Thou art the reason of my acting thus for thou hast thy ears in thy feet, whereupon he obtained double the favour he had asked. Castruccio used to say that the way to hell was an easy one, seeing that it was in a downward direction and you travelled blindfolded. Being asked a favour by one who used many superfluous words, he said to him 'When you have another request to make, send someone else to make it. Having been wearied by a similar man with a long oration who wound up by saying 'Perhaps I have fatigued you by speaking so long, Castruccio said 'You have not, because I have not listened to a word you said. He used to say of one who had been a beautiful child and who afterwards became a fine man, that he was dangerous, because he first took the husbands from the wives and now he took the wives from their husbands. To an envious man who laughed, he said 'Do you laugh because you are successful or because another is unfortunate? Whilst he was still in the charge of Messer Francesco Guinigi, one of his companions said to him 'What shall I give you if you will let me give you a blow on the nose? Castruccio answered 'A helmet. Having put to death a citizen of Lucca who had been instrumental in raising him to power, and being told that he had done wrong to kill one of his old friends, he answered that people deceived themselves he had only killed a new enemy. Castruccio praised greatly those men who intended to take a wife and then did not do so, saying that they were like men who said they would go to sea, and then refused when the time came. He said that it always struck him with surprise that whilst men in buying an earthen or glass vase would sound it first to learn if it were good, yet in choosing a wife they were content with only looking at her. He was once asked in what manner he would wish to be buried when he died, and answered 'With the face turned downwards, for I know when I am gone this country will be turned upside down. On being asked if it had ever occurred to him to become a friar in order to save his soul, he answered that it had not, because it appeared strange to him that Fra Lazerone should go to Paradise and Uguccione della Faggiuola to the Inferno. He was once asked when should a man eat to preserve his health, and replied 'If the man be rich let him eat when he is hungry if he be poor, then when he can. Seeing one of his gentlemen make a member of his family lace him up, he said to him 'I pray God that you will let him feed you also. Seeing that someone had written upon his house in Latin the words 'May God preserve this house from the wicked, he said, 'The owner must never go in. Passing through one of the streets he saw a small house with a very large door, and remarked 'That house will fly through the door. He was having a discussion with the ambassador of the King of Naples concerning the property of some banished nobles, when a dispute arose between them, and the ambassador asked him if he had no fear of the king. 'Is this king of yours a bad man or a good one? asked Castruccio, and was told that he was a good one, whereupon he said, 'Why should you suggest that I should be afraid of a good man? I could recount many other stories of his sayings both witty and weighty, but I think that the above will be sufficient testimony to his high qualities. He lived fortyfour years, and was in every way a prince. And as he was surrounded by many evidences of his good fortune, so he also desired to have near him some memorials of his bad fortune therefore the manacles with which he was chained in prison are to be seen to this day fixed up in the tower of his residence, where they were placed by him to testify forever to his days of adversity. As in his life he was inferior neither to Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander, nor to Scipio of Rome, so he died in the same year of his age as they did, and he would doubtless have excelled both of them had Fortune decreed that he should be born, not in Lucca, but in Macedonia or Rome.
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subjectmatter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless. OSCAR WILDE The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pinkflowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddlebags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honeysweet and honeycoloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussoresilk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jadefaced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the fulllength portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures. As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake. 'It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done, said Lord Henry languidly. 'You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place. 'I don't think I shall send it anywhere, he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. 'No, I won't send it anywhere. Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opiumtainted cigarette. 'Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion. 'I know you will laugh at me, he replied, 'but I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it. Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. 'Yes, I knew you would but it is quite true, all the same. 'Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were so vain and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coalblack hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and roseleaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and youwell, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter yourself, Basil you are not in the least like him. 'You don't understand me, Harry, answered the artist. 'Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should liveundisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry my brains, such as they aremy art, whatever it may be worth Dorian Gray's good lookswe shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly. 'Dorian Gray? Is that his name? asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward. 'Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you. 'But why not? 'Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it? 'Not at all, answered Lord Henry, 'not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meetwe do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke'swe tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at itmuch better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would but she merely laughs at me. 'I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry, said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. 'I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose. 'Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know, cried Lord Henry, laughing and the two young men went out into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous. After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. 'I am afraid I must be going, Basil, he murmured, 'and before I go, I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago. 'What is that? said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. 'You know quite well. 'I do not, Harry. 'Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason. 'I told you the real reason. 'No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish. 'Harry, said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, 'every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul. Lord Henry laughed. 'And what is that? he asked. 'I will tell you, said Hallward but an expression of perplexity came over his face. 'I am all expectation, Basil, continued his companion, glancing at him. 'Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry, answered the painter 'and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it. Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pinkpetalled daisy from the grass and examined it. 'I am quite sure I shall understand it, he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, whitefeathered disk, 'and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible. The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilacblooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragonfly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming. 'The story is simply this, said the painter after some time. 'Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned halfway round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Thenbut I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape. 'Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the tradename of the firm. That is all. 'I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either. However, whatever was my motiveand it may have been pride, for I used to be very proudI certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice? 'Yes she is a peacock in everything but beauty, said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. 'I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenthcentury standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other. 'And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man? asked his companion. 'I know she goes in for giving a rapid prcis of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and redfaced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know. 'Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry! said Hallward listlessly. 'My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray? 'Oh, something like, 'Charming boypoor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he doesafraid hedoesn't do anythingoh, yes, plays the pianoor is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray?' Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once. 'Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one, said the young lord, plucking another daisy. Hallward shook his head. 'You don't understand what friendship is, Harry, he murmured'or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every one that is to say, you are indifferent to every one. 'How horribly unjust of you! cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. 'Yes horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain. 'I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must be merely an acquaintance. 'My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance. 'And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose? 'Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else. 'Harry! exclaimed Hallward, frowning. 'My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite magnificent. And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat live correctly. 'I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is more, Harry, I feel sure you don't either. Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his patentleather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. 'How English you are Basil! That is the second time you have made that observation. If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishmanalways a rash thing to dohe never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don't propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him? 'Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is absolutely necessary to me. 'How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but your art. 'He is all my art to me now, said the painter gravely. 'I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oilpainting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious wayI wonder will you understand me?his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought'who is it who says that? I forget but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this ladfor he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twentyhis merely visible presenceah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and bodyhow much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for and always missed. 'Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray. Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. After some time he came back. 'Harry, he said, 'Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. That is all. 'Then why won't you exhibit his portrait? asked Lord Henry. 'Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know anything about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harrytoo much of myself! 'Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions. 'I hate them for it, cried Hallward. 'An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray. 'I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very fond of you? The painter considered for a few moments. 'He likes me, he answered after a pause 'I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day. 'Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger, murmured Lord Henry. 'Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to overeducate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly wellinformed manthat is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly wellinformed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bricbrac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic. 'Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change too often. 'Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love it is the faithless who know love's tragedies. And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a selfconscious and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloudshadows chased themselves across the grass like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people's emotions were!much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's friendsthose were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his aunt's, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the necessity for model lodginghouses. Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. It was charming to have escaped all that! As he thought of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward and said, 'My dear fellow, I have just remembered. 'Remembered what, Harry? 'Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray. 'Where was it? asked Hallward, with a slight frown. 'Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She told me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am bound to state that she never told me he was goodlooking. Women have no appreciation of good looks at least, good women have not. She said that he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature. I at once pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known it was your friend. 'I am very glad you didn't, Harry. 'Why? 'I don't want you to meet him. 'You don't want me to meet him? 'No. 'Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir, said the butler, coming into the garden. 'You must introduce me now, cried Lord Henry, laughing. The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight. 'Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker I shall be in in a few moments. The man bowed and went up the walk. Then he looked at Lord Henry. 'Dorian Gray is my dearest friend, he said. 'He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses my life as an artist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you. He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will. 'What nonsense you talk! said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house. As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's 'Forest Scenes. 'You must lend me these, Basil, he cried. 'I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming. 'That entirely depends on how you sit today, Dorian. 'Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a lifesized portrait of myself, answered the lad, swinging round on the musicstool in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. 'I beg your pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you. 'This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything. 'You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray, said Lord Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand. 'My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am afraid, one of her victims also. 'I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present, answered Dorian with a funny look of penitence. 'I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to have played a duet togetherthree duets, I believe. I don't know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call. 'Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you. And I don't think it really matters about your not being there. The audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to the piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people. 'That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me, answered Dorian, laughing. Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. 'You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Grayfar too charming. And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened his cigarettecase. The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last remark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, 'Harry, I want to finish this picture today. Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away? Lord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray. 'Am I to go, Mr. Gray? he asked. 'Oh, please don't, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky moods, and I can't bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy. 'I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious a subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You don't really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you liked your sitters to have some one to chat to. Hallward bit his lip. 'If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself. Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. 'You are very pressing, Basil, but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the Orleans. Goodbye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon Street. I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you. 'Basil, cried Dorian Gray, 'if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go, too. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask him to stay. I insist upon it. 'Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me, said Hallward, gazing intently at his picture. 'It is quite true, I never talk when I am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay. 'But what about my man at the Orleans? The painter laughed. 'I don't think there will be any difficulty about that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform, and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry says. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single exception of myself. Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few moments he said to him, 'Have you really a very bad influence, Lord Henry? As bad as Basil says? 'There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoralimmoral from the scientific point of view. 'Why? 'Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is selfdevelopment. To realize one's nature perfectlythat is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religionthese are the two things that govern us. And yet 'Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy, said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. 'And yet, continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, 'I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dreamI believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medivalism, and return to the Hellenic idealto something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the selfdenial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rosered youth and your rosewhite boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, daydreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame 'Stop! faltered Dorian Gray, 'stop! you bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think. For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have come really from himself. The few words that Basil's friend had said to himwords spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in themhad touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses. Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather another chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? Yes there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood. He understood them now. Life suddenly became fierycoloured to him. It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not known it? With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely interested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen, a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience. He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How fascinating the lad was! Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence. 'Basil, I am tired of standing, cried Dorian Gray suddenly. 'I must go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here. 'My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can't think of anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And I have caught the effect I wantedthe halfparted lips and the bright look in the eyes. I don't know what Harry has been saying to you, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. I suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn't believe a word that he says. 'He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is the reason that I don't believe anything he has told me. 'You know you believe it all, said Lord Henry, looking at him with his dreamy languorous eyes. 'I will go out to the garden with you. It is horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something iced to drink, something with strawberries in it. 'Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I will join you later on. Don't keep Dorian too long. I have never been in better form for painting than I am today. This is going to be my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands. Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his face in the great cool lilacblossoms, feverishly drinking in their perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him and put his hand upon his shoulder. 'You are quite right to do that, he murmured. 'Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. The lad started and drew back. He was bareheaded, and the leaves had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are suddenly awakened. His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling. 'Yes, continued Lord Henry, 'that is one of the great secrets of lifeto cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know. Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic, olivecoloured face and worn expression interested him. There was something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life who seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery. And, yet, what was there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or a girl. It was absurd to be frightened. 'Let us go and sit in the shade, said Lord Henry. 'Parker has brought out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be unbecoming. 'What can it matter? cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on the seat at the end of the garden. 'It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray. 'Why? 'Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having. 'I don't feel that, Lord Henry. 'No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don't frown. You have. And beauty is a form of geniusis higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only superficial. That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as thought is. To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollowcheeked, and dulleyed. You will suffer horribly.... Ah! realize your youth while you have it. Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.... A new Hedonismthat is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really might be. There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will lastsuch a little time. The common hillflowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth! Dorian Gray listened, openeyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated globe of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time the bee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to and fro. Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made staccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each other and smiled. 'I am waiting, he cried. 'Do come in. The light is quite perfect, and you can bring your drinks. They rose up and sauntered down the walk together. Two greenandwhite butterflies fluttered past them, and in the peartree at the corner of the garden a thrush began to sing. 'You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray, said Lord Henry, looking at him. 'Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad? 'Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer. As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's arm. 'In that case, let our friendship be a caprice, he murmured, flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and resumed his pose. Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker armchair and watched him. The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams that streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything. After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning. 'It is quite finished, he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in long vermilion letters on the lefthand corner of the canvas. Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well. 'My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly, he said. 'It is the finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at yourself. The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. 'Is it really finished? he murmured, stepping down from the platform. 'Quite finished, said the painter. 'And you have sat splendidly today. I am awfully obliged to you. 'That is entirely due to me, broke in Lord Henry. 'Isn't it, Mr. Gray? Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggeration of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth. As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart. 'Don't you like it? cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lad's silence, not understanding what it meant. 'Of course he likes it, said Lord Henry. 'Who wouldn't like it? It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it. 'It is not my property, Harry. 'Whose property is it? 'Dorian's, of course, answered the painter. 'He is a very lucky fellow. 'How sad it is! murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. 'How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For thatfor thatI would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that! 'You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil, cried Lord Henry, laughing. 'It would be rather hard lines on your work. 'I should object very strongly, Harry, said Hallward. Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. 'I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say. The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed and his cheeks burning. 'Yes, he continued, 'I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself. Hallward turned pale and caught his hand. 'Dorian! Dorian! he cried, 'don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, are you?you who are finer than any of them! 'I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some daymock me horribly! The hot tears welled into his eyes he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying. 'This is your doing, Harry, said the painter bitterly. Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. 'It is the real Dorian Graythat is all. 'It is not. 'If it is not, what have I to do with it? 'You should have gone away when I asked you, he muttered. 'I stayed when you asked me, was Lord Henry's answer. 'Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever done, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and colour? I will not let it come across our three lives and mar them. Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid face and tearstained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal paintingtable that was set beneath the high curtained window. What was he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was for the long paletteknife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had found it at last. He was going to rip up the canvas. With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. 'Don't, Basil, don't! he cried. 'It would be murder! 'I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian, said the painter coldly when he had recovered from his surprise. 'I never thought you would. 'Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself. I feel that. 'Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself. And he walked across the room and rang the bell for tea. 'You will have tea, of course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Or do you object to such simple pleasures? 'I adore simple pleasures, said Lord Henry. 'They are the last refuge of the complex. But I don't like scenes, except on the stage. What absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after allthough I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn't really want it, and I really do. 'If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you! cried Dorian Gray 'and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy. 'You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it existed. 'And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you don't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young. 'I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry. 'Ah! this morning! You have lived since then. There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden teatray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn. Two globeshaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray went over and poured out the tea. The two men sauntered languidly to the table and examined what was under the covers. 'Let us go to the theatre tonight, said Lord Henry. 'There is sure to be something on, somewhere. I have promised to dine at White's, but it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse it would have all the surprise of candour. 'It is such a bore putting on one's dressclothes, muttered Hallward. 'And, when one has them on, they are so horrid. 'Yes, answered Lord Henry dreamily, 'the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colourelement left in modern life. 'You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry. 'Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the one in the picture? 'Before either. 'I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry, said the lad. 'Then you shall come and you will come, too, Basil, won't you? 'I can't, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do. 'Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray. 'I should like that awfully. The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture. 'I shall stay with the real Dorian, he said, sadly. 'Is it the real Dorian? cried the original of the portrait, strolling across to him. 'Am I really like that? 'Yes you are just like that. 'How wonderful, Basil! 'At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter, sighed Hallward. 'That is something. 'What a fuss people make about fidelity! exclaimed Lord Henry. 'Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not old men want to be faithless, and cannot that is all one can say. 'Don't go to the theatre tonight, Dorian, said Hallward. 'Stop and dine with me. 'I can't, Basil. 'Why? 'Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him. 'He won't like you the better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own. I beg you not to go. Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head. 'I entreat you. The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them from the teatable with an amused smile. 'I must go, Basil, he answered. 'Very well, said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on the tray. 'It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had better lose no time. Goodbye, Harry. Goodbye, Dorian. Come and see me soon. Come tomorrow. 'Certainly. 'You won't forget? 'No, of course not, cried Dorian. 'And ... Harry! 'Yes, Basil? 'Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning. 'I have forgotten it. 'I trust you. 'I wish I could trust myself, said Lord Henry, laughing. 'Come, Mr. Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place. Goodbye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon. As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face. At halfpast twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial if somewhat roughmannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was considered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him. His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a capricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his father's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months later to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. He had two large town houses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and took most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention to the management of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. In politics he was a Tory, except when the Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices. When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough shootingcoat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over The Times. 'Well, Harry, said the old gentleman, 'what brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five. 'Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get something out of you. 'Money, I suppose, said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. 'Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything. 'Yes, murmured Lord Henry, settling his buttonhole in his coat 'and when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is information not useful information, of course useless information. 'Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him. 'Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George, said Lord Henry languidly. 'Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he? asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows. 'That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him. 'Kelso's grandson! echoed the old gentleman. 'Kelso's grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellowa mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his soninlaw in publicpaid him, sir, to do it, paid himand that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes it was a bad business. The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he must be a goodlooking chap. 'He is very goodlooking, assented Lord Henry. 'I hope he will fall into proper hands, continued the old man. 'He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didn't dare show my face at Court for a month. I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies. 'I don't know, answered Lord Henry. 'I fancy that the boy will be well off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so. And ... his mother was very beautiful? 'Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, Harry. What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could understand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was mad after her. She was romantic, though. All the women of that family were. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful. Carlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed at him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after him. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an American? Ain't English girls good enough for him? 'It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George. 'I'll back English women against the world, Harry, said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist. 'The betting is on the Americans. 'They don't last, I am told, muttered his uncle. 'A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a chance. 'Who are her people? grumbled the old gentleman. 'Has she got any? Lord Henry shook his head. 'American girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past, he said, rising to go. 'They are porkpackers, I suppose? 'I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that porkpacking is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics. 'Is she pretty? 'She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm. 'Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women. 'It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it, said Lord Henry. 'Goodbye, Uncle George. I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer. Thanks for giving me the information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones. 'Where are you lunching, Harry? 'At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her latest protg. 'Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with her charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman thinks that I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads. 'All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect. Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic. The old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his servant. Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street and turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square. So that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage. Crudely as it had been told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a strange, almost modern romance. A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer rose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume there was a real joy in thatperhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad, whom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for us. There was nothing that one could not do with him. He could be made a Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was destined to fade! ... And Basil? From a psychological point of view, how interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence of one who was unconscious of it all the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed the mere shapes and patterns of things becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect form whose shadow they made real how strange it all was! He remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it? Was it not Buonarotti who had carved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnetsequence? But in our own century it was strange.... Yes he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate himhad already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of love and death. Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had passed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and passed into the diningroom. 'Late as usual, Harry, cried his aunt, shaking her head at him. He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed to him shyly from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable goodnature and good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample architectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are described by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat, on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who followed his leader in public life and in private life followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in accordance with a wise and wellknown rule. The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, one of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymnbook. Fortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middleaged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement in the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely earnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of them ever quite escape. 'We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry, cried the duchess, nodding pleasantly to him across the table. 'Do you think he will really marry this fascinating young person? 'I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess. 'How dreadful! exclaimed Lady Agatha. 'Really, some one should interfere. 'I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American drygoods store, said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious. 'My uncle has already suggested porkpacking, Sir Thomas. 'Drygoods! What are American drygoods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. 'American novels, answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail. The duchess looked puzzled. 'Don't mind him, my dear, whispered Lady Agatha. 'He never means anything that he says. 'When America was discovered, said the Radical memberand he began to give some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. The duchess sighed and exercised her privilege of interruption. 'I wish to goodness it never had been discovered at all! she exclaimed. 'Really, our girls have no chance nowadays. It is most unfair. 'Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered, said Mr. Erskine 'I myself would say that it had merely been detected. 'Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants, answered the duchess vaguely. 'I must confess that most of them are extremely pretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in Paris. I wish I could afford to do the same. 'They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris, chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's castoff clothes. 'Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die? inquired the duchess. 'They go to America, murmured Lord Henry. Sir Thomas frowned. 'I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced against that great country, he said to Lady Agatha. 'I have travelled all over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters, are extremely civil. I assure you that it is an education to visit it. 'But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated? asked Mr. Erskine plaintively. 'I don't feel up to the journey. Sir Thomas waved his hand. 'Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about them. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans. 'How dreadful! cried Lord Henry. 'I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect. 'I do not understand you, said Sir Thomas, growing rather red. 'I do, Lord Henry, murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile. 'Paradoxes are all very well in their way.... rejoined the baronet. 'Was that a paradox? asked Mr. Erskine. 'I did not think so. Perhaps it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them. 'Dear me! said Lady Agatha, 'how you men argue! I am sure I never can make out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite vexed with you. Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up the East End? I assure you he would be quite invaluable. They would love his playing. 'I want him to play to me, cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked down the table and caught a bright answering glance. 'But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel, continued Lady Agatha. 'I can sympathize with everything except suffering, said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. 'I cannot sympathize with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores, the better. 'Still, the East End is a very important problem, remarked Sir Thomas with a grave shake of the head. 'Quite so, answered the young lord. 'It is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves. The politician looked at him keenly. 'What change do you propose, then? he asked. Lord Henry laughed. 'I don't desire to change anything in England except the weather, he answered. 'I am quite content with philosophic contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an overexpenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional. 'But we have such grave responsibilities, ventured Mrs. Vandeleur timidly. 'Terribly grave, echoed Lady Agatha. Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. 'Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different. 'You are really very comforting, warbled the duchess. 'I have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to look her in the face without a blush. 'A blush is very becoming, Duchess, remarked Lord Henry. 'Only when one is young, she answered. 'When an old woman like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell me how to become young again. He thought for a moment. 'Can you remember any great error that you committed in your early days, Duchess? he asked, looking at her across the table. 'A great many, I fear, she cried. 'Then commit them over again, he said gravely. 'To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies. 'A delightful theory! she exclaimed. 'I must put it into practice. 'A dangerous theory! came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened. 'Yes, he continued, 'that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes. A laugh ran round the table. He played with the idea and grew wilful tossed it into the air and transformed it let it escape and recaptured it made it iridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her winestained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grapejuice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat's black, dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes. At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. 'How annoying! she cried. 'I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Goodbye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don't know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday? 'For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess, said Lord Henry with a bow. 'Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you, she cried 'so mind you come and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the other ladies. When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm. 'You talk books away, he said 'why don't you write one? 'I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public in England for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of literature. 'I fear you are right, answered Mr. Erskine. 'I myself used to have literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And now, my dear young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you really meant all that you said to us at lunch? 'I quite forget what I said, smiled Lord Henry. 'Was it all very bad? 'Very bad indeed. In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life. The generation into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you are tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate enough to possess. 'I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege. It has a perfect host, and a perfect library. 'You will complete it, answered the old gentleman with a courteous bow. 'And now I must bid goodbye to your excellent aunt. I am due at the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there. 'All of you, Mr. Erskine? 'Forty of us, in forty armchairs. We are practising for an English Academy of Letters. Lord Henry laughed and rose. 'I am going to the park, he cried. As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. 'Let me come with you, he murmured. 'But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him, answered Lord Henry. 'I would sooner come with you yes, I feel I must come with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks so wonderfully as you do. 'Ah! I have talked quite enough for today, said Lord Henry, smiling. 'All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care to. One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious armchair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled wainscoting of olivestained oak, its creamcoloured frieze and ceiling of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk, longfringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars and parrottulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small leaded panes of the window streamed the apricotcoloured light of a summer day in London. Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. So the lad was looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages of an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had found in one of the bookcases. The formal monotonous ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him. Once or twice he thought of going away. At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. 'How late you are, Harry! he murmured. 'I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray, answered a shrill voice. He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. 'I beg your pardon. I thought 'You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. You must let me introduce myself. I know you quite well by your photographs. I think my husband has got seventeen of them. 'Not seventeen, Lady Henry? 'Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other night at the opera. She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her vague forgetmenot eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name was Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church. 'That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think? 'Yes it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don't you think so, Mr. Gray? The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her fingers began to play with a long tortoiseshell paperknife. Dorian smiled and shook his head 'I am afraid I don't think so, Lady Henry. I never talk during musicat least, during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation. 'Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harry's views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of them. But you must not think I don't like good music. I adore it, but I am afraid of it. It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped pianiststwo at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don't know what it is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are, ain't they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners after a time, don't they? It is so clever of them, and such a compliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it? You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I can't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make one's rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in to look for you, to ask you somethingI forget what it wasand I found Mr. Gray here. We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We have quite the same ideas. No I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant. I am so glad I've seen him. 'I am charmed, my love, quite charmed, said Lord Henry, elevating his dark, crescentshaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused smile. 'So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of old brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. 'I am afraid I must be going, exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh. 'I have promised to drive with the duchess. Goodbye, Mr. Gray. Goodbye, Harry. You are dining out, I suppose? So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady Thornbury's. 'I dare say, my dear, said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her as, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of frangipanni. Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the sofa. 'Never marry a woman with strawcoloured hair, Dorian, he said after a few puffs. 'Why, Harry? 'Because they are so sentimental. 'But I like sentimental people. 'Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired women, because they are curious both are disappointed. 'I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do everything that you say. 'Who are you in love with? asked Lord Henry after a pause. 'With an actress, said Dorian Gray, blushing. Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. 'That is a rather commonplace dbut. 'You would not say so if you saw her, Harry. 'Who is she? 'Her name is Sibyl Vane. 'Never heard of her. 'No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius. 'My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. 'Harry, how can you? 'My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her? 'Ah! Harry, your views terrify me. 'Never mind that. How long have you known her? 'About three weeks. 'And where did you come across her? 'I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it. After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. As I lounged in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations.... Well, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search of some adventure. I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me. I fancied a thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret of life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black grassless squares. About halfpast eight I passed by an absurd little theatre, with great flaring gasjets and gaudy playbills. A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. There was something about him, Harry, that amused me. He was such a monster. You will laugh at me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the stagebox. To the present day I can't make out why I did so and yet if I hadn'tmy dear Harry, if I hadn'tI should have missed the greatest romance of my life. I see you are laughing. It is horrid of you! 'I am not laughing, Dorian at least I am not laughing at you. But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes of a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning. 'Do you think my nature so shallow? cried Dorian Gray angrily. 'No I think your nature so deep. 'How do you mean? 'My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellectsimply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up. But I don't want to interrupt you. Go on with your story. 'Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a vulgar dropscene staring me in the face. I looked out from behind the curtain and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a thirdrate weddingcake. The gallery and pit were fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the dresscircle. Women went about with oranges and gingerbeer, and there was a terrible consumption of nuts going on. 'It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama. 'Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the playbill. What do you think the play was, Harry? 'I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'. Our fathers used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandpres ont toujours tort. 'This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in a sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act. There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the dropscene was drawn up and the play began. Romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure like a beerbarrel. Mercutio was almost as bad. He was played by the lowcomedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a countrybooth. But Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of darkbrown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you, Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came across me. And her voiceI never heard such a voice. It was very low at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautboy. In the gardenscene it had all the tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear them, and each of them says something different. I don't know which to follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and chatter at teaparties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn't you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress? 'Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian. 'Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces. 'Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes, said Lord Henry. 'I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane. 'You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do. 'Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me. 'People like youthe wilful sunbeams of lifedon't commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell mereach me the matches, like a good boythankswhat are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane? Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. 'Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred! 'It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian, said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. 'But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose? 'Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something. 'I am not surprised. 'Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought. 'I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all expensive. 'Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means, laughed Dorian. 'By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely due to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think it a distinction. 'It was a distinction, my dear Doriana great distinction. Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour. But when did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane? 'The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. I could not help going round. I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at meat least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He seemed determined to take me behind, so I consented. It was curious my not wanting to know her, wasn't it? 'No I don't think so. 'My dear Harry, why? 'I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl. 'Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy and so gentle. There is something of a child about her. Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious of her power. I think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like children. He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to me, 'You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming.' 'Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments. 'You don't understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives with her mother, a faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta dressingwrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen better days. 'I know that look. It depresses me, murmured Lord Henry, examining his rings. 'The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest me. 'You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies. 'Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came from? From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and entirely divine. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every night she is more marvellous. 'That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. I thought you must have some curious romance on hand. You have but it is not quite what I expected. 'My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have been to the opera with you several times, said Dorian, opening his blue eyes in wonder. 'You always come dreadfully late. 'Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play, he cried, 'even if it is only for a single act. I get hungry for her presence and when I think of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I am filled with awe. 'You can dine with me tonight, Dorian, can't you? He shook his head. 'Tonight she is Imogen, he answered, 'and tomorrow night she will be Juliet. 'When is she Sibyl Vane? 'Never. 'I congratulate you. 'How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she has genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God, Harry, how I worship her! He was walking up and down the room as he spoke. Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks. He was terribly excited. Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure. How different he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's studio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. Out of its secret hidingplace had crept his soul, and desire had come to meet it on the way. 'And what do you propose to do? said Lord Henry at last. 'I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. I have not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to acknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands. She is bound to him for three yearsat least for two years and eight monthsfrom the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of course. When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and bring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has made me. 'That would be impossible, my dear boy. 'Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate artinstinct, in her, but she has personality also and you have often told me that it is personalities, not principles, that move the age. 'Well, what night shall we go? 'Let me see. Today is Tuesday. Let us fix tomorrow. She plays Juliet tomorrow. 'All right. The Bristol at eight o'clock and I will get Basil. 'Not eight, Harry, please. Halfpast six. We must be there before the curtain rises. You must see her in the first act, where she meets Romeo. 'Halfpast six! What an hour! It will be like having a meattea, or reading an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before seven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to him? 'Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don't want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice. Lord Henry smiled. 'People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity. 'Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered that. 'Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common sense. The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of secondrate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize. 'I wonder is that really so, Harry? said Dorian Gray, putting some perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, goldtopped bottle that stood on the table. 'It must be, if you say it. And now I am off. Imogen is waiting for me. Don't forget about tomorrow. Goodbye. As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began to think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by it. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subjectmatter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human lifethat appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellectto observe where they met, and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at discordthere was a delight in that! What matter what the cost was? One could never pay too high a price for any sensation. He was consciousand the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyesthat it was through certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex personality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed, in its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces, just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting. Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was becoming selfconscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses. Soul and body, body and soulhow mysterious they were! There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also. He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy. It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves. While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded rose. He thought of his friend's young fierycoloured life and wondered how it was all going to end. When he arrived home, about halfpast twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram lying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane. 'Mother, Mother, I am so happy! whispered the girl, burying her face in the lap of the faded, tiredlooking woman who, with back turned to the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one armchair that their dingy sittingroom contained. 'I am so happy! she repeated, 'and you must be happy, too! Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuthwhitened hands on her daughter's head. 'Happy! she echoed, 'I am only happy, Sibyl, when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr. Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money. The girl looked up and pouted. 'Money, Mother? she cried, 'what does money matter? Love is more than money. 'Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to get a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty pounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate. 'He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me, said the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window. 'I don't know how we could manage without him, answered the elder woman querulously. Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. 'We don't want him any more, Mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now. Then she paused. A rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. 'I love him, she said simply. 'Foolish child! foolish child! was the parrotphrase flung in answer. The waving of crooked, falsejewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the words. The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. Her eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of a dream had passed across them. Thinlipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense. She did not listen. She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her eyelids were warm with his breath. Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. This young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of. Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. The arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled. Suddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her. 'Mother, Mother, she cried, 'why does he love me so much? I know why I love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be. But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yetwhy, I cannot tellthough I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble. I feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love Prince Charming? The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. Sybil rushed to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. 'Forgive me, Mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only pains you because you loved him so much. Don't look so sad. I am as happy today as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy for ever! 'My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. Besides, what do you know of this young man? You don't even know his name. The whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you should have shown more consideration. However, as I said before, if he is rich ... 'Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy! Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stageplayer, clasped her in her arms. At this moment, the door opened and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was thickset of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between them. Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile. She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure that the tableau was interesting. 'You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think, said the lad with a goodnatured grumble. 'Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim, she cried. 'You are a dreadful old bear. And she ran across the room and hugged him. James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. 'I want you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don't suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I don't want to. 'My son, don't say such dreadful things, murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation. 'Why not, Mother? I mean it. 'You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a position of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in the Coloniesnothing that I would call societyso when you have made your fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London. 'Society! muttered the lad. 'I don't want to know anything about that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the stage. I hate it. 'Oh, Jim! said Sibyl, laughing, 'how unkind of you! But are you really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you were going to say goodbye to some of your friendsto Tom Hardy, who gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for smoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last afternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the park. 'I am too shabby, he answered, frowning. 'Only swell people go to the park. 'Nonsense, Jim, she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat. He hesitated for a moment. 'Very well, he said at last, 'but don't be too long dressing. She danced out of the door. One could hear her singing as she ran upstairs. Her little feet pattered overhead. He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned to the still figure in the chair. 'Mother, are my things ready? he asked. 'Quite ready, James, she answered, keeping her eyes on her work. For some months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this rough stern son of hers. Her shallow secret nature was troubled when their eyes met. She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The silence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her. She began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. 'I hope you will be contented, James, with your seafaring life, she said. 'You must remember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a solicitor's office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in the country often dine with the best families. 'I hate offices, and I hate clerks, he replied. 'But you are quite right. I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl. Don't let her come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her. 'James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl. 'I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to talk to her. Is that right? What about that? 'You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the profession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That was when acting was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at present whether her attachment is serious or not. But there is no doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is always most polite to me. Besides, he has the appearance of being rich, and the flowers he sends are lovely. 'You don't know his name, though, said the lad harshly. 'No, answered his mother with a placid expression in her face. 'He has not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic of him. He is probably a member of the aristocracy. James Vane bit his lip. 'Watch over Sibyl, Mother, he cried, 'watch over her. 'My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special care. Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why she should not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the aristocracy. He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be a most brilliant marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming couple. His good looks are really quite remarkable everybody notices them. The lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the windowpane with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something when the door opened and Sibyl ran in. 'How serious you both are! she cried. 'What is the matter? 'Nothing, he answered. 'I suppose one must be serious sometimes. Goodbye, Mother I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble. 'Goodbye, my son, she answered with a bow of strained stateliness. She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid. 'Kiss me, Mother, said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the withered cheek and warmed its frost. 'My child! my child! cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in search of an imaginary gallery. 'Come, Sibyl, said her brother impatiently. He hated his mother's affectations. They went out into the flickering, windblown sunlight and strolled down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder at the sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, illfitting clothes, was in the company of such a graceful, refinedlooking girl. He was like a common gardener walking with a rose. Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl, however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, redshirted bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor's existence was dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse, humpbacked waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite goodbye to the captain, and go off at once to the goldfields. Before a week was over he was to come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was not to go to the goldfields at all. They were horrid places, where men got intoxicated, and shot each other in barrooms, and used bad language. He was to be a nice sheepfarmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and would watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years he would come back quite rich and happy. The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heartsick at leaving home. Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose. Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious raceinstinct for which he could not account, and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness. Children begin by loving their parents as they grow older they judge them sometimes they forgive them. His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at the stagedoor, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a huntingcrop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedgelike furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip. 'You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim, cried Sibyl, 'and I am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something. 'What do you want me to say? 'Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us, she answered, smiling at him. He shrugged his shoulders. 'You are more likely to forget me than I am to forget you, Sibyl. She flushed. 'What do you mean, Jim? she asked. 'You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me about him? He means you no good. 'Stop, Jim! she exclaimed. 'You must not say anything against him. I love him. 'Why, you don't even know his name, answered the lad. 'Who is he? I have a right to know. 'He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. Oh! you silly boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet himwhen you come back from Australia. You will like him so much. Everybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could come to the theatre tonight. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet. Oh! how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to surpass one's self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius' to his loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma tonight he will announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his only, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am poor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want rewriting. They were made in winter, and it is summer now springtime for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies. 'He is a gentleman, said the lad sullenly. 'A prince! she cried musically. 'What more do you want? 'He wants to enslave you. 'I shudder at the thought of being free. 'I want you to beware of him. 'To see him is to worship him to know him is to trust him. 'Sibyl, you are mad about him. She laughed and took his arm. 'You dear old Jim, you talk as if you were a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will know what it is. Don't look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to think that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have ever been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and difficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new world, and I have found one. Here are two chairs let us sit down and see the smart people go by. They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulipbeds across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white dusttremulous cloud of orrisroot it seemedhung in the panting air. The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous butterflies. She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He spoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as players at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all the echo she could win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open carriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past. She started to her feet. 'There he is! she cried. 'Who? said Jim Vane. 'Prince Charming, she answered, looking after the victoria. He jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm. 'Show him to me. Which is he? Point him out. I must see him! he exclaimed but at that moment the Duke of Berwick's fourinhand came between, and when it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park. 'He is gone, murmured Sibyl sadly. 'I wish you had seen him. 'I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does you any wrong, I shall kill him. She looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. They cut the air like a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close to her tittered. 'Come away, Jim come away, she whispered. He followed her doggedly as she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said. When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. There was pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head at him. 'You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish a badtempered boy, that is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don't know what you are talking about. You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I wish you would fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said was wicked. 'I am sixteen, he answered, 'and I know what I am about. Mother is no help to you. She doesn't understand how to look after you. I wish now that I was not going to Australia at all. I have a great mind to chuck the whole thing up. I would, if my articles hadn't been signed. 'Oh, don't be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. I am not going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is perfect happiness. We won't quarrel. I know you would never harm any one I love, would you? 'Not as long as you love him, I suppose, was the sullen answer. 'I shall love him for ever! she cried. 'And he? 'For ever, too! 'He had better. She shrank from him. Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm. He was merely a boy. At the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to their shabby home in the Euston Road. It was after five o'clock, and Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting. Jim insisted that she should do so. He said that he would sooner part with her when their mother was not present. She would be sure to make a scene, and he detested scenes of every kind. In Sybil's own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lad's heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed to him, had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his neck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed her with real affection. There were tears in his eyes as he went downstairs. His mother was waiting for him below. She grumbled at his unpunctuality, as he entered. He made no answer, but sat down to his meagre meal. The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the stained cloth. Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of streetcabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that was left to him. After some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his hands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told to him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother watched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, he got up and went to the door. Then he turned back and looked at her. Their eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged him. 'Mother, I have something to ask you, he said. Her eyes wandered vaguely about the room. She made no answer. 'Tell me the truth. I have a right to know. Were you married to my father? She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment, the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded, had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure it was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question called for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal. 'No, she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life. 'My father was a scoundrel then! cried the lad, clenching his fists. She shook her head. 'I knew he was not free. We loved each other very much. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. Don't speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman. Indeed, he was highly connected. An oath broke from his lips. 'I don't care for myself, he exclaimed, 'but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love with her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose. For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. 'Sibyl has a mother, she murmured 'I had none. The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed her. 'I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father, he said, 'but I could not help it. I must go now. Goodbye. Don't forget that you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him down, and kill him like a dog. I swear it. The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same emotional scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down and mufflers looked for. The lodginghouse drudge bustled in and out. There was the bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in vulgar details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son drove away. She was conscious that a great opportunity had been wasted. She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt her life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. She remembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat she said nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. She felt that they would all laugh at it some day. 'I suppose you have heard the news, Basil? said Lord Henry that evening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol where dinner had been laid for three. 'No, Harry, answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing waiter. 'What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope! They don't interest me. There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little whitewashing. 'Dorian Gray is engaged to be married, said Lord Henry, watching him as he spoke. Hallward started and then frowned. 'Dorian engaged to be married! he cried. 'Impossible! 'It is perfectly true. 'To whom? 'To some little actress or other. 'I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible. 'Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear Basil. 'Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry. 'Except in America, rejoined Lord Henry languidly. 'But I didn't say he was married. I said he was engaged to be married. There is a great difference. I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have no recollection at all of being engaged. I am inclined to think that I never was engaged. 'But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth. It would be absurd for him to marry so much beneath him. 'If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil. He is sure to do it, then. Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives. 'I hope the girl is good, Harry. I don't want to see Dorian tied to some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his intellect. 'Oh, she is better than goodshe is beautiful, murmured Lord Henry, sipping a glass of vermouth and orangebitters. 'Dorian says she is beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind. Your portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal appearance of other people. It has had that excellent effect, amongst others. We are to see her tonight, if that boy doesn't forget his appointment. 'Are you serious? 'Quite serious, Basil. I should be miserable if I thought I should ever be more serious than I am at the present moment. 'But do you approve of it, Harry? asked the painter, walking up and down the room and biting his lip. 'You can't approve of it, possibly. It is some silly infatuation. 'I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in love with a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her. Why not? If he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting. You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, and add to it many other egos. They are forced to have more than one life. They become more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should fancy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience. I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study. 'You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry you know you don't. If Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than yourself. You are much better than you pretend to be. Lord Henry laughed. 'The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. I mean everything that I have said. I have the greatest contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it. As for marriage, of course that would be silly, but there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women. I will certainly encourage them. They have the charm of being fashionable. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I can. 'My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me! said the lad, throwing off his evening cape with its satinlined wings and shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn. 'I have never been so happy. Of course, it is suddenall really delightful things are. And yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my life. He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked extraordinarily handsome. 'I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian, said Hallward, 'but I don't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement. You let Harry know. 'And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner, broke in Lord Henry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke. 'Come, let us sit down and try what the new chef here is like, and then you will tell us how it all came about. 'There is really not much to tell, cried Dorian as they took their seats at the small round table. 'What happened was simply this. After I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and went down at eight o'clock to the theatre. Sibyl was playing Rosalind. Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl! You should have seen her! When she came on in her boy's clothes, she was perfectly wonderful. She wore a mosscoloured velvet jerkin with cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, crossgartered hose, a dainty little green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak lined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves round a pale rose. As for her actingwell, you shall see her tonight. She is simply a born artist. I sat in the dingy box absolutely enthralled. I forgot that I was in London and in the nineteenth century. I was away with my love in a forest that no man had ever seen. After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke to her. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes a look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers. We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect point of rosecoloured joy. She trembled all over and shook like a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed my hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help it. Of course, our engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told her own mother. I don't know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley is sure to be furious. I don't care. I shall be of age in less than a year, and then I can do what I like. I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth. 'Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right, said Hallward slowly. 'Have you seen her today? asked Lord Henry. Dorian Gray shook his head. 'I left her in the forest of Arden I shall find her in an orchard in Verona. Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner. 'At what particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian? And what did she say in answer? Perhaps you forgot all about it. 'My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did not make any formal proposal. I told her that I loved her, and she said she was not worthy to be my wife. Not worthy! Why, the whole world is nothing to me compared with her. 'Women are wonderfully practical, murmured Lord Henry, 'much more practical than we are. In situations of that kind we often forget to say anything about marriage, and they always remind us. Hallward laid his hand upon his arm. 'Don't, Harry. You have annoyed Dorian. He is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon any one. His nature is too fine for that. Lord Henry looked across the table. 'Dorian is never annoyed with me, he answered. 'I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any questionsimple curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except, of course, in middleclass life. But then the middle classes are not modern. Dorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head. 'You are quite incorrigible, Harry but I don't mind. It is impossible to be angry with you. When you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her would be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how any one can wish to shame the thing he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at it for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take. Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories. 'And those are ...? asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad. 'Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories about pleasure. All your theories, in fact, Harry. 'Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about, he answered in his slow melodious voice. 'But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory as my own. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy. 'Ah! but what do you mean by good? cried Basil Hallward. 'Yes, echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord Henry over the heavy clusters of purplelipped irises that stood in the centre of the table, 'what do you mean by good, Harry? 'To be good is to be in harmony with one's self, he replied, touching the thin stem of his glass with his pale, finepointed fingers. 'Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own lifethat is the important thing. As for the lives of one's neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides, individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality. 'But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a terrible price for doing so? suggested the painter. 'Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but selfdenial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich. 'One has to pay in other ways but money. 'What sort of ways, Basil? 'Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the consciousness of degradation. Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. 'My dear fellow, medival art is charming, but medival emotions are out of date. One can use them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is. 'I know what pleasure is, cried Dorian Gray. 'It is to adore some one. 'That is certainly better than being adored, he answered, toying with some fruits. 'Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them. 'I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to us, murmured the lad gravely. 'They create love in our natures. They have a right to demand it back. 'That is quite true, Dorian, cried Hallward. 'Nothing is ever quite true, said Lord Henry. 'This is, interrupted Dorian. 'You must admit, Harry, that women give to men the very gold of their lives. 'Possibly, he sighed, 'but they invariably want it back in such very small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out. 'Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much. 'You will always like me, Dorian, he replied. 'Will you have some coffee, you fellows? Waiter, bring coffee, and finechampagne, and some cigarettes. No, don't mind the cigarettesI have some. Basil, I can't allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit. 'What nonsense you talk, Harry! cried the lad, taking a light from a firebreathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table. 'Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you have never known. 'I have known everything, said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his eyes, 'but I am always ready for a new emotion. I am afraid, however, that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing. Still, your wonderful girl may thrill me. I love acting. It is so much more real than life. Let us go. Dorian, you will come with me. I am so sorry, Basil, but there is only room for two in the brougham. You must follow us in a hansom. They got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing. The painter was silent and preoccupied. There was a gloom over him. He could not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better than many other things that might have happened. After a few minutes, they all passed downstairs. He drove off by himself, as had been arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in front of him. A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past. Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes. When the cab drew up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older. For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with an oily tremulous smile. He escorted them to their box with a sort of pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top of his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. Lord Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over a poet. Hallward amused himself with watching the faces in the pit. The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire. The youths in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them over the side. They talked to each other across the theatre and shared their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and discordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar. 'What a place to find one's divinity in! said Lord Henry. 'Yes! answered Dorian Gray. 'It was here I found her, and she is divine beyond all living things. When she acts, you will forget everything. These common rough people, with their coarse faces and brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage. They sit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to do. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them, and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self. 'The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not! exclaimed Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his operaglass. 'Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian, said the painter. 'I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's agethat is something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. This marriage is quite right. I did not think so at first, but I admit it now. The gods made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have been incomplete. 'Thanks, Basil, answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. 'I knew that you would understand me. Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me. But here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for about five minutes. Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything that is good in me. A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly lovely to look atone of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought, that he had ever seen. There was something of the fawn in her shy grace and startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud. Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her. Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, 'Charming! charming! The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, such as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, while she danced, as a plant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were the curves of a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory. Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her eyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal. Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious. Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed. Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, there was nothing in her. She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. That could not be denied. But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial. She overemphasized everything that she had to say. The beautiful passage Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some secondrate professor of elocution. When she leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say, 'It lightens. Sweet, goodnight! This bud of love by summer's ripening breath May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely selfcontained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure. Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the dresscircle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was the girl herself. When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat. 'She is quite beautiful, Dorian, he said, 'but she can't act. Let us go. 'I am going to see the play through, answered the lad, in a hard bitter voice. 'I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an evening, Harry. I apologize to you both. 'My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill, interrupted Hallward. 'We will come some other night. 'I wish she were ill, he rejoined. 'But she seems to me to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre actress. 'Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than art. 'They are both simply forms of imitation, remarked Lord Henry. 'But do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinatingpeople who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic! The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful. What more can you want? 'Go away, Harry, cried the lad. 'I want to be alone. Basil, you must go. Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking? The hot tears came to his eyes. His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. 'Let us go, Basil, said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his voice, and the two young men passed out together. A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose on the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale, and proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed interminable. Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots and laughing. The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was played to almost empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some groans. As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the greenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of their own. When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy came over her. 'How badly I acted tonight, Dorian! she cried. 'Horribly! he answered, gazing at her in amazement. 'Horribly! It was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. You have no idea what I suffered. The girl smiled. 'Dorian, she answered, lingering over his name with longdrawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to the red petals of her mouth. 'Dorian, you should have understood. But you understand now, don't you? 'Understand what? he asked, angrily. 'Why I was so bad tonight. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall never act well again. He shrugged his shoulders. 'You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were bored. I was bored. She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An ecstasy of happiness dominated her. 'Dorian, Dorian, she cried, 'before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You cameoh, my beautiful love!and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. Tonight, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on tonight, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone from me. I thought that I was going to be wonderful. I found that I could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled. What could they know of love such as ours? Take me away, Doriantake me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it signifies? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that. He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face. 'You have killed my love, he muttered. She looked at him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. She came across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair. She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him. Then he leaped up and went to the door. 'Yes, he cried, 'you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you were to me, once. Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name. What are you now? A thirdrate actress with a pretty face. The girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together, and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. 'You are not serious, Dorian? she murmured. 'You are acting. 'Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well, he answered bitterly. She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her face, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm and looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. 'Don't touch me! he cried. A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay there like a trampled flower. 'Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me! she whispered. 'I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you all the time. But I will tryindeed, I will try. It came so suddenly across me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed meif we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again, my love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go away from me. My brother ... No never mind. He didn't mean it. He was in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for tonight? I will work so hard and try to improve. Don't be cruel to me, because I love you better than anything in the world. After all, it is only once that I have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian. I should have shown myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me, and yet I couldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me. A fit of passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain. There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. Her tears and sobs annoyed him. 'I am going, he said at last in his calm clear voice. 'I don't wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me. She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He turned on his heel and left the room. In a few moments he was out of the theatre. Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly lit streets, past gaunt, blackshadowed archways and evillooking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon doorsteps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts. As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. He followed into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons. A whitesmocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge, jadegreen piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey, sunbleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffeehouse in the piazza. The heavy carthorses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Irisnecked and pinkfooted, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds. After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent square, with its blank, closeshuttered windows and its staring blinds. The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacrecoloured air. In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that hung from the ceiling of the great, oakpanelled hall of entrance, lights were still burning from three flickering jets thin blue petals of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turned them out and, having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the ground floor that, in his newborn feeling for luxury, he had just had decorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise. Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he had taken the buttonhole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate. Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the creamcoloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange. He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing. He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly into its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What did it mean? He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent. He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been fulfilled? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in the mouth. Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why had he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him? But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a moment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now. But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again? No it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so. Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel smile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes met his own. A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the painted image of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and would alter more. Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white roses would die. For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any morewould not, at any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things. He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She must have suffered more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish and cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him would return. They would be happy together. His life with her would be beautiful and pure. He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. 'How horrible! he murmured to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. When he stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. He repeated her name over and over again. The birds that were singing in the dewdrenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her. It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered what made his young master sleep so late. Finally his bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olivesatin curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall windows. 'Monsieur has well slept this morning, he said, smiling. 'What o'clock is it, Victor? asked Dorian Gray drowsily. 'One hour and a quarter, Monsieur. How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside. The others he opened listlessly. They contained the usual collection of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes of charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every morning during the season. There was a rather heavy bill for a chased silver LouisQuinze toiletset that he had not yet had the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely oldfashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities and there were several very courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street moneylenders offering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the most reasonable rates of interest. After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate dressinggown of silkembroidered cashmere wool, passed into the onyxpaved bathroom. The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through. A dim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it. As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a light French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round table close to the open window. It was an exquisite day. The warm air seemed laden with spices. A bee flew in and buzzed round the bluedragon bowl that, filled with sulphuryellow roses, stood before him. He felt perfectly happy. Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the portrait, and he started. 'Too cold for Monsieur? asked his valet, putting an omelette on the table. 'I shut the window? Dorian shook his head. 'I am not cold, he murmured. Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy? Surely a painted canvas could not alter? The thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. It would make him smile. And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! First in the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of cruelty round the warped lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, he called him back. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian looked at him for a moment. 'I am not at home to any one, Victor, he said with a sigh. The man bowed and retired. Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen. The screen was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a rather florid LouisQuatorze pattern. He scanned it curiously, wondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life. Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What was the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If it was not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or deadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible change? What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at his own picture? Basil would be sure to do that. No the thing had to be examined, and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful state of doubt. He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he looked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and saw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had altered. As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost scientific interest. That such a change should have taken place was incredible to him. And yet it was a fact. Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him? Could it be that what that soul thought, they realized?that what it dreamed, they made true? Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He shuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there, gazing at the picture in sickened horror. One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It was not too late to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife. His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Here was an everpresent sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls. Three o'clock struck, and four, and the halfhour rang its double chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had loved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in selfreproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the letter, he felt that he had been forgiven. Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's voice outside. 'My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I can't bear your shutting yourself up like this. He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking still continued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was inevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture, and unlocked the door. 'I am so sorry for it all, Dorian, said Lord Henry as he entered. 'But you must not think too much about it. 'Do you mean about Sibyl Vane? asked the lad. 'Yes, of course, answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly pulling off his yellow gloves. 'It is dreadful, from one point of view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see her, after the play was over? 'Yes. 'I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her? 'I was brutal, Harryperfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know myself better. 'Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I would find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of yours. 'I have got through all that, said Dorian, shaking his head and smiling. 'I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any moreat least not before me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous. 'A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you on it. But how are you going to begin? 'By marrying Sibyl Vane. 'Marrying Sibyl Vane! cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him in perplexed amazement. 'But, my dear Dorian 'Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful about marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that kind to me again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to break my word to her. She is to be my wife. 'Your wife! Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter? I wrote to you this morning, and sent the note down by my own man. 'Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like. You cut life to pieces with your epigrams. 'You know nothing then? 'What do you mean? Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray, took both his hands in his own and held them tightly. 'Dorian, he said, 'my letterdon't be frightenedwas to tell you that Sibyl Vane is dead. A cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet, tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. 'Dead! Sibyl dead! It is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it? 'It is quite true, Dorian, said Lord Henry, gravely. 'It is in all the morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one till I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make one's dbut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age. I suppose they don't know your name at the theatre? If they don't, it is all right. Did any one see you going round to her room? That is an important point. Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror. Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, 'Harry, did you say an inquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl? Oh, Harry, I can't bear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once. 'I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put in that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the theatre with her mother, about halfpast twelve or so, she said she had forgotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she did not come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor of her dressingroom. She had swallowed something by mistake, some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what it was, but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it was prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously. 'Harry, Harry, it is terrible! cried the lad. 'Yes it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed up in it. I see by The Standard that she was seventeen. I should have thought she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and seemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn't let this thing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and afterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there. You can come to my sister's box. She has got some smart women with her. 'So I have murdered Sibyl Vane, said Dorian Gray, half to himself, 'murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden. And tonight I am to dine with you, and then go on to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book, Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. Here is the first passionate loveletter I have ever written in my life. Strange, that my first passionate loveletter should have been addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her once! It seems years ago to me now. She was everything to me. Then came that dreadful nightwas it really only last night?when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke. She explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happened that made me afraid. I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I said I would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is dead. My God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? You don't know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her. 'My dear Dorian, answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case and producing a goldlatten matchbox, 'the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life. If you had married this girl, you would have been wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's husband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abjectwhich, of course, I would not have allowedbut I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure. 'I suppose it would, muttered the lad, walking up and down the room and looking horribly pale. 'But I thought it was my duty. It is not my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good resolutionsthat they are always made too late. Mine certainly were. 'Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account. 'Harry, cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, 'why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don't think I am heartless. Do you? 'You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian, answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile. The lad frowned. 'I don't like that explanation, Harry, he rejoined, 'but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded. 'It is an interesting question, said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, 'an extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is this It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored methere have not been very many, but there have been somehave always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar. 'I must sow poppies in my garden, sighed Dorian. 'There is no necessity, rejoined his companion. 'Life has always poppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once wore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic mourning for a romance that would not die. Ultimately, however, it did die. I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity. Wellwould you believe it?a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner next the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel. She dragged it out again and assured me that I had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she ate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety. But what a lack of taste she showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over, they propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colours. Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirtyfive who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history. Others find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good qualities of their husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins. Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a woman once told me, and I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all. Yes there is really no end to the consolations that women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most important one. 'What is that, Harry? said the lad listlessly. 'Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when one loses one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the women one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love. 'I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that. 'I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were splendid. I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can fancy how delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key to everything. 'What was that, Harry? 'You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of romancethat she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen. 'She will never come to life again now, muttered the lad, burying his face in his hands. 'No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressingroom simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and left them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's music sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are. There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things. After some time Dorian Gray looked up. 'You have explained me to myself, Harry, he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. 'I felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I could not express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will not talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience. That is all. I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as marvellous. 'Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do. 'But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then? 'Ah, then, said Lord Henry, rising to go, 'then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We cannot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the club. We are rather late, as it is. 'I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat anything. What is the number of your sister's box? 'Twentyseven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her name on the door. But I am sorry you won't come and dine. 'I don't feel up to it, said Dorian listlessly. 'But I am awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have. 'We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian, answered Lord Henry, shaking him by the hand. 'Goodbye. I shall see you before ninethirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing. As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an interminable time over everything. As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. It was conscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it. Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked death on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken her with him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? Had she cursed him, as she died? No she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of what she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the theatre. When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of love. A wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the picture. He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for himlife, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sinshe was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame that was all. A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The pity of it! the pity of it! For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in answer to a prayer perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught? Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity? But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it? For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything. He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture, smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord Henry was leaning over his chair. As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown into the room. 'I am so glad I have found you, Dorian, he said gravely. 'I called last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for me when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late edition of The Globe that I picked up at the club. I came here at once and was miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how heartbroken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer. But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother? For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about it all? 'My dear Basil, how do I know? murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some paleyellow wine from a delicate, goldbeaded bubble of Venetian glass and looking dreadfully bored. 'I was at the opera. You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming and Patti sang divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things. I may mention that she was not the woman's only child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about yourself and what you are painting. 'You went to the opera? said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a strained touch of pain in his voice. 'You went to the opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers! 'Stop, Basil! I won't hear it! cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. 'You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past. 'You call yesterday the past? 'What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them. 'Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don't know what has come over you. You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's influence. I see that. The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few moments on the green, flickering, sunlashed garden. 'I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil, he said at last, 'more than I owe to you. You only taught me to be vain. 'Well, I am punished for that, Dorianor shall be some day. 'I don't know what you mean, Basil, he exclaimed, turning round. 'I don't know what you want. What do you want? 'I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint, said the artist sadly. 'Basil, said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his shoulder, 'you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl Vane had killed herself 'Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that? cried Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror. 'My dear Basil! Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident? Of course she killed herself. The elder man buried his face in his hands. 'How fearful, he muttered, and a shudder ran through him. 'No, said Dorian Gray, 'there is nothing fearful about it. It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious. You know what I meanmiddleclass virtue and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she playedthe night you saw hershe acted badly because she had known the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, you must not think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday at a particular momentabout halfpast five, perhaps, or a quarter to sixyou would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can, except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some unjust law alteredI forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of ennui, and became a confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who used to write about la consolation des arts? I remember picking up a little vellumcovered book in your studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase. Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. I love beautiful things that one can touch and handle. Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquerwork, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings, luxury, pompthere is much to be got from all these. But the artistic temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to me. To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a schoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not strongeryou are too much afraid of lifebut you are better. And how happy we used to be together! Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said. The painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him, and his personality had been the great turning point in his art. He could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble. 'Well, Dorian, he said at length, with a sad smile, 'I won't speak to you again about this horrible thing, after today. I only trust your name won't be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take place this afternoon. Have they summoned you? Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at the mention of the word 'inquest. There was something so crude and vulgar about everything of the kind. 'They don't know my name, he answered. 'But surely she did? 'Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words. 'I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you must come and sit to me yourself again. I can't get on without you. 'I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible! he exclaimed, starting back. The painter stared at him. 'My dear boy, what nonsense! he cried. 'Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked different as I came in. 'My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimesthat is all. No I did it myself. The light was too strong on the portrait. 'Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it. And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room. A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between the painter and the screen. 'Basil, he said, looking very pale, 'you must not look at it. I don't wish you to. 'Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look at it? exclaimed Hallward, laughing. 'If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you touch this screen, everything is over between us. Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over. 'Dorian! 'Don't speak! 'But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't want me to, he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over towards the window. 'But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not today? 'To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it? exclaimed Dorian Gray, a strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That was impossible. Somethinghe did not know whathad to be done at once. 'Yes I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de Sze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will only be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it. Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible danger. 'You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it, he cried. 'Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the same thing. He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half seriously and half in jest, 'If you want to have a strange quarter of an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me. Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try. 'Basil, he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in the face, 'we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture? The painter shuddered in spite of himself. 'Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation. 'No, Basil, you must tell me, insisted Dorian Gray. 'I think I have a right to know. His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery. 'Let us sit down, Dorian, said the painter, looking troubled. 'Let us sit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the picture something curious?something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly? 'Basil! cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes. 'I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... Of course, I never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it. I hardly understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyestoo wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them.... Weeks and weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you. Then came a new development. I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boarspear. Crowned with heavy lotusblossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of your own face. And it had all been what art should beunconscious, ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own time. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a little annoyed but then you did not realize all that it meant to me. Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely goodlooking and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colourthat is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped. Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store? 'It is extraordinary to me, Dorian, said Hallward, 'that you should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it? 'I saw something in it, he answered, 'something that seemed to me very curious. 'Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now? Dorian shook his head. 'You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture. 'You will some day, surely? 'Never. 'Well, perhaps you are right. And now goodbye, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you. 'My dear Basil, said Dorian, 'what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment. 'It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words. 'It was a very disappointing confession. 'Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see? 'No there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so. 'You have got Harry, said the painter sadly. 'Oh, Harry! cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. 'Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner go to you, Basil. 'You will sit to me again? 'Impossible! 'You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one. 'I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant. 'Pleasanter for you, I am afraid, murmured Hallward regretfully. 'And now goodbye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once again. But that can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel about it. As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How much that strange confession explained to him! The painter's absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticenceshe understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance. He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room to which any of his friends had access. When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if he had thought of peering behind the screen. The man was quite impassive and waited for his orders. Dorian lit a cigarette and walked over to the glass and glanced into it. He could see the reflection of Victor's face perfectly. It was like a placid mask of servility. There was nothing to be afraid of, there. Yet he thought it best to be on his guard. Speaking very slowly, he told him to tell the housekeeper that he wanted to see her, and then to go to the framemaker and ask him to send two of his men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man left the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen. Or was that merely his own fancy? After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with oldfashioned thread mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library. He asked her for the key of the schoolroom. 'The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian? she exclaimed. 'Why, it is full of dust. I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it. It is not fit for you to see, sir. It is not, indeed. 'I don't want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key. 'Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it hasn't been opened for nearly five yearsnot since his lordship died. He winced at the mention of his grandfather. He had hateful memories of him. 'That does not matter, he answered. 'I simply want to see the placethat is all. Give me the key. 'And here is the key, sir, said the old lady, going over the contents of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. 'Here is the key. I'll have it off the bunch in a moment. But you don't think of living up there, sir, and you so comfortable here? 'No, no, he cried petulantly. 'Thank you, Leaf. That will do. She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of the household. He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought best. She left the room, wreathed in smiles. As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round the room. His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenthcentury Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna. Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death itselfsomething that would breed horrors and yet would never die. What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace. They would defile it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away. Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still more poisonous influences that came from his own temperament. The love that he bore himfor it was really lovehad nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him. But it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable. There were passions in him that would find their terrible outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real. He took up from the couch the great purpleandgold texture that covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen. Was the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him that it was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified. Gold hair, blue eyes, and rosered lipsthey all were there. It was simply the expression that had altered. That was horrible in its cruelty. Compared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!how shallow, and of what little account! His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and calling him to judgement. A look of pain came across him, and he flung the rich pall over the picture. As he did so, a knock came to the door. He passed out as his servant entered. 'The persons are here, Monsieur. He felt that the man must be got rid of at once. He must not be allowed to know where the picture was being taken to. There was something sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes. Sitting down at the writingtable he scribbled a note to Lord Henry, asking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that they were to meet at eightfifteen that evening. 'Wait for an answer, he said, handing it to him, 'and show the men in here. In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard himself, the celebrated framemaker of South Audley Street, came in with a somewhat roughlooking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a florid, redwhiskered little man, whose admiration for art was considerably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the artists who dealt with him. As a rule, he never left his shop. He waited for people to come to him. But he always made an exception in favour of Dorian Gray. There was something about Dorian that charmed everybody. It was a pleasure even to see him. 'What can I do for you, Mr. Gray? he said, rubbing his fat freckled hands. 'I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in person. I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir. Picked it up at a sale. Old Florentine. Came from Fonthill, I believe. Admirably suited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray. 'I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr. Hubbard. I shall certainly drop in and look at the framethough I don't go in much at present for religious artbut today I only want a picture carried to the top of the house for me. It is rather heavy, so I thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men. 'No trouble at all, Mr. Gray. I am delighted to be of any service to you. Which is the work of art, sir? 'This, replied Dorian, moving the screen back. 'Can you move it, covering and all, just as it is? I don't want it to get scratched going upstairs. 'There will be no difficulty, sir, said the genial framemaker, beginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from the long brass chains by which it was suspended. 'And, now, where shall we carry it to, Mr. Gray? 'I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me. Or perhaps you had better go in front. I am afraid it is right at the top of the house. We will go up by the front staircase, as it is wider. He held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and began the ascent. The elaborate character of the frame had made the picture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious protests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike of seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it so as to help them. 'Something of a load to carry, sir, gasped the little man when they reached the top landing. And he wiped his shiny forehead. 'I am afraid it is rather heavy, murmured Dorian as he unlocked the door that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious secret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men. He had not entered the place for more than four yearsnot, indeed, since he had used it first as a playroom when he was a child, and then as a study when he grew somewhat older. It was a large, wellproportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness to his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and desired to keep at a distance. It appeared to Dorian to have but little changed. There was the huge Italian cassone, with its fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which he had so often hidden himself as a boy. There the satinwood bookcase filled with his dogeared schoolbooks. On the wall behind it was hanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen were playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by, carrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists. How well he remembered it all! Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to him as he looked round. He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish life, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait was to be hidden away. How little he had thought, in those dead days, of all that was in store for him! But there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as this. He had the key, and no one else could enter it. Beneath its purple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden, and unclean. What did it matter? No one could see it. He himself would not see it. Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his soul? He kept his youththat was enough. And, besides, might not his nature grow finer, after all? There was no reason that the future should be so full of shame. Some love might come across his life, and purify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already stirring in spirit and in fleshthose curious unpictured sins whose very mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm. Perhaps, some day, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive mouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece. No that was impossible. Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing upon the canvas was growing old. It might escape the hideousness of sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it. The cheeks would become hollow or flaccid. Yellow crow's feet would creep round the fading eyes and make them horrible. The hair would lose its brightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross, as the mouths of old men are. There would be the wrinkled throat, the cold, blueveined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the grandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood. The picture had to be concealed. There was no help for it. 'Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please, he said, wearily, turning round. 'I am sorry I kept you so long. I was thinking of something else. 'Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray, answered the framemaker, who was still gasping for breath. 'Where shall we put it, sir? 'Oh, anywhere. Here this will do. I don't want to have it hung up. Just lean it against the wall. Thanks. 'Might one look at the work of art, sir? Dorian started. 'It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard, he said, keeping his eye on the man. He felt ready to leap upon him and fling him to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that concealed the secret of his life. 'I shan't trouble you any more now. I am much obliged for your kindness in coming round. 'Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray. Ever ready to do anything for you, sir. And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant, who glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough uncomely face. He had never seen any one so marvellous. When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He felt safe now. No one would ever look upon the horrible thing. No eye but his would ever see his shame. On reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock and that the tea had been already brought up. On a little table of dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady Radley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had spent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn and the edges soiled. A copy of the third edition of The St. James's Gazette had been placed on the teatray. It was evident that Victor had returned. He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were leaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing. He would be sure to miss the picturehad no doubt missed it already, while he had been laying the teathings. The screen had not been set back, and a blank space was visible on the wall. Perhaps some night he might find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the room. It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house. He had heard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some servant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked up a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower or a shred of crumpled lace. He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's note. It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper, and a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at eightfifteen. He opened The St. James's languidly, and looked through it. A red pencilmark on the fifth page caught his eye. It drew attention to the following paragraph INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.An inquest was held this morning at the Bell Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of Sibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre, Holborn. A verdict of death by misadventure was returned. Considerable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who was greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of Dr. Birrell, who had made the postmortem examination of the deceased. He frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and flung the pieces away. How ugly it all was! And how horribly real ugliness made things! He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for having sent him the report. And it was certainly stupid of him to have marked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it. The man knew more than enough English for that. Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something. And, yet, what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's death? There was nothing to fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her. His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was it, he wondered. He went towards the little, pearlcoloured octagonal stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung himself into an armchair and began to turn over the leaves. After a few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually revealed. It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through which the worldspirit had ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. The style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes. There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some medival saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling day and creeping shadows. Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a coppergreen sky gleamed through the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no more. Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the lateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his bedside and began to dress for dinner. It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morningroom, looking very much bored. 'I am so sorry, Harry, he cried, 'but really it is entirely your fault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time was going. 'Yes, I thought you would like it, replied his host, rising from his chair. 'I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference. 'Ah, you have discovered that? murmured Lord Henry. And they passed into the diningroom. For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never sought to free himself from it. He procured from Paris no less than nine largepaper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in different colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control. The hero, the wonderful young Parisian in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely blended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And, indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it. In one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero. He never knewnever, indeed, had any cause to knowthat somewhat grotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still water which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was occasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently, been so remarkable. It was with an almost cruel joyand perhaps in nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its placethat he used to read the latter part of the book, with its really tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and despair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he had most dearly valued. For the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and many others besides him, seemed never to leave him. Even those who had heard the most evil things against himand from time to time strange rumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the chatter of the clubscould not believe anything to his dishonour when they saw him. He had always the look of one who had kept himself unspotted from the world. Men who talked grossly became silent when Dorian Gray entered the room. There was something in the purity of his face that rebuked them. His mere presence seemed to recall to them the memory of the innocence that they had tarnished. They wondered how one so charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an age that was at once sordid and sensual. Often, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged absences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were his friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep upstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left him now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on the canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him from the polished glass. The very sharpness of the contrast used to quicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture, and smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs. There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little illfamed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant because it was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare. That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them. Yet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to society. Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each Wednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the world his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the day to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little dinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were noted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited, as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with its subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. Indeed, there were many, especially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw, in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often dreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of the real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and perfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seemed to be of the company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to 'make themselves perfect by the worship of beauty. Like Gautier, he was one for whom 'the visible world existed. And, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation. Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment universal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for him. His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to time he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in everything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of his graceful, though to him only halfserious, fopperies. For, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost immediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a subtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the London of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the Satyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be something more than a mere arbiter elegantiarum, to be consulted on the wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a cane. He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have its reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization. The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been decried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are conscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence. But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the dominant characteristic. As he looked back upon man moving through history, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of selftorture and selfdenial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to the hermit the beasts of the field as his companions. Yes there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment. There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie. Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb shadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan mirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand where we had left them, and beside them lies the halfcut book that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. We have to resume it where we had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain. It was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray to be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life and in his search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he would often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and then, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that, indeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition of it. It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman Catholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great attraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb rejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity of its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it sought to symbolize. He loved to kneel down on the cold marble pavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly and with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or raising aloft the jewelled, lanternshaped monstrance with that pallid wafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the 'panis clestis, the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his breast for his sins. The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their lace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their subtle fascination for him. As he passed out, he used to look with wonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn grating the true story of their lives. But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable for the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which there are no stars and the moon is in travail. Mysticism, with its marvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a season and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, morbid or healthy, normal or diseased. Yet, as has been said of him before, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself. He felt keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment. He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual mysteries to reveal. And so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their manufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums from the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweetsmelling roots and scented, pollenladen flowers of aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods of spikenard, that sickens of hovenia, that makes men mad and of aloes, that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul. At another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long latticed room, with a vermilionandgold ceiling and walls of olivegreen lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad gipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellowshawled Tunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while grinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching upon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of reed or brass and charmedor feigned to charmgreat hooded snakes and horrible horned adders. The harsh intervals and shrill discords of barbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's beautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded on his ear. He collected together from all parts of the world the strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of dead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact with Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them. He had the mysterious juruparis of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not allowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been subjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the Peruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green jaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular sweetness. He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when they were shaken the long clarin of the Mexicans, into which the performer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air the harsh ture of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who sit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a distance of three leagues the teponaztli, that has two vibrating tongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants the yotlbells of the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes and a huge cylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a description. The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated him, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices. Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his box at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt pleasure to 'Tannhauser and seeing in the prelude to that great work of art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul. On one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered with five hundred and sixty pearls. This taste enthralled him for years, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him. He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various stones that he had collected, such as the olivegreen chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, the pistachiocoloured peridot, rosepink and wineyellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, fourrayed stars, flamered cinnamonstones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise de la vieille roche that was the envy of all the connoisseurs. He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of Emathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes 'with collars of real emeralds growing on their backs. There was a gem in the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and 'by the exhibition of golden letters and a scarlet robe the monster could be thrown into a magical sleep and slain. According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her colour. The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus, that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids. Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a newly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The bezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm that could cure the plague. In the nests of Arabian birds was the aspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any danger by fire. The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand, as the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John the Priest were 'made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within. Over the gable were 'two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles, so that the gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night. In Lodge's strange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the chamber of the queen one could behold 'all the chaste ladies of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults. Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rosecoloured pearls in the mouths of the dead. A seamonster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss. When the Huns lured the king into the great pit, he flung it awayProcopius tells the storynor was it ever found again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundredweight of gold pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown to a certain Venetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god that he worshipped. When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI., visited Louis XII. of France, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome, and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light. Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and twentyone diamonds. Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand marks, which was covered with balas rubies. Hall described Henry VIII., on his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing 'a jacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other rich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses. The favourites of James I wore earrings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of redgold armour studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with turquoisestones, and a skullcap parsem with pearls. Henry II. wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawkglove sewn with twelve rubies and fiftytwo great orients. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with pearshaped pearls and studded with sapphires. How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful. Then he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that performed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern nations of Europe. As he investigated the subjectand he always had an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took uphe was almost saddened by the reflection of the ruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any rate, had escaped that. Summer followed summer, and the yellow jonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the story of their shame, but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face or stained his flowerlike bloom. How different it was with material things! Where had they passed to? Where was the great crocuscoloured robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail of purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white, giltreined steeds? He longed to see the curious tablenapkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden bees the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus and were figured with 'lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, huntersall, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature and the coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning 'Madame, je suis tout joyeux, the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with 'thirteen hundred and twentyone parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the king's arms, and five hundred and sixtyone butterflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked in gold. Catherine de Medicis had a mourningbed made for her of black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it stood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV. had gold embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with verses from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully chased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. It had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of Mohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy. And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with goldthread palmates and stitched over with iridescent beetles' wings the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known in the East as 'woven air, and 'running water, and 'evening dew strange figured cloths from Java elaborate yellow Chinese hangings books bound in tawny satins or fair blue silks and wrought with fleursdelis, birds and images veils of lacis worked in Hungary point Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish velvets Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese Foukousas, with their greentoned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds. He had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the long cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and fine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by the suffering that she seeks for and wounded by selfinflicted pain. He possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and goldthread damask, figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in sixpetalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the pineapple device wrought in seedpearls. The orphreys were divided into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the coronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood. This was Italian work of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of green velvet, embroidered with heartshaped groups of acanthusleaves, from which spread longstemmed white blossoms, the details of which were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. The morse bore a seraph's head in goldthread raised work. The orphreys were woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with medallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian. He had chasubles, also, of ambercoloured silk, and blue silk and gold brocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with representations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and embroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems dalmatics of white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins and fleursdelis altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen and many corporals, chaliceveils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to which such things were put, there was something that quickened his imagination. For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely locked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with his own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him the real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the purpleandgold pall as a curtain. For weeks he would not go there, would forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart, his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence. Then, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day, until he was driven away. On his return he would sit in front of the picture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other times, with that pride of individualism that is half the fascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own. After a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as well as the little white walledin house at Algiers where they had more than once spent the winter. He hated to be separated from the picture that was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his absence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the elaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door. He was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true that the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness of the face, its marked likeness to himself but what could they learn from that? He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it looked? Even if he told them, would they believe it? Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house in Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not been tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it should be stolen? The mere thought made him cold with horror. Surely the world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already suspected it. For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him. He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth and social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was said that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the smokingroom of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out. Curious stories became current about him after he had passed his twentyfifth year. It was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though they were determined to discover his secret. Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice, and in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his charming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth that seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer to the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about him. It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most intimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him. Women who had wildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and set convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or horror if Dorian Gray entered the room. Yet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his strange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certain element of security. Societycivilized society, at leastis never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef. And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for halfcold entres, as Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is possibly a good deal to be said for his view. For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities. Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion. He used to wonder at the shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead. He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picturegallery of his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose blood flowed in his veins. Here was Philip Herbert, described by Francis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, as one who was 'caressed by the Court for his handsome face, which kept him not long company. Was it young Herbert's life that he sometimes led? Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body to body till it had reached his own? Was it some dim sense of that ruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause, give utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had so changed his life? Here, in goldembroidered red doublet, jewelled surcoat, and giltedged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard, with his silverandblack armour piled at his feet. What had this man's legacy been? Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him some inheritance of sin and shame? Were his own actions merely the dreams that the dead man had not dared to realize? Here, from the fading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl stomacher, and pink slashed sleeves. A flower was in her right hand, and her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses. On a table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple. There were large green rosettes upon her little pointed shoes. He knew her life, and the strange stories that were told about her lovers. Had he something of her temperament in him? These oval, heavylidded eyes seemed to look curiously at him. What of George Willoughby, with his powdered hair and fantastic patches? How evil he looked! The face was saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with disdain. Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that were so overladen with rings. He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars. What of the second Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his wildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert? How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls and insolent pose! What passions had he bequeathed? The world had looked upon him as infamous. He had led the orgies at Carlton House. The star of the Garter glittered upon his breast. Beside him hung the portrait of his wife, a pallid, thinlipped woman in black. Her blood, also, stirred within him. How curious it all seemed! And his mother with her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, winedashed lipshe knew what he had got from her. He had got from her his beauty, and his passion for the beauty of others. She laughed at him in her loose Bacchante dress. There were vine leaves in her hair. The purple spilled from the cup she was holding. The carnations of the painting had withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and brilliancy of colour. They seemed to follow him wherever he went. Yet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race, nearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly with an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious. There were times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history was merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act and circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it had been in his brain and in his passions. He felt that he had known them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of subtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had been his own. The hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had himself known this curious fancy. In the seventh chapter he tells how, crowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as Tiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of Elephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the fluteplayer mocked the swinger of the censer and, as Caligula, had caroused with the greenshirted jockeys in their stables and supped in an ivory manger with a jewelfrontleted horse and, as Domitian, had wandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round with haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his days, and sick with that ennui, that terrible tdium vit, that comes on those to whom life denies nothing and had peered through a clear emerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of pearl and purple drawn by silvershod mules, been carried through the Street of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero Caesar as he passed by and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with colours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon from Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun. Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious tapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made monstrous or mad Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and painted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death from the dead thing he fondled Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as Paul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was bought at the price of a terrible sin Gian Maria Visconti, who used hounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with roses by a harlot who had loved him the Borgia on his white horse, with Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood of Perotto Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, child and minion of Sixtus IV., whose beauty was equalled only by his debauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white and crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas Ezzelin, whose melancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a passion for red blood, as other men have for red winethe son of the Fiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when gambling with him for his own soul Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery took the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor Sigismondo Malatesta, the lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome as the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and gave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship Charles VI., who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned him of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had sickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images of love and death and madness and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him. There was a horrible fascination in them all. He saw them at night, and they troubled his imagination in the day. The Renaissance knew of strange manners of poisoningpoisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful. It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirtyeighth birthday, as he often remembered afterwards. He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. Dorian recognized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for which he could not account, came over him. He made no sign of recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house. But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping on the pavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, his hand was on his arm. 'Dorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for you in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see you before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me. But I wasn't quite sure. Didn't you recognize me? 'In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel at all certain about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not seen you for ages. But I suppose you will be back soon? 'No I am going to be out of England for six months. I intend to take a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great picture I have in my head. However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to talk. Here we are at your door. Let me come in for a moment. I have something to say to you. 'I shall be charmed. But won't you miss your train? said Dorian Gray languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his latchkey. The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his watch. 'I have heaps of time, he answered. 'The train doesn't go till twelvefifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my way to the club to look for you, when I met you. You see, I shan't have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I have with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty minutes. Dorian looked at him and smiled. 'What a way for a fashionable painter to travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! Come in, or the fog will get into the house. And mind you don't talk about anything serious. Nothing is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be. Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the library. There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open hearth. The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spiritcase stood, with some siphons of sodawater and large cutglass tumblers, on a little marqueterie table. 'You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me everything I wanted, including your best goldtipped cigarettes. He is a most hospitable creature. I like him much better than the Frenchman you used to have. What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye? Dorian shrugged his shoulders. 'I believe he married Lady Radley's maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglomanie is very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly of the French, doesn't it? Butdo you know?he was not at all a bad servant. I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about. One often imagines things that are quite absurd. He was really very devoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another brandyandsoda? Or would you like hockandseltzer? I always take hockandseltzer myself. There is sure to be some in the next room. 'Thanks, I won't have anything more, said the painter, taking his cap and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the corner. 'And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously. Don't frown like that. You make it so much more difficult for me. 'What is it all about? cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging himself down on the sofa. 'I hope it is not about myself. I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else. 'It is about yourself, answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, 'and I must say it to you. I shall only keep you half an hour. Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette. 'Half an hour! he murmured. 'It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own sake that I am speaking. I think it right that you should know that the most dreadful things are being said against you in London. 'I don't wish to know anything about them. I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty. 'They must interest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is interested in his good name. You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and degraded. Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all that kind of thing. But position and wealth are not everything. Mind you, I don't believe these rumours at all. At least, I can't believe them when I see you. Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even. SomebodyI won't mention his name, but you know himcame to me last year to have his portrait done. I had never seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the time, though I have heard a good deal since. He offered an extravagant price. I refused him. There was something in the shape of his fingers that I hated. I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied about him. His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youthI can't believe anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I don't know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to theirs? You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley. I met him at dinner last week. Your name happened to come up in conversation, in connection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the Dudley. Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most artistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pureminded girl should be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the same room with. I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked him what he meant. He told me. He told me right out before everybody. It was horrible! Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? There was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide. You were his great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England with a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about Adrian Singleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kent's only son and his career? I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street. He seemed broken with shame and sorrow. What about the young Duke of Perth? What sort of life has he got now? What gentleman would associate with him? 'Stop, Basil. You are talking about things of which you know nothing, said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt in his voice. 'You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it. It is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows anything about mine. With such blood as he has in his veins, how could his record be clean? You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth. Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery? If Kent's silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me? If Adrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his keeper? I know how people chatter in England. The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their gross dinnertables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people they slander. In this country, it is enough for a man to have distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite. 'Dorian, cried Hallward, 'that is not the question. England is bad enough I know, and English society is all wrong. That is the reason why I want you to be fine. You have not been fine. One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity. You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there. Yes you led them there, and yet you can smile, as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should not have made his sister's name a byword. 'Take care, Basil. You go too far. 'I must speak, and you must listen. You shall listen. When you met Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Is there a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the park? Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her. Then there are other storiesstories that you have been seen creeping at dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London. Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard them, I laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. What about your countryhouse and the life that is led there? Dorian, you don't know what is said about you. I won't tell you that I don't want to preach to you. I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, and then proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach to you. I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect you. I want you to have a clean name and a fair record. I want you to get rid of the dreadful people you associate with. Don't shrug your shoulders like that. Don't be so indifferent. You have a wonderful influence. Let it be for good, not for evil. They say that you corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow after. I don't know whether it is so or not. How should I know? But it is said of you. I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt. Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. He showed me a letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in her villa at Mentone. Your name was implicated in the most terrible confession I ever read. I told him that it was absurdthat I knew you thoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind. Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should have to see your soul. 'To see my soul! muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and turning almost white from fear. 'Yes, answered Hallward gravely, and with deeptoned sorrow in his voice, 'to see your soul. But only God can do that. A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. 'You shall see it yourself, tonight! he cried, seizing a lamp from the table. 'Come it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me all the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face to face. There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered. He stamped his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner. He felt a terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the hideous memory of what he had done. 'Yes, he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into his stern eyes, 'I shall show you my soul. You shall see the thing that you fancy only God can see. Hallward started back. 'This is blasphemy, Dorian! he cried. 'You must not say things like that. They are horrible, and they don't mean anything. 'You think so? He laughed again. 'I know so. As for what I said to you tonight, I said it for your good. You know I have been always a stanch friend to you. 'Don't touch me. Finish what you have to say. A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face. He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fireplace, and stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and their throbbing cores of flame. 'I am waiting, Basil, said the young man in a hard clear voice. He turned round. 'What I have to say is this, he cried. 'You must give me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against you. If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to end, I shall believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can't you see what I am going through? My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and shameful. Dorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of contempt in his lips. 'Come upstairs, Basil, he said quietly. 'I keep a diary of my life from day to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. I shall show it to you if you come with me. 'I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my train. That makes no matter. I can go tomorrow. But don't ask me to read anything tonight. All I want is a plain answer to my question. 'That shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You will not have to read long. He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward following close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively at night. The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase. A rising wind made some of the windows rattle. When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock. 'You insist on knowing, Basil? he asked in a low voice. 'Yes. 'I am delighted, he answered, smiling. Then he added, somewhat harshly, 'You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know everything about me. You have had more to do with my life than you think and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in. A cold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in a flame of murky orange. He shuddered. 'Shut the door behind you, he whispered, as he placed the lamp on the table. Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression. The room looked as if it had not been lived in for years. A faded Flemish tapestry, a curtained picture, an old Italian cassone, and an almost empty bookcasethat was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and a table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a halfburned candle that was standing on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered with dust and that the carpet was in holes. A mouse ran scuffling behind the wainscoting. There was a damp odour of mildew. 'So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? Draw that curtain back, and you will see mine. The voice that spoke was cold and cruel. 'You are mad, Dorian, or playing a part, muttered Hallward, frowning. 'You won't? Then I must do it myself, said the young man, and he tore the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground. An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at! The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and some scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to recognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design. The idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle, and held it to the picture. In the lefthand corner was his own name, traced in long letters of bright vermilion. It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. He had never done that. Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His own picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and looked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched, and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand across his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat. The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting. There was neither real sorrow in it nor real joy. There was simply the passion of the spectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes. He had taken the flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so. 'What does this mean? cried Hallward, at last. His own voice sounded shrill and curious in his ears. 'Years ago, when I was a boy, said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in his hand, 'you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment that, even now, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you would call it a prayer.... 'I remember it! Oh, how well I remember it! No! the thing is impossible. The room is damp. Mildew has got into the canvas. The paints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them. I tell you the thing is impossible. 'Ah, what is impossible? murmured the young man, going over to the window and leaning his forehead against the cold, miststained glass. 'You told me you had destroyed it. 'I was wrong. It has destroyed me. 'I don't believe it is my picture. 'Can't you see your ideal in it? said Dorian bitterly. 'My ideal, as you call it... 'As you called it. 'There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr. 'It is the face of my soul. 'Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a devil. 'Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil, cried Dorian with a wild gesture of despair. Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it. 'My God! If it is true, he exclaimed, 'and this is what you have done with your life, why, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you to be! He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it. The surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it. It was from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come. Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away. The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful. His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and lay there sputtering. He placed his foot on it and put it out. Then he flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table and buried his face in his hands. 'Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson! There was no answer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window. 'Pray, Dorian, pray, he murmured. 'What is it that one was taught to say in one's boyhood? 'Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins. Wash away our iniquities.' Let us say that together. The prayer of your pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be answered also. I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You worshipped yourself too much. We are both punished. Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with teardimmed eyes. 'It is too late, Basil, he faltered. 'It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we cannot remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'? 'Those words mean nothing to me now. 'Hush! Don't say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My God! Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us? Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his ear by those grinning lips. The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, more than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything. He glanced wildly around. Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest that faced him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a knife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord, and had forgotten to take away with him. He moved slowly towards it, passing Hallward as he did so. As soon as he got behind him, he seized it and turned round. Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going to rise. He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and stabbing again and again. There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking with blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively, waving grotesque, stifffingered hands in the air. He stabbed him twice more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on the floor. He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then he threw the knife on the table, and listened. He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. He opened the door and went out on the landing. The house was absolutely quiet. No one was about. For a few seconds he stood bending over the balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness. Then he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in as he did so. The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was simply asleep. How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and walking over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony. The wind had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and saw the policeman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on the doors of the silent houses. The crimson spot of a prowling hansom gleamed at the corner and then vanished. A woman in a fluttering shawl was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and then she stopped and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse voice. The policeman strolled over and said something to her. She stumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the square. The gaslamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their black iron branches to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the window behind him. Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it. He did not even glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted the fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his life. That was enough. Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished steel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a moment, then he turned back and took it from the table. He could not help seeing the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the long hands looked! It was like a dreadful wax image. Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs. The woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped several times and waited. No everything was still. It was merely the sound of his own footsteps. When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner. They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious disguises, and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. Then he pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two. He sat down and began to think. Every yearevery month, almostmen were strangled in England for what he had done. There had been a madness of murder in the air. Some red star had come too close to the earth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him? Basil Hallward had left the house at eleven. No one had seen him come in again. Most of the servants were at Selby Royal. His valet had gone to bed.... Paris! Yes. It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight train, as he had intended. With his curious reserved habits, it would be months before any suspicions would be roused. Months! Everything could be destroyed long before then. A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat and went out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of the policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the bull'seye reflected in the window. He waited and held his breath. After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting the door very gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. In about five minutes his valet appeared, halfdressed and looking very drowsy. 'I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis, he said, stepping in 'but I had forgotten my latchkey. What time is it? 'Ten minutes past two, sir, answered the man, looking at the clock and blinking. 'Ten minutes past two? How horribly late! You must wake me at nine tomorrow. I have some work to do. 'All right, sir. 'Did any one call this evening? 'Mr. Hallward, sir. He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away to catch his train. 'Oh! I am sorry I didn't see him. Did he leave any message? 'No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not find you at the club. 'That will do, Francis. Don't forget to call me at nine tomorrow. 'No, sir. The man shambled down the passage in his slippers. Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the library. For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room, biting his lip and thinking. Then he took down the Blue Book from one of the shelves and began to turn over the leaves. 'Alan Campbell, , Hertford Street, Mayfair. Yes that was the man he wanted. At nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of chocolate on a tray and opened the shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite peacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his cheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study. The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he had been lost in some delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at all. His night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain. But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms. He turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his chocolate. The mellow November sun came streaming into the room. The sky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was almost like a morning in May. Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent, bloodstained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day. He felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken or grow mad. There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses. But this was not one of them. It was a thing to be driven out of the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might strangle one itself. When the halfhour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and then got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual care, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and scarfpin and changing his rings more than once. He spent a long time also over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet about some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the servants at Selby, and going through his correspondence. At some of the letters, he smiled. Three of them bored him. One he read several times over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his face. 'That awful thing, a woman's memory! as Lord Henry had once said. After he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly with a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the table, sat down and wrote two letters. One he put in his pocket, the other he handed to the valet. 'Take this round to , Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell is out of town, get his address. As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a piece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and then human faces. Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward. He frowned, and getting up, went over to the bookcase and took out a volume at hazard. He was determined that he would not think about what had happened until it became absolutely necessary that he should do so. When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the titlepage of the book. It was Gautier's 'maux et Cames, Charpentier's Japanesepaper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was of citrongreen leather, with a design of gilt trelliswork and dotted pomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton. As he turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand 'du supplice encore mal lave, with its downy red hairs and its 'doigts de faune. He glanced at his own white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice Sur une gamme chromatique, Le sein de perles ruisselant, La Vnus de l'Adriatique Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc. Les dmes, sur l'azur des ondes Suivant la phrase au pur contour, S'enflent comme des gorges rondes Que soulve un soupir d'amour. L'esquif aborde et me dpose, Jetant son amarre au pilier, Devant une faade rose, Sur le marbre d'un escalier. How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating down the green waterways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of turquoiseblue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of the opalandiristhroated birds that flutter round the tall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through the dim, duststained arcades. Leaning back with halfclosed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself 'Devant une faade rose, Sur le marbre d'un escalier. The whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the autumn that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to mad delightful follies. There was romance in every place. But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything. Basil had been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor Basil! What a horrible way for a man to die! He sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget. He read of the swallows that fly in and out of the little caf at Smyrna where the Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other he read of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of granite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot, lotuscovered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rosered ibises, and white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes that crawl over the green steaming mud he began to brood over those verses which, drawing music from kissstained marble, tell of that curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the 'monstre charmant that couches in the porphyryroom of the Louvre. But after a time the book fell from his hand. He grew nervous, and a horrible fit of terror came over him. What if Alan Campbell should be out of England? Days would elapse before he could come back. Perhaps he might refuse to come. What could he do then? Every moment was of vital importance. They had been great friends once, five years beforealmost inseparable, indeed. Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end. When they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled Alan Campbell never did. He was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real appreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian. His dominant intellectual passion was for science. At Cambridge he had spent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken a good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year. Indeed, he was still devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his own in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the annoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for Parliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up prescriptions. He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and played both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs. In fact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray togethermusic and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wishedand, indeed, exercised often without being conscious of it. They had met at Lady Berkshire's the night that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always seen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on. For eighteen months their intimacy lasted. Campbell was always either at Selby Royal or in Grosvenor Square. To him, as to many others, Dorian Gray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in life. Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one ever knew. But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when they met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any party at which Dorian Gray was present. He had changed, toowas strangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing music, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was called upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time left in which to practise. And this was certainly true. Every day he seemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once or twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain curious experiments. This was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for. Every second he kept glancing at the clock. As the minutes went by he became horribly agitated. At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room, looking like a beautiful caged thing. He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold. The suspense became unbearable. Time seemed to him to be crawling with feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice. He knew what was waiting for him there saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight and driven the eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks. Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes that blind, slowbreathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being dead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its grave, and showed it to him. He stared at it. Its very horror made him stone. At last the door opened and his servant entered. He turned glazed eyes upon him. 'Mr. Campbell, sir, said the man. A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back to his cheeks. 'Ask him to come in at once, Francis. He felt that he was himself again. His mood of cowardice had passed away. The man bowed and retired. In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coalblack hair and dark eyebrows. 'Alan! This is kind of you. I thank you for coming. 'I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray. But you said it was a matter of life and death. His voice was hard and cold. He spoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of contempt in the steady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian. He kept his hands in the pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the gesture with which he had been greeted. 'Yes it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one person. Sit down. Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him. The two men's eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite pity. He knew that what he was going to do was dreadful. After a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very quietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he had sent for, 'Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room to which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table. He has been dead ten hours now. Don't stir, and don't look at me like that. Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do not concern you. What you have to do is this 'Stop, Gray. I don't want to know anything further. Whether what you have told me is true or not true doesn't concern me. I entirely decline to be mixed up in your life. Keep your horrible secrets to yourself. They don't interest me any more. 'Alan, they will have to interest you. This one will have to interest you. I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I can't help myself. You are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to bring you into the matter. I have no option. Alan, you are scientific. You know about chemistry and things of that kind. You have made experiments. What you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairsto destroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left. Nobody saw this person come into the house. Indeed, at the present moment he is supposed to be in Paris. He will not be missed for months. When he is missed, there must be no trace of him found here. You, Alan, you must change him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes that I may scatter in the air. 'You are mad, Dorian. 'Ah! I was waiting for you to call me Dorian. 'You are mad, I tell youmad to imagine that I would raise a finger to help you, mad to make this monstrous confession. I will have nothing to do with this matter, whatever it is. Do you think I am going to peril my reputation for you? What is it to me what devil's work you are up to? 'It was suicide, Alan. 'I am glad of that. But who drove him to it? You, I should fancy. 'Do you still refuse to do this for me? 'Of course I refuse. I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. I don't care what shame comes on you. You deserve it all. I should not be sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced. How dare you ask me, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror? I should have thought you knew more about people's characters. Your friend Lord Henry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else he has taught you. Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you. You have come to the wrong man. Go to some of your friends. Don't come to me. 'Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don't know what he had made me suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or the marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended it, the result was the same. 'Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? I shall not inform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without my stirring in the matter, you are certain to be arrested. Nobody ever commits a crime without doing something stupid. But I will have nothing to do with it. 'You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment listen to me. Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and deadhouses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous dissectingroom or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow through, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence against me. If it is discovered, I am lost and it is sure to be discovered unless you help me. 'I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me. 'Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you came I almost fainted with terror. You may know terror yourself some day. No! don't think of that. Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view. You don't inquire where the dead things on which you experiment come from. Don't inquire now. I have told you too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once, Alan. 'Don't speak about those days, Dorianthey are dead. 'The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away. He is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan! Alan! If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined. Why, they will hang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang me for what I have done. 'There is no good in prolonging this scene. I absolutely refuse to do anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me. 'You refuse? 'Yes. 'I entreat you, Alan. 'It is useless. The same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes. Then he stretched out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table. Having done this, he got up and went over to the window. Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow. After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder. 'I am so sorry for you, Alan, he murmured, 'but you leave me no alternative. I have a letter written already. Here it is. You see the address. If you don't help me, I must send it. If you don't help me, I will send it. You know what the result will be. But you are going to help me. It is impossible for you to refuse now. I tried to spare you. You will do me the justice to admit that. You were stern, harsh, offensive. You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat meno living man, at any rate. I bore it all. Now it is for me to dictate terms. Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him. 'Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan. You know what they are. The thing is quite simple. Come, don't work yourself into this fever. The thing has to be done. Face it, and do it. A groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over. The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be borne. He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his forehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already come upon him. The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead. It was intolerable. It seemed to crush him. 'Come, Alan, you must decide at once. 'I cannot do it, he said, mechanically, as though words could alter things. 'You must. You have no choice. Don't delay. He hesitated a moment. 'Is there a fire in the room upstairs? 'Yes, there is a gasfire with asbestos. 'I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory. 'No, Alan, you must not leave the house. Write out on a sheet of notepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the things back to you. Campbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope to his assistant. Dorian took the note up and read it carefully. Then he rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as soon as possible and to bring the things with him. As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up from the chair, went over to the chimneypiece. He was shivering with a kind of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke. A fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was like the beat of a hammer. As the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was something in the purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him. 'You are infamous, absolutely infamous! he muttered. 'Hush, Alan. You have saved my life, said Dorian. 'Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In doing what I am going to dowhat you force me to doit is not of your life that I am thinking. 'Ah, Alan, murmured Dorian with a sigh, 'I wish you had a thousandth part of the pity for me that I have for you. He turned away as he spoke and stood looking out at the garden. Campbell made no answer. After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil of steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps. 'Shall I leave the things here, sir? he asked Campbell. 'Yes, said Dorian. 'And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another errand for you. What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies Selby with orchids? 'Harden, sir. 'YesHarden. You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden personally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered, and to have as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don't want any white ones. It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty placeotherwise I wouldn't bother you about it. 'No trouble, sir. At what time shall I be back? Dorian looked at Campbell. 'How long will your experiment take, Alan? he said in a calm indifferent voice. The presence of a third person in the room seemed to give him extraordinary courage. Campbell frowned and bit his lip. 'It will take about five hours, he answered. 'It will be time enough, then, if you are back at halfpast seven, Francis. Or stay just leave my things out for dressing. You can have the evening to yourself. I am not dining at home, so I shall not want you. 'Thank you, sir, said the man, leaving the room. 'Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost. How heavy this chest is! I'll take it for you. You bring the other things. He spoke rapidly and in an authoritative manner. Campbell felt dominated by him. They left the room together. When they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned it in the lock. Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his eyes. He shuddered. 'I don't think I can go in, Alan, he murmured. 'It is nothing to me. I don't require you, said Campbell coldly. Dorian half opened the door. As he did so, he saw the face of his portrait leering in the sunlight. On the floor in front of it the torn curtain was lying. He remembered that the night before he had forgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas, and was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder. What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How horrible it was!more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it. He heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with halfclosed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that he would not look even once upon the dead man. Then, stooping down and taking up the goldandpurple hanging, he flung it right over the picture. There he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. He heard Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other things that he had required for his dreadful work. He began to wonder if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had thought of each other. 'Leave me now, said a stern voice behind him. He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been thrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a glistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs, he heard the key being turned in the lock. It was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library. He was pale, but absolutely calm. 'I have done what you asked me to do, he muttered. 'And now, goodbye. Let us never see each other again. 'You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that, said Dorian simply. As soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs. There was a horrible smell of nitric acid in the room. But the thing that had been sitting at the table was gone. That evening, at eightthirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large buttonhole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady Narborough's drawingroom by bowing servants. His forehead was throbbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his manner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as ever. Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part. Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any tragedy of our age. Those finely shaped fingers could never have clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God and goodness. He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life. It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who was a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the remains of really remarkable ugliness. She had proved an excellent wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed, and married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she devoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery, and French esprit when she could get it. Dorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that she was extremely glad she had not met him in early life. 'I know, my dear, I should have fallen madly in love with you, she used to say, 'and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake. It is most fortunate that you were not thought of at the time. As it was, our bonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to raise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody. However, that was all Narborough's fault. He was dreadfully shortsighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who never sees anything. Her guests this evening were rather tedious. The fact was, as she explained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make matters worse, had actually brought her husband with her. 'I think it is most unkind of her, my dear, she whispered. 'Of course I go and stay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old woman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake them up. You don't know what an existence they lead down there. It is pure unadulterated country life. They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about. There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since the time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep after dinner. You shan't sit next either of them. You shall sit by me and amuse me. Dorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room. Yes it was certainly a tedious party. Two of the people he had never seen before, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those middleaged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies, but are thoroughly disliked by their friends Lady Ruxton, an overdressed woman of fortyseven, with a hooked nose, who was always trying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to her great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against her Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and Venetianred hair Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy dull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once seen, are never remembered and her husband, a redcheeked, whitewhiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of ideas. He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the mauvedraped mantelshelf, exclaimed 'How horrid of Henry Wotton to be so late! I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised faithfully not to disappoint me. It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door opened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some insincere apology, he ceased to feel bored. But at dinner he could not eat anything. Plate after plate went away untasted. Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called 'an insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the menu specially for you, and now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence and abstracted manner. From time to time the butler filled his glass with champagne. He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase. 'Dorian, said Lord Henry at last, as the chaudfroid was being handed round, 'what is the matter with you tonight? You are quite out of sorts. 'I believe he is in love, cried Lady Narborough, 'and that he is afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. I certainly should. 'Dear Lady Narborough, murmured Dorian, smiling, 'I have not been in love for a whole weeknot, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town. 'How you men can fall in love with that woman! exclaimed the old lady. 'I really cannot understand it. 'It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl, Lady Narborough, said Lord Henry. 'She is the one link between us and your short frocks. 'She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry. But I remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how dcollete she was then. 'She is still dcollete, he answered, taking an olive in his long fingers 'and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an dition de luxe of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief. 'How can you, Harry! cried Dorian. 'It is a most romantic explanation, laughed the hostess. 'But her third husband, Lord Henry! You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth? 'Certainly, Lady Narborough. 'I don't believe a word of it. 'Well, ask Mr. Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends. 'Is it true, Mr. Gray? 'She assures me so, Lady Narborough, said Dorian. 'I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn't, because none of them had had any hearts at all. 'Four husbands! Upon my word that is trop de zle. 'Trop d'audace, I tell her, said Dorian. 'Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don't know him. 'The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes, said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. 'Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked. 'But what world says that? asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. 'It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms. 'Everybody I know says you are very wicked, cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. 'It is perfectly monstrous, he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true. 'Isn't he incorrigible? cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. 'I hope so, said his hostess, laughing. 'But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion. 'You will never marry again, Lady Narborough, broke in Lord Henry. 'You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck men risk theirs. 'Narborough wasn't perfect, cried the old lady. 'If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady, was the rejoinder. 'Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true. 'Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men. 'Fin de sicle, murmured Lord Henry. 'Fin du globe, answered his hostess. 'I wish it were fin du globe, said Dorian with a sigh. 'Life is a great disappointment. 'Ah, my dear, cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, 'don't tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been but you are made to be goodyou look so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don't you think that Mr. Gray should get married? 'I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough, said Lord Henry with a bow. 'Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go through Debrett carefully tonight and draw out a list of all the eligible young ladies. 'With their ages, Lady Narborough? asked Dorian. 'Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done in a hurry. I want it to be what The Morning Post calls a suitable alliance, and I want you both to be happy. 'What nonsense people talk about happy marriages! exclaimed Lord Henry. 'A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her. 'Ah! what a cynic you are! cried the old lady, pushing back her chair and nodding to Lady Ruxton. 'You must come and dine with me soon again. You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir Andrew prescribes for me. You must tell me what people you would like to meet, though. I want it to be a delightful gathering. 'I like men who have a future and women who have a past, he answered. 'Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party? 'I fear so, she said, laughing, as she stood up. 'A thousand pardons, my dear Lady Ruxton, she added, 'I didn't see you hadn't finished your cigarette. 'Never mind, Lady Narborough. I smoke a great deal too much. I am going to limit myself, for the future. 'Pray don't, Lady Ruxton, said Lord Henry. 'Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast. Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously. 'You must come and explain that to me some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fascinating theory, she murmured, as she swept out of the room. 'Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal, cried Lady Narborough from the door. 'If you do, we are sure to squabble upstairs. The men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the table and came up to the top. Dorian Gray changed his seat and went and sat by Lord Henry. Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about the situation in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries. The word doctrinaireword full of terror to the British mindreappeared from time to time between his explosions. An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. He hoisted the Union Jack on the pinnacles of thought. The inherited stupidity of the racesound English common sense he jovially termed itwas shown to be the proper bulwark for society. A smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at Dorian. 'Are you better, my dear fellow? he asked. 'You seemed rather out of sorts at dinner. 'I am quite well, Harry. I am tired. That is all. 'You were charming last night. The little duchess is quite devoted to you. She tells me she is going down to Selby. 'She has promised to come on the twentieth. 'Is Monmouth to be there, too? 'Oh, yes, Harry. 'He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her. She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image precious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay. White porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through the fire, and what fire does not destroy, it hardens. She has had experiences. 'How long has she been married? asked Dorian. 'An eternity, she tells me. I believe, according to the peerage, it is ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity, with time thrown in. Who else is coming? 'Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey Clouston, the usual set. I have asked Lord Grotrian. 'I like him, said Lord Henry. 'A great many people don't, but I find him charming. He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by being always absolutely overeducated. He is a very modern type. 'I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry. He may have to go to Monte Carlo with his father. 'Ah! what a nuisance people's people are! Try and make him come. By the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. You left before eleven. What did you do afterwards? Did you go straight home? Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned. 'No, Harry, he said at last, 'I did not get home till nearly three. 'Did you go to the club? 'Yes, he answered. Then he bit his lip. 'No, I don't mean that. I didn't go to the club. I walked about. I forget what I did.... How inquisitive you are, Harry! You always want to know what one has been doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing. I came in at halfpast two, if you wish to know the exact time. I had left my latchkey at home, and my servant had to let me in. If you want any corroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him. Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. 'My dear fellow, as if I cared! Let us go up to the drawingroom. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman. Something has happened to you, Dorian. Tell me what it is. You are not yourself tonight. 'Don't mind me, Harry. I am irritable, and out of temper. I shall come round and see you tomorrow, or next day. Make my excuses to Lady Narborough. I shan't go upstairs. I shall go home. I must go home. 'All right, Dorian. I dare say I shall see you tomorrow at teatime. The duchess is coming. 'I will try to be there, Harry, he said, leaving the room. As he drove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror he thought he had strangled had come back to him. Lord Henry's casual questioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted his nerve still. Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed. He winced. He hated the idea of even touching them. Yet it had to be done. He realized that, and when he had locked the door of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had thrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag. A huge fire was blazing. He piled another log on it. The smell of the singeing clothes and burning leather was horrible. It took him threequarters of an hour to consume everything. At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some Algerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and forehead with a cool muskscented vinegar. Suddenly he started. His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed nervously at his underlip. Between two of the windows stood a large Florentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue lapis. He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate and make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet almost loathed. His breath quickened. A mad craving came over him. He lit a cigarette and then threw it away. His eyelids drooped till the long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek. But he still watched the cabinet. At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been lying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden spring. A triangular drawer passed slowly out. His fingers moved instinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something. It was a small Chinese box of black and golddust lacquer, elaborately wrought, the sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with round crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads. He opened it. Inside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and persistent. He hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his face. Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly hot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes to twelve. He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as he did so, and went into his bedroom. As midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray, dressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept quietly out of his house. In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good horse. He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address. The man shook his head. 'It is too far for me, he muttered. 'Here is a sovereign for you, said Dorian. 'You shall have another if you drive fast. 'All right, sir, answered the man, 'you will be there in an hour, and after his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly towards the river. A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred streetlamps looked ghastly in the dripping mist. The publichouses were just closing, and dim men and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors. From some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter. In others, drunkards brawled and screamed. Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said to him on the first day they had met, 'To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. Yes, that was the secret. He had often tried it, and would try it again now. There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new. The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. From time to time a huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it. The gaslamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. Once the man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile. A steam rose from the horse as it splashed up the puddles. The sidewindows of the hansom were clogged with a greyflannel mist. 'To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul! How the words rang in his ears! His soul, certainly, was sick to death. Was it true that the senses could cure it? Innocent blood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there was no atonement but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one. Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who had made him a judge over others? He had said things that were dreadful, horrible, not to be endured. On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each step. He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster. The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned and his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the horse madly with his stick. The driver laughed and whipped up. He laughed in answer, and the man was silent. The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some sprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist thickened, he felt afraid. Then they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, and he could see the strange, bottleshaped kilns with their orange, fanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, and far away in the darkness some wandering seagull screamed. The horse stumbled in a rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop. After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over roughpaven streets. Most of the windows were dark, but now and then fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind. He watched them curiously. They moved like monstrous marionettes and made gestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his heart. As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from an open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred yards. The driver beat at them with his whip. It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Certainly with hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would still have dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept the one thought and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre. Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed for forgetfulness. In three days he would be free. Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over the low roofs and jagged chimneystacks of the houses rose the black masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the yards. 'Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it? he asked huskily through the trap. Dorian started and peered round. 'This will do, he answered, and having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an outwardbound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like a wet mackintosh. He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of the topwindows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a peculiar knock. After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the shadow as he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green curtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him in from the street. He dragged it aside and entered a long low room which looked as if it had once been a thirdrate dancingsaloon. Shrill flaring gasjets, dulled and distorted in the flyblown mirrors that faced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed tin backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was covered with ochrecoloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. Some Malays were crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and showing their white teeth as they chattered. In one corner, with his head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the tawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. 'He thinks he's got red ants on him, laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her in terror and began to whimper. At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner. 'You here, Adrian? muttered Dorian. 'Where else should I be? he answered, listlessly. 'None of the chaps will speak to me now. 'I thought you had left England. 'Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at last. George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care, he added with a sigh. 'As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends. I think I have had too many friends. Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. 'I am going on to the other place, he said after a pause. 'On the wharf? 'Yes. 'That madcat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place now. Dorian shrugged his shoulders. 'I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better. 'Much the same. 'I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something. 'I don't want anything, murmured the young man. 'Never mind. Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A halfcaste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. 'We are very proud tonight, she sneered. 'For God's sake don't talk to me, cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. 'What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don't ever talk to me again. Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion watched her enviously. 'It's no use, sighed Adrian Singleton. 'I don't care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here. 'You will write to me if you want anything, won't you? said Dorian, after a pause. 'Perhaps. 'Good night, then. 'Good night, answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping his parched mouth with a handkerchief. Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. 'There goes the devil's bargain! she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. 'Curse you! he answered, 'don't call me that. She snapped her fingers. 'Prince Charming is what you like to be called, ain't it? she yelled after him. The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as if in pursuit. Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts. There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell. Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a short cut to the illfamed place where he was going, he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself, he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat. He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver, and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head, and the dusky form of a short, thickset man facing him. 'What do you want? he gasped. 'Keep quiet, said the man. 'If you stir, I shoot you. 'You are mad. What have I done to you? 'You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane, was the answer, 'and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you. I had no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described you were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call you. I heard it tonight by chance. Make your peace with God, for tonight you are going to die. Dorian Gray grew sick with fear. 'I never knew her, he stammered. 'I never heard of her. You are mad. 'You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you are going to die. There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know what to say or do. 'Down on your knees! growled the man. 'I give you one minute to make your peaceno more. I go on board tonight for India, and I must do my job first. One minute. That's all. Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not know what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. 'Stop, he cried. 'How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me! 'Eighteen years, said the man. 'Why do you ask me? What do years matter? 'Eighteen years, laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his voice. 'Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face! James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant. Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway. Dim and wavering as was the windblown light, yet it served to show him the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was not the man who had destroyed her life. He loosened his hold and reeled back. 'My God! my God! he cried, 'and I would have murdered you! Dorian Gray drew a long breath. 'You have been on the brink of committing a terrible crime, my man, he said, looking at him sternly. 'Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own hands. 'Forgive me, sir, muttered James Vane. 'I was deceived. A chance word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track. 'You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into trouble, said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the street. James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head to foot. After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him with stealthy footsteps. He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked round with a start. It was one of the women who had been drinking at the bar. 'Why didn't you kill him? she hissed out, putting haggard face quite close to his. 'I knew you were following him when you rushed out from Daly's. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money, and he's as bad as bad. 'He is not the man I am looking for, he answered, 'and I want no man's money. I want a man's life. The man whose life I want must be nearly forty now. This one is little more than a boy. Thank God, I have not got his blood upon my hands. The woman gave a bitter laugh. 'Little more than a boy! she sneered. 'Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me what I am. 'You lie! cried James Vane. She raised her hand up to heaven. 'Before God I am telling the truth, she cried. 'Before God? 'Strike me dumb if it ain't so. He is the worst one that comes here. They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It's nigh on eighteen years since I met him. He hasn't changed much since then. I have, though, she added, with a sickly leer. 'You swear this? 'I swear it, came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. 'But don't give me away to him, she whined 'I am afraid of him. Let me have some money for my night's lodging. He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street, but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had vanished also. A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby Royal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband, a jadedlooking man of sixty, was amongst his guests. It was teatime, and the mellow light of the huge, lacecovered lamp that stood on the table lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at which the duchess was presiding. Her white hands were moving daintily among the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that Dorian had whispered to her. Lord Henry was lying back in a silkdraped wicker chair, looking at them. On a peachcoloured divan sat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of the last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection. Three young men in elaborate smokingsuits were handing teacakes to some of the women. The houseparty consisted of twelve people, and there were more expected to arrive on the next day. 'What are you two talking about? said Lord Henry, strolling over to the table and putting his cup down. 'I hope Dorian has told you about my plan for rechristening everything, Gladys. It is a delightful idea. 'But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry, rejoined the duchess, looking up at him with her wonderful eyes. 'I am quite satisfied with my own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his. 'My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world. They are both perfect. I was thinking chiefly of flowers. Yesterday I cut an orchid, for my buttonhole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as effective as the seven deadly sins. In a thoughtless moment I asked one of the gardeners what it was called. He told me it was a fine specimen of Robinsoniana, or something dreadful of that kind. It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for. 'Then what should we call you, Harry? she asked. 'His name is Prince Paradox, said Dorian. 'I recognize him in a flash, exclaimed the duchess. 'I won't hear of it, laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair. 'From a label there is no escape! I refuse the title. 'Royalties may not abdicate, fell as a warning from pretty lips. 'You wish me to defend my throne, then? 'Yes. 'I give the truths of tomorrow. 'I prefer the mistakes of today, she answered. 'You disarm me, Gladys, he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood. 'Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear. 'I never tilt against beauty, he said, with a wave of his hand. 'That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much. 'How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly. 'Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then? cried the duchess. 'What becomes of your simile about the orchid? 'Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our England what she is. 'You don't like your country, then? she asked. 'I live in it. 'That you may censure it the better. 'Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it? he inquired. 'What do they say of us? 'That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop. 'Is that yours, Harry? 'I give it to you. 'I could not use it. It is too true. 'You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description. 'They are practical. 'They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger, they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy. 'Still, we have done great things. 'Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys. 'We have carried their burden. 'Only as far as the Stock Exchange. She shook her head. 'I believe in the race, she cried. 'It represents the survival of the pushing. 'It has development. 'Decay fascinates me more. 'What of art? she asked. 'It is a malady. 'Love? 'An illusion. 'Religion? 'The fashionable substitute for belief. 'You are a sceptic. 'Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith. 'What are you? 'To define is to limit. 'Give me a clue. 'Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth. 'You bewilder me. Let us talk of some one else. 'Our host is a delightful topic. Years ago he was christened Prince Charming. 'Ah! don't remind me of that, cried Dorian Gray. 'Our host is rather horrid this evening, answered the duchess, colouring. 'I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely scientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern butterfly. 'Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess, laughed Dorian. 'Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me. 'And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess? 'For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you. Usually because I come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by halfpast eight. 'How unreasonable of her! You should give her warning. 'I daren't, Mr. Gray. Why, she invents hats for me. You remember the one I wore at Lady Hilstone's gardenparty? You don't, but it is nice of you to pretend that you do. Well, she made it out of nothing. All good hats are made out of nothing. 'Like all good reputations, Gladys, interrupted Lord Henry. 'Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity. 'Not with women, said the duchess, shaking her head 'and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all. 'It seems to me that we never do anything else, murmured Dorian. 'Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray, answered the duchess with mock sadness. 'My dear Gladys! cried Lord Henry. 'How can you say that? Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible. 'Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry? asked the duchess after a pause. 'Especially when one has been wounded by it, answered Lord Henry. The duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression in her eyes. 'What do you say to that, Mr. Gray? she inquired. Dorian hesitated for a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed. 'I always agree with Harry, Duchess. 'Even when he is wrong? 'Harry is never wrong, Duchess. 'And does his philosophy make you happy? 'I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure. 'And found it, Mr. Gray? 'Often. Too often. The duchess sighed. 'I am searching for peace, she said, 'and if I don't go and dress, I shall have none this evening. 'Let me get you some orchids, Duchess, cried Dorian, starting to his feet and walking down the conservatory. 'You are flirting disgracefully with him, said Lord Henry to his cousin. 'You had better take care. He is very fascinating. 'If he were not, there would be no battle. 'Greek meets Greek, then? 'I am on the side of the Trojans. They fought for a woman. 'They were defeated. 'There are worse things than capture, she answered. 'You gallop with a loose rein. 'Pace gives life, was the riposte. 'I shall write it in my diary tonight. 'What? 'That a burnt child loves the fire. 'I am not even singed. My wings are untouched. 'You use them for everything, except flight. 'Courage has passed from men to women. It is a new experience for us. 'You have a rival. 'Who? He laughed. 'Lady Narborough, he whispered. 'She perfectly adores him. 'You fill me with apprehension. The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists. 'Romanticists! You have all the methods of science. 'Men have educated us. 'But not explained you. 'Describe us as a sex, was her challenge. 'Sphinxes without secrets. She looked at him, smiling. 'How long Mr. Gray is! she said. 'Let us go and help him. I have not yet told him the colour of my frock. 'Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys. 'That would be a premature surrender. 'Romantic art begins with its climax. 'I must keep an opportunity for retreat. 'In the Parthian manner? 'They found safety in the desert. I could not do that. 'Women are not always allowed a choice, he answered, but hardly had he finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall. Everybody started up. The duchess stood motionless in horror. And with fear in his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon. He was carried at once into the blue drawingroom and laid upon one of the sofas. After a short time, he came to himself and looked round with a dazed expression. 'What has happened? he asked. 'Oh! I remember. Am I safe here, Harry? He began to tremble. 'My dear Dorian, answered Lord Henry, 'you merely fainted. That was all. You must have overtired yourself. You had better not come down to dinner. I will take your place. 'No, I will come down, he said, struggling to his feet. 'I would rather come down. I must not be alone. He went to his room and dressed. There was a wild recklessness of gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of terror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the face of James Vane watching him. The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself. The consciousness of being hunted, snared, tracked down, had begun to dominate him. If the tapestry did but tremble in the wind, he shook. The dead leaves that were blown against the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild regrets. When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face peering through the miststained glass, and horror seemed once more to lay its hand upon his heart. But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him. Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all. Besides, had any stranger been prowling round the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the keepers. Had any footmarks been found on the flowerbeds, the gardeners would have reported it. Yes, it had been merely fancy. Sibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him. He had sailed away in his ship to founder in some winter sea. From him, at any rate, he was safe. Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he was. The mask of youth had saved him. And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them visible form, and make them move before one! What sort of life would his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep! As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder. Oh! in what a wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere memory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came back to him with added horror. Out of the black cave of time, terrible and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin. When Lord Henry came in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will break. It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out. There was something in the clear, pinescented air of that winter morning that seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life. But it was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had caused the change. His own nature had revolted against the excess of anguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm. With subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so. Their strong passions must either bruise or bend. They either slay the man, or themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude. Besides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a terrorstricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with something of pity and not a little of contempt. After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden and then drove across the park to join the shootingparty. The crisp frost lay like salt upon the grass. The sky was an inverted cup of blue metal. A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reedgrown lake. At the corner of the pinewood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey Clouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of his gun. He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take the mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered bracken and rough undergrowth. 'Have you had good sport, Geoffrey? he asked. 'Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have gone to the open. I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new ground. Dorian strolled along by his side. The keen aromatic air, the brown and red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the beaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns that followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful freedom. He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the high indifference of joy. Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front of them, with blacktipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it forward, started a hare. It bolted for a thicket of alders. Sir Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the animal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he cried out at once, 'Don't shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live. 'What nonsense, Dorian! laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded into the thicket, he fired. There were two cries heard, the cry of a hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is worse. 'Good heavens! I have hit a beater! exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. 'What an ass the man was to get in front of the guns! Stop shooting there! he called out at the top of his voice. 'A man is hurt. The headkeeper came running up with a stick in his hand. 'Where, sir? Where is he? he shouted. At the same time, the firing ceased along the line. 'Here, answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket. 'Why on earth don't you keep your men back? Spoiled my shooting for the day. Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alderclump, brushing the lithe swinging branches aside. In a few moments they emerged, dragging a body after them into the sunlight. He turned away in horror. It seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went. He heard Sir Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of the keeper. The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with faces. There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of voices. A great copperbreasted pheasant came beating through the boughs overhead. After a few momentsthat were to him, in his perturbed state, like endless hours of painhe felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He started and looked round. 'Dorian, said Lord Henry, 'I had better tell them that the shooting is stopped for today. It would not look well to go on. 'I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry, he answered bitterly. 'The whole thing is hideous and cruel. Is the man ...? He could not finish the sentence. 'I am afraid so, rejoined Lord Henry. 'He got the whole charge of shot in his chest. He must have died almost instantaneously. Come let us go home. They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly fifty yards without speaking. Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and said, with a heavy sigh, 'It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen. 'What is? asked Lord Henry. 'Oh! this accident, I suppose. My dear fellow, it can't be helped. It was the man's own fault. Why did he get in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot. And Geoffrey is not he shoots very straight. But there is no use talking about the matter. Dorian shook his head. 'It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if something horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself, perhaps, he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of pain. The elder man laughed. 'The only horrible thing in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. But we are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering about this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the subject is to be tabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have everything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would not be delighted to change places with you. 'There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. Don't laugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched peasant who has just died is better off than I am. I have no terror of death. It is the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don't you see a man moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me? Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand was pointing. 'Yes, he said, smiling, 'I see the gardener waiting for you. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on the table tonight. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You must come and see my doctor, when we get back to town. Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching. The man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master. 'Her Grace told me to wait for an answer, he murmured. Dorian put the letter into his pocket. 'Tell her Grace that I am coming in, he said, coldly. The man turned round and went rapidly in the direction of the house. 'How fond women are of doing dangerous things! laughed Lord Henry. 'It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on. 'How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry! In the present instance, you are quite astray. I like the duchess very much, but I don't love her. 'And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you are excellently matched. 'You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for scandal. 'The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty, said Lord Henry, lighting a cigarette. 'You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram. 'The world goes to the altar of its own accord, was the answer. 'I wish I could love, cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in his voice. 'But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget. It was silly of me to come down here at all. I think I shall send a wire to Harvey to have the yacht got ready. On a yacht one is safe. 'Safe from what, Dorian? You are in some trouble. Why not tell me what it is? You know I would help you. 'I can't tell you, Harry, he answered sadly. 'And I dare say it is only a fancy of mine. This unfortunate accident has upset me. I have a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me. 'What nonsense! 'I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it. Ah! here is the duchess, looking like Artemis in a tailormade gown. You see we have come back, Duchess. 'I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray, she answered. 'Poor Geoffrey is terribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare. How curious! 'Yes, it was very curious. I don't know what made me say it. Some whim, I suppose. It looked the loveliest of little live things. But I am sorry they told you about the man. It is a hideous subject. 'It is an annoying subject, broke in Lord Henry. 'It has no psychological value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on purpose, how interesting he would be! I should like to know some one who had committed a real murder. 'How horrid of you, Harry! cried the duchess. 'Isn't it, Mr. Gray? Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again. He is going to faint. Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled. 'It is nothing, Duchess, he murmured 'my nerves are dreadfully out of order. That is all. I am afraid I walked too far this morning. I didn't hear what Harry said. Was it very bad? You must tell me some other time. I think I must go and lie down. You will excuse me, won't you? They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the conservatory on to the terrace. As the glass door closed behind Dorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous eyes. 'Are you very much in love with him? he asked. She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape. 'I wish I knew, she said at last. He shook his head. 'Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful. 'One may lose one's way. 'All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys. 'What is that? 'Disillusion. 'It was my dbut in life, she sighed. 'It came to you crowned. 'I am tired of strawberry leaves. 'They become you. 'Only in public. 'You would miss them, said Lord Henry. 'I will not part with a petal. 'Monmouth has ears. 'Old age is dull of hearing. 'Has he never been jealous? 'I wish he had been. He glanced about as if in search of something. 'What are you looking for? she inquired. 'The button from your foil, he answered. 'You have dropped it. She laughed. 'I have still the mask. 'It makes your eyes lovelier, was his reply. She laughed again. Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet fruit. Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror in every tingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly become too hideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death of the unlucky beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to prefigure death for himself also. He had nearly swooned at what Lord Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting. At five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to pack his things for the nightexpress to town, and to have the brougham at the door by eightthirty. He was determined not to sleep another night at Selby Royal. It was an illomened place. Death walked there in the sunlight. The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood. Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in his absence. As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to the door, and his valet informed him that the headkeeper wished to see him. He frowned and bit his lip. 'Send him in, he muttered, after some moments' hesitation. As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a drawer and spread it out before him. 'I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this morning, Thornton? he said, taking up a pen. 'Yes, sir, answered the gamekeeper. 'Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people dependent on him? asked Dorian, looking bored. 'If so, I should not like them to be left in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary. 'We don't know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty of coming to you about. 'Don't know who he is? said Dorian, listlessly. 'What do you mean? Wasn't he one of your men? 'No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir. The pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart had suddenly stopped beating. 'A sailor? he cried out. 'Did you say a sailor? 'Yes, sir. He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor tattooed on both arms, and that kind of thing. 'Was there anything found on him? said Dorian, leaning forward and looking at the man with startled eyes. 'Anything that would tell his name? 'Some money, sirnot much, and a sixshooter. There was no name of any kind. A decentlooking man, sir, but roughlike. A sort of sailor we think. Dorian started to his feet. A terrible hope fluttered past him. He clutched at it madly. 'Where is the body? he exclaimed. 'Quick! I must see it at once. 'It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk don't like to have that sort of thing in their houses. They say a corpse brings bad luck. 'The Home Farm! Go there at once and meet me. Tell one of the grooms to bring my horse round. No. Never mind. I'll go to the stables myself. It will save time. In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the long avenue as hard as he could go. The trees seemed to sweep past him in spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his path. Once the mare swerved at a white gatepost and nearly threw him. He lashed her across the neck with his crop. She cleft the dusky air like an arrow. The stones flew from her hoofs. At last he reached the Home Farm. Two men were loitering in the yard. He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them. In the farthest stable a light was glimmering. Something seemed to tell him that the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand upon the latch. There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a discovery that would either make or mar his life. Then he thrust the door open and entered. On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers. A spotted handkerchief had been placed over the face. A coarse candle, stuck in a bottle, sputtered beside it. Dorian Gray shuddered. He felt that his could not be the hand to take the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farmservants to come to him. 'Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it, he said, clutching at the doorpost for support. When the farmservant had done so, he stepped forward. A cry of joy broke from his lips. The man who had been shot in the thicket was James Vane. He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body. As he rode home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe. 'There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good, cried Lord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled with rosewater. 'You are quite perfect. Pray, don't change. Dorian Gray shook his head. 'No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful things in my life. I am not going to do any more. I began my good actions yesterday. 'Where were you yesterday? 'In the country, Harry. I was staying at a little inn by myself. 'My dear boy, said Lord Henry, smiling, 'anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate. 'Culture and corruption, echoed Dorian. 'I have known something of both. It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found together. For I have a new ideal, Harry. I am going to alter. I think I have altered. 'You have not yet told me what your good action was. Or did you say you had done more than one? asked his companion as he spilled into his plate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a perforated, shellshaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them. 'I can tell you, Harry. It is not a story I could tell to any one else. I spared somebody. It sounds vain, but you understand what I mean. She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane. I think it was that which first attracted me to her. You remember Sibyl, don't you? How long ago that seems! Well, Hetty was not one of our own class, of course. She was simply a girl in a village. But I really loved her. I am quite sure that I loved her. All during this wonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her two or three times a week. Yesterday she met me in a little orchard. The appleblossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was laughing. We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn. Suddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her. 'I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill of real pleasure, Dorian, interrupted Lord Henry. 'But I can finish your idyll for you. You gave her good advice and broke her heart. That was the beginning of your reformation. 'Harry, you are horrible! You mustn't say these dreadful things. Hetty's heart is not broken. Of course, she cried and all that. But there is no disgrace upon her. She can live, like Perdita, in her garden of mint and marigold. 'And weep over a faithless Florizel, said Lord Henry, laughing, as he leaned back in his chair. 'My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously boyish moods. Do you think this girl will ever be really content now with any one of her own rank? I suppose she will be married some day to a rough carter or a grinning ploughman. Well, the fact of having met you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she will be wretched. From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I think much of your great renunciation. Even as a beginning, it is poor. Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the present moment in some starlit millpond, with lovely waterlilies round her, like Ophelia? 'I can't bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then suggest the most serious tragedies. I am sorry I told you now. I don't care what you say to me. I know I was right in acting as I did. Poor Hetty! As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at the window, like a spray of jasmine. Don't let us talk about it any more, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have done for years, the first little bit of selfsacrifice I have ever known, is really a sort of sin. I want to be better. I am going to be better. Tell me something about yourself. What is going on in town? I have not been to the club for days. 'The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance. 'I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time, said Dorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly. 'My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and the British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having more than one topic every three months. They have been very fortunate lately, however. They have had my own divorcecase and Alan Campbell's suicide. Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist. Scotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left for Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor Basil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris at all. I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has been seen in San Francisco. It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world. 'What do you think has happened to Basil? asked Dorian, holding up his Burgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could discuss the matter so calmly. 'I have not the slightest idea. If Basil chooses to hide himself, it is no business of mine. If he is dead, I don't want to think about him. Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me. I hate it. 'Why? said the younger man wearily. 'Because, said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt trellis of an open vinaigrette box, 'one can survive everything nowadays except that. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away. Let us have our coffee in the musicroom, Dorian. You must play Chopin to me. The man with whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely. Poor Victoria! I was very fond of her. The house is rather lonely without her. Of course, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality. Dorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next room, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white and black ivory of the keys. After the coffee had been brought in, he stopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, 'Harry, did it ever occur to you that Basil was murdered? Lord Henry yawned. 'Basil was very popular, and always wore a Waterbury watch. Why should he have been murdered? He was not clever enough to have enemies. Of course, he had a wonderful genius for painting. But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as possible. Basil was really rather dull. He only interested me once, and that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art. 'I was very fond of Basil, said Dorian with a note of sadness in his voice. 'But don't people say that he was murdered? 'Oh, some of the papers do. It does not seem to me to be at all probable. I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not the sort of man to have gone to them. He had no curiosity. It was his chief defect. 'What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil? said the younger man. He watched him intently after he had spoken. 'I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that doesn't suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. I am sorry if I hurt your vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true. Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations. 'A method of procuring sensations? Do you think, then, that a man who has once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again? Don't tell me that. 'Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often, cried Lord Henry, laughing. 'That is one of the most important secrets of life. I should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner. But let us pass from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had come to such a really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell into the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the scandal. Yes I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now on his back under those dullgreen waters, with the heavy barges floating over him and long weeds catching in his hair. Do you know, I don't think he would have done much more good work. During the last ten years his painting had gone off very much. Dorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began to stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, greyplumaged bird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo perch. As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf of crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards and forwards. 'Yes, he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of his pocket 'his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have lost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a great artist. What was it separated you? I suppose he bored you. If so, he never forgave you. It's a habit bores have. By the way, what has become of that wonderful portrait he did of you? I don't think I have ever seen it since he finished it. Oh! I remember your telling me years ago that you had sent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the way. You never got it back? What a pity! it was really a masterpiece. I remember I wanted to buy it. I wish I had now. It belonged to Basil's best period. Since then, his work was that curious mixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist. Did you advertise for it? You should. 'I forget, said Dorian. 'I suppose I did. But I never really liked it. I am sorry I sat for it. The memory of the thing is hateful to me. Why do you talk of it? It used to remind me of those curious lines in some playHamlet, I thinkhow do they run? 'Like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart. Yes that is what it was like. Lord Henry laughed. 'If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart, he answered, sinking into an armchair. Dorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano. ''Like the painting of a sorrow,' he repeated, ''a face without a heart.' The elder man lay back and looked at him with halfclosed eyes. 'By the way, Dorian, he said after a pause, ''what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and losehow does the quotation run?his own soul'? The music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend. 'Why do you ask me that, Harry? 'My dear fellow, said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise, 'I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer. That is all. I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by the Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabbylooking people listening to some vulgar streetpreacher. As I passed by, I heard the man yelling out that question to his audience. It struck me as being rather dramatic. London is very rich in curious effects of that kind. A wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly white faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful phrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lipsit was really very good in its way, quite a suggestion. I thought of telling the prophet that art had a soul, but that man had not. I am afraid, however, he would not have understood me. 'Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it. 'Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian? 'Quite sure. 'Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have you or I to do with the superstitions of our age? No we have given up our belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept your youth. You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than you are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really wonderful, Dorian. You have never looked more charming than you do tonight. You remind me of the day I saw you first. You were rather cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary. You have changed, of course, but not in appearance. I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. Youth! There is nothing like it. It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much younger than myself. They seem in front of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I always contradict the aged. I do it on principle. If you ask them their opinion on something that happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in , when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew absolutely nothing. How lovely that thing you are playing is! I wonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the villa and the salt spray dashing against the panes? It is marvellously romantic. What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that is not imitative! Don't stop. I want music tonight. It seems to me that you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you. I have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of. The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. I am amazed sometimes at my own sincerity. Ah, Dorian, how happy you are! What an exquisite life you have had! You have drunk deeply of everything. You have crushed the grapes against your palate. Nothing has been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than the sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same. 'I am not the same, Harry. 'Yes, you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be. Don't spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. Don't make yourself incomplete. You are quite flawless now. You need not shake your head you know you are. Besides, Dorian, don't deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly builtup cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to playI tell you, Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend. Browning writes about that somewhere but our own senses will imagine them for us. There are moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest month of my life over again. I wish I could change places with you, Dorian. The world has cried out against us both, but it has always worshipped you. It always will worship you. You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets. Dorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair. 'Yes, life has been exquisite, he murmured, 'but I am not going to have the same life, Harry. And you must not say these extravagant things to me. You don't know everything about me. I think that if you did, even you would turn from me. You laugh. Don't laugh. 'Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me the nocturne over again. Look at that great, honeycoloured moon that hangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, and if you play she will come closer to the earth. You won't? Let us go to the club, then. It has been a charming evening, and we must end it charmingly. There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know youyoung Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son. He has already copied your neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you. He is quite delightful and rather reminds me of you. 'I hope not, said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes. 'But I am tired tonight, Harry. I shan't go to the club. It is nearly eleven, and I want to go to bed early. 'Do stay. You have never played so well as tonight. There was something in your touch that was wonderful. It had more expression than I had ever heard from it before. 'It is because I am going to be good, he answered, smiling. 'I am a little changed already. 'You cannot change to me, Dorian, said Lord Henry. 'You and I will always be friends. 'Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It does harm. 'My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be going about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too delightful to do that. Besides, it is no use. You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. That is all. But we won't discuss literature. Come round tomorrow. I am going to ride at eleven. We might go together, and I will take you to lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome. She is a charming woman, and wants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying. Mind you come. Or shall we lunch with our little duchess? She says she never sees you now. Perhaps you are tired of Gladys? I thought you would be. Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves. Well, in any case, be here at eleven. 'Must I really come, Harry? 'Certainly. The park is quite lovely now. I don't think there have been such lilacs since the year I met you. 'Very well. I shall be here at eleven, said Dorian. 'Good night, Harry. As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he had something more to say. Then he sighed and went out. It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and did not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home, smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. He heard one of them whisper to the other, 'That is Dorian Gray. He remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared at, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now. Half the charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was that no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had lured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him. He had told her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a laugh she had!just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had been in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but she had everything that he had lost. When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He sent him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him. Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhoodhis rosewhite boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy that he had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him? Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to that. Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure swift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment. Not 'Forgive us our sins but 'Smite us for our iniquities should be the prayer of man to a most just God. The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many years ago now, was standing on the table, and the whitelimbed Cupids laughed round it as of old. He took it up, as he had done on that night of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal picture, and with wild, teardimmed eyes looked into its polished shield. Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a mad letter, ending with these idolatrous words 'The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history. The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated them over and over to himself. Then he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him. It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. It was of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think. James Vane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell had shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the secret that he had been forced to know. The excitement, such as it was, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away. It was already waning. He was perfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the death of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the living death of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had painted the portrait that had marred his life. He could not forgive him that. It was the portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience. The murder had been simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell, his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was nothing to him. A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting for. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent thing, at any rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be good. As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in the locked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had been? Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel every sign of evil passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had already gone away. He would go and look. He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the door, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely younglooking face and lingered for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already. He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsomemore loathsome, if possible, than beforeand the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red stain larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the painted feet, as though the thing had drippedblood even on the hand that had not held the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did confess, who would believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to him had been destroyed. He himself had burned what had been belowstairs. The world would simply say that he was mad. They would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public atonement. There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would cleanse him till he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders. The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him. He was thinking of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been something more. At least he thought so. But who could tell? ... No. There had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity's sake he had tried the denial of self. He recognized that now. But this murderwas it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was only one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itselfthat was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? Once it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. Of late he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night. When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes should look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it. He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painter's work, and all that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soullife, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it. There was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so horrible in its agony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms. Two gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked up at the great house. They walked on till they met a policeman and brought him back. The man rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was all dark. After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico and watched. 'Whose house is that, Constable? asked the elder of the two gentlemen. 'Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir, answered the policeman. They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle. Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the halfclad domestics were talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Leaf was crying and wringing her hands. Francis was as pale as death. After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the footmen and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. They called out. Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying to force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the balcony. The windows yielded easilytheir bolts were old. When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was. THE END
AL PROFESSORE CAV. BIAGIO INGROIA, PREZIOSO ALLEATO L'AUTORE RICONOSCENTE. This translation is intended to supplement a work entitled 'The Authoress of the Odyssey, which I published in . I could not give the whole 'Odyssey in that book without making it unwieldy, I therefore epitomised my translation, which was already completed and which I now publish in full. I shall not here argue the two main points dealt with in the work just mentioned I have nothing either to add to, or to withdraw from, what I have there written. The points in question are () that the 'Odyssey was written entirely at, and drawn entirely from, the place now called Trapani on the West Coast of Sicily, alike as regards the Phaeacian and the Ithaca scenes while the voyages of Ulysses, when once he is within easy reach of Sicily, solve themselves into a periplus of the island, practically from Trapani back to Trapani, via the Lipari islands, the Straits of Messina, and the island of Pantellaria. () That the poem was entirely written by a very young woman, who lived at the place now called Trapani, and introduced herself into her work under the name of Nausicaa. The main arguments on which I base the first of these somewhat startling contentions, have been prominently and repeatedly before the English and Italian public ever since they appeared (without rejoinder) in the 'Athenaeum for January  and February , . Both contentions were urged (also without rejoinder) in the Johnian 'Eagle for the Lent and October terms of the same year. Nothing to which I should reply has reached me from any quarter, and knowing how anxiously I have endeavoured to learn the existence of any flaws in my argument, I begin to feel some confidence that, did such flaws exist, I should have heard, at any rate about some of them, before now. Without, therefore, for a moment pretending to think that scholars generally acquiesce in my conclusions, I shall act as thinking them little likely so to gainsay me as that it will be incumbent upon me to reply, and shall confine myself to translating the 'Odyssey for English readers, with such notes as I think will be found useful. Among these I would especially call attention to one on xxii.  which Lord Grimthorpe has kindly allowed me to make public. I have repeated several of the illustrations used in 'The Authoress of the Odyssey, and have added two which I hope may bring the outer court of Ulysses' house more vividly before the reader. I should like to explain that the presence of a man and a dog in one illustration is accidental, and was not observed by me till I developed the negative. In an appendix I have also reprinted the paragraphs explanatory of the plan of Ulysses' house, together with the plan itself. The reader is recommended to study this plan with some attention. In the preface to my translation of the 'Iliad I have given my views as to the main principles by which a translator should be guided, and need not repeat them here, beyond pointing out that the initial liberty of translating poetry into prose involves the continual taking of more or less liberty throughout the translation for much that is right in poetry is wrong in prose, and the exigencies of readable prose are the first things to be considered in a prose translation. That the reader, however, may see how far I have departed from strict construe, I will print here Messrs. Butcher and Lang's translation of the sixty lines or so of the 'Odyssey. Their translation runs Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes he suffered in his heart on the deep, striving to win his own life and the return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his company, though he desired it sore. For through the blindness of their own hearts they perished, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion but the god took from them their day of returning. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof, declare thou even unto us. Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction, were at home, and had escaped both war and sea, but Odysseus only, craving for his wife and for his homeward path, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair goddess, in her hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord. But when now the year had come in the courses of the seasons, wherein the gods had ordained that he should return home to Ithaca, not even there was he quit of labours, not even among his own but all the gods had pity on him save Poseidon, who raged continually against godlike Odysseus, till he came to his own country. Howbeit Poseidon had now departed for the distant Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that are sundered in twain, the uttermost of men, abiding some where Hyperion sinks and some where he rises. There he looked to receive his hecatomb of bulls and rams, there he made merry sitting at the feast, but the other gods were gathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the father of men and gods began to speak, for he bethought him in his heart of noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon, farfamed Orestes, slew. Thinking upon him he spake out among the Immortals 'Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For of us they say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves, through the blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows beyond that which is ordained. Even as of late Aegisthus, beyond that which was ordained, took to him the wedded wife of the son of Atreus, and killed her lord on his return, and that with sheer doom before his eyes, since we had warned him by the embassy of Hermes the keensighted, the slayer of Argos, that he should neither kill the man, nor woo his wife. For the son of Atreus shall be avenged at the hand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to man's estate and long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he prevailed not on the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good will but now hath he paid one price for all.' And the goddess, greyeyed Athene, answered him, saying 'O father, our father Cronides, throned in the highest that man assuredly lies in a death that is his due so perish likewise all who work such deeds! But my heart is rent for wise Odysseus, the hapless one, who far from his friends this long while suffereth affliction in a seagirt isle, where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle, and therein a goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the wizard Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder. His daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow and ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to forgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it were but the smoke leap upwards from his own land, hath a desire to die. As for thee, thine heart regardeth it not at all, Olympian! What! Did not Odysseus by the ships of the Argives make thee free offering of sacrifice in the wide Trojan land? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth with him, O Zeus?' The 'Odyssey (as every one knows) abounds in passages borrowed from the 'Iliad I had wished to print these in a slightly different type, with marginal references to the 'Iliad, and had marked them to this end in my MS. I found, however, that the translation would be thus hopelessly scholasticised, and abandoned my intention. I would nevertheless urge on those who have the management of our University presses, that they would render a great service to students if they would publish a Greek text of the 'Odyssey with the Iliadic passages printed in a different type, and with marginal references. I have given the British Museum a copy of the 'Odyssey with the Iliadic passages underlined and referred to in MS. I have also given an 'Iliad marked with all the Odyssean passages, and their references but copies of both the 'Iliad and 'Odyssey so marked ought to be within easy reach of all students. Any one who at the present day discusses the questions that have arisen round the 'Iliad since Wolf's time, without keeping it well before his reader's mind that the 'Odyssey was demonstrably written from one single neighbourhood, and hence (even though nothing else pointed to this conclusion) presumably by one person onlythat it was written certainly before , and in all probability before  B.C.that the writer of this very early poem was demonstrably familiar with the 'Iliad as we now have it, borrowing as freely from those books whose genuineness has been most impugned, as from those which are admitted to be by Homerany one who fails to keep these points before his readers, is hardly dealing equitably by them. Any one on the other hand, who will mark his 'Iliad and his 'Odyssey from the copies in the British Museum above referred to, and who will draw the only inference that common sense can draw from the presence of so many identical passages in both poems, will, I believe, find no difficulty in assigning their proper value to a large number of books here and on the Continent that at present enjoy considerable reputations. Furthermore, and this perhaps is an advantage better worth securing, he will find that many puzzles of the 'Odyssey cease to puzzle him on the discovery that they arise from oversaturation with the 'Iliad. Other difficulties will also disappear as soon as the development of the poem in the writer's mind is understood. I have dealt with this at some length in pp.  of 'The Authoress of the Odyssey. Briefly, the 'Odyssey consists of two distinct poems () The Return of Ulysses, which alone the Muse is asked to sing in the opening lines of the poem. This poem includes the Phaeacian episode, and the account of Ulysses' adventures as told by himself in Books ix.xii. It consists of lines  (roughly) of Book i., of line  of Book v., and thence without intermission to the middle of line  of Book xiii., at which point the original scheme was abandoned. () The story of Penelope and the suitors, with the episode of Telemachus' voyage to Pylos. This poem begins with line  (roughly) of Book i., is continued to the end of Book iv., and not resumed till Ulysses wakes in the middle of line , Book xiii., from whence it continues to the end of Book xxiv. In 'The Authoress of the Odyssey, I wrote the introduction of lines xi.,  and of line ix., , with the writing a new council of the gods at the beginning of Book v., to take the place of the one that was removed to Book i., , were the only things that were done to give even a semblance of unity to the old scheme and the new, and to conceal the fact that the Muse, after being asked to sing of one subject, spend twothirds of her time in singing a very different one, with a climax for which noone has asked her. For roughly the Return occupies eight Books, and Penelope and the Suitors sixteen. I believe this to be substantially correct. Lastly, to deal with a very unimportant point, I observe that the Leipsic Teubner edition of  makes Books ii. and iii. end with a comma. Stops are things of such far more recent date than the 'Odyssey, that there does not seem much use in adhering to the text in so small a matter still, from a spirit of mere conservatism, I have preferred to do so. Why Greek at the beginnings of Books ii. and viii., and Greek, at the beginning of Book vii. should have initial capitals in an edition far too careful to admit a supposition of inadvertence, when Greek at the beginning of Books vi. and xiii., and Greek at the beginning of Book xvii. have no initial capitals, I cannot determine. No other Books of the 'Odyssey have initial capitals except the three mentioned unless the first word of the Book is a proper name. S. BUTLER. July , . Butler's Translation of the 'Odyssey appeared originally in , and The Authoress of the Odyssey in . In the preface to the new edition of 'The Authoress, which is published simultaneously with this new edition of the Translation, I have given some account of the genesis of the two books. The size of the original page has been reduced so as to make both books uniform with Butler's other works and, fortunately, it has been possible, by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into each page, so that the references remain good, and, with the exception of a few minor alterations and rearrangements now to be enumerated so far as they affect the Translation, the new editions are faithful reprints of the original editions, with misprints and obvious errors correctedno attempt having been made to edit them or to bring them up to date. (a) The Index has been revised. (b) Owing to the reduction in the size of the page it has been necessary to shorten some of the headlines, and here advantage has been taken of various corrections of and additions to the headlines and shouldernotes made by Butler in his own copies of the two books. (c) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page, whereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on the page. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses. On page  of 'The Authoress Butler says 'No great poet would compare his hero to a paunch full of blood and fat, cooking before the fire (xx, ). This passage is not given in the abridged Story of the 'Odyssey at the beginning of the book, but in the Translation it occurs in these words 'Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front of a hot fire, doing it first on one side then on the other, that he may get it cooked as soon as possible even so did he turn himself about from side to side, thinking all the time how, singlehanded as he was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked suitors. It looks as though in the interval between the publication of 'The Authoress () and of the Translation () Butler had changed his mind for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a paunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man who turns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one which a great poet might make. In seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable assistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library, Cambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for the care and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time for the labour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and references to the 'Iliad and 'Odyssey, and I believe that it could not have been better performed. It was, I know, a pleasure for him and it would have been a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known that his work was being shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H. R. Robertson, who more than half a century ago was a fellowstudent with him at Cary's School of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury. HENRY FESTING JONES.  MAIDA VALE, W.. th December, . THE GODS IN COUNCILMINERVA'S VISIT TO ITHACATHE CHALLENGE FROM TELEMACHUS TO THE SUITORS. Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sungod Hyperion so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get home. Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival but the other gods met in the house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes so he said to the other gods 'See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus he must needs make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew it would be the death of him for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full. Then Minerva said, 'Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did but Aegisthus is neither here nor there it is for Ulysses that my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely seagirt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there, daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses, and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry with him? And Jove said, 'My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the seaking Phorcys therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to return Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us. And Minerva said, 'Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the return of his dear fatherfor this will make people speak well of him. So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable, with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea she grasped the redoubtable bronzeshod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong, wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon forthwith she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses' house, disguised as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in her hand. There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of the house. Menservants and pages were bustling about to wait upon them, some mixing wine with water in the mixingbowls, some cleaning down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some cutting up great quantities of meat. Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them, he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. 'Welcome, said he, 'to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for. He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were within he took her spear and set it in the spearstand against a strong bearingpost along with the many other spears of his unhappy father, and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet, and he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and that he might ask her more freely about his father. A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold by their side, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for them. Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and seats. Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids went round with the breadbaskets, pages filled the mixingbowls with wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments of a banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they compelled perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and began to sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close to hers that no man might hear. 'I hope, sir, said he, 'that you will not be offended with what I am going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather than a longer purse, for money would not serve them but he, alas, has fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is coming, we no longer heed them we shall never see him again. And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from. Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation they declared themselves to befor you cannot have come by land. Tell me also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house, or have you been here in my father's time? In the old days we had many visitors for my father went about much himself. And Minerva answered, 'I will tell you truly and particularly all about it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign tongue being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron, and I shall bring back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron under the wooded mountain Neritum. Our fathers were friends before us, as old Laertes will tell you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however, that he never comes to town now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly, with an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when he comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard. They told me your father was at home again, and that was why I came, but it seems the gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the mainland. It is more likely he is on some seagirt island in mid ocean, or a prisoner among savages who are detaining him against his will. I am no prophet, and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is borne in upon me from heaven, and assure you that he will not be away much longer for he is a man of such resource that even though he were in chains of iron he would find some means of getting home again. But tell me, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have such a fine looking fellow for a son? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes, for we were close friends before he set sail for Troy where the flower of all the Argives went also. Since that time we have never either of us seen the other. 'My mother, answered Telemachus, 'tells me I am son to Ulysses, but it is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were son to one who had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you ask me, there is no more illstarred man under heaven than he who they tell me is my father. And Minerva said, 'There is no fear of your race dying out yet, while Penelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell me true, what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people? What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in the familyfor no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own? And the guestshow atrociously they are behaving what riot they make over the whole house it is enough to disgust any respectable person who comes near them. 'Sir, said Telemachus, 'as regards your question, so long as my father was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods in their displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him away more closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have borne it better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his men before Troy, or had died with friends around him when the days of his fighting were done for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his ashes, and I should myself have been heir to his renown but now the stormwinds have spirited him away we know not whither he is gone without leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I inherit nothing but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of my father heaven has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind for the chiefs from all our islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island of Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are eating up my house under the pretext of paying their court to my mother, who will neither point blank say that she will not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end so they are making havoc of my estate, and before long will do so also with myself. 'Is that so? exclaimed Minerva, 'then you do indeed want Ulysses home again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of lances, and if he is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking and making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally suitors, were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was then coming from Ephyra, where he had been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilus, son of Mermerus. Ilus feared the everliving gods and would not give him any, but my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him. If Ulysses is the man he then was these suitors will have a short shrift and a sorry wedding. 'But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to return, and take his revenge in his own house or no I would, however, urge you to set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take my advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly tomorrow morninglay your case before them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors take themselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother's mind is set on marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so dear a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you to take the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go in quest of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell you something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some heavensent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask Nestor thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home last of all the Achaeans if you hear that your father is alive and on his way home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his death, come home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a barrow to his memory, and make your mother marry again. Then, having done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or foul, you may kill these suitors in your own house. You are too old to plead infancy any longer have you not heard how people are singing Orestes' praises for having killed his father's murderer Aegisthus? You are a fine, smart looking fellow show your mettle, then, and make yourself a name in story. Now, however, I must go back to my ship and to my crew, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer think the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you. 'Sir, answered Telemachus, 'it has been very kind of you to talk to me in this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you tell me I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a little longer till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I will then give you a present, and you shall go on your way rejoicing I will give you one of great beauty and valuea keepsake such as only dear friends give to one another. Minerva answered, 'Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it till I come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give me a very good one, and I will give you one of no less value in return. With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever about his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors were sitting. Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof of the cloisters with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly. 'Phemius, she cried, 'you know many another feat of gods and heroes, such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these, and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all Hellas and middle Argos. 'Mother, answered Telemachus, 'let the bard sing what he has a mind to bards do not make the ills they sing of it is Jove, not they, who makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own good pleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the illfated return of the Danaans, for people always applaud the latest songs most warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it Ulysses is not the only man who never came back from Troy, but many another went down as well as he. Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants for speech is man's matter, and mine above all others for it is I who am master here. She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in her heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes. But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters, and prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow. Then Telemachus spoke, 'Shameless, he cried, 'and insolent suitors, let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has but in the morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal notice to depart, and feast at one another's houses, turn and turn about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father's house there shall be no man to avenge you. The suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, 'The gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking may Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before you. Telemachus answered, 'Antinous, do not chide with me, but, god willing, I will be chief too if I can. Is this the worst fate you can think of for me? It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches and honour. Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many great men in Ithaca both old and young, and some other may take the lead among them nevertheless I will be chief in my own house, and will rule those whom Ulysses has won for me. Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered, 'It rests with heaven to decide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your own house and over your own possessions no one while there is a man in Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you. And now, my good fellow, I want to know about this stranger. What country does he come from? Of what family is he, and where is his estate? Has he brought you news about the return of your father, or was he on business of his own? He seemed a well to do man, but he hurried off so suddenly that he was gone in a moment before we could get to know him. 'My father is dead and gone, answered Telemachus, 'and even if some rumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My mother does indeed sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his prophecyings no heed. As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of Anchialus, chief of the Taphians, an old friend of my father's. But in his heart he knew that it had been the goddess. The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the evening but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to bed each in his own abode. Telemachus's room was high up in a tower that looked on to the outer court hither, then, he hied, brooding and full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young he gave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take her to his bed for he feared his wife's resentment. She it was who now lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed as he took off his shirt he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the bolt home by means of the strap. But Telemachus as he lay covered with a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage and of the counsel that Minerva had given him. ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF ITHACASPEECHES OF TELEMACHUS AND OF THE SUITORSTELEMACHUS MAKES HIS PREPARATIONS AND STARTS FOR PYLOS WITH MINERVA DISGUISED AS MENTOR. Now when the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared Telemachus rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded his sword about his shoulder, and left his room looking like an immortal god. He at once sent the criers round to call the people in assembly, so they called them and the people gathered thereon then, when they were got together, he went to the place of assembly spear in handnot alone, for his two hounds went with him. Minerva endowed him with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went by, and when he took his place in his father's seat even the oldest councillors made way for him. Aegyptius, a man bent double with age, and of infinite experience, was the first to speak. His son Antiphus had gone with Ulysses to Ilius, land of noble steeds, but the savage Cyclops had killed him when they were all shut up in the cave, and had cooked his last dinner for him. He had three sons left, of whom two still worked on their father's land, while the third, Eurynomus, was one of the suitors nevertheless their father could not get over the loss of Antiphus, and was still weeping for him when he began his speech. 'Men of Ithaca, he said, 'hear my words. From the day Ulysses left us there has been no meeting of our councillors until now who then can it be, whether old or young, that finds it so necessary to convene us? Has he got wind of some host approaching, and does he wish to warn us, or would he speak upon some other matter of public moment? I am sure he is an excellent person, and I hope Jove will grant him his heart's desire. Telemachus took this speech as of good omen and rose at once, for he was bursting with what he had to say. He stood in the middle of the assembly and the good herald Pisenor brought him his staff. Then, turning to Aegyptius, 'Sir, said he, 'it is I, as you will shortly learn, who have convened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I have not got wind of any host approaching about which I would warn you, nor is there any matter of public moment on which I would speak. My grievance is purely personal, and turns on two great misfortunes which have fallen upon my house. The first of these is the loss of my excellent father, who was chief among all you here present, and was like a father to every one of you the second is much more serious, and ere long will be the utter ruin of my estate. The sons of all the chief men among you are pestering my mother to marry them against her will. They are afraid to go to her father Icarius, asking him to choose the one he likes best, and to provide marriage gifts for his daughter, but day by day they keep hanging about my father's house, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such recklessness we have now no Ulysses to ward off harm from our doors, and I cannot hold my own against them. I shall never all my days be as good a man as he was, still I would indeed defend myself if I had power to do so, for I cannot stand such treatment any longer my house is being disgraced and ruined. Have respect, therefore, to your own consciences and to public opinion. Fear, too, the wrath of heaven, lest the gods should be displeased and turn upon you. I pray you by Jove and Themis, who is the beginning and the end of councils, do not hold back, my friends, and leave me singlehandedunless it be that my brave father Ulysses did some wrong to the Achaeans which you would now avenge on me, by aiding and abetting these suitors. Moreover, if I am to be eaten out of house and home at all, I had rather you did the eating yourselves, for I could then take action against you to some purpose, and serve you with notices from house to house till I got paid in full, whereas now I have no remedy. With this Telemachus dashed his staff to the ground and burst into tears. Every one was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no one ventured to make him an angry answer, save only Antinous, who spoke thus 'Telemachus, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw the blame upon us suitors? It is your mother's fault not ours, for she is a very artful woman. This three years past, and close on four, she had been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us, and sending him messages without meaning one word of what she says. And then there was that other trick she played us. She set up a great tambour frame in her room, and began to work on an enormous piece of fine needlework. 'Sweet hearts,' said she, 'Ulysses is indeed dead, still do not press me to marry again immediately, waitfor I would not have skill in needlework perish unrecordedtill I have completed a pall for the hero Laertes, to be in readiness against the time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.' 'This was what she said, and we assented whereon we could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years and we never found her out, but as time wore on and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids who knew what she was doing told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it whether she would or no. The suitors, therefore, make you this answer, that both you and the Achaeans may understand'Send your mother away, and bid her marry the man of her own and of her father's choice' for I do not know what will happen if she goes on plaguing us much longer with the airs she gives herself on the score of the accomplishments Minerva has taught her, and because she is so clever. We never yet heard of such a woman we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother any one of them. It was not fair of her to treat us in that way, and as long as she continues in the mind with which heaven has now endowed her, so long shall we go on eating up your estate and I do not see why she should change, for she gets all the honour and glory, and it is you who pay for it, not she. Understand, then, that we will not go back to our lands, neither here nor elsewhere, till she has made her choice and married some one or other of us. Telemachus answered, 'Antinous, how can I drive the mother who bore me from my father's house? My father is abroad and we do not know whether he is alive or dead. It will be hard on me if I have to pay Icarius the large sum which I must give him if I insist on sending his daughter back to him. Not only will he deal rigorously with me, but heaven will also punish me for my mother when she leaves the house will call on the Erinyes to avenge her besides, it would not be a creditable thing to do, and I will have nothing to say to it. If you choose to take offence at this, leave the house and feast elsewhere at one another's houses at your own cost turn and turn about. If, on the other hand, you elect to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father's house there shall be no man to avenge you. As he spoke Jove sent two eagles from the top of the mountain, and they flew on and on with the wind, sailing side by side in their own lordly flight. When they were right over the middle of the assembly they wheeled and circled about, beating the air with their wings and glaring death into the eyes of them that were below then, fighting fiercely and tearing at one another, they flew off towards the right over the town. The people wondered as they saw them, and asked each other what all this might be whereon Halitherses, who was the best prophet and reader of omens among them, spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying 'Hear me, men of Ithaca, and I speak more particularly to the suitors, for I see mischief brewing for them. Ulysses is not going to be away much longer indeed he is close at hand to deal out death and destruction, not on them alone, but on many another of us who live in Ithaca. Let us then be wise in time, and put a stop to this wickedness before he comes. Let the suitors do so of their own accord it will be better for them, for I am not prophesying without due knowledge everything has happened to Ulysses as I foretold when the Argives set out for Troy, and he with them. I said that after going through much hardship and losing all his men he should come home again in the twentieth year and that no one would know him and now all this is coming true. Eurymachus son of Polybus then said, 'Go home, old man, and prophesy to your own children, or it may be worse for them. I can read these omens myself much better than you can birds are always flying about in the sunshine somewhere or other, but they seldom mean anything. Ulysses has died in a far country, and it is a pity you are not dead along with him, instead of prating here about omens and adding fuel to the anger of Telemachus which is fierce enough as it is. I suppose you think he will give you something for your family, but I tell youand it shall surely bewhen an old man like you, who should know better, talks a young one over till he becomes troublesome, in the first place his young friend will only fare so much the worsehe will take nothing by it, for the suitors will prevent thisand in the next, we will lay a heavier fine, sir, upon yourself than you will at all like paying, for it will bear hardly upon you. As for Telemachus, I warn him in the presence of you all to send his mother back to her father, who will find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts so dear a daughter may expect. Till then we shall go on harassing him with our suit for we fear no man, and care neither for him, with all his fine speeches, nor for any fortunetelling of yours. You may preach as much as you please, but we shall only hate you the more. We shall go back and continue to eat up Telemachus's estate without paying him, till such time as his mother leaves off tormenting us by keeping us day after day on the tiptoe of expectation, each vying with the other in his suit for a prize of such rare perfection. Besides we cannot go after the other women whom we should marry in due course, but for the way in which she treats us. Then Telemachus said, 'Eurymachus, and you other suitors, I shall say no more, and entreat you no further, for the gods and the people of Ithaca now know my story. Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty men to take me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos in quest of my father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell me something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some heavensent message may direct me. If I can hear of him as alive and on his way home I will put up with the waste you suitors will make for yet another twelve months. If on the other hand I hear of his death, I will return at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a barrow to his memory, and make my mother marry again. With these words he sat down, and Mentor who had been a friend of Ulysses, and had been left in charge of everything with full authority over the servants, rose to speak. He, then, plainly and in all honesty addressed them thus 'Hear me, men of Ithaca, I hope that you may never have a kind and welldisposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern you equitably I hope that all your chiefs henceforward may be cruel and unjust, for there is not one of you but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled you as though he were your father. I am not half so angry with the suitors, for if they choose to do violence in the naughtiness of their hearts, and wager their heads that Ulysses will not return, they can take the high hand and eat up his estate, but as for you others I am shocked at the way in which you all sit still without even trying to stop such scandalous goings onwhich you could do if you chose, for you are many and they are few. Leiocritus, son of Evenor, answered him saying, 'Mentor, what folly is all this, that you should set the people to stay us? It is a hard thing for one man to fight with many about his victuals. Even though Ulysses himself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do his best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would have small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon his own head if he fought against such great odds. There is no sense in what you have been saying. Now, therefore, do you people go about your business, and let his father's old friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at allwhich I do not think he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells him something. On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own abode, while the suitors returned to the house of Ulysses. Then Telemachus went all alone by the sea side, washed his hands in the grey waves, and prayed to Minerva. 'Hear me, he cried, 'you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me sail the seas in search of my father who has so long been missing. I would obey you, but the Achaeans, and more particularly the wicked suitors, are hindering me that I cannot do so. As he thus prayed, Minerva came close up to him in the likeness and with the voice of Mentor. 'Telemachus, said she, 'if you are made of the same stuff as your father you will be neither fool nor coward henceforward, for Ulysses never broke his word nor left his work half done. If, then, you take after him, your voyage will not be fruitless, but unless you have the blood of Ulysses and of Penelope in your veins I see no likelihood of your succeeding. Sons are seldom as good men as their fathers they are generally worse, not better still, as you are not going to be either fool or coward henceforward, and are not entirely without some share of your father's wise discernment, I look with hope upon your undertaking. But mind you never make common cause with any of those foolish suitors, for they have neither sense nor virtue, and give no thought to death and to the doom that will shortly fall on one and all of them, so that they shall perish on the same day. As for your voyage, it shall not be long delayed your father was such an old friend of mine that I will find you a ship, and will come with you myself. Now, however, return home, and go about among the suitors begin getting provisions ready for your voyage see everything well stowed, the wine in jars, and the barley meal, which is the staff of life, in leathern bags, while I go round the town and beat up volunteers at once. There are many ships in Ithaca both old and new I will run my eye over them for you and will choose the best we will get her ready and will put out to sea without delay. Thus spoke Minerva daughter of Jove, and Telemachus lost no time in doing as the goddess told him. He went moodily home, and found the suitors flaying goats and singeing pigs in the outer court. Antinous came up to him at once and laughed as he took his hand in his own, saying, 'Telemachus, my fine fireeater, bear no more ill blood neither in word nor deed, but eat and drink with us as you used to do. The Achaeans will find you in everythinga ship and a picked crew to bootso that you can set sail for Pylos at once and get news of your noble father. 'Antinous, answered Telemachus, 'I cannot eat in peace, nor take pleasure of any kind with such men as you are. Was it not enough that you should waste so much good property of mine while I was yet a boy? Now that I am older and know more about it, I am also stronger, and whether here among this people, or by going to Pylos, I will do you all the harm I can. I shall go, and my going will not be in vainthough, thanks to you suitors, I have neither ship nor crew of my own, and must be passenger not captain. As he spoke he snatched his hand from that of Antinous. Meanwhile the others went on getting dinner ready about the buildings, jeering at him tauntingly as they did so. 'Telemachus, said one youngster, 'means to be the death of us I suppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again from Sparta, where he seems bent on going. Or will he go to Ephyra as well, for poison to put in our wine and kill us? Another said, 'Perhaps if Telemachus goes on board ship, he will be like his father and perish far from his friends. In this case we should have plenty to do, for we could then divide up his property amongst us as for the house we can let his mother and the man who marries her have that. This was how they talked. But Telemachus went down into the lofty and spacious storeroom where his father's treasure of gold and bronze lay heaped up upon the floor, and where the linen and spare clothes were kept in open chests. Here, too, there was a store of fragrant olive oil, while casks of old, wellripened wine, unblended and fit for a god to drink, were ranged against the wall in case Ulysses should come home again after all. The room was closed with wellmade doors opening in the middle moreover the faithful old housekeeper Euryclea, daughter of Ops the son of Pisenor, was in charge of everything both night and day. Telemachus called her to the storeroom and said 'Nurse, draw me off some of the best wine you have, after what you are keeping for my father's own drinking, in case, poor man, he should escape death, and find his way home again after all. Let me have twelve jars, and see that they all have lids also fill me some wellsewn leathern bags with barley mealabout twenty measures in all. Get these things put together at once, and say nothing about it. I will take everything away this evening as soon as my mother has gone upstairs for the night. I am going to Sparta and to Pylos to see if I can hear anything about the return of my dear father. When Euryclea heard this she began to cry, and spoke fondly to him, saying, 'My dear child, what ever can have put such notion as that into your head? Where in the world do you want to go toyou, who are the one hope of the house? Your poor father is dead and gone in some foreign country nobody knows where, and as soon as your back is turned these wicked ones here will be scheming to get you put out of the way, and will share all your possessions among themselves stay where you are among your own people, and do not go wandering and worrying your life out on the barren ocean. 'Fear not, nurse, answered Telemachus, 'my scheme is not without heaven's sanction but swear that you will say nothing about all this to my mother, till I have been away some ten or twelve days, unless she hears of my having gone, and asks you for I do not want her to spoil her beauty by crying. The old woman swore most solemnly that she would not, and when she had completed her oath, she began drawing off the wine into jars, and getting the barley meal into the bags, while Telemachus went back to the suitors. Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. She took his shape, and went round the town to each one of the crew, telling them to meet at the ship by sundown. She went also to Noemon son of Phronius, and asked him to let her have a shipwhich he was very ready to do. When the sun had set and darkness was over all the land, she got the ship into the water, put all the tackle on board her that ships generally carry, and stationed her at the end of the harbour. Presently the crew came up, and the goddess spoke encouragingly to each of them. Furthermore she went to the house of Ulysses, and threw the suitors into a deep slumber. She caused their drink to fuddle them, and made them drop their cups from their hands, so that instead of sitting over their wine, they went back into the town to sleep, with their eyes heavy and full of drowsiness. Then she took the form and voice of Mentor, and called Telemachus to come outside. 'Telemachus, said she, 'the men are on board and at their oars, waiting for you to give your orders, so make haste and let us be off. On this she led the way, while Telemachus followed in her steps. When they got to the ship they found the crew waiting by the water side, and Telemachus said, 'Now my men, help me to get the stores on board they are all put together in the cloister, and my mother does not know anything about it, nor any of the maid servants except one. With these words he led the way and the others followed after. When they had brought the things as he told them, Telemachus went on board, Minerva going before him and taking her seat in the stern of the vessel, while Telemachus sat beside her. Then the men loosed the hawsers and took their places on the benches. Minerva sent them a fair wind from the West, that whistled over the deep blue waves whereon Telemachus told them to catch hold of the ropes and hoist sail, and they did as he told them. They set the mast in its socket in the cross plank, raised it, and made it fast with the forestays then they hoisted their white sails aloft with ropes of twisted ox hide. As the sail bellied out with the wind, the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward. Then they made all fast throughout the ship, filled the mixing bowls to the brim, and made drink offerings to the immortal gods that are from everlasting, but more particularly to the greyeyed daughter of Jove. Thus, then, the ship sped on her way through the watches of the night from dark till dawn. TELEMACHUS VISITS NESTOR AT PYLOS. but as the sun was rising from the fair sea into the firmament of heaven to shed light on mortals and immortals, they reached Pylos the city of Neleus. Now the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore to offer sacrifice of black bulls to Neptune lord of the Earthquake. There were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were nine bulls to each guild. As they were eating the inward meats and burning the thigh bones on the embers in the name of Neptune, Telemachus and his crew arrived, furled their sails, brought their ship to anchor, and went ashore. Minerva led the way and Telemachus followed her. Presently she said, 'Telemachus, you must not be in the least shy or nervous you have taken this voyage to try and find out where your father is buried and how he came by his end so go straight up to Nestor that we may see what he has got to tell us. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell no lies, for he is an excellent person. 'But how, Mentor, replied Telemachus, 'dare I go up to Nestor, and how am I to address him? I have never yet been used to holding long conversations with people, and am ashamed to begin questioning one who is so much older than myself. 'Some things, Telemachus, answered Minerva, 'will be suggested to you by your own instinct, and heaven will prompt you further for I am assured that the gods have been with you from the time of your birth until now. She then went quickly on, and Telemachus followed in her steps till they reached the place where the guilds of the Pylian people were assembled. There they found Nestor sitting with his sons, while his company round him were busy getting dinner ready, and putting pieces of meat on to the spits while other pieces were cooking. When they saw the strangers they crowded round them, took them by the hand and bade them take their places. Nestor's son Pisistratus at once offered his hand to each of them, and seated them on some soft sheepskins that were lying on the sands near his father and his brother Thrasymedes. Then he gave them their portions of the inward meats and poured wine for them into a golden cup, handing it to Minerva first, and saluting her at the same time. 'Offer a prayer, sir, said he, 'to King Neptune, for it is his feast that you are joining when you have duly prayed and made your drink offering, pass the cup to your friend that he may do so also. I doubt not that he too lifts his hands in prayer, for man cannot live without God in the world. Still he is younger than you are, and is much of an age with myself, so I will give you the precedence. As he spoke he handed her the cup. Minerva thought it very right and proper of him to have given it to herself first she accordingly began praying heartily to Neptune. 'O thou, she cried, 'that encirclest the earth, vouchsafe to grant the prayers of thy servants that call upon thee. More especially we pray thee send down thy grace on Nestor and on his sons thereafter also make the rest of the Pylian people some handsome return for the goodly hecatomb they are offering you. Lastly, grant Telemachus and myself a happy issue, in respect of the matter that has brought us in our ship to Pylos. When she had thus made an end of praying, she handed the cup to Telemachus and he prayed likewise. By and by, when the outer meats were roasted and had been taken off the spits, the carvers gave every man his portion and they all made an excellent dinner. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, Nestor, knight of Gerene, began to speak. 'Now, said he, 'that our guests have done their dinner, it will be best to ask them who they are. Who, then, sir strangers, are you, and from what port have you sailed? Are you traders? or do you sail the seas as rovers with your hand against every man, and every man's hand against you? Telemachus answered boldly, for Minerva had given him courage to ask about his father and get himself a good name. 'Nestor, said he, 'son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean name, you ask whence we come, and I will tell you. We come from Ithaca under Neritum, and the matter about which I would speak is of private not public import. I seek news of my unhappy father Ulysses, who is said to have sacked the town of Troy in company with yourself. We know what fate befell each one of the other heroes who fought at Troy, but as regards Ulysses heaven has hidden from us the knowledge even that he is dead at all, for no one can certify us in what place he perished, nor say whether he fell in battle on the mainland, or was lost at sea amid the waves of Amphitrite. Therefore I am suppliant at your knees, if haply you may be pleased to tell me of his melancholy end, whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller, for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for me, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service, either by word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed among the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all. 'My friend, answered Nestor, 'you recall a time of much sorrow to my mind, for the brave Achaeans suffered much both at sea, while privateering under Achilles, and when fighting before the great city of king Priam. Our best men all of them fell thereAjax, Achilles, Patroclus peer of gods in counsel, and my own dear son Antilochus, a man singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant. But we suffered much more than this what mortal tongue indeed could tell the whole story? Though you were to stay here and question me for five years, or even six, I could not tell you all that the Achaeans suffered, and you would turn homeward weary of my tale before it ended. Nine long years did we try every kind of stratagem, but the hand of heaven was against us during all this time there was no one who could compare with your father in subtletyif indeed you are his sonI can hardly believe my eyesand you talk just like him toono one would say that people of such different ages could speak so much alike. He and I never had any kind of difference from first to last neither in camp nor council, but in singleness of heart and purpose we advised the Argives how all might be ordered for the best. 'When, however, we had sacked the city of Priam, and were setting sail in our ships as heaven had dispersed us, then Jove saw fit to vex the Argives on their homeward voyage for they had not all been either wise or understanding, and hence many came to a bad end through the displeasure of Jove's daughter Minerva, who brought about a quarrel between the two sons of Atreus. 'The sons of Atreus called a meeting which was not as it should be, for it was sunset and the Achaeans were heavy with wine. When they explained why they had called the people together, it seemed that Menelaus was for sailing homeward at once, and this displeased Agamemnon, who thought that we should wait till we had offered hecatombs to appease the anger of Minerva. Fool that he was, he might have known that he would not prevail with her, for when the gods have made up their minds they do not change them lightly. So the two stood bandying hard words, whereon the Achaeans sprang to their feet with a cry that rent the air, and were of two minds as to what they should do. 'That night we rested and nursed our anger, for Jove was hatching mischief against us. But in the morning some of us drew our ships into the water and put our goods with our women on board, while the rest, about half in number, stayed behind with Agamemnon. Wethe other halfembarked and sailed and the ships went well, for heaven had smoothed the sea. When we reached Tenedos we offered sacrifices to the gods, for we were longing to get home cruel Jove, however, did not yet mean that we should do so, and raised a second quarrel in the course of which some among us turned their ships back again, and sailed away under Ulysses to make their peace with Agamemnon but I, and all the ships that were with me pressed forward, for I saw that mischief was brewing. The son of Tydeus went on also with me, and his crews with him. Later on Menelaus joined us at Lesbos, and found us making up our minds about our coursefor we did not know whether to go outside Chios by the island of Psyra, keeping this to our left, or inside Chios, over against the stormy headland of Mimas. So we asked heaven for a sign, and were shown one to the effect that we should be soonest out of danger if we headed our ships across the open sea to Euboea. This we therefore did, and a fair wind sprang up which gave us a quick passage during the night to Geraestus, where we offered many sacrifices to Neptune for having helped us so far on our way. Four days later Diomed and his men stationed their ships in Argos, but I held on for Pylos, and the wind never fell light from the day when heaven first made it fair for me. 'Therefore, my dear young friend, I returned without hearing anything about the others. I know neither who got home safely nor who were lost but, as in duty bound, I will give you without reserve the reports that have reached me since I have been here in my own house. They say the Myrmidons returned home safely under Achilles' son Neoptolemus so also did the valiant son of Poias, Philoctetes. Idomeneus, again, lost no men at sea, and all his followers who escaped death in the field got safe home with him to Crete. No matter how far out of the world you live, you will have heard of Agamemnon and the bad end he came to at the hands of Aegisthusand a fearful reckoning did Aegisthus presently pay. See what a good thing it is for a man to leave a son behind him to do as Orestes did, who killed false Aegisthus the murderer of his noble father. You too, thenfor you are a tall smartlooking fellowshow your mettle and make yourself a name in story. 'Nestor son of Neleus, answered Telemachus, 'honour to the Achaean name, the Achaeans applaud Orestes and his name will live through all time for he has avenged his father nobly. Would that heaven might grant me to do like vengeance on the insolence of the wicked suitors, who are ill treating me and plotting my ruin but the gods have no such happiness in store for me and for my father, so we must bear it as best we may. 'My friend, said Nestor, 'now that you remind me, I remember to have heard that your mother has many suitors, who are ill disposed towards you and are making havoc of your estate. Do you submit to this tamely, or are public feeling and the voice of heaven against you? Who knows but what Ulysses may come back after all, and pay these scoundrels in full, either singlehanded or with a force of Achaeans behind him? If Minerva were to take as great a liking to you as she did to Ulysses when we were fighting before Troy (for I never yet saw the gods so openly fond of any one as Minerva then was of your father), if she would take as good care of you as she did of him, these wooers would soon some of them forget their wooing. Telemachus answered, 'I can expect nothing of the kind it would be far too much to hope for. I dare not let myself think of it. Even though the gods themselves willed it no such good fortune could befall me. On this Minerva said, 'Telemachus, what are you talking about? Heaven has a long arm if it is minded to save a man and if it were me, I should not care how much I suffered before getting home, provided I could be safe when I was once there. I would rather this, than get home quickly, and then be killed in my own house as Agamemnon was by the treachery of Aegisthus and his wife. Still, death is certain, and when a man's hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how fond they are of him. 'Mentor, answered Telemachus, 'do not let us talk about it any more. There is no chance of my father's ever coming back the gods have long since counselled his destruction. There is something else, however, about which I should like to ask Nestor, for he knows much more than any one else does. They say he has reigned for three generations so that it is like talking to an immortal. Tell me, therefore, Nestor, and tell me true how did Agamemnon come to die in that way? What was Menelaus doing? And how came false Aegisthus to kill so far better a man than himself? Was Menelaus away from Achaean Argos, voyaging elsewhither among mankind, that Aegisthus took heart and killed Agamemnon? 'I will tell you truly, answered Nestor, 'and indeed you have yourself divined how it all happened. If Menelaus when he got back from Troy had found Aegisthus still alive in his house, there would have been no barrow heaped up for him, not even when he was dead, but he would have been thrown outside the city to dogs and vultures, and not a woman would have mourned him, for he had done a deed of great wickedness but we were over there, fighting hard at Troy, and Aegisthus, who was taking his ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra with incessant flattery. 'At first she would have nothing to do with his wicked scheme, for she was of a good natural disposition moreover there was a bard with her, to whom Agamemnon had given strict orders on setting out for Troy, that he was to keep guard over his wife but when heaven had counselled her destruction, Aegisthus carried this bard off to a desert island and left him there for crows and seagulls to batten uponafter which she went willingly enough to the house of Aegisthus. Then he offered many burnt sacrifices to the gods, and decorated many temples with tapestries and gilding, for he had succeeded far beyond his expectations. 'Meanwhile Menelaus and I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms with one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens, Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of Menelaus' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his hand, and Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites. Presently, when he too could put to sea again, and had sailed on as far as the Malean heads, Jove counselled evil against him and made it blow hard till the waves ran mountains high. Here he divided his fleet and took the one half towards Crete where the Cydonians dwell round about the waters of the river Iardanus. There is a high headland hereabouts stretching out into the sea from a place called Gortyn, and all along this part of the coast as far as Phaestus the sea runs high when there is a south wind blowing, but after Phaestus the coast is more protected, for a small headland can make a great shelter. Here this part of the fleet was driven on to the rocks and wrecked but the crews just managed to save themselves. As for the other five ships, they were taken by winds and seas to Egypt, where Menelaus gathered much gold and substance among people of an alien speech. Meanwhile Aegisthus here at home plotted his evil deed. For seven years after he had killed Agamemnon he ruled in Mycene, and the people were obedient under him, but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens to be his bane, and killed the murderer of his father. Then he celebrated the funeral rites of his mother and of false Aegisthus by a banquet to the people of Argos, and on that very day Menelaus came home, with as much treasure as his ships could carry. 'Take my advice then, and do not go travelling about for long so far from home, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been on a fool's errand. Still, I should advise you by all means to go and visit Menelaus, who has lately come off a voyage among such distant peoples as no man could ever hope to get back from, when the winds had once carried him so far out of his reckoning even birds cannot fly the distance in a twelvemonth, so vast and terrible are the seas that they must cross. Go to him, therefore, by sea, and take your own men with you or if you would rather travel by land you can have a chariot, you can have horses, and here are my sons who can escort you to Lacedaemon where Menelaus lives. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person. As he spoke the sun set and it came on dark, whereon Minerva said, 'Sir, all that you have said is well now, however, order the tongues of the victims to be cut, and mix wine that we may make drinkofferings to Neptune, and the other immortals, and then go to bed, for it is bed time. People should go away early and not keep late hours at a religious festival. Thus spoke the daughter of Jove, and they obeyed her saying. Men servants poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixingbowls with wine and water, and handed it round after giving every man his drink offering then they threw the tongues of the victims into the fire, and stood up to make their drink offerings. When they had made their offerings and had drunk each as much as he was minded, Minerva and Telemachus were for going on board their ship, but Nestor caught them up at once and stayed them. 'Heaven and the immortal gods, he exclaimed, 'forbid that you should leave my house to go on board of a ship. Do you think I am so poor and short of clothes, or that I have so few cloaks and as to be unable to find comfortable beds both for myself and for my guests? Let me tell you I have store both of rugs and cloaks, and shall not permit the son of my old friend Ulysses to camp down on the deck of a shipnot while I livenor yet will my sons after me, but they will keep open house as I have done. Then Minerva answered, 'Sir, you have spoken well, and it will be much better that Telemachus should do as you have said he, therefore, shall return with you and sleep at your house, but I must go back to give orders to my crew, and keep them in good heart. I am the only older person among them the rest are all young men of Telemachus' own age, who have taken this voyage out of friendship so I must return to the ship and sleep there. Moreover tomorrow I must go to the Cauconians where I have a large sum of money long owing to me. As for Telemachus, now that he is your guest, send him to Lacedaemon in a chariot, and let one of your sons go with him. Be pleased to also provide him with your best and fleetest horses. When she had thus spoken, she flew away in the form of an eagle, and all marvelled as they beheld it. Nestor was astonished, and took Telemachus by the hand. 'My friend, said he, 'I see that you are going to be a great hero some day, since the gods wait upon you thus while you are still so young. This can have been none other of those who dwell in heaven than Jove's redoubtable daughter, the Tritoborn, who shewed such favour towards your brave father among the Argives. Holy queen, he continued, 'vouchsafe to send down thy grace upon myself, my good wife, and my children. In return, I will offer you in sacrifice a broadbrowed heifer of a year old, unbroken, and never yet brought by man under the yoke. I will gild her horns, and will offer her up to you in sacrifice. Thus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer. He then led the way to his own house, followed by his sons and sons in law. When they had got there and had taken their places on the benches and seats, he mixed them a bowl of sweet wine that was eleven years old when the housekeeper took the lid off the jar that held it. As he mixed the wine, he prayed much and made drink offerings to Minerva, daughter of Aegisbearing Jove. Then, when they had made their drink offerings and had drunk each as much as he was minded, the others went home to bed each in his own abode but Nestor put Telemachus to sleep in the room that was over the gateway along with Pisistratus, who was the only unmarried son now left him. As for himself, he slept in an inner room of the house, with the queen his wife by his side. Now when the child of morning rosyfingered Dawn appeared, Nestor left his couch and took his seat on the benches of white and polished marble that stood in front of his house. Here aforetime sat Neleus, peer of gods in counsel, but he was now dead, and had gone to the house of Hades so Nestor sat in his seat sceptre in hand, as guardian of the public weal. His sons as they left their rooms gathered round him, Echephron, Stratius, Perseus, Aretus, and Thrasymedes the sixth son was Pisistratus, and when Telemachus joined them they made him sit with them. Nestor then addressed them. 'My sons, said he, 'make haste to do as I shall bid you. I wish first and foremost to propitiate the great goddess Minerva, who manifested herself visibly to me during yesterday's festivities. Go, then, one or other of you to the plain, tell the stockman to look me out a heifer, and come on here with it at once. Another must go to Telemachus' ship, and invite all the crew, leaving two men only in charge of the vessel. Some one else will run and fetch Laerceus the goldsmith to gild the horns of the heifer. The rest, stay all of you where you are tell the maids in the house to prepare an excellent dinner, and to fetch seats, and logs of wood for a burnt offering. Tell them also to bring me some clear spring water. On this they hurried off on their several errands. The heifer was brought in from the plain, and Telemachus's crew came from the ship the goldsmith brought the anvil, hammer, and tongs, with which he worked his gold, and Minerva herself came to accept the sacrifice. Nestor gave out the gold, and the smith gilded the horns of the heifer that the goddess might have pleasure in their beauty. Then Stratius and Echephron brought her in by the horns Aretus fetched water from the house in a ewer that had a flower pattern on it, and in his other hand he held a basket of barley meal sturdy Thrasymedes stood by with a sharp axe, ready to strike the heifer, while Perseus held a bucket. Then Nestor began with washing his hands and sprinkling the barley meal, and he offered many a prayer to Minerva as he threw a lock from the heifer's head upon the fire. When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley meal Thrasymedes dealt his blow, and brought the heifer down with a stroke that cut through the tendons at the base of her neck, whereon the daughters and daughters in law of Nestor, and his venerable wife Eurydice (she was eldest daughter to Clymenus) screamed with delight. Then they lifted the heifer's head from off the ground, and Pisistratus cut her throat. When she had done bleeding and was quite dead, they cut her up. They cut out the thigh bones all in due course, wrapped them round in two layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on the top of them then Nestor laid them upon the wood fire and poured wine over them, while the young men stood near him with fivepronged spits in their hands. When the thighs were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces on the spits and toasted them over the fire. Meanwhile lovely Polycaste, Nestor's youngest daughter, washed Telemachus. When she had washed him and anointed him with oil, she brought him a fair mantle and shirt, and he looked like a god as he came from the bath and took his seat by the side of Nestor. When the outer meats were done they drew them off the spits and sat down to dinner where they were waited upon by some worthy henchmen, who kept pouring them out their wine in cups of gold. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Nestor said, 'Sons, put Telemachus's horses to the chariot that he may start at once. Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said, and yoked the fleet horses to the chariot. The housekeeper packed them up a provision of bread, wine, and sweet meats fit for the sons of princes. Then Telemachus got into the chariot, while Pisistratus gathered up the reins and took his seat beside him. He lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loth into the open country, leaving the high citadel of Pylos behind them. All that day did they travel, swaying the yoke upon their necks till the sun went down and darkness was over all the land. Then they reached Pherae where Diocles lived, who was son to Ortilochus and grandson to Alpheus. Here they passed the night and Diocles entertained them hospitably. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse. Pisistratus lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loth presently they came to the corn lands of the open country, and in the course of time completed their journey, so well did their steeds take them. Now when the sun had set and darkness was over the land, THE VISIT TO KING MENELAUS, WHO TELLS HIS STORYMEANWHILE THE SUITORS IN ITHACA PLOT AGAINST TELEMACHUS. they reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove straight to the abode of Menelaus and found him in his own house, feasting with his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his son, and also of his daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that valiant warrior Achilles. He had given his consent and promised her to him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the marriage about so he was sending her with chariots and horses to the city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles' son was reigning. For his only son he had found a bride from Sparta, the daughter of Alector. This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven vouchsafed Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who was fair as golden Venus herself. So the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making merry in his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them when the man struck up with his tune. Telemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate, whereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went close up to him and said, 'Menelaus, there are some strangers come here, two men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we take their horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can? Menelaus was very angry and said, 'Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper you and I have staid often enough at other people's houses before we got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in peace henceforward. So Eteoneus bustled back and bade the other servants come with him. They took their sweating steeds from under the yoke, made them fast to the mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led the way into the house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished when they saw it, for its splendour was as that of the sun and moon then, when they had admired everything to their heart's content, they went into the bath room and washed themselves. When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they brought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats by the side of Menelaus. A maidservant brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, while the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold by their side. Menelaus then greeted them saying, 'Fall to, and welcome when you have done supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such men as you cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of sceptrebearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you are. On this he handed them a piece of fat roast loin, which had been set near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head so close that no one might hear, 'Look, Pisistratus, man after my own heart, see the gleam of bronze and goldof amber, ivory, and silver. Everything is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of Olympian Jove. I am lost in admiration. Menelaus overheard him and said, 'No one, my sons, can hold his own with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal but among mortal menwell, there may be another who has as much wealth as I have, or there may not but at all events I have travelled much and have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I could get home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Egyptians I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I was travelling and getting great riches among these people, my brother was secretly and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth. Whoever your parents may be they must have told you about all this, and of my heavy loss in the ruin of a stately mansion fully and magnificently furnished. Would that I had only a third of what I now have so that I had stayed at home, and all those were living who perished on the plain of Troy, far from Argos. I often grieve, as I sit here in my house, for one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for sorrow, but presently I leave off again, for crying is cold comfort and one soon tires of it. Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so for one man more than for them all. I cannot even think of him without loathing both food and sleep, so miserable does he make me, for no one of all the Achaeans worked so hard or risked so much as he did. He took nothing by it, and has left a legacy of sorrow to myself, for he has been gone a long time, and we know not whether he is alive or dead. His old father, his longsuffering wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus, whom he left behind him an infant in arms, are plunged in grief on his account. Thus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he bethought him of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard him thus mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with both hands. When Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him choose his own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find what it was all about. While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought her a seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the silver workbox which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her. Polybus lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world he gave Menelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two tripods, and ten talents of gold besides all this, his wife gave Helen some beautiful presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a silver work box that ran on wheels, with a gold band round the top of it. Phylo now placed this by her side, full of fine spun yarn, and a distaff charged with violet coloured wool was laid upon the top of it. Then Helen took her seat, put her feet upon the footstool, and began to question her husband. 'Do we know, Menelaus, said she, 'the names of these strangers who have come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?but I cannot help saying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or woman so like somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know what to think) as this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left as a baby behind him, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in your hearts, on account of my most shameless self. 'My dear wife, replied Menelaus, 'I see the likeness just as you do. His hands and feet are just like Ulysses so is his hair, with the shape of his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I was talking about Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle. Then Pisistratus said, 'Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and is ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one whose conversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My father, Nestor, sent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know whether you could give him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always trouble at home when his father has gone away leaving him without supporters and this is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father is absent, and there is no one among his own people to stand by him. 'Bless my heart, replied Menelaus, 'then I am receiving a visit from the son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for my sake. I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked distinction when heaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the seas. I should have founded a city for him in Argos, and built him a house. I should have made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son, and all his people, and should have sacked for them some one of the neighbouring cities that are subject to me. We should thus have seen one another continually, and nothing but death could have interrupted so close and happy an intercourse. I suppose, however, that heaven grudged us such great good fortune, for it has prevented the poor fellow from ever getting home at all. Thus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept, Telemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom the son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus, 'Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it be possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I am getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the forenoon I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy he was by no means the worst man there you are sure to have known himhis name was Antilochus I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant. 'Your discretion, my friend, answered Menelaus, 'is beyond your years. It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a man is son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and offspringand it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days, giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who are both well disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore to all this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be poured over our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully in the morning. On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them. Then Jove's daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She drugged the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour. Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest of the day, not even though his father and mother both of them drop down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all sorts of herbs, some good to put into the mixing bowl and others poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon. When Helen had put this drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round, she said 'Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of honourable men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil, and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will, and listen while I tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name every single one of the exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did when he was before Troy, and you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties. He covered himself with wounds and bruises, dressed himself all in rags, and entered the enemy's city looking like a menial or a beggar, and quite different from what he did when he was among his own people. In this disguise he entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone recognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for me. When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the Trojans till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships, he told me all that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I was glad, for my heart was beginning to yearn after my home, and I was unhappy about the wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there, away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is indeed by no means deficient either in person or understanding. Then Menelaus said, 'All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes, but I have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too, and what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and destruction upon the Trojans. At that moment you came up to us some god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our hiding place and pat it you called our chiefs each by his own name, and mimicked all our wivesDiomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats inside heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our minds whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all except Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped his two brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was this that saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took you away again. 'How sad, exclaimed Telemachus, 'that all this was of no avail to save him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to send us all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep. On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to which a manservant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by his side. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said 'And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to Lacedaemon? Are you on public, or private business? Tell me all about it. 'I have come, sir, replied Telemachus, 'to see if you can tell me anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home my fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your knees if haply you may tell me about my father's melancholy end, whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service either by word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all. Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. 'So, he exclaimed, 'these cowards would usurp a brave man's bed? A hind might as well lay her new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in the forest or in some grassy dell the lion when he comes back to his lair will make short work with the pair of themand so will Ulysses with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is still the man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Achaeans cheered himif he is still such and were to come near these suitors, they would have a short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your questions, however, I will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but will tell you without concealment all that the old man of the sea told me. 'I was trying to come on here, but the gods detained me in Egypt, for my hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are very strict about having their dues. Now off Egypt, about as far as a ship can sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an island called Pharosit has a good harbour from which vessels can get out into open sea when they have taken in waterand here the gods becalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to help me forward. We should have run clean out of provisions and my men would have starved, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved me in the person of Idothea, daughter to Proteus, the old man of the sea, for she had taken a great fancy to me. 'She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the men used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the hope of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger. 'Stranger,' said she, 'it seems to me that you like starving in this wayat any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by inches.' ''Let me tell you,' said I, 'whichever of the goddesses you may happen to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have offended the gods that live in heaven. Tell me, therefore, for the gods know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me in this way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my home.' ''Stranger,' replied she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. There is an old immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name is Proteus. He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father he is Neptune's head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom of the sea. If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you about your voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to sail the sea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you so will, all that has been going on at your house both good and bad, while you have been away on your long and dangerous journey.' ''Can you show me,' said I, 'some stratagem by means of which I may catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out? For a god is not easily caughtnot by a mortal man.' ''Stranger,' said she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. About the time when the sun shall have reached mid heaven, the old man of the sea comes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs the water over his head. As soon as he has come up he lies down, and goes to sleep in a great sea cave, where the sealsHalosydne's chickens as they call themcome up also from the grey sea, and go to sleep in shoals all round him and a very strong and fishlike smell do they bring with them.  Early tomorrow morning I will take you to this place and will lay you in ambush. Pick out, therefore, the three best men you have in your fleet, and I will tell you all the tricks that the old man will play you. ''First he will look over all his seals, and count them then, when he has seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep among them, as a shepherd among his sheep. The moment you see that he is asleep seize him put forth all your strength and hold him fast, for he will do his very utmost to get away from you. He will turn himself into every kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become also both fire and water but you must hold him fast and grip him tighter and tighter, till he begins to talk to you and comes back to what he was when you saw him go to sleep then you may slacken your hold and let him go and you can ask him which of the gods it is that is angry with you, and what you must do to reach your home over the seas.' 'Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the place where my ships were ranged upon the shore and my heart was clouded with care as I went along. When I reached my ship we got supper ready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach. 'When the child of morning rosyfingered Dawn appeared, I took the three men on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went along by the seaside, praying heartily to heaven. Meanwhile the goddess fetched me up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all of them just skinned, for she meant playing a trick upon her father. Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most distressingwho would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under each man's nostrils, which was so fragrant that it killed the smell of the seals. 'We waited the whole morning and made the best of it, watching the seals come up in hundreds to bask upon the sea shore, till at noon the old man of the sea came up too, and when he had found his fat seals he went over them and counted them. We were among the first he counted, and he never suspected any guile, but laid himself down to sleep as soon as he had done counting. Then we rushed upon him with a shout and seized him on which he began at once with his old tricks, and changed himself first into a lion with a great mane then all of a sudden he became a dragon, a leopard, a wild boar the next moment he was running water, and then again directly he was a tree, but we stuck to him and never lost hold, till at last the cunning old creature became distressed, and said, 'Which of the gods was it, Son of Atreus, that hatched this plot with you for snaring me and seizing me against my will? What do you want?' ''You know that yourself, old man,' I answered, 'you will gain nothing by trying to put me off. It is because I have been kept so long in this island, and see no sign of my being able to get away. I am losing all heart tell me, then, for you gods know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my home?' 'Then,' he said, 'if you would finish your voyage and get home quickly, you must offer sacrifices to Jove and to the rest of the gods before embarking for it is decreed that you shall not get back to your friends, and to your own house, till you have returned to the heavenfed stream of Egypt, and offered holy hecatombs to the immortal gods that reign in heaven. When you have done this they will let you finish your voyage.' 'I was broken hearted when I heard that I must go back all that long and terrible voyage to Egypt nevertheless, I answered, 'I will do all, old man, that you have laid upon me but now tell me, and tell me true, whether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us when we set sail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one of them came to a bad end either on board his own ship or among his friends when the days of his fighting were done.' ''Son of Atreus,' he answered, 'why ask me? You had better not know what I can tell you, for your eyes will surely fill when you have heard my story. Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone, but many still remain, and only two of the chief men among the Achaeans perished during their return home. As for what happened on the field of battleyou were there yourself. A third Achaean leader is still at sea, alive, but hindered from returning. Ajax was wrecked, for Neptune drove him on to the great rocks of Gyrae nevertheless, he let him get safe out of the water, and in spite of all Minerva's hatred he would have escaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting. He said the gods could not drown him even though they had tried to do so, and when Neptune heard this large talk, he seized his trident in his two brawny hands, and split the rock of Gyrae in two pieces. The base remained where it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting fell headlong into the sea and carried Ajax with it so he drank salt water and was drowned. ''Your brother and his ships escaped, for Juno protected him, but when he was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, he was caught by a heavy gale which carried him out to sea again sorely against his will, and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell, but where Aegisthus was then living. By and by, however, it seemed as though he was to return safely after all, for the gods backed the wind into its old quarter and they reached home whereon Agamemnon kissed his native soil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in his own country. ''Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch, and to whom he had promised two talents of gold. This man had been looking out for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give him the slip and prepare war when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by, he went and told Aegisthus, who at once began to lay a plot for him. He picked twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them in ambuscade on one side the cloister, while on the opposite side he prepared a banquet. Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon, and invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play. He got him there, all unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and killed him when the banquet was over as though he were butchering an ox in the shambles not one of Agamemnon's followers was left alive, nor yet one of Aegisthus', but they were all killed there in the cloisters.' 'Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him. I sat down upon the sands and wept I felt as though I could no longer bear to live nor look upon the light of the sun. Presently, when I had had my fill of weeping and writhing upon the ground, the old man of the sea said, 'Son of Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying so bitterly it can do no manner of good find your way home as fast as ever you can, for Aegisthus may be still alive, and even though Orestes has been beforehand with you in killing him, you may yet come in for his funeral.' 'On this I took comfort in spite of all my sorrow, and said, 'I know, then, about these two tell me, therefore, about the third man of whom you spoke is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home? or is he dead? Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.' ''The third man,' he answered, 'is Ulysses who dwells in Ithaca. I can see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Calypso, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for he has no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. As for your own end, Menelaus, you shall not die in Argos, but the gods will take you to the Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world. There fairhaired Rhadamanthus reigns, and men lead an easier life than any where else in the world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail, nor snow, but Oceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly from the sea, and gives fresh life to all men. This will happen to you because you have married Helen, and are Jove's soninlaw.' 'As he spoke he dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the ships with my companions, and my heart was clouded with care as I went along. When we reached the ships we got supper ready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn appeared, we drew our ships into the water, and put our masts and sails within them then we went on board ourselves, took our seats on the benches, and smote the grey sea with our oars. I again stationed my ships in the heavenfed stream of Egypt, and offered hecatombs that were full and sufficient. When I had thus appeased heaven's anger, I raised a barrow to the memory of Agamemnon that his name might live for ever, after which I had a quick passage home, for the gods sent me a fair wind. 'And now for yourselfstay here some ten or twelve days longer, and I will then speed you on your way. I will make you a noble present of a chariot and three horses. I will also give you a beautiful chalice that so long as you live you may think of me whenever you make a drinkoffering to the immortal gods. 'Son of Atreus, replied Telemachus, 'do not press me to stay longer I should be contented to remain with you for another twelve months I find your conversation so delightful that I should never once wish myself at home with my parents but my crew whom I have left at Pylos are already impatient, and you are detaining me from them. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, I had rather that it should be a piece of plate. I will take no horses back with me to Ithaca, but will leave them to adorn your own stables, for you have much flat ground in your kingdom where lotus thrives, as also meadowsweet and wheat and barley, and oats with their white and spreading ears whereas in Ithaca we have neither open fields nor racecourses, and the country is more fit for goats than horses, and I like it the better for that.  None of our islands have much level ground, suitable for horses, and Ithaca least of all. Menelaus smiled and took Telemachus's hand within his own. 'What you say, said he, 'shows that you come of good family. I both can, and will, make this exchange for you, by giving you the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing bowl by Vulcan's own hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold. Phaedimus, king of the Sidonians, gave it me in the course of a visit which I paid him when I returned thither on my homeward journey. I will make you a present of it. Thus did they converse and guests kept coming to the king's house. They brought sheep and wine, while their wives had put up bread for them to take with them so they were busy cooking their dinners in the courts. Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs or aiming with spears at a mark on the levelled ground in front of Ulysses' house, and were behaving with all their old insolence. Antinous and Eurymachus, who were their ringleaders and much the foremost among them all, were sitting together when Noemon son of Phronius came up and said to Antinous, 'Have we any idea, Antinous, on what day Telemachus returns from Pylos? He has a ship of mine, and I want it, to cross over to Elis I have twelve brood mares there with yearling mule foals by their side not yet broken in, and I want to bring one of them over here and break him. They were astounded when they heard this, for they had made sure that Telemachus had not gone to the city of Neleus. They thought he was only away somewhere on the farms, and was with the sheep, or with the swineherd so Antinous said, 'When did he go? Tell me truly, and what young men did he take with him? Were they freemen or his own bondsmenfor he might manage that too? Tell me also, did you let him have the ship of your own free will because he asked you, or did he take it without your leave? 'I lent it him, answered Noemon, 'what else could I do when a man of his position said he was in a difficulty, and asked me to oblige him? I could not possibly refuse. As for those who went with him they were the best young men we have, and I saw Mentor go on board as captainor some god who was exactly like him. I cannot understand it, for I saw Mentor here myself yesterday morning, and yet he was then setting out for Pylos. Noemon then went back to his father's house, but Antinous and Eurymachus were very angry. They told the others to leave off playing, and to come and sit down along with themselves. When they came, Antinous son of Eupeithes spoke in anger. His heart was black with rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he said 'Good heavens, this voyage of Telemachus is a very serious matter we had made sure that it would come to nothing, but the young fellow has got away in spite of us, and with a picked crew too. He will be giving us trouble presently may Jove take him before he is full grown. Find me a ship, therefore, with a crew of twenty men, and I will lie in wait for him in the straits between Ithaca and Samos he will then rue the day that he set out to try and get news of his father. Thus did he speak, and the others applauded his saying they then all of them went inside the buildings. It was not long ere Penelope came to know what the suitors were plotting for a man servant, Medon, overheard them from outside the outer court as they were laying their schemes within, and went to tell his mistress. As he crossed the threshold of her room Penelope said 'Medon, what have the suitors sent you here for? Is it to tell the maids to leave their master's business and cook dinner for them? I wish they may neither woo nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere else, but let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of my son's estate. Did not your fathers tell you when you were children, how good Ulysses had been to themnever doing anything highhanded, nor speaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did an unjust thing by anybodywhich shows what bad hearts you have, and that there is no such thing as gratitude left in this world. Then Medon said, 'I wish, Madam, that this were all but they are plotting something much more dreadful nowmay heaven frustrate their design. They are going to try and murder Telemachus as he is coming home from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where he has been to get news of his father. Then Penelope's heart sank within her, and for a long time she was speechless her eyes filled with tears, and she could find no utterance. At last, however, she said, 'Why did my son leave me? What business had he to go sailing off in ships that make long voyages over the ocean like seahorses? Does he want to die without leaving any one behind him to keep up his name? 'I do not know, answered Medon, 'whether some god set him on to it, or whether he went on his own impulse to see if he could find out if his father was dead, or alive and on his way home. Then he went downstairs again, leaving Penelope in an agony of grief. There were plenty of seats in the house, but she had no heart for sitting on any one of them she could only fling herself on the floor of her own room and cry whereon all the maids in the house, both old and young, gathered round her and began to cry too, till at last in a transport of sorrow she exclaimed, 'My dears, heaven has been pleased to try me with more affliction than any other woman of my age and country. First I lost my brave and lionhearted husband, who had every good quality under heaven, and whose name was great over all Hellas and middle Argos, and now my darling son is at the mercy of the winds and waves, without my having heard one word about his leaving home. You hussies, there was not one of you would so much as think of giving me a call out of my bed, though you all of you very well knew when he was starting. If I had known he meant taking this voyage, he would have had to give it up, no matter how much he was bent upon it, or leave me a corpse behind himone or other. Now, however, go some of you and call old Dolius, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and who is my gardener. Bid him go at once and tell everything to Laertes, who may be able to hit on some plan for enlisting public sympathy on our side, as against those who are trying to exterminate his own race and that of Ulysses. Then the dear old nurse Euryclea said, 'You may kill me, Madam, or let me live on in your house, whichever you please, but I will tell you the real truth. I knew all about it, and gave him everything he wanted in the way of bread and wine, but he made me take my solemn oath that I would not tell you anything for some ten or twelve days, unless you asked or happened to hear of his having gone, for he did not want you to spoil your beauty by crying. And now, Madam, wash your face, change your dress, and go upstairs with your maids to offer prayers to Minerva, daughter of Aegisbearing Jove, for she can save him even though he be in the jaws of death. Do not trouble Laertes he has trouble enough already. Besides, I cannot think that the gods hate the race of the son of Arceisius so much, but there will be a son left to come up after him, and inherit both the house and the fair fields that lie far all round it. With these words she made her mistress leave off crying, and dried the tears from her eyes. Penelope washed her face, changed her dress, and went upstairs with her maids. She then put some bruised barley into a basket and began praying to Minerva. 'Hear me, she cried, 'Daughter of Aegisbearing Jove, unweariable. If ever Ulysses while he was here burned you fat thigh bones of sheep or heifer, bear it in mind now as in my favour, and save my darling son from the villainy of the suitors. She cried aloud as she spoke, and the goddess heard her prayer meanwhile the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloister, and one of them said 'The queen is preparing for her marriage with one or other of us. Little does she dream that her son has now been doomed to die. This was what they said, but they did not know what was going to happen. Then Antinous said, 'Comrades, let there be no loud talking, lest some of it get carried inside. Let us be up and do that in silence, about which we are all of a mind. He then chose twenty men, and they went down to their ship and to the sea side they drew the vessel into the water and got her mast and sails inside her they bound the oars to the tholepins with twisted thongs of leather, all in due course, and spread the white sails aloft, while their fine servants brought them their armour. Then they made the ship fast a little way out, came on shore again, got their suppers, and waited till night should fall. But Penelope lay in her own room upstairs unable to eat or drink, and wondering whether her brave son would escape, or be overpowered by the wicked suitors. Like a lioness caught in the toils with huntsmen hemming her in on every side she thought and thought till she sank into a slumber, and lay on her bed bereft of thought and motion. Then Minerva bethought her of another matter, and made a vision in the likeness of Penelope's sister Iphthime daughter of Icarius who had married Eumelus and lived in Pherae. She told the vision to go to the house of Ulysses, and to make Penelope leave off crying, so it came into her room by the hole through which the thong went for pulling the door to, and hovered over her head saying, 'You are asleep, Penelope the gods who live at ease will not suffer you to weep and be so sad. Your son has done them no wrong, so he will yet come back to you. Penelope, who was sleeping sweetly at the gates of dreamland, answered, 'Sister, why have you come here? You do not come very often, but I suppose that is because you live such a long way off. Am I, then, to leave off crying and refrain from all the sad thoughts that torture me? I, who have lost my brave and lionhearted husband, who had every good quality under heaven, and whose name was great over all Hellas and middle Argos and now my darling son has gone off on board of a shipa foolish fellow who has never been used to roughing it, nor to going about among gatherings of men. I am even more anxious about him than about my husband I am all in a tremble when I think of him, lest something should happen to him, either from the people among whom he has gone, or by sea, for he has many enemies who are plotting against him, and are bent on killing him before he can return home. Then the vision said, 'Take heart, and be not so much dismayed. There is one gone with him whom many a man would be glad enough to have stand by his side, I mean Minerva it is she who has compassion upon you, and who has sent me to bear you this message. 'Then, said Penelope, 'if you are a god or have been sent here by divine commission, tell me also about that other unhappy oneis he still alive, or is he already dead and in the house of Hades? And the vision said, 'I shall not tell you for certain whether he is alive or dead, and there is no use in idle conversation. Then it vanished through the thonghole of the door and was dissipated into thin air but Penelope rose from her sleep refreshed and comforted, so vivid had been her dream. Meantime the suitors went on board and sailed their ways over the sea, intent on murdering Telemachus. Now there is a rocky islet called Asteris, of no great size, in mid channel between Ithaca and Samos, and there is a harbour on either side of it where a ship can lie. Here then the Achaeans placed themselves in ambush. CALYPSOULYSSES REACHES SCHERIA ON A RAFT. And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonusharbinger of light alike to mortals and immortalsthe gods met in council and with them, Jove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva began to tell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied him away there in the house of the nymph Calypso. 'Father Jove, said she, 'and all you other gods that live in everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and welldisposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. I hope they will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not one of his subjects but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled them as though he were their father. There he is, lying in great pain in an island where dwells the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go and he cannot get back to his own country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to murder his only son Telemachus, who is coming home from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where he has been to see if he can get news of his father. 'What, my dear, are you talking about? replied her father, 'did you not send him there yourself, because you thought it would help Ulysses to get home and punish the suitors? Besides, you are perfectly able to protect Telemachus, and to see him safely home again, while the suitors have to come hurryskurrying back without having killed him. When he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, 'Mercury, you are our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor Ulysses is to return home. He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to reach fertile Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of kin to the gods, and will honour him as though he were one of ourselves. They will send him in a ship to his own country, and will give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought back from Troy, if he had had all his prize money and had got home without disaster. This is how we have settled that he shall return to his country and his friends. Thus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as he was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with which he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the wand with which he seals men's eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria then he swooped down through the firmament till he reached the level of the sea, whose waves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray. He flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last he got to the island which was his journey's end, he left the sea and went on by land till he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso lived. He found her at home. There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and one could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning cedar and sandal wood. As for herself, she was busy at her loom, shooting her golden shuttle through the warp and singing beautifully. Round her cave there was a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees, wherein all kinds of great birds had built their nestsowls, hawks, and chattering seacrows that occupy their business in the waters. A vine loaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of the cave there were also four running rills of water in channels cut pretty close together, and turned hither and thither so as to irrigate the beds of violets and luscious herbage over which they flowed.  Even a god could not help being charmed with such a lovely spot, so Mercury stood still and looked at it but when he had admired it sufficiently he went inside the cave. Calypso knew him at oncefor the gods all know each other, no matter how far they live from one anotherbut Ulysses was not within he was on the seashore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow. Calypso gave Mercury a seat and said 'Why have you come to see me, Mercuryhonoured, and ever welcomefor you do not visit me often? Say what you want I will do it for you at once if I can, and if it can be done at all but come inside, and let me set refreshment before you. As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him and mixed him some red nectar, so Mercury ate and drank till he had had enough, and then said 'We are speaking god and goddess to one another, and you ask me why I have come here, and I will tell you truly as you would have me do. Jove sent me it was no doing of mine who could possibly want to come all this way over the sea where there are no cities full of people to offer me sacrifices or choice hecatombs? Nevertheless I had to come, for none of us other gods can cross Jove, nor transgress his orders. He says that you have here the most illstarred of all those who fought nine years before the city of King Priam and sailed home in the tenth year after having sacked it. On their way home they sinned against Minerva, who raised both wind and waves against them, so that all his brave companions perished, and he alone was carried hither by wind and tide. Jove says that you are to let this man go at once, for it is decreed that he shall not perish here, far from his own people, but shall return to his house and country and see his friends again. Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, 'You gods, she exclaimed, 'ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony. So when rosyfingered Dawn made love to Orion, you precious gods were all of you furious till Diana went and killed him in Ortygia. So again when Ceres fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to him in a thriceploughed fallow field, Jove came to hear of it before so very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now you are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found the poor creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Jove had struck his ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that all his crew were drowned, while he himself was driven by wind and waves on to my island. I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my heart on making him immortal, so that he should never grow old all his days still I cannot cross Jove, nor bring his counsels to nothing therefore, if he insists upon it, let the man go beyond the seas again but I cannot send him anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take him. Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all good faith, as will be likely to bring him safely to his own country. 'Then send him away, said Mercury, 'or Jove will be angry with you and punish you. On this he took his leave, and Calypso went out to look for Ulysses, for she had heard Jove's message. She found him sitting upon the beach with his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home sickness for he had got tired of Calypso, and though he was forced to sleep with her in the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so. As for the day time, he spent it on the rocks and on the sea shore, weeping, crying aloud for his despair, and always looking out upon the sea. Calypso then went close up to him said 'My poor fellow, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting your life out any longer. I am going to send you away of my own free will so go, cut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft with an upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea. I will put bread, wine, and water on board to save you from starving. I will also give you clothes, and will send you a fair wind to take you home, if the gods in heaven so will itfor they know more about these things, and can settle them better than I can. Ulysses shuddered as he heard her. 'Now goddess, he answered, 'there is something behind all this you cannot be really meaning to help me home when you bid me do such a dreadful thing as put to sea on a raft. Not even a well found ship with a fair wind could venture on such a distant voyage nothing that you can say or do shall make me go on board a raft unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no mischief. Calypso smiled at this and caressed him with her hand 'You know a great deal, said she, 'but you are quite wrong here. May heaven above and earth below be my witnesses, with the waters of the river Styxand this is the most solemn oath which a blessed god can takethat I mean you no sort of harm, and am only advising you to do exactly what I should do myself in your place. I am dealing with you quite straightforwardly my heart is not made of iron, and I am very sorry for you. When she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and Ulysses followed in her steps so the pair, goddess and man, went on and on till they came to Calypso's cave, where Ulysses took the seat that Mercury had just left. Calypso set meat and drink before him of the food that mortals eat but her maids brought ambrosia and nectar for herself, and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them. When they had satisfied themselves with meat and drink, Calypso spoke, saying 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home to your own land at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day yet I flatter myself that I am no whit less tall or welllooking than she is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in beauty with an immortal. 'Goddess, replied Ulysses, 'do not be angry with me about this. I am quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else. If some god wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and make the best of it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea already, so let this go with the rest. Presently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired into the inner part of the cave and went to bed. When the child of morning rosyfingered Dawn appeared, Ulysses put on his shirt and cloak, while the goddess wore a dress of a light gossamer fabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden girdle about her waist and a veil to cover her head. She at once set herself to think how she could speed Ulysses on his way. So she gave him a great bronze axe that suited his hands it was sharpened on both sides, and had a beautiful olivewood handle fitted firmly on to it. She also gave him a sharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of the island where the largest trees grewalder, poplar and pine, that reached the skyvery dry and well seasoned, so as to sail light for him in the water. Then, when she had shown him where the best trees grew, Calypso went home, leaving him to cut them, which he soon finished doing. He cut down twenty trees in all and adzed them smooth, squaring them by rule in good workmanlike fashion. Meanwhile Calypso came back with some augers, so he bored holes with them and fitted the timbers together with bolts and rivets. He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood. By and by Calypso brought him some linen to make the sails, and he made these too, excellently, making them fast with braces and sheets. Last of all, with the help of levers, he drew the raft down into the water. In four days he had completed the whole work, and on the fifth Calypso sent him from the island after washing him and giving him some clean clothes. She gave him a goat skin full of black wine, and another larger one of water she also gave him a wallet full of provisions, and found him in much good meat. Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm for him, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat and guided the raft skilfully by means of the rudder. He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on latesetting Bootes, and on the Bearwhich men also call the wain, and which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanusfor Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines of the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon. But King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight of Ulysses a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymi. He could see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged his head and muttered to himself, saying, 'Good heavens, so the gods have been changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away in Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it is decreed that he shall escape from the calamities that have befallen him. Still, he shall have plenty of hardship yet before he has done with it. Thereon he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident, stirred it round in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that blows till earth, sea, and sky were hidden in cloud, and night sprang forth out of the heavens. Winds from East, South, North, and West fell upon him all at the same time, and a tremendous sea got up, so that Ulysses' heart began to fail him. 'Alas, he said to himself in his dismay, 'what ever will become of me? I am afraid Calypso was right when she said I should have trouble by sea before I got back home. It is all coming true. How black is Jove making heaven with his clouds, and what a sea the winds are raising from every quarter at once. I am now safe to perish. Blest and thrice blest were those Danaans who fell before Troy in the cause of the sons of Atreus. Would that I had been killed on the day when the Trojans were pressing me so sorely about the dead body of Achilles, for then I should have had due burial and the Achaeans would have honoured my name but now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end. As he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the raft reeled again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let go the helm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a long time Ulysses was under water, and it was all he could do to rise to the surface again, for the clothes Calypso had given him weighed him down but at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter brine that was running down his face in streams. In spite of all this, however, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as fast as he could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to escape drowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road. It was as though the South, North, East, and West winds were all playing battledore and shuttlecock with it at once. When he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called Leucothea, saw him. She had formerly been a mere mortal, but had been since raised to the rank of a marine goddess. Seeing in what great distress Ulysses now was, she had compassion upon him, and, rising like a seagull from the waves, took her seat upon the raft. 'My poor good man, said she, 'why is Neptune so furiously angry with you? He is giving you a great deal of trouble, but for all his bluster he will not kill you. You seem to be a sensible person, do then as I bid you strip, leave your raft to drive before the wind, and swim to the Phaeacian coast where better luck awaits you. And here, take my veil and put it round your chest it is enchanted, and you can come to no harm so long as you wear it. As soon as you touch land take it off, throw it back as far as you can into the sea, and then go away again. With these words she took off her veil and gave it him. Then she dived down again like a seagull and vanished beneath the dark blue waters. But Ulysses did not know what to think. 'Alas, he said to himself in his dismay, 'this is only some one or other of the gods who is luring me to ruin by advising me to quit my raft. At any rate I will not do so at present, for the land where she said I should be quit of all troubles seemed to be still a good way off. I know what I will doI am sure it will be bestno matter what happens I will stick to the raft as long as her timbers hold together, but when the sea breaks her up I will swim for it I do not see how I can do any better than this. While he was thus in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it as if he were on horseback he then took off the clothes Calypso had given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into the seameaning to swim on shore. King Neptune watched him as he did so, and wagged his head, muttering to himself and saying, 'There now, swim up and down as you best can till you fall in with welltodo people. I do not think you will be able to say that I have let you off too lightly. On this he lashed his horses and drove to Aegae where his palace is. But Minerva resolved to help Ulysses, so she bound the ways of all the winds except one, and made them lie quite still but she roused a good stiff breeze from the North that should lay the waters till Ulysses reached the land of the Phaeacians where he would be safe. Thereon he floated about for two nights and two days in the water, with a heavy swell on the sea and death staring him in the face but when the third day broke, the wind fell and there was a dead calm without so much as a breath of air stirring. As he rose on the swell he looked eagerly ahead, and could see land quite near. Then, as children rejoice when their dear father begins to get better after having for a long time borne sore affliction sent him by some angry spirit, but the gods deliver him from evil, so was Ulysses thankful when he again saw land and trees, and swam on with all his strength that he might once more set foot upon dry ground. When, however, he got within earshot, he began to hear the surf thundering up against the rocks, for the swell still broke against them with a terrific roar. Everything was enveloped in spray there were no harbours where a ship might ride, nor shelter of any kind, but only headlands, lowlying rocks, and mountain tops. Ulysses' heart now began to fail him, and he said despairingly to himself, 'Alas, Jove has let me see land after swimming so far that I had given up all hope, but I can find no landing place, for the coast is rocky and surfbeaten, the rocks are smooth and rise sheer from the sea, with deep water close under them so that I cannot climb out for want of foot hold. I am afraid some great wave will lift me off my legs and dash me against the rocks as I leave the waterwhich would give me a sorry landing. If, on the other hand, I swim further in search of some shelving beach or harbour, a hurricane may carry me out to sea again sorely against my will, or heaven may send some great monster of the deep to attack me for Amphitrite breeds many such, and I know that Neptune is very angry with me. While he was thus in two minds a wave caught him and took him with such force against the rocks that he would have been smashed and torn to pieces if Minerva had not shown him what to do. He caught hold of the rock with both hands and clung to it groaning with pain till the wave retired, so he was saved that time but presently the wave came on again and carried him back with it far into the seatearing his hands as the suckers of a polypus are torn when some one plucks it from its bed, and the stones come up along with iteven so did the rocks tear the skin from his strong hands, and then the wave drew him deep down under the water. Here poor Ulysses would have certainly perished even in spite of his own destiny, if Minerva had not helped him to keep his wits about him. He swam seaward again, beyond reach of the surf that was beating against the land, and at the same time he kept looking towards the shore to see if he could find some haven, or a spit that should take the waves aslant. By and by, as he swam on, he came to the mouth of a river, and here he thought would be the best place, for there were no rocks, and it afforded shelter from the wind. He felt that there was a current, so he prayed inwardly and said 'Hear me, O King, whoever you may be, and save me from the anger of the seagod Neptune, for I approach you prayerfully. Any one who has lost his way has at all times a claim even upon the gods, wherefore in my distress I draw near to your stream, and cling to the knees of your riverhood. Have mercy upon me, O king, for I declare myself your suppliant. Then the god staid his stream and stilled the waves, making all calm before him, and bringing him safely into the mouth of the river. Here at last Ulysses' knees and strong hands failed him, for the sea had completely broken him. His body was all swollen, and his mouth and nostrils ran down like a river with seawater, so that he could neither breathe nor speak, and lay swooning from sheer exhaustion presently, when he had got his breath and came to himself again, he took off the scarf that Ino had given him and threw it back into the salt stream of the river, whereon Ino received it into her hands from the wave that bore it towards her. Then he left the river, laid himself down among the rushes, and kissed the bounteous earth. 'Alas, he cried to himself in his dismay, 'what ever will become of me, and how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through the long watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold and damp may make an end of mefor towards sunrise there will be a keen wind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb the hill side, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I may escape the cold and have a good night's rest, but some savage beast may take advantage of me and devour me. In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath two shoots of olive that grew from a single stockthe one an ungrafted sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however squally, could break through the cover they afforded, nor could the sun's rays pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely did they grow into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began to make himself a bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead leaves lying aboutenough to make a covering for two or three men even in hard winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he laid himself down and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one who lives alone in the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand as fireseed in the ashes to save himself from having to get a light elsewhere, even so did Ulysses cover himself up with leaves and Minerva shed a sweet sleep upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and made him lose all memories of his sorrows. THE MEETING BETWEEN NAUSICAA AND ULYSSES. So here Ulysses slept, overcome by sleep and toil but Minerva went off to the country and city of the Phaeaciansa people who used to live in the fair town of Hypereia, near the lawless Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes were stronger than they and plundered them, so their king Nausithous moved them thence and settled them in Scheria, far from all other people. He surrounded the city with a wall, built houses and temples, and divided the lands among his people but he was dead and gone to the house of Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were inspired of heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did Minerva hie in furtherance of the return of Ulysses. She went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which there slept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa, daughter to King Alcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near her, both very pretty, one on either side of the doorway, which was closed with well made folding doors. Minerva took the form of the famous sea captain Dymas's daughter, who was a bosom friend of Nausicaa and just her own age then, coming up to the girl's bedside like a breath of wind, she hovered over her head and said 'Nausicaa, what can your mother have been about, to have such a lazy daughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are going to be married almost immediately, and should not only be well dressed yourself, but should find good clothes for those who attend you. This is the way to get yourself a good name, and to make your father and mother proud of you. Suppose, then, that we make tomorrow a washing day, and start at daybreak. I will come and help you so that you may have everything ready as soon as possible, for all the best young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not going to remain a maid much longer. Ask your father, therefore, to have a waggon and mules ready for us at daybreak, to take the rugs, robes, and girdles, and you can ride, too, which will be much pleasanter for you than walking, for the washingcisterns are some way from the town. When she had said this Minerva went away to Olympus, which they say is the everlasting home of the gods. Here no wind beats roughly, and neither rain nor snow can fall but it abides in everlasting sunshine and in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed gods are illumined for ever and ever. This was the place to which the goddess went when she had given instructions to the girl. By and by morning came and woke Nausicaa, who began wondering about her dream she therefore went to the other end of the house to tell her father and mother all about it, and found them in their own room. Her mother was sitting by the fireside spinning her purple yarn with her maids around her, and she happened to catch her father just as he was going out to attend a meeting of the town council, which the Phaeacian aldermen had convened. She stopped him and said 'Papa dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I want to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You are the chief man here, so it is only right that you should have a clean shirt when you attend meetings of the council. Moreover, you have five sons at home, two of them married, while the other three are good looking bachelors you know they always like to have clean linen when they go to a dance, and I have been thinking about all this. She did not say a word about her own wedding, for she did not like to, but her father knew and said, 'You shall have the mules, my love, and whatever else you have a mind for. Be off with you, and the men shall get you a good strong waggon with a body to it that will hold all your clothes. On this he gave his orders to the servants, who got the waggon out, harnessed the mules, and put them to, while the girl brought the clothes down from the linen room and placed them on the waggon. Her mother prepared her a basket of provisions with all sorts of good things, and a goat skin full of wine the girl now got into the waggon, and her mother gave her also a golden cruse of oil, that she and her women might anoint themselves. Then she took the whip and reins and lashed the mules on, whereon they set off, and their hoofs clattered on the road. They pulled without flagging, and carried not only Nausicaa and her wash of clothes, but the maids also who were with her. When they reached the water side they went to the washing cisterns, through which there ran at all times enough pure water to wash any quantity of linen, no matter how dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules and turned them out to feed on the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the water side. They took the clothes out of the waggon, put them in the water, and vied with one another in treading them in the pits to get the dirt out. After they had washed them and got them quite clean, they laid them out by the sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach of shingle, and set about washing themselves and anointing themselves with olive oil. Then they got their dinner by the side of the stream, and waited for the sun to finish drying the clothes. When they had done dinner they threw off the veils that covered their heads and began to play at ball, while Nausicaa sang for them. As the huntress Diana goes forth upon the mountains of Taygetus or Erymanthus to hunt wild boars or deer, and the wood nymphs, daughters of Aegisbearing Jove, take their sport along with her (then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter stand a full head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest amid a whole bevy of beauties), even so did the girl outshine her handmaids. When it was time for them to start home, and they were folding the clothes and putting them into the waggon, Minerva began to consider how Ulysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to conduct him to the city of the Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one of the maids, which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they all shouted, and the noise they made woke Ulysses, who sat up in his bed of leaves and began to wonder what it might all be. 'Alas, said he to himself, 'what kind of people have I come amongst? Are they cruel, savage, and uncivilised, or hospitable and humane? I seem to hear the voices of young women, and they sound like those of the nymphs that haunt mountain tops, or springs of rivers and meadows of green grass. At any rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me try if I cannot manage to get a look at them. As he said this he crept from under his bush, and broke off a bough covered with thick leaves to hide his nakedness. He looked like some lion of the wilderness that stalks about exulting in his strength and defying both wind and rain his eyes glare as he prowls in quest of oxen, sheep, or deer, for he is famished, and will dare break even into a well fenced homestead, trying to get at the sheepeven such did Ulysses seem to the young women, as he drew near to them all naked as he was, for he was in great want. On seeing one so unkempt and so begrimed with salt water, the others scampered off along the spits that jutted out into the sea, but the daughter of Alcinous stood firm, for Minerva put courage into her heart and took away all fear from her. She stood right in front of Ulysses, and he doubted whether he should go up to her, throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a suppliant, or stay where he was and entreat her to give him some clothes and show him the way to the town. In the end he deemed it best to entreat her from a distance in case the girl should take offence at his coming near enough to clasp her knees, so he addressed her in honeyed and persuasive language. 'O queen, he said, 'I implore your aidbut tell me, are you a goddess or are you a mortal woman? If you are a goddess and dwell in heaven, I can only conjecture that you are Jove's daughter Diana, for your face and figure resemble none but hers if on the other hand you are a mortal and live on earth, thrice happy are your father and motherthrice happy, too, are your brothers and sisters how proud and delighted they must feel when they see so fair a scion as yourself going out to a dance most happy, however, of all will he be whose wedding gifts have been the richest, and who takes you to his own home. I never yet saw any one so beautiful, neither man nor woman, and am lost in admiration as I behold you. I can only compare you to a young palm tree which I saw when I was at Delos growing near the altar of Apollofor I was there, too, with much people after me, when I was on that journey which has been the source of all my troubles. Never yet did such a young plant shoot out of the ground as that was, and I admired and wondered at it exactly as I now admire and wonder at yourself. I dare not clasp your knees, but I am in great distress yesterday made the twentieth day that I had been tossing about upon the sea. The winds and waves have taken me all the way from the Ogygian island, and now fate has flung me upon this coast that I may endure still further suffering for I do not think that I have yet come to the end of it, but rather that heaven has still much evil in store for me. 'And now, O queen, have pity upon me, for you are the first person I have met, and I know no one else in this country. Show me the way to your town, and let me have anything that you may have brought hither to wrap your clothes in. May heaven grant you in all things your heart's desirehusband, house, and a happy, peaceful home for there is nothing better in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind in a house. It discomfits their enemies, makes the hearts of their friends glad, and they themselves know more about it than any one. To this Nausicaa answered, 'Stranger, you appear to be a sensible, welldisposed person. There is no accounting for luck Jove gives prosperity to rich and poor just as he chooses, so you must take what he has seen fit to send you, and make the best of it. Now, however, that you have come to this our country, you shall not want for clothes nor for anything else that a foreigner in distress may reasonably look for. I will show you the way to the town, and will tell you the name of our people we are called Phaeacians, and I am daughter to Alcinous, in whom the whole power of the state is vested. Then she called her maids and said, 'Stay where you are, you girls. Can you not see a man without running away from him? Do you take him for a robber or a murderer? Neither he nor any one else can come here to do us Phaeacians any harm, for we are dear to the gods, and live apart on a land's end that juts into the sounding sea, and have nothing to do with any other people. This is only some poor man who has lost his way, and we must be kind to him, for strangers and foreigners in distress are under Jove's protection, and will take what they can get and be thankful so, girls, give the poor fellow something to eat and drink, and wash him in the stream at some place that is sheltered from the wind. On this the maids left off running away and began calling one another back. They made Ulysses sit down in the shelter as Nausicaa had told them, and brought him a shirt and cloak. They also brought him the little golden cruse of oil, and told him to go and wash in the stream. But Ulysses said, 'Young women, please to stand a little on one side that I may wash the brine from my shoulders and anoint myself with oil, for it is long enough since my skin has had a drop of oil upon it. I cannot wash as long as you all keep standing there. I am ashamed to strip before a number of good looking young women. Then they stood on one side and went to tell the girl, while Ulysses washed himself in the stream and scrubbed the brine from his back and from his broad shoulders. When he had thoroughly washed himself, and had got the brine out of his hair, he anointed himself with oil, and put on the clothes which the girl had given him Minerva then made him look taller and stronger than before, she also made the hair grow thick on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms she glorified him about the head and shoulders as a skilful workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan and Minerva enriches a piece of silver plate by gilding itand his work is full of beauty. Then he went and sat down a little way off upon the beach, looking quite young and handsome, and the girl gazed on him with admiration then she said to her maids 'Hush, my dears, for I want to say something. I believe the gods who live in heaven have sent this man to the Phaeacians. When I first saw him I thought him plain, but now his appearance is like that of the gods who dwell in heaven. I should like my future husband to be just such another as he is, if he would only stay here and not want to go away. However, give him something to eat and drink. They did as they were told, and set food before Ulysses, who ate and drank ravenously, for it was long since he had had food of any kind. Meanwhile, Nausicaa bethought her of another matter. She got the linen folded and placed in the waggon, she then yoked the mules, and, as she took her seat, she called Ulysses 'Stranger, said she, 'rise and let us be going back to the town I will introduce you at the house of my excellent father, where I can tell you that you will meet all the best people among the Phaeacians. But be sure and do as I bid you, for you seem to be a sensible person. As long as we are going past the fields and farm lands, follow briskly behind the waggon along with the maids and I will lead the way myself. Presently, however, we shall come to the town, where you will find a high wall running all round it, and a good harbour on either side with a narrow entrance into the city, and the ships will be drawn up by the road side, for every one has a place where his own ship can lie. You will see the market place with a temple of Neptune in the middle of it, and paved with large stones bedded in the earth. Here people deal in ship's gear of all kinds, such as cables and sails, and here, too, are the places where oars are made, for the Phaeacians are not a nation of archers they know nothing about bows and arrows, but are a seafaring folk, and pride themselves on their masts, oars, and ships, with which they travel far over the sea. 'I am afraid of the gossip and scandal that may be set on foot against me later on for the people here are very illnatured, and some low fellow, if he met us, might say, 'Who is this finelooking stranger that is going about with Nausicaa? Where did she find him? I suppose she is going to marry him. Perhaps he is a vagabond sailor whom she has taken from some foreign vessel, for we have no neighbours or some god has at last come down from heaven in answer to her prayers, and she is going to live with him all the rest of her life. It would be a good thing if she would take herself off and find a husband somewhere else, for she will not look at one of the many excellent young Phaeacians who are in love with her.' This is the kind of disparaging remark that would be made about me, and I could not complain, for I should myself be scandalised at seeing any other girl do the like, and go about with men in spite of everybody, while her father and mother were still alive, and without having been married in the face of all the world. 'If, therefore, you want my father to give you an escort and to help you home, do as I bid you you will see a beautiful grove of poplars by the road side dedicated to Minerva it has a well in it and a meadow all round it. Here my father has a field of rich garden ground, about as far from the town as a man's voice will carry. Sit down there and wait for a while till the rest of us can get into the town and reach my father's house. Then, when you think we must have done this, come into the town and ask the way to the house of my father Alcinous. You will have no difficulty in finding it any child will point it out to you, for no one else in the whole town has anything like such a fine house as he has. When you have got past the gates and through the outer court, go right across the inner court till you come to my mother. You will find her sitting by the fire and spinning her purple wool by firelight. It is a fine sight to see her as she leans back against one of the bearingposts with her maids all ranged behind her. Close to her seat stands that of my father, on which he sits and topes like an immortal god. Never mind him, but go up to my mother, and lay your hands upon her knees if you would get home quickly. If you can gain her over, you may hope to see your own country again, no matter how distant it may be. So saying she lashed the mules with her whip and they left the river. The mules drew well, and their hoofs went up and down upon the road. She was careful not to go too fast for Ulysses and the maids who were following on foot along with the waggon, so she plied her whip with judgement. As the sun was going down they came to the sacred grove of Minerva, and there Ulysses sat down and prayed to the mighty daughter of Jove. 'Hear me, he cried, 'daughter of Aegisbearing Jove, unweariable, hear me now, for you gave no heed to my prayers when Neptune was wrecking me. Now, therefore, have pity upon me and grant that I may find friends and be hospitably received by the Phaeacians. Thus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer, but she would not show herself to him openly, for she was afraid of her uncle Neptune, who was still furious in his endeavors to prevent Ulysses from getting home. RECEPTION OF ULYSSES AT THE PALACE OF KING ALCINOUS. Thus, then, did Ulysses wait and pray but the girl drove on to the town. When she reached her father's house she drew up at the gateway, and her brotherscomely as the godsgathered round her, took the mules out of the waggon, and carried the clothes into the house, while she went to her own room, where an old servant, Eurymedusa of Apeira, lit the fire for her. This old woman had been brought by sea from Apeira, and had been chosen as a prize for Alcinous because he was king over the Phaeacians, and the people obeyed him as though he were a god. She had been nurse to Nausicaa, and had now lit the fire for her, and brought her supper for her into her own room. Presently Ulysses got up to go towards the town and Minerva shed a thick mist all round him to hide him in case any of the proud Phaeacians who met him should be rude to him, or ask him who he was. Then, as he was just entering the town, she came towards him in the likeness of a little girl carrying a pitcher. She stood right in front of him, and Ulysses said 'My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king Alcinous? I am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know one in your town and country. Then Minerva said, 'Yes, father stranger, I will show you the house you want, for Alcinous lives quite close to my own father. I will go before you and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and do not look at any man, nor ask him questions for the people here cannot abide strangers, and do not like men who come from some other place. They are a seafaring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of Neptune in ships that glide along like thought, or as a bird in the air. On this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps but not one of the Phaeacians could see him as he passed through the city in the midst of them for the great goddess Minerva in her good will towards him had hidden him in a thick cloud of darkness. He admired their harbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of the city, which, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking, and when they reached the king's house Minerva said 'This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show you. You will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do not be afraid go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely he is to carry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the queen. Her name is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her husband Alcinous. They both descend originally from Neptune, who was father to Nausithous by Periboea, a woman of great beauty. Periboea was the youngest daughter of Eurymedon, who at one time reigned over the giants, but he ruined his illfated people and lost his own life to boot. 'Neptune, however, lay with his daughter, and she had a son by him, the great Nausithous, who reigned over the Phaeacians. Nausithous had two sons Rhexenor and Alcinous Apollo killed the first of them while he was still a bridegroom and without male issue but he left a daughter Arete, whom Alcinous married, and honours as no other woman is honoured of all those that keep house along with their husbands. 'Thus she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her children, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look upon her as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city, for she is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart, and when any women are friends of hers, she will help their husbands also to settle their disputes. If you can gain her good will, you may have every hope of seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to your home and country. Then Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. She went to Marathon and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered the abode of Erechtheus but Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous, and he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the threshold of bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that of the sun or moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end to end, and the cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and hung on pillars of silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while the lintel was silver and the hook of the door was of gold. On either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan, with his consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch over the palace of king Alcinous so they were immortal and could never grow old. Seats were ranged all along the wall, here and there from one end to the other, with coverings of fine woven work which the women of the house had made. Here the chief persons of the Phaeacians used to sit and eat and drink, for there was abundance at all seasons and there were golden figures of young men with lighted torches in their hands, raised on pedestals, to give light by night to those who were at table. There are fifty maid servants in the house, some of whom are always grinding rich yellow grain at the mill, while others work at the loom, or sit and spin, and their shuttles go backwards and forwards like the fluttering of aspen leaves, while the linen is so closely woven that it will turn oil. As the Phaeacians are the best sailors in the world, so their women excel all others in weaving, for Minerva has taught them all manner of useful arts, and they are very intelligent. Outside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of about four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful treespears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are luscious figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor fail all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so soft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows on pear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the grapes, for there is an excellent vineyard on the level ground of a part of this, the grapes are being made into raisins in another part they are being gathered some are being trodden in the wine tubs, others further on have shed their blossom and are beginning to show fruit, others again are just changing colour. In the furthest part of the ground there are beautifully arranged beds of flowers that are in bloom all the year round. Two streams go through it, the one turned in ducts throughout the whole garden, while the other is carried under the ground of the outer court to the house itself, and the town's people draw water from it. Such, then, were the splendours with which the gods had endowed the house of king Alcinous. So here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when he had looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the precincts of the house. There he found all the chief people among the Phaeacians making their drink offerings to Mercury, which they always did the last thing before going away for the night. He went straight through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness in which Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King Alcinous then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at that moment the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became visible. Every one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there, but Ulysses began at once with his petition. 'Queen Arete, he exclaimed, 'daughter of great Rhexenor, in my distress I humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests (whom may heaven prosper with long life and happiness, and may they leave their possessions to their children, and all the honours conferred upon them by the state) to help me home to my own country as soon as possible for I have been long in trouble and away from my friends. Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held their peace, till presently the old hero Echeneus, who was an excellent speaker and an elder among the Phaeacians, plainly and in all honesty addressed them thus 'Alcinous, said he, 'it is not creditable to you that a stranger should be seen sitting among the ashes of your hearth every one is waiting to hear what you are about to say tell him, then, to rise and take a seat on a stool inlaid with silver, and bid your servants mix some wine and water that we may make a drink offering to Jove the lord of thunder, who takes all well disposed suppliants under his protection and let the housekeeper give him some supper, of whatever there may be in the house. When Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him from the hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had been sitting beside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant then brought him water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for him to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table beside him an upper servant brought him bread and offered him many good things of what there was in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank. Then Alcinous said to one of the servants, 'Pontonous, mix a cup of wine and hand it round that we may make drinkofferings to Jove the lord of thunder, who is the protector of all welldisposed suppliants. Pontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after giving every man his drinkoffering. When they had made their offerings, and had drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said 'Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You have had your supper, so now go home to bed. Tomorrow morning I shall invite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a sacrificial banquet in honour of our guest we can then discuss the question of his escort, and consider how we may at once send him back rejoicing to his own country without trouble or inconvenience to himself, no matter how distant it may be. We must see that he comes to no harm while on his homeward journey, but when he is once at home he will have to take the luck he was born with for better or worse like other people. It is possible, however, that the stranger is one of the immortals who has come down from heaven to visit us but in this case the gods are departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made themselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts just like one of our selves, and if any solitary wayfarer happens to stumble upon some one or other of them, they affect no concealment, for we are as near of kin to the gods as the Cyclopes and the savage giants are. Then Ulysses said 'Pray, Alcinous, do not take any such notion into your head. I have nothing of the immortal about me, neither in body nor mind, and most resemble those among you who are the most afflicted. Indeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit to lay upon me, you would say that I was still worse off than they are. Nevertheless, let me sup in spite of sorrow, for an empty stomach is a very importunate thing, and thrusts itself on a man's notice no matter how dire is his distress. I am in great trouble, yet it insists that I shall eat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows and dwell only on the due replenishing of itself. As for yourselves, do as you propose, and at break of day set about helping me to get home. I shall be content to die if I may first once more behold my property, my bondsmen, and all the greatness of my house. Thus did he speak. Every one approved his saying, and agreed that he should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Then when they had made their drink offerings, and had drunk each as much as he was minded they went home to bed every man in his own abode, leaving Ulysses in the cloister with Arete and Alcinous while the servants were taking the things away after supper. Arete was the first to speak, for she recognised the shirt, cloak, and good clothes that Ulysses was wearing, as the work of herself and of her maids so she said, 'Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I should like to ask you. Who, and whence are you, and who gave you those clothes? Did you not say you had come here from beyond the sea? And Ulysses answered, 'It would be a long story Madam, were I to relate in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven has been laid heavy upon me but as regards your question, there is an island far away in the sea which is called 'the Ogygian.' Here dwells the cunning and powerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas. She lives by herself far from all neighbours human or divine. Fortune, however, brought me to her hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in midocean. My brave comrades were drowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till at last during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the Ogygian island where the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in and treated me with the utmost kindness indeed she wanted to make me immortal that I might never grow old, but she could not persuade me to let her do so. 'I stayed with Calypso seven years straight on end, and watered the good clothes she gave me with my tears during the whole time but at last when the eighth year came round she bade me depart of her own free will, either because Jove had told her she must, or because she had changed her mind. She sent me from her island on a raft, which she provisioned with abundance of bread and wine. Moreover she gave me good stout clothing, and sent me a wind that blew both warm and fair. Days seven and ten did I sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth I caught sight of the first outlines of the mountains upon your coastand glad indeed was I to set eyes upon them. Nevertheless there was still much trouble in store for me, for at this point Neptune would let me go no further, and raised a great storm against me the sea was so terribly high that I could no longer keep to my raft, which went to pieces under the fury of the gale, and I had to swim for it, till wind and current brought me to your shores. 'There I tried to land, but could not, for it was a bad place and the waves dashed me against the rocks, so I again took to the sea and swam on till I came to a river that seemed the most likely landing place, for there were no rocks and it was sheltered from the wind. Here, then, I got out of the water and gathered my senses together again. Night was coming on, so I left the river, and went into a thicket, where I covered myself all over with leaves, and presently heaven sent me off into a very deep sleep. Sick and sorry as I was I slept among the leaves all night, and through the next day till afternoon, when I woke as the sun was westering, and saw your daughter's maid servants playing upon the beach, and your daughter among them looking like a goddess. I besought her aid, and she proved to be of an excellent disposition, much more so than could be expected from so young a personfor young people are apt to be thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine, and when she had had me washed in the river she also gave me the clothes in which you see me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to do so, I have told you the whole truth. Then Alcinous said, 'Stranger, it was very wrong of my daughter not to bring you on at once to my house along with the maids, seeing that she was the first person whose aid you asked. 'Pray do not scold her, replied Ulysses 'she is not to blame. She did tell me to follow along with the maids, but I was ashamed and afraid, for I thought you might perhaps be displeased if you saw me. Every human being is sometimes a little suspicious and irritable. 'Stranger, replied Alcinous, 'I am not the kind of man to get angry about nothing it is always better to be reasonable but by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, now that I see what kind of person you are, and how much you think as I do, I wish you would stay here, marry my daughter, and become my soninlaw. If you will stay I will give you a house and an estate, but no one (heaven forbid) shall keep you here against your own wish, and that you may be sure of this I will attend tomorrow to the matter of your escort. You can sleep during the whole voyage if you like, and the men shall sail you over smooth waters either to your own home, or wherever you please, even though it be a long way further off than Euboea, which those of my people who saw it when they took yellowhaired Rhadamanthus to see Tityus the son of Gaia, tell me is the furthest of any placeand yet they did the whole voyage in a single day without distressing themselves, and came back again afterwards. You will thus see how much my ships excel all others, and what magnificent oarsmen my sailors are. Then was Ulysses glad and prayed aloud saying, 'Father Jove, grant that Alcinous may do all as he has said, for so he will win an imperishable name among mankind, and at the same time I shall return to my country. Thus did they converse. Then Arete told her maids to set a bed in the room that was in the gatehouse, and make it with good red rugs, and to spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for Ulysses to wear. The maids thereon went out with torches in their hands, and when they had made the bed they came up to Ulysses and said, 'Rise, sir stranger, and come with us for your bed is ready, and glad indeed was he to go to his rest. So Ulysses slept in a bed placed in a room over the echoing gateway but Alcinous lay in the inner part of the house, with the queen his wife by his side. BANQUET IN THE HOUSE OF ALCINOUSTHE GAMES. Now when the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, Alcinous and Ulysses both rose, and Alcinous led the way to the Phaeacian place of assembly, which was near the ships. When they got there they sat down side by side on a seat of polished stone, while Minerva took the form of one of Alcinous' servants, and went round the town in order to help Ulysses to get home. She went up to the citizens, man by man, and said, 'Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, come to the assembly all of you and listen to the stranger who has just come off a long voyage to the house of King Alcinous he looks like an immortal god. With these words she made them all want to come, and they flocked to the assembly till seats and standing room were alike crowded. Every one was struck with the appearance of Ulysses, for Minerva had beautified him about the head and shoulders, making him look taller and stouter than he really was, that he might impress the Phaeacians favourably as being a very remarkable man, and might come off well in the many trials of skill to which they would challenge him. Then, when they were got together, Alcinous spoke 'Hear me, said he, 'aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, that I may speak even as I am minded. This stranger, whoever he may be, has found his way to my house from somewhere or other either East or West. He wants an escort and wishes to have the matter settled. Let us then get one ready for him, as we have done for others before him indeed, no one who ever yet came to my house has been able to complain of me for not speeding on his way soon enough. Let us draw a ship into the seaone that has never yet made a voyageand man her with two and fifty of our smartest young sailors. Then when you have made fast your oars each by his own seat, leave the ship and come to my house to prepare a feast. I will find you in everything. I am giving these instructions to the young men who will form the crew, for as regards you aldermen and town councillors, you will join me in entertaining our guest in the cloisters. I can take no excuses, and we will have Demodocus to sing to us for there is no bard like him whatever he may choose to sing about. Alcinous then led the way, and the others followed after, while a servant went to fetch Demodocus. The fiftytwo picked oarsmen went to the sea shore as they had been told, and when they got there they drew the ship into the water, got her mast and sails inside her, bound the oars to the tholepins with twisted thongs of leather, all in due course, and spread the white sails aloft. They moored the vessel a little way out from land, and then came on shore and went to the house of King Alcinous. The out houses, yards, and all the precincts were filled with crowds of men in great multitudes both old and young and Alcinous killed them a dozen sheep, eight full grown pigs, and two oxen. These they skinned and dressed so as to provide a magnificent banquet. A servant presently led in the famous bard Demodocus, whom the muse had dearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil, for though she had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had robbed him of his eyesight. Pontonous set a seat for him among the guests, leaning it up against a bearingpost. He hung the lyre for him on a peg over his head, and showed him where he was to feel for it with his hands. He also set a fair table with a basket of victuals by his side, and a cup of wine from which he might drink whenever he was so disposed. The company then laid their hands upon the good things that were before them, but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, the muse inspired Demodocus to sing the feats of heroes, and more especially a matter that was then in the mouths of all men, to wit, the quarrel between Ulysses and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on one another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad when he heard his chieftains quarrelling with one another, for Apollo had foretold him this at Pytho when he crossed the stone floor to consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will of Jove fell both upon Danaans and Trojans. Thus sang the bard, but Ulysses drew his purple mantle over his head and covered his face, for he was ashamed to let the Phaeacians see that he was weeping. When the bard left off singing he wiped the tears from his eyes, uncovered his face, and, taking his cup, made a drinkoffering to the gods but when the Phaeacians pressed Demodocus to sing further, for they delighted in his lays, then Ulysses again drew his mantle over his head and wept bitterly. No one noticed his distress except Alcinous, who was sitting near him, and heard the heavy sighs that he was heaving. So he at once said, 'Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, we have had enough now, both of the feast, and of the minstrelsy that is its due accompaniment let us proceed therefore to the athletic sports, so that our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends how much we surpass all other nations as boxers, wrestlers, jumpers, and runners. With these words he led the way, and the others followed after. A servant hung Demodocus's lyre on its peg for him, led him out of the cloister, and set him on the same way as that along which all the chief men of the Phaeacians were going to see the sports a crowd of several thousands of people followed them, and there were many excellent competitors for all the prizes. Acroneos, Ocyalus, Elatreus, Nauteus, Prymneus, Anchialus, Eretmeus, Ponteus, Proreus, Thoon, Anabesineus, and Amphialus son of Polyneus son of Tecton. There was also Euryalus son of Naubolus, who was like Mars himself, and was the best looking man among the Phaeacians except Laodamas. Three sons of Alcinous, Laodamas, Halios, and Clytoneus, competed also. The foot races came first. The course was set out for them from the starting post, and they raised a dust upon the plain as they all flew forward at the same moment. Clytoneus came in first by a long way he left every one else behind him by the length of the furrow that a couple of mules can plough in a fallow field. They then turned to the painful art of wrestling, and here Euryalus proved to be the best man. Amphialus excelled all the others in jumping, while at throwing the disc there was no one who could approach Elatreus. Alcinous's son Laodamas was the best boxer, and he it was who presently said, when they had all been diverted with the games, 'Let us ask the stranger whether he excels in any of these sports he seems very powerfully built his thighs, calves, hands, and neck are of prodigious strength, nor is he at all old, but he has suffered much lately, and there is nothing like the sea for making havoc with a man, no matter how strong he is. 'You are quite right, Laodamas, replied Euryalus, 'go up to your guest and speak to him about it yourself. When Laodamas heard this he made his way into the middle of the crowd and said to Ulysses, 'I hope, Sir, that you will enter yourself for some one or other of our competitions if you are skilled in any of themand you must have gone in for many a one before now. There is nothing that does any one so much credit all his life long as the showing himself a proper man with his hands and feet. Have a try therefore at something, and banish all sorrow from your mind. Your return home will not be long delayed, for the ship is already drawn into the water, and the crew is found. Ulysses answered, 'Laodamas, why do you taunt me in this way? my mind is set rather on cares than contests I have been through infinite trouble, and am come among you now as a suppliant, praying your king and people to further me on my return home. Then Euryalus reviled him outright and said, 'I gather, then, that you are unskilled in any of the many sports that men generally delight in. I suppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in ships as captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of their outward freights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be much of the athlete about you. 'For shame, Sir, answered Ulysses, fiercely, 'you are an insolent fellowso true is it that the gods do not grace all men alike in speech, person, and understanding. One man may be of weak presence, but heaven has adorned this with such a good conversation that he charms every one who sees him his honeyed moderation carries his hearers with him so that he is leader in all assemblies of his fellows, and wherever he goes he is looked up to. Another may be as handsome as a god, but his good looks are not crowned with discretion. This is your case. No god could make a finer looking fellow than you are, but you are a fool. Your illjudged remarks have made me exceedingly angry, and you are quite mistaken, for I excel in a great many athletic exercises indeed, so long as I had youth and strength, I was among the first athletes of the age. Now, however, I am worn out by labour and sorrow, for I have gone through much both on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea still, in spite of all this I will compete, for your taunts have stung me to the quick. So he hurried up without even taking his cloak off, and seized a disc, larger, more massive and much heavier than those used by the Phaeacians when discthrowing among themselves. Then, swinging it back, he threw it from his brawny hand, and it made a humming sound in the air as he did so. The Phaeacians quailed beneath the rushing of its flight as it sped gracefully from his hand, and flew beyond any mark that had been made yet. Minerva, in the form of a man, came and marked the place where it had fallen. 'A blind man, Sir, said she, 'could easily tell your mark by groping for itit is so far ahead of any other. You may make your mind easy about this contest, for no Phaeacian can come near to such a throw as yours. Ulysses was glad when he found he had a friend among the lookerson, so he began to speak more pleasantly. 'Young men, said he, 'come up to that throw if you can, and I will throw another disc as heavy or even heavier. If anyone wants to have a bout with me let him come on, for I am exceedingly angry I will box, wrestle, or run, I do not care what it is, with any man of you all except Laodamas, but not with him because I am his guest, and one cannot compete with one's own personal friend. At least I do not think it a prudent or a sensible thing for a guest to challenge his host's family at any game, especially when he is in a foreign country. He will cut the ground from under his own feet if he does but I make no exception as regards any one else, for I want to have the matter out and know which is the best man. I am a good hand at every kind of athletic sport known among mankind. I am an excellent archer. In battle I am always the first to bring a man down with my arrow, no matter how many more are taking aim at him alongside of me. Philoctetes was the only man who could shoot better than I could when we Achaeans were before Troy and in practice. I far excel every one else in the whole world, of those who still eat bread upon the face of the earth, but I should not like to shoot against the mighty dead, such as Hercules, or Eurytus the Oechalianmen who could shoot against the gods themselves. This in fact was how Eurytus came prematurely by his end, for Apollo was angry with him and killed him because he challenged him as an archer. I can throw a dart farther than any one else can shoot an arrow. Running is the only point in respect of which I am afraid some of the Phaeacians might beat me, for I have been brought down very low at sea my provisions ran short, and therefore I am still weak. They all held their peace except King Alcinous, who began, 'Sir, we have had much pleasure in hearing all that you have told us, from which I understand that you are willing to show your prowess, as having been displeased with some insolent remarks that have been made to you by one of our athletes, and which could never have been uttered by any one who knows how to talk with propriety. I hope you will apprehend my meaning, and will explain to any one of your chief men who may be dining with yourself and your family when you get home, that we have an hereditary aptitude for accomplishments of all kinds. We are not particularly remarkable for our boxing, nor yet as wrestlers, but we are singularly fleet of foot and are excellent sailors. We are extremely fond of good dinners, music, and dancing we also like frequent changes of linen, warm baths, and good beds, so now, please, some of you who are the best dancers set about dancing, that our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends how much we surpass all other nations as sailors, runners, dancers, and minstrels. Demodocus has left his lyre at my house, so run some one or other of you and fetch it for him. On this a servant hurried off to bring the lyre from the king's house, and the nine men who had been chosen as stewards stood forward. It was their business to manage everything connected with the sports, so they made the ground smooth and marked a wide space for the dancers. Presently the servant came back with Demodocus's lyre, and he took his place in the midst of them, whereon the best young dancers in the town began to foot and trip it so nimbly that Ulysses was delighted with the merry twinkling of their feet. Meanwhile the bard began to sing the loves of Mars and Venus, and how they first began their intrigue in the house of Vulcan. Mars made Venus many presents, and defiled King Vulcan's marriage bed, so the sun, who saw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very angry when he heard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy brooding mischief, got his great anvil into its place, and began to forge some chains which none could either unloose or break, so that they might stay there in that place. When he had finished his snare he went into his bedroom and festooned the bedposts all over with chains like cobwebs he also let many hang down from the great beam of the ceiling. Not even a god could see them so fine and subtle were they. As soon as he had spread the chains all over the bed, he made as though he were setting out for the fair state of Lemnos, which of all places in the world was the one he was most fond of. But Mars kept no blind look out, and as soon as he saw him start, hurried off to his house, burning with love for Venus. Now Venus was just come in from a visit to her father Jove, and was about sitting down when Mars came inside the house, and said as he took her hand in his own, 'Let us go to the couch of Vulcan he is not at home, but is gone off to Lemnos among the Sintians, whose speech is barbarous. She was nothing loth, so they went to the couch to take their rest, whereon they were caught in the toils which cunning Vulcan had spread for them, and could neither get up nor stir hand or foot, but found too late that they were in a trap. Then Vulcan came up to them, for he had turned back before reaching Lemnos, when his scout the sun told him what was going on. He was in a furious passion, and stood in the vestibule making a dreadful noise as he shouted to all the gods. 'Father Jove, he cried, 'and all you other blessed gods who live for ever, come here and see the ridiculous and disgraceful sight that I will show you. Jove's daughter Venus is always dishonouring me because I am lame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and clean built, whereas I am a cripplebut my parents are to blame for that, not I they ought never to have begotten me. Come and see the pair together asleep on my bed. It makes me furious to look at them. They are very fond of one another, but I do not think they will lie there longer than they can help, nor do I think that they will sleep much there, however, they shall stay till her father has repaid me the sum I gave him for his baggage of a daughter, who is fair but not honest. On this the gods gathered to the house of Vulcan. Earthencircling Neptune came, and Mercury the bringer of luck, and King Apollo, but the goddesses staid at home all of them for shame. Then the givers of all good things stood in the doorway, and the blessed gods roared with inextinguishable laughter, as they saw how cunning Vulcan had been, whereon one would turn towards his neighbour saying 'Ill deeds do not prosper, and the weak confound the strong. See how limping Vulcan, lame as he is, has caught Mars who is the fleetest god in heaven and now Mars will be cast in heavy damages. Thus did they converse, but King Apollo said to Mercury, 'Messenger Mercury, giver of good things, you would not care how strong the chains were, would you, if you could sleep with Venus? 'King Apollo, answered Mercury, 'I only wish I might get the chance, though there were three times as many chainsand you might look on, all of you, gods and goddesses, but I would sleep with her if I could. The immortal gods burst out laughing as they heard him, but Neptune took it all seriously, and kept on imploring Vulcan to set Mars free again. 'Let him go, he cried, 'and I will undertake, as you require, that he shall pay you all the damages that are held reasonable among the immortal gods. 'Do not, replied Vulcan, 'ask me to do this a bad man's bond is bad security what remedy could I enforce against you if Mars should go away and leave his debts behind him along with his chains? 'Vulcan, said Neptune, 'if Mars goes away without paying his damages, I will pay you myself. So Vulcan answered, 'In this case I cannot and must not refuse you. Thereon he loosed the bonds that bound them, and as soon as they were free they scampered off, Mars to Thrace and laughterloving Venus to Cyprus and to Paphos, where is her grove and her altar fragrant with burnt offerings. Here the Graces bathed her, and anointed her with oil of ambrosia such as the immortal gods make use of, and they clothed her in raiment of the most enchanting beauty. Thus sang the bard, and both Ulysses and the seafaring Phaeacians were charmed as they heard him. Then Alcinous told Laodamas and Halius to dance alone, for there was no one to compete with them. So they took a red ball which Polybus had made for them, and one of them bent himself backwards and threw it up towards the clouds, while the other jumped from off the ground and caught it with ease before it came down again. When they had done throwing the ball straight up into the air they began to dance, and at the same time kept on throwing it backwards and forwards to one another, while all the young men in the ring applauded and made a great stamping with their feet. Then Ulysses said 'King Alcinous, you said your people were the nimblest dancers in the world, and indeed they have proved themselves to be so. I was astonished as I saw them. The king was delighted at this, and exclaimed to the Phaeacians, 'Aldermen and town councillors, our guest seems to be a person of singular judgement let us give him such proof of our hospitality as he may reasonably expect. There are twelve chief men among you, and counting myself there are thirteen contribute, each of you, a clean cloak, a shirt, and a talent of fine gold let us give him all this in a lump down at once, so that when he gets his supper he may do so with a light heart. As for Euryalus he will have to make a formal apology and a present too, for he has been rude. Thus did he speak. The others all of them applauded his saying, and sent their servants to fetch the presents. Then Euryalus said, 'King Alcinous, I will give the stranger all the satisfaction you require. He shall have my sword, which is of bronze, all but the hilt, which is of silver. I will also give him the scabbard of newly sawn ivory into which it fits. It will be worth a great deal to him. As he spoke he placed the sword in the hands of Ulysses and said, 'Good luck to you, father stranger if anything has been said amiss may the winds blow it away with them, and may heaven grant you a safe return, for I understand you have been long away from home, and have gone through much hardship. To which Ulysses answered, 'Good luck to you too my friend, and may the gods grant you every happiness. I hope you will not miss the sword you have given me along with your apology. With these words he girded the sword about his shoulders and towards sundown the presents began to make their appearance, as the servants of the donors kept bringing them to the house of King Alcinous here his sons received them, and placed them under their mother's charge. Then Alcinous led the way to the house and bade his guests take their seats. 'Wife, said he, turning to Queen Arete, 'Go, fetch the best chest we have, and put a clean cloak and shirt in it. Also, set a copper on the fire and heat some water our guest will take a warm bath see also to the careful packing of the presents that the noble Phaeacians have made him he will thus better enjoy both his supper and the singing that will follow. I shall myself give him this golden gobletwhich is of exquisite workmanshipthat he may be reminded of me for the rest of his life whenever he makes a drink offering to Jove, or to any of the gods. Then Arete told her maids to set a large tripod upon the fire as fast as they could, whereon they set a tripod full of bath water on to a clear fire they threw on sticks to make it blaze, and the water became hot as the flame played about the belly of the tripod. Meanwhile Arete brought a magnificent chest from her own room, and inside it she packed all the beautiful presents of gold and raiment which the Phaeacians had brought. Lastly she added a cloak and a good shirt from Alcinous, and said to Ulysses 'See to the lid yourself, and have the whole bound round at once, for fear any one should rob you by the way when you are asleep in your ship.  When Ulysses heard this he put the lid on the chest and made it fast with a bond that Circe had taught him. He had done so before an upper servant told him to come to the bath and wash himself. He was very glad of a warm bath, for he had had no one to wait upon him ever since he left the house of Calypso, who as long as he remained with her had taken as good care of him as though he had been a god. When the servants had done washing and anointing him with oil, and had given him a clean cloak and shirt, he left the bath room and joined the guests who were sitting over their wine. Lovely Nausicaa stood by one of the bearingposts supporting the roof of the cloister, and admired him as she saw him pass. 'Farewell stranger, said she, 'do not forget me when you are safe at home again, for it is to me first that you owe a ransom for having saved your life. And Ulysses said, 'Nausicaa, daughter of great Alcinous, may Jove the mighty husband of Juno, grant that I may reach my home so shall I bless you as my guardian angel all my days, for it was you who saved me. When he had said this, he seated himself beside Alcinous. Supper was then served, and the wine was mixed for drinking. A servant led in the favourite bard Demodocus, and set him in the midst of the company, near one of the bearingposts supporting the cloister, that he might lean against it. Then Ulysses cut off a piece of roast pork with plenty of fat (for there was abundance left on the joint) and said to a servant, 'Take this piece of pork over to Demodocus and tell him to eat it for all the pain his lays may cause me I will salute him none the less bards are honoured and respected throughout the world, for the muse teaches them their songs and loves them. The servant carried the pork in his fingers over to Demodocus, who took it and was very much pleased. They then laid their hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had to eat and drink, Ulysses said to Demodocus, 'Demodocus, there is no one in the world whom I admire more than I do you. You must have studied under the Muse, Jove's daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from some one who was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the wooden horse which Epeus made with the assistance of Minerva, and which Ulysses got by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you. The bard inspired of heaven took up the story at the point where some of the Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others, hidden within the horse, were waiting with Ulysses in the Trojan place of assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into their fortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it, and were in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for breaking it up then and there others would have it dragged to the top of the rock on which the fortress stood, and then thrown down the precipice while yet others were for letting it remain as an offering and propitiation for the gods. And this was how they settled it in the end, for the city was doomed when it took in that horse, within which were all the bravest of the Argives waiting to bring death and destruction on the Trojans. Anon he sang how the sons of the Achaeans issued from the horse, and sacked the town, breaking out from their ambuscade. He sang how they overran the city hither and thither and ravaged it, and how Ulysses went raging like Mars along with Menelaus to the house of Deiphobus. It was there that the fight raged most furiously, nevertheless by Minerva's help he was victorious. All this he told, but Ulysses was overcome as he heard him, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws herself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city and people, fighting bravely in defence of his home and children. She screams aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for breath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back and shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labour and sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheekseven so piteously did Ulysses weep, but none of those present perceived his tears except Alcinous, who was sitting near him, and could hear the sobs and sighs that he was heaving. The king, therefore, at once rose and said 'Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, let Demodocus cease his song, for there are those present who do not seem to like it. From the moment that we had done supper and Demodocus began to sing, our guest has been all the time groaning and lamenting. He is evidently in great trouble, so let the bard leave off, that we may all enjoy ourselves, hosts and guest alike. This will be much more as it should be, for all these festivities, with the escort and the presents that we are making with so much good will are wholly in his honour, and any one with even a moderate amount of right feeling knows that he ought to treat a guest and a suppliant as though he were his own brother. 'Therefore, Sir, do you on your part affect no more concealment nor reserve in the matter about which I shall ask you it will be more polite in you to give me a plain answer tell me the name by which your father and mother over yonder used to call you, and by which you were known among your neighbours and fellowcitizens. There is no one, neither rich nor poor, who is absolutely without any name whatever, for people's fathers and mothers give them names as soon as they are born. Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no pilots their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking about and want they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm. Still I do remember hearing my father say that Neptune was angry with us for being too easygoing in the matter of giving people escorts. He said that one of these days he should wreck a ship of ours as it was returning from having escorted some one, and bury our city under a high mountain. This is what my father used to say, but whether the god will carry out his threat or no is a matter which he will decide for himself. 'And now, tell me and tell me true. Where have you been wandering, and in what countries have you travelled? Tell us of the peoples themselves, and of their citieswho were hostile, savage and uncivilised, and who, on the other hand, hospitable and humane. Tell us also why you are made so unhappy on hearing about the return of the Argive Danaans from Troy. The gods arranged all this, and sent them their misfortunes in order that future generations might have something to sing about. Did you lose some brave kinsman of your wife's when you were before Troy? a soninlaw or fatherinlawwhich are the nearest relations a man has outside his own flesh and blood? or was it some brave and kindlynatured comradefor a good friend is as dear to a man as his own brother? ULYSSES DECLARES HIMSELF AND BEGINS HIS STORYTHE CICONS, LOTOPHAGI, AND CYCLOPES. And Ulysses answered, 'King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a bard with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better or more delightful than when a whole people make merry together, with the guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded with bread and meats, and the cupbearer draws wine and fills his cup for every man. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see. Now, however, since you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows, and rekindle my own sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how to begin, nor yet how to continue and conclude my tale, for the hand of heaven has been laid heavily upon me. 'Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it, and one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my guests though I live so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses son of Laertes, renowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so that my fame ascends to heaven. I live in Ithaca, where there is a high mountain called Neritum, covered with forests and not far from it there is a group of islands very near to one anotherDulichium, Same, and the wooded island of Zacynthus. It lies squat on the horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the sunset, while the others lie away from it towards dawn. It is a rugged island, but it breeds brave men, and my eyes know none that they better love to look upon. The goddess Calypso kept me with her in her cave, and wanted me to marry her, as did also the cunning Aeaean goddess Circe but they could neither of them persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far from father or mother, he does not care about it. Now, however, I will tell you of the many hazardous adventures which by Jove's will I met with on my return from Troy. 'When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to the sword. We took their wives and also much booty, which we divided equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I then said that we had better make off at once, but my men very foolishly would not obey me, so they staid there drinking much wine and killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. Meanwhile the Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who lived inland. These were more in number, and stronger, and they were more skilled in the art of war, for they could fight, either from chariots or on foot as the occasion served in the morning, therefore, they came as thick as leaves and bloom in summer, and the hand of heaven was against us, so that we were hard pressed. They set the battle in array near the ships, and the hosts aimed their bronzeshod spears at one another. So long as the day waxed and it was still morning, we held our own against them, though they were more in number than we but as the sun went down, towards the time when men loose their oxen, the Cicons got the better of us, and we lost half a dozen men from every ship we had so we got away with those that were left. 'Thence we sailed onward with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have escaped death though we had lost our comrades, nor did we leave till we had thrice invoked each one of the poor fellows who had perished by the hands of the Cicons. Then Jove raised the North wind against us till it blew a hurricane, so that land and sky were hidden in thick clouds, and night sprang forth out of the heavens. We let the ships run before the gale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to tatters, so we took them down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our hardest towards the land. There we lay two days and two nights suffering much alike from toil and distress of mind, but on the morning of the third day we again raised our masts, set sail, and took our places, letting the wind and steersmen direct our ship. I should have got home at that time unharmed had not the North wind and the currents been against me as I was doubling Cape Malea, and set me off my course hard by the island of Cythera. 'I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotuseaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their midday meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotuseaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotuseaters without thinking further of their return nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars. 'We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the land of the lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither plant nor plough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat, barley, and grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their wild grapes yield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them. They have no laws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on the tops of high mountains each is lord and master in his family, and they take no account of their neighbours. 'Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not quite close to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is overrun with wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are never disturbed by foot of man for sportsmenwho as a rule will suffer so much hardship in forest or among mountain precipicesdo not go there, nor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a wilderness untilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living thing upon it but only goats. For the Cyclopes have no ships, nor yet shipwrights who could make ships for them they cannot therefore go from city to city, or sail over the sea to one another's country as people who have ships can do if they had had these they would have colonised the island, for it is a very good one, and would yield everything in due season. There are meadows that in some places come right down to the sea shore, well watered and full of luscious grass grapes would do there excellently there is level land for ploughing, and it would always yield heavily at harvest time, for the soil is deep. There is a good harbour where no cables are wanted, nor yet anchors, nor need a ship be moored, but all one has to do is to beach one's vessel and stay there till the wind becomes fair for putting out to sea again. At the head of the harbour there is a spring of clear water coming out of a cave, and there are poplars growing all round it. 'Here we entered, but so dark was the night that some god must have brought us in, for there was nothing whatever to be seen. A thick mist hung all round our ships the moon was hidden behind a mass of clouds so that no one could have seen the island if he had looked for it, nor were there any breakers to tell us we were close in shore before we found ourselves upon the land itself when, however, we had beached the ships, we took down the sails, went ashore and camped upon the beach till daybreak. 'When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn appeared, we admired the island and wandered all over it, while the nymphs Jove's daughters roused the wild goats that we might get some meat for our dinner. On this we fetched our spears and bows and arrows from the ships, and dividing ourselves into three bands began to shoot the goats. Heaven sent us excellent sport I had twelve ships with me, and each ship got nine goats, while my own ship had ten thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we ate and drank our fill, and we had plenty of wine left, for each one of us had taken many jars full when we sacked the city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out. While we were feasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of the Cyclopes, which was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble fires. We could almost fancy we heard their voices and the bleating of their sheep and goats, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we camped down upon the beach, and next morning I called a council. ''Stay here, my brave fellows,' said I, 'all the rest of you, while I go with my ship and exploit these people myself I want to see if they are uncivilised savages, or a hospitable and humane race.' 'I went on board, bidding my men to do so also and loose the hawsers so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars. When we got to the land, which was not far, there, on the face of a cliff near the sea, we saw a great cave overhung with laurels. It was a station for a great many sheep and goats, and outside there was a large yard, with a high wall round it made of stones built into the ground and of trees both pine and oak. This was the abode of a huge monster who was then away from home shepherding his flocks. He would have nothing to do with other people, but led the life of an outlaw. He was a horrid creature, not like a human being at all, but resembling rather some crag that stands out boldly against the sky on the top of a high mountain. 'I told my men to draw the ship ashore, and stay where they were, all but the twelve best among them, who were to go along with myself. I also took a goatskin of sweet black wine which had been given me by Maron, son of Euanthes, who was priest of Apollo the patron god of Ismarus, and lived within the wooded precincts of the temple. When we were sacking the city we respected him, and spared his life, as also his wife and child so he made me some presents of great valueseven talents of fine gold, and a bowl of silver, with twelve jars of sweet wine, unblended, and of the most exquisite flavour. Not a man nor maid in the house knew about it, but only himself, his wife, and one housekeeper when he drank it he mixed twenty parts of water to one of wine, and yet the fragrance from the mixingbowl was so exquisite that it was impossible to refrain from drinking. I filled a large skin with this wine, and took a wallet full of provisions with me, for my mind misgave me that I might have to deal with some savage who would be of great strength, and would respect neither right nor law. 'We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went inside and took stock of all that we could see. His cheeseracks were loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens could hold. They were kept in separate flocks first there were the hoggets, then the oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very young ones all kept apart from one another as for his dairy, all the vessels, bowls, and milk pails into which he milked, were swimming with whey. When they saw all this, my men begged me to let them first steal some cheeses, and make off with them to the ship they would then return, drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board and sail away with them. It would have been indeed better if we had done so but I would not listen to them, for I wanted to see the owner himself, in the hope that he might give me a present. When, however, we saw him my poor men found him ill to deal with. 'We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate others of them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should come in with his sheep. When he came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry firewood to light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such a noise on to the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear at the far end of the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes inside, as well as the shegoats that he was going to milk, leaving the males, both rams and hegoats, outside in the yards. Then he rolled a huge stone to the mouth of the caveso huge that two and twenty strong fourwheeled waggons would not be enough to draw it from its place against the doorway. When he had so done he sat down and milked his ewes and goats, all in due course, and then let each of them have her own young. He curdled half the milk and set it aside in wicker strainers, but the other half he poured into bowls that he might drink it for his supper. When he had got through with all his work, he lit the fire, and then caught sight of us, whereon he said ''Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do you sail the sea as rovers, with your hands against every man, and every man's hand against you?' 'We were frightened out of our senses by his loud voice and monstrous form, but I managed to say, 'We are Achaeans on our way home from Troy, but by the will of Jove, and stress of weather, we have been driven far out of our course. We are the people of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, who has won infinite renown throughout the whole world, by sacking so great a city and killing so many people. We therefore humbly pray you to show us some hospitality, and otherwise make us such presents as visitors may reasonably expect. May your excellency fear the wrath of heaven, for we are your suppliants, and Jove takes all respectable travellers under his protection, for he is the avenger of all suppliants and foreigners in distress.' 'To this he gave me but a pitiless answer, 'Stranger,' said he, 'you are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me, indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do not care about Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so much stronger than they. I shall not spare either yourself or your companions out of any regard for Jove, unless I am in the humour for doing so. And now tell me where you made your ship fast when you came on shore. Was it round the point, or is she lying straight off the land?' 'He said this to draw me out, but I was too cunning to be caught in that way, so I answered with a lie 'Neptune,' said I, 'sent my ship on to the rocks at the far end of your country, and wrecked it. We were driven on to them from the open sea, but I and those who are with me escaped the jaws of death.' 'The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore them limb from limb and supped upon them. He gobbled them up like a lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails, without leaving anything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to heaven on seeing such a horrid sight, for we did not know what else to do but when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch, and had washed down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk, he stretched himself full length upon the ground among his sheep, and went to sleep. I was at first inclined to seize my sword, draw it, and drive it into his vitals, but I reflected that if I did we should all certainly be lost, for we should never be able to shift the stone which the monster had put in front of the door. So we stayed sobbing and sighing where we were till morning came. 'When the child of morning, rosyfingered dawn, appeared, he again lit his fire, milked his goats and ewes, all quite rightly, and then let each have her own young one as soon as he had got through with all his work, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them for his morning's meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the stone away from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put it back againas easily as though he were merely clapping the lid on to a quiver full of arrows. As soon as he had done so he shouted, and cried 'Shoo, shoo,' after his sheep to drive them on to the mountain so I was left to scheme some way of taking my revenge and covering myself with glory. 'In the end I deemed it would be the best plan to do as follows The Cyclops had a great club which was lying near one of the sheep pens it was of green olive wood, and he had cut it intending to use it for a staff as soon as it should be dry. It was so huge that we could only compare it to the mast of a twentyoared merchant vessel of large burden, and able to venture out into open sea. I went up to this club and cut off about six feet of it I then gave this piece to the men and told them to fine it evenly off at one end, which they proceeded to do, and lastly I brought it to a point myself, charring the end in the fire to make it harder. When I had done this I hid it under dung, which was lying about all over the cave, and told the men to cast lots which of them should venture along with myself to lift it and bore it into the monster's eye while he was asleep. The lot fell upon the very four whom I should have chosen, and I myself made five. In the evening the wretch came back from shepherding, and drove his flocks into the cavethis time driving them all inside, and not leaving any in the yards I suppose some fancy must have taken him, or a god must have prompted him to do so. As soon as he had put the stone back to its place against the door, he sat down, milked his ewes and his goats all quite rightly, and then let each have her own young one when he had got through with all this work, he gripped up two more of my men, and made his supper off them. So I went up to him with an ivywood bowl of black wine in my hands ''Look here, Cyclops,' said I, you have been eating a great deal of man's flesh, so take this and drink some wine, that you may see what kind of liquor we had on board my ship. I was bringing it to you as a drinkoffering, in the hope that you would take compassion upon me and further me on my way home, whereas all you do is to go on ramping and raving most intolerably. You ought to be ashamed of yourself how can you expect people to come see you any more if you treat them in this way?' 'He then took the cup and drank. He was so delighted with the taste of the wine that he begged me for another bowl full. 'Be so kind,' he said, 'as to give me some more, and tell me your name at once. I want to make you a present that you will be glad to have. We have wine even in this country, for our soil grows grapes and the sun ripens them, but this drinks like Nectar and Ambrosia all in one.' 'I then gave him some more three times did I fill the bowl for him, and three times did he drain it without thought or heed then, when I saw that the wine had got into his head, I said to him as plausibly as I could 'Cyclops, you ask my name and I will tell it you give me, therefore, the present you promised me my name is Noman this is what my father and mother and my friends have always called me.' 'But the cruel wretch said, 'Then I will eat all Noman's comrades before Noman himself, and will keep Noman for the last. This is the present that I will make him.' 'As he spoke he reeled, and fell sprawling face upwards on the ground. His great neck hung heavily backwards and a deep sleep took hold upon him. Presently he turned sick, and threw up both wine and the gobbets of human flesh on which he had been gorging, for he was very drunk. Then I thrust the beam of wood far into the embers to heat it, and encouraged my men lest any of them should turn fainthearted. When the wood, green though it was, was about to blaze, I drew it out of the fire glowing with heat, and my men gathered round me, for heaven had filled their hearts with courage. We drove the sharp end of the beam into the monster's eye, and bearing upon it with all my weight I kept turning it round and round as though I were boring a hole in a ship's plank with an auger, which two men with a wheel and strap can keep on turning as long as they choose. Even thus did we bore the red hot beam into his eye, till the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we worked it round and round, so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded his eyelids and eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in the fire. As a blacksmith plunges an axe or hatchet into cold water to temper itfor it is this that gives strength to the ironand it makes a great hiss as he does so, even thus did the Cyclops' eye hiss round the beam of olive wood, and his hideous yells made the cave ring again. We ran away in a fright, but he plucked the beam all besmirched with gore from his eye, and hurled it from him in a frenzy of rage and pain, shouting as he did so to the other Cyclopes who lived on the bleak headlands near him so they gathered from all quarters round his cave when they heard him crying, and asked what was the matter with him. ''What ails you, Polyphemus,' said they, 'that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?' 'But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, 'Noman is killing me by fraud no man is killing me by force.' ''Then,' said they, 'if no man is attacking you, you must be ill when Jove makes people ill, there is no help for it, and you had better pray to your father Neptune.' 'Then they went away, and I laughed inwardly at the success of my clever stratagem, but the Cyclops, groaning and in an agony of pain, felt about with his hands till he found the stone and took it from the door then he sat in the doorway and stretched his hands in front of it to catch anyone going out with the sheep, for he thought I might be foolish enough to attempt this. 'As for myself I kept on puzzling to think how I could best save my own life and those of my companions I schemed and schemed, as one who knows that his life depends upon it, for the danger was very great. In the end I deemed that this plan would be the best the male sheep were well grown, and carried a heavy black fleece, so I bound them noiselessly in threes together, with some of the withies on which the wicked monster used to sleep. There was to be a man under the middle sheep, and the two on either side were to cover him, so that there were three sheep to each man. As for myself there was a ram finer than any of the others, so I caught hold of him by the back, esconced myself in the thick wool under his belly, and hung on patiently to his fleece, face upwards, keeping a firm hold on it all the time. 'Thus, then, did we wait in great fear of mind till morning came, but when the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, the male sheep hurried out to feed, while the ewes remained bleating about the pens waiting to be milked, for their udders were full to bursting but their master in spite of all his pain felt the backs of all the sheep as they stood upright, without being sharp enough to find out that the men were underneath their bellies. As the ram was going out, last of all, heavy with its fleece and with the weight of my crafty self, Polyphemus laid hold of it and said ''My good ram, what is it that makes you the last to leave my cave this morning? You are not wont to let the ewes go before you, but lead the mob with a run whether to flowery mead or bubbling fountain, and are the first to come home again at night but now you lag last of all. Is it because you know your master has lost his eye, and are sorry because that wicked Noman and his horrid crew has got him down in his drink and blinded him? But I will have his life yet. If you could understand and talk, you would tell me where the wretch is hiding, and I would dash his brains upon the ground till they flew all over the cave. I should thus have some satisfaction for the harm this nogood Noman has done me.' 'As he spoke he drove the ram outside, but when we were a little way out from the cave and yards, I first got from under the ram's belly, and then freed my comrades as for the sheep, which were very fat, by constantly heading them in the right direction we managed to drive them down to the ship. The crew rejoiced greatly at seeing those of us who had escaped death, but wept for the others whom the Cyclops had killed. However, I made signs to them by nodding and frowning that they were to hush their crying, and told them to get all the sheep on board at once and put out to sea so they went aboard, took their places, and smote the grey sea with their oars. Then, when I had got as far out as my voice would reach, I began to jeer at the Cyclops. ''Cyclops,' said I, 'you should have taken better measure of your man before eating up his comrades in your cave. You wretch, eat up your visitors in your own house? You might have known that your sin would find you out, and now Jove and the other gods have punished you.' 'He got more and more furious as he heard me, so he tore the top from off a high mountain, and flung it just in front of my ship so that it was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised carried us back towards the mainland, and forced us towards the shore. But I snatched up a long pole and kept the ship off, making signs to my men by nodding my head, that they must row for their lives, whereon they laid out with a will. When we had got twice as far as we were before, I was for jeering at the Cyclops again, but the men begged and prayed of me to hold my tongue. ''Do not,' they exclaimed, 'be mad enough to provoke this savage creature further he has thrown one rock at us already which drove us back again to the mainland, and we made sure it had been the death of us if he had then heard any further sound of voices he would have pounded our heads and our ship's timbers into a jelly with the rugged rocks he would have heaved at us, for he can throw them a long way.' 'But I would not listen to them, and shouted out to him in my rage, 'Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.' 'On this he groaned, and cried out, 'Alas, alas, then the old prophecy about me is coming true. There was a prophet here, at one time, a man both brave and of great stature, Telemus son of Eurymus, who was an excellent seer, and did all the prophesying for the Cyclopes till he grew old he told me that all this would happen to me some day, and said I should lose my sight by the hand of Ulysses. I have been all along expecting some one of imposing presence and superhuman strength, whereas he turns out to be a little insignificant weakling, who has managed to blind my eye by taking advantage of me in my drink come here, then, Ulysses, that I may make you presents to show my hospitality, and urge Neptune to help you forward on your journeyfor Neptune and I are father and son. He, if he so will, shall heal me, which no one else neither god nor man can do.' 'Then I said, 'I wish I could be as sure of killing you outright and sending you down to the house of Hades, as I am that it will take more than Neptune to cure that eye of yours.' 'On this he lifted up his hands to the firmament of heaven and prayed, saying, 'Hear me, great Neptune if I am indeed your own true begotten son, grant that Ulysses may never reach his home alive or if he must get back to his friends at last, let him do so late and in sore plight after losing all his men let him reach his home in another man's ship and find trouble in his house.' 'Thus did he pray, and Neptune heard his prayer. Then he picked up a rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with prodigious force. It fell just short of the ship, but was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised drove us onwards on our way towards the shore of the island. 'When at last we got to the island where we had left the rest of our ships, we found our comrades lamenting us, and anxiously awaiting our return. We ran our vessel upon the sands and got out of her on to the sea shore we also landed the Cyclops' sheep, and divided them equitably amongst us so that none might have reason to complain. As for the ram, my companions agreed that I should have it as an extra share so I sacrificed it on the sea shore, and burned its thigh bones to Jove, who is the lord of all. But he heeded not my sacrifice, and only thought how he might destroy both my ships and my comrades. 'Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we feasted our fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of morning rosyfingered Dawn appeared, I bade my men on board and loose the hawsers. Then they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars so we sailed on with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have escaped death though we had lost our comrades. AEOLUS, THE LAESTRYGONES, CIRCE. 'Thence we went on to the Aeolian island where lives Aeolus son of Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods. It is an island that floats (as it were) upon the sea, iron bound with a wall that girds it. Now, Aeolus has six daughters and six lusty sons, so he made the sons marry the daughters, and they all live with their dear father and mother, feasting and enjoying every conceivable kind of luxury. All day long the atmosphere of the house is loaded with the savour of roasting meats till it groans again, yard and all but by night they sleep on their well made bedsteads, each with his own wife between the blankets. These were the people among whom we had now come. 'Aeolus entertained me for a whole month asking me questions all the time about Troy, the Argive fleet, and the return of the Achaeans. I told him exactly how everything had happened, and when I said I must go, and asked him to further me on my way, he made no sort of difficulty, but set about doing so at once. Moreover, he flayed me a prime oxhide to hold the ways of the roaring winds, which he shut up in the hide as in a sackfor Jove had made him captain over the winds, and he could stir or still each one of them according to his own pleasure. He put the sack in the ship and bound the mouth so tightly with a silver thread that not even a breath of a sidewind could blow from any quarter. The West wind which was fair for us did he alone let blow as it chose but it all came to nothing, for we were lost through our own folly. 'Nine days and nine nights did we sail, and on the tenth day our native land showed on the horizon. We got so close in that we could see the stubble fires burning, and I, being then dead beat, fell into a light sleep, for I had never let the rudder out of my own hands, that we might get home the faster. On this the men fell to talking among themselves, and said I was bringing back gold and silver in the sack that Aeolus had given me. 'Bless my heart,' would one turn to his neighbour, saying, 'how this man gets honoured and makes friends to whatever city or country he may go. See what fine prizes he is taking home from Troy, while we, who have travelled just as far as he has, come back with hands as empty as we set out withand now Aeolus has given him ever so much more. Quicklet us see what it all is, and how much gold and silver there is in the sack he gave him.' 'Thus they talked and evil counsels prevailed. They loosed the sack, whereupon the wind flew howling forth and raised a storm that carried us weeping out to sea and away from our own country. Then I awoke, and knew not whether to throw myself into the sea or to live on and make the best of it but I bore it, covered myself up, and lay down in the ship, while the men lamented bitterly as the fierce winds bore our fleet back to the Aeolian island. 'When we reached it we went ashore to take in water, and dined hard by the ships. Immediately after dinner I took a herald and one of my men and went straight to the house of Aeolus, where I found him feasting with his wife and family so we sat down as suppliants on the threshold. They were astounded when they saw us and said, 'Ulysses, what brings you here? What god has been illtreating you? We took great pains to further you on your way home to Ithaca, or wherever it was that you wanted to go to.' 'Thus did they speak, but I answered sorrowfully, 'My men have undone me they, and cruel sleep, have ruined me. My friends, mend me this mischief, for you can if you will.' 'I spoke as movingly as I could, but they said nothing, till their father answered, 'Vilest of mankind, get you gone at once out of the island him whom heaven hates will I in no wise help. Be off, for you come here as one abhorred of heaven.' And with these words he sent me sorrowing from his door. 'Thence we sailed sadly on till the men were worn out with long and fruitless rowing, for there was no longer any wind to help them. Six days, night and day did we toil, and on the seventh day we reached the rocky stronghold of LamusTelepylus, the city of the Laestrygonians, where the shepherd who is driving in his sheep and goats to be milked salutes him who is driving out his flock to feed and this last answers the salute. In that country a man who could do without sleep might earn double wages, one as a herdsman of cattle, and another as a shepherd, for they work much the same by night as they do by day. 'When we reached the harbour we found it landlocked under steep cliffs, with a narrow entrance between two headlands. My captains took all their ships inside, and made them fast close to one another, for there was never so much as a breath of wind inside, but it was always dead calm. I kept my own ship outside, and moored it to a rock at the very end of the point then I climbed a high rock to reconnoitre, but could see no sign neither of man nor cattle, only some smoke rising from the ground. So I sent two of my company with an attendant to find out what sort of people the inhabitants were. 'The men when they got on shore followed a level road by which the people draw their firewood from the mountains into the town, till presently they met a young woman who had come outside to fetch water, and who was daughter to a Laestrygonian named Antiphates. She was going to the fountain Artacia from which the people bring in their water, and when my men had come close up to her, they asked her who the king of that country might be, and over what kind of people he ruled so she directed them to her father's house, but when they got there they found his wife to be a giantess as huge as a mountain, and they were horrified at the sight of her. 'She at once called her husband Antiphates from the place of assembly, and forthwith he set about killing my men. He snatched up one of them, and began to make his dinner off him then and there, whereon the other two ran back to the ships as fast as ever they could. But Antiphates raised a hueandcry after them, and thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians sprang up from every quarterogres, not men. They threw vast rocks at us from the cliffs as though they had been mere stones, and I heard the horrid sound of the ships crunching up against one another, and the death cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like fishes and took them home to eat them. While they were thus killing my men within the harbour I drew my sword, cut the cable of my own ship, and told my men to row with all their might if they too would not fare like the rest so they laid out for their lives, and we were thankful enough when we got into open water out of reach of the rocks they hurled at us. As for the others there was not one of them left. 'Thence we sailed sadly on, glad to have escaped death, though we had lost our comrades, and came to the Aeaean island, where Circe livesa great and cunning goddess who is own sister to the magician Aeetesfor they are both children of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus. We brought our ship into a safe harbour without a word, for some god guided us thither, and having landed we lay there for two days and two nights, worn out in body and mind. When the morning of the third day came I took my spear and my sword, and went away from the ship to reconnoitre, and see if I could discover signs of human handiwork, or hear the sound of voices. Climbing to the top of a high lookout I espied the smoke of Circe's house rising upwards amid a dense forest of trees, and when I saw this I doubted whether, having seen the smoke, I would not go on at once and find out more, but in the end I deemed it best to go back to the ship, give the men their dinners, and send some of them instead of going myself. 'When I had nearly got back to the ship some god took pity upon my solitude, and sent a fine antlered stag right into the middle of my path. He was coming down his pasture in the forest to drink of the river, for the heat of the sun drove him, and as he passed I struck him in the middle of the back the bronze point of the spear went clean through him, and he lay groaning in the dust until the life went out of him. Then I set my foot upon him, drew my spear from the wound, and laid it down I also gathered rough grass and rushes and twisted them into a fathom or so of good stout rope, with which I bound the four feet of the noble creature together having so done I hung him round my neck and walked back to the ship leaning upon my spear, for the stag was much too big for me to be able to carry him on my shoulder, steadying him with one hand. As I threw him down in front of the ship, I called the men and spoke cheeringly man by man to each of them. 'Look here my friends,' said I, 'we are not going to die so much before our time after all, and at any rate we will not starve so long as we have got something to eat and drink on board.' On this they uncovered their heads upon the sea shore and admired the stag, for he was indeed a splendid fellow. Then, when they had feasted their eyes upon him sufficiently, they washed their hands and began to cook him for dinner. 'Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we stayed there eating and drinking our fill, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we camped upon the sea shore. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, I called a council and said, 'My friends, we are in very great difficulties listen therefore to me. We have no idea where the sun either sets or rises, so that we do not even know East from West. I see no way out of it nevertheless, we must try and find one. We are certainly on an island, for I went as high as I could this morning, and saw the sea reaching all round it to the horizon it lies low, but towards the middle I saw smoke rising from out of a thick forest of trees.' 'Their hearts sank as they heard me, for they remembered how they had been treated by the Laestrygonian Antiphates, and by the savage ogre Polyphemus. They wept bitterly in their dismay, but there was nothing to be got by crying, so I divided them into two companies and set a captain over each I gave one company to Eurylochus, while I took command of the other myself. Then we cast lots in a helmet, and the lot fell upon Eurylochus so he set out with his twentytwo men, and they wept, as also did we who were left behind. 'When they reached Circe's house they found it built of cut stones, on a site that could be seen from far, in the middle of the forest. There were wild mountain wolves and lions prowling all round itpoor bewitched creatures whom she had tamed by her enchantments and drugged into subjection. They did not attack my men, but wagged their great tails, fawned upon them, and rubbed their noses lovingly against them. As hounds crowd round their master when they see him coming from dinnerfor they know he will bring them somethingeven so did these wolves and lions with their great claws fawn upon my men, but the men were terribly frightened at seeing such strange creatures. Presently they reached the gates of the goddess's house, and as they stood there they could hear Circe within, singing most beautifully as she worked at her loom, making a web so fine, so soft, and of such dazzling colours as no one but a goddess could weave. On this Polites, whom I valued and trusted more than any other of my men, said, 'There is some one inside working at a loom and singing most beautifully the whole place resounds with it, let us call her and see whether she is woman or goddess.' 'They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them enter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who suspected mischief and staid outside. When she had got them into her house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian wine, but she drugged it with wicked poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her pigstyes. They were like pigshead, hair, and all, and they grunted just as pigs do but their senses were the same as before, and they remembered everything. 'Thus then were they shut up squealing, and Circe threw them some acorns and beech masts such as pigs eat, but Eurylochus hurried back to tell me about the sad fate of our comrades. He was so overcome with dismay that though he tried to speak he could find no words to do so his eyes filled with tears and he could only sob and sigh, till at last we forced his story out of him, and he told us what had happened to the others. ''We went,' said he, 'as you told us, through the forest, and in the middle of it there was a fine house built with cut stones in a place that could be seen from far. There we found a woman, or else she was a goddess, working at her loom and singing sweetly so the men shouted to her and called her, whereon she at once came down, opened the door, and invited us in. The others did not suspect any mischief so they followed her into the house, but I staid where I was, for I thought there might be some treachery. From that moment I saw them no more, for not one of them ever came out, though I sat a long time watching for them.' 'Then I took my sword of bronze and slung it over my shoulders I also took my bow, and told Eurylochus to come back with me and shew me the way. But he laid hold of me with both his hands and spoke piteously, saying, 'Sir, do not force me to go with you, but let me stay here, for I know you will not bring one of them back with you, nor even return alive yourself let us rather see if we cannot escape at any rate with the few that are left us, for we may still save our lives.' ''Stay where you are, then,' answered I, 'eating and drinking at the ship, but I must go, for I am most urgently bound to do so.' 'With this I left the ship and went up inland. When I got through the charmed grove, and was near the great house of the enchantress Circe, I met Mercury with his golden wand, disguised as a young man in the heyday of his youth and beauty with the down just coming upon his face. He came up to me and took my hand within his own, saying, 'My poor unhappy man, whither are you going over this mountain top, alone and without knowing the way? Your men are shut up in Circe's pigstyes, like so many wild boars in their lairs. You surely do not fancy that you can set them free? I can tell you that you will never get back and will have to stay there with the rest of them. But never mind, I will protect you and get you out of your difficulty. Take this herb, which is one of great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe's house, it will be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief. ''And I will tell you of all the wicked witchcraft that Circe will try to practice upon you. She will mix a mess for you to drink, and she will drug the meal with which she makes it, but she will not be able to charm you, for the virtue of the herb that I shall give you will prevent her spells from working. I will tell you all about it. When Circe strikes you with her wand, draw your sword and spring upon her as though you were going to kill her. She will then be frightened, and will desire you to go to bed with her on this you must not point blank refuse her, for you want her to set your companions free, and to take good care also of yourself, but you must make her swear solemnly by all the blessed gods that she will plot no further mischief against you, or else when she has got you naked she will unman you and make you fit for nothing.' 'As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground and shewed me what it was like. The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods can do whatever they like. 'Then Mercury went back to high Olympus passing over the wooded island but I fared onward to the house of Circe, and my heart was clouded with care as I walked along. When I got to the gates I stood there and called the goddess, and as soon as she heard me she came down, opened the door, and asked me to come in so I followed hermuch troubled in my mind. She set me on a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver, there was a footstool also under my feet, and she mixed a mess in a golden goblet for me to drink but she drugged it, for she meant me mischief. When she had given it me, and I had drunk it without its charming me, she struck me with her wand. 'There now,' she cried, 'be off to the pigstye, and make your lair with the rest of them.' 'But I rushed at her with my sword drawn as though I would kill her, whereon she fell with a loud scream, clasped my knees, and spoke piteously, saying, 'Who and whence are you? from what place and people have you come? How can it be that my drugs have no power to charm you? Never yet was any man able to stand so much as a taste of the herb I gave you you must be spellproof surely you can be none other than the bold hero Ulysses, who Mercury always said would come here some day with his ship while on his way home from Troy so be it then sheathe your sword and let us go to bed, that we may make friends and learn to trust each other.' 'And I answered, 'Circe, how can you expect me to be friendly with you when you have just been turning all my men into pigs? And now that you have got me here myself, you mean me mischief when you ask me to go to bed with you, and will unman me and make me fit for nothing. I shall certainly not consent to go to bed with you unless you will first take your solemn oath to plot no further harm against me.' 'So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had completed her oath then I went to bed with her. 'Meanwhile her four servants, who are her housemaids, set about their work. They are the children of the groves and fountains, and of the holy waters that run down into the sea. One of them spread a fair purple cloth over a seat, and laid a carpet underneath it. Another brought tables of silver up to the seats, and set them with baskets of gold. A third mixed some sweet wine with water in a silver bowl and put golden cups upon the tables, while the fourth brought in water and set it to boil in a large cauldron over a good fire which she had lighted. When the water in the cauldron was boiling, she poured cold into it till it was just as I liked it, and then she set me in a bath and began washing me from the cauldron about the head and shoulders, to take the tire and stiffness out of my limbs. As soon as she had done washing me and anointing me with oil, she arrayed me in a good cloak and shirt and led me to a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver there was a footstool also under my feet. A maid servant then brought me water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for me to wash my hands, and she drew a clean table beside me an upper servant brought me bread and offered me many things of what there was in the house, and then Circe bade me eat, but I would not, and sat without heeding what was before me, still moody and suspicious. 'When Circe saw me sitting there without eating, and in great grief, she came to me and said, 'Ulysses, why do you sit like that as though you were dumb, gnawing at your own heart, and refusing both meat and drink? Is it that you are still suspicious? You ought not to be, for I have already sworn solemnly that I will not hurt you.' 'And I said, 'Circe, no man with any sense of what is right can think of either eating or drinking in your house until you have set his friends free and let him see them. If you want me to eat and drink, you must free my men and bring them to me that I may see them with my own eyes.' 'When I had said this she went straight through the court with her wand in her hand and opened the pigstye doors. My men came out like so many prime hogs and stood looking at her, but she went about among them and anointed each with a second drug, whereon the bristles that the bad drug had given them fell off, and they became men again, younger than they were before, and much taller and better looking. They knew me at once, seized me each of them by the hand, and wept for joy till the whole house was filled with the sound of their halloaballooing, and Circe herself was so sorry for them that she came up to me and said, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, go back at once to the sea where you have left your ship, and first draw it on to the land. Then, hide all your ship's gear and property in some cave, and come back here with your men.' 'I agreed to this, so I went back to the sea shore, and found the men at the ship weeping and wailing most piteously. When they saw me the silly blubbering fellows began frisking round me as calves break out and gambol round their mothers, when they see them coming home to be milked after they have been feeding all day, and the homestead resounds with their lowing. They seemed as glad to see me as though they had got back to their own rugged Ithaca, where they had been born and bred. 'Sir,' said the affectionate creatures, 'we are as glad to see you back as though we had got safe home to Ithaca but tell us all about the fate of our comrades.' 'I spoke comfortingly to them and said, 'We must draw our ship on to the land, and hide the ship's gear with all our property in some cave then come with me all of you as fast as you can to Circe's house, where you will find your comrades eating and drinking in the midst of great abundance.' 'On this the men would have come with me at once, but Eurylochus tried to hold them back and said, 'Alas, poor wretches that we are, what will become of us? Rush not on your ruin by going to the house of Circe, who will turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions, and we shall have to keep guard over her house. Remember how the Cyclops treated us when our comrades went inside his cave, and Ulysses with them. It was all through his sheer folly that those men lost their lives.' 'When I heard him I was in two minds whether or no to draw the keen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh and cut his head off in spite of his being a near relation of my own but the men interceded for him and said, 'Sir, if it may so be, let this fellow stay here and mind the ship, but take the rest of us with you to Circe's house.' 'On this we all went inland, and Eurylochus was not left behind after all, but came on too, for he was frightened by the severe reprimand that I had given him. 'Meanwhile Circe had been seeing that the men who had been left behind were washed and anointed with olive oil she had also given them woollen cloaks and shirts, and when we came we found them all comfortably at dinner in her house. As soon as the men saw each other face to face and knew one another, they wept for joy and cried aloud till the whole palace rang again. Thereon Circe came up to me and said, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, tell your men to leave off crying I know how much you have all of you suffered at sea, and how ill you have fared among cruel savages on the mainland, but that is over now, so stay here, and eat and drink till you are once more as strong and hearty as you were when you left Ithaca for at present you are weakened both in body and mind you keep all the time thinking of the hardships you have suffered during your travels, so that you have no more cheerfulness left in you.' 'Thus did she speak and we assented. We stayed with Circe for a whole twelvemonth feasting upon an untold quantity both of meat and wine. But when the year had passed in the waning of moons and the long days had come round, my men called me apart and said, 'Sir, it is time you began to think about going home, if so be you are to be spared to see your house and native country at all.' 'Thus did they speak and I assented. Thereon through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we feasted our fill on meat and wine, but when the sun went down and it came on dark the men laid themselves down to sleep in the covered cloisters. I, however, after I had got into bed with Circe, besought her by her knees, and the goddess listened to what I had got to say. 'Circe,' said I, 'please to keep the promise you made me about furthering me on my homeward voyage. I want to get back and so do my men, they are always pestering me with their complaints as soon as ever your back is turned.' 'And the goddess answered, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you shall none of you stay here any longer if you do not want to, but there is another journey which you have got to take before you can sail homewards. You must go to the house of Hades and of dread Proserpine to consult the ghost of the blind Theban prophet Teiresias, whose reason is still unshaken. To him alone has Proserpine left his understanding even in death, but the other ghosts flit about aimlessly.' 'I was dismayed when I heard this. I sat up in bed and wept, and would gladly have lived no longer to see the light of the sun, but presently when I was tired of weeping and tossing myself about, I said, 'And who shall guide me upon this voyagefor the house of Hades is a port that no ship can reach.' ''You will want no guide,' she answered 'raise your mast, set your white sails, sit quite still, and the North Wind will blow you there of itself. When your ship has traversed the waters of Oceanus, you will reach the fertile shore of Proserpine's country with its groves of tall poplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely here beach your ship upon the shore of Oceanus, and go straight on to the dark abode of Hades. You will find it near the place where the rivers Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus (which is a branch of the river Styx) flow into Acheron, and you will see a rock near it, just where the two roaring rivers run into one another. ''When you have reached this spot, as I now tell you, dig a trench a cubit or so in length, breadth, and depth, and pour into it as a drinkoffering to all the dead, first, honey mixed with milk, then wine, and in the third place watersprinkling white barley meal over the whole. Moreover you must offer many prayers to the poor feeble ghosts, and promise them that when you get back to Ithaca you will sacrifice a barren heifer to them, the best you have, and will load the pyre with good things. More particularly you must promise that Teiresias shall have a black sheep all to himself, the finest in all your flocks. ''When you shall have thus besought the ghosts with your prayers, offer them a ram and a black ewe, bending their heads towards Erebus but yourself turn away from them as though you would make towards the river. On this, many dead men's ghosts will come to you, and you must tell your men to skin the two sheep that you have just killed, and offer them as a burnt sacrifice with prayers to Hades and to Proserpine. Then draw your sword and sit there, so as to prevent any other poor ghost from coming near the spilt blood before Teiresias shall have answered your questions. The seer will presently come to you, and will tell you about your voyagewhat stages you are to make, and how you are to sail the sea so as to reach your home.' 'It was daybreak by the time she had done speaking, so she dressed me in my shirt and cloak. As for herself she threw a beautiful light gossamer fabric over her shoulders, fastening it with a golden girdle round her waist, and she covered her head with a mantle. Then I went about among the men everywhere all over the house, and spoke kindly to each of them man by man 'You must not lie sleeping here any longer,' said I to them, 'we must be going, for Circe has told me all about it.' And on this they did as I bade them. 'Even so, however, I did not get them away without misadventure. We had with us a certain youth named Elpenor, not very remarkable for sense or courage, who had got drunk and was lying on the housetop away from the rest of the men, to sleep off his liquor in the cool. When he heard the noise of the men bustling about, he jumped up on a sudden and forgot all about coming down by the main staircase, so he tumbled right off the roof and broke his neck, and his soul went down to the house of Hades. 'When I had got the men together I said to them, 'You think you are about to start home again, but Circe has explained to me that instead of this, we have got to go to the house of Hades and Proserpine to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias.' 'The men were brokenhearted as they heard me, and threw themselves on the ground groaning and tearing their hair, but they did not mend matters by crying. When we reached the sea shore, weeping and lamenting our fate, Circe brought the ram and the ewe, and we made them fast hard by the ship. She passed through the midst of us without our knowing it, for who can see the comings and goings of a god, if the god does not wish to be seen? THE VISIT TO THE DEAD. 'Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into the water and got her mast and sails into her we also put the sheep on board and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind. Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that blew dead aft and staid steadily with us keeping our sails all the time well filled so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship's gear and let her go as the wind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails were full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went down and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long melancholy night. When we got there we beached the ship, took the sheep out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came to the place of which Circe had told us. 'Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my sword and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drinkoffering to all the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising them that when I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer for them, the best I had, and would load the pyre with good things. I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have a black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks. When I had prayed sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep and let the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts came trooping up from Erebusbrides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood they came from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. When I saw them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine but I sat where I was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my questions. 'The first ghost that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he had not yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body unwaked and unburied in Circe's house, for we had had too much else to do. I was very sorry for him, and cried when I saw him 'Elpenor,' said I, 'how did you come down here into this gloom and darkness? You have got here on foot quicker than I have with my ship.' ''Sir,' he answered with a groan, 'it was all bad luck, and my own unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the top of Circe's house, and never thought of coming down again by the great staircase but fell right off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul came down to the house of Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have left behind you, though they are not here, by your wife, by the father who brought you up when you were a child, and by Telemachus who is the one hope of your house, do what I shall now ask you. I know that when you leave this limbo you will again hold your ship for the Aeaean island. Do not go thence leaving me unwaked and unburied behind you, or I may bring heaven's anger upon you but burn me with whatever armour I have, build a barrow for me on the sea shore, that may tell people in days to come what a poor unlucky fellow I was, and plant over my grave the oar I used to row with when I was yet alive and with my messmates.' And I said, 'My poor fellow, I will do all that you have asked of me.' 'Thus, then, did we sit and hold sad talk with one another, I on the one side of the trench with my sword held over the blood, and the ghost of my comrade saying all this to me from the other side. Then came the ghost of my dead mother Anticlea, daughter to Autolycus. I had left her alive when I set out for Troy and was moved to tears when I saw her, but even so, for all my sorrow I would not let her come near the blood till I had asked my questions of Teiresias. 'Then came also the ghost of Theban Teiresias, with his golden sceptre in his hand. He knew me and said, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, why, poor man, have you left the light of day and come down to visit the dead in this sad place? Stand back from the trench and withdraw your sword that I may drink of the blood and answer your questions truly.' 'So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank of the blood he began with his prophecy. ''You want to know,' said he, 'about your return home, but heaven will make this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape the eye of Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you for having blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get home if you can restrain yourself and your companions when your ship reaches the Thrinacian island, where you will find the sheep and cattle belonging to the sun, who sees and gives ear to everything. If you leave these flocks unharmed and think of nothing but of getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your men. Even though you may yourself escape, you will return in bad plight after losing all your men, in another man's ship, and you will find trouble in your house, which will be overrun by highhanded people, who are devouring your substance under the pretext of paying court and making presents to your wife. ''When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors and after you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you must take a well made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain token which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and will say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your shoulder on this you must fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune. Then go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, death shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people shall bless you. All that I have said will come true.' ''This,' I answered, 'must be as it may please heaven, but tell me and tell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother's ghost close by us she is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I am her own son she does not remember me and speak to me tell me, Sir, how I can make her know me.' ''That,' said he, 'I can soon do. Any ghost that you let taste of the blood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not let them have any blood they will go away again.' 'On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, for his prophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I was until my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at once and spoke fondly to me, saying, 'My son, how did you come down to this abode of darkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing for the living to see these places, for between us and them there are great and terrible waters, and there is Oceanus, which no man can cross on foot, but he must have a good ship to take him. Are you all this time trying to find your way home from Troy, and have you never yet got back to Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?' ''Mother,' said I, 'I was forced to come here to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near the Achaean land nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothing but one long series of misfortunes from the very first day that I set out with Agamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight the Trojans. But tell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die? Did you have a long illness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy passage to eternity? Tell me also about my father, and the son whom I left behind me, is my property still in their hands, or has some one else got hold of it, who thinks that I shall not return to claim it? Tell me again what my wife intends doing, and in what mind she is does she live with my son and guard my estate securely, or has she made the best match she could and married again?' 'My mother answered, 'Your wife still remains in your house, but she is in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both night and day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property, and Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertain largely, as of course he must, considering his position as a magistrate, and how every one invites him your father remains at his old place in the country and never goes near the town. He has no comfortable bed nor bedding in the winter he sleeps on the floor in front of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but in summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in the vineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown any how upon the ground. He grieves continually about your never having come home, and suffers more and more as he grows older. As for my own end it was in this wise heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house, nor was I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wear people out and kill them, but my longing to know what you were doing and the force of my affection for youthis it was that was the death of me.' 'Then I tried to find some way of embracing my poor mother's ghost. Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom, and being touched to the quick I said to her, 'Mother, why do you not stay still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms around one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows even in the house of Hades does Proserpine want to lay a still further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom only?' ''My son,' she answered, 'most illfated of all mankind, it is not Proserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now, however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.' 'Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the wives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered in crowds about the blood, and I considered how I might question them severally. In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the keen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all drinking the blood at once. So they came up one after the other, and each one as I questioned her told me her race and lineage. 'The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of Cretheus the son of Aeolus. She fell in love with the river Enipeus who is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she was taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her lover, lay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave arched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god, whereon he loosed her virgin girdle and laid her in a deep slumber. When the god had accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand in his own and said, 'Tyro, rejoice in all good will the embraces of the gods are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins about this time twelve months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go home, but hold your tongue and do not tell any one.' 'Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Pelias and Neleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might. Pelias was a great breeder of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the other lived in Pylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely, Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer. 'Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast of having slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him two sons Amphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates, and built a wall all round it for strong though they were they could not hold Thebes till they had walled it. 'Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove indomitable Hercules and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon, and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon. 'I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king Oedipodes whose awful lot it was to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married her after having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole story to the world whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief for the spite the gods had borne him but Epicaste went to the house of the mighty jailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the avenging spirits haunted him as for an outraged motherto his ruing bitterly thereafter. 'Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, having given priceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphion son of Iasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos. She bore Nestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore that marvellously lovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the country round but Neleus would only give her to him who should raid the cattle of Iphicles from the grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was a hard task. The only man who would undertake to raid them was a certain excellent seer, but the will of heaven was against him, for the rangers of the cattle caught him and put him in prison nevertheless when a full year had passed and the same season came round again, Iphicles set him at liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles of heaven. Thus, then, was the will of Jove accomplished. 'And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous sons, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Both these heroes are lying under the earth, though they are still alive, for by a special dispensation of Jove, they die and come to life again, each one of them every other day throughout all time, and they have the rank of gods. 'After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace of Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were short lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this world, and the best looking, Orion only excepted for at nine years old they were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the chest. They threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried to set Mount Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the top of Ossa, that they might scale heaven itself, and they would have done it too if they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto, killed both of them, before they had got so much as a sign of hair upon their cheeks or chin. 'Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the magician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens, but he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed her in the island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her. 'I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her own husband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to name every single one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw, and it is time for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew, or here. As for my escort, heaven and yourselves will see to it. Here he ended, and the guests sat all of them enthralled and speechless throughout the covered cloister. Then Arete said to them 'What do you think of this man, O Phaeacians? Is he not tall and good looking, and is he not clever? True, he is my own guest, but all of you share in the distinction. Do not be in a hurry to send him away, nor niggardly in the presents you make to one who is in such great need, for heaven has blessed all of you with great abundance. Then spoke the aged hero Echeneus who was one of the oldest men among them, 'My friends, said he, 'what our august queen has just said to us is both reasonable and to the purpose, therefore be persuaded by it but the decision whether in word or deed rests ultimately with King Alcinous. 'The thing shall be done, exclaimed Alcinous, 'as surely as I still live and reign over the Phaeacians. Our guest is indeed very anxious to get home, still we must persuade him to remain with us until tomorrow, by which time I shall be able to get together the whole sum that I mean to give him. As regards his escort it will be a matter for you all, and mine above all others as the chief person among you. And Ulysses answered, 'King Alcinous, if you were to bid me to stay here for a whole twelve months, and then speed me on my way, loaded with your noble gifts, I should obey you gladly and it would redound greatly to my advantage, for I should return fullerhanded to my own people, and should thus be more respected and beloved by all who see me when I get back to Ithaca. 'Ulysses, replied Alcinous, 'not one of us who sees you has any idea that you are a charlatan or a swindler. I know there are many people going about who tell such plausible stories that it is very hard to see through them, but there is a style about your language which assures me of your good disposition. Moreover you have told the story of your own misfortunes, and those of the Argives, as though you were a practiced bard but tell me, and tell me true, whether you saw any of the mighty heroes who went to Troy at the same time with yourself, and perished there. The evenings are still at their longest, and it is not yet bed timego on, therefore, with your divine story, for I could stay here listening till tomorrow morning, so long as you will continue to tell us of your adventures. 'Alcinous, answered Ulysses, 'there is a time for making speeches, and a time for going to bed nevertheless, since you so desire, I will not refrain from telling you the still sadder tale of those of my comrades who did not fall fighting with the Trojans, but perished on their return, through the treachery of a wicked woman. 'When Proserpine had dismissed the female ghosts in all directions, the ghost of Agamemnon son of Atreus came sadly up to me, surrounded by those who had perished with him in the house of Aegisthus. As soon as he had tasted the blood, he knew me, and weeping bitterly stretched out his arms towards me to embrace me but he had no strength nor substance any more, and I too wept and pitied him as I beheld him. 'How did you come by your death,' said I, 'King Agamemnon? Did Neptune raise his winds and waves against you when you were at sea, or did your enemies make an end of you on the main land when you were cattlelifting or sheepstealing, or while they were fighting in defence of their wives and city?' ''Ulysses,' he answered, 'noble son of Laertes, I was not lost at sea in any storm of Neptune's raising, nor did my foes despatch me upon the mainland, but Aegisthus and my wicked wife were the death of me between them. He asked me to his house, feasted me, and then butchered me most miserably as though I were a fat beast in a slaughter house, while all around me my comrades were slain like sheep or pigs for the wedding breakfast, or picnic, or gorgeous banquet of some great nobleman. You must have seen numbers of men killed either in a general engagement, or in single combat, but you never saw anything so truly pitiable as the way in which we fell in that cloister, with the mixing bowl and the loaded tables lying all about, and the ground reeking with our blood. I heard Priam's daughter Cassandra scream as Clytemnestra killed her close beside me. I lay dying upon the earth with the sword in my body, and raised my hands to kill the slut of a murderess, but she slipped away from me she would not even close my lips nor my eyes when I was dying, for there is nothing in this world so cruel and so shameless as a woman when she has fallen into such guilt as hers was. Fancy murdering her own husband! I thought I was going to be welcomed home by my children and my servants, but her abominable crime has brought disgrace on herself and all women who shall come aftereven on the good ones.' 'And I said, 'In truth Jove has hated the house of Atreus from first to last in the matter of their women's counsels. See how many of us fell for Helen's sake, and now it seems that Clytemnestra hatched mischief against you too during your absence.' ''Be sure, therefore,' continued Agamemnon, 'and not be too friendly even with your own wife. Do not tell her all that you know perfectly well yourself. Tell her a part only, and keep your own counsel about the rest. Not that your wife, Ulysses, is likely to murder you, for Penelope is a very admirable woman, and has an excellent nature. We left her a young bride with an infant at her breast when we set out for Troy. This child no doubt is now grown up happily to man's estate, and he and his father will have a joyful meeting and embrace one another as it is right they should do, whereas my wicked wife did not even allow me the happiness of looking upon my son, but killed me ere I could do so. Furthermore I sayand lay my saying to your heartdo not tell people when you are bringing your ship to Ithaca, but steal a march upon them, for after all this there is no trusting women. But now tell me, and tell me true, can you give me any news of my son Orestes? Is he in Orchomenus, or at Pylos, or is he at Sparta with Menelausfor I presume that he is still living.' 'And I said, 'Agamemnon, why do you ask me? I do not know whether your son is alive or dead, and it is not right to talk when one does not know.' 'As we two sat weeping and talking thus sadly with one another the ghost of Achilles came up to us with Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax who was the finest and goodliest man of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus. The fleet descendant of Aeacus knew me and spoke piteously, saying, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, what deed of daring will you undertake next, that you venture down to the house of Hades among us silly dead, who are but the ghosts of them that can labour no more?' 'And I said, 'Achilles, son of Peleus, foremost champion of the Achaeans, I came to consult Teiresias, and see if he could advise me about my return home to Ithaca, for I have never yet been able to get near the Achaean land, nor to set foot in my own country, but have been in trouble all the time. As for you, Achilles, no one was ever yet so fortunate as you have been, nor ever will be, for you were adored by all us Argives as long as you were alive, and now that you are here you are a great prince among the dead. Do not, therefore, take it so much to heart even if you are dead.' ''Say not a word,' he answered, 'in death's favour I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead. But give me news about my son is he gone to the wars and will he be a great soldier, or is this not so? Tell me also if you have heard anything about my father Peleusdoes he still rule among the Myrmidons, or do they show him no respect throughout Hellas and Phthia now that he is old and his limbs fail him? Could I but stand by his side, in the light of day, with the same strength that I had when I killed the bravest of our foes upon the plain of Troycould I but be as I then was and go even for a short time to my father's house, any one who tried to do him violence or supersede him would soon rue it.' ''I have heard nothing,' I answered, 'of Peleus, but I can tell you all about your son Neoptolemus, for I took him in my own ship from Scyros with the Achaeans. In our councils of war before Troy he was always first to speak, and his judgement was unerring. Nestor and I were the only two who could surpass him and when it came to fighting on the plain of Troy, he would never remain with the body of his men, but would dash on far in front, foremost of them all in valour. Many a man did he kill in battleI cannot name every single one of those whom he slew while fighting on the side of the Argives, but will only say how he killed that valiant hero Eurypylus son of Telephus, who was the handsomest man I ever saw except Memnon many others also of the Ceteians fell around him by reason of a woman's bribes. Moreover, when all the bravest of the Argives went inside the horse that Epeus had made, and it was left to me to settle when we should either open the door of our ambuscade, or close it, though all the other leaders and chief men among the Danaans were drying their eyes and quaking in every limb, I never once saw him turn pale nor wipe a tear from his cheek he was all the time urging me to break out from the horsegrasping the handle of his sword and his bronzeshod spear, and breathing fury against the foe. Yet when we had sacked the city of Priam he got his handsome share of the prize money and went on board (such is the fortune of war) without a wound upon him, neither from a thrown spear nor in close combat, for the rage of Mars is a matter of great chance.' 'When I had told him this, the ghost of Achilles strode off across a meadow full of asphodel, exulting over what I had said concerning the prowess of his son. 'The ghosts of other dead men stood near me and told me each his own melancholy tale but that of Ajax son of Telamon alone held aloofstill angry with me for having won the cause in our dispute about the armour of Achilles. Thetis had offered it as a prize, but the Trojan prisoners and Minerva were the judges. Would that I had never gained the day in such a contest, for it cost the life of Ajax, who was foremost of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus, alike in stature and prowess. 'When I saw him I tried to pacify him and said, 'Ajax, will you not forget and forgive even in death, but must the judgement about that hateful armour still rankle with you? It cost us Argives dear enough to lose such a tower of strength as you were to us. We mourned you as much as we mourned Achilles son of Peleus himself, nor can the blame be laid on anything but on the spite which Jove bore against the Danaans, for it was this that made him counsel your destructioncome hither, therefore, bring your proud spirit into subjection, and hear what I can tell you.' 'He would not answer, but turned away to Erebus and to the other ghosts nevertheless, I should have made him talk to me in spite of his being so angry, or I should have gone on talking to him, only that there were still others among the dead whom I desired to see. 'Then I saw Minos son of Jove with his golden sceptre in his hand sitting in judgement on the dead, and the ghosts were gathered sitting and standing round him in the spacious house of Hades, to learn his sentences upon them. 'After him I saw huge Orion in a meadow full of asphodel driving the ghosts of the wild beasts that he had killed upon the mountains, and he had a great bronze club in his hand, unbreakable for ever and ever. 'And I saw Tityus son of Gaia stretched upon the plain and covering some nine acres of ground. Two vultures on either side of him were digging their beaks into his liver, and he kept on trying to beat them off with his hands, but could not for he had violated Jove's mistress Leto as she was going through Panopeus on her way to Pytho. 'I saw also the dreadful fate of Tantalus, who stood in a lake that reached his chin he was dying to quench his thirst, but could never reach the water, for whenever the poor creature stooped to drink, it dried up and vanished, so that there was nothing but dry groundparched by the spite of heaven. There were tall trees, moreover, that shed their fruit over his headpears, pomegranates, apples, sweet figs and juicy olives, but whenever the poor creature stretched out his hand to take some, the wind tossed the branches back again to the clouds. 'And I saw Sisyphus at his endless task raising his prodigious stone with both his hands. With hands and feet he tried to roll it up to the top of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to the other side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless stone would come thundering down again on to the plain. Then he would begin trying to push it up hill again, and the sweat ran off him and the steam rose after him. 'After him I saw mighty Hercules, but it was his phantom only, for he is feasting ever with the immortal gods, and has lovely Hebe to wife, who is daughter of Jove and Juno. The ghosts were screaming round him like scared birds flying all whithers. He looked black as night with his bare bow in his hands and his arrow on the string, glaring around as though ever on the point of taking aim. About his breast there was a wondrous golden belt adorned in the most marvellous fashion with bears, wild boars, and lions with gleaming eyes there was also war, battle, and death. The man who made that belt, do what he might, would never be able to make another like it. Hercules knew me at once when he saw me, and spoke piteously, saying, 'My poor Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, are you too leading the same sorry kind of life that I did when I was above ground? I was son of Jove, but I went through an infinity of suffering, for I became bondsman to one who was far beneath mea low fellow who set me all manner of labours. He once sent me here to fetch the hellhoundfor he did not think he could find anything harder for me than this, but I got the hound out of Hades and brought him to him, for Mercury and Minerva helped me.' 'On this Hercules went down again into the house of Hades, but I stayed where I was in case some other of the mighty dead should come to me. And I should have seen still other of them that are gone before, whom I would fain have seenTheseus and Pirithousglorious children of the gods, but so many thousands of ghosts came round me and uttered such appalling cries, that I was panic stricken lest Proserpine should send up from the house of Hades the head of that awful monster Gorgon. On this I hastened back to my ship and ordered my men to go on board at once and loose the hawsers so they embarked and took their places, whereon the ship went down the stream of the river Oceanus. We had to row at first, but presently a fair wind sprang up. THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, THE CATTLE OF THE SUN. 'After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into the open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there is dawn and sunrise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to the sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep and waited till day should break. 'Then, when the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, I sent some men to Circe's house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut firewood from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and after we had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral rites. When his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised a cairn, set a stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the oar that he had been used to row with. 'While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got back from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast as she could and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread, meat, and wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, 'You have done a bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades, and you will have died twice, to other people's once now, then, stay here for the rest of the day, feast your fill, and go on with your voyage at daybreak tomorrow morning. In the meantime I will tell Ulysses about your course, and will explain everything to him so as to prevent your suffering from misadventure either by land or sea.' 'We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong day to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came on dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables of the ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away from the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all about our adventures. ''So far so good,' said she, when I had ended my story, 'and now pay attention to what I am about to tell youheaven itself, indeed, will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster. ''When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take I will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury the blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird may pass, no, not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father Jove, but the sheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father Jove has to send another to make up their number no ship that ever yet came to these rocks has got away again, but the waves and whirlwinds of fire are freighted with wreckage and with the bodies of dead men. The only vessel that ever sailed and got through, was the famous Argo on her way from the house of Aetes, and she too would have gone against these great rocks, only that Juno piloted her past them for the love she bore to Jason. ''Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost in a dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never clear not even in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty hands and twenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for it runs sheer up, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the middle of it there is a large cavern, looking West and turned towards Erebus you must take your ship this way, but the cave is so high up that not even the stoutest archer could send an arrow into it. Inside it Scylla sits and yelps with a voice that you might take to be that of a young hound, but in truth she is a dreadful monster and no onenot even a godcould face her without being terrorstruck. She has twelve misshapen feet, and six necks of the most prodigious length and at the end of each neck she has a frightful head with three rows of teeth in each, all set very close together, so that they would crunch any one to death in a moment, and she sits deep within her shady cell thrusting out her heads and peering all round the rock, fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any larger monster that she can catch, of the thousands with which Amphitrite teems. No ship ever yet got past her without losing some men, for she shoots out all her heads at once, and carries off a man in each mouth. ''You will find the other rock lie lower, but they are so close together that there is not more than a bowshot between them. A large fig tree in full leaf grows upon it, and under it lies the sucking whirlpool of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she vomit forth her waters, and three times she sucks them down again see that you be not there when she is sucking, for if you are, Neptune himself could not save you you must hug the Scylla side and drive ship by as fast as you can, for you had better lose six men than your whole crew.' ''Is there no way,' said I, 'of escaping Charybdis, and at the same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?' ''You dare devil,' replied the goddess, 'you are always wanting to fight somebody or something you will not let yourself be beaten even by the immortals. For Scylla is not mortal moreover she is savage, extreme, rude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for it your best chance will be to get by her as fast as ever you can, for if you dawdle about her rock while you are putting on your armour, she may catch you with a second cast of her six heads, and snap up another half dozen of your men so drive your ship past her at full speed, and roar out lustily to Crataiis who is Scylla's dam, bad luck to her she will then stop her from making a second raid upon you.' ''You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sungodseven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of the sungod Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and herds. If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades and even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men.' 'Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven, whereon she returned inland. I then went on board and told my men to loose the ship from her moorings so they at once got into her, took their places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars. Presently the great and cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a fair wind that blew dead aft, and staid steadily with us, keeping our sails well filled, so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship's gear, and let her go as wind and helmsman headed her. 'Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, 'My friends, it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.' 'I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm there was not a breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed them then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sungod son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the cross piece but they went on rowing themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing. ''Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our songand he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world.' 'They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them further I made signs by frowning to my men that they should set me free but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the Sirens' voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound me. 'Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave from which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men were so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the whole sea resounded with the rushing of the waters, but the ship stayed where it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round, therefore, and exhorted them man by man not to lose heart. ''My friends,' said I, 'this is not the first time that we have been in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the Cyclops shut us up in his cave nevertheless, my courage and wise counsel saved us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as well. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on with might and main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders attend to them, for the ship is in your hands turn her head away from these steaming rapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the slip and be over yonder before you know where you are, and you will be the death of us.' 'So they did as I told them but I said nothing about the awful monster Scylla, for I knew the men would not go on rowing if I did, but would huddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey Circe's strict instructionsI put on my armour. Then seizing two strong spears I took my stand on the ship's bows, for it was there that I expected first to see the monster of the rock, who was to do my men so much harm but I could not make her out anywhere, though I strained my eyes with looking the gloomy rock all over and over. 'Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one hand was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept sucking up the salt water. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a cauldron when it is boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray reached the top of the rocks on either side. When she began to suck again, we could see the water all inside whirling round and round, and it made a deafening sound as it broke against the rocks. We could see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wits ends for fear. While we were taken up with this, and were expecting each moment to be our last, Scylla pounced down suddenly upon us and snatched up my six best men. I was looking at once after both ship and men, and in a moment I saw their hands and feet ever so high above me, struggling in the air as Scylla was carrying them off, and I heard them call out my name in one last despairing cry. As a fisherman, seated, spear in hand, upon some jutting rock throws bait into the water to deceive the poor little fishes, and spears them with the ox's horn with which his spear is shod, throwing them gasping on to the land as he catches them one by oneeven so did Scylla land these panting creatures on her rock and munch them up at the mouth of her den, while they screamed and stretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony. This was the most sickening sight that I saw throughout all my voyages. 'When we had passed the Wandering rocks, with Scylla and terrible Charybdis, we reached the noble island of the sungod, where were the goodly cattle and sheep belonging to the sun Hyperion. While still at sea in my ship I could bear the cattle lowing as they came home to the yards, and the sheep bleating. Then I remembered what the blind Theban prophet Teiresias had told me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe had warned me to shun the island of the blessed sungod. So being much troubled I said to the men, 'My men, I know you are hard pressed, but listen while I tell you the prophecy that Teiresias made me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe warned me to shun the island of the blessed sungod, for it was here, she said, that our worst danger would lie. Head the ship, therefore, away from the island.' 'The men were in despair at this, and Eurylochus at once gave me an insolent answer. 'Ulysses,' said he, 'you are cruel you are very strong yourself and never get worn out you seem to be made of iron, and now, though your men are exhausted with toil and want of sleep, you will not let them land and cook themselves a good supper upon this island, but bid them put out to sea and go faring fruitlessly on through the watches of the flying night. It is by night that the winds blow hardest and do so much damage how can we escape should one of those sudden squalls spring up from South West or West, which so often wreck a vessel when our lords the gods are unpropitious? Now, therefore, let us obey the behests of night and prepare our supper here hard by the ship tomorrow morning we will go on board again and put out to sea.' 'Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. I saw that heaven meant us a mischief and said, 'You force me to yield, for you are many against one, but at any rate each one of you must take his solemn oath that if he meet with a herd of cattle or a large flock of sheep, he will not be so mad as to kill a single head of either, but will be satisfied with the food that Circe has given us.' 'They all swore as I bade them, and when they had completed their oath we made the ship fast in a harbour that was near a stream of fresh water, and the men went ashore and cooked their suppers. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, they began talking about their poor comrades whom Scylla had snatched up and eaten this set them weeping and they went on crying till they fell off into a sound sleep. 'In the third watch of the night when the stars had shifted their places, Jove raised a great gale of wind that flew a hurricane so that land and sea were covered with thick clouds, and night sprang forth out of the heavens. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, we brought the ship to land and drew her into a cave wherein the seanymphs hold their courts and dances, and I called the men together in council. ''My friends,' said I, 'we have meat and drink in the ship, let us mind, therefore, and not touch the cattle, or we shall suffer for it for these cattle and sheep belong to the mighty sun, who sees and gives ear to everything.' And again they promised that they would obey. 'For a whole month the wind blew steadily from the South, and there was no other wind, but only South and East. As long as corn and wine held out the men did not touch the cattle when they were hungry when, however, they had eaten all there was in the ship, they were forced to go further afield, with hook and line, catching birds, and taking whatever they could lay their hands on for they were starving. One day, therefore, I went up inland that I might pray heaven to show me some means of getting away. When I had gone far enough to be clear of all my men, and had found a place that was well sheltered from the wind, I washed my hands and prayed to all the gods in Olympus till by and by they sent me off into a sweet sleep. 'Meanwhile Eurylochus had been giving evil counsel to the men, 'Listen to me,' said he, 'my poor comrades. All deaths are bad enough but there is none so bad as famine. Why should not we drive in the best of these cows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal gods? If we ever get back to Ithaca, we can build a fine temple to the sungod and enrich it with every kind of ornament if, however, he is determined to sink our ship out of revenge for these homed cattle, and the other gods are of the same mind, I for one would rather drink salt water once for all and have done with it, than be starved to death by inches in such a desert island as this is.' 'Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. Now the cattle, so fair and goodly, were feeding not far from the ship the men, therefore, drove in the best of them, and they all stood round them saying their prayers, and using young oakshoots instead of barleymeal, for there was no barley left. When they had done praying they killed the cows and dressed their carcasses they cut out the thigh bones, wrapped them round in two layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on top of them. They had no wine with which to make drinkofferings over the sacrifice while it was cooking, so they kept pouring on a little water from time to time while the inward meats were being grilled then, when the thigh bones were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small and put the pieces upon the spits. 'By this time my deep sleep had left me, and I turned back to the ship and to the sea shore. As I drew near I began to smell hot roast meat, so I groaned out a prayer to the immortal gods. 'Father Jove,' I exclaimed, 'and all you other gods who live in everlasting bliss, you have done me a cruel mischief by the sleep into which you have sent me see what fine work these men of mine have been making in my absence.' 'Meanwhile Lampetie went straight off to the sun and told him we had been killing his cows, whereon he flew into a great rage, and said to the immortals, 'Father Jove, and all you other gods who live in everlasting bliss, I must have vengeance on the crew of Ulysses' ship they have had the insolence to kill my cows, which were the one thing I loved to look upon, whether I was going up heaven or down again. If they do not square accounts with me about my cows, I will go down to Hades and shine there among the dead.' ''Sun,' said Jove, 'go on shining upon us gods and upon mankind over the fruitful earth. I will shiver their ship into little pieces with a bolt of white lightning as soon as they get out to sea.' 'I was told all this by Calypso, who said she had heard it from the mouth of Mercury. 'As soon as I got down to my ship and to the sea shore I rebuked each one of the men separately, but we could see no way out of it, for the cows were dead already. And indeed the gods began at once to show signs and wonders among us, for the hides of the cattle crawled about, and the joints upon the spits began to low like cows, and the meat, whether cooked or raw, kept on making a noise just as cows do. 'For six days my men kept driving in the best cows and feasting upon them, but when Jove the son of Saturn had added a seventh day, the fury of the gale abated we therefore went on board, raised our masts, spread sail, and put out to sea. As soon as we were well away from the island, and could see nothing but sky and sea, the son of Saturn raised a black cloud over our ship, and the sea grew dark beneath it. We did not get on much further, for in another moment we were caught by a terrific squall from the West that snapped the forestays of the mast so that it fell aft, while all the ship's gear tumbled about at the bottom of the vessel. The mast fell upon the head of the helmsman in the ship's stern, so that the bones of his head were crushed to pieces, and he fell overboard as though he were diving, with no more life left in him. 'Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts, and the ship went round and round, and was filled with fire and brimstone as the lightning struck it. The men all fell into the sea they were carried about in the water round the ship, looking like so many seagulls, but the god presently deprived them of all chance of getting home again. 'I stuck to the ship till the sea knocked her sides from her keel (which drifted about by itself) and struck the mast out of her in the direction of the keel but there was a backstay of stout oxthong still hanging about it, and with this I lashed the mast and keel together, and getting astride of them was carried wherever the winds chose to take me. 'The gale from the West had now spent its force, and the wind got into the South again, which frightened me lest I should be taken back to the terrible whirlpool of Charybdis. This indeed was what actually happened, for I was borne along by the waves all night, and by sunrise had reached the rock of Scylla, and the whirlpool. She was then sucking down the salt sea water, but I was carried aloft toward the fig tree, which I caught hold of and clung on to like a bat. I could not plant my feet anywhere so as to stand securely, for the roots were a long way off and the boughs that overshadowed the whole pool were too high, too vast, and too far apart for me to reach them so I hung patiently on, waiting till the pool should discharge my mast and raft againand a very long while it seemed. A juryman is not more glad to get home to supper, after having been long detained in court by troublesome cases, than I was to see my raft beginning to work its way out of the whirlpool again. At last I let go with my hands and feet, and fell heavily into the sea, hard by my raft on to which I then got, and began to row with my hands. As for Scylla, the father of gods and men would not let her get further sight of meotherwise I should have certainly been lost. 'Hence I was carried along for nine days till on the tenth night the gods stranded me on the Ogygian island, where dwells the great and powerful goddess Calypso. She took me in and was kind to me, but I need say no more about this, for I told you and your noble wife all about it yesterday, and I hate saying the same thing over and over again. ULYSSES LEAVES SCHERIA AND RETURNS TO ITHACA. Thus did he speak, and they all held their peace throughout the covered cloister, enthralled by the charm of his story, till presently Alcinous began to speak. 'Ulysses, said he, 'now that you have reached my house I doubt not you will get home without further misadventure no matter how much you have suffered in the past. To you others, however, who come here night after night to drink my choicest wine and listen to my bard, I would insist as follows. Our guest has already packed up the clothes, wrought gold, and other valuables which you have brought for his acceptance let us now, therefore, present him further, each one of us, with a large tripod and a cauldron. We will recoup ourselves by the levy of a general rate for private individuals cannot be expected to bear the burden of such a handsome present. Every one approved of this, and then they went home to bed each in his own abode. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared they hurried down to the ship and brought their cauldrons with them. Alcinous went on board and saw everything so securely stowed under the ship's benches that nothing could break adrift and injure the rowers. Then they went to the house of Alcinous to get dinner, and he sacrificed a bull for them in honour of Jove who is the lord of all. They set the steaks to grill and made an excellent dinner, after which the inspired bard, Demodocus, who was a favourite with every one, sang to them but Ulysses kept on turning his eyes towards the sun, as though to hasten his setting, for he was longing to be on his way. As one who has been all day ploughing a fallow field with a couple of oxen keeps thinking about his supper and is glad when night comes that he may go and get it, for it is all his legs can do to carry him, even so did Ulysses rejoice when the sun went down, and he at once said to the Phaeacians, addressing himself more particularly to King Alcinous 'Sir, and all of you, farewell. Make your drinkofferings and send me on my way rejoicing, for you have fulfilled my heart's desire by giving me an escort, and making me presents, which heaven grant that I may turn to good account may I find my admirable wife living in peace among friends, and may you whom I leave behind me give satisfaction to your wives and children may heaven vouchsafe you every good grace, and may no evil thing come among your people. Thus did he speak. His hearers all of them approved his saying and agreed that he should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Alcinous therefore said to his servant, 'Pontonous, mix some wine and hand it round to everybody, that we may offer a prayer to father Jove, and speed our guest upon his way. Pontonous mixed the wine and handed it to every one in turn the others each from his own seat made a drinkoffering to the blessed gods that live in heaven, but Ulysses rose and placed the double cup in the hands of queen Arete. 'Farewell, queen, said he, 'henceforward and for ever, till age and death, the common lot of mankind, lay their hands upon you. I now take my leave be happy in this house with your children, your people, and with king Alcinous. As he spoke he crossed the threshold, and Alcinous sent a man to conduct him to his ship and to the sea shore. Arete also sent some maidservants with himone with a clean shirt and cloak, another to carry his strong box, and a third with corn and wine. When they got to the water side the crew took these things and put them on board, with all the meat and drink but for Ulysses they spread a rug and a linen sheet on deck that he might sleep soundly in the stern of the ship. Then he too went on board and lay down without a word, but the crew took every man his place and loosed the hawser from the pierced stone to which it had been bound. Thereon, when they began rowing out to sea, Ulysses fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike slumber. The ship bounded forward on her way as a four in hand chariot flies over the course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curvetted as it were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark blue water seethed in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a falcon, swiftest of all birds, could not have kept pace with her. Thus, then, she cut her way through the water, carrying one who was as cunning as the gods, but who was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of all that he had suffered both on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea. When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show, the ship drew near to land. Now there is in Ithaca a haven of the old merman Phorcys, which lies between two points that break the line of the sea and shut the harbour in. These shelter it from the storms of wind and sea that rage outside, so that, when once within it, a ship may lie without being even moored. At the head of this harbour there is a large olive tree, and at no great distance a fine overarching cavern sacred to the nymphs who are called Naiads. There are mixing bowls within it and winejars of stone, and the bees hive there. Moreover, there are great looms of stone on which the nymphs weave their robes of sea purplevery curious to seeand at all times there is water within it. It has two entrances, one facing North by which mortals can go down into the cave, while the other comes from the South and is more mysterious mortals cannot possibly get in by it, it is the way taken by the gods. Into this harbour, then, they took their ship, for they knew the place. She had so much way upon her that she ran half her own length on to the shore when, however, they had landed, the first thing they did was to lift Ulysses with his rug and linen sheet out of the ship, and lay him down upon the sand still fast asleep. Then they took out the presents which Minerva had persuaded the Phaeacians to give him when he was setting out on his voyage homewards. They put these all together by the root of the olive tree, away from the road, for fear some passer by might come and steal them before Ulysses awoke and then they made the best of their way home again. But Neptune did not forget the threats with which he had already threatened Ulysses, so he took counsel with Jove. 'Father Jove, said he, 'I shall no longer be held in any sort of respect among you gods, if mortals like the Phaeacians, who are my own flesh and blood, show such small regard for me. I said I would let Ulysses get home when he had suffered sufficiently. I did not say that he should never get home at all, for I knew you had already nodded your head about it, and promised that he should do so but now they have brought him in a ship fast asleep and have landed him in Ithaca after loading him with more magnificent presents of bronze, gold, and raiment than he would ever have brought back from Troy, if he had had his share of the spoil and got home without misadventure. And Jove answered, 'What, O Lord of the Earthquake, are you talking about? The gods are by no means wanting in respect for you. It would be monstrous were they to insult one so old and honoured as you are. As regards mortals, however, if any of them is indulging in insolence and treating you disrespectfully, it will always rest with yourself to deal with him as you may think proper, so do just as you please. 'I should have done so at once, replied Neptune, 'if I were not anxious to avoid anything that might displease you now, therefore, I should like to wreck the Phaeacian ship as it is returning from its escort. This will stop them from escorting people in future and I should also like to bury their city under a huge mountain. 'My good friend, answered Jove, 'I should recommend you at the very moment when the people from the city are watching the ship on her way, to turn it into a rock near the land and looking like a ship. This will astonish everybody, and you can then bury their city under the mountain. When earthencircling Neptune heard this he went to Scheria where the Phaeacians live, and stayed there till the ship, which was making rapid way, had got close in. Then he went up to it, turned it into stone, and drove it down with the flat of his hand so as to root it in the ground. After this he went away. The Phaeacians then began talking among themselves, and one would turn towards his neighbour, saying, 'Bless my heart, who is it that can have rooted the ship in the sea just as she was getting into port? We could see the whole of her only a moment ago. This was how they talked, but they knew nothing about it and Alcinous said, 'I remember now the old prophecy of my father. He said that Neptune would be angry with us for taking every one so safely over the sea, and would one day wreck a Phaeacian ship as it was returning from an escort, and bury our city under a high mountain. This was what my old father used to say, and now it is all coming true. Now therefore let us all do as I say in the first place we must leave off giving people escorts when they come here, and in the next let us sacrifice twelve picked bulls to Neptune that he may have mercy upon us, and not bury our city under the high mountain. When the people heard this they were afraid and got ready the bulls. Thus did the chiefs and rulers of the Phaeacians pray to king Neptune, standing round his altar and at the same time Ulysses woke up once more upon his own soil. He had been so long away that he did not know it again moreover, Jove's daughter Minerva had made it a foggy day, so that people might not know of his having come, and that she might tell him everything without either his wife or his fellow citizens and friends recognising him until he had taken his revenge upon the wicked suitors. Everything, therefore, seemed quite different to himthe long straight tracks, the harbours, the precipices, and the goodly trees, appeared all changed as he started up and looked upon his native land. So he smote his thighs with the flat of his hands and cried aloud despairingly. 'Alas, he exclaimed, 'among what manner of people am I fallen? Are they savage and uncivilised or hospitable and humane? Where shall I put all this treasure, and which way shall I go? I wish I had staid over there with the Phaeacians or I could have gone to some other great chief who would have been good to me and given me an escort. As it is I do not know where to put my treasure, and I cannot leave it here for fear somebody else should get hold of it. In good truth the chiefs and rulers of the Phaeacians have not been dealing fairly by me, and have left me in the wrong country they said they would take me back to Ithaca and they have not done so may Jove the protector of suppliants chastise them, for he watches over everybody and punishes those who do wrong. Still, I suppose I must count my goods and see if the crew have gone off with any of them. He counted his goodly coppers and cauldrons, his gold and all his clothes, but there was nothing missing still he kept grieving about not being in his own country, and wandered up and down by the shore of the sounding sea bewailing his hard fate. Then Minerva came up to him disguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien, with a good cloak folded double about her shoulders she had sandals on her comely feet and held a javelin in her hand. Ulysses was glad when he saw her, and went straight up to her. 'My friend, said he, 'you are the first person whom I have met with in this country I salute you, therefore, and beg you to be well disposed towards me. Protect these my goods, and myself too, for I embrace your knees and pray to you as though you were a god. Tell me, then, and tell me truly, what land and country is this? Who are its inhabitants? Am I on an island, or is this the sea board of some continent? Minerva answered, 'Stranger, you must be very simple, or must have come from somewhere a long way off, not to know what country this is. It is a very celebrated place, and everybody knows it East and West. It is rugged and not a good driving country, but it is by no means a bad island for what there is of it. It grows any quantity of corn and also wine, for it is watered both by rain and dew it breeds cattle also and goats all kinds of timber grow here, and there are watering places where the water never runs dry so, sir, the name of Ithaca is known even as far as Troy, which I understand to be a long way off from this Achaean country. Ulysses was glad at finding himself, as Minerva told him, in his own country, and he began to answer, but he did not speak the truth, and made up a lying story in the instinctive wiliness of his heart. 'I heard of Ithaca, said he, 'when I was in Crete beyond the seas, and now it seems I have reached it with all these treasures. I have left as much more behind me for my children, but am flying because I killed Orsilochus son of Idomeneus, the fleetest runner in Crete. I killed him because he wanted to rob me of the spoils I had got from Troy with so much trouble and danger both on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea he said I had not served his father loyally at Troy as vassal, but had set myself up as an independent ruler, so I lay in wait for him with one of my followers by the road side, and speared him as he was coming into town from the country. It was a very dark night and nobody saw us it was not known, therefore, that I had killed him, but as soon as I had done so I went to a ship and besought the owners, who were Phoenicians, to take me on board and set me in Pylos or in Elis where the Epeans rule, giving them as much spoil as satisfied them. They meant no guile, but the wind drove them off their course, and we sailed on till we came hither by night. It was all we could do to get inside the harbour, and none of us said a word about supper though we wanted it badly, but we all went on shore and lay down just as we were. I was very tired and fell asleep directly, so they took my goods out of the ship, and placed them beside me where I was lying upon the sand. Then they sailed away to Sidonia, and I was left here in great distress of mind. Such was his story, but Minerva smiled and caressed him with her hand. Then she took the form of a woman, fair, stately, and wise, 'He must be indeed a shifty lying fellow, said she, 'who could surpass you in all manner of craft even though you had a god for your antagonist. Dare devil that you are, full of guile, unwearying in deceit, can you not drop your tricks and your instinctive falsehood, even now that you are in your own country again? We will say no more, however, about this, for we can both of us deceive upon occasionyou are the most accomplished counsellor and orator among all mankind, while I for diplomacy and subtlety have no equal among the gods. Did you not know Jove's daughter Minervame, who have been ever with you, who kept watch over you in all your troubles, and who made the Phaeacians take so great a liking to you? And now, again, I am come here to talk things over with you, and help you to hide the treasure I made the Phaeacians give you I want to tell you about the troubles that await you in your own house you have got to face them, but tell no one, neither man nor woman, that you have come home again. Bear everything, and put up with every man's insolence, without a word. And Ulysses answered, 'A man, goddess, may know a great deal, but you are so constantly changing your appearance that when he meets you it is a hard matter for him to know whether it is you or not. This much, however, I know exceedingly well you were very kind to me as long as we Achaeans were fighting before Troy, but from the day on which we went on board ship after having sacked the city of Priam, and heaven dispersed usfrom that day, Minerva, I saw no more of you, and cannot ever remember your coming to my ship to help me in a difficulty I had to wander on sick and sorry till the gods delivered me from evil and I reached the city of the Phaeacians, where you encouraged me and took me into the town. And now, I beseech you in your father's name, tell me the truth, for I do not believe I am really back in Ithaca. I am in some other country and you are mocking me and deceiving me in all you have been saying. Tell me then truly, have I really got back to my own country? 'You are always taking something of that sort in your head, replied Minerva, 'and that is why I cannot desert you in your afflictions you are so plausible, shrewd and shifty. Any one but yourself on returning from so long a voyage would at once have gone home to see his wife and children, but you do not seem to care about asking after them or hearing any news about them till you have exploited your wife, who remains at home vainly grieving for you, and having no peace night or day for the tears she sheds on your behalf. As for my not coming near you, I was never uneasy about you, for I was certain you would get back safely though you would lose all your men, and I did not wish to quarrel with my uncle Neptune, who never forgave you for having blinded his son. I will now, however, point out to you the lie of the land, and you will then perhaps believe me. This is the haven of the old merman Phorcys, and here is the olive tree that grows at the head of it near it is the cave sacred to the Naiads here too is the overarching cavern in which you have offered many an acceptable hecatomb to the nymphs, and this is the wooded mountain Neritum. As she spoke the goddess dispersed the mist and the land appeared. Then Ulysses rejoiced at finding himself again in his own land, and kissed the bounteous soil he lifted up his hands and prayed to the nymphs, saying, 'Naiad nymphs, daughters of Jove, I made sure that I was never again to see you, now therefore I greet you with all loving salutations, and I will bring you offerings as in the old days, if Jove's redoubtable daughter will grant me life, and bring my son to manhood. 'Take heart, and do not trouble yourself about that, rejoined Minerva, 'let us rather set about stowing your things at once in the cave, where they will be quite safe. Let us see how we can best manage it all. Therewith she went down into the cave to look for the safest hiding places, while Ulysses brought up all the treasure of gold, bronze, and good clothing which the Phaeacians had given him. They stowed everything carefully away, and Minerva set a stone against the door of the cave. Then the two sat down by the root of the great olive, and consulted how to compass the destruction of the wicked suitors. 'Ulysses, said Minerva, 'noble son of Laertes, think how you can lay hands on these disreputable people who have been lording it in your house these three years, courting your wife and making wedding presents to her, while she does nothing but lament your absence, giving hope and sending encouraging messages to every one of them, but meaning the very opposite of all she says. And Ulysses answered, 'In good truth, goddess, it seems I should have come to much the same bad end in my own house as Agamemnon did, if you had not given me such timely information. Advise me how I shall best avenge myself. Stand by my side and put your courage into my heart as on the day when we loosed Troy's fair diadem from her brow. Help me now as you did then, and I will fight three hundred men, if you, goddess, will be with me. 'Trust me for that, said she, 'I will not lose sight of you when once we set about it, and I imagine that some of those who are devouring your substance will then bespatter the pavement with their blood and brains. I will begin by disguising you so that no human being shall know you I will cover your body with wrinkles you shall lose all your yellow hair I will clothe you in a garment that shall fill all who see it with loathing I will blear your fine eyes for you, and make you an unseemly object in the sight of the suitors, of your wife, and of the son whom you left behind you. Then go at once to the swineherd who is in charge of your pigs he has been always well affected towards you, and is devoted to Penelope and your son you will find him feeding his pigs near the rock that is called Raven by the fountain Arethusa, where they are fattening on beechmast and spring water after their manner. Stay with him and find out how things are going, while I proceed to Sparta and see your son, who is with Menelaus at Lacedaemon, where he has gone to try and find out whether you are still alive. 'But why, said Ulysses, 'did you not tell him, for you knew all about it? Did you want him too to go sailing about amid all kinds of hardship while others are eating up his estate? Minerva answered, 'Never mind about him, I sent him that he might be well spoken of for having gone. He is in no sort of difficulty, but is staying quite comfortably with Menelaus, and is surrounded with abundance of every kind. The suitors have put out to sea and are lying in wait for him, for they mean to kill him before he can get home. I do not much think they will succeed, but rather that some of those who are now eating up your estate will first find a grave themselves. As she spoke Minerva touched him with her wand and covered him with wrinkles, took away all his yellow hair, and withered the flesh over his whole body she bleared his eyes, which were naturally very fine ones she changed his clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him, and a tunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke she also gave him an undressed deer skin as an outer garment, and furnished him with a staff and a wallet all in holes, with a twisted thong for him to sling it over his shoulder. When the pair had thus laid their plans they parted, and the goddess went straight to Lacedaemon to fetch Telemachus. ULYSSES IN THE HUT WITH EUMAEUS. Ulysses now left the haven, and took the rough track up through the wooded country and over the crest of the mountain till he reached the place where Minerva had said that he would find the swineherd, who was the most thrifty servant he had. He found him sitting in front of his hut, which was by the yards that he had built on a site which could be seen from far. He had made them spacious and fair to see, with a free run for the pigs all round them he had built them during his master's absence, of stones which he had gathered out of the ground, without saying anything to Penelope or Laertes, and he had fenced them on top with thorn bushes. Outside the yard he had run a strong fence of oaken posts, split, and set pretty close together, while inside he had built twelve styes near one another for the sows to lie in. There were fifty pigs wallowing in each stye, all of them breeding sows but the boars slept outside and were much fewer in number, for the suitors kept on eating them, and the swineherd had to send them the best he had continually. There were three hundred and sixty boar pigs, and the herdsman's four hounds, which were as fierce as wolves, slept always with them. The swineherd was at that moment cutting out a pair of sandals from a good stout ox hide. Three of his men were out herding the pigs in one place or another, and he had sent the fourth to town with a boar that he had been forced to send the suitors that they might sacrifice it and have their fill of meat. When the hounds saw Ulysses they set up a furious barking and flew at him, but Ulysses was cunning enough to sit down and loose his hold of the stick that he had in his hand still, he would have been torn by them in his own homestead had not the swineherd dropped his ox hide, rushed full speed through the gate of the yard and driven the dogs off by shouting and throwing stones at them. Then he said to Ulysses, 'Old man, the dogs were likely to have made short work of you, and then you would have got me into trouble. The gods have given me quite enough worries without that, for I have lost the best of masters, and am in continual grief on his account. I have to attend swine for other people to eat, while he, if he yet lives to see the light of day, is starving in some distant land. But come inside, and when you have had your fill of bread and wine, tell me where you come from, and all about your misfortunes. On this the swineherd led the way into the hut and bade him sit down. He strewed a good thick bed of rushes upon the floor, and on the top of this he threw the shaggy chamois skina great thick oneon which he used to sleep by night. Ulysses was pleased at being made thus welcome, and said 'May Jove, sir, and the rest of the gods grant you your heart's desire in return for the kind way in which you have received me. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'Stranger, though a still poorer man should come here, it would not be right for me to insult him, for all strangers and beggars are from Jove. You must take what you can get and be thankful, for servants live in fear when they have young lords for their masters and this is my misfortune now, for heaven has hindered the return of him who would have been always good to me and given me something of my owna house, a piece of land, a good looking wife, and all else that a liberal master allows a servant who has worked hard for him, and whose labour the gods have prospered as they have mine in the situation which I hold. If my master had grown old here he would have done great things by me, but he is gone, and I wish that Helen's whole race were utterly destroyed, for she has been the death of many a good man. It was this matter that took my master to Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight the Trojans in the cause of king Agamemnon. As he spoke he bound his girdle round him and went to the styes where the young sucking pigs were penned. He picked out two which he brought back with him and sacrificed. He singed them, cut them up, and spitted them when the meat was cooked he brought it all in and set it before Ulysses, hot and still on the spit, whereon Ulysses sprinkled it over with white barley meal. The swineherd then mixed wine in a bowl of ivywood, and taking a seat opposite Ulysses told him to begin. 'Fall to, stranger, said he, 'on a dish of servant's pork. The fat pigs have to go to the suitors, who eat them up without shame or scruple but the blessed gods love not such shameful doings, and respect those who do what is lawful and right. Even the fierce freebooters who go raiding on other people's land, and Jove gives them their spoileven they, when they have filled their ships and got home again live consciencestricken, and look fearfully for judgement but some god seems to have told these people that Ulysses is dead and gone they will not, therefore, go back to their own homes and make their offers of marriage in the usual way, but waste his estate by force, without fear or stint. Not a day or night comes out of heaven, but they sacrifice not one victim nor two only, and they take the run of his wine, for he was exceedingly rich. No other great man either in Ithaca or on the mainland is as rich as he was he had as much as twenty men put together. I will tell you what he had. There are twelve herds of cattle upon the main land, and as many flocks of sheep, there are also twelve droves of pigs, while his own men and hired strangers feed him twelve widely spreading herds of goats. Here in Ithaca he runs even large flocks of goats on the far end of the island, and they are in the charge of excellent goat herds. Each one of these sends the suitors the best goat in the flock every day. As for myself, I am in charge of the pigs that you see here, and I have to keep picking out the best I have and sending it to them. This was his story, but Ulysses went on eating and drinking ravenously without a word, brooding his revenge. When he had eaten enough and was satisfied, the swineherd took the bowl from which he usually drank, filled it with wine, and gave it to Ulysses, who was pleased, and said as he took it in his hands, 'My friend, who was this master of yours that bought you and paid for you, so rich and so powerful as you tell me? You say he perished in the cause of King Agamemnon tell me who he was, in case I may have met with such a person. Jove and the other gods know, but I may be able to give you news of him, for I have travelled much. Eumaeus answered, 'Old man, no traveller who comes here with news will get Ulysses' wife and son to believe his story. Nevertheless, tramps in want of a lodging keep coming with their mouths full of lies, and not a word of truth every one who finds his way to Ithaca goes to my mistress and tells her falsehoods, whereon she takes them in, makes much of them, and asks them all manner of questions, crying all the time as women will when they have lost their husbands. And you too, old man, for a shirt and a cloak would doubtless make up a very pretty story. But the wolves and birds of prey have long since torn Ulysses to pieces, or the fishes of the sea have eaten him, and his bones are lying buried deep in sand upon some foreign shore he is dead and gone, and a bad business it is for all his friendsfor me especially go where I may I shall never find so good a master, not even if I were to go home to my mother and father where I was bred and born. I do not so much care, however, about my parents now, though I should dearly like to see them again in my own country it is the loss of Ulysses that grieves me most I cannot speak of him without reverence though he is here no longer, for he was very fond of me, and took such care of me that wherever he may be I shall always honour his memory. 'My friend, replied Ulysses, 'you are very positive, and very hard of belief about your master's coming home again, nevertheless I will not merely say, but will swear, that he is coming. Do not give me anything for my news till he has actually come, you may then give me a shirt and cloak of good wear if you will. I am in great want, but I will not take anything at all till then, for I hate a man, even as I hate hell fire, who lets his poverty tempt him into lying. I swear by king Jove, by the rites of hospitality, and by that hearth of Ulysses to which I have now come, that all will surely happen as I have said it will. Ulysses will return in this self same year with the end of this moon and the beginning of the next he will be here to do vengeance on all those who are ill treating his wife and son. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'Old man, you will neither get paid for bringing good news, nor will Ulysses ever come home drink your wine in peace, and let us talk about something else. Do not keep on reminding me of all this it always pains me when any one speaks about my honoured master. As for your oath we will let it alone, but I only wish he may come, as do Penelope, his old father Laertes, and his son Telemachus. I am terribly unhappy too about this same boy of his he was running up fast into manhood, and bade fare to be no worse man, face and figure, than his father, but some one, either god or man, has been unsettling his mind, so he has gone off to Pylos to try and get news of his father, and the suitors are lying in wait for him as he is coming home, in the hope of leaving the house of Arceisius without a name in Ithaca. But let us say no more about him, and leave him to be taken, or else to escape if the son of Saturn holds his hand over him to protect him. And now, old man, tell me your own story tell me also, for I want to know, who you are and where you come from. Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how crew brought you to Ithaca, and from what country they professed to comefor you cannot have come by land. And Ulysses answered, 'I will tell you all about it. If there were meat and wine enough, and we could stay here in the hut with nothing to do but to eat and drink while the others go to their work, I could easily talk on for a whole twelve months without ever finishing the story of the sorrows with which it has pleased heaven to visit me. 'I am by birth a Cretan my father was a well to do man, who had many sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he had purchased for a concubine nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honour among the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity, and the valour of his sons) put me on the same level with my brothers who had been born in wedlock. When, however, death took him to the house of Hades, his sons divided his estate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding and little else nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on the field of battle. It is all over now still, if you look at the straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to spare. Mars and Minerva made me doughty in war when I had picked my men to surprise the enemy with an ambuscade I never gave death so much as a thought, but was the first to leap forward and spear all whom I could overtake. Such was I in battle, but I did not care about farm work, nor the frugal home life of those who would bring up children. My delight was in ships, fighting, javelins, and arrowsthings that most men shudder to think of but one man likes one thing and another another, and this was what I was most naturally inclined to. Before the Achaeans went to Troy, nine times was I in command of men and ships on foreign service, and I amassed much wealth. I had my pick of the spoil in the first instance, and much more was allotted to me later on. 'My house grew apace and I became a great man among the Cretans, but when Jove counselled that terrible expedition, in which so many perished, the people required me and Idomeneus to lead their ships to Troy, and there was no way out of it, for they insisted on our doing so. There we fought for nine whole years, but in the tenth we sacked the city of Priam and sailed home again as heaven dispersed us. Then it was that Jove devised evil against me. I spent but one month happily with my children, wife, and property, and then I conceived the idea of making a descent on Egypt, so I fitted out a fine fleet and manned it. I had nine ships, and the people flocked to fill them. For six days I and my men made feast, and I found them many victims both for sacrifice to the gods and for themselves, but on the seventh day we went on board and set sail from Crete with a fair North wind behind us though we were going down a river. Nothing went ill with any of our ships, and we had no sickness on board, but sat where we were and let the ships go as the wind and steersmen took them. On the fifth day we reached the river Aegyptus there I stationed my ships in the river, bidding my men stay by them and keep guard over them while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from every point of vantage. 'But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their wives and children captive. The alarm was soon carried to the city, and when they heard the war cry, the people came out at daybreak till the plain was filled with horsemen and foot soldiers and with the gleam of armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would no longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced labour for them. Jove, however, put it in my mind to do thusand I wish I had died then and there in Egypt instead, for there was much sorrow in store for meI took off my helmet and shield and dropped my spear from my hand then I went straight up to the king's chariot, clasped his knees and kissed them, whereon he spared my life, bade me get into his chariot, and took me weeping to his own home. Many made at me with their ashen spears and tried to kill me in their fury, but the king protected me, for he feared the wrath of Jove the protector of strangers, who punishes those who do evil. 'I stayed there for seven years and got together much money among the Egyptians, for they all gave me something but when it was now going on for eight years there came a certain Phoenician, a cunning rascal, who had already committed all sorts of villainy, and this man talked me over into going with him to Phoenicia, where his house and his possessions lay. I stayed there for a whole twelve months, but at the end of that time when months and days had gone by till the same season had come round again, he set me on board a ship bound for Libya, on a pretence that I was to take a cargo along with him to that place, but really that he might sell me as a slave and take the money I fetched. I suspected his intention, but went on board with him, for I could not help it. 'The ship ran before a fresh North wind till we had reached the sea that lies between Crete and Libya there, however, Jove counselled their destruction, for as soon as we were well out from Crete and could see nothing but sea and sky, he raised a black cloud over our ship and the sea grew dark beneath it. Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts and the ship went round and round and was filled with fire and brimstone as the lightning struck it. The men fell all into the sea they were carried about in the water round the ship looking like so many seagulls, but the god presently deprived them of all chance of getting home again. I was all dismayed. Jove, however, sent the ship's mast within my reach, which saved my life, for I clung to it, and drifted before the fury of the gale. Nine days did I drift but in the darkness of the tenth night a great wave bore me on to the Thesprotian coast. There Pheidon king of the Thesprotians entertained me hospitably without charging me anything at allfor his son found me when I was nearly dead with cold and fatigue, whereon he raised me by the hand, took me to his father's house and gave me clothes to wear. 'There it was that I heard news of Ulysses, for the king told me he had entertained him, and shown him much hospitality while he was on his homeward journey. He showed me also the treasure of gold, and wrought iron that Ulysses had got together. There was enough to keep his family for ten generations, so much had he left in the house of king Pheidon. But the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he might learn Jove's mind from the god's high oak tree, and know whether after so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly, or in secret. Moreover the king swore in my presence, making drinkofferings in his own house as he did so, that the ship was by the water side, and the crew found, that should take him to his own country. He sent me off however before Ulysses returned, for there happened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheatgrowing island of Dulichium, and he told those in charge of her to be sure and take me safely to King Acastus. 'These men hatched a plot against me that would have reduced me to the very extreme of misery, for when the ship had got some way out from land they resolved on selling me as a slave. They stripped me of the shirt and cloak that I was wearing, and gave me instead the tattered old clouts in which you now see me then, towards nightfall, they reached the tilled lands of Ithaca, and there they bound me with a strong rope fast in the ship, while they went on shore to get supper by the sea side. But the gods soon undid my bonds for me, and having drawn my rags over my head I slid down the rudder into the sea, where I struck out and swam till I was well clear of them, and came ashore near a thick wood in which I lay concealed. They were very angry at my having escaped and went searching about for me, till at last they thought it was no further use and went back to their ship. The gods, having hidden me thus easily, then took me to a good man's doorfor it seems that I am not to die yet awhile. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'Poor unhappy stranger, I have found the story of your misfortunes extremely interesting, but that part about Ulysses is not right and you will never get me to believe it. Why should a man like you go about telling lies in this way? I know all about the return of my master. The gods one and all of them detest him, or they would have taken him before Troy, or let him die with friends around him when the days of his fighting were done for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his ashes and his son would have been heir to his renown, but now the storm winds have spirited him away we know not whither. 'As for me I live out of the way here with the pigs, and never go to the town unless when Penelope sends for me on the arrival of some news about Ulysses. Then they all sit round and ask questions, both those who grieve over the king's absence, and those who rejoice at it because they can eat up his property without paying for it. For my own part I have never cared about asking anyone else since the time when I was taken in by an Aetolian, who had killed a man and come a long way till at last he reached my station, and I was very kind to him. He said he had seen Ulysses with Idomeneus among the Cretans, refitting his ships which had been damaged in a gale. He said Ulysses would return in the following summer or autumn with his men, and that he would bring back much wealth. And now you, you unfortunate old man, since fate has brought you to my door, do not try to flatter me in this way with vain hopes. It is not for any such reason that I shall treat you kindly, but only out of respect for Jove the god of hospitality, as fearing him and pitying you. Ulysses answered, 'I see that you are of an unbelieving mind I have given you my oath, and yet you will not credit me let us then make a bargain, and call all the gods in heaven to witness it. If your master comes home, give me a cloak and shirt of good wear, and send me to Dulichium where I want to go but if he does not come as I say he will, set your men on to me, and tell them to throw me from yonder precipice, as a warning to tramps not to go about the country telling lies. 'And a pretty figure I should cut then, replied Eumaeus, 'both now and hereafter, if I were to kill you after receiving you into my hut and showing you hospitality. I should have to say my prayers in good earnest if I did but it is just supper time and I hope my men will come in directly, that we may cook something savoury for supper. Thus did they converse, and presently the swineherds came up with the pigs, which were then shut up for the night in their styes, and a tremendous squealing they made as they were being driven into them. But Eumaeus called to his men and said, 'Bring in the best pig you have, that I may sacrifice him for this stranger, and we will take toll of him ourselves. We have had trouble enough this long time feeding pigs, while others reap the fruit of our labour. On this he began chopping firewood, while the others brought in a fine fat five year old boar pig, and set it at the altar. Eumaeus did not forget the gods, for he was a man of good principles, so the first thing he did was to cut bristles from the pig's face and throw them into the fire, praying to all the gods as he did so that Ulysses might return home again. Then he clubbed the pig with a billet of oak which he had kept back when he was chopping the firewood, and stunned it, while the others slaughtered and singed it. Then they cut it up, and Eumaeus began by putting raw pieces from each joint on to some of the fat these he sprinkled with barley meal, and laid upon the embers they cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces upon the spits and roasted them till they were done when they had taken them off the spits they threw them on to the dresser in a heap. The swineherd, who was a most equitable man, then stood up to give every one his share. He made seven portions one of these he set apart for Mercury the son of Maia and the nymphs, praying to them as he did so the others he dealt out to the men man by man. He gave Ulysses some slices cut lengthways down the loin as a mark of especial honour, and Ulysses was much pleased. 'I hope, Eumaeus, said he, 'that Jove will be as well disposed towards you as I am, for the respect you are showing to an outcast like myself. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'Eat, my good fellow, and enjoy your supper, such as it is. God grants this, and withholds that, just as he thinks right, for he can do whatever he chooses. As he spoke he cut off the first piece and offered it as a burnt sacrifice to the immortal gods then he made them a drinkoffering, put the cup in the hands of Ulysses, and sat down to his own portion. Mesaulius brought them their bread the swineherd had brought this man on his own account from among the Taphians during his master's absence, and had paid for him with his own money without saying anything either to his mistress or Laertes. They then laid their hands upon the good things that were before them, and when they had had enough to eat and drink, Mesaulius took away what was left of the bread, and they all went to bed after having made a hearty supper. Now the night came on stormy and very dark, for there was no moon. It poured without ceasing, and the wind blew strong from the West, which is a wet quarter, so Ulysses thought he would see whether Eumaeus, in the excellent care he took of him, would take off his own cloak and give it him, or make one of his men give him one. 'Listen to me, said he, 'Eumaeus and the rest of you when I have said a prayer I will tell you something. It is the wine that makes me talk in this way wine will make even a wise man fall to singing it will make him chuckle and dance and say many a word that he had better leave unspoken still, as I have begun, I will go on. Would that I were still young and strong as when we got up an ambuscade before Troy. Menelaus and Ulysses were the leaders, but I was in command also, for the other two would have it so. When we had come up to the wall of the city we crouched down beneath our armour and lay there under cover of the reeds and thick brushwood that grew about the swamp. It came on to freeze with a North wind blowing the snow fell small and fine like hoar frost, and our shields were coated thick with rime. The others had all got cloaks and shirts, and slept comfortably enough with their shields about their shoulders, but I had carelessly left my cloak behind me, not thinking that I should be too cold, and had gone off in nothing but my shirt and shield. When the night was twothirds through and the stars had shifted their places, I nudged Ulysses who was close to me with my elbow, and he at once gave me his ear. ''Ulysses,' said I, 'this cold will be the death of me, for I have no cloak some god fooled me into setting off with nothing on but my shirt, and I do not know what to do.' 'Ulysses, who was as crafty as he was valiant, hit upon the following plan ''Keep still,' said he in a low voice, 'or the others will hear you.' Then he raised his head on his elbow. ''My friends,' said he, 'I have had a dream from heaven in my sleep. We are a long way from the ships I wish some one would go down and tell Agamemnon to send us up more men at once.' 'On this Thoas son of Andraemon threw off his cloak and set out running to the ships, whereon I took the cloak and lay in it comfortably enough till morning. Would that I were still young and strong as I was in those days, for then some one of you swineherds would give me a cloak both out of good will and for the respect due to a brave soldier but now people look down upon me because my clothes are shabby. And Eumaeus answered, 'Old man, you have told us an excellent story, and have said nothing so far but what is quite satisfactory for the present, therefore, you shall want neither clothing nor anything else that a stranger in distress may reasonably expect, but tomorrow morning you have to shake your own old rags about your body again, for we have not many spare cloaks nor shirts up here, but every man has only one. When Ulysses' son comes home again he will give you both cloak and shirt, and send you wherever you may want to go. With this he got up and made a bed for Ulysses by throwing some goatskins and sheepskins on the ground in front of the fire. Here Ulysses lay down, and Eumaeus covered him over with a great heavy cloak that he kept for a change in case of extraordinarily bad weather. Thus did Ulysses sleep, and the young men slept beside him. But the swineherd did not like sleeping away from his pigs, so he got ready to go outside, and Ulysses was glad to see that he looked after his property during his master's absence. First he slung his sword over his brawny shoulders and put on a thick cloak to keep out the wind. He also took the skin of a large and well fed goat, and a javelin in case of attack from men or dogs. Thus equipped he went to his rest where the pigs were camping under an overhanging rock that gave them shelter from the North wind. MINERVA SUMMONS TELEMACHUS FROM LACEDAEMONHE MEETS WITH THEOCLYMENUS AT PYLOS AND BRINGS HIM TO ITHACAON LANDING HE GOES TO THE HUT OF EUMAEUS. But Minerva went to the fair city of Lacedaemon to tell Ulysses' son that he was to return at once. She found him and Pisistratus sleeping in the forecourt of Menelaus's house Pisistratus was fast asleep, but Telemachus could get no rest all night for thinking of his unhappy father, so Minerva went close up to him and said 'Telemachus, you should not remain so far away from home any longer, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been on a fool's errand. Ask Menelaus to send you home at once if you wish to find your excellent mother still there when you get back. Her father and brothers are already urging her to marry Eurymachus, who has given her more than any of the others, and has been greatly increasing his wedding presents. I hope nothing valuable may have been taken from the house in spite of you, but you know what women arethey always want to do the best they can for the man who marries them, and never give another thought to the children of their first husband, nor to their father either when he is dead and done with. Go home, therefore, and put everything in charge of the most respectable woman servant that you have, until it shall please heaven to send you a wife of your own. Let me tell you also of another matter which you had better attend to. The chief men among the suitors are lying in wait for you in the Strait between Ithaca and Samos, and they mean to kill you before you can reach home. I do not much think they will succeed it is more likely that some of those who are now eating up your property will find a grave themselves. Sail night and day, and keep your ship well away from the islands the god who watches over you and protects you will send you a fair wind. As soon as you get to Ithaca send your ship and men on to the town, but yourself go straight to the swineherd who has charge of your pigs he is well disposed towards you, stay with him, therefore, for the night, and then send him to Penelope to tell her that you have got back safe from Pylos. Then she went back to Olympus but Telemachus stirred Pisistratus with his heel to rouse him, and said, 'Wake up Pisistratus, and yoke the horses to the chariot, for we must set off home. But Pisistratus said, 'No matter what hurry we are in we cannot drive in the dark. It will be morning soon wait till Menelaus has brought his presents and put them in the chariot for us and let him say good bye to us in the usual way. So long as he lives a guest should never forget a host who has shown him kindness. As he spoke day began to break, and Menelaus, who had already risen, leaving Helen in bed, came towards them. When Telemachus saw him he put on his shirt as fast as he could, threw a great cloak over his shoulders, and went out to meet him. 'Menelaus, said he, 'let me go back now to my own country, for I want to get home. And Menelaus answered, 'Telemachus, if you insist on going I will not detain you. I do not like to see a host either too fond of his guest or too rude to him. Moderation is best in all things, and not letting a man go when he wants to do so is as bad as telling him to go if he would like to stay. One should treat a guest well as long as he is in the house and speed him when he wants to leave it. Wait, then, till I can get your beautiful presents into your chariot, and till you have yourself seen them. I will tell the women to prepare a sufficient dinner for you of what there may be in the house it will be at once more proper and cheaper for you to get your dinner before setting out on such a long journey. If, moreover, you have a fancy for making a tour in Hellas or in the Peloponnese, I will yoke my horses, and will conduct you myself through all our principal cities. No one will send us away empty handed every one will give us somethinga bronze tripod, a couple of mules, or a gold cup. 'Menelaus, replied Telemachus, 'I want to go home at once, for when I came away I left my property without protection, and fear that while looking for my father I shall come to ruin myself, or find that something valuable has been stolen during my absence. When Menelaus heard this he immediately told his wife and servants to prepare a sufficient dinner from what there might be in the house. At this moment Eteoneus joined him, for he lived close by and had just got up so Menelaus told him to light the fire and cook some meat, which he at once did. Then Menelaus went down into his fragrant store room, not alone, but Helen went too, with Megapenthes. When he reached the place where the treasures of his house were kept, he selected a double cup, and told his son Megapenthes to bring also a silver mixing bowl. Meanwhile Helen went to the chest where she kept the lovely dresses which she had made with her own hands, and took out one that was largest and most beautifully enriched with embroidery it glittered like a star, and lay at the very bottom of the chest.  Then they all came back through the house again till they got to Telemachus, and Menelaus said, 'Telemachus, may Jove, the mighty husband of Juno, bring you safely home according to your desire. I will now present you with the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing bowl of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold, and it is the work of Vulcan. Phaedimus king of the Sidonians made me a present of it in the course of a visit that I paid him while I was on my return home. I should like to give it to you. With these words he placed the double cup in the hands of Telemachus, while Megapenthes brought the beautiful mixing bowl and set it before him. Hard by stood lovely Helen with the robe ready in her hand. 'I too, my son, said she, 'have something for you as a keepsake from the hand of Helen it is for your bride to wear upon her wedding day. Till then, get your dear mother to keep it for you thus may you go back rejoicing to your own country and to your home. So saying she gave the robe over to him and he received it gladly. Then Pisistratus put the presents into the chariot, and admired them all as he did so. Presently Menelaus took Telemachus and Pisistratus into the house, and they both of them sat down to table. A maid servant brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she drew a clean table beside them an upper servant brought them bread and offered them many good things of what there was in the house. Eteoneus carved the meat and gave them each their portions, while Megapenthes poured out the wine. Then they laid their hands upon the good things that were before them, but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Telemachus and Pisistratus yoked the horses, and took their places in the chariot. They drove out through the inner gateway and under the echoing gatehouse of the outer court, and Menelaus came after them with a golden goblet of wine in his right hand that they might make a drinkoffering before they set out. He stood in front of the horses and pledged them, saying, 'Farewell to both of you see that you tell Nestor how I have treated you, for he was as kind to me as any father could be while we Achaeans were fighting before Troy. 'We will be sure, sir, answered Telemachus, 'to tell him everything as soon as we see him. I wish I were as certain of finding Ulysses returned when I get back to Ithaca, that I might tell him of the very great kindness you have shown me and of the many beautiful presents I am taking with me. As he was thus speaking a bird flew on his right handan eagle with a great white goose in its talons which it had carried off from the farm yardand all the men and women were running after it and shouting. It came quite close up to them and flew away on their right hands in front of the horses. When they saw it they were glad, and their hearts took comfort within them, whereon Pisistratus said, 'Tell me, Menelaus, has heaven sent this omen for us or for you? Menelaus was thinking what would be the most proper answer for him to make, but Helen was too quick for him and said, 'I will read this matter as heaven has put it in my heart, and as I doubt not that it will come to pass. The eagle came from the mountain where it was bred and has its nest, and in like manner Ulysses, after having travelled far and suffered much, will return to take his revengeif indeed he is not back already and hatching mischief for the suitors. 'May Jove so grant it, replied Telemachus, 'if it should prove to be so, I will make vows to you as though you were a god, even when I am at home. As he spoke he lashed his horses and they started off at full speed through the town towards the open country. They swayed the yoke upon their necks and travelled the whole day long till the sun set and darkness was over all the land. Then they reached Pherae, where Diocles lived who was son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. There they passed the night and were treated hospitably. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and their places in the chariot. They drove out through the inner gateway and under the echoing gatehouse of the outer court. Then Pisistratus lashed his horses on and they flew forward nothing loath ere long they came to Pylos, and then Telemachus said 'Pisistratus, I hope you will promise to do what I am going to ask you. You know our fathers were old friends before us moreover, we are both of an age, and this journey has brought us together still more closely do not, therefore, take me past my ship, but leave me there, for if I go to your father's house he will try to keep me in the warmth of his good will towards me, and I must go home at once. Pisistratus thought how he should do as he was asked, and in the end he deemed it best to turn his horses towards the ship, and put Menelaus's beautiful presents of gold and raiment in the stern of the vessel. Then he said, 'Go on board at once and tell your men to do so also before I can reach home to tell my father. I know how obstinate he is, and am sure he will not let you go he will come down here to fetch you, and he will not go back without you. But he will be very angry. With this he drove his goodly steeds back to the city of the Pylians and soon reached his home, but Telemachus called the men together and gave his orders. 'Now, my men, said he, 'get everything in order on board the ship, and let us set out home. Thus did he speak, and they went on board even as he had said. But as Telemachus was thus busied, praying also and sacrificing to Minerva in the ship's stern, there came to him a man from a distant country, a seer, who was flying from Argos because he had killed a man. He was descended from Melampus, who used to live in Pylos, the land of sheep he was rich and owned a great house, but he was driven into exile by the great and powerful king Neleus. Neleus seized his goods and held them for a whole year, during which he was a close prisoner in the house of king Phylacus, and in much distress of mind both on account of the daughter of Neleus and because he was haunted by a great sorrow that dread Erinys had laid upon him. In the end, however, he escaped with his life, drove the cattle from Phylace to Pylos, avenged the wrong that had been done him, and gave the daughter of Neleus to his brother. Then he left the country and went to Argos, where it was ordained that he should reign over much people. There he married, established himself, and had two famous sons Antiphates and Mantius. Antiphates became father of Oicleus, and Oicleus of Amphiaraus, who was dearly loved both by Jove and by Apollo, but he did not live to old age, for he was killed in Thebes by reason of a woman's gifts. His sons were Alcmaeon and Amphilochus. Mantius, the other son of Melampus, was father to Polypheides and Cleitus. Aurora, throned in gold, carried off Cleitus for his beauty's sake, that he might dwell among the immortals, but Apollo made Polypheides the greatest seer in the whole world now that Amphiaraus was dead. He quarrelled with his father and went to live in Hyperesia, where he remained and prophesied for all men. His son, Theoclymenus, it was who now came up to Telemachus as he was making drinkofferings and praying in his ship. 'Friend, said he, 'now that I find you sacrificing in this place, I beseech you by your sacrifices themselves, and by the god to whom you make them, I pray you also by your own head and by those of your followers tell me the truth and nothing but the truth. Who and whence are you? Tell me also of your town and parents. Telemachus said, 'I will answer you quite truly. I am from Ithaca, and my father is Ulysses, as surely as that he ever lived. But he has come to some miserable end. Therefore I have taken this ship and got my crew together to see if I can hear any news of him, for he has been away a long time. 'I too, answered Theoclymenus, 'am an exile, for I have killed a man of my own race. He has many brothers and kinsmen in Argos, and they have great power among the Argives. I am flying to escape death at their hands, and am thus doomed to be a wanderer on the face of the earth. I am your suppliant take me, therefore, on board your ship that they may not kill me, for I know they are in pursuit. 'I will not refuse you, replied Telemachus, 'if you wish to join us. Come, therefore, and in Ithaca we will treat you hospitably according to what we have. On this he received Theoclymenus' spear and laid it down on the deck of the ship. He went on board and sat in the stern, bidding Theoclymenus sit beside him then the men let go the hawsers. Telemachus told them to catch hold of the ropes, and they made all haste to do so. They set the mast in its socket in the cross plank, raised it and made it fast with the forestays, and they hoisted their white sails with sheets of twisted ox hide. Minerva sent them a fair wind that blew fresh and strong to take the ship on her course as fast as possible. Thus then they passed by Crouni and Chalcis. Presently the sun set and darkness was over all the land. The vessel made a quick passage to Pheae and thence on to Elis, where the Epeans rule. Telemachus then headed her for the flying islands, wondering within himself whether he should escape death or should be taken prisoner. Meanwhile Ulysses and the swineherd were eating their supper in the hut, and the men supped with them. As soon as they had had to eat and drink, Ulysses began trying to prove the swineherd and see whether he would continue to treat him kindly, and ask him to stay on at the station or pack him off to the city so he said 'Eumaeus, and all of you, tomorrow I want to go away and begin begging about the town, so as to be no more trouble to you or to your men. Give me your advice therefore, and let me have a good guide to go with me and show me the way. I will go the round of the city begging as I needs must, to see if any one will give me a drink and a piece of bread. I should like also to go to the house of Ulysses and bring news of her husband to Queen Penelope. I could then go about among the suitors and see if out of all their abundance they will give me a dinner. I should soon make them an excellent servant in all sorts of ways. Listen and believe when I tell you that by the blessing of Mercury who gives grace and good name to the works of all men, there is no one living who would make a more handy servant than I shouldto put fresh wood on the fire, chop fuel, carve, cook, pour out wine, and do all those services that poor men have to do for their betters. The swineherd was very much disturbed when he heard this. 'Heaven help me, he exclaimed, 'what ever can have put such a notion as that into your head? If you go near the suitors you will be undone to a certainty, for their pride and insolence reach the very heavens. They would never think of taking a man like you for a servant. Their servants are all young men, well dressed, wearing good cloaks and shirts, with well looking faces and their hair always tidy, the tables are kept quite clean and are loaded with bread, meat, and wine. Stay where you are, then you are not in anybody's way I do not mind your being here, no more do any of the others, and when Telemachus comes home he will give you a shirt and cloak and will send you wherever you want to go. Ulysses answered, 'I hope you may be as dear to the gods as you are to me, for having saved me from going about and getting into trouble there is nothing worse than being always on the tramp still, when men have once got low down in the world they will go through a great deal on behalf of their miserable bellies. Since, however, you press me to stay here and await the return of Telemachus, tell me about Ulysses' mother, and his father whom he left on the threshold of old age when he set out for Troy. Are they still living or are they already dead and in the house of Hades? 'I will tell you all about them, replied Eumaeus, 'Laertes is still living and prays heaven to let him depart peacefully in his own house, for he is terribly distressed about the absence of his son, and also about the death of his wife, which grieved him greatly and aged him more than anything else did. She came to an unhappy end through sorrow for her son may no friend or neighbour who has dealt kindly by me come to such an end as she did. As long as she was still living, though she was always grieving, I used to like seeing her and asking her how she did, for she brought me up along with her daughter Ctimene, the youngest of her children we were boy and girl together, and she made little difference between us. When, however, we both grew up, they sent Ctimene to Same and received a splendid dowry for her. As for me, my mistress gave me a good shirt and cloak with a pair of sandals for my feet, and sent me off into the country, but she was just as fond of me as ever. This is all over now. Still it has pleased heaven to prosper my work in the situation which I now hold. I have enough to eat and drink, and can find something for any respectable stranger who comes here but there is no getting a kind word or deed out of my mistress, for the house has fallen into the hands of wicked people. Servants want sometimes to see their mistress and have a talk with her they like to have something to eat and drink at the house, and something too to take back with them into the country. This is what will keep servants in a good humour. Ulysses answered, 'Then you must have been a very little fellow, Eumaeus, when you were taken so far away from your home and parents. Tell me, and tell me true, was the city in which your father and mother lived sacked and pillaged, or did some enemies carry you off when you were alone tending sheep or cattle, ship you off here, and sell you for whatever your master gave them? 'Stranger, replied Eumaeus, 'as regards your question sit still, make yourself comfortable, drink your wine, and listen to me. The nights are now at their longest there is plenty of time both for sleeping and sitting up talking together you ought not to go to bed till bed time, too much sleep is as bad as too little if any one of the others wishes to go to bed let him leave us and do so he can then take my master's pigs out when he has done breakfast in the morning. We too will sit here eating and drinking in the hut, and telling one another stories about our misfortunes for when a man has suffered much, and been buffeted about in the world, he takes pleasure in recalling the memory of sorrows that have long gone by. As regards your question, then, my tale is as follows 'You may have heard of an island called Syra that lies over above Ortygia, where the land begins to turn round and look in another direction. It is not very thickly peopled, but the soil is good, with much pasture fit for cattle and sheep, and it abounds with wine and wheat. Dearth never comes there, nor are the people plagued by any sickness, but when they grow old Apollo comes with Diana and kills them with his painless shafts. It contains two communities, and the whole country is divided between these two. My father Ctesius son of Ormenus, a man comparable to the gods, reigned over both. 'Now to this place there came some cunning traders from Phoenicia (for the Phoenicians are great mariners) in a ship which they had freighted with gewgaws of all kinds. There happened to be a Phoenician woman in my father's house, very tall and comely, and an excellent servant these scoundrels got hold of her one day when she was washing near their ship, seduced her, and cajoled her in ways that no woman can resist, no matter how good she may be by nature. The man who had seduced her asked her who she was and where she came from, and on this she told him her father's name. 'I come from Sidon,' said she, 'and am daughter to Arybas, a man rolling in wealth. One day as I was coming into the town from the country, some Taphian pirates seized me and took me here over the sea, where they sold me to the man who owns this house, and he gave them their price for me.' 'The man who had seduced her then said, 'Would you like to come along with us to see the house of your parents and your parents themselves? They are both alive and are said to be well off.' ''I will do so gladly,' answered she, 'if you men will first swear me a solemn oath that you will do me no harm by the way.' 'They all swore as she told them, and when they had completed their oath the woman said, 'Hush and if any of your men meets me in the street or at the well, do not let him speak to me, for fear some one should go and tell my master, in which case he would suspect something. He would put me in prison, and would have all of you murdered keep your own counsel therefore buy your merchandise as fast as you can, and send me word when you have done loading. I will bring as much gold as I can lay my hands on, and there is something else also that I can do towards paying my fare. I am nurse to the son of the good man of the house, a funny little fellow just able to run about. I will carry him off in your ship, and you will get a great deal of money for him if you take him and sell him in foreign parts.' 'On this she went back to the house. The Phoenicians stayed a whole year till they had loaded their ship with much precious merchandise, and then, when they had got freight enough, they sent to tell the woman. Their messenger, a very cunning fellow, came to my father's house bringing a necklace of gold with amber beads strung among it and while my mother and the servants had it in their hands admiring it and bargaining about it, he made a sign quietly to the woman and then went back to the ship, whereon she took me by the hand and led me out of the house. In the fore part of the house she saw the tables set with the cups of guests who had been feasting with my father, as being in attendance on him these were now all gone to a meeting of the public assembly, so she snatched up three cups and carried them off in the bosom of her dress, while I followed her, for I knew no better. The sun was now set, and darkness was over all the land, so we hurried on as fast as we could till we reached the harbour, where the Phoenician ship was lying. When they had got on board they sailed their ways over the sea, taking us with them, and Jove sent then a fair wind six days did we sail both night and day, but on the seventh day Diana struck the woman and she fell heavily down into the ship's hold as though she were a sea gull alighting on the water so they threw her overboard to the seals and fishes, and I was left all sorrowful and alone. Presently the winds and waves took the ship to Ithaca, where Laertes gave sundry of his chattels for me, and thus it was that ever I came to set eyes upon this country. Ulysses answered, 'Eumaeus, I have heard the story of your misfortunes with the most lively interest and pity, but Jove has given you good as well as evil, for in spite of everything you have a good master, who sees that you always have enough to eat and drink and you lead a good life, whereas I am still going about begging my way from city to city. Thus did they converse, and they had only a very little time left for sleep, for it was soon daybreak. In the mean time Telemachus and his crew were nearing land, so they loosed the sails, took down the mast, and rowed the ship into the harbour. They cast out their mooring stones and made fast the hawsers they then got out upon the sea shore, mixed their wine, and got dinner ready. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Telemachus said, 'Take the ship on to the town, but leave me here, for I want to look after the herdsmen on one of my farms. In the evening, when I have seen all I want, I will come down to the city, and tomorrow morning in return for your trouble I will give you all a good dinner with meat and wine.  Then Theoclymenus said, 'And what, my dear young friend, is to become of me? To whose house, among all your chief men, am I to repair? or shall I go straight to your own house and to your mother? 'At any other time, replied Telemachus, 'I should have bidden you go to my own house, for you would find no want of hospitality at the present moment, however, you would not be comfortable there, for I shall be away, and my mother will not see you she does not often show herself even to the suitors, but sits at her loom weaving in an upper chamber, out of their way but I can tell you a man whose house you can go toI mean Eurymachus the son of Polybus, who is held in the highest estimation by every one in Ithaca. He is much the best man and the most persistent wooer, of all those who are paying court to my mother and trying to take Ulysses' place. Jove, however, in heaven alone knows whether or no they will come to a bad end before the marriage takes place. As he was speaking a bird flew by upon his right handa hawk, Apollo's messenger. It held a dove in its talons, and the feathers, as it tore them off, fell to the ground midway between Telemachus and the ship. On this Theoclymenus called him apart and caught him by the hand. 'Telemachus, said he, 'that bird did not fly on your right hand without having been sent there by some god. As soon as I saw it I knew it was an omen it means that you will remain powerful and that there will be no house in Ithaca more royal than your own. 'I wish it may prove so, answered Telemachus. 'If it does, I will show you so much good will and give you so many presents that all who meet you will congratulate you. Then he said to his friend Piraeus, 'Piraeus, son of Clytius, you have throughout shown yourself the most willing to serve me of all those who have accompanied me to Pylos I wish you would take this stranger to your own house and entertain him hospitably till I can come for him. And Piraeus answered, 'Telemachus, you may stay away as long as you please, but I will look after him for you, and he shall find no lack of hospitality. As he spoke he went on board, and bade the others do so also and loose the hawsers, so they took their places in the ship. But Telemachus bound on his sandals, and took a long and doughty spear with a head of sharpened bronze from the deck of the ship. Then they loosed the hawsers, thrust the ship off from land, and made on towards the city as they had been told to do, while Telemachus strode on as fast as he could, till he reached the homestead where his countless herds of swine were feeding, and where dwelt the excellent swineherd, who was so devoted a servant to his master. ULYSSES REVEALS HIMSELF TO TELEMACHUS. Meanwhile Ulysses and the swineherd had lit a fire in the hut and were were getting breakfast ready at daybreak, for they had sent the men out with the pigs. When Telemachus came up, the dogs did not bark but fawned upon him, so Ulysses, hearing the sound of feet and noticing that the dogs did not bark, said to Eumaeus 'Eumaeus, I hear footsteps I suppose one of your men or some one of your acquaintance is coming here, for the dogs are fawning upon him and not barking. The words were hardly out of his mouth before his son stood at the door. Eumaeus sprang to his feet, and the bowls in which he was mixing wine fell from his hands, as he made towards his master. He kissed his head and both his beautiful eyes, and wept for joy. A father could not be more delighted at the return of an only son, the child of his old age, after ten years' absence in a foreign country and after having gone through much hardship. He embraced him, kissed him all over as though he had come back from the dead, and spoke fondly to him saying 'So you are come, Telemachus, light of my eyes that you are. When I heard you had gone to Pylos I made sure I was never going to see you any more. Come in, my dear child, and sit down, that I may have a good look at you now you are home again it is not very often you come into the country to see us herdsmen you stick pretty close to the town generally. I suppose you think it better to keep an eye on what the suitors are doing. 'So be it, old friend, answered Telemachus, 'but I am come now because I want to see you, and to learn whether my mother is still at her old home or whether some one else has married her, so that the bed of Ulysses is without bedding and covered with cobwebs. 'She is still at the house, replied Eumaeus, 'grieving and breaking her heart, and doing nothing but weep, both night and day continually. As he spoke he took Telemachus' spear, whereon he crossed the stone threshold and came inside. Ulysses rose from his seat to give him place as he entered, but Telemachus checked him 'Sit down, stranger, said he, 'I can easily find another seat, and there is one here who will lay it for me. Ulysses went back to his own place, and Eumaeus strewed some green brushwood on the floor and threw a sheepskin on top of it for Telemachus to sit upon. Then the swineherd brought them platters of cold meat, the remains from what they had eaten the day before, and he filled the bread baskets with bread as fast as he could. He mixed wine also in bowls of ivywood, and took his seat facing Ulysses. Then they laid their hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Telemachus said to Eumaeus, 'Old friend, where does this stranger come from? How did his crew bring him to Ithaca, and who were they?for assuredly he did not come here by land. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'My son, I will tell you the real truth. He says he is a Cretan, and that he has been a great traveller. At this moment he is running away from a Thesprotian ship, and has taken refuge at my station, so I will put him into your hands. Do whatever you like with him, only remember that he is your suppliant. 'I am very much distressed, said Telemachus, 'by what you have just told me. How can I take this stranger into my house? I am as yet young, and am not strong enough to hold my own if any man attacks me. My mother cannot make up her mind whether to stay where she is and look after the house out of respect for public opinion and the memory of her husband, or whether the time is now come for her to take the best man of those who are wooing her, and the one who will make her the most advantageous offer still, as the stranger has come to your station I will find him a cloak and shirt of good wear, with a sword and sandals, and will send him wherever he wants to go. Or if you like you can keep him here at the station, and I will send him clothes and food that he may be no burden on you and on your men but I will not have him go near the suitors, for they are very insolent, and are sure to ill treat him in a way that would greatly grieve me no matter how valiant a man may be he can do nothing against numbers, for they will be too strong for him. Then Ulysses said, 'Sir, it is right that I should say something myself. I am much shocked about what you have said about the insolent way in which the suitors are behaving in despite of such a man as you are. Tell me, do you submit to such treatment tamely, or has some god set your people against you? May you not complain of your brothersfor it is to these that a man may look for support, however great his quarrel may be? I wish I were as young as you are and in my present mind if I were son to Ulysses, or, indeed, Ulysses himself, I would rather some one came and cut my head off, but I would go to the house and be the bane of every one of these men. If they were too many for meI being singlehandedI would rather die fighting in my own house than see such disgraceful sights day after day, strangers grossly maltreated, and men dragging the women servants about the house in an unseemly way, wine drawn recklessly, and bread wasted all to no purpose for an end that shall never be accomplished. And Telemachus answered, 'I will tell you truly everything. There is no enmity between me and my people, nor can I complain of brothers, to whom a man may look for support however great his quarrel may be. Jove has made us a race of only sons. Laertes was the only son of Arceisius, and Ulysses only son of Laertes. I am myself the only son of Ulysses who left me behind him when he went away, so that I have never been of any use to him. Hence it comes that my house is in the hands of numberless marauders for the chiefs from all the neighbouring islands, Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are eating up my house under the pretext of paying court to my mother, who will neither say point blank that she will not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end, so they are making havoc of my estate, and before long will do so with myself into the bargain. The issue, however, rests with heaven. But do you, old friend Eumaeus, go at once and tell Penelope that I am safe and have returned from Pylos. Tell it to herself alone, and then come back here without letting any one else know, for there are many who are plotting mischief against me. 'I understand and heed you, replied Eumaeus 'you need instruct me no further, only as I am going that way say whether I had not better let poor Laertes know that you are returned. He used to superintend the work on his farm in spite of his bitter sorrow about Ulysses, and he would eat and drink at will along with his servants but they tell me that from the day on which you set out for Pylos he has neither eaten nor drunk as he ought to do, nor does he look after his farm, but sits weeping and wasting the flesh from off his bones. 'More's the pity, answered Telemachus, 'I am sorry for him, but we must leave him to himself just now. If people could have everything their own way, the first thing I should choose would be the return of my father but go, and give your message then make haste back again, and do not turn out of your way to tell Laertes. Tell my mother to send one of her women secretly with the news at once, and let him hear it from her. Thus did he urge the swineherd Eumaeus, therefore, took his sandals, bound them to his feet, and started for the town. Minerva watched him well off the station, and then came up to it in the form of a womanfair, stately, and wise. She stood against the side of the entry, and revealed herself to Ulysses, but Telemachus could not see her, and knew not that she was there, for the gods do not let themselves be seen by everybody. Ulysses saw her, and so did the dogs, for they did not bark, but went scared and whining off to the other side of the yards. She nodded her head and motioned to Ulysses with her eyebrows whereon he left the hut and stood before her outside the main wall of the yards. Then she said to him 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, it is now time for you to tell your son do not keep him in the dark any longer, but lay your plans for the destruction of the suitors, and then make for the town. I will not be long in joining you, for I too am eager for the fray. As she spoke she touched him with her golden wand. First she threw a fair clean shirt and cloak about his shoulders then she made him younger and of more imposing presence she gave him back his colour, filled out his cheeks, and let his beard become dark again. Then she went away and Ulysses came back inside the hut. His son was astounded when he saw him, and turned his eyes away for fear he might be looking upon a god. 'Stranger, said he, 'how suddenly you have changed from what you were a moment or two ago. You are dressed differently and your colour is not the same. Are you some one or other of the gods that live in heaven? If so, be propitious to me till I can make you due sacrifice and offerings of wrought gold. Have mercy upon me. And Ulysses said, 'I am no god, why should you take me for one? I am your father, on whose account you grieve and suffer so much at the hands of lawless men. As he spoke he kissed his son, and a tear fell from his cheek on to the ground, for he had restrained all tears till now. But Telemachus could not yet believe that it was his father, and said 'You are not my father, but some god is flattering me with vain hopes that I may grieve the more hereafter no mortal man could of himself contrive to do as you have been doing, and make yourself old and young at a moment's notice, unless a god were with him. A second ago you were old and all in rags, and now you are like some god come down from heaven. Ulysses answered, 'Telemachus, you ought not to be so immeasurably astonished at my being really here. There is no other Ulysses who will come hereafter. Such as I am, it is I, who after long wandering and much hardship have got home in the twentieth year to my own country. What you wonder at is the work of the redoubtable goddess Minerva, who does with me whatever she will, for she can do what she pleases. At one moment she makes me like a beggar, and the next I am a young man with good clothes on my back it is an easy matter for the gods who live in heaven to make any man look either rich or poor. As he spoke he sat down, and Telemachus threw his arms about his father and wept. They were both so much moved that they cried aloud like eagles or vultures with crooked talons that have been robbed of their half fledged young by peasants. Thus piteously did they weep, and the sun would have gone down upon their mourning if Telemachus had not suddenly said, 'In what ship, my dear father, did your crew bring you to Ithaca? Of what nation did they declare themselves to befor you cannot have come by land? 'I will tell you the truth, my son, replied Ulysses. 'It was the Phaeacians who brought me here. They are great sailors, and are in the habit of giving escorts to any one who reaches their coasts. They took me over the sea while I was fast asleep, and landed me in Ithaca, after giving me many presents in bronze, gold, and raiment. These things by heaven's mercy are lying concealed in a cave, and I am now come here on the suggestion of Minerva that we may consult about killing our enemies. First, therefore, give me a list of the suitors, with their number, that I may learn who, and how many, they are. I can then turn the matter over in my mind, and see whether we two can fight the whole body of them ourselves, or whether we must find others to help us. To this Telemachus answered, 'Father, I have always heard of your renown both in the field and in council, but the task you talk of is a very great one I am awed at the mere thought of it two men cannot stand against many and brave ones. There are not ten suitors only, nor twice ten, but ten many times over you shall learn their number at once. There are fiftytwo chosen youths from Dulichium, and they have six servants from Same there are twentyfour twenty young Achaeans from Zacynthus, and twelve from Ithaca itself, all of them well born. They have with them a servant Medon, a bard, and two men who can carve at table. If we face such numbers as this, you may have bitter cause to rue your coming, and your revenge. See whether you cannot think of some one who would be willing to come and help us. 'Listen to me, replied Ulysses, 'and think whether Minerva and her father Jove may seem sufficient, or whether I am to try and find some one else as well. 'Those whom you have named, answered Telemachus, 'are a couple of good allies, for though they dwell high up among the clouds they have power over both gods and men. 'These two, continued Ulysses, 'will not keep long out of the fray, when the suitors and we join fight in my house. Now, therefore, return home early tomorrow morning, and go about among the suitors as before. Later on the swineherd will bring me to the city disguised as a miserable old beggar. If you see them ill treating me, steel your heart against my sufferings even though they drag me feet foremost out of the house, or throw things at me, look on and do nothing beyond gently trying to make them behave more reasonably but they will not listen to you, for the day of their reckoning is at hand. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart when Minerva shall put it in my mind, I will nod my head to you, and on seeing me do this you must collect all the armour that is in the house and hide it in the strong store room. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you are removing it say that you have taken it to be out of the way of the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes tempts people to use them. But leave a sword and a spear apiece for yourself and me, and a couple of oxhide shields so that we can snatch them up at any moment Jove and Minerva will then soon quiet these people. There is also another matter if you are indeed my son and my blood runs in your veins, let no one know that Ulysses is within the houseneither Laertes, nor yet the swineherd, nor any of the servants, nor even Penelope herself. Let you and me exploit the women alone, and let us also make trial of some other of the men servants, to see who is on our side and whose hand is against us. 'Father, replied Telemachus, 'you will come to know me by and by, and when you do you will find that I can keep your counsel. I do not think, however, the plan you propose will turn out well for either of us. Think it over. It will take us a long time to go the round of the farms and exploit the men, and all the time the suitors will be wasting your estate with impunity and without compunction. Prove the women by all means, to see who are disloyal and who guiltless, but I am not in favour of going round and trying the men. We can attend to that later on, if you really have some sign from Jove that he will support you. Thus did they converse, and meanwhile the ship which had brought Telemachus and his crew from Pylos had reached the town of Ithaca. When they had come inside the harbour they drew the ship on to the land their servants came and took their armour from them, and they left all the presents at the house of Clytius. Then they sent a servant to tell Penelope that Telemachus had gone into the country, but had sent the ship to the town to prevent her from being alarmed and made unhappy. This servant and Eumaeus happened to meet when they were both on the same errand of going to tell Penelope. When they reached the House, the servant stood up and said to the queen in the presence of the waiting women, 'Your son, Madam, is now returned from Pylos but Eumaeus went close up to Penelope, and said privately all that her son had bidden him tell her. When he had given his message he left the house with its outbuildings and went back to his pigs again. The suitors were surprised and angry at what had happened, so they went outside the great wall that ran round the outer court, and held a council near the main entrance. Eurymachus, son of Polybus, was the first to speak. 'My friends, said he, 'this voyage of Telemachus's is a very serious matter we had made sure that it would come to nothing. Now, however, let us draw a ship into the water, and get a crew together to send after the others and tell them to come back as fast as they can. He had hardly done speaking when Amphinomus turned in his place and saw the ship inside the harbour, with the crew lowering her sails, and putting by their oars so he laughed, and said to the others, 'We need not send them any message, for they are here. Some god must have told them, or else they saw the ship go by, and could not overtake her. On this they rose and went to the water side. The crew then drew the ship on shore their servants took their armour from them, and they went up in a body to the place of assembly, but they would not let any one old or young sit along with them, and Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spoke first. 'Good heavens, said he, 'see how the gods have saved this man from destruction. We kept a succession of scouts upon the headlands all day long, and when the sun was down we never went on shore to sleep, but waited in the ship all night till morning in the hope of capturing and killing him but some god has conveyed him home in spite of us. Let us consider how we can make an end of him. He must not escape us our affair is never likely to come off while he is alive, for he is very shrewd, and public feeling is by no means all on our side. We must make haste before he can call the Achaeans in assembly he will lose no time in doing so, for he will be furious with us, and will tell all the world how we plotted to kill him, but failed to take him. The people will not like this when they come to know of it we must see that they do us no hurt, nor drive us from our own country into exile. Let us try and lay hold of him either on his farm away from the town, or on the road hither. Then we can divide up his property amongst us, and let his mother and the man who marries her have the house. If this does not please you, and you wish Telemachus to live on and hold his father's property, then we must not gather here and eat up his goods in this way, but must make our offers to Penelope each from his own house, and she can marry the man who will give the most for her, and whose lot it is to win her. They all held their peace until Amphinomus rose to speak. He was the son of Nisus, who was son to king Aretias, and he was foremost among all the suitors from the wheatgrowing and well grassed island of Dulichium his conversation, moreover, was more agreeable to Penelope than that of any of the other suitors, for he was a man of good natural disposition. 'My friends, said he, speaking to them plainly and in all honestly, 'I am not in favour of killing Telemachus. It is a heinous thing to kill one who is of noble blood. Let us first take counsel of the gods, and if the oracles of Jove advise it, I will both help to kill him myself, and will urge everyone else to do so but if they dissuade us, I would have you hold your hands. Thus did he speak, and his words pleased them well, so they rose forthwith and went to the house of Ulysses, where they took their accustomed seats. Then Penelope resolved that she would show herself to the suitors. She knew of the plot against Telemachus, for the servant Medon had overheard their counsels and had told her she went down therefore to the court attended by her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she stood by one of the bearingposts supporting the roof of the cloister holding a veil before her face, and rebuked Antinous saying 'Antinous, insolent and wicked schemer, they say you are the best speaker and counsellor of any man your own age in Ithaca, but you are nothing of the kind. Madman, why should you try to compass the death of Telemachus, and take no heed of suppliants, whose witness is Jove himself? It is not right for you to plot thus against one another. Do you not remember how your father fled to this house in fear of the people, who were enraged against him for having gone with some Taphian pirates and plundered the Thesprotians who were at peace with us? They wanted to tear him in pieces and eat up everything he had, but Ulysses stayed their hands although they were infuriated, and now you devour his property without paying for it, and break my heart by wooing his wife and trying to kill his son. Leave off doing so, and stop the others also. To this Eurymachus son of Polybus answered, 'Take heart, Queen Penelope daughter of Icarius, and do not trouble yourself about these matters. The man is not yet born, nor never will be, who shall lay hands upon your son Telemachus, while I yet live to look upon the face of the earth. I sayand it shall surely bethat my spear shall be reddened with his blood for many a time has Ulysses taken me on his knees, held wine up to my lips to drink, and put pieces of meat into my hands. Therefore Telemachus is much the dearest friend I have, and has nothing to fear from the hands of us suitors. Of course, if death comes to him from the gods, he cannot escape it. He said this to quiet her, but in reality he was plotting against Telemachus. Then Penelope went upstairs again and mourned her husband till Minerva shed sleep over her eyes. In the evening Eumaeus got back to Ulysses and his son, who had just sacrificed a young pig of a year old and were helping one another to get supper ready Minerva therefore came up to Ulysses, turned him into an old man with a stroke of her wand, and clad him in his old clothes again, for fear that the swineherd might recognise him and not keep the secret, but go and tell Penelope. Telemachus was the first to speak. 'So you have got back, Eumaeus, said he. 'What is the news of the town? Have the suitors returned, or are they still waiting over yonder, to take me on my way home? 'I did not think of asking about that, replied Eumaeus, 'when I was in the town. I thought I would give my message and come back as soon as I could. I met a man sent by those who had gone with you to Pylos, and he was the first to tell the news to your mother, but I can say what I saw with my own eyes I had just got on to the crest of the hill of Mercury above the town when I saw a ship coming into harbour with a number of men in her. They had many shields and spears, and I thought it was the suitors, but I cannot be sure. On hearing this Telemachus smiled to his father, but so that Eumaeus could not see him. Then, when they had finished their work and the meal was ready, they ate it, and every man had his full share so that all were satisfied. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, they laid down to rest and enjoyed the boon of sleep. TELEMACHUS AND HIS MOTHER MEETULYSSES AND EUMAEUS COME DOWN TO THE TOWN, AND ULYSSES IS INSULTED BY MELANTHIUSHE IS RECOGNISED BY THE DOG ARGOSHE IS INSULTED AND PRESENTLY STRUCK BY ANTINOUS WITH A STOOLPENELOPE DESIRES THAT HE SHALL BE SENT TO HER. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus bound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited his hands, for he wanted to go into the city. 'Old friend, said he to the swineherd, 'I will now go to the town and show myself to my mother, for she will never leave off grieving till she has seen me. As for this unfortunate stranger, take him to the town and let him beg there of any one who will give him a drink and a piece of bread. I have trouble enough of my own, and cannot be burdened with other people. If this makes him angry so much the worse for him, but I like to say what I mean. Then Ulysses said, 'Sir, I do not want to stay here a beggar can always do better in town than country, for any one who likes can give him something. I am too old to care about remaining here at the beck and call of a master. Therefore let this man do as you have just told him, and take me to the town as soon as I have had a warm by the fire, and the day has got a little heat in it. My clothes are wretchedly thin, and this frosty morning I shall be perished with cold, for you say the city is some way off. On this Telemachus strode off through the yards, brooding his revenge upon the suitors. When he reached home he stood his spear against a bearingpost of the cloister, crossed the stone floor of the cloister itself, and went inside. Nurse Euryclea saw him long before any one else did. She was putting the fleeces on to the seats, and she burst out crying as she ran up to him all the other maids came up too, and covered his head and shoulders with their kisses. Penelope came out of her room looking like Diana or Venus, and wept as she flung her arms about her son. She kissed his forehead and both his beautiful eyes, 'Light of my eyes, she cried as she spoke fondly to him, 'so you are come home again I made sure I was never going to see you any more. To think of your having gone off to Pylos without saying anything about it or obtaining my consent. But come, tell me what you saw. 'Do not scold me, mother, answered Telemachus, 'nor vex me, seeing what a narrow escape I have had, but wash your face, change your dress, go upstairs with your maids, and promise full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if Jove will only grant us our revenge upon the suitors. I must now go to the place of assembly to invite a stranger who has come back with me from Pylos. I sent him on with my crew, and told Piraeus to take him home and look after him till I could come for him myself. She heeded her son's words, washed her face, changed her dress, and vowed full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if they would only vouchsafe her revenge upon the suitors. Telemachus went through, and out of, the cloisters spear in handnot alone, for his two fleet dogs went with him. Minerva endowed him with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went by, and the suitors gathered round him with fair words in their mouths and malice in their hearts but he avoided them, and went to sit with Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his father's house, and they made him tell them all that had happened to him. Then Piraeus came up with Theoclymenus, whom he had escorted through the town to the place of assembly, whereon Telemachus at once joined them. Piraeus was first to speak 'Telemachus, said he, 'I wish you would send some of your women to my house to take away the presents Menelaus gave you. 'We do not know, Piraeus, answered Telemachus, 'what may happen. If the suitors kill me in my own house and divide my property among them, I would rather you had the presents than that any of those people should get hold of them. If on the other hand I managed to kill them, I shall be much obliged if you will kindly bring me my presents. With these words he took Theoclymenus to his own house. When they got there they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats, went into the baths, and washed themselves. When the maids had washed and anointed them, and had given them cloaks and shirts, they took their seats at table. A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread and offered them many good things of what there was in the house. Opposite them sat Penelope, reclining on a couch by one of the bearingposts of the cloister, and spinning. Then they laid their hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Penelope said 'Telemachus, I shall go upstairs and lie down on that sad couch, which I have not ceased to water with my tears, from the day Ulysses set out for Troy with the sons of Atreus. You failed, however, to make it clear to me before the suitors came back to the house, whether or no you had been able to hear anything about the return of your father. 'I will tell you then truth, replied her son. 'We went to Pylos and saw Nestor, who took me to his house and treated me as hospitably as though I were a son of his own who had just returned after a long absence so also did his sons but he said he had not heard a word from any human being about Ulysses, whether he was alive or dead. He sent me, therefore, with a chariot and horses to Menelaus. There I saw Helen, for whose sake so many, both Argives and Trojans, were in heaven's wisdom doomed to suffer. Menelaus asked me what it was that had brought me to Lacedaemon, and I told him the whole truth, whereon he said, 'So, then, these cowards would usurp a brave man's bed? A hind might as well lay her newborn young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in the forest or in some grassy dell. The lion, when he comes back to his lair, will make short work with the pair of them, and so will Ulysses with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is still the man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Greeks cheered himif he is still such, and were to come near these suitors, they would have a short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your question, however, I will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but what the old man of the sea told me, so much will I tell you in full. He said he could see Ulysses on an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Calypso, who was keeping him prisoner, and he could not reach his home, for he had no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea.' This was what Menelaus told me, and when I had heard his story I came away the gods then gave me a fair wind and soon brought me safe home again. With these words he moved the heart of Penelope. Then Theoclymenus said to her 'Madam, wife of Ulysses, Telemachus does not understand these things listen therefore to me, for I can divine them surely, and will hide nothing from you. May Jove the king of heaven be my witness, and the rites of hospitality, with that hearth of Ulysses to which I now come, that Ulysses himself is even now in Ithaca, and, either going about the country or staying in one place, is enquiring into all these evil deeds and preparing a day of reckoning for the suitors. I saw an omen when I was on the ship which meant this, and I told Telemachus about it. 'May it be even so, answered Penelope 'if your words come true, you shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see you shall congratulate you. Thus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs, or aiming with spears at a mark on the levelled ground in front of the house, and behaving with all their old insolence. But when it was now time for dinner, and the flock of sheep and goats had come into the town from all the country round,  with their shepherds as usual, then Medon, who was their favourite servant, and who waited upon them at table, said, 'Now then, my young masters, you have had enough sport, so come inside that we may get dinner ready. Dinner is not a bad thing, at dinner time. They left their sports as he told them, and when they were within the house, they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats inside, and then sacrificed some sheep, goats, pigs, and a heifer, all of them fat and well grown. Thus they made ready for their meal. In the meantime Ulysses and the swineherd were about starting for the town, and the swineherd said, 'Stranger, I suppose you still want to go to town today, as my master said you were to do for my own part I should have liked you to stay here as a station hand, but I must do as my master tells me, or he will scold me later on, and a scolding from one's master is a very serious thing. Let us then be off, for it is now broad day it will be night again directly and then you will find it colder. 'I know, and understand you, replied Ulysses 'you need say no more. Let us be going, but if you have a stick ready cut, let me have it to walk with, for you say the road is a very rough one. As he spoke he threw his shabby old tattered wallet over his shoulders, by the cord from which it hung, and Eumaeus gave him a stick to his liking. The two then started, leaving the station in charge of the dogs and herdsmen who remained behind the swineherd led the way and his master followed after, looking like some broken down old tramp as he leaned upon his staff, and his clothes were all in rags. When they had got over the rough steep ground and were nearing the city, they reached the fountain from which the citizens drew their water. This had been made by Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor. There was a grove of waterloving poplars planted in a circle all round it, and the clear cold water came down to it from a rock high up, while above the fountain there was an altar to the nymphs, at which all wayfarers used to sacrifice. Here Melanthius son of Dolius overtook them as he was driving down some goats, the best in his flock, for the suitors' dinner, and there were two shepherds with him. When he saw Eumaeus and Ulysses he reviled them with outrageous and unseemly language, which made Ulysses very angry. 'There you go, cried he, 'and a precious pair you are. See how heaven brings birds of the same feather to one another. Where, pray, master swineherd, are you taking this poor miserable object? It would make any one sick to see such a creature at table. A fellow like this never won a prize for anything in his life, but will go about rubbing his shoulders against every man's door post, and begging, not for swords and cauldrons like a man, but only for a few scraps not worth begging for. If you would give him to me for a hand on my station, he might do to clean out the folds, or bring a bit of sweet feed to the kids, and he could fatten his thighs as much as he pleased on whey but he has taken to bad ways and will not go about any kind of work he will do nothing but beg victuals all the town over, to feed his insatiable belly. I say, thereforeand it shall surely beif he goes near Ulysses' house he will get his head broken by the stools they will fling at him, till they turn him out. On this, as he passed, he gave Ulysses a kick on the hip out of pure wantonness, but Ulysses stood firm, and did not budge from the path. For a moment he doubted whether or no to fly at Melanthius and kill him with his staff, or fling him to the ground and beat his brains out he resolved, however, to endure it and keep himself in check, but the swineherd looked straight at Melanthius and rebuked him, lifting up his hands and praying to heaven as he did so. 'Fountain nymphs, he cried, 'children of Jove, if ever Ulysses burned you thigh bones covered with fat whether of lambs or kids, grant my prayer that heaven may send him home. He would soon put an end to the swaggering threats with which such men as you go about insulting peoplegadding all over the town while your flocks are going to ruin through bad shepherding. Then Melanthius the goatherd answered, 'You ill conditioned cur, what are you talking about? Some day or other I will put you on board ship and take you to a foreign country, where I can sell you and pocket the money you will fetch. I wish I were as sure that Apollo would strike Telemachus dead this very day, or that the suitors would kill him, as I am that Ulysses will never come home again. With this he left them to come on at their leisure, while he went quickly forward and soon reached the house of his master. When he got there he went in and took his seat among the suitors opposite Eurymachus, who liked him better than any of the others. The servants brought him a portion of meat, and an upper woman servant set bread before him that he might eat. Presently Ulysses and the swineherd came up to the house and stood by it, amid a sound of music, for Phemius was just beginning to sing to the suitors. Then Ulysses took hold of the swineherd's hand, and said 'Eumaeus, this house of Ulysses is a very fine place. No matter how far you go, you will find few like it. One building keeps following on after another. The outer court has a wall with battlements all round it the doors are double folding, and of good workmanship it would be a hard matter to take it by force of arms. I perceive, too, that there are many people banqueting within it, for there is a smell of roast meat, and I hear a sound of music, which the gods have made to go along with feasting. Then Eumaeus said, 'You have perceived aright, as indeed you generally do but let us think what will be our best course. Will you go inside first and join the suitors, leaving me here behind you, or will you wait here and let me go in first? But do not wait long, or some one may see you loitering about outside, and throw something at you. Consider this matter I pray you. And Ulysses answered, 'I understand and heed. Go in first and leave me here where I am. I am quite used to being beaten and having things thrown at me. I have been so much buffeted about in war and by sea that I am casehardened, and this too may go with the rest. But a man cannot hide away the cravings of a hungry belly this is an enemy which gives much trouble to all men it is because of this that ships are fitted out to sail the seas, and to make war upon other people. As they were thus talking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Ulysses had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any work out of him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Ulysses saw the dog on the other side of the yard, he dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said 'Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap his build is splendid is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show? 'This hound, answered Eumaeus, 'belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Ulysses left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Jove takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him. As he spoke he went inside the buildings to the cloister where the suitors were, but Argos died as soon as he had recognised his master. Telemachus saw Eumaeus long before any one else did, and beckoned him to come and sit beside him so he looked about and saw a seat lying near where the carver sat serving out their portions to the suitors he picked it up, brought it to Telemachus's table, and sat down opposite him. Then the servant brought him his portion, and gave him bread from the breadbasket. Immediately afterwards Ulysses came inside, looking like a poor miserable old beggar, leaning on his staff and with his clothes all in rags. He sat down upon the threshold of ashwood just inside the doors leading from the outer to the inner court, and against a bearingpost of cypresswood which the carpenter had skilfully planed, and had made to join truly with rule and line. Telemachus took a whole loaf from the breadbasket, with as much meat as he could hold in his two hands, and said to Eumaeus, 'Take this to the stranger, and tell him to go the round of the suitors, and beg from them a beggar must not be shamefaced. So Eumaeus went up to him and said, 'Stranger, Telemachus sends you this, and says you are to go the round of the suitors begging, for beggars must not be shamefaced. Ulysses answered, 'May King Jove grant all happiness to Telemachus, and fulfil the desire of his heart. Then with both hands he took what Telemachus had sent him, and laid it on the dirty old wallet at his feet. He went on eating it while the bard was singing, and had just finished his dinner as he left off. The suitors applauded the bard, whereon Minerva went up to Ulysses and prompted him to beg pieces of bread from each one of the suitors, that he might see what kind of people they were, and tell the good from the bad but come what might she was not going to save a single one of them. Ulysses, therefore, went on his round, going from left to right, and stretched out his hands to beg as though he were a real beggar. Some of them pitied him, and were curious about him, asking one another who he was and where he came from whereon the goatherd Melanthius said, 'Suitors of my noble mistress, I can tell you something about him, for I have seen him before. The swineherd brought him here, but I know nothing about the man himself, nor where he comes from. On this Antinous began to abuse the swineherd. 'You precious idiot, he cried, 'what have you brought this man to town for? Have we not tramps and beggars enough already to pester us as we sit at meat? Do you think it a small thing that such people gather here to waste your master's propertyand must you needs bring this man as well? And Eumaeus answered, 'Antinous, your birth is good but your words evil. It was no doing of mine that he came here. Who is likely to invite a stranger from a foreign country, unless it be one of those who can do public service as a seer, a healer of hurts, a carpenter, or a bard who can charm us with his singing? Such men are welcome all the world over, but no one is likely to ask a beggar who will only worry him. You are always harder on Ulysses' servants than any of the other suitors are, and above all on me, but I do not care so long as Telemachus and Penelope are alive and here. But Telemachus said, 'Hush, do not answer him Antinous has the bitterest tongue of all the suitors, and he makes the others worse. Then turning to Antinous he said, 'Antinous, you take as much care of my interests as though I were your son. Why should you want to see this stranger turned out of the house? Heaven forbid take something and give it him yourself I do not grudge it I bid you take it. Never mind my mother, nor any of the other servants in the house but I know you will not do what I say, for you are more fond of eating things yourself than of giving them to other people. 'What do you mean, Telemachus, replied Antinous, 'by this swaggering talk? If all the suitors were to give him as much as I will, he would not come here again for another three months. As he spoke he drew the stool on which he rested his dainty feet from under the table, and made as though he would throw it at Ulysses, but the other suitors all gave him something, and filled his wallet with bread and meat he was about, therefore, to go back to the threshold and eat what the suitors had given him, but he first went up to Antinous and said 'Sir, give me something you are not, surely, the poorest man here you seem to be a chief, foremost among them all therefore you should be the better giver, and I will tell far and wide of your bounty. I too was a rich man once, and had a fine house of my own in those days I gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove to take all away from me. He sent me with a band of roving robbers to Egypt it was a long voyage and I was undone by it. I stationed my ships in the river Aegyptus, and bade my men stay by them and keep guard over them, while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from every point of vantage. 'But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their wives and children captives. The alarm was soon carried to the city, and when they heard the warcry, the people came out at daybreak till the plain was filled with soldiers horse and foot, and with the gleam of armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would no longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced labour for them as for myself, they gave me to a friend who met them, to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by name, son of Iasus, who was a great man in Cyprus. Thence I am come hither in a state of great misery. Then Antinous said, 'What god can have sent such a pestilence to plague us during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court, or I will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence and importunity you have begged of all the others, and they have given you lavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy to be free with other people's property when there is plenty of it. On this Ulysses began to move off, and said, 'Your looks, my fine sir, are better than your breeding if you were in your own house you would not spare a poor man so much as a pinch of salt, for though you are in another man's, and surrounded with abundance, you cannot find it in you to give him even a piece of bread. This made Antinous very angry, and he scowled at him saying, 'You shall pay for this before you get clear of the court. With these words he threw a footstool at him, and hit him on the right shoulder blade near the top of his back. Ulysses stood firm as a rock and the blow did not even stagger him, but he shook his head in silence as he brooded on his revenge. Then he went back to the threshold and sat down there, laying his well filled wallet at his feet. 'Listen to me, he cried, 'you suitors of Queen Penelope, that I may speak even as I am minded. A man knows neither ache nor pain if he gets hit while fighting for his money, or for his sheep or his cattle and even so Antinous has hit me while in the service of my miserable belly, which is always getting people into trouble. Still, if the poor have gods and avenging deities at all, I pray them that Antinous may come to a bad end before his marriage. 'Sit where you are, and eat your victuals in silence, or be off elsewhere, shouted Antinous. 'If you say more I will have you dragged hand and foot through the courts, and the servants shall flay you alive. The other suitors were much displeased at this, and one of the young men said, 'Antinous, you did ill in striking that poor wretch of a tramp it will be worse for you if he should turn out to be some godand we know the gods go about disguised in all sorts of ways as people from foreign countries, and travel about the world to see who do amiss and who righteously. Thus said the suitors, but Antinous paid them no heed. Meanwhile Telemachus was furious about the blow that had been given to his father, and though no tear fell from him, he shook his head in silence and brooded on his revenge. Now when Penelope heard that the beggar had been struck in the banquetingcloister, she said before her maids, 'Would that Apollo would so strike you, Antinous, and her waiting woman Eurynome answered, 'If our prayers were answered not one of the suitors would ever again see the sun rise. Then Penelope said, 'Nurse, I hate every single one of them, for they mean nothing but mischief, but I hate Antinous like the darkness of death itself. A poor unfortunate tramp has come begging about the house for sheer want. Every one else has given him something to put in his wallet, but Antinous has hit him on the right shoulderblade with a footstool. Thus did she talk with her maids as she sat in her own room, and in the meantime Ulysses was getting his dinner. Then she called for the swineherd and said, 'Eumaeus, go and tell the stranger to come here, I want to see him and ask him some questions. He seems to have travelled much, and he may have seen or heard something of my unhappy husband. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'If these Achaeans, Madam, would only keep quiet, you would be charmed with the history of his adventures. I had him three days and three nights with me in my hut, which was the first place he reached after running away from his ship, and he has not yet completed the story of his misfortunes. If he had been the most heaventaught minstrel in the whole world, on whose lips all hearers hang entranced, I could not have been more charmed as I sat in my hut and listened to him. He says there is an old friendship between his house and that of Ulysses, and that he comes from Crete where the descendants of Minos live, after having been driven hither and thither by every kind of misfortune he also declares that he has heard of Ulysses as being alive and near at hand among the Thesprotians, and that he is bringing great wealth home with him. 'Call him here, then, said Penelope, 'that I too may hear his story. As for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out as they will, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine remain unwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume them, while they keep hanging about our house day after day sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such recklessness, for we have now no Ulysses to protect us. If he were to come again, he and his son would soon have their revenge. As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to Eumaeus, 'Go and call the stranger did you not hear how my son sneezed just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the suitors are going to be killed, and that not one of them shall escape. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart if I am satisfied that the stranger is speaking the truth I shall give him a shirt and cloak of good wear. When Eumaeus heard this he went straight to Ulysses and said, 'Father stranger, my mistress Penelope, mother of Telemachus, has sent for you she is in great grief, but she wishes to hear anything you can tell her about her husband, and if she is satisfied that you are speaking the truth, she will give you a shirt and cloak, which are the very things that you are most in want of. As for bread, you can get enough of that to fill your belly, by begging about the town, and letting those give that will. 'I will tell Penelope, answered Ulysses, 'nothing but what is strictly true. I know all about her husband, and have been partner with him in affliction, but I am afraid of passing through this crowd of cruel suitors, for their pride and insolence reach heaven. Just now, moreover, as I was going about the house without doing any harm, a man gave me a blow that hurt me very much, but neither Telemachus nor any one else defended me. Tell Penelope, therefore, to be patient and wait till sundown. Let her give me a seat close up to the fire, for my clothes are worn very thinyou know they are, for you have seen them ever since I first asked you to help meshe can then ask me about the return of her husband. The swineherd went back when he heard this, and Penelope said as she saw him cross the threshold, 'Why do you not bring him here, Eumaeus? Is he afraid that some one will illtreat him, or is he shy of coming inside the house at all? Beggars should not be shamefaced. To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, 'The stranger is quite reasonable. He is avoiding the suitors, and is only doing what any one else would do. He asks you to wait till sundown, and it will be much better, madam, that you should have him all to yourself, when you can hear him and talk to him as you will. 'The man is no fool, answered Penelope, 'it would very likely be as he says, for there are no such abominable people in the whole world as these men are. When she had done speaking Eumaeus went back to the suitors, for he had explained everything. Then he went up to Telemachus and said in his ear so that none could overhear him, 'My dear sir, I will now go back to the pigs, to see after your property and my own business. You will look to what is going on here, but above all be careful to keep out of danger, for there are many who bear you ill will. May Jove bring them to a bad end before they do us a mischief. 'Very well, replied Telemachus, 'go home when you have had your dinner, and in the morning come here with the victims we are to sacrifice for the day. Leave the rest to heaven and me. On this Eumaeus took his seat again, and when he had finished his dinner he left the courts and the cloister with the men at table, and went back to his pigs. As for the suitors, they presently began to amuse themselves with singing and dancing, for it was now getting on towards evening. THE FIGHT WITH IRUSULYSSES WARNS AMPHINOMUSPENELOPE GETS PRESENTS FROM THE SUITORSTHE BRAZIERSULYSSES REBUKES EURYMACHUS. Now there came a certain common tramp who used to go begging all over the city of Ithaca, and was notorious as an incorrigible glutton and drunkard. This man had no strength nor stay in him, but he was a great hulking fellow to look at his real name, the one his mother gave him, was Arnaeus, but the young men of the place called him Irus, because he used to run errands for any one who would send him. As soon as he came he began to insult Ulysses, and to try and drive him out of his own house. 'Be off, old man, he cried, 'from the doorway, or you shall be dragged out neck and heels. Do you not see that they are all giving me the wink, and wanting me to turn you out by force, only I do not like to do so? Get up then, and go of yourself, or we shall come to blows. Ulysses frowned on him and said, 'My friend, I do you no manner of harm people give you a great deal, but I am not jealous. There is room enough in this doorway for the pair of us, and you need not grudge me things that are not yours to give. You seem to be just such another tramp as myself, but perhaps the gods will give us better luck by and by. Do not, however, talk too much about fighting or you will incense me, and old though I am, I shall cover your mouth and chest with blood. I shall have more peace tomorrow if I do, for you will not come to the house of Ulysses any more. Irus was very angry and answered, 'You filthy glutton, you run on trippingly like an old fishfag. I have a good mind to lay both hands about you, and knock your teeth out of your head like so many boar's tusks. Get ready, therefore, and let these people here stand by and look on. You will never be able to fight one who is so much younger than yourself. Thus roundly did they rate one another on the smooth pavement in front of the doorway, and when Antinous saw what was going on he laughed heartily and said to the others, 'This is the finest sport that you ever saw heaven never yet sent anything like it into this house. The stranger and Irus have quarreled and are going to fight, let us set them on to do so at once. The suitors all came up laughing, and gathered round the two ragged tramps. 'Listen to me, said Antinous, 'there are some goats' paunches down at the fire, which we have filled with blood and fat, and set aside for supper he who is victorious and proves himself to be the better man shall have his pick of the lot he shall be free of our table and we will not allow any other beggar about the house at all. The others all agreed, but Ulysses, to throw them off the scent, said, 'Sirs, an old man like myself, worn out with suffering, cannot hold his own against a young one but my irrepressible belly urges me on, though I know it can only end in my getting a drubbing. You must swear, however that none of you will give me a foul blow to favour Irus and secure him the victory. They swore as he told them, and when they had completed their oath Telemachus put in a word and said, 'Stranger, if you have a mind to settle with this fellow, you need not be afraid of any one here. Whoever strikes you will have to fight more than one. I am host, and the other chiefs, Antinous and Eurymachus, both of them men of understanding, are of the same mind as I am. Every one assented, and Ulysses girded his old rags about his loins, thus baring his stalwart thighs, his broad chest and shoulders, and his mighty arms but Minerva came up to him and made his limbs even stronger still. The suitors were beyond measure astonished, and one would turn towards his neighbour saying, 'The stranger has brought such a thigh out of his old rags that there will soon be nothing left of Irus. Irus began to be very uneasy as he heard them, but the servants girded him by force, and brought him into the open part of the court in such a fright that his limbs were all of a tremble. Antinous scolded him and said, 'You swaggering bully, you ought never to have been born at all if you are afraid of such an old broken down creature as this tramp is. I say, thereforeand it shall surely beif he beats you and proves himself the better man, I shall pack you off on board ship to the mainland and send you to king Echetus, who kills every one that comes near him. He will cut off your nose and ears, and draw out your entrails for the dogs to eat. This frightened Irus still more, but they brought him into the middle of the court, and the two men raised their hands to fight. Then Ulysses considered whether he should let drive so hard at him as to make an end of him then and there, or whether he should give him a lighter blow that should only knock him down in the end he deemed it best to give the lighter blow for fear the Achaeans should begin to suspect who he was. Then they began to fight, and Irus hit Ulysses on the right shoulder but Ulysses gave Irus a blow on the neck under the ear that broke in the bones of his skull, and the blood came gushing out of his mouth he fell groaning in the dust, gnashing his teeth and kicking on the ground, but the suitors threw up their hands and nearly died of laughter, as Ulysses caught hold of him by the foot and dragged him into the outer court as far as the gatehouse. There he propped him up against the wall and put his staff in his hands. 'Sit here, said he, 'and keep the dogs and pigs off you are a pitiful creature, and if you try to make yourself king of the beggars any more you shall fare still worse. Then he threw his dirty old wallet, all tattered and torn over his shoulder with the cord by which it hung, and went back to sit down upon the threshold but the suitors went within the cloisters, laughing and saluting him, 'May Jove, and all the other gods, said they, 'grant you whatever you want for having put an end to the importunity of this insatiable tramp. We will take him over to the mainland presently, to king Echetus, who kills every one that comes near him. Ulysses hailed this as of good omen, and Antinous set a great goat's paunch before him filled with blood and fat. Amphinomus took two loaves out of the breadbasket and brought them to him, pledging him as he did so in a golden goblet of wine. 'Good luck to you, he said, 'father stranger, you are very badly off at present, but I hope you will have better times by and by. To this Ulysses answered, 'Amphinomus, you seem to be a man of good understanding, as indeed you may well be, seeing whose son you are. I have heard your father well spoken of he is Nisus of Dulichium, a man both brave and wealthy. They tell me you are his son, and you appear to be a considerable person listen, therefore, and take heed to what I am saying. Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth. As long as heaven vouchsafes him health and strength, he thinks that he shall come to no harm hereafter, and even when the blessed gods bring sorrow upon him, he bears it as he needs must, and makes the best of it for God almighty gives men their daily minds day by day. I know all about it, for I was a rich man once, and did much wrong in the stubbornness of my pride, and in the confidence that my father and my brothers would support me therefore let a man fear God in all things always, and take the good that heaven may see fit to send him without vain glory. Consider the infamy of what these suitors are doing see how they are wasting the estate, and doing dishonour to the wife, of one who is certain to return some day, and that, too, not long hence. Nay, he will be here soon may heaven send you home quietly first that you may not meet with him in the day of his coming, for once he is here the suitors and he will not part bloodlessly. With these words he made a drinkoffering, and when he had drunk he put the gold cup again into the hands of Amphinomus, who walked away serious and bowing his head, for he foreboded evil. But even so he did not escape destruction, for Minerva had doomed him to fall by the hand of Telemachus. So he took his seat again at the place from which he had come. Then Minerva put it into the mind of Penelope to show herself to the suitors, that she might make them still more enamoured of her, and win still further honour from her son and husband. So she feigned a mocking laugh and said, 'Eurynome, I have changed my mind, and have a fancy to show myself to the suitors although I detest them. I should like also to give my son a hint that he had better not have anything more to do with them. They speak fairly enough but they mean mischief. 'My dear child, answered Eurynome, 'all that you have said is true, go and tell your son about it, but first wash yourself and anoint your face. Do not go about with your cheeks all covered with tears it is not right that you should grieve so incessantly for Telemachus, whom you always prayed that you might live to see with a beard, is already grown up. 'I know, Eurynome, replied Penelope, 'that you mean well, but do not try and persuade me to wash and to anoint myself, for heaven robbed me of all my beauty on the day my husband sailed nevertheless, tell Autonoe and Hippodamia that I want them. They must be with me when I am in the cloister I am not going among the men alone it would not be proper for me to do so. On this the old woman went out of the room to bid the maids go to their mistress. In the meantime Minerva bethought her of another matter, and sent Penelope off into a sweet slumber so she lay down on her couch and her limbs became heavy with sleep. Then the goddess shed grace and beauty over her that all the Achaeans might admire her. She washed her face with the ambrosial loveliness that Venus wears when she goes dancing with the Graces she made her taller and of a more commanding figure, while as for her complexion it was whiter than sawn ivory. When Minerva had done all this she went away, whereon the maids came in from the women's room and woke Penelope with the sound of their talking. 'What an exquisitely delicious sleep I have been having, said she, as she passed her hands over her face, 'in spite of all my misery. I wish Diana would let me die so sweetly now at this very moment, that I might no longer waste in despair for the loss of my dear husband, who possessed every kind of good quality and was the most distinguished man among the Achaeans. With these words she came down from her upper room, not alone but attended by two of her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she stood by one of the bearingposts supporting the roof of the cloister, holding a veil before her face, and with a staid maid servant on either side of her. As they beheld her the suitors were so overpowered and became so desperately enamoured of her, that each one prayed he might win her for his own bed fellow. 'Telemachus, said she, addressing her son, 'I fear you are no longer so discreet and well conducted as you used to be. When you were younger you had a greater sense of propriety now, however, that you are grown up, though a stranger to look at you would take you for the son of a well to do father as far as size and good looks go, your conduct is by no means what it should be. What is all this disturbance that has been going on, and how came you to allow a stranger to be so disgracefully illtreated? What would have happened if he had suffered serious injury while a suppliant in our house? Surely this would have been very discreditable to you. 'I am not surprised, my dear mother, at your displeasure, replied Telemachus, 'I understand all about it and know when things are not as they should be, which I could not do when I was younger I cannot, however, behave with perfect propriety at all times. First one and then another of these wicked people here keeps driving me out of my mind, and I have no one to stand by me. After all, however, this fight between Irus and the stranger did not turn out as the suitors meant it to do, for the stranger got the best of it. I wish Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo would break the neck of every one of these wooers of yours, some inside the house and some out and I wish they might all be as limp as Irus is over yonder in the gate of the outer court. See how he nods his head like a drunken man he has had such a thrashing that he cannot stand on his feet nor get back to his home, wherever that may be, for he has no strength left in him. Thus did they converse. Eurymachus then came up and said, 'Queen Penelope, daughter of Icarius, if all the Achaeans in Iasian Argos could see you at this moment, you would have still more suitors in your house by tomorrow morning, for you are the most admirable woman in the whole world both as regards personal beauty and strength of understanding. To this Penelope replied, 'Eurymachus, heaven robbed me of all my beauty whether of face or figure when the Argives set sail for Troy and my dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs, I should both be more respected and show a better presence to the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. My husband foresaw it all, and when he was leaving home he took my right wrist in his hand'Wife,' he said, 'we shall not all of us come safe home from Troy, for the Trojans fight well both with bow and spear. They are excellent also at fighting from chariots, and nothing decides the issue of a fight sooner than this. I know not, therefore, whether heaven will send me back to you, or whether I may not fall over there at Troy. In the meantime do you look after things here. Take care of my father and mother as at present, and even more so during my absence, but when you see our son growing a beard, then marry whom you will, and leave this your present home.' This is what he said and now it is all coming true. A night will come when I shall have to yield myself to a marriage which I detest, for Jove has taken from me all hope of happiness. This further grief, moreover, cuts me to the very heart. You suitors are not wooing me after the custom of my country. When men are courting a woman who they think will be a good wife to them and who is of noble birth, and when they are each trying to win her for himself, they usually bring oxen and sheep to feast the friends of the lady, and they make her magnificent presents, instead of eating up other people's property without paying for it. This was what she said, and Ulysses was glad when he heard her trying to get presents out of the suitors, and flattering them with fair words which he knew she did not mean. Then Antinous said, 'Queen Penelope, daughter of Icarius, take as many presents as you please from any one who will give them to you it is not well to refuse a present but we will not go about our business nor stir from where we are, till you have married the best man among us whoever he may be. The others applauded what Antinous had said, and each one sent his servant to bring his present. Antinous's man returned with a large and lovely dress most exquisitely embroidered. It had twelve beautifully made brooch pins of pure gold with which to fasten it. Eurymachus immediately brought her a magnificent chain of gold and amber beads that gleamed like sunlight. Eurydamas's two men returned with some earrings fashioned into three brilliant pendants which glistened most beautifully while king Pisander son of Polyctor gave her a necklace of the rarest workmanship, and every one else brought her a beautiful present of some kind. Then the queen went back to her room upstairs, and her maids brought the presents after her. Meanwhile the suitors took to singing and dancing, and stayed till evening came. They danced and sang till it grew dark they then brought in three braziers to give light, and piled them up with chopped firewood very old and dry, and they lit torches from them, which the maids held up turn and turn about. Then Ulysses said 'Maids, servants of Ulysses who has so long been absent, go to the queen inside the house sit with her and amuse her, or spin, and pick wool. I will hold the light for all these people. They may stay till morning, but shall not beat me, for I can stand a great deal. The maids looked at one another and laughed, while pretty Melantho began to gibe at him contemptuously. She was daughter to Dolius, but had been brought up by Penelope, who used to give her toys to play with, and looked after her when she was a child but in spite of all this she showed no consideration for the sorrows of her mistress, and used to misconduct herself with Eurymachus, with whom she was in love. 'Poor wretch, said she, 'are you gone clean out of your mind? Go and sleep in some smithy, or place of public gossips, instead of chattering here. Are you not ashamed of opening your mouth before your bettersso many of them too? Has the wine been getting into your head, or do you always babble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you beat the tramp Irus take care that a better man than he does not come and cudgel you about the head till he pack you bleeding out of the house. 'Vixen, replied Ulysses, scowling at her, 'I will go and tell Telemachus what you have been saying, and he will have you torn limb from limb. With these words he scared the women, and they went off into the body of the house. They trembled all over, for they thought he would do as he said. But Ulysses took his stand near the burning braziers, holding up torches and looking at the peoplebrooding the while on things that should surely come to pass. But Minerva would not let the suitors for one moment cease their insolence, for she wanted Ulysses to become even more bitter against them she therefore set Eurymachus son of Polybus on to gibe at him, which made the others laugh. 'Listen to me, said he, 'you suitors of Queen Penelope, that I may speak even as I am minded. It is not for nothing that this man has come to the house of Ulysses I believe the light has not been coming from the torches, but from his own headfor his hair is all gone, every bit of it. Then turning to Ulysses he said, 'Stranger, will you work as a servant, if I send you to the wolds and see that you are well paid? Can you build a stone fence, or plant trees? I will have you fed all the year round, and will find you in shoes and clothing. Will you go, then? Not you for you have got into bad ways, and do not want to work you had rather fill your belly by going round the country begging. 'Eurymachus, answered Ulysses, 'if you and I were to work one against the other in early summer when the days are at their longestgive me a good scythe, and take another yourself, and let us see which will last the longer or mow the stronger, from dawn till dark when the mowing grass is about. Or if you will plough against me, let us each take a yoke of tawny oxen, wellmated and of great strength and endurance turn me into a four acre field, and see whether you or I can drive the straighter furrow. If, again, war were to break out this day, give me a shield, a couple of spears and a helmet fitting well upon my templesyou would find me foremost in the fray, and would cease your gibes about my belly. You are insolent and cruel, and think yourself a great man because you live in a little world, and that a bad one. If Ulysses comes to his own again, the doors of his house are wide, but you will find them narrow when you try to fly through them. Eurymachus was furious at all this. He scowled at him and cried, 'You wretch, I will soon pay you out for daring to say such things to me, and in public too. Has the wine been getting into your head or do you always babble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you beat the tramp Irus. With this he caught hold of a footstool, but Ulysses sought protection at the knees of Amphinomus of Dulichium, for he was afraid. The stool hit the cupbearer on his right hand and knocked him down the man fell with a cry flat on his back, and his winejug fell ringing to the ground. The suitors in the covered cloister were now in an uproar, and one would turn towards his neighbour, saying, 'I wish the stranger had gone somewhere else, bad luck to him, for all the trouble he gives us. We cannot permit such disturbance about a beggar if such ill counsels are to prevail we shall have no more pleasure at our banquet. On this Telemachus came forward and said, 'Sirs, are you mad? Can you not carry your meat and your liquor decently? Some evil spirit has possessed you. I do not wish to drive any of you away, but you have had your suppers, and the sooner you all go home to bed the better. The suitors bit their lips and marvelled at the boldness of his speech but Amphinomus the son of Nisus, who was son to Aretias, said, 'Do not let us take offence it is reasonable, so let us make no answer. Neither let us do violence to the stranger nor to any of Ulysses' servants. Let the cupbearer go round with the drinkofferings, that we may make them and go home to our rest. As for the stranger, let us leave Telemachus to deal with him, for it is to his house that he has come. Thus did he speak, and his saying pleased them well, so Mulius of Dulichium, servant to Amphinomus, mixed them a bowl of wine and water and handed it round to each of them man by man, whereon they made their drinkofferings to the blessed gods Then, when they had made their drinkofferings and had drunk each one as he was minded, they took their several ways each of them to his own abode. TELEMACHUS AND ULYSSES REMOVE THE ARMOURULYSSES INTERVIEWS PENELOPEEURYCLEA WASHES HIS FEET AND RECOGNISES THE SCAR ON HIS LEGPENELOPE TELLS HER DREAM TO ULYSSES. Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently he said to Telemachus, 'Telemachus, we must get the armour together and take it down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you have removed it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the way of the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes tempts people to use them. Telemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called nurse Euryclea and said, 'Nurse, shut the women up in their room, while I take the armour that my father left behind him down into the store room. No one looks after it now my father is gone, and it has got all smirched with soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it down where the smoke cannot reach it. 'I wish, child, answered Euryclea, 'that you would take the management of the house into your own hands altogether, and look after all the property yourself. But who is to go with you and light you to the storeroom? The maids would have done so, but you would not let them. 'The stranger, said Telemachus, 'shall show me a light when people eat my bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from. Euryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their room. Then Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets, shields, and spears inside and Minerva went before them with a gold lamp in her hand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon Telemachus said, 'Father, my eyes behold a great marvel the walls, with the rafters, crossbeams, and the supports on which they rest are all aglow as with a flaming fire. Surely there is some god here who has come down from heaven. 'Hush, answered Ulysses, 'hold your peace and ask no questions, for this is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me here to talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief will ask me all sorts of questions. On this Telemachus went by torchlight to the other side of the inner court, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his bed till morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering on the means whereby with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Then Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana, and they set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near the fire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and had a footstool all in one piece with the seat itself and it was covered with a thick fleece on this she now sat, and the maids came from the women's room to join her. They set about removing the tables at which the wicked suitors had been dining, and took away the bread that was left, with the cups from which they had drunk. They emptied the embers out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them to give both light and heat but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a second time and said, 'Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you wretch, outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out with a firebrand. Ulysses scowled at her and answered, 'My good woman, why should you be so angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my clothes are all in rags, and because I am obliged to go begging about after the manner of tramps and beggars generally? I too was a rich man once, and had a fine house of my own in those days I gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove to take all away from me therefore, woman, beware lest you too come to lose that pride and place in which you now wanton above your fellows have a care lest you get out of favour with your mistress, and lest Ulysses should come home, for there is still a chance that he may do so. Moreover, though he be dead as you think he is, yet by Apollo's will he has left a son behind him, Telemachus, who will note anything done amiss by the maids in the house, for he is now no longer in his boyhood. Penelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, 'Impudent baggage, said she, 'I see how abominably you are behaving, and you shall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself, that I was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband, for whose sake I am in such continual sorrow. Then she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, 'Bring a seat with a fleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his story, and listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some questions. Eurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as soon as Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, 'Stranger, I shall first ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town and parents. 'Madam, answered Ulysses, 'who on the face of the whole earth can dare to chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven itself you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness, as the monarch over a great and valiant nation the earth yields its wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring forth lambs, and the sea abounds with fish by reason of his virtues, and his people do good deeds under him. Nevertheless, as I sit here in your house, ask me some other question and do not seek to know my race and family, or you will recall memories that will yet more increase my sorrow. I am full of heaviness, but I ought not to sit weeping and wailing in another person's house, nor is it well to be thus grieving continually. I shall have one of the servants or even yourself complaining of me, and saying that my eyes swim with tears because I am heavy with wine. Then Penelope answered, 'Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty, whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs I should be both more respected and should show a better presence to the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from all our islandsDulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca itself, are wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can therefore show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to people who say that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time brokenhearted about Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once, and I have to invent stratagems in order to deceive them. In the first place heaven put it in my mind to set up a great tambourframe in my room, and to begin working upon an enormous piece of fine needlework. Then I said to them, 'Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not press me to marry again immediately waitfor I would not have my skill in needlework perish unrecordedtill I have finished making a pall for the hero Laertes, to be ready against the time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.' This was what I said, and they assented whereon I used to keep working at my great web all day long, but at night I would unpick the stitches again by torch light. I fooled them in this way for three years without their finding it out, but as time wore on and I was now in my fourth year, in the waning of moons, and many days had been accomplished, those good for nothing hussies my maids betrayed me to the suitors, who broke in upon me and caught me they were very angry with me, so I was forced to finish my work whether I would or no. And now I do not see how I can find any further shift for getting out of this marriage. My parents are putting great pressure upon me, and my son chafes at the ravages the suitors are making upon his estate, for he is now old enough to understand all about it and is perfectly able to look after his own affairs, for heaven has blessed him with an excellent disposition. Still, notwithstanding all this, tell me who you are and where you come fromfor you must have had father and mother of some sort you cannot be the son of an oak or of a rock. Then Ulysses answered, 'Madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist in asking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs me people must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as long as I have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless, as regards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a fair and fruitful island in midocean called Crete it is thickly peopled and there are ninety cities in it the people speak many different languages which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans, brave Eteocretans, Dorians of threefold race, and noble Pelasgi. There is a great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every nine years had a conference with Jove himself. Minos was father to Deucalion, whose son I am, for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and myself. Idomeneus sailed for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am called Aethon my brother, however, was at once the older and the more valiant of the two hence it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and showed him hospitality, for the winds took him there as he was on his way to Troy, carrying him out of his course from cape Malea and leaving him in Amnisus off the cave of Ilithuia, where the harbours are difficult to enter and he could hardly find shelter from the winds that were then raging. As soon as he got there he went into the town and asked for Idomeneus, claiming to be his old and valued friend, but Idomeneus had already set sail for Troy some ten or twelve days earlier, so I took him to my own house and showed him every kind of hospitality, for I had abundance of everything. Moreover, I fed the men who were with him with barley meal from the public store, and got subscriptions of wine and oxen for them to sacrifice to their heart's content. They stayed with me twelve days, for there was a gale blowing from the North so strong that one could hardly keep one's feet on land. I suppose some unfriendly god had raised it for them, but on the thirteenth day the wind dropped, and they got away. Many a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope wept as she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes upon the mountain tops when the winds from South East and West have breathed upon it and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with water, even so did her cheeks overflow with tears for the husband who was all the time sitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was sorry for her, but he kept his eyes as hard as horn or iron without letting them so much as quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears. Then, when she had relieved herself by weeping, she turned to him again and said 'Now, stranger, I shall put you to the test and see whether or no you really did entertain my husband and his men, as you say you did. Tell me, then, how he was dressed, what kind of a man he was to look at, and so also with his companions. 'Madam, answered Ulysses, 'it is such a long time ago that I can hardly say. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home, and went elsewhither but I will tell you as well as I can recollect. Ulysses wore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and it was fastened by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On the face of this there was a device that shewed a dog holding a spotted fawn between his fore paws, and watching it as it lay panting upon the ground. Every one marvelled at the way in which these things had been done in gold, the dog looking at the fawn, and strangling it, while the fawn was struggling convulsively to escape. As for the shirt that he wore next his skin, it was so soft that it fitted him like the skin of an onion, and glistened in the sunlight to the admiration of all the women who beheld it. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart, that I do not know whether Ulysses wore these clothes when he left home, or whether one of his companions had given them to him while he was on his voyage or possibly some one at whose house he was staying made him a present of them, for he was a man of many friends and had few equals among the Achaeans. I myself gave him a sword of bronze and a beautiful purple mantle, double lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet, and I sent him on board his ship with every mark of honour. He had a servant with him, a little older than himself, and I can tell you what he was like his shoulders were hunched, he was dark, and he had thick curly hair. His name was Eurybates, and Ulysses treated him with greater familiarity than he did any of the others, as being the most likeminded with himself. Penelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable proofs that Ulysses laid before her and when she had again found relief in tears she said to him, 'Stranger, I was already disposed to pity you, but henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome in my house. It was I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I took them out of the store room and folded them up myself, and I gave him also the gold brooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall never welcome him home again. It was by an ill fate that he ever set out for that detested city whose very name I cannot bring myself even to mention. Then Ulysses answered, 'Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure yourself further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can hardly blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and borne him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even though he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a god. Still, cease your tears and listen to what I can tell you. I will hide nothing from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately heard of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home he is among the Thesprotians, and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he has begged from one and another of them but his ship and all his crew were lost as they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and the sungod were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the sungod's cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses stuck to the keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him as though he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing to escort him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been here long ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land gathering wealth for there is no man living who is so wily as he is there is no one can compare with him. Pheidon king of the Thesprotians told me all this, and he swore to memaking drinkofferings in his house as he did sothat the ship was by the water side and the crew found who would take Ulysses to his own country. He sent me off first, for there happened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheatgrowing island of Dulichium, but he showed me all the treasure Ulysses had got together, and he had enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep his family for ten generations but the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he might learn Jove's mind from the high oak tree, and know whether after so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret. So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly he is close at hand and cannot remain away from home much longer nevertheless I will confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is the first and mightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses to which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely come to pass. Ulysses will return in this self same year with the end of this moon and the beginning of the next he will be here. 'May it be even so, answered Penelope 'if your words come true you shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see you shall congratulate you but I know very well how it will be. Ulysses will not return, neither will you get your escort hence, for so surely as that Ulysses ever was, there are now no longer any such masters in the house as he was, to receive honourable strangers or to further them on their way home. And now, you maids, wash his feet for him, and make him a bed on a couch with rugs and blankets, that he may be warm and quiet till morning. Then, at day break wash him and anoint him again, that he may sit in the cloister and take his meals with Telemachus. It shall be the worse for any one of these hateful people who is uncivil to him like it or not, he shall have no more to do in this house. For how, sir, shall you be able to learn whether or no I am superior to others of my sex both in goodness of heart and understanding, if I let you dine in my cloisters squalid and ill clad? Men live but for a little season if they are hard, and deal hardly, people wish them ill so long as they are alive, and speak contemptuously of them when they are dead, but he that is righteous and deals righteously, the people tell of his praise among all lands, and many shall call him blessed. Ulysses answered, 'Madam, I have foresworn rugs and blankets from the day that I left the snowy ranges of Crete to go on shipboard. I will lie as I have lain on many a sleepless night hitherto. Night after night have I passed in any rough sleeping place, and waited for morning. Nor, again, do I like having my feet washed I shall not let any of the young hussies about your house touch my feet but, if you have any old and respectable woman who has gone through as much trouble as I have, I will allow her to wash them. To this Penelope said, 'My dear sir, of all the guests who ever yet came to my house there never was one who spoke in all things with such admirable propriety as you do. There happens to be in the house a most respectable old womanthe same who received my poor dear husband in her arms the night he was born, and nursed him in infancy. She is very feeble now, but she shall wash your feet. 'Come here, said she, 'Euryclea, and wash your master's agemate I suppose Ulysses' hands and feet are very much the same now as his are, for trouble ages all of us dreadfully fast. On these words the old woman covered her face with her hands she began to weep and made lamentation saying, 'My dear child, I cannot think whatever I am to do with you. I am certain no one was ever more godfearing than yourself, and yet Jove hates you. No one in the whole world ever burned him more thigh bones, nor gave him finer hecatombs when you prayed you might come to a green old age yourself and see your son grow up to take after you yet see how he has prevented you alone from ever getting back to your own home. I have no doubt the women in some foreign palace which Ulysses has got to are gibing at him as all these sluts here have been gibing at you. I do not wonder at your not choosing to let them wash you after the manner in which they have insulted you I will wash your feet myself gladly enough, as Penelope has said that I am to do so I will wash them both for Penelope's sake and for your own, for you have raised the most lively feelings of compassion in my mind and let me say this moreover, which pray attend to we have had all kinds of strangers in distress come here before now, but I make bold to say that no one ever yet came who was so like Ulysses in figure, voice, and feet as you are. 'Those who have seen us both, answered Ulysses, 'have always said we were wonderfully like each other, and now you have noticed it too. Then the old woman took the cauldron in which she was going to wash his feet, and poured plenty of cold water into it, adding hot till the bath was warm enough. Ulysses sat by the fire, but ere long he turned away from the light, for it occurred to him that when the old woman had hold of his leg she would recognise a certain scar which it bore, whereon the whole truth would come out. And indeed as soon as she began washing her master, she at once knew the scar as one that had been given him by a wild boar when he was hunting on Mt. Parnassus with his excellent grandfather Autolycuswho was the most accomplished thief and perjurer in the whole worldand with the sons of Autolycus. Mercury himself had endowed him with this gift, for he used to burn the thigh bones of goats and kids to him, so he took pleasure in his companionship. It happened once that Autolycus had gone to Ithaca and had found the child of his daughter just born. As soon as he had done supper Euryclea set the infant upon his knees and said, 'Autolycus, you must find a name for your grandson you greatly wished that you might have one. 'Soninlaw and daughter, replied Autolycus, 'call the child thus I am highly displeased with a large number of people in one place and another, both men and women so name the child 'Ulysses,' or the child of anger. When he grows up and comes to visit his mother's family on Mt. Parnassus, where my possessions lie, I will make him a present and will send him on his way rejoicing. Ulysses, therefore, went to Parnassus to get the presents from Autolycus, who with his sons shook hands with him and gave him welcome. His grandmother Amphithea threw her arms about him, and kissed his head, and both his beautiful eyes, while Autolycus desired his sons to get dinner ready, and they did as he told them. They brought in a five year old bull, flayed it, made it ready and divided it into joints these they then cut carefully up into smaller pieces and spitted them they roasted them sufficiently and served the portions round. Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun they feasted, and every man had his full share so that all were satisfied but when the sun set and it came on dark, they went to bed and enjoyed the boon of sleep. When the child of morning, rosyfingered Dawn, appeared, the sons of Autolycus went out with their hounds hunting, and Ulysses went too. They climbed the wooded slopes of Parnassus and soon reached its breezy upland valleys but as the sun was beginning to beat upon the fields, freshrisen from the slow still currents of Oceanus, they came to a mountain dell. The dogs were in front searching for the tracks of the beast they were chasing, and after them came the sons of Autolycus, among whom was Ulysses, close behind the dogs, and he had a long spear in his hand. Here was the lair of a huge boar among some thick brushwood, so dense that the wind and rain could not get through it, nor could the sun's rays pierce it, and the ground underneath lay thick with fallen leaves. The boar heard the noise of the men's feet, and the hounds baying on every side as the huntsmen came up to him, so he rushed from his lair, raised the bristles on his neck, and stood at bay with fire flashing from his eyes. Ulysses was the first to raise his spear and try to drive it into the brute, but the boar was too quick for him, and charged him sideways, ripping him above the knee with a gash that tore deep though it did not reach the bone. As for the boar, Ulysses hit him on the right shoulder, and the point of the spear went right through him, so that he fell groaning in the dust until the life went out of him. The sons of Autolycus busied themselves with the carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses' wound then, after saying a spell to stop the bleeding, they went home as fast as they could. But when Autolycus and his sons had thoroughly healed Ulysses, they made him some splendid presents, and sent him back to Ithaca with much mutual good will. When he got back, his father and mother were rejoiced to see him, and asked him all about it, and how he had hurt himself to get the scar so he told them how the boar had ripped him when he was out hunting with Autolycus and his sons on Mt. Parnassus. As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had well hold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at once. The leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all the water was spilt on the ground Euryclea's eyes between her joy and her grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught Ulysses by the beard and said, 'My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled you. As she spoke she looked towards Penelope, as though wanting to tell her that her dear husband was in the house, but Penelope was unable to look in that direction and observe what was going on, for Minerva had diverted her attention so Ulysses caught Euryclea by the throat with his right hand and with his left drew her close to him, and said, 'Nurse, do you wish to be the ruin of me, you who nursed me at your own breast, now that after twenty years of wandering I am at last come to my own home again? Since it has been borne in upon you by heaven to recognise me, hold your tongue, and do not say a word about it to any one else in the house, for if you do I tell youand it shall surely bethat if heaven grants me to take the lives of these suitors, I will not spare you, though you are my own nurse, when I am killing the other women. 'My child, answered Euryclea, 'what are you talking about? You know very well that nothing can either bend or break me. I will hold my tongue like a stone or a piece of iron furthermore let me say, and lay my saying to your heart, when heaven has delivered the suitors into your hand, I will give you a list of the women in the house who have been illbehaved, and of those who are guiltless. And Ulysses answered, 'Nurse, you ought not to speak in that way I am well able to form my own opinion about one and all of them hold your tongue and leave everything to heaven. As he said this Euryclea left the cloister to fetch some more water, for the first had been all spilt and when she had washed him and anointed him with oil, Ulysses drew his seat nearer to the fire to warm himself, and hid the scar under his rags. Then Penelope began talking to him and said 'Stranger, I should like to speak with you briefly about another matter. It is indeed nearly bed timefor those, at least, who can sleep in spite of sorrow. As for myself, heaven has given me a life of such unmeasurable woe, that even by day when I am attending to my duties and looking after the servants, I am still weeping and lamenting during the whole time then, when night comes, and we all of us go to bed, I lie awake thinking, and my heart becomes a prey to the most incessant and cruel tortures. As the dun nightingale, daughter of Pandareus, sings in the early spring from her seat in shadiest covert hid, and with many a plaintive trill pours out the tale how by mishap she killed her own child Itylus, son of king Zethus, even so does my mind toss and turn in its uncertainty whether I ought to stay with my son here, and safeguard my substance, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my house, out of regard to public opinion and the memory of my late husband, or whether it is not now time for me to go with the best of these suitors who are wooing me and making me such magnificent presents. As long as my son was still young, and unable to understand, he would not hear of my leaving my husband's house, but now that he is full grown he begs and prays me to do so, being incensed at the way in which the suitors are eating up his property. Listen, then, to a dream that I have had and interpret it for me if you can. I have twenty geese about the house that eat mash out of a trough, and of which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a great eagle came swooping down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak into the neck of each of them till he had killed them all. Presently he soared off into the sky, and left them lying dead about the yard whereon I wept in my dream till all my maids gathered round me, so piteously was I grieving because the eagle had killed my geese. Then he came back again, and perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me with human voice, and told me to leave off crying. 'Be of good courage,' he said, 'daughter of Icarius this is no dream, but a vision of good omen that shall surely come to pass. The geese are the suitors, and I am no longer an eagle, but your own husband, who am come back to you, and who will bring these suitors to a disgraceful end.' On this I woke, and when I looked out I saw my geese at the trough eating their mash as usual. 'This dream, Madam, replied Ulysses, 'can admit but of one interpretation, for had not Ulysses himself told you how it shall be fulfilled? The death of the suitors is portended, and not one single one of them will escape. And Penelope answered, 'Stranger, dreams are very curious and unaccountable things, and they do not by any means invariably come true. There are two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies proceed the one is of horn, and the other ivory. Those that come through the gate of ivory are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn mean something to those that see them. I do not think, however, that my own dream came through the gate of horn, though I and my son should be most thankful if it proves to have done so. Furthermore I sayand lay my saying to your heartthe coming dawn will usher in the illomened day that is to sever me from the house of Ulysses, for I am about to hold a tournament of axes. My husband used to set up twelve axes in the court, one in front of the other, like the stays upon which a ship is built he would then go back from them and shoot an arrow through the whole twelve. I shall make the suitors try to do the same thing, and whichever of them can string the bow most easily, and send his arrow through all the twelve axes, him will I follow, and quit this house of my lawful husband, so goodly and so abounding in wealth. But even so, I doubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams. Then Ulysses answered, 'Madam, wife of Ulysses, you need not defer your tournament, for Ulysses will return ere ever they can string the bow, handle it how they will, and send their arrows through the iron. To this Penelope said, 'As long, sir, as you will sit here and talk to me, I can have no desire to go to bed. Still, people cannot do permanently without sleep, and heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth a time for all things. I will therefore go upstairs and recline upon that couch which I have never ceased to flood with my tears from the day Ulysses set out for the city with a hateful name. She then went upstairs to her own room, not alone, but attended by her maidens, and when there, she lamented her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyelids. ULYSSES CANNOT SLEEPPENELOPE'S PRAYER TO DIANATHE TWO SIGNS FROM HEAVENEUMAEUS AND PHILOETIUS ARRIVETHE SUITORS DINECTESIPPUS THROWS AN OX'S FOOT AT ULYSSESTHEOCLYMENUS FORETELLS DISASTER AND LEAVES THE HOUSE. Ulysses slept in the cloister upon an undressed bullock's hide, on the top of which he threw several skins of the sheep the suitors had eaten, and Eurynome threw a cloak over him after he had laid himself down. There, then, Ulysses lay wakefully brooding upon the way in which he should kill the suitors and by and by, the women who had been in the habit of misconducting themselves with them, left the house giggling and laughing with one another. This made Ulysses very angry, and he doubted whether to get up and kill every single one of them then and there, or to let them sleep one more and last time with the suitors. His heart growled within him, and as a bitch with puppies growls and shows her teeth when she sees a stranger, so did his heart growl with anger at the evil deeds that were being done but he beat his breast and said, 'Heart, be still, you had worse than this to bear on the day when the terrible Cyclops ate your brave companions yet you bore it in silence till your cunning got you safe out of the cave, though you made sure of being killed. Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front of a hot fire, doing it first on one side and then on the other, that he may get it cooked as soon as possible, even so did he turn himself about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single handed as he was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked suitors. But by and by Minerva came down from heaven in the likeness of a woman, and hovered over his head saying, 'My poor unhappy man, why do you lie awake in this way? This is your house your wife is safe inside it, and so is your son who is just such a young man as any father may be proud of. 'Goddess, answered Ulysses, 'all that you have said is true, but I am in some doubt as to how I shall be able to kill these wicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number of them there always are. And there is this further difficulty, which is still more considerable. Supposing that with Jove's and your assistance I succeed in killing them, I must ask you to consider where I am to escape to from their avengers when it is all over. 'For shame, replied Minerva, 'why, any one else would trust a worse ally than myself, even though that ally were only a mortal and less wise than I am. Am I not a goddess, and have I not protected you throughout in all your troubles? I tell you plainly that even though there were fifty bands of men surrounding us and eager to kill us, you should take all their sheep and cattle, and drive them away with you. But go to sleep it is a very bad thing to lie awake all night, and you shall be out of your troubles before long. As she spoke she shed sleep over his eyes, and then went back to Olympus. While Ulysses was thus yielding himself to a very deep slumber that eased the burden of his sorrows, his admirable wife awoke, and sitting up in her bed began to cry. When she had relieved herself by weeping she prayed to Diana saying, 'Great Goddess Diana, daughter of Jove, drive an arrow into my heart and slay me or let some whirlwind snatch me up and bear me through paths of darkness till it drop me into the mouths of overflowing Oceanus, as it did the daughters of Pandareus. The daughters of Pandareus lost their father and mother, for the gods killed them, so they were left orphans. But Venus took care of them, and fed them on cheese, honey, and sweet wine. Juno taught them to excel all women in beauty of form and understanding Diana gave them an imposing presence, and Minerva endowed them with every kind of accomplishment but one day when Venus had gone up to Olympus to see Jove about getting them married (for well does he know both what shall happen and what not happen to every one) the storm winds came and spirited them away to become handmaids to the dread Erinyes. Even so I wish that the gods who live in heaven would hide me from mortal sight, or that fair Diana might strike me, for I would fain go even beneath the sad earth if I might do so still looking towards Ulysses only, and without having to yield myself to a worse man than he was. Besides, no matter how much people may grieve by day, they can put up with it so long as they can sleep at night, for when the eyes are closed in slumber people forget good and ill alike whereas my misery haunts me even in my dreams. This very night methought there was one lying by my side who was like Ulysses as he was when he went away with his host, and I rejoiced, for I believed that it was no dream, but the very truth itself. On this the day broke, but Ulysses heard the sound of her weeping, and it puzzled him, for it seemed as though she already knew him and was by his side. Then he gathered up the cloak and the fleeces on which he had lain, and set them on a seat in the cloister, but he took the bullock's hide out into the open. He lifted up his hands to heaven, and prayed, saying 'Father Jove, since you have seen fit to bring me over land and sea to my own home after all the afflictions you have laid upon me, give me a sign out of the mouth of some one or other of those who are now waking within the house, and let me have another sign of some kind from outside. Thus did he pray. Jove heard his prayer and forthwith thundered high up among the clouds from the splendour of Olympus, and Ulysses was glad when he heard it. At the same time within the house, a millerwoman from hard by in the mill room lifted up her voice and gave him another sign. There were twelve millerwomen whose business it was to grind wheat and barley which are the staff of life. The others had ground their task and had gone to take their rest, but this one had not yet finished, for she was not so strong as they were, and when she heard the thunder she stopped grinding and gave the sign to her master. 'Father Jove, said she, 'you, who rule over heaven and earth, you have thundered from a clear sky without so much as a cloud in it, and this means something for somebody grant the prayer, then, of me your poor servant who calls upon you, and let this be the very last day that the suitors dine in the house of Ulysses. They have worn me out with labour of grinding meal for them, and I hope they may never have another dinner anywhere at all. Ulysses was glad when he heard the omens conveyed to him by the woman's speech, and by the thunder, for he knew they meant that he should avenge himself on the suitors. Then the other maids in the house rose and lit the fire on the hearth Telemachus also rose and put on his clothes. He girded his sword about his shoulder, bound his sandals on to his comely feet, and took a doughty spear with a point of sharpened bronze then he went to the threshold of the cloister and said to Euryclea, 'Nurse, did you make the stranger comfortable both as regards bed and board, or did you let him shift for himself?for my mother, good woman though she is, has a way of paying great attention to secondrate people, and of neglecting others who are in reality much better men. 'Do not find fault child, said Euryclea, 'when there is no one to find fault with. The stranger sat and drank his wine as long as he liked your mother did ask him if he would take any more bread and he said he would not. When he wanted to go to bed she told the servants to make one for him, but he said he was such a wretched outcast that he would not sleep on a bed and under blankets he insisted on having an undressed bullock's hide and some sheepskins put for him in the cloister and I threw a cloak over him myself. Then Telemachus went out of the court to the place where the Achaeans were meeting in assembly he had his spear in his hand, and he was not alone, for his two dogs went with him. But Euryclea called the maids and said, 'Come, wake up set about sweeping the cloisters and sprinkling them with water to lay the dust put the covers on the seats wipe down the tables, some of you, with a wet sponge clean out the mixingjugs and the cups, and go for water from the fountain at once the suitors will be here directly they will be here early, for it is a feast day. Thus did she speak, and they did even as she had said twenty of them went to the fountain for water, and the others set themselves busily to work about the house. The men who were in attendance on the suitors also came up and began chopping firewood. By and by the women returned from the fountain, and the swineherd came after them with the three best pigs he could pick out. These he let feed about the premises, and then he said goodhumouredly to Ulysses, 'Stranger, are the suitors treating you any better now, or are they as insolent as ever? 'May heaven, answered Ulysses, 'requite to them the wickedness with which they deal highhandedly in another man's house without any sense of shame. Thus did they converse meanwhile Melanthius the goatherd came up, for he too was bringing in his best goats for the suitors' dinner and he had two shepherds with him. They tied the goats up under the gatehouse, and then Melanthius began gibing at Ulysses. 'Are you still here, stranger, said he, 'to pester people by begging about the house? Why can you not go elsewhere? You and I shall not come to an understanding before we have given each other a taste of our fists. You beg without any sense of decency are there not feasts elsewhere among the Achaeans, as well as here? Ulysses made no answer, but bowed his head and brooded. Then a third man, Philoetius, joined them, who was bringing in a barren heifer and some goats. These were brought over by the boatmen who are there to take people over when any one comes to them. So Philoetius made his heifer and his goats secure under the gatehouse, and then went up to the swineherd. 'Who, Swineherd, said he, 'is this stranger that is lately come here? Is he one of your men? What is his family? Where does he come from? Poor fellow, he looks as if he had been some great man, but the gods give sorrow to whom they willeven to kings if it so pleases them. As he spoke he went up to Ulysses and saluted him with his right hand 'Good day to you, father stranger, said he, 'you seem to be very poorly off now, but I hope you will have better times by and by. Father Jove, of all gods you are the most malicious. We are your own children, yet you show us no mercy in all our misery and afflictions. A sweat came over me when I saw this man, and my eyes filled with tears, for he reminds me of Ulysses, who I fear is going about in just such rags as this man's are, if indeed he is still among the living. If he is already dead and in the house of Hades, then, alas! for my good master, who made me his stockman when I was quite young among the Cephallenians, and now his cattle are countless no one could have done better with them than I have, for they have bred like ears of corn nevertheless I have to keep bringing them in for others to eat, who take no heed to his son though he is in the house, and fear not the wrath of heaven, but are already eager to divide Ulysses' property among them because he has been away so long. I have often thoughtonly it would not be right while his son is livingof going off with the cattle to some foreign country bad as this would be, it is still harder to stay here and be illtreated about other people's herds. My position is intolerable, and I should long since have run away and put myself under the protection of some other chief, only that I believe my poor master will yet return, and send all these suitors flying out of the house. 'Stockman, answered Ulysses, 'you seem to be a very welldisposed person, and I can see that you are a man of sense. Therefore I will tell you, and will confirm my words with an oath. By Jove, the chief of all gods, and by that hearth of Ulysses to which I am now come, Ulysses shall return before you leave this place, and if you are so minded you shall see him killing the suitors who are now masters here. 'If Jove were to bring this to pass, replied the stockman, 'you should see how I would do my very utmost to help him. And in like manner Eumaeus prayed that Ulysses might return home. Thus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were hatching a plot to murder Telemachus but a bird flew near them on their left handan eagle with a dove in its talons. On this Amphinomus said, 'My friends, this plot of ours to murder Telemachus will not succeed let us go to dinner instead. The others assented, so they went inside and laid their cloaks on the benches and seats. They sacrificed the sheep, goats, pigs, and the heifer, and when the inward meats were cooked they served them round. They mixed the wine in the mixingbowls, and the swineherd gave every man his cup, while Philoetius handed round the bread in the bread baskets, and Melanthius poured them out their wine. Then they laid their hands upon the good things that were before them. Telemachus purposely made Ulysses sit in the part of the cloister that was paved with stone he gave him a shabby looking seat at a little table to himself, and had his portion of the inward meats brought to him, with his wine in a gold cup. 'Sit there, said he, 'and drink your wine among the great people. I will put a stop to the gibes and blows of the suitors, for this is no public house, but belongs to Ulysses, and has passed from him to me. Therefore, suitors, keep your hands and your tongues to yourselves, or there will be mischief. The suitors bit their lips, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech then Antinous said, 'We do not like such language but we will put up with it, for Telemachus is threatening us in good earnest. If Jove had let us we should have put a stop to his brave talk ere now. Thus spoke Antinous, but Telemachus heeded him not. Meanwhile the heralds were bringing the holy hecatomb through the city, and the Achaeans gathered under the shady grove of Apollo. Then they roasted the outer meat, drew it off the spits, gave every man his portion, and feasted to their heart's content those who waited at table gave Ulysses exactly the same portion as the others had, for Telemachus had told them to do so. But Minerva would not let the suitors for one moment drop their insolence, for she wanted Ulysses to become still more bitter against them. Now there happened to be among them a ribald fellow, whose name was Ctesippus, and who came from Same. This man, confident in his great wealth, was paying court to the wife of Ulysses, and said to the suitors, 'Hear what I have to say. The stranger has already had as large a portion as any one else this is well, for it is not right nor reasonable to illtreat any guest of Telemachus who comes here. I will, however, make him a present on my own account, that he may have something to give to the bathwoman, or to some other of Ulysses' servants. As he spoke he picked up a heifer's foot from the meatbasket in which it lay, and threw it at Ulysses, but Ulysses turned his head a little aside, and avoided it, smiling grimly Sardinian fashion as he did so, and it hit the wall, not him. On this Telemachus spoke fiercely to Ctesippus, 'It is a good thing for you, said he, 'that the stranger turned his head so that you missed him. If you had hit him I should have run you through with my spear, and your father would have had to see about getting you buried rather than married in this house. So let me have no more unseemly behaviour from any of you, for I am grown up now to the knowledge of good and evil and understand what is going on, instead of being the child that I have been heretofore. I have long seen you killing my sheep and making free with my corn and wine I have put up with this, for one man is no match for many, but do me no further violence. Still, if you wish to kill me, kill me I would far rather die than see such disgraceful scenes day after dayguests insulted, and men dragging the women servants about the house in an unseemly way. They all held their peace till at last Agelaus son of Damastor said, 'No one should take offence at what has just been said, nor gainsay it, for it is quite reasonable. Leave off, therefore, illtreating the stranger, or any one else of the servants who are about the house I would say, however, a friendly word to Telemachus and his mother, which I trust may commend itself to both. 'As long,' I would say, 'as you had ground for hoping that Ulysses would one day come home, no one could complain of your waiting and suffering the suitors to be in your house. It would have been better that he should have returned, but it is now sufficiently clear that he will never do so therefore talk all this quietly over with your mother, and tell her to marry the best man, and the one who makes her the most advantageous offer. Thus you will yourself be able to manage your own inheritance, and to eat and drink in peace, while your mother will look after some other man's house, not yours.' To this Telemachus answered, 'By Jove, Agelaus, and by the sorrows of my unhappy father, who has either perished far from Ithaca, or is wandering in some distant land, I throw no obstacles in the way of my mother's marriage on the contrary I urge her to choose whomsoever she will, and I will give her numberless gifts into the bargain, but I dare not insist point blank that she shall leave the house against her own wishes. Heaven forbid that I should do this. Minerva now made the suitors fall to laughing immoderately, and set their wits wandering but they were laughing with a forced laughter. Their meat became smeared with blood their eyes filled with tears, and their hearts were heavy with forebodings. Theoclymenus saw this and said, 'Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud of darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks are wet with tears the air is alive with wailing voices the walls and roofbeams drip blood the gate of the cloisters and the court beyond them are full of ghosts trooping down into the night of hell the sun is blotted out of heaven, and a blighting gloom is over all the land. Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily. Eurymachus then said, 'This stranger who has lately come here has lost his senses. Servants, turn him out into the streets, since he finds it so dark here. But Theoclymenus said, 'Eurymachus, you need not send any one with me. I have eyes, ears, and a pair of feet of my own, to say nothing of an understanding mind. I will take these out of the house with me, for I see mischief overhanging you, from which not one of you men who are insulting people and plotting ill deeds in the house of Ulysses will be able to escape. He left the house as he spoke, and went back to Piraeus who gave him welcome, but the suitors kept looking at one another and provoking Telemachus by laughing at the strangers. One insolent fellow said to him, 'Telemachus, you are not happy in your guests first you have this importunate tramp, who comes begging bread and wine and has no skill for work or for hard fighting, but is perfectly useless, and now here is another fellow who is setting himself up as a prophet. Let me persuade you, for it will be much better to put them on board ship and send them off to the Sicels to sell for what they will bring. Telemachus gave him no heed, but sate silently watching his father, expecting every moment that he would begin his attack upon the suitors. Meanwhile the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, had had a rich seat placed for her facing the court and cloisters, so that she could hear what every one was saying. The dinner indeed had been prepared amid much merriment it had been both good and abundant, for they had sacrificed many victims but the supper was yet to come, and nothing can be conceived more gruesome than the meal which a goddess and a brave man were soon to lay before themfor they had brought their doom upon themselves. THE TRIAL OF THE AXES, DURING WHICH ULYSSES REVEALS HIMSELF TO EUMAEUS AND PHILOETIUS Minerva now put it in Penelope's mind to make the suitors try their skill with the bow and with the iron axes, in contest among themselves, as a means of bringing about their destruction. She went upstairs and got the storeroom key, which was made of bronze and had a handle of ivory she then went with her maidens into the storeroom at the end of the house, where her husband's treasures of gold, bronze, and wrought iron were kept, and where was also his bow, and the quiver full of deadly arrows that had been given him by a friend whom he had met in LacedaemonIphitus the son of Eurytus. The two fell in with one another in Messene at the house of Ortilochus, where Ulysses was staying in order to recover a debt that was owing from the whole people for the Messenians had carried off three hundred sheep from Ithaca, and had sailed away with them and with their shepherds. In quest of these Ulysses took a long journey while still quite young, for his father and the other chieftains sent him on a mission to recover them. Iphitus had gone there also to try and get back twelve brood mares that he had lost, and the mule foals that were running with them. These mares were the death of him in the end, for when he went to the house of Jove's son, mighty Hercules, who performed such prodigies of valour, Hercules to his shame killed him, though he was his guest, for he feared not heaven's vengeance, nor yet respected his own table which he had set before Iphitus, but killed him in spite of everything, and kept the mares himself. It was when claiming these that Iphitus met Ulysses, and gave him the bow which mighty Eurytus had been used to carry, and which on his death had been left by him to his son. Ulysses gave him in return a sword and a spear, and this was the beginning of a fast friendship, although they never visited at one another's houses, for Jove's son Hercules killed Iphitus ere they could do so. This bow, then, given him by Iphitus, had not been taken with him by Ulysses when he sailed for Troy he had used it so long as he had been at home, but had left it behind as having been a keepsake from a valued friend. Penelope presently reached the oak threshold of the storeroom the carpenter had planed this duly, and had drawn a line on it so as to get it quite straight he had then set the door posts into it and hung the doors. She loosed the strap from the handle of the door, put in the key, and drove it straight home to shoot back the bolts that held the doors these flew open with a noise like a bull bellowing in a meadow, and Penelope stepped upon the raised platform, where the chests stood in which the fair linen and clothes were laid by along with fragrant herbs reaching thence, she took down the bow with its bow case from the peg on which it hung. She sat down with it on her knees, weeping bitterly as she took the bow out of its case, and when her tears had relieved her, she went to the cloister where the suitors were, carrying the bow and the quiver, with the many deadly arrows that were inside it. Along with her came her maidens, bearing a chest that contained much iron and bronze which her husband had won as prizes. When she reached the suitors, she stood by one of the bearingposts supporting the roof of the cloister, holding a veil before her face, and with a maid on either side of her. Then she said 'Listen to me you suitors, who persist in abusing the hospitality of this house because its owner has been long absent, and without other pretext than that you want to marry me this, then, being the prize that you are contending for, I will bring out the mighty bow of Ulysses, and whomsoever of you shall string it most easily and send his arrow through each one of twelve axes, him will I follow and quit this house of my lawful husband, so goodly, and so abounding in wealth. But even so I doubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams. As she spoke, she told Eumaeus to set the bow and the pieces of iron before the suitors, and Eumaeus wept as he took them to do as she had bidden him. Hard by, the stockman wept also when he saw his master's bow, but Antinous scolded them. 'You country louts, said he, 'silly simpletons why should you add to the sorrows of your mistress by crying in this way? She has enough to grieve her in the loss of her husband sit still, therefore, and eat your dinners in silence, or go outside if you want to cry, and leave the bow behind you. We suitors shall have to contend for it with might and main, for we shall find it no light matter to string such a bow as this is. There is not a man of us all who is such another as Ulysses for I have seen him and remember him, though I was then only a child. This was what he said, but all the time he was expecting to be able to string the bow and shoot through the iron, whereas in fact he was to be the first that should taste of the arrows from the hands of Ulysses, whom he was dishonouring in his own houseegging the others on to do so also. Then Telemachus spoke. 'Great heavens! he exclaimed, 'Jove must have robbed me of my senses. Here is my dear and excellent mother saying she will quit this house and marry again, yet I am laughing and enjoying myself as though there were nothing happening. But, suitors, as the contest has been agreed upon, let it go forward. It is for a woman whose peer is not to be found in Pylos, Argos, or Mycene, nor yet in Ithaca nor on the mainland. You know this as well as I do what need have I to speak in praise of my mother? Come on, then, make no excuses for delay, but let us see whether you can string the bow or no. I too will make trial of it, for if I can string it and shoot through the iron, I shall not suffer my mother to quit this house with a stranger, not if I can win the prizes which my father won before me. As he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from him, and took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in a row, in a long groove which he had dug for them, and had made straight by line. Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and everyone was surprised when they saw him set them up so orderly, though he had never seen anything of the kind before. This done, he went on to the pavement to make trial of the bow thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to draw the string, and thrice he had to leave off, though he had hoped to string the bow and shoot through the iron. He was trying for the fourth time, and would have strung it had not Ulysses made a sign to check him in spite of all his eagerness. So he said 'Alas! I shall either be always feeble and of no prowess, or I am too young, and have not yet reached my full strength so as to be able to hold my own if any one attacks me. You others, therefore, who are stronger than I, make trial of the bow and get this contest settled. On this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door that led into the house with the arrow standing against the top of the bow. Then he sat down on the seat from which he had risen, and Antinous said 'Come on each of you in his turn, going towards the right from the place at which the cupbearer begins when he is handing round the wine. The rest agreed, and Leiodes son of Oenops was the first to rise. He was sacrificial priest to the suitors, and sat in the corner near the mixingbowl.  He was the only man who hated their evil deeds and was indignant with the others. He was now the first to take the bow and arrow, so he went on to the pavement to make his trial, but he could not string the bow, for his hands were weak and unused to hard work, they therefore soon grew tired, and he said to the suitors, 'My friends, I cannot string it let another have it, this bow shall take the life and soul out of many a chief among us, for it is better to die than to live after having missed the prize that we have so long striven for, and which has brought us so long together. Some one of us is even now hoping and praying that he may marry Penelope, but when he has seen this bow and tried it, let him woo and make bridal offerings to some other woman, and let Penelope marry whoever makes her the best offer and whose lot it is to win her. On this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door, with the arrow standing against the tip of the bow. Then he took his seat again on the seat from which he had risen and Antinous rebuked him saying 'Leiodes, what are you talking about? Your words are monstrous and intolerable it makes me angry to listen to you. Shall, then, this bow take the life of many a chief among us, merely because you cannot bend it yourself? True, you were not born to be an archer, but there are others who will soon string it. Then he said to Melanthius the goatherd, 'Look sharp, light a fire in the court, and set a seat hard by with a sheep skin on it bring us also a large ball of lard, from what they have in the house. Let us warm the bow and grease itwe will then make trial of it again, and bring the contest to an end. Melanthius lit the fire, and set a seat covered with sheep skins beside it. He also brought a great ball of lard from what they had in the house, and the suitors warmed the bow and again made trial of it, but they were none of them nearly strong enough to string it. Nevertheless there still remained Antinous and Eurymachus, who were the ringleaders among the suitors and much the foremost among them all. Then the swineherd and the stockman left the cloisters together, and Ulysses followed them. When they had got outside the gates and the outer yard, Ulysses said to them quietly 'Stockman, and you swineherd, I have something in my mind which I am in doubt whether to say or no but I think I will say it. What manner of men would you be to stand by Ulysses, if some god should bring him back here all of a sudden? Say which you are disposed to doto side with the suitors, or with Ulysses? 'Father Jove, answered the stockman, 'would indeed that you might so ordain it. If some god were but to bring Ulysses back, you should see with what might and main I would fight for him. In like words Eumaeus prayed to all the gods that Ulysses might return when, therefore, he saw for certain what mind they were of, Ulysses said, 'It is I, Ulysses, who am here. I have suffered much, but at last, in the twentieth year, I am come back to my own country. I find that you two alone of all my servants are glad that I should do so, for I have not heard any of the others praying for my return. To you two, therefore, will I unfold the truth as it shall be. If heaven shall deliver the suitors into my hands, I will find wives for both of you, will give you house and holding close to my own, and you shall be to me as though you were brothers and friends of Telemachus. I will now give you convincing proofs that you may know me and be assured. See, here is the scar from the boar's tooth that ripped me when I was out hunting on Mt. Parnassus with the sons of Autolycus. As he spoke he drew his rags aside from the great scar, and when they had examined it thoroughly, they both of them wept about Ulysses, threw their arms round him, and kissed his head and shoulders, while Ulysses kissed their hands and faces in return. The sun would have gone down upon their mourning if Ulysses had not checked them and said 'Cease your weeping, lest some one should come outside and see us, and tell those who are within. When you go in, do so separately, not both together I will go first, and do you follow afterwards let this moreover be the token between us the suitors will all of them try to prevent me from getting hold of the bow and quiver do you, therefore, Eumaeus, place it in my hands when you are carrying it about, and tell the women to close the doors of their apartment. If they hear any groaning or uproar as of men fighting about the house, they must not come out they must keep quiet, and stay where they are at their work. And I charge you, Philoetius, to make fast the doors of the outer court, and to bind them securely at once. When he had thus spoken, he went back to the house and took the seat that he had left. Presently, his two servants followed him inside. At this moment the bow was in the hands of Eurymachus, who was warming it by the fire, but even so he could not string it, and he was greatly grieved. He heaved a deep sigh and said, 'I grieve for myself and for us all I grieve that I shall have to forgo the marriage, but I do not care nearly so much about this, for there are plenty of other women in Ithaca and elsewhere what I feel most is the fact of our being so inferior to Ulysses in strength that we cannot string his bow. This will disgrace us in the eyes of those who are yet unborn. 'It shall not be so, Eurymachus, said Antinous, 'and you know it yourself. Today is the feast of Apollo throughout all the land who can string a bow on such a day as this? Put it on one sideas for the axes they can stay where they are, for no one is likely to come to the house and take them away let the cupbearer go round with his cups, that we may make our drinkofferings and drop this matter of the bow we will tell Melanthius to bring us in some goats tomorrowthe best he has we can then offer thigh bones to Apollo the mighty archer, and again make trial of the bow, so as to bring the contest to an end. The rest approved his words, and thereon men servants poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixingbowls with wine and water and handed it round after giving every man his drinkoffering. Then, when they had made their offerings and had drunk each as much as he desired, Ulysses craftily said 'Suitors of the illustrious queen, listen that I may speak even as I am minded. I appeal more especially to Eurymachus, and to Antinous who has just spoken with so much reason. Cease shooting for the present and leave the matter to the gods, but in the morning let heaven give victory to whom it will. For the moment, however, give me the bow that I may prove the power of my hands among you all, and see whether I still have as much strength as I used to have, or whether travel and neglect have made an end of it. This made them all very angry, for they feared he might string the bow, Antinous therefore rebuked him fiercely saying, 'Wretched creature, you have not so much as a grain of sense in your whole body you ought to think yourself lucky in being allowed to dine unharmed among your betters, without having any smaller portion served you than we others have had, and in being allowed to hear our conversation. No other beggar or stranger has been allowed to hear what we say among ourselves the wine must have been doing you a mischief, as it does with all those who drink immoderately. It was wine that inflamed the Centaur Eurytion when he was staying with Peirithous among the Lapithae. When the wine had got into his head, he went mad and did ill deeds about the house of Peirithous this angered the heroes who were there assembled, so they rushed at him and cut off his ears and nostrils then they dragged him through the doorway out of the house, so he went away crazed, and bore the burden of his crime, bereft of understanding. Henceforth, therefore, there was war between mankind and the centaurs, but he brought it upon himself through his own drunkenness. In like manner I can tell you that it will go hardly with you if you string the bow you will find no mercy from any one here, for we shall at once ship you off to king Echetus, who kills every one that comes near him you will never get away alive, so drink and keep quiet without getting into a quarrel with men younger than yourself. Penelope then spoke to him. 'Antinous, said she, 'it is not right that you should illtreat any guest of Telemachus who comes to this house. If the stranger should prove strong enough to string the mighty bow of Ulysses, can you suppose that he would take me home with him and make me his wife? Even the man himself can have no such idea in his mind none of you need let that disturb his feasting it would be out of all reason. 'Queen Penelope, answered Eurymachus, 'we do not suppose that this man will take you away with him it is impossible but we are afraid lest some of the baser sort, men or women among the Achaeans, should go gossiping about and say, 'These suitors are a feeble folk they are paying court to the wife of a brave man whose bow not one of them was able to string, and yet a beggarly tramp who came to the house strung it at once and sent an arrow through the iron.' This is what will be said, and it will be a scandal against us. 'Eurymachus, Penelope answered, 'people who persist in eating up the estate of a great chieftain and dishonouring his house must not expect others to think well of them. Why then should you mind if men talk as you think they will? This stranger is strong and wellbuilt, he says moreover that he is of noble birth. Give him the bow, and let us see whether he can string it or no. I sayand it shall surely bethat if Apollo vouchsafes him the glory of stringing it, I will give him a cloak and shirt of good wear, with a javelin to keep off dogs and robbers, and a sharp sword. I will also give him sandals, and will see him sent safely wherever he wants to go. Then Telemachus said, 'Mother, I am the only man either in Ithaca or in the islands that are over against Elis who has the right to let any one have the bow or to refuse it. No one shall force me one way or the other, not even though I choose to make the stranger a present of the bow outright, and let him take it away with him. Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants. This bow is a man's matter, and mine above all others, for it is I who am master here. She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in her heart. Then going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she mourned her dear husband till Minerva sent sweet sleep over her eyelids. The swineherd now took up the bow and was for taking it to Ulysses, but the suitors clamoured at him from all parts of the cloisters, and one of them said, 'You idiot, where are you taking the bow to? Are you out of your wits? If Apollo and the other gods will grant our prayer, your own boarhounds shall get you into some quiet little place, and worry you to death. Eumaeus was frightened at the outcry they all raised, so he put the bow down then and there, but Telemachus shouted out at him from the other side of the cloisters, and threatened him saying, 'Father Eumaeus, bring the bow on in spite of them, or young as I am I will pelt you with stones back to the country, for I am the better man of the two. I wish I was as much stronger than all the other suitors in the house as I am than you, I would soon send some of them off sick and sorry, for they mean mischief. Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily, which put them in a better humour with Telemachus so Eumaeus brought the bow on and placed it in the hands of Ulysses. When he had done this, he called Euryclea apart and said to her, 'Euryclea, Telemachus says you are to close the doors of the women's apartments. If they hear any groaning or uproar as of men fighting about the house, they are not to come out, but are to keep quiet and stay where they are at their work. Euryclea did as she was told and closed the doors of the women's apartments. Meanwhile Philoetius slipped quietly out and made fast the gates of the outer court. There was a ship's cable of byblus fibre lying in the gatehouse, so he made the gates fast with it and then came in again, resuming the seat that he had left, and keeping an eye on Ulysses, who had now got the bow in his hands, and was turning it every way about, and proving it all over to see whether the worms had been eating into its two horns during his absence. Then would one turn towards his neighbour saying, 'This is some tricky old bowfancier either he has got one like it at home, or he wants to make one, in such workmanlike style does the old vagabond handle it. Another said, 'I hope he may be no more successful in other things than he is likely to be in stringing this bow. But Ulysses, when he had taken it up and examined it all over, strung it as easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre and makes the twisted gut fast at both ends. Then he took it in his right hand to prove the string, and it sang sweetly under his touch like the twittering of a swallow. The suitors were dismayed, and turned colour as they heard it at that moment, moreover, Jove thundered loudly as a sign, and the heart of Ulysses rejoiced as he heard the omen that the son of scheming Saturn had sent him. He took an arrow that was lying upon the tablefor those which the Achaeans were so shortly about to taste were all inside the quiverhe laid it on the centrepiece of the bow, and drew the notch of the arrow and the string toward him, still seated on his seat. When he had taken aim he let fly, and his arrow pierced every one of the handleholes of the axes from the first onwards till it had gone right through them, and into the outer courtyard. Then he said to Telemachus 'Your guest has not disgraced you, Telemachus. I did not miss what I aimed at, and I was not long in stringing my bow. I am still strong, and not as the suitors twit me with being. Now, however, it is time for the Achaeans to prepare supper while there is still daylight, and then otherwise to disport themselves with song and dance which are the crowning ornaments of a banquet. As he spoke he made a sign with his eyebrows, and Telemachus girded on his sword, grasped his spear, and stood armed beside his father's seat. THE KILLING OF THE SUITORSTHE MAIDS WHO HAVE MISCONDUCTED THEMSELVES ARE MADE TO CLEANSE THE CLOISTERS AND ARE THEN HANGED. Then Ulysses tore off his rags, and sprang on to the broad pavement with his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to the ground at his feet and said, 'The mighty contest is at an end. I will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which no man has yet hit. On this he aimed a deadly arrow at Antinous, who was about to take up a twohandled gold cup to drink his wine and already had it in his hands. He had no thought of deathwho amongst all the revellers would think that one man, however brave, would stand alone among so many and kill him? The arrow struck Antinous in the throat, and the point went clean through his neck, so that he fell over and the cup dropped from his hand, while a thick stream of blood gushed from his nostrils. He kicked the table from him and upset the things on it, so that the bread and roasted meats were all soiled as they fell over on to the ground. The suitors were in an uproar when they saw that a man had been hit they sprang in dismay one and all of them from their seats and looked everywhere towards the walls, but there was neither shield nor spear, and they rebuked Ulysses very angrily. 'Stranger, said they, 'you shall pay for shooting people in this way you shall see no other contest you are a doomed man he whom you have slain was the foremost youth in Ithaca, and the vultures shall devour you for having killed him. Thus they spoke, for they thought that he had killed Antinous by mistake, and did not perceive that death was hanging over the head of every one of them. But Ulysses glared at them and said 'Dogs, did you think that I should not come back from Troy? You have wasted my substance, have forced my women servants to lie with you, and have wooed my wife while I was still living. You have feared neither God nor man, and now you shall die. They turned pale with fear as he spoke, and every man looked round about to see whither he might fly for safety, but Eurymachus alone spoke. 'If you are Ulysses, said he, 'then what you have said is just. We have done much wrong on your lands and in your house. But Antinous who was the head and front of the offending lies low already. It was all his doing. It was not that he wanted to marry Penelope he did not so much care about that what he wanted was something quite different, and Jove has not vouchsafed it to him he wanted to kill your son and to be chief man in Ithaca. Now, therefore, that he has met the death which was his due, spare the lives of your people. We will make everything good among ourselves, and pay you in full for all that we have eaten and drunk. Each one of us shall pay you a fine worth twenty oxen, and we will keep on giving you gold and bronze till your heart is softened. Until we have done this no one can complain of your being enraged against us. Ulysses again glared at him and said, 'Though you should give me all that you have in the world both now and all that you ever shall have, I will not stay my hand till I have paid all of you in full. You must fight, or fly for your lives and fly, not a man of you shall. Their hearts sank as they heard him, but Eurymachus again spoke saying 'My friends, this man will give us no quarter. He will stand where he is and shoot us down till he has killed every man among us. Let us then show fight draw your swords, and hold up the tables to shield you from his arrows. Let us have at him with a rush, to drive him from the pavement and doorway we can then get through into the town, and raise such an alarm as shall soon stay his shooting. As he spoke he drew his keen blade of bronze, sharpened on both sides, and with a loud cry sprang towards Ulysses, but Ulysses instantly shot an arrow into his breast that caught him by the nipple and fixed itself in his liver. He dropped his sword and fell doubled up over his table. The cup and all the meats went over on to the ground as he smote the earth with his forehead in the agonies of death, and he kicked the stool with his feet until his eyes were closed in darkness. Then Amphinomus drew his sword and made straight at Ulysses to try and get him away from the door but Telemachus was too quick for him, and struck him from behind the spear caught him between the shoulders and went right through his chest, so that he fell heavily to the ground and struck the earth with his forehead. Then Telemachus sprang away from him, leaving his spear still in the body, for he feared that if he stayed to draw it out, some one of the Achaeans might come up and hack at him with his sword, or knock him down, so he set off at a run, and immediately was at his father's side. Then he said 'Father, let me bring you a shield, two spears, and a brass helmet for your temples. I will arm myself as well, and will bring other armour for the swineherd and the stockman, for we had better be armed. 'Run and fetch them, answered Ulysses, 'while my arrows hold out, or when I am alone they may get me away from the door. Telemachus did as his father said, and went off to the store room where the armour was kept. He chose four shields, eight spears, and four brass helmets with horsehair plumes. He brought them with all speed to his father, and armed himself first, while the stockman and the swineherd also put on their armour, and took their places near Ulysses. Meanwhile Ulysses, as long as his arrows lasted, had been shooting the suitors one by one, and they fell thick on one another when his arrows gave out, he set the bow to stand against the end wall of the house by the door post, and hung a shield four hides thick about his shoulders on his comely head he set his helmet, well wrought with a crest of horsehair that nodded menacingly above it, and he grasped two redoubtable bronzeshod spears. Now there was a trap door on the wall, while at one end of the pavement there was an exit leading to a narrow passage, and this exit was closed by a wellmade door. Ulysses told Philoetius to stand by this door and guard it, for only one person could attack it at a time. But Agelaus shouted out, 'Cannot some one go up to the trap door and tell the people what is going on? Help would come at once, and we should soon make an end of this man and his shooting. 'This may not be, Agelaus, answered Melanthius, 'the mouth of the narrow passage is dangerously near the entrance to the outer court. One brave man could prevent any number from getting in. But I know what I will do, I will bring you arms from the storeroom, for I am sure it is there that Ulysses and his son have put them. On this the goatherd Melanthius went by back passages to the storeroom of Ulysses' house. There he chose twelve shields, with as many helmets and spears, and brought them back as fast as he could to give them to the suitors. Ulysses' heart began to fail him when he saw the suitors putting on their armour and brandishing their spears. He saw the greatness of the danger, and said to Telemachus, 'Some one of the women inside is helping the suitors against us, or it may be Melanthius. Telemachus answered, 'The fault, father, is mine, and mine only I left the store room door open, and they have kept a sharper look out than I have. Go, Eumaeus, put the door to, and see whether it is one of the women who is doing this, or whether, as I suspect, it is Melanthius the son of Dolius. Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Melanthius was again going to the store room to fetch more armour, but the swineherd saw him and said to Ulysses who was beside him, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, it is that scoundrel Melanthius, just as we suspected, who is going to the store room. Say, shall I kill him, if I can get the better of him, or shall I bring him here that you may take your own revenge for all the many wrongs that he has done in your house? Ulysses answered, 'Telemachus and I will hold these suitors in check, no matter what they do go back both of you and bind Melanthius' hands and feet behind him. Throw him into the store room and make the door fast behind you then fasten a noose about his body, and string him close up to the rafters from a high bearingpost, that he may linger on in an agony. Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said they went to the store room, which they entered before Melanthius saw them, for he was busy searching for arms in the innermost part of the room, so the two took their stand on either side of the door and waited. By and by Melanthius came out with a helmet in one hand, and an old dryrotted shield in the other, which had been borne by Laertes when he was young, but which had been long since thrown aside, and the straps had become unsewn on this the two seized him, dragged him back by the hair, and threw him struggling to the ground. They bent his hands and feet well behind his back, and bound them tight with a painful bond as Ulysses had told them then they fastened a noose about his body and strung him up from a high pillar till he was close up to the rafters, and over him did you then vaunt, O swineherd Eumaeus saying, 'Melanthius, you will pass the night on a soft bed as you deserve. You will know very well when morning comes from the streams of Oceanus, and it is time for you to be driving in your goats for the suitors to feast on. There, then, they left him in very cruel bondage, and having put on their armour they closed the door behind them and went back to take their places by the side of Ulysses whereon the four men stood in the cloister, fierce and full of fury nevertheless, those who were in the body of the court were still both brave and many. Then Jove's daughter Minerva came up to them, having assumed the voice and form of Mentor. Ulysses was glad when he saw her and said, 'Mentor, lend me your help, and forget not your old comrade, nor the many good turns he has done you. Besides, you are my agemate. But all the time he felt sure it was Minerva, and the suitors from the other side raised an uproar when they saw her. Agelaus was the first to reproach her. 'Mentor, he cried, 'do not let Ulysses beguile you into siding with him and fighting the suitors. This is what we will do when we have killed these people, father and son, we will kill you too. You shall pay for it with your head, and when we have killed you, we will take all you have, in doors or out, and bring it into hotchpot with Ulysses' property we will not let your sons live in your house, nor your daughters, nor shall your widow continue to live in the city of Ithaca. This made Minerva still more furious, so she scolded Ulysses very angrily. 'Ulysses, said she, 'your strength and prowess are no longer what they were when you fought for nine long years among the Trojans about the noble lady Helen. You killed many a man in those days, and it was through your stratagem that Priam's city was taken. How comes it that you are so lamentably less valiant now that you are on your own ground, face to face with the suitors in your own house? Come on, my good fellow, stand by my side and see how Mentor, son of Alcimus shall fight your foes and requite your kindnesses conferred upon him. But she would not give him full victory as yet, for she wished still further to prove his own prowess and that of his brave son, so she flew up to one of the rafters in the roof of the cloister and sat upon it in the form of a swallow. Meanwhile Agelaus son of Damastor, Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus, Pisander, and Polybus son of Polyctor bore the brunt of the fight upon the suitors' side of all those who were still fighting for their lives they were by far the most valiant, for the others had already fallen under the arrows of Ulysses. Agelaus shouted to them and said, 'My friends, he will soon have to leave off, for Mentor has gone away after having done nothing for him but brag. They are standing at the doors unsupported. Do not aim at him all at once, but six of you throw your spears first, and see if you cannot cover yourselves with glory by killing him. When he has fallen we need not be uneasy about the others. They threw their spears as he bade them, but Minerva made them all of no effect. One hit the door post another went against the door the pointed shaft of another struck the wall and as soon as they had avoided all the spears of the suitors Ulysses said to his own men, 'My friends, I should say we too had better let drive into the middle of them, or they will crown all the harm they have done us by killing us outright. They therefore aimed straight in front of them and threw their spears. Ulysses killed Demoptolemus, Telemachus Euryades, Eumaeus Elatus, while the stockman killed Pisander. These all bit the dust, and as the others drew back into a corner Ulysses and his men rushed forward and regained their spears by drawing them from the bodies of the dead. The suitors now aimed a second time, but again Minerva made their weapons for the most part without effect. One hit a bearingpost of the cloister another went against the door while the pointed shaft of another struck the wall. Still, Amphimedon just took a piece of the top skin from off Telemachus's wrist, and Ctesippus managed to graze Eumaeus's shoulder above his shield but the spear went on and fell to the ground. Then Ulysses and his men let drive into the crowd of suitors. Ulysses hit Eurydamas, Telemachus Amphimedon, and Eumaeus Polybus. After this the stockman hit Ctesippus in the breast, and taunted him saying, 'Foulmouthed son of Polytherses, do not be so foolish as to talk wickedly another time, but let heaven direct your speech, for the gods are far stronger than men. I make you a present of this advice to repay you for the foot which you gave Ulysses when he was begging about in his own house. Thus spoke the stockman, and Ulysses struck the son of Damastor with a spear in close fight, while Telemachus hit Leocritus son of Evenor in the belly, and the dart went clean through him, so that he fell forward full on his face upon the ground. Then Minerva from her seat on the rafter held up her deadly aegis, and the hearts of the suitors quailed. They fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As eaglebeaked, crooktaloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the sporteven so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite them on every side. They made a horrible groaning as their brains were being battered in, and the ground seethed with their blood. Leiodes then caught the knees of Ulysses and said, 'Ulysses I beseech you have mercy upon me and spare me. I never wronged any of the women in your house either in word or deed, and I tried to stop the others. I saw them, but they would not listen, and now they are paying for their folly. I was their sacrificing priest if you kill me, I shall die without having done anything to deserve it, and shall have got no thanks for all the good that I did. Ulysses looked sternly at him and answered, 'If you were their sacrificing priest, you must have prayed many a time that it might be long before I got home again, and that you might marry my wife and have children by her. Therefore you shall die. With these words he picked up the sword that Agelaus had dropped when he was being killed, and which was lying upon the ground. Then he struck Leiodes on the back of his neck, so that his head fell rolling in the dust while he was yet speaking. The minstrel Phemius son of Terpeshe who had been forced by the suitors to sing to themnow tried to save his life. He was standing near towards the trap door, and held his lyre in his hand. He did not know whether to fly out of the cloister and sit down by the altar of Jove that was in the outer court, and on which both Laertes and Ulysses had offered up the thigh bones of many an ox, or whether to go straight up to Ulysses and embrace his knees, but in the end he deemed it best to embrace Ulysses' knees. So he laid his lyre on the ground between the mixing bowl  and the silverstudded seat then going up to Ulysses he caught hold of his knees and said, 'Ulysses, I beseech you have mercy on me and spare me. You will be sorry for it afterwards if you kill a bard who can sing both for gods and men as I can. I make all my lays myself, and heaven visits me with every kind of inspiration. I would sing to you as though you were a god, do not therefore be in such a hurry to cut my head off. Your own son Telemachus will tell you that I did not want to frequent your house and sing to the suitors after their meals, but they were too many and too strong for me, so they made me. Telemachus heard him, and at once went up to his father. 'Hold! he cried, 'the man is guiltless, do him no hurt and we will spare Medon too, who was always good to me when I was a boy, unless Philoetius or Eumaeus has already killed him, or he has fallen in your way when you were raging about the court. Medon caught these words of Telemachus, for he was crouching under a seat beneath which he had hidden by covering himself up with a freshly flayed heifer's hide, so he threw off the hide, went up to Telemachus, and laid hold of his knees. 'Here I am, my dear sir, said he, 'stay your hand therefore, and tell your father, or he will kill me in his rage against the suitors for having wasted his substance and been so foolishly disrespectful to yourself. Ulysses smiled at him and answered, 'Fear not Telemachus has saved your life, that you may know in future, and tell other people, how greatly better good deeds prosper than evil ones. Go, therefore, outside the cloisters into the outer court, and be out of the way of the slaughteryou and the bardwhile I finish my work here inside. The pair went into the outer court as fast as they could, and sat down by Jove's great altar, looking fearfully round, and still expecting that they would be killed. Then Ulysses searched the whole court carefully over, to see if anyone had managed to hide himself and was still living, but he found them all lying in the dust and weltering in their blood. They were like fishes which fishermen have netted out of the sea, and thrown upon the beach to lie gasping for water till the heat of the sun makes an end of them. Even so were the suitors lying all huddled up one against the other. Then Ulysses said to Telemachus, 'Call nurse Euryclea I have something to say to her. Telemachus went and knocked at the door of the women's room. 'Make haste, said he, 'you old woman who have been set over all the other women in the house. Come outside my father wishes to speak to you. When Euryclea heard this she unfastened the door of the women's room and came out, following Telemachus. She found Ulysses among the corpses bespattered with blood and filth like a lion that has just been devouring an ox, and his breast and both his cheeks are all bloody, so that he is a fearful sight even so was Ulysses besmirched from head to foot with gore. When she saw all the corpses and such a quantity of blood, she was beginning to cry out for joy, for she saw that a great deed had been done but Ulysses checked her, 'Old woman, said he, 'rejoice in silence restrain yourself, and do not make any noise about it it is an unholy thing to vaunt over dead men. Heaven's doom and their own evil deeds have brought these men to destruction, for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end as a punishment for their wickedness and folly. Now, however, tell me which of the women in the house have misconducted themselves, and who are innocent. 'I will tell you the truth, my son, answered Euryclea. 'There are fifty women in the house whom we teach to do things, such as carding wool, and all kinds of household work. Of these, twelve in all have misbehaved, and have been wanting in respect to me, and also to Penelope. They showed no disrespect to Telemachus, for he has only lately grown and his mother never permitted him to give orders to the female servants but let me go upstairs and tell your wife all that has happened, for some god has been sending her to sleep. 'Do not wake her yet, answered Ulysses, 'but tell the women who have misconducted themselves to come to me. Euryclea left the cloister to tell the women, and make them come to Ulysses in the meantime he called Telemachus, the stockman, and the swineherd. 'Begin, said he, 'to remove the dead, and make the women help you. Then, get sponges and clean water to swill down the tables and seats. When you have thoroughly cleansed the whole cloisters, take the women into the space between the domed room and the wall of the outer court, and run them through with your swords till they are quite dead, and have forgotten all about love and the way in which they used to lie in secret with the suitors. On this the women came down in a body, weeping and wailing bitterly. First they carried the dead bodies out, and propped them up against one another in the gatehouse. Ulysses ordered them about and made them do their work quickly, so they had to carry the bodies out. When they had done this, they cleaned all the tables and seats with sponges and water, while Telemachus and the two others shovelled up the blood and dirt from the ground, and the women carried it all away and put it out of doors. Then when they had made the whole place quite clean and orderly, they took the women out and hemmed them in the narrow space between the wall of the domed room and that of the yard, so that they could not get away and Telemachus said to the other two, 'I shall not let these women die a clean death, for they were insolent to me and my mother, and used to sleep with the suitors. So saying he made a ship's cable fast to one of the bearingposts that supported the roof of the domed room, and secured it all around the building, at a good height, lest any of the women's feet should touch the ground and as thrushes or doves beat against a net that has been set for them in a thicket just as they were getting to their nest, and a terrible fate awaits them, even so did the women have to put their heads in nooses one after the other and die most miserably. Their feet moved convulsively for a while, but not for very long. As for Melanthius, they took him through the cloister into the inner court. There they cut off his nose and his ears they drew out his vitals and gave them to the dogs raw, and then in their fury they cut off his hands and his feet. When they had done this they washed their hands and feet and went back into the house, for all was now over and Ulysses said to the dear old nurse Euryclea, 'Bring me sulphur, which cleanses all pollution, and fetch fire also that I may burn it, and purify the cloisters. Go, moreover, and tell Penelope to come here with her attendants, and also all the maidservants that are in the house. 'All that you have said is true, answered Euryclea, 'but let me bring you some clean clothesa shirt and cloak. Do not keep these rags on your back any longer. It is not right. 'First light me a fire, replied Ulysses. She brought the fire and sulphur, as he had bidden her, and Ulysses thoroughly purified the cloisters and both the inner and outer courts. Then she went inside to call the women and tell them what had happened whereon they came from their apartment with torches in their hands, and pressed round Ulysses to embrace him, kissing his head and shoulders and taking hold of his hands. It made him feel as if he should like to weep, for he remembered every one of them. PENELOPE EVENTUALLY RECOGNISES HER HUSBANDEARLY IN THE MORNING ULYSSES, TELEMACHUS, EUMAEUS, AND PHILOETIUS LEAVE THE TOWN. Euryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her dear husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and her feet were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent over her head to speak to her. 'Wake up Penelope, my dear child, she exclaimed, 'and see with your own eyes something that you have been wanting this long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home again, and has killed the suitors who were giving so much trouble in his house, eating up his estate and ill treating his son. 'My good nurse, answered Penelope, 'you must be mad. The gods sometimes send some very sensible people out of their minds, and make foolish people become sensible. This is what they must have been doing to you for you always used to be a reasonable person. Why should you thus mock me when I have trouble enough alreadytalking such nonsense, and waking me up out of a sweet sleep that had taken possession of my eyes and closed them? I have never slept so soundly from the day my poor husband went to that city with the illomened name. Go back again into the women's room if it had been any one else who had woke me up to bring me such absurd news I should have sent her away with a severe scolding. As it is your age shall protect you. 'My dear child, answered Euryclea, 'I am not mocking you. It is quite true as I tell you that Ulysses is come home again. He was the stranger whom they all kept on treating so badly in the cloister. Telemachus knew all the time that he was come back, but kept his father's secret that he might have his revenge on all these wicked people. Then Penelope sprang up from her couch, threw her arms round Euryclea, and wept for joy. 'But my dear nurse, said she, 'explain this to me if he has really come home as you say, how did he manage to overcome the wicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number of them there always were? 'I was not there, answered Euryclea, 'and do not know I only heard them groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and huddled up in a corner of the women's room with the doors closed, till your son came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found Ulysses standing over the corpses that were lying on the ground all round him, one on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you could have seen him standing there all bespattered with blood and filth, and looking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled up in the gatehouse that is in the outer court, and Ulysses has lit a great fire to purify the house with sulphur. He has sent me to call you, so come with me that you may both be happy together after all for now at last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled your husband is come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and to take his revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so badly to him. 'My dear nurse, said Penelope, 'do not exult too confidently over all this. You know how delighted every one would be to see Ulysses come homemore particularly myself, and the son who has been born to both of us but what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great wickedness, and has made an end of them for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of their iniquity Ulysses is dead far away from the Achaean land he will never return home again. Then nurse Euryclea said, 'My child, what are you talking about? but you were all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your husband is never coming, although he is in the house and by his own fire side at this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof when I was washing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave him, and I wanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom he would not let me, and clapped his hands over my mouth so come with me and I will make this bargain with youif I am deceiving you, you may have me killed by the most cruel death you can think of. 'My dear nurse, said Penelope, 'however wise you may be you can hardly fathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in search of my son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the man who has killed them. On this she came down from her upper room, and while doing so she considered whether she should keep at a distance from her husband and question him, or whether she should at once go up to him and embrace him. When, however, she had crossed the stone floor of the cloister, she sat down opposite Ulysses by the fire, against the wall at right angles to that by which she had entered, while Ulysses sat near one of the bearingposts, looking upon the ground, and waiting to see what his brave wife would say to him when she saw him. For a long time she sat silent and as one lost in amazement. At one moment she looked him full in the face, but then again directly, she was misled by his shabby clothes and failed to recognise him, till Telemachus began to reproach her and said 'Motherbut you are so hard that I cannot call you by such a namewhy do you keep away from my father in this way? Why do you not sit by his side and begin talking to him and asking him questions? No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much but your heart always was as hard as a stone. Penelope answered, 'My son, I am so lost in astonishment that I can find no words in which either to ask questions or to answer them. I cannot even look him straight in the face. Still, if he really is Ulysses come back to his own home again, we shall get to understand one another better by and by, for there are tokens with which we two are alone acquainted, and which are hidden from all others. Ulysses smiled at this, and said to Telemachus, 'Let your mother put me to any proof she likes she will make up her mind about it presently. She rejects me for the moment and believes me to be somebody else, because I am covered with dirt and have such bad clothes on let us, however, consider what we had better do next. When one man has killed anothereven though he was not one who would leave many friends to take up his quarrelthe man who has killed him must still say good bye to his friends and fly the country whereas we have been killing the stay of a whole town, and all the picked youth of Ithaca. I would have you consider this matter. 'Look to it yourself, father, answered Telemachus, 'for they say you are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other mortal man who can compare with you. We will follow you with right good will, nor shall you find us fail you in so far as our strength holds out. 'I will say what I think will be best, answered Ulysses. 'First wash and put your shirts on tell the maids also to go to their own room and dress Phemius shall then strike up a dance tune on his lyre, so that if people outside hear, or any of the neighbours, or some one going along the street happens to notice it, they may think there is a wedding in the house, and no rumours about the death of the suitors will get about in the town, before we can escape to the woods upon my own land. Once there, we will settle which of the courses heaven vouchsafes us shall seem wisest. Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. First they washed and put their shirts on, while the women got ready. Then Phemius took his lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and stately dance. The house reechoed with the sound of men and women dancing, and the people outside said, 'I suppose the queen has been getting married at last. She ought to be ashamed of herself for not continuing to protect her husband's property until he comes home. This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that had been happening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed Ulysses in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva made him look taller and stronger than before she also made the hair grow thick on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms she glorified him about the head and shoulders just as a skilful workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan or Minervaand his work is full of beautyenriches a piece of silver plate by gilding it. He came from the bath looking like one of the immortals, and sat down opposite his wife on the seat he had left. 'My dear, said he, 'heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding than woman ever yet had. No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much. But come, nurse, get a bed ready for me I will sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as hard as iron. 'My dear, answered Penelope, 'I have no wish to set myself up, nor to depreciate you but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca. Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets. She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said, 'Wife, I am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has been taking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have found it a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless some god came and helped him to shift it. There is no man living, however strong and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for it is a marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands. There was a young olive growing within the precincts of the house, in full vigour, and about as thick as a bearingpost. I built my room round this with strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them, and I made the doors strong and wellfitting. Then I cut off the top boughs of the olive tree and left the stump standing. This I dressed roughly from the root upwards and then worked with carpenter's tools well and skilfully, straightening my work by drawing a line on the wood, and making it into a bedprop. I then bored a hole down the middle, and made it the centrepost of my bed, at which I worked till I had finished it, inlaying it with gold and silver after this I stretched a hide of crimson leather from one side of it to the other. So you see I know all about it, and I desire to learn whether it is still there, or whether any one has been removing it by cutting down the olive tree at its roots. When she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly broke down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him. 'Do not be angry with me Ulysses, she cried, 'you, who are the wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us. Heaven has denied us the happiness of spending our youth, and of growing old, together do not then be aggrieved or take it amiss that I did not embrace you thus as soon as I saw you. I have been shuddering all the time through fear that someone might come here and deceive me with a lying story for there are many very wicked people going about. Jove's daughter Helen would never have yielded herself to a man from a foreign country, if she had known that the sons of Achaeans would come after her and bring her back. Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought to that sin, which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now, however, that you have convinced me by showing that you know all about our bed (which no human being has ever seen but you and I and a single maidservant, the daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I have been I can mistrust no longer. Then Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and faithful wife to his bosom. As the sight of land is welcome to men who are swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship with the fury of his winds and waves a few alone reach the land, and these, covered with brine, are thankful when they find themselves on firm ground and out of dangereven so was her husband welcome to her as she looked upon him, and she could not tear her two fair arms from about his neck. Indeed they would have gone on indulging their sorrow till rosyfingered morn appeared, had not Minerva determined otherwise, and held night back in the far west, while she would not suffer Dawn to leave Oceanus, nor to yoke the two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear her onward to break the day upon mankind. At last, however, Ulysses said, 'Wife, we have not yet reached the end of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to undergo. It is long and difficult, but I must go through with it, for thus the shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day when I went down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my companions. But now let us go to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep. 'You shall go to bed as soon as you please, replied Penelope, 'now that the gods have sent you home to your own good house and to your country. But as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it, tell me about the task that lies before you. I shall have to hear about it later, so it is better that I should be told at once. 'My dear, answered Ulysses, 'why should you press me to tell you? Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like it. I do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and wide, carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people have never heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food. They know nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a ship. He gave me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He said that a wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a winnowing shovel that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune after which I was to go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven, one after the other. As for myself, he said that death should come to me from the sea, and that my life should ebb away very gently when I was full of years and peace of mind, and my people should bless me. All this, he said, should surely come to pass. And Penelope said, 'If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier time in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from misfortune. Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took torches and made the bed ready with soft coverlets as soon as they had laid them, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest, leaving the bed chamber woman Eurynome to show Ulysses and Penelope to bed by torch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went back, and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed. Telemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and made the women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep in the cloisters. When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell talking with one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in seeing the house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had killed so many sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many casks of wine. Ulysses in his turn told her what he had suffered, and how much trouble he had himself given to other people. He told her everything, and she was so delighted to listen that she never went to sleep till he had ended his whole story. He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached the fertile land of the Lotuseaters. He told her all about the Cyclops and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave comrades how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably and furthered him on his way, but even so he was not to reach home, for to his great grief a hurricane carried him out to sea again how he went on to the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed all his ships with their crews, save himself and his own ship only. Then he told of cunning Circe and her craft, and how he sailed to the chill house of Hades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias, and how he saw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who bore him and brought him up when he was a child how he then heard the wondrous singing of the Sirens, and went on to the wandering rocks and terrible Charybdis and to Scylla, whom no man had ever yet passed in safety how his men then ate the cattle of the sungod, and how Jove therefore struck the ship with his thunderbolts, so that all his men perished together, himself alone being left alive how at last he reached the Ogygian island and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in a cave, and fed him, and wanted him to marry her, in which case she intended making him immortal so that he should never grow old, but she could not persuade him to let her do so and how after much suffering he had found his way to the Phaeacians, who had treated him as though he had been a god, and sent him back in a ship to his own country after having given him gold, bronze, and raiment in great abundance. This was the last thing about which he told her, for here a deep sleep took hold upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows. Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. When she deemed that Ulysses had had both of his wife and of repose, she bade goldenthroned Dawn rise out of Oceanus that she might shed light upon mankind. On this, Ulysses rose from his comfortable bed and said to Penelope, 'Wife, we have both of us had our full share of troubles, you, here, in lamenting my absence, and I in being prevented from getting home though I was longing all the time to do so. Now, however, that we have at last come together, take care of the property that is in the house. As for the sheep and goats which the wicked suitors have eaten, I will take many myself by force from other people, and will compel the Achaeans to make good the rest till they shall have filled all my yards. I am now going to the wooded lands out in the country to see my father who has so long been grieved on my account, and to yourself I will give these instructions, though you have little need of them. At sunrise it will at once get abroad that I have been killing the suitors go upstairs, therefore, and stay there with your women. See nobody and ask no questions. As he spoke he girded on his armour. Then he roused Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus, and told them all to put on their armour also. This they did, and armed themselves. When they had done so, they opened the gates and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way. It was now daylight, but Minerva nevertheless concealed them in darkness and led them quickly out of the town. THE GHOSTS OF THE SUITORS IN HADESULYSSES AND HIS MEN GO TO THE HOUSE OF LAERTESTHE PEOPLE OF ITHACA COME OUT TO ATTACK ULYSSES, BUT MINERVA CONCLUDES A PEACE. Then Mercury of Cyllene summoned the ghosts of the suitors, and in his hand he held the fair golden wand with which he seals men's eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases with this he roused the ghosts and led them, while they followed whining and gibbering behind him. As bats fly squealing in the hollow of some great cave, when one of them has fallen out of the cluster in which they hang, even so did the ghosts whine and squeal as Mercury the healer of sorrow led them down into the dark abode of death. When they had passed the waters of Oceanus and the rock Leucas, they came to the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, whereon they reached the meadow of asphodel where dwell the souls and shadows of them that can labour no more. Here they found the ghost of Achilles son of Peleus, with those of Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax, who was the finest and handsomest man of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus himself. They gathered round the ghost of the son of Peleus, and the ghost of Agamemnon joined them, sorrowing bitterly. Round him were gathered also the ghosts of those who had perished with him in the house of Aegisthus and the ghost of Achilles spoke first. 'Son of Atreus, it said, 'we used to say that Jove had loved you better from first to last than any other hero, for you were captain over many and brave men, when we were all fighting together before Troy yet the hand of death, which no mortal can escape, was laid upon you all too early. Better for you had you fallen at Troy in the heyday of your renown, for the Achaeans would have built a mound over your ashes, and your son would have been heir to your good name, whereas it has now been your lot to come to a most miserable end. 'Happy son of Peleus, answered the ghost of Agamemnon, 'for having died at Troy far from Argos, while the bravest of the Trojans and the Achaeans fell round you fighting for your body. There you lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely, heedless now of your chivalry. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor should we ever have left off if Jove had not sent a hurricane to stay us. Then, when we had borne you to the ships out of the fray, we laid you on your bed and cleansed your fair skin with warm water and with ointments. The Danaans tore their hair and wept bitterly round about you. Your mother, when she heard, came with her immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and the sound of a great wailing went forth over the waters so that the Achaeans quaked for fear. They would have fled panicstricken to their ships had not wise old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying, 'Hold, Argives, fly not sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming from the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.' 'Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the old man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet voices in lamentcalling and answering one another there was not an Argive but wept for pity of the dirge they chaunted. Days and nights seven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with many an ox did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in raiment of the gods, with rich resins and with honey, while heroes, horse and foot, clashed their armour round the pile as you were burning, with the tramp as of a great multitude. But when the flames of heaven had done their work, we gathered your white bones at daybreak and laid them in ointments and in pure wine. Your mother brought us a golden vase to hold themgift of Bacchus, and work of Vulcan himself in this we mingled your bleached bones with those of Patroclus who had gone before you, and separate we enclosed also those of Antilochus, who had been closer to you than any other of your comrades now that Patroclus was no more. 'Over these the host of the Argives built a noble tomb, on a point jutting out over the open Hellespont, that it might be seen from far out upon the sea by those now living and by them that shall be born hereafter. Your mother begged prizes from the gods, and offered them to be contended for by the noblest of the Achaeans. You must have been present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird themselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some great chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silverfooted Thetis offered in your honour for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death your fame, Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore among all mankind. But as for me, what solace had I when the days of my fighting were done? For Jove willed my destruction on my return, by the hands of Aegisthus and those of my wicked wife. Thus did they converse, and presently Mercury came up to them with the ghosts of the suitors who had been killed by Ulysses. The ghosts of Agamemnon and Achilles were astonished at seeing them, and went up to them at once. The ghost of Agamemnon recognised Amphimedon son of Melaneus, who lived in Ithaca and had been his host, so it began to talk to him. 'Amphimedon, it said, 'what has happened to all you fine young menall of an age toothat you are come down here under the ground? One could pick no finer body of men from any city. Did Neptune raise his winds and waves against you when you were at sea, or did your enemies make an end of you on the mainland when you were cattlelifting or sheepstealing, or while fighting in defence of their wives and city? Answer my question, for I have been your guest. Do you not remember how I came to your house with Menelaus, to persuade Ulysses to join us with his ships against Troy? It was a whole month ere we could resume our voyage, for we had hard work to persuade Ulysses to come with us. And the ghost of Amphimedon answered, 'Agamemnon, son of Atreus, king of men, I remember everything that you have said, and will tell you fully and accurately about the way in which our end was brought about. Ulysses had been long gone, and we were courting his wife, who did not say point blank that she would not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end, for she meant to compass our destruction this, then, was the trick she played us. She set up a great tambour frame in her room and began to work on an enormous piece of fine needlework. 'Sweethearts,' said she, 'Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not press me to marry again immediately waitfor I would not have my skill in needlework perish unrecordedtill I have completed a pall for the hero Laertes, against the time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.' This is what she said, and we assented whereupon we could see her working upon her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years without our finding it out, but as time wore on and she was now in her fourth year, in the waning of moons and many days had been accomplished, one of her maids who knew what she was doing told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it whether she would or no and when she showed us the robe she had made, after she had had it washed, its splendour was as that of the sun or moon. 'Then some malicious god conveyed Ulysses to the upland farm where his swineherd lives. Thither presently came also his son, returning from a voyage to Pylos, and the two came to the town when they had hatched their plot for our destruction. Telemachus came first, and then after him, accompanied by the swineherd, came Ulysses, clad in rags and leaning on a staff as though he were some miserable old beggar. He came so unexpectedly that none of us knew him, not even the older ones among us, and we reviled him and threw things at him. He endured both being struck and insulted without a word, though he was in his own house but when the will of Aegisbearing Jove inspired him, he and Telemachus took the armour and hid it in an inner chamber, bolting the doors behind them. Then he cunningly made his wife offer his bow and a quantity of iron to be contended for by us illfated suitors and this was the beginning of our end, for not one of us could string the bownor nearly do so. When it was about to reach the hands of Ulysses, we all of us shouted out that it should not be given him, no matter what he might say, but Telemachus insisted on his having it. When he had got it in his hands he strung it with ease and sent his arrow through the iron. Then he stood on the floor of the cloister and poured his arrows on the ground, glaring fiercely about him. First he killed Antinous, and then, aiming straight before him, he let fly his deadly darts and they fell thick on one another. It was plain that some one of the gods was helping them, for they fell upon us with might and main throughout the cloisters, and there was a hideous sound of groaning as our brains were being battered in, and the ground seethed with our blood. This, Agamemnon, is how we came by our end, and our bodies are lying still uncared for in the house of Ulysses, for our friends at home do not yet know what has happened, so that they cannot lay us out and wash the black blood from our wounds, making moan over us according to the offices due to the departed. 'Happy Ulysses, son of Laertes, replied the ghost of Agamemnon, 'you are indeed blessed in the possession of a wife endowed with such rare excellence of understanding, and so faithful to her wedded lord as Penelope the daughter of Icarius. The fame, therefore, of her virtue shall never die, and the immortals shall compose a song that shall be welcome to all mankind in honour of the constancy of Penelope. How far otherwise was the wickedness of the daughter of Tyndareus who killed her lawful husband her song shall be hateful among men, for she has brought disgrace on all womankind even on the good ones. Thus did they converse in the house of Hades deep down within the bowels of the earth. Meanwhile Ulysses and the others passed out of the town and soon reached the fair and welltilled farm of Laertes, which he had reclaimed with infinite labour. Here was his house, with a leanto running all round it, where the slaves who worked for him slept and sat and ate, while inside the house there was an old Sicel woman, who looked after him in this his countryfarm. When Ulysses got there, he said to his son and to the other two 'Go to the house, and kill the best pig that you can find for dinner. Meanwhile I want to see whether my father will know me, or fail to recognise me after so long an absence. He then took off his armour and gave it to Eumaeus and Philoetius, who went straight on to the house, while he turned off into the vineyard to make trial of his father. As he went down into the great orchard, he did not see Dolius, nor any of his sons nor of the other bondsmen, for they were all gathering thorns to make a fence for the vineyard, at the place where the old man had told them he therefore found his father alone, hoeing a vine. He had on a dirty old shirt, patched and very shabby his legs were bound round with thongs of oxhide to save him from the brambles, and he also wore sleeves of leather he had a goat skin cap on his head, and was looking very woebegone. When Ulysses saw him so worn, so old and full of sorrow, he stood still under a tall pear tree and began to weep. He doubted whether to embrace him, kiss him, and tell him all about his having come home, or whether he should first question him and see what he would say. In the end he deemed it best to be crafty with him, so in this mind he went up to his father, who was bending down and digging about a plant. 'I see, sir, said Ulysses, 'that you are an excellent gardenerwhat pains you take with it, to be sure. There is not a single plant, not a fig tree, vine, olive, pear, nor flower bed, but bears the trace of your attention. I trust, however, that you will not be offended if I say that you take better care of your garden than of yourself. You are old, unsavoury, and very meanly clad. It cannot be because you are idle that your master takes such poor care of you, indeed your face and figure have nothing of the slave about them, and proclaim you of noble birth. I should have said that you were one of those who should wash well, eat well, and lie soft at night as old men have a right to do but tell me, and tell me true, whose bondman are you, and in whose garden are you working? Tell me also about another matter. Is this place that I have come to really Ithaca? I met a man just now who said so, but he was a dull fellow, and had not the patience to hear my story out when I was asking him about an old friend of mine, whether he was still living, or was already dead and in the house of Hades. Believe me when I tell you that this man came to my house once when I was in my own country and never yet did any stranger come to me whom I liked better. He said that his family came from Ithaca and that his father was Laertes, son of Arceisius. I received him hospitably, making him welcome to all the abundance of my house, and when he went away I gave him all customary presents. I gave him seven talents of fine gold, and a cup of solid silver with flowers chased upon it. I gave him twelve light cloaks, and as many pieces of tapestry I also gave him twelve cloaks of single fold, twelve rugs, twelve fair mantles, and an equal number of shirts. To all this I added four good looking women skilled in all useful arts, and I let him take his choice. His father shed tears and answered, 'Sir, you have indeed come to the country that you have named, but it is fallen into the hands of wicked people. All this wealth of presents has been given to no purpose. If you could have found your friend here alive in Ithaca, he would have entertained you hospitably and would have requited your presents amply when you left himas would have been only right considering what you had already given him. But tell me, and tell me true, how many years is it since you entertained this guestmy unhappy son, as ever was? Alas! He has perished far from his own country the fishes of the sea have eaten him, or he has fallen a prey to the birds and wild beasts of some continent. Neither his mother, nor I his father, who were his parents, could throw our arms about him and wrap him in his shroud, nor could his excellent and richly dowered wife Penelope bewail her husband as was natural upon his death bed, and close his eyes according to the offices due to the departed. But now, tell me truly for I want to know. Who and whence are youtell me of your town and parents? Where is the ship lying that has brought you and your men to Ithaca? Or were you a passenger on some other man's ship, and those who brought you here have gone on their way and left you? 'I will tell you everything, answered Ulysses, 'quite truly. I come from Alybas, where I have a fine house. I am son of king Apheidas, who is the son of Polypemon. My own name is Eperitus heaven drove me off my course as I was leaving Sicania, and I have been carried here against my will. As for my ship it is lying over yonder, off the open country outside the town, and this is the fifth year since Ulysses left my country. Poor fellow, yet the omens were good for him when he left me. The birds all flew on our right hands, and both he and I rejoiced to see them as we parted, for we had every hope that we should have another friendly meeting and exchange presents. A dark cloud of sorrow fell upon Laertes as he listened. He filled both hands with the dust from off the ground and poured it over his grey head, groaning heavily as he did so. The heart of Ulysses was touched, and his nostrils quivered as he looked upon his father then he sprang towards him, flung his arms about him and kissed him, saying, 'I am he, father, about whom you are askingI have returned after having been away for twenty years. But cease your sighing and lamentationwe have no time to lose, for I should tell you that I have been killing the suitors in my house, to punish them for their insolence and crimes. 'If you really are my son Ulysses, replied Laertes, 'and have come back again, you must give me such manifest proof of your identity as shall convince me. 'First observe this scar, answered Ulysses, 'which I got from a boar's tusk when I was hunting on Mt. Parnassus. You and my mother had sent me to Autolycus, my mother's father, to receive the presents which when he was over here he had promised to give me. Furthermore I will point out to you the trees in the vineyard which you gave me, and I asked you all about them as I followed you round the garden. We went over them all, and you told me their names and what they all were. You gave me thirteen pear trees, ten apple trees, and forty fig trees you also said you would give me fifty rows of vines there was corn planted between each row, and they yield grapes of every kind when the heat of heaven has been laid heavy upon them. Laertes' strength failed him when he heard the convincing proofs which his son had given him. He threw his arms about him, and Ulysses had to support him, or he would have gone off into a swoon but as soon as he came to, and was beginning to recover his senses, he said, 'O father Jove, then you gods are still in Olympus after all, if the suitors have really been punished for their insolence and folly. Nevertheless, I am much afraid that I shall have all the townspeople of Ithaca up here directly, and they will be sending messengers everywhere throughout the cities of the Cephallenians. Ulysses answered, 'Take heart and do not trouble yourself about that, but let us go into the house hard by your garden. I have already told Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus to go on there and get dinner ready as soon as possible. Thus conversing the two made their way towards the house. When they got there they found Telemachus with the stockman and the swineherd cutting up meat and mixing wine with water. Then the old Sicel woman took Laertes inside and washed him and anointed him with oil. She put him on a good cloak, and Minerva came up to him and gave him a more imposing presence, making him taller and stouter than before. When he came back his son was surprised to see him looking so like an immortal, and said to him, 'My dear father, some one of the gods has been making you much taller and betterlooking. Laertes answered, 'Would, by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I were the man I was when I ruled among the Cephallenians, and took Nericum, that strong fortress on the foreland. If I were still what I then was and had been in our house yesterday with my armour on, I should have been able to stand by you and help you against the suitors. I should have killed a great many of them, and you would have rejoiced to see it. Thus did they converse but the others, when they had finished their work and the feast was ready, left off working, and took each his proper place on the benches and seats. Then they began eating by and by old Dolius and his sons left their work and came up, for their mother, the Sicel woman who looked after Laertes now that he was growing old, had been to fetch them. When they saw Ulysses and were certain it was he, they stood there lost in astonishment but Ulysses scolded them good naturedly and said, 'Sit down to your dinner, old man, and never mind about your surprise we have been wanting to begin for some time and have been waiting for you. Then Dolius put out both his hands and went up to Ulysses. 'Sir, said he, seizing his master's hand and kissing it at the wrist, 'we have long been wishing you home and now heaven has restored you to us after we had given up hoping. All hail, therefore, and may the gods prosper you. But tell me, does Penelope already know of your return, or shall we send some one to tell her? 'Old man, answered Ulysses, 'she knows already, so you need not trouble about that. On this he took his seat, and the sons of Dolius gathered round Ulysses to give him greeting and embrace him one after the other then they took their seats in due order near Dolius their father. While they were thus busy getting their dinner ready, Rumour went round the town, and noised abroad the terrible fate that had befallen the suitors as soon, therefore, as the people heard of it they gathered from every quarter, groaning and hooting before the house of Ulysses. They took the dead away, buried every man his own, and put the bodies of those who came from elsewhere on board the fishing vessels, for the fishermen to take each of them to his own place. They then met angrily in the place of assembly, and when they were got together Eupeithes rose to speak. He was overwhelmed with grief for the death of his son Antinous, who had been the first man killed by Ulysses, so he said, weeping bitterly, 'My friends, this man has done the Achaeans great wrong. He took many of our best men away with him in his fleet, and he has lost both ships and men now, moreover, on his return he has been killing all the foremost men among the Cephallenians. Let us be up and doing before he can get away to Pylos or to Elis where the Epeans rule, or we shall be ashamed of ourselves for ever afterwards. It will be an everlasting disgrace to us if we do not avenge the murder of our sons and brothers. For my own part I should have no more pleasure in life, but had rather die at once. Let us be up, then, and after them, before they can cross over to the main land. He wept as he spoke and every one pitied him. But Medon and the bard Phemius had now woke up, and came to them from the house of Ulysses. Every one was astonished at seeing them, but they stood in the middle of the assembly, and Medon said, 'Hear me, men of Ithaca. Ulysses did not do these things against the will of heaven. I myself saw an immortal god take the form of Mentor and stand beside him. This god appeared, now in front of him encouraging him, and now going furiously about the court and attacking the suitors whereon they fell thick on one another. On this pale fear laid hold of them, and old Halitherses, son of Mastor, rose to speak, for he was the only man among them who knew both past and future so he spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying, 'Men of Ithaca, it is all your own fault that things have turned out as they have you would not listen to me, nor yet to Mentor, when we bade you check the folly of your sons who were doing much wrong in the wantonness of their heartswasting the substance and dishonouring the wife of a chieftain who they thought would not return. Now, however, let it be as I say, and do as I tell you. Do not go out against Ulysses, or you may find that you have been drawing down evil on your own heads. This was what he said, and more than half raised a loud shout, and at once left the assembly. But the rest stayed where they were, for the speech of Halitherses displeased them, and they sided with Eupeithes they therefore hurried off for their armour, and when they had armed themselves, they met together in front of the city, and Eupeithes led them on in their folly. He thought he was going to avenge the murder of his son, whereas in truth he was never to return, but was himself to perish in his attempt. Then Minerva said to Jove, 'Father, son of Saturn, king of kings, answer me this questionWhat do you propose to do? Will you set them fighting still further, or will you make peace between them? And Jove answered, 'My child, why should you ask me? Was it not by your own arrangement that Ulysses came home and took his revenge upon the suitors? Do whatever you like, but I will tell you what I think will be most reasonable arrangement. Now that Ulysses is revenged, let them swear to a solemn covenant, in virtue of which he shall continue to rule, while we cause the others to forgive and forget the massacre of their sons and brothers. Let them then all become friends as heretofore, and let peace and plenty reign. This was what Minerva was already eager to bring about, so down she darted from off the topmost summits of Olympus. Now when Laertes and the others had done dinner, Ulysses began by saying, 'Some of you go out and see if they are not getting close up to us. So one of Dolius's sons went as he was bid. Standing on the threshold he could see them all quite near, and said to Ulysses, 'Here they are, let us put on our armour at once. They put on their armour as fast as they couldthat is to say Ulysses, his three men, and the six sons of Dolius. Laertes also and Dolius did the samewarriors by necessity in spite of their grey hair. When they had all put on their armour, they opened the gate and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way. Then Jove's daughter Minerva came up to them, having assumed the form and voice of Mentor. Ulysses was glad when he saw her, and said to his son Telemachus, 'Telemachus, now that you are about to fight in an engagement, which will show every man's mettle, be sure not to disgrace your ancestors, who were eminent for their strength and courage all the world over. 'You say truly, my dear father, answered Telemachus, 'and you shall see, if you will, that I am in no mind to disgrace your family. Laertes was delighted when he heard this. 'Good heavens, he exclaimed, 'what a day I am enjoying I do indeed rejoice at it. My son and grandson are vying with one another in the matter of valour. On this Minerva came close up to him and said, 'Son of Arceisiusbest friend I have in the worldpray to the blueeyed damsel, and to Jove her father then poise your spear and hurl it. As she spoke she infused fresh vigour into him, and when he had prayed to her he poised his spear and hurled it. He hit Eupeithes' helmet, and the spear went right through it, for the helmet stayed it not, and his armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground. Meantime Ulysses and his son fell upon the front line of the foe and smote them with their swords and spears indeed, they would have killed every one of them, and prevented them from ever getting home again, only Minerva raised her voice aloud, and made every one pause. 'Men of Ithaca, she cried, 'cease this dreadful war, and settle the matter at once without further bloodshed. On this pale fear seized every one they were so frightened that their arms dropped from their hands and fell upon the ground at the sound of the goddess' voice, and they fled back to the city for their lives. But Ulysses gave a great cry, and gathering himself together swooped down like a soaring eagle. Then the son of Saturn sent a thunderbolt of fire that fell just in front of Minerva, so she said to Ulysses, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Jove will be angry with you. Thus spoke Minerva, and Ulysses obeyed her gladly. Then Minerva assumed the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace between the two contending parties.   Black races are evidently known to the writer as stretching all across Africa, one half looking West on to the Atlantic, and the other East on to the Indian Ocean.   The original use of the footstool was probably less to rest the feet than to keep them (especially when bare) from a floor which was often wet and dirty.   The  or seat, is occasionally called 'high, as being higher than the  or low footstool. It was probably no higher than an ordinary chair is now, and seems to have had no back.   Temesa was on the West Coast of the toe of Italy, in what is now the gulf of Sta Eufemia. It was famous in remote times for its copper mines, which, however, were worked out when Strabo wrote.   i.e. 'with a current in itsee illustrations and map near the end of bks. v. and vi. respectively.   Reading  for , cf. 'Od. iii.  where the same mistake is made, and xiii.  where the mountain is called Neritum, the same place being intended both here and in book xiii.   It is never plausibly explained why Penelope cannot do this, and from bk. ii. it is clear that she kept on deliberately encouraging the suitors, though we are asked to believe that she was only fooling them.   See note on 'Od. i. .   Middle Argos means the Peleponnese which, however, is never so called in the 'Iliad. I presume 'middle means 'middle between the two Greekspeaking countries of Asia Minor and Sicily, with South Italy for that parts of Sicily and also large parts, though not the whole of South Italy, were inhabited by Greekspeaking races centuries before the Dorian colonisations can hardly be doubted. The Sicians, and also the Sicels, both of them probably spoke Greek.   cf. 'Il. vi. . In the 'Iliad it is 'war, not 'speech, that is a man's matter. It argues a certain hardness, or at any rate dislike of the 'Iliad on the part of the writer of the 'Odyssey, that she should have adopted Hector's farewell to Andromache here, as elsewhere in the poem, for a scene of such inferior pathos.     The whole open court with the covered cloister running round it was called , or , but the covered part was distinguished by being called 'shady or 'shadowgiving. It was in this part that the tables for the suitors were laid. The Fountain Court at Hampton Court may serve as an illustration (save as regards the use of arches instead of wooden supports and rafters) and the arrangement is still common in Sicily. The usual translation 'shadowy or 'dusky halls, gives a false idea of the scene.   The reader will note the extreme care which the writer takes to make it clear that none of the suitors were allowed to sleep in Ulysses' house.   See Appendix g, in plan of Ulysses' house.   I imagine this passage to be a rejoinder to 'Il. xxiii.  in which a tripod is valued at twelve oxen, and a good useful maid of all work at only four. The scrupulous regard of Laertes for his wife's feelings is of a piece with the extreme jealousy for the honour of woman, which is manifest throughout the 'Odyssey.    'The , or tunica, was a shirt or shift, and served as the chief under garment of the Greeks and Romans, whether men or women. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, under 'Tunica.   Doors fastened to all intents and purposes as here described may be seen in the older houses at Trapani. There is a slot on the outer side of the door by means of which a person who has left the room can shoot the bolt. My bedroom at the Albergo Centrale was fastened in this way.    '  . So we vulgarly say 'had cooked his goose, or 'had settled his hash. gyptius cannot of course know of the fate Antiphus had met with, for there had as yet been no news of or from Ulysses.   'Il. xxii. .  ,  '  ...... The authoress has bungled by borrowing these words verbatim from the 'Iliad, without prefixing the necessary 'do not, which I have supplied.   i.e. you have money, and could pay when I got judgment, whereas the suitors are men of straw.   cf. 'Il. ii. .    '   ' '   '  ,  .......................................       . The Odyssean passage runs '   '   ' '   '    '.......................................       . Is it possible not to suspect that the name Mentor was coined upon that of Nestor?   i.e. in the outer court, and in the uncovered part of the inner house.   This would be fair from Sicily, which was doing duty for Ithaca in the mind of the writer, but a North wind would have been preferable for a voyage from the real Ithaca to Pylos.   '    The wind does not whistle over waves. It only whistles through rigging or some other obstacle that cuts it.   cf. 'Il. v..  '    , the Odyssean line is  '    . There can be no doubt that the Odyssean line was suggested by the Iliadic, but nothing can explain why Idus jumping from his chariot should suggest to the writer of the 'Odyssey the sun jumping from the sea. The probability is that she never gave the matter a thought, but took the line in question as an effect of saturation with the 'Iliad, and of unconscious cerebration. The 'Odyssey contains many such examples.   The heart, liver, lights, kidneys, etc. were taken out from the inside and eaten first as being more readily cooked the Greek, or bone meat, was cooking while the Greek or inward parts were being eaten. I imagine that the thigh bones made a kind of gridiron, while at the same time the marrow inside them got cooked.   i.e. skewers, either single, double, or even five pronged. The meat would be pierced with the skewer, and laid over the ashes to grillthe two ends of the skewer being supported in whatever way convenient. Meat so cooking may be seen in any eating house in Smyrna, or any Eastern town. When I rode across the Troad from the Dardanelles to Hissarlik and Mount Ida, I noticed that my dragoman and his men did all our outdoor cooking exactly in the Odyssean and Iliadic fashion.   cf. 'Il. xvii. . Greek The Odyssean lines areGreek   Reading Greek for Greek, cf. 'Od. i. .   The geography of the gean as above described is correct, but is probably taken from the lost poem, the Nosti, the existence of which is referred to 'Od. i. ,  and , c. A glance at the map will show that heaven advised its supplicants quite correctly.   The writerever jealous for the honour of womenextenuates Clytemnestra's guilt as far as possible, and explains it as due to her having been left unprotected, and fallen into the hands of a wicked man.   The Greek is Greek cf. 'Iliad ii.  Greek Surely the Greek of the Odyssean passage was due to the Greek of the 'Iliad. No other reason suggests itself for the making Menelaus return on the very day of the feast given by Orestes. The fact that in the 'Iliad Menelaus came to a banquet without waiting for an invitation, determines the writer of the 'Odyssey to make him come to a banquet, also uninvited, but as circumstances did not permit of his having been invited, his coming uninvited is shown to have been due to chance. I do not think the authoress thought all this out, but attribute the strangeness of the coincidence to unconscious cerebration and saturation.   cf. 'Il. I. , II. . The writer here interrupts an Iliadic passage (to which she returns immediately) for the double purpose of dwelling upon the slaughter of the heifer, and of letting Nestor's wife and daughter enjoy it also. A male writer, if he was borrowing from the 'Iliad, would have stuck to his borrowing.   cf. 'Il. xxiv. ,  where the lines refer to the washing the dead body of Hector.   See illustration on opposite page. The yard is typical of many that may be seen in Sicily. The existing groundplan is probably unmodified from Odyssean, and indeed long preOdyssean times, but the earlier buildings would have no arches, and would, one would suppose, be mainly timber. The Odyssean Greek were the sheds that ran round the yard as the arches do now. The Greek was the one through which the main entrance passed, and which was hence 'noisy, or reverberating. It had an upper story in which visitors were often lodged.   This journey is an impossible one. Telemachus and Pisistratus would have been obliged to drive over the Taygetus range, over which there has never yet been a road for wheeled vehicles. It is plain therefore that the audience for whom the 'Odyssey was written was one that would be unlikely to know anything about the topography of the Peloponnese, so that the writer might take what liberties she chose.   The lines which I have enclosed in brackets are evidently an afterthoughtadded probably by the writer herselffor they evince the same instinctively greater interest in anything that may concern a woman, which is so noticeable throughout the poem. There is no further sign of any special festivities nor of any other guests than Telemachus and Pisistratus, until lines  (ordinarily enclosed in brackets) are abruptly introduced, probably with a view of trying to carry off the introduction of the lines now in question. The addition was, I imagine, suggested by a desire to excuse and explain the nonappearance of Hermione in bk. xv., as also of both Hermione and Megapenthes in the rest of bk. iv. Megapenthes in bk. xv. seems to be still a bachelor the presumption therefore is that bk. xv. was written before the story of his marriage here given. I take it he is only married here because his sister is being married. She having been properly attended to, Megapenthes might as well be married at the same time. Hermione could not now be less than thirty. I have dealt with this passage somewhat more fully in my 'Authoress of the Odyssey, p. . See also p.  of the same book.   Sparta and Lacedaemon are here treated as two different places, though in other parts of the poem it is clear that the writer understands them as one. The catalogue in the 'Iliad, which the writer is here presumably following, makes the same mistake ('Il. ii. , )   These last three lines are identical with 'Il. vxiii. .   From the Greek Greek it is plain that Menelaus took up the piece of meat with his fingers.   Amber is never mentioned in the 'Iliad. Sicily, where I suppose the 'Odyssey to have been written, has always been, and still is, one of the principal amber producing countries. It was probably the only one known in the Odyssean age. See 'The Authoress of the Odyssey, Longmans , p. .   This no doubt refers to the story told in the last poem of the Cypria about Paris and Helen robbing Menelaus of the greater part of his treasures, when they sailed together for Troy.   It is inconceivable that Helen should enter thus, in the middle of supper, intending to work with her distaff, if great festivities were going on. Telemachus and Pisistratus are evidently dining en famille.   In the Italian insurrection of , eight young men who were being hotly pursued by the Austrian police hid themselves inside Donatello's colossal wooden horse in the Salone at Padua, and remained there for a week being fed by their confederates. In  the last survivor was carried round Padua in triumph.   The Greek is Greek. Is it unfair to argue that the writer is a person of somewhat delicate sensibility, to whom a strong smell of fish is distasteful?   The Greek is Greek. I believe this to be a hit at the writer's own countrymen who were of Phocaean descent, and the next following line to be a rejoinder to complaints made against her in bk. vi. , to the effect that she gave herself airs and would marry none of her own people. For that the writer of the 'Odyssey was the person who has been introduced into the poem under the name of Nausicaa, I cannot bring myself to question. I may remind English readers that Greek (i.e. phoca) means 'seal. Seals almost always appear on Phocaean coins.   Surely here again we are in the hands of a writer of delicate sensibility. It is not as though the seals were stale they had only just been killed. The writer, however is obviously laughing at her own countrymen, and insulting them as openly as she dares.   We were told above (lines , ) that it was only one day's sail.   I give the usual translation, but I do not believe the Greek will warrant it. The Greek reads Greek. This is usually held to mean that Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and on that account more delectable to the speaker than it would have been if it were fit for breeding horses. I find little authority for such a translation the most equitable translation of the text as it stands is, 'Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and delectable rather than fit for breeding horses for not one of the islands is good driving ground, nor well meadowed. Surely the writer does not mean that a pleasant or delectable island would not be fit for breeding horses? The most equitable translation, therefore, of the present text being thus halt and impotent, we may suspect corruption, and I hazard the following emendation, though I have not adopted it in my translation, as fearing that it would be deemed too fanciful. I would readGreek. As far as scanning goes the Greek is not necessary Greek iv. , (Footnote Greek) iv. , to go no further afield than earlier lines of the same book, give sufficient authority for Greek, but the Greek would not be redundant it would emphasise the surprise of the contrast, and I should prefer to have it, though it is not very important either way. This reading of course should be translated 'Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and (by your leave) itself a horseman rather than fit for breeding horsesfor not one of the islands is good and well meadowed ground. This would be sure to baffle the Alexandrian editors. 'How, they would ask themselves, 'could an island be a horseman? and they would cast about for an emendation. A visit to the top of Mt. Eryx might perhaps make the meaning intelligible, and suggest my proposed restoration of the text to the reader as readily as it did to myself. I have elsewhere stated my conviction that the writer of the 'Odyssey was familiar with the old Sican city at the top of Mt. Eryx, and that the Aegadean islands which are so striking when seen thence did duty with her for the Ionian islandsMarettimo, the highest and most westerly of the group, standing for Ithaca. When seen from the top of Mt. Eryx Marettimo shows as it should do according to 'Od. ix. , , 'on the horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the West, while the other islands lie 'some way off it to the East. As we descend to Trapani, Marettimo appears to sink on to the top of the island of Levanzo, behind which it disappears. My friend, the late Signor E. Biaggini, pointed to it once as it was just standing on the top of Levanzo, and said to me 'Come cavalca bene ('How well it rides), and this immediately suggested my emendation to me. Later on I found in the hymn to the Pythian Apollo (which abounds with tags taken from the 'Odyssey) a line ending Greek which strengthened my suspicion that this was the original ending of the second of the two lines above under consideration.   See note on line  of this book. The reader will observe that the writer has been unable to keep the women out of an interpolation consisting only of four lines.   Scheria means a piece of land jutting out into the sea. In my 'Authoress of the Odyssey I thought 'Jutland would be a suitable translation, but it has been pointed out to me that 'Jutland only means the land of the Jutes.   Irrigation as here described is common in gardens near Trapani. The water that supplies the ducts is drawn from wells by a mule who turns a wheel with buckets on it.   There is not a word here about the cattle of the sungod.   The writer evidently thought that green, growing wood might also be well seasoned.   The reader will note that the river was flowing with salt water i.e. that it was tidal.   Then the Ogygian island was not so far off, but that Nausicaa might be assumed to know where it was.   Greek Greek   I suspect a family joke, or sly allusion to some thing of which we know nothing, in this story of Eurymedusa's having been brought from Apeira. The Greek word 'apeiros means 'inexperienced, 'ignorant. Is it possible that Eurymedusa was notoriously incompetent?   Polyphemus was also son to Neptune, see 'Od. ix. , . he was therefore half brother to Nausithous, half uncle to King Alcinous, and half great uncle to Nausicaa.   It would seem as though the writer thought that Marathon was close to Athens.   Here the writer, knowing that she is drawing (with embellishments) from things actually existing, becomes impatient of past tenses and slides into the present.   This is hidden malice, implying that the Phaeacian magnates were no better than they should be. The final drinkoffering should have been made to Jove or Neptune, not to the god of thievishness and rascality of all kinds. In line  we do indeed find Echeneus proposing that a drinkoffering should be made to Jove, but Mercury is evidently, according to our authoress, the god who was most likely to be of use to them.   The fact of Alcinous knowing anything about the Cyclopes suggests that in the writer's mind Scheria and the country of the Cyclopes were not very far from one another. I take the Cyclopes and the giants to be one and the same people.   'My property, etc. The authoress is here adopting an Iliadic line (xix. ), and this must account for the absence of all reference to Penelope. If she had happened to remember 'Il. v. , she would doubtless have appropriated it by preference, for that line reads 'my country, my wife, and all the greatness of my house.   The at first inexplicable sleep of Ulysses (bk. xiii. , etc.) is here, as also in viii. , being obviously prepared. The writer evidently attached the utmost importance to it. Those who know that the harbour which did duty with the writer of the 'Odyssey for the one in which Ulysses landed in Ithaca, was only about  miles from the place in which Ulysses is now talking with Alcinous, will understand why the sleep was so necessary.   There were two classesthe lower who were found in provisions which they had to cook for themselves in the yards and outer precincts, where they would also eatand the upper who would eat in the cloisters of the inner court, and have their cooking done for them.   Translation very dubious. I suppose the Greek here to be the covered sheds that ran round the outer courtyard. See illustrations at the end of bk. iii.   The writer apparently deems that the words 'as compared with what oxen can plough in the same time go without saying. Not so the writer of the 'Iliad from which the Odyssean passage is probably taken. He explains that mules can plough quicker than oxen ('Il. x. )   It was very fortunate that such a disc happened to be there, seeing that none like it were in common use.   'Il. xiii. . Here, as so often elsewhere in the 'Odyssey, the appropriation of an Iliadic line which is not quite appropriate puzzles the reader. The 'they is not the chains, nor yet Mars and Venus. It is an overflow from the Iliadic passage in which Neptune hobbles his horses in bonds 'which none could either unloose or break so that they might stay there in that place. If the line would have scanned without the addition of the words 'so that they might stay there in that place, they would have been omitted in the 'Odyssey.   The reader will note that Alcinous never goes beyond saying that he is going to give the goblet he never gives it. Elsewhere in both 'Iliad and 'Odyssey the offer of a present is immediately followed by the statement that it was given and received gladlyAlcinous actually does give a chest and a cloak and shirtprobably also some of the corn and wine for the long twomile voyage was provided by himbut it is quite plain that he gave no talent and no cup.   'Il. xviii. . These lines in the 'Iliad tell of the preparation for washing the body of Patroclus, and I am not pleased that the writer of the 'Odyssey should have adopted them here.   see note      see note      The reader will find this threat fulfilled in bk. xiii   If the other islands lay some distance away from Ithaca (which the word Greek suggests), what becomes of the  or gut between Ithaca and Samos which we hear of in Bks. iv. and xv.? I suspect that the authoress in her mind makes Telemachus come back from Pylos to the Lilybaean promontory and thence to Trapani through the strait between the Isola Grande and the mainlandthe island of Asteria being the one on which Motya afterwards stood.   'Il. xviii. . The sudden lapse into the third person here for a couple of lines is due to the fact that the two Iliadic lines taken are in the third person.   cf. 'Il. ii. . The words in both 'Iliad and 'Odyssey are Footnote Greek. In the 'Iliad they are used of the horses of Achilles' followers as they stood idle, 'champing lotus.   I take all this passage about the Cyclopes having no ships to be sarcasticmeaning, 'You people of Drepanum have no excuse for not colonising the island of Favognana, which you could easily do, for you have plenty of ships, and the island is a very good one. For that the island so fully described here is the Aegadean or 'goat island of Favognana, and that the Cyclopes are the old Sican inhabitants of Mt. Eryx should not be doubted.   For the reasons why it was necessary that the night should be so exceptionally dark see 'The Authoress of the Odyssey pp. .   None but such lambs as would suck if they were with their mothers would be left in the yard. The older lambs should have been out feeding. The authoress has got it all wrong, but it does not matter. See 'The Authoress of the Odyssey p. .   This line is enclosed in brackets in the received text, and is omitted (with note) by Messrs. Butcher  Lang. But lines enclosed in brackets are almost always genuine all that brackets mean is that the bracketed passage puzzled some early editor, who nevertheless found it too well established in the text to venture on omitting it. In the present case the line bracketed is the very last which a fullgrown male editor would be likely to interpolate. It is safer to infer that the writer, a young woman, not knowing or caring at which end of the ship the rudder should be, determined to make sure by placing it at both ends, which we shall find she presently does by repeating it (line ) at the stern of the ship. As for the two rocks thrown, the first I take to be the Asinelli, see map facing p. . The second I see as the two contiguous islands of the Formiche, which are treated as one, see map facing p. . The Asinelli is an island shaped like a boat, and pointing to the island of Favognana. I think the authoress's compatriots, who probably did not like her much better that she did them, jeered at the absurdity of Ulysses' conduct, and saw the Asinelli or 'donkeys, not as the rock thrown by Polyphemus, but as the boat itself containing Ulysses and his men.   This line exists in the text here but not in the corresponding passage xii. . I am inclined to think it is interpolated (probably by the poetess herself) from the first of lines xi. , which I can hardly doubt were added by the writer when the scheme of the work was enlarged and altered. See 'The Authoress of the Odyssey pp. .   'Floating () is not to be taken literally. The island itself, as apart from its inhabitants, was quite normal. There is no indication of its moving during the month that Ulysses stayed with Aeolus, and on his return from his unfortunate voyage, he seems to have found it in the same place. The  in fact should no more be pressed than  as applied to islands, 'Odyssey xv. where they are called 'flying because the ship would fly past them. So also the 'Wanderers, as explained by Buttmann see note on 'Odyssey xii. .   Literally 'for the ways of the night and of the day are near. I have seen what Mr. Andrew Lang says ('Homer and the Epic, p. , and 'Longman's Magazine for January, , p. ) about the 'amber route and the 'Sacred Way in this connection but until he gives his grounds for holding that the Mediterranean peoples in the Odyssean age used to go far North for their amber instead of getting it in Sicily, where it is still found in considerable quantities, I do not know what weight I ought to attach to his opinion. I have been unable to find grounds for asserting that B.C.  there was any commerce between the Mediterranean and the 'Far North, but I shall be very ready to learn if Mr. Lang will enlighten me. See 'The Authoress of the Odyssey pp. .   One would have thought that when the sun was driving the stag down to the water, Ulysses might have observed its whereabouts.   See Hobbes of Malmesbury's translation.   'Il. vxiii. . Again the writer draws from the washing the body of Patrocluswhich offends.   This visit is wholly without topographical significance.   Brides presented themselves instinctively to the imagination of the writer, as the phase of humanity which she found most interesting.   Ulysses was, in fact, to become a missionary and preach Neptune to people who knew not his name. I was fortunate enough to meet in Sicily a woman carrying one of these winnowing shovels it was not much shorter than an oar, and I was able at once to see what the writer of the 'Odyssey intended.   I suppose the lines I have enclosed in brackets to have been added by the author when she enlarged her original scheme by the addition of books i.iv. and xiii. (from line )xxiv. The reader will observe that in the corresponding passage (xii. ) the prophecy ends with 'after losing all your comrades, and that there is no allusion to the suitors. For fuller explanation see 'The Authoress of the Odyssey pp. .   The reader will remember that we are in the first year of Ulysses' wanderings, Telemachus therefore was only eleven years old. The same anachronism is made later on in this book. See 'The Authoress of the Odyssey pp. .   Tradition says that she had hanged herself. Cf. 'Odyssey xv. , etc.   Not to be confounded with Aeolus king of the winds.   Melampus, vide book xv. , etc.   I have already said in a note on bk. xi.  that at this point of Ulysses' voyage Telemachus could only be between eleven and twelve years old.   Is the writer a man or a woman?   Cf. 'Il. iv. , Greek. The Odyssean line reads, Greek. The famous dactylism, therefore, of the Odyssean line was probably suggested by that of the Ileadic rather than by a desire to accommodate sound to sense. At any rate the double coincidence of a dactylic line, and an ending Greek, seems conclusive as to the familiarity of the writer of the 'Odyssey with the Iliadic line.   Off the coast of Sicily and South Italy, in the month of May, I have seen men fastened half way up a boat's mast with their feet resting on a crosspiece, just large enough to support them. From this point of vantage they spear swordfish. When I saw men thus employed I could hardly doubt that the writer of the 'Odyssey had seen others like them, and had them in her mind when describing the binding of Ulysses. I have therefore with some diffidence ventured to depart from the received translation of  (cf. Alcaeus frag. , where, however, it is very hard to say what  means). In Sophocles' Lexicon I find a reference to Chrysostom (l, , A. Ed. Benedictine Paris ) for the word , which is probably the same as , but I have looked for the passage in vain.   The writer is at fault here and tries to put it off on Circe. When Ulysses comes to take the route prescribed by Circe, he ought to pass either the Wanderers or some other difficulty of which we are not told, but he does not do so. The Planctae, or Wanderers, merge into Scylla and Charybdis, and the alternative between them and something untold merges into the alternative whether Ulysses had better choose Scylla or Charybdis. Yet from line , it seems we are to consider the Wanderers as having been passed by Ulysses this appears even more plainly from xxiii. , in which Ulysses expressly mentions the Wandering rocks as having been between the Sirens and Scylla and Charybdis. The writer, however, is evidently unaware that she does not quite understand her own story her difficulty was perhaps due to the fact that though Trapanese sailors had given her a fair idea as to where all her other localities really were, no one in those days more than in our own could localise the Planctae, which in fact, as Buttmann has argued, were derived not from any particular spot, but from sailors' tales about the difficulties of navigating the group of the Aeolian islands as a whole (see note on 'Od. x. ). Still the matter of the poor doves caught her fancy, so she would not forgo them. The whirlwinds of fire and the smoke that hangs on Scylla suggests allusion to Stromboli and perhaps even Etna. Scylla is on the Italian side, and therefore may be said to look West. It is about  miles thence to the Sicilian coast, so Ulysses may be perfectly well told that after passing Scylla he will come to the Thrinacian island or Sicily. Charybdis is transposed to a site some few miles to the north of its actual position.   I suppose this line to have been intercalated by the author when lines  were added.   For the reasons which enable us to identify the island of the two Sirens with the Lipari island now Salinasthe ancient Didyme, or 'twin islandsee The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. , . The two Sirens doubtless were, as their name suggests, the whistling gusts, or avalanches of air that at times descend without a moment's warning from the two lofty mountains of Salinasas also from all high points in the neighbourhood.   See Admiral Smyth on the currents in the Straits of Messina, quoted in 'The Authoress of the Odyssey, p. .   In the islands of Favognana and Marettimo off Trapani I have seen men fish exactly as here described. They chew bread into a paste and throw it into the sea to attract the fish, which they then spear. No line is used.   The writer evidently regards Ulysses as on a coast that looked East at no great distance south of the Straits of Messina somewhere, say, near Tauromenium, now Taormina.   Surely there must be a line missing here to tell us that the keel and mast were carried down into Charybdis. Besides, the aorist Greek in its present surrounding is perplexing. I have translated it as though it were an imperfect I see Messrs. Butcher and Lang translate it as a pluperfect, but surely Charybdis was in the act of sucking down the water when Ulysses arrived.   I suppose the passage within brackets to have been an afterthought but to have been written by the same hand as the rest of the poem. I suppose xii.  to have been also added by the writer when she decided on sending Ulysses back to Charybdis. The simile suggests the hand of the wife or daughter of a magistrate who had often seen her father come in cross and tired.   Gr. . This puts coined money out of the question, but nevertheless implies that the gold had been worked into ornaments of some kind.   I suppose Teiresias' prophecy of bk. xi.  had made no impression on Ulysses. More probably the prophecy was an afterthought, intercalated, as I have already said, by the authoress when she changed her scheme.   A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not 'may you give satisfaction to your wives, but 'may your wives give satisfaction to you.   See note .   The land was in reality the shallow inlet, now the salt works of S. Cusumanothe neighbourhood of Trapani and Mt. Eryx being made to do double duty, both as Scheria and Ithaca. Hence the necessity for making Ulysses set out after dark, fall instantly into a profound sleep, and wake up on a morning so foggy that he could not see anything till the interviews between Neptune and Jove and between Ulysses and Minerva should have given the audience time to accept the situation. See illustrations and map near the end of bks. v. and vi. respectively.   This cave, which is identifiable with singular completeness, is now called the 'grotta del toro, probably a corruption of 'tesoro, for it is held to contain a treasure. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. .   Probably they would.   Then it had a shallow shelving bottom.   Doubtless the road would pass the harbour in Odyssean times as it passes the salt works now indeed, if there is to be a road at all there is no other level ground which it could take. See map above referred to.   The rock at the end of the Northern harbour of Trapani, to which I suppose the writer of the 'Odyssey to be here referring, still bears the name Malconsiglio'the rock of evil counsel. There is a legend that it was a ship of Turkish pirates who were intending to attack Trapani, but the 'Madonna di Trapani crushed them under this rock just as they were coming into port. My friend Cavaliere Giannitrapani of Trapani told me that his father used to tell him when he was a boy that if he would drop exactly three drops of oil on to the water near the rock, he would see the ship still at the bottom. The legend is evidently a Christianised version of the Odyssean story, while the name supplies the additional detail that the disaster happened in consequence of an evil counsel.   It would seem then that the ship had got all the way back from Ithaca in about a quarter of an hour.   And may we not add 'and also to prevent his recognising that he was only in the place where he had met Nausicaa two days earlier.   All this is to excuse the entire absence of Minerva from books ix.xii., which I suppose had been written already, before the authoress had determined on making Minerva so prominent a character.   We have met with this somewhat lame attempt to cover the writer's change of scheme at the end of bk. vi.   I take the following from The Authoress of the Odyssey, p. . 'It is clear from the text that there were two caves not one, but some one has enclosed in brackets the two lines in which the second cave is mentioned, I presume because he found himself puzzled by having a second cave sprung upon him when up to this point he had only been told of one. 'I venture to think that if he had known the ground he would not have been puzzled, for there are two caves, distant about  or  yards from one another. The cave in which Ulysses hid his treasure is, as I have already said, identifiable with singular completeness. The other cave presents no special features, neither in the poem nor in nature.   There is no attempt to disguise the fact that Penelope had long given encouragement to the suitors. The only defence set up is that she did not really mean to encourage them. Would it not have been wiser to have tried a little discouragement?   See map near the end of bk. vi. Ruccazz dei corvi of course means 'the rock of the ravens. Both name and ravens still exist.   See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. , . The real reason for sending Telemachus to Pylos and Lacedaemon was that the authoress might get Helen of Troy into her poem. He was sent at the only point in the story at which he could be sent, so he must have gone then or not at all.   The site I assign to Eumaeus's hut, close to the Ruccazz dei corvi, is about , feet above the sea, and commands an extensive view.   Sandals such as Eumaeus was making are still worn in the Abruzzi and elsewhere. An oblong piece of leather forms the sole holes are cut at the four corners, and through these holes leathern straps are passed, which are bound round the foot and crossgartered up the calf.   See note      Telemachus like many another good young man seems to expect every one to fetch and carry for him.   'Il. vi. . The store room was fragrant because it was made of cedar wood. See 'Il. xxiv. .   cf. 'Il. vi.  and . The dress was kept at the bottom of the chest as one that would only be wanted on the greatest occasions but surely the marriage of Hermione and of Megapenthes (bk, iv. ad init.) might have induced Helen to wear it on the preceding evening, in which case it could hardly have got back. We find no hint here of Megapenthes' recent marriage.   See note .   cf. 'Od. xi. , etc.   The names Syra and Ortygia, on which island a great part of the Doric Syracuse was originally built, suggest that even in Odyssean times there was a prehistoric Syracuse, the existence of which was known to the writer of the poem.   Literally 'where are the turnings of the sun. Assuming, as we may safely do, that the Syra and Ortygia of the 'Odyssey refer to Syracuse, it is the fact that not far to the South of these places the land turns sharply round, so that mariners following the coast would find the sun upon the other side of their ship to that on which they'd had it hitherto. Mr. A. S. Griffith has kindly called my attention to Herod iv. , where, speaking of the circumnavigation of Africa by Phoenician mariners under Necos, he writes 'On their return they declaredI for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others maythat in sailing round Libya i.e. Africa they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered. 'I take it that Eumaeus was made to have come from Syracuse because the writer thought she rather ought to have made something happen at Syracuse during her account of the voyages of Ulysses. She could not, however, break his long drift from Charybdis to the island of Pantellaria she therefore resolved to make it up to Syracuse in another way. Modern excavations establish the existence of two and only two preDorian communities at Syracuse they were, so Dr. Orsi informed me, at Plemmirio and Cozzo Pantano. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. .   This harbour is again evidently the harbour in which Ulysses had landed, i.e. the harbour that is now the salt works of S. Cusumano.   This never can have been anything but very niggardly pay for some eight or nine days' service. I suppose the crew were to consider the pleasure of having had a trip to Pylos as a set off. There is no trace of the dinner as having been actually given, either on the following or any other morning.   No hawk can tear its prey while it is on the wing.   The text is here apparently corrupt, and will not make sense as it stands. I follow Messrs. Butcher  Lang in omitting line .   i.e. to be milked, as in South Italian and Sicilian towns at the present day.   The butchering and making ready the carcases took place partly in the outer yard and partly in the open part of the inner court.   These words cannot mean that it would be afternoon soon after they were spoken. Ulysses and Eumaeus reached the town which was 'some way off (xvii. ) in time for the suitor's early meal (xvii.  and ) say at ten or eleven o' clock. The context of the rest of the book shows this. Eumaeus and Ulysses, therefore, cannot have started later than eight or nine, and Eumaeus's words must be taken as an exaggeration for the purpose of making Ulysses bestir himself.   I imagine the fountain to have been somewhere about where the church of the Madonna di Trapani now stands, and to have been fed with water from what is now called the Fontana Diffali on Mt. Eryx.   From this and other passages in the 'Odyssey it appears that we are in an age anterior to the use of coined moneyan age when cauldrons, tripods, swords, cattle, chattels of all kinds, measures of corn, wine, or oil, etc. etc., not to say pieces of gold, silver, bronze, or even iron, wrought more or less, but unstamped, were the nearest approach to a currency that had as yet been reached.   Gr.  .   I correct these proofs abroad and am not within reach of Hesiod, but surely this passage suggests acquaintance with the Works and Ways, though it by no means compels it.   It would seem as though Eurynome and Euryclea were the same person. See note    It is plain, therefore, that Iris was commonly accepted as the messenger of the gods, though our authoress will never permit her to fetch or carry for any one.   i.e. the doorway leading from the inner to the outer court.  See note    These, I imagine, must have been in the open part of the inner courtyard, where the maids also stood, and threw the light of their torches into the covered cloister that ran all round it. The smoke would otherwise have been intolerable.   Translation very uncertain vide Liddell and Scott, under Greek   See photo on opposite page.   cf. 'Il. ii. , and , . An additional and wellmarked feature being wanted to convince Penelope, the writer has taken the hunched shoulders of Thersites (who is mentioned immediately after Eurybates in the 'Iliad) and put them on to Eurybates' back.   This is how geese are now fed in Sicily, at any rate in summer, when the grass is all burnt up. I have never seen them grazing.   Lower down (line ) Euryclea says it was herself that had thrown the cloak over Ulyssesfor the plural should not be taken as implying more than one person. The writer is evidently still fluctuating between Euryclea and Eurynome as the name for the old nurse. She probably originally meant to call her Euryclea, but finding it not immediately easy to make Euryclea scan in xvii. , she hastily called her Eurynome, intending either to alter this name later or to change the earlier Euryclea's into Eurynome. She then drifted in to Eurynome as convenience further directed, still nevertheless hankering after Euryclea, till at last she found that the path of least resistance would lie in the direction of making Eurynome and Euryclea two persons. Therefore in xxiii.  both Eurynome and 'the nurse (who can be none other than Euryclea) come on together. I do not say that this is feminine, but it is not unfeminine.   See note    This, I take it, was immediately in front of the main entrance of the inner courtyard into the body of the house.   This is the only allusion to Sardinia in either 'Iliad or 'Odyssey.   The normal translation of the Greek word would be 'holding back, 'curbing, 'restraining, but I cannot think that the writer meant thisshe must have been using the word in its other sense of 'having, 'holding, 'keeping, 'maintaining.   I have vainly tried to realise the construction of the fastening here described.   See plan of Ulysses' house in the appendix. It is evident that the open part of the court had no flooring but the natural soil.   See plan of Ulysses' house, and note .   i.e. the door that led into the body of the house.   This was, no doubt, the little table that was set for Ulysses, 'Od. xx. . Surely the difficulty of this passage has been overrated. I suppose the iron part of the axe to have been wedged into the handle, or bound securely to itthe handle being half buried in the ground. The axe would be placed edgeways towards the archer, and he would have to shoot his arrow through the hole into which the handle was fitted when the axe was in use. Twelve axes were placed in a row all at the same height, all exactly in front of one another, all edgeways to Ulysses whose arrow passed through all the holes from the first onward. I cannot see how the Greek can bear any other interpretation, the words being, Greek 'He did not miss a single hole from the first onwards. Greek according to Liddell and Scott being 'the hole for the handle of an axe, etc., while Greek ('Od. v. ) is, according to the same authorities, the handle itself. The feat is absurdly impossible, but our authoress sometimes has a soul above impossibilities.   The reader will note how the spoiling of good food distresses the writer even in such a supreme moment as this.   Here we have it again. Waste of substance comes first.   cf. 'Il. iii.  and three other places. It is strange that the author of the 'Iliad should find a little horsehair so alarming. Possibly enough she was merely borrowing a common form line from some earlier poetor poetessfor this is a woman's line rather than a man's.   Or perhaps simply 'window. See plan in the appendix.   i.e. the pavement on which Ulysses was standing.   The interpretation of lines  is most dubious, and at best we are in a region of melodrama cf., however, i. , etc. from which it appears that there was a tower in the outer court, and that Telemachus used to sleep in it. The  I take to be a door, or trap door, leading on to the roof above Telemachus's bed room, which we are told was in a place that could be seen from all roundor it might be simply a window in Telemachus's room looking out into the street. From the top of the tower the outer world was to be told what was going on, but people could not get in by the  they would have to come in by the main entrance, and Melanthius explains that the mouth of the narrow passage (which was in the lands of Ulysses and his friends) commanded the only entrance by which help could come, so that there would be nothing gained by raising an alarm. As for the  of line , no commentator ancient or modern has been able to say what was intendedbut whatever they were, Melanthius could never carry twelve shields, twelve helmets, and twelve spears. Moreover, where he could go the others could go also. If a dozen suitors had followed Melanthius into the house they could have attacked Ulysses in the rear, in which case, unless Minerva had intervened promptly, the 'Odyssey would have had a different ending. But throughout the scene we are in a region of extravagance rather than of true fictionit cannot be taken seriously by any but the very serious, until we come to the episode of Phemius and Medon, where the writer begins to be at home again.   I presume it was intended that there should be a hook driven into the bearingpost.   What for?   Gr Greek. This is not Greek.   From lines  and  of this book, and lines  and  of bk. xxi we can locate the approach to the Greek with some certainty.   But in xix.  Ulysses scolded Euryclea for offering information on this very point, and declared himself quite able to settle it for himself.   There were a hundred and eight Suitors.   Lord Grimthorpe, whose understanding does not lend itself to easy imposition, has been good enough to write to me about my conviction that the 'Odyssey was written by a woman, and to send me remarks upon the gross absurdity of the incident here recorded. It is plain that all the authoress cared about was that the women should be hanged as for attempting to realise, or to make her readers realise, how the hanging was done, this was of no consequence. The reader must take her word for it and ask no questions. Lord Grimthorpe wrote 'I had better send you my ideas about Nausicaa's hanging of the maids (not 'maidens,' of whom Froude wrote so well in his 'Science of History') before I forget it all. Luckily for me Liddell  Scott have specially translated most of the doubtful words, referring to this very place. 'A ship's cable. I don't know how big a ship she meant, but it must have been a very small one indeed if its 'cable' could be used to tie tightly round a woman's neck, and still more round a dozen of them 'in a row,' besides being strong enough to hold them and pull them all up. 'A dozen average women would need the weight and strength of more than a dozen strong heavy men even over the best pulley hung to the roof over them and the idea of pulling them up by a rope hung anyhow round a pillar Greek is absurdly impossible and how a dozen of them could be hung dangling round one post is a problem which a senior wrangler would be puzzled to answer... She had better have let Telemachus use his sword as he had intended till she changed his mind for him.   Then they had all been in Ulysses' service over twenty years perhaps the twelve guilty ones had been engaged more recently.   Translation very doubtfulcf. 'It. xxiv. .   But why could she not at once ask to see the scar, of which Euryclea had told her, or why could not Ulysses have shown it to her?   The people of Ithaca seem to have been as fond of carping as the Phaeacians were in vi. , etc.   See note . Ulysses's bed room does not appear to have been upstairs, nor yet quite within the house. Is it possible that it was 'the domed room round the outside of which the erring maids were, for aught we have heard to the contrary, still hanging?   Ulysses bedroom in the mind of the writer is here too apparently down stairs.   Penelope having been now sufficiently whitewashed, disappears from the poem.   So practised a washerwoman as our authoress doubtless knew that by this time the web must have become such a wreck that it would have gone to pieces in the wash. A lady points out to me, just as these sheets are leaving my hands, that no really good needlewomanno one, indeed, whose work or character was worth considerationcould have endured, no matter for what reason, the unpicking of her day's work, day after day for between three and four years.   We must suppose Dolius not yet to know that his son Melanthius had been tortured, mutilated, and left to die by Ulysses' orders on the preceding day, and that his daughter Melantho had been hanged. Dolius was probably exceptionally simpleminded, and his name was ironical. So on Mt. Eryx I was shown a man who was always called Sonza Malizia or 'Guilelesshe being held exceptionally cunning.
Once again to Zelda Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry 'Lover, goldhatted, highbouncing lover, I must have you! Thomas Parke d'Invilliers In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsoughtfrequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reactionGatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the 'creative temperamentit was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. NoGatsby turned out all right at the end it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men. My family have been prominent, welltodo people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in fiftyone, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today. I never saw this greatuncle, but I'm supposed to look like himwith special reference to the rather hardboiled painting that hangs in father's office. I graduated from New Haven in , just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counterraid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universeso I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, 'Whyyees, with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twentytwo. The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weatherbeaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dogat least I had him for a few days until he ran awayand an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove. It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road. 'How do you get to West Egg village? he asked helplessly. I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood. And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breathgiving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in collegeone year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale Newsand now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the 'wellrounded man. This isn't just an epigramlife is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all. It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New Yorkand where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovalslike the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact endbut their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size. I lived at West Egg, thewell, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standardit was a factual imitation of some Htel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or, rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionairesall for eighty dollars a month. Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago. Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Havena national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twentyone that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthyeven in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproachbut now he'd left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away for instance, he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that. Why they came East I don't know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe itI had no sight into Daisy's heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful redandwhite Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardensfinally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch. He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy strawhaired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that bodyhe seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leveragea cruel body. His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he likedand there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts. 'Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final, he seemed to say, 'just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are. We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own. We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch. 'I've got a nice place here, he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly. Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snubnosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore. 'It belonged to Demaine, the oil man. He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. 'We'll go inside. We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosycoloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted weddingcake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the winecoloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea. The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of itindeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in. The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to riseshe leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expressionthen she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room. 'I'm pparalysed with happiness. She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.) At any rate, Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back againthe object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete selfsufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me. I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget a singing compulsion, a whispered 'Listen, a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour. I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me. 'Do they miss me? she cried ecstatically. 'The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there's a persistent wail all night along the north shore. 'How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow! Then she added irrelevantly 'You ought to see the baby. 'I'd like to. 'She's asleep. She's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her? 'Never. 'Well, you ought to see her. She's Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder. 'What you doing, Nick? 'I'm a bond man. 'Who with? I told him. 'Never heard of them, he remarked decisively. This annoyed me. 'You will, I answered shortly. 'You will if you stay in the East. 'Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry, he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. 'I'd be a God damned fool to live anywhere else. At this point Miss Baker said 'Absolutely! with such suddenness that I startedit was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room. 'I'm stiff, she complained, 'I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember. 'Don't look at me, Daisy retorted, 'I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon. 'No, thanks, said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. 'I'm absolutely in training. Her host looked at her incredulously. 'You are! He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. 'How you ever get anything done is beyond me. I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she 'got done. I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, smallbreasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sunstrained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before. 'You live in West Egg, she remarked contemptuously. 'I know somebody there. 'I don't know a single 'You must know Gatsby. 'Gatsby? demanded Daisy. 'What Gatsby? Before I could reply that he was my neighbour dinner was announced wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square. Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out on to a rosycoloured porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind. 'Why candles? objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. 'In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year. She looked at us all radiantly. 'Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it. 'We ought to plan something, yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed. 'All right, said Daisy. 'What'll we plan? She turned to me helplessly 'What do people plan? Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger. 'Look! she complained 'I hurt it. We all lookedthe knuckle was black and blue. 'You did it, Tom, she said accusingly. 'I know you didn't mean to, but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a 'I hate that word 'hulking,'  objected Tom crossly, 'even in kidding. 'Hulking, insisted Daisy. Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself. 'You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy, I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. 'Can't you talk about crops or something? I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way. 'Civilization's going to pieces, broke out Tom violently. 'I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard? 'Why, no, I answered, rather surprised by his tone. 'Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will bewill be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff it's been proved. 'Tom's getting very profound, said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. 'He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we 'Well, these books are all scientific, insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. 'This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things. 'We've got to beat them down, whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun. 'You ought to live in California began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair. 'This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. 'And we've produced all the things that go to make civilizationoh, science and art, and all that. Do you see? There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me. 'I'll tell you a family secret, she whispered enthusiastically. 'It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose? 'That's why I came over tonight. 'Well, he wasn't always a butler he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose 'Things went from bad to worse, suggested Miss Baker. 'Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position. For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listenedthen the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk. The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing. 'I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of aof a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he? She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation 'An absolute rose? This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said 'Sh! in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. 'This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour I began. 'Don't talk. I want to hear what happens. 'Is something happening? I inquired innocently. 'You mean to say you don't know? said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. 'I thought everybody knew. 'I don't. 'Why she said hesitantly. 'Tom's got some woman in New York. 'Got some woman? I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. 'She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don't you think? Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table. 'It couldn't be helped! cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued 'I looked outdoors for a minute, and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away Her voice sang 'It's romantic, isn't it, Tom? 'Very romantic, he said, and then miserably to me 'If it's light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables. The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguingmy own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee. Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl. 'We don't know each other very well, Nick, she said suddenly. 'Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding. 'I wasn't back from the war. 'That's true. She hesitated. 'Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything. Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter. 'I suppose she talks, andeats, and everything. 'Oh, yes. She looked at me absently. 'Listen, Nick let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear? 'Very much. 'It'll show you how I've gotten to feel aboutthings. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a foolthat's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.' 'You see I think everything's terrible anyhow, she went on in a convinced way. 'Everybody thinks sothe most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything. Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. 'SophisticatedGod, I'm sophisticated! The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged. Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Postthe words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumnleaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms. When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand. 'To be continued, she said, tossing the magazine on the table, 'in our very next issue. Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up. 'Ten o'clock, she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. 'Time for this good girl to go to bed. 'Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow, explained Daisy, 'over at Westchester. 'Ohyou're Jordan Baker. I knew now why her face was familiarits pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago. 'Good night, she said softly. 'Wake me at eight, won't you. 'If you'll get up. 'I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon. 'Of course you will, confirmed Daisy. 'In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort ofohfling you together. You knowlock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing 'Good night, called Miss Baker from the stairs. 'I haven't heard a word. 'She's a nice girl, said Tom after a moment. 'They oughtn't to let her run around the country this way. 'Who oughtn't to? inquired Daisy coldly. 'Her family. 'Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her. Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence. 'Is she from New York? I asked quickly. 'From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white 'Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda? demanded Tom suddenly. 'Did I? She looked at me. 'I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know 'Don't believe everything you hear, Nick, he advised me. I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called 'Wait! 'I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West. 'That's right, corroborated Tom kindly. 'We heard that you were engaged. 'It's a libel. I'm too poor. 'But we heard it, insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flowerlike way. 'We heard it from three people, so it must be true. Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage. Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely richnevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in armsbut apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he 'had some woman in New York was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart. Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrolpumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alonefifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens. I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alonehe stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seawardand distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness. About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashesa fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ashgrey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ashgrey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantictheir retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute, and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular cafs with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her, I had no desire to meet herbut I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon, and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car. 'We're getting off, he insisted. 'I want you to meet my girl. I think he'd tanked up a good deal at luncheon, and his determination to have my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do. I followed him over a low whitewashed railroad fence, and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg's persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it, and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an allnight restaurant, approached by a trail of ashes the third was a garageRepairs. George B. Wilson. Cars bought and sold.and I followed Tom inside. The interior was unprosperous and bare the only car visible was the dustcovered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind, and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead, when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blond, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes. 'Hello, Wilson, old man, said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. 'How's business? 'I can't complain, answered Wilson unconvincingly. 'When are you going to sell me that car? 'Next week I've got my man working on it now. 'Works pretty slow, don't he? 'No, he doesn't, said Tom coldly. 'And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd better sell it somewhere else after all. 'I don't mean that, explained Wilson quickly. 'I just meant His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crpedechine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice 'Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down. 'Oh, sure, agreed Wilson hurriedly, and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement colour of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinityexcept his wife, who moved close to Tom. 'I want to see you, said Tom intently. 'Get on the next train. 'All right. 'I'll meet you by the newsstand on the lower level. She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door. We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track. 'Terrible place, isn't it, said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg. 'Awful. 'It does her good to get away. 'Doesn't her husband object? 'Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive. So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New Yorkor not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train. She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the newsstand she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a movingpicture magazine, and in the station drugstore some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxicabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavendercoloured with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front glass. 'I want to get one of those dogs, she said earnestly. 'I want to get one for the apartment. They're nice to havea dog. We backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket swung from his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed. 'What kind are they? asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxiwindow. 'All kinds. What kind do you want, lady? 'I'd like to get one of those police dogs I don't suppose you got that kind? The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck. 'That's no police dog, said Tom. 'No, it's not exactly a police dog, said the man with disappointment in his voice. 'It's more of an Airedale. He passed his hand over the brown washrag of a back. 'Look at that coat. Some coat. That's a dog that'll never bother you with catching cold. 'I think it's cute, said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. 'How much is it? 'That dog? He looked at it admiringly. 'That dog will cost you ten dollars. The Airedaleundoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly whitechanged hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weatherproof coat with rapture. 'Is it a boy or a girl? she asked delicately. 'That dog? That dog's a boy. 'It's a bitch, said Tom decisively. 'Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it. We drove over to Fifth Avenue, warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner. 'Hold on, I said, 'I have to leave you here. 'No you don't, interposed Tom quickly. 'Myrtle'll be hurt if you don't come up to the apartment. Won't you, Myrtle? 'Come on, she urged. 'I'll telephone my sister Catherine. She's said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know. 'Well, I'd like to, but We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartmenthouses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighbourhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in. 'I'm going to have the McKees come up, she announced as we rose in the elevator. 'And, of course, I got to call up my sister, too. The apartment was on the top floora small livingroom, a small diningroom, a small bedroom, and a bath. The livingroom was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an overenlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance, however, the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of Town Tattle lay on the table together with a copy of Simon Called Peter, and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk, to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large, hard dog biscuitsone of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whisky from a locked bureau door. I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon so everything that happened has a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom's lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone then there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner. When I came back they had both disappeared, so I sat down discreetly in the livingroom and read a chapter of Simon Called Petereither it was terrible stuff or the whisky distorted things, because it didn't make any sense to me. Just as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names) reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment door. The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste, and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud, and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel. Mr. McKee was a pale, feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved, for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone, and he was most respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that he was in the 'artistic game, and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson's mother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twentyseven times since they had been married. Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of creamcoloured chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air. 'My dear, she told her sister in a high, mincing shout, 'most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money. I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet, and when she gave me the bill you'd of thought she had my appendicitis out. 'What was the name of the woman? asked Mrs. McKee. 'Mrs. Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people's feet in their own homes. 'I like your dress, remarked Mrs. McKee, 'I think it's adorable. Mrs. Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain. 'It's just a crazy old thing, she said. 'I just slip it on sometimes when I don't care what I look like. 'But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean, pursued Mrs. McKee. 'If Chester could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it. We all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson, who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. Mr. McKee regarded her intently with his head on one side, and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face. 'I should change the light, he said after a moment. 'I'd like to bring out the modelling of the features. And I'd try to get hold of all the back hair. 'I wouldn't think of changing the light, cried Mrs. McKee. 'I think it's Her husband said 'Sh! and we all looked at the subject again, whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet. 'You McKees have something to drink, he said. 'Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep. 'I told that boy about the ice. Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. 'These people! You have to keep after them all the time. She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy, and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there. 'I've done some nice things out on Long Island, asserted Mr. McKee. Tom looked at him blankly. 'Two of them we have framed downstairs. 'Two what? demanded Tom. 'Two studies. One of them I call Montauk PointThe Gulls, and the other I call Montauk PointThe Sea. The sister Catherine sat down beside me on the couch. 'Do you live down on Long Island, too? she inquired. 'I live at West Egg. 'Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago. At a man named Gatsby's. Do you know him? 'I live next door to him. 'Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. That's where all his money comes from. 'Really? She nodded. 'I'm scared of him. I'd hate to have him get anything on me. This absorbing information about my neighbour was interrupted by Mrs. McKee's pointing suddenly at Catherine 'Chester, I think you could do something with her, she broke out, but Mr. McKee only nodded in a bored way, and turned his attention to Tom. 'I'd like to do more work on Long Island, if I could get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start. 'Ask Myrtle, said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. 'She'll give you a letter of introduction, won't you, Myrtle? 'Do what? she asked, startled. 'You'll give McKee a letter of introduction to your husband, so he can do some studies of him. His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented, ' 'George B. Wilson at the Gasoline Pump,' or something like that. Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear 'Neither of them can stand the person they're married to. 'Can't they? 'Can't stand them. She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom. 'What I say is, why go on living with them if they can't stand them? If I was them I'd get a divorce and get married to each other right away. 'Doesn't she like Wilson either? The answer to this was unexpected. It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and it was violent and obscene. 'You see, cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her voice again. 'It's really his wife that's keeping them apart. She's a Catholic, and they don't believe in divorce. Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie. 'When they do get married, continued Catherine, 'they're going West to live for a while until it blows over. 'It'd be more discreet to go to Europe. 'Oh, do you like Europe? she exclaimed surprisingly. 'I just got back from Monte Carlo. 'Really. 'Just last year. I went over there with another girl. 'Stay long? 'No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got gyped out of it all in two days in the private rooms. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you. God, how I hated that town! The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterraneanthen the shrill voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room. 'I almost made a mistake, too, she declared vigorously. 'I almost married a little kike who'd been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me 'Lucille, that man's way below you!' But if I hadn't met Chester, he'd of got me sure. 'Yes, but listen, said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, 'at least you didn't marry him. 'I know I didn't. 'Well, I married him, said Myrtle, ambiguously. 'And that's the difference between your case and mine. 'Why did you, Myrtle? demanded Catherine. 'Nobody forced you to. Myrtle considered. 'I married him because I thought he was a gentleman, she said finally. 'I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe. 'You were crazy about him for a while, said Catherine. 'Crazy about him! cried Myrtle incredulously. 'Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there. She pointed suddenly at me, and everyone looked at me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I expected no affection. 'The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody's best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out 'Oh, is that your suit?' I said. 'This is the first I ever heard about it.' But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried to beat the band all afternoon. 'She really ought to get away from him, resumed Catherine to me. 'They've been living over that garage for eleven years. And Tom's the first sweetie she ever had. The bottle of whiskya second onewas now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who 'felt just as good on nothing at all. Tom rang for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I saw him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life. Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom. 'It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirtfront pressed against my arm, and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn't hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever you can't live forever.'  She turned to Mrs. McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter. 'My dear, she cried, 'I'm going to give you this dress as soon as I'm through with it. I've got to get another one tomorrow. I'm going to make a list of all the things I've got to get. A massage and a wave, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ashtrays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother's grave that'll last all summer. I got to write down a list so I won't forget all the things I got to do. It was nine o'clockalmost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon. The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name. 'Daisy! Daisy! Daisy! shouted Mrs. Wilson. 'I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women's voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain. Mr. McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door. When he had gone halfway he turned around and stared at the scenehis wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently, and trying to spread a copy of Town Tattle over the tapestry scenes of Versailles. Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed. 'Come to lunch some day, he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator. 'Where? 'Anywhere. 'Keep your hands off the lever, snapped the elevator boy. 'I beg your pardon, said Mr. McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it. 'All right, I agreed, 'I'll be glad to.  I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands. 'Beauty and the Beast Loneliness Old Grocery Horse Brook'n Bridge Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o'clock train. There was music from my neighbour's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motorboats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends his RollsRoyce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbingbrushes and hammers and gardenshears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New Yorkevery Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb. At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough coloured lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening horsd'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin fivepiece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colours, and hair bobbed in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the seachange of faces and voices and colour under the constantly changing light. Suddenly one of these gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the Follies. The party has begun. I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invitedthey went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behaviour associated with an amusement park. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin'segg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer the honour would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his 'little party that night. He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented itsigned Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand. Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn't knowthough here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key. As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail tablethe only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone. I was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden. Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passersby. 'Hello! I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden. 'I thought you might be here, she responded absently as I came up. 'I remembered you lived next door to She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she'd take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps. 'Hello! they cried together. 'Sorry you didn't win. That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before. 'You don't know who we are, said one of the girls in yellow, 'but we met you here about a month ago. 'You've dyed your hair since then, remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer's basket. With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. 'Do you come to these parties often? inquired Jordan of the girl beside her. 'The last one was the one I met you at, answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned to her companion 'Wasn't it for you, Lucille? It was for Lucille, too. 'I like to come, Lucille said. 'I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and addressinside of a week I got a package from Croirier's with a new evening gown in it. 'Did you keep it? asked Jordan. 'Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixtyfive dollars. 'There's something funny about a fellow that'll do a thing like that, said the other girl eagerly. 'He doesn't want any trouble with anybody. 'Who doesn't? I inquired. 'Gatsby. Somebody told me The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. 'Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once. A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. 'I don't think it's so much that, argued Lucille sceptically 'It's more that he was a German spy during the war. One of the men nodded in confirmation. 'I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany, he assured us positively. 'Oh, no, said the first girl, 'it couldn't be that, because he was in the American army during the war. As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. 'You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody's looking at him. I'll bet he killed a man. She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world. The first supperthere would be another one after midnightwas now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan's escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countrysideEast Egg condescending to West Egg and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gaiety. 'Let's get out, whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate halfhour 'this is much too polite for me. We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host I had never met him, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way. The bar, where we glanced first, was crowded, but Gatsby was not there. She couldn't find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn't on the veranda. On a chance we tried an importantlooking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas. A stout, middleaged man, with enormous owleyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot. 'What do you think? he demanded impetuously. 'About what? He waved his hand toward the bookshelves. 'About that. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They're real. 'The books? He nodded. 'Absolutely realhave pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they're absolutely real. Pages andHere! Lemme show you. Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the Stoddard Lectures. 'See! he cried triumphantly. 'It's a bonafide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, toodidn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect? He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse. 'Who brought you? he demanded. 'Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought. Jordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully, without answering. 'I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt, he continued. 'Mrs. Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library. 'Has it? 'A little bit, I think. I can't tell yet. I've only been here an hour. Did I tell you about the books? They're real. They're 'You told us. We shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors. There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the cornersand a great number of single girls dancing individually or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing 'stunts all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage twins, who turned out to be the girls in yellow, did a baby act in costume, and champagne was served in glasses bigger than fingerbowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn. I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl, who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two fingerbowls of champagne, and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental, and profound. At a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and smiled. 'Your face is familiar, he said politely. 'Weren't you in the First Division during the war? 'Why yes. I was in the Twentyeighth Infantry. 'I was in the Sixteenth until June nineteeneighteen. I knew I'd seen you somewhere before. We talked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages in France. Evidently he lived in this vicinity, for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplane, and was going to try it out in the morning. 'Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along the Sound. 'What time? 'Any time that suits you best. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jordan looked around and smiled. 'Having a gay time now? she inquired. 'Much better. I turned again to my new acquaintance. 'This is an unusual party for me. I haven't even seen the host. I live over there I waved my hand at the invisible hedge in the distance, 'and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation. For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand. 'I'm Gatsby, he said suddenly. 'What! I exclaimed. 'Oh, I beg your pardon. 'I thought you knew, old sport. I'm afraid I'm not a very good host. He smiled understandinglymuch more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It facedor seemed to facethe whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanishedand I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care. Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn. 'If you want anything just ask for it, old sport, he urged me. 'Excuse me. I will rejoin you later. When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordanconstrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years. 'Who is he? I demanded. 'Do you know? 'He's just a man named Gatsby. 'Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do? 'Now you're started on the subject, she answered with a wan smile. 'Well, he told me once he was an Oxford man. A dim background started to take shape behind him, but at her next remark it faded away. 'However, I don't believe it. 'Why not? 'I don't know, she insisted, 'I just don't think he went there. Something in her tone reminded me of the other girl's 'I think he killed a man, and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn'tat least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn'tdrift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound. 'Anyhow, he gives large parties, said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. 'And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy. There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden. 'Ladies and gentlemen, he cried. 'At the request of Mr. Gatsby we are going to play for you Mr. Vladmir Tostoff's latest work, which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers you know there was a big sensation. He smiled with jovial condescension, and added 'Some sensation! Whereupon everybody laughed. 'The piece is known, he concluded lustily, 'as 'Vladmir Tostoff's Jazz History of the World!'  The nature of Mr. Tostoff's composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased. When the 'Jazz History of the World was over, girls were putting their heads on men's shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men's arms, even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their fallsbut no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby's shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby's head for one link. 'I beg your pardon. Gatsby's butler was suddenly standing beside us. 'Miss Baker? he inquired. 'I beg your pardon, but Mr. Gatsby would like to speak to you alone. 'With me? she exclaimed in surprise. 'Yes, madame. She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her eveningdress, all her dresses, like sports clothesthere was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings. I was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds had issued from a long, manywindowed room which overhung the terrace. Eluding Jordan's undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside. The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano, and beside her stood a tall, redhaired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her song she had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sadshe was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping, broken sobs, and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed down her cheeksnot freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky colour, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and went off into a deep vinous sleep. 'She had a fight with a man who says he's her husband, explained a girl at my elbow. I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan's party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife, after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way, broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacksat intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed 'You promised! into his ear. The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices. 'Whenever he sees I'm having a good time he wants to go home. 'Never heard anything so selfish in my life. 'We're always the first ones to leave. 'So are we. 'Well, we're almost the last tonight, said one of the men sheepishly. 'The orchestra left half an hour ago. In spite of the wives' agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night. As I waited for my hat in the hall the door of the library opened and Jordan Baker and Gatsby came out together. He was saying some last word to her, but the eagerness in his manner tightened abruptly into formality as several people approached him to say goodbye. Jordan's party were calling impatiently to her from the porch, but she lingered for a moment to shake hands. 'I've just heard the most amazing thing, she whispered. 'How long were we in there? 'Why, about an hour. 'It was simply amazing, she repeated abstractedly. 'But I swore I wouldn't tell it and here I am tantalizing you. She yawned gracefully in my face. 'Please come and see me Phone book Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard My aunt She was hurrying off as she talkedher brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door. Rather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last of Gatsby's guests, who were clustered around him. I wanted to explain that I'd hunted for him early in the evening and to apologize for not having known him in the garden. 'Don't mention it, he enjoined me eagerly. 'Don't give it another thought, old sport. The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed my shoulder. 'And don't forget we're going up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning, at nine o'clock. Then the butler, behind his shoulder 'Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir. 'All right, in a minute. Tell them I'll be right there Good night. 'Good night. 'Good night. He smiledand suddenly there seemed to be a pleasant significance in having been among the last to go, as if he had desired it all the time. 'Good night, old sport Good night. But as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up, but violently shorn of one wheel, rested a new coup which had left Gatsby's drive not two minutes before. The sharp jut of a wall accounted for the detachment of the wheel, which was now getting considerable attention from half a dozen curious chauffeurs. However, as they had left their cars blocking the road, a harsh, discordant din from those in the rear had been audible for some time, and added to the already violent confusion of the scene. A man in a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now stood in the middle of the road, looking from the car to the tyre and from the tyre to the observers in a pleasant, puzzled way. 'See! he explained. 'It went in the ditch. The fact was infinitely astonishing to him, and I recognized first the unusual quality of wonder, and then the manit was the late patron of Gatsby's library. 'How'd it happen? He shrugged his shoulders. 'I know nothing whatever about mechanics, he said decisively. 'But how did it happen? Did you run into the wall? 'Don't ask me, said Owl Eyes, washing his hands of the whole matter. 'I know very little about drivingnext to nothing. It happened, and that's all I know. 'Well, if you're a poor driver you oughtn't to try driving at night. 'But I wasn't even trying, he explained indignantly, 'I wasn't even trying. An awed hush fell upon the bystanders. 'Do you want to commit suicide? 'You're lucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not even trying! 'You don't understand, explained the criminal. 'I wasn't driving. There's another man in the car. The shock that followed this declaration found voice in a sustained 'Ahhh! as the door of the coup swung slowly open. The crowdit was now a crowdstepped back involuntarily, and when the door had opened wide there was a ghostly pause. Then, very gradually, part by part, a pale, dangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing tentatively at the ground with a large uncertain dancing shoe. Blinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of the horns, the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the duster. 'Wha's matter? he inquired calmly. 'Did we run outa gas? 'Look! Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheelhe stared at it for a moment, and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky. 'It came off, someone explained. He nodded. 'At first I din' notice we'd stopped. A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders, he remarked in a determined voice 'Wonder'ff tell me where there's a gas'line station? At least a dozen men, some of them a little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond. 'Back out, he suggested after a moment. 'Put her in reverse. 'But the wheel's off! He hesitated. 'No harm in trying, he said. The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and cut across the lawn toward home. I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell. Reading over what I have written so far, I see I have given the impression that the events of three nights several weeks apart were all that absorbed me. On the contrary, they were merely casual events in a crowded summer, and, until much later, they absorbed me infinitely less than my personal affairs. Most of the time I worked. In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knew the other clerks and young bondsalesmen by their first names, and lunched with them in dark, crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee. I even had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction, so when she went on her vacation in July I let it blow quietly away. I took dinner usually at the Yale Clubfor some reason it was the gloomiest event of my dayand then I went upstairs to the library and studied investments and securities for a conscientious hour. There were generally a few rioters around, but they never came into the library, so it was a good place to work. After that, if the night was mellow, I strolled down Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel, and over rd Street to the Pennsylvania Station. I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in otherspoor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinneryoung clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. Again at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were lined five deep with throbbing taxicabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes made unintelligible circles inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying towards gaiety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well. For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again. At first I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and everyone knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed somethingmost affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginningand one day I found what it was. When we were on a houseparty together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about itand suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisy's. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapersa suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semifinal round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandalthen died away. A caddy retracted his statement, and the only other witness admitted that he might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together in my mind. Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body. It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeplyI was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same houseparty that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man's coat. 'You're a rotten driver, I protested. 'Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn't to drive at all. 'I am careful. 'No, you're not. 'Well, other people are, she said lightly. 'What's that got to do with it? 'They'll keep out of my way, she insisted. 'It takes two to make an accident. 'Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself. 'I hope I never will, she answered. 'I hate careless people. That's why I like you. Her grey, sunstrained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slowthinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them 'Love, Nick, and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint moustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free. Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn. 'He's a bootlegger, said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. 'One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass. Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a timetable the names of those who came to Gatsby's house that summer. It is an old timetable now, disintegrating at its folds, and headed 'This schedule in effect July th, . But I can still read the grey names, and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby's hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him. From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie's wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cottonwhite one winter afternoon for no good reason at all. Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the O. R. P. Schraeders, and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the gravel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett's automobile ran over his right hand. The Dancies came, too, and S. B. Whitebait, who was well over sixty, and Maurice A. Flink, and the Hammerheads, and Beluga the tobacco importer, and Beluga's girls. From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulick the State senator and Newton Orchid, who controlled Films Par Excellence, and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartz (the son) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in one way or another. And the Catlips and the Bembergs and G. Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who afterward strangled his wife. Da Fontano the promoter came there, and Ed Legros and James B. ('RotGut) Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lillythey came to gamble, and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably next day. A man named Klipspringer was there so often that he became known as 'the boarderI doubt if he had any other home. Of theatrical people there were Gus Waize and Horace O'Donavan and Lester Myer and George Duckweed and Francis Bull. Also from New York were the Chromes and the Backhyssons and the Dennickers and Russel Betty and the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewars and the Scullys and S. W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns, divorced now, and Henry L. Palmetto, who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train in Times Square. Benny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person, but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their namesJaqueline, I think, or else Consuela, or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be. In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O'Brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer, who had his nose shot off in the war, and Mr. Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiance, and Ardita FitzPeters and Mr. P. Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip, with a man reputed to be her chauffeur, and a prince of something, whom we called Duke, and whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten. All these people came to Gatsby's house in the summer. At nine o'clock, one morning late in July, Gatsby's gorgeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and gave out a burst of melody from its threenoted horn. It was the first time he had called on me, though I had gone to two of his parties, mounted in his hydroplane, and, at his urgent invitation, made frequent use of his beach. 'Good morning, old sport. You're having lunch with me today and I thought we'd ride up together. He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly Americanthat comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand. He saw me looking with admiration at his car. 'It's pretty, isn't it, old sport? He jumped off to give me a better view. 'Haven't you ever seen it before? I'd seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream colour, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supperboxes and toolboxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town. I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say. So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate roadhouse next door. And then came that disconcerting ride. We hadn't reached West Egg village before Gatsby began leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his caramelcoloured suit. 'Look here, old sport, he broke out surprisingly, 'what's your opinion of me, anyhow? A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves. 'Well, I'm going to tell you something about my life, he interrupted. 'I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear. So he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavoured conversation in his halls. 'I'll tell you God's truth. His right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by. 'I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle Westall dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition. He looked at me sidewaysand I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase 'educated at Oxford, or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all. 'What part of the Middle West? I inquired casually. 'San Francisco. 'I see. 'My family all died and I came into a good deal of money. His voice was solemn, as if the memory of that sudden extinction of a clan still haunted him. For a moment I suspected that he was pulling my leg, but a glance at him convinced me otherwise. 'After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of EuropeParis, Venice, Romecollecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only, and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago. With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned 'character leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne. 'Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took the remains of my machinegun battalion so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn't advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decorationeven Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea! Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at themwith his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro's troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro's warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines. He reached in his pocket, and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm. 'That's the one from Montenegro. To my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look. 'Orderi di Danilo, ran the circular legend, 'Montenegro, Nicolas Rex. 'Turn it. 'Major Jay Gatsby, I read, 'For Valour Extraordinary. 'Here's another thing I always carry. A souvenir of Oxford days. It was taken in Trinity Quadthe man on my left is now the Earl of Doncaster. It was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers loafing in an archway through which were visible a host of spires. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, youngerwith a cricket bat in his hand. Then it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimsonlighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart. 'I'm going to make a big request of you today, he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, 'so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody. You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me. He hesitated. 'You'll hear about it this afternoon. 'At lunch? 'No, this afternoon. I happened to find out that you're taking Miss Baker to tea. 'Do you mean you're in love with Miss Baker? 'No, old sport, I'm not. But Miss Baker has kindly consented to speak to you about this matter. I hadn't the faintest idea what 'this matter was, but I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn't asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss Mr. Jay Gatsby. I was sure the request would be something utterly fantastic, and for a moment I was sorry I'd ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn. He wouldn't say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of redbelted oceangoing ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the fadedgilt nineteenhundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by. With fenders spread like wings we scattered light through half Astoriaonly half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar 'jugjugspat! of a motorcycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside. 'All right, old sport, called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man's eyes. 'Right you are, agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. 'Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse me! 'What was that? I inquired. 'The picture of Oxford? 'I was able to do the commissioner a favour once, and he sends me a Christmas card every year. Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of nonolfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of southeastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their sombre holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry. 'Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge, I thought 'anything at all Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder. Roaring noon. In a wellfanned Fortysecond Street cellar I met Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside, my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man. 'Mr. Carraway, this is my friend Mr. Wolfshiem. A small, flatnosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the halfdarkness. 'So I took one look at him, said Mr. Wolfshiem, shaking my hand earnestly, 'and what do you think I did? 'What? I inquired politely. But evidently he was not addressing me, for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose. 'I handed the money to Katspaugh and I said 'All right, Katspaugh, don't pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.' He shut it then and there. Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon Mr. Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction. 'Highballs? asked the head waiter. 'This is a nice restaurant here, said Mr. Wolfshiem, looking at the presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. 'But I like across the street better! 'Yes, highballs, agreed Gatsby, and then to Mr. Wolfshiem 'It's too hot over there. 'Hot and smallyes, said Mr. Wolfshiem, 'but full of memories. 'What place is that? I asked. 'The old Metropole. 'The old Metropole, brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. 'Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him outside. 'All right,' says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair. ' 'Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room.' 'It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if we'd of raised the blinds we'd of seen daylight. 'Did he go? I asked innocently. 'Sure he went. Mr. Wolfshiem's nose flashed at me indignantly. 'He turned around in the door and says 'Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!' Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away. 'Four of them were electrocuted, I said, remembering. 'Five, with Becker. His nostrils turned to me in an interested way. 'I understand you're looking for a business gonnegtion. The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling. Gatsby answered for me 'Oh, no, he exclaimed, 'this isn't the man. 'No? Mr. Wolfshiem seemed disappointed. 'This is just a friend. I told you we'd talk about that some other time. 'I beg your pardon, said Mr. Wolfshiem, 'I had a wrong man. A succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfshiem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the roomhe completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table. 'Look here, old sport, said Gatsby, leaning toward me, 'I'm afraid I made you a little angry this morning in the car. There was the smile again, but this time I held out against it. 'I don't like mysteries, I answered, 'and I don't understand why you won't come out frankly and tell me what you want. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker? 'Oh, it's nothing underhand, he assured me. 'Miss Baker's a great sportswoman, you know, and she'd never do anything that wasn't all right. Suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room, leaving me with Mr. Wolfshiem at the table. 'He has to telephone, said Mr. Wolfshiem, following him with his eyes. 'Fine fellow, isn't he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman. 'Yes. 'He's an Oggsford man. 'Oh! 'He went to Oggsford College in England. You know Oggsford College? 'I've heard of it. 'It's one of the most famous colleges in the world. 'Have you known Gatsby for a long time? I inquired. 'Several years, he answered in a gratified way. 'I made the pleasure of his acquaintance just after the war. But I knew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked with him an hour. I said to myself 'There's the kind of man you'd like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.'  He paused. 'I see you're looking at my cuff buttons. I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now. They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory. 'Finest specimens of human molars, he informed me. 'Well! I inspected them. 'That's a very interesting idea. 'Yeah. He flipped his sleeves up under his coat. 'Yeah, Gatsby's very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend's wife. When the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the table and sat down Mr. Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet. 'I have enjoyed my lunch, he said, 'and I'm going to run off from you two young men before I outstay my welcome. 'Don't hurry Meyer, said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. Mr. Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction. 'You're very polite, but I belong to another generation, he announced solemnly. 'You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand. 'As for me, I am fifty years old, and I won't impose myself on you any longer. As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him. 'He becomes very sentimental sometimes, explained Gatsby. 'This is one of his sentimental days. He's quite a character around New Yorka denizen of Broadway. 'Who is he, anyhow, an actor? 'No. 'A dentist? 'Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he's a gambler. Gatsby hesitated, then added, coolly 'He's the man who fixed the World's Series back in . 'Fixed the World's Series? I repeated. The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World's Series had been fixed in , but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million peoplewith the singlemindedness of a burglar blowing a safe. 'How did he happen to do that? I asked after a minute. 'He just saw the opportunity. 'Why isn't he in jail? 'They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man. I insisted on paying the check. As the waiter brought my change I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded room. 'Come along with me for a minute, I said 'I've got to say hello to someone. When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction. 'Where've you been? he demanded eagerly. 'Daisy's furious because you haven't called up. 'This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan. They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby's face. 'How've you been, anyhow? demanded Tom of me. 'How'd you happen to come up this far to eat? 'I've been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby. I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there. One October day in nineteenseventeen (said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the teagarden at the Plaza Hotel) I was walking along from one place to another, half on the sidewalks and half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber knobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground. I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind, and whenever this happened the red, white, and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said tuttuttuttut, in a disapproving way. The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fay's house. She was just eighteen, two years older than me, and by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night. 'Anyways, for an hour! When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the kerb, and she was sitting in it with a lieutenant I had never seen before. They were so engrossed in each other that she didn't see me until I was five feet away. 'Hello, Jordan, she called unexpectedly. 'Please come here. I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross to make bandages. I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn't come that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby, and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four yearseven after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the same man. That was nineteenseventeen. By the next year I had a few beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so I didn't see Daisy very often. She went with a slightly older crowdwhen she went with anyone at all. Wild rumours were circulating about herhow her mother had found her packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say goodbye to a soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she wasn't on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that she didn't play around with the soldiers any more, but only with a few flatfooted, shortsighted young men in town, who couldn't get into the army at all. By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a dbut after the armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the Muhlbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I was a bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dressand as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other. ' 'Gratulate me, she muttered. 'Never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it. 'What's the matter, Daisy? I was scared, I can tell you I'd never seen a girl like that before. 'Here, dearies. She groped around in a wastebasket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. 'Take 'em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine. Say 'Daisy's change' her mine!'  She began to cryshe cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother's maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn't let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up in a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soapdish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow. But she didn't say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over. Next day at five o'clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three months' trip to the South Seas. I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she'd look around uneasily, and say 'Where's Tom gone? and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them togetherit made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night, and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was brokenshe was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel. The next April Daisy had her little girl, and they went to France for a year. I saw them one spring in Cannes, and later in Deauville, and then they came back to Chicago to settle down. Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink among harddrinking people. You can hold your tongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at alland yet there's something in that voice of hers Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked youdo you remember?if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up, and said 'What Gatsby? and when I described himI was half asleepshe said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. It wasn't until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car. When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a victoria through Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the clear voices of children, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight 'I'm the Sheik of Araby. Your love belongs to me. At night when you're asleep Into your tent I'll creep 'It was a strange coincidence, I said. 'But it wasn't a coincidence at all. 'Why not? 'Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay. Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendour. 'He wants to know, continued Jordan, 'if you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over. The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual mothsso that he could 'come over some afternoon to a stranger's garden. 'Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing? 'He's afraid, he's waited so long. He thought you might be offended. You see, he's regular tough underneath it all. Something worried me. 'Why didn't he ask you to arrange a meeting? 'He wants her to see his house, she explained. 'And your house is right next door. 'Oh! 'I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night, went on Jordan, 'but she never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it. Of course, I immediately suggested a luncheon in New Yorkand I thought he'd go mad ' 'I don't want to do anything out of the way!' he kept saying. 'I want to see her right next door.' 'When I said you were a particular friend of Tom's, he started to abandon the whole idea. He doesn't know very much about Tom, though he says he's read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy's name. It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal scepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement 'There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. 'And Daisy ought to have something in her life, murmured Jordan to me. 'Does she want to see Gatsby? 'She's not to know about it. Gatsby doesn't want her to know. You're just supposed to invite her to tea. We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the faade of FiftyNinth Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face. When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire. Two o'clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner, I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar. At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved itself into 'hideandgoseek or 'sardinesinthebox with all the house thrown open to the game. But there wasn't a sound. Only wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house had winked into the darkness. As my taxi groaned away I saw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn. 'Your place looks like the World's Fair, I said. 'Does it? He turned his eyes toward it absently. 'I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let's go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car. 'It's too late. 'Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool? I haven't made use of it all summer. 'I've got to go to bed. 'All right. He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness. 'I talked with Miss Baker, I said after a moment. 'I'm going to call up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over here to tea. 'Oh, that's all right, he said carelessly. 'I don't want to put you to any trouble. 'What day would suit you? 'What day would suit you? he corrected me quickly. 'I don't want to put you to any trouble, you see. 'How about the day after tomorrow? He considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance 'I want to get the grass cut, he said. We both looked down at the grassthere was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, wellkept expanse of his began. I suspected that he meant my grass. 'There's another little thing, he said uncertainly, and hesitated. 'Would you rather put it off for a few days? I asked. 'Oh, it isn't about that. At least He fumbled with a series of beginnings. 'Why, I thoughtwhy, look here, old sport, you don't make much money, do you? 'Not very much. This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently. 'I thought you didn't, if you'll pardon myyou see, I carry on a little business on the side, a sort of side line, you understand. And I thought that if you don't make very muchYou're selling bonds, aren't you, old sport? 'Trying to. 'Well, this would interest you. It wouldn't take up much of your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing. I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the crises of my life. But, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there. 'I've got my hands full, I said. 'I'm much obliged but I couldn't take on any more work. 'You wouldn't have to do any business with Wolfshiem. Evidently he thought that I was shying away from the 'gonnegtion mentioned at lunch, but I assured him he was wrong. He waited a moment longer, hoping I'd begin a conversation, but I was too absorbed to be responsive, so he went unwillingly home. The evening had made me lightheaded and happy I think I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my front door. So I don't know whether or not Gatsby went to Coney Island, or for how many hours he 'glanced into rooms while his house blazed gaudily on. I called up Daisy from the office next morning, and invited her to come to tea. 'Don't bring Tom, I warned her. 'What? 'Don't bring Tom. 'Who is 'Tom'? she asked innocently. The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o'clock a man in a raincoat, dragging a lawnmower, tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded me that I had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back, so I drove into West Egg Village to search for her among soggy whitewashed alleys and to buy some cups and lemons and flowers. The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o'clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby's, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and goldcoloured tie, hurried in. He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes. 'Is everything all right? he asked immediately. 'The grass looks fine, if that's what you mean. 'What grass? he inquired blankly. 'Oh, the grass in the yard. He looked out the window at it, but, judging from his expression, I don't believe he saw a thing. 'Looks very good, he remarked vaguely. 'One of the papers said they thought the rain would stop about four. I think it was The Journal. Have you got everything you need in the shape ofof tea? I took him into the pantry, where he looked a little reproachfully at the Finn. Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the delicatessen shop. 'Will they do? I asked. 'Of course, of course! They're fine! and he added hollowly, ' old sport. The rain cooled about halfpast three to a damp mist, through which occasional thin drops swam like dew. Gatsby looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay's Economics, starting at the Finnish tread that shook the kitchen floor, and peering towards the bleared windows from time to time as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were taking place outside. Finally he got up and informed me, in an uncertain voice, that he was going home. 'Why's that? 'Nobody's coming to tea. It's too late! He looked at his watch as if there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. 'I can't wait all day. 'Don't be silly it's just two minutes to four. He sat down miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped up, and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard. Under the dripping bare lilactrees a large open car was coming up the drive. It stopped. Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath a threecornered lavender hat, looked out at me with a bright ecstatic smile. 'Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one? The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car. 'Are you in love with me, she said low in my ear, 'or why did I have to come alone? 'That's the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour. 'Come back in an hour, Ferdie. Then in a grave murmur 'His name is Ferdie. 'Does the gasoline affect his nose? 'I don't think so, she said innocently. 'Why? We went in. To my overwhelming surprise the livingroom was deserted. 'Well, that's funny, I exclaimed. 'What's funny? She turned her head as there was a light dignified knocking at the front door. I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes. With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the livingroom. It wasn't a bit funny. Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain. For half a minute there wasn't a sound. Then from the livingroom I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note 'I certainly am awfully glad to see you again. A pause it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall, so I went into the room. Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair. 'We've met before, muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand. 'I'm sorry about the clock, he said. My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head. 'It's an old clock, I told them idiotically. I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor. 'We haven't met for many years, said Daisy, her voice as matteroffact as it could ever be. 'Five years next November. The automatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray. Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow and, while Daisy and I talked, looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with tense, unhappy eyes. However, as calmness wasn't an end in itself, I made an excuse at the first possible moment, and got to my feet. 'Where are you going? demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm. 'I'll be back. 'I've got to speak to you about something before you go. He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door, and whispered 'Oh, God! in a miserable way. 'What's the matter? 'This is a terrible mistake, he said, shaking his head from side to side, 'a terrible, terrible mistake. 'You're just embarrassed, that's all, and luckily I added 'Daisy's embarrassed too. 'She's embarrassed? he repeated incredulously. 'Just as much as you are. 'Don't talk so loud. 'You're acting like a little boy, I broke out impatiently. 'Not only that, but you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone. He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable reproach, and, opening the door cautiously, went back into the other room. I walked out the back wayjust as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour beforeand ran for a huge black knotted tree, whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain. Once more it was pouring, and my irregular lawn, wellshaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes. There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it early in the 'period craze, a decade before, and there was a story that he'd agreed to pay five years' taxes on all the neighbouring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Familyhe went into an immediate decline. His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door. Americans, while willing, even eager, to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry. After half an hour, the sun shone again, and the grocer's automobile rounded Gatsby's drive with the raw material for his servants' dinnerI felt sure he wouldn't eat a spoonful. A maid began opening the upper windows of his house, appeared momentarily in each, and, leaning from the large central bay, spat meditatively into the garden. It was time I went back. While the rain continued it had seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little now and then with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within the house too. I went inafter making every possible noise in the kitchen, short of pushing over the stovebut I don't believe they heard a sound. They were sitting at either end of the couch, looking at each other as if some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears, and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed without a word or a gesture of exultation a new wellbeing radiated from him and filled the little room. 'Oh, hello, old sport, he said, as if he hadn't seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands. 'It's stopped raining. 'Has it? When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinklebells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to Daisy. 'What do you think of that? It's stopped raining. 'I'm glad, Jay. Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy. 'I want you and Daisy to come over to my house, he said, 'I'd like to show her around. 'You're sure you want me to come? 'Absolutely, old sport. Daisy went upstairs to wash her facetoo late I thought with humiliation of my towelswhile Gatsby and I waited on the lawn. 'My house looks well, doesn't it? he demanded. 'See how the whole front of it catches the light. I agreed that it was splendid. 'Yes. His eyes went over it, every arched door and square tower. 'It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it. 'I thought you inherited your money. 'I did, old sport, he said automatically, 'but I lost most of it in the big panicthe panic of the war. I think he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I asked him what business he was in he answered 'That's my affair, before he realized that it wasn't an appropriate reply. 'Oh, I've been in several things, he corrected himself. 'I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I'm not in either one now. He looked at me with more attention. 'Do you mean you've been thinking over what I proposed the other night? Before I could answer, Daisy came out of the house and two rows of brass buttons on her dress gleamed in the sunlight. 'That huge place there? she cried pointing. 'Do you like it? 'I love it, but I don't see how you live there all alone. 'I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people. Instead of taking the shortcut along the Sound we went down to the road and entered by the big postern. With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the sparkling odour of jonquils and the frothy odour of hawthorn and plum blossoms and the pale gold odour of kissmeatthegate. It was strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in and out the door, and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees. And inside, as we wandered through Marie Antoinette musicrooms and Restoration Salons, I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through. As Gatsby closed the door of 'the Merton College Library I could have sworn I heard the owleyed man break into ghostly laughter. We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressingrooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms with sunken bathsintruding into one chamber where a dishevelled man in pyjamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. It was Mr. Klipspringer, the 'boarder. I had seen him wandering hungrily about the beach that morning. Finally we came to Gatsby's own apartment, a bedroom and a bath, and an Adam's study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some Chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall. He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her wellloved eyes. Sometimes too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs. His bedroom was the simplest room of allexcept where the dresser was garnished with a toilet set of pure dull gold. Daisy took the brush with delight, and smoothed her hair, whereupon Gatsby sat down and shaded his eyes and began to laugh. 'It's the funniest thing, old sport, he said hilariously. 'I can'tWhen I try to He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock. Recovering himself in a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressinggowns and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high. 'I've got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall. He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in manycoloured disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted highershirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and applegreen and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. 'They're such beautiful shirts, she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. 'It makes me sad because I've never seen suchsuch beautiful shirts before. After the house, we were to see the grounds and the swimming pool, and the hydroplane, and the midsummer flowersbut outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again, so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the Sound. 'If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay, said Gatsby. 'You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock. Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. I began to walk about the room, examining various indefinite objects in the half darkness. A large photograph of an elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on the wall over his desk. 'Who's this? 'That? That's Mr. Dan Cody, old sport. The name sounded faintly familiar. 'He's dead now. He used to be my best friend years ago. There was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume, on the bureauGatsby with his head thrown back defiantlytaken apparently when he was about eighteen. 'I adore it, exclaimed Daisy. 'The pompadour! You never told me you had a pompadouror a yacht. 'Look at this, said Gatsby quickly. 'Here's a lot of clippingsabout you. They stood side by side examining it. I was going to ask to see the rubies when the phone rang, and Gatsby took up the receiver. 'Yes Well, I can't talk now I can't talk now, old sport I said a small town He must know what a small town is Well, he's no use to us if Detroit is his idea of a small town He rang off. 'Come here quick! cried Daisy at the window. The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea. 'Look at that, she whispered, and then after a moment 'I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around. I tried to go then, but they wouldn't hear of it perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone. 'I know what we'll do, said Gatsby, 'we'll have Klipspringer play the piano. He went out of the room calling 'Ewing! and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slightly worn young man, with shellrimmed glasses and scanty blond hair. He was now decently clothed in a 'sport shirt, open at the neck, sneakers, and duck trousers of a nebulous hue. 'Did we interrupt your exercise? inquired Daisy politely. 'I was asleep, cried Mr. Klipspringer, in a spasm of embarrassment. 'That is, I'd been asleep. Then I got up 'Klipspringer plays the piano, said Gatsby, cutting him off. 'Don't you, Ewing, old sport? 'I don't play well. I don'thardly play at all. I'm all out of prac 'We'll go downstairs, interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a switch. The grey windows disappeared as the house glowed full of light. In the musicroom Gatsby turned on a solitary lamp beside the piano. He lit Daisy's cigarette from a trembling match, and sat down with her on a couch far across the room, where there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall. When Klipspringer had played 'The Love Nest he turned around on the bench and searched unhappily for Gatsby in the gloom. 'I'm all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn't play. I'm all out of prac 'Don't talk so much, old sport, commanded Gatsby. 'Play! 'In the morning, In the evening, Ain't we got fun Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the Sound. All the lights were going on in West Egg now the electric trains, mencarrying, were plunging home through the rain from New York. It was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air. 'One thing's sure and nothing's surer The rich get richer and the poor getchildren. In the meantime, In between time As I went over to say goodbye I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby's face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreamsnot through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart. As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn't be overdreamedthat voice was a deathless song. They had forgotten me, but Daisy glanced up and held out her hand Gatsby didn't know me now at all. I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together. About this time an ambitious young reporter from New York arrived one morning at Gatsby's door and asked him if he had anything to say. 'Anything to say about what? inquired Gatsby politely. 'Whyany statement to give out. It transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had heard Gatsby's name around his office in a connection which he either wouldn't reveal or didn't fully understand. This was his day off and with laudable initiative he had hurried out 'to see. It was a random shot, and yet the reporter's instinct was right. Gatsby's notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become authorities upon his past, had increased all summer until he fell just short of being news. Contemporary legends such as the 'underground pipeline to Canada attached themselves to him, and there was one persistent story that he didn't live in a house at all, but in a boat that looked like a house and was moved secretly up and down the Long Island shore. Just why these inventions were a source of satisfaction to James Gatz of North Dakota, isn't easy to say. James Gatzthat was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his careerwhen he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Tuolomee, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour. I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm peoplehis imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of Goda phrase which, if it means anything, means just thatand he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeenyearold boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end. For over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clamdigger and a salmonfisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed. His brown, hardening body lived naturally through the halffierce, halflazy work of the bracing days. He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming selfabsorption he took for granted. But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing. An instinct toward his future glory had led him, some months before, to the small Lutheran College of St. Olaf's in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to destiny itself, and despising the janitor's work with which he was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped anchor in the shallows alongshore. Cody was fifty years old then, a product of the Nevada silver fields, of the Yukon, of every rush for metal since seventyfive. The transactions in Montana copper that made him many times a millionaire found him physically robust but on the verge of softmindedness, and, suspecting this, an infinite number of women tried to separate him from his money. The none too savoury ramifications by which Ella Kaye, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common property of the turgid journalism in . He had been coasting along all too hospitable shores for five years when he turned up as James Gatz's destiny in Little Girl Bay. To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world. I suppose he smiled at Codyhe had probably discovered that people liked him when he smiled. At any rate Cody asked him a few questions (one of them elicited the brand new name) and found that he was quick and extravagantly ambitious. A few days later he took him to Duluth and bought him a blue coat, six pairs of white duck trousers, and a yachting cap. And when the Tuolomee left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast, Gatsby left too. He was employed in a vague personal capacitywhile he remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor, for Dan Cody sober knew what lavish doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about, and he provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years, during which the boat went three times around the Continent. It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a week later Dan Cody inhospitably died. I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby's bedroom, a grey, florid man with a hard, empty facethe pioneer debauchee, who during one phase of American life brought back to the Eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly due to Cody that Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in the course of gay parties women used to rub champagne into his hair for himself he formed the habit of letting liquor alone. And it was from Cody that he inherited moneya legacy of twentyfive thousand dollars. He didn't get it. He never understood the legal device that was used against him, but what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye. He was left with his singularly appropriate education the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man. He told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumours about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true. Moreover he told it to me at a time of confusion, when I had reached the point of believing everything and nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short halt, while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath, to clear this set of misconceptions away. It was a halt, too, in my association with his affairs. For several weeks I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phonemostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile auntbut finally I went over to his house one Sunday afternoon. I hadn't been there two minutes when somebody brought Tom Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, but the really surprising thing was that it hadn't happened before. They were a party of three on horsebackTom and a man named Sloane and a pretty woman in a brown ridinghabit, who had been there previously. 'I'm delighted to see you, said Gatsby, standing on his porch. 'I'm delighted that you dropped in. As though they cared! 'Sit right down. Have a cigarette or a cigar. He walked around the room quickly, ringing bells. 'I'll have something to drink for you in just a minute. He was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for. Mr. Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks I'm sorry 'Did you have a nice ride? 'Very good roads around here. 'I suppose the automobiles 'Yeah. Moved by an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as a stranger. 'I believe we've met somewhere before, Mr. Buchanan. 'Oh, yes, said Tom, gruffly polite, but obviously not remembering. 'So we did. I remember very well. 'About two weeks ago. 'That's right. You were with Nick here. 'I know your wife, continued Gatsby, almost aggressively. 'That so? Tom turned to me. 'You live near here, Nick? 'Next door. 'That so? Mr. Sloane didn't enter into the conversation, but lounged back haughtily in his chair the woman said nothing eitheruntil unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became cordial. 'We'll all come over to your next party, Mr. Gatsby, she suggested. 'What do you say? 'Certainly I'd be delighted to have you. 'Be ver' nice, said Mr. Sloane, without gratitude. 'Wellthink ought to be starting home. 'Please don't hurry, Gatsby urged them. He had control of himself now, and he wanted to see more of Tom. 'Why don't youwhy don't you stay for supper? I wouldn't be surprised if some other people dropped in from New York. 'You come to supper with me, said the lady enthusiastically. 'Both of you. This included me. Mr. Sloane got to his feet. 'Come along, he saidbut to her only. 'I mean it, she insisted. 'I'd love to have you. Lots of room. Gatsby looked at me questioningly. He wanted to go and he didn't see that Mr. Sloane had determined he shouldn't. 'I'm afraid I won't be able to, I said. 'Well, you come, she urged, concentrating on Gatsby. Mr. Sloane murmured something close to her ear. 'We won't be late if we start now, she insisted aloud. 'I haven't got a horse, said Gatsby. 'I used to ride in the army, but I've never bought a horse. I'll have to follow you in my car. Excuse me for just a minute. The rest of us walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady began an impassioned conversation aside. 'My God, I believe the man's coming, said Tom. 'Doesn't he know she doesn't want him? 'She says she does want him. 'She has a big dinner party and he won't know a soul there. He frowned. 'I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be oldfashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish. Suddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses. 'Come on, said Mr. Sloane to Tom, 'we're late. We've got to go. And then to me 'Tell him we couldn't wait, will you? Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy's running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressivenessit stands out in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same manycoloured, manykeyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy's eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment. They arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat. 'These things excite me so, she whispered. 'If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I'll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I'm giving out green 'Look around, suggested Gatsby. 'I'm looking around. I'm having a marvellous 'You must see the faces of many people you've heard about. Tom's arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. 'We don't go around very much, he said 'in fact, I was just thinking I don't know a soul here. 'Perhaps you know that lady. Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a whiteplum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. 'She's lovely, said Daisy. 'The man bending over her is her director. He took them ceremoniously from group to group 'Mrs. Buchanan and Mr. Buchanan After an instant's hesitation he added 'the polo player. 'Oh no, objected Tom quickly, 'not me. But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained 'the polo player for the rest of the evening. 'I've never met so many celebrities, Daisy exclaimed. 'I liked that manwhat was his name?with the sort of blue nose. Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. 'Well, I liked him anyhow. 'I'd a little rather not be the polo player, said Tom pleasantly, 'I'd rather look at all these famous people inin oblivion. Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrotI had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden. 'In case there's a fire or a flood, she explained, 'or any act of God. Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together. 'Do you mind if I eat with some people over here? he said. 'A fellow's getting off some funny stuff. 'Go ahead, answered Daisy genially, 'and if you want to take down any addresses here's my little gold pencil. She looked around after a moment and told me the girl was 'common but pretty, and I knew that except for the halfhour she'd been alone with Gatsby she wasn't having a good time. We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my faultGatsby had been called to the phone, and I'd enjoyed these same people only two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now. 'How do you feel, Miss Baedeker? The girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes. 'Wha'? A massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow, spoke in Miss Baedeker's defence 'Oh, she's all right now. When she's had five or six cocktails she always starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to leave it alone. 'I do leave it alone, affirmed the accused hollowly. 'We heard you yelling, so I said to Doc Civet here 'There's somebody that needs your help, Doc.'  'She's much obliged, I'm sure, said another friend, without gratitude, 'but you got her dress all wet when you stuck her head in the pool. 'Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool, mumbled Miss Baedeker. 'They almost drowned me once over in New Jersey. 'Then you ought to leave it alone, countered Doctor Civet. 'Speak for yourself! cried Miss Baedeker violently. 'Your hand shakes. I wouldn't let you operate on me! It was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the movingpicture director and his Star. They were still under the whiteplum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek. 'I like her, said Daisy, 'I think she's lovely. But the rest offended herand inarguably because it wasn't a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented 'place that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing villageappalled by its raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a shortcut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand. I sat on the front steps with them while they waited for their car. It was dark here in front only the bright door sent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressingroom blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged and powdered in an invisible glass. 'Who is this Gatsby anyhow? demanded Tom suddenly. 'Some big bootlegger? 'Where'd you hear that? I inquired. 'I didn't hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know. 'Not Gatsby, I said shortly. He was silent for a moment. The pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet. 'Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together. A breeze stirred the grey haze of Daisy's fur collar. 'At least they are more interesting than the people we know, she said with an effort. 'You didn't look so interested. 'Well, I was. Tom laughed and turned to me. 'Did you notice Daisy's face when that girl asked her to put her under a cold shower? Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again. When the melody rose her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air. 'Lots of people come who haven't been invited, she said suddenly. 'That girl hadn't been invited. They simply force their way in and he's too polite to object. 'I'd like to know who he is and what he does, insisted Tom. 'And I think I'll make a point of finding out. 'I can tell you right now, she answered. 'He owned some drugstores, a lot of drugstores. He built them up himself. The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive. 'Good night, Nick, said Daisy. Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps, where 'Three O'Clock in the Morning, a neat, sad little waltz of that year, was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness of Gatsby's party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours? Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and to be marvelled at, some authentically radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion. I stayed late that night. Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free, and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guestrooms overhead. When he came down the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired. 'She didn't like it, he said immediately. 'Of course she did. 'She didn't like it, he insisted. 'She didn't have a good time. He was silent, and I guessed at his unutterable depression. 'I feel far away from her, he said. 'It's hard to make her understand. 'You mean about the dance? 'The dance? He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers. 'Old sport, the dance is unimportant. He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say 'I never loved you. After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her housejust as if it were five years ago. 'And she doesn't understand, he said. 'She used to be able to understand. We'd sit for hours He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favours and crushed flowers. 'I wouldn't ask too much of her, I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past. 'Can't repeat the past? he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can! He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. 'I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before, he said, nodding determinedly. 'She'll see. He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was  One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the treeshe could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuningfork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of somethingan elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever. It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday nightand, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over. Only gradually did I become aware that the automobiles which turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a minute and then drove sulkily away. Wondering if he were sick I went over to find outan unfamiliar butler with a villainous face squinted at me suspiciously from the door. 'Is Mr. Gatsby sick? 'Nope. After a pause he added 'sir in a dilatory, grudging way. 'I hadn't seen him around, and I was rather worried. Tell him Mr. Carraway came over. 'Who? he demanded rudely. 'Carraway. 'Carraway. All right, I'll tell him. Abruptly he slammed the door. My Finn informed me that Gatsby had dismissed every servant in his house a week ago and replaced them with half a dozen others, who never went into West Egg village to be bribed by the tradesmen, but ordered moderate supplies over the telephone. The grocery boy reported that the kitchen looked like a pigsty, and the general opinion in the village was that the new people weren't servants at all. Next day Gatsby called me on the phone. 'Going away? I inquired. 'No, old sport. 'I hear you fired all your servants. 'I wanted somebody who wouldn't gossip. Daisy comes over quite oftenin the afternoons. So the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes. 'They're some people Wolfshiem wanted to do something for. They're all brothers and sisters. They used to run a small hotel. 'I see. He was calling up at Daisy's requestwould I come to lunch at her house tomorrow? Miss Baker would be there. Half an hour later Daisy herself telephoned and seemed relieved to find that I was coming. Something was up. And yet I couldn't believe that they would choose this occasion for a sceneespecially for the rather harrowing scene that Gatsby had outlined in the garden. The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer. As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon. The straw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion the woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into her white shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened under her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry. Her pocketbook slapped to the floor. 'Oh, my! she gasped. I picked it up with a weary bend and handed it back to her, holding it at arm's length and by the extreme tip of the corners to indicate that I had no designs upon itbut everyone near by, including the woman, suspected me just the same. 'Hot! said the conductor to familiar faces. 'Some weather! Hot! Hot! Hot! Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is it ? My commutation ticket came back to me with a dark stain from his hand. That anyone should care in this heat whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the pyjama pocket over his heart!  Through the hall of the Buchanans' house blew a faint wind, carrying the sound of the telephone bell out to Gatsby and me as we waited at the door. 'The master's body? roared the butler into the mouthpiece. 'I'm sorry, madame, but we can't furnish itit's far too hot to touch this noon! What he really said was 'Yes Yes I'll see. He set down the receiver and came toward us, glistening slightly, to take our stiff straw hats. 'Madame expects you in the salon! he cried, needlessly indicating the direction. In this heat every extra gesture was an affront to the common store of life. The room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark and cool. Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans. 'We can't move, they said together. Jordan's fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine. 'And Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the athlete? I inquired. Simultaneously I heard his voice, gruff, muffled, husky, at the hall telephone. Gatsby stood in the centre of the crimson carpet and gazed around with fascinated eyes. Daisy watched him and laughed, her sweet, exciting laugh a tiny gust of powder rose from her bosom into the air. 'The rumour is, whispered Jordan, 'that that's Tom's girl on the telephone. We were silent. The voice in the hall rose high with annoyance 'Very well, then, I won't sell you the car at all I'm under no obligations to you at all and as for your bothering me about it at lunch time, I won't stand that at all! 'Holding down the receiver, said Daisy cynically. 'No, he's not, I assured her. 'It's a bonafide deal. I happen to know about it. Tom flung open the door, blocked out its space for a moment with his thick body, and hurried into the room. 'Mr. Gatsby! He put out his broad, flat hand with wellconcealed dislike. 'I'm glad to see you, sir Nick 'Make us a cold drink, cried Daisy. As he left the room again she got up and went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down, kissing him on the mouth. 'You know I love you, she murmured. 'You forget there's a lady present, said Jordan. Daisy looked around doubtfully. 'You kiss Nick too. 'What a low, vulgar girl! 'I don't care! cried Daisy, and began to clog on the brick fireplace. Then she remembered the heat and sat down guiltily on the couch just as a freshly laundered nurse leading a little girl came into the room. 'Blessed precious, she crooned, holding out her arms. 'Come to your own mother that loves you. The child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mother's dress. 'The blessed precious! Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair? Stand up now, and sayHowdedo. Gatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small reluctant hand. Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don't think he had ever really believed in its existence before. 'I got dressed before luncheon, said the child, turning eagerly to Daisy. 'That's because your mother wanted to show you off. Her face bent into the single wrinkle of the small white neck. 'You dream, you. You absolute little dream. 'Yes, admitted the child calmly. 'Aunt Jordan's got on a white dress too. 'How do you like mother's friends? Daisy turned her around so that she faced Gatsby. 'Do you think they're pretty? 'Where's Daddy? 'She doesn't look like her father, explained Daisy. 'She looks like me. She's got my hair and shape of the face. Daisy sat back upon the couch. The nurse took a step forward and held out her hand. 'Come, Pammy. 'Goodbye, sweetheart! With a reluctant backward glance the welldisciplined child held to her nurse's hand and was pulled out the door, just as Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice. Gatsby took up his drink. 'They certainly look cool, he said, with visible tension. We drank in long, greedy swallows. 'I read somewhere that the sun's getting hotter every year, said Tom genially. 'It seems that pretty soon the earth's going to fall into the sunor wait a minuteit's just the oppositethe sun's getting colder every year. 'Come outside, he suggested to Gatsby, 'I'd like you to have a look at the place. I went with them out to the veranda. On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea. Gatsby's eyes followed it momentarily he raised his hand and pointed across the bay. 'I'm right across from you. 'So you are. Our eyes lifted over the rosebeds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dogdays alongshore. Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky. Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles. 'There's sport for you, said Tom, nodding. 'I'd like to be out there with him for about an hour. We had luncheon in the diningroom, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gaiety with the cold ale. 'What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon? cried Daisy, 'and the day after that, and the next thirty years? 'Don't be morbid, Jordan said. 'Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. 'But it's so hot, insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, 'and everything's so confused. Let's all go to town! Her voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, moulding its senselessness into forms. 'I've heard of making a garage out of a stable, Tom was saying to Gatsby, 'but I'm the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage. 'Who wants to go to town? demanded Daisy insistently. Gatsby's eyes floated toward her. 'Ah, she cried, 'you look so cool. Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table. 'You always look so cool, she repeated. She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago. 'You resemble the advertisement of the man, she went on innocently. 'You know the advertisement of the man 'All right, broke in Tom quickly, 'I'm perfectly willing to go to town. Come onwe're all going to town. He got up, his eyes still flashing between Gatsby and his wife. No one moved. 'Come on! His temper cracked a little. 'What's the matter, anyhow? If we're going to town, let's start. His hand, trembling with his effort at selfcontrol, bore to his lips the last of his glass of ale. Daisy's voice got us to our feet and out on to the blazing gravel drive. 'Are we just going to go? she objected. 'Like this? Aren't we going to let anyone smoke a cigarette first? 'Everybody smoked all through lunch. 'Oh, let's have fun, she begged him. 'It's too hot to fuss. He didn't answer. 'Have it your own way, she said. 'Come on, Jordan. They went upstairs to get ready while we three men stood there shuffling the hot pebbles with our feet. A silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky. Gatsby started to speak, changed his mind, but not before Tom wheeled and faced him expectantly. 'Have you got your stables here? asked Gatsby with an effort. 'About a quarter of a mile down the road. 'Oh. A pause. 'I don't see the idea of going to town, broke out Tom savagely. 'Women get these notions in their heads 'Shall we take anything to drink? called Daisy from an upper window. 'I'll get some whisky, answered Tom. He went inside. Gatsby turned to me rigidly 'I can't say anything in his house, old sport. 'She's got an indiscreet voice, I remarked. 'It's full of I hesitated. 'Her voice is full of money, he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of moneythat was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl Tom came out of the house wrapping a quart bottle in a towel, followed by Daisy and Jordan wearing small tight hats of metallic cloth and carrying light capes over their arms. 'Shall we all go in my car? suggested Gatsby. He felt the hot, green leather of the seat. 'I ought to have left it in the shade. 'Is it standard shift? demanded Tom. 'Yes. 'Well, you take my coup and let me drive your car to town. The suggestion was distasteful to Gatsby. 'I don't think there's much gas, he objected. 'Plenty of gas, said Tom boisterously. He looked at the gauge. 'And if it runs out I can stop at a drugstore. You can buy anything at a drugstore nowadays. A pause followed this apparently pointless remark. Daisy looked at Tom frowning, and an indefinable expression, at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable, as if I had only heard it described in words, passed over Gatsby's face. 'Come on, Daisy said Tom, pressing her with his hand toward Gatsby's car. 'I'll take you in this circus wagon. He opened the door, but she moved out from the circle of his arm. 'You take Nick and Jordan. We'll follow you in the coup. She walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan and Tom and I got into the front seat of Gatsby's car, Tom pushed the unfamiliar gears tentatively, and we shot off into the oppressive heat, leaving them out of sight behind. 'Did you see that? demanded Tom. 'See what? He looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must have known all along. 'You think I'm pretty dumb, don't you? he suggested. 'Perhaps I am, but I have aalmost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to do. Maybe you don't believe that, but science He paused. The immediate contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the edge of theoretical abyss. 'I've made a small investigation of this fellow, he continued. 'I could have gone deeper if I'd known 'Do you mean you've been to a medium? inquired Jordan humorously. 'What? Confused, he stared at us as we laughed. 'A medium? 'About Gatsby. 'About Gatsby! No, I haven't. I said I'd been making a small investigation of his past. 'And you found he was an Oxford man, said Jordan helpfully. 'An Oxford man! He was incredulous. 'Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit. 'Nevertheless he's an Oxford man. 'Oxford, New Mexico, snorted Tom contemptuously, 'or something like that. 'Listen, Tom. If you're such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch? demanded Jordan crossly. 'Daisy invited him she knew him before we were marriedGod knows where! We were all irritable now with the fading ale, and aware of it we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg's faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby's caution about gasoline. 'We've got enough to get us to town, said Tom. 'But there's a garage right here, objected Jordan. 'I don't want to get stalled in this baking heat. Tom threw on both brakes impatiently, and we slid to an abrupt dusty stop under Wilson's sign. After a moment the proprietor emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed holloweyed at the car. 'Let's have some gas! cried Tom roughly. 'What do you think we stopped forto admire the view? 'I'm sick, said Wilson without moving. 'Been sick all day. 'What's the matter? 'I'm all run down. 'Well, shall I help myself? Tom demanded. 'You sounded well enough on the phone. With an effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight his face was green. 'I didn't mean to interrupt your lunch, he said. 'But I need money pretty bad, and I was wondering what you were going to do with your old car. 'How do you like this one? inquired Tom. 'I bought it last week. 'It's a nice yellow one, said Wilson, as he strained at the handle. 'Like to buy it? 'Big chance, Wilson smiled faintly. 'No, but I could make some money on the other. 'What do you want money for, all of a sudden? 'I've been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go West. 'Your wife does, exclaimed Tom, startled. 'She's been talking about it for ten years. He rested for a moment against the pump, shading his eyes. 'And now she's going whether she wants to or not. I'm going to get her away. The coup flashed by us with a flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand. 'What do I owe you? demanded Tom harshly. 'I just got wised up to something funny the last two days, remarked Wilson. 'That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering you about the car. 'What do I owe you? 'Dollar twenty. The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour beforeand it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guiltyas if he had just got some poor girl with child. 'I'll let you have that car, said Tom. 'I'll send it over tomorrow afternoon. That locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away. In one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car. So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed, and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly developing picture. Her expression was curiously familiarit was an expression I had often seen on women's faces, but on Myrtle Wilson's face it seemed purposeless and inexplicable until I realized that her eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his wife. There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. Instinct made him step on the accelerator with the double purpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving Wilson behind, and we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour, until, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in sight of the easygoing blue coup. 'Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool, suggested Jordan. 'I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something very sensuous about itoverripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands. The word 'sensuous had the effect of further disquieting Tom, but before he could invent a protest the coup came to a stop, and Daisy signalled us to draw up alongside. 'Where are we going? she cried. 'How about the movies? 'It's so hot, she complained. 'You go. We'll ride around and meet you after. With an effort her wit rose faintly. 'We'll meet you on some corner. I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes. 'We can't argue about it here, Tom said impatiently, as a truck gave out a cursing whistle behind us. 'You follow me to the south side of Central Park, in front of the Plaza. Several times he turned his head and looked back for their car, and if the traffic delayed them he slowed up until they came into sight. I think he was afraid they would dart down a sidestreet and out of his life forever. But they didn't. And we all took the less explicable step of engaging the parlour of a suite in the Plaza Hotel. The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back. The notion originated with Daisy's suggestion that we hire five bathrooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible form as 'a place to have a mint julep. Each of us said over and over that it was a 'crazy ideawe all talked at once to a baffled clerk and thought, or pretended to think, that we were being very funny The room was large and stifling, and, though it was already four o'clock, opening the windows admitted only a gust of hot shrubbery from the Park. Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her hair. 'It's a swell suite, whispered Jordan respectfully, and everyone laughed. 'Open another window, commanded Daisy, without turning around. 'There aren't any more. 'Well, we'd better telephone for an axe 'The thing to do is to forget about the heat, said Tom impatiently. 'You make it ten times worse by crabbing about it. He unrolled the bottle of whisky from the towel and put it on the table. 'Why not let her alone, old sport? remarked Gatsby. 'You're the one that wanted to come to town. There was a moment of silence. The telephone book slipped from its nail and splashed to the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, 'Excuse mebut this time no one laughed. 'I'll pick it up, I offered. 'I've got it. Gatsby examined the parted string, muttered 'Hum! in an interested way, and tossed the book on a chair. 'That's a great expression of yours, isn't it? said Tom sharply. 'What is? 'All this 'old sport' business. Where'd you pick that up? 'Now see here, Tom, said Daisy, turning around from the mirror, 'if you're going to make personal remarks I won't stay here a minute. Call up and order some ice for the mint julep. As Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat exploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn's Wedding March from the ballroom below. 'Imagine marrying anybody in this heat! cried Jordan dismally. 'StillI was married in the middle of June, Daisy remembered. 'Louisville in June! Somebody fainted. Who was it fainted, Tom? 'Biloxi, he answered shortly. 'A man named Biloxi. 'Blocks' Biloxi, and he made boxesthat's a factand he was from Biloxi, Tennessee. 'They carried him into my house, appended Jordan, 'because we lived just two doors from the church. And he stayed three weeks, until Daddy told him he had to get out. The day after he left Daddy died. After a moment she added. 'There wasn't any connection. 'I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis, I remarked. 'That was his cousin. I knew his whole family history before he left. He gave me an aluminium putter that I use today. The music had died down as the ceremony began and now a long cheer floated in at the window, followed by intermittent cries of 'Yeaeaea! and finally by a burst of jazz as the dancing began. 'We're getting old, said Daisy. 'If we were young we'd rise and dance. 'Remember Biloxi, Jordan warned her. 'Where'd you know him, Tom? 'Biloxi? He concentrated with an effort. 'I didn't know him. He was a friend of Daisy's. 'He was not, she denied. 'I'd never seen him before. He came down in the private car. 'Well, he said he knew you. He said he was raised in Louisville. Asa Bird brought him around at the last minute and asked if we had room for him. Jordan smiled. 'He was probably bumming his way home. He told me he was president of your class at Yale. Tom and I looked at each other blankly. 'Biloxi? 'First place, we didn't have any president Gatsby's foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom eyed him suddenly. 'By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you're an Oxford man. 'Not exactly. 'Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford. 'YesI went there. A pause. Then Tom's voice, incredulous and insulting 'You must have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven. Another pause. A waiter knocked and came in with crushed mint and ice but the silence was unbroken by his 'thank you and the soft closing of the door. This tremendous detail was to be cleared up at last. 'I told you I went there, said Gatsby. 'I heard you, but I'd like to know when. 'It was in nineteennineteen, I only stayed five months. That's why I can't really call myself an Oxford man. Tom glanced around to see if we mirrored his unbelief. But we were all looking at Gatsby. 'It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers after the armistice, he continued. 'We could go to any of the universities in England or France. I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I'd experienced before. Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table. 'Open the whisky, Tom, she ordered, 'and I'll make you a mint julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself Look at the mint! 'Wait a minute, snapped Tom, 'I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question. 'Go on, Gatsby said politely. 'What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow? They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content. 'He isn't causing a row, Daisy looked desperately from one to the other. 'You're causing a row. Please have a little selfcontrol. 'Selfcontrol! repeated Tom incredulously. 'I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization. 'We're all white here, murmured Jordan. 'I know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friendsin the modern world. Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete. 'I've got something to tell you, old sport began Gatsby. But Daisy guessed at his intention. 'Please don't! she interrupted helplessly. 'Please let's all go home. Why don't we all go home? 'That's a good idea, I got up. 'Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink. 'I want to know what Mr. Gatsby has to tell me. 'Your wife doesn't love you, said Gatsby. 'She's never loved you. She loves me. 'You must be crazy! exclaimed Tom automatically. Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement. 'She never loved you, do you hear? he cried. 'She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me! At this point Jordan and I tried to go, but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive firmness that we remainas though neither of them had anything to conceal and it would be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions. 'Sit down, Daisy, Tom's voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. 'What's been going on? I want to hear all about it. 'I told you what's been going on, said Gatsby. 'Going on for five yearsand you didn't know. Tom turned to Daisy sharply. 'You've been seeing this fellow for five years? 'Not seeing, said Gatsby. 'No, we couldn't meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old sport, and you didn't know. I used to laugh sometimesbut there was no laughter in his eyes'to think that you didn't know. 'Ohthat's all. Tom tapped his thick fingers together like a clergyman and leaned back in his chair. 'You're crazy! he exploded. 'I can't speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn't know Daisy thenand I'll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that's a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now. 'No, said Gatsby, shaking his head. 'She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn't know what she's doing. He nodded sagely. 'And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time. 'You're revolting, said Daisy. She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn 'Do you know why we left Chicago? I'm surprised that they didn't treat you to the story of that little spree. Gatsby walked over and stood beside her. 'Daisy, that's all over now, he said earnestly. 'It doesn't matter any more. Just tell him the truththat you never loved himand it's all wiped out forever. She looked at him blindly. 'Whyhow could I love himpossibly? 'You never loved him. She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doingand as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now. It was too late. 'I never loved him, she said, with perceptible reluctance. 'Not at Kapiolani? demanded Tom suddenly. 'No. From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air. 'Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry? There was a husky tenderness in his tone 'Daisy? 'Please don't. Her voice was cold, but the rancour was gone from it. She looked at Gatsby. 'There, Jay, she saidbut her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the carpet. 'Oh, you want too much! she cried to Gatsby. 'I love you nowisn't that enough? I can't help what's past. She began to sob helplessly. 'I did love him oncebut I loved you too. Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. 'You loved me too? he repeated. 'Even that's a lie, said Tom savagely. 'She didn't know you were alive. Whythere's things between Daisy and me that you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget. The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby. 'I want to speak to Daisy alone, he insisted. 'She's all excited now 'Even alone I can't say I never loved Tom, she admitted in a pitiful voice. 'It wouldn't be true. 'Of course it wouldn't, agreed Tom. She turned to her husband. 'As if it mattered to you, she said. 'Of course it matters. I'm going to take better care of you from now on. 'You don't understand, said Gatsby, with a touch of panic. 'You're not going to take care of her any more. 'I'm not? Tom opened his eyes wide and laughed. He could afford to control himself now. 'Why's that? 'Daisy's leaving you. 'Nonsense. 'I am, though, she said with a visible effort. 'She's not leaving me! Tom's words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby. 'Certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he put on her finger. 'I won't stand this! cried Daisy. 'Oh, please let's get out. 'Who are you, anyhow? broke out Tom. 'You're one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiemthat much I happen to know. I've made a little investigation into your affairsand I'll carry it further tomorrow. 'You can suit yourself about that, old sport, said Gatsby steadily. 'I found out what your 'drugstores' were. He turned to us and spoke rapidly. 'He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of sidestreet drugstores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong. 'What about it? said Gatsby politely. 'I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too proud to come in on it. 'And you left him in the lurch, didn't you? You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of you. 'He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old sport. 'Don't you call me 'old sport'! cried Tom. Gatsby said nothing. 'Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfshiem scared him into shutting his mouth. That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby's face. 'That drugstore business was just small change, continued Tom slowly, 'but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to tell me about. I glanced at Daisy, who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan, who had begun to balance an invisible but absorbing object on the tip of her chin. Then I turned back to Gatsbyand was startled at his expression. He lookedand this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander of his gardenas if he had 'killed a man. For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that fantastic way. It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made. But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room. The voice begged again to go. 'Please, Tom! I can't stand this any more. Her frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage she had had, were definitely gone. 'You two start on home, Daisy, said Tom. 'In Mr. Gatsby's car. She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn. 'Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over. They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity. After a moment Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whisky in the towel. 'Want any of this stuff? Jordan? Nick? I didn't answer. 'Nick? He asked again. 'What? 'Want any? 'No I just remembered that today's my birthday. I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. It was seven o'clock when we got into the coup with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirtythe promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry wellforgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat's shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand. So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight. The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the ashheaps was the principal witness at the inquest. He had slept through the heat until after five, when he strolled over to the garage, and found George Wilson sick in his officereally sick, pale as his own pale hair and shaking all over. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused, saying that he'd miss a lot of business if he did. While his neighbour was trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead. 'I've got my wife locked in up there, explained Wilson calmly. 'She's going to stay there till the day after tomorrow, and then we're going to move away. Michaelis was astonished they had been neighbours for four years, and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement. Generally he was one of these wornout men when he wasn't working, he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When anyone spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colourless way. He was his wife's man and not his own. So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but Wilson wouldn't say a wordinstead he began to throw curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and ask him what he'd been doing at certain times on certain days. Just as the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came past the door bound for his restaurant, and Michaelis took the opportunity to get away, intending to come back later. But he didn't. He supposed he forgot to, that's all. When he came outside again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he heard Mrs. Wilson's voice, loud and scolding, downstairs in the garage. 'Beat me! he heard her cry. 'Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward! A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shoutingbefore he could move from his door the business was over. The 'death car as the newspapers called it, didn't stop it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend. Mavro Michaelis wasn't even sure of its colourhe told the first policeman that it was light green. The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust. Michaelis and this man reached her first, but when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped a little at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long. We saw the three or four automobiles and the crowd when we were still some distance away. 'Wreck! said Tom. 'That's good. Wilson'll have a little business at last. He slowed down, but still without any intention of stopping, until, as we came nearer, the hushed, intent faces of the people at the garage door made him automatically put on the brakes. 'We'll take a look, he said doubtfully, 'just a look. I became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound which issued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got out of the coup and walked toward the door resolved itself into the words 'Oh, my God! uttered over and over in a gasping moan. 'There's some bad trouble here, said Tom excitedly. He reached up on tiptoes and peered over a circle of heads into the garage, which was lit only by a yellow light in a swinging metal basket overhead. Then he made a harsh sound in his throat, and with a violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms pushed his way through. The circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation it was a minute before I could see anything at all. Then new arrivals deranged the line, and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside. Myrtle Wilson's body, wrapped in a blanket, and then in another blanket, as though she suffered from a chill in the hot night, lay on a worktable by the wall, and Tom, with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. Next to him stood a motorcycle policeman taking down names with much sweat and correction in a little book. At first I couldn't find the source of the high, groaning words that echoed clamorously through the bare garagethen I saw Wilson standing on the raised threshold of his office, swaying back and forth and holding to the doorposts with both hands. Some man was talking to him in a low voice and attempting, from time to time, to lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall, and then jerk back to the light again, and he gave out incessantly his high, horrible call 'Oh, my Gaod! Oh, my Gaod! Oh, Gaod! Oh, my Gaod! Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and, after staring around the garage with glazed eyes, addressed a mumbled incoherent remark to the policeman. 'Mav the policeman was saying, 'o 'No, r corrected the man, 'Mavro 'Listen to me! muttered Tom fiercely. 'r said the policeman, 'o 'g 'g He looked up as Tom's broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder. 'What you want, fella? 'What happened?that's what I want to know. 'Auto hit her. Ins'antly killed. 'Instantly killed, repeated Tom, staring. 'She ran out ina road. Sonofabitch didn't even stopus car. 'There was two cars, said Michaelis, 'one comin', one goin', see? 'Going where? asked the policeman keenly. 'One goin' each way. Well, shehis hand rose toward the blankets but stopped halfway and fell to his side'she ran out there an' the one comin' from N'York knock right into her, goin' thirty or forty miles an hour. 'What's the name of this place here? demanded the officer. 'Hasn't got any name. A pale welldressed negro stepped near. 'It was a yellow car, he said, 'big yellow car. New. 'See the accident? asked the policeman. 'No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster'n forty. Going fifty, sixty. 'Come here and let's have your name. Look out now. I want to get his name. Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson, swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice among his grasping cries 'You don't have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know what kind of car it was! Watching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms. 'You've got to pull yourself together, he said with soothing gruffness. Wilson's eyes fell upon Tom he started up on his tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom held him upright. 'Listen, said Tom, shaking him a little. 'I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coup we've been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn't minedo you hear? I haven't seen it all afternoon. Only the negro and I were near enough to hear what he said, but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes. 'What's all that? he demanded. 'I'm a friend of his. Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson's body. 'He says he knows the car that did it It was a yellow car. Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom. 'And what colour's your car? 'It's a blue car, a coup. 'We've come straight from New York, I said. Someone who had been driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away. 'Now, if you'll let me have that name again correct Picking up Wilson like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and came back. 'If somebody'll come here and sit with him, he snapped authoritatively. He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at each other and went unwillingly into the room. Then Tom shut the door on them and came down the single step, his eyes avoiding the table. As he passed close to me he whispered 'Let's get out. Selfconsciously, with his authoritative arms breaking the way, we pushed through the still gathering crowd, passing a hurried doctor, case in hand, who had been sent for in wild hope half an hour ago. Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bendthen his foot came down hard, and the coup raced along through the night. In a little while I heard a low husky sob, and saw that the tears were overflowing down his face. 'The God damned coward! he whimpered. 'He didn't even stop his car. The Buchanans' house floated suddenly toward us through the dark rustling trees. Tom stopped beside the porch and looked up at the second floor, where two windows bloomed with light among the vines. 'Daisy's home, he said. As we got out of the car he glanced at me and frowned slightly. 'I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. There's nothing we can do tonight. A change had come over him, and he spoke gravely, and with decision. As we walked across the moonlight gravel to the porch he disposed of the situation in a few brisk phrases. 'I'll telephone for a taxi to take you home, and while you're waiting you and Jordan better go in the kitchen and have them get you some supperif you want any. He opened the door. 'Come in. 'No, thanks. But I'd be glad if you'd order me the taxi. I'll wait outside. Jordan put her hand on my arm. 'Won't you come in, Nick? 'No, thanks. I was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. But Jordan lingered for a moment more. 'It's only halfpast nine, she said. I'd be damned if I'd go in I'd had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too. She must have seen something of this in my expression, for she turned abruptly away and ran up the porch steps into the house. I sat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands, until I heard the phone taken up inside and the butler's voice calling a taxi. Then I walked slowly down the drive away from the house, intending to wait by the gate. I hadn't gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped from between two bushes into the path. I must have felt pretty weird by that time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon. 'What are you doing? I inquired. 'Just standing here, old sport. Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For all I knew he was going to rob the house in a moment I wouldn't have been surprised to see sinister faces, the faces of 'Wolfshiem's people, behind him in the dark shrubbery. 'Did you see any trouble on the road? he asked after a minute. 'Yes. He hesitated. 'Was she killed? 'Yes. 'I thought so I told Daisy I thought so. It's better that the shock should all come at once. She stood it pretty well. He spoke as if Daisy's reaction was the only thing that mattered. 'I got to West Egg by a side road, he went on, 'and left the car in my garage. I don't think anybody saw us, but of course I can't be sure. I disliked him so much by this time that I didn't find it necessary to tell him he was wrong. 'Who was the woman? he inquired. 'Her name was Wilson. Her husband owns the garage. How the devil did it happen? 'Well, I tried to swing the wheel He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth. 'Was Daisy driving? 'Yes, he said after a moment, 'but of course I'll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to driveand this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way. It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shockit must have killed her instantly. 'It ripped her open 'Don't tell me, old sport. He winced. 'AnyhowDaisy stepped on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn't, so I pulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on. 'She'll be all right tomorrow, he said presently. 'I'm just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. She's locked herself into her room, and if he tries any brutality she's going to turn the light out and on again. 'He won't touch her, I said. 'He's not thinking about her. 'I don't trust him, old sport. 'How long are you going to wait? 'All night, if necessary. Anyhow, till they all go to bed. A new point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found out that Daisy had been driving. He might think he saw a connection in ithe might think anything. I looked at the house there were two or three bright windows downstairs and the pink glow from Daisy's room on the ground floor. 'You wait here, I said. 'I'll see if there's any sign of a commotion. I walked back along the border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly, and tiptoed up the veranda steps. The drawingroom curtains were open, and I saw that the room was empty. Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before, I came to a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill. Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them, and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement. They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the aleand yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. As I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi feeling its way along the dark road toward the house. Gatsby was waiting where I had left him in the drive. 'Is it all quiet up there? he asked anxiously. 'Yes, it's all quiet. I hesitated. 'You'd better come home and get some sleep. He shook his head. 'I want to wait here till Daisy goes to bed. Good night, old sport. He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlightwatching over nothing. I couldn't sleep all night a foghorn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed halfsick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby's drive, and immediately I jumped out of bed and began to dressI felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him about, and morning would be too late. Crossing his lawn, I saw that his front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall, heavy with dejection or sleep. 'Nothing happened, he said wanly. 'I waited, and about four o'clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light. His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switchesonce I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn't been aired for many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table, with two stale, dry cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French windows of the drawingroom, we sat smoking out into the darkness. 'You ought to go away, I said. 'It's pretty certain they'll trace your car. 'Go away now, old sport? 'Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal. He wouldn't consider it. He couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free. It was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Codytold it to me because 'Jay Gatsby had broken up like glass against Tom's hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted to talk about Daisy. She was the first 'nice girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed himhe had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity, was that Daisy lived thereit was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motorcars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisyit increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions. But he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulouslyeventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand. He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretences. I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security he let her believe that he was a person from much the same strata as herselfthat he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilitieshe had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world. But he didn't despise himself and it didn't turn out as he had imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and gobut now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a 'nice girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsbynothing. He felt married to her, that was all. When they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was, somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of starshine the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor. 'I can't describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she'd throw me over, but she didn't, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do? On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep. He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machineguns. After the armistice he tried frantically to get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried nowthere was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters. She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all. For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the 'Beale Street Blues while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the grey tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor. Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an eveningdress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediatelyand the decision must be made by some forceof love, of money, of unquestionable practicalitythat was close at hand. That force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan. There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position, and Daisy was flattered. Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief. The letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford. It was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with greyturning, goldturning light. The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves. There was a slow, pleasant movement in the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool, lovely day. 'I don't think she ever loved him. Gatsby turned around from a window and looked at me challengingly. 'You must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon. He told her those things in a way that frightened herthat made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew what she was saying. He sat down gloomily. 'Of course she might have loved him just for a minute, when they were first marriedand loved me more even then, do you see? Suddenly he came out with a curious remark. 'In any case, he said, 'it was just personal. What could you make of that, except to suspect some intensity in his conception of the affair that couldn't be measured? He came back from France when Tom and Daisy were still on their wedding trip, and made a miserable but irresistible journey to Louisville on the last of his army pay. He stayed there a week, walking the streets where their footsteps had clicked together through the November night and revisiting the outoftheway places to which they had driven in her white car. Just as Daisy's house had always seemed to him more mysterious and gay than other houses, so his idea of the city itself, even though she was gone from it, was pervaded with a melancholy beauty. He left feeling that if he had searched harder, he might have found herthat he was leaving her behind. The daycoachhe was penniless nowwas hot. He went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a foldingchair, and the station slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by. Then out into the spring fields, where a yellow trolley raced them for a minute with people in it who might once have seen the pale magic of her face along the casual street. The track curved and now it was going away from the sun, which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever. It was nine o'clock when we finished breakfast and went out on the porch. The night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavour in the air. The gardener, the last one of Gatsby's former servants, came to the foot of the steps. 'I'm going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves'll start falling pretty soon, and then there's always trouble with the pipes. 'Don't do it today, Gatsby answered. He turned to me apologetically. 'You know, old sport, I've never used that pool all summer? I looked at my watch and stood up. 'Twelve minutes to my train. I didn't want to go to the city. I wasn't worth a decent stroke of work, but it was more than thatI didn't want to leave Gatsby. I missed that train, and then another, before I could get myself away. 'I'll call you up, I said finally. 'Do, old sport. 'I'll call you about noon. We walked slowly down the steps. 'I suppose Daisy'll call too. He looked at me anxiously, as if he hoped I'd corroborate this. 'I suppose so. 'Well, goodbye. We shook hands and I started away. Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around. 'They're a rotten crowd, I shouted across the lawn. 'You're worth the whole damn bunch put together. I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we'd been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time. His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of colour against the white steps, and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home, three months before. The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruptionand he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them goodbye. I thanked him for his hospitality. We were always thanking him for thatI and the others. 'Goodbye, I called. 'I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby. Up in the city, I tried for a while to list the quotations on an interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in my swivelchair. Just before noon the phone woke me, and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golflinks had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry. 'I've left Daisy's house, she said. 'I'm at Hempstead, and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon. Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but the act annoyed me, and her next remark made me rigid. 'You weren't so nice to me last night. 'How could it have mattered then? Silence for a moment. Then 'HoweverI want to see you. 'I want to see you, too. 'Suppose I don't go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon? 'NoI don't think this afternoon. 'Very well. 'It's impossible this afternoon. Various We talked like that for a while, and then abruptly we weren't talking any longer. I don't know which of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didn't care. I couldn't have talked to her across a teatable that day if I never talked to her again in this world. I called Gatsby's house a few minutes later, but the line was busy. I tried four times finally an exasperated central told me the wire was being kept open for long distance from Detroit. Taking out my timetable, I drew a small circle around the threefifty train. Then I leaned back in my chair and tried to think. It was just noon. When I passed the ashheaps on the train that morning I had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car. I supposed there'd be a curious crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark spots in the dust, and some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened, until it became less and less real even to him and he could tell it no longer, and Myrtle Wilson's tragic achievement was forgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage after we left there the night before. They had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine. She must have broken her rule against drinking that night, for when she arrived she was stupid with liquor and unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing. When they convinced her of this, she immediately fainted, as if that was the intolerable part of the affair. Someone, kind or curious, took her in his car and drove her in the wake of her sister's body. Until long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up against the front of the garage, while George Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the door of the office was open, and everyone who came into the garage glanced irresistibly through it. Finally someone said it was a shame, and closed the door. Michaelis and several other men were with him first, four or five men, later two or three men. Still later Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to wait there fifteen minutes longer, while he went back to his own place and made a pot of coffee. After that, he stayed there alone with Wilson until dawn. About three o'clock the quality of Wilson's incoherent muttering changedhe grew quieter and began to talk about the yellow car. He announced that he had a way of finding out whom the yellow car belonged to, and then he blurted out that a couple of months ago his wife had come from the city with her face bruised and her nose swollen. But when he heard himself say this, he flinched and began to cry 'Oh, my God! again in his groaning voice. Michaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him. 'How long have you been married, George? Come on there, try and sit still a minute, and answer my question. How long have you been married? 'Twelve years. 'Ever had any children? Come on, George, sit stillI asked you a question. Did you ever have any children? The hard brown beetles kept thudding against the dull light, and whenever Michaelis heard a car go tearing along the road outside it sounded to him like the car that hadn't stopped a few hours before. He didn't like to go into the garage, because the work bench was stained where the body had been lying, so he moved uncomfortably around the officehe knew every object in it before morningand from time to time sat down beside Wilson trying to keep him more quiet. 'Have you got a church you go to sometimes, George? Maybe even if you haven't been there for a long time? Maybe I could call up the church and get a priest to come over and he could talk to you, see? 'Don't belong to any. 'You ought to have a church, George, for times like this. You must have gone to church once. Didn't you get married in a church? Listen, George, listen to me. Didn't you get married in a church? 'That was a long time ago. The effort of answering broke the rhythm of his rockingfor a moment he was silent. Then the same halfknowing, halfbewildered look came back into his faded eyes. 'Look in the drawer there, he said, pointing at the desk. 'Which drawer? 'That drawerthat one. Michaelis opened the drawer nearest his hand. There was nothing in it but a small, expensive dogleash, made of leather and braided silver. It was apparently new. 'This? he inquired, holding it up. Wilson stared and nodded. 'I found it yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about it, but I knew it was something funny. 'You mean your wife bought it? 'She had it wrapped in tissue paper on her bureau. Michaelis didn't see anything odd in that, and he gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might have bought the dogleash. But conceivably Wilson had heard some of these same explanations before, from Myrtle, because he began saying 'Oh, my God! again in a whisperhis comforter left several explanations in the air. 'Then he killed her, said Wilson. His mouth dropped open suddenly. 'Who did? 'I have a way of finding out. 'You're morbid, George, said his friend. 'This has been a strain to you and you don't know what you're saying. You'd better try and sit quiet till morning. 'He murdered her. 'It was an accident, George. Wilson shook his head. His eyes narrowed and his mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior 'Hm! 'I know, he said definitely. 'I'm one of these trusting fellas and I don't think any harm to nobody, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop. Michaelis had seen this too, but it hadn't occurred to him that there was any special significance in it. He believed that Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car. 'How could she of been like that? 'She's a deep one, said Wilson, as if that answered the question. 'Ahhh He began to rock again, and Michaelis stood twisting the leash in his hand. 'Maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for, George? This was a forlorn hopehe was almost sure that Wilson had no friend there was not enough of him for his wife. He was glad a little later when he noticed a change in the room, a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn't far off. About five o'clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light. Wilson's glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small grey clouds took on fantastic shapes and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind. 'I spoke to her, he muttered, after a long silence. 'I told her she might fool me but she couldn't fool God. I took her to the windowwith an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it'and I said 'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!'  Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. 'God sees everything, repeated Wilson. 'That's an advertisement, Michaelis assured him. Something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room. But Wilson stood there a long time, his face close to the window pane, nodding into the twilight. By six o'clock Michaelis was worn out, and grateful for the sound of a car stopping outside. It was one of the watchers of the night before who had promised to come back, so he cooked breakfast for three, which he and the other man ate together. Wilson was quieter now, and Michaelis went home to sleep when he awoke four hours later and hurried back to the garage, Wilson was gone. His movementshe was on foot all the timewere afterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad's Hill, where he bought a sandwich that he didn't eat, and a cup of coffee. He must have been tired and walking slowly, for he didn't reach Gad's Hill until noon. Thus far there was no difficulty in accounting for his timethere were boys who had seen a man 'acting sort of crazy, and motorists at whom he stared oddly from the side of the road. Then for three hours he disappeared from view. The police, on the strength of what he said to Michaelis, that he 'had a way of finding out, supposed that he spent that time going from garage to garage thereabout, inquiring for a yellow car. On the other hand, no garage man who had seen him ever came forward, and perhaps he had an easier, surer way of finding out what he wanted to know. By halfpast two he was in West Egg, where he asked someone the way to Gatsby's house. So by that time he knew Gatsby's name. At two o'clock Gatsby put on his bathingsuit and left word with the butler that if anyone phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool. He stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the summer, and the chauffeur helped him to pump it up. Then he gave instructions that the open car wasn't to be taken out under any circumstancesand this was strange, because the front right fender needed repair. Gatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool. Once he stopped and shifted it a little, and the chauffeur asked him if he needed help, but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees. No telephone message arrived, but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clockuntil long after there was anyone to give it to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees. The chauffeurhe was one of Wolfshiem's protgsheard the shotsafterwards he could only say that he hadn't thought anything much about them. I drove from the station directly to Gatsby's house and my rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed anyone. But they knew then, I firmly believe. With scarcely a word said, four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener, and I hurried down to the pool. There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of transit, a thin red circle in the water. It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete. After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and photographers and newspaper men in and out of Gatsby's front door. A rope stretched across the main gate and a policeman by it kept out the curious, but little boys soon discovered that they could enter through my yard, and there were always a few of them clustered openmouthed about the pool. Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression 'madman as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning. Most of those reports were a nightmaregrotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue. When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinadebut Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word. She showed a surprising amount of character about it toolooked at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow of hers, and swore that her sister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely happy with her husband, that her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced herself of it, and cried into her handkerchief, as if the very suggestion was more than she could endure. So Wilson was reduced to a man 'deranged by grief in order that the case might remain in its simplest form. And it rested there. But all this part of it seemed remote and unessential. I found myself on Gatsby's side, and alone. From the moment I telephoned news of the catastrophe to West Egg village, every surmise about him, and every practical question, was referred to me. At first I was surprised and confused then, as he lay in his house and didn't move or breathe or speak, hour upon hour, it grew upon me that I was responsible, because no one else was interestedinterested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which everyone has some vague right at the end. I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them. 'Left no address? 'No. 'Say when they'd be back? 'No. 'Any idea where they are? How I could reach them? 'I don't know. Can't say. I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him 'I'll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don't worry. Just trust me and I'll get somebody for you Meyer Wolfshiem's name wasn't in the phone book. The butler gave me his office address on Broadway, and I called Information, but by the time I had the number it was long after five, and no one answered the phone. 'Will you ring again? 'I've rung three times. 'It's very important. 'Sorry. I'm afraid no one's there. I went back to the drawingroom and thought for an instant that they were chance visitors, all these official people who suddenly filled it. But, though they drew back the sheet and looked at Gatsby with shocked eyes, his protest continued in my brain 'Look here, old sport, you've got to get somebody for me. You've got to try hard. I can't go through this alone. Someone started to ask me questions, but I broke away and going upstairs looked hastily through the unlocked parts of his deskhe'd never told me definitely that his parents were dead. But there was nothingonly the picture of Dan Cody, a token of forgotten violence, staring down from the wall. Next morning I sent the butler to New York with a letter to Wolfshiem, which asked for information and urged him to come out on the next train. That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it. I was sure he'd start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there'd be a wire from Daisy before noonbut neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfshiem arrived no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men. When the butler brought back Wolfshiem's answer I began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me against them all. Dear Mr. Carraway. This has been one of the most terrible shocks of my life to me I hardly can believe it that it is true at all. Such a mad act as that man did should make us all think. I cannot come down now as I am tied up in some very important business and cannot get mixed up in this thing now. If there is anything I can do a little later let me know in a letter by Edgar. I hardly know where I am when I hear about a thing like this and am completely knocked down and out. Yours truly Meyer Wolfshiem and then hasty addenda beneath Let me know about the funeral etc do not know his family at all. When the phone rang that afternoon and Long Distance said Chicago was calling I thought this would be Daisy at last. But the connection came through as a man's voice, very thin and far away. 'This is Slagle speaking 'Yes? The name was unfamiliar. 'Hell of a note, isn't it? Get my wire? 'There haven't been any wires. 'Young Parke's in trouble, he said rapidly. 'They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from New York giving 'em the numbers just five minutes before. What d'you know about that, hey? You never can tell in these hick towns 'Hello! I interrupted breathlessly. 'Look herethis isn't Mr. Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby's dead. There was a long silence on the other end of the wire, followed by an exclamation then a quick squawk as the connection was broken. I think it was on the third day that a telegram signed Henry C. Gatz arrived from a town in Minnesota. It said only that the sender was leaving immediately and to postpone the funeral until he came. It was Gatsby's father, a solemn old man, very helpless and dismayed, bundled up in a long cheap ulster against the warm September day. His eyes leaked continuously with excitement, and when I took the bag and umbrella from his hands he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse grey beard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat. He was on the point of collapse, so I took him into the musicroom and made him sit down while I sent for something to eat. But he wouldn't eat, and the glass of milk spilled from his trembling hand. 'I saw it in the Chicago newspaper, he said. 'It was all in the Chicago newspaper. I started right away. 'I didn't know how to reach you. His eyes, seeing nothing, moved ceaselessly about the room. 'It was a madman, he said. 'He must have been mad. 'Wouldn't you like some coffee? I urged him. 'I don't want anything. I'm all right now, Mr. 'Carraway. 'Well, I'm all right now. Where have they got Jimmy? I took him into the drawingroom, where his son lay, and left him there. Some little boys had come up on the steps and were looking into the hall when I told them who had arrived, they went reluctantly away. After a little while Mr. Gatz opened the door and came out, his mouth ajar, his face flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears. He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendour of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms, his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride. I helped him to a bedroom upstairs while he took off his coat and vest I told him that all arrangements had been deferred until he came. 'I didn't know what you'd want, Mr. Gatsby 'Gatz is my name. 'Mr. Gatz. I thought you might want to take the body West. He shook his head. 'Jimmy always liked it better down East. He rose up to his position in the East. Were you a friend of my boy's, Mr.? 'We were close friends. 'He had a big future before him, you know. He was only a young man, but he had a lot of brain power here. He touched his head impressively, and I nodded. 'If he'd of lived, he'd of been a great man. A man like James J. Hill. He'd of helped build up the country. 'That's true, I said, uncomfortably. He fumbled at the embroidered coverlet, trying to take it from the bed, and lay down stifflywas instantly asleep. That night an obviously frightened person called up, and demanded to know who I was before he would give his name. 'This is Mr. Carraway, I said. 'Oh! He sounded relieved. 'This is Klipspringer. I was relieved too, for that seemed to promise another friend at Gatsby's grave. I didn't want it to be in the papers and draw a sightseeing crowd, so I'd been calling up a few people myself. They were hard to find. 'The funeral's tomorrow, I said. 'Three o'clock, here at the house. I wish you'd tell anybody who'd be interested. 'Oh, I will, he broke out hastily. 'Of course I'm not likely to see anybody, but if I do. His tone made me suspicious. 'Of course you'll be there yourself. 'Well, I'll certainly try. What I called up about is 'Wait a minute, I interrupted. 'How about saying you'll come? 'Well, the fact isthe truth of the matter is that I'm staying with some people up here in Greenwich, and they rather expect me to be with them tomorrow. In fact, there's a sort of picnic or something. Of course I'll do my best to get away. I ejaculated an unrestrained 'Huh! and he must have heard me, for he went on nervously 'What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there. I wonder if it'd be too much trouble to have the butler send them on. You see, they're tennis shoes, and I'm sort of helpless without them. My address is care of B. F. I didn't hear the rest of the name, because I hung up the receiver. After that I felt a certain shame for Gatsbyone gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what he deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby's liquor, and I should have known better than to call him. The morning of the funeral I went up to New York to see Meyer Wolfshiem I couldn't seem to reach him any other way. The door that I pushed open, on the advice of an elevator boy, was marked 'The Swastika Holding Company, and at first there didn't seem to be anyone inside. But when I'd shouted 'hello several times in vain, an argument broke out behind a partition, and presently a lovely Jewess appeared at an interior door and scrutinized me with black hostile eyes. 'Nobody's in, she said. 'Mr. Wolfshiem's gone to Chicago. The first part of this was obviously untrue, for someone had begun to whistle 'The Rosary, tunelessly, inside. 'Please say that Mr. Carraway wants to see him. 'I can't get him back from Chicago, can I? At this moment a voice, unmistakably Wolfshiem's, called 'Stella! from the other side of the door. 'Leave your name on the desk, she said quickly. 'I'll give it to him when he gets back. 'But I know he's there. She took a step toward me and began to slide her hands indignantly up and down her hips. 'You young men think you can force your way in here any time, she scolded. 'We're getting sickantired of it. When I say he's in Chicago, he's in Chicago. I mentioned Gatsby. 'Ohh! She looked at me over again. 'Will you justWhat was your name? She vanished. In a moment Meyer Wolfshiem stood solemnly in the doorway, holding out both hands. He drew me into his office, remarking in a reverent voice that it was a sad time for all of us, and offered me a cigar. 'My memory goes back to when first I met him, he said. 'A young major just out of the army and covered over with medals he got in the war. He was so hard up he had to keep on wearing his uniform because he couldn't buy some regular clothes. First time I saw him was when he came into Winebrenner's poolroom at Fortythird Street and asked for a job. He hadn't eat anything for a couple of days. 'Come on have some lunch with me,' I said. He ate more than four dollars' worth of food in half an hour. 'Did you start him in business? I inquired. 'Start him! I made him. 'Oh. 'I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter. I saw right away he was a fineappearing, gentlemanly young man, and when he told me he was at Oggsford I knew I could use him good. I got him to join the American Legion and he used to stand high there. Right off he did some work for a client of mine up to Albany. We were so thick like that in everythinghe held up two bulbous fingers'always together. I wondered if this partnership had included the World's Series transaction in . 'Now he's dead, I said after a moment. 'You were his closest friend, so I know you'll want to come to his funeral this afternoon. 'I'd like to come. 'Well, come then. The hair in his nostrils quivered slightly, and as he shook his head his eyes filled with tears. 'I can't do itI can't get mixed up in it, he said. 'There's nothing to get mixed up in. It's all over now. 'When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in it in any way. I keep out. When I was a young man it was differentif a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the end. You may think that's sentimental, but I mean itto the bitter end. I saw that for some reason of his own he was determined not to come, so I stood up. 'Are you a college man? he inquired suddenly. For a moment I thought he was going to suggest a 'gonnegtion, but he only nodded and shook my hand. 'Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead, he suggested. 'After that my own rule is to let everything alone. When I left his office the sky had turned dark and I got back to West Egg in a drizzle. After changing my clothes I went next door and found Mr. Gatz walking up and down excitedly in the hall. His pride in his son and in his son's possessions was continually increasing and now he had something to show me. 'Jimmy sent me this picture. He took out his wallet with trembling fingers. 'Look there. It was a photograph of the house, cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands. He pointed out every detail to me eagerly. 'Look there! and then sought admiration from my eyes. He had shown it so often that I think it was more real to him now than the house itself. 'Jimmy sent it to me. I think it's a very pretty picture. It shows up well. 'Very well. Had you seen him lately? 'He come out to see me two years ago and bought me the house I live in now. Of course we was broke up when he run off from home, but I see now there was a reason for it. He knew he had a big future in front of him. And ever since he made a success he was very generous with me. He seemed reluctant to put away the picture, held it for another minute, lingeringly, before my eyes. Then he returned the wallet and pulled from his pocket a ragged old copy of a book called Hopalong Cassidy. 'Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy. It just shows you. He opened it at the back cover and turned it around for me to see. On the last flyleaf was printed the word schedule, and the date September , . And underneath General Resolves No wasting time at Shafters or a name, indecipherable No more smokeing or chewing. Bath every other day Read one improving book or magazine per week Save . crossed out . per week Be better to parents 'I came across this book by accident, said the old man. 'It just shows you, don't it? 'It just shows you. 'Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he's got about improving his mind? He was always great for that. He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it. He was reluctant to close the book, reading each item aloud and then looking eagerly at me. I think he rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use. A little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing, and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for other cars. So did Gatsby's father. And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously, and he spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way. The minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn't any use. Nobody came. About five o'clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gatefirst a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the minister and me in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg, in Gatsby's station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owleyed glasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby's books in the library one night three months before. I'd never seen him since then. I don't know how he knew about the funeral, or even his name. The rain poured down his thick glasses, and he took them off and wiped them to see the protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby's grave. I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment, but he was already too far away, and I could only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn't sent a message or a flower. Dimly I heard someone murmur 'Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on, and then the owleyed man said 'Amen to that, in a brave voice. We straggled down quickly through the rain to the cars. Owleyes spoke to me by the gate. 'I couldn't get to the house, he remarked. 'Neither could anybody else. 'Go on! He started. 'Why, my God! they used to go there by the hundreds. He took off his glasses and wiped them again, outside and in. 'The poor sonofabitch, he said. One of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time. Those who went farther than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union Station at six o'clock of a December evening, with a few Chicago friends, already caught up into their own holiday gaieties, to bid them a hasty goodbye. I remember the fur coats of the girls returning from Miss ThisorThat's and the chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead as we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of invitations 'Are you going to the Ordways'? the Herseys'? the Schultzes'? and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate. When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again. That's my Middle Westnot the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family's name. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after allTom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life. Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very oldeven then it had always for me a quality of distortion. West Egg, especially, still figures in my more fantastic dreams. I see it as a night scene by El Greco a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon. In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn in at a housethe wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name, and no one cares. After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home. There was one thing to be done before I left, an awkward, unpleasant thing that perhaps had better have been let alone. But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away. I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together, and what had happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still, listening, in a big chair. She was dressed to play golf, and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little jauntily, her hair the colour of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that, though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head, but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say goodbye. 'Nevertheless you did throw me over, said Jordan suddenly. 'You threw me over on the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now, but it was a new experience for me, and I felt a little dizzy for a while. We shook hands. 'Oh, and do you remembershe added'a conversation we had once about driving a car? 'Whynot exactly. 'You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride. 'I'm thirty, I said. 'I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honour. She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away. One afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchanan. He was walking ahead of me along Fifth Avenue in his alert, aggressive way, his hands out a little from his body as if to fight off interference, his head moving sharply here and there, adapting itself to his restless eyes. Just as I slowed up to avoid overtaking him he stopped and began frowning into the windows of a jewellery store. Suddenly he saw me and walked back, holding out his hand. 'What's the matter, Nick? Do you object to shaking hands with me? 'Yes. You know what I think of you. 'You're crazy, Nick, he said quickly. 'Crazy as hell. I don't know what's the matter with you. 'Tom, I inquired, 'what did you say to Wilson that afternoon? He stared at me without a word, and I knew I had guessed right about those missing hours. I started to turn away, but he took a step after me and grabbed my arm. 'I told him the truth, he said. 'He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren't in he tried to force his way upstairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house He broke off defiantly. 'What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy's, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car. There was nothing I could say, except the one unutterable fact that it wasn't true. 'And if you think I didn't have my share of sufferinglook here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard, I sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisythey smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made I shook hands with him it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewellery store to buy a pearl necklaceor perhaps only a pair of cuff buttonsrid of my provincial squeamishness forever. Gatsby's house was still empty when I leftthe grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine. One of the taxi drivers in the village never took a fare past the entrance gate without stopping for a minute and pointing inside perhaps it was he who drove Daisy and Gatsby over to East Egg the night of the accident, and perhaps he had made a story about it all his own. I didn't want to hear it and I avoided him when I got off the train. I spent my Saturday nights in New York because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive. One night I did hear a material car there, and saw its lights stop at his front steps. But I didn't investigate. Probably it was some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didn't know that the party was over. On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand. Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyesa fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no mattertomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further And one fine morning So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this 'landownerfor so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estatewas a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing his estate was of the smallest he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupiditythe majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enoughbut just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it. He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife, Adelada Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our district, the Misovs. How it came to pass that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those vigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all called him, I won't attempt to explain. I knew a young lady of the last 'romantic generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or three generations. Adelada Ivanovna Misov's action was similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an illnatured buffoon and nothing more. What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement, and this greatly captivated Adelada Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelada Ivanovna's beauty. This was, perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who made no particular appeal to his senses. Immediately after the elopement Adelada Ivanovna discerned in a flash that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage accordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinary rapidity. Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly and apportioned the runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was said that the young wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her money up to twentyfive thousand roubles as soon as she received it, so that those thousands were lost to her for ever. The little village and the rather fine town house which formed part of her dowry he did his utmost for a long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed of conveyance. He would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by his persistent and shameless importunity. But, fortunately, Adelada Ivanovna's family intervened and circumvented his greediness. It is known for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife, but rumor had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was beaten by her, for she was a hottempered, bold, darkbrowed, impatient woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the house, and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all of Adelada Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgraceful for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to gratify him and flatter his selflove most was to play the ridiculous part of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments. 'One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow, scoffers said to him. Many even added that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended to be unaware of his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have been simplicity. At last he succeeded in getting on the track of his runaway wife. The poor woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself have said. He would perhaps have really gone but having determined to do so he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife's family received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or as another version had it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his wife's death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting with joy, raising his hands to Heaven 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, but others say he wept without restraint like a little child, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired. It is quite possible that both versions were true, that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who released him. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more nave and simplehearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too. You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how he would bring up his children. His behavior as a father was exactly what might be expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelada Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him. While he was wearying every one with his tears and complaints, and turning his house into a sink of debauchery, a faithful servant of the family, Grigory, took the threeyearold Mitya into his care. If he hadn't looked after him there would have been no one even to change the baby's little shirt. It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's side forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living, his widow, Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill, while his daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost a whole year in old Grigory's charge and lived with him in the servant's cottage. But if his father had remembered him (he could not, indeed, have been altogether unaware of his existence) he would have sent him back to the cottage, as the child would only have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a cousin of Mitya's mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, happened to return from Paris. He lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that time quite a young man, and distinguished among the Misovs as a man of enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the capitals and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a Liberal of the type common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come into contact with many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in Russia and abroad. He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in his declining years was very fond of describing the three days of the Paris Revolution of February , hinting that he himself had almost taken part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of about a thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our famous monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless lawsuit, almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights of fishing in the river or woodcutting in the forest, I don't know exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of culture to open an attack upon the 'clericals. Hearing all about Adelada Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at one time been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened, in spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor Pavlovitch. He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time, and told him directly that he wished to undertake the child's education. He used long afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch, that when he began to speak of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for some time as though he did not understand what child he was talking about, and even as though he was surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house. The story may have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth. Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris he, too, forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of February broke out, making an impression on his mind that he remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovitch's firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential facts about him, without which I could not begin my story. In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was the only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief that he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of age. He spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went to the Caucasus, was promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the ranks, earned promotion again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of money. He did not begin to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovitch until he came of age, and until then got into debt. He saw and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the first time on coming of age, when he visited our neighborhood on purpose to settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked his father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away, having only succeeded in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues and value of which he was unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch remarked for the first time then (this, too, should be noted) that Mitya had a vague and exaggerated idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovitch was very well satisfied with this, as it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that the young man was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient, and dissipated, and that if he could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although only, of course, for a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take advantage of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles, installments. In the end, when four years later, Mitya, losing patience, came a second time to our little town to settle up once for all with his father, it turned out to his amazement that he had nothing, that it was difficult to get an account even, that he had received the whole value of his property in sums of money from Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even in debt to him, that by various agreements into which he had, of his own desire, entered at various previous dates, he had no right to expect anything more, and so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed, suspected deceit and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And, indeed, this circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account of which forms the subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of it. But before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovitch's other two sons, and of their origin. Very shortly after getting his fouryearold Mitya off his hands Fyodor Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years. He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very young girl, from another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkard and a vicious debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, not over scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this old woman, who was apparently not badhearted but had become an insufferable tyrant through idleness. Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer inquiries were made about him and he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an elopement to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time. But she lived in another province besides, what could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of the river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a penny this time, for the general's widow was furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry what allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine beauty. 'Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor, he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her 'from the halter, he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had 'wronged him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had always hated his first mistress, Adelada Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who are said to be 'possessed by devils. At times after terrible fits of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth year, and, strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all his life, like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya. They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sofya's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers 'It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude. Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's widow suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a great deal. It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen for those eight years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good, resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down. Then, without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing, at the first glance, that they were unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word, and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow and pronounced impressively that, 'God would repay her for the orphans. 'You are a blockhead all the same, the old lady shouted to him as she drove away. Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to any proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the slaps she had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story. It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left the boys in her will a thousand roubles each 'for their instruction, and so that all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be so portioned out as to last till they are twentyone, for it is more than adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw away their money, let them. I have not read the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him for his children's education (though the latter never directly refused but only procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal interest in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger, Alexey, who lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the reader to note this from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man of a generosity and humanity rarely to be met with, the young people were more indebted for their education and bringing up than to any one. He kept the two thousand roubles left to them by the general's widow intact, so that by the time they came of age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of interest. He educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent far more than a thousand roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At ten years old he had realized that they were living not in their own home but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of whom it was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in his infancy (so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual aptitude for learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the family of Yefim Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a Moscow gymnasium, and boarding with an experienced and celebrated teacher, an old friend of Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare afterwards that this was all due to the 'ardor for good works of Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the idea that the boy's genius should be trained by a teacher of genius. But neither Yefim Petrovitch nor this teacher was living when the young man finished at the gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch had made no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy, which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to keep himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him that from such a father he would get no real assistance. However that may have been, the young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in getting work, at first giving sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the signature of 'EyeWitness. These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and piquant that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better than everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French. Having once got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept up his connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last year he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far wider circle of readers, so that a great many people noticed and remembered him. It was rather a curious incident. When he had just left the university and was preparing to go abroad upon his two thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch published in one of the more important journals a strange article, which attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the timethe position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was most striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion. Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as on their side. And yet not only the secularists but even atheists joined them in their applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I mention this incident particularly because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in our neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in the question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered by it. Learning the author's name, they were interested in his being a native of the town and the son of 'that Fyodor Pavlovitch. And just then it was that the author himself made his appearance among us. Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself. It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house and a father who had ignored him all his life, hardly knew him, never thought of him, and would not under any circumstances have given him money, though he was always afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would also come to ask him for it. And here the young man was staying in the house of such a father, had been living with him for two months, and they were on the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, of whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife, happened to be in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was more surprised than any one when he made the acquaintance of the young man, who interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and not without an inner pang compared himself in acquirements. 'He is proud, he used to say, 'he will never be in want of pence he has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Every one can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never give him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father can't do without him. They get on so well together! That was the truth the young man had an unmistakable influence over his father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently and even seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely and even spitefully perverse. It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the request of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom he saw for the first time on this very visit, though he had before leaving Moscow been in correspondence with him about an important matter of more concern to Dmitri than himself. What that business was the reader will learn fully in due time. Yet even when I did know of this special circumstance I still felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit rather mysterious. I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediator between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in open quarrel with his father and even planning to bring an action against him. The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some of its members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother, Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the first of the three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficult to speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary account of him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce my hero to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered there for the rest of his life. He was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his twentyfourth year at the time, while their elder brother Dmitri was twentyseven. First of all, I must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic, and, in my opinion at least, was not even a mystic. I may as well give my full opinion from the beginning. He was simply an early lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love. And the reason this life struck him in this way was that he found in it at that time, as he thought, an extraordinary being, our celebrated elder, Zossima, to whom he became attached with all the warm first love of his ardent heart. But I do not dispute that he was very strange even at that time, and had been so indeed from his cradle. I have mentioned already, by the way, that though he lost his mother in his fourth year he remembered her all his lifeher face, her caresses, 'as though she stood living before me. Such memories may persist, as every one knows, from an even earlier age, even from two years old, but scarcely standing out through a whole lifetime like spots of light out of darkness, like a corner torn out of a huge picture, which has all faded and disappeared except that fragment. That is how it was with him. He remembered one still summer evening, an open window, the slanting rays of the setting sun (that he recalled most vividly of all) in a corner of the room the holy image, before it a lighted lamp, and on her knees before the image his mother, sobbing hysterically with cries and moans, snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it hurt, and praying for him to the Mother of God, holding him out in both arms to the image as though to put him under the Mother's protection ... and suddenly a nurse runs in and snatches him from her in terror. That was the picture! And Alyosha remembered his mother's face at that minute. He used to say that it was frenzied but beautiful as he remembered. But he rarely cared to speak of this memory to any one. In his childhood and youth he was by no means expansive, and talked little indeed, but not from shyness or a sullen unsociability quite the contrary, from something different, from a sort of inner preoccupation entirely personal and unconcerned with other people, but so important to him that he seemed, as it were, to forget others on account of it. But he was fond of people he seemed throughout his life to put implicit trust in people yet no one ever looked on him as a simpleton or nave person. There was something about him which made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not care to be a judge of othersthat he would never take it upon himself to criticize and would never condemn any one for anything. He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly and this was so much so that no one could surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at twenty to his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offense, met him at first with distrust and sullenness. 'He does not say much, he used to say, 'and thinks the more. But soon, within a fortnight indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing him terribly often, with drunken tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet he evidently felt a real and deep affection for him, such as he had never been capable of feeling for any one before. Every one, indeed, loved this young man wherever he went, and it was so from his earliest childhood. When he entered the household of his patron and benefactor, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, he gained the hearts of all the family, so that they looked on him quite as their own child. Yet he entered the house at such a tender age that he could not have acted from design nor artfulness in winning affection. So that the gift of making himself loved directly and unconsciously was inherent in him, in his very nature, so to speak. It was the same at school, though he seemed to be just one of those children who are distrusted, sometimes ridiculed, and even disliked by their schoolfellows. He was dreamy, for instance, and rather solitary. From his earliest childhood he was fond of creeping into a corner to read, and yet he was a general favorite all the while he was at school. He was rarely playful or merry, but any one could see at the first glance that this was not from any sullenness. On the contrary he was bright and goodtempered. He never tried to show off among his schoolfellows. Perhaps because of this, he was never afraid of any one, yet the boys immediately understood that he was not proud of his fearlessness and seemed to be unaware that he was bold and courageous. He never resented an insult. It would happen that an hour after the offense he would address the offender or answer some question with as trustful and candid an expression as though nothing had happened between them. And it was not that he seemed to have forgotten or intentionally forgiven the affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront, and this completely conquered and captivated the boys. He had one characteristic which made all his schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top want to mock at him, not from malice but because it amused them. This characteristic was a wild fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not bear to hear certain words and certain conversations about women. There are 'certain words and conversations unhappily impossible to eradicate in schools. Boys pure in mind and heart, almost children, are fond of talking in school among themselves, and even aloud, of things, pictures, and images of which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak. More than that, much that soldiers have no knowledge or conception of is familiar to quite young children of our intellectual and higher classes. There is no moral depravity, no real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is the appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as something refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation. Seeing that Alyosha Karamazov put his fingers in his ears when they talked of 'that, they used sometimes to crowd round him, pull his hands away, and shout nastiness into both ears, while he struggled, slipped to the floor, tried to hide himself without uttering one word of abuse, enduring their insults in silence. But at last they left him alone and gave up taunting him with being a 'regular girl, and what's more they looked upon it with compassion as a weakness. He was always one of the best in the class but was never first. At the time of Yefim Petrovitch's death Alyosha had two more years to complete at the provincial gymnasium. The inconsolable widow went almost immediately after his death for a long visit to Italy with her whole family, which consisted only of women and girls. Alyosha went to live in the house of two distant relations of Yefim Petrovitch, ladies whom he had never seen before. On what terms he lived with them he did not know himself. It was very characteristic of him, indeed, that he never cared at whose expense he was living. In that respect he was a striking contrast to his elder brother Ivan, who struggled with poverty for his first two years in the university, maintained himself by his own efforts, and had from childhood been bitterly conscious of living at the expense of his benefactor. But this strange trait in Alyosha's character must not, I think, be criticized too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with him any one would have perceived that Alyosha was one of those youths, almost of the type of religious enthusiast, who, if they were suddenly to come into possession of a large fortune, would not hesitate to give it away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue. In general he seemed scarcely to know the value of money, not, of course, in a literal sense. When he was given pocketmoney, which he never asked for, he was either terribly careless of it so that it was gone in a moment, or he kept it for weeks together, not knowing what to do with it. In later years Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, a man very sensitive on the score of money and bourgeois honesty, pronounced the following judgment, after getting to know Alyosha 'Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone without a penny, in the center of an unknown town of a million inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once and if he were not, he would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him no effort or humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure. He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium. A year before the end of the course he suddenly announced to the ladies that he was going to see his father about a plan which had occurred to him. They were sorry and unwilling to let him go. The journey was not an expensive one, and the ladies would not let him pawn his watch, a parting present from his benefactor's family. They provided him liberally with money and even fitted him out with new clothes and linen. But he returned half the money they gave him, saying that he intended to go third class. On his arrival in the town he made no answer to his father's first inquiry why he had come before completing his studies, and seemed, so they say, unusually thoughtful. It soon became apparent that he was looking for his mother's tomb. He practically acknowledged at the time that that was the only object of his visit. But it can hardly have been the whole reason of it. It is more probable that he himself did not understand and could not explain what had suddenly arisen in his soul, and drawn him irresistibly into a new, unknown, but inevitable path. Fyodor Pavlovitch could not show him where his second wife was buried, for he had never visited her grave since he had thrown earth upon her coffin, and in the course of years had entirely forgotten where she was buried. Fyodor Pavlovitch, by the way, had for some time previously not been living in our town. Three or four years after his wife's death he had gone to the south of Russia and finally turned up in Odessa, where he spent several years. He made the acquaintance at first, in his own words, 'of a lot of low Jews, Jewesses, and Jewkins, and ended by being received by 'Jews high and low alike. It may be presumed that at this period he developed a peculiar faculty for making and hoarding money. He finally returned to our town only three years before Alyosha's arrival. His former acquaintances found him looking terribly aged, although he was by no means an old man. He behaved not exactly with more dignity but with more effrontery. The former buffoon showed an insolent propensity for making buffoons of others. His depravity with women was not simply what it used to be, but even more revolting. In a short time he opened a great number of new taverns in the district. It was evident that he had perhaps a hundred thousand roubles or not much less. Many of the inhabitants of the town and district were soon in his debt, and, of course, had given good security. Of late, too, he looked somehow bloated and seemed more irresponsible, more uneven, had sunk into a sort of incoherence, used to begin one thing and go on with another, as though he were letting himself go altogether. He was more and more frequently drunk. And, if it had not been for the same servant Grigory, who by that time had aged considerably too, and used to look after him sometimes almost like a tutor, Fyodor Pavlovitch might have got into terrible scrapes. Alyosha's arrival seemed to affect even his moral side, as though something had awakened in this prematurely old man which had long been dead in his soul. 'Do you know, he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, 'that you are like her, 'the crazy woman' that was what he used to call his dead wife, Alyosha's mother. Grigory it was who pointed out the 'crazy woman's grave to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showed him in a remote corner a castiron tombstone, cheap but decently kept, on which were inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the date of her death, and below a fourlined verse, such as are commonly used on oldfashioned middleclass tombs. To Alyosha's amazement this tomb turned out to be Grigory's doing. He had put it up on the poor 'crazy woman's grave at his own expense, after Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom he had often pestered about the grave, had gone to Odessa, abandoning the grave and all his memories. Alyosha showed no particular emotion at the sight of his mother's grave. He only listened to Grigory's minute and solemn account of the erection of the tomb he stood with bowed head and walked away without uttering a word. It was perhaps a year before he visited the cemetery again. But this little episode was not without an influence upon Fyodor Pavlovitchand a very original one. He suddenly took a thousand roubles to our monastery to pay for requiems for the soul of his wife but not for the second, Alyosha's mother, the 'crazy woman, but for the first, Adelada Ivanovna, who used to thrash him. In the evening of the same day he got drunk and abused the monks to Alyosha. He himself was far from being religious he had probably never put a penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange impulses of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types. I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance at this time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to the life he had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little, always insolent, suspicious, and ironical eyes besides the multitude of deep wrinkles in his little fat face, the Adam's apple hung below his sharp chin like a great, fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive, sensual appearance add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips, between which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. He slobbered every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of making fun of his own face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large, but very delicate and conspicuously aquiline. 'A regular Roman nose, he used to say, 'with my goiter I've quite the countenance of an ancient Roman patrician of the decadent period. He seemed proud of it. Not long after visiting his mother's grave Alyosha suddenly announced that he wanted to enter the monastery, and that the monks were willing to receive him as a novice. He explained that this was his strong desire, and that he was solemnly asking his consent as his father. The old man knew that the elder Zossima, who was living in the monastery hermitage, had made a special impression upon his 'gentle boy. 'That is the most honest monk among them, of course, he observed, after listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha, and seeming scarcely surprised at his request. 'H'm!... So that's where you want to be, my gentle boy? He was half drunk, and suddenly he grinned his slow halfdrunken grin, which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slyness. 'H'm!... I had a presentiment that you would end in something like this. Would you believe it? You were making straight for it. Well, to be sure you have your own two thousand. That's a dowry for you. And I'll never desert you, my angel. And I'll pay what's wanted for you there, if they ask for it. But, of course, if they don't ask, why should we worry them? What do you say? You know, you spend money like a canary, two grains a week. H'm!... Do you know that near one monastery there's a place outside the town where every baby knows there are none but 'the monks' wives' living, as they are called. Thirty women, I believe. I have been there myself. You know, it's interesting in its own way, of course, as a variety. The worst of it is it's awfully Russian. There are no French women there. Of course they could get them fast enough, they have plenty of money. If they get to hear of it they'll come along. Well, there's nothing of that sort here, no 'monks' wives,' and two hundred monks. They're honest. They keep the fasts. I admit it.... H'm.... So you want to be a monk? And do you know I'm sorry to lose you, Alyosha would you believe it, I've really grown fond of you? Well, it's a good opportunity. You'll pray for us sinners we have sinned too much here. I've always been thinking who would pray for me, and whether there's any one in the world to do it. My dear boy, I'm awfully stupid about that. You wouldn't believe it. Awfully. You see, however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking, I keep thinkingfrom time to time, of course, not all the while. It's impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then I wonderhooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the monastery probably believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for instance. Now I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is. And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you only knew, Alyosha, what a blackguard I am. 'But there are no hooks there, said Alyosha, looking gently and seriously at his father. 'Yes, yes, only the shadows of hooks, I know, I know. That's how a Frenchman described hell 'J'ai vu l'ombre d'un cocher qui avec l'ombre d'une brosse frottait l'ombre d'une carrosse.' How do you know there are no hooks, darling? When you've lived with the monks you'll sing a different tune. But go and get at the truth there, and then come and tell me. Anyway it's easier going to the other world if one knows what there is there. Besides, it will be more seemly for you with the monks than here with me, with a drunken old man and young harlots ... though you're like an angel, nothing touches you. And I dare say nothing will touch you there. That's why I let you go, because I hope for that. You've got all your wits about you. You will burn and you will burn out you will be healed and come back again. And I will wait for you. I feel that you're the only creature in the world who has not condemned me. My dear boy, I feel it, you know. I can't help feeling it. And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked and sentimental. Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly, ecstatic, poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. On the contrary, Alyosha was at this time a wellgrown, redcheeked, cleareyed lad of nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome, too, graceful, moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a regular, rather long, ovalshaped face, and wideset dark gray, shining eyes he was very thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall be told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and mysticism but I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are never a stumblingblock to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, 'My Lord and my God! Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, 'I do not believe till I see. I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice. I'll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his soul from darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our last epochthat is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set before them as their goalsuch a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them. The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself 'I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise. In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism today, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go on living as before. It is written 'Give all that thou hast to the poor and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect. Alyosha said to himself 'I can't give two roubles instead of 'all,' and only go to mass instead of 'following Him.'  Perhaps his memories of childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have taken him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image to which his poor 'crazy mother had held him up still acted upon his imagination. Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only 'two roubles, and in the monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what an 'elder is in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel very competent to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial account of it in a few words. Authorities on the subject assert that the institution of 'elders is of recent date, not more than a hundred years old in our monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especially in Sinai and Athos, it has existed over a thousand years. It is maintained that it existed in ancient times in Russia also, but through the calamities which overtook Russiathe Tartars, civil war, the interruption of relations with the East after the destruction of Constantinoplethis institution fell into oblivion. It was revived among us towards the end of last century by one of the great 'ascetics, as they called him, Passy Velitchkovsky, and his disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and has sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It flourished especially in the celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. When and how it was introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There had already been three such elders and Zossima was the last of them. But he was almost dying of weakness and disease, and they had no one to take his place. The question for our monastery was an important one, for it had not been distinguished by anything in particular till then they had neither relics of saints, nor wonderworking ikons, nor glorious traditions, nor historical exploits. It had flourished and been glorious all over Russia through its elders, to see and hear whom pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles from all parts. What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will, into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of selfconquest, of selfmastery, in order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from self to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves. This institution of elders is not founded on theory, but was established in the East from the practice of a thousand years. The obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary 'obedience which has always existed in our Russian monasteries. The obligation involves confession to the elder by all who have submitted themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bond between him and them. The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianity one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by his elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, after great exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer torture and a martyr's death for the faith. When the Church, regarding him as a saint, was burying him, suddenly, at the deacon's exhortation, 'Depart all ye unbaptized, the coffin containing the martyr's body left its place and was cast forth from the church, and this took place three times. And only at last they learnt that this holy man had broken his vow of obedience and left his elder, and, therefore, could not be forgiven without the elder's absolution in spite of his great deeds. Only after this could the funeral take place. This, of course, is only an old legend. But here is a recent instance. A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he loved as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to Jerusalem to do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the north to Siberia 'There is the place for thee and not here. The monk, overwhelmed with sorrow, went to the cumenical Patriarch at Constantinople and besought him to release him from his obedience. But the Patriarch replied that not only was he unable to release him, but there was not and could not be on earth a power which could release him except the elder who had himself laid that duty upon him. In this way the elders are endowed in certain cases with unbounded and inexplicable authority. That is why in many of our monasteries the institution was at first resisted almost to persecution. Meantime the elders immediately began to be highly esteemed among the people. Masses of the ignorant people as well as men of distinction flocked, for instance, to the elders of our monastery to confess their doubts, their sins, and their sufferings, and ask for counsel and admonition. Seeing this, the opponents of the elders declared that the sacrament of confession was being arbitrarily and frivolously degraded, though the continual opening of the heart to the elder by the monk or the layman had nothing of the character of the sacrament. In the end, however, the institution of elders has been retained and is becoming established in Russian monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a twoedged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete selfcontrol but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom. The elder Zossima was sixtyfive. He came of a family of landowners, had been in the army in early youth, and served in the Caucasus as an officer. He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some peculiar quality of his soul. Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fond of him and let him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha was bound by no obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for whole days. Though he wore the monastic dress it was voluntarily, not to be different from others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly his youthful imagination was deeply stirred by the power and fame of his elder. It was said that so many people had for years past come to confess their sins to Father Zossima and to entreat him for words of advice and healing, that he had acquired the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a newcomer wanted, and what was the suffering on his conscience. He sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of their secrets before they had spoken a word. Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for the first time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with bright and happy faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact that Father Zossima was not at all stern. On the contrary, he was always almost gay. The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he loved him. There were, no doubt, up to the end of his life, among the monks some who hated and envied him, but they were few in number and they were silent, though among them were some of great dignity in the monastery, one, for instance, of the older monks distinguished for his strict keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But the majority were on Father Zossima's side and very many of them loved him with all their hearts, warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically devoted to him, and declared, though not quite aloud, that he was a saint, that there could be no doubt of it, and, seeing that his end was near, they anticipated miracles and great glory to the monastery in the immediate future from his relics. Alyosha had unquestioning faith in the miraculous power of the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the story of the coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with sick children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them and to pray over them, return shortly aftersome the next dayand, falling in tears at the elder's feet, thank him for healing their sick. Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the natural course of the disease was a question which did not exist for Alyosha, for he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher and rejoiced in his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own triumph. His heart throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over when the elder came out to the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crowd of pilgrims of the humbler class who had flocked from all parts of Russia on purpose to see the elder and obtain his blessing. They fell down before him, wept, kissed his feet, kissed the earth on which he stood, and wailed, while the women held up their children to him and brought him the sick 'possessed with devils. The elder spoke to them, read a brief prayer over them, blessed them, and dismissed them. Of late he had become so weak through attacks of illness that he was sometimes unable to leave his cell, and the pilgrims waited for him to come out for several days. Alyosha did not wonder why they loved him so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion merely at seeing his face. Oh! he understood that for the humble soul of the Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world's, it was the greatest need and comfort to find some one or something holy to fall down before and worship. 'Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewhere on earth there is some one holy and exalted. He has the truth he knows the truth so it is not dead upon the earth so it will come one day to us, too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise. Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned. He understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this saint and custodian of God's truthof that he had no more doubt than the weeping peasants and the sick women who held out their children to the elder. The conviction that after his death the elder would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery was even stronger in Alyosha than in any one there, and, of late, a kind of deep flame of inner ecstasy burnt more and more strongly in his heart. He was not at all troubled at this elder's standing as a solitary example before him. 'No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewal for all that power which will, at last, establish truth on the earth, and all men will be holy and love one another, and there will be no more rich nor poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be as the children of God, and the true Kingdom of Christ will come. That was the dream in Alyosha's heart. The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then, seemed to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly made friends with his halfbrother Dmitri (though he arrived later) than with his own brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan, but when the latter had been two months in the town, though they had met fairly often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha was naturally silent, and he seemed to be expecting something, ashamed about something, while his brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed at first that he looked long and curiously at him, seemed soon to have left off thinking of him. Alyosha noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed his brother's indifference at first to the disparity of their age and education. But he also wondered whether the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was absorbed in somethingsomething inward and importantthat he was striving towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was not some contempt on the part of the learned atheist for hima foolish novice. He knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take offense at this contempt, if it existed yet, with an uneasy embarrassment which he did not himself understand, he waited for his brother to come nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosha learnt all the details of the important affair which had of late formed such a close and remarkable bond between the two elder brothers. Dmitri's enthusiastic references to Ivan were the more striking in Alyosha's eyes since Dmitri was, compared with Ivan, almost uneducated, and the two brothers were such a contrast in personality and character that it would be difficult to find two men more unlike. It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of the members of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elder who had such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The pretext for this gathering was a false one. It was at this time that the discord between Dmitri and his father seemed at its acutest stage and their relations had become insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovitch seems to have been the first to suggest, apparently in joke, that they should all meet in Father Zossima's cell, and that, without appealing to his direct intervention, they might more decently come to an understanding under the conciliating influence of the elder's presence. Dmitri, who had never seen the elder, naturally supposed that his father was trying to intimidate him, but, as he secretly blamed himself for his outbursts of temper with his father on several recent occasions, he accepted the challenge. It must be noted that he was not, like Ivan, staying with his father, but living apart at the other end of the town. It happened that Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, who was staying in the district at the time, caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the forties and fifties, a freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by boredom or the hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with the desire to see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with the monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing the Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor coming with such laudable intentions might be received with more attention and consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences from within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder, who of late had scarcely left his cell, and had been forced by illness to deny even his ordinary visitors. In the end he consented to see them, and the day was fixed. 'Who has made me a judge over them? was all he said, smilingly, to Alyosha. Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of all the wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who could regard the interview seriously. All the others would come from frivolous motives, perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well aware of that. Ivan and Misov would come from curiosity, perhaps of the coarsest kind, while his father might be contemplating some piece of buffoonery. Though he said nothing, Alyosha thoroughly understood his father. The boy, I repeat, was far from being so simple as every one thought him. He awaited the day with a heavy heart. No doubt he was always pondering in his mind how the family discord could be ended. But his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He trembled for him, for his glory, and dreaded any affront to him, especially the refined, courteous irony of Misov and the supercilious halfutterances of the highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture on warning the elder, telling him something about them, but, on second thoughts, said nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a friend, to his brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to keep his promise. Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he had promised, but he answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let himself be provoked 'by vileness, but that, although he had a deep respect for the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was convinced that the meeting was either a trap for him or an unworthy farce. 'Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in respect to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly, he wrote in conclusion. Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter. It was a warm, bright day at the end of August. The interview with the elder had been fixed for halfpast eleven, immediately after late mass. Our visitors did not take part in the service, but arrived just as it was over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn by two valuable horses, drove up with Misov and a distant relative of his, a young man of twenty, called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This young man was preparing to enter the university. Misov, with whom he was staying for the time, was trying to persuade him to go abroad to the university of Zurich or Jena. The young man was still undecided. He was thoughtful and absentminded. He was nice looking, strongly built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in his gaze at times. Like all very absentminded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward, but sometimes, when he was alone with any one, he became talkative and effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his animation vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and even elaborately dressed he had already some independent fortune and expectations of much more. He was a friend of Alyosha's. In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair of old pinkishgray horses, a long way behind Misov's carriage, came Fyodor Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though he had been informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left their carriage at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the gates of the monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, none of the party had ever seen the monastery, and Misov had probably not even been to church for thirty years. He looked about him with curiosity, together with assumed ease. But, except the church and the domestic buildings, though these too were ordinary enough, he found nothing of interest in the interior of the monastery. The last of the worshippers were coming out of the church, bareheaded and crossing themselves. Among the humbler people were a few of higher ranktwo or three ladies and a very old general. They were all staying at the hotel. Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars, but none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a ten copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassedGod knows why!hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying 'Divide it equally. None of his companions made any remark upon it, so that he had no reason to be embarrassed but, perceiving this, he was even more overcome. It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and that they were not received with special honor, though one of them had recently made a donation of a thousand roubles, while another was a very wealthy and highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the monastery were in a sense dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment put their fishing rights in his hands. Yet no official personage met them. Misov looked absentmindedly at the tombstones round the church, and was on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this 'holy place, but refrained. His liberal irony was rapidly changing almost into anger. 'Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must find out, for time is passing, he observed suddenly, as though speaking to himself. All at once there came up a baldheaded, elderly man with ingratiating little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his hat, he introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner of Tula. He at once entered into our visitors' difficulty. 'Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred paces from the monastery, the other side of the copse. 'I know it's the other side of the copse, observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, 'but we don't remember the way. It is a long time since we've been here. 'This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse ... the copse. Come with me, won't you? I'll show you. I have to go.... I am going myself. This way, this way. They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a man of sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at them all, with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes looked starting out of his head. 'You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own, observed Misov severely. 'That personage has granted us an audience, so to speak, and so, though we thank you for showing us the way, we cannot ask you to accompany us. 'I've been there. I've been already un chevalier parfait, and Maximov snapped his fingers in the air. 'Who is a chevalier? asked Misov. 'The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honor and glory of the monastery, Zossima. Such an elder! But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale, wanlooking monk of medium height, wearing a monk's cap, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovitch and Misov stopped. The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced 'The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after your visit to the hermitage. At one o'clock, not later. And you also, he added, addressing Maximov. 'That I certainly will, without fail, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, hugely delighted at the invitation. 'And, believe me, we've all given our word to behave properly here.... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, will you go, too? 'Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs here? The only obstacle to me is your company.... 'Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is nonexistent as yet. 'It would be a capital thing if he didn't turn up. Do you suppose I like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come to dinner. Thank the Father Superior, he said to the monk. 'No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder, answered the monk. 'If so I'll go straight to the Father Superiorto the Father Superior, babbled Maximov. 'The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please the monk hesitated. 'Impertinent old man! Misov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back to the monastery. 'He's like von Sohn, Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly. 'Is that all you can think of?... In what way is he like von Sohn? Have you ever seen von Sohn? 'I've seen his portrait. It's not the features, but something indefinable. He's a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the physiognomy. 'Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin to play the fool I don't intend to be associated with you here.... You see what a man he ishe turned to the monk'I'm afraid to go among decent people with him. A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity. Misov frowned more than ever. 'Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through centuries, and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath, flashed through Misov's mind. 'Here's the hermitage. We've arrived, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. 'The gates are shut. And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates. 'When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this hermitage there are twentyfive saints being saved. They look at one another, and eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate. That's what is remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear that the elder receives ladies, he remarked suddenly to the monk. 'Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico there waiting. But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the portico, but outside the precinctsyou can see the windowsand the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he is well enough. They are always outside the precincts. There is a Harkov lady, Madame Hohlakov, waiting there now with her sick daughter. Probably he has promised to come out to her, though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to the people. 'So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitage to the ladies. Don't suppose, holy father, that I mean any harm. But do you know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed, but no creature of the female sexno hens, nor turkeyhens, nor cows. 'Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here. They'll turn you out when I'm gone. 'But I'm not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look, he cried suddenly, stepping within the precincts, 'what a vale of roses they live in! Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, and evidently tended by a skillful hand there were flowerbeds round the church, and between the tombs and the onestoried wooden house where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers. 'And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? He didn't care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies with a stick, observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he went up the steps. 'The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a great deal that's told is foolishness. He never thrashed any one, answered the monk. 'Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announce you. 'Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you hear? Behave properly or I will pay you out! Misov had time to mutter again. 'I can't think why you are so agitated, Fyodor Pavlovitch observed sarcastically. 'Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he can tell by one's eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you think of their opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I'm surprised at you. But Misov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked to come in. He walked in, somewhat irritated. 'Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and begin to quarreland lower myself and my ideas, he reflected. They entered the room almost at the same moment that the elder came in from his bedroom. There were already in the cell, awaiting the elder, two monks of the hermitage, one the Father Librarian, and the other Father Passy, a very learned man, so they said, in delicate health, though not old. There was also a tall young man, who looked about two and twenty, standing in the corner throughout the interview. He had a broad, fresh face, and clever, observant, narrow brown eyes, and was wearing ordinary dress. He was a divinity student, living under the protection of the monastery. His expression was one of unquestioning, but selfrespecting, reverence. Being in a subordinate and dependent position, and so not on an equality with the guests, he did not greet them with a bow. Father Zossima was accompanied by a novice, and by Alyosha. The two monks rose and greeted him with a very deep bow, touching the ground with their fingers then kissed his hand. Blessing them, the elder replied with as deep a reverence to them, and asked their blessing. The whole ceremony was performed very seriously and with an appearance of feeling, not like an everyday rite. But Misov fancied that it was all done with intentional impressiveness. He stood in front of the other visitors. He oughthe had reflected upon it the evening beforefrom simple politeness, since it was the custom here, to have gone up to receive the elder's blessing, even if he did not kiss his hand. But when he saw all this bowing and kissing on the part of the monks he instantly changed his mind. With dignified gravity he made a rather deep, conventional bow, and moved away to a chair. Fyodor Pavlovitch did the same, mimicking Misov like an ape. Ivan bowed with great dignity and courtesy, but he too kept his hands at his sides, while Kalganov was so confused that he did not bow at all. The elder let fall the hand raised to bless them, and bowing to them again, asked them all to sit down. The blood rushed to Alyosha's cheeks. He was ashamed. His forebodings were coming true. Father Zossima sat down on a very oldfashioned mahogany sofa, covered with leather, and made his visitors sit down in a row along the opposite wall on four mahogany chairs, covered with shabby black leather. The monks sat, one at the door and the other at the window. The divinity student, the novice, and Alyosha remained standing. The cell was not very large and had a faded look. It contained nothing but the most necessary furniture, of coarse and poor quality. There were two pots of flowers in the window, and a number of holy pictures in the corner. Before one huge ancient ikon of the Virgin a lamp was burning. Near it were two other holy pictures in shining settings, and, next them, carved cherubims, china eggs, a Catholic cross of ivory, with a Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several foreign engravings from the great Italian artists of past centuries. Next to these costly and artistic engravings were several of the roughest Russian prints of saints and martyrs, such as are sold for a few farthings at all the fairs. On the other walls were portraits of Russian bishops, past and present. Misov took a cursory glance at all these 'conventional surroundings and bent an intent look upon the elder. He had a high opinion of his own insight, a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty, an age at which a clever man of the world of established position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously. At the first moment he did not like Zossima. There was, indeed, something in the elder's face which many people besides Misov might not have liked. He was a short, bent, little man, with very weak legs, and though he was only sixtyfive, he looked at least ten years older. His face was very thin and covered with a network of fine wrinkles, particularly numerous about his eyes, which were small, lightcolored, quick, and shining like two bright points. He had a sprinkling of gray hair about his temples. His pointed beard was small and scanty, and his lips, which smiled frequently, were as thin as two threads. His nose was not long, but sharp, like a bird's beak. 'To all appearances a malicious soul, full of petty pride, thought Misov. He felt altogether dissatisfied with his position. A cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly, and served to begin the conversation. 'Precisely to our time, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, 'but no sign of my son, Dmitri. I apologize for him, sacred elder! (Alyosha shuddered all over at 'sacred elder.) 'I am always punctual myself, minute for minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings.... 'But you are not a king, anyway, Misov muttered, losing his self restraint at once. 'Yes that's true. I'm not a king, and, would you believe it, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, I was aware of that myself. But, there! I always say the wrong thing. Your reverence, he cried, with sudden pathos, 'you behold before you a buffoon in earnest! I introduce myself as such. It's an old habit, alas! And if I sometimes talk nonsense out of place it's with an object, with the object of amusing people and making myself agreeable. One must be agreeable, mustn't one? I was seven years ago in a little town where I had business, and I made friends with some merchants there. We went to the captain of police because we had to see him about something, and to ask him to dine with us. He was a tall, fat, fair, sulky man, the most dangerous type in such cases. It's their liver. I went straight up to him, and with the ease of a man of the world, you know, 'Mr. Ispravnik,' said I, 'be our Napravnik.' 'What do you mean by Napravnik?' said he. I saw, at the first halfsecond, that it had missed fire. He stood there so glum. 'I wanted to make a joke,' said I, 'for the general diversion, as Mr. Napravnik is our wellknown Russian orchestra conductor and what we need for the harmony of our undertaking is some one of that sort.' And I explained my comparison very reasonably, didn't I? 'Excuse me,' said he, 'I am an Ispravnik, and I do not allow puns to be made on my calling.' He turned and walked away. I followed him, shouting, 'Yes, yes, you are an Ispravnik, not a Napravnik.' 'No,' he said, 'since you called me a Napravnik I am one.' And would you believe it, it ruined our business! And I'm always like that, always like that. Always injuring myself with my politeness. Once, many years ago, I said to an influential person 'Your wife is a ticklish lady,' in an honorable sense, of the moral qualities, so to speak. But he asked me, 'Why, have you tickled her?' I thought I'd be polite, so I couldn't help saying, 'Yes,' and he gave me a fine tickling on the spot. Only that happened long ago, so I'm not ashamed to tell the story. I'm always injuring myself like that. 'You're doing it now, muttered Misov, with disgust. Father Zossima scrutinized them both in silence. 'Am I? Would you believe it, I was aware of that, too, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, and let me tell you, indeed, I foresaw I should as soon as I began to speak. And do you know I foresaw, too, that you'd be the first to remark on it. The minute I see my joke isn't coming off, your reverence, both my cheeks feel as though they were drawn down to the lower jaw and there is almost a spasm in them. That's been so since I was young, when I had to make jokes for my living in noblemen's families. I am an inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth up, your reverence, it's as though it were a craze in me. I dare say it's a devil within me. But only a little one. A more serious one would have chosen another lodging. But not your soul, Pyotr Alexandrovitch you're not a lodging worth having either. But I do believeI believe in God, though I have had doubts of late. But now I sit and await words of wisdom. I'm like the philosopher, Diderot, your reverence. Did you ever hear, most Holy Father, how Diderot went to see the Metropolitan Platon, in the time of the Empress Catherine? He went in and said straight out, 'There is no God.' To which the great bishop lifted up his finger and answered, 'The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.' And he fell down at his feet on the spot. 'I believe,' he cried, 'and will be christened.' And so he was. Princess Dashkov was his godmother, and Potyomkin his godfather. 'Fyodor Pavlovitch, this is unbearable! You know you're telling lies and that that stupid anecdote isn't true. Why are you playing the fool? cried Misov in a shaking voice. 'I suspected all my life that it wasn't true, Fyodor Pavlovitch cried with conviction. 'But I'll tell you the whole truth, gentlemen. Great elder! Forgive me, the last thing about Diderot's christening I made up just now. I never thought of it before. I made it up to add piquancy. I play the fool, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to make myself agreeable. Though I really don't know myself, sometimes, what I do it for. And as for Diderot, I heard as far as 'the fool hath said in his heart' twenty times from the gentry about here when I was young. I heard your aunt, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, tell the story. They all believe to this day that the infidel Diderot came to dispute about God with the Metropolitan Platon.... Misov got up, forgetting himself in his impatience. He was furious, and conscious of being ridiculous. What was taking place in the cell was really incredible. For forty or fifty years past, from the times of former elders, no visitors had entered that cell without feelings of the profoundest veneration. Almost every one admitted to the cell felt that a great favor was being shown him. Many remained kneeling during the whole visit. Of those visitors, many had been men of high rank and learning, some even freethinkers, attracted by curiosity, but all without exception had shown the profoundest reverence and delicacy, for here there was no question of money, but only, on the one side love and kindness, and on the other penitence and eager desire to decide some spiritual problem or crisis. So that such buffoonery amazed and bewildered the spectators, or at least some of them. The monks, with unchanged countenances, waited, with earnest attention, to hear what the elder would say, but seemed on the point of standing up, like Misov. Alyosha stood, with hanging head, on the verge of tears. What seemed to him strangest of all was that his brother Ivan, on whom alone he had rested his hopes, and who alone had such influence on his father that he could have stopped him, sat now quite unmoved, with downcast eyes, apparently waiting with interest to see how it would end, as though he had nothing to do with it. Alyosha did not dare to look at Rakitin, the divinity student, whom he knew almost intimately. He alone in the monastery knew Rakitin's thoughts. 'Forgive me, began Misov, addressing Father Zossima, 'for perhaps I seem to be taking part in this shameful foolery. I made a mistake in believing that even a man like Fyodor Pavlovitch would understand what was due on a visit to so honored a personage. I did not suppose I should have to apologize simply for having come with him.... Pyotr Alexandrovitch could say no more, and was about to leave the room, overwhelmed with confusion. 'Don't distress yourself, I beg. The elder got on to his feeble legs, and taking Pyotr Alexandrovitch by both hands, made him sit down again. 'I beg you not to disturb yourself. I particularly beg you to be my guest. And with a bow he went back and sat down again on his little sofa. 'Great elder, speak! Do I annoy you by my vivacity? Fyodor Pavlovitch cried suddenly, clutching the arms of his chair in both hands, as though ready to leap up from it if the answer were unfavorable. 'I earnestly beg you, too, not to disturb yourself, and not to be uneasy, the elder said impressively. 'Do not trouble. Make yourself quite at home. And, above all, do not be so ashamed of yourself, for that is at the root of it all. 'Quite at home? To be my natural self? Oh, that is much too much, but I accept it with grateful joy. Do you know, blessed Father, you'd better not invite me to be my natural self. Don't risk it.... I will not go so far as that myself. I warn you for your own sake. Well, the rest is still plunged in the mists of uncertainty, though there are people who'd be pleased to describe me for you. I mean that for you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. But as for you, holy being, let me tell you, I am brimming over with ecstasy. He got up, and throwing up his hands, declaimed, 'Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suckthe paps especially. When you said just now, 'Don't be so ashamed of yourself, for that is at the root of it all,' you pierced right through me by that remark, and read me to the core. Indeed, I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon. So I say, 'Let me really play the buffoon. I am not afraid of your opinion, for you are every one of you worse than I am.' That is why I am a buffoon. It is from shame, great elder, from shame it's simply oversensitiveness that makes me rowdy. If I had only been sure that every one would accept me as the kindest and wisest of men, oh, Lord, what a good man I should have been then! Teacher! he fell suddenly on his knees, 'what must I do to gain eternal life? It was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or really moved. Father Zossima, lifting his eyes, looked at him, and said with a smile 'You have known for a long time what you must do. You have sense enough don't give way to drunkenness and incontinence of speech don't give way to sensual lust and, above all, to the love of money. And close your taverns. If you can't close all, at least two or three. And, above alldon't lie. 'You mean about Diderot? 'No, not about Diderot. Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehillhe knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing.... 'Blessed man! Give me your hand to kiss. Fyodor Pavlovitch skipped up, and imprinted a rapid kiss on the elder's thin hand. 'It is, it is pleasant to take offense. You said that so well, as I never heard it before. Yes, I have been all my life taking offense, to please myself, taking offense on esthetic grounds, for it is not so much pleasant as distinguished sometimes to be insultedthat you had forgotten, great elder, it is distinguished! I shall make a note of that. But I have been lying, lying positively my whole life long, every day and hour of it. Of a truth, I am a lie, and the father of lies. Though I believe I am not the father of lies. I am getting mixed in my texts. Say, the son of lies, and that will be enough. Only ... my angel ... I may sometimes talk about Diderot! Diderot will do no harm, though sometimes a word will do harm. Great elder, by the way, I was forgetting, though I had been meaning for the last two years to come here on purpose to ask and to find out something. Only do tell Pyotr Alexandrovitch not to interrupt me. Here is my question Is it true, great Father, that the story is told somewhere in the Lives of the Saints of a holy saint martyred for his faith who, when his head was cut off at last, stood up, picked up his head, and, 'courteously kissing it,' walked a long way, carrying it in his hands. Is that true or not, honored Father? 'No, it is untrue, said the elder. 'There is nothing of the kind in all the lives of the saints. What saint do you say the story is told of? asked the Father Librarian. 'I do not know what saint. I do not know, and can't tell. I was deceived. I was told the story. I had heard it, and do you know who told it? Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov here, who was so angry just now about Diderot. He it was who told the story. 'I have never told it you, I never speak to you at all. 'It is true you did not tell me, but you told it when I was present. It was three years ago. I mentioned it because by that ridiculous story you shook my faith, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You knew nothing of it, but I went home with my faith shaken, and I have been getting more and more shaken ever since. Yes, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you were the cause of a great fall. That was not a Diderot! Fyodor Pavlovitch got excited and pathetic, though it was perfectly clear to every one by now that he was playing a part again. Yet Misov was stung by his words. 'What nonsense, and it is all nonsense, he muttered. 'I may really have told it, some time or other ... but not to you. I was told it myself. I heard it in Paris from a Frenchman. He told me it was read at our mass from the Lives of the Saints ... he was a very learned man who had made a special study of Russian statistics and had lived a long time in Russia.... I have not read the Lives of the Saints myself, and I am not going to read them ... all sorts of things are said at dinnerwe were dining then. 'Yes, you were dining then, and so I lost my faith! said Fyodor Pavlovitch, mimicking him. 'What do I care for your faith? Misov was on the point of shouting, but he suddenly checked himself, and said with contempt, 'You defile everything you touch. The elder suddenly rose from his seat. 'Excuse me, gentlemen, for leaving you a few minutes, he said, addressing all his guests. 'I have visitors awaiting me who arrived before you. But don't you tell lies all the same, he added, turning to Fyodor Pavlovitch with a goodhumored face. He went out of the cell. Alyosha and the novice flew to escort him down the steps. Alyosha was breathless he was glad to get away, but he was glad, too, that the elder was goodhumored and not offended. Father Zossima was going towards the portico to bless the people waiting for him there. But Fyodor Pavlovitch persisted in stopping him at the door of the cell. 'Blessed man! he cried, with feeling. 'Allow me to kiss your hand once more. Yes, with you I could still talk, I could still get on. Do you think I always lie and play the fool like this? Believe me, I have been acting like this all the time on purpose to try you. I have been testing you all the time to see whether I could get on with you. Is there room for my humility beside your pride? I am ready to give you a testimonial that one can get on with you! But now, I'll be quiet I will keep quiet all the time. I'll sit in a chair and hold my tongue. Now it is for you to speak, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You are the principal person left nowfor ten minutes. Near the wooden portico below, built on to the outer wall of the precinct, there was a crowd of about twenty peasant women. They had been told that the elder was at last coming out, and they had gathered together in anticipation. Two ladies, Madame Hohlakov and her daughter, had also come out into the portico to wait for the elder, but in a separate part of it set aside for women of rank. Madame Hohlakov was a wealthy lady, still young and attractive, and always dressed with taste. She was rather pale, and had lively black eyes. She was not more than thirtythree, and had been five years a widow. Her daughter, a girl of fourteen, was partially paralyzed. The poor child had not been able to walk for the last six months, and was wheeled about in a long reclining chair. She had a charming little face, rather thin from illness, but full of gayety. There was a gleam of mischief in her big dark eyes with their long lashes. Her mother had been intending to take her abroad ever since the spring, but they had been detained all the summer by business connected with their estate. They had been staying a week in our town, where they had come more for purposes of business than devotion, but had visited Father Zossima once already, three days before. Though they knew that the elder scarcely saw any one, they had now suddenly turned up again, and urgently entreated 'the happiness of looking once again on the great healer. The mother was sitting on a chair by the side of her daughter's invalid carriage, and two paces from her stood an old monk, not one of our monastery, but a visitor from an obscure religious house in the far north. He too sought the elder's blessing. But Father Zossima, on entering the portico, went first straight to the peasants who were crowded at the foot of the three steps that led up into the portico. Father Zossima stood on the top step, put on his stole, and began blessing the women who thronged about him. One crazy woman was led up to him. As soon as she caught sight of the elder she began shrieking and writhing as though in the pains of childbirth. Laying the stole on her forehead, he read a short prayer over her, and she was at once soothed and quieted. I do not know how it may be now, but in my childhood I often happened to see and hear these 'possessed women in the villages and monasteries. They used to be brought to mass they would squeal and bark like a dog so that they were heard all over the church. But when the sacrament was carried in and they were led up to it, at once the 'possession ceased, and the sick women were always soothed for a time. I was greatly impressed and amazed at this as a child but then I heard from country neighbors and from my town teachers that the whole illness was simulated to avoid work, and that it could always be cured by suitable severity various anecdotes were told to confirm this. But later on I learnt with astonishment from medical specialists that there is no pretense about it, that it is a terrible illness to which women are subject, specially prevalent among us in Russia, and that it is due to the hard lot of the peasant women. It is a disease, I was told, arising from exhausting toil too soon after hard, abnormal and unassisted labor in childbirth, and from the hopeless misery, from beatings, and so on, which some women were not able to endure like others. The strange and instant healing of the frantic and struggling woman as soon as she was led up to the holy sacrament, which had been explained to me as due to malingering and the trickery of the 'clericals, arose probably in the most natural manner. Both the women who supported her and the invalid herself fully believed as a truth beyond question that the evil spirit in possession of her could not hold out if the sick woman were brought to the sacrament and made to bow down before it. And so, with a nervous and psychically deranged woman, a sort of convulsion of the whole organism always took place, and was bound to take place, at the moment of bowing down to the sacrament, aroused by the expectation of the miracle of healing and the implicit belief that it would come to pass and it did come to pass, though only for a moment. It was exactly the same now as soon as the elder touched the sick woman with the stole. Many of the women in the crowd were moved to tears of ecstasy by the effect of the moment some strove to kiss the hem of his garment, others cried out in singsong voices. He blessed them all and talked with some of them. The 'possessed woman he knew already. She came from a village only six versts from the monastery, and had been brought to him before. 'But here is one from afar. He pointed to a woman by no means old but very thin and wasted, with a face not merely sunburnt but almost blackened by exposure. She was kneeling and gazing with a fixed stare at the elder there was something almost frenzied in her eyes. 'From afar off, Father, from afar off! From two hundred miles from here. From afar off, Father, from afar off! the woman began in a singsong voice as though she were chanting a dirge, swaying her head from side to side with her cheek resting in her hand. There is silent and longsuffering sorrow to be met with among the peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is no lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound. 'You are of the tradesman class? said Father Zossima, looking curiously at her. 'Townfolk we are, Father, townfolk. Yet we are peasants though we live in the town. I have come to see you, O Father! We heard of you, Father, we heard of you. I have buried my little son, and I have come on a pilgrimage. I have been in three monasteries, but they told me, 'Go, Nastasya, go to them'that is to you. I have come I was yesterday at the service, and today I have come to you. 'What are you weeping for? 'It's my little son I'm grieving for, Father. He was three years oldthree years all but three months. For my little boy, Father, I'm in anguish, for my little boy. He was the last one left. We had four, my Nikita and I, and now we've no children, our dear ones have all gone. I buried the first three without grieving overmuch, and now I have buried the last I can't forget him. He seems always standing before me. He never leaves me. He has withered my heart. I look at his little clothes, his little shirt, his little boots, and I wail. I lay out all that is left of him, all his little things. I look at them and wail. I say to Nikita, my husband, 'Let me go on a pilgrimage, master.' He is a driver. We're not poor people, Father, not poor he drives our own horse. It's all our own, the horse and the carriage. And what good is it all to us now? My Nikita has begun drinking while I am away. He's sure to. It used to be so before. As soon as I turn my back he gives way to it. But now I don't think about him. It's three months since I left home. I've forgotten him. I've forgotten everything. I don't want to remember. And what would our life be now together? I've done with him, I've done. I've done with them all. I don't care to look upon my house and my goods. I don't care to see anything at all! 'Listen, mother, said the elder. 'Once in olden times a holy saint saw in the Temple a mother like you weeping for her little one, her only one, whom God had taken. 'Knowest thou not,' said the saint to her, 'how bold these little ones are before the throne of God? Verily there are none bolder than they in the Kingdom of Heaven. 'Thou didst give us life, O Lord, they say, 'and scarcely had we looked upon it when Thou didst take it back again. And so boldly they ask and ask again that God gives them at once the rank of angels. Therefore,' said the saint, 'thou, too, O mother, rejoice and weep not, for thy little son is with the Lord in the fellowship of the angels.' That's what the saint said to the weeping mother of old. He was a great saint and he could not have spoken falsely. Therefore you too, mother, know that your little one is surely before the throne of God, is rejoicing and happy, and praying to God for you, and therefore weep not, but rejoice. The woman listened to him, looking down with her cheek in her hand. She sighed deeply. 'My Nikita tried to comfort me with the same words as you. 'Foolish one,' he said, 'why weep? Our son is no doubt singing with the angels before God.' He says that to me, but he weeps himself. I see that he cries like me. 'I know, Nikita,' said I. 'Where could he be if not with the Lord God? Only, here with us now he is not as he used to sit beside us before.' And if only I could look upon him one little time, if only I could peep at him one little time, without going up to him, without speaking, if I could be hidden in a corner and only see him for one little minute, hear him playing in the yard, calling in his little voice, 'Mammy, where are you?' If only I could hear him pattering with his little feet about the room just once, only once for so often, so often I remember how he used to run to me and shout and laugh, if only I could hear his little feet I should know him! But he's gone, Father, he's gone, and I shall never hear him again. Here's his little sash, but him I shall never see or hear now. She drew out of her bosom her boy's little embroidered sash, and as soon as she looked at it she began shaking with sobs, hiding her eyes with her fingers through which the tears flowed in a sudden stream. 'It is Rachel of old, said the elder, 'weeping for her children, and will not be comforted because they are not. Such is the lot set on earth for you mothers. Be not comforted. Consolation is not what you need. Weep and be not consoled, but weep. Only every time that you weep be sure to remember that your little son is one of the angels of God, that he looks down from there at you and sees you, and rejoices at your tears, and points at them to the Lord God and a long while yet will you keep that great mother's grief. But it will turn in the end into quiet joy, and your bitter tears will be only tears of tender sorrow that purifies the heart and delivers it from sin. And I shall pray for the peace of your child's soul. What was his name? 'Alexey, Father. 'A sweet name. After Alexey, the man of God? 'Yes, Father. 'What a saint he was! I will remember him, mother, and your grief in my prayers, and I will pray for your husband's health. It is a sin for you to leave him. Your little one will see from heaven that you have forsaken his father, and will weep over you. Why do you trouble his happiness? He is living, for the soul lives for ever, and though he is not in the house he is near you, unseen. How can he go into the house when you say that the house is hateful to you? To whom is he to go if he find you not together, his father and mother? He comes to you in dreams now, and you grieve. But then he will send you gentle dreams. Go to your husband, mother go this very day. 'I will go, Father, at your word. I will go. You've gone straight to my heart. My Nikita, my Nikita, you are waiting for me, the woman began in a singsong voice but the elder had already turned away to a very old woman, dressed like a dweller in the town, not like a pilgrim. Her eyes showed that she had come with an object, and in order to say something. She said she was the widow of a noncommissioned officer, and lived close by in the town. Her son Vasenka was in the commissariat service, and had gone to Irkutsk in Siberia. He had written twice from there, but now a year had passed since he had written. She did inquire about him, but she did not know the proper place to inquire. 'Only the other day Stepanida Ilyinishnashe's a rich merchant's wifesaid to me, 'You go, Prohorovna, and put your son's name down for prayer in the church, and pray for the peace of his soul as though he were dead. His soul will be troubled,' she said, 'and he will write you a letter.' And Stepanida Ilyinishna told me it was a certain thing which had been many times tried. Only I am in doubt.... Oh, you light of ours! is it true or false, and would it be right? 'Don't think of it. It's shameful to ask the question. How is it possible to pray for the peace of a living soul? And his own mother too! It's a great sin, akin to sorcery. Only for your ignorance it is forgiven you. Better pray to the Queen of Heaven, our swift defense and help, for his good health, and that she may forgive you for your error. And another thing I will tell you, Prohorovna. Either he will soon come back to you, your son, or he will be sure to send a letter. Go, and henceforward be in peace. Your son is alive, I tell you. 'Dear Father, God reward you, our benefactor, who prays for all of us and for our sins! But the elder had already noticed in the crowd two glowing eyes fixed upon him. An exhausted, consumptivelooking, though young peasant woman was gazing at him in silence. Her eyes besought him, but she seemed afraid to approach. 'What is it, my child? 'Absolve my soul, Father, she articulated softly, and slowly sank on her knees and bowed down at his feet. 'I have sinned, Father. I am afraid of my sin. The elder sat down on the lower step. The woman crept closer to him, still on her knees. 'I am a widow these three years, she began in a halfwhisper, with a sort of shudder. 'I had a hard life with my husband. He was an old man. He used to beat me cruelly. He lay ill I thought looking at him, if he were to get well, if he were to get up again, what then? And then the thought came to me 'Stay! said the elder, and he put his ear close to her lips. The woman went on in a low whisper, so that it was almost impossible to catch anything. She had soon done. 'Three years ago? asked the elder. 'Three years. At first I didn't think about it, but now I've begun to be ill, and the thought never leaves me. 'Have you come from far? 'Over three hundred miles away. 'Have you told it in confession? 'I have confessed it. Twice I have confessed it. 'Have you been admitted to Communion? 'Yes. I am afraid. I am afraid to die. 'Fear nothing and never be afraid and don't fret. If only your penitence fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God? Think only of repentance, continual repentance, but dismiss fear altogether. Believe that God loves you as you cannot conceive that He loves you with your sin, in your sin. It has been said of old that over one repentant sinner there is more joy in heaven than over ten righteous men. Go, and fear not. Be not bitter against men. Be not angry if you are wronged. Forgive the dead man in your heart what wrong he did you. Be reconciled with him in truth. If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner, even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and expiate not only your own sins but the sins of others. He signed her three times with the cross, took from his own neck a little ikon and put it upon her. She bowed down to the earth without speaking. He got up and looked cheerfully at a healthy peasant woman with a tiny baby in her arms. 'From Vyshegorye, dear Father. 'Five miles you have dragged yourself with the baby. What do you want? 'I've come to look at you. I have been to you beforeor have you forgotten? You've no great memory if you've forgotten me. They told us you were ill. Thinks I, I'll go and see him for myself. Now I see you, and you're not ill! You'll live another twenty years. God bless you! There are plenty to pray for you how should you be ill? 'I thank you for all, daughter. 'By the way, I have a thing to ask, not a great one. Here are sixty copecks. Give them, dear Father, to some one poorer than me. I thought as I came along, better give through him. He'll know whom to give to. 'Thanks, my dear, thanks! You are a good woman. I love you. I will do so certainly. Is that your little girl? 'My little girl, Father, Lizaveta. 'May the Lord bless you both, you and your babe Lizaveta! You have gladdened my heart, mother. Farewell, dear children, farewell, dear ones. He blessed them all and bowed low to them. A visitor looking on the scene of his conversation with the peasants and his blessing them shed silent tears and wiped them away with her handkerchief. She was a sentimental society lady of genuinely good disposition in many respects. When the elder went up to her at last she met him enthusiastically. 'Ah, what I have been feeling, looking on at this touching scene!... She could not go on for emotion. 'Oh, I understand the people's love for you. I love the people myself. I want to love them. And who could help loving them, our splendid Russian people, so simple in their greatness! 'How is your daughter's health? You wanted to talk to me again? 'Oh, I have been urgently begging for it, I have prayed for it! I was ready to fall on my knees and kneel for three days at your windows until you let me in. We have come, great healer, to express our ardent gratitude. You have healed my Lise, healed her completely, merely by praying over her last Thursday and laying your hands upon her. We have hastened here to kiss those hands, to pour out our feelings and our homage. 'What do you mean by healed? But she is still lying down in her chair. 'But her night fevers have entirely ceased ever since Thursday, said the lady with nervous haste. 'And that's not all. Her legs are stronger. This morning she got up well she had slept all night. Look at her rosy cheeks, her bright eyes! She used to be always crying, but now she laughs and is gay and happy. This morning she insisted on my letting her stand up, and she stood up for a whole minute without any support. She wagers that in a fortnight she'll be dancing a quadrille. I've called in Doctor Herzenstube. He shrugged his shoulders and said, 'I am amazed I can make nothing of it.' And would you have us not come here to disturb you, not fly here to thank you? Lise, thank himthank him! Lise's pretty little laughing face became suddenly serious. She rose in her chair as far as she could and, looking at the elder, clasped her hands before him, but could not restrain herself and broke into laughter. 'It's at him, she said, pointing to Alyosha, with childish vexation at herself for not being able to repress her mirth. If any one had looked at Alyosha standing a step behind the elder, he would have caught a quick flush crimsoning his cheeks in an instant. His eyes shone and he looked down. 'She has a message for you, Alexey Fyodorovitch. How are you? the mother went on, holding out her exquisitely gloved hand to Alyosha. The elder turned round and all at once looked attentively at Alyosha. The latter went nearer to Lise and, smiling in a strangely awkward way, held out his hand to her too. Lise assumed an important air. 'Katerina Ivanovna has sent you this through me. She handed him a little note. 'She particularly begs you to go and see her as soon as possible that you will not fail her, but will be sure to come. 'She asks me to go and see her? Me? What for? Alyosha muttered in great astonishment. His face at once looked anxious. 'Oh, it's all to do with Dmitri Fyodorovitch andwhat has happened lately, the mother explained hurriedly. 'Katerina Ivanovna has made up her mind, but she must see you about it.... Why, of course, I can't say. But she wants to see you at once. And you will go to her, of course. It is a Christian duty. 'I have only seen her once, Alyosha protested with the same perplexity. 'Oh, she is such a lofty, incomparable creature! If only for her suffering.... Think what she has gone through, what she is enduring now! Think what awaits her! It's all terrible, terrible! 'Very well, I will come, Alyosha decided, after rapidly scanning the brief, enigmatic note, which consisted of an urgent entreaty that he would come, without any sort of explanation. 'Oh, how sweet and generous that would be of you! cried Lise with sudden animation. 'I told mamma you'd be sure not to go. I said you were saving your soul. How splendid you are! I've always thought you were splendid. How glad I am to tell you so! 'Lise! said her mother impressively, though she smiled after she had said it. 'You have quite forgotten us, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she said 'you never come to see us. Yet Lise has told me twice that she is never happy except with you. Alyosha raised his downcast eyes and again flushed, and again smiled without knowing why. But the elder was no longer watching him. He had begun talking to a monk who, as mentioned before, had been awaiting his entrance by Lise's chair. He was evidently a monk of the humblest, that is of the peasant, class, of a narrow outlook, but a true believer, and, in his own way, a stubborn one. He announced that he had come from the far north, from Obdorsk, from Saint Sylvester, and was a member of a poor monastery, consisting of only ten monks. The elder gave him his blessing and invited him to come to his cell whenever he liked. 'How can you presume to do such deeds? the monk asked suddenly, pointing solemnly and significantly at Lise. He was referring to her 'healing. 'It's too early, of course, to speak of that. Relief is not complete cure, and may proceed from different causes. But if there has been any healing, it is by no power but God's will. It's all from God. Visit me, Father, he added to the monk. 'It's not often I can see visitors. I am ill, and I know that my days are numbered. 'Oh, no, no! God will not take you from us. You will live a long, long time yet, cried the lady. 'And in what way are you ill? You look so well, so gay and happy. 'I am extraordinarily better today. But I know that it's only for a moment. I understand my disease now thoroughly. If I seem so happy to you, you could never say anything that would please me so much. For men are made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.' All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy. 'Oh, how you speak! What bold and lofty words! cried the lady. 'You seem to pierce with your words. And yethappiness, happinesswhere is it? Who can say of himself that he is happy? Oh, since you have been so good as to let us see you once more today, let me tell you what I could not utter last time, what I dared not say, all I am suffering and have been for so long! I am suffering! Forgive me! I am suffering! And in a rush of fervent feeling she clasped her hands before him. 'From what specially? 'I suffer ... from lack of faith. 'Lack of faith in God? 'Oh, no, no! I dare not even think of that. But the future lifeit is such an enigma! And no one, no one can solve it. Listen! You are a healer, you are deeply versed in the human soul, and of course I dare not expect you to believe me entirely, but I assure you on my word of honor that I am not speaking lightly now. The thought of the life beyond the grave distracts me to anguish, to terror. And I don't know to whom to appeal, and have not dared to all my life. And now I am so bold as to ask you. Oh, God! What will you think of me now? She clasped her hands. 'Don't distress yourself about my opinion of you, said the elder. 'I quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering. 'Oh, how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask myself if every one has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say that it all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature, and that none of it's real. And I say to myself, 'What if I've been believing all my life, and when I come to die there's nothing but the burdocks growing on my grave?' as I read in some author. It's awful! Howhow can I get back my faith? But I only believed when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking of anything. How, how is one to prove it? I have come now to lay my soul before you and to ask you about it. If I let this chance slip, no one all my life will answer me. How can I prove it? How can I convince myself? Oh, how unhappy I am! I stand and look about me and see that scarcely any one else cares no one troubles his head about it, and I'm the only one who can't stand it. It's deadlydeadly! 'No doubt. But there's no proving it, though you can be convinced of it. 'How? 'By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect selfforgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain. 'In active love? There's another questionand such a question! You see, I so love humanity thatwould you believe it?I often dream of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds. 'It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and not others. Sometime, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality. 'Yes. But could I endure such a life for long? the lady went on fervently, almost frantically. 'That's the chief questionthat's my most agonizing question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, 'Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great suffering)what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?' And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at oncethat is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving any one. She was in a very paroxysm of selfcastigation, and, concluding, she looked with defiant resolution at the elder. 'It's just the same story as a doctor once told me, observed the elder. 'He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. 'I love humanity,' he said, 'but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,' he said, 'I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my selfcomplacency and restricts my freedom. In twentyfour hours I begin to hate the best of men one because he's too long over his dinner another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.'  'But what's to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one despair? 'No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you since you can so deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have been talking to me so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness, as you did from me just now, then of course you will not attain to anything in the achievement of real love it will all get no further than dreams, and your whole life will slip away like a phantom. In that case you will naturally cease to think of the future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer after a fashion in the end. 'You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that I was really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I told you I could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself! 'Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love. Don't be frightened overmuch even at your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to itat that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me for not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me. Goodby. The lady was weeping. 'Lise, Lise! Bless herbless her! she cried, starting up suddenly. 'She does not deserve to be loved. I have seen her naughtiness all along, the elder said jestingly. 'Why have you been laughing at Alexey? Lise had in fact been occupied in mocking at him all the time. She had noticed before that Alyosha was shy and tried not to look at her, and she found this extremely amusing. She waited intently to catch his eye. Alyosha, unable to endure her persistent stare, was irresistibly and suddenly drawn to glance at her, and at once she smiled triumphantly in his face. Alyosha was even more disconcerted and vexed. At last he turned away from her altogether and hid behind the elder's back. After a few minutes, drawn by the same irresistible force, he turned again to see whether he was being looked at or not, and found Lise almost hanging out of her chair to peep sideways at him, eagerly waiting for him to look. Catching his eye, she laughed so that the elder could not help saying, 'Why do you make fun of him like that, naughty girl? Lise suddenly and quite unexpectedly blushed. Her eyes flashed and her face became quite serious. She began speaking quickly and nervously in a warm and resentful voice 'Why has he forgotten everything, then? He used to carry me about when I was little. We used to play together. He used to come to teach me to read, do you know. Two years ago, when he went away, he said that he would never forget me, that we were friends for ever, for ever, for ever! And now he's afraid of me all at once. Am I going to eat him? Why doesn't he want to come near me? Why doesn't he talk? Why won't he come and see us? It's not that you won't let him. We know that he goes everywhere. It's not good manners for me to invite him. He ought to have thought of it first, if he hasn't forgotten me. No, now he's saving his soul! Why have you put that long gown on him? If he runs he'll fall. And suddenly she hid her face in her hand and went off into irresistible, prolonged, nervous, inaudible laughter. The elder listened to her with a smile, and blessed her tenderly. As she kissed his hand she suddenly pressed it to her eyes and began crying. 'Don't be angry with me. I'm silly and good for nothing ... and perhaps Alyosha's right, quite right, in not wanting to come and see such a ridiculous girl. 'I will certainly send him, said the elder. The elder's absence from his cell had lasted for about twentyfive minutes. It was more than halfpast twelve, but Dmitri, on whose account they had all met there, had still not appeared. But he seemed almost to be forgotten, and when the elder entered the cell again, he found his guests engaged in eager conversation. Ivan and the two monks took the leading share in it. Misov, too, was trying to take a part, and apparently very eagerly, in the conversation. But he was unsuccessful in this also. He was evidently in the background, and his remarks were treated with neglect, which increased his irritability. He had had intellectual encounters with Ivan before and he could not endure a certain carelessness Ivan showed him. 'Hitherto at least I have stood in the front ranks of all that is progressive in Europe, and here the new generation positively ignores us, he thought. Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had given his word to sit still and be quiet, had actually been quiet for some time, but he watched his neighbor Misov with an ironical little smile, obviously enjoying his discomfiture. He had been waiting for some time to pay off old scores, and now he could not let the opportunity slip. Bending over his shoulder he began teasing him again in a whisper. 'Why didn't you go away just now, after the 'courteously kissing'? Why did you consent to remain in such unseemly company? It was because you felt insulted and aggrieved, and you remained to vindicate yourself by showing off your intelligence. Now you won't go till you've displayed your intellect to them. 'You again?... On the contrary, I'm just going. 'You'll be the last, the last of all to go! Fyodor Pavlovitch delivered him another thrust, almost at the moment of Father Zossima's return. The discussion died down for a moment, but the elder, seating himself in his former place, looked at them all as though cordially inviting them to go on. Alyosha, who knew every expression of his face, saw that he was fearfully exhausted and making a great effort. Of late he had been liable to fainting fits from exhaustion. His face had the pallor that was common before such attacks, and his lips were white. But he evidently did not want to break up the party. He seemed to have some special object of his own in keeping them. What object? Alyosha watched him intently. 'We are discussing this gentleman's most interesting article, said Father Iosif, the librarian, addressing the elder, and indicating Ivan. 'He brings forward much that is new, but I think the argument cuts both ways. It is an article written in answer to a book by an ecclesiastical authority on the question of the ecclesiastical court, and the scope of its jurisdiction. 'I'm sorry I have not read your article, but I've heard of it, said the elder, looking keenly and intently at Ivan. 'He takes up a most interesting position, continued the Father Librarian. 'As far as Church jurisdiction is concerned he is apparently quite opposed to the separation of Church from State. 'That's interesting. But in what sense? Father Zossima asked Ivan. The latter, at last, answered him, not condescendingly, as Alyosha had feared, but with modesty and reserve, with evident goodwill and apparently without the slightest arrirepense. 'I start from the position that this confusion of elements, that is, of the essential principles of Church and State, will, of course, go on for ever, in spite of the fact that it is impossible for them to mingle, and that the confusion of these elements cannot lead to any consistent or even normal results, for there is falsity at the very foundation of it. Compromise between the Church and State in such questions as, for instance, jurisdiction, is, to my thinking, impossible in any real sense. My clerical opponent maintains that the Church holds a precise and defined position in the State. I maintain, on the contrary, that the Church ought to include the whole State, and not simply to occupy a corner in it, and, if this is, for some reason, impossible at present, then it ought, in reality, to be set up as the direct and chief aim of the future development of Christian society! 'Perfectly true, Father Passy, the silent and learned monk, assented with fervor and decision. 'The purest Ultramontanism! cried Misov impatiently, crossing and recrossing his legs. 'Oh, well, we have no mountains, cried Father Iosif, and turning to the elder he continued 'Observe the answer he makes to the following 'fundamental and essential' propositions of his opponent, who is, you must note, an ecclesiastic. First, that 'no social organization can or ought to arrogate to itself power to dispose of the civic and political rights of its members.' Secondly, that 'criminal and civil jurisdiction ought not to belong to the Church, and is inconsistent with its nature, both as a divine institution and as an organization of men for religious objects,' and, finally, in the third place, 'the Church is a kingdom not of this world.'  'A most unworthy play upon words for an ecclesiastic! Father Passy could not refrain from breaking in again. 'I have read the book which you have answered, he added, addressing Ivan, 'and was astounded at the words 'the Church is a kingdom not of this world.' If it is not of this world, then it cannot exist on earth at all. In the Gospel, the words 'not of this world' are not used in that sense. To play with such words is indefensible. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to set up the Church upon earth. The Kingdom of Heaven, of course, is not of this world, but in Heaven but it is only entered through the Church which has been founded and established upon earth. And so a frivolous play upon words in such a connection is unpardonable and improper. The Church is, in truth, a kingdom and ordained to rule, and in the end must undoubtedly become the kingdom ruling over all the earth. For that we have the divine promise. He ceased speaking suddenly, as though checking himself. After listening attentively and respectfully Ivan went on, addressing the elder with perfect composure and as before with ready cordiality 'The whole point of my article lies in the fact that during the first three centuries Christianity only existed on earth in the Church and was nothing but the Church. When the pagan Roman Empire desired to become Christian, it inevitably happened that, by becoming Christian, it included the Church but remained a pagan State in very many of its departments. In reality this was bound to happen. But Rome as a State retained too much of the pagan civilization and culture, as, for example, in the very objects and fundamental principles of the State. The Christian Church entering into the State could, of course, surrender no part of its fundamental principlesthe rock on which it standsand could pursue no other aims than those which have been ordained and revealed by God Himself, and among them that of drawing the whole world, and therefore the ancient pagan State itself, into the Church. In that way (that is, with a view to the future) it is not the Church that should seek a definite position in the State, like 'every social organization,' or as 'an organization of men for religious purposes' (as my opponent calls the Church), but, on the contrary, every earthly State should be, in the end, completely transformed into the Church and should become nothing else but a Church, rejecting every purpose incongruous with the aims of the Church. All this will not degrade it in any way or take from its honor and glory as a great State, nor from the glory of its rulers, but only turns it from a false, still pagan, and mistaken path to the true and rightful path, which alone leads to the eternal goal. This is why the author of the book On the Foundations of Church Jurisdiction would have judged correctly if, in seeking and laying down those foundations, he had looked upon them as a temporary compromise inevitable in our sinful and imperfect days. But as soon as the author ventures to declare that the foundations which he predicates now, part of which Father Iosif just enumerated, are the permanent, essential, and eternal foundations, he is going directly against the Church and its sacred and eternal vocation. That is the gist of my article. 'That is, in brief, Father Passy began again, laying stress on each word, 'according to certain theories only too clearly formulated in the nineteenth century, the Church ought to be transformed into the State, as though this would be an advance from a lower to a higher form, so as to disappear into it, making way for science, for the spirit of the age, and civilization. And if the Church resists and is unwilling, some corner will be set apart for her in the State, and even that under controland this will be so everywhere in all modern European countries. But Russian hopes and conceptions demand not that the Church should pass as from a lower into a higher type into the State, but, on the contrary, that the State should end by being worthy to become only the Church and nothing else. So be it! So be it! 'Well, I confess you've reassured me somewhat, Misov said smiling, again crossing his legs. 'So far as I understand, then, the realization of such an ideal is infinitely remote, at the second coming of Christ. That's as you please. It's a beautiful Utopian dream of the abolition of war, diplomacy, banks, and so onsomething after the fashion of socialism, indeed. But I imagined that it was all meant seriously, and that the Church might be now going to try criminals, and sentence them to beating, prison, and even death. 'But if there were none but the ecclesiastical court, the Church would not even now sentence a criminal to prison or to death. Crime and the way of regarding it would inevitably change, not all at once of course, but fairly soon, Ivan replied calmly, without flinching. 'Are you serious? Misov glanced keenly at him. 'If everything became the Church, the Church would exclude all the criminal and disobedient, and would not cut off their heads, Ivan went on. 'I ask you, what would become of the excluded? He would be cut off then not only from men, as now, but from Christ. By his crime he would have transgressed not only against men but against the Church of Christ. This is so even now, of course, strictly speaking, but it is not clearly enunciated, and very, very often the criminal of today compromises with his conscience 'I steal,' he says, 'but I don't go against the Church. I'm not an enemy of Christ.' That's what the criminal of today is continually saying to himself, but when the Church takes the place of the State it will be difficult for him, in opposition to the Church all over the world, to say 'All men are mistaken, all in error, all mankind are the false Church. I, a thief and murderer, am the only true Christian Church.' It will be very difficult to say this to himself it requires a rare combination of unusual circumstances. Now, on the other side, take the Church's own view of crime is it not bound to renounce the present almost pagan attitude, and to change from a mechanical cutting off of its tainted member for the preservation of society, as at present, into completely and honestly adopting the idea of the regeneration of the man, of his reformation and salvation? 'What do you mean? I fail to understand again, Misov interrupted. 'Some sort of dream again. Something shapeless and even incomprehensible. What is excommunication? What sort of exclusion? I suspect you are simply amusing yourself, Ivan Fyodorovitch. 'Yes, but you know, in reality it is so now, said the elder suddenly, and all turned to him at once. 'If it were not for the Church of Christ there would be nothing to restrain the criminal from evildoing, no real chastisement for it afterwards none, that is, but the mechanical punishment spoken of just now, which in the majority of cases only embitters the heart and not the real punishment, the only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in the recognition of sin by conscience. 'How is that, may one inquire? asked Misov, with lively curiosity. 'Why, began the elder, 'all these sentences to exile with hard labor, and formerly with flogging also, reform no one, and what's more, deter hardly a single criminal, and the number of crimes does not diminish but is continually on the increase. You must admit that. Consequently the security of society is not preserved, for, although the obnoxious member is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, another criminal always comes to take his place at once, and often two of them. If anything does preserve society, even in our time, and does regenerate and transform the criminal, it is only the law of Christ speaking in his conscience. It is only by recognizing his wrongdoing as a son of a Christian societythat is, of the Churchthat he recognizes his sin against societythat is, against the Church. So that it is only against the Church, and not against the State, that the criminal of today can recognize that he has sinned. If society, as a Church, had jurisdiction, then it would know when to bring back from exclusion and to reunite to itself. Now the Church having no real jurisdiction, but only the power of moral condemnation, withdraws of her own accord from punishing the criminal actively. She does not excommunicate him but simply persists in motherly exhortation of him. What is more, the Church even tries to preserve all Christian communion with the criminal. She admits him to church services, to the holy sacrament, gives him alms, and treats him more as a captive than as a convict. And what would become of the criminal, O Lord, if even the Christian societythat is, the Churchwere to reject him even as the civil law rejects him and cuts him off? What would become of him if the Church punished him with her excommunication as the direct consequence of the secular law? There could be no more terrible despair, at least for a Russian criminal, for Russian criminals still have faith. Though, who knows, perhaps then a fearful thing would happen, perhaps the despairing heart of the criminal would lose its faith and then what would become of him? But the Church, like a tender, loving mother, holds aloof from active punishment herself, as the sinner is too severely punished already by the civil law, and there must be at least some one to have pity on him. The Church holds aloof, above all, because its judgment is the only one that contains the truth, and therefore cannot practically and morally be united to any other judgment even as a temporary compromise. She can enter into no compact about that. The foreign criminal, they say, rarely repents, for the very doctrines of today confirm him in the idea that his crime is not a crime, but only a reaction against an unjustly oppressive force. Society cuts him off completely by a force that triumphs over him mechanically and (so at least they say of themselves in Europe) accompanies this exclusion with hatred, forgetfulness, and the most profound indifference as to the ultimate fate of the erring brother. In this way, it all takes place without the compassionate intervention of the Church, for in many cases there are no churches there at all, for though ecclesiastics and splendid church buildings remain, the churches themselves have long ago striven to pass from Church into State and to disappear in it completely. So it seems at least in Lutheran countries. As for Rome, it was proclaimed a State instead of a Church a thousand years ago. And so the criminal is no longer conscious of being a member of the Church and sinks into despair. If he returns to society, often it is with such hatred that society itself instinctively cuts him off. You can judge for yourself how it must end. In many cases it would seem to be the same with us, but the difference is that besides the established law courts we have the Church too, which always keeps up relations with the criminal as a dear and still precious son. And besides that, there is still preserved, though only in thought, the judgment of the Church, which though no longer existing in practice is still living as a dream for the future, and is, no doubt, instinctively recognized by the criminal in his soul. What was said here just now is true too, that is, that if the jurisdiction of the Church were introduced in practice in its full force, that is, if the whole of the society were changed into the Church, not only the judgment of the Church would have influence on the reformation of the criminal such as it never has now, but possibly also the crimes themselves would be incredibly diminished. And there can be no doubt that the Church would look upon the criminal and the crime of the future in many cases quite differently and would succeed in restoring the excluded, in restraining those who plan evil, and in regenerating the fallen. It is true, said Father Zossima, with a smile, 'the Christian society now is not ready and is only resting on some seven righteous men, but as they are never lacking, it will continue still unshaken in expectation of its complete transformation from a society almost heathen in character into a single universal and allpowerful Church. So be it, so be it! Even though at the end of the ages, for it is ordained to come to pass! And there is no need to be troubled about times and seasons, for the secret of the times and seasons is in the wisdom of God, in His foresight, and His love. And what in human reckoning seems still afar off, may by the Divine ordinance be close at hand, on the eve of its appearance. And so be it, so be it! 'So be it, so be it! Father Passy repeated austerely and reverently. 'Strange, extremely strange! Misov pronounced, not so much with heat as with latent indignation. 'What strikes you as so strange? Father Iosif inquired cautiously. 'Why, it's beyond anything! cried Misov, suddenly breaking out 'the State is eliminated and the Church is raised to the position of the State. It's not simply Ultramontanism, it's archUltramontanism! It's beyond the dreams of Pope Gregory the Seventh! 'You are completely misunderstanding it, said Father Passy sternly. 'Understand, the Church is not to be transformed into the State. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil. On the contrary, the State is transformed into the Church, will ascend and become a Church over the whole worldwhich is the complete opposite of Ultramontanism and Rome, and your interpretation, and is only the glorious destiny ordained for the Orthodox Church. This star will arise in the east! Misov was significantly silent. His whole figure expressed extraordinary personal dignity. A supercilious and condescending smile played on his lips. Alyosha watched it all with a throbbing heart. The whole conversation stirred him profoundly. He glanced casually at Rakitin, who was standing immovable in his place by the door listening and watching intently though with downcast eyes. But from the color in his cheeks Alyosha guessed that Rakitin was probably no less excited, and he knew what caused his excitement. 'Allow me to tell you one little anecdote, gentlemen, Misov said impressively, with a peculiarly majestic air. 'Some years ago, soon after the coup d'tat of December, I happened to be calling in Paris on an extremely influential personage in the Government, and I met a very interesting man in his house. This individual was not precisely a detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment of political detectivesa rather powerful position in its own way. I was prompted by curiosity to seize the opportunity of conversation with him. And as he had not come as a visitor but as a subordinate official bringing a special report, and as he saw the reception given me by his chief, he deigned to speak with some openness, to a certain extent only, of course. He was rather courteous than open, as Frenchmen know how to be courteous, especially to a foreigner. But I thoroughly understood him. The subject was the socialist revolutionaries who were at that time persecuted. I will quote only one most curious remark dropped by this person. 'We are not particularly afraid,' said he, 'of all these socialists, anarchists, infidels, and revolutionists we keep watch on them and know all their goings on. But there are a few peculiar men among them who believe in God and are Christians, but at the same time are socialists. These are the people we are most afraid of. They are dreadful people! The socialist who is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist.' The words struck me at the time, and now they have suddenly come back to me here, gentlemen. 'You apply them to us, and look upon us as socialists? Father Passy asked directly, without beating about the bush. But before Pyotr Alexandrovitch could think what to answer, the door opened, and the guest so long expected, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, came in. They had, in fact, given up expecting him, and his sudden appearance caused some surprise for a moment. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, a young man of eight and twenty, of medium height and agreeable countenance, looked older than his years. He was muscular, and showed signs of considerable physical strength. Yet there was something not healthy in his face. It was rather thin, his cheeks were hollow, and there was an unhealthy sallowness in their color. His rather large, prominent, dark eyes had an expression of firm determination, and yet there was a vague look in them, too. Even when he was excited and talking irritably, his eyes somehow did not follow his mood, but betrayed something else, sometimes quite incongruous with what was passing. 'It's hard to tell what he's thinking, those who talked to him sometimes declared. People who saw something pensive and sullen in his eyes were startled by his sudden laugh, which bore witness to mirthful and light hearted thoughts at the very time when his eyes were so gloomy. A certain strained look in his face was easy to understand at this moment. Every one knew, or had heard of, the extremely restless and dissipated life which he had been leading of late, as well as of the violent anger to which he had been roused in his quarrels with his father. There were several stories current in the town about it. It is true that he was irascible by nature, 'of an unstable and unbalanced mind, as our justice of the peace, Katchalnikov, happily described him. He was stylishly and irreproachably dressed in a carefully buttoned frock coat. He wore black gloves and carried a tophat. Having only lately left the army, he still had mustaches and no beard. His dark brown hair was cropped short, and combed forward on his temples. He had the long, determined stride of a military man. He stood still for a moment on the threshold, and glancing at the whole party went straight up to the elder, guessing him to be their host. He made him a low bow, and asked his blessing. Father Zossima, rising in his chair, blessed him. Dmitri kissed his hand respectfully, and with intense feeling, almost anger, he said 'Be so generous as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long, but Smerdyakov, the valet sent me by my father, in reply to my inquiries, told me twice over that the appointment was for one. Now I suddenly learn 'Don't disturb yourself, interposed the elder. 'No matter. You are a little late. It's of no consequence.... 'I'm extremely obliged to you, and expected no less from your goodness. Saying this, Dmitri bowed once more. Then, turning suddenly towards his father, made him, too, a similarly low and respectful bow. He had evidently considered it beforehand, and made this bow in all seriousness, thinking it his duty to show his respect and good intentions. Although Fyodor Pavlovitch was taken unawares, he was equal to the occasion. In response to Dmitri's bow he jumped up from his chair and made his son a bow as low in return. His face was suddenly solemn and impressive, which gave him a positively malignant look. Dmitri bowed generally to all present, and without a word walked to the window with his long, resolute stride, sat down on the only empty chair, near Father Passy, and, bending forward, prepared to listen to the conversation he had interrupted. Dmitri's entrance had taken no more than two minutes, and the conversation was resumed. But this time Misov thought it unnecessary to reply to Father Passy's persistent and almost irritable question. 'Allow me to withdraw from this discussion, he observed with a certain wellbred nonchalance. 'It's a subtle question, too. Here Ivan Fyodorovitch is smiling at us. He must have something interesting to say about that also. Ask him. 'Nothing special, except one little remark, Ivan replied at once. 'European Liberals in general, and even our liberal dilettanti, often mix up the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. This wild notion is, of course, a characteristic feature. But it's not only Liberals and dilettanti who mix up socialism and Christianity, but, in many cases, it appears, the policethe foreign police, of coursedo the same. Your Paris anecdote is rather to the point, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. 'I ask your permission to drop this subject altogether, Misov repeated. 'I will tell you instead, gentlemen, another interesting and rather characteristic anecdote of Ivan Fyodorovitch himself. Only five days ago, in a gathering here, principally of ladies, he solemnly declared in argument that there was nothing in the whole world to make men love their neighbors. That there was no law of nature that man should love mankind, and that, if there had been any love on earth hitherto, it was not owing to a natural law, but simply because men have believed in immortality. Ivan Fyodorovitch added in parenthesis that the whole natural law lies in that faith, and that if you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism. That's not all. He ended by asserting that for every individual, like ourselves, who does not believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to crime, must become not only lawful but even recognized as the inevitable, the most rational, even honorable outcome of his position. From this paradox, gentlemen, you can judge of the rest of our eccentric and paradoxical friend Ivan Fyodorovitch's theories. 'Excuse me, Dmitri cried suddenly 'if I've heard aright, crime must not only be permitted but even recognized as the inevitable and the most rational outcome of his position for every infidel! Is that so or not? 'Quite so, said Father Passy. 'I'll remember it. Having uttered these words Dmitri ceased speaking as suddenly as he had begun. Every one looked at him with curiosity. 'Is that really your conviction as to the consequences of the disappearance of the faith in immortality? the elder asked Ivan suddenly. 'Yes. That was my contention. There is no virtue if there is no immortality. 'You are blessed in believing that, or else most unhappy. 'Why unhappy? Ivan asked smiling. 'Because, in all probability you don't believe yourself in the immortality of your soul, nor in what you have written yourself in your article on Church jurisdiction. 'Perhaps you are right! ... But I wasn't altogether joking, Ivan suddenly and strangely confessed, flushing quickly. 'You were not altogether joking. That's true. The question is still fretting your heart, and not answered. But the martyr likes sometimes to divert himself with his despair, as it were driven to it by despair itself. Meanwhile, in your despair, you, too, divert yourself with magazine articles, and discussions in society, though you don't believe your own arguments, and with an aching heart mock at them inwardly.... That question you have not answered, and it is your great grief, for it clamors for an answer. 'But can it be answered by me? Answered in the affirmative? Ivan went on asking strangely, still looking at the elder with the same inexplicable smile. 'If it can't be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you a lofty heart capable of such suffering of thinking and seeking higher things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path. The elder raised his hand and would have made the sign of the cross over Ivan from where he stood. But the latter rose from his seat, went up to him, received his blessing, and kissing his hand went back to his place in silence. His face looked firm and earnest. This action and all the preceding conversation, which was so surprising from Ivan, impressed every one by its strangeness and a certain solemnity, so that all were silent for a moment, and there was a look almost of apprehension in Alyosha's face. But Misov suddenly shrugged his shoulders. And at the same moment Fyodor Pavlovitch jumped up from his seat. 'Most pious and holy elder, he cried, pointing to Ivan, 'that is my son, flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh! He is my most dutiful Karl Moor, so to speak, while this son who has just come in, Dmitri, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Franz Moorthey are both out of Schiller's Robbers, and so I am the reigning Count von Moor! Judge and save us! We need not only your prayers but your prophecies! 'Speak without buffoonery, and don't begin by insulting the members of your family, answered the elder, in a faint, exhausted voice. He was obviously getting more and more fatigued, and his strength was failing. 'An unseemly farce which I foresaw when I came here! cried Dmitri indignantly. He too leapt up. 'Forgive it, reverend Father, he added, addressing the elder. 'I am not a cultivated man, and I don't even know how to address you properly, but you have been deceived and you have been too goodnatured in letting us meet here. All my father wants is a scandal. Why he wants it only he can tell. He always has some motive. But I believe I know why 'They all blame me, all of them! cried Fyodor Pavlovitch in his turn. 'Pyotr Alexandrovitch here blames me too. You have been blaming me, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you have! he turned suddenly to Misov, although the latter was not dreaming of interrupting him. 'They all accuse me of having hidden the children's money in my boots, and cheated them, but isn't there a court of law? There they will reckon out for you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, from your notes, your letters, and your agreements, how much money you had, how much you have spent, and how much you have left. Why does Pyotr Alexandrovitch refuse to pass judgment? Dmitri is not a stranger to him. Because they are all against me, while Dmitri Fyodorovitch is in debt to me, and not a little, but some thousands of which I have documentary proof. The whole town is echoing with his debaucheries. And where he was stationed before, he several times spent a thousand or two for the seduction of some respectable girl we know all about that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in its most secret details. I'll prove it.... Would you believe it, holy Father, he has captivated the heart of the most honorable of young ladies of good family and fortune, daughter of a gallant colonel, formerly his superior officer, who had received many honors and had the Anna Order on his breast. He compromised the girl by his promise of marriage, now she is an orphan and here she is betrothed to him, yet before her very eyes he is dancing attendance on a certain enchantress. And although this enchantress has lived in, so to speak, civil marriage with a respectable man, yet she is of an independent character, an unapproachable fortress for everybody, just like a legal wifefor she is virtuous, yes, holy Fathers, she is virtuous. Dmitri Fyodorovitch wants to open this fortress with a golden key, and that's why he is insolent to me now, trying to get money from me, though he has wasted thousands on this enchantress already. He's continually borrowing money for the purpose. From whom do you think? Shall I say, Mitya? 'Be silent! cried Dmitri, 'wait till I'm gone. Don't dare in my presence to asperse the good name of an honorable girl! That you should utter a word about her is an outrage, and I won't permit it! He was breathless. 'Mitya! Mitya! cried Fyodor Pavlovitch hysterically, squeezing out a tear. 'And is your father's blessing nothing to you? If I curse you, what then? 'Shameless hypocrite! exclaimed Dmitri furiously. 'He says that to his father! his father! What would he be with others? Gentlemen, only fancy there's a poor but honorable man living here, burdened with a numerous family, a captain who got into trouble and was discharged from the army, but not publicly, not by courtmartial, with no slur on his honor. And three weeks ago, Dmitri seized him by the beard in a tavern, dragged him out into the street and beat him publicly, and all because he is an agent in a little business of mine. 'It's all a lie! Outwardly it's the truth, but inwardly a lie! Dmitri was trembling with rage. 'Father, I don't justify my action. Yes, I confess it publicly, I behaved like a brute to that captain, and I regret it now, and I'm disgusted with myself for my brutal rage. But this captain, this agent of yours, went to that lady whom you call an enchantress, and suggested to her from you, that she should take I.O.U.'s of mine which were in your possession, and should sue me for the money so as to get me into prison by means of them, if I persisted in claiming an account from you of my property. Now you reproach me for having a weakness for that lady when you yourself incited her to captivate me! She told me so to my face.... She told me the story and laughed at you.... You wanted to put me in prison because you are jealous of me with her, because you'd begun to force your attentions upon her and I know all about that, too she laughed at you for that as wellyou hearshe laughed at you as she described it. So here you have this man, this father who reproaches his profligate son! Gentlemen, forgive my anger, but I foresaw that this crafty old man would only bring you together to create a scandal. I had come to forgive him if he held out his hand to forgive him, and ask forgiveness! But as he has just this minute insulted not only me, but an honorable young lady, for whom I feel such reverence that I dare not take her name in vain, I have made up my mind to show up his game, though he is my father.... He could not go on. His eyes were glittering and he breathed with difficulty. But every one in the cell was stirred. All except Father Zossima got up from their seats uneasily. The monks looked austere but waited for guidance from the elder. He sat still, pale, not from excitement but from the weakness of disease. An imploring smile lighted up his face from time to time he raised his hand, as though to check the storm, and, of course, a gesture from him would have been enough to end the scene but he seemed to be waiting for something and watched them intently as though trying to make out something which was not perfectly clear to him. At last Misov felt completely humiliated and disgraced. 'We are all to blame for this scandalous scene, he said hotly. 'But I did not foresee it when I came, though I knew with whom I had to deal. This must be stopped at once! Believe me, your reverence, I had no precise knowledge of the details that have just come to light, I was unwilling to believe them, and I learn for the first time.... A father is jealous of his son's relations with a woman of loose behavior and intrigues with the creature to get his son into prison! This is the company in which I have been forced to be present! I was deceived. I declare to you all that I was as much deceived as any one. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch, yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, in an unnatural voice, 'if you were not my son I would challenge you this instant to a duel ... with pistols, at three paces ... across a handkerchief, he ended, stamping with both feet. With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment, or a second later, they are able to whisper to themselves, 'You know you are lying, you shameless old sinner! You're acting now, in spite of your 'holy' wrath. Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable contempt at his father. 'I thought ... I thought, he said, in a soft and, as it were, controlled voice, 'that I was coming to my native place with the angel of my heart, my betrothed, to cherish his old age, and I find nothing but a depraved profligate, a despicable clown! 'A duel! yelled the old wretch again, breathless and spluttering at each syllable. 'And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Misov, let me tell you that there has never been in all your family a loftier, and more honestyou hearmore honest woman than this 'creature,' as you have dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your betrothed for that 'creature,' so you must yourself have thought that your betrothed couldn't hold a candle to her. That's the woman called a 'creature'! 'Shameful! broke from Father Iosif. 'Shameful and disgraceful! Kalganov, flushing crimson, cried in a boyish voice, trembling with emotion. He had been silent till that moment. 'Why is such a man alive? Dmitri, beside himself with rage, growled in a hollow voice, hunching up his shoulders till he looked almost deformed. 'Tell me, can he be allowed to go on defiling the earth? He looked round at every one and pointed at the old man. He spoke evenly and deliberately. 'Listen, listen, monks, to the parricide! cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, rushing up to Father Iosif. 'That's the answer to your 'shameful!' What is shameful? That 'creature,' that 'woman of loose behavior' is perhaps holier than you are yourselves, you monks who are seeking salvation! She fell perhaps in her youth, ruined by her environment. But she loved much, and Christ himself forgave the woman 'who loved much.'  'It was not for such love Christ forgave her, broke impatiently from the gentle Father Iosif. 'Yes, it was for such, monks, it was! You save your souls here, eating cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, and you think you bribe God with gudgeon. 'This is unendurable! was heard on all sides in the cell. But this unseemly scene was cut short in a most unexpected way. Father Zossima rose suddenly from his seat. Almost distracted with anxiety for the elder and every one else, Alyosha succeeded, however, in supporting him by the arm. Father Zossima moved towards Dmitri and reaching him sank on his knees before him. Alyosha thought that he had fallen from weakness, but this was not so. The elder distinctly and deliberately bowed down at Dmitri's feet till his forehead touched the floor. Alyosha was so astounded that he failed to assist him when he got up again. There was a faint smile on his lips. 'Goodby! Forgive me, all of you! he said, bowing on all sides to his guests. Dmitri stood for a few moments in amazement. Bowing down to himwhat did it mean? Suddenly he cried aloud, 'Oh, God! hid his face in his hands, and rushed out of the room. All the guests flocked out after him, in their confusion not saying goodby, or bowing to their host. Only the monks went up to him again for a blessing. 'What did it mean, falling at his feet like that? Was it symbolic or what? said Fyodor Pavlovitch, suddenly quieted and trying to reopen conversation without venturing to address anybody in particular. They were all passing out of the precincts of the hermitage at the moment. 'I can't answer for a madhouse and for madmen, Misov answered at once illhumoredly, 'but I will spare myself your company, Fyodor Pavlovitch, and, trust me, for ever. Where's that monk? 'That monk, that is, the monk who had invited them to dine with the Superior, did not keep them waiting. He met them as soon as they came down the steps from the elder's cell, as though he had been waiting for them all the time. 'Reverend Father, kindly do me a favor. Convey my deepest respect to the Father Superior, apologize for me, personally, Misov, to his reverence, telling him that I deeply regret that owing to unforeseen circumstances I am unable to have the honor of being present at his table, greatly as I should desire to do so, Misov said irritably to the monk. 'And that unforeseen circumstance, of course, is myself, Fyodor Pavlovitch cut in immediately. 'Do you hear, Father this gentleman doesn't want to remain in my company or else he'd come at once. And you shall go, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, pray go to the Father Superior and good appetite to you. I will decline, and not you. Home, home, I'll eat at home, I don't feel equal to it here, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, my amiable relative. 'I am not your relative and never have been, you contemptible man! 'I said it on purpose to madden you, because you always disclaim the relationship, though you really are a relation in spite of your shuffling. I'll prove it by the church calendar. As for you, Ivan, stay if you like. I'll send the horses for you later. Propriety requires you to go to the Father Superior, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to apologize for the disturbance we've been making.... 'Is it true that you are going home? Aren't you lying? 'Pyotr Alexandrovitch! How could I dare after what's happened! Forgive me, gentlemen, I was carried away! And upset besides! And, indeed, I am ashamed. Gentlemen, one man has the heart of Alexander of Macedon and another the heart of the little dog Fido. Mine is that of the little dog Fido. I am ashamed! After such an escapade how can I go to dinner, to gobble up the monastery's sauces? I am ashamed, I can't. You must excuse me! 'The devil only knows, what if he deceives us? thought Misov, still hesitating, and watching the retreating buffoon with distrustful eyes. The latter turned round, and noticing that Misov was watching him, waved him a kiss. 'Well, are you coming to the Superior? Misov asked Ivan abruptly. 'Why not? I was especially invited yesterday. 'Unfortunately I feel myself compelled to go to this confounded dinner, said Misov with the same irritability, regardless of the fact that the monk was listening. 'We ought, at least, to apologize for the disturbance, and explain that it was not our doing. What do you think? 'Yes, we must explain that it wasn't our doing. Besides, father won't be there, observed Ivan. 'Well, I should hope not! Confound this dinner! They all walked on, however. The monk listened in silence. On the road through the copse he made one observation howeverthat the Father Superior had been waiting a long time, and that they were more than half an hour late. He received no answer. Misov looked with hatred at Ivan. 'Here he is, going to the dinner as though nothing had happened, he thought. 'A brazen face, and the conscience of a Karamazov! Alyosha helped Father Zossima to his bedroom and seated him on his bed. It was a little room furnished with the bare necessities. There was a narrow iron bedstead, with a strip of felt for a mattress. In the corner, under the ikons, was a readingdesk with a cross and the Gospel lying on it. The elder sank exhausted on the bed. His eyes glittered and he breathed hard. He looked intently at Alyosha, as though considering something. 'Go, my dear boy, go. Porfiry is enough for me. Make haste, you are needed there, go and wait at the Father Superior's table. 'Let me stay here, Alyosha entreated. 'You are more needed there. There is no peace there. You will wait, and be of service. If evil spirits rise up, repeat a prayer. And remember, my sonthe elder liked to call him that'this is not the place for you in the future. When it is God's will to call me, leave the monastery. Go away for good. Alyosha started. 'What is it? This is not your place for the time. I bless you for great service in the world. Yours will be a long pilgrimage. And you will have to take a wife, too. You will have to bear all before you come back. There will be much to do. But I don't doubt of you, and so I send you forth. Christ is with you. Do not abandon Him and He will not abandon you. You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will be happy. This is my last message to you in sorrow seek happiness. Work, work unceasingly. Remember my words, for although I shall talk with you again, not only my days but my hours are numbered. Alyosha's face again betrayed strong emotion. The corners of his mouth quivered. 'What is it again? Father Zossima asked, smiling gently. 'The worldly may follow the dead with tears, but here we rejoice over the father who is departing. We rejoice and pray for him. Leave me, I must pray. Go, and make haste. Be near your brothers. And not near one only, but near both. Father Zossima raised his hand to bless him. Alyosha could make no protest, though he had a great longing to remain. He longed, moreover, to ask the significance of his bowing to Dmitri, the question was on the tip of his tongue, but he dared not ask it. He knew that the elder would have explained it unasked if he had thought fit. But evidently it was not his will. That action had made a terrible impression on Alyosha he believed blindly in its mysterious significance. Mysterious, and perhaps awful. As he hastened out of the hermitage precincts to reach the monastery in time to serve at the Father Superior's dinner, he felt a sudden pang at his heart, and stopped short. He seemed to hear again Father Zossima's words, foretelling his approaching end. What he had foretold so exactly must infallibly come to pass. Alyosha believed that implicitly. But how could he be left without him? How could he live without seeing and hearing him? Where should he go? He had told him not to weep, and to leave the monastery. Good God! It was long since Alyosha had known such anguish. He hurried through the copse that divided the monastery from the hermitage, and unable to bear the burden of his thoughts, he gazed at the ancient pines beside the path. He had not far to goabout five hundred paces. He expected to meet no one at that hour, but at the first turn of the path he noticed Rakitin. He was waiting for some one. 'Are you waiting for me? asked Alyosha, overtaking him. 'Yes, grinned Rakitin. 'You are hurrying to the Father Superior, I know he has a banquet. There's not been such a banquet since the Superior entertained the Bishop and General Pahatov, do you remember? I shan't be there, but you go and hand the sauces. Tell me one thing, Alexey, what does that vision mean? That's what I want to ask you. 'What vision? 'That bowing to your brother, Dmitri. And didn't he tap the ground with his forehead, too! 'You speak of Father Zossima? 'Yes, of Father Zossima. 'Tapped the ground? 'Ah, an irreverent expression! Well, what of it? Anyway, what does that vision mean? 'I don't know what it means, Misha. 'I knew he wouldn't explain it to you! There's nothing wonderful about it, of course, only the usual holy mummery. But there was an object in the performance. All the pious people in the town will talk about it and spread the story through the province, wondering what it meant. To my thinking the old man really has a keen nose he sniffed a crime. Your house stinks of it. 'What crime? Rakitin evidently had something he was eager to speak of. 'It'll be in your family, this crime. Between your brothers and your rich old father. So Father Zossima flopped down to be ready for what may turn up. If something happens later on, it'll be 'Ah, the holy man foresaw it, prophesied it!' though it's a poor sort of prophecy, flopping like that. 'Ah, but it was symbolic,' they'll say, 'an allegory,' and the devil knows what all! It'll be remembered to his glory 'He predicted the crime and marked the criminal!' That's always the way with these crazy fanatics they cross themselves at the tavern and throw stones at the temple. Like your elder, he takes a stick to a just man and falls at the feet of a murderer. 'What crime? What murderer? What do you mean? Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin stopped, too. 'What murderer? As though you didn't know! I'll bet you've thought of it before. That's interesting, too, by the way. Listen, Alyosha, you always speak the truth, though you're always between two stools. Have you thought of it or not? Answer. 'I have, answered Alyosha in a low voice. Even Rakitin was taken aback. 'What? Have you really? he cried. 'I ... I've not exactly thought it, muttered Alyosha, 'but directly you began speaking so strangely, I fancied I had thought of it myself. 'You see? (And how well you expressed it!) Looking at your father and your brother Mitya today you thought of a crime. Then I'm not mistaken? 'But wait, wait a minute, Alyosha broke in uneasily. 'What has led you to see all this? Why does it interest you? That's the first question. 'Two questions, disconnected, but natural. I'll deal with them separately. What led me to see it? I shouldn't have seen it, if I hadn't suddenly understood your brother Dmitri, seen right into the very heart of him all at once. I caught the whole man from one trait. These very honest but passionate people have a line which mustn't be crossed. If it were, he'd run at your father with a knife. But your father's a drunken and abandoned old sinner, who can never draw the lineif they both let themselves go, they'll both come to grief. 'No, Misha, no. If that's all, you've reassured me. It won't come to that. 'But why are you trembling? Let me tell you he may be honest, our Mitya (he is stupid, but honest), but he'sa sensualist. That's the very definition and inner essence of him. It's your father has handed him on his low sensuality. Do you know, I simply wonder at you, Alyosha, how you can have kept your purity. You're a Karamazov too, you know! In your family sensuality is carried to a disease. But now, these three sensualists are watching one another, with their knives in their belts. The three of them are knocking their heads together, and you may be the fourth. 'You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitridespises her, said Alyosha, with a sort of shudder. 'Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn't despise her. Since he has openly abandoned his betrothed for her, he doesn't despise her. There's something here, my dear boy, that you don't understand yet. A man will fall in love with some beauty, with a woman's body, or even with a part of a woman's body (a sensualist can understand that), and he'll abandon his own children for her, sell his father and mother, and his country, Russia, too. If he's honest, he'll steal if he's humane, he'll murder if he's faithful, he'll deceive. Pushkin, the poet of women's feet, sung of their feet in his verse. Others don't sing their praises, but they can't look at their feet without a thrilland it's not only their feet. Contempt's no help here, brother, even if he did despise Grushenka. He does, but he can't tear himself away. 'I understand that, Alyosha jerked out suddenly. 'Really? Well, I dare say you do understand, since you blurt it out at the first word, said Rakitin, malignantly. 'That escaped you unawares, and the confession's the more precious. So it's a familiar subject you've thought about it already, about sensuality, I mean! Oh, you virgin soul! You're a quiet one, Alyosha, you're a saint, I know, but the devil only knows what you've thought about, and what you know already! You are pure, but you've been down into the depths.... I've been watching you a long time. You're a Karamazov yourself you're a thorough Karamazovno doubt birth and selection have something to answer for. You're a sensualist from your father, a crazy saint from your mother. Why do you tremble? Is it true, then? Do you know, Grushenka has been begging me to bring you along. 'I'll pull off his cassock,' she says. You can't think how she keeps begging me to bring you. I wondered why she took such an interest in you. Do you know, she's an extraordinary woman, too! 'Thank her and say I'm not coming, said Alyosha, with a strained smile. 'Finish what you were saying, Misha. I'll tell you my idea after. 'There's nothing to finish. It's all clear. It's the same old tune, brother. If even you are a sensualist at heart, what of your brother, Ivan? He's a Karamazov, too. What is at the root of all you Karamazovs is that you're all sensual, grasping and crazy! Your brother Ivan writes theological articles in joke, for some idiotic, unknown motive of his own, though he's an atheist, and he admits it's a fraud himselfthat's your brother Ivan. He's trying to get Mitya's betrothed for himself, and I fancy he'll succeed, too. And what's more, it's with Mitya's consent. For Mitya will surrender his betrothed to him to be rid of her, and escape to Grushenka. And he's ready to do that in spite of all his nobility and disinterestedness. Observe that. Those are the most fatal people! Who the devil can make you out? He recognizes his vileness and goes on with it! Let me tell you, too, the old man, your father, is standing in Mitya's way now. He has suddenly gone crazy over Grushenka. His mouth waters at the sight of her. It's simply on her account he made that scene in the cell just now, simply because Misov called her an 'abandoned creature.' He's worse than a tomcat in love. At first she was only employed by him in connection with his taverns and in some other shady business, but now he has suddenly realized all she is and has gone wild about her. He keeps pestering her with his offers, not honorable ones, of course. And they'll come into collision, the precious father and son, on that path! But Grushenka favors neither of them, she's still playing with them, and teasing them both, considering which she can get most out of. For though she could filch a lot of money from the papa he wouldn't marry her, and maybe he'll turn stingy in the end, and keep his purse shut. That's where Mitya's value comes in he has no money, but he's ready to marry her. Yes, ready to marry her! to abandon his betrothed, a rare beauty, Katerina Ivanovna, who's rich, and the daughter of a colonel, and to marry Grushenka, who has been the mistress of a dissolute old merchant, Samsonov, a coarse, uneducated, provincial mayor. Some murderous conflict may well come to pass from all this, and that's what your brother Ivan is waiting for. It would suit him down to the ground. He'll carry off Katerina Ivanovna, for whom he is languishing, and pocket her dowry of sixty thousand. That's very alluring to start with, for a man of no consequence and a beggar. And, take note, he won't be wronging Mitya, but doing him the greatest service. For I know as a fact that Mitya only last week, when he was with some gypsy girls drunk in a tavern, cried out aloud that he was unworthy of his betrothed, Katya, but that his brother Ivan, he was the man who deserved her. And Katerina Ivanovna will not in the end refuse such a fascinating man as Ivan. She's hesitating between the two of them already. And how has that Ivan won you all, so that you all worship him? He is laughing at you, and enjoying himself at your expense. 'How do you know? How can you speak so confidently? Alyosha asked sharply, frowning. 'Why do you ask, and are frightened at my answer? It shows that you know I'm speaking the truth. 'You don't like Ivan. Ivan wouldn't be tempted by money. 'Really? And the beauty of Katerina Ivanovna? It's not only the money, though a fortune of sixty thousand is an attraction. 'Ivan is above that. He wouldn't make up to any one for thousands. It is not money, it's not comfort Ivan is seeking. Perhaps it's suffering he is seeking. 'What wild dream now? Oh, youaristocrats! 'Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions. 'That's plagiarism, Alyosha. You're quoting your elder's phrases. Ah, Ivan has set you a problem! cried Rakitin, with undisguised malice. His face changed, and his lips twitched. 'And the problem's a stupid one. It is no good guessing it. Rack your brainsyou'll understand it. His article is absurd and ridiculous. And did you hear his stupid theory just now if there's no immortality of the soul, then there's no virtue, and everything is lawful. (And by the way, do you remember how your brother Mitya cried out 'I will remember!') An attractive theory for scoundrels!(I'm being abusive, that's stupid.) Not for scoundrels, but for pedantic poseurs, 'haunted by profound, unsolved doubts.' He's showing off, and what it all comes to is, 'on the one hand we cannot but admit' and 'on the other it must be confessed!' His whole theory is a fraud! Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find it in love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity. Rakitin could hardly restrain himself in his heat, but, suddenly, as though remembering something, he stopped short. 'Well, that's enough, he said, with a still more crooked smile. 'Why are you laughing? Do you think I'm a vulgar fool? 'No, I never dreamed of thinking you a vulgar fool. You are clever but ... never mind, I was silly to smile. I understand your getting hot about it, Misha. I guess from your warmth that you are not indifferent to Katerina Ivanovna yourself I've suspected that for a long time, brother, that's why you don't like my brother Ivan. Are you jealous of him? 'And jealous of her money, too? Won't you add that? 'I'll say nothing about money. I am not going to insult you. 'I believe it, since you say so, but confound you, and your brother Ivan with you. Don't you understand that one might very well dislike him, apart from Katerina Ivanovna. And why the devil should I like him? He condescends to abuse me, you know. Why haven't I a right to abuse him? 'I never heard of his saying anything about you, good or bad. He doesn't speak of you at all. 'But I heard that the day before yesterday at Katerina Ivanovna's he was abusing me for all he was worthyou see what an interest he takes in your humble servant. And which is the jealous one after that, brother, I can't say. He was so good as to express the opinion that, if I don't go in for the career of an archimandrite in the immediate future and don't become a monk, I shall be sure to go to Petersburg and get on to some solid magazine as a reviewer, that I shall write for the next ten years, and in the end become the owner of the magazine, and bring it out on the liberal and atheistic side, with a socialistic tinge, with a tiny gloss of socialism, but keeping a sharp look out all the time, that is, keeping in with both sides and hoodwinking the fools. According to your brother's account, the tinge of socialism won't hinder me from laying by the proceeds and investing them under the guidance of some Jew, till at the end of my career I build a great house in Petersburg and move my publishing offices to it, and let out the upper stories to lodgers. He has even chosen the place for it, near the new stone bridge across the Neva, which they say is to be built in Petersburg. 'Ah, Misha, that's just what will really happen, every word of it, cried Alyosha, unable to restrain a goodhumored smile. 'You are pleased to be sarcastic, too, Alexey Fyodorovitch. 'No, no, I'm joking, forgive me. I've something quite different in my mind. But, excuse me, who can have told you all this? You can't have been at Katerina Ivanovna's yourself when he was talking about you? 'I wasn't there, but Dmitri Fyodorovitch was and I heard him tell it with my own ears if you want to know, he didn't tell me, but I overheard him, unintentionally, of course, for I was sitting in Grushenka's bedroom and I couldn't go away because Dmitri Fyodorovitch was in the next room. 'Oh, yes, I'd forgotten she was a relation of yours. 'A relation! That Grushenka a relation of mine! cried Rakitin, turning crimson. 'Are you mad? You're out of your mind! 'Why, isn't she a relation of yours? I heard so. 'Where can you have heard it? You Karamazovs brag of being an ancient, noble family, though your father used to run about playing the buffoon at other men's tables, and was only admitted to the kitchen as a favor. I may be only a priest's son, and dirt in the eyes of noblemen like you, but don't insult me so lightly and wantonly. I have a sense of honor, too, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I couldn't be a relation of Grushenka, a common harlot. I beg you to understand that! Rakitin was intensely irritated. 'Forgive me, for goodness' sake, I had no idea ... besides ... how can you call her a harlot? Is she ... that sort of woman? Alyosha flushed suddenly. 'I tell you again, I heard that she was a relation of yours. You often go to see her, and you told me yourself you're not her lover. I never dreamed that you of all people had such contempt for her! Does she really deserve it? 'I may have reasons of my own for visiting her. That's not your business. But as for relationship, your brother, or even your father, is more likely to make her yours than mine. Well, here we are. You'd better go to the kitchen. Hullo! what's wrong, what is it? Are we late? They can't have finished dinner so soon! Have the Karamazovs been making trouble again? No doubt they have. Here's your father and your brother Ivan after him. They've broken out from the Father Superior's. And look, Father Isidor's shouting out something after them from the steps. And your father's shouting and waving his arms. I expect he's swearing. Bah, and there goes Misov driving away in his carriage. You see, he's going. And there's old Maximov running!there must have been a row. There can't have been any dinner. Surely they've not been beating the Father Superior! Or have they, perhaps, been beaten? It would serve them right! There was reason for Rakitin's exclamations. There had been a scandalous, an unprecedented scene. It had all come from the impulse of a moment. Misov, as a man of breeding and delicacy, could not but feel some inward qualms, when he reached the Father Superior's with Ivan he felt ashamed of having lost his temper. He felt that he ought to have disdained that despicable wretch, Fyodor Pavlovitch, too much to have been upset by him in Father Zossima's cell, and so to have forgotten himself. 'The monks were not to blame, in any case, he reflected, on the steps. 'And if they're decent people here (and the Father Superior, I understand, is a nobleman) why not be friendly and courteous with them? I won't argue, I'll fall in with everything, I'll win them by politeness, and ... and ... show them that I've nothing to do with that sop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and have merely been taken in over this affair, just as they have. He determined to drop his litigation with the monastery, and relinquish his claims to the woodcutting and fishery rights at once. He was the more ready to do this because the rights had become much less valuable, and he had indeed the vaguest idea where the wood and river in question were. These excellent intentions were strengthened when he entered the Father Superior's diningroom, though, strictly speaking, it was not a dining room, for the Father Superior had only two rooms altogether they were, however, much larger and more comfortable than Father Zossima's. But there was no great luxury about the furnishing of these rooms either. The furniture was of mahogany, covered with leather, in the oldfashioned style of  the floor was not even stained, but everything was shining with cleanliness, and there were many choice flowers in the windows the most sumptuous thing in the room at the moment was, of course, the beautifully decorated table. The cloth was clean, the service shone there were three kinds of wellbaked bread, two bottles of wine, two of excellent mead, and a large glass jug of kvasboth the latter made in the monastery, and famous in the neighborhood. There was no vodka. Rakitin related afterwards that there were five dishes fishsoup made of sterlets, served with little fish patties then boiled fish served in a special way then salmon cutlets, ice pudding and compote, and finally, blancmange. Rakitin found out about all these good things, for he could not resist peeping into the kitchen, where he already had a footing. He had a footing everywhere, and got information about everything. He was of an uneasy and envious temper. He was well aware of his own considerable abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his selfconceit. He knew he would play a prominent part of some sort, but Alyosha, who was attached to him, was distressed to see that his friend Rakitin was dishonorable, and quite unconscious of being so himself, considering, on the contrary, that because he would not steal money left on the table he was a man of the highest integrity. Neither Alyosha nor any one else could have influenced him in that. Rakitin, of course, was a person of too little consequence to be invited to the dinner, to which Father Iosif, Father Passy, and one other monk were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They were already waiting when Misov, Kalganov, and Ivan arrived. The other guest, Maximov, stood a little aside, waiting also. The Father Superior stepped into the middle of the room to receive his guests. He was a tall, thin, but still vigorous old man, with black hair streaked with gray, and a long, grave, ascetic face. He bowed to his guests in silence. But this time they approached to receive his blessing. Misov even tried to kiss his hand, but the Father Superior drew it back in time to avoid the salute. But Ivan and Kalganov went through the ceremony in the most simplehearted and complete manner, kissing his hand as peasants do. 'We must apologize most humbly, your reverence, began Misov, simpering affably, and speaking in a dignified and respectful tone. 'Pardon us for having come alone without the gentleman you invited, Fyodor Pavlovitch. He felt obliged to decline the honor of your hospitality, and not without reason. In the reverend Father Zossima's cell he was carried away by the unhappy dissension with his son, and let fall words which were quite out of keeping ... in fact, quite unseemly ... ashe glanced at the monks'your reverence is, no doubt, already aware. And therefore, recognizing that he had been to blame, he felt sincere regret and shame, and begged me, and his son Ivan Fyodorovitch, to convey to you his apologies and regrets. In brief, he hopes and desires to make amends later. He asks your blessing, and begs you to forget what has taken place. As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Misov completely recovered his selfcomplacency, and all traces of his former irritation disappeared. He fully and sincerely loved humanity again. The Father Superior listened to him with dignity, and, with a slight bend of the head, replied 'I sincerely deplore his absence. Perhaps at our table he might have learnt to like us, and we him. Pray be seated, gentlemen. He stood before the holy image, and began to say grace, aloud. All bent their heads reverently, and Maximov clasped his hands before him, with peculiar fervor. It was at this moment that Fyodor Pavlovitch played his last prank. It must be noted that he really had meant to go home, and really had felt the impossibility of going to dine with the Father Superior as though nothing had happened, after his disgraceful behavior in the elder's cell. Not that he was so very much ashamed of himselfquite the contrary perhaps. But still he felt it would be unseemly to go to dinner. Yet his creaking carriage had hardly been brought to the steps of the hotel, and he had hardly got into it, when he suddenly stopped short. He remembered his own words at the elder's 'I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon so I say let me play the buffoon, for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I. He longed to revenge himself on every one for his own unseemliness. He suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, 'Why do you hate so and so, so much? And he had answered them, with his shameless impudence, 'I'll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him. Remembering that now, he smiled quietly and malignantly, hesitating for a moment. His eyes gleamed, and his lips positively quivered. 'Well, since I have begun, I may as well go on, he decided. His predominant sensation at that moment might be expressed in the following words, 'Well, there is no rehabilitating myself now. So let me shame them for all I am worth. I will show them I don't care what they thinkthat's all! He told the coachman to wait, while with rapid steps he returned to the monastery and straight to the Father Superior's. He had no clear idea what he would do, but he knew that he could not control himself, and that a touch might drive him to the utmost limits of obscenity, but only to obscenity, to nothing criminal, nothing for which he could be legally punished. In the last resort, he could always restrain himself, and had marveled indeed at himself, on that score, sometimes. He appeared in the Father Superior's diningroom, at the moment when the prayer was over, and all were moving to the table. Standing in the doorway, he scanned the company, and laughing his prolonged, impudent, malicious chuckle, looked them all boldly in the face. 'They thought I had gone, and here I am again, he cried to the whole room. For one moment every one stared at him without a word and at once every one felt that something revolting, grotesque, positively scandalous, was about to happen. Misov passed immediately from the most benevolent frame of mind to the most savage. All the feelings that had subsided and died down in his heart revived instantly. 'No! this I cannot endure! he cried. 'I absolutely cannot! and ... I certainly cannot! The blood rushed to his head. He positively stammered but he was beyond thinking of style, and he seized his hat. 'What is it he cannot? cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, 'that he absolutely cannot and certainly cannot? Your reverence, am I to come in or not? Will you receive me as your guest? 'You are welcome with all my heart, answered the Superior. 'Gentlemen! he added, 'I venture to beg you most earnestly to lay aside your dissensions, and to be united in love and family harmonywith prayer to the Lord at our humble table. 'No, no, it is impossible! cried Misov, beside himself. 'Well, if it is impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovitch, it is impossible for me, and I won't stop. That is why I came. I will keep with Pyotr Alexandrovitch everywhere now. If you will go away, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, I will go away too, if you remain, I will remain. You stung him by what you said about family harmony, Father Superior, he does not admit he is my relation. That's right, isn't it, von Sohn? Here's von Sohn. How are you, von Sohn? 'Do you mean me? muttered Maximov, puzzled. 'Of course I mean you, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. 'Who else? The Father Superior could not be von Sohn. 'But I am not von Sohn either. I am Maximov. 'No, you are von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know who von Sohn was? It was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of harlotryI believe that is what such places are called among youhe was killed and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and while they were nailing him up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp, that is to say, the piano. So this is that very von Sohn. He has risen from the dead, hasn't he, von Sohn? 'What is happening? What's this? voices were heard in the group of monks. 'Let us go, cried Misov, addressing Kalganov. 'No, excuse me, Fyodor Pavlovitch broke in shrilly, taking another step into the room. 'Allow me to finish. There in the cell you blamed me for behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of eating gudgeon, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Misov, my relation, prefers to have plus de noblesse que de sincrit in his words, but I prefer in mine plus de sincrit que de noblesse, anddamn the noblesse! That's right, isn't it, von Sohn? Allow me, Father Superior, though I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, yet I am the soul of honor, and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of honor, while in Pyotr Alexandrovitch there is wounded vanity and nothing else. I came here perhaps to have a look and speak my mind. My son, Alexey, is here, being saved. I am his father I care for his welfare, and it is my duty to care. While I've been playing the fool, I have been listening and having a look on the sly and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. You know how things are with us? As a thing falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie for ever. Not a bit of it! I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am indignant with you. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I am ready to bow down reverently but there in the cell, they all kneel down and confess aloud. Can it be right to confess aloud? It was ordained by the holy Fathers to confess in secret then only your confession will be a mystery, and so it was of old. But how can I explain to him before every one that I did this and that ... well, you understand whatsometimes it would not be proper to talk about itso it is really a scandal! No, Fathers, one might be carried along with you to the Flagellants, I dare say ... at the first opportunity I shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son, Alexey, home. We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for the weak spot. There had been at one time malicious rumors which had even reached the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but in others where the institution of elders existed) that too much respect was paid to the elders, even to the detriment of the authority of the Superior, that the elders abused the sacrament of confession and so on and so onabsurd charges which had died away of themselves everywhere. But the spirit of folly, which had caught up Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was bearing him on the current of his own nerves into lower and lower depths of ignominy, prompted him with this old slander. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not understand a word of it, and he could not even put it sensibly, for on this occasion no one had been kneeling and confessing aloud in the elder's cell, so that he could not have seen anything of the kind. He was only speaking from confused memory of old slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish tirade, he felt he had been talking absurd nonsense, and at once longed to prove to his audience, and above all to himself, that he had not been talking nonsense. And, though he knew perfectly well that with each word he would be adding more and more absurdity, he could not restrain himself, and plunged forward blindly. 'How disgraceful! cried Pyotr Alexandrovitch. 'Pardon me! said the Father Superior. 'It was said of old, 'Many have begun to speak against me and have uttered evil sayings about me. And hearing it I have said to myself it is the correction of the Lord and He has sent it to heal my vain soul.' And so we humbly thank you, honored guest! and he made Fyodor Pavlovitch a low bow. 'Tuttuttutsanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases and old gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all about them. A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in Schiller's Robbers. I don't like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth. But the truth is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect reward in heaven for that? Why, for reward like that I will come and fast too! No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for ityou'll find that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father Superior. What have they got here? He went up to the table. 'Old port wine, mead brewed by the Eliseyev Brothers. Fie, fie, fathers! That is something beyond gudgeon. Look at the bottles the fathers have brought out, he he he! And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the laborer, brings here the farthing earned by his horny hand, wringing it from his family and the taxgatherer! You bleed the people, you know, holy fathers. 'This is too disgraceful! said Father Iosif. Father Passy kept obstinately silent. Misov rushed from the room, and Kalganov after him. 'Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovitch! I am not coming to see you again. You may beg me on your knees, I shan't come. I sent you a thousand roubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me. He he he! No, I'll say no more. I am taking my revenge for my youth, for all the humiliation I endured. He thumped the table with his fist in a paroxysm of simulated feeling. 'This monastery has played a great part in my life! It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set my wife, the crazy one, against me. You cursed me with bell and book, you spread stories about me all over the place. Enough, fathers! This is the age of Liberalism, the age of steamers and railways. Neither a thousand, nor a hundred roubles, no, nor a hundred farthings will you get out of me! It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any great part in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to it. But he was so carried away by his simulated emotion, that he was for one moment almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was almost weeping. But at that very instant, he felt that it was time to draw back. The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and again spoke impressively 'It is written again, 'Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonor that cometh upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and hate not him who hath dishonored thee.' And so will we. 'Tut, tut, tut! Bethinking thyself and the rest of the rigmarole. Bethink yourselves, Fathers, I will go. But I will take my son, Alexey, away from here for ever, on my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovitch, my most dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow me. Von Sohn, what have you to stay for? Come and see me now in the town. It is fun there. It is only one short verst instead of lenten oil, I will give you suckingpig and kasha. We will have dinner with some brandy and liqueur to it.... I've cloudberry wine. Hey, von Sohn, don't lose your chance. He went out, shouting and gesticulating. It was at that moment Rakitin saw him and pointed him out to Alyosha. 'Alexey! his father shouted, from far off, catching sight of him. 'You come home to me today, for good, and bring your pillow and mattress, and leave no trace behind. Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence. Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan was about to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say goodby to Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene of grotesque buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode. Maximov suddenly appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up, panting, afraid of being too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot on the step on which Ivan's left foot was still resting, and clutching the carriage he kept trying to jump in. 'I am going with you! he kept shouting, laughing a thin mirthful laugh with a look of reckless glee in his face. 'Take me, too. 'There! cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. 'Did I not say he was von Sohn. It is von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did you tear yourself away? What did you vonsohn there? And how could you get away from the dinner? You must be a brazenfaced fellow! I am that myself, but I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let him pass, Ivan. It will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will you lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the coachman. Skip on to the box, von Sohn! But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave Maximov a violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chance he did not fall. 'Drive on! Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman. 'Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do that? Fyodor Pavlovitch protested. But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply. 'Well, you are a fellow, Fyodor Pavlovitch said again. After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, 'Why, it was you got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved of it. Why are you angry now? 'You've talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now, Ivan snapped sullenly. Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes. 'A drop of brandy would be nice now, he observed sententiously, but Ivan made no response. 'You shall have some, too, when we get home. Ivan was still silent. Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes. 'But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will dislike it so much, most honored Karl von Moor. Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away stared at the road. And they did not speak again all the way home. The Karamazovs' house was far from being in the center of the town, but it was not quite outside it. It was a pleasantlooking old house of two stories, painted gray, with a red iron roof. It was roomy and snug, and might still last many years. There were all sorts of unexpected little cupboards and closets and staircases. There were rats in it, but Fyodor Pavlovitch did not altogether dislike them. 'One doesn't feel so solitary when one's left alone in the evening, he used to say. It was his habit to send the servants away to the lodge for the night and to lock himself up alone. The lodge was a roomy and solid building in the yard. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to have the cooking done there, although there was a kitchen in the house he did not like the smell of cooking, and, winter and summer alike, the dishes were carried in across the courtyard. The house was built for a large family there was room for five times as many, with their servants. But at the time of our story there was no one living in the house but Fyodor Pavlovitch and his son Ivan. And in the lodge there were only three servants old Grigory, and his old wife Marfa, and a young man called Smerdyakov. Of these three we must say a few words. Of old Grigory we have said something already. He was firm and determined and went blindly and obstinately for his object, if once he had been brought by any reasons (and they were often very illogical ones) to believe that it was immutably right. He was honest and incorruptible. His wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, had obeyed her husband's will implicitly all her life, yet she had pestered him terribly after the emancipation of the serfs. She was set on leaving Fyodor Pavlovitch and opening a little shop in Moscow with their small savings. But Grigory decided then, once for all, that 'the woman's talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest, and that they ought not to leave their old master, whatever he might be, for 'that was now their duty. 'Do you understand what duty is? he asked Marfa Ignatyevna. 'I understand what duty means, Grigory Vassilyevitch, but why it's our duty to stay here I never shall understand, Marfa answered firmly. 'Well, don't understand then. But so it shall be. And you hold your tongue. And so it was. They did not go away, and Fyodor Pavlovitch promised them a small sum for wages, and paid it regularly. Grigory knew, too, that he had an indisputable influence over his master. It was true, and he was aware of it. Fyodor Pavlovitch was an obstinate and cunning buffoon, yet, though his will was strong enough 'in some of the affairs of life, as he expressed it, he found himself, to his surprise, extremely feeble in facing certain other emergencies. He knew his weaknesses and was afraid of them. There are positions in which one has to keep a sharp look out. And that's not easy without a trustworthy man, and Grigory was a most trustworthy man. Many times in the course of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch had only just escaped a sound thrashing through Grigory's intervention, and on each occasion the old servant gave him a good lecture. But it wasn't only thrashings that Fyodor Pavlovitch was afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovitch could not have explained the extraordinary craving for some one faithful and devoted, which sometimes unaccountably came upon him all in a moment. It was almost a morbid condition. Corrupt and often cruel in his lust, like some noxious insect, Fyodor Pavlovitch was sometimes, in moments of drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a moral convulsion which took an almost physical form. 'My soul's simply quaking in my throat at those times, he used to say. At such moments he liked to feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge if not in the room, a strong, faithful man, virtuous and unlike himself, who had seen all his debauchery and knew all his secrets, but was ready in his devotion to overlook all that, not to oppose him, above all, not to reproach him or threaten him with anything, either in this world or in the next, and, in case of need, to defend himfrom whom? From somebody unknown, but terrible and dangerous. What he needed was to feel that there was another man, an old and tried friend, that he might call him in his sick moments merely to look at his face, or, perhaps, exchange some quite irrelevant words with him. And if the old servant were not angry, he felt comforted, and if he were angry, he was more dejected. It happened even (very rarely however) that Fyodor Pavlovitch went at night to the lodge to wake Grigory and fetch him for a moment. When the old man came, Fyodor Pavlovitch would begin talking about the most trivial matters, and would soon let him go again, sometimes even with a jest. And after he had gone, Fyodor Pavlovitch would get into bed with a curse and sleep the sleep of the just. Something of the same sort had happened to Fyodor Pavlovitch on Alyosha's arrival. Alyosha 'pierced his heart by 'living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing. Moreover, Alyosha brought with him something his father had never known before a complete absence of contempt for him and an invariable kindness, a perfectly natural unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved it so little. All this was a complete surprise to the old profligate, who had dropped all family ties. It was a new and surprising experience for him, who had till then loved nothing but 'evil. When Alyosha had left him, he confessed to himself that he had learnt something he had not till then been willing to learn. I have mentioned already that Grigory had detested Adelada Ivanovna, the first wife of Fyodor Pavlovitch and the mother of Dmitri, and that he had, on the contrary, protected Sofya Ivanovna, the poor 'crazy woman, against his master and any one who chanced to speak ill or lightly of her. His sympathy for the unhappy wife had become something sacred to him, so that even now, twenty years after, he could not bear a slighting allusion to her from any one, and would at once check the offender. Externally, Grigory was cold, dignified and taciturn, and spoke, weighing his words, without frivolity. It was impossible to tell at first sight whether he loved his meek, obedient wife but he really did love her, and she knew it. Marfa Ignatyevna was by no means foolish she was probably, indeed, cleverer than her husband, or, at least, more prudent than he in worldly affairs, and yet she had given in to him in everything without question or complaint ever since her marriage, and respected him for his spiritual superiority. It was remarkable how little they spoke to one another in the course of their lives, and only of the most necessary daily affairs. The grave and dignified Grigory thought over all his cares and duties alone, so that Marfa Ignatyevna had long grown used to knowing that he did not need her advice. She felt that her husband respected her silence, and took it as a sign of her good sense. He had never beaten her but once, and then only slightly. Once during the year after Fyodor Pavlovitch's marriage with Adelada Ivanovna, the village girls and womenat that time serfswere called together before the house to sing and dance. They were beginning 'In the Green Meadows, when Marfa, at that time a young woman, skipped forward and danced 'the Russian Dance, not in the village fashion, but as she had danced it when she was a servant in the service of the rich Misov family, in their private theater, where the actors were taught to dance by a dancing master from Moscow. Grigory saw how his wife danced, and, an hour later, at home in their cottage he gave her a lesson, pulling her hair a little. But there it ended the beating was never repeated, and Marfa Ignatyevna gave up dancing. God had not blessed them with children. One child was born but it died. Grigory was fond of children, and was not ashamed of showing it. When Adelada Ivanovna had run away, Grigory took Dmitri, then a child of three years old, combed his hair and washed him in a tub with his own hands, and looked after him for almost a year. Afterwards he had looked after Ivan and Alyosha, for which the general's widow had rewarded him with a slap in the face but I have already related all that. The only happiness his own child had brought him had been in the anticipation of its birth. When it was born, he was overwhelmed with grief and horror. The baby had six fingers. Grigory was so crushed by this, that he was not only silent till the day of the christening, but kept away in the garden. It was spring, and he spent three days digging the kitchen garden. The third day was fixed for christening the baby meantime Grigory had reached a conclusion. Going into the cottage where the clergy were assembled and the visitors had arrived, including Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was to stand god father, he suddenly announced that the baby 'ought not to be christened at all. He announced this quietly, briefly, forcing out his words, and gazing with dull intentness at the priest. 'Why not? asked the priest with goodhumored surprise. 'Because it's a dragon, muttered Grigory. 'A dragon? What dragon? Grigory did not speak for some time. 'It's a confusion of nature, he muttered vaguely, but firmly, and obviously unwilling to say more. They laughed, and of course christened the poor baby. Grigory prayed earnestly at the font, but his opinion of the newborn child remained unchanged. Yet he did not interfere in any way. As long as the sickly infant lived he scarcely looked at it, tried indeed not to notice it, and for the most part kept out of the cottage. But when, at the end of a fortnight, the baby died of thrush, he himself laid the child in its little coffin, looked at it in profound grief, and when they were filling up the shallow little grave he fell on his knees and bowed down to the earth. He did not for years afterwards mention his child, nor did Marfa speak of the baby before him, and, even if Grigory were not present, she never spoke of it above a whisper. Marfa observed that, from the day of the burial, he devoted himself to 'religion, and took to reading the Lives of the Saints, for the most part sitting alone and in silence, and always putting on his big, round, silverrimmed spectacles. He rarely read aloud, only perhaps in Lent. He was fond of the Book of Job, and had somehow got hold of a copy of the sayings and sermons of 'the Godfearing Father Isaac the Syrian, which he read persistently for years together, understanding very little of it, but perhaps prizing and loving it the more for that. Of late he had begun to listen to the doctrines of the sect of Flagellants settled in the neighborhood. He was evidently shaken by them, but judged it unfitting to go over to the new faith. His habit of theological reading gave him an expression of still greater gravity. He was perhaps predisposed to mysticism. And the birth of his deformed child, and its death, had, as though by special design, been accompanied by another strange and marvelous event, which, as he said later, had left a 'stamp upon his soul. It happened that, on the very night after the burial of his child, Marfa was awakened by the wail of a newborn baby. She was frightened and waked her husband. He listened and said he thought it was more like some one groaning, 'it might be a woman. He got up and dressed. It was a rather warm night in May. As he went down the steps, he distinctly heard groans coming from the garden. But the gate from the yard into the garden was locked at night, and there was no other way of entering it, for it was enclosed all round by a strong, high fence. Going back into the house, Grigory lighted a lantern, took the garden key, and taking no notice of the hysterical fears of his wife, who was still persuaded that she heard a child crying, and that it was her own baby crying and calling for her, went into the garden in silence. There he heard at once that the groans came from the bathhouse that stood near the garden gate, and that they were the groans of a woman. Opening the door of the bathhouse, he saw a sight which petrified him. An idiot girl, who wandered about the streets and was known to the whole town by the nickname of Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya (Stinking Lizaveta), had got into the bath house and had just given birth to a child. She lay dying with the baby beside her. She said nothing, for she had never been able to speak. But her story needs a chapter to itself. There was one circumstance which struck Grigory particularly, and confirmed a very unpleasant and revolting suspicion. This Lizaveta was a dwarfish creature, 'not five foot within a wee bit, as many of the pious old women said pathetically about her, after her death. Her broad, healthy, red face had a look of blank idiocy and the fixed stare in her eyes was unpleasant, in spite of their meek expression. She wandered about, summer and winter alike, barefooted, wearing nothing but a hempen smock. Her coarse, almost black hair curled like lamb's wool, and formed a sort of huge cap on her head. It was always crusted with mud, and had leaves, bits of stick, and shavings clinging to it, as she always slept on the ground and in the dirt. Her father, a homeless, sickly drunkard, called Ilya, had lost everything and lived many years as a workman with some welltodo tradespeople. Her mother had long been dead. Spiteful and diseased, Ilya used to beat Lizaveta inhumanly whenever she returned to him. But she rarely did so, for every one in the town was ready to look after her as being an idiot, and so specially dear to God. Ilya's employers, and many others in the town, especially of the tradespeople, tried to clothe her better, and always rigged her out with high boots and sheepskin coat for the winter. But, although she allowed them to dress her up without resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral porch, and taking off all that had been given herkerchief, sheepskin, skirt or bootsshe left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock as before. It happened on one occasion that a new governor of the province, making a tour of inspection in our town, saw Lizaveta, and was wounded in his tenderest susceptibilities. And though he was told she was an idiot, he pronounced that for a young woman of twenty to wander about in nothing but a smock was a breach of the proprieties, and must not occur again. But the governor went his way, and Lizaveta was left as she was. At last her father died, which made her even more acceptable in the eyes of the religious persons of the town, as an orphan. In fact, every one seemed to like her even the boys did not tease her, and the boys of our town, especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous set. She would walk into strange houses, and no one drove her away. Every one was kind to her and gave her something. If she were given a copper, she would take it, and at once drop it in the almsjug of the church or prison. If she were given a roll or bun in the market, she would hand it to the first child she met. Sometimes she would stop one of the richest ladies in the town and give it to her, and the lady would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted anything but black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop, where there were costly goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on her, for they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by them, she would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church. She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (there are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up 'at home, that is at the house of her father's former employers, and in the winter went there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cowhouse. People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was accustomed to it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a robust constitution. Some of the townspeople declared that she did all this only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardly speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How could she have been proud? It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many years ago) five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed through the 'back way, which led between the back gardens of the houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to the bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to call a river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our revelers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her, laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether any one could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth.... They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible. But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a certain piquancy about it, and so on.... It is true that at that time he was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the time when he had received the news of his first wife's death in Petersburg, and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion and one of them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity, and at last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking, with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta's condition, and trying to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a terrible rumor was all over the town that this miscreant was no other than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going? Of that drunken band five had left the town and the only one still among us was an elderly and much respected civil councilor, the father of grownup daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it. But rumor pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him he would not have troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom he entertained so well. At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some people round to his side. 'It's the wench's own fault, he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in the neighborhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and all the talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A welltodo merchant's widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody others hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is that it happened naturallythat Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring herself. Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his wife sit down, put it on her lap. 'A child of Godan orphan is akin to all, he said, 'and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil's son and a holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no more. So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitch did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his mother's nickname. So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch's second servant, and was living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers' attention so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it. Alyosha remained for some time irresolute after hearing the command his father shouted to him from the carriage. But in spite of his uneasiness he did not stand still. That was not his way. He went at once to the kitchen to find out what his father had been doing above. Then he set off, trusting that on the way he would find some answer to the doubt tormenting him. I hasten to add that his father's shouts, commanding him to return home 'with his mattress and pillow did not frighten him in the least. He understood perfectly that those peremptory shouts were merely 'a flourish to produce an effect. In the same way a tradesman in our town who was celebrating his nameday with a party of friends, getting angry at being refused more vodka, smashed up his own crockery and furniture and tore his own and his wife's clothes, and finally broke his windows, all for the sake of effect. Next day, of course, when he was sober, he regretted the broken cups and saucers. Alyosha knew that his father would let him go back to the monastery next day, possibly even that evening. Moreover, he was fully persuaded that his father might hurt any one else, but would not hurt him. Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him, and, what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him an axiom, assumed once for all without question, and he went his way without hesitation, relying on it. But at that moment an anxiety of a different sort disturbed him, and worried him the more because he could not formulate it. It was the fear of a woman, of Katerina Ivanovna, who had so urgently entreated him in the note handed to him by Madame Hohlakov to come and see her about something. This request and the necessity of going had at once aroused an uneasy feeling in his heart, and this feeling had grown more and more painful all the morning in spite of the scenes at the hermitage and at the Father Superior's. He was not uneasy because he did not know what she would speak of and what he must answer. And he was not afraid of her simply as a woman. Though he knew little of women, he had spent his life, from early childhood till he entered the monastery, entirely with women. He was afraid of that woman, Katerina Ivanovna. He had been afraid of her from the first time he saw her. He had only seen her two or three times, and had only chanced to say a few words to her. He thought of her as a beautiful, proud, imperious girl. It was not her beauty which troubled him, but something else. And the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself. The girl's aims were of the noblest, he knew that. She was trying to save his brother Dmitri simply through generosity, though he had already behaved badly to her. Yet, although Alyosha recognized and did justice to all these fine and generous sentiments, a shiver began to run down his back as soon as he drew near her house. He reflected that he would not find Ivan, who was so intimate a friend, with her, for Ivan was certainly now with his father. Dmitri he was even more certain not to find there, and he had a foreboding of the reason. And so his conversation would be with her alone. He had a great longing to run and see his brother Dmitri before that fateful interview. Without showing him the letter, he could talk to him about it. But Dmitri lived a long way off, and he was sure to be away from home too. Standing still for a minute, he reached a final decision. Crossing himself with a rapid and accustomed gesture, and at once smiling, he turned resolutely in the direction of his terrible lady. He knew her house. If he went by the High Street and then across the marketplace, it was a long way round. Though our town is small, it is scattered, and the houses are far apart. And meanwhile his father was expecting him, and perhaps had not yet forgotten his command. He might be unreasonable, and so he had to make haste to get there and back. So he decided to take a short cut by the backway, for he knew every inch of the ground. This meant skirting fences, climbing over hurdles, and crossing other people's backyards, where every one he met knew him and greeted him. In this way he could reach the High Street in half the time. He had to pass the garden adjoining his father's, and belonging to a little tumbledown house with four windows. The owner of this house, as Alyosha knew, was a bedridden old woman, living with her daughter, who had been a genteel maidservant in generals' families in Petersburg. Now she had been at home a year, looking after her sick mother. She always dressed up in fine clothes, though her old mother and she had sunk into such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and bread, which Marfa gave readily. Yet, though the young woman came up for soup, she had never sold any of her dresses, and one of these even had a long traina fact which Alyosha had learned from Rakitin, who always knew everything that was going on in the town. He had forgotten it as soon as he heard it, but now, on reaching the garden, he remembered the dress with the train, raised his head, which had been bowed in thought, and came upon something quite unexpected. Over the hurdle in the garden, Dmitri, mounted on something, was leaning forward, gesticulating violently, beckoning to him, obviously afraid to utter a word for fear of being overheard. Alyosha ran up to the hurdle. 'It's a good thing you looked up. I was nearly shouting to you, Mitya said in a joyful, hurried whisper. 'Climb in here quickly! How splendid that you've come! I was just thinking of you! Alyosha was delighted too, but he did not know how to get over the hurdle. Mitya put his powerful hand under his elbow to help him jump. Tucking up his cassock, Alyosha leapt over the hurdle with the agility of a bare legged street urchin. 'Well done! Now come along, said Mitya in an enthusiastic whisper. 'Where? whispered Alyosha, looking about him and finding himself in a deserted garden with no one near but themselves. The garden was small, but the house was at least fifty paces away. 'There's no one here. Why do you whisper? asked Alyosha. 'Why do I whisper? Deuce take it! cried Dmitri at the top of his voice. 'You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in secret, and on the watch. I'll explain later on, but, knowing it's a secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there's no need. Let us go. Over there. Till then be quiet. I want to kiss you. Glory to God in the world, Glory to God in me ... I was just repeating that, sitting here, before you came. The garden was about three acres in extent, and planted with trees only along the fence at the four sides. There were appletrees, maples, limes and birchtrees. The middle of the garden was an empty grass space, from which several hundredweight of hay was carried in the summer. The garden was let out for a few roubles for the summer. There were also plantations of raspberries and currants and gooseberries laid out along the sides a kitchen garden had been planted lately near the house. Dmitri led his brother to the most secluded corner of the garden. There, in a thicket of limetrees and old bushes of black currant, elder, snowballtree, and lilac, there stood a tumbledown green summerhouse, blackened with age. Its walls were of latticework, but there was still a roof which could give shelter. God knows when this summerhouse was built. There was a tradition that it had been put up some fifty years before by a retired colonel called von Schmidt, who owned the house at that time. It was all in decay, the floor was rotting, the planks were loose, the woodwork smelled musty. In the summerhouse there was a green wooden table fixed in the ground, and round it were some green benches upon which it was still possible to sit. Alyosha had at once observed his brother's exhilarated condition, and on entering the arbor he saw half a bottle of brandy and a wineglass on the table. 'That's brandy, Mitya laughed. 'I see your look 'He's drinking again!' Distrust the apparition. Distrust the worthless, lying crowd, And lay aside thy doubts. I'm not drinking, I'm only 'indulging,' as that pig, your Rakitin, says. He'll be a civil councilor one day, but he'll always talk about 'indulging.' Sit down. I could take you in my arms, Alyosha, and press you to my bosom till I crush you, for in the whole worldin realityin real ity(can you take it in?) I love no one but you! He uttered the last words in a sort of exaltation. 'No one but you and one 'jade' I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn't mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her. Remember that! I can talk about it gayly still. Sit down here by the table and I'll sit beside you and look at you, and go on talking. You shall keep quiet and I'll go on talking, for the time has come. But on reflection, you know, I'd better speak quietly, for herehereyou can never tell what ears are listening. I will explain everything as they say, 'the story will be continued.' Why have I been longing for you? Why have I been thirsting for you all these days, and just now? (It's five days since I've cast anchor here.) Because it's only to you I can tell everything because I must, because I need you, because tomorrow I shall fly from the clouds, because tomorrow life is ending and beginning. Have you ever felt, have you ever dreamt of falling down a precipice into a pit? That's just how I'm falling, but not in a dream. And I'm not afraid, and don't you be afraid. At least, I am afraid, but I enjoy it. It's not enjoyment though, but ecstasy. Damn it all, whatever it is! A strong spirit, a weak spirit, a womanish spiritwhatever it is! Let us praise nature you see what sunshine, how clear the sky is, the leaves are all green, it's still summer four o'clock in the afternoon and the stillness! Where were you going? 'I was going to father's, but I meant to go to Katerina Ivanovna's first. 'To her, and to father! Oo! what a coincidence! Why was I waiting for you? Hungering and thirsting for you in every cranny of my soul and even in my ribs? Why, to send you to father and to her, Katerina Ivanovna, so as to have done with her and with father. To send an angel. I might have sent any one, but I wanted to send an angel. And here you are on your way to see father and her. 'Did you really mean to send me? cried Alyosha with a distressed expression. 'Stay! You knew it! And I see you understand it all at once. But be quiet, be quiet for a time. Don't be sorry, and don't cry. Dmitri stood up, thought a moment, and put his finger to his forehead. 'She's asked you, written to you a letter or something, that's why you're going to her? You wouldn't be going except for that? 'Here is her note. Alyosha took it out of his pocket. Mitya looked through it quickly. 'And you were going the backway! Oh, gods, I thank you for sending him by the backway, and he came to me like the golden fish to the silly old fishermen in the fable! Listen, Alyosha, listen, brother! Now I mean to tell you everything, for I must tell some one. An angel in heaven I've told already but I want to tell an angel on earth. You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that's what I need, that some one above me should forgive. Listen! If two people break away from everything on earth and fly off into the unknown, or at least one of them, and before flying off or going to ruin he comes to some one else and says, 'Do this for me'some favor never asked before that could only be asked on one's deathbedwould that other refuse, if he were a friend or a brother? 'I will do it, but tell me what it is, and make haste, said Alyosha. 'Make haste! H'm!... Don't be in a hurry, Alyosha, you hurry and worry yourself. There's no need to hurry now. Now the world has taken a new turning. Ah, Alyosha, what a pity you can't understand ecstasy. But what am I saying to him? As though you didn't understand it. What an ass I am! What am I saying? 'Be noble, O man!'who says that? Alyosha made up his mind to wait. He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent. 'Alyosha, said Mitya, 'you're the only one who won't laugh. I should like to beginmy confessionwith Schiller's Hymn to Joy, An die Freude! I don't know German, I only know it's called that. Don't think I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy's all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk Silenus with his rosy phiz Upon his stumbling ass. But I've not drunk a quarter of a bottle, and I'm not Silenus. I'm not Silenus, though I am strong, for I've made a decision once for all. Forgive me the pun you'll have to forgive me a lot more than puns today. Don't be uneasy. I'm not spinning it out. I'm talking sense, and I'll come to the point in a minute. I won't keep you in suspense. Stay, how does it go? He raised his head, thought a minute, and began with enthusiasm 'Wild and fearful in his cavern Hid the naked troglodyte, And the homeless nomad wandered Laying waste the fertile plain. Menacing with spear and arrow In the woods the hunter strayed.... Woe to all poor wretches stranded On those cruel and hostile shores! 'From the peak of high Olympus Came the mother Ceres down, Seeking in those savage regions Her lost daughter Proserpine. But the Goddess found no refuge, Found no kindly welcome there, And no temple bearing witness To the worship of the gods. 'From the fields and from the vineyards Came no fruits to deck the feasts, Only flesh of bloodstained victims Smoldered on the altarfires, And where'er the grieving goddess Turns her melancholy gaze, Sunk in vilest degradation Man his loathsomeness displays. Mitya broke into sobs and seized Alyosha's hand. 'My dear, my dear, in degradation, in degradation now, too. There's a terrible amount of suffering for man on earth, a terrible lot of trouble. Don't think I'm only a brute in an officer's uniform, wallowing in dirt and drink. I hardly think of anything but of that degraded manif only I'm not lying. I pray God I'm not lying and showing off. I think about that man because I am that man myself. Would he purge his soul from vileness And attain to light and worth, He must turn and cling for ever To his ancient Mother Earth. But the difficulty is how am I to cling for ever to Mother Earth. I don't kiss her. I don't cleave to her bosom. Am I to become a peasant or a shepherd? I go on and I don't know whether I'm going to shame or to light and joy. That's the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle! And whenever I've happened to sink into the vilest degradation (and it's always been happening) I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Has it reformed me? Never! For I'm a Karamazov. For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that degrading attitude, and pride myself upon it. And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. Let me be accursed. Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand. Joy everlasting fostereth The soul of all creation, It is her secret ferment fires The cup of life with flame. 'Tis at her beck the grass hath turned Each blade towards the light And solar systems have evolved From chaos and dark night, Filling the realms of boundless space Beyond the sage's sight. At bounteous Nature's kindly breast, All things that breathe drink Joy, And birds and beasts and creeping things All follow where She leads. Her gifts to man are friends in need, The wreath, the foaming must, To angelsvision of God's throne, To insectssensual lust. But enough poetry! I am in tears let me cry. It may be foolishness that every one would laugh at. But you won't laugh. Your eyes are shining, too. Enough poetry. I want to tell you now about the insects to whom God gave 'sensual lust. To insectssensual lust. I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempestworse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am not a cultivated man, brother, but I've thought a lot about this. It's terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can't endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What's still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts. 'I was leading a wild life then. Father said just now that I spent several thousand roubles in seducing young girls. That's a swinish invention, and there was nothing of the sort. And if there was, I didn't need money simply for that. With me money is an accessory, the overflow of my heart, the framework. Today she would be my lady, tomorrow a wench out of the streets in her place. I entertained them both. I threw away money by the handful on music, rioting, and gypsies. Sometimes I gave it to the ladies, too, for they'll take it greedily, that must be admitted, and be pleased and thankful for it. Ladies used to be fond of me not all of them, but it happened, it happened. But I always liked sidepaths, little dark backalleys behind the main roadthere one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in, there were no such backalleys in the literal sense, but morally there were. If you were like me, you'd know what that means. I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice. I loved cruelty am I not a bug, am I not a noxious insect? In fact a Karamazov! Once we went, a whole lot of us, for a picnic, in seven sledges. It was dark, it was winter, and I began squeezing a girl's hand, and forced her to kiss me. She was the daughter of an official, a sweet, gentle, submissive creature. She allowed me, she allowed me much in the dark. She thought, poor thing, that I should come next day to make her an offer (I was looked upon as a good match, too). But I didn't say a word to her for five months. I used to see her in a corner at dances (we were always having dances), her eyes watching me. I saw how they glowed with firea fire of gentle indignation. This game only tickled that insect lust I cherished in my soul. Five months later she married an official and left the town, still angry, and still, perhaps, in love with me. Now they live happily. Observe that I told no one. I didn't boast of it. Though I'm full of low desires, and love what's low, I'm not dishonorable. You're blushing your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth with you. And all this was nothing muchwayside blossoms  la Paul de Kockthough the cruel insect had already grown strong in my soul. I've a perfect album of reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings. I tried to break it off without quarreling. And I never gave them away. I never bragged of one of them. But that's enough. You can't suppose I brought you here simply to talk of such nonsense. No, I'm going to tell you something more curious and don't be surprised that I'm glad to tell you, instead of being ashamed. 'You say that because I blushed, Alyosha said suddenly. 'I wasn't blushing at what you were saying or at what you've done. I blushed because I am the same as you are. 'You? Come, that's going a little too far! 'No, it's not too far, said Alyosha warmly (obviously the idea was not a new one). 'The ladder's the same. I'm at the bottom step, and you're above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That's how I see it. But it's all the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Any one on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top one. 'Then one ought not to step on at all. 'Any one who can help it had better not. 'But can you? 'I think not. 'Hush, Alyosha, hush, darling! I could kiss your hand, you touch me so. That rogue Grushenka has an eye for men. She told me once that she'd devour you one day. There, there, I won't! From this field of corruption fouled by flies, let's pass to my tragedy, also befouled by flies, that is by every sort of vileness. Although the old man told lies about my seducing innocence, there really was something of the sort in my tragedy, though it was only once, and then it did not come off. The old man who has reproached me with what never happened does not even know of this fact I never told any one about it. You're the first, except Ivan, of courseIvan knows everything. He knew about it long before you. But Ivan's a tomb. 'Ivan's a tomb? 'Yes. Alyosha listened with great attention. 'I was lieutenant in a line regiment, but still I was under supervision, like a kind of convict. Yet I was awfully well received in the little town. I spent money right and left. I was thought to be rich I thought so myself. But I must have pleased them in other ways as well. Although they shook their heads over me, they liked me. My colonel, who was an old man, took a sudden dislike to me. He was always down upon me, but I had powerful friends, and, moreover, all the town was on my side, so he couldn't do me much harm. I was in fault myself for refusing to treat him with proper respect. I was proud. This obstinate old fellow, who was really a very good sort, kindhearted and hospitable, had had two wives, both dead. His first wife, who was of a humble family, left a daughter as unpretentious as herself. She was a young woman of four and twenty when I was there, and was living with her father and an aunt, her mother's sister. The aunt was simple and illiterate the niece was simple but lively. I like to say nice things about people. I never knew a woman of more charming character than Agafyafancy, her name was Agafya Ivanovna! And she wasn't badlooking either, in the Russian style tall, stout, with a full figure, and beautiful eyes, though a rather coarse face. She had not married, although she had had two suitors. She refused them, but was as cheerful as ever. I was intimate with her, not in 'that' way, it was pure friendship. I have often been friendly with women quite innocently. I used to talk to her with shocking frankness, and she only laughed. Many women like such freedom, and she was a girl too, which made it very amusing. Another thing, one could never think of her as a young lady. She and her aunt lived in her father's house with a sort of voluntary humility, not putting themselves on an equality with other people. She was a general favorite, and of use to every one, for she was a clever dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her services freely without asking for payment, but if any one offered her payment, she didn't refuse. The colonel, of course, was a very different matter. He was one of the chief personages in the district. He kept open house, entertained the whole town, gave suppers and dances. At the time I arrived and joined the battalion, all the town was talking of the expected return of the colonel's second daughter, a great beauty, who had just left a fashionable school in the capital. This second daughter is Katerina Ivanovna, and she was the child of the second wife, who belonged to a distinguished general's family although, as I learnt on good authority, she too brought the colonel no money. She had connections, and that was all. There may have been expectations, but they had come to nothing. 'Yet, when the young lady came from boardingschool on a visit, the whole town revived. Our most distinguished ladiestwo 'Excellencies' and a colonel's wifeand all the rest following their lead, at once took her up and gave entertainments in her honor. She was the belle of the balls and picnics, and they got up tableaux vivants in aid of distressed governesses. I took no notice, I went on as wildly as before, and one of my exploits at the time set all the town talking. I saw her eyes taking my measure one evening at the battery commander's, but I didn't go up to her, as though I disdained her acquaintance. I did go up and speak to her at an evening party not long after. She scarcely looked at me, and compressed her lips scornfully. 'Wait a bit. I'll have my revenge,' thought I. I behaved like an awful fool on many occasions at that time, and I was conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that 'Katenka' was not an innocent boardingschool miss, but a person of character, proud and really highprincipled above all, she had education and intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to make her an offer? No, I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I was such a hero and she didn't seem to feel it. 'Meanwhile, I spent my time in drink and riot, till the lieutenantcolonel put me under arrest for three days. Just at that time father sent me six thousand roubles in return for my sending him a deed giving up all claims upon himsettling our accounts, so to speak, and saying that I wouldn't expect anything more. I didn't understand a word of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha, till the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven't been able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never mind that, we'll talk of it later. 'Just as I received the money, I got a letter from a friend telling me something that interested me immensely. The authorities, I learnt, were dissatisfied with our lieutenantcolonel. He was suspected of irregularities in fact, his enemies were preparing a surprise for him. And then the commander of the division arrived, and kicked up the devil of a shindy. Shortly afterwards he was ordered to retire. I won't tell you how it all happened. He had enemies certainly. Suddenly there was a marked coolness in the town towards him and all his family. His friends all turned their backs on him. Then I took my first step. I met Agafya Ivanovna, with whom I'd always kept up a friendship, and said, 'Do you know there's a deficit of , roubles of government money in your father's accounts?' ' 'What do you mean? What makes you say so? The general was here not long ago, and everything was all right.' ' 'Then it was, but now it isn't.' 'She was terribly scared. ' 'Don't frighten me!' she said. 'Who told you so?' ' 'Don't be uneasy,' I said, 'I won't tell any one. You know I'm as silent as the tomb. I only wanted, in view of 'possibilities, to add, that when they demand that , roubles from your father, and he can't produce it, he'll be tried, and made to serve as a common soldier in his old age, unless you like to send me your young lady secretly. I've just had money paid me. I'll give her four thousand, if you like, and keep the secret religiously.' ' 'Ah, you scoundrel!'that's what she said. 'You wicked scoundrel! How dare you!' 'She went away furiously indignant, while I shouted after her once more that the secret should be kept sacred. Those two simple creatures, Agafya and her aunt, I may as well say at once, behaved like perfect angels all through this business. They genuinely adored their 'Katya,' thought her far above them, and waited on her, hand and foot. But Agafya told her of our conversation. I found that out afterwards. She didn't keep it back, and of course that was all I wanted. 'Suddenly the new major arrived to take command of the battalion. The old lieutenantcolonel was taken ill at once, couldn't leave his room for two days, and didn't hand over the government money. Dr. Kravchenko declared that he really was ill. But I knew for a fact, and had known for a long time, that for the last four years the money had never been in his hands except when the Commander made his visits of inspection. He used to lend it to a trustworthy person, a merchant of our town called Trifonov, an old widower, with a big beard and goldrimmed spectacles. He used to go to the fair, do a profitable business with the money, and return the whole sum to the colonel, bringing with it a present from the fair, as well as interest on the loan. But this time (I heard all about it quite by chance from Trifonov's son and heir, a driveling youth and one of the most vicious in the world)this time, I say, Trifonov brought nothing back from the fair. The lieutenantcolonel flew to him. 'I've never received any money from you, and couldn't possibly have received any.' That was all the answer he got. So now our lieutenantcolonel is confined to the house, with a towel round his head, while they're all three busy putting ice on it. All at once an orderly arrives on the scene with the book and the order to 'hand over the battalion money immediately, within two hours.' He signed the book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his doublebarreled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in time. She rushed in, flung herself upon him from behind, threw her arms round him, and the gun went off, hit the ceiling, but hurt no one. The others ran in, took away the gun, and held him by the arms. I heard all about this afterwards. I was at home, it was getting dusk, and I was just preparing to go out. I had dressed, brushed my hair, scented my handkerchief, and taken up my cap, when suddenly the door opened, and facing me in the room stood Katerina Ivanovna. 'It's strange how things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two castiron posts. Of course I grasped the position at once. She walked in and looked straight at me, her dark eyes determined, even defiant, but on her lips and round her mouth I saw uncertainty. ' 'My sister told me,' she began, 'that you would give me , roubles if I came to you for itmyself. I have come ... give me the money!' 'She couldn't keep it up. She was breathless, frightened, her voice failed her, and the corners of her mouth and the lines round it quivered. Alyosha, are you listening, or are you asleep? 'Mitya, I know you will tell the whole truth, said Alyosha in agitation. 'I am telling it. If I tell the whole truth just as it happened I shan't spare myself. My first idea was aKaramazov one. Once I was bitten by a centipede, brother, and laid up a fortnight with fever from it. Well, I felt a centipede biting at my heart thena noxious insect, you understand? I looked her up and down. You've seen her? She's a beauty. But she was beautiful in another way then. At that moment she was beautiful because she was noble, and I was a scoundrel she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and Ia bug! And, scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I tell you frankly, that thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my heart that it almost swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be no resisting it as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous spider, without a spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I should have gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end honorably, so to speak, and that nobody would or could know. For though I'm a man of base desires, I'm honest. And at that very second some voice seemed to whisper in my ear, 'But when you come tomorrow to make your proposal, that girl won't even see you she'll order her coachman to kick you out of the yard. 'Publish it through all the town, she would say, 'I'm not afraid of you. ' I looked at the young lady, my voice had not deceived me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see from her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was roused. I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad's trick to look at her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use. ' 'Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You've been counting your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all my heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity. You've put yourself out to no purpose.' 'I should have lost the game, of course. She'd have run away. But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all. I'd have howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have played that trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to me with any other woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred. But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five perhaps, with fearful hatredthat hate which is only a hair'sbreadth from love, from the maddest love! 'I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long, don't be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the drawer and took out a banknote for five thousand roubles (it was lying in a French dictionary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded it, handed it to her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back, made her a deep bow, a most respectful, a most impressive bow, believe me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for a second, turned horribly palewhite as a sheet, in factand all at once, not impetuously but softly, gently, bowed down to my feetnot a boardingschool curtsey, but a Russian bow, with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up and ran away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed myself with it on the spot why, I don't know. It would have been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it was from delight. Can you understand that one might kill oneself from delight? But I didn't stab myself. I only kissed my sword and put it back in the scabbardwhich there was no need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify myself. But let it pass, and to hell with all who pry into the human heart! Well, so much for that 'adventure' with Katerina Ivanovna. So now Ivan knows of it, and youno one else. Dmitri got up, took a step or two in his excitement, pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then sat down again, not in the same place as before, but on the opposite side, so that Alyosha had to turn quite round to face him. 'Now, said Alyosha, 'I understand the first half. 'You understand the first half. That half is a drama, and it was played out there. The second half is a tragedy, and it is being acted here. 'And I understand nothing of that second half so far, said Alyosha. 'And I? Do you suppose I understand it? 'Stop, Dmitri. There's one important question. Tell me, you were betrothed, you are betrothed still? 'We weren't betrothed at once, not for three months after that adventure. The next day I told myself that the incident was closed, concluded, that there would be no sequel. It seemed to me caddish to make her an offer. On her side she gave no sign of life for the six weeks that she remained in the town except, indeed, for one action. The day after her visit the maidservant slipped round with an envelope addressed to me. I tore it open it contained the change out of the banknote. Only four thousand five hundred roubles was needed, but there was a discount of about two hundred on changing it. She only sent me about two hundred and sixty. I don't remember exactly, but not a note, not a word of explanation. I searched the packet for a pencil marknnothing! Well, I spent the rest of the money on such an orgy that the new major was obliged to reprimand me. 'Well, the lieutenantcolonel produced the battalion money, to the astonishment of every one, for nobody believed that he had the money untouched. He'd no sooner paid it than he fell ill, took to his bed, and, three weeks later, softening of the brain set in, and he died five days afterwards. He was buried with military honors, for he had not had time to receive his discharge. Ten days after his funeral, Katerina Ivanovna, with her aunt and sister, went to Moscow. And, behold, on the very day they went away (I hadn't seen them, didn't see them off or take leave) I received a tiny note, a sheet of thin blue paper, and on it only one line in pencil 'I will write to you. Wait. K.' And that was all. 'I'll explain the rest now, in two words. In Moscow their fortunes changed with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of an Arabian fairytale. That general's widow, their nearest relation, suddenly lost the two nieces who were her heiresses and nextofkinboth died in the same week of smallpox. The old lady, prostrated with grief, welcomed Katya as a daughter, as her one hope, clutched at her, altered her will in Katya's favor. But that concerned the future. Meanwhile she gave her, for present use, eighty thousand roubles, as a marriage portion, to do what she liked with. She was an hysterical woman. I saw something of her in Moscow, later. 'Well, suddenly I received by post four thousand five hundred roubles. I was speechless with surprise, as you may suppose. Three days later came the promised letter. I have it with me now. You must read it. She offers to be my wife, offers herself to me. 'I love you madly,' she says, 'even if you don't love me, never mind. Be my husband. Don't be afraid. I won't hamper you in any way. I will be your chattel. I will be the carpet under your feet. I want to love you for ever. I want to save you from yourself.' Alyosha, I am not worthy to repeat those lines in my vulgar words and in my vulgar tone, my everlastingly vulgar tone, that I can never cure myself of. That letter stabs me even now. Do you think I don't mindthat I don't mind still? I wrote her an answer at once, as it was impossible for me to go to Moscow. I wrote to her with tears. One thing I shall be ashamed of for ever. I referred to her being rich and having a dowry while I was only a stuckup beggar! I mentioned money! I ought to have borne it in silence, but it slipped from my pen. Then I wrote at once to Ivan, and told him all I could about it in a letter of six pages, and sent him to her. Why do you look like that? Why are you staring at me? Yes, Ivan fell in love with her he's in love with her still. I know that. I did a stupid thing, in the world's opinion but perhaps that one stupid thing may be the saving of us all now. Oo! Don't you see what a lot she thinks of Ivan, how she respects him? When she compares us, do you suppose she can love a man like me, especially after all that has happened here? 'But I am convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like him. 'She loves her own virtue, not me. The words broke involuntarily, and almost malignantly, from Dmitri. He laughed, but a minute later his eyes gleamed, he flushed crimson and struck the table violently with his fist. 'I swear, Alyosha, he cried, with intense and genuine anger at himself 'you may not believe me, but as God is holy, and as Christ is God, I swear that though I smiled at her lofty sentiments just now, I know that I am a million times baser in soul than she, and that these lofty sentiments of hers are as sincere as a heavenly angel's. That's the tragedy of itthat I know that for certain. What if any one does show off a bit? Don't I do it myself? And yet I'm sincere, I'm sincere. As for Ivan, I can understand how he must be cursing nature nowwith his intellect, too! To see the preference givento whom, to what? To a monster who, though he is betrothed and all eyes are fixed on him, can't restrain his debaucheriesand before the very eyes of his betrothed! And a man like me is preferred, while he is rejected. And why? Because a girl wants to sacrifice her life and destiny out of gratitude. It's ridiculous! I've never said a word of this to Ivan, and Ivan of course has never dropped a hint of the sort to me. But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back alley for everhis filthy backalley, his beloved backalley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will and with enjoyment. I've been talking foolishly. I've no words left. I use them at random, but it will be as I have said. I shall drown in the back alley, and she will marry Ivan. 'Stop, Dmitri, Alyosha interrupted again with great anxiety. 'There's one thing you haven't made clear yet you are still betrothed all the same, aren't you? How can you break off the engagement if she, your betrothed, doesn't want to? 'Yes, formally and solemnly betrothed. It was all done on my arrival in Moscow, with great ceremony, with ikons, all in fine style. The general's wife blessed us, andwould you believe it?congratulated Katya. 'You've made a good choice,' she said, 'I see right through him.' Andwould you believe it?she didn't like Ivan, and hardly greeted him. I had a lot of talk with Katya in Moscow. I told her about myselfsincerely, honorably. She listened to everything. There was sweet confusion, There were tender words. Though there were proud words, too. She wrung out of me a mighty promise to reform. I gave my promise, and here 'What? 'Why, I called to you and brought you out here today, this very dayremember itto send youthis very day againto Katerina Ivanovna, and 'What? 'To tell her that I shall never come to see her again. Say, 'He sends you his compliments.'  'But is that possible? 'That's just the reason I'm sending you, in my place, because it's impossible. And, how could I tell her myself? 'And where are you going? 'To the backalley. 'To Grushenka, then! Alyosha exclaimed mournfully, clasping his hands. 'Can Rakitin really have told the truth? I thought that you had just visited her, and that was all. 'Can a betrothed man pay such visits? Is such a thing possible and with such a betrothed, and before the eyes of all the world? Confound it, I have some honor! As soon as I began visiting Grushenka, I ceased to be betrothed, and to be an honest man. I understand that. Why do you look at me? You see, I went in the first place to beat her. I had heard, and I know for a fact now, that that captain, father's agent, had given Grushenka an I.O.U. of mine for her to sue me for payment, so as to put an end to me. They wanted to scare me. I went to beat her. I had had a glimpse of her before. She doesn't strike one at first sight. I knew about her old merchant, who's lying ill now, paralyzed but he's leaving her a decent little sum. I knew, too, that she was fond of money, that she hoarded it, and lent it at a wicked rate of interest, that she's a merciless cheat and swindler. I went to beat her, and I stayed. The storm brokeit struck me down like the plague. I'm plaguestricken still, and I know that everything is over, that there will never be anything more for me. The cycle of the ages is accomplished. That's my position. And though I'm a beggar, as fate would have it, I had three thousand just then in my pocket. I drove with Grushenka to Mokroe, a place twentyfive versts from here. I got gypsies there and champagne and made all the peasants there drunk on it, and all the women and girls. I sent the thousands flying. In three days' time I was stripped bare, but a hero. Do you suppose the hero had gained his end? Not a sign of it from her. I tell you that rogue, Grushenka, has a supple curve all over her body. You can see it in her little foot, even in her little toe. I saw it, and kissed it, but that was all, I swear! 'I'll marry you if you like,' she said, 'you're a beggar, you know. Say that you won't beat me, and will let me do anything I choose, and perhaps I will marry you.' She laughed, and she's laughing still! Dmitri leapt up with a sort of fury. He seemed all at once as though he were drunk. His eyes became suddenly bloodshot. 'And do you really mean to marry her? 'At once, if she will. And if she won't, I shall stay all the same. I'll be the porter at her gate. Alyosha! he cried. He stopped short before him, and taking him by the shoulders began shaking him violently. 'Do you know, you innocent boy, that this is all delirium, senseless delirium, for there's a tragedy here. Let me tell you, Alexey, that I may be a low man, with low and degraded passions, but a thief and a pickpocket Dmitri Karamazov never can be. Well, then let me tell you that I am a thief and a pickpocket. That very morning, just before I went to beat Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna sent for me, and in strict secrecy (why I don't know, I suppose she had some reason) asked me to go to the chief town of the province and to post three thousand roubles to Agafya Ivanovna in Moscow, so that nothing should be known of it in the town here. So I had that three thousand roubles in my pocket when I went to see Grushenka, and it was that money we spent at Mokroe. Afterwards I pretended I had been to the town, but did not show her the post office receipt. I said I had sent the money and would bring the receipt, and so far I haven't brought it. I've forgotten it. Now what do you think you're going to her today to say? 'He sends his compliments,' and she'll ask you, 'What about the money?' You might still have said to her, 'He's a degraded sensualist, and a low creature, with uncontrolled passions. He didn't send your money then, but wasted it, because, like a low brute, he couldn't control himself.' But still you might have added, 'He isn't a thief though. Here is your three thousand he sends it back. Send it yourself to Agafya Ivanovna. But he told me to say 'he sends his compliments. ' But, as it is, she will ask, 'But where is the money?'  'Mitya, you are unhappy, yes! But not as unhappy as you think. Don't worry yourself to death with despair. 'What, do you suppose I'd shoot myself because I can't get three thousand to pay back? That's just it. I shan't shoot myself. I haven't the strength now. Afterwards, perhaps. But now I'm going to Grushenka. I don't care what happens. 'And what then? 'I'll be her husband if she deigns to have me, and when lovers come, I'll go into the next room. I'll clean her friends' goloshes, blow up their samovar, run their errands. 'Katerina Ivanovna will understand it all, Alyosha said solemnly. 'She'll understand how great this trouble is and will forgive. She has a lofty mind, and no one could be more unhappy than you. She'll see that for herself. 'She won't forgive everything, said Dmitri, with a grin. 'There's something in it, brother, that no woman could forgive. Do you know what would be the best thing to do? 'What? 'Pay back the three thousand. 'Where can we get it from? I say, I have two thousand. Ivan will give you another thousandthat makes three. Take it and pay it back. 'And when would you get it, your three thousand? You're not of age, besides, and you mustyou absolutely musttake my farewell to her today, with the money or without it, for I can't drag on any longer, things have come to such a pass. Tomorrow is too late. I shall send you to father. 'To father? 'Yes, to father first. Ask him for three thousand. 'But, Mitya, he won't give it. 'As though he would! I know he won't. Do you know the meaning of despair, Alexey? 'Yes. 'Listen. Legally he owes me nothing. I've had it all from him, I know that. But morally he owes me something, doesn't he? You know he started with twentyeight thousand of my mother's money and made a hundred thousand with it. Let him give me back only three out of the twentyeight thousand, and he'll draw my soul out of hell, and it will atone for many of his sins. For that three thousandI give you my solemn wordI'll make an end of everything, and he shall hear nothing more of me. For the last time I give him the chance to be a father. Tell him God Himself sends him this chance. 'Mitya, he won't give it for anything. 'I know he won't. I know it perfectly well. Now, especially. That's not all. I know something more. Now, only a few days ago, perhaps only yesterday he found out for the first time in earnest (underline in earnest) that Grushenka is really perhaps not joking, and really means to marry me. He knows her nature he knows the cat. And do you suppose he's going to give me money to help to bring that about when he's crazy about her himself? And that's not all, either. I can tell you more than that. I know that for the last five days he has had three thousand drawn out of the bank, changed into notes of a hundred roubles, packed into a large envelope, sealed with five seals, and tied across with red tape. You see how well I know all about it! On the envelope is written 'To my angel, Grushenka, when she will come to me.' He scrawled it himself in silence and in secret, and no one knows that the money's there except the valet, Smerdyakov, whom he trusts like himself. So now he has been expecting Grushenka for the last three or four days he hopes she'll come for the money. He has sent her word of it, and she has sent him word that perhaps she'll come. And if she does go to the old man, can I marry her after that? You understand now why I'm here in secret and what I'm on the watch for. 'For her? 'Yes, for her. Foma has a room in the house of these sluts here. Foma comes from our parts he was a soldier in our regiment. He does jobs for them. He's watchman at night and goes grouseshooting in the daytime and that's how he lives. I've established myself in his room. Neither he nor the women of the house know the secretthat is, that I am on the watch here. 'No one but Smerdyakov knows, then? 'No one else. He will let me know if she goes to the old man. 'It was he told you about the money, then? 'Yes. It's a dead secret. Even Ivan doesn't know about the money, or anything. The old man is sending Ivan to Tchermashnya on a two or three days' journey. A purchaser has turned up for the copse he'll give eight thousand for the timber. So the old man keeps asking Ivan to help him by going to arrange it. It will take him two or three days. That's what the old man wants, so that Grushenka can come while he's away. 'Then he's expecting Grushenka today? 'No, she won't come today there are signs. She's certain not to come, cried Mitya suddenly. 'Smerdyakov thinks so, too. Father's drinking now. He's sitting at table with Ivan. Go to him, Alyosha, and ask for the three thousand. 'Mitya, dear, what's the matter with you? cried Alyosha, jumping up from his place, and looking keenly at his brother's frenzied face. For one moment the thought struck him that Dmitri was mad. 'What is it? I'm not insane, said Dmitri, looking intently and earnestly at him. 'No fear. I am sending you to father, and I know what I'm saying. I believe in miracles. 'In miracles? 'In a miracle of Divine Providence. God knows my heart. He sees my despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely He won't let something awful happen. Alyosha, I believe in miracles. Go! 'I am going. Tell me, will you wait for me here? 'Yes. I know it will take some time. You can't go at him point blank. He's drunk now. I'll wait three hoursfour, five, six, seven. Only remember you must go to Katerina Ivanovna today, if it has to be at midnight, with the money or without the money, and say, 'He sends his compliments to you.' I want you to say that verse to her 'He sends his compliments to you.'  'Mitya! And what if Grushenka comes todayif not today, tomorrow, or the next day? 'Grushenka? I shall see her. I shall rush out and prevent it. 'And if 'If there's an if, it will be murder. I couldn't endure it. 'Who will be murdered? 'The old man. I shan't kill her. 'Brother, what are you saying? 'Oh, I don't know.... I don't know. Perhaps I shan't kill, and perhaps I shall. I'm afraid that he will suddenly become so loathsome to me with his face at that moment. I hate his ugly throat, his nose, his eyes, his shameless snigger. I feel a physical repulsion. That's what I'm afraid of. That's what may be too much for me. 'I'll go, Mitya. I believe that God will order things for the best, that nothing awful may happen. 'And I will sit and wait for the miracle. And if it doesn't come to pass Alyosha went thoughtfully towards his father's house. He did in fact find his father still at table. Though there was a dining room in the house, the table was laid as usual in the drawingroom, which was the largest room, and furnished with oldfashioned ostentation. The furniture was white and very old, upholstered in old, red, silky material. In the spaces between the windows there were mirrors in elaborate white and gilt frames, of oldfashioned carving. On the walls, covered with white paper, which was torn in many places, there hung two large portraitsone of some prince who had been governor of the district thirty years before, and the other of some bishop, also long since dead. In the corner opposite the door there were several ikons, before which a lamp was lighted at nightfall ... not so much for devotional purposes as to light the room. Fyodor Pavlovitch used to go to bed very late, at three or four o'clock in the morning, and would wander about the room at night or sit in an armchair, thinking. This had become a habit with him. He often slept quite alone in the house, sending his servants to the lodge but usually Smerdyakov remained, sleeping on a bench in the hall. When Alyosha came in, dinner was over, but coffee and preserves had been served. Fyodor Pavlovitch liked sweet things with brandy after dinner. Ivan was also at table, sipping coffee. The servants, Grigory and Smerdyakov, were standing by. Both the gentlemen and the servants seemed in singularly good spirits. Fyodor Pavlovitch was roaring with laughter. Before he entered the room, Alyosha heard the shrill laugh he knew so well, and could tell from the sound of it that his father had only reached the goodhumored stage, and was far from being completely drunk. 'Here he is! Here he is! yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch, highly delighted at seeing Alyosha. 'Join us. Sit down. Coffee is a lenten dish, but it's hot and good. I don't offer you brandy, you're keeping the fast. But would you like some? No I'd better give you some of our famous liqueur. Smerdyakov, go to the cupboard, the second shelf on the right. Here are the keys. Look sharp! Alyosha began refusing the liqueur. 'Never mind. If you won't have it, we will, said Fyodor Pavlovitch, beaming. 'But stayhave you dined? 'Yes, answered Alyosha, who had in truth only eaten a piece of bread and drunk a glass of kvas in the Father Superior's kitchen. 'Though I should be pleased to have some hot coffee. 'Bravo, my darling! He'll have some coffee. Does it want warming? No, it's boiling. It's capital coffee Smerdyakov's making. My Smerdyakov's an artist at coffee and at fish patties, and at fish soup, too. You must come one day and have some fish soup. Let me know beforehand.... But, stay didn't I tell you this morning to come home with your mattress and pillow and all? Have you brought your mattress? He he he! 'No, I haven't, said Alyosha, smiling, too. 'Ah, but you were frightened, you were frightened this morning, weren't you? There, my darling, I couldn't do anything to vex you. Do you know, Ivan, I can't resist the way he looks one straight in the face and laughs? It makes me laugh all over. I'm so fond of him. Alyosha, let me give you my blessinga father's blessing. Alyosha rose, but Fyodor Pavlovitch had already changed his mind. 'No, no, he said. 'I'll just make the sign of the cross over you, for now. Sit still. Now we've a treat for you, in your own line, too. It'll make you laugh. Balaam's ass has begun talking to us hereand how he talks! How he talks! Balaam's ass, it appeared, was the valet, Smerdyakov. He was a young man of about four and twenty, remarkably unsociable and taciturn. Not that he was shy or bashful. On the contrary, he was conceited and seemed to despise everybody. But we must pause to say a few words about him now. He was brought up by Grigory and Marfa, but the boy grew up 'with no sense of gratitude, as Grigory expressed it he was an unfriendly boy, and seemed to look at the world mistrustfully. In his childhood he was very fond of hanging cats, and burying them with great ceremony. He used to dress up in a sheet as though it were a surplice, and sang, and waved some object over the dead cat as though it were a censer. All this he did on the sly, with the greatest secrecy. Grigory caught him once at this diversion and gave him a sound beating. He shrank into a corner and sulked there for a week. 'He doesn't care for you or me, the monster, Grigory used to say to Marfa, 'and he doesn't care for any one. Are you a human being? he said, addressing the boy directly. 'You're not a human being. You grew from the mildew in the bathhouse. That's what you are. Smerdyakov, it appeared afterwards, could never forgive him those words. Grigory taught him to read and write, and when he was twelve years old, began teaching him the Scriptures. But this teaching came to nothing. At the second or third lesson the boy suddenly grinned. 'What's that for? asked Grigory, looking at him threateningly from under his spectacles. 'Oh, nothing. God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day? Grigory was thunderstruck. The boy looked sarcastically at his teacher. There was something positively condescending in his expression. Grigory could not restrain himself. 'I'll show you where! he cried, and gave the boy a violent slap on the cheek. The boy took the slap without a word, but withdrew into his corner again for some days. A week later he had his first attack of the disease to which he was subject all the rest of his lifeepilepsy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of it, his attitude to the boy seemed changed at once. Till then he had taken no notice of him, though he never scolded him, and always gave him a copeck when he met him. Sometimes, when he was in good humor, he would send the boy something sweet from his table. But as soon as he heard of his illness, he showed an active interest in him, sent for a doctor, and tried remedies, but the disease turned out to be incurable. The fits occurred, on an average, once a month, but at various intervals. The fits varied too, in violence some were light and some were very severe. Fyodor Pavlovitch strictly forbade Grigory to use corporal punishment to the boy, and began allowing him to come upstairs to him. He forbade him to be taught anything whatever for a time, too. One day when the boy was about fifteen, Fyodor Pavlovitch noticed him lingering by the bookcase, and reading the titles through the glass. Fyodor Pavlovitch had a fair number of booksover a hundredbut no one ever saw him reading. He at once gave Smerdyakov the key of the bookcase. 'Come, read. You shall be my librarian. You'll be better sitting reading than hanging about the courtyard. Come, read this, and Fyodor Pavlovitch gave him Evenings in a Cottage near Dikanka. He read a little but didn't like it. He did not once smile, and ended by frowning. 'Why? Isn't it funny? asked Fyodor Pavlovitch. Smerdyakov did not speak. 'Answer, stupid! 'It's all untrue, mumbled the boy, with a grin. 'Then go to the devil! You have the soul of a lackey. Stay, here's Smaragdov's Universal History. That's all true. Read that. But Smerdyakov did not get through ten pages of Smaragdov. He thought it dull. So the bookcase was closed again. Shortly afterwards Marfa and Grigory reported to Fyodor Pavlovitch that Smerdyakov was gradually beginning to show an extraordinary fastidiousness. He would sit before his soup, take up his spoon and look into the soup, bend over it, examine it, take a spoonful and hold it to the light. 'What is it? A beetle? Grigory would ask. 'A fly, perhaps, observed Marfa. The squeamish youth never answered, but he did the same with his bread, his meat, and everything he ate. He would hold a piece on his fork to the light, scrutinize it microscopically, and only after long deliberation decide to put it in his mouth. 'Ach! What fine gentlemen's airs! Grigory muttered, looking at him. When Fyodor Pavlovitch heard of this development in Smerdyakov he determined to make him his cook, and sent him to Moscow to be trained. He spent some years there and came back remarkably changed in appearance. He looked extraordinarily old for his age. His face had grown wrinkled, yellow, and strangely emasculate. In character he seemed almost exactly the same as before he went away. He was just as unsociable, and showed not the slightest inclination for any companionship. In Moscow, too, as we heard afterwards, he had always been silent. Moscow itself had little interest for him he saw very little there, and took scarcely any notice of anything. He went once to the theater, but returned silent and displeased with it. On the other hand, he came back to us from Moscow well dressed, in a clean coat and clean linen. He brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a day invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with a special English polish, so that they shone like mirrors. He turned out a firstrate cook. Fyodor Pavlovitch paid him a salary, almost the whole of which Smerdyakov spent on clothes, pomade, perfumes, and such things. But he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men he was discreet, almost unapproachable, with them. Fyodor Pavlovitch began to regard him rather differently. His fits were becoming more frequent, and on the days he was ill Marfa cooked, which did not suit Fyodor Pavlovitch at all. 'Why are your fits getting worse? asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, looking askance at his new cook. 'Would you like to get married? Shall I find you a wife? But Smerdyakov turned pale with anger, and made no reply. Fyodor Pavlovitch left him with an impatient gesture. The great thing was that he had absolute confidence in his honesty. It happened once, when Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk, that he dropped in the muddy courtyard three hundredrouble notes which he had only just received. He only missed them next day, and was just hastening to search his pockets when he saw the notes lying on the table. Where had they come from? Smerdyakov had picked them up and brought them in the day before. 'Well, my lad, I've never met any one like you, Fyodor Pavlovitch said shortly, and gave him ten roubles. We may add that he not only believed in his honesty, but had, for some reason, a liking for him, although the young man looked as morosely at him as at every one and was always silent. He rarely spoke. If it had occurred to any one to wonder at the time what the young man was interested in, and what was in his mind, it would have been impossible to tell by looking at him. Yet he used sometimes to stop suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street, and would stand still for ten minutes, lost in thought. A physiognomist studying his face would have said that there was no thought in it, no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation. There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called 'Contemplation. There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking he is 'contemplating. If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many 'contemplatives among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why. But Balaam's ass had suddenly spoken. The subject was a strange one. Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard from the shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which had appeared in the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been taken prisoner in some remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonizing death if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam. He refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ. Grigory had related the story at table. Fyodor Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk, if only with Grigory. This afternoon he was in a particularly goodhumored and expansive mood. Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he observed that they ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to take his skin to some monastery. 'That would make the people flock, and bring the money in. Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched, but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in our town he had done so every day. 'What are you grinning at? asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smile instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory. 'Well, my opinion is, Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a loud voice, 'that if that laudable soldier's exploit was so very great there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on such an emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his own christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, by which, in the course of years to expiate his cowardice. 'How could it not be a sin? You're talking nonsense. For that you'll go straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton, put in Fyodor Pavlovitch. It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor Pavlovitch, as we have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance. 'We're on your subject, your subject, he chuckled gleefully, making Alyosha sit down to listen. 'As for mutton, that's not so, and there'll be nothing there for this, and there shouldn't be either, if it's according to justice, Smerdyakov maintained stoutly. 'How do you mean 'according to justice'? Fyodor Pavlovitch cried still more gayly, nudging Alyosha with his knee. 'He's a rascal, that's what he is! burst from Grigory. He looked Smerdyakov wrathfully in the face. 'As for being a rascal, wait a little, Grigory Vassilyevitch, answered Smerdyakov with perfect composure. 'You'd better consider yourself that, once I am taken prisoner by the enemies of the Christian race, and they demand from me to curse the name of God and to renounce my holy christening, I am fully entitled to act by my own reason, since there would be no sin in it. 'But you've said that before. Don't waste words. Prove it, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. 'Soupmaker! muttered Grigory contemptuously. 'As for being a soupmaker, wait a bit, too, and consider for yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch, without abusing me. For as soon as I say to those enemies, 'No, I'm not a Christian, and I curse my true God,' then at once, by God's high judgment, I become immediately and specially anathema accursed, and am cut off from the Holy Church, exactly as though I were a heathen, so that at that very instant, not only when I say it aloud, but when I think of saying it, before a quarter of a second has passed, I am cut off. Is that so or not, Grigory Vassilyevitch? He addressed Grigory with obvious satisfaction, though he was really answering Fyodor Pavlovitch's questions, and was well aware of it, and intentionally pretending that Grigory had asked the questions. 'Ivan, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, 'stoop down for me to whisper. He's got this all up for your benefit. He wants you to praise him. Praise him. Ivan listened with perfect seriousness to his father's excited whisper. 'Stay, Smerdyakov, be quiet a minute, cried Fyodor Pavlovitch once more. 'Ivan, your ear again. Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face. 'I love you as I do Alyosha. Don't think I don't love you. Some brandy? 'Yes.But you're rather drunk yourself, thought Ivan, looking steadily at his father. He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity. 'You're anathema accursed, as it is, Grigory suddenly burst out, 'and how dare you argue, you rascal, after that, if 'Don't scold him, Grigory, don't scold him, Fyodor Pavlovitch cut him short. 'You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short time, and listen, for I haven't finished all I had to say. For at the very moment I become accursed, at that same highest moment, I become exactly like a heathen, and my christening is taken off me and becomes of no avail. Isn't that so? 'Make haste and finish, my boy, Fyodor Pavlovitch urged him, sipping from his wineglass with relish. 'And if I've ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to the enemy when they asked whether I was a Christian or not a Christian, seeing I had already been relieved by God Himself of my Christianity by reason of the thought alone, before I had time to utter a word to the enemy. And if I have already been discharged, in what manner and with what sort of justice can I be held responsible as a Christian in the other world for having denied Christ, when, through the very thought alone, before denying Him I had been relieved from my christening? If I'm no longer a Christian, then I can't renounce Christ, for I've nothing then to renounce. Who will hold an unclean Tatar responsible, Grigory Vassilyevitch, even in heaven, for not having been born a Christian? And who would punish him for that, considering that you can't take two skins off one ox? For God Almighty Himself, even if He did make the Tatar responsible, when he dies would give him the smallest possible punishment, I imagine (since he must be punished), judging that he is not to blame if he has come into the world an unclean heathen, from heathen parents. The Lord God can't surely take a Tatar and say he was a Christian? That would mean that the Almighty would tell a real untruth. And can the Lord of Heaven and earth tell a lie, even in one word? Grigory was thunderstruck and looked at the orator, his eyes nearly starting out of his head. Though he did not clearly understand what was said, he had caught something in this rigmarole, and stood, looking like a man who has just hit his head against a wall. Fyodor Pavlovitch emptied his glass and went off into his shrill laugh. 'Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He must have been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking Jesuit, who taught you? But you're talking nonsense, you casuist, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Don't cry, Grigory, we'll reduce him to smoke and ashes in a moment. Tell me this, O ass you may be right before your enemies, but you have renounced your faith all the same in your own heart, and you say yourself that in that very hour you became anathema accursed. And if once you're anathema they won't pat you on the head for it in hell. What do you say to that, my fine Jesuit? 'There is no doubt that I have renounced it in my own heart, but there was no special sin in that. Or if there was sin, it was the most ordinary. 'How's that the most ordinary? 'You lie, accursed one! hissed Grigory. 'Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch, Smerdyakov went on, staid and unruffled, conscious of his triumph, but, as it were, generous to the vanquished foe. 'Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch it is said in the Scripture that if you have faith, even as a mustard seed, and bid a mountain move into the sea, it will move without the least delay at your bidding. Well, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if I'm without faith and you have so great a faith that you are continually swearing at me, you try yourself telling this mountain, not to move into the sea for that's a long way off, but even to our stinking little river which runs at the bottom of the garden. You'll see for yourself that it won't budge, but will remain just where it is however much you shout at it, and that shows, Grigory Vassilyevitch, that you haven't faith in the proper manner, and only abuse others about it. Again, taking into consideration that no one in our day, not only you, but actually no one, from the highest person to the lowest peasant, can shove mountains into the seaexcept perhaps some one man in the world, or, at most, two, and they most likely are saving their souls in secret somewhere in the Egyptian desert, so you wouldn't find themif so it be, if all the rest have no faith, will God curse all the rest? that is, the population of the whole earth, except about two hermits in the desert, and in His wellknown mercy will He not forgive one of them? And so I'm persuaded that though I may once have doubted I shall be forgiven if I shed tears of repentance. 'Stay! cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, in a transport of delight. 'So you do suppose there are two who can move mountains? Ivan, make a note of it, write it down. There you have the Russian all over! 'You're quite right in saying it's characteristic of the people's faith, Ivan assented, with an approving smile. 'You agree. Then it must be so, if you agree. It's true, isn't it, Alyosha? That's the Russian faith all over, isn't it? 'No, Smerdyakov has not the Russian faith at all, said Alyosha firmly and gravely. 'I'm not talking about his faith. I mean those two in the desert, only that idea. Surely that's Russian, isn't it? 'Yes, that's purely Russian, said Alyosha smiling. 'Your words are worth a gold piece, O ass, and I'll give it to you today. But as to the rest you talk nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Let me tell you, stupid, that we here are all of little faith, only from carelessness, because we haven't time things are too much for us, and, in the second place, the Lord God has given us so little time, only twentyfour hours in the day, so that one hasn't even time to get sleep enough, much less to repent of one's sins. While you have denied your faith to your enemies when you'd nothing else to think about but to show your faith! So I consider, brother, that it constitutes a sin. 'Constitute a sin it may, but consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch, that it only extenuates it, if it does constitute. If I had believed then in very truth, as I ought to have believed, then it really would have been sinful if I had not faced tortures for my faith, and had gone over to the pagan Mohammedan faith. But, of course, it wouldn't have come to torture then, because I should only have had to say at that instant to the mountain, 'Move and crush the tormentor,' and it would have moved and at the very instant have crushed him like a blackbeetle, and I should have walked away as though nothing had happened, praising and glorifying God. But, suppose at that very moment I had tried all that, and cried to that mountain, 'Crush these tormentors,' and it hadn't crushed them, how could I have helped doubting, pray, at such a time, and at such a dread hour of mortal terror? And apart from that, I should know already that I could not attain to the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven (for since the mountain had not moved at my word, they could not think very much of my faith up aloft, and there could be no very great reward awaiting me in the world to come). So why should I let them flay the skin off me as well, and to no good purpose? For, even though they had flayed my skin half off my back, even then the mountain would not have moved at my word or at my cry. And at such a moment not only doubt might come over one but one might lose one's reason from fear, so that one would not be able to think at all. And, therefore, how should I be particularly to blame if not seeing my advantage or reward there or here, I should, at least, save my skin. And so trusting fully in the grace of the Lord I should cherish the hope that I might be altogether forgiven. The controversy was over. But, strange to say, Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had been so gay, suddenly began frowning. He frowned and gulped brandy, and it was already a glass too much. 'Get along with you, Jesuits! he cried to the servants. 'Go away, Smerdyakov. I'll send you the gold piece I promised you today, but be off! Don't cry, Grigory. Go to Marfa. She'll comfort you and put you to bed. The rascals won't let us sit in peace after dinner, he snapped peevishly, as the servants promptly withdrew at his word. 'Smerdyakov always pokes himself in now, after dinner. It's you he's so interested in. What have you done to fascinate him? he added to Ivan. 'Nothing whatever, answered Ivan. 'He's pleased to have a high opinion of me he's a lackey and a mean soul. Raw material for revolution, however, when the time comes. 'For revolution? 'There will be others and better ones. But there will be some like him as well. His kind will come first, and better ones after. 'And when will the time come? 'The rocket will go off and fizzle out, perhaps. The peasants are not very fond of listening to these soupmakers, so far. 'Ah, brother, but a Balaam's ass like that thinks and thinks, and the devil knows where he gets to. 'He's storing up ideas, said Ivan, smiling. 'You see, I know he can't bear me, nor any one else, even you, though you fancy that he has a high opinion of you. Worse still with Alyosha, he despises Alyosha. But he doesn't steal, that's one thing, and he's not a gossip, he holds his tongue, and doesn't wash our dirty linen in public. He makes capital fish pasties too. But, damn him, is he worth talking about so much? 'Of course he isn't. 'And as for the ideas he may be hatching, the Russian peasant, generally speaking, needs thrashing. That I've always maintained. Our peasants are swindlers, and don't deserve to be pitied, and it's a good thing they're still flogged sometimes. Russia is rich in birches. If they destroyed the forests, it would be the ruin of Russia. I stand up for the clever people. We've left off thrashing the peasants, we've grown so clever, but they go on thrashing themselves. And a good thing too. 'For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again,' or how does it go? Anyhow, it will be measured. But Russia's all swinishness. My dear, if you only knew how I hate Russia.... That is, not Russia, but all this vice! But maybe I mean Russia. Tout cela c'est de la cochonnerie.... Do you know what I like? I like wit. 'You've had another glass. That's enough. 'Wait a bit. I'll have one more, and then another, and then I'll stop. No, stay, you interrupted me. At Mokroe I was talking to an old man, and he told me 'There's nothing we like so much as sentencing girls to be thrashed, and we always give the lads the job of thrashing them. And the girl he has thrashed today, the young man will ask in marriage tomorrow. So it quite suits the girls, too,' he said. There's a set of de Sades for you! But it's clever, anyway. Shall we go over and have a look at it, eh? Alyosha, are you blushing? Don't be bashful, child. I'm sorry I didn't stay to dinner at the Superior's and tell the monks about the girls at Mokroe. Alyosha, don't be angry that I offended your Superior this morning. I lost my temper. If there is a God, if He exists, then, of course, I'm to blame, and I shall have to answer for it. But if there isn't a God at all, what do they deserve, your fathers? It's not enough to cut their heads off, for they keep back progress. Would you believe it, Ivan, that that lacerates my sentiments? No, you don't believe it as I see from your eyes. You believe what people say, that I'm nothing but a buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I'm nothing but a buffoon? 'No, I don't believe it. 'And I believe you don't, and that you speak the truth. You look sincere and you speak sincerely. But not Ivan. Ivan's supercilious.... I'd make an end of your monks, though, all the same. I'd take all that mystic stuff and suppress it, once for all, all over Russia, so as to bring all the fools to reason. And the gold and the silver that would flow into the mint! 'But why suppress it? asked Ivan. 'That Truth may prevail. That's why. 'Well, if Truth were to prevail, you know, you'd be the first to be robbed and suppressed. 'Ah! I dare say you're right. Ah, I'm an ass! burst out Fyodor Pavlovitch, striking himself lightly on the forehead. 'Well, your monastery may stand then, Alyosha, if that's how it is. And we clever people will sit snug and enjoy our brandy. You know, Ivan, it must have been so ordained by the Almighty Himself. Ivan, speak, is there a God or not? Stay, speak the truth, speak seriously. Why are you laughing again? 'I'm laughing that you should have made a clever remark just now about Smerdyakov's belief in the existence of two saints who could move mountains. 'Why, am I like him now, then? 'Very much. 'Well, that shows I'm a Russian, too, and I have a Russian characteristic. And you may be caught in the same way, though you are a philosopher. Shall I catch you? What do you bet that I'll catch you tomorrow. Speak, all the same, is there a God, or not? Only, be serious. I want you to be serious now. 'No, there is no God. 'Alyosha, is there a God? 'There is. 'Ivan, and is there immortality of some sort, just a little, just a tiny bit? 'There is no immortality either. 'None at all? 'None at all. 'There's absolute nothingness then. Perhaps there is just something? Anything is better than nothing! 'Absolute nothingness. 'Alyosha, is there immortality? 'There is. 'God and immortality? 'God and immortality. In God is immortality. 'H'm! It's more likely Ivan's right. Good Lord! to think what faith, what force of all kinds, man has lavished for nothing, on that dream, and for how many thousand years. Who is it laughing at man? Ivan! For the last time, once for all, is there a God or not? I ask for the last time! 'And for the last time there is not. 'Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan? 'It must be the devil, said Ivan, smiling. 'And the devil? Does he exist? 'No, there's no devil either. 'It's a pity. Damn it all, what wouldn't I do to the man who first invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good for him. 'There would have been no civilization if they hadn't invented God. 'Wouldn't there have been? Without God? 'No. And there would have been no brandy either. But I must take your brandy away from you, anyway. 'Stop, stop, stop, dear boy, one more little glass. I've hurt Alyosha's feelings. You're not angry with me, Alyosha? My dear little Alexey! 'No, I am not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your head. 'My heart better than my head, is it? Oh, Lord! And that from you. Ivan, do you love Alyosha? 'Yes. 'You must love him (Fyodor Pavlovitch was by this time very drunk). 'Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder this morning. But I was excited. But there's wit in that elder, don't you think, Ivan? 'Very likely. 'There is, there is. Il y a du Piron ldedans. He's a Jesuit, a Russian one, that is. As he's an honorable person there's a hidden indignation boiling within him at having to pretend and affect holiness. 'But, of course, he believes in God. 'Not a bit of it. Didn't you know? Why, he tells every one so, himself. That is, not every one, but all the clever people who come to him. He said straight out to Governor Schultz not long ago 'Credo, but I don't know in what.'  'Really? 'He really did. But I respect him. There's something of Mephistopheles about him, or rather of 'The hero of our time' ... Arbenin, or what's his name?... You see, he's a sensualist. He's such a sensualist that I should be afraid for my daughter or my wife if she went to confess to him. You know, when he begins telling stories.... The year before last he invited us to tea, tea with liqueur (the ladies send him liqueur), and began telling us about old times till we nearly split our sides.... Especially how he once cured a paralyzed woman. 'If my legs were not bad I know a dance I could dance you,' he said. What do you say to that? 'I've plenty of tricks in my time,' said he. He did Dernidov, the merchant, out of sixty thousand. 'What, he stole it? 'He brought him the money as a man he could trust, saying, 'Take care of it for me, friend, there'll be a police search at my place tomorrow.' And he kept it. 'You have given it to the Church,' he declared. I said to him 'You're a scoundrel,' I said. 'No,' said he, 'I'm not a scoundrel, but I'm broadminded.' But that wasn't he, that was some one else. I've muddled him with some one else ... without noticing it. Come, another glass and that's enough. Take away the bottle, Ivan. I've been telling lies. Why didn't you stop me, Ivan, and tell me I was lying? 'I knew you'd stop of yourself. 'That's a lie. You did it from spite, from simple spite against me. You despise me. You have come to me and despised me in my own house. 'Well, I'm going away. You've had too much brandy. 'I've begged you for Christ's sake to go to Tchermashnya for a day or two, and you don't go. 'I'll go tomorrow if you're so set upon it. 'You won't go. You want to keep an eye on me. That's what you want, spiteful fellow. That's why you won't go. The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness when the drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarrel and to assert himself. 'Why are you looking at me? Why do you look like that? Your eyes look at me and say, 'You ugly drunkard!' Your eyes are mistrustful. They're contemptuous.... You've come here with some design. Alyosha, here, looks at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn't despise me. Alexey, you mustn't love Ivan. 'Don't be illtempered with my brother. Leave off attacking him, Alyosha said emphatically. 'Oh, all right. Ugh, my head aches. Take away the brandy, Ivan. It's the third time I've told you. He mused, and suddenly a slow, cunning grin spread over his face. 'Don't be angry with a feeble old man, Ivan. I know you don't love me, but don't be angry all the same. You've nothing to love me for. You go to Tchermashnya. I'll come to you myself and bring you a present. I'll show you a little wench there. I've had my eye on her a long time. She's still running about barefoot. Don't be afraid of barefooted wenchesdon't despise themthey're pearls! And he kissed his hand with a smack. 'To my thinking, he revived at once, seeming to grow sober the instant he touched on his favorite topic. 'To my thinking ... Ah, you boys! You children, little suckingpigs, to my thinking ... I never thought a woman ugly in my lifethat's been my rule! Can you understand that? How could you understand it? You've milk in your veins, not blood. You're not out of your shells yet. My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn't find in any other. Only, one must know how to find it, that's the point! That's a talent! To my mind there are no ugly women. The very fact that she is a woman is half the battle ... but how could you understand that? Even in vieilles filles, even in them you may discover something that makes you simply wonder that men have been such fools as to let them grow old without noticing them. Barefooted girls or unattractive ones, you must take by surprise. Didn't you know that? You must astound them till they're fascinated, upset, ashamed that such a gentleman should fall in love with such a little slut. It's a jolly good thing that there always are and will be masters and slaves in the world, so there always will be a little maid ofallwork and her master, and you know, that's all that's needed for happiness. Stay ... listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your mother, but in a different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all at once, when the minute came, I'd be all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kiss her feet, and I always, alwaysI remember it as though it were todayreduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer little laugh. It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that. The next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, and this little laugh was not a sign of delight, though it made a very good counterfeit. That's the great thing, to know how to take every one. Once Belyavskyhe was a handsome fellow, and richused to like to come here and hang about hersuddenly gave me a slap in the face in her presence. And shesuch a mild sheepwhy, I thought she would have knocked me down for that blow. How she set on me! 'You're beaten, beaten now,' she said. 'You've taken a blow from him. You have been trying to sell me to him,' she said.... 'And how dared he strike you in my presence! Don't dare come near me again, never, never! Run at once, challenge him to a duel!'... I took her to the monastery then to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back to reason. But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor crazy girl! Only once, perhaps, in the first year then she was very fond of praying. She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and used to turn me out of her room then. I'll knock that mysticism out of her, thought I! 'Here,' said I, 'you see your holy image. Here it is. Here I take it down. You believe it's miraculous, but here, I'll spit on it directly and nothing will happen to me for it!'... When she saw it, good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped up, wrung her hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began trembling all over and fell on the floor ... fell all of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha, what's the matter? The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun speaking about his mother, a change had gradually come over Alyosha's face. He flushed crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot had gone spluttering on, noticing nothing, till the moment when something very strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was describing in the crazy woman was suddenly repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordinary resemblance to his mother particularly impressed the old man. 'Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It's like her, exactly as she used to be then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that's what I used to do to her. He's upset about his mother, his mother, he muttered to Ivan. 'But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not? said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank before his flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though only for a second it seemed really to have escaped the old man's mind that Alyosha's mother actually was the mother of Ivan too. 'Your mother? he muttered, not understanding. 'What do you mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she?... Why, damn it! of course she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before. Excuse me, why, I was thinking, Ivan.... He he he! He stopped. A broad, drunken, halfsenseless grin overspread his face. At that moment a fearful noise and clamor was heard in the hall, there were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst into the room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror. 'He'll kill me! He'll kill me! Don't let him get at me! he screamed, clinging to the skirt of Ivan's coat. Grigory and Smerdyakov ran into the room after Dmitri. They had been struggling with him in the passage, refusing to admit him, acting on instructions given them by Fyodor Pavlovitch some days before. Taking advantage of the fact that Dmitri stopped a moment on entering the room to look about him, Grigory ran round the table, closed the double doors on the opposite side of the room leading to the inner apartments, and stood before the closed doors, stretching wide his arms, prepared to defend the entrance, so to speak, with the last drop of his blood. Seeing this, Dmitri uttered a scream rather than a shout and rushed at Grigory. 'Then she's there! She's hidden there! Out of the way, scoundrel! He tried to pull Grigory away, but the old servant pushed him back. Beside himself with fury, Dmitri struck out, and hit Grigory with all his might. The old man fell like a log, and Dmitri, leaping over him, broke in the door. Smerdyakov remained pale and trembling at the other end of the room, huddling close to Fyodor Pavlovitch. 'She's here! shouted Dmitri. 'I saw her turn towards the house just now, but I couldn't catch her. Where is she? Where is she? That shout, 'She's here! produced an indescribable effect on Fyodor Pavlovitch. All his terror left him. 'Hold him! Hold him! he cried, and dashed after Dmitri. Meanwhile Grigory had got up from the floor, but still seemed stunned. Ivan and Alyosha ran after their father. In the third room something was heard to fall on the floor with a ringing crash it was a large glass vasenot an expensive oneon a marble pedestal which Dmitri had upset as he ran past it. 'At him! shouted the old man. 'Help! Ivan and Alyosha caught the old man and were forcibly bringing him back. 'Why do you run after him? He'll murder you outright, Ivan cried wrathfully at his father. 'Ivan! Alyosha! She must be here. Grushenka's here. He said he saw her himself, running. He was choking. He was not expecting Grushenka at the time, and the sudden news that she was here made him beside himself. He was trembling all over. He seemed frantic. 'But you've seen for yourself that she hasn't come, cried Ivan. 'But she may have come by that other entrance. 'You know that entrance is locked, and you have the key. Dmitri suddenly reappeared in the drawingroom. He had, of course, found the other entrance locked, and the key actually was in Fyodor Pavlovitch's pocket. The windows of all the rooms were also closed, so Grushenka could not have come in anywhere nor have run out anywhere. 'Hold him! shrieked Fyodor Pavlovitch, as soon as he saw him again. 'He's been stealing money in my bedroom. And tearing himself from Ivan he rushed again at Dmitri. But Dmitri threw up both hands and suddenly clutched the old man by the two tufts of hair that remained on his temples, tugged at them, and flung him with a crash on the floor. He kicked him two or three times with his heel in the face. The old man moaned shrilly. Ivan, though not so strong as Dmitri, threw his arms round him, and with all his might pulled him away. Alyosha helped him with his slender strength, holding Dmitri in front. 'Madman! You've killed him! cried Ivan. 'Serve him right! shouted Dmitri breathlessly. 'If I haven't killed him, I'll come again and kill him. You can't protect him! 'Dmitri! Go away at once! cried Alyosha commandingly. 'Alexey! You tell me. It's only you I can believe was she here just now, or not? I saw her myself creeping this way by the fence from the lane. I shouted, she ran away. 'I swear she's not been here, and no one expected her. 'But I saw her.... So she must ... I'll find out at once where she is.... Goodby, Alexey! Not a word to sop about the money now. But go to Katerina Ivanovna at once and be sure to say, 'He sends his compliments to you!' Compliments, his compliments! Just compliments and farewell! Describe the scene to her. Meanwhile Ivan and Grigory had raised the old man and seated him in an armchair. His face was covered with blood, but he was conscious and listened greedily to Dmitri's cries. He was still fancying that Grushenka really was somewhere in the house. Dmitri looked at him with hatred as he went out. 'I don't repent shedding your blood! he cried. 'Beware, old man, beware of your dream, for I have my dream, too. I curse you, and disown you altogether. He ran out of the room. 'She's here. She must be here. Smerdyakov! Smerdyakov! the old man wheezed, scarcely audibly, beckoning to him with his finger. 'No, she's not here, you old lunatic! Ivan shouted at him angrily. 'Here, he's fainting! Water! A towel! Make haste, Smerdyakov! Smerdyakov ran for water. At last they got the old man undressed, and put him to bed. They wrapped a wet towel round his head. Exhausted by the brandy, by his violent emotion, and the blows he had received, he shut his eyes and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. Ivan and Alyosha went back to the drawingroom. Smerdyakov removed the fragments of the broken vase, while Grigory stood by the table looking gloomily at the floor. 'Shouldn't you put a wet bandage on your head and go to bed, too? Alyosha said to him. 'We'll look after him. My brother gave you a terrible blowon the head. 'He's insulted me! Grigory articulated gloomily and distinctly. 'He's 'insulted' his father, not only you, observed Ivan with a forced smile. 'I used to wash him in his tub. He's insulted me, repeated Grigory. 'Damn it all, if I hadn't pulled him away perhaps he'd have murdered him. It wouldn't take much to do for sop, would it? whispered Ivan to Alyosha. 'God forbid! cried Alyosha. 'Why should He forbid? Ivan went on in the same whisper, with a malignant grimace. 'One reptile will devour the other. And serve them both right, too. Alyosha shuddered. 'Of course I won't let him be murdered as I didn't just now. Stay here, Alyosha, I'll go for a turn in the yard. My head's begun to ache. Alyosha went to his father's bedroom and sat by his bedside behind the screen for about an hour. The old man suddenly opened his eyes and gazed for a long while at Alyosha, evidently remembering and meditating. All at once his face betrayed extraordinary excitement. 'Alyosha, he whispered apprehensively, 'where's Ivan? 'In the yard. He's got a headache. He's on the watch. 'Give me that lookingglass. It stands over there. Give it me. Alyosha gave him a little round folding lookingglass which stood on the chest of drawers. The old man looked at himself in it his nose was considerably swollen, and on the left side of his forehead there was a rather large crimson bruise. 'What does Ivan say? Alyosha, my dear, my only son, I'm afraid of Ivan. I'm more afraid of Ivan than the other. You're the only one I'm not afraid of.... 'Don't be afraid of Ivan either. He is angry, but he'll defend you. 'Alyosha, and what of the other? He's run to Grushenka. My angel, tell me the truth, was she here just now or not? 'No one has seen her. It was a mistake. She has not been here. 'You know Mitya wants to marry her, to marry her. 'She won't marry him. 'She won't. She won't. She won't. She won't on any account! The old man fairly fluttered with joy, as though nothing more comforting could have been said to him. In his delight he seized Alyosha's hand and pressed it warmly to his heart. Tears positively glittered in his eyes. 'That image of the Mother of God of which I was telling you just now, he said. 'Take it home and keep it for yourself. And I'll let you go back to the monastery.... I was joking this morning, don't be angry with me. My head aches, Alyosha.... Alyosha, comfort my heart. Be an angel and tell me the truth! 'You're still asking whether she has been here or not? Alyosha said sorrowfully. 'No, no, no. I believe you. I'll tell you what it is you go to Grushenka yourself, or see her somehow make haste and ask her see for yourself, which she means to choose, him or me. Eh? What? Can you? 'If I see her I'll ask her, Alyosha muttered, embarrassed. 'No, she won't tell you, the old man interrupted, 'she's a rogue. She'll begin kissing you and say that it's you she wants. She's a deceitful, shameless hussy. You mustn't go to her, you mustn't! 'No, father, and it wouldn't be suitable, it wouldn't be right at all. 'Where was he sending you just now? He shouted 'Go' as he ran away. 'To Katerina Ivanovna. 'For money? To ask her for money? 'No. Not for money. 'He's no money not a farthing. I'll settle down for the night, and think things over, and you can go. Perhaps you'll meet her.... Only be sure to come to me tomorrow in the morning. Be sure to. I have a word to say to you tomorrow. Will you come? 'Yes. 'When you come, pretend you've come of your own accord to ask after me. Don't tell any one I told you to. Don't say a word to Ivan. 'Very well. 'Goodby, my angel. You stood up for me, just now. I shall never forget it. I've a word to say to you tomorrowbut I must think about it. 'And how do you feel now? 'I shall get up tomorrow and go out, perfectly well, perfectly well! Crossing the yard Alyosha found Ivan sitting on the bench at the gateway. He was sitting writing something in pencil in his notebook. Alyosha told Ivan that their father had waked up, was conscious, and had let him go back to sleep at the monastery. 'Alyosha, I should be very glad to meet you tomorrow morning, said Ivan cordially, standing up. His cordiality was a complete surprise to Alyosha. 'I shall be at the Hohlakovs' tomorrow, answered Alyosha, 'I may be at Katerina Ivanovna's, too, if I don't find her now. 'But you're going to her now, anyway? For that 'compliments and farewell,'  said Ivan smiling. Alyosha was disconcerted. 'I think I quite understand his exclamations just now, and part of what went before. Dmitri has asked you to go to her and say that hewell, in facttakes his leave of her? 'Brother, how will all this horror end between father and Dmitri? exclaimed Alyosha. 'One can't tell for certain. Perhaps in nothing it may all fizzle out. That woman is a beast. In any case we must keep the old man indoors and not let Dmitri in the house. 'Brother, let me ask one thing more has any man a right to look at other men and decide which is worthy to live? 'Why bring in the question of worth? The matter is most often decided in men's hearts on other grounds much more natural. And as for rightswho has not the right to wish? 'Not for another man's death? 'What even if for another man's death? Why lie to oneself since all men live so and perhaps cannot help living so. Are you referring to what I said just nowthat one reptile will devour the other? In that case let me ask you, do you think me like Dmitri capable of shedding sop's blood, murdering him, eh? 'What are you saying, Ivan? Such an idea never crossed my mind. I don't think Dmitri is capable of it, either. 'Thanks, if only for that, smiled Ivan. 'Be sure, I should always defend him. But in my wishes I reserve myself full latitude in this case. Goodby till tomorrow. Don't condemn me, and don't look on me as a villain, he added with a smile. They shook hands warmly as they had never done before. Alyosha felt that his brother had taken the first step towards him, and that he had certainly done this with some definite motive. Alyosha left his father's house feeling even more exhausted and dejected in spirit than when he had entered it. His mind too seemed shattered and unhinged, while he felt that he was afraid to put together the disjointed fragments and form a general idea from all the agonizing and conflicting experiences of the day. He felt something bordering upon despair, which he had never known till then. Towering like a mountain above all the rest stood the fatal, insoluble question How would things end between his father and his brother Dmitri with this terrible woman? Now he had himself been a witness of it, he had been present and seen them face to face. Yet only his brother Dmitri could be made unhappy, terribly, completely unhappy there was trouble awaiting him. It appeared too that there were other people concerned, far more so than Alyosha could have supposed before. There was something positively mysterious in it, too. Ivan had made a step towards him, which was what Alyosha had been long desiring. Yet now he felt for some reason that he was frightened at it. And these women? Strange to say, that morning he had set out for Katerina Ivanovna's in the greatest embarrassment now he felt nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he was hastening there as though expecting to find guidance from her. Yet to give her this message was obviously more difficult than before. The matter of the three thousand was decided irrevocably, and Dmitri, feeling himself dishonored and losing his last hope, might sink to any depth. He had, moreover, told him to describe to Katerina Ivanovna the scene which had just taken place with his father. It was by now seven o'clock, and it was getting dark as Alyosha entered the very spacious and convenient house in the High Street occupied by Katerina Ivanovna. Alyosha knew that she lived with two aunts. One of them, a woman of little education, was that aunt of her halfsister Agafya Ivanovna who had looked after her in her father's house when she came from boardingschool. The other aunt was a Moscow lady of style and consequence, though in straitened circumstances. It was said that they both gave way in everything to Katerina Ivanovna, and that she only kept them with her as chaperons. Katerina Ivanovna herself gave way to no one but her benefactress, the general's widow, who had been kept by illness in Moscow, and to whom she was obliged to write twice a week a full account of all her doings. When Alyosha entered the hall and asked the maid who opened the door to him to take his name up, it was evident that they were already aware of his arrival. Possibly he had been noticed from the window. At least, Alyosha heard a noise, caught the sound of flying footsteps and rustling skirts. Two or three women, perhaps, had run out of the room. Alyosha thought it strange that his arrival should cause such excitement. He was conducted however to the drawingroom at once. It was a large room, elegantly and amply furnished, not at all in provincial style. There were many sofas, lounges, settees, big and little tables. There were pictures on the walls, vases and lamps on the tables, masses of flowers, and even an aquarium in the window. It was twilight and rather dark. Alyosha made out a silk mantle thrown down on the sofa, where people had evidently just been sitting and on a table in front of the sofa were two unfinished cups of chocolate, cakes, a glass saucer with blue raisins, and another with sweetmeats. Alyosha saw that he had interrupted visitors, and frowned. But at that instant the portire was raised, and with rapid, hurrying footsteps Katerina Ivanovna came in, holding out both hands to Alyosha with a radiant smile of delight. At the same instant a servant brought in two lighted candles and set them on the table. 'Thank God! At last you have come too! I've been simply praying for you all day! Sit down. Alyosha had been struck by Katerina Ivanovna's beauty when, three weeks before, Dmitri had first brought him, at Katerina Ivanovna's special request, to be introduced to her. There had been no conversation between them at that interview, however. Supposing Alyosha to be very shy, Katerina Ivanovna had talked all the time to Dmitri to spare him. Alyosha had been silent, but he had seen a great deal very clearly. He was struck by the imperiousness, proud ease, and selfconfidence of the haughty girl. And all that was certain, Alyosha felt that he was not exaggerating it. He thought her great glowing black eyes were very fine, especially with her pale, even rather sallow, longish face. But in those eyes and in the lines of her exquisite lips there was something with which his brother might well be passionately in love, but which perhaps could not be loved for long. He expressed this thought almost plainly to Dmitri when, after the visit, his brother besought and insisted that he should not conceal his impressions on seeing his betrothed. 'You'll be happy with her, but perhapsnot tranquilly happy. 'Quite so, brother. Such people remain always the same. They don't yield to fate. So you think I shan't love her for ever. 'No perhaps you will love her for ever. But perhaps you won't always be happy with her. Alyosha had given his opinion at the time, blushing, and angry with himself for having yielded to his brother's entreaties and put such 'foolish ideas into words. For his opinion had struck him as awfully foolish immediately after he had uttered it. He felt ashamed too of having given so confident an opinion about a woman. It was with the more amazement that he felt now, at the first glance at Katerina Ivanovna as she ran in to him, that he had perhaps been utterly mistaken. This time her face was beaming with spontaneous goodnatured kindliness, and direct warmhearted sincerity. The 'pride and haughtiness, which had struck Alyosha so much before, was only betrayed now in a frank, generous energy and a sort of bright, strong faith in herself. Alyosha realized at the first glance, at the first word, that all the tragedy of her position in relation to the man she loved so dearly was no secret to her that she perhaps already knew everything, positively everything. And yet, in spite of that, there was such brightness in her face, such faith in the future. Alyosha felt at once that he had gravely wronged her in his thoughts. He was conquered and captivated immediately. Besides all this, he noticed at her first words that she was in great excitement, an excitement perhaps quite exceptional and almost approaching ecstasy. 'I was so eager to see you, because I can learn from you the whole truthfrom you and no one else. 'I have come, muttered Alyosha confusedly, 'Ihe sent me. 'Ah, he sent you! I foresaw that. Now I know everythingeverything! cried Katerina Ivanovna, her eyes flashing. 'Wait a moment, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I'll tell you why I've been so longing to see you. You see, I know perhaps far more than you do yourself, and there's no need for you to tell me anything. I'll tell you what I want from you. I want to know your own last impression of him. I want you to tell me most directly, plainly, coarsely even (oh, as coarsely as you like!), what you thought of him just now and of his position after your meeting with him today. That will perhaps be better than if I had a personal explanation with him, as he does not want to come to me. Do you understand what I want from you? Now, tell me simply, tell me every word of the message he sent you with (I knew he would send you). 'He told me to give you his complimentsand to say that he would never come againbut to give you his compliments. 'His compliments? Was that what he saidhis own expression? 'Yes. 'Accidentally perhaps he made a mistake in the word, perhaps he did not use the right word? 'No he told me precisely to repeat that word. He begged me two or three times not to forget to say so. Katerina Ivanovna flushed hotly. 'Help me now, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Now I really need your help. I'll tell you what I think, and you must simply say whether it's right or not. Listen! If he had sent me his compliments in passing, without insisting on your repeating the words, without emphasizing them, that would be the end of everything! But if he particularly insisted on those words, if he particularly told you not to forget to repeat them to me, then perhaps he was in excitement, beside himself. He had made his decision and was frightened at it. He wasn't walking away from me with a resolute step, but leaping headlong. The emphasis on that phrase may have been simply bravado. 'Yes, yes! cried Alyosha warmly. 'I believe that is it. 'And, if so, he's not altogether lost. I can still save him. Stay! Did he not tell you anything about moneyabout three thousand roubles? 'He did speak about it, and it's that more than anything that's crushing him. He said he had lost his honor and that nothing matters now, Alyosha answered warmly, feeling a rush of hope in his heart and believing that there really might be a way of escape and salvation for his brother. 'But do you know about the money? he added, and suddenly broke off. 'I've known of it a long time I telegraphed to Moscow to inquire, and heard long ago that the money had not arrived. He hadn't sent the money, but I said nothing. Last week I learnt that he was still in need of money. My only object in all this was that he should know to whom to turn, and who was his true friend. No, he won't recognize that I am his truest friend he won't know me, and looks on me merely as a woman. I've been tormented all the week, trying to think how to prevent him from being ashamed to face me because he spent that three thousand. Let him feel ashamed of himself, let him be ashamed of other people's knowing, but not of my knowing. He can tell God everything without shame. Why is it he still does not understand how much I am ready to bear for his sake? Why, why doesn't he know me? How dare he not know me after all that has happened? I want to save him for ever. Let him forget me as his betrothed. And here he fears that he is dishonored in my eyes. Why, he wasn't afraid to be open with you, Alexey Fyodorovitch. How is it that I don't deserve the same? The last words she uttered in tears. Tears gushed from her eyes. 'I must tell you, Alyosha began, his voice trembling too, 'what happened just now between him and my father. And he described the whole scene, how Dmitri had sent him to get the money, how he had broken in, knocked his father down, and after that had again specially and emphatically begged him to take his compliments and farewell. 'He went to that woman, Alyosha added softly. 'And do you suppose that I can't put up with that woman? Does he think I can't? But he won't marry her, she suddenly laughed nervously. 'Could such a passion last for ever in a Karamazov? It's passion, not love. He won't marry her because she won't marry him. Again Katerina Ivanovna laughed strangely. 'He may marry her, said Alyosha mournfully, looking down. 'He won't marry her, I tell you. That girl is an angel. Do you know that? Do you know that? Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly with extraordinary warmth. 'She is one of the most fantastic of fantastic creatures. I know how bewitching she is, but I know too that she is kind, firm and noble. Why do you look at me like that, Alexey Fyodorovitch? Perhaps you are wondering at my words, perhaps you don't believe me? Agrafena Alexandrovna, my angel! she cried suddenly to some one, peeping into the next room, 'come in to us. This is a friend. This is Alyosha. He knows all about our affairs. Show yourself to him. 'I've only been waiting behind the curtain for you to call me, said a soft, one might even say sugary, feminine voice. The portire was raised and Grushenka herself, smiling and beaming, came up to the table. A violent revulsion passed over Alyosha. He fixed his eyes on her and could not take them off. Here she was, that awful woman, the 'beast, as Ivan had called her half an hour before. And yet one would have thought the creature standing before him most simple and ordinary, a goodnatured, kind woman, handsome certainly, but so like other handsome ordinary women! It is true she was very, very goodlooking with that Russian beauty so passionately loved by many men. She was a rather tall woman, though a little shorter than Katerina Ivanovna, who was exceptionally tall. She had a full figure, with soft, as it were, noiseless, movements, softened to a peculiar oversweetness, like her voice. She moved, not like Katerina Ivanovna, with a vigorous, bold step, but noiselessly. Her feet made absolutely no sound on the floor. She sank softly into a low chair, softly rustling her sumptuous black silk dress, and delicately nestling her milkwhite neck and broad shoulders in a costly cashmere shawl. She was twentytwo years old, and her face looked exactly that age. She was very white in the face, with a pale pink tint on her cheeks. The modeling of her face might be said to be too broad, and the lower jaw was set a trifle forward. Her upper lip was thin, but the slightly prominent lower lip was at least twice as full, and looked pouting. But her magnificent, abundant dark brown hair, her sablecolored eyebrows and charming grayblue eyes with their long lashes would have made the most indifferent person, meeting her casually in a crowd in the street, stop at the sight of her face and remember it long after. What struck Alyosha most in that face was its expression of childlike good nature. There was a childlike look in her eyes, a look of childish delight. She came up to the table, beaming with delight and seeming to expect something with childish, impatient, and confiding curiosity. The light in her eyes gladdened the soulAlyosha felt that. There was something else in her which he could not understand, or would not have been able to define, and which yet perhaps unconsciously affected him. It was that softness, that voluptuousness of her bodily movements, that catlike noiselessness. Yet it was a vigorous, ample body. Under the shawl could be seen full broad shoulders, a high, still quite girlish bosom. Her figure suggested the lines of the Venus of Milo, though already in somewhat exaggerated proportions. That could be divined. Connoisseurs of Russian beauty could have foretold with certainty that this fresh, still youthful beauty would lose its harmony by the age of thirty, would 'spread that the face would become puffy, and that wrinkles would very soon appear upon her forehead and round the eyes the complexion would grow coarse and red perhapsin fact, that it was the beauty of the moment, the fleeting beauty which is so often met with in Russian women. Alyosha, of course, did not think of this but though he was fascinated, yet he wondered with an unpleasant sensation, and as it were regretfully, why she drawled in that way and could not speak naturally. She did so evidently feeling there was a charm in the exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the syllables. It was, of course, only a bad, underbred habit that showed bad education and a false idea of good manners. And yet this intonation and manner of speaking impressed Alyosha as almost incredibly incongruous with the childishly simple and happy expression of her face, the soft, babyish joy in her eyes. Katerina Ivanovna at once made her sit down in an arm chair facing Alyosha, and ecstatically kissed her several times on her smiling lips. She seemed quite in love with her. 'This is the first time we've met, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she said rapturously. 'I wanted to know her, to see her. I wanted to go to her, but I'd no sooner expressed the wish than she came to me. I knew we should settle everything togethereverything. My heart told me soI was begged not to take the step, but I foresaw it would be a way out of the difficulty, and I was not mistaken. Grushenka has explained everything to me, told me all she means to do. She flew here like an angel of goodness and brought us peace and joy. 'You did not disdain me, sweet, excellent young lady, drawled Grushenka in her singsong voice, still with the same charming smile of delight. 'Don't dare to speak to me like that, you sorceress, you witch! Disdain you! Here, I must kiss your lower lip once more. It looks as though it were swollen, and now it will be more so, and more and more. Look how she laughs, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It does one's heart good to see the angel. Alyosha flushed, and faint, imperceptible shivers kept running down him. 'You make so much of me, dear young lady, and perhaps I am not at all worthy of your kindness. 'Not worthy! She's not worthy of it! Katerina Ivanovna cried again with the same warmth. 'You know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we're fanciful, we're selfwilled, but proudest of the proud in our little heart. We're noble, we're generous, Alexey Fyodorovitch, let me tell you. We have only been unfortunate. We were too ready to make every sacrifice for an unworthy, perhaps, or fickle man. There was one manone, an officer too, we loved him, we sacrificed everything to him. That was long ago, five years ago, and he has forgotten us, he has married. Now he is a widower, he has written, he is coming here, and, do you know, we've loved him, none but him, all this time, and we've loved him all our life! He will come, and Grushenka will be happy again. For the last five years she's been wretched. But who can reproach her, who can boast of her favor? Only that bedridden old merchant, but he is more like her father, her friend, her protector. He found her then in despair, in agony, deserted by the man she loved. She was ready to drown herself then, but the old merchant saved hersaved her! 'You defend me very kindly, dear young lady. You are in a great hurry about everything, Grushenka drawled again. 'Defend you! Is it for me to defend you? Should I dare to defend you? Grushenka, angel, give me your hand. Look at that charming soft little hand, Alexey Fyodorovitch! Look at it! It has brought me happiness and has lifted me up, and I'm going to kiss it, outside and inside, here, here, here! And three times she kissed the certainly charming, though rather fat, hand of Grushenka in a sort of rapture. She held out her hand with a charming musical, nervous little laugh, watched the 'sweet young lady, and obviously liked having her hand kissed. 'Perhaps there's rather too much rapture, thought Alyosha. He blushed. He felt a peculiar uneasiness at heart the whole time. 'You won't make me blush, dear young lady, kissing my hand like this before Alexey Fyodorovitch. 'Do you think I meant to make you blush? said Katerina Ivanovna, somewhat surprised. 'Ah, my dear, how little you understand me! 'Yes, and you too perhaps quite misunderstand me, dear young lady. Maybe I'm not so good as I seem to you. I've a bad heart I will have my own way. I fascinated poor Dmitri Fyodorovitch that day simply for fun. 'But now you'll save him. You've given me your word. You'll explain it all to him. You'll break to him that you have long loved another man, who is now offering you his hand. 'Oh, no! I didn't give you my word to do that. It was you kept talking about that. I didn't give you my word. 'Then I didn't quite understand you, said Katerina Ivanovna slowly, turning a little pale. 'You promised 'Oh, no, angel lady, I've promised nothing, Grushenka interrupted softly and evenly, still with the same gay and simple expression. 'You see at once, dear young lady, what a willful wretch I am compared with you. If I want to do a thing I do it. I may have made you some promise just now. But now again I'm thinking I may take to Mitya again. I liked him very much onceliked him for almost a whole hour. Now maybe I shall go and tell him to stay with me from this day forward. You see, I'm so changeable. 'Just now you saidsomething quite different, Katerina Ivanovna whispered faintly. 'Ah, just now! But, you know. I'm such a softhearted, silly creature. Only think what he's gone through on my account! What if when I go home I feel sorry for him? What then? 'I never expected 'Ah, young lady, how good and generous you are compared with me! Now perhaps you won't care for a silly creature like me, now you know my character. Give me your sweet little hand, angelic lady, she said tenderly, and with a sort of reverence took Katerina Ivanovna's hand. 'Here, dear young lady, I'll take your hand and kiss it as you did mine. You kissed mine three times, but I ought to kiss yours three hundred times to be even with you. Well, but let that pass. And then it shall be as God wills. Perhaps I shall be your slave entirely and want to do your bidding like a slave. Let it be as God wills, without any agreements and promises. What a sweet handwhat a sweet hand you have! You sweet young lady, you incredible beauty! She slowly raised the hands to her lips, with the strange object indeed of 'being even with her in kisses. Katerina Ivanovna did not take her hand away. She listened with timid hope to the last words, though Grushenka's promise to do her bidding like a slave was very strangely expressed. She looked intently into her eyes she still saw in those eyes the same simplehearted, confiding expression, the same bright gayety. 'She's perhaps too nave, thought Katerina Ivanovna, with a gleam of hope. Grushenka meanwhile seemed enthusiastic over the 'sweet hand. She raised it deliberately to her lips. But she held it for two or three minutes near her lips, as though reconsidering something. 'Do you know, angel lady, she suddenly drawled in an even more soft and sugary voice, 'do you know, after all, I think I won't kiss your hand? And she laughed a little merry laugh. 'As you please. What's the matter with you? said Katerina Ivanovna, starting suddenly. 'So that you may be left to remember that you kissed my hand, but I didn't kiss yours. There was a sudden gleam in her eyes. She looked with awful intentness at Katerina Ivanovna. 'Insolent creature! cried Katerina Ivanovna, as though suddenly grasping something. She flushed all over and leapt up from her seat. Grushenka too got up, but without haste. 'So I shall tell Mitya how you kissed my hand, but I didn't kiss yours at all. And how he will laugh! 'Vile slut! Go away! 'Ah, for shame, young lady! Ah, for shame! That's unbecoming for you, dear young lady, a word like that. 'Go away! You're a creature for sale! screamed Katerina Ivanovna. Every feature was working in her utterly distorted face. 'For sale indeed! You used to visit gentlemen in the dusk for money once you brought your beauty for sale. You see, I know. Katerina Ivanovna shrieked, and would have rushed at her, but Alyosha held her with all his strength. 'Not a step, not a word! Don't speak, don't answer her. She'll go awayshe'll go at once. At that instant Katerina Ivanovna's two aunts ran in at her cry, and with them a maidservant. All hurried to her. 'I will go away, said Grushenka, taking up her mantle from the sofa. 'Alyosha, darling, see me home! 'Go awaygo away, make haste! cried Alyosha, clasping his hands imploringly. 'Dear little Alyosha, see me home! I've got a pretty little story to tell you on the way. I got up this scene for your benefit, Alyosha. See me home, dear, you'll be glad of it afterwards. Alyosha turned away, wringing his hands. Grushenka ran out of the house, laughing musically. Katerina Ivanovna went into a fit of hysterics. She sobbed, and was shaken with convulsions. Every one fussed round her. 'I warned you, said the elder of her aunts. 'I tried to prevent your doing this. You're too impulsive. How could you do such a thing? You don't know these creatures, and they say she's worse than any of them. You are too selfwilled. 'She's a tigress! yelled Katerina Ivanovna. 'Why did you hold me, Alexey Fyodorovitch? I'd have beaten herbeaten her! She could not control herself before Alyosha perhaps she did not care to, indeed. 'She ought to be flogged in public on a scaffold! Alyosha withdrew towards the door. 'But, my God! cried Katerina Ivanovna, clasping her hands. 'He! He! He could be so dishonorable, so inhuman! Why, he told that creature what happened on that fatal, accursed day! 'You brought your beauty for sale, dear young lady.' She knows it! Your brother's a scoundrel, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Alyosha wanted to say something, but he couldn't find a word. His heart ached. 'Go away, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It's shameful, it's awful for me! To morrow, I beg you on my knees, come tomorrow. Don't condemn me. Forgive me. I don't know what I shall do with myself now! Alyosha walked out into the street reeling. He could have wept as she did. Suddenly he was overtaken by the maid. 'The young lady forgot to give you this letter from Madame Hohlakov it's been left with us since dinnertime. Alyosha took the little pink envelope mechanically and put it, almost unconsciously, into his pocket. It was not much more than threequarters of a mile from the town to the monastery. Alyosha walked quickly along the road, at that hour deserted. It was almost night, and too dark to see anything clearly at thirty paces ahead. There were crossroads halfway. A figure came into sight under a solitary willow at the crossroads. As soon as Alyosha reached the cross roads the figure moved out and rushed at him, shouting savagely 'Your money or your life! 'So it's you, Mitya, cried Alyosha, in surprise, violently startled however. 'Ha ha ha! You didn't expect me? I wondered where to wait for you. By her house? There are three ways from it, and I might have missed you. At last I thought of waiting here, for you had to pass here, there's no other way to the monastery. Come, tell me the truth. Crush me like a beetle. But what's the matter? 'Nothing, brotherit's the fright you gave me. Oh, Dmitri! Father's blood just now. (Alyosha began to cry, he had been on the verge of tears for a long time, and now something seemed to snap in his soul.) 'You almost killed himcursed himand nowhereyou're making jokes'Your money or your life!'  'Well, what of that? It's not seemlyis that it? Not suitable in my position? 'NoI only 'Stay. Look at the night. You see what a dark night, what clouds, what a wind has risen. I hid here under the willow waiting for you. And as God's above, I suddenly thought, why go on in misery any longer, what is there to wait for? Here I have a willow, a handkerchief, a shirt, I can twist them into a rope in a minute, and braces besides, and why go on burdening the earth, dishonoring it with my vile presence? And then I heard you comingHeavens, it was as though something flew down to me suddenly. So there is a man, then, whom I love. Here he is, that man, my dear little brother, whom I love more than any one in the world, the only one I love in the world. And I loved you so much, so much at that moment that I thought, 'I'll fall on his neck at once.' Then a stupid idea struck me, to have a joke with you and scare you. I shouted, like a fool, 'Your money!' Forgive my fooleryit was only nonsense, and there's nothing unseemly in my soul.... Damn it all, tell me what's happened. What did she say? Strike me, crush me, don't spare me! Was she furious? 'No, not that.... There was nothing like that, Mitya. ThereI found them both there. 'Both? Whom? 'Grushenka at Katerina Ivanovna's. Dmitri was struck dumb. 'Impossible! he cried. 'You're raving! Grushenka with her? Alyosha described all that had happened from the moment he went in to Katerina Ivanovna's. He was ten minutes telling his story. He can't be said to have told it fluently and consecutively, but he seemed to make it clear, not omitting any word or action of significance, and vividly describing, often in one word, his own sensations. Dmitri listened in silence, gazing at him with a terrible fixed stare, but it was clear to Alyosha that he understood it all, and had grasped every point. But as the story went on, his face became not merely gloomy, but menacing. He scowled, he clenched his teeth, and his fixed stare became still more rigid, more concentrated, more terrible, when suddenly, with incredible rapidity, his wrathful, savage face changed, his tightly compressed lips parted, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch broke into uncontrolled, spontaneous laughter. He literally shook with laughter. For a long time he could not speak. 'So she wouldn't kiss her hand! So she didn't kiss it so she ran away! he kept exclaiming with hysterical delight insolent delight it might have been called, if it had not been so spontaneous. 'So the other one called her tigress! And a tigress she is! So she ought to be flogged on a scaffold? Yes, yes, so she ought. That's just what I think she ought to have been long ago. It's like this, brother, let her be punished, but I must get better first. I understand the queen of impudence. That's her all over! You saw her all over in that handkissing, the shedevil! She's magnificent in her own line! So she ran home? I'll goahI'll run to her! Alyosha, don't blame me, I agree that hanging is too good for her. 'But Katerina Ivanovna! exclaimed Alyosha sorrowfully. 'I see her, too! I see right through her, as I've never done before! It's a regular discovery of the four continents of the world, that is, of the five! What a thing to do! That's just like Katya, who was not afraid to face a coarse, unmannerly officer and risk a deadly insult on a generous impulse to save her father! But the pride, the recklessness, the defiance of fate, the unbounded defiance! You say that aunt tried to stop her? That aunt, you know, is overbearing, herself. She's the sister of the general's widow in Moscow, and even more stuckup than she. But her husband was caught stealing government money. He lost everything, his estate and all, and the proud wife had to lower her colors, and hasn't raised them since. So she tried to prevent Katya, but she wouldn't listen to her! She thinks she can overcome everything, that everything will give way to her. She thought she could bewitch Grushenka if she liked, and she believed it herself she plays a part to herself, and whose fault is it? Do you think she kissed Grushenka's hand first, on purpose, with a motive? No, she really was fascinated by Grushenka, that's to say, not by Grushenka, but by her own dream, her own delusionbecause it was her dream, her delusion! Alyosha, darling, how did you escape from them, those women? Did you pick up your cassock and run? Ha ha ha! 'Brother, you don't seem to have noticed how you've insulted Katerina Ivanovna by telling Grushenka about that day. And she flung it in her face just now that she had gone to gentlemen in secret to sell her beauty! Brother, what could be worse than that insult? What worried Alyosha more than anything was that, incredible as it seemed, his brother appeared pleased at Katerina Ivanovna's humiliation. 'Bah! Dmitri frowned fiercely, and struck his forehead with his hand. He only now realized it, though Alyosha had just told him of the insult, and Katerina Ivanovna's cry 'Your brother is a scoundrel! 'Yes, perhaps, I really did tell Grushenka about that 'fatal day,' as Katya calls it. Yes, I did tell her, I remember! It was that time at Mokroe. I was drunk, the gypsies were singing.... But I was sobbing. I was sobbing then, kneeling and praying to Katya's image, and Grushenka understood it. She understood it all then. I remember, she cried herself.... Damn it all! But it's bound to be so now.... Then she cried, but now 'the dagger in the heart'! That's how women are. He looked down and sank into thought. 'Yes, I am a scoundrel, a thorough scoundrel! he said suddenly, in a gloomy voice. 'It doesn't matter whether I cried or not, I'm a scoundrel! Tell her I accept the name, if that's any comfort. Come, that's enough. Goodby. It's no use talking! It's not amusing. You go your way and I mine. And I don't want to see you again except as a last resource. Good by, Alexey! He warmly pressed Alyosha's hand, and still looking down, without raising his head, as though tearing himself away, turned rapidly towards the town. Alyosha looked after him, unable to believe he would go away so abruptly. 'Stay, Alexey, one more confession to you alone! cried Dmitri, suddenly turning back. 'Look at me. Look at me well. You see here, herethere's terrible disgrace in store for me. (As he said 'here, Dmitri struck his chest with his fist with a strange air, as though the dishonor lay precisely on his chest, in some spot, in a pocket, perhaps, or hanging round his neck.) 'You know me now, a scoundrel, an avowed scoundrel, but let me tell you that I've never done anything before and never shall again, anything that can compare in baseness with the dishonor which I bear now at this very minute on my breast, here, here, which will come to pass, though I'm perfectly free to stop it. I can stop it or carry it through, note that. Well, let me tell you, I shall carry it through. I shan't stop it. I told you everything just now, but I didn't tell you this, because even I had not brass enough for it. I can still pull up if I do, I can give back the full half of my lost honor tomorrow. But I shan't pull up. I shall carry out my base plan, and you can bear witness that I told you so beforehand. Darkness and destruction! No need to explain. You'll find out in due time. The filthy backalley and the she devil. Goodby. Don't pray for me, I'm not worth it. And there's no need, no need at all.... I don't need it! Away! And he suddenly retreated, this time finally. Alyosha went towards the monastery. 'What? I shall never see him again! What is he saying? he wondered wildly. 'Why, I shall certainly see him tomorrow. I shall look him up. I shall make a point of it. What does he mean? He went round the monastery, and crossed the pinewood to the hermitage. The door was opened to him, though no one was admitted at that hour. There was a tremor in his heart as he went into Father Zossima's cell. 'Why, why, had he gone forth? Why had he sent him into the world? Here was peace. Here was holiness. But there was confusion, there was darkness in which one lost one's way and went astray at once.... In the cell he found the novice Porfiry and Father Passy, who came every hour to inquire after Father Zossima. Alyosha learnt with alarm that he was getting worse and worse. Even his usual discourse with the brothers could not take place that day. As a rule every evening after service the monks flocked into Father Zossima's cell, and all confessed aloud their sins of the day, their sinful thoughts and temptations even their disputes, if there had been any. Some confessed kneeling. The elder absolved, reconciled, exhorted, imposed penance, blessed, and dismissed them. It was against this general 'confession that the opponents of 'elders protested, maintaining that it was a profanation of the sacrament of confession, almost a sacrilege, though this was quite a different thing. They even represented to the diocesan authorities that such confessions attained no good object, but actually to a large extent led to sin and temptation. Many of the brothers disliked going to the elder, and went against their own will because every one went, and for fear they should be accused of pride and rebellious ideas. People said that some of the monks agreed beforehand, saying, 'I'll confess I lost my temper with you this morning, and you confirm it, simply in order to have something to say. Alyosha knew that this actually happened sometimes. He knew, too, that there were among the monks some who deeply resented the fact that letters from relations were habitually taken to the elder, to be opened and read by him before those to whom they were addressed. It was assumed, of course, that all this was done freely, and in good faith, by way of voluntary submission and salutary guidance. But, in fact, there was sometimes no little insincerity, and much that was false and strained in this practice. Yet the older and more experienced of the monks adhered to their opinion, arguing that 'for those who have come within these walls sincerely seeking salvation, such obedience and sacrifice will certainly be salutary and of great benefit those, on the other hand, who find it irksome, and repine, are no true monks, and have made a mistake in entering the monasterytheir proper place is in the world. Even in the temple one cannot be safe from sin and the devil. So it was no good taking it too much into account. 'He is weaker, a drowsiness has come over him, Father Passy whispered to Alyosha, as he blessed him. 'It's difficult to rouse him. And he must not be roused. He waked up for five minutes, sent his blessing to the brothers, and begged their prayers for him at night. He intends to take the sacrament again in the morning. He remembered you, Alexey. He asked whether you had gone away, and was told that you were in the town. 'I blessed him for that work,' he said, 'his place is there, not here, for awhile.' Those were his words about you. He remembered you lovingly, with anxiety do you understand how he honored you? But how is it that he has decided that you shall spend some time in the world? He must have foreseen something in your destiny! Understand, Alexey, that if you return to the world, it must be to do the duty laid upon you by your elder, and not for frivolous vanity and worldly pleasures. Father Passy went out. Alyosha had no doubt that Father Zossima was dying, though he might live another day or two. Alyosha firmly and ardently resolved that in spite of his promises to his father, the Hohlakovs, and Katerina Ivanovna, he would not leave the monastery next day, but would remain with his elder to the end. His heart glowed with love, and he reproached himself bitterly for having been able for one instant to forget him whom he had left in the monastery on his deathbed, and whom he honored above every one in the world. He went into Father Zossima's bedroom, knelt down, and bowed to the ground before the elder, who slept quietly without stirring, with regular, hardly audible breathing and a peaceful face. Alyosha returned to the other room, where Father Zossima had received his guests in the morning. Taking off his boots, he lay down on the hard, narrow, leathern sofa, which he had long used as a bed, bringing nothing but a pillow. The mattress, about which his father had shouted to him that morning, he had long forgotten to lie on. He took off his cassock, which he used as a covering. But before going to bed, he fell on his knees and prayed a long time. In his fervent prayer he did not beseech God to lighten his darkness but only thirsted for the joyous emotion, which always visited his soul after the praise and adoration, of which his evening prayer usually consisted. That joy always brought him light untroubled sleep. As he was praying, he suddenly felt in his pocket the little pink note the servant had handed him as he left Katerina Ivanovna's. He was disturbed, but finished his prayer. Then, after some hesitation, he opened the envelope. In it was a letter to him, signed by Lise, the young daughter of Madame Hohlakov, who had laughed at him before the elder in the morning. 'Alexey Fyodorovitch, she wrote, 'I am writing to you without any one's knowledge, even mamma's, and I know how wrong it is. But I cannot live without telling you the feeling that has sprung up in my heart, and this no one but us two must know for a time. But how am I to say what I want so much to tell you? Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it's not true and that it's blushing just as I am now, all over. Dear Alyosha, I love you, I've loved you from my childhood, since our Moscow days, when you were very different from what you are now, and I shall love you all my life. My heart has chosen you, to unite our lives, and pass them together till our old age. Of course, on condition that you will leave the monastery. As for our age we will wait for the time fixed by the law. By that time I shall certainly be quite strong, I shall be walking and dancing. There can be no doubt of that. 'You see how I've thought of everything. There's only one thing I can't imagine what you'll think of me when you read this. I'm always laughing and being naughty. I made you angry this morning, but I assure you before I took up my pen, I prayed before the Image of the Mother of God, and now I'm praying, and almost crying. 'My secret is in your hands. When you come tomorrow, I don't know how I shall look at you. Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, what if I can't restrain myself like a silly and laugh when I look at you as I did today. You'll think I'm a nasty girl making fun of you, and you won't believe my letter. And so I beg you, dear one, if you've any pity for me, when you come to morrow, don't look me straight in the face, for if I meet your eyes, it will be sure to make me laugh, especially as you'll be in that long gown. I feel cold all over when I think of it, so when you come, don't look at me at all for a time, look at mamma or at the window.... 'Here I've written you a loveletter. Oh, dear, what have I done? Alyosha, don't despise me, and if I've done something very horrid and wounded you, forgive me. Now the secret of my reputation, ruined perhaps for ever, is in your hands. 'I shall certainly cry today. Goodby till our meeting, our awful meeting.LISE. 'P.S.Alyosha! You must, must, must come!LISE. Alyosha read the note in amazement, read it through twice, thought a little, and suddenly laughed a soft, sweet laugh. He started. That laugh seemed to him sinful. But a minute later he laughed again just as softly and happily. He slowly replaced the note in the envelope, crossed himself and lay down. The agitation in his heart passed at once. 'God, have mercy upon all of them, have all these unhappy and turbulent souls in Thy keeping, and set them in the right path. All ways are Thine. Save them according to Thy wisdom. Thou art love. Thou wilt send joy to all! Alyosha murmured, crossing himself, and falling into peaceful sleep. Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke up feeling very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in a chair. His mind was quite clear his face looked very tired, yet bright and almost joyful. It wore an expression of gayety, kindness and cordiality. 'Maybe I shall not live through the coming day, he said to Alyosha. Then he desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. He always confessed to Father Passy. After taking the communion, the service of extreme unction followed. The monks assembled and the cell was gradually filled up by the inmates of the hermitage. Meantime it was daylight. People began coming from the monastery. After the service was over the elder desired to kiss and take leave of every one. As the cell was so small the earlier visitors withdrew to make room for others. Alyosha stood beside the elder, who was seated again in his armchair. He talked as much as he could. Though his voice was weak, it was fairly steady. 'I've been teaching you so many years, and therefore I've been talking aloud so many years, that I've got into the habit of talking, and so much so that it's almost more difficult for me to hold my tongue than to talk, even now, in spite of my weakness, dear Fathers and brothers, he jested, looking with emotion at the group round him. Alyosha remembered afterwards something of what he said to them. But though he spoke out distinctly and his voice was fairly steady, his speech was somewhat disconnected. He spoke of many things, he seemed anxious before the moment of death to say everything he had not said in his life, and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but as though thirsting to share with all men and all creation his joy and ecstasy, and once more in his life to open his whole heart. 'Love one another, Fathers, said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha could remember afterwards. 'Love God's people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth.... And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize that. Else he would have had no reason to come here. When he realizes that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears.... Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even when perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no conditions with God. Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to the little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialistsand I mean not only the good onesfor there are many good ones among them, especially in our dayhate not even the wicked ones. Remember them in your prayers thus Save, O Lord, all those who have none to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray. And add it is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men.... Love God's people, let not strangers draw away the flock, for if you slumber in your slothfulness and disdainful pride, or worse still, in covetousness, they will come from all sides and draw away your flock. Expound the Gospel to the people unceasingly ... be not extortionate.... Do not love gold and silver, do not hoard them.... Have faith. Cling to the banner and raise it on high. But the elder spoke more disconnectedly than Alyosha reported his words afterwards. Sometimes he broke off altogether, as though to take breath, and recover his strength, but he was in a sort of ecstasy. They heard him with emotion, though many wondered at his words and found them obscure.... Afterwards all remembered those words. When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck by the general excitement and suspense in the monks who were crowding about it. This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in others by devout solemnity. All were expecting that some marvel would happen immediately after the elder's death. Their suspense was, from one point of view, almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks were affected by it. Father Passy's face looked the gravest of all. Alyosha was mysteriously summoned by a monk to see Rakitin, who had arrived from town with a singular letter for him from Madame Hohlakov. In it she informed Alyosha of a strange and very opportune incident. It appeared that among the women who had come on the previous day to receive Father Zossima's blessing, there had been an old woman from the town, a sergeant's widow, called Prohorovna. She had inquired whether she might pray for the rest of the soul of her son, Vassenka, who had gone to Irkutsk, and had sent her no news for over a year. To which Father Zossima had answered sternly, forbidding her to do so, and saying that to pray for the living as though they were dead was a kind of sorcery. He afterwards forgave her on account of her ignorance, and added, 'as though reading the book of the future (this was Madame Hohlakov's expression), words of comfort 'that her son Vassya was certainly alive and he would either come himself very shortly or send a letter, and that she was to go home and expect him. And 'Would you believe it? exclaimed Madame Hohlakov enthusiastically, 'the prophecy has been fulfilled literally indeed, and more than that. Scarcely had the old woman reached home when they gave her a letter from Siberia which had been awaiting her. But that was not all in the letter written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya informed his mother that he was returning to Russia with an official, and that three weeks after her receiving the letter he hoped 'to embrace his mother. Madame Hohlakov warmly entreated Alyosha to report this new 'miracle of prediction to the Superior and all the brotherhood. 'All, all, ought to know of it! she concluded. The letter had been written in haste, the excitement of the writer was apparent in every line of it. But Alyosha had no need to tell the monks, for all knew of it already. Rakitin had commissioned the monk who brought his message 'to inform most respectfully his reverence Father Passy, that he, Rakitin, has a matter to speak of with him, of such gravity that he dare not defer it for a moment, and humbly begs forgiveness for his presumption. As the monk had given the message to Father Passy before that to Alyosha, the latter found after reading the letter, there was nothing left for him to do but to hand it to Father Passy in confirmation of the story. And even that austere and cautious man, though he frowned as he read the news of the 'miracle, could not completely restrain some inner emotion. His eyes gleamed, and a grave and solemn smile came into his lips. 'We shall see greater things! broke from him. 'We shall see greater things, greater things yet! the monks around repeated. But Father Passy, frowning again, begged all of them, at least for a time, not to speak of the matter 'till it be more fully confirmed, seeing there is so much credulity among those of this world, and indeed this might well have chanced naturally, he added, prudently, as it were to satisfy his conscience, though scarcely believing his own disavowal, a fact his listeners very clearly perceived. Within the hour the 'miracle was of course known to the whole monastery, and many visitors who had come for the mass. No one seemed more impressed by it than the monk who had come the day before from St. Sylvester, from the little monastery of Obdorsk in the far North. It was he who had been standing near Madame Hohlakov the previous day and had asked Father Zossima earnestly, referring to the 'healing of the lady's daughter, 'How can you presume to do such things? He was now somewhat puzzled and did not know whom to believe. The evening before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behind the apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit. This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole institution of 'elders, which he regarded as a pernicious and frivolous innovation. He was a very formidable opponent, although from his practice of silence he scarcely spoke a word to any one. What made him formidable was that a number of monks fully shared his feeling, and many of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although they had no doubt that he was crazy. But it was just his craziness attracted them. Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. Though he lived in the hermitage they did not worry him to keep its regulations, and this too because he behaved as though he were crazy. He was seventyfive or more, and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying wooden cell which had been built long ago for another great ascetic, Father Iona, who had lived to be a hundred and five, and of whose saintly doings many curious stories were still extant in the monastery and the neighborhood. Father Ferapont had succeeded in getting himself installed in this same solitary cell seven years previously. It was simply a peasant's hut, though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before themwhich men brought to the monastery as offerings to God. Father Ferapont had been appointed to look after them and keep the lamps burning. It was said (and indeed it was true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days. The beekeeper, who lived close by the apiary, used to bring him the bread every three days, and even to this man who waited upon him, Father Ferapont rarely uttered a word. The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking round. If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors, but for the most part he would utter some one strange saying which was a complete riddle, and no entreaties would induce him to pronounce a word in explanation. He was not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange belief, chiefly however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and so was silent with men. The monk from Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner where Father Ferapont's cell stood. 'Maybe he will speak as you are a stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him, the beekeeper had warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in the utmost apprehension. It was rather late in the evening. Father Ferapont was sitting at the door of his cell on a low bench. A huge old elm was lightly rustling overhead. There was an evening freshness in the air. The monk from Obdorsk bowed down before the saint and asked his blessing. 'Do you want me to bow down to you, monk? said Father Ferapont. 'Get up! The monk got up. 'Blessing, be blessed! Sit beside me. Where have you come from? What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his strict fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man. He was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin, but fresh and healthy face. There was no doubt he still had considerable strength. He was of athletic build. In spite of his great age he was not even quite gray, and still had very thick hair and a full beard, both of which had once been black. His eyes were gray, large and luminous, but strikingly prominent. He spoke with a broad accent. He was dressed in a peasant's long reddish coat of coarse convict cloth (as it used to be called) and had a stout rope round his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his coat. His stockingless feet were thrust in old slippers almost dropping to pieces. 'From the little Obdorsk monastery, from St. Sylvester, the monk answered humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightened little eyes kept watch on the hermit. 'I have been at your Sylvester's. I used to stay there. Is Sylvester well? The monk hesitated. 'You are a senseless lot! How do you keep the fasts? 'Our dietary is according to the ancient conventual rules. During Lent there are no meals provided for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For Tuesday and Thursday we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, wild berries, or salt cabbage and wholemeal stirabout. On Saturday white cabbage soup, noodles with peas, kasha, all with hemp oil. On weekdays we have dried fish and kasha with the cabbage soup. From Monday till Saturday evening, six whole days in Holy Week, nothing is cooked, and we have only bread and water, and that sparingly if possible not taking food every day, just the same as is ordered for first week in Lent. On Good Friday nothing is eaten. In the same way on the Saturday we have to fast till three o'clock, and then take a little bread and water and drink a single cup of wine. On Holy Thursday we drink wine and have something cooked without oil or not cooked at all, inasmuch as the Laodicean council lays down for Holy Thursday 'It is unseemly by remitting the fast on the Holy Thursday to dishonor the whole of Lent!' This is how we keep the fast. But what is that compared with you, holy Father, added the monk, growing more confident, 'for all the year round, even at Easter, you take nothing but bread and water, and what we should eat in two days lasts you full seven. It's truly marvelousyour great abstinence. 'And mushrooms? asked Father Ferapont, suddenly. 'Mushrooms? repeated the surprised monk. 'Yes. I can give up their bread, not needing it at all, and go away into the forest and live there on the mushrooms or the berries, but they can't give up their bread here, wherefore they are in bondage to the devil. Nowadays the unclean deny that there is need of such fasting. Haughty and unclean is their judgment. 'Och, true, sighed the monk. 'And have you seen devils among them? asked Ferapont. 'Among them? Among whom? asked the monk, timidly. 'I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven't been since. I saw a devil sitting on one man's chest hiding under his cassock, only his horns poked out another had one peeping out of his pocket with such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me another settled in the unclean belly of one, another was hanging round a man's neck, and so he was carrying him about without seeing him. 'Youcan see spirits? the monk inquired. 'I tell you I can see, I can see through them. When I was coming out from the Superior's I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a big one, a yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, and the tip of his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and be stinking, but they don't see, they don't smell it. It's a year since I have been there. I reveal it to you, as you are a stranger. 'Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father, said the monk, growing bolder and bolder, 'is it true, as they noise abroad even to distant lands about you, that you are in continual communication with the Holy Ghost? 'He does fly down at times. 'How does he fly down? In what form? 'As a bird. 'The Holy Ghost in the form of a dove? 'There's the Holy Ghost and there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can appear as other birdssometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and sometimes as a bluetit. 'How do you know him from an ordinary tit? 'He speaks. 'How does he speak, in what language? 'Human language. 'And what does he tell you? 'Why, today he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me unseemly questions. You want to know too much, monk. 'Terrible are your words, most holy and blessed Father, the monk shook his head. But there was a doubtful look in his frightened little eyes. 'Do you see this tree? asked Father Ferapont, after a pause. 'I do, blessed Father. 'You think it's an elm, but for me it has another shape. 'What sort of shape? inquired the monk, after a pause of vain expectation. 'It happens at night. You see those two branches? In the night it is Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms, I see it clearly and tremble. It's terrible, terrible! 'What is there terrible if it's Christ Himself? 'Why, He'll snatch me up and carry me away. 'Alive? 'In the spirit and glory of Elijah, haven't you heard? He will take me in His arms and bear me away. Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing with one of the brothers, in considerable perplexity of mind, he still cherished at heart a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima. He was strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that one who kept so rigid a fast as Father Ferapont should 'see marvels. His words seemed certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidden in those words, and were not worse words and acts commonly seen in those who have sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? The pinching of the devil's tail he was ready and eager to believe, and not only in the figurative sense. Besides he had, before visiting the monastery, a strong prejudice against the institution of 'elders, which he only knew of by hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been long at the monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some shallow brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything. This was why the news of the fresh 'miracle performed by Father Zossima reduced him to extreme perplexity. Alyosha remembered afterwards how their inquisitive guest from Obdorsk had been continually flitting to and fro from one group to another, listening and asking questions among the monks that were crowding within and without the elder's cell. But he did not pay much attention to him at the time, and only recollected it afterwards. He had no thought to spare for it indeed, for when Father Zossima, feeling tired again, had gone back to bed, he thought of Alyosha as he was closing his eyes, and sent for him. Alyosha ran at once. There was no one else in the cell but Father Passy, Father Iosif, and the novice Porfiry. The elder, opening his weary eyes and looking intently at Alyosha, asked him suddenly 'Are your people expecting you, my son? Alyosha hesitated. 'Haven't they need of you? Didn't you promise some one yesterday to see them today? 'I did promiseto my fathermy brothersothers too. 'You see, you must go. Don't grieve. Be sure I shall not die without your being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, my son, it will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you love me. But now go to keep your promise. Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go. But the promise that he should hear his last word on earth, that it should be the last gift to him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his soul. He made haste that he might finish what he had to do in the town and return quickly. Father Passy, too, uttered some words of exhortation which moved and surprised him greatly. He spoke as they left the cell together. 'Remember, young man, unceasingly, Father Passy began, without preface, 'that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of people? It is still as strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since you are being sent into the world by your departing elder. Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, uttered from the heart for your guidance, seeing you are young, and the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my orphan. With these words Father Passy blessed him. As Alyosha left the monastery and thought them over, he suddenly realized that he had met a new and unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this austere monk who had hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though Father Zossima had bequeathed him to him at his death, and 'perhaps that's just what had passed between them, Alyosha thought suddenly. The philosophic reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly testified to the warmth of Father Passy's heart. He was in haste to arm the boy's mind for conflict with temptation and to guard the young soul left in his charge with the strongest defense he could imagine. First of all, Alyosha went to his father. On the way he remembered that his father had insisted the day before that he should come without his brother Ivan seeing him. 'Why so? Alyosha wondered suddenly. 'Even if my father has something to say to me alone, why should I go in unseen? Most likely in his excitement yesterday he meant to say something different, he decided. Yet he was very glad when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the garden gate to him (Grigory, it appeared, was ill in bed in the lodge), told him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovitch had gone out two hours ago. 'And my father? 'He is up, taking his coffee, Marfa answered somewhat dryly. Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table wearing slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself by looking through some accounts, rather inattentively however. He was quite alone in the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing. Though he had got up early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he looked tired and weak. His forehead, upon which huge purple bruises had come out during the night, was bandaged with a red handkerchief his nose too had swollen terribly in the night, and some smaller bruises covered it in patches, giving his whole face a peculiarly spiteful and irritable look. The old man was aware of this, and turned a hostile glance on Alyosha as he came in. 'The coffee is cold, he cried harshly 'I won't offer you any. I've ordered nothing but a Lenten fish soup today, and I don't invite any one to share it. Why have you come? 'To find out how you are, said Alyosha. 'Yes. Besides, I told you to come yesterday. It's all of no consequence. You need not have troubled. But I knew you'd come poking in directly. He said this with almost hostile feeling. At the same time he got up and looked anxiously in the lookingglass (perhaps for the fortieth time that morning) at his nose. He began, too, binding his red handkerchief more becomingly on his forehead. 'Red's better. It's just like the hospital in a white one, he observed sententiously. 'Well, how are things over there? How is your elder? 'He is very bad he may die today, answered Alyosha. But his father had not listened, and had forgotten his own question at once. 'Ivan's gone out, he said suddenly. 'He is doing his utmost to carry off Mitya's betrothed. That's what he is staying here for, he added maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha. 'Surely he did not tell you so? asked Alyosha. 'Yes, he did, long ago. Would you believe it, he told me three weeks ago? You don't suppose he too came to murder me, do you? He must have had some object in coming. 'What do you mean? Why do you say such things? said Alyosha, troubled. 'He doesn't ask for money, it's true, but yet he won't get a farthing from me. I intend living as long as possible, you may as well know, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, and so I need every farthing, and the longer I live, the more I shall need it, he continued, pacing from one corner of the room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loose greasy overcoat made of yellow cotton material. 'I can still pass for a man at five and fifty, but I want to pass for one for another twenty years. As I get older, you know, I shan't be a pretty object. The wenches won't come to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up more and more, simply for myself, my dear son Alexey Fyodorovitch. You may as well know. For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so simple. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you that and it's not the proper place for a gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists. I believe that I fall asleep and don't wake up again, and that's all. You can pray for my soul if you like. And if you don't want to, don't, damn you! That's my philosophy. Ivan talked well here yesterday, though we were all drunk. Ivan is a conceited coxcomb, but he has no particular learning ... nor education either. He sits silent and smiles at one without speakingthat's what pulls him through. Alyosha listened to him in silence. 'Why won't he talk to me? If he does speak, he gives himself airs. Your Ivan is a scoundrel! And I'll marry Grushenka in a minute if I want to. For if you've money, Alexey Fyodorovitch, you have only to want a thing and you can have it. That's what Ivan is afraid of, he is on the watch to prevent me getting married and that's why he is egging on Mitya to marry Grushenka himself. He hopes to keep me from Grushenka by that (as though I should leave him my money if I don't marry her!). Besides if Mitya marries Grushenka, Ivan will carry off his rich betrothed, that's what he's reckoning on! He is a scoundrel, your Ivan! 'How cross you are! It's because of yesterday you had better lie down, said Alyosha. 'There! you say that, the old man observed suddenly, as though it had struck him for the first time, 'and I am not angry with you. But if Ivan said it, I should be angry with him. It is only with you I have good moments, else you know I am an illnatured man. 'You are not illnatured, but distorted, said Alyosha with a smile. 'Listen. I meant this morning to get that ruffian Mitya locked up and I don't know now what I shall decide about it. Of course in these fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a prejudice, but even now the law does not allow you to drag your old father about by the hair, to kick him in the face in his own house, and brag of murdering him outrightall in the presence of witnesses. If I liked, I could crush him and could have him locked up at once for what he did yesterday. 'Then you don't mean to take proceedings? 'Ivan has dissuaded me. I shouldn't care about Ivan, but there's another thing. And bending down to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential halfwhisper. 'If I send the ruffian to prison, she'll hear of it and run to see him at once. But if she hears that he has beaten me, a weak old man, within an inch of my life, she may give him up and come to me.... For that's her way, everything by contraries. I know her through and through! Won't you have a drop of brandy? Take some cold coffee and I'll pour a quarter of a glass of brandy into it, it's delicious, my boy. 'No, thank you. I'll take that roll with me if I may, said Alyosha, and taking a halfpenny French roll he put it in the pocket of his cassock. 'And you'd better not have brandy, either, he suggested apprehensively, looking into the old man's face. 'You are quite right, it irritates my nerves instead of soothing them. Only one little glass. I'll get it out of the cupboard. He unlocked the cupboard, poured out a glass, drank it, then locked the cupboard and put the key back in his pocket. 'That's enough. One glass won't kill me. 'You see you are in a better humor now, said Alyosha, smiling. 'Um! I love you even without the brandy, but with scoundrels I am a scoundrel. Ivan is not going to Tchermashnyawhy is that? He wants to spy how much I give Grushenka if she comes. They are all scoundrels! But I don't recognize Ivan, I don't know him at all. Where does he come from? He is not one of us in soul. As though I'd leave him anything! I shan't leave a will at all, you may as well know. And I'll crush Mitya like a beetle. I squash blackbeetles at night with my slipper they squelch when you tread on them. And your Mitya will squelch too. Your Mitya, for you love him. Yes, you love him and I am not afraid of your loving him. But if Ivan loved him I should be afraid for myself at his loving him. But Ivan loves nobody. Ivan is not one of us. People like Ivan are not our sort, my boy. They are like a cloud of dust. When the wind blows, the dust will be gone.... I had a silly idea in my head when I told you to come today I wanted to find out from you about Mitya. If I were to hand him over a thousand or maybe two now, would the beggarly wretch agree to take himself off altogether for five years or, better still, thirtyfive, and without Grushenka, and give her up once for all, eh? 'II'll ask him, muttered Alyosha. 'If you would give him three thousand, perhaps he 'That's nonsense! You needn't ask him now, no need! I've changed my mind. It was a nonsensical idea of mine. I won't give him anything, not a penny, I want my money myself, cried the old man, waving his hand. 'I'll crush him like a beetle without it. Don't say anything to him or else he will begin hoping. There's nothing for you to do here, you needn't stay. Is that betrothed of his, Katerina Ivanovna, whom he has kept so carefully hidden from me all this time, going to marry him or not? You went to see her yesterday, I believe? 'Nothing will induce her to abandon him. 'There you see how dearly these fine young ladies love a rake and a scoundrel. They are poor creatures I tell you, those pale young ladies, very different fromAh, if I had his youth and the looks I had then (for I was betterlooking than he at eight and twenty) I'd have been a conquering hero just as he is. He is a low cad! But he shan't have Grushenka, anyway, he shan't! I'll crush him! His anger had returned with the last words. 'You can go. There's nothing for you to do here today, he snapped harshly. Alyosha went up to say goodby to him, and kissed him on the shoulder. 'What's that for? The old man was a little surprised. 'We shall see each other again, or do you think we shan't? 'Not at all, I didn't mean anything. 'Nor did I, I did not mean anything, said the old man, looking at him. 'Listen, listen, he shouted after him, 'make haste and come again and I'll have a fish soup for you, a fine one, not like today. Be sure to come! Come tomorrow, do you hear, tomorrow! And as soon as Alyosha had gone out of the door, he went to the cupboard again and poured out another halfglass. 'I won't have more! he muttered, clearing his throat, and again he locked the cupboard and put the key in his pocket. Then he went into his bedroom, lay down on the bed, exhausted, and in one minute he was asleep. 'Thank goodness he did not ask me about Grushenka, thought Alyosha, as he left his father's house and turned towards Madame Hohlakov's, 'or I might have to tell him of my meeting with Grushenka yesterday. Alyosha felt painfully that since yesterday both combatants had renewed their energies, and that their hearts had grown hard again. 'Father is spiteful and angry, he's made some plan and will stick to it. And what of Dmitri? He too will be harder than yesterday, he too must be spiteful and angry, and he too, no doubt, has made some plan. Oh, I must succeed in finding him today, whatever happens. But Alyosha had not long to meditate. An incident occurred on the road, which, though apparently of little consequence, made a great impression on him. Just after he had crossed the square and turned the corner coming out into Mihailovsky Street, which is divided by a small ditch from the High Street (our whole town is intersected by ditches), he saw a group of schoolboys between the ages of nine and twelve, at the bridge. They were going home from school, some with their bags on their shoulders, others with leather satchels slung across them, some in short jackets, others in little overcoats. Some even had those high boots with creases round the ankles, such as little boys spoilt by rich fathers love to wear. The whole group was talking eagerly about something, apparently holding a council. Alyosha had never from his Moscow days been able to pass children without taking notice of them, and although he was particularly fond of children of three or thereabout, he liked schoolboys of ten and eleven too. And so, anxious as he was today, he wanted at once to turn aside to talk to them. He looked into their excited rosy faces, and noticed at once that all the boys had stones in their hands. Behind the ditch some thirty paces away, there was another schoolboy standing by a fence. He too had a satchel at his side. He was about ten years old, pale, delicatelooking and with sparkling black eyes. He kept an attentive and anxious watch on the other six, obviously his schoolfellows with whom he had just come out of school, but with whom he had evidently had a feud. Alyosha went up and, addressing a fair, curlyheaded, rosy boy in a black jacket, observed 'When I used to wear a satchel like yours, I always used to carry it on my left side, so as to have my right hand free, but you've got yours on your right side. So it will be awkward for you to get at it. Alyosha had no art or premeditation in beginning with this practical remark. But it is the only way for a grownup person to get at once into confidential relations with a child, or still more with a group of children. One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be on a perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct. 'But he is lefthanded, another, a fine healthylooking boy of eleven, answered promptly. All the others stared at Alyosha. 'He even throws stones with his left hand, observed a third. At that instant a stone flew into the group, but only just grazed the lefthanded boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the boy standing the other side of the ditch. 'Give it him, hit him back, Smurov, they all shouted. But Smurov, the lefthanded boy, needed no telling, and at once revenged himself he threw a stone, but it missed the boy and hit the ground. The boy the other side of the ditch, the pocket of whose coat was visibly bulging with stones, flung another stone at the group this time it flew straight at Alyosha and hit him painfully on the shoulder. 'He aimed it at you, he meant it for you. You are Karamazov, Karamazov! the boys shouted, laughing. 'Come, all throw at him at once! and six stones flew at the boy. One struck the boy on the head and he fell down, but at once leapt up and began ferociously returning their fire. Both sides threw stones incessantly. Many of the group had their pockets full too. 'What are you about! Aren't you ashamed? Six against one! Why, you'll kill him, cried Alyosha. He ran forward and met the flying stones to screen the solitary boy. Three or four ceased throwing for a minute. 'He began first! cried a boy in a red shirt in an angry childish voice. 'He is a beast, he stabbed Krassotkin in class the other day with a penknife. It bled. Krassotkin wouldn't tell tales, but he must be thrashed. 'But what for? I suppose you tease him. 'There, he sent a stone in your back again, he knows you, cried the children. 'It's you he is throwing at now, not us. Come, all of you, at him again, don't miss, Smurov! and again a fire of stones, and a very vicious one, began. The boy the other side of the ditch was hit in the chest he screamed, began to cry and ran away uphill towards Mihailovsky Street. They all shouted 'Aha, he is funking, he is running away. Wisp of tow! 'You don't know what a beast he is, Karamazov, killing is too good for him, said the boy in the jacket, with flashing eyes. He seemed to be the eldest. 'What's wrong with him? asked Alyosha, 'is he a telltale or what? The boys looked at one another as though derisively. 'Are you going that way, to Mihailovsky? the same boy went on. 'Catch him up.... You see he's stopped again, he is waiting and looking at you. 'He is looking at you, the other boys chimed in. 'You ask him, does he like a disheveled wisp of tow. Do you hear, ask him that! There was a general burst of laughter. Alyosha looked at them, and they at him. 'Don't go near him, he'll hurt you, cried Smurov in a warning voice. 'I shan't ask him about the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease him with that question somehow. But I'll find out from him why you hate him so. 'Find out then, find out, cried the boys, laughing. Alyosha crossed the bridge and walked uphill by the fence, straight towards the boy. 'You'd better look out, the boys called after him 'he won't be afraid of you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he did Krassotkin. The boy waited for him without budging. Coming up to him, Alyosha saw facing him a child of about nine years old. He was an undersized weakly boy with a thin pale face, with large dark eyes that gazed at him vindictively. He was dressed in a rather shabby old overcoat, which he had monstrously outgrown. His bare arms stuck out beyond his sleeves. There was a large patch on the right knee of his trousers, and in his right boot just at the toe there was a big hole in the leather, carefully blackened with ink. Both the pockets of his greatcoat were weighed down with stones. Alyosha stopped two steps in front of him, looking inquiringly at him. The boy, seeing at once from Alyosha's eyes that he wouldn't beat him, became less defiant, and addressed him first. 'I am alone, and there are six of them. I'll beat them all, alone! he said suddenly, with flashing eyes. 'I think one of the stones must have hurt you badly, observed Alyosha. 'But I hit Smurov on the head! cried the boy. 'They told me that you know me, and that you threw a stone at me on purpose, said Alyosha. The boy looked darkly at him. 'I don't know you. Do you know me? Alyosha continued. 'Let me alone! the boy cried irritably but he did not move, as though he were expecting something, and again there was a vindictive light in his eyes. 'Very well, I am going, said Alyosha 'only I don't know you and I don't tease you. They told me how they tease you, but I don't want to tease you. Goodby! 'Monk in silk trousers! cried the boy, following Alyosha with the same vindictive and defiant expression, and he threw himself into an attitude of defense, feeling sure that now Alyosha would fall upon him but Alyosha turned, looked at him, and walked away. He had not gone three steps before the biggest stone the boy had in his pocket hit him a painful blow in the back. 'So you'll hit a man from behind! They tell the truth, then, when they say that you attack on the sly, said Alyosha, turning round again. This time the boy threw a stone savagely right into Alyosha's face but Alyosha just had time to guard himself, and the stone struck him on the elbow. 'Aren't you ashamed? What have I done to you? he cried. The boy waited in silent defiance, certain that now Alyosha would attack him. Seeing that even now he would not, his rage was like a little wild beast's he flew at Alyosha himself, and before Alyosha had time to move, the spiteful child had seized his left hand with both of his and bit his middle finger. He fixed his teeth in it and it was ten seconds before he let go. Alyosha cried out with pain and pulled his finger away with all his might. The child let go at last and retreated to his former distance. Alyosha's finger had been badly bitten to the bone, close to the nail it began to bleed. Alyosha took out his handkerchief and bound it tightly round his injured hand. He was a full minute bandaging it. The boy stood waiting all the time. At last Alyosha raised his gentle eyes and looked at him. 'Very well, he said, 'you see how badly you've bitten me. That's enough, isn't it? Now tell me, what have I done to you? The boy stared in amazement. 'Though I don't know you and it's the first time I've seen you, Alyosha went on with the same serenity, 'yet I must have done something to youyou wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have I wronged you, tell me? Instead of answering, the boy broke into a loud tearful wail and ran away. Alyosha walked slowly after him towards Mihailovsky Street, and for a long time he saw the child running in the distance as fast as ever, not turning his head, and no doubt still keeping up his tearful wail. He made up his mind to find him out as soon as he had time, and to solve this mystery. Just now he had not the time. Alyosha soon reached Madame Hohlakov's house, a handsome stone house of two stories, one of the finest in our town. Though Madame Hohlakov spent most of her time in another province where she had an estate, or in Moscow, where she had a house of her own, yet she had a house in our town too, inherited from her forefathers. The estate in our district was the largest of her three estates, yet she had been very little in our province before this time. She ran out to Alyosha in the hall. 'Did you get my letter about the new miracle? She spoke rapidly and nervously. 'Yes. 'Did you show it to every one? He restored the son to his mother! 'He is dying today, said Alyosha. 'I have heard, I know, oh, how I long to talk to you, to you or some one, about all this. No, to you, to you! And how sorry I am I can't see him! The whole town is in excitement, they are all suspense. But nowdo you know Katerina Ivanovna is here now? 'Ah, that's lucky, cried Alyosha. 'Then I shall see her here. She told me yesterday to be sure to come and see her today. 'I know, I know all. I've heard exactly what happened yesterdayand the atrocious behavior of thatcreature. C'est tragique, and if I'd been in her place I don't know what I should have done. And your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch, what do you think of him?my goodness! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am forgetting, only fancy your brother is in there with her, not that dreadful brother who was so shocking yesterday, but the other, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he is sitting with her talking they are having a serious conversation. If you could only imagine what's passing between them nowit's awful, I tell you it's lacerating, it's like some incredible tale of horror. They are ruining their lives for no reason any one can see. They both recognize it and revel in it. I've been watching for you! I've been thirsting for you! It's too much for me, that's the worst of it. I'll tell you all about it presently, but now I must speak of something else, the most important thingI had quite forgotten what's most important. Tell me, why has Lise been in hysterics? As soon as she heard you were here, she began to be hysterical! 'Maman, it's you who are hysterical now, not I, Lise's voice caroled through a tiny crack of the door at the side. Her voice sounded as though she wanted to laugh, but was doing her utmost to control it. Alyosha at once noticed the crack, and no doubt Lise was peeping through it, but that he could not see. 'And no wonder, Lise, no wonder ... your caprices will make me hysterical too. But she is so ill, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she has been so ill all night, feverish and moaning! I could hardly wait for the morning and for Herzenstube to come. He says that he can make nothing of it, that we must wait. Herzenstube always comes and says that he can make nothing of it. As soon as you approached the house, she screamed, fell into hysterics, and insisted on being wheeled back into this room here. 'Mamma, I didn't know he had come. It wasn't on his account I wanted to be wheeled into this room. 'That's not true, Lise, Yulia ran to tell you that Alexey Fyodorovitch was coming. She was on the lookout for you. 'My darling mamma, it's not at all clever of you. But if you want to make up for it and say something very clever, dear mamma, you'd better tell our honored visitor, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that he has shown his want of wit by venturing to us after what happened yesterday and although every one is laughing at him. 'Lise, you go too far. I declare I shall have to be severe. Who laughs at him? I am so glad he has come, I need him, I can't do without him. Oh, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am exceedingly unhappy! 'But what's the matter with you, mamma, darling? 'Ah, your caprices, Lise, your fidgetiness, your illness, that awful night of fever, that awful everlasting Herzenstube, everlasting, everlasting, that's the worst of it! Everything, in fact, everything.... Even that miracle, too! Oh, how it has upset me, how it has shattered me, that miracle, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch! And that tragedy in the drawingroom, it's more than I can bear, I warn you. I can't bear it. A comedy, perhaps, not a tragedy. Tell me, will Father Zossima live till tomorrow, will he? Oh, my God! What is happening to me? Every minute I close my eyes and see that it's all nonsense, all nonsense. 'I should be very grateful, Alyosha interrupted suddenly, 'if you could give me a clean rag to bind up my finger with. I have hurt it, and it's very painful. Alyosha unbound his bitten finger. The handkerchief was soaked with blood. Madame Hohlakov screamed and shut her eyes. 'Good heavens, what a wound, how awful! But as soon as Lise saw Alyosha's finger through the crack, she flung the door wide open. 'Come, come here, she cried, imperiously. 'No nonsense now! Good heavens, why did you stand there saying nothing about it all this time? He might have bled to death, mamma! How did you do it? Water, water! You must wash it first of all, simply hold it in cold water to stop the pain, and keep it there, keep it there.... Make haste, mamma, some water in a slopbasin. But do make haste, she finished nervously. She was quite frightened at the sight of Alyosha's wound. 'Shouldn't we send for Herzenstube? cried Madame Hohlakov. 'Mamma, you'll be the death of me. Your Herzenstube will come and say that he can make nothing of it! Water, water! Mamma, for goodness' sake go yourself and hurry Yulia, she is such a slowcoach and never can come quickly! Make haste, mamma, or I shall die. 'Why, it's nothing much, cried Alyosha, frightened at this alarm. Yulia ran in with water and Alyosha put his finger in it. 'Some lint, mamma, for mercy's sake, bring some lint and that muddy caustic lotion for wounds, what's it called? We've got some. You know where the bottle is, mamma it's in your bedroom in the righthand cupboard, there's a big bottle of it there with the lint. 'I'll bring everything in a minute, Lise, only don't scream and don't fuss. You see how bravely Alexey Fyodorovitch bears it. Where did you get such a dreadful wound, Alexey Fyodorovitch? Madame Hohlakov hastened away. This was all Lise was waiting for. 'First of all, answer the question, where did you get hurt like this? she asked Alyosha, quickly. 'And then I'll talk to you about something quite different. Well? Instinctively feeling that the time of her mother's absence was precious for her, Alyosha hastened to tell her of his enigmatic meeting with the schoolboys in the fewest words possible. Lise clasped her hands at his story. 'How can you, and in that dress too, associate with schoolboys? she cried angrily, as though she had a right to control him. 'You are nothing but a boy yourself if you can do that, a perfect boy! But you must find out for me about that horrid boy and tell me all about it, for there's some mystery in it. Now for the second thing, but first a question does the pain prevent you talking about utterly unimportant things, but talking sensibly? 'Of course not, and I don't feel much pain now. 'That's because your finger is in the water. It must be changed directly, for it will get warm in a minute. Yulia, bring some ice from the cellar and another basin of water. Now she is gone, I can speak will you give me the letter I sent you yesterday, dear Alexey Fyodorovitchbe quick, for mamma will be back in a minute and I don't want 'I haven't got the letter. 'That's not true, you have. I knew you would say that. You've got it in that pocket. I've been regretting that joke all night. Give me back the letter at once, give it me. 'I've left it at home. 'But you can't consider me as a child, a little girl, after that silly joke! I beg your pardon for that silliness, but you must bring me the letter, if you really haven't got itbring it today, you must, you must. 'Today I can't possibly, for I am going back to the monastery and I shan't come and see you for the next two daysthree or four perhapsfor Father Zossima 'Four days, what nonsense! Listen. Did you laugh at me very much? 'I didn't laugh at all. 'Why not? 'Because I believed all you said. 'You are insulting me! 'Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought that all that would come to pass, for as soon as Father Zossima dies, I am to leave the monastery. Then I shall go back and finish my studies, and when you reach the legal age we will be married. I shall love you. Though I haven't had time to think about it, I believe I couldn't find a better wife than you, and Father Zossima tells me I must marry. 'But I am a cripple, wheeled about in a chair, laughed Lise, flushing crimson. 'I'll wheel you about myself, but I'm sure you'll get well by then. 'But you are mad, said Lise, nervously, 'to make all this nonsense out of a joke! Here's mamma, very  propos, perhaps. Mamma, how slow you always are, how can you be so long! And here's Yulia with the ice! 'Oh, Lise, don't scream, above all things don't scream. That scream drives me ... How can I help it when you put the lint in another place? I've been hunting and huntingI do believe you did it on purpose. 'But I couldn't tell that he would come with a bad finger, or else perhaps I might have done it on purpose. My darling mamma, you begin to say really witty things. 'Never mind my being witty, but I must say you show nice feeling for Alexey Fyodorovitch's sufferings! Oh, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, what's killing me is no one thing in particular, not Herzenstube, but everything together, that's what is too much for me. 'That's enough, mamma, enough about Herzenstube, Lise laughed gayly. 'Make haste with the lint and the lotion, mamma. That's simply Goulard's water, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I remember the name now, but it's a splendid lotion. Would you believe it, mamma, on the way here he had a fight with the boys in the street, and it was a boy bit his finger, isn't he a child, a child himself? Is he fit to be married after that? For only fancy, he wants to be married, mamma. Just think of him married, wouldn't it be funny, wouldn't it be awful? And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, looking slyly at Alyosha. 'But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a thing? It's quite out of placeand perhaps the boy was rabid. 'Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys! 'Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! Your boy might have been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite any one near him. How well she has bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch! I couldn't have done it. Do you still feel the pain? 'It's nothing much now. 'You don't feel afraid of water? asked Lise. 'Come, that's enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather too quick talking of the boy being rabid, and you pounced upon it at once Katerina Ivanovna has only just heard that you are here, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she simply rushed at me, she's dying to see you, dying! 'Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can't go just now, he is in too much pain. 'Not at all, I can go quite well, said Alyosha. 'What! You are going away? Is that what you say? 'Well, when I've seen them, I'll come back here and we can talk as much as you like. But I should like to see Katerina Ivanovna at once, for I am very anxious to be back at the monastery as soon as I can. 'Mamma, take him away quickly. Alexey Fyodorovitch, don't trouble to come and see me afterwards, but go straight back to your monastery and a good riddance. I want to sleep, I didn't sleep all night. 'Ah, Lise, you are only making fun, but how I wish you would sleep! cried Madame Hohlakov. 'I don't know what I've done.... I'll stay another three minutes, five if you like, muttered Alyosha. 'Even five! Do take him away quickly, mamma, he is a monster. 'Lise, you are crazy. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is too capricious today. I am afraid to cross her. Oh, the trouble one has with nervous girls! Perhaps she really will be able to sleep after seeing you. How quickly you have made her sleepy, and how fortunate it is! 'Ah, mamma, how sweetly you talk! I must kiss you for it, mamma. 'And I kiss you too, Lise. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, Madame Hohlakov began mysteriously and importantly, speaking in a rapid whisper. 'I don't want to suggest anything, I don't want to lift the veil, you will see for yourself what's going on. It's appalling. It's the most fantastic farce. She loves your brother, Ivan, and she is doing her utmost to persuade herself she loves your brother, Dmitri. It's appalling! I'll go in with you, and if they don't turn me out, I'll stay to the end. But in the drawingroom the conversation was already over. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute. At the moment Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch stood up to take leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously. For this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing enigma which had for some time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding month it had been several times suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love with Katerina Ivanovna, and, what was more, that he meant 'to carry her off from Dmitri. Until quite lately the idea seemed to Alyosha monstrous, though it worried him extremely. He loved both his brothers, and dreaded such rivalry between them. Meantime, Dmitri had said outright on the previous day that he was glad that Ivan was his rival, and that it was a great assistance to him, Dmitri. In what way did it assist him? To marry Grushenka? But that Alyosha considered the worst thing possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had till the evening before implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had a steadfast and passionate love for Dmitri but he had only believed it till the evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was incapable of loving a man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and loved him just as he was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a passion. But during yesterday's scene with Grushenka another idea had struck him. The word 'lacerating, which Madame Hohlakov had just uttered, almost made him start, because half waking up towards daybreak that night he had cried out 'Laceration, laceration, probably applying it to his dream. He had been dreaming all night of the previous day's scene at Katerina Ivanovna's. Now Alyosha was impressed by Madame Hohlakov's blunt and persistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna was in love with Ivan, and only deceived herself through some sort of pose, from 'selflaceration, and tortured herself by her pretended love for Dmitri from some fancied duty of gratitude. 'Yes, he thought, 'perhaps the whole truth lies in those words. But in that case what was Ivan's position? Alyosha felt instinctively that a character like Katerina Ivanovna's must dominate, and she could only dominate some one like Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan. For Dmitri might at last submit to her domination 'to his own happiness (which was what Alyosha would have desired), but Ivanno, Ivan could not submit to her, and such submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha could not help believing that of Ivan. And now all these doubts and reflections flitted through his mind as he entered the drawingroom. Another idea, too, forced itself upon him 'What if she loved neither of themneither Ivan nor Dmitri? It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his own thoughts and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the last month. 'What do I know about love and women and how can I decide such questions? he thought reproachfully, after such doubts and surmises. And yet it was impossible not to think about it. He felt instinctively that this rivalry was of immense importance in his brothers' lives and that a great deal depended upon it. 'One reptile will devour the other, Ivan had pronounced the day before, speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So Ivan looked upon Dmitri as a reptile, and perhaps had long done so. Was it perhaps since he had known Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course, escaped Ivan unawares yesterday, but that only made it more important. If he felt like that, what chance was there of peace? Were there not, on the contrary, new grounds for hatred and hostility in their family? And with which of them was Alyosha to sympathize? And what was he to wish for each of them? He loved them both, but what could he desire for each in the midst of these conflicting interests? He might go quite astray in this maze, and Alyosha's heart could not endure uncertainty, because his love was always of an active character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved any one, he set to work at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he was aiming at he must know for certain what was best for each, and having ascertained this it was natural for him to help them both. But instead of a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty and perplexity on all sides. 'It was lacerating, as was said just now. But what could he understand even in this 'laceration? He did not understand the first word in this perplexing maze. Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to Ivan, who had already got up to go, 'A minute! Stay another minute! I want to hear the opinion of this person here whom I trust absolutely. Don't go away, she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She made Alyosha sit down beside her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by Ivan. 'You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, my dear friends, she began warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuine tears of suffering, and Alyosha's heart warmed to her at once. 'You, Alexey Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable scene, and saw what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he did. What he thought of me yesterday I don't know. I only know one thing, that if it were repeated today, this minute, I should express the same feelings again as yesterdaythe same feelings, the same words, the same actions. You remember my actions, Alexey Fyodorovitch you checked me in one of them ... (as she said that, she flushed and her eyes shone). 'I must tell you that I can't get over it. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I don't even know whether I still love him. I feel pity for him, and that is a poor sign of love. If I loved him, if I still loved him, perhaps I shouldn't be sorry for him now, but should hate him. Her voice quivered, and tears glittered on her eyelashes. Alyosha shuddered inwardly. 'That girl is truthful and sincere, he thought, 'and she does not love Dmitri any more. 'That's true, that's true, cried Madame Hohlakov. 'Wait, dear. I haven't told you the chief, the final decision I came to during the night. I feel that perhaps my decision is a terrible onefor me, but I foresee that nothing will induce me to change itnothing. It will be so all my life. My dear, kind, everfaithful and generous adviser, the one friend I have in the world, Ivan Fyodorovitch, with his deep insight into the heart, approves and commends my decision. He knows it. 'Yes, I approve of it, Ivan assented, in a subdued but firm voice. 'But I should like Alyosha, too (Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, forgive my calling you simply Alyosha), I should like Alexey Fyodorovitch, too, to tell me before my two friends whether I am right. I feel instinctively that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (for you are a dear brother to me), she said again ecstatically, taking his cold hand in her hot one, 'I foresee that your decision, your approval, will bring me peace, in spite of all my sufferings, for, after your words, I shall be calm and submitI feel that. 'I don't know what you are asking me, said Alyosha, flushing. 'I only know that I love you and at this moment wish for your happiness more than my own!... But I know nothing about such affairs, something impelled him to add hurriedly. 'In such affairs, Alexey Fyodorovitch, in such affairs, the chief thing is honor and duty and something higherI don't know whatbut higher perhaps even than duty. I am conscious of this irresistible feeling in my heart, and it compels me irresistibly. But it may all be put in two words. I've already decided, even if he marries thatcreature, she began solemnly, 'whom I never, never can forgive, even then I will not abandon him. Henceforward I will never, never abandon him! she cried, breaking into a sort of pale, hysterical ecstasy. 'Not that I would run after him continually, get in his way and worry him. Oh, no! I will go away to another townwhere you likebut I will watch over him all my lifeI will watch over him all my life unceasingly. When he becomes unhappy with that woman, and that is bound to happen quite soon, let him come to me and he will find a friend, a sister.... Only a sister, of course, and so for ever but he will learn at least that that sister is really his sister, who loves him and has sacrificed all her life to him. I will gain my point. I will insist on his knowing me and confiding entirely in me, without reserve, she cried, in a sort of frenzy. 'I will be a god to whom he can prayand that, at least, he owes me for his treachery and for what I suffered yesterday through him. And let him see that all my life I will be true to him and the promise I gave him, in spite of his being untrue and betraying me. I willI will become nothing but a means for his happiness, orhow shall I say?an instrument, a machine for his happiness, and that for my whole life, my whole life, and that he may see that all his life! That's my decision. Ivan Fyodorovitch fully approves me. She was breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea with more dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried and crude. It was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she was still smarting from yesterday's insult, and that her pride craved satisfaction. She felt this herself. Her face suddenly darkened, an unpleasant look came into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw it and felt a pang of sympathy. His brother Ivan made it worse by adding 'I've only expressed my own view, he said. 'From any one else, this would have been affected and overstrained, but from youno. Any other woman would have been wrong, but you are right. I don't know how to explain it, but I see that you are absolutely genuine and, therefore, you are right. 'But that's only for the moment. And what does this moment stand for? Nothing but yesterday's insult. Madame Hohlakov obviously had not intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very just comment. 'Quite so, quite so, cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness, obviously annoyed at being interrupted, 'in any one else this moment would be only due to yesterday's impression and would be only a moment. But with Katerina Ivanovna's character, that moment will last all her life. What for any one else would be only a promise is for her an everlasting burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty. And she will be sustained by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled. Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will henceforth be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own suffering but in the end that suffering will be softened and will pass into sweet contemplation of the fulfillment of a bold and proud design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything else. This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously with intention even perhaps with no desire to conceal that he spoke ironically and with intention. 'Oh, dear, how mistaken it all is! Madame Hohlakov cried again. 'Alexey Fyodorovitch, you speak. I want dreadfully to know what you will say! cried Katerina Ivanovna, and burst into tears. Alyosha got up from the sofa. 'It's nothing, nothing! she went on through her tears. 'I'm upset, I didn't sleep last night. But by the side of two such friends as you and your brother I still feel strongfor I knowyou two will never desert me. 'Unluckily I am obliged to return to Moscowperhaps tomorrowand to leave you for a long timeAnd, unluckily, it's unavoidable, Ivan said suddenly. 'Tomorrowto Moscow! her face was suddenly contorted 'butbut, dear me, how fortunate! she cried in a voice suddenly changed. In one instant there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent an instantaneous transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a poor, insulted girl, weeping in a sort of 'laceration, he saw a woman completely self possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as though something agreeable had just happened. 'Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not, she corrected herself suddenly, with a charming society smile. 'Such a friend as you are could not suppose that. I am only too unhappy at losing you. She rushed impulsively at Ivan, and seizing both his hands, pressed them warmly. 'But what is fortunate is that you will be able in Moscow to see auntie and Agafya and to tell them all the horror of my present position. You can speak with complete openness to Agafya, but spare dear auntie. You will know how to do that. You can't think how wretched I was yesterday and this morning, wondering how I could write them that dreadful letterfor one can never tell such things in a letter.... Now it will be easy for me to write, for you will see them and explain everything. Oh, how glad I am! But I am only glad of that, believe me. Of course, no one can take your place.... I will run at once to write the letter, she finished suddenly, and took a step as though to go out of the room. 'And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so desperately anxious to hear? cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a sarcastic, angry note in her voice. 'I had not forgotten that, cried Katerina Ivanovna, coming to a sudden standstill, 'and why are you so antagonistic at such a moment? she added, with warm and bitter reproachfulness. 'What I said, I repeat. I must have his opinion. More than that, I must have his decision! As he says, so it shall be. You see how anxious I am for your words, Alexey Fyodorovitch.... But what's the matter? 'I couldn't have believed it. I can't understand it! Alyosha cried suddenly in distress. 'What? What? 'He is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You said that on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad of that but sorry to belosing a friend. But that was acting, tooyou were playing a partas in a theater! 'In a theater? What? What do you mean? exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna, profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning. 'Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him, you persist in telling him to his face that it's fortunate he is going, said Alyosha breathlessly. He was standing at the table and did not sit down. 'What are you talking about? I don't understand. 'I don't understand myself.... I seemed to see in a flash ... I know I am not saying it properly, but I'll say it all the same, Alyosha went on in the same shaking and broken voice. 'What I see is that perhaps you don't love Dmitri at all ... and never have, from the beginning.... And Dmitri, too, has never loved you ... and only esteems you.... I really don't know how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the truth ... for nobody here will tell the truth. 'What truth? cried Katerina Ivanovna, and there was an hysterical ring in her voice. 'I'll tell you, Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as though he were jumping from the top of a house. 'Call Dmitri I will fetch himand let him come here and take your hand and take Ivan's and join your hands. For you're torturing Ivan, simply because you love himand torturing him, because you love Dmitri through 'selflaceration'with an unreal lovebecause you've persuaded yourself. Alyosha broke off and was silent. 'You ... you ... you are a little religious idiotthat's what you are! Katerina Ivanovna snapped. Her face was white and her lips were moving with anger. Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand. 'You are mistaken, my good Alyosha, he said, with an expression Alyosha had never seen in his face beforean expression of youthful sincerity and strong, irresistibly frank feeling. 'Katerina Ivanovna has never cared for me! She has known all the time that I cared for herthough I never said a word of my love to hershe knew, but she didn't care for me. I have never been her friend either, not for one moment she is too proud to need my friendship. She kept me at her side as a means of revenge. She revenged with me and on me all the insults which she has been continually receiving from Dmitri ever since their first meeting. For even that first meeting has rankled in her heart as an insultthat's what her heart is like! She has talked to me of nothing but her love for him. I am going now but, believe me, Katerina Ivanovna, you really love him. And the more he insults you, the more you love himthat's your 'laceration.' You love him just as he is you love him for insulting you. If he reformed, you'd give him up at once and cease to love him. But you need him so as to contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for infidelity. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there's a great deal of humiliation and selfabasement about it, but it all comes from pride.... I am too young and I've loved you too much. I know that I ought not to say this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to leave you, and it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall never come back.... It is for ever. I don't want to sit beside a 'laceration.'... But I don't know how to speak now. I've said everything.... Goodby, Katerina Ivanovna you can't be angry with me, for I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again. Goodby! I don't want your hand. You have tortured me too deliberately for me to be able to forgive you at this moment. I shall forgive you later, but now I don't want your hand. 'Den Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,'  he added, with a forced smile, showing, however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by heartwhich Alyosha would never have believed. He went out of the room without saying goodby even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha clasped his hands. 'Ivan! he cried desperately after him. 'Come back, Ivan! No, nothing will induce him to come back now! he cried again, regretfully realizing it 'but it's my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spoke angrily, wrongly. Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, come back, Alyosha kept exclaiming frantically. Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room. 'You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel, Madame Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. 'I will do my utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going. Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, but Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundredrouble notes in her hand. 'I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she began, addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as though nothing had happened. 'A weekyes, I think it was a week agoDmitri Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust actiona very ugly action. There is a low tavern here, and in it he met that discharged officer, that captain, whom your father used to employ in some business. Dmitri Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with this captain, seized him by the beard and dragged him out into the street and for some distance along it, in that insulting fashion. And I am told that his son, a boy, quite a child, who is at the school here, saw it and ran beside them crying and begging for his father, appealing to every one to defend him, while every one laughed. You must forgive me, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think without indignation of that disgraceful action of his ... one of those actions of which only Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger ... and in his passions! I can't describe it even.... I can't find my words. I've made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor man. His name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was discharged. I can't tell you what. And now he has sunk into terrible destitution, with his familyan unhappy family of sick children, and, I believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time he used to work as a copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought if you ... that is I thought ... I don't know. I am so confused. You see, I wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some excuse to go to themI mean to that captainoh, goodness, how badly I explain it!and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to (Alyosha blushed), 'manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles. He will be sure to take it.... I mean, persuade him to take it.... Or, rather, what do I mean? You see it's not by way of compensation to prevent him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch's betrothed, not from himself.... But you know.... I would go myself, but you'll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov.... For God's sake, Alexey Fyodorovitch, do it for me, and now ... now I am rather ... tired. Good by! She turned and disappeared behind the portire so quickly that Alyosha had not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him again as before. 'She is proud, she is struggling with herself but kind, charming, generous, she exclaimed, in a halfwhisper. 'Oh, how I love her, especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, you didn't know, but I must tell you, that we all, allboth her aunts, I and all of us, Lise, evenhave been hoping and praying for nothing for the last month but that she may give up your favorite Dmitri, who takes no notice of her and does not care for her, and may marry Ivan Fyodorovitchsuch an excellent and cultivated young man, who loves her more than anything in the world. We are in a regular plot to bring it about, and I am even staying on here perhaps on that account. 'But she has been cryingshe has been wounded again, cried Alyosha. 'Never trust a woman's tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for the women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men. 'Mamma, you are spoiling him, Lise's little voice cried from behind the door. 'No, it was all my fault. I am horribly to blame, Alyosha repeated unconsoled, hiding his face in his hands in an agony of remorse for his indiscretion. 'Quite the contrary you behaved like an angel, like an angel. I am ready to say so a thousand times over. 'Mamma, how has he behaved like an angel? Lise's voice was heard again. 'I somehow fancied all at once, Alyosha went on as though he had not heard Lise, 'that she loved Ivan, and so I said that stupid thing.... What will happen now? 'To whom, to whom? cried Lise. 'Mamma, you really want to be the death of me. I ask you and you don't answer. At the moment the maid ran in. 'Katerina Ivanovna is ill.... She is crying, struggling ... hysterics. 'What is the matter? cried Lise, in a tone of real anxiety. 'Mamma, I shall be having hysterics, and not she! 'Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream, don't persecute me. At your age one can't know everything that grownup people know. I'll come and tell you everything you ought to know. Oh, mercy on us! I am coming, I am coming.... Hysterics is a good sign, Alexey Fyodorovitch it's an excellent thing that she is hysterical. That's just as it ought to be. In such cases I am always against the woman, against all these feminine tears and hysterics. Run and say, Yulia, that I'll fly to her. As for Ivan Fyodorovitch's going away like that, it's her own fault. But he won't go away. Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream! Oh, yes you are not screaming. It's I am screaming. Forgive your mamma but I am delighted, delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how young, how young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out, when he said all that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a savant, and all of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and youthfully, with such youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine, like you.... And the way he repeated that German verse, it was just like you! But I must fly, I must fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make haste to carry out her commission, and then make haste back. Lise, do you want anything now? For mercy's sake, don't keep Alexey Fyodorovitch a minute. He will come back to you at once. Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would have opened the door to see Lise. 'On no account, cried Lise. 'On no account now. Speak through the door. How have you come to be an angel? That's the only thing I want to know. 'For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Goodby! 'Don't dare to go away like that! Lise was beginning. 'Lise, I have a real sorrow! I'll be back directly, but I have a great, great sorrow! And he ran out of the room. He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He had rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a loveaffair. 'But what do I know about it? What can I tell about such things? he repeated to himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. 'Oh, being ashamed would be nothing shame is only the punishment I deserve. The trouble is I shall certainly have caused more unhappiness.... And Father Zossima sent me to reconcile and bring them together. Is this the way to bring them together? Then he suddenly remembered how he had tried to join their hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again. 'Though I acted quite sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future, he concluded suddenly, and did not even smile at his conclusion. Katerina Ivanovna's commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow. Time was passing the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for one minute from the time he set off from the monastery. There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerina Ivanovna's commission when she had mentioned the captain's son, the little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had at once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten his finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. Now Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have said why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to think no more about the 'mischief he had done, and not to torture himself with remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At that thought he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitri lodged, he felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he had brought from his father's, he ate it. It made him feel stronger. Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinetmaker, his son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha. 'He hasn't slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gone away, the old man said in answer to Alyosha's persistent inquiries. Alyosha saw that he was answering in accordance with instructions. When he asked whether he were not at Grushenka's or in hiding at Foma's (Alyosha spoke so freely on purpose), all three looked at him in alarm. 'They are fond of him, they are doing their best for him, thought Alyosha. 'That's good. At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit little house, sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street, and with a muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He crossed the yard and found the door opening into the passage. On the left of the passage lived the old woman of the house with her old daughter. Both seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain, one of them at last understood that he was asking for their lodgers, and pointed to a door across the passage. The captain's lodging turned out to be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open the door, when he was struck by the strange hush within. Yet he knew from Katerina Ivanovna's words that the man had a family. 'Either they are all asleep or perhaps they have heard me coming and are waiting for me to open the door. I'd better knock first, and he knocked. An answer came, but not at once, after an interval of perhaps ten seconds. 'Who's there? shouted some one in a loud and very angry voice. Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He found himself in a regular peasant's room. Though it was large, it was cumbered up with domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were several people in it. On the left was a large Russian stove. From the stove to the window on the left was a string running across the room, and on it there were rags hanging. There was a bedstead against the wall on each side, right and left, covered with knitted quilts. On the one on the left was a pyramid of four printcovered pillows, each smaller than the one beneath. On the other there was only one very small pillow. The opposite corner was screened off by a curtain or a sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain could be seen a bed made up on a bench and a chair. The rough square table of plain wood had been moved into the middle window. The three windows, which consisted each of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little light, and were close shut, so that the room was not very light and rather stuffy. On the table was a fryingpan with the remains of some fried eggs, a halfeaten piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops of vodka. A woman of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on a chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and her sunken cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But what struck Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman's eyesa look of surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while he was talking to her husband, her big brown eyes moved from one speaker to the other with the same haughty and questioning expression. Beside her at the window stood a young girl, rather plain, with scanty reddish hair, poorly but very neatly dressed. She looked disdainfully at Alyosha as he came in. Beside the other bed was sitting another female figure. She was a very sad sight, a young girl of about twenty, but hunchback and crippled 'with withered legs, as Alyosha was told afterwards. Her crutches stood in the corner close by. The strikingly beautiful and gentle eyes of this poor girl looked with mild serenity at Alyosha. A man of fortyfive was sitting at the table, finishing the fried eggs. He was spare, small and weakly built. He had reddish hair and a scanty lightcolored beard, very much like a wisp of tow (this comparison and the phrase 'a wisp of tow flashed at once into Alyosha's mind for some reason, he remembered it afterwards). It was obviously this gentleman who had shouted to him, as there was no other man in the room. But when Alyosha went in, he leapt up from the bench on which he was sitting, and, hastily wiping his mouth with a ragged napkin, darted up to Alyosha. 'It's a monk come to beg for the monastery. A nice place to come to! the girl standing in the left corner said aloud. The man spun round instantly towards her and answered her in an excited and breaking voice 'No, Varvara, you are wrong. Allow me to ask, he turned again to Alyosha, 'what has brought you toour retreat? Alyosha looked attentively at him. It was the first time he had seen him. There was something angular, flurried and irritable about him. Though he had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk. There was extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange to say, at the same time there was fear. He looked like a man who had long been kept in subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly turned and was trying to assert himself. Or, better still, like a man who wants dreadfully to hit you but is horribly afraid you will hit him. In his words and in the intonation of his shrill voice there was a sort of crazy humor, at times spiteful and at times cringing, and continually shifting from one tone to another. The question about 'our retreat he had asked as it were quivering all over, rolling his eyes, and skipping up so close to Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step. He was dressed in a very shabby dark cotton coat, patched and spotted. He wore checked trousers of an extremely light color, long out of fashion, and of very thin material. They were so crumpled and so short that he looked as though he had grown out of them like a boy. 'I am Alexey Karamazov, Alyosha began in reply. 'I quite understand that, sir, the gentleman snapped out at once to assure him that he knew who he was already. 'I am Captain Snegiryov, sir, but I am still desirous to know precisely what has led you 'Oh, I've come for nothing special. I wanted to have a word with youif only you allow me. 'In that case, here is a chair, sir kindly be seated. That's what they used to say in the old comedies, 'kindly be seated,'  and with a rapid gesture he seized an empty chair (it was a rough wooden chair, not upholstered) and set it for him almost in the middle of the room then, taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha, so close to him that their knees almost touched. 'Nikolay Ilyitch Snegiryov, sir, formerly a captain in the Russian infantry, put to shame for his vices, but still a captain. Though I might not be one now for the way I talk for the last half of my life I've learnt to say 'sir.' It's a word you use when you've come down in the world. 'That's very true, smiled Alyosha. 'But is it used involuntarily or on purpose? 'As God's above, it's involuntary, and I usen't to use it! I didn't use the word 'sir' all my life, but as soon as I sank into low water I began to say 'sir.' It's the work of a higher power. I see you are interested in contemporary questions, but how can I have excited your curiosity, living as I do in surroundings impossible for the exercise of hospitality? 'I've comeabout that business. 'About what business? the captain interrupted impatiently. 'About your meeting with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch, Alyosha blurted out awkwardly. 'What meeting, sir? You don't mean that meeting? About my 'wisp of tow,' then? He moved closer so that his knees positively knocked against Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread. 'What wisp of tow? muttered Alyosha. 'He is come to complain of me, father! cried a voice familiar to Alyoshathe voice of the schoolboyfrom behind the curtain. 'I bit his finger just now. The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw his assailant lying on a little bed made up on the bench and the chair in the corner under the ikons. The boy lay covered by his coat and an old wadded quilt. He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glittering eyes, he was in a fever. He looked at Alyosha without fear, as though he felt he was at home and could not be touched. 'What! Did he bite your finger? The captain jumped up from his chair. 'Was it your finger he bit? 'Yes. He was throwing stones with other schoolboys. There were six of them against him alone. I went up to him, and he threw a stone at me and then another at my head. I asked him what I had done to him. And then he rushed at me and bit my finger badly, I don't know why. 'I'll thrash him, sir, at oncethis minute! The captain jumped up from his seat. 'But I am not complaining at all, I am simply telling you ... I don't want him to be thrashed. Besides, he seems to be ill. 'And do you suppose I'd thrash him? That I'd take my Ilusha and thrash him before you for your satisfaction? Would you like it done at once, sir? said the captain, suddenly turning to Alyosha, as though he were going to attack him. 'I am sorry about your finger, sir but instead of thrashing Ilusha, would you like me to chop off my four fingers with this knife here before your eyes to satisfy your just wrath? I should think four fingers would be enough to satisfy your thirst for vengeance. You won't ask for the fifth one too? He stopped short with a catch in his throat. Every feature in his face was twitching and working he looked extremely defiant. He was in a sort of frenzy. 'I think I understand it all now, said Alyosha gently and sorrowfully, still keeping his seat. 'So your boy is a good boy, he loves his father, and he attacked me as the brother of your assailant.... Now I understand it, he repeated thoughtfully. 'But my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch regrets his action, I know that, and if only it is possible for him to come to you, or better still, to meet you in that same place, he will ask your forgiveness before every oneif you wish it. 'After pulling out my beard, you mean, he will ask my forgiveness? And he thinks that will be a satisfactory finish, doesn't he? 'Oh, no! On the contrary, he will do anything you like and in any way you like. 'So if I were to ask his highness to go down on his knees before me in that very tavern'The Metropolis' it's calledor in the marketplace, he would do it? 'Yes, he would even go down on his knees. 'You've pierced me to the heart, sir. Touched me to tears and pierced me to the heart! I am only too sensible of your brother's generosity. Allow me to introduce my family, my two daughters and my sonmy litter. If I die, who will care for them, and while I live who but they will care for a wretch like me? That's a great thing the Lord has ordained for every man of my sort, sir. For there must be some one able to love even a man like me. 'Ah, that's perfectly true! exclaimed Alyosha. 'Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put us to shame! cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her father with a disdainful and contemptuous air. 'Wait a little, Varvara! cried her father, speaking peremptorily but looking at her quite approvingly. 'That's her character, he said, addressing Alyosha again. 'And in all nature there was naught That could find favor in his eyes or rather in the feminine that could find favor in her eyes. But now let me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled, she is forty three she can move, but very little. She is of humble origin. Arina Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov. Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch. He took him by the hand and with unexpected force pulled him up. 'You must stand up to be introduced to a lady. It's not the Karamazov, mamma, who ... h'm ... etcetera, but his brother, radiant with modest virtues. Come, Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your hand to be kissed. And he kissed his wife's hand respectfully and even tenderly. The girl at the window turned her back indignantly on the scene an expression of extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face of the woman. 'Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov, she said. 'Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin, he whispered again. 'Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think of Tchernomazov.... Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls me crippled, but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I am shriveled up myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it's as though I had swallowed a needle. 'We are of humble origin, the captain muttered again. 'Oh, father, father! the hunchback girl, who had till then been silent on her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her handkerchief. 'Buffoon! blurted out the girl at the window. 'Have you heard our news? said the mother, pointing at her daughters. 'It's like clouds coming over the clouds pass and we have music again. When we were with the army, we used to have many such guests. I don't mean to make any comparisons every one to their taste. The deacon's wife used to come then and say, 'Alexandr Alexandrovitch is a man of the noblest heart, but Nastasya Petrovna,' she would say, 'is of the brood of hell.' 'Well,' I said, 'that's a matter of taste but you are a little spitfire.' 'And you want keeping in your place,' says she. 'You black sword,' said I, 'who asked you to teach me?' 'But my breath,' says she, 'is clean, and yours is unclean.' 'You ask all the officers whether my breath is unclean.' And ever since then I had it in my mind. Not long ago I was sitting here as I am now, when I saw that very general come in who came here for Easter, and I asked him 'Your Excellency,' said I, 'can a lady's breath be unpleasant?' 'Yes,' he answered 'you ought to open a window pane or open the door, for the air is not fresh here.' And they all go on like that! And what is my breath to them? The dead smell worse still! 'I won't spoil the air,' said I, 'I'll order some slippers and go away.' My darlings, don't blame your own mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is it I can't please you? There's only Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me. Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive your own motherforgive a poor lonely creature! Why has my breath become unpleasant to you? And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down her cheeks. The captain rushed up to her. 'Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Every one loves you, every one adores you. He began kissing both her hands again and tenderly stroking her face taking the dinnernapkin, he began wiping away her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. 'There, you see, you hear? he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the poor imbecile. 'I see and hear, muttered Alyosha. 'Father, father, how can youwith him! Let him alone! cried the boy, sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes. 'Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to anything! shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion. 'Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I'll make haste to satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll put on mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina I forgot to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate ... who has flown down to us mortals,... if you can understand. 'There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions! Varvara went on indignantly. 'And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so. Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end. And, snatching Alyosha's hand, he drew him out of the room into the street. 'The air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest. 'I too have something important to say to you, observed Alyosha, 'only I don't know how to begin. 'To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of the boy, and that's hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy I could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you. My tow was thicker a week agoI mean my beard. That's the nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I'd done nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the tavern into the marketplace at that moment the boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he rushed up to me. 'Father,' he cried, 'father!' He caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, 'Let go, let go, it's my father, forgive him!'yes, he actually cried 'forgive him.' He clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed it.... I remember his little face at that moment, I haven't forgotten it and I never shall! 'I swear, cried Alyosha, 'that my brother will express his most deep and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same marketplace.... I'll make him or he is no brother of mine! 'Aha, then it's only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother's highly chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me 'You are an officer,' he said, 'and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though you are a scoundrel.' That's what he said. A chivalrous spirit indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted for ever on Ilusha's soul. No, it's not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You've just been in our mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one a cripple and weakminded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student, dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the Russian woman on the banks of the Neva. I won't speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still, if he doesn't kill me but only cripples me I couldn't work, but I should still be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets? That's what it means for me to challenge him to a duel. It's silly talk and nothing else. 'He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle of the marketplace, cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes. 'I did think of prosecuting him, the captain went on, 'but look in our code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then Agrafena Alexandrovna sent for me and shouted at me 'Don't dare to dream of it! If you proceed against him, I'll publish it to all the world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be prosecuted.' I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by whose commands I acted, wasn't it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch's? 'And what's more,' she went on, 'I'll dismiss you for good and you'll never earn another penny from me. I'll speak to my merchant too' (that's what she calls her old man) 'and he will dismiss you!' And if he dismisses me, what can I earn then from any one? Those two are all I have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over employing me, for another reason, but he means to make use of papers I've signed to go to law against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now let me ask you did Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn't like to go into it in our mansion before him. 'Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was throwing stones at his schoolfellows! It's very dangerous. They might kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break somebody's head. 'That's just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone today. Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home crying and groaning and now he is ill. 'And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a penknife not long ago. 'I've heard about that too, it's dangerous. Krassotkin is an official here, we may hear more about it. 'I would advise you, Alyosha went on warmly, 'not to send him to school at all for a time till he is calmer ... and his anger is passed. 'Anger! the captain repeated, 'that's just what it is. He is a little creature, but it's a mighty anger. You don't know all, sir. Let me tell you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about the 'wisp of tow.' Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless. Their teasing has stirred up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother's hand and cried to him 'Forgive father, forgive him,'that only God knowsand I, his father. For our childrennot your children, but oursthe children of the poor gentlemen looked down upon by every oneknow what justice means, sir, even at nine years old. How should the rich know? They don't explore such depths once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he kissed his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice means. That truth entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir, the captain said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right fist against his left palm as though he wanted to show how 'the truth crushed Ilusha. 'That very day, sir, he fell ill with fever and was delirious all night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but I noticed he kept watching me from the corner, though he turned to the window and pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see his mind was not on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget my troubles, sinful man as I am, and I don't remember much. Mamma began crying, tooI am very fond of mammawell, I spent my last penny drowning my troubles. Don't despise me for that, sir, in Russia men who drink are the best. The best men amongst us are the greatest drunkards. I lay down and I don't remember about Ilusha, though all that day the boys had been jeering at him at school. 'Wisp of tow,' they shouted, 'your father was pulled out of the tavern by his wisp of tow, you ran by and begged forgiveness.'  'On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pale and wretched. 'What is it?' I asked. He wouldn't answer. Well, there's no talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part in it. What's more, the girls had heard about it the very first day. Varvara had begun snarling. 'You fools and buffoons, can you ever do anything rational?' 'Quite so,' I said, 'can we ever do anything rational?' For the time I turned it off like that. So in the evening I took the boy out for a walk, for you must know we go for a walk every evening, always the same way, along which we are going nowfrom our gate to that great stone which lies alone in the road under the hurdle, which marks the beginning of the town pasture. A beautiful and lonely spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along hand in hand as usual. He has a little hand, his fingers are thin and coldhe suffers with his chest, you know. 'Father,' said he, 'father!' 'Well?' said I. I saw his eyes flashing. 'Father, how he treated you then!' 'It can't be helped, Ilusha,' I said. 'Don't forgive him, father, don't forgive him! At school they say that he has paid you ten roubles for it.' 'No, Ilusha,' said I, 'I would not take money from him for anything.' Then he began trembling all over, took my hand in both his and kissed it again. 'Father,' he said, 'father, challenge him to a duel, at school they say you are a coward and won't challenge him, and that you'll accept ten roubles from him.' 'I can't challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,' I answered. And I told briefly what I've just told you. He listened. 'Father,' he said, 'anyway don't forgive it. When I grow up I'll call him out myself and kill him.' His eyes shone and glowed. And of course I am his father, and I had to put in a word 'It's a sin to kill,' I said, 'even in a duel.' 'Father,' he said, 'when I grow up, I'll knock him down, knock the sword out of his hand, I'll fall on him, wave my sword over him and say 'I could kill you, but I forgive you, so there! ' You see what the workings of his little mind have been during these two days he must have been planning that vengeance all day, and raving about it at night. 'But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out about it the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won't send him to that school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all the class alone and defying them all, that his heart was full of resentment, of bitternessI was alarmed about him. We went for another walk. 'Father,' he asked, 'are the rich people stronger than any one else on earth?' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said, 'there are no people on earth stronger than the rich.' 'Father,' he said, 'I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer everybody. The Tsar will reward me, I will come back here and then no one will dare' Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling. 'Father,' he said, 'what a horrid town this is.' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said, 'it isn't a very nice town.' 'Father, let us move into another town, a nice one,' he said, 'where people don't know about us.' 'We will move, we will, Ilusha,' said I, 'only I must save up for it.' I was glad to be able to turn his mind from painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we would move to another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. 'We will put mamma and your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we'll walk, you shall have a lift now and then, and I'll walk beside, for we must take care of our horse, we can't all ride. That's how we'll go.' He was enchanted at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and driving him. For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We chattered a long while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and comforted him. 'That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and we went for a walk he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn twilight was coming on. We walked along, both of us depressed. 'Well, my boy,' said I, 'how about our setting off on our travels?' I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day before. He didn't answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it's a bad job there's something fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in sight. Of course, it's just the season for the kites. 'Look, Ilusha,' said I, 'it's time we got out our last year's kite again. I'll mend it, where have you put it away?' My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against me as I sat on the stone. 'Father,' he kept crying, 'dear father, how he insulted you!' And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other's arms. 'Ilusha,' I said to him, 'Ilusha darling.' No one saw us then. God alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won't thrash my boy for your satisfaction. He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been some one else in his, Alyosha's place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears. 'Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy! he cried. 'If you could arrange it 'Certainly, sir, muttered the captain. 'But now listen to something quite different! Alyosha went on. 'I have a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his betrothed, too, a noblehearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I have a right to tell you of her wrong I ought to do so, in fact, for hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate position, she commissioned me at oncejust nowto bring you this help from herbut only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from any one else, but from her, only from her! She entreats you to accept her help.... You have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar insult from himsimilar in its cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to help a brother in misfortune.... She told me to persuade you to take these two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in such need. No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander. There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them unlessunless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there are brothers even on earth.... You have a generous heart ... you must see that, you must, and Alyosha held out two new rainbowcolored hundredrouble notes. They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence, and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from any oneand such a sum! He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite a new expression came into his face. 'That for me? So much moneytwo hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I haven't seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And she says she is a sister.... And is that the truth? 'I swear that all I told you is the truth, cried Alyosha. The captain flushed red. 'Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan't be behaving like a scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan't be a scoundrel? No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen, he hurried, touching Alyosha with both his hands. 'You are persuading me to take it, saying that it's a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won't you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh? 'No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan't! And no one will ever know but meI, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend. 'Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like this you must listen, for you can't understand what these two hundred roubles mean to me now. The poor fellow went on rising gradually into a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off his balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be allowed to say all he had to say. 'Besides its being honestly acquired from a 'sister,' so highly respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. 'I can make nothing of it,' said he, but he prescribed a mineral water which is kept at a chemist's here. He said it would be sure to do her good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. The mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she'd need to drink forty bottles perhaps so I took the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the ikons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nina with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how can we carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is rheumatic all over, I don't think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she'll only take the leavings, what you'd scarcely give to a dog. 'I am not worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,' that's what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn't like it. 'I am a useless cripple, no good to any one.' As though she were not worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness. Without her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She softens even Varvara. And don't judge Varvara harshly either, she is an angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer, and she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took her money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Though indeed she couldn't go back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy beef, I can feed them properly. Good Lord, but it's a dream! Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that the poor fellow had consented to be made happy. 'Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay, the captain began to talk with frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new daydream. 'Do you know that Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and we will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I were to go he'd give me a place as clerk in his office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I'd just put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I'd walk, I'd walk.... Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that's owing me, I should have perhaps enough for that too! 'There would be enough! cried Alyosha. 'Katerina Ivanovna will send you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it back later.... (You'll get rich, you'll get rich!) And you know you couldn't have a better idea than to move to another province! It would be the saving of you, especially of your boyand you ought to go quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when you are there, and we will always be brothers.... No, it's not a dream! Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were moving as though trying to articulate something no sound came, but still his lips moved. It was uncanny. 'What is it? asked Alyosha, startled. 'Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you, muttered the captain, faltering, looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his lips. 'I ... you, sir ... wouldn't you like me to show you a little trick I know? he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his voice no longer faltering. 'What trick? 'A pretty trick, whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha. 'What is the matter? What trick? Alyosha cried, now thoroughly alarmed. 'Why, look, squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and squeezed them tight in his right hand. 'Do you see, do you see? he shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he threw the crumpled notes on the sand. 'Do you see? he shrieked again, pointing to them. 'Look there! And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and exclaiming as he did so 'So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money! Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his whole figure expressed unutterable pride. 'Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honor, he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and began to run but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and then turned round for the last time. This time his face was not contorted with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful, faltering, sobbing voice he cried 'What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame? And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him, inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him and call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had been pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like new ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothing them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her commission. Madame Hohlakov was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was flustered something important had happened. Katerina Ivanovna's hysterics had ended in a fainting fit, and then 'a terrible, awful weakness had followed, she lay with her eyes turned up and was delirious. Now she was in a fever. They had sent for Herzenstube they had sent for the aunts. The aunts were already here, but Herzenstube had not yet come. They were all sitting in her room, waiting. She was unconscious now, and what if it turned to brain fever! Madame Hohlakov looked gravely alarmed. 'This is serious, serious, she added at every word, as though nothing that had happened to her before had been serious. Alyosha listened with distress, and was beginning to describe his adventures, but she interrupted him at the first words. She had not time to listen. She begged him to sit with Lise and wait for her there. 'Lise, she whispered almost in his ear, 'Lise has greatly surprised me just now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch. She touched me, too, and so my heart forgives her everything. Only fancy, as soon as you had gone, she began to be truly remorseful for having laughed at you today and yesterday, though she was not laughing at you, but only joking. But she was seriously sorry for it, almost ready to cry, so that I was quite surprised. She has never been really sorry for laughing at me, but has only made a joke of it. And you know she is laughing at me every minute. But this time she was in earnest. She thinks a great deal of your opinion, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and don't take offense or be wounded by her if you can help it. I am never hard upon her, for she's such a clever little thing. Would you believe it? She said just now that you were a friend of her childhood, 'the greatest friend of her childhood'just think of that'greatest friend'and what about me? She has very strong feelings and memories, and, what's more, she uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which come out all of a sudden when you least expect them. She spoke lately about a pinetree, for instance there used to be a pinetree standing in our garden in her early childhood. Very likely it's standing there still so there's no need to speak in the past tense. Pinetrees are not like people, Alexey Fyodorovitch, they don't change quickly. 'Mamma,' she said, 'I remember this pinetree as in a dream,' only she said something so original about it that I can't repeat it. Besides, I've forgotten it. Well, goodby! I am so worried I feel I shall go out of my mind. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I've been out of my mind twice in my life. Go to Lise, cheer her up, as you always can so charmingly. Lise, she cried, going to her door, 'here I've brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom you insulted so. He is not at all angry, I assure you on the contrary, he is surprised that you could suppose so. 'Merci, maman. Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Alyosha went in. Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once flushed crimson. She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as people always do in such cases, she began immediately talking of other things, as though they were of absorbing interest to her at the moment. 'Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer ... and she told me all the awful story of how he had been insulted ... and you know, although mamma muddles things ... she always rushes from one thing to another ... I cried when I heard. Well, did you give him the money and how is that poor man getting on? 'The fact is I didn't give it to him, and it's a long story, answered Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his regret at having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, looked away, and that he, too, was trying to talk of other things. Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but at the first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of Lise's attention as well. He spoke with deep feeling, under the influence of the strong impression he had just received, and he succeeded in telling his story well and circumstantially. In old days in Moscow he had been fond of coming to Lise and describing to her what had just happened to him, what he had read, or what he remembered of his childhood. Sometimes they had made daydreams and woven whole romances togethergenerally cheerful and amusing ones. Now they both felt suddenly transported to the old days in Moscow, two years before. Lise was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha described Ilusha with warm feeling. When he finished describing how the luckless man trampled on the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands and crying out 'So you didn't give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh, dear, you ought to have run after him! 'No, Lise it's better I didn't run after him, said Alyosha, getting up from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room. 'How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case is hopeless? 'Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them. He'll take the money tomorrow. Tomorrow he will be sure to take it, said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. 'You see, Lise, he went on, stopping suddenly before her, 'I made one blunder, but that, even that, is all for the best. 'What blunder, and why is it for the best? 'I'll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character he has suffered so much and is very goodnatured. I keep wondering why he took offense so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did not know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think now that there was a great deal to offend him ... and it could not have been otherwise in his position.... To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the money in my presence and not having concealed it from me. If he had been pleased, but not so much if he had not shown it if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take money, he might still endure to take it. But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful manthat's the worst of the whole business. All the while he talked, his voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a laugh, or perhaps he was cryingyes, I am sure he was crying, he was so delightedand he talked about his daughtersand about the situation he could get in another town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to hate me at once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. What had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing me he kept touching me with his hands. This must have been how he came to feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would give him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck him all at once. Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You know, Lise, it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were his benefactors.... I've heard that Father Zossima told me so. I don't know how to put it, but I have often seen it myself. And I feel like that myself, too. And the worst of it was that though he did not know, up to the very last minute, that he would trample on the notes, he had a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that. That's just what made him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment.... And though it's so dreadful, it's all for the best. In fact, I believe nothing better could have happened. 'Why, why could nothing better have happened? cried Lise, looking with great surprise at Alyosha. 'Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, he would be crying with mortification, that's just what would have happened. And most likely he would have come to me early tomorrow, and perhaps have flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he did just now. But now he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, though he knows he has 'ruined himself.' So now nothing could be easier than to make him accept the two hundred roubles by tomorrow, for he has already vindicated his honor, tossed away the money, and trampled it under foot.... He couldn't know when he did it that I should bring it to him again tomorrow, and yet he is in terrible need of that money. Though he is proud of himself now, yet even today he'll be thinking what a help he has lost. He will think of it more than ever at night, will dream of it, and by tomorrow morning he may be ready to run to me to ask forgiveness. It's just then that I'll appear. 'Here, you are a proud man,' I shall say 'you have shown it but now take the money and forgive us!' And then he will take it! Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, 'And then he will take it! Lise clapped her hands. 'Ah, that's true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha, how do you know all this? So young and yet he knows what's in the heart.... I should never have worked it out. 'The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing with us, in spite of his taking money from us, Alyosha went on in his excitement, 'and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing. ' 'On a higher footing' is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch but go on, go on! 'You mean there isn't such an expression as 'on a higher footing' but that doesn't matter because 'Oh, no, of course it doesn't matter. Forgive me, Alyosha, dear.... You know, I scarcely respected you till nowthat is I respected you but on an equal footing but now I shall begin to respect you on a higher footing. Don't be angry, dear, at my joking, she put in at once, with strong feeling. 'I am absurd and small, but you, you! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Isn't there in all our analysisI mean your analysis ... no, better call it oursaren't we showing contempt for him, for that poor manin analyzing his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh? In deciding so certainly that he will take the money? 'No, Lise, it's not contempt, Alyosha answered, as though he had prepared himself for the question. 'I was thinking of that on the way here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all just the same as he is? For you know we are just the same, no better. If we are better, we should have been just the same in his place.... I don't know about you, Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid soul in many ways, and his soul is not sordid on the contrary, full of fine feeling.... No, Lise, I have no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise, my elder told me once to care for most people exactly as one would for children, and for some of them as one would for the sick in hospitals. 'Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would for the sick! 'Let us, Lise I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in myself. I am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don't see things. It's different with you. 'Ah, I don't believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am! 'I am so glad you say so, Lise. 'Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are sometimes sort of formal.... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go to the door, open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening, said Lise, in a nervous, hurried whisper. Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was listening. 'Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch, Lise went on, flushing redder and redder. 'Give me your handthat's right. I have to make a great confession, I didn't write to you yesterday in joke, but in earnest, and she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that she was greatly ashamed of the confession. Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three times. 'Ah, Lise, what a good thing! cried Alyosha joyfully. 'You know, I was perfectly sure you were in earnest. 'Sure? Upon my word! She put aside his hand, but did not leave go of it, blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. 'I kiss his hand and he says, 'What a good thing!'  But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly overcome. 'I should like to please you always, Lise, but I don't know how to do it, he muttered, blushing too. 'Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen me as his wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest. What a thing to say! Why, that's impertinencethat's what it is. 'Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure? Alyosha asked, laughing suddenly. 'Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right, cried Lise, looking tenderly and happily at him. Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he stooped down and kissed her on her lips. 'Oh, what are you doing? cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly abashed. 'Oh, forgive me if I shouldn't.... Perhaps I'm awfully stupid.... You said I was cold, so I kissed you.... But I see it was stupid. Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. 'And in that dress! she ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly ceased laughing and became serious, almost stern. 'Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that yet, and we shall have a long time to wait, she ended suddenly. 'Tell me rather why you who are so clever, so intellectual, so observant, choose a little idiot, an invalid like me? Ah, Alyosha, I am awfully happy, for I don't deserve you a bit. 'You do, Lise. I shall be leaving the monastery altogether in a few days. If I go into the world, I must marry. I know that. He told me to marry, too. Whom could I marry better than youand who would have me except you? I have been thinking it over. In the first place, you've known me from a child and you've a great many qualities I haven't. You are more light hearted than I am above all, you are more innocent than I am. I have been brought into contact with many, many things already.... Ah, you don't know, but I, too, am a Karamazov. What does it matter if you do laugh and make jokes, and at me, too? Go on laughing. I am so glad you do. You laugh like a little child, but you think like a martyr. 'Like a martyr? How? 'Yes, Lise, your question just now whether we weren't showing contempt for that poor man by dissecting his soulthat was the question of a sufferer.... You see, I don't know how to express it, but any one who thinks of such questions is capable of suffering. Sitting in your invalid chair you must have thought over many things already. 'Alyosha, give me your hand. Why are you taking it away? murmured Lise in a failing voice, weak with happiness. 'Listen, Alyosha. What will you wear when you come out of the monastery? What sort of suit? Don't laugh, don't be angry, it's very, very important to me. 'I haven't thought about the suit, Lise but I'll wear whatever you like. 'I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white piqu waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat.... Tell me, did you believe that I didn't care for you when I said I didn't mean what I wrote? 'No, I didn't believe it. 'Oh, you insupportable person, you are incorrigible. 'You see, I knew that youseemed to care for me, but I pretended to believe that you didn't care for me to make iteasier for you. 'That makes it worse! Worse and better than all! Alyosha, I am awfully fond of you. Just before you came this morning, I tried my fortune. I decided I would ask you for my letter, and if you brought it out calmly and gave it to me (as might have been expected from you) it would mean that you did not love me at all, that you felt nothing, and were simply a stupid boy, good for nothing, and that I am ruined. But you left the letter at home and that cheered me. You left it behind on purpose, so as not to give it back, because you knew I would ask for it? That was it, wasn't it? 'Ah, Lise, it was not so a bit. The letter is with me now, and it was this morning, in this pocket. Here it is. Alyosha pulled the letter out laughing, and showed it her at a distance. 'But I am not going to give it to you. Look at it from here. 'Why, then you told a lie? You, a monk, told a lie! 'I told a lie if you like, Alyosha laughed, too. 'I told a lie so as not to give you back the letter. It's very precious to me, he added suddenly, with strong feeling, and again he flushed. 'It always will be, and I won't give it up to any one! Lise looked at him joyfully. 'Alyosha, she murmured again, 'look at the door. Isn't mamma listening? 'Very well, Lise, I'll look but wouldn't it be better not to look? Why suspect your mother of such meanness? 'What meanness? As for her spying on her daughter, it's her right, it's not meanness! cried Lise, firing up. 'You may be sure, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that when I am a mother, if I have a daughter like myself I shall certainly spy on her! 'Really, Lise? That's not right. 'Oh, my goodness! What has meanness to do with it? If she were listening to some ordinary worldly conversation, it would be meanness, but when her own daughter is shut up with a young man.... Listen, Alyosha, do you know I shall spy upon you as soon as we are married, and let me tell you I shall open all your letters and read them, so you may as well be prepared. 'Yes, of course, if so muttered Alyosha, 'only it's not right. 'Ah, how contemptuous! Alyosha, dear, we won't quarrel the very first day. I'd better tell you the whole truth. Of course, it's very wrong to spy on people, and, of course, I am not right and you are, only I shall spy on you all the same. 'Do, then you won't find out anything, laughed Alyosha. 'And, Alyosha, will you give in to me? We must decide that too. 'I shall be delighted to, Lise, and certain to, only not in the most important things. Even if you don't agree with me, I shall do my duty in the most important things. 'That's right but let me tell you I am ready to give in to you not only in the most important matters, but in everything. And I am ready to vow to do so nowin everything, and for all my life! cried Lise fervently, 'and I'll do it gladly, gladly! What's more, I'll swear never to spy on you, never once, never to read one of your letters. For you are right and I am not. And though I shall be awfully tempted to spy, I know that I won't do it since you consider it dishonorable. You are my conscience now.... Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, why have you been so sad latelyboth yesterday and today? I know you have a lot of anxiety and trouble, but I see you have some special grief besides, some secret one, perhaps? 'Yes, Lise, I have a secret one, too, answered Alyosha mournfully. 'I see you love me, since you guessed that. 'What grief? What about? Can you tell me? asked Lise with timid entreaty. 'I'll tell you later, Liseafterwards, said Alyosha, confused. 'Now you wouldn't understand it perhapsand perhaps I couldn't explain it. 'I know your brothers and your father are worrying you, too. 'Yes, my brothers too, murmured Alyosha, pondering. 'I don't like your brother Ivan, Alyosha, said Lise suddenly. He noticed this remark with some surprise, but did not answer it. 'My brothers are destroying themselves, he went on, 'my father, too. And they are destroying others with them. It's 'the primitive force of the Karamazovs,' as Father Passy said the other day, a crude, unbridled, earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force? Even that I don't know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov.... Me a monk, a monk! Am I a monk, Lise? You said just now that I was. 'Yes, I did. 'And perhaps I don't even believe in God. 'You don't believe? What is the matter? said Lise quietly and gently. But Alyosha did not answer. There was something too mysterious, too subjective in these last words of his, perhaps obscure to himself, but yet torturing him. 'And now on the top of it all, my friend, the best man in the world, is going, is leaving the earth! If you knew, Lise, how bound up in soul I am with him! And then I shall be left alone.... I shall come to you, Lise.... For the future we will be together. 'Yes, together, together! Henceforward we shall be always together, all our lives! Listen, kiss me, I allow you. Alyosha kissed her. 'Come, now go. Christ be with you! and she made the sign of the cross over him. 'Make haste back to him while he is alive. I see I've kept you cruelly. I'll pray today for him and you. Alyosha, we shall be happy! Shall we be happy, shall we? 'I believe we shall, Lise. Alyosha thought it better not to go in to Madame Hohlakov and was going out of the house without saying goodby to her. But no sooner had he opened the door than he found Madame Hohlakov standing before him. From the first word Alyosha guessed that she had been waiting on purpose to meet him. 'Alexey Fyodorovitch, this is awful. This is all childish nonsense and ridiculous. I trust you won't dreamIt's foolishness, nothing but foolishness! she said, attacking him at once. 'Only don't tell her that, said Alyosha, 'or she will be upset, and that's bad for her now. 'Sensible advice from a sensible young man. Am I to understand that you only agreed with her from compassion for her invalid state, because you didn't want to irritate her by contradiction? 'Oh, no, not at all. I was quite serious in what I said, Alyosha declared stoutly. 'To be serious about it is impossible, unthinkable, and in the first place I shall never be at home to you again, and I shall take her away, you may be sure of that. 'But why? asked Alyosha. 'It's all so far off. We may have to wait another year and a half. 'Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that's true, of course, and you'll have time to quarrel and separate a thousand times in a year and a half. But I am so unhappy! Though it's such nonsense, it's a great blow to me. I feel like Famusov in the last scene of Sorrow from Wit. You are Tchatsky and she is Sofya, and, only fancy, I've run down to meet you on the stairs, and in the play the fatal scene takes place on the staircase. I heard it all I almost dropped. So this is the explanation of her dreadful night and her hysterics of late! It means love to the daughter but death to the mother. I might as well be in my grave at once. And a more serious matter still, what is this letter she has written? Show it me at once, at once! 'No, there's no need. Tell me, how is Katerina Ivanovna now? I must know. 'She still lies in delirium she has not regained consciousness. Her aunts are here but they do nothing but sigh and give themselves airs. Herzenstube came, and he was so alarmed that I didn't know what to do for him. I nearly sent for a doctor to look after him. He was driven home in my carriage. And on the top of it all, you and this letter! It's true nothing can happen for a year and a half. In the name of all that's holy, in the name of your dying elder, show me that letter, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I'm her mother. Hold it in your hand, if you like, and I will read it so. 'No, I won't show it to you. Even if she sanctioned it, I wouldn't. I am coming tomorrow, and if you like, we can talk over many things, but now goodby! And Alyosha ran downstairs and into the street. He had no time to lose indeed. Even while he was saying goodby to Lise, the thought had struck him that he must attempt some stratagem to find his brother Dmitri, who was evidently keeping out of his way. It was getting late, nearly three o'clock. Alyosha's whole soul turned to the monastery, to his dying saint, but the necessity of seeing Dmitri outweighed everything. The conviction that a great inevitable catastrophe was about to happen grew stronger in Alyosha's mind with every hour. What that catastrophe was, and what he would say at that moment to his brother, he could perhaps not have said definitely. 'Even if my benefactor must die without me, anyway I won't have to reproach myself all my life with the thought that I might have saved something and did not, but passed by and hastened home. If I do as I intend, I shall be following his great precept. His plan was to catch his brother Dmitri unawares, to climb over the fence, as he had the day before, get into the garden and sit in the summerhouse. If Dmitri were not there, thought Alyosha, he would not announce himself to Foma or the women of the house, but would remain hidden in the summerhouse, even if he had to wait there till evening. If, as before, Dmitri were lying in wait for Grushenka to come, he would be very likely to come to the summerhouse. Alyosha did not, however, give much thought to the details of his plan, but resolved to act upon it, even if it meant not getting back to the monastery that day. Everything happened without hindrance, he climbed over the hurdle almost in the same spot as the day before, and stole into the summerhouse unseen. He did not want to be noticed. The woman of the house and Foma too, if he were here, might be loyal to his brother and obey his instructions, and so refuse to let Alyosha come into the garden, or might warn Dmitri that he was being sought and inquired for. There was no one in the summerhouse. Alyosha sat down and began to wait. He looked round the summerhouse, which somehow struck him as a great deal more ancient than before. Though the day was just as fine as yesterday, it seemed a wretched little place this time. There was a circle on the table, left no doubt from the glass of brandy having been spilt the day before. Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed about his mind, as they always do in a time of tedious waiting. He wondered, for instance, why he had sat down precisely in the same place as before, why not in the other seat. At last he felt very depresseddepressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had not sat there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the thrum of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away. Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summerhouse the day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low gardenseat among the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people must be sitting on it now. Who were they? A man's voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto, accompanying himself on the guitar With invincible force I am bound to my dear. O Lord, have mercy On her and on me! On her and on me! On her and on me! The voice ceased. It was a lackey's tenor and a lackey's song. Another voice, a woman's, suddenly asked insinuatingly and bashfully, though with mincing affectation 'Why haven't you been to see us for so long, Pavel Fyodorovitch? Why do you always look down upon us? 'Not at all, answered a man's voice politely, but with emphatic dignity. It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and that the woman was making advances. 'I believe the man must be Smerdyakov, thought Alyosha, 'from his voice. And the lady must be the daughter of the house here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wears the dress with a tail and goes to Marfa for soup. 'I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme, the woman's voice continued. 'Why don't you go on? The man sang again What do I care for royal wealth If but my dear one be in health? Lord have mercy On her and on me! On her and on me! On her and on me! 'It was even better last time, observed the woman's voice. 'You sang 'If my darling be in health' it sounded more tender. I suppose you've forgotten today. 'Poetry is rubbish! said Smerdyakov curtly. 'Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry. 'So far as it's poetry, it's essential rubbish. Consider yourself, who ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even though it were decreed by government, we shouldn't say much, should we? Poetry is no good, Marya Kondratyevna. 'How clever you are! How is it you've gone so deep into everything? The woman's voice was more and more insinuating. 'I could have done better than that. I could have known more than that, if it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up. I would have shot a man in a duel if he called me names because I am descended from a filthy beggar and have no father. And they used to throw it in my teeth in Moscow. It had reached them from here, thanks to Grigory Vassilyevitch. Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for rebelling against my birth, but I would have sanctioned their killing me before I was born that I might not have come into the world at all. They used to say in the market, and your mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said 'a little bit,' like every one else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant's feeling. Can a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an educated man? He can't be said to have feeling at all, in his ignorance. From my childhood up when I hear 'a wee bit,' I am ready to burst with rage. I hate all Russia, Marya Kondratyevna. 'If you'd been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you wouldn't have talked like that, but would have drawn your saber to defend all Russia. 'I don't want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what's more, I should like to abolish all soldiers. 'And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us? 'There's no need of defense. In  there was a great invasion of Russia by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the present one, and it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us. A clever nation would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it. We should have had quite different institutions. 'Are they so much better in their own country than we are? I wouldn't change a dandy I know of for three young Englishmen, observed Marya Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words with a most languishing glance. 'That's as one prefers. 'But you are just like a foreignerjust like a most gentlemanly foreigner. I tell you that, though it makes me bashful. 'If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike in their vice. They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears polished boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it. The Russian people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very truly yesterday, though he is mad, and all his children. 'You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch. 'But he said I was a stinking lackey. He thinks that I might be unruly. He is mistaken there. If I had a certain sum in my pocket, I would have left here long ago. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any lackey in his behavior, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn't know how to do anything, and yet he is respected by every one. I may be only a soup maker, but with luck I could open a caf restaurant in Petrovka, in Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and there's no one in Moscow, except the foreigners, whose cookery is anything special. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to challenge the son of the first count in the country, he'd fight him. Though in what way is he better than I am? For he is ever so much stupider than I am. Look at the money he has wasted without any need! 'It must be lovely, a duel, Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly. 'How so? 'It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young officers with pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake of some lady. A perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to look on, I'd give anything to see one! 'It's all very well when you are firing at some one, but when he is firing straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly. You'd be glad to run away, Marya Kondratyevna. 'You don't mean you would run away? But Smerdyakov did not deign to reply. After a moment's silence the guitar tinkled again, and he sang again in the same falsetto Whatever you may say, I shall go far away. Life will be bright and gay In the city far away. I shall not grieve, I shall not grieve at all, I don't intend to grieve at all. Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They were silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found Smerdyakov dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhaps curled. The guitar lay on the gardenseat. His companion was the daughter of the house, wearing a lightblue dress with a train two yards long. She was young and would not have been badlooking, but that her face was so round and terribly freckled. 'Will my brother Dmitri soon be back? asked Alyosha with as much composure as he could. Smerdyakov got up slowly Marya Kondratyevna rose too. 'How am I to know about Dmitri Fyodorovitch? It's not as if I were his keeper, answered Smerdyakov quietly, distinctly, and superciliously. 'But I simply asked whether you do know? Alyosha explained. 'I know nothing of his whereabouts and don't want to. 'But my brother told me that you let him know all that goes on in the house, and promised to let him know when Agrafena Alexandrovna comes. Smerdyakov turned a deliberate, unmoved glance upon him. 'And how did you get in this time, since the gate was bolted an hour ago? he asked, looking at Alyosha. 'I came in from the backalley, over the fence, and went straight to the summerhouse. I hope you'll forgive me, he added, addressing Marya Kondratyevna. 'I was in a hurry to find my brother. 'Ach, as though we could take it amiss in you! drawled Marya Kondratyevna, flattered by Alyosha's apology. 'For Dmitri Fyodorovitch often goes to the summerhouse in that way. We don't know he is here and he is sitting in the summerhouse. 'I am very anxious to find him, or to learn from you where he is now. Believe me, it's on business of great importance to him. 'He never tells us, lisped Marya Kondratyevna. 'Though I used to come here as a friend, Smerdyakov began again, 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch has pestered me in a merciless way even here by his incessant questions about the master. 'What news?' he'll ask. 'What's going on in there now? Who's coming and going?' and can't I tell him something more. Twice already he's threatened me with death. 'With death? Alyosha exclaimed in surprise. 'Do you suppose he'd think much of that, with his temper, which you had a chance of observing yourself yesterday? He says if I let Agrafena Alexandrovna in and she passes the night there, I'll be the first to suffer for it. I am terribly afraid of him, and if I were not even more afraid of doing so, I ought to let the police know. God only knows what he might not do! 'His honor said to him the other day, 'I'll pound you in a mortar!'  added Marya Kondratyevna. 'Oh, if it's pounding in a mortar, it may be only talk, observed Alyosha. 'If I could meet him, I might speak to him about that too. 'Well, the only thing I can tell you is this, said Smerdyakov, as though thinking better of it 'I am here as an old friend and neighbor, and it would be odd if I didn't come. On the other hand, Ivan Fyodorovitch sent me first thing this morning to your brother's lodging in Lake Street, without a letter, but with a message to Dmitri Fyodorovitch to go to dine with him at the restaurant here, in the marketplace. I went, but didn't find Dmitri Fyodorovitch at home, though it was eight o'clock. 'He's been here, but he is quite gone,' those were the very words of his landlady. It's as though there was an understanding between them. Perhaps at this moment he is in the restaurant with Ivan Fyodorovitch, for Ivan Fyodorovitch has not been home to dinner and Fyodor Pavlovitch dined alone an hour ago, and is gone to lie down. But I beg you most particularly not to speak of me and of what I have told you, for he'd kill me for nothing at all. 'Brother Ivan invited Dmitri to the restaurant today? repeated Alyosha quickly. 'That's so. 'The Metropolis tavern in the marketplace? 'The very same. 'That's quite likely, cried Alyosha, much excited. 'Thank you, Smerdyakov that's important. I'll go there at once. 'Don't betray me, Smerdyakov called after him. 'Oh, no, I'll go to the tavern as though by chance. Don't be anxious. 'But wait a minute, I'll open the gate to you, cried Marya Kondratyevna. 'No it's a short cut, I'll get over the fence again. What he had heard threw Alyosha into great agitation. He ran to the tavern. It was impossible for him to go into the tavern in his monastic dress, but he could inquire at the entrance for his brothers and call them down. But just as he reached the tavern, a window was flung open, and his brother Ivan called down to him from it. 'Alyosha, can't you come up here to me? I shall be awfully grateful. 'To be sure I can, only I don't quite know whether in this dress 'But I am in a room apart. Come up the steps I'll run down to meet you. A minute later Alyosha was sitting beside his brother. Ivan was alone dining. Ivan was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place shut off by a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the room. It was the first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall. Waiters were continually darting to and fro in it. The only customer in the room was an old retired military man drinking tea in a corner. But there was the usual bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern there were shouts for the waiters, the sound of popping corks, the click of billiard balls, the drone of the organ. Alyosha knew that Ivan did not usually visit this tavern and disliked taverns in general. So he must have come here, he reflected, simply to meet Dmitri by arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not there. 'Shall I order you fish, soup or anything. You don't live on tea alone, I suppose, cried Ivan, apparently delighted at having got hold of Alyosha. He had finished dinner and was drinking tea. 'Let me have soup, and tea afterwards, I am hungry, said Alyosha gayly. 'And cherry jam? They have it here. You remember how you used to love cherry jam when you were little? 'You remember that? Let me have jam too, I like it still. Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered soup, jam and tea. 'I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven, I was nearly fifteen. There's such a difference between fifteen and eleven that brothers are never companions at those ages. I don't know whether I was fond of you even. When I went away to Moscow for the first few years I never thought of you at all. Then, when you came to Moscow yourself, we only met once somewhere, I believe. And now I've been here more than three months, and so far we have scarcely said a word to each other. Tomorrow I am going away, and I was just thinking as I sat here how I could see you to say goodby and just then you passed. 'Were you very anxious to see me, then? 'Very. I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to know me. And then to say goodby. I believe it's always best to get to know people just before leaving them. I've noticed how you've been looking at me these three months. There has been a continual look of expectation in your eyes, and I can't endure that. That's how it is I've kept away from you. But in the end I have learned to respect you. The little man stands firm, I thought. Though I am laughing, I am serious. You do stand firm, don't you? I like people who are firm like that whatever it is they stand by, even if they are such little fellows as you. Your expectant eyes ceased to annoy me, I grew fond of them in the end, those expectant eyes. You seem to love me for some reason, Alyosha? 'I do love you, Ivan. Dmitri says of youIvan is a tomb! I say of you, Ivan is a riddle. You are a riddle to me even now. But I understand something in you, and I did not understand it till this morning. 'What's that? laughed Ivan. 'You won't be angry? Alyosha laughed too. 'Well? 'That you are just as young as other young men of three and twenty, that you are just a young and fresh and nice boy, green in fact! Now, have I insulted you dreadfully? 'On the contrary, I am struck by a coincidence, cried Ivan, warmly and goodhumoredly. 'Would you believe it that ever since that scene with her, I have thought of nothing else but my youthful greenness, and just as though you guessed that, you begin about it. Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devilridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionmentstill I should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty, though, I shall be sure to leave the cup, even if I've not emptied it, and turn awaywhere I don't know. But till I am thirty, I know that my youth will triumph over everythingevery disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that would overcome this frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me, and I've come to the conclusion that there isn't, that is till I am thirty, and then I shall lose it of myself, I fancy. Some driveling consumptive moralistsand poets especiallyoften call that thirst for life base. It's a feature of the Karamazovs, it's true, that thirst for life regardless of everything you have it no doubt too, but why is it base? The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by men, though I've long ceased perhaps to have faith in them, yet from old habit one's heart prizes them. Here they have brought the soup for you, eat it, it will do you good. It's firstrate soup, they know how to make it here. I want to travel in Europe, Alyosha, I shall set off from here. And yet I know that I am only going to a graveyard, but it's a most precious graveyard, that's what it is! Precious are the dead that lie there, every stone over them speaks of such burning life in the past, of such passionate faith in their work, their truth, their struggle and their science, that I know I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and weep over them though I'm convinced in my heart that it's long been nothing but a graveyard. And I shall not weep from despair, but simply because I shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in my emotion. I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue skythat's all it is. It's not a matter of intellect or logic, it's loving with one's inside, with one's stomach. One loves the first strength of one's youth. Do you understand anything of my tirade, Alyosha? Ivan laughed suddenly. 'I understand too well, Ivan. One longs to love with one's inside, with one's stomach. You said that so well and I am awfully glad that you have such a longing for life, cried Alyosha. 'I think every one should love life above everything in the world. 'Love life more than the meaning of it? 'Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must be regardless of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meaning of it. I have thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan, you love life, now you've only to try to do the second half and you are saved. 'You are trying to save me, but perhaps I am not lost! And what does your second half mean? 'Why, one has to raise up your dead, who perhaps have not died after all. Come, let me have tea. I am so glad of our talk, Ivan. 'I see you are feeling inspired. I am awfully fond of such professions de foi from suchnovices. You are a steadfast person, Alexey. Is it true that you mean to leave the monastery? 'Yes, my elder sends me out into the world. 'We shall see each other then in the world. We shall meet before I am thirty, when I shall begin to turn aside from the cup. Father doesn't want to turn aside from his cup till he is seventy, he dreams of hanging on to eighty in fact, so he says. He means it only too seriously, though he is a buffoon. He stands on a firm rock, too, he stands on his sensualitythough after we are thirty, indeed, there may be nothing else to stand on.... But to hang on to seventy is nasty, better only to thirty one might retain 'a shadow of nobility' by deceiving oneself. Have you seen Dmitri today? 'No, but I saw Smerdyakov, and Alyosha rapidly, though minutely, described his meeting with Smerdyakov. Ivan began listening anxiously and questioned him. 'But he begged me not to tell Dmitri that he had told me about him, added Alyosha. Ivan frowned and pondered. 'Are you frowning on Smerdyakov's account? asked Alyosha. 'Yes, on his account. Damn him, I certainly did want to see Dmitri, but now there's no need, said Ivan reluctantly. 'But are you really going so soon, brother? 'Yes. 'What of Dmitri and father? how will it end? asked Alyosha anxiously. 'You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I my brother Dmitri's keeper? Ivan snapped irritably, but then he suddenly smiled bitterly. 'Cain's answer about his murdered brother, wasn't it? Perhaps that's what you're thinking at this moment? Well, damn it all, I can't stay here to be their keeper, can I? I've finished what I had to do, and I am going. Do you imagine I am jealous of Dmitri, that I've been trying to steal his beautiful Katerina Ivanovna for the last three months? Nonsense, I had business of my own. I finished it. I am going. I finished it just now, you were witness. 'At Katerina Ivanovna's? 'Yes, and I've released myself once for all. And after all, what have I to do with Dmitri? Dmitri doesn't come in. I had my own business to settle with Katerina Ivanovna. You know, on the contrary, that Dmitri behaved as though there was an understanding between us. I didn't ask him to do it, but he solemnly handed her over to me and gave us his blessing. It's all too funny. Ah, Alyosha, if you only knew how light my heart is now! Would you believe, it, I sat here eating my dinner and was nearly ordering champagne to celebrate my first hour of freedom. Tfoo! It's been going on nearly six months, and all at once I've thrown it off. I could never have guessed even yesterday, how easy it would be to put an end to it if I wanted. 'You are speaking of your love, Ivan? 'Of my love, if you like. I fell in love with the young lady, I worried myself over her and she worried me. I sat watching over her ... and all at once it's collapsed! I spoke this morning with inspiration, but I went away and roared with laughter. Would you believe it? Yes, it's the literal truth. 'You seem very merry about it now, observed Alyosha, looking into his face, which had suddenly grown brighter. 'But how could I tell that I didn't care for her a bit! Ha ha! It appears after all I didn't. And yet how she attracted me! How attractive she was just now when I made my speech! And do you know she attracts me awfully even now, yet how easy it is to leave her. Do you think I am boasting? 'No, only perhaps it wasn't love. 'Alyosha, laughed Ivan, 'don't make reflections about love, it's unseemly for you. How you rushed into the discussion this morning! I've forgotten to kiss you for it.... But how she tormented me! It certainly was sitting by a 'laceration.' Ah, she knew how I loved her! She loved me and not Dmitri, Ivan insisted gayly. 'Her feeling for Dmitri was simply a self laceration. All I told her just now was perfectly true, but the worst of it is, it may take her fifteen or twenty years to find out that she doesn't care for Dmitri, and loves me whom she torments, and perhaps she may never find it out at all, in spite of her lesson today. Well, it's better so I can simply go away for good. By the way, how is she now? What happened after I departed? Alyosha told him she had been hysterical, and that she was now, he heard, unconscious and delirious. 'Isn't Madame Hohlakov laying it on? 'I think not. 'I must find out. Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don't matter. God gave woman hysterics as a relief. I won't go to her at all. Why push myself forward again? 'But you told her that she had never cared for you. 'I did that on purpose. Alyosha, shall I call for some champagne? Let us drink to my freedom. Ah, if only you knew how glad I am! 'No, brother, we had better not drink, said Alyosha suddenly. 'Besides I feel somehow depressed. 'Yes, you've been depressed a long time, I've noticed it. 'Have you settled to go tomorrow morning, then? 'Morning? I didn't say I should go in the morning.... But perhaps it may be the morning. Would you believe it, I dined here today only to avoid dining with the old man, I loathe him so. I should have left long ago, so far as he is concerned. But why are you so worried about my going away? We've plenty of time before I go, an eternity! 'If you are going away tomorrow, what do you mean by an eternity? 'But what does it matter to us? laughed Ivan. 'We've time enough for our talk, for what brought us here. Why do you look so surprised? Answer why have we met here? To talk of my love for Katerina Ivanovna, of the old man and Dmitri? of foreign travel? of the fatal position of Russia? Of the Emperor Napoleon? Is that it? 'No. 'Then you know what for. It's different for other people but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of all. That's what we care about. Young Russia is talking about nothing but the eternal questions now. Just when the old folks are all taken up with practical questions. Why have you been looking at me in expectation for the last three months? To ask me, 'What do you believe, or don't you believe at all?' That's what your eyes have been meaning for these three months, haven't they? 'Perhaps so, smiled Alyosha. 'You are not laughing at me, now, Ivan? 'Me laughing! I don't want to wound my little brother who has been watching me with such expectation for three months. Alyosha, look straight at me! Of course I am just such a little boy as you are, only not a novice. And what have Russian boys been doing up till now, some of them, I mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance, here, they meet and sit down in a corner. They've never met in their lives before and, when they go out of the tavern, they won't meet again for forty years. And what do they talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern? Of the eternal questions, of the existence of God and immortality. And those who do not believe in God talk of socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they're the same questions turned inside out. And masses, masses of the most original Russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal questions! Isn't it so? 'Yes, for real Russians the questions of God's existence and of immortality, or, as you say, the same questions turned inside out, come first and foremost, of course, and so they should, said Alyosha, still watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile. 'Well, Alyosha, it's sometimes very unwise to be a Russian at all, but anything stupider than the way Russian boys spend their time one can hardly imagine. But there's one Russian boy called Alyosha I am awfully fond of. 'How nicely you put that in! Alyosha laughed suddenly. 'Well, tell me where to begin, give your orders. The existence of God, eh? 'Begin where you like. You declared yesterday at father's that there was no God. Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother. 'I said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and I saw your eyes glow. But now I've no objection to discussing with you, and I say so very seriously. I want to be friends with you, Alyosha, for I have no friends and want to try it. Well, only fancy, perhaps I too accept God, laughed Ivan 'that's a surprise for you, isn't it? 'Yes, of course, if you are not joking now. 'Joking? I was told at the elder's yesterday that I was joking. You know, dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. S'il n'existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer. And man has actually invented God. And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man. As for me, I've long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man. And I won't go through all the axioms laid down by Russian boys on that subject, all derived from European hypotheses for what's a hypothesis there, is an axiom with the Russian boy, and not only with the boys but with their teachers too, for our Russian professors are often just the same boys themselves. And so I omit all the hypotheses. For what are we aiming at now? I am trying to explain as quickly as possible my essential nature, that is what manner of man I am, what I believe in, and for what I hope, that's it, isn't it? And therefore I tell you that I accept God simply. But you must note this if God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of Euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's geometry they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understand even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what's more, I accept His wisdom, His purposewhich are utterly beyond our ken I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was 'with God,' and Which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don't I? Yet would you believe it, in the final result I don't accept this world of God's, and, although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've shed that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with menbut though all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see it and say that they've met, but still I won't accept it. That's what's at the root of me, Alyosha that's my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I've led up to my confession, for that's all you want. You didn't want to hear about God, but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so I've told you. Ivan concluded his long tirade with marked and unexpected feeling. 'And why did you begin 'as stupidly as you could'? asked Alyosha, looking dreamily at him. 'To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian conversations on such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly. And secondly, the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward. I've led the conversation to my despair, and the more stupidly I have presented it, the better for me. 'You will explain why you don't accept the world? said Alyosha. 'To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been leading up to. Dear little brother, I don't want to corrupt you or to turn you from your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you. Ivan smiled suddenly quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had never seen such a smile on his face before. 'I must make you one confession, Ivan began. 'I could never understand how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors, to my mind, that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from 'selflaceration,' from the selflaceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone. 'Father Zossima has talked of that more than once, observed Alyosha 'he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced in love, from loving him. But yet there's a great deal of love in mankind, and almost Christlike love. I know that myself, Ivan. 'Well, I know nothing of it so far, and can't understand it, and the innumerable mass of mankind are with me there. The question is, whether that's due to men's bad qualities or whether it's inherent in their nature. To my thinking, Christlike love for men is a miracle impossible on earth. He was God. But we are not gods. Suppose I, for instance, suffer intensely. Another can never know how much I suffer, because he is another and not I. And what's more, a man is rarely ready to admit another's suffering (as though it were a distinction). Why won't he admit it, do you think? Because I smell unpleasant, because I have a stupid face, because I once trod on his foot. Besides, there is suffering and suffering degrading, humiliating suffering such as humbles mehunger, for instancemy benefactor will perhaps allow me but when you come to higher sufferingfor an idea, for instancehe will very rarely admit that, perhaps because my face strikes him as not at all what he fancies a man should have who suffers for an idea. And so he deprives me instantly of his favor, and not at all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially genteel beggars, ought never to show themselves, but to ask for charity through the newspapers. One can love one's neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it's almost impossible. If it were as on the stage, in the ballet, where if beggars come in, they wear silken rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gracefully, then one might like looking at them. But even then we should not love them. But enough of that. I simply wanted to show you my point of view. I meant to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my argument to a tenth of what it would be. Still we'd better keep to the children, though it does weaken my case. But, in the first place, children can be loved even at close quarters, even when they are dirty, even when they are ugly (I fancy, though, children never are ugly). The second reason why I won't speak of grownup people is that, besides being disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensationthey've eaten the apple and know good and evil, and they have become 'like gods.' They go on eating it still. But the children haven't eaten anything, and are so far innocent. Are you fond of children, Alyosha? I know you are, and you will understand why I prefer to speak of them. If they, too, suffer horribly on earth, they must suffer for their fathers' sins, they must be punished for their fathers, who have eaten the apple but that reasoning is of the other world and is incomprehensible for the heart of man here on earth. The innocent must not suffer for another's sins, and especially such innocents! You may be surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fond of children, too. And observe, cruel people, the violent, the rapacious, the Karamazovs are sometimes very fond of children. Children while they are quite littleup to seven, for instanceare so remote from grownup people they are different creatures, as it were, of a different species. I knew a criminal in prison who had, in the course of his career as a burglar, murdered whole families, including several children. But when he was in prison, he had a strange affection for them. He spent all his time at his window, watching the children playing in the prison yard. He trained one little boy to come up to his window and made great friends with him.... You don't know why I am telling you all this, Alyosha? My head aches and I am sad. 'You speak with a strange air, observed Alyosha uneasily, 'as though you were not quite yourself. 'By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow, Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brother's words, 'told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang themall sorts of things you can't imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, too cutting the unborn child from the mother's womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers' eyes. Doing it before the mothers' eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They've planned a diversion they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn't it? By the way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say. 'Brother, what are you driving at? asked Alyosha. 'I think if the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness. 'Just as he did God, then? observed Alyosha. ' 'It's wonderful how you can turn words,' as Polonius says in Hamlet, laughed Ivan. 'You turn my words against me. Well, I am glad. Yours must be a fine God, if man created Him in his image and likeness. You asked just now what I was driving at. You see, I am fond of collecting certain facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of a certain sort from newspapers and books, and I've already got a fine collection. The Turks, of course, have gone into it, but they are foreigners. I have specimens from home that are even better than the Turks. You know we prefer beatingrods and scourgesthat's our national institution. Nailing ears is unthinkable for us, for we are, after all, Europeans. But the rod and the scourge we have always with us and they cannot be taken from us. Abroad now they scarcely do any beating. Manners are more humane, or laws have been passed, so that they don't dare to flog men now. But they make up for it in another way just as national as ours. And so national that it would be practically impossible among us, though I believe we are being inoculated with it, since the religious movement began in our aristocracy. I have a charming pamphlet, translated from the French, describing how, quite recently, five years ago, a murderer, Richard, was executeda young man, I believe, of three and twenty, who repented and was converted to the Christian faith at the very scaffold. This Richard was an illegitimate child who was given as a child of six by his parents to some shepherds on the Swiss mountains. They brought him up to work for them. He grew up like a little wild beast among them. The shepherds taught him nothing, and scarcely fed or clothed him, but sent him out at seven to herd the flock in cold and wet, and no one hesitated or scrupled to treat him so. Quite the contrary, they thought they had every right, for Richard had been given to them as a chattel, and they did not even see the necessity of feeding him. Richard himself describes how in those years, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel, he longed to eat of the mash given to the pigs, which were fattened for sale. But they wouldn't even give him that, and beat him when he stole from the pigs. And that was how he spent all his childhood and his youth, till he grew up and was strong enough to go away and be a thief. The savage began to earn his living as a day laborer in Geneva. He drank what he earned, he lived like a brute, and finished by killing and robbing an old man. He was caught, tried, and condemned to death. They are not sentimentalists there. And in prison he was immediately surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods, philanthropic ladies, and the like. They taught him to read and write in prison, and expounded the Gospel to him. They exhorted him, worked upon him, drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed his crime. He was converted. He wrote to the court himself that he was a monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and shown grace. All Geneva was in excitement about himall philanthropic and religious Geneva. All the aristocratic and wellbred society of the town rushed to the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him 'You are our brother, you have found grace.' And Richard does nothing but weep with emotion, 'Yes, I've found grace! All my youth and childhood I was glad of pigs' food, but now even I have found grace. I am dying in the Lord.' 'Yes, Richard, die in the Lord you have shed blood and must die. Though it's not your fault that you knew not the Lord, when you coveted the pigs' food and were beaten for stealing it (which was very wrong of you, for stealing is forbidden) but you've shed blood and you must die.' And on the last day, Richard, perfectly limp, did nothing but cry and repeat every minute 'This is my happiest day. I am going to the Lord.' 'Yes,' cry the pastors and the judges and philanthropic ladies. 'This is the happiest day of your life, for you are going to the Lord!' They all walk or drive to the scaffold in procession behind the prison van. At the scaffold they call to Richard 'Die, brother, die in the Lord, for even thou hast found grace!' And so, covered with his brothers' kisses, Richard is dragged on to the scaffold, and led to the guillotine. And they chopped off his head in brotherly fashion, because he had found grace. Yes, that's characteristic. That pamphlet is translated into Russian by some Russian philanthropists of aristocratic rank and evangelical aspirations, and has been distributed gratis for the enlightenment of the people. The case of Richard is interesting because it's national. Though to us it's absurd to cut off a man's head, because he has become our brother and has found grace, yet we have our own speciality, which is all but worse. Our historical pastime is the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, 'on its meek eyes,' every one must have seen it. It's peculiarly Russian. He describes how a feeble little nag has foundered under too heavy a load and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely, beats it at last not knowing what he is doing in the intoxication of cruelty, thrashes it mercilessly over and over again. 'However weak you are, you must pull, if you die for it.' The nag strains, and then he begins lashing the poor defenseless creature on its weeping, on its 'meek eyes.' The frantic beast tugs and draws the load, trembling all over, gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a sort of unnatural spasmodic actionit's awful in Nekrassov. But that's only a horse, and God has given horses to be beaten. So the Tatars have taught us, and they left us the knout as a remembrance of it. But men, too, can be beaten. A welleducated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own child with a birchrod, a girl of seven. I have an exact account of it. The papa was glad that the birch was covered with twigs. 'It stings more,' said he, and so he began stinging his daughter. I know for a fact there are people who at every blow are worked up to sensuality, to literal sensuality, which increases progressively at every blow they inflict. They beat for a minute, for five minutes, for ten minutes, more often and more savagely. The child screams. At last the child cannot scream, it gasps, 'Daddy! daddy!' By some diabolical unseemly chance the case was brought into court. A counsel is engaged. The Russian people have long called a barrister 'a conscience for hire.' The counsel protests in his client's defense. 'It's such a simple thing,' he says, 'an everyday domestic event. A father corrects his child. To our shame be it said, it is brought into court.' The jury, convinced by him, give a favorable verdict. The public roars with delight that the torturer is acquitted. Ah, pity I wasn't there! I would have proposed to raise a subscription in his honor! Charming pictures. 'But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. It's just their defenselessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hiddenthe demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on. 'This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of crueltyshut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grownup people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like. 'Never mind. I want to suffer too, muttered Alyosha. 'One picture, only one more, because it's so curious, so characteristic, and I have only just read it in some collection of Russian antiquities. I've forgotten the name. I must look it up. It was in the darkest days of serfdom at the beginning of the century, and long live the Liberator of the People! There was in those days a general of aristocratic connections, the owner of great estates, one of those mensomewhat exceptional, I believe, even thenwho, retiring from the service into a life of leisure, are convinced that they've earned absolute power over the lives of their subjects. There were such men then. So our general, settled on his property of two thousand souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor neighbors as though they were dependents and buffoons. He has kennels of hundreds of hounds and nearly a hundred dogboysall mounted, and in uniform. One day a serfboy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in play and hurt the paw of the general's favorite hound. 'Why is my favorite dog lame?' He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw. 'So you did it.' The general looked the child up and down. 'Take him.' He was takentaken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early that morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, his dependents, dogboys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in full hunting parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought from the lockup. It's a gloomy, cold, foggy autumn day, a capital day for hunting. The general orders the child to be undressed the child is stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry.... 'Make him run,' commands the general. 'Run! run!' shout the dogboys. The boy runs.... 'At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to pieces before his mother's eyes!... I believe the general was afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates. Wellwhat did he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha! 'To be shot, murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale, twisted smile. 'Bravo! cried Ivan, delighted. 'If even you say so.... You're a pretty monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha Karamazov! 'What I said was absurd, but 'That's just the point, that 'but'! cried Ivan. 'Let me tell you, novice, that the absurd is only too necessary on earth. The world stands on absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in it without them. We know what we know! 'What do you know? 'I understand nothing, Ivan went on, as though in delirium. 'I don't want to understand anything now. I want to stick to the fact. I made up my mind long ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything, I shall be false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to the fact. 'Why are you trying me? Alyosha cried, with sudden distress. 'Will you say what you mean at last? 'Of course, I will that's what I've been leading up to. You are dear to me, I don't want to let you go, and I won't give you up to your Zossima. Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad. 'Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer. Of the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its center, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose. I am a bug, and I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is. Men are themselves to blame, I suppose they were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven, though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them. With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidian understanding, all I know is that there is suffering and that there are none guilty that cause follows effect, simply and directly that everything flows and finds its levelbut that's only Euclidian nonsense, I know that, and I can't consent to live by it! What comfort is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause follows effect simply and directly, and that I know it?I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite time and space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have believed in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise again, for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. Surely I haven't suffered, simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure the soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when every one suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the children, and what am I to do about them? That's a question I can't answer. For the hundredth time I repeat, there are numbers of questions, but I've only taken the children, because in their case what I mean is so unanswerably clear. Listen! If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? It's beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to enrich the soil for the harmony of the future? I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution, too but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn't grow up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be, when everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud 'Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.' When the mother embraces the fiend who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' then, of course, the crown of knowledge will be reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here is that I can't accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste to take my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child's torturer, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cry aloud then. While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive she dare not forgive the torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket. 'That's rebellion, murmured Alyosha, looking down. 'Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that, said Ivan earnestly. 'One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I challenge youanswer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creaturethat baby beating its breast with its fist, for instanceand to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth. 'No, I wouldn't consent, said Alyosha softly. 'And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever? 'No, I can't admit it. Brother, said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing eyes, 'you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, 'Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed!'  'Ah! the One without sin and His blood! No, I have not forgotten Him on the contrary I've been wondering all the time how it was you did not bring Him in before, for usually all arguments on your side put Him in the foreground. Do you know, Alyoshadon't laugh! I made a poem about a year ago. If you can waste another ten minutes on me, I'll tell it to you. 'You wrote a poem? 'Oh, no, I didn't write it, laughed Ivan, 'and I've never written two lines of poetry in my life. But I made up this poem in prose and I remembered it. I was carried away when I made it up. You will be my first readerthat is listener. Why should an author forego even one listener? smiled Ivan. 'Shall I tell it to you? 'I am all attention, said Alyosha. 'My poem is called 'The Grand Inquisitor' it's a ridiculous thing, but I want to tell it to you. 'Even this must have a prefacethat is, a literary preface, laughed Ivan, 'and I am a poor hand at making one. You see, my action takes place in the sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probably learnt at school, it was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. Not to speak of Dante, in France, clerks, as well as the monks in the monasteries, used to give regular performances in which the Madonna, the saints, the angels, Christ, and God himself were brought on the stage. In those days it was done in all simplicity. In Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris an edifying and gratuitous spectacle was provided for the people in the Htel de Ville of Paris in the reign of Louis XI. in honor of the birth of the dauphin. It was called Le bon jugement de la trs sainte et gracieuse Vierge Marie, and she appears herself on the stage and pronounces her bon jugement. Similar plays, chiefly from the Old Testament, were occasionally performed in Moscow too, up to the times of Peter the Great. But besides plays there were all sorts of legends and ballads scattered about the world, in which the saints and angels and all the powers of Heaven took part when required. In our monasteries the monks busied themselves in translating, copying, and even composing such poemsand even under the Tatars. There is, for instance, one such poem (of course, from the Greek), The Wanderings of Our Lady through Hell, with descriptions as bold as Dante's. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel Michael leads her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their punishment. There she sees among others one noteworthy set of sinners in a burning lake some of them sink to the bottom of the lake so that they can't swim out, and 'these God forgets'an expression of extraordinary depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hellfor all she has seen there, indiscriminately. Her conversation with God is immensely interesting. She beseeches Him, she will not desist, and when God points to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks, 'How can I forgive His tormentors?' she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pray for mercy on all without distinction. It ends by her winning from God a respite of suffering every year from Good Friday till Trinity Day, and the sinners at once raise a cry of thankfulness from hell, chanting, 'Thou art just, O Lord, in this judgment.' Well, my poem would have been of that kind if it had appeared at that time. He comes on the scene in my poem, but He says nothing, only appears and passes on. Fifteen centuries have passed since He promised to come in His glory, fifteen centuries since His prophet wrote, 'Behold, I come quickly' 'Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, neither the Son, but the Father,' as He Himself predicted on earth. But humanity awaits him with the same faith and with the same love. Oh, with greater faith, for it is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to see signs from heaven. No signs from heaven come today To add to what the heart doth say. There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is true there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who performed miraculous cures some holy people, according to their biographies, were visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil did not slumber, and doubts were already arising among men of the truth of these miracles. And just then there appeared in the north of Germany a terrible new heresy. 'A huge star like to a torch (that is, to a church) 'fell on the sources of the waters and they became bitter. These heretics began blasphemously denying miracles. But those who remained faithful were all the more ardent in their faith. The tears of humanity rose up to Him as before, awaited His coming, loved Him, hoped for Him, yearned to suffer and die for Him as before. And so many ages mankind had prayed with faith and fervor, 'O Lord our God, hasten Thy coming, so many ages called upon Him, that in His infinite mercy He deigned to come down to His servants. Before that day He had come down, He had visited some holy men, martyrs and hermits, as is written in their lives. Among us, Tyutchev, with absolute faith in the truth of his words, bore witness that Bearing the Cross, in slavish dress, Weary and worn, the Heavenly King Our mother, Russia, came to bless, And through our land went wandering. And that certainly was so, I assure you. 'And behold, He deigned to appear for a moment to the people, to the tortured, suffering people, sunk in iniquity, but loving Him like children. My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most terrible time of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glory of God, and 'in the splendid auto da f the wicked heretics were burnt.' Oh, of course, this was not the coming in which He will appear according to His promise at the end of time in all His heavenly glory, and which will be sudden 'as lightning flashing from east to west.' No, He visited His children only for a moment, and there where the flames were crackling round the heretics. In His infinite mercy He came once more among men in that human shape in which He walked among men for three years fifteen centuries ago. He came down to the 'hot pavements' of the southern town in which on the day before almost a hundred heretics had, ad majorem gloriam Dei, been burnt by the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, in a magnificent auto da f, in the presence of the king, the court, the knights, the cardinals, the most charming ladies of the court, and the whole population of Seville. 'He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, every one recognized Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why they recognized Him. The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burns in His heart, light and power shine from His eyes, and their radiance, shed on the people, stirs their hearts with responsive love. He holds out His hands to them, blesses them, and a healing virtue comes from contact with Him, even with His garments. An old man in the crowd, blind from childhood, cries out, 'O Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!' and, as it were, scales fall from his eyes and the blind man sees Him. The crowd weeps and kisses the earth under His feet. Children throw flowers before Him, sing, and cry hosannah. 'It is Heit is He!' all repeat. 'It must be He, it can be no one but Him!' He stops at the steps of the Seville cathedral at the moment when the weeping mourners are bringing in a little open white coffin. In it lies a child of seven, the only daughter of a prominent citizen. The dead child lies hidden in flowers. 'He will raise your child,' the crowd shouts to the weeping mother. The priest, coming to meet the coffin, looks perplexed, and frowns, but the mother of the dead child throws herself at His feet with a wail. 'If it is Thou, raise my child!' she cries, holding out her hands to Him. The procession halts, the coffin is laid on the steps at His feet. He looks with compassion, and His lips once more softly pronounce, 'Maiden, arise!' and the maiden arises. The little girl sits up in the coffin and looks round, smiling with wide open wondering eyes, holding a bunch of white roses they had put in her hand. 'There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that moment the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is not dressed in his gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he was the day before, when he was burning the enemies of the Roman Churchat this moment he is wearing his coarse, old, monk's cassock. At a distance behind him come his gloomy assistants and slaves and the 'holy guard.' He stops at the sight of the crowd and watches it from a distance. He sees everything he sees them set the coffin down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his thick gray brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power, so completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead Him away. The crowd instantly bows down to the earth, like one man, before the old Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes on. The guards lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison in the ancient palace of the Holy Inquisition and shut Him in it. The day passes and is followed by the dark, burning, 'breathless' night of Seville. The air is 'fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in with a light in his hand. He is alone the door is closed at once behind him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face. At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks. ' 'Is it Thou? Thou?' but receiving no answer, he adds at once, 'Don't answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well what Thou wouldst say. And Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us? For Thou hast come to hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost Thou know what will be to morrow? I know not who Thou art and care not to know whether it is Thou or only a semblance of Him, but tomorrow I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have today kissed Thy feet, tomorrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap up the embers of Thy fire. Knowest Thou that? Yes, maybe Thou knowest it,' he added with thoughtful penetration, never for a moment taking his eyes off the Prisoner. 'I don't quite understand, Ivan. What does it mean? Alyosha, who had been listening in silence, said with a smile. 'Is it simply a wild fantasy, or a mistake on the part of the old mansome impossible quiproquo? 'Take it as the last, said Ivan, laughing, 'if you are so corrupted by modern realism and can't stand anything fantastic. If you like it to be a case of mistaken identity, let it be so. It is true, he went on, laughing, 'the old man was ninety, and he might well be crazy over his set idea. He might have been struck by the appearance of the Prisoner. It might, in fact, be simply his ravings, the delusion of an old man of ninety, overexcited by the auto da f of a hundred heretics the day before. But does it matter to us after all whether it was a mistake of identity or a wild fantasy? All that matters is that the old man should speak out, should speak openly of what he has thought in silence for ninety years. 'And the Prisoner too is silent? Does He look at him and not say a word? 'That's inevitable in any case, Ivan laughed again. 'The old man has told Him He hasn't the right to add anything to what He has said of old. One may say it is the most fundamental feature of Roman Catholicism, in my opinion at least. 'All has been given by Thee to the Pope,' they say, 'and all, therefore, is still in the Pope's hands, and there is no need for Thee to come now at all. Thou must not meddle for the time, at least.' That's how they speak and write toothe Jesuits, at any rate. I have read it myself in the works of their theologians. 'Hast Thou the right to reveal to us one of the mysteries of that world from which Thou hast come?' my old man asks Him, and answers the question for Him. 'No, Thou hast not that Thou mayest not add to what has been said of old, and mayest not take from men the freedom which Thou didst exalt when Thou wast on earth. Whatsoever Thou revealest anew will encroach on men's freedom of faith for it will be manifest as a miracle, and the freedom of their faith was dearer to Thee than anything in those days fifteen hundred years ago. Didst Thou not often say then, 'I will make you free? But now Thou hast seen these 'free men,' the old man adds suddenly, with a pensive smile. 'Yes, we've paid dearly for it,' he goes on, looking sternly at Him, 'but at last we have completed that work in Thy name. For fifteen centuries we have been wrestling with Thy freedom, but now it is ended and over for good. Dost Thou not believe that it's over for good? Thou lookest meekly at me and deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell Thee that now, today, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou didst? Was this Thy freedom?'  'I don't understand again, Alyosha broke in. 'Is he ironical, is he jesting? 'Not a bit of it! He claims it as a merit for himself and his Church that at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy. 'For now' (he is speaking of the Inquisition, of course) 'for the first time it has become possible to think of the happiness of men. Man was created a rebel and how can rebels be happy? Thou wast warned,' he says to Him. 'Thou hast had no lack of admonitions and warnings, but Thou didst not listen to those warnings Thou didst reject the only way by which men might be made happy. But, fortunately, departing Thou didst hand on the work to us. Thou hast promised, Thou hast established by Thy word, Thou hast given to us the right to bind and to unbind, and now, of course, Thou canst not think of taking it away. Why, then, hast Thou come to hinder us?'  'And what's the meaning of 'no lack of admonitions and warnings'? asked Alyosha. 'Why, that's the chief part of what the old man must say. ' 'The wise and dread spirit, the spirit of selfdestruction and non existence,' the old man goes on, 'the great spirit talked with Thee in the wilderness, and we are told in the books that he 'tempted Thee. Is that so? And could anything truer be said than what he revealed to Thee in three questions and what Thou didst reject, and what in the books is called 'the temptation? And yet if there has ever been on earth a real stupendous miracle, it took place on that day, on the day of the three temptations. The statement of those three questions was itself the miracle. If it were possible to imagine simply for the sake of argument that those three questions of the dread spirit had perished utterly from the books, and that we had to restore them and to invent them anew, and to do so had gathered together all the wise men of the earthrulers, chief priests, learned men, philosophers, poetsand had set them the task to invent three questions, such as would not only fit the occasion, but express in three words, three human phrases, the whole future history of the world and of humanitydost Thou believe that all the wisdom of the earth united could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three questions which were actually put to Thee then by the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness? From those questions alone, from the miracle of their statement, we can see that we have here to do not with the fleeting human intelligence, but with the absolute and eternal. For in those three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it were, brought together into one whole, and foretold, and in them are united all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature. At the time it could not be so clear, since the future was unknown but now that fifteen hundred years have passed, we see that everything in those three questions was so justly divined and foretold, and has been so truly fulfilled, that nothing can be added to them or taken from them. ' 'Judge Thyself who was rightThou or he who questioned Thee then? Remember the first question its meaning, in other words, was this 'Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dreadfor nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread. But Thou wouldst not deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, 'Who can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven! Dost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin there is only hunger? 'Feed men, and then ask of them virtue! that's what they'll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years for they will come back to us after a thousand years of agony with their tower. They will seek us again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for we shall be again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to us, 'Feed us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven't given it! And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes the building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name, declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us. They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man? And if for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is to become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the great and strong, while the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, who are weak but love Thee, must exist only for the sake of the great and strong? No, we care for the weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over themso awful it will seem to them to be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name. We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us again. That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to lie. ' 'This is the significance of the first question in the wilderness, and this is what Thou hast rejected for the sake of that freedom which Thou hast exalted above everything. Yet in this question lies hid the great secret of this world. Choosing 'bread, Thou wouldst have satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanityto find some one to worship. So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find something that all would believe in and worship what is essential is that all may be together in it. This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, 'Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods! And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth they will fall down before idols just the same. Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alonethe banner of earthly bread and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the illfated creature is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom. In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner give bread, and man will worship thee, for nothing is more certain than bread. But if some one else gains possession of his conscienceoh! then he will cast away Thy bread and follow after him who has ensnared his conscience. In that Thou wast right. For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance. That is true. But what happened? Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. And behold, instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest for ever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men, acting as though Thou didst not love them at allThou who didst come to give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men's freedom, Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings for ever. Thou didst desire man's free love, that he should follow Thee freely, enticed and taken captive by Thee. In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide. But didst Thou not know that he would at last reject even Thy image and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free choice? They will cry aloud at last that the truth is not in Thee, for they could not have been left in greater confusion and suffering than Thou hast caused, laying upon them so many cares and unanswerable problems. ' 'So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Yet what was offered Thee? There are three powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happinessthose forces are miracle, mystery and authority. Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing so. When the wise and dread spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Thee, 'If Thou wouldst know whether Thou art the Son of God then cast Thyself down, for it is written the angels shall hold him up lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know then whether Thou art the Son of God and shalt prove then how great is Thy faith in Thy Father. But Thou didst refuse and wouldst not cast Thyself down. Oh, of course, Thou didst proudly and well, like God but the weak, unruly race of men, are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in making one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have lost all Thy faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against that earth which Thou didst come to save. And the wise spirit that tempted Thee would have rejoiced. But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And couldst Thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be recorded in books, would be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and Thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a miracle. But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects God too for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft, though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic and infidel. Thou didst not come down from the Cross when they shouted to Thee, mocking and reviling Thee, 'Come down from the cross and we will believe that Thou art He. Thou didst not come down, for again Thou wouldst not enslave man by a miracle, and didst crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. Thou didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before the might that has overawed him for ever. But Thou didst think too highly of men therein, for they are slaves, of course, though rebellious by nature. Look round and judge fifteen centuries have passed, look upon them. Whom hast Thou raised up to Thyself? I swear, man is weaker and baser by nature than Thou hast believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou didst? By showing him so much respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from himThou who hast loved him more than Thyself! Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked less of him. That would have been more like love, for his burden would have been lighter. He is weak and vile. What though he is everywhere now rebelling against our power, and proud of his rebellion? It is the pride of a child and a schoolboy. They are little children rioting and barring out the teacher at school. But their childish delight will end it will cost them dear. They will cast down temples and drench the earth with blood. But they will see at last, the foolish children, that, though they are rebels, they are impotent rebels, unable to keep up their own rebellion. Bathed in their foolish tears, they will recognize at last that He who created them rebels must have meant to mock at them. They will say this in despair, and their utterance will be a blasphemy which will make them more unhappy still, for man's nature cannot bear blasphemy, and in the end always avenges it on itself. And so unrest, confusion and unhappinessthat is the present lot of man after Thou didst bear so much for their freedom! The great prophet tells in vision and in image, that he saw all those who took part in the first resurrection and that there were of each tribe twelve thousand. But if there were so many of them, they must have been not men but gods. They had borne Thy cross, they had endured scores of years in the barren, hungry wilderness, living upon locusts and rootsand Thou mayest indeed point with pride at those children of freedom, of free love, of free and splendid sacrifice for Thy name. But remember that they were only some thousands and what of the rest? And how are the other weak ones to blame, because they could not endure what the strong have endured? How is the weak soul to blame that it is unable to receive such terrible gifts? Canst Thou have simply come to the elect and for the elect? But if so, it is a mystery and we cannot understand it. And if it is a mystery, we too have a right to preach a mystery, and to teach them that it's not the free judgment of their hearts, not love that matters, but a mystery which they must follow blindly, even against their conscience. So we have done. We have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority. And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift that had brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts. Were we right teaching them this? Speak! Did we not love mankind, so meekly acknowledging their feebleness, lovingly lightening their burden, and permitting their weak nature even sin with our sanction? Why hast Thou come now to hinder us? And why dost Thou look silently and searchingly at me with Thy mild eyes? Be angry. I don't want Thy love, for I love Thee not. And what use is it for me to hide anything from Thee? Don't I know to Whom I am speaking? All that I can say is known to Thee already. And is it for me to conceal from Thee our mystery? Perhaps it is Thy will to hear it from my lips. Listen, then. We are not working with Thee, but with himthat is our mystery. It's longeight centuriessince we have been on his side and not on Thine. Just eight centuries ago, we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Csar, and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth, though hitherto we have not been able to complete our work. But whose fault is that? Oh, the work is only beginning, but it has begun. It has long to await completion and the earth has yet much to suffer, but we shall triumph and shall be Csars, and then we shall plan the universal happiness of man. But Thou mightest have taken even then the sword of Csar. Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Hadst Thou accepted that last counsel of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earththat is, some one to worship, some one to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious antheap, for the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universal state. There have been many great nations with great histories, but the more highly they were developed the more unhappy they were, for they felt more acutely than other people the craving for worldwide union. The great conquerors, Timours and GhenghisKhans, whirled like hurricanes over the face of the earth striving to subdue its people, and they too were but the unconscious expression of the same craving for universal unity. Hadst Thou taken the world and Csar's purple, Thou wouldst have founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands? We have taken the sword of Csar, and in taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh, ages are yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. For having begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course, with cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written, 'Mystery. But then, and only then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men. Thou art proud of Thine elect, but Thou hast only the elect, while we give rest to all. And besides, how many of those elect, those mighty ones who could become elect, have grown weary waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will transfer the powers of their spirit and the warmth of their heart to the other camp, and end by raising their free banner against Thee. Thou didst Thyself lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will no more rebel nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or shall we be lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember the horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them. Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves, others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest, weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us 'Yes, you were right, you alone possess His mystery, and we come back to you, save us from ourselves! ' 'Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle. They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while since they have come back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know the value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most to blame for their not knowing it?speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it astray on unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will submit once more, and then it will be once for all. Then we shall give them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures such as they are by nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou didst lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awestricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever, that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears like women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviors who have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have childrenaccording to whether they have been obedient or disobedientand they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in the other world, it certainly would not be for such as they. It is prophesied that Thou wilt come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say that they have only saved themselves, but we have saved all. We are told that the harlot who sits upon the beast, and holds in her hands the mystery, shall be put to shame, that the weak will rise up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her loathsome body. But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the thousand millions of happy children who have known no sin. And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and say 'Judge us if Thou canst and darest. Know that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting 'to make up the number. But I awakened and would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will be built up. I repeat, tomorrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if any one has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. Tomorrow I shall burn Thee. Dixi.'  Ivan stopped. He was carried away as he talked, and spoke with excitement when he had finished, he suddenly smiled. Alyosha had listened in silence towards the end he was greatly moved and seemed several times on the point of interrupting, but restrained himself. Now his words came with a rush. 'But ... that's absurd! he cried, flushing. 'Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Himas you meant it to be. And who will believe you about freedom? Is that the way to understand it? That's not the idea of it in the Orthodox Church.... That's Rome, and not even the whole of Rome, it's falsethose are the worst of the Catholics, the Inquisitors, the Jesuits!... And there could not be such a fantastic creature as your Inquisitor. What are these sins of mankind they take on themselves? Who are these keepers of the mystery who have taken some curse upon themselves for the happiness of mankind? When have they been seen? We know the Jesuits, they are spoken ill of, but surely they are not what you describe? They are not that at all, not at all.... They are simply the Romish army for the earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, with the Pontiff of Rome for Emperor ... that's their ideal, but there's no sort of mystery or lofty melancholy about it.... It's simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, of dominationsomething like a universal serfdom with them as mastersthat's all they stand for. They don't even believe in God perhaps. Your suffering Inquisitor is a mere fantasy. 'Stay, stay, laughed Ivan, 'how hot you are! A fantasy you say, let it be so! Of course it's a fantasy. But allow me to say do you really think that the Roman Catholic movement of the last centuries is actually nothing but the lust of power, of filthy earthly gain? Is that Father Passy's teaching? 'No, no, on the contrary, Father Passy did once say something rather the same as you ... but of course it's not the same, not a bit the same, Alyosha hastily corrected himself. 'A precious admission, in spite of your 'not a bit the same.' I ask you why your Jesuits and Inquisitors have united simply for vile material gain? Why can there not be among them one martyr oppressed by great sorrow and loving humanity? You see, only suppose that there was one such man among all those who desire nothing but filthy material gainif there's only one like my old Inquisitor, who had himself eaten roots in the desert and made frenzied efforts to subdue his flesh to make himself free and perfect. But yet all his life he loved humanity, and suddenly his eyes were opened, and he saw that it is no great moral blessedness to attain perfection and freedom, if at the same time one gains the conviction that millions of God's creatures have been created as a mockery, that they will never be capable of using their freedom, that these poor rebels can never turn into giants to complete the tower, that it was not for such geese that the great idealist dreamt his dream of harmony. Seeing all that he turned back and joinedthe clever people. Surely that could have happened? 'Joined whom, what clever people? cried Alyosha, completely carried away. 'They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries and secrets.... Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that's all their secret. Your Inquisitor does not believe in God, that's his secret! 'What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It's perfectly true, it's true that that's the whole secret, but isn't that suffering, at least for a man like that, who has wasted his whole life in the desert and yet could not shake off his incurable love of humanity? In his old age he reached the clear conviction that nothing but the advice of the great dread spirit could build up any tolerable sort of life for the feeble, unruly, 'incomplete, empirical creatures created in jest.' And so, convinced of this, he sees that he must follow the counsel of the wise spirit, the dread spirit of death and destruction, and therefore accept lying and deception, and lead men consciously to death and destruction, and yet deceive them all the way so that they may not notice where they are being led, that the poor blind creatures may at least on the way think themselves happy. And note, the deception is in the name of Him in Whose ideal the old man had so fervently believed all his life long. Is not that tragic? And if only one such stood at the head of the whole army 'filled with the lust of power only for the sake of filthy gain'would not one such be enough to make a tragedy? More than that, one such standing at the head is enough to create the actual leading idea of the Roman Church with all its armies and Jesuits, its highest idea. I tell you frankly that I firmly believe that there has always been such a man among those who stood at the head of the movement. Who knows, there may have been some such even among the Roman Popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that accursed old man who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is to be found even now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing not by chance but by agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for the guarding of the mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make them happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. I fancy that even among the Masons there's something of the same mystery at the bottom, and that that's why the Catholics so detest the Masons as their rivals breaking up the unity of the idea, while it is so essential that there should be one flock and one shepherd.... But from the way I defend my idea I might be an author impatient of your criticism. Enough of it. 'You are perhaps a Mason yourself! broke suddenly from Alyosha. 'You don't believe in God, he added, speaking this time very sorrowfully. He fancied besides that his brother was looking at him ironically. 'How does your poem end? he asked, suddenly looking down. 'Or was it the end? 'I meant to end it like this. When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all His answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him 'Go, and come no more ... come not at all, never, never!' And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away. 'And the old man? 'The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea. 'And you with him, you too? cried Alyosha, mournfully. Ivan laughed. 'Why, it's all nonsense, Alyosha. It's only a senseless poem of a senseless student, who could never write two lines of verse. Why do you take it so seriously? Surely you don't suppose I am going straight off to the Jesuits, to join the men who are correcting His work? Good Lord, it's no business of mine. I told you, all I want is to live on to thirty, and then ... dash the cup to the ground! 'But the little sticky leaves, and the precious tombs, and the blue sky, and the woman you love! How will you live, how will you love them? Alyosha cried sorrowfully. 'With such a hell in your heart and your head, how can you? No, that's just what you are going away for, to join them ... if not, you will kill yourself, you can't endure it! 'There is a strength to endure everything, Ivan said with a cold smile. 'What strength? 'The strength of the Karamazovsthe strength of the Karamazov baseness. 'To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes? 'Possibly even that ... only perhaps till I am thirty I shall escape it, and then 'How will you escape it? By what will you escape it? That's impossible with your ideas. 'In the Karamazov way, again. ' 'Everything is lawful,' you mean? Everything is lawful, is that it? Ivan scowled, and all at once turned strangely pale. 'Ah, you've caught up yesterday's phrase, which so offended Misovand which Dmitri pounced upon so navely, and paraphrased! he smiled queerly. 'Yes, if you like, 'everything is lawful' since the word has been said. I won't deny it. And Mitya's version isn't bad. Alyosha looked at him in silence. 'I thought that going away from here I have you at least, Ivan said suddenly, with unexpected feeling 'but now I see that there is no place for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula, 'all is lawful,' I won't renouncewill you renounce me for that, yes? Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips. 'That's plagiarism, cried Ivan, highly delighted. 'You stole that from my poem. Thank you though. Get up, Alyosha, it's time we were going, both of us. They went out, but stopped when they reached the entrance of the restaurant. 'Listen, Alyosha, Ivan began in a resolute voice, 'if I am really able to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them, remembering you. It's enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan't lose my desire for life yet. Is that enough for you? Take it as a declaration of love if you like. And now you go to the right and I to the left. And it's enough, do you hear, enough. I mean even if I don't go away tomorrow (I think I certainly shall go) and we meet again, don't say a word more on these subjects. I beg that particularly. And about Dmitri too, I ask you specially, never speak to me again, he added, with sudden irritation 'it's all exhausted, it has all been said over and over again, hasn't it? And I'll make you one promise in return for it. When at thirty, I want to 'dash the cup to the ground,' wherever I may be I'll come to have one more talk with you, even though it were from America, you may be sure of that. I'll come on purpose. It will be very interesting to have a look at you, to see what you'll be by that time. It's rather a solemn promise, you see. And we really may be parting for seven years or ten. Come, go now to your Pater Seraphicus, he is dying. If he dies without you, you will be angry with me for having kept you. Goodby, kiss me once more that's right, now go. Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was just as Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the parting had been very different. The strange resemblance flashed like an arrow through Alyosha's mind in the distress and dejection of that moment. He waited a little, looking after his brother. He suddenly noticed that Ivan swayed as he walked and that his right shoulder looked lower than his left. He had never noticed it before. But all at once he turned too, and almost ran to the monastery. It was nearly dark, and he felt almost frightened something new was growing up in him for which he could not account. The wind had risen again as on the previous evening, and the ancient pines murmured gloomily about him when he entered the hermitage copse. He almost ran. 'Pater Seraphicushe got that name from somewherewhere from? Alyosha wondered. 'Ivan, poor Ivan, and when shall I see you again?... Here is the hermitage. Yes, yes, that he is, Pater Seraphicus, he will save mefrom him and for ever! Several times afterwards he wondered how he could on leaving Ivan so completely forget his brother Dmitri, though he had that morning, only a few hours before, so firmly resolved to find him and not to give up doing so, even should he be unable to return to the monastery that night. And Ivan, on parting from Alyosha, went home to Fyodor Pavlovitch's house. But, strange to say, he was overcome by insufferable depression, which grew greater at every step he took towards the house. There was nothing strange in his being depressed what was strange was that Ivan could not have said what was the cause of it. He had often been depressed before, and there was nothing surprising at his feeling so at such a moment, when he had broken off with everything that had brought him here, and was preparing that day to make a new start and enter upon a new, unknown future. He would again be as solitary as ever, and though he had great hopes, and greattoo greatexpectations from life, he could not have given any definite account of his hopes, his expectations, or even his desires. Yet at that moment, though the apprehension of the new and unknown certainly found place in his heart, what was worrying him was something quite different. 'Is it loathing for my father's house? he wondered. 'Quite likely I am so sick of it and though it's the last time I shall cross its hateful threshold, still I loathe it.... No, it's not that either. Is it the parting with Alyosha and the conversation I had with him? For so many years I've been silent with the whole world and not deigned to speak, and all of a sudden I reel off a rigmarole like that. It certainly might have been the youthful vexation of youthful inexperience and vanityvexation at having failed to express himself, especially with such a being as Alyosha, on whom his heart had certainly been reckoning. No doubt that came in, that vexation, it must have done indeed but yet that was not it, that was not it either. 'I feel sick with depression and yet I can't tell what I want. Better not think, perhaps. Ivan tried 'not to think, but that, too, was no use. What made his depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind of casual, external characterhe felt that. Some person or thing seemed to be standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrude itself upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that for a long time one does not notice it, yet it irritates and almost torments one till at last one realizes, and removes the offending object, often quite a trifling and ridiculous onesome article left about in the wrong place, a handkerchief on the floor, a book not replaced on the shelf, and so on. At last, feeling very cross and illhumored, Ivan arrived home, and suddenly, about fifteen paces from the garden gate, he guessed what was fretting and worrying him. On a bench in the gateway the valet Smerdyakov was sitting enjoying the coolness of the evening, and at the first glance at him Ivan knew that the valet Smerdyakov was on his mind, and that it was this man that his soul loathed. It all dawned upon him suddenly and became clear. Just before, when Alyosha had been telling him of his meeting with Smerdyakov, he had felt a sudden twinge of gloom and loathing, which had immediately stirred responsive anger in his heart. Afterwards, as he talked, Smerdyakov had been forgotten for the time but still he had been in his mind, and as soon as Ivan parted with Alyosha and was walking home, the forgotten sensation began to obtrude itself again. 'Is it possible that a miserable, contemptible creature like that can worry me so much? he wondered, with insufferable irritation. It was true that Ivan had come of late to feel an intense dislike for the man, especially during the last few days. He had even begun to notice in himself a growing feeling that was almost of hatred for the creature. Perhaps this hatred was accentuated by the fact that when Ivan first came to the neighborhood he had felt quite differently. Then he had taken a marked interest in Smerdyakov, and had even thought him very original. He had encouraged him to talk to him, although he had always wondered at a certain incoherence, or rather restlessness, in his mind, and could not understand what it was that so continually and insistently worked upon the brain of 'the contemplative. They discussed philosophical questions and even how there could have been light on the first day when the sun, moon, and stars were only created on the fourth day, and how that was to be understood. But Ivan soon saw that, though the sun, moon, and stars might be an interesting subject, yet that it was quite secondary to Smerdyakov, and that he was looking for something altogether different. In one way and another, he began to betray a boundless vanity, and a wounded vanity, too, and that Ivan disliked. It had first given rise to his aversion. Later on, there had been trouble in the house. Grushenka had come on the scene, and there had been the scandals with his brother Dmitrithey discussed that, too. But though Smerdyakov always talked of that with great excitement, it was impossible to discover what he desired to come of it. There was, in fact, something surprising in the illogicality and incoherence of some of his desires, accidentally betrayed and always vaguely expressed. Smerdyakov was always inquiring, putting certain indirect but obviously premeditated questions, but what his object was he did not explain, and usually at the most important moment he would break off and relapse into silence or pass to another subject. But what finally irritated Ivan most and confirmed his dislike for him was the peculiar, revolting familiarity which Smerdyakov began to show more and more markedly. Not that he forgot himself and was rude on the contrary, he always spoke very respectfully, yet he had obviously begun to considergoodness knows why!that there was some sort of understanding between him and Ivan Fyodorovitch. He always spoke in a tone that suggested that those two had some kind of compact, some secret between them, that had at some time been expressed on both sides, only known to them and beyond the comprehension of those around them. But for a long while Ivan did not recognize the real cause of his growing dislike and he had only lately realized what was at the root of it. With a feeling of disgust and irritation he tried to pass in at the gate without speaking or looking at Smerdyakov. But Smerdyakov rose from the bench, and from that action alone, Ivan knew instantly that he wanted particularly to talk to him. Ivan looked at him and stopped, and the fact that he did stop, instead of passing by, as he meant to the minute before, drove him to fury. With anger and repulsion he looked at Smerdyakov's emasculate, sickly face, with the little curls combed forward on his forehead. His left eye winked and he grinned as if to say, 'Where are you going? You won't pass by you see that we two clever people have something to say to each other. Ivan shook. 'Get away, miserable idiot. What have I to do with you? was on the tip of his tongue, but to his profound astonishment he heard himself say, 'Is my father still asleep, or has he waked? He asked the question softly and meekly, to his own surprise, and at once, again to his own surprise, sat down on the bench. For an instant he felt almost frightened he remembered it afterwards. Smerdyakov stood facing him, his hands behind his back, looking at him with assurance and almost severity. 'His honor is still asleep, he articulated deliberately ('You were the first to speak, not I, he seemed to say). 'I am surprised at you, sir, he added, after a pause, dropping his eyes affectedly, setting his right foot forward, and playing with the tip of his polished boot. 'Why are you surprised at me? Ivan asked abruptly and sullenly, doing his utmost to restrain himself, and suddenly realizing, with disgust, that he was feeling intense curiosity and would not, on any account, have gone away without satisfying it. 'Why don't you go to Tchermashnya, sir? Smerdyakov suddenly raised his eyes and smiled familiarly. 'Why I smile you must understand of yourself, if you are a clever man, his screwedup left eye seemed to say. 'Why should I go to Tchermashnya? Ivan asked in surprise. Smerdyakov was silent again. 'Fyodor Pavlovitch himself has so begged you to, he said at last, slowly and apparently attaching no significance to his answer. 'I put you off with a secondary reason, he seemed to suggest, 'simply to say something. 'Damn you! Speak out what you want! Ivan cried angrily at last, passing from meekness to violence. Smerdyakov drew his right foot up to his left, pulled himself up, but still looked at him with the same serenity and the same little smile. 'Substantially nothingbut just by way of conversation. Another silence followed. They did not speak for nearly a minute. Ivan knew that he ought to get up and show anger, and Smerdyakov stood before him and seemed to be waiting as though to see whether he would be angry or not. So at least it seemed to Ivan. At last he moved to get up. Smerdyakov seemed to seize the moment. 'I'm in an awful position, Ivan Fyodorovitch. I don't know how to help myself, he said resolutely and distinctly, and at his last word he sighed. Ivan Fyodorovitch sat down again. 'They are both utterly crazy, they are no better than little children, Smerdyakov went on. 'I am speaking of your parent and your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Here Fyodor Pavlovitch will get up directly and begin worrying me every minute, 'Has she come? Why hasn't she come?' and so on up till midnight and even after midnight. And if Agrafena Alexandrovna doesn't come (for very likely she does not mean to come at all) then he will be at me again tomorrow morning, 'Why hasn't she come? When will she come?'as though I were to blame for it. On the other side it's no better. As soon as it gets dark, or even before, your brother will appear with his gun in his hands 'Look out, you rogue, you soupmaker. If you miss her and don't let me know she's beenI'll kill you before any one.' When the night's over, in the morning, he, too, like Fyodor Pavlovitch, begins worrying me to death. 'Why hasn't she come? Will she come soon?' And he, too, thinks me to blame because his lady hasn't come. And every day and every hour they get angrier and angrier, so that I sometimes think I shall kill myself in a fright. I can't depend upon them, sir. 'And why have you meddled? Why did you begin to spy for Dmitri Fyodorovitch? said Ivan irritably. 'How could I help meddling? Though, indeed, I haven't meddled at all, if you want to know the truth of the matter. I kept quiet from the very beginning, not daring to answer but he pitched on me to be his servant. He has had only one thing to say since 'I'll kill you, you scoundrel, if you miss her,' I feel certain, sir, that I shall have a long fit to morrow. 'What do you mean by 'a long fit'? 'A long fit, lasting a long timeseveral hours, or perhaps a day or two. Once it went on for three days. I fell from the garret that time. The struggling ceased and then began again, and for three days I couldn't come back to my senses. Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Herzenstube, the doctor here, and he put ice on my head and tried another remedy, too.... I might have died. 'But they say one can't tell with epilepsy when a fit is coming. What makes you say you will have one tomorrow? Ivan inquired, with a peculiar, irritable curiosity. 'That's just so. You can't tell beforehand. 'Besides, you fell from the garret then. 'I climb up to the garret every day. I might fall from the garret again tomorrow. And, if not, I might fall down the cellar steps. I have to go into the cellar every day, too. Ivan took a long look at him. 'You are talking nonsense, I see, and I don't quite understand you, he said softly, but with a sort of menace. 'Do you mean to pretend to be ill tomorrow for three days, eh? Smerdyakov, who was looking at the ground again, and playing with the toe of his right foot, set the foot down, moved the left one forward, and, grinning, articulated 'If I were able to play such a trick, that is, pretend to have a fitand it would not be difficult for a man accustomed to themI should have a perfect right to use such a means to save myself from death. For even if Agrafena Alexandrovna comes to see his father while I am ill, his honor can't blame a sick man for not telling him. He'd be ashamed to. 'Hang it all! Ivan cried, his face working with anger, 'why are you always in such a funk for your life? All my brother Dmitri's threats are only hasty words and mean nothing. He won't kill you it's not you he'll kill! 'He'd kill me first of all, like a fly. But even more than that, I am afraid I shall be taken for an accomplice of his when he does something crazy to his father. 'Why should you be taken for an accomplice? 'They'll think I am an accomplice, because I let him know the signals as a great secret. 'What signals? Whom did you tell? Confound you, speak more plainly. 'I'm bound to admit the fact, Smerdyakov drawled with pedantic composure, 'that I have a secret with Fyodor Pavlovitch in this business. As you know yourself (if only you do know it) he has for several days past locked himself in as soon as night or even evening comes on. Of late you've been going upstairs to your room early every evening, and yesterday you did not come down at all, and so perhaps you don't know how carefully he has begun to lock himself in at night, and even if Grigory Vassilyevitch comes to the door he won't open to him till he hears his voice. But Grigory Vassilyevitch does not come, because I wait upon him alone in his room now. That's the arrangement he made himself ever since this todo with Agrafena Alexandrovna began. But at night, by his orders, I go away to the lodge so that I don't get to sleep till midnight, but am on the watch, getting up and walking about the yard, waiting for Agrafena Alexandrovna to come. For the last few days he's been perfectly frantic expecting her. What he argues is, she is afraid of him, Dmitri Fyodorovitch (Mitya, as he calls him), 'and so,' says he, 'she'll come the backway, late at night, to me. You look out for her,' says he, 'till midnight and later and if she does come, you run up and knock at my door or at the window from the garden. Knock at first twice, rather gently, and then three times more quickly, then,' says he, 'I shall understand at once that she has come, and will open the door to you quietly.' Another signal he gave me in case anything unexpected happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after an interval, another much louder. Then he will understand that something has happened suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to me so that I can go and speak to him. That's all in case Agrafena Alexandrovna can't come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitri Fyodorovitch might come, too, so I must let him know he is near. His honor is awfully afraid of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so that even if Agrafena Alexandrovna had come and were locked in with him, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch were to turn up anywhere near at the time, I should be bound to let him know at once, knocking three times. So that the first signal of five knocks means Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, while the second signal of three knocks means 'something important to tell you.' His honor has shown me them several times and explained them. And as in the whole universe no one knows of these signals but myself and his honor, so he'd open the door without the slightest hesitation and without calling out (he is awfully afraid of calling out aloud). Well, those signals are known to Dmitri Fyodorovitch too, now. 'How are they known? Did you tell him? How dared you tell him? 'It was through fright I did it. How could I dare to keep it back from him? Dmitri Fyodorovitch kept persisting every day, 'You are deceiving me, you are hiding something from me! I'll break both your legs for you.' So I told him those secret signals that he might see my slavish devotion, and might be satisfied that I was not deceiving him, but was telling him all I could. 'If you think that he'll make use of those signals and try to get in, don't let him in. 'But if I should be laid up with a fit, how can I prevent him coming in then, even if I dared prevent him, knowing how desperate he is? 'Hang it! How can you be so sure you are going to have a fit, confound you? Are you laughing at me? 'How could I dare laugh at you? I am in no laughing humor with this fear on me. I feel I am going to have a fit. I have a presentiment. Fright alone will bring it on. 'Confound it! If you are laid up, Grigory will be on the watch. Let Grigory know beforehand he will be sure not to let him in. 'I should never dare to tell Grigory Vassilyevitch about the signals without orders from my master. And as for Grigory Vassilyevitch hearing him and not admitting him, he has been ill ever since yesterday, and Marfa Ignatyevna intends to give him medicine tomorrow. They've just arranged it. It's a very strange remedy of hers. Marfa Ignatyevna knows of a preparation and always keeps it. It's a strong thing made from some herb. She has the secret of it, and she always gives it to Grigory Vassilyevitch three times a year when his lumbago's so bad he is almost paralyzed by it. Then she takes a towel, wets it with the stuff, and rubs his whole back for half an hour till it's quite red and swollen, and what's left in the bottle she gives him to drink with a special prayer but not quite all, for on such occasions she leaves some for herself, and drinks it herself. And as they never take strong drink, I assure you they both drop asleep at once and sleep sound a very long time. And when Grigory Vassilyevitch wakes up he is perfectly well after it, but Marfa Ignatyevna always has a headache from it. So, if Marfa Ignatyevna carries out her intention to morrow, they won't hear anything and hinder Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They'll be asleep. 'What a rigmarole! And it all seems to happen at once, as though it were planned. You'll have a fit and they'll both be unconscious, cried Ivan. 'But aren't you trying to arrange it so? broke from him suddenly, and he frowned threateningly. 'How could I?... And why should I, when it all depends on Dmitri Fyodorovitch and his plans?... If he means to do anything, he'll do it but if not, I shan't be thrusting him upon his father. 'And why should he go to father, especially on the sly, if, as you say yourself, Agrafena Alexandrovna won't come at all? Ivan went on, turning white with anger. 'You say that yourself, and all the while I've been here, I've felt sure it was all the old man's fancy, and the creature won't come to him. Why should Dmitri break in on him if she doesn't come? Speak, I want to know what you are thinking! 'You know yourself why he'll come. What's the use of what I think? His honor will come simply because he is in a rage or suspicious on account of my illness perhaps, and he'll dash in, as he did yesterday through impatience to search the rooms, to see whether she hasn't escaped him on the sly. He is perfectly well aware, too, that Fyodor Pavlovitch has a big envelope with three thousand roubles in it, tied up with ribbon and sealed with three seals. On it is written in his own hand, 'To my angel Grushenka, if she will come,' to which he added three days later, 'for my little chicken.' There's no knowing what that might do. 'Nonsense! cried Ivan, almost beside himself. 'Dmitri won't come to steal money and kill my father to do it. He might have killed him yesterday on account of Grushenka, like the frantic, savage fool he is, but he won't steal. 'He is in very great need of money nowthe greatest need, Ivan Fyodorovitch. You don't know in what need he is, Smerdyakov explained, with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. 'He looks on that three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me himself. 'My father still owes me just three thousand,' he said. And besides that, consider, Ivan Fyodorovitch, there is something else perfectly true. It's as good as certain, so to say, that Agrafena Alexandrovna will force him, if only she cares to, to marry herthe master himself, I mean, Fyodor Pavlovitchif only she cares to, and of course she may care to. All I've said is that she won't come, but maybe she's looking for more than thatI mean to be mistress here. I know myself that Samsonov, her merchant, was laughing with her about it, telling her quite openly that it would not be at all a stupid thing to do. And she's got plenty of sense. She wouldn't marry a beggar like Dmitri Fyodorovitch. So, taking that into consideration, Ivan Fyodorovitch, reflect that then neither Dmitri Fyodorovitch nor yourself and your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, would have anything after the master's death, not a rouble, for Agrafena Alexandrovna would marry him simply to get hold of the whole, all the money there is. But if your father were to die now, there'd be some forty thousand for sure, even for Dmitri Fyodorovitch whom he hates so, for he's made no will.... Dmitri Fyodorovitch knows all that very well. A sort of shudder passed over Ivan's face. He suddenly flushed. 'Then why on earth, he suddenly interrupted Smerdyakov, 'do you advise me to go to Tchermashnya? What did you mean by that? If I go away, you see what will happen here. Ivan drew his breath with difficulty. 'Precisely so, said Smerdyakov, softly and reasonably, watching Ivan intently, however. 'What do you mean by 'precisely so'? Ivan questioned him, with a menacing light in his eyes, restraining himself with difficulty. 'I spoke because I felt sorry for you. If I were in your place I should simply throw it all up ... rather than stay on in such a position, answered Smerdyakov, with the most candid air looking at Ivan's flashing eyes. They were both silent. 'You seem to be a perfect idiot, and what's more ... an awful scoundrel, too. Ivan rose suddenly from the bench. He was about to pass straight through the gate, but he stopped short and turned to Smerdyakov. Something strange followed. Ivan, in a sudden paroxysm, bit his lip, clenched his fists, and, in another minute, would have flung himself on Smerdyakov. The latter, anyway, noticed it at the same moment, started, and shrank back. But the moment passed without mischief to Smerdyakov, and Ivan turned in silence, as it seemed in perplexity, to the gate. 'I am going away to Moscow tomorrow, if you care to knowearly tomorrow morning. That's all! he suddenly said aloud angrily, and wondered himself afterwards what need there was to say this then to Smerdyakov. 'That's the best thing you can do, he responded, as though he had expected to hear it 'except that you can always be telegraphed for from Moscow, if anything should happen here. Ivan stopped again, and again turned quickly to Smerdyakov. But a change had passed over him, too. All his familiarity and carelessness had completely disappeared. His face expressed attention and expectation, intent but timid and cringing. 'Haven't you something more to saysomething to add? could be read in the intent gaze he fixed on Ivan. 'And couldn't I be sent for from Tchermashnya, tooin case anything happened? Ivan shouted suddenly, for some unknown reason raising his voice. 'From Tchermashnya, too ... you could be sent for, Smerdyakov muttered, almost in a whisper, looking disconcerted, but gazing intently into Ivan's eyes. 'Only Moscow is farther and Tchermashnya is nearer. Is it to save my spending money on the fare, or to save my going so far out of my way, that you insist on Tchermashnya? 'Precisely so ... muttered Smerdyakov, with a breaking voice. He looked at Ivan with a revolting smile, and again made ready to draw back. But to his astonishment Ivan broke into a laugh, and went through the gate still laughing. Any one who had seen his face at that moment would have known that he was not laughing from lightness of heart, and he could not have explained himself what he was feeling at that instant. He moved and walked as though in a nervous frenzy. And in the same nervous frenzy, too, he spoke. Meeting Fyodor Pavlovitch in the drawingroom directly he went in, he shouted to him, waving his hands, 'I am going upstairs to my room, not in to you. Goodby! and passed by, trying not even to look at his father. Very possibly the old man was too hateful to him at that moment but such an unceremonious display of hostility was a surprise even to Fyodor Pavlovitch. And the old man evidently wanted to tell him something at once and had come to meet him in the drawingroom on purpose. Receiving this amiable greeting, he stood still in silence and with an ironical air watched his son going upstairs, till he passed out of sight. 'What's the matter with him? he promptly asked Smerdyakov, who had followed Ivan. 'Angry about something. Who can tell? the valet muttered evasively. 'Confound him! Let him be angry then. Bring in the samovar, and get along with you. Look sharp! No news? Then followed a series of questions such as Smerdyakov had just complained of to Ivan, all relating to his expected visitor, and these questions we will omit. Half an hour later the house was locked, and the crazy old man was wandering along through the rooms in excited expectation of hearing every minute the five knocks agreed upon. Now and then he peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing. It was very late, but Ivan was still awake and reflecting. He sat up late that night, till two o'clock. But we will not give an account of his thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that soulits turn will come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give an account of them, for there were no thoughts in his brain, but something very vague, and, above all, intense excitement. He felt himself that he had lost his bearings. He was fretted, too, by all sorts of strange and almost surprising desires for instance, after midnight he suddenly had an intense irresistible inclination to go down, open the door, go to the lodge and beat Smerdyakov. But if he had been asked why, he could not have given any exact reason, except perhaps that he loathed the valet as one who had insulted him more gravely than any one in the world. On the other hand, he was more than once that night overcome by a sort of inexplicable humiliating terror, which he felt positively paralyzed his physical powers. His head ached and he was giddy. A feeling of hatred was rankling in his heart, as though he meant to avenge himself on some one. He even hated Alyosha, recalling the conversation he had just had with him. At moments he hated himself intensely. Of Katerina Ivanovna he almost forgot to think, and wondered greatly at this afterwards, especially as he remembered perfectly that when he had protested so valiantly to Katerina Ivanovna that he would go away next day to Moscow, something had whispered in his heart, 'That's nonsense, you are not going, and it won't be so easy to tear yourself away as you are boasting now. Remembering that night long afterwards, Ivan recalled with peculiar repulsion how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had stealthily, as though he were afraid of being watched, opened the door, gone out on the staircase and listened to Fyodor Pavlovitch stirring down below, had listened a long whilesome five minuteswith a sort of strange curiosity, holding his breath while his heart throbbed. And why he had done all this, why he was listening, he could not have said. That 'action all his life afterwards he called 'infamous, and at the bottom of his heart, he thought of it as the basest action of his life. For Fyodor Pavlovitch himself he felt no hatred at that moment, but was simply intensely curious to know how he was walking down there below and what he must be doing now. He wondered and imagined how he must be peeping out of the dark windows and stopping in the middle of the room, listening, listeningfor some one to knock. Ivan went out on to the stairs twice to listen like this. About two o'clock when everything was quiet, and even Fyodor Pavlovitch had gone to bed, Ivan had got into bed, firmly resolved to fall asleep at once, as he felt fearfully exhausted. And he did fall asleep at once, and slept soundly without dreams, but waked early, at seven o'clock, when it was broad daylight. Opening his eyes, he was surprised to feel himself extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped up at once and dressed quickly then dragged out his trunk and began packing immediately. His linen had come back from the laundress the previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at the thought that everything was helping his sudden departure. And his departure certainly was sudden. Though Ivan had said the day before (to Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov) that he was leaving next day, yet he remembered that he had no thought of departure when he went to bed, or, at least, had not dreamed that his first act in the morning would be to pack his trunk. At last his trunk and bag were ready. It was about nine o'clock when Marfa Ignatyevna came in with her usual inquiry, 'Where will your honor take your tea, in your own room or downstairs? He looked almost cheerful, but there was about him, about his words and gestures, something hurried and scattered. Greeting his father affably, and even inquiring specially after his health, though he did not wait to hear his answer to the end, he announced that he was starting off in an hour to return to Moscow for good, and begged him to send for the horses. His father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgot in an unmannerly way to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so, he flew into a great flutter at the recollection of some important business of his own. 'What a fellow you are! Not to tell me yesterday! Never mind we'll manage it all the same. Do me a great service, my dear boy. Go to Tchermashnya on the way. It's only to turn to the left from the station at Volovya, only another twelve versts and you come to Tchermashnya. 'I'm sorry, I can't. It's eighty versts to the railway and the train starts for Moscow at seven o'clock tonight. I can only just catch it. 'You'll catch it tomorrow or the day after, but today turn off to Tchermashnya. It won't put you out much to humor your father! If I hadn't had something to keep me here, I would have run over myself long ago, for I've some business there in a hurry. But here I ... it's not the time for me to go now.... You see, I've two pieces of copse land there. The Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will give eight thousand for the timber. But last year I just missed a purchaser who would have given twelve. There's no getting any one about here to buy it. The Maslovs have it all their own way. One has to take what they'll give, for no one here dare bid against them. The priest at Ilyinskoe wrote to me last Thursday that a merchant called Gorstkin, a man I know, had turned up. What makes him valuable is that he is not from these parts, so he is not afraid of the Maslovs. He says he will give me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you hear? But he'll only be here, the priest writes, for a week altogether, so you must go at once and make a bargain with him. 'Well, you write to the priest he'll make the bargain. 'He can't do it. He has no eye for business. He is a perfect treasure, I'd give him twenty thousand to take care of for me without a receipt but he has no eye for business, he is a perfect child, a crow could deceive him. And yet he is a learned man, would you believe it? This Gorstkin looks like a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is a regular rogue. That's the common complaint. He is a liar. Sometimes he tells such lies that you wonder why he is doing it. He told me the year before last that his wife was dead and that he had married another, and would you believe it, there was not a word of truth in it? His wife has never died at all, she is alive to this day and gives him a beating twice a week. So what you have to find out is whether he is lying or speaking the truth, when he says he wants to buy it and would give eleven thousand. 'I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either. 'Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the signs by which you can judge about Gorstkin. I've done business with him a long time. You see, you must watch his beard he has a nasty, thin, red beard. If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross, it's all right, he is saying what he means, he wants to do business. But if he strokes his beard with his left hand and grinshe is trying to cheat you. Don't watch his eyes, you won't find out anything from his eyes, he is a deep one, a roguebut watch his beard! I'll give you a note and you show it to him. He's called Gorstkin, though his real name is Lyagavy but don't call him so, he will be offended. If you come to an understanding with him, and see it's all right, write here at once. You need only write 'He's not lying.' Stand out for eleven thousand one thousand you can knock off, but not more. Just think! there's a difference between eight thousand and eleven thousand. It's as good as picking up three thousand it's not so easy to find a purchaser, and I'm in desperate need of money. Only let me know it's serious, and I'll run over and fix it up. I'll snatch the time somehow. But what's the good of my galloping over, if it's all a notion of the priest's? Come, will you go? 'Oh, I can't spare the time. You must excuse me. 'Come, you might oblige your father. I shan't forget it. You've no heart, any of youthat's what it is? What's a day or two to you? Where are you going nowto Venice? Your Venice will keep another two days. I would have sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing like that? I send you just because you are a clever fellow. Do you suppose I don't see that? You know nothing about timber, but you've got an eye. All that is wanted is to see whether the man is in earnest. I tell you, watch his beardif his beard shakes you know he is in earnest. 'You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then? cried Ivan, with a malignant smile. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not catch, or would not catch, the malignancy, but he caught the smile. 'Then you'll go, you'll go? I'll scribble the note for you at once. 'I don't know whether I shall go. I don't know. I'll decide on the way. 'Nonsense! Decide at once. My dear fellow, decide! If you settle the matter, write me a line give it to the priest and he'll send it on to me at once. And I won't delay you more than that. You can go to Venice. The priest will give you horses back to Volovya station. The old man was quite delighted. He wrote the note, and sent for the horses. A light lunch was brought in, with brandy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch was pleased, he usually became expansive, but today he seemed to restrain himself. Of Dmitri, for instance, he did not say a word. He was quite unmoved by the parting, and seemed, in fact, at a loss for something to say. Ivan noticed this particularly. 'He must be bored with me, he thought. Only when accompanying his son out on to the steps, the old man began to fuss about. He would have kissed him, but Ivan made haste to hold out his hand, obviously avoiding the kiss. His father saw it at once, and instantly pulled himself up. 'Well, good luck to you, good luck to you! he repeated from the steps. 'You'll come again some time or other? Mind you do come. I shall always be glad to see you. Well, Christ be with you! Ivan got into the carriage. 'Goodby, Ivan! Don't be too hard on me! the father called for the last time. The whole household came out to take leaveSmerdyakov, Marfa and Grigory. Ivan gave them ten roubles each. When he had seated himself in the carriage, Smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug. 'You see ... I am going to Tchermashnya, broke suddenly from Ivan. Again, as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves, and he laughed, too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it long after. 'It's a true saying then, that 'it's always worth while speaking to a clever man,'  answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly at Ivan. The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan's soul, but he looked eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees, at a flock of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. And all of a sudden he felt very happy. He tried to talk to the driver, and he felt intensely interested in an answer the peasant made him but a minute later he realized that he was not catching anything, and that he had not really even taken in the peasant's answer. He was silent, and it was pleasant even so. The air was fresh, pure and cool, the sky bright. The images of Alyosha and Katerina Ivanovna floated into his mind. But he softly smiled, blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they flew away. 'There's plenty of time for them, he thought. They reached the station quickly, changed horses, and galloped to Volovya. 'Why is it worth while speaking to a clever man? What did he mean by that? The thought seemed suddenly to clutch at his breathing. 'And why did I tell him I was going to Tchermashnya? They reached Volovya station. Ivan got out of the carriage, and the drivers stood round him bargaining over the journey of twelve versts to Tchermashnya. He told them to harness the horses. He went into the station house, looked round, glanced at the overseer's wife, and suddenly went back to the entrance. 'I won't go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway by seven, brothers? 'We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out? 'At once. Will any one of you be going to the town tomorrow? 'To be sure. Mitri here will. 'Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father's, to Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, and tell him I haven't gone to Tchermashnya. Can you? 'Of course I can. I've known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time. 'And here's something for you, for I dare say he won't give you anything, said Ivan, laughing gayly. 'You may depend on it he won't. Mitya laughed too. 'Thank you, sir. I'll be sure to do it. At seven o'clock Ivan got into the train and set off to Moscow 'Away with the past. I've done with the old world for ever, and may I have no news, no echo, from it. To a new life, new places and no looking back! But instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom, and his heart ached with such anguish, as he had never known in his life before. He was thinking all the night. The train flew on, and only at daybreak, when he was approaching Moscow, he suddenly roused himself from his meditation. 'I am a scoundrel, he whispered to himself. Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son off. For two hours afterwards he felt almost happy, and sat drinking brandy. But suddenly something happened which was very annoying and unpleasant for every one in the house, and completely upset Fyodor Pavlovitch's equanimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something and fell down from the top of the steps. Fortunately, Marfa Ignatyevna was in the yard and heard him in time. She did not see the fall, but heard his screamthe strange, peculiar scream, long familiar to herthe scream of the epileptic falling in a fit. They could not tell whether the fit had come on him at the moment he was descending the steps, so that he must have fallen unconscious, or whether it was the fall and the shock that had caused the fit in Smerdyakov, who was known to be liable to them. They found him at the bottom of the cellar steps, writhing in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. It was thought at first that he must have broken somethingan arm or a legand hurt himself, but 'God had preserved him, as Marfa Ignatyevna expressed itnothing of the kind had happened. But it was difficult to get him out of the cellar. They asked the neighbors to help and managed it somehow. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself was present at the whole ceremony. He helped, evidently alarmed and upset. The sick man did not regain consciousness the convulsions ceased for a time, but then began again, and every one concluded that the same thing would happen, as had happened a year before, when he accidentally fell from the garret. They remembered that ice had been put on his head then. There was still ice in the cellar, and Marfa Ignatyevna had some brought up. In the evening, Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Doctor Herzenstube, who arrived at once. He was a most estimable old man, and the most careful and conscientious doctor in the province. After careful examination, he concluded that the fit was a very violent one and might have serious consequences that meanwhile he, Herzenstube, did not fully understand it, but that by tomorrow morning, if the present remedies were unavailing, he would venture to try something else. The invalid was taken to the lodge, to a room next to Grigory's and Marfa Ignatyevna's. Then Fyodor Pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put up with that day. Marfa Ignatyevna cooked the dinner, and the soup, compared with Smerdyakov's, was 'no better than dishwater, and the fowl was so dried up that it was impossible to masticate it. To her master's bitter, though deserved, reproaches, Marfa Ignatyevna replied that the fowl was a very old one to begin with, and that she had never been trained as a cook. In the evening there was another trouble in store for Fyodor Pavlovitch he was informed that Grigory, who had not been well for the last three days, was completely laid up by his lumbago. Fyodor Pavlovitch finished his tea as early as possible and locked himself up alone in the house. He was in terrible excitement and suspense. That evening he reckoned on Grushenka's coming almost as a certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning an assurance 'that she had promised to come without fail. The incorrigible old man's heart throbbed with excitement he paced up and down his empty rooms listening. He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be on the watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window (Smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her where and how to knock) the door must be opened at once. She must not be a second in the passage, for fearwhich God forbid!that she should be frightened and run away. Fyodor Pavlovitch had much to think of, but never had his heart been steeped in such voluptuous hopes. This time he could say almost certainly that she would come! When with an anxious and aching heart Alyosha went into his elder's cell, he stood still almost astonished. Instead of a sick man at his last gasp, perhaps unconscious, as he had feared to find him, he saw him sitting up in his chair and, though weak and exhausted, his face was bright and cheerful, he was surrounded by visitors and engaged in a quiet and joyful conversation. But he had only got up from his bed a quarter of an hour before Alyosha's arrival his visitors had gathered together in his cell earlier, waiting for him to wake, having received a most confident assurance from Father Passy that 'the teacher would get up, and as he had himself promised in the morning, converse once more with those dear to his heart. This promise and indeed every word of the dying elder Father Passy put implicit trust in. If he had seen him unconscious, if he had seen him breathe his last, and yet had his promise that he would rise up and say goodby to him, he would not have believed perhaps even in death, but would still have expected the dead man to recover and fulfill his promise. In the morning as he lay down to sleep, Father Zossima had told him positively 'I shall not die without the delight of another conversation with you, beloved of my heart. I shall look once more on your dear face and pour out my heart to you once again. The monks, who had gathered for this probably last conversation with Father Zossima, had all been his devoted friends for many years. There were four of them Father Iosif and Father Passy, Father Mihal, the warden of the hermitage, a man not very old and far from being learned. He was of humble origin, of strong will and steadfast faith, of austere appearance, but of deep tenderness, though he obviously concealed it as though he were almost ashamed of it. The fourth, Father Anfim, was a very old and humble little monk of the poorest peasant class. He was almost illiterate, and very quiet, scarcely speaking to any one. He was the humblest of the humble, and looked as though he had been frightened by something great and awful beyond the scope of his intelligence. Father Zossima had a great affection for this timorous man, and always treated him with marked respect, though perhaps there was no one he had known to whom he had said less, in spite of the fact that he had spent years wandering about holy Russia with him. That was very long ago, forty years before, when Father Zossima first began his life as a monk in a poor and little monastery at Kostroma, and when, shortly after, he had accompanied Father Anfim on his pilgrimage to collect alms for their poor monastery. The whole party were in the bedroom which, as we mentioned before, was very small, so that there was scarcely room for the four of them (in addition to Porfiry, the novice, who stood) to sit round Father Zossima on chairs brought from the sittingroom. It was already beginning to get dark, the room was lighted up by the lamps and the candles before the ikons. Seeing Alyosha standing embarrassed in the doorway, Father Zossima smiled at him joyfully and held out his hand. 'Welcome, my quiet one, welcome, my dear, here you are too. I knew you would come. Alyosha went up to him, bowed down before him to the ground and wept. Something surged up from his heart, his soul was quivering, he wanted to sob. 'Come, don't weep over me yet, Father Zossima smiled, laying his right hand on his head. 'You see I am sitting up talking maybe I shall live another twenty years yet, as that dear good woman from Vishegorye, with her little Lizaveta in her arms, wished me yesterday. God bless the mother and the little girl Lizaveta, he crossed himself. 'Porfiry, did you take her offering where I told you? He meant the sixty copecks brought him the day before by the goodhumored woman to be given 'to some one poorer than me. Such offerings, always of money gained by personal toil, are made by way of penance voluntarily undertaken. The elder had sent Porfiry the evening before to a widow, whose house had been burnt down lately, and who after the fire had gone with her children begging alms. Porfiry hastened to reply that he had given the money, as he had been instructed, 'from an unknown benefactress. 'Get up, my dear boy, the elder went on to Alyosha. 'Let me look at you. Have you been home and seen your brother? It seemed strange to Alyosha that he asked so confidently and precisely, about one of his brothers onlybut which one? Then perhaps he had sent him out both yesterday and today for the sake of that brother. 'I have seen one of my brothers, answered Alyosha. 'I mean the elder one, to whom I bowed down. 'I only saw him yesterday and could not find him today, said Alyosha. 'Make haste to find him, go again tomorrow and make haste, leave everything and make haste. Perhaps you may still have time to prevent something terrible. I bowed down yesterday to the great suffering in store for him. He was suddenly silent and seemed to be pondering. The words were strange. Father Iosif, who had witnessed the scene yesterday, exchanged glances with Father Passy. Alyosha could not resist asking 'Father and teacher, he began with extreme emotion, 'your words are too obscure.... What is this suffering in store for him? 'Don't inquire. I seemed to see something terrible yesterday ... as though his whole future were expressed in his eyes. A look came into his eyesso that I was instantly horrorstricken at what that man is preparing for himself. Once or twice in my life I've seen such a look in a man's face ... reflecting as it were his future fate, and that fate, alas, came to pass. I sent you to him, Alexey, for I thought your brotherly face would help him. But everything and all our fates are from the Lord. 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' Remember that. You, Alexey, I've many times silently blessed for your face, know that, added the elder with a gentle smile. 'This is what I think of you, you will go forth from these walls, but will live like a monk in the world. You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless itwhich is what matters most. Well, that is your character. Fathers and teachers, he addressed his friends with a tender smile, 'I have never till today told even him why the face of this youth is so dear to me. Now I will tell you. His face has been as it were a remembrance and a prophecy for me. At the dawn of my life when I was a child I had an elder brother who died before my eyes at seventeen. And later on in the course of my life I gradually became convinced that that brother had been for a guidance and a sign from on high for me. For had he not come into my life, I should never perhaps, so I fancy at least, have become a monk and entered on this precious path. He appeared first to me in my childhood, and here, at the end of my pilgrimage, he seems to have come to me over again. It is marvelous, fathers and teachers, that Alexey, who has some, though not a great, resemblance in face, seems to me so like him spiritually, that many times I have taken him for that young man, my brother, mysteriously come back to me at the end of my pilgrimage, as a reminder and an inspiration. So that I positively wondered at so strange a dream in myself. Do you hear this, Porfiry? he turned to the novice who waited on him. 'Many times I've seen in your face as it were a look of mortification that I love Alexey more than you. Now you know why that was so, but I love you too, know that, and many times I grieved at your mortification. I should like to tell you, dear friends, of that youth, my brother, for there has been no presence in my life more precious, more significant and touching. My heart is full of tenderness, and I look at my whole life at this moment as though living through it again. Here I must observe that this last conversation of Father Zossima with the friends who visited him on the last day of his life has been partly preserved in writing. Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov wrote it down from memory, some time after his elder's death. But whether this was only the conversation that took place then, or whether he added to it his notes of parts of former conversations with his teacher, I cannot determine. In his account, Father Zossima's talk goes on without interruption, as though he told his life to his friends in the form of a story, though there is no doubt, from other accounts of it, that the conversation that evening was general. Though the guests did not interrupt Father Zossima much, yet they too talked, perhaps even told something themselves. Besides, Father Zossima could not have carried on an uninterrupted narrative, for he was sometimes gasping for breath, his voice failed him, and he even lay down to rest on his bed, though he did not fall asleep and his visitors did not leave their seats. Once or twice the conversation was interrupted by Father Passy's reading the Gospel. It is worthy of note, too, that no one of them supposed that he would die that night, for on that evening of his life after his deep sleep in the day he seemed suddenly to have found new strength, which kept him up through this long conversation. It was like a last effort of love which gave him marvelous energy only for a little time, however, for his life was cut short immediately.... But of that later. I will only add now that I have preferred to confine myself to the account given by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov. It will be shorter and not so fatiguing, though of course, as I must repeat, Alyosha took a great deal from previous conversations and added them to it. Notes of the Life of the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES (a) Father Zossima's Brother Beloved fathers and teachers, I was born in a distant province in the north, in the town of V. My father was a gentleman by birth, but of no great consequence or position. He died when I was only two years old, and I don't remember him at all. He left my mother a small house built of wood, and a fortune, not large, but sufficient to keep her and her children in comfort. There were two of us, my elder brother Markel and I. He was eight years older than I was, of hasty irritable temperament, but kindhearted and never ironical. He was remarkably silent, especially at home with me, his mother, and the servants. He did well at school, but did not get on with his schoolfellows, though he never quarreled, at least so my mother has told me. Six months before his death, when he was seventeen, he made friends with a political exile who had been banished from Moscow to our town for freethinking, and led a solitary existence there. He was a good scholar who had gained distinction in philosophy in the university. Something made him take a fancy to Markel, and he used to ask him to see him. The young man would spend whole evenings with him during that winter, till the exile was summoned to Petersburg to take up his post again at his own request, as he had powerful friends. It was the beginning of Lent, and Markel would not fast, he was rude and laughed at it. 'That's all silly twaddle, and there is no God, he said, horrifying my mother, the servants, and me too. For though I was only nine, I too was aghast at hearing such words. We had four servants, all serfs. I remember my mother selling one of the four, the cook Afimya, who was lame and elderly, for sixty paper roubles, and hiring a free servant to take her place. In the sixth week in Lent, my brother, who was never strong and had a tendency to consumption, was taken ill. He was tall but thin and delicate looking, and of very pleasing countenance. I suppose he caught cold, anyway the doctor, who came, soon whispered to my mother that it was galloping consumption, that he would not live through the spring. My mother began weeping, and, careful not to alarm my brother, she entreated him to go to church, to confess and take the sacrament, as he was still able to move about. This made him angry, and he said something profane about the church. He grew thoughtful, however he guessed at once that he was seriously ill, and that that was why his mother was begging him to confess and take the sacrament. He had been aware, indeed, for a long time past, that he was far from well, and had a year before coolly observed at dinner to our mother and me, 'My life won't be long among you, I may not live another year, which seemed now like a prophecy. Three days passed and Holy Week had come. And on Tuesday morning my brother began going to church. 'I am doing this simply for your sake, mother, to please and comfort you, he said. My mother wept with joy and grief. 'His end must be near, she thought, 'if there's such a change in him. But he was not able to go to church long, he took to his bed, so he had to confess and take the sacrament at home. It was a late Easter, and the days were bright, fine, and full of fragrance. I remember he used to cough all night and sleep badly, but in the morning he dressed and tried to sit up in an armchair. That's how I remember him sitting, sweet and gentle, smiling, his face bright and joyous, in spite of his illness. A marvelous change passed over him, his spirit seemed transformed. The old nurse would come in and say, 'Let me light the lamp before the holy image, my dear. And once he would not have allowed it and would have blown it out. 'Light it, light it, dear, I was a wretch to have prevented you doing it. You are praying when you light the lamp, and I am praying when I rejoice seeing you. So we are praying to the same God. Those words seemed strange to us, and mother would go to her room and weep, but when she went in to him she wiped her eyes and looked cheerful. 'Mother, don't weep, darling, he would say, 'I've long to live yet, long to rejoice with you, and life is glad and joyful. 'Ah, dear boy, how can you talk of joy when you lie feverish at night, coughing as though you would tear yourself to pieces. 'Don't cry, mother, he would answer, 'life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we won't see it, if we would, we should have heaven on earth the next day. Every one wondered at his words, he spoke so strangely and positively we were all touched and wept. Friends came to see us. 'Dear ones, he would say to them, 'what have I done that you should love me so, how can you love any one like me, and how was it I did not know, I did not appreciate it before? When the servants came in to him he would say continually, 'Dear, kind people, why are you doing so much for me, do I deserve to be waited on? If it were God's will for me to live, I would wait on you, for all men should wait on one another. Mother shook her head as she listened. 'My darling, it's your illness makes you talk like that. 'Mother, darling, he would say, 'there must be servants and masters, but if so I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are to me. And another thing, mother, every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than any. Mother positively smiled at that, smiled through her tears. 'Why, how could you have sinned against all men, more than all? Robbers and murderers have done that, but what sin have you committed yet, that you hold yourself more guilty than all? 'Mother, little heart of mine, he said (he had begun using such strange caressing words at that time), 'little heart of mine, my joy, believe me, every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel it is so, painfully even. And how is it we went on then living, getting angry and not knowing? So he would get up every day, more and more sweet and joyous and full of love. When the doctor, an old German called Eisenschmidt, came 'Well, doctor, have I another day in this world? he would ask, joking. 'You'll live many days yet, the doctor would answer, 'and months and years too. 'Months and years! he would exclaim. 'Why reckon the days? One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do we quarrel, try to outshine each other and keep grudges against each other? Let's go straight into the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate, and kiss each other, and glorify life. 'Your son cannot last long, the doctor told my mother, as she accompanied him to the door. 'The disease is affecting his brain. The windows of his room looked out into the garden, and our garden was a shady one, with old trees in it which were coming into bud. The first birds of spring were flitting in the branches, chirruping and singing at the windows. And looking at them and admiring them, he began suddenly begging their forgiveness too 'Birds of heaven, happy birds, forgive me, for I have sinned against you too. None of us could understand that at the time, but he shed tears of joy. 'Yes, he said, 'there was such a glory of God all about me birds, trees, meadows, sky only I lived in shame and dishonored it all and did not notice the beauty and glory. 'You take too many sins on yourself, mother used to say, weeping. 'Mother, darling, it's for joy, not for grief I am crying. Though I can't explain it to you, I like to humble myself before them, for I don't know how to love them enough. If I have sinned against every one, yet all forgive me, too, and that's heaven. Am I not in heaven now? And there was a great deal more I don't remember. I remember I went once into his room when there was no one else there. It was a bright evening, the sun was setting, and the whole room was lighted up. He beckoned me, and I went up to him. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my face tenderly, lovingly he said nothing for a minute, only looked at me like that. 'Well, he said, 'run and play now, enjoy life for me too. I went out then and ran to play. And many times in my life afterwards I remembered even with tears how he told me to enjoy life for him too. There were many other marvelous and beautiful sayings of his, though we did not understand them at the time. He died the third week after Easter. He was fully conscious though he could not talk up to his last hour he did not change. He looked happy, his eyes beamed and sought us, he smiled at us, beckoned us. There was a great deal of talk even in the town about his death. I was impressed by all this at the time, but not too much so, though I cried a good deal at his funeral. I was young then, a child, but a lasting impression, a hidden feeling of it all, remained in my heart, ready to rise up and respond when the time came. So indeed it happened. (b) Of the Holy Scriptures in the Life of Father Zossima I was left alone with my mother. Her friends began advising her to send me to Petersburg as other parents did. 'You have only one son now, they said, 'and have a fair income, and you will be depriving him perhaps of a brilliant career if you keep him here. They suggested I should be sent to Petersburg to the Cadet Corps, that I might afterwards enter the Imperial Guard. My mother hesitated for a long time, it was awful to part with her only child, but she made up her mind to it at last, though not without many tears, believing she was acting for my happiness. She brought me to Petersburg and put me into the Cadet Corps, and I never saw her again. For she too died three years afterwards. She spent those three years mourning and grieving for both of us. From the house of my childhood I have brought nothing but precious memories, for there are no memories more precious than those of early childhood in one's first home. And that is almost always so if there is any love and harmony in the family at all. Indeed, precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is precious. With my memories of home I count, too, my memories of the Bible, which, child as I was, I was very eager to read at home. I had a book of Scripture history then with excellent pictures, called A Hundred and Four Stories from the Old and New Testament, and I learned to read from it. I have it lying on my shelf now, I keep it as a precious relic of the past. But even before I learned to read, I remember first being moved to devotional feeling at eight years old. My mother took me alone to mass (I don't remember where my brother was at the time) on the Monday before Easter. It was a fine day, and I remember today, as though I saw it now, how the incense rose from the censer and softly floated upwards and, overhead in the cupola, mingled in rising waves with the sunlight that streamed in at the little window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the first time in my life I consciously received the seed of God's word in my heart. A youth came out into the middle of the church carrying a big book, so large that at the time I fancied he could scarcely carry it. He laid it on the reading desk, opened it, and began reading, and suddenly for the first time I understood something read in the church of God. In the land of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and Godfearing, and he had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them. 'It may be that my sons have sinned in their feasting. Now the devil came before the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. 'And hast thou considered my servant Job? God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God's words. 'Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name. And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his mantle and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return into the earth the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever. Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my childhood rises up again before me, and I breathe now as I breathed then, with the breast of a little child of eight, and I feel as I did then, awe and wonder and gladness. The camels at that time caught my imagination, and Satan, who talked like that with God, and God who gave His servant up to destruction, and His servant crying out 'Blessed be Thy name although Thou dost punish me, and then the soft and sweet singing in the church 'Let my prayer rise up before Thee, and again incense from the priest's censer and the kneeling and the prayer. Ever since thenonly yesterday I took it upI've never been able to read that sacred tale without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious and unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard the words of mockery and blame, proud words, 'How could God give up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from his sores with a potsherdand for no object except to boast to the devil! 'See what My saint can suffer for My sake.'  But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mysterythat the passing earthly show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise 'That is good that I have created, looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations, and for ever and ever, since for that he was ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and what lessons there are in it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, what strength is given with it to man! It is like a mold cast of the world and man and human nature, everything is there, and a law for everything for all the ages. And what mysteries are solved and revealed! God raises Job again, gives him wealth again. Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones, however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he could. It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my hearts sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy lifeand over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, that approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy. Friends and teachers, I have heard more than once, and of late one may hear it more often, that the priests, and above all the village priests, are complaining on all sides of their miserable income and their humiliating lot. They plainly state, even in printI've read it myselfthat they are unable to teach the Scriptures to the people because of the smallness of their means, and if Lutherans and heretics come and lead the flock astray, they let them lead them astray because they have so little to live upon. May the Lord increase the sustenance that is so precious to them, for their complaint is just, too. But of a truth I say, if any one is to blame in the matter, half the fault is ours. For he may be short of time, he may say truly that he is overwhelmed all the while with work and services, but still it's not all the time, even he has an hour a week to remember God. And he does not work the whole year round. Let him gather round him once a week, some hour in the evening, if only the children at firstthe fathers will hear of it and they too will begin to come. There's no need to build halls for this, let him take them into his own cottage. They won't spoil his cottage, they would only be there one hour. Let him open that book and begin reading it without grand words or superciliousness, without condescension to them, but gently and kindly, being glad that he is reading to them and that they are listening with attention, loving the words himself, only stopping from time to time to explain words that are not understood by the peasants. Don't be anxious, they will understand everything, the orthodox heart will understand all! Let him read them about Abraham and Sarah, about Isaac and Rebecca, of how Jacob went to Laban and wrestled with the Lord in his dream and said, 'This place is holyand he will impress the devout mind of the peasant. Let him read, especially to the children, how the brothers sold Joseph, the tender boy, the dreamer and prophet, into bondage, and told their father that a wild beast had devoured him, and showed him his blood stained clothes. Let him read them how the brothers afterwards journeyed into Egypt for corn, and Joseph, already a great ruler, unrecognized by them, tormented them, accused them, kept his brother Benjamin, and all through love 'I love you, and loving you I torment you. For he remembered all his life how they had sold him to the merchants in the burning desert by the well, and how, wringing his hands, he had wept and besought his brothers not to sell him as a slave in a strange land. And how, seeing them again after many years, he loved them beyond measure, but he harassed and tormented them in love. He left them at last not able to bear the suffering of his heart, flung himself on his bed and wept. Then, wiping his tears away, he went out to them joyful and told them, 'Brothers, I am your brother Joseph! Let him read them further how happy old Jacob was on learning that his darling boy was still alive, and how he went to Egypt leaving his own country, and died in a foreign land, bequeathing his great prophecy that had lain mysteriously hidden in his meek and timid heart all his life, that from his offspring, from Judah, will come the great hope of the world, the Messiah and Saviour. Fathers and teachers, forgive me and don't be angry, that like a little child I've been babbling of what you know long ago, and can teach me a hundred times more skillfully. I only speak from rapture, and forgive my tears, for I love the Bible. Let him too weep, the priest of God, and be sure that the hearts of his listeners will throb in response. Only a little tiny seed is neededdrop it into the heart of the peasant and it won't die, it will live in his soul all his life, it will be hidden in the midst of his darkness and sin, like a bright spot, like a great reminder. And there's no need of much teaching or explanation, he will understand it all simply. Do you suppose that the peasants don't understand? Try reading them the touching story of the fair Esther and the haughty Vashti or the miraculous story of Jonah in the whale. Don't forget either the parables of Our Lord, choose especially from the Gospel of St. Luke (that is what I did), and then from the Acts of the Apostles the conversion of St. Paul (that you mustn't leave out on any account), and from the Lives of the Saints, for instance, the life of Alexey, the man of God and, greatest of all, the happy martyr and the seer of God, Mary of Egyptand you will penetrate their hearts with these simple tales. Give one hour a week to it in spite of your poverty, only one little hour. And you will see for yourselves that our people is gracious and grateful, and will repay you a hundredfold. Mindful of the kindness of their priest and the moving words they have heard from him, they will of their own accord help him in his fields and in his house, and will treat him with more respect than beforeso that it will even increase his worldly wellbeing too. The thing is so simple that sometimes one is even afraid to put it into words, for fear of being laughed at, and yet how true it is! One who does not believe in God will not believe in God's people. He who believes in God's people will see His Holiness too, even though he had not believed in it till then. Only the people and their future spiritual power will convert our atheists, who have torn themselves away from their native soil. And what is the use of Christ's words, unless we set an example? The people is lost without the Word of God, for its soul is athirst for the Word and for all that is good. In my youth, long ago, nearly forty years ago, I traveled all over Russia with Father Anfim, collecting funds for our monastery, and we stayed one night on the bank of a great navigable river with some fishermen. A good looking peasant lad, about eighteen, joined us he had to hurry back next morning to pull a merchant's barge along the bank. I noticed him looking straight before him with clear and tender eyes. It was a bright, warm, still, July night, a cool mist rose from the broad river, we could hear the plash of a fish, the birds were still, all was hushed and beautiful, everything praying to God. Only we two were not sleeping, the lad and I, and we talked of the beauty of this world of God's and of the great mystery of it. Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvelously know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves. I saw the dear lad's heart was moved. He told me that he loved the forest and the forest birds. He was a birdcatcher, knew the note of each of them, could call each bird. 'I know nothing better than to be in the forest, said he, 'though all things are good. 'Truly, I answered him, 'all things are good and fair, because all is truth. Look, said I, 'at the horse, that great beast that is so near to man or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him look at their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and what beauty! It's touching to know that there's no sin in them, for all, all except man, is sinless, and Christ has been with them before us. 'Why, asked the boy, 'is Christ with them too? 'It cannot but be so, said I, 'since the Word is for all. All creation and all creatures, every leaf is striving to the Word, singing glory to God, weeping to Christ, unconsciously accomplishing this by the mystery of their sinless life. Yonder, said I, 'in the forest wanders the dreadful bear, fierce and menacing, and yet innocent in it. And I told him how once a bear came to a great saint who had taken refuge in a tiny cell in the wood. And the great saint pitied him, went up to him without fear and gave him a piece of bread. 'Go along, said he, 'Christ be with you, and the savage beast walked away meekly and obediently, doing no harm. And the lad was delighted that the bear had walked away without hurting the saint, and that Christ was with him too. 'Ah, said he, 'how good that is, how good and beautiful is all God's work! He sat musing softly and sweetly. I saw he understood. And he slept beside me a light and sinless sleep. May God bless youth! And I prayed for him as I went to sleep. Lord, send peace and light to Thy people! (c) Recollections of Father Zossima's Youth before he became a Monk. The Duel I spent a long time, almost eight years, in the military cadet school at Petersburg, and in the novelty of my surroundings there, many of my childish impressions grew dimmer, though I forgot nothing. I picked up so many new habits and opinions that I was transformed into a cruel, absurd, almost savage creature. A surface polish of courtesy and society manners I did acquire together with the French language. But we all, myself included, looked upon the soldiers in our service as cattle. I was perhaps worse than the rest in that respect, for I was so much more impressionable than my companions. By the time we left the school as officers, we were ready to lay down our lives for the honor of the regiment, but no one of us had any knowledge of the real meaning of honor, and if any one had known it, he would have been the first to ridicule it. Drunkenness, debauchery and devilry were what we almost prided ourselves on. I don't say that we were bad by nature, all these young men were good fellows, but they behaved badly, and I worst of all. What made it worse for me was that I had come into my own money, and so I flung myself into a life of pleasure, and plunged headlong into all the recklessness of youth. I was fond of reading, yet strange to say, the Bible was the one book I never opened at that time, though I always carried it about with me, and I was never separated from it in very truth I was keeping that book 'for the day and the hour, for the month and the year, though I knew it not. After four years of this life, I chanced to be in the town of K. where our regiment was stationed at the time. We found the people of the town hospitable, rich and fond of entertainments. I met with a cordial reception everywhere, as I was of a lively temperament and was known to be well off, which always goes a long way in the world. And then a circumstance happened which was the beginning of it all. I formed an attachment to a beautiful and intelligent young girl of noble and lofty character, the daughter of people much respected. They were welltodo people of influence and position. They always gave me a cordial and friendly reception. I fancied that the young lady looked on me with favor and my heart was aflame at such an idea. Later on I saw and fully realized that I perhaps was not so passionately in love with her at all, but only recognized the elevation of her mind and character, which I could not indeed have helped doing. I was prevented, however, from making her an offer at the time by my selfishness, I was loath to part with the allurements of my free and licentious bachelor life in the heyday of my youth, and with my pockets full of money. I did drop some hint as to my feelings however, though I put off taking any decisive step for a time. Then, all of a sudden, we were ordered off for two months to another district. On my return two months later, I found the young lady already married to a rich neighboring landowner, a very amiable man, still young though older than I was, connected with the best Petersburg society, which I was not, and of excellent education, which I also was not. I was so overwhelmed at this unexpected circumstance that my mind was positively clouded. The worst of it all was that, as I learned then, the young landowner had been a long while betrothed to her, and I had met him indeed many times in her house, but blinded by my conceit I had noticed nothing. And this particularly mortified me almost everybody had known all about it, while I knew nothing. I was filled with sudden irrepressible fury. With flushed face I began recalling how often I had been on the point of declaring my love to her, and as she had not attempted to stop me or to warn me, she must, I concluded, have been laughing at me all the time. Later on, of course, I reflected and remembered that she had been very far from laughing at me on the contrary, she used to turn off any lovemaking on my part with a jest and begin talking of other subjects but at that moment I was incapable of reflecting and was all eagerness for revenge. I am surprised to remember that my wrath and revengeful feelings were extremely repugnant to my own nature, for being of an easy temper, I found it difficult to be angry with any one for long, and so I had to work myself up artificially and became at last revolting and absurd. I waited for an opportunity and succeeded in insulting my 'rival in the presence of a large company. I insulted him on a perfectly extraneous pretext, jeering at his opinion upon an important public eventit was in the year and my jeer was, so people said, clever and effective. Then I forced him to ask for an explanation, and behaved so rudely that he accepted my challenge in spite of the vast inequality between us, as I was younger, a person of no consequence, and of inferior rank. I learned afterwards for a fact that it was from a jealous feeling on his side also that my challenge was accepted he had been rather jealous of me on his wife's account before their marriage he fancied now that if he submitted to be insulted by me and refused to accept my challenge, and if she heard of it, she might begin to despise him and waver in her love for him. I soon found a second in a comrade, an ensign of our regiment. In those days though duels were severely punished, yet dueling was a kind of fashion among the officersso strong and deeply rooted will a brutal prejudice sometimes be. It was the end of June, and our meeting was to take place at seven o'clock the next day on the outskirts of the townand then something happened that in very truth was the turningpoint of my life. In the evening, returning home in a savage and brutal humor, I flew into a rage with my orderly Afanasy, and gave him two blows in the face with all my might, so that it was covered with blood. He had not long been in my service and I had struck him before, but never with such ferocious cruelty. And, believe me, though it's forty years ago, I recall it now with shame and pain. I went to bed and slept for about three hours when I waked up the day was breaking. I got upI did not want to sleep any moreI went to the windowopened it, it looked out upon the garden I saw the sun rising it was warm and beautiful, the birds were singing. 'What's the meaning of it? I thought. 'I feel in my heart as it were something vile and shameful. Is it because I am going to shed blood? No, I thought, 'I feel it's not that. Can it be that I am afraid of death, afraid of being killed? No, that's not it, that's not it at all.... And all at once I knew what it was it was because I had beaten Afanasy the evening before! It all rose before my mind, it all was as it were repeated over again he stood before me and I was beating him straight on the face and he was holding his arms stiffly down, his head erect, his eyes fixed upon me as though on parade. He staggered at every blow and did not even dare to raise his hands to protect himself. That is what a man has been brought to, and that was a man beating a fellow creature! What a crime! It was as though a sharp dagger had pierced me right through. I stood as if I were struck dumb, while the sun was shining, the leaves were rejoicing and the birds were trilling the praise of God.... I hid my face in my hands, fell on my bed and broke into a storm of tears. And then I remembered my brother Markel and what he said on his deathbed to his servants 'My dear ones, why do you wait on me, why do you love me, am I worth your waiting on me? 'Yes, am I worth it? flashed through my mind. 'After all what am I worth, that another man, a fellow creature, made in the likeness and image of God, should serve me? For the first time in my life this question forced itself upon me. He had said, 'Mother, my little heart, in truth we are each responsible to all for all, it's only that men don't know this. If they knew it, the world would be a paradise at once. 'God, can that too be false? I thought as I wept. 'In truth, perhaps, I am more than all others responsible for all, a greater sinner than all men in the world. And all at once the whole truth in its full light appeared to me what was I going to do? I was going to kill a good, clever, noble man, who had done me no wrong, and by depriving his wife of happiness for the rest of her life, I should be torturing and killing her too. I lay thus in my bed with my face in the pillow, heedless how the time was passing. Suddenly my second, the ensign, came in with the pistols to fetch me. 'Ah, said he, 'it's a good thing you are up already, it's time we were off, come along! I did not know what to do and hurried to and fro undecided we went out to the carriage, however. 'Wait here a minute, I said to him. 'I'll be back directly, I have forgotten my purse. And I ran back alone, to Afanasy's little room. 'Afanasy, I said, 'I gave you two blows on the face yesterday, forgive me, I said. He started as though he were frightened, and looked at me and I saw that it was not enough, and on the spot, in my full officer's uniform, I dropped at his feet and bowed my head to the ground. 'Forgive me, I said. Then he was completely aghast. 'Your honor ... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it? And he burst out crying as I had done before, hid this face in his hands, turned to the window and shook all over with his sobs. I flew out to my comrade and jumped into the carriage. 'Ready, I cried. 'Have you ever seen a conqueror? I asked him. 'Here is one before you. I was in ecstasy, laughing and talking all the way, I don't remember what about. He looked at me. 'Well, brother, you are a plucky fellow, you'll keep up the honor of the uniform, I can see. So we reached the place and found them there, waiting us. We were placed twelve paces apart he had the first shot. I stood gayly, looking him full in the face I did not twitch an eyelash, I looked lovingly at him, for I knew what I would do. His shot just grazed my cheek and ear. 'Thank God, I cried, 'no man has been killed, and I seized my pistol, turned back and flung it far away into the wood. 'That's the place for you, I cried. I turned to my adversary. 'Forgive me, young fool that I am, sir, I said, 'for my unprovoked insult to you and for forcing you to fire at me. I am ten times worse than you and more, maybe. Tell that to the person whom you hold dearest in the world. I had no sooner said this than they all three shouted at me. 'Upon my word, cried my adversary, annoyed, 'if you did not want to fight, why did not you let me alone? 'Yesterday I was a fool, today I know better, I answered him gayly. 'As to yesterday, I believe you, but as for today, it is difficult to agree with your opinion, said he. 'Bravo, I cried, clapping my hands. 'I agree with you there too. I have deserved it! 'Will you shoot, sir, or not? 'No, I won't, I said 'if you like, fire at me again, but it would be better for you not to fire. The seconds, especially mine, were shouting too 'Can you disgrace the regiment like this, facing your antagonist and begging his forgiveness! If I'd only known this! I stood facing them all, not laughing now. 'Gentlemen, I said, 'is it really so wonderful in these days to find a man who can repent of his stupidity and publicly confess his wrongdoing? 'But not in a duel, cried my second again. 'That's what's so strange, I said. 'For I ought to have owned my fault as soon as I got here, before he had fired a shot, before leading him into a great and deadly sin but we have made our life so grotesque, that to act in that way would have been almost impossible, for only after I have faced his shot at the distance of twelve paces could my words have any significance for him, and if I had spoken before, he would have said, 'He is a coward, the sight of the pistols has frightened him, no use to listen to him.' Gentlemen, I cried suddenly, speaking straight from my heart, 'look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep. I would have said more but I could not my voice broke with the sweetness and youthful gladness of it, and there was such bliss in my heart as I had never known before in my life. 'All this as rational and edifying, said my antagonist, 'and in any case you are an original person. 'You may laugh, I said to him, laughing too, 'but afterwards you will approve of me. 'Oh, I am ready to approve of you now, said he 'will you shake hands? for I believe you are genuinely sincere. 'No, I said, 'not now, later on when I have grown worthier and deserve your esteem, then shake hands and you will do well. We went home, my second upbraiding me all the way, while I kissed him. All my comrades heard of the affair at once and gathered together to pass judgment on me the same day. 'He has disgraced the uniform, they said 'let him resign his commission. Some stood up for me 'He faced the shot, they said. 'Yes, but he was afraid of his other shot and begged for forgiveness. 'If he had been afraid of being shot, he would have shot his own pistol first before asking forgiveness, while he flung it loaded into the forest. No, there's something else in this, something original. I enjoyed listening and looking at them. 'My dear friends and comrades, said I, 'don't worry about my resigning my commission, for I have done so already. I have sent in my papers this morning and as soon as I get my discharge I shall go into a monasteryit's with that object I am leaving the regiment. When I had said this every one of them burst out laughing. 'You should have told us of that first, that explains everything, we can't judge a monk. They laughed and could not stop themselves, and not scornfully, but kindly and merrily. They all felt friendly to me at once, even those who had been sternest in their censure, and all the following month, before my discharge came, they could not make enough of me. 'Ah, you monk, they would say. And every one said something kind to me, they began trying to dissuade me, even to pity me 'What are you doing to yourself? 'No, they would say, 'he is a brave fellow, he faced fire and could have fired his own pistol too, but he had a dream the night before that he should become a monk, that's why he did it. It was the same thing with the society of the town. Till then I had been kindly received, but had not been the object of special attention, and now all came to know me at once and invited me they laughed at me, but they loved me. I may mention that although everybody talked openly of our duel, the authorities took no notice of it, because my antagonist was a near relation of our general, and as there had been no bloodshed and no serious consequences, and as I resigned my commission, they took it as a joke. And I began then to speak aloud and fearlessly, regardless of their laughter, for it was always kindly and not spiteful laughter. These conversations mostly took place in the evenings, in the company of ladies women particularly liked listening to me then and they made the men listen. 'But how can I possibly be responsible for all? every one would laugh in my face. 'Can I, for instance, be responsible for you? 'You may well not know it, I would answer, 'since the whole world has long been going on a different line, since we consider the veriest lies as truth and demand the same lies from others. Here I have for once in my life acted sincerely and, well, you all look upon me as a madman. Though you are friendly to me, yet, you see, you all laugh at me. 'But how can we help being friendly to you? said my hostess, laughing. The room was full of people. All of a sudden the young lady rose, on whose account the duel had been fought and whom only lately I had intended to be my future wife. I had not noticed her coming into the room. She got up, came to me and held out her hand. 'Let me tell you, she said, 'that I am the first not to laugh at you, but on the contrary I thank you with tears and express my respect for you for your action then. Her husband, too, came up and then they all approached me and almost kissed me. My heart was filled with joy, but my attention was especially caught by a middleaged man who came up to me with the others. I knew him by name already, but had never made his acquaintance nor exchanged a word with him till that evening. (d) The Mysterious Visitor He had long been an official in the town he was in a prominent position, respected by all, rich and had a reputation for benevolence. He subscribed considerable sums to the almshouse and the orphan asylum he was very charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became known after his death. He was a man of about fifty, almost stern in appearance and not much given to conversation. He had been married about ten years and his wife, who was still young, had borne him three children. Well, I was sitting alone in my room the following evening, when my door suddenly opened and this gentleman walked in. I must mention, by the way, that I was no longer living in my former quarters. As soon as I resigned my commission, I took rooms with an old lady, the widow of a government clerk. My landlady's servant waited upon me, for I had moved into her rooms simply because on my return from the duel I had sent Afanasy back to the regiment, as I felt ashamed to look him in the face after my last interview with him. So prone is the man of the world to be ashamed of any righteous action. 'I have, said my visitor, 'with great interest listened to you speaking in different houses the last few days and I wanted at last to make your personal acquaintance, so as to talk to you more intimately. Can you, dear sir, grant me this favor? 'I can, with the greatest pleasure, and I shall look upon it as an honor. I said this, though I felt almost dismayed, so greatly was I impressed from the first moment by the appearance of this man. For though other people had listened to me with interest and attention, no one had come to me before with such a serious, stern and concentrated expression. And now he had come to see me in my own rooms. He sat down. 'You are, I see, a man of great strength of character, he said 'as you have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you risked incurring the contempt of all. 'Your praise is, perhaps, excessive, I replied. 'No, it's not excessive, he answered 'believe me, such a course of action is far more difficult than you think. It is that which has impressed me, and it is only on that account that I have come to you, he continued. 'Tell me, please, that is if you are not annoyed by my perhaps unseemly curiosity, what were your exact sensations, if you can recall them, at the moment when you made up your mind to ask forgiveness at the duel. Do not think my question frivolous on the contrary, I have in asking the question a secret motive of my own, which I will perhaps explain to you later on, if it is God's will that we should become more intimately acquainted. All the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight into the face and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great curiosity on my side also, for I felt that there was some strange secret in his soul. 'You ask what were my exact sensations at the moment when I asked my opponent's forgiveness, I answered 'but I had better tell you from the beginning what I have not yet told any one else. And I described all that had passed between Afanasy and me, and how I had bowed down to the ground at his feet. 'From that you can see for yourself, I concluded, 'that at the time of the duel it was easier for me, for I had made a beginning already at home, and when once I had started on that road, to go farther along it was far from being difficult, but became a source of joy and happiness. I liked the way he looked at me as he listened. 'All that, he said, 'is exceedingly interesting. I will come to see you again and again. And from that time forth he came to see me nearly every evening. And we should have become greater friends, if only he had ever talked of himself. But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, yet continually asked me about myself. In spite of that I became very fond of him and spoke with perfect frankness to him about all my feelings 'for, thought I, 'what need have I to know his secrets, since I can see without that that he is a good man? Moreover, though he is such a serious man and my senior, he comes to see a youngster like me and treats me as his equal. And I learned a great deal that was profitable from him, for he was a man of lofty mind. 'That life is heaven, he said to me suddenly, 'that I have long been thinking about and all at once he added, 'I think of nothing else indeed. He looked at me and smiled. 'I am more convinced of it than you are, I will tell you later why. I listened to him and thought that he evidently wanted to tell me something. 'Heaven, he went on, 'lies hidden within all of ushere it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me tomorrow and for all time. I looked at him he was speaking with great emotion and gazing mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me. 'And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality. 'And when, I cried out to him bitterly, 'when will that come to pass? and will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of ours? 'What then, you don't believe it, he said. 'You preach it and don't believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it, will come to pass without doubt it will come, but not now, for every process has its law. It's a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Every one will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass it will come to pass, but first we have to go through the period of isolation. 'What do you mean by isolation? I asked him. 'Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our ageit has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For every one strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but selfdestruction, for instead of selfrealization he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, 'How strong I am now and how secure,' and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into selfdestructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light. And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens.... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die. Our evenings, one after another, were spent in such stirring and fervent talk. I gave up society and visited my neighbors much less frequently. Besides, my vogue was somewhat over. I say this, not as blame, for they still loved me and treated me goodhumoredly, but there's no denying that fashion is a great power in society. I began to regard my mysterious visitor with admiration, for besides enjoying his intelligence, I began to perceive that he was brooding over some plan in his heart, and was preparing himself perhaps for a great deed. Perhaps he liked my not showing curiosity about his secret, not seeking to discover it by direct question nor by insinuation. But I noticed at last, that he seemed to show signs of wanting to tell me something. This had become quite evident, indeed, about a month after he first began to visit me. 'Do you know, he said to me once, 'that people are very inquisitive about us in the town and wonder why I come to see you so often. But let them wonder, for soon all will be explained. Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and almost always on such occasions he would get up and go away. Sometimes he would fix a long piercing look upon me, and I thought, 'He will say something directly now. But he would suddenly begin talking of something ordinary and familiar. He often complained of headache too. One day, quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking with great fervor a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his face worked convulsively, while he stared persistently at me. 'What's the matter? I said 'do you feel ill?he had just been complaining of headache. 'I ... do you know ... I murdered some one. He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. 'Why is it he is smiling? The thought flashed through my mind before I realized anything else. I too turned pale. 'What are you saying? I cried. 'You see, he said, with a pale smile, 'how much it has cost me to say the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I've taken the first step and shall go on. For a long while I could not believe him, and I did not believe him at that time, but only after he had been to see me three days running and told me all about it. I thought he was mad, but ended by being convinced, to my great grief and amazement. His crime was a great and terrible one. Fourteen years before, he had murdered the widow of a landowner, a wealthy and handsome young woman who had a house in our town. He fell passionately in love with her, declared his feeling and tried to persuade her to marry him. But she had already given her heart to another man, an officer of noble birth and high rank in the service, who was at that time away at the front, though she was expecting him soon to return. She refused his offer and begged him not to come and see her. After he had ceased to visit her, he took advantage of his knowledge of the house to enter at night through the garden by the roof, at great risk of discovery. But, as often happens, a crime committed with extraordinary audacity is more successful than others. Entering the garret through the skylight, he went down the ladder, knowing that the door at the bottom of it was sometimes, through the negligence of the servants, left unlocked. He hoped to find it so, and so it was. He made his way in the dark to her bedroom, where a light was burning. As though on purpose, both her maids had gone off to a birthdayparty in the same street, without asking leave. The other servants slept in the servants' quarters or in the kitchen on the groundfloor. His passion flamed up at the sight of her asleep, and then vindictive, jealous anger took possession of his heart, and like a drunken man, beside himself, he thrust a knife into her heart, so that she did not even cry out. Then with devilish and criminal cunning he contrived that suspicion should fall on the servants. He was so base as to take her purse, to open her chest with keys from under her pillow, and to take some things from it, doing it all as it might have been done by an ignorant servant, leaving valuable papers and taking only money. He took some of the larger gold things, but left smaller articles that were ten times as valuable. He took with him, too, some things for himself as remembrances, but of that later. Having done this awful deed, he returned by the way he had come. Neither the next day, when the alarm was raised, nor at any time after in his life, did any one dream of suspecting that he was the criminal. No one indeed knew of his love for her, for he was always reserved and silent and had no friend to whom he would have opened his heart. He was looked upon simply as an acquaintance, and not a very intimate one, of the murdered woman, as for the previous fortnight he had not even visited her. A serf of hers called Pyotr was at once suspected, and every circumstance confirmed the suspicion. The man knewindeed his mistress did not conceal the factthat having to send one of her serfs as a recruit she had decided to send him, as he had no relations and his conduct was unsatisfactory. People had heard him angrily threatening to murder her when he was drunk in a tavern. Two days before her death, he had run away, staying no one knew where in the town. The day after the murder, he was found on the road leading out of the town, dead drunk, with a knife in his pocket, and his right hand happened to be stained with blood. He declared that his nose had been bleeding, but no one believed him. The maids confessed that they had gone to a party and that the streetdoor had been left open till they returned. And a number of similar details came to light, throwing suspicion on the innocent servant. They arrested him, and he was tried for the murder but a week after the arrest, the prisoner fell sick of a fever and died unconscious in the hospital. There the matter ended and the judges and the authorities and every one in the town remained convinced that the crime had been committed by no one but the servant who had died in the hospital. And after that the punishment began. My mysterious visitor, now my friend, told me that at first he was not in the least troubled by pangs of conscience. He was miserable a long time, but not for that reason only from regret that he had killed the woman he loved, that she was no more, that in killing her he had killed his love, while the fire of passion was still in his veins. But of the innocent blood he had shed, of the murder of a fellow creature, he scarcely thought. The thought that his victim might have become the wife of another man was insupportable to him, and so, for a long time, he was convinced in his conscience that he could not have acted otherwise. At first he was worried at the arrest of the servant, but his illness and death soon set his mind at rest, for the man's death was apparently (so he reflected at the time) not owing to his arrest or his fright, but a chill he had taken on the day he ran away, when he had lain all night dead drunk on the damp ground. The theft of the money and other things troubled him little, for he argued that the theft had not been committed for gain but to avert suspicion. The sum stolen was small, and he shortly afterwards subscribed the whole of it, and much more, towards the funds for maintaining an almshouse in the town. He did this on purpose to set his conscience at rest about the theft, and it's a remarkable fact that for a long time he really was at peacehe told me this himself. He entered then upon a career of great activity in the service, volunteered for a difficult and laborious duty, which occupied him two years, and being a man of strong will almost forgot the past. Whenever he recalled it, he tried not to think of it at all. He became active in philanthropy too, founded and helped to maintain many institutions in the town, did a good deal in the two capitals, and in both Moscow and Petersburg was elected a member of philanthropic societies. At last, however, he began brooding over the past, and the strain of it was too much for him. Then he was attracted by a fine and intelligent girl and soon after married her, hoping that marriage would dispel his lonely depression, and that by entering on a new life and scrupulously doing his duty to his wife and children, he would escape from old memories altogether. But the very opposite of what he expected happened. He began, even in the first month of his marriage, to be continually fretted by the thought, 'My wife loves mebut what if she knew? When she first told him that she would soon bear him a child, he was troubled. 'I am giving life, but I have taken life. Children came. 'How dare I love them, teach and educate them, how can I talk to them of virtue? I have shed blood. They were splendid children, he longed to caress them 'and I can't look at their innocent candid faces, I am unworthy. At last he began to be bitterly and ominously haunted by the blood of his murdered victim, by the young life he had destroyed, by the blood that cried out for vengeance. He had begun to have awful dreams. But, being a man of fortitude, he bore his suffering a long time, thinking 'I shall expiate everything by this secret agony. But that hope, too, was vain the longer it went on, the more intense was his suffering. He was respected in society for his active benevolence, though every one was overawed by his stern and gloomy character. But the more he was respected, the more intolerable it was for him. He confessed to me that he had thoughts of killing himself. But he began to be haunted by another ideaan idea which he had at first regarded as impossible and unthinkable, though at last it got such a hold on his heart that he could not shake it off. He dreamed of rising up, going out and confessing in the face of all men that he had committed murder. For three years this dream had pursued him, haunting him in different forms. At last he believed with his whole heart that if he confessed his crime, he would heal his soul and would be at peace for ever. But this belief filled his heart with terror, for how could he carry it out? And then came what happened at my duel. 'Looking at you, I have made up my mind. I looked at him. 'Is it possible, I cried, clasping my hands, 'that such a trivial incident could give rise to such a resolution in you? 'My resolution has been growing for the last three years, he answered, 'and your story only gave the last touch to it. Looking at you, I reproached myself and envied you. He said this to me almost sullenly. 'But you won't be believed, I observed 'it's fourteen years ago. 'I have proofs, great proofs. I shall show them. Then I cried and kissed him. 'Tell me one thing, one thing, he said (as though it all depended upon me), 'my wife, my children! My wife may die of grief, and though my children won't lose their rank and property, they'll be a convict's children and for ever! And what a memory, what a memory of me I shall leave in their hearts! I said nothing. 'And to part from them, to leave them for ever? It's for ever, you know, for ever! I sat still and repeated a silent prayer. I got up at last, I felt afraid. 'Well? He looked at me. 'Go! said I, 'confess. Everything passes, only the truth remains. Your children will understand, when they grow up, the nobility of your resolution. He left me that time as though he had made up his mind. Yet for more than a fortnight afterwards, he came to me every evening, still preparing himself, still unable to bring himself to the point. He made my heart ache. One day he would come determined and say fervently 'I know it will be heaven for me, heaven, the moment I confess. Fourteen years I've been in hell. I want to suffer. I will take my punishment and begin to live. You can pass through the world doing wrong, but there's no turning back. Now I dare not love my neighbor nor even my own children. Good God, my children will understand, perhaps, what my punishment has cost me and will not condemn me! God is not in strength but in truth. 'All will understand your sacrifice, I said to him, 'if not at once, they will understand later for you have served truth, the higher truth, not of the earth. And he would go away seeming comforted, but next day he would come again, bitter, pale, sarcastic. 'Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively as though to say, 'He has still not confessed!' Wait a bit, don't despise me too much. It's not such an easy thing to do, as you would think. Perhaps I shall not do it at all. You won't go and inform against me then, will you? And far from looking at him with indiscreet curiosity, I was afraid to look at him at all. I was quite ill from anxiety, and my heart was full of tears. I could not sleep at night. 'I have just come from my wife, he went on. 'Do you understand what the word 'wife' means? When I went out, the children called to me, 'Goodby, father, make haste back to read The Children's Magazine with us.' No, you don't understand that! No one is wise from another man's woe. His eyes were glittering, his lips were twitching. Suddenly he struck the table with his fist so that everything on it dancedit was the first time he had done such a thing, he was such a mild man. 'But need I? he exclaimed, 'must I? No one has been condemned, no one has been sent to Siberia in my place, the man died of fever. And I've been punished by my sufferings for the blood I shed. And I shan't be believed, they won't believe my proofs. Need I confess, need I? I am ready to go on suffering all my life for the blood I have shed, if only my wife and children may be spared. Will it be just to ruin them with me? Aren't we making a mistake? What is right in this case? And will people recognize it, will they appreciate it, will they respect it? 'Good Lord! I thought to myself, 'he is thinking of other people's respect at such a moment! And I felt so sorry for him then, that I believe I would have shared his fate if it could have comforted him. I saw he was beside himself. I was aghast, realizing with my heart as well as my mind what such a resolution meant. 'Decide my fate! he exclaimed again. 'Go and confess, I whispered to him. My voice failed me, but I whispered it firmly. I took up the New Testament from the table, the Russian translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. John, chapter xii. verse  'Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. I had just been reading that verse when he came in. He read it. 'That's true, he said, but he smiled bitterly. 'It's terrible the things you find in those books, he said, after a pause. 'It's easy enough to thrust them upon one. And who wrote them? Can they have been written by men? 'The Holy Spirit wrote them, said I. 'It's easy for you to prate, he smiled again, this time almost with hatred. I took the book again, opened it in another place and showed him the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter x. verse . He read 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He read it and simply flung down the book. He was trembling all over. 'An awful text, he said. 'There's no denying you've picked out fitting ones. He rose from the chair. 'Well! he said, 'goodby, perhaps I shan't come again ... we shall meet in heaven. So I have been for fourteen years 'in the hands of the living God,' that's how one must think of those fourteen years. Tomorrow I will beseech those hands to let me go. I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him, but I did not darehis face was contorted and somber. He went away. 'Good God, I thought, 'what has he gone to face! I fell on my knees before the ikon and wept for him before the Holy Mother of God, our swift defender and helper. I was half an hour praying in tears, and it was late, about midnight. Suddenly I saw the door open and he came in again. I was surprised. 'Where have you been? I asked him. 'I think, he said, 'I've forgotten something ... my handkerchief, I think.... Well, even if I've not forgotten anything, let me stay a little. He sat down. I stood over him. 'You sit down, too, said he. I sat down. We sat still for two minutes he looked intently at me and suddenly smiledI remembered thatthen he got up, embraced me warmly and kissed me. 'Remember, he said, 'how I came to you a second time. Do you hear, remember it! And he went out. 'Tomorrow, I thought. And so it was. I did not know that evening that the next day was his birthday. I had not been out for the last few days, so I had no chance of hearing it from any one. On that day he always had a great gathering, every one in the town went to it. It was the same this time. After dinner he walked into the middle of the room, with a paper in his handa formal declaration to the chief of his department who was present. This declaration he read aloud to the whole assembly. It contained a full account of the crime, in every detail. 'I cut myself off from men as a monster. God has visited me, he said in conclusion. 'I want to suffer for my sin! Then he brought out and laid on the table all the things he had been keeping for fourteen years, that he thought would prove his crime, the jewels belonging to the murdered woman which he had stolen to divert suspicion, a cross and a locket taken from her neck with a portrait of her betrothed in the locket, her notebook and two letters one from her betrothed, telling her that he would soon be with her, and her unfinished answer left on the table to be sent off next day. He carried off these two letterswhat for? Why had he kept them for fourteen years afterwards instead of destroying them as evidence against him? And this is what happened every one was amazed and horrified, every one refused to believe it and thought that he was deranged, though all listened with intense curiosity. A few days later it was fully decided and agreed in every house that the unhappy man was mad. The legal authorities could not refuse to take the case up, but they too dropped it. Though the trinkets and letters made them ponder, they decided that even if they did turn out to be authentic, no charge could be based on those alone. Besides, she might have given him those things as a friend, or asked him to take care of them for her. I heard afterwards, however, that the genuineness of the things was proved by the friends and relations of the murdered woman, and that there was no doubt about them. Yet nothing was destined to come of it, after all. Five days later, all had heard that he was ill and that his life was in danger. The nature of his illness I can't explain, they said it was an affection of the heart. But it became known that the doctors had been induced by his wife to investigate his mental condition also, and had come to the conclusion that it was a case of insanity. I betrayed nothing, though people ran to question me. But when I wanted to visit him, I was for a long while forbidden to do so, above all by his wife. 'It's you who have caused his illness, she said to me 'he was always gloomy, but for the last year people noticed that he was peculiarly excited and did strange things, and now you have been the ruin of him. Your preaching has brought him to this for the last month he was always with you. Indeed, not only his wife but the whole town were down upon me and blamed me. 'It's all your doing, they said. I was silent and indeed rejoiced at heart, for I saw plainly God's mercy to the man who had turned against himself and punished himself. I could not believe in his insanity. They let me see him at last, he insisted upon saying goodby to me. I went in to him and saw at once, that not only his days, but his hours were numbered. He was weak, yellow, his hands trembled, he gasped for breath, but his face was full of tender and happy feeling. 'It is done! he said. 'I've long been yearning to see you, why didn't you come? I did not tell him that they would not let me see him. 'God has had pity on me and is calling me to Himself. I know I am dying, but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years. There was heaven in my heart from the moment I had done what I had to do. Now I dare to love my children and to kiss them. Neither my wife nor the judges, nor any one has believed it. My children will never believe it either. I see in that God's mercy to them. I shall die, and my name will be without a stain for them. And now I feel God near, my heart rejoices as in Heaven ... I have done my duty. He could not speak, he gasped for breath, he pressed my hand warmly, looking fervently at me. We did not talk for long, his wife kept peeping in at us. But he had time to whisper to me 'Do you remember how I came back to you that second time, at midnight? I told you to remember it. You know what I came back for? I came to kill you! I started. 'I went out from you then into the darkness, I wandered about the streets, struggling with myself. And suddenly I hated you so that I could hardly bear it. Now, I thought, he is all that binds me, and he is my judge. I can't refuse to face my punishment tomorrow, for he knows all. It was not that I was afraid you would betray me (I never even thought of that), but I thought, 'How can I look him in the face if I don't confess?' And if you had been at the other end of the earth, but alive, it would have been all the same, the thought was unendurable that you were alive knowing everything and condemning me. I hated you as though you were the cause, as though you were to blame for everything. I came back to you then, remembering that you had a dagger lying on your table. I sat down and asked you to sit down, and for a whole minute I pondered. If I had killed you, I should have been ruined by that murder even if I had not confessed the other. But I didn't think about that at all, and I didn't want to think of it at that moment. I only hated you and longed to revenge myself on you for everything. The Lord vanquished the devil in my heart. But let me tell you, you were never nearer death. A week later he died. The whole town followed him to the grave. The chief priest made a speech full of feeling. All lamented the terrible illness that had cut short his days. But all the town was up in arms against me after the funeral, and people even refused to see me. Some, at first a few and afterwards more, began indeed to believe in the truth of his story, and they visited me and questioned me with great interest and eagerness, for man loves to see the downfall and disgrace of the righteous. But I held my tongue, and very shortly after, I left the town, and five months later by God's grace I entered upon the safe and blessed path, praising the unseen finger which had guided me so clearly to it. But I remember in my prayer to this day, the servant of God, Mihail, who suffered so greatly. (e) The Russian Monk and his possible Significance Fathers and teachers, what is the monk? In the cultivated world the word is nowadays pronounced by some people with a jeer, and by others it is used as a term of abuse, and this contempt for the monk is growing. It is true, alas, it is true, that there are many sluggards, gluttons, profligates and insolent beggars among monks. Educated people point to these 'You are idlers, useless members of society, you live on the labor of others, you are shameless beggars. And yet how many meek and humble monks there are, yearning for solitude and fervent prayer in peace! These are less noticed, or passed over in silence. And how surprised men would be if I were to say that from these meek monks, who yearn for solitary prayer, the salvation of Russia will come perhaps once more! For they are in truth made ready in peace and quiet 'for the day and the hour, the month and the year. Meanwhile, in their solitude, they keep the image of Christ fair and undefiled, in the purity of God's truth, from the times of the Fathers of old, the Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes they will show it to the tottering creeds of the world. That is a great thought. That star will rise out of the East. That is my view of the monk, and is it false? is it too proud? Look at the worldly and all who set themselves up above the people of God, has not God's image and His truth been distorted in them? They have science but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man's being is rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and selfdestruction! For the world says 'You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires. That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide in the poor, envy and murder for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air. Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages, rank and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honor and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free? I knew one 'champion of freedom who told me himself that, when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation that he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacco again! And such a man says, 'I am fighting for the cause of humanity. How can such a one fight? what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps of some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it's no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher said to me in my youth. And therefore the idea of the service of humanity, of brotherly love and the solidarity of mankind, is more and more dying out in the world, and indeed this idea is sometimes treated with derision. For how can a man shake off his habits? What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less. The monastic way is very different. Obedience, fasting and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real, true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. Which is most capable of conceiving a great idea and serving itthe rich man in his isolation or the man who has freed himself from the tyranny of material things and habits? The monk is reproached for his solitude, 'You have secluded yourself within the walls of the monastery for your own salvation, and have forgotten the brotherly service of humanity! But we shall see which will be most zealous in the cause of brotherly love. For it is not we, but they, who are in isolation, though they don't see that. Of old, leaders of the people came from among us, and why should they not again? The same meek and humble ascetics will rise up and go out to work for the great cause. The salvation of Russia comes from the people. And the Russian monk has always been on the side of the people. We are isolated only if the people are isolated. The people believe as we do, and an unbelieving reformer will never do anything in Russia, even if he is sincere in heart and a genius. Remember that! The people will meet the atheist and overcome him, and Russia will be one and orthodox. Take care of the peasant and guard his heart. Go on educating him quietly. That's your duty as monks, for the peasant has God in his heart. (f) Of Masters and Servants, and of whether it is possible for them to be Brothers in the Spirit Of course, I don't deny that there is sin in the peasants too. And the fire of corruption is spreading visibly, hourly, working from above downwards. The spirit of isolation is coming upon the people too. Money lenders and devourers of the commune are rising up. Already the merchant grows more and more eager for rank, and strives to show himself cultured though he has not a trace of culture, and to this end meanly despises his old traditions, and is even ashamed of the faith of his fathers. He visits princes, though he is only a peasant corrupted. The peasants are rotting in drunkenness and cannot shake off the habit. And what cruelty to their wives, to their children even! All from drunkenness! I've seen in the factories children of nine years old, frail, rickety, bent and already depraved. The stuffy workshop, the din of machinery, work all day long, the vile language and the drink, the drinkis that what a little child's heart needs? He needs sunshine, childish play, good examples all about him, and at least a little love. There must be no more of this, monks, no more torturing of children, rise up and preach that, make haste, make haste! But God will save Russia, for though the peasants are corrupted and cannot renounce their filthy sin, yet they know it is cursed by God and that they do wrong in sinning. So that our people still believe in righteousness, have faith in God and weep tears of devotion. It is different with the upper classes. They, following science, want to base justice on reason alone, but not with Christ, as before, and they have already proclaimed that there is no crime, that there is no sin. And that's consistent, for if you have no God what is the meaning of crime? In Europe the people are already rising up against the rich with violence, and the leaders of the people are everywhere leading them to bloodshed, and teaching them that their wrath is righteous. But their 'wrath is accursed, for it is cruel. But God will save Russia as He has saved her many times. Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and their meekness. Fathers and teachers, watch over the people's faith and this will not be a dream. I've been struck all my life in our great people by their dignity, their true and seemly dignity. I've seen it myself, I can testify to it, I've seen it and marveled at it, I've seen it in spite of the degraded sins and povertystricken appearance of our peasantry. They are not servile, and even after two centuries of serfdom they are free in manner and bearing, yet without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious. 'You are rich and noble, you are clever and talented, well, be so, God bless you. I respect you, but I know that I too am a man. By the very fact that I respect you without envy I prove my dignity as a man. In truth if they don't say this (for they don't know how to say this yet), that is how they act. I have seen it myself, I have known it myself, and, would you believe it, the poorer our Russian peasant is, the more noticeable is that serene goodness, for the rich among them are for the most part corrupted already, and much of that is due to our carelessness and indifference. But God will save His people, for Russia is great in her humility. I dream of seeing, and seem to see clearly already, our future. It will come to pass, that even the most corrupt of our rich will end by being ashamed of his riches before the poor, and the poor, seeing his humility, will understand and give way before him, will respond joyfully and kindly to his honorable shame. Believe me that it will end in that things are moving to that. Equality is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man, and that will only be understood among us. If we were brothers, there would be fraternity, but before that, they will never agree about the division of wealth. We preserve the image of Christ, and it will shine forth like a precious diamond to the whole world. So may it be, so may it be! Fathers and teachers, a touching incident befell me once. In my wanderings I met in the town of K. my old orderly, Afanasy. It was eight years since I had parted from him. He chanced to see me in the marketplace, recognized me, ran up to me, and how delighted he was! He simply pounced on me 'Master dear, is it you? Is it really you I see? He took me home with him. He was no longer in the army, he was married and already had two little children. He and his wife earned their living as costermongers in the marketplace. His room was poor, but bright and clean. He made me sit down, set the samovar, sent for his wife, as though my appearance were a festival for them. He brought me his children 'Bless them, Father. 'Is it for me to bless them? I am only a humble monk. I will pray for them. And for you, Afanasy Pavlovitch, I have prayed every day since that day, for it all came from you, said I. And I explained that to him as well as I could. And what do you think? The man kept gazing at me and could not believe that I, his former master, an officer, was now before him in such a guise and position it made him shed tears. 'Why are you weeping? said I, 'better rejoice over me, dear friend, whom I can never forget, for my path is a glad and joyful one. He did not say much, but kept sighing and shaking his head over me tenderly. 'What has became of your fortune? he asked. 'I gave it to the monastery, I answered 'we live in common. After tea I began saying goodby, and suddenly he brought out half a rouble as an offering to the monastery, and another halfrouble I saw him thrusting hurriedly into my hand 'That's for you in your wanderings, it may be of use to you, Father. I took his halfrouble, bowed to him and his wife, and went out rejoicing. And on my way I thought 'Here we are both now, he at home and I on the road, sighing and shaking our heads, no doubt, and yet smiling joyfully in the gladness of our hearts, remembering how God brought about our meeting. I have never seen him again since then. I had been his master and he my servant, but now when we exchanged a loving kiss with softened hearts, there was a great human bond between us. I have thought a great deal about that, and now what I think is this Is it so inconceivable that that grand and simplehearted unity might in due time become universal among the Russian people? I believe that it will come to pass and that the time is at hand. And of servants I will add this In old days when I was young I was often angry with servants 'the cook had served something too hot, the orderly had not brushed my clothes. But what taught me better then was a thought of my dear brother's, which I had heard from him in childhood 'Am I worth it, that another should serve me and be ordered about by me in his poverty and ignorance? And I wondered at the time that such simple and self evident ideas should be so slow to occur to our minds. It is impossible that there should be no servants in the world, but act so that your servant may be freer in spirit than if he were not a servant. And why cannot I be a servant to my servant and even let him see it, and that without any pride on my part or any mistrust on his? Why should not my servant be like my own kindred, so that I may take him into my family and rejoice in doing so? Even now this can be done, but it will lead to the grand unity of men in the future, when a man will not seek servants for himself, or desire to turn his fellow creatures into servants as he does now, but on the contrary, will long with his whole heart to be the servant of all, as the Gospel teaches. And can it be a dream, that in the end man will find his joy only in deeds of light and mercy, and not in cruel pleasures as now, in gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting and envious rivalry of one with the other? I firmly believe that it is not and that the time is at hand. People laugh and ask 'When will that time come and does it look like coming? I believe that with Christ's help we shall accomplish this great thing. And how many ideas there have been on earth in the history of man which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared! Yet when their destined hour had come, they came forth and spread over the whole earth. So it will be with us, and our people will shine forth in the world, and all men will say 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone of the building. And we may ask the scornful themselves If our hope is a dream, when will you build up your edifice and order things justly by your intellect alone, without Christ? If they declare that it is they who are advancing towards unity, only the most simplehearted among them believe it, so that one may positively marvel at such simplicity. Of a truth, they have more fantastic dreams than we. They aim at justice, but, denying Christ, they will end by flooding the earth with blood, for blood cries out for blood, and he that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword. And if it were not for Christ's covenant, they would slaughter one another down to the last two men on earth. And those two last men would not be able to restrain each other in their pride, and the one would slay the other and then himself. And that would come to pass, were it not for the promise of Christ that for the sake of the humble and meek the days shall be shortened. While I was still wearing an officer's uniform after my duel, I talked about servants in general society, and I remember every one was amazed at me. 'What! they asked, 'are we to make our servants sit down on the sofa and offer them tea? And I answered them 'Why not, sometimes at least? Every one laughed. Their question was frivolous and my answer was not clear but the thought in it was to some extent right. (g) Of Prayer, of Love, and of Contact with other Worlds Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, 'Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today. For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not! And behold, from the other end of the earth perhaps, your prayer for their rest will rise up to God though you knew them not nor they you. How touching it must be to a soul standing in dread before the Lord to feel at that instant that, for him too, there is one to pray, that there is a fellow creature left on earth to love him too! And God will look on you both more graciously, for if you have had so much pity on him, how much will He have pity Who is infinitely more loving and merciful than you! And He will forgive him for your sake. Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all embracing love. Love the animals God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after youalas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child! Father Anfim taught me to love children. The kind, silent man used often on our wanderings to spend the farthings given us on sweets and cakes for the children. He could not pass by a child without emotion. That's the nature of the man. At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it. Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don't know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, love is a teacher but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labor. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Every one can love occasionally, even the wicked can. My brother asked the birds to forgive him that sounds senseless, but it is right for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your sidea little happier, anywayand children and all animals, if you were nobler than you are now. It's all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an allembracing love, in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men. My friends, pray to God for gladness. Be glad as children, as the birds of heaven. And let not the sin of men confound you in your doings. Fear not that it will wear away your work and hinder its being accomplished. Do not say, 'Sin is mighty, wickedness is mighty, evil environment is mighty, and we are lonely and helpless, and evil environment is wearing us away and hindering our good work from being done. Fly from that dejection, children! There is only one means of salvation, then take yourself and make yourself responsible for all men's sins, that is the truth, you know, friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and that you are to blame for every one and for all things. But throwing your own indolence and impotence on others you will end by sharing the pride of Satan and murmuring against God. Of the pride of Satan what I think is this it is hard for us on earth to comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and to share it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine. Indeed, many of the strongest feelings and movements of our nature we cannot comprehend on earth. Let not that be a stumblingblock, and think not that it may serve as a justification to you for anything. For the Eternal Judge asks of you what you can comprehend and not what you cannot. You will know that yourself hereafter, for you will behold all things truly then and will not dispute them. On earth, indeed, we are as it were astray, and if it were not for the precious image of Christ before us, we should be undone and altogether lost, as was the human race before the flood. Much on earth is hidden from us, but to make up for that we have been given a precious mystic sense of our living bond with the other world, with the higher heavenly world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say that we cannot apprehend the reality of things on earth. God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, and His garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but what grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will be indifferent to life and even grow to hate it. That's what I think. (h) Can a Man judge his Fellow Creatures? Faith to the End Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge. Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me. If you can take upon yourself the crime of the criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for him yourself, and let him go without reproach. And even if the law itself makes you his judge, act in the same spirit so far as possible, for he will go away and condemn himself more bitterly than you have done. If, after your kiss, he goes away untouched, mocking at you, do not let that be a stumblingblock to you. It shows his time has not yet come, but it will come in due course. And if it come not, no matter if not he, then another in his place will understand and suffer, and judge and condemn himself, and the truth will be fulfilled. Believe that, believe it without doubt for in that lies all the hope and faith of the saints. Work without ceasing. If you remember in the night as you go to sleep, 'I have not done what I ought to have done, rise up at once and do it. If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you. And if you cannot speak to them in their bitterness, serve them in silence and in humility, never losing hope. If all men abandon you and even drive you away by force, then when you are left alone fall on the earth and kiss it, water it with your tears and it will bring forth fruit even though no one has seen or heard you in your solitude. Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness. And if two of you are gathered togetherthen there is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other tenderly and praise God, for if only in you two His truth has been fulfilled. If you sin yourself and grieve even unto death for your sins or for your sudden sin, then rejoice for others, rejoice for the righteous man, rejoice that if you have sinned, he is righteous and has not sinned. If the evildoing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evildoers, shun above all things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, as though you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that suffering and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to the evildoers, even as the one man sinless, and you were not a light to them. If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path for others too, and the evildoer might perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin. And even though your light was shining, yet you see men were not saved by it, hold firm and doubt not the power of the heavenly light. Believe that if they were not saved, they will be saved hereafter. And if they are not saved hereafter, then their sons will be saved, for your light will not die even when you are dead. The righteous man departs, but his light remains. Men are always saved after the death of the deliverer. Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain. You are working for the whole, you are acting for the future. Seek no reward, for great is your reward on this earth the spiritual joy which is only vouchsafed to the righteous man. Fear not the great nor the mighty, but be wise and ever serene. Know the measure, know the times, study that. When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don't be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one it is not given to many but only to the elect. (i) Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection Fathers and teachers, I ponder, 'What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. Once in infinite existence, immeasurable in time and space, a spiritual creature was given on his coming to earth, the power of saying, 'I am and I love. Once, only once, there was given him a moment of active living love, and for that was earthly life given him, and with it times and seasons. And that happy creature rejected the priceless gift, prized it and loved it not, scorned it and remained callous. Such a one, having left the earth, sees Abraham's bosom and talks with Abraham as we are told in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and beholds heaven and can go up to the Lord. But that is just his torment, to rise up to the Lord without ever having loved, to be brought close to those who have loved when he has despised their love. For he sees clearly and says to himself, 'Now I have understanding, and though I now thirst to love, there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my love, for my earthly life is over, and Abraham will not come even with a drop of living water (that is the gift of earthly active life) to cool the fiery thirst of spiritual love which burns in me now, though I despised it on earth there is no more life for me and will be no more time! Even though I would gladly give my life for others, it can never be, for that life is passed which can be sacrificed for love, and now there is a gulf fixed between that life and this existence. They talk of hell fire in the material sense. I don't go into that mystery and I shun it. But I think if there were fire in material sense, they would be glad of it, for I imagine that in material agony, their still greater spiritual agony would be forgotten for a moment. Moreover, that spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for that suffering is not external but within them. And if it could be taken from them, I think it would be bitterer still for the unhappy creatures. For even if the righteous in Paradise forgave them, beholding their torments, and called them up to heaven in their infinite love, they would only multiply their torments, for they would arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst for responsive, active and grateful love which is now impossible. In the timidity of my heart I imagine, however, that the very recognition of this impossibility would serve at last to console them. For accepting the love of the righteous together with the impossibility of repaying it, by this submissiveness and the effect of this humility, they will attain at last, as it were, to a certain semblance of that active love which they scorned in life, to something like its outward expression.... I am sorry, friends and brothers, that I cannot express this clearly. But woe to those who have slain themselves on earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable then they. They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret heart I believe that we may pray even for them. Love can never be an offense to Christ. For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them every day. Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming they are tortured by their own choice. For they have cursed themselves, cursing God and life. They live upon their vindictive pride like a starving man in the desert sucking blood out of his own body. But they are never satisfied, and they refuse forgiveness, they curse God Who calls them. They cannot behold the living God without hatred, and they cry out that the God of life should be annihilated, that God should destroy Himself and His own creation. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath for ever and yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain to death.... Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov's manuscript ends. I repeat, it is incomplete and fragmentary. Biographical details, for instance, cover only Father Zossima's earliest youth. Of his teaching and opinions we find brought together sayings evidently uttered on very different occasions. His utterances during the last few hours have not been kept separate from the rest, but their general character can be gathered from what we have in Alexey Fyodorovitch's manuscript. The elder's death came in the end quite unexpectedly. For although those who were gathered about him that last evening realized that his death was approaching, yet it was difficult to imagine that it would come so suddenly. On the contrary, his friends, as I observed already, seeing him that night apparently so cheerful and talkative, were convinced that there was at least a temporary change for the better in his condition. Even five minutes before his death, they said afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it. He seemed suddenly to feel an acute pain in his chest, he turned pale and pressed his hands to his heart. All rose from their seats and hastened to him. But though suffering, he still looked at them with a smile, sank slowly from his chair on to his knees, then bowed his face to the ground, stretched out his arms and as though in joyful ecstasy, praying and kissing the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his soul to God. The news of his death spread at once through the hermitage and reached the monastery. The nearest friends of the deceased and those whose duty it was from their position began to lay out the corpse according to the ancient ritual, and all the monks gathered together in the church. And before dawn the news of the death reached the town. By the morning all the town was talking of the event, and crowds were flocking from the town to the monastery. But this subject will be treated in the next book I will only add here that before a day had passed something happened so unexpected, so strange, upsetting, and bewildering in its effect on the monks and the townspeople, that after all these years, that day of general suspense is still vividly remembered in the town. The body of Father Zossima was prepared for burial according to the established ritual. As is well known, the bodies of dead monks and hermits are not washed. In the words of the Church Ritual 'If any one of the monks depart in the Lord, the monk designated (that is, whose office it is) shall wipe the body with warm water, making first the sign of the cross with a sponge on the forehead of the deceased, on the breast, on the hands and feet and on the knees, and that is enough. All this was done by Father Passy, who then clothed the deceased in his monastic garb and wrapped him in his cloak, which was, according to custom, somewhat slit to allow of its being folded about him in the form of a cross. On his head he put a hood with an eightcornered cross. The hood was left open and the dead man's face was covered with black gauze. In his hands was put an ikon of the Saviour. Towards morning he was put in the coffin which had been made ready long before. It was decided to leave the coffin all day in the cell, in the larger room in which the elder used to receive his visitors and fellow monks. As the deceased was a priest and monk of the strictest rule, the Gospel, not the Psalter, had to be read over his body by monks in holy orders. The reading was begun by Father Iosif immediately after the requiem service. Father Passy desired later on to read the Gospel all day and night over his dead friend, but for the present he, as well as the Father Superintendent of the Hermitage, was very busy and occupied, for something extraordinary, an unheardof, even 'unseemly excitement and impatient expectation began to be apparent in the monks, and the visitors from the monastery hostels, and the crowds of people flocking from the town. And as time went on, this grew more and more marked. Both the Superintendent and Father Passy did their utmost to calm the general bustle and agitation. When it was fully daylight, some people began bringing their sick, in most cases children, with them from the townas though they had been waiting expressly for this moment to do so, evidently persuaded that the dead elder's remains had a power of healing, which would be immediately made manifest in accordance with their faith. It was only then apparent how unquestionably every one in our town had accepted Father Zossima during his lifetime as a great saint. And those who came were far from being all of the humbler classes. This intense expectation on the part of believers displayed with such haste, such openness, even with impatience and almost insistence, impressed Father Passy as unseemly. Though he had long foreseen something of the sort, the actual manifestation of the feeling was beyond anything he had looked for. When he came across any of the monks who displayed this excitement, Father Passy began to reprove them. 'Such immediate expectation of something extraordinary, he said, 'shows a levity, possible to worldly people but unseemly in us. But little attention was paid him and Father Passy noticed it uneasily. Yet he himself (if the whole truth must be told), secretly at the bottom of his heart, cherished almost the same hopes and could not but be aware of it, though he was indignant at the too impatient expectation around him, and saw in it lightmindedness and vanity. Nevertheless, it was particularly unpleasant to him to meet certain persons, whose presence aroused in him great misgivings. In the crowd in the dead man's cell he noticed with inward aversion (for which he immediately reproached himself) the presence of Rakitin and of the monk from Obdorsk, who was still staying in the monastery. Of both of them Father Passy felt for some reason suddenly suspiciousthough, indeed, he might well have felt the same about others. The monk from Obdorsk was conspicuous as the most fussy in the excited crowd. He was to be seen everywhere everywhere he was asking questions, everywhere he was listening, on all sides he was whispering with a peculiar, mysterious air. His expression showed the greatest impatience and even a sort of irritation. As for Rakitin, he, as appeared later, had come so early to the hermitage at the special request of Madame Hohlakov. As soon as that goodhearted but weakminded woman, who could not herself have been admitted to the hermitage, waked and heard of the death of Father Zossima, she was overtaken with such intense curiosity that she promptly dispatched Rakitin to the hermitage, to keep a careful look out and report to her by letter every halfhour or so 'everything that takes place. She regarded Rakitin as a most religious and devout young man. He was particularly clever in getting round people and assuming whatever part he thought most to their taste, if he detected the slightest advantage to himself from doing so. It was a bright, clear day, and many of the visitors were thronging about the tombs, which were particularly numerous round the church and scattered here and there about the hermitage. As he walked round the hermitage, Father Passy remembered Alyosha and that he had not seen him for some time, not since the night. And he had no sooner thought of him than he at once noticed him in the farthest corner of the hermitage garden, sitting on the tombstone of a monk who had been famous long ago for his saintliness. He sat with his back to the hermitage and his face to the wall, and seemed to be hiding behind the tombstone. Going up to him, Father Passy saw that he was weeping quietly but bitterly, with his face hidden in his hands, and that his whole frame was shaking with sobs. Father Passy stood over him for a little. 'Enough, dear son, enough, dear, he pronounced with feeling at last. 'Why do you weep? Rejoice and weep not. Don't you know that this is the greatest of his days? Think only where he is now, at this moment! Alyosha glanced at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with crying like a child's, but turned away at once without uttering a word and hid his face in his hands again. 'Maybe it is well, said Father Passy thoughtfully 'weep if you must, Christ has sent you those tears. 'Your touching tears are but a relief to your spirit and will serve to gladden your dear heart, he added to himself, walking away from Alyosha, and thinking lovingly of him. He moved away quickly, however, for he felt that he too might weep looking at him. Meanwhile the time was passing the monastery services and the requiems for the dead followed in their due course. Father Passy again took Father Iosif's place by the coffin and began reading the Gospel. But before three o'clock in the afternoon that something took place to which I alluded at the end of the last book, something so unexpected by all of us and so contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, this trivial incident has been minutely remembered to this day in our town and all the surrounding neighborhood. I may add here, for myself personally, that I feel it almost repulsive to recall that event which caused such frivolous agitation and was such a stumblingblock to many, though in reality it was the most natural and trivial matter. I should, of course, have omitted all mention of it in my story, if it had not exerted a very strong influence on the heart and soul of the chief, though future, hero of my story, Alyosha, forming a crisis and turningpoint in his spiritual development, giving a shock to his intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his life and gave it a definite aim. And so, to return to our story. When before dawn they laid Father Zossima's body in the coffin and brought it into the front room, the question of opening the windows was raised among those who were around the coffin. But this suggestion made casually by some one was unanswered and almost unnoticed. Some of those present may perhaps have inwardly noticed it, only to reflect that the anticipation of decay and corruption from the body of such a saint was an actual absurdity, calling for compassion (if not a smile) for the lack of faith and the frivolity it implied. For they expected something quite different. And, behold, soon after midday there were signs of something, at first only observed in silence by those who came in and out and were evidently each afraid to communicate the thought in his mind. But by three o'clock those signs had become so clear and unmistakable, that the news swiftly reached all the monks and visitors in the hermitage, promptly penetrated to the monastery, throwing all the monks into amazement, and finally, in the shortest possible time, spread to the town, exciting every one in it, believers and unbelievers alike. The unbelievers rejoiced, and as for the believers some of them rejoiced even more than the unbelievers, for 'men love the downfall and disgrace of the righteous, as the deceased elder had said in one of his exhortations. The fact is that a smell of decomposition began to come from the coffin, growing gradually more marked, and by three o'clock it was quite unmistakable. In all the past history of our monastery, no such scandal could be recalled, and in no other circumstances could such a scandal have been possible, as showed itself in unseemly disorder immediately after this discovery among the very monks themselves. Afterwards, even many years afterwards, some sensible monks were amazed and horrified, when they recalled that day, that the scandal could have reached such proportions. For in the past, monks of very holy life had died, Godfearing old men, whose saintliness was acknowledged by all, yet from their humble coffins, too, the breath of corruption had come, naturally, as from all dead bodies, but that had caused no scandal nor even the slightest excitement. Of course there had been, in former times, saints in the monastery whose memory was carefully preserved and whose relics, according to tradition, showed no signs of corruption. This fact was regarded by the monks as touching and mysterious, and the tradition of it was cherished as something blessed and miraculous, and as a promise, by God's grace, of still greater glory from their tombs in the future. One such, whose memory was particularly cherished, was an old monk, Job, who had died seventy years before at the age of a hundred and five. He had been a celebrated ascetic, rigid in fasting and silence, and his tomb was pointed out to all visitors on their arrival with peculiar respect and mysterious hints of great hopes connected with it. (That was the very tomb on which Father Passy had found Alyosha sitting in the morning.) Another memory cherished in the monastery was that of the famous Father Varsonofy, who was only recently dead and had preceded Father Zossima in the eldership. He was reverenced during his lifetime as a crazy saint by all the pilgrims to the monastery. There was a tradition that both of these had lain in their coffins as though alive, that they had shown no signs of decomposition when they were buried and that there had been a holy light in their faces. And some people even insisted that a sweet fragrance came from their bodies. Yet, in spite of these edifying memories, it would be difficult to explain the frivolity, absurdity and malice that were manifested beside the coffin of Father Zossima. It is my private opinion that several different causes were simultaneously at work, one of which was the deeplyrooted hostility to the institution of elders as a pernicious innovation, an antipathy hidden deep in the hearts of many of the monks. Even more powerful was jealousy of the dead man's saintliness, so firmly established during his lifetime that it was almost a forbidden thing to question it. For though the late elder had won over many hearts, more by love than by miracles, and had gathered round him a mass of loving adherents, none the less, in fact, rather the more on that account he had awakened jealousy and so had come to have bitter enemies, secret and open, not only in the monastery but in the world outside it. He did no one any harm, but 'Why do they think him so saintly? And that question alone, gradually repeated, gave rise at last to an intense, insatiable hatred of him. That, I believe, was why many people were extremely delighted at the smell of decomposition which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his death. At the same time there were some among those who had been hitherto reverently devoted to the elder, who were almost mortified and personally affronted by this incident. This was how the thing happened. As soon as signs of decomposition had begun to appear, the whole aspect of the monks betrayed their secret motives in entering the cell. They went in, stayed a little while and hastened out to confirm the news to the crowd of other monks waiting outside. Some of the latter shook their heads mournfully, but others did not even care to conceal the delight which gleamed unmistakably in their malignant eyes. And now no one reproached them for it, no one raised his voice in protest, which was strange, for the majority of the monks had been devoted to the dead elder. But it seemed as though God had in this case let the minority get the upper hand for a time. Visitors from outside, particularly of the educated class, soon went into the cell, too, with the same spying intent. Of the peasantry few went into the cell, though there were crowds of them at the gates of the hermitage. After three o'clock the rush of worldly visitors was greatly increased and this was no doubt owing to the shocking news. People were attracted who would not otherwise have come on that day and had not intended to come, and among them were some personages of high standing. But external decorum was still preserved and Father Passy, with a stern face, continued firmly and distinctly reading aloud the Gospel, apparently not noticing what was taking place around him, though he had, in fact, observed something unusual long before. But at last the murmurs, first subdued but gradually louder and more confident, reached even him. 'It shows God's judgment is not as man's, Father Passy heard suddenly. The first to give utterance to this sentiment was a layman, an elderly official from the town, known to be a man of great piety. But he only repeated aloud what the monks had long been whispering. They had long before formulated this damning conclusion, and the worst of it was that a sort of triumphant satisfaction at that conclusion became more and more apparent every moment. Soon they began to lay aside even external decorum and almost seemed to feel they had a sort of right to discard it. 'And for what reason can this have happened, some of the monks said, at first with a show of regret 'he had a small frame and his flesh was dried up on his bones, what was there to decay? 'It must be a sign from heaven, others hastened to add, and their opinion was adopted at once without protest. For it was pointed out, too, that if the decomposition had been natural, as in the case of every dead sinner, it would have been apparent later, after a lapse of at least twentyfour hours, but this premature corruption 'was in excess of nature, and so the finger of God was evident. It was meant for a sign. This conclusion seemed irresistible. Gentle Father Iosif, the librarian, a great favorite of the dead man's, tried to reply to some of the evil speakers that 'this is not held everywhere alike, and that the incorruptibility of the bodies of the just was not a dogma of the Orthodox Church, but only an opinion, and that even in the most Orthodox regions, at Athos for instance, they were not greatly confounded by the smell of corruption, and there the chief sign of the glorification of the saved was not bodily incorruptibility, but the color of the bones when the bodies have lain many years in the earth and have decayed in it. 'And if the bones are yellow as wax, that is the great sign that the Lord has glorified the dead saint, if they are not yellow but black, it shows that God has not deemed him worthy of such glorythat is the belief in Athos, a great place, where the Orthodox doctrine has been preserved from of old, unbroken and in its greatest purity, said Father Iosif in conclusion. But the meek Father's words had little effect and even provoked a mocking retort. 'That's all pedantry and innovation, no use listening to it, the monks decided. 'We stick to the old doctrine, there are all sorts of innovations nowadays, are we to follow them all? added others. 'We have had as many holy fathers as they had. There they are among the Turks, they have forgotten everything. Their doctrine has long been impure and they have no bells even, the most sneering added. Father Iosif walked away, grieving the more since he had put forward his own opinion with little confidence as though scarcely believing in it himself. He foresaw with distress that something very unseemly was beginning and that there were positive signs of disobedience. Little by little, all the sensible monks were reduced to silence like Father Iosif. And so it came to pass that all who loved the elder and had accepted with devout obedience the institution of the eldership were all at once terribly cast down and glanced timidly in one another's faces, when they met. Those who were hostile to the institution of elders, as a novelty, held up their heads proudly. 'There was no smell of corruption from the late elder Varsonofy, but a sweet fragrance, they recalled malignantly. 'But he gained that glory not because he was an elder, but because he was a holy man. And this was followed by a shower of criticism and even blame of Father Zossima. 'His teaching was false he taught that life is a great joy and not a vale of tears, said some of the more unreasonable. 'He followed the fashionable belief, he did not recognize material fire in hell, others, still more unreasonable, added. 'He was not strict in fasting, allowed himself sweet things, ate cherry jam with his tea, ladies used to send it to him. Is it for a monk of strict rule to drink tea? could be heard among some of the envious. 'He sat in pride, the most malignant declared vindictively 'he considered himself a saint and he took it as his due when people knelt before him. 'He abused the sacrament of confession, the fiercest opponents of the institution of elders added in a malicious whisper. And among these were some of the oldest monks, strictest in their devotion, genuine ascetics, who had kept silent during the life of the deceased elder, but now suddenly unsealed their lips. And this was terrible, for their words had great influence on young monks who were not yet firm in their convictions. The monk from Obdorsk heard all this attentively, heaving deep sighs and nodding his head. 'Yes, clearly Father Ferapont was right in his judgment yesterday, and at that moment Father Ferapont himself made his appearance, as though on purpose to increase the confusion. I have mentioned already that he rarely left his wooden cell by the apiary. He was seldom even seen at church and they overlooked this neglect on the ground of his craziness, and did not keep him to the rules binding on all the rest. But if the whole truth is to be told, they hardly had a choice about it. For it would have been discreditable to insist on burdening with the common regulations so great an ascetic, who prayed day and night (he even dropped asleep on his knees). If they had insisted, the monks would have said, 'He is holier than all of us and he follows a rule harder than ours. And if he does not go to church, it's because he knows when he ought to he has his own rule. It was to avoid the chance of these sinful murmurs that Father Ferapont was left in peace. As every one was aware, Father Ferapont particularly disliked Father Zossima. And now the news had reached him in his hut that 'God's judgment is not the same as man's, and that something had happened which was 'in excess of nature. It may well be supposed that among the first to run to him with the news was the monk from Obdorsk, who had visited him the evening before and left his cell terrorstricken. I have mentioned above, that though Father Passy, standing firm and immovable reading the Gospel over the coffin, could not hear nor see what was passing outside the cell, he gauged most of it correctly in his heart, for he knew the men surrounding him, well. He was not shaken by it, but awaited what would come next without fear, watching with penetration and insight for the outcome of the general excitement. Suddenly an extraordinary uproar in the passage in open defiance of decorum burst on his ears. The door was flung open and Father Ferapont appeared in the doorway. Behind him there could be seen accompanying him a crowd of monks, together with many people from the town. They did not, however, enter the cell, but stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting to see what Father Ferapont would say or do. For they felt with a certain awe, in spite of their audacity, that he had not come for nothing. Standing in the doorway, Father Ferapont raised his arms, and under his right arm the keen inquisitive little eyes of the monk from Obdorsk peeped in. He alone, in his intense curiosity, could not resist running up the steps after Father Ferapont. The others, on the contrary, pressed farther back in sudden alarm when the door was noisily flung open. Holding his hands aloft, Father Ferapont suddenly roared 'Casting out I cast out! and, turning in all directions, he began at once making the sign of the cross at each of the four walls and four corners of the cell in succession. All who accompanied Father Ferapont immediately understood his action. For they knew he always did this wherever he went, and that he would not sit down or say a word, till he had driven out the evil spirits. 'Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence! he repeated at each sign of the cross. 'Casting out I cast out, he roared again. He was wearing his coarse gown girt with a rope. His bare chest, covered with gray hair, could be seen under his hempen shirt. His feet were bare. As soon as he began waving his arms, the cruel irons he wore under his gown could be heard clanking. Father Passy paused in his reading, stepped forward and stood before him waiting. 'What have you come for, worthy Father? Why do you offend against good order? Why do you disturb the peace of the flock? he said at last, looking sternly at him. 'What have I come for? You ask why? What is your faith? shouted Father Ferapont crazily. 'I've come here to drive out your visitors, the unclean devils. I've come to see how many have gathered here while I have been away. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom. 'You cast out the evil spirit, but perhaps you are serving him yourself, Father Passy went on fearlessly. 'And who can say of himself 'I am holy'? Can you, Father? 'I am unclean, not holy. I would not sit in an armchair and would not have them bow down to me as an idol, thundered Father Ferapont. 'Nowadays folk destroy the true faith. The dead man, your saint, he turned to the crowd, pointing with his finger to the coffin, 'did not believe in devils. He gave medicine to keep off the devils. And so they have become as common as spiders in the corners. And now he has begun to stink himself. In that we see a great sign from God. The incident he referred to was this. One of the monks was haunted in his dreams and, later on, in waking moments, by visions of evil spirits. When in the utmost terror he confided this to Father Zossima, the elder had advised continual prayer and rigid fasting. But when that was of no use, he advised him, while persisting in prayer and fasting, to take a special medicine. Many persons were shocked at the time and wagged their heads as they talked over itand most of all Father Ferapont, to whom some of the censorious had hastened to report this 'extraordinary counsel on the part of the elder. 'Go away, Father! said Father Passy, in a commanding voice, 'it's not for man to judge but for God. Perhaps we see here a 'sign' which neither you, nor I, nor any one of us is able to comprehend. Go, Father, and do not trouble the flock! he repeated impressively. 'He did not keep the fasts according to the rule and therefore the sign has come. That is clear and it's a sin to hide it, the fanatic, carried away by a zeal that outstripped his reason, would not be quieted. 'He was seduced by sweetmeats, ladies brought them to him in their pockets, he sipped tea, he worshiped his belly, filling it with sweet things and his mind with haughty thoughts.... And for this he is put to shame.... 'You speak lightly, Father. Father Passy, too, raised his voice. 'I admire your fasting and severities, but you speak lightly like some frivolous youth, fickle and childish. Go away, Father, I command you! Father Passy thundered in conclusion. 'I will go, said Ferapont, seeming somewhat taken aback, but still as bitter. 'You learned men! You are so clever you look down upon my humbleness. I came hither with little learning and here I have forgotten what I did know, God Himself has preserved me in my weakness from your subtlety. Father Passy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont paused and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently, pronounced in a singsong voice, looking at the coffin of the dead elder 'Tomorrow they will sing over him 'Our Helper and Defender'a splendid anthemand over me when I die all they'll sing will be 'What earthly joy'a little canticle, he added with tearful regret. 'You are proud and puffed up, this is a vain place! he shouted suddenly like a madman, and with a wave of his hand he turned quickly and quickly descended the steps. The crowd awaiting him below wavered some followed him at once and some lingered, for the cell was still open, and Father Passy, following Father Ferapont on to the steps, stood watching him. But the excited old fanatic was not completely silenced. Walking twenty steps away, he suddenly turned towards the setting sun, raised both his arms and, as though some one had cut him down, fell to the ground with a loud scream. 'My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun! he shouted frantically, stretching up his hands to the sun, and falling face downwards on the ground, he sobbed like a little child, shaken by his tears and spreading out his arms on the ground. Then all rushed up to him there were exclamations and sympathetic sobs ... a kind of frenzy seemed to take possession of them all. 'This is the one who is a saint! This is the one who is a holy man! some cried aloud, losing their fear. 'This is he who should be an elder, others added malignantly. 'He wouldn't be an elder ... he would refuse ... he wouldn't serve a cursed innovation ... he wouldn't imitate their foolery, other voices chimed in at once. And it is hard to say how far they might have gone, but at that moment the bell rang summoning them to service. All began crossing themselves at once. Father Ferapont, too, got up and crossing himself went back to his cell without looking round, still uttering exclamations which were utterly incoherent. A few followed him, but the greater number dispersed, hastening to service. Father Passy let Father Iosif read in his place and went down. The frantic outcries of bigots could not shake him, but his heart was suddenly filled with melancholy for some special reason and he felt that. He stood still and suddenly wondered, 'Why am I sad even to dejection? and immediately grasped with surprise that his sudden sadness was due to a very small and special cause. In the crowd thronging at the entrance to the cell, he had noticed Alyosha and he remembered that he had felt at once a pang at heart on seeing him. 'Can that boy mean so much to my heart now? he asked himself, wondering. At that moment Alyosha passed him, hurrying away, but not in the direction of the church. Their eyes met. Alyosha quickly turned away his eyes and dropped them to the ground, and from the boy's look alone, Father Passy guessed what a great change was taking place in him at that moment. 'Have you, too, fallen into temptation? cried Father Passy. 'Can you be with those of little faith? he added mournfully. Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Passy, but quickly turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood sideways and did not turn his face to Father Passy, who watched him attentively. 'Where are you hastening? The bell calls to service, he asked again, but again Alyosha gave no answer. 'Are you leaving the hermitage? What, without asking leave, without asking a blessing? Alyosha suddenly gave a wry smile, cast a strange, very strange, look at the Father to whom his former guide, the former sovereign of his heart and mind, his beloved elder, had confided him as he lay dying. And suddenly, still without speaking, waved his hand, as though not caring even to be respectful, and with rapid steps walked towards the gates away from the hermitage. 'You will come back again! murmured Father Passy, looking after him with sorrowful surprise. Father Passy, of course, was not wrong when he decided that his 'dear boy would come back again. Perhaps indeed, to some extent, he penetrated with insight into the true meaning of Alyosha's spiritual condition. Yet I must frankly own that it would be very difficult for me to give a clear account of that strange, vague moment in the life of the young hero I love so much. To Father Passy's sorrowful question, 'Are you too with those of little faith? I could of course confidently answer for Alyosha, 'No, he is not with those of little faith. Quite the contrary. Indeed, all his trouble came from the fact that he was of great faith. But still the trouble was there and was so agonizing that even long afterwards Alyosha thought of that sorrowful day as one of the bitterest and most fatal days of his life. If the question is asked 'Could all his grief and disturbance have been only due to the fact that his elder's body had shown signs of premature decomposition instead of at once performing miracles? I must answer without beating about the bush, 'Yes, it certainly was. I would only beg the reader not to be in too great a hurry to laugh at my young hero's pure heart. I am far from intending to apologize for him or to justify his innocent faith on the ground of his youth, or the little progress he had made in his studies, or any such reason. I must declare, on the contrary, that I have genuine respect for the qualities of his heart. No doubt a youth who received impressions cautiously, whose love was lukewarm, and whose mind was too prudent for his age and so of little value, such a young man might, I admit, have avoided what happened to my hero. But in some cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to be unmoved. And this is even truer in youth, for a young man who is always sensible is to be suspected and is of little worththat's my opinion! 'But, reasonable people will exclaim perhaps, 'every young man cannot believe in such a superstition and your hero is no model for others. To this I reply again, 'Yes! my hero had faith, a faith holy and steadfast, but still I am not going to apologize for him. Though I declared above, and perhaps too hastily, that I should not explain or justify my hero, I see that some explanation is necessary for the understanding of the rest of my story. Let me say then, it was not a question of miracles. There was no frivolous and impatient expectation of miracles in his mind. And Alyosha needed no miracles at the time, for the triumph of some preconceived ideaoh, no, not at allwhat he saw before all was one figurethe figure of his beloved elder, the figure of that holy man whom he revered with such adoration. The fact is that all the love that lay concealed in his pure young heart for every one and everything had, for the past year, been concentratedand perhaps wrongly soon one being, his beloved elder. It is true that being had for so long been accepted by him as his ideal, that all his young strength and energy could not but turn towards that ideal, even to the forgetting at the moment 'of every one and everything. He remembered afterwards how, on that terrible day, he had entirely forgotten his brother Dmitri, about whom he had been so anxious and troubled the day before he had forgotten, too, to take the two hundred roubles to Ilusha's father, though he had so warmly intended to do so the preceding evening. But again it was not miracles he needed but only 'the higher justice which had been in his belief outraged by the blow that had so suddenly and cruelly wounded his heart. And what does it signify that this 'justice looked for by Alyosha inevitably took the shape of miracles to be wrought immediately by the ashes of his adored teacher? Why, every one in the monastery cherished the same thought and the same hope, even those whose intellects Alyosha revered, Father Passy himself, for instance. And so Alyosha, untroubled by doubts, clothed his dreams too in the same form as all the rest. And a whole year of life in the monastery had formed the habit of this expectation in his heart. But it was justice, justice, he thirsted for, not simply miracles. And now the man who should, he believed, have been exalted above every one in the whole world, that man, instead of receiving the glory that was his due, was suddenly degraded and dishonored! What for? Who had judged him? Who could have decreed this? Those were the questions that wrung his inexperienced and virginal heart. He could not endure without mortification, without resentment even, that the holiest of holy men should have been exposed to the jeering and spiteful mockery of the frivolous crowd so inferior to him. Even had there been no miracles, had there been nothing marvelous to justify his hopes, why this indignity, why this humiliation, why this premature decay, 'in excess of nature, as the spiteful monks said? Why this 'sign from heaven, which they so triumphantly acclaimed in company with Father Ferapont, and why did they believe they had gained the right to acclaim it? Where is the finger of Providence? Why did Providence hide its face 'at the most critical moment (so Alyosha thought it), as though voluntarily submitting to the blind, dumb, pitiless laws of nature? That was why Alyosha's heart was bleeding, and, of course, as I have said already, the sting of it all was that the man he loved above everything on earth should be put to shame and humiliated! This murmuring may have been shallow and unreasonable in my hero, but I repeat again for the third timeand am prepared to admit that it might be difficult to defend my feelingI am glad that my hero showed himself not too reasonable at that moment, for any man of sense will always come back to reason in time, but, if love does not gain the upper hand in a boy's heart at such an exceptional moment, when will it? I will not, however, omit to mention something strange, which came for a time to the surface of Alyosha's mind at this fatal and obscure moment. This new something was the harassing impression left by the conversation with Ivan, which now persistently haunted Alyosha's mind. At this moment it haunted him. Oh, it was not that something of the fundamental, elemental, so to speak, faith of his soul had been shaken. He loved his God and believed in Him steadfastly, though he was suddenly murmuring against Him. Yet a vague but tormenting and evil impression left by his conversation with Ivan the day before, suddenly revived again now in his soul and seemed forcing its way to the surface of his consciousness. It had begun to get dusk when Rakitin, crossing the pine copse from the hermitage to the monastery, suddenly noticed Alyosha, lying face downwards on the ground under a tree, not moving and apparently asleep. He went up and called him by his name. 'You here, Alexey? Can you have he began wondering but broke off. He had meant to say, 'Can you have come to this? Alyosha did not look at him, but from a slight movement Rakitin at once saw that he heard and understood him. 'What's the matter? he went on but the surprise in his face gradually passed into a smile that became more and more ironical. 'I say, I've been looking for you for the last two hours. You suddenly disappeared. What are you about? What foolery is this? You might just look at me... Alyosha raised his head, sat up and leaned his back against the tree. He was not crying, but there was a look of suffering and irritability in his face. He did not look at Rakitin, however, but looked away to one side of him. 'Do you know your face is quite changed? There's none of your famous mildness to be seen in it. Are you angry with some one? Have they been illtreating you? 'Let me alone, said Alyosha suddenly, with a weary gesture of his hand, still looking away from him. 'Oho! So that's how we are feeling! So you can shout at people like other mortals. That is a comedown from the angels. I say, Alyosha, you have surprised me, do you hear? I mean it. It's long since I've been surprised at anything here. I always took you for an educated man.... Alyosha at last looked at him, but vaguely, as though scarcely understanding what he said. 'Can you really be so upset simply because your old man has begun to stink? You don't mean to say you seriously believed that he was going to work miracles? exclaimed Rakitin, genuinely surprised again. 'I believed, I believe, I want to believe, and I will believe, what more do you want? cried Alyosha irritably. 'Nothing at all, my boy. Damn it all! why, no schoolboy of thirteen believes in that now. But there.... So now you are in a temper with your God, you are rebelling against Him He hasn't given promotion, He hasn't bestowed the order of merit! Eh, you are a set! Alyosha gazed a long while with his eyes half closed at Rakitin, and there was a sudden gleam in his eyes ... but not of anger with Rakitin. 'I am not rebelling against my God I simply 'don't accept His world.'  Alyosha suddenly smiled a forced smile. 'How do you mean, you don't accept the world? Rakitin thought a moment over his answer. 'What idiocy is this? Alyosha did not answer. 'Come, enough nonsense, now to business. Have you had anything to eat to day? 'I don't remember.... I think I have. 'You need keeping up, to judge by your face. It makes one sorry to look at you. You didn't sleep all night either, I hear, you had a meeting in there. And then all this bobbery afterwards. Most likely you've had nothing to eat but a mouthful of holy bread. I've got some sausage in my pocket I've brought it from the town in case of need, only you won't eat sausage.... 'Give me some. 'I say! You are going it! Why, it's a regular mutiny, with barricades! Well, my boy, we must make the most of it. Come to my place.... I shouldn't mind a drop of vodka myself, I am tired to death. Vodka is going too far for you, I suppose ... or would you like some? 'Give me some vodka too. 'Hullo! You surprise me, brother! Rakitin looked at him in amazement. 'Well, one way or another, vodka or sausage, this is a jolly fine chance and mustn't be missed. Come along. Alyosha got up in silence and followed Rakitin. 'If your little brother Ivan could see thiswouldn't he be surprised! By the way, your brother Ivan set off to Moscow this morning, did you know? 'Yes, answered Alyosha listlessly, and suddenly the image of his brother Dmitri rose before his mind. But only for a minute, and though it reminded him of something that must not be put off for a moment, some duty, some terrible obligation, even that reminder made no impression on him, did not reach his heart and instantly faded out of his mind and was forgotten. But, a long while afterwards, Alyosha remembered this. 'Your brother Ivan declared once that I was a 'liberal booby with no talents whatsoever.' Once you, too, could not resist letting me know I was 'dishonorable.' Well! I should like to see what your talents and sense of honor will do for you now. This phrase Rakitin finished to himself in a whisper. 'Listen! he said aloud, 'let's go by the path beyond the monastery straight to the town. Hm! I ought to go to Madame Hohlakov's by the way. Only fancy, I've written to tell her everything that happened, and would you believe it, she answered me instantly in pencil (the lady has a passion for writing notes) that 'she would never have expected such conduct from a man of such a reverend character as Father Zossima.' That was her very word 'conduct.' She is angry too. Eh, you are a set! Stay! he cried suddenly again. He suddenly stopped and taking Alyosha by the shoulder made him stop too. 'Do you know, Alyosha, he peeped inquisitively into his eyes, absorbed in a sudden new thought which had dawned on him, and though he was laughing outwardly he was evidently afraid to utter that new idea aloud, so difficult he still found it to believe in the strange and unexpected mood in which he now saw Alyosha. 'Alyosha, do you know where we had better go? he brought out at last timidly, and insinuatingly. 'I don't care ... where you like. 'Let's go to Grushenka, eh? Will you come? pronounced Rakitin at last, trembling with timid suspense. 'Let's go to Grushenka, Alyosha answered calmly, at once, and this prompt and calm agreement was such a surprise to Rakitin that he almost started back. 'Well! I say! he cried in amazement, but seizing Alyosha firmly by the arm he led him along the path, still dreading that he would change his mind. They walked along in silence, Rakitin was positively afraid to talk. 'And how glad she will be, how delighted! he muttered, but lapsed into silence again. And indeed it was not to please Grushenka he was taking Alyosha to her. He was a practical person and never undertook anything without a prospect of gain for himself. His object in this case was twofold, first a revengeful desire to see 'the downfall of the righteous, and Alyosha's fall 'from the saints to the sinners, over which he was already gloating in his imagination, and in the second place he had in view a certain material gain for himself, of which more will be said later. 'So the critical moment has come, he thought to himself with spiteful glee, 'and we shall catch it on the hop, for it's just what we want. Grushenka lived in the busiest part of the town, near the cathedral square, in a small wooden lodge in the courtyard belonging to the house of the widow Morozov. The house was a large stone building of two stories, old and very ugly. The widow led a secluded life with her two unmarried nieces, who were also elderly women. She had no need to let her lodge, but every one knew that she had taken in Grushenka as a lodger, four years before, solely to please her kinsman, the merchant Samsonov, who was known to be the girl's protector. It was said that the jealous old man's object in placing his 'favorite with the widow Morozov was that the old woman should keep a sharp eye on her new lodger's conduct. But this sharp eye soon proved to be unnecessary, and in the end the widow Morozov seldom met Grushenka and did not worry her by looking after her in any way. It is true that four years had passed since the old man had brought the slim, delicate, shy, timid, dreamy, and sad girl of eighteen from the chief town of the province, and much had happened since then. Little was known of the girl's history in the town and that little was vague. Nothing more had been learnt during the last four years, even after many persons had become interested in the beautiful young woman into whom Agrafena Alexandrovna had meanwhile developed. There were rumors that she had been at seventeen betrayed by some one, some sort of officer, and immediately afterwards abandoned by him. The officer had gone away and afterwards married, while Grushenka had been left in poverty and disgrace. It was said, however, that though Grushenka had been raised from destitution by the old man, Samsonov, she came of a respectable family belonging to the clerical class, that she was the daughter of a deacon or something of the sort. And now after four years the sensitive, injured and pathetic little orphan had become a plump, rosy beauty of the Russian type, a woman of bold and determined character, proud and insolent. She had a good head for business, was acquisitive, saving and careful, and by fair means or foul had succeeded, it was said, in amassing a little fortune. There was only one point on which all were agreed. Grushenka was not easily to be approached and except her aged protector there had not been one man who could boast of her favors during those four years. It was a positive fact, for there had been a good many, especially during the last two years, who had attempted to obtain those favors. But all their efforts had been in vain and some of these suitors had been forced to beat an undignified and even comic retreat, owing to the firm and ironical resistance they met from the strongwilled young person. It was known, too, that the young person had, especially of late, been given to what is called 'speculation, and that she had shown marked abilities in that direction, so that many people began to say that she was no better than a Jew. It was not that she lent money on interest, but it was known, for instance, that she had for some time past, in partnership with old Karamazov, actually invested in the purchase of bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their nominal value, and afterwards had made out of them ten times their value. The old widower Samsonov, a man of large fortune, was stingy and merciless. He tyrannized over his grownup sons, but, for the last year during which he had been ill and lost the use of his swollen legs, he had fallen greatly under the influence of his protge, whom he had at first kept strictly and in humble surroundings, 'on Lenten fare, as the wits said at the time. But Grushenka had succeeded in emancipating herself, while she established in him a boundless belief in her fidelity. The old man, now long since dead, had had a large business in his day and was also a noteworthy character, miserly and hard as flint. Though Grushenka's hold upon him was so strong that he could not live without her (it had been so especially for the last two years), he did not settle any considerable fortune on her and would not have been moved to do so, if she had threatened to leave him. But he had presented her with a small sum, and even that was a surprise to every one when it became known. 'You are a wench with brains, he said to her, when he gave her eight thousand roubles, 'and you must look after yourself, but let me tell you that except your yearly allowance as before, you'll get nothing more from me to the day of my death, and I'll leave you nothing in my will either. And he kept his word he died and left everything to his sons, whom, with their wives and children, he had treated all his life as servants. Grushenka was not even mentioned in his will. All this became known afterwards. He helped Grushenka with his advice to increase her capital and put business in her way. When Fyodor Pavlovitch, who first came into contact with Grushenka over a piece of speculation, ended to his own surprise by falling madly in love with her, old Samsonov, gravely ill as he was, was immensely amused. It is remarkable that throughout their whole acquaintance Grushenka was absolutely and spontaneously open with the old man, and he seems to have been the only person in the world with whom she was so. Of late, when Dmitri too had come on the scene with his love, the old man left off laughing. On the contrary, he once gave Grushenka a stern and earnest piece of advice. 'If you have to choose between the two, father or son, you'd better choose the old man, if only you make sure the old scoundrel will marry you and settle some fortune on you beforehand. But don't keep on with the captain, you'll get no good out of that. These were the very words of the old profligate, who felt already that his death was not far off and who actually died five months later. I will note, too, in passing, that although many in our town knew of the grotesque and monstrous rivalry of the Karamazovs, father and son, the object of which was Grushenka, scarcely any one understood what really underlay her attitude to both of them. Even Grushenka's two servants (after the catastrophe of which we will speak later) testified in court that she received Dmitri Fyodorovitch simply from fear because 'he threatened to murder her. These servants were an old cook, invalidish and almost deaf, who came from Grushenka's old home, and her granddaughter, a smart young girl of twenty, who performed the duties of a maid. Grushenka lived very economically and her surroundings were anything but luxurious. Her lodge consisted of three rooms furnished with mahogany furniture in the fashion of , belonging to her landlady. It was quite dark when Rakitin and Alyosha entered her rooms, yet they were not lighted up. Grushenka was lying down in her drawingroom on the big, hard, clumsy sofa, with a mahogany back. The sofa was covered with shabby and ragged leather. Under her head she had two white down pillows taken from her bed. She was lying stretched out motionless on her back with her hands behind her head. She was dressed as though expecting some one, in a black silk dress, with a dainty lace fichu on her head, which was very becoming. Over her shoulders was thrown a lace shawl pinned with a massive gold brooch. She certainly was expecting some one. She lay as though impatient and weary, her face rather pale and her lips and eyes hot, restlessly tapping the arm of the sofa with the tip of her right foot. The appearance of Rakitin and Alyosha caused a slight excitement. From the hall they could hear Grushenka leap up from the sofa and cry out in a frightened voice, 'Who's there? But the maid met the visitors and at once called back to her mistress. 'It's not he, it's nothing, only other visitors. 'What can be the matter? muttered Rakitin, leading Alyosha into the drawingroom. Grushenka was standing by the sofa as though still alarmed. A thick coil of her dark brown hair escaped from its lace covering and fell on her right shoulder, but she did not notice it and did not put it back till she had gazed at her visitors and recognized them. 'Ah, it's you, Rakitin? You quite frightened me. Whom have you brought? Who is this with you? Good heavens, you have brought him! she exclaimed, recognizing Alyosha. 'Do send for candles! said Rakitin, with the freeandeasy air of a most intimate friend, who is privileged to give orders in the house. 'Candles ... of course, candles.... Fenya, fetch him a candle.... Well, you have chosen a moment to bring him! she exclaimed again, nodding towards Alyosha, and turning to the lookingglass she began quickly fastening up her hair with both hands. She seemed displeased. 'Haven't I managed to please you? asked Rakitin, instantly almost offended. 'You frightened me, Rakitin, that's what it is. Grushenka turned with a smile to Alyosha. 'Don't be afraid of me, my dear Alyosha, you cannot think how glad I am to see you, my unexpected visitor. But you frightened me, Rakitin, I thought it was Mitya breaking in. You see, I deceived him just now, I made him promise to believe me and I told him a lie. I told him that I was going to spend the evening with my old man, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and should be there till late counting up his money. I always spend one whole evening a week with him making up his accounts. We lock ourselves in and he counts on the reckoning beads while I sit and put things down in the book. I am the only person he trusts. Mitya believes that I am there, but I came back and have been sitting locked in here, expecting some news. How was it Fenya let you in? Fenya, Fenya, run out to the gate, open it and look about whether the captain is to be seen! Perhaps he is hiding and spying, I am dreadfully frightened. 'There's no one there, Agrafena Alexandrovna, I've just looked out, I keep running to peep through the crack, I am in fear and trembling myself. 'Are the shutters fastened, Fenya? And we must draw the curtainsthat's better! She drew the heavy curtains herself. 'He'd rush in at once if he saw a light. I am afraid of your brother Mitya today, Alyosha. Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very happy about something. 'Why are you so afraid of Mitya today? inquired Rakitin. 'I should have thought you were not timid with him, you'd twist him round your little finger. 'I tell you, I am expecting news, priceless news, so I don't want Mitya at all. And he didn't believe, I feel he didn't, that I should stay at Kuzma Kuzmitch's. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodor Pavlovitch's, in the garden, watching for me. And if he's there, he won't come here, so much the better! But I really have been to Kuzma Kuzmitch's, Mitya escorted me there. I told him I should stay there till midnight, and I asked him to be sure to come at midnight to fetch me home. He went away and I sat ten minutes with Kuzma Kuzmitch and came back here again. Ugh, I was afraid, I ran for fear of meeting him. 'And why are you so dressed up? What a curious cap you've got on! 'How curious you are yourself, Rakitin! I tell you, I am expecting a message. If the message comes, I shall fly, I shall gallop away and you will see no more of me. That's why I am dressed up, so as to be ready. 'And where are you flying to? 'If you know too much, you'll get old too soon. 'Upon my word! You are highly delighted ... I've never seen you like this before. You are dressed up as if you were going to a ball. Rakitin looked her up and down. 'Much you know about balls. 'And do you know much about them? 'I have seen a ball. The year before last, Kuzma Kuzmitch's son was married and I looked on from the gallery. Do you suppose I want to be talking to you, Rakitin, while a prince like this is standing here. Such a visitor! Alyosha, my dear boy, I gaze at you and can't believe my eyes. Good heavens, can you have come here to see me! To tell you the truth, I never had a thought of seeing you and I didn't think that you would ever come and see me. Though this is not the moment now, I am awfully glad to see you. Sit down on the sofa, here, that's right, my bright young moon. I really can't take it in even now.... Eh, Rakitin, if only you had brought him yesterday or the day before! But I am glad as it is! Perhaps it's better he has come now, at such a moment, and not the day before yesterday. She gayly sat down beside Alyosha on the sofa, looking at him with positive delight. And she really was glad, she was not lying when she said so. Her eyes glowed, her lips laughed, but it was a goodhearted merry laugh. Alyosha had not expected to see such a kind expression in her face.... He had hardly met her till the day before, he had formed an alarming idea of her, and had been horribly distressed the day before by the spiteful and treacherous trick she had played on Katerina Ivanovna. He was greatly surprised to find her now altogether different from what he had expected. And, crushed as he was by his own sorrow, his eyes involuntarily rested on her with attention. Her whole manner seemed changed for the better since yesterday, there was scarcely any trace of that mawkish sweetness in her speech, of that voluptuous softness in her movements. Everything was simple and goodnatured, her gestures were rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited. 'Dear me, how everything comes together today! she chattered on again. 'And why I am so glad to see you, Alyosha, I couldn't say myself! If you ask me, I couldn't tell you. 'Come, don't you know why you're glad? said Rakitin, grinning. 'You used to be always pestering me to bring him, you'd some object, I suppose. 'I had a different object once, but now that's over, this is not the moment. I say, I want you to have something nice. I am so goodnatured now. You sit down, too, Rakitin why are you standing? You've sat down already? There's no fear of Rakitin's forgetting to look after himself. Look, Alyosha, he's sitting there opposite us, so offended that I didn't ask him to sit down before you. Ugh, Rakitin is such a one to take offense! laughed Grushenka. 'Don't be angry, Rakitin, I'm kind today. Why are you so depressed, Alyosha? Are you afraid of me? She peeped into his eyes with merry mockery 'He's sad. The promotion has not been given, boomed Rakitin. 'What promotion? 'His elder stinks. 'What? You are talking some nonsense, you want to say something nasty. Be quiet, you stupid! Let me sit on your knee, Alyosha, like this. She suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like a nestling kitten, with her right arm about his neck. 'I'll cheer you up, my pious boy. Yes, really, will you let me sit on your knee? You won't be angry? If you tell me, I'll get off? Alyosha did not speak. He sat afraid to move, he heard her words, 'If you tell me, I'll get off, but he did not answer. But there was nothing in his heart such as Rakitin, for instance, watching him malignantly from his corner, might have expected or fancied. The great grief in his heart swallowed up every sensation that might have been aroused, and, if only he could have thought clearly at that moment, he would have realized that he had now the strongest armor to protect him from every lust and temptation. Yet in spite of the vague irresponsiveness of his spiritual condition and the sorrow that overwhelmed him, he could not help wondering at a new and strange sensation in his heart. This woman, this 'dreadful woman, had no terror for him now, none of that terror that had stirred in his soul at any passing thought of woman. On the contrary, this woman, dreaded above all women, sitting now on his knee, holding him in her arms, aroused in him now a quite different, unexpected, peculiar feeling, a feeling of the intensest and purest interest without a trace of fear, of his former terror. That was what instinctively surprised him. 'You've talked nonsense enough, cried Rakitin, 'you'd much better give us some champagne. You owe it me, you know you do! 'Yes, I really do. Do you know, Alyosha, I promised him champagne on the top of everything, if he'd bring you? I'll have some too! Fenya, Fenya, bring us the bottle Mitya left! Look sharp! Though I am so stingy, I'll stand a bottle, not for you, Rakitin, you're a toadstool, but he is a falcon! And though my heart is full of something very different, so be it, I'll drink with you. I long for some dissipation. 'But what is the matter with you? And what is this message, may I ask, or is it a secret? Rakitin put in inquisitively, doing his best to pretend not to notice the snubs that were being continually aimed at him. 'Ech, it's not a secret, and you know it, too, Grushenka said, in a voice suddenly anxious, turning her head towards Rakitin, and drawing a little away from Alyosha, though she still sat on his knee with her arm round his neck. 'My officer is coming, Rakitin, my officer is coming. 'I heard he was coming, but is he so near? 'He is at Mokroe now he'll send a messenger from there, so he wrote I got a letter from him today. I am expecting the messenger every minute. 'You don't say so! Why at Mokroe? 'That's a long story, I've told you enough. 'Mitya'll be up to something nowI say! Does he know or doesn't he? 'He know! Of course he doesn't. If he knew, there would be murder. But I am not afraid of that now, I am not afraid of his knife. Be quiet, Rakitin, don't remind me of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, he has bruised my heart. And I don't want to think of that at this moment. I can think of Alyosha here, I can look at Alyosha ... smile at me, dear, cheer up, smile at my foolishness, at my pleasure.... Ah, he's smiling, he's smiling! How kindly he looks at me! And you know, Alyosha, I've been thinking all this time you were angry with me, because of the day before yesterday, because of that young lady. I was a cur, that's the truth.... But it's a good thing it happened so. It was a horrid thing, but a good thing too. Grushenka smiled dreamily and a little cruel line showed in her smile. 'Mitya told me that she screamed out that I 'ought to be flogged.' I did insult her dreadfully. She sent for me, she wanted to make a conquest of me, to win me over with her chocolate.... No, it's a good thing it did end like that. She smiled again. 'But I am still afraid of your being angry. 'Yes, that's really true, Rakitin put in suddenly with genuine surprise. 'Alyosha, she is really afraid of a chicken like you. 'He is a chicken to you, Rakitin ... because you've no conscience, that's what it is! You see, I love him with all my soul, that's how it is! Alyosha, do you believe I love you with all my soul? 'Ah, you shameless woman! She is making you a declaration, Alexey! 'Well, what of it, I love him! 'And what about your officer? And the priceless message from Mokroe? 'That is quite different. 'That's a woman's way of looking at it! 'Don't you make me angry, Rakitin. Grushenka caught him up hotly. 'This is quite different. I love Alyosha in a different way. It's true, Alyosha, I had sly designs on you before. For I am a horrid, violent creature. But at other times I've looked upon you, Alyosha, as my conscience. I've kept thinking 'how any one like that must despise a nasty thing like me.' I thought that the day before yesterday, as I ran home from the young lady's. I have thought of you a long time in that way, Alyosha, and Mitya knows, I've talked to him about it. Mitya understands. Would you believe it, I sometimes look at you and feel ashamed, utterly ashamed of myself.... And how, and since when, I began to think about you like that, I can't say, I don't remember.... Fenya came in and put a tray with an uncorked bottle and three glasses of champagne on the table. 'Here's the champagne! cried Rakitin. 'You're excited, Agrafena Alexandrovna, and not yourself. When you've had a glass of champagne, you'll be ready to dance. Eh, they can't even do that properly, he added, looking at the bottle. 'The old woman's poured it out in the kitchen and the bottle's been brought in warm and without a cork. Well, let me have some, anyway. He went up to the table, took a glass, emptied it at one gulp and poured himself out another. 'One doesn't often stumble upon champagne, he said, licking his lips. 'Now, Alyosha, take a glass, show what you can do! What shall we drink to? The gates of paradise? Take a glass, Grushenka, you drink to the gates of paradise, too. 'What gates of paradise? She took a glass, Alyosha took his, tasted it and put it back. 'No, I'd better not, he smiled gently. 'And you bragged! cried Rakitin. 'Well, if so, I won't either, chimed in Grushenka, 'I really don't want any. You can drink the whole bottle alone, Rakitin. If Alyosha has some, I will. 'What touching sentimentality! said Rakitin tauntingly 'and she's sitting on his knee, too! He's got something to grieve over, but what's the matter with you? He is rebelling against his God and ready to eat sausage.... 'How so? 'His elder died today, Father Zossima, the saint. 'So Father Zossima is dead, cried Grushenka. 'Good God, I did not know! She crossed herself devoutly. 'Goodness, what have I been doing, sitting on his knee like this at such a moment! She started up as though in dismay, instantly slipped off his knee and sat down on the sofa. Alyosha bent a long wondering look upon her and a light seemed to dawn in his face. 'Rakitin, he said suddenly, in a firm and loud voice 'don't taunt me with having rebelled against God. I don't want to feel angry with you, so you must be kinder, too, I've lost a treasure such as you have never had, and you cannot judge me now. You had much better look at herdo you see how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soulI felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I've found a true sister, I have found a treasurea loving heart. She had pity on me just now.... Agrafena Alexandrovna, I am speaking of you. You've raised my soul from the depths. Alyosha's lips were quivering and he caught his breath. 'She has saved you, it seems, laughed Rakitin spitefully. 'And she meant to get you in her clutches, do you realize that? 'Stay, Rakitin. Grushenka jumped up. 'Hush, both of you. Now I'll tell you all about it. Hush, Alyosha, your words make me ashamed, for I am bad and not goodthat's what I am. And you hush, Rakitin, because you are telling lies. I had the low idea of trying to get him in my clutches, but now you are lying, now it's all different. And don't let me hear anything more from you, Rakitin. All this Grushenka said with extreme emotion. 'They are both crazy, said Rakitin, looking at them with amazement. 'I feel as though I were in a madhouse. They're both getting so feeble they'll begin crying in a minute. 'I shall begin to cry, I shall, repeated Grushenka. 'He called me his sister and I shall never forget that. Only let me tell you, Rakitin, though I am bad, I did give away an onion. 'An onion? Hang it all, you really are crazy. Rakitin wondered at their enthusiasm. He was aggrieved and annoyed, though he might have reflected that each of them was just passing through a spiritual crisis such as does not come often in a lifetime. But though Rakitin was very sensitive about everything that concerned himself, he was very obtuse as regards the feelings and sensations of otherspartly from his youth and inexperience, partly from his intense egoism. 'You see, Alyosha, Grushenka turned to him with a nervous laugh. 'I was boasting when I told Rakitin I had given away an onion, but it's not to boast I tell you about it. It's only a story, but it's a nice story. I used to hear it when I was a child from Matryona, my cook, who is still with me. It's like this. Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire. So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell to God 'She once pulled up an onion in her garden,' said he, 'and gave it to a beggar woman.' And God answered 'You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.' The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. 'Come,' said he, 'catch hold and I'll pull you out.' And he began cautiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. 'I'm to be pulled out, not you. It's my onion, not yours.' As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away. So that's the story, Alyosha I know it by heart, for I am that wicked woman myself. I boasted to Rakitin that I had given away an onion, but to you I'll say 'I've done nothing but give away one onion all my life, that's the only good deed I've done.' So don't praise me, Alyosha, don't think me good, I am bad, I am a wicked woman and you make me ashamed if you praise me. Eh, I must confess everything. Listen, Alyosha. I was so anxious to get hold of you that I promised Rakitin twentyfive roubles if he would bring you to me. Stay, Rakitin, wait! She went with rapid steps to the table, opened a drawer, pulled out a purse and took from it a twentyfive rouble note. 'What nonsense! What nonsense! cried Rakitin, disconcerted. 'Take it. Rakitin, I owe it you, there's no fear of your refusing it, you asked for it yourself. And she threw the note to him. 'Likely I should refuse it, boomed Rakitin, obviously abashed, but carrying off his confusion with a swagger. 'That will come in very handy fools are made for wise men's profit. 'And now hold your tongue, Rakitin, what I am going to say now is not for your ears. Sit down in that corner and keep quiet. You don't like us, so hold your tongue. 'What should I like you for? Rakitin snarled, not concealing his ill humor. He put the twentyfive rouble note in his pocket and he felt ashamed at Alyosha's seeing it. He had reckoned on receiving his payment later, without Alyosha's knowing of it, and now, feeling ashamed, he lost his temper. Till that moment he had thought it discreet not to contradict Grushenka too flatly in spite of her snubbing, since he had something to get out of her. But now he, too, was angry 'One loves people for some reason, but what have either of you done for me? 'You should love people without a reason, as Alyosha does. 'How does he love you? How has he shown it, that you make such a fuss about it? Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room she spoke with heat and there were hysterical notes in her voice. 'Hush, Rakitin, you know nothing about us! And don't dare to speak to me like that again. How dare you be so familiar! Sit in that corner and be quiet, as though you were my footman! And now, Alyosha, I'll tell you the whole truth, that you may see what a wretch I am! I am not talking to Rakitin, but to you. I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that's the holy truth I quite meant to. I wanted to so much, that I bribed Rakitin to bring you. And why did I want to do such a thing? You knew nothing about it, Alyosha, you turned away from me if you passed me, you dropped your eyes. And I've looked at you a hundred times before today I began asking every one about you. Your face haunted my heart. 'He despises me,' I thought 'he won't even look at me.' And I felt it so much at last that I wondered at myself for being so frightened of a boy. I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him. I was full of spite and anger. Would you believe it, nobody here dares talk or think of coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil purpose. Old Kuzma is the only man I have anything to do with here I was bound and sold to him Satan brought us together, but there has been no one else. But looking at you, I thought, I'll get him in my clutches and laugh at him. You see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your sister! And now that man who wronged me has come I sit here waiting for a message from him. And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years ago, when Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one might have sight or sound of me. I was a silly slip of a girl I used to sit here sobbing I used to lie awake all night, thinking 'Where is he now, the man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, most likely. If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I'd pay him out, I'd pay him out!' At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow in the dark, and I used to brood over it I used to tear my heart on purpose and gloat over my anger. 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' That's what I used to cry out in the dark. And when I suddenly thought that I should really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at me then, or perhaps had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on the floor, melt into helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn. In the morning I would get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear the whole world to pieces. And then what do you think? I began saving money, I became hardhearted, grew stoutgrew wiser, would you say? No, no one in the whole world sees it, no one knows it, but when night comes on, I sometimes lie as I did five years ago, when I was a silly girl, clenching my teeth and crying all night, thinking, 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' Do you hear? Well then, now you understand me. A month ago a letter came to mehe was coming, he was a widower, he wanted to see me. It took my breath away then I suddenly thought 'If he comes and whistles to call me, I shall creep back to him like a beaten dog.' I couldn't believe myself. Am I so abject? Shall I run to him or not? And I've been in such a rage with myself all this month that I am worse than I was five years ago. Do you see now, Alyosha, what a violent, vindictive creature I am? I have shown you the whole truth! I played with Mitya to keep me from running to that other. Hush, Rakitin, it's not for you to judge me, I am not speaking to you. Before you came in, I was lying here waiting, brooding, deciding my whole future life, and you can never know what was in my heart. Yes, Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry with me for what happened the day before yesterday.... Nobody in the whole world knows what I am going through now, and no one ever can know.... For perhaps I shall take a knife with me today, I can't make up my mind ... And at this 'tragic phrase Grushenka broke down, hid her face in her hands, flung herself on the sofa pillows, and sobbed like a little child. Alyosha got up and went to Rakitin. 'Misha, he said, 'don't be angry. She wounded you, but don't be angry. You heard what she said just now? You mustn't ask too much of human endurance, one must be merciful. Alyosha said this at the instinctive prompting of his heart. He felt obliged to speak and he turned to Rakitin. If Rakitin had not been there, he would have spoken to the air. But Rakitin looked at him ironically and Alyosha stopped short. 'You were so primed up with your elder's teaching last night that now you have to let it off on me, Alexey, man of God! said Rakitin, with a smile of hatred. 'Don't laugh, Rakitin, don't smile, don't talk of the deadhe was better than any one in the world! cried Alyosha, with tears in his voice. 'I didn't speak to you as a judge but as the lowest of the judged. What am I beside her? I came here seeking my ruin, and said to myself, 'What does it matter?' in my cowardliness, but she, after five years in torment, as soon as any one says a word from the heart to herit makes her forget everything, forgive everything, in her tears! The man who has wronged her has come back, he sends for her and she forgives him everything, and hastens joyfully to meet him and she won't take a knife with her. She won't! No, I am not like that. I don't know whether you are, Misha, but I am not like that. It's a lesson to me.... She is more loving than we.... Have you heard her speak before of what she has just told us? No, you haven't if you had, you'd have understood her long ago ... and the person insulted the day before yesterday must forgive her, too! She will, when she knows ... and she shall know.... This soul is not yet at peace with itself, one must be tender with it ... there may be a treasure in that soul.... Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath. In spite of his illhumor Rakitin looked at him with astonishment. He had never expected such a tirade from the gentle Alyosha. 'She's found some one to plead her cause! Why, are you in love with her? Agrafena Alexandrovna, our monk's really in love with you, you've made a conquest! he cried, with a coarse laugh. Grushenka lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha with a tender smile shining on her tearstained face. 'Let him alone, Alyosha, my cherub you see what he is, he is not a person for you to speak to. Mihail Osipovitch, she turned to Rakitin, 'I meant to beg your pardon for being rude to you, but now I don't want to. Alyosha, come to me, sit down here. She beckoned to him with a happy smile. 'That's right, sit here. Tell me, she shook him by the hand and peeped into his face, smiling, 'tell me, do I love that man or not? the man who wronged me, do I love him or not? Before you came, I lay here in the dark, asking my heart whether I loved him. Decide for me, Alyosha, the time has come, it shall be as you say. Am I to forgive him or not? 'But you have forgiven him already, said Alyosha, smiling. 'Yes, I really have forgiven him, Grushenka murmured thoughtfully. 'What an abject heart! To my abject heart! She snatched up a glass from the table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the air and flung it on the floor. The glass broke with a crash. A little cruel line came into her smile. 'Perhaps I haven't forgiven him, though, she said, with a sort of menace in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as though she were talking to herself. 'Perhaps my heart is only getting ready to forgive. I shall struggle with my heart. You see, Alyosha, I've grown to love my tears in these five years.... Perhaps I only love my resentment, not him ... 'Well, I shouldn't care to be in his shoes, hissed Rakitin. 'Well, you won't be, Rakitin, you'll never be in his shoes. You shall black my shoes, Rakitin, that's the place you are fit for. You'll never get a woman like me ... and he won't either, perhaps ... 'Won't he? Then why are you dressed up like that? said Rakitin, with a venomous sneer. 'Don't taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don't know all that is in my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I'll tear it off at once, this minute, she cried in a resonant voice. 'You don't know what that finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say 'Have you ever seen me look like this before?' He left me a thin, consumptive crybaby of seventeen. I'll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up. 'Do you see what I am like now?' I'll say to him 'well, and that's enough for you, my dear sir, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip!' That may be what the finery is for, Rakitin. Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh. 'I'm violent and resentful, Alyosha, I'll tear off my finery, I'll destroy my beauty, I'll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar. If I choose, I won't go anywhere now to see any one. If I choose, I'll send Kuzma back all he has ever given me, tomorrow, and all his money and I'll go out charing for the rest of my life. You think I wouldn't do it, Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, I would, I could do it directly, only don't exasperate me ... and I'll send him about his business, I'll snap my fingers in his face, he shall never see me again! She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down again, hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook with sobs. Rakitin got up. 'It's time we were off, he said, 'it's late, we shall be shut out of the monastery. Grushenka leapt up from her place. 'Surely you don't want to go, Alyosha! she cried, in mournful surprise. 'What are you doing to me? You've stirred up my feeling, tortured me, and now you'll leave me to face this night alone! 'He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to, let him! I'll go alone, Rakitin scoffed jeeringly. 'Hush, evil tongue! Grushenka cried angrily at him 'you never said such words to me as he has come to say. 'What has he said to you so special? asked Rakitin irritably. 'I can't say, I don't know. I don't know what he said to me, it went straight to my heart he has wrung my heart.... He is the first, the only one who has pitied me, that's what it is. Why did you not come before, you angel? She fell on her knees before him as though in a sudden frenzy. 'I've been waiting all my life for some one like you, I knew that some one like you would come and forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, some one would really love me, not only with a shameful love! 'What have I done to you? answered Alyosha, bending over her with a tender smile, and gently taking her by the hands 'I only gave you an onion, nothing but a tiny little onion, that was all! He was moved to tears himself as he said it. At that moment there was a sudden noise in the passage, some one came into the hall. Grushenka jumped up, seeming greatly alarmed. Fenya ran noisily into the room, crying out 'Mistress, mistress darling, a messenger has galloped up, she cried, breathless and joyful. 'A carriage from Mokroe for you, Timofey the driver, with three horses, they are just putting in fresh horses.... A letter, here's the letter, mistress. A letter was in her hand and she waved it in the air all the while she talked. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and carried it to the candle. It was only a note, a few lines. She read it in one instant. 'He has sent for me, she cried, her face white and distorted, with a wan smile 'he whistles! Crawl back, little dog! But only for one instant she stood as though hesitating suddenly the blood rushed to her head and sent a glow to her cheeks. 'I will go, she cried 'five years of my life! Goodby! Goodby, Alyosha, my fate is sealed. Go, go, leave me all of you, don't let me see you again! Grushenka is flying to a new life.... Don't you remember evil against me either, Rakitin. I may be going to my death! Ugh! I feel as though I were drunk! She suddenly left them and ran into her bedroom. 'Well, she has no thoughts for us now! grumbled Rakitin. 'Let's go, or we may hear that feminine shriek again. I am sick of all these tears and cries. Alyosha mechanically let himself be led out. In the yard stood a covered cart. Horses were being taken out of the shafts, men were running to and fro with a lantern. Three fresh horses were being led in at the open gate. But when Alyosha and Rakitin reached the bottom of the steps, Grushenka's bedroom window was suddenly opened and she called in a ringing voice after Alyosha 'Alyosha, give my greetings to your brother Mitya and tell him not to remember evil against me, though I have brought him misery. And tell him, too, in my words 'Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel, and not to you, noble heart.' And add, too, that Grushenka loved him only one hour, only one short hour she loved himso let him remember that hour all his lifesay, 'Grushenka tells you to!'  She ended in a voice full of sobs. The window was shut with a slam. 'H'm, h'm! growled Rakitin, laughing, 'she murders your brother Mitya and then tells him to remember it all his life! What ferocity! Alyosha made no reply, he seemed not to have heard. He walked fast beside Rakitin as though in a terrible hurry. He was lost in thought and moved mechanically. Rakitin felt a sudden twinge as though he had been touched on an open wound. He had expected something quite different by bringing Grushenka and Alyosha together. Something very different from what he had hoped for had happened. 'He is a Pole, that officer of hers, he began again, restraining himself 'and indeed he is not an officer at all now. He served in the customs in Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese frontier, some puny little beggar of a Pole, I expect. Lost his job, they say. He's heard now that Grushenka's saved a little money, so he's turned up againthat's the explanation of the mystery. Again Alyosha seemed not to hear. Rakitin could not control himself. 'Well, so you've saved the sinner? he laughed spitefully. 'Have you turned the Magdalene into the true path? Driven out the seven devils, eh? So you see the miracles you were looking out for just now have come to pass! 'Hush, Rakitin, Alyosha answered with an aching heart. 'So you despise me now for those twentyfive roubles? I've sold my friend, you think. But you are not Christ, you know, and I am not Judas. 'Oh, Rakitin, I assure you I'd forgotten about it, cried Alyosha, 'you remind me of it yourself.... But this was the last straw for Rakitin. 'Damnation take you all and each of you! he cried suddenly, 'why the devil did I take you up? I don't want to know you from this time forward. Go alone, there's your road! And he turned abruptly into another street, leaving Alyosha alone in the dark. Alyosha came out of the town and walked across the fields to the monastery. It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned to the hermitage the doorkeeper let him in by a special entrance. It had struck nine o'clockthe hour of rest and repose after a day of such agitation for all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and went into the elder's cell where his coffin was now standing. There was no one in the cell but Father Passy, reading the Gospel in solitude over the coffin, and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhausted by the previous night's conversation and the disturbing incidents of the day, was sleeping the deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of the other room. Though Father Passy heard Alyosha come in, he did not even look in his direction. Alyosha turned to the right from the door to the corner, fell on his knees and began to pray. His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings no single sensation stood out distinctly on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow, continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strange to say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffin before him, the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weeping and poignant grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. As soon as he came in, he fell down before the coffin as before a holy shrine, but joy, joy was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The one window of the cell was open, the air was fresh and cool. 'So the smell must have become stronger, if they opened the window, thought Alyosha. But even this thought of the smell of corruption, which had seemed to him so awful and humiliating a few hours before, no longer made him feel miserable or indignant. He began quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically. Fragments of thought floated through his soul, flashed like stars and went out again at once, to be succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning in his soul a sense of the wholeness of thingssomething steadfast and comfortingand he was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying ardently, he longed to pour out his thankfulness and love.... But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else, and sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what had interrupted it. He began listening to what Father Passy was reading, but worn out with exhaustion he gradually began to doze. 'And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee read Father Passy. 'And the mother of Jesus was there And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 'Marriage? What's that?... A marriage! floated whirling through Alyosha's mind. 'There is happiness for her, too.... She has gone to the feast.... No, she has not taken the knife.... That was only a tragic phrase.... Well ... tragic phrases should be forgiven, they must be. Tragic phrases comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for men to bear. Rakitin has gone off to the back alley. As long as Rakitin broods over his wrongs, he will always go off to the back alley.... But the high road ... The road is wide and straight and bright as crystal, and the sun is at the end of it.... Ah!... What's being read?... 'And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine ... Alyosha heard. 'Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn't want to miss it, I love that passage it's Cana of Galilee, the first miracle.... Ah, that miracle! Ah, that sweet miracle! It was not men's grief, but their joy Christ visited, He worked His first miracle to help men's gladness.... 'He who loves men loves their gladness, too' ... He was always repeating that, it was one of his leading ideas.... 'There's no living without joy,' Mitya says.... Yes, Mitya.... 'Everything that is true and good is always full of forgiveness,' he used to say that, too ... 'Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do with thee or me? Mine hour is not yet come. 'His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it ... 'Do it.... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people.... Of course they were poor, since they hadn't wine enough even at a wedding.... The historians write that, in those days, the people living about the Lake of Gennesaret were the poorest that can possibly be imagined ... and another great heart, that other great being, His Mother, knew that He had come not only to make His great terrible sacrifice. She knew that His heart was open even to the simple, artless merrymaking of some obscure and unlearned people, who had warmly bidden Him to their poor wedding. 'Mine hour is not yet come,' He said, with a soft smile (He must have smiled gently to her). And, indeed, was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings He had come down to earth? And yet He went and did as she asked Him.... Ah, he is reading again.... 'Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 'And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 'When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, 'And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and when men have well drunk, that which is worse but thou hast kept the good wine until now. 'But what's this, what's this? Why is the room growing wider?... Ah, yes ... It's the marriage, the wedding ... yes, of course. Here are the guests, here are the young couple sitting, and the merry crowd and ... Where is the wise governor of the feast? But who is this? Who? Again the walls are receding.... Who is getting up there from the great table? What!... He here, too? But he's in the coffin ... but he's here, too. He has stood up, he sees me, he is coming here.... God!... Yes, he came up to him, to him, he, the little, thin old man, with tiny wrinkles on his face, joyful and laughing softly. There was no coffin now, and he was in the same dress as he had worn yesterday sitting with them, when the visitors had gathered about him. His face was uncovered, his eyes were shining. How was this, then? He, too, had been called to the feast. He, too, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee.... 'Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden, he heard a soft voice saying over him. 'Why have you hidden yourself here, out of sight? You come and join us too. It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be he, since he called him! The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees. 'We are rejoicing, the little, thin old man went on. 'We are drinking the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness do you see how many guests? Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of the feast, he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gave an onion to a beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only an onion eachonly one little onion.... What are all our deeds? And you, my gentle one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how to give a famished woman an onion today. Begin your work, dear one, begin it, gentle one!... Do you see our Sun, do you see Him? 'I am afraid ... I dare not look, whispered Alyosha. 'Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly for ever and ever.... There they are bringing new wine. Do you see they are bringing the vessels.... Something glowed in Alyosha's heart, something filled it till it ached, tears of rapture rose from his soul.... He stretched out his hands, uttered a cry and waked up. Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn, distinct reading of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the reading. It was strange, he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he was on his feet, and suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three firm rapid steps he went right up to the coffin. His shoulder brushed against Father Passy without his noticing it. Father Passy raised his eyes for an instant from his book, but looked away again at once, seeing that something strange was happening to the boy. Alyosha gazed for half a minute at the coffin, at the covered, motionless dead man that lay in the coffin, with the ikon on his breast and the peaked cap with the octangular cross, on his head. He had only just been hearing his voice, and that voice was still ringing in his ears. He was listening, still expecting other words, but suddenly he turned sharply and went out of the cell. He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were slumbering till morning. The silence of earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of the stars.... Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love it for ever and ever. 'Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears, echoed in his soul. What was he weeping over? Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and 'he was not ashamed of that ecstasy. There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over 'in contact with other worlds. He longed to forgive every one and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. 'And others are praying for me too, echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mindand it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute. 'Some one visited my soul in that hour, he used to say afterwards, with implicit faith in his words. Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words of his elder, who had bidden him 'sojourn in the world. But Dmitri, to whom Grushenka, flying away to a new life, had left her last greetings, bidding him remember the hour of her love for ever, knew nothing of what had happened to her, and was at that moment in a condition of feverish agitation and activity. For the last two days he had been in such an inconceivable state of mind that he might easily have fallen ill with brain fever, as he said himself afterwards. Alyosha had not been able to find him the morning before, and Ivan had not succeeded in meeting him at the tavern on the same day. The people at his lodgings, by his orders, concealed his movements. He had spent those two days literally rushing in all directions, 'struggling with his destiny and trying to save himself, as he expressed it himself afterwards, and for some hours he even made a dash out of the town on urgent business, terrible as it was to him to lose sight of Grushenka for a moment. All this was explained afterwards in detail, and confirmed by documentary evidence but for the present we will only note the most essential incidents of those two terrible days immediately preceding the awful catastrophe, that broke so suddenly upon him. Though Grushenka had, it is true, loved him for an hour, genuinely and sincerely, yet she tortured him sometimes cruelly and mercilessly. The worst of it was that he could never tell what she meant to do. To prevail upon her by force or kindness was also impossible she would yield to nothing. She would only have become angry and turned away from him altogether, he knew that well already. He suspected, quite correctly, that she, too, was passing through an inward struggle, and was in a state of extraordinary indecision, that she was making up her mind to something, and unable to determine upon it. And so, not without good reason, he divined, with a sinking heart, that at moments she must simply hate him and his passion. And so, perhaps, it was, but what was distressing Grushenka he did not understand. For him the whole tormenting question lay between him and Fyodor Pavlovitch. Here, we must note, by the way, one certain fact he was firmly persuaded that Fyodor Pavlovitch would offer, or perhaps had offered, Grushenka lawful wedlock, and did not for a moment believe that the old voluptuary hoped to gain his object for three thousand roubles. Mitya had reached this conclusion from his knowledge of Grushenka and her character. That was how it was that he could believe at times that all Grushenka's uneasiness rose from not knowing which of them to choose, which was most to her advantage. Strange to say, during those days it never occurred to him to think of the approaching return of the 'officer, that is, of the man who had been such a fatal influence in Grushenka's life, and whose arrival she was expecting with such emotion and dread. It is true that of late Grushenka had been very silent about it. Yet he was perfectly aware of a letter she had received a month ago from her seducer, and had heard of it from her own lips. He partly knew, too, what the letter contained. In a moment of spite Grushenka had shown him that letter, but to her astonishment he attached hardly any consequence to it. It would be hard to say why this was. Perhaps, weighed down by all the hideous horror of his struggle with his own father for this woman, he was incapable of imagining any danger more terrible, at any rate for the time. He simply did not believe in a suitor who suddenly turned up again after five years' disappearance, still less in his speedy arrival. Moreover, in the 'officer's first letter which had been shown to Mitya, the possibility of his new rival's visit was very vaguely suggested. The letter was very indefinite, highflown, and full of sentimentality. It must be noted that Grushenka had concealed from him the last lines of the letter, in which his return was alluded to more definitely. He had, besides, noticed at that moment, he remembered afterwards, a certain involuntary proud contempt for this missive from Siberia on Grushenka's face. Grushenka told him nothing of what had passed later between her and this rival so that by degrees he had completely forgotten the officer's existence. He felt that whatever might come later, whatever turn things might take, his final conflict with Fyodor Pavlovitch was close upon him, and must be decided before anything else. With a sinking heart he was expecting every moment Grushenka's decision, always believing that it would come suddenly, on the impulse of the moment. All of a sudden she would say to him 'Take me, I'm yours for ever, and it would all be over. He would seize her and bear her away at once to the ends of the earth. Oh, then he would bear her away at once, as far, far away as possible to the farthest end of Russia, if not of the earth, then he would marry her, and settle down with her incognito, so that no one would know anything about them, there, here, or anywhere. Then, oh, then, a new life would begin at once! Of this different, reformed and 'virtuous life ('it must, it must be virtuous) he dreamed feverishly at every moment. He thirsted for that reformation and renewal. The filthy morass, in which he had sunk of his own free will, was too revolting to him, and, like very many men in such cases, he put faith above all in change of place. If only it were not for these people, if only it were not for these circumstances, if only he could fly away from this accursed placehe would be altogether regenerated, would enter on a new path. That was what he believed in, and what he was yearning for. But all this could only be on condition of the first, the happy solution of the question. There was another possibility, a different and awful ending. Suddenly she might say to him 'Go away. I have just come to terms with Fyodor Pavlovitch. I am going to marry him and don't want youand then ... but then.... But Mitya did not know what would happen then. Up to the last hour he didn't know. That must be said to his credit. He had no definite intentions, had planned no crime. He was simply watching and spying in agony, while he prepared himself for the first, happy solution of his destiny. He drove away any other idea, in fact. But for that ending a quite different anxiety arose, a new, incidental, but yet fatal and insoluble difficulty presented itself. If she were to say to him 'I'm yours take me away, how could he take her away? Where had he the means, the money to do it? It was just at this time that all sources of revenue from Fyodor Pavlovitch, doles which had gone on without interruption for so many years, ceased. Grushenka had money, of course, but with regard to this Mitya suddenly evinced extraordinary pride he wanted to carry her away and begin the new life with her himself, at his own expense, not at hers. He could not conceive of taking her money, and the very idea caused him a pang of intense repulsion. I won't enlarge on this fact or analyze it here, but confine myself to remarking that this was his attitude at the moment. All this may have arisen indirectly and unconsciously from the secret stings of his conscience for the money of Katerina Ivanovna that he had dishonestly appropriated. 'I've been a scoundrel to one of them, and I shall be a scoundrel again to the other directly, was his feeling then, as he explained after 'and when Grushenka knows, she won't care for such a scoundrel. Where then was he to get the means, where was he to get the fateful money? Without it, all would be lost and nothing could be done, 'and only because I hadn't the money. Oh, the shame of it! To anticipate things he did, perhaps, know where to get the money, knew, perhaps, where it lay at that moment. I will say no more of this here, as it will all be clear later. But his chief trouble, I must explain however obscurely, lay in the fact that to have that sum he knew of, to have the right to take it, he must first restore Katerina Ivanovna's three thousandif not, 'I'm a common pickpocket, I'm a scoundrel, and I don't want to begin a new life as a scoundrel, Mitya decided. And so he made up his mind to move heaven and earth to return Katerina Ivanovna that three thousand, and that first of all. The final stage of this decision, so to say, had been reached only during the last hours, that is, after his last interview with Alyosha, two days before, on the highroad, on the evening when Grushenka had insulted Katerina Ivanovna, and Mitya, after hearing Alyosha's account of it, had admitted that he was a scoundrel, and told him to tell Katerina Ivanovna so, if it could be any comfort to her. After parting from his brother on that night, he had felt in his frenzy that it would be better 'to murder and rob some one than fail to pay my debt to Katya. I'd rather every one thought me a robber and a murderer, I'd rather go to Siberia than that Katya should have the right to say that I deceived her and stole her money, and used her money to run away with Grushenka and begin a new life! That I can't do! So Mitya decided, grinding his teeth, and he might well fancy at times that his brain would give way. But meanwhile he went on struggling.... Strange to say, though one would have supposed there was nothing left for him but despairfor what chance had he, with nothing in the world, to raise such a sum?yet to the very end he persisted in hoping that he would get that three thousand, that the money would somehow come to him of itself, as though it might drop from heaven. That is just how it is with people who, like Dmitri, have never had anything to do with money, except to squander what has come to them by inheritance without any effort of their own, and have no notion how money is obtained. A whirl of the most fantastic notions took possession of his brain immediately after he had parted with Alyosha two days before, and threw his thoughts into a tangle of confusion. This is how it was he pitched first on a perfectly wild enterprise. And perhaps to men of that kind in such circumstances the most impossible, fantastic schemes occur first, and seem most practical. He suddenly determined to go to Samsonov, the merchant who was Grushenka's protector, and to propose a 'scheme to him, and by means of it to obtain from him at once the whole of the sum required. Of the commercial value of his scheme he had no doubt, not the slightest, and was only uncertain how Samsonov would look upon his freak, supposing he were to consider it from any but the commercial point of view. Though Mitya knew the merchant by sight, he was not acquainted with him and had never spoken a word to him. But for some unknown reason he had long entertained the conviction that the old reprobate, who was lying at death's door, would perhaps not at all object now to Grushenka's securing a respectable position, and marrying a man 'to be depended upon. And he believed not only that he would not object, but that this was what he desired, and, if opportunity arose, that he would be ready to help. From some rumor, or perhaps from some stray word of Grushenka's, he had gathered further that the old man would perhaps prefer him to Fyodor Pavlovitch for Grushenka. Possibly many of the readers of my novel will feel that in reckoning on such assistance, and being ready to take his bride, so to speak, from the hands of her protector, Dmitri showed great coarseness and want of delicacy. I will only observe that Mitya looked upon Grushenka's past as something completely over. He looked on that past with infinite pity and resolved with all the fervor of his passion that when once Grushenka told him she loved him and would marry him, it would mean the beginning of a new Grushenka and a new Dmitri, free from every vice. They would forgive one another and would begin their lives afresh. As for Kuzma Samsonov, Dmitri looked upon him as a man who had exercised a fateful influence in that remote past of Grushenka's, though she had never loved him, and who was now himself a thing of the past, completely done with, and, so to say, nonexistent. Besides, Mitya hardly looked upon him as a man at all, for it was known to every one in the town that he was only a shattered wreck, whose relations with Grushenka had changed their character and were now simply paternal, and that this had been so for a long time. In any case there was much simplicity on Mitya's part in all this, for in spite of all his vices, he was a very simplehearted man. It was an instance of this simplicity that Mitya was seriously persuaded that, being on the eve of his departure for the next world, old Kuzma must sincerely repent of his past relations with Grushenka, and that she had no more devoted friend and protector in the world than this, now harmless old man. After his conversation with Alyosha, at the crossroads, he hardly slept all night, and at ten o'clock next morning, he was at the house of Samsonov and telling the servant to announce him. It was a very large and gloomy old house of two stories, with a lodge and outhouses. In the lower story lived Samsonov's two married sons with their families, his old sister, and his unmarried daughter. In the lodge lived two of his clerks, one of whom also had a large family. Both the lodge and the lower story were overcrowded, but the old man kept the upper floor to himself, and would not even let the daughter live there with him, though she waited upon him, and in spite of her asthma was obliged at certain fixed hours, and at any time he might call her, to run upstairs to him from below. This upper floor contained a number of large rooms kept purely for show, furnished in the oldfashioned merchant style, with long monotonous rows of clumsy mahogany chairs along the walls, with glass chandeliers under shades, and gloomy mirrors on the walls. All these rooms were entirely empty and unused, for the old man kept to one room, a small, remote bedroom, where he was waited upon by an old servant with a kerchief on her head, and by a lad, who used to sit on the locker in the passage. Owing to his swollen legs, the old man could hardly walk at all, and was only rarely lifted from his leather armchair, when the old woman supporting him led him up and down the room once or twice. He was morose and taciturn even with this old woman. When he was informed of the arrival of the 'captain, he at once refused to see him. But Mitya persisted and sent his name up again. Samsonov questioned the lad minutely What he looked like? Whether he was drunk? Was he going to make a row? The answer he received was that he was sober, but wouldn't go away. The old man again refused to see him. Then Mitya, who had foreseen this, and purposely brought pencil and paper with him, wrote clearly on the piece of paper the words 'On most important business closely concerning Agrafena Alexandrovna, and sent it up to the old man. After thinking a little Samsonov told the lad to take the visitor to the drawingroom, and sent the old woman downstairs with a summons to his younger son to come upstairs to him at once. This younger son, a man over six foot and of exceptional physical strength, who was closelyshaven and dressed in the European style, though his father still wore a kaftan and a beard, came at once without a comment. All the family trembled before the father. The old man had sent for this giant, not because he was afraid of the 'captain (he was by no means of a timorous temper), but in order to have a witness in case of any emergency. Supported by his son and the servantlad, he waddled at last into the drawingroom. It may be assumed that he felt considerable curiosity. The drawingroom in which Mitya was awaiting him was a vast, dreary room that laid a weight of depression on the heart. It had a double row of windows, a gallery, marbled walls, and three immense chandeliers with glass lusters covered with shades. Mitya was sitting on a little chair at the entrance, awaiting his fate with nervous impatience. When the old man appeared at the opposite door, seventy feet away, Mitya jumped up at once, and with his long, military stride walked to meet him. Mitya was well dressed, in a frockcoat, buttoned up, with a round hat and black gloves in his hands, just as he had been three days before at the elder's, at the family meeting with his father and brothers. The old man waited for him, standing dignified and unbending, and Mitya felt at once that he had looked him through and through as he advanced. Mitya was greatly impressed, too, with Samsonov's immensely swollen face. His lower lip, which had always been thick, hung down now, looking like a bun. He bowed to his guest in dignified silence, motioned him to a low chair by the sofa, and, leaning on his son's arm he began lowering himself on to the sofa opposite, groaning painfully, so that Mitya, seeing his painful exertions, immediately felt remorseful and sensitively conscious of his insignificance in the presence of the dignified person he had ventured to disturb. 'What is it you want of me, sir? said the old man, deliberately, distinctly, severely, but courteously, when he was at last seated. Mitya started, leapt up, but sat down again. Then he began at once speaking with loud, nervous haste, gesticulating, and in a positive frenzy. He was unmistakably a man driven into a corner, on the brink of ruin, catching at the last straw, ready to sink if he failed. Old Samsonov probably grasped all this in an instant, though his face remained cold and immovable as a statue's. 'Most honored sir, Kuzma Kuzmitch, you have no doubt heard more than once of my disputes with my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, who robbed me of my inheritance from my mother ... seeing the whole town is gossiping about it ... for here every one's gossiping of what they shouldn't ... and besides, it might have reached you through Grushenka ... I beg your pardon, through Agrafena Alexandrovna ... Agrafena Alexandrovna, the lady for whom I have the highest respect and esteem ... So Mitya began, and broke down at the first sentence. We will not reproduce his speech word for word, but will only summarize the gist of it. Three months ago, he said, he had of express intention (Mitya purposely used these words instead of 'intentionally) consulted a lawyer in the chief town of the province, 'a distinguished lawyer, Kuzma Kuzmitch, Pavel Pavlovitch Korneplodov. You have perhaps heard of him? A man of vast intellect, the mind of a statesman ... he knows you, too ... spoke of you in the highest terms ... Mitya broke down again. But these breaks did not deter him. He leapt instantly over the gaps, and struggled on and on. This Korneplodov, after questioning him minutely, and inspecting the documents he was able to bring him (Mitya alluded somewhat vaguely to these documents, and slurred over the subject with special haste), reported that they certainly might take proceedings concerning the village of Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to him, Mitya, from his mother, and so checkmate the old villain, his father ... 'because every door was not closed and justice might still find a loophole. In fact, he might reckon on an additional sum of six or even seven thousand roubles from Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya was worth, at least, twentyfive thousand, he might say twentyeight thousand, in fact, 'thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you believe it, I didn't get seventeen from that heartless man! So he, Mitya, had thrown the business up, for the time, knowing nothing about the law, but on coming here was struck dumb by a crossclaim made upon him (here Mitya went adrift again and again took a flying leap forward), 'so will not you, excellent and honored Kuzma Kuzmitch, be willing to take up all my claims against that unnatural monster, and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?... You see, you cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my honor, my honor, I swear that. Quite the contrary, you may make six or seven thousand instead of three. Above all, he wanted this concluded that very day. 'I'll do the business with you at a notary's, or whatever it is ... in fact, I'm ready to do anything.... I'll hand over all the deeds ... whatever you want, sign anything ... and we could draw up the agreement at once ... and if it were possible, if it were only possible, that very morning.... You could pay me that three thousand, for there isn't a capitalist in this town to compare with you, and so would save me from ... would save me, in fact ... for a good, I might say an honorable action.... For I cherish the most honorable feelings for a certain person, whom you know well, and care for as a father. I would not have come, indeed, if it had not been as a father. And, indeed, it's a struggle of three in this business, for it's fatethat's a fearful thing, Kuzma Kuzmitch! A tragedy, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a tragedy! And as you've dropped out long ago, it's a tug ofwar between two. I'm expressing it awkwardly, perhaps, but I'm not a literary man. You see, I'm on the one side, and that monster on the other. So you must choose. It's either I or the monster. It all lies in your handsthe fate of three lives, and the happiness of two.... Excuse me, I'm making a mess of it, but you understand ... I see from your venerable eyes that you understand ... and if you don't understand, I'm done for ... so you see! Mitya broke off his clumsy speech with that, 'so you see! and jumping up from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish proposal. At the last phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware that it had all fallen flat, above all, that he had been talking utter nonsense. 'How strange it is! On the way here it seemed all right, and now it's nothing but nonsense. The idea suddenly dawned on his despairing mind. All the while he had been talking, the old man sat motionless, watching him with an icy expression in his eyes. After keeping him for a moment in suspense, Kuzma Kuzmitch pronounced at last in the most positive and chilling tone 'Excuse me, we don't undertake such business. Mitya suddenly felt his legs growing weak under him. 'What am I to do now, Kuzma Kuzmitch? he muttered, with a pale smile. 'I suppose it's all up with mewhat do you think? 'Excuse me.... Mitya remained standing, staring motionless. He suddenly noticed a movement in the old man's face. He started. 'You see, sir, business of that sort's not in our line, said the old man slowly. 'There's the court, and the lawyersit's a perfect misery. But if you like, there is a man here you might apply to. 'Good heavens! Who is it? You're my salvation, Kuzma Kuzmitch, faltered Mitya. 'He doesn't live here, and he's not here just now. He is a peasant, he does business in timber. His name is Lyagavy. He's been haggling with Fyodor Pavlovitch for the last year, over your copse at Tchermashnya. They can't agree on the price, maybe you've heard? Now he's come back again and is staying with the priest at Ilyinskoe, about twelve versts from the Volovya station. He wrote to me, too, about the business of the copse, asking my advice. Fyodor Pavlovitch means to go and see him himself. So if you were to be beforehand with Fyodor Pavlovitch and to make Lyagavy the offer you've made me, he might possibly 'A brilliant idea! Mitya interrupted ecstatically. 'He's the very man, it would just suit him. He's haggling with him for it, being asked too much, and here he would have all the documents entitling him to the property itself. Ha ha ha! And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh, startling Samsonov. 'How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch? cried Mitya effusively. 'Don't mention it, said Samsonov, inclining his head. 'But you don't know, you've saved me. Oh, it was a true presentiment brought me to you.... So now to this priest! 'No need of thanks. 'I'll make haste and fly there. I'm afraid I've overtaxed your strength. I shall never forget it. It's a Russian says that, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a Rr russian! 'To be sure! Mitya seized his hand to press it, but there was a malignant gleam in the old man's eye. Mitya drew back his hand, but at once blamed himself for his mistrustfulness. 'It's because he's tired, he thought. 'For her sake! For her sake, Kuzma Kuzmitch! You understand that it's for her, he cried, his voice ringing through the room. He bowed, turned sharply round, and with the same long stride walked to the door without looking back. He was trembling with delight. 'Everything was on the verge of ruin and my guardian angel saved me, was the thought in his mind. And if such a business man as Samsonov (a most worthy old man, and what dignity!) had suggested this course, then ... then success was assured. He would fly off immediately. 'I will be back before night, I shall be back at night and the thing is done. Could the old man have been laughing at me? exclaimed Mitya, as he strode towards his lodging. He could, of course, imagine nothing, but that the advice was practical 'from such a business man with an understanding of the business, with an understanding of this Lyagavy (curious surname!). Orthe old man was laughing at him. Alas! The second alternative was the correct one. Long afterwards, when the catastrophe had happened, old Samsonov himself confessed, laughing, that he had made a fool of the 'captain. He was a cold, spiteful and sarcastic man, liable to violent antipathies. Whether it was the 'captain's excited face, or the foolish conviction of the 'rake and spendthrift, that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by such a cockandbull story as his scheme, or his jealousy of Grushenka, in whose name this 'scapegrace had rushed in on him with such a tale to get money which worked on the old man, I can't tell. But at the instant when Mitya stood before him, feeling his legs grow weak under him, and frantically exclaiming that he was ruined, at that moment the old man looked at him with intense spite, and resolved to make a laughingstock of him. When Mitya had gone, Kuzma Kuzmitch, white with rage, turned to his son and bade him see to it that that beggar be never seen again, and never admitted even into the yard, or else he'd He did not utter his threat. But even his son, who often saw him enraged, trembled with fear. For a whole hour afterwards, the old man was shaking with anger, and by evening he was worse, and sent for the doctor. So he must drive at full speed, and he had not the money for horses. He had forty kopecks, and that was all, all that was left after so many years of prosperity! But he had at home an old silver watch which had long ceased to go. He snatched it up and carried it to a Jewish watchmaker who had a shop in the marketplace. The Jew gave him six roubles for it. 'And I didn't expect that, cried Mitya, ecstatically. (He was still in a state of ecstasy.) He seized his six roubles and ran home. At home he borrowed three roubles from the people of the house, who loved him so much that they were pleased to give it him, though it was all they had. Mitya in his excitement told them on the spot that his fate would be decided that day, and he described, in desperate haste, the whole scheme he had put before Samsonov, the latter's decision, his own hopes for the future, and so on. These people had been told many of their lodger's secrets before, and so looked upon him as a gentleman who was not at all proud, and almost one of themselves. Having thus collected nine roubles Mitya sent for postinghorses to take him to the Volovya station. This was how the fact came to be remembered and established that 'at midday, on the day before the event, Mitya had not a farthing, and that he had sold his watch to get money and had borrowed three roubles from his landlord, all in the presence of witnesses. I note this fact, later on it will be apparent why I do so. Though he was radiant with the joyful anticipation that he would at last solve all his difficulties, yet, as he drew near Volovya station, he trembled at the thought of what Grushenka might be doing in his absence. What if she made up her mind today to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch? This was why he had gone off without telling her and why he left orders with his landlady not to let out where he had gone, if any one came to inquire for him. 'I must, I must get back tonight, he repeated, as he was jolted along in the cart, 'and I dare say I shall have to bring this Lyagavy back here ... to draw up the deed. So mused Mitya, with a throbbing heart, but alas! his dreams were not fated to be carried out. To begin with, he was late, taking a short cut from Volovya station which turned out to be eighteen versts instead of twelve. Secondly, he did not find the priest at home at Ilyinskoe he had gone off to a neighboring village. While Mitya, setting off there with the same exhausted horses, was looking for him, it was almost dark. The priest, a shy and amiable looking little man, informed him at once that though Lyagavy had been staying with him at first, he was now at Suhoy Possyolok, that he was staying the night in the forester's cottage, as he was buying timber there too. At Mitya's urgent request that he would take him to Lyagavy at once, and by so doing 'save him, so to speak, the priest agreed, after some demur, to conduct him to Suhoy Possyolok his curiosity was obviously aroused. But, unluckily, he advised their going on foot, as it would not be 'much over a verst. Mitya, of course, agreed, and marched off with his yardlong strides, so that the poor priest almost ran after him. He was a very cautious man, though not old. Mitya at once began talking to him, too, of his plans, nervously and excitedly asking advice in regard to Lyagavy, and talking all the way. The priest listened attentively, but gave little advice. He turned off Mitya's questions with 'I don't know. Ah, I can't say. How can I tell? and so on. When Mitya began to speak of his quarrel with his father over his inheritance, the priest was positively alarmed, as he was in some way dependent on Fyodor Pavlovitch. He inquired, however, with surprise, why he called the peasanttrader Gorstkin, Lyagavy, and obligingly explained to Mitya that, though the man's name really was Lyagavy, he was never called so, as he would be grievously offended at the name, and that he must be sure to call him Gorstkin, 'or you'll do nothing with him he won't even listen to you, said the priest in conclusion. Mitya was somewhat surprised for a moment, and explained that that was what Samsonov had called him. On hearing this fact, the priest dropped the subject, though he would have done well to put into words his doubt whether, if Samsonov had sent him to that peasant, calling him Lyagavy, there was not something wrong about it and he was turning him into ridicule. But Mitya had no time to pause over such trifles. He hurried, striding along, and only when he reached Suhoy Possyolok did he realize that they had come not one verst, nor one and a half, but at least three. This annoyed him, but he controlled himself. They went into the hut. The forester lived in one half of the hut, and Gorstkin was lodging in the other, the better room the other side of the passage. They went into that room and lighted a tallow candle. The hut was extremely overheated. On the table there was a samovar that had gone out, a tray with cups, an empty rum bottle, a bottle of vodka partly full, and some halfeaten crusts of wheaten bread. The visitor himself lay stretched at full length on the bench, with his coat crushed up under his head for a pillow, snoring heavily. Mitya stood in perplexity. 'Of course I must wake him. My business is too important. I've come in such haste. I'm in a hurry to get back today, he said in great agitation. But the priest and the forester stood in silence, not giving their opinion. Mitya went up and began trying to wake him himself he tried vigorously, but the sleeper did not wake. 'He's drunk, Mitya decided. 'Good Lord! What am I to do? What am I to do? And, terribly impatient, he began pulling him by the arms, by the legs, shaking his head, lifting him up and making him sit on the bench. Yet, after prolonged exertions, he could only succeed in getting the drunken man to utter absurd grunts, and violent, but inarticulate oaths. 'No, you'd better wait a little, the priest pronounced at last, 'for he's obviously not in a fit state. 'He's been drinking the whole day, the forester chimed in. 'Good heavens! cried Mitya. 'If only you knew how important it is to me and how desperate I am! 'No, you'd better wait till morning, the priest repeated. 'Till morning? Mercy! that's impossible! And in his despair he was on the point of attacking the sleeping man again, but stopped short at once, realizing the uselessness of his efforts. The priest said nothing, the sleepy forester looked gloomy. 'What terrible tragedies real life contrives for people, said Mitya, in complete despair. The perspiration was streaming down his face. The priest seized the moment to put before him, very reasonably, that, even if he succeeded in wakening the man, he would still be drunk and incapable of conversation. 'And your business is important, he said, 'so you'd certainly better put it off till morning. With a gesture of despair Mitya agreed. 'Father, I will stay here with a light, and seize the favorable moment. As soon as he wakes I'll begin. I'll pay you for the light, he said to the forester, 'for the night's lodging, too you'll remember Dmitri Karamazov. Only, Father, I don't know what we're to do with you. Where will you sleep? 'No, I'm going home. I'll take his horse and get home, he said, indicating the forester. 'And now I'll say goodby. I wish you all success. So it was settled. The priest rode off on the forester's horse, delighted to escape, though he shook his head uneasily, wondering whether he ought not next day to inform his benefactor Fyodor Pavlovitch of this curious incident, 'or he may in an unlucky hour hear of it, be angry, and withdraw his favor. The forester, scratching himself, went back to his room without a word, and Mitya sat on the bench to 'catch the favorable moment, as he expressed it. Profound dejection clung about his soul like a heavy mist. A profound, intense dejection! He sat thinking, but could reach no conclusion. The candle burnt dimly, a cricket chirped it became insufferably close in the overheated room. He suddenly pictured the garden, the path behind the garden, the door of his father's house mysteriously opening and Grushenka running in. He leapt up from the bench. 'It's a tragedy! he said, grinding his teeth. Mechanically he went up to the sleeping man and looked in his face. He was a lean, middleaged peasant, with a very long face, flaxen curls, and a long, thin, reddish beard, wearing a blue cotton shirt and a black waistcoat, from the pocket of which peeped the chain of a silver watch. Mitya looked at his face with intense hatred, and for some unknown reason his curly hair particularly irritated him. What was insufferably humiliating was, that after leaving things of such importance and making such sacrifices, he, Mitya, utterly worn out, should with business of such urgency be standing over this dolt on whom his whole fate depended, while he snored as though there were nothing the matter, as though he'd dropped from another planet. 'Oh, the irony of fate! cried Mitya, and, quite losing his head, he fell again to rousing the tipsy peasant. He roused him with a sort of ferocity, pulled at him, pushed him, even beat him but after five minutes of vain exertions, he returned to his bench in helpless despair, and sat down. 'Stupid! Stupid! cried Mitya. 'And how dishonorable it all is! something made him add. His head began to ache horribly. 'Should he fling it up and go away altogether? he wondered. 'No, wait till tomorrow now. I'll stay on purpose. What else did I come for? Besides, I've no means of going. How am I to get away from here now? Oh, the idiocy of it! But his head ached more and more. He sat without moving, and unconsciously dozed off and fell asleep as he sat. He seemed to have slept for two hours or more. He was waked up by his head aching so unbearably that he could have screamed. There was a hammering in his temples, and the top of his head ached. It was a long time before he could wake up fully and understand what had happened to him. At last he realized that the room was full of charcoal fumes from the stove, and that he might die of suffocation. And the drunken peasant still lay snoring. The candle guttered and was about to go out. Mitya cried out, and ran staggering across the passage into the forester's room. The forester waked up at once, but hearing that the other room was full of fumes, to Mitya's surprise and annoyance, accepted the fact with strange unconcern, though he did go to see to it. 'But he's dead, he's dead! and ... what am I to do then? cried Mitya frantically. They threw open the doors, opened a window and the chimney. Mitya brought a pail of water from the passage. First he wetted his own head, then, finding a rag of some sort, dipped it into the water, and put it on Lyagavy's head. The forester still treated the matter contemptuously, and when he opened the window said grumpily 'It'll be all right, now. He went back to sleep, leaving Mitya a lighted lantern. Mitya fussed about the drunken peasant for half an hour, wetting his head, and gravely resolved not to sleep all night. But he was so worn out that when he sat down for a moment to take breath, he closed his eyes, unconsciously stretched himself full length on the bench and slept like the dead. It was dreadfully late when he waked. It was somewhere about nine o'clock. The sun was shining brightly in the two little windows of the hut. The curlyheaded peasant was sitting on the bench and had his coat on. He had another samovar and another bottle in front of him. Yesterday's bottle had already been finished, and the new one was more than half empty. Mitya jumped up and saw at once that the cursed peasant was drunk again, hopelessly and incurably. He stared at him for a moment with wide opened eyes. The peasant was silently and slyly watching him, with insulting composure, and even a sort of contemptuous condescension, so Mitya fancied. He rushed up to him. 'Excuse me, you see ... I ... you've most likely heard from the forester here in the hut. I'm Lieutenant Dmitri Karamazov, the son of the old Karamazov whose copse you are buying. 'That's a lie! said the peasant, calmly and confidently. 'A lie? You know Fyodor Pavlovitch? 'I don't know any of your Fyodor Pavlovitches, said the peasant, speaking thickly. 'You're bargaining with him for the copse, for the copse. Do wake up, and collect yourself. Father Pavel of Ilyinskoe brought me here. You wrote to Samsonov, and he has sent me to you, Mitya gasped breathlessly. 'You're llying! Lyagavy blurted out again. Mitya's legs went cold. 'For mercy's sake! It isn't a joke! You're drunk, perhaps. Yet you can speak and understand ... or else ... I understand nothing! 'You're a painter! 'For mercy's sake! I'm Karamazov, Dmitri Karamazov. I have an offer to make you, an advantageous offer ... very advantageous offer, concerning the copse! The peasant stroked his beard importantly. 'No, you've contracted for the job and turned out a scamp. You're a scoundrel! 'I assure you you're mistaken, cried Mitya, wringing his hands in despair. The peasant still stroked his beard, and suddenly screwed up his eyes cunningly. 'No, you show me this you tell me the law that allows roguery. D'you hear? You're a scoundrel! Do you understand that? Mitya stepped back gloomily, and suddenly 'something seemed to hit him on the head, as he said afterwards. In an instant a light seemed to dawn in his mind, 'a light was kindled and I grasped it all. He stood, stupefied, wondering how he, after all a man of intelligence, could have yielded to such folly, have been led into such an adventure, and have kept it up for almost twentyfour hours, fussing round this Lyagavy, wetting his head. 'Why, the man's drunk, dead drunk, and he'll go on drinking now for a week what's the use of waiting here? And what if Samsonov sent me here on purpose? What if she? Oh, God, what have I done? The peasant sat watching him and grinning. Another time Mitya might have killed the fool in a fury, but now he felt as weak as a child. He went quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without a word, and went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the next room there was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket and put them on the table for his night's lodging, the candle, and the trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he saw nothing but forest all round. He walked at hazard, not knowing which way to turn out of the hut, to the right or to the left. Hurrying there the evening before with the priest, he had not noticed the road. He had no revengeful feeling for anybody, even for Samsonov, in his heart. He strode along a narrow forest path, aimless, dazed, without heeding where he was going. A child could have knocked him down, so weak was he in body and soul. He got out of the forest somehow, however, and a vista of fields, bare after the harvest, stretched as far as the eye could see. 'What despair! What death all round! he repeated, striding on and on. He was saved by meeting an old merchant who was being driven across country in a hired trap. When he overtook him, Mitya asked the way, and it turned out that the old merchant, too, was going to Volovya. After some discussion Mitya got into the trap. Three hours later they arrived. At Volovya, Mitya at once ordered postinghorses to drive to the town, and suddenly realized that he was appallingly hungry. While the horses were being harnessed, an omelette was prepared for him. He ate it all in an instant, ate a huge hunk of bread, ate a sausage, and swallowed three glasses of vodka. After eating, his spirits and his heart grew lighter. He flew towards the town, urged on the driver, and suddenly made a new and 'unalterable plan to procure that 'accursed money before evening. 'And to think, only to think that a man's life should be ruined for the sake of that paltry three thousand! he cried, contemptuously. 'I'll settle it to day. And if it had not been for the thought of Grushenka and of what might have happened to her, which never left him, he would perhaps have become quite cheerful again.... But the thought of her was stabbing him to the heart every moment, like a sharp knife. At last they arrived, and Mitya at once ran to Grushenka. This was the visit of Mitya of which Grushenka had spoken to Rakitin with such horror. She was just then expecting the 'message, and was much relieved that Mitya had not been to see her that day or the day before. She hoped that 'please God he won't come till I'm gone away, and he suddenly burst in on her. The rest we know already. To get him off her hands she suggested at once that he should walk with her to Samsonov's, where she said she absolutely must go 'to settle his accounts, and when Mitya accompanied her at once, she said goodby to him at the gate, making him promise to come at twelve o'clock to take her home again. Mitya, too, was delighted at this arrangement. If she was sitting at Samsonov's she could not be going to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, 'if only she's not lying, he added at once. But he thought she was not lying from what he saw. He was that sort of jealous man who, in the absence of the beloved woman, at once invents all sorts of awful fancies of what may be happening to her, and how she may be betraying him, but, when shaken, heartbroken, convinced of her faithlessness, he runs back to her at the first glance at her face, her gay, laughing, affectionate face, he revives at once, lays aside all suspicion and with joyful shame abuses himself for his jealousy. After leaving Grushenka at the gate he rushed home. Oh, he had so much still to do that day! But a load had been lifted from his heart, anyway. 'Now I must only make haste and find out from Smerdyakov whether anything happened there last night, whether, by any chance, she went to Fyodor Pavlovitch ough! floated through his mind. Before he had time to reach his lodging, jealousy had surged up again in his restless heart. Jealousy! 'Othello was not jealous, he was trustful, observed Pushkin. And that remark alone is enough to show the deep insight of our great poet. Othello's soul was shattered and his whole outlook clouded simply because his ideal was destroyed. But Othello did not begin hiding, spying, peeping. He was trustful, on the contrary. He had to be led up, pushed on, excited with great difficulty before he could entertain the idea of deceit. The truly jealous man is not like that. It is impossible to picture to oneself the shame and moral degradation to which the jealous man can descend without a qualm of conscience. And yet it's not as though the jealous were all vulgar and base souls. On the contrary, a man of lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full of selfsacrifice, may yet hide under tables, bribe the vilest people, and be familiar with the lowest ignominy of spying and eavesdropping. Othello was incapable of making up his mind to faithlessnessnot incapable of forgiving it, but of making up his mind to itthough his soul was as innocent and free from malice as a babe's. It is not so with the really jealous man. It is hard to imagine what some jealous men can make up their mind to and overlook, and what they can forgive! The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it. The jealous man can forgive extraordinarily quickly (though, of course, after a violent scene), and he is able to forgive infidelity almost conclusively proved, the very kisses and embraces he has seen, if only he can somehow be convinced that it has all been 'for the last time, and that his rival will vanish from that day forward, will depart to the ends of the earth, or that he himself will carry her away somewhere, where that dreaded rival will not get near her. Of course the reconciliation is only for an hour. For, even if the rival did disappear next day, he would invent another one and would be jealous of him. And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuous guarding. But that the jealous will never understand. And yet among them are men of noble hearts. It is remarkable, too, that those very men of noble hearts, standing hidden in some cupboard, listening and spying, never feel the stings of conscience at that moment, anyway, though they understand clearly enough with their 'noble hearts the shameful depths to which they have voluntarily sunk. At the sight of Grushenka, Mitya's jealousy vanished, and, for an instant he became trustful and generous, and positively despised himself for his evil feelings. But it only proved that, in his love for the woman, there was an element of something far higher than he himself imagined, that it was not only a sensual passion, not only the 'curve of her body, of which he had talked to Alyosha. But, as soon as Grushenka had gone, Mitya began to suspect her of all the low cunning of faithlessness, and he felt no sting of conscience at it. And so jealousy surged up in him again. He had, in any case, to make haste. The first thing to be done was to get hold of at least a small, temporary loan of money. The nine roubles had almost all gone on his expedition. And, as we all know, one can't take a step without money. But he had thought over in the cart where he could get a loan. He had a brace of fine dueling pistols in a case, which he had not pawned till then because he prized them above all his possessions. In the 'Metropolis tavern he had some time since made acquaintance with a young official and had learnt that this very opulent bachelor was passionately fond of weapons. He used to buy pistols, revolvers, daggers, hang them on his wall and show them to acquaintances. He prided himself on them, and was quite a specialist on the mechanism of the revolver. Mitya, without stopping to think, went straight to him, and offered to pawn his pistols to him for ten roubles. The official, delighted, began trying to persuade him to sell them outright. But Mitya would not consent, so the young man gave him ten roubles, protesting that nothing would induce him to take interest. They parted friends. Mitya was in haste he rushed towards Fyodor Pavlovitch's by the back way, to his arbor, to get hold of Smerdyakov as soon as possible. In this way the fact was established that three or four hours before a certain event, of which I shall speak later on, Mitya had not a farthing, and pawned for ten roubles a possession he valued, though, three hours later, he was in possession of thousands.... But I am anticipating. From Marya Kondratyevna (the woman living near Fyodor Pavlovitch's) he learned the very disturbing fact of Smerdyakov's illness. He heard the story of his fall in the cellar, his fit, the doctor's visit, Fyodor Pavlovitch's anxiety he heard with interest, too, that his brother Ivan had set off that morning for Moscow. 'Then he must have driven through Volovya before me, thought Dmitri, but he was terribly distressed about Smerdyakov. 'What will happen now? Who'll keep watch for me? Who'll bring me word? he thought. He began greedily questioning the women whether they had seen anything the evening before. They quite understood what he was trying to find out, and completely reassured him. No one had been there. Ivan Fyodorovitch had been there the night everything had been perfectly as usual. Mitya grew thoughtful. He would certainly have to keep watch today, but where? Here or at Samsonov's gate? He decided that he must be on the look out both here and there, and meanwhile ... meanwhile.... The difficulty was that he had to carry out the new plan that he had made on the journey back. He was sure of its success, but he must not delay acting upon it. Mitya resolved to sacrifice an hour to it 'In an hour I shall know everything, I shall settle everything, and then, then, first of all to Samsonov's. I'll inquire whether Grushenka's there and instantly be back here again, stay till eleven, and then to Samsonov's again to bring her home. This was what he decided. He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed, and went to Madame Hohlakov's. Alas! he had built his hopes on her. He had resolved to borrow three thousand from that lady. And what was more, he felt suddenly convinced that she would not refuse to lend it to him. It may be wondered why, if he felt so certain, he had not gone to her at first, one of his own sort, so to speak, instead of to Samsonov, a man he did not know, who was not of his own class, and to whom he hardly knew how to speak. But the fact was that he had never known Madame Hohlakov well, and had seen nothing of her for the last month, and that he knew she could not endure him. She had detested him from the first because he was engaged to Katerina Ivanovna, while she had, for some reason, suddenly conceived the desire that Katerina Ivanovna should throw him over, and marry the 'charming, chivalrously refined Ivan, who had such excellent manners. Mitya's manners she detested. Mitya positively laughed at her, and had once said about her that she was just as lively and at her ease as she was uncultivated. But that morning in the cart a brilliant idea had struck him 'If she is so anxious I should not marry Katerina Ivanovna (and he knew she was positively hysterical upon the subject) 'why should she refuse me now that three thousand, just to enable me to leave Katya and get away from her for ever. These spoilt fine ladies, if they set their hearts on anything, will spare no expense to satisfy their caprice. Besides, she's so rich, Mitya argued. As for his 'plan it was just the same as before it consisted of the offer of his rights to Tchermashnyabut not with a commercial object, as it had been with Samsonov, not trying to allure the lady with the possibility of making a profit of six or seven thousandbut simply as a security for the debt. As he worked out this new idea, Mitya was enchanted with it, but so it always was with him in all his undertakings, in all his sudden decisions. He gave himself up to every new idea with passionate enthusiasm. Yet, when he mounted the steps of Madame Hohlakov's house he felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. At that moment he saw fully, as a mathematical certainty, that this was his last hope, that if this broke down, nothing else was left him in the world, but to 'rob and murder some one for the three thousand. It was halfpast seven when he rang at the bell. At first fortune seemed to smile upon him. As soon as he was announced he was received with extraordinary rapidity. 'As though she were waiting for me, thought Mitya, and as soon as he had been led to the drawingroom, the lady of the house herself ran in, and declared at once that she was expecting him. 'I was expecting you! I was expecting you! Though I'd no reason to suppose you would come to see me, as you will admit yourself. Yet, I did expect you. You may marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but I was convinced all the morning that you would come. 'That is certainly wonderful, madam, observed Mitya, sitting down limply, 'but I have come to you on a matter of great importance.... On a matter of supreme importance for me, that is, madam ... for me alone ... and I hasten 'I know you've come on most important business, Dmitri Fyodorovitch it's not a case of presentiment, no reactionary harking back to the miraculous (have you heard about Father Zossima?). This is a case of mathematics you couldn't help coming, after all that has passed with Katerina Ivanovna you couldn't, you couldn't, that's a mathematical certainty. 'The realism of actual life, madam, that's what it is. But allow me to explain 'Realism indeed, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I'm all for realism now. I've seen too much of miracles. You've heard that Father Zossima is dead? 'No, madam, it's the first time I've heard of it. Mitya was a little surprised. The image of Alyosha rose to his mind. 'Last night, and only imagine 'Madam, said Mitya, 'I can imagine nothing except that I'm in a desperate position, and that if you don't help me, everything will come to grief, and I first of all. Excuse me for the triviality of the expression, but I'm in a fever 'I know, I know that you're in a fever. You could hardly fail to be, and whatever you may say to me, I know beforehand. I have long been thinking over your destiny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I am watching over it and studying it.... Oh, believe me, I'm an experienced doctor of the soul, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. 'Madam, if you are an experienced doctor, I'm certainly an experienced patient, said Mitya, with an effort to be polite, 'and I feel that if you are watching over my destiny in this way, you will come to my help in my ruin, and so allow me, at least to explain to you the plan with which I have ventured to come to you ... and what I am hoping of you.... I have come, madam 'Don't explain it. It's of secondary importance. But as for help, you're not the first I have helped, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You have most likely heard of my cousin, Madame Belmesov. Her husband was ruined, 'had come to grief,' as you characteristically express it, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I recommended him to take to horsebreeding, and now he's doing well. Have you any idea of horsebreeding, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? 'Not the faintest, madam ah, madam, not the faintest! cried Mitya, in nervous impatience, positively starting from his seat. 'I simply implore you, madam, to listen to me. Only give me two minutes of free speech that I may just explain to you everything, the whole plan with which I have come. Besides, I am short of time. I'm in a fearful hurry, Mitya cried hysterically, feeling that she was just going to begin talking again, and hoping to cut her short. 'I have come in despair ... in the last gasp of despair, to beg you to lend me the sum of three thousand, a loan, but on safe, most safe security, madam, with the most trustworthy guarantees! Only let me explain 'You must tell me all that afterwards, afterwards! Madame Hohlakov with a gesture demanded silence in her turn, 'and whatever you may tell me, I know it all beforehand I've told you so already. You ask for a certain sum, for three thousand, but I can give you more, immeasurably more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but you must listen to me. Mitya started from his seat again. 'Madam, will you really be so good! he cried, with strong feeling. 'Good God, you've saved me! You have saved a man from a violent death, from a bullet.... My eternal gratitude 'I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand! cried Madame Hohlakov, looking with a radiant smile at Mitya's ecstasy. 'Infinitely? But I don't need so much. I only need that fatal three thousand, and on my part I can give security for that sum with infinite gratitude, and I propose a plan which 'Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, it's said and done. Madame Hohlakov cut him short, with the modest triumph of beneficence 'I have promised to save you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. What do you think of the goldmines, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? 'Of the goldmines, madam? I have never thought anything about them. 'But I have thought of them for you. Thought of them over and over again. I have been watching you for the last month. I've watched you a hundred times as you've walked past, saying to myself that's a man of energy who ought to be at the goldmines. I've studied your gait and come to the conclusion that's a man who would find gold. 'From my gait, madam? said Mitya, smiling. 'Yes, from your gait. You surely don't deny that character can be told from the gait, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Science supports the idea. I'm all for science and realism now. After all this business with Father Zossima, which has so upset me, from this very day I'm a realist and I want to devote myself to practical usefulness. I'm cured. 'Enough!' as Turgenev says. 'But, madam, the three thousand you so generously promised to lend me 'It is yours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, Madame Hohlakov cut in at once. 'The money is as good as in your pocket, not three thousand, but three million, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in less than no time. I'll make you a present of the idea you shall find goldmines, make millions, return and become a leading man, and wake us up and lead us to better things. Are we to leave it all to the Jews? You will found institutions and enterprises of all sorts. You will help the poor, and they will bless you. This is the age of railways, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You'll become famous and indispensable to the Department of Finance, which is so badly off at present. The depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake at night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch people don't know that side of me 'Madam, madam! Dmitri interrupted with an uneasy presentiment. 'I shall indeed, perhaps, follow your advice, your wise advice, madam.... I shall perhaps set off ... to the goldmines.... I'll come and see you again about it ... many times, indeed ... but now, that three thousand you so generously ... oh, that would set me free, and if you could today ... you see, I haven't a minute, a minute to lose today 'Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, enough! Madame Hohlakov interrupted emphatically. 'The question is, will you go to the goldmines or not have you quite made up your mind? Answer yes or no. 'I will go, madam, afterwards.... I'll go where you like ... but now 'Wait! cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsome bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawer after another, looking for something with desperate haste. 'The three thousand, thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, 'and at the instant ... without any papers or formalities ... that's doing things in gentlemanly style! She's a splendid woman, if only she didn't talk so much! 'Here! cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, 'here is what I was looking for! It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the skin with a cross. 'This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, she went on reverently, 'from the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck myself, and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career. And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it. In extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last he got it under his necktie and collar through his shirt to his chest. 'Now you can set off, Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down triumphantly in her place again. 'Madam, I am so touched. I don't know how to thank you, indeed ... for such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me.... That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity.... Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me, Mitya exclaimed impulsively, 'then let me reveal to you ... though, of course, you've known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I have been false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh, I've behaved inhumanly, dishonorably to her, but I fell in love here with another woman ... a woman whom you, madam, perhaps, despise, for you know everything already, but whom I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three thousand now 'Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, Madame Hohlakov interrupted in the most decisive tone. 'Leave everything, especially women. Goldmines are your goal, and there's no place for women there. Afterwards, when you come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in the highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education and advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have gained ground, and the new woman will have appeared. 'Madam, that's not the point, not at all.... Mitya clasped his hands in entreaty. 'Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need the very thing you're yearning for, though you don't realize it yourself. I am not at all opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman in the near futurethat's my ideal. I've a daughter myself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, people don't know that side of me. I wrote a letter to the author, Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, so much about the vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymous letter of two lines 'I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for the modern woman. Persevere.' And I signed myself, 'A Mother.' I thought of signing myself 'A contemporary Mother,' and hesitated, but I stuck to the simple 'Mother' there's more moral beauty in that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. And the word 'contemporary' might have reminded him of 'The Contemporary'a painful recollection owing to the censorship.... Good Heavens, what is the matter! 'Madam! cried Mitya, jumping up at last, clasping his hands before her in helpless entreaty. 'You will make me weep if you delay what you have so generously 'Oh, do weep, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, do weep! That's a noble feeling ... such a path lies open before you! Tears will ease your heart, and later on you will return rejoicing. You will hasten to me from Siberia on purpose to share your joy with me 'But allow me, too! Mitya cried suddenly. 'For the last time I entreat you, tell me, can I have the sum you promised me today, if not, when may I come for it? 'What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? 'The three thousand you promised me ... that you so generously 'Three thousand? Roubles? Oh, no, I haven't got three thousand, Madame Hohlakov announced with serene amazement. Mitya was stupefied. 'Why, you said just now ... you said ... you said it was as good as in my hands 'Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. In that case you misunderstood me. I was talking of the goldmines. It's true I promised you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I remember it all now, but I was referring to the goldmines. 'But the money? The three thousand? Mitya exclaimed, awkwardly. 'Oh, if you meant money, I haven't any. I haven't a penny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I'm quarreling with my steward about it, and I've just borrowed five hundred roubles from Misov, myself. No, no, I've no money. And, do you know, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, if I had, I wouldn't give it to you. In the first place I never lend money. Lending money means losing friends. And I wouldn't give it to you particularly. I wouldn't give it you, because I like you and want to save you, for all you need is the goldmines, the goldmines, the goldmines! 'Oh, the devil! roared Mitya, and with all his might brought his fist down on the table. 'Aie! Aie! cried Madame Hohlakov, alarmed, and she flew to the other end of the drawingroom. Mitya spat on the ground, and strode rapidly out of the room, out of the house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like one possessed, and beating himself on the breast, on the spot where he had struck himself two days previously, before Alyosha, the last time he saw him in the dark, on the road. What those blows upon his breast signified, on that spot, and what he meant by itthat was, for the time, a secret which was known to no one in the world, and had not been told even to Alyosha. But that secret meant for him more than disgrace it meant ruin, suicide. So he had determined, if he did not get hold of the three thousand that would pay his debt to Katerina Ivanovna, and so remove from his breast, from that spot on his breast, the shame he carried upon it, that weighed on his conscience. All this will be fully explained to the reader later on, but now that his last hope had vanished, this man, so strong in appearance, burst out crying like a little child a few steps from the Hohlakovs' house. He walked on, and not knowing what he was doing, wiped away his tears with his fist. In this way he reached the square, and suddenly became aware that he had stumbled against something. He heard a piercing wail from an old woman whom he had almost knocked down. 'Good Lord, you've nearly killed me! Why don't you look where you're going, scapegrace? 'Why, it's you! cried Mitya, recognizing the old woman in the dark. It was the old servant who waited on Samsonov, whom Mitya had particularly noticed the day before. 'And who are you, my good sir? said the old woman, in quite a different voice. 'I don't know you in the dark. 'You live at Kuzma Kuzmitch's. You're the servant there? 'Just so, sir, I was only running out to Prohoritch's.... But I don't know you now. 'Tell me, my good woman, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now? said Mitya, beside himself with suspense. 'I saw her to the house some time ago. 'She has been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went off again. 'What? Went away? cried Mitya. 'When did she go? 'Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only told Kuzma Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away. 'You're lying, damn you! roared Mitya. 'Aie! Aie! shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished. He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At the moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was not more than a quarter of an hour after her departure. Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in the kitchen when 'the captain ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek on seeing him. 'You scream? roared Mitya, 'where is she? But without giving the terrorstricken Fenya time to utter a word, he fell all of a heap at her feet. 'Fenya, for Christ's sake, tell me, where is she? 'I don't know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don't know. You may kill me but I can't tell you. Fenya swore and protested. 'You went out with her yourself not long ago 'She came back! 'Indeed she didn't. By God I swear she didn't come back. 'You're lying! shouted Mitya. 'From your terror I know where she is. He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily. But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, or she might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised both Fenya and old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood a brass mortar, with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much more than six inches long. Mitya already had opened the door with one hand when, with the other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in his sidepocket. 'Oh, Lord! He's going to murder some one! cried Fenya, flinging up her hands. Where was he running? 'Where could she be except at Fyodor Pavlovitch's? She must have run straight to him from Samsonov's, that was clear now. The whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident. ... It all rushed whirling through his mind. He did not run to Marya Kondratyevna's. 'There was no need to go there ... not the slightest need ... he must raise no alarm ... they would run and tell directly.... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the plot, Smerdyakov too, he too, all had been bought over! He formed another plan of action he ran a long way round Fyodor Pavlovitch's house, crossing the lane, running down Dmitrovsky Street, then over the little bridge, and so came straight to the deserted alley at the back, which was empty and uninhabited, with, on one side the hurdle fence of a neighbor's kitchengarden, on the other the strong high fence, that ran all round Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden. Here he chose a spot, apparently the very place, where according to the tradition, he knew Lizaveta had once climbed over it 'If she could climb over it, the thought, God knows why, occurred to him, 'surely I can. He did in fact jump up, and instantly contrived to catch hold of the top of the fence. Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat astride on it. Close by, in the garden stood the bathhouse, but from the fence he could see the lighted windows of the house too. 'Yes, the old man's bedroom is lighted up. She's there! and he leapt from the fence into the garden. Though he knew Grigory was ill and very likely Smerdyakov, too, and that there was no one to hear him, he instinctively hid himself, stood still, and began to listen. But there was dead silence on all sides and, as though of design, complete stillness, not the slightest breath of wind. 'And naught but the whispering silence, the line for some reason rose to his mind. 'If only no one heard me jump over the fence! I think not. Standing still for a minute, he walked softly over the grass in the garden, avoiding the trees and shrubs. He walked slowly, creeping stealthily at every step, listening to his own footsteps. It took him five minutes to reach the lighted window. He remembered that just under the window there were several thick and high bushes of elder and whitebeam. The door from the house into the garden on the lefthand side, was shut he had carefully looked on purpose to see, in passing. At last he reached the bushes and hid behind them. He held his breath. 'I must wait now, he thought, 'to reassure them, in case they heard my footsteps and are listening ... if only I don't cough or sneeze. He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently, and, at moments, he could scarcely breathe. 'No, this throbbing at my heart won't stop, he thought. 'I can't wait any longer. He was standing behind a bush in the shadow. The light of the window fell on the front part of the bush. 'How red the whitebeam berries are! he murmured, not knowing why. Softly and noiselessly, step by step, he approached the window, and raised himself on tiptoe. All Fyodor Pavlovitch's bedroom lay open before him. It was not a large room, and was divided in two parts by a red screen, 'Chinese, as Fyodor Pavlovitch used to call it. The word 'Chinese flashed into Mitya's mind, 'and behind the screen, is Grushenka, thought Mitya. He began watching Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was wearing his new stripedsilk dressinggown, which Mitya had never seen, and a silk cord with tassels round the waist. A clean, dandified shirt of fine linen with gold studs peeped out under the collar of the dressinggown. On his head Fyodor Pavlovitch had the same red bandage which Alyosha had seen. 'He has got himself up, thought Mitya. His father was standing near the window, apparently lost in thought. Suddenly he jerked up his head, listened a moment, and hearing nothing went up to the table, poured out half a glass of brandy from a decanter and drank it off. Then he uttered a deep sigh, again stood still a moment, walked carelessly up to the lookingglass on the wall, with his right hand raised the red bandage on his forehead a little, and began examining his bruises and scars, which had not yet disappeared. 'He's alone, thought Mitya, 'in all probability he's alone. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the lookingglass, turned suddenly to the window and looked out. Mitya instantly slipped away into the shadow. 'She may be there behind the screen. Perhaps she's asleep by now, he thought, with a pang at his heart. Fyodor Pavlovitch moved away from the window. 'He's looking for her out of the window, so she's not there. Why should he stare out into the dark? He's wild with impatience. ... Mitya slipped back at once, and fell to gazing in at the window again. The old man was sitting down at the table, apparently disappointed. At last he put his elbow on the table, and laid his right cheek against his hand. Mitya watched him eagerly. 'He's alone, he's alone! he repeated again. 'If she were here, his face would be different. Strange to say, a queer, irrational vexation rose up in his heart that she was not here. 'It's not that she's not here, he explained to himself, immediately, 'but that I can't tell for certain whether she is or not. Mitya remembered afterwards that his mind was at that moment exceptionally clear, that he took in everything to the slightest detail, and missed no point. But a feeling of misery, the misery of uncertainty and indecision, was growing in his heart with every instant. 'Is she here or not? The angry doubt filled his heart, and suddenly, making up his mind, he put out his hand and softly knocked on the window frame. He knocked the signal the old man had agreed upon with Smerdyakov, twice slowly and then three times more quickly, the signal that meant 'Grushenka is here! The old man started, jerked up his head, and, jumping up quickly, ran to the window. Mitya slipped away into the shadow. Fyodor Pavlovitch opened the window and thrust his whole head out. 'Grushenka, is it you? Is it you? he said, in a sort of trembling half whisper. 'Where are you, my angel, where are you? He was fearfully agitated and breathless. 'He's alone. Mitya decided. 'Where are you? cried the old man again and he thrust his head out farther, thrust it out to the shoulders, gazing in all directions, right and left. 'Come here, I've a little present for you. Come, I'll show you.... 'He means the three thousand, thought Mitya. 'But where are you? Are you at the door? I'll open it directly. And the old man almost climbed out of the window, peering out to the right, where there was a door into the garden, trying to see into the darkness. In another second he would certainly have run out to open the door without waiting for Grushenka's answer. Mitya looked at him from the side without stirring. The old man's profile that he loathed so, his pendent Adam's apple, his hooked nose, his lips that smiled in greedy expectation, were all brightly lighted up by the slanting lamplight falling on the left from the room. A horrible fury of hatred suddenly surged up in Mitya's heart 'There he was, his rival, the man who had tormented him, had ruined his life! It was a rush of that sudden, furious, revengeful anger of which he had spoken, as though foreseeing it, to Alyosha, four days ago in the arbor, when, in answer to Alyosha's question, 'How can you say you'll kill our father? 'I don't know, I don't know, he had said then. 'Perhaps I shall not kill him, perhaps I shall. I'm afraid he'll suddenly be so loathsome to me at that moment. I hate his double chin, his nose, his eyes, his shameless grin. I feel a personal repulsion. That's what I'm afraid of, that's what may be too much for me. ... This personal repulsion was growing unendurable. Mitya was beside himself, he suddenly pulled the brass pestle out of his pocket. 'God was watching over me then, Mitya himself said afterwards. At that very moment Grigory waked up on his bed of sickness. Earlier in the evening he had undergone the treatment which Smerdyakov had described to Ivan. He had rubbed himself all over with vodka mixed with a secret, very strong decoction, had drunk what was left of the mixture while his wife repeated a 'certain prayer over him, after which he had gone to bed. Marfa Ignatyevna had tasted the stuff, too, and, being unused to strong drink, slept like the dead beside her husband. But Grigory waked up in the night, quite suddenly, and, after a moment's reflection, though he immediately felt a sharp pain in his back, he sat up in bed. Then he deliberated again, got up and dressed hurriedly. Perhaps his conscience was uneasy at the thought of sleeping while the house was unguarded 'in such perilous times. Smerdyakov, exhausted by his fit, lay motionless in the next room. Marfa Ignatyevna did not stir. 'The stuff's been too much for the woman, Grigory thought, glancing at her, and groaning, he went out on the steps. No doubt he only intended to look out from the steps, for he was hardly able to walk, the pain in his back and his right leg was intolerable. But he suddenly remembered that he had not locked the little gate into the garden that evening. He was the most punctual and precise of men, a man who adhered to an unchangeable routine, and habits that lasted for years. Limping and writhing with pain he went down the steps and towards the garden. Yes, the gate stood wide open. Mechanically he stepped into the garden. Perhaps he fancied something, perhaps caught some sound, and, glancing to the left he saw his master's window open. No one was looking out of it then. 'What's it open for? It's not summer now, thought Grigory, and suddenly, at that very instant he caught a glimpse of something extraordinary before him in the garden. Forty paces in front of him a man seemed to be running in the dark, a sort of shadow was moving very fast. 'Good Lord! cried Grigory beside himself, and forgetting the pain in his back, he hurried to intercept the running figure. He took a short cut, evidently he knew the garden better the flying figure went towards the bathhouse, ran behind it and rushed to the garden fence. Grigory followed, not losing sight of him, and ran, forgetting everything. He reached the fence at the very moment the man was climbing over it. Grigory cried out, beside himself, pounced on him, and clutched his leg in his two hands. Yes, his foreboding had not deceived him. He recognized him, it was he, the 'monster, the 'parricide. 'Parricide! the old man shouted so that the whole neighborhood could hear, but he had not time to shout more, he fell at once, as though struck by lightning. Mitya jumped back into the garden and bent over the fallen man. In Mitya's hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in the grass. The pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but on the path, in a most conspicuous place. For some seconds he examined the prostrate figure before him. The old man's head was covered with blood. Mitya put out his hand and began feeling it. He remembered afterwards clearly, that he had been awfully anxious to make sure whether he had broken the old man's skull, or simply stunned him with the pestle. But the blood was flowing horribly and in a moment Mitya's fingers were drenched with the hot stream. He remembered taking out of his pocket the clean white handkerchief with which he had provided himself for his visit to Madame Hohlakov, and putting it to the old man's head, senselessly trying to wipe the blood from his face and temples. But the handkerchief was instantly soaked with blood. 'Good heavens! what am I doing it for? thought Mitya, suddenly pulling himself together. 'If I have broken his skull, how can I find out now? And what difference does it make now? he added, hopelessly. 'If I've killed him, I've killed him.... You've come to grief, old man, so there you must lie! he said aloud. And suddenly turning to the fence, he vaulted over it into the lane and fell to runningthe handkerchief soaked with blood he held, crushed up in his right fist, and as he ran he thrust it into the back pocket of his coat. He ran headlong, and the few passersby who met him in the dark, in the streets, remembered afterwards that they had met a man running that night. He flew back again to the widow Morozov's house. Immediately after he had left it that evening, Fenya had rushed to the chief porter, Nazar Ivanovitch, and besought him, for Christ's sake, 'not to let the captain in again today or tomorrow. Nazar Ivanovitch promised, but went upstairs to his mistress who had suddenly sent for him, and meeting his nephew, a boy of twenty, who had recently come from the country, on the way up told him to take his place, but forgot to mention 'the captain. Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked. The lad instantly recognized him, for Mitya had more than once tipped him. Opening the gate at once, he let him in, and hastened to inform him with a goodhumored smile that 'Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home now, you know. 'Where is she then, Prohor? asked Mitya, stopping short. 'She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, to Mokroe. 'What for? cried Mitya. 'That I can't say. To see some officer. Some one invited her and horses were sent to fetch her. Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya. She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother they were both just going to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locked themselves in. Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by the throat. 'Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe? he roared furiously. Both the women squealed. 'Aie! I'll tell you. Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I'll tell you everything directly, I won't hide anything, gabbled Fenya, frightened to death 'she's gone to Mokroe, to her officer. 'What officer? roared Mitya. 'To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw her over five years ago, cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak. Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat. He stood facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eyes showed that he realized it all, all, from the first word, and guessed the whole position. Poor Fenya was not in a condition at that moment to observe whether he understood or not. She remained sitting on the trunk as she had been when he ran into the room, trembling all over, holding her hands out before her as though trying to defend herself. She seemed to have grown rigid in that position. Her wideopened, scared eyes were fixed immovably upon him. And to make matters worse, both his hands were smeared with blood. On the way, as he ran, he must have touched his forehead with them, wiping off the perspiration, so that on his forehead and his right cheek were bloodstained patches. Fenya was on the verge of hysterics. The old cook had jumped up and was staring at him like a mad woman, almost unconscious with terror. Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next to Fenya. He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terrorstricken, benumbed. Yet everything was clear as day that officer, he knew about him, he knew everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka herself, had known that a letter had come from him a month before. So that for a month, for a whole month, this had been going on, a secret from him, till the very arrival of this new man, and he had never thought of him! But how could he, how could he not have thought of him? Why was it he had forgotten this officer, like that, forgotten him as soon as he heard of him? That was the question that faced him like some monstrous thing. And he looked at this monstrous thing with horror, growing cold with horror. But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child, he began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how he had scared and hurt her just now. He fell to questioning Fenya with an extreme preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the girl looked wildly at his bloodstained hands, she, too, with wonderful readiness and rapidity, answered every question as though eager to put the whole truth and nothing but the truth before him. Little by little, even with a sort of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, not wanting to torment him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmost service to him. She described the whole of that day, in great detail, the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on the watch, how the mistress had set off, and how she had called out of the window to Alyosha to give him, Mitya, her greetings, and to tell him 'to remember for ever how she had loved him for an hour. Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush of color on his pale cheeks. At the same moment Fenya said to him, not a bit afraid now to be inquisitive 'Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They're all over blood! 'Yes, answered Mitya mechanically. He looked carelessly at his hands and at once forgot them and Fenya's question. He sank into silence again. Twenty minutes had passed since he had run in. His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixed determination had taken possession of him. He suddenly stood up, smiling dreamily. 'What has happened to you, sir? said Fenya, pointing to his hands again. She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to him now in his grief. Mitya looked at his hands again. 'That's blood, Fenya, he said, looking at her with a strange expression. 'That's human blood, and my God! why was it shed? But ... Fenya ... there's a fence here (he looked at her as though setting her a riddle), 'a high fence, and terrible to look at. But at dawn tomorrow, when the sun rises, Mitya will leap over that fence.... You don't understand what fence, Fenya, and, never mind.... You'll hear tomorrow and understand ... and now, goodby. I won't stand in her way. I'll step aside, I know how to step aside. Live, my joy.... You loved me for an hour, remember Mityenka Karamazov so for ever.... She always used to call me Mityenka, do you remember? And with those words he went suddenly out of the kitchen. Fenya was almost more frightened at this sudden departure than she had been when he ran in and attacked her. Just ten minutes later Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the young official with whom he had pawned his pistols. It was by now halfpast eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, and had just put his coat on again to go to the 'Metropolis to play billiards. Mitya caught him coming out. Seeing him with his face all smeared with blood, the young man uttered a cry of surprise. 'Good heavens! What is the matter? 'I've come for my pistols, said Mitya, 'and brought you the money. And thanks very much. I'm in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyitch, please make haste. Pyotr Ilyitch grew more and more surprised he suddenly caught sight of a bundle of banknotes in Mitya's hand, and what was more, he had walked in holding the notes as no one walks in and no one carries money he had them in his right hand, and held them outstretched as if to show them. Perhotin's servantboy, who met Mitya in the passage, said afterwards that he walked into the passage in the same way, with the money outstretched in his hand, so he must have been carrying them like that even in the streets. They were all rainbowcolored hundredrouble notes, and the fingers holding them were covered with blood. When Pyotr Ilyitch was questioned later on as to the sum of money, he said that it was difficult to judge at a glance, but that it might have been two thousand, or perhaps three, but it was a big, 'fat bundle. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so he testified afterwards, 'seemed unlike himself, too not drunk, but, as it were, exalted, lost to everything, but at the same time, as it were, absorbed, as though pondering and searching for something and unable to come to a decision. He was in great haste, answered abruptly and very strangely, and at moments seemed not at all dejected but quite cheerful. 'But what is the matter with you? What's wrong? cried Pyotr Ilyitch, looking wildly at his guest. 'How is it that you're all covered with blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself! He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass. Seeing his bloodstained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully. 'Damnation! That's the last straw, he muttered angrily, hurriedly changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsively jerked the handkerchief out of his pocket. But the handkerchief turned out to be soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had used to wipe Grigory's face). There was scarcely a white spot on it, and it had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball and could not be pulled apart. Mitya threw it angrily on the floor. 'Oh, damn it! he said. 'Haven't you a rag of some sort ... to wipe my face? 'So you're only stained, not wounded? You'd better wash, said Pyotr Ilyitch. 'Here's a washstand. I'll pour you out some water. 'A washstand? That's all right ... but where am I to put this? With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundredrouble notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for him to decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money. 'In your pocket, or on the table here. They won't be lost. 'In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket. All right.... But, I say, that's all nonsense, he cried, as though suddenly coming out of his absorption. 'Look here, let's first settle that business of the pistols. Give them back to me. Here's your money ... because I am in great need of them ... and I haven't a minute, a minute to spare. And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyotr Ilyitch. 'But I shan't have change enough. Haven't you less? 'No, said Mitya, looking again at the bundle, and as though not trusting his own words he turned over two or three of the topmost ones. 'No, they're all alike, he added, and again he looked inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch. 'How have you grown so rich? the latter asked. 'Wait, I'll send my boy to Plotnikov's, they close lateto see if they won't change it. Here, Misha! he called into the passage. 'To Plotnikov's shopfirstrate! cried Mitya, as though struck by an idea. 'Misha, he turned to the boy as he came in, 'look here, run to Plotnikov's and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovitch sends his greetings, and will be there directly.... But listen, listen, tell them to have champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as it was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then, he added (suddenly addressing Pyotr Ilyitch) 'they know all about it, don't you trouble, Misha, he turned again to the boy. 'Stay, listen tell them to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviare, and everything, everything they've got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty as before.... But wait don't let them forget dessert, sweets, pears, watermelons, two or three or fourno, one melon's enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants in fact, everything I took to Mokroe before, three hundred roubles' worth with the champagne ... let it be just the same again. And remember, Misha, if you are called MishaHis name is Misha, isn't it? He turned to Pyotr Ilyitch again. 'Wait a minute, Protr Ilyitch intervened, listening and watching him uneasily, 'you'd better go yourself and tell them. He'll muddle it. 'He will, I see he will! Eh, Misha! Why, I was going to kiss you for the commission.... If you don't make a mistake, there's ten roubles for you, run along, make haste.... Champagne's the chief thing, let them bring up champagne. And brandy, too, and red and white wine, and all I had then.... They know what I had then. 'But listen! Pyotr Ilyitch interrupted with some impatience. 'I say, let him simply run and change the money and tell them not to close, and you go and tell them.... Give him your note. Be off, Misha! Put your best leg forward! Pyotr Ilyitch seemed to hurry Misha off on purpose, because the boy remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open, apparently understanding little of Mitya's orders, gazing up with amazement and terror at his bloodstained face and the trembling bloodstained fingers that held the notes. 'Well, now come and wash, said Pyotr Ilyitch sternly. 'Put the money on the table or else in your pocket.... That's right, come along. But take off your coat. And beginning to help him off with his coat, he cried out again 'Look, your coat's covered with blood, too! 'That ... it's not the coat. It's only a little here on the sleeve.... And that's only here where the handkerchief lay. It must have soaked through. I must have sat on the handkerchief at Fenya's, and the blood's come through, Mitya explained at once with a childlike unconsciousness that was astounding. Pyotr Ilyitch listened, frowning. 'Well, you must have been up to something you must have been fighting with some one, he muttered. They began to wash. Pyotr Ilyitch held the jug and poured out the water. Mitya, in desperate haste, scarcely soaped his hands (they were trembling, and Pyotr Ilyitch remembered it afterwards). But the young official insisted on his soaping them thoroughly and rubbing them more. He seemed to exercise more and more sway over Mitya, as time went on. It may be noted in passing that he was a young man of sturdy character. 'Look, you haven't got your nails clean. Now rub your face here, on your temples, by your ear.... Will you go in that shirt? Where are you going? Look, all the cuff of your right sleeve is covered with blood. 'Yes, it's all bloody, observed Mitya, looking at the cuff of his shirt. 'Then change your shirt. 'I haven't time. You see I'll ... Mitya went on with the same confiding ingenuousness, drying his face and hands on the towel, and putting on his coat. 'I'll turn it up at the wrist. It won't be seen under the coat.... You see! 'Tell me now, what game have you been up to? Have you been fighting with some one? In the tavern again, as before? Have you been beating that captain again? Pyotr Ilyitch asked him reproachfully. 'Whom have you been beating now ... or killing, perhaps? 'Nonsense! said Mitya. 'Why 'nonsense'? 'Don't worry, said Mitya, and he suddenly laughed. 'I smashed an old woman in the marketplace just now. 'Smashed? An old woman? 'An old man! cried Mitya, looking Pyotr Ilyitch straight in the face, laughing, and shouting at him as though he were deaf. 'Confound it! An old woman, an old man.... Have you killed some one? 'We made it up. We had a rowand made it up. In a place I know of. We parted friends. A fool.... He's forgiven me.... He's sure to have forgiven me by now ... if he had got up, he wouldn't have forgiven meMitya suddenly winked'only damn him, you know, I say, Pyotr Ilyitch, damn him! Don't worry about him! I don't want to just now! Mitya snapped out, resolutely. 'Whatever do you want to go picking quarrels with every one for? ... Just as you did with that captain over some nonsense.... You've been fighting and now you're rushing off on the spreethat's you all over! Three dozen champagnewhat do you want all that for? 'Bravo! Now give me the pistols. Upon my honor I've no time now. I should like to have a chat with you, my dear boy, but I haven't the time. And there's no need, it's too late for talking. Where's my money? Where have I put it? he cried, thrusting his hands into his pockets. 'You put it on the table ... yourself.... Here it is. Had you forgotten? Money's like dirt or water to you, it seems. Here are your pistols. It's an odd thing, at six o'clock you pledged them for ten roubles, and now you've got thousands. Two or three I should say. 'Three, you bet, laughed Mitya, stuffing the notes into the sidepocket of his trousers. 'You'll lose it like that. Have you found a goldmine? 'The mines? The goldmines? Mitya shouted at the top of his voice and went off into a roar of laughter. 'Would you like to go to the mines, Perhotin? There's a lady here who'll stump up three thousand for you, if only you'll go. She did it for me, she's so awfully fond of goldmines. Do you know Madame Hohlakov? 'I don't know her, but I've heard of her and seen her. Did she really give you three thousand? Did she really? said Pyotr Ilyitch, eyeing him dubiously. 'As soon as the sun rises tomorrow, as soon as Phbus, ever young, flies upwards, praising and glorifying God, you go to her, this Madame Hohlakov, and ask her whether she did stump up that three thousand or not. Try and find out. 'I don't know on what terms you are ... since you say it so positively, I suppose she did give it to you. You've got the money in your hand, but instead of going to Siberia you're spending it all.... Where are you really off to now, eh? 'To Mokroe. 'To Mokroe? But it's night! 'Once the lad had all, now the lad has naught, cried Mitya suddenly. 'How 'naught'? You say that with all those thousands! 'I'm not talking about thousands. Damn thousands! I'm talking of the female character. Fickle is the heart of woman Treacherous and full of vice I agree with Ulysses. That's what he says. 'I don't understand you! 'Am I drunk? 'Not drunk, but worse. 'I'm drunk in spirit, Pyotr Ilyitch, drunk in spirit! But that's enough! 'What are you doing, loading the pistol? 'I'm loading the pistol. Unfastening the pistolcase, Mitya actually opened the powder horn, and carefully sprinkled and rammed in the charge. Then he took the bullet and, before inserting it, held it in two fingers in front of the candle. 'Why are you looking at the bullet? asked Pyotr Ilyitch, watching him with uneasy curiosity. 'Oh, a fancy. Why, if you meant to put that bullet in your brain, would you look at it or not? 'Why look at it? 'It's going into my brain, so it's interesting to look and see what it's like. But that's foolishness, a moment's foolishness. Now that's done, he added, putting in the bullet and driving it home with the ramrod. 'Pyotr Ilyitch, my dear fellow, that's nonsense, all nonsense, and if only you knew what nonsense! Give me a little piece of paper now. 'Here's some paper. 'No, a clean new piece, writingpaper. That's right. And taking a pen from the table, Mitya rapidly wrote two lines, folded the paper in four, and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket. He put the pistols in the case, locked it up, and kept it in his hand. Then he looked at Pyotr Ilyitch with a slow, thoughtful smile. 'Now, let's go. 'Where are we going? No, wait a minute.... Are you thinking of putting that bullet in your brain, perhaps? Pyotr Ilyitch asked uneasily. 'I was fooling about the bullet! I want to live. I love life! You may be sure of that. I love goldenhaired Phbus and his warm light.... Dear Pyotr Ilyitch, do you know how to step aside? 'What do you mean by 'stepping aside'? 'Making way. Making way for a dear creature, and for one I hate. And to let the one I hate become dearthat's what making way means! And to say to them God bless you, go your way, pass on, while I 'While you? 'That's enough, let's go. 'Upon my word. I'll tell some one to prevent your going there, said Pyotr Ilyitch, looking at him. 'What are you going to Mokroe for, now? 'There's a woman there, a woman. That's enough for you. You shut up. 'Listen, though you're such a savage I've always liked you.... I feel anxious. 'Thanks, old fellow. I'm a savage you say. Savages, savages! That's what I am always saying. Savages! Why, here's Misha! I was forgetting him. Misha ran in, posthaste, with a handful of notes in change, and reported that every one was in a bustle at the Plotnikovs' 'They're carrying down the bottles, and the fish, and the tea it will all be ready directly. Mitya seized ten roubles and handed it to Pyotr Ilyitch, then tossed another tenrouble note to Misha. 'Don't dare to do such a thing! cried Pyotr Ilyitch. 'I won't have it in my house, it's a bad, demoralizing habit. Put your money away. Here, put it here, why waste it? It would come in handy tomorrow, and I dare say you'll be coming to me to borrow ten roubles again. Why do you keep putting the notes in your sidepocket? Ah, you'll lose them! 'I say, my dear fellow, let's go to Mokroe together. 'What should I go for? 'I say, let's open a bottle at once, and drink to life! I want to drink, and especially to drink with you. I've never drunk with you, have I? 'Very well, we can go to the 'Metropolis.' I was just going there. 'I haven't time for that. Let's drink at the Plotnikovs', in the back room. Shall I ask you a riddle? 'Ask away. Mitya took the piece of paper out of his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it and showed it. In a large, distinct hand was written 'I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish! 'I will certainly speak to some one, I'll go at once, said Pyotr Ilyitch, after reading the paper. 'You won't have time, dear boy, come and have a drink. March! Plotnikov's shop was at the corner of the street, next door but one to Pyotr Ilyitch's. It was the largest grocery shop in our town, and by no means a bad one, belonging to some rich merchants. They kept everything that could be got in a Petersburg shop, grocery of all sort, wines 'bottled by the brothers Eliseyev, fruits, cigars, tea, coffee, sugar, and so on. There were three shopassistants and two errand boys always employed. Though our part of the country had grown poorer, the landowners had gone away, and trade had got worse, yet the grocery stores flourished as before, every year with increasing prosperity there were plenty of purchasers for their goods. They were awaiting Mitya with impatience in the shop. They had vivid recollections of how he had bought, three or four weeks ago, wine and goods of all sorts to the value of several hundred roubles, paid for in cash (they would never have let him have anything on credit, of course). They remembered that then, as now, he had had a bundle of hundredrouble notes in his hand, and had scattered them at random, without bargaining, without reflecting, or caring to reflect what use so much wine and provisions would be to him. The story was told all over the town that, driving off then with Grushenka to Mokroe, he had 'spent three thousand in one night and the following day, and had come back from the spree without a penny. He had picked up a whole troop of gypsies (encamped in our neighborhood at the time), who for two days got money without stint out of him while he was drunk, and drank expensive wine without stint. People used to tell, laughing at Mitya, how he had given champagne to grimy handed peasants, and feasted the village women and girls on sweets and Strasburg pies. Though to laugh at Mitya to his face was rather a risky proceeding, there was much laughter behind his back, especially in the tavern, at his own ingenuous public avowal that all he had got out of Grushenka by this 'escapade was 'permission to kiss her foot, and that was the utmost she had allowed him. By the time Mitya and Pyotr Ilyitch reached the shop, they found a cart with three horses harnessed abreast with bells, and with Andrey, the driver, ready waiting for Mitya at the entrance. In the shop they had almost entirely finished packing one box of provisions, and were only waiting for Mitya's arrival to nail it down and put it in the cart. Pyotr Ilyitch was astounded. 'Where did this cart come from in such a hurry? he asked Mitya. 'I met Andrey as I ran to you, and told him to drive straight here to the shop. There's no time to lose. Last time I drove with Timofey, but Timofey now has gone on before me with the witch. Shall we be very late, Andrey? 'They'll only get there an hour at most before us, not even that maybe. I got Timofey ready to start. I know how he'll go. Their pace won't be ours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. How could it be? They won't get there an hour earlier! Andrey, a lanky, redhaired, middleaged driver, wearing a full skirted coat, and with a kaftan on his arm, replied warmly. 'Fifty roubles for vodka if we're only an hour behind them. 'I warrant the time, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Ech, they won't be half an hour before us, let alone an hour. Though Mitya bustled about seeing after things, he gave his orders strangely, as it were disconnectedly, and inconsecutively. He began a sentence and forgot the end of it. Pyotr Ilyitch found himself obliged to come to the rescue. 'Four hundred roubles' worth, not less than four hundred roubles' worth, just as it was then, commanded Mitya. 'Four dozen champagne, not a bottle less. 'What do you want with so much? What's it for? Stay! cried Pyotr Ilyitch. 'What's this box? What's in it? Surely there isn't four hundred roubles' worth here? The officious shopmen began explaining with oily politeness that the first box contained only half a dozen bottles of champagne, and only 'the most indispensable articles, such as savories, sweets, toffee, etc. But the main part of the goods ordered would be packed and sent off, as on the previous occasion, in a special cart also with three horses traveling at full speed, so that it would arrive not more than an hour later than Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself. 'Not more than an hour! Not more than an hour! And put in more toffee and fondants. The girls there are so fond of it, Mitya insisted hotly. 'The fondants are all right. But what do you want with four dozen of champagne? One would be enough, said Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angry. He began bargaining, asking for a bill of the goods, and refused to be satisfied. But he only succeeded in saving a hundred roubles. In the end it was agreed that only three hundred roubles' worth should be sent. 'Well, you may go to the devil! cried Pyotr Ilyitch, on second thoughts. 'What's it to do with me? Throw away your money, since it's cost you nothing. 'This way, my economist, this way, don't be angry. Mitya drew him into a room at the back of the shop. 'They'll give us a bottle here directly. We'll taste it. Ech, Pyotr Ilyitch, come along with me, for you're a nice fellow, the sort I like. Mitya sat down on a wicker chair, before a little table, covered with a dirty dinnernapkin. Pyotr Ilyitch sat down opposite, and the champagne soon appeared, and oysters were suggested to the gentlemen. 'Firstclass oysters, the last lot in. 'Hang the oysters. I don't eat them. And we don't need anything, cried Pyotr Ilyitch, almost angrily. 'There's no time for oysters, said Mitya. 'And I'm not hungry. Do you know, friend, he said suddenly, with feeling, 'I never have liked all this disorder. 'Who does like it? Three dozen of champagne for peasants, upon my word, that's enough to make any one angry! 'That's not what I mean. I'm talking of a higher order. There's no order in me, no higher order. But ... that's all over. There's no need to grieve about it. It's too late, damn it! My whole life has been disorder, and one must set it in order. Is that a pun, eh? 'You're raving, not making puns! 'Glory be to God in Heaven, Glory be to God in me.... 'That verse came from my heart once, it's not a verse, but a tear.... I made it myself ... not while I was pulling the captain's beard, though.... 'Why do you bring him in all of a sudden? 'Why do I bring him in? Foolery! All things come to an end all things are made equal. That's the long and short of it. 'You know, I keep thinking of your pistols. 'That's all foolery, too! Drink, and don't be fanciful. I love life. I've loved life too much, shamefully much. Enough! Let's drink to life, dear boy, I propose the toast. Why am I pleased with myself? I'm a scoundrel, but I'm satisfied with myself. And yet I'm tortured by the thought that I'm a scoundrel, but satisfied with myself. I bless the creation. I'm ready to bless God and His creation directly, but ... I must kill one noxious insect for fear it should crawl and spoil life for others.... Let us drink to life, dear brother. What can be more precious than life? Nothing! To life, and to one queen of queens! 'Let's drink to life and to your queen, too, if you like. They drank a glass each. Although Mitya was excited and expansive, yet he was melancholy, too. It was as though some heavy, overwhelming anxiety were weighing upon him. 'Misha ... here's your Misha come! Misha, come here, my boy, drink this glass to Phbus, the goldenhaired, of tomorrow morn.... 'What are you giving it him for? cried Pyotr Ilyitch, irritably. 'Yes, yes, yes, let me! I want to! 'Eech! Misha emptied the glass, bowed, and ran out. 'He'll remember it afterwards, Mitya remarked. 'Woman, I love woman! What is woman? The queen of creation! My heart is sad, my heart is sad, Pyotr Ilyitch. Do you remember Hamlet? 'I am very sorry, good Horatio! Alas, poor Yorick!' Perhaps that's me, Yorick? Yes, I'm Yorick now, and a skull afterwards. Pyotr Ilyitch listened in silence. Mitya, too, was silent for a while. 'What dog's that you've got here? he asked the shopman, casually, noticing a pretty little lapdog with dark eyes, sitting in the corner. 'It belongs to Varvara Alexyevna, the mistress, answered the clerk. 'She brought it and forgot it here. It must be taken back to her. 'I saw one like it ... in the regiment ... murmured Mitya dreamily, 'only that one had its hind leg broken.... By the way, Pyotr Ilyitch, I wanted to ask you have you ever stolen anything in your life? 'What a question! 'Oh, I didn't mean anything. From somebody's pocket, you know. I don't mean government money, every one steals that, and no doubt you do, too.... 'You go to the devil. 'I'm talking of other people's money. Stealing straight out of a pocket? Out of a purse, eh? 'I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old. I took it off the table on the sly, and held it tight in my hand. 'Well, and what happened? 'Oh, nothing. I kept it three days, then I felt ashamed, confessed, and gave it back. 'And what then? 'Naturally I was whipped. But why do you ask? Have you stolen something? 'I have, said Mitya, winking slyly. 'What have you stolen? inquired Pyotr Ilyitch curiously. 'I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine years old, and gave it back three days after. As he said this, Mitya suddenly got up. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch, won't you come now? called Andrey from the door of the shop. 'Are you ready? We'll come! Mitya started. 'A few more last words andAndrey, a glass of vodka at starting. Give him some brandy as well! That box (the one with the pistols) 'put under my seat. Goodby, Pyotr Ilyitch, don't remember evil against me. 'But you're coming back tomorrow? 'Of course. 'Will you settle the little bill now? cried the clerk, springing forward. 'Oh, yes, the bill. Of course. He pulled the bundle of notes out of his pocket again, picked out three hundred roubles, threw them on the counter, and ran hurriedly out of the shop. Every one followed him out, bowing and wishing him good luck. Andrey, coughing from the brandy he had just swallowed, jumped up on the box. But Mitya was only just taking his seat when suddenly to his surprise he saw Fenya before him. She ran up panting, clasped her hands before him with a cry, and plumped down at his feet. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear good Dmitri Fyodorovitch, don't harm my mistress. And it was I told you all about it.... And don't murder him, he came first, he's hers! He'll marry Agrafena Alexandrovna now. That's why he's come back from Siberia. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear, don't take a fellow creature's life! 'Tuttuttut! That's it, is it? So you're off there to make trouble! muttered Pyotr Ilyitch. 'Now, it's all clear, as clear as daylight. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, give me your pistols at once if you mean to behave like a man, he shouted aloud to Mitya. 'Do you hear, Dmitri? 'The pistols? Wait a bit, brother, I'll throw them into the pool on the road, answered Mitya. 'Fenya, get up, don't kneel to me. Mitya won't hurt any one, the silly fool won't hurt any one again. But I say, Fenya, he shouted, after having taken his seat. 'I hurt you just now, so forgive me and have pity on me, forgive a scoundrel.... But it doesn't matter if you don't. It's all the same now. Now then, Andrey, look alive, fly along full speed! Andrey whipped up the horses, and the bells began ringing. 'Goodby, Pyotr Ilyitch! My last tear is for you!... 'He's not drunk, but he keeps babbling like a lunatic, Pyotr Ilyitch thought as he watched him go. He had half a mind to stay and see the cart packed with the remaining wines and provisions, knowing that they would deceive and defraud Mitya. But, suddenly feeling vexed with himself, he turned away with a curse and went to the tavern to play billiards. 'He's a fool, though he's a good fellow, he muttered as he went. 'I've heard of that officer, Grushenka's former flame. Well, if he has turned up.... Ech, those pistols! Damn it all! I'm not his nurse! Let them do what they like! Besides, it'll all come to nothing. They're a set of brawlers, that's all. They'll drink and fight, fight and make friends again. They are not men who do anything real. What does he mean by 'I'm stepping aside, I'm punishing myself?' It'll come to nothing! He's shouted such phrases a thousand times, drunk, in the taverns. But now he's not drunk. 'Drunk in spirit'they're fond of fine phrases, the villains. Am I his nurse? He must have been fighting, his face was all over blood. With whom? I shall find out at the 'Metropolis.' And his handkerchief was soaked in blood.... It's still lying on my floor.... Hang it! He reached the tavern in a bad humor and at once made up a game. The game cheered him. He played a second game, and suddenly began telling one of his partners that Dmitri Karamazov had come in for some cash againsomething like three thousand roubles, and had gone to Mokroe again to spend it with Grushenka.... This news roused singular interest in his listeners. They all spoke of it, not laughing, but with a strange gravity. They left off playing. 'Three thousand? But where can he have got three thousand? Questions were asked. The story of Madame Hohlakov's present was received with skepticism. 'Hasn't he robbed his old father?that's the question. 'Three thousand! There's something odd about it. 'He boasted aloud that he would kill his father we all heard him, here. And it was three thousand he talked about ... Pyotr Ilyitch listened. All at once he became short and dry in his answers. He said not a word about the blood on Mitya's face and hands, though he had meant to speak of it at first. They began a third game, and by degrees the talk about Mitya died away. But by the end of the third game, Pyotr Ilyitch felt no more desire for billiards he laid down the cue, and without having supper as he had intended, he walked out of the tavern. When he reached the marketplace he stood still in perplexity, wondering at himself. He realized that what he wanted was to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch's and find out if anything had happened there. 'On account of some stupid nonsenseas it's sure to turn outam I going to wake up the household and make a scandal? Fooh! damn it, is it my business to look after them? In a very bad humor he went straight home, and suddenly remembered Fenya. 'Damn it all! I ought to have questioned her just now, he thought with vexation, 'I should have heard everything. And the desire to speak to her, and so find out, became so pressing and importunate that when he was halfway home he turned abruptly and went towards the house where Grushenka lodged. Going up to the gate he knocked. The sound of the knock in the silence of the night sobered him and made him feel annoyed. And no one answered him every one in the house was asleep. 'And I shall be making a fuss! he thought, with a feeling of positive discomfort. But instead of going away altogether, he fell to knocking again with all his might, filling the street with clamor. 'Not coming? Well, I will knock them up, I will! he muttered at each knock, fuming at himself, but at the same time he redoubled his knocks on the gate. But Dmitri Fyodorovitch was speeding along the road. It was a little more than twenty versts to Mokroe, but Andrey's three horses galloped at such a pace that the distance might be covered in an hour and a quarter. The swift motion revived Mitya. The air was fresh and cool, there were big stars shining in the sky. It was the very night, and perhaps the very hour, in which Alyosha fell on the earth, and rapturously swore to love it for ever and ever. All was confusion, confusion, in Mitya's soul, but although many things were goading his heart, at that moment his whole being was yearning for her, his queen, to whom he was flying to look on her for the last time. One thing I can say for certain his heart did not waver for one instant. I shall perhaps not be believed when I say that this jealous lover felt not the slightest jealousy of this new rival, who seemed to have sprung out of the earth. If any other had appeared on the scene, he would have been jealous at once, and would perhaps have stained his fierce hands with blood again. But as he flew through the night, he felt no envy, no hostility even, for the man who had been her first lover.... It is true he had not yet seen him. 'Here there was no room for dispute it was her right and his this was her first love which, after five years, she had not forgotten so she had loved him only for those five years, and I, how do I come in? What right have I? Step aside, Mitya, and make way! What am I now? Now everything is over apart from the officereven if he had not appeared, everything would be over ... These words would roughly have expressed his feelings, if he had been capable of reasoning. But he could not reason at that moment. His present plan of action had arisen without reasoning. At Fenya's first words, it had sprung from feeling, and been adopted in a flash, with all its consequences. And yet, in spite of his resolution, there was confusion in his soul, an agonizing confusion his resolution did not give him peace. There was so much behind that tortured him. And it seemed strange to him, at moments, to think that he had written his own sentence of death with pen and paper 'I punish myself, and the paper was lying there in his pocket, ready the pistol was loaded he had already resolved how, next morning, he would meet the first warm ray of 'goldenhaired Phbus. And yet he could not be quit of the past, of all that he had left behind and that tortured him. He felt that miserably, and the thought of it sank into his heart with despair. There was one moment when he felt an impulse to stop Andrey, to jump out of the cart, to pull out his loaded pistol, and to make an end of everything without waiting for the dawn. But that moment flew by like a spark. The horses galloped on, 'devouring space, and as he drew near his goal, again the thought of her, of her alone, took more and more complete possession of his soul, chasing away the fearful images that had been haunting it. Oh, how he longed to look upon her, if only for a moment, if only from a distance! 'She's now with him, he thought, 'now I shall see what she looks like with him, her first love, and that's all I want. Never had this woman, who was such a fateful influence in his life, aroused such love in his breast, such new and unknown feeling, surprising even to himself, a feeling tender to devoutness, to selfeffacement before her! 'I will efface myself! he said, in a rush of almost hysterical ecstasy. They had been galloping nearly an hour. Mitya was silent, and though Andrey was, as a rule, a talkative peasant, he did not utter a word, either. He seemed afraid to talk, he only whipped up smartly his three lean, but mettlesome, bay horses. Suddenly Mitya cried out in horrible anxiety 'Andrey! What if they're asleep? This thought fell upon him like a blow. It had not occurred to him before. 'It may well be that they're gone to bed, by now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Mitya frowned as though in pain. Yes, indeed ... he was rushing there ... with such feelings ... while they were asleep ... she was asleep, perhaps, there too.... An angry feeling surged up in his heart. 'Drive on, Andrey! Whip them up! Look alive! he cried, beside himself. 'But maybe they're not in bed! Andrey went on after a pause. 'Timofey said they were a lot of them there 'At the station? 'Not at the postingstation, but at Plastunov's, at the inn, where they let out horses, too. 'I know. So you say there are a lot of them? How's that? Who are they? cried Mitya, greatly dismayed at this unexpected news. 'Well, Timofey was saying they're all gentlefolk. Two from our townwho they are I can't sayand there are two others, strangers, maybe more besides. I didn't ask particularly. They've set to playing cards, so Timofey said. 'Cards? 'So, maybe they're not in bed if they're at cards. It's most likely not more than eleven. 'Quicker, Andrey! Quicker! Mitya cried again, nervously. 'May I ask you something, sir? said Andrey, after a pause. 'Only I'm afraid of angering you, sir. 'What is it? 'Why, Fenya threw herself at your feet just now, and begged you not to harm her mistress, and some one else, too ... so you see, sir It's I am taking you there ... forgive me, sir, it's my conscience ... maybe it's stupid of me to speak of it Mitya suddenly seized him by the shoulders from behind. 'Are you a driver? he asked frantically. 'Yes, sir. 'Then you know that one has to make way. What would you say to a driver who wouldn't make way for any one, but would just drive on and crush people? No, a driver mustn't run over people. One can't run over a man. One can't spoil people's lives. And if you have spoilt a lifepunish yourself.... If only you've spoilt, if only you've ruined any one's lifepunish yourself and go away. These phrases burst from Mitya almost hysterically. Though Andrey was surprised at him, he kept up the conversation. 'That's right, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you're quite right, one mustn't crush or torment a man, or any kind of creature, for every creature is created by God. Take a horse, for instance, for some folks, even among us drivers, drive anyhow. Nothing will restrain them, they just force it along. 'To hell? Mitya interrupted, and went off into his abrupt, short laugh. 'Andrey, simple soul, he seized him by the shoulders again, 'tell me, will Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov go to hell, or not, what do you think? 'I don't know, darling, it depends on you, for you are ... you see, sir, when the Son of God was nailed on the Cross and died, He went straight down to hell from the Cross, and set free all sinners that were in agony. And the devil groaned, because he thought that he would get no more sinners in hell. And God said to him, then, 'Don't groan, for you shall have all the mighty of the earth, the rulers, the chief judges, and the rich men, and shall be filled up as you have been in all the ages till I come again.' Those were His very words ... 'A peasant legend! Capital! Whip up the left, Andrey! 'So you see, sir, who it is hell's for, said Andrey, whipping up the left horse, 'but you're like a little child ... that's how we look on you ... and though you're hastytempered, sir, yet God will forgive you for your kind heart. 'And you, do you forgive me, Andrey? 'What should I forgive you for, sir? You've never done me any harm. 'No, for every one, for every one, you here alone, on the road, will you forgive me for every one? Speak, simple peasant heart! 'Oh, sir! I feel afraid of driving you, your talk is so strange. But Mitya did not hear. He was frantically praying and muttering to himself. 'Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me. Let me pass by Thy judgment ... do not condemn me, for I have condemned myself, do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord. I am a wretch, but I love Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, and from there I shall cry out that I love Thee for ever and ever.... But let me love to the end.... Here and now for just five hours ... till the first light of Thy day ... for I love the queen of my soul ... I love her and I cannot help loving her. Thou seest my whole heart.... I shall gallop up, I shall fall before her and say, 'You are right to pass on and leave me. Farewell and forget your victim ... never fret yourself about me!'  'Mokroe! cried Andrey, pointing ahead with his whip. Through the pale darkness of the night loomed a solid black mass of buildings, flung down, as it were, in the vast plain. The village of Mokroe numbered two thousand inhabitants, but at that hour all were asleep, and only here and there a few lights still twinkled. 'Drive on, Andrey, I come! Mitya exclaimed, feverishly. 'They're not asleep, said Andrey again, pointing with his whip to the Plastunovs' inn, which was at the entrance to the village. The six windows, looking on the street, were all brightly lighted up. 'They're not asleep, Mitya repeated joyously. 'Quicker, Andrey! Gallop! Drive up with a dash! Set the bells ringing! Let all know that I have come. I'm coming! I'm coming, too! Andrey lashed his exhausted team into a gallop, drove with a dash and pulled up his steaming, panting horses at the high flight of steps. Mitya jumped out of the cart just as the innkeeper, on his way to bed, peeped out from the steps curious to see who had arrived. 'Trifon Borissovitch, is that you? The innkeeper bent down, looked intently, ran down the steps, and rushed up to the guest with obsequious delight. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch, your honor! Do I see you again? Trifon Borissovitch was a thickset, healthy peasant, of middle height, with a rather fat face. His expression was severe and uncompromising, especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power of assuming the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling that it was to his interest. He dressed in Russian style, with a shirt buttoning down on one side, and a fullskirted coat. He had saved a good sum of money, but was for ever dreaming of improving his position. More than half the peasants were in his clutches, every one in the neighborhood was in debt to him. From the neighboring landowners he bought and rented lands which were worked by the peasants, in payment of debts which they could never shake off. He was a widower, with four grownup daughters. One of them was already a widow and lived in the inn with her two children, his grandchildren, and worked for him like a charwoman. Another of his daughters was married to a petty official, and in one of the rooms of the inn, on the wall could be seen, among the family photographs, a miniature photograph of this official in uniform and official epaulettes. The two younger daughters used to wear fashionable blue or green dresses, fitting tight at the back, and with trains a yard long, on Church holidays or when they went to pay visits. But next morning they would get up at dawn, as usual, sweep out the rooms with a birchbroom, empty the slops, and clean up after lodgers. In spite of the thousands of roubles he had saved, Trifon Borissovitch was very fond of emptying the pockets of a drunken guest, and remembering that not a month ago he had, in twentyfour hours, made two if not three hundred roubles out of Dmitri, when he had come on his escapade with Grushenka, he met him now with eager welcome, scenting his prey the moment Mitya drove up to the steps. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear sir, we see you once more! 'Stay, Trifon Borissovitch, began Mitya, 'first and foremost, where is she? 'Agrafena Alexandrovna? The innkeeper understood at once, looking sharply into Mitya's face. 'She's here, too ... 'With whom? With whom? 'Some strangers. One is an official gentleman, a Pole, to judge from his speech. He sent the horses for her from here and there's another with him, a friend of his, or a fellow traveler, there's no telling. They're dressed like civilians. 'Well, are they feasting? Have they money? 'Poor sort of a feast! Nothing to boast of, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. 'Nothing to boast of? And who are the others? 'They're two gentlemen from the town.... They've come back from Tcherny, and are putting up here. One's quite a young gentleman, a relative of Mr. Misov, he must be, but I've forgotten his name ... and I expect you know the other, too, a gentleman called Maximov. He's been on a pilgrimage, so he says, to the monastery in the town. He's traveling with this young relation of Mr. Misov. 'Is that all? 'Yes. 'Stay, listen, Trifon Borissovitch. Tell me the chief thing What of her? How is she? 'Oh, she's only just come. She's sitting with them. 'Is she cheerful? Is she laughing? 'No, I think she's not laughing much. She's sitting quite dull. She's combing the young gentleman's hair. 'The Polethe officer? 'He's not young, and he's not an officer, either. Not him, sir. It's the young gentleman that's Mr. Misov's relation ... I've forgotten his name. 'Kalganov. 'That's it, Kalganov! 'All right. I'll see for myself. Are they playing cards? 'They have been playing, but they've left off. They've been drinking tea, the official gentleman asked for liqueurs. 'Stay, Trifon Borissovitch, stay, my good soul, I'll see for myself. Now answer one more question are the gypsies here? 'You can't have the gypsies now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The authorities have sent them away. But we've Jews that play the cymbals and the fiddle in the village, so one might send for them. They'd come. 'Send for them. Certainly send for them! cried Mitya. 'And you can get the girls together as you did then, Marya especially, Stepanida, too, and Arina. Two hundred roubles for a chorus! 'Oh, for a sum like that I can get all the village together, though by now they're asleep. Are the peasants here worth such kindness, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or the girls either? To spend a sum like that on such coarseness and rudeness! What's the good of giving a peasant a cigar to smoke, the stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I'll get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that. They've only just gone to bed, I'll give them a kick and set them singing for you. You gave the peasants champagne to drink the other day, eech! For all his pretended compassion for Mitya, Trifon Borissovitch had hidden half a dozen bottles of champagne on that last occasion, and had picked up a hundredrouble note under the table, and it had remained in his clutches. 'Trifon Borissovitch, I sent more than one thousand flying last time I was here. Do you remember? 'You did send it flying. I may well remember. You must have left three thousand behind you. 'Well, I've come to do the same again, do you see? And he pulled out his roll of notes, and held them up before the innkeeper's nose. 'Now, listen and remember. In an hour's time the wine will arrive, savories, pies, and sweetsbring them all up at once. That box Andrey has got is to be brought up at once, too. Open it, and hand champagne immediately. And the girls, we must have the girls, Marya especially. He turned to the cart and pulled out the box of pistols. 'Here, Andrey, let's settle. Here's fifteen roubles for the drive, and fifty for vodka ... for your readiness, for your love.... Remember Karamazov! 'I'm afraid, sir, faltered Andrey. 'Give me five roubles extra, but more I won't take. Trifon Borissovitch, bear witness. Forgive my foolish words ... 'What are you afraid of? asked Mitya, scanning him. 'Well, go to the devil, if that's it! he cried, flinging him five roubles. 'Now, Trifon Borissovitch, take me up quietly and let me first get a look at them, so that they don't see me. Where are they? In the blue room? Trifon Borissovitch looked apprehensively at Mitya, but at once obediently did his bidding. Leading him into the passage, he went himself into the first large room, adjoining that in which the visitors were sitting, and took the light away. Then he stealthily led Mitya in, and put him in a corner in the dark, whence he could freely watch the company without being seen. But Mitya did not look long, and, indeed, he could not see them, he saw her, his heart throbbed violently, and all was dark before his eyes. She was sitting sideways to the table in a low chair, and beside her, on the sofa, was the pretty youth, Kalganov. She was holding his hand and seemed to be laughing, while he, seeming vexed and not looking at her, was saying something in a loud voice to Maximov, who sat the other side of the table, facing Grushenka. Maximov was laughing violently at something. On the sofa sat he, and on a chair by the sofa there was another stranger. The one on the sofa was lolling backwards, smoking a pipe, and Mitya had an impression of a stoutish, broadfaced, short little man, who was apparently angry about something. His friend, the other stranger, struck Mitya as extraordinarily tall, but he could make out nothing more. He caught his breath. He could not bear it for a minute, he put the pistol case on a chest, and with a throbbing heart he walked, feeling cold all over, straight into the blue room to face the company. 'Aie! shrieked Grushenka, the first to notice him. With his long, rapid strides, Mitya walked straight up to the table. 'Gentlemen, he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammering at every word, 'I ... I'm all right! Don't be afraid! he exclaimed, 'Ithere's nothing the matter, he turned suddenly to Grushenka, who had shrunk back in her chair towards Kalganov, and clasped his hand tightly. 'I ... I'm coming, too. I'm here till morning. Gentlemen, may I stay with you till morning? Only till morning, for the last time, in this same room? So he finished, turning to the fat little man, with the pipe, sitting on the sofa. The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity and observed severely 'Panie, we're here in private. There are other rooms. 'Why, it's you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean? answered Kalganov suddenly. 'Sit down with us. How are you? 'Delighted to see you, dear ... and precious fellow, I always thought a lot of you. Mitya responded, joyfully and eagerly, at once holding out his hand across the table. 'Aie! How tight you squeeze! You've quite broken my fingers, laughed Kalganov. 'He always squeezes like that, always, Grushenka put in gayly, with a timid smile, seeming suddenly convinced from Mitya's face that he was not going to make a scene. She was watching him with intense curiosity and still some uneasiness. She was impressed by something about him, and indeed the last thing she expected of him was that he would come in and speak like this at such a moment. 'Good evening, Maximov ventured blandly on the left. Mitya rushed up to him, too. 'Good evening. You're here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too! Gentlemen, gentlemen, I (He addressed the Polish gentleman with the pipe again, evidently taking him for the most important person present.) 'I flew here.... I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour in this room, in this very room ... where I, too, adored ... my queen.... Forgive me, panie, he cried wildly, 'I flew here and vowed Oh, don't be afraid, it's my last night! Let's drink to our good understanding. They'll bring the wine at once.... I brought this with me. (Something made him pull out his bundle of notes.) 'Allow me, panie! I want to have music, singing, a revel, as we had before. But the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl away, and there'll be no more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on my last night. He was almost choking. There was so much, so much he wanted to say, but strange exclamations were all that came from his lips. The Pole gazed fixedly at him, at the bundle of notes in his hand looked at Grushenka, and was in evident perplexity. 'If my suverin lady is permitting he was beginning. 'What does 'suverin' mean? 'Sovereign,' I suppose? interrupted Grushenka. 'I can't help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down, Mitya, what are you talking about? Don't frighten us, please. You won't frighten us, will you? If you won't, I am glad to see you ... 'Me, me frighten you? cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. 'Oh, pass me by, go your way, I won't hinder you!... And suddenly he surprised them all, and no doubt himself as well, by flinging himself on a chair, and bursting into tears, turning his head away to the opposite wall, while his arms clasped the back of the chair tight, as though embracing it. 'Come, come, what a fellow you are! cried Grushenka reproachfully. 'That's just how he comes to see mehe begins talking, and I can't make out what he means. He cried like that once before, and now he's crying again! It's shameful! Why are you crying? As though you had anything to cry for! she added enigmatically, emphasizing each word with some irritability. 'I ... I'm not crying.... Well, good evening! He instantly turned round in his chair, and suddenly laughed, not his abrupt wooden laugh, but a long, quivering, inaudible nervous laugh. 'Well, there you are again.... Come, cheer up, cheer up! Grushenka said to him persuasively. 'I'm very glad you've come, very glad, Mitya, do you hear, I'm very glad! I want him to stay here with us, she said peremptorily, addressing the whole company, though her words were obviously meant for the man sitting on the sofa. 'I wish it, I wish it! And if he goes away I shall go, too! she added with flashing eyes. 'What my queen commands is law! pronounced the Pole, gallantly kissing Grushenka's hand. 'I beg you, panie, to join our company, he added politely, addressing Mitya. Mitya was jumping up with the obvious intention of delivering another tirade, but the words did not come. 'Let's drink, panie, he blurted out instead of making a speech. Every one laughed. 'Good heavens! I thought he was going to begin again! Grushenka exclaimed nervously. 'Do you hear, Mitya, she went on insistently, 'don't prance about, but it's nice you've brought the champagne. I want some myself, and I can't bear liqueurs. And best of all, you've come yourself. We were fearfully dull here.... You've come for a spree again, I suppose? But put your money in your pocket. Where did you get such a lot? Mitya had been, all this time, holding in his hand the crumpled bundle of notes on which the eyes of all, especially of the Poles, were fixed. In confusion he thrust them hurriedly into his pocket. He flushed. At that moment the innkeeper brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne, and glasses on a tray. Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was so bewildered that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took it from him and poured out the champagne. 'Another! Another bottle! Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and, forgetting to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnly invited to drink to their good understanding, he drank off his glass without waiting for any one else. His whole countenance suddenly changed. The solemn and tragic expression with which he had entered vanished completely, and a look of something childlike came into his face. He seemed to have become suddenly gentle and subdued. He looked shyly and happily at every one, with a continual nervous little laugh, and the blissful expression of a dog who has done wrong, been punished, and forgiven. He seemed to have forgotten everything, and was looking round at every one with a childlike smile of delight. He looked at Grushenka, laughing continually, and bringing his chair close up to her. By degrees he had gained some idea of the two Poles, though he had formed no definite conception of them yet. The Pole on the sofa struck him by his dignified demeanor and his Polish accent and, above all, by his pipe. 'Well, what of it? It's a good thing he's smoking a pipe, he reflected. The Pole's puffy, middleaged face, with its tiny nose and two very thin, pointed, dyed and impudentlooking mustaches, had not so far roused the faintest doubts in Mitya. He was not even particularly struck by the Pole's absurd wig made in Siberia, with lovelocks foolishly combed forward over the temples. 'I suppose it's all right since he wears a wig, he went on, musing blissfully. The other, younger Pole, who was staring insolently and defiantly at the company and listening to the conversation with silent contempt, still only impressed Mitya by his great height, which was in striking contrast to the Pole on the sofa. 'If he stood up he'd be six foot three. The thought flitted through Mitya's mind. It occurred to him, too, that this Pole must be the friend of the other, as it were, a 'bodyguard, and no doubt the big Pole was at the disposal of the little Pole with the pipe. But this all seemed to Mitya perfectly right and not to be questioned. In his mood of doglike submissiveness all feeling of rivalry had died away. Grushenka's mood and the enigmatic tone of some of her words he completely failed to grasp. All he understood, with thrilling heart, was that she was kind to him, that she had forgiven him, and made him sit by her. He was beside himself with delight, watching her sip her glass of champagne. The silence of the company seemed somehow to strike him, however, and he looked round at every one with expectant eyes. 'Why are we sitting here though, gentlemen? Why don't you begin doing something? his smiling eyes seemed to ask. 'He keeps talking nonsense, and we were all laughing, Kalganov began suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to Maximov. Mitya immediately stared at Kalganov and then at Maximov. 'He's talking nonsense? he laughed, his short, wooden laugh, seeming suddenly delighted at something'ha ha! 'Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cavalry officers in the twenties married Polish women. That's awful rot, isn't it? 'Polish women? repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic. Kalganov was well aware of Mitya's attitude to Grushenka, and he guessed about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him, perhaps did not interest him at all what he was interested in was Maximov. He had come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for the first time in his life. Grushenka he knew before, and had once been with some one to see her but she had not taken to him. But here she looked at him very affectionately before Mitya's arrival, she had been making much of him, but he seemed somehow to be unmoved by it. He was a boy, not over twenty, dressed like a dandy, with a very charming fair skinned face, and splendid thick, fair hair. From his fair face looked out beautiful pale blue eyes, with an intelligent and sometimes even deep expression, beyond his age indeed, although the young man sometimes looked and talked quite like a child, and was not at all ashamed of it, even when he was aware of it himself. As a rule he was very willful, even capricious, though always friendly. Sometimes there was something fixed and obstinate in his expression. He would look at you and listen, seeming all the while to be persistently dreaming over something else. Often he was listless and lazy, at other times he would grow excited, sometimes, apparently, over the most trivial matters. 'Only imagine, I've been taking him about with me for the last four days, he went on, indolently drawling his words, quite naturally though, without the slightest affectation. 'Ever since your brother, do you remember, shoved him off the carriage and sent him flying. That made me take an interest in him at the time, and I took him into the country, but he keeps talking such rot I'm ashamed to be with him. I'm taking him back. 'The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what is impossible, the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov. He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended. If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form. 'But I was married to a Polish lady myself, tittered Maximov. 'But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry. Were you a cavalry officer? put in Kalganov at once. 'Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha! cried Mitya, listening eagerly, and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as though there were no knowing what he might hear from each. 'No, you see, Maximov turned to him. 'What I mean is that those pretty Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans ... when one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his knee like a kitten ... a little white one ... and the panfather and panmother look on and allow it.... They allow it ... and next day the Uhlan comes and offers her his hand.... That's how it is ... offers her his hand, he he! Maximov ended, tittering. 'The pan is a lajdak! the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly and crossed one leg over the other. Mitya's eye was caught by his huge greased boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Poles looked rather greasy. 'Well, now it's lajdak! What's he scolding about? said Grushenka, suddenly vexed. 'Pani Agrippina, what the gentleman saw in Poland were servant girls, and not ladies of good birth, the Pole with the pipe observed to Grushenka. 'You can reckon on that, the tall Pole snapped contemptuously. 'What next! Let him talk! People talk, why hinder them? It makes it cheerful, Grushenka said crossly. 'I'm not hindering them, pani, said the Pole in the wig, with a long look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked his pipe again. 'No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth. Kalganov got excited again, as though it were a question of vast import. 'He's never been in Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren't married in Poland, were you? 'No, in the Province of Smolensk. Only, a Uhlan had brought her to Russia before that, my future wife, with her mamma and her aunt, and another female relation with a grownup son. He brought her straight from Poland and gave her up to me. He was a lieutenant in our regiment, a very nice young man. At first he meant to marry her himself. But he didn't marry her, because she turned out to be lame. 'So you married a lame woman? cried Kalganov. 'Yes. They both deceived me a little bit at the time, and concealed it. I thought she was hopping she kept hopping.... I thought it was for fun. 'So pleased she was going to marry you! yelled Kalganov, in a ringing, childish voice. 'Yes, so pleased. But it turned out to be quite a different cause. Afterwards, when we were married, after the wedding, that very evening, she confessed, and very touchingly asked forgiveness. 'I once jumped over a puddle when I was a child,' she said, 'and injured my leg.' He he! Kalganov went off into the most childish laughter, almost falling on the sofa. Grushenka, too, laughed. Mitya was at the pinnacle of happiness. 'Do you know, that's the truth, he's not lying now, exclaimed Kalganov, turning to Mitya 'and do you know, he's been married twice it's his first wife he's talking about. But his second wife, do you know, ran away, and is alive now. 'Is it possible? said Mitya, turning quickly to Maximov with an expression of the utmost astonishment. 'Yes. She did run away. I've had that unpleasant experience, Maximov modestly assented, 'with a monsieur. And what was worse, she'd had all my little property transferred to her beforehand. 'You're an educated man,' she said to me. 'You can always get your living.' She settled my business with that. A venerable bishop once said to me 'One of your wives was lame, but the other was too lightfooted.' He he! 'Listen, listen! cried Kalganov, bubbling over, 'if he's telling liesand he often ishe's only doing it to amuse us all. There's no harm in that, is there? You know, I sometimes like him. He's awfully low, but it's natural to him, eh? Don't you think so? Some people are low from self interest, but he's simply so, from nature. Only fancy, he claims (he was arguing about it all the way yesterday) that Gogol wrote Dead Souls about him. Do you remember, there's a landowner called Maximov in it, whom Nozdryov thrashed. He was charged, do you remember, 'for inflicting bodily injury with rods on the landowner Maximov in a drunken condition.' Would you believe it, he claims that he was that Maximov and that he was beaten! Now can it be so? Tchitchikov made his journey, at the very latest, at the beginning of the twenties, so that the dates don't fit. He couldn't have been thrashed then, he couldn't, could he? It was difficult to imagine what Kalganov was excited about, but his excitement was genuine. Mitya followed his lead without protest. 'Well, but if they did thrash him! he cried, laughing. 'It's not that they thrashed me exactly, but what I mean is put in Maximov. 'What do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn't. 'What o'clock is it, panie? the Pole, with the pipe, asked his tall friend, with a bored expression. The other shrugged his shoulders in reply. Neither of them had a watch. 'Why not talk? Let other people talk. Mustn't other people talk because you're bored? Grushenka flew at him with evident intention of finding fault. Something seemed for the first time to flash upon Mitya's mind. This time the Pole answered with unmistakable irritability. 'Pani, I didn't oppose it. I didn't say anything. 'All right then. Come, tell us your story, Grushenka cried to Maximov. 'Why are you all silent? 'There's nothing to tell, it's all so foolish, answered Maximov at once, with evident satisfaction, mincing a little. 'Besides, all that's by way of allegory in Gogol, for he's made all the names have a meaning. Nozdryov was really called Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite a different name, he was called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was called Fenardi, only he wasn't an Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenardi was a pretty girl with her pretty little legs in tights, and she had a little short skirt with spangles, and she kept turning round and round, only not for four hours but for four minutes only, and she bewitched every one... 'But what were you beaten for? cried Kalganov. 'For Piron! answered Maximov. 'What Piron? cried Mitya. 'The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking then, a big party of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They'd invited me, and first of all I began quoting epigrams. 'Is that you, Boileau? What a funny getup!' and Boileau answers that he's going to a masquerade, that is to the baths, he he! And they took it to themselves, so I made haste to repeat another, very sarcastic, well known to all educated people Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we! But one grief is weighing on me. You don't know your way to the sea! They were still more offended and began abusing me in the most unseemly way for it. And as illluck would have it, to set things right, I began telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph Cigt Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas mme acadmicien. They seized me and thrashed me. 'But what for? What for? 'For my education. People can thrash a man for anything, Maximov concluded, briefly and sententiously. 'Eh, that's enough! That's all stupid, I don't want to listen. I thought it would be amusing, Grushenka cut them short, suddenly. Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upon his feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element, began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back. 'Ah, he can't sit still, said Grushenka, looking at him contemptuously. Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, that the Pole on the sofa was looking at him with an irritable expression. 'Panie! cried Mitya, 'let's drink! and the other pan, too! Let us drink. In a flash he had pulled three glasses towards him, and filled them with champagne. 'To Poland, panovie, I drink to your Poland! cried Mitya. 'I shall be delighted, panie, said the Pole on the sofa, with dignity and affable condescension, and he took his glass. 'And the other pan, what's his name? Drink, most illustrious, take your glass! Mitya urged. 'Pan Vrublevsky, put in the Pole on the sofa. Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked. 'To Poland, panovie! cried Mitya, raising his glass. 'Hurrah! All three drank. Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out three glasses. 'Now to Russia, panovie, and let us be brothers! 'Pour out some for us, said Grushenka 'I'll drink to Russia, too! 'So will I, said Kalganov. 'And I would, too ... to Russia, the old grandmother! tittered Maximov. 'All! All! cried Mitya. 'Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles! The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on the table. Mitya filled the glasses. 'To Russia! Hurrah! he shouted again. All drank the toast except the Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at once. The Poles did not touch theirs. 'How's this, panovie? cried Mitya, 'won't you drink it? Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it and said with a resonant voice 'To Russia as she was before . 'Come, that's better! cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their glasses at once. 'You're fools, you panovie, broke suddenly from Mitya. 'Panie! shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like a couple of cocks. Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious. 'Can one help loving one's own country? he shouted. 'Be silent! Don't quarrel! I won't have any quarreling! cried Grushenka imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor. Her face glowed, her eyes were shining. The effects of the glass she had just drunk were apparent. Mitya was terribly alarmed. 'Panovie, forgive me! It was my fault, I'm sorry. Vrublevsky, panie Vrublevsky, I'm sorry. 'Hold your tongue, you, anyway! Sit down, you stupid! Grushenka scolded with angry annoyance. Every one sat down, all were silent, looking at one another. 'Gentlemen, I was the cause of it all, Mitya began again, unable to make anything of Grushenka's words. 'Come, why are we sitting here? What shall we do ... to amuse ourselves again? 'Ach, it's certainly anything but amusing! Kalganov mumbled lazily. 'Let's play faro again, as we did just now, Maximov tittered suddenly. 'Faro? Splendid! cried Mitya. 'If only the panovie 'It's lite, panovie, the Pole on the sofa responded, as it were unwillingly. 'That's true, assented Pan Vrublevsky. 'Lite? What do you mean by 'lite'? asked Grushenka. 'Late, pani! 'a late hour' I mean, the Pole on the sofa explained. 'It's always late with them. They can never do anything! Grushenka almost shrieked in her anger. 'They're dull themselves, so they want others to be dull. Before you came, Mitya, they were just as silent and kept turning up their noses at me. 'My goddess! cried the Pole on the sofa, 'I see you're not welldisposed to me, that's why I'm gloomy. I'm ready, panie, added he, addressing Mitya. 'Begin, panie, Mitya assented, pulling his notes out of his pocket, and laying two hundredrouble notes on the table. 'I want to lose a lot to you. Take your cards. Make the bank. 'We'll have cards from the landlord, panie, said the little Pole, gravely and emphatically. 'That's much the best way, chimed in Pan Vrublevsky. 'From the landlord? Very good, I understand, let's get them from him. Cards! Mitya shouted to the landlord. The landlord brought in a new, unopened pack, and informed Mitya that the girls were getting ready, and that the Jews with the cymbals would most likely be here soon but the cart with the provisions had not yet arrived. Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to give orders, but only three girls had arrived, and Marya was not there yet. And he did not know himself what orders to give and why he had run out. He only told them to take out of the box the presents for the girls, the sweets, the toffee and the fondants. 'And vodka for Andrey, vodka for Andrey! he cried in haste. 'I was rude to Andrey! Suddenly Maximov, who had followed him out, touched him on the shoulder. 'Give me five roubles, he whispered to Mitya. 'I'll stake something at faro, too, he he! 'Capital! Splendid! Take ten, here! Again he took all the notes out of his pocket and picked out one for ten roubles. 'And if you lose that, come again, come again. 'Very good, Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back again. Mitya, too, returned, apologizing for having kept them waiting. The Poles had already sat down, and opened the pack. They looked much more amiable, almost cordial. The Pole on the sofa had lighted another pipe and was preparing to throw. He wore an air of solemnity. 'To your places, gentlemen, cried Pan Vrublevsky. 'No, I'm not going to play any more, observed Kalganov, 'I've lost fifty roubles to them just now. 'The pan had no luck, perhaps he'll be lucky this time, the Pole on the sofa observed in his direction. 'How much in the bank? To correspond? asked Mitya. 'That's according, panie, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, as much as you will stake. 'A million! laughed Mitya. 'The Pan Captain has heard of Pan Podvysotsky, perhaps? 'What Podvysotsky? 'In Warsaw there was a bank and any one comes and stakes against it. Podvysotsky comes, sees a thousand gold pieces, stakes against the bank. The banker says, 'Panie Podvysotsky, are you laying down the gold, or must we trust to your honor?' 'To my honor, panie,' says Podvysotsky. 'So much the better.' The banker throws the dice. Podvysotsky wins. 'Take it, panie,' says the banker, and pulling out the drawer he gives him a million. 'Take it, panie, this is your gain.' There was a million in the bank. 'I didn't know that,' says Podvysotsky. 'Panie Podvysotsky,' said the banker, 'you pledged your honor and we pledged ours.' Podvysotsky took the million. 'That's not true, said Kalganov. 'Panie Kalganov, in gentlemanly society one doesn't say such things. 'As if a Polish gambler would give away a million! cried Mitya, but checked himself at once. 'Forgive me, panie, it's my fault again, he would, he would give away a million, for honor, for Polish honor. You see how I talk Polish, ha ha! Here, I stake ten roubles, the knave leads. 'And I put a rouble on the queen, the queen of hearts, the pretty little panienotchka, he he! laughed Maximov, pulling out his queen, and, as though trying to conceal it from every one, he moved right up and crossed himself hurriedly under the table. Mitya won. The rouble won, too. 'A corner! cried Mitya. 'I'll bet another rouble, a 'single' stake, Maximov muttered gleefully, hugely delighted at having won a rouble. 'Lost! shouted Mitya. 'A 'double' on the seven! The seven too was trumped. 'Stop! cried Kalganov suddenly. 'Double! Double! Mitya doubled his stakes, and each time he doubled the stake, the card he doubled was trumped by the Poles. The rouble stakes kept winning. 'On the double! shouted Mitya furiously. 'You've lost two hundred, panie. Will you stake another hundred? the Pole on the sofa inquired. 'What? Lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! All doubles! And pulling his money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to fling two hundred roubles on the queen, but Kalganov covered it with his hand. 'That's enough! he shouted in his ringing voice. 'What's the matter? Mitya stared at him. 'That's enough! I don't want you to play any more. Don't! 'Why? 'Because I don't. Hang it, come away. That's why. I won't let you go on playing. Mitya gazed at him in astonishment. 'Give it up, Mitya. He may be right. You've lost a lot as it is, said Grushenka, with a curious note in her voice. Both the Poles rose from their seats with a deeply offended air. 'Are you joking, panie? said the short man, looking severely at Kalganov. 'How dare you! Pan Vrublevsky, too, growled at Kalganov. 'Don't dare to shout like that, cried Grushenka. 'Ah, you turkeycocks! Mitya looked at each of them in turn. But something in Grushenka's face suddenly struck him, and at the same instant something new flashed into his minda strange new thought! 'Pani Agrippina, the little Pole was beginning, crimson with anger, when Mitya suddenly went up to him and slapped him on the shoulder. 'Most illustrious, two words with you. 'What do you want? 'In the next room, I've two words to say to you, something pleasant, very pleasant. You'll be glad to hear it. The little pan was taken aback and looked apprehensively at Mitya. He agreed at once, however, on condition that Pan Vrublevsky went with them. 'The bodyguard? Let him come, and I want him, too. I must have him! cried Mitya. 'March, panovie! 'Where are you going? asked Grushenka, anxiously. 'We'll be back in one moment, answered Mitya. There was a sort of boldness, a sudden confidence shining in his eyes. His face had looked very different when he entered the room an hour before. He led the Poles, not into the large room where the chorus of girls was assembling and the table was being laid, but into the bedroom on the right, where the trunks and packages were kept, and there were two large beds, with pyramids of cotton pillows on each. There was a lighted candle on a small deal table in the corner. The small man and Mitya sat down to this table, facing each other, while the huge Vrublevsky stood beside them, his hands behind his back. The Poles looked severe but were evidently inquisitive. 'What can I do for you, panie? lisped the little Pole. 'Well, look here, panie, I won't keep you long. There's money for you, he pulled out his notes. 'Would you like three thousand? Take it and go your way. The Pole gazed openeyed at Mitya, with a searching look. 'Three thousand, panie? He exchanged glances with Vrublevsky. 'Three, panovie, three! Listen, panie, I see you're a sensible man. Take three thousand and go to the devil, and Vrublevsky with youd'you hear? But, at once, this very minute, and for ever. You understand that, panie, for ever. Here's the door, you go out of it. What have you got there, a greatcoat, a fur coat? I'll bring it out to you. They'll get the horses out directly, and thengoodby, panie! Mitya awaited an answer with assurance. He had no doubts. An expression of extraordinary resolution passed over the Pole's face. 'And the money, panie? 'The money, panie? Five hundred roubles I'll give you this moment for the journey, and as a first installment, and two thousand five hundred to morrow, in the townI swear on my honor, I'll get it, I'll get it at any cost! cried Mitya. The Poles exchanged glances again. The short man's face looked more forbidding. 'Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five hundred, at once, this minute, cash down! Mitya added, feeling something wrong. 'What's the matter, panie? Don't you trust me? I can't give you the whole three thousand straight off. If I give it, you may come back to her tomorrow.... Besides, I haven't the three thousand with me. I've got it at home in the town, faltered Mitya, his spirit sinking at every word he uttered. 'Upon my word, the money's there, hidden. In an instant an extraordinary sense of personal dignity showed itself in the little man's face. 'What next? he asked ironically. 'For shame! and he spat on the floor. Pan Vrublevsky spat too. 'You do that, panie, said Mitya, recognizing with despair that all was over, 'because you hope to make more out of Grushenka? You're a couple of capons, that's what you are! 'This is a mortal insult! The little Pole turned as red as a crab, and he went out of the room, briskly, as though unwilling to hear another word. Vrublevsky swung out after him, and Mitya followed, confused and crestfallen. He was afraid of Grushenka, afraid that the pan would at once raise an outcry. And so indeed he did. The Pole walked into the room and threw himself in a theatrical attitude before Grushenka. 'Pani Agrippina, I have received a mortal insult! he exclaimed. But Grushenka suddenly lost all patience, as though they had wounded her in the tenderest spot. 'Speak Russian! Speak Russian! she cried, 'not another word of Polish! You used to talk Russian. You can't have forgotten it in five years. She was red with passion. 'Pani Agrippina 'My name's Agrafena, Grushenka, speak Russian or I won't listen! The Pole gasped with offended dignity, and quickly and pompously delivered himself in broken Russian 'Pani Agrafena, I came here to forget the past and forgive it, to forget all that has happened till today 'Forgive? Came here to forgive me? Grushenka cut him short, jumping up from her seat. 'Just so, pani, I'm not pusillanimous, I'm magnanimous. But I was astounded when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya offered me three thousand, in the other room to depart. I spat in the pan's face. 'What? He offered you money for me? cried Grushenka, hysterically. 'Is it true, Mitya? How dare you? Am I for sale? 'Panie, panie! yelled Mitya, 'she's pure and shining, and I have never been her lover! That's a lie.... 'How dare you defend me to him? shrieked Grushenka. 'It wasn't virtue kept me pure, and it wasn't that I was afraid of Kuzma, but that I might hold up my head when I met him, and tell him he's a scoundrel. And he did actually refuse the money? 'He took it! He took it! cried Mitya 'only he wanted to get the whole three thousand at once, and I could only give him seven hundred straight off. 'I see he heard I had money, and came here to marry me! 'Pani Agrippina! cried the little Pole. 'I'ma knight, I'ma nobleman, and not a lajdak. I came here to make you my wife and I find you a different woman, perverse and shameless. 'Oh, go back where you came from! I'll tell them to turn you out and you'll be turned out, cried Grushenka, furious. 'I've been a fool, a fool, to have been miserable these five years! And it wasn't for his sake, it was my anger made me miserable. And this isn't he at all! Was he like this? It might be his father! Where did you get your wig from? He was a falcon, but this is a gander. He used to laugh and sing to me.... And I've been crying for five years, damned fool, abject, shameless I was! She sank back in her low chair and hid her face in her hands. At that instant the chorus of Mokroe began singing in the room on the lefta rollicking dance song. 'A regular Sodom! Vrublevsky roared suddenly. 'Landlord, send the shameless hussies away! The landlord, who had been for some time past inquisitively peeping in at the door, hearing shouts and guessing that his guests were quarreling, at once entered the room. 'What are you shouting for? D'you want to split your throat? he said, addressing Vrublevsky, with surprising rudeness. 'Animal! bellowed Pan Vrublevsky. 'Animal? And what sort of cards were you playing with just now? I gave you a pack and you hid it. You played with marked cards! I could send you to Siberia for playing with false cards, d'you know that, for it's just the same as false banknotes.... And going up to the sofa he thrust his fingers between the sofa back and the cushion, and pulled out an unopened pack of cards. 'Here's my pack unopened! He held it up and showed it to all in the room. 'From where I stood I saw him slip my pack away, and put his in place of ityou're a cheat and not a gentleman! 'And I twice saw the pan change a card! cried Kalganov. 'How shameful! How shameful! exclaimed Grushenka, clasping her hands, and blushing for genuine shame. 'Good Lord, he's come to that! 'I thought so, too! said Mitya. But before he had uttered the words, Vrublevsky, with a confused and infuriated face, shook his fist at Grushenka, shouting 'You low harlot! Mitya flew at him at once, clutched him in both hands, lifted him in the air, and in one instant had carried him into the room on the right, from which they had just come. 'I've laid him on the floor, there, he announced, returning at once, gasping with excitement. 'He's struggling, the scoundrel! But he won't come back, no fear of that!... He closed one half of the folding doors, and holding the other ajar called out to the little Pole 'Most illustrious, will you be pleased to retire as well? 'My dear Dmitri Fyodorovitch, said Trifon Borissovitch, 'make them give you back the money you lost. It's as good as stolen from you. 'I don't want my fifty roubles back, Kalganov declared suddenly. 'I don't want my two hundred, either, cried Mitya, 'I wouldn't take it for anything! Let him keep it as a consolation. 'Bravo, Mitya! You're a trump, Mitya! cried Grushenka, and there was a note of fierce anger in the exclamation. The little pan, crimson with fury but still mindful of his dignity, was making for the door, but he stopped short and said suddenly, addressing Grushenka 'Pani, if you want to come with me, come. If not, goodby. And swelling with indignation and importance he went to the door. This was a man of character he had so good an opinion of himself that after all that had passed, he still expected that she would marry him. Mitya slammed the door after him. 'Lock it, said Kalganov. But the key clicked on the other side, they had locked it from within. 'That's capital! exclaimed Grushenka relentlessly. 'Serve them right! What followed was almost an orgy, a feast to which all were welcome. Grushenka was the first to call for wine. 'I want to drink. I want to be quite drunk, as we were before. Do you remember, Mitya, do you remember how we made friends here last time! Mitya himself was almost delirious, feeling that his happiness was at hand. But Grushenka was continually sending him away from her. 'Go and enjoy yourself. Tell them to dance, to make merry, 'let the stove and cottage dance' as we had it last time, she kept exclaiming. She was tremendously excited. And Mitya hastened to obey her. The chorus were in the next room. The room in which they had been sitting till that moment was too small, and was divided in two by cotton curtains, behind which was a huge bed with a puffy feather mattress and a pyramid of cotton pillows. In the four rooms for visitors there were beds. Grushenka settled herself just at the door. Mitya set an easy chair for her. She had sat in the same place to watch the dancing and singing 'the time before, when they had made merry there. All the girls who had come had been there then the Jewish band with fiddles and zithers had come, too, and at last the long expected cart had arrived with the wines and provisions. Mitya bustled about. All sorts of people began coming into the room to look on, peasants and their women, who had been roused from sleep and attracted by the hopes of another marvelous entertainment such as they had enjoyed a month before. Mitya remembered their faces, greeting and embracing every one he knew. He uncorked bottles and poured out wine for every one who presented himself. Only the girls were very eager for the champagne. The men preferred rum, brandy, and, above all, hot punch. Mitya had chocolate made for all the girls, and ordered that three samovars should be kept boiling all night to provide tea and punch for everyone to help himself. An absurd chaotic confusion followed, but Mitya was in his natural element, and the more foolish it became, the more his spirits rose. If the peasants had asked him for money at that moment, he would have pulled out his notes and given them away right and left. This was probably why the landlord, Trifon Borissovitch, kept hovering about Mitya to protect him. He seemed to have given up all idea of going to bed that night but he drank little, only one glass of punch, and kept a sharp lookout on Mitya's interests after his own fashion. He intervened in the nick of time, civilly and obsequiously persuading Mitya not to give away 'cigars and Rhine wine, and, above all, money to the peasants as he had done before. He was very indignant, too, at the peasant girls drinking liqueur, and eating sweets. 'They're a lousy lot, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, he said. 'I'd give them a kick, every one of them, and they'd take it as an honorthat's all they're worth! Mitya remembered Andrey again, and ordered punch to be sent out to him. 'I was rude to him just now, he repeated with a sinking, softened voice. Kalganov did not want to drink, and at first did not care for the girls' singing but after he had drunk a couple of glasses of champagne he became extraordinarily lively, strolling about the room, laughing and praising the music and the songs, admiring every one and everything. Maximov, blissfully drunk, never left his side. Grushenka, too, was beginning to get drunk. Pointing to Kalganov, she said to Mitya 'What a dear, charming boy he is! And Mitya, delighted, ran to kiss Kalganov and Maximov. Oh, great were his hopes! She had said nothing yet, and seemed, indeed, purposely to refrain from speaking. But she looked at him from time to time with caressing and passionate eyes. At last she suddenly gripped his hand and drew him vigorously to her. She was sitting at the moment in the low chair by the door. 'How was it you came just now, eh? Have you walked in!... I was frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, did you? Did you really want to? 'I didn't want to spoil your happiness! Mitya faltered blissfully. But she did not need his answer. 'Well, go and enjoy yourself ... she sent him away once more. 'Don't cry, I'll call you back again. He would run away, and she listened to the singing and looked at the dancing, though her eyes followed him wherever he went. But in another quarter of an hour she would call him once more and again he would run back to her. 'Come, sit beside me, tell me, how did you hear about me, and my coming here yesterday? From whom did you first hear it? And Mitya began telling her all about it, disconnectedly, incoherently, feverishly. He spoke strangely, often frowning, and stopping abruptly. 'What are you frowning at? she asked. 'Nothing.... I left a man ill there. I'd give ten years of my life for him to get well, to know he was all right! 'Well, never mind him, if he's ill. So you meant to shoot yourself to morrow! What a silly boy! What for? I like such reckless fellows as you, she lisped, with a rather halting tongue. 'So you would go any length for me, eh? Did you really mean to shoot yourself tomorrow, you stupid? No, wait a little. Tomorrow I may have something to say to you.... I won't say it today, but tomorrow. You'd like it to be today? No, I don't want to today. Come, go along now, go and amuse yourself. Once, however, she called him, as it were, puzzled and uneasy. 'Why are you sad? I see you're sad.... Yes, I see it, she added, looking intently into his eyes. 'Though you keep kissing the peasants and shouting, I see something. No, be merry. I'm merry you be merry, too.... I love somebody here. Guess who it is. Ah, look, my boy has fallen asleep, poor dear, he's drunk. She meant Kalganov. He was, in fact, drunk, and had dropped asleep for a moment, sitting on the sofa. But he was not merely drowsy from drink he felt suddenly dejected, or, as he said, 'bored. He was intensely depressed by the girls' songs, which, as the drinking went on, gradually became coarse and more reckless. And the dances were as bad. Two girls dressed up as bears, and a lively girl, called Stepanida, with a stick in her hand, acted the part of keeper, and began to 'show them. 'Look alive, Marya, or you'll get the stick! The bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly fashion, amid roars of laughter from the closelypacked crowd of men and women. 'Well, let them! Let them! said Grushenka sententiously, with an ecstatic expression on her face. 'When they do get a day to enjoy themselves, why shouldn't folks be happy? Kalganov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt. 'It's swinish, all this peasant foolery, he murmured, moving away 'it's the game they play when it's light all night in summer. He particularly disliked one 'new song to a jaunty dancetune. It described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls, to see whether they would love him The master came to try the girls Would they love him, would they not? But the girls could not love the master He would beat me cruelly And such love won't do for me. Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries The gypsy came to try the girls Would they love him, would they not? But they couldn't love the gypsy either He would be a thief, I fear, And would cause me many a tear. And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier The soldier came to try the girls Would they love him, would they not? But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent lines, sung with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience. The song ends with a merchant The merchant came to try the girls Would they love him, would they not? And it appears that he wins their love because The merchant will make gold for me And his queen I'll gladly be. Kalvanov was positively indignant. 'That's just a song of yesterday, he said aloud. 'Who writes such things for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a Jew come to try his luck with the girls they'd have carried all before them. And, almost as though it were a personal affront, he declared, on the spot, that he was bored, sat down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep. His pretty little face looked rather pale, as it fell back on the sofa cushion. 'Look how pretty he is, said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him. 'I was combing his hair just now his hair's like flax, and so thick.... And, bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead. Kalganov instantly opened his eyes, looked at her, stood up, and with the most anxious air inquired where was Maximov? 'So that's who it is you want. Grushenka laughed. 'Stay with me a minute. Mitya, run and find his Maximov. Maximov, it appeared, could not tear himself away from the girls, only running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass of liqueur. He had drunk two cups of chocolate. His face was red, and his nose was crimson his eyes were moist and mawkishly sweet. He ran up and announced that he was going to dance the 'sabotire. 'They taught me all those wellbred, aristocratic dances when I was little.... 'Go, go with him, Mitya, and I'll watch from here how he dances, said Grushenka. 'No, no, I'm coming to look on, too, exclaimed Kalganov, brushing aside in the most nave way Grushenka's offer to sit with him. They all went to look on. Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no great admiration in any one but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but skipping and hopping, kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped the upturned sole of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya kissed the dancer. 'Thanks. You're tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would you like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps? 'A cigarette. 'Don't you want a drink? 'I'll just have a liqueur.... Have you any chocolates? 'Yes, there's a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my dear soul! 'I like one with vanilla ... for old people. He he! 'No, brother, we've none of that special sort. 'I say, the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya's ear. 'That girl there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help me make friends with her? 'So that's what you're after! No, brother, that won't do! 'I'd do no harm to any one, Maximov muttered disconsolately. 'Oh, all right, all right. They only come here to dance and sing, you know, brother. But damn it all, wait a bit!... Eat and drink and be merry, meanwhile. Don't you want money? 'Later on, perhaps, smiled Maximov. 'All right, all right.... Mitya's head was burning. He went outside to the wooden balcony which ran round the whole building on the inner side, overlooking the courtyard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone in a dark corner, and suddenly clutched his head in both hands. His scattered thoughts came together his sensations blended into a whole and threw a sudden light into his mind. A fearful and terrible light! 'If I'm to shoot myself, why not now? passed through his mind. 'Why not go for the pistols, bring them here, and here, in this dark dirty corner, make an end? Almost a minute he stood, undecided. A few hours earlier, when he had been dashing here, he was pursued by disgrace, by the theft he had committed, and that blood, that blood!... But yet it was easier for him then. Then everything was over he had lost her, given her up. She was gone, for himoh, then his death sentence had been easier for him at least it had seemed necessary, inevitable, for what had he to stay on earth for? But now? Was it the same as then? Now one phantom, one terror at least was at an end that first, rightful lover, that fateful figure had vanished, leaving no trace. The terrible phantom had turned into something so small, so comic it had been carried into the bedroom and locked in. It would never return. She was ashamed, and from her eyes he could see now whom she loved. Now he had everything to make life happy ... but he could not go on living, he could not oh, damnation! 'O God! restore to life the man I knocked down at the fence! Let this fearful cup pass from me! Lord, thou hast wrought miracles for such sinners as me! But what, what if the old man's alive? Oh, then the shame of the other disgrace I would wipe away. I would restore the stolen money. I'd give it back I'd get it somehow.... No trace of that shame will remain except in my heart for ever! But no, no oh, impossible cowardly dreams! Oh, damnation! Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness. He jumped up and ran back to the roomto her, to her, his queen for ever! Was not one moment of her love worth all the rest of life, even in the agonies of disgrace? This wild question clutched at his heart. 'To her, to her alone, to see her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to forget everything, if only for that night, for an hour, for a moment! Just as he turned from the balcony into the passage, he came upon the landlord, Trifon Borissovitch. He thought he looked gloomy and worried, and fancied he had come to find him. 'What is it, Trifon Borissovitch? are you looking for me? 'No, sir. The landlord seemed disconcerted. 'Why should I be looking for you? Where have you been? 'Why do you look so glum? You're not angry, are you? Wait a bit, you shall soon get to bed.... What's the time? 'It'll be three o'clock. Past three, it must be. 'We'll leave off soon. We'll leave off. 'Don't mention it it doesn't matter. Keep it up as long as you like.... 'What's the matter with him? Mitya wondered for an instant, and he ran back to the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there. She was not in the blue room either there was no one but Kalganov asleep on the sofa. Mitya peeped behind the curtainshe was there. She was sitting in the corner, on a trunk. Bent forward, with her head and arms on the bed close by, she was crying bitterly, doing her utmost to stifle her sobs that she might not be heard. Seeing Mitya, she beckoned him to her, and when he ran to her, she grasped his hand tightly. 'Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, you know. How I have loved him these five years, all that time! Did I love him or only my own anger? No, him, him! It's a lie that it was my anger I loved and not him. Mitya, I was only seventeen then he was so kind to me, so merry he used to sing to me.... Or so it seemed to a silly girl like me.... And now, O Lord, it's not the same man. Even his face is not the same he's different altogether. I shouldn't have known him. I drove here with Timofey, and all the way I was thinking how I should meet him, what I should say to him, how we should look at one another. My soul was faint, and all of a sudden it was just as though he had emptied a pail of dirty water over me. He talked to me like a schoolmaster, all so grave and learned he met me so solemnly that I was struck dumb. I couldn't get a word in. At first I thought he was ashamed to talk before his great big Pole. I sat staring at him and wondering why I couldn't say a word to him now. It must have been his wife that ruined him you know he threw me up to get married. She must have changed him like that. Mitya, how shameful it is! Oh, Mitya, I'm ashamed, I'm ashamed for all my life. Curse it, curse it, curse those five years! And again she burst into tears, but clung tight to Mitya's hand and did not let it go. 'Mitya, darling, stay, don't go away. I want to say one word to you, she whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. 'Listen, tell me who it is I love? I love one man here. Who is that man? That's what you must tell me. A smile lighted up her face that was swollen with weeping, and her eyes shone in the half darkness. 'A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. 'Fool! that's the man you love!' That was what my heart whispered to me at once. You came in and all grew bright. What's he afraid of? I wondered. For you were frightened you couldn't speak. It's not them he's afraid ofcould you be frightened of any one? It's me he's afraid of, I thought, only me. So Fenya told you, you little stupid, how I called to Alyosha out of the window that I'd loved Mityenka for one hour, and that I was going now to love ... another. Mitya, Mitya, how could I be such a fool as to think I could love any one after you? Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do you forgive me or not? Do you love me? Do you love me? She jumped up and held him with both hands on his shoulders. Mitya, dumb with rapture, gazed into her eyes, at her face, at her smile, and suddenly clasped her tightly in his arms and kissed her passionately. 'You will forgive me for having tormented you? It was through spite I tormented you all. It was for spite I drove the old man out of his mind.... Do you remember how you drank at my house one day and broke the wineglass? I remembered that and I broke a glass today and drank 'to my vile heart.' Mitya, my falcon, why don't you kiss me? He kissed me once, and now he draws back and looks and listens. Why listen to me? Kiss me, kiss me hard, that's right. If you love, well, then, love! I'll be your slave now, your slave for the rest of my life. It's sweet to be a slave. Kiss me! Beat me, illtreat me, do what you will with me.... And I do deserve to suffer. Stay, wait, afterwards, I won't have that.... she suddenly thrust him away. 'Go along, Mitya, I'll come and have some wine, I want to be drunk, I'm going to get drunk and dance I must, I must! She tore herself away from him and disappeared behind the curtain. Mitya followed like a drunken man. 'Yes, come what maywhatever may happen now, for one minute I'd give the whole world, he thought. Grushenka did, in fact, toss off a whole glass of champagne at one gulp, and became at once very tipsy. She sat down in the same chair as before, with a blissful smile on her face. Her cheeks were glowing, her lips were burning, her flashing eyes were moist there was passionate appeal in her eyes. Even Kalganov felt a stir at the heart and went up to her. 'Did you feel how I kissed you when you were asleep just now? she said thickly. 'I'm drunk now, that's what it is.... And aren't you drunk? And why isn't Mitya drinking? Why don't you drink, Mitya? I'm drunk, and you don't drink.... 'I am drunk! I'm drunk as it is ... drunk with you ... and now I'll be drunk with wine, too. He drank off another glass, andhe thought it strange himselfthat glass made him completely drunk. He was suddenly drunk, although till that moment he had been quite sober, he remembered that. From that moment everything whirled about him, as though he were delirious. He walked, laughed, talked to everybody, without knowing what he was doing. Only one persistent burning sensation made itself felt continually, 'like a redhot coal in his heart, he said afterwards. He went up to her, sat beside her, gazed at her, listened to her.... She became very talkative, kept calling every one to her, and beckoned to different girls out of the chorus. When the girl came up, she either kissed her, or made the sign of the cross over her. In another minute she might have cried. She was greatly amused by the 'little old man, as she called Maximov. He ran up every minute to kiss her hands, 'each little finger, and finally he danced another dance to an old song, which he sang himself. He danced with special vigor to the refrain The little pig saysumph! umph! umph! The little calf saysmoo, moo, moo, The little duck saysquack, quack, quack, The little goose saysga, ga, ga. The hen goes strutting through the porch Troorooroorooroo, she'll say, Troorooroorooroo, she'll say! 'Give him something, Mitya, said Grushenka. 'Give him a present, he's poor, you know. Ah, the poor, the insulted!... Do you know, Mitya, I shall go into a nunnery. No, I really shall one day, Alyosha said something to me today that I shall remember all my life.... Yes.... But today let us dance. Tomorrow to the nunnery, but today we'll dance. I want to play today, good people, and what of it? God will forgive us. If I were God, I'd forgive every one 'My dear sinners, from this day forth I forgive you.' I'm going to beg forgiveness 'Forgive me, good people, a silly wench.' I'm a beast, that's what I am. But I want to pray. I gave a little onion. Wicked as I've been, I want to pray. Mitya, let them dance, don't stop them. Every one in the world is good. Every oneeven the worst of them. The world's a nice place. Though we're bad the world's all right. We're good and bad, good and bad.... Come, tell me, I've something to ask you come here every one, and I'll ask you Why am I so good? You know I am good. I'm very good.... Come, why am I so good? So Grushenka babbled on, getting more and more drunk. At last she announced that she was going to dance, too. She got up from her chair, staggering. 'Mitya, don't give me any more wineif I ask you, don't give it to me. Wine doesn't give peace. Everything's going round, the stove, and everything. I want to dance. Let every one see how I dance ... let them see how beautifully I dance.... She really meant it. She pulled a white cambric handkerchief out of her pocket, and took it by one corner in her right hand, to wave it in the dance. Mitya ran to and fro, the girls were quiet, and got ready to break into a dancing song at the first signal. Maximov, hearing that Grushenka wanted to dance, squealed with delight, and ran skipping about in front of her, humming With legs so slim and sides so trim And its little tail curled tight. But Grushenka waved her handkerchief at him and drove him away. 'Shh! Mitya, why don't they come? Let every one come ... to look on. Call them in, too, that were locked in.... Why did you lock them in? Tell them I'm going to dance. Let them look on, too.... Mitya walked with a drunken swagger to the locked door, and began knocking to the Poles with his fist. 'Hi, you ... Podvysotskys! Come, she's going to dance. She calls you. 'Lajdak! one of the Poles shouted in reply. 'You're a lajdak yourself! You're a little scoundrel, that's what you are. 'Leave off laughing at Poland, said Kalganov sententiously. He too was drunk. 'Be quiet, boy! If I call him a scoundrel, it doesn't mean that I called all Poland so. One lajdak doesn't make a Poland. Be quiet, my pretty boy, eat a sweetmeat. 'Ach, what fellows! As though they were not men. Why won't they make friends? said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus broke into 'Ah, my porch, my new porch! Grushenka flung back her head, half opened her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with a violent lurch, stood still in the middle of the room, looking bewildered. 'I'm weak.... she said in an exhausted voice. 'Forgive me.... I'm weak, I can't.... I'm sorry. She bowed to the chorus, and then began bowing in all directions. 'I'm sorry.... Forgive me.... 'The lady's been drinking. The pretty lady has been drinking, voices were heard saying. 'The lady's drunk too much, Maximov explained to the girls, giggling. 'Mitya, lead me away ... take me, said Grushenka helplessly. Mitya pounced on her, snatched her up in his arms, and carried the precious burden through the curtains. 'Well, now I'll go, thought Kalganov, and walking out of the blue room, he closed the two halves of the door after him. But the orgy in the larger room went on and grew louder and louder. Mitya laid Grushenka on the bed and kissed her on the lips. 'Don't touch me.... she faltered, in an imploring voice. 'Don't touch me, till I'm yours.... I've told you I'm yours, but don't touch me ... spare me.... With them here, with them close, you mustn't. He's here. It's nasty here.... 'I'll obey you! I won't think of it ... I worship you! muttered Mitya. 'Yes, it's nasty here, it's abominable. And still holding her in his arms, he sank on his knees by the bedside. 'I know, though you're a brute, you're generous, Grushenka articulated with difficulty. 'It must be honorable ... it shall be honorable for the future ... and let us be honest, let us be good, not brutes, but good ... take me away, take me far away, do you hear? I don't want it to be here, but far, far away.... 'Oh, yes, yes, it must be! said Mitya, pressing her in his arms. 'I'll take you and we'll fly away.... Oh, I'd give my whole life for one year only to know about that blood! 'What blood? asked Grushenka, bewildered. 'Nothing, muttered Mitya, through his teeth. 'Grusha, you wanted to be honest, but I'm a thief. But I've stolen money from Katya.... Disgrace, a disgrace! 'From Katya, from that young lady? No, you didn't steal it. Give it her back, take it from me.... Why make a fuss? Now everything of mine is yours. What does money matter? We shall waste it anyway.... Folks like us are bound to waste money. But we'd better go and work the land. I want to dig the earth with my own hands. We must work, do you hear? Alyosha said so. I won't be your mistress, I'll be faithful to you, I'll be your slave, I'll work for you. We'll go to the young lady and bow down to her together, so that she may forgive us, and then we'll go away. And if she won't forgive us, we'll go, anyway. Take her her money and love me.... Don't love her.... Don't love her any more. If you love her, I shall strangle her.... I'll put out both her eyes with a needle.... 'I love you. I love only you. I'll love you in Siberia.... 'Why Siberia? Never mind, Siberia, if you like. I don't care ... we'll work ... there's snow in Siberia.... I love driving in the snow ... and must have bells.... Do you hear, there's a bell ringing? Where is that bell ringing? There are people coming.... Now it's stopped. She closed her eyes, exhausted, and suddenly fell asleep for an instant. There had certainly been the sound of a bell in the distance, but the ringing had ceased. Mitya let his head sink on her breast. He did not notice that the bell had ceased ringing, nor did he notice that the songs had ceased, and that instead of singing and drunken clamor there was absolute stillness in the house. Grushenka opened her eyes. 'What's the matter? Was I asleep? Yes ... a bell ... I've been asleep and dreamt I was driving over the snow with bells, and I dozed. I was with some one I loved, with you. And far, far away. I was holding you and kissing you, nestling close to you. I was cold, and the snow glistened.... You know how the snow glistens at night when the moon shines. It was as though I was not on earth. I woke up, and my dear one is close to me. How sweet that is!... 'Close to you, murmured Mitya, kissing her dress, her bosom, her hands. And suddenly he had a strange fancy it seemed to him that she was looking straight before her, not at him, not into his face, but over his head, with an intent, almost uncanny fixity. An expression of wonder, almost of alarm, came suddenly into her face. 'Mitya, who is that looking at us? she whispered. Mitya turned, and saw that some one had, in fact, parted the curtains and seemed to be watching them. And not one person alone, it seemed. He jumped up and walked quickly to the intruder. 'Here, come to us, come here, said a voice, speaking not loudly, but firmly and peremptorily. Mitya passed to the other side of the curtain and stood stock still. The room was filled with people, but not those who had been there before. An instantaneous shiver ran down his back, and he shuddered. He recognized all those people instantly. That tall, stout old man in the overcoat and foragecap with a cockadewas the police captain, Mihail Makarovitch. And that 'consumptivelooking trim dandy, 'who always has such polished bootsthat was the deputy prosecutor. 'He has a chronometer worth four hundred roubles he showed it to me. And that small young man in spectacles.... Mitya forgot his surname though he knew him, had seen him he was the 'investigating lawyer, from the 'school of jurisprudence, who had only lately come to the town. And this manthe inspector of police, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a man he knew well. And those fellows with the brass plates on, why are they here? And those other two ... peasants.... And there at the door Kalganov with Trifon Borissovitch.... 'Gentlemen! What's this for, gentlemen? began Mitya, but suddenly, as though beside himself, not knowing what he was doing, he cried aloud, at the top of his voice 'I understand! The young man in spectacles moved forward suddenly, and stepping up to Mitya, began with dignity, though hurriedly 'We have to make ... in brief, I beg you to come this way, this way to the sofa.... It is absolutely imperative that you should give an explanation. 'The old man! cried Mitya frantically. 'The old man and his blood!... I understand. And he sank, almost fell, on a chair close by, as though he had been mown down by a scythe. 'You understand? He understands it! Monster and parricide! Your father's blood cries out against you! the old captain of police roared suddenly, stepping up to Mitya. He was beside himself, crimson in the face and quivering all over. 'This is impossible! cried the small young man. 'Mihail Makarovitch, Mihail Makarovitch, this won't do!... I beg you'll allow me to speak. I should never have expected such behavior from you.... 'This is delirium, gentlemen, raving delirium, cried the captain of police 'look at him drunk, at this time of night, in the company of a disreputable woman, with the blood of his father on his hands.... It's delirium!... 'I beg you most earnestly, dear Mihail Makarovitch, to restrain your feelings, the prosecutor said in a rapid whisper to the old police captain, 'or I shall be forced to resort to But the little lawyer did not allow him to finish. He turned to Mitya, and delivered himself in a loud, firm, dignified voice 'ExLieutenant Karamazov, it is my duty to inform you that you are charged with the murder of your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, perpetrated this night.... He said something more, and the prosecutor, too, put in something, but though Mitya heard them he did not understand them. He stared at them all with wild eyes. Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, whom we left knocking at the strong locked gates of the widow Morozov's house, ended, of course, by making himself heard. Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had had two hours before, and too much 'upset to go to bed, was almost frightened into hysterics on hearing the furious knocking at the gate. Though she had herself seen him drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking again, no one else could knock so savagely. She ran to the houseporter, who had already waked up and gone out to the gate, and began imploring him not to open it. But having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he wanted to see Fenya on very 'important business, the man made up his mind at last to open. Pyotr Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya's kitchen, but the girl begged him to allow the houseporter to be present, 'because of her misgivings. He began questioning her and at once learnt the most vital fact, that is, that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look for Grushenka, he had snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that when he returned, the pestle was not with him and his hands were smeared with blood. 'And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping! Fenya kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product of her disordered imagination. But although not 'dripping, Pyotr Ilyitch had himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped to wash them. Moreover, the question he had to decide was not how soon the blood had dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle, or rather, whether it really was to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, and how he could satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning to this point, and though he found out nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but to his father's house, and that therefore something must have happened there. 'And when he came back, Fenya added with excitement, 'I told him the whole story, and then I began asking him, 'Why have you got blood on your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?' and he answered that that was human blood, and that he had just killed some one. He confessed it all to me, and suddenly ran off like a madman. I sat down and began thinking, where's he run off to now like a madman? He'll go to Mokroe, I thought, and kill my mistress there. I ran out to beg him not to kill her. I was running to his lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov's shop, and saw him just setting off, and there was no blood on his hands then. (Fenya had noticed this and remembered it.) Fenya's old grandmother confirmed her evidence as far as she was capable. After asking some further questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left the house, even more upset and uneasy than he had been when he entered it. The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have been to go straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, to find out whether anything had happened there, and if so, what and only to go to the police captain, as Pyotr Ilyitch firmly intended doing, when he had satisfied himself of the fact. But the night was dark, Fyodor Pavlovitch's gates were strong, and he would have to knock again. His acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch was of the slightest, and what if, after he had been knocking, they opened to him, and nothing had happened? Then Fyodor Pavlovitch in his jeering way would go telling the story all over the town, how a stranger, called Perhotin, had broken in upon him at midnight to ask if any one had killed him. It would make a scandal. And scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded more than anything in the world. Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong, that though he stamped his foot angrily and swore at himself, he set off again, not to Fyodor Pavlovitch's but to Madame Hohlakov's. He decided that if she denied having just given Dmitri Fyodorovitch three thousand roubles, he would go straight to the police captain, but if she admitted having given him the money, he would go home and let the matter rest till next morning. It is, of course, perfectly evident that there was even more likelihood of causing scandal by going at eleven o'clock at night to a fashionable lady, a complete stranger, and perhaps rousing her from her bed to ask her an amazing question, than by going to Fyodor Pavlovitch. But that is just how it is, sometimes, especially in cases like the present one, with the decisions of the most precise and phlegmatic people. Pyotr Ilyitch was by no means phlegmatic at that moment. He remembered all his life how a haunting uneasiness gradually gained possession of him, growing more and more painful and driving him on, against his will. Yet he kept cursing himself, of course, all the way for going to this lady, but 'I will get to the bottom of it, I will! he repeated for the tenth time, grinding his teeth, and he carried out his intention. It was exactly eleven o'clock when he entered Madame Hohlakov's house. He was admitted into the yard pretty quickly, but, in response to his inquiry whether the lady was still up, the porter could give no answer, except that she was usually in bed by that time. 'Ask at the top of the stairs. If the lady wants to receive you, she'll receive you. If she won't, she won't. Pyotr Ilyitch went up, but did not find things so easy here. The footman was unwilling to take in his name, but finally called a maid. Pyotr Ilyitch politely but insistently begged her to inform her lady that an official, living in the town, called Perhotin, had called on particular business, and that if it were not of the greatest importance he would not have ventured to come. 'Tell her in those words, in those words exactly, he asked the girl. She went away. He remained waiting in the entry. Madame Hohlakov herself was already in her bedroom, though not yet asleep. She had felt upset ever since Mitya's visit, and had a presentiment that she would not get through the night without the sick headache which always, with her, followed such excitement. She was surprised on hearing the announcement from the maid. She irritably declined to see him, however, though the unexpected visit at such an hour, of an 'official living in the town, who was a total stranger, roused her feminine curiosity intensely. But this time Pyotr Ilyitch was as obstinate as a mule. He begged the maid most earnestly to take another message in these very words 'That he had come on business of the greatest importance, and that Madame Hohlakov might have cause to regret it later, if she refused to see him now. 'I plunged headlong, he described it afterwards. The maid, gazing at him in amazement, went to take his message again. Madame Hohlakov was impressed. She thought a little, asked what he looked like, and learned that he was 'very well dressed, young and so polite. We may note, parenthetically, that Pyotr Ilyitch was a rather goodlooking young man, and well aware of the fact. Madame Hohlakov made up her mind to see him. She was in her dressinggown and slippers, but she flung a black shawl over her shoulders. 'The official was asked to walk into the drawingroom, the very room in which Mitya had been received shortly before. The lady came to meet her visitor, with a sternly inquiring countenance, and, without asking him to sit down, began at once with the question 'What do you want? 'I have ventured to disturb you, madam, on a matter concerning our common acquaintance, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov, Perhotin began. But he had hardly uttered the name, when the lady's face showed signs of acute irritation. She almost shrieked, and interrupted him in a fury 'How much longer am I to be worried by that awful man? she cried hysterically. 'How dare you, sir, how could you venture to disturb a lady who is a stranger to you, in her own house at such an hour!... And to force yourself upon her to talk of a man who came here, to this very drawingroom, only three hours ago, to murder me, and went stamping out of the room, as no one would go out of a decent house. Let me tell you, sir, that I shall lodge a complaint against you, that I will not let it pass. Kindly leave me at once.... I am a mother.... I ... I 'Murder! then he tried to murder you, too? 'Why, has he killed somebody else? Madame Hohlakov asked impulsively. 'If you would kindly listen, madam, for half a moment, I'll explain it all in a couple of words, answered Perhotin, firmly. 'At five o'clock this afternoon Dmitri Fyodorovitch borrowed ten roubles from me, and I know for a fact he had no money. Yet at nine o'clock, he came to see me with a bundle of hundredrouble notes in his hand, about two or three thousand roubles. His hands and face were all covered with blood, and he looked like a madman. When I asked him where he had got so much money, he answered that he had just received it from you, that you had given him a sum of three thousand to go to the goldmines.... Madame Hohlakov's face assumed an expression of intense and painful excitement. 'Good God! He must have killed his old father! she cried, clasping her hands. 'I have never given him money, never! Oh, run, run!... Don't say another word! Save the old man ... run to his father ... run! 'Excuse me, madam, then you did not give him money? You remember for a fact that you did not give him any money? 'No, I didn't, I didn't! I refused to give it him, for he could not appreciate it. He ran out in a fury, stamping. He rushed at me, but I slipped away.... And let me tell you, as I wish to hide nothing from you now, that he positively spat at me. Can you fancy that! But why are we standing? Ah, sit down. 'Excuse me, I.... 'Or better run, run, you must run and save the poor old man from an awful death! 'But if he has killed him already? 'Ah, good heavens, yes! Then what are we to do now? What do you think we must do now? Meantime she had made Pyotr Ilyitch sit down and sat down herself, facing him. Briefly, but fairly clearly, Pyotr Ilyitch told her the history of the affair, that part of it at least which he had himself witnessed. He described, too, his visit to Fenya, and told her about the pestle. All these details produced an overwhelming effect on the distracted lady, who kept uttering shrieks, and covering her face with her hands.... 'Would you believe it, I foresaw all this! I have that special faculty, whatever I imagine comes to pass. And how often I've looked at that awful man and always thought, that man will end by murdering me. And now it's happened ... that is, if he hasn't murdered me, but only his own father, it's only because the finger of God preserved me, and what's more, he was ashamed to murder me because, in this very place, I put the holy ikon from the relics of the holy martyr, Saint Varvara, on his neck.... And to think how near I was to death at that minute, I went close up to him and he stretched out his neck to me!... Do you know, Pyotr Ilyitch (I think you said your name was Pyotr Ilyitch), I don't believe in miracles, but that ikon and this unmistakable miracle with me nowthat shakes me, and I'm ready to believe in anything you like. Have you heard about Father Zossima?... But I don't know what I'm saying ... and only fancy, with the ikon on his neck he spat at me.... He only spat, it's true, he didn't murder me and ... he dashed away! But what shall we do, what must we do now? What do you think? Pyotr Ilyitch got up, and announced that he was going straight to the police captain, to tell him all about it, and leave him to do what he thought fit. 'Oh, he's an excellent man, excellent! Mihail Makarovitch, I know him. Of course, he's the person to go to. How practical you are, Pyotr Ilyitch! How well you've thought of everything! I should never have thought of it in your place! 'Especially as I know the police captain very well, too, observed Pyotr Ilyitch, who still continued to stand, and was obviously anxious to escape as quickly as possible from the impulsive lady, who would not let him say goodby and go away. 'And be sure, be sure, she prattled on, 'to come back and tell me what you see there, and what you find out ... what comes to light ... how they'll try him ... and what he's condemned to.... Tell me, we have no capital punishment, have we? But be sure to come, even if it's at three o'clock at night, at four, at halfpast four.... Tell them to wake me, to wake me, to shake me, if I don't get up.... But, good heavens, I shan't sleep! But wait, hadn't I better come with you? 'Nno. But if you would write three lines with your own hand, stating that you did not give Dmitri Fyodorovitch money, it might, perhaps, be of use ... in case it's needed.... 'To be sure! Madame Hohlakov skipped, delighted, to her bureau. 'And you know I'm simply struck, amazed at your resourcefulness, your good sense in such affairs. Are you in the service here? I'm delighted to think that you're in the service here! And still speaking, she scribbled on half a sheet of notepaper the following lines I've never in my life lent to that unhappy man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov (for, in spite of all, he is unhappy), three thousand roubles today. I've never given him money, never That I swear by all that's holy! K. HOHLAKOV. 'Here's the note! she turned quickly to Pyotr Ilyitch. 'Go, save him. It's a noble deed on your part! And she made the sign of the cross three times over him. She ran out to accompany him to the passage. 'How grateful I am to you! You can't think how grateful I am to you for having come to me, first. How is it I haven't met you before? I shall feel flattered at seeing you at my house in the future. How delightful it is that you are living here!... Such precision! Such practical ability!... They must appreciate you, they must understand you. If there's anything I can do, believe me ... oh, I love young people! I'm in love with young people! The younger generation are the one prop of our suffering country. Her one hope.... Oh, go, go!... But Pyotr Ilyitch had already run away or she would not have let him go so soon. Yet Madame Hohlakov had made a rather agreeable impression on him, which had somewhat softened his anxiety at being drawn into such an unpleasant affair. Tastes differ, as we all know. 'She's by no means so elderly, he thought, feeling pleased, 'on the contrary I should have taken her for her daughter. As for Madame Hohlakov, she was simply enchanted by the young man. 'Such sense! such exactness! in so young a man! in our day! and all that with such manners and appearance! People say the young people of today are no good for anything, but here's an example! etc. So she simply forgot this 'dreadful affair, and it was only as she was getting into bed, that, suddenly recalling 'how near death she had been, she exclaimed 'Ah, it is awful, awful! But she fell at once into a sound, sweet sleep. I would not, however, have dwelt on such trivial and irrelevant details, if this eccentric meeting of the young official with the by no means elderly widow had not subsequently turned out to be the foundation of the whole career of that practical and precise young man. His story is remembered to this day with amazement in our town, and I shall perhaps have something to say about it, when I have finished my long history of the Brothers Karamazov. Our police captain, Mihail Makarovitch Makarov, a retired lieutenant colonel, was a widower and an excellent man. He had only come to us three years previously, but had won general esteem, chiefly because he 'knew how to keep society together. He was never without visitors, and could not have got on without them. Some one or other was always dining with him he never sat down to table without guests. He gave regular dinners, too, on all sorts of occasions, sometimes most surprising ones. Though the fare was not recherch, it was abundant. The fishpies were excellent, and the wine made up in quantity for what it lacked in quality. The first room his guests entered was a wellfitted billiardroom, with pictures of English racehorses, in black frames on the walls, an essential decoration, as we all know, for a bachelor's billiardroom. There was cardplaying every evening at his house, if only at one table. But at frequent intervals, all the society of our town, with the mammas and young ladies, assembled at his house to dance. Though Mihail Makarovitch was a widower, he did not live alone. His widowed daughter lived with him, with her two unmarried daughters, grownup girls, who had finished their education. They were of agreeable appearance and lively character, and though every one knew they would have no dowry, they attracted all the young men of fashion to their grandfather's house. Mihail Makarovitch was by no means very efficient in his work, though he performed his duties no worse than many others. To speak plainly, he was a man of rather narrow education. His understanding of the limits of his administrative power could not always be relied upon. It was not so much that he failed to grasp certain reforms enacted during the present reign, as that he made conspicuous blunders in his interpretation of them. This was not from any special lack of intelligence, but from carelessness, for he was always in too great a hurry to go into the subject. 'I have the heart of a soldier rather than of a civilian, he used to say of himself. He had not even formed a definite idea of the fundamental principles of the reforms connected with the emancipation of the serfs, and only picked it up, so to speak, from year to year, involuntarily increasing his knowledge by practice. And yet he was himself a landowner. Pyotr Ilyitch knew for certain that he would meet some of Mihail Makarovitch's visitors there that evening, but he didn't know which. As it happened, at that moment the prosecutor, and Varvinsky, our district doctor, a young man, who had only just come to us from Petersburg after taking a brilliant degree at the Academy of Medicine, were playing whist at the police captain's. Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor (he was really the deputy prosecutor, but we always called him the prosecutor), was rather a peculiar man, of about five and thirty, inclined to be consumptive, and married to a fat and childless woman. He was vain and irritable, though he had a good intellect, and even a kind heart. It seemed that all that was wrong with him was that he had a better opinion of himself than his ability warranted. And that made him seem constantly uneasy. He had, moreover, certain higher, even artistic, leanings, towards psychology, for instance, a special study of the human heart, a special knowledge of the criminal and his crime. He cherished a grievance on this ground, considering that he had been passed over in the service, and being firmly persuaded that in higher spheres he had not been properly appreciated, and had enemies. In gloomy moments he even threatened to give up his post, and practice as a barrister in criminal cases. The unexpected Karamazov case agitated him profoundly 'It was a case that might well be talked about all over Russia. But I am anticipating. Nikolay Parfenovitch Nelyudov, the young investigating lawyer, who had only come from Petersburg two months before, was sitting in the next room with the young ladies. People talked about it afterwards and wondered that all the gentlemen should, as though intentionally, on the evening of 'the crime have been gathered together at the house of the executive authority. Yet it was perfectly simple and happened quite naturally. Ippolit Kirillovitch's wife had had toothache for the last two days, and he was obliged to go out to escape from her groans. The doctor, from the very nature of his being, could not spend an evening except at cards. Nikolay Parfenovitch Nelyudov had been intending for three days past to drop in that evening at Mihail Makarovitch's, so to speak casually, so as slyly to startle the eldest granddaughter, Olga Mihailovna, by showing that he knew her secret, that he knew it was her birthday, and that she was trying to conceal it on purpose, so as not to be obliged to give a dance. He anticipated a great deal of merriment, many playful jests about her age, and her being afraid to reveal it, about his knowing her secret and telling everybody, and so on. The charming young man was a great adept at such teasing the ladies had christened him 'the naughty man, and he seemed to be delighted at the name. He was extremely wellbred, however, of good family, education and feelings, and, though leading a life of pleasure, his sallies were always innocent and in good taste. He was short, and delicatelooking. On his white, slender, little fingers he always wore a number of big, glittering rings. When he was engaged in his official duties, he always became extraordinarily grave, as though realizing his position and the sanctity of the obligations laid upon him. He had a special gift for mystifying murderers and other criminals of the peasant class during interrogation, and if he did not win their respect, he certainly succeeded in arousing their wonder. Pyotr Ilyitch was simply dumbfounded when he went into the police captain's. He saw instantly that every one knew. They had positively thrown down their cards, all were standing up and talking. Even Nikolay Parfenovitch had left the young ladies and run in, looking strenuous and ready for action. Pyotr Ilyitch was met with the astounding news that old Fyodor Pavlovitch really had been murdered that evening in his own house, murdered and robbed. The news had only just reached them in the following manner. Marfa Ignatyevna, the wife of old Grigory, who had been knocked senseless near the fence, was sleeping soundly in her bed and might well have slept till morning after the draught she had taken. But, all of a sudden she waked up, no doubt roused by a fearful epileptic scream from Smerdyakov, who was lying in the next room unconscious. That scream always preceded his fits, and always terrified and upset Marfa Ignatyevna. She could never get accustomed to it. She jumped up and ran halfawake to Smerdyakov's room. But it was dark there, and she could only hear the invalid beginning to gasp and struggle. Then Marfa Ignatyevna herself screamed out and was going to call her husband, but suddenly realized that when she had got up, he was not beside her in bed. She ran back to the bedstead and began groping with her hands, but the bed was really empty. Then he must have gone outwhere? She ran to the steps and timidly called him. She got no answer, of course, but she caught the sound of groans far away in the garden in the darkness. She listened. The groans were repeated, and it was evident they came from the garden. 'Good Lord! Just as it was with Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya! she thought distractedly. She went timidly down the steps and saw that the gate into the garden was open. 'He must be out there, poor dear, she thought. She went up to the gate and all at once she distinctly heard Grigory calling her by name, 'Marfa! Marfa! in a weak, moaning, dreadful voice. 'Lord, preserve us from harm! Marfa Ignatyevna murmured, and ran towards the voice, and that was how she found Grigory. But she found him not by the fence where he had been knocked down, but about twenty paces off. It appeared later, that he had crawled away on coming to himself, and probably had been a long time getting so far, losing consciousness several times. She noticed at once that he was covered with blood, and screamed at the top of her voice. Grigory was muttering incoherently 'He has murdered ... his father murdered.... Why scream, silly ... run ... fetch some one.... But Marfa continued screaming, and seeing that her master's window was open and that there was a candle alight in the window, she ran there and began calling Fyodor Pavlovitch. But peeping in at the window, she saw a fearful sight. Her master was lying on his back, motionless, on the floor. His lightcolored dressinggown and white shirt were soaked with blood. The candle on the table brightly lighted up the blood and the motionless dead face of Fyodor Pavlovitch. Terrorstricken, Marfa rushed away from the window, ran out of the garden, drew the bolt of the big gate and ran headlong by the back way to the neighbor, Marya Kondratyevna. Both mother and daughter were asleep, but they waked up at Marfa's desperate and persistent screaming and knocking at the shutter. Marfa, shrieking and screaming incoherently, managed to tell them the main fact, and to beg for assistance. It happened that Foma had come back from his wanderings and was staying the night with them. They got him up immediately and all three ran to the scene of the crime. On the way, Marya Kondratyevna remembered that at about eight o'clock she heard a dreadful scream from their garden, and this was no doubt Grigory's scream, 'Parricide! uttered when he caught hold of Mitya's leg. 'Some one person screamed out and then was silent, Marya Kondratyevna explained as she ran. Running to the place where Grigory lay, the two women with the help of Foma carried him to the lodge. They lighted a candle and saw that Smerdyakov was no better, that he was writhing in convulsions, his eyes fixed in a squint, and that foam was flowing from his lips. They moistened Grigory's forehead with water mixed with vinegar, and the water revived him at once. He asked immediately 'Is the master murdered? Then Foma and both the women ran to the house and saw this time that not only the window, but also the door into the garden was wide open, though Fyodor Pavlovitch had for the last week locked himself in every night and did not allow even Grigory to come in on any pretext. Seeing that door open, they were afraid to go in to Fyodor Pavlovitch 'for fear anything should happen afterwards. And when they returned to Grigory, the old man told them to go straight to the police captain. Marya Kondratyevna ran there and gave the alarm to the whole party at the police captain's. She arrived only five minutes before Pyotr Ilyitch, so that his story came, not as his own surmise and theory, but as the direct confirmation, by a witness, of the theory held by all, as to the identity of the criminal (a theory he had in the bottom of his heart refused to believe till that moment). It was resolved to act with energy. The deputy police inspector of the town was commissioned to take four witnesses, to enter Fyodor Pavlovitch's house and there to open an inquiry on the spot, according to the regular forms, which I will not go into here. The district doctor, a zealous man, new to his work, almost insisted on accompanying the police captain, the prosecutor, and the investigating lawyer. I will note briefly that Fyodor Pavlovitch was found to be quite dead, with his skull battered in. But with what? Most likely with the same weapon with which Grigory had been attacked. And immediately that weapon was found, Grigory, to whom all possible medical assistance was at once given, described in a weak and breaking voice how he had been knocked down. They began looking with a lantern by the fence and found the brass pestle dropped in a most conspicuous place on the garden path. There were no signs of disturbance in the room where Fyodor Pavlovitch was lying. But by the bed, behind the screen, they picked up from the floor a big and thick envelope with the inscription 'A present of three thousand roubles for my angel Grushenka, if she is willing to come. And below had been added by Fyodor Pavlovitch, 'For my little chicken. There were three seals of red sealingwax on the envelope, but it had been torn open and was empty the money had been removed. They found also on the floor a piece of narrow pink ribbon, with which the envelope had been tied up. One piece of Pyotr Ilyitch's evidence made a great impression on the prosecutor and the investigating magistrate, namely, his idea that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would shoot himself before daybreak, that he had resolved to do so, had spoken of it to Ilyitch, had taken the pistols, loaded them before him, written a letter, put it in his pocket, etc. When Pyotr Ilyitch, though still unwilling to believe in it, threatened to tell some one so as to prevent the suicide, Mitya had answered grinning 'You'll be too late. So they must make haste to Mokroe to find the criminal, before he really did shoot himself. 'That's clear, that's clear! repeated the prosecutor in great excitement. 'That's just the way with mad fellows like that 'I shall kill myself to morrow, so I'll make merry till I die!'  The story of how he had bought the wine and provisions excited the prosecutor more than ever. 'Do you remember the fellow that murdered a merchant called Olsufyev, gentlemen? He stole fifteen hundred, went at once to have his hair curled, and then, without even hiding the money, carrying it almost in his hand in the same way, he went off to the girls. All were delayed, however, by the inquiry, the search, and the formalities, etc., in the house of Fyodor Pavlovitch. It all took time and so, two hours before starting, they sent on ahead to Mokroe the officer of the rural police, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch Schmertsov, who had arrived in the town the morning before to get his pay. He was instructed to avoid raising the alarm when he reached Mokroe, but to keep constant watch over the 'criminal till the arrival of the proper authorities, to procure also witnesses for the arrest, police constables, and so on. Mavriky Mavrikyevitch did as he was told, preserving his incognito, and giving no one but his old acquaintance, Trifon Borissovitch, the slightest hint of his secret business. He had spoken to him just before Mitya met the landlord in the balcony, looking for him in the dark, and noticed at once a change in Trifon Borissovitch's face and voice. So neither Mitya nor any one else knew that he was being watched. The box with the pistols had been carried off by Trifon Borissovitch and put in a suitable place. Only after four o'clock, almost at sunrise, all the officials, the police captain, the prosecutor, the investigating lawyer, drove up in two carriages, each drawn by three horses. The doctor remained at Fyodor Pavlovitch's to make a postmortem next day on the body. But he was particularly interested in the condition of the servant, Smerdyakov. 'Such violent and protracted epileptic fits, recurring continually for twentyfour hours, are rarely to be met with, and are of interest to science, he declared enthusiastically to his companions, and as they left they laughingly congratulated him on his find. The prosecutor and the investigating lawyer distinctly remembered the doctor's saying that Smerdyakov could not outlive the night. After these long, but I think necessary explanations, we will return to that moment of our tale at which we broke off. And so Mitya sat looking wildly at the people round him, not understanding what was said to him. Suddenly he got up, flung up his hands, and shouted aloud 'I'm not guilty! I'm not guilty of that blood! I'm not guilty of my father's blood.... I meant to kill him. But I'm not guilty. Not I. But he had hardly said this, before Grushenka rushed from behind the curtain and flung herself at the police captain's feet. 'It was my fault! Mine! My wickedness! she cried, in a heartrending voice, bathed in tears, stretching out her clasped hands towards them. 'He did it through me. I tortured him and drove him to it. I tortured that poor old man that's dead, too, in my wickedness, and brought him to this! It's my fault, mine first, mine most, my fault! 'Yes, it's your fault! You're the chief criminal! You fury! You harlot! You're the most to blame! shouted the police captain, threatening her with his hand. But he was quickly and resolutely suppressed. The prosecutor positively seized hold of him. 'This is absolutely irregular, Mihail Makarovitch! he cried. 'You are positively hindering the inquiry.... You're ruining the case.... he almost gasped. 'Follow the regular course! Follow the regular course! cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, fearfully excited too, 'otherwise it's absolutely impossible!... 'Judge us together! Grushenka cried frantically, still kneeling. 'Punish us together. I will go with him now, if it's to death! 'Grusha, my life, my blood, my holy one! Mitya fell on his knees beside her and held her tight in his arms. 'Don't believe her, he cried, 'she's not guilty of anything, of any blood, of anything! He remembered afterwards that he was forcibly dragged away from her by several men, and that she was led out, and that when he recovered himself he was sitting at the table. Beside him and behind him stood the men with metal plates. Facing him on the other side of the table sat Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer. He kept persuading him to drink a little water out of a glass that stood on the table. 'That will refresh you, that will calm you. Be calm, don't be frightened, he added, extremely politely. Mitya (he remembered it afterwards) became suddenly intensely interested in his big rings, one with an amethyst, and another with a transparent bright yellow stone, of great brilliance. And long afterwards he remembered with wonder how those rings had riveted his attention through all those terrible hours of interrogation, so that he was utterly unable to tear himself away from them and dismiss them, as things that had nothing to do with his position. On Mitya's left side, in the place where Maximov had been sitting at the beginning of the evening, the prosecutor was now seated, and on Mitya's right hand, where Grushenka had been, was a rosycheeked young man in a sort of shabby huntingjacket, with ink and paper before him. This was the secretary of the investigating lawyer, who had brought him with him. The police captain was now standing by the window at the other end of the room, beside Kalganov, who was sitting there. 'Drink some water, said the investigating lawyer softly, for the tenth time. 'I have drunk it, gentlemen, I have ... but ... come, gentlemen, crush me, punish me, decide my fate! cried Mitya, staring with terribly fixed wide open eyes at the investigating lawyer. 'So you positively declare that you are not guilty of the death of your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch? asked the investigating lawyer, softly but insistently. 'I am not guilty. I am guilty of the blood of another old man but not of my father's. And I weep for it! I killed, I killed the old man and knocked him down.... But it's hard to have to answer for that murder with another, a terrible murder of which I am not guilty.... It's a terrible accusation, gentlemen, a knockdown blow. But who has killed my father, who has killed him? Who can have killed him if I didn't? It's marvelous, extraordinary, impossible. 'Yes, who can have killed him? the investigating lawyer was beginning, but Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, glancing at him, addressed Mitya. 'You need not worry yourself about the old servant, Grigory Vassilyevitch. He is alive, he has recovered, and in spite of the terrible blows inflicted, according to his own and your evidence, by you, there seems no doubt that he will live, so the doctor says, at least. 'Alive? He's alive? cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. His face beamed. 'Lord, I thank Thee for the miracle Thou has wrought for me, a sinner and evildoer. That's an answer to my prayer. I've been praying all night. And he crossed himself three times. He was almost breathless. 'So from this Grigory we have received such important evidence concerning you, that The prosecutor would have continued, but Mitya suddenly jumped up from his chair. 'One minute, gentlemen, for God's sake, one minute I will run to her 'Excuse me, at this moment it's quite impossible, Nikolay Parfenovitch almost shrieked. He, too, leapt to his feet. Mitya was seized by the men with the metal plates, but he sat down of his own accord.... 'Gentlemen, what a pity! I wanted to see her for one minute only I wanted to tell her that it has been washed away, it has gone, that blood that was weighing on my heart all night, and that I am not a murderer now! Gentlemen, she is my betrothed! he said ecstatically and reverently, looking round at them all. 'Oh, thank you, gentlemen! Oh, in one minute you have given me new life, new heart!... That old man used to carry me in his arms, gentlemen. He used to wash me in the tub when I was a baby three years old, abandoned by every one, he was like a father to me!... 'And so you the investigating lawyer began. 'Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more, interposed Mitya, putting his elbows on the table and covering his face with his hands. 'Let me have a moment to think, let me breathe, gentlemen. All this is horribly upsetting, horribly. A man is not a drum, gentlemen! 'Drink a little more water, murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch. Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed. His eyes were confident. He seemed completely transformed in a moment. His whole bearing was changed he was once more the equal of these men, with all of whom he was acquainted, as though they had all met the day before, when nothing had happened, at some social gathering. We may note in passing that, on his first arrival, Mitya had been made very welcome at the police captain's, but later, during the last month especially, Mitya had hardly called at all, and when the police captain met him, in the street, for instance, Mitya noticed that he frowned and only bowed out of politeness. His acquaintance with the prosecutor was less intimate, though he sometimes paid his wife, a nervous and fanciful lady, visits of politeness, without quite knowing why, and she always received him graciously and had, for some reason, taken an interest in him up to the last. He had not had time to get to know the investigating lawyer, though he had met him and talked to him twice, each time about the fair sex. 'You're a most skillful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch, cried Mitya, laughing gayly, 'but I can help you now. Oh, gentlemen, I feel like a new man, and don't be offended at my addressing you so simply and directly. I'm rather drunk, too, I'll tell you that frankly. I believe I've had the honor and pleasure of meeting you, Nikolay Parfenovitch, at my kinsman Misov's. Gentlemen, gentlemen, I don't pretend to be on equal terms with you. I understand, of course, in what character I am sitting before you. Oh, of course, there's a horrible suspicion ... hanging over me ... if Grigory has given evidence.... A horrible suspicion! It's awful, awful, I understand that! But to business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we will make an end of it in one moment for, listen, listen, gentlemen! Since I know I'm innocent, we can put an end to it in a minute. Can't we? Can't we? Mitya spoke much and quickly, nervously and effusively, as though he positively took his listeners to be his best friends. 'So, for the present, we will write that you absolutely deny the charge brought against you, said Nikolay Parfenovitch, impressively, and bending down to the secretary he dictated to him in an undertone what to write. 'Write it down? You want to write that down? Well, write it I consent, I give my full consent, gentlemen, only ... do you see?... Stay, stay, write this. Of disorderly conduct I am guilty, of violence on a poor old man I am guilty. And there is something else at the bottom of my heart, of which I am guilty, toobut that you need not write down (he turned suddenly to the secretary) 'that's my personal life, gentlemen, that doesn't concern you, the bottom of my heart, that's to say.... But of the murder of my old father I'm not guilty. That's a wild idea. It's quite a wild idea!... I will prove you that and you'll be convinced directly.... You will laugh, gentlemen. You'll laugh yourselves at your suspicion!... 'Be calm, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, said the investigating lawyer evidently trying to allay Mitya's excitement by his own composure. 'Before we go on with our inquiry, I should like, if you will consent to answer, to hear you confirm the statement that you disliked your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, that you were involved in continual disputes with him. Here at least, a quarter of an hour ago, you exclaimed that you wanted to kill him 'I didn't kill him,' you said, 'but I wanted to kill him.'  'Did I exclaim that? Ach, that may be so, gentlemen! Yes, unhappily, I did want to kill him ... many times I wanted to ... unhappily, unhappily! 'You wanted to. Would you consent to explain what motives precisely led you to such a sentiment of hatred for your parent? 'What is there to explain, gentlemen? Mitya shrugged his shoulders sullenly, looking down. 'I have never concealed my feelings. All the town knows about itevery one knows in the tavern. Only lately I declared them in Father Zossima's cell.... And the very same day, in the evening I beat my father. I nearly killed him, and I swore I'd come again and kill him, before witnesses.... Oh, a thousand witnesses! I've been shouting it aloud for the last month, any one can tell you that!... The fact stares you in the face, it speaks for itself, it cries aloud, but feelings, gentlemen, feelings are another matter. You see, gentlemenMitya frowned'it seems to me that about feelings you've no right to question me. I know that you are bound by your office, I quite understand that, but that's my affair, my private, intimate affair, yet ... since I haven't concealed my feelings in the past ... in the tavern, for instance, I've talked to every one, so ... so I won't make a secret of it now. You see, I understand, gentlemen, that there are terrible facts against me in this business. I told every one that I'd kill him, and now, all of a sudden, he's been killed. So it must have been me! Ha ha! I can make allowances for you, gentlemen, I can quite make allowances. I'm struck all of a heap myself, for who can have murdered him, if not I? That's what it comes to, isn't it? If not I, who can it be, who? Gentlemen, I want to know, I insist on knowing! he exclaimed suddenly. 'Where was he murdered? How was he murdered? How, and with what? Tell me, he asked quickly, looking at the two lawyers. 'We found him in his study, lying on his back on the floor, with his head battered in, said the prosecutor. 'That's horrible! Mitya shuddered and, putting his elbows on the table, hid his face in his right hand. 'We will continue, interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'So what was it that impelled you to this sentiment of hatred? You have asserted in public, I believe, that it was based upon jealousy? 'Well, yes, jealousy. And not only jealousy. 'Disputes about money? 'Yes, about money, too. 'There was a dispute about three thousand roubles, I think, which you claimed as part of your inheritance? 'Three thousand! More, more, cried Mitya hotly 'more than six thousand, more than ten, perhaps. I told every one so, shouted it at them. But I made up my mind to let it go at three thousand. I was desperately in need of that three thousand ... so the bundle of notes for three thousand that I knew he kept under his pillow, ready for Grushenka, I considered as simply stolen from me. Yes, gentlemen, I looked upon it as mine, as my own property.... The prosecutor looked significantly at the investigating lawyer, and had time to wink at him on the sly. 'We will return to that subject later, said the lawyer promptly. 'You will allow us to note that point and write it down that you looked upon that money as your own property? 'Write it down, by all means. I know that's another fact that tells against me, but I'm not afraid of facts and I tell them against myself. Do you hear? Do you know, gentlemen, you take me for a different sort of man from what I am, he added, suddenly gloomy and dejected. 'You have to deal with a man of honor, a man of the highest honor above alldon't lose sight of ita man who's done a lot of nasty things, but has always been, and still is, honorable at bottom, in his inner being. I don't know how to express it. That's just what's made me wretched all my life, that I yearned to be honorable, that I was, so to say, a martyr to a sense of honor, seeking for it with a lantern, with the lantern of Diogenes, and yet all my life I've been doing filthy things like all of us, gentlemen ... that is like me alone. That was a mistake, like me alone, me alone!... Gentlemen, my head aches ... His brows contracted with pain. 'You see, gentlemen, I couldn't bear the look of him, there was something in him ignoble, impudent, trampling on everything sacred, something sneering and irreverent, loathsome, loathsome. But now that he's dead, I feel differently. 'How do you mean? 'I don't feel differently, but I wish I hadn't hated him so. 'You feel penitent? 'No, not penitent, don't write that. I'm not much good myself, I'm not very beautiful, so I had no right to consider him repulsive. That's what I mean. Write that down, if you like. Saying this Mitya became very mournful. He had grown more and more gloomy as the inquiry continued. At that moment another unexpected scene followed. Though Grushenka had been removed, she had not been taken far away, only into the room next but one from the blue room, in which the examination was proceeding. It was a little room with one window, next beyond the large room in which they had danced and feasted so lavishly. She was sitting there with no one by her but Maximov, who was terribly depressed, terribly scared, and clung to her side, as though for security. At their door stood one of the peasants with a metal plate on his breast. Grushenka was crying, and suddenly her grief was too much for her, she jumped up, flung up her arms and, with a loud wail of sorrow, rushed out of the room to him, to her Mitya, and so unexpectedly that they had not time to stop her. Mitya, hearing her cry, trembled, jumped up, and with a yell rushed impetuously to meet her, not knowing what he was doing. But they were not allowed to come together, though they saw one another. He was seized by the arms. He struggled, and tried to tear himself away. It took three or four men to hold him. She was seized too, and he saw her stretching out her arms to him, crying aloud as they carried her away. When the scene was over, he came to himself again, sitting in the same place as before, opposite the investigating lawyer, and crying out to them 'What do you want with her? Why do you torment her? She's done nothing, nothing!... The lawyers tried to soothe him. About ten minutes passed like this. At last Mihail Makarovitch, who had been absent, came hurriedly into the room, and said in a loud and excited voice to the prosecutor 'She's been removed, she's downstairs. Will you allow me to say one word to this unhappy man, gentlemen? In your presence, gentlemen, in your presence. 'By all means, Mihail Makarovitch, answered the investigating lawyer. 'In the present case we have nothing against it. 'Listen, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear fellow, began the police captain, and there was a look of warm, almost fatherly, feeling for the luckless prisoner on his excited face. 'I took your Agrafena Alexandrovna downstairs myself, and confided her to the care of the landlord's daughters, and that old fellow Maximov is with her all the time. And I soothed her, do you hear? I soothed and calmed her. I impressed on her that you have to clear yourself, so she mustn't hinder you, must not depress you, or you may lose your head and say the wrong thing in your evidence. In fact, I talked to her and she understood. She's a sensible girl, my boy, a goodhearted girl, she would have kissed my old hands, begging help for you. She sent me herself, to tell you not to worry about her. And I must go, my dear fellow, I must go and tell her that you are calm and comforted about her. And so you must be calm, do you understand? I was unfair to her she is a Christian soul, gentlemen, yes, I tell you, she's a gentle soul, and not to blame for anything. So what am I to tell her, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Will you sit quiet or not? The goodnatured police captain said a great deal that was irregular, but Grushenka's suffering, a fellow creature's suffering, touched his good natured heart, and tears stood in his eyes. Mitya jumped up and rushed towards him. 'Forgive me, gentlemen, oh, allow me, allow me! he cried. 'You've the heart of an angel, an angel, Mihail Makarovitch, I thank you for her. I will, I will be calm, cheerful, in fact. Tell her, in the kindness of your heart, that I am cheerful, quite cheerful, that I shall be laughing in a minute, knowing that she has a guardian angel like you. I shall have done with all this directly, and as soon as I'm free, I'll be with her, she'll see, let her wait. Gentlemen, he said, turning to the two lawyers, 'now I'll open my whole soul to you I'll pour out everything. We'll finish this off directly, finish it off gayly. We shall laugh at it in the end, shan't we? But, gentlemen, that woman is the queen of my heart. Oh, let me tell you that. That one thing I'll tell you now.... I see I'm with honorable men. She is my light, she is my holy one, and if only you knew! Did you hear her cry, 'I'll go to death with you'? And what have I, a penniless beggar, done for her? Why such love for me? How can a clumsy, ugly brute like me, with my ugly face, deserve such love, that she is ready to go to exile with me? And how she fell down at your feet for my sake, just now!... and yet she's proud and has done nothing! How can I help adoring her, how can I help crying out and rushing to her as I did just now? Gentlemen, forgive me! But now, now I am comforted. And he sank back in his chair and, covering his face with his hands, burst into tears. But they were happy tears. He recovered himself instantly. The old police captain seemed much pleased, and the lawyers also. They felt that the examination was passing into a new phase. When the police captain went out, Mitya was positively gay. 'Now, gentlemen, I am at your disposal, entirely at your disposal. And if it were not for all these trivial details, we should understand one another in a minute. I'm at those details again. I'm at your disposal, gentlemen, but I declare that we must have mutual confidence, you in me and I in you, or there'll be no end to it. I speak in your interests. To business, gentlemen, to business, and don't rummage in my soul don't tease me with trifles, but only ask me about facts and what matters, and I will satisfy you at once. And damn the details! So spoke Mitya. The interrogation began again. 'You don't know how you encourage us, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, by your readiness to answer, said Nikolay Parfenovitch, with an animated air, and obvious satisfaction beaming in his very prominent, shortsighted, light gray eyes, from which he had removed his spectacles a moment before. 'And you have made a very just remark about the mutual confidence, without which it is sometimes positively impossible to get on in cases of such importance, if the suspected party really hopes and desires to defend himself and is in a position to do so. We, on our side, will do everything in our power, and you can see for yourself how we are conducting the case. You approve, Ippolit Kirillovitch? He turned to the prosecutor. 'Oh, undoubtedly, replied the prosecutor. His tone was somewhat cold, compared with Nikolay Parfenovitch's impulsiveness. I will note once for all that Nikolay Parfenovitch, who had but lately arrived among us, had from the first felt marked respect for Ippolit Kirillovitch, our prosecutor, and had become almost his bosom friend. He was almost the only person who put implicit faith in Ippolit Kirillovitch's extraordinary talents as a psychologist and orator and in the justice of his grievance. He had heard of him in Petersburg. On the other hand, young Nikolay Parfenovitch was the only person in the whole world whom our 'unappreciated prosecutor genuinely liked. On their way to Mokroe they had time to come to an understanding about the present case. And now as they sat at the table, the sharpwitted junior caught and interpreted every indication on his senior colleague's facehalf a word, a glance, or a wink. 'Gentlemen, only let me tell my own story and don't interrupt me with trivial questions and I'll tell you everything in a moment, said Mitya excitedly. 'Excellent! Thank you. But before we proceed to listen to your communication, will you allow me to inquire as to another little fact of great interest to us? I mean the ten roubles you borrowed yesterday at about five o'clock on the security of your pistols, from your friend, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin. 'I pledged them, gentlemen. I pledged them for ten roubles. What more? That's all about it. As soon as I got back to town I pledged them. 'You got back to town? Then you had been out of town? 'Yes, I went a journey of forty versts into the country. Didn't you know? The prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch exchanged glances. 'Well, how would it be if you began your story with a systematic description of all you did yesterday, from the morning onwards? Allow us, for instance, to inquire why you were absent from the town, and just when you left and when you came backall those facts. 'You should have asked me like that from the beginning, cried Mitya, laughing aloud, 'and, if you like, we won't begin from yesterday, but from the morning of the day before then you'll understand how, why, and where I went. I went the day before yesterday, gentlemen, to a merchant of the town, called Samsonov, to borrow three thousand roubles from him on safe security. It was a pressing matter, gentlemen, it was a sudden necessity. 'Allow me to interrupt you, the prosecutor put in politely. 'Why were you in such pressing need for just that sum, three thousand? 'Oh, gentlemen, you needn't go into details, how, when and why, and why just so much money, and not so much, and all that rigmarole. Why, it'll run to three volumes, and then you'll want an epilogue! Mitya said all this with the goodnatured but impatient familiarity of a man who is anxious to tell the whole truth and is full of the best intentions. 'Gentlemen!he corrected himself hurriedly'don't be vexed with me for my restiveness, I beg you again. Believe me once more, I feel the greatest respect for you and understand the true position of affairs. Don't think I'm drunk. I'm quite sober now. And, besides, being drunk would be no hindrance. It's with me, you know, like the saying 'When he is sober, he is a fool when he is drunk, he is a wise man.' Ha ha! But I see, gentlemen, it's not the proper thing to make jokes to you, till we've had our explanation, I mean. And I've my own dignity to keep up, too. I quite understand the difference for the moment. I am, after all, in the position of a criminal, and so, far from being on equal terms with you. And it's your business to watch me. I can't expect you to pat me on the head for what I did to Grigory, for one can't break old men's heads with impunity. I suppose you'll put me away for him for six months, or a year perhaps, in a house of correction. I don't know what the punishment isbut it will be without loss of the rights of my rank, without loss of my rank, won't it? So you see, gentlemen, I understand the distinction between us.... But you must see that you could puzzle God Himself with such questions. 'How did you step? Where did you step? When did you step? And on what did you step?' I shall get mixed up, if you go on like this, and you will put it all down against me. And what will that lead to? To nothing! And even if it's nonsense I'm talking now, let me finish, and you, gentlemen, being men of honor and refinement, will forgive me! I'll finish by asking you, gentlemen, to drop that conventional method of questioning. I mean, beginning from some miserable trifle, how I got up, what I had for breakfast, how I spat, and where I spat, and so distracting the attention of the criminal, suddenly stun him with an overwhelming question, 'Whom did you murder? Whom did you rob?' Ha ha! That's your regulation method, that's where all your cunning comes in. You can put peasants off their guard like that, but not me. I know the tricks. I've been in the service, too. Ha ha ha! You're not angry, gentlemen? You forgive my impertinence? he cried, looking at them with a goodnature that was almost surprising. 'It's only Mitya Karamazov, you know, so you can overlook it. It would be inexcusable in a sensible man but you can forgive it in Mitya. Ha ha! Nikolay Parfenovitch listened, and laughed too. Though the prosecutor did not laugh, he kept his eyes fixed keenly on Mitya, as though anxious not to miss the least syllable, the slightest movement, the smallest twitch of any feature of his face. 'That's how we have treated you from the beginning, said Nikolay Parfenovitch, still laughing. 'We haven't tried to put you out by asking how you got up in the morning and what you had for breakfast. We began, indeed, with questions of the greatest importance. 'I understand. I saw it and appreciated it, and I appreciate still more your present kindness to me, an unprecedented kindness, worthy of your noble hearts. We three here are gentlemen, and let everything be on the footing of mutual confidence between educated, wellbred people, who have the common bond of noble birth and honor. In any case, allow me to look upon you as my best friends at this moment of my life, at this moment when my honor is assailed. That's no offense to you, gentlemen, is it? 'On the contrary. You've expressed all that so well, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, Nikolay Parfenovitch answered with dignified approbation. 'And enough of those trivial questions, gentlemen, all those tricky questions! cried Mitya enthusiastically. 'Or there's simply no knowing where we shall get to! Is there? 'I will follow your sensible advice entirely, the prosecutor interposed, addressing Mitya. 'I don't withdraw my question, however. It is now vitally important for us to know exactly why you needed that sum, I mean precisely three thousand. 'Why I needed it?... Oh, for one thing and another.... Well, it was to pay a debt. 'A debt to whom? 'That I absolutely refuse to answer, gentlemen. Not because I couldn't, or because I shouldn't dare, or because it would be damaging, for it's all a paltry matter and absolutely trifling, butI won't, because it's a matter of principle that's my private life, and I won't allow any intrusion into my private life. That's my principle. Your question has no bearing on the case, and whatever has nothing to do with the case is my private affair. I wanted to pay a debt. I wanted to pay a debt of honor but to whom I won't say. 'Allow me to make a note of that, said the prosecutor. 'By all means. Write down that I won't say, that I won't. Write that I should think it dishonorable to say. Ech! you can write it you've nothing else to do with your time. 'Allow me to caution you, sir, and to remind you once more, if you are unaware of it, the prosecutor began, with a peculiar and stern impressiveness, 'that you have a perfect right not to answer the questions put to you now, and we on our side have no right to extort an answer from you, if you decline to give it for one reason or another. That is entirely a matter for your personal decision. But it is our duty, on the other hand, in such cases as the present, to explain and set before you the degree of injury you will be doing yourself by refusing to give this or that piece of evidence. After which I will beg you to continue. 'Gentlemen, I'm not angry ... I ... Mitya muttered in a rather disconcerted tone. 'Well, gentlemen, you see, that Samsonov to whom I went then ... We will, of course, not reproduce his account of what is known to the reader already. Mitya was impatiently anxious not to omit the slightest detail. At the same time he was in a hurry to get it over. But as he gave his evidence it was written down, and therefore they had continually to pull him up. Mitya disliked this, but submitted got angry, though still goodhumoredly. He did, it is true, exclaim, from time to time, 'Gentlemen, that's enough to make an angel out of patience! Or, 'Gentlemen, it's no good your irritating me. But even though he exclaimed he still preserved for a time his genially expansive mood. So he told them how Samsonov had made a fool of him two days before. (He had completely realized by now that he had been fooled.) The sale of his watch for six roubles to obtain money for the journey was something new to the lawyers. They were at once greatly interested, and even, to Mitya's intense indignation, thought it necessary to write the fact down as a secondary confirmation of the circumstance that he had hardly a farthing in his pocket at the time. Little by little Mitya began to grow surly. Then, after describing his journey to see Lyagavy, the night spent in the stifling hut, and so on, he came to his return to the town. Here he began, without being particularly urged, to give a minute account of the agonies of jealousy he endured on Grushenka's account. He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly into the circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya Kondratyevna's house at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and of Smerdyakov's bringing him information. They laid particular stress on this, and noted it down. Of his jealousy he spoke warmly and at length, and though inwardly ashamed at exposing his most intimate feelings to 'public ignominy, so to speak, he evidently overcame his shame in order to tell the truth. The frigid severity, with which the investigating lawyer, and still more the prosecutor, stared intently at him as he told his story, disconcerted him at last considerably. 'That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking nonsense about women only a few days ago, and that sickly prosecutor are not worth my telling this to, he reflected mournfully. 'It's ignominious. 'Be patient, humble, hold thy peace.'  He wound up his reflections with that line. But he pulled himself together to go on again. When he came to telling of his visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his spirits and even wished to tell a little anecdote of that lady which had nothing to do with the case. But the investigating lawyer stopped him, and civilly suggested that he should pass on to 'more essential matters. At last, when he described his despair and told them how, when he left Madame Hohlakov's, he thought that he'd 'get three thousand if he had to murder some one to do it, they stopped him again and noted down that he had 'meant to murder some one. Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he reached the point in his story when he learned that Grushenka had deceived him and had returned from Samsonov's as soon as he left her there, though she had said that she would stay there till midnight. 'If I didn't kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only because I hadn't time, broke from him suddenly at that point in his story. That, too, was carefully written down. Mitya waited gloomily, and was beginning to tell how he ran into his father's garden when the investigating lawyer suddenly stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on the sofa beside him he brought out the brass pestle. 'Do you recognize this object? he asked, showing it to Mitya. 'Oh, yes, he laughed gloomily. 'Of course I recognize it. Let me have a look at it.... Damn it, never mind! 'You have forgotten to mention it, observed the investigating lawyer. 'Hang it all, I shouldn't have concealed it from you. Do you suppose I could have managed without it? It simply escaped my memory. 'Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm yourself with it. 'Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen. And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran. 'But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such a weapon? 'What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off. 'What for, if you had no object? Mitya's wrath flared up. He looked intently at 'the boy and smiled gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more ashamed at having told 'such people the story of his jealousy so sincerely and spontaneously. 'Bother the pestle! broke from him suddenly. 'But still 'Oh, to keep off dogs.... Oh, because it was dark.... In case anything turned up. 'But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you when you went out, since you're afraid of the dark? 'Ugh! damn it all, gentlemen! There's positively no talking to you! cried Mitya, exasperated beyond endurance, and turning to the secretary, crimson with anger, he said quickly, with a note of fury in his voice 'Write down at once ... at once ... 'that I snatched up the pestle to go and kill my father ... Fyodor Pavlovitch ... by hitting him on the head with it!' Well, now are you satisfied, gentlemen? Are your minds relieved? he said, glaring defiantly at the lawyers. 'We quite understand that you made that statement just now through exasperation with us and the questions we put to you, which you consider trivial, though they are, in fact, essential, the prosecutor remarked dryly in reply. 'Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle.... What does one pick things up for at such moments? I don't know what for. I snatched it up and ranthat's all. For to me, gentlemen, passons, or I declare I won't tell you any more. He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hand. He sat sideways to them and gazed at the wall, struggling against a feeling of nausea. He had, in fact, an awful inclination to get up and declare that he wouldn't say another word, 'not if you hang me for it. 'You see, gentlemen, he said at last, with difficulty controlling himself, 'you see. I listen to you and am haunted by a dream.... It's a dream I have sometimes, you know.... I often dream itit's always the same ... that some one is hunting me, some one I'm awfully afraid of ... that he's hunting me in the dark, in the night ... tracking me, and I hide somewhere from him, behind a door or cupboard, hide in a degrading way, and the worst of it is, he always knows where I am, but he pretends not to know where I am on purpose, to prolong my agony, to enjoy my terror.... That's just what you're doing now. It's just like that! 'Is that the sort of thing you dream about? inquired the prosecutor. 'Yes, it is. Don't you want to write it down? said Mitya, with a distorted smile. 'No no need to write it down. But still you do have curious dreams. 'It's not a question of dreams now, gentlementhis is realism, this is real life! I'm a wolf and you're the hunters. Well, hunt him down! 'You are wrong to make such comparisons ... began Nikolay Parfenovitch, with extraordinary softness. 'No, I'm not wrong, not at all! Mitya flared up again, though his outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his heart. He grew more good humored at every word. 'You may not trust a criminal or a man on trial tortured by your questions, but an honorable man, the honorable impulses of the heart (I say that boldly!)no! That you must believe you have no right indeed ... but Be silent, heart, Be patient, humble, hold thy peace. Well, shall I go on? he broke off gloomily. 'If you'll be so kind, answered Nikolay Parfenovitch. Though Mitya spoke sullenly, it was evident that he was trying more than ever not to forget or miss a single detail of his story. He told them how he had leapt over the fence into his father's garden how he had gone up to the window told them all that had passed under the window. Clearly, precisely, distinctly, he described the feelings that troubled him during those moments in the garden when he longed so terribly to know whether Grushenka was with his father or not. But, strange to say, both the lawyers listened now with a sort of awful reserve, looked coldly at him, asked few questions. Mitya could gather nothing from their faces. 'They're angry and offended, he thought. 'Well, bother them! When he described how he made up his mind at last to make the 'signal to his father that Grushenka had come, so that he should open the window, the lawyers paid no attention to the word 'signal, as though they entirely failed to grasp the meaning of the word in this connection so much so, that Mitya noticed it. Coming at last to the moment when, seeing his father peering out of the window, his hatred flared up and he pulled the pestle out of his pocket, he suddenly, as though of design, stopped short. He sat gazing at the wall and was aware that their eyes were fixed upon him. 'Well? said the investigating lawyer. 'You pulled out the weapon and ... and what happened then? 'Then? Why, then I murdered him ... hit him on the head and cracked his skull.... I suppose that's your story. That's it! His eyes suddenly flashed. All his smothered wrath suddenly flamed up with extraordinary violence in his soul. 'Our story? repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'Welland yours? Mitya dropped his eyes and was a long time silent. 'My story, gentlemen? Well, it was like this, he began softly. 'Whether it was some one's tears, or my mother prayed to God, or a good angel kissed me at that instant, I don't know. But the devil was conquered. I rushed from the window and ran to the fence. My father was alarmed and, for the first time, he saw me then, cried out, and sprang back from the window. I remember that very well. I ran across the garden to the fence ... and there Grigory caught me, when I was sitting on the fence. At that point he raised his eyes at last and looked at his listeners. They seemed to be staring at him with perfectly unruffled attention. A sort of paroxysm of indignation seized on Mitya's soul. 'Why, you're laughing at me at this moment, gentlemen! he broke off suddenly. 'What makes you think that? observed Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'You don't believe one wordthat's why! I understand, of course, that I have come to the vital point. The old man's lying there now with his skull broken, while Iafter dramatically describing how I wanted to kill him, and how I snatched up the pestleI suddenly run away from the window. A romance! Poetry! As though one could believe a fellow on his word. Ha ha! You are scoffers, gentlemen! And he swung round on his chair so that it creaked. 'And did you notice, asked the prosecutor suddenly, as though not observing Mitya's excitement, 'did you notice when you ran away from the window, whether the door into the garden was open? 'No, it was not open. 'It was not? 'It was shut. And who could open it? Bah! the door. Wait a bit! he seemed suddenly to bethink himself, and almost with a start 'Why, did you find the door open? 'Yes, it was open. 'Why, who could have opened it if you did not open it yourselves? cried Mitya, greatly astonished. 'The door stood open, and your father's murderer undoubtedly went in at that door, and, having accomplished the crime, went out again by the same door, the prosecutor pronounced deliberately, as though chiseling out each word separately. 'That is perfectly clear. The murder was committed in the room and not through the window that is absolutely certain from the examination that has been made, from the position of the body and everything. There can be no doubt of that circumstance. Mitya was absolutely dumbfounded. 'But that's utterly impossible! he cried, completely at a loss. 'I ... I didn't go in.... I tell you positively, definitely, the door was shut the whole time I was in the garden, and when I ran out of the garden. I only stood at the window and saw him through the window. That's all, that's all.... I remember to the last minute. And if I didn't remember, it would be just the same. I know it, for no one knew the signals except Smerdyakov, and me, and the dead man. And he wouldn't have opened the door to any one in the world without the signals. 'Signals? What signals? asked the prosecutor, with greedy, almost hysterical, curiosity. He instantly lost all trace of his reserve and dignity. He asked the question with a sort of cringing timidity. He scented an important fact of which he had known nothing, and was already filled with dread that Mitya might be unwilling to disclose it. 'So you didn't know! Mitya winked at him with a malicious and mocking smile. 'What if I won't tell you? From whom could you find out? No one knew about the signals except my father, Smerdyakov, and me that was all. Heaven knew, too, but it won't tell you. But it's an interesting fact. There's no knowing what you might build on it. Ha ha! Take comfort, gentlemen, I'll reveal it. You've some foolish idea in your hearts. You don't know the man you have to deal with! You have to do with a prisoner who gives evidence against himself, to his own damage! Yes, for I'm a man of honor and youare not. The prosecutor swallowed this without a murmur. He was trembling with impatience to hear the new fact. Minutely and diffusely Mitya told them everything about the signals invented by Fyodor Pavlovitch for Smerdyakov. He told them exactly what every tap on the window meant, tapped the signals on the table, and when Nikolay Parfenovitch said that he supposed he, Mitya, had tapped the signal 'Grushenka has come, when he tapped to his father, he answered precisely that he had tapped that signal, that 'Grushenka had come. 'So now you can build up your tower, Mitya broke off, and again turned away from them contemptuously. 'So no one knew of the signals but your dead father, you, and the valet Smerdyakov? And no one else? Nikolay Parfenovitch inquired once more. 'Yes. The valet Smerdyakov, and Heaven. Write down about Heaven. That may be of use. Besides, you will need God yourselves. And they had already, of course, begun writing it down. But while they wrote, the prosecutor said suddenly, as though pitching on a new idea 'But if Smerdyakov also knew of these signals and you absolutely deny all responsibility for the death of your father, was it not he, perhaps, who knocked the signal agreed upon, induced your father to open to him, and then ... committed the crime? Mitya turned upon him a look of profound irony and intense hatred. His silent stare lasted so long that it made the prosecutor blink. 'You've caught the fox again, commented Mitya at last 'you've got the beast by the tail. Ha ha! I see through you, Mr. Prosecutor. You thought, of course, that I should jump at that, catch at your prompting, and shout with all my might, 'Aie! it's Smerdyakov he's the murderer.' Confess that's what you thought. Confess, and I'll go on. But the prosecutor did not confess. He held his tongue and waited. 'You're mistaken. I'm not going to shout 'It's Smerdyakov,'  said Mitya. 'And you don't even suspect him? 'Why, do you suspect him? 'He is suspected, too. Mitya fixed his eyes on the floor. 'Joking apart, he brought out gloomily. 'Listen. From the very beginning, almost from the moment when I ran out to you from behind the curtain, I've had the thought of Smerdyakov in my mind. I've been sitting here, shouting that I'm innocent and thinking all the time 'Smerdyakov!' I can't get Smerdyakov out of my head. In fact, I, too, thought of Smerdyakov just now but only for a second. Almost at once I thought, 'No, it's not Smerdyakov.' It's not his doing, gentlemen. 'In that case is there anybody else you suspect? Nikolay Parfenovitch inquired cautiously. 'I don't know any one it could be, whether it's the hand of Heaven or Satan, but ... not Smerdyakov, Mitya jerked out with decision. 'But what makes you affirm so confidently and emphatically that it's not he? 'From my convictionmy impression. Because Smerdyakov is a man of the most abject character and a coward. He's not a coward, he's the epitome of all the cowardice in the world walking on two legs. He has the heart of a chicken. When he talked to me, he was always trembling for fear I should kill him, though I never raised my hand against him. He fell at my feet and blubbered he has kissed these very boots, literally, beseeching me 'not to frighten him.' Do you hear? 'Not to frighten him.' What a thing to say! Why, I offered him money. He's a puling chickensickly, epileptic, weakmindeda child of eight could thrash him. He has no character worth talking about. It's not Smerdyakov, gentlemen. He doesn't care for money he wouldn't take my presents. Besides, what motive had he for murdering the old man? Why, he's very likely his son, you knowhis natural son. Do you know that? 'We have heard that legend. But you are your father's son, too, you know yet you yourself told every one you meant to murder him. 'That's a thrust! And a nasty, mean one, too! I'm not afraid! Oh, gentlemen, isn't it too base of you to say that to my face? It's base, because I told you that myself. I not only wanted to murder him, but I might have done it. And, what's more, I went out of my way to tell you of my own accord that I nearly murdered him. But, you see, I didn't murder him you see, my guardian angel saved methat's what you've not taken into account. And that's why it's so base of you. For I didn't kill him, I didn't kill him! Do you hear, I did not kill him. He was almost choking. He had not been so moved before during the whole interrogation. 'And what has he told you, gentlemenSmerdyakov, I mean? he added suddenly, after a pause. 'May I ask that question? 'You may ask any question, the prosecutor replied with frigid severity, 'any question relating to the facts of the case, and we are, I repeat, bound to answer every inquiry you make. We found the servant Smerdyakov, concerning whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed, in an epileptic fit of extreme severity, that had recurred, possibly, ten times. The doctor who was with us told us, after seeing him, that he may possibly not outlive the night. 'Well, if that's so, the devil must have killed him, broke suddenly from Mitya, as though until that moment he had been asking himself 'Was it Smerdyakov or not? 'We will come back to this later, Nikolay Parfenovitch decided. 'Now, wouldn't you like to continue your statement? Mitya asked for a rest. His request was courteously granted. After resting, he went on with his story. But he was evidently depressed. He was exhausted, mortified and morally shaken. To make things worse the prosecutor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatious interruptions about 'trifling points. Scarcely had Mitya described how, sitting on the wall, he had struck Grigory on the head with the pestle, while the old man had hold of his left leg, and how he had then jumped down to look at him, when the prosecutor stopped him to ask him to describe exactly how he was sitting on the wall. Mitya was surprised. 'Oh, I was sitting like this, astride, one leg on one side of the wall and one on the other. 'And the pestle? 'The pestle was in my hand. 'Not in your pocket? Do you remember that precisely? Was it a violent blow you gave him? 'It must have been a violent one. But why do you ask? 'Would you mind sitting on the chair just as you sat on the wall then and showing us just how you moved your arm, and in what direction? 'You're making fun of me, aren't you? asked Mitya, looking haughtily at the speaker but the latter did not flinch. Mitya turned abruptly, sat astride on his chair, and swung his arm. 'This was how I struck him! That's how I knocked him down! What more do you want? 'Thank you. May I trouble you now to explain why you jumped down, with what object, and what you had in view? 'Oh, hang it!... I jumped down to look at the man I'd hurt ... I don't know what for! 'Though you were so excited and were running away? 'Yes, though I was excited and running away. 'You wanted to help him? 'Help!... Yes, perhaps I did want to help him.... I don't remember. 'You don't remember? Then you didn't quite know what you were doing? 'Not at all. I remember everythingevery detail. I jumped down to look at him, and wiped his face with my handkerchief. 'We have seen your handkerchief. Did you hope to restore him to consciousness? 'I don't know whether I hoped it. I simply wanted to make sure whether he was alive or not. 'Ah! You wanted to be sure? Well, what then? 'I'm not a doctor. I couldn't decide. I ran away thinking I'd killed him. And now he's recovered. 'Excellent, commented the prosecutor. 'Thank you. That's all I wanted. Kindly proceed. Alas! it never entered Mitya's head to tell them, though he remembered it, that he had jumped back from pity, and standing over the prostrate figure had even uttered some words of regret 'You've come to grief, old manthere's no help for it. Well, there you must lie. The prosecutor could only draw one conclusion that the man had jumped back 'at such a moment and in such excitement simply with the object of ascertaining whether the only witness of his crime were dead that he must therefore have been a man of great strength, coolness, decision and foresight even at such a moment, ... and so on. The prosecutor was satisfied 'I've provoked the nervous fellow by 'trifles' and he has said more than he meant to. With painful effort Mitya went on. But this time he was pulled up immediately by Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'How came you to run to the servant, Fedosya Markovna, with your hands so covered with blood, and, as it appears, your face, too? 'Why, I didn't notice the blood at all at the time, answered Mitya. 'That's quite likely. It does happen sometimes. The prosecutor exchanged glances with Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'I simply didn't notice. You're quite right there, prosecutor, Mitya assented suddenly. Next came the account of Mitya's sudden determination to 'step aside and make way for their happiness. But he could not make up his mind to open his heart to them as before, and tell them about 'the queen of his soul. He disliked speaking of her before these chilly persons 'who were fastening on him like bugs. And so in response to their reiterated questions he answered briefly and abruptly 'Well, I made up my mind to kill myself. What had I left to live for? That question stared me in the face. Her first rightful lover had come back, the man who wronged her but who'd hurried back to offer his love, after five years, and atone for the wrong with marriage.... So I knew it was all over for me.... And behind me disgrace, and that bloodGrigory's.... What had I to live for? So I went to redeem the pistols I had pledged, to load them and put a bullet in my brain tomorrow. 'And a grand feast the night before? 'Yes, a grand feast the night before. Damn it all, gentlemen! Do make haste and finish it. I meant to shoot myself not far from here, beyond the village, and I'd planned to do it at five o'clock in the morning. And I had a note in my pocket already. I wrote it at Perhotin's when I loaded my pistols. Here's the letter. Read it! It's not for you I tell it, he added contemptuously. He took it from his waistcoat pocket and flung it on the table. The lawyers read it with curiosity, and, as is usual, added it to the papers connected with the case. 'And you didn't even think of washing your hands at Perhotin's? You were not afraid then of arousing suspicion? 'What suspicion? Suspicion or not, I should have galloped here just the same, and shot myself at five o'clock, and you wouldn't have been in time to do anything. If it hadn't been for what's happened to my father, you would have known nothing about it, and wouldn't have come here. Oh, it's the devil's doing. It was the devil murdered father, it was through the devil that you found it out so soon. How did you manage to get here so quick? It's marvelous, a dream! 'Mr. Perhotin informed us that when you came to him, you held in your hands ... your bloodstained hands ... your money ... a lot of money ... a bundle of hundredrouble notes, and that his servantboy saw it too. 'That's true, gentlemen. I remember it was so. 'Now, there's one little point presents itself. Can you inform us, Nikolay Parfenovitch began, with extreme gentleness, 'where did you get so much money all of a sudden, when it appears from the facts, from the reckoning of time, that you had not been home? The prosecutor's brows contracted at the question being asked so plainly, but he did not interrupt Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'No, I didn't go home, answered Mitya, apparently perfectly composed, but looking at the floor. 'Allow me then to repeat my question, Nikolay Parfenovitch went on as though creeping up to the subject. 'Where were you able to procure such a sum all at once, when by your own confession, at five o'clock the same day you 'I was in want of ten roubles and pledged my pistols with Perhotin, and then went to Madame Hohlakov to borrow three thousand which she wouldn't give me, and so on, and all the rest of it, Mitya interrupted sharply. 'Yes, gentlemen, I was in want of it, and suddenly thousands turned up, eh? Do you know, gentlemen, you're both afraid now 'what if he won't tell us where he got it?' That's just how it is. I'm not going to tell you, gentlemen. You've guessed right. You'll never know, said Mitya, chipping out each word with extraordinary determination. The lawyers were silent for a moment. 'You must understand, Mr. Karamazov, that it is of vital importance for us to know, said Nikolay Parfenovitch, softly and suavely. 'I understand but still I won't tell you. The prosecutor, too, intervened, and again reminded the prisoner that he was at liberty to refuse to answer questions, if he thought it to his interest, and so on. But in view of the damage he might do himself by his silence, especially in a case of such importance as 'And so on, gentlemen, and so on. Enough! I've heard that rigmarole before, Mitya interrupted again. 'I can see for myself how important it is, and that this is the vital point, and still I won't say. 'What is it to us? It's not our business, but yours. You are doing yourself harm, observed Nikolay Parfenovitch nervously. 'You see, gentlemen, joking apartMitya lifted his eyes and looked firmly at them both'I had an inkling from the first that we should come to loggerheads at this point. But at first when I began to give my evidence, it was all still far away and misty it was all floating, and I was so simple that I began with the supposition of mutual confidence existing between us. Now I can see for myself that such confidence is out of the question, for in any case we were bound to come to this cursed stumbling block. And now we've come to it! It's impossible and there's an end of it! But I don't blame you. You can't believe it all simply on my word. I understand that, of course. He relapsed into gloomy silence. 'Couldn't you, without abandoning your resolution to be silent about the chief point, could you not, at the same time, give us some slight hint as to the nature of the motives which are strong enough to induce you to refuse to answer, at a crisis so full of danger to you? Mitya smiled mournfully, almost dreamily. 'I'm much more goodnatured than you think, gentlemen. I'll tell you the reason why and give you that hint, though you don't deserve it. I won't speak of that, gentlemen, because it would be a stain on my honor. The answer to the question where I got the money would expose me to far greater disgrace than the murder and robbing of my father, if I had murdered and robbed him. That's why I can't tell you. I can't for fear of disgrace. What, gentlemen, are you going to write that down? 'Yes, we'll write it down, lisped Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'You ought not to write that down about 'disgrace.' I only told you that in the goodness of my heart. I needn't have told you. I made you a present of it, so to speak, and you pounce upon it at once. Oh, well, writewrite what you like, he concluded, with scornful disgust. 'I'm not afraid of you and I can still hold up my head before you. 'And can't you tell us the nature of that disgrace? Nikolay Parfenovitch hazarded. The prosecutor frowned darkly. 'No, no, c'est fini, don't trouble yourselves. It's not worth while soiling one's hands. I have soiled myself enough through you as it is. You're not worth itno one is ... Enough, gentlemen. I'm not going on. This was said too peremptorily. Nikolay Parfenovitch did not insist further, but from Ippolit Kirillovitch's eyes he saw that he had not given up hope. 'Can you not, at least, tell us what sum you had in your hands when you went into Mr. Perhotin'show many roubles exactly? 'I can't tell you that. 'You spoke to Mr. Perhotin, I believe, of having received three thousand from Madame Hohlakov. 'Perhaps I did. Enough, gentlemen. I won't say how much I had. 'Will you be so good then as to tell us how you came here and what you have done since you arrived? 'Oh! you might ask the people here about that. But I'll tell you if you like. He proceeded to do so, but we won't repeat his story. He told it dryly and curtly. Of the raptures of his love he said nothing, but told them that he abandoned his determination to shoot himself, owing to 'new factors in the case. He told the story without going into motives or details. And this time the lawyers did not worry him much. It was obvious that there was no essential point of interest to them here. 'We shall verify all that. We will come back to it during the examination of the witnesses, which will, of course, take place in your presence, said Nikolay Parfenovitch in conclusion. 'And now allow me to request you to lay on the table everything in your possession, especially all the money you still have about you. 'My money, gentlemen? Certainly. I understand that that is necessary. I'm surprised, indeed, that you haven't inquired about it before. It's true I couldn't get away anywhere. I'm sitting here where I can be seen. But here's my moneycount ittake it. That's all, I think. He turned it all out of his pockets even the small changetwo pieces of twenty copeckshe pulled out of his waistcoat pocket. They counted the money, which amounted to eight hundred and thirtysix roubles, and forty copecks. 'And is that all? asked the investigating lawyer. 'Yes. 'You stated just now in your evidence that you spent three hundred roubles at Plotnikovs'. You gave Perhotin ten, your driver twenty, here you lost two hundred, then.... Nikolay Parfenovitch reckoned it all up. Mitya helped him readily. They recollected every farthing and included it in the reckoning. Nikolay Parfenovitch hurriedly added up the total. 'With this eight hundred you must have had about fifteen hundred at first? 'I suppose so, snapped Mitya. 'How is it they all assert there was much more? 'Let them assert it. 'But you asserted it yourself. 'Yes, I did, too. 'We will compare all this with the evidence of other persons not yet examined. Don't be anxious about your money. It will be properly taken care of and be at your disposal at the conclusion of ... what is beginning ... if it appears, or, so to speak, is proved that you have undisputed right to it. Well, and now.... Nikolay Parfenovitch suddenly got up, and informed Mitya firmly that it was his duty and obligation to conduct a minute and thorough search 'of your clothes and everything else.... 'By all means, gentlemen. I'll turn out all my pockets, if you like. And he did, in fact, begin turning out his pockets. 'It will be necessary to take off your clothes, too. 'What! Undress? Ugh! Damn it! Won't you search me as I am! Can't you? 'It's utterly impossible, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You must take off your clothes. 'As you like, Mitya submitted gloomily 'only, please, not here, but behind the curtains. Who will search them? 'Behind the curtains, of course. Nikolay Parfenovitch bent his head in assent. His small face wore an expression of peculiar solemnity. Something utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He could never, even a minute before, have conceived that any one could behave like that to him, Mitya Karamazov. What was worst of all, there was something humiliating in it, and on their side something 'supercilious and scornful. It was nothing to take off his coat, but he was asked to undress further, or rather not asked but 'commanded, he quite understood that. From pride and contempt he submitted without a word. Several peasants accompanied the lawyers and remained on the same side of the curtain. 'To be ready if force is required, thought Mitya, 'and perhaps for some other reason, too. 'Well, must I take off my shirt, too? he asked sharply, but Nikolay Parfenovitch did not answer. He was busily engaged with the prosecutor in examining the coat, the trousers, the waistcoat and the cap and it was evident that they were both much interested in the scrutiny. 'They make no bones about it, thought Mitya, 'they don't keep up the most elementary politeness. 'I ask you for the second timeneed I take off my shirt or not? he said, still more sharply and irritably. 'Don't trouble yourself. We will tell you what to do, Nikolay Parfenovitch said, and his voice was positively peremptory, or so it seemed to Mitya. Meantime a consultation was going on in undertones between the lawyers. There turned out to be on the coat, especially on the left side at the back, a huge patch of blood, dry, and still stiff. There were bloodstains on the trousers, too. Nikolay Parfenovitch, moreover, in the presence of the peasant witnesses, passed his fingers along the collar, the cuffs, and all the seams of the coat and trousers, obviously looking for somethingmoney, of course. He didn't even hide from Mitya his suspicion that he was capable of sewing money up in his clothes. 'He treats me not as an officer but as a thief, Mitya muttered to himself. They communicated their ideas to one another with amazing frankness. The secretary, for instance, who was also behind the curtain, fussing about and listening, called Nikolay Parfenovitch's attention to the cap, which they were also fingering. 'You remember Gridyenko, the copyingclerk, observed the secretary. 'Last summer he received the wages of the whole office, and pretended to have lost the money when he was drunk. And where was it found? Why, in just such pipings in his cap. The hundredrouble notes were screwed up in little rolls and sewed in the piping. Both the lawyers remembered Gridyenko's case perfectly, and so laid aside Mitya's cap, and decided that all his clothes must be more thoroughly examined later. 'Excuse me, cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly, noticing that the right cuff of Mitya's shirt was turned in, and covered with blood, 'excuse me, what's that, blood? 'Yes, Mitya jerked out. 'That is, what blood? ... and why is the cuff turned in? Mitya told him how he had got the sleeve stained with blood looking after Grigory, and had turned it inside when he was washing his hands at Perhotin's. 'You must take off your shirt, too. That's very important as material evidence. Mitya flushed red and flew into a rage. 'What, am I to stay naked? he shouted. 'Don't disturb yourself. We will arrange something. And meanwhile take off your socks. 'You're not joking? Is that really necessary? Mitya's eyes flashed. 'We are in no mood for joking, answered Nikolay Parfenovitch sternly. 'Well, if I must muttered Mitya, and sitting down on the bed, he took off his socks. He felt unbearably awkward. All were clothed, while he was naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt somehow guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him. 'When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one's the only one undressed and everybody is looking, it's degrading, he kept repeating to himself, again and again. 'It's like a dream, I've sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions. It was a misery to him to take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes, and now every one could see it. And what was worse, he disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it. Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself. 'Would you like to look anywhere else if you're not ashamed to? 'No, there's no need to, at present. 'Well, am I to stay naked like this? he added savagely. 'Yes, that can't be helped for the time.... Kindly sit down here for a while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I ... I'll see to all this. All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report of the search was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and the clothes were carried out after him. Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too. Mitya was left alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes off him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. He felt cold. His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn't pull the quilt over so as to cover them. Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a long time, 'an insufferable time. 'He thinks of me as a puppy, thought Mitya, gnashing his teeth. 'That rotten prosecutor has gone, too, contemptuous no doubt, it disgusts him to see me naked! Mitya imagined, however, that his clothes would be examined and returned to him. But what was his indignation when Nikolay Parfenovitch came back with quite different clothes, brought in behind him by a peasant. 'Here are clothes for you, he observed airily, seeming well satisfied with the success of his mission. 'Mr. Kalganov has kindly provided these for this unusual emergency, as well as a clean shirt. Luckily he had them all in his trunk. You can keep your own socks and underclothes. Mitya flew into a passion. 'I won't have other people's clothes! he shouted menacingly, 'give me my own! 'It's impossible! 'Give me my own. Damn Kalganov and his clothes, too! It was a long time before they could persuade him. But they succeeded somehow in quieting him down. They impressed upon him that his clothes, being stained with blood, must be 'included with the other material evidence, and that they 'had not even the right to let him have them now ... taking into consideration the possible outcome of the case. Mitya at last understood this. He subsided into gloomy silence and hurriedly dressed himself. He merely observed, as he put them on, that the clothes were much better than his old ones, and that he disliked 'gaining by the change. The coat was, besides, 'ridiculously tight. Am I to be dressed up like a fool ... for your amusement? They urged upon him again that he was exaggerating, that Kalganov was only a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little too long. But the coat turned out to be really tight in the shoulders. 'Damn it all! I can hardly button it, Mitya grumbled. 'Be so good as to tell Mr. Kalganov from me that I didn't ask for his clothes, and it's not my doing that they've dressed me up like a clown. 'He understands that, and is sorry ... I mean, not sorry to lend you his clothes, but sorry about all this business, mumbled Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'Confound his sorrow! Well, where now? Am I to go on sitting here? He was asked to go back to the 'other room. Mitya went in, scowling with anger, and trying to avoid looking at any one. Dressed in another man's clothes he felt himself disgraced, even in the eyes of the peasants, and of Trifon Borissovitch, whose face appeared, for some reason, in the doorway, and vanished immediately. 'He's come to look at me dressed up, thought Mitya. He sat down on the same chair as before. He had an absurd nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of his mind. 'Well, what now? Are you going to flog me? That's all that's left for you, he said, clenching his teeth and addressing the prosecutor. He would not turn to Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though he disdained to speak to him. 'He looked too closely at my socks, and turned them inside out on purpose to show every one how dirty they werethe scoundrel! 'Well, now we must proceed to the examination of witnesses, observed Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though in reply to Mitya's question. 'Yes, said the prosecutor thoughtfully, as though reflecting on something. 'We've done what we could in your interest, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, Nikolay Parfenovitch went on, 'but having received from you such an uncompromising refusal to explain to us the source from which you obtained the money found upon you, we are, at the present moment 'What is the stone in your ring? Mitya interrupted suddenly, as though awakening from a reverie. He pointed to one of the three large rings adorning Nikolay Parfenovitch's right hand. 'Ring? repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch with surprise. 'Yes, that one ... on your middle finger, with the little veins in it, what stone is that? Mitya persisted, like a peevish child. 'That's a smoky topaz, said Nikolay Parfenovitch, smiling. 'Would you like to look at it? I'll take it off ... 'No, don't take it off, cried Mitya furiously, suddenly waking up, and angry with himself. 'Don't take it off ... there's no need.... Damn it!... Gentlemen, you've sullied my heart! Can you suppose that I would conceal it from you, if I had really killed my father, that I would shuffle, lie, and hide myself? No, that's not like Dmitri Karamazov, that he couldn't do, and if I were guilty, I swear I shouldn't have waited for your coming, or for the sunrise as I meant at first, but should have killed myself before this, without waiting for the dawn! I know that about myself now. I couldn't have learnt so much in twenty years as I've found out in this accursed night!... And should I have been like this on this night, and at this moment, sitting with you, could I have talked like this, could I have moved like this, could I have looked at you and at the world like this, if I had really been the murderer of my father, when the very thought of having accidentally killed Grigory gave me no peace all nightnot from fearoh, not simply from fear of your punishment! The disgrace of it! And you expect me to be open with such scoffers as you, who see nothing and believe in nothing, blind moles and scoffers, and to tell you another nasty thing I've done, another disgrace, even if that would save me from your accusation! No, better Siberia! The man who opened the door to my father and went in at that door, he killed him, he robbed him. Who was he? I'm racking my brains and can't think who. But I can tell you it was not Dmitri Karamazov, and that's all I can tell you, and that's enough, enough, leave me alone.... Exile me, punish me, but don't bother me any more. I'll say no more. Call your witnesses! Mitya uttered his sudden monologue as though he were determined to be absolutely silent for the future. The prosecutor watched him the whole time and only when he had ceased speaking, observed, as though it were the most ordinary thing, with the most frigid and composed air 'Oh, about the open door of which you spoke just now, we may as well inform you, by the way, now, of a very interesting piece of evidence of the greatest importance both to you and to us, that has been given us by Grigory, the old man you wounded. On his recovery, he clearly and emphatically stated, in reply to our questions, that when, on coming out to the steps, and hearing a noise in the garden, he made up his mind to go into it through the little gate which stood open, before he noticed you running, as you have told us already, in the dark from the open window where you saw your father, he, Grigory, glanced to the left, and, while noticing the open window, observed at the same time, much nearer to him, the door, standing wide openthat door which you have stated to have been shut the whole time you were in the garden. I will not conceal from you that Grigory himself confidently affirms and bears witness that you must have run from that door, though, of course, he did not see you do so with his own eyes, since he only noticed you first some distance away in the garden, running towards the fence. Mitya had leapt up from his chair halfway through this speech. 'Nonsense! he yelled, in a sudden frenzy, 'it's a barefaced lie. He couldn't have seen the door open because it was shut. He's lying! 'I consider it my duty to repeat that he is firm in his statement. He does not waver. He adheres to it. We've crossexamined him several times. 'Precisely. I have crossexamined him several times, Nikolay Parfenovitch confirmed warmly. 'It's false, false! It's either an attempt to slander me, or the hallucination of a madman, Mitya still shouted. 'He's simply raving, from loss of blood, from the wound. He must have fancied it when he came to.... He's raving. 'Yes, but he noticed the open door, not when he came to after his injuries, but before that, as soon as he went into the garden from the lodge. 'But it's false, it's false! It can't be so! He's slandering me from spite.... He couldn't have seen it ... I didn't come from the door, gasped Mitya. The prosecutor turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and said to him impressively 'Confront him with it. 'Do you recognize this object? Nikolay Parfenovitch laid upon the table a large and thick official envelope, on which three seals still remained intact. The envelope was empty, and slit open at one end. Mitya stared at it with open eyes. 'It ... it must be that envelope of my father's, the envelope that contained the three thousand roubles ... and if there's inscribed on it, allow me, 'For my little chicken' ... yesthree thousand! he shouted, 'do you see, three thousand, do you see? 'Of course, we see. But we didn't find the money in it. It was empty, and lying on the floor by the bed, behind the screen. For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck. 'Gentlemen, it's Smerdyakov! he shouted suddenly, at the top of his voice. 'It's he who's murdered him! He's robbed him! No one else knew where the old man hid the envelope. It's Smerdyakov, that's clear, now! 'But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow. 'I never knew it. I've never seen it. This is the first time I've looked at it. I'd only heard of it from Smerdyakov.... He was the only one who knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn't know ... Mitya was completely breathless. 'But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your deceased father's pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, so you must have known it. 'We've got it written down, confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'Nonsense! It's absurd! I'd no idea it was under the pillow. And perhaps it wasn't under the pillow at all.... It was just a chance guess that it was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have you asked him where it was? What does Smerdyakov say? that's the chief point.... And I went out of my way to tell lies against myself.... I told you without thinking that it was under the pillow, and now you Oh, you know how one says the wrong thing, without meaning it. No one knew but Smerdyakov, only Smerdyakov, and no one else.... He didn't even tell me where it was! But it's his doing, his doing there's no doubt about it, he murdered him, that's as clear as daylight now, Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. 'You must understand that, and arrest him at once.... He must have killed him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that's clear now.... He gave the signal and father opened to him ... for no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father would never have opened the door.... 'But you're again forgetting the circumstance, the prosecutor observed, still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note of triumph, 'that there was no need to give the signal if the door already stood open when you were there, while you were in the garden.... 'The door, the door, muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at the prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent. 'Yes, the door!... It's a nightmare! God is against me! he exclaimed, staring before him in complete stupefaction. 'Come, you see, the prosecutor went on with dignity, 'and you can judge for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand we have the evidence of the open door from which you ran out, a fact which overwhelms you and us. On the other side your incomprehensible, persistent, and, so to speak, obdurate silence with regard to the source from which you obtained the money which was so suddenly seen in your hands, when only three hours earlier, on your own showing, you pledged your pistols for the sake of ten roubles! In view of all these facts, judge for yourself. What are we to believe, and what can we depend upon? And don't accuse us of being 'frigid, cynical, scoffing people,' who are incapable of believing in the generous impulses of your heart.... Try to enter into our position ... Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale. 'Very well! he exclaimed suddenly. 'I will tell you my secret. I'll tell you where I got the money!... I'll reveal my shame, that I may not have to blame myself or you hereafter. 'And believe me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, put in Nikolay Parfenovitch, in a voice of almost pathetic delight, 'that every sincere and complete confession on your part at this moment may, later on, have an immense influence in your favor, and may, indeed, moreover But the prosecutor gave him a slight shove under the table, and he checked himself in time. Mitya, it is true, had not heard him. 'Gentlemen, he began, still in the same agitation, 'I want to make a full confession that money was my own. The lawyers' faces lengthened. That was not at all what they expected. 'How do you mean? faltered Nikolay Parfenovitch, 'when at five o'clock on the same day, from your own confession 'Damn five o'clock on the same day and my own confession! That's nothing to do with it now! That money was my own, my own, that is, stolen by me ... not mine, I mean, but stolen by me, and it was fifteen hundred roubles, and I had it on me all the time, all the time ... 'But where did you get it? 'I took it off my neck, gentlemen, off this very neck ... it was here, round my neck, sewn up in a rag, and I'd had it round my neck a long time, it's a month since I put it round my neck ... to my shame and disgrace! 'And from whom did you ... appropriate it? 'You mean, 'steal it'? Speak out plainly now. Yes, I consider that I practically stole it, but, if you prefer, I 'appropriated it.' I consider I stole it. And last night I stole it finally. 'Last night? But you said that it's a month since you ... obtained it?... 'Yes. But not from my father. Not from my father, don't be uneasy. I didn't steal it from my father, but from her. Let me tell you without interrupting. It's hard to do, you know. You see, a month ago, I was sent for by Katerina Ivanovna, formerly my betrothed. Do you know her? 'Yes, of course. 'I know you know her. She's a noble creature, noblest of the noble. But she has hated me ever so long, oh, ever so long ... and hated me with good reason, good reason! 'Katerina Ivanovna! Nikolay Parfenovitch exclaimed with wonder. The prosecutor, too, stared. 'Oh, don't take her name in vain! I'm a scoundrel to bring her into it. Yes, I've seen that she hated me ... a long while.... From the very first, even that evening at my lodging ... but enough, enough. You're unworthy even to know of that. No need of that at all.... I need only tell you that she sent for me a month ago, gave me three thousand roubles to send off to her sister and another relation in Moscow (as though she couldn't have sent it off herself!) and I ... it was just at that fatal moment in my life when I ... well, in fact, when I'd just come to love another, her, she's sitting down below now, Grushenka. I carried her off here to Mokroe then, and wasted here in two days half that damned three thousand, but the other half I kept on me. Well, I've kept that other half, that fifteen hundred, like a locket round my neck, but yesterday I undid it, and spent it. What's left of it, eight hundred roubles, is in your hands now, Nikolay Parfenovitch. That's the change out of the fifteen hundred I had yesterday. 'Excuse me. How's that? Why, when you were here a month ago you spent three thousand, not fifteen hundred, everybody knows that. 'Who knows it? Who counted the money? Did I let any one count it? 'Why, you told every one yourself that you'd spent exactly three thousand. 'It's true, I did. I told the whole town so, and the whole town said so. And here, at Mokroe, too, every one reckoned it was three thousand. Yet I didn't spend three thousand, but fifteen hundred. And the other fifteen hundred I sewed into a little bag. That's how it was, gentlemen. That's where I got that money yesterday.... 'This is almost miraculous, murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch. 'Allow me to inquire, observed the prosecutor at last, 'have you informed any one whatever of this circumstance before, I mean that you had fifteen hundred left about you a month ago? 'I told no one. 'That's strange. Do you mean absolutely no one? 'Absolutely no one. No one and nobody. 'What was your reason for this reticence? What was your motive for making such a secret of it? To be more precise You have told us at last your secret, in your words, so 'disgraceful,' though in realitythat is, of course, comparatively speakingthis action, that is, the appropriation of three thousand roubles belonging to some one else, and, of course, only for a time is, in my view at least, only an act of the greatest recklessness and not so disgraceful, when one takes into consideration your character.... Even admitting that it was an action in the highest degree discreditable, still, discreditable is not 'disgraceful.'... Many people have already guessed, during this last month, about the three thousand of Katerina Ivanovna's, that you have spent, and I heard the legend myself, apart from your confession.... Mihail Makarovitch, for instance, had heard it, too, so that indeed, it was scarcely a legend, but the gossip of the whole town. There are indications, too, if I am not mistaken, that you confessed this yourself to some one, I mean that the money was Katerina Ivanovna's, and so, it's extremely surprising to me that hitherto, that is, up to the present moment, you have made such an extraordinary secret of the fifteen hundred you say you put by, apparently connecting a feeling of positive horror with that secret.... It's not easy to believe that it could cost you such distress to confess such a secret.... You cried out, just now, that Siberia would be better than confessing it ... The prosecutor ceased speaking. He was provoked. He did not conceal his vexation, which was almost anger, and gave vent to all his accumulated spleen, disconnectedly and incoherently, without choosing words. 'It's not the fifteen hundred that's the disgrace, but that I put it apart from the rest of the three thousand, said Mitya firmly. 'Why? smiled the prosecutor irritably. 'What is there disgraceful, to your thinking, in your having set aside half of the three thousand you had discreditably, if you prefer, 'disgracefully,' appropriated? Your taking the three thousand is more important than what you did with it. And by the way, why did you do thatwhy did you set apart that half, for what purpose, for what object did you do it? Can you explain that to us? 'Oh, gentlemen, the purpose is the whole point! cried Mitya. 'I put it aside because I was vile, that is, because I was calculating, and to be calculating in such a case is vile ... and that vileness has been going on a whole month. 'It's incomprehensible. 'I wonder at you. But I'll make it clearer. Perhaps it really is incomprehensible. You see, attend to what I say. I appropriate three thousand entrusted to my honor, I spend it on a spree, say I spend it all, and next morning I go to her and say, 'Katya, I've done wrong, I've squandered your three thousand,' well, is that right? No, it's not rightit's dishonest and cowardly, I'm a beast, with no more selfcontrol than a beast, that's so, isn't it? But still I'm not a thief? Not a downright thief, you'll admit! I squandered it, but I didn't steal it. Now a second, rather more favorable alternative follow me carefully, or I may get confused againmy head's going roundand so, for the second alternative I spend here only fifteen hundred out of the three thousand, that is, only half. Next day I go and take that half to her 'Katya, take this fifteen hundred from me, I'm a low beast, and an untrustworthy scoundrel, for I've wasted half the money, and I shall waste this, too, so keep me from temptation!' Well, what of that alternative? I should be a beast and a scoundrel, and whatever you like but not a thief, not altogether a thief, or I should not have brought back what was left, but have kept that, too. She would see at once that since I brought back half, I should pay back what I'd spent, that I should never give up trying to, that I should work to get it and pay it back. So in that case I should be a scoundrel, but not a thief, you may say what you like, not a thief! 'I admit that there is a certain distinction, said the prosecutor, with a cold smile. 'But it's strange that you see such a vital difference. 'Yes, I see a vital difference! Every man may be a scoundrel, and perhaps every man is a scoundrel, but not every one can be a thief, it takes an archscoundrel to be that. Oh, of course, I don't know how to make these fine distinctions ... but a thief is lower than a scoundrel, that's my conviction. Listen, I carry the money about me a whole month, I may make up my mind to give it back tomorrow, and I'm a scoundrel no longer, but I cannot make up my mind, you see, though I'm making up my mind every day, and every day spurring myself on to do it, and yet for a whole month I can't bring myself to it, you see. Is that right to your thinking, is that right? 'Certainly, that's not right, that I can quite understand, and that I don't dispute, answered the prosecutor with reserve. 'And let us give up all discussion of these subtleties and distinctions, and, if you will be so kind, get back to the point. And the point is, that you have still not told us, altogether we've asked you, why, in the first place, you halved the money, squandering one half and hiding the other? For what purpose exactly did you hide it, what did you mean to do with that fifteen hundred? I insist upon that question, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. 'Yes, of course! cried Mitya, striking himself on the forehead 'forgive me, I'm worrying you, and am not explaining the chief point, or you'd understand in a minute, for it's just the motive of it that's the disgrace! You see, it was all to do with the old man, my dead father. He was always pestering Agrafena Alexandrovna, and I was jealous I thought then that she was hesitating between me and him. So I kept thinking every day, suppose she were to make up her mind all of a sudden, suppose she were to leave off tormenting me, and were suddenly to say to me, 'I love you, not him take me to the other end of the world.' And I'd only forty copecks how could I take her away, what could I do? Why, I'd be lost. You see, I didn't know her then, I didn't understand her, I thought she wanted money, and that she wouldn't forgive my poverty. And so I fiendishly counted out the half of that three thousand, sewed it up, calculating on it, sewed it up before I was drunk, and after I had sewn it up, I went off to get drunk on the rest. Yes, that was base. Do you understand now? Both the lawyers laughed aloud. 'I should have called it sensible and moral on your part not to have squandered it all, chuckled Nikolay Parfenovitch, 'for after all what does it amount to? 'Why, that I stole it, that's what it amounts to! Oh, God, you horrify me by not understanding! Every day that I had that fifteen hundred sewn up round my neck, every day and every hour I said to myself, 'You're a thief! you're a thief!' Yes, that's why I've been so savage all this month, that's why I fought in the tavern, that's why I attacked my father, it was because I felt I was a thief. I couldn't make up my mind, I didn't dare even to tell Alyosha, my brother, about that fifteen hundred I felt I was such a scoundrel and such a pickpocket. But, do you know, while I carried it I said to myself at the same time every hour 'No, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you may yet not be a thief.' Why? Because I might go next day and pay back that fifteen hundred to Katya. And only yesterday I made up my mind to tear my amulet off my neck, on my way from Fenya's to Perhotin. I hadn't been able till that moment to bring myself to it. And it was only when I tore it off that I became a downright thief, a thief and a dishonest man for the rest of my life. Why? Because, with that I destroyed, too, my dream of going to Katya and saying, 'I'm a scoundrel, but not a thief!' Do you understand now? Do you understand? 'What was it made you decide to do it yesterday? Nikolay Parfenovitch interrupted. 'Why? It's absurd to ask. Because I had condemned myself to die at five o'clock this morning, here, at dawn. I thought it made no difference whether I died a thief or a man of honor. But I see it's not so, it turns out that it does make a difference. Believe me, gentlemen, what has tortured me most during this night has not been the thought that I'd killed the old servant, and that I was in danger of Siberia just when my love was being rewarded, and Heaven was open to me again. Oh, that did torture me, but not in the same way not so much as the damned consciousness that I had torn that damned money off my breast at last and spent it, and had become a downright thief! Oh, gentlemen, I tell you again, with a bleeding heart, I have learnt a great deal this night. I have learnt that it's not only impossible to live a scoundrel, but impossible to die a scoundrel.... No, gentlemen, one must die honest.... Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted look, in spite of his being intensely excited. 'I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, the prosecutor said slowly, in a soft and almost compassionate tone. 'But all this, if you'll excuse my saying so, is a matter of nerves, in my opinion ... your overwrought nerves, that's what it is. And why, for instance, should you not have saved yourself such misery for almost a month, by going and returning that fifteen hundred to the lady who had entrusted it to you? And why could you not have explained things to her, and in view of your position, which you describe as being so awful, why could you not have had recourse to the plan which would so naturally have occurred to one's mind, that is, after honorably confessing your errors to her, why could you not have asked her to lend you the sum needed for your expenses, which, with her generous heart, she would certainly not have refused you in your distress, especially if it had been with some guarantee, or even on the security you offered to the merchant Samsonov, and to Madame Hohlakov? I suppose you still regard that security as of value? Mitya suddenly crimsoned. 'Surely you don't think me such an out and out scoundrel as that? You can't be speaking in earnest? he said, with indignation, looking the prosecutor straight in the face, and seeming unable to believe his ears. 'I assure you I'm in earnest.... Why do you imagine I'm not serious? It was the prosecutor's turn to be surprised. 'Oh, how base that would have been! Gentlemen, do you know, you are torturing me! Let me tell you everything, so be it. I'll confess all my infernal wickedness, but to put you to shame, and you'll be surprised yourselves at the depth of ignominy to which a medley of human passions can sink. You must know that I already had that plan myself, that plan you spoke of, just now, prosecutor! Yes, gentlemen, I, too, have had that thought in my mind all this current month, so that I was on the point of deciding to go to KatyaI was mean enough for that. But to go to her, to tell her of my treachery, and for that very treachery, to carry it out, for the expenses of that treachery, to beg for money from her, Katya (to beg, do you hear, to beg), and go straight from her to run away with the other, the rival, who hated and insulted herto think of it! You must be mad, prosecutor! 'Mad I am not, but I did speak in haste, without thinking ... of that feminine jealousy ... if there could be jealousy in this case, as you assert ... yes, perhaps there is something of the kind, said the prosecutor, smiling. 'But that would have been so infamous! Mitya brought his fist down on the table fiercely. 'That would have been filthy beyond everything! Yes, do you know that she might have given me that money, yes, and she would have given it, too she'd have been certain to give it, to be revenged on me, she'd have given it to satisfy her vengeance, to show her contempt for me, for hers is an infernal nature, too, and she's a woman of great wrath. I'd have taken the money, too, oh, I should have taken it I should have taken it, and then, for the rest of my life ... oh, God! Forgive me, gentlemen, I'm making such an outcry because I've had that thought in my mind so lately, only the day before yesterday, that night when I was having all that bother with Lyagavy, and afterwards yesterday, all day yesterday, I remember, till that happened ... 'Till what happened? put in Nikolay Parfenovitch inquisitively, but Mitya did not hear it. 'I have made you an awful confession, Mitya said gloomily in conclusion. 'You must appreciate it, and what's more, you must respect it, for if not, if that leaves your souls untouched, then you've simply no respect for me, gentlemen, I tell you that, and I shall die of shame at having confessed it to men like you! Oh, I shall shoot myself! Yes, I see, I see already that you don't believe me. What, you want to write that down, too? he cried in dismay. 'Yes, what you said just now, said Nikolay Parfenovitch, looking at him in surprise, 'that is, that up to the last hour you were still contemplating going to Katerina Ivanovna to beg that sum from her.... I assure you, that's a very important piece of evidence for us, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I mean for the whole case ... and particularly for you, particularly important for you. 'Have mercy, gentlemen! Mitya flung up his hands. 'Don't write that, anyway have some shame. Here I've torn my heart asunder before you, and you seize the opportunity and are fingering the wounds in both halves.... Oh, my God! In despair he hid his face in his hands. 'Don't worry yourself so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, observed the prosecutor, 'everything that is written down will be read over to you afterwards, and what you don't agree to we'll alter as you like. But now I'll ask you one little question for the second time. Has no one, absolutely no one, heard from you of that money you sewed up? That, I must tell you, is almost impossible to believe. 'No one, no one, I told you so before, or you've not understood anything! Let me alone! 'Very well, this matter is bound to be explained, and there's plenty of time for it, but meantime, consider we have perhaps a dozen witnesses that you yourself spread it abroad, and even shouted almost everywhere about the three thousand you'd spent here three thousand, not fifteen hundred. And now, too, when you got hold of the money you had yesterday, you gave many people to understand that you had brought three thousand with you. 'You've got not dozens, but hundreds of witnesses, two hundred witnesses, two hundred have heard it, thousands have heard it! cried Mitya. 'Well, you see, all bear witness to it. And the word all means something. 'It means nothing. I talked rot, and every one began repeating it. 'But what need had you to 'talk rot,' as you call it? 'The devil knows. From bravado perhaps ... at having wasted so much money.... To try and forget that money I had sewn up, perhaps ... yes, that was why ... damn it ... how often will you ask me that question? Well, I told a fib, and that was the end of it, once I'd said it, I didn't care to correct it. What does a man tell lies for sometimes? 'That's very difficult to decide, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, what makes a man tell lies, observed the prosecutor impressively. 'Tell me, though, was that 'amulet,' as you call it, on your neck, a big thing? 'No, not big. 'How big, for instance? 'If you fold a hundredrouble note in half, that would be the size. 'You'd better show us the remains of it. You must have them somewhere. 'Damnation, what nonsense! I don't know where they are. 'But excuse me where and when did you take it off your neck? According to your own evidence you didn't go home. 'When I was going from Fenya's to Perhotin's, on the way I tore it off my neck and took out the money. 'In the dark? 'What should I want a light for? I did it with my fingers in one minute. 'Without scissors, in the street? 'In the marketplace I think it was. Why scissors? It was an old rag. It was torn in a minute. 'Where did you put it afterwards? 'I dropped it there. 'Where was it, exactly? 'In the marketplace, in the marketplace! The devil knows whereabouts. What do you want to know for? 'That's extremely important, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. It would be material evidence in your favor. How is it you don't understand that? Who helped you to sew it up a month ago? 'No one helped me. I did it myself. 'Can you sew? 'A soldier has to know how to sew. No knowledge was needed to do that. 'Where did you get the material, that is, the rag in which you sewed the money? 'Are you laughing at me? 'Not at all. And we are in no mood for laughing, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. 'I don't know where I got the rag fromsomewhere, I suppose. 'I should have thought you couldn't have forgotten it? 'Upon my word, I don't remember. I might have torn a bit off my linen. 'That's very interesting. We might find in your lodgings tomorrow the shirt or whatever it is from which you tore the rag. What sort of rag was it, cloth or linen? 'Goodness only knows what it was. Wait a bit.... I believe I didn't tear it off anything. It was a bit of calico.... I believe I sewed it up in a cap of my landlady's. 'In your landlady's cap? 'Yes. I took it from her. 'How did you get it? 'You see, I remember once taking a cap for a rag, perhaps to wipe my pen on. I took it without asking, because it was a worthless rag. I tore it up, and I took the notes and sewed them up in it. I believe it was in that very rag I sewed them. An old piece of calico, washed a thousand times. 'And you remember that for certain now? 'I don't know whether for certain. I think it was in the cap. But, hang it, what does it matter? 'In that case your landlady will remember that the thing was lost? 'No, she won't, she didn't miss it. It was an old rag, I tell you, an old rag not worth a farthing. 'And where did you get the needle and thread? 'I'll stop now. I won't say any more. Enough of it! said Mitya, losing his temper at last. 'It's strange that you should have so completely forgotten where you threw the pieces in the marketplace. 'Give orders for the marketplace to be swept tomorrow, and perhaps you'll find it, said Mitya, sneering. 'Enough, gentlemen, enough! he decided, in an exhausted voice. 'I see you don't believe me! Not for a moment! It's my fault, not yours. I ought not to have been so ready. Why, why did I degrade myself by confessing my secret to you? It's a joke to you. I see that from your eyes. You led me on to it, prosecutor? Sing a hymn of triumph if you can.... Damn you, you torturers! He bent his head, and hid his face in his hands. The lawyers were silent. A minute later he raised his head and looked at them almost vacantly. His face now expressed complete, hopeless despair, and he sat mute and passive as though hardly conscious of what was happening. In the meantime they had to finish what they were about. They had immediately to begin examining the witnesses. It was by now eight o'clock in the morning. The lights had been extinguished long ago. Mihail Makarovitch and Kalganov, who had been continually in and out of the room all the while the interrogation had been going on, had now both gone out again. The lawyers, too, looked very tired. It was a wretched morning, the whole sky was overcast, and the rain streamed down in bucketfuls. Mitya gazed blankly out of the window. 'May I look out of the window? he asked Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly. 'Oh, as much as you like, the latter replied. Mitya got up and went to the window.... The rain lashed against its little greenish panes. He could see the muddy road just below the house, and farther away, in the rain and mist, a row of poor, black, dismal huts, looking even blacker and poorer in the rain. Mitya thought of 'Phbus the goldenhaired, and how he had meant to shoot himself at his first ray. 'Perhaps it would be even better on a morning like this, he thought with a smile, and suddenly, flinging his hand downwards, he turned to his 'torturers. 'Gentlemen, he cried, 'I see that I am lost! But she? Tell me about her, I beseech you. Surely she need not be ruined with me? She's innocent, you know, she was out of her mind when she cried last night 'It's all my fault!' She's done nothing, nothing! I've been grieving over her all night as I sat with you.... Can't you, won't you tell me what you are going to do with her now? 'You can set your mind quite at rest on that score, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, the prosecutor answered at once, with evident alacrity. 'We have, so far, no grounds for interfering with the lady in whom you are so interested. I trust that it may be the same in the later development of the case.... On the contrary, we'll do everything that lies in our power in that matter. Set your mind completely at rest. 'Gentlemen, I thank you. I knew that you were honest, straightforward people in spite of everything. You've taken a load off my heart.... Well, what are we to do now? I'm ready. 'Well, we ought to make haste. We must pass to examining the witnesses without delay. That must be done in your presence and therefore 'Shouldn't we have some tea first? interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch, 'I think we've deserved it! They decided that if tea were ready downstairs (Mihail Makarovitch had, no doubt, gone down to get some) they would have a glass and then 'go on and on, putting off their proper breakfast until a more favorable opportunity. Tea really was ready below, and was soon brought up. Mitya at first refused the glass that Nikolay Parfenovitch politely offered him, but afterwards he asked for it himself and drank it greedily. He looked surprisingly exhausted. It might have been supposed from his Herculean strength that one night of carousing, even accompanied by the most violent emotions, could have had little effect on him. But he felt that he could hardly hold his head up, and from time to time all the objects about him seemed heaving and dancing before his eyes. 'A little more and I shall begin raving, he said to himself. The examination of the witnesses began. But we will not continue our story in such detail as before. And so we will not dwell on how Nikolay Parfenovitch impressed on every witness called that he must give his evidence in accordance with truth and conscience, and that he would afterwards have to repeat his evidence on oath, how every witness was called upon to sign the protocol of his evidence, and so on. We will only note that the point principally insisted upon in the examination was the question of the three thousand roubles, that is, was the sum spent here, at Mokroe, by Mitya on the first occasion, a month before, three thousand or fifteen hundred? And again had he spent three thousand or fifteen hundred yesterday? Alas, all the evidence given by every one turned out to be against Mitya. There was not one in his favor, and some witnesses introduced new, almost crushing facts, in contradiction of his, Mitya's, story. The first witness examined was Trifon Borissovitch. He was not in the least abashed as he stood before the lawyers. He had, on the contrary, an air of stern and severe indignation with the accused, which gave him an appearance of truthfulness and personal dignity. He spoke little, and with reserve, waited to be questioned, answered precisely and deliberately. Firmly and unhesitatingly he bore witness that the sum spent a month before could not have been less than three thousand, that all the peasants about here would testify that they had heard the sum of three thousand mentioned by Dmitri Fyodorovitch himself. 'What a lot of money he flung away on the gypsy girls alone! He wasted a thousand, I daresay, on them alone. 'I don't believe I gave them five hundred, was Mitya's gloomy comment on this. 'It's a pity I didn't count the money at the time, but I was drunk.... Mitya was sitting sideways with his back to the curtains. He listened gloomily, with a melancholy and exhausted air, as though he would say 'Oh, say what you like. It makes no difference now. 'More than a thousand went on them, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, retorted Trifon Borissovitch firmly. 'You flung it about at random and they picked it up. They were a rascally, thievish lot, horsestealers, they've been driven away from here, or maybe they'd bear witness themselves how much they got from you. I saw the sum in your hands, myselfcount it I didn't, you didn't let me, that's true enoughbut by the look of it I should say it was far more than fifteen hundred ... fifteen hundred, indeed! We've seen money too. We can judge of amounts.... As for the sum spent yesterday he asserted that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had told him, as soon as he arrived, that he had brought three thousand with him. 'Come now, is that so, Trifon Borissovitch? replied Mitya. 'Surely I didn't declare so positively that I'd brought three thousand? 'You did say so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You said it before Andrey. Andrey himself is still here. Send for him. And in the hall, when you were treating the chorus, you shouted straight out that you would leave your sixth thousand herethat is with what you spent before, we must understand. Stepan and Semyon heard it, and Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov, too, was standing beside you at the time. Maybe he'd remember it.... The evidence as to the 'sixth thousand made an extraordinary impression on the two lawyers. They were delighted with this new mode of reckoning three and three made six, three thousand then and three now made six, that was clear. They questioned all the peasants suggested by Trifon Borissovitch, Stepan and Semyon, the driver Andrey, and Kalganov. The peasants and the driver unhesitatingly confirmed Trifon Borissovitch's evidence. They noted down, with particular care, Andrey's account of the conversation he had had with Mitya on the road ' 'Where,' says he, 'am I, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, going, to heaven or to hell, and shall I be forgiven in the next world or not?'  The psychological Ippolit Kirillovitch heard this with a subtle smile, and ended by recommending that these remarks as to where Dmitri Fyodorovitch would go should be 'included in the case. Kalganov, when called, came in reluctantly, frowning and illhumored, and he spoke to the lawyers as though he had never met them before in his life, though they were acquaintances whom he had been meeting every day for a long time past. He began by saying that 'he knew nothing about it and didn't want to. But it appeared that he had heard of the 'sixth thousand, and he admitted that he had been standing close by at the moment. As far as he could see he 'didn't know how much money Mitya had in his hands. He affirmed that the Poles had cheated at cards. In reply to reiterated questions he stated that, after the Poles had been turned out, Mitya's position with Agrafena Alexandrovna had certainly improved, and that she had said that she loved him. He spoke of Agrafena Alexandrovna with reserve and respect, as though she had been a lady of the best society, and did not once allow himself to call her Grushenka. In spite of the young man's obvious repugnance at giving evidence, Ippolit Kirillovitch examined him at great length, and only from him learnt all the details of what made up Mitya's 'romance, so to say, on that night. Mitya did not once pull Kalganov up. At last they let the young man go, and he left the room with unconcealed indignation. The Poles, too, were examined. Though they had gone to bed in their room, they had not slept all night, and on the arrival of the police officers they hastily dressed and got ready, realizing that they would certainly be sent for. They gave their evidence with dignity, though not without some uneasiness. The little Pole turned out to be a retired official of the twelfth class, who had served in Siberia as a veterinary surgeon. His name was Mussyalovitch. Pan Vrublevsky turned out to be an uncertificated dentist. Although Nikolay Parfenovitch asked them questions on entering the room they both addressed their answers to Mihail Makarovitch, who was standing on one side, taking him in their ignorance for the most important person and in command, and addressed him at every word as 'Pan Colonel. Only after several reproofs from Mihail Makarovitch himself, they grasped that they had to address their answers to Nikolay Parfenovitch only. It turned out that they could speak Russian quite correctly except for their accent in some words. Of his relations with Grushenka, past and present, Pan Mussyalovitch spoke proudly and warmly, so that Mitya was roused at once and declared that he would not allow the 'scoundrel to speak like that in his presence! Pan Mussyalovitch at once called attention to the word 'scoundrel and begged that it should be put down in the protocol. Mitya fumed with rage. 'He's a scoundrel! A scoundrel! You can put that down. And put down, too, that, in spite of the protocol I still declare that he's a scoundrel! he cried. Though Nikolay Parfenovitch did insert this in the protocol, he showed the most praiseworthy tact and management. After sternly reprimanding Mitya, he cut short all further inquiry into the romantic aspect of the case, and hastened to pass to what was essential. One piece of evidence given by the Poles roused special interest in the lawyers that was how, in that very room, Mitya had tried to buy off Pan Mussyalovitch, and had offered him three thousand roubles to resign his claims, seven hundred roubles down, and the remaining two thousand three hundred 'to be paid next day in the town. He had sworn at the time that he had not the whole sum with him at Mokroe, but that his money was in the town. Mitya observed hotly that he had not said that he would be sure to pay him the remainder next day in the town. But Pan Vrublevsky confirmed the statement, and Mitya, after thinking for a moment admitted, frowning, that it must have been as the Poles stated, that he had been excited at the time, and might indeed have said so. The prosecutor positively pounced on this piece of evidence. It seemed to establish for the prosecution (and they did, in fact, base this deduction on it) that half, or a part of, the three thousand that had come into Mitya's hands might really have been left somewhere hidden in the town, or even, perhaps, somewhere here, in Mokroe. This would explain the circumstance, so baffling for the prosecution, that only eight hundred roubles were to be found in Mitya's hands. This circumstance had been the one piece of evidence which, insignificant as it was, had hitherto told, to some extent, in Mitya's favor. Now this one piece of evidence in his favor had broken down. In answer to the prosecutor's inquiry, where he would have got the remaining two thousand three hundred roubles, since he himself had denied having more than fifteen hundred, Mitya confidently replied that he had meant to offer the 'little chap, not money, but a formal deed of conveyance of his rights to the village of Tchermashnya, those rights which he had already offered to Samsonov and Madame Hohlakov. The prosecutor positively smiled at the 'innocence of this subterfuge. 'And you imagine he would have accepted such a deed as a substitute for two thousand three hundred roubles in cash? 'He certainly would have accepted it, Mitya declared warmly. 'Why, look here, he might have grabbed not two thousand, but four or six, for it. He would have put his lawyers, Poles and Jews, on to the job, and might have got, not three thousand, but the whole property out of the old man. The evidence of Pan Mussyalovitch was, of course, entered in the protocol in the fullest detail. Then they let the Poles go. The incident of the cheating at cards was hardly touched upon. Nikolay Parfenovitch was too well pleased with them, as it was, and did not want to worry them with trifles, moreover, it was nothing but a foolish, drunken quarrel over cards. There had been drinking and disorder enough, that night.... So the two hundred roubles remained in the pockets of the Poles. Then old Maximov was summoned. He came in timidly, approached with little steps, looking very disheveled and depressed. He had, all this time, taken refuge below with Grushenka, sitting dumbly beside her, and 'now and then he'd begin blubbering over her and wiping his eyes with a blue check handkerchief, as Mihail Makarovitch described afterwards. So that she herself began trying to pacify and comfort him. The old man at once confessed that he had done wrong, that he had borrowed 'ten roubles in my poverty, from Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that he was ready to pay it back. To Nikolay Parfenovitch's direct question, had he noticed how much money Dmitri Fyodorovitch held in his hand, as he must have been able to see the sum better than any one when he took the note from him, Maximov, in the most positive manner, declared that there was twenty thousand. 'Have you ever seen so much as twenty thousand before, then? inquired Nikolay Parfenovitch, with a smile. 'To be sure I have, not twenty, but seven, when my wife mortgaged my little property. She'd only let me look at it from a distance, boasting of it to me. It was a very thick bundle, all rainbowcolored notes. And Dmitri Fyodorovitch's were all rainbowcolored.... He was not kept long. At last it was Grushenka's turn. Nikolay Parfenovitch was obviously apprehensive of the effect her appearance might have on Mitya, and he muttered a few words of admonition to him, but Mitya bowed his head in silence, giving him to understand 'that he would not make a scene. Mihail Makarovitch himself led Grushenka in. She entered with a stern and gloomy face, that looked almost composed and sat down quietly on the chair offered her by Nikolay Parfenovitch. She was very pale, she seemed to be cold, and wrapped herself closely in her magnificent black shawl. She was suffering from a slight feverish chillthe first symptom of the long illness which followed that night. Her grave air, her direct earnest look and quiet manner made a very favorable impression on every one. Nikolay Parfenovitch was even a little bit 'fascinated. He admitted himself, when talking about it afterwards, that only then had he seen 'how handsome the woman was, for, though he had seen her several times before, he had always looked upon her as something of a 'provincial hetaira. 'She has the manners of the best society, he said enthusiastically, gossiping about her in a circle of ladies. But this was received with positive indignation by the ladies, who immediately called him a 'naughty man, to his great satisfaction. As she entered the room, Grushenka only glanced for an instant at Mitya, who looked at her uneasily. But her face reassured him at once. After the first inevitable inquiries and warnings, Nikolay Parfenovitch asked her, hesitating a little, but preserving the most courteous manner, on what terms she was with the retired lieutenant, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov. To this Grushenka firmly and quietly replied 'He was an acquaintance. He came to see me as an acquaintance during the last month. To further inquisitive questions she answered plainly and with complete frankness, that, though 'at times she had thought him attractive, she had not loved him, but had won his heart as well as his old father's 'in my nasty spite, that she had seen that Mitya was very jealous of Fyodor Pavlovitch and every one else but that had only amused her. She had never meant to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch, she had simply been laughing at him. 'I had no thoughts for either of them all this last month. I was expecting another man who had wronged me. But I think, she said in conclusion, 'that there's no need for you to inquire about that, nor for me to answer you, for that's my own affair. Nikolay Parfenovitch immediately acted upon this hint. He again dismissed the 'romantic aspect of the case and passed to the serious one, that is, to the question of most importance, concerning the three thousand roubles. Grushenka confirmed the statement that three thousand roubles had certainly been spent on the first carousal at Mokroe, and, though she had not counted the money herself, she had heard that it was three thousand from Dmitri Fyodorovitch's own lips. 'Did he tell you that alone, or before some one else, or did you only hear him speak of it to others in your presence? the prosecutor inquired immediately. To which Grushenka replied that she had heard him say so before other people, and had heard him say so when they were alone. 'Did he say it to you alone once, or several times? inquired the prosecutor, and learned that he had told Grushenka so several times. Ippolit Kirillovitch was very well satisfied with this piece of evidence. Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, where that money had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it from Katerina Ivanovna. 'And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago was not three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had saved half that sum for his own use? 'No, I never heard that, answered Grushenka. It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often told her that he hadn't a farthing. 'He was always expecting to get some from his father, said Grushenka in conclusion. 'Did he never say before you ... casually, or in a moment of irritation, Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, 'that he intended to make an attempt on his father's life? 'Ach, he did say so, sighed Grushenka. 'Once or several times? 'He mentioned it several times, always in anger. 'And did you believe he would do it? 'No, I never believed it, she answered firmly. 'I had faith in his noble heart. 'Gentlemen, allow me, cried Mitya suddenly, 'allow me to say one word to Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence. 'You can speak, Nikolay Parfenovitch assented. 'Agrafena Alexandrovna! Mitya got up from his chair, 'have faith in God and in me. I am not guilty of my father's murder! Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair. Grushenka stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon. 'Thanks be to Thee, O Lord, she said, in a voice thrilled with emotion, and still standing, she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and added 'As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He'll say anything as a joke or from obstinacy, but he'll never deceive you against his conscience. He's telling the whole truth, you may believe it. 'Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you've given me fresh courage, Mitya responded in a quivering voice. As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she did not know what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people that he had three thousand with him. And to the question where he got the money, she said that he had told her that he had 'stolen it from Katerina Ivanovna, and that she had replied to that that he hadn't stolen it, and that he must pay the money back next day. On the prosecutor's asking her emphatically whether the money he said he had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna was what he had spent yesterday, or what he had squandered here a month ago, she declared that he meant the money spent a month ago, and that that was how she understood him. Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed her impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if he could be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if she would care for an escort, he ... would be 'I thank you sincerely, said Grushenka, bowing to him, 'I'm going with this old gentleman, I am driving him back to town with me, and meanwhile, if you'll allow me, I'll wait below to hear what you decide about Dmitri Fyodorovitch. She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but only for a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of the witnesses was, at last, over. They proceeded to a final revision of the protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and instantly fell asleep. He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the time. He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of horses, through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November, and the snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as it touched the earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair, long beard. He was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had on a gray peasant's smock. Not far off was a village, he could see the black huts, and half the huts were burnt down, there were only the charred beams sticking up. And as they drove in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a lot of women, a whole row, all thin and wan, with their faces a sort of brownish color, especially one at the edge, a tall, bony woman, who looked forty, but might have been only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her arms was a little baby crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that there was not a drop of milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and held out its little bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold. 'Why are they crying? Why are they crying? Mitya asked, as they dashed gayly by. 'It's the babe, answered the driver, 'the babe weeping. And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, 'the babe, and he liked the peasant's calling it a 'babe. There seemed more pity in it. 'But why is it weeping? Mitya persisted stupidly, 'why are its little arms bare? Why don't they wrap it up? 'The babe's cold, its little clothes are frozen and don't warm it. 'But why is it? Why? foolish Mitya still persisted. 'Why, they're poor people, burnt out. They've no bread. They're begging because they've been burnt out. 'No, no, Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. 'Tell me why it is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the babe poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don't they hug each other and kiss? Why don't they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from black misery? Why don't they feed the babe? And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and senseless, yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it just in that way. And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before, was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do something for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that the dark faced, driedup mother should not weep, that no one should shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, at once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of the Karamazovs. 'And I'm coming with you. I won't leave you now for the rest of my life, I'm coming with you, he heard close beside him Grushenka's tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and he struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, to go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten, now, at once! 'What! Where? he exclaimed opening his eyes, and sitting up on the chest, as though he had revived from a swoon, smiling brightly. Nikolay Parfenovitch was standing over him, suggesting that he should hear the protocol read aloud and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had been asleep an hour or more, but he did not hear Nikolay Parfenovitch. He was suddenly struck by the fact that there was a pillow under his head, which hadn't been there when he had leant back, exhausted, on the chest. 'Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind? he cried, with a sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though some great kindness had been shown him. He never found out who this kind man was perhaps one of the peasant witnesses, or Nikolay Parfenovitch's little secretary, had compassionately thought to put a pillow under his head but his whole soul was quivering with tears. He went to the table and said that he would sign whatever they liked. 'I've had a good dream, gentlemen, he said in a strange voice, with a new light, as of joy, in his face. When the protocol had been signed, Nikolay Parfenovitch turned solemnly to the prisoner and read him the 'Committal, setting forth, that in such a year, on such a day, in such a place, the investigating lawyer of such andsuch a district court, having examined soandso (to wit, Mitya) accused of this and of that (all the charges were carefully written out) and having considered that the accused, not pleading guilty to the charges made against him, had brought forward nothing in his defense, while the witnesses, soandso, and soandso, and the circumstances suchandsuch testify against him, acting in accordance with suchandsuch articles of the Statute Book, and so on, has ruled, that, in order to preclude soand so (Mitya) from all means of evading pursuit and judgment he be detained in suchandsuch a prison, which he hereby notifies to the accused and communicates a copy of this same 'Committal to the deputy prosecutor, and so on, and so on. In brief, Mitya was informed that he was, from that moment, a prisoner, and that he would be driven at once to the town, and there shut up in a very unpleasant place. Mitya listened attentively, and only shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, gentlemen, I don't blame you. I'm ready.... I understand that there's nothing else for you to do. Nikolay Parfenovitch informed him gently that he would be escorted at once by the rural police officer, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, who happened to be on the spot.... 'Stay, Mitya interrupted, suddenly, and impelled by uncontrollable feeling he pronounced, addressing all in the room 'Gentlemen, we're all cruel, we're all monsters, we all make men weep, and mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settled here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I've sworn to amend, and every day I've done the same filthy things. I understand now that such men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose, and bind them by a force from without. Never, never should I have risen of myself! But the thunderbolt has fallen. I accept the torture of accusation, and my public shame, I want to suffer and by suffering I shall be purified. Perhaps I shall be purified, gentlemen? But listen, for the last time, I am not guilty of my father's blood. I accept my punishment, not because I killed him, but because I meant to kill him, and perhaps I really might have killed him. Still I mean to fight it out with you. I warn you of that. I'll fight it out with you to the end, and then God will decide. Goodby, gentlemen, don't be vexed with me for having shouted at you during the examination. Oh, I was still such a fool then.... In another minute I shall be a prisoner, but now, for the last time, as a free man, Dmitri Karamazov offers you his hand. Saying goodby to you, I say it to all men. His voice quivered and he stretched out his hand, but Nikolay Parfenovitch, who happened to stand nearest to him, with a sudden, almost nervous movement, hid his hands behind his back. Mitya instantly noticed this, and started. He let his outstretched hand fall at once. 'The preliminary inquiry is not yet over, Nikolay Parfenovitch faltered, somewhat embarrassed. 'We will continue it in the town, and I, for my part, of course, am ready to wish you all success ... in your defense.... As a matter of fact, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I've always been disposed to regard you as, so to speak, more unfortunate than guilty. All of us here, if I may make bold to speak for all, we are all ready to recognize that you are, at bottom, a young man of honor, but, alas, one who has been carried away by certain passions to a somewhat excessive degree.... Nikolay Parfenovitch's little figure was positively majestic by the time he had finished speaking. It struck Mitya that in another minute this 'boy would take his arm, lead him to another corner, and renew their conversation about 'girls. But many quite irrelevant and inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he is being led out to execution. 'Gentlemen, you are good, you are humane, may I see her to say 'goodby' for the last time? asked Mitya. 'Certainly, but considering ... in fact, now it's impossible except in the presence of 'Oh, well, if it must be so, it must! Grushenka was brought in, but the farewell was brief, and of few words, and did not at all satisfy Nikolay Parfenovitch. Grushenka made a deep bow to Mitya. 'I have told you I am yours, and I will be yours. I will follow you for ever, wherever they may send you. Farewell you are guiltless, though you've been your own undoing. Her lips quivered, tears flowed from her eyes. 'Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, for ruining you, too, with my love. Mitya would have said something more, but he broke off and went out. He was at once surrounded by men who kept a constant watch on him. At the bottom of the steps to which he had driven up with such a dash the day before with Andrey's three horses, two carts stood in readiness. Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a sturdy, thickset man with a wrinkled face, was annoyed about something, some sudden irregularity. He was shouting angrily. He asked Mitya to get into the cart with somewhat excessive surliness. 'When I stood him drinks in the tavern, the man had quite a different face, thought Mitya, as he got in. At the gates there was a crowd of people, peasants, women and drivers. Trifon Borissovitch came down the steps too. All stared at Mitya. 'Forgive me at parting, good people! Mitya shouted suddenly from the cart. 'Forgive us too! he heard two or three voices. 'Goodby to you, too, Trifon Borissovitch! But Trifon Borissovitch did not even turn round. He was, perhaps, too busy. He, too, was shouting and fussing about something. It appeared that everything was not yet ready in the second cart, in which two constables were to accompany Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. The peasant who had been ordered to drive the second cart was pulling on his smock, stoutly maintaining that it was not his turn to go, but Akim's. But Akim was not to be seen. They ran to look for him. The peasant persisted and besought them to wait. 'You see what our peasants are, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. They've no shame! exclaimed Trifon Borissovitch. 'Akim gave you twentyfive copecks the day before yesterday. You've drunk it all and now you cry out. I'm simply surprised at your goodnature, with our low peasants, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, that's all I can say. 'But what do we want a second cart for? Mitya put in. 'Let's start with the one, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. I won't be unruly, I won't run away from you, old fellow. What do we want an escort for? 'I'll trouble you, sir, to learn how to speak to me if you've never been taught. I'm not 'old fellow' to you, and you can keep your advice for another time! Mavriky Mavrikyevitch snapped out savagely, as though glad to vent his wrath. Mitya was reduced to silence. He flushed all over. A moment later he felt suddenly very cold. The rain had ceased, but the dull sky was still overcast with clouds, and a keen wind was blowing straight in his face. 'I've taken a chill, thought Mitya, twitching his shoulders. At last Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, too, got into the cart, sat down heavily, and, as though without noticing it, squeezed Mitya into the corner. It is true that he was out of humor and greatly disliked the task that had been laid upon him. 'Goodby, Trifon Borissovitch! Mitya shouted again, and felt himself, that he had not called out this time from goodnature, but involuntarily, from resentment. But Trifon Borissovitch stood proudly, with both hands behind his back, and staring straight at Mitya with a stern and angry face, he made no reply. 'Goodby, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, goodby! he heard all at once the voice of Kalganov, who had suddenly darted out. Running up to the cart he held out his hand to Mitya. He had no cap on. Mitya had time to seize and press his hand. 'Goodby, dear fellow! I shan't forget your generosity, he cried warmly. But the cart moved and their hands parted. The bell began ringing and Mitya was driven off. Kalganov ran back, sat down in a corner, bent his head, hid his face in his hands, and burst out crying. For a long while he sat like that, crying as though he were a little boy instead of a young man of twenty. Oh, he believed almost without doubt in Mitya's guilt. 'What are these people? What can men be after this? he exclaimed incoherently, in bitter despondency, almost despair. At that moment he had no desire to live. 'Is it worth it? Is it worth it? exclaimed the boy in his grief. It was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost, eleven degrees Raumur, without snow, but a little dry snow had fallen on the frozen ground during the night, and a keen dry wind was lifting and blowing it along the dreary streets of our town, especially about the marketplace. It was a dull morning, but the snow had ceased. Not far from the marketplace, close to Plotnikov's shop, there stood a small house, very clean both without and within. It belonged to Madame Krassotkin, the widow of a former provincial secretary, who had been dead for fourteen years. His widow, still a nicelooking woman of thirtytwo, was living in her neat little house on her private means. She lived in respectable seclusion she was of a soft but fairly cheerful disposition. She was about eighteen at the time of her husband's death she had been married only a year and had just borne him a son. From the day of his death she had devoted herself heart and soul to the bringing up of her precious treasure, her boy Kolya. Though she had loved him passionately those fourteen years, he had caused her far more suffering than happiness. She had been trembling and fainting with terror almost every day, afraid he would fall ill, would catch cold, do something naughty, climb on a chair and fall off it, and so on and so on. When Kolya began going to school, the mother devoted herself to studying all the sciences with him so as to help him, and go through his lessons with him. She hastened to make the acquaintance of the teachers and their wives, even made up to Kolya's schoolfellows, and fawned upon them in the hope of thus saving Kolya from being teased, laughed at, or beaten by them. She went so far that the boys actually began to mock at him on her account and taunt him with being a 'mother's darling. But the boy could take his own part. He was a resolute boy, 'tremendously strong, as was rumored in his class, and soon proved to be the fact he was agile, strongwilled, and of an audacious and enterprising temper. He was good at lessons, and there was a rumor in the school that he could beat the teacher, Dardanelov, at arithmetic and universal history. Though he looked down upon every one, he was a good comrade and not supercilious. He accepted his schoolfellows' respect as his due, but was friendly with them. Above all, he knew where to draw the line. He could restrain himself on occasion, and in his relations with the teachers he never overstepped that last mystic limit beyond which a prank becomes an unpardonable breach of discipline. But he was as fond of mischief on every possible occasion as the smallest boy in the school, and not so much for the sake of mischief as for creating a sensation, inventing something, something effective and conspicuous. He was extremely vain. He knew how to make even his mother give way to him he was almost despotic in his control of her. She gave way to him, oh, she had given way to him for years. The one thought unendurable to her was that her boy had no great love for her. She was always fancying that Kolya was 'unfeeling to her, and at times, dissolving into hysterical tears, she used to reproach him with his coldness. The boy disliked this, and the more demonstrations of feeling were demanded of him the more he seemed intentionally to avoid them. Yet it was not intentional on his part but instinctiveit was his character. His mother was mistaken he was very fond of her. He only disliked 'sheepish sentimentality, as he expressed it in his schoolboy language. There was a bookcase in the house containing a few books that had been his father's. Kolya was fond of reading, and had read several of them by himself. His mother did not mind that and only wondered sometimes at seeing the boy stand for hours by the bookcase poring over a book instead of going to play. And in that way Kolya read some things unsuitable for his age. Though the boy, as a rule, knew where to draw the line in his mischief, he had of late begun to play pranks that caused his mother serious alarm. It is true there was nothing vicious in what he did, but a wild mad recklessness. It happened that July, during the summer holidays, that the mother and son went to another district, fortyfive miles away, to spend a week with a distant relation, whose husband was an official at the railway station (the very station, the nearest one to our town, from which a month later Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov set off for Moscow). There Kolya began by carefully investigating every detail connected with the railways, knowing that he could impress his schoolfellows when he got home with his newly acquired knowledge. But there happened to be some other boys in the place with whom he soon made friends. Some of them were living at the station, others in the neighborhood there were six or seven of them, all between twelve and fifteen, and two of them came from our town. The boys played together, and on the fourth or fifth day of Kolya's stay at the station, a mad bet was made by the foolish boys. Kolya, who was almost the youngest of the party and rather looked down upon by the others in consequence, was moved by vanity or by reckless bravado to bet them two roubles that he would lie down between the rails at night when the eleven o'clock train was due, and would lie there without moving while the train rolled over him at full speed. It is true they made a preliminary investigation, from which it appeared that it was possible to lie so flat between the rails that the train could pass over without touching, but to lie there was no joke! Kolya maintained stoutly that he would. At first they laughed at him, called him a little liar, a braggart, but that only egged him on. What piqued him most was that these boys of fifteen turned up their noses at him too superciliously, and were at first disposed to treat him as 'a small boy, not fit to associate with them, and that was an unendurable insult. And so it was resolved to go in the evening, half a mile from the station, so that the train might have time to get up full speed after leaving the station. The boys assembled. It was a pitchdark night without a moon. At the time fixed, Kolya lay down between the rails. The five others who had taken the bet waited among the bushes below the embankment, their hearts beating with suspense, which was followed by alarm and remorse. At last they heard in the distance the rumble of the train leaving the station. Two red lights gleamed out of the darkness the monster roared as it approached. 'Run, run away from the rails, the boys cried to Kolya from the bushes, breathless with terror. But it was too late the train darted up and flew past. The boys rushed to Kolya. He lay without moving. They began pulling at him, lifting him up. He suddenly got up and walked away without a word. Then he explained that he had lain there as though he were insensible to frighten them, but the fact was that he really had lost consciousness, as he confessed long after to his mother. In this way his reputation as 'a desperate character, was established for ever. He returned home to the station as white as a sheet. Next day he had a slight attack of nervous fever, but he was in high spirits and well pleased with himself. The incident did not become known at once, but when they came back to the town it penetrated to the school and even reached the ears of the masters. But then Kolya's mother hastened to entreat the masters on her boy's behalf, and in the end Dardanelov, a respected and influential teacher, exerted himself in his favor, and the affair was ignored. Dardanelov was a middleaged bachelor, who had been passionately in love with Madame Krassotkin for many years past, and had once already, about a year previously, ventured, trembling with fear and the delicacy of his sentiments, to offer her most respectfully his hand in marriage. But she refused him resolutely, feeling that to accept him would be an act of treachery to her son, though Dardanelov had, to judge from certain mysterious symptoms, reason for believing that he was not an object of aversion to the charming but too chaste and tenderhearted widow. Kolya's mad prank seemed to have broken the ice, and Dardanelov was rewarded for his intercession by a suggestion of hope. The suggestion, it is true, was a faint one, but then Dardanelov was such a paragon of purity and delicacy that it was enough for the time being to make him perfectly happy. He was fond of the boy, though he would have felt it beneath him to try and win him over, and was severe and strict with him in class. Kolya, too, kept him at a respectful distance. He learned his lessons perfectly he was second in his class, was reserved with Dardanelov, and the whole class firmly believed that Kolya was so good at universal history that he could 'beat even Dardanelov. Kolya did indeed ask him the question, 'Who founded Troy? to which Dardanelov had made a very vague reply, referring to the movements and migrations of races, to the remoteness of the period, to the mythical legends. But the question, 'Who had founded Troy? that is, what individuals, he could not answer, and even for some reason regarded the question as idle and frivolous. But the boys remained convinced that Dardanelov did not know who founded Troy. Kolya had read of the founders of Troy in Smaragdov, whose history was among the books in his father's bookcase. In the end all the boys became interested in the question, who it was that had founded Troy, but Krassotkin would not tell his secret, and his reputation for knowledge remained unshaken. After the incident on the railway a certain change came over Kolya's attitude to his mother. When Anna Fyodorovna (Madame Krassotkin) heard of her son's exploit, she almost went out of her mind with horror. She had such terrible attacks of hysterics, lasting with intervals for several days, that Kolya, seriously alarmed at last, promised on his honor that such pranks should never be repeated. He swore on his knees before the holy image, and swore by the memory of his father, at Madame Krassotkin's instance, and the 'manly Kolya burst into tears like a boy of six. And all that day the mother and son were constantly rushing into each other's arms sobbing. Next day Kolya woke up as 'unfeeling as before, but he had become more silent, more modest, sterner, and more thoughtful. Six weeks later, it is true, he got into another scrape, which even brought his name to the ears of our Justice of the Peace, but it was a scrape of quite another kind, amusing, foolish, and he did not, as it turned out, take the leading part in it, but was only implicated in it. But of this later. His mother still fretted and trembled, but the more uneasy she became, the greater were the hopes of Dardanelov. It must be noted that Kolya understood and divined what was in Dardanelov's heart and, of course, despised him profoundly for his 'feelings he had in the past been so tactless as to show this contempt before his mother, hinting vaguely that he knew what Dardanelov was after. But from the time of the railway incident his behavior in this respect also was changed he did not allow himself the remotest allusion to the subject and began to speak more respectfully of Dardanelov before his mother, which the sensitive woman at once appreciated with boundless gratitude. But at the slightest mention of Dardanelov by a visitor in Kolya's presence, she would flush as pink as a rose. At such moments Kolya would either stare out of the window scowling, or would investigate the state of his boots, or would shout angrily for 'Perezvon, the big, shaggy, mangy dog, which he had picked up a month before, brought home, and kept for some reason secretly indoors, not showing him to any of his schoolfellows. He bullied him frightfully, teaching him all sorts of tricks, so that the poor dog howled for him whenever he was absent at school, and when he came in, whined with delight, rushed about as if he were crazy, begged, lay down on the ground pretending to be dead, and so on in fact, showed all the tricks he had taught him, not at the word of command, but simply from the zeal of his excited and grateful heart. I have forgotten, by the way, to mention that Kolya Krassotkin was the boy stabbed with a penknife by the boy already known to the reader as the son of Captain Snegiryov. Ilusha had been defending his father when the schoolboys jeered at him, shouting the nickname 'wisp of tow. And so on that frosty, snowy, and windy day in November, Kolya Krassotkin was sitting at home. It was Sunday and there was no school. It had just struck eleven, and he particularly wanted to go out 'on very urgent business, but he was left alone in charge of the house, for it so happened that all its elder inmates were absent owing to a sudden and singular event. Madame Krassotkin had let two little rooms, separated from the rest of the house by a passage, to a doctor's wife with her two small children. This lady was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna, and a great friend of hers. Her husband, the doctor, had taken his departure twelve months before, going first to Orenburg and then to Tashkend, and for the last six months she had not heard a word from him. Had it not been for her friendship with Madame Krassotkin, which was some consolation to the forsaken lady, she would certainly have completely dissolved away in tears. And now, to add to her misfortunes, Katerina, her only servant, was suddenly moved the evening before to announce, to her mistress's amazement, that she proposed to bring a child into the world before morning. It seemed almost miraculous to every one that no one had noticed the probability of it before. The astounded doctor's wife decided to move Katerina while there was still time to an establishment in the town kept by a midwife for such emergencies. As she set great store by her servant, she promptly carried out this plan and remained there looking after her. By the morning all Madame Krassotkin's friendly sympathy and energy were called upon to render assistance and appeal to some one for help in the case. So both the ladies were absent from home, the Krassotkins' servant, Agafya, had gone out to the market, and Kolya was thus left for a time to protect and look after 'the kids, that is, the son and daughter of the doctor's wife, who were left alone. Kolya was not afraid of taking care of the house, besides he had Perezvon, who had been told to lie flat, without moving, under the bench in the hall. Every time Kolya, walking to and fro through the rooms, came into the hall, the dog shook his head and gave two loud and insinuating taps on the floor with his tail, but alas! the whistle did not sound to release him. Kolya looked sternly at the luckless dog, who relapsed again into obedient rigidity. The one thing that troubled Kolya was 'the kids. He looked, of course, with the utmost scorn on Katerina's unexpected adventure, but he was very fond of the bereaved 'kiddies, and had already taken them a picturebook. Nastya, the elder, a girl of eight, could read, and Kostya, the boy, aged seven, was very fond of being read to by her. Krassotkin could, of course, have provided more diverting entertainment for them. He could have made them stand side by side and played soldiers with them, or sent them hiding all over the house. He had done so more than once before and was not above doing it, so much so that a report once spread at school that Krassotkin played horses with the little lodgers at home, prancing with his head on one side like a tracehorse. But Krassotkin haughtily parried this thrust, pointing out that to play horses with boys of one's own age, boys of thirteen, would certainly be disgraceful 'at this date, but that he did it for the sake of 'the kids because he liked them, and no one had a right to call him to account for his feelings. The two 'kids adored him. But on this occasion he was in no mood for games. He had very important business of his own before him, something almost mysterious. Meanwhile time was passing and Agafya, with whom he could have left the children, would not come back from market. He had several times already crossed the passage, opened the door of the lodgers' room and looked anxiously at 'the kids who were sitting over the book, as he had bidden them. Every time he opened the door they grinned at him, hoping he would come in and would do something delightful and amusing. But Kolya was bothered and did not go in. At last it struck eleven and he made up his mind, once for all, that if that 'damned Agafya did not come back within ten minutes he should go out without waiting for her, making 'the kids promise, of course, to be brave when he was away, not to be naughty, not to cry from fright. With this idea he put on his wadded winter overcoat with its catskin fur collar, slung his satchel round his shoulder, and, regardless of his mother's constantly reiterated entreaties that he would always put on goloshes in such cold weather, he looked at them contemptuously as he crossed the hall and went out with only his boots on. Perezvon, seeing him in his outdoor clothes, began tapping nervously, yet vigorously, on the floor with his tail. Twitching all over, he even uttered a plaintive whine. But Kolya, seeing his dog's passionate excitement, decided that it was a breach of discipline, kept him for another minute under the bench, and only when he had opened the door into the passage, whistled for him. The dog leapt up like a mad creature and rushed bounding before him rapturously. Kolya opened the door to peep at 'the kids. They were both sitting as before at the table, not reading but warmly disputing about something. The children often argued together about various exciting problems of life, and Nastya, being the elder, always got the best of it. If Kostya did not agree with her, he almost always appealed to Kolya Krassotkin, and his verdict was regarded as infallible by both of them. This time the 'kids' discussion rather interested Krassotkin, and he stood still in the passage to listen. The children saw he was listening and that made them dispute with even greater energy. 'I shall never, never believe, Nastya prattled, 'that the old women find babies among the cabbages in the kitchengarden. It's winter now and there are no cabbages, and so the old woman couldn't have taken Katerina a daughter. Kolya whistled to himself. 'Or perhaps they do bring babies from somewhere, but only to those who are married. Kostya stared at Nastya and listened, pondering profoundly. 'Nastya, how silly you are! he said at last, firmly and calmly. 'How can Katerina have a baby when she isn't married? Nastya was exasperated. 'You know nothing about it, she snapped irritably. 'Perhaps she has a husband, only he is in prison, so now she's got a baby. 'But is her husband in prison? the matteroffact Kostya inquired gravely. 'Or, I tell you what, Nastya interrupted impulsively, completely rejecting and forgetting her first hypothesis. 'She hasn't a husband, you are right there, but she wants to be married, and so she's been thinking of getting married, and thinking and thinking of it till now she's got it, that is, not a husband but a baby. 'Well, perhaps so, Kostya agreed, entirely vanquished. 'But you didn't say so before. So how could I tell? 'Come, kiddies, said Kolya, stepping into the room. 'You're terrible people, I see. 'And Perezvon with you! grinned Kostya, and began snapping his fingers and calling Perezvon. 'I am in a difficulty, kids, Krassotkin began solemnly, 'and you must help me. Agafya must have broken her leg, since she has not turned up till now, that's certain. I must go out. Will you let me go? The children looked anxiously at one another. Their smiling faces showed signs of uneasiness, but they did not yet fully grasp what was expected of them. 'You won't be naughty while I am gone? You won't climb on the cupboard and break your legs? You won't be frightened alone and cry? A look of profound despondency came into the children's faces. 'And I could show you something as a reward, a little copper cannon which can be fired with real gunpowder. The children's faces instantly brightened. 'Show us the cannon, said Kostya, beaming all over. Krassotkin put his hand in his satchel, and pulling out a little bronze cannon stood it on the table. 'Ah, you are bound to ask that! Look, it's on wheels. He rolled the toy on along the table. 'And it can be fired off, too. It can be loaded with shot and fired off. 'And it could kill any one? 'It can kill any one you've only got to aim at anybody, and Krassotkin explained where the powder had to be put, where the shot should be rolled in, showing a tiny hole like a touchhole, and told them that it kicked when it was fired. The children listened with intense interest. What particularly struck their imagination was that the cannon kicked. 'And have you got any powder? Nastya inquired. 'Yes. 'Show us the powder, too, she drawled with a smile of entreaty. Krassotkin dived again into his satchel and pulled out a small flask containing a little real gunpowder. He had some shot, too, in a screw of paper. He even uncorked the flask and shook a little powder into the palm of his hand. 'One has to be careful there's no fire about, or it would blow up and kill us all, Krassotkin warned them sensationally. The children gazed at the powder with an awestricken alarm that only intensified their enjoyment. But Kostya liked the shot better. 'And does the shot burn? he inquired. 'No, it doesn't. 'Give me a little shot, he asked in an imploring voice. 'I'll give you a little shot here, take it, but don't show it to your mother till I come back, or she'll be sure to think it's gunpowder, and will die of fright and give you a thrashing. 'Mother never does whip us, Nastya observed at once. 'I know, I only said it to finish the sentence. And don't you ever deceive your mother except just this once, until I come back. And so, kiddies, can I go out? You won't be frightened and cry when I'm gone? 'We shaall cry, drawled Kostya, on the verge of tears already. 'We shall cry, we shall be sure to cry, Nastya chimed in with timid haste. 'Oh, children, children, how fraught with peril are your years! There's no help for it, chickens, I shall have to stay with you I don't know how long. And time is passing, time is passing, oogh! 'Tell Perezvon to pretend to be dead! Kostya begged. 'There's no help for it, we must have recourse to Perezvon. Ici, Perezvon. And Kolya began giving orders to the dog, who performed all his tricks. He was a roughhaired dog, of medium size, with a coat of a sort of lilac gray color. He was blind in his right eye, and his left ear was torn. He whined and jumped, stood and walked on his hind legs, lay on his back with his paws in the air, rigid as though he were dead. While this last performance was going on, the door opened and Agafya, Madame Krassotkin's servant, a stout woman of forty, marked with smallpox, appeared in the doorway. She had come back from market and had a bag full of provisions in her hand. Holding up the bag of provisions in her left hand she stood still to watch the dog. Though Kolya had been so anxious for her return, he did not cut short the performance, and after keeping Perezvon dead for the usual time, at last he whistled to him. The dog jumped up and began bounding about in his joy at having done his duty. 'Only think, a dog! Agafya observed sententiously. 'Why are you late, female? asked Krassotkin sternly. 'Female, indeed! Go on with you, you brat. 'Brat? 'Yes, a brat. What is it to you if I'm late if I'm late, you may be sure I have good reason, muttered Agafya, busying herself about the stove, without a trace of anger or displeasure in her voice. She seemed quite pleased, in fact, to enjoy a skirmish with her merry young master. 'Listen, you frivolous young woman, Krassotkin began, getting up from the sofa, 'can you swear by all you hold sacred in the world and something else besides, that you will watch vigilantly over the kids in my absence? I am going out. 'And what am I going to swear for? laughed Agafya. 'I shall look after them without that. 'No, you must swear on your eternal salvation. Else I shan't go. 'Well, don't then. What does it matter to me? It's cold out stay at home. 'Kids, Kolya turned to the children, 'this woman will stay with you till I come back or till your mother comes, for she ought to have been back long ago. She will give you some lunch, too. You'll give them something, Agafya, won't you? 'That I can do. 'Goodby, chickens, I go with my heart at rest. And you, granny, he added gravely, in an undertone, as he passed Agafya, 'I hope you'll spare their tender years and not tell them any of your old woman's nonsense about Katerina. Ici, Perezvon! 'Get along with you! retorted Agafya, really angry this time. 'Ridiculous boy! You want a whipping for saying such things, that's what you want! But Kolya did not hear her. At last he could go out. As he went out at the gate he looked round him, shrugged up his shoulders, and saying 'It is freezing, went straight along the street and turned off to the right towards the marketplace. When he reached the last house but one before the marketplace he stopped at the gate, pulled a whistle out of his pocket, and whistled with all his might as though giving a signal. He had not to wait more than a minute before a rosycheeked boy of about eleven, wearing a warm, neat and even stylish coat, darted out to meet him. This was Smurov, a boy in the preparatory class (two classes below Kolya Krassotkin), son of a welltodo official. Apparently he was forbidden by his parents to associate with Krassotkin, who was well known to be a desperately naughty boy, so Smurov was obviously slipping out on the sly. He wasif the reader has not forgottenone of the group of boys who two months before had thrown stones at Ilusha. He was the one who told Alyosha Karamazov about Ilusha. 'I've been waiting for you for the last hour, Krassotkin, said Smurov stolidly, and the boys strode towards the marketplace. 'I am late, answered Krassotkin. 'I was detained by circumstances. You won't be thrashed for coming with me? 'Come, I say, I'm never thrashed! And you've got Perezvon with you? 'Yes. 'You're taking him, too? 'Yes. 'Ah! if it were only Zhutchka! 'That's impossible. Zhutchka's nonexistent. Zhutchka is lost in the mists of obscurity. 'Ah! couldn't we do this? Smurov suddenly stood still. 'You see Ilusha says that Zhutchka was a shaggy, grayish, smokylooking dog like Perezvon. Couldn't you tell him this is Zhutchka, and he might believe you? 'Boy, shun a lie, that's one thing even with a good objectthat's another. Above all, I hope you've not told them anything about my coming. 'Heaven forbid! I know what I am about. But you won't comfort him with Perezvon, said Smurov, with a sigh. 'You know his father, the captain, 'the wisp of tow,' told us that he was going to bring him a real mastiff pup, with a black nose, today. He thinks that would comfort Ilusha but I doubt it. 'And how is Ilusha? 'Ah, he is bad, very bad! I believe he's in consumption he is quite conscious, but his breathing! His breathing's gone wrong. The other day he asked to have his boots on to be led round the room. He tried to walk, but he couldn't stand. 'Ah, I told you before, father,' he said, 'that those boots were no good. I could never walk properly in them.' He fancied it was his boots that made him stagger, but it was simply weakness, really. He won't live another week. Herzenstube is looking after him. Now they are rich againthey've got heaps of money. 'They are rogues. 'Who are rogues? 'Doctors and the whole crew of quacks collectively, and also, of course, individually. I don't believe in medicine. It's a useless institution. I mean to go into all that. But what's that sentimentality you've got up there? The whole class seems to be there every day. 'Not the whole class it's only ten of our fellows who go to see him every day. There's nothing in that. 'What I don't understand in all this is the part that Alexey Karamazov is taking in it. His brother's going to be tried tomorrow or next day for such a crime, and yet he has so much time to spend on sentimentality with boys. 'There's no sentimentality about it. You are going yourself now to make it up with Ilusha. 'Make it up with him? What an absurd expression! But I allow no one to analyze my actions. 'And how pleased Ilusha will be to see you! He has no idea that you are coming. Why was it, why was it you wouldn't come all this time? Smurov cried with sudden warmth. 'My dear boy, that's my business, not yours. I am going of myself because I choose to, but you've all been hauled there by Alexey Karamazovthere's a difference, you know. And how do you know? I may not be going to make it up at all. It's a stupid expression. 'It's not Karamazov at all it's not his doing. Our fellows began going there of themselves. Of course, they went with Karamazov at first. And there's been nothing of that sortno silliness. First one went, and then another. His father was awfully pleased to see us. You know he will simply go out of his mind if Ilusha dies. He sees that Ilusha's dying. And he seems so glad we've made it up with Ilusha. Ilusha asked after you, that was all. He just asks and says no more. His father will go out of his mind or hang himself. He behaved like a madman before. You know he is a very decent man. We made a mistake then. It's all the fault of that murderer who beat him then. 'Karamazov's a riddle to me all the same. I might have made his acquaintance long ago, but I like to have a proper pride in some cases. Besides, I have a theory about him which I must work out and verify. Kolya subsided into dignified silence. Smurov, too, was silent. Smurov, of course, worshiped Krassotkin and never dreamed of putting himself on a level with him. Now he was tremendously interested at Kolya's saying that he was 'going of himself to see Ilusha. He felt that there must be some mystery in Kolya's suddenly taking it into his head to go to him that day. They crossed the marketplace, in which at that hour were many loaded wagons from the country and a great number of live fowls. The market women were selling rolls, cottons and threads, etc., in their booths. These Sunday markets were navely called 'fairs in the town, and there were many such fairs in the year. Perezvon ran about in the wildest spirits, sniffing about first one side, then the other. When he met other dogs they zealously smelt each other over according to the rules of canine etiquette. 'I like to watch such realistic scenes, Smurov, said Kolya suddenly. 'Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? It seems to be a law of their nature. 'Yes it's a funny habit. 'No, it's not funny you are wrong there. There's nothing funny in nature, however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize us they'd be sure to find just as much that would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their mastersfar more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That's Rakitin's ideaa remarkable idea. I am a Socialist, Smurov. 'And what is a Socialist? asked Smurov. 'That's when all are equal and all have property in common, there are no marriages, and every one has any religion and laws he likes best, and all the rest of it. You are not old enough to understand that yet. It's cold, though. 'Yes, twelve degrees of frost. Father looked at the thermometer just now. 'Have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter we don't feel so cold even when there are fifteen or eighteen degrees of frost as we do now, in the beginning of winter, when there is a sudden frost of twelve degrees, especially when there is not much snow. It's because people are not used to it. Everything is habit with men, everything even in their social and political relations. Habit is the great motivepower. What a funnylooking peasant! Kolya pointed to a tall peasant, with a goodnatured countenance in a long sheepskin coat, who was standing by his wagon, clapping together his hands, in their shapeless leather gloves, to warm them. His long fair beard was all white with frost. 'That peasant's beard's frozen, Kolya cried in a loud provocative voice as he passed him. 'Lots of people's beards are frozen, the peasant replied, calmly and sententiously. 'Don't provoke him, observed Smurov. 'It's all right he won't be cross he's a nice fellow. Goodby, Matvey. 'Goodby. 'Is your name Matvey? 'Yes. Didn't you know? 'No, I didn't. It was a guess. 'You don't say so! You are a schoolboy, I suppose? 'Yes. 'You get whipped, I expect? 'Nothing to speak ofsometimes. 'Does it hurt? 'Well, yes, it does. 'Ech, what a life! The peasant heaved a sigh from the bottom of his heart. 'Goodby, Matvey. 'Goodby. You are a nice chap, that you are. The boys went on. 'That was a nice peasant, Kolya observed to Smurov. 'I like talking to the peasants, and am always glad to do them justice. 'Why did you tell a lie, pretending we are thrashed? asked Smurov. 'I had to say that to please him. 'How do you mean? 'You know, Smurov, I don't like being asked the same thing twice. I like people to understand at the first word. Some things can't be explained. According to a peasant's notions, schoolboys are whipped, and must be whipped. What would a schoolboy be if he were not whipped? And if I were to tell him we are not, he'd be disappointed. But you don't understand that. One has to know how to talk to the peasants. 'Only don't tease them, please, or you'll get into another scrape as you did about that goose. 'So you're afraid? 'Don't laugh, Kolya. Of course I'm afraid. My father would be awfully cross. I am strictly forbidden to go out with you. 'Don't be uneasy, nothing will happen this time. Hallo, Natasha! he shouted to a market woman in one of the booths. 'Call me Natasha! What next! My name is Marya, the middleaged market woman shouted at him. 'I am so glad it's Marya. Goodby! 'Ah, you young rascal! A brat like you to carry on so! 'I'm in a hurry. I can't stay now. You shall tell me next Sunday. Kolya waved his hand at her, as though she had attacked him and not he her. 'I've nothing to tell you next Sunday. You set upon me, you impudent young monkey. I didn't say anything, bawled Marya. 'You want a whipping, that's what you want, you saucy jackanapes! There was a roar of laughter among the other market women round her. Suddenly a man in a violent rage darted out from the arcade of shops close by. He was a young man, not a native of the town, with dark, curly hair and a long, pale face, marked with smallpox. He wore a long blue coat and a peaked cap, and looked like a merchant's clerk. He was in a state of stupid excitement and brandished his fist at Kolya. 'I know you! he cried angrily, 'I know you! Kolya stared at him. He could not recall when he could have had a row with the man. But he had been in so many rows in the street that he could hardly remember them all. 'Do you? he asked sarcastically. 'I know you! I know you! the man repeated idiotically. 'So much the better for you. Well, it's time I was going. Goodby! 'You are at your saucy pranks again? cried the man. 'You are at your saucy pranks again? I know, you are at it again! 'It's not your business, brother, if I am at my saucy pranks again, said Kolya, standing still and scanning him. 'Not my business? 'No it's not your business. 'Whose then? Whose then? Whose then? 'It's Trifon Nikititch's business, not yours. 'What Trifon Nikititch? asked the youth, staring with loutish amazement at Kolya, but still as angry as ever. Kolya scanned him gravely. 'Have you been to the Church of the Ascension? he suddenly asked him, with stern emphasis. 'What Church of Ascension? What for? No, I haven't, said the young man, somewhat taken aback. 'Do you know Sabaneyev? Kolya went on even more emphatically and even more severely. 'What Sabaneyev? No, I don't know him. 'Well then you can go to the devil, said Kolya, cutting short the conversation and turning sharply to the right he strode quickly on his way as though he disdained further conversation with a dolt who did not even know Sabaneyev. 'Stop, heigh! What Sabaneyev? the young man recovered from his momentary stupefaction and was as excited as before. 'What did he say? He turned to the market women with a silly stare. The women laughed. 'You can never tell what he's after, said one of them. 'What Sabaneyev is it he's talking about? the young man repeated, still furious and brandishing his right arm. 'It must be a Sabaneyev who worked for the Kuzmitchovs, that's who it must be, one of the women suggested. The young man stared at her wildly. 'For the Kuzmitchovs? repeated another woman. 'But his name wasn't Trifon. His name's Kuzma, not Trifon but the boy said Trifon Nikititch, so it can't be the same. 'His name is not Trifon and not Sabaneyev, it's Tchizhov, put in suddenly a third woman, who had hitherto been silent, listening gravely. 'Alexey Ivanitch is his name. Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch. 'Not a doubt about it, it's Tchizhov, a fourth woman emphatically confirmed the statement. The bewildered youth gazed from one to another. 'But what did he ask for, what did he ask for, good people? he cried almost in desperation. ' 'Do you know Sabaneyev?' says he. And who the devil's to know who is Sabaneyev? 'You're a senseless fellow. I tell you it's not Sabaneyev, but Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch Tchizhov, that's who it is! one of the women shouted at him impressively. 'What Tchizhov? Who is he? Tell me, if you know. 'That tall, sniveling fellow who used to sit in the market in the summer. 'And what's your Tchizhov to do with me, good people, eh? 'How can I tell what he's to do with you? put in another. 'You ought to know yourself what you want with him, if you make such a clamor about him. He spoke to you, he did not speak to us, you stupid. Don't you really know him? 'Know whom? 'Tchizhov. 'The devil take Tchizhov and you with him. I'll give him a hiding, that I will. He was laughing at me! 'Will give Tchizhov a hiding! More likely he will give you one. You are a fool, that's what you are! 'Not Tchizhov, not Tchizhov, you spiteful, mischievous woman. I'll give the boy a hiding. Catch him, catch him, he was laughing at me! The woman guffawed. But Kolya was by now a long way off, marching along with a triumphant air. Smurov walked beside him, looking round at the shouting group far behind. He too was in high spirits, though he was still afraid of getting into some scrape in Kolya's company. 'What Sabaneyev did you mean? he asked Kolya, foreseeing what his answer would be. 'How do I know? Now there'll be a hubbub among them all day. I like to stir up fools in every class of society. There's another blockhead, that peasant there. You know, they say 'there's no one stupider than a stupid Frenchman,' but a stupid Russian shows it in his face just as much. Can't you see it all over his face that he is a fool, that peasant, eh? 'Let him alone, Kolya. Let's go on. 'Nothing could stop me, now I am once off. Hey, good morning, peasant! A sturdylooking peasant, with a round, simple face and grizzled beard, who was walking by, raised his head and looked at the boy. He seemed not quite sober. 'Good morning, if you are not laughing at me, he said deliberately in reply. 'And if I am? laughed Kolya. 'Well, a joke's a joke. Laugh away. I don't mind. There's no harm in a joke. 'I beg your pardon, brother, it was a joke. 'Well, God forgive you! 'Do you forgive me, too? 'I quite forgive you. Go along. 'I say, you seem a clever peasant. 'Cleverer than you, the peasant answered unexpectedly, with the same gravity. 'I doubt it, said Kolya, somewhat taken aback. 'It's true, though. 'Perhaps it is. 'It is, brother. 'Goodby, peasant! 'Goodby! 'There are all sorts of peasants, Kolya observed to Smurov after a brief silence. 'How could I tell I had hit on a clever one? I am always ready to recognize intelligence in the peasantry. In the distance the cathedral clock struck halfpast eleven. The boys made haste and they walked as far as Captain Snegiryov's lodging, a considerable distance, quickly and almost in silence. Twenty paces from the house Kolya stopped and told Smurov to go on ahead and ask Karamazov to come out to him. 'One must sniff round a bit first, he observed to Smurov. 'Why ask him to come out? Smurov protested. 'You go in they will be awfully glad to see you. What's the sense of making friends in the frost out here? 'I know why I want to see him out here in the frost, Kolya cut him short in the despotic tone he was fond of adopting with 'small boys, and Smurov ran to do his bidding. Kolya leaned against the fence with an air of dignity, waiting for Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard a great deal about him from the boys, but hitherto he had always maintained an appearance of disdainful indifference when he was mentioned, and he had even 'criticized what he heard about Alyosha. But secretly he had a great longing to make his acquaintance there was something sympathetic and attractive in all he was told about Alyosha. So the present moment was important to begin with, he had to show himself at his best, to show his independence, 'Or he'll think of me as thirteen and take me for a boy, like the rest of them. And what are these boys to him? I shall ask him when I get to know him. It's a pity I am so short, though. Tuzikov is younger than I am, yet he is half a head taller. But I have a clever face. I am not goodlooking. I know I'm hideous, but I've a clever face. I mustn't talk too freely if I fall into his arms all at once, he may thinkTfoo! how horrible if he should think! Such were the thoughts that excited Kolya while he was doing his utmost to assume the most independent air. What distressed him most was his being so short he did not mind so much his 'hideous face, as being so short. On the wall in a corner at home he had the year before made a pencilmark to show his height, and every two months since he anxiously measured himself against it to see how much he had gained. But alas! he grew very slowly, and this sometimes reduced him almost to despair. His face was in reality by no means 'hideous on the contrary, it was rather attractive, with a fair, pale skin, freckled. His small, lively gray eyes had a fearless look, and often glowed with feeling. He had rather high cheekbones small, very red, but not very thick, lips his nose was small and unmistakably turned up. 'I've a regular pug nose, a regular pug nose, Kolya used to mutter to himself when he looked in the lookingglass, and he always left it with indignation. 'But perhaps I haven't got a clever face? he sometimes thought, doubtful even of that. But it must not be supposed that his mind was preoccupied with his face and his height. On the contrary, however bitter the moments before the lookingglass were to him, he quickly forgot them, and forgot them for a long time, 'abandoning himself entirely to ideas and to real life, as he formulated it to himself. Alyosha came out quickly and hastened up to Kolya. Before he reached him, Kolya could see that he looked delighted. 'Can he be so glad to see me? Kolya wondered, feeling pleased. We may note here, in passing, that Alyosha's appearance had undergone a complete change since we saw him last. He had abandoned his cassock and was wearing now a wellcut coat, a soft, round hat, and his hair had been cropped short. All this was very becoming to him, and he looked quite handsome. His charming face always had a goodhumored expression but there was a gentleness and serenity in his goodhumor. To Kolya's surprise, Alyosha came out to him just as he was, without an overcoat. He had evidently come in haste. He held out his hand to Kolya at once. 'Here you are at last! How anxious we've been to see you! 'There were reasons which you shall know directly. Anyway, I am glad to make your acquaintance. I've long been hoping for an opportunity, and have heard a great deal about you, Kolya muttered, a little breathless. 'We should have met anyway. I've heard a great deal about you, too but you've been a long time coming here. 'Tell me, how are things going? 'Ilusha is very ill. He is certainly dying. 'How awful! You must admit that medicine is a fraud, Karamazov, cried Kolya warmly. 'Ilusha has mentioned you often, very often, even in his sleep, in delirium, you know. One can see that you used to be very, very dear to him ... before the incident ... with the knife.... Then there's another reason.... Tell me, is that your dog? 'Yes, Perezvon. 'Not Zhutchka? Alyosha looked at Kolya with eyes full of pity. 'Is she lost for ever? 'I know you would all like it to be Zhutchka. I've heard all about it. Kolya smiled mysteriously. 'Listen, Karamazov, I'll tell you all about it. That's what I came for that's what I asked you to come out here for, to explain the whole episode to you before we go in, he began with animation. 'You see, Karamazov, Ilusha came into the preparatory class last spring. Well, you know what our preparatory class isa lot of small boys. They began teasing Ilusha at once. I am two classes higher up, and, of course, I only look on at them from a distance. I saw the boy was weak and small, but he wouldn't give in to them he fought with them. I saw he was proud, and his eyes were full of fire. I like children like that. And they teased him all the more. The worst of it was he was horribly dressed at the time, his breeches were too small for him, and there were holes in his boots. They worried him about it they jeered at him. That I can't stand. I stood up for him at once, and gave it to them hot. I beat them, but they adore me, do you know, Karamazov? Kolya boasted impulsively 'but I am always fond of children. I've two chickens in my hands at home nowthat's what detained me today. So they left off beating Ilusha and I took him under my protection. I saw the boy was proud. I tell you that, the boy was proud but in the end he became slavishly devoted to me he did my slightest bidding, obeyed me as though I were God, tried to copy me. In the intervals between the classes he used to run to me at once, and I'd go about with him. On Sundays, too. They always laugh when an older boy makes friends with a younger one like that but that's a prejudice. If it's my fancy, that's enough. I am teaching him, developing him. Why shouldn't I develop him if I like him? Here you, Karamazov, have taken up with all these nestlings. I see you want to influence the younger generationto develop them, to be of use to them, and I assure you this trait in your character, which I knew by hearsay, attracted me more than anything. Let us get to the point, though. I noticed that there was a sort of softness and sentimentality coming over the boy, and you know I have a positive hatred of this sheepish sentimentality, and I have had it from a baby. There were contradictions in him, too he was proud, but he was slavishly devoted to me, and yet all at once his eyes would flash and he'd refuse to agree with me he'd argue, fly into a rage. I used sometimes to propound certain ideas I could see that it was not so much that he disagreed with the ideas, but that he was simply rebelling against me, because I was cool in responding to his endearments. And so, in order to train him properly, the tenderer he was, the colder I became. I did it on purpose that was my idea. My object was to form his character, to lick him into shape, to make a man of him ... and besides ... no doubt, you understand me at a word. Suddenly I noticed for three days in succession he was downcast and dejected, not because of my coldness, but for something else, something more important. I wondered what the tragedy was. I have pumped him and found out that he had somehow got to know Smerdyakov, who was footman to your late fatherit was before his death, of courseand he taught the little fool a silly trickthat is, a brutal, nasty trick. He told him to take a piece of bread, to stick a pin in it, and throw it to one of those hungry dogs who snap up anything without biting it, and then to watch and see what would happen. So they prepared a piece of bread like that and threw it to Zhutchka, that shaggy dog there's been such a fuss about. The people of the house it belonged to never fed it at all, though it barked all day. (Do you like that stupid barking, Karamazov? I can't stand it.) So it rushed at the bread, swallowed it, and began to squeal it turned round and round and ran away, squealing as it ran out of sight. That was Ilusha's own account of it. He confessed it to me, and cried bitterly. He hugged me, shaking all over. He kept on repeating 'He ran away squealing' the sight of that haunted him. He was tormented by remorse, I could see that. I took it seriously. I determined to give him a lesson for other things as well. So I must confess I wasn't quite straightforward, and pretended to be more indignant perhaps than I was. 'You've done a nasty thing,' I said, 'you are a scoundrel. I won't tell of it, of course, but I shall have nothing more to do with you for a time. I'll think it over and let you know through Smurov'that's the boy who's just come with me he's always ready to do anything for me'whether I will have anything to do with you in the future or whether I give you up for good as a scoundrel.' He was tremendously upset. I must own I felt I'd gone too far as I spoke, but there was no help for it. I did what I thought best at the time. A day or two after, I sent Smurov to tell him that I would not speak to him again. That's what we call it when two schoolfellows refuse to have anything more to do with one another. Secretly I only meant to send him to Coventry for a few days and then, if I saw signs of repentance, to hold out my hand to him again. That was my intention. But what do you think happened? He heard Smurov's message, his eyes flashed. 'Tell Krassotkin from me,' he cried, 'that I will throw bread with pins to all the dogsallall of them!' 'So he's going in for a little temper. We must smoke it out of him.' And I began to treat him with contempt whenever I met him I turned away or smiled sarcastically. And just then that affair with his father happened. You remember? You must realize that he was fearfully worked up by what had happened already. The boys, seeing I'd given him up, set on him and taunted him, shouting, 'Wisp of tow, wisp of tow!' And he had soon regular skirmishes with them, which I am very sorry for. They seem to have given him one very bad beating. One day he flew at them all as they were coming out of school. I stood a few yards off, looking on. And, I swear, I don't remember that I laughed it was quite the other way, I felt awfully sorry for him, in another minute I would have run up to take his part. But he suddenly met my eyes. I don't know what he fancied but he pulled out a penknife, rushed at me, and struck at my thigh, here in my right leg. I didn't move. I don't mind owning I am plucky sometimes, Karamazov. I simply looked at him contemptuously, as though to say, 'This is how you repay all my kindness! Do it again, if you like, I'm at your service.' But he didn't stab me again he broke down, he was frightened at what he had done, he threw away the knife, burst out crying, and ran away. I did not sneak on him, of course, and I made them all keep quiet, so it shouldn't come to the ears of the masters. I didn't even tell my mother till it had healed up. And the wound was a mere scratch. And then I heard that the same day he'd been throwing stones and had bitten your fingerbut you understand now what a state he was in! Well, it can't be helped it was stupid of me not to come and forgive himthat is, to make it up with himwhen he was taken ill. I am sorry for it now. But I had a special reason. So now I've told you all about it ... but I'm afraid it was stupid of me. 'Oh, what a pity, exclaimed Alyosha, with feeling, 'that I didn't know before what terms you were on with him, or I'd have come to you long ago to beg you to go to him with me. Would you believe it, when he was feverish he talked about you in delirium. I didn't know how much you were to him! And you've really not succeeded in finding that dog? His father and the boys have been hunting all over the town for it. Would you believe it, since he's been ill, I've three times heard him repeat with tears, 'It's because I killed Zhutchka, father, that I am ill now. God is punishing me for it.' He can't get that idea out of his head. And if the dog were found and proved to be alive, one might almost fancy the joy would cure him. We have all rested our hopes on you. 'Tell me, what made you hope that I should be the one to find him? Kolya asked, with great curiosity. 'Why did you reckon on me rather than any one else? 'There was a report that you were looking for the dog, and that you would bring it when you'd found it. Smurov said something of the sort. We've all been trying to persuade Ilusha that the dog is alive, that it's been seen. The boys brought him a live hare he just looked at it, with a faint smile, and asked them to set it free in the fields. And so we did. His father has just this moment come back, bringing him a mastiff pup, hoping to comfort him with that but I think it only makes it worse. 'Tell me, Karamazov, what sort of man is the father? I know him, but what do you make of hima mountebank, a buffoon? 'Oh, no there are people of deep feeling who have been somehow crushed. Buffoonery in them is a form of resentful irony against those to whom they daren't speak the truth, from having been for years humiliated and intimidated by them. Believe me, Krassotkin, that sort of buffoonery is sometimes tragic in the extreme. His whole life now is centered in Ilusha, and if Ilusha dies, he will either go mad with grief or kill himself. I feel almost certain of that when I look at him now. 'I understand you, Karamazov. I see you understand human nature, Kolya added, with feeling. 'And as soon as I saw you with a dog, I thought it was Zhutchka you were bringing. 'Wait a bit, Karamazov, perhaps we shall find it yet but this is Perezvon. I'll let him go in now and perhaps it will amuse Ilusha more than the mastiff pup. Wait a bit, Karamazov, you will know something in a minute. But, I say, I am keeping you here! Kolya cried suddenly. 'You've no overcoat on in this bitter cold. You see what an egoist I am. Oh, we are all egoists, Karamazov! 'Don't trouble it is cold, but I don't often catch cold. Let us go in, though, and, by the way, what is your name? I know you are called Kolya, but what else? 'NikolayNikolay Ivanovitch Krassotkin, or, as they say in official documents, 'Krassotkin son.'  Kolya laughed for some reason, but added suddenly, 'Of course I hate my name Nikolay. 'Why so? 'It's so trivial, so ordinary. 'You are thirteen? asked Alyosha. 'No, fourteenthat is, I shall be fourteen very soon, in a fortnight. I'll confess one weakness of mine, Karamazov, just to you, since it's our first meeting, so that you may understand my character at once. I hate being asked my age, more than that ... and in fact ... there's a libelous story going about me, that last week I played robbers with the preparatory boys. It's a fact that I did play with them, but it's a perfect libel to say I did it for my own amusement. I have reasons for believing that you've heard the story but I wasn't playing for my own amusement, it was for the sake of the children, because they couldn't think of anything to do by themselves. But they've always got some silly tale. This is an awful town for gossip, I can tell you. 'But what if you had been playing for your own amusement, what's the harm? 'Come, I say, for my own amusement! You don't play horses, do you? 'But you must look at it like this, said Alyosha, smiling. 'Grownup people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of heroes are representedsometimes there are robbers and battles, tooand isn't that just the same thing, in a different form, of course? And young people's games of soldiers or robbers in their playtime are also art in its first stage. You know, they spring from the growing artistic instincts of the young. And sometimes these games are much better than performances in the theater, the only difference is that people go there to look at the actors, while in these games the young people are the actors themselves. But that's only natural. 'You think so? Is that your idea? Kolya looked at him intently. 'Oh, you know, that's rather an interesting view. When I go home, I'll think it over. I'll admit I thought I might learn something from you. I've come to learn of you, Karamazov, Kolya concluded, in a voice full of spontaneous feeling. 'And I of you, said Alyosha, smiling and pressing his hand. Kolya was much pleased with Alyosha. What struck him most was that he treated him exactly like an equal and that he talked to him just as if he were 'quite grown up. 'I'll show you something directly, Karamazov it's a theatrical performance, too, he said, laughing nervously. 'That's why I've come. 'Let us go first to the people of the house, on the left. All the boys leave their coats in there, because the room is small and hot. 'Oh, I'm only coming in for a minute. I'll keep on my overcoat. Perezvon will stay here in the passage and be dead. Ici, Perezvon, lie down and be dead! You see how he's dead. I'll go in first and explore, then I'll whistle to him when I think fit, and you'll see, he'll dash in like mad. Only Smurov must not forget to open the door at the moment. I'll arrange it all and you'll see something. The room inhabited by the family of the retired captain Snegiryov is already familiar to the reader. It was close and crowded at that moment with a number of visitors. Several boys were sitting with Ilusha, and though all of them, like Smurov, were prepared to deny that it was Alyosha who had brought them and reconciled them with Ilusha, it was really the fact. All the art he had used had been to take them, one by one, to Ilusha, without 'sheepish sentimentality, appearing to do so casually and without design. It was a great consolation to Ilusha in his suffering. He was greatly touched by seeing the almost tender affection and sympathy shown him by these boys, who had been his enemies. Krassotkin was the only one missing and his absence was a heavy load on Ilusha's heart. Perhaps the bitterest of all his bitter memories was his stabbing Krassotkin, who had been his one friend and protector. Clever little Smurov, who was the first to make it up with Ilusha, thought it was so. But when Smurov hinted to Krassotkin that Alyosha wanted to come and see him about something, the latter cut him short, bidding Smurov tell 'Karamazov at once that he knew best what to do, that he wanted no one's advice, and that, if he went to see Ilusha, he would choose his own time for he had 'his own reasons. That was a fortnight before this Sunday. That was why Alyosha had not been to see him, as he had meant to. But though he waited, he sent Smurov to him twice again. Both times Krassotkin met him with a curt, impatient refusal, sending Alyosha a message not to bother him any more, that if he came himself, he, Krassotkin, would not go to Ilusha at all. Up to the very last day, Smurov did not know that Kolya meant to go to Ilusha that morning, and only the evening before, as he parted from Smurov, Kolya abruptly told him to wait at home for him next morning, for he would go with him to the Snegiryovs', but warned him on no account to say he was coming, as he wanted to drop in casually. Smurov obeyed. Smurov's fancy that Kolya would bring back the lost dog was based on the words Kolya had dropped that 'they must be asses not to find the dog, if it was alive. When Smurov, waiting for an opportunity, timidly hinted at his guess about the dog, Krassotkin flew into a violent rage. 'I'm not such an ass as to go hunting about the town for other people's dogs when I've got a dog of my own! And how can you imagine a dog could be alive after swallowing a pin? Sheepish sentimentality, that's what it is! For the last fortnight Ilusha had not left his little bed under the ikons in the corner. He had not been to school since the day he met Alyosha and bit his finger. He was taken ill the same day, though for a month afterwards he was sometimes able to get up and walk about the room and passage. But latterly he had become so weak that he could not move without help from his father. His father was terribly concerned about him. He even gave up drinking and was almost crazy with terror that his boy would die. And often, especially after leading him round the room on his arm and putting him back to bed, he would run to a dark corner in the passage and, leaning his head against the wall, he would break into paroxysms of violent weeping, stifling his sobs that they might not be heard by Ilusha. Returning to the room, he would usually begin doing something to amuse and comfort his precious boy he would tell him stories, funny anecdotes, or would mimic comic people he had happened to meet, even imitate the howls and cries of animals. But Ilusha could not bear to see his father fooling and playing the buffoon. Though the boy tried not to show how he disliked it, he saw with an aching heart that his father was an object of contempt, and he was continually haunted by the memory of the 'wisp of tow and that 'terrible day. Nina, Ilusha's gentle, crippled sister, did not like her father's buffoonery either (Varvara had been gone for some time past to Petersburg to study at the university). But the halfimbecile mother was greatly diverted and laughed heartily when her husband began capering about or performing something. It was the only way she could be amused all the rest of the time she was grumbling and complaining that now every one had forgotten her, that no one treated her with respect, that she was slighted, and so on. But during the last few days she had completely changed. She began looking constantly at Ilusha's bed in the corner and seemed lost in thought. She was more silent, quieter, and, if she cried, she cried quietly so as not to be heard. The captain noticed the change in her with mournful perplexity. The boys' visits at first only angered her, but later on their merry shouts and stories began to divert her, and at last she liked them so much that, if the boys had given up coming, she would have felt dreary without them. When the children told some story or played a game, she laughed and clapped her hands. She called some of them to her and kissed them. She was particularly fond of Smurov. As for the captain, the presence in his room of the children, who came to cheer up Ilusha, filled his heart from the first with ecstatic joy. He even hoped that Ilusha would now get over his depression, and that that would hasten his recovery. In spite of his alarm about Ilusha, he had not, till lately, felt one minute's doubt of his boy's ultimate recovery. He met his little visitors with homage, waited upon them hand and foot he was ready to be their horse and even began letting them ride on his back, but Ilusha did not like the game and it was given up. He began buying little things for them, gingerbread and nuts, gave them tea and cut them sandwiches. It must be noted that all this time he had plenty of money. He had taken the two hundred roubles from Katerina Ivanovna just as Alyosha had predicted he would. And afterwards Katerina Ivanovna, learning more about their circumstances and Ilusha's illness, visited them herself, made the acquaintance of the family, and succeeded in fascinating the half imbecile mother. Since then she had been lavish in helping them, and the captain, terrorstricken at the thought that his boy might be dying, forgot his pride and humbly accepted her assistance. All this time Doctor Herzenstube, who was called in by Katerina Ivanovna, came punctually every other day, but little was gained by his visits and he dosed the invalid mercilessly. But on that Sunday morning a new doctor was expected, who had come from Moscow, where he had a great reputation. Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him from Moscow at great expense, not expressly for Ilusha, but for another object of which more will be said in its place hereafter. But, as he had come, she had asked him to see Ilusha as well, and the captain had been told to expect him. He hadn't the slightest idea that Kolya Krassotkin was coming, though he had long wished for a visit from the boy for whom Ilusha was fretting. At the moment when Krassotkin opened the door and came into the room, the captain and all the boys were round Ilusha's bed, looking at a tiny mastiff pup, which had only been born the day before, though the captain had bespoken it a week ago to comfort and amuse Ilusha, who was still fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka. Ilusha, who had heard three days before that he was to be presented with a puppy, not an ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mastiff (a very important point, of course), tried from delicacy of feeling to pretend that he was pleased. But his father and the boys could not help seeing that the puppy only served to recall to his little heart the thought of the unhappy dog he had killed. The puppy lay beside him feebly moving and he, smiling sadly, stroked it with his thin, pale, wasted hand. Clearly he liked the puppy, but ... it wasn't Zhutchka if he could have had Zhutchka and the puppy, too, then he would have been completely happy. 'Krassotkin! cried one of the boys suddenly. He was the first to see him come in. Krassotkin's entrance made a general sensation the boys moved away and stood on each side of the bed, so that he could get a full view of Ilusha. The captain ran eagerly to meet Kolya. 'Please come in ... you are welcome! he said hurriedly. 'Ilusha, Mr. Krassotkin has come to see you! But Krassotkin, shaking hands with him hurriedly, instantly showed his complete knowledge of the manners of good society. He turned first to the captain's wife sitting in her armchair, who was very illhumored at the moment, and was grumbling that the boys stood between her and Ilusha's bed and did not let her see the new puppy. With the greatest courtesy he made her a bow, scraping his foot, and turning to Nina, he made her, as the only other lady present, a similar bow. This polite behavior made an extremely favorable impression on the deranged lady. 'There, you can see at once he is a young man that has been well brought up, she commented aloud, throwing up her hands 'but as for our other visitors they come in one on the top of another. 'How do you mean, mamma, one on the top of another, how is that? muttered the captain affectionately, though a little anxious on her account. 'That's how they ride in. They get on each other's shoulders in the passage and prance in like that on a respectable family. Strange sort of visitors! 'But who's come in like that, mamma? 'Why, that boy came in riding on that one's back and this one on that one's. Kolya was already by Ilusha's bedside. The sick boy turned visibly paler. He raised himself in the bed and looked intently at Kolya. Kolya had not seen his little friend for two months, and he was overwhelmed at the sight of him. He had never imagined that he would see such a wasted, yellow face, such enormous, feverishly glowing eyes and such thin little hands. He saw, with grieved surprise, Ilusha's rapid, hard breathing and dry lips. He stepped close to him, held out his hand, and almost overwhelmed, he said 'Well, old man ... how are you? But his voice failed him, he couldn't achieve an appearance of ease his face suddenly twitched and the corners of his mouth quivered. Ilusha smiled a pitiful little smile, still unable to utter a word. Something moved Kolya to raise his hand and pass it over Ilusha's hair. 'Never mind! he murmured softly to him to cheer him up, or perhaps not knowing why he said it. For a minute they were silent again. 'Hallo, so you've got a new puppy? Kolya said suddenly, in a most callous voice. 'Yees, answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath. 'A black nose, that means he'll be fierce, a good housedog, Kolya observed gravely and stolidly, as if the only thing he cared about was the puppy and its black nose. But in reality he still had to do his utmost to control his feelings not to burst out crying like a child, and do what he would he could not control it. 'When it grows up, you'll have to keep it on the chain, I'm sure. 'He'll be a huge dog! cried one of the boys. 'Of course he will, 'a mastiff, 'large, 'like this, 'as big as a calf, shouted several voices. 'As big as a calf, as a real calf, chimed in the captain. 'I got one like that on purpose, one of the fiercest breed, and his parents are huge and very fierce, they stand as high as this from the floor.... Sit down here, on Ilusha's bed, or here on the bench. You are welcome, we've been hoping to see you a long time.... You were so kind as to come with Alexey Fyodorovitch? Krassotkin sat on the edge of the bed, at Ilusha's feet. Though he had perhaps prepared a freeandeasy opening for the conversation on his way, now he completely lost the thread of it. 'No ... I came with Perezvon. I've got a dog now, called Perezvon. A Slavonic name. He's out there ... if I whistle, he'll run in. I've brought a dog, too, he said, addressing Ilusha all at once. 'Do you remember Zhutchka, old man? he suddenly fired the question at him. Ilusha's little face quivered. He looked with an agonized expression at Kolya. Alyosha, standing at the door, frowned and signed to Kolya not to speak of Zhutchka, but he did not or would not notice. 'Where ... is Zhutchka? Ilusha asked in a broken voice. 'Oh, well, my boy, your Zhutchka's lost and done for! Ilusha did not speak, but he fixed an intent gaze once more on Kolya. Alyosha, catching Kolya's eye, signed to him vigorously again, but he turned away his eyes pretending not to have noticed. 'It must have run away and died somewhere. It must have died after a meal like that, Kolya pronounced pitilessly, though he seemed a little breathless. 'But I've got a dog, Perezvon ... A Slavonic name.... I've brought him to show you. 'I don't want him! said Ilusha suddenly. 'No, no, you really must see him ... it will amuse you. I brought him on purpose.... He's the same sort of shaggy dog.... You allow me to call in my dog, madam? He suddenly addressed Madame Snegiryov, with inexplicable excitement in his manner. 'I don't want him, I don't want him! cried Ilusha, with a mournful break in his voice. There was a reproachful light in his eyes. 'You'd better, the captain started up from the chest by the wall on which he had just sat down, 'you'd better ... another time, he muttered, but Kolya could not be restrained. He hurriedly shouted to Smurov, 'Open the door, and as soon as it was open, he blew his whistle. Perezvon dashed headlong into the room. 'Jump, Perezvon, beg! Beg! shouted Kolya, jumping up, and the dog stood erect on its hindlegs by Ilusha's bedside. What followed was a surprise to every one Ilusha started, lurched violently forward, bent over Perezvon and gazed at him, faint with suspense. 'It's ... Zhutchka! he cried suddenly, in a voice breaking with joy and suffering. 'And who did you think it was? Krassotkin shouted with all his might, in a ringing, happy voice, and bending down he seized the dog and lifted him up to Ilusha. 'Look, old man, you see, blind of one eye and the left ear is torn, just the marks you described to me. It was by that I found him. I found him directly. He did not belong to any one! he explained, turning quickly to the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then again to Ilusha. 'He used to live in the Fedotovs' backyard. Though he made his home there, they did not feed him. He was a stray dog that had run away from the village ... I found him.... You see, old man, he couldn't have swallowed what you gave him. If he had, he must have died, he must have! So he must have spat it out, since he is alive. You did not see him do it. But the pin pricked his tongue, that is why he squealed. He ran away squealing and you thought he'd swallowed it. He might well squeal, because the skin of dogs' mouths is so tender ... tenderer than in men, much tenderer! Kolya cried impetuously, his face glowing and radiant with delight. Ilusha could not speak. White as a sheet, he gazed openmouthed at Kolya, with his great eyes almost starting out of his head. And if Krassotkin, who had no suspicion of it, had known what a disastrous and fatal effect such a moment might have on the sick child's health, nothing would have induced him to play such a trick on him. But Alyosha was perhaps the only person in the room who realized it. As for the captain he behaved like a small child. 'Zhutchka! It's Zhutchka! he cried in a blissful voice, 'Ilusha, this is Zhutchka, your Zhutchka! Mamma, this is Zhutchka! He was almost weeping. 'And I never guessed! cried Smurov regretfully. 'Bravo, Krassotkin! I said he'd find the dog and here he's found him. 'Here he's found him! another boy repeated gleefully. 'Krassotkin's a brick! cried a third voice. 'He's a brick, he's a brick! cried the other boys, and they began clapping. 'Wait, wait, Krassotkin did his utmost to shout above them all. 'I'll tell you how it happened, that's the whole point. I found him, I took him home and hid him at once. I kept him locked up at home and did not show him to any one till today. Only Smurov has known for the last fortnight, but I assured him this dog was called Perezvon and he did not guess. And meanwhile I taught the dog all sorts of tricks. You should only see all the things he can do! I trained him so as to bring you a welltrained dog, in good condition, old man, so as to be able to say to you, 'See, old man, what a fine dog your Zhutchka is now!' Haven't you a bit of meat? He'll show you a trick that will make you die with laughing. A piece of meat, haven't you got any? The captain ran across the passage to the landlady, where their cooking was done. Not to lose precious time, Kolya, in desperate haste, shouted to Perezvon, 'Dead! And the dog immediately turned round and lay on his back with its four paws in the air. The boys laughed. Ilusha looked on with the same suffering smile, but the person most delighted with the dog's performance was 'mamma. She laughed at the dog and began snapping her fingers and calling it, 'Perezvon, Perezvon! 'Nothing will make him get up, nothing! Kolya cried triumphantly, proud of his success. 'He won't move for all the shouting in the world, but if I call to him, he'll jump up in a minute. Ici, Perezvon! The dog leapt up and bounded about, whining with delight. The captain ran back with a piece of cooked beef. 'Is it hot? Kolya inquired hurriedly, with a businesslike air, taking the meat. 'Dogs don't like hot things. No, it's all right. Look, everybody, look, Ilusha, look, old man why aren't you looking? He does not look at him, now I've brought him. The new trick consisted in making the dog stand motionless with his nose out and putting a tempting morsel of meat just on his nose. The luckless dog had to stand without moving, with the meat on his nose, as long as his master chose to keep him, without a movement, perhaps for half an hour. But he kept Perezvon only for a brief moment. 'Paid for! cried Kolya, and the meat passed in a flash from the dog's nose to his mouth. The audience, of course, expressed enthusiasm and surprise. 'Can you really have put off coming all this time simply to train the dog? exclaimed Alyosha, with an involuntary note of reproach in his voice. 'Simply for that! answered Kolya, with perfect simplicity. 'I wanted to show him in all his glory. 'Perezvon! Perezvon, called Ilusha suddenly, snapping his thin fingers and beckoning to the dog. 'What is it? Let him jump up on the bed! Ici, Perezvon! Kolya slapped the bed and Perezvon darted up by Ilusha. The boy threw both arms round his head and Perezvon instantly licked his cheek. Ilusha crept close to him, stretched himself out in bed and hid his face in the dog's shaggy coat. 'Dear, dear! kept exclaiming the captain. Kolya sat down again on the edge of the bed. 'Ilusha, I can show you another trick. I've brought you a little cannon. You remember, I told you about it before and you said how much you'd like to see it. Well, here, I've brought it to you. And Kolya hurriedly pulled out of his satchel the little bronze cannon. He hurried, because he was happy himself. Another time he would have waited till the sensation made by Perezvon had passed off, now he hurried on regardless of all consideration. 'You are all happy now, he felt, 'so here's something to make you happier! He was perfectly enchanted himself. 'I've been coveting this thing for a long while it's for you, old man, it's for you. It belonged to Morozov, it was no use to him, he had it from his brother. I swopped a book from father's bookcase for it, A Kinsman of Mahomet or Salutary Folly, a scandalous book published in Moscow a hundred years ago, before they had any censorship. And Morozov has a taste for such things. He was grateful to me, too.... Kolya held the cannon in his hand so that all could see and admire it. Ilusha raised himself, and, with his right arm still round the dog, he gazed enchanted at the toy. The sensation was even greater when Kolya announced that he had gunpowder too, and that it could be fired off at once 'if it won't alarm the ladies. 'Mamma immediately asked to look at the toy closer and her request was granted. She was much pleased with the little bronze cannon on wheels and began rolling it to and fro on her lap. She readily gave permission for the cannon to be fired, without any idea of what she had been asked. Kolya showed the powder and the shot. The captain, as a military man, undertook to load it, putting in a minute quantity of powder. He asked that the shot might be put off till another time. The cannon was put on the floor, aiming towards an empty part of the room, three grains of powder were thrust into the touchhole and a match was put to it. A magnificent explosion followed. Mamma was startled, but at once laughed with delight. The boys gazed in speechless triumph. But the captain, looking at Ilusha, was more enchanted than any of them. Kolya picked up the cannon and immediately presented it to Ilusha, together with the powder and the shot. 'I got it for you, for you! I've been keeping it for you a long time, he repeated once more in his delight. 'Oh, give it to me! No, give me the cannon! mamma began begging like a little child. Her face showed a piteous fear that she would not get it. Kolya was disconcerted. The captain fidgeted uneasily. 'Mamma, mamma, he ran to her, 'the cannon's yours, of course, but let Ilusha have it, because it's a present to him, but it's just as good as yours. Ilusha will always let you play with it it shall belong to both of you, both of you. 'No, I don't want it to belong to both of us, I want it to be mine altogether, not Ilusha's, persisted mamma, on the point of tears. 'Take it, mother, here, keep it! Ilusha cried. 'Krassotkin, may I give it to my mother? he turned to Krassotkin with an imploring face, as though he were afraid he might be offended at his giving his present to some one else. 'Of course you may, Krassotkin assented heartily, and, taking the cannon from Ilusha, he handed it himself to mamma with a polite bow. She was so touched that she cried. 'Ilusha, darling, he's the one who loves his mamma! she said tenderly, and at once began wheeling the cannon to and fro on her lap again. 'Mamma, let me kiss your hand. The captain darted up to her at once and did so. 'And I never saw such a charming fellow as this nice boy, said the grateful lady, pointing to Krassotkin. 'And I'll bring you as much powder as you like, Ilusha. We make the powder ourselves now. Borovikov found out how it's madetwentyfour parts of saltpeter, ten of sulphur and six of birchwood charcoal. It's all pounded together, mixed into a paste with water and rubbed through a tammy sievethat's how it's done. 'Smurov told me about your powder, only father says it's not real gunpowder, responded Ilusha. 'Not real? Kolya flushed. 'It burns. I don't know, of course. 'No, I didn't mean that, put in the captain with a guilty face. 'I only said that real powder is not made like that, but that's nothing, it can be made so. 'I don't know, you know best. We lighted some in a pomatum pot, it burned splendidly, it all burnt away leaving only a tiny ash. But that was only the paste, and if you rub it through ... but of course you know best, I don't know.... And Bulkin's father thrashed him on account of our powder, did you hear? he turned to Ilusha. 'Yes, answered Ilusha. He listened to Kolya with immense interest and enjoyment. 'We had prepared a whole bottle of it and he used to keep it under his bed. His father saw it. He said it might explode, and thrashed him on the spot. He was going to make a complaint against me to the masters. He is not allowed to go about with me now, no one is allowed to go about with me now. Smurov is not allowed to either, I've got a bad name with every one. They say I'm a 'desperate character,'  Kolya smiled scornfully. 'It all began from what happened on the railway. 'Ah, we've heard of that exploit of yours, too, cried the captain. 'How could you lie still on the line? Is it possible you weren't the least afraid, lying there under the train? Weren't you frightened? The captain was abject in his flattery of Kolya. 'Nnot particularly, answered Kolya carelessly. 'What's blasted my reputation more than anything here was that cursed goose, he said, turning again to Ilusha. But though he assumed an unconcerned air as he talked, he still could not control himself and was continually missing the note he tried to keep up. 'Ah! I heard about the goose! Ilusha laughed, beaming all over. 'They told me, but I didn't understand. Did they really take you to the court? 'The most stupid, trivial affair, they made a mountain of a molehill as they always do, Kolya began carelessly. 'I was walking through the marketplace here one day, just when they'd driven in the geese. I stopped and looked at them. All at once a fellow, who is an errandboy at Plotnikov's now, looked at me and said, 'What are you looking at the geese for?' I looked at him he was a stupid, moonfaced fellow of twenty. I am always on the side of the peasantry, you know. I like talking to the peasants.... We've dropped behind the peasantsthat's an axiom. I believe you are laughing, Karamazov? 'No, Heaven forbid, I am listening, said Alyosha with a most goodnatured air, and the sensitive Kolya was immediately reassured. 'My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple, he hurried on again, looking pleased. 'I believe in the people and am always glad to give them their due, but I am not for spoiling them, that is a sine qua non ... But I was telling you about the goose. So I turned to the fool and answered, 'I am wondering what the goose thinks about.' He looked at me quite stupidly, 'And what does the goose think about?' he asked. 'Do you see that cart full of oats?' I said. 'The oats are dropping out of the sack, and the goose has put its neck right under the wheel to gobble them updo you see?' 'I see that quite well,' he said. 'Well,' said I, 'if that cart were to move on a little, would it break the goose's neck or not?' 'It'd be sure to break it,' and he grinned all over his face, highly delighted. 'Come on, then,' said I, 'let's try.' 'Let's,' he said. And it did not take us long to arrange he stood at the bridle without being noticed, and I stood on one side to direct the goose. And the owner wasn't looking, he was talking to some one, so I had nothing to do, the goose thrust its head in after the oats of itself, under the cart, just under the wheel. I winked at the lad, he tugged at the bridle, and crack. The goose's neck was broken in half. And, as luck would have it, all the peasants saw us at that moment and they kicked up a shindy at once. 'You did that on purpose!' 'No, not on purpose.' 'Yes, you did, on purpose!' Well, they shouted, 'Take him to the justice of the peace!' They took me, too. 'You were there, too,' they said, 'you helped, you're known all over the market!' And, for some reason, I really am known all over the market, Kolya added conceitedly. 'We all went off to the justice's, they brought the goose, too. The fellow was crying in a great funk, simply blubbering like a woman. And the farmer kept shouting that you could kill any number of geese like that. Well, of course, there were witnesses. The justice of the peace settled it in a minute, that the farmer was to be paid a rouble for the goose, and the fellow to have the goose. And he was warned not to play such pranks again. And the fellow kept blubbering like a woman. 'It wasn't me,' he said, 'it was he egged me on,' and he pointed to me. I answered with the utmost composure that I hadn't egged him on, that I simply stated the general proposition, had spoken hypothetically. The justice of the peace smiled and was vexed with himself at once for having smiled. 'I'll complain to your masters of you, so that for the future you mayn't waste your time on such general propositions, instead of sitting at your books and learning your lessons.' He didn't complain to the masters, that was a joke, but the matter was noised abroad and came to the ears of the masters. Their ears are long, you know! The classical master, Kolbasnikov, was particularly shocked about it, but Dardanelov got me off again. But Kolbasnikov is savage with every one now like a green ass. Did you know, Ilusha, he is just married, got a dowry of a thousand roubles, and his bride's a regular fright of the first rank and the last degree. The thirdclass fellows wrote an epigram on it Astounding news has reached the class, Kolbasnikov has been an ass. And so on, awfully funny, I'll bring it to you later on. I say nothing against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there's no doubt about it. I respect men like that and it's not because he stood up for me. 'But you took him down about the founders of Troy! Smurov put in suddenly, unmistakably proud of Krassotkin at such a moment. He was particularly pleased with the story of the goose. 'Did you really take him down? the captain inquired, in a flattering way. 'On the question who founded Troy? We heard of it, Ilusha told me about it at the time. 'He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of us! put in Ilusha 'he only pretends to be like that, but really he is top in every subject.... Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness. 'Oh, that's all nonsense about Troy, a trivial matter. I consider this an unimportant question, said Kolya with haughty humility. He had by now completely recovered his dignity, though he was still a little uneasy. He felt that he was greatly excited and that he had talked about the goose, for instance, with too little reserve, while Alyosha had looked serious and had not said a word all the time. And the vain boy began by degrees to have a rankling fear that Alyosha was silent because he despised him, and thought he was showing off before him. If he dared to think anything like that Kolya would 'I regard the question as quite a trivial one, he rapped out again, proudly. 'And I know who founded Troy, a boy, who had not spoken before, said suddenly, to the surprise of every one. He was silent and seemed to be shy. He was a pretty boy of about eleven, called Kartashov. He was sitting near the door. Kolya looked at him with dignified amazement. The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become a secret for the whole school, a secret which could only be discovered by reading Smaragdov, and no one had Smaragdov but Kolya. One day, when Kolya's back was turned, Kartashov hastily opened Smaragdov, which lay among Kolya's books, and immediately lighted on the passage relating to the foundation of Troy. This was a good time ago, but he felt uneasy and could not bring himself to announce publicly that he too knew who had founded Troy, afraid of what might happen and of Krassotkin's somehow putting him to shame over it. But now he couldn't resist saying it. For weeks he had been longing to. 'Well, who did found it? asked Kolya, turning to him with haughty superciliousness. He saw from his face that he really did know and at once made up his mind how to take it. There was, so to speak, a discordant note in the general harmony. 'Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilius and Tros, the boy rapped out at once, and in the same instant he blushed, blushed so, that it was painful to look at him. But the boys stared at him, stared at him for a whole minute, and then all the staring eyes turned at once and were fastened upon Kolya, who was still scanning the audacious boy with disdainful composure. 'In what sense did they found it? he deigned to comment at last. 'And what is meant by founding a city or a state? What do they do? Did they go and each lay a brick, do you suppose? There was laughter. The offending boy turned from pink to crimson. He was silent and on the point of tears. Kolya held him so for a minute. 'Before you talk of a historical event like the foundation of a nationality, you must first understand what you mean by it, he admonished him in stern, incisive tones. 'But I attach no consequence to these old wives' tales and I don't think much of universal history in general, he added carelessly, addressing the company generally. 'Universal history? the captain inquired, looking almost scared. 'Yes, universal history! It's the study of the successive follies of mankind and nothing more. The only subjects I respect are mathematics and natural science, said Kolya. He was showing off and he stole a glance at Alyosha his was the only opinion he was afraid of there. But Alyosha was still silent and still serious as before. If Alyosha had said a word it would have stopped him, but Alyosha was silent and 'it might be the silence of contempt, and that finally irritated Kolya. 'The classical languages, too ... they are simply madness, nothing more. You seem to disagree with me again, Karamazov? 'I don't agree, said Alyosha, with a faint smile. 'The study of the classics, if you ask my opinion, is simply a police measure, that's simply why it has been introduced into our schools. By degrees Kolya began to get breathless again. 'Latin and Greek were introduced because they are a bore and because they stupefy the intellect. It was dull before, so what could they do to make things duller? It was senseless enough before, so what could they do to make it more senseless? So they thought of Greek and Latin. That's my opinion, I hope I shall never change it, Kolya finished abruptly. His cheeks were flushed. 'That's true, assented Smurov suddenly, in a ringing tone of conviction. He had listened attentively. 'And yet he is first in Latin himself, cried one of the group of boys suddenly. 'Yes, father, he says that and yet he is first in Latin, echoed Ilusha. 'What of it? Kolya thought fit to defend himself, though the praise was very sweet to him. 'I am fagging away at Latin because I have to, because I promised my mother to pass my examination, and I think that whatever you do, it's worth doing it well. But in my soul I have a profound contempt for the classics and all that fraud.... You don't agree, Karamazov? 'Why 'fraud'? Alyosha smiled again. 'Well, all the classical authors have been translated into all languages, so it was not for the sake of studying the classics they introduced Latin, but solely as a police measure, to stupefy the intelligence. So what can one call it but a fraud? 'Why, who taught you all this? cried Alyosha, surprised at last. 'In the first place I am capable of thinking for myself without being taught. Besides, what I said just now about the classics being translated our teacher Kolbasnikov has said to the whole of the third class. 'The doctor has come! cried Nina, who had been silent till then. A carriage belonging to Madame Hohlakov drove up to the gate. The captain, who had been expecting the doctor all the morning, rushed headlong out to meet him. 'Mamma pulled herself together and assumed a dignified air. Alyosha went up to Ilusha and began setting his pillows straight. Nina, from her invalid chair, anxiously watched him putting the bed tidy. The boys hurriedly took leave. Some of them promised to come again in the evening. Kolya called Perezvon and the dog jumped off the bed. 'I won't go away, I won't go away, Kolya said hastily to Ilusha. 'I'll wait in the passage and come back when the doctor's gone, I'll come back with Perezvon. But by now the doctor had entered, an importantlooking person with long, dark whiskers and a shiny, shaven chin, wearing a bearskin coat. As he crossed the threshold he stopped, taken aback he probably fancied he had come to the wrong place. 'How is this? Where am I? he muttered, not removing his coat nor his peaked sealskin cap. The crowd, the poverty of the room, the washing hanging on a line in the corner, puzzled him. The captain, bent double, was bowing low before him. 'It's here, sir, here, sir, he muttered cringingly 'it's here, you've come right, you were coming to us... 'Snegiryov? the doctor said loudly and pompously. 'Mr. Snegiryovis that you? 'That's me, sir! 'Ah! The doctor looked round the room with a squeamish air once more and threw off his coat, displaying to all eyes the grand decoration at his neck. The captain caught the fur coat in the air, and the doctor took off his cap. 'Where is the patient? he asked emphatically. 'What do you think the doctor will say to him? Kolya asked quickly. 'What a repulsive mug, though, hasn't he? I can't endure medicine! 'Ilusha is dying. I think that's certain, answered Alyosha, mournfully. 'They are rogues! Medicine's a fraud! I am glad to have made your acquaintance, though, Karamazov. I wanted to know you for a long time. I am only sorry we meet in such sad circumstances. Kolya had a great inclination to say something even warmer and more demonstrative, but he felt ill at ease. Alyosha noticed this, smiled, and pressed his hand. 'I've long learned to respect you as a rare person, Kolya muttered again, faltering and uncertain. 'I have heard you are a mystic and have been in the monastery. I know you are a mystic, but ... that hasn't put me off. Contact with real life will cure you.... It's always so with characters like yours. 'What do you mean by mystic? Cure me of what? Alyosha was rather astonished. 'Oh, God and all the rest of it. 'What, don't you believe in God? 'Oh, I've nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but ... I admit that He is needed ... for the order of the universe and all that ... and that if there were no God He would have to be invented, added Kolya, beginning to blush. He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might think he was trying to show off his knowledge and to prove that he was 'grown up. 'I haven't the slightest desire to show off my knowledge to him, Kolya thought indignantly. And all of a sudden he felt horribly annoyed. 'I must confess I can't endure entering on such discussions, he said with a final air. 'It's possible for one who doesn't believe in God to love mankind, don't you think so? Voltaire didn't believe in God and loved mankind? ('I am at it again, he thought to himself.) 'Voltaire believed in God, though not very much, I think, and I don't think he loved mankind very much either, said Alyosha quietly, gently, and quite naturally, as though he were talking to some one of his own age, or even older. Kolya was particularly struck by Alyosha's apparent diffidence about his opinion of Voltaire. He seemed to be leaving the question for him, little Kolya, to settle. 'Have you read Voltaire? Alyosha finished. 'No, not to say read.... But I've read Candide in the Russian translation ... in an absurd, grotesque, old translation ... (At it again! again!) 'And did you understand it? 'Oh, yes, everything.... That is ... Why do you suppose I shouldn't understand it? There's a lot of nastiness in it, of course.... Of course I can understand that it's a philosophical novel and written to advocate an idea.... Kolya was getting mixed by now. 'I am a Socialist, Karamazov, I am an incurable Socialist, he announced suddenly, apropos of nothing. 'A Socialist? laughed Alyosha. 'But when have you had time to become one? Why, I thought you were only thirteen? Kolya winced. 'In the first place I am not thirteen, but fourteen, fourteen in a fortnight, he flushed angrily, 'and in the second place I am at a complete loss to understand what my age has to do with it? The question is what are my convictions, not what is my age, isn't it? 'When you are older, you'll understand for yourself the influence of age on convictions. I fancied, too, that you were not expressing your own ideas, Alyosha answered serenely and modestly, but Kolya interrupted him hotly 'Come, you want obedience and mysticism. You must admit that the Christian religion, for instance, has only been of use to the rich and the powerful to keep the lower classes in slavery. That's so, isn't it? 'Ah, I know where you read that, and I am sure some one told you so! cried Alyosha. 'I say, what makes you think I read it? And certainly no one told me so. I can think for myself.... I am not opposed to Christ, if you like. He was a most humane person, and if He were alive today, He would be found in the ranks of the revolutionists, and would perhaps play a conspicuous part.... There's no doubt about that. 'Oh, where, where did you get that from? What fool have you made friends with? exclaimed Alyosha. 'Come, the truth will out! It has so chanced that I have often talked to Mr. Rakitin, of course, but ... old Byelinsky said that, too, so they say. 'Byelinsky? I don't remember. He hasn't written that anywhere. 'If he didn't write it, they say he said it. I heard that from a ... but never mind. 'And have you read Byelinsky? 'Well, no ... I haven't read all of him, but ... I read the passage about Tatyana, why she didn't go off with Onyegin. 'Didn't go off with Onyegin? Surely you don't ... understand that already? 'Why, you seem to take me for little Smurov, said Kolya, with a grin of irritation. 'But please don't suppose I am such a revolutionist. I often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. Though I mention Tatyana, I am not at all for the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that women are a subject race and must obey. Les femmes tricottent, as Napoleon said. Kolya, for some reason, smiled, 'And on that question at least I am quite of one mind with that pseudogreat man. I think, too, that to leave one's own country and fly to America is mean, worse than meansilly. Why go to America when one may be of great service to humanity here? Now especially. There's a perfect mass of fruitful activity open to us. That's what I answered. 'What do you mean? Answered whom? Has some one suggested your going to America already? 'I must own, they've been at me to go, but I declined. That's between ourselves, of course, Karamazov do you hear, not a word to any one. I say this only to you. I am not at all anxious to fall into the clutches of the secret police and take lessons at the Chain bridge. Long will you remember The house at the Chain bridge. Do you remember? It's splendid. Why are you laughing? You don't suppose I am fibbing, do you? ('What if he should find out that I've only that one number of The Bell in father's bookcase, and haven't read any more of it? Kolya thought with a shudder.) 'Oh, no, I am not laughing and don't suppose for a moment that you are lying. No, indeed, I can't suppose so, for all this, alas! is perfectly true. But tell me, have you read PushkinOnyegin, for instance?... You spoke just now of Tatyana. 'No, I haven't read it yet, but I want to read it. I have no prejudices, Karamazov I want to hear both sides. What makes you ask? 'Oh, nothing. 'Tell me, Karamazov, have you an awful contempt for me? Kolya rapped out suddenly and drew himself up before Alyosha, as though he were on drill. 'Be so kind as to tell me, without beating about the bush. 'I have a contempt for you? Alyosha looked at him wondering. 'What for? I am only sad that a charming nature such as yours should be perverted by all this crude nonsense before you have begun life. 'Don't be anxious about my nature, Kolya interrupted, not without complacency. 'But it's true that I am stupidly sensitive, crudely sensitive. You smiled just now, and I fancied you seemed to 'Oh, my smile meant something quite different. I'll tell you why I smiled. Not long ago I read the criticism made by a German who had lived in Russia, on our students and schoolboys of today. 'Show a Russian schoolboy,' he writes, 'a map of the stars, which he knows nothing about, and he will give you back the map next day with corrections on it.' No knowledge and unbounded conceitthat's what the German meant to say about the Russian schoolboy. 'Yes, that's perfectly right, Kolya laughed suddenly, 'exactly so! Bravo the German! But he did not see the good side, what do you think? Conceit may be, that comes from youth, that will be corrected if need be, but, on the other hand, there is an independent spirit almost from childhood, boldness of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of these sausage makers, groveling before authority.... But the German was right all the same. Bravo the German! But Germans want strangling all the same. Though they are so good at science and learning they must be strangled. 'Strangled, what for? smiled Alyosha. 'Well, perhaps I am talking nonsense, I agree. I am awfully childish sometimes, and when I am pleased about anything I can't restrain myself and am ready to talk any stuff. But, I say, we are chattering away here about nothing, and that doctor has been a long time in there. But perhaps he's examining the mamma and that poor crippled Nina. I liked that Nina, you know. She whispered to me suddenly as I was coming away, 'Why didn't you come before?' And in such a voice, so reproachfully! I think she is awfully nice and pathetic. 'Yes, yes! Well, you'll be coming often, you will see what she is like. It would do you a great deal of good to know people like that, to learn to value a great deal which you will find out from knowing these people, Alyosha observed warmly. 'That would have more effect on you than anything. 'Oh, how I regret and blame myself for not having come sooner! Kolya exclaimed, with bitter feeling. 'Yes, it's a great pity. You saw for yourself how delighted the poor child was to see you. And how he fretted for you to come! 'Don't tell me! You make it worse! But it serves me right. What kept me from coming was my conceit, my egoistic vanity, and the beastly wilfullness, which I never can get rid of, though I've been struggling with it all my life. I see that now. I am a beast in lots of ways, Karamazov! 'No, you have a charming nature, though it's been distorted, and I quite understand why you have had such an influence on this generous, morbidly sensitive boy, Alyosha answered warmly. 'And you say that to me! cried Kolya 'and would you believe it, I thoughtI've thought several times since I've been herethat you despised me! If only you knew how I prize your opinion! 'But are you really so sensitive? At your age! Would you believe it, just now, when you were telling your story, I thought, as I watched you, that you must be very sensitive! 'You thought so? What an eye you've got, I say! I bet that was when I was talking about the goose. That was just when I was fancying you had a great contempt for me for being in such a hurry to show off, and for a moment I quite hated you for it, and began talking like a fool. Then I fanciedjust now, herewhen I said that if there were no God He would have to be invented, that I was in too great a hurry to display my knowledge, especially as I got that phrase out of a book. But I swear I wasn't showing off out of vanity, though I really don't know why. Because I was so pleased? Yes, I believe it was because I was so pleased ... though it's perfectly disgraceful for any one to be gushing directly they are pleased, I know that. But I am convinced now that you don't despise me it was all my imagination. Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy all sorts of things, that every one is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of things. 'And you worry every one about you, smiled Alyosha. 'Yes, I worry every one about me, especially my mother. Karamazov, tell me, am I very ridiculous now? 'Don't think about that, don't think of it at all! cried Alyosha. 'And what does ridiculous mean? Isn't every one constantly being or seeming ridiculous? Besides, nearly all clever people now are fearfully afraid of being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy. All I am surprised at is that you should be feeling that so early, though I've observed it for some time past, and not only in you. Nowadays the very children have begun to suffer from it. It's almost a sort of insanity. The devil has taken the form of that vanity and entered into the whole generation it's simply the devil, added Alyosha, without a trace of the smile that Kolya, staring at him, expected to see. 'You are like every one else, said Alyosha, in conclusion, 'that is, like very many others. Only you must not be like everybody else, that's all. 'Even if every one is like that? 'Yes, even if every one is like that. You be the only one not like it. You really are not like every one else, here you are not ashamed to confess to something bad and even ridiculous. And who will admit so much in these days? No one. And people have even ceased to feel the impulse to self criticism. Don't be like every one else, even if you are the only one. 'Splendid! I was not mistaken in you. You know how to console one. Oh, how I have longed to know you, Karamazov! I've long been eager for this meeting. Can you really have thought about me, too? You said just now that you thought of me, too? 'Yes, I'd heard of you and had thought of you, too ... and if it's partly vanity that makes you ask, it doesn't matter. 'Do you know, Karamazov, our talk has been like a declaration of love, said Kolya, in a bashful and melting voice. 'That's not ridiculous, is it? 'Not at all ridiculous, and if it were, it wouldn't matter, because it's been a good thing. Alyosha smiled brightly. 'But do you know, Karamazov, you must admit that you are a little ashamed yourself, now.... I see it by your eyes. Kolya smiled with a sort of sly happiness. 'Why ashamed? 'Well, why are you blushing? 'It was you made me blush, laughed Alyosha, and he really did blush. 'Oh, well, I am a little, goodness knows why, I don't know... he muttered, almost embarrassed. 'Oh, how I love you and admire you at this moment just because you are rather ashamed! Because you are just like me, cried Kolya, in positive ecstasy. His cheeks glowed, his eyes beamed. 'You know, Kolya, you will be very unhappy in your life, something made Alyosha say suddenly. 'I know, I know. How you know it all beforehand! Kolya agreed at once. 'But you will bless life on the whole, all the same. 'Just so, hurrah! You are a prophet. Oh, we shall get on together, Karamazov! Do you know, what delights me most, is that you treat me quite like an equal. But we are not equals, no, we are not, you are better! But we shall get on. Do you know, all this last month, I've been saying to myself, 'Either we shall be friends at once, for ever, or we shall part enemies to the grave!'  'And saying that, of course, you loved me, Alyosha laughed gayly. 'I did. I loved you awfully. I've been loving and dreaming of you. And how do you know it all beforehand? Ah, here's the doctor. Goodness! What will he tell us? Look at his face! The doctor came out of the room again, muffled in his fur coat and with his cap on his head. His face looked almost angry and disgusted, as though he were afraid of getting dirty. He cast a cursory glance round the passage, looking sternly at Alyosha and Kolya as he did so. Alyosha waved from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up. The captain darted out after the doctor, and, bowing apologetically, stopped him to get the last word. The poor fellow looked utterly crushed there was a scared look in his eyes. 'Your Excellency, your Excellency ... is it possible? he began, but could not go on and clasped his hands in despair. Yet he still gazed imploringly at the doctor, as though a word from him might still change the poor boy's fate. 'I can't help it, I am not God! the doctor answered offhand, though with the customary impressiveness. 'Doctor ... your Excellency ... and will it be soon, soon? 'You must be prepared for anything, said the doctor in emphatic and incisive tones, and dropping his eyes, he was about to step out to the coach. 'Your Excellency, for Christ's sake! the terrorstricken captain stopped him again. 'Your Excellency! but can nothing, absolutely nothing save him now? 'It's not in my hands now, said the doctor impatiently, 'but h'm!... he stopped suddenly. 'If you could, for instance ... send ... your patient ... at once, without delay (the words 'at once, without delay, the doctor uttered with an almost wrathful sternness that made the captain start) 'to Syracuse, the change to the new beneficial climatic conditions might possibly effect 'To Syracuse! cried the captain, unable to grasp what was said. 'Syracuse is in Sicily, Kolya jerked out suddenly in explanation. The doctor looked at him. 'Sicily! your Excellency, faltered the captain, 'but you've seenhe spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings'mamma and my family? 'Nno, Sicily is not the place for the family, the family should go to Caucasus in the early spring ... your daughter must go to the Caucasus, and your wife ... after a course of the waters in the Caucasus for her rheumatism ... must be sent straight to Paris to the mental specialist Lepelletier I could give you a note to him, and then ... there might be a change 'Doctor, doctor! But you see! The captain flung wide his hands again despairingly, indicating the bare wooden walls of the passage. 'Well, that's not my business, grinned the doctor. 'I have only told you the answer of medical science to your question as to possible treatment. As for the rest, to my regret 'Don't be afraid, apothecary, my dog won't bite you, Kolya rapped out loudly, noticing the doctor's rather uneasy glance at Perezvon, who was standing in the doorway. There was a wrathful note in Kolya's voice. He used the word apothecary instead of doctor on purpose, and, as he explained afterwards, used it 'to insult him. 'What's that? The doctor flung up his head, staring with surprise at Kolya. 'Who's this? he addressed Alyosha, as though asking him to explain. 'It's Perezvon's master, don't worry about me, Kolya said incisively again. 'Perezvon? repeated the doctor, perplexed. 'He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Goodby, we shall meet in Syracuse. 'Who's this? Who's this? The doctor flew into a terrible rage. 'He is a schoolboy, doctor, he is a mischievous boy take no notice of him, said Alyosha, frowning and speaking quickly. 'Kolya, hold your tongue! he cried to Krassotkin. 'Take no notice of him, doctor, he repeated, rather impatiently. 'He wants a thrashing, a good thrashing! The doctor stamped in a perfect fury. 'And you know, apothecary, my Perezvon might bite! said Kolya, turning pale, with quivering voice and flashing eyes. 'Ici, Perezvon! 'Kolya, if you say another word, I'll have nothing more to do with you, Alyosha cried peremptorily. 'There is only one man in the world who can command Nikolay Krassotkinthis is the man Kolya pointed to Alyosha. 'I obey him, good by! He stepped forward, opened the door, and quickly went into the inner room. Perezvon flew after him. The doctor stood still for five seconds in amazement, looking at Alyosha then, with a curse, he went out quickly to the carriage, repeating aloud, 'This is ... this is ... I don't know what it is! The captain darted forward to help him into the carriage. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. He was already by Ilusha's bedside. The sick boy was holding his hand and calling for his father. A minute later the captain, too, came back. 'Father, father, come ... we ... Ilusha faltered in violent excitement, but apparently unable to go on, he flung his wasted arms round his father and Kolya, uniting them in one embrace, and hugging them as tightly as he could. The captain suddenly began to shake with dumb sobs, and Kolya's lips and chin twitched. 'Father, father! How sorry I am for you! Ilusha moaned bitterly. 'Ilusha ... darling ... the doctor said ... you would be all right ... we shall be happy ... the doctor ... the captain began. 'Ah, father! I know what the new doctor said to you about me.... I saw! cried Ilusha, and again he hugged them both with all his strength, hiding his face on his father's shoulder. 'Father, don't cry, and when I die get a good boy, another one ... choose one of them all, a good one, call him Ilusha and love him instead of me.... 'Hush, old man, you'll get well, Krassotkin cried suddenly, in a voice that sounded angry. 'But don't ever forget me, father, Ilusha went on, 'come to my grave ... and, father, bury me by our big stone, where we used to go for our walk, and come to me there with Krassotkin in the evening ... and Perezvon ... I shall expect you.... Father, father! His voice broke. They were all three silent, still embracing. Nina was crying quietly in her chair, and at last seeing them all crying, 'mamma, too, burst into tears. 'Ilusha! Ilusha! she exclaimed. Krassotkin suddenly released himself from Ilusha's embrace. 'Goodby, old man, mother expects me back to dinner, he said quickly. 'What a pity I did not tell her! She will be dreadfully anxious.... But after dinner I'll come back to you for the whole day, for the whole evening, and I'll tell you all sorts of things, all sorts of things. And I'll bring Perezvon, but now I will take him with me, because he will begin to howl when I am away and bother you. Goodby! And he ran out into the passage. He didn't want to cry, but in the passage he burst into tears. Alyosha found him crying. 'Kolya, you must be sure to keep your word and come, or he will be terribly disappointed, Alyosha said emphatically. 'I will! Oh, how I curse myself for not having come before! muttered Kolya, crying, and no longer ashamed of it. At that moment the captain flew out of the room, and at once closed the door behind him. His face looked frenzied, his lips were trembling. He stood before the two and flung up his arms. 'I don't want a good boy! I don't want another boy! he muttered in a wild whisper, clenching his teeth. 'If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may my tongue He broke off with a sob and sank on his knees before the wooden bench. Pressing his fists against his head, he began sobbing with absurd whimpering cries, doing his utmost that his cries should not be heard in the room. Kolya ran out into the street. 'Goodby, Karamazov? Will you come yourself? he cried sharply and angrily to Alyosha. 'I will certainly come in the evening. 'What was that he said about Jerusalem?... What did he mean by that? 'It's from the Bible. 'If I forget thee, Jerusalem,' that is, if I forget all that is most precious to me, if I let anything take its place, then may 'I understand, that's enough! Mind you come! Ici, Perezvon! he cried with positive ferocity to the dog, and with rapid strides he went home. Alyosha went towards the cathedral square to the widow Morozov's house to see Grushenka, who had sent Fenya to him early in the morning with an urgent message begging him to come. Questioning Fenya, Alyosha learned that her mistress had been particularly distressed since the previous day. During the two months that had passed since Mitya's arrest, Alyosha had called frequently at the widow Morozov's house, both from his own inclination and to take messages for Mitya. Three days after Mitya's arrest, Grushenka was taken very ill and was ill for nearly five weeks. For one whole week she was unconscious. She was very much changedthinner and a little sallow, though she had for the past fortnight been well enough to go out. But to Alyosha her face was even more attractive than before, and he liked to meet her eyes when he went in to her. A look of firmness and intelligent purpose had developed in her face. There were signs of a spiritual transformation in her, and a steadfast, fine and humble determination that nothing could shake could be discerned in her. There was a small vertical line between her brows which gave her charming face a look of concentrated thought, almost austere at the first glance. There was scarcely a trace of her former frivolity. It seemed strange to Alyosha, too, that in spite of the calamity that had overtaken the poor girl, betrothed to a man who had been arrested for a terrible crime, almost at the instant of their betrothal, in spite of her illness and the almost inevitable sentence hanging over Mitya, Grushenka had not yet lost her youthful cheerfulness. There was a soft light in the once proud eyes, though at times they gleamed with the old vindictive fire when she was visited by one disturbing thought stronger than ever in her heart. The object of that uneasiness was the same as everKaterina Ivanovna, of whom Grushenka had even raved when she lay in delirium. Alyosha knew that she was fearfully jealous of her. Yet Katerina Ivanovna had not once visited Mitya in his prison, though she might have done it whenever she liked. All this made a difficult problem for Alyosha, for he was the only person to whom Grushenka opened her heart and from whom she was continually asking advice. Sometimes he was unable to say anything. Full of anxiety he entered her lodging. She was at home. She had returned from seeing Mitya half an hour before, and from the rapid movement with which she leapt up from her chair to meet him he saw that she had been expecting him with great impatience. A pack of cards dealt for a game of 'fools lay on the table. A bed had been made up on the leather sofa on the other side and Maximov lay, halfreclining, on it. He wore a dressing gown and a cotton nightcap, and was evidently ill and weak, though he was smiling blissfully. When the homeless old man returned with Grushenka from Mokroe two months before, he had simply stayed on and was still staying with her. He arrived with her in rain and sleet, sat down on the sofa, drenched and scared, and gazed mutely at her with a timid, appealing smile. Grushenka, who was in terrible grief and in the first stage of fever, almost forgot his existence in all she had to do the first half hour after her arrival. Suddenly she chanced to look at him intently he laughed a pitiful, helpless little laugh. She called Fenya and told her to give him something to eat. All that day he sat in the same place, almost without stirring. When it got dark and the shutters were closed, Fenya asked her mistress 'Is the gentleman going to stay the night, mistress? 'Yes make him a bed on the sofa, answered Grushenka. Questioning him more in detail, Grushenka learned from him that he had literally nowhere to go, and that 'Mr. Kalganov, my benefactor, told me straight that he wouldn't receive me again and gave me five roubles. 'Well, God bless you, you'd better stay, then, Grushenka decided in her grief, smiling compassionately at him. Her smile wrung the old man's heart and his lips twitched with grateful tears. And so the destitute wanderer had stayed with her ever since. He did not leave the house even when she was ill. Fenya and her grandmother, the cook, did not turn him out, but went on serving him meals and making up his bed on the sofa. Grushenka had grown used to him, and coming back from seeing Mitya (whom she had begun to visit in prison before she was really well) she would sit down and begin talking to 'Maximushka about trifling matters, to keep her from thinking of her sorrow. The old man turned out to be a good storyteller on occasions, so that at last he became necessary to her. Grushenka saw scarcely any one else beside Alyosha, who did not come every day and never stayed long. Her old merchant lay seriously ill at this time, 'at his last gasp as they said in the town, and he did, in fact, die a week after Mitya's trial. Three weeks before his death, feeling the end approaching, he made his sons, their wives and children, come upstairs to him at last and bade them not leave him again. From that moment he gave strict orders to his servants not to admit Grushenka and to tell her if she came, 'The master wishes you long life and happiness and tells you to forget him. But Grushenka sent almost every day to inquire after him. 'You've come at last! she cried, flinging down the cards and joyfully greeting Alyosha, 'and Maximushka's been scaring me that perhaps you wouldn't come. Ah, how I need you! Sit down to the table. What will you havecoffee? 'Yes, please, said Alyosha, sitting down at the table. 'I am very hungry. 'That's right. Fenya, Fenya, coffee, cried Grushenka. 'It's been made a long time ready for you. And bring some little pies, and mind they are hot. Do you know, we've had a storm over those pies today. I took them to the prison for him, and would you believe it, he threw them back to me he would not eat them. He flung one of them on the floor and stamped on it. So I said to him 'I shall leave them with the warder if you don't eat them before evening, it will be that your venomous spite is enough for you!' With that I went away. We quarreled again, would you believe it? Whenever I go we quarrel. Grushenka said all this in one breath in her agitation. Maximov, feeling nervous, at once smiled and looked on the floor. 'What did you quarrel about this time? asked Alyosha. 'I didn't expect it in the least. Only fancy, he is jealous of the Pole. 'Why are you keeping him?' he said. 'So you've begun keeping him.' He is jealous, jealous of me all the time, jealous eating and sleeping! He even took it into his head to be jealous of Kuzma last week. 'But he knew about the Pole before? 'Yes, but there it is. He has known about him from the very beginning, but today he suddenly got up and began scolding about him. I am ashamed to repeat what he said. Silly fellow! Rakitin went in as I came out. Perhaps Rakitin is egging him on. What do you think? she added carelessly. 'He loves you, that's what it is he loves you so much. And now he is particularly worried. 'I should think he might be, with the trial tomorrow. And I went to him to say something about tomorrow, for I dread to think what's going to happen then. You say that he is worried, but how worried I am! And he talks about the Pole! He's too silly! He is not jealous of Maximushka yet, anyway. 'My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too, Maximov put in his word. 'Jealous of you? Grushenka laughed in spite of herself. 'Of whom could she have been jealous? 'Of the servant girls. 'Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now I feel angry. Don't ogle the pies. I shan't give you any they are not good for you, and I won't give you any vodka either. I have to look after him, too, just as though I kept an almshouse, she laughed. 'I don't deserve your kindness. I am a worthless creature, said Maximov, with tears in his voice. 'You would do better to spend your kindness on people of more use than me. 'Ech, every one is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who's of most use? If only that Pole didn't exist, Alyosha. He's taken it into his head to fall ill, too, today. I've been to see him also. And I shall send him some pies, too, on purpose. I hadn't sent him any, but Mitya accused me of it, so now I shall send some! Ah, here's Fenya with a letter! Yes, it's from the Polesbegging again! Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long and characteristically eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend him three roubles. In the letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with a promise to repay it within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky as well. Grushenka had received many such letters, accompanied by such receipts, from her former lover during the fortnight of her convalescence. But she knew that the two Poles had been to ask after her health during her illness. The first letter Grushenka got from them was a long one, written on large notepaper and with a big family crest on the seal. It was so obscure and rhetorical that Grushenka put it down before she had read half, unable to make head or tail of it. She could not attend to letters then. The first letter was followed next day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a loan of two thousand roubles for a very short period. Grushenka left that letter, too, unanswered. A whole series of letters had followedone every dayall as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, gradually diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, then to twentyfive, to ten, and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begged her for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both. Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went round herself to their lodging. She found the two Poles in great poverty, almost destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in debt to their landlady. The two hundred roubles they had carried off from Mitya at Mokroe had soon disappeared. But Grushenka was surprised at their meeting her with arrogant dignity and selfassertion, with the greatest punctilio and pompous speeches. Grushenka simply laughed, and gave her former admirer ten roubles. Then, laughing, she told Mitya of it and he was not in the least jealous. But ever since, the Poles had attached themselves to Grushenka and bombarded her daily with requests for money and she had always sent them small sums. And now that day Mitya had taken it into his head to be fearfully jealous. 'Like a fool, I went round to him just for a minute, on the way to see Mitya, for he is ill, too, my Pole, Grushenka began again with nervous haste. 'I was laughing, telling Mitya about it. 'Fancy,' I said, 'my Pole had the happy thought to sing his old songs to me to the guitar. He thought I would be touched and marry him!' Mitya leapt up swearing.... So, there, I'll send them the pies! Fenya, is it that little girl they've sent? Here, give her three roubles and pack a dozen pies up in a paper and tell her to take them. And you, Alyosha, be sure to tell Mitya that I did send them the pies. 'I wouldn't tell him for anything, said Alyosha, smiling. 'Ech! You think he is unhappy about it. Why, he's jealous on purpose. He doesn't care, said Grushenka bitterly. 'On purpose? queried Alyosha. 'I tell you you are silly, Alyosha. You know nothing about it, with all your cleverness. I am not offended that he is jealous of a girl like me. I would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I am not offended at jealousy. I have a fierce heart, too. I can be jealous myself. Only what offends me is that he doesn't love me at all. I tell you he is jealous now on purpose. Am I blind? Don't I see? He began talking to me just now of that woman, of Katerina, saying she was this and that, how she had ordered a doctor from Moscow for him, to try and save him how she had ordered the best counsel, the most learned one, too. So he loves her, if he'll praise her to my face, more shame to him! He's treated me badly himself, so he attacked me, to make out I am in fault first and to throw it all on me. 'You were with your Pole before me, so I can't be blamed for Katerina,' that's what it amounts to. He wants to throw the whole blame on me. He attacked me on purpose, on purpose, I tell you, but I'll Grushenka could not finish saying what she would do. She hid her eyes in her handkerchief and sobbed violently. 'He doesn't love Katerina Ivanovna, said Alyosha firmly. 'Well, whether he loves her or not, I'll soon find out for myself, said Grushenka, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the handkerchief from her eyes. Her face was distorted. Alyosha saw sorrowfully that from being mild and serene, it had become sullen and spiteful. 'Enough of this foolishness, she said suddenly 'it's not for that I sent for you. Alyosha, darling, tomorrowwhat will happen tomorrow? That's what worries me! And it's only me it worries! I look at every one and no one is thinking of it. No one cares about it. Are you thinking about it even? Tomorrow he'll be tried, you know. Tell me, how will he be tried? You know it's the valet, the valet killed him! Good heavens! Can they condemn him in place of the valet and will no one stand up for him? They haven't troubled the valet at all, have they? 'He's been severely crossexamined, observed Alyosha thoughtfully 'but every one came to the conclusion it was not he. Now he is lying very ill. He has been ill ever since that attack. Really ill, added Alyosha. 'Oh, dear! couldn't you go to that counsel yourself and tell him the whole thing by yourself? He's been brought from Petersburg for three thousand roubles, they say. 'We gave these three thousand togetherIvan, Katerina Ivanovna and Ibut she paid two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. The counsel Fetyukovitch would have charged more, but the case has become known all over Russia it's talked of in all the papers and journals. Fetyukovitch agreed to come more for the glory of the thing, because the case has become so notorious. I saw him yesterday. 'Well? Did you talk to him? Grushenka put in eagerly. 'He listened and said nothing. He told me that he had already formed his opinion. But he promised to give my words consideration. 'Consideration! Ah, they are swindlers! They'll ruin him. And why did she send for the doctor? 'As an expert. They want to prove that Mitya's mad and committed the murder when he didn't know what he was doing Alyosha smiled gently 'but Mitya won't agree to that. 'Yes but that would be the truth if he had killed him! cried Grushenka. 'He was mad then, perfectly mad, and that was my fault, wretch that I am! But, of course, he didn't do it, he didn't do it! And they are all against him, the whole town. Even Fenya's evidence went to prove he had done it. And the people at the shop, and that official, and at the tavern, too, before, people had heard him say so! They are all, all against him, all crying out against him. 'Yes, there's a fearful accumulation of evidence, Alyosha observed grimly. 'And GrigoryGrigory Vassilyevitchsticks to his story that the door was open, persists that he saw itthere's no shaking him. I went and talked to him myself. He's rude about it, too. 'Yes, that's perhaps the strongest evidence against him, said Alyosha. 'And as for Mitya's being mad, he certainly seems like it now, Grushenka began with a peculiarly anxious and mysterious air. 'Do you know, Alyosha, I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a long time. I go to him every day and simply wonder at him. Tell me, now, what do you suppose he's always talking about? He talks and talks and I can make nothing of it. I fancied he was talking of something intellectual that I couldn't understand in my foolishness. Only he suddenly began talking to me about a babethat is, about some child. 'Why is the babe poor?' he said. 'It's for that babe I am going to Siberia now. I am not a murderer, but I must go to Siberia!' What that meant, what babe, I couldn't tell for the life of me. Only I cried when he said it, because he said it so nicely. He cried himself, and I cried, too. He suddenly kissed me and made the sign of the cross over me. What did it mean, Alyosha, tell me? What is this babe? 'It must be Rakitin, who's been going to see him lately, smiled Alyosha, 'though ... that's not Rakitin's doing. I didn't see Mitya yesterday. I'll see him today. 'No, it's not Rakitin it's his brother Ivan Fyodorovitch upsetting him. It's his going to see him, that's what it is, Grushenka began, and suddenly broke off. Alyosha gazed at her in amazement. 'Ivan's going? Has he been to see him? Mitya told me himself that Ivan hasn't been once. 'There ... there! What a girl I am! Blurting things out! exclaimed Grushenka, confused and suddenly blushing. 'Stay, Alyosha, hush! Since I've said so much I'll tell the whole truthhe's been to see him twice, the first directly he arrived. He galloped here from Moscow at once, of course, before I was taken ill and the second time was a week ago. He told Mitya not to tell you about it, under any circumstances and not to tell any one, in fact. He came secretly. Alyosha sat plunged in thought, considering something. The news evidently impressed him. 'Ivan doesn't talk to me of Mitya's case, he said slowly. 'He's said very little to me these last two months. And whenever I go to see him, he seems vexed at my coming, so I've not been to him for the last three weeks. H'm!... if he was there a week ago ... there certainly has been a change in Mitya this week. 'There has been a change, Grushenka assented quickly. 'They have a secret, they have a secret! Mitya told me himself there was a secret, and such a secret that Mitya can't rest. Before then, he was cheerfuland, indeed, he is cheerful nowbut when he shakes his head like that, you know, and strides about the room and keeps pulling at the hair on his right temple with his right hand, I know there is something on his mind worrying him.... I know! He was cheerful before, though, indeed, he is cheerful today. 'But you said he was worried. 'Yes, he is worried and yet cheerful. He keeps on being irritable for a minute and then cheerful and then irritable again. And you know, Alyosha, I am constantly wondering at himwith this awful thing hanging over him, he sometimes laughs at such trifles as though he were a baby himself. 'And did he really tell you not to tell me about Ivan? Did he say, 'Don't tell him'? 'Yes, he told me, 'Don't tell him.' It's you that Mitya's most afraid of. Because it's a secret he said himself it was a secret. Alyosha, darling, go to him and find out what their secret is and come and tell me, Grushenka besought him with sudden eagerness. 'Set my mind at rest that I may know the worst that's in store for me. That's why I sent for you. 'You think it's something to do with you? If it were, he wouldn't have told you there was a secret. 'I don't know. Perhaps he wants to tell me, but doesn't dare to. He warns me. There is a secret, he tells me, but he won't tell me what it is. 'What do you think yourself? 'What do I think? It's the end for me, that's what I think. They all three have been plotting my end, for Katerina's in it. It's all Katerina, it all comes from her. She is this and that, and that means that I am not. He tells me that beforehandwarns me. He is planning to throw me over, that's the whole secret. They've planned it together, the three of themMitya, Katerina, and Ivan Fyodorovitch. Alyosha, I've been wanting to ask you a long time. A week ago he suddenly told me that Ivan was in love with Katerina, because he often goes to see her. Did he tell me the truth or not? Tell me, on your conscience, tell me the worst. 'I won't tell you a lie. Ivan is not in love with Katerina Ivanovna, I think. 'Oh, that's what I thought! He is lying to me, shameless deceiver, that's what it is! And he was jealous of me just now, so as to put the blame on me afterwards. He is stupid, he can't disguise what he is doing he is so open, you know.... But I'll give it to him, I'll give it to him! 'You believe I did it,' he said. He said that to me, to me. He reproached me with that! God forgive him! You wait, I'll make it hot for Katerina at the trial! I'll just say a word then ... I'll tell everything then! And again she cried bitterly. 'This I can tell you for certain, Grushenka, Alyosha said, getting up. 'First, that he loves you, loves you more than any one in the world, and you only, believe me. I know. I do know. The second thing is that I don't want to worm his secret out of him, but if he'll tell me of himself to day, I shall tell him straight out that I have promised to tell you. Then I'll come to you today, and tell you. Only ... I fancy ... Katerina Ivanovna has nothing to do with it, and that the secret is about something else. That's certain. It isn't likely it's about Katerina Ivanovna, it seems to me. Goodby for now. Alyosha shook hands with her. Grushenka was still crying. He saw that she put little faith in his consolation, but she was better for having had her sorrow out, for having spoken of it. He was sorry to leave her in such a state of mind, but he was in haste. He had a great many things to do still. The first of these things was at the house of Madame Hohlakov, and he hurried there to get it over as quickly as possible and not be too late for Mitya. Madame Hohlakov had been slightly ailing for the last three weeks her foot had for some reason swollen up, and though she was not in bed, she lay all day halfreclining on the couch in her boudoir, in a fascinating but decorous dshabill. Alyosha had once noted with innocent amusement that, in spite of her illness, Madame Hohlakov had begun to be rather dressytopknots, ribbons, loose wrappers, had made their appearance, and he had an inkling of the reason, though he dismissed such ideas from his mind as frivolous. During the last two months the young official, Perhotin, had become a regular visitor at the house. Alyosha had not called for four days and he was in haste to go straight to Lise, as it was with her he had to speak, for Lise had sent a maid to him the previous day, specially asking him to come to her 'about something very important, a request which, for certain reasons, had interest for Alyosha. But while the maid went to take his name in to Lise, Madame Hohlakov heard of his arrival from some one, and immediately sent to beg him to come to her 'just for one minute. Alyosha reflected that it was better to accede to the mamma's request, or else she would be sending down to Lise's room every minute that he was there. Madame Hohlakov was lying on a couch. She was particularly smartly dressed and was evidently in a state of extreme nervous excitement. She greeted Alyosha with cries of rapture. 'It's ages, ages, perfect ages since I've seen you! It's a whole weekonly think of it! Ah, but you were here only four days ago, on Wednesday. You have come to see Lise. I'm sure you meant to slip into her room on tiptoe, without my hearing you. My dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, if you only knew how worried I am about her! But of that later, though that's the most important thing, of that later. Dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, I trust you implicitly with my Lise. Since the death of Father ZossimaGod rest his soul! (she crossed herself)'I look upon you as a monk, though you look charming in your new suit. Where did you find such a tailor in these parts? No, no, that's not the chief thingof that later. Forgive me for sometimes calling you Alyosha an old woman like me may take liberties, she smiled coquettishly 'but that will do later, too. The important thing is that I shouldn't forget what is important. Please remind me of it yourself. As soon as my tongue runs away with me, you just say 'the important thing?' Ach! how do I know now what is of most importance? Ever since Lise took back her promiseher childish promise, Alexey Fyodorovitchto marry you, you've realized, of course, that it was only the playful fancy of a sick child who had been so long confined to her chairthank God, she can walk now!... that new doctor Katya sent for from Moscow for your unhappy brother, who will tomorrowBut why speak of to morrow? I am ready to die at the very thought of tomorrow. Ready to die of curiosity.... That doctor was with us yesterday and saw Lise.... I paid him fifty roubles for the visit. But that's not the point, that's not the point again. You see, I'm mixing everything up. I am in such a hurry. Why am I in a hurry? I don't understand. It's awful how I seem growing unable to understand anything. Everything seems mixed up in a sort of tangle. I am afraid you are so bored you will jump up and run away, and that will be all I shall see of you. Goodness! Why are we sitting here and no coffee? Yulia, Glafira, coffee! Alyosha made haste to thank her, and said that he had only just had coffee. 'Where? 'At Agrafena Alexandrovna's. 'At ... at that woman's? Ah, it's she has brought ruin on every one. I know nothing about it though. They say she has become a saint, though it's rather late in the day. She had better have done it before. What use is it now? Hush, hush, Alexey Fyodorovitch, for I have so much to say to you that I am afraid I shall tell you nothing. This awful trial ... I shall certainly go, I am making arrangements. I shall be carried there in my chair besides I can sit up. I shall have people with me. And, you know, I am a witness. How shall I speak, how shall I speak? I don't know what I shall say. One has to take an oath, hasn't one? 'Yes but I don't think you will be able to go. 'I can sit up. Ah, you put me out! Ah! this trial, this savage act, and then they are all going to Siberia, some are getting married, and all this so quickly, so quickly, everything's changing, and at lastnothing. All grow old and have death to look forward to. Well, so be it! I am weary. This Katya, cette charmante personne, has disappointed all my hopes. Now she is going to follow one of your brothers to Siberia, and your other brother is going to follow her, and will live in the nearest town, and they will all torment one another. It drives me out of my mind. Worst of allthe publicity. The story has been told a million times over in all the papers in Moscow and Petersburg. Ah! yes, would you believe it, there's a paragraph that I was 'a dear friend' of your brother's , I can't repeat the horrid word. Just fancy, just fancy! 'Impossible! Where was the paragraph? What did it say? 'I'll show you directly. I got the paper and read it yesterday. Here, in the Petersburg paper Gossip. The paper began coming out this year. I am awfully fond of gossip, and I take it in, and now it pays me outthis is what gossip comes to! Here it is, here, this passage. Read it. And she handed Alyosha a sheet of newspaper which had been under her pillow. It was not exactly that she was upset, she seemed overwhelmed and perhaps everything really was mixed up in a tangle in her head. The paragraph was very typical, and must have been a great shock to her, but, fortunately perhaps, she was unable to keep her mind fixed on any one subject at that moment, and so might race off in a minute to something else and quite forget the newspaper. Alyosha was well aware that the story of the terrible case had spread all over Russia. And, good heavens! what wild rumors about his brother, about the Karamazovs, and about himself he had read in the course of those two months, among other equally credible items! One paper had even stated that he had gone into a monastery and become a monk, in horror at his brother's crime. Another contradicted this, and stated that he and his elder, Father Zossima, had broken into the monastery chest and 'made tracks from the monastery. The present paragraph in the paper Gossip was under the heading, 'The Karamazov Case at Skotoprigonyevsk. (That, alas! was the name of our little town. I had hitherto kept it concealed.) It was brief, and Madame Hohlakov was not directly mentioned in it. No names appeared, in fact. It was merely stated that the criminal, whose approaching trial was making such a sensationretired army captain, an idle swaggerer, and reactionary bullywas continually involved in amorous intrigues, and particularly popular with certain ladies 'who were pining in solitude. One such lady, a pining widow, who tried to seem young though she had a grownup daughter, was so fascinated by him that only two hours before the crime she offered him three thousand roubles, on condition that he would elope with her to the gold mines. But the criminal, counting on escaping punishment, had preferred to murder his father to get the three thousand rather than go off to Siberia with the middleaged charms of his pining lady. This playful paragraph finished, of course, with an outburst of generous indignation at the wickedness of parricide and at the lately abolished institution of serfdom. Reading it with curiosity, Alyosha folded up the paper and handed it back to Madame Hohlakov. 'Well, that must be me, she hurried on again. 'Of course I am meant. Scarcely more than an hour before, I suggested gold mines to him, and here they talk of 'middleaged charms' as though that were my motive! He writes that out of spite! God Almighty forgive him for the middleaged charms, as I forgive him! You know it's Do you know who it is? It's your friend Rakitin. 'Perhaps, said Alyosha, 'though I've heard nothing about it. 'It's he, it's he! No 'perhaps' about it. You know I turned him out of the house.... You know all that story, don't you? 'I know that you asked him not to visit you for the future, but why it was, I haven't heard ... from you, at least. 'Ah, then you've heard it from him! He abuses me, I suppose, abuses me dreadfully? 'Yes, he does but then he abuses every one. But why you've given him up I haven't heard from him either. I meet him very seldom now, indeed. We are not friends. 'Well, then, I'll tell you all about it. There's no help for it, I'll confess, for there is one point in which I was perhaps to blame. Only a little, little point, so little that perhaps it doesn't count. You see, my dear boyMadame Hohlakov suddenly looked arch and a charming, though enigmatic, smile played about her lips'you see, I suspect ... You must forgive me, Alyosha. I am like a mother to you.... No, no quite the contrary. I speak to you now as though you were my fathermother's quite out of place. Well, it's as though I were confessing to Father Zossima, that's just it. I called you a monk just now. Well, that poor young man, your friend, Rakitin (Mercy on us! I can't be angry with him. I feel cross, but not very), that frivolous young man, would you believe it, seems to have taken it into his head to fall in love with me. I only noticed it later. At firsta month agohe only began to come oftener to see me, almost every day though, of course, we were acquainted before. I knew nothing about it ... and suddenly it dawned upon me, and I began to notice things with surprise. You know, two months ago, that modest, charming, excellent young man, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, who's in the service here, began to be a regular visitor at the house. You met him here ever so many times yourself. And he is an excellent, earnest young man, isn't he? He comes once every three days, not every day (though I should be glad to see him every day), and always so well dressed. Altogether, I love young people, Alyosha, talented, modest, like you, and he has almost the mind of a statesman, he talks so charmingly, and I shall certainly, certainly try and get promotion for him. He is a future diplomat. On that awful day he almost saved me from death by coming in the night. And your friend Rakitin comes in such boots, and always stretches them out on the carpet.... He began hinting at his feelings, in fact, and one day, as he was going, he squeezed my hand terribly hard. My foot began to swell directly after he pressed my hand like that. He had met Pyotr Ilyitch here before, and would you believe it, he is always gibing at him, growling at him, for some reason. I simply looked at the way they went on together and laughed inwardly. So I was sitting here aloneno, I was laid up then. Well, I was lying here alone and suddenly Rakitin comes in, and only fancy! brought me some verses of his own compositiona short poem, on my bad foot that is, he described my foot in a poem. Wait a minutehow did it go? A captivating little foot. It began somehow like that. I can never remember poetry. I've got it here. I'll show it to you later. But it's a charming thingcharming and, you know, it's not only about the foot, it had a good moral, too, a charming idea, only I've forgotten it in fact, it was just the thing for an album. So, of course, I thanked him, and he was evidently flattered. I'd hardly had time to thank him when in comes Pyotr Ilyitch, and Rakitin suddenly looked as black as night. I could see that Pyotr Ilyitch was in the way, for Rakitin certainly wanted to say something after giving me the verses. I had a presentiment of it but Pyotr Ilyitch came in. I showed Pyotr Ilyitch the verses and didn't say who was the author. But I am convinced that he guessed, though he won't own it to this day, and declares he had no idea. But he says that on purpose. Pyotr Ilyitch began to laugh at once, and fell to criticizing it. 'Wretched doggerel,' he said they were, 'some divinity student must have written them,' and with such vehemence, such vehemence! Then, instead of laughing, your friend flew into a rage. 'Good gracious!' I thought, 'they'll fly at each other.' 'It was I who wrote them,' said he. 'I wrote them as a joke,' he said, 'for I think it degrading to write verses.... But they are good poetry. They want to put a monument to your Pushkin for writing about women's feet, while I wrote with a moral purpose, and you,' said he, 'are an advocate of serfdom. You've no humane ideas,' said he. 'You have no modern enlightened feelings, you are uninfluenced by progress, you are a mere official,' he said, 'and you take bribes.' Then I began screaming and imploring them. And, you know, Pyotr Ilyitch is anything but a coward. He at once took up the most gentlemanly tone, looked at him sarcastically, listened, and apologized. 'I'd no idea,' said he. 'I shouldn't have said it, if I had known. I should have praised it. Poets are all so irritable,' he said. In short, he laughed at him under cover of the most gentlemanly tone. He explained to me afterwards that it was all sarcastic. I thought he was in earnest. Only as I lay there, just as before you now, I thought, 'Would it, or would it not, be the proper thing for me to turn Rakitin out for shouting so rudely at a visitor in my house?' And, would you believe it, I lay here, shut my eyes, and wondered, would it be the proper thing or not. I kept worrying and worrying, and my heart began to beat, and I couldn't make up my mind whether to make an outcry or not. One voice seemed to be telling me, 'Speak,' and the other 'No, don't speak.' And no sooner had the second voice said that than I cried out, and fainted. Of course, there was a fuss. I got up suddenly and said to Rakitin, 'It's painful for me to say it, but I don't wish to see you in my house again.' So I turned him out. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I know myself I did wrong. I was putting it on. I wasn't angry with him at all, really but I suddenly fanciedthat was what did itthat it would be such a fine scene.... And yet, believe me, it was quite natural, for I really shed tears and cried for several days afterwards, and then suddenly, one afternoon, I forgot all about it. So it's a fortnight since he's been here, and I kept wondering whether he would come again. I wondered even yesterday, then suddenly last night came this Gossip. I read it and gasped. Who could have written it? He must have written it. He went home, sat down, wrote it on the spot, sent it, and they put it in. It was a fortnight ago, you see. But, Alyosha, it's awful how I keep talking and don't say what I want to say. Ah! the words come of themselves! 'It's very important for me to be in time to see my brother today, Alyosha faltered. 'To be sure, to be sure! You bring it all back to me. Listen, what is an aberration? 'What aberration? asked Alyosha, wondering. 'In the legal sense. An aberration in which everything is pardonable. Whatever you do, you will be acquitted at once. 'What do you mean? 'I'll tell you. This Katya ... Ah! she is a charming, charming creature, only I never can make out who it is she is in love with. She was with me some time ago and I couldn't get anything out of her. Especially as she won't talk to me except on the surface now. She is always talking about my health and nothing else, and she takes up such a tone with me, too. I simply said to myself, 'Well, so be it. I don't care'... Oh, yes. I was talking of aberration. This doctor has come. You know a doctor has come? Of course, you know itthe one who discovers madmen. You wrote for him. No, it wasn't you, but Katya. It's all Katya's doing. Well, you see, a man may be sitting perfectly sane and suddenly have an aberration. He may be conscious and know what he is doing and yet be in a state of aberration. And there's no doubt that Dmitri Fyodorovitch was suffering from aberration. They found out about aberration as soon as the law courts were reformed. It's all the good effect of the reformed law courts. The doctor has been here and questioned me about that evening, about the gold mines. 'How did he seem then?' he asked me. He must have been in a state of aberration. He came in shouting, 'Money, money, three thousand! Give me three thousand!' and then went away and immediately did the murder. 'I don't want to murder him,' he said, and he suddenly went and murdered him. That's why they'll acquit him, because he struggled against it and yet he murdered him. 'But he didn't murder him, Alyosha interrupted rather sharply. He felt more and more sick with anxiety and impatience. 'Yes, I know it was that old man Grigory murdered him. 'Grigory? cried Alyosha. 'Yes, yes it was Grigory. He lay as Dmitri Fyodorovitch struck him down, and then got up, saw the door open, went in and killed Fyodor Pavlovitch. 'But why, why? 'Suffering from aberration. When he recovered from the blow Dmitri Fyodorovitch gave him on the head, he was suffering from aberration he went and committed the murder. As for his saying he didn't, he very likely doesn't remember. Only, you know, it'll be better, ever so much better, if Dmitri Fyodorovitch murdered him. And that's how it must have been, though I say it was Grigory. It certainly was Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that's better, ever so much better! Oh! not better that a son should have killed his father, I don't defend that. Children ought to honor their parents, and yet it would be better if it were he, as you'd have nothing to cry over then, for he did it when he was unconscious or rather when he was conscious, but did not know what he was doing. Let them acquit himthat's so humane, and would show what a blessing reformed law courts are. I knew nothing about it, but they say they have been so a long time. And when I heard it yesterday, I was so struck by it that I wanted to send for you at once. And if he is acquitted, make him come straight from the law courts to dinner with me, and I'll have a party of friends, and we'll drink to the reformed law courts. I don't believe he'd be dangerous besides, I'll invite a great many friends, so that he could always be led out if he did anything. And then he might be made a justice of the peace or something in another town, for those who have been in trouble themselves make the best judges. And, besides, who isn't suffering from aberration nowadays?you, I, all of us are in a state of aberration, and there are ever so many examples of it a man sits singing a song, suddenly something annoys him, he takes a pistol and shoots the first person he comes across, and no one blames him for it. I read that lately, and all the doctors confirm it. The doctors are always confirming they confirm anything. Why, my Lise is in a state of aberration. She made me cry again yesterday, and the day before, too, and today I suddenly realized that it's all due to aberration. Oh, Lise grieves me so! I believe she's quite mad. Why did she send for you? Did she send for you or did you come of yourself? 'Yes, she sent for me, and I am just going to her. Alyosha got up resolutely. 'Oh, my dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, perhaps that's what's most important, Madame Hohlakov cried, suddenly bursting into tears. 'God knows I trust Lise to you with all my heart, and it's no matter her sending for you on the sly, without telling her mother. But forgive me, I can't trust my daughter so easily to your brother Ivan Fyodorovitch, though I still consider him the most chivalrous young man. But only fancy, he's been to see Lise and I knew nothing about it! 'How? What? When? Alyosha was exceedingly surprised. He had not sat down again and listened standing. 'I will tell you that's perhaps why I asked you to come, for I don't know now why I did ask you to come. Well, Ivan Fyodorovitch has been to see me twice, since he came back from Moscow. First time he came as a friend to call on me, and the second time Katya was here and he came because he heard she was here. I didn't, of course, expect him to come often, knowing what a lot he has to do as it is, vous comprenez, cette affaire et la mort terrible de votre papa. But I suddenly heard he'd been here again, not to see me but to see Lise. That's six days ago now. He came, stayed five minutes, and went away. And I didn't hear of it till three days afterwards, from Glafira, so it was a great shock to me. I sent for Lise directly. She laughed. 'He thought you were asleep,' she said, 'and came in to me to ask after your health.' Of course, that's how it happened. But Lise, Lise, mercy on us, how she distresses me! Would you believe it, one night, four days ago, just after you saw her last time, and had gone away, she suddenly had a fit, screaming, shrieking, hysterics! Why is it I never have hysterics? Then, next day another fit, and the same thing on the third, and yesterday too, and then yesterday that aberration. She suddenly screamed out, 'I hate Ivan Fyodorovitch. I insist on your never letting him come to the house again.' I was struck dumb at these amazing words, and answered, 'On what grounds could I refuse to see such an excellent young man, a young man of such learning too, and so unfortunate?'for all this business is a misfortune, isn't it? She suddenly burst out laughing at my words, and so rudely, you know. Well, I was pleased I thought I had amused her and the fits would pass off, especially as I wanted to refuse to see Ivan Fyodorovitch anyway on account of his strange visits without my knowledge, and meant to ask him for an explanation. But early this morning Lise waked up and flew into a passion with Yulia and, would you believe it, slapped her in the face. That's monstrous I am always polite to my servants. And an hour later she was hugging Yulia's feet and kissing them. She sent a message to me that she wasn't coming to me at all, and would never come and see me again, and when I dragged myself down to her, she rushed to kiss me, crying, and as she kissed me, she pushed me out of the room without saying a word, so I couldn't find out what was the matter. Now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, I rest all my hopes on you, and, of course, my whole life is in your hands. I simply beg you to go to Lise and find out everything from her, as you alone can, and come back and tell meme, her mother, for you understand it will be the death of me, simply the death of me, if this goes on, or else I shall run away. I can stand no more. I have patience but I may lose patience, and then ... then something awful will happen. Ah, dear me! At last, Pyotr Ilyitch! cried Madame Hohlakov, beaming all over as she saw Perhotin enter the room. 'You are late, you are late! Well, sit down, speak, put us out of suspense. What does the counsel say. Where are you off to, Alexey Fyodorovitch? 'To Lise. 'Oh, yes. You won't forget, you won't forget what I asked you? It's a question of life and death! 'Of course, I won't forget, if I can ... but I am so late, muttered Alyosha, beating a hasty retreat. 'No, be sure, be sure to come in don't say 'If you can.' I shall die if you don't, Madame Hohlakov called after him, but Alyosha had already left the room. Going in to Lise, he found her half reclining in the invalidchair, in which she had been wheeled when she was unable to walk. She did not move to meet him, but her sharp, keen eyes were simply riveted on his face. There was a feverish look in her eyes, her face was pale and yellow. Alyosha was amazed at the change that had taken place in her in three days. She was positively thinner. She did not hold out her hand to him. He touched the thin, long fingers which lay motionless on her dress, then he sat down facing her, without a word. 'I know you are in a hurry to get to the prison, Lise said curtly, 'and mamma's kept you there for hours she's just been telling you about me and Yulia. 'How do you know? asked Alyosha. 'I've been listening. Why do you stare at me? I want to listen and I do listen, there's no harm in that. I don't apologize. 'You are upset about something? 'On the contrary, I am very happy. I've only just been reflecting for the thirtieth time what a good thing it is I refused you and shall not be your wife. You are not fit to be a husband. If I were to marry you and give you a note to take to the man I loved after you, you'd take it and be sure to give it to him and bring an answer back, too. If you were forty, you would still go on taking my loveletters for me. She suddenly laughed. 'There is something spiteful and yet openhearted about you, Alyosha smiled to her. 'The openheartedness consists in my not being ashamed of myself with you. What's more, I don't want to feel ashamed with you, just with you. Alyosha, why is it I don't respect you? I am very fond of you, but I don't respect you. If I respected you, I shouldn't talk to you without shame, should I? 'No. 'But do you believe that I am not ashamed with you? 'No, I don't believe it. Lise laughed nervously again she spoke rapidly. 'I sent your brother, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, some sweets in prison. Alyosha, you know, you are quite pretty! I shall love you awfully for having so quickly allowed me not to love you. 'Why did you send for me today, Lise? 'I wanted to tell you of a longing I have. I should like some one to torture me, marry me and then torture me, deceive me and go away. I don't want to be happy. 'You are in love with disorder? 'Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I keep imagining how I'll creep up and set fire to the house on the sly it must be on the sly. They'll try to put it out, but it'll go on burning. And I shall know and say nothing. Ah, what silliness! And how bored I am! She waved her hand with a look of repulsion. 'It's your luxurious life, said Alyosha, softly. 'Is it better, then, to be poor? 'Yes, it is better. 'That's what your monk taught you. That's not true. Let me be rich and all the rest poor, I'll eat sweets and drink cream and not give any to any one else. Ach, don't speak, don't say anything, she shook her hand at him, though Alyosha had not opened his mouth. 'You've told me all that before, I know it all by heart. It bores me. If I am ever poor, I shall murder somebody, and even if I am rich, I may murder some one, perhapswhy do nothing! But do you know, I should like to reap, cut the rye? I'll marry you, and you shall become a peasant, a real peasant we'll keep a colt, shall we? Do you know Kalganov? 'Yes. 'He is always wandering about, dreaming. He says, 'Why live in real life? It's better to dream. One can dream the most delightful things, but real life is a bore.' But he'll be married soon for all that he's been making love to me already. Can you spin tops? 'Yes. 'Well, he's just like a top he wants to be wound up and set spinning and then to be lashed, lashed, lashed with a whip. If I marry him, I'll keep him spinning all his life. You are not ashamed to be with me? 'No. 'You are awfully cross, because I don't talk about holy things. I don't want to be holy. What will they do to one in the next world for the greatest sin? You must know all about that. 'God will censure you. Alyosha was watching her steadily. 'That's just what I should like. I would go up and they would censure me, and I would burst out laughing in their faces. I should dreadfully like to set fire to the house, Alyosha, to our house you still don't believe me? 'Why? There are children of twelve years old, who have a longing to set fire to something and they do set things on fire, too. It's a sort of disease. 'That's not true, that's not true there may be children, but that's not what I mean. 'You take evil for good it's a passing crisis, it's the result of your illness, perhaps. 'You do despise me, though! It's simply that I don't want to do good, I want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness. 'Why do evil? 'So that everything might be destroyed. Ah, how nice it would be if everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of doing a fearful lot of harm and everything bad, and I should do it for a long while on the sly and suddenly every one would find it out. Every one will stand round and point their fingers at me and I would look at them all. That would be awfully nice. Why would it be so nice, Alyosha? 'I don't know. It's a craving to destroy something good or, as you say, to set fire to something. It happens sometimes. 'I not only say it, I shall do it. 'I believe you. 'Ah, how I love you for saying you believe me. And you are not lying one little bit. But perhaps you think that I am saying all this on purpose to annoy you? 'No, I don't think that ... though perhaps there is a little desire to do that in it, too. 'There is a little. I never can tell lies to you, she declared, with a strange fire in her eyes. What struck Alyosha above everything was her earnestness. There was not a trace of humor or jesting in her face now, though, in old days, fun and gayety never deserted her even at her most 'earnest moments. 'There are moments when people love crime, said Alyosha thoughtfully. 'Yes, yes! You have uttered my thought they love crime, every one loves crime, they love it always, not at some 'moments.' You know, it's as though people have made an agreement to lie about it and have lied about it ever since. They all declare that they hate evil, but secretly they all love it. 'And are you still reading nasty books? 'Yes, I am. Mamma reads them and hides them under her pillow and I steal them. 'Aren't you ashamed to destroy yourself? 'I want to destroy myself. There's a boy here, who lay down between the railway lines when the train was passing. Lucky fellow! Listen, your brother is being tried now for murdering his father and every one loves his having killed his father. 'Loves his having killed his father? 'Yes, loves it every one loves it! Everybody says it's so awful, but secretly they simply love it. I for one love it. 'There is some truth in what you say about every one, said Alyosha softly. 'Oh, what ideas you have! Lise shrieked in delight. 'And you a monk, too! You wouldn't believe how I respect you, Alyosha, for never telling lies. Oh, I must tell you a funny dream of mine. I sometimes dream of devils. It's night I am in my room with a candle and suddenly there are devils all over the place, in all the corners, under the table, and they open the doors there's a crowd of them behind the doors and they want to come and seize me. And they are just coming, just seizing me. But I suddenly cross myself and they all draw back, though they don't go away altogether, they stand at the doors and in the corners, waiting. And suddenly I have a frightful longing to revile God aloud, and so I begin, and then they come crowding back to me, delighted, and seize me again and I cross myself again and they all draw back. It's awful fun. it takes one's breath away. 'I've had the same dream, too, said Alyosha suddenly. 'Really? cried Lise, surprised. 'I say, Alyosha, don't laugh, that's awfully important. Could two different people have the same dream? 'It seems they can. 'Alyosha, I tell you, it's awfully important, Lise went on, with really excessive amazement. 'It's not the dream that's important, but your having the same dream as me. You never lie to me, don't lie now is it true? You are not laughing? 'It's true. Lise seemed extraordinarily impressed and for half a minute she was silent. 'Alyosha, come and see me, come and see me more often, she said suddenly, in a supplicating voice. 'I'll always come to see you, all my life, answered Alyosha firmly. 'You are the only person I can talk to, you know, Lise began again. 'I talk to no one but myself and you. Only you in the whole world. And to you more readily than to myself. And I am not a bit ashamed with you, not a bit. Alyosha, why am I not ashamed with you, not a bit? Alyosha, is it true that at Easter the Jews steal a child and kill it? 'I don't know. 'There's a book here in which I read about the trial of a Jew, who took a child of four years old and cut off the fingers from both hands, and then crucified him on the wall, hammered nails into him and crucified him, and afterwards, when he was tried, he said that the child died soon, within four hours. That was 'soon'! He said the child moaned, kept on moaning and he stood admiring it. That's nice! 'Nice? 'Nice I sometimes imagine that it was I who crucified him. He would hang there moaning and I would sit opposite him eating pineapple compote. I am awfully fond of pineapple compote. Do you like it? Alyosha looked at her in silence. Her pale, sallow face was suddenly contorted, her eyes burned. 'You know, when I read about that Jew I shook with sobs all night. I kept fancying how the little thing cried and moaned (a child of four years old understands, you know), and all the while the thought of pineapple compote haunted me. In the morning I wrote a letter to a certain person, begging him particularly to come and see me. He came and I suddenly told him all about the child and the pineapple compote. All about it, all, and said that it was nice. He laughed and said it really was nice. Then he got up and went away. He was only here five minutes. Did he despise me? Did he despise me? Tell me, tell me, Alyosha, did he despise me or not? She sat up on the couch, with flashing eyes. 'Tell me, Alyosha asked anxiously, 'did you send for that person? 'Yes, I did. 'Did you send him a letter? 'Yes. 'Simply to ask about that, about that child? 'No, not about that at all. But when he came, I asked him about that at once. He answered, laughed, got up and went away. 'That person behaved honorably, Alyosha murmured. 'And did he despise me? Did he laugh at me? 'No, for perhaps he believes in the pineapple compote himself. He is very ill now, too, Lise. 'Yes, he does believe in it, said Lise, with flashing eyes. 'He doesn't despise any one, Alyosha went on. 'Only he does not believe any one. If he doesn't believe in people, of course, he does despise them. 'Then he despises me, me? 'You, too. 'Good, Lise seemed to grind her teeth. 'When he went out laughing, I felt that it was nice to be despised. The child with fingers cut off is nice, and to be despised is nice.... And she laughed in Alyosha's face, a feverish malicious laugh. 'Do you know, Alyosha, do you know, I should likeAlyosha, save me! She suddenly jumped from the couch, rushed to him and seized him with both hands. 'Save me! she almost groaned. 'Is there any one in the world I could tell what I've told you? I've told you the truth, the truth. I shall kill myself, because I loathe everything! I don't want to live, because I loathe everything! I loathe everything, everything. Alyosha, why don't you love me in the least? she finished in a frenzy. 'But I do love you! answered Alyosha warmly. 'And will you weep over me, will you? 'Yes. 'Not because I won't be your wife, but simply weep for me? 'Yes. 'Thank you! It's only your tears I want. Every one else may punish me and trample me under foot, every one, every one, not excepting any one. For I don't love any one. Do you hear, not any one! On the contrary, I hate him! Go, Alyosha it's time you went to your brother she tore herself away from him suddenly. 'How can I leave you like this? said Alyosha, almost in alarm. 'Go to your brother, the prison will be shut go, here's your hat. Give my love to Mitya, go, go! And she almost forcibly pushed Alyosha out of the door. He looked at her with pained surprise, when he was suddenly aware of a letter in his right hand, a tiny letter folded up tight and sealed. He glanced at it and instantly read the address, 'To Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov. He looked quickly at Lise. Her face had become almost menacing. 'Give it to him, you must give it to him! she ordered him, trembling and beside herself. 'Today, at once, or I'll poison myself! That's why I sent for you. And she slammed the door quickly. The bolt clicked. Alyosha put the note in his pocket and went straight downstairs, without going back to Madame Hohlakov forgetting her, in fact. As soon as Alyosha had gone, Lise unbolted the door, opened it a little, put her finger in the crack and slammed the door with all her might, pinching her finger. Ten seconds after, releasing her finger, she walked softly, slowly to her chair, sat up straight in it and looked intently at her blackened finger and at the blood that oozed from under the nail. Her lips were quivering and she kept whispering rapidly to herself 'I am a wretch, wretch, wretch, wretch! It was quite late (days are short in November) when Alyosha rang at the prison gate. It was beginning to get dusk. But Alyosha knew that he would be admitted without difficulty. Things were managed in our little town, as everywhere else. At first, of course, on the conclusion of the preliminary inquiry, relations and a few other persons could only obtain interviews with Mitya by going through certain inevitable formalities. But later, though the formalities were not relaxed, exceptions were made for some, at least, of Mitya's visitors. So much so, that sometimes the interviews with the prisoner in the room set aside for the purpose were practically ttette. These exceptions, however, were few in number only Grushenka, Alyosha and Rakitin were treated like this. But the captain of the police, Mihail Mihailovitch, was very favorably disposed to Grushenka. His abuse of her at Mokroe weighed on the old man's conscience, and when he learned the whole story, he completely changed his view of her. And strange to say, though he was firmly persuaded of his guilt, yet after Mitya was once in prison, the old man came to take a more and more lenient view of him. 'He was a man of good heart, perhaps, he thought, 'who had come to grief from drinking and dissipation. His first horror had been succeeded by pity. As for Alyosha, the police captain was very fond of him and had known him for a long time. Rakitin, who had of late taken to coming very often to see the prisoner, was one of the most intimate acquaintances of the 'police captain's young ladies, as he called them, and was always hanging about their house. He gave lessons in the house of the prison superintendent, too, who, though scrupulous in the performance of his duties, was a kind hearted old man. Alyosha, again, had an intimate acquaintance of long standing with the superintendent, who was fond of talking to him, generally on sacred subjects. He respected Ivan Fyodorovitch, and stood in awe of his opinion, though he was a great philosopher himself 'self taught, of course. But Alyosha had an irresistible attraction for him. During the last year the old man had taken to studying the Apocryphal Gospels, and constantly talked over his impressions with his young friend. He used to come and see him in the monastery and discussed for hours together with him and with the monks. So even if Alyosha were late at the prison, he had only to go to the superintendent and everything was made easy. Besides, every one in the prison, down to the humblest warder, had grown used to Alyosha. The sentry, of course, did not trouble him so long as the authorities were satisfied. When Mitya was summoned from his cell, he always went downstairs, to the place set aside for interviews. As Alyosha entered the room he came upon Rakitin, who was just taking leave of Mitya. They were both talking loudly. Mitya was laughing heartily as he saw him out, while Rakitin seemed grumbling. Rakitin did not like meeting Alyosha, especially of late. He scarcely spoke to him, and bowed to him stiffly. Seeing Alyosha enter now, he frowned and looked away, as though he were entirely absorbed in buttoning his big, warm, furtrimmed overcoat. Then he began looking at once for his umbrella. 'I must mind not to forget my belongings, he muttered, simply to say something. 'Mind you don't forget other people's belongings, said Mitya, as a joke, and laughed at once at his own wit. Rakitin fired up instantly. 'You'd better give that advice to your own family, who've always been a slavedriving lot, and not to Rakitin, he cried, suddenly trembling with anger. 'What's the matter? I was joking, cried Mitya. 'Damn it all! They are all like that, he turned to Alyosha, nodding towards Rakitin's hurriedly retreating figure. 'He was sitting here, laughing and cheerful, and all at once he boils up like that. He didn't even nod to you. Have you broken with him completely? Why are you so late? I've not been simply waiting, but thirsting for you the whole morning. But never mind. We'll make up for it now. 'Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such great friends? asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through which Rakitin had disappeared. 'Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likelya pig like that? He considers I am ... a blackguard. They can't understand a joke either, that's the worst of such people. They never understand a joke, and their souls are dry, dry and flat they remind me of prison walls when I was first brought here. But he is a clever fellow, very clever. Well, Alexey, it's all over with me now. He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit down beside him. 'Yes, the trial's tomorrow. Are you so hopeless, brother? Alyosha said, with an apprehensive feeling. 'What are you talking about? said Mitya, looking at him rather uncertainly. 'Oh, you mean the trial! Damn it all! Till now we've been talking of things that don't matter, about this trial, but I haven't said a word to you about the chief thing. Yes, the trial is tomorrow but it wasn't the trial I meant, when I said it was all over with me. Why do you look at me so critically? 'What do you mean, Mitya? 'Ideas, ideas, that's all! Ethics! What is ethics? 'Ethics? asked Alyosha, wondering. 'Yes is it a science? 'Yes, there is such a science ... but ... I confess I can't explain to you what sort of science it is. 'Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a lot, damn him! He's not going to be a monk. He means to go to Petersburg. There he'll go in for criticism of an elevating tendency. Who knows, he may be of use and make his own career, too. Ough! they are firstrate, these people, at making a career! Damn ethics, I am done for, Alexey, I am, you man of God! I love you more than any one. It makes my heart yearn to look at you. Who was Karl Bernard? 'Karl Bernard? Alyosha was surprised again. 'No, not Karl. Stay, I made a mistake. Claude Bernard. What was he? Chemist or what? 'He must be a savant, answered Alyosha 'but I confess I can't tell you much about him, either. I've heard of him as a savant, but what sort I don't know. 'Well, damn him, then! I don't know either, swore Mitya. 'A scoundrel of some sort, most likely. They are all scoundrels. And Rakitin will make his way. Rakitin will get on anywhere he is another Bernard. Ugh, these Bernards! They are all over the place. 'But what is the matter? Alyosha asked insistently. 'He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and so begin his literary career. That's what he comes for he said so himself. He wants to prove some theory. He wants to say 'he couldn't help murdering his father, he was corrupted by his environment,' and so on. He explained it all to me. He is going to put in a tinge of Socialism, he says. But there, damn the fellow, he can put in a tinge if he likes, I don't care. He can't bear Ivan, he hates him. He's not fond of you, either. But I don't turn him out, for he is a clever fellow. Awfully conceited, though. I said to him just now, 'The Karamazovs are not blackguards, but philosophers for all true Russians are philosophers, and though you've studied, you are not a philosopheryou are a low fellow.' He laughed, so maliciously. And I said to him, 'De ideabus non est disputandum.' Isn't that rather good? I can set up for being a classic, you see! Mitya laughed suddenly. 'Why is it all over with you? You said so just now, Alyosha interposed. 'Why is it all over with me? H'm!... The fact of it is ... if you take it as a whole, I am sorry to lose Godthat's why it is. 'What do you mean by 'sorry to lose God'? 'Imagine inside, in the nerves, in the headthat is, these nerves are there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering ... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin quivering, those little tails ... and when they quiver, then an image appears ... it doesn't appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes ... and then something like a moment appears that is, not a momentdevil take the moment!but an image that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That's why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all because I've got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowled me over. It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man's arisingthat I understand.... And yet I am sorry to lose God! 'Well, that's a good thing, anyway, said Alyosha. 'That I am sorry to lose God? It's chemistry, brother, chemistry! There's no help for it, your reverence, you must make way for chemistry. And Rakitin does dislike God. Ough! doesn't he dislike Him! That's the sore point with all of them. But they conceal it. They tell lies. They pretend. 'Will you preach this in your reviews?' I asked him. 'Oh, well, if I did it openly, they won't let it through,' he said. He laughed. 'But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?' 'Didn't you know?' he said laughing, 'a clever man can do what he likes,' he said. 'A clever man knows his way about, but you've put your foot in it, committing a murder, and now you are rotting in prison.' He says that to my face! A regular pig! I used to kick such people out, but now I listen to them. He talks a lot of sense, too. Writes well. He began reading me an article last week. I copied out three lines of it. Wait a minute. Here it is. Mitya hurriedly pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and read ' 'In order to determine this question, it is above all essential to put one's personality in contradiction to one's reality.' Do you understand that? 'No, I don't, said Alyosha. He looked at Mitya and listened to him with curiosity. 'I don't understand either. It's dark and obscure, but intellectual. 'Every one writes like that now,' he says, 'it's the effect of their environment.' They are afraid of the environment. He writes poetry, too, the rascal. He's written in honor of Madame Hohlakov's foot. Ha ha ha! 'I've heard about it, said Alyosha. 'Have you? And have you heard the poem? 'No. 'I've got it. Here it is. I'll read it to you. You don't knowI haven't told youthere's quite a story about it. He's a rascal! Three weeks ago he began to tease me. 'You've got yourself into a mess, like a fool, for the sake of three thousand, but I'm going to collar a hundred and fifty thousand. I am going to marry a widow and buy a house in Petersburg.' And he told me he was courting Madame Hohlakov. She hadn't much brains in her youth, and now at forty she has lost what she had. 'But she's awfully sentimental,' he says 'that's how I shall get hold of her. When I marry her, I shall take her to Petersburg and there I shall start a newspaper.' And his mouth was simply watering, the beast, not for the widow, but for the hundred and fifty thousand. And he made me believe it. He came to see me every day. 'She is coming round,' he declared. He was beaming with delight. And then, all of a sudden, he was turned out of the house. Perhotin's carrying everything before him, bravo! I could kiss the silly old noodle for turning him out of the house. And he had written this doggerel. 'It's the first time I've soiled my hands with writing poetry,' he said. 'It's to win her heart, so it's in a good cause. When I get hold of the silly woman's fortune, I can be of great social utility.' They have this social justification for every nasty thing they do! 'Anyway it's better than your Pushkin's poetry,' he said, 'for I've managed to advocate enlightenment even in that.' I understand what he means about Pushkin, I quite see that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote about women's feet. But wasn't Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! The vanity of these fellows! 'On the convalescence of the swollen foot of the object of my affections'he thought of that for a title. He's a waggish fellow. A captivating little foot, Though swollen and red and tender! The doctors come and plasters put, But still they cannot mend her. Yet, 'tis not for her foot I dread A theme for Pushkin's muse more fit It's not her foot, it is her head I tremble for her loss of wit! For as her foot swells, strange to say, Her intellect is on the wane Oh, for some remedy I pray That may restore both foot and brain! He is a pig, a regular pig, but he's very arch, the rascal! And he really has put in a progressive idea. And wasn't he angry when she kicked him out! He was gnashing his teeth! 'He's taken his revenge already, said Alyosha. 'He's written a paragraph about Madame Hohlakov. And Alyosha told him briefly about the paragraph in Gossip. 'That's his doing, that's his doing! Mitya assented, frowning. 'That's him! These paragraphs ... I know ... the insulting things that have been written about Grushenka, for instance.... And about Katya, too.... H'm! He walked across the room with a harassed air. 'Brother, I cannot stay long, Alyosha said, after a pause. 'Tomorrow will be a great and awful day for you, the judgment of God will be accomplished ... I am amazed at you, you walk about here, talking of I don't know what ... 'No, don't be amazed at me, Mitya broke in warmly. 'Am I to talk of that stinking dog? Of the murderer? We've talked enough of him. I don't want to say more of the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you will see. Hush! He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His eyes glowed. 'Rakitin wouldn't understand it, he began in a sort of exaltation 'but you, you'll understand it all. That's why I was thirsting for you. You see, there's so much I've been wanting to tell you for ever so long, here, within these peeling walls, but I haven't said a word about what matters most the moment never seems to have come. Now I can wait no longer. I must pour out my heart to you. Brother, these last two months I've found in myself a new man. A new man has risen up in me. He was hidden in me, but would never have come to the surface, if it hadn't been for this blow from heaven. I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty years in the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of thatit's something else I am afraid of now that that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. Why was it I dreamed of that 'babe' at such a moment? 'Why is the babe so poor?' That was a sign to me at that moment. It's for the babe I'm going. Because we are all responsible for all. For all the 'babes,' for there are big children as well as little children. All are 'babes.' I go for all, because some one must go for all. I didn't kill father, but I've got to go. I accept it. It's all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy it's His privilegea grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God? Rakitin's laughing! If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God it's even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him! Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech. He turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks. 'Yes, life is full, there is life even underground, he began again. 'You wouldn't believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirst for existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within these peeling walls. Rakitin doesn't understand that all he cares about is building a house and letting flats. But I've been longing for you. And what is suffering? I am not afraid of it, even if it were beyond reckoning. I am not afraid of it now. I was afraid of it before. Do you know, perhaps I won't answer at the trial at all.... And I seem to have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, 'I exist.' In thousands of agoniesI exist. I'm tormented on the rackbut I exist! Though I sit alone on a pillarI exist! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there. Alyosha, my angel, all these philosophies are the death of me. Damn them! Brother Ivan 'What of brother Ivan? interrupted Alyosha, but Mitya did not hear. 'You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all hidden away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not understand were surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and rage. It was to stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them. Ivan is not Rakitin, there is an idea in him. Ivan is a sphinx and is silent he is always silent. It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thing that's worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin's rightthat it's an idea made up by men? Then if He doesn't exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? That's the question. I always come back to that. For whom is man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity without God. Well, only a sniveling idiot can maintain that. I can't understand it. Life's easy for Rakitin. 'You'd better think about the extension of civic rights, or even of keeping down the price of meat. You will show your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than by philosophy.' I answered him, 'Well, but you, without a God, are more likely to raise the price of meat, if it suits you, and make a rouble on every copeck.' He lost his temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer me that, Alexey. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a Chinaman, so it's a relative thing. Or isn't it? Is it not relative? A treacherous question! You won't laugh if I tell you it's kept me awake two nights. I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it. Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea. It's beyond me. But he is silent. I believe he is a freemason. I asked him, but he is silent. I wanted to drink from the springs of his soulhe was silent. But once he did drop a word. 'What did he say? Alyosha took it up quickly. 'I said to him, 'Then everything is lawful, if it is so?' He frowned. 'Fyodor Pavlovitch, our papa,' he said, 'was a pig, but his ideas were right enough.' That was what he dropped. That was all he said. That was going one better than Rakitin. 'Yes, Alyosha assented bitterly. 'When was he with you? 'Of that later now I must speak of something else. I have said nothing about Ivan to you before. I put it off to the last. When my business here is over and the verdict has been given, then I'll tell you something. I'll tell you everything. We've something tremendous on hand.... And you shall be my judge in it. But don't begin about that now be silent. You talk of tomorrow, of the trial but, would you believe it, I know nothing about it. 'Have you talked to the counsel? 'What's the use of the counsel? I told him all about it. He's a soft, citybred roguea Bernard! But he doesn't believe menot a bit of it. Only imagine, he believes I did it. I see it. 'In that case,' I asked him, 'why have you come to defend me?' Hang them all! They've got a doctor down, too, want to prove I'm mad. I won't have that! Katerina Ivanovna wants to do her 'duty' to the end, whatever the strain! Mitya smiled bitterly. 'The cat! Hardhearted creature! She knows that I said of her at Mokroe that she was a woman of 'great wrath.' They repeated it. Yes, the facts against me have grown numerous as the sands of the sea. Grigory sticks to his point. Grigory's honest, but a fool. Many people are honest because they are fools that's Rakitin's idea. Grigory's my enemy. And there are some people who are better as foes than friends. I mean Katerina Ivanovna. I am afraid, oh, I am afraid she will tell how she bowed to the ground after that four thousand. She'll pay it back to the last farthing. I don't want her sacrifice they'll put me to shame at the trial. I wonder how I can stand it. Go to her, Alyosha, ask her not to speak of that in the court, can't you? But damn it all, it doesn't matter! I shall get through somehow. I don't pity her. It's her own doing. She deserves what she gets. I shall have my own story to tell, Alexey. He smiled bitterly again. 'Only ... only Grusha, Grusha! Good Lord! Why should she have such suffering to bear? he exclaimed suddenly, with tears. 'Grusha's killing me the thought of her's killing me, killing me. She was with me just now.... 'She told me she was very much grieved by you today. 'I know. Confound my temper! It was jealousy. I was sorry, I kissed her as she was going. I didn't ask her forgiveness. 'Why didn't you? exclaimed Alyosha. Suddenly Mitya laughed almost mirthfully. 'God preserve you, my dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for a fault from a woman you love. From one you love especially, however greatly you may have been in fault. For a womandevil only knows what to make of a woman! I know something about them, anyway. But try acknowledging you are in fault to a woman. Say, 'I am sorry, forgive me,' and a shower of reproaches will follow! Nothing will make her forgive you simply and directly, she'll humble you to the dust, bring forward things that have never happened, recall everything, forget nothing, add something of her own, and only then forgive you. And even the best, the best of them do it. She'll scrape up all the scrapings and load them on your head. They are ready to flay you alive, I tell you, every one of them, all these angels without whom we cannot live! I tell you plainly and openly, dear boy, every decent man ought to be under some woman's thumb. That's my convictionnot conviction, but feeling. A man ought to be magnanimous, and it's no disgrace to a man! No disgrace to a hero, not even a Csar! But don't ever beg her pardon all the same for anything. Remember that rule given you by your brother Mitya, who's come to ruin through women. No, I'd better make it up to Grusha somehow, without begging pardon. I worship her, Alexey, worship her. Only she doesn't see it. No, she still thinks I don't love her enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The past was nothing! In the past it was only those infernal curves of hers that tortured me, but now I've taken all her soul into my soul and through her I've become a man myself. Will they marry us? If they don't, I shall die of jealousy. I imagine something every day.... What did she say to you about me? Alyosha repeated all Grushenka had said to him that day. Mitya listened, made him repeat things, and seemed pleased. 'Then she is not angry at my being jealous? he exclaimed. 'She is a regular woman! 'I've a fierce heart myself!' Ah, I love such fierce hearts, though I can't bear any one's being jealous of me. I can't endure it. We shall fight. But I shall love her, I shall love her infinitely. Will they marry us? Do they let convicts marry? That's the question. And without her I can't exist.... Mitya walked frowning across the room. It was almost dark. He suddenly seemed terribly worried. 'So there's a secret, she says, a secret? We have got up a plot against her, and Katya is mixed up in it, she thinks. No, my good Grushenka, that's not it. You are very wide of the mark, in your foolish feminine way. Alyosha, darling, well, here goes! I'll tell you our secret! He looked round, went close up quickly to Alyosha, who was standing before him, and whispered to him with an air of mystery, though in reality no one could hear them the old warder was dozing in the corner, and not a word could reach the ears of the soldiers on guard. 'I will tell you all our secret, Mitya whispered hurriedly. 'I meant to tell you later, for how could I decide on anything without you? You are everything to me. Though I say that Ivan is superior to us, you are my angel. It's your decision will decide it. Perhaps it's you that is superior and not Ivan. You see, it's a question of conscience, question of the higher consciencethe secret is so important that I can't settle it myself, and I've put it off till I could speak to you. But anyway it's too early to decide now, for we must wait for the verdict. As soon as the verdict is given, you shall decide my fate. Don't decide it now. I'll tell you now. You listen, but don't decide. Stand and keep quiet. I won't tell you everything. I'll only tell you the idea, without details, and you keep quiet. Not a question, not a movement. You agree? But, goodness, what shall I do with your eyes? I'm afraid your eyes will tell me your decision, even if you don't speak. Oo! I'm afraid! Alyosha, listen! Ivan suggests my escaping. I won't tell you the details it's all been thought out it can all be arranged. Hush, don't decide. I should go to America with Grusha. You know I can't live without Grusha! What if they won't let her follow me to Siberia? Do they let convicts get married? Ivan thinks not. And without Grusha what should I do there underground with a hammer? I should only smash my skull with the hammer! But, on the other hand, my conscience? I should have run away from suffering. A sign has come, I reject the sign. I have a way of salvation and I turn my back on it. Ivan says that in America, 'with the goodwill,' I can be of more use than underground. But what becomes of our hymn from underground? What's America? America is vanity again! And there's a lot of swindling in America, too, I expect. I should have run away from crucifixion! I tell you, you know, Alexey, because you are the only person who can understand this. There's no one else. It's folly, madness to others, all I've told you of the hymn. They'll say I'm out of my mind or a fool. I am not out of my mind and I am not a fool. Ivan understands about the hymn, too. He understands, only he doesn't answerhe doesn't speak. He doesn't believe in the hymn. Don't speak, don't speak. I see how you look! You have already decided. Don't decide, spare me! I can't live without Grusha. Wait till after the trial! Mitya ended beside himself. He held Alyosha with both hands on his shoulders, and his yearning, feverish eyes were fixed on his brother's. 'They don't let convicts marry, do they? he repeated for the third time in a supplicating voice. Alyosha listened with extreme surprise and was deeply moved. 'Tell me one thing, he said. 'Is Ivan very keen on it, and whose idea was it? 'His, his, and he is very keen on it. He didn't come to see me at first, then he suddenly came a week ago and he began about it straight away. He is awfully keen on it. He doesn't ask me, but orders me to escape. He doesn't doubt of my obeying him, though I showed him all my heart as I have to you, and told him about the hymn, too. He told me he'd arrange it he's found out about everything. But of that later. He's simply set on it. It's all a matter of money he'll pay ten thousand for escape and give me twenty thousand for America. And he says we can arrange a magnificent escape for ten thousand. 'And he told you on no account to tell me? Alyosha asked again. 'To tell no one, and especially not you on no account to tell you. He is afraid, no doubt, that you'll stand before me as my conscience. Don't tell him I told you. Don't tell him, for anything. 'You are right, Alyosha pronounced 'it's impossible to decide anything before the trial is over. After the trial you'll decide of yourself. Then you'll find that new man in yourself and he will decide. 'A new man, or a Bernard who'll decide  la Bernard, for I believe I'm a contemptible Bernard myself, said Mitya, with a bitter grin. 'But, brother, have you no hope then of being acquitted? Mitya shrugged his shoulders nervously and shook his head. 'Alyosha, darling, it's time you were going, he said, with a sudden haste. 'There's the superintendent shouting in the yard. He'll be here directly. We are late it's irregular. Embrace me quickly. Kiss me! Sign me with the cross, darling, for the cross I have to bear tomorrow. They embraced and kissed. 'Ivan, said Mitya suddenly, 'suggests my escaping but, of course, he believes I did it. A mournful smile came on to his lips. 'Have you asked him whether he believes it? asked Alyosha. 'No, I haven't. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I hadn't the courage. But I saw it from his eyes. Well, goodby! Once more they kissed hurriedly, and Alyosha was just going out, when Mitya suddenly called him back. 'Stand facing me! That's right! And again he seized Alyosha, putting both hands on his shoulders. His face became suddenly quite pale, so that it was dreadfully apparent, even through the gathering darkness. His lips twitched, his eyes fastened upon Alyosha. 'Alyosha, tell me the whole truth, as you would before God. Do you believe I did it? Do you, do you in yourself, believe it? The whole truth, don't lie! he cried desperately. Everything seemed heaving before Alyosha, and he felt something like a stab at his heart. 'Hush! What do you mean? he faltered helplessly. 'The whole truth, the whole, don't lie! repeated Mitya. 'I've never for one instant believed that you were the murderer! broke in a shaking voice from Alyosha's breast, and he raised his right hand in the air, as though calling God to witness his words. Mitya's whole face was lighted up with bliss. 'Thank you! he articulated slowly, as though letting a sigh escape him after fainting. 'Now you have given me new life. Would you believe it, till this moment I've been afraid to ask you, you, even you. Well, go! You've given me strength for tomorrow. God bless you! Come, go along! Love Ivan! was Mitya's last word. Alyosha went out in tears. Such distrustfulness in Mitya, such lack of confidence even to him, to Alyoshaall this suddenly opened before Alyosha an unsuspected depth of hopeless grief and despair in the soul of his unhappy brother. Intense, infinite compassion overwhelmed him instantly. There was a poignant ache in his torn heart. 'Love Ivan!he suddenly recalled Mitya's words. And he was going to Ivan. He badly wanted to see Ivan all day. He was as much worried about Ivan as about Mitya, and more than ever now. On the way to Ivan he had to pass the house where Katerina Ivanovna was living. There was light in the windows. He suddenly stopped and resolved to go in. He had not seen Katerina Ivanovna for more than a week. But now it struck him that Ivan might be with her, especially on the eve of the terrible day. Ringing, and mounting the staircase, which was dimly lighted by a Chinese lantern, he saw a man coming down, and as they met, he recognized him as his brother. So he was just coming from Katerina Ivanovna. 'Ah, it's only you, said Ivan dryly. 'Well, goodby! You are going to her? 'Yes. 'I don't advise you to she's upset and you'll upset her more. A door was instantly flung open above, and a voice cried suddenly 'No, no! Alexey Fyodorovitch, have you come from him? 'Yes, I have been with him. 'Has he sent me any message? Come up, Alyosha, and you, Ivan Fyodorovitch, you must come back, you must. Do you hear? There was such a peremptory note in Katya's voice that Ivan, after a moment's hesitation, made up his mind to go back with Alyosha. 'She was listening, he murmured angrily to himself, but Alyosha heard it. 'Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on, said Ivan, going into the drawing room. 'I won't sit down. I won't stay more than a minute. 'Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch, said Katerina Ivanovna, though she remained standing. She had changed very little during this time, but there was an ominous gleam in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered afterwards that she had struck him as particularly handsome at that moment. 'What did he ask you to tell me? 'Only one thing, said Alyosha, looking her straight in the face, 'that you would spare yourself and say nothing at the trial of what (he was a little confused) '... passed between you ... at the time of your first acquaintance ... in that town. 'Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money! She broke into a bitter laugh. 'Why, is he afraid for me or for himself? He asks me to sparewhom? Him or myself? Tell me, Alexey Fyodorovitch! Alyosha watched her intently, trying to understand her. 'Both yourself and him, he answered softly. 'I am glad to hear it, she snapped out maliciously, and she suddenly blushed. 'You don't know me yet, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she said menacingly. 'And I don't know myself yet. Perhaps you'll want to trample me under foot after my examination tomorrow. 'You will give your evidence honorably, said Alyosha 'that's all that's wanted. 'Women are often dishonorable, she snarled. 'Only an hour ago I was thinking I felt afraid to touch that monster ... as though he were a reptile ... but no, he is still a human being to me! But did he do it? Is he the murderer? she cried, all of a sudden, hysterically, turning quickly to Ivan. Alyosha saw at once that she had asked Ivan that question before, perhaps only a moment before he came in, and not for the first time, but for the hundredth, and that they had ended by quarreling. 'I've been to see Smerdyakov.... It was you, you who persuaded me that he murdered his father. It's only you I believed! she continued, still addressing Ivan. He gave her a sort of strained smile. Alyosha started at her tone. He had not suspected such familiar intimacy between them. 'Well, that's enough, anyway, Ivan cut short the conversation. 'I am going. I'll come tomorrow. And turning at once, he walked out of the room and went straight downstairs. With an imperious gesture, Katerina Ivanovna seized Alyosha by both hands. 'Follow him! Overtake him! Don't leave him alone for a minute! she said, in a hurried whisper. 'He's mad! Don't you know that he's mad? He is in a fever, nervous fever. The doctor told me so. Go, run after him.... Alyosha jumped up and ran after Ivan, who was not fifty paces ahead of him. 'What do you want? He turned quickly on Alyosha, seeing that he was running after him. 'She told you to catch me up, because I'm mad. I know it all by heart, he added irritably. 'She is mistaken, of course but she is right that you are ill, said Alyosha. 'I was looking at your face just now. You look very ill, Ivan. Ivan walked on without stopping. Alyosha followed him. 'And do you know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how people do go out of their mind? Ivan asked in a voice suddenly quiet, without a trace of irritation, with a note of the simplest curiosity. 'No, I don't. I suppose there are all kinds of insanity. 'And can one observe that one's going mad oneself? 'I imagine one can't see oneself clearly in such circumstances, Alyosha answered with surprise. Ivan paused for half a minute. 'If you want to talk to me, please change the subject, he said suddenly. 'Oh, while I think of it, I have a letter for you, said Alyosha timidly, and he took Lise's note from his pocket and held it out to Ivan. They were just under a lamppost. Ivan recognized the handwriting at once. 'Ah, from that little demon! he laughed maliciously, and, without opening the envelope, he tore it into bits and threw it in the air. The bits were scattered by the wind. 'She's not sixteen yet, I believe, and already offering herself, he said contemptuously, striding along the street again. 'How do you mean, offering herself? exclaimed Alyosha. 'As wanton women offer themselves, to be sure. 'How can you, Ivan, how can you? Alyosha cried warmly, in a grieved voice. 'She is a child you are insulting a child! She is ill she is very ill, too. She is on the verge of insanity, too, perhaps.... I had hoped to hear something from you ... that would save her. 'You'll hear nothing from me. If she is a child I am not her nurse. Be quiet, Alexey. Don't go on about her. I am not even thinking about it. They were silent again for a moment. 'She will be praying all night now to the Mother of God to show her how to act tomorrow at the trial, he said sharply and angrily again. 'You ... you mean Katerina Ivanovna? 'Yes. Whether she's to save Mitya or ruin him. She'll pray for light from above. She can't make up her mind for herself, you see. She has not had time to decide yet. She takes me for her nurse, too. She wants me to sing lullabies to her. 'Katerina Ivanovna loves you, brother, said Alyosha sadly. 'Perhaps but I am not very keen on her. 'She is suffering. Why do you ... sometimes say things to her that give her hope? Alyosha went on, with timid reproach. 'I know that you've given her hope. Forgive me for speaking to you like this, he added. 'I can't behave to her as I oughtbreak off altogether and tell her so straight out, said Ivan, irritably. 'I must wait till sentence is passed on the murderer. If I break off with her now, she will avenge herself on me by ruining that scoundrel tomorrow at the trial, for she hates him and knows she hates him. It's all a lielie upon lie! As long as I don't break off with her, she goes on hoping, and she won't ruin that monster, knowing how I want to get him out of trouble. If only that damned verdict would come! The words 'murderer and 'monster echoed painfully in Alyosha's heart. 'But how can she ruin Mitya? he asked, pondering on Ivan's words. 'What evidence can she give that would ruin Mitya? 'You don't know that yet. She's got a document in her hands, in Mitya's own writing, that proves conclusively that he did murder Fyodor Pavlovitch. 'That's impossible! cried Alyosha. 'Why is it impossible? I've read it myself. 'There can't be such a document! Alyosha repeated warmly. 'There can't be, because he's not the murderer. It's not he murdered father, not he! Ivan suddenly stopped. 'Who is the murderer then, according to you? he asked, with apparent coldness. There was even a supercilious note in his voice. 'You know who, Alyosha pronounced in a low, penetrating voice. 'Who? You mean the myth about that crazy idiot, the epileptic, Smerdyakov? Alyosha suddenly felt himself trembling all over. 'You know who, broke helplessly from him. He could scarcely breathe. 'Who? Who? Ivan cried almost fiercely. All his restraint suddenly vanished. 'I only know one thing, Alyosha went on, still almost in a whisper, 'it wasn't you killed father. ' 'Not you'! What do you mean by 'not you'? Ivan was thunderstruck. 'It was not you killed father, not you! Alyosha repeated firmly. The silence lasted for half a minute. 'I know I didn't. Are you raving? said Ivan, with a pale, distorted smile. His eyes were riveted on Alyosha. They were standing again under a lamppost. 'No, Ivan. You've told yourself several times that you are the murderer. 'When did I say so? I was in Moscow.... When have I said so? Ivan faltered helplessly. 'You've said so to yourself many times, when you've been alone during these two dreadful months, Alyosha went on softly and distinctly as before. Yet he was speaking now, as it were, not of himself, not of his own will, but obeying some irresistible command. 'You have accused yourself and have confessed to yourself that you are the murderer and no one else. But you didn't do it you are mistaken you are not the murderer. Do you hear? It was not you! God has sent me to tell you so. They were both silent. The silence lasted a whole long minute. They were both standing still, gazing into each other's eyes. They were both pale. Suddenly Ivan began trembling all over, and clutched Alyosha's shoulder. 'You've been in my room! he whispered hoarsely. 'You've been there at night, when he came.... Confess ... have you seen him, have you seen him? 'Whom do you meanMitya? Alyosha asked, bewildered. 'Not him, damn the monster! Ivan shouted, in a frenzy. 'Do you know that he visits me? How did you find out? Speak! 'Who is he! I don't know whom you are talking about, Alyosha faltered, beginning to be alarmed. 'Yes, you do know ... or how could you? It's impossible that you don't know. Suddenly he seemed to check himself. He stood still and seemed to reflect. A strange grin contorted his lips. 'Brother, Alyosha began again, in a shaking voice, 'I have said this to you, because you'll believe my word, I know that. I tell you once and for all, it's not you. You hear, once for all! God has put it into my heart to say this to you, even though it may make you hate me from this hour. But by now Ivan had apparently regained his selfcontrol. 'Alexey Fyodorovitch, he said, with a cold smile, 'I can't endure prophets and epilepticsmessengers from God especiallyand you know that only too well. I break off all relations with you from this moment and probably for ever. I beg you to leave me at this turning. It's the way to your lodgings, too. You'd better be particularly careful not to come to me today! Do you hear? He turned and walked on with a firm step, not looking back. 'Brother, Alyosha called after him, 'if anything happens to you today, turn to me before any one! But Ivan made no reply. Alyosha stood under the lamppost at the cross roads, till Ivan had vanished into the darkness. Then he turned and walked slowly homewards. Both Alyosha and Ivan were living in lodgings neither of them was willing to live in Fyodor Pavlovitch's empty house. Alyosha had a furnished room in the house of some working people. Ivan lived some distance from him. He had taken a roomy and fairly comfortable lodge attached to a fine house that belonged to a welltodo lady, the widow of an official. But his only attendant was a deaf and rheumatic old crone who went to bed at six o'clock every evening and got up at six in the morning. Ivan had become remarkably indifferent to his comforts of late, and very fond of being alone. He did everything for himself in the one room he lived in, and rarely entered any of the other rooms in his abode. He reached the gate of the house and had his hand on the bell, when he suddenly stopped. He felt that he was trembling all over with anger. Suddenly he let go of the bell, turned back with a curse, and walked with rapid steps in the opposite direction. He walked a mile and a half to a tiny, slanting, wooden house, almost a hut, where Marya Kondratyevna, the neighbor who used to come to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and to whom Smerdyakov had once sung his songs and played on the guitar, was now lodging. She had sold their little house, and was now living here with her mother. Smerdyakov, who was illalmost dyinghad been with them ever since Fyodor Pavlovitch's death. It was to him Ivan was going now, drawn by a sudden and irresistible prompting. This was the third time that Ivan had been to see Smerdyakov since his return from Moscow. The first time he had seen him and talked to him was on the first day of his arrival, then he had visited him once more, a fortnight later. But his visits had ended with that second one, so that it was now over a month since he had seen him. And he had scarcely heard anything of him. Ivan had only returned five days after his father's death, so that he was not present at the funeral, which took place the day before he came back. The cause of his delay was that Alyosha, not knowing his Moscow address, had to apply to Katerina Ivanovna to telegraph to him, and she, not knowing his address either, telegraphed to her sister and aunt, reckoning on Ivan's going to see them as soon as he arrived in Moscow. But he did not go to them till four days after his arrival. When he got the telegram, he had, of course, set off posthaste to our town. The first to meet him was Alyosha, and Ivan was greatly surprised to find that, in opposition to the general opinion of the town, he refused to entertain a suspicion against Mitya, and spoke openly of Smerdyakov as the murderer. Later on, after seeing the police captain and the prosecutor, and hearing the details of the charge and the arrest, he was still more surprised at Alyosha, and ascribed his opinion only to his exaggerated brotherly feeling and sympathy with Mitya, of whom Alyosha, as Ivan knew, was very fond. By the way, let us say a word or two of Ivan's feeling to his brother Dmitri. He positively disliked him at most, felt sometimes a compassion for him, and even that was mixed with great contempt, almost repugnance. Mitya's whole personality, even his appearance, was extremely unattractive to him. Ivan looked with indignation on Katerina Ivanovna's love for his brother. Yet he went to see Mitya on the first day of his arrival, and that interview, far from shaking Ivan's belief in his guilt, positively strengthened it. He found his brother agitated, nervously excited. Mitya had been talkative, but very absentminded and incoherent. He used violent language, accused Smerdyakov, and was fearfully muddled. He talked principally about the three thousand roubles, which he said had been 'stolen from him by his father. 'The money was mine, it was my money, Mitya kept repeating. 'Even if I had stolen it, I should have had the right. He hardly contested the evidence against him, and if he tried to turn a fact to his advantage, it was in an absurd and incoherent way. He hardly seemed to wish to defend himself to Ivan or any one else. Quite the contrary, he was angry and proudly scornful of the charges against him he was continually firing up and abusing every one. He only laughed contemptuously at Grigory's evidence about the open door, and declared that it was 'the devil that opened it. But he could not bring forward any coherent explanation of the fact. He even succeeded in insulting Ivan during their first interview, telling him sharply that it was not for people who declared that 'everything was lawful, to suspect and question him. Altogether he was anything but friendly with Ivan on that occasion. Immediately after that interview with Mitya, Ivan went for the first time to see Smerdyakov. In the railway train on his way from Moscow, he kept thinking of Smerdyakov and of his last conversation with him on the evening before he went away. Many things seemed to him puzzling and suspicious. But when he gave his evidence to the investigating lawyer Ivan said nothing, for the time, of that conversation. He put that off till he had seen Smerdyakov, who was at that time in the hospital. Doctor Herzenstube and Varvinsky, the doctor he met in the hospital, confidently asserted in reply to Ivan's persistent questions, that Smerdyakov's epileptic attack was unmistakably genuine, and were surprised indeed at Ivan asking whether he might not have been shamming on the day of the catastrophe. They gave him to understand that the attack was an exceptional one, the fits persisting and recurring several times, so that the patient's life was positively in danger, and it was only now, after they had applied remedies, that they could assert with confidence that the patient would survive. 'Though it might well be, added Doctor Herzenstube, 'that his reason would be impaired for a considerable period, if not permanently. On Ivan's asking impatiently whether that meant that he was now mad, they told him that this was not yet the case, in the full sense of the word, but that certain abnormalities were perceptible. Ivan decided to find out for himself what those abnormalities were. At the hospital he was at once allowed to see the patient. Smerdyakov was lying on a trucklebed in a separate ward. There was only one other bed in the room, and in it lay a tradesman of the town, swollen with dropsy, who was obviously almost dying he could be no hindrance to their conversation. Smerdyakov grinned uncertainly on seeing Ivan, and for the first instant seemed nervous. So at least Ivan fancied. But that was only momentary. For the rest of the time he was struck, on the contrary, by Smerdyakov's composure. From the first glance Ivan had no doubt that he was very ill. He was very weak he spoke slowly, seeming to move his tongue with difficulty he was much thinner and sallower. Throughout the interview, which lasted twenty minutes, he kept complaining of headache and of pain in all his limbs. His thin emasculate face seemed to have become so tiny his hair was ruffled, and his crest of curls in front stood up in a thin tuft. But in the left eye, which was screwed up and seemed to be insinuating something, Smerdyakov showed himself unchanged. 'It's always worth while speaking to a clever man. Ivan was reminded of that at once. He sat down on the stool at his feet. Smerdyakov, with painful effort, shifted his position in bed, but he was not the first to speak. He remained dumb, and did not even look much interested. 'Can you talk to me? asked Ivan. 'I won't tire you much. 'Certainly I can, mumbled Smerdyakov, in a faint voice. 'Has your honor been back long? he added patronizingly, as though encouraging a nervous visitor. 'I only arrived today.... To see the mess you are in here. Smerdyakov sighed. 'Why do you sigh? You knew of it all along, Ivan blurted out. Smerdyakov was stolidly silent for a while. 'How could I help knowing? It was clear beforehand. But how could I tell it would turn out like that? 'What would turn out? Don't prevaricate! You've foretold you'd have a fit on the way down to the cellar, you know. You mentioned the very spot. 'Have you said so at the examination yet? Smerdyakov queried with composure. Ivan felt suddenly angry. 'No, I haven't yet, but I certainly shall. You must explain a great deal to me, my man and let me tell you, I am not going to let you play with me! 'Why should I play with you, when I put my whole trust in you, as in God Almighty? said Smerdyakov, with the same composure, only for a moment closing his eyes. 'In the first place, began Ivan, 'I know that epileptic fits can't be told beforehand. I've inquired don't try and take me in. You can't foretell the day and the hour. How was it you told me the day and the hour beforehand, and about the cellar, too? How could you tell that you would fall down the cellar stairs in a fit, if you didn't sham a fit on purpose? 'I had to go to the cellar anyway, several times a day, indeed, Smerdyakov drawled deliberately. 'I fell from the garret just in the same way a year ago. It's quite true you can't tell the day and hour of a fit beforehand, but you can always have a presentiment of it. 'But you did foretell the day and the hour! 'In regard to my epilepsy, sir, you had much better inquire of the doctors here. You can ask them whether it was a real fit or a sham it's no use my saying any more about it. 'And the cellar? How could you know beforehand of the cellar? 'You don't seem able to get over that cellar! As I was going down to the cellar, I was in terrible dread and doubt. What frightened me most was losing you and being left without defense in all the world. So I went down into the cellar thinking, 'Here, it'll come on directly, it'll strike me down directly, shall I fall?' And it was through this fear that I suddenly felt the spasm that always comes ... and so I went flying. All that and all my previous conversation with you at the gate the evening before, when I told you how frightened I was and spoke of the cellar, I told all that to Doctor Herzenstube and Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer, and it's all been written down in the protocol. And the doctor here, Mr. Varvinsky, maintained to all of them that it was just the thought of it brought it on, the apprehension that I might fall. It was just then that the fit seized me. And so they've written it down, that it's just how it must have happened, simply from my fear. As he finished, Smerdyakov drew a deep breath, as though exhausted. 'Then you have said all that in your evidence? said Ivan, somewhat taken aback. He had meant to frighten him with the threat of repeating their conversation, and it appeared that Smerdyakov had already reported it all himself. 'What have I to be afraid of? Let them write down the whole truth, Smerdyakov pronounced firmly. 'And have you told them every word of our conversation at the gate? 'No, not to say every word. 'And did you tell them that you can sham fits, as you boasted then? 'No, I didn't tell them that either. 'Tell me now, why did you send me then to Tchermashnya? 'I was afraid you'd go away to Moscow Tchermashnya is nearer, anyway. 'You are lying you suggested my going away yourself you told me to get out of the way of trouble. 'That was simply out of affection and my sincere devotion to you, foreseeing trouble in the house, to spare you. Only I wanted to spare myself even more. That's why I told you to get out of harm's way, that you might understand that there would be trouble in the house, and would remain at home to protect your father. 'You might have said it more directly, you blockhead! Ivan suddenly fired up. 'How could I have said it more directly then? It was simply my fear that made me speak, and you might have been angry, too. I might well have been apprehensive that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would make a scene and carry away that money, for he considered it as good as his own but who could tell that it would end in a murder like this? I thought that he would only carry off the three thousand that lay under the master's mattress in the envelope, and you see, he's murdered him. How could you guess it either, sir? 'But if you say yourself that it couldn't be guessed, how could I have guessed and stayed at home? You contradict yourself! said Ivan, pondering. 'You might have guessed from my sending you to Tchermashnya and not to Moscow. 'How could I guess it from that? Smerdyakov seemed much exhausted, and again he was silent for a minute. 'You might have guessed from the fact of my asking you not to go to Moscow, but to Tchermashnya, that I wanted to have you nearer, for Moscow's a long way off, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch, knowing you are not far off, would not be so bold. And if anything had happened, you might have come to protect me, too, for I warned you of Grigory Vassilyevitch's illness, and that I was afraid of having a fit. And when I explained those knocks to you, by means of which one could go in to the deceased, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch knew them all through me, I thought that you would guess yourself that he would be sure to do something, and so wouldn't go to Tchermashnya even, but would stay. 'He talks very coherently, thought Ivan, 'though he does mumble what's the derangement of his faculties that Herzenstube talked of? 'You are cunning with me, damn you! he exclaimed, getting angry. 'But I thought at the time that you quite guessed, Smerdyakov parried with the simplest air. 'If I'd guessed, I should have stayed, cried Ivan. 'Why, I thought that it was because you guessed, that you went away in such a hurry, only to get out of trouble, only to run away and save yourself in your fright. 'You think that every one is as great a coward as yourself? 'Forgive me, I thought you were like me. 'Of course, I ought to have guessed, Ivan said in agitation 'and I did guess there was some mischief brewing on your part ... only you are lying, you are lying again, he cried, suddenly recollecting. 'Do you remember how you went up to the carriage and said to me, 'It's always worth while speaking to a clever man'? So you were glad I went away, since you praised me? Smerdyakov sighed again and again. A trace of color came into his face. 'If I was pleased, he articulated rather breathlessly, 'it was simply because you agreed not to go to Moscow, but to Tchermashnya. For it was nearer, anyway. Only when I said these words to you, it was not by way of praise, but of reproach. You didn't understand it. 'What reproach? 'Why, that foreseeing such a calamity you deserted your own father, and would not protect us, for I might have been taken up any time for stealing that three thousand. 'Damn you! Ivan swore again. 'Stay, did you tell the prosecutor and the investigating lawyer about those knocks? 'I told them everything just as it was. Ivan wondered inwardly again. 'If I thought of anything then, he began again, 'it was solely of some wickedness on your part. Dmitri might kill him, but that he would stealI did not believe that then.... But I was prepared for any wickedness from you. You told me yourself you could sham a fit. What did you say that for? 'It was just through my simplicity, and I never have shammed a fit on purpose in my life. And I only said so then to boast to you. It was just foolishness. I liked you so much then, and was openhearted with you. 'My brother directly accuses you of the murder and theft. 'What else is left for him to do? said Smerdyakov, with a bitter grin. 'And who will believe him with all the proofs against him? Grigory Vassilyevitch saw the door open. What can he say after that? But never mind him! He is trembling to save himself. He slowly ceased speaking then suddenly, as though on reflection, added 'And look here again. He wants to throw it on me and make out that it is the work of my handsI've heard that already. But as to my being clever at shamming a fit should I have told you beforehand that I could sham one, if I really had had such a design against your father? If I had been planning such a murder could I have been such a fool as to give such evidence against myself beforehand? And to his son, too! Upon my word! Is that likely? As if that could be, such a thing has never happened. No one hears this talk of ours now, except Providence itself, and if you were to tell of it to the prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch you might defend me completely by doing so, for who would be likely to be such a criminal, if he is so openhearted beforehand? Any one can see that. 'Well, and Ivan got up to cut short the conversation, struck by Smerdyakov's last argument. 'I don't suspect you at all, and I think it's absurd, indeed, to suspect you. On the contrary, I am grateful to you for setting my mind at rest. Now I am going, but I'll come again. Meanwhile, goodby. Get well. Is there anything you want? 'I am very thankful for everything. Marfa Ignatyevna does not forget me, and provides me anything I want, according to her kindness. Good people visit me every day. 'Goodby. But I shan't say anything of your being able to sham a fit, and I don't advise you to, either, something made Ivan say suddenly. 'I quite understand. And if you don't speak of that, I shall say nothing of that conversation of ours at the gate. Then it happened that Ivan went out, and only when he had gone a dozen steps along the corridor, he suddenly felt that there was an insulting significance in Smerdyakov's last words. He was almost on the point of turning back, but it was only a passing impulse, and muttering, 'Nonsense! he went out of the hospital. His chief feeling was one of relief at the fact that it was not Smerdyakov, but Mitya, who had committed the murder, though he might have been expected to feel the opposite. He did not want to analyze the reason for this feeling, and even felt a positive repugnance at prying into his sensations. He felt as though he wanted to make haste to forget something. In the following days he became convinced of Mitya's guilt, as he got to know all the weight of evidence against him. There was evidence of people of no importance, Fenya and her mother, for instance, but the effect of it was almost overpowering. As to Perhotin, the people at the tavern, and at Plotnikov's shop, as well as the witnesses at Mokroe, their evidence seemed conclusive. It was the details that were so damning. The secret of the knocks impressed the lawyers almost as much as Grigory's evidence as to the open door. Grigory's wife, Marfa, in answer to Ivan's questions, declared that Smerdyakov had been lying all night the other side of the partition wall. 'He was not three paces from our bed, and that although she was a sound sleeper she waked several times and heard him moaning, 'He was moaning the whole time, moaning continually. Talking to Herzenstube, and giving it as his opinion that Smerdyakov was not mad, but only rather weak, Ivan only evoked from the old man a subtle smile. 'Do you know how he spends his time now? he asked 'learning lists of French words by heart. He has an exercisebook under his pillow with the French words written out in Russian letters for him by some one, he he he! Ivan ended by dismissing all doubts. He could not think of Dmitri without repulsion. Only one thing was strange, however. Alyosha persisted that Dmitri was not the murderer, and that 'in all probability Smerdyakov was. Ivan always felt that Alyosha's opinion meant a great deal to him, and so he was astonished at it now. Another thing that was strange was that Alyosha did not make any attempt to talk about Mitya with Ivan, that he never began on the subject and only answered his questions. This, too, struck Ivan particularly. But he was very much preoccupied at that time with something quite apart from that. On his return from Moscow, he abandoned himself hopelessly to his mad and consuming passion for Katerina Ivanovna. This is not the time to begin to speak of this new passion of Ivan's, which left its mark on all the rest of his life this would furnish the subject for another novel, which I may perhaps never write. But I cannot omit to mention here that when Ivan, on leaving Katerina Ivanovna with Alyosha, as I've related already, told him, 'I am not keen on her, it was an absolute lie he loved her madly, though at times he hated her so that he might have murdered her. Many causes helped to bring about this feeling. Shattered by what had happened with Mitya, she rushed on Ivan's return to meet him as her one salvation. She was hurt, insulted and humiliated in her feelings. And here the man had come back to her, who had loved her so ardently before (oh! she knew that very well), and whose heart and intellect she considered so superior to her own. But the sternly virtuous girl did not abandon herself altogether to the man she loved, in spite of the Karamazov violence of his passions and the great fascination he had for her. She was continually tormented at the same time by remorse for having deserted Mitya, and in moments of discord and violent anger (and they were numerous) she told Ivan so plainly. This was what he had called to Alyosha 'lies upon lies. There was, of course, much that was false in it, and that angered Ivan more than anything.... But of all this later. He did, in fact, for a time almost forget Smerdyakov's existence, and yet, a fortnight after his first visit to him, he began to be haunted by the same strange thoughts as before. It's enough to say that he was continually asking himself, why was it that on that last night in Fyodor Pavlovitch's house he had crept out on to the stairs like a thief and listened to hear what his father was doing below? Why had he recalled that afterwards with repulsion? Why next morning, had he been suddenly so depressed on the journey? Why, as he reached Moscow, had he said to himself, 'I am a scoundrel? And now he almost fancied that these tormenting thoughts would make him even forget Katerina Ivanovna, so completely did they take possession of him again. It was just after fancying this, that he met Alyosha in the street. He stopped him at once, and put a question to him 'Do you remember when Dmitri burst in after dinner and beat father, and afterwards I told you in the yard that I reserved 'the right to desire'?... Tell me, did you think then that I desired father's death or not? 'I did think so, answered Alyosha, softly. 'It was so, too it was not a matter of guessing. But didn't you fancy then that what I wished was just that 'one reptile should devour another' that is, just that Dmitri should kill father, and as soon as possible ... and that I myself was even prepared to help to bring that about? Alyosha turned rather pale, and looked silently into his brother's face. 'Speak! cried Ivan, 'I want above everything to know what you thought then. I want the truth, the truth! He drew a deep breath, looking angrily at Alyosha before his answer came. 'Forgive me, I did think that, too, at the time, whispered Alyosha, and he did not add one softening phrase. 'Thanks, snapped Ivan, and, leaving Alyosha, he went quickly on his way. From that time Alyosha noticed that Ivan began obviously to avoid him and seemed even to have taken a dislike to him, so much so that Alyosha gave up going to see him. Immediately after that meeting with him, Ivan had not gone home, but went straight to Smerdyakov again. By that time Smerdyakov had been discharged from the hospital. Ivan knew his new lodging, the dilapidated little wooden house, divided in two by a passage on one side of which lived Marya Kondratyevna and her mother, and on the other, Smerdyakov. No one knew on what terms he lived with them, whether as a friend or as a lodger. It was supposed afterwards that he had come to stay with them as Marya Kondratyevna's betrothed, and was living there for a time without paying for board or lodging. Both mother and daughter had the greatest respect for him and looked upon him as greatly superior to themselves. Ivan knocked, and, on the door being opened, went straight into the passage. By Marya Kondratyevna's directions he went straight to the better room on the left, occupied by Smerdyakov. There was a tiled stove in the room and it was extremely hot. The walls were gay with blue paper, which was a good deal used however, and in the cracks under it cockroaches swarmed in amazing numbers, so that there was a continual rustling from them. The furniture was very scanty two benches against each wall and two chairs by the table. The table of plain wood was covered with a cloth with pink patterns on it. There was a pot of geranium on each of the two little windows. In the corner there was a case of ikons. On the table stood a little copper samovar with many dents in it, and a tray with two cups. But Smerdyakov had finished tea and the samovar was out. He was sitting at the table on a bench. He was looking at an exercisebook and slowly writing with a pen. There was a bottle of ink by him and a flat iron candlestick, but with a composite candle. Ivan saw at once from Smerdyakov's face that he had completely recovered from his illness. His face was fresher, fuller, his hair stood up jauntily in front, and was plastered down at the sides. He was sitting in a particolored, wadded dressinggown, rather dirty and frayed, however. He had spectacles on his nose, which Ivan had never seen him wearing before. This trifling circumstance suddenly redoubled Ivan's anger 'A creature like that and wearing spectacles! Smerdyakov slowly raised his head and looked intently at his visitor through his spectacles then he slowly took them off and rose from the bench, but by no means respectfully, almost lazily, doing the least possible required by common civility. All this struck Ivan instantly he took it all in and noted it at oncemost of all the look in Smerdyakov's eyes, positively malicious, churlish and haughty. 'What do you want to intrude for? it seemed to say 'we settled everything then why have you come again? Ivan could scarcely control himself. 'It's hot here, he said, still standing, and unbuttoned his overcoat. 'Take off your coat, Smerdyakov conceded. Ivan took off his coat and threw it on a bench with trembling hands. He took a chair, moved it quickly to the table and sat down. Smerdyakov managed to sit down on his bench before him. 'To begin with, are we alone? Ivan asked sternly and impulsively. 'Can they overhear us in there? 'No one can hear anything. You've seen for yourself there's a passage. 'Listen, my good fellow what was that you babbled, as I was leaving the hospital, that if I said nothing about your faculty of shamming fits, you wouldn't tell the investigating lawyer all our conversation at the gate? What do you mean by all? What could you mean by it? Were you threatening me? Have I entered into some sort of compact with you? Do you suppose I am afraid of you? Ivan said this in a perfect fury, giving him to understand with obvious intention that he scorned any subterfuge or indirectness and meant to show his cards. Smerdyakov's eyes gleamed resentfully, his left eye winked, and he at once gave his answer, with his habitual composure and deliberation. 'You want to have everything aboveboard very well, you shall have it, he seemed to say. 'This is what I meant then, and this is why I said that, that you, knowing beforehand of this murder of your own parent, left him to his fate, and that people mightn't after that conclude any evil about your feelings and perhaps of something else, toothat's what I promised not to tell the authorities. Though Smerdyakov spoke without haste and obviously controlling himself, yet there was something in his voice, determined and emphatic, resentful and insolently defiant. He stared impudently at Ivan. A mist passed before Ivan's eyes for the first moment. 'How? What? Are you out of your mind? 'I'm perfectly in possession of all my faculties. 'Do you suppose I knew of the murder? Ivan cried at last, and he brought his fist violently on the table. 'What do you mean by 'something else, too'? Speak, scoundrel! Smerdyakov was silent and still scanned Ivan with the same insolent stare. 'Speak, you stinking rogue, what is that 'something else, too'? 'The 'something else' I meant was that you probably, too, were very desirous of your parent's death. Ivan jumped up and struck him with all his might on the shoulder, so that he fell back against the wall. In an instant his face was bathed in tears. Saying, 'It's a shame, sir, to strike a sick man, he dried his eyes with a very dirty blue check handkerchief and sank into quiet weeping. A minute passed. 'That's enough! Leave off, Ivan said peremptorily, sitting down again. 'Don't put me out of all patience. Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line of his puckered face reflected the insult he had just received. 'So you thought then, you scoundrel, that together with Dmitri I meant to kill my father? 'I didn't know what thoughts were in your mind then, said Smerdyakov resentfully 'and so I stopped you then at the gate to sound you on that very point. 'To sound what, what? 'Why, that very circumstance, whether you wanted your father to be murdered or not. What infuriated Ivan more than anything was the aggressive, insolent tone to which Smerdyakov persistently adhered. 'It was you murdered him? he cried suddenly. Smerdyakov smiled contemptuously. 'You know of yourself, for a fact, that it wasn't I murdered him. And I should have thought that there was no need for a sensible man to speak of it again. 'But why, why had you such a suspicion about me at the time? 'As you know already, it was simply from fear. For I was in such a position, shaking with fear, that I suspected every one. I resolved to sound you, too, for I thought if you wanted the same as your brother, then the business was as good as settled and I should be crushed like a fly, too. 'Look here, you didn't say that a fortnight ago. 'I meant the same when I talked to you in the hospital, only I thought you'd understand without wasting words, and that being such a sensible man you wouldn't care to talk of it openly. 'What next! Come answer, answer, I insist what was it ... what could I have done to put such a degrading suspicion into your mean soul? 'As for the murder, you couldn't have done that and didn't want to, but as for wanting some one else to do it, that was just what you did want. 'And how coolly, how coolly he speaks! But why should I have wanted it what grounds had I for wanting it? 'What grounds had you? What about the inheritance? said Smerdyakov sarcastically, and, as it were, vindictively. 'Why, after your parent's death there was at least forty thousand to come to each of you, and very likely more, but if Fyodor Pavlovitch got married then to that lady, Agrafena Alexandrovna, she would have had all his capital made over to her directly after the wedding, for she's plenty of sense, so that your parent would not have left you two roubles between the three of you. And were they far from a wedding, either? Not a hair'sbreadth that lady had only to lift her little finger and he would have run after her to church, with his tongue out. Ivan restrained himself with painful effort. 'Very good, he commented at last. 'You see, I haven't jumped up, I haven't knocked you down, I haven't killed you. Speak on. So, according to you, I had fixed on Dmitri to do it I was reckoning on him? 'How could you help reckoning on him? If he killed him, then he would lose all the rights of a nobleman, his rank and property, and would go off to exile so his share of the inheritance would come to you and your brother Alexey Fyodorovitch in equal parts so you'd each have not forty, but sixty thousand each. There's not a doubt you did reckon on Dmitri Fyodorovitch. 'What I put up with from you! Listen, scoundrel, if I had reckoned on any one then, it would have been on you, not on Dmitri, and I swear I did expect some wickedness from you ... at the time.... I remember my impression! 'I thought, too, for a minute, at the time, that you were reckoning on me as well, said Smerdyakov, with a sarcastic grin. 'So that it was just by that more than anything you showed me what was in your mind. For if you had a foreboding about me and yet went away, you as good as said to me, 'You can murder my parent, I won't hinder you!'  'You scoundrel! So that's how you understood it! 'It was all that going to Tchermashnya. Why! You were meaning to go to Moscow and refused all your father's entreaties to go to Tchermashnyaand simply at a foolish word from me you consented at once! What reason had you to consent to Tchermashnya? Since you went to Tchermashnya with no reason, simply at my word, it shows that you must have expected something from me. 'No, I swear I didn't! shouted Ivan, grinding his teeth. 'You didn't? Then you ought, as your father's son, to have had me taken to the lockup and thrashed at once for my words then ... or at least, to have given me a punch in the face on the spot, but you were not a bit angry, if you please, and at once in a friendly way acted on my foolish word and went away, which was utterly absurd, for you ought to have stayed to save your parent's life. How could I help drawing my conclusions? Ivan sat scowling, both his fists convulsively pressed on his knees. 'Yes, I am sorry I didn't punch you in the face, he said with a bitter smile. 'I couldn't have taken you to the lockup just then. Who would have believed me and what charge could I bring against you? But the punch in the face ... oh, I'm sorry I didn't think of it. Though blows are forbidden, I should have pounded your ugly face to a jelly. Smerdyakov looked at him almost with relish. 'In the ordinary occasions of life, he said in the same complacent and sententious tone in which he had taunted Grigory and argued with him about religion at Fyodor Pavlovitch's table, 'in the ordinary occasions of life, blows on the face are forbidden nowadays by law, and people have given them up, but in exceptional occasions of life people still fly to blows, not only among us but all over the world, be it even the fullest Republic of France, just as in the time of Adam and Eve, and they never will leave off, but you, even in an exceptional case, did not dare. 'What are you learning French words for? Ivan nodded towards the exercisebook lying on the table. 'Why shouldn't I learn them so as to improve my education, supposing that I may myself chance to go some day to those happy parts of Europe? 'Listen, monster. Ivan's eyes flashed and he trembled all over. 'I am not afraid of your accusations you can say what you like about me, and if I don't beat you to death, it's simply because I suspect you of that crime and I'll drag you to justice. I'll unmask you. 'To my thinking, you'd better keep quiet, for what can you accuse me of, considering my absolute innocence? and who would believe you? Only if you begin, I shall tell everything, too, for I must defend myself. 'Do you think I am afraid of you now? 'If the court doesn't believe all I've said to you just now, the public will, and you will be ashamed. 'That's as much as to say, 'It's always worth while speaking to a sensible man,' eh? snarled Ivan. 'You hit the mark, indeed. And you'd better be sensible. Ivan got up, shaking all over with indignation, put on his coat, and without replying further to Smerdyakov, without even looking at him, walked quickly out of the cottage. The cool evening air refreshed him. There was a bright moon in the sky. A nightmare of ideas and sensations filled his soul. 'Shall I go at once and give information against Smerdyakov? But what information can I give? He is not guilty, anyway. On the contrary, he'll accuse me. And in fact, why did I set off for Tchermashnya then? What for? What for? Ivan asked himself. 'Yes, of course, I was expecting something and he is right.... And he remembered for the hundredth time how, on the last night in his father's house, he had listened on the stairs. But he remembered it now with such anguish that he stood still on the spot as though he had been stabbed. 'Yes, I expected it then, that's true! I wanted the murder, I did want the murder! Did I want the murder? Did I want it? I must kill Smerdyakov! If I don't dare kill Smerdyakov now, life is not worth living! Ivan did not go home, but went straight to Katerina Ivanovna and alarmed her by his appearance. He was like a madman. He repeated all his conversation with Smerdyakov, every syllable of it. He couldn't be calmed, however much she tried to soothe him he kept walking about the room, speaking strangely, disconnectedly. At last he sat down, put his elbows on the table, leaned his head on his hands and pronounced this strange sentence 'If it's not Dmitri, but Smerdyakov who's the murderer, I share his guilt, for I put him up to it. Whether I did, I don't know yet. But if he is the murderer, and not Dmitri, then, of course, I am the murderer, too. When Katerina Ivanovna heard that, she got up from her seat without a word, went to her writingtable, opened a box standing on it, took out a sheet of paper and laid it before Ivan. This was the document of which Ivan spoke to Alyosha later on as a 'conclusive proof that Dmitri had killed his father. It was the letter written by Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna when he was drunk, on the very evening he met Alyosha at the crossroads on the way to the monastery, after the scene at Katerina Ivanovna's, when Grushenka had insulted her. Then, parting from Alyosha, Mitya had rushed to Grushenka. I don't know whether he saw her, but in the evening he was at the 'Metropolis, where he got thoroughly drunk. Then he asked for pen and paper and wrote a document of weighty consequences to himself. It was a wordy, disconnected, frantic letter, a drunken letter in fact. It was like the talk of a drunken man, who, on his return home, begins with extraordinary heat telling his wife or one of his household how he has just been insulted, what a rascal had just insulted him, what a fine fellow he is on the other hand, and how he will pay that scoundrel out and all that at great length, with great excitement and incoherence, with drunken tears and blows on the table. The letter was written on a dirty piece of ordinary paper of the cheapest kind. It had been provided by the tavern and there were figures scrawled on the back of it. There was evidently not space enough for his drunken verbosity and Mitya not only filled the margins but had written the last line right across the rest. The letter ran as follows FATAL KATYA Tomorrow I will get the money and repay your three thousand and farewell, woman of great wrath, but farewell, too, my love! Let us make an end! Tomorrow I shall try and get it from every one, and if I can't borrow it, I give you my word of honor I shall go to my father and break his skull and take the money from under the pillow, if only Ivan has gone. If I have to go to Siberia for it, I'll give you back your three thousand. And farewell. I bow down to the ground before you, for I've been a scoundrel to you. Forgive me! No, better not forgive me, you'll be happier and so shall I! Better Siberia than your love, for I love another woman and you got to know her too well today, so how can you forgive? I will murder the man who's robbed me! I'll leave you all and go to the East so as to see no one again. Not her either, for you are not my only tormentress she is too. Farewell! P.S.I write my curse, but I adore you! I hear it in my heart. One string is left, and it vibrates. Better tear my heart in two! I shall kill myself, but first of all that cur. I shall tear three thousand from him and fling it to you. Though I've been a scoundrel to you, I am not a thief! You can expect three thousand. The cur keeps it under his mattress, in pink ribbon. I am not a thief, but I'll murder my thief. Katya, don't look disdainful. Dmitri is not a thief! but a murderer! He has murdered his father and ruined himself to hold his ground, rather than endure your pride. And he doesn't love you. P.P.S.I kiss your feet, farewell! P.P.P.S.Katya, pray to God that some one'll give me the money. Then I shall not be steeped in gore, and if no one doesI shall! Kill me! Your slave and enemy, D. KARAMAZOV. When Ivan read this 'document he was convinced. So then it was his brother, not Smerdyakov. And if not Smerdyakov, then not he, Ivan. This letter at once assumed in his eyes the aspect of a logical proof. There could be no longer the slightest doubt of Mitya's guilt. The suspicion never occurred to Ivan, by the way, that Mitya might have committed the murder in conjunction with Smerdyakov, and, indeed, such a theory did not fit in with the facts. Ivan was completely reassured. The next morning he only thought of Smerdyakov and his gibes with contempt. A few days later he positively wondered how he could have been so horribly distressed at his suspicions. He resolved to dismiss him with contempt and forget him. So passed a month. He made no further inquiry about Smerdyakov, but twice he happened to hear that he was very ill and out of his mind. 'He'll end in madness, the young doctor Varvinsky observed about him, and Ivan remembered this. During the last week of that month Ivan himself began to feel very ill. He went to consult the Moscow doctor who had been sent for by Katerina Ivanovna just before the trial. And just at that time his relations with Katerina Ivanovna became acutely strained. They were like two enemies in love with one another. Katerina Ivanovna's 'returns to Mitya, that is, her brief but violent revulsions of feeling in his favor, drove Ivan to perfect frenzy. Strange to say, until that last scene described above, when Alyosha came from Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna, Ivan had never once, during that month, heard her express a doubt of Mitya's guilt, in spite of those 'returns that were so hateful to him. It is remarkable, too, that while he felt that he hated Mitya more and more every day, he realized that it was not on account of Katya's 'returns that he hated him, but just because he was the murderer of his father. He was conscious of this and fully recognized it to himself. Nevertheless, he went to see Mitya ten days before the trial and proposed to him a plan of escapea plan he had obviously thought over a long time. He was partly impelled to do this by a sore place still left in his heart from a phrase of Smerdyakov's, that it was to his, Ivan's, advantage that his brother should be convicted, as that would increase his inheritance and Alyosha's from forty to sixty thousand roubles. He determined to sacrifice thirty thousand on arranging Mitya's escape. On his return from seeing him, he was very mournful and dispirited he suddenly began to feel that he was anxious for Mitya's escape, not only to heal that sore place by sacrificing thirty thousand, but for another reason. 'Is it because I am as much a murderer at heart? he asked himself. Something very deep down seemed burning and rankling in his soul. His pride above all suffered cruelly all that month. But of that later.... When, after his conversation with Alyosha, Ivan suddenly decided with his hand on the bell of his lodging to go to Smerdyakov, he obeyed a sudden and peculiar impulse of indignation. He suddenly remembered how Katerina Ivanovna had only just cried out to him in Alyosha's presence 'It was you, you, persuaded me of his (that is, Mitya's) 'guilt! Ivan was thunderstruck when he recalled it. He had never once tried to persuade her that Mitya was the murderer on the contrary, he had suspected himself in her presence, that time when he came back from Smerdyakov. It was she, she, who had produced that 'document and proved his brother's guilt. And now she suddenly exclaimed 'I've been at Smerdyakov's myself! When had she been there? Ivan had known nothing of it. So she was not at all so sure of Mitya's guilt! And what could Smerdyakov have told her? What, what, had he said to her? His heart burned with violent anger. He could not understand how he could, half an hour before, have let those words pass and not have cried out at the moment. He let go of the bell and rushed off to Smerdyakov. 'I shall kill him, perhaps, this time, he thought on the way. When he was halfway there, the keen dry wind that had been blowing early that morning rose again, and a fine dry snow began falling thickly. It did not lie on the ground, but was whirled about by the wind, and soon there was a regular snowstorm. There were scarcely any lampposts in the part of the town where Smerdyakov lived. Ivan strode alone in the darkness, unconscious of the storm, instinctively picking out his way. His head ached and there was a painful throbbing in his temples. He felt that his hands were twitching convulsively. Not far from Marya Kondratyevna's cottage, Ivan suddenly came upon a solitary drunken little peasant. He was wearing a coarse and patched coat, and was walking in zigzags, grumbling and swearing to himself. Then suddenly he would begin singing in a husky drunken voice 'Ach, Vanka's gone to Petersburg I won't wait till he comes back. But he broke off every time at the second line and began swearing again then he would begin the same song again. Ivan felt an intense hatred for him before he had thought about him at all. Suddenly he realized his presence and felt an irresistible impulse to knock him down. At that moment they met, and the peasant with a violent lurch fell full tilt against Ivan, who pushed him back furiously. The peasant went flying backwards and fell like a log on the frozen ground. He uttered one plaintive 'Ooh! and then was silent. Ivan stepped up to him. He was lying on his back, without movement or consciousness. 'He will be frozen, thought Ivan, and he went on his way to Smerdyakov's. In the passage, Marya Kondratyevna, who ran out to open the door with a candle in her hand, whispered that Smerdyakov was very ill, 'It's not that he's laid up, but he seems not himself, and he even told us to take the tea away he wouldn't have any. 'Why, does he make a row? asked Ivan coarsely. 'Oh, dear, no, quite the contrary, he's very quiet. Only please don't talk to him too long, Marya Kondratyevna begged him. Ivan opened the door and stepped into the room. It was overheated as before, but there were changes in the room. One of the benches at the side had been removed, and in its place had been put a large old mahogany leather sofa, on which a bed had been made up, with fairly clean white pillows. Smerdyakov was sitting on the sofa, wearing the same dressinggown. The table had been brought out in front of the sofa, so that there was hardly room to move. On the table lay a thick book in yellow cover, but Smerdyakov was not reading it. He seemed to be sitting doing nothing. He met Ivan with a slow silent gaze, and was apparently not at all surprised at his coming. There was a great change in his face he was much thinner and sallower. His eyes were sunken and there were blue marks under them. 'Why, you really are ill? Ivan stopped short. 'I won't keep you long, I won't even take off my coat. Where can one sit down? He went to the other end of the table, moved up a chair and sat down on it. 'Why do you look at me without speaking? I've only come with one question, and I swear I won't go without an answer. Has the young lady, Katerina Ivanovna, been with you? Smerdyakov still remained silent, looking quietly at Ivan as before. Suddenly, with a motion of his hand, he turned his face away. 'What's the matter with you? cried Ivan. 'Nothing. 'What do you mean by 'nothing'? 'Yes, she has. It's no matter to you. Let me alone. 'No, I won't let you alone. Tell me, when was she here? 'Why, I'd quite forgotten about her, said Smerdyakov, with a scornful smile, and turning his face to Ivan again, he stared at him with a look of frenzied hatred, the same look that he had fixed on him at their last interview, a month before. 'You seem very ill yourself, your face is sunken you don't look like yourself, he said to Ivan. 'Never mind my health, tell me what I ask you. 'But why are your eyes so yellow? The whites are quite yellow. Are you so worried? He smiled contemptuously and suddenly laughed outright. 'Listen I've told you I won't go away without an answer! Ivan cried, intensely irritated. 'Why do you keep pestering me? Why do you torment me? said Smerdyakov, with a look of suffering. 'Damn it! I've nothing to do with you. Just answer my question and I'll go away. 'I've no answer to give you, said Smerdyakov, looking down again. 'You may be sure I'll make you answer! 'Why are you so uneasy? Smerdyakov stared at him, not simply with contempt, but almost with repulsion. 'Is this because the trial begins to morrow? Nothing will happen to you can't you believe that at last? Go home, go to bed and sleep in peace, don't be afraid of anything. 'I don't understand you.... What have I to be afraid of tomorrow? Ivan articulated in astonishment, and suddenly a chill breath of fear did in fact pass over his soul. Smerdyakov measured him with his eyes. 'You don't understand? he drawled reproachfully. 'It's a strange thing a sensible man should care to play such a farce! Ivan looked at him speechless. The startling, incredibly supercilious tone of this man who had once been his valet, was extraordinary in itself. He had not taken such a tone even at their last interview. 'I tell you, you've nothing to be afraid of. I won't say anything about you there's no proof against you. I say, how your hands are trembling! Why are your fingers moving like that? Go home, you did not murder him. Ivan started. He remembered Alyosha. 'I know it was not I, he faltered. 'Do you? Smerdyakov caught him up again. Ivan jumped up and seized him by the shoulder. 'Tell me everything, you viper! Tell me everything! Smerdyakov was not in the least scared. He only riveted his eyes on Ivan with insane hatred. 'Well, it was you who murdered him, if that's it, he whispered furiously. Ivan sank back on his chair, as though pondering something. He laughed malignantly. 'You mean my going away. What you talked about last time? 'You stood before me last time and understood it all, and you understand it now. 'All I understand is that you are mad. 'Aren't you tired of it? Here we are face to face what's the use of going on keeping up a farce to each other? Are you still trying to throw it all on me, to my face? You murdered him you are the real murderer, I was only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it was following your words I did it. 'Did it? Why, did you murder him? Ivan turned cold. Something seemed to give way in his brain, and he shuddered all over with a cold shiver. Then Smerdyakov himself looked at him wonderingly probably the genuineness of Ivan's horror struck him. 'You don't mean to say you really did not know? he faltered mistrustfully, looking with a forced smile into his eyes. Ivan still gazed at him, and seemed unable to speak. Ach, Vanka's gone to Petersburg I won't wait till he comes back, suddenly echoed in his head. 'Do you know, I am afraid that you are a dream, a phantom sitting before me, he muttered. 'There's no phantom here, but only us two and one other. No doubt he is here, that third, between us. 'Who is he? Who is here? What third person? Ivan cried in alarm, looking about him, his eyes hastily searching in every corner. 'That third is God HimselfProvidence. He is the third beside us now. Only don't look for Him, you won't find Him. 'It's a lie that you killed him! Ivan cried madly. 'You are mad, or teasing me again! Smerdyakov, as before, watched him curiously, with no sign of fear. He could still scarcely get over his incredulity he still fancied that Ivan knew everything and was trying to 'throw it all on him to his face. 'Wait a minute, he said at last in a weak voice, and suddenly bringing up his left leg from under the table, he began turning up his trouser leg. He was wearing long white stockings and slippers. Slowly he took off his garter and fumbled to the bottom of his stocking. Ivan gazed at him, and suddenly shuddered in a paroxysm of terror. 'He's mad! he cried, and rapidly jumping up, he drew back, so that he knocked his back against the wall and stood up against it, stiff and straight. He looked with insane terror at Smerdyakov, who, entirely unaffected by his terror, continued fumbling in his stocking, as though he were making an effort to get hold of something with his fingers and pull it out. At last he got hold of it and began pulling it out. Ivan saw that it was a piece of paper, or perhaps a roll of papers. Smerdyakov pulled it out and laid it on the table. 'Here, he said quietly. 'What is it? asked Ivan, trembling. 'Kindly look at it, Smerdyakov answered, still in the same low tone. Ivan stepped up to the table, took up the roll of paper and began unfolding it, but suddenly he drew back his fingers, as though from contact with a loathsome reptile. 'Your hands keep twitching, observed Smerdyakov, and he deliberately unfolded the bundle himself. Under the wrapper were three packets of hundredrouble notes. 'They are all here, all the three thousand roubles you need not count them. Take them, Smerdyakov suggested to Ivan, nodding at the notes. Ivan sank back in his chair. He was as white as a handkerchief. 'You frightened me ... with your stocking, he said, with a strange grin. 'Can you really not have known till now? Smerdyakov asked once more. 'No, I did not know. I kept thinking of Dmitri. Brother, brother! Ach! He suddenly clutched his head in both hands. 'Listen. Did you kill him alone? With my brother's help or without? 'It was only with you, with your help, I killed him, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch is quite innocent. 'All right, all right. Talk about me later. Why do I keep on trembling? I can't speak properly. 'You were bold enough then. You said 'everything was lawful,' and how frightened you are now, Smerdyakov muttered in surprise. 'Won't you have some lemonade? I'll ask for some at once. It's very refreshing. Only I must hide this first. And again he motioned at the notes. He was just going to get up and call at the door to Marya Kondratyevna to make some lemonade and bring it them, but, looking for something to cover up the notes that she might not see them, he first took out his handkerchief, and as it turned out to be very dirty, took up the big yellow book that Ivan had noticed at first lying on the table, and put it over the notes. The book was The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian. Ivan read it mechanically. 'I won't have any lemonade, he said. 'Talk of me later. Sit down and tell me how you did it. Tell me all about it. 'You'd better take off your greatcoat, or you'll be too hot. Ivan, as though he'd only just thought of it, took off his coat, and, without getting up from his chair, threw it on the bench. 'Speak, please, speak. He seemed calmer. He waited, feeling sure that Smerdyakov would tell him all about it. 'How it was done? sighed Smerdyakov. 'It was done in a most natural way, following your very words. 'Of my words later, Ivan broke in again, apparently with complete self possession, firmly uttering his words, and not shouting as before. 'Only tell me in detail how you did it. Everything, as it happened. Don't forget anything. The details, above everything, the details, I beg you. 'You'd gone away, then I fell into the cellar. 'In a fit or in a sham one? 'A sham one, naturally. I shammed it all. I went quietly down the steps to the very bottom and lay down quietly, and as I lay down I gave a scream, and struggled, till they carried me out. 'Stay! And were you shamming all along, afterwards, and in the hospital? 'No, not at all. Next day, in the morning, before they took me to the hospital, I had a real attack and a more violent one than I've had for years. For two days I was quite unconscious. 'All right, all right. Go on. 'They laid me on the bed. I knew I'd be the other side of the partition, for whenever I was ill, Marfa Ignatyevna used to put me there, near them. She's always been very kind to me, from my birth up. At night I moaned, but quietly. I kept expecting Dmitri Fyodorovitch to come. 'Expecting him? To come to you? 'Not to me. I expected him to come into the house, for I'd no doubt that he'd come that night, for being without me and getting no news, he'd be sure to come and climb over the fence, as he used to, and do something. 'And if he hadn't come? 'Then nothing would have happened. I should never have brought myself to it without him. 'All right, all right ... speak more intelligibly, don't hurry above all, don't leave anything out! 'I expected him to kill Fyodor Pavlovitch. I thought that was certain, for I had prepared him for it ... during the last few days.... He knew about the knocks, that was the chief thing. With his suspiciousness and the fury which had been growing in him all those days, he was bound to get into the house by means of those taps. That was inevitable, so I was expecting him. 'Stay, Ivan interrupted 'if he had killed him, he would have taken the money and carried it away you must have considered that. What would you have got by it afterwards? I don't see. 'But he would never have found the money. That was only what I told him, that the money was under the mattress. But that wasn't true. It had been lying in a box. And afterwards I suggested to Fyodor Pavlovitch, as I was the only person he trusted, to hide the envelope with the notes in the corner behind the ikons, for no one would have guessed that place, especially if they came in a hurry. So that's where the envelope lay, in the corner behind the ikons. It would have been absurd to keep it under the mattress the box, anyway, could be locked. But all believe it was under the mattress. A stupid thing to believe. So if Dmitri Fyodorovitch had committed the murder, finding nothing, he would either have run away in a hurry, afraid of every sound, as always happens with murderers, or he would have been arrested. So I could always have clambered up to the ikons and have taken away the money next morning or even that night, and it would have all been put down to Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I could reckon upon that. 'But what if he did not kill him, but only knocked him down? 'If he did not kill him, of course, I would not have ventured to take the money, and nothing would have happened. But I calculated that he would beat him senseless, and I should have time to take it then, and then I'd make out to Fyodor Pavlovitch that it was no one but Dmitri Fyodorovitch who had taken the money after beating him. 'Stop ... I am getting mixed. Then it was Dmitri after all who killed him you only took the money? 'No, he didn't kill him. Well, I might as well have told you now that he was the murderer.... But I don't want to lie to you now, because ... because if you really haven't understood till now, as I see for myself, and are not pretending, so as to throw your guilt on me to my very face, you are still responsible for it all, since you knew of the murder and charged me to do it, and went away knowing all about it. And so I want to prove to your face this evening that you are the only real murderer in the whole affair, and I am not the real murderer, though I did kill him. You are the rightful murderer. 'Why, why, am I a murderer? Oh, God! Ivan cried, unable to restrain himself at last, and forgetting that he had put off discussing himself till the end of the conversation. 'You still mean that Tchermashnya? Stay, tell me, why did you want my consent, if you really took Tchermashnya for consent? How will you explain that now? 'Assured of your consent, I should have known that you wouldn't have made an outcry over those three thousand being lost, even if I'd been suspected, instead of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or as his accomplice on the contrary, you would have protected me from others.... And when you got your inheritance you would have rewarded me when you were able, all the rest of your life. For you'd have received your inheritance through me, seeing that if he had married Agrafena Alexandrovna, you wouldn't have had a farthing. 'Ah! Then you intended to worry me all my life afterwards, snarled Ivan. 'And what if I hadn't gone away then, but had informed against you? 'What could you have informed? That I persuaded you to go to Tchermashnya? That's all nonsense. Besides, after our conversation you would either have gone away or have stayed. If you had stayed, nothing would have happened. I should have known that you didn't want it done, and should have attempted nothing. As you went away, it meant you assured me that you wouldn't dare to inform against me at the trial, and that you'd overlook my having the three thousand. And, indeed, you couldn't have prosecuted me afterwards, because then I should have told it all in the court that is, not that I had stolen the money or killed himI shouldn't have said thatbut that you'd put me up to the theft and the murder, though I didn't consent to it. That's why I needed your consent, so that you couldn't have cornered me afterwards, for what proof could you have had? I could always have cornered you, revealing your eagerness for your father's death, and I tell you the public would have believed it all, and you would have been ashamed for the rest of your life. 'Was I then so eager, was I? Ivan snarled again. 'To be sure you were, and by your consent you silently sanctioned my doing it. Smerdyakov looked resolutely at Ivan. He was very weak and spoke slowly and wearily, but some hidden inner force urged him on. He evidently had some design. Ivan felt that. 'Go on, he said. 'Tell me what happened that night. 'What more is there to tell! I lay there and I thought I heard the master shout. And before that Grigory Vassilyevitch had suddenly got up and came out, and he suddenly gave a scream, and then all was silence and darkness. I lay there waiting, my heart beating I couldn't bear it. I got up at last, went out. I saw the window open on the left into the garden, and I stepped to the left to listen whether he was sitting there alive, and I heard the master moving about, sighing, so I knew he was alive. 'Ech!' I thought. I went to the window and shouted to the master, 'It's I.' And he shouted to me, 'He's been, he's been he's run away.' He meant Dmitri Fyodorovitch had been. 'He's killed Grigory!' 'Where?' I whispered. 'There, in the corner,' he pointed. He was whispering, too. 'Wait a bit,' I said. I went to the corner of the garden to look, and there I came upon Grigory Vassilyevitch lying by the wall, covered with blood, senseless. So it's true that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, was the thought that came into my head, and I determined on the spot to make an end of it, as Grigory Vassilyevitch, even if he were alive, would see nothing of it, as he lay there senseless. The only risk was that Marfa Ignatyevna might wake up. I felt that at the moment, but the longing to get it done came over me, till I could scarcely breathe. I went back to the window to the master and said, 'She's here, she's come Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, wants to be let in.' And he started like a baby. 'Where is she?' he fairly gasped, but couldn't believe it. 'She's standing there,' said I. 'Open.' He looked out of the window at me, half believing and half distrustful, but afraid to open. 'Why, he is afraid of me now,' I thought. And it was funny. I bethought me to knock on the windowframe those taps we'd agreed upon as a signal that Grushenka had come, in his presence, before his eyes. He didn't seem to believe my word, but as soon as he heard the taps, he ran at once to open the door. He opened it. I would have gone in, but he stood in the way to prevent me passing. 'Where is she? Where is she?' He looked at me, all of a tremble. 'Well,' thought I, 'if he's so frightened of me as all that, it's a bad look out!' And my legs went weak with fright that he wouldn't let me in or would call out, or Marfa Ignatyevna would run up, or something else might happen. I don't remember now, but I must have stood pale, facing him. I whispered to him, 'Why, she's there, there, under the window how is it you don't see her?' I said. 'Bring her then, bring her.' 'She's afraid,' said I 'she was frightened at the noise, she's hidden in the bushes go and call to her yourself from the study.' He ran to the window, put the candle in the window. 'Grushenka,' he cried, 'Grushenka, are you here?' Though he cried that, he didn't want to lean out of the window, he didn't want to move away from me, for he was panicstricken he was so frightened he didn't dare to turn his back on me. 'Why, here she is,' said I. I went up to the window and leaned right out of it. 'Here she is she's in the bush, laughing at you, don't you see her?' He suddenly believed it he was all of a shakehe was awfully crazy about herand he leaned right out of the window. I snatched up that iron paperweight from his table do you remember, weighing about three pounds? I swung it and hit him on the top of the skull with the corner of it. He didn't even cry out. He only sank down suddenly, and I hit him again and a third time. And the third time I knew I'd broken his skull. He suddenly rolled on his back, face upwards, covered with blood. I looked round. There was no blood on me, not a spot. I wiped the paperweight, put it back, went up to the ikons, took the money out of the envelope, and flung the envelope on the floor and the pink ribbon beside it. I went out into the garden all of a tremble, straight to the appletree with a hollow in ityou know that hollow. I'd marked it long before and put a rag and a piece of paper ready in it. I wrapped all the notes in the rag and stuffed it deep down in the hole. And there it stayed for over a fortnight. I took it out later, when I came out of the hospital. I went back to my bed, lay down and thought, 'If Grigory Vassilyevitch has been killed outright it may be a bad job for me, but if he is not killed and recovers, it will be firstrate, for then he'll bear witness that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, and so he must have killed him and taken the money.' Then I began groaning with suspense and impatience, so as to wake Marfa Ignatyevna as soon as possible. At last she got up and she rushed to me, but when she saw Grigory Vassilyevitch was not there, she ran out, and I heard her scream in the garden. And that set it all going and set my mind at rest. He stopped. Ivan had listened all the time in dead silence without stirring or taking his eyes off him. As he told his story Smerdyakov glanced at him from time to time, but for the most part kept his eyes averted. When he had finished he was evidently agitated and was breathing hard. The perspiration stood out on his face. But it was impossible to tell whether it was remorse he was feeling, or what. 'Stay, cried Ivan, pondering. 'What about the door? If he only opened the door to you, how could Grigory have seen it open before? For Grigory saw it before you went. It was remarkable that Ivan spoke quite amicably, in a different tone, not angry as before, so if any one had opened the door at that moment and peeped in at them, he would certainly have concluded that they were talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject. 'As for that door and Grigory Vassilyevitch's having seen it open, that's only his fancy, said Smerdyakov, with a wry smile. 'He is not a man, I assure you, but an obstinate mule. He didn't see it, but fancied he had seen it, and there's no shaking him. It's just our luck he took that notion into his head, for they can't fail to convict Dmitri Fyodorovitch after that. 'Listen ... said Ivan, beginning to seem bewildered again and making an effort to grasp something. 'Listen. There are a lot of questions I want to ask you, but I forget them ... I keep forgetting and getting mixed up. Yes. Tell me this at least, why did you open the envelope and leave it there on the floor? Why didn't you simply carry off the envelope?... When you were telling me, I thought you spoke about it as though it were the right thing to do ... but why, I can't understand.... 'I did that for a good reason. For if a man had known all about it, as I did for instance, if he'd seen those notes before, and perhaps had put them in that envelope himself, and had seen the envelope sealed up and addressed, with his own eyes, if such a man had done the murder, what should have made him tear open the envelope afterwards, especially in such desperate haste, since he'd know for certain the notes must be in the envelope? No, if the robber had been some one like me, he'd simply have put the envelope straight in his pocket and got away with it as fast as he could. But it'd be quite different with Dmitri Fyodorovitch. He only knew about the envelope by hearsay he had never seen it, and if he'd found it, for instance, under the mattress, he'd have torn it open as quickly as possible to make sure the notes were in it. And he'd have thrown the envelope down, without having time to think that it would be evidence against him. Because he was not an habitual thief and had never directly stolen anything before, for he is a gentleman born, and if he did bring himself to steal, it would not be regular stealing, but simply taking what was his own, for he'd told the whole town he meant to before, and had even bragged aloud before every one that he'd go and take his property from Fyodor Pavlovitch. I didn't say that openly to the prosecutor when I was being examined, but quite the contrary, I brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn't see it myself, and as though he'd thought of it himself and I hadn't prompted him so that Mr. Prosecutor's mouth positively watered at my suggestion. 'But can you possibly have thought of all that on the spot? cried Ivan, overcome with astonishment. He looked at Smerdyakov again with alarm. 'Mercy on us! Could any one think of it all in such a desperate hurry? It was all thought out beforehand. 'Well ... well, it was the devil helped you! Ivan cried again. 'No, you are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought.... He got up, obviously intending to walk across the room. He was in terrible distress. But as the table blocked his way, and there was hardly room to pass between the table and the wall, he only turned round where he stood and sat down again. Perhaps the impossibility of moving irritated him, as he suddenly cried out almost as furiously as before. 'Listen, you miserable, contemptible creature! Don't you understand that if I haven't killed you, it's simply because I am keeping you to answer tomorrow at the trial. God sees, Ivan raised his hand, 'perhaps I, too, was guilty perhaps I really had a secret desire for my father's ... death, but I swear I was not as guilty as you think, and perhaps I didn't urge you on at all. No, no, I didn't urge you on! But no matter, I will give evidence against myself tomorrow at the trial. I'm determined to! I shall tell everything, everything. But we'll make our appearance together. And whatever you may say against me at the trial, whatever evidence you give, I'll face it I am not afraid of you. I'll confirm it all myself! But you must confess, too! You must, you must we'll go together. That's how it shall be! Ivan said this solemnly and resolutely and from his flashing eyes alone it could be seen that it would be so. 'You are ill, I see you are quite ill. Your eyes are yellow, Smerdyakov commented, without the least irony, with apparent sympathy in fact. 'We'll go together, Ivan repeated. 'And if you won't go, no matter, I'll go alone. Smerdyakov paused as though pondering. 'There'll be nothing of the sort, and you won't go, he concluded at last positively. 'You don't understand me, Ivan exclaimed reproachfully. 'You'll be too much ashamed, if you confess it all. And, what's more, it will be no use at all, for I shall say straight out that I never said anything of the sort to you, and that you are either ill (and it looks like it, too), or that you're so sorry for your brother that you are sacrificing yourself to save him and have invented it all against me, for you've always thought no more of me than if I'd been a fly. And who will believe you, and what single proof have you got? 'Listen, you showed me those notes just now to convince me. Smerdyakov lifted the book off the notes and laid it on one side. 'Take that money away with you, Smerdyakov sighed. 'Of course, I shall take it. But why do you give it to me, if you committed the murder for the sake of it? Ivan looked at him with great surprise. 'I don't want it, Smerdyakov articulated in a shaking voice, with a gesture of refusal. 'I did have an idea of beginning a new life with that money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it, chiefly because 'all things are lawful.' That was quite right what you taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there's no everlasting God, there's no such thing as virtue, and there's no need of it. You were right there. So that's how I looked at it. 'Did you come to that of yourself? asked Ivan, with a wry smile. 'With your guidance. 'And now, I suppose, you believe in God, since you are giving back the money? 'No, I don't believe, whispered Smerdyakov. 'Then why are you giving it back? 'Leave off ... that's enough! Smerdyakov waved his hand again. 'You used to say yourself that everything was lawful, so now why are you so upset, too? You even want to go and give evidence against yourself.... Only there'll be nothing of the sort! You won't go to give evidence, Smerdyakov decided with conviction. 'You'll see, said Ivan. 'It isn't possible. You are very clever. You are fond of money, I know that. You like to be respected, too, for you're very proud you are far too fond of female charms, too, and you mind most of all about living in undisturbed comfort, without having to depend on any onethat's what you care most about. You won't want to spoil your life for ever by taking such a disgrace on yourself. You are like Fyodor Pavlovitch, you are more like him than any of his children you've the same soul as he had. 'You are not a fool, said Ivan, seeming struck. The blood rushed to his face. 'You are serious now! he observed, looking suddenly at Smerdyakov with a different expression. 'It was your pride made you think I was a fool. Take the money. Ivan took the three rolls of notes and put them in his pocket without wrapping them in anything. 'I shall show them at the court tomorrow, he said. 'Nobody will believe you, as you've plenty of money of your own you may simply have taken it out of your cashbox and brought it to the court. Ivan rose from his seat. 'I repeat, he said, 'the only reason I haven't killed you is that I need you for tomorrow, remember that, don't forget it! 'Well, kill me. Kill me now, Smerdyakov said, all at once looking strangely at Ivan. 'You won't dare do that even! he added, with a bitter smile. 'You won't dare to do anything, you, who used to be so bold! 'Till tomorrow, cried Ivan, and moved to go out. 'Stay a moment.... Show me those notes again. Ivan took out the notes and showed them to him. Smerdyakov looked at them for ten seconds. 'Well, you can go, he said, with a wave of his hand. 'Ivan Fyodorovitch! he called after him again. 'What do you want? Ivan turned without stopping. 'Goodby! 'Till tomorrow! Ivan cried again, and he walked out of the cottage. The snowstorm was still raging. He walked the first few steps boldly, but suddenly began staggering. 'It's something physical, he thought with a grin. Something like joy was springing up in his heart. He was conscious of unbounded resolution he would make an end of the wavering that had so tortured him of late. His determination was taken, 'and now it will not be changed, he thought with relief. At that moment he stumbled against something and almost fell down. Stopping short, he made out at his feet the peasant he had knocked down, still lying senseless and motionless. The snow had almost covered his face. Ivan seized him and lifted him in his arms. Seeing a light in the little house to the right he went up, knocked at the shutters, and asked the man to whom the house belonged to help him carry the peasant to the policestation, promising him three roubles. The man got ready and came out. I won't describe in detail how Ivan succeeded in his object, bringing the peasant to the policestation and arranging for a doctor to see him at once, providing with a liberal hand for the expenses. I will only say that this business took a whole hour, but Ivan was well content with it. His mind wandered and worked incessantly. 'If I had not taken my decision so firmly for tomorrow, he reflected with satisfaction, 'I should not have stayed a whole hour to look after the peasant, but should have passed by, without caring about his being frozen. I am quite capable of watching myself, by the way, he thought at the same instant, with still greater satisfaction, 'although they have decided that I am going out of my mind! Just as he reached his own house he stopped short, asking himself suddenly hadn't he better go at once to the prosecutor and tell him everything. He decided the question by turning back to the house. 'Everything together tomorrow! he whispered to himself, and, strange to say, almost all his gladness and selfsatisfaction passed in one instant. As he entered his own room he felt something like a touch of ice on his heart, like a recollection or, more exactly, a reminder, of something agonizing and revolting that was in that room now, at that moment, and had been there before. He sank wearily on his sofa. The old woman brought him a samovar he made tea, but did not touch it. He sat on the sofa and felt giddy. He felt that he was ill and helpless. He was beginning to drop asleep, but got up uneasily and walked across the room to shake off his drowsiness. At moments he fancied he was delirious, but it was not illness that he thought of most. Sitting down again, he began looking round, as though searching for something. This happened several times. At last his eyes were fastened intently on one point. Ivan smiled, but an angry flush suffused his face. He sat a long time in his place, his head propped on both arms, though he looked sideways at the same point, at the sofa that stood against the opposite wall. There was evidently something, some object, that irritated him there, worried him and tormented him. I am not a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when I must inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan's illness. Anticipating events I can say at least one thing he was at that moment on the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though his health had long been affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance to the fever which in the end gained complete mastery over it. Though I know nothing of medicine, I venture to hazard the suggestion that he really had perhaps, by a terrible effort of will, succeeded in delaying the attack for a time, hoping, of course, to check it completely. He knew that he was unwell, but he loathed the thought of being ill at that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in his life, when he needed to have all his wits about him, to say what he had to say boldly and resolutely and 'to justify himself to himself. He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought from Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna's to which I have referred already. After listening to him and examining him the doctor came to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from some disorder of the brain, and was not at all surprised by an admission which Ivan had reluctantly made him. 'Hallucinations are quite likely in your condition, the doctor opined, 'though it would be better to verify them ... you must take steps at once, without a moment's delay, or things will go badly with you. But Ivan did not follow this judicious advice and did not take to his bed to be nursed. 'I am walking about, so I am strong enough, if I drop, it'll be different then, any one may nurse me who likes, he decided, dismissing the subject. And so he was sitting almost conscious himself of his delirium and, as I have said already, looking persistently at some object on the sofa against the opposite wall. Some one appeared to be sitting there, though goodness knows how he had come in, for he had not been in the room when Ivan came into it, on his return from Smerdyakov. This was a person or, more accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of a particular kind, no longer young, qui faisait la cinquantaine, as the French say, with rather long, still thick, dark hair, slightly streaked with gray and a small pointed beard. He was wearing a brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently made by a good tailor though, and of a fashion at least three years old, that had been discarded by smart and welltodo people for the last two years. His linen and his long scarflike necktie were all such as are worn by people who aim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his linen was not overclean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The visitor's check trousers were of excellent cut, but were too light in color and too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with the season. In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened means. It looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of idle landowners who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He had unmistakably been, at some time, in good and fashionable society, had once had good connections, had possibly preserved them indeed, but, after a gay youth, becoming gradually impoverished on the abolition of serfdom, he had sunk into the position of a poor relation of the best class, wandering from one good old friend to another and received by them for his companionable and accommodating disposition and as being, after all, a gentleman who could be asked to sit down with any one, though, of course, not in a place of honor. Such gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position, who can tell a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion for any duties that may be forced upon them, are usually solitary creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children, but if so, the children are always being brought up at a distance, at some aunt's, to whom these gentlemen never allude in good society, seeming ashamed of the relationship. They gradually lose sight of their children altogether, though at intervals they receive a birthday or Christmas letter from them and sometimes even answer it. The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much goodnatured, as accommodating and ready to assume any amiable expression as occasion might arise. He had no watch, but he had a tortoiseshell lorgnette on a black ribbon. On the middle finger of his right hand was a massive gold ring with a cheap opal stone in it. Ivan was angrily silent and would not begin the conversation. The visitor waited and sat exactly like a poor relation who had come down from his room to keep his host company at tea, and was discreetly silent, seeing that his host was frowning and preoccupied. But he was ready for any affable conversation as soon as his host should begin it. All at once his face expressed a sudden solicitude. 'I say, he began to Ivan, 'excuse me, I only mention it to remind you. You went to Smerdyakov's to find out about Katerina Ivanovna, but you came away without finding out anything about her, you probably forgot 'Ah, yes, broke from Ivan and his face grew gloomy with uneasiness. 'Yes, I'd forgotten ... but it doesn't matter now, never mind, till tomorrow, he muttered to himself, 'and you, he added, addressing his visitor, 'I should have remembered that myself in a minute, for that was just what was tormenting me! Why do you interfere, as if I should believe that you prompted me, and that I didn't remember it of myself? 'Don't believe it then, said the gentleman, smiling amicably, 'what's the good of believing against your will? Besides, proofs are no help to believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not because he saw Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe, before he saw. Look at the spiritualists, for instance.... I am very fond of them ... only fancy, they imagine that they are serving the cause of religion, because the devils show them their horns from the other world. That, they say, is a material proof, so to speak, of the existence of another world. The other world and material proofs, what next! And if you come to that, does proving there's a devil prove that there's a God? I want to join an idealist society, I'll lead the opposition in it, I'll say I am a realist, but not a materialist, he he! 'Listen, Ivan suddenly got up from the table. 'I seem to be delirious.... I am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like, I don't care! You won't drive me to fury, as you did last time. But I feel somehow ashamed.... I want to walk about the room.... I sometimes don't see you and don't even hear your voice as I did last time, but I always guess what you are prating, for it's I, I myself speaking, not you. Only I don't know whether I was dreaming last time or whether I really saw you. I'll wet a towel and put it on my head and perhaps you'll vanish into air. Ivan went into the corner, took a towel, and did as he said, and with a wet towel on his head began walking up and down the room. 'I am so glad you treat me so familiarly, the visitor began. 'Fool, laughed Ivan, 'do you suppose I should stand on ceremony with you? I am in good spirits now, though I've a pain in my forehead ... and in the top of my head ... only please don't talk philosophy, as you did last time. If you can't take yourself off, talk of something amusing. Talk gossip, you are a poor relation, you ought to talk gossip. What a nightmare to have! But I am not afraid of you. I'll get the better of you. I won't be taken to a madhouse! 'C'est charmant, poor relation. Yes, I am in my natural shape. For what am I on earth but a poor relation? By the way, I am listening to you and am rather surprised to find you are actually beginning to take me for something real, not simply your fancy, as you persisted in declaring last time 'Never for one minute have I taken you for reality, Ivan cried with a sort of fury. 'You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a phantom. It's only that I don't know how to destroy you and I see I must suffer for a time. You are my hallucination. You are the incarnation of myself, but only of one side of me ... of my thoughts and feelings, but only the nastiest and stupidest of them. From that point of view you might be of interest to me, if only I had time to waste on you 'Excuse me, excuse me, I'll catch you. When you flew out at Alyosha under the lamppost this evening and shouted to him, 'You learnt it from him! How do you know that he visits me?' you were thinking of me then. So for one brief moment you did believe that I really exist, the gentleman laughed blandly. 'Yes, that was a moment of weakness ... but I couldn't believe in you. I don't know whether I was asleep or awake last time. Perhaps I was only dreaming then and didn't see you really at all 'And why were you so surly with Alyosha just now? He is a dear I've treated him badly over Father Zossima. 'Don't talk of Alyosha! How dare you, you flunkey! Ivan laughed again. 'You scold me, but you laughthat's a good sign. But you are ever so much more polite than you were last time and I know why that great resolution of yours 'Don't speak of my resolution, cried Ivan, savagely. 'I understand, I understand, c'est noble, c'est charmant, you are going to defend your brother and to sacrifice yourself ... C'est chevaleresque. 'Hold your tongue, I'll kick you! 'I shan't be altogether sorry, for then my object will be attained. If you kick me, you must believe in my reality, for people don't kick ghosts. Joking apart, it doesn't matter to me, scold if you like, though it's better to be a trifle more polite even to me. 'Fool, flunkey!' what words! 'Scolding you, I scold myself, Ivan laughed again, 'you are myself, myself, only with a different face. You just say what I am thinking ... and are incapable of saying anything new! 'If I am like you in my way of thinking, it's all to my credit, the gentleman declared, with delicacy and dignity. 'You choose out only my worst thoughts, and what's more, the stupid ones. You are stupid and vulgar. You are awfully stupid. No, I can't put up with you! What am I to do, what am I to do? Ivan said through his clenched teeth. 'My dear friend, above all things I want to behave like a gentleman and to be recognized as such, the visitor began in an excess of deprecating and simplehearted pride, typical of a poor relation. 'I am poor, but ... I won't say very honest, but ... it's an axiom generally accepted in society that I am a fallen angel. I certainly can't conceive how I can ever have been an angel. If I ever was, it must have been so long ago that there's no harm in forgetting it. Now I only prize the reputation of being a gentlemanly person and live as I can, trying to make myself agreeable. I love men genuinely, I've been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay with you from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and that's what I like most of all. You see, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism of earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations! I wander about here dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, on earth I become superstitious. Please don't laugh, that's just what I like, to become superstitious. I adopt all your habits here I've grown fond of going to the public baths, would you believe it? and I go and steam myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she believes. My ideal is to go to church and offer a candle in simplehearted faith, upon my word it is. Then there would be an end to my sufferings. I like being doctored too in the spring there was an outbreak of smallpox and I went and was vaccinated in a foundling hospitalif only you knew how I enjoyed myself that day. I subscribed ten roubles in the cause of the Slavs!... But you are not listening. Do you know, you are not at all well this evening? I know you went yesterday to that doctor ... well, what about your health? What did the doctor say? 'Fool! Ivan snapped out. 'But you are clever, anyway. You are scolding again? I didn't ask out of sympathy. You needn't answer. Now rheumatism has come in again 'Fool! repeated Ivan. 'You keep saying the same thing but I had such an attack of rheumatism last year that I remember it to this day. 'The devil have rheumatism! 'Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto. 'What, what, Satan sum et nihil humanum ... that's not bad for the devil! 'I am glad I've pleased you at last. 'But you didn't get that from me. Ivan stopped suddenly, seeming struck. 'That never entered my head, that's strange. 'C'est du nouveau, n'estce pas? This time I'll act honestly and explain to you. Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented. Yet such dreams are sometimes seen not by writers, but by the most ordinary people, officials, journalists, priests.... The subject is a complete enigma. A statesman confessed to me, indeed, that all his best ideas came to him when he was asleep. Well, that's how it is now, though I am your hallucination, yet just as in a nightmare, I say original things which had not entered your head before. So I don't repeat your ideas, yet I am only your nightmare, nothing more. 'You are lying, your aim is to convince me you exist apart and are not my nightmare, and now you are asserting you are a dream. 'My dear fellow, I've adopted a special method today, I'll explain it to you afterwards. Stay, where did I break off? Oh, yes! I caught cold then, only not here but yonder. 'Where is yonder? Tell me, will you be here long? Can't you go away? Ivan exclaimed almost in despair. He ceased walking to and fro, sat down on the sofa, leaned his elbows on the table again and held his head tight in both hands. He pulled the wet towel off and flung it away in vexation. It was evidently of no use. 'Your nerves are out of order, observed the gentleman, with a carelessly easy, though perfectly polite, air. 'You are angry with me even for being able to catch cold, though it happened in a most natural way. I was hurrying then to a diplomatic soire at the house of a lady of high rank in Petersburg, who was aiming at influence in the Ministry. Well, an evening suit, white tie, gloves, though I was God knows where and had to fly through space to reach your earth.... Of course, it took only an instant, but you know a ray of light from the sun takes full eight minutes, and fancy in an evening suit and open waistcoat. Spirits don't freeze, but when one's in fleshly form, well ... in brief, I didn't think, and set off, and you know in those ethereal spaces, in the water that is above the firmament, there's such a frost ... at least one can't call it frost, you can fancy,  degrees below zero! You know the game the village girls playthey invite the unwary to lick an ax in thirty degrees of frost, the tongue instantly freezes to it and the dupe tears the skin off, so it bleeds. But that's only in  degrees, in  degrees I imagine it would be enough to put your finger on the ax and it would be the end of it ... if only there could be an ax there. 'And can there be an ax there? Ivan interrupted, carelessly and disdainfully. He was exerting himself to the utmost not to believe in the delusion and not to sink into complete insanity. 'An ax? the guest interrupted in surprise. 'Yes, what would become of an ax there? Ivan cried suddenly, with a sort of savage and insistent obstinacy. 'What would become of an ax in space? Quelle ide! If it were to fall to any distance, it would begin, I think, flying round the earth without knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would calculate the rising and the setting of the ax, Gatzuk would put it in his calendar, that's all. 'You are stupid, awfully stupid, said Ivan peevishly. 'Fib more cleverly or I won't listen. You want to get the better of me by realism, to convince me that you exist, but I don't want to believe you exist! I won't believe it! 'But I am not fibbing, it's all the truth the truth is unhappily hardly ever amusing. I see you persist in expecting something big of me, and perhaps something fine. That's a great pity, for I only give what I can 'Don't talk philosophy, you ass! 'Philosophy, indeed, when all my right side is numb and I am moaning and groaning. I've tried all the medical faculty they can diagnose beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their fingertips, but they've no idea how to cure you. There was an enthusiastic little student here, 'You may die,' said he, 'but you'll know perfectly what disease you are dying of!' And then what a way they have sending people to specialists! 'We only diagnose,' they say, 'but go to suchandsuch a specialist, he'll cure you.' The old doctor who used to cure all sorts of disease has completely disappeared, I assure you, now there are only specialists and they all advertise in the newspapers. If anything is wrong with your nose, they send you to Paris there, they say, is a European specialist who cures noses. If you go to Paris, he'll look at your nose I can only cure your right nostril, he'll tell you, for I don't cure the left nostril, that's not my speciality, but go to Vienna, there there's a specialist who will cure your left nostril. What are you to do? I fell back on popular remedies, a German doctor advised me to rub myself with honey and salt in the bathhouse. Solely to get an extra bath I went, smeared myself all over and it did me no good at all. In despair I wrote to Count Mattei in Milan. He sent me a book and some drops, bless him, and, only fancy, Hoff's malt extract cured me! I bought it by accident, drank a bottle and a half of it, and I was ready to dance, it took it away completely. I made up my mind to write to the papers to thank him, I was prompted by a feeling of gratitude, and only fancy, it led to no end of a bother not a single paper would take my letter. 'It would be very reactionary,' they said, 'no one will believe it. Le diable n'existe point. You'd better remain anonymous,' they advised me. What use is a letter of thanks if it's anonymous? I laughed with the men at the newspaper office 'It's reactionary to believe in God in our days,' I said, 'but I am the devil, so I may be believed in.' 'We quite understand that,' they said. 'Who doesn't believe in the devil? Yet it won't do, it might injure our reputation. As a joke, if you like.' But I thought as a joke it wouldn't be very witty. So it wasn't printed. And do you know, I have felt sore about it to this day. My best feelings, gratitude, for instance, are literally denied me simply from my social position. 'Philosophical reflections again? Ivan snarled malignantly. 'God preserve me from it, but one can't help complaining sometimes. I am a slandered man. You upbraid me every moment with being stupid. One can see you are young. My dear fellow, intelligence isn't the only thing! I have naturally a kind and merry heart. 'I also write vaudevilles of all sorts.' You seem to take me for Hlestakov grown old, but my fate is a far more serious one. Before time was, by some decree which I could never make out, I was predestined 'to deny' and yet I am genuinely goodhearted and not at all inclined to negation. 'No, you must go and deny, without denial there's no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of criticism?' Without criticism it would be nothing but one 'hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat, they've made me write the column of criticism and so life was made possible. We understand that comedy I, for instance, simply ask for annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there'd be nothing without you. If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. There would be no events without you, and there must be events. So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. You are laughing no, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are for ever angry, all you care about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would give away all this superstellar life, all the ranks and honors, simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God's shrine. 'Then even you don't believe in God? said Ivan, with a smile of hatred. 'What can I say?that is, if you are in earnest 'Is there a God or not? Ivan cried with the same savage intensity. 'Ah, then you are in earnest! My dear fellow, upon my word I don't know. There! I've said it now! 'You don't know, but you see God? No, you are not some one apart, you are myself, you are I and nothing more! You are rubbish, you are my fancy! 'Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that would be true. Je pense, donc je suis, I know that for a fact all the rest, all these worlds, God and even Satanall that is not proved, to my mind. Does all that exist of itself, or is it only an emanation of myself, a logical development of my ego which alone has existed for ever but I make haste to stop, for I believe you will be jumping up to beat me directly. 'You'd better tell me some anecdote! said Ivan miserably. 'There is an anecdote precisely on our subject, or rather a legend, not an anecdote. You reproach me with unbelief, you see, you say, yet you don't believe. But, my dear fellow, I am not the only one like that. We are all in a muddle over there now and all through your science. Once there used to be atoms, five senses, four elements, and then everything hung together somehow. There were atoms in the ancient world even, but since we've learned that you've discovered the chemical molecule and protoplasm and the devil knows what, we had to lower our crest. There's a regular muddle, and, above all, superstition, scandal there's as much scandal among us as among you, you know a little more in fact, and spying, indeed, for we have our secret police department where private information is received. Well, this wild legend belongs to our middle agesnot yours, but oursand no one believes it even among us, except the old ladies of eighteen stone, not your old ladies I mean, but ours. We've everything you have, I am revealing one of our secrets out of friendship for you though it's forbidden. This legend is about Paradise. There was, they say, here on earth a thinker and philosopher. He rejected everything, 'laws, conscience, faith,' and, above all, the future life. He died he expected to go straight to darkness and death and he found a future life before him. He was astounded and indignant. 'This is against my principles!' he said. And he was punished for that ... that is, you must excuse me, I am just repeating what I heard myself, it's only a legend ... he was sentenced to walk a quadrillion kilometers in the dark (we've adopted the metric system, you know) and when he has finished that quadrillion, the gates of heaven would be opened to him and he'll be forgiven 'And what tortures have you in the other world besides the quadrillion kilometers? asked Ivan, with a strange eagerness. 'What tortures? Ah, don't ask. In old days we had all sorts, but now they have taken chiefly to moral punishments'the stings of conscience' and all that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from the softening of your manners. And who's the better for it? Only those who have got no conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience when they have none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense of honor suffer for it. Reforms, when the ground has not been prepared for them, especially if they are institutions copied from abroad, do nothing but mischief! The ancient fire was better. Well, this man, who was condemned to the quadrillion kilometers, stood still, looked round and lay down across the road. 'I won't go, I refuse on principle!' Take the soul of an enlightened Russian atheist and mix it with the soul of the prophet Jonah, who sulked for three days and nights in the belly of the whale, and you get the character of that thinker who lay across the road. 'What did he lie on there? 'Well, I suppose there was something to lie on. You are not laughing? 'Bravo! cried Ivan, still with the same strange eagerness. Now he was listening with an unexpected curiosity. 'Well, is he lying there now? 'That's the point, that he isn't. He lay there almost a thousand years and then he got up and went on. 'What an ass! cried Ivan, laughing nervously and still seeming to be pondering something intently. 'Does it make any difference whether he lies there for ever or walks the quadrillion kilometers? It would take a billion years to walk it? 'Much more than that. I haven't got a pencil and paper or I could work it out. But he got there long ago, and that's where the story begins. 'What, he got there? But how did he get the billion years to do it? 'Why, you keep thinking of our present earth! But our present earth may have been repeated a billion times. Why, it's become extinct, been frozen cracked, broken to bits, disintegrated into its elements, again 'the water above the firmament,' then again a comet, again a sun, again from the sun it becomes earthand the same sequence may have been repeated endlessly and exactly the same to every detail, most unseemly and insufferably tedious 'Well, well, what happened when he arrived? 'Why, the moment the gates of Paradise were open and he walked in, before he had been there two seconds, by his watch (though to my thinking his watch must have long dissolved into its elements on the way), he cried out that those two seconds were worth walking not a quadrillion kilometers but a quadrillion of quadrillions, raised to the quadrillionth power! In fact, he sang 'hosannah' and overdid it so, that some persons there of lofty ideas wouldn't shake hands with him at firsthe'd become too rapidly reactionary, they said. The Russian temperament. I repeat, it's a legend. I give it for what it's worth. So that's the sort of ideas we have on such subjects even now. 'I've caught you! Ivan cried, with an almost childish delight, as though he had succeeded in remembering something at last. 'That anecdote about the quadrillion years, I made up myself! I was seventeen then, I was at the high school. I made up that anecdote and told it to a schoolfellow called Korovkin, it was at Moscow.... The anecdote is so characteristic that I couldn't have taken it from anywhere. I thought I'd forgotten it ... but I've unconsciously recalled itI recalled it myselfit was not you telling it! Thousands of things are unconsciously remembered like that even when people are being taken to execution ... it's come back to me in a dream. You are that dream! You are a dream, not a living creature! 'From the vehemence with which you deny my existence, laughed the gentleman, 'I am convinced that you believe in me. 'Not in the slightest! I haven't a hundredth part of a grain of faith in you! 'But you have the thousandth of a grain. Homeopathic doses perhaps are the strongest. Confess that you have faith even to the tenthousandth of a grain. 'Not for one minute, cried Ivan furiously. 'But I should like to believe in you, he added strangely. 'Aha! There's an admission! But I am goodnatured. I'll come to your assistance again. Listen, it was I caught you, not you me. I told you your anecdote you'd forgotten, on purpose, so as to destroy your faith in me completely. 'You are lying. The object of your visit is to convince me of your existence! 'Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbeliefis sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as you are, that it's better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you are inclined to believe in me, I administered some disbelief by telling you that anecdote. I lead you to belief and disbelief by turns, and I have my motive in it. It's the new method. As soon as you disbelieve in me completely, you'll begin assuring me to my face that I am not a dream but a reality. I know you. Then I shall have attained my object, which is an honorable one. I shall sow in you only a tiny grain of faith and it will grow into an oaktreeand such an oaktree that, sitting on it, you will long to enter the ranks of 'the hermits in the wilderness and the saintly women,' for that is what you are secretly longing for. You'll dine on locusts, you'll wander into the wilderness to save your soul! 'Then it's for the salvation of my soul you are working, is it, you scoundrel? 'One must do a good work sometimes. How illhumored you are! 'Fool! did you ever tempt those holy men who ate locusts and prayed seventeen years in the wilderness till they were overgrown with moss? 'My dear fellow, I've done nothing else. One forgets the whole world and all the worlds, and sticks to one such saint, because he is a very precious diamond. One such soul, you know, is sometimes worth a whole constellation. We have our system of reckoning, you know. The conquest is priceless! And some of them, on my word, are not inferior to you in culture, though you won't believe it. They can contemplate such depths of belief and disbelief at the same moment that sometimes it really seems that they are within a hair'sbreadth of being 'turned upside down,' as the actor Gorbunov says. 'Well, did you get your nose pulled? 'My dear fellow, observed the visitor sententiously, 'it's better to get off with your nose pulled than without a nose at all. As an afflicted marquis observed not long ago (he must have been treated by a specialist) in confession to his spiritual fathera Jesuit. I was present, it was simply charming. 'Give me back my nose!' he said, and he beat his breast. 'My son,' said the priest evasively, 'all things are accomplished in accordance with the inscrutable decrees of Providence, and what seems a misfortune sometimes leads to extraordinary, though unapparent, benefits. If stern destiny has deprived you of your nose, it's to your advantage that no one can ever pull you by your nose.' 'Holy father, that's no comfort,' cried the despairing marquis. 'I'd be delighted to have my nose pulled every day of my life, if it were only in its proper place.' 'My son,' sighs the priest, 'you can't expect every blessing at once. This is murmuring against Providence, who even in this has not forgotten you, for if you repine as you repined just now, declaring you'd be glad to have your nose pulled for the rest of your life, your desire has already been fulfilled indirectly, for when you lost your nose, you were led by the nose.'  'Fool, how stupid! cried Ivan. 'My dear friend, I only wanted to amuse you. But I swear that's the genuine Jesuit casuistry and I swear that it all happened word for word as I've told you. It happened lately and gave me a great deal of trouble. The unhappy young man shot himself that very night when he got home. I was by his side till the very last moment. Those Jesuit confessionals are really my most delightful diversion at melancholy moments. Here's another incident that happened only the other day. A little blonde Norman girl of twentya buxom, unsophisticated beauty that would make your mouth watercomes to an old priest. She bends down and whispers her sin into the grating. 'Why, my daughter, have you fallen again already?' cries the priest. 'O Sancta Maria, what do I hear! Not the same man this time, how long is this going on? Aren't you ashamed!' 'Ah, mon pre,' answers the sinner with tears of penitence, 'a lui fait tant de plaisir, et  moi si peu de peine!' Fancy, such an answer! I drew back. It was the cry of nature, better than innocence itself, if you like. I absolved her sin on the spot and was turning to go, but I was forced to turn back. I heard the priest at the grating making an appointment with her for the eveningthough he was an old man hard as flint, he fell in an instant! It was nature, the truth of nature asserted its rights! What, you are turning up your nose again? Angry again? I don't know how to please you 'Leave me alone, you are beating on my brain like a haunting nightmare, Ivan moaned miserably, helpless before his apparition. 'I am bored with you, agonizingly and insufferably. I would give anything to be able to shake you off! 'I repeat, moderate your expectations, don't demand of me 'everything great and noble' and you'll see how well we shall get on, said the gentleman impressively. 'You are really angry with me for not having appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, with scorched wings, but have shown myself in such a modest form. You are wounded, in the first place, in your esthetic feelings, and, secondly, in your pride. How could such a vulgar devil visit such a great man as you! Yes, there is that romantic strain in you, that was so derided by Byelinsky. I can't help it, young man, as I got ready to come to you I did think as a joke of appearing in the figure of a retired general who had served in the Caucasus, with a star of the Lion and the Sun on my coat. But I was positively afraid of doing it, for you'd have thrashed me for daring to pin the Lion and the Sun on my coat, instead of, at least, the Polar Star or the Sirius. And you keep on saying I am stupid, but, mercy on us! I make no claim to be equal to you in intelligence. Mephistopheles declared to Faust that he desired evil, but did only good. Well, he can say what he likes, it's quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the one man in all creation who loves the truth and genuinely desires good. I was there when the Word, Who died on the Cross, rose up into heaven bearing on His bosom the soul of the penitent thief. I heard the glad shrieks of the cherubim singing and shouting hosannah and the thunderous rapture of the seraphim which shook heaven and all creation, and I swear to you by all that's sacred, I longed to join the choir and shout hosannah with them all. The word had almost escaped me, had almost broken from my lips ... you know how susceptible and esthetically impressionable I am. But common senseoh, a most unhappy trait in my characterkept me in due bounds and I let the moment pass! For what would have happened, I reflected, what would have happened after my hosannah? Everything on earth would have been extinguished at once and no events could have occurred. And so, solely from a sense of duty and my social position, I was forced to suppress the good moment and to stick to my nasty task. Somebody takes all the credit of what's good for Himself, and nothing but nastiness is left for me. But I don't envy the honor of a life of idle imposture, I am not ambitious. Why am I, of all creatures in the world, doomed to be cursed by all decent people and even to be kicked, for if I put on mortal form I am bound to take such consequences sometimes? I know, of course, there's a secret in it, but they won't tell me the secret for anything, for then perhaps, seeing the meaning of it, I might bawl hosannah, and the indispensable minus would disappear at once, and good sense would reign supreme throughout the whole world. And that, of course, would mean the end of everything, even of magazines and newspapers, for who would take them in? I know that at the end of all things I shall be reconciled. I, too, shall walk my quadrillion and learn the secret. But till that happens I am sulking and fulfill my destiny though it's against the grainthat is, to ruin thousands for the sake of saving one. How many souls have had to be ruined and how many honorable reputations destroyed for the sake of that one righteous man, Job, over whom they made such a fool of me in old days! Yes, till the secret is revealed, there are two sorts of truths for meone, their truth, yonder, which I know nothing about so far, and the other my own. And there's no knowing which will turn out the better.... Are you asleep? 'I might well be, Ivan groaned angrily. 'All my stupid ideasoutgrown, thrashed out long ago, and flung aside like a dead carcassyou present to me as something new! 'There's no pleasing you! And I thought I should fascinate you by my literary style. That hosannah in the skies really wasn't bad, was it? And then that ironical tone  la Heine, eh? 'No, I was never such a flunkey! How then could my soul beget a flunkey like you? 'My dear fellow, I know a most charming and attractive young Russian gentleman, a young thinker and a great lover of literature and art, the author of a promising poem entitled The Grand Inquisitor. I was only thinking of him! 'I forbid you to speak of The Grand Inquisitor, cried Ivan, crimson with shame. 'And the Geological Cataclysm. Do you remember? That was a poem, now! 'Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you! 'You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering with eagerness for life! 'There are new men,' you decided last spring, when you were meaning to come here, 'they propose to destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we have to set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them denied Godand I believe that period, analogous with geological periods, will come to passthe old conception of the universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man god will appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Every one will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him that it's useless for him to repine at life's being a moment, and he will love his brother without need of reward. Love will be sufficient only for a moment of life, but the very consciousness of its momentariness will intensify its fire, which now is dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the grave'... and so on and so on in the same style. Charming! Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears, but he began trembling all over. The voice continued. 'The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible that such a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined and humanity is settled for ever. But as, owing to man's inveterate stupidity, this cannot come about for at least a thousand years, every one who recognizes the truth even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases, on the new principles. In that sense, 'all things are lawful' for him. What's more, even if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no immortality, the new man may well become the mangod, even if he is the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position, he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the old slaveman, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place ... 'all things are lawful' and that's the end of it! That's all very charming but if you want to swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that's our modern Russian all over. He can't bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so in love with truth The visitor talked, obviously carried away by his own eloquence, speaking louder and louder and looking ironically at his host. But he did not succeed in finishing Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from the table and flung it at the orator. 'Ah, mais c'est bte enfin, cried the latter, jumping up from the sofa and shaking the drops of tea off himself. 'He remembers Luther's inkstand! He takes me for a dream and throws glasses at a dream! It's like a woman! I suspected you were only pretending to stop up your ears. A loud, persistent knocking was suddenly heard at the window. Ivan jumped up from the sofa. 'Do you hear? You'd better open, cried the visitor 'it's your brother Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I'll be bound! 'Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming, and of course he has not come for nothing of course he brings 'news,'  Ivan exclaimed frantically. 'Open, open to him. There's a snowstorm and he is your brother. Monsieur saitil le temps qu'il fait? C'est  ne pas mettre un chien dehors. The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window, but something seemed to fetter his arms and legs. He strained every effort to break his chains, but in vain. The knocking at the window grew louder and louder. At last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt up from the sofa. He looked round him wildly. Both candles had almost burnt out, the glass he had just thrown at his visitor stood before him on the table, and there was no one on the sofa opposite. The knocking on the window frame went on persistently, but it was by no means so loud as it had seemed in his dream on the contrary, it was quite subdued. 'It was not a dream! No, I swear it was not a dream, it all happened just now! cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the movable pane. 'Alyosha, I told you not to come, he cried fiercely to his brother. 'In two words, what do you want? In two words, do you hear? 'An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself, Alyosha answered from the yard. 'Come round to the steps, I'll open at once, said Ivan, going to open the door to Alyosha. Alyosha coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had taken his own life. 'I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging on a nail in the wall. On Alyosha's inquiring whether she had informed the police, she answered that she had told no one, 'but I flew straight to you, I've run all the way. She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported, and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note 'I destroy my life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on any one. Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police captain and told him all about it. 'And from him I've come straight to you, said Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently into Ivan's face. He had not taken his eyes off him while he told his story, as though struck by something in his expression. 'Brother, he cried suddenly, 'you must be terribly ill. You look and don't seem to understand what I tell you. 'It's a good thing you came, said Ivan, as though brooding, and not hearing Alyosha's exclamation. 'I knew he had hanged himself. 'From whom? 'I don't know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me so just now. Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same brooding tone, looking at the ground. 'Who is he? asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round. 'He's slipped away. Ivan raised his head and smiled softly. 'He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a 'pure cherub.' Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub!... the thunderous rapture of the seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhaps that constellation is only a chemical molecule. There's a constellation of the Lion and the Sun. Don't you know it? 'Brother, sit down, said Alyosha in alarm. 'For goodness' sake, sit down on the sofa! You are delirious put your head on the pillow, that's right. Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it will do you good. 'Give me the towel it's here on the chair. I just threw it down there. 'It's not here. Don't worry yourself. I know where it ishere, said Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan's dressing table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant. 'Stayhe got up from the sofa'an hour ago I took that new towel from there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it down here ... How is it it's dry? There was no other. 'You put that towel on your head? asked Alyosha. 'Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago ... Why have the candles burnt down so? What's the time? 'Nearly twelve. 'No, no, no! Ivan cried suddenly. 'It was not a dream. He was here he was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I threw a glass at him ... this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time, but this dream was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dreams now, Alyosha ... yet they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about, talk and see ... though I am asleep. But he was sitting here, on that sofa there.... He is frightfully stupid, Alyosha, frightfully stupid. Ivan laughed suddenly and began pacing about the room. 'Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother? Alyosha asked anxiously again. 'The devil! He's taken to visiting me. He's been here twice, almost three times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he is not Satan that's a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devila paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you'd be sure to find he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog's, a yard long, dun color.... Alyosha, you are cold. You've been in the snow. Would you like some tea? What? Is it cold? Shall I tell her to bring some? C'est  ne pas mettre un chien dehors.... Alyosha ran to the washingstand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat down beside him. 'What were you telling me just now about Lise? Ivan began again. (He was becoming very talkative.) 'I like Lise. I said something nasty about her. It was a lie. I like her ... I am afraid for Katya tomorrow. I am more afraid of her than of anything. On account of the future. She will cast me off tomorrow and trample me under foot. She thinks that I am ruining Mitya from jealousy on her account! Yes, she thinks that! But it's not so. Tomorrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I shan't hang myself. Do you know, I can never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am not a coward. Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had hanged himself? Yes, it was he told me so. 'And you are quite convinced that there has been some one here? asked Alyosha. 'Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. You did drive him away he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face, Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And he is myself, Alyosha. All that's base in me, all that's mean and contemptible. Yes, I am a romantic. He guessed it ... though it's a libel. He is frightfully stupid but it's to his advantage. He has cunning, animal cunninghe knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him, and that was how he made me listen to him. He fooled me like a boy. He told me a great deal that was true about myself, though. I should never have owned it to myself. Do you know, Alyosha, Ivan added in an intensely earnest and confidential tone, 'I should be awfully glad to think that it was he and not I. 'He has worn you out, said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his brother. 'He's been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so cleverly. 'Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Why am I tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind for the seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall be gods.' It was he said that, it was he said that! 'And not you, not you? Alyosha could not help crying, looking frankly at his brother. 'Never mind him, anyway have done with him and forget him. And let him take with him all that you curse now, and never come back! 'Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha, Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. 'But he was unfair to me, unfair to me about lots of things. He told lies about me to my face. 'Oh, you are going to perform an act of heroic virtue to confess you murdered your father, that the valet murdered him at your instigation.'  'Brother, Alyosha interposed, 'restrain yourself. It was not you murdered him. It's not true! 'That's what he says, he, and he knows it. 'You are going to perform an act of heroic virtue, and you don't believe in virtue that's what tortures you and makes you angry, that's why you are so vindictive.' He said that to me about me and he knows what he says. 'It's you say that, not he, exclaimed Alyosha mournfully, 'and you say it because you are ill and delirious, tormenting yourself. 'No, he knows what he says. 'You are going from pride,' he says. 'You'll stand up and say it was I killed him, and why do you writhe with horror? You are lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror!' He said that about me. 'And do you know you are longing for their praise'he is a criminal, a murderer, but what a generous soul he wanted to save his brother and he confessed. ' That's a lie, Alyosha! Ivan cried suddenly, with flashing eyes. 'I don't want the low rabble to praise me, I swear I don't! That's a lie! That's why I threw the glass at him and it broke against his ugly face. 'Brother, calm yourself, stop! Alyosha entreated him. 'Yes, he knows how to torment one. He's cruel, Ivan went on, unheeding. 'I had an inkling from the first what he came for. 'Granting that you go through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov might be convicted and sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, while you would only be punished with moral condemnation' ('Do you hear?' he laughed then)'and some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov's dead, he has hanged himself, and who'll believe you alone? But yet you are going, you are going, you'll go all the same, you've decided to go. What are you going for now?' That's awful, Alyosha. I can't endure such questions. Who dare ask me such questions? 'Brother, interposed Alyoshahis heart sank with terror, but he still seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason'how could he have told you of Smerdyakov's death before I came, when no one knew of it and there was no time for any one to know of it? 'He told me, said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. 'It was all he did talk about, if you come to that. 'And it would be all right if you believed in virtue,' he said. 'No matter if they disbelieve you, you are going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig like Fyodor Pavlovitch, and what do you want with virtue? Why do you want to go meddling if your sacrifice is of no use to any one? Because you don't know yourself why you go! Oh, you'd give a great deal to know yourself why you go! And can you have made up your mind? You've not made up your mind. You'll sit all night deliberating whether to go or not. But you will go you know you'll go. You know that whichever way you decide, the decision does not depend on you. You'll go because you won't dare not to go. Why won't you dare? You must guess that for yourself. That's a riddle for you!' He got up and went away. You came and he went. He called me a coward, Alyosha! Le mot de l'nigme is that I am a coward. 'It is not for such eagles to soar above the earth.' It was he added thathe! And Smerdyakov said the same. He must be killed! Katya despises me. I've seen that for a month past. Even Lise will begin to despise me! 'You are going in order to be praised.' That's a brutal lie! And you despise me too, Alyosha. Now I am going to hate you again! And I hate the monster, too! I hate the monster! I don't want to save the monster. Let him rot in Siberia! He's begun singing a hymn! Oh, tomorrow I'll go, stand before them, and spit in their faces! He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing up and down the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said. 'I seem to be sleeping awake.... I walk, I speak, I see, but I am asleep. It seemed to be just like that now. Alyosha did not leave him. The thought passed through his mind to run for a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his brother alone there was no one to whom he could leave him. By degrees Ivan lost consciousness completely at last. He still went on talking, talking incessantly, but quite incoherently, and even articulated his words with difficulty. Suddenly he staggered violently but Alyosha was in time to support him. Ivan let him lead him to his bed. Alyosha undressed him somehow and put him to bed. He sat watching over him for another two hours. The sick man slept soundly, without stirring, breathing softly and evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa, without undressing. As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He began to understand Ivan's illness. 'The anguish of a proud determination. An earnest conscience! God, in Whom he disbelieved, and His truth were gaining mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. 'Yes, the thought floated through Alyosha's head as it lay on the pillow, 'yes, if Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan's evidence but he will go and give it. Alyosha smiled softly. 'God will conquer! he thought. 'He will either rise up in the light of truth, or ... he'll perish in hate, revenging on himself and on every one his having served the cause he does not believe in, Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan. At ten o'clock in the morning of the day following the events I have described, the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began in our district court. I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming myself capable of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail, or even in the actual order of events. I imagine that to mention everything with full explanation would fill a volume, even a very large one. And so I trust I may not be reproached, for confining myself to what struck me. I may have selected as of most interest what was of secondary importance, and may have omitted the most prominent and essential details. But I see I shall do better not to apologize. I will do my best and the reader will see for himself that I have done all I can. And, to begin with, before entering the court, I will mention what surprised me most on that day. Indeed, as it appeared later, every one was surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had aroused great interest, that every one was burning with impatience for the trial to begin, that it had been a subject of talk, conjecture, exclamation and surmise for the last two months in local society. Every one knew, too, that the case had become known throughout Russia, but yet we had not imagined that it had aroused such burning, such intense, interest in every one, not only among ourselves, but all over Russia. This became evident at the trial this day. Visitors had arrived not only from the chief town of our province, but from several other Russian towns, as well as from Moscow and Petersburg. Among them were lawyers, ladies, and even several distinguished personages. Every ticket of admission had been snatched up. A special place behind the table at which the three judges sat was set apart for the most distinguished and important of the men visitors a row of armchairs had been placed theresomething exceptional, which had never been allowed before. A large proportionnot less than half of the publicwere ladies. There was such a large number of lawyers from all parts that they did not know where to seat them, for every ticket had long since been eagerly sought for and distributed. I saw at the end of the room, behind the platform, a special partition hurriedly put up, behind which all these lawyers were admitted, and they thought themselves lucky to have standing room there, for all chairs had been removed for the sake of space, and the crowd behind the partition stood throughout the case closely packed, shoulder to shoulder. Some of the ladies, especially those who came from a distance, made their appearance in the gallery very smartly dressed, but the majority of the ladies were oblivious even of dress. Their faces betrayed hysterical, intense, almost morbid, curiosity. A peculiar factestablished afterwards by many observationswas that almost all the ladies, or, at least the vast majority of them, were on Mitya's side and in favor of his being acquitted. This was perhaps chiefly owing to his reputation as a conqueror of female hearts. It was known that two women rivals were to appear in the case. One of themKaterina Ivanovnawas an object of general interest. All sorts of extraordinary tales were told about her, amazing anecdotes of her passion for Mitya, in spite of his crime. Her pride and 'aristocratic connections were particularly insisted upon (she had called upon scarcely any one in the town). People said she intended to petition the Government for leave to accompany the criminal to Siberia and to be married to him somewhere in the mines. The appearance of Grushenka in court was awaited with no less impatience. The public was looking forward with anxious curiosity to the meeting of the two rivalsthe proud aristocratic girl and 'the hetaira. But Grushenka was a more familiar figure to the ladies of the district than Katerina Ivanovna. They had already seen 'the woman who had ruined Fyodor Pavlovitch and his unhappy son, and all, almost without exception, wondered how father and son could be so in love with 'such a very common, ordinary Russian girl, who was not even pretty. In brief, there was a great deal of talk. I know for a fact that there were several serious family quarrels on Mitya's account in our town. Many ladies quarreled violently with their husbands over differences of opinion about the dreadful case, and it was only natural that the husbands of these ladies, far from being favorably disposed to the prisoner, should enter the court bitterly prejudiced against him. In fact, one may say pretty certainly that the masculine, as distinguished from the feminine, part of the audience were biased against the prisoner. There were numbers of severe, frowning, even vindictive faces. Mitya, indeed, had managed to offend many people during his stay in the town. Some of the visitors were, of course, in excellent spirits and quite unconcerned as to the fate of Mitya personally. But all were interested in the trial, and the majority of the men were certainly hoping for the conviction of the criminal, except perhaps the lawyers, who were more interested in the legal than in the moral aspect of the case. Everybody was excited at the presence of the celebrated lawyer, Fetyukovitch. His talent was well known, and this was not the first time he had defended notorious criminal cases in the provinces. And if he defended them, such cases became celebrated and long remembered all over Russia. There were stories, too, about our prosecutor and about the President of the Court. It was said that Ippolit Kirillovitch was in a tremor at meeting Fetyukovitch, and that they had been enemies from the beginning of their careers in Petersburg, that though our sensitive prosecutor, who always considered that he had been aggrieved by some one in Petersburg because his talents had not been properly appreciated, was keenly excited over the Karamazov case, and was even dreaming of rebuilding his flagging fortunes by means of it, Fetyukovitch, they said, was his one anxiety. But these rumors were not quite just. Our prosecutor was not one of those men who lose heart in face of danger. On the contrary, his selfconfidence increased with the increase of danger. It must be noted that our prosecutor was in general too hasty and morbidly impressionable. He would put his whole soul into some case and work at it as though his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on its result. This was the subject of some ridicule in the legal world, for just by this characteristic our prosecutor had gained a wider notoriety than could have been expected from his modest position. People laughed particularly at his passion for psychology. In my opinion, they were wrong, and our prosecutor was, I believe, a character of greater depth than was generally supposed. But with his delicate health he had failed to make his mark at the outset of his career and had never made up for it later. As for the President of our Court, I can only say that he was a humane and cultured man, who had a practical knowledge of his work and progressive views. He was rather ambitious, but did not concern himself greatly about his future career. The great aim of his life was to be a man of advanced ideas. He was, too, a man of connections and property. He felt, as we learnt afterwards, rather strongly about the Karamazov case, but from a social, not from a personal standpoint. He was interested in it as a social phenomenon, in its classification and its character as a product of our social conditions, as typical of the national character, and so on, and so on. His attitude to the personal aspect of the case, to its tragic significance and the persons involved in it, including the prisoner, was rather indifferent and abstract, as was perhaps fitting, indeed. The court was packed and overflowing long before the judges made their appearance. Our court is the best hall in the townspacious, lofty, and good for sound. On the right of the judges, who were on a raised platform, a table and two rows of chairs had been put ready for the jury. On the left was the place for the prisoner and the counsel for the defense. In the middle of the court, near the judges, was a table with the 'material proofs. On it lay Fyodor Pavlovitch's white silk dressinggown, stained with blood the fatal brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been committed Mitya's shirt, with a bloodstained sleeve his coat, stained with blood in patches over the pocket in which he had put his handkerchief the handkerchief itself, stiff with blood and by now quite yellow the pistol loaded by Mitya at Perhotin's with a view to suicide, and taken from him on the sly at Mokroe by Trifon Borissovitch the envelope in which the three thousand roubles had been put ready for Grushenka, the narrow pink ribbon with which it had been tied, and many other articles I don't remember. In the body of the hall, at some distance, came the seats for the public. But in front of the balustrade a few chairs had been placed for witnesses who remained in the court after giving their evidence. At ten o'clock the three judges arrivedthe President, one honorary justice of the peace, and one other. The prosecutor, of course, entered immediately after. The President was a short, stout, thickset man of fifty, with a dyspeptic complexion, dark hair turning gray and cut short, and a red ribbon, of what Order I don't remember. The prosecutor struck me and the others, too, as looking particularly pale, almost green. His face seemed to have grown suddenly thinner, perhaps in a single night, for I had seen him looking as usual only two days before. The President began with asking the court whether all the jury were present. But I see I can't go on like this, partly because some things I did not hear, others I did not notice, and others I have forgotten, but most of all because, as I have said before, I have literally no time or space to mention everything that was said and done. I only know that neither side objected to very many of the jurymen. I remember the twelve jurymenfour were petty officials of the town, two were merchants, and six peasants and artisans of the town. I remember, long before the trial, questions were continually asked with some surprise, especially by ladies 'Can such a delicate, complex and psychological case be submitted for decision to petty officials and even peasants? and 'What can an official, still more a peasant, understand in such an affair? All the four officials in the jury were, in fact, men of no consequence and of low rank. Except one who was rather younger, they were grayheaded men, little known in society, who had vegetated on a pitiful salary, and who probably had elderly, unpresentable wives and crowds of children, perhaps even without shoes and stockings. At most, they spent their leisure over cards and, of course, had never read a single book. The two merchants looked respectable, but were strangely silent and stolid. One of them was closeshaven, and was dressed in European style the other had a small, gray beard, and wore a red ribbon with some sort of a medal upon it on his neck. There is no need to speak of the artisans and the peasants. The artisans of Skotoprigonyevsk are almost peasants, and even work on the land. Two of them also wore European dress, and, perhaps for that reason, were dirtier and more uninvitinglooking than the others. So that one might well wonder, as I did as soon as I had looked at them, 'what men like that could possibly make of such a case? Yet their faces made a strangely imposing, almost menacing, impression they were stern and frowning. At last the President opened the case of the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov. I don't quite remember how he described him. The court usher was told to bring in the prisoner, and Mitya made his appearance. There was a hush through the court. One could have heard a fly. I don't know how it was with others, but Mitya made a most unfavorable impression on me. He looked an awful dandy in a brandnew frockcoat. I heard afterwards that he had ordered it in Moscow expressly for the occasion from his own tailor, who had his measure. He wore immaculate black kid gloves and exquisite linen. He walked in with his yardlong strides, looking stiffly straight in front of him, and sat down in his place with a most unperturbed air. At the same moment the counsel for defense, the celebrated Fetyukovitch, entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court. He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale fingers, cleanshaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin lips that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would have been pleasant, if it had not been for his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set remarkably close together, with only the thin, long nose as a dividing line between them. In fact, there was something strikingly birdlike about his face. He was in evening dress and white tie. I remember the President's first questions to Mitya, about his name, his calling, and so on. Mitya answered sharply, and his voice was so unexpectedly loud that it made the President start and look at the prisoner with surprise. Then followed a list of persons who were to take part in the proceedingsthat is, of the witnesses and experts. It was a long list. Four of the witnesses were not presentMisov, who had given evidence at the preliminary inquiry, but was now in Paris Madame Hohlakov and Maximov, who were absent through illness and Smerdyakov, through his sudden death, of which an official statement from the police was presented. The news of Smerdyakov's death produced a sudden stir and whisper in the court. Many of the audience, of course, had not heard of the sudden suicide. What struck people most was Mitya's sudden outburst. As soon as the statement of Smerdyakov's death was made, he cried out aloud from his place 'He was a dog and died like a dog! I remember how his counsel rushed to him, and how the President addressed him, threatening to take stern measures, if such an irregularity were repeated. Mitya nodded and in a subdued voice repeated several times abruptly to his counsel, with no show of regret 'I won't again, I won't. It escaped me. I won't do it again. And, of course, this brief episode did him no good with the jury or the public. His character was displayed, and it spoke for itself. It was under the influence of this incident that the opening statement was read. It was rather short, but circumstantial. It only stated the chief reasons why he had been arrested, why he must be tried, and so on. Yet it made a great impression on me. The clerk read it loudly and distinctly. The whole tragedy was suddenly unfolded before us, concentrated, in bold relief, in a fatal and pitiless light. I remember how, immediately after it had been read, the President asked Mitya in a loud impressive voice 'Prisoner, do you plead guilty? Mitya suddenly rose from his seat. 'I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation, he exclaimed, again in a startling, almost frenzied, voice, 'to idleness and debauchery. I meant to become an honest man for good, just at the moment when I was struck down by fate. But I am not guilty of the death of that old man, my enemy and my father. No, no, I am not guilty of robbing him! I could not be. Dmitri Karamazov is a scoundrel, but not a thief. He sat down again, visibly trembling all over. The President again briefly, but impressively, admonished him to answer only what was asked, and not to go off into irrelevant exclamations. Then he ordered the case to proceed. All the witnesses were led up to take the oath. Then I saw them all together. The brothers of the prisoner were, however, allowed to give evidence without taking the oath. After an exhortation from the priest and the President, the witnesses were led away and were made to sit as far as possible apart from one another. Then they began calling them up one by one. I do not know whether the witnesses for the defense and for the prosecution were separated into groups by the President, and whether it was arranged to call them in a certain order. But no doubt it was so. I only know that the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I repeat I don't intend to describe all the questions step by step. Besides, my account would be to some extent superfluous, because in the speeches for the prosecution and for the defense the whole course of the evidence was brought together and set in a strong and significant light, and I took down parts of those two remarkable speeches in full, and will quote them in due course, together with one extraordinary and quite unexpected episode, which occurred before the final speeches, and undoubtedly influenced the sinister and fatal outcome of the trial. I will only observe that from the first moments of the trial one peculiar characteristic of the case was conspicuous and observed by all, that is, the overwhelming strength of the prosecution as compared with the arguments the defense had to rely upon. Every one realized it from the first moment that the facts began to group themselves round a single point, and the whole horrible and bloody crime was gradually revealed. Every one, perhaps, felt from the first that the case was beyond dispute, that there was no doubt about it, that there could be really no discussion, and that the defense was only a matter of form, and that the prisoner was guilty, obviously and conclusively guilty. I imagine that even the ladies, who were so impatiently longing for the acquittal of the interesting prisoner, were at the same time, without exception, convinced of his guilt. What's more, I believe they would have been mortified if his guilt had not been so firmly established, as that would have lessened the effect of the closing scene of the criminal's acquittal. That he would be acquitted, all the ladies, strange to say, were firmly persuaded up to the very last moment. 'He is guilty, but he will be acquitted, from motives of humanity, in accordance with the new ideas, the new sentiments that had come into fashion, and so on, and so on. And that was why they had crowded into the court so impatiently. The men were more interested in the contest between the prosecutor and the famous Fetyukovitch. All were wondering and asking themselves what could even a talent like Fetyukovitch's make of such a desperate case and so they followed his achievements, step by step, with concentrated attention. But Fetyukovitch remained an enigma to all up to the very end, up to his speech. Persons of experience suspected that he had some design, that he was working towards some object, but it was almost impossible to guess what it was. His confidence and selfreliance were unmistakable, however. Every one noticed with pleasure, moreover, that he, after so short a stay, not more than three days, perhaps, among us, had so wonderfully succeeded in mastering the case and 'had studied it to a nicety. People described with relish, afterwards, how cleverly he had 'taken down all the witnesses for the prosecution, and as far as possible perplexed them and, what's more, had aspersed their reputation and so depreciated the value of their evidence. But it was supposed that he did this rather by way of sport, so to speak, for professional glory, to show nothing had been omitted of the accepted methods, for all were convinced that he could do no real good by such disparagement of the witnesses, and probably was more aware of this than any one, having some idea of his own in the background, some concealed weapon of defense, which he would suddenly reveal when the time came. But meanwhile, conscious of his strength, he seemed to be diverting himself. So, for instance, when Grigory, Fyodor Pavlovitch's old servant, who had given the most damning piece of evidence about the open door, was examined, the counsel for the defense positively fastened upon him when his turn came to question him. It must be noted that Grigory entered the hall with a composed and almost stately air, not the least disconcerted by the majesty of the court or the vast audience listening to him. He gave evidence with as much confidence as though he had been talking with his Marfa, only perhaps more respectfully. It was impossible to make him contradict himself. The prosecutor questioned him first in detail about the family life of the Karamazovs. The family picture stood out in lurid colors. It was plain to ear and eye that the witness was guileless and impartial. In spite of his profound reverence for the memory of his deceased master, he yet bore witness that he had been unjust to Mitya and 'hadn't brought up his children as he should. He'd have been devoured by lice when he was little, if it hadn't been for me, he added, describing Mitya's early childhood. 'It wasn't fair either of the father to wrong his son over his mother's property, which was by right his. In reply to the prosecutor's question what grounds he had for asserting that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations, Grigory, to the surprise of every one, had no proof at all to bring forward, but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son was 'unfair, and that he ought 'to have paid him several thousand roubles more. I must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this question whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya's inheritance with marked persistence of all the witnesses who could be asked it, not excepting Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from any one all alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward any distinct proof. Grigory's description of the scene at the dinnertable, when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back to kill him, made a sinister impression on the court, especially as the old servant's composure in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar phraseology, were as effective as eloquence. He observed that he was not angry with Mitya for having knocked him down and struck him on the face he had forgiven him long ago, he said. Of the deceased Smerdyakov he observed, crossing himself, that he was a lad of ability, but stupid and afflicted, and, worse still, an infidel, and that it was Fyodor Pavlovitch and his elder son who had taught him to be so. But he defended Smerdyakov's honesty almost with warmth, and related how Smerdyakov had once found the master's money in the yard, and, instead of concealing it, had taken it to his master, who had rewarded him with a 'gold piece for it, and trusted him implicitly from that time forward. He maintained obstinately that the door into the garden had been open. But he was asked so many questions that I can't recall them all. At last the counsel for the defense began to crossexamine him, and the first question he asked was about the envelope in which Fyodor Pavlovitch was supposed to have put three thousand roubles for 'a certain person. 'Have you ever seen it, you, who were for so many years in close attendance on your master? Grigory answered that he had not seen it and had never heard of the money from any one 'till everybody was talking about it. This question about the envelope Fetyukovitch put to every one who could conceivably have known of it, as persistently as the prosecutor asked his question about Dmitri's inheritance, and got the same answer from all, that no one had seen the envelope, though many had heard of it. From the beginning every one noticed Fetyukovitch's persistence on this subject. 'Now, with your permission I'll ask you a question, Fetyukovitch said, suddenly and unexpectedly. 'Of what was that balsam, or, rather, decoction, made, which, as we learn from the preliminary inquiry, you used on that evening to rub your lumbago, in the hope of curing it? Grigory looked blankly at the questioner, and after a brief silence muttered, 'There was saffron in it. 'Nothing but saffron? Don't you remember any other ingredient? 'There was milfoil in it, too. 'And pepper perhaps? Fetyukovitch queried. 'Yes, there was pepper, too. 'Etcetera. And all dissolved in vodka? 'In spirit. There was a faint sound of laughter in the court. 'You see, in spirit. After rubbing your back, I believe, you drank what was left in the bottle with a certain pious prayer, only known to your wife? 'I did. 'Did you drink much? Roughly speaking, a wineglass or two? 'It might have been a tumblerfull. 'A tumblerfull, even. Perhaps a tumbler and a half? Grigory did not answer. He seemed to see what was meant. 'A glass and a half of neat spiritis not at all bad, don't you think? You might see the gates of heaven open, not only the door into the garden? Grigory remained silent. There was another laugh in the court. The President made a movement. 'Do you know for a fact, Fetyukovitch persisted, 'whether you were awake or not when you saw the open door? 'I was on my legs. 'That's not a proof that you were awake. (There was again laughter in the court.) 'Could you have answered at that moment, if any one had asked you a questionfor instance, what year it is? 'I don't know. 'And what year is it, Anno Domini, do you know? Grigory stood with a perplexed face, looking straight at his tormentor. Strange to say, it appeared he really did not know what year it was. 'But perhaps you can tell me how many fingers you have on your hands? 'I am a servant, Grigory said suddenly, in a loud and distinct voice. 'If my betters think fit to make game of me, it is my duty to suffer it. Fetyukovitch was a little taken aback, and the President intervened, reminding him that he must ask more relevant questions. Fetyukovitch bowed with dignity and said that he had no more questions to ask of the witness. The public and the jury, of course, were left with a grain of doubt in their minds as to the evidence of a man who might, while undergoing a certain cure, have seen 'the gates of heaven, and who did not even know what year he was living in. But before Grigory left the box another episode occurred. The President, turning to the prisoner, asked him whether he had any comment to make on the evidence of the last witness. 'Except about the door, all he has said is true, cried Mitya, in a loud voice. 'For combing the lice off me, I thank him for forgiving my blows, I thank him. The old man has been honest all his life and as faithful to my father as seven hundred poodles. 'Prisoner, be careful in your language, the President admonished him. 'I am not a poodle, Grigory muttered. 'All right, it's I am a poodle myself, cried Mitya. 'If it's an insult, I take it to myself and I beg his pardon. I was a beast and cruel to him. I was cruel to sop too. 'What sop? the President asked sternly again. 'Oh, Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch. The President again and again warned Mitya impressively and very sternly to be more careful in his language. 'You are injuring yourself in the opinion of your judges. The counsel for the defense was equally clever in dealing with the evidence of Rakitin. I may remark that Rakitin was one of the leading witnesses and one to whom the prosecutor attached great significance. It appeared that he knew everything his knowledge was amazing, he had been everywhere, seen everything, talked to everybody, knew every detail of the biography of Fyodor Pavlovitch and all the Karamazovs. Of the envelope, it is true, he had only heard from Mitya himself. But he described minutely Mitya's exploits in the 'Metropolis, all his compromising doings and sayings, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov's 'wisp of tow. But even Rakitin could say nothing positive about Mitya's inheritance, and confined himself to contemptuous generalities. 'Who could tell which of them was to blame, and which was in debt to the other, with their crazy Karamazov way of muddling things so that no one could make head or tail of it? He attributed the tragic crime to the habits that had become ingrained by ages of serfdom and the distressed condition of Russia, due to the lack of appropriate institutions. He was, in fact, allowed some latitude of speech. This was the first occasion on which Rakitin showed what he could do, and attracted notice. The prosecutor knew that the witness was preparing a magazine article on the case, and afterwards in his speech, as we shall see later, quoted some ideas from the article, showing that he had seen it already. The picture drawn by the witness was a gloomy and sinister one, and greatly strengthened the case for the prosecution. Altogether, Rakitin's discourse fascinated the public by its independence and the extraordinary nobility of its ideas. There were even two or three outbreaks of applause when he spoke of serfdom and the distressed condition of Russia. But Rakitin, in his youthful ardor, made a slight blunder, of which the counsel for the defense at once adroitly took advantage. Answering certain questions about Grushenka, and carried away by the loftiness of his own sentiments and his success, of which he was, of course, conscious, he went so far as to speak somewhat contemptuously of Agrafena Alexandrovna as 'the kept mistress of Samsonov. He would have given a good deal to take back his words afterwards, for Fetyukovitch caught him out over it at once. And it was all because Rakitin had not reckoned on the lawyer having been able to become so intimately acquainted with every detail in so short a time. 'Allow me to ask, began the counsel for the defense, with the most affable and even respectful smile, 'you are, of course, the same Mr. Rakitin whose pamphlet, The Life of the Deceased Elder, Father Zossima, published by the diocesan authorities, full of profound and religious reflections and preceded by an excellent and devout dedication to the bishop, I have just read with such pleasure? 'I did not write it for publication ... it was published afterwards, muttered Rakitin, for some reason fearfully disconcerted and almost ashamed. 'Oh, that's excellent! A thinker like you can, and indeed ought to, take the widest view of every social question. Your most instructive pamphlet has been widely circulated through the patronage of the bishop, and has been of appreciable service.... But this is the chief thing I should like to learn from you. You stated just now that you were very intimately acquainted with Madame Svyetlov. (It must be noted that Grushenka's surname was Svyetlov. I heard it for the first time that day, during the case.) 'I cannot answer for all my acquaintances.... I am a young man ... and who can be responsible for every one he meets? cried Rakitin, flushing all over. 'I understand, I quite understand, cried Fetyukovitch, as though he, too, were embarrassed and in haste to excuse himself. 'You, like any other, might well be interested in an acquaintance with a young and beautiful woman who would readily entertain the lite of the youth of the neighborhood, but ... I only wanted to know ... It has come to my knowledge that Madame Svyetlov was particularly anxious a couple of months ago to make the acquaintance of the younger Karamazov, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and promised you twentyfive roubles, if you would bring him to her in his monastic dress. And that actually took place on the evening of the day on which the terrible crime, which is the subject of the present investigation, was committed. You brought Alexey Karamazov to Madame Svyetlov, and did you receive the twentyfive roubles from Madame Svyetlov as a reward, that's what I wanted to hear from you? 'It was a joke.... I don't see of what interest that can be to you.... I took it for a joke ... meaning to give it back later.... 'Then you did take But you have not given it back yet ... or have you? 'That's of no consequence, muttered Rakitin, 'I refuse to answer such questions.... Of course I shall give it back. The President intervened, but Fetyukovitch declared he had no more questions to ask of the witness. Mr. Rakitin left the witnessbox not absolutely without a stain upon his character. The effect left by the lofty idealism of his speech was somewhat marred, and Fetyukovitch's expression, as he watched him walk away, seemed to suggest to the public 'this is a specimen of the loftyminded persons who accuse him. I remember that this incident, too, did not pass off without an outbreak from Mitya. Enraged by the tone in which Rakitin had referred to Grushenka, he suddenly shouted 'Bernard! When, after Rakitin's cross examination, the President asked the prisoner if he had anything to say, Mitya cried loudly 'Since I've been arrested, he has borrowed money from me! He is a contemptible Bernard and opportunist, and he doesn't believe in God he took the bishop in! Mitya, of course, was pulled up again for the intemperance of his language, but Rakitin was done for. Captain Snegiryov's evidence was a failure, too, but from quite a different reason. He appeared in ragged and dirty clothes, muddy boots, and in spite of the vigilance and expert observation of the police officers, he turned out to be hopelessly drunk. On being asked about Mitya's attack upon him, he refused to answer. 'God bless him. Ilusha told me not to. God will make it up to me yonder. 'Who told you not to tell? Of whom are you talking? 'Ilusha, my little son. 'Father, father, how he insulted you!' He said that at the stone. Now he is dying.... The captain suddenly began sobbing, and plumped down on his knees before the President. He was hurriedly led away amidst the laughter of the public. The effect prepared by the prosecutor did not come off at all. Fetyukovitch went on making the most of every opportunity, and amazed people more and more by his minute knowledge of the case. Thus, for example, Trifon Borissovitch made a great impression, of course, very prejudicial to Mitya. He calculated almost on his fingers that on his first visit to Mokroe, Mitya must have spent three thousand roubles, 'or very little less. Just think what he squandered on those gypsy girls alone! And as for our lousy peasants, it wasn't a case of flinging half a rouble in the street, he made them presents of twentyfive roubles each, at least, he didn't give them less. And what a lot of money was simply stolen from him! And if any one did steal, he did not leave a receipt. How could one catch the thief when he was flinging his money away all the time? Our peasants are robbers, you know they have no care for their souls. And the way he went on with the girls, our village girls! They're completely set up since then, I tell you, they used to be poor. He recalled, in fact, every item of expense and added it all up. So the theory that only fifteen hundred had been spent and the rest had been put aside in a little bag seemed inconceivable. 'I saw three thousand as clear as a penny in his hands, I saw it with my own eyes I should think I ought to know how to reckon money, cried Trifon Borissovitch, doing his best to satisfy 'his betters. When Fetyukovitch had to crossexamine him, he scarcely tried to refute his evidence, but began asking him about an incident at the first carousal at Mokroe, a month before the arrest, when Timofey and another peasant called Akim had picked up on the floor in the passage a hundred roubles dropped by Mitya when he was drunk, and had given them to Trifon Borissovitch and received a rouble each from him for doing so. 'Well, asked the lawyer, 'did you give that hundred roubles back to Mr. Karamazov? Trifon Borissovitch shuffled in vain.... He was obliged, after the peasants had been examined, to admit the finding of the hundred roubles, only adding that he had religiously returned it all to Dmitri Fyodorovitch 'in perfect honesty, and it's only because his honor was in liquor at the time, he wouldn't remember it. But, as he had denied the incident of the hundred roubles till the peasants had been called to prove it, his evidence as to returning the money to Mitya was naturally regarded with great suspicion. So one of the most dangerous witnesses brought forward by the prosecution was again discredited. The same thing happened with the Poles. They took up an attitude of pride and independence they vociferated loudly that they had both been in the service of the Crown, and that 'Pan Mitya had offered them three thousand 'to buy their honor, and that they had seen a large sum of money in his hands. Pan Mussyalovitch introduced a terrible number of Polish words into his sentences, and seeing that this only increased his consequence in the eyes of the President and the prosecutor, grew more and more pompous, and ended by talking in Polish altogether. But Fetyukovitch caught them, too, in his snares. Trifon Borissovitch, recalled, was forced, in spite of his evasions, to admit that Pan Vrublevsky had substituted another pack of cards for the one he had provided, and that Pan Mussyalovitch had cheated during the game. Kalganov confirmed this, and both the Poles left the witnessbox with damaged reputations, amidst laughter from the public. Then exactly the same thing happened with almost all the most dangerous witnesses. Fetyukovitch succeeded in casting a slur on all of them, and dismissing them with a certain derision. The lawyers and experts were lost in admiration, and were only at a loss to understand what good purpose could be served by it, for all, I repeat, felt that the case for the prosecution could not be refuted, but was growing more and more tragically overwhelming. But from the confidence of the 'great magician they saw that he was serene, and they waited, feeling that 'such a man had not come from Petersburg for nothing, and that he was not a man to return unsuccessful. The evidence of the medical experts, too, was of little use to the prisoner. And it appeared later that Fetyukovitch had not reckoned much upon it. The medical line of defense had only been taken up through the insistence of Katerina Ivanovna, who had sent for a celebrated doctor from Moscow on purpose. The case for the defense could, of course, lose nothing by it and might, with luck, gain something from it. There was, however, an element of comedy about it, through the difference of opinion of the doctors. The medical experts were the famous doctor from Moscow, our doctor, Herzenstube, and the young doctor, Varvinsky. The two latter appeared also as witnesses for the prosecution. The first to be called in the capacity of expert was Doctor Herzenstube. He was a gray and bald old man of seventy, of middle height and sturdy build. He was much esteemed and respected by every one in the town. He was a conscientious doctor and an excellent and pious man, a Hernguter or Moravian brother, I am not quite sure which. He had been living amongst us for many years and behaved with wonderful dignity. He was a kindhearted and humane man. He treated the sick poor and peasants for nothing, visited them in their slums and huts, and left money for medicine, but he was as obstinate as a mule. If once he had taken an idea into his head, there was no shaking it. Almost every one in the town was aware, by the way, that the famous doctor had, within the first two or three days of his presence among us, uttered some extremely offensive allusions to Doctor Herzenstube's qualifications. Though the Moscow doctor asked twentyfive roubles for a visit, several people in the town were glad to take advantage of his arrival, and rushed to consult him regardless of expense. All these had, of course, been previously patients of Doctor Herzenstube, and the celebrated doctor had criticized his treatment with extreme harshness. Finally, he had asked the patients as soon as he saw them, 'Well, who has been cramming you with nostrums? Herzenstube? He, he! Doctor Herzenstube, of course, heard all this, and now all the three doctors made their appearance, one after another, to be examined. Doctor Herzenstube roundly declared that the abnormality of the prisoner's mental faculties was selfevident. Then giving his grounds for this opinion, which I omit here, he added that the abnormality was not only evident in many of the prisoner's actions in the past, but was apparent even now at this very moment. When he was asked to explain how it was apparent now at this moment, the old doctor, with simplehearted directness, pointed out that the prisoner on entering the court had 'an extraordinary air, remarkable in the circumstances that he had 'marched in like a soldier, looking straight before him, though it would have been more natural for him to look to the left where, among the public, the ladies were sitting, seeing that he was a great admirer of the fair sex and must be thinking much of what the ladies are saying of him now, the old man concluded in his peculiar language. I must add that he spoke Russian readily, but every phrase was formed in German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had always been a weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly, better indeed than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russian proverbs, always declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best and most expressive sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that in conversation, through absentmindedness he often forgot the most ordinary words, which sometimes went out of his head, though he knew them perfectly. The same thing happened, though, when he spoke German, and at such times he always waved his hand before his face as though trying to catch the lost word, and no one could induce him to go on speaking till he had found the missing word. His remark that the prisoner ought to have looked at the ladies on entering roused a whisper of amusement in the audience. All our ladies were very fond of our old doctor they knew, too, that having been all his life a bachelor and a religious man of exemplary conduct, he looked upon women as lofty creatures. And so his unexpected observation struck every one as very queer. The Moscow doctor, being questioned in his turn, definitely and emphatically repeated that he considered the prisoner's mental condition abnormal in the highest degree. He talked at length and with erudition of 'aberration and 'mania, and argued that, from all the facts collected, the prisoner had undoubtedly been in a condition of aberration for several days before his arrest, and, if the crime had been committed by him, it must, even if he were conscious of it, have been almost involuntary, as he had not the power to control the morbid impulse that possessed him. But apart from temporary aberration, the doctor diagnosed mania, which premised, in his words, to lead to complete insanity in the future. (It must be noted that I report this in my own words, the doctor made use of very learned and professional language.) 'All his actions are in contravention of common sense and logic, he continued. 'Not to refer to what I have not seen, that is, the crime itself and the whole catastrophe, the day before yesterday, while he was talking to me, he had an unaccountably fixed look in his eye. He laughed unexpectedly when there was nothing to laugh at. He showed continual and inexplicable irritability, using strange words, 'Bernard!' 'Ethics!' and others equally inappropriate. But the doctor detected mania, above all, in the fact that the prisoner could not even speak of the three thousand roubles, of which he considered himself to have been cheated, without extraordinary irritation, though he could speak comparatively lightly of other misfortunes and grievances. According to all accounts, he had even in the past, whenever the subject of the three thousand roubles was touched on, flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he was reported to be a disinterested and not grasping man. 'As to the opinion of my learned colleague, the Moscow doctor added ironically in conclusion, 'that the prisoner would, on entering the court, have naturally looked at the ladies and not straight before him, I will only say that, apart from the playfulness of this theory, it is radically unsound. For though I fully agree that the prisoner, on entering the court where his fate will be decided, would not naturally look straight before him in that fixed way, and that that may really be a sign of his abnormal mental condition, at the same time I maintain that he would naturally not look to the left at the ladies, but, on the contrary, to the right to find his legal adviser, on whose help all his hopes rest and on whose defense all his future depends. The doctor expressed his opinion positively and emphatically. But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the last touch of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts. In his opinion the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in a perfectly normal condition, and, although he certainly must have been in a nervous and exceedingly excited state before his arrest, this might have been due to several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy, anger, continual drunkenness, and so on. But this nervous condition would not involve the mental aberration of which mention had just been made. As to the question whether the prisoner should have looked to the left or to the right on entering the court, 'in his modest opinion, the prisoner would naturally look straight before him on entering the court, as he had in fact done, as that was where the judges, on whom his fate depended, were sitting. So that it was just by looking straight before him that he showed his perfectly normal state of mind at the present. The young doctor concluded his 'modest testimony with some heat. 'Bravo, doctor! cried Mitya, from his seat, 'just so! Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor's opinion had a decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared afterwards, every one agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, when called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an old resident in the town who had known the Karamazov family for years, he furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as though recalling something, he added 'But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the Russian proverb says, 'If a man has one head, it's good, but if another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be two heads and not only one.'  'One head is good, but two are better, the prosecutor put in impatiently. He knew the old man's habit of talking slowly and deliberately, regardless of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit. The old man was fond of making jokes. 'Oh, yes, that's what I say, he went on stubbornly. 'One head is good, but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and his wits went. Where did they go? I've forgotten the word. He went on, passing his hand before his eyes, 'Oh, yes, spazieren. 'Wandering? 'Oh, yes, wandering, that's what I say. Well, his wits went wandering and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was a grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little chap so high, left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button. A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man's voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and caught at it instantly. 'Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was ... well, I was fortyfive then, and had only just come here. And I was so sorry for the boy then I asked myself why shouldn't I buy him a pound of ... a pound of what? I've forgotten what it's called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what is it, what is it? The doctor began waving his hands again. 'It grows on a tree and is gathered and given to every one.... 'Apples? 'Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there are a lot of them, and all little. You put them in the mouth and crack. 'Nuts? 'Quite so, nuts, I say so. The doctor repeated in the calmest way as though he had been at no loss for a word. 'And I bought him a pound of nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And I lifted my finger and said to him, 'Boy, Gott der Vater.' He laughed and said, 'Gott der Vater.'... 'Gott der Sohn.' He laughed again and lisped, 'Gott der Sohn.' 'Gott der heilige Geist.' Then he laughed and said as best he could, 'Gott der heilige Geist.' I went away, and two days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself, 'Uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn,' and he had only forgotten 'Gott der heilige Geist.' But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry for him again. But he was taken away, and I did not see him again. Twenty three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study, a whitehaired old man, when there walks into the room a blooming young man, whom I should never have recognized, but he held up his finger and said, laughing, 'Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, and Gott der heilige Geist. I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts you are the only one that ever did.' And then I remembered my happy youth and the poor child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I said, 'You are a grateful young man, for you have remembered all your life the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.' And I embraced him and blessed him. And I shed tears. He laughed, but he shed tears, too ... for the Russian often laughs when he ought to be weeping. But he did weep I saw it. And now, alas!... 'And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man, Mitya cried suddenly. In any case the anecdote made a certain favorable impression on the public. But the chief sensation in Mitya's favor was created by the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed, when the witnesses  dcharge, that is, called by the defense, began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable to Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defense. But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive evidence against one important point made by the prosecution. It came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was not required to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed him very gently and sympathetically. It was evident that his reputation for goodness had preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence modestly and with restraint, but his warm sympathy for his unhappy brother was unmistakable. In answer to one question, he sketched his brother's character as that of a man, violenttempered perhaps and carried away by his passions, but at the same time honorable, proud and generous, capable of selfsacrifice, if necessary. He admitted, however, that, through his passion for Grushenka and his rivalry with his father, his brother had been of late in an intolerable position. But he repelled with indignation the suggestion that his brother might have committed a murder for the sake of gain, though he recognized that the three thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya that he looked upon them as part of the inheritance he had been cheated of by his father, and that, indifferent as he was to money as a rule, he could not even speak of that three thousand without fury. As for the rivalry of the two 'ladies, as the prosecutor expressed itthat is, of Grushenka and Katyahe answered evasively and was even unwilling to answer one or two questions altogether. 'Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill your father? asked the prosecutor. 'You can refuse to answer if you think necessary, he added. 'He did not tell me so directly, answered Alyosha. 'How so? Did he indirectly? 'He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear that at an extreme moment ... at a moment of fury, he might perhaps murder him. 'And you believed him? 'I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some higher feeling would always save him at the fatal moment, as it has indeed saved him, for it was not he killed my father, Alyosha said firmly, in a loud voice that was heard throughout the court. The prosecutor started like a warhorse at the sound of a trumpet. 'Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete sincerity of your conviction and do not explain it by or identify it with your affection for your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of the whole tragic episode is known to us already from the preliminary investigation. I won't attempt to conceal from you that it is highly individual and contradicts all the other evidence collected by the prosecution. And so I think it essential to press you to tell me what facts have led you to this conviction of your brother's innocence and of the guilt of another person against whom you gave evidence at the preliminary inquiry? 'I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary inquiry, replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. 'I made no accusation against Smerdyakov of myself. 'Yet you gave evidence against him? 'I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri's words. I was told what took place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov before I was examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is innocent, and if he didn't commit the murder, then 'Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completely persuaded of your brother's innocence? 'I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn't lie to me. I saw from his face he wasn't lying. 'Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have? 'I have no other proof. 'And of Smerdyakov's guilt you have no proof whatever but your brother's word and the expression of his face? 'No, I have no other proof. The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The impression left by Alyosha's evidence on the public was most disappointing. There had been talk about Smerdyakov before the trial some one had heard something, some one had pointed out something else, it was said that Alyosha had gathered together some extraordinary proofs of his brother's innocence and Smerdyakov's guilt, and after all there was nothing, no evidence except certain moral convictions so natural in a brother. But Fetyukovitch began his crossexamination. On his asking Alyosha when it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for his father and that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it, for instance, at their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as he answered, as though only just recollecting and understanding something. 'I remember one circumstance now which I'd quite forgotten myself. It wasn't clear to me at the time, but now And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, he recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evening under the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himself on the breast, 'the upper part of the breast, and had repeated several times that he had a means of regaining his honor, that that means was here, here on his breast. 'I thought, when he struck himself on the breast, he meant that it was in his heart, Alyosha continued, 'that he might find in his heart strength to save himself from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him and which he did not dare confess even to me. I must confess I did think at the time that he was speaking of our father, and that the disgrace he was shuddering at was the thought of going to our father and doing some violence to him. Yet it was just then that he pointed to something on his breast, so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the heart is not on that part of the breast, but below, and that he struck himself much too high, just below the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My idea seemed silly to me at the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to that little bag in which he had fifteen hundred roubles! 'Just so, Mitya cried from his place. 'That's right, Alyosha, it was the little bag I struck with my fist. Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep quiet, and at the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himself by his recollection, warmly expressed his theory that this disgrace was probably just that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might have returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, but which he had yet determined not to repay her and to use for another purposenamely, to enable him to elope with Grushenka, if she consented. 'It is so, it must be so, exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden excitement. 'My brother cried several times that half of the disgrace, half of it (he said half several times) he could free himself from at once, but that he was so unhappy in his weakness of will that he wouldn't do it ... that he knew beforehand he was incapable of doing it! 'And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just on this part of the breast? Fetyukovitch asked eagerly. 'Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, 'Why does he strike himself up there when the heart is lower down?' and the thought seemed stupid to me at the time ... I remember its seeming stupid ... it flashed through my mind. That's what brought it back to me just now. How could I have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag he meant when he said he had the means but wouldn't give back that fifteen hundred. And when he was arrested at Mokroe he cried outI know, I was told itthat he considered it the most disgraceful act of his life that when he had the means of repaying Katerina Ivanovna half (half, note!) what he owed her, he yet could not bring himself to repay the money and preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than part with it. And what torture, what torture that debt has been to him! Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion. The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to describe once more how it had all happened, and several times insisted on the question, 'Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything? Perhaps he had simply struck himself with his fist on the breast? 'But it was not with his fist, cried Alyosha 'he pointed with his fingers and pointed here, very high up.... How could I have so completely forgotten it till this moment? The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness's evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to the fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck, and that that was, of course, the disgrace, 'A disgrace I cannot deny, the most shameful act of my whole life, cried Mitya. 'I might have repaid it and didn't repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than give it back. And the most shameful part of it was that I knew beforehand I shouldn't give it back! You are right, Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha! So Alyosha's crossexamination ended. What was important and striking about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even though this were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, it did go some little way towards proving that the bag had existed and had contained fifteen hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not been lying at the preliminary inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred roubles were 'his own. Alyosha was glad. With a flushed face he moved away to the seat assigned to him. He kept repeating to himself 'How was it I forgot? How could I have forgotten it? And what made it come back to me now? Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witnessbox. As she entered something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their lorgnettes and operaglasses. There was a stir among the men some stood up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards that Mitya had turned 'white as a sheet on her entrance. All in black, she advanced modestly, almost timidly. It was impossible to tell from her face that she was agitated but there was a resolute gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark that many people mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the court. She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very respectfully, as though afraid to touch on 'certain chords, and showing consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly betrothed to the prisoner, 'until he left me of his own accord... she added quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had entrusted to Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, 'I didn't give him the money simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was in great need of money.... I gave him the three thousand on the understanding that he should post it within the month if he cared to. There was no need for him to worry himself about that debt afterwards. I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence. 'I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he got money from his father, she went on. 'I have never doubted his disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in money matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money from his father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had a feud with his father and have always believed that he had been unfairly treated by his father. I don't remember any threat uttered by him against his father. He certainly never uttered any such threat before me. If he had come to me at that time, I should have at once relieved his anxiety about that unlucky three thousand roubles, but he had given up coming to see me ... and I myself was put in such a position ... that I could not invite him.... And I had no right, indeed, to be exacting as to that money, she added suddenly, and there was a ring of resolution in her voice. 'I was once indebted to him for assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it, although I could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in a position to repay my debt. There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch began his crossexamination. 'Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance? Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her 'bowing to the ground to him. She concealed this from him and said nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty certainly assumed that she herself did not know till the very last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the court, and waited for the inspiration of the moment. No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. She told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and her bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and her going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that Mitya had himself, through her sister, proposed they should 'send him Katerina Ivanovna to fetch the money. She generously concealed that and was not ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her own impulse run to the young officer, relying on something ... to beg him for the money. It was something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled as I listened. The court was hushed, trying to catch each word. It was something unexampled. Even from such a selfwilled and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such selfimmolation, seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? To save the man who had deceived and insulted her and to help, in however small a degree, in saving him, by creating a strong impression in his favor. And, indeed, the figure of the young officer who, with a respectful bow to the innocent girl, handed her his last four thousand roublesall he had in the worldwas thrown into a very sympathetic and attractive light, but ... I had a painful misgiving at heart! I felt that calumny might come of it later (and it did, in fact, it did). It was repeated all over the town afterwards with spiteful laughter that the story was perhaps not quite completethat is, in the statement that the officer had let the young lady depart 'with nothing but a respectful bow. It was hinted that something was here omitted. 'And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story, the most highly respected of our ladies maintained, 'even then it's very doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave in that way, even for the sake of saving her father. And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbid sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk like that? She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tell everything. Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to the truth of her story only arose afterwards and at the first moment all were deeply impressed by it. As for the judges and the lawyers, they listened in reverent, almost shamefaced silence to Katerina Ivanovna. The prosecutor did not venture upon even one question on the subject. Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much ground had been gained. For a man to give his last four thousand on a generous impulse and then for the same man to murder his father for the sake of robbing him of three thousandthe idea seemed too incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of theft, at least, was as good as disproved. 'The case was thrown into quite a different light. There was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for him.... I was told that once or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving her evidence, he jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his face in his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried in a sobbing voice 'Katya, why have you ruined me? and his sobs were audible all over the court. But he instantly restrained himself, and cried again 'Now I am condemned! Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and his arms across his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the court and sat down in her place. She was pale and sat with her eyes cast down. Those who were sitting near her declared that for a long time she shivered all over as though in a fever. Grushenka was called. I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was perhaps the final cause of Mitya's ruin. For I am convinced, so is every oneall the lawyers said the same afterwardsthat if the episode had not occurred, the prisoner would at least have been recommended to mercy. But of that later. A few words first about Grushenka. She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her magnificent black shawl on her shoulders. She walked to the witnessbox with her smooth, noiseless tread, with the slightly swaying gait common in women of full figure. She looked steadily at the President, turning her eyes neither to the right nor to the left. To my thinking she looked very handsome at that moment, and not at all pale, as the ladies alleged afterwards. They declared, too, that she had a concentrated and spiteful expression. I believe that she was simply irritated and painfully conscious of the contemptuous and inquisitive eyes of our scandalloving public. She was proud and could not stand contempt. She was one of those people who flare up, angry and eager to retaliate, at the mere suggestion of contempt. There was an element of timidity, too, of course, and inward shame at her own timidity, so it was not strange that her tone kept changing. At one moment it was angry, contemptuous and rough, and at another there was a sincere note of self condemnation. Sometimes she spoke as though she were taking a desperate plunge as though she felt, 'I don't care what happens, I'll say it.... Apropos of her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch, she remarked curtly, 'That's all nonsense, and was it my fault that he would pester me? But a minute later she added, 'It was all my fault. I was laughing at them bothat the old man and at him, tooand I brought both of them to this. It was all on account of me it happened. Samsonov's name came up somehow. 'That's nobody's business, she snapped at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. 'He was my benefactor he took me when I hadn't a shoe to my foot, when my family had turned me out. The President reminded her, though very politely, that she must answer the questions directly, without going off into irrelevant details. Grushenka crimsoned and her eyes flashed. The envelope with the notes in it she had not seen, but had only heard from 'that wicked wretch that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope with notes for three thousand in it. 'But that was all foolishness. I was only laughing. I wouldn't have gone to him for anything. 'To whom are you referring as 'that wicked wretch'? inquired the prosecutor. 'The lackey, Smerdyakov, who murdered his master and hanged himself last night. She was, of course, at once asked what ground she had for such a definite accusation but it appeared that she, too, had no grounds for it. 'Dmitri Fyodorovitch told me so himself you can believe him. The woman who came between us has ruined him she is the cause of it all, let me tell you, Grushenka added. She seemed to be quivering with hatred, and there was a vindictive note in her voice. She was again asked to whom she was referring. 'The young lady, Katerina Ivanovna there. She sent for me, offered me chocolate, tried to fascinate me. There's not much true shame about her, I can tell you that.... At this point the President checked her sternly, begging her to moderate her language. But the jealous woman's heart was burning, and she did not care what she did. 'When the prisoner was arrested at Mokroe, the prosecutor asked, 'every one saw and heard you run out of the next room and cry out 'It's all my fault. We'll go to Siberia together!' So you already believed him to have murdered his father? 'I don't remember what I felt at the time, answered Grushenka. 'Every one was crying out that he had killed his father, and I felt that it was my fault, that it was on my account he had murdered him. But when he said he wasn't guilty, I believed him at once, and I believe him now and always shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie. Fetyukovitch began his crossexamination. I remember that among other things he asked about Rakitin and the twentyfive roubles 'you paid him for bringing Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov to see you. 'There was nothing strange about his taking the money, sneered Grushenka, with angry contempt. 'He was always coming to me for money he used to get thirty roubles a month at least out of me, chiefly for luxuries he had enough to keep him without my help. 'What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin? Fetyukovitch asked, in spite of an uneasy movement on the part of the President. 'Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother's sister. But he's always besought me not to tell any one here of it, he is so dreadfully ashamed of me. This fact was a complete surprise to every one no one in the town nor in the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it. I was told that Rakitin turned purple with shame where he sat. Grushenka had somehow heard before she came into the court that he had given evidence against Mitya, and so she was angry. The whole effect on the public, of Rakitin's speech, of his noble sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdom and the political disorder of Russia, was this time finally ruined. Fetyukovitch was satisfied it was another godsend. Grushenka's crossexamination did not last long and, of course, there could be nothing particularly new in her evidence. She left a very disagreeable impression on the public hundreds of contemptuous eyes were fixed upon her, as she finished giving her evidence and sat down again in the court, at a good distance from Katerina Ivanovna. Mitya was silent throughout her evidence. He sat as though turned to stone, with his eyes fixed on the ground. Ivan was called to give evidence. I may note that he had been called before Alyosha. But the usher of the court announced to the President that, owing to an attack of illness or some sort of fit, the witness could not appear at the moment, but was ready to give his evidence as soon as he recovered. But no one seemed to have heard it and it only came out later. His entrance was for the first moment almost unnoticed. The principal witnesses, especially the two rival ladies, had already been questioned. Curiosity was satisfied for the time the public was feeling almost fatigued. Several more witnesses were still to be heard, who probably had little information to give after all that had been given. Time was passing. Ivan walked up with extraordinary slowness, looking at no one, and with his head bowed, as though plunged in gloomy thought. He was irreproachably dressed, but his face made a painful impression, on me at least there was an earthy look in it, a look like a dying man's. His eyes were lusterless he raised them and looked slowly round the court. Alyosha jumped up from his seat and moaned 'Ah! I remember that, but it was hardly noticed. The President began by informing him that he was a witness not on oath, that he might answer or refuse to answer, but that, of course, he must bear witness according to his conscience, and so on, and so on. Ivan listened and looked at him blankly, but his face gradually relaxed into a smile, and as soon as the President, looking at him in astonishment, finished, he laughed outright. 'Well, and what else? he asked in a loud voice. There was a hush in the court there was a feeling of something strange. The President showed signs of uneasiness. 'You ... are perhaps still unwell? he began, looking everywhere for the usher. 'Don't trouble yourself, your excellency, I am well enough and can tell you something interesting, Ivan answered with sudden calmness and respectfulness. 'You have some special communication to make? the President went on, still mistrustfully. Ivan looked down, waited a few seconds and, raising his head, answered, almost stammering 'No ... I haven't. I have nothing particular. They began asking him questions. He answered, as it were, reluctantly, with extreme brevity, with a sort of disgust which grew more and more marked, though he answered rationally. To many questions he answered that he did not know. He knew nothing of his father's money relations with Dmitri. 'I wasn't interested in the subject, he added. Threats to murder his father he had heard from the prisoner. Of the money in the envelope he had heard from Smerdyakov. 'The same thing over and over again, he interrupted suddenly, with a look of weariness. 'I have nothing particular to tell the court. 'I see you are unwell and understand your feelings, the President began. He turned to the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense to invite them to examine the witness, if necessary, when Ivan suddenly asked in an exhausted voice 'Let me go, your excellency, I feel very ill. And with these words, without waiting for permission, he turned to walk out of the court. But after taking four steps he stood still, as though he had reached a decision, smiled slowly, and went back. 'I am like the peasant girl, your excellency ... you know. How does it go? 'I'll stand up if I like, and I won't if I don't.' They were trying to put on her sarafan to take her to church to be married, and she said, 'I'll stand up if I like, and I won't if I don't.'... It's in some book about the peasantry. 'What do you mean by that? the President asked severely. 'Why, this, Ivan suddenly pulled out a roll of notes. 'Here's the money ... the notes that lay in that envelope (he nodded towards the table on which lay the material evidence), 'for the sake of which our father was murdered. Where shall I put them? Mr. Superintendent, take them. The usher of the court took the whole roll and handed it to the President. 'How could this money have come into your possession if it is the same money? the President asked wonderingly. 'I got them from Smerdyakov, from the murderer, yesterday.... I was with him just before he hanged himself. It was he, not my brother, killed our father. He murdered him and I incited him to do it ... Who doesn't desire his father's death? 'Are you in your right mind? broke involuntarily from the President. 'I should think I am in my right mind ... in the same nasty mind as all of you ... as all these ... ugly faces. He turned suddenly to the audience. 'My father has been murdered and they pretend they are horrified, he snarled, with furious contempt. 'They keep up the sham with one another. Liars! They all desire the death of their fathers. One reptile devours another.... If there hadn't been a murder, they'd have been angry and gone home illhumored. It's a spectacle they want! Panem et circenses. Though I am one to talk! Have you any water? Give me a drink for Christ's sake! He suddenly clutched his head. The usher at once approached him. Alyosha jumped up and cried, 'He is ill. Don't believe him he has brain fever. Katerina Ivanovna rose impulsively from her seat and, rigid with horror, gazed at Ivan. Mitya stood up and greedily looked at his brother and listened to him with a wild, strange smile. 'Don't disturb yourselves. I am not mad, I am only a murderer, Ivan began again. 'You can't expect eloquence from a murderer, he added suddenly for some reason and laughed a queer laugh. The prosecutor bent over to the President in obvious dismay. The two other judges communicated in agitated whispers. Fetyukovitch pricked up his ears as he listened the hall was hushed in expectation. The President seemed suddenly to recollect himself. 'Witness, your words are incomprehensible and impossible here. Calm yourself, if you can, and tell your story ... if you really have something to tell. How can you confirm your statement ... if indeed you are not delirious? 'That's just it. I have no proof. That cur Smerdyakov won't send you proofs from the other world ... in an envelope. You think of nothing but envelopesone is enough. I've no witnesses ... except one, perhaps, he smiled thoughtfully. 'Who is your witness? 'He has a tail, your excellency, and that would be irregular! Le diable n'existe point! Don't pay attention he is a paltry, pitiful devil, he added suddenly. He ceased laughing and spoke as it were, confidentially. 'He is here somewhere, no doubtunder that table with the material evidence on it, perhaps. Where should he sit if not there? You see, listen to me. I told him I don't want to keep quiet, and he talked about the geological cataclysm ... idiocy! Come, release the monster ... he's been singing a hymn. That's because his heart is light! It's like a drunken man in the street bawling how 'Vanka went to Petersburg,' and I would give a quadrillion quadrillions for two seconds of joy. You don't know me! Oh, how stupid all this business is! Come, take me instead of him! I didn't come for nothing.... Why, why is everything so stupid?... And he began slowly, and as it were reflectively, looking round him again. But the court was all excitement by now. Alyosha rushed towards him, but the court usher had already seized Ivan by the arm. 'What are you about? he cried, staring into the man's face, and suddenly seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to the floor. But the police were on the spot and he was seized. He screamed furiously. And all the time he was being removed, he yelled and screamed something incoherent. The whole court was thrown into confusion. I don't remember everything as it happened. I was excited myself and could not follow. I only know that afterwards, when everything was quiet again and every one understood what had happened, the court usher came in for a reprimand, though he very reasonably explained that the witness had been quite well, that the doctor had seen him an hour ago, when he had a slight attack of giddiness, but that, until he had come into the court, he had talked quite consecutively, so that nothing could have been foreseenthat he had, in fact, insisted on giving evidence. But before every one had completely regained their composure and recovered from this scene, it was followed by another. Katerina Ivanovna had an attack of hysterics. She sobbed, shrieking loudly, but refused to leave the court, struggled, and besought them not to remove her. Suddenly she cried to the President 'There is more evidence I must give at once ... at once! Here is a document, a letter ... take it, read it quickly, quickly! It's a letter from that monster ... that man there, there! she pointed to Mitya. 'It was he killed his father, you will see that directly. He wrote to me how he would kill his father! But the other one is ill, he is ill, he is delirious! she kept crying out, beside herself. The court usher took the document she held out to the President, and she, dropping into her chair, hiding her face in her hands, began convulsively and noiselessly sobbing, shaking all over, and stifling every sound for fear she should be ejected from the court. The document she had handed up was that letter Mitya had written at the 'Metropolis tavern, which Ivan had spoken of as a 'mathematical proof. Alas! its mathematical conclusiveness was recognized, and had it not been for that letter, Mitya might have escaped his doom or, at least, that doom would have been less terrible. It was, I repeat, difficult to notice every detail. What followed is still confused to my mind. The President must, I suppose, have at once passed on the document to the judges, the jury, and the lawyers on both sides. I only remember how they began examining the witness. On being gently asked by the President whether she had recovered sufficiently, Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed impetuously 'I am ready, I am ready! I am quite equal to answering you, she added, evidently still afraid that she would somehow be prevented from giving evidence. She was asked to explain in detail what this letter was and under what circumstances she received it. 'I received it the day before the crime was committed, but he wrote it the day before that, at the tavernthat is, two days before he committed the crime. Look, it is written on some sort of bill! she cried breathlessly. 'He hated me at that time, because he had behaved contemptibly and was running after that creature ... and because he owed me that three thousand.... Oh! he was humiliated by that three thousand on account of his own meanness! This is how it happened about that three thousand. I beg you, I beseech you, to hear me. Three weeks before he murdered his father, he came to me one morning. I knew he was in want of money, and what he wanted it for. Yes, yesto win that creature and carry her off. I knew then that he had been false to me and meant to abandon me, and it was I, I, who gave him that money, who offered it to him on the pretext of his sending it to my sister in Moscow. And as I gave it him, I looked him in the face and said that he could send it when he liked, 'in a month's time would do.' How, how could he have failed to understand that I was practically telling him to his face, 'You want money to be false to me with your creature, so here's the money for you. I give it to you myself. Take it, if you have so little honor as to take it!' I wanted to prove what he was, and what happened? He took it, he took it, and squandered it with that creature in one night.... But he knew, he knew that I knew all about it. I assure you he understood, too, that I gave him that money to test him, to see whether he was so lost to all sense of honor as to take it from me. I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine, and he understood it all and he took ithe carried off my money! 'That's true, Katya, Mitya roared suddenly, 'I looked into your eyes and I knew that you were dishonoring me, and yet I took your money. Despise me as a scoundrel, despise me, all of you! I've deserved it! 'Prisoner, cried the President, 'another word and I will order you to be removed. 'That money was a torment to him, Katya went on with impulsive haste. 'He wanted to repay it me. He wanted to, that's true but he needed money for that creature, too. So he murdered his father, but he didn't repay me, and went off with her to that village where he was arrested. There, again, he squandered the money he had stolen after the murder of his father. And a day before the murder he wrote me this letter. He was drunk when he wrote it. I saw it at once, at the time. He wrote it from spite, and feeling certain, positively certain, that I should never show it to any one, even if he did kill him, or else he wouldn't have written it. For he knew I shouldn't want to revenge myself and ruin him! But read it, read it attentivelymore attentively, pleaseand you will see that he had described it all in his letter, all beforehand, how he would kill his father and where his money was kept. Look, please, don't overlook that, there's one phrase there, 'I shall kill him as soon as Ivan has gone away.' So he thought it all out beforehand how he would kill him, Katerina Ivanovna pointed out to the court with venomous and malignant triumph. Oh! it was clear she had studied every line of that letter and detected every meaning underlining it. 'If he hadn't been drunk, he wouldn't have written to me but, look, everything is written there beforehand, just as he committed the murder after. A complete program of it! she exclaimed frantically. She was reckless now of all consequences to herself, though, no doubt, she had foreseen them even a month ago, for even then, perhaps, shaking with anger, she had pondered whether to show it at the trial or not. Now she had taken the fatal plunge. I remember that the letter was read aloud by the clerk, directly afterwards, I believe. It made an overwhelming impression. They asked Mitya whether he admitted having written the letter. 'It's mine, mine! cried Mitya. 'I shouldn't have written it, if I hadn't been drunk!... We've hated each other for many things, Katya, but I swear, I swear I loved you even while I hated you, and you didn't love me! He sank back on his seat, wringing his hands in despair. The prosecutor and counsel for the defense began crossexamining her, chiefly to ascertain what had induced her to conceal such a document and to give her evidence in quite a different tone and spirit just before. 'Yes, yes. I was telling lies just now. I was lying against my honor and my conscience, but I wanted to save him, for he has hated and despised me so! Katya cried madly. 'Oh, he has despised me horribly, he has always despised me, and do you know, he has despised me from the very moment that I bowed down to him for that money. I saw that.... I felt it at once at the time, but for a long time I wouldn't believe it. How often I have read it in his eyes, 'You came of yourself, though.' Oh, he didn't understand, he had no idea why I ran to him, he can suspect nothing but baseness, he judged me by himself, he thought every one was like himself! Katya hissed furiously, in a perfect frenzy. 'And he only wanted to marry me, because I'd inherited a fortune, because of that, because of that! I always suspected it was because of that! Oh, he is a brute! He was always convinced that I should be trembling with shame all my life before him, because I went to him then, and that he had a right to despise me for ever for it, and so to be superior to methat's why he wanted to marry me! That's so, that's all so! I tried to conquer him by my lovea love that knew no bounds. I even tried to forgive his faithlessness but he understood nothing, nothing! How could he understand indeed? He is a monster! I only received that letter the next evening it was brought me from the tavernand only that morning, only that morning I wanted to forgive him everything, everythingeven his treachery! The President and the prosecutor, of course, tried to calm her. I can't help thinking that they felt ashamed of taking advantage of her hysteria and of listening to such avowals. I remember hearing them say to her, 'We understand how hard it is for you be sure we are able to feel for you, and so on, and so on. And yet they dragged the evidence out of the raving, hysterical woman. She described at last with extraordinary clearness, which is so often seen, though only for a moment, in such overwrought states, how Ivan had been nearly driven out of his mind during the last two months trying to save 'the monster and murderer, his brother. 'He tortured himself, she exclaimed, 'he was always trying to minimize his brother's guilt and confessing to me that he, too, had never loved his father, and perhaps desired his death himself. Oh, he has a tender, over tender conscience! He tormented himself with his conscience! He told me everything, everything! He came every day and talked to me as his only friend. I have the honor to be his only friend! she cried suddenly with a sort of defiance, and her eyes flashed. 'He had been twice to see Smerdyakov. One day he came to me and said, 'If it was not my brother, but Smerdyakov committed the murder' (for the legend was circulating everywhere that Smerdyakov had done it), 'perhaps I too am guilty, for Smerdyakov knew I didn't like my father and perhaps believed that I desired my father's death.' Then I brought out that letter and showed it him. He was entirely convinced that his brother had done it, and he was overwhelmed by it. He couldn't endure the thought that his own brother was a parricide! Only a week ago I saw that it was making him ill. During the last few days he has talked incoherently in my presence. I saw his mind was giving way. He walked about, raving he was seen muttering in the streets. The doctor from Moscow, at my request, examined him the day before yesterday and told me that he was on the eve of brain feverand all on his account, on account of this monster! And last night he learnt that Smerdyakov was dead! It was such a shock that it drove him out of his mind ... and all through this monster, all for the sake of saving the monster! Oh, of course, such an outpouring, such an avowal is only possible once in a lifetimeat the hour of death, for instance, on the way to the scaffold! But it was in Katya's character, and it was such a moment in her life. It was the same impetuous Katya who had thrown herself on the mercy of a young profligate to save her father the same Katya who had just before, in her pride and chastity, sacrificed herself and her maidenly modesty before all these people, telling of Mitya's generous conduct, in the hope of softening his fate a little. And now, again, she sacrificed herself but this time it was for another, and perhaps only nowperhaps only at this momentshe felt and knew how dear that other was to her! She had sacrificed herself in terror for him, conceiving all of a sudden that he had ruined himself by his confession that it was he who had committed the murder, not his brother, she had sacrificed herself to save him, to save his good name, his reputation! And yet one terrible doubt occurred to onewas she lying in her description of her former relations with Mitya?that was the question. No, she had not intentionally slandered him when she cried that Mitya despised her for her bowing down to him! She believed it herself. She had been firmly convinced, perhaps ever since that bow, that the simplehearted Mitya, who even then adored her, was laughing at her and despising her. She had loved him with an hysterical, 'lacerated love only from pride, from wounded pride, and that love was not like love, but more like revenge. Oh! perhaps that lacerated love would have grown into real love, perhaps Katya longed for nothing more than that, but Mitya's faithlessness had wounded her to the bottom of her heart, and her heart could not forgive him. The moment of revenge had come upon her suddenly, and all that had been accumulating so long and so painfully in the offended woman's breast burst out all at once and unexpectedly. She betrayed Mitya, but she betrayed herself, too. And no sooner had she given full expression to her feelings than the tension of course was over and she was overwhelmed with shame. Hysterics began again she fell on the floor, sobbing and screaming. She was carried out. At that moment Grushenka, with a wail, rushed towards Mitya before they had time to prevent her. 'Mitya, she wailed, 'your serpent has destroyed you! There, she has shown you what she is! she shouted to the judges, shaking with anger. At a signal from the President they seized her and tried to remove her from the court. She wouldn't allow it. She fought and struggled to get back to Mitya. Mitya uttered a cry and struggled to get to her. He was overpowered. Yes, I think the ladies who came to see the spectacle must have been satisfiedthe show had been a varied one. Then I remember the Moscow doctor appeared on the scene. I believe the President had previously sent the court usher to arrange for medical aid for Ivan. The doctor announced to the court that the sick man was suffering from a dangerous attack of brain fever, and that he must be at once removed. In answer to questions from the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense he said that the patient had come to him of his own accord the day before yesterday and that he had warned him that he had such an attack coming on, but he had not consented to be looked after. 'He was certainly not in a normal state of mind he told me himself that he saw visions when he was awake, that he met several persons in the street, who were dead, and that Satan visited him every evening, said the doctor, in conclusion. Having given his evidence, the celebrated doctor withdrew. The letter produced by Katerina Ivanovna was added to the material proofs. After some deliberation, the judges decided to proceed with the trial and to enter both the unexpected pieces of evidence (given by Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna) on the protocol. But I will not detail the evidence of the other witnesses, who only repeated and confirmed what had been said before, though all with their characteristic peculiarities. I repeat, all was brought together in the prosecutor's speech, which I shall quote immediately. Every one was excited, every one was electrified by the late catastrophe, and all were awaiting the speeches for the prosecution and the defense with intense impatience. Fetyukovitch was obviously shaken by Katerina Ivanovna's evidence. But the prosecutor was triumphant. When all the evidence had been taken, the court was adjourned for almost an hour. I believe it was just eight o'clock when the President returned to his seat and our prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovitch, began his speech. Ippolit Kirillovitch began his speech, trembling with nervousness, with cold sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. He described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as his chefd'uvre, the chefd'uvre of his whole life, as his swansong. He died, it is true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that he had the right, as it turned out, to compare himself to a swan singing his last song. He had put his whole heart and all the brain he had into that speech. And poor Ippolit Kirillovitch unexpectedly revealed that at least some feeling for the public welfare and 'the eternal question lay concealed in him. Where his speech really excelled was in its sincerity. He genuinely believed in the prisoner's guilt he was accusing him not as an official duty only, and in calling for vengeance he quivered with a genuine passion 'for the security of society. Even the ladies in the audience, though they remained hostile to Ippolit Kirillovitch, admitted that he made an extraordinary impression on them. He began in a breaking voice, but it soon gained strength and filled the court to the end of his speech. But as soon as he had finished, he almost fainted. 'Gentlemen of the jury, began the prosecutor, 'this case has made a stir throughout Russia. But what is there to wonder at, what is there so peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes! That's what's so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us. What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it, and not this or that isolated crime. What are the causes of our indifference, our lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such signs of the times, ominous of an unenviable future? Is it our cynicism, is it the premature exhaustion of intellect and imagination in a society that is sinking into decay, in spite of its youth? Is it that our moral principles are shattered to their foundations, or is it, perhaps, a complete lack of such principles among us? I cannot answer such questions nevertheless they are disturbing, and every citizen not only must, but ought to be harassed by them. Our newborn and still timid press has done good service to the public already, for without it we should never have heard of the horrors of unbridled violence and moral degradation which are continually made known by the press, not merely to those who attend the new jury courts established in the present reign, but to every one. And what do we read almost daily? Of things beside which the present case grows pale, and seems almost commonplace. But what is most important is that the majority of our national crimes of violence bear witness to a widespread evil, now so general among us that it is difficult to contend against it. 'One day we see a brilliant young officer of high society, at the very outset of his career, in a cowardly underhand way, without a pang of conscience, murdering an official who had once been his benefactor, and the servant girl, to steal his own I.O.U. and what ready money he could find on him 'it will come in handy for my pleasures in the fashionable world and for my career in the future.' After murdering them, he puts pillows under the head of each of his victims he goes away. Next, a young hero 'decorated for bravery' kills the mother of his chief and benefactor, like a highwayman, and to urge his companions to join him he asserts that 'she loves him like a son, and so will follow all his directions and take no precautions.' Granted that he is a monster, yet I dare not say in these days that he is unique. Another man will not commit the murder, but will feel and think like him, and is as dishonorable in soul. In silence, alone with his conscience, he asks himself perhaps, 'What is honor, and isn't the condemnation of bloodshed a prejudice?' 'Perhaps people will cry out against me that I am morbid, hysterical, that it is a monstrous slander, that I am exaggerating. Let them say soand heavens! I should be the first to rejoice if it were so! Oh, don't believe me, think of me as morbid, but remember my words if only a tenth, if only a twentieth part of what I say is trueeven so it's awful! Look how our young people commit suicide, without asking themselves Hamlet's question what there is beyond, without a sign of such a question, as though all that relates to the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave had long been erased in their minds and buried under the sands. Look at our vice, at our profligates. Fyodor Pavlovitch, the luckless victim in the present case, was almost an innocent babe compared with many of them. And yet we all knew him, 'he lived among us!'... 'Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is worth it. But this study will come later, at leisure, when all the tragic topsyturvydom of today is farther behind us, so that it's possible to examine it with more insight and more impartiality than I can do. Now we are either horrified or pretend to be horrified, though we really gloat over the spectacle, and love strong and eccentric sensations which tickle our cynical, pampered idleness. Or, like little children, we brush the dreadful ghosts away and hide our heads in the pillow so as to return to our sports and merriment as soon as they have vanished. But we must one day begin life in sober earnest, we must look at ourselves as a society it's time we tried to grasp something of our social position, or at least to make a beginning in that direction. 'A great writer of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, 'Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to pass. That may be, they may stand aside, respectfully or no, but in my poor opinion the great writer ended his book in this way either in an access of childish and nave optimism, or simply in fear of the censorship of the day. For if the troika were drawn by his heroes, Sobakevitch, Nozdryov, Tchitchikov, it could reach no rational goal, whoever might be driving it. And those were the heroes of an older generation, ours are worse specimens still.... At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch's speech was interrupted by applause. The liberal significance of this simile was appreciated. The applause was, it's true, of brief duration, so that the President did not think it necessary to caution the public, and only looked severely in the direction of the offenders. But Ippolit Kirillovitch was encouraged he had never been applauded before! He had been all his life unable to get a hearing, and now he suddenly had an opportunity of securing the ear of all Russia. 'What, after all, is this Karamazov family, which has gained such an unenviable notoriety throughout Russia? he continued. 'Perhaps I am exaggerating, but it seems to me that certain fundamental features of the educated class of today are reflected in this family pictureonly, of course, in miniature, 'like the sun in a drop of water.' Think of that unhappy, vicious, unbridled old man, who has met with such a melancholy end, the head of a family! Beginning life of noble birth, but in a poor dependent position, through an unexpected marriage he came into a small fortune. A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good, though undeveloped, intelligence, he was, above all, a moneylender, who grew bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained. On the spiritual side he was undeveloped, while his vitality was excessive. He saw nothing in life but sensual pleasure, and he brought his children up to be the same. He had no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed those duties. He left his little children to the servants, and was glad to be rid of them, forgot about them completely. The old man's maxim was Aprs moi le dluge. He was an example of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of the most complete and malignant individualism. 'The world may burn for aught I care, so long as I am all right,' and he was all right he was content, he was eager to go on living in the same way for another twenty or thirty years. He swindled his own son and spent his money, his maternal inheritance, on trying to get his mistress from him. No, I don't intend to leave the prisoner's defense altogether to my talented colleague from Petersburg. I will speak the truth myself, I can well understand what resentment he had heaped up in his son's heart against him. 'But enough, enough of that unhappy old man he has paid the penalty. Let us remember, however, that he was a father, and one of the typical fathers of today. Am I unjust, indeed, in saying that he is typical of many modern fathers? Alas! many of them only differ in not openly professing such cynicism, for they are better educated, more cultured, but their philosophy is essentially the same as his. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but you have agreed to forgive me. Let us agree beforehand, you need not believe me, but let me speak. Let me say what I have to say, and remember something of my words. 'Now for the children of this father, this head of a family. One of them is the prisoner before us, all the rest of my speech will deal with him. Of the other two I will speak only cursorily. 'The elder is one of those modern young men of brilliant education and vigorous intellect, who has lost all faith in everything. He has denied and rejected much already, like his father. We have all heard him, he was a welcome guest in local society. He never concealed his opinions, quite the contrary in fact, which justifies me in speaking rather openly of him now, of course, not as an individual, but as a member of the Karamazov family. Another personage closely connected with the case died here by his own hand last night. I mean an afflicted idiot, formerly the servant, and possibly the illegitimate son, of Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov. At the preliminary inquiry, he told me with hysterical tears how the young Ivan Karamazov had horrified him by his spiritual audacity. 'Everything in the world is lawful according to him, and nothing must be forbidden in the futurethat is what he always taught me.' I believe that idiot was driven out of his mind by this theory, though, of course, the epileptic attacks from which he suffered, and this terrible catastrophe, have helped to unhinge his faculties. But he dropped one very interesting observation, which would have done credit to a more intelligent observer, and that is, indeed, why I've mentioned it 'If there is one of the sons that is like Fyodor Pavlovitch in character, it is Ivan Fyodorovitch.' 'With that remark I conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don't want to draw any further conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man's future. We've seen today in this court that there are still good impulses in his young heart, that family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of faith and cynicism, which have come to him rather by inheritance than by the exercise of independent thought. 'Then the third son. Oh, he is a devout and modest youth, who does not share his elder brother's gloomy and destructive theory of life. He has sought to cling to the 'ideas of the people,' or to what goes by that name in some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung to the monastery, and was within an ace of becoming a monk. He seems to me to have betrayed unconsciously, and so early, that timid despair which leads so many in our unhappy society, who dread cynicism and its corrupting influences, and mistakenly attribute all the mischief to European enlightenment, to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them. 'For my part I wish the excellent and gifted young man every success I trust that his youthful idealism and impulse towards the ideas of the people may never degenerate, as often happens, on the moral side into gloomy mysticism, and on the political into blind chauvinismtwo elements which are even a greater menace to Russia than the premature decay, due to misunderstanding and gratuitous adoption of European ideas, from which his elder brother is suffering. Two or three people clapped their hands at the mention of chauvinism and mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been, indeed, carried away by his own eloquence. All this had little to do with the case in hand, to say nothing of the fact of its being somewhat vague, but the sickly and consumptive man was overcome by the desire to express himself once in his life. People said afterwards that he was actuated by unworthy motives in his criticism of Ivan, because the latter had on one or two occasions got the better of him in argument, and Ippolit Kirillovitch, remembering it, tried now to take his revenge. But I don't know whether it was true. All this was only introductory, however, and the speech passed to more direct consideration of the case. 'But to return to the eldest son, Ippolit Kirillovitch went on. 'He is the prisoner before us. We have his life and his actions, too, before us the fatal day has come and all has been brought to the surface. While his brothers seem to stand for 'Europeanism' and 'the principles of the people,' he seems to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not all Russia, not all! God preserve us, if it were! Yet, here we have her, our mother Russia, the very scent and sound of her. Oh, he is spontaneous, he is a marvelous mingling of good and evil, he is a lover of culture and Schiller, yet he brawls in taverns and plucks out the beards of his boon companions. Oh, he, too, can be good and noble, but only when all goes well with him. What is more, he can be carried off his feet, positively carried off his feet by noble ideals, but only if they come of themselves, if they fall from heaven for him, if they need not be paid for. He dislikes paying for anything, but is very fond of receiving, and that's so with him in everything. Oh, give him every possible good in life (he couldn't be content with less), and put no obstacle in his way, and he will show that he, too, can be noble. He is not greedy, no, but he must have money, a great deal of money, and you will see how generously, with what scorn of filthy lucre, he will fling it all away in the reckless dissipation of one night. But if he has not money, he will show what he is ready to do to get it when he is in great need of it. But all this later, let us take events in their chronological order. 'First, we have before us a poor abandoned child, running about the back yard 'without boots on his feet,' as our worthy and esteemed fellow citizen, of foreign origin, alas! expressed it just now. I repeat it again, I yield to no one the defense of the criminal. I am here to accuse him, but to defend him also. Yes, I, too, am human I, too, can weigh the influence of home and childhood on the character. But the boy grows up and becomes an officer for a duel and other reckless conduct he is exiled to one of the remote frontier towns of Russia. There he led a wild life as an officer. And, of course, he needed money, money before all things, and so after prolonged disputes he came to a settlement with his father, and the last six thousand was sent him. A letter is in existence in which he practically gives up his claim to the rest and settles his conflict with his father over the inheritance on the payment of this six thousand. 'Then came his meeting with a young girl of lofty character and brilliant education. Oh, I do not venture to repeat the details you have only just heard them. Honor, selfsacrifice were shown there, and I will be silent. The figure of the young officer, frivolous and profligate, doing homage to true nobility and a lofty ideal, was shown in a very sympathetic light before us. But the other side of the medal was unexpectedly turned to us immediately after in this very court. Again I will not venture to conjecture why it happened so, but there were causes. The same lady, bathed in tears of longconcealed indignation, alleged that he, he of all men, had despised her for her action, which, though incautious, reckless perhaps, was still dictated by lofty and generous motives. He, he, the girl's betrothed, looked at her with that smile of mockery, which was more insufferable from him than from any one. And knowing that he had already deceived her (he had deceived her, believing that she was bound to endure everything from him, even treachery), she intentionally offered him three thousand roubles, and clearly, too clearly, let him understand that she was offering him money to deceive her. 'Well, will you take it or not, are you so lost to shame?' was the dumb question in her scrutinizing eyes. He looked at her, saw clearly what was in her mind (he's admitted here before you that he understood it all), appropriated that three thousand unconditionally, and squandered it in two days with the new object of his affections. 'What are we to believe then? The first legend of the young officer sacrificing his last farthing in a noble impulse of generosity and doing reverence to virtue, or this other revolting picture? As a rule, between two extremes one has to find the mean, but in the present case this is not true. The probability is that in the first case he was genuinely noble, and in the second as genuinely base. And why? Because he was of the broad Karamazov characterthat's just what I am leading up tocapable of combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest heights and of the greatest depths. Remember the brilliant remark made by a young observer who has seen the Karamazov family at close quartersMr. Rakitin 'The sense of their own degradation is as essential to those reckless, unbridled natures as the sense of their lofty generosity.' And that's true, they need continually this unnatural mixture. Two extremes at the same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is incomplete. They are wide, wide as mother Russia they include everything and put up with everything. 'By the way, gentlemen of the jury, we've just touched upon that three thousand roubles, and I will venture to anticipate things a little. Can you conceive that a man like that, on receiving that sum and in such a way, at the price of such shame, such disgrace, such utter degradation, could have been capable that very day of setting apart half that sum, that very day, and sewing it up in a little bag, and would have had the firmness of character to carry it about with him for a whole month afterwards, in spite of every temptation and his extreme need of it! Neither in drunken debauchery in taverns, nor when he was flying into the country, trying to get from God knows whom, the money so essential to him to remove the object of his affections from being tempted by his father, did he bring himself to touch that little bag! Why, if only to avoid abandoning his mistress to the rival of whom he was so jealous, he would have been certain to have opened that bag and to have stayed at home to keep watch over her, and to await the moment when she would say to him at last 'I am yours,' and to fly with her far from their fatal surroundings. 'But no, he did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason he gives for it? The chief reason, as I have just said, was that when she would say, 'I am yours, take me where you will,' he might have the wherewithal to take her. But that first reason, in the prisoner's own words, was of little weight beside the second. While I have that money on me, he said, I am a scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go to my insulted betrothed, and, laying down half the sum I have fraudulently appropriated, I can always say to her, 'You see, I've squandered half your money, and shown I am a weak and immoral man, and, if you like, a scoundrel' (I use the prisoner's own expressions), 'but though I am a scoundrel, I am not a thief, for if I had been a thief, I shouldn't have brought you back this half of the money, but should have taken it as I did the other half!' A marvelous explanation! This frantic, but weak man, who could not resist the temptation of accepting the three thousand roubles at the price of such disgrace, this very man suddenly develops the most stoical firmness, and carries about a thousand roubles without daring to touch it. Does that fit in at all with the character we have analyzed? No, and I venture to tell you how the real Dmitri Karamazov would have behaved in such circumstances, if he really had brought himself to put away the money. 'At the first temptationfor instance, to entertain the woman with whom he had already squandered half the moneyhe would have unpicked his little bag and have taken out some hundred roubles, for why should he have taken back precisely half the money, that is, fifteen hundred roubles? why not fourteen hundred? He could just as well have said then that he was not a thief, because he brought back fourteen hundred roubles. Then another time he would have unpicked it again and taken out another hundred, and then a third, and then a fourth, and before the end of the month he would have taken the last note but one, feeling that if he took back only a hundred it would answer the purpose, for a thief would have stolen it all. And then he would have looked at this last note, and have said to himself, 'It's really not worth while to give back one hundred let's spend that, too!' That's how the real Dmitri Karamazov, as we know him, would have behaved. One cannot imagine anything more incongruous with the actual fact than this legend of the little bag. Nothing could be more inconceivable. But we shall return to that later. After touching upon what had come out in the proceedings concerning the financial relations of father and son, and arguing again and again that it was utterly impossible, from the facts known, to determine which was in the wrong, Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to the evidence of the medical experts in reference to Mitya's fixed idea about the three thousand owing him. 'The medical experts have striven to convince us that the prisoner is out of his mind and, in fact, a maniac. I maintain that he is in his right mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly. As for his being a maniac, that I would agree with, but only in one point, that is, his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet I think one might find a much simpler cause than his tendency to insanity. For my part I agree thoroughly with the young doctor who maintained that the prisoner's mental faculties have always been normal, and that he has only been irritable and exasperated. The object of the prisoner's continual and violent anger was not the sum itself there was a special motive at the bottom of it. That motive is jealousy! Here Ippolit Kirillovitch described at length the prisoner's fatal passion for Grushenka. He began from the moment when the prisoner went to the 'young person's lodgings 'to beat her'I use his own expression, the prosecutor explained'but instead of beating her, he remained there, at her feet. That was the beginning of the passion. At the same time the prisoner's father was captivated by the same young persona strange and fatal coincidence, for they both lost their hearts to her simultaneously, though both had known her before. And she inspired in both of them the most violent, characteristically Karamazov passion. We have her own confession 'I was laughing at both of them.' Yes, the sudden desire to make a jest of them came over her, and she conquered both of them at once. The old man, who worshiped money, at once set aside three thousand roubles as a reward for one visit from her, but soon after that, he would have been happy to lay his property and his name at her feet, if only she would become his lawful wife. We have good evidence of this. As for the prisoner, the tragedy of his fate is evident it is before us. But such was the young person's 'game.' The enchantress gave the unhappy young man no hope until the last moment, when he knelt before her, stretching out hands that were already stained with the blood of his father and rival. It was in that position that he was arrested. 'Send me to Siberia with him, I have brought him to this, I am most to blame,' the woman herself cried, in genuine remorse at the moment of his arrest. 'The talented young man, to whom I have referred already, Mr. Rakitin, characterized this heroine in brief and impressive terms 'She was disillusioned early in life, deceived and ruined by a betrothed, who seduced and abandoned her. She was left in poverty, cursed by her respectable family, and taken under the protection of a wealthy old man, whom she still, however, considers as her benefactor. There was perhaps much that was good in her young heart, but it was embittered too early. She became prudent and saved money. She grew sarcastic and resentful against society.' After this sketch of her character it may well be understood that she might laugh at both of them simply from mischief, from malice. 'After a month of hopeless love and moral degradation, during which he betrayed his betrothed and appropriated money entrusted to his honor, the prisoner was driven almost to frenzy, almost to madness by continual jealousyand of whom? His father! And the worst of it was that the crazy old man was alluring and enticing the object of his affection by means of that very three thousand roubles, which the son looked upon as his own property, part of his inheritance from his mother, of which his father was cheating him. Yes, I admit it was hard to bear! It might well drive a man to madness. It was not the money, but the fact that this money was used with such revolting cynicism to ruin his happiness! Then the prosecutor went on to describe how the idea of murdering his father had entered the prisoner's head, and illustrated his theory with facts. 'At first he only talked about it in tavernshe was talking about it all that month. Ah, he likes being always surrounded with company, and he likes to tell his companions everything, even his most diabolical and dangerous ideas he likes to share every thought with others, and expects, for some reason, that those he confides in will meet him with perfect sympathy, enter into all his troubles and anxieties, take his part and not oppose him in anything. If not, he flies into a rage and smashes up everything in the tavern. Then followed the anecdote about Captain Snegiryov. Those who heard the prisoner began to think at last that he might mean more than threats, and that such a frenzy might turn threats into actions. Here the prosecutor described the meeting of the family at the monastery, the conversations with Alyosha, and the horrible scene of violence when the prisoner had rushed into his father's house just after dinner. 'I cannot positively assert, the prosecutor continued, 'that the prisoner fully intended to murder his father before that incident. Yet the idea had several times presented itself to him, and he had deliberated on itfor that we have facts, witnesses, and his own words. I confess, gentlemen of the jury, he added, 'that till today I have been uncertain whether to attribute to the prisoner conscious premeditation. I was firmly convinced that he had pictured the fatal moment beforehand, but had only pictured it, contemplating it as a possibility. He had not definitely considered when and how he might commit the crime. 'But I was only uncertain till today, till that fatal document was presented to the court just now. You yourselves heard that young lady's exclamation, 'It is the plan, the program of the murder!' That is how she defined that miserable, drunken letter of the unhappy prisoner. And, in fact, from that letter we see that the whole fact of the murder was premeditated. It was written two days before, and so we know now for a fact that, fortyeight hours before the perpetration of his terrible design, the prisoner swore that, if he could not get money next day, he would murder his father in order to take the envelope with the notes from under his pillow, as soon as Ivan had left. 'As soon as Ivan had gone away'you hear that so he had thought everything out, weighing every circumstance, and he carried it all out just as he had written it. The proof of premeditation is conclusive the crime must have been committed for the sake of the money, that is stated clearly, that is written and signed. The prisoner does not deny his signature. 'I shall be told he was drunk when he wrote it. But that does not diminish the value of the letter, quite the contrary he wrote when drunk what he had planned when sober. Had he not planned it when sober, he would not have written it when drunk. I shall be asked Then why did he talk about it in taverns? A man who premeditates such a crime is silent and keeps it to himself. Yes, but he talked about it before he had formed a plan, when he had only the desire, only the impulse to it. Afterwards he talked less about it. On the evening he wrote that letter at the 'Metropolis' tavern, contrary to his custom he was silent, though he had been drinking. He did not play billiards, he sat in a corner, talked to no one. He did indeed turn a shopman out of his seat, but that was done almost unconsciously, because he could never enter a tavern without making a disturbance. It is true that after he had taken the final decision, he must have felt apprehensive that he had talked too much about his design beforehand, and that this might lead to his arrest and prosecution afterwards. But there was nothing for it he could not take his words back, but his luck had served him before, it would serve him again. He believed in his star, you know! I must confess, too, that he did a great deal to avoid the fatal catastrophe. 'Tomorrow I shall try and borrow the money from every one,' as he writes in his peculiar language, 'and if they won't give it to me, there will be bloodshed.'  Here Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to a detailed description of all Mitya's efforts to borrow the money. He described his visit to Samsonov, his journey to Lyagavy. 'Harassed, jeered at, hungry, after selling his watch to pay for the journey (though he tells us he had fifteen hundred roubles on hima likely story), tortured by jealousy at having left the object of his affections in the town, suspecting that she would go to Fyodor Pavlovitch in his absence, he returned at last to the town, to find, to his joy, that she had not been near his father. He accompanied her himself to her protector. (Strange to say, he doesn't seem to have been jealous of Samsonov, which is psychologically interesting.) Then he hastens back to his ambush in the back gardens, and there learns that Smerdyakov is in a fit, that the other servant is illthe coast is clear and he knows the 'signals'what a temptation! Still he resists it he goes off to a lady who has for some time been residing in the town, and who is highly esteemed among us, Madame Hohlakov. That lady, who had long watched his career with compassion, gave him the most judicious advice, to give up his dissipated life, his unseemly loveaffair, the waste of his youth and vigor in pothouse debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to the gold mines 'that would be an outlet for your turbulent energies, your romantic character, your thirst for adventure.'  After describing the result of this conversation and the moment when the prisoner learnt that Grushenka had not remained at Samsonov's, the sudden frenzy of the luckless man worn out with jealousy and nervous exhaustion, at the thought that she had deceived him and was now with his father, Ippolit Kirillovitch concluded by dwelling upon the fatal influence of chance. 'Had the maid told him that her mistress was at Mokroe with her former lover, nothing would have happened. But she lost her head, she could only swear and protest her ignorance, and if the prisoner did not kill her on the spot, it was only because he flew in pursuit of his false mistress. 'But note, frantic as he was, he took with him a brass pestle. Why that? Why not some other weapon? But since he had been contemplating his plan and preparing himself for it for a whole month, he would snatch up anything like a weapon that caught his eye. He had realized for a month past that any object of the kind would serve as a weapon, so he instantly, without hesitation, recognized that it would serve his purpose. So it was by no means unconsciously, by no means involuntarily, that he snatched up that fatal pestle. And then we find him in his father's gardenthe coast is clear, there are no witnesses, darkness and jealousy. The suspicion that she was there, with him, with his rival, in his arms, and perhaps laughing at him at that momenttook his breath away. And it was not mere suspicion, the deception was open, obvious. She must be there, in that lighted room, she must be behind the screen and the unhappy man would have us believe that he stole up to the window, peeped respectfully in, and discreetly withdrew, for fear something terrible and immoral should happen. And he tries to persuade us of that, us, who understand his character, who know his state of mind at the moment, and that he knew the signals by which he could at once enter the house. At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch broke off to discuss exhaustively the suspected connection of Smerdyakov with the murder. He did this very circumstantially, and every one realized that, although he professed to despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great importance. 'To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion? (Ippolit Kirillovitch began.) 'The first person who cried out that Smerdyakov had committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of his arrest, yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a single fact to confirm the charge, nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. The charge is confirmed by three persons onlythe two brothers of the prisoner and Madame Svyetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only today, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brain fever. But we know that for the last two months he has completely shared our conviction of his brother's guilt and did not attempt to combat that idea. But of that later. The younger brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact to support his notion of Smerdyakov's guilt, and has only been led to that conclusion from the prisoner's own words and the expression of his face. Yes, that astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice to day by him. Madame Svyetlov was even more astounding. 'What the prisoner tells you, you must believe he is not a man to tell a lie.' That is all the evidence against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who are all deeply concerned in the prisoner's fate. And yet the theory of Smerdyakov's guilt has been noised about, has been and is still maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable? Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality of Smerdyakov, 'who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity. He depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education, who had been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level and certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his fatherFyodor Pavlovitch and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical conversations with his master's elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse himself at the valet's expense. 'He spoke to me himself of his spiritual condition during the last few days at his father's house, Ippolit Kirillovitch explained 'but others too have borne witness to itthe prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigorythat is, all who knew him well. 'Moreover, Smerdyakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of epilepsy, had not the courage of a chicken. 'He fell at my feet and kissed them,' the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized how damaging such a statement was to himself. 'He is an epileptic chicken,' he declared about him in his characteristic language. And the prisoner chose him for his confidant (we have his own word for it) and he frightened him into consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In that capacity he deceived his master, revealing to the prisoner the existence of the envelope with the notes in it and the signals by means of which he could get into the house. How could he help telling him, indeed? 'He would have killed me, I could see that he would have killed me,' he said at the inquiry, trembling and shaking even before us, though his tormentor was by that time arrested and could do him no harm. 'He suspected me at every instant. In fear and trembling I hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might see that I had not deceived him and let me off alive.' Those are his own words. I wrote them down and I remember them. 'When he began shouting at me, I would fall on my knees.' 'He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence of his master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. So it may be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse at having deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Persons severely afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tell us, always prone to continual and morbid selfreproach. They worry over their 'wickedness,' they are tormented by pangs of conscience, often entirely without cause they exaggerate and often invent all sorts of faults and crimes. And here we have a man of that type who had really been driven to wrongdoing by terror and intimidation. 'He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible would be the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes. When Ivan Fyodorovitch was leaving for Moscow, just before the catastrophe, Smerdyakov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, but his hints were not understood. 'It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fyodorovitch as a protector, whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to pass. Remember the phrase in Dmitri Karamazov's drunken letter, 'I shall kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away.' So Ivan Fyodorovitch's presence seemed to every one a guarantee of peace and order in the house. 'But he went away, and within an hour of his young master's departure Smerdyakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that's perfectly intelligible. Here I must mention that Smerdyakov, oppressed by terror and despair of a sort, had felt during those last few days that one of the fits from which he had suffered before at moments of strain, might be coming upon him again. The day and hour of such an attack cannot, of course, be foreseen, but every epileptic can feel beforehand that he is likely to have one. So the doctors tell us. And so, as soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch had driven out of the yard, Smerdyakov, depressed by his lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down the stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and what if it were to come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that very wonder, brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such attacks, and he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natural occurrence people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he was shamming an attack on purpose. But, if it were on purpose, the question arises at once, what was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What was he aiming at? I say nothing about medicine science, I am told, may go astray the doctors were not able to discriminate between the counterfeit and the real. That may be so, but answer me one question what motive had he for such a counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the murder, have desired to attract the attention of the household by having a fit just before? 'You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there were five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch'sFyodor Pavlovitch himself (but he did not kill himself, that's evident) then his servant, Grigory, but he was almost killed himself the third person was Grigory's wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her master. Two persons are leftthe prisoner and Smerdyakov. But, if we are to believe the prisoner's statement that he is not the murderer, then Smerdyakov must have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else can be found. That is what accounts for the artful, astounding accusation against the unhappy idiot who committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of suspicion rested on any one else, had there been any sixth person, I am persuaded that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse Smerdyakov, and would have accused that sixth person, for to charge Smerdyakov with that murder is perfectly absurd. 'Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, let us even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what the facts tell us. If Smerdyakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone or with the assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the first alternativethat he did it alone. If he had killed him it must have been with some object, for some advantage to himself. But not having a shadow of the motive that the prisoner had for the murderhatred, jealousy, and so onSmerdyakov could only have murdered him for the sake of gain, in order to appropriate the three thousand roubles he had seen his master put in the envelope. And yet he tells another personand a person most closely interested, that is, the prisonereverything about the money and the signals, where the envelope lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and, above all, told him of those signals by which he could enter the house. Did he do this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the same enterprise one who would be anxious to get that envelope for himself? 'Yes,' I shall be told, 'but he betrayed it from fear.' But how do you explain this? A man who could conceive such an audacious, savage act, and carry it out, tells facts which are known to no one else in the world, and which, if he held his tongue, no one would ever have guessed! 'No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime, nothing would have induced him to tell any one about the envelope and the signals, for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. He would have invented something, he would have told some lie if he had been forced to give information, but he would have been silent about that. For, on the other hand, if he had said nothing about the money, but had committed the murder and stolen the money, no one in the world could have charged him with murder for the sake of robbery, since no one but he had seen the money, no one but he knew of its existence in the house. Even if he had been accused of the murder, it could only have been thought that he had committed it from some other motive. But since no one had observed any such motive in him beforehand, and every one saw, on the contrary, that his master was fond of him and honored him with his confidence, he would, of course, have been the last to be suspected. People would have suspected first the man who had a motive, a man who had himself declared he had such motives, who had made no secret of it they would, in fact, have suspected the son of the murdered man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Had Smerdyakov killed and robbed him, and the son been accused of it, that would, of course, have suited Smerdyakov. Yet are we to believe that, though plotting the murder, he told that son, Dmitri, about the money, the envelope, and the signals? Is that logical? Is that clear? 'When the day of the murder planned by Smerdyakov came, we have him falling downstairs in a feigned fitwith what object? In the first place that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, might put it off and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look after the house, and, in the second place, I suppose, that his master seeing that there was no one to guard him, and in terror of a visit from his son, might redouble his vigilance and precaution. And, most of all, I suppose that he, Smerdyakov, disabled by the fit, might be carried from the kitchen, where he always slept, apart from all the rest, and where he could go in and out as he liked, to Grigory's room at the other end of the lodge, where he was always put, shut off by a screen three paces from their own bed. This was the immemorial custom established by his master and the kindhearted Marfa Ignatyevna, whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the screen, he would most likely, to keep up the sham, have begun groaning, and so keeping them awake all night (as Grigory and his wife testified). And all this, we are to believe, that he might more conveniently get up and murder his master! 'But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose that he might not be suspected and that he told the prisoner of the money and the signals to tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered him and had gone away with the money, making a noise, most likely, and waking people, Smerdyakov got up, am I to believe, and went inwhat for? To murder his master a second time and carry off the money that had already been stolen? Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed to put forward such suggestions, but, incredible as it seems, that's just what the prisoner alleges. When he had left the house, had knocked Grigory down and raised an alarm, he tells us Smerdyakov got up, went in and murdered his master and stole the money! I won't press the point that Smerdyakov could hardly have reckoned on this beforehand, and have foreseen that the furious and exasperated son would simply come to peep in respectfully, though he knew the signals, and beat a retreat, leaving Smerdyakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put this question to you in earnest when was the moment when Smerdyakov could have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you can't accuse him. 'But, perhaps, the fit was a real one, the sick man suddenly recovered, heard a shout, and went out. Wellwhat then? He looked about him and said, 'Why not go and kill the master?' And how did he know what had happened, since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? But there's a limit to these flights of fancy. ' 'Quite so,' some astute people will tell me, 'but what if they were in agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the moneywhat then?' A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confirm it are astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble while his accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion in every one, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory. It would be interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices to form such an insane plan. 'But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov's part, but only of passive acquiescence perhaps Smerdyakov was intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing that he would be blamed for letting his master be murdered, without screaming for help or resisting, he may have obtained permission from Dmitri Karamazov to get out of the way by shamming a fit'you may murder him as you like it's nothing to me.' But as this attack of Smerdyakov's was bound to throw the household into confusion, Dmitri Karamazov could never have agreed to such a plan. I will waive that point however. Supposing that he did agree, it would still follow that Dmitri Karamazov is the murderer and the instigator, and Smerdyakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an accomplice, but merely acquiesced against his will through terror. 'But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantly throws all the blame on Smerdyakov, not accusing him of being his accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. 'He did it alone,' he says. 'He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands.' Strange sort of accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once! And think of the risk for Karamazov. After committing the murder while his accomplice lay in bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, who might well have resented it and in selfpreservation might well have confessed the truth. For he might well have seen that the court would at once judge how far he was responsible, and so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished, it would be far less severely than the real murderer. But in that case he would have been certain to make a confession, yet he has not done so. Smerdyakov never hinted at their complicity, though the actual murderer persisted in accusing him and declaring that he had committed the crime alone. 'What's more, Smerdyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that it was he who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of the signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them. If he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily have made this statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would have tried to conceal it, to distort the facts or minimize them. But he was far from distorting or minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, who had no fear of being charged with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe he hanged himself yesterday. He left a note written in his peculiar language, 'I destroy myself of my own will and inclination so as to throw no blame on any one.' What would it have cost him to add 'I am the murderer, not Karamazov'? But that he did not add. Did his conscience lead him to suicide and not to avowing his guilt? 'And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles were brought into the court just now, and we were told that they were the same that lay in the envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness had received them from Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful scene, though I will make one or two comments, selecting such trivial ones as might not be obvious at first sight to every one, and so may be overlooked. In the first place, Smerdyakov must have given back the money and hanged himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterday he confessed his guilt to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs us. If it were not so, indeed, why should Ivan Fyodorovitch have kept silence till now? And so, if he has confessed, then why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole truth in the last letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent prisoner had to face this terrible ordeal the next day? 'The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by chance, the fact came to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that Ivan Fyodorovitch had sent two five per cent. coupons of five thousand eachthat is, ten thousand in allto the chief town of the province to be changed. I only mention this to point out that any one may have money, and that it can't be proved that these notes are the same as were in Fyodor Pavlovitch's envelope. 'Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn't he report it at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past he had admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead he was on the eve of the attack of brain fever by which he has been stricken down today. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smerdyakov's death, and at once reflected, 'The man is dead, I can throw the blame on him and save my brother. I have money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov gave them me before his death.' You will say that was dishonorable it's dishonorable to slander even the dead, and even to save a brother. True, but what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by the sudden news of the valet's death, he imagined it really was so? You saw the recent scene you have seen the witness's condition. He was standing up and was speaking, but where was his mind? 'Then followed the document, the prisoner's letter written two days before the crime, and containing a complete program of the murder. Why, then, are we looking for any other program? The crime was committed precisely according to this program, and by no other than the writer of it. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did not run respectfully and timidly away from his father's window, though he was firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that is absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed him in anger, burning with resentment, as soon as he looked on his hated rival. But having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pestle, and having convinced himself, after careful search, that she was not there, he did not, however, forget to put his hand under the pillow and take out the envelope, the torn cover of which lies now on the table before us. 'I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, very characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer and had he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he have left the torn envelope on the floor as it was found, beside the corpse? Had it been Smerdyakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him, he would have simply carried away the envelope with him, without troubling himself to open it over his victim's corpse, for he would have known for certain that the notes were in the envelopethey had been put in and sealed up in his presenceand had he taken the envelope with him, no one would ever have known of the robbery. I ask you, gentlemen, would Smerdyakov have behaved in that way? Would he have left the envelope on the floor? 'No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was not a thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the notes from under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as though seizing his own property from the thief who had stolen it. For that was the idea which had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitri Karamazov in regard to that money. And pouncing upon the envelope, which he had never seen before, he tore it open to make sure whether the money was in it, and ran away with the money in his pocket, even forgetting to consider that he had left an astounding piece of evidence against himself in that torn envelope on the floor. All because it was Karamazov, not Smerdyakov, he didn't think, he didn't reflect, and how should he? He ran away he heard behind him the servant cry out the old man caught him, stopped him and was felled to the ground by the brass pestle. 'The prisoner, moved by pity, leapt down to look at him. Would you believe it, he tells us that he leapt down out of pity, out of compassion, to see whether he could do anything for him. Was that a moment to show compassion? No he jumped down simply to make certain whether the only witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any other feeling, any other motive would be unnatural. Note that he took trouble over Grigory, wiped his head with his handkerchief and, convincing himself he was dead, he ran to the house of his mistress, dazed and covered with blood. How was it he never thought that he was covered with blood and would be at once detected? But the prisoner himself assures us that he did not even notice that he was covered with blood. That may be believed, that is very possible, that always happens at such moments with criminals. On one point they will show diabolical cunning, while another will escape them altogether. But he was thinking at that moment of one thing onlywhere was she? He wanted to find out at once where she was, so he ran to her lodging and learnt an unexpected and astounding piece of newsshe had gone off to Mokroe to meet her first lover. Ippolit Kirillovitch had chosen the historical method of exposition, beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check on their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off into a dissertation on Grushenka's 'first lover, and brought forward several interesting thoughts on this theme. 'Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of every one, collapsed, so to speak, and effaced himself at once before this first lover. What makes it all the more strange is that he seems to have hardly thought of this formidable rival. But he had looked upon him as a remote danger, and Karamazov always lives in the present. Possibly he regarded him as a fiction. But his wounded heart grasped instantly that the woman had been concealing this new rival and deceiving him, because he was anything but a fiction to her, because he was the one hope of her life. Grasping this instantly, he resigned himself. 'Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this unexpected trait in the prisoner's character. He suddenly evinces an irresistible desire for justice, a respect for woman and a recognition of her right to love. And all this at the very moment when he had stained his hands with his father's blood for her sake! It is true that the blood he had shed was already crying out for vengeance, for, after having ruined his soul and his life in this world, he was forced to ask himself at that same instant what he was and what he could be now to her, to that being, dearer to him than his own soul, in comparison with that former lover who had returned penitent, with new love, to the woman he had once betrayed, with honorable offers, with the promise of a reformed and happy life. And he, luckless man, what could he give her now, what could he offer her? 'Karamazov felt all this, knew that all ways were barred to him by his crime and that he was a criminal under sentence, and not a man with life before him! This thought crushed him. And so he instantly flew to one frantic plan, which, to a man of Karamazov's character, must have appeared the one inevitable way out of his terrible position. That way out was suicide. He ran for the pistols he had left in pledge with his friend Perhotin and on the way, as he ran, he pulled out of his pocket the money, for the sake of which he had stained his hands with his father's gore. Oh, now he needed money more than ever. Karamazov would die, Karamazov would shoot himself and it should be remembered! To be sure, he was a poet and had burnt the candle at both ends all his life. 'To her, to her! and there, oh, there I will give a feast to the whole world, such as never was before, that will be remembered and talked of long after! In the midst of shouts of wild merriment, reckless gypsy songs and dances I shall raise the glass and drink to the woman I adore and her newfound happiness! And then, on the spot, at her feet, I shall dash out my brains before her and punish myself! She will remember Mitya Karamazov sometimes, she will see how Mitya loved her, she will feel for Mitya!' 'Here we see in excess a love of effect, a romantic despair and sentimentality, and the wild recklessness of the Karamazovs. Yes, but there is something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the soul, throbs incessantly in the mind, and poisons the heart unto deaththat something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, its judgment, its terrible torments! The pistol will settle everything, the pistol is the only way out! But beyondI don't know whether Karamazov wondered at that moment 'What lies beyond,' and whether Karamazov could, like Hamlet, wonder 'What lies beyond.' No, gentlemen of the jury, they have their Hamlets, but we still have our Karamazovs! Here Ippolit Kirillovitch drew a minute picture of Mitya's preparations, the scene at Perhotin's, at the shop, with the drivers. He quoted numerous words and actions, confirmed by witnesses, and the picture made a terrible impression on the audience. The guilt of this harassed and desperate man stood out clear and convincing, when the facts were brought together. 'What need had he of precaution? Two or three times he almost confessed, hinted at it, all but spoke out. (Then followed the evidence given by witnesses.) 'He even cried out to the peasant who drove him, 'Do you know, you are driving a murderer!' But it was impossible for him to speak out, he had to get to Mokroe and there to finish his romance. But what was awaiting the luckless man? Almost from the first minute at Mokroe he saw that his invincible rival was perhaps by no means so invincible, that the toast to their newfound happiness was not desired and would not be acceptable. But you know the facts, gentlemen of the jury, from the preliminary inquiry. Karamazov's triumph over his rival was complete and his soul passed into quite a new phase, perhaps the most terrible phase through which his soul has passed or will pass. 'One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury, the prosecutor continued, 'that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their own vengeance more completely than any earthly justice. What's more, justice and punishment on earth positively alleviate the punishment of nature and are, indeed, essential to the soul of the criminal at such moments, as its salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horror and moral suffering of Karamazov when he learnt that she loved him, that for his sake she had rejected her first lover, that she was summoning him, Mitya, to a new life, that she was promising him happinessand when? When everything was over for him and nothing was possible! 'By the way, I will note in parenthesis a point of importance for the light it throws on the prisoner's position at the moment. This woman, this love of his, had been till the last moment, till the very instant of his arrest, a being unattainable, passionately desired by him but unattainable. Yet why did he not shoot himself then, why did he relinquish his design and even forget where his pistol was? It was just that passionate desire for love and the hope of satisfying it that restrained him. Throughout their revels he kept close to his adored mistress, who was at the banquet with him and was more charming and fascinating to him than everhe did not leave her side, abasing himself in his homage before her. 'His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest, but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment! I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by these influencesfirst, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had a few hours and that's much, very much! In a few hours one can think of many things. I imagine that he felt something like what criminals feel when they are being taken to the scaffold. They have another long, long street to pass down and at walking pace, past thousands of people. Then there will be a turning into another street and only at the end of that street the dread place of execution! I fancy that at the beginning of the journey the condemned man, sitting on his shameful cart, must feel that he has infinite life still before him. The houses recede, the cart moves onoh, that's nothing, it's still far to the turning into the second street and he still looks boldly to right and to left at those thousands of callously curious people with their eyes fixed on him, and he still fancies that he is just such a man as they. But now the turning comes to the next street. Oh, that's nothing, nothing, there's still a whole street before him, and however many houses have been passed, he will still think there are many left. And so to the very end, to the very scaffold. 'This I imagine is how it was with Karamazov then. 'They've not had time yet,' he must have thought, 'I may still find some way out, oh, there's still time to make some plan of defense, and now, nowshe is so fascinating!' 'His soul was full of confusion and dread, but he managed, however, to put aside half his money and hide it somewhereI cannot otherwise explain the disappearance of quite half of the three thousand he had just taken from his father's pillow. He had been in Mokroe more than once before, he had caroused there for two days together already, he knew the old big house with all its passages and outbuildings. I imagine that part of the money was hidden in that house, not long before the arrest, in some crevice, under some floor, in some corner, under the roof. With what object? I shall be asked. Why, the catastrophe may take place at once, of course he hadn't yet considered how to meet it, he hadn't the time, his head was throbbing and his heart was with her, but moneymoney was indispensable in any case! With money a man is always a man. Perhaps such foresight at such a moment may strike you as unnatural? But he assures us himself that a month before, at a critical and exciting moment, he had halved his money and sewn it up in a little bag. And though that was not true, as we shall prove directly, it shows the idea was a familiar one to Karamazov, he had contemplated it. What's more, when he declared at the inquiry that he had put fifteen hundred roubles in a bag (which never existed) he may have invented that little bag on the inspiration of the moment, because he had two hours before divided his money and hidden half of it at Mokroe till morning, in case of emergency, simply not to have it on himself. Two extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember that Karamazov can contemplate two extremes and both at once. 'We have looked in the house, but we haven't found the money. It may still be there or it may have disappeared next day and be in the prisoner's hands now. In any case he was at her side, on his knees before her, she was lying on the bed, he had his hands stretched out to her and he had so entirely forgotten everything that he did not even hear the men coming to arrest him. He hadn't time to prepare any line of defense in his mind. He was caught unawares and confronted with his judges, the arbiters of his destiny. 'Gentlemen of the jury, there are moments in the execution of our duties when it is terrible for us to face a man, terrible on his account, too! The moments of contemplating that animal fear, when the criminal sees that all is lost, but still struggles, still means to struggle, the moments when every instinct of selfpreservation rises up in him at once and he looks at you with questioning and suffering eyes, studies you, your face, your thoughts, uncertain on which side you will strike, and his distracted mind frames thousands of plans in an instant, but he is still afraid to speak, afraid of giving himself away! This purgatory of the spirit, this animal thirst for selfpreservation, these humiliating moments of the human soul, are awful, and sometimes arouse horror and compassion for the criminal even in the lawyer. And this was what we all witnessed then. 'At first he was thunderstruck and in his terror dropped some very compromising phrases. 'Blood! I've deserved it!' But he quickly restrained himself. He had not prepared what he was to say, what answer he was to make, he had nothing but a bare denial ready. 'I am not guilty of my father's death.' That was his fence for the moment and behind it he hoped to throw up a barricade of some sort. His first compromising exclamations he hastened to explain by declaring that he was responsible for the death of the servant Grigory only. 'Of that bloodshed I am guilty, but who has killed my father, gentlemen, who has killed him? Who can have killed him, if not I?' Do you hear, he asked us that, us, who had come to ask him that question! Do you hear that phrase uttered with such premature haste'if not I'the animal cunning, the navet, the Karamazov impatience of it? 'I didn't kill him and you mustn't think I did! I wanted to kill him, gentlemen, I wanted to kill him,' he hastens to admit (he was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry), 'but still I am not guilty, it is not I murdered him.' He concedes to us that he wanted to murder him, as though to say, you can see for yourselves how truthful I am, so you'll believe all the sooner that I didn't murder him. Oh, in such cases the criminal is often amazingly shallow and credulous. 'At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally, the most simple question, 'Wasn't it Smerdyakov killed him?' Then, as we expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the moment when it would be most natural to bring in Smerdyakov's name. He rushed at once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to assure us that Smerdyakov could not have killed him, was not capable of it. But don't believe him, that was only his cunning he didn't really give up the idea of Smerdyakov on the contrary, he meant to bring him forward again for, indeed, he had no one else to bring forward, but he would do that later, because for the moment that line was spoiled for him. He would bring him forward perhaps next day, or even a few days later, choosing an opportunity to cry out to us, 'You know I was more skeptical about Smerdyakov than you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am convinced. He killed him, he must have done!' And for the present he falls back upon a gloomy and irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted him, however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he looked into his father's window and how he respectfully withdrew. The worst of it was that he was unaware of the position of affairs, of the evidence given by Grigory. 'We proceeded to search him. The search angered, but encouraged him, the whole three thousand had not been found on him, only half of it. And no doubt only at that moment of angry silence, the fiction of the little bag first occurred to him. No doubt he was conscious himself of the improbability of the story and strove painfully to make it sound more likely, to weave it into a romance that would sound plausible. In such cases the first duty, the chief task of the investigating lawyers, is to prevent the criminal being prepared, to pounce upon him unexpectedly so that he may blurt out his cherished ideas in all their simplicity, improbability and inconsistency. The criminal can only be made to speak by the sudden and apparently incidental communication of some new fact, of some circumstance of great importance in the case, of which he had no previous idea and could not have foreseen. We had such a fact in readinessthat was Grigory's evidence about the open door through which the prisoner had run out. He had completely forgotten about that door and had not even suspected that Grigory could have seen it. 'The effect of it was amazing. He leapt up and shouted to us, 'Then Smerdyakov murdered him, it was Smerdyakov!' and so betrayed the basis of the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its most improbable shape, for Smerdyakov could only have committed the murder after he had knocked Grigory down and run away. When we told him that Grigory saw the door was open before he fell down, and had heard Smerdyakov behind the screen as he came out of his bedroomKaramazov was positively crushed. My esteemed and witty colleague, Nikolay Parfenovitch, told me afterwards that he was almost moved to tears at the sight of him. And to improve matters, the prisoner hastened to tell us about the muchtalkedof little bagso be it, you shall hear this romance! 'Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I consider this romance not only an absurdity, but the most improbable invention that could have been brought forward in the circumstances. If one tried for a bet to invent the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anything more incredible. The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary storytellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle! But that's how they are caught. The prisoner was asked the question, 'Where did you get the stuff for your little bag and who made it for you?' 'I made it myself.' 'And where did you get the linen?' The prisoner was positively offended, he thought it almost insulting to ask him such a trivial question, and would you believe it, his resentment was genuine! But they are all like that. 'I tore it off my shirt.' 'Then we shall find that shirt among your linen tomorrow, with a piece torn off.' And only fancy, gentlemen of the jury, if we really had found that torn shirt (and how could we have failed to find it in his chest of drawers or trunk?) that would have been a fact, a material fact in support of his statement! But he was incapable of that reflection. 'I don't remember, it may not have been off my shirt, I sewed it up in one of my landlady's caps.' 'What sort of a cap?' 'It was an old cotton rag of hers lying about.' 'And do you remember that clearly?' 'No, I don't.' And he was angry, very angry, and yet imagine not remembering it! At the most terrible moments of man's life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such trifles. He will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a crossthat he will remember. He concealed the making of that little bag from his household, he must have remembered his humiliating fear that some one might come in and find him needle in hand, how at the slightest sound he slipped behind the screen (there is a screen in his lodgings). 'But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these details, trifles? cried Ippolit Kirillovitch suddenly. 'Just because the prisoner still persists in these absurdities to this moment. He has not explained anything since that fatal night two months ago, he has not added one actual illuminating fact to his former fantastic statements all those are trivialities. 'You must believe it on my honor.' Oh, we are glad to believe it, we are eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honor! Are we jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the prisoner's favor and we shall rejoice but let it be a substantial, real fact, and not a conclusion drawn from the prisoner's expression by his own brother, or that when he beat himself on the breast he must have meant to point to the little bag, in the darkness, too. We shall rejoice at the new fact, we shall be the first to repudiate our charge, we shall hasten to repudiate it. But now justice cries out and we persist, we cannot repudiate anything. Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to his final peroration. He looked as though he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood that cried for vengeance, the blood of the father murdered by his son, with the base motive of robbery! He pointed to the tragic and glaring consistency of the facts. 'And whatever you may hear from the talented and celebrated counsel for the defense, Ippolit Kirillovitch could not resist adding, 'whatever eloquent and touching appeals may be made to your sensibilities, remember that at this moment you are in a temple of justice. Remember that you are the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she holds sacred! Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdict will be heard not in this hall only but will recho throughout the whole of Russia, and all Russia will hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disappoint Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from that troika that may be, not from respect, as the poet would fain believe, but simply from horror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do so and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition and will check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment and civilization. Already we have heard voices of alarm from Europe, they already begin to sound. Do not tempt them! Do not heap up their growing hatred by a sentence justifying the murder of a father by his son! Though Ippolit Kirillovitch was genuinely moved, he wound up his speech with this rhetorical appealand the effect produced by him was extraordinary. When he had finished his speech, he went out hurriedly and, as I have mentioned before, almost fainted in the adjoining room. There was no applause in the court, but serious persons were pleased. The ladies were not so well satisfied, though even they were pleased with his eloquence, especially as they had no apprehensions as to the upshot of the trial and had full trust in Fetyukovitch. 'He will speak at last and of course carry all before him. Every one looked at Mitya he sat silent through the whole of the prosecutor's speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped, and his head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and listened, especially when Grushenka was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentioned Rakitin's opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over his face and he murmured rather audibly, 'The Bernards! When Ippolit Kirillovitch described how he had questioned and tortured him at Mokroe, Mitya raised his head and listened with intense curiosity. At one point he seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlled himself and only shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. People talked afterwards of the end of the speech, of the prosecutor's feat in examining the prisoner at Mokroe, and jeered at Ippolit Kirillovitch. 'The man could not resist boasting of his cleverness, they said. The court was adjourned, but only for a short interval, a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at most. There was a hum of conversation and exclamations in the audience. I remember some of them. 'A weighty speech, a gentleman in one group observed gravely. 'He brought in too much psychology, said another voice. 'But it was all true, the absolute truth! 'Yes, he is first rate at it. 'He summed it all up. 'Yes, he summed us up, too, chimed in another voice. 'Do you remember, at the beginning of his speech, making out we were all like Fyodor Pavlovitch? 'And at the end, too. But that was all rot. 'And obscure too. 'He was a little too much carried away. 'It's unjust, it's unjust. 'No, it was smartly done, anyway. He's had long to wait, but he's had his say, ha ha! 'What will the counsel for the defense say? In another group I heard 'He had no business to make a thrust at the Petersburg man like that 'appealing to your sensibilities'do you remember? 'Yes, that was awkward of him. 'He was in too great a hurry. 'He is a nervous man. 'We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling? 'Yes, what must it be for Mitya? In a third group 'What lady is that, the fat one, with the lorgnette, sitting at the end? 'She is a general's wife, divorced, I know her. 'That's why she has the lorgnette. 'She is not good for much. 'Oh, no, she is a piquante little woman. 'Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman, she is prettier. 'They caught him smartly at Mokroe, didn't they, eh? 'Oh, it was smart enough. We've heard it before, how often he has told the story at people's houses! 'And he couldn't resist doing it now. That's vanity. 'He is a man with a grievance, he he! 'Yes, and quick to take offense. And there was too much rhetoric, such long sentences. 'Yes, he tries to alarm us, he kept trying to alarm us. Do you remember about the troika? Something about 'They have Hamlets, but we have, so far, only Karamazovs!' That was cleverly said! 'That was to propitiate the liberals. He is afraid of them. 'Yes, and he is afraid of the lawyer, too. 'Yes, what will Fetyukovitch say? 'Whatever he says, he won't get round our peasants. 'Don't you think so? A fourth group 'What he said about the troika was good, that piece about the other nations. 'And that was true what he said about other nations not standing it. 'What do you mean? 'Why, in the English Parliament a Member got up last week and speaking about the Nihilists asked the Ministry whether it was not high time to intervene, to educate this barbarous people. Ippolit was thinking of him, I know he was. He was talking about that last week. 'Not an easy job. 'Not an easy job? Why not? 'Why, we'd shut up Kronstadt and not let them have any corn. Where would they get it? 'In America. They get it from America now. 'Nonsense! But the bell rang, all rushed to their places. Fetyukovitch mounted the tribune. All was hushed as the first words of the famous orator rang out. The eyes of the audience were fastened upon him. He began very simply and directly, with an air of conviction, but not the slightest trace of conceit. He made no attempt at eloquence, at pathos, or emotional phrases. He was like a man speaking in a circle of intimate and sympathetic friends. His voice was a fine one, sonorous and sympathetic, and there was something genuine and simple in the very sound of it. But every one realized at once that the speaker might suddenly rise to genuine pathos and 'pierce the heart with untold power. His language was perhaps more irregular than Ippolit Kirillovitch's, but he spoke without long phrases, and indeed, with more precision. One thing did not please the ladies he kept bending forward, especially at the beginning of his speech, not exactly bowing, but as though he were about to dart at his listeners, bending his long spine in half, as though there were a spring in the middle that enabled him to bend almost at right angles. At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather disconnectedly, without system, one may say, dealing with facts separately, though, at the end, these facts formed a whole. His speech might be divided into two parts, the first consisting of criticism in refutation of the charge, sometimes malicious and sarcastic. But in the second half he suddenly changed his tone, and even his manner, and at once rose to pathos. The audience seemed on the lookout for it, and quivered with enthusiasm. He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although he practiced in Petersburg, he had more than once visited provincial towns to defend prisoners, of whose innocence he had a conviction or at least a preconceived idea. 'That is what has happened to me in the present case, he explained. 'From the very first accounts in the newspapers I was struck by something which strongly prepossessed me in the prisoner's favor. What interested me most was a fact which often occurs in legal practice, but rarely, I think, in such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present case. I ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my speech, but I will do so at the very beginning, for it is my weakness to go to work directly, not keeping my effects in reserve and economizing my material. That may be imprudent on my part, but at least it's sincere. What I have in my mind is this there is an overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and at the same time not one fact that will stand criticism, if it is examined separately. As I followed the case more closely in the papers my idea was more and more confirmed, and I suddenly received from the prisoner's relatives a request to undertake his defense. I at once hurried here, and here I became completely convinced. It was to break down this terrible chain of facts, and to show that each piece of evidence taken separately was unproved and fantastic, that I undertook the case. So Fetyukovitch began. 'Gentlemen of the jury, he suddenly protested, 'I am new to this district. I have no preconceived ideas. The prisoner, a man of turbulent and unbridled temper, has not insulted me. But he has insulted perhaps hundreds of persons in this town, and so prejudiced many people against him beforehand. Of course I recognize that the moral sentiment of local society is justly excited against him. The prisoner is of turbulent and violent temper. Yet he was received in society here he was even welcome in the family of my talented friend, the prosecutor. (N.B. At these words there were two or three laughs in the audience, quickly suppressed, but noticed by all. All of us knew that the prosecutor received Mitya against his will, solely because he had somehow interested his wifea lady of the highest virtue and moral worth, but fanciful, capricious, and fond of opposing her husband, especially in trifles. Mitya's visits, however, had not been frequent.) 'Nevertheless I venture to suggest, Fetyukovitch continued, 'that in spite of his independent mind and just character, my opponent may have formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that is so natural the unfortunate man has only too well deserved such prejudice. Outraged morality, and still more outraged taste, is often relentless. We have, in the talented prosecutor's speech, heard a stern analysis of the prisoner's character and conduct, and his severe critical attitude to the case was evident. And, what's more, he went into psychological subtleties into which he could not have entered, if he had the least conscious and malicious prejudice against the prisoner. But there are things which are even worse, even more fatal in such cases, than the most malicious and consciously unfair attitude. It is worse if we are carried away by the artistic instinct, by the desire to create, so to speak, a romance, especially if God has endowed us with psychological insight. Before I started on my way here, I was warned in Petersburg, and was myself aware, that I should find here a talented opponent whose psychological insight and subtlety had gained him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent years. But profound as psychology is, it's a knife that cuts both ways. (Laughter among the public.) 'You will, of course, forgive me my comparison I can't boast of eloquence. But I will take as an example any point in the prosecutor's speech. 'The prisoner, running away in the garden in the dark, climbed over the fence, was seized by the servant, and knocked him down with a brass pestle. Then he jumped back into the garden and spent five minutes over the man, trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And the prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner's statement that he ran to old Grigory out of pity. 'No,' he says, 'such sensibility is impossible at such a moment, that's unnatural he ran to find out whether the only witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had committed the murder, since he would not have run back for any other reason.' 'Here you have psychology but let us take the same method and apply it to the case the other way round, and our result will be no less probable. The murderer, we are told, leapt down to find out, as a precaution, whether the witness was alive or not, yet he had left in his murdered father's study, as the prosecutor himself argues, an amazing piece of evidence in the shape of a torn envelope, with an inscription that there had been three thousand roubles in it. 'If he had carried that envelope away with him, no one in the world would have known of that envelope and of the notes in it, and that the money had been stolen by the prisoner.' Those are the prosecutor's own words. So on one side you see a complete absence of precaution, a man who has lost his head and run away in a fright, leaving that clew on the floor, and two minutes later, when he has killed another man, we are entitled to assume the most heartless and calculating foresight in him. But even admitting this was so, it is psychological subtlety, I suppose, that discerns that under certain circumstances I become as bloodthirsty and keensighted as a Caucasian eagle, while at the next I am as timid and blind as a mole. But if I am so bloodthirsty and cruelly calculating that when I kill a man I only run back to find out whether he is alive to witness against me, why should I spend five minutes looking after my victim at the risk of encountering other witnesses? Why soak my handkerchief, wiping the blood off his head so that it may be evidence against me later? If he were so coldhearted and calculating, why not hit the servant on the head again and again with the same pestle so as to kill him outright and relieve himself of all anxiety about the witness? 'Again, though he ran to see whether the witness was alive, he left another witness on the path, that brass pestle which he had taken from the two women, and which they could always recognize afterwards as theirs, and prove that he had taken it from them. And it is not as though he had forgotten it on the path, dropped it through carelessness or haste, no, he had flung away his weapon, for it was found fifteen paces from where Grigory lay. Why did he do so? Just because he was grieved at having killed a man, an old servant and he flung away the pestle with a curse, as a murderous weapon. That's how it must have been, what other reason could he have had for throwing it so far? And if he was capable of feeling grief and pity at having killed a man, it shows that he was innocent of his father's murder. Had he murdered him, he would never have run to another victim out of pity then he would have felt differently his thoughts would have been centered on selfpreservation. He would have had none to spare for pity, that is beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would have broken his skull instead of spending five minutes looking after him. There was room for pity and goodfeeling just because his conscience had been clear till then. Here we have a different psychology. I have purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all depends on who makes use of it. Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously. I am speaking of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen. Sounds of approval and laughter, at the expense of the prosecutor, were again audible in the court. I will not repeat the speech in detail I will only quote some passages from it, some leading points. There was one point that struck every one in Fetyukovitch's speech. He flatly denied the existence of the fatal three thousand roubles, and consequently, the possibility of their having been stolen. 'Gentlemen of the jury, he began. 'Every new and unprejudiced observer must be struck by a characteristic peculiarity in the present case, namely, the charge of robbery, and the complete impossibility of proving that there was anything to be stolen. We are told that money was stolenthree thousand roublesbut whether those roubles ever existed, nobody knows. Consider, how have we heard of that sum, and who has seen the notes? The only person who saw them, and stated that they had been put in the envelope, was the servant, Smerdyakov. He had spoken of it to the prisoner and his brother, Ivan Fyodorovitch, before the catastrophe. Madame Svyetlov, too, had been told of it. But not one of these three persons had actually seen the notes, no one but Smerdyakov had seen them. 'Here the question arises, if it's true that they did exist, and that Smerdyakov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? What if his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them back in his cashbox without telling him? Note, that according to Smerdyakov's story the notes were kept under the mattress the prisoner must have pulled them out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled that is carefully recorded in the protocol. How could the prisoner have found the notes without disturbing the bed? How could he have helped soiling with his blood stained hands the fine and spotless linen with which the bed had been purposely made? 'But I shall be asked What about the envelope on the floor? Yes, it's worth saying a word or two about that envelope. I was somewhat surprised just now to hear the highly talented prosecutor declare of himselfof himself, observethat but for that envelope, but for its being left on the floor, no one in the world would have known of the existence of that envelope and the notes in it, and therefore of the prisoner's having stolen it. And so that torn scrap of paper is, by the prosecutor's own admission, the sole proof on which the charge of robbery rests, 'otherwise no one would have known of the robbery, nor perhaps even of the money.' But is the mere fact that that scrap of paper was lying on the floor a proof that there was money in it, and that that money had been stolen? Yet, it will be objected, Smerdyakov had seen the money in the envelope. But when, when had he seen it for the last time, I ask you that? I talked to Smerdyakov, and he told me that he had seen the notes two days before the catastrophe. Then why not imagine that old Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked up alone in impatient and hysterical expectation of the object of his adoration, may have whiled away the time by breaking open the envelope and taking out the notes. 'What's the use of the envelope?' he may have asked himself. 'She won't believe the notes are there, but when I show her the thirty rainbowcolored notes in one roll, it will make more impression, you may be sure, it will make her mouth water.' And so he tears open the envelope, takes out the money, and flings the envelope on the floor, conscious of being the owner and untroubled by any fears of leaving evidence. 'Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than this theory and such an action? Why is it out of the question? But if anything of the sort could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground if there was no money, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on the floor may be taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why may I not maintain the opposite, that the envelope was on the floor because the money had been taken from it by its owner? 'But I shall be asked what became of the money if Fyodor Pavlovitch took it out of the envelope since it was not found when the police searched the house? In the first place, part of the money was found in the cashbox, and secondly, he might have taken it out that morning or the evening before to make some other use of it, to give or send it away he may have changed his idea, his plan of action completely, without thinking it necessary to announce the fact to Smerdyakov beforehand. And if there is the barest possibility of such an explanation, how can the prisoner be so positively accused of having committed murder for the sake of robbery, and of having actually carried out that robbery? This is encroaching on the domain of romance. If it is maintained that something has been stolen, the thing must be produced, or at least its existence must be proved beyond doubt. Yet no one had ever seen these notes. 'Not long ago in Petersburg a young man of eighteen, hardly more than a boy, who carried on a small business as a costermonger, went in broad daylight into a moneychanger's shop with an ax, and with extraordinary, typical audacity killed the master of the shop and carried off fifteen hundred roubles. Five hours later he was arrested, and, except fifteen roubles he had already managed to spend, the whole sum was found on him. Moreover, the shopman, on his return to the shop after the murder, informed the police not only of the exact sum stolen, but even of the notes and gold coins of which that sum was made up, and those very notes and coins were found on the criminal. This was followed by a full and genuine confession on the part of the murderer. That's what I call evidence, gentlemen of the jury! In that case I know, I see, I touch the money, and cannot deny its existence. Is it the same in the present case? And yet it is a question of life and death. 'Yes, I shall be told, but he was carousing that night, squandering money he was shown to have had fifteen hundred roubleswhere did he get the money? But the very fact that only fifteen hundred could be found, and the other half of the sum could nowhere be discovered, shows that that money was not the same, and had never been in any envelope. By strict calculation of time it was proved at the preliminary inquiry that the prisoner ran straight from those women servants to Perhotin's without going home, and that he had been nowhere. So he had been all the time in company and therefore could not have divided the three thousand in half and hidden half in the town. It's just this consideration that has led the prosecutor to assume that the money is hidden in some crevice at Mokroe. Why not in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho, gentlemen? Isn't this supposition really too fantastic and too romantic? And observe, if that supposition breaks down, the whole charge of robbery is scattered to the winds, for in that case what could have become of the other fifteen hundred roubles? By what miracle could they have disappeared, since it's proved the prisoner went nowhere else? And we are ready to ruin a man's life with such tales! 'I shall be told that he could not explain where he got the fifteen hundred that he had, and every one knew that he was without money before that night. Who knew it, pray? The prisoner has made a clear and unflinching statement of the source of that money, and if you will have it so, gentlemen of the jury, nothing can be more probable than that statement, and more consistent with the temper and spirit of the prisoner. The prosecutor is charmed with his own romance. A man of weak will, who had brought himself to take the three thousand so insultingly offered by his betrothed, could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up, but would, even if he had done so, have unpicked it every two days and taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it all in a month. All this, you will remember, was put forward in a tone that brooked no contradiction. But what if the thing happened quite differently? What if you've been weaving a romance, and about quite a different kind of man? That's just it, you have invented quite a different man! 'I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent on one day all that three thousand given him by his betrothed a month before the catastrophe, so he could not have divided the sum in half. But who are these witnesses? The value of their evidence has been shown in court already. Besides, in another man's hand a crust always seems larger, and no one of these witnesses counted that money they all judged simply at sight. And the witness Maximov has testified that the prisoner had twenty thousand in his hand. You see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two edged weapon. Let me turn the other edge now and see what comes of it. 'A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was entrusted by Katerina Ivanovna with three thousand roubles to send off by post. But the question is is it true that they were entrusted to him in such an insulting and degrading way as was proclaimed just now? The first statement made by the young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the second statement we heard only cries of resentment and revenge, cries of longconcealed hatred. And the very fact that the witness gave her first evidence incorrectly, gives us a right to conclude that her second piece of evidence may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare not (his own words) touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it either, but will only venture to observe that if a lofty and high principled person, such as that highly respected young lady unquestionably is, if such a person, I say, allows herself suddenly in court to contradict her first statement, with the obvious motive of ruining the prisoner, it is clear that this evidence has been given not impartially, not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a revengeful woman might have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well have exaggerated, in particular, the insult and humiliation of her offering him the money. No, it was offered in such a way that it was possible to take it, especially for a man so easygoing as the prisoner, above all, as he expected to receive shortly from his father the three thousand roubles that he reckoned was owing to him. It was unreflecting of him, but it was just his irresponsible want of reflection that made him so confident that his father would give him the money, that he would get it, and so could always dispatch the money entrusted to him and repay the debt. 'But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day have set aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That's not his character, he tells us, he couldn't have had such feelings. But yet he talked himself of the broad Karamazov nature he cried out about the two extremes which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov is just such a twosided nature, fluctuating between two extremes, that even when moved by the most violent craving for riotous gayety, he can pull himself up, if something strikes him on the other side. And on the other side is lovethat new love which had flamed up in his heart, and for that love he needed money oh, far more than for carousing with his mistress. If she were to say to him, 'I am yours, I won't have Fyodor Pavlovitch,' then he must have money to take her away. That was more important than carousing. Could a Karamazov fail to understand it? That anxiety was just what he was suffering fromwhat is there improbable in his laying aside that money and concealing it in case of emergency? 'But time passed, and Fyodor Pavlovitch did not give the prisoner the expected three thousand on the contrary, the latter heard that he meant to use this sum to seduce the woman he, the prisoner, loved. 'If Fyodor Pavlovitch doesn't give the money,' he thought, 'I shall be put in the position of a thief before Katerina Ivanovna.' And then the idea presented itself to him that he would go to Katerina Ivanovna, lay before her the fifteen hundred roubles he still carried round his neck, and say, 'I am a scoundrel, but not a thief.' So here we have already a twofold reason why he should guard that sum of money as the apple of his eye, why he shouldn't unpick the little bag, and spend it a hundred at a time. Why should you deny the prisoner a sense of honor? Yes, he has a sense of honor, granted that it's misplaced, granted it's often mistaken, yet it exists and amounts to a passion, and he has proved that. 'But now the affair becomes even more complex his jealous torments reach a climax, and those same two questions torture his fevered brain more and more 'If I repay Katerina Ivanovna, where can I find the means to go off with Grushenka?' If he behaved wildly, drank, and made disturbances in the taverns in the course of that month, it was perhaps because he was wretched and strained beyond his powers of endurance. These two questions became so acute that they drove him at last to despair. He sent his younger brother to beg for the last time for the three thousand roubles, but without waiting for a reply, burst in himself and ended by beating the old man in the presence of witnesses. After that he had no prospect of getting it from any one his father would not give it him after that beating. 'The same evening he struck himself on the breast, just on the upper part of the breast where the little bag was, and swore to his brother that he had the means of not being a scoundrel, but that still he would remain a scoundrel, for he foresaw that he would not use that means, that he wouldn't have the character, that he wouldn't have the willpower to do it. Why, why does the prosecutor refuse to believe the evidence of Alexey Karamazov, given so genuinely and sincerely, so spontaneously and convincingly? And why, on the contrary, does he force me to believe in money hidden in a crevice, in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho? 'The same evening, after his talk with his brother, the prisoner wrote that fatal letter, and that letter is the chief, the most stupendous proof of the prisoner having committed robbery! 'I shall beg from every one, and if I don't get it I shall murder my father and shall take the envelope with the pink ribbon on it from under his mattress as soon as Ivan has gone.' A full program of the murder, we are told, so it must have been he. 'It has all been done as he wrote,' cries the prosecutor. 'But in the first place, it's the letter of a drunken man and written in great irritation secondly, he writes of the envelope from what he has heard from Smerdyakov again, for he has not seen the envelope himself and thirdly, he wrote it indeed, but how can you prove that he did it? Did the prisoner take the envelope from under the pillow, did he find the money, did that money exist indeed? And was it to get money that the prisoner ran off, if you remember? He ran off posthaste not to steal, but to find out where she was, the woman who had crushed him. He was not running to carry out a program, to carry out what he had written, that is, not for an act of premeditated robbery, but he ran suddenly, spontaneously, in a jealous fury. Yes! I shall be told, but when he got there and murdered him he seized the money, too. But did he murder him after all? The charge of robbery I repudiate with indignation. A man cannot be accused of robbery, if it's impossible to state accurately what he has stolen that's an axiom. But did he murder him without robbery, did he murder him at all? Is that proved? Isn't that, too, a romance? 'Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is at stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself admit that until today he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and conscious premeditation of the crime he hesitated till he saw that fatal drunken letter which was produced in court today. 'All was done as written.' But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't be disputed. Had she been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not even remember his drunken letter. 'He snatched up the pestle,' they say, and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that pestlewhy he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this point What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as a proof of premeditation? 'Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the psychological method is a twoedged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don't we often hear children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, 'I'll kill you'? but they don't murder any one. And that fatal letterisn't that simply drunken irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler outside the tavern, 'I'll kill you! I'll kill the lot of you!' Why not, why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter 'fatal' rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon in his hand, and was knocked down by him therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not 'absurd,' but 'fatal.' 'Now, thank God! we've come to the real point 'since he was in the garden, he must have murdered him.' In those few words 'since he was, then he must' lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so he must have. And what if there is no must about it, even if he was there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidencethe coincidencesare really suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from his father's window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the expense of the respectful and 'pious' sentiments which suddenly came over the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of filial respect? 'My mother must have been praying for me at that moment,' were the prisoner's words at the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father's house. 'But he could not convince himself by looking through the window,' the prosecutor objects. But why couldn't he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest imagination. ' 'Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was in the house, therefore he killed him.' Now about that door, gentlemen of the jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that But supposing the door was open supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an instinct of selfdefense, natural in his position supposing he did go into the housewell, what then? How does it follow that because he was there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the rooms might have pushed his father away might have struck him but as soon as he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down. 'With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful state of the prisoner's mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that corpseretribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition, about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape punishment, if his hands were really stained with his father's blood? No, no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed himself, if he had his father's murder on his conscience. Oh, no! he would not have forgotten where his pistols lay! I know the prisoner the savage, stony heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with his character. He would have killed himself, that's certain. He did not kill himself just because 'his mother's prayers had saved him,' and he was innocent of his father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts? What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying? 'But we shall be told at once again, 'There is his father's corpse! If he ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?' Here, I repeat, you have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he? There's no one to put in his place. 'Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor count on his fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five in number three of them, I agree, could not have been responsiblethe murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would have abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the very opposite conclusion? There are two personsthe prisoner and Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because you have no one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you have determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion. 'It's true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court today by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has today produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the court's and the prosecutor's conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again Smerdyakov's name is pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we won't go into that now. Of that later. 'The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might make a few remarks about the charactersketch of Smerdyakov drawn with subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak in health, it is true but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of navet, and an intelligence of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for weakminded. He made a very definite impression on me I left him with the conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some inquiries he resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was the son of 'stinking Lizaveta.' He was disrespectful to the servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood. He cursed and jeered at Russia. He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman. He used often to say that he hadn't the means to do so. I fancy he loved no one but himself and had a strangely high opinion of himself. His conception of culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirtfronts and polished boots. Believing himself to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master's legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights, they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himself that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope. The destination of that suma sum which would have made his careermust have been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand roubles in new rainbowcolored notes. (I asked him about that on purpose.) Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once! And it was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man. The sight of the rainbowcolored notes may have made a morbid impression on his imagination, but with no immediate results. 'The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov's guilt, and asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally, but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as happens with epileptics. 'The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed the murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might have waked up from deep sleep (for he was only asleepan epileptic fit is always followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory shouted at the top of his voice 'Parricide!' That shout in the dark and stillness may have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment he might naturally have waked up an hour before. 'Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite motive towards the sound to see what's the matter. His head is still clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep but, once in the garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to work at once. He hears all the details from his frightened master, and gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an ideaterrible, but seductive and irresistibly logical. To kill the old man, take the three thousand, and throw all the blame on to his young master. A terrible lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realized his security from detection. Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favorable opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may have gone in and carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked up in the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the three thousand which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting myselfthe money may have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the moneythe torn envelope on the floor? 'Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a piece of evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was hearing something very familiar, and, would you believe it, I have heard that very argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazov would have behaved, precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself. What's more, it struck me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about him that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me that I might fancy it was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same idea at the inquiry and suggest it to the talented prosecutor? 'I shall be asked, 'What about the old woman, Grigory's wife? She heard the sick man moaning close by, all night.' Yes, she heard it, but that evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that's natural. If any one is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up, annoyed at being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a groan, he wakes up and falls asleep again and the same thing again two hours laterthree times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper wakes up and complains that some one has been groaning all night and keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so to him the intervals of two hours of sleep he does not remember, he only remembers the moments of waking, so he feels he has been waked up all night. 'But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in his last letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both? But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the suicide, laying his hands on himself, may well have felt redoubled hatred for those whom he had envied all his life. 'Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What is there unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my reasoning find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there is but a shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred, I fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward. What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by the accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful the blood, the blood dripping from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the dark night resounding with the shout 'Parricide!' and the old man falling with a broken head. And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures, shouts! Oh! this has so much influence, it can so bias the mind but, gentlemen of the jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been given absolute power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the more terrible its responsibility. 'I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had stained his hands with his father's blood. This is only hypothesis, I repeat I never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I assume that my client is guilty of parricide. Even so, hear what I have to say. I have it in my heart to say something more to you, for I feel that there must be a great conflict in your hearts and minds.... Forgive my referring to your hearts and minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to be truthful and sincere to the end. Let us all be sincere! At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that every one felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the President, hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed and Fetyukovitch began in a voice full of feeling quite unlike the tone he had used hitherto. 'It's not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client with ruin, gentlemen of the jury, he began, 'what is really damning for my client is one factthe dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the evidence, if you examine each part of it separately or, at least, you would have hesitated to ruin a man's life simply from the prejudice against him which he has, alas! only too well deserved. But it's not an ordinary case of murder, it's a case of parricide. That impresses men's minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompleteness of the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to an unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if he committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what every one, almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart. 'Yes, it's a fearful thing to shed a father's bloodthe father who has begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such a fatherthat's inconceivable. Gentlemen of the jury, what is a fathera real father? What is the meaning of that great word? What is the great idea in that name? We have just indicated in part what a true father is and what he ought to be. In the case in which we are now so deeply occupied and over which our hearts are achingin the present case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, did not correspond to that conception of a father to which we have just referred. That's the misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a misfortune. Let us examine this misfortune rather more closely we must shrink from nothing, gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of the decision you have to make. It's our particular duty not to shrink from any idea, like children or frightened women, as the talented prosecutor happily expresses it. 'But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and he was my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, 'Oh, I will not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has come down from Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!' He exclaimed that several times, but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner was for twentythree years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given him by the only man who had been kind to him, as a child in his father's house, might not such a man well have remembered for twentythree years how he ran in his father's backyard, 'without boots on his feet and with his little trousers hanging by one button'to use the expression of the kindhearted doctor, Herzenstube? 'Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at this misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my client meet with when he arrived here, at his father's house, and why depict my client as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he is wild and unrulywe are trying him now for thatbut who is responsible for his life? Who is responsible for his having received such an unseemly bringing up, in spite of his excellent disposition and his grateful and sensitive heart? Did any one train him to be reasonable? Was he enlightened by study? Did any one love him ever so little in his childhood? My client was left to the care of Providence like a beast of the field. He thirsted perhaps to see his father after long years of separation. A thousand times perhaps he may, recalling his childhood, have driven away the loathsome phantoms that haunted his childish dreams and with all his heart he may have longed to embrace and to forgive his father! And what awaited him? He was met by cynical taunts, suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard nothing but revolting talk and vicious precepts uttered daily over the brandy, and at last he saw his father seducing his mistress from him with his own money. Oh, gentlemen of the jury, that was cruel and revolting! And that old man was always complaining of the disrespect and cruelty of his son. He slandered him in society, injured him, calumniated him, bought up his unpaid debts to get him thrown into prison. 'Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly, and uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed, exceedingly tenderhearted, only they don't express it. Don't laugh, don't laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessly just now at my client for loving Schillerloving the sublime and beautiful! I should not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, such naturesoh, let me speak in defense of such natures, so often and so cruelly misunderstoodthese natures often thirst for tenderness, goodness, and justice, as it were, in contrast to themselves, their unruliness, their ferocitythey thirst for it unconsciously. Passionate and fierce on the surface, they are painfully capable of loving woman, for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated love. Again do not laugh at me, this is very often the case in such natures. But they cannot hide their passionssometimes very coarseand that is conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Their passions are quickly exhausted but, by the side of a noble and lofty creature that seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks to correct himself, to be better, to become noble and honorable, 'sublime and beautiful,' however much the expression has been ridiculed. 'I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client's engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was not evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, and it was not for heroh, not for her!to reproach him with treachery, for she has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time for reflection she would not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believe her! No, my client is not a monster, as she called him! 'The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said 'I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so that not one of them might be lost.' Let not a man's soul be lost through us! 'I asked just now what does 'father' mean, and exclaimed that it was a great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly, gentlemen, and I venture to call things by their right names such a father as old Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be created from nothing only God can create something from nothing. ' 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,' the apostle writes, from a heart glowing with love. It's not for the sake of my client that I quote these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who has authorized me to preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citizen I make my appealvivos voco! We are not long on earth, we do many evil deeds and say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorable moment when we are all together to say a good word to each other. That's what I am doing while I am in this place I take advantage of my opportunity. Not for nothing is this tribune given us by the highest authorityall Russia hears us! I am not speaking only for the fathers here present, I cry aloud to all fathers 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.' Yes, let us first fulfill Christ's injunction ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves. 'What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again'it's not I who say that, it's the Gospel precept, measure to others according as they measure to you. How can we blame children if they measure us according to our measure? 'Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of having secretly given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which no one knew anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind some bricks. It was opened and inside was found the body of a newborn child which she had killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of two other babies which, according to her own confession, she had killed at the moment of their birth. 'Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gave birth to them, indeed but was she a mother to them? Would any one venture to give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold, gentlemen, let us be audacious even it's our duty to be so at this moment and not to be afraid of certain words and ideas like the Moscow women in Ostrovsky's play, who are scared at the sound of certain words. No, let us prove that the progress of the last few years has touched even us, and let us say plainly, the father is not merely he who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it. 'Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the other interpretation of the word 'father,' which insists that any father, even though he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of his children, still remains my father simply because he begot me. But this is, so to say, the mystical meaning which I cannot comprehend with my intellect, but can only accept by faith, or, better to say, on faith, like many other things which I do not understand, but which religion bids me believe. But in that case let it be kept outside the sphere of actual life. In the sphere of actual life, which has, indeed, its own rights, but also lays upon us great duties and obligations, in that sphere, if we want to be humaneChristian, in factwe must, or ought to, act only upon convictions justified by reason and experience, which have been passed through the crucible of analysis in a word, we must act rationally, and not as though in dream and delirium, that we may not do harm, that we may not illtreat and ruin a man. Then it will be real Christian work, not only mystic, but rational and philanthropic.... There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of the court, but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to let him finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence at once. The orator went on. 'Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not impose on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature, especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his companions. The conventional answer to this question is 'He begot you, and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.' The youth involuntarily reflects 'But did he love me when he begot me?' he asks, wondering more and more. 'Was it for my sake he begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity to drunkennessthat's all he's done for me.... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after?' 'Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. 'Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window,' and, above all, let us not be afraid of words, but decide the question according to the dictates of reason and humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it be decided? Why, like this. Let the son stand before his father and ask him, 'Father, tell me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must love you,' and if that father is able to answer him and show him good reason, we have a real, normal, parental relation, not resting on mystical prejudice, but on a rational, responsible and strictly humanitarian basis. But if he does not, there's an end to the family tie. He is not a father to him, and the son has a right to look upon him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our tribune, gentlemen of the jury, ought to be a school of true and sound ideas. (Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost frantic applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half of it applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks and exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were sitting. Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bell with all his might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of the audience, but did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened. Even persons of high position, old men with stars on their breasts, sitting on specially reserved seats behind the judges, applauded the orator and waved their handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down, the President confined himself to repeating his stern threat to clear the court, and Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued his speech.) 'Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much has been said today, when the son got over the fence and stood face to face with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist most emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father's house the charge of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was not to murder him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that design he would, at least, have taken the precaution of arming himself beforehand. The brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowing why he did it. Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at the window, granted that he made his way inI've said already that I do not for a moment believe that legend, but let it be so, let us suppose it for a moment. Gentlemen, I swear to you by all that's holy, if it had not been his father, but an ordinary enemy, he would, after running through the rooms and satisfying himself that the woman was not there, have made off, posthaste, without doing any harm to his rival. He would have struck him, pushed him away perhaps, nothing more, for he had no thought and no time to spare for that. What he wanted to know was where she was. But his father, his father! The mere sight of the father who had hated him from his childhood, had been his enemy, his persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling of hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason. It all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of madness and insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and unconsciously (like everything in nature) avenging the violation of its eternal laws. 'But the prisoner even then did not murder himI maintain that, I cry that aloud!no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant disgust, not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him. Had he not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only knocked his father down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As he ran away, he did not know whether he had killed the old man. Such a murder is not a murder. Such a murder is not a parricide. No, the murder of such a father cannot be called parricide. Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by prejudice. 'But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul did this murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict and punish him, he will say to himself 'These people have done nothing for my bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to make me better, nothing to make me a man. These people have not given me to eat and to drink, have not visited me in prison and nakedness, and here they have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked. They are cruel and I will be cruel.' That is what he will say, gentlemen of the jury. And I swear, by finding him guilty you will only make it easier for him you will ease his conscience, he will curse the blood he has shed and will not regret it. At the same time you will destroy in him the possibility of becoming a new man, for he will remain in his wickedness and blindness all his life. 'But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will see, you will hear how he will tremble and be horrorstruck. 'How can I endure this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?' That's what he will exclaim. 'Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of the jury! It will bow before your mercy it thirsts for a great and loving action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which, in their limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with mercy, show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are good and just. He will be horrorstricken he will be crushed by remorse and the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth. And he will not say then, 'I am quits,' but will say, 'I am guilty in the sight of all men and am more unworthy than all.' With tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he will exclaim 'Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin me!' Oh, this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the absence of anything like real evidence it will be too awful for you to pronounce 'Yes, he is guilty.' 'Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to remind you that the Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the letter of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaningthe salvation and the reformation of the lost. If this is true, if Russia and her justice are such, she may go forward with good cheer! Do not try to scare us with your frenzied troikas from which all the nations stand aside in disgust. Not a runaway troika, but the stately chariot of Russia will move calmly and majestically to its goal. In your hands is the fate of my client, in your hands is the fate of Russian justice. You will defend it, you will save it, you will prove that there are men to watch over it, that it is in good hands! This was how Fetyukovitch concluded his speech, and the enthusiasm of the audience burst like an irresistible storm. It was out of the question to stop it the women wept, many of the men wept too, even two important personages shed tears. The President submitted, and even postponed ringing his bell. The suppression of such an enthusiasm would be the suppression of something sacred, as the ladies cried afterwards. The orator himself was genuinely touched. And it was at this moment that Ippolit Kirillovitch got up to make certain objections. People looked at him with hatred. 'What? What's the meaning of it? He positively dares to make objections, the ladies babbled. But if the whole world of ladies, including his wife, had protested he could not have been stopped at that moment. He was pale, he was shaking with emotion, his first phrases were even unintelligible, he gasped for breath, could hardly speak clearly, lost the thread. But he soon recovered himself. Of this new speech of his I will quote only a few sentences. '... I am reproached with having woven a romance. But what is this defense if not one romance on the top of another? All that was lacking was poetry. Fyodor Pavlovitch, while waiting for his mistress, tears open the envelope and throws it on the floor. We are even told what he said while engaged in this strange act. Is not this a flight of fancy? And what proof have we that he had taken out the money? Who heard what he said? The weakminded idiot, Smerdyakov, transformed into a Byronic hero, avenging society for his illegitimate birthisn't this a romance in the Byronic style? And the son who breaks into his father's house and murders him without murdering him is not even a romancethis is a sphinx setting us a riddle which he cannot solve himself. If he murdered him, he murdered him, and what's the meaning of his murdering him without having murdered himwho can make head or tail of this? 'Then we are admonished that our tribune is a tribune of true and sound ideas and from this tribune of 'sound ideas' is heard a solemn declaration that to call the murder of a father 'parricide' is nothing but a prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child is to ask his father why he is to love him, what will become of us? What will become of the foundations of society? What will become of the family? Parricide, it appears, is only a bogy of Moscow merchants' wives. The most precious, the most sacred guarantees for the destiny and future of Russian justice are presented to us in a perverted and frivolous form, simply to attain an objectto obtain the justification of something which cannot be justified. 'Oh, crush him by mercy,' cries the counsel for the defense but that's all the criminal wants, and tomorrow it will be seen how much he is crushed. And is not the counsel for the defense too modest in asking only for the acquittal of the prisoner? Why not found a charity in the honor of the parricide to commemorate his exploit among future generations? Religion and the Gospel are correctedthat's all mysticism, we are told, and ours is the only true Christianity which has been subjected to the analysis of reason and common sense. And so they set up before us a false semblance of Christ! 'What measure ye mete so it shall be meted unto you again,' cried the counsel for the defense, and instantly deduces that Christ teaches us to measure as it is measured to usand this from the tribune of truth and sound sense! We peep into the Gospel only on the eve of making speeches, in order to dazzle the audience by our acquaintance with what is, anyway, a rather original composition, which may be of use to produce a certain effectall to serve the purpose! But what Christ commands us is something very different He bids us beware of doing this, because the wicked world does this, but we ought to forgive and to turn the other cheek, and not to measure to our persecutors as they measure to us. This is what our God has taught us and not that to forbid children to murder their fathers is a prejudice. And we will not from the tribune of truth and good sense correct the Gospel of our Lord, Whom the counsel for the defense deigns to call only 'the crucified lover of humanity,' in opposition to all orthodox Russia, which calls to Him, 'For Thou art our God!'  At this the President intervened and checked the overzealous speaker, begging him not to exaggerate, not to overstep the bounds, and so on, as presidents always do in such cases. The audience, too, was uneasy. The public was restless there were even exclamations of indignation. Fetyukovitch did not so much as reply he only mounted the tribune to lay his hand on his heart and, with an offended voice, utter a few words full of dignity. He only touched again, lightly and ironically, on 'romancing and 'psychology, and in an appropriate place quoted, 'Jupiter, you are angry, therefore you are wrong, which provoked a burst of approving laughter in the audience, for Ippolit Kirillovitch was by no means like Jupiter. Then,  propos of the accusation that he was teaching the young generation to murder their fathers, Fetyukovitch observed, with great dignity, that he would not even answer. As for the prosecutor's charge of uttering unorthodox opinions, Fetyukovitch hinted that it was a personal insinuation and that he had expected in this court to be secure from accusations 'damaging to my reputation as a citizen and a loyal subject. But at these words the President pulled him up, too, and Fetyukovitch concluded his speech with a bow, amid a hum of approbation in the court. And Ippolit Kirillovitch was, in the opinion of our ladies, 'crushed for good. Then the prisoner was allowed to speak. Mitya stood up, but said very little. He was fearfully exhausted, physically and mentally. The look of strength and independence with which he had entered in the morning had almost disappeared. He seemed as though he had passed through an experience that day, which had taught him for the rest of his life something very important he had not understood till then. His voice was weak, he did not shout as before. In his words there was a new note of humility, defeat and submission. 'What am I to say, gentlemen of the jury? The hour of judgment has come for me, I feel the hand of God upon me! The end has come to an erring man! But, before God, I repeat to you, I am innocent of my father's blood! For the last time I repeat, it wasn't I killed him! I was erring, but I loved what is good. Every instant I strove to reform, but I lived like a wild beast. I thank the prosecutor, he told me many things about myself that I did not know but it's not true that I killed my father, the prosecutor is mistaken. I thank my counsel, too. I cried listening to him but it's not true that I killed my father, and he needn't have supposed it. And don't believe the doctors. I am perfectly sane, only my heart is heavy. If you spare me, if you let me go, I will pray for you. I will be a better man. I give you my word before God I will! And if you will condemn me, I'll break my sword over my head myself and kiss the pieces. But spare me, do not rob me of my God! I know myself, I shall rebel! My heart is heavy, gentlemen ... spare me! He almost fell back in his place his voice broke he could hardly articulate the last phrase. Then the judges proceeded to put the questions and began to ask both sides to formulate their conclusions. But I will not describe the details. At last the jury rose to retire for consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charge to the jury was rather feeble. 'Be impartial, don't be influenced by the eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there is a great responsibility laid upon you, and so on and so on. The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up, move about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves at the buffet. It was very late, almost one o'clock in the night, but nobody went away the strain was so great that no one could think of repose. All waited with sinking hearts though that is, perhaps, too much to say, for the ladies were only in a state of hysterical impatience and their hearts were untroubled. An acquittal, they thought, was inevitable. They all prepared themselves for a dramatic moment of general enthusiasm. I must own there were many among the men, too, who were convinced that an acquittal was inevitable. Some were pleased, others frowned, while some were simply dejected, not wanting him to be acquitted. Fetyukovitch himself was confident of his success. He was surrounded by people congratulating him and fawning upon him. 'There are, he said to one group, as I was told afterwards, 'there are invisible threads binding the counsel for the defense with the jury. One feels during one's speech if they are being formed. I was aware of them. They exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at rest. 'What will our peasants say now? said one stout, crosslooking, pock marked gentleman, a landowner of the neighborhood, approaching a group of gentlemen engaged in conversation. 'But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks among them. 'Yes, there are clerks, said a member of the district council, joining the group. 'And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal, a juryman? 'What of him? 'He is a man with brains. 'But he never speaks. 'He is no great talker, but so much the better. There's no need for the Petersburg man to teach him he could teach all Petersburg himself. He's the father of twelve children. Think of that! 'Upon my word, you don't suppose they won't acquit him? one of our young officials exclaimed in another group. 'They'll acquit him for certain, said a resolute voice. 'It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him! cried the official. 'Suppose he did murder himthere are fathers and fathers! And, besides, he was in such a frenzy.... He really may have done nothing but swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man down. But it was a pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply an absurd theory! If I'd been in Fetyukovitch's place, I should simply have said straight out 'He murdered him but he is not guilty, hang it all!'  'That's what he did, only without saying, 'Hang it all!'  'No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too, put in a third voice. 'Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who had cut the throat of her lover's lawful wife. 'Oh, but she did not finish cutting it. 'That makes no difference. She began cutting it. 'What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn't it? 'Splendid! 'And about mysticism, too! 'Oh, drop mysticism, do! cried some one else 'think of Ippolit and his fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out tomorrow for Mitya's sake. 'Is she here? 'What an idea! If she'd been here she'd have scratched them out in court. She is at home with toothache. He he he! 'He he he! In a third group 'I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all. 'I should not be surprised if he turns the 'Metropolis' upside down to morrow. He will be drinking for ten days! 'Oh, the devil! 'The devil's bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if not here? 'Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it's not the thing to break your father's head with a pestle! Or what are we coming to? 'The chariot! Do you remember the chariot? 'Yes he turned a cart into a chariot! 'And tomorrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit his purpose. 'What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be had in Russia? But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, neither more nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon as the public had taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked into the court. At last! I won't repeat the questions in order, and, indeed, I have forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the President's first and chief question 'Did the prisoner commit the murder for the sake of robbery and with premeditation? (I don't remember the exact words.) There was a complete hush. The foreman of the jury, the youngest of the clerks, pronounced, in a clear, loud voice, amidst the deathlike stillness of the court 'Yes, guilty! And the same answer was repeated to every question 'Yes, guilty! and without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had expected almost every one had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy, at least. The deathlike silence in the court was not brokenall seemed petrified those who desired his conviction as well as those who had been eager for his acquittal. But that was only for the first instant, and it was followed by a fearful hubbub. Many of the men in the audience were pleased. Some were rubbing their hands with no attempt to conceal their joy. Those who disagreed with the verdict seemed crushed, shrugged their shoulders, whispered, but still seemed unable to realize this. But how shall I describe the state the ladies were in? I thought they would create a riot. At first they could scarcely believe their ears. Then suddenly the whole court rang with exclamations 'What's the meaning of it? What next? They leapt up from their places. They seemed to fancy that it might be at once reconsidered and reversed. At that instant Mitya suddenly stood up and cried in a heartrending voice, stretching his hands out before him 'I swear by God and the dreadful Day of Judgment I am not guilty of my father's blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have pity on the other woman! He could not go on, and broke into a terrible sobbing wail that was heard all over the court in a strange, unnatural voice unlike his own. From the farthest corner at the back of the gallery came a piercing shriekit was Grushenka. She had succeeded in begging admittance to the court again before the beginning of the lawyers' speeches. Mitya was taken away. The passing of the sentence was deferred till next day. The whole court was in a hubbub but I did not wait to hear. I only remember a few exclamations I heard on the steps as I went out. 'He'll have a twenty years' trip to the mines! 'Not less. 'Well, our peasants have stood firm. 'And have done for our Mitya. Very early, at nine o'clock in the morning, five days after the trial, Alyosha went to Katerina Ivanovna's to talk over a matter of great importance to both of them, and to give her a message. She sat and talked to him in the very room in which she had once received Grushenka. In the next room Ivan Fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a high fever. Katerina Ivanovna had immediately after the scene at the trial ordered the sick and unconscious man to be carried to her house, disregarding the inevitable gossip and general disapproval of the public. One of the two relations who lived with her had departed to Moscow immediately after the scene in court, the other remained. But if both had gone away, Katerina Ivanovna would have adhered to her resolution, and would have gone on nursing the sick man and sitting by him day and night. Varvinsky and Herzenstube were attending him. The famous doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to give an opinion as to the probable end of the illness. Though the doctors encouraged Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was evident that they could not yet give them positive hopes of recovery. Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this time he had specially urgent business, and he foresaw how difficult it would be to approach the subject, yet he was in great haste. He had another engagement that could not be put off for that same morning, and there was need of haste. They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna was pale and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a state of hysterical excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason why Alyosha had come to her. 'Don't worry about his decision, she said, with confident emphasis to Alyosha. 'One way or another he is bound to come to it. He must escape. That unhappy man, that hero of honor and principlenot he, not Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of that door, who has sacrificed himself for his brother, Katya added, with flashing eyes'told me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he has already entered into negotiations.... I've told you something already.... You see, it will probably come off at the third tape from here, when the party of prisoners is being taken to Siberia. Oh, it's a long way off yet. Ivan Fyodorovitch has already visited the superintendent of the third tape. But we don't know yet who will be in charge of the party, and it's impossible to find that out so long beforehand. Tomorrow perhaps I will show you in detail the whole plan which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the eve of the trial in case of need.... That was whendo you remember?you found us quarreling. He had just gone downstairs, but seeing you I made him come back do you remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about then? 'No, I don't, said Alyosha. 'Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of escape. He had told me the main idea three days before, and we began quarreling about it at once and quarreled for three days. We quarreled because, when he told me that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were convicted he would escape abroad with that creature, I felt furious at onceI can't tell you why, I don't know myself why.... Oh, of course, I was furious then about that creature, and that she, too, should go abroad with Dmitri! Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly, her lips quivering with anger. 'As soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch saw that I was furious about that woman, he instantly imagined I was jealous of Dmitri and that I still loved Dmitri. That is how our first quarrel began. I would not give an explanation, I could not ask forgiveness. I could not bear to think that such a man could suspect me of still loving that ... and when I myself had told him long before that I did not love Dmitri, that I loved no one but him! It was only resentment against that creature that made me angry with him. Three days later, on the evening you came, he brought me a sealed envelope, which I was to open at once, if anything happened to him. Oh, he foresaw his illness! He told me that the envelope contained the details of the escape, and that if he died or was taken dangerously ill, I was to save Mitya alone. Then he left me money, nearly ten thousandthose notes to which the prosecutor referred in his speech, having learnt from some one that he had sent them to be changed. I was tremendously impressed to find that Ivan Fyodorovitch had not given up his idea of saving his brother, and was confiding this plan of escape to me, though he was still jealous of me and still convinced that I loved Mitya. Oh, that was a sacrifice! No, you cannot understand the greatness of such selfsacrifice, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I wanted to fall at his feet in reverence, but I thought at once that he would take it only for my joy at the thought of Mitya's being saved (and he certainly would have imagined that!), and I was so exasperated at the mere possibility of such an unjust thought on his part that I lost my temper again, and instead of kissing his feet, flew into a fury again! Oh, I am unhappy! It's my character, my awful, unhappy character! Oh, you will see, I shall end by driving him, too, to abandon me for another with whom he can get on better, like Dmitri. But ... no, I could not bear it, I should kill myself. And when you came in then, and when I called to you and told him to come back, I was so enraged by the look of contempt and hatred he turned on me thatdo you remember?I cried out to you that it was he, he alone who had persuaded me that his brother Dmitri was a murderer! I said that malicious thing on purpose to wound him again. He had never, never persuaded me that his brother was a murderer. On the contrary, it was I who persuaded him! Oh, my vile temper was the cause of everything! I paved the way to that hideous scene at the trial. He wanted to show me that he was an honorable man, and that, even if I loved his brother, he would not ruin him for revenge or jealousy. So he came to the court ... I am the cause of it all, I alone am to blame! Katya never had made such confessions to Alyosha before, and he felt that she was now at that stage of unbearable suffering when even the proudest heart painfully crushes its pride and falls vanquished by grief. Oh, Alyosha knew another terrible reason of her present misery, though she had carefully concealed it from him during those days since the trial but it would have been for some reason too painful to him if she had been brought so low as to speak to him now about that. She was suffering for her 'treachery at the trial, and Alyosha felt that her conscience was impelling her to confess it to him, to him, Alyosha, with tears and cries and hysterical writhings on the floor. But he dreaded that moment and longed to spare her. It made the commission on which he had come even more difficult. He spoke of Mitya again. 'It's all right, it's all right, don't be anxious about him! she began again, sharply and stubbornly. 'All that is only momentary, I know him, I know his heart only too well. You may be sure he will consent to escape. It's not as though it would be immediately he will have time to make up his mind to it. Ivan Fyodorovitch will be well by that time and will manage it all himself, so that I shall have nothing to do with it. Don't be anxious he will consent to run away. He has agreed already do you suppose he would give up that creature? And they won't let her go to him, so he is bound to escape. It's you he's most afraid of, he is afraid you won't approve of his escape on moral grounds. But you must generously allow it, if your sanction is so necessary, Katya added viciously. She paused and smiled. 'He talks about some hymn, she went on again, 'some cross he has to bear, some duty I remember Ivan Fyodorovitch told me a great deal about it, and if you knew how he talked! Katya cried suddenly, with feeling she could not repress, 'if you knew how he loved that wretched man at the moment he told me, and how he hated him, perhaps, at the same moment. And I heard his story and his tears with sneering disdain. Brute! Yes, I am a brute. I am responsible for his fever. But that man in prison is incapable of suffering, Katya concluded irritably. 'Can such a man suffer? Men like him never suffer! There was a note of hatred and contemptuous repulsion in her words. And yet it was she who had betrayed him. 'Perhaps because she feels how she's wronged him she hates him at moments, Alyosha thought to himself. He hoped that it was only 'at moments. In Katya's last words he detected a challenging note, but he did not take it up. 'I sent for you this morning to make you promise to persuade him yourself. Or do you, too, consider that to escape would be dishonorable, cowardly, or something ... unchristian, perhaps? Katya added, even more defiantly. 'Oh, no. I'll tell him everything, muttered Alyosha. 'He asks you to come and see him today, he blurted out suddenly, looking her steadily in the face. She started, and drew back a little from him on the sofa. 'Me? Can that be? she faltered, turning pale. 'It can and ought to be! Alyosha began emphatically, growing more animated. 'He needs you particularly just now. I would not have opened the subject and worried you, if it were not necessary. He is ill, he is beside himself, he keeps asking for you. It is not to be reconciled with you that he wants you, but only that you would go and show yourself at his door. So much has happened to him since that day. He realizes that he has injured you beyond all reckoning. He does not ask your forgiveness'It's impossible to forgive me,' he says himselfbut only that you would show yourself in his doorway. 'It's so sudden.... faltered Katya. 'I've had a presentiment all these days that you would come with that message. I knew he would ask me to come. It's impossible! 'Let it be impossible, but do it. Only think, he realizes for the first time how he has wounded you, the first time in his life he had never grasped it before so fully. He said, 'If she refuses to come I shall be unhappy all my life.' Do you hear? though he is condemned to penal servitude for twenty years, he is still planning to be happyis not that piteous? Thinkyou must visit him though he is ruined, he is innocent, broke like a challenge from Alyosha. 'His hands are clean, there is no blood on them! For the sake of his infinite sufferings in the future visit him now. Go, greet him on his way into the darknessstand at his door, that is all.... You ought to do it, you ought to! Alyosha concluded, laying immense stress on the word 'ought. 'I ought to ... but I cannot.... Katya moaned. 'He will look at me.... I can't. 'Your eyes ought to meet. How will you live all your life, if you don't make up your mind to do it now? 'Better suffer all my life. 'You ought to go, you ought to go, Alyosha repeated with merciless emphasis. 'But why today, why at once?... I can't leave our patient 'You can for a moment. It will only be a moment. If you don't come, he will be in delirium by tonight. I would not tell you a lie have pity on him! 'Have pity on me! Katya said, with bitter reproach, and she burst into tears. 'Then you will come, said Alyosha firmly, seeing her tears. 'I'll go and tell him you will come directly. 'No, don't tell him so on any account, cried Katya in alarm. 'I will come, but don't tell him beforehand, for perhaps I may go, but not go in.... I don't know yet Her voice failed her. She gasped for breath. Alyosha got up to go. 'And what if I meet any one? she said suddenly, in a low voice, turning white again. 'That's just why you must go now, to avoid meeting any one. There will be no one there, I can tell you that for certain. We will expect you, he concluded emphatically, and went out of the room. He hurried to the hospital where Mitya was lying now. The day after his fate was determined, Mitya had fallen ill with nervous fever, and was sent to the prison division of the town hospital. But at the request of several persons (Alyosha, Madame Hohlakov, Lise, etc.), Doctor Varvinsky had put Mitya not with other prisoners, but in a separate little room, the one where Smerdyakov had been. It is true that there was a sentinel at the other end of the corridor, and there was a grating over the window, so that Varvinsky could be at ease about the indulgence he had shown, which was not quite legal, indeed but he was a kindhearted and compassionate young man. He knew how hard it would be for a man like Mitya to pass at once so suddenly into the society of robbers and murderers, and that he must get used to it by degrees. The visits of relations and friends were informally sanctioned by the doctor and overseer, and even by the police captain. But only Alyosha and Grushenka had visited Mitya. Rakitin had tried to force his way in twice, but Mitya persistently begged Varvinsky not to admit him. Alyosha found him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressinggown, rather feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on his head. He looked at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression, but there was a shade of something like dread discernible in it. He had become terribly preoccupied since the trial sometimes he would be silent for half an hour together, and seemed to be pondering something heavily and painfully, oblivious of everything about him. If he roused himself from his brooding and began to talk, he always spoke with a kind of abruptness and never of what he really wanted to say. He looked sometimes with a face of suffering at his brother. He seemed to be more at ease with Grushenka than with Alyosha. It is true, he scarcely spoke to her at all, but as soon as she came in, his whole face lighted up with joy. Alyosha sat down beside him on the bed in silence. This time Mitya was waiting for Alyosha in suspense, but he did not dare ask him a question. He felt it almost unthinkable that Katya would consent to come, and at the same time he felt that if she did not come, something inconceivable would happen. Alyosha understood his feelings. 'Trifon Borissovitch, Mitya began nervously, 'has pulled his whole inn to pieces, I am told. He's taken up the flooring, pulled apart the planks, split up all the gallery, I am told. He is seeking treasure all the timethe fifteen hundred roubles which the prosecutor said I'd hidden there. He began playing these tricks, they say, as soon as he got home. Serve him right, the swindler! The guard here told me yesterday he comes from there. 'Listen, began Alyosha. 'She will come, but I don't know when. Perhaps today, perhaps in a few days, that I can't tell. But she will come, she will, that's certain. Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news had a tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have liked terribly to know what had been said, but he was again afraid to ask. Something cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him like a knife at that moment. 'This was what she said among other things that I must be sure to set your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by then she will see to it all herself. 'You've spoken of that already, Mitya observed musingly. 'And you have repeated it to Grusha, observed Alyosha. 'Yes, Mitya admitted. 'She won't come this morning. He looked timidly at his brother. 'She won't come till the evening. When I told her yesterday that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but she set her mouth. She only whispered, 'Let her!' She understood that it was important. I did not dare to try her further. She understands now, I think, that Katya no longer cares for me, but loves Ivan. 'Does she? broke from Alyosha. 'Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning, Mitya hastened to explain again 'I asked her to do something for me. You know, Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will recover. 'Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcely doubts of his recovery, said Alyosha. 'That means that she is convinced he will die. It's because she is frightened she's so sure he will get well. 'Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there's every hope that he will get well, Alyosha observed anxiously. 'Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She has a great deal of sorrow to bear... A silence followed. A grave anxiety was fretting Mitya. 'Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly, he said suddenly in a shaking voice, full of tears. 'They won't let her go out there to you, Alyosha put in at once. 'And there is something else I wanted to tell you, Mitya went on, with a sudden ring in his voice. 'If they beat me on the way or out there, I won't submit to it. I shall kill some one, and shall be shot for it. And this will be going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is. I've been lying here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not ready! I am not able to resign myself. I wanted to sing a 'hymn' but if a guard speaks rudely to me, I have not the strength to bear it. For Grusha I would bear anything ... anything except blows.... But she won't be allowed to come there. Alyosha smiled gently. 'Listen, brother, once for all, he said. 'This is what I think about it. And you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen you are not ready, and such a cross is not for you. What's more, you don't need such a martyr's cross when you are not ready for it. If you had murdered our father, it would grieve me that you should reject your punishment. But you are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you. You wanted to make yourself another man by suffering. I say, only remember that other man always, all your life and wherever you go and that will be enough for you. Your refusal of that great cross will only serve to make you feel all your life an even greater duty, and that constant feeling will do more to make you a new man, perhaps, than if you went there. For there you would not endure it and would repine, and perhaps at last would say 'I am quits.' The lawyer was right about that. Such heavy burdens are not for all men. For some they are impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if you want them so much. If other men would have to answer for your escape, officers or soldiers, then I would not have 'allowed' you, smiled Alyosha. 'But they declarethe superintendent of that tape told Ivan himselfthat if it's well managed there will be no great inquiry, and that they can get off easily. Of course, bribing is dishonest even in such a case, but I can't undertake to judge about it, because if Ivan and Katya commissioned me to act for you, I know I should go and give bribes. I must tell you the truth. And so I can't judge of your own action. But let me assure you that I shall never condemn you. And it would be a strange thing if I could judge you in this. Now I think I've gone into everything. 'But I do condemn myself! cried Mitya. 'I shall escape, that was settled apart from you could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away? But I shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever. That's how the Jesuits talk, isn't it? Just as we are doing? 'Yes. Alyosha smiled gently. 'I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding anything, cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. 'So I've caught my Alyosha being Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest I'll open the other side of my heart to you. This is what I planned and decided. If I run away, even with money and a passport, and even to America, I should be cheered up by the thought that I am not running away for pleasure, not for happiness, but to another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia. It is as bad, Alyosha, it is! I hate that America, damn it, already. Even though Grusha will be with me. Just look at her is she an American? She is Russian, Russian to the marrow of her bones she will be homesick for the mother country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for my sake, that she has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has she done? And how shall I, too, put up with the rabble out there, though they may be better than I, every one of them? I hate that America already! And though they may be wonderful at machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are not of my soul. I love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundrel myself. I shall choke there! he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly flashing. His voice was trembling with tears. 'So this is what I've decided, Alyosha, listen, he began again, mastering his emotion. 'As soon as I arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the land, in solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be some remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there, somewhere, on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the Last of the Mohicans, and there we'll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I. Work and grammarthat's how we'll spend three years. And by that time we shall speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we've learnt itgoodby to America! We'll run here to Russia as American citizens. Don't be uneasywe would not come to this little town. We'd hide somewhere, a long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall be changed by that time, and she will, too, in America. The doctors shall make me some sort of wart on my facewhat's the use of their being so mechanical!or else I'll put out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I shall turn gray, fretting for Russia. I dare say they won't recognize us. And if they do, let them send us to Siberia. I don't care. It will show it's our fate. We'll work on the land here, too, somewhere in the wilds, and I'll make up as an American all my life. But we shall die on our own soil. That's my plan, and it shan't be altered. Do you approve? 'Yes, said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for a minute and said suddenly 'And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn't they work it up! 'If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same, said Alyosha, with a sigh. 'Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it's hard, Mitya moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute. 'Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once! he exclaimed suddenly. 'Tell me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How did she say it? 'She said she would come, but I don't know whether she will come today. It's hard for her, you know, Alyosha looked timidly at his brother. 'I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of my mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm my heart what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want? It's the headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for suffering. I am a scoundrel, that's all one can say. 'Here she is! cried Alyosha. At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stood still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively to his feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but a timid, pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with an irresistible impulse he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, she flew impetuously to him. She seized him by the hands, and almost by force made him sit down on the bed. She sat down beside him, and still keeping his hands pressed them violently. Several times they both strove to speak, but stopped short and again gazed speechless with a strange smile, their eyes fastened on one another. So passed two minutes. 'Have you forgiven me? Mitya faltered at last, and at the same moment turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, 'Do you hear what I am asking, do you hear? 'That's what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart! broke from Katya. 'My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me whether you forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and I in yoursso it must be.... She stopped to take breath. 'What have I come for? she began again with nervous haste 'to embrace your feet, to press your hands like this, till it hurtsyou remember how in Moscow I used to squeeze themto tell you again that you are my god, my joy, to tell you that I love you madly, she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood speechless and confounded he had never expected what he was seeing. 'Love is over, Mitya! Katya began again, 'but the past is painfully dear to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might have been come true for one minute, she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into his face joyfully again. 'You love another woman, and I love another man, and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love me do you know that? Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life! she cried, with a quiver almost of menace in her voice. 'I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya, Mitya began, drawing a deep breath at each word, 'do you know, five days ago, that same evening, I loved you.... When you fell down and were carried out ... All my life! So it will be, so it will always be So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless, perhaps not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they both believed what they said implicitly. 'Katya, cried Mitya suddenly, 'do you believe I murdered him? I know you don't believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence.... Surely, surely you did not believe it! 'I did not believe it even then. I've never believed it. I hated you, and for a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence I persuaded myself and believed it, but when I'd finished speaking I left off believing it at once. Don't doubt that! I have forgotten that I came here to punish myself, she said, with a new expression in her voice, quite unlike the loving tones of a moment before. 'Woman, yours is a heavy burden, broke, as it were, involuntarily from Mitya. 'Let me go, she whispered. 'I'll come again. It's more than I can bear now. She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud scream and staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into the room. No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, but when she reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white as chalk and moaned softly, almost in a whisper 'Forgive me! Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive, venomous voice, answered 'We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I'll worship you all my life. 'You won't forgive her! cried Mitya, with frantic reproach. 'Don't be anxious, I'll save him for you! Katya whispered rapidly, and she ran out of the room. 'And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgiveness herself? Mitya exclaimed bitterly again. 'Mitya, don't dare to blame her you have no right to! Alyosha cried hotly. 'Her proud lips spoke, not her heart, Grushenka brought out in a tone of disgust. 'If she saves you I'll forgive her everything She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could not yet recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards, accidentally, with no suspicion of what she would meet. 'Alyosha, run after her! Mitya cried to his brother 'tell her ... I don't know ... don't let her go away like this! 'I'll come to you again at nightfall, said Alyosha, and he ran after Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walking fast, but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly 'No, before that woman I can't punish myself! I asked her forgiveness because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not forgive me.... I like her for that! she added, in an unnatural voice, and her eyes flashed with fierce resentment. 'My brother did not expect this in the least, muttered Alyosha. 'He was sure she would not come 'No doubt. Let us leave that, she snapped. 'Listen I can't go with you to the funeral now. I've sent them flowers. I think they still have money. If necessary, tell them I'll never abandon them.... Now leave me, leave me, please. You are late as it isthe bells are ringing for the service.... Leave me, please! He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to bear the pretty flowerdecked little coffin to the church without him. It was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after Mitya was sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the shouts of the boys, Ilusha's schoolfellows. They had all been impatiently expecting him and were glad that he had come at last. There were about twelve of them, they all had their schoolbags or satchels on their shoulders. 'Father will cry, be with father, Ilusha had told them as he lay dying, and the boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was the foremost of them. 'How glad I am you've come, Karamazov! he cried, holding out his hand to Alyosha. 'It's awful here. It's really horrible to see it. Snegiryov is not drunk, we know for a fact he's had nothing to drink today, but he seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful. Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you go in? 'What is it, Kolya? said Alyosha. 'Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or was it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven't slept for the last four nights for thinking of it. 'The valet killed him, my brother is innocent, answered Alyosha. 'That's what I said, cried Smurov. 'So he will perish an innocent victim! exclaimed Kolya 'though he is ruined he is happy! I could envy him! 'What do you mean? How can you? Why? cried Alyosha surprised. 'Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth! said Kolya with enthusiasm. 'But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror! said Alyosha. 'Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as for disgrace, I don't care about thatour names may perish. I respect your brother! 'And so do I! the boy, who had once declared that he knew who had founded Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to his ears like a peony as he had done on that occasion. Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his eyes closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face was hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of decay from the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were, thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked particularly beautiful, as though chiseled in marble. There were flowers in his hands and the coffin, inside and out, was decked with flowers, which had been sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flowers too from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened the door, the captain had a bunch in his trembling hands and was strewing them again over his dear boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look at any one, even at his crazy weeping wife, 'mamma, who kept trying to stand on her crippled legs to get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had been pushed in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with her head pressed to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping. Snegiryov's face looked eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was something crazy about his gestures and the words that broke from him. 'Old man, dear old man! he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was his habit to call Ilusha 'old man, as a term of affection when he was alive. 'Father, give me a flower, too take that white one out of his hand and give it me, the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the little white rose in Ilusha's hand had caught her fancy or that she wanted one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly, stretching out her hands for the flower. 'I won't give it to any one, I won't give you anything, Snegiryov cried callously. 'They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothing is yours! 'Father, give mother a flower! said Nina, lifting her face wet with tears. 'I won't give away anything and to her less than any one! She didn't love Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her, the captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given up his cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in noiseless tears, hiding her face in her hands. The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to lift it up. 'I don't want him to be buried in the churchyard, Snegiryov wailed suddenly 'I'll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I won't let him be carried out! He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys interfered. 'What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged himself! the old landlady said sternly. 'There in the churchyard the ground has been crossed. He'll be prayed for there. One can hear the singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave. At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, 'Take him where you will. The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good by to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin. 'Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing, kiss him, Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like an automaton and with a face contorted with bitter grief she began, without a word, beating her breast with her fist. They carried the coffin past her. Nina pressed her lips to her brother's for the last time as they bore the coffin by her. As Alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after those who were left behind, but she interrupted him before he had finished. 'To be sure, I'll stay with them, we are Christians, too. The old woman wept as she said it. They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. The church bells were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare and his soft, old, widebrimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a state of bewildered anxiety. At one minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of the coffin and only hindered the bearers, at another he ran alongside and tried to find a place for himself there. A flower fell on the snow and he rushed to pick it up as though everything in the world depended on the loss of that flower. 'And the crust of bread, we've forgotten the crust! he cried suddenly in dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantly pulled it out and was reassured. 'Ilusha told me to, Ilusha, he explained at once to Alyosha. 'I was sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me 'Father, when my grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.'  'That's a good thing, said Alyosha, 'we must often take some. 'Every day, every day! said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at the thought. They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it. The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through the service. It was an old and rather poor church many of the ikons were without settings but such churches are the best for praying in. During the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he had outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent anxiety. At one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight the cover or the wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick he rushed to replace it and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then he subsided and stood quietly by the coffin with a look of blank uneasiness and perplexity. After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to Alyosha, who was standing beside him, that the Epistle had not been read properly but did not explain what he meant. During the prayer, 'Like the Cherubim, he joined in the singing but did not go on to the end. Falling on his knees, he pressed his forehead to the stone floor and lay so for a long while. At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed. The distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seemed suddenly to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he tried at first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud. When they began taking leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arms about, as though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and began greedily and persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips. At last they succeeded in persuading him to come away from the step, but suddenly he impulsively stretched out his hand and snatched a few flowers from the coffin. He looked at them and a new idea seemed to dawn upon him, so that he apparently forgot his grief for a minute. Gradually he seemed to sink into brooding and did not resist when the coffin was lifted up and carried to the grave. It was an expensive one in the churchyard close to the church, Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it. After the customary rites the grave diggers lowered the coffin. Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent down so low over the open grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in alarm and pulled him back. He did not seem to understand fully what was happening. When they began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to say something, but no one could make out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly. Then he was reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited, snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the morsels on the grave. 'Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows! he muttered anxiously. One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the bread with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to some one to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed indeed suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take them from him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it were, satisfying himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled, he suddenly, to the surprise of every one, turned, quite composedly even, and made his way homewards. But his steps became more and more hurried, he almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with him. 'The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind to mamma, he began exclaiming suddenly. Some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung the hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, 'I won't have the hat, I won't have the hat. Smurov picked it up and carried it after him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy who discovered about Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the captain's hat in his hand, was crying bitterly too, he managed, as he ran, to snatch up a piece of red brick that lay on the snow of the path, to fling it at the flock of sparrows that was flying by. He missed them, of course, and went on crying as he ran. Halfway, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a minute, as though struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the church, ran towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook him and caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow as though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing, he began crying out, 'Ilusha, old man, dear old man! Alyosha and Kolya tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him. 'Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude, muttered Kolya. 'You'll spoil the flowers, said Alyosha, 'and mamma is expecting them, she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before. Ilusha's little bed is still there 'Yes, yes, mamma! Snegiryov suddenly recollected, 'they'll take away the bed, they'll take it away, he added as though alarmed that they really would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far off and they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and called to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled just before 'Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers, he cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been frozen and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that instant he saw in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha's little boots, which the landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips to it, began kissing it greedily, crying, 'Ilusha, old man, dear old man, where are your little feet? 'Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him? the lunatic cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran out of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out. 'Let them weep, he said to Kolya, 'it's no use trying to comfort them just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back. 'No, it's no use, it's awful, Kolya assented. 'Do you know, Karamazov, he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, 'I feel dreadfully sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back, I'd give anything in the world to do it. 'Ah, so would I, said Alyosha. 'What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here tonight? He'll be drunk, you know. 'Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough, to spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come together we shall remind them of everything again, Alyosha suggested. 'The landlady is laying the table for them nowthere'll be a funeral dinner or something, the priest is coming shall we go back to it, Karamazov? 'Of course, said Alyosha. 'It's all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after it, it all seems so unnatural in our religion. 'They are going to have salmon, too, the boy who had discovered about Troy observed in a loud voice. 'I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn't care to know whether you exist or not! Kolya snapped out irritably. The boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply. Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov exclaimed 'There's Ilusha's stone, under which they wanted to bury him. They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha, weeping and hugging his father, had cried, 'Father, father, how he insulted you, rose at once before his imagination. A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and earnest expression he looked from one to another of the bright, pleasant faces of Ilusha's schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them 'Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place. The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes upon him. 'Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two brothers, of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at death's door. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long time, so we shall part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha's stone, that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we don't meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kindhearted, brave boy, he felt for his father's honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great misfortunestill let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. My little doveslet me call you so, for you are very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minute as I look at your good dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you won't understand what I am saying to you, because I often speak very unintelligibly, but you'll remember it all the same and will agree with my words some time. You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men's tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, 'I want to suffer for all men,' and may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may becomewhich God forbidyet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all together, at this stone, the cruelest and most mocking of usif we do become sowill not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at this moment! What's more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great evil and he will reflect and say, 'Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!' Let him laugh to himself, that's no matter, a man often laughs at what's good and kind. That's only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, 'No, I do wrong to laugh, for that's not a thing to laugh at.'  'That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov! cried Kolya, with flashing eyes. The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the speaker. 'I say this in case we become bad, Alyosha went on, 'but there's no reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I say that again. I give you my word for my part that I'll never forget one of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for thirty years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to know whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov exists and that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered the founders of Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like Kolya (though he will be ever so much cleverer when he is grown up), and let us all be as modest, as clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two? You are all dear to me, boys, from this day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me! Well, and who has united us in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear boy, precious to us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth! 'Yes, yes, for ever, for ever! the boys cried in their ringing voices, with softened faces. 'Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots, his coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up for him alone against the whole school. 'We will remember, we will remember, cried the boys. 'He was brave, he was good! 'Ah, how I loved him! exclaimed Kolya. 'Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good life is when one does something good and just! 'Yes, yes, the boys repeated enthusiastically. 'Karamazov, we love you! a voice, probably Kartashov's, cried impulsively. 'We love you, we love you! they all caught it up. There were tears in the eyes of many of them. 'Hurrah for Karamazov! Kolya shouted ecstatically. 'And may the dead boy's memory live for ever! Alyosha added again with feeling. 'For ever! the boys chimed in again. 'Karamazov, cried Kolya, 'can it be true what's taught us in religion, that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each other again, all, Ilusha too? 'Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened! Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic. 'Ah, how splendid it will be! broke from Kolya. 'Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don't be put out at our eating pancakesit's a very old custom and there's something nice in that! laughed Alyosha. 'Well, let us go! And now we go hand in hand. 'And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov! Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his exclamation 'Hurrah for Karamazov! THE END  In Russian, 'silen.  A proverbial expression in Russia.  Grushenka.  i.e. setter dog.  Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar, of December , in which the most distinguished men in Russia were concerned.TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.  When a monk's body is carried out from the cell to the church and from the church to the graveyard, the canticle 'What earthly joy... is sung. If the deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle 'Our Helper and Defender is sung instead.  i.e. a chime of bells.  Literally 'Did you get off with a long nose made at you?a proverbial expression in Russia for failure.  Gogol is meant.
Digitized by Dave Gowan. John Locke's 'Second Treatise of Government was published in . The complete unabridged text has been republished several times in edited commentaries. This text is recovered entire from the paperback book, 'John Locke Second Treatise of Government, Edited, with an Introduction, By C.B. McPherson, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis and Cambridge, . None of the McPherson edition is included in the Etext below only the original words contained in the  Locke text is included. The  edition text is free of copyright. SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX ESTO LONDON PRINTED MDCLXXXVIII REPRINTED, THE SIXTH TIME, BY A. MILLAR, H. WOODFALL, . WHISTON AND B. WHITE, . RIVINGTON, L. DAVIS AND C. REYMERS, R. BALDWIN, HAWES CLARKE AND COLLINS W. IOHNSTON, W. OWEN, . RICHARDSON, S. CROWDER, T. LONGMAN, B. LAW, C. RIVINGTON, E. DILLY, R. WITHY, C. AND R. WARE, S. BAKER, T. PAYNE, A. SHUCKBURGH, . HINXMAN MDCCLXIII TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT. IN THE FORMER THE FALSE PRINCIPLES AND FOUNDATION OF SIR ROBERT FILMER AND HIS FOLLOWERS ARE DETECTED AND OVERTHROWN. THE LATTER IS AN ESSAY CONCERNING THE TRUE ORIGINAL EXTENT AND END OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.  EDITOR'S NOTE The present Edition of this Book has not only been collated with the first three Editions, which were published during the Author's Life, but also has the Advantage of his last Corrections and Improvements, from a Copy delivered by him to Mr. Peter Coste, communicated to the Editor, and now lodged in Christ College, Cambridge. Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These, which remain, I hope are sufficient to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William to make good his title, in the consent of the people, which being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any prince in Christendom and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin. If these papers have that evidence, I flatter myself is to be found in them, there will be no great miss of those which are lost, and my reader may be satisfied without them for I imagine, I shall have neither the time, nor inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the wanting part of my answer, by tracing Sir Robert again, through all the windings and obscurities, which are to be met with in the several branches of his wonderful system. The king, and body of the nation, have since so thoroughly confuted his Hypothesis, that I suppose no body hereafter will have either the confidence to appear against our common safety, and be again an advocate for slavery or the weakness to be deceived with contradictions dressed up in a popular stile, and wellturned periods for if any one will be at the pains, himself, in those parts, which are here untouched, to strip Sir Robert's discourses of the flourish of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his words to direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there was never so much glib nonsense put together in wellsounding English. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all thro', let him make an experiment in that part, where he treats of usurpation and let him try, whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir Robert intelligible, and consistent with himself, or common sense. I should not speak so plainly of a gentleman, long since past answering, had not the pulpit, of late years, publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of the times. It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained or else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel though they had no better an author than an English courtier for I should not have writ against Sir Robert, or taken the pains to shew his mistakes, inconsistencies, and want of (what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on) scriptureproofs, were there not men amongst us, who, by crying up his books, and espousing his doctrine, save me from the reproach of writing against a dead adversary. They have been so zealous in this point, that, if I have done him any wrong, I cannot hope they should spare me. I wish, where they have done the truth and the public wrong, they would be as ready to redress it, and allow its just weight to this reflection, viz. that there cannot be done a greater mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong notions concerning government that so at last all times might not have reason to complain of the Drum Ecclesiastic. If any one, concerned really for truth, undertake the confutation of my Hypothesis, I promise him either to recant my mistake, upon fair conviction or to answer his difficulties. But he must remember two things. First, That cavilling here and there, at some expression, or little incident of my discourse, is not an answer to my book. Secondly, That I shall not take railing for arguments, nor think either of these worth my notice, though I shall always look on myself as bound to give satisfaction to any one, who shall appear to be conscientiously scrupulous in the point, and shall shew any just grounds for his scruples. I have nothing more, but to advertise the reader, that Observations stands for Observations on Hobbs, Milton, c. and that a bare quotation of pages always means pages of his Patriarcha, Edition . Sect. . It having been shewn in the foregoing discourse, (). That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood, or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, or dominion over the world, as is pretended (). That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it (). That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature nor positive law of God that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined (). That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction so that he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us. Sect. . To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take to be political power that the power of a MAGISTRATE over a subject may be distinguished from that of a FATHER over his children, a MASTER over his servant, a HUSBAND over his wife, and a LORD over his slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one from wealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley. Sect. . POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury and all this only for the public good. Sect. . TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. Sect. . This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity. His words are, The like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty, to love others than themselves for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly in other men, being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire, must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me, than they have by me shewed unto them my desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection from which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn, for direction of life, no man is ignorant, Eccl. Pol. Lib. . Sect. . But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our's. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. Sect. . And that all men may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do. Sect. . And thus, in the state of nature, one man comes by a power over another but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own will but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint for these two are the only reasons, why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing the like mischief. And in the case, and upon this ground, EVERY MAN HATH A RIGHT TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE. Sect. . I doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine to some men but before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me, by what right any prince or state can put to death, or punish an alien, for any crime he commits in their country. It is certain their laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the legislative, reach not a stranger they speak not to him, nor, if they did, is he bound to hearken to them. The legislative authority, by which they are in force over the subjects of that commonwealth, hath no power over him. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the world, men without authority and therefore, if by the law of nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against it, as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country since, in reference to him, they can have no more power than what every man naturally may have over another. Sect, . Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation from him that has done it and any other person, who finds it just, may also join with him that is injured, and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm he has suffered. Sect. . From these two distinct rights, the one of punishing the crime for restraint, and preventing the like offence, which right of punishing is in every body the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured party, comes it to pass that the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the common right of punishing put into his hands, can often, where the public good demands not the execution of the law, remit the punishment of criminal offences by his own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private man for the damage he has received. That, he who has suffered the damage has a right to demand in his own name, and he alone can remit the damnified person has this power of appropriating to himself the goods or service of the offender, by right of selfpreservation, as every man has a power to punish the crime, to prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of preserving all mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in order to that end and thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men can have no society nor security and upon this is grounded that great law of nature, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And Cain was so fully convinced, that every one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that after the murder of his brother, he cries out, Every one that findeth me, shall slay me so plain was it writ in the hearts of all mankind. Sect. . By the same reason may a man in the state of nature punish the lesser breaches of that law. It will perhaps be demanded, with death? I answer, each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. Every offence, that can be committed in the state of nature, may in the state of nature be also punished equally, and as far forth as it may, in a commonwealth for though it would be besides my present purpose, to enter here into the particulars of the law of nature, or its measures of punishment yet, it is certain there is such a law, and that too, as intelligible and plain to a rational creature, and a studier of that law, as the positive laws of commonwealths nay, possibly plainer as much as reason is easier to be understood, than the fancies and intricate contrivances of men, following contrary and hidden interests put into words for so truly are a great part of the municipal laws of countries, which are only so far right, as they are founded on the law of nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted. Sect. . To this strange doctrine, viz. That in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that selflove will make men partial to themselves and their friends and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute his pleasure? and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to? much better it is in the state of nature, wherein men are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another and if he that judges, judges amiss in his own, or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind. Sect. . It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were there any men in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the world, are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of men in that state. I have named all governors of independent communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others for it is not every compact that puts an end to the state of nature between men, but only this one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one community, and make one body politic other promises, and compacts, men may make one with another, and yet still be in the state of nature. The promises and bargains for truck, c. between the two men in the desert island, mentioned by Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, though they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another for truth and keeping of faith belongs to men, as men, and not as members of society. Sect. . To those that say, there were never any men in the state of nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. , where he says, The laws which have been hitherto mentioned, i.e. the laws of nature, do bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do, or not to do but forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things, needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others this was the cause of men's uniting themselves at first in politic societies. But I moreover affirm, that all men are naturally in that state, and remain so, till by their own consents they make themselves members of some politic society and I doubt not in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear. Sect. . THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power. Sect. . And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life for I have reason to conclude, that he who would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it for no body can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation and reason bids me look on him, as an enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that, in the state of nature, would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away every thing else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest as he that, in the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to design to take away from them every thing else, and so be looked on as in a state of war. Sect. . This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than, by the use of force, so to get him in his power, as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him because using force, where he has no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away every thing else. And therefore it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me, i.e. kill him if I can for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it. Sect. . And here we have the plain difference between the state of nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant, as a state of peace, good will, mutual assistance and preservation, and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction, are one from another. Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature. But force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, tho' he be in society and a fellow subject. Thus a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature force without right, upon a man's person, makes a state of war, both where there is, and is not, a common judge. Sect. . But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases between those that are in society, and are equally on both sides subjected to the fair determination of the law because then there lies open the remedy of appeal for the past injury, and to prevent future harm but where no such appeal is, as in the state of nature, for want of positive laws, and judges with authority to appeal to, the state of war once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace, and desires reconciliation on such terms as may repair any wrongs he has already done, and secure the innocent for the future nay, where an appeal to the law, and constituted judges, lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men, or party of men, there it is hard to imagine any thing but a state of war for wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer justice, it is still violence and injury, however coloured with the name, pretences, or forms of law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it wherever that is not bona fide done, war is made upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such cases, an appeal to heaven. Sect. . To avoid this state of war (wherein there is no appeal but to heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end, where there is no authority to decide between the contenders) is one great reason of men's putting themselves into society, and quitting the state of nature for where there is an authority, a power on earth, from which relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power. Had there been any such court, any superior jurisdiction on earth, to determine the right between Jephtha and the Ammonites, they had never come to a state of war but we see he was forced to appeal to heaven. The Lord the Judge (says he) be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon, Judg. xi. . and then prosecuting, and relying on his appeal, he leads out his army to battle and therefore in such controversies, where the question is put, who shall be judge? It cannot be meant, who shall decide the controversy every one knows what Jephtha here tells us, that the Lord the Judge shall judge. Where there is no judge on earth, the appeal lies to God in heaven. That question then cannot mean, who shall judge, whether another hath put himself in a state of war with me, and whether I may, as Jephtha did, appeal to heaven in it? of that I myself can only be judge in my own conscience, as I will answer it, at the great day, to the supreme judge of all men. Sect. . THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Observations, A. . a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature. Sect. . This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it. Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it for, whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he desires. Sect. . This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing else, but the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a captive for, if once compact enter between them, and make an agreement for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the state of war and slavery ceases, as long as the compact endures for, as has been said, no man can, by agreement, pass over to another that which he hath not in himself, a power over his own life. I confess, we find among the Jews, as well as other nations, that men did sell themselves but, it is plain, this was only to drudgery, not to slavery for, it is evident, the person sold was not under an absolute, arbitrary, despotical power for the master could not have power to kill him, at any time, whom, at a certain time, he was obliged to let go free out of his service and the master of such a servant was so far from having an arbitrary power over his life, that he could not, at pleasure, so much as maim him, but the loss of an eye, or tooth, set him free, Exod. xxi. Sect. . Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. cxv. . has given the earth to the children of men given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing I will not content myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a supposition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man, but one universal monarch, should have any property upon a supposition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity. But I shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners. Sect. . God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his, i.e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life. Sect. . Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. Sect. . He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done and so they became his private right. And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit the turfs my servant has cut and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them. Sect. . By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself. Sect. . Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath killed it it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made his property, who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting, is thought his who pursues her during the chase for being a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man's private possession whoever has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as to find and pursue her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature, wherein she was common, and hath begun a property. Sect. . It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns, or other fruits of the earth, c. makes a right to them, then any one may ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too. God has given us all things richly,  Tim. vi. . is the voice of reason confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural provisions there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders and to how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others especially keeping within the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use there could be then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established. Sect. . But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest I think it is plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common. Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to it and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the consent of all his fellowcommoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him. Sect. . Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. Sect. . God gave the world to men in common but since he gave it them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniencies of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it) not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to. Sect. . It is true, in land that is common in England, or any other country, where there is plenty of people under government, who have money and commerce, no one can inclose or appropriate any part, without the consent of all his fellowcommoners because this is left common by compact, i.e. by the law of the land, which is not to be violated. And though it be common, in respect of some men, it is not so to all mankind but is the joint property of this country, or this parish. Besides, the remainder, after such enclosure, would not be as good to the rest of the commoners, as the whole was when they could all make use of the whole whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the world, it was quite otherwise. The law man was under, was rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour. That was his property which could not be taken from him whereever he had fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, and having dominion, we see are joined together. The one gave title to the other. So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions. Sect. . The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of men's labour and the conveniencies of life no man's labour could subdue, or appropriate all nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small part so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench upon the right of another, or acquire to himself a property, to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would still have room for as good, and as large a possession (after the other had taken out his) as before it was appropriated. This measure did confine every man's possession to a very moderate proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself, without injury to any body, in the first ages of the world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in the then vast wilderness of the earth, than to be straitened for want of room to plant in. And the same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to any body, as full as the world seems for supposing a man, or family, in the state they were at first peopling of the world by the children of Adam, or Noah let him plant in some inland, vacant places of America, we shall find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the measures we have given, would not be very large, nor, even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind, or give them reason to complain, or think themselves injured by this man's incroachment, though the race of men have now spread themselves to all the corners of the world, and do infinitely exceed the small number was at the beginning. Nay, the extent of ground is of so little value, without labour, that I have heard it affirmed, that in Spain itself a man may be permitted to plough, sow and reap, without being disturbed, upon land he has no other title to, but only his making use of it. But, on the contrary, the inhabitants think themselves beholden to him, who, by his industry on neglected, and consequently waste land, has increased the stock of corn, which they wanted. But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety, (viz.) that every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without straitening any body since there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them which, how it has done, I shall by and by shew more at large. Sect. . This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of having more than man needed had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn though men had a right to appropriate, by their labour, each one of himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was still left to those who would use the same industry. To which let me add, that he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind for the provisions serving to the support of human life, produced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak much within compass) ten times more than those which are yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness lying waste in common. And therefore he that incloses land, and has a greater plenty of the conveniencies of life from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred left to nature, may truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind for his labour now supplies him with provisions out of ten acres, which were but the product of an hundred lying in common. I have here rated the improved land very low, in making its product but as ten to one, when it is much nearer an hundred to one for I ask, whether in the wild woods and uncultivated waste of America, left to nature, without any improvement, tillage or husbandry, a thousand acres yield the needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniencies of life, as ten acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire, where they are well cultivated? Before the appropriation of land, he who gathered as much of the wild fruit, killed, caught, or tamed, as many of the beasts, as he could he that so imployed his pains about any of the spontaneous products of nature, as any way to alter them from the state which nature put them in, by placing any of his labour on them, did thereby acquire a propriety in them but if they perished, in his possession, without their due use if the fruits rotted, or the venison putrified, before he could spend it, he offended against the common law of nature, and was liable to be punished he invaded his neighbour's share, for he had no right, farther than his use called for any of them, and they might serve to afford him conveniencies of life. Sect. . The same measures governed the possession of land too whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of, before it spoiled, that was his peculiar right whatsoever he enclosed, and could feed, and make use of, the cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering, and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other. Thus, at the beginning, Cain might take as much ground as he could till, and make it his own land, and yet leave enough to Abel's sheep to feed on a few acres would serve for both their possessions. But as families increased, and industry inlarged their stocks, their possessions inlarged with the need of them but yet it was commonly without any fixed property in the ground they made use of, till they incorporated, settled themselves together, and built cities and then, by consent, they came in time, to set out the bounds of their distinct territories, and agree on limits between them and their neighbours and by laws within themselves, settled the properties of those of the same society for we see, that in that part of the world which was first inhabited, and therefore like to be best peopled, even as low down as Abraham's time, they wandered with their flocks, and their herds, which was their substance, freely up and down and this Abraham did, in a country where he was a stranger. Whence it is plain, that at least a great part of the land lay in common that the inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any more than they made use of. But when there was not room enough in the same place, for their herds to feed together, they by consent, as Abraham and Lot did, Gen. xiii. . separated and inlarged their pasture, where it best liked them. And for the same reason Esau went from his father, and his brother, and planted in mount Seir, Gen. xxxvi. . Sect. . And thus, without supposing any private dominion, and property in Adam, over all the world, exclusive of all other men, which can no way be proved, nor any one's property be made out from it but supposing the world given, as it was, to the children of men in common, we see how labour could make men distinct titles to several parcels of it, for their private uses wherein there could be no doubt of right, no room for quarrel. Sect. . Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before consideration it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to overbalance the community of land for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing and let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninetynine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labour. Sect. . There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any thing, than several nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life whom nature having furnished as liberally as any other people, with the materials of plenty, i.e. a fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance, what might serve for food, raiment, and delight yet for want of improving it by labour, have not one hundredth part of the conveniencies we enjoy and a king of a large and fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a daylabourer in England. Sect. . To make this a little clearer, let us but trace some of the ordinary provisions of life, through their several progresses, before they come to our use, and see how much they receive of their value from human industry. Bread, wine and cloth, are things of daily use, and great plenty yet notwithstanding, acorns, water and leaves, or skins, must be our bread, drink and cloathing, did not labour furnish us with these more useful commodities for whatever bread is more worth than acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk, than leaves, skins or moss, that is wholly owing to labour and industry the one of these being the food and raiment which unassisted nature furnishes us with the other, provisions which our industry and pains prepare for us, which how much they exceed the other in value, when any one hath computed, he will then see how much labour makes the far greatest part of the value of things we enjoy in this world and the ground which produces the materials, is scarce to be reckoned in, as any, or at most, but a very small part of it so little, that even amongst us, land that is left wholly to nature, that hath no improvement of pasturage, tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, waste and we shall find the benefit of it amount to little more than nothing. This shews how much numbers of men are to be preferred to largeness of dominions and that the increase of lands, and the right employing of them, is the great art of government and that prince, who shall be so wise and godlike, as by established laws of liberty to secure protection and encouragement to the honest industry of mankind, against the oppression of power and narrowness of party, will quickly be too hard for his neighbours but this by the by. To return to the argument in hand. Sect. . An acre of land, that bears here twenty bushels of wheat, and another in America, which, with the same husbandry, would do the like, are, without doubt, of the same natural intrinsic value but yet the benefit mankind receives from the one in a year, is worth l. and from the other possibly not worth a penny, if all the profit an Indian received from it were to be valued, and sold here at least, I may truly say, not one thousandth. It is labour then which puts the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any thing it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre of wheat, is more worth than the product of an acre of as good land, which lies waste, is all the effect of labour for it is not barely the ploughman's pains, the reaper's and thresher's toil, and the baker's sweat, is to be counted into the bread we eat the labour of those who broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being feed to be sown to its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour, and received as an effect of that nature and the earth furnished only the almost worthless materials, as in themselves. It would be a strange catalogue of things, that industry provided and made use of, about every loaf of bread, before it came to our use, if we could trace them iron, wood, leather, bark, timber, stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dying drugs, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and all the materials made use of in the ship, that brought any of the commodities made use of by any of the workmen, to any part of the work all which it would be almost impossible, at least too long, to reckon up. Sect. . From all which it is evident, that though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property and that, which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the conveniencies of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others. Sect. . Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it upon what was common, which remained a long while the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind makes use of. Men, at first, for the most part, contented themselves with what unassisted nature offered to their necessities and though afterwards, in some parts of the world, (where the increase of people and stock, with the use of money, had made land scarce, and so of some value) the several communities settled the bounds of their distinct territories, and by laws within themselves regulated the properties of the private men of their society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the property which labour and industry began and the leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms, either expresly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the others possession, have, by common consent, given up their pretences to their natural common right, which originally they had to those countries, and so have, by positive agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts and parcels of the earth yet there are still great tracts of ground to be found, which (the inhabitants thereof not having joined with the rest of mankind, in the consent of the use of their common money) lie waste, and are more than the people who dwell on it do, or can make use of, and so still lie in common tho' this can scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that have consented to the use of money. Sect. . The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after, as it doth the Americans now, are generally things of short duration such as, if they are not consumed by use, will decay and perish of themselves gold, silver and diamonds, are things that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use, and the necessary support of life. Now of those good things which nature hath provided in common, every one had a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use, and property in all that he could effect with his labour all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in, was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples, had thereby a property in them, they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look, that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not uselesly in his possession, these he also made use of. And if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury he wasted not the common stock destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselesly in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life he invaded not the right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of any thing uselesly in it. Sect. . And thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life. Sect. . And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions, so this invention of money gave them the opportunity to continue and enlarge them for supposing an island, separate from all possible commerce with the rest of the world, wherein there were but an hundred families, but there were sheep, horses and cows, with other useful animals, wholsome fruits, and land enough for corn for a hundred thousand times as many, but nothing in the island, either because of its commonness, or perishableness, fit to supply the place of money what reason could any one have there to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his family, and a plentiful supply to its consumption, either in what their own industry produced, or they could barter for like perishable, useful commodities, with others? Where there is not some thing, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never so rich, never so free for them to take for I ask, what would a man value ten thousand, or an hundred thousand acres of excellent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of nature, whatever was more than would supply the conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family. Sect. . Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so than that is now for no such thing as money was any where known. Find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions. Sect. . But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out, a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions. Sect. . And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it. So that there could then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor any doubt about the largeness of possession it gave. Right and conveniency went together for as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the title, nor for encroachment on the right of others what portion a man carved to himself, was easily seen and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed. Sect. . IT may perhaps be censured as an impertinent criticism, in a discourse of this nature, to find fault with words and names, that have obtained in the world and yet possibly it may not be amiss to offer new ones, when the old are apt to lead men into mistakes, as this of paternal power probably has done, which seems so to place the power of parents over their children wholly in the father, as if the mother had no share in it whereas, if we consult reason or revelation, we shall find, she hath an equal title. This may give one reason to ask, whether this might not be more properly called parental power? for whatever obligation nature and the right of generation lays on children, it must certainly bind them equal to both the concurrent causes of it. And accordingly we see the positive law of God every where joins them together, without distinction, when it commands the obedience of children, Honour thy father and thy mother, Exod. xx. . Whosoever curseth his father or his mother, Lev. xx. . Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, Lev. xix. . Children, obey your parents, c. Eph. vi. . is the stile of the Old and New Testament. Sect. . Had but this one thing been well considered, without looking any deeper into the matter, it might perhaps have kept men from running into those gross mistakes, they have made, about this power of parents which, however it might, without any great harshness, bear the name of absolute dominion, and regal authority, when under the title of paternal power it seemed appropriated to the father, would yet have founded but oddly, and in the very name shewn the absurdity, if this supposed absolute power over children had been called parental and thereby have discovered, that it belonged to the mother too for it will but very ill serve the turn of those men, who contend so much for the absolute power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, that the mother should have any share in it and it would have but ill supported the monarchy they contend for, when by the very name it appeared, that that fundamental authority, from whence they would derive their government of a single person only, was not placed in one, but two persons jointly. But to let this of names pass. Sect. . Though I have said above, Chap. II. That all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality age or virtue may give men a just precedency excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those to whom nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due and yet all this consists with the equality, which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another which was the equality I there spoke of, as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right, that every man hath, to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man. Sect. . Children, I confess, are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them, when they come into the world, and for some time after but it is but a temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes they are wrapt up in, and supported by, in the weakness of their infancy age and reason as they grow up, loosen them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free disposal. Sect. . Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind in full possession of their strength and reason, and so was capable, from the first instant of his being to provide for his own support and preservation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason which God had implanted in him. From him the world is peopled with his descendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding but to supply the defects of this imperfect state, till the improvement of growth and age hath removed them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were, by the law of nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the children they had begotten not as their own workmanship, but the workmanship of their own maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable for them. Sect. . The law, that was to govern Adam, was the same that was to govern all his posterity, the law of reason. But his offspring having another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant and without the use of reason, they were not presently under that law for no body can be under a law, which is not promulgated to him and this law being promulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his reason, cannot be said to be under this law and Adam's children, being not presently as soon as born under this law of reason, were not presently free for law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law could they be happier without it, the law, as an useless thing, would of itself vanish and that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices. So that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others which cannot be, where there is no law but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists (for who could be free, when every other man's humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose, and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own. Sect. . The power, then, that parents have over their children, arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their offspring, during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place, and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents are bound to for God having given man an understanding to direct his actions, has allowed him a freedom of will, and liberty of acting, as properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of that law he is under. But whilst he is in an estate, wherein he has not understanding of his own to direct his will, he is not to have any will of his own to follow he that understands for him, must will for him too he must prescribe to his will, and regulate his actions but when he comes to the estate that made his father a freeman, the son is a freeman too. Sect. . This holds in all the laws a man is under, whether natural or civil. Is a man under the law of nature? What made him free of that law? what gave him a free disposing of his property, according to his own will, within the compass of that law? I answer, a state of maturity wherein he might be supposed capable to know that law, that so he might keep his actions within the bounds of it. When he has acquired that state, he is presumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, and how far he may make use of his freedom, and so comes to have it till then, some body else must guide him, who is presumed to know how far the law allows a liberty. If such a state of reason, such an age of discretion made him free, the same shall make his son free too. Is a man under the law of England? What made him free of that law? that is, to have the liberty to dispose of his actions and possessions according to his own will, within the permission of that law? A capacity of knowing that law which is supposed by that law, at the age of one and twenty years, and in some cases sooner. If this made the father free, it shall make the son free too. Till then we see the law allows the son to have no will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or guardian, who is to understand for him. And if the father die, and fail to substitute a deputy in his trust if he hath not provided a tutor, to govern his son, during his minority, during his want of understanding, the law takes care to do it some other must govern him, and be a will to him, till he hath attained to a state of freedom, and his understanding be fit to take the government of his will. But after that, the father and son are equally free as much as tutor and pupil after nonage equally subjects of the same law together, without any dominion left in the father over the life, liberty, or estate of his son, whether they be only in the state and under the law of nature, or under the positive laws of an established government. Sect. . But if, through defects that may happen out of the ordinary course of nature, any one comes not to such a degree of reason, wherein he might be supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the rules of it, he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the disposure of his own will (because he knows no bounds to it, has not understanding, its proper guide) but is continued under the tuition and government of others, all the time his own understanding is uncapable of that charge. And so lunatics and ideots are never set free from the government of their parents children, who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have and innocents which are excluded by a natural defect from ever having thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have for their guide, the reason that guideth other men which are tutors over them, to seek and procure their good for them, says Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sec. . All which seems no more than that duty, which God and nature has laid on man, as well as other creatures, to preserve their offspring, till they can be able to shift for themselves, and will scarce amount to an instance or proof of parents regal authority. Sect. . Thus we are born free, as we are born rational not that we have actually the exercise of either age, that brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we see how natural freedom and subjection to parents may consist together, and are both founded on the same principle. A child is free by his father's title, by his father's understanding, which is to govern him till he hath it of his own. The freedom of a man at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his parents, whilst yet short of that age, are so consistent, and so distinguishable, that the most blinded contenders for monarchy, by right of fatherhood, cannot miss this difference the most obstinate cannot but allow their consistency for were their doctrine all true, were the right heir of Adam now known, and by that title settled a monarch in his throne, invested with all the absolute unlimited power Sir Robert Filmer talks of if he should die as soon as his heir were born, must not the child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never so much sovereign, be in subjection to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, till age and education brought him reason and ability to govern himself and others? The necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the information of his mind, would require him to be directed by the will of others, and not his own and yet will any one think, that this restraint and subjection were inconsistent with, or spoiled him of that liberty or sovereignty he had a right to, or gave away his empire to those who had the government of his nonage? This government over him only prepared him the better and sooner for it. If any body should ask me, when my son is of age to be free? I shall answer, just when his monarch is of age to govern. But at what time, says the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. . a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as sufficeth to make him capable of those laws whereby he is then bound to guide his actions this is a great deal more easy for sense to discern, than for any one by skill and learning to determine. Sect. . Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow, that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore till that time require not oaths of fealty, or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to the government of their countries. Sect. . The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free but to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched, and as much beneath that of a man, as their's. This is that which puts the authority into the parents hands to govern the minority of their children. God hath made it their business to employ this care on their offspring, and hath placed in them suitable inclinations of tenderness and concern to temper this power, to apply it, as his wisdom designed it, to the children's good, as long as they should need to be under it. Sect. . But what reason can hence advance this care of the parents due to their offspring into an absolute arbitrary dominion of the father, whose power reaches no farther, than by such a discipline, as he finds most effectual, to give such strength and health to their bodies, such vigour and rectitude to their minds, as may best fit his children to be most useful to themselves and others and, if it be necessary to his condition, to make them work, when they are able, for their own subsistence. But in this power the mother too has her share with the father. Sect. . Nay, this power so little belongs to the father by any peculiar right of nature, but only as he is guardian of his children, that when he quits his care of them, he loses his power over them, which goes along with their nourishment and education, to which it is inseparably annexed and it belongs as much to the fosterfather of an exposed child, as to the natural father of another. So little power does the bare act of begetting give a man over his issue if all his care ends there, and this be all the title he hath to the name and authority of a father. And what will become of this paternal power in that part of the world, where one woman hath more than one husband at a time? or in those parts of America, where, when the husband and wife part, which happens frequently, the children are all left to the mother, follow her, and are wholly under her care and provision? If the father die whilst the children are young, do they not naturally every where owe the same obedience to their mother, during their minority, as to their father were he alive? and will any one say, that the mother hath a legislative power over her children? that she can make standing rules, which shall be of perpetual obligation, by which they ought to regulate all the concerns of their property, and bound their liberty all the course of their lives? or can she inforce the observation of them with capital punishments? for this is the proper power of the magistrate, of which the father hath not so much as the shadow. His command over his children is but temporary, and reaches not their life or property it is but a help to the weakness and imperfection of their nonage, a discipline necessary to their education and though a father may dispose of his own possessions as he pleases, when his children are out of danger of perishing for want, yet his power extends not to the lives or goods, which either their own industry, or another's bounty has made their's nor to their liberty neither, when they are once arrived to the infranchisement of the years of discretion. The father's empire then ceases, and he can from thence forwards no more dispose of the liberty of his son, than that of any other man and it must be far from an absolute or perpetual jurisdiction, from which a man may withdraw himself, having license from divine authority to leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife. Sect. . But though there be a time when a child comes to be as free from subjection to the will and command of his father, as the father himself is free from subjection to the will of any body else, and they are each under no other restraint, but that which is common to them both, whether it be the law of nature, or municipal law of their country yet this freedom exempts not a son from that honour which he ought, by the law of God and nature, to pay his parents. God having made the parents instruments in his great design of continuing the race of mankind, and the occasions of life to their children as he hath laid on them an obligation to nourish, preserve, and bring up their offspring so he has laid on the children a perpetual obligation of honouring their parents, which containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be shewn by all outward expressions, ties up the child from any thing that may ever injure or affront, disturb or endanger, the happiness or life of those from whom he received his and engages him in all actions of defence, relief, assistance and comfort of those, by whose means he entered into being, and has been made capable of any enjoyments of life from this obligation no state, no freedom can absolve children. But this is very far from giving parents a power of command over their children, or an authority to make laws and dispose as they please of their lives or liberties. It is one thing to owe honour, respect, gratitude and assistance another to require an absolute obedience and submission. The honour due to parents, a monarch in his throne owes his mother and yet this lessens not his authority, nor subjects him to her government. Sect. . The subjection of a minor places in the father a temporary government, which terminates with the minority of the child and the honour due from a child, places in the parents a perpetual right to respect, reverence, support and compliance too, more or less, as the father's care, cost, and kindness in his education, has been more or less. This ends not with minority, but holds in all parts and conditions of a man's life. The want of distinguishing these two powers, viz. that which the father hath in the right of tuition, during minority, and the right of honour all his life, may perhaps have caused a great part of the mistakes about this matter for to speak properly of them, the first of these is rather the privilege of children, and duty of parents, than any prerogative of paternal power. The nourishment and education of their children is a charge so incumbent on parents for their children's good, that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it and though the power of commanding and chastising them go along with it, yet God hath woven into the principles of human nature such a tenderness for their offspring, that there is little fear that parents should use their power with too much rigour the excess is seldom on the severe side, the strong byass of nature drawing the other way. And therefore God almighty when he would express his gentle dealing with the Israelites, he tells them, that though he chastened them, he chastened them as a man chastens his son, Deut. viii. . i.e. with tenderness and affection, and kept them under no severer discipline than what was absolutely best for them, and had been less kindness to have slackened. This is that power to which children are commanded obedience, that the pains and care of their parents may not be increased, or ill rewarded. Sect. . On the other side, honour and support, all that which gratitude requires to return for the benefits received by and from them, is the indispensable duty of the child, and the proper privilege of the parents. This is intended for the parents advantage, as the other is for the child's though education, the parents duty, seems to have most power, because the ignorance and infirmities of childhood stand in need of restraint and correction which is a visible exercise of rule, and a kind of dominion. And that duty which is comprehended in the word honour, requires less obedience, though the obligation be stronger on grown, than younger children for who can think the command, Children obey your parents, requires in a man, that has children of his own, the same submission to his father, as it does in his yet young children to him and that by this precept he were bound to obey all his father's commands, if, out of a conceit of authority, he should have the indiscretion to treat him still as a boy? Sect. . The first part then of paternal power, or rather duty, which is education, belongs so to the father, that it terminates at a certain season when the business of education is over, it ceases of itself, and is also alienable before for a man may put the tuition of his son in other hands and he that has made his son an apprentice to another, has discharged him, during that time, of a great part of his obedience both to himself and to his mother. But all the duty of honour, the other part, remains never the less entire to them nothing can cancel that it is so inseparable from them both, that the father's authority cannot dispossess the mother of this right, nor can any man discharge his son from honouring her that bore him. But both these are very far from a power to make laws, and enforcing them with penalties, that may reach estate, liberty, limbs and life. The power of commanding ends with nonage and though, after that, honour and respect, support and defence, and whatsoever gratitude can oblige a man to, for the highest benefits he is naturally capable of, be always due from a son to his parents yet all this puts no scepter into the father's hand, no sovereign power of commanding. He has no dominion over his son's property, or actions nor any right, that his will should prescribe to his son's in all things however it may become his son in many things, not very inconvenient to him and his family, to pay a deference to it. Sect. . A man may owe honour and respect to an ancient, or wise man defence to his child or friend relief and support to the distressed and gratitude to a benefactor, to such a degree, that all he has, all he can do, cannot sufficiently pay it but all these give no authority, no right to any one, of making laws over him from whom they are owing. And it is plain, all this is due not only to the bare title of father not only because, as has been said, it is owing to the mother too but because these obligations to parents, and the degrees of what is required of children, may be varied by the different care and kindness, trouble and expence, which is often employed upon one child more than another. Sect. . This shews the reason how it comes to pass, that parents in societies, where they themselves are subjects, retain a power over their children, and have as much right to their subjection, as those who are in the state of nature. Which could not possibly be, if all political power were only paternal, and that in truth they were one and the same thing for then, all paternal power being in the prince, the subject could naturally have none of it. But these two powers, political and paternal, are so perfectly distinct and separate are built upon so different foundations, and given to so different ends, that every subject that is a father, has as much a paternal power over his children, as the prince has over his and every prince, that has parents, owes them as much filial duty and obedience, as the meanest of his subjects do to their's and can therefore contain not any part or degree of that kind of dominion, which a prince or magistrate has over his subject. Sect. . Though the obligation on the parents to bring up their children, and the obligation on children to honour their parents, contain all the power on the one hand, and submission on the other, which are proper to this relation, yet there is another power ordinarily in the father, whereby he has a tie on the obedience of his children which tho' it be common to him with other men, yet the occasions of shewing it, almost constantly happening to fathers in their private families, and the instances of it elsewhere being rare, and less taken notice of, it passes in the world for a part of paternal jurisdiction. And this is the power men generally have to bestow their estates on those who please them best the possession of the father being the expectation and inheritance of the children, ordinarily in certain proportions, according to the law and custom of each country yet it is commonly in the father's power to bestow it with a more sparing or liberal hand, according as the behaviour of this or that child hath comported with his will and humour. Sect. . This is no small tie on the obedience of children and there being always annexed to the enjoyment of land, a submission to the government of the country, of which that land is a part it has been commonly supposed, that a father could oblige his posterity to that government, of which he himself was a subject, and that his compact held them whereas, it being only a necessary condition annexed to the land, and the inheritance of an estate which is under that government, reaches only those who will take it on that condition, and so is no natural tie or engagement, but a voluntary submission for every man's children being by nature as free as himself, or any of his ancestors ever were, may, whilst they are in that freedom, choose what society they will join themselves to, what commonwealth they will put themselves under. But if they will enjoy the inheritance of their ancestors, they must take it on the same terms their ancestors had it, and submit to all the conditions annexed to such a possession. By this power indeed fathers oblige their children to obedience to themselves, even when they are past minority, and most commonly too subject them to this or that political power but neither of these by any peculiar right of fatherhood, but by the reward they have in their hands to inforce and recompence such a compliance and is no more power than what a French man has over an English man, who by the hopes of an estate he will leave him, will certainly have a strong tie on his obedience and if, when it is left him, he will enjoy it, he must certainly take it upon the conditions annexed to the possession of land in that country where it lies, whether it be France or England. Sect. . To conclude then, tho' the father's power of commanding extends no farther than the minority of his children, and to a degree only fit for the discipline and government of that age and tho' that honour and respect, and all that which the Latins called piety, which they indispensably owe to their parents all their lifetime, and in all estates, with all that support and defence is due to them, gives the father no power of governing, i.e. making laws and enacting penalties on his children though by all this he has no dominion over the property or actions of his son yet it is obvious to conceive how easy it was, in the first ages of the world, and in places still, where the thinness of people gives families leave to separate into unpossessed quarters, and they have room to remove or plant themselves in yet vacant habitations, for the father of the family to become the prince of it he had been a ruler from the beginning of the infancy of his children and since without some government it would be hard for them to live together, it was likeliest it should, by the express or tacit consent of the children when they were grown up, be in the father, where it seemed without any change barely to continue when indeed nothing more was required to it, than the permitting the father to exercise alone, in his family, that executive power of the law of nature, which every free man naturally hath, and by that permission resigning up to him a monarchical power, whilst they remained in it. But that this was not by any paternal right, but only by the consent of his children, is evident from hence, that no body doubts, but if a stranger, whom chance or business had brought to his family, had there killed any of his children, or committed any other fact, he might condemn and put him to death, or otherwise have punished him, as well as any of his children which it was impossible he should do by virtue of any paternal authority over one who was not his child, but by virtue of that executive power of the law of nature, which, as a man, he had a right to and he alone could punish him in his family, where the respect of his children had laid by the exercise of such a power, to give way to the dignity and authority they were willing should remain in him, above the rest of his family. (It is no improbable opinion therefore, which the archphilosopher was of, that the chief person in every houshold was always, as it were, a king so when numbers of housholds joined themselves in civil societies together, kings were the first kind of governors amongst them, which is also, as it seemeth, the reason why the name of fathers continued still in them, who, of fathers, were made rulers as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchizedec, and being kings, to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew perhaps by the same occasion. Howbeit, this is not the only kind of regiment that has been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry others to be devised so that in a word, all public regiment, of what kind soever, seemeth evidently to have risen from the deliberate advice, consultation and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful there being no impossibility in nature considered by itself, but that man might have lived without any public regiment, Hooker's Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. .) Sect. . Thus it was easy, and almost natural for children, by a tacit, and scarce avoidable consent, to make way for the father's authority and government. They had been accustomed in their childhood to follow his direction, and to refer their little differences to him, and when they were men, who fitter to rule them? Their little properties, and less covetousness, seldom afforded greater controversies and when any should arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose care they had every one been sustained and brought up, and who had a tenderness for them all? It is no wonder that they made no distinction betwixt minority and full age nor looked after one and twenty, or any other age that might make them the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when they could have no desire to be out of their pupilage the government they had been under, during it, continued still to be more their protection than restraint and they could no where find a greater security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes, than in the rule of a father. Sect. . Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change, became the politic monarchs of them too and as they chanced to live long, and leave able and worthy heirs, for several successions, or otherwise so they laid the foundations of hereditary, or elective kingdoms, under several constitutions and manners, according as chance, contrivance, or occasions happened to mould them. But if princes have their titles in their fathers right, and it be a sufficient proof of the natural right of fathers to political authority, because they commonly were those in whose hands we find, de facto, the exercise of government I say, if this argument be good, it will as strongly prove, that all princes, nay princes only, ought to be priests, since it is as certain, that in the beginning, the father of the family was priest, as that he was ruler in his own houshold. Sect. . GOD having made man such a creature, that in his own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added and though all these might, and commonly did meet together, and make up but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family each of these, or all together, came short of political society, as we shall see, if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of these. Sect. . Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman and tho' it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation yet it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also necessary to their common offspring, who have a right to be nourished, and maintained by them, till they are able to provide for themselves. Sect. . For the end of conjunction, between male and female, being not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species this conjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones, who are to be sustained by those that got them, till they are able to shift and provide for themselves. This rule, which the infinite wise maker hath set to the works of his hands, we find the inferior creatures steadily obey. In those viviparous animals which feed on grass, the conjunction between male and female lasts no longer than the very act of copulation because the teat of the dam being sufficient to nourish the young, till it be able to feed on grass, the male only begets, but concerns not himself for the female or young, to whose sustenance he can contribute nothing. But in beasts of prey the conjunction lasts longer because the dam not being able well to subsist herself, and nourish her numerous offspring by her own prey alone, a more laborious, as well as more dangerous way of living, than by feeding on grass, the assistance of the male is necessary to the maintenance of their common family, which cannot subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint care of male and female. The same is to be observed in all birds, (except some domestic ones, where plenty of food excuses the cock from feeding, and taking care of the young brood) whose young needing food in the nest, the cock and hen continue mates, till the young are able to use their wing, and provide for themselves. Sect. . And herein I think lies the chief, if not the only reason, why the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than other creatures, viz. because the female is capable of conceiving, and de facto is commonly with child again, and brings forth too a new birth, long before the former is out of a dependency for support on his parents help, and able to shift for himself, and has all the assistance is due to him from his parents whereby the father, who is bound to take care for those he hath begot, is under an obligation to continue in conjugal society with the same woman longer than other creatures, whose young being able to subsist of themselves, before the time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself, and they are at liberty, till Hymen at his usual anniversary season summons them again to chuse new mates. Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the great Creator, who having given to man foresight, and an ability to lay up for the future, as well as to supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary, that society of man and wife should be more lasting, than of male and female amongst other creatures that so their industry might be encouraged, and their interest better united, to make provision and lay up goods for their common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easy and frequent solutions of conjugal society would mightily disturb. Sect. . But tho' these are ties upon mankind, which make the conjugal bonds more firm and lasting in man, than the other species of animals yet it would give one reason to enquire, why this compact, where procreation and education are secured, and inheritance taken care for, may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any other voluntary compacts, there being no necessity in the nature of the thing, nor to the ends of it, that it should always be for life I mean, to such as are under no restraint of any positive law, which ordains all such contracts to be perpetual. Sect. . But the husband and wife, though they have but one common concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably sometimes have different wills too it therefore being necessary that the last determination, i. e. the rule, should be placed somewhere it naturally falls to the man's share, as the abler and the stronger. But this reaching but to the things of their common interest and property, leaves the wife in the full and free possession of what by contract is her peculiar right, and gives the husband no more power over her life than she has over his the power of the husband being so far from that of an absolute monarch, that the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate from him, where natural right, or their contract allows it whether that contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs or laws of the country they live in and the children upon such separation fall to the father or mother's lot, as such contract does determine. Sect. . For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under politic government, as well as in the state of nature, the civil magistrate doth not abridge the right or power of either naturally necessary to those ends, viz. procreation and mutual support and assistance whilst they are together but only decides any controversy that may arise between man and wife about them. If it were otherwise, and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and death naturally belonged to the husband, and were necessary to the society between man and wife, there could be no matrimony in any of those countries where the husband is allowed no such absolute authority. But the ends of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, the condition of conjugal society put it not in him, it being not at all necessary to that state. Conjugal society could subsist and attain its ends without it nay, community of goods, and the power over them, mutual assistance and maintenance, and other things belonging to conjugal society, might be varied and regulated by that contract which unites man and wife in that society, as far as may consist with procreation and the bringing up of children till they could shift for themselves nothing being necessary to any society, that is not necessary to the ends for which it is made. Sect. . The society betwixt parents and children, and the distinct rights and powers belonging respectively to them, I have treated of so largely, in the foregoing chapter, that I shall not here need to say any thing of it. And I think it is plain, that it is far different from a politic society. Sect. . Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to those of far different condition for a freeman makes himself a servant to another, by selling him, for a certain time, the service he undertakes to do, in exchange for wages he is to receive and though this commonly puts him into the family of his master, and under the ordinary discipline thereof yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the contract between them. But there is another sort of servants, which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who being captives taken in a just war, are by the right of nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. These men having, as I say, forfeited their lives, and with it their liberties, and lost their estates and being in the state of slavery, not capable of any property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil society the chief end whereof is the preservation of property. Sect. . Let us therefore consider a master of a family with all these subordinate relations of wife, children, servants, and slaves, united under the domestic rule of a family which, what resemblance soever it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little commonwealth, yet is very far from it, both in its constitution, power and end or if it must be thought a monarchy, and the paterfamilias the absolute monarch in it, absolute monarchy will have but a very shattered and short power, when it is plain, by what has been said before, that the master of the family has a very distinct and differently limited power, both as to time and extent, over those several persons that are in it for excepting the slave (and the family is as much a family, and his power as paterfamilias as great, whether there be any slaves in his family or no) he has no legislative power of life and death over any of them, and none too but what a mistress of a family may have as well as he. And he certainly can have no absolute power over the whole family, who has but a very limited one over every individual in it. But how a family, or any other society of men, differ from that which is properly political society, we shall best see, by considering wherein political society itself consists. Sect. . Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society there, and there only is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties and by men having authority from the community, for the execution of those rules, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of right and punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society, with such penalties as the law has established whereby it is easy to discern, who are, and who are not, in political society together. Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another but those who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature, each being, where there is no other, judge for himself, and executioner which is, as I have before shewed it, the perfect state of nature. Sect. . And thus the commonwealth comes by a power to set down what punishment shall belong to the several transgressions which they think worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society, (which is the power of making laws) as well as it has the power to punish any injury done unto any of its members, by any one that is not of it, (which is the power of war and peace) and all this for the preservation of the property of all the members of that society, as far as is possible. But though every man who has entered into civil society, and is become a member of any commonwealth, has thereby quitted his power to punish offences, against the law of nature, in prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of offences, which he has given up to the legislative in all cases, where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given a right to the commonwealth to employ his force, for the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth, whenever he shall be called to it which indeed are his own judgments, they being made by himself, or his representative. And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws, how far offences are to be punished, when committed within the commonwealth and also to determine, by occasional judgments founded on the present circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are to be vindicated and in both these to employ all the force of all the members, when there shall be need. Sect. . Whereever therefore any number of men are so united into one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political, or civil society. And this is done, whereever any number of men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one body politic, under one supreme government or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any government already made for hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require to the execution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth which judge is the legislative, or magistrates appointed by it. And whereever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of nature. Sect. . Hence it is evident, that absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civilgovernment at all for the end of civil society, being to avoid, and remedy those inconveniencies of the state of nature, which necessarily follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority, to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which every one of the society ought to obey whereever any persons are, who have not such an authority to appeal to, for the decision of any difference between them, there those persons are still in the state of nature and so is every absolute prince, in respect of those who are under his dominion. (The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society and the principal use of that power is, to give laws unto all that are under it, which laws in such cases we must obey, unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily inforce, that the law of reason, or of God, doth enjoin the contrary, Hook. Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. .) Sect. . For he being supposed to have all, both legislative and executive power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly, and indifferently, and with authority decide, and from whose decision relief and redress may be expected of any injury or inconviency, that may be suffered from the prince, or by his order so that such a man, however intitled, Czar, or Grand Seignior, or how you please, is as much in the state of nature, with all under his dominion, as he is with the rest of mankind for whereever any two men are, who have no standing rule, and common judge to appeal to on earth, for the determination of controversies of right betwixt them, there they are still in the state of nature, and under all the inconveniencies of it, with only this woful difference to the subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince that whereas, in the ordinary state of nature, he has a liberty to judge of his right, and according to the best of his power, to maintain it now, whenever his property is invaded by the will and order of his monarch, he has not only no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but as if he were degraded from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge of, or to defend his right and so is exposed to all the misery and inconveniencies, that a man can fear from one, who being in the unrestrained state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed with power. (To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries and wrongs, i.e. such as attend men in the state of nature, there was no way but only by growing into composition and agreement amongst themselves, by ordaining some kind of govemment public, and by yielding themselves subject thereunto, that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govem, by them the peace, tranquillity and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that where force and injury was offered, they might be defenders of themselves they knew that however men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others, it was not to be suffered, but by all men, and all good means to be withstood. Finally, they knew that no man might in reason take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof, in as much as every man is towards himself, and them whom he greatly affects, partial and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent, all to be ordered by some, whom they should agree upon, without which consent there would be no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another, Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. .) Sect. . For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary. He that would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America, would not probably be much better in a throne where perhaps learning and religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that dare question it for what the protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of fathers of their countries it makes princes to be and to what a degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, where this sort of government is grown to perfection, he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon, may easily see. Sect. . In absolute monarchies indeed, as well as other governments of the world, the subjects have an appeal to the law, and judges to decide any controversies, and restrain any violence that may happen betwixt the subjects themselves, one amongst another. This every one thinks necessary, and believes he deserves to be thought a declared enemy to society and mankind, who should go about to take it away. But whether this be from a true love of mankind and society, and such a charity as we owe all one to another, there is reason to doubt for this is no more than what every man, who loves his own power, profit, or greatness, may and naturally must do, keep those animals from hurting, or destroying one another, who labour and drudge only for his pleasure and advantage and so are taken care of, not out of any love the master has for them, but love of himself, and the profit they bring him for if it be asked, what security, what fence is there, in such a state, against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler? the very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you, that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and security but as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances because he has power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm, or injury, on that side where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of faction and rebellion as if when men quitting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, should be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats, or foxes but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions. Sect. . But whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's understandings, it hinders not men from feeling and when they perceive, that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society which they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth against any harm, they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of nature, in respect of him whom they find to be so and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety and security in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and for which only they entered into it. And therefore, though perhaps at first, (as shall be shewed more at large hereafter in the following part of this discourse) some one good and excellent man having got a preeminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his goodness and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the chief rule, with arbitration of their differences, by a tacit consent devolved into his hands, without any other caution, but the assurance they had of his uprightness and wisdom yet when time, giving authority, and (as some men would persuade us) sacredness of customs, which the negligent, and unforeseeing innocence of the first ages began, had brought in successors of another stamp, the people finding their properties not secure under the government, as then it was, (whereas government has no other end but the preservation of property) could never be safe nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the legislature was placed in collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what you please. By which means every single person became subject, equally with other the meanest men, to those laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had established nor could any one, by his own authority avoid the force of the law, when once made nor by any pretence of superiority plead exemption, thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his dependents. No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it for if any man may do what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on earth, for redress or security against any harm he shall do I ask, whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, and so can be no part or member of that civil society unless any one will say, the state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm. (At the first, when some certain kind of regiment was once appointed, it may be that nothing was then farther thought upon for the manner of goveming, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion, which were to rule, till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy, did indeed but increase the sore, which it should have cured. They saw, that to live by one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. .) (Civil law being the act of the whole body politic, doth therefore overrule each several part of the same body. Hooker, ibid.) Sect. . MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. Sect. . For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority for that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one body to move one way it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see, that in assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of nature and reason, the power of the whole. Sect. . And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit. Sect. . For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual nothing but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of the whole but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in a number, though much less than that of a commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly. To which if we add the variety of opinions, and contrariety of interests, which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, the coming into society upon such terms would be only like Cato's coming into the theatre, only to go out again. Such a constitution as this would make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter duration, than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be dissolved for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again. Sect. . Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world. Sect. . To this I find two objections made. First, That there are no instances to be found in story, of a company of men independent, and equal one amongst another, that met together, and in this way began and set up a government. Secondly, It is impossible of right, that men should do so, because all men being born under government, they are to submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new one. Sect. . To the first there is this to answer, That it is not at all to be wondered, that history gives us but a very little account of men, that lived together in the state of nature. The inconveniences of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any number of them together, but they presently united and incorporated, if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser or Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of them, till they were men, and imbodied in armies. Government is every where antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long continuation of civil society has, by other more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty and then they begin to look after the history of their founders, and search into their original, when they have outlived the memory of it for it is with commonwealths as with particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies and if they know any thing of their original, they are beholden for it, to the accidental records that others have kept of it. And those that we have, of the beginning of any polities in the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God himself immediately interposed, and which favours not at all paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have manifest footsteps of it. Sect. . He must shew a strange inclination to deny evident matter of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis, who will not allow, that the beginning of Rome and Venice were by the uniting together of several men free and independent one of another, amongst whom there was no natural superiority or subjection. And if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us, that in many parts of America there was no government at all. There are great and apparent conjectures, says he, that these men, speaking of those of Peru, for a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but lived in troops, as they do this day in Florida, the Cheriquanas, those of Brazil, and many other nations, which have no certain kings, but as occasion is offered, in peace or war, they choose their captains as they please, . i. c. . If it be said, that every man there was born subject to his father, or the head of his family that the subjection due from a child to a father took not away his freedom of uniting into what political society he thought fit, has been already proved. But be that as it will, these men, it is evident, were actually free and whatever superiority some politicians now would place in any of them, they themselves claimed it not, but by consent were all equal, till by the same consent they set rulers over themselves. So that their politic societies all began from a voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of men freely acting in the choice of their governors, and forms of government. Sect. . And I hope those who went away from Sparta with Palantus, mentioned by Justin, . iii. c. . will be allowed to have been freemen independent one of another, and to have set up a government over themselves, by their own consent. Thus I have given several examples, out of history, of people free and in the state of nature, that being met together incorporated and began a commonwealth. And if the want of such instances be an argument to prove that government were not, nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for paternal empire were better let it alone, than urge it against natural liberty for if they can give so many instances, out of history, of governments begun upon paternal right, I think (though at best an argument from what has been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one might, without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too much into the original of governments, as they have begun de facto, lest they should find, at the foundation of most of them, something very little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they contend for. Sect. . But to conclude, reason being plain on our side, that men are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing, that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what has been the opinion, or practice of mankind, about the first erecting of governments. Sect. . I will not deny, that if we look back as far as history will direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally find them under the government and administration of one man. And I am also apt to believe, that where a family was numerous enough to subsist by itself, and continued entire together, without mixing with others, as it often happens, where there is much land, and few people, the government commonly began in the father for the father having, by the law of nature, the same power with every man else to punish, as he thought fit, any offences against that law, might thereby punish his transgressing children, even when they were men, and out of their pupilage and they were very likely to submit to his punishment, and all join with him against the offender, in their turns, giving him thereby power to execute his sentence against any transgression, and so in effect make him the lawmaker, and governor over all that remained in conjunction with his family. He was fittest to be trusted paternal affection secured their property and interest under his care and the custom of obeying him, in their childhood, made it easier to submit to him, rather than to any other. If therefore they must have one to rule them, as government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live together who so likely to be the man as he that was their common father unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind or body made him unfit for it? But when either the father died, and left his next heir, for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities, less fit for rule or where several families met, and consented to continue together there, it is not to be doubted, but they used their natural freedom, to set up him, whom they judged the ablest, and most likely, to rule well over them. Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who (living out of the reach of the conquering swords, and spreading domination of the two great empires of Peru and Mexico) enjoyed their own natural freedom, though, caeteris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir of their deceased king yet if they find him any way weak, or uncapable, they pass him by, and set up the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler. Sect. . Thus, though looking back as far as records give us any account of peopling the world, and the history of nations, we commonly find the government to be in one hand yet it destroys not that which I affirm, viz. that the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals, to join into, and make one society who, when they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government they thought fit. But this having given occasion to men to mistake, and think, that by nature government was monarchical, and belonged to the father, it may not be amiss here to consider, why people in the beginning generally pitched upon this form, which though perhaps the father's preeminency might, in the first institution of some commonwealths, give a rise to, and place in the beginning, the power in one hand yet it is plain that the reason, that continued the form of government in a single person, was not any regard, or respect to paternal authority since all petty monarchies, that is, almost all monarchies, near their original, have been commonly, at least upon occasion, elective. Sect. . First then, in the beginning of things, the father's government of the childhood of those sprung from him, having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was exercised with care and skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was sufficient to procure and preserve to men all the political happiness they sought for in society. It was no wonder that they should pitch upon, and naturally run into that form of government, which from their infancy they had been all accustomed to and which, by experience, they had found both easy and safe. To which, if we add, that monarchy being simple, and most obvious to men, whom neither experience had instructed in forms of government, nor the ambition or insolence of empire had taught to beware of the encroachments of prerogative, or the inconveniences of absolute power, which monarchy in succession was apt to lay claim to, and bring upon them, it was not at all strange, that they should not much trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any exorbitances of those to whom they had given the authority over them, and of balancing the power of government, by placing several parts of it in different hands. They had neither felt the oppression of tyrannical dominion, nor did the fashion of the age, nor their possessions, or way of living, (which afforded little matter for covetousness or ambition) give them any reason to apprehend or provide against it and therefore it is no wonder they put themselves into such a frame of government, as was not only, as I said, most obvious and simple, but also best suited to their present state and condition which stood more in need of defence against foreign invasions and injuries, than of multiplicity of laws. The equality of a simple poor way of living, confining their desires within the narrow bounds of each man's small property, made few controversies, and so no need of many laws to decide them, or variety of officers to superintend the process, or look after the execution of justice, where there were but few trespasses, and few offenders. Since then those, who like one another so well as to join into society, cannot but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust one in another they could not but have greater apprehensions of others, than of one another and therefore their first care and thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves against foreign force. It was natural for them to put themselves under a frame of government which might best serve to that end, and chuse the wisest and bravest man to conduct them in their wars, and lead them out against their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler. Sect. . Thus we see, that the kings of the Indians in America, which is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and Europe, whilst the inhabitants were too few for the country, and want of people and money gave men no temptation to enlarge their possessions of land, or contest for wider extent of ground, are little more than generals of their armies and though they command absolutely in war, yet at home and in time of peace they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily either in the people, or in a council. Tho' the war itself, which admits not of plurality of governors, naturally devolves the command into the king's sole authority. Sect. . And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of their judges, and first kings, seems to have been to be captains in war, and leaders of their armies which (besides what is signified by going out and in before the people, which was, to march forth to war, and home again in the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of Jephtha. The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites in fear send to Jephtha, a bastard of their family whom they had cast off, and article with him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make him their ruler which they do in these words, And the people made him head and captain over them, Judg. xi, . which was, as it seems, all one as to be judge. And he judged Israel, judg. xii. . that is, was their captaingeneral six years. So when Jotham upbraids the Shechemites with the obligation they had to Gideon, who had been their judge and ruler, he tells them, He fought for you, and adventured his life far, and delivered you out of the hands of Midian, Judg. ix. . Nothing mentioned of him but what he did as a general and indeed that is all is found in his history, or in any of the rest of the judges. And Abimelech particularly is called king, though at most he was but their general. And when, being weary of the ill conduct of Samuel's sons, the children of Israel desired a king, like all the nations to judge them, and to go out before them, and to fight their battles, I. Sam viii. . God granting their desire, says to Samuel, I will send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of the hands of the Philistines, ix. . As if the only business of a king had been to lead out their armies, and fight in their defence and accordingly at his inauguration pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to Saul, that the Lord had anointed him to be captain over his inheritance, x. . And therefore those, who after Saul's being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king, made no other objection but this, How shall this man save us? v. . as if they should have said, this man is unfit to be our king, not having skill and conduct enough in war, to be able to defend us. And when God resolved to transfer the government to David, it is in these words, But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, xiii. . As if the whole kingly authority were nothing else but to be their general and therefore the tribes who had stuck to Saul's family, and opposed David's reign, when they came to Hebron with terms of submission to him, they tell him, amongst other arguments they had to submit to him as to their king, that he was in effect their king in Saul's time, and therefore they had no reason but to receive him as their king now. Also (say they) in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that reddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. Sect. . Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a commonwealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription or whether several families, or the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together, uniting into society, the need of a general, whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but virtuous age, (such as are almost all those which begin governments, that ever come to last in the world) gave men one of another, made the first beginners of commonwealths generally put the rule into one man's hand, without any other express limitation or restraint, but what the nature of the thing, and the end of government required which ever of those it was that at first put the rule into the hands of a single person, certain it is no body was intrusted with it but for the public good and safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths, those who had it commonly used it. And unless they had done so, young societies could not have subsisted without such nursing fathers tender and careful of the public weal, all governments would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their infancy, and the prince and the people had soon perished together. Sect. . But though the golden age (before vain ambition, and amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence, had corrupted men's minds into a mistake of true power and honour) had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects, and there was then no stretching prerogative on the one side, to oppress the people nor consequently on the other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers and people about governors or government yet, when ambition and luxury in future ages would retain and increase the power, without doing the business for which it was given and aided by flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate interests from their people, men found it necessary to examine more carefully the original and rights of government and to find out ways to restrain the exorbitances, and prevent the abuses of that power, which they having intrusted in another's hands only for their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them. (At first, when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be nothing was then farther thought upon for the manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule, till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy, did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw, that to live by one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty before hand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. .) Sect. . Thus we may see how probable it is, that people that were naturally free, and by their own consent either submitted to the government of their father, or united together out of different families to make a government, should generally put the rule into one man's hands, and chuse to be under the conduct of a single person, without so much as by express conditions limiting or regulating his power, which they thought safe enough in his honesty and prudence though they never dreamed of monarchy being lure Divino, which we never heard of among mankind, till it was revealed to us by the divinity of this last age nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to dominion, or to be the foundation of all government. And thus much may suffice to shew, that as far as we have any light from history, we have reason to conclude, that all peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people. I say peaceful, because I shall have occasion in another place to speak of conquest, which some esteem a way of beginning of governments. The other objection I find urged against the beginning of polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz. Sect. . That all men being born under government, some or other, it is impossible any of them should ever be free, and at liberty to unite together, and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful government. If this argument be good I ask, how came so many lawful monarchies into the world? for if any body, upon this supposition, can shew me any one man in any age of the world free to begin a lawful monarchy, I will be bound to shew him ten other free men at liberty, at the same time to unite and begin a new government under a regal, or any other form it being demonstration, that if any one, born under the dominion of another, may be so free as to have a right to command others in a new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the dominion of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler, or subject, of a distinct separate government. And so by this their own principle, either all men, however born, are free, or else there is but one lawful prince, one lawful government in the world. And then they have nothing to do, but barely to shew us which that is which when they have done, I doubt not but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him. Sect. . Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection, to shew that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those they use it against yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of this argument a little farther. All men, say they, are born under government, and therefore they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a subject to his father, or his prince, and is therefore under the perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance. It is plain mankind never owned nor considered any such natural subjection that they were born in, to one or to the other that tied them, without their own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs. Sect. . For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves, and their obedience, from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other places from whence sprang all that number of petty commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multiplied, as long as there was room enough, till the stronger, or more fortunate, swallowed the weaker and those great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser dominions. All which are so many testimonies against paternal sovereignty, and plainly prove, that it was not the natural right of the father descending to his heirs, that made governments in the beginning, since it was impossible, upon that ground, there should have been so many little kingdoms all must have been but only one universal monarchy, if men had not been at liberty to separate themselves from their families, and the government, be it what it will, that was set up in it, and go and make distinct commonwealths and other governments, as they thought fit. Sect. . This has been the practice of the world from its first beginning to this day nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom of mankind, that they are born under constituted and ancient polities, that have established laws, and set forms of government, than if they were born in the woods, amongst the unconfined inhabitants, that run loose in them for those, who would persuade us, that by being born under any government, we are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title or pretence to the freedom of the state of nature, have no other reason (bating that of paternal power, which we have already answered) to produce for it, but only, because our fathers or progenitors passed away their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their posterity to a perpetual subjection to the government, which they themselves submitted to. It is true, that whatever engagements or promises any one has made for himself, he is under the obligation of them, but cannot, by any compact whatsoever, bind his children or posterity for his son, when a man, being altogether as free as the father, any act of the father can no more give away the liberty of the son, than it can of any body else he may indeed annex such conditions to the land, he enjoyed as a subject of any commonwealth, as may oblige his son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those possessions which were his father's because that estate being his father's property, he may dispose, or settle it, as he pleases. Sect. . And this has generally given the occasion to mistake in this matter because commonwealths not permitting any part of their dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by any but those of their community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the possessions of his father, but under the same terms his father did, by becoming a member of the society whereby he puts himself presently under the government he finds there established, as much as any other subject of that commonwealth. And thus the consent of freemen, born under government, which only makes them members of it, being given separately in their turns, as each comes to be of age, and not in a multitude together people take no notice of it, and thinking it not done at all, or not necessary, conclude they are naturally subjects as they are men. Sect. . But, it is plain, governments themselves understand it otherwise they claim no power over the son, because of that they had over the father nor look on children as being their subjects, by their fathers being so. If a subject of England have a child, by an English woman in France, whose subject is he? Not the king of England's for he must have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it nor the king of France's for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and breed him as he pleases? and who ever was judged as a traytor or deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being barely born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country or government. He is under his father's tuition and authority, till he comes to age of discretion and then he is a freeman, at liberty what government he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to for if an Englishman's son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so, it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father's being a subject of this kingdom nor is he bound up by any compact of his ancestors. And why then hath not his son, by the same reason, the same liberty, though he be born any where else? Since the power that a father hath naturally over his children, is the same, whereever they be born, and the ties of natural obligations, are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms and commonwealths. Sect. . Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case. No body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds, i.e. how far any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it whether this his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway and in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government. Sect. . To understand this the better, it is fit to consider, that every man, when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto, annexed also, and submits to the community, those possessions, which he has, or shall acquire, that do not already belong to any other government for it would be a direct contradiction, for any one to enter into society with others for the securing and regulating of property and yet to suppose his land, whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government, to which he himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject. By the same act therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any commonwealth, by the same he unites his possessions, which were before free, to it also and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of that commonwealth, as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchase, permission, or otherways, enjoys any part of the land, so annexed to, and under the government of that commonwealth, must take it with the condition it is under that is, of submitting to the government of the commonwealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any subject of it. Sect. . But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over the land, and reaches the possessor of it, (before he has actually incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon, and enjoys that the obligation any one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit to the government, begins and ends with the enjoyment so that whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the government, will, by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other commonwealth or to agree with others to begin a new one, in vacuis locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and unpossessed whereas he, that has once, by actual agreement, and any express declaration, given his consent to be of any commonwealth, is perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature unless, by any calamity, the government he was under comes to be dissolved or else by some public act cuts him off from being any longer a member of it. Sect. . But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly, and enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a member of that society this is only a local protection and homage due to and from all those, who, not being in a state of war, come within the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof the force of its laws extends. But this no more makes a man a member of that society, a perpetual subject of that commonwealth, than it would make a man a subject to another, in whose family he found it convenient to abide for some time though, whilst he continued in it, he were obliged to comply with the laws, and submit to the government he found there. And thus we see, that foreigners, by living all their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, though they are bound, even in conscience, to submit to its administration, as far forth as any denison yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that commonwealth. Nothing can make any man so, but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of political societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any commonwealth. Sect. . IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property. Sect. . The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting. First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all controversies between them for though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures yet men being biassed by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases. Sect. . Secondly, In the state of nature there wants a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according to the established law for every one in that state being both judge and executioner of the law of nature, men being partial to themselves, passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far, and with too much heat, in their own cases as well as negligence, and unconcernedness, to make them too remiss in other men's. Sect. . Thirdly, In the state of nature there often wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution, They who by any injustice offended, will seldom fail, where they are able, by force to make good their injustice such resistance many times makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destructive, to those who attempt it. Sect. . Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of nature, being but in an ill condition, while they remain in it, are quickly driven into society. Hence it comes to pass, that we seldom find any number of men live any time together in this state. The inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to, by the irregular and uncertain exercise of the power every man has of punishing the transgressions of others, make them take sanctuary under the established laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of their property. It is this makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of punishing, to be exercised by such alone, as shall be appointed to it amongst them and by such rules as the community, or those authorized by them to that purpose, shall agree on. And in this we have the original right and rise of both the legislative and executive power, as well as of the governments and societies themselves. Sect. . For in the state of nature, to omit the liberty he has of innocent delights, a man has two powers. The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself, and others within the permission of the law of nature by which law, common to them all, he and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society, distinct from all other creatures. And were it not for the corruption and vitiousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any other no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided associations. The other power a man has in the state of nature, is the power to punish the crimes committed against that law. Both these he gives up, when he joins in a private, if I may so call it, or particular politic society, and incorporates into any commonwealth, separate from the rest of mankind. Sect. . The first power, viz. of doing whatsoever he thought for the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself, and the rest of that society shall require which laws of the society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of nature. Sect. . Secondly, The power of punishing he wholly gives up, and engages his natural force, (which he might before employ in the execution of the law of nature, by his own single authority, as he thought fit) to assist the executive power of the society, as the law thereof shall require for being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy many conveniencies, from the labour, assistance, and society of others in the same community, as well as protection from its whole strength he is to part also with as much of his natural liberty, in providing for himself, as the good, prosperity, and safety of the society shall require which is not only necessary, but just, since the other members of the society do the like. Sect. . But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good but is obliged to secure every one's property, by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people. Sect. . THE majority having, as has been shewed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors and then it is an oligarchy or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy if to him and his heirs, it is an hereditary monarchy if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor to return to them an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these the community may make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they think good. And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again when it is so reverted, the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a new form of government for the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the commonwealth. Sect. . By commonwealth, I must be understood all along to mean, not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community, which the Latines signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our language, is commonwealth, and most properly expresses such a society of men, which community or city in English does not for there may be subordinate communities in a government and city amongst us has a quite different notion from commonwealth and therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word commonwealth in that sense, in which I find it used by king James the first and I take it to be its genuine signification which if any body dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better. Sect. . THE great end of men's entering into society, being the enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety, and the great instrument and means of that being the laws established in that society the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power as the first and fundamental natural law, which is to govern even the legislative itself, is the preservation of the society, and (as far as will consist with the public good) of every person in it. This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it nor can any edict of any body else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed for without this the law could not have that, which is absolutely necessary to its being a law, the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them and therefore all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this supreme power, and is directed by those laws which it enacts nor can any oaths to any foreign power whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate power, discharge any member of the society from his obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their trust nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws so enacted, or farther than they do allow it being ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any power in the society, which is not the supreme. (The lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belonging so properly unto the same intire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth, to exercise the same of himself, and not by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are not therefore which public approbation hath not made so. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. . Of this point therefore we are to note, that such men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent, we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society, whereof we be a part, hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Laws therefore human, of what kind so ever, are available by consent. Ibid.) Sect. . Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more, whether it be always in being, or only by intervals, though it be the supreme power in every commonwealth yet First, It is not, nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people for it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person, or assembly, which is legislator it can be no more than those persons had in a state of nature before they entered into society, and gave up to the community for no body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself and no body has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the arbitrary power of another and having in the state of nature no arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of nature gave him for the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind this is all he doth, or can give up to the commonwealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative can have no more than this. Their power, in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power, that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects. The obligations of the law of nature cease not in society, but only in many cases are drawn closer, and have by human laws known penalties annexed to them, to inforce their observation. Thus the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions, must, as well as their own and other men's actions, be conformable to the law of nature, i.e. to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good, or valid against it. (Two foundations there are which bear up public societies the one a natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship the other an order, expresly or secretly agreed upon, touching the manner of their union in living together the latter is that which we call the law of a commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as the common good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the sacred laws of his nature in a word, unless presuming man to be, in regard of his depraved mind, little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good, for which societies are instituted. Unless they do this, they are not perfect. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. .) Sect. . Secondly, The legislative, or supreme authority, cannot assume to its self a power to rule by extemporary arbitrary decrees, but is bound to dispense justice, and decide the rights of the subject by promulgated standing laws, and known authorized judges for the law of nature being unwritten, and so no where to be found but in the minds of men, they who through passion or interest shall miscite, or misapply it, cannot so easily be convinced of their mistake where there is no established judge and so it serves not, as it ought, to determine the rights, and fence the properties of those that live under it, especially where every one is judge, interpreter, and executioner of it too, and that in his own case and he that has right on his side, having ordinarily but his own single strength, hath not force enough to defend himself from injuries, or to punish delinquents. To avoid these inconveniences, which disorder men's propperties in the state of nature, men unite into societies, that they may have the united strength of the whole society to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to bound it, by which every one may know what is his. To this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society which they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty, as it was in the state of nature. (Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two, the law of God, and the law of nature so that laws human must be made according to the general laws of nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of scripture, otherwise they are ill made. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. iii. sect. . To constrain men to any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable. Ibid. l. i. sect. .) Sect. . Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws, can neither of them consist with the ends of society and government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve their lives, liberties and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to secure their peace and quiet. It cannot be supposed that they should intend, had they a power so to do, to give to any one, or more, an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them. This were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man, or many in combination. Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him, to make a prey of them when he pleases he being in a much worse condition, who is exposed to the arbitrary power of one man, who has the command of ,, than he that is exposed to the arbitrary power of , single men no body being secure, that his will, who has such a command, is better than that of other men, though his force be , times stronger. And therefore, whatever form the commonwealth is under, the ruling power ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions for then mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the state of nature, if they shall have armed one, or a few men with the joint power of a multitude, to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited decrees of their sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and till that moment unknown wills, without having any measures set down which may guide and justify their actions for all the power the government has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law and the rulers too kept within their bounds, and not be tempted, by the power they have in their hands, to employ it to such purposes, and by such measures, as they would not have known, and own not willingly. Sect. . Thirdly, The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it too gross an absurdity for any man to own. Men therefore in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are their's, that no body hath a right to take their substance or any part of it from them, without their own consent without this they have no property at all for I have truly no property in that, which another can by right take from me, when he pleases, against my consent. Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. This is not much to be feared in governments where the legislative consists, wholly or in part, in assemblies which are variable, whose members, upon the dissolution of the assembly, are subjects under the common laws of their country, equally with the rest. But in governments, where the legislative is in one lasting assembly always in being, or in one man, as in absolute monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community and so will be apt to increase their own riches and power, by taking what they think fit from the people for a man's property is not at all secure, tho' there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good. Sect. . But government, into whatsoever hands it is put, being, as I have before shewed, intrusted with this condition, and for this end, that men might have and secure their properties the prince, or senate, however it may have power to make laws, for the regulating of property between the subjects one amongst another, yet can never have a power to take to themselves the whole, or any part of the subjects property, without their own consent for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all. And to let us see, that even absolute power, where it is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute, but is still limited by that reason, and confined to those ends, which required it in some cases to be absolute, we need look no farther than the common practice of martial discipline for the preservation of the army, and in it of the whole commonwealth, requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them but yet we see, that neither the serjeant, that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon, or stand in a breach, where he is almost sure to perish, can command that soldier to give him one penny of his money nor the general, that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or for not obeying the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his absolute power of life and death, dispose of one farthing of that soldier's estate, or seize one jot of his goods whom yet he can command any thing, and hang for the least disobedience because such a blind obedience is necessary to that end, for which the commander has his power, viz. the preservation of the rest but the disposing of his goods has nothing to do with it. Sect. . It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection, should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by them for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government for what property have I in that, which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself? Sect. . Fourthly, The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others. The people alone can appoint the form of the commonwealth, which is by constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be governed by laws made by such men, and in such forms, no body else can say other men shall make laws for them nor can the people be bound by any laws, but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen, and authorized to make laws for them. The power of the legislative, being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands. Sect. . These are the bounds which the trust, that is put in them by the society, and the law of God and nature, have set to the legislative power of every commonwealth, in all forms of government. First, They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at court, and the country man at plough. Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately, but the good of the people. Thirdly, They must not raise taxes on the property of the people, without the consent of the people, given by themselves, or their deputies. And this properly concerns only such governments where the legislative is always in being, or at least where the people have not reserved any part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time chosen by themselves. Fourthly, The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to any body else, or place it any where, but where the people have. Sect. . THE legislative power is that, which has a right to direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be employed for preserving the community and the members of it. But because those laws which are constantly to be executed, and whose force is always to continue, may be made in a little time therefore there is no need, that the legislative should be always in being, not having always business to do. And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making, and execution, to their own private advantage, and thereby come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to the end of society and government therefore in wellordered commonwealths, where the good of the whole is so considered, as it ought, the legislative power is put into the hands of divers persons, who duly assembled, have by themselves, or jointly with others, a power to make laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are themselves subject to the laws they have made which is a new and near tie upon them, to take care, that they make them for the public good. Sect. . But because the laws, that are at once, and in a short time made, have a constant and lasting force, and need a perpetual execution, or an attendance thereunto therefore it is necessary there should be a power always in being, which should see to the execution of the laws that are made, and remain in force. And thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated. Sect. . There is another power in every commonwealth, which one may call natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man naturally had before he entered into society for though in a commonwealth the members of it are distinct persons still in reference to one another, and as such as governed by the laws of the society yet in reference to the rest of mankind, they make one body, which is, as every member of it before was, still in the state of nature with the rest of mankind. Hence it is, that the controversies that happen between any man of the society with those that are out of it, are managed by the public and an injury done to a member of their body, engages the whole in the reparation of it. So that under this consideration, the whole community is one body in the state of nature, in respect of all other states or persons out of its community. Sect. . This therefore contains the power of war and peace, leagues and alliances, and all the transactions, with all persons and communities without the commonwealth, and may be called federative, if any one pleases. So the thing be understood, I am indifferent as to the name. Sect. . These two powers, executive and federative, though they be really distinct in themselves, yet one comprehending the execution of the municipal laws of the society within its self, upon all that are parts of it the other the management of the security and interest of the public without, with all those that it may receive benefit or damage from, yet they are always almost united. And though this federative power in the well or ill management of it be of great moment to the commonwealth, yet it is much less capable to be directed by antecedent, standing, positive laws, than the executive and so must necessarily be left to the prudence and wisdom of those, whose hands it is in, to be managed for the public good for the laws that concern subjects one amongst another, being to direct their actions, may well enough precede them. But what is to be done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions, and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those, who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill, for the advantage of the commonwealth. Sect. . Though, as I said, the executive and federative power of every community be really distinct in themselves, yet they are hardly to be separated, and placed at the same time, in the hands of distinct persons for both of them requiring the force of the society for their exercise, it is almost impracticable to place the force of the commonwealth in distinct, and not subordinate hands or that the executive and federative power should be placed in persons, that might act separately, whereby the force of the public would be under different commands which would be apt some time or other to cause disorder and ruin. Sect. . THOUGH in a constituted commonwealth, standing upon its own basis, and acting according to its own nature, that is, acting for the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them for all power given with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any body, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject for no man or society of men, having a power to deliver up their preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of another when ever any one shall go about to bring them into such a slavish condition, they will always have a right to preserve, what they have not a power to part with and to rid themselves of those, who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of selfpreservation, for which they entered into society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power, but not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the people can never take place till the government be dissolved. Sect. . In all cases, whilst the government subsists, the legislative is the supreme power for what can give laws to another, must needs be superior to him and since the legislative is no otherwise legislative of the society, but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts, and for every member of the society, prescribing rules to their actions, and giving power of execution, where they are transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, and all other powers, in any members or parts of the society, derived from and subordinate to it. Sect. . In some commonwealths, where the legislative is not always in being, and the executive is vested in a single person, who has also a share in the legislative there that single person in a very tolerable sense may also be called supreme not that he has in himself all the supreme power, which is that of lawmaking but because he has in him the supreme execution, from whom all inferior magistrates derive all their several subordinate powers, or at least the greatest part of them having also no legislative superior to him, there being no law to be made without his consent, which cannot be expected should ever subject him to the other part of the legislative, he is properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to be observed, that tho' oaths of allegiance and fealty are taken to him, it is not to him as supreme legislator, but as supreme executor of the law, made by a joint power of him with others allegiance being nothing but an obedience according to law, which when he violates, he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it otherwise than as the public person vested with the power of the law, and so is to be considered as the image, phantom, or representative of the commonwealth, acted by the will of the society, declared in its laws and thus he has no will, no power, but that of the law. But when he quits this representation, this public will, and acts by his own private will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private person without power, and without will, that has any right to obedience the members owing no obedience but to the public will of the society. Sect. . The executive power, placed any where but in a person that has also a share in the legislative, is visibly subordinate and accountable to it, and may be at pleasure changed and displaced so that it is not the supreme executive power, that is exempt from subordination, but the supreme executive power vested in one, who having a share in the legislative, has no distinct superior legislative to be subordinate and accountable to, farther than he himself shall join and consent so that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit, which one may certainly conclude will be but very little. Of other ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth, we need not speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety, in the different customs and constitutions of distinct commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a particular account of them all. Only thus much, which is necessary to our present purpose, we may take notice of concerning them, that they have no manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them, and are all of them accountable to some other power in the commonwealth. Sect. . It is not necessary, no, nor so much as convenient, that the legislative should be always in being but absolutely necessary that the executive power should, because there is not always need of new laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are made. When the legislative hath put the execution of the laws, they make, into other hands, they have a power still to resume it out of those hands, when they find cause, and to punish for any maladministration against the laws. The same holds also in regard of the federative power, that and the executive being both ministerial and subordinate to the legislative, which, as has been shewed, in a constituted commonwealth is the supreme. The legislative also in this case being supposed to consist of several persons, (for if it be a single person, it cannot but be always in being, and so will, as supreme, naturally have the supreme executive power, together with the legislative) may assemble, and exercise their legislature, at the times that either their original constitution, or their own adjournment, appoints, or when they please if neither of these hath appointed any time, or there be no other way prescribed to convoke them for the supreme power being placed in them by the people, it is always in them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an act of their supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time and when that time comes, they have a right to assemble and act again. Sect. . If the legislative, or any part of it, be made up of representatives chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards return into the ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislature but upon a new choice, this power of chusing must also be exercised by the people, either at certain appointed seasons, or else when they are summoned to it and in this latter case the power of convoking the legislative is ordinarily placed in the executive, and has one of these two limitations in respect of time that either the original constitution requires their assembling and acting at certain intervals, and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially issue directions for their electing and assembling, according to due forms or else it is left to his prudence to call them by new elections, when the occasions or exigencies of the public require the amendment of old, or making of new laws, or the redress or prevention of any inconveniencies, that lie on, or threaten the people. Sect. . It may be demanded here, What if the executive power, being possessed of the force of the commonwealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the original constitution, or the public exigencies require it? I say, using force upon the people without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power for having erected a legislative, with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times, or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions, the true remedy of force without authority, is to oppose force to it. The use of force without authority, always puts him that uses it into a state of war, as the aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly. Sect. . The power of assembling and dismissing the legislative, placed in the executive, gives not the executive a superiority over it, but is a fiduciary trust placed in him, for the safety of the people, in a case where the uncertainty and variableness of human affairs could not bear a steady fixed rule for it not being possible, that the first framers of the government should, by any foresight, be so much masters of future events, as to be able to prefix so just periods of return and duration to the assemblies of the legislative, in all times to come, that might exactly answer all the exigencies of the commonwealth the best remedy could be found for this defect, was to trust this to the prudence of one who was always to be present, and whose business it was to watch over the public good. Constant frequent meetings of the legislative, and long continuations of their assemblies, without necessary occasion, could not but be burdensome to the people, and must necessarily in time produce more dangerous inconveniencies, and yet the quick turn of affairs might be sometimes such as to need their present help any delay of their convening might endanger the public and sometimes too their business might be so great, that the limited time of their sitting might be too short for their work, and rob the public of that benefit which could be had only from their mature deliberation. What then could be done in this case to prevent the community from being exposed some time or other to eminent hazard, on one side or the other, by fixed intervals and periods, set to the meeting and acting of the legislative, but to intrust it to the prudence of some, who being present, and acquainted with the state of public affairs, might make use of this prerogative for the public good? and where else could this be so well placed as in his hands, who was intrusted with the execution of the laws for the same end? Thus supposing the regulation of times for the assembling and sitting of the legislative, not settled by the original constitution, it naturally fell into the hands of the executive, not as an arbitrary power depending on his good pleasure, but with this trust always to have it exercised only for the public weal, as the occurrences of times and change of affairs might require. Whether settled periods of their convening, or a liberty left to the prince for convoking the legislative, or perhaps a mixture of both, hath the least inconvenience attending it, it is not my business here to inquire, but only to shew, that though the executive power may have the prerogative of convoking and dissolving such conventions of the legislative, yet it is not thereby superior to it. Sect. . Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state. Thus people, riches, trade, power, change their stations, flourishing mighty cities come to ruin, and prove in times neglected desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented places grow into populous countries, filled with wealth and inhabitants. But things not always changing equally, and private interest often keeping up customs and privileges, when the reasons of them are ceased, it often comes to pass, that in governments, where part of the legislative consists of representatives chosen by the people, that in tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. To what gross absurdities the following of custom, when reason has left it, may lead, we may be satisfied, when we see the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, sends as many representatives to the grand assembly of lawmakers, as a whole county numerous in people, and powerful in riches. This strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy tho' most think it hard to find one, because the constitution of the legislative being the original and supreme act of the society, antecedent to all positive laws in it, and depending wholly on the people, no inferior power can alter it. And therefore the people, when the legislative is once constituted, having, in such a government as we have been speaking of, no power to act as long as the government stands this inconvenience is thought incapable of a remedy. Sect. . Salus populi suprema lex, is certainly so just and fundamental a rule, that he, who sincerely follows it, cannot dangerously err. If therefore the executive, who has the power of convoking the legislative, observing rather the true proportion, than fashion of representation, regulates, not by old custom, but true reason, the number of members, in all places that have a right to be distinctly represented, which no part of the people however incorporated can pretend to, but in proportion to the assistance which it affords to the public, it cannot be judged to have set up a new legislative, but to have restored the old and true one, and to have rectified the disorders which succession of time had insensibly, as well as inevitably introduced For it being the interest as well as intention of the people, to have a fair and equal representative whoever brings it nearest to that, is an undoubted friend to, and establisher of the government, and cannot miss the consent and approbation of the community prerogative being nothing but a power, in the hands of the prince, to provide for the public good, in such cases, which depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, certain and unalterable laws could not safely direct whatsoever shall be done manifestly for the good of the people, and the establishing the government upon its true foundations, is, and always will be, just prerogative, The power of erecting new corporations, and therewith new representatives, carries with it a supposition, that in time the measures of representation might vary, and those places have a just right to be represented which before had none and by the same reason, those cease to have a right, and be too inconsiderable for such a privilege, which before had it. 'Tis not a change from the present state, which perhaps corruption or decay has introduced, that makes an inroad upon the government, but the tendency of it to injure or oppress the people, and to set up one part or party, with a distinction from, and an unequal subjection of the rest. Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be of advantage to the society, and people in general, upon just and lasting measures, will always, when done, justify itself and whenever the people shall chuse their representatives upon just and undeniably equal measures, suitable to the original frame of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the will and act of the society, whoever permitted or caused them so to do. Sect. . WHERE the legislative and executive power are in distinct hands, (as they are in all moderated monarchies, and wellframed governments) there the good of the society requires, that several things should be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power for the legislators not being able to foresee, and provide by laws, for all that may be useful to the community, the executor of the laws having the power in his hands, has by the common law of nature a right to make use of it for the good of the society, in many cases, where the municipal law has given no direction, till the legislative can conveniently be assembled to provide for it. Many things there are, which the law can by no means provide for and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require nay, it is fit that the laws themselves should in some cases give way to the executive power, or rather to this fundamental law of nature and government, viz. That as much as may be, all the members of the society are to be preserved for since many accidents may happen, wherein a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm (as not to pull down an innocent man's house to stop the fire, when the next to it is burning) and a man may come sometimes within the reach of the law, which makes no distinction of persons, by an action that may deserve reward and pardon 'tis fit the ruler should have a power, in many cases, to mitigate the severity of the law, and pardon some offenders for the end of government being the preservation of all, as much as may be, even the guilty are to be spared, where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent. Sect. . This power to act according to discretion, for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it, is that which is called prerogative for since in some governments the lawmaking power is not always in being, and is usually too numerous, and so too slow, for the dispatch requisite to execution and because also it is impossible to foresee, and so by laws to provide for, all accidents and necessities that may concern the public, or to make such laws as will do no harm, if they are executed with an inflexible rigour, on all occasions, and upon all persons that may come in their way therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power, to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe. Sect. . This power, whilst employed for the benefit of the community, and suitably to the trust and ends of the government, is undoubted prerogative, and never is questioned for the people are very seldom or never scrupulous or nice in the point they are far from examining prerogative, whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for the use it was meant, that is, for the good of the people, and not manifestly against it but if there comes to be a question between the executive power and the people, about a thing claimed as a prerogative the tendency of the exercise of such prerogative to the good or hurt of the people, will easily decide that question. Sect. . It is easy to conceive, that in the infancy of governments, when commonwealths differed little from families in number of people, they differed from them too but little in number of laws and the governors, being as the fathers of them, watching over them for their good, the government was almost all prerogative. A few established laws served the turn, and the discretion and care of the ruler supplied the rest. But when mistake or flattery prevailed with weak princes to make use of this power for private ends of their own, and not for the public good, the people were fain by express laws to get prerogative determined in those points wherein they found disadvantage from it and thus declared limitations of prerogative were by the people found necessary in cases which they and their ancestors had left, in the utmost latitude, to the wisdom of those princes who made no other but a right use of it, that is, for the good of their people. Sect. . And therefore they have a very wrong notion of government, who say, that the people have encroached upon the prerogative, when they have got any part of it to be defined by positive laws for in so doing they have not pulled from the prince any thing that of right belonged to him, but only declared, that that power which they indefinitely left in his or his ancestors hands, to be exercised for their good, was not a thing which they intended him when he used it otherwise for the end of government being the good of the community, whatsoever alterations are made in it, tending to that end, cannot be an encroachment upon any body, since no body in government can have a right tending to any other end and those only are encroachments which prejudice or hinder the public good. Those who say otherwise, speak as if the prince had a distinct and separate interest from the good of the community, and was not made for it the root and source from which spring almost all those evils and disorders which happen in kingly governments. And indeed, if that be so, the people under his government are not a society of rational creatures, entered into a community for their mutual good they are not such as have set rulers over themselves, to guard, and promote that good but are to be looked on as an herd of inferior creatures under the dominion of a master, who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or profit. If men were so void of reason, and brutish, as to enter into society upon such terms, prerogative might indeed be, what some men would have it, an arbitrary power to do things hurtful to the people. Sect. . But since a rational creature cannot be supposed, when free, to put himself into subjection to another, for his own harm (though, where he finds a good and wise ruler, he may not perhaps think it either necessary or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all things) prerogative can be nothing but the people's permitting their rulers to do several things, of their own free choice, where the law was silent, and sometimes too against the direct letter of the law, for the public good and their acquiescing in it when so done for as a good prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands, and careful of the good of his people, cannot have too much prerogative, that is, power to do good so a weak and ill prince, who would claim that power which his predecessors exercised without the direction of the law, as a prerogative belonging to him by right of his office, which he may exercise at his pleasure, to make or promote an interest distinct from that of the public, gives the people an occasion to claim their right, and limit that power, which, whilst it was exercised for their good, they were content should be tacitly allowed. Sect. . And therefore he that will look into the history of England, will find, that prerogative was always largest in the hands of our wisest and best princes because the people, observing the whole tendency of their actions to be the public good, contested not what was done without law to that end or, if any human frailty or mistake (for princes are but men, made as others) appeared in some small declinations from that end yet 'twas visible, the main of their conduct tended to nothing but the care of the public. The people therefore, finding reason to be satisfied with these princes, whenever they acted without, or contrary to the letter of the law, acquiesced in what they did, and, without the least complaint, let them inlarge their prerogative as they pleased, judging rightly, that they did nothing herein to the prejudice of their laws, since they acted conformable to the foundation and end of all laws, the public good. Sect. . Such godlike princes indeed had some title to arbitrary power by that argument, that would prove absolute monarchy the best government, as that which God himself governs the universe by because such kings partake of his wisdom and goodness. Upon this is founded that saying, That the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their people for when their successors, managing the government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent, and make them the standard of their prerogative, as if what had been done only for the good of the people was a right in them to do, for the harm of the people, if they so pleased it has often occasioned contest, and sometimes public disorders, before the people could recover their original right, and get that to be declared not to be prerogative, which truly was never so since it is impossible that any body in the society should ever have a right to do the people harm though it be very possible, and reasonable, that the people should not go about to set any bounds to the prerogative of those kings, or rulers, who themselves transgressed not the bounds of the public good for prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good without a rule. Sect. . The power of calling parliaments in England, as to precise time, place, and duration, is certainly a prerogative of the king, but still with this trust, that it shall be made use of for the good of the nation, as the exigencies of the times, and variety of occasions, shall require for it being impossible to foresee which should always be the fittest place for them to assemble in, and what the best season the choice of these was left with the executive power, as might be most subservient to the public good, and best suit the ends of parliaments. Sect. . The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of one answer between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth as there can be none between the legislative and the people, should either the executive, or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them. The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, (who can never be supposed to consent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation and since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder for this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great, that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended. But this the executive power, or wise princes, never need come in the danger of and it is the thing, of all others, they have most need to avoid, as of all others the most perilous. Sect. . THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these separately before, yet the great mistakes of late about government, having, as I suppose, arisen from confounding these distinct powers one with another, it may not, perhaps, be amiss to consider them here together. Sect. . First, then, Paternal or parental power is nothing but that which parents have over their children, to govern them for the children's good, till they come to the use of reason, or a state of knowledge, wherein they may be supposed capable to understand that rule, whether it be the law of nature, or the municipal law of their country, they are to govern themselves by capable, I say, to know it, as well as several others, who live as freemen under that law. The affection and tenderness which God hath planted in the breast of parents towards their children, makes it evident, that this is not intended to be a severe arbitrary government, but only for the help, instruction, and preservation of their offspring. But happen it as it will, there is, as I have proved, no reason why it should be thought to extend to life and death, at any time, over their children, more than over any body else neither can there be any pretence why this parental power should keep the child, when grown to a man, in subjection to the will of his parents, any farther than having received life and education from his parents, obliges him to respect, honour, gratitude, assistance and support, all his life, to both father and mother. And thus, 'tis true, the paternal is a natural government, but not at all extending itself to the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political. The power of the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which is only in his own disposing. Sect. . Secondly, Political power is that power, which every man having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good, and the preservation of their property now this power, which every man has in the state of nature, and which he parts with to the society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is to use such means, for the preserving of his own property, as he thinks good, and nature allows him and to punish the breach of the law of nature in others, so as (according to the best of his reason) may most conduce to the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind. So that the end and measure of this power, when in every man's hands in the state of nature, being the preservation of all of his society, that is, all mankind in general, it can have no other end or measure, when in the hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as possible to be preserved but a power to make laws, and annex such penalties to them, as may tend to the preservation of the whole, by cutting off those parts, and those only, which are so corrupt, that they threaten the sound and healthy, without which no severity is lawful. And this power has its original only from compact and agreement, and the mutual consent of those who make up the community. Sect. . Thirdly, Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life, whenever he pleases. This is a power, which neither nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and another nor compact can convey for man not having such an arbitrary power over his own life, cannot give another man such a power over it but it is the effect only of forfeiture, which the aggressor makes of his own life, when he puts himself into the state of war with another for having quitted reason, which God hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man, and the common bond whereby human kind is united into one fellowship and society and having renounced the way of peace which that teaches, and made use of the force of war, to compass his unjust ends upon another, where he has no right and so revolting from his own kind to that of beasts, by making force, which is their's, to be his rule of right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the injured person, and the rest of mankind, that will join with him in the execution of justice, as any other wild beast, or noxious brute, with whom mankind can have neither society nor security. And thus captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the state of war continued for what compact can be made with a man that is not master of his own life? what condition can he perform? and if he be once allowed to be master of his own life, the despotical, arbitrary power of his master ceases. He that is master of himself, and his own life, has a right too to the means of preserving it so that as soon as compact enters, slavery ceases, and he so far quits his absolute power, and puts an end to the state of war, who enters into conditions with his captive. (Another copy corrected by Mr. Locke, has it thus, Noxious brute that is destructive to their being.) Sect. . Nature gives the first of these, viz. paternal power to parents for the benefit of their children during their minority, to supply their want of ability, and understanding how to manage their property. (By property I must be understood here, as in other places, to mean that property which men have in their persons as well as goods.) Voluntary agreement gives the second, viz. political power to governors for the benefit of their subjects, to secure them in the possession and use of their properties. And forfeiture gives the third despotical power to lords for their own benefit, over those who are stripped of all property. Sect. . He, that shall consider the distinct rise and extent, and the different ends of these several powers, will plainly see, that paternal power comes as far short of that of the magistrate, as despotical exceeds it and that absolute dominion, however placed, is so far from being one kind of civil society, that it is as inconsistent with it, as slavery is with property. Paternal power is only where minority makes the child incapable to manage his property political, where men have property in their own disposal and despotical, over such as have no property at all. Sect. . THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on any thing but the consent of the people yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with, that in the noise of war, which makes so great a part of the history of mankind, this consent is little taken notice of and therefore many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth, by destroying the former but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one. Sect. . That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man's right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think, that robbers and pyrates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master or that men are bound by promises, which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a robber break into my house, and with a dagger at my throat make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title, by his sword, has an unjust conqueror, who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession, which should punish offenders. What is my remedy against a robber, that so broke into my house? Appeal to the law for justice. But perhaps justice is denied, or I am crippled and cannot stir, robbed and have not the means to do it. If God has taken away all means of seeking remedy, there is nothing left but patience. But my son, when able, may seek the relief of the law, which I am denied he or his son may renew his appeal, till he recover his right. But the conquered, or their children, have no court, no arbitrator on earth to appeal to. Then they may appeal, as Jephtha did, to heaven, and repeat their appeal till they have recovered the native right of their ancestors, which was, to have such a legislative over them, as the majority should approve, and freely acquiesce in. If it be objected, This would cause endless trouble I answer, no more than justice does, where she lies open to all that appeal to her. He that troubles his neighbour without a cause, is punished for it by the justice of the court he appeals to and he that appeals to heaven must be sure he has right on his side and a right too that is worth the trouble and cost of the appeal, as he will answer at a tribunal that cannot be deceived, and will be sure to retribute to every one according to the mischiefs he hath created to his fellow subjects that is, any part of mankind from whence it is plain, that he that conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered. Sect. . But supposing victory favours the right side, let us consider a conqueror in a lawful war, and see what power he gets, and over whom. First, It is plain he gets no power by his conquest over those that conquered with him. They that fought on his side cannot suffer by the conquest, but must at least be as much freemen as they were before. And most commonly they serve upon terms, and on condition to share with their leader, and enjoy a part of the spoil, and other advantages that attend the conquering sword or at least have a part of the subdued country bestowed upon them. And the conquering people are not, I hope, to be slaves by conquest, and wear their laurels only to shew they are sacrifices to their leaders triumph. They that found absolute monarchy upon the title of the sword, make their heroes, who are the founders of such monarchies, arrant Drawcansirs, and forget they had any officers and soldiers that fought on their side in the battles they won, or assisted them in the subduing, or shared in possessing, the countries they mastered. We are told by some, that the English monarchy is founded in the Norman conquest, and that our princes have thereby a title to absolute dominion which if it were true, (as by the history it appears otherwise) and that William had a right to make war on this island yet his dominion by conquest could reach no farther than to the Saxons and Britons, that were then inhabitants of this country. The Normans that came with him, and helped to conquer, and all descended from them, are freemen, and no subjects by conquest let that give what dominion it will. And if I, or any body else, shall claim freedom, as derived from them, it will be very hard to prove the contrary and it is plain, the law, that has made no distinction between the one and the other, intends not there should be any difference in their freedom or privileges. Sect. . But supposing, which seldom happens, that the conquerors and conquered never incorporate into one people, under the same laws and freedom let us see next what power a lawful conqueror has over the subdued and that I say is purely despotical. He has an absolute power over the lives of those who by an unjust war have forfeited them but not over the lives or fortunes of those who engaged not in the war, nor over the possessions even of those who were actually engaged in it. Sect. . Secondly, I say then the conqueror gets no power but only over those who have actually assisted, concurred, or consented to that unjust force that is used against him for the people having given to their governors no power to do an unjust thing, such as is to make an unjust war, (for they never had such a power in themselves) they ought not to be charged as guilty of the violence and unjustice that is committed in an unjust war, any farther than they actually abet it no more than they are to be thought guilty of any violence or oppression their governors should use upon the people themselves, or any part of their fellow subjects, they having empowered them no more to the one than to the other. Conquerors, it is true, seldom trouble themselves to make the distinction, but they willingly permit the confusion of war to sweep all together but yet this alters not the right for the conquerors power over the lives of the conquered, being only because they have used force to do, or maintain an injustice, he can have that power only over those who have concurred in that force all the rest are innocent and he has no more title over the people of that country, who have done him no injury, and so have made no forfeiture of their lives, than he has over any other, who, without any injuries or provocations, have lived upon fair terms with him. Sect. . Thirdly, The power a conqueror gets over those he overcomes in a just war, is perfectly despotical he has an absolute power over the lives of those, who, by putting themselves in a state of war, have forfeited them but he has not thereby a right and title to their possessions. This I doubt not, but at first sight will seem a strange doctrine, it being so quite contrary to the practice of the world there being nothing more familiar in speaking of the dominion of countries, than to say such an one conquered it as if conquest, without any more ado, conveyed a right of possession. But when we consider, that the practice of the strong and powerful, how universal soever it may be, is seldom the rule of right, however it be one part of the subjection of the conquered, not to argue against the conditions cut out to them by the conquering sword. Sect. . Though in all war there be usually a complication of force and damage, and the aggressor seldom fails to harm the estate, when he uses force against the persons of those he makes war upon yet it is the use of force only that puts a man into the state of war for whether by force he begins the injury, or else having quietly, and by fraud, done the injury, he refuses to make reparation, and by force maintains it, (which is the same thing, as at first to have done it by force) it is the unjust use of force that makes the war for he that breaks open my house, and violently turns me out of doors or having peaceably got in, by force keeps me out, does in effect the same thing supposing we are in such a state, that we have no common judge on earth, whom I may appeal to, and to whom we are both obliged to submit for of such I am now speaking. It is the unjust use of force then, that puts a man into the state of war with another and thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of his life for quitting reason, which is the rule given between man and man, and using force, the way of beasts, he becomes liable to be destroyed by him he uses force against, as any savage ravenous beast, that is dangerous to his being. Sect. . But because the miscarriages of the father are no faults of the children, and they may be rational and peaceable, notwithstanding the brutishness and injustice of the father the father, by his miscarriages and violence, can forfeit but his own life, but involves not his children in his guilt or destruction. His goods, which nature, that willeth the preservation of all mankind as much as is possible, hath made to belong to the children to keep them from perishing, do still continue to belong to his children for supposing them not to have joined in the war, either thro' infancy, absence, or choice, they have done nothing to forfeit them nor has the conqueror any right to take them away, by the bare title of having subdued him that by force attempted his destruction though perhaps he may have some right to them, to repair the damages he has sustained by the war, and the defence of his own right which how far it reaches to the possessions of the conquered, we shall see by and by. So that he that by conquest has a right over a man's person to destroy him if he pleases, has not thereby a right over his estate to possess and enjoy it for it is the brutal force the aggressor has used, that gives his adversary a right to take away his life, and destroy him if he pleases, as a noxious creature but it is damage sustained that alone gives him title to another man's goods for though I may kill a thief that sets on me in the highway, yet I may not (which seems less) take away his money, and let him go this would be robbery on my side. His force, and the state of war he put himself in, made him forfeit his life, but gave me no title to his goods. The right then of conquest extends only to the lives of those who joined in the war, not to their estates, but only in order to make reparation for the damages received, and the charges of the war, and that too with reservation of the right of the innocent wife and children. Sect. . Let the conqueror have as much justice on his side, as could be supposed, he has no right to seize more than the vanquished could forfeit his life is at the victor's mercy and his service and goods he may appropriate, to make himself reparation but he cannot take the goods of his wife and children they too had a title to the goods he enjoyed, and their shares in the estate he possessed for example, I in the state of nature (and all commonwealths are in the state of nature one with another) have injured another man, and refusing to give satisfaction, it comes to a state of war, wherein my defending by force what I had gotten unjustly, makes me the aggressor. I am conquered my life, it is true, as forfeit, is at mercy, but not my wife's and children's. They made not the war, nor assisted in it. I could not forfeit their lives they were not mine to forfeit. My wife had a share in my estate that neither could I forfeit. And my children also, being born of me, had a right to be maintained out of my labour or substance. Here then is the case the conqueror has a title to reparation for damages received, and the children have a title to their father's estate for their subsistence for as to the wife's share, whether her own labour, or compact, gave her a title to it, it is plain, her husband could not forfeit what was her's. What must be done in the case? I answer the fundamental law of nature being, that all, as much as may be, should be preserved, it follows, that if there be not enough fully to satisfy both, viz, for the conqueror's losses, and children's maintenance, he that hath, and to spare, must remit something of his full satisfaction, and give way to the pressing and preferable title of those who are in danger to perish without it. Sect. . But supposing the charge and damages of the war are to be made up to the conqueror, to the utmost farthing and that the children of the vanquished, spoiled of all their father's goods, are to be left to starve and perish yet the satisfying of what shall, on this score, be due to the conqueror, will scarce give him a title to any country he shall conquer for the damages of war can scarce amount to the value of any considerable tract of land, in any part of the world, where all the land is possessed, and none lies waste. And if I have not taken away the conqueror's land, which, being vanquished, it is impossible I should scarce any other spoil I have done him can amount to the value of mine, supposing it equally cultivated, and of an extent any way coming near what I had overrun of his. The destruction of a year's product or two (for it seldom reaches four or five) is the utmost spoil that usually can be done for as to money, and such riches and treasure taken away, these are none of nature's goods, they have but a fantastical imaginary value nature has put no such upon them they are of no more account by her standard, than the wampompeke of the Americans to an European prince, or the silver money of Europe would have been formerly to an American. And five years product is not worth the perpetual inheritance of land, where all is possessed, and none remains waste, to be taken up by him that is disseized which will be easily granted, if one do but take away the imaginary value of money, the disproportion being more than between five and five hundred though, at the same time, half a year's product is more worth than the inheritance, where there being more land than the inhabitants possess and make use of, any one has liberty to make use of the waste but there conquerors take little care to possess themselves of the lands of the vanquished, No damage therefore, that men in the state of nature (as all princes and governments are in reference to one another) suffer from one another, can give a conqueror power to dispossess the posterity of the vanquished, and turn them out of that inheritance, which ought to be the possession of them and their descendants to all generations. The conqueror indeed will be apt to think himself master and it is the very condition of the subdued not to be able to dispute their right. But if that be all, it gives no other title than what bare force gives to the stronger over the weaker and, by this reason, he that is strongest will have a right to whatever he pleases to seize on. Sect. . Over those then that joined with him in the war, and over those of the subdued country that opposed him not, and the posterity even of those that did, the conqueror, even in a just war, hath, by his conquest, no right of dominion they are free from any subjection to him, and if their former government be dissolved, they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves. Sect. . The conqueror, it is true, usually, by the force he has over them, compels them, with a sword at their breasts, to stoop to his conditions, and submit to such a government as he pleases to afford them but the enquiry is, what right he has to do so? If it be said, they submit by their own consent, then this allows their own consent to be necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over them. It remains only to be considered, whether promises extorted by force, without right, can be thought consent, and how far they bind. To which I shall say, they bind not at all because whatsoever another gets from me by force, I still retain the right of, and he is obliged presently to restore. He that forces my horse from me, ought presently to restore him, and I have still a right to retake him. By the same reason, he that forced a promise from me, ought presently to restore it, i.e. quit me of the obligation of it or I may resume it myself, i.e. chuse whether I will perform it for the law of nature laying an obligation on me only by the rules she prescribes, cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules such is the extorting any thing from me by force. Nor does it at all alter the case to say, I gave my promise, no more than it excuses the force, and passes the right, when I put my hand in my pocket, and deliver my purse myself to a thief, who demands it with a pistol at my breast. Sect. . From all which it follows, that the government of a conqueror, imposed by force on the subdued, against whom he had no right of war, or who joined not in the war against him, where he had right, has no obligation upon them. Sect. . But let us suppose, that all the men of that community, being all members of the same body politic, may be taken to have joined in that unjust war wherein they are subdued, and so their lives are at the mercy of the conqueror. Sect. . I say this concerns not their children who are in their minority for since a father hath not, in himself, a power over the life or liberty of his child, no act of his can possibly forfeit it. So that the children, whatever may have happened to the fathers, are freemen, and the absolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than the persons of the men that were subdued by him, and dies with them and should he govern them as slaves, subjected to his absolute arbitrary power, he has no such right of dominion over their children. He can have no power over them but by their own consent, whatever he may drive them to say or do and he has no lawfull authority, whilst force, and not choice, compels them to submission. Sect. . Every man is born with a double right first, a right of freedom to his person, which no other man has a power over, but the free disposal of it lies in himself. Secondly, a right, before any other man, to inherit with his brethren his father's goods. Sect. . By the first of these, a man is naturally free from subjection to any government, tho' he be born in a place under its jurisdiction but if he disclaim the lawful government of the country he was born in, he must also quit the right that belonged to him by the laws of it, and the possessions there descending to him from his ancestors, if it were a government made by their consent. Sect. . By the second, the inhabitants of any country, who are descended, and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued, and had a government forced upon them against their free consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors, though they consent not freely to the government, whose hard conditions were by force imposed on the possessors of that country for the first conqueror never having had a title to the land of that country, the people who are the descendants of, or claim under those who were forced to submit to the yoke of a government by constraint, have always a right to shake it off, and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny which the sword hath brought in upon them, till their rulers put them under such a frame of government as they willingly and of choice consent to. Who doubts but the Grecian Christians, descendants of the ancient possessors of that country, may justly cast off the Turkish yoke, which they have so long groaned under, whenever they have an opportunity to do it? For no government can have a right to obedience from a people who have not freely consented to it which they can never be supposed to do, till either they are put in a full state of liberty to chuse their government and governors, or at least till they have such standing laws, to which they have by themselves or their representatives given their free consent, and also till they are allowed their due property, which is so to be proprietors of what they have, that no body can take away any part of it without their own consent, without which, men under any government are not in the state of freemen, but are direct slaves under the force of war. Sect. . But granting that the conqueror in a just war has a right to the estates, as well as power over the persons, of the conquered which, it is plain, he hath not nothing of absolute power will follow from hence, in the continuance of the government because the descendants of these being all freemen, if he grants them estates and possessions to inhabit his country, (without which it would be worth nothing) whatsoever he grants them, they have, so far as it is granted, property in. The nature whereof is, that without a man's own consent it cannot be taken from him. Sect. . Their persons are free by a native right, and their properties, be they more or less, are their own, and at their own dispose, and not at his or else it is no property. Supposing the conqueror gives to one man a thousand acres, to him and his heirs for ever to another he lets a thousand acres for his life, under the rent of . or . per ann. has not the one of these a right to his thousand acres for ever, and the other, during his life, paying the said rent? and hath not the tenant for life a property in all that he gets over and above his rent, by his labour and industry during the said term, supposing it be double the rent? Can any one say, the king, or conqueror, after his grant, may by his power of conqueror take away all, or part of the land from the heirs of one, or from the other during his life, he paying the rent? or can he take away from either the goods or money they have got upon the said land, at his pleasure? If he can, then all free and voluntary contracts cease, and are void in the world there needs nothing to dissolve them at any time, but power enough and all the grants and promises of men in power are but mockery and collusion for can there be any thing more ridiculous than to say, I give you and your's this for ever, and that in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance can be devised and yet it is to be understood, that I have right, if I please, to take it away from you again to morrow? Sect. . I will not dispute now whether princes are exempt from the laws of their country but this I am sure, they owe subjection to the laws of God and nature. No body, no power, can exempt them from the obligations of that eternal law. Those are so great, and so strong, in the case of promises, that omnipotency itself can be tied by them. Grants, promises, and oaths, are bonds that hold the Almighty whatever some flatterers say to princes of the world, who all together, with all their people joined to them, are, in comparison of the great God, but as a drop of the bucket, or a dust on the balance, inconsiderable, nothing! Sect. . The short of the case in conquest is this the conqueror, if he have a just cause, has a despotical right over the persons of all, that actually aided, and concurred in the war against him, and a right to make up his damage and cost out of their labour and estates, so he injure not the right of any other. Over the rest of the people, if there were any that consented not to the war, and over the children of the captives themselves, or the possessions of either, he has no power and so can have, by virtue of conquest, no lawful title himself to dominion over them, or derive it to his posterity but is an aggressor, if he attempts upon their properties, and thereby puts himself in a state of war against them, and has no better a right of principality, he, nor any of his successors, than Hingar, or Hubba, the Danes, had here in England or Spartacus, had he conquered Italy, would have had which is to have their yoke cast off, as soon as God shall give those under their subjection courage and opportunity to do it. Thus, notwithstanding whatever title the kings of Assyria had over Judah, by the sword, God assisted Hezekiah to throw off the dominion of that conquering empire. And the lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered wherefore he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not,  Kings xviii. . Whence it is plain, that shaking off a power, which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it hath the name of rebellion, yet is no offence before God, but is that which he allows and countenances, though even promises and covenants, when obtained by force, have intervened for it is very probable, to any one that reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah attentively, that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz, and deposed him, and made Hezekiah king in his father's lifetime and that Hezekiah by agreement had done him homage, and paid him tribute all this time. Sect. . AS conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference, that an usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation, but where one is got into the possession of what another has right to. This, so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the government for if the usurper extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes, or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation. Sect. . In all lawful governments, the designation of the persons, who are to bear rule, is as natural and necessary a part as the form of the government itself, and is that which had its establishment originally from the people the anarchy being much alike, to have no form of government at all or to agree, that it shall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to design the person that shall have the power, and be the monarch. Hence all commonwealths, with the form of government established, have rules also of appointing those who are to have any share in the public authority, and settled methods of conveying the right to them for the anarchy is much alike, to have no form of government at all or to agree that it shall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to know or design the person that shall have the power, and be the monarch. Whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power, by other ways than what the laws of the community have prescribed, hath no right to be obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved since he is not the person the laws have appointed, and consequently not the person the people have consented to. Nor can such an usurper, or any deriving from him, ever have a title, till the people are both at liberty to consent, and have actually consented to allow, and confirm in him the power he hath till then usurped. Sect. . AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. And this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage. When the governor, however intitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion. Sect. . If one can doubt this to be truth, or reason, because it comes from the obscure hand of a subject, I hope the authority of a king will make it pass with him. King James the first, in his speech to the parliament, , tells them thus, I will ever prefer the weal of the public, and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine thinking ever the wealth and weal of the commonwealth to be my greatest weal and worldly felicity a point wherein a lawful king doth directly differ from a tyrant for I do acknowledge, that the special and greatest point of difference that is between a rightful king and an usurping tyrant, is this, that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are only ordained for satisfaction of his desires and unreasonable appetites, the righteous and just king doth by the contrary acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and property of his people. And again, in his speech to the parliament, , he hath these words The king binds himself by a double oath, to the observation of the fundamental laws of his kingdom tacitly, as by being a king, and so bound to protect as well the people, as the laws of his kingdom and expressly, by his oath at his coronation, so as every just king, in a settled kingdom, is bound to observe that paction made to his people, by his laws, in framing his government agreeable thereunto, according to that paction which God made with Noah after the deluge. Hereafter, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease while the earth remaineth. And therefore a king governing in a settled kingdom, leaves to be a king, and degenerates into a tyrant, as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his laws. And a little after, Therefore all kings that are not tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves within the limits of their laws and they that persuade them the contrary, are vipers, and pests both against them and the commonwealth. Thus that learned king, who well understood the notion of things, makes the difference betwixt a king and a tyrant to consist only in this, that one makes the laws the bounds of his power, and the good of the public, the end of his government the other makes all give way to his own will and appetite. Sect. . It is a mistake, to think this fault is proper only to monarchies other forms of government are liable to it, as well as that for wherever the power, that is put in any hands for the government of the people, and the preservation of their properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many. Thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as well as one at Syracuse and the intolerable dominion of the Decemviri at Rome was nothing better. Sect. . Whereever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's harm and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant, and such a legal authority, as will impower him to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be informed. Is it reasonable, that the eldest brother, because he has the greatest part of his father's estate, should thereby have a right to take away any of his younger brothers portions? or that a rich man, who possessed a whole country, should from thence have a right to seize, when he pleased, the cottage and garden of his poor neighbour? The being rightfully possessed of great power and riches, exceedingly beyond the greatest part of the sons of Adam, is so far from being an excuse, much less a reason, for rapine and oppression, which the endamaging another without authority is, that it is a great aggravation of it for the exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great, than in a petty officer no more justifiable in a king than a constable but is so much the worse in him, in that he has more trust put in him, has already a much greater share than the rest of his brethren, and is supposed, from the advantages of his education, employment, and counsellors, to be more knowing in the measures of right and wrong. Sect. . May the commands then of a prince be opposed? may he be resisted as often as any one shall find himself aggrieved, and but imagine he has not right done him? This will unhinge and overturn all polities, and, instead of government and order, leave nothing but anarchy and confusion. Sect. . To this I answer, that force is to be opposed to nothing, but to unjust and unlawful force whoever makes any opposition in any other case, draws on himself a just condemnation both from God and man and so no such danger or confusion will follow, as is often suggested for, Sect. . First, As, in some countries, the person of the prince by the law is sacred and so, whatever he commands or does, his person is still free from all question or violence, not liable to force, or any judicial censure or condemnation. But yet opposition may be made to the illegal acts of any inferior officer, or other commissioned by him unless he will, by actually putting himself into a state of war with his people, dissolve the government, and leave them to that defence which belongs to every one in the state of nature for of such things who can tell what the end will be? and a neighbour kingdom has shewed the world an odd example. In all other cases the sacredness of the person exempts him from all inconveniencies, whereby he is secure, whilst the government stands, from all violence and harm whatsoever than which there cannot be a wiser constitution for the harm he can do in his own person not being likely to happen often, nor to extend itself far nor being able by his single strength to subvert the laws, nor oppress the body of the people, should any prince have so much weakness, and ill nature as to be willing to do it, the inconveniency of some particular mischiefs, that may happen sometimes, when a heady prince comes to the throne, are well recompensed by the peace of the public, and security of the government, in the person of the chief magistrate, thus set out of the reach of danger it being safer for the body, that some few private men should be sometimes in danger to suffer, than that the head of the republic should be easily, and upon slight occasions, exposed. Sect. . Secondly, But this privilege, belonging only to the king's person, hinders not, but they may be questioned, opposed, and resisted, who use unjust force, though they pretend a commission from him, which the law authorizes not as is plain in the case of him that has the king's writ to arrest a man, which is a full commission from the king and yet he that has it cannot break open a man's house to do it, nor execute this command of the king upon certain days, nor in certain places, though this commission have no such exception in it but they are the limitations of the law, which if any one transgress, the king's commission excuses him not for the king's authority being given him only by the law, he cannot impower any one to act against the law, or justify him, by his commission, in so doing the commission, or command of any magistrate, where he has no authority, being as void and insignificant, as that of any private man the difference between the one and the other, being that the magistrate has some authority so far, and to such ends, and the private man has none at all for it is not the commission, but the authority, that gives the right of acting and against the laws there can be no authority. But, notwithstanding such resistance, the king's person and authority are still both secured, and so no danger to governor or government. Sect. . Thirdly, Supposing a government wherein the person of the chief magistrate is not thus sacred yet this doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful exercises of his power, will not upon every slight occasion indanger him, or imbroil the government for where the injured party may be relieved, and his damages repaired by appeal to the law, there can be no pretence for force, which is only to be used where a man is intercepted from appealing to the law for nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the highway, when perhaps I have not twelve pence in my pocket this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver  pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force, if I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any) and yet I might lawfully kill the one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain because the one using force, which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it and when it was gone, it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass the loss was irreparable which to prevent, the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him, who had put himself into a state of war with me, and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I may have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my  pounds that way. Sect. . Fourthly, But if the unlawful acts done by the magistrate be maintained (by the power he has got), and the remedy which is due by law, be by the same power obstructed yet the right of resisting, even in such manifest acts of tyranny, will not suddenly, or on slight occasions, disturb the government for if it reach no farther than some private men's cases, though they have a right to defend themselves, and to recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them yet the right to do so will not easily engage them in a contest, wherein they are sure to perish it being as impossible for one, or a few oppressed men to disturb the government, where the body of the people do not think themselves concerned in it, as for a raving madman, or heady malcontent to overturn a well settled state the people being as little apt to follow the one, as the other. Sect. . But if either these illegal acts have extended to the majority of the people or if the mischief and oppression has lighted only on some few, but in such cases, as the precedent, and consequences seem to threaten all and they are persuaded in their consciences, that their laws, and with them their estates, liberties, and lives are in danger, and perhaps their religion too how they will be hindered from resisting illegal force, used against them, I cannot tell. This is an inconvenience, I confess, that attends all governments whatsoever, when the governors have brought it to this pass, to be generally suspected of their people the most dangerous state which they can possibly put themselves in, wherein they are the less to be pitied, because it is so easy to be avoided it being as impossible for a governor, if he really means the good of his people, and the preservation of them, and their laws together, not to make them see and feel it, as it is for the father of a family, not to let his children see he loves, and takes care of them. Sect. . But if all the world shall observe pretences of one kind, and actions of another arts used to elude the law, and the trust of prerogative (which is an arbitrary power in some things left in the prince's hand to do good, not harm to the people) employed contrary to the end for which it was given if the people shall find the ministers and subordinate magistrates chosen suitable to such ends, and favoured, or laid by, proportionably as they promote or oppose them if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand favoured, (tho' publicly proclaimed against) which is readiest to introduce it and the operators in it supported, as much as may be and when that cannot be done, yet approved still, and liked the better if a long train of actions shew the councils all tending that way how can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded in his own mind, which way things are going or from casting about how to save himself, than he could from believing the captain of the ship he was in, was carrying him, and the rest of the company, to Algiers, when he found him always steering that course, though cross winds, leaks in his ship, and want of men and provisions did often force him to turn his course another way for some time, which he steadily returned to again, as soon as the wind, weather, and other circumstances would let him? Sect. . HE that will with any clearness speak of the dissolution of government, ought in the first place to distinguish between the dissolution of the society and the dissolution of the government. That which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of nature, into one politic society, is the agreement which every one has with the rest to incorporate, and act as one body, and so be one distinct commonwealth. The usual, and almost only way whereby this union is dissolved, is the inroad of foreign force making a conquest upon them for in that case, (not being able to maintain and support themselves, as one intire and independent body) the union belonging to that body which consisted therein, must necessarily cease, and so every one return to the state he was in before, with a liberty to shift for himself, and provide for his own safety, as he thinks fit, in some other society. Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain. Thus conquerors swords often cut up governments by the roots, and mangle societies to pieces, separating the subdued or scattered multitude from the protection of, and dependence on, that society which ought to have preserved them from violence. The world is too well instructed in, and too forward to allow of, this way of dissolving of governments, to need any more to be said of it and there wants not much argument to prove, that where the society is dissolved, the government cannot remain that being as impossible, as for the frame of an house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and dissipated by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an earthquake. Sect. . Besides this overturning from without, governments are dissolved from within. First, When the legislative is altered. Civil society being a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom the state of war is excluded by the umpirage, which they have provided in their legislative, for the ending all differences that may arise amongst any of them, it is in their legislative, that the members of a commonwealth are united, and combined together into one coherent living body. This is the soul that gives form, life, and unity, to the commonwealth from hence the several members have their mutual influence, sympathy, and connexion and therefore, when the legislative is broken, or dissolved, dissolution and death follows for the essence and union of the society consisting in having one will, the legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring, and as it were keeping of that will. The constitution of the legislative is the first and fundamental act of society, whereby provision is made for the continuation of their union, under the direction of persons, and bonds of laws, made by persons authorized thereunto, by the consent and appointment of the people, without which no one man, or number of men, amongst them, can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to the rest. When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to resist the force of those, who without authority would impose any thing upon them. Every one is at the disposure of his own will, when those who had, by the delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are excluded from it, and others usurp the place, who have no such authority or delegation. Sect. . This being usually brought about by such in the commonwealth who misuse the power they have it is hard to consider it aright, and know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of government in which it happens. Let us suppose then the legislative placed in the concurrence of three distinct persons. (). A single hereditary person, having the constant, supreme, executive power, and with it the power of convoking and dissolving the other two within certain periods of time. (). An assembly of hereditary nobility. (). An assembly of representatives chosen, pro tempore, by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is evident, Sect. . First, That when such a single person, or prince, sets up his own arbitrary will in place of the laws, which are the will of the society, declared by the legislative, then the legislative is changed for that being in effect the legislative, whose rules and laws are put in execution, and required to be obeyed when other laws are set up, and other rules pretended, and inforced, than what the legislative, constituted by the society, have enacted, it is plain that the legislative is changed. Whoever introduces new laws, not being thereunto authorized by the fundamental appointment of the society, or subverts the old, disowns and overturns the power by which they were made, and so sets up a new legislative. Sect. . Secondly, When the prince hinders the legislative from assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, pursuant to those ends for which it was constituted, the legislative is altered for it is not a certain number of men, no, nor their meeting, unless they have also freedom of debating, and leisure of perfecting, what is for the good of the society, wherein the legislative consists when these are taken away or altered, so as to deprive the society of the due exercise of their power, the legislative is truly altered for it is not names that constitute governments, but the use and exercise of those powers that were intended to accompany them so that he, who takes away the freedom, or hinders the acting of the legislative in its due seasons, in effect takes away the legislative, and puts an end to the government. Sect. . Thirdly, When, by the arbitrary power of the prince, the electors, or ways of election, are altered, without the consent, and contrary to the common interest of the people, there also the legislative is altered for, if others than those whom the society hath authorized thereunto, do chuse, or in another way than what the society hath prescribed, those chosen are not the legislative appointed by the people. Sect. . Fourthly, The delivery also of the people into the subjection of a foreign power, either by the prince, or by the legislative, is certainly a change of the legislative, and so a dissolution of the government for the end why people entered into society being to be preserved one intire, free, independent society, to be governed by its own laws this is lost, whenever they are given up into the power of another. Sect. . Why, in such a constitution as this, the dissolution of the government in these cases is to be imputed to the prince, is evident because he, having the force, treasure and offices of the state to employ, and often persuading himself, or being flattered by others, that as supreme magistrate he is uncapable of controul he alone is in a condition to make great advances toward such changes, under pretence of lawful authority, and has it in his hands to terrify or suppress opposers, as factious, seditious, and enemies to the government whereas no other part of the legislative, or people, is capable by themselves to attempt any alteration of the legislative, without open and visible rebellion, apt enough to be taken notice of, which, when it prevails, produces effects very little different from foreign conquest. Besides, the prince in such a form of government, having the power of dissolving the other parts of the legislative, and thereby rendering them private persons, they can never in opposition to him, or without his concurrence, alter the legislative by a law, his consent being necessary to give any of their decrees that sanction. But yet, so far as the other parts of the legislative any way contribute to any attempt upon the government, and do either promote, or not, what lies in them, hinder such designs, they are guilty, and partake in this, which is certainly the greatest crime which men can partake of one towards another. Sec. .There is one way more whereby such a government may be dissolved, and that is When he who has the supreme executive power, neglects and abandons that charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in execution. This is demonstratively to reduce all to anarchy, and so effectually to dissolve the government for laws not being made for themselves, but to be, by their execution, the bonds of the society, to keep every part of the body politic in its due place and function when that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, and the people become a confused multitude, without order or connexion. Where there is no longer the administration of justice, for the securing of men's rights, nor any remaining power within the community to direct the force, or provide for the necessities of the public, there certainly is no government left. Where the laws cannot be executed, it is all one as if there were no laws and a government without laws is, I suppose, a mystery in politics, unconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent with human society. Sect. . In these and the like cases, when the government is dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by the change of persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety and good for the society can never, by the fault of another, lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be done by a settled legislative, and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it. But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable of using this remedy, till it be too late to look for any. To tell people they may provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, when by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a foreign power, their old one is gone, is only to tell them, they may expect relief when it is too late, and the evil is past cure. This is in effect no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of their liberty and when their chains are on, tell them, they may act like freemen. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief and men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it and therefore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it. Sect. . There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust. First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people. Sect. . The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society. What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes or openly preengages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such, whom he has, by sollicitations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs and employs them to bring in such, who have promised beforehand what to vote, and what to enact. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and newmodel the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security? for the people having reserved to themselves the choice of their representatives, as the fence to their properties, could do it for no other end, but that they might always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act, and advise, as the necessity of the commonwealth, and the public good should, upon examination, and mature debate, be judged to require. This, those who give their votes before they hear the debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the people, and the lawmakers of the society, is certainly as great a breach of trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is possible to be met with. To which, if one shall add rewards and punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of perverted law made use of, to take off and destroy all that stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to betray the liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what is doing. What power they ought to have in the society, who thus employ it contrary to the trust went along with it in its first institution, is easy to determine and one cannot but see, that he, who has once attempted any such thing as this, cannot any longer be trusted. Sect. . To this perhaps it will be said, that the people being ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it to certain ruin and no government will be able long to subsist, if the people may set up a new legislative, whenever they take offence at the old one. To this I answer, Quite the contrary. People are not so easily got out of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest. They are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame they have been accustomed to. And if there be any original defects, or adventitious ones introduced by time, or corruption it is not an easy thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or, after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to our old legislative of king, lords and commons and whatever provocations have made the crown be taken from some of our princes heads, they never carried the people so far as to place it in another line. Sect. . But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent rebellion. To which I answer, First, No more than any other hypothesis for when the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupiter let them be sacred and divine, descended, or authorized from heaven give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. They will wish, and seek for the opportunity, which in the change, weakness and accidents of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself. He must have lived but a little while in the world, who has not seen examples of this in his time and he must have read very little, who cannot produce examples of it in all sorts of governments in the world. Sect. . Secondly, I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected and without which, ancient names, and specious forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the state of nature, or pure anarchy the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult. Sect. . Thirdly, I answer, that this doctrine of a power in the people of providing for their safety anew, by a new legislative, when their legislators have acted contrary to their trust, by invading their property, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probablest means to hinder it for rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the government those, whoever they be, who by force break through, and by force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly rebels for when men, by entering into society and civilgovernment, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity amongst themselves, those who set up force again in opposition to the laws, do rebellare, that is, bring back again the state of war, and are properly rebels which they who are in power, (by the pretence they have to authority, the temptation of force they have in their hands, and the flattery of those about them) being likeliest to do the properest way to prevent the evil, is to shew them the danger and injustice of it, who are under the greatest temptation to run into it. Sect. . In both the forementioned cases, when either the legislative is changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they were constituted those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion for if any one by force takes away the established legislative of any society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their trust, he thereby takes away the umpirage, which every one had consented to, for a peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the state of war amongst them. They, who remove, or change the legislative, take away this decisive power, which no body can have, but by the appointment and consent of the people and so destroying the authority which the people did, and no body else can set up, and introducing a power which the people hath not authorized, they actually introduce a state of war, which is that of force without authority and thus, by removing the legislative established by the society, (in whose decisions the people acquiesced and united, as to that of their own will) they untie the knot, and expose the people anew to the state of war, And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the legislators themselves, as has been shewn, can be no less esteemed so when they, who were set up for the protection, and preservation of the people, their liberties and properties, shall by force invade and endeavour to take them away and so they putting themselves into a state of war with those who made them the protectors and guardians of their peace, are properly, and with the greatest aggravation, rebellantes, rebels. Sect. . But if they, who say it lays a foundation for rebellion, mean that it may occasion civil wars, or intestine broils, to tell the people they are absolved from obedience when illegal attempts are made upon their liberties or properties, and may oppose the unlawful violence of those who were their magistrates, when they invade their properties contrary to the trust put in them and that therefore this doctrine is not to be allowed, being so destructive to the peace of the world they may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. If any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbours. If the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has, for peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered, what a kind of peace there will be in the world, which consists only in violence and rapine and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwix the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf? Polyphemus's den gives us a perfect pattern of such a peace, and such a government, wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do, but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured. And no doubt Ulysses, who was a prudent man, preached up passive obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet submission, by representing to them of what concernment peace was to mankind and by shewing the inconveniences might happen, if they should offer to resist Polyphemus, who had now the power over them. Sect. . The end of government is the good of mankind and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the properties of their people? Sect. . Nor let any one say, that mischief can arise from hence, as often as it shall please a busy head, or turbulent spirit, to desire the alteration of the government. It is true, such men may stir, whenever they please but it will be only to their own just ruin and perdition for till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part, the people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by resistance, are not apt to stir. The examples of particular injustice, or oppression of here and there an unfortunate man, moves them not. But if they universally have a persuation, grounded upon manifest evidence, that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the general course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong suspicions of the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it? Who can help it, if they, who might avoid it, bring themselves into this suspicion? Are the people to be blamed, if they have the sense of rational creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them? And is it not rather their fault, who put things into such a posture, that they would not have them thought to be as they are? I grant, that the pride, ambition, and turbulency of private men have sometimes caused great disorders in commonwealths, and factions have been fatal to states and kingdoms. But whether the mischief hath oftener begun in the peoples wantonness, and a desire to cast off the lawful authority of their rulers, or in the rulers insolence, and endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary power over their people whether oppression, or disobedience, gave the first rise to the disorder, I leave it to impartial history to determine. This I am sure, whoever, either ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of either prince or people, and lays the foundation for overturning the constitution and frame of any just government, is highly guilty of the greatest crime, I think, a man is capable of, being to answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which the breaking to pieces of governments bring on a country. And he who does it, is justly to be esteemed the common enemy and pest of mankind, and is to be treated accordingly. Sect. . That subjects or foreigners, attempting by force on the properties of any people, may be resisted with force, is agreed on all hands. But that magistrates, doing the same thing, may be resisted, hath of late been denied as if those who had the greatest privileges and advantages by the law, had thereby a power to break those laws, by which alone they were set in a better place than their brethren whereas their offence is thereby the greater, both as being ungrateful for the greater share they have by the law, and breaking also that trust, which is put into their hands by their brethren. Sect. . Whosoever uses force without right, as every one does in society, who does it without law, puts himself into a state of war with those against whom he so uses it and in that state all former ties are cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend himself, and to resist the aggressor. This is so evident, that Barclay himself, that great assertor of the power and sacredness of kings, is forced to confess, That it is lawful for the people, in some cases, to resist their king and that too in a chapter, wherein he pretends to shew, that the divine law shuts up the people from all manner of rebellion. Whereby it is evident, even by his own doctrine, that, since they may in some cases resist, all resisting of princes is not rebellion. His words are these. Quod siquis dicat, Ergone populus tyrannicae crudelitati  furori jugulum semper praebebit? Ergone multitude civitates suas fame, ferro,  flamma vastari, seque, conjuges,  liberos fortunae ludibrio  tyranni libidini exponi, inque omnia vitae pericula omnesque miserias  molestias a rege deduci patientur? Num illis quod omni animantium generi est a natura tributum, denegari debet, ut sc. vim vi repellant, seseq ab injuria, tueantur? Huic breviter responsum sit, Populo universo negari defensionem, quae juris naturalis est, neque ultionem quae praeter naturam est adversus regem concedi debere. Quapropter si rex non in singulares tantum personas aliquot privatum odium exerceat, sed corpus etiam reipublicae, cujus ipse caput est, i.e. totum populum, vel insignem aliquam ejus partem immani  intoleranda saevitia seu tyrannide divexet populo, quidem hoc casu resistendi ac tuendi se ab injuria potestas competit, sed tuendi se tantum, non enim in principem invadendi  restituendae injuriae illatae, non recedendi a debita reverentia propter acceptam injuriam. Praesentem denique impetum propulsandi non vim praeteritam ulciscenti jus habet. Horum enim alterum a natura est, ut vitam scilicet corpusque tueamur. Alterum vero contra naturam, ut inferior de superiori supplicium sumat. Quod itaque populus malum, antequam factum sit, impedire potest, ne fiat, id postquam factum est, in regem authorem sceleris vindicare non potest populus igitur hoc amplius quam privatus quispiam habet quod huic, vel ipsis adversariis judicibus, excepto Buchanano, nullum nisi in patientia remedium superest. Cum ille si intolerabilis tyrannus est (modicum enim ferre omnino debet) resistere cum reverentia possit, Barclay contra Monarchom. . iii. c. . In English thus Sect. . But if any one should ask, Must the people then always lay themselves open to the cruelty and rage of tyranny? Must they see their cities pillaged, and laid in ashes, their wives and children exposed to the tyrant's lust and fury, and themselves and families reduced by their king to ruin, and all the miseries of want and oppression, and yet sit still? Must men alone be debarred the common privilege of opposing force with force, which nature allows so freely to all other creatures for their preservation from injury? I answer Selfdefence is a part of the law of nature nor can it be denied the community, even against the king himself but to revenge themselves upon him, must by no means be allowed them it being not agreeable to that law. Wherefore if the king shall shew an hatred, not only to some particular persons, but sets himself against the body of the commonwealth, whereof he is the head, and shall, with intolerable ill usage, cruelly tyrannize over the whole, or a considerable part of the people, in this case the people have a right to resist and defend themselves from injury but it must be with this caution, that they only defend themselves, but do not attack their prince they may repair the damages received, but must not for any provocation exceed the bounds of due reverence and respect. They may repulse the present attempt, but must not revenge past violences for it is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should punish a superior, is against nature. The mischief which is designed them, the people may prevent before it be done but when it is done, they must not revenge it on the king, though author of the villany. This therefore is the privilege of the people in general, above what any private person hath that particular men are allowed by our adversaries themselves (Buchanan only excepted) to have no other remedy but patience but the body of the people may with respect resist intolerable tyranny for when it is but moderate, they ought to endure it. Sect. . Thus far that great advocate of monarchical power allows of resistance. Sect. . It is true, he has annexed two limitations to it, to no purpose First, He says, it must be with reverence. Secondly, It must be without retribution, or punishment and the reason he gives is, because an inferior cannot punish a superior. First, How to resist force without striking again, or how to strike with reverence, will need some skill to make intelligible. He that shall oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blows, or in any more respectful posture, without a sword in his hand, to abate the confidence and force of the assailant, will quickly be at an end of his resistance, and will find such a defence serve only to draw on himself the worse usage. This is as ridiculous a way of resisting, as juvenal thought it of fighting ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum. And the success of the combat will be unavoidably the same he there describes it This will always be the event of such an imaginary resistance, where men may not strike again. He therefore who may resist, must be allowed to strike. And then let our author, or any body else, join a knock on the head, or a cut on the face, with as much reverence and respect as he thinks fit. He that can reconcile blows and reverence, may, for aught I know, desire for his pains, a civil, respectful cudgeling whereever he can meet with it. Secondly, As to his second, An inferior cannot punish a superior that is true, generally speaking, whilst he is his superior. But to resist force with force, being the state of war that levels the parties, cancels all former relation of reverence, respect, and superiority and then the odds that remains, is, that he, who opposes the unjust agressor, has this superiority over him, that he has a right, when he prevails, to punish the offender, both for the breach of the peace, and all the evils that followed upon it. Barclay therefore, in another place, more coherently to himself, denies it to be lawful to resist a king in any case. But he there assigns two cases, whereby a king may unking himself. His words are, Quid ergo, nulline casus incidere possunt quibus populo sese erigere atque in regem impotentius dominantem arma capere  invadere jure suo suaque authoritate liceat? Nulli certe quamdiu rex manet. Semper enim ex divinis id obstat, Regem honorificato  qui potestati resistit, Dei ordinationi resisit non alias igitur in eum populo potestas est quam si id committat propter quod ipso jure rex esse desinat. Tunc enim se ipse principatu exuit atque in privatis constituit liber hoc modo populus  superior efficitur, reverso ad eum sc. jure illo quod ante regem inauguratum in interregno habuit. At sunt paucorum generum commissa ejusmodi quae hunc effectum pariunt. At ego cum plurima animo perlustrem, duo tantum invenio, duos, inquam, casus quibus rex ipso facto ex rege non regem se facit  omni honore  dignitate regali atque in subditos potestate destituit quorum etiam meminit Winzerus. Horum unus est, Si regnum disperdat, quemadmodum de Nerone fertur, quod is nempe senatum populumque Romanum, atque adeo urbem ipsam ferro flammaque vastare, ac novas sibi sedes quaerere decrevisset. Et de Caligula, quod palam denunciarit se neque civem neque principem senatui amplius fore, inque animo habuerit interempto utriusque ordinis electissimo quoque Alexandriam commigrare, ac ut populum uno ictu interimeret, unam ei cervicem optavit. Talia cum rex aliquis meditator  molitur serio, omnem regnandi curam  animum ilico abjicit, ac proinde imperium in subditos amittit, ut dominus servi pro derelicto habiti dominium. Sect. . Alter casus est, Si rex in alicujus clientelam se contulit, ac regnum quod liberum a majoribus  populo traditum accepit, alienae ditioni mancipavit. Nam tunc quamvis forte non ea mente id agit populo plane ut incommodet tamen quia quod praecipuum est regiae dignitatis amifit, ut summus scilicet in regno secundum Deum sit,  solo Deo inferior, atque populum etiam totum ignorantem vel invitum, cujus libertatem sartam  tectam conservare debuit, in alterius gentis ditionem  potestatem dedidit hac velut quadam regni ab alienatione effecit, ut nec quod ipse in regno imperium habuit retineat, nec in eum cui collatum voluit, juris quicquam transferat atque ita eo facto liberum jam  suae potestatis populum relinquit, cujus rei exemplum unum annales Scotici suppeditant. Barclay contra Monarchom. . iii. c. . Which in English runs thus Sect. . What then, can there no case happen wherein the people may of right, and by their own authority, help themselves, take arms, and set upon their king, imperiously domineering over them? None at all, whilst he remains a king. Honour the king, and he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God are divine oracles that will never permit it, The people therefore can never come by a power over him, unless he does something that makes him cease to be a king for then he divests himself of his crown and dignity, and returns to the state of a private man, and the people become free and superior, the power which they had in the interregnum, before they crowned him king, devolving to them again. But there are but few miscarriages which bring the matter to this state. After considering it well on all sides, I can find but two. Two cases there are, I say, whereby a king, ipso facto, becomes no king, and loses all power and regal authority over his people which are also taken notice of by Winzerus. The first is, If he endeavour to overturn the government, that is, if he have a purpose and design to ruin the kingdom and commonwealth, as it is recorded of Nero, that he resolved to cut off the senate and people of Rome, lay the city waste with fire and sword, and then remove to some other place. And of Caligula, that he openly declared, that he would be no longer a head to the people or senate, and that he had it in his thoughts to cut off the worthiest men of both ranks, and then retire to Alexandria and he wisht that the people had but one neck, that he might dispatch them all at a blow, Such designs as these, when any king harbours in his thoughts, and seriously promotes, he immediately gives up all care and thought of the commonwealth and consequently forfeits the power of governing his subjects, as a master does the dominion over his slaves whom he hath abandoned. Sect. . The other case is, When a king makes himself the dependent of another, and subjects his kingdom which his ancestors left him, and the people put free into his hands, to the dominion of another for however perhaps it may not be his intention to prejudice the people yet because he has hereby lost the principal part of regal dignity, viz. to be next and immediately under God, supreme in his kingdom and also because he betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought to have carefully preserved, into the power and dominion of a foreign nation. By this, as it were, alienation of his kingdom, he himself loses the power he had in it before, without transferring any the least right to those on whom he would have bestowed it and so by this act sets the people free, and leaves them at their own disposal. One example of this is to be found in the Scotch Annals. Sect. . In these cases Barclay, the great champion of absolute monarchy, is forced to allow, that a king may be resisted, and ceases to be a king. That is, in short, not to multiply cases, in whatsoever he has no authority, there he is no king, and may be resisted for wheresoever the authority ceases, the king ceases too, and becomes like other men who have no authority. And these two cases he instances in, differ little from those above mentioned, to be destructive to governments, only that he has omitted the principle from which his doctrine flows and that is, the breach of trust, in not preserving the form of government agreed on, and in not intending the end of government itself, which is the public good and preservation of property. When a king has dethroned himself, and put himself in a state of war with his people, what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no king, as they would any other man, who has put himself into a state of war with them, Barclay, and those of his opinion, would do well to tell us. This farther I desire may be taken notice of out of Barclay, that he says, The mischief that is designed them, the people may prevent before it be done whereby he allows resistance when tyranny is but in design. Such designs as these (says he) when any king harbours in his thoughts and seriously promotes, he immediately gives up all care and thought of the commonwealth so that, according to him, the neglect of the public good is to be taken as an evidence of such design, or at least for a sufficient cause of resistance. And the reason of all, he gives in these words, Because he betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought carefully to have preserved. What he adds, into the power and dominion of a foreign nation, signifies nothing, the fault and forfeiture lying in the loss of their liberty, which he ought to have preserved, and not in any distinction of the persons to whose dominion they were subjected. The peoples right is equally invaded, and their liberty lost, whether they are made slaves to any of their own, or a foreign nation and in this lies the injury, and against this only have they the right of defence. And there are instances to be found in all countries, which shew, that it is not the change of nations in the persons of their governors, but the change of government, that gives the offence. Bilson, a bishop of our church, and a great stickler for the power and prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his treatise of Christian subjection, acknowledge, that princes may forfeit their power, and their title to the obedience of their subjects and if there needed authority in a case where reason is so plain, I could send my reader to Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of the Mirrour, and others, writers that cannot be suspected to be ignorant of our government, or enemies to it. But I thought Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those men, who relying on him for their ecclesiastical polity, are by a strange fate carried to deny those principles upon which he builds it. Whether they are herein made the tools of cunninger workmen, to pull down their own fabric, they were best look. This I am sure, their civil policy is so new, so dangerous, and so destructive to both rulers and people, that as former ages never could bear the broaching of it so it may be hoped, those to come, redeemed from the impositions of these Egyptian undertaskmasters, will abhor the memory of such servile flatterers, who, whilst it seemed to serve their turn, resolved all government into absolute tyranny, and would have all men born to, what their mean souls fitted them for, slavery. Sect. . Here, it is like, the common question will be made, Who shall be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust? This, perhaps, illaffected and factious men may spread amongst the people, when the prince only makes use of his due prerogative. To this I reply, The people shall be judge for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him, but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still a power to discard him, when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that of the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very difficult, dear, and dangerous? Sect. . But farther, this question, (Who shall be judge?) cannot mean, that there is no judge at all for where there is no judicature on earth, to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. He alone, it is true, is judge of the right. But every man is judge for himself, as in all other cases, so in this, whether another hath put himself into a state of war with him, and whether he should appeal to the Supreme Judge, as Jeptha did. Sect. . If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people, in a matter where the law is silent, or doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a case, should be the body of the people for in cases where the prince hath a trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common ordinary rules of the law there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think the prince acts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of the people, (who, at first, lodged that trust in him) how far they meant it should extend? But if the prince, or whoever they be in the administration, decline that way of determination, the appeal then lies no where but to heaven force between either persons, who have no known superior on earth, or which permits no appeal to a judge on earth, being properly a state of war, wherein the appeal lies only to heaven and in that state the injured party must judge for himself, when he will think fit to make use of that appeal, and put himself upon it. Sect. . To conclude, The power that every individual gave the society, when he entered into it, can never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the community because without this there can be no community, no commonwealth, which is contrary to the original agreement so also when the society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to continue in them and their successors, with direction and authority for providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the people whilst that government lasts because having provided a legislative with power to continue for ever, they have given up their political power to the legislative, and cannot resume it. But if they have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this supreme power in any person, or assembly, only temporary or else, when by the miscarriages of those in authority, it is forfeited upon the forfeiture, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves or erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new hands, as they think good.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. 'My dear Mr. Bennet, said his lady to him one day, 'have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last? Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. 'But it is, returned she 'for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it. Mr. Bennet made no answer. 'Do not you want to know who has taken it? cried his wife impatiently. 'You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it. This was invitation enough. 'Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week. 'What is his name? 'Bingley. 'Is he married or single? 'Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls! 'How so? how can it affect them? 'My dear Mr. Bennet, replied his wife, 'how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them. 'Is that his design in settling here? 'Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes. 'I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party. 'My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grownup daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty. 'In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of. 'But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood. 'It is more than I engage for, I assure you. 'But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you do not. 'You are over scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy. 'I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so goodhumoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference. 'They have none of them much to recommend them, replied he 'they are all silly and ignorant like other girls but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters. 'Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves. 'You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least. 'Ah, you do not know what I suffer. 'But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood. 'It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them. 'Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them all. Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of threeandtwenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married its solace was visiting and news. Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with, 'I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy. 'We are not in a way to know what Mr. Bingley likes, said her mother resentfully, 'since we are not to visit. 'But you forget, mamma, said Elizabeth, 'that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long has promised to introduce him. 'I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her. 'No more have I, said Mr. Bennet 'and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you. Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters. 'Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces. 'Kitty has no discretion in her coughs, said her father 'she times them ill. 'I do not cough for my own amusement, replied Kitty fretfully. 'When is your next ball to be, Lizzy? 'Tomorrow fortnight. 'Aye, so it is, cried her mother, 'and Mrs. Long does not come back till the day before so, it will be impossible for her to introduce him, for she will not know him herself. 'Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to her. 'Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him myself how can you be so teasing? 'I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture somebody else will and after all, Mrs. Long and her nieces must stand their chance and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself. The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only, 'Nonsense, nonsense! 'What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation? cried he. 'Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books and make extracts. Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how. 'While Mary is adjusting her ideas, he continued, 'let us return to Mr. Bingley. 'I am sick of Mr. Bingley, cried his wife. 'I am sorry to hear that but why did not you tell me so before? If I had known as much this morning, I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the acquaintance now. The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while. 'How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning, and never said a word about it till now. 'Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose, said Mr. Bennet and, as he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife. 'What an excellent father you have, girls, said she, when the door was shut. 'I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness or me either, for that matter. At our time of life, it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day but for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball. 'Oh! said Lydia stoutly, 'I am not afraid for though I am the youngest, I'm the tallest. The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would return Mr. Bennet's visit, and determining when they should ask him to dinner. Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him in various ways with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises but he eluded the skill of them all and they were at last obliged to accept the secondhand intelligence of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained. 'If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield, said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, 'and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for. In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit, and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining from an upper window, that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse. An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five altogether Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man. Mr. Bingley was goodlooking and gentlemanlike he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brotherinlaw, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend. Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters. Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend to join it. 'Come, Darcy, said he, 'I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance. 'I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with. 'I would not be so fastidious as you are, cried Bingley, 'for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening and there are several of them you see uncommonly pretty. 'You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room, said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet. 'Oh! she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you. 'Which do you mean? and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, 'She is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me. Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood and Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough to be never without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, in good spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they were the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With a book he was regardless of time and on the present occasion he had a good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that all his wife's views on the stranger would be disappointed but he soon found that he had a very different story to hear. 'Oh, my dear Mr. Bennet, as she entered the room, 'we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well she looked and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of that, my dear he actually danced with her twice and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her but, however, he did not admire her at all indeed, nobody can, you know and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he enquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then, the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger 'If he had had any compassion for me, cried her husband impatiently, 'he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance! 'Oh! my dear, continued Mrs. Bennet, 'I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively handsome! and his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw anything more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst's gown Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy. 'But I can assure you, she added, 'that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your setdowns. I quite detest the man. When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him. 'He is just what a young man ought to be, said she, 'sensible, goodhumoured, lively and I never saw such happy manners!so much ease, with such perfect good breeding! 'He is also handsome, replied Elizabeth, 'which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete. 'I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I did not expect such a compliment. 'Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. What could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman in the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person. 'Dear Lizzy! 'Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life. 'I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one but I always speak what I think. 'I know you do and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affectation of candour is common enoughone meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or designto take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the badbelongs to you alone. And so, you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his. 'Certainly not at first. But they are very pleasing women when you converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep his house and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her. Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please in general and with more quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a judgment too unassailed by any attention to herself, she was very little disposed to approve them. They were in fact very fine ladies not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of a respectable family in the north of England a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade. Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his county but as he was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to purchase. His sisters were very anxious for his having an estate of his own but though he was now established only as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table, nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider his house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for half an hour, was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately. Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of great opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy's regard Bingley had the firmest reliance, and of his judgment the highest opinion. In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means deficient, but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well bred, were not inviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage. Bingley was sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually giving offence. The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently characteristic. Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life everybody had been most kind and attentive to him there had been no formality, no stiffness he had soon felt acquainted with all the room and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and from none received either attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, but she smiled too much. Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be sobut still they admired her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they should not object to know more of. Miss Bennet was therefore established as a sweet girl, and their brother felt authorised by such commendation to think of her as he chose. Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets were particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty. The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town and, quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge, where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. James's had made him courteous. Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twentyseven, was Elizabeth's intimate friend. That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely necessary and the morning after the assembly brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate. 'You began the evening well, Charlotte, said Mrs. Bennet with civil selfcommand to Miss Lucas. 'You were Mr. Bingley's first choice. 'Yes but he seemed to like his second better. 'Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be sure that did seem as if he admired herindeed I rather believe he didI heard something about itbut I hardly know whatsomething about Mr. Robinson. 'Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson did not I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many pretty women in the room, and which he thought the prettiest? and his answering immediately to the last question'Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt, there cannot be two opinions on that point.' 'Upon my word! Well, that was very decided indeedthat does seem as ifbut, however, it may all come to nothing, you know. 'My overhearings were more to the purpose than yours, Eliza, said Charlotte. 'Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he?Poor Eliza!to be only just tolerable. 'I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his illtreatment, for he is such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips. 'Are you quite sure, ma'am?is not there a little mistake? said Jane. 'I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her. 'Ayebecause she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to. 'Miss Bingley told me, said Jane, 'that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With them he is remarkably agreeable. 'I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise. 'I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long, said Miss Lucas, 'but I wish he had danced with Eliza. 'Another time, Lizzy, said her mother, 'I would not dance with him, if I were you. 'I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him. 'His pride, said Miss Lucas, 'does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud. 'That is very true, replied Elizabeth, 'and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine. 'Pride, observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, 'is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of selfcomplacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. 'If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy, cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters, 'I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine every day. 'Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought, said Mrs. Bennet 'and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly. The boy protested that she should not she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ended only with the visit. The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit was returned in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners grew on the goodwill of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley and though the mother was found to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted with them was expressed towards the two eldest. By Jane this attention was received with the greatest pleasure but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment of everybody, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value as arising in all probability from the influence of their brother's admiration. It was generally evident whenever they met, that he did admire her and to her it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love but she considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas. 'It may perhaps be pleasant, replied Charlotte, 'to be able to impose on the public in such a case but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freelya slight preference is natural enough but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on. 'But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If I can perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton indeed not to discover it too. 'Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane's disposition as you do. 'But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out. 'Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But though Bingley and Jane meet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together and as they always see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that every moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should therefore make the most of every halfhour in which she can command his attention. When she is secure of him, there will be leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses. 'Your plan is a good one, replied Elizabeth, 'where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane's feelings she is not acting by design. As yet, she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard, nor of its reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four dances with him at Meryton she saw him one morning at his own house, and has since dined in company with him four times. This is not quite enough to make her understand his character. 'Not as you represent it. Had she merely dined with him, she might only have discovered whether he had a good appetite but you must remember that four evenings have been also spent togetherand four evenings may do a great deal. 'Yes these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingtun better than Commerce but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded. 'Well, said Charlotte, 'I wish Jane success with all my heart and if she were married to him tomorrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life. 'You make me laugh, Charlotte but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself. Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty he had looked at her without admiration at the ball and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unawareto her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with. He began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas's, where a large party were assembled. 'What does Mr. Darcy mean, said she to Charlotte, 'by listening to my conversation with Colonel Forster? 'That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer. 'But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him. On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such a subject to him, which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she turned to him and said, 'Did not you think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Meryton? 'With great energy but it is a subject which always makes a lady energetic. 'You are severe on us. 'It will be her turn soon to be teased, said Miss Lucas. 'I am going to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows. 'You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!always wanting me to play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken a musical turn, you would have been invaluable but as it is, I would really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of hearing the very best performers. On Miss Lucas's persevering, however, she added, 'Very well if it must be so, it must. And gravely glancing at Mr. Darcy, 'There is a fine old saying, which everybody here is of course familiar with'Keep your breath to cool your porridge,'and I shall keep mine to swell my song. Her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song or two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display. Mary had neither genius nor taste and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room. Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of passing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too much engrossed by his own thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was his neighbour, till Sir William thus began. 'What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies. 'Certainly, sir and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world.Every savage can dance. Sir William only smiled. 'Your friend performs delightfully, he continued after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group 'and I doubt not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy. 'You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir. 'Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do you often dance at St. James's? 'Never, sir. 'Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place? 'It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it. 'You have a house in town, I conclude? Mr. Darcy bowed. 'I had once some thoughts of fixing in town myselffor I am fond of superior society but I did not feel quite certain that the air of London would agree with Lady Lucas. He paused in hopes of an answer but his companion was not disposed to make any and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was struck with the notion of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to her, 'My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you. And, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William, 'Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner. Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of her hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion. 'You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one halfhour. 'Mr. Darcy is all politeness, said Elizabeth, smiling. 'He is, indeedbut, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance for who would object to such a partner? Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley, 'I can guess the subject of your reverie. 'I should imagine not. 'You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this mannerin such society and indeed I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise the nothingness, and yet the selfimportance of all these people! What would I give to hear your strictures on them! 'Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow. Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity, 'Miss Elizabeth Bennet. 'Miss Elizabeth Bennet! repeated Miss Bingley. 'I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite?and pray when am I to wish you joy? 'That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady's imagination is very rapid it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy. 'Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming motherinlaw, indeed, and of course she will be always at Pemberley with you. He listened to her with perfect indifference, while she chose to entertain herself in this manner and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long. Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds. She had a sister married to a Mr. Phillips, who had been a clerk to their father, and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade. The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton a most convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt and to a milliner's shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions their minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish conversation for the evening and however bare of news the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the headquarters. Their visits to Mrs. Philips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr. Philips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a source of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers and Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign. After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed, 'From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced. Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London. 'I am astonished, my dear, said Mrs. Bennet, 'that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however. 'If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it. 'Yesbut as it happens, they are all of them very clever. 'This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish. 'My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very welland, indeed, so I do still at my heart and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in his regimentals. 'Mamma, cried Lydia, 'my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first came she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library. Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read, 'Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us make haste, my love. 'It is from Miss Bingley, said Jane, and then read it aloud. 'MY DEAR FRIEND, 'If you are not so compassionate as to dine today with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day's ttette between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.Yours ever, 'CAROLINE BINGLEY 'With the officers! cried Lydia. 'I wonder my aunt did not tell us of that. 'Dining out, said Mrs. Bennet, 'that is very unlucky. 'Can I have the carriage? said Jane. 'No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain and then you must stay all night. 'That would be a good scheme, said Elizabeth, 'if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home. 'Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton and the Hursts have no horses to theirs. 'I had much rather go in the coach. 'But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are not they? 'They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them. 'But if you have got them today, said Elizabeth, 'my mother's purpose will be answered. She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission Jane certainly could not come back. 'This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed! said Mrs. Bennet, more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield brought the following note for Elizabeth 'MY DEAREST LIZZY, 'I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning home till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jonestherefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to meand, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the matter with me.Yours, c. 'Well, my dear, said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, 'if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illnessif she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders. 'Oh! I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage. Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though the carriage was not to be had and as she was no horsewoman, walking was her only alternative. She declared her resolution. 'How can you be so silly, cried her mother, 'as to think of such a thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get there. 'I shall be very fit to see Janewhich is all I want. 'Is this a hint to me, Lizzy, said her father, 'to send for the horses? 'No, indeed. I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing, when one has a motive only three miles. I shall be back by dinner. 'I admire the activity of your benevolence, observed Mary, 'but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required. 'We will go as far as Meryton with you, said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together. 'If we make haste, said Lydia, as they walked along, 'perhaps we may see something of Captain Carter before he goes. In Meryton they parted the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one of the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise. She was shown into the breakfastparlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it. She was received, however, very politely by them and in their brother's manners there was something better than politeness there was good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast. Her enquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience, from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal, however, to much conversation, and when Miss Bingley left them together, could attempt little beside expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended her. When breakfast was over, they were joined by the sisters and Elizabeth began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and solicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecary came, and having examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment, nor were the other ladies often absent the gentlemen being out, they had in fact nothing to do elsewhere. When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go, and very unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer of the chaise to an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present. Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was dispatched to Longbourn to acquaint the family with her stay, and bring back a supply of clothes. At five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at halfpast six Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil enquiries which then poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves and then thought no more of the matter and their indifference towards Jane when not immediately before them, restored Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her original dislike. Their brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his attentions to herself most pleasing, and they prevented her feeling herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so and as for Mr. Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards who, when he found her prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her. When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence she had no conversation, no style, no taste, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the same, and added, 'She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild. 'She did, indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair so untidy, so blowsy! 'Yes, and her petticoat I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office. 'Your picture may be very exact, Louisa, said Bingley 'but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice. 'You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure, said Miss Bingley 'and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition. 'Certainly not. 'To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most countrytown indifference to decorum. 'It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing, said Bingley. 'I am afraid, Mr. Darcy, observed Miss Bingley, in a half whisper, 'that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes. 'Not at all, he replied 'they were brightened by the exercise. A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again. 'I have an excessive regard for Miss Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it. 'I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton. 'Yes and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside. 'That is capital, added her sister, and they both laughed heartily. 'If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside, cried Bingley, 'it would not make them one jot less agreeable. 'But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world, replied Darcy. To this speech Bingley made no answer but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations. With a renewal of tenderness, however, they repaired to her room on leaving the diningparlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her asleep, and when it appeared to her rather right than pleasant that she should go downstairs herself. On entering the drawingroom she found the whole party at loo, and was immediately invited to join them but suspecting them to be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the excuse, said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay below, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment. 'Do you prefer reading to cards? said he 'that is rather singular. 'Miss Eliza Bennet, said Miss Bingley, 'despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else. 'I deserve neither such praise nor such censure, cried Elizabeth 'I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things. 'In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure, said Bingley 'and I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well. Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards a table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her others all that his library afforded. 'And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more than I ever looked into. Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room. 'I am astonished, said Miss Bingley, 'that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy! 'It ought to be good, he replied, 'it has been the work of many generations. 'And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books. 'I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these. 'Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley. 'I wish it may. 'But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire. 'With all my heart I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it. 'I am talking of possibilities, Charles. 'Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation. Elizabeth was so much caught by what passed, as to leave her very little attention for her book and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew near the cardtable, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his eldest sister, to observe the game. 'Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring? said Miss Bingley 'will she be as tall as I am? 'I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or rather taller. 'How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners!and so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite. 'It is amazing to me, said Bingley, 'how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are. 'All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean? 'Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished. 'Your list of the common extent of accomplishments, said Darcy, 'has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished. 'Nor I, I am sure, said Miss Bingley. 'Then, observed Elizabeth, 'you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman. 'Yes I do comprehend a great deal in it. 'Oh! certainly, cried his faithful assistant, 'no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved. 'All this she must possess, added Darcy, 'and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading. 'I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any. 'Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this? 'I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united. Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room. 'Eliza Bennet, said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, 'is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art. 'Undoubtedly, replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, 'there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable. Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject. Elizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones's being sent for immediately while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians. This she would not hear of but she was not so unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal and it was settled that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet were not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable his sisters declared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every possible attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister. Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room, and in the morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the enquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid, and some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his sisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her own judgment of her situation. The note was immediately dispatched, and its contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her two youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast. Had she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been very miserable but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was not alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her restoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She would not listen, therefore, to her daughter's proposal of being carried home neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think it at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss Bingley's appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all attended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes that Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected. 'Indeed I have, sir, was her answer. 'She is a great deal too ill to be moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass a little longer on your kindness. 'Removed! cried Bingley. 'It must not be thought of. My sister, I am sure, will not hear of her removal. 'You may depend upon it, Madam, said Miss Bingley, with cold civility, 'that Miss Bennet shall receive every possible attention while she remains with us. Mrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments. 'I am sure, she added, 'if it was not for such good friends I do not know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest temper I ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are nothing to her. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a charming prospect over that gravel walk. I do not know a place in the country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease. 'Whatever I do is done in a hurry, replied he 'and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here. 'That is exactly what I should have supposed of you, said Elizabeth. 'You begin to comprehend me, do you? cried he, turning towards her. 'Oh! yesI understand you perfectly. 'I wish I might take this for a compliment but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful. 'That is as it happens. It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours. 'Lizzy, cried her mother, 'remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home. 'I did not know before, continued Bingley immediately, 'that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study. 'Yes but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage. 'The country, said Darcy, 'can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society. 'But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever. 'Yes, indeed, cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood. 'I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in town. Everybody was surprised and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph. 'I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is not it, Mr. Bingley? 'When I am in the country, he replied, 'I never wish to leave it and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either. 'Ayethat is because you have the right disposition. But that gentleman, looking at Darcy, 'seemed to think the country was nothing at all. 'Indeed, Mama, you are mistaken, said Elizabeth, blushing for her mother. 'You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in town, which you must acknowledge to be true. 'Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with fourandtwenty families. Nothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his countenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eye towards Mr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of saying something that might turn her mother's thoughts, now asked her if Charlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since her coming away. 'Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir William is, Mr. Bingleyis not he? so much the man of fashion! So genteel and so easy! He has always something to say to everybody. That is my idea of good breeding and those persons who fancy themselves very important and never open their mouths, quite mistake the matter. 'Did Charlotte dine with you? 'No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mincepies. For my part, Mr. Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work my daughters are brought up differently. But everybody is to judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think Charlotte so very plainbut then she is our particular friend. 'She seems a very pleasant young woman, said Bingley. 'Oh! dear, yes but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Janeone does not often see anybody better looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own partiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner's in town so much in love with her, that my sisterinlaw was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were. 'And so ended his affection, said Elizabeth impatiently. 'There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love! 'I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love, said Darcy. 'Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away. Darcy only smiled and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to speak, but could think of nothing to say and after a short silence Mrs. Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to Jane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part indeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to each other during the whole visit, and the result of it was, that the youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming into the country to give a ball at Netherfield. Lydia was a stout, wellgrown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and goodhumoured countenance a favourite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural selfconsequence, which the attentions of the officers, to whom her uncle's good dinners and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and abruptly reminded him of his promise adding, that it would be the most shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this sudden attack was delightful to their mother's ear. 'I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement and when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing while she is ill. Lydia declared herself satisfied. 'Oh! yesit would be much better to wait till Jane was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter would be at Meryton again. And when you have given your ball, she added, 'I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not. Mrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned instantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations' behaviour to the remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy the latter of whom, however, could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of her, in spite of all Miss Bingley's witticisms on fine eyes. The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who continued, though slowly, to mend and in the evening Elizabeth joined their party in the drawingroom. The loo table, however, did not appear. Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching the progress of his letter, and repeatedly calling off his attention by messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and Mrs. Hurst was observing their game. Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual commendations of the lady either on his handwriting, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in unison with her opinion of each. 'How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter! He made no answer. 'You write uncommonly fast. 'You are mistaken. I write rather slowly. 'How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them! 'It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours. 'Pray tell your sister that I long to see her. 'I have already told her so once, by your desire. 'I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well. 'Thank youbut I always mend my own. 'How can you contrive to write so even? He was silent. 'Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp, and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's. 'Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice. 'Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy? 'They are generally long but whether always charming, it is not for me to determine. 'It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill. 'That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline, cried her brother, 'because he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy? 'My style of writing is very different from yours. 'Oh! cried Miss Bingley, 'Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest. 'My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express themby which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents. 'Your humility, Mr. Bingley, said Elizabeth, 'must disarm reproof. 'Nothing is more deceitful, said Darcy, 'than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast. 'And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty? 'The indirect boast for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourselfand yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else? 'Nay, cried Bingley, 'this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I believed what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless precipitance merely to show off before the ladies. 'I dare say you believed it but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on chance as that of any man I know and if, as you were mounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better stay till next week,' you would probably do it, you would probably not goand, at another word, might stay a month. 'You have only proved by this, cried Elizabeth, 'that Mr. Bingley did not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much more than he did himself. 'I am exceedingly gratified, said Bingley, 'by your converting what my friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means intend for he would certainly think the better of me, if under such a circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I could. 'Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it? 'Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter, Darcy must speak for himself. 'You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one argument in favour of its propriety. 'To yield readilyeasilyto the persuasion of a friend is no merit with you. 'To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either. 'You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the circumstance occurs, before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it? 'Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the parties? 'By all means, cried Bingley 'let us hear all the particulars, not forgetting their comparative height and size for that will have more weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure you that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in particular places at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, when he has nothing to do. Mr. Darcy smiled but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her brother for talking such nonsense. 'I see your design, Bingley, said his friend. 'You dislike an argument, and want to silence this. 'Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very thankful and then you may say whatever you like of me. 'What you ask, said Elizabeth, 'is no sacrifice on my side and Mr. Darcy had much better finish his letter. Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter. When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth for the indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with alacrity to the pianoforte, and after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead the way, which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she seated herself. Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed, Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some musicbooks that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last, that she drew his notice because there was a something about her more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little to care for his approbation. After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch air and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth, said to her 'Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel? She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence. 'Oh! said she, 'I heard you before but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,' that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at alland now despise me if you dare. 'Indeed I do not dare. Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger. Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth. She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance. 'I hope, said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the next day, 'you will give your motherinlaw a few hints, when this desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after the officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your lady possesses. 'Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity? 'Oh! yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Philips be placed in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great uncle the judge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different lines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not attempt to have it taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes? 'It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied. At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and Elizabeth herself. 'I did not know that you intended to walk, said Miss Bingley, in some confusion, lest they had been overheard. 'You used us abominably ill, answered Mrs. Hurst, 'running away without telling us that you were coming out. Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness, and immediately said, 'This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the avenue. But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, laughingly answered, 'No, no stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth. Goodbye. She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening. When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the drawingroom, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many professions of pleasure and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared. Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at their acquaintance with spirit. But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object Miss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy, and she had something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed himself to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation Mr. Hurst also made her a slight bow, and said he was 'very glad but diffuseness and warmth remained for Bingley's salutation. He was full of joy and attention. The first halfhour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room and she removed at his desire to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone else. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great delight. When tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sisterinlaw of the cardtablebut in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy did not wish for cards and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr. Hurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sofas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book Miss Bingley did the same and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss Bennet. Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy's progress through his book, as in reading her own and she was perpetually either making some enquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation he merely answered her question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, 'How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and cast her eyes round the room in quest for some amusement when hearing her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly towards him and said 'By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult the wishes of the present party I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure. 'If you mean Darcy, cried her brother, 'he may go to bed, if he chooses, before it beginsbut as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send round my cards. 'I should like balls infinitely better, she replied, 'if they were carried on in a different manner but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day. 'Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball. Miss Bingley made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked about the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In the desperation of her feelings, she resolved on one effort more, and, turning to Elizabeth, said 'Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude. Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley succeeded no less in the real object of her civility Mr. Darcy looked up. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. 'What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him? 'Not at all, was her answer 'but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it. Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in anything, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his two motives. 'I have not the smallest objection to explaining them, said he, as soon as she allowed him to speak. 'You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking if the first, I would be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire. 'Oh! shocking! cried Miss Bingley. 'I never heard anything so abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech? 'Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination, said Elizabeth. 'We can all plague and punish one another. Tease himlaugh at him. Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done. 'But upon my honour, I do not. I do assure you that my intimacy has not yet taught me that. Tease calmness of manner and presence of mind! No, no I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will not expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a subject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself. 'Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at! cried Elizabeth. 'That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a laugh. 'Miss Bingley, said he, 'has given me more credit than can be. The wisest and the best of mennay, the wisest and best of their actionsmay be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke. 'Certainly, replied Elizabeth'there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without. 'Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule. 'Such as vanity and pride. 'Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pridewhere there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation. Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile. 'Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume, said Miss Bingley 'and pray what is the result? 'I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise. 'No, said Darcy, 'I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yieldingcertainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever. 'That is a failing indeed! cried Elizabeth. 'Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me. 'There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evila natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome. 'And your defect is to hate everybody. 'And yours, he replied with a smile, 'is willfully to misunderstand them. 'Do let us have a little music, cried Miss Bingley, tired of a conversation in which she had no share. 'Louisa, you will not mind my waking Mr. Hurst? Her sister had not the smallest objection, and the pianoforte was opened and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention. In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the next morning to their mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at least not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs. Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage before Tuesday and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively resolvednor did she much expect it would be asked and fearful, on the contrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long, she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield that morning should be mentioned, and the request made. The communication excited many professions of concern and enough was said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work on Jane and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was then sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her jealousy and dislike of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other. The master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be safe for herthat she was not enough recovered but Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right. To Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligenceElizabeth had been at Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he likedand Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teasing than usual to himself. He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity sensible that if such an idea had been suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were at one time left by themselves for halfanhour, he adhered most conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her. On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost all, took place. Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane and when they parted, after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most tenderly, she even shook hands with the former. Elizabeth took leave of the whole party in the liveliest of spirits. They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation, and almost all its sense by the absence of Jane and Elizabeth. They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thoroughbass and human nature and had some extracts to admire, and some new observations of threadbare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information for them of a different sort. Much had been done and much had been said in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday several of the officers had dined lately with their uncle, a private had been flogged, and it had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married. 'I hope, my dear, said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, 'that you have ordered a good dinner today, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party. 'Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call inand I hope my dinners are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home. 'The person of whom I speak is a gentleman, and a stranger. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. 'A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr. Bingley, I am sure! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. Bingley. Butgood Lord! how unlucky! There is not a bit of fish to be got today. Lydia, my love, ring the bellI must speak to Hill this moment. 'It is not Mr. Bingley, said her husband 'it is a person whom I never saw in the whole course of my life. This roused a general astonishment and he had the pleasure of being eagerly questioned by his wife and his five daughters at once. After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained 'About a month ago I received this letter and about a fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases. 'Oh! my dear, cried his wife, 'I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it. Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. 'It certainly is a most iniquitous affair, said Mr. Bennet, 'and nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little softened by his manner of expressing himself. 'No, that I am sure I shall not and I think it is very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends. Why could he not keep on quarreling with you, as his father did before him? 'Why, indeed he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that head, as you will hear. 'Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, th October. 'Dear Sir, 'The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.'There, Mrs. Bennet.'My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olivebranch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amendsbut of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November th, by four o'clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'ennight following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your wellwisher and friend, 'WILLIAM COLLINS 'At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peacemaking gentleman, said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. 'He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again. 'There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however, and if he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to discourage him. 'Though it is difficult, said Jane, 'to guess in what way he can mean to make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his credit. Elizabeth was chiefly struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying his parishioners whenever it were required. 'He must be an oddity, I think, said she. 'I cannot make him out.There is something very pompous in his style.And what can he mean by apologising for being next in the entail?We cannot suppose he would help it if he could.Could he be a sensible man, sir? 'No, my dear, I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and selfimportance in his letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him. 'In point of composition, said Mary, 'the letter does not seem defective. The idea of the olivebranch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed. To Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for their mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her illwill, and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which astonished her husband and daughters. Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall, heavylooking young man of fiveandtwenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters said he had heard much of their beauty, but that in this instance fame had fallen short of the truth and added, that he did not doubt her seeing them all in due time disposed of in marriage. This gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers but Mrs. Bennet, who quarreled with no compliments, answered most readily. 'You are very kind, I am sure and I wish with all my heart it may prove so, for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so oddly. 'You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate. 'Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with you, for such things I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates will go when once they come to be entailed. 'I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more but, perhaps, when we are better acquainted He was interrupted by a summons to dinner and the girls smiled on each other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The hall, the diningroom, and all its furniture, were examined and praised and his commendation of everything would have touched Mrs. Bennet's heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his own future property. The dinner too in its turn was highly admired and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cooking was owing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended but he continued to apologise for about a quarter of an hour. During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect he protested that 'he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of ranksuch affability and condescension, as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both of the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people he knew, but he had never seen anything but affability in her. She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman she made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the neighbourhood nor to his leaving the parish occasionally for a week or two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herselfsome shelves in the closet up stairs. 'That is all very proper and civil, I am sure, said Mrs. Bennet, 'and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir? 'The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane from Rosings Park, her ladyship's residence. 'I think you said she was a widow, sir? Has she any family? 'She has only one daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very extensive property. 'Ah! said Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, 'then she is better off than many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome? 'She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says that, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the handsomest of her sex, because there is that in her features which marks the young lady of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her from making that progress in many accomplishments which she could not have otherwise failed of, as I am informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies. 'Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at court. 'Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine one day, has deprived the British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased with the idea and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay. 'You judge very properly, said Mr. Bennet, 'and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study? 'They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible. Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure. By teatime, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawingroom again, and, when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced but, on beholding it (for everything announced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with 'Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away Richard and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton tomorrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town. Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said 'I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin. Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. Mrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would resume his book but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his young cousin no illwill, and should never resent her behaviour as any affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared for backgammon. Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and miserly father and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had given him originally great humility of manner but it was now a good deal counteracted by the selfconceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, selfimportance and humility. Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to marry and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plan of amendsof atonementfor inheriting their father's estate and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part. His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what was due to seniority and for the first evening she was his settled choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration for in a quarter of an hour's ttette with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonagehouse, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. 'As to her younger daughters, she could not take upon her to sayshe could not positively answerbut she did not know of any prepossession her eldest daughter, she must just mentionshe felt it incumbent on her to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged. Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabethand it was soon donedone while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course. Mrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have two daughters married and the man whom she could not bear to speak of the day before was now high in her good graces. Lydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten every sister except Mary agreed to go with her and Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself for thither Mr. Collins had followed him after breakfast and there he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the house, he was used to be free from them there his civility, therefore, was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their walk and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker than a reader, was extremely pleased to close his large book, and go. In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and nothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in a shop window, could recall them. But the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking with another officer on the other side of the way. The officer was the very Mr. Denny concerning whose return from London Lydia came to enquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the stranger's air, all wondered who he could be and Kitty and Lydia, determined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under pretense of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately had just gained the pavement when the two gentlemen, turning back, had reached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated permission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with him the day before from town, and he was happy to say had accepted a commission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be for the young man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming. His appearance was greatly in his favour he had all the best part of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address. The introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness of conversationa readiness at the same time perfectly correct and unassuming and the whole party were still standing and talking together very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy and Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and began the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and Miss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to Longbourn on purpose to enquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting. Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham, after a few moments, touched his hata salutation which Mr. Darcy just deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to imagine it was impossible not to long to know. In another minute, Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what passed, took leave and rode on with his friend. Mr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of Mr. Phillip's house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia's pressing entreaties that they should come in, and even in spite of Mrs. Phillips's throwing up the parlour window and loudly seconding the invitation. Mrs. Phillips was always glad to see her nieces and the two eldest, from their recent absence, were particularly welcome, and she was eagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as their own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing about, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones's shopboy in the street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to Netherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility was claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane's introduction of him. She received him with her very best politeness, which he returned with as much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous acquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself, however, might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who introduced him to her notice. Mrs. Phillips was quite awed by such an excess of good breeding but her contemplation of one stranger was soon put to an end by exclamations and enquiries about the other of whom, however, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that Mr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a lieutenant's commission in the shire. She had been watching him the last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr. Wickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the occupation, but unluckily no one passed windows now except a few of the officers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become 'stupid, disagreeable fellows. Some of them were to dine with the Phillipses the next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr. Wickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn would come in the evening. This was agreed to, and Mrs. Phillips protested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets, and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such delights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr. Collins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured with unwearying civility that they were perfectly needless. As they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass between the two gentlemen but though Jane would have defended either or both, had they appeared to be in the wrong, she could no more explain such behaviour than her sister. Mr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring Mrs. Phillips's manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady Catherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman for she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but even pointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although utterly unknown to her before. Something, he supposed, might be attributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so much attention in the whole course of his life. As no objection was made to the young people's engagement with their aunt, and all Mr. Collins's scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for a single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach conveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton and the girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawingroom, that Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle's invitation, and was then in the house. When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings a comparison that did not at first convey much gratification but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietorwhen she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawingrooms, and found that the chimneypiece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper's room. In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion, with occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and the improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the gentlemen joined them and he found in Mrs. Phillips a very attentive listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine their own indifferent imitations of china on the mantelpiece, the interval of waiting appeared very long. It was over at last, however. The gentlemen did approach, and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room, Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration. The officers of the shire were in general a very creditable, gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party but Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and walk, as they were superior to the broadfaced, stuffy uncle Phillips, breathing port wine, who followed them into the room. Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated himself and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, made her feel that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker. With such rivals for the notice of the fair as Mr. Wickham and the officers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance to the young ladies he certainly was nothing but he had still at intervals a kind listener in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watchfulness, most abundantly supplied with coffee and muffin. When the cardtables were placed, he had the opportunity of obliging her in turn, by sitting down to whist. 'I know little of the game at present, said he, 'but I shall be glad to improve myself, for in my situation in life Mrs. Phillips was very glad for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason. Mr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there seemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely, for she was a most determined talker but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets, she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes to have attention for anyone in particular. Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be toldthe history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly relieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He enquired how far Netherfield was from Meryton and, after receiving her answer, asked in a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there. 'About a month, said Elizabeth and then, unwilling to let the subject drop, added, 'He is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I understand. 'Yes, replied Mr. Wickham 'his estate there is a noble one. A clear ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself, for I have been connected with his family in a particular manner from my infancy. Elizabeth could not but look surprised. 'You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after seeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting yesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy? 'As much as I ever wish to be, cried Elizabeth very warmly. 'I have spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very disagreeable. 'I have no right to give my opinion, said Wickham, 'as to his being agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for me to be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general astonishand perhaps you would not express it quite so strongly anywhere else. Here you are in your own family. 'Upon my word, I say no more here than I might say in any house in the neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in Hertfordshire. Everybody is disgusted with his pride. You will not find him more favourably spoken of by anyone. 'I cannot pretend to be sorry, said Wickham, after a short interruption, 'that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond their deserts but with him I believe it does not often happen. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen. 'I should take him, even on my slight acquaintance, to be an illtempered man. Wickham only shook his head. 'I wonder, said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, 'whether he is likely to be in this country much longer. 'I do not at all know but I heard nothing of his going away when I was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the shire will not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood. 'Oh! noit is not for me to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If he wishes to avoid seeing me, he must go. We are not on friendly terms, and it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for avoiding him but what I might proclaim before all the world, a sense of very great illusage, and most painful regrets at his being what he is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had and I can never be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been scandalous but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and everything, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the memory of his father. Elizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with all her heart but the delicacy of it prevented further enquiry. Mr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the neighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that he had yet seen, and speaking of the latter with gentle but very intelligible gallantry. 'It was the prospect of constant society, and good society, he added, 'which was my chief inducement to enter the shire. I knew it to be a most respectable, agreeable corps, and my friend Denny tempted me further by his account of their present quarters, and the very great attentions and excellent acquaintances Meryton had procured them. Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and my spirits will not bear solitude. I must have employment and society. A military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have now made it eligible. The church ought to have been my professionI was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we were speaking of just now. 'Indeed! 'Yesthe late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, and thought he had done it but when the living fell, it was given elsewhere. 'Good heavens! cried Elizabeth 'but how could that be? How could his will be disregarded? Why did you not seek legal redress? 'There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt itor to treat it as a merely conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim to it by extravagance, imprudencein short anything or nothing. Certain it is, that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man and no less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done anything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may have spoken my opinion of him, and to him, too freely. I can recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort of men, and that he hates me. 'This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced. 'Some time or other he will bebut it shall not be by me. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose him. Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them. 'But what, said she, after a pause, 'can have been his motive? What can have induced him to behave so cruelly? 'A thorough, determined dislike of mea dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better but his father's uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stoodthe sort of preference which was often given me. 'I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as thisthough I have never liked him. I had not thought so very ill of him. I had supposed him to be despising his fellowcreatures in general, but did not suspect him of descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as this. After a few minutes' reflection, however, she continued, 'I do remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition must be dreadful. 'I will not trust myself on the subject, replied Wickham 'I can hardly be just to him. Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, 'To treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father! She could have added, 'A young man, too, like you, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiablebut she contented herself with, 'and one, too, who had probably been his companion from childhood, connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner! 'We were born in the same parish, within the same park the greatest part of our youth was passed together inmates of the same house, sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. My father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Phillips, appears to do so much credit tobut he gave up everything to be of use to the late Mr. Darcy and devoted all his time to the care of the Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to be under the greatest obligations to my father's active superintendence, and when, immediately before my father's death, Mr. Darcy gave him a voluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to be as much a debt of gratitude to him, as of his affection to myself. 'How strange! cried Elizabeth. 'How abominable! I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you! If from no better motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonestfor dishonesty I must call it. 'It is wonderful, replied Wickham, 'for almost all his actions may be traced to pride and pride had often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than with any other feeling. But we are none of us consistent, and in his behaviour to me there were stronger impulses even than pride. 'Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good? 'Yes. It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor. Family pride, and filial pridefor he is very proud of what his father washave done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family, to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also brotherly pride, which, with some brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and careful guardian of his sister, and you will hear him generally cried up as the most attentive and best of brothers. 'What sort of girl is Miss Darcy? He shook his head. 'I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to speak ill of a Darcy. But she is too much like her brothervery, very proud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond of me and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is nothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen, and, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father's death, her home has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her education. After many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not help reverting once more to the first, and saying 'I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley, who seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you know Mr. Bingley? 'Not at all. 'He is a sweettempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. Darcy is. 'Probably not but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him but with the rich he is liberalminded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeableallowing something for fortune and figure. The whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round the other table and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin Elizabeth and Mrs. Phillips. The usual enquiries as to his success were made by the latter. It had not been very great he had lost every point but when Mrs. Phillips began to express her concern thereupon, he assured her with much earnest gravity that it was not of the least importance, that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged that she would not make herself uneasy. 'I know very well, madam, said he, 'that when persons sit down to a cardtable, they must take their chances of these things, and happily I am not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There are undoubtedly many who could not say the same, but thanks to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding little matters. Mr. Wickham's attention was caught and after observing Mr. Collins for a few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation was very intimately acquainted with the family of de Bourgh. 'Lady Catherine de Bourgh, she replied, 'has very lately given him a living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her notice, but he certainly has not known her long. 'You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy were sisters consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy. 'No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine's connections. I never heard of her existence till the day before yesterday. 'Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is believed that she and her cousin will unite the two estates. This information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss Bingley. Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her affection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already selfdestined for another. 'Mr. Collins, said she, 'speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her daughter but from some particulars that he has related of her ladyship, I suspect his gratitude misleads him, and that in spite of her being his patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman. 'I believe her to be both in a great degree, replied Wickham 'I have not seen her for many years, but I very well remember that I never liked her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever but I rather believe she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride of her nephew, who chooses that everyone connected with him should have an understanding of the first class. Elizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and they continued talking together, with mutual satisfaction till supper put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr. Wickham's attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise of Mrs. Phillips's supper party, but his manners recommended him to everybody. Whatever he said, was said well and whatever he did, done gracefully. Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all the way home but there was not time for her even to mention his name as they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the fish she had won and Mr. Collins in describing the civility of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses at whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing that he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House. Elizabeth related to Jane the next day what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley's regard and yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The possibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings and nothing remained therefore to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be otherwise explained. 'They have both, said she, 'been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side. 'Very true, indeed and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say on behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the business? Do clear them too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of somebody. 'Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favourite in such a manner, one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so excessively deceived in him? Oh! no. 'I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his looks. 'It is difficult indeedit is distressing. One does not know what to think. 'I beg your pardon one knows exactly what to think. But Jane could think with certainty on only one pointthat Mr. Bingley, if he had been imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair became public. The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this conversation passed, by the arrival of the very persons of whom they had been speaking Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal invitation for the longexpected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed for the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To the rest of the family they paid little attention avoiding Mrs. Bennet as much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to the others. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an activity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if eager to escape from Mrs. Bennet's civilities. The prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every female of the family. Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in compliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered by receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a ceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the society of her two friends, and the attentions of their brother and Elizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr. Wickham, and of seeing a confirmation of everything in Mr. Darcy's look and behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended less on any single event, or any particular person, for though they each, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham, he was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she had no disinclination for it. 'While I can have my mornings to myself, said she, 'it is enoughI think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. Society has claims on us all and I profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for everybody. Elizabeth's spirits were so high on this occasion, that though she did not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and if he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's amusement and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke either from the Archbishop, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to dance. 'I am by no means of the opinion, I assure you, said he, 'that a ball of this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency and I am so far from objecting to dancing myself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair cousins in the course of the evening and I take this opportunity of soliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially, a preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right cause, and not to any disrespect for her. Elizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being engaged by Mr. Wickham for those very dances and to have Mr. Collins instead! her liveliness had never been worse timed. There was no help for it, however. Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own were perforce delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his gallantry from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first struck her, that she was selected from among her sisters as worthy of being mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors. The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing civilities toward herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a compliment on her wit and vivacity and though more astonished than gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage was extremely agreeable to her. Elizabeth, however, did not choose to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the consequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him. If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the younger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state at this time, for from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton once. No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought afterthe very shoeroses for Netherfield were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have found some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the improvement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham and nothing less than a dance on Tuesday, could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia. Till Elizabeth entered the drawingroom at Netherfield, and looked in vain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a doubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty of meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that might not unreasonably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than usual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all that remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than might be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose the dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted for Mr. Darcy's pleasure in the Bingleys' invitation to the officers and though this was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was pronounced by his friend Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who told them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the day before, and was not yet returned adding, with a significant smile, 'I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if he had not wanted to avoid a certain gentleman here. This part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by Elizabeth, and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for Wickham's absence than if her first surmise had been just, every feeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate disappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to the polite enquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make. Attendance, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham. She was resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away with a degree of illhumour which she could not wholly surmount even in speaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her. But Elizabeth was not formed for illhumour and though every prospect of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spirits and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular notice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from him was ecstasy. She danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked. When those dances were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy who took her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, without knowing what she did, she accepted him. He walked away again immediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of mind Charlotte tried to console her 'I dare say you will find him very agreeable. 'Heaven forbid! That would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil. When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and reading in her neighbours' looks, their equal amazement in beholding it. They stood for some time without speaking a word and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and at first was resolved not to break it till suddenly fancying that it would be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time with'It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some sort of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples. He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said. 'Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But now we may be silent. 'Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing? 'Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible. 'Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine? 'Both, replied Elizabeth archly 'for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the clat of a proverb. 'This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure, said he. 'How near it may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly. 'I must not decide on my own performance. He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often walk to Meryton. She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist the temptation, added, 'When you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance. The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said, 'Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friendswhether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain. 'He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship, replied Elizabeth with emphasis, 'and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life. Darcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject. At that moment, Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass through the set to the other side of the room but on perceiving Mr. Darcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on his dancing and his partner. 'I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very superior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the first circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not disgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated, especially when a certain desirable event, my dear Eliza (glancing at her sister and Bingley) shall take place. What congratulations will then flow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcybut let me not interrupt you, sir. You will not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that young lady, whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me. The latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy but Sir William's allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his eyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and Jane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly, he turned to his partner, and said, 'Sir William's interruption has made me forget what we were talking of. 'I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have interrupted two people in the room who had less to say for themselves. We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine. 'What think you of books? said he, smiling. 'Booksoh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings. 'I am sorry you think so but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions. 'NoI cannot talk of books in a ballroom my head is always full of something else. 'The present always occupies you in such scenesdoes it? said he, with a look of doubt. 'Yes, always, she replied, without knowing what she said, for her thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared by her suddenly exclaiming, 'I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created? 'I am, said he, with a firm voice. 'And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice? 'I hope not. 'It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first. 'May I ask to what these questions tend? 'Merely to the illustration of your character, said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. 'I am trying to make it out. 'And what is your success? She shook her head. 'I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly. 'I can readily believe, answered he gravely, 'that reports may vary greatly with respect to me and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either. 'But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity. 'I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours, he coldly replied. She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence and on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, for in Darcy's breast there was a tolerably powerful feeling towards her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against another. They had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and with an expression of civil disdain accosted her 'So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham! Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand questions and I find that the young man quite forgot to tell you, among his other communication, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late Mr. Darcy's steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to give implicit confidence to all his assertions for as to Mr. Darcy's using him ill, it is perfectly false for, on the contrary, he has always been remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but I know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother thought that he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you, Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite's guilt but really, considering his descent, one could not expect much better. 'His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same, said Elizabeth angrily 'for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse than of being the son of Mr. Darcy's steward, and of that, I can assure you, he informed me himself. 'I beg your pardon, replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer. 'Excuse my interferenceit was kindly meant. 'Insolent girl! said Elizabeth to herself. 'You are much mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. Darcy. She then sought her eldest sister, who had undertaken to make enquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening. Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for Wickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way before the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness. 'I want to know, said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her sister's, 'what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person in which case you may be sure of my pardon. 'No, replied Jane, 'I have not forgotten him but I have nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr. Darcy but he will vouch for the good conduct, the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has received and I am sorry to say by his account as well as his sister's, Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard. 'Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself? 'No he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton. 'This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am satisfied. But what does he say of the living? 'He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to him conditionally only. 'I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity, said Elizabeth warmly 'but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr. Bingley's defense of his friend was a very able one, I dare say but since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture to still think of both gentlemen as I did before. She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on which there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Mr. Bingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew to Miss Lucas to whose enquiry after the pleasantness of her last partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them, and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as to make a most important discovery. 'I have found out, said he, 'by a singular accident, that there is now in the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the gentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of the house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady Catherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have thought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made in time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to do, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total ignorance of the connection must plead my apology. 'You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy! 'Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier. I believe him to be Lady Catherine's nephew. It will be in my power to assure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se'nnight. Elizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him that Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction as an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt that it was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either side and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in consequence, to begin the acquaintance. Mr. Collins listened to her with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she ceased speaking, replied thus 'My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world in your excellent judgement in all matters within the scope of your understanding but permit me to say, that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy for, give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdomprovided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself. And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr. Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose astonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced his speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the words 'apology, 'Hunsford, and 'Lady Catherine de Bourgh. It vexed her to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however, was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr. Collins then returned to Elizabeth. 'I have no reason, I assure you, said he, 'to be dissatisfied with my reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him. As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley and the train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to, made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her in idea settled in that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection could bestow and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of endeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to venture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which placed them within one of each other and deeply was she vexed to find that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely, openly, and of nothing else but her expectation that Jane would soon be married to Mr. Bingley. It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the match. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but three miles from them, were the first points of selfgratulation and then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger daughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of other rich men and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be able to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that she might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked. It was necessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on such occasions it is the etiquette but no one was less likely than Mrs. Bennet to find comfort in staying home at any period of her life. She concluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally fortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no chance of it. In vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother's words, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible whisper for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the chief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them. Her mother only scolded her for being nonsensical. 'What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say nothing he may not like to hear. 'For heaven's sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be for you to offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by so doing! Nothing that she could say, however, had any influence. Her mother would talk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and blushed again with shame and vexation. She could not help frequently glancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what she dreaded for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was convinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression of his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and steady gravity. At length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say and Lady Lucas, who had been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no likelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and chicken. Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of tranquillity for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and she had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent entreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance, but in vain Mary would not understand them such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth's eyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her progress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very ill rewarded at their close for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks of the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to favour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another. Mary's powers were by no means fitted for such a display her voice was weak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies. She looked at Jane, to see how she bore it but Jane was very composedly talking to Bingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however, imperturbably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his interference, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint, and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, 'That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit. Mary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted and Elizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father's speech, was afraid her anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to. 'If I, said Mr. Collins, 'were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I should have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an air for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however, to assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time to music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody, especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit him of that duty nor could I think well of the man who should omit an occasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the family. And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many staredmany smiled but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly, and observed in a halfwhisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably clever, good kind of young man. To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he must have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable. The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teased by Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though he could not prevail on her to dance with him again, put it out of her power to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room. He assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to her and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her the whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and goodnaturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself. She was at least free from the offense of Mr. Darcy's further notice though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite disengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in it. The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of 'Lord, how tired I am! accompanied by a violent yawn. When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly civil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and addressed herself especially to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he would make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without the ceremony of a formal invitation. Bingley was all grateful pleasure, and he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on her, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next day for a short time. Mrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the delightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of settlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly see her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four months. Of having another daughter married to Mr. Collins, she thought with equal certainty, and with considerable, though not equal, pleasure. Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children and though the man and the match were quite good enough for her, the worth of each was eclipsed by Mr. Bingley and Netherfield. The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words 'May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the course of this morning? Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs. Bennet answered instantly, 'Oh dear!yescertainly. I am sure Lizzy will be very happyI am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I want you up stairs. And, gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when Elizabeth called out 'Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself. 'No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you to stay where you are. And upon Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added 'Lizzy, I insist upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins. Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunctionand a moment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to conceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as they were gone, Mr. Collins began. 'Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marryingand, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did. The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him further, and he continued 'My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish secondly, that I am convinced that it will add very greatly to my happiness and thirdlywhich perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!) on this subject and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsfordbetween our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool, that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' Allow me, by the way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general intention in favour of matrimony it remains to be told why my views were directed towards Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I can assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes placewhich, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with and that one thousand pounds in the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married. It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. 'You are too hasty, sir, she cried. 'You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to decline them. 'I am not now to learn, replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, 'that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long. 'Upon my word, sir, cried Elizabeth, 'your hope is a rather extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who could make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation. 'Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so, said Mr. Collins very gravely'but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain when I have the honour of seeing her again, I shall speak in the very highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualification. 'Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it falls, without any selfreproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as finally settled. And rising as she thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had Mr. Collins not thus addressed her 'When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character. 'Really, Mr. Collins, cried Elizabeth with some warmth, 'you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as to convince you of its being one. 'You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy of your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in my favour and you should take it into further consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females. 'I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart. 'You are uniformly charming! cried he, with an air of awkward gallantry 'and I am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of being acceptable. To such perseverance in wilful selfdeception Elizabeth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew determined, if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as to be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female. Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his successful love for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open the door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she entered the breakfastroom, and congratulated both him and herself in warm terms on the happy prospect of their nearer connection. Mr. Collins received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the refusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow from her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character. This information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet she would have been glad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage him by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not believe it, and could not help saying so. 'But, depend upon it, Mr. Collins, she added, 'that Lizzy shall be brought to reason. I will speak to her about it directly. She is a very headstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest but I will make her know it. 'Pardon me for interrupting you, madam, cried Mr. Collins 'but if she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it were better not to force her into accepting me, because if liable to such defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity. 'Sir, you quite misunderstand me, said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. 'Lizzy is only headstrong in such matters as these. In everything else she is as goodnatured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and we shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure. She would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her husband, called out as she entered the library, 'Oh! Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her. Mr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by her communication. 'I have not the pleasure of understanding you, said he, when she had finished her speech. 'Of what are you talking? 'Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins, and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy. 'And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems an hopeless business. 'Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her marrying him. 'Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion. Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the library. 'Come here, child, cried her father as she appeared. 'I have sent for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true? Elizabeth replied that it was. 'Very welland this offer of marriage you have refused? 'I have, sir. 'Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet? 'Yes, or I will never see her again. 'An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do. Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning, but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed. 'What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, in talking this way? You promised me to insist upon her marrying him. 'My dear, replied her husband, 'I have two small favours to request. First, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the present occasion and secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the library to myself as soon as may be. Not yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane in her interest but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined interfering and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner varied, however, her determination never did. Mr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed. He thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motives his cousin could refuse him and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other way. His regard for her was quite imaginary and the possibility of her deserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret. While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to her, cried in a half whisper, 'I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him. Charlotte hardly had time to answer, before they were joined by Kitty, who came to tell the same news and no sooner had they entered the breakfastroom, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her family. 'Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas, she added in a melancholy tone, 'for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves. Charlotte's reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth. 'Aye, there she comes, continued Mrs. Bennet, 'looking as unconcerned as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided she can have her own way. But I tell you, Miss Lizzyif you take it into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, you will never get a husband at alland I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead. I shall not be able to keep youand so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure, indeed, in talking to anybody. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied. Her daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that any attempt to reason with her or soothe her would only increase the irritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of them, till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered the room with an air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to the girls, 'Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold your tongues, and let me and Mr. Collins have a little conversation together. Elizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could and Charlotte, detained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose enquiries after herself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little curiosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending not to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected conversation 'Oh! Mr. Collins! 'My dear madam, replied he, 'let us be for ever silent on this point. Far be it from me, he presently continued, in a voice that marked his displeasure, 'to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation to inevitable evils is the duty of us all the peculiar duty of a young man who has been so fortunate as I have been in early preferment and I trust I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to your daughter's favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my dismission from your daughter's lips instead of your own. But we are all liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair. My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due consideration for the advantage of all your family, and if my manner has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise. The discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her mother. As for the gentleman himself, his feelings were chiefly expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, but by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke to her, and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of himself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and especially to her friend. The morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet's illhumour or ill health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on Saturday, and to Saturday he meant to stay. After breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton to enquire if Mr. Wickham were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball. He joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their aunt's where his regret and vexation, and the concern of everybody, was well talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged that the necessity of his absence had been selfimposed. 'I found, said he, 'as the time drew near that I had better not meet Mr. Darcy that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so many hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes might arise unpleasant to more than myself. She highly approved his forbearance, and they had leisure for a full discussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly bestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with them to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to her. His accompanying them was a double advantage she felt all the compliment it offered to herself, and it was most acceptable as an occasion of introducing him to her father and mother. Soon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet it came from Netherfield. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little, hotpressed paper, well covered with a lady's fair, flowing hand and Elizabeth saw her sister's countenance change as she read it, and saw her dwelling intently on some particular passages. Jane recollected herself soon, and putting the letter away, tried to join with her usual cheerfulness in the general conversation but Elizabeth felt an anxiety on the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham and no sooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane invited her to follow her up stairs. When they had gained their own room, Jane, taking out the letter, said 'This is from Caroline Bingley what it contains has surprised me a good deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on their way to townand without any intention of coming back again. You shall hear what she says. She then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information of their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly, and of their meaning to dine in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a house. The next was in these words 'I do not pretend to regret anything I shall leave in Hertfordshire, except your society, my dearest friend but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved correspondence. I depend on you for that. To these highflown expressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust and though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw nothing in it really to lament it was not to be supposed that their absence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley's being there and as to the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must cease to regard it, in the enjoyment of his. 'It is unlucky, said she, after a short pause, 'that you should not be able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not hope that the period of future happiness to which Miss Bingley looks forward may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by them. 'Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you 'When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are already there for the winter I wish that I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowdbut of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you. 'It is evident by this, added Jane, 'that he comes back no more this winter. 'It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean that he should. 'Why will you think so? It must be his own doing. He is his own master. But you do not know all. I will read you the passage which particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from you. 'Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister and, to confess the truth, we are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into something still more interesting, from the hope we dare entertain of her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before mentioned to you my feelings on this subject but I will not leave the country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already he will have frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing her relations all wish the connection as much as his own and a sister's partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness of so many? 'What do you think of this sentence, my dear Lizzy? said Jane as she finished it. 'Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare that Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister that she is perfectly convinced of her brother's indifference and that if she suspects the nature of my feelings for him, she means (most kindly!) to put me on my guard? Can there be any other opinion on the subject? 'Yes, there can for mine is totally different. Will you hear it? 'Most willingly. 'You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him to town in hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he does not care about you. Jane shook her head. 'Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you together can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the case is this We are not rich enough or grand enough for them and she is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion that when there has been one intermarriage, she may have less trouble in achieving a second in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest degree less sensible of your merit than when he took leave of you on Tuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend. 'If we thought alike of Miss Bingley, replied Jane, 'your representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving anyone and all that I can hope in this case is that she is deceiving herself. 'That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you will not take comfort in mine. Believe her to be deceived, by all means. You have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer. 'But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry elsewhere? 'You must decide for yourself, said Elizabeth 'and if, upon mature deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you by all means to refuse him. 'How can you talk so? said Jane, faintly smiling. 'You must know that though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could not hesitate. 'I did not think you would and that being the case, I cannot consider your situation with much compassion. 'But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be required. A thousand things may arise in six months! The idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost contempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's interested wishes, and she could not for a moment suppose that those wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man so totally independent of everyone. She represented to her sister as forcibly as possible what she felt on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect. Jane's temper was not desponding, and she was gradually led to hope, though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that Bingley would return to Netherfield and answer every wish of her heart. They agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern, and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen to go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After lamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation that Mr. Bingley would be soon down again and soon dining at Longbourn, and the conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that though he had been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two full courses. The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases and again during the chief of the day was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. 'It keeps him in good humour, said she, 'and I am more obliged to you than I can express. Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was very amiable, but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth had any conception of its object was nothing else than to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards herself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme and appearances were so favourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost secure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very soon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his character, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next morning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins, from a conviction that if they saw him depart, they could not fail to conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known till its success might be known likewise for though feeling almost secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging, he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday. His reception, however, was of the most flattering kind. Miss Lucas perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there. In as short a time as Mr. Collins's long speeches would allow, everything was settled between them to the satisfaction of both and as they entered the house he earnestly entreated her to name the day that was to make him the happiest of men and though such a solicitation must be waived for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with his happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that establishment were gained. Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins's present circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom they could give little fortune and his prospects of future wealth were exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer Mr. Bennet was likely to live and Sir William gave it as his decided opinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the Longbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife should make their appearance at St. James's. The whole family, in short, were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes of coming out a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's dying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object it was the only provision for welleducated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained and at the age of twentyseven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business was the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship she valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder, and probably would blame her and though her resolution was not to be shaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation. She resolved to give her the information herself, and therefore charged Mr. Collins, when he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had passed before any of the family. A promise of secrecy was of course very dutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty for the curiosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct questions on his return as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was at the same time exercising great selfdenial, for he was longing to publish his prosperous love. As he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the family, the ceremony of leavetaking was performed when the ladies moved for the night and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality, said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever his engagements might allow him to visit them. 'My dear madam, he replied, 'this invitation is particularly gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive and you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as possible. They were all astonished and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for so speedy a return, immediately said 'But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my good sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of offending your patroness. 'My dear sir, replied Mr. Collins, 'I am particularly obliged to you for this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so material a step without her ladyship's concurrence. 'You cannot be too much upon your guard. Risk anything rather than her displeasure and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us again, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home, and be satisfied that we shall take no offence. 'Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such affectionate attention and depend upon it, you will speedily receive from me a letter of thanks for this, and for every other mark of your regard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though my absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now take the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my cousin Elizabeth. With proper civilities the ladies then withdrew all of them equally surprised that he meditated a quick return. Mrs. Bennet wished to understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her younger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him. She rated his abilities much higher than any of the others there was a solidity in his reflections which often struck her, and though by no means so clever as herself, she thought that if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very agreeable companion. But on the following morning, every hope of this kind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before. The possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two but that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from possibility as she could encourage him herself, and her astonishment was consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and she could not help crying out 'Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotteimpossible! The steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her story, gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a reproach though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained her composure, and calmly replied 'Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion, because he was not so happy as to succeed with you? But Elizabeth had now recollected herself, and making a strong effort for it, was able to assure with tolerable firmness that the prospect of their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her all imaginable happiness. 'I see what you are feeling, replied Charlotte. 'You must be surprised, very much surprisedso lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know I never was. I ask only a comfortable home and considering Mr. Collins's character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state. Elizabeth quietly answered 'Undoubtedly and after an awkward pause, they returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much longer, and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard. It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen. Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what she had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter, to announce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them, and much selfgratulation on the prospect of a connection between the houses, he unfolded the matterto an audience not merely wondering, but incredulous for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness, protested he must be entirely mistaken and Lydia, always unguarded and often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed 'Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy? Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment but Sir William's good breeding carried him through it all and though he begged leave to be positive as to the truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the most forbearing courtesy. Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London. Mrs. Bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while Sir William remained but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins had been taken in thirdly, she trusted that they would never be happy together and fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole one, that Elizabeth was the real cause of the mischief and the other that she herself had been barbarously misused by them all and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could console and nothing could appease her. Nor did that day wear out her resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her, a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter. Mr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort for it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and more foolish than his daughter! Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a clergyman and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at Meryton. Lady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married and she called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was, though Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and illnatured remarks might have been enough to drive happiness away. Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject and Elizabeth felt persuaded that no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, as Bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his return. Jane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelvemonth's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight for Lady Catherine, he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him the happiest of men. Mr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued absence. Neither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to Netherfield the whole winter a report which highly incensed Mrs. Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous falsehood. Even Elizabeth began to fearnot that Bingley was indifferentbut that his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so dishonorable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its frequently occurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss Darcy and the amusements of London might be too much, she feared, for the strength of his attachment. As for Jane, her anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more painful than Elizabeth's, but whatever she felt she was desirous of concealing, and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother, an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he did not come back she would think herself very ill used. It needed all Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable tranquillity. Mr. Collins returned most punctually on Monday fortnight, but his reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention and luckily for the others, the business of lovemaking relieved them from a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed. Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of anything concerning the match threw her into an agony of illhumour, and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see them, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession and whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself and her daughters out of the house, as soon as Mr. Bennet were dead. She complained bitterly of all this to her husband. 'Indeed, Mr. Bennet, said she, 'it is very hard to think that Charlotte Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to make way for her, and live to see her take her place in it! 'My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for better things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor. This was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet, and therefore, instead of making any answer, she went on as before. 'I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was not for the entail, I should not mind it. 'What should not you mind? 'I should not mind anything at all. 'Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility. 'I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for anything about the entail. How anyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own daughters, I cannot understand and all for the sake of Mr. Collins too! Why should he have it more than anybody else? 'I leave it to yourself to determine, said Mr. Bennet. Miss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very first sentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for the winter, and concluded with her brother's regret at not having had time to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left the country. Hope was over, entirely over and when Jane could attend to the rest of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy's praise occupied the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on, and Caroline boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former letter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an inmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of the latter with regard to new furniture. Elizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this, heard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern for her sister, and resentment against all others. To Caroline's assertion of her brother's being partial to Miss Darcy she paid no credit. That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she had ever done and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice of his own happiness to the caprice of their inclination. Had his own happiness, however, been the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in whatever manner he thought best, but her sister's was involved in it, as she thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short, on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She could think of nothing else and yet whether Bingley's regard had really died away, or were suppressed by his friends' interference whether he had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his observation whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be materially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained the same, her peace equally wounded. A day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to Elizabeth but at last, on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could not help saying 'Oh, that my dear mother had more command over herself! She can have no idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before. Elizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said nothing. 'You doubt me, cried Jane, slightly colouring 'indeed, you have no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God! I have not that pain. A little time, thereforeI shall certainly try to get the better. With a stronger voice she soon added, 'I have this comfort immediately, that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it has done no harm to anyone but myself. 'My dear Jane! exclaimed Elizabeth, 'you are too good. Your sweetness and disinterestedness are really angelic I do not know what to say to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve. Miss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back the praise on her sister's warm affection. 'Nay, said Elizabeth, 'this is not fair. You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. I only want to think you perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal goodwill. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not mention the other is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! In every view it is unaccountable! 'My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and Charlotte's steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a large family that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match and be ready to believe, for everybody's sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin. 'To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else could be benefited by such a belief as this for were I persuaded that Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrowminded, silly man you know he is, as well as I do and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness. 'I must think your language too strong in speaking of both, replied Jane 'and I hope you will be convinced of it by seeing them happy together. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You mentioned two instances. I cannot misunderstand you, but I entreat you, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking that person to blame, and saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. 'And men take care that they should. 'If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified but I have no idea of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine. 'I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley's conduct to design, said Elizabeth 'but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business. 'And do you impute it to either of those? 'Yes to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what I think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can. 'You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him? 'Yes, in conjunction with his friend. 'I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can only wish his happiness and if he is attached to me, no other woman can secure it. 'Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his happiness they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence they may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great connections, and pride. 'Beyond a doubt, they do wish him to choose Miss Darcy, replied Jane 'but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have known her much longer than they have known me no wonder if they love her better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely they should have opposed their brother's. What sister would think herself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very objectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try to part us if he were so, they could not succeed. By supposing such an affection, you make everybody acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most unhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been mistakenor, at least, it is light, it is nothing in comparison of what I should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in the best light, in the light in which it may be understood. Elizabeth could not oppose such a wish and from this time Mr. Bingley's name was scarcely ever mentioned between them. Mrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no more, and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account for it clearly, there was little chance of her ever considering it with less perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she did not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the effect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her no more but though the probability of the statement was admitted at the time, she had the same story to repeat every day. Mrs. Bennet's best comfort was that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer. Mr. Bennet treated the matter differently. 'So, Lizzy, said he one day, 'your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction among her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to be long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough in Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham be your man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably. 'Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not all expect Jane's good fortune. 'True, said Mr. Bennet, 'but it is a comfort to think that whatever of that kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will make the most of it. Mr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn family. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now added that of general unreserve. The whole of what Elizabeth had already heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him, was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed and everybody was pleased to know how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they had known anything of the matter. Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be any extenuating circumstances in the case, unknown to the society of Hertfordshire her mild and steady candour always pleaded for allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakesbut by everybody else Mr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men. After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his side, by preparations for the reception of his bride as he had reason to hope, that shortly after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before wished his fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another letter of thanks. On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so wellbred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her in town. The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was done she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen. Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They had all been very illused since she last saw her sister. Two of her girls had been upon the point of marriage, and after all there was nothing in it. 'I do not blame Jane, she continued, 'for Jane would have got Mr. Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think that she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had it not been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and that the Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted so in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves before anybody else. However, your coming just at this time is the greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us, of long sleeves. Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, in the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her sister a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces, turned the conversation. When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. 'It seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane, said she. 'I am sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent. 'An excellent consolation in its way, said Elizabeth, 'but it will not do for us. We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before. 'But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as often applied to feelings which arise from a halfhour's acquaintance, as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley's love? 'I never saw a more promising inclination he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance and I spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love? 'Oh, yes!of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get over it immediately. It had better have happened to you, Lizzy you would have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she would be prevailed upon to go back with us? Change of scene might be of serviceand perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as anything. Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded of her sister's ready acquiescence. 'I hope, added Mrs. Gardiner, 'that no consideration with regard to this young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of town, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go out so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all, unless he really comes to see her. 'And that is quite impossible for he is now in the custody of his friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such a part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps have heard of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he would hardly think a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once to enter it and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him. 'So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane correspond with his sister? She will not be able to help calling. 'She will drop the acquaintance entirely. But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's attractions. Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure and the Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time, than as she hoped by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother, she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of seeing him. The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn and what with the Phillipses, the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of itof which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one and on these occasions, Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's warm commendation, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them, from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such an attachment. To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintances in common and though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy's father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of procuring. Mrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by character perfectly well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject of discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute description which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of praise on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both him and herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's treatment of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman's reputed disposition when quite a lad which might agree with it, and was confident at last that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, illnatured boy. Mrs. Gardiner's caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given on the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone after honestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on 'You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because you are warned against it and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve yourself or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against him he is a most interesting young man and if he had the fortune he ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all expect you to use it. Your father would depend on your resolution and good conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father. 'My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed. 'Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise. 'Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I can prevent it. 'Elizabeth, you are not serious now. 'I beg your pardon, I will try again. At present I am not in love with Mr. Wickham no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison, the most agreeable man I ever sawand if he becomes really attached to meI believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence of it. Oh! that abominable Mr. Darcy! My father's opinion of me does me the greatest honour, and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My father, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy but since we see every day that where there is affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellowcreatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best. 'Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very often. At least, you should not remind your mother of inviting him. 'As I did the other day, said Elizabeth with a conscious smile 'very true, it will be wise in me to refrain from that. But do not imagine that he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been so frequently invited this week. You know my mother's ideas as to the necessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my honour, I will try to do what I think to be the wisest and now I hope you are satisfied. Her aunt assured her that she was, and Elizabeth having thanked her for the kindness of her hints, they parted a wonderful instance of advice being given on such a point, without being resented. Mr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted by the Gardiners and Jane but as he took up his abode with the Lucases, his arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was now fast approaching, and she was at length so far resigned as to think it inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an illnatured tone, that she 'wished they might be happy. Thursday was to be the wedding day, and on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit and when she rose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother's ungracious and reluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her out of the room. As they went downstairs together, Charlotte said 'I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza. 'That you certainly shall. 'And I have another favour to ask you. Will you come and see me? 'We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire. 'I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to come to Hunsford. Elizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the visit. 'My father and Maria are coming to me in March, added Charlotte, 'and I hope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as welcome as either of them. The wedding took place the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from the church door, and everybody had as much to say, or to hear, on the subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend and their correspondence was as regular and frequent as it had ever been that it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was. Charlotte's first letters were received with a good deal of eagerness there could not but be curiosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would like Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to be though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte expressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She wrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing which she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most friendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins's picture of Hunsford and Rosings rationally softened and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait for her own visit there to know the rest. Jane had already written a few lines to her sister to announce their safe arrival in London and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it would be in her power to say something of the Bingleys. Her impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience generally is. Jane had been a week in town without either seeing or hearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that her last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been lost. 'My aunt, she continued, 'is going tomorrow into that part of the town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street. She wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley. 'I did not think Caroline in spirits, were her words, 'but she was very glad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming to London. I was right, therefore, my last letter had never reached her. I enquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much engaged with Mr. Darcy that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that Miss Darcy was expected to dinner. I wish I could see her. My visit was not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall see them soon here. Elizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that accident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister's being in town. Four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not regret it but she could no longer be blind to Miss Bingley's inattention. After waiting at home every morning for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the visitor did at last appear but the shortness of her stay, and yet more, the alteration of her manner would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will prove what she felt. 'My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her better judgement, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been entirely deceived in Miss Bingley's regard for me. But, my dear sister, though the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I still assert that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was as natural as your suspicion. I do not at all comprehend her reason for wishing to be intimate with me but if the same circumstances were to happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not return my visit till yesterday and not a note, not a line, did I receive in the meantime. When she did come, it was very evident that she had no pleasure in it she made a slight, formal apology, for not calling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was in every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was perfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity, though I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out as she did I can safely say that every advance to intimacy began on her side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting wrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the cause of it. I need not explain myself farther and though we know this anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily account for her behaviour to me and so deservedly dear as he is to his sister, whatever anxiety she must feel on his behalf is natural and amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now, because, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met, long ago. He knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said herself and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she wanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I cannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should be almost tempted to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity in all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, and think only of what will make me happyyour affection, and the invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very soon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield again, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better not mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts from our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and Maria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there.Yours, etc. This letter gave Elizabeth some pain but her spirits returned as she considered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least. All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not even wish for a renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on every review of it and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr. Darcy's sister, as by Wickham's account, she would make him abundantly regret what he had thrown away. Mrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise concerning that gentleman, and required information and Elizabeth had such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to herself. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, he was the admirer of some one else. Elizabeth was watchful enough to see it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain. Her heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied with believing that she would have been his only choice, had fortune permitted it. The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable but Elizabeth, less clearsighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence. Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural and while able to suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very sincerely wish him happy. All this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner and after relating the circumstances, she thus went on 'I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that I have never been much in love for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards him they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My watchfulness has been effectual and though I certainly should be a more interesting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain. With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and sometimes cold, did January and February pass away. March was to take Elizabeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very seriously of going thither but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan and she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure as well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There was novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would moreover give her a peep at Jane and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have been very sorry for any delay. Everything, however, went on smoothly, and was finally settled according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was to accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement of spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became perfect as plan could be. The only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her, and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he told her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter. The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly on his side even more. His present pursuit could not make him forget that Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the first to listen and to pity, the first to be admired and in his manner of bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of what she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their opinion of hertheir opinion of everybodywould always coincide, there was a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to him with a most sincere regard and she parted from him convinced that, whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable and pleasing. Her fellowtravellers the next day were not of a kind to make her think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a goodhumoured girl, but as emptyheaded as himself, had nothing to say that could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much delight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William's too long. He could tell her nothing new of the wonders of his presentation and knighthood and his civilities were worn out, like his information. It was a journey of only twentyfour miles, and they began it so early as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's door, Jane was at a drawingroom window watching their arrival when they entered the passage she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth, looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawingroom, and whose shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres. Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first object was her sister and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to her minute enquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however, to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the particulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the acquaintance. Mrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and complimented her on bearing it so well. 'But my dear Elizabeth, she added, 'what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary. 'Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary. 'If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think. 'She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her. 'But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death made her mistress of this fortune. 'Nowhy should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain my affections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor? 'But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event. 'A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If she does not object to it, why should we? 'Her not objecting does not justify him. It only shows her being deficient in something herselfsense or feeling. 'Well, cried Elizabeth, 'have it as you choose. He shall be mercenary, and she shall be foolish. 'No, Lizzy, that is what I do not choose. I should be sorry, you know, to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire. 'Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in Derbyshire and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going tomorrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all. 'Take care, Lizzy that speech savours strongly of disappointment. Before they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer. 'We have not determined how far it shall carry us, said Mrs. Gardiner, 'but, perhaps, to the Lakes. No scheme could have been more agreeable to Elizabeth, and her acceptance of the invitation was most ready and grateful. 'Oh, my dear, dear aunt, she rapturously cried, 'what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are young men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We will know where we have gonewe will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarreling about its relative situation. Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers. Every object in the next day's journey was new and interesting to Elizabeth and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment for she had seen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health, and the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight. When they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in search of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view. The palings of Rosings Park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants. At length the Parsonage was discernible. The garden sloping to the road, the house standing in it, the green pales, and the laurel hedge, everything declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte appeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate which led by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of the whole party. In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing at the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the liveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with coming when she found herself so affectionately received. She saw instantly that her cousin's manners were not altered by his marriage his formal civility was just what it had been, and he detained her some minutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his enquiries after all her family. They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the neatness of the entrance, taken into the house and as soon as they were in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious formality to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife's offers of refreshment. Elizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory and she could not help in fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its aspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her, as if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But though everything seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to gratify him by any sigh of repentance, and rather looked with wonder at her friend that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion. When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush but in general Charlotte wisely did not hear. After sitting long enough to admire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to the fender, to give an account of their journey, and of all that had happened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the garden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of which he attended himself. To work in this garden was one of his most respectable pleasures and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance with which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and owned she encouraged it as much as possible. Here, leading the way through every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an interval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out with a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind. He could number the fields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in the most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which the country or kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the prospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered the park nearly opposite the front of his house. It was a handsome modern building, well situated on rising ground. From his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows but the ladies, not having shoes to encounter the remains of a white frost, turned back and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte took her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased, probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's help. It was rather small, but well built and convenient and everything was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency of which Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout, and by Charlotte's evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten. She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It was spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining in, observed 'Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying she will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed to walk home. Her ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us. I should say, one of her ladyship's carriages, for she has several. 'Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman indeed, added Charlotte, 'and a most attentive neighbour. 'Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference. The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news, and telling again what had already been written and when it closed, Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon Charlotte's degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, and composure in bearing with, her husband, and to acknowledge that it was all done very well. She had also to anticipate how her visit would pass, the quiet tenor of their usual employments, the vexatious interruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with Rosings. A lively imagination soon settled it all. About the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready for a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in confusion and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running up stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her. She opened the door and met Maria in the landing place, who, breathless with agitation, cried out 'Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the diningroom, for there is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make haste, and come down this moment. Elizabeth asked questions in vain Maria would tell her nothing more, and down they ran into the diningroom, which fronted the lane, in quest of this wonder It was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate. 'And is this all? cried Elizabeth. 'I expected at least that the pigs were got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her daughter. 'La! my dear, said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, 'it is not Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them the other is Miss de Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little creature. Who would have thought that she could be so thin and small? 'She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind. Why does she not come in? 'Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours when Miss de Bourgh comes in. 'I like her appearance, said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. 'She looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will make him a very proper wife. Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation with the ladies and Sir William, to Elizabeth's high diversion, was stationed in the doorway, in earnest contemplation of the greatness before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss de Bourgh looked that way. At length there was nothing more to be said the ladies drove on, and the others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two girls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked to dine at Rosings the next day. Mr. Collins's triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete. The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife, was exactly what he had wished for and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon, was such an instance of Lady Catherine's condescension, as he knew not how to admire enough. 'I confess, said he, 'that I should not have been at all surprised by her ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation, moreover, including the whole party) so immediately after your arrival! 'I am the less surprised at what has happened, replied Sir William, 'from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon. Scarcely anything was talked of the whole day or next morning but their visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them. When the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth 'Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and her daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the restthere is no occasion for anything more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved. While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of her ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas who had been little used to company, and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done to his presentation at St. James's. As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a mile across the park. Every park has its beauty and its prospects and Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh. When they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm. Elizabeth's courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money or rank she thought she could witness without trepidation. From the entrancehall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a rapturous air, the fine proportion and the finished ornaments, they followed the servants through an antechamber, to the room where Lady Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary. In spite of having been at St. James's, Sir William was so completely awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her composedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with stronglymarked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone, as marked her selfimportance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to Elizabeth's mind and from the observation of the day altogether, she believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he represented. When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment at her being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any likeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly her features, though not plain, were insignificant and she spoke very little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before her eyes. After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties, and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth looking at in the summer. The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants and all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised and, as he had likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted alacrity and every dish was commended, first by him and then by Sir William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his soninlaw said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear. But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved a novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated between Charlotte and Miss de Bourghthe former of whom was engaged in listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all dinnertime. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss de Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she was indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire. When the ladies returned to the drawingroom, there was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to have her judgement controverted. She enquired into Charlotte's domestic concerns familiarly and minutely, gave her a great deal of advice as to the management of them all told her how everything ought to be regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew the least, and who she observed to Mrs. Collins was a very genteel, pretty kind of girl. She asked her, at different times, how many sisters she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been her mother's maiden name? Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of her questions but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then observed, 'Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake, turning to Charlotte, 'I am glad of it but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet? 'A little. 'Oh! thensome time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior toYou shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing? 'One of them does. 'Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do you draw? 'No, not at all. 'What, none of you? 'Not one. 'That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters. 'My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London. 'Has your governess left you? 'We never had any governess. 'No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education. Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been the case. 'Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you must have been neglected. 'Compared with some families, I believe we were but such of us as wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle, certainly might. 'Aye, no doubt but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means and it was but the other day that I recommended another young person, who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalf's calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady Catherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet? 'Yes, ma'am, all. 'All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters must be very young? 'Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is full young to be much in company. But really, ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. The lastborn has as good a right to the pleasures of youth as the first. And to be kept back on such a motive! I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind. 'Upon my word, said her ladyship, 'you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age? 'With three younger sisters grown up, replied Elizabeth, smiling, 'your ladyship can hardly expect me to own it. Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence. 'You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not conceal your age. 'I am not oneandtwenty. When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the cardtables were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille and as Miss de Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson expressed her fears of Miss de Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the other table. Lady Catherine was generally speakingstating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to everything her ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names. When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully accepted and immediately ordered. The party then gathered round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were to have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by the arrival of the coach and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. Collins's side and as many bows on Sir William's they departed. As soon as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for Charlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her ladyship's praise into his own hands. Sir William stayed only a week at Hunsford, but his visit was long enough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled, and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his morning to driving him out in his gig, and showing him the country but when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments, and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her cousin by the alteration, for the chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden or in reading and writing, and looking out of the window in his own bookroom, which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards. Elizabeth had at first rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer the diningparlour for common use it was a better sized room, and had a more pleasant aspect but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been much less in his own apartment, had they sat in one equally lively and she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement. From the drawingroom they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went along, and how often especially Miss de Bourgh drove by in her phaeton, which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened almost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and had a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever prevailed upon to get out. Very few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many hours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her ladyship, and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work, and advised them to do it differently found fault with the arrangement of the furniture or detected the housemaid in negligence and if she accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family. Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace of the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty. The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one cardtable in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart of the first. Their other engagements were few, as the style of living in the neighbourhood in general was beyond Mr. Collins's reach. This, however, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time comfortably enough there were halfhours of pleasant conversation with Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year that she had often great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was along the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity. In this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not many of her acquaintances whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently destined by Lady Catherine, who talked of his coming with the greatest satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by Miss Lucas and herself. His arrival was soon known at the Parsonage for Mr. Collins was walking the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane, in order to have the earliest assurance of it, and after making his bow as the carriage turned into the Park, hurried home with the great intelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his respects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of his uncle Lord , and, to the great surprise of all the party, when Mr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen them from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding 'I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would never have come so soon to wait upon me. Elizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment, before their approach was announced by the doorbell, and shortly afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshirepaid his compliments, with his usual reserve, to Mrs. Collins, and whatever might be his feelings toward her friend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely curtseyed to him without saying a word. Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly with the readiness and ease of a wellbred man, and talked very pleasantly but his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to anybody. At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to enquire of Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual way, and after a moment's pause, added 'My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there? She was perfectly sensible that he never had but she wished to see whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between the Bingleys and Jane, and she thought he looked a little confused as he answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went away. Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the Parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasures of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thitherfor while there were visitors in the house, they could not be necessary and it was not till Easterday, almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little of Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had seen only at church. The invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined the party in Lady Catherine's drawingroom. Her ladyship received them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so acceptable as when she could get nobody else and she was, in fact, almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them anything was a welcome relief to him at Rosings and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had moreover caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so well entertained in that room before and they conversed with so much spirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as of Mr. Darcy. His eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned towards them with a look of curiosity and that her ladyship, after a while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not scruple to call out 'What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is. 'We are speaking of music, madam, said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply. 'Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy? Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency. 'I am very glad to hear such a good account of her, said Lady Catherine 'and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel if she does not practice a good deal. 'I assure you, madam, he replied, 'that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly. 'So much the better. It cannot be done too much and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies that no excellence in music is to be acquired without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well unless she practises more and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs. Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part of the house. Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's illbreeding, and made no answer. When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having promised to play to him and she sat down directly to the instrument. He drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then talked, as before, to her other nephew till the latter walked away from her, and making with his usual deliberation towards the pianoforte stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first convenient pause, turned to him with an arch smile, and said 'You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me. 'I shall not say you are mistaken, he replied, 'because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own. Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, 'Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshireand, give me leave to say, very impolitic toofor it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear. 'I am not afraid of you, said he, smilingly. 'Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of, cried Colonel Fitzwilliam. 'I should like to know how he behaves among strangers. 'You shall hear thenbut prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a balland at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact. 'I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party. 'True and nobody can ever be introduced in a ballroom. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders. 'Perhaps, said Darcy, 'I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction but I am illqualified to recommend myself to strangers. 'Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this? said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. 'Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers? 'I can answer your question, said Fitzwilliam, 'without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble. 'I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, said Darcy, 'of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done. 'My fingers, said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own faultbecause I will not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution. Darcy smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers. Here they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again. Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said to Darcy 'Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn. Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his cousin's praise but neither at that moment nor at any other could she discern any symptom of love and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss de Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have been just as likely to marry her, had she been his relation. Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received them with all the forbearance of civility, and, at the request of the gentlemen, remained at the instrument till her ladyship's carriage was ready to take them all home. Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village, when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to be Lady Catherine, and under that apprehension was putting away her halffinished letter that she might escape all impertinent questions, when the door opened, and, to her very great surprise, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only, entered the room. He seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his intrusion by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies were to be within. They then sat down, and when her enquiries after Rosings were made, seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to think of something, and in this emergence recollecting when she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty departure, she observed 'How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you all after him so soon for, if I recollect right, he went but the day before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London? 'Perfectly so, I thank you. She found that she was to receive no other answer, and, after a short pause added 'I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever returning to Netherfield again? 'I have never heard him say so but it is probable that he may spend very little of his time there in the future. He has many friends, and is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing. 'If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as for his own, and we must expect him to keep it or quit it on the same principle. 'I should not be surprised, said Darcy, 'if he were to give it up as soon as any eligible purchase offers. Elizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his friend and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the trouble of finding a subject to him. He took the hint, and soon began with, 'This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford. 'I believe she didand I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object. 'Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife. 'Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understandingthough I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a prudential light it is certainly a very good match for her. 'It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends. 'An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles. 'And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance. 'I should never have considered the distance as one of the advantages of the match, cried Elizabeth. 'I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled near her family. 'It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far. As he spoke there was a sort of smile which Elizabeth fancied she understood he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered 'I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeysand I am persuaded my friend would not call herself near her family under less than half the present distance. Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, 'You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn. Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and glancing over it, said, in a colder voice 'Are you pleased with Kent? A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side calm and conciseand soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte and her sister, just returned from her walk. The ttette surprised them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying much to anybody, went away. 'What can be the meaning of this? said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. 'My dear, Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way. But when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely, even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case and after various conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from the difficulty of finding anything to do, which was the more probable from the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiardtable, but gentlemen cannot always be within doors and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended him still more and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her former favourite George Wickham and though, in comparing them, she saw there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners, she believed he might have the best informed mind. But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult to understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening his lips and when he did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choicea sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her and as she would liked to have believed this change the effect of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself seriously to work to find it out. She watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford but without much success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind. She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of raising expectations which might only end in disappointment for in her opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power. In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the most pleasant man he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible but, to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage in the church, and his cousin could have none at all. More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful illnature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much but it struck her in the course of their third rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questionsabout her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness and that in speaking of Rosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying there too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant anything, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the pales opposite the Parsonage. She was engaged one day as she walked, in perusing Jane's last letter, and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw on looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the letter immediately and forcing a smile, she said 'I did not know before that you ever walked this way. 'I have been making the tour of the park, he replied, 'as I generally do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther? 'No, I should have turned in a moment. And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together. 'Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday? said she. 'Yesif Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases. 'And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least pleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy. 'He likes to have his own way very well, replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. 'But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to selfdenial and dependence. 'In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. Now seriously, what have you ever known of selfdenial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for? 'These are home questionsand perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like. 'Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do. 'Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money. 'Is this, thought Elizabeth, 'meant for me? and she coloured at the idea but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, 'And pray, what is the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds. He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said 'I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having someone at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well for the present, and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her. 'No, said Colonel Fitzwilliam, 'that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy. 'Are you indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a little difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way. As she spoke she observed him looking at her earnestly and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied 'You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them. 'I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike manhe is a great friend of Darcy's. 'Oh! yes, said Elizabeth drily 'Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him. 'Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy does take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture. 'What is it you mean? 'It is a circumstance which Darcy could not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an unpleasant thing. 'You may depend upon my not mentioning it. 'And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer. 'Did Mr. Darcy give you reasons for this interference? 'I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady. 'And what arts did he use to separate them? 'He did not talk to me of his own arts, said Fitzwilliam, smiling. 'He only told me what I have now told you. Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful. 'I am thinking of what you have been telling me, said she. 'Your cousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge? 'You are rather disposed to call his interference officious? 'I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend's inclination, or why, upon his own judgement alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner his friend was to be happy. But, she continued, recollecting herself, 'as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case. 'That is not an unnatural surmise, said Fitzwilliam, 'but it is a lessening of the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly. This was spoken jestingly but it appeared to her so just a picture of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer, and therefore, abruptly changing the conversation talked on indifferent matters until they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room, as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There could not exist in the world two men over whom Mr. Darcy could have such boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Bingley and Jane she had never doubted but she had always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, he was the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted. 'There were some very strong objections against the lady, were Colonel Fitzwilliam's words and those strong objections probably were, her having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in business in London. 'To Jane herself, she exclaimed, 'there could be no possibility of objection all loveliness and goodness as she is!her understanding excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities, has abilities Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach. When she thought of her mother, her confidence gave way a little but she would not allow that any objections there had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of importance in his friend's connections, than from their want of sense and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr. Bingley for his sister. The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned, brought on a headache and it grew so much worse towards the evening, that, added to her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins, seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go and as much as possible prevented her husband from pressing her but Mr. Collins could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather displeased by her staying at home. When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly disposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her a keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the nextand, a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do. She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that his cousin was to go with him but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him. While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the doorbell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began 'In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiorityof its being a degradationof the family obstacles which had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit. In spite of her deeplyrooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks, and she said 'In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannotI have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation. Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said 'And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance. 'I might as well enquire, replied she, 'why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against youhad they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister? As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour but the emotion was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued 'I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each otherof exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind. She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. 'Can you deny that you have done it? she repeated. With assumed tranquillity he then replied 'I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself. Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her. 'But it is not merely this affair, she continued, 'on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others? 'You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns, said Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour. 'Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him? 'His misfortunes! repeated Darcy contemptuously 'yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed. 'And of your infliction, cried Elizabeth with energy. 'You have reduced him to his present state of povertycomparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and ridicule. 'And this, cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, 'is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps, added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, 'these offenses might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination by reason, by reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own? Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said 'You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner. She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued 'You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. Again his astonishment was obvious and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on 'From the very beginningfrom the first moment, I may almost sayof my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry. 'You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness. And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house. The tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for halfanhour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in love with her for so many months! So much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own casewas almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pridehis shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Janehis unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. She continued in very agitated reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room. Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened it was impossible to think of anything else and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved, soon after breakfast, to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park, she turned up the lane, which led farther from the turnpikeroad. The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground. After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk, when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which edged the park he was moving that way and, fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced her name. She had turned away but on hearing herself called, though in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the gate. He had by that time reached it also, and, holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure, 'I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter? And then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight. With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter, and, to her still increasing wonder, perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letterpaper, written quite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise full. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows 'Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice. 'Two offenses of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope to be in the future secured, when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them, which is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity must be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd. 'I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour attentively and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certainbut I will venture to say that my investigation and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison to that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure, is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your elder sister, than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say farther that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened which could have led me before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection. He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning. 'The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered, and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. We accordingly wentand there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I described, and enforced them earnestly. But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance that I hesitated not in giving, of your sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal regard. But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgement than on his own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair on which I do not reflect with satisfaction it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without ill consequence is perhaps probable but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this concealment, this disguise was beneath me it is done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them. 'With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me I am ignorant but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. 'Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridgemost important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only fond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging he had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensitiesthe want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you painto what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real characterit adds even another motive. 'My excellent father died about five years ago and his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly recommended it to me, to promote his advancement in the best manner that his profession might allowand if he took orders, desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long survive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman the business was therefore soon settledhe resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in questionof which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition to it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstancesand he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period every appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice. 'I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed for her in London and last summer she went with the lady who presided over it, to Ramsgate and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived and by her connivance and aid, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented any public exposure but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed. 'This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he had imposed on you but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at. Ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either, detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination. 'You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night but I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and, still more, as one of the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning. I will only add, God bless you. 'FITZWILLIAM DARCY If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may well be supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power and steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong prejudice against everything he might say, she began his account of what had happened at Netherfield. She read with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she instantly resolved to be false and his account of the real, the worst objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and insolence. But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickhamwhen she read with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himselfher feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, 'This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!and when she had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing anything of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again. In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on but it would not do in half a minute the letter was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence. The account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what he had related himself and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own words. So far each recital confirmed the other but when she came to the will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did not err. But when she read and reread with the closest attention, the particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions to the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartialitydeliberated on the probability of each statementbut with little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read on but every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole. The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at Mr. Wickham's charge, exceedingly shocked her the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his entrance into the shire Militia, in which he had engaged at the persuasion of the young man who, on meeting him accidentally in town, had there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As to his real character, had information been in her power, she had never felt a wish of enquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner had established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of Mr. Darcy or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those casual errors under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy had described as the idleness and vice of many years' continuance. But no such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before her, in every charm of air and address but she could remember no more substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to read. But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before and at last she was referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam himselffrom whom she had previously received the information of his near concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no reason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his cousin's corroboration. She perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation between Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips's. Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was now struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions with his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear of seeing Mr. Darcythat Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that he should stand his ground yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball the very next week. She remembered also that, till the Netherfield family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but herself but that after their removal it had been everywhere discussed that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's character, though he had assured her that respect for the father would always prevent his exposing the son. How differently did everything now appear in which he was concerned! His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and hatefully mercenary and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at anything. His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive he had either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter and fainter and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair that proud and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their acquaintancean acquaintance which had latterly brought them much together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his waysseen anything that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjustanything that spoke him of irreligious or immoral habits that among his own connections he was esteemed and valuedthat even Wickham had allowed him merit as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of some amiable feeling that had his actions been what Mr. Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of everything right could hardly have been concealed from the world and that friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man as Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible. She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. 'How despicably I have acted! she cried 'I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself. From herself to Janefrom Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation there had appeared very insufficient, and she read it again. Widely different was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that credit to his assertions in one instance, which she had been obliged to give in the other? He declared himself to be totally unsuspicious of her sister's attachment and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's opinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane. She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner not often united with great sensibility. When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were mentioned in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense of shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly for denial, and the circumstances to which he particularly alluded as having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind than on hers. The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed, but it could not console her for the contempt which had thus been selfattracted by the rest of her family and as she considered that Jane's disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond anything she had ever known before. After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every variety of thoughtreconsidering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made her at length return home and she entered the house with the wish of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such reflections as must make her unfit for conversation. She was immediately told that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each called during her absence Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take leavebut that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her till she could be found. Elizabeth could but just affect concern in missing him she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an object she could think only of her letter. The two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning, and Mr. Collins having been in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was able to bring home the pleasing intelligence, of their appearing in very good health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the melancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then hastened, to console Lady Catherine and her daughter and on his return brought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her ladyship, importing that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of having them all to dine with her. Elizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had she chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as her future niece nor could she think, without a smile, of what her ladyship's indignation would have been. 'What would she have said? how would she have behaved? were questions with which she amused herself. Their first subject was the diminution of the Rosings party. 'I assure you, I feel it exceedingly, said Lady Catherine 'I believe no one feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly attached to these young men, and know them to be so much attached to me! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The dear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last but Darcy seemed to feel it most acutely, more, I think, than last year. His attachment to Rosings certainly increases. Mr. Collins had a compliment, and an allusion to throw in here, which were kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter. Lady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of spirits, and immediately accounting for it herself, by supposing that she did not like to go home again so soon, she added 'But if that is the case, you must write to your mother and beg that you may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your company, I am sure. 'I am much obliged to your ladyship for your kind invitation, replied Elizabeth, 'but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town next Saturday. 'Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly spare you for another fortnight. 'But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return. 'Oh! your father of course may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters are never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay another month complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as far as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week and as Dawson does not object to the barouchebox, there will be very good room for one of youand indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I should not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large. 'You are all kindness, madam but I believe we must abide by our original plan. Lady Catherine seemed resigned. 'Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant with them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea of two young women travelling post by themselves. It is highly improper. You must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in the world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her having two menservants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of Mr. Darcy, of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I am glad it occurred to me to mention it for it would really be discreditable to you to let them go alone. 'My uncle is to send a servant for us. 'Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a manservant, does he? I am very glad you have somebody who thinks of these things. Where shall you change horses? Oh! Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be attended to. Lady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey, and as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary, which Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her or, with a mind so occupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections. Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She studied every sentence and her feelings towards its writer were at times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address, she was still full of indignation but when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect but she could not approve him nor could she for a moment repent her refusal, or feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again. In her own past behaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret and in the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin. They were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters and her mother, with manners so far from right herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine and Lydia but while they were supported by their mother's indulgence, what chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weakspirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always affronted by their advice and Lydia, selfwilled and careless, would scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him and while Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there forever. Anxiety on Jane's behalf was another prevailing concern and Mr. Darcy's explanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion, heightened the sense of what Jane had lost. His affection was proved to have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any could attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend. How grievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every respect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family! When to these recollections was added the development of Wickham's character, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had seldom been depressed before, were now so much affected as to make it almost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful. Their engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent there and her ladyship again enquired minutely into the particulars of their journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing, and was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right way, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the work of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh. When they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year and Miss de Bourgh exerted herself so far as to curtsey and hold out her hand to both. On Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few minutes before the others appeared and he took the opportunity of paying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary. 'I know not, Miss Elizabeth, said he, 'whether Mrs. Collins has yet expressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us but I am very certain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for it. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We know how little there is to tempt anyone to our humble abode. Our plain manner of living, our small rooms and few domestics, and the little we see of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like yourself but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension, and that we have done everything in our power to prevent your spending your time unpleasantly. Elizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She had spent six weeks with great enjoyment and the pleasure of being with Charlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make her feel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified, and with a more smiling solemnity replied 'It gives me great pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not disagreeably. We have certainly done our best and most fortunately having it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and, from our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the humble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford visit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to Lady Catherine's family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage and blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You see how continually we are engaged there. In truth I must acknowledge that, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should not think anyone abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are sharers of our intimacy at Rosings. Words were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings and he was obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences. 'You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into Hertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself at least that you will be able to do so. Lady Catherine's great attentions to Mrs. Collins you have been a daily witness of and altogether I trust it does not appear that your friend has drawn an unfortunatebut on this point it will be as well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of thinking. There is in everything a most remarkable resemblance of character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each other. Elizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed and rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to have the recital of them interrupted by the lady from whom they sprang. Poor Charlotte! it was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she had chosen it with her eyes open and though evidently regretting that her visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms. At length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels placed within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate parting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by Mr. Collins, and as they walked down the garden he was commissioning her with his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks for the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed, when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings. 'But, he added, 'you will of course wish to have your humble respects delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you while you have been here. Elizabeth made no objection the door was then allowed to be shut, and the carriage drove off. 'Good gracious! cried Maria, after a few minutes' silence, 'it seems but a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have happened! 'A great many indeed, said her companion with a sigh. 'We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! How much I shall have to tell! Elizabeth added privately, 'And how much I shall have to conceal! Their journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm and within four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner's house, where they were to remain a few days. Jane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her spirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her aunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at Longbourn there would be leisure enough for observation. It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals. To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister further. It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town of , in Hertfordshire and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a diningroom up stairs. These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a salad and cucumber. After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, 'Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise? 'And we mean to treat you all, added Lydia, 'but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there. Then, showing her purchases'Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better. And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, 'Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop and when I have bought some prettiercoloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight. 'Are they indeed! cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction. 'They are going to be encamped near Brighton and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to go too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have! 'Yes, thought Elizabeth, 'that would be a delightful scheme indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton! 'Now I have got some news for you, said Lydia, as they sat down at table. 'What do you think? It is excellent newscapital newsand about a certain person we all like! Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need not stay. Lydia laughed, and said 'Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news it is about dear Wickham too good for the waiter, is it not? There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool gone to stay. Wickham is safe. 'And Mary King is safe! added Elizabeth 'safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune. 'She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him. 'But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side, said Jane. 'I am sure there is not on his. I will answer for it, he never cared three straws about herwho could about such a nasty little freckled thing? Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such coarseness of expression herself, the coarseness of the sentiment was little other than her own breast had harboured and fancied liberal! As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their boxes, workbags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and Lydia's purchases, were seated in it. 'How nicely we are all crammed in, cried Lydia. 'I am glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost threeandtwenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before threeandtwenty! My aunt Phillips wants you so to get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins but I do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! how I should like to be married before any of you and then I would chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are such friends!) and so she asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced to come by herself and then, what do you think we did? We dressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes on purpose to pass for a lady, only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs. Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow one of her gowns and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs. Forster. I thought I should have died. And that made the men suspect something, and then they soon found out what was the matter. With such kinds of histories of their parties and good jokes, did Lydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name. Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet say voluntarily to Elizabeth 'I am glad you are come back, Lizzy. Their party in the diningroom was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news and various were the subjects that occupied them Lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger Lucases and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's, was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who would hear her. 'Oh! Mary, said she, 'I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! As we went along, Kitty and I drew up the blinds, and pretended there was nobody in the coach and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty had not been sick and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that anybody might have heard us ten miles off! To this Mary very gravely replied, 'Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for meI should infinitely prefer a book. But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all. In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk to Meryton, and to see how everybody went on but Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme. It should not be said that the Miss Bennets could not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers. There was another reason too for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Mr. Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to her of the regiment's approaching removal was indeed beyond expression. In a fortnight they were to goand once gone, she hoped there could be nothing more to plague her on his account. She had not been many hours at home before she found that the Brighton scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her father had not the smallest intention of yielding but his answers were at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last. Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could no longer be overcome and at length, resolving to suppress every particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene between Mr. Darcy and herself. Miss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him. 'His being so sure of succeeding was wrong, said she, 'and certainly ought not to have appeared but consider how much it must increase his disappointment! 'Indeed, replied Elizabeth, 'I am heartily sorry for him but he has other feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him? 'Blame you! Oh, no. 'But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham? 'NoI do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did. 'But you will know it, when I tell you what happened the very next day. She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery. Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and seek to clear the one without involving the other. 'This will not do, said Elizabeth 'you never will be able to make both of them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them just enough to make one good sort of man and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Darcy's but you shall do as you choose. It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane. 'I do not know when I have been more shocked, said she. 'Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so. 'Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather. 'Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner! 'There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it. 'I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do. 'And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just but one cannot always be laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty. 'Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now. 'Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough, I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to about what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh! how I wanted you! 'How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they do appear wholly undeserved. 'Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand Wickham's character. Miss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, 'Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your opinion? 'That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone and therefore it will not signify to anyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it. 'You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to reestablish a character. We must not make him desperate. The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. 'And then, said she, 'if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value! She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than most first attachments often boast and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity. 'Well, Lizzy, said Mrs. Bennet one day, 'what is your opinion now of this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day. But I cannot find out that Jane saw anything of him in London. Well, he is a very undeserving young manand I do not suppose there's the least chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of his coming to Netherfield again in the summer and I have enquired of everybody, too, who is likely to know. 'I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield any more. 'Oh well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I shall always say he used my daughter extremely ill and if I was her, I would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart and then he will be sorry for what he has done. But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation, she made no answer. 'Well, Lizzy, continued her mother, soon afterwards, 'and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in their housekeeping, I dare say. 'No, nothing at all. 'A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. They will take care not to outrun their income. They will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it as quite their own, I dare say, whenever that happens. 'It was a subject which they could not mention before me. 'No it would have been strange if they had but I make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me. The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hardheartedness in any of the family. 'Good Heaven! what is to become of us? What are we to do? would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. 'How can you be smiling so, Lizzy? Their affectionate mother shared all their grief she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, fiveandtwenty years ago. 'I am sure, said she, 'I cried for two days together when Colonel Miller's regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart. 'I am sure I shall break mine, said Lydia. 'If one could but go to Brighton! observed Mrs. Bennet. 'Oh, yes!if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable. 'A little seabathing would set me up forever. 'And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do me a great deal of good, added Kitty. Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections and never had she been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend. But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their three months' acquaintance they had been intimate two. The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish. 'I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia, said she, 'Though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older. In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter and detestable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said 'Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances. 'If you were aware, said Elizabeth, 'of the very great disadvantage to us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent mannernay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair. 'Already arisen? repeated Mr. Bennet. 'What, has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly. 'Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous a flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace? Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and affectionately taking her hand said in reply 'Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known you must be respected and valued and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple ofor I may say, threevery silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life. With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition. Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their united volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye of fancy, the streets of that gay bathingplace covered with officers. She saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the campits tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet and, to complete the view, she saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. Had she known her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same. Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself. But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed and their raptures continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia's leaving home. Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty well over the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure, for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those intentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her preference secured at any time by their renewal. On the very last day of the regiment's remaining at Meryton, he dined, with others of the officers, at Longbourn and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some enquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings, and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former. He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed but with a moment's recollection and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen him often and, after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man, asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. With an air of indifference he soon afterwards added 'How long did you say he was at Rosings? 'Nearly three weeks. 'And you saw him frequently? 'Yes, almost every day. 'His manners are very different from his cousin's. 'Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance. 'Indeed! cried Mr. Wickham with a look which did not escape her. 'And pray, may I ask? But checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone, 'Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of civility to his ordinary style?for I dare not hope, he continued in a lower and more serious tone, 'that he is improved in essentials. 'Oh, no! said Elizabeth. 'In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was. While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention, while she added 'When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that his mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood. Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look for a few minutes he was silent, till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents 'You, who so well know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgement he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always operated, I know, when they were together and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss de Bourgh, which I am certain he has very much at heart. Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge him. The rest of the evening passed with the appearance, on his side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish Elizabeth and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again. When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the only one who shed tears but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, and impressive in her injunctions that she should not miss the opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possibleadvice which there was every reason to believe would be well attended to and in the clamorous happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard. Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given. Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so illjudged a direction of talents talents, which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife. When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before, and at home she had a mother and sister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a wateringplace and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire did not, in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicityto have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. 'But it is fortunate, thought she, 'that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation. When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going off to the camp and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still less to be learntfor her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public. After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good humour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity and, by the middle of June, Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton. The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast approaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again within a month, and as that left too short a period for them to go so far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour, and, according to the present plan, were to go no farther northwards than Derbyshire. In that county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three weeks and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak. Elizabeth was excessively disappointed she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes, and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfiedand certainly her temper to be happy and all was soon right again. With the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner. 'But surely, said she, 'I may enter his county with impunity, and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me. The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every wayteaching them, playing with them, and loving them. The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement. One enjoyment was certainthat of suitableness of companions a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear inconveniencescheerfulness to enhance every pleasureand affection and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were disappointments abroad. It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, etc. are sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's former residence, and where she had lately learned some acquaintance still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the principal wonders of the country and within five miles of Lambton, Elizabeth found from her aunt that Pemberley was situated. It was not in their direct road, nor more than a mile or two out of it. In talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation. 'My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard so much? said her aunt 'a place, too, with which so many of your acquaintances are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you know. Elizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. She must own that she was tired of seeing great houses after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains. Mrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. 'If it were merely a fine house richly furnished, said she, 'I should not care about it myself but the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the country. Elizabeth said no morebut her mind could not acquiesce. The possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly occurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea, and thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt than to run such a risk. But against this there were objections and she finally resolved that it could be the last resource, if her private enquiries to the absence of the family were unfavourably answered. Accordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid whether Pemberley were not a very fine place? what was the name of its proprietor? and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for the summer? A most welcome negative followed the last questionand her alarms now being removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of curiosity to see the house herself and when the subject was revived the next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike to the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go. Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter. The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent. Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for halfamile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something! They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door and, while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the hall and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to wonder at her being where she was. The housekeeper came a respectablelooking elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the diningparlour. It was a large, well proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking different positions but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings. 'And of this place, thought she, 'I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no,recollecting herself'that could never be my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me I should not have been allowed to invite them. This was a lucky recollectionit saved her from something very like regret. She longed to enquire of the housekeeper whether her master was really absent, but had not the courage for it. At length however, the question was asked by her uncle and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. Reynolds replied that he was, adding, 'But we expect him tomorrow, with a large party of friends. How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day! Her aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached and saw the likeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures, over the mantelpiece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it. The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was a picture of a young gentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought up by him at his own expense. 'He is now gone into the army, she added 'but I am afraid he has turned out very wild. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not return it. 'And that, said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, 'is my masterand very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the otherabout eight years ago. 'I have heard much of your master's fine person, said Mrs. Gardiner, looking at the picture 'it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell us whether it is like or not. Mrs. Reynolds respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this intimation of her knowing her master. 'Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy? Elizabeth coloured, and said 'A little. 'And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma'am? 'Yes, very handsome. 'I am sure I know none so handsome but in the gallery up stairs you will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late master's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to be then. He was very fond of them. This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them. Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn when she was only eight years old. 'And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother? said Mrs. Gardiner. 'Oh! yesthe handsomest young lady that ever was seen and so accomplished!She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is a new instrument just come down for hera present from my master she comes here tomorrow with him. Mr. Gardiner, whose manners were very easy and pleasant, encouraged her communicativeness by his questions and remarks Mrs. Reynolds, either by pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her master and his sister. 'Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year? 'Not so much as I could wish, sir but I dare say he may spend half his time here and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months. 'Except, thought Elizabeth, 'when she goes to Ramsgate. 'If your master would marry, you might see more of him. 'Yes, sir but I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, 'It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so. 'I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him, replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, 'I have never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old. This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her ideas. That he was not a goodtempered man had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened she longed to hear more, and was grateful to her uncle for saying 'There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master. 'Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are goodnatured when children, are goodnatured when they grow up and he was always the sweetesttempered, most generoushearted boy in the world. Elizabeth almost stared at her. 'Can this be Mr. Darcy? thought she. 'His father was an excellent man, said Mrs. Gardiner. 'Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed and his son will be just like himjust as affable to the poor. Elizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs. Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family prejudice to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her master, soon led again to the subject and she dwelt with energy on his many merits as they proceeded together up the great staircase. 'He is the best landlord, and the best master, said she, 'that ever lived not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but will give him a good name. Some people call him proud but I am sure I never saw anything of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away like other young men. 'In what an amiable light does this place him! thought Elizabeth. 'This fine account of him, whispered her aunt as they walked, 'is not quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend. 'Perhaps we might be deceived. 'That is not very likely our authority was too good. On reaching the spacious lobby above they were shown into a very pretty sittingroom, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below and were informed that it was but just done to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room when last at Pemberley. 'He is certainly a good brother, said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows. Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter the room. 'And this is always the way with him, she added. 'Whatever can give his sister any pleasure is sure to be done in a moment. There is nothing he would not do for her. The picturegallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible. In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested herand she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father's lifetime. There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original than she had ever felt at the height of their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship!how much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!how much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she stood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression. When all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen, they returned downstairs, and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the halldoor. As they walked across the hall towards the river, Elizabeth turned back to look again her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables. They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from surprise but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility. She had instinctively turned away but stopping on his approach, received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil enquiries after her family. Amazed at the alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued were some of the most uncomfortable in her life. Nor did he seem much more at ease when he spoke, his accent had none of its usual sedateness and he repeated his enquiries as to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her stay in Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the distraction of his thoughts. At length every idea seemed to fail him and, after standing a few moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took leave. The others then joined her, and expressed admiration of his figure but Elizabeth heard not a word, and wholly engrossed by her own feelings, followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most illjudged thing in the world! How strange it must appear to him! In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? Or, why did he thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination for it was plain that he was that moment arrivedthat moment alighted from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly alteredwhat could it mean? That he should even speak to her was amazing!but to speak with such civility, to enquire after her family! Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings Park, when he put his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account for it. They had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer reach of the woods to which they were approaching but it was some time before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it and, though she answered mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then was. She longed to know what at the moment was passing in his mindin what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of everything, she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he felt himself at ease yet there had been that in his voice which was not like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in seeing her she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with composure. At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind aroused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself. They entered the woods, and bidding adieu to the river for a while, ascended some of the higher grounds when, in spots where the opening of the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. With a triumphant smile they were told that it was ten miles round. It settled the matter and they pursued the accustomed circuit which brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited and the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppicewood which bordered it. Elizabeth longed to explore its windings but when they had crossed the bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner, who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was, therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction but their progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed, she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view the turning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance, she saw that he had lost none of his recent civility and, to imitate his politeness, she began, as they met, to admire the beauty of the place but she had not got beyond the words 'delightful, and 'charming, when some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of Pemberley from her might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed, and she said no more. Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind and on her pausing, he asked her if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends. This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared and she could hardly suppress a smile at his being now seeking the acquaintance of some of those very people against whom his pride had revolted in his offer to herself. 'What will be his surprise, thought she, 'when he knows who they are? He takes them now for people of fashion. The introduction, however, was immediately made and as she named their relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore it, and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he could from such disgraceful companions. That he was surprised by the connection was evident he sustained it, however, with fortitude, and so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased, could not but triumph. It was consoling that he should know she had some relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners. The conversation soon turned upon fishing and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arminarm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of wonder. Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and continually was she repeating, 'Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for meit cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me. After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious waterplant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found Elizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred her husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on together. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been very unexpected'for your housekeeper, she added, 'informed us that you would certainly not be here till tomorrow and indeed, before we left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country. He acknowledged the truth of it all, and said that business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. 'They will join me early tomorrow, he continued, 'and among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with youMr. Bingley and his sisters. Elizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been the last mentioned between them and, if she might judge by his complexion, his mind was not very differently engaged. 'There is also one other person in the party, he continued after a pause, 'who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton? The surprise of such an application was great indeed it was too great for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her must be the work of her brother, and, without looking farther, it was satisfactory it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made him think really ill of her. They now walked on in silence, each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth was not comfortable that was impossible but she was flattered and pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others, and when they had reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a mile behind. He then asked her to walk into the housebut she declared herself not tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time much might have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but there seemed to be an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowlyand her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the ttette was over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up they were all pressed to go into the house and take some refreshment but this was declined, and they parted on each side with utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him walking slowly towards the house. The observations of her uncle and aunt now began and each of them pronounced him to be infinitely superior to anything they had expected. 'He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming, said her uncle. 'There is something a little stately in him, to be sure, replied her aunt, 'but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, I have seen nothing of it. 'I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more than civil it was really attentive and there was no necessity for such attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling. 'To be sure, Lizzy, said her aunt, 'he is not so handsome as Wickham or, rather, he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features are perfectly good. But how came you to tell me that he was so disagreeable? Elizabeth excused herself as well as she could said that she had liked him better when they had met in Kent than before, and that she had never seen him so pleasant as this morning. 'But perhaps he may be a little whimsical in his civilities, replied her uncle. 'Your great men often are and therefore I shall not take him at his word, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off his grounds. Elizabeth felt that they had entirely misunderstood his character, but said nothing. 'From what we have seen of him, continued Mrs. Gardiner, 'I really should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by anybody as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an illnatured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance that would not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the good lady who showed us his house did give him a most flaming character! I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal master, I suppose, and that in the eye of a servant comprehends every virtue. Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of his behaviour to Wickham and therefore gave them to understand, in as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on. Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned but as they were now approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to the charm of recollection and she was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of anything else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance. The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth much attention for any of these new friends and she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and, above all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister. Elizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit her the very day after her reaching Pemberley and was consequently resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning. But her conclusion was false for on the very morning after their arrival at Lambton, these visitors came. They had been walking about the place with some of their new friends, and were just returning to the inn to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and a lady in a curricle driving up the street. Elizabeth immediately recognizing the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of her surprise to her relations by acquainting them with the honour which she expected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement and the embarrassment of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they felt that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these newlyborn notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of Elizabeth's feelings was at every moment increasing. She was quite amazed at her own discomposure but amongst other causes of disquiet, she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much in her favour and, more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her. She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen and as she walked up and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of enquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made everything worse. Miss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction took place. With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was only exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from her beyond a monosyllable. Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother but there was sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle. Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much relieved by discerning such different feelings. They had not long been together before Mr. Darcy told her that Bingley was also coming to wait on her and she had barely time to express her satisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley's quick step was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room. All Elizabeth's anger against him had been long done away but had she still felt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected cordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again. He enquired in a friendly, though general way, after her family, and looked and spoke with the same goodhumoured ease that he had ever done. To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage than to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before them, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece directed their observation towards each with an earnest though guarded enquiry and they soon drew from those enquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love. Of the lady's sensations they remained a little in doubt but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough. Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the feelings of each of her visitors she wanted to compose her own, and to make herself agreeable to all and in the latter object, where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased. In seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister and, oh! how ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in a like manner. Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on former occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion that, as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance. But, though this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his behaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane. No look appeared on either side that spoke particular regard. Nothing occurred between them that could justify the hopes of his sister. On this point she was soon satisfied and two or three little circumstances occurred ere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a recollection of Jane not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying more that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared. He observed to her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone which had something of real regret, that it 'was a very long time since he had had the pleasure of seeing her and, before she could reply, he added, 'It is above eight months. We have not met since the th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield. Elizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact and he afterwards took occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether all her sisters were at Longbourn. There was not much in the question, nor in the preceding remark but there was a look and a manner which gave them meaning. It was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself but, whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general complaisance, and in all that he said she heard an accent so removed from hauteur or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that the improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed however temporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day. When she saw him thus seeking the acquaintance and courting the good opinion of people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a disgracewhen she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the very relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last lively scene in Hunsford Parsonagethe difference, the change was so great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly restrain her astonishment from being visible. Never, even in the company of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from selfconsequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed would draw down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and Rosings. Their visitors stayed with them above halfanhour and when they arose to depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing their wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner at Pemberley, before they left the country. Miss Darcy, though with a diffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations, readily obeyed. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing how she, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its acceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head. Presuming however, that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on. Bingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth again, having still a great deal to say to her, and many enquiries to make after all their Hertfordshire friends. Elizabeth, construing all this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased, and on this account, as well as some others, found herself, when their visitors left them, capable of considering the last halfhour with some satisfaction, though while it was passing, the enjoyment of it had been little. Eager to be alone, and fearful of enquiries or hints from her uncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their favourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress. But she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's curiosity it was not their wish to force her communication. It was evident that she was much better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of it was evident that he was very much in love with her. They saw much to interest, but nothing to justify enquiry. Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well and, as far as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could not be untouched by his politeness and had they drawn his character from their own feelings and his servant's report, without any reference to any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known would not have recognized it for Mr. Darcy. There was now an interest, however, in believing the housekeeper and they soon became sensible that the authority of a servant who had known him since he was four years old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be hastily rejected. Neither had anything occurred in the intelligence of their Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight. They had nothing to accuse him of but pride pride he probably had, and if not, it would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small markettown where the family did not visit. It was acknowledged, however, that he was a liberal man, and did much good among the poor. With respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held there in much estimation for though the chief of his concerns with the son of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a wellknown fact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind him, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged. As for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than the last and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not long enough to determine her feelings towards one in that mansion and she lay awake two whole hours endeavouring to make them out. She certainly did not hate him. No hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feeling and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride exciting not only astonishment but gratitudefor to love, ardent love, it must be attributed and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be exactly defined. She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, she felt a real interest in his welfare and she only wanted to know how far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on her the renewal of his addresses. It had been settled in the evening between the aunt and the niece, that such a striking civility as Miss Darcy's in coming to see them on the very day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a late breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled, by some exertion of politeness on their side and, consequently, that it would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following morning. They were, therefore, to go. Elizabeth was pleased though when she asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply. Mr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been renewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting some of the gentlemen at Pemberley before noon. Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley's dislike of her had originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how unwelcome her appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how much civility on that lady's side the acquaintance would now be renewed. On reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon, whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts which were scattered over the intermediate lawn. In this house they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there with Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in London. Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with all the embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior the belief of her being proud and reserved. Mrs. Gardiner and her niece, however, did her justice, and pitied her. By Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a curtsey and, on their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be, succeeded for a few moments. It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a genteel, agreeablelooking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind of discourse proved her to be more truly wellbred than either of the others and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from Elizabeth, the conversation was carried on. Miss Darcy looked as if she wished for courage enough to join in it and sometimes did venture a short sentence when there was least danger of its being heard. Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley, and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without calling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an inconvenient distance but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity of saying much. Her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room. She wished, she feared that the master of the house might be amongst them and whether she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour without hearing Miss Bingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold enquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal indifference and brevity, and the other said no more. The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole partyfor though they could not all talk, they could all eat and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected them round the table. While thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the feelings which prevailed on his entering the room and then, though but a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to regret that he came. He had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other gentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to Georgiana that morning. No sooner did he appear than Elizabeth wisely resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed a resolution the more necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them, and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour when he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's, in spite of the smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its objects for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions to Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother's entrance, exerted herself much more to talk, and Elizabeth saw that he was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded as much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side. Miss Bingley saw all this likewise and, in the imprudence of anger, took the first opportunity of saying, with sneering civility 'Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the shire Militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to your family. In Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name but Elizabeth instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts and the various recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress but exerting herself vigorously to repel the illnatured attack, she presently answered the question in a tolerably detached tone. While she spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy, with a heightened complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes. Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint but she had merely intended to discompose Elizabeth by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in Darcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected with that corps. Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth and from all Bingley's connections her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from the very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan, and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend. Elizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion and as Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to Wickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able to speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely recollected her interest in the affair, and the very circumstance which had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth seemed to have fixed them on her more and more cheerfully. Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above mentioned and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage Miss Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person, behaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother's recommendation was enough to ensure her favour his judgement could not err. And he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When Darcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to him some part of what she had been saying to his sister. 'How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy, she cried 'I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again. However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned, no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer. 'For my own part, she rejoined, 'I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin her complexion has no brilliancy and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants characterthere is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I could never see anything extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all and in her air altogether there is a selfsufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable. Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not the best method of recommending herself but angry people are not always wise and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the success she expected. He was resolutely silent, however, and, from a determination of making him speak, she continued 'I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty and I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'She a beauty!I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time. 'Yes, replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, 'but that was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance. He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself. Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their visit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them both. The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed, except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruitof everything but himself yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's beginning the subject. Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from Jane on their first arrival at Lambton and this disappointment had been renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there but on the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that it had been missent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as Jane had written the direction remarkably ill. They had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in and her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by themselves. The one missent must first be attended to it had been written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect 'Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a most unexpected and serious nature but I am afraid of alarming yoube assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia. An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland with one of his officers to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step (and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How thankful am I that we never let them know what has been said against him we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly know what I have written. Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing what she felt, Elizabeth on finishing this letter instantly seized the other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows it had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first. 'By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter I wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as the marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B. intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham, but no further for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney coach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road. I know not what to think. After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but without any successno such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved for him and Mrs. F., but no one can throw any blame on them. Our distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan and even if he could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose her so lost to everything? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage he shook his head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to be trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she exert herself, it would be better but this is not to be expected. And as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has anger for having concealed their attachment but as it was a matter of confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes but now, as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I take up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not but circumstances are such that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well, that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do I am sure I know not but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again tomorrow evening. In such an exigence, my uncle's advice and assistance would be everything in the world he will immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness. 'Oh! where, where is my uncle? cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing a moment of the time so precious but as she reached the door it was opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous manner made him start, and before he could recover himself to speak, she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation, hastily exclaimed, 'I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed I have not an instant to lose. 'Good God! what is the matter? cried he, with more feeling than politeness then recollecting himself, 'I will not detain you a minute but let me, or let the servant go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are not well enough you cannot go yourself. Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her and she felt how little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and mistress home instantly. On his quitting the room she sat down, unable to support herself, and looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, 'Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine shall I get you one? You are very ill. 'No, I thank you, she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. 'There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn. She burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate silence. At length she spoke again. 'I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from anyone. My younger sister has left all her friendshas eloped has thrown herself into the power ofof Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. You know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him toshe is lost for ever. Darcy was fixed in astonishment. 'When I consider, she added in a yet more agitated voice, 'that I might have prevented it! I who knew what he was. Had I but explained some part of it onlysome part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is allall too late now. 'I am grieved indeed, cried Darcy 'grievedshocked. But is it certainabsolutely certain? 'Oh, yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond they are certainly not gone to Scotland. 'And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her? 'My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's immediate assistance and we shall be off, I hope, in halfanhour. But nothing can be doneI know very well that nothing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible! Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. 'When my eyes were opened to his real characterOh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew notI was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched mistake! Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking everything must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his selfconquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain. But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydiathe humiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all, soon swallowed up every private care and covering her face with her handkerchief, Elizabeth was soon lost to everything else and, after a pause of several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by the voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, 'I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that anything could be either said or done on my part that might offer consolation to such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley today. 'Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible, I know it cannot be long. He readily assured her of his secrecy again expressed his sorrow for her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope, and leaving his compliments for her relations, with only one serious, parting look, went away. As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination. If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwiseif regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him go with regret and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched business. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought, could flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least of her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first letter remained in her mind, she was all surpriseall astonishment that Wickham should marry a girl whom it was impossible he could marry for money and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment as this she might have sufficient charms and though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement without the intention of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey. She had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that Lydia had any partiality for him but she was convinced that Lydia wanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion. Her affections had continually been fluctuating but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence towards such a girloh! how acutely did she now feel it! She was wild to be at hometo hear, to see, to be upon the spot to share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a family so deranged, a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and requiring constant attendance and though almost persuaded that nothing could be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost importance, and till he entered the room her impatience was severe. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing by the servant's account that their niece was taken suddenly ill but satisfying them instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript of the last with trembling energy. Though Lydia had never been a favourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply afflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it and after the first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner promised every assistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked him with tears of gratitude and all three being actuated by one spirit, everything relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to be off as soon as possible. 'But what is to be done about Pemberley? cried Mrs. Gardiner. 'John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us was it so? 'Yes and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. That is all settled. 'That is all settled repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. 'And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth? Oh, that I knew how it was! But wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was impossible to one so wretched as herself but she had her share of business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to be written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed and Mr. Gardiner meanwhile having settled his account at the inn, nothing remained to be done but to go and Elizabeth, after all the misery of the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn. 'I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth, said her uncle, as they drove from the town 'and really, upon serious consideration, I am much more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does on the matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel's family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk! 'Do you really think so? cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment. 'Upon my word, said Mrs. Gardiner, 'I begin to be of your uncle's opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of. I cannot think so very ill of Wickham. Can you yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe him capable of it? 'Not, perhaps, of neglecting his own interest but of every other neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland if that had been the case? 'In the first place, replied Mr. Gardiner, 'there is no absolute proof that they are not gone to Scotland. 'Oh! but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the Barnet road. 'Well, thensupposing them to be in London. They may be there, though for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptional purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side and it might strike them that they could be more economically, though less expeditiously, married in London than in Scotland. 'But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh, no, nothis is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydiawhat attraction has she beyond youth, health, and good humour that could make him, for her sake, forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what restraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge for I know nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has no brothers to step forward and he might imagine, from my father's behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that he would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in such a matter. 'But can you think that Lydia is so lost to everything but love of him as to consent to live with him on any terms other than marriage? 'It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed, replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, 'that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young she has never been taught to think on serious subjects and for the last halfyear, nay, for a twelvemonthshe has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers have been in her head. She has been doing everything in her power by thinking and talking on the subject, to give greaterwhat shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings which are naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman. 'But you see that Jane, said her aunt, 'does not think so very ill of Wickham as to believe him capable of the attempt. 'Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be their former conduct, that she would think capable of such an attempt, till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every sense of the word that he has neither integrity nor honour that he is as false and deceitful as he is insinuating. 'And do you really know all this? cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive. 'I do indeed, replied Elizabeth, colouring. 'I told you, the other day, of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy and you yourself, when last at Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other circumstances which I am not at libertywhich it is not worth while to relate but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From what he said of Miss Darcy I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud, reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found her. 'But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you and Jane seem so well to understand? 'Oh, yes!that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home, the shire was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it necessary to make our knowledge public for of what use could it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion which all the neighbourhood had of him should then be overthrown? And even when it was settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That she could be in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a consequence as this could ensue, you may easily believe, was far enough from my thoughts. 'When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I suppose, to believe them fond of each other? 'Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either side and had anything of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware that ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him but so we all were. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for the first two months but he never distinguished her by any particular attention and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment, who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites. It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, selfreproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness. They travelled as expeditiously as possible, and, sleeping one night on the road, reached Longbourn by dinner time the next day. It was a comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied by long expectations. The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house as they entered the paddock and, when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome. Elizabeth jumped out and, after giving each of them a hasty kiss, hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down from her mother's apartment, immediately met her. Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether anything had been heard of the fugitives. 'Not yet, replied Jane. 'But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope everything will be well. 'Is my father in town? 'Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word. 'And have you heard from him often? 'We have heard only twice. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday to say that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I particularly begged him to do. He merely added that he should not write again till he had something of importance to mention. 'And my motherhow is she? How are you all? 'My mother is tolerably well, I trust though her spirits are greatly shaken. She is up stairs and will have great satisfaction in seeing you all. She does not yet leave her dressingroom. Mary and Kitty, thank Heaven, are quite well. 'But youhow are you? cried Elizabeth. 'You look pale. How much you must have gone through! Her sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well and their conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were engaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears. When they were all in the drawingroom, the questions which Elizabeth had already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested had not yet deserted her she still expected that it would all end well, and that every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father, to explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce their marriage. Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes' conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected with tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villainous conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and illusage blaming everybody but the person to whose illjudging indulgence the errors of her daughter must principally be owing. 'If I had been able, said she, 'to carry my point in going to Brighton, with all my family, this would not have happened but poor dear Lydia had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing if she had been well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the charge of her but I was overruled, as I always am. Poor dear child! And now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, wherever he meets him and then he will be killed, and what is to become of us all? The Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his grave, and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we shall do. They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas and Mr. Gardiner, after general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr. Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia. 'Do not give way to useless alarm, added he 'though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more we may gain some news of them and till we know that they are not married, and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as lost. As soon as I get to town I shall go to my brother, and make him come home with me to Gracechurch Street and then we may consult together as to what is to be done. 'Oh! my dear brother, replied Mrs. Bennet, 'that is exactly what I could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out, wherever they may be and if they are not married already, make them marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them, after they are married. And, above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. Tell him what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my witsand have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over mesuch spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I know you will contrive it all. But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well in her hopes as her fear and after talking with her in this manner till dinner was on the table, they all left her to vent all her feelings on the housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters. Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it better that one only of the household, and the one whom they could most trust should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the subject. In the diningroom they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been too busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance before. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The faces of both, however, were tolerably calm and no change was visible in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger which she had herself incurred in this business, had given more of fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table 'This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation. Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, 'Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable that one false step involves her in endless ruin that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex. Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil before them. In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for halfanhour by themselves and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of the opportunity of making many enquiries, which Jane was equally eager to satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued the subject, by saying, 'But tell me all and everything about it which I have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension of anything before the elopement took place? They must have seen them together for ever. 'Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him! His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He was coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland when that apprehension first got abroad, it hastened his journey. 'And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself? 'Yes but, when questioned by him, Denny denied knowing anything of their plans, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marryingand from that, I am inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before. 'And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married? 'How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt a little uneasya little fearful of my sister's happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other, many weeks. 'But not before they went to Brighton? 'No, I believe not. 'And did Colonel Forster appear to think well of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character? 'I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt but I hope this may be false. 'Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened! 'Perhaps it would have been better, replied her sister. 'But to expose the former faults of any person without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions. 'Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his wife? 'He brought it with him for us to see. Jane then took it from her pocketbook, and gave it to Elizabeth. These were the contents 'My dear Harriet, 'You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise tomorrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, when I write to them and sign my name 'Lydia Wickham.' What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him tonight. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are packed up. Goodbye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey. 'Your affectionate friend, 'LYDIA BENNET. 'Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia! cried Elizabeth when she had finished it. 'What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment! But at least it shows that she was serious on the subject of their journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a scheme of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it! 'I never saw anyone so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion! 'Oh! Jane, cried Elizabeth, 'was there a servant belonging to it who did not know the whole story before the end of the day? 'I do not know. I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is very difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen almost took from me my faculties. 'Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look well. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone. 'Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every fatigue, I am sure but I did not think it right for either of them. Kitty is slight and delicate and Mary studies so much, that her hours of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Phillips came to Longbourn on Tuesday, after my father went away and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all. And Lady Lucas has been very kind she walked here on Wednesday morning to condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters', if they should be of use to us. 'She had better have stayed at home, cried Elizabeth 'perhaps she meant well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible condolence insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied. She then proceeded to enquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter. 'He meant I believe, replied Jane, 'to go to Epsom, the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anything could be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London and as he thought that the circumstance of a gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another might be remarked he meant to make enquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he determined to make enquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any other designs that he had formed but he was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much as this. The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent but at such a time they had hoped for exertion. They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to send but even of that they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off. When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could, to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only security for her husband's not being killed in a duel. Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a great comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them upthough, as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found them. All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family. Everybody declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world and everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of her sister's ruin more certain and even Jane, who believed still less of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come when, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of them. Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday on Tuesday his wife received a letter from him it told them that, on his arrival, he had immediately found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street that Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival, but without gaining any satisfactory information and that he was now determined to enquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself did not expect any success from this measure, but as his brother was eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added that Mr. Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London and promised to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect 'I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to know in what part of town he has now concealed himself. If there were anyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps, Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, better than any other person. Elizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference to her authority proceeded but it was not in her power to give any information of so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved. She had never heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of his companions in the shire might be able to give more information and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application was a something to look forward to. Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters was the grand object of every morning's impatience. Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance. But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins which, as Jane had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence, she accordingly read and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as follows 'My dear Sir, 'I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortuneor that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others the most afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event of last November for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offense. 'I am, dear sir, etc., etc. Mr. Gardiner did not write again till he had received an answer from Colonel Forster and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send. It was not known that Wickham had a single relationship with whom he kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one living. His former acquaintances had been numerous but since he had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore, who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations, for it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton. He owed a good deal in town, but his debts of honour were still more formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars from the Longbourn family. Jane heard them with horror. 'A gamester! she cried. 'This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it. Mr. Gardiner added in his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered spiritless by the illsuccess of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brotherinlaw's entreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering what her anxiety for his life had been before. 'What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia? she cried. 'Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away? As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she and the children should go to London, at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn. Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece and the kind of halfexpectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had received none since her return that could come from Pemberley. The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary nothing, therefore, could be fairly conjectured from that, though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought, one sleepless night out of two. When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying made no mention of the business that had taken him away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it. It was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, 'Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it. 'You must not be too severe upon yourself, replied Elizabeth. 'You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough. 'Do you suppose them to be in London? 'Yes where else can they be so well concealed? 'And Lydia used to want to go to London, added Kitty. 'She is happy then, said her father drily 'and her residence there will probably be of some duration. Then after a short silence he continued 'Lizzy, I bear you no illwill for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind. They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's tea. 'This is a parade, he cried, 'which does one good it gives such an elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same I will sit in my library, in my nightcap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as I can or, perhaps, I may defer it till Kitty runs away. 'I am not going to run away, papa, said Kitty fretfully. 'If I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia. 'You go to Brighton. I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter into my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner. Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry. 'Well, well, said he, 'do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them. Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper coming towards them, and, concluding that she came to call them to their mother, went forward to meet her but, instead of the expected summons, when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, 'I beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask. 'What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town. 'Dear madam, cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, 'don't you know there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here this halfhour, and master has had a letter. Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule into the breakfastroom from thence to the library their father was in neither and they were on the point of seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the butler, who said 'If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the little copse. Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock. Jane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and eagerly cried out 'Oh, papa, what newswhat news? Have you heard from my uncle? 'Yes I have had a letter from him by express. 'Well, and what news does it bringgood or bad? 'What is there of good to be expected? said he, taking the letter from his pocket. 'But perhaps you would like to read it. Elizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up. 'Read it aloud, said their father, 'for I hardly know myself what it is about. 'Gracechurch Street, Monday, August . 'My dear Brother, 'At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope it will give you satisfaction. Soon after you left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet it is enough to know they are discovered. I have seen them both 'Then it is as I always hoped, cried Jane 'they are married! Elizabeth read on 'I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there was any intention of being so but if you are willing to perform the engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds secured among your children after the decease of yourself and my sister and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, during your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions which, considering everything, I had no hesitation in complying with, as far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be. The world has been deceived in that respect and I am happy to say there will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the smallest occasion for your coming to town again therefore stay quiet at Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as fast as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it best that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope you will approve. She comes to us today. I shall write again as soon as anything more is determined on. Yours, etc., 'EDW. GARDINER. 'Is it possible? cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. 'Can it be possible that he will marry her? 'Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we thought him, said her sister. 'My dear father, I congratulate you. 'And have you answered the letter? cried Elizabeth. 'No but it must be done soon. Most earnestly did she then entreat him to lose no more time before he wrote. 'Oh! my dear father, she cried, 'come back and write immediately. Consider how important every moment is in such a case. 'Let me write for you, said Jane, 'if you dislike the trouble yourself. 'I dislike it very much, he replied 'but it must be done. And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house. 'And may I ask said Elizabeth 'but the terms, I suppose, must be complied with. 'Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little. 'And they must marry! Yet he is such a man! 'Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want very much to know one is, how much money your uncle has laid down to bring it about and the other, how am I ever to pay him. 'Money! My uncle! cried Jane, 'what do you mean, sir? 'I mean, that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am gone. 'That is very true, said Elizabeth 'though it had not occurred to me before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh! it must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this. 'No, said her father 'Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship. 'Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be repaid? Mr. Bennet made no answer, and each of them, deep in thought, continued silent till they reached the house. Their father then went on to the library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfastroom. 'And they are really to be married! cried Elizabeth, as soon as they were by themselves. 'How strange this is! And for this we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice. Oh, Lydia! 'I comfort myself with thinking, replied Jane, 'that he certainly would not marry Lydia if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten thousand pounds, or anything like it, has been advanced. He has children of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand pounds? 'If he were ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been, said Elizabeth, 'and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now, she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she first sees my aunt! 'We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side, said Jane 'I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them and I flatter myself they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in time make their past imprudence forgotten. 'Their conduct has been such, replied Elizabeth, 'as neither you, nor I, nor anybody can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it. It now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library, therefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make it known to her. He was writing and, without raising his head, coolly replied 'Just as you please. 'May we take my uncle's letter to read to her? 'Take whatever you like, and get away. Elizabeth took the letter from his writingtable, and they went up stairs together. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet one communication would, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct. 'My dear, dear Lydia! she cried. 'This is delightful indeed! She will be married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen! My good, kind brother! I knew how it would be. I knew he would manage everything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet! Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr. Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under. 'For we must attribute this happy conclusion, she added, 'in a great measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money. 'Well, cried her mother, 'it is all very right who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know and it is the first time we have ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in such a flutter, that I am sure I can't write so I will dictate, and you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money afterwards but the things should be ordered immediately. She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her father was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay, she observed, would be of small importance and her mother was too happy to be quite so obstinate as usual. Other schemes, too, came into her head. 'I will go to Meryton, said she, 'as soon as I am dressed, and tell the good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage. An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do anything for you in Meryton? Oh! Here comes Hill! My dear Hill, have you heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married and you shall all have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding. Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom. Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough but that it was no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so and though, in looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could be justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had gained. Mr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband might then have rested in its proper place. He was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to anyone should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brotherinlaw, and he was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance, and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could. When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income. Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with regard to Lydia, at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser by the hundred that was to be paid them for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her through her mother's hands, Lydia's expenses had been very little within that sum. That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was another very welcome surprise for his wish at present was to have as little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon dispatched for, though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution. He begged to know further particulars of what he was indebted to his brother, but was too angry with Lydia to send any message to her. The good news spread quickly through the house, and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent philosophy. To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farmhouse. But there was much to be talked of in marrying her and the goodnatured wishes for her welldoing which had proceeded before from all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton lost but a little of their spirit in this change of circumstances, because with such an husband her misery was considered certain. It was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been downstairs but on this happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object of her wishes since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a proper situation for her daughter, and, without knowing or considering what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and importance. 'Haye Park might do, said she, 'if the Gouldings could quit itor the great house at Stoke, if the drawingroom were larger but Ashworth is too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me and as for Pulvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful. Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption while the servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her 'Mrs. Bennet, before you take any or all of these houses for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into one house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn. A long dispute followed this declaration but Mr. Bennet was firm. It soon led to another and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all she could believe possible. She was more alive to the disgrace which her want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they took place. Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the spot. She had no fear of its spreading farther through his means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended but, at the same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's frailty would have mortified her so muchnot, however, from any fear of disadvantage from it individually to herself, for, at any rate, there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other objection, would now be added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with a man whom he so justly scorned. From such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet. What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now have been most gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex but while he was mortal, there must be a triumph. She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance. But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their family. How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture. Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet's acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurance of his eagerness to promote the welfare of any of his family and concluded with entreaties that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal purport of his letter was to inform them that Mr. Wickham had resolved on quitting the militia. 'It was greatly my wish that he should do so, he added, 'as soon as his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in considering the removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on his account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into the regulars and among his former friends, there are still some who are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an ensigncy in General 's regiment, now quartered in the North. It is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He promises fairly and I hope among different people, where they may each have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements, and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham in and near Brighton, with assurances of speedy payment, for which I have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying similar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin a list according to his information? He has given in all his debts I hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions, and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment, unless they are first invited to Longbourn and I understand from Mrs. Gardiner, that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she leaves the South. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to you and her mother.Yours, etc., 'E. GARDINER. Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal from the shire as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet was not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the North, just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company, for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment and, besides, it was such a pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted with everybody, and had so many favourites. 'She is so fond of Mrs. Forster, said she, 'it will be quite shocking to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General 's regiment. His daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being admitted into her family again before she set off for the North, received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth, who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents, urged him so earnestly yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their mother had the satisfaction of knowing that she would be able to show her married daughter in the neighbourhood before she was banished to the North. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent his permission for them to come and it was settled, that as soon as the ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was surprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme, and had she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would have been the last object of her wishes. Their sister's wedding day arrived and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to meet them at , and they were to return in it by dinnertime. Their arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets, and Jane more especially, who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had she been the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister must endure. They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet as the carriage drove up to the door her husband looked impenetrably grave her daughters, alarmed, anxious, uneasy. Lydia's voice was heard in the vestibule the door was thrown open, and she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and welcomed her with rapture gave her hand, with an affectionate smile, to Wickham, who followed his lady and wished them both joy with an alacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness. Their reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity and he scarcely opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was enough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there. Wickham was not at all more distressed than herself, but his manners were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had not before believed him quite equal to such assurance but she sat down, resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence of an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed but the cheeks of the two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour. There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough and Wickham, who happened to sit near Elizabeth, began enquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, with a good humoured ease which she felt very unable to equal in her replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain and Lydia led voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world. 'Only think of its being three months, she cried, 'since I went away it seems but a fortnight I declare and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was. Her father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia but she, who never heard nor saw anything of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, 'Oh! mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married today? I was afraid they might not and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the sideglass next to him, and took off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything. Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, 'Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman. It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Phillips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called 'Mrs. Wickham by each of them and in the mean time, she went after dinner to show her ring, and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids. 'Well, mamma, said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast room, 'and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go. 'Very true and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don't at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so? 'Oh, lord! yesthere is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all. 'I should like it beyond anything! said her mother. 'And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over. 'I thank you for my share of the favour, said Elizabeth 'but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands. Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short and she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth 'Lizzy, I never gave you an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma and the others all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed? 'No really, replied Elizabeth 'I think there cannot be too little said on the subject. 'La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat. 'Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual I thought it would never be over for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or anything. To be sure London was rather thin, but, however, the Little Theatre was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away and if we were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes' time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards that if he had been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well. 'Mr. Darcy! repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. 'Oh, yes!he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret! 'If it was to be secret, said Jane, 'say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further. 'Oh! certainly, said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity 'we will ask you no questions. 'Thank you, said Lydia, 'for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be angry. On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power, by running away. But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible or at least it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go. Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her brain but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She could not bear such suspense and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what Lydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been intended. 'You may readily comprehend, she added, 'what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand itunless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with ignorance. 'Not that I shall, though, she added to herself, as she finished the letter 'and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out. Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall Elizabeth was glad of ittill it appeared whether her enquiries would receive any satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante. Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it than, hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to be happy for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial. 'Gracechurch Street, Sept. . 'My dear Niece, 'I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it, as I foresee that a little writing will not comprise what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your application I did not expect it from you. Don't think me angry, however, for I only mean to let you know that I had not imagined such enquiries to be necessary on your side. If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised as I amand nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. 'On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours. It was all over before I arrived so my curiosity was not so dreadfully racked as yours seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both Wickham repeatedly, Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he had another motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days in town, before he was able to discover them but he had something to direct his search, which was more than we had and the consciousness of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. 'There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edwardstreet, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the wishedfor direction. They were in  street. He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends she wanted no help of his she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment, on account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing and scrupled not to lay all the illconsequences of Lydia's flight on her own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately and as to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have nothing to live on. 'Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once. Though Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage in some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. 'They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham of course wanted more than he could get but at length was reduced to be reasonable. 'Everything being settled between them, Mr. Darcy's next step was to make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch street the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be seen, and Mr. Darcy found, on further enquiry, that your father was still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next day it was only known that a gentleman had called on business. 'On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home, and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together. 'They met again on Sunday, and then I saw him too. It was not all settled before Monday as soon as it was, the express was sent off to Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that obstinacy is the real defect of his character, after all. He has been accused of many faults at different times, but this is the true one. Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself though I am sure (and I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it), your uncle would most readily have settled the whole. 'They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it, which went sorely against the grain and I really believe your letter this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no farther than yourself, or Jane at most. 'You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon her, and his commission purchased. The reason why all this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth in this though I doubt whether his reserve, or anybody's reserve, can be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking, my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for another interest in the affair. 'When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who were still staying at Pemberley but it was agreed that he should be in London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were then to receive the last finish. 'I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which you tell me is to give you great surprise I hope at least it will not afford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us and Wickham had constant admission to the house. He was exactly what he had been, when I knew him in Hertfordshire but I would not tell you how little I was satisfied with her behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not perceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most serious manner, representing to her all the wickedness of what she had done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was sometimes quite provoked, but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her. 'Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and as Lydia informed you, attended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has, in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His understanding and opinions all please me he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and that, if he marry prudently, his wife may teach him. I thought him very slyhe hardly ever mentioned your name. But slyness seems the fashion. 'Pray forgive me if I have been very presuming, or at least do not punish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little pair of ponies, would be the very thing. 'But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half hour. 'Yours, very sincerely, 'M. GARDINER. The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match, which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true! He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade, and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for herfor a woman who had already refused himas able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brotherinlaw of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had, to be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she could, perhaps, believe that remaining partiality for her might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing, to him. Oh! how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For herself she was humbled but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause of compassion and honour, he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It was hardly enough but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself. She was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by some one's approach and before she could strike into another path, she was overtaken by Wickham. 'I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister? said he, as he joined her. 'You certainly do, she replied with a smile 'but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome. 'I should be sorry indeed, if it were. We were always good friends and now we are better. 'True. Are the others coming out? 'I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that you have actually seen Pemberley. She replied in the affirmative. 'I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of me. But of course she did not mention my name to you. 'Yes, she did. 'And what did she say? 'That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid hadnot turned out well. At such a distance as that, you know, things are strangely misrepresented. 'Certainly, he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had silenced him but he soon afterwards said 'I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other several times. I wonder what he can be doing there. 'Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh, said Elizabeth. 'It must be something particular, to take him there at this time of year. 'Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I understood from the Gardiners that you had. 'Yes he introduced us to his sister. 'And do you like her? 'Very much. 'I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad you liked her. I hope she will turn out well. 'I dare say she will she has got over the most trying age. 'Did you go by the village of Kympton? 'I do not recollect that we did. 'I mention it, because it is the living which I ought to have had. A most delightful place!Excellent Parsonage House! It would have suited me in every respect. 'How should you have liked making sermons? 'Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to repinebut, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The quiet, the retirement of such a life would have answered all my ideas of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the circumstance, when you were in Kent? 'I have heard from authority, which I thought as good, that it was left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron. 'You have. Yes, there was something in that I told you so from the first, you may remember. 'I did hear, too, that there was a time, when sermonmaking was not so palatable to you as it seems to be at present that you actually declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business had been compromised accordingly. 'You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it. They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him and unwilling, for her sister's sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a goodhumoured smile 'Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind. She held out her hand he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house. Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introducing the subject of it and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet. The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at least a twelvemonth. 'Oh! my dear Lydia, she cried, 'when shall we meet again? 'Oh, lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps. 'Write to me very often, my dear. 'As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do. Mr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things. 'He is as fine a fellow, said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of the house, 'as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable soninlaw. The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days. 'I often think, said she, 'that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them. 'This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter, said Elizabeth. 'It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single. 'It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married, but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon. But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and smiled and shook her head by turns. 'Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister, (for Mrs. Phillips first brought her the news). 'Well, so much the better. Not that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure I never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what may happen? But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming? 'You may depend on it, replied the other, 'for Mrs. Nicholls was in Meryton last night I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it and she told me that it was certain true. He comes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed. Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said 'I saw you look at me today, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I should be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people's remarks. Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there with his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come without it. 'Yet it is hard, she sometimes thought, 'that this poor man cannot come to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation! I will leave him to himself. In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, more unequal, than she had often seen them. The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again. 'As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear, said Mrs. Bennet, 'you will wait on him of course. 'No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again. His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to Netherfield. ''Tis an etiquette I despise, said he. 'If he wants our society, let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back again. 'Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him. Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband's incivility though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley, in consequence of it, before they did. As the day of his arrival drew near, 'I begin to be sorry that he comes at all, said Jane to her sister. 'It would be nothing I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she says. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over! 'I wish I could say anything to comfort you, replied Elizabeth 'but it is wholly out of my power. You must feel it and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much. Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him, from her dressingroom window, enter the paddock and ride towards the house. Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the windowshe looked,she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister. 'There is a gentleman with him, mamma, said Kitty 'who can it be? 'Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose I am sure I do not know. 'La! replied Kitty, 'it looks just like that man that used to be with him before. Mr. what'shisname. That tall, proud man. 'Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him. Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves and their mother talked on, of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs. Gardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him. To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued but to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his comingat his coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered behaviour in Derbyshire. The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure. 'Let me first see how he behaves, said she 'it will then be early enough for expectation. She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the gentlemen's appearing, her colour increased yet she received them with tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance. Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as usual and, she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother's presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but not an improbable, conjecture. Bingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed, especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of her curtsey and address to his friend. Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied. Darcy, after enquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely anything. He was not seated by her perhaps that was the reason of his silence but it had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends, when he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed without bringing the sound of his voice and when occasionally, unable to resist the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often found him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but the ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when they last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being so. 'Could I expect it to be otherwise! said she. 'Yet why did he come? She was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself and to him she had hardly courage to speak. She enquired after his sister, but could do no more. 'It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away, said Mrs. Bennet. He readily agreed to it. 'I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People did say you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas but, however, I hope it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood, since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately, George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or anything. It was my brother Gardiner's drawing up too, and I wonder how he came to make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it? Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could not tell. 'It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married, continued her mother, 'but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay I do not know how long. His regiment is there for I suppose you have heard of his leaving the shire, and of his being gone into the regulars. Thank Heaven! he has some friends, though perhaps not so many as he deserves. Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually done before and she asked Bingley whether he meant to make any stay in the country at present. A few weeks, he believed. 'When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley, said her mother, 'I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the best of the covies for you. Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present as had flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be hastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant, she felt that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for moments of such painful confusion. 'The first wish of my heart, said she to herself, 'is never more to be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either one or the other again! Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing how much the beauty of her sister rekindled the admiration of her former lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He found her as handsome as she had been last year as good natured, and as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded that she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busily engaged, that she did not always know when she was silent. When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at Longbourn in a few days time. 'You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley, she added, 'for when you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see and I assure you, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your engagement. Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of his concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away. Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there that day but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year. As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits or in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that must deaden them more. Mr. Darcy's behaviour astonished and vexed her. 'Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent, said she, 'did he come at all? She could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure. 'He could be still amiable, still pleasing, to my uncle and aunt, when he was in town and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If he no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing, man! I will think no more about him. Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look, which showed her better satisfied with their visitors, than Elizabeth. 'Now, said she, 'that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly seen that, on both sides, we meet only as common and indifferent acquaintance. 'Yes, very indifferent indeed, said Elizabeth, laughingly. 'Oh, Jane, take care. 'My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak, as to be in danger now? 'I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with you as ever. They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday and Mrs. Bennet, in the meanwhile, was giving way to all the happy schemes, which the good humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour's visit, had revived. On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn and the two who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality as sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the diningroom, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take the place, which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to hesitate but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile it was decided. He placed himself by her. Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend. He bore it with noble indifference, and she would have imagined that Bingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of halflaughing alarm. His behaviour to her sister was such, during dinner time, as showed an admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth, that if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast for she was in no cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table could divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse, but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother's ungraciousness, made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth's mind and she would, at times, have given anything to be privileged to tell him that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the family. She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of bringing them together that the whole of the visit would not pass away without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation than the mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance. Anxious and uneasy, the period which passed in the drawingroom, before the gentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her uncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend. 'If he does not come to me, then, said she, 'I shall give him up for ever. The gentlemen came and she thought he looked as if he would have answered her hopes but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table, where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee, in so close a confederacy that there was not a single vacancy near her which would admit of a chair. And on the gentlemen's approaching, one of the girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper 'The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them do we? Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with her eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee and then was enraged against herself for being so silly! 'A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex, who would not protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings! She was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup himself and she seized the opportunity of saying 'Is your sister at Pemberley still? 'Yes, she will remain there till Christmas. 'And quite alone? Have all her friends left her? 'Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarborough, these three weeks. She could think of nothing more to say but if he wished to converse with her, he might have better success. He stood by her, however, for some minutes, in silence and, at last, on the young lady's whispering to Elizabeth again, he walked away. When the teathings were removed, and the cardtables placed, the ladies all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him, when all her views were overthrown by seeing him fall a victim to her mother's rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated with the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure. They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had nothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side of the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself. Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to supper but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them. 'Well girls, said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, 'What say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turnand everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases' last week and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And what do you think she said besides? 'Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at Netherfield at last.' She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good a creature as ever livedand her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, and not at all handsome I like them prodigiously. Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits she had seen enough of Bingley's behaviour to Jane, to be convinced that she would get him at last and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at not seeing him there again the next day, to make his proposals. 'It has been a very agreeable day, said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth. 'The party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again. Elizabeth smiled. 'Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me. I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than any other man. 'You are very cruel, said her sister, 'you will not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment. 'How hard it is in some cases to be believed! 'And how impossible in others! 'But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I acknowledge? 'That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive me and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante. A few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone. His friend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably good spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them but, with many expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere. 'Next time you call, said she, 'I hope we shall be more lucky. He should be particularly happy at any time, etc. etc. and if she would give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them. 'Can you come tomorrow? Yes, he had no engagement at all for tomorrow and her invitation was accepted with alacrity. He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out 'My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is comeMr. Bingley is come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss Lizzy's hair. 'We will be down as soon as we can, said Jane 'but I dare say Kitty is forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago. 'Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick! Where is your sash, my dear? But when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down without one of her sisters. The same anxiety to get them by themselves was visible again in the evening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any impression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her and when at last Kitty did, she very innocently said, 'What is the matter mamma? What do you keep winking at me for? What am I to do? 'Nothing child, nothing. I did not wink at you. She then sat still five minutes longer but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, 'Come here, my love, I want to speak to you, took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her entreaty that she would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. Bennet halfopened the door and called out 'Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you. Elizabeth was forced to go. 'We may as well leave them by themselves you know said her mother, as soon as she was in the hall. 'Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in my dressingroom. Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained quietly in the hall, till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned into the drawingroom. Mrs. Bennet's schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was every thing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their evening party and he bore with the illjudged officiousness of the mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter. He scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper and before he went away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. Bennet's means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband. After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed between the sisters concerning Bingley but Elizabeth went to bed in the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman's concurrence. Bingley was punctual to his appointment and he and Mr. Bennet spent the morning together, as had been agreed on. The latter was much more agreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into silence and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the other had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner and in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get every body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter to write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea for as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be wanted to counteract her mother's schemes. But on returning to the drawingroom, when her letter was finished, she saw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother had been too ingenious for her. On opening the door, she perceived her sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest conversation and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would have told it all. Their situation was awkward enough but hers she thought was still worse. Not a syllable was uttered by either and Elizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as well as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and whispering a few words to her sister, ran out of the room. Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give pleasure and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest emotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world. ''Tis too much! she added, 'by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh! why is not everybody as happy? Elizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be said for the present. 'I must go instantly to my mother she cried. 'I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude or allow her to hear it from anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! how shall I bear so much happiness! She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the card party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty. Elizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of suspense and vexation. 'And this, said she, 'is the end of all his friend's anxious circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the happiest, wisest, most reasonable end! In a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her father had been short and to the purpose. 'Where is your sister? said he hastily, as he opened the door. 'With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say. He then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with great cordiality and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and superexcellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself. It was an evening of no common delight to them all the satisfaction of Miss Bennet's mind gave a glow of such sweet animation to her face, as made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent or speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, though she talked to Bingley of nothing else for half an hour and when Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed how really happy he was. Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their visitor took his leave for the night but as soon as he was gone, he turned to his daughter, and said 'Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman. Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his goodness. 'You are a good girl he replied, 'and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on so easy, that every servant will cheat you and so generous, that you will always exceed your income. 'I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in me. 'Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet, cried his wife, 'what are you talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely more. Then addressing her daughter, 'Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so happy! I am sure I shan't get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen! Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense. Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner which he thought himself obliged to accept. Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister for while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on anyone else but she found herself considerably useful to both of them in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. 'He has made me so happy, said she, one evening, 'by telling me that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible. 'I suspected as much, replied Elizabeth. 'But how did he account for it? 'It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again though we can never be what we once were to each other. 'That is the most unforgiving speech, said Elizabeth, 'that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard. 'Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again! 'He made a little mistake to be sure but it is to the credit of his modesty. This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. 'I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed! cried Jane. 'Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another man for you! 'If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time. The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Phillips, and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the diningroom, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a carriage and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh. They were of course all intending to be surprised but their astonishment was beyond their expectation and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt. She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made. Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth, 'I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your mother. Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. 'And that I suppose is one of your sisters. 'Yes, madam, said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to Lady Catherine. 'She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family. 'You have a very small park here, returned Lady Catherine after a short silence. 'It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's. 'This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer the windows are full west. Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then added 'May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well. 'Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last. Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating anything and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth, 'Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company. 'Go, my dear, cried her mother, 'and show her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage. Elizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the diningparlour and drawingroom, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on. Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her waitingwoman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable. 'How could I ever think her like her nephew? said she, as she looked in her face. As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following manner 'You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come. Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment. 'Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here. 'Miss Bennet, replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, 'you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you. 'If you believed it impossible to be true, said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, 'I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it? 'At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted. 'Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family, said Elizabeth coolly, 'will be rather a confirmation of it if, indeed, such a report is in existence. 'If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad? 'I never heard that it was. 'And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it? 'I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer. 'This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage? 'Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible. 'It ought to be so it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in. 'If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it. 'Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns. 'But you are not entitled to know mine nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit. 'Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say? 'Only this that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me. Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied 'The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin? 'Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him? 'Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace your name will never even be mentioned by any of us. 'These are heavy misfortunes, replied Elizabeth. 'But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine. 'Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment. 'That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable but it will have no effect on me. 'I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line and, on the father's, from respectable, honourable, and ancientthough untitledfamilies. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up. 'In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman I am a gentleman's daughter so far we are equal. 'True. You are a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition. 'Whatever my connections may be, said Elizabeth, 'if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you. 'Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him? Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment's deliberation 'I am not. Lady Catherine seemed pleased. 'And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement? 'I will make no promise of the kind. 'Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require. 'And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter but would my giving you the wishedfor promise make their marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was illjudged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject. 'Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement. I know it all that the young man's marrying her was a patchedup business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, who is the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted? 'You can now have nothing further to say, she resentfully answered. 'You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house. And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned back. Her ladyship was highly incensed. 'You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody? 'Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments. 'You are then resolved to have him? 'I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me. 'It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world. 'Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude, replied Elizabeth, 'have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concernand the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn. 'And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable but, depend upon it, I will carry my point. In this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added, 'I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased. Elizabeth made no answer and without attempting to persuade her ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother impatiently met her at the door of the dressingroom, to ask why Lady Catherine would not come in again and rest herself. 'She did not choose it, said her daughter, 'she would go. 'She is a very finelooking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy? Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible. The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw Elizabeth into, could not be easily overcome nor could she, for many hours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine, it appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings, for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy. It was a rational scheme, to be sure! but from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine till she recollected that his being the intimate friend of Bingley, and her being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply the idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours at Lucas Lodge, therefore (for through their communication with the Collinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine), had only set that down as almost certain and immediate, which she had looked forward to as possible at some future time. In revolving Lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate an application to her nephew and how he might take a similar representation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose that he thought much higher of her ladyship than she could do and it was certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with one, whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning. If he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady Catherine might see him in her way through town and his engagement to Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way. 'If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his friend within a few days, she added, 'I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all. The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had been, was very great but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity and Elizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject. The next morning, as she was going downstairs, she was met by her father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand. 'Lizzy, said he, 'I was going to look for you come into my room. She followed him thither and her curiosity to know what he had to tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner connected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it might be from Lady Catherine and she anticipated with dismay all the consequent explanations. She followed her father to the fire place, and they both sat down. He then said, 'I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its contents. I did not know before, that I had two daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest. The colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to herself when her father continued 'You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these but I think I may defy even your sagacity, to discover the name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins. 'From Mr. Collins! and what can he have to say? 'Something very much to the purpose of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the goodnatured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience, by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself, is as follows 'Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.' 'Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? 'This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of mortal can most desire,splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.' 'Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out ''My motive for cautioning you is as follows. We have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.' 'Mr. Darcy, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! It is admirable! Elizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force one most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her. 'Are you not diverted? 'Oh! yes. Pray read on. ''After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion when it became apparent, that on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.' Mr. Collins moreover adds, 'I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their living together before the marriage took place should be so generally known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them, as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.' That is his notion of Christian forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his expectation of a young olivebranch. But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn? 'Oh! cried Elizabeth, 'I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange! 'Yesthat is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing but his perfect indifference, and your pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my soninlaw. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent? To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh and as it had been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference, and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of his seeing too little, she might have fancied too much. Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's visit. The gentlemen arrived early and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking Mary could never spare time but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution and perhaps he might be doing the same. They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she immediately said 'Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express. 'I am sorry, exceedingly sorry, replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, 'that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted. 'You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them. 'If you will thank me, he replied, 'let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you. Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, 'You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever. Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable. They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter which, in her ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise. 'It taught me to hope, said he, 'as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that, had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly. Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, 'Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations. 'What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were illfounded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence. 'We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening, said Elizabeth. 'The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in civility. 'I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget 'had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured methough it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice. 'I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way. 'I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me. 'Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it. Darcy mentioned his letter. 'Did it, said he, 'did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents? She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed. 'I knew, said he, 'that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me. 'The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies. 'When I wrote that letter, replied Darcy, 'I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit. 'The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. 'I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing to care for none beyond my own family circle to think meanly of all the rest of the world to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased. 'Had you then persuaded yourself that I should? 'Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses. 'My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after that evening? 'Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction. 'I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming? 'No indeed I felt nothing but surprise. 'Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due. 'My object then, replied Darcy, 'was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you. He then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption which naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend. She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each, to be dwelt on farther. After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home. 'What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane! was a wonder which introduced the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with their engagement his friend had given him the earliest information of it. 'I must ask whether you were surprised? said Elizabeth. 'Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen. 'That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much. And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case. 'On the evening before my going to London, said he, 'I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together. Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend. 'Did you speak from your own observation, said she, 'when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring? 'From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made here and I was convinced of her affection. 'And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him. 'It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now. Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend so easily guided that his worth was invaluable but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted. 'My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to? was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. The evening passed quietly, unmarked by anything extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so for, besides the immediate embarrassment, there were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known she was aware that no one liked him but Jane and even feared that with the others it was a dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away. At night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far from Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here. 'You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be!engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no, you shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible. 'This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you and I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged. Jane looked at her doubtingly. 'Oh, Lizzy! it cannot be. I know how much you dislike him. 'You know nothing of the matter. That is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself. Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more seriously assured her of its truth. 'Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you, cried Jane. 'My dear, dear Lizzy, I wouldI do congratulate youbut are you certain? forgive the questionare you quite certain that you can be happy with him? 'There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother? 'Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do? 'Oh, yes! You will only think I feel more than I ought to do, when I tell you all. 'What do you mean? 'Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am afraid you will be angry. 'My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him? 'It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley. Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing further to wish. 'Now I am quite happy, said she, 'for you will be as happy as myself. I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him but now, as Bingley's friend and your husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know of it to another, not to you. Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling to mention Bingley and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made her equally avoid the name of his friend. But now she would no longer conceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged, and half the night spent in conversation. 'Good gracious! cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next morning, 'if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here? I had no notion but he would go ashooting, or something or other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him? Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's way. Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet. As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information and he soon afterwards said aloud, 'Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again today? 'I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty, said Mrs. Bennet, 'to walk to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has never seen the view. 'It may do very well for the others, replied Mr. Bingley 'but I am sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty? Kitty owned that she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying 'I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it it is all for Jane's sake, you know and there is no occasion for talking to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to inconvenience. During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be asked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother would take it sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit to her sense and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her disapprobation. In the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was extreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy and that it should be through her meansthat she, his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of herwas a wretched reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty and, while pretending to admire her work said in a whisper, 'Go to your father, he wants you in the library. She was gone directly. Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious. 'Lizzy, said he, 'what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him? How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy. 'Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy? 'Have you any other objection, said Elizabeth, 'than your belief of my indifference? 'None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man but this would be nothing if you really liked him. 'I do, I do like him, she replied, with tears in her eyes, 'I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms. 'Lizzy, said her father, 'I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse anything, which he condescended to ask. I now give it to you, if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about. Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply and at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months' suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match. 'Well, my dear, said he, when she ceased speaking, 'I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy. To complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment. 'This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble and economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and would have paid him but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own way. I shall offer to pay him tomorrow he will rant and storm about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter. He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading Mr. Collins's letter and after laughing at her some time, allowed her at last to gosaying, as she quitted the room, 'If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure. Elizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight and, after half an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join the others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away there was no longer anything material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity would come in time. When her mother went up to her dressingroom at night, she followed her, and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes that she could comprehend what she heard though not in general backward to credit what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself. 'Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pinmoney, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane's is nothing to itnothing at all. I am so pleasedso happy. Such a charming man!so handsome! so tall!Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted. This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted and Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, her mother followed her. 'My dearest child, she cried, 'I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a Lord! And a special licence. You must and shall be married by a special licence. But my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, that I may have it tomorrow. This was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman himself might be and Elizabeth found that, though in the certain possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations' consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow passed off much better than she expected for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood in such awe of her intended soninlaw that she ventured not to speak to him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her deference for his opinion. Elizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get acquainted with him and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising every hour in his esteem. 'I admire all my three sonsinlaw highly, said he. 'Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane's. Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin? said she. 'I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning but what could set you off in the first place? 'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun. 'My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my mannersmy behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere did you admire me for my impertinence? 'For the liveliness of your mind, I did. 'You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less. The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them. Had you not been really amiable, you would have hated me for it but in spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just and in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you. ThereI have saved you the trouble of accounting for it and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of mebut nobody thinks of that when they fall in love. 'Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane while she was ill at Netherfield? 'Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not care about me? 'Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement. 'But I was embarrassed. 'And so was I. 'You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner. 'A man who had felt less, might. 'How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you would have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when you would have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect. Too much, I am afraid for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the subject. This will never do. 'You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing. 'Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy, for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed? or had you intended any more serious consequence? 'My real purpose was to see you, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to myself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley, and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made. 'Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to befall her? 'I am more likely to want time than courage, Elizabeth. But it ought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be done directly. 'And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected. From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy had been overrated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's long letter but now, having that to communicate which she knew would be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as follows 'I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars but to say the truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. But now suppose as much as you choose give a loose rein to your fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again, for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas. Yours, etc. Mr. Darcy's letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style and still different from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in reply to his last. 'Dear Sir, 'I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon be the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can. But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give. 'Yours sincerely, etc. Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was affected and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved. The joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information, was as sincere as her brother's in sending it. Four sides of paper were insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of being loved by her sister. Before any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations to Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the Collinses were come themselves to Lucas Lodge. The reason of this sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered so exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew's letter, that Charlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till the storm was blown over. At such a moment, the arrival of her friend was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of her husband. He bore it, however, with admirable calmness. He could even listen to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away the brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all meeting frequently at St. James's, with very decent composure. If he did shrug his shoulders, it was not till Sir William was out of sight. Mrs. Phillips's vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his forbearance and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification and though the uncomfortable feelings arising from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it added to the hope of the future and she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley. Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, wellinformed woman for the rest of her life though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly. Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected. Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to his easy temper, or her affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other. Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid. From the further disadvantage of Lydia's society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going. Mary was the only daughter who remained at home and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance. As for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from the marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude and falsehood had before been unknown to her and in spite of every thing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on to make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received from Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least, if not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this effect 'My dear Lizzy, 'I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not. 'Yours, etc. As it happened that Elizabeth had much rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference hers lasted a little longer and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her. Though Darcy could never receive him at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth's sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone. Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth. Pemberley was now Georgiana's home and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive, manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way. By Elizabeth's instructions, she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself. Lady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character in her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion, he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation and, after a little further resistance on the part of his aunt, her resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself and she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city. With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.
A Millennium Fulcrum Edition produced in  by Duncan Research. Note that while a copyright was initially claimed for the labor involved in digitization, that copyright claim is not consistent with current copyright requirements. This text, which matches the  original publication, is in the public domain in the US. All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever! This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end. Of course they lived at , and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the righthand corner. The way Mr. Darling won her was this the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door. Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him. Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs. Darling's guesses. Wendy came first, then John, then Michael. For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again. 'Now don't interrupt, he would beg of her. 'I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my chequebook makes eight nine sevenwho is that moving?eight nine seven, dot and carry sevendon't speak, my ownand the pound you lent to that man who came to the doorquiet, childdot and carry childthere, you've done it!did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine seven? 'Of course we can, George, she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's favour, and he was really the grander character of the two. 'Remember mumps, he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went again. 'Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty shillingsdon't speakmeasles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen sixdon't waggle your fingerwhoopingcough, say fifteen shillingsand so on it went, and it added up differently each time but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one. There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak but both were kept, and soon, you might have seen the three of them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by their nurse. Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough she was at bathtime, and up at any moment of the night if one of her charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs stocking around your throat. She believed to her last day in oldfashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of contempt over all this newfangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them back into line if they strayed. On John's footer days she never once forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if they did come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John's hair. No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbours talked. He had his position in the city to consider. Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that she did not admire him. 'I know she admires you tremendously, George, Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps! And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan. Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakishlooking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninetynine, threepence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still. Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents, but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more. Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and tablecloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real. That is why there are nightlights. Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance. 'Yes, he is rather cocky, Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her. 'But who is he, my pet? 'He is Peter Pan, you know, mother. At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person. 'Besides, she said to Wendy, 'he would be grown up by this time. 'Oh no, he isn't grown up, Wendy assured her confidently, 'and he is just my size. She meant that he was her size in both mind and body she didn't know how she knew, she just knew it. Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled poohpooh. 'Mark my words, he said, 'it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over. But it would not blow over and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs. Darling quite a shock. Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant smile 'I do believe it is that Peter again! 'Whatever do you mean, Wendy? 'It is so naughty of him not to wipe his feet, Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child. She explained in quite a matteroffact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn't know how she knew, she just knew. 'What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without knocking. 'I think he comes in by the window, she said. 'My love, it is three floors up. 'Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother? It was quite true the leaves had been found very near the window. Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming. 'My child, the mother cried, 'why did you not tell me of this before? 'I forgot, said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast. Oh, surely she must have been dreaming. But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined them very carefully they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor, peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without so much as a spout to climb up by. Certainly Wendy had been dreaming. But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be said to have begun. On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It happened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away into the land of sleep. All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew. It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three nightlights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the fire. There should have been a fourth nightlight. While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through the gap. The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist, which darted about the room like a living thing and I think it must have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling. She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grownup, he gnashed the little pearls at her. Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened, and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling screamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed, and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was not there and she looked up, and in the black night she could see nothing but what she thought was a shooting star. She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get out slam went the window and snapped it off. You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was quite the ordinary kind. Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She hung it out at the window, meaning 'He is sure to come back for it let us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children. But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the window, it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up winter greatcoats for John and Michael, with a wet towel around his head to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him besides, she knew exactly what he would say 'It all comes of having a dog for a nurse. She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer, until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me! The opportunity came a week later, on that nevertobeforgotten Friday. Of course it was a Friday. 'I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday, she used to say afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other side of her, holding her hand. 'No, no, Mr. Darling always said, 'I am responsible for it all. I, George Darling, did it. Mea culpa, mea culpa. He had had a classical education. They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till every detail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the other side like the faces on a bad coinage. 'If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at , Mrs. Darling said. 'If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl, said Mr. Darling. 'If only I had pretended to like the medicine, was what Nana's wet eyes said. 'My liking for parties, George. 'My fatal gift of humour, dearest. 'My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress. Then one or more of them would break down altogether Nana at the thought, 'It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for a nurse. Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to Nana's eyes. 'That fiend! Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter there was something in the righthand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names. They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully, so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the water for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on her back. 'I won't go to bed, he had shouted, like one who still believed that he had the last word on the subject, 'I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell you I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't! Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white eveninggown. She had dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her eveninggown, with the necklace George had given her. She was wearing Wendy's bracelet on her arm she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy loved to lend her bracelet to her mother. She had found her two older children playing at being herself and father on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying 'I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother, in just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real occasion. Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have done. Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also, but John said brutally that they did not want any more. Michael had nearly cried. 'Nobody wants me, he said, and of course the lady in the eveningdress could not stand that. 'I do, she said, 'I so want a third child. 'Boy or girl? asked Michael, not too hopefully. 'Boy. Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be Michael's last night in the nursery. They go on with their recollections. 'It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it? Mr. Darling would say, scorning himself and indeed he had been like a tornado. Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing for the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the thing yielded to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and used a madeup tie. This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand. 'Why, what is the matter, father dear? 'Matter! he yelled he really yelled. 'This tie, it will not tie. He became dangerously sarcastic. 'Not round my neck! Round the bedpost! Oh yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bedpost, but round my neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused! He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on sternly, 'I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner tonight, and if I don't go out to dinner tonight, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets. Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. 'Let me try, dear, she said, and indeed that was what he had come to ask her to do, and with her nice cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to see their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able to do it so easily, but Mr. Darling had far too fine a nature for that he thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in another moment was dancing round the room with Michael on his back. 'How wildly we romped! says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it. 'Our last romp! Mr. Darling groaned. 'O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me, 'How did you get to know me, mother?' 'I remember! 'They were rather sweet, don't you think, George? 'And they were ours, ours! and now they are gone. The romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr. Darling collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. They were not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had with braid on them, and he had had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming. Of course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again about its being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse. 'George, Nana is a treasure. 'No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the children as puppies. 'Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls. 'I wonder, Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, 'I wonder. It was an opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he poohpoohed the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the shadow. 'It is nobody I know, he said, examining it carefully, 'but it does look a scoundrel. 'We were still discussing it, you remember, says Mr. Darling, 'when Nana came in with Michael's medicine. You will never carry the bottle in your mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault. Strong man though he was, there is no doubt that he had behaved rather foolishly over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for thinking that all his life he had taken medicine boldly, and so now, when Michael dodged the spoon in Nana's mouth, he had said reprovingly, 'Be a man, Michael. 'Won't won't! Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to get a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling thought this showed want of firmness. 'Mother, don't pamper him, he called after her. 'Michael, when I was your age I took medicine without a murmur. I said, 'Thank you, kind parents, for giving me bottles to make me well.' He really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her nightgown, believed it also, and she said, to encourage Michael, 'That medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn't it? 'Ever so much nastier, Mr. Darling said bravely, 'and I would take it now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't lost the bottle. He had not exactly lost it he had climbed in the dead of night to the top of the wardrobe and hidden it there. What he did not know was that the faithful Liza had found it, and put it back on his washstand. 'I know where it is, father, Wendy cried, always glad to be of service. 'I'll bring it, and she was off before he could stop her. Immediately his spirits sank in the strangest way. 'John, he said, shuddering, 'it's most beastly stuff. It's that nasty, sticky, sweet kind. 'It will soon be over, father, John said cheerily, and then in rushed Wendy with the medicine in a glass. 'I have been as quick as I could, she panted. 'You have been wonderfully quick, her father retorted, with a vindictive politeness that was quite thrown away upon her. 'Michael first, he said doggedly. 'Father first, said Michael, who was of a suspicious nature. 'I shall be sick, you know, Mr. Darling said threateningly. 'Come on, father, said John. 'Hold your tongue, John, his father rapped out. Wendy was quite puzzled. 'I thought you took it quite easily, father. 'That is not the point, he retorted. 'The point is, that there is more in my glass than in Michael's spoon. His proud heart was nearly bursting. 'And it isn't fair I would say it though it were with my last breath it isn't fair. 'Father, I am waiting, said Michael coldly. 'It's all very well to say you are waiting so am I waiting. 'Father's a cowardly custard. 'So are you a cowardly custard. 'I'm not frightened. 'Neither am I frightened. 'Well, then, take it. 'Well, then, you take it. Wendy had a splendid idea. 'Why not both take it at the same time? 'Certainly, said Mr. Darling. 'Are you ready, Michael? Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took his medicine, but Mr. Darling slipped his behind his back. There was a yell of rage from Michael, and 'O father! Wendy exclaimed. 'What do you mean by 'O father'? Mr. Darling demanded. 'Stop that row, Michael. I meant to take mine, but II missed it. It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him. 'Look here, all of you, he said entreatingly, as soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom. 'I have just thought of a splendid joke. I shall pour my medicine into Nana's bowl, and she will drink it, thinking it is milk! It was the colour of milk but the children did not have their father's sense of humour, and they looked at him reproachfully as he poured the medicine into Nana's bowl. 'What fun! he said doubtfully, and they did not dare expose him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned. 'Nana, good dog, he said, patting her, 'I have put a little milk into your bowl, Nana. Nana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began lapping it. Then she gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an angry look she showed him the great red tear that makes us so sorry for noble dogs, and crept into her kennel. Mr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he would not give in. In a horrid silence Mrs. Darling smelt the bowl. 'O George, she said, 'it's your medicine! 'It was only a joke, he roared, while she comforted her boys, and Wendy hugged Nana. 'Much good, he said bitterly, 'my wearing myself to the bone trying to be funny in this house. And still Wendy hugged Nana. 'That's right, he shouted. 'Coddle her! Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the breadwinner, why should I be coddledwhy, why, why! 'George, Mrs. Darling entreated him, 'not so loud the servants will hear you. Somehow they had got into the way of calling Liza the servants. 'Let them! he answered recklessly. 'Bring in the whole world. But I refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for an hour longer. The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he waved her back. He felt he was a strong man again. 'In vain, in vain, he cried 'the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied up this instant. 'George, George, Mrs. Darling whispered, 'remember what I told you about that boy. Alas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who was master in that house, and when commands would not draw Nana from the kennel, he lured her out of it with honeyed words, and seizing her roughly, dragged her from the nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for admiration. When he had tied her up in the backyard, the wretched father went and sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes. In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in unwonted silence and lit their nightlights. They could hear Nana barking, and John whimpered, 'It is because he is chaining her up in the yard, but Wendy was wiser. 'That is not Nana's unhappy bark, she said, little guessing what was about to happen 'that is her bark when she smells danger. Danger! 'Are you sure, Wendy? 'Oh, yes. Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made her cry, 'Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party tonight! Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he asked, 'Can anything harm us, mother, after the nightlights are lit? 'Nothing, precious, she said 'they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children. She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little Michael flung his arms round her. 'Mother, he cried, 'I'm glad of you. They were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time. No.  was only a few yards distant, but there had been a slight fall of snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their way over it deftly not to soil their shoes. They were already the only persons in the street, and all the stars were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassyeyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder. They are not really friendly to Peter, who had a mischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out but they are so fond of fun that they were on his side tonight, and anxious to get the grownups out of the way. So as soon as the door of  closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a commotion in the firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed out 'Now, Peter! For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the nightlights by the beds of the three children continued to burn clearly. They were awfully nice little nightlights, and one cannot help wishing that they could have kept awake to see Peter but Wendy's light blinked and gave such a yawn that the other two yawned also, and before they could close their mouths all the three went out. There was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than the nightlights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it had been in all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged the wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a light it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand, but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to embonpoint. A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy dust. 'Tinker Bell, he called softly, after making sure that the children were asleep, 'Tink, where are you? She was in a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely she had never been in a jug before. 'Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my shadow? The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once before. Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to the floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer. If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water, and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried. His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor she was only pleasantly interested. 'Boy, she said courteously, 'why are you crying? Peter could be exceeding polite also, having learned the grand manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed. 'What's your name? he asked. 'Wendy Moira Angela Darling, she replied with some satisfaction. 'What is your name? 'Peter Pan. She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a comparatively short name. 'Is that all? 'Yes, he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a shortish name. 'I'm so sorry, said Wendy Moira Angela. 'It doesn't matter, Peter gulped. She asked where he lived. 'Second to the right, said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning. 'What a funny address! Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a funny address. 'No, it isn't, he said. 'I mean, Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, 'is that what they put on the letters? He wished she had not mentioned letters. 'Don't get any letters, he said contemptuously. 'But your mother gets letters? 'Don't have a mother, he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very overrated persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a tragedy. 'O Peter, no wonder you were crying, she said, and got out of bed and ran to him. 'I wasn't crying about mothers, he said rather indignantly. 'I was crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't crying. 'It has come off? 'Yes. Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she was frightfully sorry for Peter. 'How awful! she said, but she could not help smiling when she saw that he had been trying to stick it on with soap. How exactly like a boy! Fortunately she knew at once what to do. 'It must be sewn on, she said, just a little patronisingly. 'What's sewn? he asked. 'You're dreadfully ignorant. 'No, I'm not. But she was exulting in his ignorance. 'I shall sew it on for you, my little man, she said, though he was tall as herself, and she got out her housewife, and sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot. 'I daresay it will hurt a little, she warned him. 'Oh, I shan't cry, said Peter, who was already of the opinion that he had never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth and did not cry, and soon his shadow was behaving properly, though still a little creased. 'Perhaps I should have ironed it, Wendy said thoughtfully, but Peter, boylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now jumping about in the wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss to Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself. 'How clever I am! he crowed rapturously, 'oh, the cleverness of me! It is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of Peter was one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier boy. But for the moment Wendy was shocked. 'You conceit, she exclaimed, with frightful sarcasm 'of course I did nothing! 'You did a little, Peter said carelessly, and continued to dance. 'A little! she replied with hauteur 'if I am no use I can at least withdraw, and she sprang in the most dignified way into bed and covered her face with the blankets. To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot. 'Wendy, he said, 'don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with myself. Still she would not look up, though she was listening eagerly. 'Wendy, he continued, in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist, 'Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys. Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many inches, and she peeped out of the bedclothes. 'Do you really think so, Peter? 'Yes, I do. 'I think it's perfectly sweet of you, she declared, 'and I'll get up again, and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly. 'Surely you know what a kiss is? she asked, aghast. 'I shall know when you give it to me, he replied stiffly, and not to hurt his feeling she gave him a thimble. 'Now, said he, 'shall I give you a kiss? and she replied with a slight primness, 'If you please. She made herself rather cheap by inclining her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her hand, so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain around her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to save her life. When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask each other's age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to ask him it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings of England. 'I don't know, he replied uneasily, 'but I am quite young. He really knew nothing about it, he had merely suspicions, but he said at a venture, 'Wendy, I ran away the day I was born. Wendy was quite surprised, but interested and she indicated in the charming drawingroom manner, by a touch on her nightgown, that he could sit nearer her. 'It was because I heard father and mother, he explained in a low voice, 'talking about what I was to be when I became a man. He was extraordinarily agitated now. 'I don't want ever to be a man, he said with passion. 'I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the fairies. She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and he thought it was because he had run away, but it was really because he knew fairies. Wendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as quite delightful. She poured out questions about them, to his surprise, for they were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on, and indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding. Still, he liked them on the whole, and he told her about the beginning of fairies. 'You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. Tedious talk this, but being a stayathome she liked it. 'And so, he went on goodnaturedly, 'there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl. 'Ought to be? Isn't there? 'No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead. Really, he thought they had now talked enough about fairies, and it struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. 'I can't think where she has gone to, he said, rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's heart went flutter with a sudden thrill. 'Peter, she cried, clutching him, 'you don't mean to tell me that there is a fairy in this room! 'She was here just now, he said a little impatiently. 'You don't hear her, do you? and they both listened. 'The only sound I hear, said Wendy, 'is like a tinkle of bells. 'Well, that's Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I hear her too. The sound came from the chest of drawers, and Peter made a merry face. No one could ever look quite so merry as Peter, and the loveliest of gurgles was his laugh. He had his first laugh still. 'Wendy, he whispered gleefully, 'I do believe I shut her up in the drawer! He let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery screaming with fury. 'You shouldn't say such things, Peter retorted. 'Of course I'm very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer? Wendy was not listening to him. 'O Peter, she cried, 'if she would only stand still and let me see her! 'They hardly ever stand still, he said, but for one moment Wendy saw the romantic figure come to rest on the cuckoo clock. 'O the lovely! she cried, though Tink's face was still distorted with passion. 'Tink, said Peter amiably, 'this lady says she wishes you were her fairy. Tinker Bell answered insolently. 'What does she say, Peter? He had to translate. 'She is not very polite. She says you are a great ugly girl, and that she is my fairy. He tried to argue with Tink. 'You know you can't be my fairy, Tink, because I am an gentleman and you are a lady. To this Tink replied in these words, 'You silly ass, and disappeared into the bathroom. 'She is quite a common fairy, Peter explained apologetically, 'she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles. They were together in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him with more questions. 'If you don't live in Kensington Gardens now 'Sometimes I do still. 'But where do you live mostly now? 'With the lost boys. 'Who are they? 'They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm captain. 'What fun it must be! 'Yes, said cunning Peter, 'but we are rather lonely. You see we have no female companionship. 'Are none of the others girls? 'Oh, no girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams. This flattered Wendy immensely. 'I think, she said, 'it is perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls John there just despises us. For reply Peter rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets and all one kick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for a first meeting, and she told him with spirit that he was not captain in her house. However, John continued to sleep so placidly on the floor that she allowed him to remain there. 'And I know you meant to be kind, she said, relenting, 'so you may give me a kiss. For the moment she had forgotten his ignorance about kisses. 'I thought you would want it back, he said a little bitterly, and offered to return her the thimble. 'Oh dear, said the nice Wendy, 'I don't mean a kiss, I mean a thimble. 'What's that? 'It's like this. She kissed him. 'Funny! said Peter gravely. 'Now shall I give you a thimble? 'If you wish to, said Wendy, keeping her head erect this time. Peter thimbled her, and almost immediately she screeched. 'What is it, Wendy? 'It was exactly as if someone were pulling my hair. 'That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before. And indeed Tink was darting about again, using offensive language. 'She says she will do that to you, Wendy, every time I give you a thimble. 'But why? 'Why, Tink? Again Tink replied, 'You silly ass. Peter could not understand why, but Wendy understood, and she was just slightly disappointed when he admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen to stories. 'You see, I don't know any stories. None of the lost boys knows any stories. 'How perfectly awful, Wendy said. 'Do you know, Peter asked 'why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories. O Wendy, your mother was telling you such a lovely story. 'Which story was it? 'About the prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the glass slipper. 'Peter, said Wendy excitedly, 'that was Cinderella, and he found her, and they lived happily ever after. Peter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they had been sitting, and hurried to the window. 'Where are you going? she cried with misgiving. 'To tell the other boys. 'Don't go Peter, she entreated, 'I know such lots of stories. Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she who first tempted him. He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to have alarmed her, but did not. 'Oh, the stories I could tell to the boys! she cried, and then Peter gripped her and began to draw her toward the window. 'Let me go! she ordered him. 'Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys. Of course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said, 'Oh dear, I can't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly. 'I'll teach you. 'Oh, how lovely to fly. 'I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go. 'Oo! she exclaimed rapturously. 'Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars. 'Oo! 'And, Wendy, there are mermaids. 'Mermaids! With tails? 'Such long tails. 'Oh, cried Wendy, 'to see a mermaid! He had become frightfully cunning. 'Wendy, he said, 'how we should all respect you. She was wriggling her body in distress. It was quite as if she were trying to remain on the nursery floor. But he had no pity for her. 'Wendy, he said, the sly one, 'you could tuck us in at night. 'Oo! 'None of us has ever been tucked in at night. 'Oo, and her arms went out to him. 'And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has any pockets. How could she resist. 'Of course it's awfully fascinating! she cried. 'Peter, would you teach John and Michael to fly too? 'If you like, he said indifferently, and she ran to John and Michael and shook them. 'Wake up, she cried, 'Peter Pan has come and he is to teach us to fly. John rubbed his eyes. 'Then I shall get up, he said. Of course he was on the floor already. 'Hallo, he said, 'I am up! Michael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with six blades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed silence. Their faces assumed the awful craftiness of children listening for sounds from the grownup world. All was as still as salt. Then everything was right. No, stop! Everything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking distressfully all the evening, was quiet now. It was her silence they had heard. 'Out with the light! Hide! Quick! cried John, taking command for the only time throughout the whole adventure. And thus when Liza entered, holding Nana, the nursery seemed quite its old self, very dark, and you would have sworn you heard its three wicked inmates breathing angelically as they slept. They were really doing it artfully from behind the window curtains. Liza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the Christmas puddings in the kitchen, and had been drawn from them, with a raisin still on her cheek, by Nana's absurd suspicions. She thought the best way of getting a little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment, but in custody of course. 'There, you suspicious brute, she said, not sorry that Nana was in disgrace. 'They are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing. Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she tried to drag herself out of Liza's clutches. But Liza was dense. 'No more of it, Nana, she said sternly, pulling her out of the room. 'I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh, won't master whip you, just. She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark? Bring master and missus home from the party! Why, that was just what she wanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as her charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst into the diningroom of  and flung up her paws to heaven, her most expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without a goodbye to their hostess they rushed into the street. But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing behind the curtains, and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes. We now return to the nursery. 'It's all right, John announced, emerging from his hidingplace. 'I say, Peter, can you really fly? Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew around the room, taking the mantelpiece on the way. 'How topping! said John and Michael. 'How sweet! cried Wendy. 'Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet! said Peter, forgetting his manners again. It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up. 'I say, how do you do it? asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a practical boy. 'You just think lovely wonderful thoughts, Peter explained, 'and they lift you up in the air. He showed them again. 'You're so nippy at it, John said, 'couldn't you do it very slowly once? Peter did it both slowly and quickly. 'I've got it now, Wendy! cried John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch, though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not know A from Z. Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we have mentioned, one of his hands was messy with it, and he blew some on each of them, with the most superb results. 'Now just wiggle your shoulders this way, he said, 'and let go. They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He did not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne across the room. 'I flewed! he screamed while still in midair. John let go and met Wendy near the bathroom. 'Oh, lovely! 'Oh, ripping! 'Look at me! 'Look at me! 'Look at me! They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is almost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first, but had to desist, Tink was so indignant. Up and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy's word. 'I say, cried John, 'why shouldn't we all go out? Of course it was to this that Peter had been luring them. Michael was ready he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion miles. But Wendy hesitated. 'Mermaids! said Peter again. 'Oo! 'And there are pirates. 'Pirates, cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, 'let us go at once. It was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana out of . They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the nursery window and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze with light, and most heartgripping sight of all, they could see in shadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling round and round, not on the floor but in the air. Not three figures, four! In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have rushed upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed him to go softly. She even tried to make her heart go softly. Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them, and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story. On the other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it will all come right in the end. They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the little stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window open, and that smallest star of all called out 'Cave, Peter! Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose. 'Come, he cried imperiously, and soared out at once into the night, followed by John and Michael and Wendy. Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The birds were flown. 'Second to the right, and straight on till morning. That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head. At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the delights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or any other tall objects on the way that took their fancy. John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start. They recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had thought themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room. Not long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their second sea and their third night. Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold and again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they merely pretending, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding them? His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable for humans and snatch it from them then the birds would follow and snatch it back and they would all go chasing each other gaily for miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of goodwill. But Wendy noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that there are other ways. Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy and that was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful thing was that Peter thought this funny. 'There he goes again! he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly dropped like a stone. 'Save him, save him! cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel sea far below. Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way he did it but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life. Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility that the next time you fell he would let you go. He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back and floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light that if you got behind him and blew he went faster. 'Do be more polite to him, Wendy whispered to John, when they were playing 'Follow my Leader. 'Then tell him to stop showing off, said John. When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and touch each shark's tail in passing, just as in the street you may run your finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this with much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially as he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed. 'You must be nice to him, Wendy impressed on her brothers. 'What could we do if he were to leave us! 'We could go back, Michael said. 'How could we ever find our way back without him? 'Well, then, we could go on, said John. 'That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don't know how to stop. This was true, Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop. John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come back to their own window. 'And who is to get food for us, John? 'I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly, Wendy. 'After the twentieth try, Wendy reminded him. 'And even though we became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and things if he is not near to give us a hand. Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though they still kicked far too much but if they saw a cloud in front of them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round Michael's forehead by this time. Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would suddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no share. He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he would come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him, and yet not be able to say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid. 'And if he forgets them so quickly, Wendy argued, 'how can we expect that he will go on remembering us? Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on once even she had to call him by name. 'I'm Wendy, she said agitatedly. He was very sorry. 'I say, Wendy, he whispered to her, 'always if you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying 'I'm Wendy,' and then I'll remember. Of course this was rather unsatisfactory. However, to make amends he showed them how to lie out flat on a strong wind that was going their way, and this was such a pleasant change that they tried it several times and found that they could sleep thus with security. Indeed they would have slept longer, but Peter tired quickly of sleeping, and soon he would cry in his captain voice, 'We get off here. So with occasional tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland for after many moons they did reach it, and, what is more, they had been going pretty straight all the time, not perhaps so much owing to the guidance of Peter or Tink as because the island was looking for them. It is only thus that any one may sight those magic shores. 'There it is, said Peter calmly. 'Where, where? 'Where all the arrows are pointing. Indeed a million golden arrows were pointing it out to the children, all directed by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be sure of their way before leaving them for the night. Wendy and John and Michael stood on tiptoe in the air to get their first sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognized it at once, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning home for the holidays. 'John, there's the lagoon. 'Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the sand. 'I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg! 'Look, Michael, there's your cave! 'John, what's that in the brushwood? 'It's a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that's your little whelp! 'There's my boat, John, with her sides stove in! 'No, it isn't. Why, we burned your boat. 'That's her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin camp! 'Where? Show me, and I'll tell you by the way smoke curls whether they are on the warpath. 'There, just across the Mysterious River. 'I see now. Yes, they are on the warpath right enough. Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much, but if he wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand, for have I not told you that anon fear fell upon them? It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom. In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread, black shadows moved about in them, the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that you would win. You were quite glad that the nightlights were on. You even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and that the Neverland was all makebelieve. Of course the Neverland had been makebelieve in those days, but it was real now, and there were no nightlights, and it was getting darker every moment, and where was Nana? They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now. His careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle went through them every time they touched his body. They were now over the fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their feet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had become slow and laboured, exactly as if they were pushing their way through hostile forces. Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had beaten on it with his fists. 'They don't want us to land, he explained. 'Who are they? Wendy whispered, shuddering. But he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his shoulder, but now he wakened her and sent her on in front. Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently, with his hand to his ear, and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that they seemed to bore two holes to earth. Having done these things, he went on again. His courage was almost appalling. 'Would you like an adventure now, he said casually to John, 'or would you like to have your tea first? Wendy said 'tea first quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in gratitude, but the braver John hesitated. 'What kind of adventure? he asked cautiously. 'There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us, Peter told him. 'If you like, we'll go down and kill him. 'I don't see him, John said after a long pause. 'I do. 'Suppose, John said, a little huskily, 'he were to wake up. Peter spoke indignantly. 'You don't think I would kill him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I always do. 'I say! Do you kill many? 'Tons. John said 'How ripping, but decided to have tea first. He asked if there were many pirates on the island just now, and Peter said he had never known so many. 'Who is captain now? 'Hook, answered Peter, and his face became very stern as he said that hated word. 'Jas. Hook? 'Ay. Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps only, for they knew Hook's reputation. 'He was Blackbeard's bo'sun, John whispered huskily. 'He is the worst of them all. He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid. 'That's him, said Peter. 'What is he like? Is he big? 'He is not so big as he was. 'How do you mean? 'I cut off a bit of him. 'You! 'Yes, me, said Peter sharply. 'I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful. 'Oh, all right. 'But, I say, what bit? 'His right hand. 'Then he can't fight now? 'Oh, can't he just! 'Lefthander? 'He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he claws with it. 'Claws! 'I say, John, said Peter. 'Yes. 'Say, 'Ay, ay, sir.' 'Ay, ay, sir. 'There is one thing, Peter continued, 'that every boy who serves under me has to promise, and so must you. John paled. 'It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me. 'I promise, John said loyally. For the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink was flying with them, and in her light they could distinguish each other. Unfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they, and so she had to go round and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy quite liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawbacks. 'She tells me, he said, 'that the pirates sighted us before the darkness came, and got Long Tom out. 'The big gun? 'Yes. And of course they must see her light, and if they guess we are near it they are sure to let fly. 'Wendy! 'John! 'Michael! 'Tell her to go away at once, Peter, the three cried simultaneously, but he refused. 'She thinks we have lost the way, he replied stiffly, 'and she is rather frightened. You don't think I would send her away all by herself when she is frightened! For a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a loving little pinch. 'Then tell her, Wendy begged, 'to put out her light. 'She can't put it out. That is about the only thing fairies can't do. It just goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same as the stars. 'Then tell her to sleep at once, John almost ordered. 'She can't sleep except when she's sleepy. It is the only other thing fairies can't do. 'Seems to me, growled John, 'these are the only two things worth doing. Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one. 'If only one of us had a pocket, Peter said, 'we could carry her in it. However, they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a pocket between the four of them. He had a happy idea. John's hat! Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy took the hat, because John said it struck against his knee as he flew and this, as we shall see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be under an obligation to Wendy. In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in silence. It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by a distant lapping, which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at the ford, and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches of trees rubbing together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening their knives. Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was dreadful. 'If only something would make a sound! he cried. As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most tremendous crash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long Tom at them. The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes seemed to cry savagely, 'Where are they, where are they, where are they? Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of makebelieve and the same island come true. When at last the heavens were steady again, John and Michael found themselves alone in the darkness. John was treading the air mechanically, and Michael without knowing how to float was floating. 'Are you shot? John whispered tremulously. 'I haven't tried yet, Michael whispered back. We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had been carried by the wind of the shot far out to sea, while Wendy was blown upwards with no companion but Tinker Bell. It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had dropped the hat. I don't know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had planned it on the way, but she at once popped out of the hat and began to lure Wendy to her destruction. Tink was not all bad or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of Wendy. What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course understand, and I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded kind, and she flew back and forward, plainly meaning 'Follow me, and all will be well. What else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and Michael, and got only mocking echoes in reply. She did not yet know that Tink hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so, bewildered, and now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her doom. Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter. In his absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, the redskins feed heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and lost boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with the coming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are under way again if you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island seething with life. On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate. All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but tonight were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugarcane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger. They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear the skins of the bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round and furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very surefooted. The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most unfortunate of all that gallant band. He had been in fewer adventures than any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when he had stepped round the corner all would be quiet, he would take the opportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and then when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This illluck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance, but instead of souring his nature had sweetened it, so that he was quite the humblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for you tonight. Take care lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink, who is bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool, and she thinks you are the most easily tricked of the boys. 'Ware Tinker Bell. Would that he could hear us, but we are not really on the island, and he passes by, biting his knuckles. Next comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by Slightly, who cuts whistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes. Slightly is the most conceited of the boys. He thinks he remembers the days before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this has given his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth he is a pickle, and so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly, 'Stand forth the one who did this thing, that now at the command he stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not. Last come the Twins, who cannot be described because we should be sure to be describing the wrong one. Peter never quite knew what twins were, and his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know, so these two were always vague about themselves, and did their best to give satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic sort of way. The boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not a long pause, for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song 'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to, Apirating we go, And if we're parted by a shot We're sure to meet below! A more villainouslooking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock. Here, a little in advance, ever and again with his head to the ground listening, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as ornaments, is the handsome Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters of blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That gigantic black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one with which dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of the Guadjomo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same Bill Jukes who got six dozen on the Walrus from Flint before he would drop the bag of moidores and Cookson, said to be Black Murphy's brother (but this was never proved), and Gentleman Starkey, once an usher in a public school and still dainty in his ways of killing and Skylights (Morgan's Skylights) and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed, so to speak, without offence, and was the only Nonconformist in Hook's crew and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on backwards and Robt. Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian long known and feared on the Spanish Main. In the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that dark setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the SeaCook feared. He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forgetmenot, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the illfated Stuarts and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw. Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook's method. Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth. Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will win? On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the warpath, which is not visible to inexperienced eyes, come the redskins, every one of them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives, and their naked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny tribe, and not to be confused with the softerhearted Delawares or the Hurons. In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his progress. Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish, cold and amorous by turns there is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet. Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the slightest noise. The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing. The fact is that they are all a little fat just now after the heavy gorging, but in time they will work this off. For the moment, however, it constitutes their chief danger. The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession lions, tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly, all the maneaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are hanging out, they are hungry tonight. When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently. The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its pace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other. All are keeping a sharp lookout in front, but none suspects that the danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island was. The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung themselves down on the sward, close to their underground home. 'I do wish Peter would come back, every one of them said nervously, though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than their captain. 'I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates, Slightly said, in the tone that prevented his being a general favourite but perhaps some distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, 'but I wish he would come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about Cinderella. They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother must have been very like her. It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of mothers, the subject being forbidden by him as silly. 'All I remember about my mother, Nibs told them, 'is that she often said to my father, 'Oh, how I wish I had a chequebook of my own!' I don't know what a chequebook is, but I should just love to give my mother one. While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it was the grim song 'Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life, The flag o' skull and bones, A merry hour, a hempen rope, And hey for Davy Jones. At once the lost boysbut where are they? They are no longer there. Rabbits could not have disappeared more quickly. I will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has darted away to reconnoitre, they are already in their home under the ground, a very delightful residence of which we shall see a good deal presently. But how have they reached it? for there is no entrance to be seen, not so much as a large stone, which if rolled away, would disclose the mouth of a cave. Look closely, however, and you may note that there are here seven large trees, each with a hole in its hollow trunk as large as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the home under the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these many moons. Will he find it tonight? As the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted Nibs disappearing through the wood, and at once his pistol flashed out. But an iron claw gripped his shoulder. 'Captain, let go! he cried, writhing. Now for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was a black voice. 'Put back that pistol first, it said threateningly. 'It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him dead. 'Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins upon us. Do you want to lose your scalp? 'Shall I after him, Captain, asked pathetic Smee, 'and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew? Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wiggled it in the wound. One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon. 'Johnny's a silent fellow, he reminded Hook. 'Not now, Smee, Hook said darkly. 'He is only one, and I want to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them. The pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment their Captain and Smee were alone. Hook heaved a heavy sigh, and I know not why it was, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening, but there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo'sun the story of his life. He spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about Smee, who was rather stupid, did not know in the least. Anon he caught the word Peter. 'Most of all, Hook was saying passionately, 'I want their captain, Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm. He brandished the hook threateningly. 'I've waited long to shake his hand with this. Oh, I'll tear him! 'And yet, said Smee, 'I have often heard you say that hook was worth a score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses. 'Ay, the captain answered, 'if I was a mother I would pray to have my children born with this instead of that, and he cast a look of pride upon his iron hand and one of scorn upon the other. Then again he frowned. 'Peter flung my arm, he said, wincing, 'to a crocodile that happened to be passing by. 'I have often, said Smee, 'noticed your strange dread of crocodiles. 'Not of crocodiles, Hook corrected him, 'but of that one crocodile. He lowered his voice. 'It liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed me ever since, from sea to sea and from land to land, licking its lips for the rest of me. 'In a way, said Smee, 'it's sort of a compliment. 'I want no such compliments, Hook barked petulantly. 'I want Peter Pan, who first gave the brute its taste for me. He sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a quiver in his voice. 'Smee, he said huskily, 'that crocodile would have had me before this, but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick inside it, and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt. He laughed, but in a hollow way. 'Some day, said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get you. Hook wetted his dry lips. 'Ay, he said, 'that's the fear that haunts me. Since sitting down he had felt curiously warm. 'Smee, he said, 'this seat is hot. He jumped up. 'Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning. They examined the mushroom, which was of a size and solidity unknown on the mainland they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in their hands, for it had no root. Stranger still, smoke began at once to ascend. The pirates looked at each other. 'A chimney! they both exclaimed. They had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under the ground. It was the custom of the boys to stop it with a mushroom when enemies were in the neighbourhood. Not only smoke came out of it. There came also children's voices, for so safe did the boys feel in their hidingplace that they were gaily chattering. The pirates listened grimly, and then replaced the mushroom. They looked around them and noted the holes in the seven trees. 'Did you hear them say Peter Pan's from home? Smee whispered, fidgeting with Johnny Corkscrew. Hook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought, and at last a curdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee had been waiting for it. 'Unrip your plan, captain, he cried eagerly. 'To return to the ship, Hook replied slowly through his teeth, 'and cook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with green sugar on it. There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece. That shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of the Mermaids' Lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there, playing with the mermaids. They will find the cake and they will gobble it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to eat rich damp cake. He burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now, but honest laughter. 'Aha, they will die. Smee had listened with growing admiration. 'It's the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of! he cried, and in their exultation they danced and sang 'Avast, belay, when I appear, By fear they're overtook Nought's left upon your bones when you Have shaken claws with Hook. They began the verse, but they never finished it, for another sound broke in and stilled them. There was at first such a tiny sound that a leaf might have fallen on it and smothered it, but as it came nearer it was more distinct. Tick tick tick tick! Hook stood shuddering, one foot in the air. 'The crocodile! he gasped, and bounded away, followed by his bo'sun. It was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins, who were now on the trail of the other pirates. It oozed on after Hook. Once more the boys emerged into the open but the dangers of the night were not yet over, for presently Nibs rushed breathless into their midst, pursued by a pack of wolves. The tongues of the pursuers were hanging out the baying of them was horrible. 'Save me, save me! cried Nibs, falling on the ground. 'But what can we do, what can we do? It was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire moment their thoughts turned to him. 'What would Peter do? they cried simultaneously. Almost in the same breath they cried, 'Peter would look at them through his legs. And then, 'Let us do what Peter would do. It is quite the most successful way of defying wolves, and as one boy they bent and looked through their legs. The next moment is the long one, but victory came quickly, for as the boys advanced upon them in the terrible attitude, the wolves dropped their tails and fled. Now Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought that his staring eyes still saw the wolves. But it was not wolves he saw. 'I have seen a wonderfuller thing, he cried, as they gathered round him eagerly. 'A great white bird. It is flying this way. 'What kind of a bird, do you think? 'I don't know, Nibs said, awestruck, 'but it looks so weary, and as it flies it moans, 'Poor Wendy.' 'Poor Wendy? 'I remember, said Slightly instantly, 'there are birds called Wendies. 'See, it comes! cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the heavens. Wendy was now almost overhead, and they could hear her plaintive cry. But more distinct came the shrill voice of Tinker Bell. The jealous fairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting at her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time she touched. 'Hullo, Tink, cried the wondering boys. Tink's reply rang out 'Peter wants you to shoot the Wendy. It was not in their nature to question when Peter ordered. 'Let us do what Peter wishes! cried the simple boys. 'Quick, bows and arrows! All but Tootles popped down their trees. He had a bow and arrow with him, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little hands. 'Quick, Tootles, quick, she screamed. 'Peter will be so pleased. Tootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. 'Out of the way, Tink, he shouted, and then he fired, and Wendy fluttered to the ground with an arrow in her breast. Foolish Tootles was standing like a conqueror over Wendy's body when the other boys sprang, armed, from their trees. 'You are too late, he cried proudly, 'I have shot the Wendy. Peter will be so pleased with me. Overhead Tinker Bell shouted 'Silly ass! and darted into hiding. The others did not hear her. They had crowded round Wendy, and as they looked a terrible silence fell upon the wood. If Wendy's heart had been beating they would all have heard it. Slightly was the first to speak. 'This is no bird, he said in a scared voice. 'I think this must be a lady. 'A lady? said Tootles, and fell atrembling. 'And we have killed her, Nibs said hoarsely. They all whipped off their caps. 'Now I see, Curly said 'Peter was bringing her to us. He threw himself sorrowfully on the ground. 'A lady to take care of us at last, said one of the twins, 'and you have killed her! They were sorry for him, but sorrier for themselves, and when he took a step nearer them they turned from him. Tootles' face was very white, but there was a dignity about him now that had never been there before. 'I did it, he said, reflecting. 'When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her. He moved slowly away. 'Don't go, they called in pity. 'I must, he answered, shaking 'I am so afraid of Peter. It was at this tragic moment that they heard a sound which made the heart of every one of them rise to his mouth. They heard Peter crow. 'Peter! they cried, for it was always thus that he signalled his return. 'Hide her, they whispered, and gathered hastily around Wendy. But Tootles stood aloof. Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them. 'Greetings, boys, he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence. He frowned. 'I am back, he said hotly, 'why do you not cheer? They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. He overlooked it in his haste to tell the glorious tidings. 'Great news, boys, he cried, 'I have brought at last a mother for you all. Still no sound, except a little thud from Tootles as he dropped on his knees. 'Have you not seen her? asked Peter, becoming troubled. 'She flew this way. 'Ah me! one voice said, and another said, 'Oh, mournful day. Tootles rose. 'Peter, he said quietly, 'I will show her to you, and when the others would still have hidden her he said, 'Back, twins, let Peter see. So they all stood back, and let him see, and after he had looked for a little time he did not know what to do next. 'She is dead, he said uncomfortably. 'Perhaps she is frightened at being dead. He thought of hopping off in a comic sort of way till he was out of sight of her, and then never going near the spot any more. They would all have been glad to follow if he had done this. But there was the arrow. He took it from her heart and faced his band. 'Whose arrow? he demanded sternly. 'Mine, Peter, said Tootles on his knees. 'Oh, dastard hand, Peter said, and he raised the arrow to use it as a dagger. Tootles did not flinch. He bared his breast. 'Strike, Peter, he said firmly, 'strike true. Twice did Peter raise the arrow, and twice did his hand fall. 'I cannot strike, he said with awe, 'there is something stays my hand. All looked at him in wonder, save Nibs, who fortunately looked at Wendy. 'It is she, he cried, 'the Wendy lady, see, her arm! Wonderful to relate, Wendy had raised her arm. Nibs bent over her and listened reverently. 'I think she said, 'Poor Tootles,' he whispered. 'She lives, Peter said briefly. Slightly cried instantly, 'The Wendy lady lives. Then Peter knelt beside her and found his button. You remember she had put it on a chain that she wore round her neck. 'See, he said, 'the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave her. It has saved her life. 'I remember kisses, Slightly interposed quickly, 'let me see it. Ay, that's a kiss. Peter did not hear him. He was begging Wendy to get better quickly, so that he could show her the mermaids. Of course she could not answer yet, being still in a frightful faint but from overhead came a wailing note. 'Listen to Tink, said Curly, 'she is crying because the Wendy lives. Then they had to tell Peter of Tink's crime, and almost never had they seen him look so stern. 'Listen, Tinker Bell, he cried, 'I am your friend no more. Begone from me for ever. She flew on to his shoulder and pleaded, but he brushed her off. Not until Wendy again raised her arm did he relent sufficiently to say, 'Well, not for ever, but for a whole week. Do you think Tinker Bell was grateful to Wendy for raising her arm? Oh dear no, never wanted to pinch her so much. Fairies indeed are strange, and Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed them. But what to do with Wendy in her present delicate state of health? 'Let us carry her down into the house, Curly suggested. 'Ay, said Slightly, 'that is what one does with ladies. 'No, no, Peter said, 'you must not touch her. It would not be sufficiently respectful. 'That, said Slightly, 'is what I was thinking. 'But if she lies there, Tootles said, 'she will die. 'Ay, she will die, Slightly admitted, 'but there is no way out. 'Yes, there is, cried Peter. 'Let us build a little house round her. They were all delighted. 'Quick, he ordered them, 'bring me each of you the best of what we have. Gut our house. Be sharp. In a moment they were as busy as tailors the night before a wedding. They skurried this way and that, down for bedding, up for firewood, and while they were at it, who should appear but John and Michael. As they dragged along the ground they fell asleep standing, stopped, woke up, moved another step and slept again. 'John, John, Michael would cry, 'wake up! Where is Nana, John, and mother? And then John would rub his eyes and mutter, 'It is true, we did fly. You may be sure they were very relieved to find Peter. 'Hullo, Peter, they said. 'Hullo, replied Peter amicably, though he had quite forgotten them. He was very busy at the moment measuring Wendy with his feet to see how large a house she would need. Of course he meant to leave room for chairs and a table. John and Michael watched him. 'Is Wendy asleep? they asked. 'Yes. 'John, Michael proposed, 'let us wake her and get her to make supper for us, but as he said it some of the other boys rushed on carrying branches for the building of the house. 'Look at them! he cried. 'Curly, said Peter in his most captainy voice, 'see that these boys help in the building of the house. 'Ay, ay, sir. 'Build a house? exclaimed John. 'For the Wendy, said Curly. 'For Wendy? John said, aghast. 'Why, she is only a girl! 'That, explained Curly, 'is why we are her servants. 'You? Wendy's servants! 'Yes, said Peter, 'and you also. Away with them. The astounded brothers were dragged away to hack and hew and carry. 'Chairs and a fender first, Peter ordered. 'Then we shall build a house round them. 'Ay, said Slightly, 'that is how a house is built it all comes back to me. Peter thought of everything. 'Slightly, he cried, 'fetch a doctor. 'Ay, ay, said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head. But he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing John's hat and looking solemn. 'Please, sir, said Peter, going to him, 'are you a doctor? The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was makebelieve, while to him makebelieve and true were exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had to makebelieve that they had had their dinners. If they broke down in their makebelieve he rapped them on the knuckles. 'Yes, my little man, Slightly anxiously replied, who had chapped knuckles. 'Please, sir, Peter explained, 'a lady lies very ill. She was lying at their feet, but Slightly had the sense not to see her. 'Tut, tut, tut, he said, 'where does she lie? 'In yonder glade. 'I will put a glass thing in her mouth, said Slightly, and he madebelieve to do it, while Peter waited. It was an anxious moment when the glass thing was withdrawn. 'How is she? inquired Peter. 'Tut, tut, tut, said Slightly, 'this has cured her. 'I am glad! Peter cried. 'I will call again in the evening, Slightly said 'give her beef tea out of a cup with a spout to it but after he had returned the hat to John he blew big breaths, which was his habit on escaping from a difficulty. In the meantime the wood had been alive with the sound of axes almost everything needed for a cosy dwelling already lay at Wendy's feet. 'If only we knew, said one, 'the kind of house she likes best. 'Peter, shouted another, 'she is moving in her sleep. 'Her mouth opens, cried a third, looking respectfully into it. 'Oh, lovely! 'Perhaps she is going to sing in her sleep, said Peter. 'Wendy, sing the kind of house you would like to have. Immediately, without opening her eyes, Wendy began to sing 'I wish I had a pretty house, The littlest ever seen, With funny little red walls And roof of mossy green. They gurgled with joy at this, for by the greatest good luck the branches they had brought were sticky with red sap, and all the ground was carpeted with moss. As they rattled up the little house they broke into song themselves 'We've built the little walls and roof And made a lovely door, So tell us, mother Wendy, What are you wanting more? To this she answered greedily 'Oh, really next I think I'll have Gay windows all about, With roses peeping in, you know, And babies peeping out. With a blow of their fists they made windows, and large yellow leaves were the blinds. But roses? 'Roses, cried Peter sternly. Quickly they madebelieve to grow the loveliest roses up the walls. Babies? To prevent Peter ordering babies they hurried into song again 'We've made the roses peeping out, The babes are at the door, We cannot make ourselves, you know, 'Cos we've been made before. Peter, seeing this to be a good idea, at once pretended that it was his own. The house was quite beautiful, and no doubt Wendy was very cosy within, though, of course, they could no longer see her. Peter strode up and down, ordering finishing touches. Nothing escaped his eagle eyes. Just when it seemed absolutely finished 'There's no knocker on the door, he said. They were very ashamed, but Tootles gave the sole of his shoe, and it made an excellent knocker. Absolutely finished now, they thought. Not of bit of it. 'There's no chimney, Peter said 'we must have a chimney. 'It certainly does need a chimney, said John importantly. This gave Peter an idea. He snatched the hat off John's head, knocked out the bottom, and put the hat on the roof. The little house was so pleased to have such a capital chimney that, as if to say thank you, smoke immediately began to come out of the hat. Now really and truly it was finished. Nothing remained to do but to knock. 'All look your best, Peter warned them 'first impressions are awfully important. He was glad no one asked him what first impressions are they were all too busy looking their best. He knocked politely, and now the wood was as still as the children, not a sound to be heard except from Tinker Bell, who was watching from a branch and openly sneering. What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? If a lady, what would she be like? The door opened and a lady came out. It was Wendy. They all whipped off their hats. She looked properly surprised, and this was just how they had hoped she would look. 'Where am I? she said. Of course Slightly was the first to get his word in. 'Wendy lady, he said rapidly, 'for you we built this house. 'Oh, say you're pleased, cried Nibs. 'Lovely, darling house, Wendy said, and they were the very words they had hoped she would say. 'And we are your children, cried the twins. Then all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried, 'O Wendy lady, be our mother. 'Ought I? Wendy said, all shining. 'Of course it's frightfully fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real experience. 'That doesn't matter, said Peter, as if he were the only person present who knew all about it, though he was really the one who knew least. 'What we need is just a nice motherly person. 'Oh dear! Wendy said, 'you see, I feel that is exactly what I am. 'It is, it is, they all cried 'we saw it at once. 'Very well, she said, 'I will do my best. Come inside at once, you naughty children I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella. In they went I don't know how there was room for them, but you can squeeze very tight in the Neverland. And that was the first of the many joyous evenings they had with Wendy. By and by she tucked them up in the great bed in the home under the trees, but she herself slept that night in the little house, and Peter kept watch outside with drawn sword, for the pirates could be heard carousing far away and the wolves were on the prowl. The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with a bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on. One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the right speed, while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so wriggled up. Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do these things without thinking of them, and nothing can be more graceful. But you simply must fit, and Peter measures you for your tree as carefully as for a suit of clothes the only difference being that the clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree. Usually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments or too few, but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available tree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you fit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this, as Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect condition. Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to be altered a little. After a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the ground especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses should do, with a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to go fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming colour, which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in the centre of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through, level with the floor. By teatime it was always about two feet high, and then they put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table as soon as they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus there was more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was in almost any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across this Wendy stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended her washing. The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down at , when it filled nearly half the room and all the boys slept in it, except Michael, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict rule against turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned at once. Michael should have used it also, but Wendy would have a baby, and he was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the short and long of it is that he was hung up in a basket. It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made of an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one recess in the wall, no larger than a birdcage, which was the private apartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the house by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious, always kept drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman, however large, could have had a more exquisite boudoir and bedchamber combined. The couch, as she always called it, was a genuine Queen Mab, with club legs and she varied the bedspreads according to what fruitblossom was in season. Her mirror was a PussinBoots, of which there are now only three, unchipped, known to fairy dealers the washstand was Piecrust and reversible, the chest of drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth, and the carpet and rugs the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin. There was a chandelier from Tiddlywinks for the look of the thing, but of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable, and her chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the appearance of a nose permanently turned up. I suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy, because those rampagious boys of hers gave her so much to do. Really there were whole weeks when, except perhaps with a stocking in the evening, she was never above ground. The cooking, I can tell you, kept her nose to the pot, and even if there was nothing in it, even if there was no pot, she had to keep watching that it came aboil just the same. You never exactly knew whether there would be a real meal or just a makebelieve, it all depended upon Peter's whim he could eat, really eat, if it was part of a game, but he could not stodge just to feel stodgy, which is what most children like better than anything else the next best thing being to talk about it. Makebelieve was so real to him that during a meal of it you could see him getting rounder. Of course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead, and if you could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree he let you stodge. Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for herself and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on their knees. When she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a hole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, 'Oh dear, I am sure I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied! Her face beamed when she exclaimed this. You remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she had come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each other's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere. As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had left behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them than on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry about her father and mother she was absolutely confident that they would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother. These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school. The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table, writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions'What was the colour of Mother's eyes? Which was taller, Father or Mother? Was Mother blonde or brunette? Answer all three questions if possible. '(A) Write an essay of not less than  words on How I spent my last Holidays, or The Characters of Father and Mother compared. Only one of these to be attempted. Or '() Describe Mother's laugh () Describe Father's laugh () Describe Mother's Party Dress () Describe the Kennel and its Inmate. They were just everyday questions like these, and when you could not answer them you were told to make a cross and it was really dreadful what a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who replied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more hopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous, and he really came out last a melancholy thing. Peter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except Wendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could neither write nor spell not the smallest word. He was above all that sort of thing. By the way, the questions were all written in the past tense. What was the colour of Mother's eyes, and so on. Wendy, you see, had been forgetting, too. Adventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence but about this time Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it, which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games. It consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of thing John and Michael had been doing all their lives, sitting on stools flinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for walks and coming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see Peter doing nothing on a stool was a great sight he could not help looking solemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic thing to do. He boasted that he had gone walking for the good of his health. For several suns these were the most novel of all adventures to him and John and Michael had to pretend to be delighted also otherwise he would have treated them severely. He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten it so completely that he said nothing about it and then when you went out you found the body and, on the other hand, he might say a great deal about it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came home with his head bandaged, and then Wendy cooed over him and bathed it in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was never quite sure, you know. There were, however, many adventures which she knew to be true because she was in them herself, and there were still more that were at least partly true, for the other boys were in them and said they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as large as an EnglishLatin, LatinEnglish Dictionary, and the most we can do is to give one as a specimen of an average hour on the island. The difficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the brush with the redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary affair, and especially interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides. At the Gulch, when victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this way and sometimes that, he called out, 'I'm redskin today what are you, Tootles? And Tootles answered, 'Redskin what are you, Nibs? and Nibs said, 'Redskin what are you Twin? and so on and they were all redskins and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real redskins fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that once, and so at it they all went again, more fiercely than ever. The extraordinary upshot of this adventure wasbut we have not decided yet that this is the adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one would be the night attack by the redskins on the house under the ground, when several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out like corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the Mermaids' Lagoon, and so made her his ally. Or we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might eat it and perish and how they placed it in one cunning spot after another but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her children, so that in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and was used as a missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark. Or suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly of the Never bird that built in a tree overhanging the lagoon, and how the nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs, and Peter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty story, and the end shows how grateful a bird can be but if we tell it we must also tell the whole adventure of the lagoon, which would of course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter adventure, and quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the help of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and Wendy woke, thinking it was bathtime, and swam back. Or again, we might choose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he drew a circle round him on the ground with an arrow and dared them to cross it and though he waited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly from trees, not one of them dared to accept his challenge. Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss for it. I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that the gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it again, and make it best out of three however, perhaps fairest to stick to the lagoon. If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing. The children often spent long summer days on this lagoon, swimming or floating most of the time, playing the mermaid games in the water, and so forth. You must not think from this that the mermaids were on friendly terms with them on the contrary, it was among Wendy's lasting regrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil word from one of them. When she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon she might see them by the score, especially on Marooners' Rock, where they loved to bask, combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite irritated her or she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within a yard of them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her with their tails, not by accident, but intentionally. They treated all the boys in the same way, except of course Peter, who chatted with them on Marooners' Rock by the hour, and sat on their tails when they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of their combs. The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon, when they utter strange wailing cries but the lagoon is dangerous for mortals then, and until the evening of which we have now to tell, Wendy had never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course Peter would have accompanied her, than because she had strict rules about every one being in bed by seven. She was often at the lagoon, however, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many colours made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily from one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the rainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and the keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes a dozen of these games will be going on in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a pretty sight. But the moment the children tried to join in they had to play by themselves, for the mermaids immediately disappeared. Nevertheless we have proof that they secretly watched the interlopers, and were not above taking an idea from them for John introduced a new way of hitting the bubble, with the head instead of the hand, and the mermaids adopted it. This is the one mark that John has left on the Neverland. It must also have been rather pretty to see the children resting on a rock for half an hour after their midday meal. Wendy insisted on their doing this, and it had to be a real rest even though the meal was makebelieve. So they lay there in the sun, and their bodies glistened in it, while she sat beside them and looked important. It was one such day, and they were all on Marooners' Rock. The rock was not much larger than their great bed, but of course they all knew how not to take up much room, and they were dozing, or at least lying with their eyes shut, and pinching occasionally when they thought Wendy was not looking. She was very busy, stitching. While she stitched a change came to the lagoon. Little shivers ran over it, and the sun went away and shadows stole across the water, turning it cold. Wendy could no longer see to thread her needle, and when she looked up, the lagoon that had always hitherto been such a laughing place seemed formidable and unfriendly. It was not, she knew, that night had come, but something as dark as night had come. No, worse than that. It had not come, but it had sent that shiver through the sea to say that it was coming. What was it? There crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of Marooners' Rock, so called because evil captains put sailors on it and leave them there to drown. They drown when the tide rises, for then it is submerged. Of course she should have roused the children at once not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but because it was no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly. But she was a young mother and she did not know this she thought you simply must stick to your rule about half an hour after the midday meal. So, though fear was upon her, and she longed to hear male voices, she would not waken them. Even when she heard the sound of muffled oars, though her heart was in her mouth, she did not waken them. She stood over them to let them have their sleep out. Was it not brave of Wendy? It was well for those boys then that there was one among them who could sniff danger even in his sleep. Peter sprang erect, as wide awake at once as a dog, and with one warning cry he roused the others. He stood motionless, one hand to his ear. 'Pirates! he cried. The others came closer to him. A strange smile was playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile was on his face no one dared address him all they could do was to stand ready to obey. The order came sharp and incisive. 'Dive! There was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted. Marooners' Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters as if it were itself marooned. The boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three figures in her, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no other than Tiger Lily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she knew what was to be her fate. She was to be left on the rock to perish, an end to one of her race more terrible than death by fire or torture, for is it not written in the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the happy huntingground? Yet her face was impassive she was the daughter of a chief, she must die as a chief's daughter, it is enough. They had caught her boarding the pirate ship with a knife in her mouth. No watch was kept on the ship, it being Hook's boast that the wind of his name guarded the ship for a mile around. Now her fate would help to guard it also. One more wail would go the round in that wind by night. In the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did not see the rock till they crashed into it. 'Luff, you lubber, cried an Irish voice that was Smee's 'here's the rock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the redskin on to it and leave her here to drown. It was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the rock she was too proud to offer a vain resistance. Quite near the rock, but out of sight, two heads were bobbing up and down, Peter's and Wendy's. Wendy was crying, for it was the first tragedy she had seen. Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for Tiger Lily it was two against one that angered him, and he meant to save her. An easy way would have been to wait until the pirates had gone, but he was never one to choose the easy way. There was almost nothing he could not do, and he now imitated the voice of Hook. 'Ahoy there, you lubbers! he called. It was a marvellous imitation. 'The captain! said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise. 'He must be swimming out to us, Starkey said, when they had looked for him in vain. 'We are putting the redskin on the rock, Smee called out. 'Set her free, came the astonishing answer. 'Free! 'Yes, cut her bonds and let her go. 'But, captain 'At once, d'ye hear, cried Peter, 'or I'll plunge my hook in you. 'This is queer! Smee gasped. 'Better do what the captain orders, said Starkey nervously. 'Ay, ay, Smee said, and he cut Tiger Lily's cords. At once like an eel she slid between Starkey's legs into the water. Of course Wendy was very elated over Peter's cleverness but she knew that he would be elated also and very likely crow and thus betray himself, so at once her hand went out to cover his mouth. But it was stayed even in the act, for 'Boat ahoy! rang over the lagoon in Hook's voice, and this time it was not Peter who had spoken. Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of surprise instead. 'Boat ahoy! again came the voice. Now Wendy understood. The real Hook was also in the water. He was swimming to the boat, and as his men showed a light to guide him he had soon reached them. In the light of the lantern Wendy saw his hook grip the boat's side she saw his evil swarthy face as he rose dripping from the water, and, quaking, she would have liked to swim away, but Peter would not budge. He was tingling with life and also topheavy with conceit. 'Am I not a wonder, oh, I am a wonder! he whispered to her, and though she thought so also, she was really glad for the sake of his reputation that no one heard him except herself. He signed to her to listen. The two pirates were very curious to know what had brought their captain to them, but he sat with his head on his hook in a position of profound melancholy. 'Captain, is all well? they asked timidly, but he answered with a hollow moan. 'He sighs, said Smee. 'He sighs again, said Starkey. 'And yet a third time he sighs, said Smee. Then at last he spoke passionately. 'The game's up, he cried, 'those boys have found a mother. Affrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride. 'O evil day! cried Starkey. 'What's a mother? asked the ignorant Smee. Wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed. 'He doesn't know! and always after this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate Smee would be her one. Peter pulled her beneath the water, for Hook had started up, crying, 'What was that? 'I heard nothing, said Starkey, raising the lantern over the waters, and as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight. It was the nest I have told you of, floating on the lagoon, and the Never bird was sitting on it. 'See, said Hook in answer to Smee's question, 'that is a mother. What a lesson! The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the mother desert her eggs? No. There was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled innocent days whenbut he brushed away this weakness with his hook. Smee, much impressed, gazed at the bird as the nest was borne past, but the more suspicious Starkey said, 'If she is a mother, perhaps she is hanging about here to help Peter. Hook winced. 'Ay, he said, 'that is the fear that haunts me. He was roused from this dejection by Smee's eager voice. 'Captain, said Smee, 'could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make her our mother? 'It is a princely scheme, cried Hook, and at once it took practical shape in his great brain. 'We will seize the children and carry them to the boat the boys we will make walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our mother. Again Wendy forgot herself. 'Never! she cried, and bobbed. 'What was that? But they could see nothing. They thought it must have been a leaf in the wind. 'Do you agree, my bullies? asked Hook. 'There is my hand on it, they both said. 'And there is my hook. Swear. They all swore. By this time they were on the rock, and suddenly Hook remembered Tiger Lily. 'Where is the redskin? he demanded abruptly. He had a playful humour at moments, and they thought this was one of the moments. 'That is all right, captain, Smee answered complacently 'we let her go. 'Let her go! cried Hook. ''Twas your own orders, the bo'sun faltered. 'You called over the water to us to let her go, said Starkey. 'Brimstone and gall, thundered Hook, 'what cozening is going on here! His face had gone black with rage, but he saw that they believed their words, and he was startled. 'Lads, he said, shaking a little, 'I gave no such order. 'It is passing queer, Smee said, and they all fidgeted uncomfortably. Hook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in it. 'Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon tonight, he cried, 'dost hear me? Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not. He immediately answered in Hook's voice 'Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you. In that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills, but Smee and Starkey clung to each other in terror. 'Who are you, stranger? Speak! Hook demanded. 'I am James Hook, replied the voice, 'captain of the Jolly Roger. 'You are not you are not, Hook cried hoarsely. 'Brimstone and gall, the voice retorted, 'say that again, and I'll cast anchor in you. Hook tried a more ingratiating manner. 'If you are Hook, he said almost humbly, 'come tell me, who am I? 'A codfish, replied the voice, 'only a codfish. 'A codfish! Hook echoed blankly, and it was then, but not till then, that his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from him. 'Have we been captained all this time by a codfish! they muttered. 'It is lowering to our pride. They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego slipping from him. 'Don't desert me, bully, he whispered hoarsely to it. In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried the guessing game. 'Hook, he called, 'have you another voice? Now Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely in his own voice, 'I have. 'And another name? 'Ay, ay. 'Vegetable? asked Hook. 'No. 'Mineral? 'No. 'Animal? 'Yes. 'Man? 'No! This answer rang out scornfully. 'Boy? 'Yes. 'Ordinary boy? 'No! 'Wonderful boy? To Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was 'Yes. 'Are you in England? 'No. 'Are you here? 'Yes. Hook was completely puzzled. 'You ask him some questions, he said to the others, wiping his damp brow. Smee reflected. 'I can't think of a thing, he said regretfully. 'Can't guess, can't guess! crowed Peter. 'Do you give it up? Of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and the miscreants saw their chance. 'Yes, yes, they answered eagerly. 'Well, then, he cried, 'I am Peter Pan. Pan! In a moment Hook was himself again, and Smee and Starkey were his faithful henchmen. 'Now we have him, Hook shouted. 'Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead or alive! He leaped as he spoke, and simultaneously came the gay voice of Peter. 'Are you ready, boys? 'Ay, ay, from various parts of the lagoon. 'Then lam into the pirates. The fight was short and sharp. First to draw blood was John, who gallantly climbed into the boat and held Starkey. There was fierce struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's grasp. He wriggled overboard and John leapt after him. The dinghy drifted away. Here and there a head bobbed up in the water, and there was a flash of steel followed by a cry or a whoop. In the confusion some struck at their own side. The corkscrew of Smee got Tootles in the fourth rib, but he was himself pinked in turn by Curly. Farther from the rock Starkey was pressing Slightly and the twins hard. Where all this time was Peter? He was seeking bigger game. The others were all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for backing from the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of dead water round him, from which they fled like affrighted fishes. But there was one who did not fear him there was one prepared to enter that circle. Strangely, it was not in the water that they met. Hook rose to the rock to breathe, and at the same moment Peter scaled it on the opposite side. The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than climb. Neither knew that the other was coming. Each feeling for a grip met the other's arm in surprise they raised their heads their faces were almost touching so they met. Some of the greatest heroes have confessed that just before they fell to they had a sinking. Had it been so with Peter at that moment I would admit it. After all, he was the only man that the SeaCook had feared. But Peter had no sinking, he had one feeling only, gladness and he gnashed his pretty teeth with joy. Quick as thought he snatched a knife from Hook's belt and was about to drive it home, when he saw that he was higher up the rock than his foe. It would not have been fighting fair. He gave the pirate a hand to help him up. It was then that Hook bit him. Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest. So when he met it now it was like the first time and he could just stare, helpless. Twice the iron hand clawed him. A few moments afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water striking wildly for the ship no elation on the pestilent face now, only white fear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him. On ordinary occasions the boys would have swum alongside cheering but now they were uneasy, for they had lost both Peter and Wendy, and were scouring the lagoon for them, calling them by name. They found the dinghy and went home in it, shouting 'Peter, Wendy as they went, but no answer came save mocking laughter from the mermaids. 'They must be swimming back or flying, the boys concluded. They were not very anxious, because they had such faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they would be late for bed and it was all mother Wendy's fault! When their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon, and then a feeble cry. 'Help, help! Two small figures were beating against the rock the girl had fainted and lay on the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that the water was rising. He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he could do no more. As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began pulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her slip from him, woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to tell her the truth. 'We are on the rock, Wendy, he said, 'but it is growing smaller. Soon the water will be over it. She did not understand even now. 'We must go, she said, almost brightly. 'Yes, he answered faintly. 'Shall we swim or fly, Peter? He had to tell her. 'Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without my help? She had to admit that she was too tired. He moaned. 'What is it? she asked, anxious about him at once. 'I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim. 'Do you mean we shall both be drowned? 'Look how the water is rising. They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, 'Can I be of any use? It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It had torn itself out of his hand and floated away. 'Michael's kite, Peter said without interest, but next moment he had seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him. 'It lifted Michael off the ground, he cried 'why should it not carry you? 'Both of us! 'It can't lift two Michael and Curly tried. 'Let us draw lots, Wendy said bravely. 'And you a lady never. Already he had tied the tail round her. She clung to him she refused to go without him but with a 'Goodbye, Wendy, he pushed her from the rock and in a few minutes she was borne out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon. The rock was very small now soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world the mermaids calling to the moon. Peter was not quite like other boys but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, 'To die will be an awfully big adventure. The last sound Peter heard before he was quite alone were the mermaids retiring one by one to their bedchambers under the sea. He was too far away to hear their doors shut but every door in the coral caves where they live rings a tiny bell when it opens or closes (as in all the nicest houses on the mainland), and he heard the bells. Steadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet and to pass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only thing on the lagoon. He thought it was a piece of floating paper, perhaps part of the kite, and wondered idly how long it would take to drift ashore. Presently he noticed as an odd thing that it was undoubtedly out upon the lagoon with some definite purpose, for it was fighting the tide, and sometimes winning and when it won, Peter, always sympathetic to the weaker side, could not help clapping it was such a gallant piece of paper. It was not really a piece of paper it was the Never bird, making desperate efforts to reach Peter on the nest. By working her wings, in a way she had learned since the nest fell into the water, she was able to some extent to guide her strange craft, but by the time Peter recognised her she was very exhausted. She had come to save him, to give him her nest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for though he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I can suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was melted because he had all his first teeth. She called out to him what she had come for, and he called out to her what she was doing there but of course neither of them understood the other's language. In fanciful stories people can talk to the birds freely, and I wish for the moment I could pretend that this were such a story, and say that Peter replied intelligently to the Never bird but truth is best, and I want to tell you only what really happened. Well, not only could they not understand each other, but they forgot their manners. 'Iwantyoutogetintothenest, the bird called, speaking as slowly and distinctly as possible, 'andthenyoucandriftashore, butIamtootiredtobringitanynearersoyoumusttry toswimtoit. 'What are you quacking about? Peter answered. 'Why don't you let the nest drift as usual? 'Iwantyou the bird said, and repeated it all over. Then Peter tried slow and distinct. 'Whatareyouquackingabout? and so on. The Never bird became irritated they have very short tempers. 'You dunderheaded little jay! she screamed, 'Why don't you do as I tell you? Peter felt that she was calling him names, and at a venture he retorted hotly 'So are you! Then rather curiously they both snapped out the same remark 'Shut up! 'Shut up! Nevertheless the bird was determined to save him if she could, and by one last mighty effort she propelled the nest against the rock. Then up she flew deserting her eggs, so as to make her meaning clear. Then at last he understood, and clutched the nest and waved his thanks to the bird as she fluttered overhead. It was not to receive his thanks, however, that she hung there in the sky it was not even to watch him get into the nest it was to see what he did with her eggs. There were two large white eggs, and Peter lifted them up and reflected. The bird covered her face with her wings, so as not to see the last of them but she could not help peeping between the feathers. I forget whether I have told you that there was a stave on the rock, driven into it by some buccaneers of long ago to mark the site of buried treasure. The children had discovered the glittering hoard, and when in a mischievous mood used to fling showers of moidores, diamonds, pearls and pieces of eight to the gulls, who pounced upon them for food, and then flew away, raging at the scurvy trick that had been played upon them. The stave was still there, and on it Starkey had hung his hat, a deep tarpaulin, watertight, with a broad brim. Peter put the eggs into this hat and set it on the lagoon. It floated beautifully. The Never bird saw at once what he was up to, and screamed her admiration of him and, alas, Peter crowed his agreement with her. Then he got into the nest, reared the stave in it as a mast, and hung up his shirt for a sail. At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the hat and once more sat snugly on her eggs. She drifted in one direction, and he was borne off in another, both cheering. Of course when Peter landed he beached his barque in a place where the bird would easily find it but the hat was such a great success that she abandoned the nest. It drifted about till it went to pieces, and often Starkey came to the shore of the lagoon, and with many bitter feelings watched the bird sitting on his hat. As we shall not see her again, it may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build in that shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an airing. Great were the rejoicings when Peter reached the home under the ground almost as soon as Wendy, who had been carried hither and thither by the kite. Every boy had adventures to tell but perhaps the biggest adventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so inflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still longer, such as demanding bandages but Wendy, though glorying in having them all home again safe and sound, was scandalised by the lateness of the hour, and cried, 'To bed, to bed, in a voice that had to be obeyed. Next day, however, she was awfully tender, and gave out bandages to every one, and they played till bedtime at limping about and carrying their arms in slings. One important result of the brush on the lagoon was that it made the redskins their friends. Peter had saved Tiger Lily from a dreadful fate, and now there was nothing she and her braves would not do for him. All night they sat above, keeping watch over the home under the ground and awaiting the big attack by the pirates which obviously could not be much longer delayed. Even by day they hung about, smoking the pipe of peace, and looking almost as if they wanted titbits to eat. They called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before him and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not really good for him. 'The great white father, he would say to them in a very lordly manner, as they grovelled at his feet, 'is glad to see the Piccaninny warriors protecting his wigwam from the pirates. 'Me Tiger Lily, that lovely creature would reply. 'Peter Pan save me, me his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him. She was far too pretty to cringe in this way, but Peter thought it his due, and he would answer condescendingly, 'It is good. Peter Pan has spoken. Always when he said, 'Peter Pan has spoken, it meant that they must now shut up, and they accepted it humbly in that spirit but they were by no means so respectful to the other boys, whom they looked upon as just ordinary braves. They said 'Howdo? to them, and things like that and what annoyed the boys was that Peter seemed to think this all right. Secretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal a housewife to listen to any complaints against father. 'Father knows best, she always said, whatever her private opinion must be. Her private opinion was that the redskins should not call her a squaw. We have now reached the evening that was to be known among them as the Night of Nights, because of its adventures and their upshot. The day, as if quietly gathering its forces, had been almost uneventful, and now the redskins in their blankets were at their posts above, while, below, the children were having their evening meal all except Peter, who had gone out to get the time. The way you got the time on the island was to find the crocodile, and then stay near him till the clock struck. The meal happened to be a makebelieve tea, and they sat around the board, guzzling in their greed and really, what with their chatter and recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening. To be sure, she did not mind noise, but she simply would not have them grabbing things, and then excusing themselves by saying that Tootles had pushed their elbow. There was a fixed rule that they must never hit back at meals, but should refer the matter of dispute to Wendy by raising the right arm politely and saying, 'I complain of soandso but what usually happened was that they forgot to do this or did it too much. 'Silence, cried Wendy when for the twentieth time she had told them that they were not all to speak at once. 'Is your mug empty, Slightly darling? 'Not quite empty, mummy, Slightly said, after looking into an imaginary mug. 'He hasn't even begun to drink his milk, Nibs interposed. This was telling, and Slightly seized his chance. 'I complain of Nibs, he cried promptly. John, however, had held up his hand first. 'Well, John? 'May I sit in Peter's chair, as he is not here? 'Sit in father's chair, John! Wendy was scandalised. 'Certainly not. 'He is not really our father, John answered. 'He didn't even know how a father does till I showed him. This was grumbling. 'We complain of John, cried the twins. Tootles held up his hand. He was so much the humblest of them, indeed he was the only humble one, that Wendy was specially gentle with him. 'I don't suppose, Tootles said diffidently, 'that I could be father. 'No, Tootles. Once Tootles began, which was not very often, he had a silly way of going on. 'As I can't be father, he said heavily, 'I don't suppose, Michael, you would let me be baby? 'No, I won't, Michael rapped out. He was already in his basket. 'As I can't be baby, Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier and heavier, 'do you think I could be a twin? 'No, indeed, replied the twins 'it's awfully difficult to be a twin. 'As I can't be anything important, said Tootles, 'would any of you like to see me do a trick? 'No, they all replied. Then at last he stopped. 'I hadn't really any hope, he said. The hateful telling broke out again. 'Slightly is coughing on the table. 'The twins began with cheesecakes. 'Curly is taking both butter and honey. 'Nibs is speaking with his mouth full. 'I complain of the twins. 'I complain of Curly. 'I complain of Nibs. 'Oh dear, oh dear, cried Wendy, 'I'm sure I sometimes think that spinsters are to be envied. She told them to clear away, and sat down to her workbasket, a heavy load of stockings and every knee with a hole in it as usual. 'Wendy, remonstrated Michael, 'I'm too big for a cradle. 'I must have somebody in a cradle, she said almost tartly, 'and you are the littlest. A cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a house. While she sewed they played around her such a group of happy faces and dancing limbs lit up by that romantic fire. It had become a very familiar scene, this, in the home under the ground, but we are looking on it for the last time. There was a step above, and Wendy, you may be sure, was the first to recognize it. 'Children, I hear your father's step. He likes you to meet him at the door. Above, the redskins crouched before Peter. 'Watch well, braves. I have spoken. And then, as so often before, the gay children dragged him from his tree. As so often before, but never again. He had brought nuts for the boys as well as the correct time for Wendy. 'Peter, you just spoil them, you know, Wendy simpered. 'Ah, old lady, said Peter, hanging up his gun. 'It was me told him mothers are called old lady, Michael whispered to Curly. 'I complain of Michael, said Curly instantly. The first twin came to Peter. 'Father, we want to dance. 'Dance away, my little man, said Peter, who was in high good humour. 'But we want you to dance. Peter was really the best dancer among them, but he pretended to be scandalised. 'Me! My old bones would rattle! 'And mummy too. 'What, cried Wendy, 'the mother of such an armful, dance! 'But on a Saturday night, Slightly insinuated. It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they had long lost count of the days but always if they wanted to do anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did it. 'Of course it is Saturday night, Peter, Wendy said, relenting. 'People of our figure, Wendy! 'But it is only among our own progeny. 'True, true. So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties first. 'Ah, old lady, Peter said aside to Wendy, warming himself by the fire and looking down at her as she sat turning a heel, 'there is nothing more pleasant of an evening for you and me when the day's toil is over than to rest by the fire with the little ones near by. 'It is sweet, Peter, isn't it? Wendy said, frightfully gratified. 'Peter, I think Curly has your nose. 'Michael takes after you. She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder. 'Dear Peter, she said, 'with such a large family, of course, I have now passed my best, but you don't want to change me, do you? 'No, Wendy. Certainly he did not want a change, but he looked at her uncomfortably, blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep. 'Peter, what is it? 'I was just thinking, he said, a little scared. 'It is only makebelieve, isn't it, that I am their father? 'Oh yes, Wendy said primly. 'You see, he continued apologetically, 'it would make me seem so old to be their real father. 'But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine. 'But not really, Wendy? he asked anxiously. 'Not if you don't wish it, she replied and she distinctly heard his sigh of relief. 'Peter, she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are your exact feelings to me? 'Those of a devoted son, Wendy. 'I thought so, she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end of the room. 'You are so queer, he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother. 'No, indeed, it is not, Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we know why she was prejudiced against the redskins. 'Then what is it? 'It isn't for a lady to tell. 'Oh, very well, Peter said, a little nettled. 'Perhaps Tinker Bell will tell me. 'Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you, Wendy retorted scornfully. 'She is an abandoned little creature. Here Tink, who was in her bedroom, eavesdropping, squeaked out something impudent. 'She says she glories in being abandoned, Peter interpreted. He had a sudden idea. 'Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother? 'You silly ass! cried Tinker Bell in a passion. She had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation. 'I almost agree with her, Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping! But she had been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the night was out. If she had known she would not have snapped. None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave them one more glad hour and as it was to be their last hour on the island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They sang and danced in their nightgowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows, little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy's goodnight story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled not only the others but himself, and he said gloomily 'Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end. And then at last they all got into bed for Wendy's story, the story they loved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell this story he left the room or put his hands over his ears and possibly if he had done either of those things this time they might all still be on the island. But tonight he remained on his stool and we shall see what happened. 'Listen, then, said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at her feet and seven boys in the bed. 'There was once a gentleman 'I had rather he had been a lady, Curly said. 'I wish he had been a white rat, said Nibs. 'Quiet, their mother admonished them. 'There was a lady also, and 'Oh, mummy, cried the first twin, 'you mean that there is a lady also, don't you? She is not dead, is she? 'Oh, no. 'I am awfully glad she isn't dead, said Tootles. 'Are you glad, John? 'Of course I am. 'Are you glad, Nibs? 'Rather. 'Are you glad, Twins? 'We are glad. 'Oh dear, sighed Wendy. 'Little less noise there, Peter called out, determined that she should have fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion. 'The gentleman's name, Wendy continued, 'was Mr. Darling, and her name was Mrs. Darling. 'I knew them, John said, to annoy the others. 'I think I knew them, said Michael rather doubtfully. 'They were married, you know, explained Wendy, 'and what do you think they had? 'White rats, cried Nibs, inspired. 'No. 'It's awfully puzzling, said Tootles, who knew the story by heart. 'Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants. 'What is descendants? 'Well, you are one, Twin. 'Did you hear that, John? I am a descendant. 'Descendants are only children, said John. 'Oh dear, oh dear, sighed Wendy. 'Now these three children had a faithful nurse called Nana but Mr. Darling was angry with her and chained her up in the yard, and so all the children flew away. 'It's an awfully good story, said Nibs. 'They flew away, Wendy continued, 'to the Neverland, where the lost children are. 'I just thought they did, Curly broke in excitedly. 'I don't know how it is, but I just thought they did! 'O Wendy, cried Tootles, 'was one of the lost children called Tootles? 'Yes, he was. 'I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs. 'Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents with all their children flown away. 'Oo! they all moaned, though they were not really considering the feelings of the unhappy parents one jot. 'Think of the empty beds! 'Oo! 'It's awfully sad, the first twin said cheerfully. 'I don't see how it can have a happy ending, said the second twin. 'Do you, Nibs? 'I'm frightfully anxious. 'If you knew how great is a mother's love, Wendy told them triumphantly, 'you would have no fear. She had now come to the part that Peter hated. 'I do like a mother's love, said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow. 'Do you like a mother's love, Nibs? 'I do just, said Nibs, hitting back. 'You see, Wendy said complacently, 'our heroine knew that the mother would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by so they stayed away for years and had a lovely time. 'Did they ever go back? 'Let us now, said Wendy, bracing herself up for her finest effort, 'take a peep into the future and they all gave themselves the twist that makes peeps into the future easier. 'Years have rolled by, and who is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station? 'O Wendy, who is she? cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn't know. 'Can it beyesnoit isthe fair Wendy! 'Oh! 'And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown to man's estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are! 'Oh! ''See, dear brothers,' says Wendy pointing upwards, 'there is the window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime faith in a mother's love.' So up they flew to their mummy and daddy, and pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil. That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair narrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked. So great indeed was their faith in a mother's love that they felt they could afford to be callous for a bit longer. But there was one there who knew better, and when Wendy finished he uttered a hollow groan. 'What is it, Peter? she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. 'Where is it, Peter? 'It isn't that kind of pain, Peter replied darkly. 'Then what kind is it? 'Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed. 'Long ago, he said, 'I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed. I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true and it scared them. 'Are you sure mothers are like that? 'Yes. So this was the truth about mothers. The toads! Still it is best to be careful and no one knows so quickly as a child when he should give in. 'Wendy, let us go home, cried John and Michael together. 'Yes, she said, clutching them. 'Not tonight? asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can't. 'At once, Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come to her 'Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time. This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter's feelings, and she said to him rather sharply, 'Peter, will you make the necessary arrangements? 'If you wish it, he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass the nuts. Not so much as a sorrytoloseyou between them! If she did not mind the parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he. But of course he cared very much and he was so full of wrath against grownups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grownup dies and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible. Then having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he returned to the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his absence. Panicstricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced upon her threateningly. 'It will be worse than before she came, they cried. 'We shan't let her go. 'Let's keep her prisoner. 'Ay, chain her up. In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn. 'Tootles, she cried, 'I appeal to you. Was it not strange? She appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one. Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped his silliness and spoke with dignity. 'I am just Tootles, he said, 'and nobody minds me. But the first who does not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him severely. He drew back his hanger and for that instant his sun was at noon. The others held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once that they would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the Neverland against her will. 'Wendy, he said, striding up and down, 'I have asked the redskins to guide you through the wood, as flying tires you so. 'Thank you, Peter. 'Then, he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be obeyed, 'Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs. Nibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really been sitting up in bed listening for some time. 'Who are you? How dare you? Go away, she cried. 'You are to get up, Tink, Nibs called, 'and take Wendy on a journey. Of course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going but she was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in still more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again. 'She says she won't! Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination, whereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady's chamber. 'Tink, he rapped out, 'if you don't get up and dress at once I will open the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your neglige. This made her leap to the floor. 'Who said I wasn't getting up? she cried. In the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now equipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were dejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual. Crediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted. 'Dear ones, she said, 'if you will all come with me I feel almost sure I can get my father and mother to adopt you. The invitation was meant specially for Peter, but each of the boys was thinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy. 'But won't they think us rather a handful? Nibs asked in the middle of his jump. 'Oh no, said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, 'it will only mean having a few beds in the drawingroom they can be hidden behind the screens on first Thursdays. 'Peter, can we go? they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones. 'All right, Peter replied with a bitter smile, and immediately they rushed to get their things. 'And now, Peter, Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right, 'I am going to give you your medicine before you go. She loved to give them medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much. Of course it was only water, but it was out of a bottle, and she always shook the bottle and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal quality. On this occasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught, for just as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made her heart sink. 'Get your things, Peter, she cried, shaking. 'No, he answered, pretending indifference, 'I am not going with you, Wendy. 'Yes, Peter. 'No. To show that her departure would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and down the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run about after him, though it was rather undignified. 'To find your mother, she coaxed. Now, if Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered only their bad points. 'No, no, he told Wendy decisively 'perhaps she would say I was old, and I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun. 'But, Peter 'No. And so the others had to be told. 'Peter isn't coming. Peter not coming! They gazed blankly at him, their sticks over their backs, and on each stick a bundle. Their first thought was that if Peter was not going he had probably changed his mind about letting them go. But he was far too proud for that. 'If you find your mothers, he said darkly, 'I hope you will like them. The awful cynicism of this made an uncomfortable impression, and most of them began to look rather doubtful. After all, their faces said, were they not noodles to want to go? 'Now then, cried Peter, 'no fuss, no blubbering goodbye, Wendy and he held out his hand cheerily, quite as if they must really go now, for he had something important to do. She had to take his hand, and there was no indication that he would prefer a thimble. 'You will remember about changing your flannels, Peter? she said, lingering over him. She was always so particular about their flannels. 'Yes. 'And you will take your medicine? 'Yes. That seemed to be everything, and an awkward pause followed. Peter, however, was not the kind that breaks down before other people. 'Are you ready, Tinker Bell? he called out. 'Ay, ay. 'Then lead the way. Tink darted up the nearest tree but no one followed her, for it was at this moment that the pirates made their dreadful attack upon the redskins. Above, where all had been so still, the air was rent with shrieks and the clash of steel. Below, there was dead silence. Mouths opened and remained open. Wendy fell on her knees, but her arms were extended toward Peter. All arms were extended to him, as if suddenly blown in his direction they were beseeching him mutely not to desert them. As for Peter, he seized his sword, the same he thought he had slain Barbecue with, and the lust of battle was in his eye. The pirate attack had been a complete surprise a sure proof that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man. By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream runs, for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and treading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just before the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle, snakelike, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Not a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other braves and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not very good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first time but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching. That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance. The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his. They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick and in an incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice here he must establish himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them, the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting the cold moment when they should deal pale death. Here dreaming, though wideawake, of the exquisite tortures to which they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey light he must have seen it no thought of waiting to be attacked appears from first to last to have visited his subtle mind he would not even hold off till the night was nearly spent on he pounded with no policy but to fall to. What could the bewildered scouts do, masters as they were of every warlike artifice save this one, but trot helplessly after him, exposing themselves fatally to view, while they gave pathetic utterance to the coyote cry. Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory. No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy huntinggrounds was now. They knew it but as their father's sons they acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx that would have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise in the presence of the white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the pirates must have been to them, they remained stationary for a moment, not a muscle moving as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed, the tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air was torn with the warcry but it was now too late. It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all unavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb the Spanish Main no more, and among others who bit the dust were Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the tomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the pirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe. To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for the historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the proper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered and in judging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he should perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to follow a new method. On the other hand, this, as destroying the element of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme, and the fell genius with which it was carried out. What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance. The night's work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had come out to destroy they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their band, but chiefly Pan. Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man's hatred of him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the crocodile, but even this and the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the crocodile's pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not. There is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter's cockiness. This had got on Hook's nerves it made his iron claw twitch, and at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come. The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest ones. They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple to ram them down with poles. In the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the first clang of the weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, openmouthed, all appealing with outstretched arms to Peter and we return to them as their mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium above has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce gust of wind but they know that in the passing it has determined their fate. Which side had won? The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer. 'If the redskins have won, he said, 'they will beat the tomtom it is always their sign of victory. Now Smee had found the tomtom, and was at that moment sitting on it. 'You will never hear the tomtom again, he muttered, but inaudibly of course, for strict silence had been enjoined. To his amazement Hook signed him to beat the tomtom, and slowly there came to Smee an understanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably, had this simple man admired Hook so much. Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen gleefully. 'The tomtom, the miscreants heard Peter cry 'an Indian victory! The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their goodbyes to Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the trees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and silently Hook gave his orders one man to each tree, and the others to arrange themselves in a line two yards apart. The more quickly this horror is disposed of the better. The first to emerge from his tree was Curly. He rose out of it into the arms of Cecco, who flung him to Smee, who flung him to Starkey, who flung him to Bill Jukes, who flung him to Noodler, and so he was tossed from one to another till he fell at the feet of the black pirate. All the boys were plucked from their trees in this ruthless manner and several of them were in the air at a time, like bales of goods flung from hand to hand. A different treatment was accorded to Wendy, who came last. With ironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his arm, escorted her to the spot where the others were being gagged. He did it with such an air, he was so frightfully distingu, that she was too fascinated to cry out. She was only a little girl. Perhaps it is telltale to divulge that for a moment Hook entranced her, and we tell on her only because her slip led to strange results. Had she haughtily unhanded him (and we should have loved to write it of her), she would have been hurled through the air like the others, and then Hook would probably not have been present at the tying of the children and had he not been at the tying he would not have discovered Slightly's secret, and without the secret he could not presently have made his foul attempt on Peter's life. They were tied to prevent their flying away, doubled up with their knees close to their ears and for the trussing of them the black pirate had cut a rope into nine equal pieces. All went well until Slightly's turn came, when he was found to be like those irritating parcels that use up all the string in going round and leave no tags with which to tie a knot. The pirates kicked him in their rage, just as you kick the parcel (though in fairness you should kick the string) and strange to say it was Hook who told them to belay their violence. His lip was curled with malicious triumph. While his dogs were merely sweating because every time they tried to pack the unhappy lad tight in one part he bulged out in another, Hook's master mind had gone far beneath Slightly's surface, probing not for effects but for causes and his exultation showed that he had found them. Slightly, white to the gills, knew that Hook had surprised his secret, which was this, that no boy so blown out could use a tree wherein an average man need stick. Poor Slightly, most wretched of all the children now, for he was in a panic about Peter, bitterly regretted what he had done. Madly addicted to the drinking of water when he was hot, he had swelled in consequence to his present girth, and instead of reducing himself to fit his tree he had, unknown to the others, whittled his tree to make it fit him. Sufficient of this Hook guessed to persuade him that Peter at last lay at his mercy, but no word of the dark design that now formed in the subterranean caverns of his mind crossed his lips he merely signed that the captives were to be conveyed to the ship, and that he would be alone. How to convey them? Hunched up in their ropes they might indeed be rolled down hill like barrels, but most of the way lay through a morass. Again Hook's genius surmounted difficulties. He indicated that the little house must be used as a conveyance. The children were flung into it, four stout pirates raised it on their shoulders, the others fell in behind, and singing the hateful pirate chorus the strange procession set off through the wood. I don't know whether any of the children were crying if so, the singing drowned the sound but as the little house disappeared in the forest, a brave though tiny jet of smoke issued from its chimney as if defying Hook. Hook saw it, and it did Peter a bad service. It dried up any trickle of pity for him that may have remained in the pirate's infuriated breast. The first thing he did on finding himself alone in the fast falling night was to tiptoe to Slightly's tree, and make sure that it provided him with a passage. Then for long he remained brooding his hat of ill omen on the sward, so that any gentle breeze which had arisen might play refreshingly through his hair. Dark as were his thoughts his blue eyes were as soft as the periwinkle. Intently he listened for any sound from the nether world, but all was as silent below as above the house under the ground seemed to be but one more empty tenement in the void. Was that boy asleep, or did he stand waiting at the foot of Slightly's tree, with his dagger in his hand? There was no way of knowing, save by going down. Hook let his cloak slip softly to the ground, and then biting his lips till a lewd blood stood on them, he stepped into the tree. He was a brave man, but for a moment he had to stop there and wipe his brow, which was dripping like a candle. Then, silently, he let himself go into the unknown. He arrived unmolested at the foot of the shaft, and stood still again, biting at his breath, which had almost left him. As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light various objects in the home under the trees took shape but the only one on which his greedy gaze rested, long sought for and found at last, was the great bed. On the bed lay Peter fast asleep. Unaware of the tragedy being enacted above, Peter had continued, for a little time after the children left, to play gaily on his pipes no doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care. Then he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he lay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more for she had always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may not grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried but it struck him how indignant she would be if he laughed instead so he laughed a haughty laugh and fell asleep in the middle of it. Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been Wendy's custom to take him out of bed and sit with him on her lap, soothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer to put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should not know of the indignity to which she had subjected him. But on this occasion he had fallen at once into a dreamless sleep. One arm dropped over the edge of the bed, one leg was arched, and the unfinished part of his laugh was stranded on his mouth, which was open, showing the little pearls. Thus defenceless Hook found him. He stood silent at the foot of the tree looking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion disturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord) and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of the scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self he would have returned reluctantly up the tree, but for one thing. What stayed him was Peter's impertinent appearance as he slept. The open mouth, the drooping arm, the arched knee they were such a personification of cockiness as, taken together, will never again, one may hope, be presented to eyes so sensitive to their offensiveness. They steeled Hook's heart. If his rage had broken him into a hundred pieces every one of them would have disregarded the incident, and leapt at the sleeper. Though a light from the one lamp shone dimly on the bed, Hook stood in darkness himself, and at the first stealthy step forward he discovered an obstacle, the door of Slightly's tree. It did not entirely fill the aperture, and he had been looking over it. Feeling for the catch, he found to his fury that it was low down, beyond his reach. To his disordered brain it seemed then that the irritating quality in Peter's face and figure visibly increased, and he rattled the door and flung himself against it. Was his enemy to escape him after all? But what was that? The red in his eye had caught sight of Peter's medicine standing on a ledge within easy reach. He fathomed what it was straightaway, and immediately knew that the sleeper was in his power. Lest he should be taken alive, Hook always carried about his person a dreadful drug, blended by himself of all the deathdealing rings that had come into his possession. These he had boiled down into a yellow liquid quite unknown to science, which was probably the most virulent poison in existence. Five drops of this he now added to Peter's cup. His hand shook, but it was in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing at the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him merely to avoid spilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and turning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged at the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole. Donning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him, holding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night, of which it was the blackest part, and muttering strangely to himself, stole away through the trees. Peter slept on. The light guttered and went out, leaving the tenement in darkness but still he slept. It must have been not less than ten o'clock by the crocodile, when he suddenly sat up in his bed, wakened by he knew not what. It was a soft cautious tapping on the door of his tree. Soft and cautious, but in that stillness it was sinister. Peter felt for his dagger till his hand gripped it. Then he spoke. 'Who is that? For long there was no answer then again the knock. 'Who are you? No answer. He was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled. In two strides he reached the door. Unlike Slightly's door, it filled the aperture, so that he could not see beyond it, nor could the one knocking see him. 'I won't open unless you speak, Peter cried. Then at last the visitor spoke, in a lovely belllike voice. 'Let me in, Peter. It was Tink, and quickly he unbarred to her. She flew in excitedly, her face flushed and her dress stained with mud. 'What is it? 'Oh, you could never guess! she cried, and offered him three guesses. 'Out with it! he shouted, and in one ungrammatical sentence, as long as the ribbons that conjurers pull from their mouths, she told of the capture of Wendy and the boys. Peter's heart bobbed up and down as he listened. Wendy bound, and on the pirate ship she who loved everything to be just so! 'I'll rescue her! he cried, leaping at his weapons. As he leapt he thought of something he could do to please her. He could take his medicine. His hand closed on the fatal draught. 'No! shrieked Tinker Bell, who had heard Hook mutter about his deed as he sped through the forest. 'Why not? 'It is poisoned. 'Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it? 'Hook. 'Don't be silly. How could Hook have got down here? Alas, Tinker Bell could not explain this, for even she did not know the dark secret of Slightly's tree. Nevertheless Hook's words had left no room for doubt. The cup was poisoned. 'Besides, said Peter, quite believing himself, 'I never fell asleep. He raised the cup. No time for words now time for deeds and with one of her lightning movements Tink got between his lips and the draught, and drained it to the dregs. 'Why, Tink, how dare you drink my medicine? But she did not answer. Already she was reeling in the air. 'What is the matter with you? cried Peter, suddenly afraid. 'It was poisoned, Peter, she told him softly 'and now I am going to be dead. 'O Tink, did you drink it to save me? 'Yes. 'But why, Tink? Her wings would scarcely carry her now, but in reply she alighted on his shoulder and gave his nose a loving bite. She whispered in his ear 'You silly ass, and then, tottering to her chamber, lay down on the bed. His head almost filled the fourth wall of her little room as he knelt near her in distress. Every moment her light was growing fainter and he knew that if it went out she would be no more. She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies. Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees. 'Do you believe? he cried. Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate. She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn't sure. 'What do you think? she asked Peter. 'If you believe, he shouted to them, 'clap your hands don't let Tink die. Many clapped. Some didn't. A few beasts hissed. The clapping stopped suddenly as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening but already Tink was saved. First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then she was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have liked to get at the ones who had hissed. 'And now to rescue Wendy! The moon was riding in a cloudy heaven when Peter rose from his tree, begirt with weapons and wearing little else, to set out upon his perilous quest. It was not such a night as he would have chosen. He had hoped to fly, keeping not far from the ground so that nothing unwonted should escape his eyes but in that fitful light to have flown low would have meant trailing his shadow through the trees, thus disturbing birds and acquainting a watchful foe that he was astir. He regretted now that he had given the birds of the island such strange names that they are very wild and difficult of approach. There was no other course but to press forward in redskin fashion, at which happily he was an adept. But in what direction, for he could not be sure that the children had been taken to the ship? A light fall of snow had obliterated all footmarks and a deathly silence pervaded the island, as if for a space Nature stood still in horror of the recent carnage. He had taught the children something of the forest lore that he had himself learned from Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell, and knew that in their dire hour they were not likely to forget it. Slightly, if he had an opportunity, would blaze the trees, for instance, Curly would drop seeds, and Wendy would leave her handkerchief at some important place. The morning was needed to search for such guidance, and he could not wait. The upper world had called him, but would give no help. The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not a movement and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next tree, or stalking him from behind. He swore this terrible oath 'Hook or me this time. Now he crawled forward like a snake, and again erect, he darted across a space on which the moonlight played, one finger on his lip and his dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy. One green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of the pirate river, marked where the brig, the Jolly Roger, lay, low in the water a rakishlooking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she floated immune in the horror of her name. She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee. I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he was so pathetically unaware of it but even strong men had to turn hastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer evenings he had touched the fount of Hook's tears and made it flow. Of this, as of almost everything else, Smee was quite unconscious. A few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks, drinking in the miasma of the night others sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards and the exhausted four who had carried the little house lay prone on the deck, where even in their sleep they rolled skillfully to this side or that out of Hook's reach, lest he should claw them mechanically in passing. Hook trod the deck in thought. O man unfathomable. It was his hour of triumph. Peter had been removed for ever from his path, and all the other boys were in the brig, about to walk the plank. It was his grimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel and knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man, could we be surprised had he now paced the deck unsteadily, bellied out by the winds of his success? But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action of his sombre mind. Hook was profoundly dejected. He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the quietude of the night. It was because he was so terribly alone. This inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs. They were socially inferior to him. Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her, and he still adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But above all he retained the passion for good form. Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this is all that really matters. From far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals, and through them came a stern taptaptap, like hammering in the night when one cannot sleep. 'Have you been good form today? was their eternal question. 'Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine, he cried. 'Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything? the taptap from his school replied. 'I am the only man whom Barbecue feared, he urged, 'and Flint feared Barbecue. 'Barbecue, Flintwhat house? came the cutting retort. Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form? His vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him sharper than the iron one and as it tore him, the perspiration dripped down his tallow countenance and streaked his doublet. Ofttimes he drew his sleeve across his face, but there was no damming that trickle. Ah, envy not Hook. There came to him a presentiment of his early dissolution. It was as if Peter's terrible oath had boarded the ship. Hook felt a gloomy desire to make his dying speech, lest presently there should be no time for it. 'Better for Hook, he cried, 'if he had had less ambition! It was in his darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person. 'No little children to love me! Strange that he should think of this, which had never troubled him before perhaps the sewing machine brought it to his mind. For long he muttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under the conviction that all children feared him. Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with his fist, but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on his spectacles. To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it, but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the sleuthhound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself'Good form? Had the bo'sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of all? He remembered that you have to prove you don't know you have it before you are eligible for Pop. With a cry of rage he raised his iron hand over Smee's head but he did not tear. What arrested him was this reflection 'To claw a man because he is good form, what would that be? 'Bad form! The unhappy Hook was as impotent as he was damp, and he fell forward like a cut flower. His dogs thinking him out of the way for a time, discipline instantly relaxed and they broke into a bacchanalian dance, which brought him to his feet at once, all traces of human weakness gone, as if a bucket of water had passed over him. 'Quiet, you scugs, he cried, 'or I'll cast anchor in you and at once the din was hushed. 'Are all the children chained, so that they cannot fly away? 'Ay, ay. 'Then hoist them up. The wretched prisoners were dragged from the hold, all except Wendy, and ranged in line in front of him. For a time he seemed unconscious of their presence. He lolled at his ease, humming, not unmelodiously, snatches of a rude song, and fingering a pack of cards. Ever and anon the light from his cigar gave a touch of colour to his face. 'Now then, bullies, he said briskly, 'six of you walk the plank tonight, but I have room for two cabin boys. Which of you is it to be? 'Don't irritate him unnecessarily, had been Wendy's instructions in the hold so Tootles stepped forward politely. Tootles hated the idea of signing under such a man, but an instinct told him that it would be prudent to lay the responsibility on an absent person and though a somewhat silly boy, he knew that mothers alone are always willing to be the buffer. All children know this about mothers, and despise them for it, but make constant use of it. So Tootles explained prudently, 'You see, sir, I don't think my mother would like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a pirate, Slightly? He winked at Slightly, who said mournfully, 'I don't think so, as if he wished things had been otherwise. 'Would your mother like you to be a pirate, Twin? 'I don't think so, said the first twin, as clever as the others. 'Nibs, would 'Stow this gab, roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You, boy, he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty? Now John had sometimes experienced this hankering at maths. prep. and he was struck by Hook's picking him out. 'I once thought of calling myself Redhanded Jack, he said diffidently. 'And a good name too. We'll call you that here, bully, if you join. 'What do you think, Michael? asked John. 'What would you call me if I join? Michael demanded. 'Blackbeard Joe. Michael was naturally impressed. 'What do you think, John? He wanted John to decide, and John wanted him to decide. 'Shall we still be respectful subjects of the King? John inquired. Through Hook's teeth came the answer 'You would have to swear, 'Down with the King.' Perhaps John had not behaved very well so far, but he shone out now. 'Then I refuse, he cried, banging the barrel in front of Hook. 'And I refuse, cried Michael. 'Rule Britannia! squeaked Curly. The infuriated pirates buffeted them in the mouth and Hook roared out, 'That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. Get the plank ready. They were only boys, and they went white as they saw Jukes and Cecco preparing the fatal plank. But they tried to look brave when Wendy was brought up. No words of mine can tell you how Wendy despised those pirates. To the boys there was at least some glamour in the pirate calling but all that she saw was that the ship had not been tidied for years. There was not a porthole on the grimy glass of which you might not have written with your finger 'Dirty pig and she had already written it on several. But as the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of course, save for them. 'So, my beauty, said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, 'you are to see your children walk the plank. Fine gentlemen though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late. 'Are they to die? asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt that he nearly fainted. 'They are, he snarled. 'Silence all, he called gloatingly, 'for a mother's last words to her children. At this moment Wendy was grand. 'These are my last words, dear boys, she said firmly. 'I feel that I have a message to you from your real mothers, and it is this 'We hope our sons will die like English gentlemen.' Even the pirates were awed, and Tootles cried out hysterically, 'I am going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs? 'What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin? 'What my mother hopes. John, what are But Hook had found his voice again. 'Tie her up! he shouted. It was Smee who tied her to the mast. 'See here, honey, he whispered, 'I'll save you if you promise to be my mother. But not even for Smee would she make such a promise. 'I would almost rather have no children at all, she said disdainfully. It is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to the mast the eyes of all were on the plank that last little walk they were about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would walk it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them they could stare and shiver only. Hook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward Wendy. His intention was to turn her face so that she should see the boys walking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never heard the cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something else instead. It was the terrible ticktick of the crocodile. They all heard itpirates, boys, Wendy and immediately every head was blown in one direction not to the water whence the sound proceeded, but toward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him alone, and that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators. Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap. The sound came steadily nearer and in advance of it came this ghastly thought, 'The crocodile is about to board the ship! Even the iron claw hung inactive as if knowing that it was no intrinsic part of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully alone, any other man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell but the gigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its guidance he crawled on the knees along the deck as far from the sound as he could go. The pirates respectfully cleared a passage for him, and it was only when he brought up against the bulwarks that he spoke. 'Hide me! he cried hoarsely. They gathered round him, all eyes averted from the thing that was coming aboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate. Only when Hook was hidden from them did curiosity loosen the limbs of the boys so that they could rush to the ship's side to see the crocodile climbing it. Then they got the strangest surprise of the Night of Nights for it was no crocodile that was coming to their aid. It was Peter. He signed to them not to give vent to any cry of admiration that might rouse suspicion. Then he went on ticking. Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance, we suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don't know how long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come that night to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the island with one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had seen the crocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it, but by and by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he thought this eerie, but soon concluded rightly that the clock had run down. Without giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a fellowcreature thus abruptly deprived of its closest companion, Peter began to consider how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use and he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the crocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one unforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound, and it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what it had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again ticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like slaves to a fixed idea, it was a stupid beast. Peter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on, his legs encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new element. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human of whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought 'Hook or me this time. He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without knowing that he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for to board the brig by help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had not occurred to him. On the contrary, he thought he had scaled her side as noiseless as a mouse and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with Hook in their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile. The crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the ticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile, and he looked behind him swiftly. Then he realised that he was doing it himself, and in a flash he understood the situation. 'How clever of me! he thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into applause. It was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the forecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by your watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the illfated pirate's mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward. Four boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and the carrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence. How long has it taken? 'One! (Slightly had begun to count.) None too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the cabin for more than one pirate was screwing up his courage to look round. They could hear each other's distressed breathing now, which showed them that the more terrible sound had passed. 'It's gone, captain, Smee said, wiping off his spectacles. 'All's still again. Slowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently that he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound, and he drew himself up firmly to his full height. 'Then here's to Johnny Plank! he cried brazenly, hating the boys more than ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the villainous ditty 'Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank, You walks along it so, Till it goes down and you goes down To Davy Jones below! To terrorise the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of dignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he sang and when he finished he cried, 'Do you want a touch of the cat before you walk the plank? At that they fell on their knees. 'No, no! they cried so piteously that every pirate smiled. 'Fetch the cat, Jukes, said Hook 'it's in the cabin. The cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other. 'Ay, ay, said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They followed him with their eyes they scarce knew that Hook had resumed his song, his dogs joining in with him 'Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat, Its tails are nine, you know, And when they're writ upon your back What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the ship, and died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well understood by the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than the screech. 'What was that? cried Hook. 'Two, said Slightly solemnly. The Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment and then swung into the cabin. He tottered out, haggard. 'What's the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog? hissed Hook, towering over him. 'The matter wi' him is he's dead, stabbed, replied Cecco in a hollow voice. 'Bill Jukes dead! cried the startled pirates. 'The cabin's as black as a pit, Cecco said, almost gibbering, 'but there is something terrible in there the thing you heard crowing. The exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both were seen by Hook. 'Cecco, he said in his most steely voice, 'go back and fetch me out that doodledoo. Cecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying 'No, no but Hook was purring to his claw. 'Did you say you would go, Cecco? he said musingly. Cecco went, first flinging his arms despairingly. There was no more singing, all listened now and again came a deathscreech and again a crow. No one spoke except Slightly. 'Three, he said. Hook rallied his dogs with a gesture. ''S'death and odds fish, he thundered, 'who is to bring me that doodledoo? 'Wait till Cecco comes out, growled Starkey, and the others took up the cry. 'I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey, said Hook, purring again. 'No, by thunder! Starkey cried. 'My hook thinks you did, said Hook, crossing to him. 'I wonder if it would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook? 'I'll swing before I go in there, replied Starkey doggedly, and again he had the support of the crew. 'Is this mutiny? asked Hook more pleasantly than ever. 'Starkey's ringleader! 'Captain, mercy! Starkey whimpered, all of a tremble now. 'Shake hands, Starkey, said Hook, proffering his claw. Starkey looked round for help, but all deserted him. As he backed up Hook advanced, and now the red spark was in his eye. With a despairing scream the pirate leapt upon Long Tom and precipitated himself into the sea. 'Four, said Slightly. 'And now, Hook said courteously, 'did any other gentlemen say mutiny? Seizing a lantern and raising his claw with a menacing gesture, 'I'll bring out that doodledoo myself, he said, and sped into the cabin. 'Five. How Slightly longed to say it. He wetted his lips to be ready, but Hook came staggering out, without his lantern. 'Something blew out the light, he said a little unsteadily. 'Something! echoed Mullins. 'What of Cecco? demanded Noodler. 'He's as dead as Jukes, said Hook shortly. His reluctance to return to the cabin impressed them all unfavourably, and the mutinous sounds again broke forth. All pirates are superstitious, and Cookson cried, 'They do say the surest sign a ship's accurst is when there's one on board more than can be accounted for. 'I've heard, muttered Mullins, 'he always boards the pirate craft last. Had he a tail, captain? 'They say, said another, looking viciously at Hook, 'that when he comes it's in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard. 'Had he a hook, captain? asked Cookson insolently and one after another took up the cry, 'The ship's doomed! At this the children could not resist raising a cheer. Hook had wellnigh forgotten his prisoners, but as he swung round on them now his face lit up again. 'Lads, he cried to his crew, 'now here's a notion. Open the cabin door and drive them in. Let them fight the doodledoo for their lives. If they kill him, we're so much the better if he kills them, we're none the worse. For the last time his dogs admired Hook, and devotedly they did his bidding. The boys, pretending to struggle, were pushed into the cabin and the door was closed on them. 'Now, listen! cried Hook, and all listened. But not one dared to face the door. Yes, one, Wendy, who all this time had been bound to the mast. It was for neither a scream nor a crow that she was watching, it was for the reappearance of Peter. She had not long to wait. In the cabin he had found the thing for which he had gone in search the key that would free the children of their manacles, and now they all stole forth, armed with such weapons as they could find. First signing them to hide, Peter cut Wendy's bonds, and then nothing could have been easier than for them all to fly off together but one thing barred the way, an oath, 'Hook or me this time. So when he had freed Wendy, he whispered for her to conceal herself with the others, and himself took her place by the mast, her cloak around him so that he should pass for her. Then he took a great breath and crowed. To the pirates it was a voice crying that all the boys lay slain in the cabin and they were panicstricken. Hook tried to hearten them but like the dogs he had made them they showed him their fangs, and he knew that if he took his eyes off them now they would leap at him. 'Lads, he said, ready to cajole or strike as need be, but never quailing for an instant, 'I've thought it out. There's a Jonah aboard. 'Ay, they snarled, 'a man wi' a hook. 'No, lads, no, it's the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a woman on board. We'll right the ship when she's gone. Some of them remembered that this had been a saying of Flint's. 'It's worth trying, they said doubtfully. 'Fling the girl overboard, cried Hook and they made a rush at the figure in the cloak. 'There's none can save you now, missy, Mullins hissed jeeringly. 'There's one, replied the figure. 'Who's that? 'Peter Pan the avenger! came the terrible answer and as he spoke Peter flung off his cloak. Then they all knew who 'twas that had been undoing them in the cabin, and twice Hook essayed to speak and twice he failed. In that frightful moment I think his fierce heart broke. At last he cried, 'Cleave him to the brisket! but without conviction. 'Down, boys, and at them! Peter's voice rang out and in another moment the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept together it is certain that they would have won but the onset came when they were still unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man they were the stronger but they fought on the defensive only, which enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the miscreants leapt into the sea others hid in dark recesses, where they were found by Slightly, who did not fight, but ran about with a lantern which he flashed in their faces, so that they were half blinded and fell as an easy prey to the reeking swords of the other boys. There was little sound to be heard but the clang of weapons, an occasional screech or splash, and Slightly monotonously countingfivesixseveneightnineteneleven. I think all were gone when a group of savage boys surrounded Hook, who seemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in that circle of fire. They had done for his dogs, but this man alone seemed to be a match for them all. Again and again they closed upon him, and again and again he hewed a clear space. He had lifted up one boy with his hook, and was using him as a buckler, when another, who had just passed his sword through Mullins, sprang into the fray. 'Put up your swords, boys, cried the newcomer, 'this man is mine. Thus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others drew back and formed a ring around them. For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face. 'So, Pan, said Hook at last, 'this is all your doing. 'Ay, James Hook, came the stern answer, 'it is all my doing. 'Proud and insolent youth, said Hook, 'prepare to meet thy doom. 'Dark and sinister man, Peter answered, 'have at thee. Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage to either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling rapidity ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got past his foe's defence, but his shorter reach stood him in ill stead, and he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his inferior in brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by the weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a favourite thrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio but to his astonishment he found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he sought to close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had been pawing the air but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely, pierced him in the ribs. At the sight of his own blood, whose peculiar colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook's hand, and he was at Peter's mercy. 'Now! cried all the boys, but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form. Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker suspicions assailed him now. 'Pan, who and what art thou? he cried huskily. 'I'm youth, I'm joy, Peter answered at a venture, 'I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg. This, of course, was nonsense but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form. 'To't again, he cried despairingly. He fought now like a human flail, and every sweep of that terrible sword would have severed in twain any man or boy who obstructed it but Peter fluttered round him as if the very wind it made blew him out of the danger zone. And again and again he darted in and pricked. Hook was fighting now without hope. That passionate breast no longer asked for life but for one boon it craved to see Peter show bad form before it was cold forever. Abandoning the fight he rushed into the powder magazine and fired it. 'In two minutes, he cried, 'the ship will be blown to pieces. Now, now, he thought, true form will show. But Peter issued from the powder magazine with the shell in his hands, and calmly flung it overboard. What sort of form was Hook himself showing? Misguided man though he was, we may be glad, without sympathising with him, that in the end he was true to the traditions of his race. The other boys were flying around him now, flouting, scornful and he staggered about the deck striking up at them impotently, his mind was no longer with them it was slouching in the playing fields of long ago, or being sent up for good, or watching the wallgame from a famous wall. And his shoes were right, and his waistcoat was right, and his tie was right, and his socks were right. James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell. For we have come to his last moment. Seeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger poised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He did not know that the crocodile was waiting for him for we purposely stopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him a little mark of respect from us at the end. He had one last triumph, which I think we need not grudge him. As he stood on the bulwark looking over his shoulder at Peter gliding through the air, he invited him with a gesture to use his foot. It made Peter kick instead of stab. At last Hook had got the boon for which he craved. 'Bad form, he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile. Thus perished James Hook. 'Seventeen, Slightly sang out but he was not quite correct in his figures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night but two reached the shore Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy comedown for a pirate and Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had feared. Wendy, of course, had stood by taking no part in the fight, though watching Peter with glistening eyes but now that all was over she became prominent again. She praised them equally, and shuddered delightfully when Michael showed her the place where he had killed one and then she took them into Hook's cabin and pointed to his watch which was hanging on a nail. It said 'halfpast one! The lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She got them to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be sure all but Peter, who strutted up and down on the deck, until at last he fell asleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his dreams that night, and cried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tightly. By three bells that morning they were all stirring their stumps for there was a big sea running and Tootles, the bo'sun, was among them, with a rope's end in his hand and chewing tobacco. They all donned pirate clothes cut off at the knee, shaved smartly, and tumbled up, with the true nautical roll and hitching their trousers. It need not be said who was the captain. Nibs and John were first and second mate. There was a woman aboard. The rest were tars before the mast, and lived in the fo'c'sle. Peter had already lashed himself to the wheel but he piped all hands and delivered a short address to them said he hoped they would do their duty like gallant hearties, but that he knew they were the scum of Rio and the Gold Coast, and if they snapped at him he would tear them. The bluff strident words struck the note sailors understood, and they cheered him lustily. Then a few sharp orders were given, and they turned the ship round, and nosed her for the mainland. Captain Pan calculated, after consulting the ship's chart, that if this weather lasted they should strike the Azores about the st of June, after which it would save time to fly. Some of them wanted it to be an honest ship and others were in favour of keeping it a pirate but the captain treated them as dogs, and they dared not express their wishes to him even in a round robin. Instant obedience was the only safe thing. Slightly got a dozen for looking perplexed when told to take soundings. The general feeling was that Peter was honest just now to lull Wendy's suspicions, but that there might be a change when the new suit was ready, which, against her will, she was making for him out of some of Hook's wickedest garments. It was afterwards whispered among them that on the first night he wore this suit he sat long in the cabin with Hook's cigarholder in his mouth and one hand clenched, all but for the forefinger, which he bent and held threateningly aloft like a hook. Instead of watching the ship, however, we must now return to that desolate home from which three of our characters had taken heartless flight so long ago. It seems a shame to have neglected No.  all this time and yet we may be sure that Mrs. Darling does not blame us. If we had returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would probably have cried, 'Don't be silly what do I matter? Do go back and keep an eye on the children. So long as mothers are like this their children will take advantage of them and they may lay to that. Even now we venture into that familiar nursery only because its lawful occupants are on their way home we are merely hurrying on in advance of them to see that their beds are properly aired and that Mr. and Mrs. Darling do not go out for the evening. We are no more than servants. Why on earth should their beds be properly aired, seeing that they left them in such a thankless hurry? Would it not serve them jolly well right if they came back and found that their parents were spending the weekend in the country? It would be the moral lesson they have been in need of ever since we met them but if we contrived things in this way Mrs. Darling would never forgive us. One thing I should like to do immensely, and that is to tell her, in the way authors have, that the children are coming back, that indeed they will be here on Thursday week. This would spoil so completely the surprise to which Wendy and John and Michael are looking forward. They have been planning it out on the ship mother's rapture, father's shout of joy, Nana's leap through the air to embrace them first, when what they ought to be prepared for is a good hiding. How delicious to spoil it all by breaking the news in advance so that when they enter grandly Mrs. Darling may not even offer Wendy her mouth, and Mr. Darling may exclaim pettishly, 'Dash it all, here are those boys again. However, we should get no thanks even for this. We are beginning to know Mrs. Darling by this time, and may be sure that she would upbraid us for depriving the children of their little pleasure. 'But, my dear madam, it is ten days till Thursday week so that by telling you what's what, we can save you ten days of unhappiness. 'Yes, but at what a cost! By depriving the children of ten minutes of delight. 'Oh, if you look at it in that way! 'What other way is there in which to look at it? You see, the woman had no proper spirit. I had meant to say extraordinarily nice things about her but I despise her, and not one of them will I say now. She does not really need to be told to have things ready, for they are ready. All the beds are aired, and she never leaves the house, and observe, the window is open. For all the use we are to her, we might well go back to the ship. However, as we are here we may as well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookerson. Nobody really wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of them will hurt. The only change to be seen in the nightnursery is that between nine and six the kennel is no longer there. When the children flew away, Mr. Darling felt in his bones that all the blame was his for having chained Nana up, and that from first to last she had been wiser than he. Of course, as we have seen, he was quite a simple man indeed he might have passed for a boy again if he had been able to take his baldness off but he had also a noble sense of justice and a lion's courage to do what seemed right to him and having thought the matter out with anxious care after the flight of the children, he went down on all fours and crawled into the kennel. To all Mrs. Darling's dear invitations to him to come out he replied sadly but firmly 'No, my own one, this is the place for me. In the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave the kennel until his children came back. Of course this was a pity but whatever Mr. Darling did he had to do in excess, otherwise he soon gave up doing it. And there never was a more humble man than the once proud George Darling, as he sat in the kennel of an evening talking with his wife of their children and all their pretty ways. Very touching was his deference to Nana. He would not let her come into the kennel, but on all other matters he followed her wishes implicitly. Every morning the kennel was carried with Mr. Darling in it to a cab, which conveyed him to his office, and he returned home in the same way at six. Something of the strength of character of the man will be seen if we remember how sensitive he was to the opinion of neighbours this man whose every movement now attracted surprised attention. Inwardly he must have suffered torture but he preserved a calm exterior even when the young criticised his little home, and he always lifted his hat courteously to any lady who looked inside. It may have been Quixotic, but it was magnificent. Soon the inward meaning of it leaked out, and the great heart of the public was touched. Crowds followed the cab, cheering it lustily charming girls scaled it to get his autograph interviews appeared in the better class of papers, and society invited him to dinner and added, 'Do come in the kennel. On that eventful Thursday week, Mrs. Darling was in the nightnursery awaiting George's return home a very sadeyed woman. Now that we look at her closely and remember the gaiety of her in the old days, all gone now just because she has lost her babes, I find I won't be able to say nasty things about her after all. If she was too fond of her rubbishy children, she couldn't help it. Look at her in her chair, where she has fallen asleep. The corner of her mouth, where one looks first, is almost withered up. Her hand moves restlessly on her breast as if she had a pain there. Some like Peter best, and some like Wendy best, but I like her best. Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep that the brats are coming back. They are really within two miles of the window now, and flying strong, but all we need whisper is that they are on the way. Let's. It is a pity we did it, for she has started up, calling their names and there is no one in the room but Nana. 'O Nana, I dreamt my dear ones had come back. Nana had filmy eyes, but all she could do was put her paw gently on her mistress's lap and they were sitting together thus when the kennel was brought back. As Mr. Darling puts his head out to kiss his wife, we see that his face is more worn than of yore, but has a softer expression. He gave his hat to Liza, who took it scornfully for she had no imagination, and was quite incapable of understanding the motives of such a man. Outside, the crowd who had accompanied the cab home were still cheering, and he was naturally not unmoved. 'Listen to them, he said 'it is very gratifying. 'Lots of little boys, sneered Liza. 'There were several adults today, he assured her with a faint flush but when she tossed her head he had not a word of reproof for her. Social success had not spoilt him it had made him sweeter. For some time he sat with his head out of the kennel, talking with Mrs. Darling of this success, and pressing her hand reassuringly when she said she hoped his head would not be turned by it. 'But if I had been a weak man, he said. 'Good heavens, if I had been a weak man! 'And, George, she said timidly, 'you are as full of remorse as ever, aren't you? 'Full of remorse as ever, dearest! See my punishment living in a kennel. 'But it is punishment, isn't it, George? You are sure you are not enjoying it? 'My love! You may be sure she begged his pardon and then, feeling drowsy, he curled round in the kennel. 'Won't you play me to sleep, he asked, 'on the nursery piano? and as she was crossing to the daynursery he added thoughtlessly, 'And shut that window. I feel a draught. 'O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for them, always, always. Now it was his turn to beg her pardon and she went into the daynursery and played, and soon he was asleep and while he slept, Wendy and John and Michael flew into the room. Oh no. We have written it so, because that was the charming arrangement planned by them before we left the ship but something must have happened since then, for it is not they who have flown in, it is Peter and Tinker Bell. Peter's first words tell all. 'Quick Tink, he whispered, 'close the window bar it! That's right. Now you and I must get away by the door and when Wendy comes she will think her mother has barred her out and she will have to go back with me. Now I understand what had hitherto puzzled me, why when Peter had exterminated the pirates he did not return to the island and leave Tink to escort the children to the mainland. This trick had been in his head all the time. Instead of feeling that he was behaving badly he danced with glee then he peeped into the daynursery to see who was playing. He whispered to Tink, 'It's Wendy's mother! She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as my mother. Her mouth is full of thimbles, but not so full as my mother's was. Of course he knew nothing whatever about his mother but he sometimes bragged about her. He did not know the tune, which was 'Home, Sweet Home, but he knew it was saying, 'Come back, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy and he cried exultantly, 'You will never see Wendy again, lady, for the window is barred! He peeped in again to see why the music had stopped, and now he saw that Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were sitting on her eyes. 'She wants me to unbar the window, thought Peter, 'but I won't, not I! He peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had taken their place. 'She's awfully fond of Wendy, he said to himself. He was angry with her now for not seeing why she could not have Wendy. The reason was so simple 'I'm fond of her too. We can't both have her, lady. But the lady would not make the best of it, and he was unhappy. He ceased to look at her, but even then she would not let go of him. He skipped about and made funny faces, but when he stopped it was just as if she were inside him, knocking. 'Oh, all right, he said at last, and gulped. Then he unbarred the window. 'Come on, Tink, he cried, with a frightful sneer at the laws of nature 'we don't want any silly mothers and he flew away. Thus Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after all, which of course was more than they deserved. They alighted on the floor, quite unashamed of themselves, and the youngest one had already forgotten his home. 'John, he said, looking around him doubtfully, 'I think I have been here before. 'Of course you have, you silly. There is your old bed. 'So it is, Michael said, but not with much conviction. 'I say, cried John, 'the kennel! and he dashed across to look into it. 'Perhaps Nana is inside it, Wendy said. But John whistled. 'Hullo, he said, 'there's a man inside it. 'It's father! exclaimed Wendy. 'Let me see father, Michael begged eagerly, and he took a good look. 'He is not so big as the pirate I killed, he said with such frank disappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was asleep it would have been sad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael say. Wendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in the kennel. 'Surely, said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, 'he used not to sleep in the kennel? 'John, Wendy said falteringly, 'perhaps we don't remember the old life as well as we thought we did. A chill fell upon them and serve them right. 'It is very careless of mother, said that young scoundrel John, 'not to be here when we come back. It was then that Mrs. Darling began playing again. 'It's mother! cried Wendy, peeping. 'So it is! said John. 'Then are you not really our mother, Wendy? asked Michael, who was surely sleepy. 'Oh dear! exclaimed Wendy, with her first real twinge of remorse, 'it was quite time we came back. 'Let us creep in, John suggested, 'and put our hands over her eyes. But Wendy, who saw that they must break the joyous news more gently, had a better plan. 'Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as if we had never been away. And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the nightnursery to see if her husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her still. She sat down in the chair by the fire, where in the old days she had nursed them. They could not understand this, and a cold fear fell upon all the three of them. 'Mother! Wendy cried. 'That's Wendy, she said, but still she was sure it was the dream. 'Mother! 'That's John, she said. 'Mother! cried Michael. He knew her now. 'That's Michael, she said, and she stretched out her arms for the three little selfish children they would never envelop again. Yes, they did, they went round Wendy and John and Michael, who had slipped out of bed and run to her. 'George, George! she cried when she could speak and Mr. Darling woke to share her bliss, and Nana came rushing in. There could not have been a lovelier sight but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred. I hope you want to know what became of the other boys. They were waiting below to give Wendy time to explain about them and when they had counted five hundred they went up. They went up by the stair, because they thought this would make a better impression. They stood in a row in front of Mrs. Darling, with their hats off, and wishing they were not wearing their pirate clothes. They said nothing, but their eyes asked her to have them. They ought to have looked at Mr. Darling also, but they forgot about him. Of course Mrs. Darling said at once that she would have them but Mr. Darling was curiously depressed, and they saw that he considered six a rather large number. 'I must say, he said to Wendy, 'that you don't do things by halves, a grudging remark which the twins thought was pointed at them. The first twin was the proud one, and he asked, flushing, 'Do you think we should be too much of a handful, sir? Because, if so, we can go away. 'Father! Wendy cried, shocked but still the cloud was on him. He knew he was behaving unworthily, but he could not help it. 'We could lie doubled up, said Nibs. 'I always cut their hair myself, said Wendy. 'George! Mrs. Darling exclaimed, pained to see her dear one showing himself in such an unfavourable light. Then he burst into tears, and the truth came out. He was as glad to have them as she was, he said, but he thought they should have asked his consent as well as hers, instead of treating him as a cypher in his own house. 'I don't think he is a cypher, Tootles cried instantly. 'Do you think he is a cypher, Curly? 'No, I don't. Do you think he is a cypher, Slightly? 'Rather not. Twin, what do you think? It turned out that not one of them thought him a cypher and he was absurdly gratified, and said he would find space for them all in the drawingroom if they fitted in. 'We'll fit in, sir, they assured him. 'Then follow the leader, he cried gaily. 'Mind you, I am not sure that we have a drawingroom, but we pretend we have, and it's all the same. Hoop la! He went off dancing through the house, and they all cried 'Hoop la! and danced after him, searching for the drawingroom and I forget whether they found it, but at any rate they found corners, and they all fitted in. As for Peter, he saw Wendy once again before he flew away. He did not exactly come to the window, but he brushed against it in passing so that she could open it if she liked and call to him. That is what she did. 'Hullo, Wendy, goodbye, he said. 'Oh dear, are you going away? 'Yes. 'You don't feel, Peter, she said falteringly, 'that you would like to say anything to my parents about a very sweet subject? 'No. 'About me, Peter? 'No. Mrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keeping a sharp eye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys, and would like to adopt him also. 'Would you send me to school? he inquired craftily. 'Yes. 'And then to an office? 'I suppose so. 'Soon I would be a man? 'Very soon. 'I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things, he told her passionately. 'I don't want to be a man. O Wendy's mother, if I was to wake up and feel there was a beard! 'Peter, said Wendy the comforter, 'I should love you in a beard and Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her. 'Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man. 'But where are you going to live? 'With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it high up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights. 'How lovely, cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darling tightened her grip. 'I thought all the fairies were dead, Mrs. Darling said. 'There are always a lot of young ones, explained Wendy, who was now quite an authority, 'because you see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are. 'I shall have such fun, said Peter, with eye on Wendy. 'It will be rather lonely in the evening, she said, 'sitting by the fire. 'I shall have Tink. 'Tink can't go a twentieth part of the way round, she reminded him a little tartly. 'Sneaky telltale! Tink called out from somewhere round the corner. 'It doesn't matter, Peter said. 'O Peter, you know it matters. 'Well, then, come with me to the little house. 'May I, mummy? 'Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I mean to keep you. 'But he does so need a mother. 'So do you, my love. 'Oh, all right, Peter said, as if he had asked her from politeness merely but Mrs. Darling saw his mouth twitch, and she made this handsome offer to let Wendy go to him for a week every year to do his spring cleaning. Wendy would have preferred a more permanent arrangement and it seemed to her that spring would be long in coming but this promise sent Peter away quite gay again. He had no sense of time, and was so full of adventures that all I have told you about him is only a halfpennyworth of them. I suppose it was because Wendy knew this that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones 'You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring cleaning time comes? Of course Peter promised and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else, Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied. Of course all the boys went to school and most of them got into Class III, but Slightly was put first into Class IV and then into Class V. Class I is the top class. Before they had attended school a week they saw what goats they had been not to remain on the island but it was too late now, and soon they settled down to being as ordinary as you or me or Jenkins minor. It is sad to have to say that the power to fly gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to the bedposts so that they should not fly away in the night and one of their diversions by day was to pretend to fall off buses but by and by they ceased to tug at their bonds in bed, and found that they hurt themselves when they let go of the bus. In time they could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice, they called it but what it really meant was that they no longer believed. Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves and berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice how short it had become but he never noticed, he had so much to say about himself. She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind. 'Who is Captain Hook? he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch enemy. 'Don't you remember, she asked, amazed, 'how you killed him and saved all our lives? 'I forget them after I kill them, he replied carelessly. When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her he said, 'Who is Tinker Bell? 'O Peter, she said, shocked but even when she explained he could not remember. 'There are such a lot of them, he said. 'I expect she is no more. I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them. Wendy was pained too to find that the past year was but as yesterday to Peter it had seemed such a long year of waiting to her. But he was exactly as fascinating as ever, and they had a lovely spring cleaning in the little house on the tree tops. Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the old one simply would not meet but he never came. 'Perhaps he is ill, Michael said. 'You know he is never ill. Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, 'Perhaps there is no such person, Wendy! and then Wendy would have cried if Michael had not been crying. Peter came next spring cleaning and the strange thing was that he never knew he had missed a year. That was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For a little longer she tried for his sake not to have growing pains and she felt she was untrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls. All the boys were grown up and done for by this time so it is scarcely worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag and an umbrella. Michael is an enginedriver. Slightly married a lady of title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John. Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns. Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be written in ink but in a golden splash. She was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, as if from the moment she arrived on the mainland she wanted to ask questions. When she was old enough to ask them they were mostly about Peter Pan. She loved to hear of Peter, and Wendy told her all she could remember in the very nursery from which the famous flight had taken place. It was Jane's nursery now, for her father had bought it at the three per cents from Wendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs. Mrs. Darling was now dead and forgotten. There were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and her nurse's and there was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age, and at the end she had been rather difficult to get on with being very firmly convinced that no one knew how to look after children except herself. Once a week Jane's nurse had her evening off and then it was Wendy's part to put Jane to bed. That was the time for stories. It was Jane's invention to raise the sheet over her mother's head and her own, thus making a tent, and in the awful darkness to whisper 'What do we see now? 'I don't think I see anything tonight, says Wendy, with a feeling that if Nana were here she would object to further conversation. 'Yes, you do, says Jane, 'you see when you were a little girl. 'That is a long time ago, sweetheart, says Wendy. 'Ah me, how time flies! 'Does it fly, asks the artful child, 'the way you flew when you were a little girl? 'The way I flew? Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whether I ever did really fly. 'Yes, you did. 'The dear old days when I could fly! 'Why can't you fly now, mother? 'Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way. 'Why do they forget the way? 'Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly. 'What is gay and innocent and heartless? I do wish I were gay and innocent and heartless. Or perhaps Wendy admits she does see something. 'I do believe, she says, 'that it is this nursery. 'I do believe it is, says Jane. 'Go on. They are now embarked on the great adventure of the night when Peter flew in looking for his shadow. 'The foolish fellow, says Wendy, 'tried to stick it on with soap, and when he could not he cried, and that woke me, and I sewed it on for him. 'You have missed a bit, interrupts Jane, who now knows the story better than her mother. 'When you saw him sitting on the floor crying, what did you say? 'I sat up in bed and I said, 'Boy, why are you crying?' 'Yes, that was it, says Jane, with a big breath. 'And then he flew us all away to the Neverland and the fairies and the pirates and the redskins and the mermaids' lagoon, and the home under the ground, and the little house. 'Yes! which did you like best of all? 'I think I liked the home under the ground best of all. 'Yes, so do I. What was the last thing Peter ever said to you? 'The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.' 'Yes. 'But, alas, he forgot all about me, Wendy said it with a smile. She was as grown up as that. 'What did his crow sound like? Jane asked one evening. 'It was like this, Wendy said, trying to imitate Peter's crow. 'No, it wasn't, Jane said gravely, 'it was like this and she did it ever so much better than her mother. Wendy was a little startled. 'My darling, how can you know? 'I often hear it when I am sleeping, Jane said. 'Ah yes, many girls hear it when they are sleeping, but I was the only one who heard it awake. 'Lucky you, said Jane. And then one night came the tragedy. It was the spring of the year, and the story had been told for the night, and Jane was now asleep in her bed. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to see to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery and while she sat darning she heard a crow. Then the window blew open as of old, and Peter dropped in on the floor. He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had all his first teeth. He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman. 'Hullo, Wendy, he said, not noticing any difference, for he was thinking chiefly of himself and in the dim light her white dress might have been the nightgown in which he had seen her first. 'Hullo, Peter, she replied faintly, squeezing herself as small as possible. Something inside her was crying 'Woman, Woman, let go of me. 'Hullo, where is John? he asked, suddenly missing the third bed. 'John is not here now, she gasped. 'Is Michael asleep? he asked, with a careless glance at Jane. 'Yes, she answered and now she felt that she was untrue to Jane as well as to Peter. 'That is not Michael, she said quickly, lest a judgment should fall on her. Peter looked. 'Hullo, is it a new one? 'Yes. 'Boy or girl? 'Girl. Now surely he would understand but not a bit of it. 'Peter, she said, faltering, 'are you expecting me to fly away with you? 'Of course that is why I have come. He added a little sternly, 'Have you forgotten that this is spring cleaning time? She knew it was useless to say that he had let many spring cleaning times pass. 'I can't come, she said apologetically, 'I have forgotten how to fly. 'I'll soon teach you again. 'O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me. She had risen and now at last a fear assailed him. 'What is it? he cried, shrinking. 'I will turn up the light, she said, 'and then you can see for yourself. For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid. 'Don't turn up the light, he cried. She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a little girl heartbroken about him she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were weteyed smiles. Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain and when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew back sharply. 'What is it? he cried again. She had to tell him. 'I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long ago. 'You promised not to! 'I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter. 'No, you're not. 'Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby. 'No, she's not. But he supposed she was and he took a step towards the sleeping child with his dagger upraised. Of course he did not strike. He sat down on the floor instead and sobbed and Wendy did not know how to comfort him, though she could have done it so easily once. She was only a woman now, and she ran out of the room to try to think. Peter continued to cry, and soon his sobs woke Jane. She sat up in bed, and was interested at once. 'Boy, she said, 'why are you crying? Peter rose and bowed to her, and she bowed to him from the bed. 'Hullo, he said. 'Hullo, said Jane. 'My name is Peter Pan, he told her. 'Yes, I know. 'I came back for my mother, he explained, 'to take her to the Neverland. 'Yes, I know, Jane said, 'I have been waiting for you. When Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on the bedpost crowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flying round the room in solemn ecstasy. 'She is my mother, Peter explained and Jane descended and stood by his side, with the look in her face that he liked to see on ladies when they gazed at him. 'He does so need a mother, Jane said. 'Yes, I know, Wendy admitted rather forlornly 'no one knows it so well as I. 'Goodbye, said Peter to Wendy and he rose in the air, and the shameless Jane rose with him it was already her easiest way of moving about. Wendy rushed to the window. 'No, no, she cried. 'It is just for spring cleaning time, Jane said, 'he wants me always to do his spring cleaning. 'If only I could go with you, Wendy sighed. 'You see you can't fly, said Jane. Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky until they were as small as stars. As you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grownup, with a daughter called Margaret and every spring cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless. THE END
CONTENTS ETYMOLOGY. EXTRACTS (Supplied by a SubSubLibrarian). CHAPTER . Loomings. CHAPTER . The CarpetBag. CHAPTER . The SpouterInn. CHAPTER . The Counterpane. CHAPTER . Breakfast. CHAPTER . The Street. CHAPTER . The Chapel. CHAPTER . The Pulpit. CHAPTER . The Sermon. CHAPTER . A Bosom Friend. CHAPTER . Nightgown. CHAPTER . Biographical. CHAPTER . Wheelbarrow. CHAPTER . Nantucket. CHAPTER . Chowder. CHAPTER . The Ship. CHAPTER . The Ramadan. CHAPTER . His Mark. CHAPTER . The Prophet. CHAPTER . All Astir. CHAPTER . Going Aboard. CHAPTER . Merry Christmas. CHAPTER . The Lee Shore. CHAPTER . The Advocate. CHAPTER . Postscript. CHAPTER . Knights and Squires. CHAPTER . Knights and Squires. CHAPTER . Ahab. CHAPTER . Enter Ahab to Him, Stubb. CHAPTER . The Pipe. CHAPTER . Queen Mab. CHAPTER . Cetology. CHAPTER . The Specksnyder. CHAPTER . The CabinTable. CHAPTER . The MastHead. CHAPTER . The QuarterDeck. CHAPTER . Sunset. CHAPTER . Dusk. CHAPTER . First NightWatch. CHAPTER . Midnight, Forecastle. CHAPTER . Moby Dick. CHAPTER . The Whiteness of the Whale. CHAPTER . Hark! CHAPTER . The Chart. CHAPTER . The Affidavit. CHAPTER . Surmises. CHAPTER . The MatMaker. CHAPTER . The First Lowering. CHAPTER . The Hyena. CHAPTER . Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah. CHAPTER . The SpiritSpout. CHAPTER . The Albatross. CHAPTER . The Gam. CHAPTER . The TownHo's Story. CHAPTER . Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. CHAPTER . Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes. CHAPTER . Of Whales in Paint in Teeth in Wood in SheetIron in Stone in Mountains in Stars. CHAPTER . Brit. CHAPTER . Squid. CHAPTER . The Line. CHAPTER . Stubb Kills a Whale. CHAPTER . The Dart. CHAPTER . The Crotch. CHAPTER . Stubb's Supper. CHAPTER . The Whale as a Dish. CHAPTER . The Shark Massacre. CHAPTER . Cutting In. CHAPTER . The Blanket. CHAPTER . The Funeral. CHAPTER . The Sphynx. CHAPTER . The Jeroboam's Story. CHAPTER . The MonkeyRope. CHAPTER . Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale and Then Have a Talk over Him. CHAPTER . The Sperm Whale's HeadContrasted View. CHAPTER . The Right Whale's HeadContrasted View. CHAPTER . The BatteringRam. CHAPTER . The Great Heidelburgh Tun. CHAPTER . Cistern and Buckets. CHAPTER . The Prairie. CHAPTER . The Nut. CHAPTER . The Pequod Meets The Virgin. CHAPTER . The Honor and Glory of Whaling. CHAPTER . Jonah Historically Regarded. CHAPTER . Pitchpoling. CHAPTER . The Fountain. CHAPTER . The Tail. CHAPTER . The Grand Armada. CHAPTER . Schools and Schoolmasters. CHAPTER . FastFish and LooseFish. CHAPTER . Heads or Tails. CHAPTER . The Pequod Meets The RoseBud. CHAPTER . Ambergris. CHAPTER . The Castaway. CHAPTER . A Squeeze of the Hand. CHAPTER . The Cassock. CHAPTER . The TryWorks. CHAPTER . The Lamp. CHAPTER . Stowing Down and Clearing Up. CHAPTER . The Doubloon. CHAPTER . Leg and Arm. CHAPTER . The Decanter. CHAPTER . A Bower in the Arsacides. CHAPTER . Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton. CHAPTER . The Fossil Whale. CHAPTER . Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?Will He Perish? CHAPTER . Ahab's Leg. CHAPTER . The Carpenter. CHAPTER . Ahab and the Carpenter. CHAPTER . Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin. CHAPTER . Queequeg in His Coffin. CHAPTER . The Pacific. CHAPTER . The Blacksmith. CHAPTER . The Forge. CHAPTER . The Gilder. CHAPTER . The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. CHAPTER . The Dying Whale. CHAPTER . The Whale Watch. CHAPTER . The Quadrant. CHAPTER . The Candles. CHAPTER . The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch. CHAPTER . Midnight.The Forecastle Bulwarks. CHAPTER . Midnight Aloft.Thunder and Lightning. CHAPTER . The Musket. CHAPTER . The Needle. CHAPTER . The Log and Line. CHAPTER . The LifeBuoy. CHAPTER . The Deck. CHAPTER . The Pequod Meets The Rachel. CHAPTER . The Cabin. CHAPTER . The Hat. CHAPTER . The Pequod Meets The Delight. CHAPTER . The Symphony. CHAPTER . The ChaseFirst Day. CHAPTER . The ChaseSecond Day. CHAPTER . The Chase.Third Day. Epilogue This text is a combination of etexts, one from the nowdefunct ERIS project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg's archives. The proofreaders of this version are indebted to The University of Adelaide Library for preserving the Virginia Tech version. The resulting etext was compared with a public domain hard copy version of the text. The pale Usherthreadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. 'While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whalefish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true. Hackluyt. 'WHALE.    Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted. Webster's Dictionary. 'WHALE.    It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. Wallen A.S. Walwian, to roll, to wallow. Richardson's Dictionary. It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grubworm of a poor devil of a SubSub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and streetstalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledypiggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own. So fare thee well, poor devil of a SubSub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosystrong but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poordevilish, too and grow convivial upon tears and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadnessGive it up, SubSubs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royalmast with your hearts for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the sevenstoried heavens, and making refugees of longpampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts togetherthere, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses! 'And God created great whales. Genesis. 'Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him One would think the deep to be hoary. Job. 'Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Jonah. 'There go the ships there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein. Psalms. 'In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. Isaiah. 'And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster's mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his paunch. Holland's Plutarch's Morals. 'The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of land. Holland's Pliny. 'Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the former, one was of a most monstrous size.... This came towards us, openmouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam. Tooke's Lucian. 'The True History. 'He visited this country also with a view of catching horsewhales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king.... The best whales were catched in his own country, of which some were fortyeight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days. Other or Other's verbal narrative taken down from his mouth by King Alfred, A.D. . 'And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the seagudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps. MONTAIGNE. Apology for Raimond Sebond. 'Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job. Rabelais. 'This whale's liver was two cartloads. Stowe's Annals. 'The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan. Lord Bacon's Version of the Psalms. 'Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale. Ibid. 'History of Life and Death. 'The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise. King Henry. 'Very like a whale. Hamlet. 'Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil. Sir William Davenant. Preface to Gondibert. 'What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit. Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V. E. 'By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man. Opening sentence of Hobbes's Leviathan. 'Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale. Pilgrim's Progress. 'The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them. Fuller's Profane and Holy State. 'While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water. Thomas Edge's Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas. 'In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders. Sir T. Herbert's Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll. 'Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them. Schouten's Sixth Circumnavigation. 'We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The JonasintheWhale.... Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains.... I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over. A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. . Harris Coll. 'Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno , one eighty feet in length of the whalebone kind came in, which (as I was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford  weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren. Sibbald's Fife and Kinross. 'Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Spermaceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness. Richard Strafford's Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. . 'Whales in the sea God's voice obey. N. E. Primer. 'We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one than we have to the northward of us. Captain Cowley's Voyage round the Globe, A.D. . '... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain. Ulloa's South America. 'If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest animal in creation. Goldsmith, Nat. Hist. 'If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales. Goldsmith to Johnson. 'In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us. Cook's Voyages. 'The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, limestone, juniperwood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach. Uno Von Troil's Letters on Banks's and Solander's Voyage to Iceland in . 'The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen. Thomas Jefferson's Whale Memorial to the French minister in . 'And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it? Edmund Burke's reference in Parliament to the Nantucket WhaleFishery. 'Spaina great whale stranded on the shores of Europe. Edmund Burke. (somewhere.) 'A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king. Blackstone. 'Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity. John Hunter's account of the dissection of a whale. (A small sized one.) 'The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the waterworks at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale's heart. Paley's Theology. 'The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet. Baron Cuvier. 'In  degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them. Colnett's Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale Fishery. 'In the year  some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed therepointing to the seais a green pasture where our children's grandchildren will go for bread. Obed Macy's History of Nantucket. 'I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones. Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales. 'She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago. Ibid. 'No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale, answered Tom 'I saw his sprout he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He's a raal oilbutt, that fellow! Cooper's Pilot. 'The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there. Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe. 'My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter? I answered, 'we have been stove by a whale. 'Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean. By Owen Chace of Nantucket, first mate of said vessel. New York, . 'The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to , yards or nearly six English miles.... 'Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles. Scoresby. 'Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him he rushes at the boats with his head they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes. Thomas Beale's History of the Sperm Whale, . 'The Cachalot (Sperm Whale) 'is not only better armed than the True Whale (Greenland or Right Whale) 'in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe. Frederick Debell Bennett's Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, . 'The Whaleship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket. 'Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, by Lay and Hussey survivors. A.D. . Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable. Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett. 'Nantucket itself, said Mr. Webster, 'is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry. Report of Daniel Webster's Speech in the U. S. Senate, on the application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket. . 'The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment. 'The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman's Adventures and the Whale's Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble. By Rev. Henry T. Cheever. 'If you make the least damn bit of noise, replied Samuel, 'I will send you to hell. Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by his brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the whaleship Globe narrative. 'The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laidopen the haunts of the whale. McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary. 'These things are reciprocal the ball rebounds, only to bound forward again for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic NorthWest Passage. From 'Something unpublished. 'It is impossible to meet a whaleship on the ocean without being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with lookouts at the mastheads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage. Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex. 'Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales. Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean. 'It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages enrolled among the crew. Newspaper Account of the Taking and Retaking of the WhaleShip Hobomack. 'It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they departed. Cruise in a Whale Boat. 'Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale. Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman. 'The Whale is harpooned to be sure but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail. A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks. 'On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone's throw of the shore (Terra Del Fuego), 'over which the beech tree extended its branches. Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist. ''Stern all!' exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction'Stern all, for your lives!' Wharton the Whale Killer. 'So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale! Nantucket Song. Call me Ishmael. Some years agonever mind how long preciselyhaving little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats offthen, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefscommerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of watergazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles some seated upon the pierheads some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen of week days pent up in lath and plastertied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here? But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they standmiles of themleagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenuesnorth, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? Once more. Say you are in the country in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absentminded of men be plunged in his deepest reveriesstand that man on his legs, set his feet agoing, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever. But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hillside blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pinetree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade kneedeep among Tigerlilieswhat is the one charm wanting?Waterthere is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life and this is the key to it all. Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get seasickgrow quarrelsomedon't sleep of nightsdo not enjoy themselves much, as a general thingno, I never go as a passenger nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on shipboardyet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowlsthough once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bakehouses the pyramids. No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal masthead. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tarpot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time. What of it, if some old hunks of a seacaptain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old seacaptains may order me abouthowever they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same wayeither in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulderblades, and be content. Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid,what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarterdeck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable wayhe can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this 'Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. 'WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. 'BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN. Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farcesthough I cannot tell why this was exactly yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment. Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with itwould they let mesince it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in. By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome the great floodgates of the wonderworld swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpetbag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday. As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great originalthe Tyre of this Carthagethe place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the RedMen, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestonesso goes the storyto throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit? Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubiouslooking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the southwherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular. With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of 'The Crossed Harpoonsbut it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the 'SwordFish Inn, there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last don't you hear? get away from before the door your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns. Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ashbox in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But 'The Crossed Harpoons, and 'The SwordFish?this, then must needs be the sign of 'The Trap. However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door. It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church and the preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teethgnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!' Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath'The Spouter InnPeter Coffin. Coffin?Spouter?Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a povertystricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. It was a queer sort of placea gableended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one indoors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. 'In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon, says an old writerof whose works I possess the only copy extant'it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier. True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my mindold blackletter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corncob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night how Orion glitters what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost? Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans. But no more of this blubbering now, we are going awhaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this 'Spouter may be. Entering that gableended SpouterInn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with oldfashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, halfattained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.It's a blasted heath.It's a Hyperborean winter scene.It's the breakingup of the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself? In fact, the artist's design seemed this a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a CapeHorner in a great hurricane the halffoundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mastheads. The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws others were tufted with knots of human hair and one was sickleshaped, with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in the newmown grass by a longarmed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a deathharvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoonso like a corkscrew nowwas flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the hump. Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon lowarched waycut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fireplaces all roundyou enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corneranchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelflike table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a darklooking denthe bara rude attempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death. Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders withoutwithin, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny to this a penny more and so on to the full glassthe Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling. Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was fullnot a bed unoccupied. 'But avast, he added, tapping his forehead, 'you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' awhalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing. I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed that if I should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man's blanket. 'I thought so. All right take a seat. Supper?you want supper? Supper'll be ready directly. I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with his jackknife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn't make much headway, I thought. At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an adjoining room. It was cold as Icelandno fire at allthe landlord said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kindnot only meat and potatoes, but dumplings good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful manner. 'My boy, said the landlord, 'you'll have the nightmare to a dead sartainty. 'Landlord, I whispered, 'that aint the harpooneer is it? 'Oh, no, said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, 'the harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don'the eats nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare. 'The devil he does, says I. 'Where is that harpooneer? Is he here? 'He'll be here afore long, was the answer. I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this 'dark complexioned harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into bed before I did. Supper over, the company went back to the barroom, when, knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening as a looker on. Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord cried, 'That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing this morning a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys now we'll have the latest news from the Feegees. A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale's mouththe barwhen the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitchlike potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather side of an iceisland. The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously. I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at once and since the seagods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleepingpartner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a cofferdam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised a cry of 'Bulkington! Bulkington! where's Bulkington? and darted out of the house in pursuit of him. It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the seamen. No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnighthow could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming? 'Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.I shan't sleep with him. I'll try the bench here. 'Just as you please I'm sorry I can't spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board herefeeling of the knots and notches. 'But wait a bit, Skrimshander I've got a carpenter's plane there in the barwait, I say, and I'll make ye snug enough. So saying he procured the plane and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left till at last the planeiron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quitthe bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study. I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too short but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher than the planed oneso there was no yoking them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night. The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal a march on himbolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down! Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile he must be dropping in before long. I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after allthere's no telling. But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. 'Landlord! said I, 'what sort of a chap is hedoes he always keep such late hours? It was now hard upon twelve o'clock. The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. 'No, he answered, 'generally he's an early birdairley to bed and airley to riseyes, he's the bird what catches the worm. But tonight he went out a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late, unless, may be, he can't sell his head. 'Can't sell his head?What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me? getting into a towering rage. 'Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town? 'That's precisely it, said the landlord, 'and I told him he couldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked. 'With what? shouted I. 'With heads to be sure ain't there too many heads in the world? 'I tell you what it is, landlord, said I quite calmly, 'you'd better stop spinning that yarn to meI'm not green. 'May be not, taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, 'but I rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin' his head. 'I'll break it for him, said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. 'It's broke a'ready, said he. 'Broke, said I'broke, do you mean? 'Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess. 'Landlord, said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snowstorm'landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed you tell me you can only give me half a one that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my bedfellowa sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution. 'Wall, said the landlord, fetching a long breath, 'that's a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell tonight, cause tomorrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin' human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin' out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions. This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling mebut at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators? 'Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man. 'He pays reg'lar, was the rejoinder. 'But come, it's getting dreadful late, you had better be turning flukesit's a nice bed Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed it's an almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed 'I vum it's Sundayyou won't see that harpooneer tonight he's come to anchor somewherecome along then do come won't ye come? I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harpooneers to sleep abreast. 'There, said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest that did double duty as a washstand and centre table 'there, make yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye. I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced round the room and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner also a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fireplace, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed. But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck. I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this headpeddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on the bedside, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about the harpooneer's not coming home at all that night, it being so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the care of heaven. Whether that mattress was stuffed with corncobs or broken crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room from under the door. Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal headpeddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time while employed in unlacing the bag's mouth. This accomplished, however, he turned roundwhen, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with large blackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible bedfellow he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be stickingplasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white mana whaleman toowho, falling among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all! It's only his outside a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a sealskin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand heada ghastly thing enoughand crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his hata new beaver hatwhen I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his headnone to speak of at leastnothing but a small scalpknot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this headpeddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him. Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered with the same squares as his face his back, too, was all over the same dark squares he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just escaped from it with a stickingplaster shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads tooperhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy to mineheavens! look at that tomahawk! But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days' old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the empty fireplace, and removing the papered fireboard, sets up this little hunchbacked image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fireplace made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol. I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but ill at ease meantimeto see what was next to follow. First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol then laying a bit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a singsong or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which I had so long been bound. But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me. Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my meaning. 'Whoe debel you?he at last said'you no speake, damme, I kille. And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the dark. 'Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin! shouted I. 'Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me! 'Speake! tellee me whoee be, or damme, I kille! again growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him. 'Don't be afraid now, said he, grinning again, 'Queequeg here wouldn't harm a hair of your head. 'Stop your grinning, shouted I, 'and why didn't you tell me that that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal? 'I thought ye know'd itdidn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin' heads around town?but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look hereyou sabbee me, I sabbeeyou this man sleepe youyou sabbee? 'Me sabbee plentygrunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and sitting up in bed. 'You gettee in, he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myselfthe man's a human being just as I am he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. 'Landlord, said I, 'tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or whatever you call it tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured. This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely motioned me to get into bedrolling over to one side as much as to say'I won't touch a leg of ye. 'Good night, landlord, said I, 'you may go. I turned in, and never slept better in my life. Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little particoloured squares and triangles and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shadeowing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at various timesthis same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me. My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or otherI think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous and my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the st June, the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets. I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse and worseat last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good slippering for my misbehaviour anything indeed but condemning me to lie abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze and slowly waking from ithalf steeped in dreamsI opened my eyes, and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bedside. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it. Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan arm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his armunlock his bridegroom claspyet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse him'Queequeg!but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horsecollar and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchetfaced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! 'Queequeg!in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake! At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pikestaff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact he jumped out upon the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well worth unusual regarding. He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and thenstill minus his trowsershe hunted up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himselfboots in hand, and hat onunder the bed when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was hard at work booting himself though by no law of propriety that I ever heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition stageneither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide onesprobably not made to order eitherrather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the morning any Christian would have washed his face but Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a piece of hard soap on the washstand centre table, dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept. The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton. I quickly followed suit, and descending into the barroom accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my bedfellow. However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for. The barroom was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were nearly all whalemen chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns. You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a suntoasted pear in hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky he cannot have been three days landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades lighter you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached withal he doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints, seemed like the Andes' western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone. 'Grub, ho! now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went to breakfast. They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease in manner, quite selfpossessed in company. Not always, though Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo's performancesthis kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had anywhere. These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some good stories about whaling to my no small surprise, nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of seadogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seasentire strangers to themand duelled them dead without winking and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast tableall of the same calling, all of kindred tasteslooking round as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. A curious sight these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen! But as for Queequegwhy, Queequeg sat there among themat the head of the table, too, it so chanced as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawkpipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a stroll. If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford. In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water Street and Wapping. In these lastmentioned haunts you see only sailors but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners savages outright many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare. But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whalingcraft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whalelance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallowtailed coat, girdled with a sailorbelt and sheathknife. Here comes another with a sou'wester and a bombazine cloak. No townbred dandy will compare with a countrybred oneI mean a downright bumpkin dandya fellow that, in the dogdays, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whalefishery, you should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his seaoutfit, he orders bellbuttons to his waistcoats straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor HaySeed! how bitterly will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest. But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough but not like Canaan a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk nor in the springtime do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patricianlike houses parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that? In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises apiece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles. In summer time, the town is sweet to see full of fine mapleslong avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horsechestnuts, candelabrawise, proffer the passerby their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day. And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands. In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not. Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November st, . THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Offshore Ground in the PACIFIC, December st, . THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, August d, . THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. Shaking off the sleet from my iceglazed hat and jacket, I seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance because he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass who standing among flowers can sayhere, here lies my beloved ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those blackbordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here. In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth why the Life Insurance Companies pay deathforfeitures upon immortals in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss why all the living so strive to hush all the dead wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seemsaye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whalinga speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered immediately as the stormpelted door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloomthe spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit. Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted manropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the manropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailorlike but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the maintop of his vessel. The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with swinging ones, were of clothcovered rope, only the rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec. I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this thing furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a selfcontaining strongholda lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls. But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, borrowed from the chaplain's former seafarings. Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and darkrolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. 'Ah, noble ship, the angel seemed to say, 'beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm for lo! the sun is breaking through the clouds are rolling offserenest azure is at hand. Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same seataste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddleheaded beak. What could be more full of meaning?for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part all the rest comes in its rear the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete and the pulpit is its prow. Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. 'Starboard gangway, there! side away to larboardlarboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships! There was a low rumbling of heavy seaboots among the benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher. He paused a little then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea. This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fogin such tones he commenced reading the following hymn but changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said 'Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.' 'Shipmates, this book, containing only four chaptersfour yarnsis one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly! How billowlike and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters seaweed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a twostranded lesson a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hardheartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of Godnever mind now what that command was, or how conveyedwhich he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to doremember thatand hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. 'With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, selfcondemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a hatbox, valise, or carpetbag,no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other'Jack, he's robbed a widow or, 'Joe, do you mark him he's a bigamist or, 'Harry lad, I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom. Another runs to read the bill that's stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin. ''Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the Customs'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish how soon sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing him. 'No sooner, sir?''Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'he says,'the passage money how much is that?I'll pay now.' For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning. 'Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum and it's assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way, he mutters and Jonah is put down for his passage. 'Point out my stateroom, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travelweary I need sleep.' 'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the little stateroom ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's waterline, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels' wards. 'Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah's room and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with reference to the room though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah as lying in his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. 'Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it burns but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!' 'Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman racehorse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. 'And now the time of tide has come the ship casts off her cables and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels he will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the shipa berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep. 'Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the Godfugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him. ''I am a Hebrew,' he criesand then'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain the indignant gale howls louder then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. 'And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him and the whale shootsto all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah. While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's seastorm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a groundswell his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them. There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself. But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words 'Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this masthead and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilotprophet, or speaker of true things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet'out of the belly of hell'when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land' when the word of the Lord came a second time and Jonah, bruised and beatenhis ears, like two seashells, still multitudinously murmuring of the oceanJonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it! 'This, shipmates, this is that other lesson and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway! He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment then lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,'But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the maintruck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to hima far, far upward, and inward delightwho against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,topgallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breathO Father!chiefly known to me by Thy rodmortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing I leave eternity to Thee for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God? He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place. Returning to the SpouterInn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite alone he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his peering hard into its face, and with a jackknife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way. But being now interrupted, he put up the image and pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity at every fiftieth pageas I fanciedstopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a longdrawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next fifty seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited. With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the faceat least to my tastehis countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed. Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, halfpretending meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. But savages are strange beings at times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing their calm selfcollectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that iswhich was the only way he could get therethrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter and yet he seemed entirely at his ease preserving the utmost serenity content with his own companionship always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have 'broken his digester. As I sat there in that now lonely room the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain the storm booming without in solemn swells I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he was a very sight of sights to see yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little noticed these advances but presently, upon my referring to his last night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented. We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest and from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us. If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply. After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room together. He made me a present of his embalmed head took out his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars in silver then spreading them on the table, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate but he silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay. He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise. I was a good Christian born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earthpagans and all includedcan possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?to do the will of Godthat is worship. And what is the will of God?to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to methat is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings helped prop up the innocent little idol offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg salamed before him twice or thrice kissed his nose and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat. How it is I know not but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequega cosy, loving pair. We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back so entirely sociable and free and easy were we when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though daybreak was yet some way down the future. Yes, we became very wakeful so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the headboard with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warmingpans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors indeed out of bedclothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at once I thought I would open my eyes for when between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and selfcreated darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated twelveo'clockatnight, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the newlit lamp. Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give. Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map true places never are. When a newhatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King his uncle a High Priest and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veinsroyal stuff though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth. A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit and not all the King his father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out gained her side with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe climbed up the chains and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ringbolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces. In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savagethis sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at bottomso he told mehe was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people still happier than they were and more than that, still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and wicked infinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor and seeing what the sailors did there and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians I'll die a pagan. And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home. By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having a coronation since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,as soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously assented for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen. His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping. Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill using, however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequegespecially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person whom I now companied with. We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own poor carpetbag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went down to 'the Moss, the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared not at Queequeg so muchfor they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets,but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers and mowers, who go into the farmers' meadows armed with their own scythesthough in no wise obliged to furnish themeven so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon. Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the thingthough in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrowQueequeg puts his chest upon it lashes it fast and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. 'Why, said I, 'Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think. Didn't the people laugh? Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commanderfrom all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captainthis commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,for those people have their grace as well as wethough Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feastsGrace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking himselfbeing Captain of a shipas having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King's own housethe Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punchbowltaking it I suppose for a huge fingerglass. 'Now, said Queequeg, 'what you tink now?Didn't our people laugh? At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their icecovered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the worldwandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort. Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!how I spurned that turnpike earth!that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records. At the same foamfountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart he showed his filed and pointed teeth. On, on we flew and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the blast ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted every ropeyarn tingling like a wire the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubberlike assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable as though a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air then slightly tapping his stern in midsomerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff. 'Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer 'Capting, Capting, here's the devil. 'Hallo, you sir, cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking up to Queequeg, 'what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know you might have killed that chap? 'What him say? said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. 'He say, said I, 'that you came near kille that man there, pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. 'Kille, cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly expression of disdain, 'ah! him bevy smalle fishe Queequeg no kille so smalle fishe Queequeg kille big whale! 'Look you, roared the Captain, 'I'll kille you, you cannibal, if you try any more of your tricks aboard here so mind your eye. But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the mainsail had parted the weathersheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard all hands were in a panic and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now took an instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for waterfresh watersomething to wipe the brine off that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to himself'It's a mutual, jointstock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians. Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at ita mere hillock, and elbow of sand all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally that they import Canada thistles that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snowshoes that they are so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois. Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was settled by the redmen. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,the poor little Indian's skeleton. What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs in the sand grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it peeped in at Behring's Straits and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, saltsea Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults! And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their anthill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his he owns it, as Emperors own empires other seamen having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges armed ones but floating forts even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home there lies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the SpouterInn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try potluck at the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouseour first point of departuremust be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking. Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses' ears, swung from the crosstrees of an old topmast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the crosstrees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old topmast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet? I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt. 'Get along with ye, said she to the man, 'or I'll be combing ye! 'Come on, Queequeg, said I, 'all right. There's Mrs. Hussey. And so it turned out Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said'Clam or Cod? 'What's that about Cods, ma'am? said I, with much politeness. 'Clam or Cod? she repeated. 'A clam for supper? a cold clam is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey? says I, 'but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey? But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple Shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word 'clam, Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out 'clam for two, disappeared. 'Queequeg, said I, 'do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam? However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word 'cod with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine codchowder was placed before us. We resumed business and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What's that stultifying saying about chowderheaded people? 'But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon? Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fishbones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clamshells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in superior old sharkskin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye. Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed but, as Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his harpoon she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. 'Why not? said I 'every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoonbut why not? 'Because it's dangerous, says she. 'Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg (for she had learned his name), 'I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the chowder clam or cod tomorrow for breakfast, men? 'Both, says I 'and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety. In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojothe name of his black little godand Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among the whalingfleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it had turned out by chance and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg. I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and surprising forecast of things and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs. Now, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touching the selection of our craft I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce and accordingly prepared to set about this business with a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our little bedroomfor it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that day how it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and XXXIX Articlesleaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for threeyears' voyagesThe Devildam, the Titbit, and the Pequod. DevilDam, I do not know the origin of Titbit is obvious Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devildam from her, hopped over to the Titbit and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us. You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I knowsquaretoed luggers mountainous Japanese junks butterbox galliots, and what not but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything with an oldfashioned clawfooted look about her. Long seasoned and weatherstained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her mastscut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a galeher masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrimworshipped flagstone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chiefmate, before he commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the principal owners of the Pequod,this old Peleg, during the term of his chiefmateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, unmatched by anything except it be ThorkillHake's carved buckler or bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of seaivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that. Now when I looked about the quarterdeck, for some one having authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw nobody but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the mainmast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the rightwhale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the topknot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward. And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by his aspect seemed to have authority and who, it being noon, and the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of command. He was seated on an oldfashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with curious carving and the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was constructed. There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of the elderly man I saw he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilotcloth, cut in the Quaker style only there was a fine and almost microscopic network of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to windwardfor this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together. Such eyewrinkles are very effectual in a scowl. 'Is this the Captain of the Pequod? said I, advancing to the door of the tent. 'Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him? he demanded. 'I was thinking of shipping. 'Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketerever been in a stove boat? 'No, Sir, I never have. 'Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare sayeh? 'Nothing, Sir but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that 'Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that leg?I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?it looks a little suspicious, don't it, eh?Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea? I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard. 'But what takes thee awhaling? I want to know that before I think of shipping ye. 'Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world. 'Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab? 'Who is Captain Ahab, sir? 'Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship. 'I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself. 'Thou art speaking to Captain Pelegthat's who ye are speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg. 'What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale? 'Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me it was devoured, chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat!ah, ah! I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, 'What you say is no doubt true enough, sir but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident. 'Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now sure of that? 'Sir, said I, 'I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant 'Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant servicedon't aggravate meI won't have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is do ye yet feel inclined for it? 'I do, sir. 'Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick! 'I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so not to be got rid of, that is which I don't take to be the fact. 'Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go awhaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weatherbow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there. For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the floodtide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding not the slightest variety that I could see. 'Well, what's the report? said Peleg when I came back 'what did ye see? 'Not much, I replied'nothing but water considerable horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I think. 'Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where you stand? I was a little staggered, but go awhaling I must, and I would and the Pequod was as good a ship as anyI thought the bestand all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me. 'And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off, he added'come along with ye. And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin. Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel the other shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest. Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whalehunters. They are fighting Quakers they are Quakers with a vengeance. So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture namesa singularly common fashion on the islandand in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian seaking, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long nightwatches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently receiving all nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty languagethat man makes one in a whole nation's censusa mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a welltodo, retired whaleman. But unlike Captain Pelegwho cared not a rush for what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those selfsame serious things the veriest of all triflesCaptain Bildad had not only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Hornall that had not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straightbodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabinboy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shadbellied waistcoat from that becoming boatheader, chiefmate, and captain, and finally a ship owner Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his wellearned income. Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an incorrigible old hunks, and in his seagoing days, a bitter, hard taskmaster. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was certainly rather hardhearted, to say the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they said but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a chiefmate, to have his drabcoloured eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch somethinga hammer or a marlingspike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn nap of his broadbrimmed hat. Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks was small and there, boltupright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broadbrim was placed beside him his legs were stiffly crossed his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume. 'Bildad, cried Captain Peleg, 'at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad? As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg. 'He says he's our man, Bildad, said Peleg, 'he wants to ship. 'Dost thee? said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me. 'I dost, said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. 'What do ye think of him, Bildad? said Peleg. 'He'll do, said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink before him, and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not be very large but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the th laythat is, the th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the th lay was what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better than nothing and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for which I would not have to pay one stiver. It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely fortuneand so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I been offered the th, considering I was of a broadshouldered make. But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about receiving a generous share of the profits was this Ashore, I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jackknife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these proceedings Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth 'Well, Captain Bildad, interrupted Peleg, 'what d'ye say, what lay shall we give this young man? 'Thou knowest best, was the sepulchral reply, 'the seven hundred and seventyseventh wouldn't be too much, would it?'where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay' Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and seventyseventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed and though from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventyseven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventyseventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventyseven gold doubloons and so I thought at the time. 'Why, blast your eyes, Bildad, cried Peleg, 'thou dost not want to swindle this young man! he must have more than that. 'Seven hundred and seventyseventh, again said Bildad, without lifting his eyes and then went on mumbling'for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 'I am going to put him down for the three hundredth, said Peleg, 'do ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say. Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said, 'Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart but thou must consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this shipwidows and orphans, many of themand that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The seven hundred and seventyseventh lay, Captain Peleg. 'Thou Bildad! roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin. 'Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn. 'Captain Peleg, said Bildad steadily, 'thy conscience may be drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell but as thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg. 'Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man past all natural bearing, ye insult me. It's an allfired outrage to tell any human creature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and start my soulbolts, but I'llI'llyes, I'll swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drabcoloured son of a wooden guna straight wake with ye! As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him. Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. 'Whew! he whistled at last'the squall's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jackknife here needs the grindstone. That's he thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay. 'Captain Peleg, said I, 'I have a friend with me who wants to ship tooshall I bring him down tomorrow? 'To be sure, said Peleg. 'Fetch him along, and we'll look at him. 'What lay does he want? groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in which he had again been burying himself. 'Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad, said Peleg. 'Has he ever whaled it any? turning to me. 'Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg. 'Well, bring him along then. And, after signing the papers, off I went nothing doubting but that I had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape. But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me though, indeed, in many cases, a whaleship will be completely fitted out, and receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving to take command for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found. 'And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right enough thou art shipped. 'Yes, but I should like to see him. 'But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know exactly what's the matter with him but he keeps close inside the house a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't sick but no, he isn't well either. Any how, young man, he won't always see me, so I don't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man, Captain Ahabso some thinkbut a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him well enough no fear, no fear. He's a grand, ungodly, godlike man, Captain Ahab doesn't speak much but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned Ahab's above the common Ahab's been in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals been used to deeper wonders than the waves fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad no, and he ain't Captain Peleg he's Ahab, boy and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king! 'And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood? 'Come hither to mehither, hither, said Peleg, with a significance in his eye that almost startled me. 'Look ye, lad never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a lie. I know Captain Ahab well I've sailed with him as mate years ago I know what he isa good mannot a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good mansomething like meonly there's a good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of moodydesperate moody, and savage sometimes but that will all pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So goodbye to theeand wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wifenot three voyages weddeda sweet, resigned girl. Think of that by that sweet girl that old man has a child hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities! As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness what had been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of him but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe I do not know what it was. But I felt it and it did not disincline me towards him though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind. As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards nightfall for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toadstool or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their halfcrazy conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadanbut what of that? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose he seemed to be content and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail let him be, I say and Heaven have mercy on us allPresbyterians and Pagans alikefor we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending. Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside. 'Queequeg, said I softly through the keyholeall silent. 'I say, Queequeg! why don't you speak? It's IIshmael. But all remained still as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant time I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the keyhole but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the keyhole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the footboard of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That's strange, thought I but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he seldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here, and no possible mistake. 'Queequeg!Queequeg!all still. Something must have happened. Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door but it stubbornly resisted. Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person I metthe chambermaid. 'La! la! she cried, 'I thought something must be the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was locked and not a mouse to be heard and it's been just so silent ever since. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma'am!Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy!and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I following. Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustardpot in one hand and a vinegarcruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. 'Woodhouse! cried I, 'which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the doorthe axe!the axe! he's had a stroke depend upon it!and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again emptyhanded, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustardpot and vinegarcruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. 'What's the matter with you, young man? 'Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry it open! 'Look here, said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegarcruet, so as to have one hand free 'look here are you talking about prying open any of my doors?and with that she seized my arm. 'What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you, shipmate? In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegarcruet to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant then exclaimed'No! I haven't seen it since I put it there. Running to a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing. 'He's killed himself, she cried. 'It's unfort'nate Stiggs done over againthere goes another counterpaneGod pity his poor mother!it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? Where's that girl?there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with'no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlormight as well kill both birds at once. Kill? The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there? You, young man, avast there! And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force open the door. 'I don't allow it I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the locksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast! putting her hand in her sidepocket, 'here's a key that'll fit, I guess let's see. And with that, she turned it in the lock but, alas! Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. 'Have to burst it open, said I, and was running down the entry a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing I should not break down her premises but I tore from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark. With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling and there, good heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and selfcollected right in the middle of the room squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life. 'Queequeg, said I, going up to him, 'Queequeg, what's the matter with you? 'He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he? said the landlady. But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him I almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals. 'Mrs. Hussey, said I, 'he's alive at all events so leave us, if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself. Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon Queequeg to take a chair but in vain. There he sat and all he could dofor all my polite arts and blandishmentshe would not move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in the slightest way. I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan do they fast on their hams that way in his native island. It must be so yes, it's part of his creed, I suppose well, then, let him rest he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes once a year and I don't believe it's very punctual then. I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long stories of some sailors who had just come from a plumpudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a short whalingvoyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only) after listening to these plumpuddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no there he was just where I had left him he had not stirred an inch. I began to grow vexed with him it seemed so downright senseless and insane to be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his head. 'For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself get up and have some supper. You'll starve you'll kill yourself, Queequeg. But not a word did he reply. Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night and he had nothing but his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle and the mere thought of Queequegnot four feet offsitting there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold and dark this made me really wretched. Think of it sleeping all night in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan! But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of day when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, but with a cheerful look limped towards me where I lay pressed his forehead again against mine and said his Ramadan was over. Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic when it is a positive torment to him and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him. And just so I now did with Queequeg. 'Queequeg, said I, 'get into bed now, and lie and listen to me. I then went on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged hamsquattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense bad for the health useless for the soul opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in hence the spirit caves in and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be halfstarved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively hell is an idea first born on an undigested appledumpling and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with dyspepsia expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it in. He said no only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great feast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening. 'No more, Queequeg, said I, shuddering 'that will do for I knew the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in the yard or garden of the victor and then, one by one, they were placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with breadfruit and cocoanuts and with some parsley in their mouths, were sent round with the victor's compliments to all his friends, just as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys. After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his own point of view and, in the second place, he did not more than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety. At last we rose and dressed and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones. As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously produced their papers. 'What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg? said I, now jumping on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. 'I mean, he replied, 'he must show his papers. 'Yes, said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. 'He must show that he's converted. Son of darkness, he added, turning to Queequeg, 'art thou at present in communion with any Christian church? 'Why, said I, 'he's a member of the first Congregational Church. Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at last come to be converted into the churches. 'First Congregational Church, cried Bildad, 'what! that worships in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meetinghouse? and so saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at Queequeg. 'How long hath he been a member? he then said, turning to me 'not very long, I rather guess, young man. 'No, said Peleg, 'and he hasn't been baptized right either, or it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face. 'Do tell, now, cried Bildad, 'is this Philistine a regular member of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it every Lord's day. 'I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting, said I 'all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is. 'Young man, said Bildad sternly, 'thou art skylarking with meexplain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me. Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. 'I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of us belong the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world we all belong to that only some of us cherish some queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief in that we all join hands. 'Splice, thou mean'st splice hands, cried Peleg, drawing nearer. 'Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of a foremast hand I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomywhy Father Mapple himself couldn't beat it, and he's reckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog therewhat's that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harpoon he's got there! looks like good stuff that and he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the head of a whaleboat? did you ever strike a fish? Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whaleboats hanging to the side and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as this 'Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well, spose him one whale eye, well, den! and taking sharp aim at it, he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across the ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight. 'Now, said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, 'sposee him whalee eye why, dad whale dead. 'Quick, Bildad, said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway. 'Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket. So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged. When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for signing, he turned to me and said, 'I guess, Quohog there don't know how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or make thy mark? But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed but taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake touching his appellative, it stood something like this Quohog. his X mark. Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his broadskirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one entitled 'The Latter Day Coming or No Time to Lose, placed it in Queequeg's hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, 'Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon turn from the wrath to come mind thine eye, I say oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit! Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. 'Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer, cried Peleg. 'Pious harpooneers never make good voyagersit takes the shark out of 'em no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boatheader out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard he joined the meeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of afterclaps, in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones. 'Peleg! Peleg! said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, 'thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death how, then, can'st thou prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then? 'Hear him, hear him now, cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,'hear him, all of ye. Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an everlasting thundering against the side and every sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of and how to save all handshow to rig jurymastshow to get into the nearest port that was what I was thinking of. Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some sailmakers who were mending a topsail in the waist. Now and then he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which otherwise might have been wasted. 'Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship? Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up. 'Have ye shipped in her? he repeated. 'You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose, said I, trying to gain a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him. 'Aye, the Pequodthat ship there, he said, drawing back his whole arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. 'Yes, said I, 'we have just signed the articles. 'Anything down there about your souls? 'About what? 'Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any, he said quickly. 'No matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,good luck to 'em and they are all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon. 'What are you jabbering about, shipmate? said I. 'He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort in other chaps, abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he. 'Queequeg, said I, 'let's go this fellow has broken loose from somewhere he's talking about something and somebody we don't know. 'Stop! cried the stranger. 'Ye said trueye hav'n't seen Old Thunder yet, have ye? 'Who's Old Thunder? said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness of his manner. 'Captain Ahab. 'What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod? 'Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye? 'No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and will be all right again before long. 'All right again before long! laughed the stranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh. 'Look ye when Captain Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be all right not before. 'What do you know about him? 'What did they tell you about him? Say that! 'They didn't tell much of anything about him only I've heard that he's a good whalehunter, and a good captain to his crew. 'That's true, that's trueyes, both true enough. But you must jump when he gives an order. Step and growl growl and gothat's the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa?heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear a word about them matters and something more, eh? No, I don't think ye did how could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh yes, that every one knows a'mostI mean they know he's only one leg and that a parmacetti took the other off. 'My friend, said I, 'what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don't know, and I don't much care for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of his leg. 'All about it, ehsure you do?all? 'Pretty sure. With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggarlike stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie then starting a little, turned and said'Ye've shipped, have ye? Names down on the papers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed and what's to be, will be and then again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Anyhow, it's all fixed and arranged a'ready and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose as well these as any other men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning the ineffable heavens bless ye I'm sorry I stopped ye. 'Look here, friend, said I, 'if you have anything important to tell us, out with it but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken in your game that's all I have to say. 'And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way you are just the man for himthe likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concluded not to make one of 'em. 'Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that wayyou can't fool us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him. 'Morning to ye, shipmates, morning. 'Morning it is, said I. 'Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you? 'Elijah. Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner that we did. He did and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, halfhinting, halfrevealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and halfapprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod and Captain Ahab and the leg he had lost and the Cape Horn fit and the silver calabash and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the day previous and the prediction of the squaw Tistig and the voyage we had bound ourselves to sail and a hundred other shadowy things. I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me and once more, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug. A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging in short, everything betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp lookout upon the hands Bildad did all the purchasing and providing at the stores and the men employed in the hold and on the rigging were working till long after nightfall. On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was given at all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that their chests must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail for several days. But no wonder there was a good deal to be done, and there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod was fully equipped. Every one knows what a multitude of thingsbeds, saucepans, knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nutcrackers, and what not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling, which necessitates a threeyears' housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Captain and duplicate ship. At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the Pequod had been almost completed comprising her beef, bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small. Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar of pickles for the steward's pantry another time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log a third time with a roll of flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was CharityAunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of wellsaved dollars. But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oilladle in one hand, and a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the masthead, and then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam. During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard every day meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing. At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early start. It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf. 'There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right, said I to Queequeg, 'it can't be shadows she's off by sunrise, I guess come on! 'Avast! cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah. 'Going aboard? 'Hands off, will you, said I. 'Lookee here, said Queequeg, shaking himself, 'go 'way! 'Ain't going aboard, then? 'Yes, we are, said I, 'but what business is that of yours? Do you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent? 'No, no, no I wasn't aware of that, said Elijah, slowly and wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable glances. 'Elijah, said I, 'you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be detained. 'Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast? 'He's cracked, Queequeg, said I, 'come on. 'Holloa! cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few paces. 'Never mind him, said I, 'Queequeg, come on. But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my shoulder, said'Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that ship a while ago? Struck by this plain matteroffact question, I answered, saying, 'Yes, I thought I did see four or five men but it was too dim to be sure. 'Very dim, very dim, said Elijah. 'Morning to ye. Once more we quitted him but once more he came softly after us and touching my shoulder again, said, 'See if you can find 'em now, will ye? 'Find who? 'Morning to ye! morning to ye! he rejoined, again moving off. 'Oh! I was going to warn ye againstbut never mind, never mindit's all one, all in the family toosharp frost this morning, ain't it? Goodbye to ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess unless it's before the Grand Jury. And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence. At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a tattered peajacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber slept upon him. 'Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to? said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to hence I would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the thing down and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body telling him to establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though feeling if it was soft enough and then, without more ado, sat quietly down there. 'Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there, said I. 'Oh! perry dood seat, said Queequeg, 'my country way won't hurt him face. 'Face! said I, 'call that his face? very benevolent countenance then but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself get off, Queequeg, you are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look, he'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't wake. Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion much better than those gardenchairs which are convertible into walkingsticks upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchetside of it over the sleeper's head. 'What's that for, Queequeg? 'Perry easy, kille oh! perry easy! He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawkpipe, which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The strong vapor now completely filling the contracted hole, it began to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness then seemed troubled in the nose then revolved over once or twice then sat up and rubbed his eyes. 'Holloa! he breathed at last, 'who be ye smokers? 'Shipped men, answered I, 'when does she sail? 'Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails today. The Captain came aboard last night. 'What Captain?Ahab? 'Who but him indeed? I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we heard a noise on deck. 'Holloa! Starbuck's astir, said the rigger. 'He's a lively chief mate, that good man, and a pious but all alive now, I must turn to. And so saying he went on deck, and we followed. It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and threes the riggers bestirred themselves the mates were actively engaged and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin. At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the everthoughtful Charity had come off in a whaleboat, with her last gifta nightcap for Stubb, the second mate, her brotherinlaw, and a spare Bible for the stewardafter all this, the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg said 'Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is all readyjust spoke to himnothing more to be got from shore, eh? Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft hereblast 'em! 'No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg, said Bildad, 'but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding. How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the quarterdeck, just as if they were to be jointcommanders at sea, as well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of him was yet to be seen only, they said he was in the cabin. But then, the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that was not at all his proper business, but the pilot's and as he was not yet completely recoveredso they saidtherefore, Captain Ahab stayed below. And all this seemed natural enough especially as in the merchant service many captains never show themselves on deck for a considerable time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the cabin table, having a farewell merrymaking with their shore friends, before they quit the ship for good with the pilot. But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and commanding, and not Bildad. 'Aft here, ye sons of bachelors, he cried, as the sailors lingered at the mainmast. 'Mr. Starbuck, drive 'em aft. 'Strike the tent there!was the next order. As I hinted before, this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor. 'Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!jump!was the next command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes. Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed pilots of the porthe being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilotfee to all the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other craftBildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in each seaman's berth. Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventyseventh lay when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first kick. 'Is that the way they heave in the marchant service? he roared. 'Spring, thou sheephead spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't ye spring, I say, all of yespring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red whiskers spring there, Scotchcap spring, thou green pants. Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out! And so saying, he moved along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something today. At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows. Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard, Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sailboat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside. It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a voyagebeyond both stormy Capes a ship in which some thousands of his hard earned dollars were invested a ship, in which an old shipmate sailed as captain a man almost as old as he, once more starting to encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw loath to say goodbye to a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,poor old Bildad lingered long paced the deck with anxious strides ran down into the cabin to speak another farewell word there again came on deck, and looked to windward looked towards the wide and endless waters, only bounded by the faroff unseen Eastern Continents looked towards the land looked aloft looked right and left looked everywhere and nowhere and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, 'Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it yes, I can. As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher but for all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to decknow a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate. But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look about him,'Captain Bildadcome, old shipmate, we must go. Back the mainyard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now! Careful, careful!come, Bildad, boysay your last. Luck to ye, Starbuckluck to ye, Mr. Stubbluck to ye, Mr. Flaskgoodbye and good luck to ye alland this day three years I'll have a hot supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away! 'God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men, murmured old Bildad, almost incoherently. 'I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among yea pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooneers good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent. within the year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh! the sailneedles are in the green locker! Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Goodbye, goodbye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr. Starbuck it'll spoil. Be careful with the buttertwenty cents the pound it was, and mind ye, if 'Come, come, Captain Bildad stop palavering,away! and with that, Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat. Ship and boat diverged the cold, damp night breeze blew between a screaming gull flew overhead the two hulls wildly rolled we gave three heavyhearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic. Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in midwinter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable deep memories yield no epitaphs this sixinch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the stormtossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor the port is pitiful in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy she must fly all hospitality one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril her only friend her bitterest foe! Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as Godso, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For wormlike, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy oceanperishingstraight up, leaps thy apotheosis! As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales. In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say and if in emulation of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed preeminently presuming and ridiculous. Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us whalemen, is this they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a butchering sort of business and that when actively engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honor. And as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whaleship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even granting the charge in question to be true what disordered slippery decks of a whaleship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battlefields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies' plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit of the soldier's profession let me assure ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God! But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage yea, an allabounding adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory! But look at this matter in other lights weigh it in all sorts of scales see what we whalemen are, and have been. Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years  and  pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards of ,,? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels manned by eighteen thousand men yearly consuming ,, of dollars the ships worth, at the time of sailing, ,,! and every year importing into our harbors a well reaped harvest of ,,. How comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling? But this is not the half look again. I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past the whaleship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If American and European menofwar now peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor and glory of the whaleship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns but I say that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. For in their succourless emptyhandedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines and muskets would not willingly have dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the lifetime commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the ship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world! Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts. That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first blunderborn discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous but the whaleship touched there. The whaleship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whaleship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage to the whaleship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that doublebolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whaleship alone to whom the credit will be due for already she is on the threshold. But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no sthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time. The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you will say. The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who composed the first narrative of a whalingvoyage? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whalehunter of those times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke! True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils they have no good blood in their veins. No good blood in their veins? They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneersall kith and kin to noble Benjaminthis day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other. Good again but then all confess that somehow whaling is not respectable. Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory law, the whale is declared 'a royal fish.  Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way. The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of the mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession. See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. Grant it, since you cite it but, say what you will, there is no real dignity in whaling. No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the very heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns. And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling for a whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard. In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his causesuch an advocate, would he not be blameworthy? It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, preciselywho knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality. But the only thing to be considered here, is thiswhat kind of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor codliver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff! The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twicebaked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means illlooking quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit and closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always, as now for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousandfold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his. And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more did his faraway domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honesthearted men, restrain the gush of daredevil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. 'I will have no man in my boat, said Starbuck, 'who is not afraid of a whale. By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. 'Aye, aye, said Stubb, the second mate, 'Starbuck, there, is as careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery. But we shall ere long see what that word 'careful precisely means when used by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter. Starbuck was no crusader after perils in him courage was not a sentiment but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sundown nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father's? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of his brother? With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain superstitiousness, as has been said the courage of this Starbuck which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such terrible experiences and remembrances as he had it was not in nature that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man. But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stockcompanies and nations knaves, fools, and murderers there may be men may have mean and meagre faces but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valorruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality! If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark weave round them tragic graces if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts if I shall touch that workman's arm with some ethereal light if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles who didst hurl him upon a warhorse who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons bear me out in it, O God! Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod and hence, according to local usage, was called a CapeCodman. A happygolucky neither craven nor valiant taking perils as they came with an indifferent air and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Goodhumored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stagedriver is about the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very deathlock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and offhandedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner. What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easygoing, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs what helped to bring about that almost impious goodhumor of his that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth. I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent. The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering them that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least waterrat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales he followed these fish for the fun of it and a three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones made to clinch tight and last long. They called him KingPost on board of the Pequod because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic whalers and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those battering seas. Now these three matesStarbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous men. They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins. And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boatsteerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault and moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged. First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known. Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of GayHeaders. Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyesfor an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expressionall this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of the earlier Puritans, and halfbelieved this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate's squire. Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coalblack negrosavage, with a lionlike treadan Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called them ringbolts, and would talk of securing the topsail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most frequented by whalemen and having now led for many years the bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what manner of men they shipped Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chessman beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world's grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever come back. Black Little Piphe never didoh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarterdeck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in glory called a coward here, hailed a hero there! For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin. Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible for my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the sea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasinessto call it sowhich I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchantship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed thisand rightly ascribed itto the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely seaofficers and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the southward and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension Captain Ahab stood upon his quarterdeck. There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rodlike mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old GayHead Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old seatraditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid outwhich might hardly come to pass, so he mutteredthen, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would find a birthmark on him from crown to sole. So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw. 'Aye, he was dismasted off Japan, said the old GayHead Indian once 'but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of 'em. I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship's everpitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke nor did his officers say aught to him though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled mastereye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew either standing in his pivothole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making a passage now not regularly cruising nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the redcheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods even the barest, ruggedest, most thundercloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted visitants so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped upflaked up, with rosewater snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture. Old age is always wakeful as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among seacommanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the nightcloaked deck. It was so with Ahab only that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. 'It feels like going down into one's tomb,he would mutter to himself'for an old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my gravedug berth. So, almost every twentyfour hours, when the watches of the night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabinscuttle and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarterdeck because to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings and as with heavy, lumberlike pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay but there might be some way of muffling the noise hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then. 'Am I a cannonball, Stubb, said Ahab, 'that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thy ways I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last.Down, dog, and kennel! Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment then said excitedly, 'I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir I do but less than half like it, sir. 'Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation. 'No, sir not yet, said Stubb, emboldened, 'I will not tamely be called a dog, sir. 'Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I'll clear the world of thee! As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. 'I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it, muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabinscuttle. 'It's very queer. Stop, Stubb somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go back and strike him, orwhat's that?down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It's queer very queer and he's queer too aye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!his eyes like powderpans! is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twentyfour and he don't sleep then. Didn't that DoughBoy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience it's a kind of TicDollyrow they sayworse nor a toothache. Well, well I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching it. He's full of riddles I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as DoughBoy tells me he suspects what's that for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments with him in the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old gameHere goes for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment and sleep when you can, is my twelfthSo here goes again. But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me, and done with it. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, thoughHow? how? how?but the only way's to stash it so here goes to hammock again and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight. When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. In old Norse times, the thrones of the sealoving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab. Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. 'How now, he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, 'this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuringaye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn irongrey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks. Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. 'Such a queer dream, KingPost, I never had. You know the old man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flaskyou know how curious all dreams arethrough all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg, only a false leg.' And there's a mighty difference between a living thump and a dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living memberthat makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against that cursed pyramidso confoundedly contradictory was it all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but a canea whalebone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playful cudgellingin fact, only a whaleboning that he gave menot a base kick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once why, the end of itthe foot partwhat a small sort of end it is whereas, if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled down to a point only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of badgerhaired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me round. 'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man, but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over the fright. 'What am I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is that of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?' By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a cloutwhat do you think, I saw?why thunder alive, man, his stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on second thoughts, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'Wise Stubb,' said he, 'wise Stubb' and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of his own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying over his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot for it, when he roared out, 'Stop that kicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's the matter now, old fellow?' 'Look ye here,' says he 'let's argue the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I'right here it was.' 'Very good,' says he'he used his ivory leg, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb, what have you to complain of? Didn't he kick with right good will? it wasn't a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's an honor I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and made garterknights of but, be your boast, Stubb, that ye were kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say be kicked by him account his kicks honors and on no account kick back for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid?' With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into the air. I snored rolled over and there I was in my hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask? 'I don't know it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.' 'May be may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see Ahab standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone never speak to him, whatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts? Hark! 'Masthead, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts! 'If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him! 'What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small drop of something queer about that, eh? A white whaledid ye mark that, man? Look yethere's something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask. Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum he comes this way. Already we are boldly launched upon the deep but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow. It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down. 'No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology, says Captain Scoresby, A.D. . 'It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families.    Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. . 'Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters. 'Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea. 'A field strewn with thorns. 'All these incomplete indications but serve to torture us naturalists. Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty and so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a fewThe Authors of the Bible Aristotle Pliny Aldrovandi Sir Thomas Browne Gesner Ray Linnus Rondeletius Willoughby Green Artedi Sibbald Brisson Marten Lacpde Bonneterre Desmarest Baron Cuvier Frederick Cuvier John Hunter Owen Scoresby Beale Bennett J. Ross Browne the Author of Miriam Coffin Olmstead and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above cited extracts will show. Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen ever saw living whales and but one of them was a real professional harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate subject of the Greenland or rightwhale, he is the best existing authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterly unknown spermwhale, and which ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whaleports this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross hear ye! good people all,the Greenland whale is deposed,the great sperm whale now reigneth! There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and Bennett's both in their time surgeons to English SouthSea whaleships, and both exact and reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes is necessarily small but so far as it goes, it is of excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific description. As yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete in any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten life. Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, orin this place at leastto much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. But it is a ponderous task no ordinary lettersorter in the PostOffice is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans I have had to do with whales with these visible hands I am in earnest and I will try. There are some preliminaries to settle. First The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of Nature, A.D. , Linnus declares, 'I hereby separate the whales from the fish. But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year , sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnus's express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the Leviathan. The grounds upon which Linnus would fain have banished the whales from the waters, he states as follows 'On account of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem, and finally, 'ex lege natur jure meritoque. I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnus has given you those items. But in brief, they are these lungs and warm blood whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded. Next how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have him. However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a vertical, or upanddown tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal position. By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers nor, on the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien. Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish must be included in this groundplan of Cetology. Now, then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale host. I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and Dugongs (Pigfish and Sowfish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pigfish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales and have presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology. First According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them all, both small and large. I. THE FOLIO WHALE II. the OCTAVO WHALE III. the DUODECIMO WHALE. As the type of the FOLIO I present the Sperm Whale of the OCTAVO, the Grampus of the DUODECIMO, the Porpoise. FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chaptersI. The Sperm Whale II. the Right Whale III. the FinBack Whale IV. the Humpbacked Whale V. the Razor Back Whale VI. the Sulphur Bottom Whale. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER I. (Sperm Whale).This whale, among the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe the most formidable of all whales to encounter the most majestic in aspect and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce he being the only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was still retained by the dealers no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti was really derived. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER II. (Right Whale).In one respect this is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen and the oil specially known as 'whale oil, an inferior article in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by all the following titles The Whale the Greenland Whale the Black Whale the Great Whale the True Whale the Right Whale. There is a deal of obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus multitudinously baptised. What then is the whale, which I include in the second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists the Greenland Whale of the English whalemen the Baleine Ordinaire of the French whalemen the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale which for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas it is the whale which the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor' West Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds. Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree in all their grand features nor has there yet been presented a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the sperm whale. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER III. (FinBack).Under this head I reckon a monster which, by the various names of FinBack, TallSpout, and LongJohn, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packettracks. In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Finback resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cablelike aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, and this gnomonlike fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hourlines graved on it. On that Ahazdial the shadow often goes back. The FinBack is not gregarious. He seems a whalehater, as some men are manhaters. Very shy always going solitary unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters his straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the FinBack is sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic species denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with baleen. Of these so called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broadnosed whales and beaked whales pikeheaded whales bunched whales underjawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fishermen's names for a few sorts. In connection with this appellative of 'Whalebone whales, it is of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then? The baleen, hump, backfin, and teeth these are things whose peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, without any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in other and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the humpbacked whale, each has a hump but there the similitude ceases. Then, this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these has baleen but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the same with the other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such irregular combinations or, in the case of any one of them detached, such an irregular isolation as utterly to defy all general methodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the whalenaturalists has split. But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the whale, in his anatomythere, at least, we shall be able to hit the right classification. Nay what thing, for example, is there in the Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as available to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed. BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV. (Hump Back).This whale is often seen on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and lighthearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any other of them. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razor Back).Of this whale little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is never chased he would run away with ropewalks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo). OCTAVOES.These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which present may be numberedI., the Grampus II., the Black Fish III., the Narwhale IV., the Thrasher V., the Killer. Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus).Though this fish, whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one. He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to twentyfive feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in herds he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black Fish).I give the popular fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best. Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, and suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, socalled, because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known, and from the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employmentas some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostril whale.Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy lefthanded man. What precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the swordfish and billfish though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an icepiercer for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this onesided horn may really be used by the Narwhalehowever that may beit would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same seaunicorn's horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames 'when Sir Martin returned from that voyage, saith Black Letter, 'on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor. An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature. The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopardlike look, being of a milkwhite ground colour, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine but there is little of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).Of this whale little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savagea sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea Bonapartes and Sharks included. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).This gentleman is famous for his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by flogging him as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas. Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III. (Duodecimo). DUODECIMOES.These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealymouthed Porpoise. To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five feet should be marshalled among WHALESa word, which, in the popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my definition of what a whale isi.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal tail. BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER . (Huzza Porpoise).This is the common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own bestowal for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a FourthofJuly crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. A wellfed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise meat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him and you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature. BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. (Algerine Porpoise).A pirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make. Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many times, but never yet saw him captured. BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III. (Mealymouthed Porpoise).The largest kind of Porpoise and only found in the Pacific, so far as it is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been designated, is that of the fishersRightWhale Porpoise, from the circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund and jolly girth indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentlemanlike figure. He has no fins on his back (most other porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealymouth spoils all. Though his entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called the 'bright waist, that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two separate colours, black above and white below. The white comprises part of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a mealbag. A most mean and mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the common porpoise.       Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive, halffabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their forecastle appellations for possibly such a list may be valuable to future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitudeThe BottleNose Whale the Junk Whale the PuddingHeaded Whale the Cape Whale the Leading Whale the Cannon Whale the Scragg Whale the Coppered Whale the Elephant Whale the Iceberg Whale the Quog Whale the Blue Whale etc. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as altogether obsolete and can hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. Finally It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draughtnay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! Concerning the officers of the whalecraft, this seems as good a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on shipboard, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the whalefleet. The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries and more ago, the command of a whale ship was not wholly lodged in the person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an officer called the Specksnyder. Literally this word means FatCutter usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the captain's authority was restricted to the navigation and general management of the vessel while over the whalehunting department and all its concerns, the Specksnyder or Chief Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer and as such, is but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since in the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat, but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the command of the ship's deck is also his therefore the grand political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their professional superior though always, by them, familiarly regarded as their social equal. Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is thisthe first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whaleships and merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain and so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in the captain's cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it. Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally yet, never mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some primitive instances, live together for all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarterdeck are seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the skipper parading his quarterdeck with an elated grandeur not surpassed in any military navy nay, extorting almost as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the shabbiest of pilotcloth. And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least given to that sort of shallowest assumption and though the only homage he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience though he required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon the quarterdeck and though there were times when, owing to peculiar circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or in terrorem, or otherwise yet even Captain Ahab was by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea. Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship. For be a man's intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one now alluded to. But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket grimness and shagginess and in this episode touching Emperors and Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old whalehunter like him and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air! It is noon and DoughBoy, the steward, thrusting his pale loafofbread face from the cabinscuttle, announces dinner to his lord and master who, sitting in the lee quarterboat, has just been taking an observation of the sun and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the smooth, medallionshaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to the deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, 'Dinner, Mr. Starbuck, disappears into the cabin. When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, 'Dinner, Mr. Stubb, and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be all right with that important rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid 'Dinner, Mr. Flask, follows after his predecessors. But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarterdeck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence, in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave. It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense artificialness of seausages, that while in the open air of the deck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and defyingly enough towards their commander yet, ten to one, let those very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that same commander's cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of the table this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously, therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own private dinnertable of invited guests, that man's unchallenged power and dominion of individual influence for the time that man's royalty of state transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Csar. It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. Now, if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a shipmaster, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that peculiarity of sealife just mentioned. Over his ivoryinlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sealion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. They were as little children before Ahab and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate received his meat as though receiving alms and cut it tenderly and a little started if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate and chewed it noiselessly and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence and yet at table old Ahab forbade not conversation only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it. Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, sunny complexion or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was not for him, a subaltern however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man! Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was badly jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that day for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from my stomach. I am an officer but, how I wish I could fish a bit of oldfashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before the mast. There's the fruits of promotion now there's the vanity of glory there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinnertime, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin skylight, sitting silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab. Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the three harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary legatees. They made a sort of temporary servants' hall of the high and mighty cabin. In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the entire carefree license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined like lords they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale DoughBoy was fain to bring on a great baron of saltjunk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with a nimble hopskipandjump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoonwise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted DoughBoy's memory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this breadfaced steward the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages, DoughBoy's whole life was one continual lipquiver. Commonly, after seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he would escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all was over. It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing his filed teeth to the Indian's crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought his hearseplumed head to the low carlines at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air and through his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eatingan ugly sound enoughso much so, that the trembling DoughBoy almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be picked, the simplewitted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other weapons and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would ostentatiously sharpen their knives that grating sound did not at all tend to tranquillize poor DoughBoy. How could he forget that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! DoughBoy! hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, the three saltsea warriors would rise and depart to his credulous, fablemongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards. But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived there still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleepingtime, when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters. In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights the ship's cabin belongs to them and that it is by courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoor enters a house turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned out the next and, as a permanent thing, residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby in the cabin was no companionship socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom! It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the other seamen my first masthead came round. In most American whalemen the mastheads are manned almost simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port even though she may have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years' voyage she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in hersay, an empty vial eventhen, her mastheads are kept manned to the last and not till her skysailpoles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more. Now, as the business of standing mastheads, ashore or afloat, is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mastheads were the old Egyptians because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest masthead in all Asia, or Africa either yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread gale of God's wrath therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of masthead standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among archologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical purposes a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stairlike formation of all four sides of those edifices whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars even as the lookouts of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless standerofmastheads who was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet but valiantly facing everything out to the last, literally died at his post. Of modern standersofmastheads we have but a lifeless set mere stone, iron, and bronze men who, though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely incompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon who, upon the top of the column of Vendome, stands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air careless, now, who rules the decks below whether Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on his towering mainmast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules' pillars, his column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gunmetal, stands his masthead in Trafalgar Square and ever when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there for where there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned. It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the masthead standers of the land with those of the sea but that in truth it is not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us, that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which the lookouts ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a henhouse. A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the readymanned boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete turn we then to the one proper masthead, that of a whaleship at sea. The three mastheads are kept manned from sunrise to sunset the seamen taking their regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant the masthead nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls the drowsy trade winds blow everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you you hear no news read no gazettes extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements you hear of no domestic afflictions bankrupt securities fall of stocks are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinnerfor all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable. In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years' voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the masthead would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your most usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallantmast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t' gallant crosstrees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of a watchcoat but properly speaking the thickest watchcoat is no more of a house than the unclad body for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter) so a watchcoat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenient closet of your watchcoat. Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mastheads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow'snests, in which the lookouts of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled 'A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the rediscovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland in this admirable volume, all standers of mastheads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow'snest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft. He called it the Sleet's crow'snest, in honor of himself he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we may beget. In shape, the Sleet's crow'snest is something like a large tierce or pipe it is open above, however, where it is furnished with a movable sidescreen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a little traphatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his masthead in this crow'snest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters for you cannot successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed conveniences of his crow'snest but though he so enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his experiments in this crow'snest, with a small compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called the 'local attraction of all binnacle magnets an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many brokendown blacksmiths among her crew I say, that though the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned 'binnacle deviations, 'azimuth compass observations, and 'approximate errors, he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little casebottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and learned Captain yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that casebottle, seeing what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest within three or four perches of the pole. But if we Southern whalefishers are not so snugly housed aloft as Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were yet that disadvantage is greatly counterbalanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the topsail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination. Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how could Ibeing left completely to myself at such a thoughtengendering altitudehow could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whaleships' standing orders, 'Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time. And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye shipowners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with lean brow and hollow eye given to unseasonable meditativeness and who offers to ship with the Phdon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say your whales must be seen before they can be killed and this sunkeneyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whalefishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absentminded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches himself upon the masthead of some luckless disappointed whaleship, and in moody phrase ejaculates Very often do the captains of such ships take those absentminded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient 'interest in the voyage halfhinting that they are so hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect they are shortsighted what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their operaglasses at home. 'Why, thou monkey, said a harpooneer to one of these lads, 'we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here. Perhaps they were or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon but lulled into such an opiumlike listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absentminded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature and every strange, halfseen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him every dimlydiscovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came becomes diffused through time and space like Cranmer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over. There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship by her, borrowed from the sea by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch slip your hold at all and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one halfthrottled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists! (Enter Ahab Then, all.) It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the cabingangway to the deck. There most seacaptains usually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the garden. Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow there also, you would see still stranger footprintsthe footprints of his one unsleeping, everpacing thought. But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the mainmast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced so completely possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of every outer movement. 'D'ye mark him, Flask? whispered Stubb 'the chick that's in him pecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out. The hours wore onAhab now shut up within his cabin anon, pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect. It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the augerhole there, and with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft. 'Sir! said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on shipboard except in some extraordinary case. 'Send everybody aft, repeated Ahab. 'Mastheads, there! come down! When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious and not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, started from his standpoint and as though not a soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and halfslouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among the men till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried 'What do ye do when ye see a whale, men? 'Sing out for him! was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices. 'Good! cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically thrown them. 'And what do ye next, men? 'Lower away, and after him! 'And what tune is it ye pull to, men? 'A dead whale or a stove boat! More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now halfrevolving in his pivothole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus 'All ye mastheaders have before now heard me give orders about a white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?holding up a broad bright coin to the sun'it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon topmaul. While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him. Receiving the topmaul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the mainmast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming 'Whosoever of ye raises me a whiteheaded whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw whosoever of ye raises me that whiteheaded whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard flukelook ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys! 'Huzza! huzza! cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. 'It's a white whale, I say, resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul 'a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men look sharp for white water if ye see but a bubble, sing out. All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was separately touched by some specific recollection. 'Captain Ahab, said Tashtego, 'that white whale must be the same that some call Moby Dick. 'Moby Dick? shouted Ahab. 'Do ye know the white whale then, Tash? 'Does he fantail a little curious, sir, before he goes down? said the GayHeader deliberately. 'And has he a curious spout, too, said Daggoo, 'very bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab? 'And he have one, two, threeoh! good many iron in him hide, too, Captain, cried Queequeg disjointedly, 'all twisketee betwisk, like himhim faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle'like himhim 'Corkscrew! cried Ahab, 'aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted and wrenched in him aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheepshearing aye, Tashtego, and he fantails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seenMoby DickMoby Dick! 'Captain Ahab, said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. 'Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dickbut it was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg? 'Who told thee that? cried Ahab then pausing, 'Aye, Starbuck aye, my hearties all round it was Moby Dick that dismasted me Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye, he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heartstricken moose 'Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razed me made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day! Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out 'Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave. 'Aye, aye! shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the excited old man 'A sharp eye for the white whale a sharp lance for Moby Dick! 'God bless ye, he seemed to half sob and half shout. 'God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby Dick? 'I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market. 'Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck thou requirest a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their great countinghouse the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here! 'He smites his chest, whispered Stubb, 'what's that for? methinks it rings most vast, but hollow. 'Vengeance on a dumb brute! cried Starbuck, 'that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous. 'Hark ye yet againthe little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each eventin the living act, the undoubted deedthere, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me he heaps me I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so thou reddenest and palest my heat has melted thee to angerglow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawnliving, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopardsthe unrecking and unworshipping things, that live and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremasthand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine cannot oppose me now, without rebellion. 'God keep me!keep us all! murmured Starbuck, lowly. But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation nor yet the low laugh from the hold nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcast eyes lighted up with the stubbornness of life the subterranean laugh died away the winds blew on the sails filled out the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on. 'The measure! the measure! cried Ahab. Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship's company formed a circle round the group he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian. 'Drink and pass! he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the nearest seaman. 'The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short draughtslong swallows, men 'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye forks out at the serpentsnapping eye. Well done almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes. Hand it mehere's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill! 'Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan and ye mates, flank me with your lances and ye harpooneers, stand there with your irons and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you will yet see thatHa! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wer't not thou St. Vitus' impaway, thou ague! 'Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis. So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them meanwhile, glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright. 'In vain! cried Ahab 'but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three but once take the fullforced shock, then mine own electric thing, that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen thereyon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers! Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs up, before him. 'Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them cant them over! know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so now, ye cupbearers, advance. The irons! take them hold them while I fill! Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter. 'Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bowDeath to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death! The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew when, waving his free hand to them, they all dispersed and Ahab retired within his cabin. The cabin by the stern windows Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out. I leave a white and turbid wake pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track let them but first I pass. Yonder, by everbrimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sunslow dived from noongoes down my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem I the wearer, see not its far flashings but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis ironthat I knownot gold. 'Tis split, toothat I feel the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal aye, steel skull, mine the sort that needs no helmet in the most brainbattering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good nightgood night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.) 'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many anthills of powder, they all stand before me and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me madStarbuck does but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered andAye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricketplayers, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bulliesTake some one of your own size don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way! By the Mainmast Starbuck leaning against it. My soul is more than matched she's overmanned and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him, he criesaye, he would be a democrat to all above look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,to obey, rebelling and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small goldfish has its glassy globe. His heaveninsulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock's run down my heart the allcontrolling weight, I have no key to lift again. A burst of revelry from the forecastle. Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,as wild, untutored things are forced to feedOh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! ForeTop. (Stubb solus, and mending a brace.) Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!I've been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer and come what will, one comfort's always leftthat unfailing comfort is, it's all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it had had the gift, might readily have prophesied itfor when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubbthat's my titlewell, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out?Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate's pennant, and so am Ifa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh A brave stave thatwho calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir(Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.Aye, aye, sir, just through with this jobcoming. HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS. (Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.) ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don't be sentimental it's bad for the digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! (Sings, and all follow.) MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTERDECK. Eight bells there, forward! ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bellboy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call the watch. I've the sort of mouth for thatthe hogshead mouth. So, so, (thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Starboleens, ahoy! Eight bells there below! Tumble up! DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing tonight, maty fat night for that. I mark this in our old Mogul's wine it's quite as deadening to some as filliping to others. We sing they sleepaye, lie down there, like groundtier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copperpump, and hail 'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell 'em it's the resurrection they must kiss their last, and come to judgment. That's the waythat's it thy throat ain't spoiled with eating Amsterdam butter. FRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine! PIP. (Sulky and sleepy.) Don't know where it is. FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say merry's the word hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now, Indianfile, and gallop into the doubleshuffle? Throw yourselves! Legs! legs! ICELAND SAILOR. I don't like your floor, maty it's too springy to my taste. I'm used to icefloors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject but excuse me. MALTESE SAILOR. Me too where's your girls? Who but a fool would take his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I must have partners! SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye girls and a green!then I'll hop with ye yea, turn grasshopper! LONGISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the music now for it! AZORE SAILOR. (Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.) Here you are, Pip and there's the windlassbitts up you mount! Now, boys! (The half of them dance to the tambourine some go below some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths aplenty.) AZORE SAILOR. (Dancing) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bellboy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it, bellboy! Make fireflies break the jinglers! PIP. Jinglers, you say?there goes another, dropped off I pound it so. CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away make a pagoda of thyself. FRENCH SAILOR. Merrymad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Split jibs! tear yourselves! TASHTEGO. (Quietly smoking.) That's a white man he calls that fun humph! I save my sweat. OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I willthat's the bitterest threat of your nightwomen, that beat headwinds round corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the greenskulled crews! Well, well belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have it and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you're young I was once. D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a calmgive us a whiff, Tash. (They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky darkensthe wind rises.) LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The skyborn, hightide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva! MALTESE SAILOR. (Reclining and shaking his cap.) It's the wavesthe snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shake their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, then I'd go drown, and chassee with them evermore! There's naught so sweet on earthheaven may not match it!as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the overarboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes. SICILIAN SAILOR. (Reclining.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, ladfleet interlacings of the limbslithe swayingscoyingsflutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.) TAHITAN SAILOR. (Reclining on a mat.) Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!the HeevaHeeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence now worn and wilted quite. Ah me!not thou nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the villages?The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.) PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pellmell they'll go lunging presently. DANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with stormlashed guns, on which the seasalt cakes! TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout with a pistolfire your ship right into it! ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the lads to hunt him up his whale! ALL. Aye! aye! OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none but the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at sea. Our captain has his birthmark look yonder, boys, there's another in the skyluridlike, ye see, all else pitch black. DAGGOO. What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarried out of it! SPANISH SAILOR. (Aside.) He wants to bully, ah!the old grudge makes me touchy (Advancing.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark side of mankinddevilish dark at that. No offence. DAGGOO (grimly). None. ST. JAGO'S SAILOR. That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or else in his one case our old Mogul's firewaters are somewhat long in working. TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What's that I sawlightning? Yes. SPANISH SAILOR. No Daggoo showing his teeth. DAGGOO (springing). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver! SPANISH SAILOR (meeting him). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small spirit! ALL. A row! a row! a row! TASHTEGO (with a whiff). A row a'low, and a row aloftGods and menboth brawlers! Humph! BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge in with ye! ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring! OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thou the ring? MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTERDECK. Hands by the halyards! in topgallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails! ALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (They scatter.) PIP (shrinking under the windlass). Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the jibstay! Blangwhang! God! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royal yard! It's worse than being in the whirled woods, the last day of the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they go, all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em they're on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! But those chaps there are worse yetthey are your white squalls, they. White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their chat just now, and the white whaleshirr! shirr!but spoken of once! and only this eveningit makes me jingle all over like my tambourinethat anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him! Oh, thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here preserve him from all men that have no bowels to feel fear! I, Ishmael, was one of that crew my shouts had gone up with the rest my oath had been welded with theirs and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge. For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied, secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of his existence only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of whalecruisers the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single newstelling sail of any sort the inordinate length of each separate voyage the irregularity of the times of sailing from home all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole worldwide whalingfleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had completely escaped them to some minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded. And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance caught sight of him in the beginning of the thing they had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these assaultsnot restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputationsbut fatal to the last degree of fatality those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come. Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising terrible events,as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to. And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you would not come to any chiseled hearthstone, or aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and halfformed ftal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his jaw. But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhapseither from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the preeminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him. And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former legendary times thrown its shadow before it we find some book naturalistsOlassen and Povelsondeclaring the Sperm Whale not only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are 'struck with the most lively terrors, and 'often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death. And however the general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these yet in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters. So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring warfare such men protesting that although other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are some remarkable documents that may be consulted. Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things were ready to give chase to Moby Dick and a still greater number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if offered. One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instant of time. Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to the most erudite research so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his pursuers and from time to time have originated the most curious and contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points. It is a thing well known to both American and English whaleships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been believed by some whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface) and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land by an underground passage) these fabulous narrations are almost fully equalled by the realities of the whalemen. Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time) that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen. But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown outa peculiar snowwhite wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent features the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him. The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milkyway wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings. Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship. Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in the fishery yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent. Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale's direful wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal. His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies one captain, seizing the lineknife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathomdeep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickleshaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe onehalf of the worlds which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devilAhab did not fall down and worship it like them but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments all that stirs up the lees of things all truth with malice in it all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain all the subtle demonisms of life and thought all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, corporal animosity and when he received the stroke that tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a straitjacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and air even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge. But, as in his narrowflowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object. This is much yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here standhowever grand and wonderful, now quit itand take your way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes where far beneath the fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state an antique buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken throne, the great gods mock that captive king so like a Caryatid, he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties and from your grim sire only will the old Statesecret come. Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact he likewise knew that to mankind he did long dissemble in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtaken him. The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely, that far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on account of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent isle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons he was all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable idea such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and allengrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. Here, then, was this greyheaded, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibalsmorally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or rightmindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man's ireby what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his how all this came to bewhat the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventyfour can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place but while yet all arush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill. What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid. Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught. Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title 'Lord of the White Elephants above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snowwhite quadruped in the royal standard and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snowwhite charger and the great Austrian Empire, Csarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue and though this preeminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble thingsthe innocence of brides, the benignity of age though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milkwhite steeds though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snowwhite bull and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the fourandtwenty elders stand clothed in white before the great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood. This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fiercefanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the whiteshrouded bear or shark. With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of that brute for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love and hence, by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified terror. As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish mass for the dead begins with 'Requiem eternam (eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music. Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him Requin. Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature. I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck and there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself the white thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke and turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! never had heard that name before is it conceivable that this glorious thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I learned that goney was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet. I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl. But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will tell with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it tying a lettered, leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place and then letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wingfolding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim! Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the White Steed of the Prairies a magnificent milkwhite charger, largeeyed, smallheaded, bluffchested, and with the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more resplendent than gold and silverbeaters could have furnished him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, bluffbrowed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio or whether with his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through his cool milkiness in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this noble horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with divineness and that this divineness had that in it which, though commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror. But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and Albatross. What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other menhas no substantive deformityand yet this mere aspect of allpervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so? Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the marketplace! Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering there as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms all ghosts rising in a milkwhite fogYea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his pallid horse. Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul. But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to account for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of whitenessthough for the time either wholly or in great part stripped of all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful, but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however modifiedcan we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us to the hidden cause we seek? Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able to recall them now. Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary, speechless processions of slowpacing pilgrims, downcast and hooded with newfallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of the Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul? Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of an untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its neighborsthe Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a spectralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves, followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does 'the tall pale man of the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the green of the groveswhy is this phantom more terrible than all the whooping imps of the Blocksburg? Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedraltoppling earthquakes nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain nor the sight of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched copestones, and crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets) and her suburban avenues of housewalls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cardsit is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the white veil and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions. I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the following examples. First The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whitenessas if from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost in vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings heart and helm they both go down he never rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, 'Sir, it was not so much the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirred me? Second To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes. Much the same is it with the backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding the scenery of the Antarctic seas where at times, by some infernal trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean ice monuments and splintered crosses. But thou sayest, methinks that whitelead chapter about whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul thou surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael. Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of preywhy is it that upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskinesswhy will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of former perils for what knows he, this New England colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon? No but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into dust. Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea the bleak rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains the desolate shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt! Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright. But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul and more strange and far more portentouswhy, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian's Deity and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind. Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour and at the same time the concrete of all colours is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snowsa colourless, allcolour of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly huesevery stately or lovely emblazoningthe sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnelhouse within and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tingepondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt? 'HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco? It was the middlewatch a fair moonlight the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the freshwater butts in the waist, to the scuttlebutt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttlebutt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarterdeck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel. It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, whose post was near the afterhatches, whispered to his neighbor, a Cholo, the words above. 'Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco? 'Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean? 'There it is againunder the hatchesdon't you hear ita coughit sounded like a cough. 'Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket. 'There againthere it is!it sounds like two or three sleepers turning over, now! 'Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of yenothing else. Look to the bucket! 'Say what ye will, shipmate I've sharp ears. 'Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old Quakeress's knittingneedles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket you're the chap. 'Grin away we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody down in the afterhold that has not yet been seen on deck and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind. 'Tish! the bucket! Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him on his screweddown table. Then seating himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various lines and shadings which there met his eye and with slow but steady pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he would refer to piles of old logbooks beside him, wherein were set down the seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of various ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen. While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till it almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and courses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead. But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were brought out almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul. Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans, it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents and thereby calculating the driftings of the sperm whale's food and, also, calling to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular latitudes could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground in search of his prey. So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe that, could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to correspond in invariability to those of the herringshoals or the flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made to construct elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale. Besides, when making a passage from one feedingground to another, the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinctsay, rather, secret intelligence from the Deitymostly swim in veins, as they are called continuing their way along a given oceanline with such undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the direction taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor's parallel, and though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary vein in which at these times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width (more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract) but never exceeds the visual sweep from the whaleship's mastheads, when circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at particular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating whales may with great confidence be looked for. And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate feedinggrounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey but in crossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting. There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality, perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year, say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were found there the preceding season though there are peculiar and unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In general, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the solitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to visit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding grounds, where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only his casual stoppingplaces and oceaninns, so to speak, not his places of prolonged abode. And where Ahab's chances of accomplishing his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to whatever wayside, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a particular set time or place were attained, when all possibilities would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next thing to a certainty. That particular set time and place were conjoined in the one technical phrasethe SeasonontheLine. For there and then, for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place there the waves were storied with his deeds there also was that tragic spot where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering hunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one crowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those hopes nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest. Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the SeasonontheLine. No possible endeavor then could enable her commander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod's sailing had, perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very complexion of things. Because, an interval of three hundred and sixtyfive days and nights was before him an interval which, instead of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt if by chance the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote from his periodical feedinggrounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor'Westers, Harmattans, Trades any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into the devious zigzag worldcircle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake. But granting all this yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not but a mad idea, this that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a whitebearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar snowwhite brow of Moby Dick, and his snowwhite hump, could not but be unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he would throw himself back in reveriestallied him, and shall he escape? His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's ear! And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him and in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his lifespot became insufferable anguish and when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among them when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind of selfassumed, independent being of its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horrorstricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to colour, and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever that vulture the very creature he creates. So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair. I care not to perform this part of my task methodically but shall be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman and from these citations, I take itthe conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of itself. First I have personally known three instances where a whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the same hand, and slain when the two irons, both marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons and I think it may have been something more than that the man who darted them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been on its travels no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa but to no purpose. This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this that is in two of them I saw the whales struck and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the threeyear instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, then, which I personally know the truth of but I have heard of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is no good ground to impeach. Secondly It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished from other whales for however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly valuable oil. No the reason was this that from the fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption. But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual celebrityNay, you may call it an oceanwide renown not only was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of a name had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Csar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snowwhite cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar. But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip. I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. First Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the whaleline off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathando you suppose that that poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read tomorrow at your breakfast? No because the mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat's crew. For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it. Secondly People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is an enormous creature of enormous power but I have ever found that when narrating to them some specific example of this twofold enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt. But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and sink a large ship and what is more, the Sperm Whale has done it. First In the year  the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than 'ten minutes she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy I have read his plain and faithful narrative I have conversed with his son and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe. The following are extracts from Chace's narrative 'Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which directed his operations he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock to effect which, the exact manuvres which he made were necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings. Again 'At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion. Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable shore. 'The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance. In another placep. ,he speaks of 'the mysterious and mortal attack of the animal. Secondly The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year  totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it. Thirdly Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J, then commanding an American sloopofwar of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloopofwar as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense. I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter 'By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon some rock instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured. Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a seacaptain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large one a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home. In that up and down manly book of oldfashioned adventure, so full, too, of honest wondersthe voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's old chumsI found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed. Lionel, it seems, was on his way to 'John Ferdinando, as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes. 'In our way thither, he says, 'about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what to think but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struck against a rock but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground.      The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin! Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath. I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages so that for the millionth time we say amen with SolomonVerily there is nothing new under the sun. In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned. Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great seamonster was captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species this seamonster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis. In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whalesquid or cuttlefishlurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius's seamonster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale. Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one passion nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways, altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him. To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools and of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual mastership for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his captain's leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted meditation unrelieved by action) that when they stood their long night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliablethey live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its ficklenessand when retained for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and employments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the final dash. Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knighterrantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic objectthat final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cashaye, cash. They may scorn cash now but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab. Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected to. For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's voyage observe all customary usages and not only that, but force himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of his profession. Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright lookout, and not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward. It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the leadcoloured waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a swordmat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self. I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric this savage's sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof this easy, indifferent sword must be chanceaye, chance, free will, and necessitynowise incompatibleall interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate courseits every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events. Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the crosstrees was that mad GayHeader, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's lookouts perched as high in the air but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's. As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries announcing their coming. 'There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows! 'Whereaway? 'On the leebeam, about two miles off! a school of them! Instantly all was commotion. The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus. 'There go flukes! was now the cry from Tashtego and the whales disappeared. 'Quick, steward! cried Ahab. 'Time! time! DoughBoy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact minute to Ahab. The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarterthis deceitfulness of his could not now be in action for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepersthat is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the mainmast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down the line tubs were fixed in their places the cranes were thrust out the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of manofwar's men about to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship. But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air. The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steellike lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tigeryellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillasa race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose countingroom they suppose to be elsewhere. While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these strangers, Ahab cried out to the whiteturbaned old man at their head, 'All ready there, Fedallah? 'Ready, was the halfhissed reply. 'Lower away then d'ye hear? shouting across the deck. 'Lower away there, I say. Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men sprang over the rail the sheaves whirled round in the blocks with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea while, with a dexterous, offhanded daring, unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, goatlike, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats below. Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command. 'Captain Ahab? said Starbuck. 'Spread yourselves, cried Ahab 'give way, all four boats. Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward! 'Aye, aye, sir, cheerily cried little KingPost, sweeping round his great steering oar. 'Lay back! addressing his crew. 'There!there!there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!lay back! 'Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy. 'Oh, I don't mind 'em, sir, said Archy 'I knew it all before now. Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it? What say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask. 'Pull, pull, my fine heartsalive pull, my children pull, my little ones, drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness. 'Why don't you break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help usnever mind from wherethe more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull never mind the brimstonedevils are good fellows enough. So, so there you are now that's the stroke for a thousand pounds that's the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, menall hearts alive! Easy, easy don't be in a hurrydon't be in a hurry. Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, thensoftly, softly! That's itthat's it! long and strong. Give way there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions ye are all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and gingercakes don't ye pull?pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out! Here! whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle 'every mother's son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's itthat's it. Now ye do something that looks like it, my steelbits. Start herstart her, my silverspoons! Start her, marlingspikes! Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions with his congregation. Not at all and therein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steeringoar, and so broadly gapedopenmouthed at timesthat the mere sight of such a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them. In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely across Stubb's bow and when for a minute or so the two boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. 'Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye please! 'Halloa! returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he spoke still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew his face set like a flint from Stubb's. 'What think ye of those yellow boys, sir! 'Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong, boys!) in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again 'A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty duty and profit hand in hand. 'Aye, aye, I thought as much, soliloquized Stubb, when the boats diverged, 'as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and that's what he went into the after hold for, so often, as DoughBoy long suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale's at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right! Give way, men! It ain't the White Whale today! Give way! Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship's company but Archy's fancied discovery having some time previous got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge of their wonder and so what with all this and Stubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from superstitious surmisings though the affair still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah. Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats a circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone like five triphammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery horizon while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any tendency to trip Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All at once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained fixed, while the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily down into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the movement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it. 'Every man look out along his oars! cried Starbuck. 'Thou, Queequeg, stand up! Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man's hand, and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the masthead of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little KingPost was small and short, and at the same time little KingPost was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead standpoint of his did by no means satisfy KingPost. 'I can't see three seas off tip us up an oar there, and let me on to that. Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty shoulders for a pedestal. 'Good a masthead as any, sir. Will you mount? 'That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow only I wish you fifty feet taller. Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearseplumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean against and steady himself by. At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously perverse and crossrunning seas. Still more strange to see him giddily perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxenhaired Flask seemed a snowflake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro's lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that. Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such fargazing solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings, not a temporary dive from mere fright and if that were the case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumbend but hardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, 'Down, down all, and give way!there they are! To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been visible at that moment nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their forerunning couriers and detached flying outriders. All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them it flew on and on, as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the hills. 'Pull, pull, my good boys, said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but intensest concentrated whisper to his men while the sharp fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty. How different the loud little KingPost. 'Sing out and say something, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on their black backs, boys only do that for me, and I'll sign over to you my Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys including wife and children, boys. Lay me onlay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad! See! see that white water! And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his head, and stamped up and down on it then picking it up, flirted it far off upon the sea and finally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat's stern like a crazed colt from the prairie. 'Look at that chap now, philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a short distance, followed after'He's got fits, that Flask has. Fits? yes, give him fitsthat's the very wordpitch fits into 'em. Merrily, merrily, heartsalive. Pudding for supper, you knowmerry's the word. Pull, babespull, sucklingspull, all. But what the devil are you hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and keep pulling nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your knives in twothat's all. Take it easywhy don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all your livers and lungs! But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tigeryellow crew of histhese were words best omitted here for you live under the blessed light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious seas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of red murder, and foamglued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey. Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of Flask to 'that whale, as he called the fictitious monster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat's bow with its tailthese allusions of his were at times so vivid and lifelike, that they would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look over the shoulder. But this was against all rule for the oarsmen must put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks usage pronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but arms, in these critical moments. It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowlinggreen the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knifelike edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill the headlong, sledlike slide down its other sideall these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming broodall this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle not the dead man's ghost encountering the first unknown phantom in the other worldneither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale. The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloudshadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left the whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along the boat going with such madness through the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from the rowlocks. Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist neither ship nor boat to be seen. 'Give way, men, whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet of his sail 'there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes. There's white water again!close to! Spring! Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted that the other boats had got fast but hardly were they overheard, when with a lightninglike hurtling whisper Starbuck said 'Stand up! and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet. Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged serpents. 'That's his hump. There, there, give it to him! whispered Starbuck. A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat it was the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge the sail collapsed and exploded a gush of scalding vapor shot up near by something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helterskelter into the white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean. The wind increased to a howl the waves dashed their bucklers together the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white fire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we were burning immortal in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats as well roar to the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those boats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew darker with the shadows of night no sign of the ship could be seen. The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were useless as propellers, performing now the office of lifepreservers. So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standardbearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair. Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat, we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat. Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear. We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer the thick mists were dimly parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us within a distance of not much more than its length. Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip at the base of a cataract and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were dashed against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose from their fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship had given us up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon some token of our perishing,an oar or a lance pole. There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, goodnatured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. 'Queequeg, said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water 'Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen? Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me to understand that such things did often happen. 'Mr. Stubb, said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his oiljacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain 'Mr. Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion? 'Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape Horn. 'Mr. Flask, said I, turning to little KingPost, who was standing close by 'you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself backforemost into death's jaws? 'Can't you twist that smaller? said Flask. 'Yes, that's the law. I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind that! Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life considering that at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boatoftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings considering that the particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in the fishery considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale taking all things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will. 'Queequeg, said I, 'come along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee. It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier a stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection a supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived myself my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost. 'Who would have thought it, Flask! cried Stubb 'if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plughole with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man! 'I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account, said Flask. 'If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. That would disable him but he has one knee, and good part of the other left, you know. 'I don't know that, my little man I never yet saw him kneel. Among whalewise people it has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight. But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and extraordinary difficulties that every individual moment, indeed, then comprises a peril under these circumstances is it wise for any maimed man to enter a whaleboat in the hunt? As a general thing, the jointowners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not. Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the huntabove all for Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat's crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat's crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all that matter. Until Cabaco's published discovery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats for service when some time after this Ahab was now and then found bestirring himself in the matter of making tholepins with his own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is running out are pinned over the groove in the bow when all this was observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb and also the anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale when it was observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the semicircular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that boat. Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned away for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown nooks and ashholes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, oars, whaleboats, canoes, blownoff Japanese junks, and what not that Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle. But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hairturbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes nay, so far as to have some sort of a halfhinted influence Heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him all this none knew. But one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continentthose insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours. Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruisinggrounds that off the Azores off the Cape de Verdes on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St. Helena. It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the mainmast head, and stand a lookout there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moonlit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. 'There she blows! Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more yet still they felt no terror rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering. Walking the deck with quick, sidelunging strides, Ahab commanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every masthead manned, the piledup craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in herone to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffintap. On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time. This midnightspout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced again it was descried by all but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three and somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on. Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one selfsame whale and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas. These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urnlike prow. But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there when the ivorytusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foamflakes flew over her bulwarks then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before. Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable searavens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roostingplace for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred. Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoso, as called of yore for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But calm, snowwhite, and unvarying still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky still beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried. During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for the time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve and more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed still in silence the men swung in the bowlines still wordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floorscrewed chair the rain and halfmelted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the telltale that swung from a beam in the ceiling. The cabincompass is called the telltale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course of the ship. Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose. Southeastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the foremasthead, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheriesa whaler at sea, and long absent from home. As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over with hoarfrost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to see her longbearded lookouts at those three mastheads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea and though, when the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the mastheads of one ship to those of the other yet, those forlornlooking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own lookouts, while the quarterdeck hail was being heard from below. 'Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale? But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand into the sea and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first mere mention of the White Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a moment paused it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed'Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them to address them to  At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings. 'Swim away from me, do ye? murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice,'Up helm! Keep her off round the world! Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us. Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded herjudging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasionsif so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not something said here of the peculiar usages of whalingvessels when meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common cruisingground. If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England if casually encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation and stopping for a moment to interchange the news and, perhaps, sitting down for a while and resting in concert then, how much more natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earthoff lone Fanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills how much more natural, I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each other and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about. For the long absent ship, the outwardbounder, perhaps, has letters on board at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and thumbworn files. And in return for that courtesy, the outwardbound ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence from the cruisingground to which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing each other's track on the cruisingground itself, even though they are equally long absent from home. For one of them may have received a transfer of letters from some third, and now far remote vessel and some of those letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat. For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils. Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American whalers regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of seapeasant. But where this superiority in the English whalemen does really consist, it would be hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless little foible in the English whalehunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to heart probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself. So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the whalers have most reason to be sociableand they are so. Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the midAtlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies in Broadway and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other's rig. As for MenofWar, when they chance to meet at sea, they first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much rightdown hearty goodwill and brotherly love about it at all. As touching Slaveships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they chance to cross each other's crossbones, the first hail is'How many skulls?the same way that whalers hail'How many barrels? And that question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each other's villanous likenesses. But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, freeandeasy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a 'Gam, a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name even and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and repeat gamesome stuff about 'spouters and 'blubberboilers, and such like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchantseamen, and also all Pirates and ManofWar's men, and Slaveship sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whaleships this is a question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on. But what is a Gam? You might wear out your indexfinger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition Noah Webster's ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it. GAM. NOUNA social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a cruisingground when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats' crews the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other. There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, manofwar, or slave ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often steers himself with a pretty little milliner's tiller decorated with gay cords and ribbons. But the whaleboat has no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whaleboat never admits of any such effeminacy and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is this any very easy matter for in his rear is the immense projecting steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the afteroar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself sideways by settling down on his stretched legs but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never do in plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant selfcommand, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall sayto seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there like grim death. (As told at the Golden Inn.) The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homewardbound whaleman, the TownHo, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the TownHo's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the TownHo himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's mainmast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. The ancient whalecry upon first sighting a whale from the masthead, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin. For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thickgilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time. 'Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the TownHo, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than common. They supposed a swordfish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals but no good luck came more days went by, and not only was the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired. 'Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way, because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at them, those sixandthirty men of his could easily keep the ship free never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the TownHo had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo. ''Lakeman!Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?' said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass. 'On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don butI crave your courtesymay be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, gentlemen, in squaresail brigs and threemasted ships, wellnigh as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far Manilla this Lakeman, in the landlocked heart of our America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand freshwater seas of ours,Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,possess an oceanlike expansiveness, with many of the ocean's noblest traits with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters do in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is they furnish long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round their banks here and there are frowned upon by batteries, and by the goatlike craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw they have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories at intervals, they yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wigwams for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies those same woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages they float alike the fullrigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wildocean born, and wildocean nurtured as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buckhorn handled Bowieknives. Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some goodhearted traits and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkiltbut, gentlemen, you shall hear. 'It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing her prow for her island haven, that the TownHo's leak seemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps every day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole way across it though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the probability would be that he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pumphandles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very out of the way part of those waters, some really landless latitude, that her captain begins to feel a little anxious. 'Much this way had it been with the TownHo so when her leak was found gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by several of her company especially by Radney the mate. He commanded the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water clear as any mountain spring, gentlementhat bubbling from the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at the lee scupperholes. 'Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ourswatery or otherwise that when a person placed in command over his fellowmen finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness and if he have a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings of your last viceroy's snorting charger and a brain, and a heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it. 'Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with his gay banterings. ''Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this hold a cannikin, one of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's worth bottling! I tell ye what, men, old Rad's investment must go for it! he had best cut away his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that swordfish only began the job he's come back again with a gang of shipcarpenters, sawfish, and filefish, and what not and the whole posse of 'em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump overboard and scatter 'em. They're playing the devil with his estate, I can tell him. But he's a simple old soul,Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in lookingglasses. I wonder if he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.' ''Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney, pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at it!' ''Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively, boys, lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty fireengines the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life's utmost energies. 'Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run at large. 'Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every evening it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of seausages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen some of whom would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the TownHo that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs consequently he should have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood between the two men. 'But there was more than this the order about the shovel was almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whaleship will understand this and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant eye and perceived the stacks of powdercasks heaped up in him and the slowmatch silently burning along towards them as he instinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful beinga repugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrievedthis nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt. 'Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the customary sweepers who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done little or nothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a most domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an uplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by. 'Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do his bidding. 'Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man but it was to no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the windlass when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer ''Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to yourself.' But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of his teeth meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions. Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch stabbing him in the eye with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek the next instant the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head he fell on the hatch spouting blood like a whale. 'Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their mastheads. They were both Canallers. ''Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seen many whaleships in our harbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon who and what are they?' ''Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. You must have heard of it.' ''Nay, Senor hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North.' ''Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very fine and ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are for such information may throw sidelight upon my story.' 'For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire breadth of the state of New York through numerous populous cities and most thriving villages through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility by billiardroom and barroom through the holyofholies of great forests on Roman arches over Indian rivers through sun and shade by happy hearts or broken through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk counties and especially, by rows of snowwhite chapels, whose spires stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly corrupt and often lawless life. There's your true Ashantee, gentlemen there howl your pagans where you ever find them, next door to you under the longflung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches. For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities. ''Is that a friar passing?' said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the crowded plazza, with humorous concern. ''Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella's Inquisition wanes in Lima,' laughed Don Sebastian. 'Proceed, Senor.' ''A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the company. 'In the name of all us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look surprised you know the proverb all along this coast'Corrupt as Lima. It but bears out your saying, too churches more plentiful than billiardtables, and for ever openand 'Corrupt as Lima. So, too, Venice I have been there the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. Mark!St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks here I refill now, you pour out again.' 'Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his greenturfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his redcheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports his slouched and gailyribboned hat betoken his grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he floats his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers I thank him heartily would fain be not ungrateful but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this that our wild whalefishery contains so many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole transition between quietly reaping in a Christian cornfield, and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas. ''I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha upon his silvery ruffles. 'No need to travel! The world's one Lima. I had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were cold and holy as the hills.But the story.' 'I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down with a whalepike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarterdeck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving border of the confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to prick out the object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them all they succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass, these seaParisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade. ''Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now menacing them with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. 'Come out of that, ye cutthroats!' 'Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there, defied the worst the pistols could do but gave the captain to understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty. ''Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?' demanded their ringleader. ''Turn to! turn to!I make no promiseto your duty! Do you want to sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!' and he once more raised a pistol. ''Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt. 'Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us turns to, unless you swear not to raise a ropeyarn against us. What say ye, men?' turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their response. 'The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these'It's not our fault we didn't want it I told him to take his hammer away it was boy's business he might have known me before this I told him not to prick the buffalo I believe I have broken a finger here against his cursed jaw ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to yourself say the word don't be a fool forget it all we are ready to turn to treat us decently, and we're your men but we won't be flogged.' ''Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!' ''Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him, 'there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped for the cruise, d'ye see now as you well know, sir, we can claim our discharge as soon as the anchor is down so we don't want a row it's not our interest we want to be peaceable we are ready to work, but we won't be flogged.' ''Turn to!' roared the Captain. 'Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said'I tell you what it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby rascal, we won't lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us but till you say the word about not flogging us, we don't do a hand's turn.' ''Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye there till ye're sick of it. Down ye go.' ''Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against it but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave. 'As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the companionway. Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon themten in numberleaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had remained neutral. 'All night a wideawake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway at which last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after breaking through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed in peace the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the pumps, whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary night dismally resounded through the ship. 'At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck, summoned the prisoners to work but with a yell they refused. Water was then lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were tossed after it when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it, the Captain returned to the quarterdeck. Twice every day for three days this was repeated but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and then a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered and suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were ready to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, united perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained them to surrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to stop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only three were left. ''Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with a heartless jeer. ''Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt. ''Oh certainly,' said the Captain, and the key clicked. 'It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as black as the bowels of despair it was then that Steelkilt proposed to the two Canallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst out of their hole at the next summoning of the garrison and armed with their keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a handle at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail and if by any devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself, he would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That was the last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met with no opposition on the part of the other two they swore they were ready for that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender. And what was more, they each insisted upon being the first man on deck, when the time to make the rush should come. But to this their leader as fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself particularly as his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the matter and both of them could not be first, for the ladder would but admit one man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants must come out. 'Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece of treachery, namely to be foremost in breaking out, in order to be the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender and thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their before secret treacheries together and when their leader fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight. 'Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the honor of securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along the deck like dead cattle and, side by side, were seized up into the mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till morning. 'Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, 'the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!' 'At sunrise he summoned all hands and separating those who had rebelled from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the former that he had a good mind to flog them all roundthought, upon the whole, he would do sohe ought tojustice demanded it but for the present, considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular. ''But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men in the rigging'for you, I mean to mince ye up for the trypots' and, seizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the two traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn. ''My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last 'but there is still rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't give up. Take that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.' 'For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a sort of hiss, 'What I say is thisand mind it wellif you flog me, I murder you!' ''Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'and the Captain drew off with the rope to strike. ''Best not,' hissed the Lakeman. ''But I must,'and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke. 'Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope, said, 'I won't do itlet him gocut him down d'ye hear?' 'But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale man, with a bandaged head, arrested themRadney the chief mate. Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth but that morning, hearing the tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the whole scene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly speak but mumbling something about his being willing and able to do what the captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced to his pinioned foe. ''You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman. ''So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of striking, when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused and then pausing no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt's threat, whatever that might have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were turned to, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as before. 'Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor was heard in the forecastle and the two trembling traitors running up, besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew. Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own instance they were put down in the ship's run for salvation. Still, no sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, that mainly at Steelkilt's instigation, they had resolved to maintain the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thingnamely, not to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For, spite of her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the TownHo still maintained her mastheads, and her captain was just as willing to lower for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the cruising ground and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the vital jaw of the whale. 'But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till all was over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the man who had stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney the chief mate's watch and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted, against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances, Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge. 'During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting on the bulwarks of the quarterdeck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship's side. In this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a considerable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next trick at the helm would come round at two o'clock, in the morning of the third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his leisure, he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully in his watches below. ''What are you making there?' said a shipmate. ''What do you think? what does it look like?' ''Like a lanyard for your bag but it's an odd one, seems to me.' ''Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holding it at arm's length before him 'but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven't enough twine,have you any?' 'But there was none in the forecastle. ''Then I must get some from old Rad' and he rose to go aft. ''You don't mean to go a begging to him!' said a sailor. ''Why not? Do you think he won't do me a turn, when it's to help himself in the end, shipmate?' and going to the mate, he looked at him quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given himneither twine nor lanyard were seen again but the next night an iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the Lakeman's monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock for a pillow. Twentyfour hours after, his trick at the silent helmnigh to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready dug to the seaman's handthat fatal hour was then to come and in the foreordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in. 'But, gentlemen, a fool saved the wouldbe murderer from the bloody deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in to take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have done. 'It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe man, drawing water in the mainchains, all at once shouted out, 'There she rolls! there she rolls!' Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick. ''Moby Dick!' cried Don Sebastian 'St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?' ''A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Donbut that would be too long a story.' ''How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards, crowding. ''Nay, Dons, Donsnay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more into the air, Sirs.' ''The chicha! the chicha!' cried Don Pedro 'our vigorous friend looks faintfill up his empty glass!' 'No need, gentlemen one moment, and I proceed.Now, gentlemen, so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the shipforgetful of the compact among the crewin the excitement of the moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted his voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been plainly beheld from the three sullen mastheads. All was now a phrensy. 'The White Whalethe White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were lowered, the mate's got the start and none howled more fiercely with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together till of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the whale's slippery back, the boat righted, and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom seized the swimmer between his jaws and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down. 'Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lakeman had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool calmly looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He cut it and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose again, with some tatters of Radney's red woollen shirt, caught in the teeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again but the whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared. 'In good time, the TownHo reached her porta savage, solitary placewhere no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted among the palms eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double warcanoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor. 'The ship's company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the ship as far off shore as possible loaded and ran out his two cannon from the bows stacked his muskets on the poop and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his best whaleboat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew. 'On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it but the savage craft bore down on him and soon the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked warcanoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam. ''What do you want of me?' cried the captain. ''Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?' demanded Steelkilt 'no lies.' ''I am bound to Tahiti for more men.' ''Very good. Let me board you a momentI come in peace.' With that he leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat and climbing the gunwale, stood face to face with the captain. ''Cross your arms, sir throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightnings strike me!' ''A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. 'Adios, Senor!' and leaping into the sea, he swam back to his comrades. 'Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the roots of the cocoanut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck befriended him two ships were about to sail for France, and were providentially in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor headed. They embarked and so for ever got the start of their former captain, had he been at all minded to work them legal retribution. 'Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whaleboat arrived, and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel and finding all right there, again resumed his cruisings. 'Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know but upon the island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to give up its dead still in dreams sees the awful white whale that destroyed him.     ''Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quietly. ''I am, Don.' ''Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to press.' ''Also bear with all of us, sir sailor for we all join in Don Sebastian's suit,' cried the company, with exceeding interest. ''Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, gentlemen?' ''Nay,' said Don Sebastian 'but I know a worthy priest near by, who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it but are you well advised? this may grow too serious.' ''Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?' ''Though there are no AutodaFs in Lima now,' said one of the company to another 'I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.' ''Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian but may I also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists you can.'       ''This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure. ''Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it. ''So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye, gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be true it happened on this ball I trod the ship I knew the crew I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.' I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whaleship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all wrong. It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields, medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of chainarmor like Saladin's, and a helmeted head like St. George's ever since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific presentations of him. Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavernpagoda of Elephanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes. But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter's portrait of this fish for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the seamonster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his own 'Perseus Descending, make out one whit better. The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the bookbinder's whale winding like a vinestalk round the stock of a descending anchoras stamped and gilded on the backs and titlepages of many books both old and newthat is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on antique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this bookbinder's fish an attempt at a whale because it was so intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere about the th century, during the Revival of Learning and in those days, and even down to a comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan. In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and BadenBaden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the titlepage of the original edition of the 'Advancement of Learning you will find some curious whales. But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, by those who know. In old Harris's collection of voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. , entitled 'A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master. In one of those plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among iceisles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular flukes. Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled 'A Voyage round Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries. In this book is an outline purporting to be a 'Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, , and hoisted on deck. I doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale, would make the eye of that whale a bowwindow some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out of that eye! Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work 'Goldsmith's Animated Nature. In the abridged London edition of , there are plates of an alleged 'whale and a 'narwhale. I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys. Then, again, in , Bernard Germain, Count de Lacpde, a great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its counterpart in nature. But the placing of the capsheaf to all this blundering business was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous Baron. In , he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us. As for the signpainters' whales seen in the streets hanging over the shops of oildealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint. But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have been taken from the stranded fish and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have stood for their fulllengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched lineofbattle ship and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young sucking whale and a fullgrown Platonian Leviathan yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such is then the outlandish, eellike, limbered, varying shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not catch. But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burlybrowed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan's articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular bonefingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. 'However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us, said humorous Stubb one day, 'he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens. For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan. In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass that matter by. I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins's is far better than theirs but, by great odds, Beale's is the best. All Beale's drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and lifelike in its general effect. Some of the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour but they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though. Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living hunters. But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, and taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the monster's spine and standing in that prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. The halfemptied linetub floats on the whitened sea the wooden poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it the heads of the swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions of affright while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass since, for the life of me, I could not draw so good a one. In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rockslide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shellfish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thicklipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddlewheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whalepole inserted into his spouthole. Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles where the beholder fights his way, pellmell, through the consecutive great battles of France where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battlepieces of Garnery. The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England's experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale which, so far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninetysix facsimiles of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace. In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself 'H. Durand. One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet noonscene among the isles of the Pacific a French whaler anchored, inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board the loosened sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving is quite a different affair the ship hoveto upon the open sea, and in the very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside the vessel (in the act of cuttingin) hove over to the monster as if to a quay and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and lances lie levelled for use three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its hole while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands halferect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited seamen. On Towerhill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. There are three whales and three boats and one of the boats (presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a stumpspeech does the poor whaleman make but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation. Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and whalingscenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whaleteeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whalebone, and other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes of dentisticallooking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their jackknives alone and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's fancy. Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whalehunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals and ready at any moment to rebel against him. Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian warclub or spearpaddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken seashell or a shark's tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden network has been achieved and it has cost steady years of steady application. As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailorsavage. With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jackknife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert Durer. Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea warwood, are frequently met with in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with much accuracy. At some old gableroofed country houses you will see brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the roadside door. When the porter is sleepy, the anvilheaded whale would be best. But these knocking whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some oldfashioned churches you will see sheetiron whales placed there for weathercocks but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all intents and purposes so labelled with 'Hands off! you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit. In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in a surf of green surges. Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights here and there from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be a thorough whaleman, to see these sights and not only that, but if you wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first standpoint, else so chancelike are such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous standpoint would require a laborious rediscovery like the Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once highruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them. Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the ArgoNavis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish. With a frigate's anchors for my bridlebitts and fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight! Steering northeastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat. On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the water that escaped at the lip. As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea. That part of the sea known among whalemen as the 'Brazil Banks does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable meadowlike appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased. But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mastheads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse. Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea and though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be yet coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him. But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers. Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for ever yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews. But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own offspring worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe. Consider the subtleness of the sea how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth consider them both, the sea and the land and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return! Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her way northeastward towards the island of Java a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, alluring jet would be seen. But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm when the long burnished sunglade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the mainmasthead. In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our prow like a snowslide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on reappearing once more, with a stilettolike cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out'There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale! Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yardarms, as in swarmingtime the bees rush to the boughs. Bareheaded in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo. Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular whale he pursued however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed him whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering. The four boats were soon on the water Ahab's in advance, and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing creamcolour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chancelike apparition of life. As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed'Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost! 'What was it, Sir? said Flask. 'The great live squid, which, they say, few whaleships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it. But Ahab said nothing turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel the rest as silently following. Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and form notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food. For though other species of whales find their food above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the surface and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed of the ocean and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it. There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he assigns it. By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttlefish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe. With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whaleline. The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary ropes for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to the ropemaker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whaleline for the close coiling to which it must be subjected but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and gloss. Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whalelines for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic and I will add (since there is an sthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian but Manilla is as a goldenhaired Circassian to behold. The whaleline is only twothirds of an inch in thickness. At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and twenty pounds so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm whaleline measures something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the wormpipe of a still though, but so as to form one round, cheeseshaped mass of densely bedded 'sheaves, or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the 'heart, or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists. In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one the same line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in this because these twintubs being so small they fit more readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much whereas, the American tub, nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one halfinch in thickness for the bottom of the whaleboat is like critical ice, which will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American linetub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great weddingcake to present to the whales. Both ends of the line are exposed the lower end terminating in an eyesplice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second This arrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea and in that case no towncrier would ever find her again. Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again and some ten or twenty fathoms (called boxline) being coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is then attached to the shortwarpthe rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon but previous to that connexion, the shortwarp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to detail. Thus the whaleline folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habitstrange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the halfinch white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say. Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those repeated whaling disasterssome few of which are casually chronicledof this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steamengine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning and only by a certain selfadjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the allseeing sun himself could never pierce you out. Again as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual playthis is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whalelines. All are born with halters round their necks but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, everpresent perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whaleboat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object. 'When you see him 'quid, said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, 'then you quick see him 'parm whale. The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flyingfish, and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio de la Plata, or the inshore ground off Peru. It was my turn to stand at the foremasthead and with my shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my body though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn. Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen at the main and mizzenmastheads were already drowsy. So that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all. Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes like vices my hands grasped the shrouds some invisible, gracious agency preserved me with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness and more than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the air. 'Clear away the boats! Luff! cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes. The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale and ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silently paddled along the calm not admitting of the noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up. 'There go flukes! was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by Stubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale rose again, and being now in advance of the smoker's boat, and much nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length become aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault. Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, he was going 'head out that part obliquely projecting from the mad yeast which he brewed. It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists. Though apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does so when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cutwater formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluffbowed sluggish galliot into a sharppointed New York pilotboat. 'Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves take plenty of timebut start her start her like thunderclaps, that's all, cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. 'Start her, now give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boystart her, all but keep cool, keep coolcucumbers is the wordeasy, easyonly start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boysthat's all. Start her! 'Woohoo! Wahee! screamed the GayHeader in reply, raising some old warwhoop to the skies as every oarsman in the strained boat involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke which the eager Indian gave. But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. 'Keehee! Keehee! yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat, like a pacing tiger in his cage. 'Kala! Kooloo! howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry was heard'Stand up, Tashtego!give it to him! The harpoon was hurled. 'Stern all! The oarsmen backed water the same moment something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and round the loggerhead so also, just before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb's hands, from which the handcloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's sharp twoedged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving to wrest it out of your clutch. 'Wet the line! wet the line! cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed seawater into it. More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed placesstem for sterna staggering business truly in that rocking commotion. Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the running line with water in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most convenient. From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two keelsone cleaving the water, the other the airas the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once. A continual cascade played at the bows a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed each man with might and main clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight. 'Haul inhaul in! cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the flying fish at the word of command, the boat alternately sterning out of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then ranging up for another fling. The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men. And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the excited headsman as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into the whale. 'Pull uppull up! he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale relaxed in his wrath. 'Pull up!close to! and the boat ranged along the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his 'flurry, the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day. And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view surging from side to side spasmodically dilating and contracting his spouthole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! 'He's dead, Mr. Stubb, said Daggoo. 'Yes both pipes smoked out! and withdrawing his own from his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water and, for a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whaleboat pushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whalekiller as temporary steersman, and the harpooneer or whalefastener pulling the foremost oar, the one known as the harpooneeroar. Now it needs a strong, nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish for often, in what is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one's compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half startedwhat that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry'Stand up, and give it to him! He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated no wonder that some of them actually burst their bloodvessels in the boat no wonder that some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels no wonder that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern for it is the harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted! Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant, that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of themselves and every one else. It is then they change places and the headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper station in the bows of the boat. Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from first to last he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in the chase but long experience in various whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has caused them. To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil. Out of the trunk, the branches grow out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters. The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch, respectively called the first and second irons. But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with the line the object being this to dart them both, if possible, one instantly after the other into the same whale so that if, in the coming drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It is a doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to the instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however lightninglike in his movements, to pitch the second iron into him. Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the line, and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere else the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water, it accordingly is in such cases the spare coils of box line (mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties. Furthermore you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharpedged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse. Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale when owing to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several most important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted. Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a calm so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men with our thirtysix arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the sea and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of HangHo, or whatever they call it, in China, four or five laborers on the footpath will draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour but this grand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with piglead in bulk. Darkness came on but three lights up and down in the Pequod's mainrigging dimly guided our way till drawing nearer we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning. Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had evinced his customary activity, to call it so yet now that the creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working in him as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain and though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on the Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in the deep for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the portholes. But by those clanking links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its black hull close to the vessel's and seen through the darkness of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the twoship and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while the other remains standing. A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes or tail and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier than any other (excepting the sidefins), its flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit and being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes. If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an unusual but still goodnatured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate. 'A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from his small! Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb comprising the tapering extremity of the body. About midnight that steak was cut and cooked and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstanhead, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers' hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking for a screw. Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a seafight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them and though, while the valiant butchers over the decktable are thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carvingknives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewelhilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of devilworship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil. But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his own epicurean lips. 'Cook, cook!where's that old Fleece? he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing with his lance 'cook, you cook!sail this way, cook! The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something the matter with his kneepans, which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard when, with both hands folded before him, and resting on his twolegged cane, he bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play. 'Cook, said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, 'don't you think this steak is rather overdone? You've been beating this steak too much, cook it's too tender. Don't I always say that to be good, a whalesteak must be tough? There are those sharks now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to 'em tell 'em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. Here, take this lantern, snatching one from his sideboard 'now then, go and preach to 'em! Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks and then, with one hand dropping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said. 'Fellowcritters I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lip! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket! 'Cook, here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap on the shoulder,'Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear that way when you're preaching. That's no way to convert sinners, cook! 'Who dat? Den preach to him yourself, sullenly turning to go. 'No, cook go on, go on. 'Well, den, Belubed fellowcritters 'Right! exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, 'coax 'em to it try that, and Fleece continued. 'Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, fellowcritters, dat dat woraciousness'top dat dam slappin' ob de tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and bitin' dare? 'Cook, cried Stubb, collaring him, 'I won't have that swearing. Talk to 'em gentlemanly. Once more the sermon proceeded. 'Your woraciousness, fellowcritters, I don't blame ye so much for dat is natur, and can't be helped but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help demselves. 'Well done, old Fleece! cried Stubb, 'that's Christianity go on. 'No use goin' on de dam willains will keep a scougin' and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb dey don't hear one word no use apreachin' to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you den for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can't hear not'ing at all, no more, for eber and eber. 'Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion so give the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to my supper. Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his shrill voice, and cried 'Cussed fellowcritters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can fill your dam' bellies 'till dey bustand den die. 'Now, cook, said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan 'stand just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular attention. 'All dention, said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the desired position. 'Well, said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile 'I shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, cook? 'What dat do wid de 'teak, said the old black, testily. 'Silence! How old are you, cook? ''Bout ninety, dey say, he gloomily muttered. 'And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whalesteak? rapidly bolting another mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the question. 'Where were you born, cook? ''Hind de hatchway, in ferryboat, goin' ober de Roanoke. 'Born in a ferryboat! That's queer, too. But I want to know what country you were born in, cook! 'Didn't I say de Roanoke country? he cried sharply. 'No, you didn't, cook but I'll tell you what I'm coming to, cook. You must go home and be born over again you don't know how to cook a whalesteak yet. 'Bress my soul, if I cook noder one, he growled, angrily, turning round to depart. 'Come back, cookhere, hand me those tongsnow take that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take it, I sayholding the tongs towards him'take it, and taste it. Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro muttered, 'Best cooked 'teak I eber taste joosy, berry joosy. 'Cook, said Stubb, squaring himself once more 'do you belong to the church? 'Passed one once in CapeDown, said the old man sullenly. 'And you have once in your life passed a holy church in CapeTown, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his beloved fellowcreatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh? said Stubb. 'Where do you expect to go to, cook? 'Go to bed berry soon, he mumbled, halfturning as he spoke. 'Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful question. Now what's your answer? 'When dis old brack man dies, said the negro slowly, changing his whole air and demeanor, 'he hisself won't go nowhere but some bressed angel will come and fetch him. 'Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch him where? 'Up dere, said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly. 'So, then, you expect to go up into our maintop, do you, cook, when you are dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Maintop, eh? 'Didn't say dat t'all, said Fleece, again in the sulks. 'You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook but, no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?that's your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!that's itnow you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention. 'All 'dention, said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time. 'Well then, cook, you see this whalesteak of yours was so very bad, that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible you see that, don't you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whalesteak for my private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other that done, dish it d'ye hear? And now tomorrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go. But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled. 'Cook, give me cutlets for supper tomorrow night in the midwatch. D'ye hear? away you sail, then.Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go.Avast heaving again! Whaleballs for breakfastdon't forget. 'Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself, muttered the old man, limping away with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock. That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it. It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtleballs or veal balls. The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great porpoise grant from the crown. The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him but when you come to sit down before a meatpie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vesselthat these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called 'fritters which, indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something like old Amsterdam housewives' doughnuts or olycooks, when fresh. They have such an eatable look that the most selfdenying stranger can hardly keep his hands off. But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is like the transparent, halfjellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their shipbiscuit into the huge oilpots and let them fry there awhile. Many a good supper have I thus made. In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among some epicures and every one knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a calf's head from their own heads which, indeed, requires uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at him, with an 'Et tu Brute! expression. It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer perhaps he was hung and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meatmarket of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy patdefoiegras. But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knifehandle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens. When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one is not very soon completed and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail lash the helm a'lee and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation that, until that time, anchorwatches shall be kept that is, two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see that all goes well. But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will not answer at all because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whalingspades, a procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the present case with the Pequod's sharks though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it. Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchorwatch after his supper was concluded and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks for immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these two mariners, darting their long whalingspades, kept up an incessant murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark and this brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw. The whalingspade used for cuttingin is made of the very best steel is about the bigness of a man's spread hand and in general shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle. 'Queequeg no care what god made him shark, said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and down 'wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin. It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble every sailor a butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods. In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and which no single man can possibly liftthis vast bunch of grapes was swayed up to the maintop and firmly lashed to the lower masthead, the strongest point anywhere above a ship's deck. The end of the hawserlike rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two sidefins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship careens over on her side every bolt in her starts like the nailheads of an old house in frosty weather she trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mastheads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows till at last, a swift, startling snap is heard with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the 'scarf, simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the maintop the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious blooddripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard. One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon called a boardingsword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in twain so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper strip, called a blanketpiece, swings clear, and is all ready for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the blubberroom. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanketpiece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds the two tackles hoisting and lowering simultaneously both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, the blubberroom gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the general friction. I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains unchanged but it is only an opinion. The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence of firm, closegrained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin that is, previous to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whalebooks. It is transparent, as I said before and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a newborn child. But no more of this. Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin. In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and recrossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mysticmarked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the seacoast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergsI should say, that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact with other whales for I have most remarked them in the large, fullgrown bulls of the species. A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long pieces, called blanketpieces. Like most seaterms, this one is very happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters but these, be it observed, are your coldblooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it thenexcept after explanationthat this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in summer. It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the whale! 'Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern! The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives. There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The seavultures all in pious mourning, the airsharks all punctiliously in black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if peradventure he had needed it but upon the banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale is free. Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid manofwar or blundering discoveryvessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the logshoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your law of precedents there's your utility of traditions there's the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy! Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a world. Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than the CockLane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them. It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced whale surgeons very much pride themselves and not without reason. Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh and in that subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the evercontracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale? When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible for the sperm whale's head embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales. The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship's sideabout half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower masthead, and every yardarm on that side projecting like a crane over the waves there, that blooddripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith. When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea. A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarterdeck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the mainchains he took Stubb's long spadestill remaining there after the whale's decapitationand striking it into the lower part of the halfsuspended mass, placed its other end crutchwise under one arm, and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head. It was a black and hooded head and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. 'Speak, thou vast and venerable head, muttered Ahab, 'which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned there, in that awful waterland, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw and his murderers still sailed on unharmedwhile swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine! 'Sail ho! cried a triumphant voice from the mainmasthead. 'Aye? Well, now, that's cheering, cried Ahab, suddenly erecting himself, while whole thunderclouds swept aside from his brow. 'That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man.Where away? 'Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to us! 'Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind. Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock. By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned mastheads proved her a whaleship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would be made. Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal all which signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable distances and with no small facility. The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's setting her own which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat it soon drew nigh but, as the sideladder was being rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company. For, though himself and boat's crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifleshot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the Pequod. But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her maintopsail aback though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties but at intervals not without still another interruption of a very different sort. Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A longskirted, cabalisticallycut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes. So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed'That's he! that's he!the longtogged scaramouch the TownHo's company told us of! Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the TownHo. According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the Jeroboam. His story was this He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a great prophet in their cracked, secret meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a trapdoor, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vestpocket but, which, instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, commonsense exterior, and offered himself as a greenhand candidate for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and vicargeneral of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he declared these thingsthe dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him but apprised that that individual's intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his seals and vialsdevoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and mates and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible but, however wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless selfdeception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to return to the Pequod. 'I fear not thy epidemic, man, said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern 'come on board. But now Gabriel started to his feet. 'Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible plague! 'Gabriel! Gabriel! cried Captain Mayhew 'thou must either But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech. 'Hast thou seen the White Whale? demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back. 'Think, think of thy whaleboat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail! 'I tell thee again, Gabriel, that But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to warrant. When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick not, however, without frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him. It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking a whaleship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White Whale, in case the monster should be seen in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mastheads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him and the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off and, after much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the mainroyal masthead, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman's head but the mate for ever sank. It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the SpermWhale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the thighboard, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is discernible the man being stark dead. The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek'The vial! the vial! Gabriel called off the terrorstricken crew from the further hunting of the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically foreannounced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship. Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which Ahab answered'Aye. Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger'Think, think of the blasphemerdead, and down there!beware of the blasphemer's end! Ahab stolidly turned aside then said to Mayhew, 'Captain, I have just bethought me of my letterbag there is a letter for one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag. Every whaleship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, most letters never reach their mark and many are only received after attaining an age of two or three years or more. Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been the postboy. 'Can'st not read it? cried Ahab. 'Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it's but a dim scrawlwhat's this? As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cuttingspade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship. Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, 'Mr. Haryes, Mr. Harry(a woman's pinny hand,the man's wife, I'll wager)AyeMr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboamwhy it's Macey, and he's dead! 'Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife, sighed Mayhew 'but let me have it. 'Nay, keep it thyself, cried Gabriel to Ahab 'thou art soon going that way. 'Curses throttle thee! yelled Ahab. 'Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing the boat drifted a little towards the ship's stern so that, as if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it in an instant, seized the boatknife, and impaling the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod. As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair. In the tumultuous business of cuttingin and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubberhook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster's back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a treadmill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costumea shirt and socksin which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to uncommon advantage and no one had a better chance to observe him, as will presently be seen. Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bowoar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hardscrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back. You have seen Italian organboys holding a dancingape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkeyrope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist. It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkeyrope was fast at both ends fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two that my free will had received a mortal wound and that another's mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence for its evenhanded equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further ponderingwhile I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam himstill further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's monkeyrope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it. The monkeyrope is found in all whalers but it was only in the Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkeyrope holder. I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the whale and the shipwhere he would occasionally fall, from the incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the carcassthe rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a beehive. And right in among those sharks was Queequeg who often pushed them aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man. Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. Accordingly, besides the monkeyrope, with which I now and then jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed a peculiarly ferocious sharkhe was provided with still another protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen whalespades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg's best happiness, I admit but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that both he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the bloodmuddled water, those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg than a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there with that great iron hookpoor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods. Well, well, my dear comrade and twinbrother, thought I, as I drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the seawhat matters it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life those sharks, your foes those spades, your friends and what between sharks and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad. But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, as with blue lips and bloodshot eyes the exhausted savage at last climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily trembling over the side the steward advances, and with a benevolent, consolatory glance hands himwhat? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands him a cup of tepid ginger and water! 'Ginger? Do I smell ginger? suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. 'Yes, this must be ginger, peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the astonished steward slowly saying, 'Ginger? ginger? and will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. DoughBoy, where lies the virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Doughboy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!what the devil is ginger? Seacoal? firewood?lucifer matches?tinder?gunpowder?what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg here. 'There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this business, he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just come from forward. 'Will you look at that kannakin, sir smell of it, if you please. Then watching the mate's countenance, he added, 'The steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by which he blows back the life into a halfdrowned man? 'I trust not, said Starbuck, 'it is poor stuff enough. 'Aye, aye, steward, cried Stubb, 'we'll teach you to drug a harpooneer none of your apothecary's medicine here you want to poison us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye? 'It was not me, cried DoughBoy, 'it was Aunt Charity that brought the ginger on board and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but only this gingerjubso she called it. 'Gingerjub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain's ordersgrog for the harpooneer on a whale. 'Enough, replied Starbuck, 'only don't hit him again, but 'Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of that sort and this fellow's a weazel. What were you about saying, sir? 'Only this go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself. When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a sort of teacaddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and was handed to Queequeg the second was Aunt Charity's gift, and that was freely given to the waves. It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale's prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But we must let it continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it. For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold. Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of those inferior creatures and though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts without lowering a boat yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if opportunity offered. Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward and two boats, Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at the masthead. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if he meant it malice but suddenly going down in a maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under the keel. 'Cut, cut! was the cry from the ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being brought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side. But having plenty of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle was intensely critical for while they still slacked out the tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and quivering and so flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after him, so that they performed a complete circuit. Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale's body, rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that poured from the smitten rock. At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he turned upon his back a corpse. While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some conversation ensued between them. 'I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard, said Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so ignoble a leviathan. 'Wants with it? said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat's bow, 'did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale's head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale's on the larboard did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never afterwards capsize? 'Why not? 'I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake's head, Stubb? 'Sink him! I never look at him at all but if ever I get a chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by look down there, Flaskpointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of both hands'Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been stowed away on board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight he carries it coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots. 'He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging. 'No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail he coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging. 'What's the old man have so much to do with him for? 'Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose. 'Bargain?about what? 'Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he'll surrender Moby Dick. 'Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking how can Fedallah do that? 'I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the old flagship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.' 'What for?' says the old governor. 'What business is that of yours,' says the devil, getting mad,'I want to use him.' 'Take him,' says the governorand by the Lord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera before he got through with him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look sharpain't you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get the whale alongside. 'I think I remember some such story as you were telling, said Flask, when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden towards the ship, 'but I can't remember where. 'Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloodyminded soldadoes? Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did? 'No never saw such a book heard of it, though. But now, tell me, Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was the same you say is now on board the Pequod? 'Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the devil live for ever who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a latchkey to get into the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask? 'How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb? 'Do you see that mainmast there? pointing to the ship 'well, that's the figure one now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and string along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see well, that wouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation couldn't show hoops enough to make oughts enough. 'But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you meant to give Fedallah a seatoss, if you got a good chance. Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboardtell me that? 'Give him a good ducking, anyhow. 'But he'd crawl back. 'Duck him again and keep ducking him. 'Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, thoughyes, and drown youwhat then? 'I should like to see him try it I'd give him such a pair of black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, Flask so you suppose I'm afraid of the devil? Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in doubledarbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping people aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil kidnapped, he'd roast for him? There's a governor! 'Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab? 'Do I suppose it? You'll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now to keep a sharp lookout on him and if I see anything very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the nape of his neck, and sayLook here, Beelzebub, you don't do it and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short off at the stumpdo you see and then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer fashion, he'll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs. 'And what will you do with the tail, Stubb? 'Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get homewhat else? 'Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb? 'Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship. The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side, where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for securing him. 'Didn't I tell you so? said Flask 'yes, you'll soon see this right whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's. In good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you will float light and right. In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the case of a sperm whale only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to what is called the crownpiece. But nothing like this, in the present case, had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern and the headladen ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of overburdening panniers. Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and ever and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his shadow while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all it seemed only to blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing things. Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together let us join them, and lay together our own. Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them is mainly observable in their heads and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod's side and as we may freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the deckwhere, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology than here? In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience but there is a certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a 'greyheaded whale. Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these headsnamely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye so out of all proportion is it to the magnitude of the head. Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears and you may fancy, for yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects through your ears. You would find that you could only command some thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight sideline of sight and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side fronts) for what is it that makes the front of a manwhat, indeed, but his eyes? Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain the peculiar position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys this, of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct picture on that side while all between must be profound darkness and nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the world from a sentrybox with two joined sashes for his window. But with the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery and to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes. A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two thingshowever large or however smallat one and the same instant of time never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act but is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison. It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them. But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf whatever and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without. Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.Why then do you try to 'enlarge your mind? Subtilize it. Let us now with whatever levers and steamengines we have at hand, cant over the sperm whale's head, that it may lie bottom up then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth and were it not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What a really beautiful and chastelooking mouth! from floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins. But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuffbox, with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging straight down at rightangles with his body, for all the world like a ship's jibboom. This whale is not dead he is only dispirited out of sorts, perhaps hypochondriac and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lockjaws upon him. In most cases this lower jawbeing easily unhinged by a practised artistis disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles, including canes, umbrellastocks, and handles to ridingwhips. With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an anchor and when the proper time comessome few days after the other workQueequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cuttingspade, Queequeg lances the gums then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally fortytwo teeth in all in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses. Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right Whale's head. As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared to a Roman warchariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded) so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliottoed shoe. Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a shoemaker's last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny. But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and look at these two Fshaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bassviol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its soundingboard. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comblike incrustation on the top of the massthis green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the 'crown, and the Southern fishers the 'bonnet of the Right Whale fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak, with a bird's nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term 'crown also bestowed upon it in which case you will take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip! what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep a sulk and pout that will yield you some  gallons of oil and more. A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be harelipped. The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridgepole there while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half vertical, scimetarshaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part of the head or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres, through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the creature's age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable. In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous 'whiskers inside of the whale's mouth another, 'hogs' bristles a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language 'There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth. This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn countenance. As every one knows, these same 'hogs' bristles, 'fins, 'whiskers, 'blinds, or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you may say even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection the umbrella being a tent spread over the same bone. But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing in the Right Whale's mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest Turkeythe tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting it on deck. This particular tongue now before us at a passing glance I should say it was a sixbarreler that is, it will yield you about that amount of oil. Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started withthat the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely different heads. To sum up, then in the Right Whale's there is no great well of sperm no ivory teeth at all no long, slender mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any of those blinds of bone no huge lower lip and scarcely anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spoutholes, the Sperm Whale only one. Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie together for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea the other will not be very long in following. Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairielike placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years. Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simplyparticularly remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever batteringram power may be lodged there. Here is a vital point for you must either satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history. You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the water you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which receives the boomlike lower jaw you observe that the mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has no external nose and that what nose he hashis spout holeis on the top of his head you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one third of his entire length from the front. Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale's head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone and not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise the most delicate oil yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the head but with this difference about the head this envelope, though not so thick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses' hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it. Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and toughest of oxhide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crowbars. By itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, capable, at will, of distension or contraction and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I know, has no such provision in him considering, too, the otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of the water considering the unobstructed elasticity of its envelope considering the unique interior of his head it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lungcelled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes. Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within there swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood isby the cord and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining feats I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eyebrow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais? Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated upon. Regarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solid oblong, you may, on an inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins, whereof the lower is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an unctuous mass wholly free from bones its broad forward end forming the expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal wall of a thick tendinous substance. Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both sides. The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is mystically carved in front, so the whale's vast plaited forehead forms innumerable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages namely, the highlyprized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, and odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the first thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale's case generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business of securing what you can. I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not possibly have compared with the silken pearlcoloured membrane, like the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale's case. It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head and sinceas has been elsewhere set forththe head embraces one third of the whole length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet for a good sized whale, you have more than twentysix feet for the depth of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship's side. As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti magazine he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, make quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter. Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous andin this particular instancealmost fatal operation whereby the Sperm Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped. Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyardarm, to the part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, travelling through a singlesheaved block. Securing this block, so that it hangs down from the yardarm, he swings one end of the rope, till it is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, handoverhand, down the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he lands on the summit of the head. Therestill high elevated above the rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously crieshe seems some Turkish Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A shorthandled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasurehunter in some old house, sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time this cautious search is over, a stout ironbound bucket, precisely like a wellbucket, has been attached to one end of the whip while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears then giving the word to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairymaid's pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the fullfreighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down. Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm when all at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his onehanded hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons how it was exactly, there is no telling now but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly upmy God! poor Tashtegolike the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped headforemost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight! 'Man overboard! cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first came to his senses. 'Swing the bucket this way! and putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his slippery handhold on the whip itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk. At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing the whipwhich had somehow got foul of the great cutting tacklesa sharp cracking noise was heard and to the unspeakable horror of all, one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be on the point of giving way an event still more likely from the violent motions of the head. 'Come down, come down! yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he would still remain suspended the negro having cleared the foul line, rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out. 'In heaven's name, man, cried Stubb, 'are you ramming home a cartridge there?Avast! How will that help him jamming that ironbound bucket on top of his head? Avast, will ye! 'Stand clear of the tackle! cried a voice like the bursting of a rocket. Almost in the same instant, with a thunderboom, the enormous mass dropped into the sea, like Niagara's TableRock into the whirlpool the suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering copper and all caught their breath, as half swingingnow over the sailors' heads, and now over the waterDaggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, buriedalive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea! But hardly had the blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked figure with a boardingsword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the ship. 'Ha! ha! cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch overhead and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust forth from the grass over a grave. 'Both! both!it is both!cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout and soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck but Tashtego was long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk. Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there then dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great troublehe had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old wayhead foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected. And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing. I know that this queer adventure of the GayHeader's will be sure to seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have either seen or heard of some one's falling into a cistern ashore an accident which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than the Indian's, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale's well. But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and most corky part about him and yet thou makest it sink in an element of a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at all, but I have ye for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the wella double welded, hammered substance, as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was. Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalledthe delicious death of an Ohio honeyhunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there? To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this Leviathan this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats of the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces of horses, birds, serpents, and fish and dwells in detail upon the modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these two semisciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all things I achieve what I can. Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature. He has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most conspicuous of the features and since it perhaps most modifies and finally controls their combined expression hence it would seem that its entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire, cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable to the completion of the scene so no face can be physiognomically in keeping without the elevated openwork belfry of the nose. Dash the nose from Phidias's marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Nevertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so stately, that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A nose to the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your jollyboat, your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal beadle on his throne. In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This aspect is sublime. In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has a touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, the elephant's brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is as that great golden seal affixed by the German emperors to their decrees. It signifies'God done this day by my hand. But in most creatures, nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip of alpine land lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which like Shakespeare's or Melancthon's rise so high, and descend so low, that the eyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes and all above them in the forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and mighty godlike dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature. For you see no one point precisely not one distinct feature is revealed no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth no face he has none, proper nothing but that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with riddles dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men. Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish though that way viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semicrescentic depression in the forehead's middle, which, in man, is Lavater's mark of genius. But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his doing nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale been known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by their childmagian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile, because the crocodile is tongueless and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure back to their birthright, the merry Mayday gods of old and livingly enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky in the now unhaunted hill then be sure, exalted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale shall lord it. Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can. If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square. In the fullgrown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level base. But in lifeas we have elsewhere seenthis inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the mass while under the long floor of this craterin another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in depthreposes the mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the cubicyards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence. It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would involuntarily confound it with them and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would sayThis man had no selfesteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebr to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebr are absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebr of which he was inlaying, in a sort of bassorelievo, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world. Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial cavity is continuous with the first neckvertebra and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As it passes through the remaining vertebr the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substancethe spinal cordas the brain and directly communicates with the brain. And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine phrenologically? For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord. But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebr, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to know. The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen. At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and Germans are now among the least but here and there at very wide intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with their flag in the Pacific. For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects. While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the bows instead of the stern. 'What has he in his hand there? cried Starbuck, pointing to something wavingly held by the German. 'Impossible!a lampfeeder! 'Not that, said Stubb, 'no, no, it's a coffeepot, Mr. Starbuck he's coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman don't you see that big tin can there alongside of him?that's his boiling water. Oh! he's all right, is the Yarman. 'Go along with you, cried Flask, 'it's a lampfeeder and an oilcan. He's out of oil, and has come abegging. However curious it may seem for an oilship to be borrowing oil on the whaleground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing really happens and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did indubitably conduct a lampfeeder as Flask did declare. As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all heeding what he had in his hand but in his broken lingo, the German soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale immediately turning the conversation to his lampfeeder and oil can, with some remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in profound darknesshis last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a single flyingfish yet captured to supply the deficiency concluding by hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically called a clean one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name of Jungfrau or the Virgin. His necessities supplied, Derick departed but he had not gained his ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the mastheads of both vessels and so eager for the chase was Derick, that without pausing to put his oilcan and lampfeeder aboard, he slewed round his boat and made after the leviathan lampfeeders. Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the Pequod's keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their danger, they were going all abreast with great speed straight before the wind, rubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in harness. They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a great wide parchment upon the sea. Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge, humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as by the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed afflicted with the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this whale belonged to the pod in advance, seemed questionable for it is not customary for such venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck to their wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him, because the whitebone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was short, slow, and laborious coming forth with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried extremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble. 'Who's got some paregoric? said Stubb, 'he has the stomachache, I'm afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomachache! Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind I ever knew to blow from astern but look, did ever whale yaw so before? it must be, he's lost his tiller. As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her way so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous ribends, expose the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say. 'Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that wounded arm, cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whaleline near him. 'Mind he don't sling thee with it, cried Starbuck. 'Give way, or the German will have him. With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit for the time. At this juncture the Pequod's keels had shot by the three German boats last lowered but from the great start he had had, Derick's boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his foreign rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being already so nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron before they could completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he seemed quite confident that this would be the case, and occasionally with a deriding gesture shook his lampfeeder at the other boats. 'The ungracious and ungrateful dog! cried Starbuck 'he mocks and dares me with the very poorbox I filled for him not five minutes ago!then in his old intense whisper'Give way, greyhounds! Dog to it! 'I tell ye what it is, mencried Stubb to his crew'it's against my religion to get mad but I'd like to eat that villainous YarmanPullwon't ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do ye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, why don't some of ye burst a bloodvessel? Who's that been dropping an anchor overboardwe don't budge an inchwe're becalmed. Halloo, here's grass growing in the boat's bottomand by the Lord, the mast there's budding. This won't do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long of it is, men, will ye spit fire or not? 'Oh! see the suds he makes! cried Flask, dancing up and down'What a humpOh, do pile on the beeflays like a log! Oh! my lads, do springslapjacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my ladsbaked clams and muffinsoh, do, do, spring,he's a hundred barrellerdon't lose him nowdon't oh, don't!see that YarmanOh, won't ye pull for your duff, my ladssuch a sog! such a sogger! Don't ye love sperm? There goes three thousand dollars, men!a bank!a whole bank! The bank of England!Oh, do, do, do!What's that Yarman about now? At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lampfeeder at the advancing boats, and also his oilcan perhaps with the double view of retarding his rivals' way, and at the same time economically accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss. 'The unmannerly Dutch dogger! cried Stubb. 'Pull now, men, like fifty thousand lineofbattleship loads of redhaired devils. What d'ye say, Tashtego are you the man to snap your spine in twoandtwenty pieces for the honor of old Gayhead? What d'ye say? 'I say, pull like goddam,cried the Indian. Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod's three boats now began ranging almost abreast and, so disposed, momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry of, 'There she slides, now! Hurrah for the whiteash breeze! Down with the Yarman! Sail over him! But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the blade of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to free his whiteash, and while, in consequence, Derick's boat was nigh to capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty ragethat was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took a mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German's quarter. An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale's immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell that he made. It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual tormented jet while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear but the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable while still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied. Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod's boats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long dart, ere the last chance would for ever escape. But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three tigersQueequeg, Tashtego, Daggooinstinctively sprang to their feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their barbs and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding vapors of foam and whitefire! The three boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped the German's aside with such force, that both Derick and his baffled harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three flying keels. 'Don't be afraid, my butterboxes, cried Stubb, casting a passing glance upon them as he shot by 'ye'll be picked up presentlyall rightI saw some sharks asternSt. Bernard's dogs, you knowrelieve distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel a sunbeam! Hurrah!Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on a plainmakes the wheelspokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that way and there's danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he's going to Davy Jonesall a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale carries the everlasting mail! But the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on till at lastowing to the perpendicular strain from the leadlined chocks of the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the bluethe gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this 'holding on, as it is called this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from the back this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the best for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing to the enormous surface of himin a full grown sperm whale something less than  square feetthe pressure of the water is immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under even here, aboveground, in the air how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty lineofbattle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on board. As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down into its eternal blue noon and as not a single groan or cry of any sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said'Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fishspears? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon he esteemeth iron as straw the arrow cannot make him flee darts are counted as stubble he laugheth at the shaking of a spear! This the creature? this he? Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fishspears! In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling to the wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head! 'Stand by, men he stirs, cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are scared from it into the sea. 'Haul in! Haul in! cried Starbuck again 'he's rising. The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's breadth could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two ship's lengths of the hunters. His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land animals there are certain valves or floodgates in many of their veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale one of whose peculiarities it is to have an entire nonvalvular structure of the bloodvessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the wellsprings of faroff and undiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural spouthole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending its affrighted moisture into the air. From this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was untouched. As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knotholes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merrymakings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the flank. 'A nice spot, cried Flask 'just let me prick him there once. 'Avast! cried Starbuck, 'there's no need of that! But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask's boat and marring the bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had made lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin, then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world turned up the white secrets of his belly lay like a log, and died. It was most piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with halfstifled melancholy gurglings the spraycolumn lowers and lowers to the groundso the last long dying spout of the whale. Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. Immediately, by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy the sunken whale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the cords. By very heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest flukechains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld, the body would at once sink to the bottom. It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade, the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any kind to denote their place therefore, there must needs have been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a lancehead of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And when? It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before America was discovered. What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further discoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways to the sea, owing to the body's immensely increasing tendency to sink. However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the last hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the body then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such was the immovable strain upon the timberheads to which the flukechains and cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast them off. Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural dislocation. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable flukechains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads and so low had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at all approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going over. 'Hold on, hold on, won't ye? cried Stubb to the body, 'don't be in such a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something or go for it. No use prying there avast, I say with your handspikes, and run one of ye for a prayer book and a penknife, and cut the big chains. 'Knife? Aye, aye, cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing at the largest flukechains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift the ship righted, the carcase sank. Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm Whale is a very curious thing nor has any fisherman yet adequately accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and brokenhearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their bones heavy and rheumatic then you might with some reason assert that this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of life, with all their panting lard about them even these brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes sink. Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this is obvious. Gases are generated in him he swells to a prodigious magnitude becomes a sort of animal balloon. A lineofbattle ship could hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of sinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope so that when the body has gone down, they know where to look for it when it shall have ascended again. It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from the Pequod's mastheads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again lowering her boats though the only spout in sight was that of a FinBack, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of its incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the FinBack's spout is so similar to the Sperm Whale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is often mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were now in valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail, made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase. Oh! many are the FinBacks, and many are the Dericks, my friend. There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method. The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up to the very springhead of it so much the more am I impressed with its great honorableness and antiquity and especially when I find so many great demigods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity. The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman and to the eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first whale attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill men's lampfeeders. Every one knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda how the lovely Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the seacoast, and as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and delivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit, rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day inasmuch as this Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt this Arkite story for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton of a whale, which the city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. What seems most singular and suggestively important in this story, is this it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail. Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromedaindeed, by some supposed to be indirectly derived from itis that famous story of St. George and the Dragon which dragon I maintain to have been a whale for in many old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and often stand for each other. 'Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a dragon of the sea, saith Ezekiel hereby, plainly meaning a whale in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale. Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely represented of a griffinlike shape, and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or seahorse bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this socalled dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that honorable company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they. Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long remained dubious for though according to the Greek mythologies, that antique Crockett and Kit Carsonthat brawny doer of rejoicing good deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale still, whether that strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere appears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I claim him for one of our clan. But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale and vice vers certainly they are very similar. If I claim the demigod then, why not the prophet? Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named for like royal kings of old times, we find the head waters of our fraternity in nothing short of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos gives us this divine Vishnoo himself for our LordVishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale. When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters so Vishnoo became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths, rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman? Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there's a memberroll for you! What club but the whaleman's can head off like that? Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that. One old SagHarbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew story was thisHe had one of those quaint oldfashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates one of which represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his heada peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying, 'A penny roll would choke him his swallow is so very small. But, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready. It is not necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whisttables, and comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless. Another reason which SagHarbor (he went by that name) urged for his want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body and the whale's gastric juices. But this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a dead whaleeven as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figurehead and, I would add, possibly called 'The Whale, as some craft are nowadays christened the 'Shark, the 'Gull, the 'Eagle. Nor have there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a lifepreserveran inflated bag of windwhich the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom. Poor SagHarbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I remember right Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days he was vomited up somewhere within three days' journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three days' journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. How is that? But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make modern history a liar. But all these foolish arguments of old SagHarbor only evinced his foolish pride of reasona thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil. To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are anointed and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an analogous operation upon their boat they grease the bottom. Nor is it to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly be of no contemptible advantage considering that oil and water are hostile that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from the craft's bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event. Towards noon whales were raised but so soon as the ship sailed down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium. Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But to haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and furious. What then remained? Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced, none exceed that fine manuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale its grand fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve feet in length the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon, and also of a lighter materialpine. It is furnished with a small rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to the hand after darting. But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it is seldom done and when done, is still less frequently successful, on account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before any pitchpoling comes into play. Look now at Stubb a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel in pitchpoling. Look at him he stands upright in the tossed bow of the flying boat wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full before his waistband's middle, he levels it at the whale when, covering him with it, he steadily depresses the buttend in his hand, thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler, balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of sparkling water, he now spouts red blood. 'That drove the spigot out of him! cried Stubb. ''Tis July's immortal Fourth all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then, Tashtego, lad, I'd have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choice punch in the spread of his spouthole there, and from that live punchbowl quaff the living stuff. Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry the towline is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely watches the monster die. That for six thousand yearsand no one knows how many millions of ages beforethe great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutingsthat all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. ), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vaporthis is surely a noteworthy thing. Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone and this is on the top of his head. If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I shall err though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air for, remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicellilike vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his spoutings out, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates are different but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious is it, too, that this necessity for the whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee! In man, breathing is incessantly going onone breath only serving for two or three pulsations so that whatever other business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time. It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spouthole if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell seems obliterated in him for the only thing about him that at all answers to his nose is that identical spouthole and being so clogged with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spoutwhether it be water or whether it be vaporno absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no Colognewater in the sea. Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting canal, and as that long canallike the grand Erie Canalis furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener! Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little to one side this curious canal is very much like a gaspipe laid down in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether this gaspipe is also a waterpipe in other words, whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting canal but it cannot be proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration. But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! You have seen him spout then declare what the spout is can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely. The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping it and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all around him. And if at such times you should think that you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are not merely condensed from its vapor or how do you know that they are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spouthole fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head? For even when tranquilly swimming through the midday sea in a calm, with his elevated hump sundried as a dromedary's in the desert even then, the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with rain. Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into slight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous they try to evade it. Another thing I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let this deadly spout alone. Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My hypothesis is this that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores all other whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain semivisible steam, while in the act of thinking deep thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon this seems an additional argument for the above supposition. And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vaporas you will sometimes see itglorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For, d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God for all have doubts many deny but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye. Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights less celestial, I celebrate a tail. Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin at that point of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. The compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across. The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews but cut into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose itupper, middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long and horizontal those of the middle one, very short, and running crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the great strength of the masonry. But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their might so that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point. Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it. Nor does thisits amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful flexion of its motions where infantileness of ease undulates through a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings. Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein no fairy's arm can transcend it. Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for progression Second, when used as a mace in battle Third, in sweeping Fourth, in lobtailing Fifth, in peaking flukes. First Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scrollwise coiled forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster when furiously swimming. His sidefins only serve to steer by. Second It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the blow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed air, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply irresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only salvation lies in eluding it but if it comes sideways through the opposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whaleboat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most serious result. These submerged side blows are so often received in the fishery, that they are accounted mere child's play. Some one strips off a frock, and the hole is stopped. Third I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail for in this respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the sea and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flowermarket, and with low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not possess this prehensile virtue in his tail for I have heard of yet another elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk and extracted the dart. Fourth Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence of his dignity, and kittenlike, he plays on the ocean as if it were a hearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of his tail are flirted high into the air then smiting the surface, the thunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a great gun had been discharged and if you noticed the light wreath of vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that that was the smoke from the touchhole. Fifth As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes lie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely out of sight beneath the surface but when he is about to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime breachsomewhere else to be describedthis peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you if in that of Isaiah, the archangels. Standing at the masthead of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest silence. The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant's trunk were as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash of the sperm whale's ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls. Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to the elephant nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious similitude among these is the spout. It is well known that the elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, jet it forth in a stream. The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to FreeMason signs and symbols that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I cannot completely make out his back parts and hint what he will about his face, I say again he has no face. The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending southeastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia. In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor which, with many others, form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sallyports for the convenience of ships and whales conspicuous among which are the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas. Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java and standing midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the allgrasping western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered topsails from the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce their claim to more solid tribute. Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged. With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there. By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending upon the Line in the Pacific where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent and at a season when he might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it. But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now, the circusrunning sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves the worldwandering whaleship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with utilities not altogether with unusable piglead and kentledge. She carries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports, the whaleship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of soil her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had come they would only answer'Well, boys, here's the ark! Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda indeed, as most of the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for cruising therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the lookouts were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of singular magnificence saluted us. But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by a single spout and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands. Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whalejets were upplaying and sparkling in the noonday air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twinjets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forwardslanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward. Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height. As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through the straits gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre. Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them the harpooneers handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped whiteelephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with stunsail piled on stunsail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans before us when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention to something in our wake. Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling something like the spouts of the whales only they did not so completely come and go for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his pivothole, crying, 'Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet the sailsMalays, sir, and after us! As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot pursuit, to make up for their overcautious delay. But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase how very kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit,mere ridingwhips and rowels to her, that they were. As with glass under arm, Ahab toandfro paced the deck in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him some such fancy as the above seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curseswhen all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place. But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew and when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond then, the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so victoriously gained upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed gradually the ship neared them and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats. But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,though as yet a mile in their rear,than they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity. Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the whiteash, and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout and like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like waterlogged dismantled ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though banding together in tens of thousands, the lionmaned buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helterskelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men. Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion, yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb. As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by iceisles in a tempest, and striving to steer through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what moment it may be locked in and crushed. But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully now sheering off from this monster directly across our route in advance now edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the shouting part of the business. 'Out of the way, Commodore! cried one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant threatened to swamp us. 'Hard down with your tail, there! cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with his own fanlike extremity. All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each other's grain at right angles a line of considerable length is then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm whales are not every day encountered while you may, then, you must kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. Hence it is, that at times like these the drugg, comes into requisition. Our boat was furnished with three of them. The first and second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg. They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball. But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's bottom as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time. It had been next to impossible to dart these druggedharpoons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way greatly diminished moreover, that as we went still further and further from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways vanished then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satinlike surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circusrider might easily have overarched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves the women and children of this routed host. Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square miles. At any ratethough indeed such a test at such a time might be deceptivespoutings might be discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold and as if the wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its stopping or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way innocent and inexperienced however it may have been, these smaller whalesnow and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the lakeevinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like household dogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting it. But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the time and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscenceeven so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their newborn sight. Floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in girth. He was a little frisky though as yet his body seemed scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the maternal reticule where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow. The delicate sidefins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign parts. 'Line! line! cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale 'him fast! him fast!Who line him! Who struck?Two whale one big, one little! 'What ails ye, man? cried Starbuck. 'Looke here, said Queequeg, pointing down. As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the air so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan amours in the deep. The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons after a gestation which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a time though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and Jacoba contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one on each side of the anus but the breasts themselves extend upwards from that. When by chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolour the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet and rich it has been tasted by man it might do well with strawberries. When overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute more hominum. And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host or possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or maiming his gigantic tailtendon. It is done by darting a shorthandled cuttingspade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again. A whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half of the harpoon line and in the extraordinary agony of the wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the lone mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay wherever he went. But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle enough, any way yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the intervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived that by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale had become entangled in the harpoonline that he towed he had also run away with the cuttingspade in him and while the free end of the rope attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the harpoonline round his tail, the cuttingspade itself had worked loose from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own comrades. This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by half spent billows from afar then the lake itself began faintly to heave and swell the submarine bridalchambers and nurseries vanished in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard and then like to the tumultuous masses of blockice when the great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places Starbuck taking the stern. 'Oars! Oars! he intensely whispered, seizing the helm'gripe your oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off, you Queequegthe whale there!prick him!hit him! Stand upstand up, and stay so! Spring, menpull, men never mind their backsscrape them!scrape away! The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet. After many similar hairbreadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random whales, all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by the aireddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close by. Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement for having clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat and which, when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near. The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious saying in the Fishery,the more whales the less fish. Of all the drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod. The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those vast aggregations. Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each. Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts those composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated. In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a male of full grown magnitude, but not old who, upon any alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his concubines is striking because, while he is always of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more than onethird of the bulk of an averagesized male. They are comparatively delicate, indeed I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the whole they are hereditarily entitled to en bon point. It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other excessive temperature of the year. When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not a few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters,furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins and in some instances, wrenched and dislocated mouths. But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to watch that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines. Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give chase to one of these Grand Turks for these Grand Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves at least, with only the maternal help. For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the world every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardour of youth declines as years and dumps increase as reflection lends her solemn pauses in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors. Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so is the lord and master of that school technically known as the schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a countryschoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils. The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm Whales. Almost universally, a lone whaleas a solitary Leviathan is calledproves an ancient one. Like venerable mossbearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets. The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or fortybarrelbulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter excepting those wondrous greyheaded, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout. The Fortybarrelbull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, and when about threefourths grown, break up, and separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems. Another point of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a Fortybarrelbullpoor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey. The allusion to the waif and waifpoles in the last chapter but one, necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge. It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed and captured by another vessel and herein are indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For example,after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm and drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases. Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the StatesGeneral in A.D. . But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the Bylaws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's Business. Yes these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. I. A FastFish belongs to the party fast to it. II. A LooseFish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to expound it. First What is a FastFish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants,a mast, an oar, a nineinch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognised symbol of possession so long as the party waifing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to do. These are scientific commentaries but the commentaries of the whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocksthe CokeuponLittleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But others are by no means so scrupulous. Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whaletrover litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish they were at last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat. Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants Lord Ellenborough was the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loosefish and therefore when a subsequent gentleman reharpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have been found sticking in her. Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other. These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very learned judge in set terms decided, to wit,That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants the whale, because it was a LooseFish at the time of the final capture and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took the fish ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs. A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case these two laws touching FastFish and LooseFish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on. Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but FastFish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a FastFish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif what is that but a FastFish? What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation what is that ruinous discount but a FastFish? What is the Archbishop of Savesoul's income of , seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands of brokenbacked laborers (all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular , but a FastFish? What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets but FastFish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a FastFish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a FastFish? And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of the law? But if the doctrine of FastFish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of LooseFish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable. What was America in  but a LooseFish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All LooseFish. What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but LooseFish? What all men's minds and opinions but LooseFish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a LooseFish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but LooseFish? What is the great globe itself but a LooseFish? And what are you, reader, but a LooseFish and a FastFish, too? 'De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam. Bracton, l. , c. . Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple there is no intermediate remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to this day in force in England and as it offers in various respects a strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and LooseFish, it is here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle that prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, in curious proof of the fact that the abovementioned law is still in force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that happened within the last two years. It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his perquisites which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of them. Now when these poor sunburnt mariners, barefooted, and with their trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good  from the precious oil and bone and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares up steps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm and laying it upon the whale's head, he says'Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a FastFish. I seize it as the Lord Warden's. Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful consternationso truly Englishknowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their heads all round meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made bold to speak, 'Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden? 'The Duke. 'But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish? 'It is his. 'We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is all that to go to the Duke's benefit we getting nothing at all for our pains but our blisters? 'It is his. 'Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of getting a livelihood? 'It is his. 'I thought to relieve my old bedridden mother by part of my share of this whale. 'It is his. 'Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half? 'It is his. In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published) that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend gentleman) would decline meddling with other people's business. Is this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars? It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested with that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon gives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to the King and Queen, 'because of its superior excellence. And by the soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such matters. But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason for that, ye lawyers! In his treatise on 'QueenGold, or Queenpinmoney, an old King's Bench author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth 'Ye tail is ye Queen's, that ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone. Now this was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or Right whale was largely used in ladies' bodices. But this same bone is not in the tail it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here. There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writersthe whale and the sturgeon both royal property under certain limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown's ordinary revenue. I know not that any other author has hinted of the matter but by inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there seems a reason in all things, even in law. 'In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry. Sir T. Browne, V.E. It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, midday sea, that the many noses on the Pequod's deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea. 'I will bet something now, said Stubb, 'that somewhere hereabouts are some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they would keel up before long. Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside and there in the distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours from his peak and by the eddying cloud of vulture seafowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of attarofrose. Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman had a second whale alongside and this second whale seemed even more of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted whales in general. The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he recognised his cutting spadepole entangled in the lines that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales. 'There's a pretty fellow, now, he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship's bows, 'there's a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery sometimes lowering their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into aye, we all know these things but look ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let's make him a present of a little oil for dear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get from that drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail no, not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he'll get from that bundle of bones though, now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes, I'm for it and so saying he started for the quarterdeck. By this time the faint air had become a complete calm so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stempiece was carved in the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there the whole terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read 'Bouton de Rose,Rosebutton, or Rosebud and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship. Though Stubb did not understand the Bouton part of the inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous figurehead put together, sufficiently explained the whole to him. 'A wooden rosebud, eh? he cried with his hand to his nose, 'that will do very well but how like all creation it smells! Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to the blasted whale and so talk over it. Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he bawled'BoutondeRose, ahoy! are there any of you BoutondeRoses that speak English? 'Yes, rejoined a Guernseyman from the bulwarks, who turned out to be the chiefmate. 'Well, then, my BoutondeRosebud, have you seen the White Whale? 'What whale? 'The White Whalea Sperm WhaleMoby Dick, have ye seen him? 'Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whaleno. 'Very good, then good bye now, and I'll call again in a minute. Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning over the quarterdeck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two hands into a trumpet and shouted'No, Sir! No! Upon which Ahab retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman. He now perceived that the Guernseyman, who had just got into the chains, and was using a cuttingspade, had slung his nose in a sort of bag. 'What's the matter with your nose, there? said Stubb. 'Broke it? 'I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all! answered the Guernseyman, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very much. 'But what are you holding yours for? 'Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain't it? Air rather gardenny, I should say throw us a bunch of posies, will ye, BoutondeRose? 'What in the devil's name do you want here? roared the Guernseyman, flying into a sudden passion. 'Oh! keep coolcool? yes, that's the word! why don't you pack those whales in ice while you're working at 'em? But joking aside, though do you know, Rosebud, that it's all nonsense trying to get any oil out of such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in his whole carcase. 'I know that well enough but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't believe it this is his first voyage he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But come aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't me and so I'll get out of this dirty scrape. 'Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow, rejoined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jibbooms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the masthead to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coaltar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobaccosmoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories. Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from the Captain's roundhouse abaft and looking in that direction saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within. This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself to the Captain's roundhouse (cabinet he called it) to avoid the pest but still, could not help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times. Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the Guernseyman had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernseyman had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernseyman, under cover of an interpreter's office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb and as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in him during the interview. By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a seacaptain, with large whiskers and moustache, however and wore a red cotton velvet vest with watchseals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely introduced by the Guernseyman, who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting between them. 'What shall I say to him first? said he. 'Why, said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, 'you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, though I don't pretend to be a judge. 'He says, Monsieur, said the Guernseyman, in French, turning to his captain, 'that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain and chiefmate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a blasted whale they had brought alongside. Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more. 'What now? said the Guernseyman to Stubb. 'Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no more fit to command a whaleship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he's a baboon. 'He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is far more deadly than the blasted one in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish. Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his crew to desist from hoisting the cuttingtackles, and at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. 'What now? said the Guernseyman, when the Captain had returned to them. 'Why, let me see yes, you may as well tell him now thatthatin fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody else. 'He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any service to us. Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties (meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux. 'He wants you to take a glass of wine with him, said the interpreter. 'Thank him heartily but tell him it's against my principles to drink with the man I've diddled. In fact, tell him I must go. 'He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his drinking but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for it's so calm they won't drift. By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed the Guernseyman to this effect,that having a long towline in his boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship's side. While the Frenchman's boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long towline. Presently a breeze sprang up Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp boatspade, he commenced an excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea and when at length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat's crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as goldhunters. And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with another, without at all blending with it for a time. 'I have it, I have it, cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in the subterranean regions, 'a purse! a purse! Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with your thumb it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfuls were obtained but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would bid them good bye. Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in  a certain Nantucketborn Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on the seacoast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for mouthpieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hairpowders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome. Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it. Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as laborers do in blasting rocks. I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors' trowsers buttons but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner. Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of illsavor, Colognewater, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst. I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the Frenchman's two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma originate? I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city graveyard, for the foundations of a Lyingin Hospital. I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a textbook on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces, fatkettles, and oil sheds and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health taking abundance of exercise always out of doors though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a muskscented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great? It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew an event most lamentable and which ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own. Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a shipkeeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nickname, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomyjolly. In outer aspect, Pip and DoughBoy made a match, like a black pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless DoughBoy was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tenderhearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixtyfive Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities so that the panicstriking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green and at melodious eventide, with his gay haha! had turned the round horizon into one starbelled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day, suspended against a blueveined neck, the purewatered diamond drop will healthful glow yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb then the evilblazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crownjewel stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to the story. It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's afteroarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place. The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale and therefore came off not altogether discreditably though Stubb observing him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for he might often find it needful. Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and neck. Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boatknife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, 'Cut? Meantime Pip's blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened. 'Damn him, cut! roared Stubb and so the whale was lost and Pip was saved. So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, businesslike, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, exceptbut all the rest was indefinite, as the soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is your true motto in whaling but cases will sometimes happen when Leap from the boat, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving him too wide a margin to jump in for the future Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, 'Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump mind that. We can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don't jump any more. Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a moneymaking animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. But we are all in the hands of the Gods and Pip jumped again. It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance but this time he did not breast out the line and hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like goldbeater's skin hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed like a head of cloves. No boatknife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest. Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a springcarriage ashore. But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open seamark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her sides. But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very quickly, and pick him up though, indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the hunters in all similar instances and such instances not unfrequently occur almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and armies. But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes and the misermerman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps and among the joyous, heartless, everjuvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, Godomnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God. For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself. That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case. While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the tryworks, of which anon. It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this sperm was such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralise. As I sat there at my ease, crosslegged on the deck after the bitter exertion at the windlass under a blue tranquil sky the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow I forgot all about our horrible oath in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all illwill, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever. Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my colaborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally as much as to say,Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest illhumor or envy! Come let us squeeze hands all round nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fireside, the country now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti. Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the tryworks. First comes whitehorse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendonsa wad of musclebut still contains some oil. After being severed from the whale, the whitehorse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble. Plumpudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne. There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion an appellation original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing. Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan. Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of Leviathan's tail it averages an inch in thickness, and for the rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee and by nameless blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities. But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at once to descend into the blubberroom, and have a long talk with its inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for the blanketpieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They generally go in pairs,a pikeandgaffman and a spademan. The whalingpike is similar to a frigate's boardingweapon of the same name. The gaff is something like a boathook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spademan stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horsepieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it the spademan's feet are shoeless the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his assistants', would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubberroom men. Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this postmortemizing of the whale and had you strolled forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous cistern in the whale's huge head not the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw not the miracle of his symmetrical tail none of these would so surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,longer than a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jetblack as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea and for worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the th chapter of the First Book of Kings. Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down when removing some three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for armholes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office. That office consists in mincing the horsepieces of blubber for the pots an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's desk. Arrayed in decent black occupying a conspicuous pulpit intent on bible leaves what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer! Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality. Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished by her tryworks. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brickkiln were transported to her planks. The tryworks are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great trypots, two in number, and each of several barrels' capacity. When not in use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone and sand, till they shine within like silver punchbowls. During the nightwatches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing themone man in each pot, side by sidemany confidential communications are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand trypot of the Pequod, with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from any point in precisely the same time. Removing the fireboard from the front of the tryworks, the bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys they open direct from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment. It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's tryworks were first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee the business. 'All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the works. This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the tryworks has to be fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a selfconsuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment it is an argument for the pit. By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the carcase sail had been made the wind was freshening the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphurfreighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations. The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whaleship's stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a seasofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul. So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fireship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm. But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jawbone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind I thought my eyes were open I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee! Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass accept the first hint of the hitching tiller believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. Tomorrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lampall others but liars! Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be truenot true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. 'All is vanity. ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas than hell calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men and throughout a carefree lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jollynot that man is fitted to sit down on tombstones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon. But even Solomon, he says, 'the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain (i.e., even while living) 'in the congregation of the dead. Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. Had you descended from the Pequod's tryworks to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it so that in the pitchiest night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination. See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lampsoften but old bottles and vials, thoughto the copper cooler at the tryworks, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game. Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off descried from the masthead how he is chased over the watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep how he is then towed alongside and beheaded and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the firebut now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by rehearsingsinging, if I maythe romantic proceeding of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along beneath the surface as before but, alas! never more to rise and blow. While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the sixbarrel casks and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last manhandled and stayed in their course and all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, ex officio, every sailor is a cooper. At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up. In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil on the sacred quarterdeck enormous masses of the whale's head are profanely piled great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard the smoke from the tryworks has besooted all the bulwarks the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness the entire ship seems great leviathan himself while on all hands the din is deafening. But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this selfsame ship and were it not for the telltale boats and tryworks, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is readily made and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands go diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot is brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the tryworks, completely hiding the pots every cask is out of sight all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks and when by the combined and simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship's company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions shift themselves from top to toe and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms newleaped from out the daintiest Holland. Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics propose to mat the deck think of having hanging to the top object not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and bring us napkins! But mark aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small greasespot somewhere. Yes and many is the time, when, after the severest uninterrupted labors, which know no night continuing straight through for ninetysix hours when from the boat, where they have swelled their wrists with all day rowing on the Line,they only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial tryworks when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of 'There she blows! and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is mankilling! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul hardly is this done, whenThere she blows!the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again. Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyageand, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope! Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarterdeck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast but in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness. But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way. Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the headwaters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awestriking end and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever live to spend it. Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun and tropic tokenpieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes sun's disks and stars ecliptics, hornsofplenty, and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped so that the precious gold seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic. It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits from one a flame a tower on another on the third a crowing cock while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing. 'There's something ever egotistical in mountaintops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things look here,three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab the volcano, that is Ahab the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab all are Ahab and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them it cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 'tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then. 'No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday, murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. 'The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, heavenabiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture and if, at midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely. 'There now's the old Mogul, soliloquized Stubb by the tryworks, 'he's been twigging it and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here's signs and wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I'll get the almanac and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's see now. Signs and wonders and the sun, he's always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem here they arehere they goall aliveAries, or the Ram Taurus, or the Bull and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well the sun he wheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold between two of twelve sittingrooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That's my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere wait a bit histhark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin there's Aries, or the Ramlecherous dog, he begets us then, Taurus, or the Bullhe bumps us the first thing then Gemini, or the Twinsthat is, Virtue and Vice we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the pathhe gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scaleshappiness weighed and found wanting and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear we are curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the batteringram, Capricornus, or the Goat full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble and so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, Doubloon! But stop here comes little KingPost dodge round the tryworks, now, and let's hear what he'll have to say. There he's before it he'll out with something presently. So, so he's beginning. 'I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what's all this staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won't smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine hundred and sixty of them so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out. 'Shall I call that wise or foolish, now if it be really wise it has a foolish look to it yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of wiseish look to it. But, avast here comes our old Manxmanthe old hearsedriver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea. He luffs up before the doubloon halloa, and goes round on the other side of the mast why, there's a horseshoe nailed on that side and now he's back again what does that mean? Hark! he's mutteringvoice like an old wornout coffeemill. Prick ears, and listen! 'If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs, and know their marks they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horseshoe sign for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what's the horseshoe sign? The lion is the horseshoe signthe roaring and devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee. 'There's another rendering now but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequegall tattooinglooks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes looking at his thigh bone thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country. And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thighI guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No he don't know what to make of the doubloon he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghostdevil, Fedallah tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself there is a sun on the coinfire worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pippoor boy! would he had died, or I he's half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these interpretersmyself includedand look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark! 'I look, you look, he looks we look, ye look, they look. 'Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his mind, poor fellow! But what's that he says nowhist! 'I look, you look, he looks we look, ye look, they look. 'Why, he's getting it by hearthist! again. 'I look, you look, he looks we look, ye look, they look. 'Well, that's funny. 'And I, you, and he and we, ye, and they, are all bats and I'm a crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the scarecrow? There he stands two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket. 'Wonder if he means me?complimentary!poor lad!I could go hang myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits but he's too crazywitty for my sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering. 'Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! the White Whale he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the green miser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoecake done! 'Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale? So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours, bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his hoisted quarterboat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow. He was a darklytanned, burly, goodnatured, finelooking man, of sixty or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in festoons of blue pilotcloth and one empty arm of this jacket streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar's surcoat. 'Hast seen the White Whale? 'See you this? and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it, he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head like a mallet. 'Man my boat! cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near him'Stand by to lower! In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter for anybodyexcept those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemento clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain. It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a pair of tastefullyornamented manropes for at first they did not seem to bethink them that a onelegged man must be too much of a cripple to use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, cried out, 'I see, I see!avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing over the cuttingtackle. As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved blubberhook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his own weight, by pulling handoverhand upon one of the running parts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two swordfish blades) cried out in his walrus way, 'Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones together!an arm and a leg!an arm that never can shrink, d'ye see and a leg that never can run. Where did'st thou see the White Whale?how long ago? 'The White Whale, said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a telescope 'there I saw him, on the Line, last season. 'And he took that arm off, did he? asked Ahab, now sliding down from the capstan, and resting on the Englishman's shoulder, as he did so. 'Aye, he was the cause of it, at least and that leg, too? 'Spin me the yarn, said Ahab 'how was it? 'It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line, began the Englishman. 'I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time. Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat fastened to one of them a regular circus horse he was, too, that went milling and milling round so, that my boat's crew could only trim dish, by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milkywhite head and hump, all crows' feet and wrinkles. 'It was he, it was he! cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended breath. 'And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin. 'Aye, ayethey were minemy irons, cried Ahab, exultingly'but on! 'Give me a chance, then, said the Englishman, goodhumoredly. 'Well, this old greatgrandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fastline! 'Aye, I see!wanted to part it free the fastfishan old trickI know him. 'How it was exactly, continued the onearmed commander, 'I do not know but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow but we didn't know it then so that when we afterwards pulled on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other whale's that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and what a noble great whale it wasthe noblest and biggest I ever saw, sir, in my lifeI resolved to capture him, spite of the boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the haphazard line would get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a devil of a boat's crew for a pull on a whaleline) seeing all this, I say, I jumped into my first mate's boatMr. Mounttop's here (by the way, CaptainMounttop Mounttopthe captain)as I was saying, I jumped into Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with mine, then and snatching the first harpoon, let this old greatgrandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sirhearts and souls alive, manthe next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a batboth eyes outall befogged and bedeadened with black foamthe whale's tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble steeple. No use sterning all, then but as I was groping at midday, with a blinding sun, all crownjewels as I was groping, I say, after the second iron, to toss it overboarddown comes the tail like a Lima tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters and, flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my harpoonpole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a flash and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me caught me here (clapping his hand just below his shoulder) 'yes, caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I was thinking when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript its way along the fleshclear along the whole length of my armcame out nigh my wrist, and up I floatedand that gentleman there will tell you the rest (by the way, captainDr. Bunger, ship's surgeon Bunger, my lad,the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn. The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all the time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote his gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but sober one he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched trowsers and had thus far been dividing his attention between a marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pillbox held in the other, occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two crippled captains. But, at his superior's introduction of him to Ahab, he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's bidding. 'It was a shocking bad wound, began the whalesurgeon 'and, taking my advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy 'Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship, interrupted the onearmed captain, addressing Ahab 'go on, boy. 'Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing hot weather there on the Line. But it was no useI did all I could sat up with him nights was very severe with him in the matter of diet 'Oh, very severe! chimed in the patient himself then suddenly altering his voice, 'Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till he couldn't see to put on the bandages and sending me to bed, half seas over, about three o'clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up with me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher, and very dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh out! why don't ye? You know you're a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, boy, I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man. 'My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sirsaid the imperturbable godlylooking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab'is apt to be facetious at times he spins us many clever things of that sort. But I may as well sayen passant, as the French remarkthat I myselfthat is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergyam a strict total abstinence man I never drink 'Water! cried the captain 'he never drinks it it's a sort of fits to him fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia but go ongo on with the arm story. 'Yes, I may as well, said the surgeon, coolly. 'I was about observing, sir, before Captain Boomer's facetious interruption, that spite of my best and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse the truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw more than two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead line. In short, it grew black I knew what was threatened, and off it came. But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there that thing is against all rulepointing at it with the marlingspike'that is the captain's work, not mine he ordered the carpenter to make it he had that clubhammer there put to the end, to knock some one's brains out with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sirremoving his hat, and brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowllike cavity in his skull, but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever having been a wound'Well, the captain there will tell you how that came here he knows. 'No, I don't, said the captain, 'but his mother did he was born with it. Oh, you solemn rogue, youyou Bunger! was there ever such another Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in pickle, you dog you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal. 'What became of the White Whale? now cried Ahab, who thus far had been impatiently listening to this byplay between the two Englishmen. 'Oh! cried the onearmed captain, 'oh, yes! Well after he sounded, we didn't see him again for some time in fact, as I before hinted, I didn't then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about Moby Dickas some call himand then I knew it was he. 'Did'st thou cross his wake again? 'Twice. 'But could not fasten? 'Didn't want to try to ain't one limb enough? What should I do without this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows. 'Well, then, interrupted Bunger, 'give him your left arm for bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemenvery gravely and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession'Do you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even a man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to swallow a single limb he only thinks to terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jackknives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jackknife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, that's all. 'No, thank ye, Bunger, said the English Captain, 'he's welcome to the arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then but not to another one. No more White Whales for me I've lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know that and there is a shipload of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he's best let alone don't you think so, Captain?glancing at the ivory leg. 'He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a magnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading? 'Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's, cried Bunger, stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing 'this man's bloodbring the thermometer!it's at the boiling point!his pulse makes these planks beat!sir!taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's arm. 'Avast! roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks'Man the boat! Which way heading? 'Good God! cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. 'What's the matter? He was heading east, I think.Is your Captain crazy? whispering Fedallah. But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cuttingtackle towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower. In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him. With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own, Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod. Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that she hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby, merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of Enderby  Sons a house which in my poor whaleman's opinion, comes not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our Lord , this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous fishdocuments do not make plain but in that year () it fitted out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale though for some score of years previous (ever since ) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic not elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale and that for half a century they were the only people of the whole globe who so harpooned him. In , a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whaleboat of any sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the Amelia's example was soon followed by other ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open. But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself Samuel and all his Sonshow many, their mother only knowsand under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloopofwar Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded by a naval PostCaptain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and did some service how much does not appear. But this is not all. In , the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That shipwell called the 'Syrenmade a noble experimental cruise and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer. All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to the present day though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world. The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumpsevery soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine gam I hadlong, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his ivory heelit minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that ship and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it at the rate of ten gallons the hour and when the squall came (for it's squally off there by Patagonia), and all handsvisitors and allwere called to reef topsails, we were so topheavy that we had to swing each other aloft in bowlines and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts did not go overboard and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to my taste. The beef was finetough, but with body in it. They said it was bullbeef others, that it was dromedary beef but I do not know, for certain, how that was. They had dumplings too small, but substantial, symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that you could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were swallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out of you like billiardballs. The breadbut that couldn't be helped besides, it was an antiscorbutic in short, the bread contained the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very light, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the cook's boilers, including his own live parchment boilers fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship of good fare and plenty fine flip and strong crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to hatband. But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other English whalers I know ofnot all thoughwere such famous, hospitable ships that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the joke and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? I will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers is matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of historical whale research, when it has seemed needed. The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, Zealanders, and Danes from whom they derived many terms still extant in the fishery and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English merchantship scrimps her crew but not so the English whaler. Hence, in the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental and particular and, therefore, must have some special origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated. During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew must be about whalers. The title was, 'Dan Coopman, wherefore I concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one 'Fitz Swackhammer. But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box of sperm candles for his troublethis same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied the book, assured me that 'Dan Coopman did not mean 'The Cooper, but 'The Merchant. In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland and, among other subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery. And in this chapter it was, headed, 'Smeer, or 'Fat, that I found a long detailed list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of  sail of Dutch whalemen from which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following , lbs. of beef. , lbs. Friesland pork. , lbs. of stock fish. , lbs. of biscuit. , lbs. of soft bread. , firkins of butter. , lbs. Texel  Leyden cheese. , lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article).  ankers of Geneva. , barrels of beer. Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading not so in the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer. At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic application and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my own, touching the probable quantity of stockfish, etc., consumed by every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil. The quantity of beer, too, is very large, , barrels. Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning  men to each of their fleet of  sail, we have , Low Dutch seamen in all therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that  ankers of gin. Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat's head, and take good aim at flying whales this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the masthead and boozy in his boat and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. But no more enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers and that the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the decanter. Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton. But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a fullgrown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roastpig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, Ishmael but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams the rafters, ridgepole, sleepers, and underpinnings, making up the framework of leviathan and belike of the tallowvats, dairyrooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels. I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far beneath the skin of the adult whale nevertheless, I have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my boathatchet and jackknife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub? And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the tradingship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella a seaside glen not very far distant from what our sailors called BambooTown, his capital. Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonderfreighted, tributerendering waves had cast upon his shores. Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his head against a cocoanut tree, whose plumagelike, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it. The ribs were hung with trophies the vertebr were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics in the skull, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout while, suspended from a bough, the terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hairhung sword that so affrighted Damocles. It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the groundvine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden branches all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses the messagecarrying air all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!pause!one word!whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!stay thy hand!but one single word with thee! Naythe shuttle fliesthe figures float from forth the loom the freshetrushing carpet for ever slides away. The weavergod, he weaves and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful for so, in all this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar. Now, amid the green, liferestless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounginga gigantic idler! Yet, as the everwoven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver himself all woven over with the vines every month assuming greener, fresher verdure but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death Death trellised Life the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curlyheaded glories. Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced before this skeletonbrushed the vines asidebroke through the ribsand with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid its many winding, shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon my line was out and following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. I saw no living thing within naught was there but bones. Cutting me a green measuringrod, I once more dived within the skeleton. From their arrowslit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the altitude of the final rib, 'How now! they shouted 'Dar'st thou measure this our god! That's for us. 'Aye, priestswell, how long do ye make him, then? But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning feet and inches they cracked each other's sconces with their yardsticksthe great skull echoedand seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own admeasurements. These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine specimens of finbacks and other whales. Likewise, I have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have what the proprietors call 'the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or River Whale in the United States. Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the fullgrown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's. In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it and Sir Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout so that, like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony cavitiesspread out his ribs like a gigantic fanand swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trapdoors and shutters and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead. The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composingat least, what untattooed parts might remainI did not trouble myself with the odd inches nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale. In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here. According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eightyfive and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one thousand one hundred inhabitants. Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman's imagination? Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spouthole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large a proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton as it is by far the most complicated part and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the general structure we are about to view. In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventytwo feet so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have been ninety feet long for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventytwo feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain backbone. Attached to this backbone, for something less than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals. To me this vast ivoryribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great ship newlaid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bowribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber. The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was nearly six feet long the second, third, and fourth were each successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay footpath bridges over small streams. In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of the invested body of this particular whale must have been at least sixteen feet whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more than eight feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for the ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints and in place of the weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank! How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of quickest perils only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out. But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar. There are forty and odd vertebr in all, which in the skeleton are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiardball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play. From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlopdeck of a lineofbattleship. Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the Leviathanto an ant or a fleasuch portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose because that famous lexicographer's uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me. One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it. Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stonemason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, winevaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct the subsequent relics discovered in what are called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark all the Fossil Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking rank as Cetacean fossils. Detached broken fossils of preadamite whales, fragments of their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the year  was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries and bones disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly unknown Leviathanic species. But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year , on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awestricken credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence. When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebr, all characterized by partial resemblances to the existing breeds of seamonsters but at the same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun for time began with man. Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics and in all the , miles of this world's circumference, not an inhabitable hand's breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the whale's and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? Ahab's harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuselah seems a schoolboy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horrorstruck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over. But not alone has this Leviathan left his preadamite traces in the stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his ancient bust but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore was there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled. Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous postdiluvian reality, as set down by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller. 'Not far from the Seaside, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams of which are made of WhaleBones for Whales of a monstrous size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can pass it without immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They keep a Whale's Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple. In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there. Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from the headwaters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the original bulk of his sires. But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier ones. Of all the preadamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, that the tapemeasure gives seventytwo feet for the skeleton of a large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture. But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods may it not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated? Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in lengthRope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and Solander, Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydansiskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards that is, three hundred and sixty feet. And Lacpde, the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page ), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and twentyeight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. . But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of today is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pliny is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so. Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the highbred, stallfed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest of Pharaoh's fat kine in the face of all this, I will not admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated. But still another inquiry remains one often agitated by the more recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient lookouts at the mastheads of the whaleships, now penetrating even through Behring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all continental coasts the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff. Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with their thunderclotted brows upon the sites of populous rivercapitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar an inch in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction. But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a period agonot a good lifetimethe census of the buffalo in Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region and though the cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man yet the far different nature of the whalehunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for fortyeight months think they have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes a fact that, if need were, could be statistically stated. Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the socalled whalebone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being driven from promontory to cape and if one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle. Furthermore concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas, the whalebone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes and in a charmed circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man. But as perhaps fifty of these whalebone whales are harpooned for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions. But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than ,, have been annually slain on the nor' west coast by the Americans alone yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter. Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the King of Siam took , elephants that in those regions elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the Eastif they still survive there in great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the sea combined. Moreover we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more, therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea of, by imagining all the graveyards, cemeteries, and family vaults of creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children who were alive seventyfive years ago and adding this countless host to the present human population of the globe. Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas before the continents broke water he once swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah's flood he despised Noah's Ark and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies. The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his boat that his ivory leg had received a halfsplintering shock. And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivothole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough) then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy. And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stakewise smitten, and all but pierced his groin nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured. Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a former woe and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this that it is an inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural enjoyments here shall have no children born to them for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joychildlessness of all hell's despair whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave not at all to hint of this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur so do their diligent tracingsout not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods so that, in the face of all the glad, haymaking suns, and soft cymballing, round harvestmoons, we must needs give in to this that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birthmark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers. Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, why it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such GrandLamalike exclusiveness and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited reason for this thing appeared by no means adequate though, indeed, as touching all Ahab's deeper part, every revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory light. But, in the end, it all came out this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that evercontracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed the privilege of a less banned approach to him to that timid circle the above hinted casualtyremaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for by Ahabinvested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land of spirits and of wails. So that, through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others and hence it was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod's decks. But be all this as it may let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain practical procedureshe called the carpenter. And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him supplied with all the studs and joists of jawivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus far been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful selection of the stoutest, clearestgrained stuff might be secured. This done, the carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that night and to provide all the fittings for it, independent of those pertaining to the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold and, to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed. Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate hence, he now comes in person on this stage. Like all seagoing ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain offhanded, practical extent, alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own the carpenter's pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of the generic remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in uncivilized and fardistant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary dutiesrepairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of clumsybladed oars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new treenails in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special business he was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and capricious. The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold, was his vicebench a long rude ponderous table furnished with several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of the Tryworks. A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole the carpenter claps it into one of his everready vices, and straightway files it smaller. A lost landbird of strange plumage strays on board, and is made a captive out of clean shaved rods of rightwhale bone, and crossbeams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagodalooking cage for it. An oarsman sprains his wrist the carpenter concocts a soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor takes a fancy to wear sharkbone earrings the carpenter drills his ears. Another has the toothache the carpenter out pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth. Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory heads he deemed but topblocks men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too all this would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as it were impersonal, I say for it so shaded off into the surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity discernible in the whole visible world which while pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this halfhorrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an allramifying heartlessnessyet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, crutchlike, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness such as might have served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a lifelong wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings might have originally pertained to him? He was a stript abstract an unfractioned integral uncompromised as a newborn babe living without premeditated reference to this world or the next. You might almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of unintelligence for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process. He was a pure manipulator his brain, if he had ever had one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful, multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exteriorthough a little swelledof a common pocket knife but containing, not only blades of various sizes, but also screwdrivers, corkscrews, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nailfilers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter for a screwdriver, all they had to do was to open that part of him, and the screw was fast or if for tweezers, take him up by the legs, and there they were. Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, openandshut carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was and there it had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning lifeprinciple in him this it was, that kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes or rather, his body was a sentrybox and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake. (Carpenter standing before his vicebench, and by the light of two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work.) Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and shinbones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better (sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)why it's (sneezes)yes it's (sneezes)bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you don't get this dust amputate a live bone, and you don't get it (sneezes). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have that ferule and bucklescrew I'll be ready for them presently. Lucky now (sneezes) there's no kneejoint to make that might puzzle a little but a mere shinbonewhy it's easy as making hoppoles only I should like to put a good finish on. Time, time if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There before I saw it off, now, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel we are in luck here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain. AHAB (advancing). (During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times.) Well, manmaker! Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. Let me measure, sir. Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About it! There keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, carpenter let me feel its grip once. So, so it does pinch some. Oh, sir, it will break bonesbeware, beware! No fear I like a good grip I like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?the blacksmith, I meanwhat's he about? He must be forging the bucklescrew, sir, now. Right. It's a partnership he supplies the muscle part. He makes a fierce red flame there! Aye, sir he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work. Umm. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire for what's made in fire must properly belong to fire and so hell's probable. How the soot flies! This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulderblades there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack. Sir? Hold while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay in one place then, arms three feet through the wrist no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains and let me seeshall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a skylight on top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away. Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I should like to know? Shall I keep standing here? (aside). 'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome here's one. No, no, no I must have a lantern. Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir one will serve my turn. What art thou thrusting that thiefcatcher into my face for, man? Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols. I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter. Carpenter? why that'sbut noa very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenteror would'st thou rather work in clay? Sir?Clay? clay, sir? That's mud we leave clay to ditchers, sir. The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about? Bone is rather dusty, sir. Take the hint, then and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under living people's noses. Sir?oh! ah!I guess soyesoh, dear! Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it that is, carpenter, my old lost leg the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away? Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life there, exactly there, there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle? I should humbly call it a poser, sir. Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now standest aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah! Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir. Look ye, puddingheads should never grant premises.How long before the leg is done? Perhaps an hour, sir. Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life! Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal interindebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Prtorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's) and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So. CARPENTER (resuming his work). Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says he's queer says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer he's queer, says Stubb he's queerqueer, queer and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the timequeersirqueer, queer, very queer. And here's his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bedfellow! has a stick of whale's jawbone for a wife! And this is his leg he'll stand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and all three places standing in one hellhow was that? Oh! I don't wonder he looked so scornful at me! I'm a sort of strangethoughted sometimes, they say but that's only haphazardlike. Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall, heronbuilt captains the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and there's a great cry for lifeboats. And here's the heron's leg! long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tenderhearted old lady uses her rolypoly old coachhorses. But Ahab oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes acalling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewerymen go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core he'll be standing on this tomorrow he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so chisel, file, and sandpaper, now! According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning and lo! no inconsiderable oil came up with the water the casks below must have sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown and Starbuck went down into the cabin to report this unfavourable affair. In Spermwhalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and drench the casks with seawater which afterwards, at varying intervals, is removed by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are sought to be kept damply tight while by the changed character of the withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious cargo. Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with a general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him and another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the Japanese islandsNiphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snowwhite new ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long pruninghook of a jackknife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his old courses again. 'Who's there? hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round to it. 'On deck! Begone! 'Captain Ahab mistakes it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. We must up Burtons and break out. 'Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan heaveto here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops? 'Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, sir. 'So it is, so it is if we get it. 'I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir. 'And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it leak! I'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship and that's a far worse plight than the Pequod's, man. Yet I don't stop to plug my leak for who can find it in the deeploaded hull or how hope to plug it, even if found, in this life's howling gale? Starbuck! I'll not have the Burtons hoisted. 'What will the owners say, sir? 'Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship's keel.On deck! 'Captain Ahab, said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of itself 'A better man than I might well pass over in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab. 'Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?On deck! 'Nay, sir, not yet I do entreat. And I do dare, sirto be forbearing! Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab? Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most SouthSeamen's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, exclaimed 'There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod.On deck! For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said 'Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, sir but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck thou wouldst but laugh but let Ahab beware of Ahab beware of thyself, old man. 'He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys most careful bravery that! murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. 'What's that he saidAhab beware of Ahabthere's something there! Then unconsciously using the musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little cabin but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck. 'Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck, he said lowly to the mate then raising his voice to the crew 'Furl the t'gallantsails, and closereef the topsails, fore and aft back the mainyard up Burton, and break out in the mainhold. It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, in the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders were executed and the Burtons were hoisted. Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the slumbers of the huge groundtier butts and from that black midnight sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they go and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy cornerstone cask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood. Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks were hard to get about and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea like an airfreighted demijohn. Topheavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons did not visit them then. Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast bosomfriend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh to his endless end. Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown dignity and danger go hand in hand till you get to be Captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, butas we have elsewhere seenmount his dead back in a rolling sea and finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers are the holders, so called. Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well. And a well, or an icehouse, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever and at last, after some days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill of the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few longlingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his cheekbones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller they became of a strange softness of lustre and mildly but deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony to that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And like circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell. So thatlet us say it againno dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest, and the ocean's invisible floodtide lifted him higher and higher towards his destined heaven. Not a man of the crew but gave him up and, as for Queequeg himself, what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich warwood of his native isle and upon inquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him for it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to the starry archipelagoes for not only do they believe that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens and so form the white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual seacustom, tossed like something vile to the deathdevouring sharks. No he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that like a whaleboat these coffincanoes were without a keel though that involved but uncertain steering, and much leeway adown the dim ages. Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might include. There was some heathenish, coffincoloured old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg's person as he shifted the rule. 'Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now, ejaculated the Long Island sailor. Going to his vicebench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work. When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction. Overhearing the indignant but halfhumorous cries with which the people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one's consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him seeing that, of all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged. Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with an attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also, biscuits were then ranged round the sides within a flask of fresh water was placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot and a piece of sailcloth being rolled up for a pillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that he might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring out his little god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him. The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view. 'Rarmai (it will do it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be replaced in his hammock. But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took him by the hand in the other, holding his tambourine. 'Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where the beaches are only beat with waterlilies, will ye do one little errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long I think he's in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him for he must be very sad for look! he's left his tambourine behindI found it. Rigadig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die and I'll beat ye your dying march. 'I have heard, murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, 'that in violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?Hark! he speaks again but more wildly now. 'Form two and two! Let's make a General of him! Ho, where's his harpoon? Lay it across here.Rigadig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game cock now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!mind ye that Queequeg dies game!take ye good heed of that Queequeg dies game! I say game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward died all a'shiverout upon Pip! Hark ye if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles he's a runaway a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from a whaleboat! I'd never beat my tambourine over base Pip, and hail him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame upon all cowardsshame upon them! Let 'em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a whaleboat. Shame! shame! During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock. But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was thisat a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone and therefore had changed his mind about dying he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort. Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing, generally speaking, a sick savage is almost halfwell again in a day. So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength and at length after sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fight. With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a seachest and emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there. Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings and it seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold a wondrous work in one volume but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg'Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods! When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great South Sea were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was answered that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues of blue. There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these seapastures, widerolling watery prairies and Potters' Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still tossing like slumberers in their beds the everrolling waves but made so by their restlessness. To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same waves wash the moles of the newbuilt Californian towns, but yesterday planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham while all between float milkyways of coral isles, and lowlying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about makes all coasts one bay to it seems the tidebeating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan. But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing like an iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea that sea in which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese cruisingground, the old man's purpose intensified itself. His firm lips met like the lips of a vice the Delta of his forehead's veins swelled like overladen brooks in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran through the vaulted hull, 'Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick blood! Availing himself of the mild, summercool weather that now reigned in these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast being now almost incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do some little job for them altering, or repairing, or new shaping their various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an eager circle, all waiting to be served holding boatspades, pikeheads, harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was.Most miserable! A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted questionings he had finally given in and so it came to pass that every one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate. Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road running between two country towns, the blacksmith halfstupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the grief of his life's drama. He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do owned a house and garden embraced a youthful, daughterlike, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children every Sunday went to a cheerfullooking church, planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it so that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her youngarmed old husband's hammer whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked to slumber. Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years and all of them a carekilling competency. But Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to harvest. Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more and more between and each blow every day grew fainter than the last the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children the bellows fell the forge choked up with cinders the house was sold the mother dived down into the long churchyard grass her children twice followed her thither and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond in crape his every woe unreverenced his grey head a scorn to flaxen curls! Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this but Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored therefore, to the deathlonging eyes of such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the allcontributed and allreceptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, newlife adventures and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them'Come hither, brokenhearted here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put up thy gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee! Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went awhaling. With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling sharkskin apron, about midday, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter placed upon an ironwood log, with one hand holding a pikehead in the coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs, when Captain Ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rustylooking leathern bag. While yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the anvilthe red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, some of which flew close to Ahab. 'Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always flying in thy wake birds of good omen, too, but not to alllook here, they burn but thouthou liv'st among them without a scorch. 'Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab, answered Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer 'I am past scorching not easily can'st thou scorch a scar. 'Well, well no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?What wert thou making there? 'Welding an old pikehead, sir there were seams and dents in it. 'And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard usage as it had? 'I think so, sir. 'And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith? 'Aye, sir, I think I can all seams and dents but one. 'Look ye here, then, cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning with both hands on Perth's shoulders 'look ye hereherecan ye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith, sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow 'if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam? 'Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one? 'Aye, blacksmith, it is the one aye, man, it is unsmoothable for though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the bone of my skullthat is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play no more gaffs and pikes today. Look ye here! jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. 'I, too, want a harpoon made one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth something that will stick in a whale like his own finbone. There's the stuff, flinging the pouch upon the anvil. 'Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nailstubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses. 'Horseshoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work. 'I know it, old man these stubbs will weld together like glue from the melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me first, twelve rods for its shank then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a towline. Quick! I'll blow the fire. When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. 'A flaw! rejecting the last one. 'Work that over again, Perth. This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside. 'What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for? muttered Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. 'That Parsee smells fire like a fusee and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powderpan. At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat and as Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face. 'Would'st thou brand me, Perth? wincing for a moment with the pain 'have I been but forging my own brandingiron, then? 'Pray God, not that yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this harpoon for the White Whale? 'For the white fiend! But now for the barbs thou must make them thyself, man. Here are my razorsthe best of steel here, and make the barbs sharp as the needlesleet of the Icy Sea. For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain not use them. 'Take them, man, I have no need for them for I now neither shave, sup, nor pray tillbut hereto work! Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the watercask near. 'No, nono water for that I want it of the true deathtemper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb? holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs were then tempered. 'Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli! deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood. Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of the iron. A coil of new towline was then unwound, and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harpstring, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, 'Good! and now for the seizings. At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon the pole was then driven hard up into the socket from the lower end the rope was traced halfway along the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with intertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and ropelike the Three Fatesremained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, light, unnatural, halfbantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh, Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it! Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising though with but small success for their pains. At such times, under an abated sun afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearthstone cats they purr against the gunwale these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. These are the times, when in his whaleboat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, landlike feeling towards the sea that he regards it as so much flowery earth and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The longdrawn virgin vales the mild blue hillsides as over these there steals the hush, the hum you almost swear that playwearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad Maytime, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood so that fact and fancy, halfway meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole. Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing. Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul in ye,though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pausethrough infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured 'Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's eye!Tell me not of thy teethtiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact let fancy oust memory I look deep down and do believe. And Stubb, fishlike, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same golden light 'I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly! And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded. It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vaingloriously, sailing round among the widelyseparated ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home. The three men at her masthead wore long streamers of narrow red bunting at their hats from the stern, a whaleboat was suspended, bottom down and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colours were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm above which, in her topmast crosstrees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious fluid and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp. As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising success all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers' staterooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindlingwood and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oilbutt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and filled it that the steward had plugged his spare coffeepot and filled it that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and filled them that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands into, in selfcomplacent testimony of his entire satisfaction. As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge trypots, which, covered with the parchmentlike poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched hands of the crew. On the quarterdeck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olivehued girls who had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddlebows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the tryworks, from which the huge pots had been removed. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled into the sea. Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the ship's elevated quarterdeck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual diversion. And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarterdeck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn gloom and as the two ships crossed each other's wakesone all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings as to things to cometheir two captains in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene. 'Come aboard, come aboard! cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air. 'Hast seen the White Whale? gritted Ahab in reply. 'No only heard of him but don't believe in him at all, said the other goodhumoredly. 'Come aboard! 'Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men? 'Not enough to speak oftwo islanders, that's allbut come aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play) a full ship and homewardbound. 'How wondrous familiar is a fool! muttered Ahab then aloud, 'Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst well, then, call me an empty ship, and outwardbound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind! And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against it and so the two vessels parted the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor but the Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket soundings. Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four were slain and one of them by Ahab. It was far down the afternoon and when all the spearings of the crimson fight were done and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun and whale both stilly died together then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish landbreeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns. Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales dyingthe turning sunwards of the head, and so expiringthat strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before. 'He turns and turns him to it,how slowly, but how steadfastly, his homagerendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too worships fire most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!Oh that these toofavouring eyes should see these toofavouring sights. Look! here, far waterlocked beyond all hum of human weal or woe in these most candid and impartial seas where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Niger's unknown source here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads some other way. 'Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the wideslaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round again, without a lesson to me. 'Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon allquickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now. 'Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my fosterbrothers! The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart one, far to windward one, less distant, to leeward one ahead one astern. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall but the windward one could not be reached till morning and the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night and that boat was Ahab's. The waifpole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spouthole and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach. Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air. Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a flooded world. 'I have dreamed it again, said he. 'Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor coffin can be thine? 'And who are hearsed that die on the sea? 'But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea the first not made by mortal hands and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America. 'Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parseea hearse and its plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pallbearers. Ha! Such a sight we shall not soon see. 'Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man. 'And what was that saying about thyself? 'Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot. 'And when thou art so gone beforeif that ever befallthen ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?Was it not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it. 'Take another pledge, old man, said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fireflies in the gloom'Hemp only can kill thee. 'The gallows, ye mean.I am immortal then, on land and on sea, cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision'Immortal on land and on sea! Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship. The season for the Line at length drew near and every day when Ahab, coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon impatient for the order to point the ship's prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon high noon and Ahab, seated in the bows of his highhoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his latitude. Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burningglass. The sky looks lacquered clouds there are none the horizon floats and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God's throne. Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with coloured glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his astrologicallooking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship's deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, was eyeing the same sun with him only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the desired observation was taken and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up towards the sun and murmured to himself 'Thou seamark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I ambut canst thou cast the least hint where I shall be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now beholding him aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun! Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered 'Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be tomorrow noon and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy and cursed be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the glances of man's eyes not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant! dashing it to the deck, 'no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee the level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by line these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye, lighting from the boat to the deck, 'thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high thus I split and destroy thee! As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himselfthese passed over the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided away while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out'To the braces! Up helm!square in! In an instant the yards swung round and as the ship halfwheeled upon her heel, her three firmseated graceful masts erectly poised upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one sufficient steed. Standing between the knightheads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck. 'I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes! 'Aye, cried Stubb, 'but seacoal ashesmind ye that, Mr. Starbuckseacoal, not your common charcoal. Well, well I heard Ahab mutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine swears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right live in the game, and die in it! Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town. Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and barepoled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the tempest had left for its after sport. Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarterdeck at every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper there while Stubb and Flask were directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the boats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted to the very top of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not escape. A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship's high teetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at the stern, and left it again, all dripping through like a sieve. 'Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck, said Stubb, regarding the wreck, 'but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can't fight it. You see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, all the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But never mind it's all in fun so the old song says(sings.) 'Avast Stubb, cried Starbuck, 'let the Typhoon sing, and strike his harp here in our rigging but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy peace. 'But I am not a brave man never said I was a brave man I am a coward and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr. Starbuck, there's no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my throat. And when that's done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a windup. 'Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own. 'What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never mind how foolish? 'Here! cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his hand towards the weather bow, 'markest thou not that the gale comes from the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the very course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there where is that stove? In the sternsheets, man where he is wont to standhis standpoint is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou must! 'I don't half understand ye what's in the wind? 'Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to Nantucket, soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's question. 'The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward, all is blackness of doom but to leeward, homewardI see it lightens up there but not with the lightning. At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following the flashes, a voice was heard at his side and almost at the same instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead. 'Who's there? 'Old Thunder! said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his pivothole but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed lances of fire. Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off the perilous fluid into the soil so the kindred rod which at sea some ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may avoid all contact with the hull and as moreover, if kept constantly towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the vessel's way in the water because of all this, the lower parts of a ship's lightningrods are not always overboard but are generally made in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require. 'The rods! the rods! cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. 'Are they overboard? drop them over, fore and aft. Quick! 'Avast! cried Ahab 'let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker side. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that all the world may be secured but out on privileges! Let them be, sir. 'Look aloft! cried Starbuck. 'The corpusants! the corpusants! All the yardarms were tipped with a pallid fire and touched at each tripointed lightningrodend with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar. 'Blast the boat! let it go! cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. 'Blast it!but slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames and immediately shifting his tone he cried'The corpusants have mercy on us all! To sailors, oaths are household words they will swear in the trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest they will imprecate curses from the topsailyardarms, when most they teeter over to a seething sea but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when God's burning finger has been laid on the ship when His 'Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage. While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the enchanted crew who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his sharkwhite teeth, which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants while lit up by the preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body. The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft and once more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It was Stubb. 'What thinkest thou now, man I heard thy cry it was not the same in the song. 'No, no, it wasn't I said the corpusants have mercy on us all and I hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?have they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuckbut it's too dark to look. Hear me, then I take that masthead flame we saw for a sign of good luck for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be chock a' block with spermoil, d'ye see and so, all that sperm will work up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will yet be as three spermaceti candlesthat's the good promise we saw. At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb's face slowly beginning to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried 'See! see! and once more the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled supernaturalness in their pallor. 'The corpusants have mercy on us all, cried Stubb, again. At the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame, the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab's front, but with his head bowed away from him while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen, arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various enchanted attitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running skeletons in Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck but all their eyes upcast. 'Aye, aye, men! cried Ahab. 'Look up at it mark it well the white flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast links there I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against it blood against fire! So. Then turningthe last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot upon the Parsee and with fixed upward eye, and highflung right arm, he stood erect before the lofty tripointed trinity of flames. 'Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind and e'en for hate thou canst but kill and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best whencesoe'er I came wheresoe'er I go yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power and though thou launchest navies of fullfreighted worlds, there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning the nine flames leap lengthwise to thrice their previous height Ahab, with the rest, closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them. 'I own thy speechless, placeless power said I not so? Nor was it wrung from me nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind but I can then grope. Thou canst consume but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of these poor eyes, and shutterhands. I would not take it. The lightning flashes through my skull mine eyeballs ache and ache my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease open eyes see, or not? There burn the flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou art but my fiery father my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle but thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee I burn with thee would fain be welded with thee defyingly I worship thee! 'The boat! the boat! cried Starbuck, 'look at thy boat, old man! Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained firmly lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whaleboat's bow but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to drop off and from the keen steel barb there now came a levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there like a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm'God, God is against thee, old man forbear! 'tis an ill voyage! ill begun, ill continued let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this. Overhearing Starbuck, the panicstricken crew instantly ran to the bracesthough not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast mate's thoughts seemed theirs they raised a half mutinous cry. But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke 'All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye may know to what tune this heart beats look ye here thus I blow out the last fear! And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the flame. As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts so at those last words of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him in a terror of dismay. Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him. 'We must send down the maintopsail yard, sir. The band is working loose and the lee lift is halfstranded. Shall I strike it, sir? 'Strike nothing lash it. If I had skysail poles, I'd sway them up now. 'Sir!in God's name!sir? 'Well. 'The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard? 'Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises, but it has not got up to my tablelands yet. Quick, and see to it.By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper of some coasting smack. Send down my maintopsail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this braintruck of mine now sails amid the cloudscud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards send down their braintrucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft there! I would e'en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine! Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over the anchors there hanging. 'No, Stubb you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but you will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how long ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn't you once say that whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now didn't you say so? 'Well, suppose I did? What then? I've part changed my flesh since that time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we are loaded with powder barrels aft and lucifers forward how the devil could the lucifers get afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now. Shake yourself you're Aquarius, or the waterbearer, Flask might fill pitchers at your coat collar. Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But hark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing. First take your leg off from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope now listen. What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's lightningrod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't got any lightningrod at all in a storm? Don't you see, you timberhead, that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred carries rods, and Ahab,aye, man, and all of us,were in no more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you KingPost, you, I suppose you would have every man in the world go about with a small lightningrod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's easy to be sensible why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be sensible. 'I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard. 'Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible, that's a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind catch the turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands behind him. And what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, though. There, hammer that knot down, and we've done. So next to touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say, just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at longtogs so, Flask but seems to me, a long tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats the cocks form gableend eavetroughs, Flask. No more monkeyjackets and tarpaulins for me I must mount a swallowtail, and drive down a beaver so. Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard Lord, Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad. The maintopsail yard.Tashtego passing new lashings around it. 'Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What's the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder we want rum give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um! During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod's jawbone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached to itfor they were slackbecause some play to the tiller was indispensable. In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the Pequod's at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards it is a sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted emotion. Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubbone engaged forward and the other aftthe shivered remnants of the jib and fore and maintopsails were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when that stormtossed bird is on the wing. The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a stormtrysail was set further aft so that the ship soon went through the water with some precision again and the coursefor the present, Eastsoutheastwhich he was to steer, if practicable, was once more given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern aye, the foul breeze became fair! Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of 'Ho! the fair wind! ohyeho, cheerly men! the crew singing for joy, that so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents preceding it. In compliance with the standing order of his commanderto report immediately, and at any one of the twentyfour hours, any decided change in the affairs of the deck,Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to the breezehowever reluctantly and gloomily,than he mechanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance. Ere knocking at his stateroom, he involuntarily paused before it a moment. The cabin lamptaking long swings this way and thatwas burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted door,a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest, upright man but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought but so blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for itself. 'He would have shot me once, he murmured, 'yes, there's the very musket that he pointed at methat one with the studded stock let me touch itlift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, aye and powder in the panthat's not good. Best spill it?wait. I'll cure myself of this. I'll hold the musket boldly while I think.I come to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and doom,that's fair for Moby Dick. It's a fair wind that's only fair for that accursed fish.The very tube he pointed at me!the very one this oneI hold it here he would have killed me with the very thing I handle now.Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say he will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of the errorabounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did he not swear that he would have no lightningrods? But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom with him?Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm and come to deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If, then, he were this instantput aside, that crime would not be his. Ha! is he muttering in his sleep? Yes, just there,in there, he's sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I can't withstand thee, then, old man. Not reasoning not remonstrance not entreaty wilt thou hearken to all this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow say'st all of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid!But is there no other way? no lawful way?Make him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man's living power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it. Say he were pinioned even knotted all over with ropes and hawsers chained down to ringbolts on this cabin floor he would be more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could not endure the sight could not possibly fly his howlings all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me and law.Aye, aye, 'tis so.Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a wouldbe murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together?And would I be a murderer, then, ifand slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end against the door. 'On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.Oh Mary! Mary!boy! boy! boy!But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall I?The wind has gone down and shifted, sir the fore and main topsails are reefed and set she heads her course. 'Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last! Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream to speak. The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel but turning from the door, he placed the deathtube in its rack, and left the place. 'He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb go thou down, and wake him, and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know'st what to say. Next morning the notyetsubsided sea rolled in long slow billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on like giants' palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat. Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart and every time the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye the bright sun's rays produced ahead and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake. 'Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the seachariot of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye! Yoke on the further billows hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea! But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading. 'Eastsoueast, sir, said the frightened steersman. 'Thou liest! smiting him with his clenched fist. 'Heading East at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern? Upon this every soul was confounded for the phenomenon just then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else but its very blinding palpableness must have been the cause. Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses his uplifted arm slowly fell for a moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West. But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, 'I have it! It has happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compassesthat's all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it. 'Aye but never before has it happened to me, sir, said the pale mate, gloomily. Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all know, essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven hence it is not to be much marvelled at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original virtue thus marred or lost and if the binnacle compasses be affected, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship even were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson. Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship's course to be changed accordingly. The yards were hard up and once more the Pequod thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair one had only been juggling her. Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders while Stubb and Flaskwho in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelingslikewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's. For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper sighttubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck. 'Thou poor, proud heavengazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked thee, and today the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbucka lance without a pole a topmaul, and the smallest of the sailmaker's needles. Quick! Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents. 'Men, said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had demanded, 'my men, the thunder turned old Ahab's needles but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any. Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away. With a blow from the topmaul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions with itwhether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertainhe called for linen thread and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sailneedle by its middle, over one of the compasscards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,'Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it! One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk away. In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride. While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance upon other means of determining the vessel's place, some merchantmen, and many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave the log though at the same time, and frequently more for form's sake than anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it sun and wind had warped it all the elements had combined to rot a thing that hung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet scene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing plungingly astern the billows rolled in riots. 'Forward, there! Heave the log! Two seamen came. The goldenhued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman. 'Take the reel, one of ye, I'll heave. They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side, where the deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into the creamy, sidelongrushing sea. The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting handleends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to him. Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty turns to form a preliminary handcoil to toss overboard, when the old Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to speak. 'Sir, I mistrust it this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have spoiled it. ''Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee? Thou seem'st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee not thou it. 'I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing, 'specially with a superior, who'll ne'er confess. 'What's that? There now's a patched professor in Queen Nature's granitefounded College but methinks he's too subservient. Where wert thou born? 'In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir. 'Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that. 'I know not, sir, but I was born there. 'In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good. Here's a man from Man a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man which is sucked inby what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So. The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely. 'Hold hard! Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon the tugging log was gone. 'I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad sea parts the logline. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line. See to it. 'There he goes now to him nothing's happened but to me, the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out come in broken, and dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help eh, Pip? 'Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whaleboat. Pip's missing. Let's see now if ye haven't fished him up here, fisherman. It drags hard I guess he's holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off we haul in no cowards here. Ho! there's his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! a hatchet! cut it offwe haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir, sir! here's Pip, trying to get on board again. 'Peace, thou crazy loon, cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm. 'Away from the quarterdeck! 'The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser, muttered Ahab, advancing. 'Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy? 'Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo! 'And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve through! Who art thou, boy? 'Bellboy, sir ship'scrier ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip five feet highlooks cowardlyquickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip the coward? 'There can be no hearts above the snowline. Oh, ye frozen heavens! look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy thou art tied to me by cords woven of my heartstrings. Come, let's down. 'What's this? here's velvet sharkskin, intently gazing at Ahab's hand, and feeling it. 'Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this, perhaps he had ne'er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a manrope something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together the black one with the white, for I will not let this go. 'Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor's! 'There go two daft ones now, muttered the old Manxman. 'One daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But here's the end of the rotten lineall dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new line altogether. I'll see Mr. Stubb about it. Steering now southeastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and line the Pequod held on her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene. At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishingground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets the watchthen headed by Flaskwas startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthlylike halfarticulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocentsthat one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxmanthe oldest mariner of alldeclared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea. Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he came to the deck it was then recounted to him by Flask, not unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder. Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their round heads and semiintelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men. But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sunrise this man went from his hammock to his masthead at the fore and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is now no telling but, be that as it may, he had not been long at his perch, when a cry was hearda cry and a rushingand looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air and looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea. The lifebuoya long slender caskwas dropped from the stern, where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring but no hand rose to seize it, and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore and the studded ironbound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one. And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own peculiar ground that man was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at least as a portent for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. The lost lifebuoy was now to be replaced Starbuck was directed to see to it but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be therefore, they were going to leave the ship's stern unprovided with a buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint concerning his coffin. 'A lifebuoy of a coffin! cried Starbuck, starting. 'Rather queer, that, I should say, said Stubb. 'It will make a good enough one, said Flask, 'the carpenter here can arrange it easily. 'Bring it up there's nothing else for it, said Starbuck, after a melancholy pause. 'Rig it, carpenter do not look at me sothe coffin, I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it. 'And shall I nail down the lid, sir? moving his hand as with a hammer. 'Aye. 'And shall I caulk the seams, sir? moving his hand as with a caulkingiron. 'Aye. 'And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir? moving his hand as with a pitchpot. 'Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a lifebuoy of the coffin, and no more.Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me. 'He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure at the parts he baulks. Now I don't like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears it like a gentleman but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he won't put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin? And now I'm ordered to make a lifebuoy of it. It's like turning an old coat going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don't like this cobbling sort of businessI don't like it at all it's undignified it's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do tinkerings we are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fairandsquare mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion not a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at the end. It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of sixtyfive who ran away with a baldheaded young tinker once. And that's the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore, when I kept my jobshop in the Vineyard they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run off with me. But heighho! there are no caps at sea but snowcaps. Let me see. Nail down the lid caulk the seams pay over the same with pitch batten them down tight, and hang it with the snapspring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty Aroostook hemlock I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a graveyard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make bridalbedsteads and cardtables, as well as coffins and hearses. We work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit not for us to ask the why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly. I'll have melet's seehow many in the ship's company, all told? But I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate, Turk'sheaded lifelines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, caulkingiron, pitchpot, and marlingspike! Let's to it. The coffin laid upon two linetubs, between the vicebench and the open hatchway the Carpenter caulking its seams the string of twisted oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of his frock.Ahab comes slowly from the cabingangway, and hears Pip following him. 'Back, lad I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand complies with my humor more genially than that boy.Middle aisle of a church! What's here? 'Lifebuoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the hatchway! 'Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault. 'Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does. 'Art not thou the legmaker? Look, did not this stump come from thy shop? 'I believe it did, sir does the ferrule stand, sir? 'Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker? 'Aye, sir I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg but they've set me now to turning it into something else. 'Then tell me art thou not an arrant, allgrasping, intermeddling, monopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again lifebuoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jackofalltrades. 'But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do. 'The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the craters for volcanoes and the gravedigger in the play sings, spade in hand. Dost thou never? 'Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir, for that but the reason why the gravedigger made music must have been because there was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark to it. 'Aye, and that's because the lid there's a soundingboard and what in all things makes the soundingboard is thisthere's naught beneath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against the churchyard gate, going in? 'Faith, sir, I've 'Faith? What's that? 'Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamationlikethat's all, sir. 'Um, um go on. 'I was about to say, sir, that 'Art thou a silkworm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight. 'He goes aft. That was sudden, now but squalls come sudden in hot latitudes. I've heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He's always under the Linefiery hot, I tell ye! He's looking this waycome, oakum quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I'm the professor of musical glassestap, tap! (Ahab to himself.) 'There's a sight! There's a sound! The greyheaded woodpecker tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that thing rests on two linetubs, full of towlines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rattat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A lifebuoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortalitypreserver! I'll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed sound? I go below let me not see that thing here when I return again. Now, then, Pip, we'll talk this over I do suck most wondrous philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds must empty into thee! Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time the Pequod was making good speed through the water but as the broadwinged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull. 'Bad news she brings bad news, muttered the old Manxman. But ere her commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat ere he could hopefully hail, Ahab's voice was heard. 'Hast seen the White Whale? 'Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whaleboat adrift? Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain himself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen descending her side. A few keen pulls, and his boathook soon clinched the Pequod's mainchains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognised by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged. 'Where was he?not killed!not killed! cried Ahab, closely advancing. 'How was it? It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while three of the stranger's boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship and while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward whereupon, the fourth rigged boata reserved onehad been instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boatthe swiftest keeled of allseemed to have succeeded in fasteningat least, as well as the man at the masthead could tell anything about it. In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat and then a swift gleam of bubbling white water and after that nothing more whence it was concluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging darkness came on and forced to pick up her three far to windward boatsere going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite directionthe ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance from it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded all sailstunsail on stunsailafter the missing boat kindling a fire in her trypots for a beacon and every other man aloft on the lookout. But though when she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when last seen though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her and not finding anything, had again dashed on again paused, and lowered her boats and though she had thus continued doing till daylight yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been seen. The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his own in the search by sailing over the sea some four or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were. 'I will wager something now, whispered Stubb to Flask, 'that some one in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat mayhap, his watchhe's so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two pious whaleships cruising after one missing whaleboat in the height of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he lookspale in the very buttons of his eyeslookit wasn't the coatit must have been the 'My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sakeI beg, I conjurehere exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had but icily received his petition. 'For eightandforty hours let me charter your shipI will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for itif there be no other wayfor eightandforty hours onlyonly thatyou must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing. 'His son! cried Stubb, 'oh, it's his son he's lost! I take back the coat and watchwhat says Ahab? We must save that boy. 'He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night, said the old Manx sailor standing behind them 'I heard all of ye heard their spirits. Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the Captain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew but among the number of the other boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there had been still another son as that for a time, the wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity which was only solved for him by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure of a whaleship in such emergencies, that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of such tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years' voyage in some other ship than their own so that their first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a father's natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern. Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without the least quivering of his own. 'I will not go, said the stranger, 'till you say aye to me. Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too have a boy, Captain Ahabthough but a child, and nestling safely at home nowa child of your old age tooYes, yes, you relent I see itrun, run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards. 'Avast, cried Ahab'touch not a ropeyarn then in a voice that prolongingly moulded every word'Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. Even now I lose time. Goodbye, goodbye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before. Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried to the side more fell than stepped into his boat, and returned to his ship. Soon the two ships diverged their wakes and long as the strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round starboard and larboard, she continued to tack now she beat against a head sea and again it pushed her before it while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs. But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not. (Ahab moving to go on deck Pip catches him by the hand to follow.) 'Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee by him. There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. Like cures like and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, as if thou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own screwed chair another screw to it, thou must be. 'No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir do ye but use poor me for your one lost leg only tread upon me, sir I ask no more, so I remain a part of ye. 'Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless fidelity of man!and a black! and crazy!but methinks likecureslike applies to him too he grows so sane again. 'They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin. But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with ye. 'If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose keels up in him. I tell thee no it cannot be. 'Oh good master, master, master! 'Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad. Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!Met! True art thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So God for ever bless thee and if it come to that,God for ever save thee, let what will befall. (Ahab goes Pip steps one step forward.) 'Here he this instant stood I stand in his air,but I'm alone. Now were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he's missing. Pip! Pip! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip? He must be up here let's try the door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar and yet there's no opening it. It must be the spell he told me to stay here Aye, and told me this screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I'll seat me, against the transom, in the ship's full middle, all her keel and her three masts before me. Here, our old sailors say, in their black seventyfours great admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of captains and lieutenants. Ha! what's this? epaulets! epaulets! the epaulets all come crowding! Pass round the decanters glad to see ye fill up, monsieurs! What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy's host to white men with gold lace upon their coats!Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip?a little negro lad, five feet high, hangdog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a whaleboat onceseen him? No! Well then, fill up again, captains, and let's drink shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them! Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards.Hist! above there, I hear ivoryOh, master! master! I am indeed downhearted when you walk over me. But here I'll stay, though this stern strikes rocks and they bulge through and oysters come to join me. And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a preliminary cruise, Ahab,all other whaling waters sweptseemed to have chased his foe into an oceanfold, to slay him the more securely there now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered Moby Dickand now that all his successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against now it was that there lurked a something in the old man's eyes, which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze so Ahab's purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a single spear or leaf. In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile Starbuck no more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them. But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours when he thought no glance but one was on him then you would have seen that even as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's, the inscrutable Parsee's glance awed his or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it. Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah now such ceaseless shudderings shook him that the men looked dubious at him half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen being's body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go below. He would stand still for hours but never sat or leaned his wan but wondrous eyes did plainly sayWe two watchmen never rest. Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the deck, unless Ahab was before them either standing in his pivothole, or exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits,the mainmast and the mizen or else they saw him standing in the cabinscuttle,his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step his hat slouched heavily over his eyes so that however motionless he stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times or whether he was still intently scanning them no matter, though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded nightdamp gathered in beads of dew upon that stonecarved coat and hat. The clothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him and so, day after day, and night after night he went no more beneath the planks whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for. He ate in the same open air that is, his two only meals,breakfast and dinner supper he never touched nor reaped his beard which darkly grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though his whole life was now become one watch on deck and though the Parsee's mystic watch was without intermission as his own yet these two never seemed to speakone man to the otherunless at long intervals some passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell seemed secretly to join the twain openly, and to the awestruck crew, they seemed polelike asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one word by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by the mainmast but still fixedly gazing upon each other as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned substance. And yet, somehow, did Ahabin his own proper self, as daily, hourly, and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,Ahab seemed an independent lord the Parsee but his slave. Still again both seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them the lean shade siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel was solid Ahab. At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard from aft,'Man the mastheads!and all through the day, till after sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard'What d'ye see?sharp! sharp! But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the childrenseeking Rachel and no spout had yet been seen the monomaniac old man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity at least, of nearly all except the Pagan harpooneers he seemed to doubt, even, whether Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them. 'I will have the first sight of the whale myself,he said. 'Aye! Ahab must have the doubloon! and with his own hands he rigged a nest of basketed bowlines and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved block, to secure to the mainmast head, he received the two ends of the downwardreeved rope and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round upon his crew, sweeping from one to the other pausing his glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego but shunning Fedallah and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,'Take the rope, sirI give it into thy hands, Starbuck. Then arranging his person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last and afterwards stood near it. And thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles,ahead, astern, this side, and that,within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height. When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the deck and when the deckends of these ropes are being every few minutes cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if, unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the sea. So Ahab's proceedings in this matter were not unusual the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the slightest degree approaching to decisionone of those too, whose faithfulness on the lookout he had seemed to doubt somewhatit was strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's hands. Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft ere he had been there ten minutes one of those redbilled savage seahawks which so often fly incommodiously close round the manned mastheads of whalemen in these latitudes one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a thousand feet straight up into the air then spiralized downwards, and went eddying again round his head. But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed not to mark this wild bird nor, indeed, would any one else have marked it much, it being no uncommon circumstance only now almost the least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every sight. 'Your hat, your hat, sir! suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who being posted at the mizenmasthead, stood directly behind Ahab, though somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing them. But already the sable wing was before the old man's eyes the long hooked bill at his head with a scream, the black hawk darted away with his prize. An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen accounted good. Ahab's hat was never restored the wild hawk flew on and on with it far in advance of the prow and at last disappeared while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea. The intense Pequod sailed on the rolling waves and days went by the lifebuoycoffin still lightly swung and another ship, most miserably misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whalingships, cross the quarterdeck at the height of eight or nine feet serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats. Upon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whaleboat but you now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled, halfunhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse. 'Hast seen the White Whale? 'Look! replied the hollowcheeked captain from his taffrail and with his trumpet he pointed to the wreck. 'Hast killed him? 'The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that, answered the other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together. 'Not forged! and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming'Look ye, Nantucketer here in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life! 'Then God keep thee, old mansee'st thou thatpointing to the hammock'I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday but were dead ere night. Only that one I bury the rest were buried before they died you sail upon their tomb. Then turning to his crew'Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body so, thenOh! Godadvancing towards the hammock with uplifted hands'may the resurrection and the life 'Brace forward! Up helm! cried Ahab like lightning to his men. But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism. As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange lifebuoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief. 'Ha! yonder! look yonder, men! cried a foreboding voice in her wake. 'In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial ye but turn us your taffrail to show us your coffin! It was a clear steelblue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that allpervading azure only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and manlike sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep. Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snowwhite wings of small, unspeckled birds these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, swordfish, and sharks and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea. But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without those two seemed one it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them. Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motionmost seen here at the equatordenoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away. Tied up and twisted gnarled and knotted with wrinkles haggardly firm and unyielding his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of ruin untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven. Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's closecoiled woe! But so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughingeyed elves, heedlessly gambol around their old sire sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on the marge of that burntout crater of his brain. Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him the stepmother world, so long cruelforbiddingnow threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop. Starbuck saw the old man saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there. Ahab turned. 'Starbuck! 'Sir. 'Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a dayvery much such a sweetness as thisI struck my first whalea boyharpooneer of eighteen! Fortyfortyforty years ago!ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and stormtime! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led the desolation of solitude it has been the masoned, walledtown of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country withoutoh, weariness! heaviness! Guineacoast slavery of solitary command!when I think of all this only halfsuspected, not so keenly known to me beforeand how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted farefit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soil!when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crustsaway, whole oceans away, from that young girlwife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillowwife? wife?rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his preymore a demon than a man!aye, aye! what a forty years' foolfoolold fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!crack my heart!stave my brain!mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God. By the green land by the bright hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no stay on board, on board!lower not when I do when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye! 'Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck'swife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, playfellow youth even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket. 'They have, they have. I have seen themsome summer days in the morning. About this timeyes, it is his noon nap nowthe boy vivaciously wakes sits up in bed and his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again. ''Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face from the window! the boy's hand on the hill! But Ahab's glance was averted like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. 'What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself but is as an errandboy in heaven nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power how then can this one small heart beat this one small brain think thoughts unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flyingfish? Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky and the air smells now, as if it blew from a faraway meadow they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the newmown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the halfcut swathsStarbuck! But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away. Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail. That night, in the midwatch, when the old manas his wont at intervalsstepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went to his pivothole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing up the sea air as a sagacious ship's dog will, in drawing nigh to some barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch nor was any mariner surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dogvane, and then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the sail to be shortened. The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery wrinkles bordering it, the polished metalliclike marks of some swift tiderip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream. 'Man the mastheads! Call all hands! Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear with their clothes in their hands. 'What d'ye see? cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky. 'Nothing, nothing sir! was the sound hailing down in reply. 'T'gallant sails!stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides! All sail being set, he now cast loose the lifeline, reserved for swaying him to the main royalmast head and in a few moments they were hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the maintopsail and topgallantsail, he raised a gulllike cry in the air. 'There she blows!there she blows! A hump like a snowhill! It is Moby Dick! Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three lookouts, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final perch, some feet above the other lookouts, Tashtego standing just beneath him on the cap of the topgallantmast, so that the Indian's head was almost on a level with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans. 'And did none of ye see it before? cried Ahab, hailing the perched men all around him. 'I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I cried out, said Tashtego. 'Not the same instant not the sameno, the doubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only none of ye could have raised the White Whale first. There she blows!there she blows!there she blows! There again!there again! he cried, in longdrawn, lingering, methodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale's visible jets. 'He's going to sound! In stunsails! Down topgallantsails! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship. Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So steady, man, steady! There go flukes! No, no only black water! All ready the boats there? Stand by, stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck lower, lower,quick, quicker! and he slid through the air to the deck. 'He is heading straight to leeward, sir, cried Stubb, 'right away from us cannot have seen the ship yet. 'Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!brace up! Shiver her!shiver her!So well that! Boats, boats! Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped all the boatsails setall the paddles plying with rippling swiftness, shooting to leeward and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, deathglimmer lit up Fedallah's sunken eyes a hideous motion gnawed his mouth. Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth seemed drawing a carpet over its waves seemed a noonmeadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkishrugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight and like to some flagstaff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back and at intervals one of the cloud of softtoed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons. A gentle joyousnessa mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam. On each soft sidecoincident with the parted swell, that but once leaving him, then flowed so wide awayon each bright side, the whale shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way thou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed before. And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among waves whose handclappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw. But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white seafowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left. With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's reappearance. 'An hour, said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern and he gazed beyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant for again his eyes seemed whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze now freshened the sea began to swell. 'The birds!the birds! cried Tashtego. In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were now all flying towards Ahab's boat and when within a few yards began fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man's Ahab could discover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into its depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose, till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long crooked rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable bottom. It was Moby Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw his vast, shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea. The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an opendoored marble tomb and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and stand by to stern. Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head while yet under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted himself, as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath the boat. Through and through through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of a biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a rowlock. The bluish pearlwhite of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's head, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms but the tigeryellow crew were tumbling over each other's heads to gain the uttermost stern. And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way and from his body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were and while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated frenzied with all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at the sternwreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast to the oars to lash them across. At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a movement that loosed his hold for the time at that moment his hand had made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only slipping further into the whale's mouth, and tilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw spilled him out of it, as he leaned to the push and so he fell flatfaced upon the sea. Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the billows and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rosesome twenty or more feet out of the waterthe now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it vindictively tossing their shivered spray still higher into the air. So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its summit with their scud. This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary upanddown poise of the whalelance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him. But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round and round the wrecked crew sideways churning the water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that helpless Ahab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst. From the boat's fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eyed him the clinging crew, at the other drifting end, could not succor him more than enough was it for them to look to themselves. For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's aspect, and so planetarily swift the evercontracting circles he made, that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other boats, unharmed, still hovered hard by still they dared not pull into the eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all nor in that case could they themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then, they remained on the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old man's head. Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's mast heads and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!'Sail on thebut that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,'Sail on the whale!Drive him off! The Pequod's prows were pointed and breaking up the charmed circle, she effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly swam off, the boats flew to the rescue. Dragged into Stubb's boat with bloodshot, blinded eyes, the white brine caking in his wrinkles the long tension of Ahab's bodily strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's doom for a time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like one trodden under foot of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as desolate sounds from out ravines. But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more abbreviate it. In an instant's compass, great hearts sometimes condense to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused through feebler men's whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary in each one suffering still, if the gods decree it, in their lifetime aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous intensities for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls. 'The harpoon, said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on one bended arm'is it safe? 'Aye, sir, for it was not darted this is it, said Stubb, showing it. 'Lay it before meany missing men? 'One, two, three, four, fivethere were five oars, sir, and here are five men. 'That's good.Help me, man I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there! there! going to leeward still what a leaping spout!Hands off from me! The eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bones again! Set the sail out oars the helm! It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked up by another boat, help to work that second boat and the chase is thus continued with what is called doublebanked oars. It was thus now. But the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the whale, for he seemed to have treblebanked his every fin swimming with a velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one nor could any crew endure for so long a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar a thing barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were soon swayed up to their cranesthe two parts of the wrecked boat having been previously secured by herand then hoisting everything to her side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it with stunsails, like the doublejointed wings of an albatross the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of MobyDick. At the well known, methodic intervals, the whale's glittering spout was regularly announced from the manned mastheads and when he would be reported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing the deck, binnaclewatch in hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted hour expired, his voice was heard.'Whose is the doubloon now? D'ye see him? and if the reply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded them to lift him to his perch. In this way the day wore on Ahab, now aloft and motionless anon, unrestingly pacing the planks. As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still greater breadththus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, at every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon the quarterdeck, and lay there reversed broken bow to shattered stern. At last he paused before it and as in an already overclouded sky fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old man's face there now stole some such added gloom as this. Stubb saw him pause and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in his Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed'The thistle the ass refused it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir ha! ha! 'What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck. 'Aye, sir, said Starbuck drawing near, ''tis a solemn sight an omen, and an ill one. 'Omen? omen?the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honorably speak outright not shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint.Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles of one thing Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck and ye two are all mankind and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, coldI shiver!How now? Aloft there! D'ye see him? Sing out for every spout, though he spout ten times a second! The day was nearly done only the hem of his golden robe was rustling. Soon, it was almost dark, but the lookout men still remained unset. 'Can't see the spout now, sirtoo darkcried a voice from the air. 'How heading when last seen? 'As before, sir,straight to leeward. 'Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night. Down royals and topgallant stunsails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before morning he's making a passage now, and may heaveto a while. Helm there! keep her full before the wind!Aloft! come down!Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand to the foremast head, and see it manned till morning.Then advancing towards the doubloon in the mainmast'Men, this gold is mine, for I earned it but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man's and if on that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away now!the deck is thine, sir! And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals rousing himself to see how the night wore on. At daybreak, the three mastheads were punctually manned afresh. 'D'ye see him? cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light to spread. 'See nothing, sir. 'Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought forthe topgallant sails!aye, they should have been kept on her all night. But no matter'tis but resting for the rush. Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale, continued through day into night, and through night into day, is a thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders that from the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they will, under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of progression during that period. And, in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again, but at some further point like as this pilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the cape at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited so does the fisherman, at his compass, with the whale for after being chased, and diligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then, when night obscures the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the pilot's coast is to him. So that to this hunter's wondrous skill, the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known in its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as doctors that of a baby's pulse and lightly say of it, the up train or the down train will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour even so, almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his speed and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the sea must be the whaleman's allies for of what present avail to the becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that assures him he is exactly ninetythree leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the chase of whales. The ship tore on leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a cannonball, missent, becomes a ploughshare and turns up the level field. 'By salt and hemp! cried Stubb, 'but this swift motion of the deck creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two brave fellows!Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spinewise, on the sea,for by liveoaks! my spine's a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait that leaves no dust behind! 'There she blowsshe blows!she blows!right ahead! was now the masthead cry. 'Aye, aye! cried Stubb, 'I knew itye can't escapeblow on and split your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your trumpblister your lungs!Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller shuts his watergate upon the stream! And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls and by the stirring perils of the previous day the rack of the past night's suspense the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark by all these things, their hearts were bowled along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race. They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all though it was put together of all contrasting thingsoak, and maple, and pine wood iron, and pitch, and hempyet all these ran into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the long central keel even so, all the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. The rigging lived. The mastheads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them! 'Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him? cried Ahab, when, after the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard. 'Sway me up, men ye have been deceived not Moby Dick casts one odd jet that way, and then disappears. It was even so in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some other thing for the whalespout, as the event itself soon proved for hardly had Ahab reached his perch hardly was the rope belayed to its pin on deck, when he struck the keynote to an orchestra, that made the air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, asmuch nearer to the ship than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile aheadMoby Dick bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings not by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White Whale now reveal his vicinity but by the far more wondrous phenomenon of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance. 'There she breaches! there she breaches! was the cry, as in his immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmonlike to Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier and stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale. 'Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick! cried Ahab, 'thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand!Down! down all of ye, but one man at the fore. The boats!stand by! Unmindful of the tedious ropeladders of the shrouds, the men, like shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and halyards while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from his perch. 'Lower away, he cried, so soon as he had reached his boata spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. 'Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thinekeep away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all! As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the three crews. Ahab's boat was central and cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale headandhead,that is, pull straight up to his forehead,a not uncommon thing for when within a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale's sidelong vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were plain as the ship's three masts to his eye the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side and heedless of the irons darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made. But skilfully manuvred, incessantly wheeling like trained chargers in the field the boats for a while eluded him though, at times, but by a plank's breadth while all the time, Ahab's unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds. But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him though now for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more line and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it againhoping that way to disencumber it of some snarlswhen lo!a sight more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks! Caught and twistedcorkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat. Only one thing could be done. Seizing the boatknife, he critically reached withinthroughand then, withoutthe rays of steel dragged in the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice sundering the rope near the chocksdropped the intercepted fagot of steel into the sea and was all fast again. That instant, the White Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask towards his flukes dashed them together like two rolling husks on a surfbeaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch. While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after the revolving linetubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks and Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up and while the old man's linenow partingadmitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to rescue whom he couldin that wild simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils,Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven by invisible wires,as, arrowlike, shooting perpendicularly from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air till it fell againgunwale downwardsand Ahab and his men struggled out from under it, like seals from a seaside cave. The first uprising momentum of the whalemodifying its direction as he struck the surfaceinvoluntarily launched him along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace. As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, and safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists, and ankles livid contusions wrenched harpoons and lances inextricable intricacies of rope shattered oars and planks all these were there but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one. As with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to his boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap. But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him as instead of standing by himself he still halfhung upon the shoulder of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter. 'Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he will and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has. 'The ferrule has not stood, sir, said the carpenter, now coming up 'I put good work into that leg. 'But no bones broken, sir, I hope, said Stubb with true concern. 'Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!d'ye see it.But even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched and I account no living bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost. Nor white whale, nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof?Aloft there! which way? 'Dead to leeward, sir. 'Up helm, then pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of the spare boats and rig themMr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat's crews. 'Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir. 'Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate! 'Sir? 'My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a canethere, that shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet. By heaven it cannot be!missing?quick! call them all. The old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the Parsee was not there. 'The Parsee! cried Stubb'he must have been caught in 'The black vomit wrench thee!run all of ye above, alow, cabin, forecastlefind himnot gonenot gone! But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was nowhere to be found. 'Aye, sir, said Stubb'caught among the tangles of your lineI thought I saw him dragging under. 'My line! my line? Gone?gone? What means that little word?What deathknell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry. The harpoon, too!toss over the litter there,d'ye see it?the forged iron, men, the white whale'sno, no, no,blistered fool! this hand did dart it!'tis in the fish!Aloft there! Keep him nailedQuick!all hands to the rigging of the boatscollect the oarsharpooneers! the irons, the irons!hoist the royals highera pull on all the sheets!helm there! steady, steady for your life! I'll ten times girdle the unmeasured globe yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay him yet! 'Great God! but for one single instant show thyself, cried Starbuck 'never, never wilt thou capture him, old manIn Jesus' name no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days chased twice stove to splinters thy very leg once more snatched from under thee thy evil shadow goneall good angels mobbing thee with warningswhat more wouldst thou have?Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh,Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more! 'Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee ever since that hour we both sawthou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this handa lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.Stand round me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump leaning on a shivered lance propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahabhis body's part but Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale and I may look so. But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack and till ye hear that, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dicktwo days he's floatedtomorrow will be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,but only to spout his last! D'ye feel brave men, brave? 'As fearless fire, cried Stubb. 'And as mechanical, muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he muttered on 'The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!The Parseethe Parsee!gone, gone? and he was to go beforebut still was to be seen again ere I could perishHow's that?There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of judgeslike a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'll, I'll solve it, though! When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward. So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as on the previous night only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg while still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial sat due eastward for the earliest sun. The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the solitary nightman at the foremasthead was relieved by crowds of the daylight lookouts, who dotted every mast and almost every spar. 'D'ye see him? cried Ahab but the whale was not yet in sight. 'In his infallible wake, though but follow that wake, that's all. Helm there steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day again! were it a newmade world, and made for a summerhouse to the angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think but Ahab never thinks he only feels, feels, feels that's tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calmfrozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now this moment growing, and heat must breed it but no, it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thinga nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There's a most special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on these Trades, or something like themsomething so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see? 'Nothing, sir. 'Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes abegging! See the sun! Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he's chasing me now not I, himthat's bad I might have known it, too. Fool! the linesthe harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I have run him by last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look outs! Man the braces! Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake. 'Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw, murmured Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the newhauled mainbrace upon the rail. 'God keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him! 'Stand by to sway me up! cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. 'We should meet him soon. 'Aye, aye, sir, and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once more Ahab swung on high. A whole hour now passed goldbeaten out to ages. Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three mastheads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it. 'Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck there!brace sharper up crowd her into the wind's eye. He's too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that helmsman with a topmaul! So, so he travels fast, and I must down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea there's time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sandhills of Nantucket! The same!the same!the same to Noah as to me. There's a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead somewhereto something else than common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way look to windward, then the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old masthead! What's this?green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old together sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way. I can't compare with it and I've known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my pilot and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Goodbye, mastheadkeep a good eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk tomorrow, nay, tonight, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail. He gave the word and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck. In due time the boats were lowered but as standing in his shallop's stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the mate,who held one of the tackleropes on deckand bade him pause. 'Starbuck! 'Sir? 'For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck. 'Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so. 'Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck! 'Truth, sir saddest truth. 'Some men die at ebb tide some at low water some at the full of the floodand I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am oldshake hands with me, man. Their hands met their eyes fastened Starbuck's tears the glue. 'Oh, my captain, my captain!noble heartgo notgo not!see, it's a brave man that weeps how great the agony of the persuasion then! 'Lower away!cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. 'Stand by the crew! In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. 'The sharks! the sharks! cried a voice from the low cabinwindow there 'O master, my master, come back! But Ahab heard nothing for his own voice was highlifted then and the boat leaped on. Yet the voice spake true for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water and in this way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whaleboats in those swarming seas the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tigeryellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharksa matter sometimes well known to affect them,however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others. 'Heart of wrought steel! murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat'canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight?lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, openmouthed to the chase and this the critical third day?For when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thingbe that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant,fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem clearing but clouds sweep betweenIs my journey's end coming? My legs feel faint like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,beats it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!stave it offmove, move! speak aloud!Masthead there! See ye my boy's hand on the hill?Crazedaloft there!keep thy keenest eye upon the boatsmark well the whale!Ho! again!drive off that hawk! see! he peckshe tears the vanepointing to the red flag flying at the maintruck'Ha! he soars away with it!Where's the old man now? see'st thou that sight, oh Ahab!shudder, shudder! The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mastheadsa downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little sideways from the vessel the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest silence, as the headbeat waves hammered and hammered against the opposing bow. 'Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid and no coffin and no hearse can be mineand hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha! Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard a subterraneous hum and then all held their breaths as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air and then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale. 'Give way! cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to the attack but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats and once more flailed them apart spilling out the irons and lances from the two mates' boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, but leaving Ahab's almost without a scar. While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks and as the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he shot by them again at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round and round to the fish's back pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen his sable raiment frayed to shreds his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab. The harpoon dropped from his hand. 'Befooled, befooled!drawing in a long lean breath'Aye, Parsee! I see thee again.Aye, and thou goest before and this, this then is the hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those boats are useless now repair them if ye can in time, and return to me if not, Ahab is enough to dieDown, men! the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs and so obey me.Where's the whale? gone down again? But he looked too nigh the boat for as if bent upon escaping with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily swimming forward and had almost passed the ship,which thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the sea. 'Oh! Ahab, cried Starbuck, 'not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him! Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck's face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mastheads while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them. One after the other, through the portholes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this as he heard the hammers in the broken boats far other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the mainmasthead, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast. Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore or whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him whichever was true, the White Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more though indeed the whale's last start had not been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip. 'Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! 'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water. 'But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller! 'They will last long enough! pull on!But who can tellhe muttered'whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab?But pull on! Aye, all alive, nowwe near him. The helm! take the helm! let me pass,and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat. At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its advanceas the whale sometimes willand Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale's spout, curled round his great, Monadnock hump he was even thus close to him when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise highlifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmenwho foreknew not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effectsthese were flung out but so fell, that, in an instant two of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again the third man helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming. Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with the line, and hold it so and commanded the crew to turn round on their seats, and tow the boat up to the mark the moment the treacherous line felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air! 'What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!'tis whole again oars! oars! Burst in upon him! Hearing the tremendous rush of the seacrashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions bethinking itit may bea larger and nobler foe of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. Ahab staggered his hand smote his forehead. 'I grow blind hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is't night? 'The whale! The ship! cried the cringing oarsmen. 'Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship? But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledgehammering seas, the before whalesmitten bowends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves its halfwading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's masthead hammer remained suspended in his hand and the red flag, halfwrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forwardflowing heart while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the downcoming monster just as soon as he. 'The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's fainting fit. Up helm, I sayye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my lifelong fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now! 'Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, thoughcherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die! 'Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother's drawn my partpay ere this if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up. From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bulllike necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. 'The ship! The hearse!the second hearse! cried Ahab from the boat 'its wood could only be American! Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent. 'I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine thou uncracked keel and only godbullied hull thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Polepointed prow,deathglorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou alldestroying but unconquering whale to the last I grapple with thee from hell's heart I stab at thee for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear! The harpoon was darted the stricken whale flew forward with igniting velocity the line ran through the groovesran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it he did clear it but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eyesplice in the rope's final end flew out of the starkempty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths. For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still then turned. 'The ship? Great God, where is the ship? Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana only the uppermost masts out of water while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight. But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touchedat that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A skyhawk that tauntingly had followed the maintruck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his deathgasp, kept his hammer frozen there and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it. Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?Because one did survive the wreck. It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the buttonlike black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin lifebuoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths the savage seahawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the deviouscruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armourlike back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. 'What's happened to me? he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the tableSamsa was a travelling salesmanand above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer. Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. 'How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense, he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before. 'Oh, God, he thought, 'what a strenuous career it is that I've chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can all go to Hell! He felt a slight itch up on his belly pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn't know what to make of and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder. He slid back into his former position. 'Getting up early all the time, he thought, 'it makes you stupid. You've got to get enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss I'd get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. Well, there's still some hope once I've got the money together to pay off my parents' debt to himanother five or six years I supposethat's definitely what I'll do. That's when I'll make the big change. First of all though, I've got to get up, my train leaves at five. And he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of drawers. 'God in Heaven! he thought. It was half past six and the hands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half past, more like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He could see from the bed that it had been set for four o'clock as it should have been it certainly must have rung. Yes, but was it possible to quietly sleep through that furniturerattling noise? True, he had not slept peacefully, but probably all the more deeply because of that. What should he do now? The next train went at seven if he were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and the collection of samples was still not packed, and he did not at all feel particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch the train he would not avoid his boss's anger as the office assistant would have been there to see the five o'clock train go, he would have put in his report about Gregor's not being there a long time ago. The office assistant was the boss's man, spineless, and with no understanding. What about if he reported sick? But that would be extremely strained and suspicious as in five years of service Gregor had never once yet been ill. His boss would certainly come round with the doctor from the medical insurance company, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the doctor's recommendation not to make any claim as the doctor believed that noone was ever ill but that many were workshy. And what's more, would he have been entirely wrong in this case? Gregor did in fact, apart from excessive sleepiness after sleeping for so long, feel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual. He was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide to get out of the bed, when the clock struck quarter to seven. There was a cautious knock at the door near his head. 'Gregor, somebody calledit was his mother'it's quarter to seven. Didn't you want to go somewhere? That gentle voice! Gregor was shocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be recognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside him, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether he had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented himself with saying 'Yes, mother, yes, thankyou, I'm getting up now. The change in Gregor's voice probably could not be noticed outside through the wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with this explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation made the other members of the family aware that Gregor, against their expectations was still at home, and soon his father came knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist. 'Gregor, Gregor, he called, 'what's wrong? And after a short while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice 'Gregor! Gregor! At the other side door his sister came plaintively 'Gregor? Aren't you well? Do you need anything? Gregor answered to both sides 'I'm ready, now, making an effort to remove all the strangeness from his voice by enunciating very carefully and putting long pauses between each, individual word. His father went back to his breakfast, but his sister whispered 'Gregor, open the door, I beg of you. Gregor, however, had no thought of opening the door, and instead congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired from his travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was at home. The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast. Only then would he consider what to do next, as he was well aware that he would not bring his thoughts to any sensible conclusions by lying in bed. He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in bed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest doubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first sign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for travelling salesmen. It was a simple matter to throw off the covers he only had to blow himself up a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad. He would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up but instead of them he only had all those little legs continuously moving in different directions, and which he was moreover unable to control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first one that would stretch itself out and if he finally managed to do what he wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free and would move about painfully. 'This is something that can't be done in bed, Gregor said to himself, 'so don't keep trying to do it. The first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body out of the bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not imagine what it looked like it turned out to be too hard to move it went so slowly and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he carelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive. So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed first, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed quite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of his body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head. But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock himself out now at any price better to stay in bed than lose consciousness. It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at whatever sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to remind himself that calm consideration was much better than rushing to desperate conclusions. At times like this he would direct his eyes to the window and look out as clearly as he could, but unfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer to offer him. 'Seven o'clock, already, he said to himself when the clock struck again, 'seven o'clock, and there's still a fog like this. And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly as if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real and natural state. But then he said to himself 'Before it strikes quarter past seven I'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then somebody will have come round from work to ask what's happened to me as well, as they open up at work before seven o'clock. And so he set himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed all at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out of bed in this way and kept his head raised as he did so he could probably avoid injuring it. His back seemed to be quite hard, and probably nothing would happen to it falling onto the carpet. His main concern was for the loud noise he was bound to make, and which even through all the doors would probably raise concern if not alarm. But it was something that had to be risked. When Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bedthe new method was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and forthit occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him. Two strong peoplehe had his father and the maid in mindwould have been more than enough they would only have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him away from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and careful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the little legs would find a use. Should he really call for help though, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked? Despite all the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile at this thought. After a while he had already moved so far across that it would have been hard for him to keep his balance if he rocked too hard. The time was now ten past seven and he would have to make a final decision very soon. Then there was a ring at the door of the flat. 'That'll be someone from work, he said to himself, and froze very still, although his little legs only became all the more lively as they danced around. For a moment everything remained quiet. 'They're not opening the door, Gregor said to himself, caught in some nonsensical hope. But then of course, the maid's firm steps went to the door as ever and opened it. Gregor only needed to hear the visitor's first words of greeting and he knew who it wasthe chief clerk himself. Why did Gregor have to be the only one condemned to work for a company where they immediately became highly suspicious at the slightest shortcoming? Were all employees, every one of them, louts, was there not one of them who was faithful and devoted who would go so mad with pangs of conscience that he couldn't get out of bed if he didn't spend at least a couple of hours in the morning on company business? Was it really not enough to let one of the trainees make enquiriesassuming enquiries were even necessarydid the chief clerk have to come himself, and did they have to show the whole, innocent family that this was so suspicious that only the chief clerk could be trusted to have the wisdom to investigate it? And more because these thoughts had made him upset than through any proper decision, he swang himself with all his force out of the bed. There was a loud thump, but it wasn't really a loud noise. His fall was softened a little by the carpet, and Gregor's back was also more elastic than he had thought, which made the sound muffled and not too noticeable. He had not held his head carefully enough, though, and hit it as he fell annoyed and in pain, he turned it and rubbed it against the carpet. 'Something's fallen down in there, said the chief clerk in the room on the left. Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort that had happened to him today could ever happen to the chief clerk too you had to concede that it was possible. But as if in gruff reply to this question, the chief clerk's firm footsteps in his highly polished boots could now be heard in the adjoining room. From the room on his right, Gregor's sister whispered to him to let him know 'Gregor, the chief clerk is here. 'Yes, I know, said Gregor to himself but without daring to raise his voice loud enough for his sister to hear him. 'Gregor, said his father now from the room to his left, 'the chief clerk has come round and wants to know why you didn't leave on the early train. We don't know what to say to him. And anyway, he wants to speak to you personally. So please open up this door. I'm sure he'll be good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room. Then the chief clerk called 'Good morning, Mr. Samsa. 'He isn't well, said his mother to the chief clerk, while his father continued to speak through the door. 'He isn't well, please believe me. Why else would Gregor have missed a train! The lad only ever thinks about the business. It nearly makes me cross the way he never goes out in the evenings he's been in town for a week now but stayed home every evening. He sits with us in the kitchen and just reads the paper or studies train timetables. His idea of relaxation is working with his fretsaw. He's made a little frame, for instance, it only took him two or three evenings, you'll be amazed how nice it is it's hanging up in his room you'll see it as soon as Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I'm glad you're here we wouldn't have been able to get Gregor to open the door by ourselves he's so stubborn and I'm sure he isn't well, he said this morning that he is, but he isn't. 'I'll be there in a moment, said Gregor slowly and thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any word of the conversation. 'Well I can't think of any other way of explaining it, Mrs. Samsa, said the chief clerk, 'I hope it's nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we people in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or unfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of business considerations. 'Can the chief clerk come in to see you now then?, asked his father impatiently, knocking at the door again. 'No, said Gregor. In the room on his right there followed a painful silence in the room on his left his sister began to cry. So why did his sister not go and join the others? She had probably only just got up and had not even begun to get dressed. And why was she crying? Was it because he had not got up, and had not let the chief clerk in, because he was in danger of losing his job and if that happened his boss would once more pursue their parents with the same demands as before? There was no need to worry about things like that yet. Gregor was still there and had not the slightest intention of abandoning his family. For the time being he just lay there on the carpet, and noone who knew the condition he was in would seriously have expected him to let the chief clerk in. It was only a minor discourtesy, and a suitable excuse could easily be found for it later on, it was not something for which Gregor could be sacked on the spot. And it seemed to Gregor much more sensible to leave him now in peace instead of disturbing him with talking at him and crying. But the others didn't know what was happening, they were worried, that would excuse their behaviour. The chief clerk now raised his voice, 'Mr. Samsa, he called to him, 'what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room, give us no more than yes or no for an answer, you are causing serious and unnecessary concern to your parents and you failand I mention this just by the wayyou fail to carry out your business duties in a way that is quite unheard of. I'm speaking here on behalf of your parents and of your employer, and really must request a clear and immediate explanation. I am astonished, quite astonished. I thought I knew you as a calm and sensible person, and now you suddenly seem to be showing off with peculiar whims. This morning, your employer did suggest a possible reason for your failure to appear, it's trueit had to do with the money that was recently entrusted to youbut I came near to giving him my word of honour that that could not be the right explanation. But now that I see your incomprehensible stubbornness I no longer feel any wish whatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And nor is your position all that secure. I had originally intended to say all this to you in private, but since you cause me to waste my time here for no good reason I don't see why your parents should not also learn of it. Your turnover has been very unsatisfactory of late I grant you that it's not the time of year to do especially good business, we recognise that but there simply is no time of year to do no business at all, Mr. Samsa, we cannot allow there to be. 'But Sir, called Gregor, beside himself and forgetting all else in the excitement, 'I'll open up immediately, just a moment. I'm slightly unwell, an attack of dizziness, I haven't been able to get up. I'm still in bed now. I'm quite fresh again now, though. I'm just getting out of bed. Just a moment. Be patient! It's not quite as easy as I'd thought. I'm quite alright now, though. It's shocking, what can suddenly happen to a person! I was quite alright last night, my parents know about it, perhaps better than me, I had a small symptom of it last night already. They must have noticed it. I don't know why I didn't let you know at work! But you always think you can get over an illness without staying at home. Please, don't make my parents suffer! There's no basis for any of the accusations you're making nobody's ever said a word to me about any of these things. Maybe you haven't read the latest contracts I sent in. I'll set off with the eight o'clock train, as well, these few hours of rest have given me strength. You don't need to wait, sir I'll be in the office soon after you, and please be so good as to tell that to the boss and recommend me to him! And while Gregor gushed out these words, hardly knowing what he was saying, he made his way over to the chest of drawersthis was easily done, probably because of the practise he had already had in bedwhere he now tried to get himself upright. He really did want to open the door, really did want to let them see him and to speak with the chief clerk the others were being so insistent, and he was curious to learn what they would say when they caught sight of him. If they were shocked then it would no longer be Gregor's responsibility and he could rest. If, however, they took everything calmly he would still have no reason to be upset, and if he hurried he really could be at the station for eight o'clock. The first few times he tried to climb up on the smooth chest of drawers he just slid down again, but he finally gave himself one last swing and stood there upright the lower part of his body was in serious pain but he no longer gave any attention to it. Now he let himself fall against the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of it with his little legs. By now he had also calmed down, and kept quiet so that he could listen to what the chief clerk was saying. 'Did you understand a word of all that? the chief clerk asked his parents, 'surely he's not trying to make fools of us. 'Oh, God! called his mother, who was already in tears, 'he could be seriously ill and we're making him suffer. Grete! Grete! she then cried. 'Mother? his sister called from the other side. They communicated across Gregor's room. 'You'll have to go for the doctor straight away. Gregor is ill. Quick, get the doctor. Did you hear the way Gregor spoke just now? 'That was the voice of an animal, said the chief clerk, with a calmness that was in contrast with his mother's screams. 'Anna! Anna! his father called into the kitchen through the entrance hall, clapping his hands, 'get a locksmith here, now! And the two girls, their skirts swishing, immediately ran out through the hall, wrenching open the front door of the flat as they went. How had his sister managed to get dressed so quickly? There was no sound of the door banging shut again they must have left it open people often do in homes where something awful has happened. Gregor, in contrast, had become much calmer. So they couldn't understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than beforeperhaps his ears had become used to the sound. They had realised, though, that there was something wrong with him, and were ready to help. The first response to his situation had been confident and wise, and that made him feel better. He felt that he had been drawn back in among people, and from the doctor and the locksmith he expected great and surprising achievementsalthough he did not really distinguish one from the other. Whatever was said next would be crucial, so, in order to make his voice as clear as possible, he coughed a little, but taking care to do this not too loudly as even this might well sound different from the way that a human coughs and he was no longer sure he could judge this for himself. Meanwhile, it had become very quiet in the next room. Perhaps his parents were sat at the table whispering with the chief clerk, or perhaps they were all pressed against the door and listening. Gregor slowly pushed his way over to the door with the chair. Once there he let go of it and threw himself onto the door, holding himself upright against it using the adhesive on the tips of his legs. He rested there a little while to recover from the effort involved and then set himself to the task of turning the key in the lock with his mouth. He seemed, unfortunately, to have no proper teethhow was he, then, to grasp the key?but the lack of teeth was, of course, made up for with a very strong jaw using the jaw, he really was able to start the key turning, ignoring the fact that he must have been causing some kind of damage as a brown fluid came from his mouth, flowed over the key and dripped onto the floor. 'Listen, said the chief clerk in the next room, 'he's turning the key. Gregor was greatly encouraged by this but they all should have been calling to him, his father and his mother too 'Well done, Gregor, they should have cried, 'keep at it, keep hold of the lock! And with the idea that they were all excitedly following his efforts, he bit on the key with all his strength, paying no attention to the pain he was causing himself. As the key turned round he turned around the lock with it, only holding himself upright with his mouth, and hung onto the key or pushed it down again with the whole weight of his body as needed. The clear sound of the lock as it snapped back was Gregor's sign that he could break his concentration, and as he regained his breath he said to himself 'So, I didn't need the locksmith after all. Then he lay his head on the handle of the door to open it completely. Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already wide open before he could be seen. He had first to slowly turn himself around one of the double doors, and he had to do it very carefully if he did not want to fall flat on his back before entering the room. He was still occupied with this difficult movement, unable to pay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief clerk exclaim a loud 'Oh!, which sounded like the soughing of the wind. Now he also saw himhe was the nearest to the doorhis hand pressed against his open mouth and slowly retreating as if driven by a steady and invisible force. Gregor's mother, her hair still dishevelled from bed despite the chief clerk's being there, looked at his father. Then she unfolded her arms, took two steps forward towards Gregor and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that spread themselves out around her as her head disappeared down onto her breast. His father looked hostile, and clenched his fists as if wanting to knock Gregor back into his room. Then he looked uncertainly round the living room, covered his eyes with his hands and wept so that his powerful chest shook. So Gregor did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of the other door which was still held bolted in place. In this way only half of his body could be seen, along with his head above it which he leant over to one side as he peered out at the others. Meanwhile the day had become much lighter part of the endless, greyblack building on the other side of the streetwhich was a hospitalcould be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular line of windows piercing its faade the rain was still falling, now throwing down large, individual droplets which hit the ground one at a time. The washing up from breakfast lay on the table there was so much of it because, for Gregor's father, breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of different newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was photograph of Gregor when he was a lieutenant in the army, his sword in his hand and a carefree smile on his face as he called forth respect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the entrance hall was open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could see onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down below. 'Now, then, said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one to have kept calm, 'I'll get dressed straight away now, pack up my samples and set off. Will you please just let me leave? You can see, he said to the chief clerk, 'that I'm not stubborn and I like to do my job being a commercial traveller is arduous but without travelling I couldn't earn my living. So where are you going, in to the office? Yes? Will you report everything accurately, then? It's quite possible for someone to be temporarily unable to work, but that's just the right time to remember what's been achieved in the past and consider that later on, once the difficulty has been removed, he will certainly work with all the more diligence and concentration. You're well aware that I'm seriously in debt to our employer as well as having to look after my parents and my sister, so that I'm trapped in a difficult situation, but I will work my way out of it again. Please don't make things any harder for me than they are already, and don't take sides against me at the office. I know that nobody likes the travellers. They think we earn an enormous wage as well as having a soft time of it. That's just prejudice but they have no particular reason to think better of it. But you, sir, you have a better overview than the rest of the staff, in fact, if I can say this in confidence, a better overview than the boss himselfit's very easy for a businessman like him to make mistakes about his employees and judge them more harshly than he should. And you're also well aware that we travellers spend almost the whole year away from the office, so that we can very easily fall victim to gossip and chance and groundless complaints, and it's almost impossible to defend yourself from that sort of thing, we don't usually even hear about them, or if at all it's when we arrive back home exhausted from a trip, and that's when we feel the harmful effects of what's been going on without even knowing what caused them. Please, don't go away, at least first say something to show that you grant that I'm at least partly right! But the chief clerk had turned away as soon as Gregor had started to speak, and, with protruding lips, only stared back at him over his trembling shoulders as he left. He did not keep still for a moment while Gregor was speaking, but moved steadily towards the door without taking his eyes off him. He moved very gradually, as if there had been some secret prohibition on leaving the room. It was only when he had reached the entrance hall that he made a sudden movement, drew his foot from the living room, and rushed forward in a panic. In the hall, he stretched his right hand far out towards the stairway as if out there, there were some supernatural force waiting to save him. Gregor realised that it was out of the question to let the chief clerk go away in this mood if his position in the firm was not to be put into extreme danger. That was something his parents did not understand very well over the years, they had become convinced that this job would provide for Gregor for his entire life, and besides, they had so much to worry about at present that they had lost sight of any thought for the future. Gregor, though, did think about the future. The chief clerk had to be held back, calmed down, convinced and finally won over the future of Gregor and his family depended on it! If only his sister were here! She was clever she was already in tears while Gregor was still lying peacefully on his back. And the chief clerk was a lover of women, surely she could persuade him she would close the front door in the entrance hall and talk him out of his shocked state. But his sister was not there, Gregor would have to do the job himself. And without considering that he still was not familiar with how well he could move about in his present state, or that his speech still might notor probably would notbe understood, he let go of the door pushed himself through the opening tried to reach the chief clerk on the landing who, ridiculously, was holding on to the banister with both hands but Gregor fell immediately over and, with a little scream as he sought something to hold onto, landed on his numerous little legs. Hardly had that happened than, for the first time that day, he began to feel alright with his body the little legs had the solid ground under them to his pleasure, they did exactly as he told them they were even making the effort to carry him where he wanted to go and he was soon believing that all his sorrows would soon be finally at an end. He held back the urge to move but swayed from side to side as he crouched there on the floor. His mother was not far away in front of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but then she suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her fingers spread shouting 'Help, for pity's sake, Help! The way she held her head suggested she wanted to see Gregor better, but the unthinking way she was hurrying backwards showed that she did not she had forgotten that the table was behind her with all the breakfast things on it when she reached the table she sat quickly down on it without knowing what she was doing without even seeming to notice that the coffee pot had been knocked over and a gush of coffee was pouring down onto the carpet. 'Mother, mother, said Gregor gently, looking up at her. He had completely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not help himself snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the flow of coffee. That set his mother screaming anew, she fled from the table and into the arms of his father as he rushed towards her. Gregor, though, had no time to spare for his parents now the chief clerk had already reached the stairs with his chin on the banister, he looked back for the last time. Gregor made a run for him he wanted to be sure of reaching him the chief clerk must have expected something, as he leapt down several steps at once and disappeared his shouts resounding all around the staircase. The flight of the chief clerk seemed, unfortunately, to put Gregor's father into a panic as well. Until then he had been relatively self controlled, but now, instead of running after the chief clerk himself, or at least not impeding Gregor as he ran after him, Gregor's father seized the chief clerk's stick in his right hand (the chief clerk had left it behind on a chair, along with his hat and overcoat), picked up a large newspaper from the table with his left, and used them to drive Gregor back into his room, stamping his foot at him as he went. Gregor's appeals to his father were of no help, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly turned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the harder. Across the room, despite the chilly weather, Gregor's mother had pulled open a window, leant far out of it and pressed her hands to her face. A strong draught of air flew in from the street towards the stairway, the curtains flew up, the newspapers on the table fluttered and some of them were blown onto the floor. Nothing would stop Gregor's father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at him like a wild man. Gregor had never had any practice in moving backwards and was only able to go very slowly. If Gregor had only been allowed to turn round he would have been back in his room straight away, but he was afraid that if he took the time to do that his father would become impatient, and there was the threat of a lethal blow to his back or head from the stick in his father's hand any moment. Eventually, though, Gregor realised that he had no choice as he saw, to his disgust, that he was quite incapable of going backwards in a straight line so he began, as quickly as possible and with frequent anxious glances at his father, to turn himself round. It went very slowly, but perhaps his father was able to see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact now and then he used the tip of his stick to give directions from a distance as to which way to turn. If only his father would stop that unbearable hissing! It was making Gregor quite confused. When he had nearly finished turning round, still listening to that hissing, he made a mistake and turned himself back a little the way he had just come. He was pleased when he finally had his head in front of the doorway, but then saw that it was too narrow, and his body was too broad to get through it without further difficulty. In his present mood, it obviously did not occur to his father to open the other of the double doors so that Gregor would have enough space to get through. He was merely fixed on the idea that Gregor should be got back into his room as quickly as possible. Nor would he ever have allowed Gregor the time to get himself upright as preparation for getting through the doorway. What he did, making more noise than ever, was to drive Gregor forwards all the harder as if there had been nothing in the way it sounded to Gregor as if there was now more than one father behind him it was not a pleasant experience, and Gregor pushed himself into the doorway without regard for what might happen. One side of his body lifted itself, he lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the white door and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it, soon he was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all by himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air while those on the other side were pressed painfully against the ground. Then his father gave him a hefty shove from behind which released him from where he was held and sent him flying, and heavily bleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut with the stick, then, finally, all was quiet. It was not until it was getting dark that evening that Gregor awoke from his deep and comalike sleep. He would have woken soon afterwards anyway even if he hadn't been disturbed, as he had had enough sleep and felt fully rested. But he had the impression that some hurried steps and the sound of the door leading into the front room being carefully shut had woken him. The light from the electric street lamps shone palely here and there onto the ceiling and tops of the furniture, but down below, where Gregor was, it was dark. He pushed himself over to the door, feeling his way clumsily with his antennaeof which he was now beginning to learn the valuein order to see what had been happening there. The whole of his left side seemed like one, painfully stretched scar, and he limped badly on his two rows of legs. One of the legs had been badly injured in the events of that morningit was nearly a miracle that only one of them had beenand dragged along lifelessly. It was only when he had reached the door that he realised what it actually was that had drawn him over to it it was the smell of something to eat. By the door there was a dish filled with sweetened milk with little pieces of white bread floating in it. He was so pleased he almost laughed, as he was even hungrier than he had been that morning, and immediately dipped his head into the milk, nearly covering his eyes with it. But he soon drew his head back again in disappointment not only did the pain in his tender left side make it difficult to eat the foodhe was only able to eat if his whole body worked together as a snuffling wholebut the milk did not taste at all nice. Milk like this was normally his favourite drink, and his sister had certainly left it there for him because of that, but he turned, almost against his own will, away from the dish and crawled back into the centre of the room. Through the crack in the door, Gregor could see that the gas had been lit in the living room. His father at this time would normally be sat with his evening paper, reading it out in a loud voice to Gregor's mother, and sometimes to his sister, but there was now not a sound to be heard. Gregor's sister would often write and tell him about this reading, but maybe his father had lost the habit in recent times. It was so quiet all around too, even though there must have been somebody in the flat. 'What a quiet life it is the family lead, said Gregor to himself, and, gazing into the darkness, felt a great pride that he was able to provide a life like that in such a nice home for his sister and parents. But what now, if all this peace and wealth and comfort should come to a horrible and frightening end? That was something that Gregor did not want to think about too much, so he started to move about, crawling up and down the room. Once during that long evening, the door on one side of the room was opened very slightly and hurriedly closed again later on the door on the other side did the same it seemed that someone needed to enter the room but thought better of it. Gregor went and waited immediately by the door, resolved either to bring the timorous visitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it was but the door was opened no more that night and Gregor waited in vain. The previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had wanted to get in there to him, but now, now that he had opened up one of the doors and the other had clearly been unlocked some time during the day, noone came, and the keys were in the other sides. It was not until late at night that the gaslight in the living room was put out, and now it was easy to see that his parents and sister had stayed awake all that time, as they all could be distinctly heard as they went away together on tiptoe. It was clear that noone would come into Gregor's room any more until morning that gave him plenty of time to think undisturbed about how he would have to rearrange his life. For some reason, the tall, empty room where he was forced to remain made him feel uneasy as he lay there flat on the floor, even though he had been living in it for five years. Hardly aware of what he was doing other than a slight feeling of shame, he hurried under the couch. It pressed down on his back a little, and he was no longer able to lift his head, but he nonetheless felt immediately at ease and his only regret was that his body was too broad to get it all underneath. He spent the whole night there. Some of the time he passed in a light sleep, although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of his hunger, and some of the time was spent in worries and vague hopes which, however, always led to the same conclusion for the time being he must remain calm, he must show patience and the greatest consideration so that his family could bear the unpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to impose on them. Gregor soon had the opportunity to test the strength of his decisions, as early the next morning, almost before the night had ended, his sister, nearly fully dressed, opened the door from the front room and looked anxiously in. She did not see him straight away, but when she did notice him under the couchhe had to be somewhere, for God's sake, he couldn't have flown awayshe was so shocked that she lost control of herself and slammed the door shut again from outside. But she seemed to regret her behaviour, as she opened the door again straight away and came in on tiptoe as if entering the room of someone seriously ill or even of a stranger. Gregor had pushed his head forward, right to the edge of the couch, and watched her. Would she notice that he had left the milk as it was, realise that it was not from any lack of hunger and bring him in some other food that was more suitable? If she didn't do it herself he would rather go hungry than draw her attention to it, although he did feel a terrible urge to rush forward from under the couch, throw himself at his sister's feet and beg her for something good to eat. However, his sister noticed the full dish immediately and looked at it and the few drops of milk splashed around it with some surprise. She immediately picked it upusing a rag, not her bare handsand carried it out. Gregor was extremely curious as to what she would bring in its place, imagining the wildest possibilities, but he never could have guessed what his sister, in her goodness, actually did bring. In order to test his taste, she brought him a whole selection of things, all spread out on an old newspaper. There were old, halfrotten vegetables bones from the evening meal, covered in white sauce that had gone hard a few raisins and almonds some cheese that Gregor had declared inedible two days before a dry roll and some bread spread with butter and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water into the dish, which had probably been permanently set aside for Gregor's use, and placed it beside them. Then, out of consideration for Gregor's feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of her, she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so that Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for himself as he liked. Gregor's little legs whirred, at last he could eat. What's more, his injuries must already have completely healed as he found no difficulty in moving. This amazed him, as more than a month earlier he had cut his finger slightly with a knife, he thought of how his finger had still hurt the day before yesterday. 'Am I less sensitive than I used to be, then?, he thought, and was already sucking greedily at the cheese which had immediately, almost compellingly, attracted him much more than the other foods on the newspaper. Quickly one after another, his eyes watering with pleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables and the sauce the fresh foods, on the other hand, he didn't like at all, and even dragged the things he did want to eat a little way away from them because he couldn't stand the smell. Long after he had finished eating and lay lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly turned the key in the lock as a sign to him that he should withdraw. He was immediately startled, although he had been half asleep, and he hurried back under the couch. But he needed great selfcontrol to stay there even for the short time that his sister was in the room, as eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he could hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he watched with bulging eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a broom and swept up the leftovers, mixing them in with the food he had not even touched at all as if it could not be used any more. She quickly dropped it all into a bin, closed it with its wooden lid, and carried everything out. She had hardly turned her back before Gregor came out again from under the couch and stretched himself. This was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the morning while his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the second time after everyone had eaten their meal at midday as his parents would sleep for a little while then as well, and Gregor's sister would send the maid away on some errand. Gregor's father and mother certainly did not want him to starve either, but perhaps it would have been more than they could stand to have any more experience of his feeding than being told about it, and perhaps his sister wanted to spare them what distress she could as they were indeed suffering enough. It was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the doctor and the locksmith that first morning to get them out of the flat. As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister, thought that he could understand them, so he had to be content to hear his sister's sighs and appeals to the saints as she moved about his room. It was only later, when she had become a little more used to everythingthere was, of course, no question of her ever becoming fully used to the situationthat Gregor would sometimes catch a friendly comment, or at least a comment that could be construed as friendly. 'He's enjoyed his dinner today, she might say when he had diligently cleared away all the food left for him, or if he left most of it, which slowly became more and more frequent, she would often say, sadly, 'now everything's just been left there again. Although Gregor wasn't able to hear any news directly he did listen to much of what was said in the next rooms, and whenever he heard anyone speaking he would scurry straight to the appropriate door and press his whole body against it. There was seldom any conversation, especially at first, that was not about him in some way, even if only in secret. For two whole days, all the talk at every mealtime was about what they should do now but even between meals they spoke about the same subject as there were always at least two members of the family at homenobody wanted to be at home by themselves and it was out of the question to leave the flat entirely empty. And on the very first day the maid had fallen to her knees and begged Gregor's mother to let her go without delay. It was not very clear how much she knew of what had happened but she left within a quarter of an hour, tearfully thanking Gregor's mother for her dismissal as if she had done her an enormous service. She even swore emphatically not to tell anyone the slightest about what had happened, even though noone had asked that of her. Now Gregor's sister also had to help his mother with the cooking although that was not so much bother as noone ate very much. Gregor often heard how one of them would unsuccessfully urge another to eat, and receive no more answer than 'no thanks, I've had enough or something similar. Noone drank very much either. His sister would sometimes ask his father whether he would like a beer, hoping for the chance to go and fetch it herself. When his father then said nothing she would add, so that he would not feel selfish, that she could send the housekeeper for it, but then his father would close the matter with a big, loud 'No, and no more would be said. Even before the first day had come to an end, his father had explained to Gregor's mother and sister what their finances and prospects were. Now and then he stood up from the table and took some receipt or document from the little cash box he had saved from his business when it had collapsed five years earlier. Gregor heard how he opened the complicated lock and then closed it again after he had taken the item he wanted. What he heard his father say was some of the first good news that Gregor heard since he had first been incarcerated in his room. He had thought that nothing at all remained from his father's business, at least he had never told him anything different, and Gregor had never asked him about it anyway. Their business misfortune had reduced the family to a state of total despair, and Gregor's only concern at that time had been to arrange things so that they could all forget about it as quickly as possible. So then he started working especially hard, with a fiery vigour that raised him from a junior salesman to a travelling representative almost overnight, bringing with it the chance to earn money in quite different ways. Gregor converted his success at work straight into cash that he could lay on the table at home for the benefit of his astonished and delighted family. They had been good times and they had never come again, at least not with the same splendour, even though Gregor had later earned so much that he was in a position to bear the costs of the whole family, and did bear them. They had even got used to it, both Gregor and the family, they took the money with gratitude and he was glad to provide it, although there was no longer much warm affection given in return. Gregor only remained close to his sister now. Unlike him, she was very fond of music and a gifted and expressive violinist, it was his secret plan to send her to the conservatory next year even though it would cause great expense that would have to be made up for in some other way. During Gregor's short periods in town, conversation with his sister would often turn to the conservatory but it was only ever mentioned as a lovely dream that could never be realised. Their parents did not like to hear this innocent talk, but Gregor thought about it quite hard and decided he would let them know what he planned with a grand announcement of it on Christmas day. That was the sort of totally pointless thing that went through his mind in his present state, pressed upright against the door and listening. There were times when he simply became too tired to continue listening, when his head would fall wearily against the door and he would pull it up again with a start, as even the slightest noise he caused would be heard next door and they would all go silent. 'What's that he's doing now, his father would say after a while, clearly having gone over to the door, and only then would the interrupted conversation slowly be taken up again. When explaining things, his father repeated himself several times, partly because it was a long time since he had been occupied with these matters himself and partly because Gregor's mother did not understand everything the first time. From these repeated explanations Gregor learned, to his pleasure, that despite all their misfortunes there was still some money available from the old days. It was not a lot, but it had not been touched in the meantime and some interest had accumulated. Besides that, they had not been using up all the money that Gregor had been bringing home every month, keeping only a little for himself, so that that, too, had been accumulating. Behind the door, Gregor nodded with enthusiasm in his pleasure at this unexpected thrift and caution. He could actually have used this surplus money to reduce his father's debt to his boss, and the day when he could have freed himself from that job would have come much closer, but now it was certainly better the way his father had done things. This money, however, was certainly not enough to enable the family to live off the interest it was enough to maintain them for, perhaps, one or two years, no more. That's to say, it was money that should not really be touched but set aside for emergencies money to live on had to be earned. His father was healthy but old, and lacking in self confidence. During the five years that he had not been workingthe first holiday in a life that had been full of strain and no successhe had put on a lot of weight and become very slow and clumsy. Would Gregor's elderly mother now have to go and earn money? She suffered from asthma and it was a strain for her just to move about the home, every other day would be spent struggling for breath on the sofa by the open window. Would his sister have to go and earn money? She was still a child of seventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable, consisting of wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the business, joining in with a few modest pleasures and most of all playing the violin. Whenever they began to talk of the need to earn money, Gregor would always first let go of the door and then throw himself onto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he became quite hot with shame and regret. He would often lie there the whole night through, not sleeping a wink but scratching at the leather for hours on end. Or he might go to all the effort of pushing a chair to the window, climbing up onto the sill and, propped up in the chair, leaning on the window to stare out of it. He had used to feel a great sense of freedom from doing this, but doing it now was obviously something more remembered than experienced, as what he actually saw in this way was becoming less distinct every day, even things that were quite near he had used to curse the everpresent view of the hospital across the street, but now he could not see it at all, and if he had not known that he lived in Charlottenstrasse, which was a quiet street despite being in the middle of the city, he could have thought that he was looking out the window at a barren waste where the grey sky and the grey earth mingled inseparably. His observant sister only needed to notice the chair twice before she would always push it back to its exact position by the window after she had tidied up the room, and even left the inner pane of the window open from then on. If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for all that she had to do for him it would have been easier for him to bear it but as it was it caused him pain. His sister, naturally, tried as far as possible to pretend there was nothing burdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of course, the better she was able to do so, but as time went by Gregor was also able to see through it all so much better. It had even become very unpleasant for him, now, whenever she entered the room. No sooner had she come in than she would quickly close the door as a precaution so that noone would have to suffer the view into Gregor's room, then she would go straight to the window and pull it hurriedly open almost as if she were suffocating. Even if it was cold, she would stay at the window breathing deeply for a little while. She would alarm Gregor twice a day with this running about and noise making he would stay under the couch shivering the whole while, knowing full well that she would certainly have liked to spare him this ordeal, but it was impossible for her to be in the same room with him with the windows closed. One day, about a month after Gregor's transformation when his sister no longer had any particular reason to be shocked at his appearance, she came into the room a little earlier than usual and found him still staring out the window, motionless, and just where he would be most horrible. In itself, his sister's not coming into the room would have been no surprise for Gregor as it would have been difficult for her to immediately open the window while he was still there, but not only did she not come in, she went straight back and closed the door behind her, a stranger would have thought he had threatened her and tried to bite her. Gregor went straight to hide himself under the couch, of course, but he had to wait until midday before his sister came back and she seemed much more uneasy than usual. It made him realise that she still found his appearance unbearable and would continue to do so, she probably even had to overcome the urge to flee when she saw the little bit of him that protruded from under the couch. One day, in order to spare her even this sight, he spent four hours carrying the bedsheet over to the couch on his back and arranged it so that he was completely covered and his sister would not be able to see him even if she bent down. If she did not think this sheet was necessary then all she had to do was take it off again, as it was clear enough that it was no pleasure for Gregor to cut himself off so completely. She left the sheet where it was. Gregor even thought he glimpsed a look of gratitude one time when he carefully looked out from under the sheet to see how his sister liked the new arrangement. For the first fourteen days, Gregor's parents could not bring themselves to come into the room to see him. He would often hear them say how they appreciated all the new work his sister was doing even though, before, they had seen her as a girl who was somewhat useless and frequently been annoyed with her. But now the two of them, father and mother, would often both wait outside the door of Gregor's room while his sister tidied up in there, and as soon as she went out again she would have to tell them exactly how everything looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time and whether, perhaps, any slight improvement could be seen. His mother also wanted to go in and visit Gregor relatively soon but his father and sister at first persuaded her against it. Gregor listened very closely to all this, and approved fully. Later, though, she had to be held back by force, which made her call out 'Let me go and see Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can't you understand I have to see him?, and Gregor would think to himself that maybe it would be better if his mother came in, not every day of course, but one day a week, perhaps she could understand everything much better than his sister who, for all her courage, was still just a child after all, and really might not have had an adult's appreciation of the burdensome job she had taken on. Gregor's wish to see his mother was soon realised. Out of consideration for his parents, Gregor wanted to avoid being seen at the window during the day, the few square meters of the floor did not give him much room to crawl about, it was hard to just lie quietly through the night, his food soon stopped giving him any pleasure at all, and so, to entertain himself, he got into the habit of crawling up and down the walls and ceiling. He was especially fond of hanging from the ceiling it was quite different from lying on the floor he could breathe more freely his body had a light swing to it and up there, relaxed and almost happy, it might happen that he would surprise even himself by letting go of the ceiling and landing on the floor with a crash. But now, of course, he had far better control of his body than before and, even with a fall as great as that, caused himself no damage. Very soon his sister noticed Gregor's new way of entertaining himselfhe had, after all, left traces of the adhesive from his feet as he crawled aboutand got it into her head to make it as easy as possible for him by removing the furniture that got in his way, especially the chest of drawers and the desk. Now, this was not something that she would be able to do by herself she did not dare to ask for help from her father the sixteen year old maid had carried on bravely since the cook had left but she certainly would not have helped in this, she had even asked to be allowed to keep the kitchen locked at all times and never to have to open the door unless it was especially important so his sister had no choice but to choose some time when Gregor's father was not there and fetch his mother to help her. As she approached the room, Gregor could hear his mother express her joy, but once at the door she went silent. First, of course, his sister came in and looked round to see that everything in the room was alright and only then did she let her mother enter. Gregor had hurriedly pulled the sheet down lower over the couch and put more folds into it so that everything really looked as if it had just been thrown down by chance. Gregor also refrained, this time, from spying out from under the sheet he gave up the chance to see his mother until later and was simply glad that she had come. 'You can come in, he can't be seen, said his sister, obviously leading her in by the hand. The old chest of drawers was too heavy for a pair of feeble women to be heaving about, but Gregor listened as they pushed it from its place, his sister always taking on the heaviest part of the work for herself and ignoring her mother's warnings that she would strain herself. This lasted a very long time. After labouring at it for fifteen minutes or more his mother said it would be better to leave the chest where it was, for one thing it was too heavy for them to get the job finished before Gregor's father got home and leaving it in the middle of the room it would be in his way even more, and for another thing it wasn't even sure that taking the furniture away would really be any help to him. She thought just the opposite the sight of the bare walls saddened her right to her heart and why wouldn't Gregor feel the same way about it, he'd been used to this furniture in his room for a long time and it would make him feel abandoned to be in an empty room like that. Then, quietly, almost whispering as if wanting Gregor (whose whereabouts she did not know) to hear not even the tone of her voice, as she was convinced that he did not understand her words, she added 'and by taking the furniture away, won't it seem like we're showing that we've given up all hope of improvement and we're abandoning him to cope for himself? I think it'd be best to leave the room exactly the way it was before so that when Gregor comes back to us again he'll find everything unchanged and he'll be able to forget the time in between all the easier. Hearing these words from his mother made Gregor realise that the lack of any direct human communication, along with the monotonous life led by the family during these two months, must have made him confusedhe could think of no other way of explaining to himself why he had seriously wanted his room emptied out. Had he really wanted to transform his room into a cave, a warm room fitted out with the nice furniture he had inherited? That would have let him crawl around unimpeded in any direction, but it would also have let him quickly forget his past when he had still been human. He had come very close to forgetting, and it had only been the voice of his mother, unheard for so long, that had shaken him out of it. Nothing should be removed everything had to stay he could not do without the good influence the furniture had on his condition and if the furniture made it difficult for him to crawl about mindlessly that was not a loss but a great advantage. His sister, unfortunately, did not agree she had become used to the idea, not without reason, that she was Gregor's spokesman to his parents about the things that concerned him. This meant that his mother's advice now was sufficient reason for her to insist on removing not only the chest of drawers and the desk, as she had thought at first, but all the furniture apart from the allimportant couch. It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become enthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor's situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would dare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls by himself. So she refused to let her mother dissuade her. Gregor's mother already looked uneasy in his room, she soon stopped speaking and helped Gregor's sister to get the chest of drawers out with what strength she had. The chest of drawers was something that Gregor could do without if he had to, but the writing desk had to stay. Hardly had the two women pushed the chest of drawers, groaning, out of the room than Gregor poked his head out from under the couch to see what he could do about it. He meant to be as careful and considerate as he could, but, unfortunately, it was his mother who came back first while Grete in the next room had her arms round the chest, pushing and pulling at it from side to side by herself without, of course, moving it an inch. His mother was not used to the sight of Gregor, he might have made her ill, so Gregor hurried backwards to the far end of the couch. In his startlement, though, he was not able to prevent the sheet at its front from moving a little. It was enough to attract his mother's attention. She stood very still, remained there a moment, and then went back out to Grete. Gregor kept trying to assure himself that nothing unusual was happening, it was just a few pieces of furniture being moved after all, but he soon had to admit that the women going to and fro, their little calls to each other, the scraping of the furniture on the floor, all these things made him feel as if he were being assailed from all sides. With his head and legs pulled in against him and his body pressed to the floor, he was forced to admit to himself that he could not stand all of this much longer. They were emptying his room out taking away everything that was dear to him they had already taken out the chest containing his fretsaw and other tools now they threatened to remove the writing desk with its place clearly worn into the floor, the desk where he had done his homework as a business trainee, at high school, even while he had been at infant schoolhe really could not wait any longer to see whether the two women's intentions were good. He had nearly forgotten they were there anyway, as they were now too tired to say anything while they worked and he could only hear their feet as they stepped heavily on the floor. So, while the women were leant against the desk in the other room catching their breath, he sallied out, changed direction four times not knowing what he should save first before his attention was suddenly caught by the picture on the wallwhich was already denuded of everything else that had been on itof the lady dressed in copious fur. He hurried up onto the picture and pressed himself against its glass, it held him firmly and felt good on his hot belly. This picture at least, now totally covered by Gregor, would certainly be taken away by noone. He turned his head to face the door into the living room so that he could watch the women when they came back. They had not allowed themselves a long rest and came back quite soon Grete had put her arm around her mother and was nearly carrying her. 'What shall we take now, then?, said Grete and looked around. Her eyes met those of Gregor on the wall. Perhaps only because her mother was there, she remained calm, bent her face to her so that she would not look round and said, albeit hurriedly and with a tremor in her voice 'Come on, let's go back in the living room for a while? Gregor could see what Grete had in mind, she wanted to take her mother somewhere safe and then chase him down from the wall. Well, she could certainly try it! He sat unyielding on his picture. He would rather jump at Grete's face. But Grete's words had made her mother quite worried, she stepped to one side, saw the enormous brown patch against the flowers of the wallpaper, and before she even realised it was Gregor that she saw screamed 'Oh God, oh God! Arms outstretched, she fell onto the couch as if she had given up everything and stayed there immobile. 'Gregor! shouted his sister, glowering at him and shaking her fist. That was the first word she had spoken to him directly since his transformation. She ran into the other room to fetch some kind of smelling salts to bring her mother out of her faint Gregor wanted to help toohe could save his picture later, although he stuck fast to the glass and had to pull himself off by force then he, too, ran into the next room as if he could advise his sister like in the old days but he had to just stand behind her doing nothing she was looking into various bottles, he startled her when she turned round a bottle fell to the ground and broke a splinter cut Gregor's face, some kind of caustic medicine splashed all over him now, without delaying any longer, Grete took hold of all the bottles she could and ran with them in to her mother she slammed the door shut with her foot. So now Gregor was shut out from his mother, who, because of him, might be near to death he could not open the door if he did not want to chase his sister away, and she had to stay with his mother there was nothing for him to do but wait and, oppressed with anxiety and selfreproach, he began to crawl about, he crawled over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and finally in his confusion as the whole room began to spin around him he fell down into the middle of the dinner table. He lay there for a while, numb and immobile, all around him it was quiet, maybe that was a good sign. Then there was someone at the door. The maid, of course, had locked herself in her kitchen so that Grete would have to go and answer it. His father had arrived home. 'What's happened? were his first words Grete's appearance must have made everything clear to him. She answered him with subdued voice, and openly pressed her face into his chest 'Mother's fainted, but she's better now. Gregor got out. 'Just as I expected, said his father, 'just as I always said, but you women wouldn't listen, would you. It was clear to Gregor that Grete had not said enough and that his father took it to mean that something bad had happened, that he was responsible for some act of violence. That meant Gregor would now have to try to calm his father, as he did not have the time to explain things to him even if that had been possible. So he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself against it so that his father, when he came in from the hall, could see straight away that Gregor had the best intentions and would go back into his room without delay, that it would not be necessary to drive him back but that they had only to open the door and he would disappear. His father, though, was not in the mood to notice subtleties like that 'Ah!, he shouted as he came in, sounding as if he were both angry and glad at the same time. Gregor drew his head back from the door and lifted it towards his father. He really had not imagined his father the way he stood there now of late, with his new habit of crawling about, he had neglected to pay attention to what was going on the rest of the flat the way he had done before. He really ought to have expected things to have changed, but still, still, was that really his father? The same tired man as used to be laying there entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business trips, who would receive him sitting in the armchair in his nightgown when he came back in the evenings who was hardly even able to stand up but, as a sign of his pleasure, would just raise his arms and who, on the couple of times a year when they went for a walk together on a Sunday or public holiday wrapped up tightly in his overcoat between Gregor and his mother, would always labour his way forward a little more slowly than them, who were already walking slowly for his sake who would place his stick down carefully and, if he wanted to say something would invariably stop and gather his companions around him. He was standing up straight enough now dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, the sort worn by the employees at the banking institute above the high, stiff collar of the coat his strong doublechin emerged under the bushy eyebrows, his piercing, dark eyes looked out fresh and alert his normally unkempt white hair was combed down painfully close to his scalp. He took his cap, with its gold monogram from, probably, some bank, and threw it in an arc right across the room onto the sofa, put his hands in his trouser pockets, pushing back the bottom of his long uniform coat, and, with look of determination, walked towards Gregor. He probably did not even know himself what he had in mind, but nonetheless lifted his feet unusually high. Gregor was amazed at the enormous size of the soles of his boots, but wasted no time with thathe knew full well, right from the first day of his new life, that his father thought it necessary to always be extremely strict with him. And so he ran up to his father, stopped when his father stopped, scurried forwards again when he moved, even slightly. In this way they went round the room several times without anything decisive happening, without even giving the impression of a chase as everything went so slowly. Gregor remained all this time on the floor, largely because he feared his father might see it as especially provoking if he fled onto the wall or ceiling. Whatever he did, Gregor had to admit that he certainly would not be able to keep up this running about for long, as for each step his father took he had to carry out countless movements. He became noticeably short of breath, even in his earlier life his lungs had not been very reliable. Now, as he lurched about in his efforts to muster all the strength he could for running he could hardly keep his eyes open his thoughts became too slow for him to think of any other way of saving himself than running he almost forgot that the walls were there for him to use although, here, they were concealed behind carefully carved furniture full of notches and protrusionsthen, right beside him, lightly tossed, something flew down and rolled in front of him. It was an apple then another one immediately flew at him Gregor froze in shock there was no longer any point in running as his father had decided to bombard him. He had filled his pockets with fruit from the bowl on the sideboard and now, without even taking the time for careful aim, threw one apple after another. These little, red apples rolled about on the floor, knocking into each other as if they had electric motors. An apple thrown without much force glanced against Gregor's back and slid off without doing any harm. Another one however, immediately following it, hit squarely and lodged in his back Gregor wanted to drag himself away, as if he could remove the surprising, the incredible pain by changing his position but he felt as if nailed to the spot and spread himself out, all his senses in confusion. The last thing he saw was the door of his room being pulled open, his sister was screaming, his mother ran out in front of her in her blouse (as his sister had taken off some of her clothes after she had fainted to make it easier for her to breathe), she ran to his father, her skirts unfastened and sliding one after another to the ground, stumbling over the skirts she pushed herself to his father, her arms around him, uniting herself with him totallynow Gregor lost his ability to see anythingher hands behind his father's head begging him to spare Gregor's life. Noone dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor's flesh, so it remained there as a visible reminder of his injury. He had suffered it there for more than a month, and his condition seemed serious enough to remind even his father that Gregor, despite his current sad and revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated as an enemy. On the contrary, as a family there was a duty to swallow any revulsion for him and to be patient, just to be patient. Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobilityprobably permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across his roomcrawling over the ceiling was out of the questionbut this deterioration in his condition was fully (in his opinion) made up for by the door to the living room being left open every evening. He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room where he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the family in the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversationwith everyone's permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before. They no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of course, the ones that Gregor always thought about with longing when he was tired and getting into the damp bed in some small hotel room. All of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, his father would go to sleep in his chair his mother and sister would urge each other to be quiet his mother, bent deeply under the lamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop his sister, who had taken a sales job, learned shorthand and French in the evenings so that she might be able to get a better position later on. Sometimes his father would wake up and say to Gregor's mother 'you're doing so much sewing again today!, as if he did not know that he had been dozingand then he would go back to sleep again while mother and sister would exchange a tired grin. With a kind of stubbornness, Gregor's father refused to take his uniform off even at home while his nightgown hung unused on its peg Gregor's father would slumber where he was, fully dressed, as if always ready to serve and expecting to hear the voice of his superior even here. The uniform had not been new to start with, but as a result of this it slowly became even shabbier despite the efforts of Gregor's mother and sister to look after it. Gregor would often spend the whole evening looking at all the stains on this coat, with its gold buttons always kept polished and shiny, while the old man in it would sleep, highly uncomfortable but peaceful. As soon as it struck ten, Gregor's mother would speak gently to his father to wake him and try to persuade him to go to bed, as he couldn't sleep properly where he was and he really had to get his sleep if he was to be up at six to get to work. But since he had been in work he had become more obstinate and would always insist on staying longer at the table, even though he regularly fell asleep and it was then harder than ever to persuade him to exchange the chair for his bed. Then, however much mother and sister would importune him with little reproaches and warnings he would keep slowly shaking his head for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed and refusing to get up. Gregor's mother would tug at his sleeve, whisper endearments into his ear, Gregor's sister would leave her work to help her mother, but nothing would have any effect on him. He would just sink deeper into his chair. Only when the two women took him under the arms he would abruptly open his eyes, look at them one after the other and say 'What a life! This is what peace I get in my old age! And supported by the two women he would lift himself up carefully as if he were carrying the greatest load himself, let the women take him to the door, send them off and carry on by himself while Gregor's mother would throw down her needle and his sister her pen so that they could run after his father and continue being of help to him. Who, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to give more attention to Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The household budget became even smaller so now the maid was dismissed an enormous, thickboned charwoman with white hair that flapped around her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest work everything else was looked after by Gregor's mother on top of the large amount of sewing work she did. Gregor even learned, listening to the evening conversation about what price they had hoped for, that several items of jewellery belonging to the family had been sold, even though both mother and sister had been very fond of wearing them at functions and celebrations. But the loudest complaint was that although the flat was much too big for their present circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was no imaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new address. He could see quite well, though, that there were more reasons than consideration for him that made it difficult for them to move, it would have been quite easy to transport him in any suitable crate with a few air holes in it the main thing holding the family back from their decision to move was much more to do with their total despair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune unlike anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related to. They carried out absolutely everything that the world expects from poor people, Gregor's father brought bank employees their breakfast, his mother sacrificed herself by washing clothes for strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind her desk at the behest of the customers, but they just did not have the strength to do any more. And the injury in Gregor's back began to hurt as much as when it was new. After they had come back from taking his father to bed Gregor's mother and sister would now leave their work where it was and sit close together, cheek to cheek his mother would point to Gregor's room and say 'Close that door, Grete, and then, when he was in the dark again, they would sit in the next room and their tears would mingle, or they would simply sit there staring dryeyed at the table. Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would think of taking over the family's affairs, just like before, the next time the door was opened he had long forgotten about his boss and the chief clerk, but they would appear again in his thoughts, the salesmen and the apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three friends from other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a provincial hotel, a tender memory that appeared and disappeared again, a cashier from a hat shop for whom his attention had been serious but too slow,all of them appeared to him, mixed together with strangers and others he had forgotten, but instead of helping him and his family they were all of them inaccessible, and he was glad when they disappeared. Other times he was not at all in the mood to look after his family, he was filled with simple rage about the lack of attention he was shown, and although he could think of nothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he could get into the pantry where he could take all the things he was entitled to, even if he was not hungry. Gregor's sister no longer thought about how she could please him but would hurriedly push some food or other into his room with her foot before she rushed out to work in the morning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away again with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten ormore often than nothad been left totally untouched. She still cleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been any quicker about it. Smears of dirt were left on the walls, here and there were little balls of dust and filth. At first, Gregor went into one of the worst of these places when his sister arrived as a reproach to her, but he could have stayed there for weeks without his sister doing anything about it she could see the dirt as well as he could but she had simply decided to leave him to it. At the same time she became touchy in a way that was quite new for her and which everyone in the family understoodcleaning up Gregor's room was for her and her alone. Gregor's mother did once thoroughly clean his room, and needed to use several bucketfuls of water to do italthough that much dampness also made Gregor ill and he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But his mother was to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly had his sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the change in Gregor's room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living room where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she broke into convulsive tears. Her father, of course, was startled out of his chair and the two parents looked on astonished and helpless then they, too, became agitated Gregor's father, standing to the right of his mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning of Gregor's room to his sister from her left, Gregor's sister screamed at her that she was never to clean Gregor's room again while his mother tried to draw his father, who was beside himself with anger, into the bedroom his sister, quaking with tears, thumped on the table with her small fists and Gregor hissed in anger that noone had even thought of closing the door to save him the sight of this and all its noise. Gregor's sister was exhausted from going out to work, and looking after Gregor as she had done before was even more work for her, but even so his mother ought certainly not to have taken her place. Gregor, on the other hand, ought not to be neglected. Now, though, the charwoman was here. This elderly widow, with a robust bone structure that made her able to withstand the hardest of things in her long life, wasn't really repelled by Gregor. Just by chance one day, rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to Gregor's room and found herself face to face with him. He was taken totally by surprise, noone was chasing him but he began to rush to and fro while she just stood there in amazement with her hands crossed in front of her. From then on she never failed to open the door slightly every evening and morning and look briefly in on him. At first she would call to him as she did so with words that she probably considered friendly, such as 'come on then, you old dungbeetle!, or 'look at the old dungbeetle there! Gregor never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where he was without moving as if the door had never even been opened. If only they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every day instead of letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt like it! One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the windowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she began to speak to him in that way once again. Gregor was so resentful of it that he started to move toward her, he was slow and infirm, but it was like a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the charwoman just lifted up one of the chairs from near the door and stood there with her mouth open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the chair in her hand had been slammed down into Gregor's back. 'Aren't you coming any closer, then?, she asked when Gregor turned round again, and she calmly put the chair back in the corner. Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to find himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he might take some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there a few hours and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At first he thought it was distress at the state of his room that stopped him eating, but he had soon got used to the changes made there. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room that they had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many such things as one of the rooms in the flat had been rented out to three gentlemen. These earnest gentlemenall three of them had full beards, as Gregor learned peering through the crack in the door one daywere painfully insistent on things' being tidy. This meant not only in their own room but, since they had taken a room in this establishment, in the entire flat and especially in the kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate, especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many things had become superfluous which, although they could not be sold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found their way into Gregor's room. The dustbins from the kitchen found their way in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and anything she couldn't use for the time being she would just chuck in there. He, fortunately, would usually see no more than the object and the hand that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the things back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw everything out in one go, but what actually happened was that they were left where they landed when they had first been thrown unless Gregor made his way through the junk and moved it somewhere else. At first he moved it because, with no other room free where he could crawl about, he was forced to, but later on he came to enjoy it although moving about in that way left him sad and tired to death, and he would remain immobile for hours afterwards. The gentlemen who rented the room would sometimes take their evening meal at home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so the door to this room was often kept closed in the evening. But Gregor found it easy to give up having the door open, he had, after all, often failed to make use of it when it was open and, without the family having noticed it, lain in his room in its darkest corner. One time, though, the charwoman left the door to the living room slightly open, and it remained open when the gentlemen who rented the room came in in the evening and the light was put on. They sat up at the table where, formerly, Gregor had taken his meals with his father and mother, they unfolded the serviettes and picked up their knives and forks. Gregor's mother immediately appeared in the doorway with a dish of meat and soon behind her came his sister with a dish piled high with potatoes. The food was steaming, and filled the room with its smell. The gentlemen bent over the dishes set in front of them as if they wanted to test the food before eating it, and the gentleman in the middle, who seemed to count as an authority for the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of meat while it was still in its dish, clearly wishing to establish whether it was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to the kitchen. It was to his satisfaction, and Gregor's mother and sister, who had been looking on anxiously, began to breathe again and smiled. The family themselves ate in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor's father came into the living room before he went into the kitchen, bowed once with his cap in his hand and did his round of the table. The gentlemen stood as one, and mumbled something into their beards. Then, once they were alone, they ate in near perfect silence. It seemed remarkable to Gregor that above all the various noises of eating their chewing teeth could still be heard, as if they had wanted to show Gregor that you need teeth in order to eat and it was not possible to perform anything with jaws that are toothless however nice they might be. 'I'd like to eat something, said Gregor anxiously, 'but not anything like they're eating. They do feed themselves. And here I am, dying! Throughout all this time, Gregor could not remember having heard the violin being played, but this evening it began to be heard from the kitchen. The three gentlemen had already finished their meal, the one in the middle had produced a newspaper, given a page to each of the others, and now they leant back in their chairs reading them and smoking. When the violin began playing they became attentive, stood up and went on tiptoe over to the door of the hallway where they stood pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in the kitchen, as Gregor's father called out 'Is the playing perhaps unpleasant for the gentlemen? We can stop it straight away. 'On the contrary, said the middle gentleman, 'would the young lady not like to come in and play for us here in the room, where it is, after all, much more cosy and comfortable? 'Oh yes, we'd love to, called back Gregor's father as if he had been the violin player himself. The gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited. Gregor's father soon appeared with the music stand, his mother with the music and his sister with the violin. She calmly prepared everything for her to begin playing his parents, who had never rented a room out before and therefore showed an exaggerated courtesy towards the three gentlemen, did not even dare to sit on their own chairs his father leant against the door with his right hand pushed in between two buttons on his uniform coat his mother, though, was offered a seat by one of the gentlemen and satleaving the chair where the gentleman happened to have placed itout of the way in a corner. His sister began to play father and mother paid close attention, one on each side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the playing, Gregor had dared to come forward a little and already had his head in the living room. Before, he had taken great pride in how considerate he was but now it hardly occurred to him that he had become so thoughtless about the others. What's more, there was now all the more reason to keep himself hidden as he was covered in the dust that lay everywhere in his room and flew up at the slightest movement he carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on his back and sides he was much too indifferent to everything now to lay on his back and wipe himself on the carpet like he had used to do several times a day. And despite this condition, he was not too shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living room. Noone noticed him, though. The family was totally preoccupied with the violin playing at first, the three gentlemen had put their hands in their pockets and come up far too close behind the music stand to look at all the notes being played, and they must have disturbed Gregor's sister, but soon, in contrast with the family, they withdrew back to the window with their heads sunk and talking to each other at half volume, and they stayed by the window while Gregor's father observed them anxiously. It really now seemed very obvious that they had expected to hear some beautiful or entertaining violin playing but had been disappointed, that they had had enough of the whole performance and it was only now out of politeness that they allowed their peace to be disturbed. It was especially unnerving, the way they all blew the smoke from their cigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses. Yet Gregor's sister was playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side, following the lines of music with a careful and melancholy expression. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his head close to the ground so that he could meet her eyes if the chance came. Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? It seemed to him that he was being shown the way to the unknown nourishment he had been yearning for. He was determined to make his way forward to his sister and tug at her skirt to show her she might come into his room with her violin, as noone appreciated her playing here as much as he would. He never wanted to let her out of his room, not while he lived, anyway his shocking appearance should, for once, be of some use to him he wanted to be at every door of his room at once to hiss and spit at the attackers his sister should not be forced to stay with him, though, but stay of her own free will she would sit beside him on the couch with her ear bent down to him while he told her how he had always intended to send her to the conservatory, how he would have told everyone about it last Christmashad Christmas really come and gone already?if this misfortune hadn't got in the way, and refuse to let anyone dissuade him from it. On hearing all this, his sister would break out in tears of emotion, and Gregor would climb up to her shoulder and kiss her neck, which, since she had been going out to work, she had kept free without any necklace or collar. 'Mr. Samsa!, shouted the middle gentleman to Gregor's father, pointing, without wasting any more words, with his forefinger at Gregor as he slowly moved forward. The violin went silent, the middle of the three gentlemen first smiled at his two friends, shaking his head, and then looked back at Gregor. His father seemed to think it more important to calm the three gentlemen before driving Gregor out, even though they were not at all upset and seemed to think Gregor was more entertaining than the violin playing had been. He rushed up to them with his arms spread out and attempted to drive them back into their room at the same time as trying to block their view of Gregor with his body. Now they did become a little annoyed, and it was not clear whether it was his father's behaviour that annoyed them or the dawning realisation that they had had a neighbour like Gregor in the next room without knowing it. They asked Gregor's father for explanations, raised their arms like he had, tugged excitedly at their beards and moved back towards their room only very slowly. Meanwhile Gregor's sister had overcome the despair she had fallen into when her playing was suddenly interrupted. She had let her hands drop and let violin and bow hang limply for a while but continued to look at the music as if still playing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together, lay the instrument on her mother's lap who still sat laboriously struggling for breath where she was, and ran into the next room which, under pressure from her father, the three gentlemen were more quickly moving toward. Under his sister's experienced hand, the pillows and covers on the beds flew up and were put into order and she had already finished making the beds and slipped out again before the three gentlemen had reached the room. Gregor's father seemed so obsessed with what he was doing that he forgot all the respect he owed to his tenants. He urged them and pressed them until, when he was already at the door of the room, the middle of the three gentlemen shouted like thunder and stamped his foot and thereby brought Gregor's father to a halt. 'I declare here and now, he said, raising his hand and glancing at Gregor's mother and sister to gain their attention too, 'that with regard to the repugnant conditions that prevail in this flat and with this familyhere he looked briefly but decisively at the floor'I give immediate notice on my room. For the days that I have been living here I will, of course, pay nothing at all, on the contrary I will consider whether to proceed with some kind of action for damages from you, and believe me it would be very easy to set out the grounds for such an action. He was silent and looked straight ahead as if waiting for something. And indeed, his two friends joined in with the words 'And we also give immediate notice. With that, he took hold of the door handle and slammed the door. Gregor's father staggered back to his seat, feeling his way with his hands, and fell into it it looked as if he was stretching himself out for his usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way his head kept nodding it could be seen that he was not sleeping at all. Throughout all this, Gregor had lain still where the three gentlemen had first seen him. His disappointment at the failure of his plan, and perhaps also because he was weak from hunger, made it impossible for him to move. He was sure that everyone would turn on him any moment, and he waited. He was not even startled out of this state when the violin on his mother's lap fell from her trembling fingers and landed loudly on the floor. 'Father, Mother, said his sister, hitting the table with her hand as introduction, 'we can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see it, but I can. I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I can say is we have to try and get rid of it. We've done all that's humanly possible to look after it and be patient, I don't think anyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong. 'She's absolutely right, said Gregor's father to himself. His mother, who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to cough dully, her hand held out in front of her and a deranged expression in her eyes. Gregor's sister rushed to his mother and put her hand on her forehead. Her words seemed to give Gregor's father some more definite ideas. He sat upright, played with his uniform cap between the plates left by the three gentlemen after their meal, and occasionally looked down at Gregor as he lay there immobile. 'We have to try and get rid of it, said Gregor's sister, now speaking only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with coughing to listen, 'it'll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming. We can't all work as hard as we have to and then come home to be tortured like this, we can't endure it. I can't endure it any more. And she broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down the face of her mother, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand movements. 'My child, said her father with sympathy and obvious understanding, 'what are we to do? His sister just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness and tears that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier certainty. 'If he could just understand us, said his father almost as a question his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as a sign that of that there was no question. 'If he could just understand us, repeated Gregor's father, closing his eyes in acceptance of his sister's certainty that that was quite impossible, 'then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement with him. But as it is ... 'It's got to go, shouted his sister, 'that's the only way, Father. You've got to get rid of the idea that that's Gregor. We've only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be Gregor? If it were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it's not possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he would have gone of his own free will. We wouldn't have a brother any more, then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember him with respect. As it is this animal is persecuting us, it's driven out our tenants, it obviously wants to take over the whole flat and force us to sleep on the streets. Father, look, just look, she suddenly screamed, 'he's starting again! In her alarm, which was totally beyond Gregor's comprehension, his sister even abandoned his mother as she pushed herself vigorously out of her chair as if more willing to sacrifice her own mother than stay anywhere near Gregor. She rushed over to behind her father, who had become excited merely because she was and stood up half raising his hands in front of Gregor's sister as if to protect her. But Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all his sister. All he had done was begin to turn round so that he could go back into his room, although that was in itself quite startling as his painwracked condition meant that turning round required a great deal of effort and he was using his head to help himself do it, repeatedly raising it and striking it against the floor. He stopped and looked round. They seemed to have realised his good intention and had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all looked at him in unhappy silence. His mother lay in her chair with her legs stretched out and pressed against each other, her eyes nearly closed with exhaustion his sister sat next to his father with her arms around his neck. 'Maybe now they'll let me turn round, thought Gregor and went back to work. He could not help panting loudly with the effort and had sometimes to stop and take a rest. Noone was making him rush any more, everything was left up to him. As soon as he had finally finished turning round he began to move straight ahead. He was amazed at the great distance that separated him from his room, and could not understand how he had covered that distance in his weak state a little while before and almost without noticing it. He concentrated on crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that there was not a word, not any cry, from his family to distract him. He did not turn his head until he had reached the doorway. He did not turn it all the way round as he felt his neck becoming stiff, but it was nonetheless enough to see that nothing behind him had changed, only his sister had stood up. With his last glance he saw that his mother had now fallen completely asleep. He was hardly inside his room before the door was hurriedly shut, bolted and locked. The sudden noise behind Gregor so startled him that his little legs collapsed under him. It was his sister who had been in so much of a rush. She had been standing there waiting and sprung forward lightly, Gregor had not heard her coming at all, and as she turned the key in the lock she said loudly to her parents 'At last!. 'What now, then?, Gregor asked himself as he looked round in the darkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move at all. This was no surprise to him, it seemed rather that being able to actually move around on those spindly little legs until then was unnatural. He also felt relatively comfortable. It is true that his entire body was aching, but the pain seemed to be slowly getting weaker and weaker and would finally disappear altogether. He could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. He thought back of his family with emotion and love. If it was possible, he felt that he must go away even more strongly than his sister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination until he heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. He watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the window too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down completely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils. When the cleaner came in early in the morningthey'd often asked her not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her hurry she still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she'd arrived and from then on it was impossible to sleep in peaceshe made her usual brief look in on Gregor and at first found nothing special. She thought he was laying there so still on purpose, playing the martyr she attributed all possible understanding to him. She happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, so she tried to tickle Gregor with it from the doorway. When she had no success with that she tried to make a nuisance of herself and poked at him a little, and only when she found she could shove him across the floor with no resistance at all did she start to pay attention. She soon realised what had really happened, opened her eyes wide, whistled to herself, but did not waste time to yank open the bedroom doors and shout loudly into the darkness of the bedrooms 'Come and 'ave a look at this, it's dead, just lying there, stone dead! Mr. and Mrs. Samsa sat upright there in their marriage bed and had to make an effort to get over the shock caused by the cleaner before they could grasp what she was saying. But then, each from his own side, they hurried out of bed. Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his shoulders, Mrs. Samsa just came out in her nightdress and that is how they went into Gregor's room. On the way they opened the door to the living room where Grete had been sleeping since the three gentlemen had moved in she was fully dressed as if she had never been asleep, and the paleness of her face seemed to confirm this. 'Dead?, asked Mrs. Samsa, looking at the charwoman enquiringly, even though she could have checked for herself and could have known it even without checking. 'That's what I said, replied the cleaner, and to prove it she gave Gregor's body another shove with the broom, sending it sideways across the floor. Mrs. Samsa made a movement as if she wanted to hold back the broom, but did not complete it. 'Now then, said Mr. Samsa, 'let's give thanks to God for that. He crossed himself, and the three women followed his example. Grete, who had not taken her eyes from the corpse, said 'Just look how thin he was. He didn't eat anything for so long. The food came out again just the same as when it went in. Gregor's body was indeed completely dried up and flat, they had not seen it until then, but now he was not lifted up on his little legs, nor did he do anything to make them look away. 'Grete, come with us in here for a little while, said Mrs. Samsa with a pained smile, and Grete followed her parents into the bedroom but not without looking back at the body. The cleaner shut the door and opened the window wide. Although it was still early in the morning the fresh air had something of warmth mixed in with it. It was already the end of March, after all. The three gentlemen stepped out of their room and looked round in amazement for their breakfasts they had been forgotten about. 'Where is our breakfast?, the middle gentleman asked the cleaner irritably. She just put her finger on her lips and made a quick and silent sign to the men that they might like to come into Gregor's room. They did so, and stood around Gregor's corpse with their hands in the pockets of their wellworn coats. It was now quite light in the room. Then the door of the bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his uniform with his wife on one arm and his daughter on the other. All of them had been crying a little Grete now and then pressed her face against her father's arm. 'Leave my home. Now!, said Mr. Samsa, indicating the door and without letting the women from him. 'What do you mean?, asked the middle of the three gentlemen somewhat disconcerted, and he smiled sweetly. The other two held their hands behind their backs and continually rubbed them together in gleeful anticipation of a loud quarrel which could only end in their favour. 'I mean just what I said, answered Mr. Samsa, and, with his two companions, went in a straight line towards the man. At first, he stood there still, looking at the ground as if the contents of his head were rearranging themselves into new positions. 'Alright, we'll go then, he said, and looked up at Mr. Samsa as if he had been suddenly overcome with humility and wanted permission again from Mr. Samsa for his decision. Mr. Samsa merely opened his eyes wide and briefly nodded to him several times. At that, and without delay, the man actually did take long strides into the front hallway his two friends had stopped rubbing their hands some time before and had been listening to what was being said. Now they jumped off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that Mr. Samsa might go into the hallway in front of them and break the connection with their leader. Once there, all three took their hats from the stand, took their sticks from the holder, bowed without a word and left the premises. Mr. Samsa and the two women followed them out onto the landing but they had had no reason to mistrust the men's intentions and as they leaned over the landing they saw how the three gentlemen made slow but steady progress down the many steps. As they turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and would reappear a few moments later the further down they went, the more that the Samsa family lost interest in them when a butcher's boy, proud of posture with his tray on his head, passed them on his way up and came nearer than they were, Mr. Samsa and the women came away from the landing and went, as if relieved, back into the flat. They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation and to go for a walk not only had they earned a break from work but they were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote three letters of excusal, Mr. Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa to her contractor and Grete to her principal. The cleaner came in while they were writing to tell them she was going, she'd finished her work for that morning. The three of them at first just nodded without looking up from what they were writing, and it was only when the cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up in irritation. 'Well?, asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in the doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous good news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked to. The almost vertical little ostrich feather on her hat, which had been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all directions. 'What is it you want then?, asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaner had the most respect for. 'Yes, she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, 'well then, that thing in there, you needn't worry about how you're going to get rid of it. That's all been sorted out. Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were writing Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite clear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling them all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in and, clearly peeved, called out 'Cheerio then, everyone, turned round sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went. 'Tonight she gets sacked, said Mr. Samsa, but he received no reply from either his wife or his daughter as the charwoman seemed to have destroyed the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went over to the window where they remained with their arms around each other. Mr. Samsa twisted round in his chair to look at them and sat there watching for a while. Then he called out 'Come here, then. Let's forget about all that old stuff, shall we. Come and give me a bit of attention. The two women immediately did as he said, hurrying over to him where they kissed him and hugged him and then they quickly finished their letters. After that, the three of them left the flat together, which was something they had not done for months, and took the tram out to the open country outside the town. They had the tram, filled with warm sunshine, all to themselves. Leant back comfortably on their seats, they discussed their prospects and found that on closer examination they were not at all baduntil then they had never asked each other about their work but all three had jobs which were very good and held particularly good promise for the future. The greatest improvement for the time being, of course, would be achieved quite easily by moving house what they needed now was a flat that was smaller and cheaper than the current one which had been chosen by Gregor, one that was in a better location and, most of all, more practical. All the time, Grete was becoming livelier. With all the worry they had been having of late her cheeks had become pale, but, while they were talking, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa were struck, almost simultaneously, with the thought of how their daughter was blossoming into a well built and beautiful young lady. They became quieter. Just from each other's glance and almost without knowing it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man for her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions, as soon as they reached their destination Grete was the first to get up and stretch out her young body.
'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. 'It's so dreadful to be poor! sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. 'I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all, added little Amy, with an injured sniff. 'We've got Father and Mother, and each other, said Beth contentedly from her corner. The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, 'We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time. She didn't say 'perhaps never, but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was. Nobody spoke for a minute then Meg said in an altered tone, 'You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army. We can't do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don't, and Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted. 'But I don't think the little we should spend would do any good. We've each got a dollar, and the army wouldn't be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintran for myself. I've wanted it so long, said Jo, who was a bookworm. 'I planned to spend mine in new music, said Beth, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettleholder. 'I shall get a nice box of Faber's drawing pencils I really need them, said Amy decidedly. 'Mother didn't say anything about our money, and she won't wish us to give up everything. Let's each buy what we want, and have a little fun I'm sure we work hard enough to earn it, cried Jo, examining the heels of her shoes in a gentlemanly manner. 'I know I doteaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I'm longing to enjoy myself at home, began Meg, in the complaining tone again. 'You don't have half such a hard time as I do, said Jo. 'How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out the window or cry? 'It's naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get so stiff, I can't practice well at all. And Beth looked at her rough hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time. 'I don't believe any of you suffer as I do, cried Amy, 'for you don't have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice. 'If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle, advised Jo, laughing. 'I know what I mean, and you needn't be statirical about it. It's proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary, returned Amy, with dignity. 'Don't peck at one another, children. Don't you wish we had the money Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we'd be, if we had no worries! said Meg, who could remember better times. 'You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of their money. 'So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work, we make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say. 'Jo does use such slang words! observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle. 'Don't, Jo. It's so boyish! 'That's why I do it. 'I detest rude, unladylike girls! 'I hate affected, niminypiminy chits! 'Birds in their little nests agree, sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the 'pecking ended for that time. 'Really, girls, you are both to be blamed, said Meg, beginning to lecture in her eldersisterly fashion. 'You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady. 'I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty, cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. 'I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman! And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room. 'Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls, said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch. 'As for you, Amy, continued Meg, 'you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose, if you don't take care. I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking, when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's slang. 'If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please? asked Beth, ready to share the lecture. 'You're a dear, and nothing else, answered Meg warmly, and no one contradicted her, for the 'Mouse' was the pet of the family. As young readers like to know 'how people look', we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it. Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteenyearold Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn't like it. Elizabeth, or Beth, as everyone called her, was a rosy, smoothhaired, brighteyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom disturbed. Her father called her 'Little Miss Tranquility', and the name suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least. A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners. What the characters of the four sisters were we will leave to be found out. The clock struck six and, having swept up the hearth, Beth put a pair of slippers down to warm. Somehow the sight of the old shoes had a good effect upon the girls, for Mother was coming, and everyone brightened to welcome her. Meg stopped lecturing, and lighted the lamp, Amy got out of the easy chair without being asked, and Jo forgot how tired she was as she sat up to hold the slippers nearer to the blaze. 'They are quite worn out. Marmee must have a new pair. 'I thought I'd get her some with my dollar, said Beth. 'No, I shall! cried Amy. 'I'm the oldest, began Meg, but Jo cut in with a decided, 'I'm the man of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone. 'I'll tell you what we'll do, said Beth, 'let's each get her something for Christmas, and not get anything for ourselves. 'That's like you, dear! What will we get? exclaimed Jo. Everyone thought soberly for a minute, then Meg announced, as if the idea was suggested by the sight of her own pretty hands, 'I shall give her a nice pair of gloves. 'Army shoes, best to be had, cried Jo. 'Some handkerchiefs, all hemmed, said Beth. 'I'll get a little bottle of cologne. She likes it, and it won't cost much, so I'll have some left to buy my pencils, added Amy. 'How will we give the things? asked Meg. 'Put them on the table, and bring her in and see her open the bundles. Don't you remember how we used to do on our birthdays? answered Jo. 'I used to be so frightened when it was my turn to sit in the chair with the crown on, and see you all come marching round to give the presents, with a kiss. I liked the things and the kisses, but it was dreadful to have you sit looking at me while I opened the bundles, said Beth, who was toasting her face and the bread for tea at the same time. 'Let Marmee think we are getting things for ourselves, and then surprise her. We must go shopping tomorrow afternoon, Meg. There is so much to do about the play for Christmas night, said Jo, marching up and down, with her hands behind her back, and her nose in the air. 'I don't mean to act any more after this time. I'm getting too old for such things, observed Meg, who was as much a child as ever about 'dressingup' frolics. 'You won't stop, I know, as long as you can trail round in a white gown with your hair down, and wear goldpaper jewelry. You are the best actress we've got, and there'll be an end of everything if you quit the boards, said Jo. 'We ought to rehearse tonight. Come here, Amy, and do the fainting scene, for you are as stiff as a poker in that. 'I can't help it. I never saw anyone faint, and I don't choose to make myself all black and blue, tumbling flat as you do. If I can go down easily, I'll drop. If I can't, I shall fall into a chair and be graceful. I don't care if Hugo does come at me with a pistol, returned Amy, who was not gifted with dramatic power, but was chosen because she was small enough to be borne out shrieking by the villain of the piece. 'Do it this way. Clasp your hands so, and stagger across the room, crying frantically, 'Roderigo! Save me! Save me!' and away went Jo, with a melodramatic scream which was truly thrilling. Amy followed, but she poked her hands out stiffly before her, and jerked herself along as if she went by machinery, and her 'Ow! was more suggestive of pins being run into her than of fear and anguish. Jo gave a despairing groan, and Meg laughed outright, while Beth let her bread burn as she watched the fun with interest. 'It's no use! Do the best you can when the time comes, and if the audience laughs, don't blame me. Come on, Meg. Then things went smoothly, for Don Pedro defied the world in a speech of two pages without a single break. Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect. Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild, 'Ha! Ha! 'It's the best we've had yet, said Meg, as the dead villain sat up and rubbed his elbows. 'I don't see how you can write and act such splendid things, Jo. You're a regular Shakespeare! exclaimed Beth, who firmly believed that her sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all things. 'Not quite, replied Jo modestly. 'I do think The Witches Curse, an Operatic Tragedy is rather a nice thing, but I'd like to try Macbeth, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo. I always wanted to do the killing part. 'Is that a dagger that I see before me? muttered Jo, rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had seen a famous tragedian do. 'No, it's the toasting fork, with Mother's shoe on it instead of the bread. Beth's stagestruck! cried Meg, and the rehearsal ended in a general burst of laughter. 'Glad to find you so merry, my girls, said a cheery voice at the door, and actors and audience turned to welcome a tall, motherly lady with a 'can I help you' look about her which was truly delightful. She was not elegantly dressed, but a noblelooking woman, and the girls thought the gray cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in the world. 'Well, dearies, how have you got on today? There was so much to do, getting the boxes ready to go tomorrow, that I didn't come home to dinner. Has anyone called, Beth? How is your cold, Meg? Jo, you look tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby. While making these maternal inquiries Mrs. March got her wet things off, her warm slippers on, and sitting down in the easy chair, drew Amy to her lap, preparing to enjoy the happiest hour of her busy day. The girls flew about, trying to make things comfortable, each in her own way. Meg arranged the tea table, Jo brought wood and set chairs, dropping, overturning, and clattering everything she touched. Beth trotted to and fro between parlor kitchen, quiet and busy, while Amy gave directions to everyone, as she sat with her hands folded. As they gathered about the table, Mrs. March said, with a particularly happy face, 'I've got a treat for you after supper. A quick, bright smile went round like a streak of sunshine. Beth clapped her hands, regardless of the biscuit she held, and Jo tossed up her napkin, crying, 'A letter! A letter! Three cheers for Father! 'Yes, a nice long letter. He is well, and thinks he shall get through the cold season better than we feared. He sends all sorts of loving wishes for Christmas, and an especial message to you girls, said Mrs. March, patting her pocket as if she had got a treasure there. 'Hurry and get done! Don't stop to quirk your little finger and simper over your plate, Amy, cried Jo, choking on her tea and dropping her bread, butter side down, on the carpet in her haste to get at the treat. Beth ate no more, but crept away to sit in her shadowy corner and brood over the delight to come, till the others were ready. 'I think it was so splendid in Father to go as chaplain when he was too old to be drafted, and not strong enough for a soldier, said Meg warmly. 'Don't I wish I could go as a drummer, a vivanwhat's its name? Or a nurse, so I could be near him and help him, exclaimed Jo, with a groan. 'It must be very disagreeable to sleep in a tent, and eat all sorts of badtasting things, and drink out of a tin mug, sighed Amy. 'When will he come home, Marmee? asked Beth, with a little quiver in her voice. 'Not for many months, dear, unless he is sick. He will stay and do his work faithfully as long as he can, and we won't ask for him back a minute sooner than he can be spared. Now come and hear the letter. They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back, where no one would see any sign of emotion if the letter should happen to be touching. Very few letters were written in those hard times that were not touching, especially those which fathers sent home. In this one little was said of the hardships endured, the dangers faced, or the homesickness conquered. It was a cheerful, hopeful letter, full of lively descriptions of camp life, marches, and military news, and only at the end did the writer's heart overflow with fatherly love and longing for the little girls at home. 'Give them all of my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night, and find my best comfort in their affection at all times. A year seems very long to wait before I see them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these hard days need not be wasted. I know they will remember all I said to them, that they will be loving children to you, will do their duty faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women. Everybody sniffed when they came to that part. Jo wasn't ashamed of the great tear that dropped off the end of her nose, and Amy never minded the rumpling of her curls as she hid her face on her mother's shoulder and sobbed out, 'I am a selfish girl! But I'll truly try to be better, so he mayn't be disappointed in me byandby. 'We all will, cried Meg. 'I think too much of my looks and hate to work, but won't any more, if I can help it. 'I'll try and be what he loves to call me, 'a little woman' and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here instead of wanting to be somewhere else, said Jo, thinking that keeping her temper at home was a much harder task than facing a rebel or two down South. Beth said nothing, but wiped away her tears with the blue army sock and began to knit with all her might, losing no time in doing the duty that lay nearest her, while she resolved in her quiet little soul to be all that Father hoped to find her when the year brought round the happy coming home. Mrs. March broke the silence that followed Jo's words, by saying in her cheery voice, 'Do you remember how you used to play Pilgrims Progress when you were little things? Nothing delighted you more than to have me tie my piece bags on your backs for burdens, give you hats and sticks and rolls of paper, and let you travel through the house from the cellar, which was the City of Destruction, up, up, to the housetop, where you had all the lovely things you could collect to make a Celestial City. 'What fun it was, especially going by the lions, fighting Apollyon, and passing through the valley where the hobgoblins were, said Jo. 'I liked the place where the bundles fell off and tumbled downstairs, said Meg. 'I don't remember much about it, except that I was afraid of the cellar and the dark entry, and always liked the cake and milk we had up at the top. If I wasn't too old for such things, I'd rather like to play it over again, said Amy, who began to talk of renouncing childish things at the mature age of twelve. 'We never are too old for this, my dear, because it is a play we are playing all the time in one way or another. Our burdens are here, our road is before us, and the longing for goodness and happiness is the guide that leads us through many troubles and mistakes to the peace which is a true Celestial City. Now, my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play, but in earnest, and see how far on you can get before Father comes home. 'Really, Mother? Where are our bundles? asked Amy, who was a very literal young lady. 'Each of you told what your burden was just now, except Beth. I rather think she hasn't got any, said her mother. 'Yes, I have. Mine is dishes and dusters, and envying girls with nice pianos, and being afraid of people. Beth's bundle was such a funny one that everybody wanted to laugh, but nobody did, for it would have hurt her feelings very much. 'Let us do it, said Meg thoughtfully. 'It is only another name for trying to be good, and the story may help us, for though we do want to be good, it's hard work and we forget, and don't do our best. 'We were in the Slough of Despond tonight, and Mother came and pulled us out as Help did in the book. We ought to have our roll of directions, like Christian. What shall we do about that? asked Jo, delighted with the fancy which lent a little romance to the very dull task of doing her duty. 'Look under your pillows Christmas morning, and you will find your guidebook, replied Mrs. March. They talked over the new plan while old Hannah cleared the table, then out came the four little work baskets, and the needles flew as the girls made sheets for Aunt March. It was uninteresting sewing, but tonight no one grumbled. They adopted Jo's plan of dividing the long seams into four parts, and calling the quarters Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and in that way got on capitally, especially when they talked about the different countries as they stitched their way through them. At nine they stopped work, and sang, as usual, before they went to bed. No one but Beth could get much music out of the old piano, but she had a way of softly touching the yellow keys and making a pleasant accompaniment to the simple songs they sang. Meg had a voice like a flute, and she and her mother led the little choir. Amy chirped like a cricket, and Jo wandered through the airs at her own sweet will, always coming out at the wrong place with a croak or a quaver that spoiled the most pensive tune. They had always done this from the time they could lisp... Crinkle, crinkle, 'ittle 'tar, and it had become a household custom, for the mother was a born singer. The first sound in the morning was her voice as she went about the house singing like a lark, and the last sound at night was the same cheery sound, for the girls never grew too old for that familiar lullaby. Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down because it was crammed so full of goodies. Then she remembered her mother's promise and, slipping her hand under her pillow, drew out a little crimsoncovered book. She knew it very well, for it was that beautiful old story of the best life ever lived, and Jo felt that it was a true guidebook for any pilgrim going on a long journey. She woke Meg with a 'Merry Christmas, and bade her see what was under her pillow. A greencovered book appeared, with the same picture inside, and a few words written by their mother, which made their one present very precious in their eyes. Presently Beth and Amy woke to rummage and find their little books also, one dovecolored, the other blue, and all sat looking at and talking about them, while the east grew rosy with the coming day. In spite of her small vanities, Margaret had a sweet and pious nature, which unconsciously influenced her sisters, especially Jo, who loved her very tenderly, and obeyed her because her advice was so gently given. 'Girls, said Meg seriously, looking from the tumbled head beside her to the two little nightcapped ones in the room beyond, 'Mother wants us to read and love and mind these books, and we must begin at once. We used to be faithful about it, but since Father went away and all this war trouble unsettled us, we have neglected many things. You can do as you please, but I shall keep my book on the table here and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good and help me through the day. Then she opened her new book and began to read. Jo put her arm round her and, leaning cheek to cheek, read also, with the quiet expression so seldom seen on her restless face. 'How good Meg is! Come, Amy, let's do as they do. I'll help you with the hard words, and they'll explain things if we don't understand, whispered Beth, very much impressed by the pretty books and her sisters' example. 'I'm glad mine is blue, said Amy. and then the rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned, and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting. 'Where is Mother? asked Meg, as she and Jo ran down to thank her for their gifts, half an hour later. 'Goodness only knows. Some poor creeter came abeggin', and your ma went straight off to see what was needed. There never was such a woman for givin' away vittles and drink, clothes and firin', replied Hannah, who had lived with the family since Meg was born, and was considered by them all more as a friend than a servant. 'She will be back soon, I think, so fry your cakes, and have everything ready, said Meg, looking over the presents which were collected in a basket and kept under the sofa, ready to be produced at the proper time. 'Why, where is Amy's bottle of cologne? she added, as the little flask did not appear. 'She took it out a minute ago, and went off with it to put a ribbon on it, or some such notion, replied Jo, dancing about the room to take the first stiffness off the new army slippers. 'How nice my handkerchiefs look, don't they? Hannah washed and ironed them for me, and I marked them all myself, said Beth, looking proudly at the somewhat uneven letters which had cost her such labor. 'Bless the child! She's gone and put 'Mother' on them instead of 'M. March'. How funny! cried Jo, taking one up. 'Isn't that right? I thought it was better to do it so, because Meg's initials are M.M., and I don't want anyone to use these but Marmee, said Beth, looking troubled. 'It's all right, dear, and a very pretty idea, quite sensible too, for no one can ever mistake now. It will please her very much, I know, said Meg, with a frown for Jo and a smile for Beth. 'There's Mother. Hide the basket, quick! cried Jo, as a door slammed and steps sounded in the hall. Amy came in hastily, and looked rather abashed when she saw her sisters all waiting for her. 'Where have you been, and what are you hiding behind you? asked Meg, surprised to see, by her hood and cloak, that lazy Amy had been out so early. 'Don't laugh at me, Jo! I didn't mean anyone should know till the time came. I only meant to change the little bottle for a big one, and I gave all my money to get it, and I'm truly trying not to be selfish any more. As she spoke, Amy showed the handsome flask which replaced the cheap one, and looked so earnest and humble in her little effort to forget herself that Meg hugged her on the spot, and Jo pronounced her 'a trump', while Beth ran to the window, and picked her finest rose to ornament the stately bottle. 'You see I felt ashamed of my present, after reading and talking about being good this morning, so I ran round the corner and changed it the minute I was up, and I'm so glad, for mine is the handsomest now. Another bang of the street door sent the basket under the sofa, and the girls to the table, eager for breakfast. 'Merry Christmas, Marmee! Many of them! Thank you for our books. We read some, and mean to every day, they all cried in chorus. 'Merry Christmas, little daughters! I'm glad you began at once, and hope you will keep on. But I want to say one word before we sit down. Not far away from here lies a poor woman with a little newborn baby. Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they have no fire. There is nothing to eat over there, and the oldest boy came to tell me they were suffering hunger and cold. My girls, will you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present? They were all unusually hungry, having waited nearly an hour, and for a minute no one spoke, only a minute, for Jo exclaimed impetuously, 'I'm so glad you came before we began! 'May I go and help carry the things to the poor little children? asked Beth eagerly. 'I shall take the cream and the muffings, added Amy, heroically giving up the article she most liked. Meg was already covering the buckwheats, and piling the bread into one big plate. 'I thought you'd do it, said Mrs. March, smiling as if satisfied. 'You shall all go and help me, and when we come back we will have bread and milk for breakfast, and make it up at dinnertime. They were soon ready, and the procession set out. Fortunately it was early, and they went through back streets, so few people saw them, and no one laughed at the queer party. A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm. How the big eyes stared and the blue lips smiled as the girls went in. 'Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us! said the poor woman, crying for joy. 'Funny angels in hoods and mittens, said Jo, and set them to laughing. In a few minutes it really did seem as if kind spirits had been at work there. Hannah, who had carried wood, made a fire, and stopped up the broken panes with old hats and her own cloak. Mrs. March gave the mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own. The girls meantime spread the table, set the children round the fire, and fed them like so many hungry birds, laughing, talking, and trying to understand the funny broken English. 'Das ist gut! 'Die Engelkinder! cried the poor things as they ate and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze. The girls had never been called angel children before, and thought it very agreeable, especially Jo, who had been considered a 'Sancho' ever since she was born. That was a very happy breakfast, though they didn't get any of it. And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning. 'That's loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it, said Meg, as they set out their presents while their mother was upstairs collecting clothes for the poor Hummels. Not a very splendid show, but there was a great deal of love done up in the few little bundles, and the tall vase of red roses, white chrysanthemums, and trailing vines, which stood in the middle, gave quite an elegant air to the table. 'She's coming! Strike up, Beth! Open the door, Amy! Three cheers for Marmee! cried Jo, prancing about while Meg went to conduct Mother to the seat of honor. Beth played her gayest march, Amy threw open the door, and Meg enacted escort with great dignity. Mrs. March was both surprised and touched, and smiled with her eyes full as she examined her presents and read the little notes which accompanied them. The slippers went on at once, a new handkerchief was slipped into her pocket, well scented with Amy's cologne, the rose was fastened in her bosom, and the nice gloves were pronounced a perfect fit. There was a good deal of laughing and kissing and explaining, in the simple, loving fashion which makes these home festivals so pleasant at the time, so sweet to remember long afterward, and then all fell to work. The morning charities and ceremonies took so much time that the rest of the day was devoted to preparations for the evening festivities. Being still too young to go often to the theater, and not rich enough to afford any great outlay for private performances, the girls put their wits to work, and necessity being the mother of invention, made whatever they needed. Very clever were some of their productions, pasteboard guitars, antique lamps made of oldfashioned butter boats covered with silver paper, gorgeous robes of old cotton, glittering with tin spangles from a pickle factory, and armor covered with the same useful diamond shaped bits left in sheets when the lids of preserve pots were cut out. The big chamber was the scene of many innocent revels. No gentleman were admitted, so Jo played male parts to her heart's content and took immense satisfaction in a pair of russet leather boots given her by a friend, who knew a lady who knew an actor. These boots, an old foil, and a slashed doublet once used by an artist for some picture, were Jo's chief treasures and appeared on all occasions. The smallness of the company made it necessary for the two principal actors to take several parts apiece, and they certainly deserved some credit for the hard work they did in learning three or four different parts, whisking in and out of various costumes, and managing the stage besides. It was excellent drill for their memories, a harmless amusement, and employed many hours which otherwise would have been idle, lonely, or spent in less profitable society. On Christmas night, a dozen girls piled onto the bed which was the dress circle, and sat before the blue and yellow chintz curtains in a most flattering state of expectancy. There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy, who was apt to get hysterical in the excitement of the moment. Presently a bell sounded, the curtains flew apart, and the operatic tragedy began. 'A gloomy wood, according to the one playbill, was represented by a few shrubs in pots, green baize on the floor, and a cave in the distance. This cave was made with a clothes horse for a roof, bureaus for walls, and in it was a small furnace in full blast, with a black pot on it and an old witch bending over it. The stage was dark and the glow of the furnace had a fine effect, especially as real steam issued from the kettle when the witch took off the cover. A moment was allowed for the first thrill to subside, then Hugo, the villain, stalked in with a clanking sword at his side, a slouching hat, black beard, mysterious cloak, and the boots. After pacing to and fro in much agitation, he struck his forehead, and burst out in a wild strain, singing of his hatred for Roderigo, his love for Zara, and his pleasing resolution to kill the one and win the other. The gruff tones of Hugo's voice, with an occasional shout when his feelings overcame him, were very impressive, and the audience applauded the moment he paused for breath. Bowing with the air of one accustomed to public praise, he stole to the cavern and ordered Hagar to come forth with a commanding, 'What ho, minion! I need thee! Out came Meg, with gray horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would bring the love philter. Hither, hither, from thy home, Airy sprite, I bid thee come! Born of roses, fed on dew, Charms and potions canst thou brew? Bring me here, with elfin speed, The fragrant philter which I need. Make it sweet and swift and strong, Spirit, answer now my song! A soft strain of music sounded, and then at the back of the cave appeared a little figure in cloudy white, with glittering wings, golden hair, and a garland of roses on its head. Waving a wand, it sang... Hither I come, From my airy home, Afar in the silver moon. Take the magic spell, And use it well, Or its power will vanish soon! And dropping a small, gilded bottle at the witch's feet, the spirit vanished. Another chant from Hagar produced another apparition, not a lovely one, for with a bang an ugly black imp appeared and, having croaked a reply, tossed a dark bottle at Hugo and disappeared with a mocking laugh. Having warbled his thanks and put the potions in his boots, Hugo departed, and Hagar informed the audience that as he had killed a few of her friends in times past, she had cursed him, and intends to thwart his plans, and be revenged on him. Then the curtain fell, and the audience reposed and ate candy while discussing the merits of the play. A good deal of hammering went on before the curtain rose again, but when it became evident what a masterpiece of stage carpentery had been got up, no one murmured at the delay. It was truly superb. A tower rose to the ceiling, halfway up appeared a window with a lamp burning in it, and behind the white curtain appeared Zara in a lovely blue and silver dress, waiting for Roderigo. He came in gorgeous array, with plumed cap, red cloak, chestnut lovelocks, a guitar, and the boots, of course. Kneeling at the foot of the tower, he sang a serenade in melting tones. Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented to fly. Then came the grand effect of the play. Roderigo produced a rope ladder, with five steps to it, threw up one end, and invited Zara to descend. Timidly she crept from her lattice, put her hand on Roderigo's shoulder, and was about to leap gracefully down when 'Alas! Alas for Zara! she forgot her train. It caught in the window, the tower tottered, leaned forward, fell with a crash, and buried the unhappy lovers in the ruins. A universal shriek arose as the russet boots waved wildly from the wreck and a golden head emerged, exclaiming, 'I told you so! I told you so! With wonderful presence of mind, Don Pedro, the cruel sire, rushed in, dragged out his daughter, with a hasty aside... 'Don't laugh! Act as if it was all right! and, ordering Roderigo up, banished him from the kingdom with wrath and scorn. Though decidedly shaken by the fall from the tower upon him, Roderigo defied the old gentleman and refused to stir. This dauntless example fired Zara. She also defied her sire, and he ordered them both to the deepest dungeons of the castle. A stout little retainer came in with chains and led them away, looking very much frightened and evidently forgetting the speech he ought to have made. Act third was the castle hall, and here Hagar appeared, having come to free the lovers and finish Hugo. She hears him coming and hides, sees him put the potions into two cups of wine and bid the timid little servant, 'Bear them to the captives in their cells, and tell them I shall come anon. The servant takes Hugo aside to tell him something, and Hagar changes the cups for two others which are harmless. Ferdinando, the 'minion', carries them away, and Hagar puts back the cup which holds the poison meant for Roderigo. Hugo, getting thirsty after a long warble, drinks it, loses his wits, and after a good deal of clutching and stamping, falls flat and dies, while Hagar informs him what she has done in a song of exquisite power and melody. This was a truly thrilling scene, though some persons might have thought that the sudden tumbling down of a quantity of long red hair rather marred the effect of the villain's death. He was called before the curtain, and with great propriety appeared, leading Hagar, whose singing was considered more wonderful than all the rest of the performance put together. Act fourth displayed the despairing Roderigo on the point of stabbing himself because he has been told that Zara has deserted him. Just as the dagger is at his heart, a lovely song is sung under his window, informing him that Zara is true but in danger, and he can save her if he will. A key is thrown in, which unlocks the door, and in a spasm of rapture he tears off his chains and rushes away to find and rescue his lady love. Act fifth opened with a stormy scene between Zara and Don Pedro. He wishes her to go into a convent, but she won't hear of it, and after a touching appeal, is about to faint when Roderigo dashes in and demands her hand. Don Pedro refuses, because he is not rich. They shout and gesticulate tremendously but cannot agree, and Rodrigo is about to bear away the exhausted Zara, when the timid servant enters with a letter and a bag from Hagar, who has mysteriously disappeared. The latter informs the party that she bequeaths untold wealth to the young pair and an awful doom to Don Pedro, if he doesn't make them happy. The bag is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage till it is quite glorified with the glitter. This entirely softens the stern sire. He consents without a murmur, all join in a joyful chorus, and the curtain falls upon the lovers kneeling to receive Don Pedro's blessing in attitudes of the most romantic grace. Tumultuous applause followed but received an unexpected check, for the cot bed, on which the dress circle was built, suddenly shut up and extinguished the enthusiastic audience. Roderigo and Don Pedro flew to the rescue, and all were taken out unhurt, though many were speechless with laughter. The excitement had hardly subsided when Hannah appeared, with 'Mrs. March's compliments, and would the ladies walk down to supper. This was a surprise even to the actors, and when they saw the table, they looked at one another in rapturous amazement. It was like Marmee to get up a little treat for them, but anything so fine as this was unheard of since the departed days of plenty. There was ice cream, actually two dishes of it, pink and white, and cake and fruit and distracting French bonbons and, in the middle of the table, four great bouquets of hot house flowers. It quite took their breath away, and they stared first at the table and then at their mother, who looked as if she enjoyed it immensely. 'Is it fairies? asked Amy. 'Santa Claus, said Beth. 'Mother did it. And Meg smiled her sweetest, in spite of her gray beard and white eyebrows. 'Aunt March had a good fit and sent the supper, cried Jo, with a sudden inspiration. 'All wrong. Old Mr. Laurence sent it, replied Mrs. March. 'The Laurence boy's grandfather! What in the world put such a thing into his head? We don't know him! exclaimed Meg. 'Hannah told one of his servants about your breakfast party. He is an odd old gentleman, but that pleased him. He knew my father years ago, and he sent me a polite note this afternoon, saying he hoped I would allow him to express his friendly feeling toward my children by sending them a few trifles in honor of the day. I could not refuse, and so you have a little feast at night to make up for the breadandmilk breakfast. 'That boy put it into his head, I know he did! He's a capital fellow, and I wish we could get acquainted. He looks as if he'd like to know us but he's bashful, and Meg is so prim she won't let me speak to him when we pass, said Jo, as the plates went round, and the ice began to melt out of sight, with ohs and ahs of satisfaction. 'You mean the people who live in the big house next door, don't you? asked one of the girls. 'My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says he's very proud and doesn't like to mix with his neighbors. He keeps his grandson shut up, when he isn't riding or walking with his tutor, and makes him study very hard. We invited him to our party, but he didn't come. Mother says he's very nice, though he never speaks to us girls. 'Our cat ran away once, and he brought her back, and we talked over the fence, and were getting on capitally, all about cricket, and so on, when he saw Meg coming, and walked off. I mean to know him some day, for he needs fun, I'm sure he does, said Jo decidedly. 'I like his manners, and he looks like a little gentleman, so I've no objection to your knowing him, if a proper opportunity comes. He brought the flowers himself, and I should have asked him in, if I had been sure what was going on upstairs. He looked so wistful as he went away, hearing the frolic and evidently having none of his own. 'It's a mercy you didn't, Mother! laughed Jo, looking at her boots. 'But we'll have another play sometime that he can see. Perhaps he'll help act. Wouldn't that be jolly? 'I never had such a fine bouquet before! How pretty it is! And Meg examined her flowers with great interest. 'They are lovely. But Beth's roses are sweeter to me, said Mrs. March, smelling the halfdead posy in her belt. Beth nestled up to her, and whispered softly, 'I wish I could send my bunch to Father. I'm afraid he isn't having such a merry Christmas as we are. 'Jo! Jo! Where are you? cried Meg at the foot of the garret stairs. 'Here! answered a husky voice from above, and, running up, Meg found her sister eating apples and crying over the Heir of Redclyffe, wrapped up in a comforter on an old threelegged sofa by the sunny window. This was Jo's favorite refuge, and here she loved to retire with half a dozen russets and a nice book, to enjoy the quiet and the society of a pet rat who lived near by and didn't mind her a particle. As Meg appeared, Scrabble whisked into his hole. Jo shook the tears off her cheeks and waited to hear the news. 'Such fun! Only see! A regular note of invitation from Mrs. Gardiner for tomorrow night! cried Meg, waving the precious paper and then proceeding to read it with girlish delight. ''Mrs. Gardiner would be happy to see Miss March and Miss Josephine at a little dance on New Year's Eve.' Marmee is willing we should go, now what shall we wear? 'What's the use of asking that, when you know we shall wear our poplins, because we haven't got anything else? answered Jo with her mouth full. 'If I only had a silk! sighed Meg. 'Mother says I may when I'm eighteen perhaps, but two years is an everlasting time to wait. 'I'm sure our pops look like silk, and they are nice enough for us. Yours is as good as new, but I forgot the burn and the tear in mine. Whatever shall I do? The burn shows badly, and I can't take any out. 'You must sit still all you can and keep your back out of sight. The front is all right. I shall have a new ribbon for my hair, and Marmee will lend me her little pearl pin, and my new slippers are lovely, and my gloves will do, though they aren't as nice as I'd like. 'Mine are spoiled with lemonade, and I can't get any new ones, so I shall have to go without, said Jo, who never troubled herself much about dress. 'You must have gloves, or I won't go, cried Meg decidedly. 'Gloves are more important than anything else. You can't dance without them, and if you don't I should be so mortified. 'Then I'll stay still. I don't care much for company dancing. It's no fun to go sailing round. I like to fly about and cut capers. 'You can't ask Mother for new ones, they are so expensive, and you are so careless. She said when you spoiled the others that she shouldn't get you any more this winter. Can't you make them do? 'I can hold them crumpled up in my hand, so no one will know how stained they are. That's all I can do. No! I'll tell you how we can manage, each wear one good one and carry a bad one. Don't you see? 'Your hands are bigger than mine, and you will stretch my glove dreadfully, began Meg, whose gloves were a tender point with her. 'Then I'll go without. I don't care what people say! cried Jo, taking up her book. 'You may have it, you may! Only don't stain it, and do behave nicely. Don't put your hands behind you, or stare, or say 'Christopher Columbus!' will you? 'Don't worry about me. I'll be as prim as I can and not get into any scrapes, if I can help it. Now go and answer your note, and let me finish this splendid story. So Meg went away to 'accept with thanks', look over her dress, and sing blithely as she did up her one real lace frill, while Jo finished her story, her four apples, and had a game of romps with Scrabble. On New Year's Eve the parlor was deserted, for the two younger girls played dressing maids and the two elder were absorbed in the allimportant business of 'getting ready for the party'. Simple as the toilets were, there was a great deal of running up and down, laughing and talking, and at one time a strong smell of burned hair pervaded the house. Meg wanted a few curls about her face, and Jo undertook to pinch the papered locks with a pair of hot tongs. 'Ought they to smoke like that? asked Beth from her perch on the bed. 'It's the dampness drying, replied Jo. 'What a queer smell! It's like burned feathers, observed Amy, smoothing her own pretty curls with a superior air. 'There, now I'll take off the papers and you'll see a cloud of little ringlets, said Jo, putting down the tongs. She did take off the papers, but no cloud of ringlets appeared, for the hair came with the papers, and the horrified hairdresser laid a row of little scorched bundles on the bureau before her victim. 'Oh, oh, oh! What have you done? I'm spoiled! I can't go! My hair, oh, my hair! wailed Meg, looking with despair at the uneven frizzle on her forehead. 'Just my luck! You shouldn't have asked me to do it. I always spoil everything. I'm so sorry, but the tongs were too hot, and so I've made a mess, groaned poor Jo, regarding the little black pancakes with tears of regret. 'It isn't spoiled. Just frizzle it, and tie your ribbon so the ends come on your forehead a bit, and it will look like the last fashion. I've seen many girls do it so, said Amy consolingly. 'Serves me right for trying to be fine. I wish I'd let my hair alone, cried Meg petulantly. 'So do I, it was so smooth and pretty. But it will soon grow out again, said Beth, coming to kiss and comfort the shorn sheep. After various lesser mishaps, Meg was finished at last, and by the united exertions of the entire family Jo's hair was got up and her dress on. They looked very well in their simple suits, Meg's in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood, lace frills, and the pearl pin. Jo in maroon, with a stiff, gentlemanly linen collar, and a white chrysanthemum or two for her only ornament. Each put on one nice light glove, and carried one soiled one, and all pronounced the effect 'quite easy and fine. Meg's highheeled slippers were very tight and hurt her, though she would not own it, and Jo's nineteen hairpins all seemed stuck straight into her head, which was not exactly comfortable, but, dear me, let us be elegant or die. 'Have a good time, dearies! said Mrs. March, as the sisters went daintily down the walk. 'Don't eat much supper, and come away at eleven when I send Hannah for you. As the gate clashed behind them, a voice cried from a window... 'Girls, girls! Have you you both got nice pocket handkerchiefs? 'Yes, yes, spandy nice, and Meg has cologne on hers, cried Jo, adding with a laugh as they went on, 'I do believe Marmee would ask that if we were all running away from an earthquake. 'It is one of her aristocratic tastes, and quite proper, for a real lady is always known by neat boots, gloves, and handkerchief, replied Meg, who had a good many little 'aristocratic tastes' of her own. 'Now don't forget to keep the bad breadth out of sight, Jo. Is my sash right? And does my hair look very bad? said Meg, as she turned from the glass in Mrs. Gardiner's dressing room after a prolonged prink. 'I know I shall forget. If you see me doing anything wrong, just remind me by a wink, will you? returned Jo, giving her collar a twitch and her head a hasty brush. 'No, winking isn't ladylike. I'll lift my eyebrows if any thing is wrong, and nod if you are all right. Now hold your shoulder straight, and take short steps, and don't shake hands if you are introduced to anyone. It isn't the thing. 'How do you learn all the proper ways? I never can. Isn't that music gay? Down they went, feeling a trifle timid, for they seldom went to parties, and informal as this little gathering was, it was an event to them. Mrs. Gardiner, a stately old lady, greeted them kindly and handed them over to the eldest of her six daughters. Meg knew Sallie and was at her ease very soon, but Jo, who didn't care much for girls or girlish gossip, stood about, with her back carefully against the wall, and felt as much out of place as a colt in a flower garden. Half a dozen jovial lads were talking about skates in another part of the room, and she longed to go and join them, for skating was one of the joys of her life. She telegraphed her wish to Meg, but the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that she dared not stir. No one came to talk to her, and one by one the group dwindled away till she was left alone. She could not roam about and amuse herself, for the burned breadth would show, so she stared at people rather forlornly till the dancing began. Meg was asked at once, and the tight slippers tripped about so briskly that none would have guessed the pain their wearer suffered smilingly. Jo saw a big red headed youth approaching her corner, and fearing he meant to engage her, she slipped into a curtained recess, intending to peep and enjoy herself in peace. Unfortunately, another bashful person had chosen the same refuge, for, as the curtain fell behind her, she found herself face to face with the 'Laurence boy'. 'Dear me, I didn't know anyone was here! stammered Jo, preparing to back out as speedily as she had bounced in. But the boy laughed and said pleasantly, though he looked a little startled, 'Don't mind me, stay if you like. 'Shan't I disturb you? 'Not a bit. I only came here because I don't know many people and felt rather strange at first, you know. 'So did I. Don't go away, please, unless you'd rather. The boy sat down again and looked at his pumps, till Jo said, trying to be polite and easy, 'I think I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. You live near us, don't you? 'Next door. And he looked up and laughed outright, for Jo's prim manner was rather funny when he remembered how they had chatted about cricket when he brought the cat home. That put Jo at her ease and she laughed too, as she said, in her heartiest way, 'We did have such a good time over your nice Christmas present. 'Grandpa sent it. 'But you put it into his head, didn't you, now? 'How is your cat, Miss March? asked the boy, trying to look sober while his black eyes shone with fun. 'Nicely, thank you, Mr. Laurence. But I am not Miss March, I'm only Jo, returned the young lady. 'I'm not Mr. Laurence, I'm only Laurie. 'Laurie Laurence, what an odd name. 'My first name is Theodore, but I don't like it, for the fellows called me Dora, so I made them say Laurie instead. 'I hate my name, too, so sentimental! I wish every one would say Jo instead of Josephine. How did you make the boys stop calling you Dora? 'I thrashed 'em. 'I can't thrash Aunt March, so I suppose I shall have to bear it. And Jo resigned herself with a sigh. 'Don't you like to dance, Miss Jo? asked Laurie, looking as if he thought the name suited her. 'I like it well enough if there is plenty of room, and everyone is lively. In a place like this I'm sure to upset something, tread on people's toes, or do something dreadful, so I keep out of mischief and let Meg sail about. Don't you dance? 'Sometimes. You see I've been abroad a good many years, and haven't been into company enough yet to know how you do things here. 'Abroad! cried Jo. 'Oh, tell me about it! I love dearly to hear people describe their travels. Laurie didn't seem to know where to begin, but Jo's eager questions soon set him going, and he told her how he had been at school in Vevay, where the boys never wore hats and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers. 'Don't I wish I'd been there! cried Jo. 'Did you go to Paris? 'We spent last winter there. 'Can you talk French? 'We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevay. 'Do say some! I can read it, but can't pronounce. 'Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoufles jolis? 'How nicely you do it! Let me see ... you said, 'Who is the young lady in the pretty slippers', didn't you? 'Oui, mademoiselle. 'It's my sister Margaret, and you knew it was! Do you think she is pretty? 'Yes, she makes me think of the German girls, she looks so fresh and quiet, and dances like a lady. Jo quite glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped and criticized and chatted till they felt like old acquaintances. Laurie's bashfulness soon wore off, for Jo's gentlemanly demeanor amused and set him at his ease, and Jo was her merry self again, because her dress was forgotten and nobody lifted their eyebrows at her. She liked the 'Laurence boy' better than ever and took several good looks at him, so that she might describe him to the girls, for they had no brothers, very few male cousins, and boys were almost unknown creatures to them. 'Curly black hair, brown skin, big black eyes, handsome nose, fine teeth, small hands and feet, taller than I am, very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is? It was on the tip of Jo's tongue to ask, but she checked herself in time and, with unusual tact, tried to find out in a roundabout way. 'I suppose you are going to college soon? I see you pegging away at your books, no, I mean studying hard. And Jo blushed at the dreadful 'pegging' which had escaped her. Laurie smiled but didn't seem shocked, and answered with a shrug. 'Not for a year or two. I won't go before seventeen, anyway. 'Aren't you but fifteen? asked Jo, looking at the tall lad, whom she had imagined seventeen already. 'Sixteen, next month. 'How I wish I was going to college! You don't look as if you liked it. 'I hate it! Nothing but grinding or skylarking. And I don't like the way fellows do either, in this country. 'What do you like? 'To live in Italy, and to enjoy myself in my own way. Jo wanted very much to ask what his own way was, but his black brows looked rather threatening as he knit them, so she changed the subject by saying, as her foot kept time, 'That's a splendid polka! Why don't you go and try it? 'If you will come too, he answered, with a gallant little bow. 'I can't, for I told Meg I wouldn't, because... There Jo stopped, and looked undecided whether to tell or to laugh. 'Because, what? 'You won't tell? 'Never! 'Well, I have a bad trick of standing before the fire, and so I burn my frocks, and I scorched this one, and though it's nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still so no one would see it. You may laugh, if you want to. It is funny, I know. But Laurie didn't laugh. He only looked down a minute, and the expression of his face puzzled Jo when he said very gently, 'Never mind that. I'll tell you how we can manage. There's a long hall out there, and we can dance grandly, and no one will see us. Please come. Jo thanked him and gladly went, wishing she had two neat gloves when she saw the nice, pearlcolored ones her partner wore. The hall was empty, and they had a grand polka, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, which delighted Jo, being full of swing and spring. When the music stopped, they sat down on the stairs to get their breath, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a students' festival at Heidelberg when Meg appeared in search of her sister. She beckoned, and Jo reluctantly followed her into a side room, where she found her on a sofa, holding her foot, and looking pale. 'I've sprained my ankle. That stupid high heel turned and gave me a sad wrench. It aches so, I can hardly stand, and I don't know how I'm ever going to get home, she said, rocking to and fro in pain. 'I knew you'd hurt your feet with those silly shoes. I'm sorry. But I don't see what you can do, except get a carriage, or stay here all night, answered Jo, softly rubbing the poor ankle as she spoke. 'I can't have a carriage without its costing ever so much. I dare say I can't get one at all, for most people come in their own, and it's a long way to the stable, and no one to send. 'I'll go. 'No, indeed! It's past nine, and dark as Egypt. I can't stop here, for the house is full. Sallie has some girls staying with her. I'll rest till Hannah comes, and then do the best I can. 'I'll ask Laurie. He will go, said Jo, looking relieved as the idea occurred to her. 'Mercy, no! Don't ask or tell anyone. Get me my rubbers, and put these slippers with our things. I can't dance anymore, but as soon as supper is over, watch for Hannah and tell me the minute she comes. 'They are going out to supper now. I'll stay with you. I'd rather. 'No, dear, run along, and bring me some coffee. I'm so tired I can't stir. So Meg reclined, with rubbers well hidden, and Jo went blundering away to the dining room, which she found after going into a china closet, and opening the door of a room where old Mr. Gardiner was taking a little private refreshment. Making a dart at the table, she secured the coffee, which she immediately spilled, thereby making the front of her dress as bad as the back. 'Oh, dear, what a blunderbuss I am! exclaimed Jo, finishing Meg's glove by scrubbing her gown with it. 'Can I help you? said a friendly voice. And there was Laurie, with a full cup in one hand and a plate of ice in the other. 'I was trying to get something for Meg, who is very tired, and someone shook me, and here I am in a nice state, answered Jo, glancing dismally from the stained skirt to the coffeecolored glove. 'Too bad! I was looking for someone to give this to. May I take it to your sister? 'Oh, thank you! I'll show you where she is. I don't offer to take it myself, for I should only get into another scrape if I did. Jo led the way, and as if used to waiting on ladies, Laurie drew up a little table, brought a second installment of coffee and ice for Jo, and was so obliging that even particular Meg pronounced him a 'nice boy'. They had a merry time over the bonbons and mottoes, and were in the midst of a quiet game of Buzz, with two or three other young people who had strayed in, when Hannah appeared. Meg forgot her foot and rose so quickly that she was forced to catch hold of Jo, with an exclamation of pain. 'Hush! Don't say anything, she whispered, adding aloud, 'It's nothing. I turned my foot a little, that's all, and limped upstairs to put her things on. Hannah scolded, Meg cried, and Jo was at her wits' end, till she decided to take things into her own hands. Slipping out, she ran down and, finding a servant, asked if he could get her a carriage. It happened to be a hired waiter who knew nothing about the neighborhood and Jo was looking round for help when Laurie, who had heard what she said, came up and offered his grandfather's carriage, which had just come for him, he said. 'It's so early! You can't mean to go yet? began Jo, looking relieved but hesitating to accept the offer. 'I always go early, I do, truly! Please let me take you home. It's all on my way, you know, and it rains, they say. That settled it, and telling him of Meg's mishap, Jo gratefully accepted and rushed up to bring down the rest of the party. Hannah hated rain as much as a cat does so she made no trouble, and they rolled away in the luxurious close carriage, feeling very festive and elegant. Laurie went on the box so Meg could keep her foot up, and the girls talked over their party in freedom. 'I had a capital time. Did you? asked Jo, rumpling up her hair, and making herself comfortable. 'Yes, till I hurt myself. Sallie's friend, Annie Moffat, took a fancy to me, and asked me to come and spend a week with her when Sallie does. She is going in the spring when the opera comes, and it will be perfectly splendid, if Mother only lets me go, answered Meg, cheering up at the thought. 'I saw you dancing with the red headed man I ran away from. Was he nice? 'Oh, very! His hair is auburn, not red, and he was very polite, and I had a delicious redowa with him. 'He looked like a grasshopper in a fit when he did the new step. Laurie and I couldn't help laughing. Did you hear us? 'No, but it was very rude. What were you about all that time, hidden away there? Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home. With many thanks, they said good night and crept in, hoping to disturb no one, but the instant their door creaked, two little nightcaps bobbed up, and two sleepy but eager voices cried out... 'Tell about the party! Tell about the party! With what Meg called 'a great want of manners' Jo had saved some bonbons for the little girls, and they soon subsided, after hearing the most thrilling events of the evening. 'I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown with a maid to wait on me, said Meg, as Jo bound up her foot with arnica and brushed her hair. 'I don't believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old gowns, one glove apiece and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them. And I think Jo was quite right. 'Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on, sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over, the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the task she never liked. 'I wish it was Christmas or New Year's all the time. Wouldn't it be fun? answered Jo, yawning dismally. 'We shouldn't enjoy ourselves half so much as we do now. But it does seem so nice to have little suppers and bouquets, and go to parties, and drive home, and read and rest, and not work. It's like other people, you know, and I always envy girls who do such things, I'm so fond of luxury, said Meg, trying to decide which of two shabby gowns was the least shabby. 'Well, we can't have it, so don't let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I'm sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I've learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan't mind her. This idea tickled Jo's fancy and put her in good spirits, but Meg didn't brighten, for her burden, consisting of four spoiled children, seemed heavier than ever. She had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way. 'Where's the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not? she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk. 'I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly and sour, because I'm poor and can't enjoy my life as other girls do. It's a shame! So Meg went down, wearing an injured look, and wasn't at all agreeable at breakfast time. Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to croak. Beth had a headache and lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with the cat and three kittens. Amy was fretting because her lessons were not learned, and she couldn't find her rubbers. Jo would whistle and make a great racket getting ready. Mrs. March was very busy trying to finish a letter, which must go at once, and Hannah had the grumps, for being up late didn't suit her. 'There never was such a cross family! cried Jo, losing her temper when she had upset an inkstand, broken both boot lacings, and sat down upon her hat. 'You're the crossest person in it! returned Amy, washing out the sum that was all wrong with the tears that had fallen on her slate. 'Beth, if you don't keep these horrid cats down cellar I'll have them drowned, exclaimed Meg angrily as she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach. Jo laughed, Meg scolded, Beth implored, and Amy wailed because she couldn't remember how much nine times twelve was. 'Girls, girls, do be quiet one minute! I must get this off by the early mail, and you drive me distracted with your worry, cried Mrs. March, crossing out the third spoiled sentence in her letter. There was a momentary lull, broken by Hannah, who stalked in, laid two hot turnovers on the table, and stalked out again. These turnovers were an institution, and the girls called them 'muffs', for they had no others and found the hot pies very comforting to their hands on cold mornings. Hannah never forgot to make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak. The poor things got no other lunch and were seldom home before two. 'Cuddle your cats and get over your headache, Bethy. Goodbye, Marmee. We are a set of rascals this morning, but we'll come home regular angels. Now then, Meg! And Jo tramped away, feeling that the pilgrims were not setting out as they ought to do. They always looked back before turning the corner, for their mother was always at the window to nod and smile, and wave her hand to them. Somehow it seemed as if they couldn't have got through the day without that, for whatever their mood might be, the last glimpse of that motherly face was sure to affect them like sunshine. 'If Marmee shook her fist instead of kissing her hand to us, it would serve us right, for more ungrateful wretches than we are were never seen, cried Jo, taking a remorseful satisfaction in the snowy walk and bitter wind. 'Don't use such dreadful expressions, replied Meg from the depths of the veil in which she had shrouded herself like a nun sick of the world. 'I like good strong words that mean something, replied Jo, catching her hat as it took a leap off her head preparatory to flying away altogether. 'Call yourself any names you like, but I am neither a rascal nor a wretch and I don't choose to be called so. 'You're a blighted being, and decidedly cross today because you can't sit in the lap of luxury all the time. Poor dear, just wait till I make my fortune, and you shall revel in carriages and ice cream and highheeled slippers, and posies, and redheaded boys to dance with. 'How ridiculous you are, Jo! But Meg laughed at the nonsense and felt better in spite of herself. 'Lucky for you I am, for if I put on crushed airs and tried to be dismal, as you do, we should be in a nice state. Thank goodness, I can always find something funny to keep me up. Don't croak any more, but come home jolly, there's a dear. Jo gave her sister an encouraging pat on the shoulder as they parted for the day, each going a different way, each hugging her little warm turnover, and each trying to be cheerful in spite of wintry weather, hard work, and the unsatisfied desires of pleasureloving youth. When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend, the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support, at least. Believing that they could not begin too early to cultivate energy, industry, and independence, their parents consented, and both fell to work with the hearty good will which in spite of all obstacles is sure to succeed at last. Margaret found a place as nursery governess and felt rich with her small salary. As she said, she was 'fond of luxury', and her chief trouble was poverty. She found it harder to bear than the others because she could remember a time when home was beautiful, life full of ease and pleasure, and want of any kind unknown. She tried not to be envious or discontented, but it was very natural that the young girl should long for pretty things, gay friends, accomplishments, and a happy life. At the Kings' she daily saw all she wanted, for the children's older sisters were just out, and Meg caught frequent glimpses of dainty ball dresses and bouquets, heard lively gossip about theaters, concerts, sleighing parties, and merrymakings of all kinds, and saw money lavished on trifles which would have been so precious to her. Poor Meg seldom complained, but a sense of injustice made her feel bitter toward everyone sometimes, for she had not yet learned to know how rich she was in the blessings which alone can make life happy. Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to wait upon her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old lady's will, but the unworldly Marches only said... 'We can't give up our girls for a dozen fortunes. Rich or poor, we will keep together and be happy in one another. The old lady wouldn't speak to them for a time, but happening to meet Jo at a friend's, something in her comical face and blunt manners struck the old lady's fancy, and she proposed to take her for a companion. This did not suit Jo at all, but she accepted the place since nothing better appeared and, to every one's surprise, got on remarkably well with her irascible relative. There was an occasional tempest, and once Jo marched home, declaring she couldn't bear it longer, but Aunt March always cleared up quickly, and sent for her to come back again with such urgency that she could not refuse, for in her heart she rather liked the peppery old lady. I suspect that the real attraction was a large library of fine books, which was left to dust and spiders since Uncle March died. Jo remembered the kind old gentleman, who used to let her build railroads and bridges with his big dictionaries, tell her stories about queer pictures in his Latin books, and buy her cards of gingerbread whenever he met her in the street. The dim, dusty room, with the busts staring down from the tall bookcases, the cozy chairs, the globes, and best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her. The moment Aunt March took her nap, or was busy with company, Jo hurried to this quiet place, and curling herself up in the easy chair, devoured poetry, romance, history, travels, and pictures like a regular bookworm. But, like all happiness, it did not last long, for as sure as she had just reached the heart of the story, the sweetest verse of a song, or the most perilous adventure of her traveler, a shrill voice called, 'Josyphine! Josyphine! and she had to leave her paradise to wind yarn, wash the poodle, or read Belsham's Essays by the hour together. Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid. What it was, she had no idea as yet, but left it for time to tell her, and meanwhile, found her greatest affliction in the fact that she couldn't read, run, and ride as much as she liked. A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic. But the training she received at Aunt March's was just what she needed, and the thought that she was doing something to support herself made her happy in spite of the perpetual 'Josyphine! Beth was too bashful to go to school. It had been tried, but she suffered so much that it was given up, and she did her lessons at home with her father. Even when he went away, and her mother was called to devote her skill and energy to Soldiers' Aid Societies, Beth went faithfully on by herself and did the best she could. She was a housewifely little creature, and helped Hannah keep home neat and comfortable for the workers, never thinking of any reward but to be loved. Long, quiet days she spent, not lonely nor idle, for her little world was peopled with imaginary friends, and she was by nature a busy bee. There were six dolls to be taken up and dressed every morning, for Beth was a child still and loved her pets as well as ever. Not one whole or handsome one among them, all were outcasts till Beth took them in, for when her sisters outgrew these idols, they passed to her because Amy would have nothing old or ugly. Beth cherished them all the more tenderly for that very reason, and set up a hospital for infirm dolls. No pins were ever stuck into their cotton vitals, no harsh words or blows were ever given them, no neglect ever saddened the heart of the most repulsive, but all were fed and clothed, nursed and caressed with an affection which never failed. One forlorn fragment of dollanity had belonged to Jo and, having led a tempestuous life, was left a wreck in the rag bag, from which dreary poorhouse it was rescued by Beth and taken to her refuge. Having no top to its head, she tied on a neat little cap, and as both arms and legs were gone, she hid these deficiencies by folding it in a blanket and devoting her best bed to this chronic invalid. If anyone had known the care lavished on that dolly, I think it would have touched their hearts, even while they laughed. She brought it bits of bouquets, she read to it, took it out to breathe fresh air, hidden under her coat, she sang it lullabies and never went to bed without kissing its dirty face and whispering tenderly, 'I hope you'll have a good night, my poor dear. Beth had her troubles as well as the others, and not being an angel but a very human little girl, she often 'wept a little weep' as Jo said, because she couldn't take music lessons and have a fine piano. She loved music so dearly, tried so hard to learn, and practiced away so patiently at the jingling old instrument, that it did seem as if someone (not to hint Aunt March) ought to help her. Nobody did, however, and nobody saw Beth wipe the tears off the yellow keys, that wouldn't keep in tune, when she was all alone. She sang like a little lark about her work, never was too tired for Marmee and the girls, and day after day said hopefully to herself, 'I know I'll get my music some time, if I'm good. There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind. If anybody had asked Amy what the greatest trial of her life was, she would have answered at once, 'My nose. When she was a baby, Jo had accidently dropped her into the coal hod, and Amy insisted that the fall had ruined her nose forever. It was not big nor red, like poor 'Petrea's', it was only rather flat, and all the pinching in the world could not give it an aristocratic point. No one minded it but herself, and it was doing its best to grow, but Amy felt deeply the want of a Grecian nose, and drew whole sheets of handsome ones to console herself. 'Little Raphael, as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering out of all her books at unlucky moments. She got through her lessons as well as she could, and managed to escape reprimands by being a model of deportment. She was a great favorite with her mates, being goodtempered and possessing the happy art of pleasing without effort. Her little airs and graces were much admired, so were her accomplishments, for besides her drawing, she could play twelve tunes, crochet, and read French without mispronouncing more than twothirds of the words. She had a plaintive way of saying, 'When Papa was rich we did soandso, which was very touching, and her long words were considered 'perfectly elegant' by the girls. Amy was in a fair way to be spoiled, for everyone petted her, and her small vanities and selfishnesses were growing nicely. One thing, however, rather quenched the vanities. She had to wear her cousin's clothes. Now Florence's mama hadn't a particle of taste, and Amy suffered deeply at having to wear a red instead of a blue bonnet, unbecoming gowns, and fussy aprons that did not fit. Everything was good, well made, and little worn, but Amy's artistic eyes were much afflicted, especially this winter, when her school dress was a dull purple with yellow dots and no trimming. 'My only comfort, she said to Meg, with tears in her eyes, 'is that Mother doesn't take tucks in my dresses whenever I'm naughty, as Maria Parks's mother does. My dear, it's really dreadful, for sometimes she is so bad her frock is up to her knees, and she can't come to school. When I think of this deggerredation, I feel that I can bear even my flat nose and purple gown with yellow skyrockets on it. Meg was Amy's confidant and monitor, and by some strange attraction of opposites Jo was gentle Beth's. To Jo alone did the shy child tell her thoughts, and over her big harumscarum sister Beth unconsciously exercised more influence than anyone in the family. The two older girls were a great deal to one another, but each took one of the younger sisters into her keeping and watched over her in her own way, 'playing mother' they called it, and put their sisters in the places of discarded dolls with the maternal instinct of little women. 'Has anybody got anything to tell? It's been such a dismal day I'm really dying for some amusement, said Meg, as they sat sewing together that evening. 'I had a queer time with Aunt today, and, as I got the best of it, I'll tell you about it, began Jo, who dearly loved to tell stories. 'I was reading that everlasting Belsham, and droning away as I always do, for Aunt soon drops off, and then I take out some nice book, and read like fury till she wakes up. I actually made myself sleepy, and before she began to nod, I gave such a gape that she asked me what I meant by opening my mouth wide enough to take the whole book in at once. 'I wish I could, and be done with it, said I, trying not to be saucy. 'Then she gave me a long lecture on my sins, and told me to sit and think them over while she just 'lost' herself for a moment. She never finds herself very soon, so the minute her cap began to bob like a topheavy dahlia, I whipped the Vicar of Wakefield out of my pocket, and read away, with one eye on him and one on Aunt. I'd just got to where they all tumbled into the water when I forgot and laughed out loud. Aunt woke up and, being more goodnatured after her nap, told me to read a bit and show what frivolous work I preferred to the worthy and instructive Belsham. I did my very best, and she liked it, though she only said... ''I don't understand what it's all about. Go back and begin it, child.' 'Back I went, and made the Primroses as interesting as ever I could. Once I was wicked enough to stop in a thrilling place, and say meekly, 'I'm afraid it tires you, ma'am. Shan't I stop now?' 'She caught up her knitting, which had dropped out of her hands, gave me a sharp look through her specs, and said, in her short way, 'Finish the chapter, and don't be impertinent, miss'. 'Did she own she liked it? asked Meg. 'Oh, bless you, no! But she let old Belsham rest, and when I ran back after my gloves this afternoon, there she was, so hard at the Vicar that she didn't hear me laugh as I danced a jig in the hall because of the good time coming. What a pleasant life she might have if only she chose! I don't envy her much, in spite of her money, for after all rich people have about as many worries as poor ones, I think, added Jo. 'That reminds me, said Meg, 'that I've got something to tell. It isn't funny, like Jo's story, but I thought about it a good deal as I came home. At the Kings' today I found everybody in a flurry, and one of the children said that her oldest brother had done something dreadful, and Papa had sent him away. I heard Mrs. King crying and Mr. King talking very loud, and Grace and Ellen turned away their faces when they passed me, so I shouldn't see how red and swollen their eyes were. I didn't ask any questions, of course, but I felt so sorry for them and was rather glad I hadn't any wild brothers to do wicked things and disgrace the family. 'I think being disgraced in school is a great deal tryinger than anything bad boys can do, said Amy, shaking her head, as if her experience of life had been a deep one. 'Susie Perkins came to school today with a lovely red carnelian ring. I wanted it dreadfully, and wished I was her with all my might. Well, she drew a picture of Mr. Davis, with a monstrous nose and a hump, and the words, 'Young ladies, my eye is upon you!' coming out of his mouth in a balloon thing. We were laughing over it when all of a sudden his eye was on us, and he ordered Susie to bring up her slate. She was parrylized with fright, but she went, and oh, what do you think he did? He took her by the earthe ear! Just fancy how horrid!and led her to the recitation platform, and made her stand there half an hour, holding the slate so everyone could see. 'Didn't the girls laugh at the picture? asked Jo, who relished the scrape. 'Laugh? Not one! They sat still as mice, and Susie cried quarts, I know she did. I didn't envy her then, for I felt that millions of carnelian rings wouldn't have made me happy after that. I never, never should have got over such a agonizing mortification. And Amy went on with her work, in the proud consciousness of virtue and the successful utterance of two long words in a breath. 'I saw something I liked this morning, and I meant to tell it at dinner, but I forgot, said Beth, putting Jo's topsyturvy basket in order as she talked. 'When I went to get some oysters for Hannah, Mr. Laurence was in the fish shop, but he didn't see me, for I kept behind the fish barrel, and he was busy with Mr. Cutter the fishman. A poor woman came in with a pail and a mop, and asked Mr. Cutter if he would let her do some scrubbing for a bit of fish, because she hadn't any dinner for her children, and had been disappointed of a day's work. Mr. Cutter was in a hurry and said 'No', rather crossly, so she was going away, looking hungry and sorry, when Mr. Laurence hooked up a big fish with the crooked end of his cane and held it out to her. She was so glad and surprised she took it right into her arms, and thanked him over and over. He told her to 'go along and cook it', and she hurried off, so happy! Wasn't it good of him? Oh, she did look so funny, hugging the big, slippery fish, and hoping Mr. Laurence's bed in heaven would be 'aisy'. When they had laughed at Beth's story, they asked their mother for one, and after a moments thought, she said soberly, 'As I sat cutting out blue flannel jackets today at the rooms, I felt very anxious about Father, and thought how lonely and helpless we should be, if anything happened to him. It was not a wise thing to do, but I kept on worrying till an old man came in with an order for some clothes. He sat down near me, and I began to talk to him, for he looked poor and tired and anxious. ''Have you sons in the army?' I asked, for the note he brought was not to me. 'Yes, ma'am. I had four, but two were killed, one is a prisoner, and I'm going to the other, who is very sick in a Washington hospital.' he answered quietly. ''You have done a great deal for your country, sir,' I said, feeling respect now, instead of pity. ''Not a mite more than I ought, ma'am. I'd go myself, if I was any use. As I ain't, I give my boys, and give 'em free.' 'He spoke so cheerfully, looked so sincere, and seemed so glad to give his all, that I was ashamed of myself. I'd given one man and thought it too much, while he gave four without grudging them. I had all my girls to comfort me at home, and his last son was waiting, miles away, to say goodby to him, perhaps! I felt so rich, so happy thinking of my blessings, that I made him a nice bundle, gave him some money, and thanked him heartily for the lesson he had taught me. 'Tell another story, Mother, one with a moral to it, like this. I like to think about them afterward, if they are real and not too preachy, said Jo, after a minute's silence. Mrs. March smiled and began at once, for she had told stories to this little audience for many years, and knew how to please them. 'Once upon a time, there were four girls, who had enough to eat and drink and wear, a good many comforts and pleasures, kind friends and parents who loved them dearly, and yet they were not contented. (Here the listeners stole sly looks at one another, and began to sew diligently.) 'These girls were anxious to be good and made many excellent resolutions, but they did not keep them very well, and were constantly saying, 'If only we had this,' or 'If we could only do that,' quite forgetting how much they already had, and how many things they actually could do. So they asked an old woman what spell they could use to make them happy, and she said, 'When you feel discontented, think over your blessings, and be grateful.' (Here Jo looked up quickly, as if about to speak, but changed her mind, seeing that the story was not done yet.) 'Being sensible girls, they decided to try her advice, and soon were surprised to see how well off they were. One discovered that money couldn't keep shame and sorrow out of rich people's houses, another that, though she was poor, she was a great deal happier, with her youth, health, and good spirits, than a certain fretful, feeble old lady who couldn't enjoy her comforts, a third that, disagreeable as it was to help get dinner, it was harder still to go begging for it and the fourth, that even carnelian rings were not so valuable as good behavior. So they agreed to stop complaining, to enjoy the blessings already possessed, and try to deserve them, lest they should be taken away entirely, instead of increased, and I believe they were never disappointed or sorry that they took the old woman's advice. 'Now, Marmee, that is very cunning of you to turn our own stories against us, and give us a sermon instead of a romance! cried Meg. 'I like that kind of sermon. It's the sort Father used to tell us, said Beth thoughtfully, putting the needles straight on Jo's cushion. 'I don't complain near as much as the others do, and I shall be more careful than ever now, for I've had warning from Susie's downfall, said Amy morally. 'We needed that lesson, and we won't forget it. If we do so, you just say to us, as old Chloe did in Uncle Tom, 'Tink ob yer marcies, chillen!' 'Tink ob yer marcies!' added Jo, who could not, for the life of her, help getting a morsel of fun out of the little sermon, though she took it to heart as much as any of them. 'What in the world are you going to do now, Jo? asked Meg one snowy afternoon, as her sister came tramping through the hall, in rubber boots, old sack, and hood, with a broom in one hand and a shovel in the other. 'Going out for exercise, answered Jo with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. 'I should think two long walks this morning would have been enough! It's cold and dull out, and I advise you to stay warm and dry by the fire, as I do, said Meg with a shiver. 'Never take advice! Can't keep still all day, and not being a pussycat, I don't like to doze by the fire. I like adventures, and I'm going to find some. Meg went back to toast her feet and read Ivanhoe, and Jo began to dig paths with great energy. The snow was light, and with her broom she soon swept a path all round the garden, for Beth to walk in when the sun came out and the invalid dolls needed air. Now, the garden separated the Marches' house from that of Mr. Laurence. Both stood in a suburb of the city, which was still countrylike, with groves and lawns, large gardens, and quiet streets. A low hedge parted the two estates. On one side was an old, brown house, looking rather bare and shabby, robbed of the vines that in summer covered its walls and the flowers, which then surrounded it. On the other side was a stately stone mansion, plainly betokening every sort of comfort and luxury, from the big coach house and wellkept grounds to the conservatory and the glimpses of lovely things one caught between the rich curtains. Yet it seemed a lonely, lifeless sort of house, for no children frolicked on the lawn, no motherly face ever smiled at the windows, and few people went in and out, except the old gentleman and his grandson. To Jo's lively fancy, this fine house seemed a kind of enchanted palace, full of splendors and delights which no one enjoyed. She had long wanted to behold these hidden glories, and to know the Laurence boy, who looked as if he would like to be known, if he only knew how to begin. Since the party, she had been more eager than ever, and had planned many ways of making friends with him, but he had not been seen lately, and Jo began to think he had gone away, when she one day spied a brown face at an upper window, looking wistfully down into their garden, where Beth and Amy were snowballing one another. 'That boy is suffering for society and fun, she said to herself. 'His grandpa does not know what's good for him, and keeps him shut up all alone. He needs a party of jolly boys to play with, or somebody young and lively. I've a great mind to go over and tell the old gentleman so! The idea amused Jo, who liked to do daring things and was always scandalizing Meg by her queer performances. The plan of 'going over' was not forgotten. And when the snowy afternoon came, Jo resolved to try what could be done. She saw Mr. Lawrence drive off, and then sallied out to dig her way down to the hedge, where she paused and took a survey. All quiet, curtains down at the lower windows, servants out of sight, and nothing human visible but a curly black head leaning on a thin hand at the upper window. 'There he is, thought Jo, 'Poor boy! All alone and sick this dismal day. It's a shame! I'll toss up a snowball and make him look out, and then say a kind word to him. Up went a handful of soft snow, and the head turned at once, showing a face which lost its listless look in a minute, as the big eyes brightened and the mouth began to smile. Jo nodded and laughed, and flourished her broom as she called out... 'How do you do? Are you sick? Laurie opened the window, and croaked out as hoarsely as a raven... 'Better, thank you. I've had a bad cold, and been shut up a week. 'I'm sorry. What do you amuse yourself with? 'Nothing. It's dull as tombs up here. 'Don't you read? 'Not much. They won't let me. 'Can't somebody read to you? 'Grandpa does sometimes, but my books don't interest him, and I hate to ask Brooke all the time. 'Have someone come and see you then. 'There isn't anyone I'd like to see. Boys make such a row, and my head is weak. 'Isn't there some nice girl who'd read and amuse you? Girls are quiet and like to play nurse. 'Don't know any. 'You know us, began Jo, then laughed and stopped. 'So I do! Will you come, please? cried Laurie. 'I'm not quiet and nice, but I'll come, if Mother will let me. I'll go ask her. Shut the window, like a good boy, and wait till I come. With that, Jo shouldered her broom and marched into the house, wondering what they would all say to her. Laurie was in a flutter of excitement at the idea of having company, and flew about to get ready, for as Mrs. March said, he was 'a little gentleman', and did honor to the coming guest by brushing his curly pate, putting on a fresh color, and trying to tidy up the room, which in spite of half a dozen servants, was anything but neat. Presently there came a loud ring, then a decided voice, asking for 'Mr. Laurie', and a surprisedlooking servant came running up to announce a young lady. 'All right, show her up, it's Miss Jo, said Laurie, going to the door of his little parlor to meet Jo, who appeared, looking rosy and quite at her ease, with a covered dish in one hand and Beth's three kittens in the other. 'Here I am, bag and baggage, she said briskly. 'Mother sent her love, and was glad if I could do anything for you. Meg wanted me to bring some of her blanc mange, she makes it very nicely, and Beth thought her cats would be comforting. I knew you'd laugh at them, but I couldn't refuse, she was so anxious to do something. It so happened that Beth's funny loan was just the thing, for in laughing over the kits, Laurie forgot his bashfulness, and grew sociable at once. 'That looks too pretty to eat, he said, smiling with pleasure, as Jo uncovered the dish, and showed the blanc mange, surrounded by a garland of green leaves, and the scarlet flowers of Amy's pet geranium. 'It isn't anything, only they all felt kindly and wanted to show it. Tell the girl to put it away for your tea. It's so simple you can eat it, and being soft, it will slip down without hurting your sore throat. What a cozy room this is! 'It might be if it was kept nice, but the maids are lazy, and I don't know how to make them mind. It worries me though. 'I'll right it up in two minutes, for it only needs to have the hearth brushed, soand the things made straight on the mantelpiece, soand the books put here, and the bottles there, and your sofa turned from the light, and the pillows plumped up a bit. Now then, you're fixed. And so he was, for, as she laughed and talked, Jo had whisked things into place and given quite a different air to the room. Laurie watched her in respectful silence, and when she beckoned him to his sofa, he sat down with a sigh of satisfaction, saying gratefully... 'How kind you are! Yes, that's what it wanted. Now please take the big chair and let me do something to amuse my company. 'No, I came to amuse you. Shall I read aloud? and Jo looked affectionately toward some inviting books near by. 'Thank you! I've read all those, and if you don't mind, I'd rather talk, answered Laurie. 'Not a bit. I'll talk all day if you'll only set me going. Beth says I never know when to stop. 'Is Beth the rosy one, who stays at home good deal and sometimes goes out with a little basket? asked Laurie with interest. 'Yes, that's Beth. She's my girl, and a regular good one she is, too. 'The pretty one is Meg, and the curlyhaired one is Amy, I believe? 'How did you find that out? Laurie colored up, but answered frankly, 'Why, you see I often hear you calling to one another, and when I'm alone up here, I can't help looking over at your house, you always seem to be having such good times. I beg your pardon for being so rude, but sometimes you forget to put down the curtain at the window where the flowers are. And when the lamps are lighted, it's like looking at a picture to see the fire, and you all around the table with your mother. Her face is right opposite, and it looks so sweet behind the flowers, I can't help watching it. I haven't got any mother, you know. And Laurie poked the fire to hide a little twitching of the lips that he could not control. The solitary, hungry look in his eyes went straight to Jo's warm heart. She had been so simply taught that there was no nonsense in her head, and at fifteen she was as innocent and frank as any child. Laurie was sick and lonely, and feeling how rich she was in home and happiness, she gladly tried to share it with him. Her face was very friendly and her sharp voice unusually gentle as she said... 'We'll never draw that curtain any more, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you'd come over and see us. Mother is so splendid, she'd do you heaps of good, and Beth would sing to you if I begged her to, and Amy would dance. Meg and I would make you laugh over our funny stage properties, and we'd have jolly times. Wouldn't your grandpa let you? 'I think he would, if your mother asked him. He's very kind, though he does not look so, and he lets me do what I like, pretty much, only he's afraid I might be a bother to strangers, began Laurie, brightening more and more. 'We are not strangers, we are neighbors, and you needn't think you'd be a bother. We want to know you, and I've been trying to do it this ever so long. We haven't been here a great while, you know, but we have got acquainted with all our neighbors but you. 'You see, Grandpa lives among his books, and doesn't mind much what happens outside. Mr. Brooke, my tutor, doesn't stay here, you know, and I have no one to go about with me, so I just stop at home and get on as I can. 'That's bad. You ought to make an effort and go visiting everywhere you are asked, then you'll have plenty of friends, and pleasant places to go to. Never mind being bashful. It won't last long if you keep going. Laurie turned red again, but wasn't offended at being accused of bashfulness, for there was so much good will in Jo it was impossible not to take her blunt speeches as kindly as they were meant. 'Do you like your school? asked the boy, changing the subject, after a little pause, during which he stared at the fire and Jo looked about her, well pleased. 'Don't go to school, I'm a businessmangirl, I mean. I go to wait on my greataunt, and a dear, cross old soul she is, too, answered Jo. Laurie opened his mouth to ask another question, but remembering just in time that it wasn't manners to make too many inquiries into people's affairs, he shut it again, and looked uncomfortable. Jo liked his good breeding, and didn't mind having a laugh at Aunt March, so she gave him a lively description of the fidgety old lady, her fat poodle, the parrot that talked Spanish, and the library where she reveled. Laurie enjoyed that immensely, and when she told about the prim old gentleman who came once to woo Aunt March, and in the middle of a fine speech, how Poll had tweaked his wig off to his great dismay, the boy lay back and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and a maid popped her head in to see what was the matter. 'Oh! That does me no end of good. Tell on, please, he said, taking his face out of the sofa cushion, red and shining with merriment. Much elated with her success, Jo did 'tell on', all about their plays and plans, their hopes and fears for Father, and the most interesting events of the little world in which the sisters lived. Then they got to talking about books, and to Jo's delight, she found that Laurie loved them as well as she did, and had read even more than herself. 'If you like them so much, come down and see ours. Grandfather is out, so you needn't be afraid, said Laurie, getting up. 'I'm not afraid of anything, returned Jo, with a toss of the head. 'I don't believe you are! exclaimed the boy, looking at her with much admiration, though he privately thought she would have good reason to be a trifle afraid of the old gentleman, if she met him in some of his moods. The atmosphere of the whole house being summerlike, Laurie led the way from room to room, letting Jo stop to examine whatever struck her fancy. And so, at last they came to the library, where she clapped her hands and pranced, as she always did when especially delighted. It was lined with books, and there were pictures and statues, and distracting little cabinets full of coins and curiosities, and Sleepy Hollow chairs, and queer tables, and bronzes, and best of all, a great open fireplace with quaint tiles all round it. 'What richness! sighed Jo, sinking into the depth of a velour chair and gazing about her with an air of intense satisfaction. 'Theodore Laurence, you ought to be the happiest boy in the world, she added impressively. 'A fellow can't live on books, said Laurie, shaking his head as he perched on a table opposite. Before he could say more, a bell rang, and Jo flew up, exclaiming with alarm, 'Mercy me! It's your grandpa! 'Well, what if it is? You are not afraid of anything, you know, returned the boy, looking wicked. 'I think I am a little bit afraid of him, but I don't know why I should be. Marmee said I might come, and I don't think you're any the worse for it, said Jo, composing herself, though she kept her eyes on the door. 'I'm a great deal better for it, and ever so much obliged. I'm only afraid you are very tired of talking to me. It was so pleasant, I couldn't bear to stop, said Laurie gratefully. 'The doctor to see you, sir, and the maid beckoned as she spoke. 'Would you mind if I left you for a minute? I suppose I must see him, said Laurie. 'Don't mind me. I'm happy as a cricket here, answered Jo. Laurie went away, and his guest amused herself in her own way. She was standing before a fine portrait of the old gentleman when the door opened again, and without turning, she said decidedly, 'I'm sure now that I shouldn't be afraid of him, for he's got kind eyes, though his mouth is grim, and he looks as if he had a tremendous will of his own. He isn't as handsome as my grandfather, but I like him. 'Thank you, ma'am, said a gruff voice behind her, and there, to her great dismay, stood old Mr. Laurence. Poor Jo blushed till she couldn't blush any redder, and her heart began to beat uncomfortably fast as she thought what she had said. For a minute a wild desire to run away possessed her, but that was cowardly, and the girls would laugh at her, so she resolved to stay and get out of the scrape as she could. A second look showed her that the living eyes, under the bushy eyebrows, were kinder even than the painted ones, and there was a sly twinkle in them, which lessened her fear a good deal. The gruff voice was gruffer than ever, as the old gentleman said abruptly, after the dreadful pause, 'So you're not afraid of me, hey? 'Not much, sir. 'And you don't think me as handsome as your grandfather? 'Not quite, sir. 'And I've got a tremendous will, have I? 'I only said I thought so. 'But you like me in spite of it? 'Yes, I do, sir. That answer pleased the old gentleman. He gave a short laugh, shook hands with her, and, putting his finger under her chin, turned up her face, examined it gravely, and let it go, saying with a nod, 'You've got your grandfather's spirit, if you haven't his face. He was a fine man, my dear, but what is better, he was a brave and an honest one, and I was proud to be his friend. 'Thank you, sir, And Jo was quite comfortable after that, for it suited her exactly. 'What have you been doing to this boy of mine, hey? was the next question, sharply put. 'Only trying to be neighborly, sir. And Jo told how her visit came about. 'You think he needs cheering up a bit, do you? 'Yes, sir, he seems a little lonely, and young folks would do him good perhaps. We are only girls, but we should be glad to help if we could, for we don't forget the splendid Christmas present you sent us, said Jo eagerly. 'Tut, tut, tut! That was the boy's affair. How is the poor woman? 'Doing nicely, sir. And off went Jo, talking very fast, as she told all about the Hummels, in whom her mother had interested richer friends than they were. 'Just her father's way of doing good. I shall come and see your mother some fine day. Tell her so. There's the tea bell, we have it early on the boy's account. Come down and go on being neighborly. 'If you'd like to have me, sir. 'Shouldn't ask you, if I didn't. And Mr. Laurence offered her his arm with oldfashioned courtesy. 'What would Meg say to this? thought Jo, as she was marched away, while her eyes danced with fun as she imagined herself telling the story at home. 'Hey! Why, what the dickens has come to the fellow? said the old gentleman, as Laurie came running downstairs and brought up with a start of surprise at the astounding sight of Jo arm in arm with his redoubtable grandfather. 'I didn't know you'd come, sir, he began, as Jo gave him a triumphant little glance. 'That's evident, by the way you racket downstairs. Come to your tea, sir, and behave like a gentleman. And having pulled the boy's hair by way of a caress, Mr. Laurence walked on, while Laurie went through a series of comic evolutions behind their backs, which nearly produced an explosion of laughter from Jo. The old gentleman did not say much as he drank his four cups of tea, but he watched the young people, who soon chatted away like old friends, and the change in his grandson did not escape him. There was color, light, and life in the boy's face now, vivacity in his manner, and genuine merriment in his laugh. 'She's right, the lad is lonely. I'll see what these little girls can do for him, thought Mr. Laurence, as he looked and listened. He liked Jo, for her odd, blunt ways suited him, and she seemed to understand the boy almost as well as if she had been one herself. If the Laurences had been what Jo called 'prim and poky', she would not have got on at all, for such people always made her shy and awkward. But finding them free and easy, she was so herself, and made a good impression. When they rose she proposed to go, but Laurie said he had something more to show her, and took her away to the conservatory, which had been lighted for her benefit. It seemed quite fairylike to Jo, as she went up and down the walks, enjoying the blooming walls on either side, the soft light, the damp sweet air, and the wonderful vines and trees that hung about her, while her new friend cut the finest flowers till his hands were full. Then he tied them up, saying, with the happy look Jo liked to see, 'Please give these to your mother, and tell her I like the medicine she sent me very much. They found Mr. Laurence standing before the fire in the great drawing room, but Jo's attention was entirely absorbed by a grand piano, which stood open. 'Do you play? she asked, turning to Laurie with a respectful expression. 'Sometimes, he answered modestly. 'Please do now. I want to hear it, so I can tell Beth. 'Won't you first? 'Don't know how. Too stupid to learn, but I love music dearly. So Laurie played and Jo listened, with her nose luxuriously buried in heliotrope and tea roses. Her respect and regard for the 'Laurence' boy increased very much, for he played remarkably well and didn't put on any airs. She wished Beth could hear him, but she did not say so, only praised him till he was quite abashed, and his grandfather came to his rescue. 'That will do, that will do, young lady. Too many sugarplums are not good for him. His music isn't bad, but I hope he will do as well in more important things. Going? well, I'm much obliged to you, and I hope you'll come again. My respects to your mother. Good night, Doctor Jo. He shook hands kindly, but looked as if something did not please him. When they got into the hall, Jo asked Laurie if she had said something amiss. He shook his head. 'No, it was me. He doesn't like to hear me play. 'Why not? 'I'll tell you some day. John is going home with you, as I can't. 'No need of that. I am not a young lady, and it's only a step. Take care of yourself, won't you? 'Yes, but you will come again, I hope? 'If you promise to come and see us after you are well. 'I will. 'Good night, Laurie! 'Good night, Jo, good night! When all the afternoon's adventures had been told, the family felt inclined to go visiting in a body, for each found something very attractive in the big house on the other side of the hedge. Mrs. March wanted to talk of her father with the old man who had not forgotten him, Meg longed to walk in the conservatory, Beth sighed for the grand piano, and Amy was eager to see the fine pictures and statues. 'Mother, why didn't Mr. Laurence like to have Laurie play? asked Jo, who was of an inquiring disposition. 'I am not sure, but I think it was because his son, Laurie's father, married an Italian lady, a musician, which displeased the old man, who is very proud. The lady was good and lovely and accomplished, but he did not like her, and never saw his son after he married. They both died when Laurie was a little child, and then his grandfather took him home. I fancy the boy, who was born in Italy, is not very strong, and the old man is afraid of losing him, which makes him so careful. Laurie comes naturally by his love of music, for he is like his mother, and I dare say his grandfather fears that he may want to be a musician. At any rate, his skill reminds him of the woman he did not like, and so he 'glowered' as Jo said. 'Dear me, how romantic! exclaimed Meg. 'How silly! said Jo. 'Let him be a musician if he wants to, and not plague his life out sending him to college, when he hates to go. 'That's why he has such handsome black eyes and pretty manners, I suppose. Italians are always nice, said Meg, who was a little sentimental. 'What do you know about his eyes and his manners? You never spoke to him, hardly, cried Jo, who was not sentimental. 'I saw him at the party, and what you tell shows that he knows how to behave. That was a nice little speech about the medicine Mother sent him. 'He meant the blanc mange, I suppose. 'How stupid you are, child! He meant you, of course. 'Did he? And Jo opened her eyes as if it had never occurred to her before. 'I never saw such a girl! You don't know a compliment when you get it, said Meg, with the air of a young lady who knew all about the matter. 'I think they are great nonsense, and I'll thank you not to be silly and spoil my fun. Laurie's a nice boy and I like him, and I won't have any sentimental stuff about compliments and such rubbish. We'll all be good to him because he hasn't got any mother, and he may come over and see us, mayn't he, Marmee? 'Yes, Jo, your little friend is very welcome, and I hope Meg will remember that children should be children as long as they can. 'I don't call myself a child, and I'm not in my teens yet, observed Amy. 'What do you say, Beth? 'I was thinking about our 'Pilgrim's Progress', answered Beth, who had not heard a word. 'How we got out of the Slough and through the Wicket Gate by resolving to be good, and up the steep hill by trying, and that maybe the house over there, full of splendid things, is going to be our Palace Beautiful. 'We have got to get by the lions first, said Jo, as if she rather liked the prospect. The big house did prove a Palace Beautiful, though it took some time for all to get in, and Beth found it very hard to pass the lions. Old Mr. Laurence was the biggest one, but after he had called, said something funny or kind to each one of the girls, and talked over old times with their mother, nobody felt much afraid of him, except timid Beth. The other lion was the fact that they were poor and Laurie rich, for this made them shy of accepting favors which they could not return. But, after a while, they found that he considered them the benefactors, and could not do enough to show how grateful he was for Mrs. March's motherly welcome, their cheerful society, and the comfort he took in that humble home of theirs. So they soon forgot their pride and interchanged kindnesses without stopping to think which was the greater. All sorts of pleasant things happened about that time, for the new friendship flourished like grass in spring. Every one liked Laurie, and he privately informed his tutor that 'the Marches were regularly splendid girls. With the delightful enthusiasm of youth, they took the solitary boy into their midst and made much of him, and he found something very charming in the innocent companionship of these simplehearted girls. Never having known mother or sisters, he was quick to feel the influences they brought about him, and their busy, lively ways made him ashamed of the indolent life he led. He was tired of books, and found people so interesting now that Mr. Brooke was obliged to make very unsatisfactory reports, for Laurie was always playing truant and running over to the Marches'. 'Never mind, let him take a holiday, and make it up afterward, said the old gentleman. 'The good lady next door says he is studying too hard and needs young society, amusement, and exercise. I suspect she is right, and that I've been coddling the fellow as if I'd been his grandmother. Let him do what he likes, as long as he is happy. He can't get into mischief in that little nunnery over there, and Mrs. March is doing more for him than we can. What good times they had, to be sure. Such plays and tableaux, such sleigh rides and skating frolics, such pleasant evenings in the old parlor, and now and then such gay little parties at the great house. Meg could walk in the conservatory whenever she liked and revel in bouquets, Jo browsed over the new library voraciously, and convulsed the old gentleman with her criticisms, Amy copied pictures and enjoyed beauty to her heart's content, and Laurie played 'lord of the manor' in the most delightful style. But Beth, though yearning for the grand piano, could not pluck up courage to go to the 'Mansion of Bliss', as Meg called it. She went once with Jo, but the old gentleman, not being aware of her infirmity, stared at her so hard from under his heavy eyebrows, and said 'Hey! so loud, that he frightened her so much her 'feet chattered on the floor', she never told her mother, and she ran away, declaring she would never go there any more, not even for the dear piano. No persuasions or enticements could overcome her fear, till, the fact coming to Mr. Laurence's ear in some mysterious way, he set about mending matters. During one of the brief calls he made, he artfully led the conversation to music, and talked away about great singers whom he had seen, fine organs he had heard, and told such charming anecdotes that Beth found it impossible to stay in her distant corner, but crept nearer and nearer, as if fascinated. At the back of his chair she stopped and stood listening, with her great eyes wide open and her cheeks red with excitement of this unusual performance. Taking no more notice of her than if she had been a fly, Mr. Laurence talked on about Laurie's lessons and teachers. And presently, as if the idea had just occurred to him, he said to Mrs. March... 'The boy neglects his music now, and I'm glad of it, for he was getting too fond of it. But the piano suffers for want of use. Wouldn't some of your girls like to run over, and practice on it now and then, just to keep it in tune, you know, ma'am? Beth took a step forward, and pressed her hands tightly together to keep from clapping them, for this was an irresistible temptation, and the thought of practicing on that splendid instrument quite took her breath away. Before Mrs. March could reply, Mr. Laurence went on with an odd little nod and smile... 'They needn't see or speak to anyone, but run in at any time. For I'm shut up in my study at the other end of the house, Laurie is out a great deal, and the servants are never near the drawing room after nine o'clock. Here he rose, as if going, and Beth made up her mind to speak, for that last arrangement left nothing to be desired. 'Please, tell the young ladies what I say, and if they don't care to come, why, never mind. Here a little hand slipped into his, and Beth looked up at him with a face full of gratitude, as she said, in her earnest yet timid way... 'Oh sir, they do care, very very much! 'Are you the musical girl? he asked, without any startling 'Hey! as he looked down at her very kindly. 'I'm Beth. I love it dearly, and I'll come, if you are quite sure nobody will hear me, and be disturbed, she added, fearing to be rude, and trembling at her own boldness as she spoke. 'Not a soul, my dear. The house is empty half the day, so come and drum away as much as you like, and I shall be obliged to you. 'How kind you are, sir! Beth blushed like a rose under the friendly look he wore, but she was not frightened now, and gave the hand a grateful squeeze because she had no words to thank him for the precious gift he had given her. The old gentleman softly stroked the hair off her forehead, and, stooping down, he kissed her, saying, in a tone few people ever heard... 'I had a little girl once, with eyes like these. God bless you, my dear! Good day, madam. And away he went, in a great hurry. Beth had a rapture with her mother, and then rushed up to impart the glorious news to her family of invalids, as the girls were not home. How blithely she sang that evening, and how they all laughed at her because she woke Amy in the night by playing the piano on her face in her sleep. Next day, having seen both the old and young gentleman out of the house, Beth, after two or three retreats, fairly got in at the side door, and made her way as noiselessly as any mouse to the drawing room where her idol stood. Quite by accident, of course, some pretty, easy music lay on the piano, and with trembling fingers and frequent stops to listen and look about, Beth at last touched the great instrument, and straightway forgot her fear, herself, and everything else but the unspeakable delight which the music gave her, for it was like the voice of a beloved friend. She stayed till Hannah came to take her home to dinner, but she had no appetite, and could only sit and smile upon everyone in a general state of beatitude. After that, the little brown hood slipped through the hedge nearly every day, and the great drawing room was haunted by a tuneful spirit that came and went unseen. She never knew that Mr. Laurence opened his study door to hear the oldfashioned airs he liked. She never saw Laurie mount guard in the hall to warn the servants away. She never suspected that the exercise books and new songs which she found in the rack were put there for her especial benefit, and when he talked to her about music at home, she only thought how kind he was to tell things that helped her so much. So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped. Perhaps it was because she was so grateful for this blessing that a greater was given her. At any rate she deserved both. 'Mother, I'm going to work Mr. Laurence a pair of slippers. He is so kind to me, I must thank him, and I don't know any other way. Can I do it? asked Beth, a few weeks after that eventful call of his. 'Yes, dear. It will please him very much, and be a nice way of thanking him. The girls will help you about them, and I will pay for the making up, replied Mrs. March, who took peculiar pleasure in granting Beth's requests because she so seldom asked anything for herself. After many serious discussions with Meg and Jo, the pattern was chosen, the materials bought, and the slippers begun. A cluster of grave yet cheerful pansies on a deeper purple ground was pronounced very appropriate and pretty, and Beth worked away early and late, with occasional lifts over hard parts. She was a nimble little needlewoman, and they were finished before anyone got tired of them. Then she wrote a short, simple note, and with Laurie's help, got them smuggled onto the study table one morning before the old gentleman was up. When this excitement was over, Beth waited to see what would happen. All day passed and a part of the next before any acknowledgement arrived, and she was beginning to fear she had offended her crochety friend. On the afternoon of the second day, she went out to do an errand, and give poor Joanna, the invalid doll, her daily exercise. As she came up the street, on her return, she saw three, yes, four heads popping in and out of the parlor windows, and the moment they saw her, several hands were waved, and several joyful voices screamed... 'Here's a letter from the old gentleman! Come quick, and read it! 'Oh, Beth, he's sent you... began Amy, gesticulating with unseemly energy, but she got no further, for Jo quenched her by slamming down the window. Beth hurried on in a flutter of suspense. At the door her sisters seized and bore her to the parlor in a triumphal procession, all pointing and all saying at once, 'Look there! Look there! Beth did look, and turned pale with delight and surprise, for there stood a little cabinet piano, with a letter lying on the glossy lid, directed like a sign board to 'Miss Elizabeth March. 'For me? gasped Beth, holding onto Jo and feeling as if she should tumble down, it was such an overwhelming thing altogether. 'Yes, all for you, my precious! Isn't it splendid of him? Don't you think he's the dearest old man in the world? Here's the key in the letter. We didn't open it, but we are dying to know what he says, cried Jo, hugging her sister and offering the note. 'You read it! I can't, I feel so queer! Oh, it is too lovely! and Beth hid her face in Jo's apron, quite upset by her present. Jo opened the paper and began to laugh, for the first words she saw were... 'Miss March 'Dear Madam 'How nice it sounds! I wish someone would write to me so! said Amy, who thought the oldfashioned address very elegant. ''I have had many pairs of slippers in my life, but I never had any that suited me so well as yours,' continues Jo. ''Heart'sease is my favorite flower, and these will always remind me of the gentle giver. I like to pay my debts, so I know you will allow 'the old gentleman' to send you something which once belonged to the little grand daughter he lost. With hearty thanks and best wishes, I remain ''Your grateful friend and humble servant, 'JAMES LAURENCE'. 'There, Beth, that's an honor to be proud of, I'm sure! Laurie told me how fond Mr. Laurence used to be of the child who died, and how he kept all her little things carefully. Just think, he's given you her piano. That comes of having big blue eyes and loving music, said Jo, trying to soothe Beth, who trembled and looked more excited than she had ever been before. 'See the cunning brackets to hold candles, and the nice green silk, puckered up, with a gold rose in the middle, and the pretty rack and stool, all complete, added Meg, opening the instrument and displaying its beauties. ''Your humble servant, James Laurence'. Only think of his writing that to you. I'll tell the girls. They'll think it's splendid, said Amy, much impressed by the note. 'Try it, honey. Let's hear the sound of the baby pianny, said Hannah, who always took a share in the family joys and sorrows. So Beth tried it, and everyone pronounced it the most remarkable piano ever heard. It had evidently been newly tuned and put in applepie order, but, perfect as it was, I think the real charm lay in the happiest of all happy faces which leaned over it, as Beth lovingly touched the beautiful black and white keys and pressed the bright pedals. 'You'll have to go and thank him, said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never entered her head. 'Yes, I mean to. I guess I'll go now, before I get frightened thinking about it. And, to the utter amazement of the assembled family, Beth walked deliberately down the garden, through the hedge, and in at the Laurences' door. 'Well, I wish I may die if it ain't the queerest thing I ever see! The pianny has turned her head! She'd never have gone in her right mind, cried Hannah, staring after her, while the girls were rendered quite speechless by the miracle. They would have been still more amazed if they had seen what Beth did afterward. If you will believe me, she went and knocked at the study door before she gave herself time to think, and when a gruff voice called out, 'come in! she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a small quaver in her voice, 'I came to thank you, sir, for... But she didn't finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him. If the roof of the house had suddenly flown off, the old gentleman wouldn't have been more astonished. But he liked it. Oh, dear, yes, he liked it amazingly! And was so touched and pleased by that confiding little kiss that all his crustiness vanished, and he just set her on his knee, and laid his wrinkled cheek against her rosy one, feeling as if he had got his own little granddaughter back again. Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride. When she went home, he walked with her to her own gate, shook hands cordially, and touched his hat as he marched back again, looking very stately and erect, like a handsome, soldierly old gentleman, as he was. When the girls saw that performance, Jo began to dance a jig, by way of expressing her satisfaction, Amy nearly fell out of the window in her surprise, and Meg exclaimed, with uplifted hands, 'Well, I do believe the world is coming to an end. 'That boy is a perfect cyclops, isn't he? said Amy one day, as Laurie clattered by on horseback, with a flourish of his whip as he passed. 'How dare you say so, when he's got both his eyes? And very handsome ones they are, too, cried Jo, who resented any slighting remarks about her friend. 'I didn't say anything about his eyes, and I don't see why you need fire up when I admire his riding. 'Oh, my goodness! That little goose means a centaur, and she called him a Cyclops, exclaimed Jo, with a burst of laughter. 'You needn't be so rude, it's only a 'lapse of lingy', as Mr. Davis says, retorted Amy, finishing Jo with her Latin. 'I just wish I had a little of the money Laurie spends on that horse, she added, as if to herself, yet hoping her sisters would hear. 'Why? asked Meg kindly, for Jo had gone off in another laugh at Amy's second blunder. 'I need it so much. I'm dreadfully in debt, and it won't be my turn to have the rag money for a month. 'In debt, Amy? What do you mean? And Meg looked sober. 'Why, I owe at least a dozen pickled limes, and I can't pay them, you know, till I have money, for Marmee forbade my having anything charged at the shop. 'Tell me all about it. Are limes the fashion now? It used to be pricking bits of rubber to make balls. And Meg tried to keep her countenance, Amy looked so grave and important. 'Why, you see, the girls are always buying them, and unless you want to be thought mean, you must do it too. It's nothing but limes now, for everyone is sucking them in their desks in schooltime, and trading them off for pencils, bead rings, paper dolls, or something else, at recess. If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime. If she's mad with her, she eats one before her face, and doesn't offer even a suck. They treat by turns, and I've had ever so many but haven't returned them, and I ought for they are debts of honor, you know. 'How much will pay them off and restore your credit? asked Meg, taking out her purse. 'A quarter would more than do it, and leave a few cents over for a treat for you. Don't you like limes? 'Not much. You may have my share. Here's the money. Make it last as long as you can, for it isn't very plenty, you know. 'Oh, thank you! It must be so nice to have pocket money! I'll have a grand feast, for I haven't tasted a lime this week. I felt delicate about taking any, as I couldn't return them, and I'm actually suffering for one. Next day Amy was rather late at school, but could not resist the temptation of displaying, with pardonable pride, a moist brownpaper parcel, before she consigned it to the inmost recesses of her desk. During the next few minutes the rumor that Amy March had got twentyfour delicious limes (she ate one on the way) and was going to treat circulated through her 'set', and the attentions of her friends became quite overwhelming. Katy Brown invited her to her next party on the spot. Mary Kingsley insisted on lending her her watch till recess, and Jenny Snow, a satirical young lady, who had basely twitted Amy upon her limeless state, promptly buried the hatchet and offered to furnish answers to certain appalling sums. But Amy had not forgotten Miss Snow's cutting remarks about 'some persons whose noses were not too flat to smell other people's limes, and stuckup people who were not too proud to ask for them', and she instantly crushed 'that Snow girl's' hopes by the withering telegram, 'You needn't be so polite all of a sudden, for you won't get any. A distinguished personage happened to visit the school that morning, and Amy's beautifully drawn maps received praise, which honor to her foe rankled in the soul of Miss Snow, and caused Miss March to assume the airs of a studious young peacock. But, alas, alas! Pride goes before a fall, and the revengeful Snow turned the tables with disastrous success. No sooner had the guest paid the usual stale compliments and bowed himself out, than Jenny, under pretense of asking an important question, informed Mr. Davis, the teacher, that Amy March had pickled limes in her desk. Now Mr. Davis had declared limes a contraband article, and solemnly vowed to publicly ferrule the first person who was found breaking the law. This muchenduring man had succeeded in banishing chewing gum after a long and stormy war, had made a bonfire of the confiscated novels and newspapers, had suppressed a private post office, had forbidden distortions of the face, nicknames, and caricatures, and done all that one man could do to keep half a hundred rebellious girls in order. Boys are trying enough to human patience, goodness knows, but girls are infinitely more so, especially to nervous gentlemen with tyrannical tempers and no more talent for teaching than Dr. Blimber. Mr. Davis knew any quantity of Greek, Latin, algebra, and ologies of all sorts so he was called a fine teacher, and manners, morals, feelings, and examples were not considered of any particular importance. It was a most unfortunate moment for denouncing Amy, and Jenny knew it. Mr. Davis had evidently taken his coffee too strong that morning, there was an east wind, which always affected his neuralgia, and his pupils had not done him the credit which he felt he deserved. Therefore, to use the expressive, if not elegant, language of a schoolgirl, 'He was as nervous as a witch and as cross as a bear. The word 'limes' was like fire to powder, his yellow face flushed, and he rapped on his desk with an energy which made Jenny skip to her seat with unusual rapidity. 'Young ladies, attention, if you please! At the stern order the buzz ceased, and fifty pairs of blue, black, gray, and brown eyes were obediently fixed upon his awful countenance. 'Miss March, come to the desk. Amy rose to comply with outward composure, but a secret fear oppressed her, for the limes weighed upon her conscience. 'Bring with you the limes you have in your desk, was the unexpected command which arrested her before she got out of her seat. 'Don't take all. whispered her neighbor, a young lady of great presence of mind. Amy hastily shook out half a dozen and laid the rest down before Mr. Davis, feeling that any man possessing a human heart would relent when that delicious perfume met his nose. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis particularly detested the odor of the fashionable pickle, and disgust added to his wrath. 'Is that all? 'Not quite, stammered Amy. 'Bring the rest immediately. With a despairing glance at her set, she obeyed. 'You are sure there are no more? 'I never lie, sir. 'So I see. Now take these disgusting things two by two, and throw them out of the window. There was a simultaneous sigh, which created quite a little gust, as the last hope fled, and the treat was ravished from their longing lips. Scarlet with shame and anger, Amy went to and fro six dreadful times, and as each doomed couple, looking oh, so plump and juicy, fell from her reluctant hands, a shout from the street completed the anguish of the girls, for it told them that their feast was being exulted over by the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. Thisthis was too much. All flashed indignant or appealing glances at the inexorable Davis, and one passionate lime lover burst into tears. As Amy returned from her last trip, Mr. Davis gave a portentous 'Hem! and said, in his most impressive manner... 'Young ladies, you remember what I said to you a week ago. I am sorry this has happened, but I never allow my rules to be infringed, and I never break my word. Miss March, hold out your hand. Amy started, and put both hands behind her, turning on him an imploring look which pleaded for her better than the words she could not utter. She was rather a favorite with 'old Davis', as, of course, he was called, and it's my private belief that he would have broken his word if the indignation of one irrepressible young lady had not found vent in a hiss. That hiss, faint as it was, irritated the irascible gentleman, and sealed the culprit's fate. 'Your hand, Miss March! was the only answer her mute appeal received, and too proud to cry or beseech, Amy set her teeth, threw back her head defiantly, and bore without flinching several tingling blows on her little palm. They were neither many nor heavy, but that made no difference to her. For the first time in her life she had been struck, and the disgrace, in her eyes, was as deep as if he had knocked her down. 'You will now stand on the platform till recess, said Mr. Davis, resolved to do the thing thoroughly, since he had begun. That was dreadful. It would have been bad enough to go to her seat, and see the pitying faces of her friends, or the satisfied ones of her few enemies, but to face the whole school, with that shame fresh upon her, seemed impossible, and for a second she felt as if she could only drop down where she stood, and break her heart with crying. A bitter sense of wrong and the thought of Jenny Snow helped her to bear it, and, taking the ignominious place, she fixed her eyes on the stove funnel above what now seemed a sea of faces, and stood there, so motionless and white that the girls found it hard to study with that pathetic figure before them. During the fifteen minutes that followed, the proud and sensitive little girl suffered a shame and pain which she never forgot. To others it might seem a ludicrous or trivial affair, but to her it was a hard experience, for during the twelve years of her life she had been governed by love alone, and a blow of that sort had never touched her before. The smart of her hand and the ache of her heart were forgotten in the sting of the thought, 'I shall have to tell at home, and they will be so disappointed in me! The fifteen minutes seemed an hour, but they came to an end at last, and the word 'Recess!' had never seemed so welcome to her before. 'You can go, Miss March, said Mr. Davis, looking, as he felt, uncomfortable. He did not soon forget the reproachful glance Amy gave him, as she went, without a word to anyone, straight into the anteroom, snatched her things, and left the place 'forever, as she passionately declared to herself. She was in a sad state when she got home, and when the older girls arrived, some time later, an indignation meeting was held at once. Mrs. March did not say much but looked disturbed, and comforted her afflicted little daughter in her tenderest manner. Meg bathed the insulted hand with glycerine and tears, Beth felt that even her beloved kittens would fail as a balm for griefs like this, Jo wrathfully proposed that Mr. Davis be arrested without delay, and Hannah shook her fist at the 'villain' and pounded potatoes for dinner as if she had him under her pestle. No notice was taken of Amy's flight, except by her mates, but the sharpeyed demoiselles discovered that Mr. Davis was quite benignant in the afternoon, also unusually nervous. Just before school closed, Jo appeared, wearing a grim expression as she stalked up to the desk, and delivered a letter from her mother, then collected Amy's property, and departed, carefully scraping the mud from her boots on the door mat, as if she shook the dust of the place off her feet. 'Yes, you can have a vacation from school, but I want you to study a little every day with Beth, said Mrs. March that evening. 'I don't approve of corporal punishment, especially for girls. I dislike Mr. Davis's manner of teaching and don't think the girls you associate with are doing you any good, so I shall ask your father's advice before I send you anywhere else. 'That's good! I wish all the girls would leave, and spoil his old school. It's perfectly maddening to think of those lovely limes, sighed Amy, with the air of a martyr. 'I am not sorry you lost them, for you broke the rules, and deserved some punishment for disobedience, was the severe reply, which rather disappointed the young lady, who expected nothing but sympathy. 'Do you mean you are glad I was disgraced before the whole school? cried Amy. 'I should not have chosen that way of mending a fault, replied her mother, 'but I'm not sure that it won't do you more good than a bolder method. You are getting to be rather conceited, my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it. You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty. 'So it is! cried Laurie, who was playing chess in a corner with Jo. 'I knew a girl once, who had a really remarkable talent for music, and she didn't know it, never guessed what sweet little things she composed when she was alone, and wouldn't have believed it if anyone had told her. 'I wish I'd known that nice girl. Maybe she would have helped me, I'm so stupid, said Beth, who stood beside him, listening eagerly. 'You do know her, and she helps you better than anyone else could, answered Laurie, looking at her with such mischievous meaning in his merry black eyes that Beth suddenly turned very red, and hid her face in the sofa cushion, quite overcome by such an unexpected discovery. Jo let Laurie win the game to pay for that praise of her Beth, who could not be prevailed upon to play for them after her compliment. So Laurie did his best, and sang delightfully, being in a particularly lively humor, for to the Marches he seldom showed the moody side of his character. When he was gone, Amy, who had been pensive all evening, said suddenly, as if busy over some new idea, 'Is Laurie an accomplished boy? 'Yes, he has had an excellent education, and has much talent. He will make a fine man, if not spoiled by petting, replied her mother. 'And he isn't conceited, is he? asked Amy. 'Not in the least. That is why he is so charming and we all like him so much. 'I see. It's nice to have accomplishments and be elegant, but not to show off or get perked up, said Amy thoughtfully. 'These things are always seen and felt in a person's manner and conversations, if modestly used, but it is not necessary to display them, said Mrs. March. 'Any more than it's proper to wear all your bonnets and gowns and ribbons at once, that folks may know you've got them, added Jo, and the lecture ended in a laugh. 'Girls, where are you going? asked Amy, coming into their room one Saturday afternoon, and finding them getting ready to go out with an air of secrecy which excited her curiosity. 'Never mind. Little girls shouldn't ask questions, returned Jo sharply. Now if there is anything mortifying to our feelings when we are young, it is to be told that, and to be bidden to 'run away, dear is still more trying to us. Amy bridled up at this insult, and determined to find out the secret, if she teased for an hour. Turning to Meg, who never refused her anything very long, she said coaxingly, 'Do tell me! I should think you might let me go, too, for Beth is fussing over her piano, and I haven't got anything to do, and am so lonely. 'I can't, dear, because you aren't invited, began Meg, but Jo broke in impatiently, 'Now, Meg, be quiet or you will spoil it all. You can't go, Amy, so don't be a baby and whine about it. 'You are going somewhere with Laurie, I know you are. You were whispering and laughing together on the sofa last night, and you stopped when I came in. Aren't you going with him? 'Yes, we are. Now do be still, and stop bothering. Amy held her tongue, but used her eyes, and saw Meg slip a fan into her pocket. 'I know! I know! You're going to the theater to see the Seven Castles! she cried, adding resolutely, 'and I shall go, for Mother said I might see it, and I've got my rag money, and it was mean not to tell me in time. 'Just listen to me a minute, and be a good child, said Meg soothingly. 'Mother doesn't wish you to go this week, because your eyes are not well enough yet to bear the light of this fairy piece. Next week you can go with Beth and Hannah, and have a nice time. 'I don't like that half as well as going with you and Laurie. Please let me. I've been sick with this cold so long, and shut up, I'm dying for some fun. Do, Meg! I'll be ever so good, pleaded Amy, looking as pathetic as she could. 'Suppose we take her. I don't believe Mother would mind, if we bundle her up well, began Meg. 'If she goes I shan't, and if I don't, Laurie won't like it, and it will be very rude, after he invited only us, to go and drag in Amy. I should think she'd hate to poke herself where she isn't wanted, said Jo crossly, for she disliked the trouble of overseeing a fidgety child when she wanted to enjoy herself. Her tone and manner angered Amy, who began to put her boots on, saying, in her most aggravating way, 'I shall go. Meg says I may, and if I pay for myself, Laurie hasn't anything to do with it. 'You can't sit with us, for our seats are reserved, and you mustn't sit alone, so Laurie will give you his place, and that will spoil our pleasure. Or he'll get another seat for you, and that isn't proper when you weren't asked. You shan't stir a step, so you may just stay where you are, scolded Jo, crosser than ever, having just pricked her finger in her hurry. Sitting on the floor with one boot on, Amy began to cry and Meg to reason with her, when Laurie called from below, and the two girls hurried down, leaving their sister wailing. For now and then she forgot her grownup ways and acted like a spoiled child. Just as the party was setting out, Amy called over the banisters in a threatening tone, 'You'll be sorry for this, Jo March, see if you ain't. 'Fiddlesticks! returned Jo, slamming the door. They had a charming time, for The Seven Castles Of The Diamond Lake was as brilliant and wonderful as heart could wish. But in spite of the comical red imps, sparkling elves, and the gorgeous princes and princesses, Jo's pleasure had a drop of bitterness in it. The fairy queen's yellow curls reminded her of Amy, and between the acts she amused herself with wondering what her sister would do to make her 'sorry for it'. She and Amy had had many lively skirmishes in the course of their lives, for both had quick tempers and were apt to be violent when fairly roused. Amy teased Jo, and Jo irritated Amy, and semioccasional explosions occurred, of which both were much ashamed afterward. Although the oldest, Jo had the least selfcontrol, and had hard times trying to curb the fiery spirit which was continually getting her into trouble. Her anger never lasted long, and having humbly confessed her fault, she sincerely repented and tried to do better. Her sisters used to say that they rather liked to get Jo into a fury because she was such an angel afterward. Poor Jo tried desperately to be good, but her bosom enemy was always ready to flame up and defeat her, and it took years of patient effort to subdue it. When they got home, they found Amy reading in the parlor. She assumed an injured air as they came in, never lifted her eyes from her book, or asked a single question. Perhaps curiosity might have conquered resentment, if Beth had not been there to inquire and receive a glowing description of the play. On going up to put away her best hat, Jo's first look was toward the bureau, for in their last quarrel Amy had soothed her feelings by turning Jo's top drawer upside down on the floor. Everything was in its place, however, and after a hasty glance into her various closets, bags, and boxes, Jo decided that Amy had forgiven and forgotten her wrongs. There Jo was mistaken, for next day she made a discovery which produced a tempest. Meg, Beth, and Amy were sitting together, late in the afternoon, when Jo burst into the room, looking excited and demanding breathlessly, 'Has anyone taken my book? Meg and Beth said, 'No. at once, and looked surprised. Amy poked the fire and said nothing. Jo saw her color rise and was down upon her in a minute. 'Amy, you've got it! 'No, I haven't. 'You know where it is, then! 'No, I don't. 'That's a fib! cried Jo, taking her by the shoulders, and looking fierce enough to frighten a much braver child than Amy. 'It isn't. I haven't got it, don't know where it is now, and don't care. 'You know something about it, and you'd better tell at once, or I'll make you. And Jo gave her a slight shake. 'Scold as much as you like, you'll never see your silly old book again, cried Amy, getting excited in her turn. 'Why not? 'I burned it up. 'What! My little book I was so fond of, and worked over, and meant to finish before Father got home? Have you really burned it? said Jo, turning very pale, while her eyes kindled and her hands clutched Amy nervously. 'Yes, I did! I told you I'd make you pay for being so cross yesterday, and I have, so... Amy got no farther, for Jo's hot temper mastered her, and she shook Amy till her teeth chattered in her head, crying in a passion of grief and anger... 'You wicked, wicked girl! I never can write it again, and I'll never forgive you as long as I live. Meg flew to rescue Amy, and Beth to pacify Jo, but Jo was quite beside herself, and with a parting box on her sister's ear, she rushed out of the room up to the old sofa in the garret, and finished her fight alone. The storm cleared up below, for Mrs. March came home, and, having heard the story, soon brought Amy to a sense of the wrong she had done her sister. Jo's book was the pride of her heart, and was regarded by her family as a literary sprout of great promise. It was only half a dozen little fairy tales, but Jo had worked over them patiently, putting her whole heart into her work, hoping to make something good enough to print. She had just copied them with great care, and had destroyed the old manuscript, so that Amy's bonfire had consumed the loving work of several years. It seemed a small loss to others, but to Jo it was a dreadful calamity, and she felt that it never could be made up to her. Beth mourned as for a departed kitten, and Meg refused to defend her pet. Mrs. March looked grave and grieved, and Amy felt that no one would love her till she had asked pardon for the act which she now regretted more than any of them. When the tea bell rang, Jo appeared, looking so grim and unapproachable that it took all Amy's courage to say meekly... 'Please forgive me, Jo. I'm very, very sorry. 'I never shall forgive you, was Jo's stern answer, and from that moment she ignored Amy entirely. No one spoke of the great trouble, not even Mrs. March, for all had learned by experience that when Jo was in that mood words were wasted, and the wisest course was to wait till some little accident, or her own generous nature, softened Jo's resentment and healed the breach. It was not a happy evening, for though they sewed as usual, while their mother read aloud from Bremer, Scott, or Edgeworth, something was wanting, and the sweet home peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and all felt out of tune. As Jo received her goodnight kiss, Mrs. March whispered gently, 'My dear, don't let the sun go down upon your anger. Forgive each other, help each other, and begin again tomorrow. Jo wanted to lay her head down on that motherly bosom, and cry her grief and anger all away, but tears were an unmanly weakness, and she felt so deeply injured that she really couldn't quite forgive yet. So she winked hard, shook her head, and said gruffly because Amy was listening, 'It was an abominable thing, and she doesn't deserve to be forgiven. With that she marched off to bed, and there was no merry or confidential gossip that night. Amy was much offended that her overtures of peace had been repulsed, and began to wish she had not humbled herself, to feel more injured than ever, and to plume herself on her superior virtue in a way which was particularly exasperating. Jo still looked like a thunder cloud, and nothing went well all day. It was bitter cold in the morning, she dropped her precious turnover in the gutter, Aunt March had an attack of the fidgets, Meg was sensitive, Beth would look grieved and wistful when she got home, and Amy kept making remarks about people who were always talking about being good and yet wouldn't even try when other people set them a virtuous example. 'Everybody is so hateful, I'll ask Laurie to go skating. He is always kind and jolly, and will put me to rights, I know, said Jo to herself, and off she went. Amy heard the clash of skates, and looked out with an impatient exclamation. 'There! She promised I should go next time, for this is the last ice we shall have. But it's no use to ask such a crosspatch to take me. 'Don't say that. You were very naughty, and it is hard to forgive the loss of her precious little book, but I think she might do it now, and I guess she will, if you try her at the right minute, said Meg. 'Go after them. Don't say anything till Jo has got goodnatured with Laurie, than take a quiet minute and just kiss her, or do some kind thing, and I'm sure she'll be friends again with all her heart. 'I'll try, said Amy, for the advice suited her, and after a flurry to get ready, she ran after the friends, who were just disappearing over the hill. It was not far to the river, but both were ready before Amy reached them. Jo saw her coming, and turned her back. Laurie did not see, for he was carefully skating along the shore, sounding the ice, for a warm spell had preceded the cold snap. 'I'll go on to the first bend, and see if it's all right before we begin to race, Amy heard him say, as he shot away, looking like a young Russian in his furtrimmed coat and cap. Jo heard Amy panting after her run, stamping her feet and blowing on her fingers as she tried to put her skates on, but Jo never turned and went slowly zigzagging down the river, taking a bitter, unhappy sort of satisfaction in her sister's troubles. She had cherished her anger till it grew strong and took possession of her, as evil thoughts and feelings always do unless cast out at once. As Laurie turned the bend, he shouted back... 'Keep near the shore. It isn't safe in the middle. Jo heard, but Amy was struggling to her feet and did not catch a word. Jo glanced over her shoulder, and the little demon she was harboring said in her ear... 'No matter whether she heard or not, let her take care of herself. Laurie had vanished round the bend, Jo was just at the turn, and Amy, far behind, striking out toward the smoother ice in the middle of the river. For a minute Jo stood still with a strange feeling in her heart, then she resolved to go on, but something held and turned her round, just in time to see Amy throw up her hands and go down, with a sudden crash of rotten ice, the splash of water, and a cry that made Jo's heart stand still with fear. She tried to call Laurie, but her voice was gone. She tried to rush forward, but her feet seemed to have no strength in them, and for a second, she could only stand motionless, staring with a terrorstricken face at the little blue hood above the black water. Something rushed swiftly by her, and Laurie's voice cried out... 'Bring a rail. Quick, quick! How she did it, she never knew, but for the next few minutes she worked as if possessed, blindly obeying Laurie, who was quite selfpossessed, and lying flat, held Amy up by his arm and hockey stick till Jo dragged a rail from the fence, and together they got the child out, more frightened than hurt. 'Now then, we must walk her home as fast as we can. Pile our things on her, while I get off these confounded skates, cried Laurie, wrapping his coat round Amy, and tugging away at the straps which never seemed so intricate before. Shivering, dripping, and crying, they got Amy home, and after an exciting time of it, she fell asleep, rolled in blankets before a hot fire. During the bustle Jo had scarcely spoken but flown about, looking pale and wild, with her things half off, her dress torn, and her hands cut and bruised by ice and rails and refractory buckles. When Amy was comfortably asleep, the house quiet, and Mrs. March sitting by the bed, she called Jo to her and began to bind up the hurt hands. 'Are you sure she is safe? whispered Jo, looking remorsefully at the golden head, which might have been swept away from her sight forever under the treacherous ice. 'Quite safe, dear. She is not hurt, and won't even take cold, I think, you were so sensible in covering and getting her home quickly, replied her mother cheerfully. 'Laurie did it all. I only let her go. Mother, if she should die, it would be my fault. And Jo dropped down beside the bed in a passion of penitent tears, telling all that had happened, bitterly condemning her hardness of heart, and sobbing out her gratitude for being spared the heavy punishment which might have come upon her. 'It's my dreadful temper! I try to cure it, I think I have, and then it breaks out worse than ever. Oh, Mother, what shall I do? What shall I do? cried poor Jo, in despair. 'Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault, said Mrs. March, drawing the blowzy head to her shoulder and kissing the wet cheek so tenderly that Jo cried even harder. 'You don't know, you can't guess how bad it is! It seems as if I could do anything when I'm in a passion. I get so savage, I could hurt anyone and enjoy it. I'm afraid I shall do something dreadful some day, and spoil my life, and make everybody hate me. Oh, Mother, help me, do help me! 'I will, my child, I will. Don't cry so bitterly, but remember this day, and resolve with all your soul that you will never know another like it. Jo, dear, we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them. You think your temper is the worst in the world, but mine used to be just like it. 'Yours, Mother? Why, you are never angry! And for the moment Jo forgot remorse in surprise. 'I've been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so. The patience and the humility of the face she loved so well was a better lesson to Jo than the wisest lecture, the sharpest reproof. She felt comforted at once by the sympathy and confidence given her. The knowledge that her mother had a fault like hers, and tried to mend it, made her own easier to bear and strengthened her resolution to cure it, though forty years seemed rather a long time to watch and pray to a girl of fifteen. 'Mother, are you angry when you fold your lips tight together and go out of the room sometimes, when Aunt March scolds or people worry you? asked Jo, feeling nearer and dearer to her mother than ever before. 'Yes, I've learned to check the hasty words that rise to my lips, and when I feel that they mean to break out against my will, I just go away for a minute, and give myself a little shake for being so weak and wicked, answered Mrs. March with a sigh and a smile, as she smoothed and fastened up Jo's disheveled hair. 'How did you learn to keep still? That is what troubles me, for the sharp words fly out before I know what I'm about, and the more I say the worse I get, till it's a pleasure to hurt people's feelings and say dreadful things. Tell me how you do it, Marmee dear. 'My good mother used to help me... 'As you do us... interrupted Jo, with a grateful kiss. 'But I lost her when I was a little older than you are, and for years had to struggle on alone, for I was too proud to confess my weakness to anyone else. I had a hard time, Jo, and shed a good many bitter tears over my failures, for in spite of my efforts I never seemed to get on. Then your father came, and I was so happy that I found it easy to be good. But byandby, when I had four little daughters round me and we were poor, then the old trouble began again, for I am not patient by nature, and it tried me very much to see my children wanting anything. 'Poor Mother! What helped you then? 'Your father, Jo. He never loses patience, never doubts or complains, but always hopes, and works and waits so cheerfully that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him. He helped and comforted me, and showed me that I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example. It was easier to try for your sakes than for my own. A startled or surprised look from one of you when I spoke sharply rebuked me more than any words could have done, and the love, respect, and confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts to be the woman I would have them copy. 'Oh, Mother, if I'm ever half as good as you, I shall be satisfied, cried Jo, much touched. 'I hope you will be a great deal better, dear, but you must keep watch over your 'bosom enemy', as father calls it, or it may sadden, if not spoil your life. You have had a warning. Remember it, and try with heart and soul to master this quick temper, before it brings you greater sorrow and regret than you have known today. 'I will try, Mother, I truly will. But you must help me, remind me, and keep me from flying out. I used to see Father sometimes put his finger on his lips, and look at you with a very kind but sober face, and you always folded your lips tight and went away. Was he reminding you then? asked Jo softly. 'Yes. I asked him to help me so, and he never forgot it, but saved me from many a sharp word by that little gesture and kind look. Jo saw that her mother's eyes filled and her lips trembled as she spoke, and fearing that she had said too much, she whispered anxiously, 'Was it wrong to watch you and to speak of it? I didn't mean to be rude, but it's so comfortable to say all I think to you, and feel so safe and happy here. 'My Jo, you may say anything to your mother, for it is my greatest happiness and pride to feel that my girls confide in me and know how much I love them. 'I thought I'd grieved you. 'No, dear, but speaking of Father reminded me how much I miss him, how much I owe him, and how faithfully I should watch and work to keep his little daughters safe and good for him. 'Yet you told him to go, Mother, and didn't cry when he went, and never complain now, or seem as if you needed any help, said Jo, wondering. 'I gave my best to the country I love, and kept my tears till he was gone. Why should I complain, when we both have merely done our duty and will surely be the happier for it in the end? If I don't seem to need help, it is because I have a better friend, even than Father, to comfort and sustain me. My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning and may be many, but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother. Jo's only answer was to hold her mother close, and in the silence which followed the sincerest prayer she had ever prayed left her heart without words. For in that sad yet happy hour, she had learned not only the bitterness of remorse and despair, but the sweetness of selfdenial and selfcontrol, and led by her mother's hand, she had drawn nearer to the Friend who always welcomes every child with a love stronger than that of any father, tenderer than that of any mother. Amy stirred and sighed in her sleep, and as if eager to begin at once to mend her fault, Jo looked up with an expression on her face which it had never worn before. 'I let the sun go down on my anger. I wouldn't forgive her, and today, if it hadn't been for Laurie, it might have been too late! How could I be so wicked? said Jo, half aloud, as she leaned over her sister softly stroking the wet hair scattered on the pillow. As if she heard, Amy opened her eyes, and held out her arms, with a smile that went straight to Jo's heart. Neither said a word, but they hugged one another close, in spite of the blankets, and everything was forgiven and forgotten in one hearty kiss. 'I do think it was the most fortunate thing in the world that those children should have the measles just now, said Meg, one April day, as she stood packing the 'go abroady' trunk in her room, surrounded by her sisters. 'And so nice of Annie Moffat not to forget her promise. A whole fortnight of fun will be regularly splendid, replied Jo, looking like a windmill as she folded skirts with her long arms. 'And such lovely weather, I'm so glad of that, added Beth, tidily sorting neck and hair ribbons in her best box, lent for the great occasion. 'I wish I was going to have a fine time and wear all these nice things, said Amy with her mouth full of pins, as she artistically replenished her sister's cushion. 'I wish you were all going, but as you can't, I shall keep my adventures to tell you when I come back. I'm sure it's the least I can do when you have been so kind, lending me things and helping me get ready, said Meg, glancing round the room at the very simple outfit, which seemed nearly perfect in their eyes. 'What did Mother give you out of the treasure box? asked Amy, who had not been present at the opening of a certain cedar chest in which Mrs. March kept a few relics of past splendor, as gifts for her girls when the proper time came. 'A pair of silk stockings, that pretty carved fan, and a lovely blue sash. I wanted the violet silk, but there isn't time to make it over, so I must be contented with my old tarlaton. 'It will look nice over my new muslin skirt, and the sash will set it off beautifully. I wish I hadn't smashed my coral bracelet, for you might have had it, said Jo, who loved to give and lend, but whose possessions were usually too dilapidated to be of much use. 'There is a lovely oldfashioned pearl set in the treasure chest, but Mother said real flowers were the prettiest ornament for a young girl, and Laurie promised to send me all I want, replied Meg. 'Now, let me see, there's my new gray walking suit, just curl up the feather in my hat, Beth, then my poplin for Sunday and the small party, it looks heavy for spring, doesn't it? The violet silk would be so nice. Oh, dear! 'Never mind, you've got the tarlaton for the big party, and you always look like an angel in white, said Amy, brooding over the little store of finery in which her soul delighted. 'It isn't lownecked, and it doesn't sweep enough, but it will have to do. My blue housedress looks so well, turned and freshly trimmed, that I feel as if I'd got a new one. My silk sacque isn't a bit the fashion, and my bonnet doesn't look like Sallie's. I didn't like to say anything, but I was sadly disappointed in my umbrella. I told Mother black with a white handle, but she forgot and bought a green one with a yellowish handle. It's strong and neat, so I ought not to complain, but I know I shall feel ashamed of it beside Annie's silk one with a gold top, sighed Meg, surveying the little umbrella with great disfavor. 'Change it, advised Jo. 'I won't be so silly, or hurt Marmee's feelings, when she took so much pains to get my things. It's a nonsensical notion of mine, and I'm not going to give up to it. My silk stockings and two pairs of new gloves are my comfort. You are a dear to lend me yours, Jo. I feel so rich and sort of elegant, with two new pairs, and the old ones cleaned up for common. And Meg took a refreshing peep at her glove box. 'Annie Moffat has blue and pink bows on her nightcaps. Would you put some on mine? she asked, as Beth brought up a pile of snowy muslins, fresh from Hannah's hands. 'No, I wouldn't, for the smart caps won't match the plain gowns without any trimming on them. Poor folks shouldn't rig, said Jo decidedly. 'I wonder if I shall ever be happy enough to have real lace on my clothes and bows on my caps? said Meg impatiently. 'You said the other day that you'd be perfectly happy if you could only go to Annie Moffat's, observed Beth in her quiet way. 'So I did! Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants, doesn't it? There now, the trays are ready, and everything in but my ball dress, which I shall leave for Mother to pack, said Meg, cheering up, as she glanced from the halffilled trunk to the many times pressed and mended white tarlaton, which she called her 'ball dress' with an important air. The next day was fine, and Meg departed in style for a fortnight of novelty and pleasure. Mrs. March had consented to the visit rather reluctantly, fearing that Margaret would come back more discontented than she went. But she begged so hard, and Sallie had promised to take good care of her, and a little pleasure seemed so delightful after a winter of irksome work that the mother yielded, and the daughter went to take her first taste of fashionable life. The Moffats were very fashionable, and simple Meg was rather daunted, at first, by the splendor of the house and the elegance of its occupants. But they were kindly people, in spite of the frivolous life they led, and soon put their guest at her ease. Perhaps Meg felt, without understanding why, that they were not particularly cultivated or intelligent people, and that all their gilding could not quite conceal the ordinary material of which they were made. It certainly was agreeable to fare sumptuously, drive in a fine carriage, wear her best frock every day, and do nothing but enjoy herself. It suited her exactly, and soon she began to imitate the manners and conversation of those about her, to put on little airs and graces, use French phrases, crimp her hair, take in her dresses, and talk about the fashions as well as she could. The more she saw of Annie Moffat's pretty things, the more she envied her and sighed to be rich. Home now looked bare and dismal as she thought of it, work grew harder than ever, and she felt that she was a very destitute and muchinjured girl, in spite of the new gloves and silk stockings. She had not much time for repining, however, for the three young girls were busily employed in 'having a good time'. They shopped, walked, rode, and called all day, went to theaters and operas or frolicked at home in the evening, for Annie had many friends and knew how to entertain them. Her older sisters were very fine young ladies, and one was engaged, which was extremely interesting and romantic, Meg thought. Mr. Moffat was a fat, jolly old gentleman, who knew her father, and Mrs. Moffat, a fat, jolly old lady, who took as great a fancy to Meg as her daughter had done. Everyone petted her, and 'Daisey', as they called her, was in a fair way to have her head turned. When the evening for the small party came, she found that the poplin wouldn't do at all, for the other girls were putting on thin dresses and making themselves very fine indeed. So out came the tarlatan, looking older, limper, and shabbier than ever beside Sallie's crisp new one. Meg saw the girls glance at it and then at one another, and her cheeks began to burn, for with all her gentleness she was very proud. No one said a word about it, but Sallie offered to dress her hair, and Annie to tie her sash, and Belle, the engaged sister, praised her white arms. But in their kindness Meg saw only pity for her poverty, and her heart felt very heavy as she stood by herself, while the others laughed, chattered, and flew about like gauzy butterflies. The hard, bitter feeling was getting pretty bad, when the maid brought in a box of flowers. Before she could speak, Annie had the cover off, and all were exclaiming at the lovely roses, heath, and fern within. 'It's for Belle, of course, George always sends her some, but these are altogether ravishing, cried Annie, with a great sniff. 'They are for Miss March, the man said. And here's a note, put in the maid, holding it to Meg. 'What fun! Who are they from? Didn't know you had a lover, cried the girls, fluttering about Meg in a high state of curiosity and surprise. 'The note is from Mother, and the flowers from Laurie, said Meg simply, yet much gratified that he had not forgotten her. 'Oh, indeed! said Annie with a funny look, as Meg slipped the note into her pocket as a sort of talisman against envy, vanity, and false pride, for the few loving words had done her good, and the flowers cheered her up by their beauty. Feeling almost happy again, she laid by a few ferns and roses for herself, and quickly made up the rest in dainty bouquets for the breasts, hair, or skirts of her friends, offering them so prettily that Clara, the elder sister, told her she was 'the sweetest little thing she ever saw', and they looked quite charmed with her small attention. Somehow the kind act finished her despondency, and when all the rest went to show themselves to Mrs. Moffat, she saw a happy, brighteyed face in the mirror, as she laid her ferns against her rippling hair and fastened the roses in the dress that didn't strike her as so very shabby now. She enjoyed herself very much that evening, for she danced to her heart's content. Everyone was very kind, and she had three compliments. Annie made her sing, and some one said she had a remarkably fine voice. Major Lincoln asked who 'the fresh little girl with the beautiful eyes' was, and Mr. Moffat insisted on dancing with her because she 'didn't dawdle, but had some spring in her', as he gracefully expressed it. So altogether she had a very nice time, till she overheard a bit of conversation, which disturbed her extremely. She was sitting just inside the conservatory, waiting for her partner to bring her an ice, when she heard a voice ask on the other side of the flowery wall... 'How old is he? 'Sixteen or seventeen, I should say, replied another voice. 'It would be a grand thing for one of those girls, wouldn't it? Sallie says they are very intimate now, and the old man quite dotes on them. 'Mrs. M. has made her plans, I dare say, and will play her cards well, early as it is. The girl evidently doesn't think of it yet, said Mrs. Moffat. 'She told that fib about her momma, as if she did know, and colored up when the flowers came quite prettily. Poor thing! She'd be so nice if she was only got up in style. Do you think she'd be offended if we offered to lend her a dress for Thursday? asked another voice. 'She's proud, but I don't believe she'd mind, for that dowdy tarlaton is all she has got. She may tear it tonight, and that will be a good excuse for offering a decent one. Here Meg's partner appeared, to find her looking much flushed and rather agitated. She was proud, and her pride was useful just then, for it helped her hide her mortification, anger, and disgust at what she had just heard. For, innocent and unsuspicious as she was, she could not help understanding the gossip of her friends. She tried to forget it, but could not, and kept repeating to herself, 'Mrs. M. has made her plans, 'that fib about her mamma, and 'dowdy tarlaton, till she was ready to cry and rush home to tell her troubles and ask for advice. As that was impossible, she did her best to seem gay, and being rather excited, she succeeded so well that no one dreamed what an effort she was making. She was very glad when it was all over and she was quiet in her bed, where she could think and wonder and fume till her head ached and her hot cheeks were cooled by a few natural tears. Those foolish, yet well meant words, had opened a new world to Meg, and much disturbed the peace of the old one in which till now she had lived as happily as a child. Her innocent friendship with Laurie was spoiled by the silly speeches she had overheard. Her faith in her mother was a little shaken by the worldly plans attributed to her by Mrs. Moffat, who judged others by herself, and the sensible resolution to be contented with the simple wardrobe which suited a poor man's daughter was weakened by the unnecessary pity of girls who thought a shabby dress one of the greatest calamities under heaven. Poor Meg had a restless night, and got up heavyeyed, unhappy, half resentful toward her friends, and half ashamed of herself for not speaking out frankly and setting everything right. Everybody dawdled that morning, and it was noon before the girls found energy enough even to take up their worsted work. Something in the manner of her friends struck Meg at once. They treated her with more respect, she thought, took quite a tender interest in what she said, and looked at her with eyes that plainly betrayed curiosity. All this surprised and flattered her, though she did not understand it till Miss Belle looked up from her writing, and said, with a sentimental air... 'Daisy, dear, I've sent an invitation to your friend, Mr. Laurence, for Thursday. We should like to know him, and it's only a proper compliment to you. Meg colored, but a mischievous fancy to tease the girls made her reply demurely, 'You are very kind, but I'm afraid he won't come. 'Why not, Cherie? asked Miss Belle. 'He's too old. 'My child, what do you mean? What is his age, I beg to know! cried Miss Clara. 'Nearly seventy, I believe, answered Meg, counting stitches to hide the merriment in her eyes. 'You sly creature! Of course we meant the young man, exclaimed Miss Belle, laughing. 'There isn't any, Laurie is only a little boy. And Meg laughed also at the queer look which the sisters exchanged as she thus described her supposed lover. 'About your age, Nan said. 'Nearer my sister Jo's I am seventeen in August, returned Meg, tossing her head. 'It's very nice of him to send you flowers, isn't it? said Annie, looking wise about nothing. 'Yes, he often does, to all of us, for their house is full, and we are so fond of them. My mother and old Mr. Laurence are friends, you know, so it is quite natural that we children should play together, and Meg hoped they would say no more. 'It's evident Daisy isn't out yet, said Miss Clara to Belle with a nod. 'Quite a pastoral state of innocence all round, returned Miss Belle with a shrug. 'I'm going out to get some little matters for my girls. Can I do anything for you, young ladies? asked Mrs. Moffat, lumbering in like an elephant in silk and lace. 'No, thank you, ma'am, replied Sallie. 'I've got my new pink silk for Thursday and don't want a thing. 'Nor I... began Meg, but stopped because it occurred to her that she did want several things and could not have them. 'What shall you wear? asked Sallie. 'My old white one again, if I can mend it fit to be seen, it got sadly torn last night, said Meg, trying to speak quite easily, but feeling very uncomfortable. 'Why don't you send home for another? said Sallie, who was not an observing young lady. 'I haven't got any other. It cost Meg an effort to say that, but Sallie did not see it and exclaimed in amiable surprise, 'Only that? How funny... She did not finish her speech, for Belle shook her head at her and broke in, saying kindly... 'Not at all. Where is the use of having a lot of dresses when she isn't out yet? There's no need of sending home, Daisy, even if you had a dozen, for I've got a sweet blue silk laid away, which I've outgrown, and you shall wear it to please me, won't you, dear? 'You are very kind, but I don't mind my old dress if you don't, it does well enough for a little girl like me, said Meg. 'Now do let me please myself by dressing you up in style. I admire to do it, and you'd be a regular little beauty with a touch here and there. I shan't let anyone see you till you are done, and then we'll burst upon them like Cinderella and her godmother going to the ball, said Belle in her persuasive tone. Meg couldn't refuse the offer so kindly made, for a desire to see if she would be 'a little beauty' after touching up caused her to accept and forget all her former uncomfortable feelings toward the Moffats. On the Thursday evening, Belle shut herself up with her maid, and between them they turned Meg into a fine lady. They crimped and curled her hair, they polished her neck and arms with some fragrant powder, touched her lips with coralline salve to make them redder, and Hortense would have added 'a soupcon of rouge', if Meg had not rebelled. They laced her into a skyblue dress, which was so tight she could hardly breathe and so low in the neck that modest Meg blushed at herself in the mirror. A set of silver filagree was added, bracelets, necklace, brooch, and even earrings, for Hortense tied them on with a bit of pink silk which did not show. A cluster of tearose buds at the bosom, and a ruche, reconciled Meg to the display of her pretty, white shoulders, and a pair of highheeled silk boots satisfied the last wish of her heart. A lace handkerchief, a plumy fan, and a bouquet in a shoulder holder finished her off, and Miss Belle surveyed her with the satisfaction of a little girl with a newly dressed doll. 'Mademoiselle is charmante, tres jolie, is she not? cried Hortense, clasping her hands in an affected rapture. 'Come and show yourself, said Miss Belle, leading the way to the room where the others were waiting. As Meg went rustling after, with her long skirts trailing, her earrings tinkling, her curls waving, and her heart beating, she felt as if her fun had really begun at last, for the mirror had plainly told her that she was 'a little beauty'. Her friends repeated the pleasing phrase enthusiastically, and for several minutes she stood, like a jackdaw in the fable, enjoying her borrowed plumes, while the rest chattered like a party of magpies. 'While I dress, do you drill her, Nan, in the management of her skirt and those French heels, or she will trip herself up. Take your silver butterfly, and catch up that long curl on the left side of her head, Clara, and don't any of you disturb the charming work of my hands, said Belle, as she hurried away, looking well pleased with her success. 'You don't look a bit like yourself, but you are very nice. I'm nowhere beside you, for Belle has heaps of taste, and you're quite French, I assure you. Let your flowers hang, don't be so careful of them, and be sure you don't trip, returned Sallie, trying not to care that Meg was prettier than herself. Keeping that warning carefully in mind, Margaret got safely down stairs and sailed into the drawing rooms where the Moffats and a few early guests were assembled. She very soon discovered that there is a charm about fine clothes which attracts a certain class of people and secures their respect. Several young ladies, who had taken no notice of her before, were very affectionate all of a sudden. Several young gentlemen, who had only stared at her at the other party, now not only stared, but asked to be introduced, and said all manner of foolish but agreeable things to her, and several old ladies, who sat on the sofas, and criticized the rest of the party, inquired who she was with an air of interest. She heard Mrs. Moffat reply to one of them... 'Daisy Marchfather a colonel in the armyone of our first families, but reverses of fortune, you know intimate friends of the Laurences sweet creature, I assure you my Ned is quite wild about her. 'Dear me! said the old lady, putting up her glass for another observation of Meg, who tried to look as if she had not heard and been rather shocked at Mrs. Moffat's fibs. The 'queer feeling' did not pass away, but she imagined herself acting the new part of fine lady and so got on pretty well, though the tight dress gave her a sideache, the train kept getting under her feet, and she was in constant fear lest her earrings should fly off and get lost or broken. She was flirting her fan and laughing at the feeble jokes of a young gentleman who tried to be witty, when she suddenly stopped laughing and looked confused, for just opposite, she saw Laurie. He was staring at her with undisguised surprise, and disapproval also, she thought, for though he bowed and smiled, yet something in his honest eyes made her blush and wish she had her old dress on. To complete her confusion, she saw Belle nudge Annie, and both glance from her to Laurie, who, she was happy to see, looked unusually boyish and shy. 'Silly creatures, to put such thoughts into my head. I won't care for it, or let it change me a bit, thought Meg, and rustled across the room to shake hands with her friend. 'I'm glad you came, I was afraid you wouldn't. she said, with her most grownup air. 'Jo wanted me to come, and tell her how you looked, so I did, answered Laurie, without turning his eyes upon her, though he half smiled at her maternal tone. 'What shall you tell her? asked Meg, full of curiosity to know his opinion of her, yet feeling ill at ease with him for the first time. 'I shall say I didn't know you, for you look so grownup and unlike yourself, I'm quite afraid of you, he said, fumbling at his glove button. 'How absurd of you! The girls dressed me up for fun, and I rather like it. Wouldn't Jo stare if she saw me? said Meg, bent on making him say whether he thought her improved or not. 'Yes, I think she would, returned Laurie gravely. 'Don't you like me so? asked Meg. 'No, I don't, was the blunt reply. 'Why not? in an anxious tone. He glanced at her frizzled head, bare shoulders, and fantastically trimmed dress with an expression that abashed her more than his answer, which had not a particle of his usual politeness in it. 'I don't like fuss and feathers. That was altogether too much from a lad younger than herself, and Meg walked away, saying petulantly, 'You are the rudest boy I ever saw. Feeling very much ruffled, she went and stood at a quiet window to cool her cheeks, for the tight dress gave her an uncomfortably brilliant color. As she stood there, Major Lincoln passed by, and a minute after she heard him saying to his mother... 'They are making a fool of that little girl. I wanted you to see her, but they have spoiled her entirely. She's nothing but a doll tonight. 'Oh, dear! sighed Meg. 'I wish I'd been sensible and worn my own things, then I should not have disgusted other people, or felt so uncomfortable and ashamed of myself. She leaned her forehead on the cool pane, and stood half hidden by the curtains, never minding that her favorite waltz had begun, till some one touched her, and turning, she saw Laurie, looking penitent, as he said, with his very best bow and his hand out... 'Please forgive my rudeness, and come and dance with me. 'I'm afraid it will be too disagreeable to you, said Meg, trying to look offended and failing entirely. 'Not a bit of it, I'm dying to do it. Come, I'll be good. I don't like your gown, but I do think you are just splendid. And he waved his hands, as if words failed to express his admiration. Meg smiled and relented, and whispered as they stood waiting to catch the time, 'Take care my skirt doesn't trip you up. It's the plague of my life and I was a goose to wear it. 'Pin it round your neck, and then it will be useful, said Laurie, looking down at the little blue boots, which he evidently approved of. Away they went fleetly and gracefully, for having practiced at home, they were well matched, and the blithe young couple were a pleasant sight to see, as they twirled merrily round and round, feeling more friendly than ever after their small tiff. 'Laurie, I want you to do me a favor, will you? said Meg, as he stood fanning her when her breath gave out, which it did very soon though she would not own why. 'Won't I! said Laurie, with alacrity. 'Please don't tell them at home about my dress tonight. They won't understand the joke, and it will worry Mother. 'Then why did you do it? said Laurie's eyes, so plainly that Meg hastily added... 'I shall tell them myself all about it, and 'fess' to Mother how silly I've been. But I'd rather do it myself. So you'll not tell, will you? 'I give you my word I won't, only what shall I say when they ask me? 'Just say I looked pretty well and was having a good time. 'I'll say the first with all my heart, but how about the other? You don't look as if you were having a good time. Are you? And Laurie looked at her with an expression which made her answer in a whisper... 'No, not just now. Don't think I'm horrid. I only wanted a little fun, but this sort doesn't pay, I find, and I'm getting tired of it. 'Here comes Ned Moffat. What does he want? said Laurie, knitting his black brows as if he did not regard his young host in the light of a pleasant addition to the party. 'He put his name down for three dances, and I suppose he's coming for them. What a bore! said Meg, assuming a languid air which amused Laurie immensely. He did not speak to her again till suppertime, when he saw her drinking champagne with Ned and his friend Fisher, who were behaving 'like a pair of fools', as Laurie said to himself, for he felt a brotherly sort of right to watch over the Marches and fight their battles whenever a defender was needed. 'You'll have a splitting headache tomorrow, if you drink much of that. I wouldn't, Meg, your mother doesn't like it, you know, he whispered, leaning over her chair, as Ned turned to refill her glass and Fisher stooped to pick up her fan. 'I'm not Meg tonight, I'm 'a doll' who does all sorts of crazy things. Tomorrow I shall put away my 'fuss and feathers' and be desperately good again, she answered with an affected little laugh. 'Wish tomorrow was here, then, muttered Laurie, walking off, illpleased at the change he saw in her. Meg danced and flirted, chattered and giggled, as the other girls did. After supper she undertook the German, and blundered through it, nearly upsetting her partner with her long skirt, and romping in a way that scandalized Laurie, who looked on and meditated a lecture. But he got no chance to deliver it, for Meg kept away from him till he came to say good night. 'Remember! she said, trying to smile, for the splitting headache had already begun. 'Silence a la mort, replied Laurie, with a melodramatic flourish, as he went away. This little bit of byplay excited Annie's curiosity, but Meg was too tired for gossip and went to bed, feeling as if she had been to a masquerade and hadn't enjoyed herself as much as she expected. She was sick all the next day, and on Saturday went home, quite used up with her fortnight's fun and feeling that she had 'sat in the lap of luxury' long enough. 'It does seem pleasant to be quiet, and not have company manners on all the time. Home is a nice place, though it isn't splendid, said Meg, looking about her with a restful expression, as she sat with her mother and Jo on the Sunday evening. 'I'm glad to hear you say so, dear, for I was afraid home would seem dull and poor to you after your fine quarters, replied her mother, who had given her many anxious looks that day. For motherly eyes are quick to see any change in children's faces. Meg had told her adventures gayly and said over and over what a charming time she had had, but something still seemed to weigh upon her spirits, and when the younger girls were gone to bed, she sat thoughtfully staring at the fire, saying little and looking worried. As the clock struck nine and Jo proposed bed, Meg suddenly left her chair and, taking Beth's stool, leaned her elbows on her mother's knee, saying bravely... 'Marmee, I want to 'fess'. 'I thought so. What is it, dear? 'Shall I go away? asked Jo discreetly. 'Of course not. Don't I always tell you everything? I was ashamed to speak of it before the younger children, but I want you to know all the dreadful things I did at the Moffats'. 'We are prepared, said Mrs. March, smiling but looking a little anxious. 'I told you they dressed me up, but I didn't tell you that they powdered and squeezed and frizzled, and made me look like a fashionplate. Laurie thought I wasn't proper. I know he did, though he didn't say so, and one man called me 'a doll'. I knew it was silly, but they flattered me and said I was a beauty, and quantities of nonsense, so I let them make a fool of me. 'Is that all? asked Jo, as Mrs. March looked silently at the downcast face of her pretty daughter, and could not find it in her heart to blame her little follies. 'No, I drank champagne and romped and tried to flirt, and was altogether abominable, said Meg selfreproachfully. 'There is something more, I think. And Mrs. March smoothed the soft cheek, which suddenly grew rosy as Meg answered slowly... 'Yes. It's very silly, but I want to tell it, because I hate to have people say and think such things about us and Laurie. Then she told the various bits of gossip she had heard at the Moffats', and as she spoke, Jo saw her mother fold her lips tightly, as if ill pleased that such ideas should be put into Meg's innocent mind. 'Well, if that isn't the greatest rubbish I ever heard, cried Jo indignantly. 'Why didn't you pop out and tell them so on the spot? 'I couldn't, it was so embarrassing for me. I couldn't help hearing at first, and then I was so angry and ashamed, I didn't remember that I ought to go away. 'Just wait till I see Annie Moffat, and I'll show you how to settle such ridiculous stuff. The idea of having 'plans' and being kind to Laurie because he's rich and may marry us byandby! Won't he shout when I tell him what those silly things say about us poor children? And Jo laughed, as if on second thoughts the thing struck her as a good joke. 'If you tell Laurie, I'll never forgive you! She mustn't, must she, Mother? said Meg, looking distressed. 'No, never repeat that foolish gossip, and forget it as soon as you can, said Mrs. March gravely. 'I was very unwise to let you go among people of whom I know so little, kind, I dare say, but worldly, illbred, and full of these vulgar ideas about young people. I am more sorry than I can express for the mischief this visit may have done you, Meg. 'Don't be sorry, I won't let it hurt me. I'll forget all the bad and remember only the good, for I did enjoy a great deal, and thank you very much for letting me go. I'll not be sentimental or dissatisfied, Mother. I know I'm a silly little girl, and I'll stay with you till I'm fit to take care of myself. But it is nice to be praised and admired, and I can't help saying I like it, said Meg, looking half ashamed of the confession. 'That is perfectly natural, and quite harmless, if the liking does not become a passion and lead one to do foolish or unmaidenly things. Learn to know and value the praise which is worth having, and to excite the admiration of excellent people by being modest as well as pretty, Meg. Margaret sat thinking a moment, while Jo stood with her hands behind her, looking both interested and a little perplexed, for it was a new thing to see Meg blushing and talking about admiration, lovers, and things of that sort. And Jo felt as if during that fortnight her sister had grown up amazingly, and was drifting away from her into a world where she could not follow. 'Mother, do you have 'plans', as Mrs. Moffat said? asked Meg bashfully. 'Yes, my dear, I have a great many, all mothers do, but mine differ somewhat from Mrs. Moffat's, I suspect. I will tell you some of them, for the time has come when a word may set this romantic little head and heart of yours right, on a very serious subject. You are young, Meg, but not too young to understand me, and mothers' lips are the fittest to speak of such things to girls like you. Jo, your turn will come in time, perhaps, so listen to my 'plans' and help me carry them out, if they are good. Jo went and sat on one arm of the chair, looking as if she thought they were about to join in some very solemn affair. Holding a hand of each, and watching the two young faces wistfully, Mrs. March said, in her serious yet cheery way... 'I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good. To be admired, loved, and respected. To have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman, and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience. It is natural to think of it, Meg, right to hope and wait for it, and wise to prepare for it, so that when the happy time comes, you may feel ready for the duties and worthy of the joy. My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have you make a dash in the world, marry rich men merely because they are rich, or have splendid houses, which are not homes because love is wanting. Money is a needful and precious thing, and when well used, a noble thing, but I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for. I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queens on thrones, without selfrespect and peace. 'Poor girls don't stand any chance, Belle says, unless they put themselves forward, sighed Meg. 'Then we'll be old maids, said Jo stoutly. 'Right, Jo. Better be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to find husbands, said Mrs. March decidedly. 'Don't be troubled, Meg, poverty seldom daunts a sincere lover. Some of the best and most honored women I know were poor girls, but so loveworthy that they were not allowed to be old maids. Leave these things to time. Make this home happy, so that you may be fit for homes of your own, if they are offered you, and contented here if they are not. One thing remember, my girls. Mother is always ready to be your confidant, Father to be your friend, and both of us hope and trust that our daughters, whether married or single, will be the pride and comfort of our lives. 'We will, Marmee, we will! cried both, with all their hearts, as she bade them good night. As spring came on, a new set of amusements became the fashion, and the lengthening days gave long afternoons for work and play of all sorts. The garden had to be put in order, and each sister had a quarter of the little plot to do what she liked with. Hannah used to say, 'I'd know which each of them gardings belonged to, ef I see 'em in Chiny, and so she might, for the girls' tastes differed as much as their characters. Meg's had roses and heliotrope, myrtle, and a little orange tree in it. Jo's bed was never alike two seasons, for she was always trying experiments. This year it was to be a plantation of sun flowers, the seeds of which cheerful and aspiring plant were to feed Aunt Cockletop and her family of chicks. Beth had oldfashioned fragrant flowers in her garden, sweet peas and mignonette, larkspur, pinks, pansies, and southernwood, with chickweed for the birds and catnip for the pussies. Amy had a bower in hers, rather small and earwiggy, but very pretty to look at, with honeysuckle and morningglories hanging their colored horns and bells in graceful wreaths all over it, tall white lilies, delicate ferns, and as many brilliant, picturesque plants as would consent to blossom there. Gardening, walks, rows on the river, and flower hunts employed the fine days, and for rainy ones, they had house diversions, some old, some new, all more or less original. One of these was the 'P.C.', for as secret societies were the fashion, it was thought proper to have one, and as all of the girls admired Dickens, they called themselves the Pickwick Club. With a few interruptions, they had kept this up for a year, and met every Saturday evening in the big garret, on which occasions the ceremonies were as follows Three chairs were arranged in a row before a table on which was a lamp, also four white badges, with a big 'P.C.' in different colors on each, and the weekly newspaper called, The Pickwick Portfolio, to which all contributed something, while Jo, who reveled in pens and ink, was the editor. At seven o'clock, the four members ascended to the clubroom, tied their badges round their heads, and took their seats with great solemnity. Meg, as the eldest, was Samuel Pickwick, Jo, being of a literary turn, Augustus Snodgrass, Beth, because she was round and rosy, Tracy Tupman, and Amy, who was always trying to do what she couldn't, was Nathaniel Winkle. Pickwick, the president, read the paper, which was filled with original tales, poetry, local news, funny advertisements, and hints, in which they goodnaturedly reminded each other of their faults and short comings. On one occasion, Mr. Pickwick put on a pair of spectacles without any glass, rapped upon the table, hemmed, and having stared hard at Mr. Snodgrass, who was tilting back in his chair, till he arranged himself properly, began to read 'THE PICKWICK PORTFOLIO MAY ,  POET'S CORNER ANNIVERSARY ODE Again we meet to celebrate With badge and solemn rite, Our fiftysecond anniversary, In Pickwick Hall, tonight. We all are here in perfect health, None gone from our small band Again we see each wellknown face, And press each friendly hand. Our Pickwick, always at his post, With reverence we greet, As, spectacles on nose, he reads Our wellfilled weekly sheet. Although he suffers from a cold, We joy to hear him speak, For words of wisdom from him fall, In spite of croak or squeak. Old sixfoot Snodgrass looms on high, With elephantine grace, And beams upon the company, With brown and jovial face. Poetic fire lights up his eye, He struggles 'gainst his lot. Behold ambition on his brow, And on his nose, a blot. Next our peaceful Tupman comes, So rosy, plump, and sweet, Who chokes with laughter at the puns, And tumbles off his seat. Prim little Winkle too is here, With every hair in place, A model of propriety, Though he hates to wash his face. The year is gone, we still unite To joke and laugh and read, And tread the path of literature That doth to glory lead. Long may our paper prosper well, Our club unbroken be, And coming years their blessings pour On the useful, gay 'P. C.'. A. SNODGRASS THE MASKED MARRIAGE (A Tale Of Venice) Gondola after gondola swept up to the marble steps, and left its lovely load to swell the brilliant throng that filled the stately halls of Count Adelon. Knights and ladies, elves and pages, monks and flower girls, all mingled gaily in the dance. Sweet voices and rich melody filled the air, and so with mirth and music the masquerade went on. 'Has your Highness seen the Lady Viola tonight? asked a gallant troubadour of the fairy queen who floated down the hall upon his arm. 'Yes, is she not lovely, though so sad! Her dress is well chosen, too, for in a week she weds Count Antonio, whom she passionately hates. 'By my faith, I envy him. Yonder he comes, arrayed like a bridegroom, except the black mask. When that is off we shall see how he regards the fair maid whose heart he cannot win, though her stern father bestows her hand, returned the troubadour. 'Tis whispered that she loves the young English artist who haunts her steps, and is spurned by the old Count, said the lady, as they joined the dance. The revel was at its height when a priest appeared, and withdrawing the young pair to an alcove, hung with purple velvet, he motioned them to kneel. Instant silence fell on the gay throng, and not a sound, but the dash of fountains or the rustle of orange groves sleeping in the moonlight, broke the hush, as Count de Adelon spoke thus 'My lords and ladies, pardon the ruse by which I have gathered you here to witness the marriage of my daughter. Father, we wait your services. All eyes turned toward the bridal party, and a murmur of amazement went through the throng, for neither bride nor groom removed their masks. Curiosity and wonder possessed all hearts, but respect restrained all tongues till the holy rite was over. Then the eager spectators gathered round the count, demanding an explanation. 'Gladly would I give it if I could, but I only know that it was the whim of my timid Viola, and I yielded to it. Now, my children, let the play end. Unmask and receive my blessing. But neither bent the knee, for the young bridegroom replied in a tone that startled all listeners as the mask fell, disclosing the noble face of Ferdinand Devereux, the artist lover, and leaning on the breast where now flashed the star of an English earl was the lovely Viola, radiant with joy and beauty. 'My lord, you scornfully bade me claim your daughter when I could boast as high a name and vast a fortune as the Count Antonio. I can do more, for even your ambitious soul cannot refuse the Earl of Devereux and De Vere, when he gives his ancient name and boundless wealth in return for the beloved hand of this fair lady, now my wife. The count stood like one changed to stone, and turning to the bewildered crowd, Ferdinand added, with a gay smile of triumph, 'To you, my gallant friends, I can only wish that your wooing may prosper as mine has done, and that you may all win as fair a bride as I have by this masked marriage. S. PICKWICK Why is the P. C. like the Tower of Babel? It is full of unruly members. THE HISTORY OF A SQUASH Once upon a time a farmer planted a little seed in his garden, and after a while it sprouted and became a vine and bore many squashes. One day in October, when they were ripe, he picked one and took it to market. A grocerman bought and put it in his shop. That same morning, a little girl in a brown hat and blue dress, with a round face and snub nose, went and bought it for her mother. She lugged it home, cut it up, and boiled it in the big pot, mashed some of it with salt and butter, for dinner. And to the rest she added a pint of milk, two eggs, four spoons of sugar, nutmeg, and some crackers, put it in a deep dish, and baked it till it was brown and nice, and next day it was eaten by a family named March. T. TUPMAN Mr. Pickwick, Sir I address you upon the subject of sin the sinner I mean is a man named Winkle who makes trouble in his club by laughing and sometimes won't write his piece in this fine paper I hope you will pardon his badness and let him send a French fable because he can't write out of his head as he has so many lessons to do and no brains in future I will try to take time by the fetlock and prepare some work which will be all commy la fo that means all right I am in haste as it is nearly school time. Yours respectably, N. WINKLE The above is a manly and handsome acknowledgment of past misdemeanors. If our young friend studied punctuation, it would be well. A SAD ACCIDENT On Friday last, we were startled by a violent shock in our basement, followed by cries of distress. On rushing in a body to the cellar, we discovered our beloved President prostrate upon the floor, having tripped and fallen while getting wood for domestic purposes. A perfect scene of ruin met our eyes, for in his fall Mr. Pickwick had plunged his head and shoulders into a tub of water, upset a keg of soft soap upon his manly form, and torn his garments badly. On being removed from this perilous situation, it was discovered that he had suffered no injury but several bruises, and we are happy to add, is now doing well. ED. THE PUBLIC BEREAVEMENT It is our painful duty to record the sudden and mysterious disappearance of our cherished friend, Mrs. Snowball Pat Paw. This lovely and beloved cat was the pet of a large circle of warm and admiring friends for her beauty attracted all eyes, her graces and virtues endeared her to all hearts, and her loss is deeply felt by the whole community. When last seen, she was sitting at the gate, watching the butcher's cart, and it is feared that some villain, tempted by her charms, basely stole her. Weeks have passed, but no trace of her has been discovered, and we relinquish all hope, tie a black ribbon to her basket, set aside her dish, and weep for her as one lost to us forever. A sympathizing friend sends the following gem A LAMENT FOR S. B. PAT PAW We mourn the loss of our little pet, And sigh o'er her hapless fate, For never more by the fire she'll sit, Nor play by the old green gate. The little grave where her infant sleeps Is 'neath the chestnut tree. But o'er her grave we may not weep, We know not where it may be. Her empty bed, her idle ball, Will never see her more No gentle tap, no loving purr Is heard at the parlor door. Another cat comes after her mice, A cat with a dirty face, But she does not hunt as our darling did, Nor play with her airy grace. Her stealthy paws tread the very hall Where Snowball used to play, But she only spits at the dogs our pet So gallantly drove away. She is useful and mild, and does her best, But she is not fair to see, And we cannot give her your place dear, Nor worship her as we worship thee. A.S. ADVERTISEMENTS MISS ORANTHY BLUGGAGE, the accomplished strongminded lecturer, will deliver her famous lecture on 'WOMAN AND HER POSITION at Pickwick Hall, next Saturday Evening, after the usual performances. A WEEKLY MEETING will be held at Kitchen Place, to teach young ladies how to cook. Hannah Brown will preside, and all are invited to attend. THE DUSTPAN SOCIETY will meet on Wednesday next, and parade in the upper story of the Club House. All members to appear in uniform and shoulder their brooms at nine precisely. MRS. BETH BOUNCER will open her new assortment of Doll's Millinery next week. The latest Paris fashions have arrived, and orders are respectfully solicited. A NEW PLAY will appear at the Barnville Theatre, in the course of a few weeks, which will surpass anything ever seen on the American stage. 'THE GREEK SLAVE, or Constantine the Avenger, is the name of this thrilling drama!!! HINTS If S.P. didn't use so much soap on his hands, he wouldn't always be late at breakfast. A.S. is requested not to whistle in the street. T.T. please don't forget Amy's napkin. N.W. must not fret because his dress has not nine tucks. WEEKLY REPORT MegGood. JoBad. BethVery Good. AmyMiddling. As the President finished reading the paper (which I beg leave to assure my readers is a bona fide copy of one written by bona fide girls once upon a time), a round of applause followed, and then Mr. Snodgrass rose to make a proposition. 'Mr. President and gentlemen, he began, assuming a parliamentary attitude and tone, 'I wish to propose the admission of a new memberone who highly deserves the honor, would be deeply grateful for it, and would add immensely to the spirit of the club, the literary value of the paper, and be no end jolly and nice. I propose Mr. Theodore Laurence as an honorary member of the P. C. Come now, do have him. Jo's sudden change of tone made the girls laugh, but all looked rather anxious, and no one said a word as Snodgrass took his seat. 'We'll put it to a vote, said the President. 'All in favor of this motion please to manifest it by saying, 'Aye'. A loud response from Snodgrass, followed, to everybody's surprise, by a timid one from Beth. 'Contraryminded say, 'No'. Meg and Amy were contraryminded, and Mr. Winkle rose to say with great elegance, 'We don't wish any boys, they only joke and bounce about. This is a ladies' club, and we wish to be private and proper. 'I'm afraid he'll laugh at our paper, and make fun of us afterward, observed Pickwick, pulling the little curl on her forehead, as she always did when doubtful. Up rose Snodgrass, very much in earnest. 'Sir, I give you my word as a gentleman, Laurie won't do anything of the sort. He likes to write, and he'll give a tone to our contributions and keep us from being sentimental, don't you see? We can do so little for him, and he does so much for us, I think the least we can do is to offer him a place here, and make him welcome if he comes. This artful allusion to benefits conferred brought Tupman to his feet, looking as if he had quite made up his mind. 'Yes we ought to do it, even if we are afraid. I say he may come, and his grandpa, too, if he likes. This spirited burst from Beth electrified the club, and Jo left her seat to shake hands approvingly. 'Now then, vote again. Everybody remember it's our Laurie, and say, 'Aye!' cried Snodgrass excitedly. 'Aye! Aye! Aye! replied three voices at once. 'Good! Bless you! Now, as there's nothing like 'taking time by the fetlock', as Winkle characteristically observes, allow me to present the new member. And, to the dismay of the rest of the club, Jo threw open the door of the closet, and displayed Laurie sitting on a rag bag, flushed and twinkling with suppressed laughter. 'You rogue! You traitor! Jo, how could you? cried the three girls, as Snodgrass led her friend triumphantly forth, and producing both a chair and a badge, installed him in a jiffy. 'The coolness of you two rascals is amazing, began Mr. Pickwick, trying to get up an awful frown and only succeeding in producing an amiable smile. But the new member was equal to the occasion, and rising, with a grateful salutation to the Chair, said in the most engaging manner, 'Mr. President and ladiesI beg pardon, gentlemenallow me to introduce myself as Sam Weller, the very humble servant of the club. 'Good! Good! cried Jo, pounding with the handle of the old warming pan on which she leaned. 'My faithful friend and noble patron, continued Laurie with a wave of the hand, 'who has so flatteringly presented me, is not to be blamed for the base stratagem of tonight. I planned it, and she only gave in after lots of teasing. 'Come now, don't lay it all on yourself. You know I proposed the cupboard, broke in Snodgrass, who was enjoying the joke amazingly. 'Never mind what she says. I'm the wretch that did it, sir, said the new member, with a Welleresque nod to Mr. Pickwick. 'But on my honor, I never will do so again, and henceforth devote myself to the interest of this immortal club. 'Hear! Hear! cried Jo, clashing the lid of the warming pan like a cymbal. 'Go on, go on! added Winkle and Tupman, while the President bowed benignly. 'I merely wish to say, that as a slight token of my gratitude for the honor done me, and as a means of promoting friendly relations between adjoining nations, I have set up a post office in the hedge in the lower corner of the garden, a fine, spacious building with padlocks on the doors and every convenience for the mails, also the females, if I may be allowed the expression. It's the old martin house, but I've stopped up the door and made the roof open, so it will hold all sorts of things, and save our valuable time. Letters, manuscripts, books, and bundles can be passed in there, and as each nation has a key, it will be uncommonly nice, I fancy. Allow me to present the club key, and with many thanks for your favor, take my seat. Great applause as Mr. Weller deposited a little key on the table and subsided, the warming pan clashed and waved wildly, and it was some time before order could be restored. A long discussion followed, and everyone came out surprising, for everyone did her best. So it was an unusually lively meeting, and did not adjourn till a late hour, when it broke up with three shrill cheers for the new member. No one ever regretted the admittance of Sam Weller, for a more devoted, wellbehaved, and jovial member no club could have. He certainly did add 'spirit' to the meetings, and 'a tone' to the paper, for his orations convulsed his hearers and his contributions were excellent, being patriotic, classical, comical, or dramatic, but never sentimental. Jo regarded them as worthy of Bacon, Milton, or Shakespeare, and remodeled her own works with good effect, she thought. The P. O. was a capital little institution, and flourished wonderfully, for nearly as many queer things passed through it as through the real post office. Tragedies and cravats, poetry and pickles, garden seeds and long letters, music and gingerbread, rubbers, invitations, scoldings, and puppies. The old gentleman liked the fun, and amused himself by sending odd bundles, mysterious messages, and funny telegrams, and his gardener, who was smitten with Hannah's charms, actually sent a love letter to Jo's care. How they laughed when the secret came out, never dreaming how many love letters that little post office would hold in the years to come. 'The first of June! The Kings are off to the seashore tomorrow, and I'm free. Three months' vacationhow I shall enjoy it! exclaimed Meg, coming home one warm day to find Jo laid upon the sofa in an unusual state of exhaustion, while Beth took off her dusty boots, and Amy made lemonade for the refreshment of the whole party. 'Aunt March went today, for which, oh, be joyful! said Jo. 'I was mortally afraid she'd ask me to go with her. If she had, I should have felt as if I ought to do it, but Plumfield is about as gay as a churchyard, you know, and I'd rather be excused. We had a flurry getting the old lady off, and I had a fright every time she spoke to me, for I was in such a hurry to be through that I was uncommonly helpful and sweet, and feared she'd find it impossible to part from me. I quaked till she was fairly in the carriage, and had a final fright, for as it drove of, she popped out her head, saying, 'Josyphine, won't you?' I didn't hear any more, for I basely turned and fled. I did actually run, and whisked round the corner where I felt safe. 'Poor old Jo! She came in looking as if bears were after her, said Beth, as she cuddled her sister's feet with a motherly air. 'Aunt March is a regular samphire, is she not? observed Amy, tasting her mixture critically. 'She means vampire, not seaweed, but it doesn't matter. It's too warm to be particular about one's parts of speech, murmured Jo. 'What shall you do all your vacation? asked Amy, changing the subject with tact. 'I shall lie abed late, and do nothing, replied Meg, from the depths of the rocking chair. 'I've been routed up early all winter and had to spend my days working for other people, so now I'm going to rest and revel to my heart's content. 'No, said Jo, 'that dozy way wouldn't suit me. I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple tree, when I'm not having l 'Don't say 'larks!' implored Amy, as a return snub for the 'samphire' correction. 'I'll say 'nightingales' then, with Laurie. That's proper and appropriate, since he's a warbler. 'Don't let us do any lessons, Beth, for a while, but play all the time and rest, as the girls mean to, proposed Amy. 'Well, I will, if Mother doesn't mind. I want to learn some new songs, and my children need fitting up for the summer. They are dreadfully out of order and really suffering for clothes. 'May we, Mother? asked Meg, turning to Mrs. March, who sat sewing in what they called 'Marmee's corner'. 'You may try your experiment for a week and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play. 'Oh, dear, no! It will be delicious, I'm sure, said Meg complacently. 'I now propose a toast, as my 'friend and pardner, Sairy Gamp', says. Fun forever, and no grubbing! cried Jo, rising, glass in hand, as the lemonade went round. They all drank it merrily, and began the experiment by lounging for the rest of the day. Next morning, Meg did not appear till ten o'clock. Her solitary breakfast did not taste good, and the room seemed lonely and untidy, for Jo had not filled the vases, Beth had not dusted, and Amy's books lay scattered about. Nothing was neat and pleasant but 'Marmee's corner', which looked as usual. And there Meg sat, to 'rest and read', which meant to yawn and imagine what pretty summer dresses she would get with her salary. Jo spent the morning on the river with Laurie and the afternoon reading and crying over The Wide, Wide World, up in the apple tree. Beth began by rummaging everything out of the big closet where her family resided, but getting tired before half done, she left her establishment topsyturvy and went to her music, rejoicing that she had no dishes to wash. Amy arranged her bower, put on her best white frock, smoothed her curls, and sat down to draw under the honeysuckle, hoping someone would see and inquire who the young artist was. As no one appeared but an inquisitive daddylonglegs, who examined her work with interest, she went to walk, got caught in a shower, and came home dripping. At teatime they compared notes, and all agreed that it had been a delightful, though unusually long day. Meg, who went shopping in the afternoon and got a 'sweet blue muslin', had discovered, after she had cut the breadths off, that it wouldn't wash, which mishap made her slightly cross. Jo had burned the skin off her nose boating, and got a raging headache by reading too long. Beth was worried by the confusion of her closet and the difficulty of learning three or four songs at once, and Amy deeply regretted the damage done her frock, for Katy Brown's party was to be the next day and now like Flora McFlimsey, she had 'nothing to wear'. But these were mere trifles, and they assured their mother that the experiment was working finely. She smiled, said nothing, and with Hannah's help did their neglected work, keeping home pleasant and the domestic machinery running smoothly. It was astonishing what a peculiar and uncomfortable state of things was produced by the 'resting and reveling' process. The days kept getting longer and longer, the weather was unusually variable and so were tempers an unsettled feeling possessed everyone, and Satan found plenty of mischief for the idle hands to do. As the height of luxury, Meg put out some of her sewing, and then found time hang so heavily, that she fell to snipping and spoiling her clothes in her attempts to furbish them up a la Moffat. Jo read till her eyes gave out and she was sick of books, got so fidgety that even goodnatured Laurie had a quarrel with her, and so reduced in spirits that she desperately wished she had gone with Aunt March. Beth got on pretty well, for she was constantly forgetting that it was to be all play and no work, and fell back into her old ways now and then. But something in the air affected her, and more than once her tranquility was much disturbed, so much so that on one occasion she actually shook poor dear Joanna and told her she was 'a fright'. Amy fared worst of all, for her resources were small, and when her sisters left her to amuse herself, she soon found that accomplished and important little self a great burden. She didn't like dolls, fairy tales were childish, and one couldn't draw all the time. Tea parties didn't amount to much, neither did picnics, unless very well conducted. 'If one could have a fine house, full of nice girls, or go traveling, the summer would be delightful, but to stay at home with three selfish sisters and a grownup boy was enough to try the patience of a Boaz, complained Miss Malaprop, after several days devoted to pleasure, fretting, and ennui. No one would own that they were tired of the experiment, but by Friday night each acknowledged to herself that she was glad the week was nearly done. Hoping to impress the lesson more deeply, Mrs. March, who had a good deal of humor, resolved to finish off the trial in an appropriate manner, so she gave Hannah a holiday and let the girls enjoy the full effect of the play system. When they got up on Saturday morning, there was no fire in the kitchen, no breakfast in the dining room, and no mother anywhere to be seen. 'Mercy on us! What has happened? cried Jo, staring about her in dismay. Meg ran upstairs and soon came back again, looking relieved but rather bewildered, and a little ashamed. 'Mother isn't sick, only very tired, and she says she is going to stay quietly in her room all day and let us do the best we can. It's a very queer thing for her to do, she doesn't act a bit like herself. But she says it has been a hard week for her, so we mustn't grumble but take care of ourselves. 'That's easy enough, and I like the idea, I'm aching for something to do, that is, some new amusement, you know, added Jo quickly. In fact it was an immense relief to them all to have a little work, and they took hold with a will, but soon realized the truth of Hannah's saying, 'Housekeeping ain't no joke. There was plenty of food in the larder, and while Beth and Amy set the table, Meg and Jo got breakfast, wondering as they did why servants ever talked about hard work. 'I shall take some up to Mother, though she said we were not to think of her, for she'd take care of herself, said Meg, who presided and felt quite matronly behind the teapot. So a tray was fitted out before anyone began, and taken up with the cook's compliments. The boiled tea was very bitter, the omelet scorched, and the biscuits speckled with saleratus, but Mrs. March received her repast with thanks and laughed heartily over it after Jo was gone. 'Poor little souls, they will have a hard time, I'm afraid, but they won't suffer, and it will do them good, she said, producing the more palatable viands with which she had provided herself, and disposing of the bad breakfast, so that their feelings might not be hurt, a motherly little deception for which they were grateful. Many were the complaints below, and great the chagrin of the head cook at her failures. 'Never mind, I'll get the dinner and be servant, you be mistress, keep your hands nice, see company, and give orders, said Jo, who knew still less than Meg about culinary affairs. This obliging offer was gladly accepted, and Margaret retired to the parlor, which she hastily put in order by whisking the litter under the sofa and shutting the blinds to save the trouble of dusting. Jo, with perfect faith in her own powers and a friendly desire to make up the quarrel, immediately put a note in the office, inviting Laurie to dinner. 'You'd better see what you have got before you think of having company, said Meg, when informed of the hospitable but rash act. 'Oh, there's corned beef and plenty of potatoes, and I shall get some asparagus and a lobster, 'for a relish', as Hannah says. We'll have lettuce and make a salad. I don't know how, but the book tells. I'll have blanc mange and strawberries for dessert, and coffee too, if you want to be elegant. 'Don't try too many messes, Jo, for you can't make anything but gingerbread and molasses candy fit to eat. I wash my hands of the dinner party, and since you have asked Laurie on your own responsibility, you may just take care of him. 'I don't want you to do anything but be civil to him and help to the pudding. You'll give me your advice if I get in a muddle, won't you? asked Jo, rather hurt. 'Yes, but I don't know much, except about bread and a few trifles. You had better ask Mother's leave before you order anything, returned Meg prudently. 'Of course I shall. I'm not a fool. And Jo went off in a huff at the doubts expressed of her powers. 'Get what you like, and don't disturb me. I'm going out to dinner and can't worry about things at home, said Mrs. March, when Jo spoke to her. 'I never enjoyed housekeeping, and I'm going to take a vacation today, and read, write, go visiting, and amuse myself. The unusual spectacle of her busy mother rocking comfortably and reading early in the morning made Jo feel as if some unnatural phenomenon had occurred, for an eclipse, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption would hardly have seemed stranger. 'Everything is out of sorts, somehow, she said to herself, going downstairs. 'There's Beth crying, that's a sure sign that something is wrong in this family. If Amy is bothering, I'll shake her. Feeling very much out of sorts herself, Jo hurried into the parlor to find Beth sobbing over Pip, the canary, who lay dead in the cage with his little claws pathetically extended, as if imploring the food for want of which he had died. 'It's all my fault, I forgot him, there isn't a seed or a drop left. Oh, Pip! Oh, Pip! How could I be so cruel to you? cried Beth, taking the poor thing in her hands and trying to restore him. Jo peeped into his halfopen eye, felt his little heart, and finding him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino box for a coffin. 'Put him in the oven, and maybe he will get warm and revive, said Amy hopefully. 'He's been starved, and he shan't be baked now he's dead. I'll make him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the garden, and I'll never have another bird, never, my Pip! for I am too bad to own one, murmured Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in her hands. 'The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now, don't cry, Bethy. It's a pity, but nothing goes right this week, and Pip has had the worst of the experiment. Make the shroud, and lay him in my box, and after the dinner party, we'll have a nice little funeral, said Jo, beginning to feel as if she had undertaken a good deal. Leaving the others to console Beth, she departed to the kitchen, which was in a most discouraging state of confusion. Putting on a big apron, she fell to work and got the dishes piled up ready for washing, when she discovered that the fire was out. 'Here's a sweet prospect! muttered Jo, slamming the stove door open, and poking vigorously among the cinders. Having rekindled the fire, she thought she would go to market while the water heated. The walk revived her spirits, and flattering herself that she had made good bargains, she trudged home again, after buying a very young lobster, some very old asparagus, and two boxes of acid strawberries. By the time she got cleared up, the dinner arrived and the stove was redhot. Hannah had left a pan of bread to rise, Meg had worked it up early, set it on the hearth for a second rising, and forgotten it. Meg was entertaining Sallie Gardiner in the parlor, when the door flew open and a floury, crocky, flushed, and disheveled figure appeared, demanding tartly... 'I say, isn't bread 'riz' enough when it runs over the pans? Sallie began to laugh, but Meg nodded and lifted her eyebrows as high as they would go, which caused the apparition to vanish and put the sour bread into the oven without further delay. Mrs. March went out, after peeping here and there to see how matters went, also saying a word of comfort to Beth, who sat making a winding sheet, while the dear departed lay in state in the domino box. A strange sense of helplessness fell upon the girls as the gray bonnet vanished round the corner, and despair seized them when a few minutes later Miss Crocker appeared, and said she'd come to dinner. Now this lady was a thin, yellow spinster, with a sharp nose and inquisitive eyes, who saw everything and gossiped about all she saw. They disliked her, but had been taught to be kind to her, simply because she was old and poor and had few friends. So Meg gave her the easy chair and tried to entertain her, while she asked questions, criticized everything, and told stories of the people whom she knew. Language cannot describe the anxieties, experiences, and exertions which Jo underwent that morning, and the dinner she served up became a standing joke. Fearing to ask any more advice, she did her best alone, and discovered that something more than energy and good will is necessary to make a cook. She boiled the asparagus for an hour and was grieved to find the heads cooked off and the stalks harder than ever. The bread burned black for the salad dressing so aggravated her that she could not make it fit to eat. The lobster was a scarlet mystery to her, but she hammered and poked till it was unshelled and its meager proportions concealed in a grove of lettuce leaves. The potatoes had to be hurried, not to keep the asparagus waiting, and were not done at the last. The blanc mange was lumpy, and the strawberries not as ripe as they looked, having been skilfully 'deaconed'. 'Well, they can eat beef and bread and butter, if they are hungry, only it's mortifying to have to spend your whole morning for nothing, thought Jo, as she rang the bell half an hour later than usual, and stood, hot, tired, and dispirited, surveying the feast spread before Laurie, accustomed to all sorts of elegance, and Miss Crocker, whose tattling tongue would report them far and wide. Poor Jo would gladly have gone under the table, as one thing after another was tasted and left, while Amy giggled, Meg looked distressed, Miss Crocker pursed her lips, and Laurie talked and laughed with all his might to give a cheerful tone to the festive scene. Jo's one strong point was the fruit, for she had sugared it well, and had a pitcher of rich cream to eat with it. Her hot cheeks cooled a trifle, and she drew a long breath as the pretty glass plates went round, and everyone looked graciously at the little rosy islands floating in a sea of cream. Miss Crocker tasted first, made a wry face, and drank some water hastily. Jo, who refused, thinking there might not be enough, for they dwindled sadly after the picking over, glanced at Laurie, but he was eating away manfully, though there was a slight pucker about his mouth and he kept his eye fixed on his plate. Amy, who was fond of delicate fare, took a heaping spoonful, choked, hid her face in her napkin, and left the table precipitately. 'Oh, what is it? exclaimed Jo, trembling. 'Salt instead of sugar, and the cream is sour, replied Meg with a tragic gesture. Jo uttered a groan and fell back in her chair, remembering that she had given a last hasty powdering to the berries out of one of the two boxes on the kitchen table, and had neglected to put the milk in the refrigerator. She turned scarlet and was on the verge of crying, when she met Laurie's eyes, which would look merry in spite of his heroic efforts. The comical side of the affair suddenly struck her, and she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. So did everyone else, even 'Croaker' as the girls called the old lady, and the unfortunate dinner ended gaily, with bread and butter, olives and fun. 'I haven't strength of mind enough to clear up now, so we will sober ourselves with a funeral, said Jo, as they rose, and Miss Crocker made ready to go, being eager to tell the new story at another friend's dinner table. They did sober themselves for Beth's sake. Laurie dug a grave under the ferns in the grove, little Pip was laid in, with many tears by his tenderhearted mistress, and covered with moss, while a wreath of violets and chickweed was hung on the stone which bore his epitaph, composed by Jo while she struggled with the dinner. Here lies Pip March, Who died the th of June Loved and lamented sore, And not forgotten soon. At the conclusion of the ceremonies, Beth retired to her room, overcome with emotion and lobster, but there was no place of repose, for the beds were not made, and she found her grief much assuaged by beating up the pillows and putting things in order. Meg helped Jo clear away the remains of the feast, which took half the afternoon and left them so tired that they agreed to be contented with tea and toast for supper. Laurie took Amy to drive, which was a deed of charity, for the sour cream seemed to have had a bad effect upon her temper. Mrs. March came home to find the three older girls hard at work in the middle of the afternoon, and a glance at the closet gave her an idea of the success of one part of the experiment. Before the housewives could rest, several people called, and there was a scramble to get ready to see them. Then tea must be got, errands done, and one or two necessary bits of sewing neglected until the last minute. As twilight fell, dewy and still, one by one they gathered on the porch where the June roses were budding beautifully, and each groaned or sighed as she sat down, as if tired or troubled. 'What a dreadful day this has been! began Jo, usually the first to speak. 'It has seemed shorter than usual, but so uncomfortable, said Meg. 'Not a bit like home, added Amy. 'It can't seem so without Marmee and little Pip, sighed Beth, glancing with full eyes at the empty cage above her head. 'Here's Mother, dear, and you shall have another bird tomorrow, if you want it. As she spoke, Mrs. March came and took her place among them, looking as if her holiday had not been much pleasanter than theirs. 'Are you satisfied with your experiment, girls, or do you want another week of it? she asked, as Beth nestled up to her and the rest turned toward her with brightening faces, as flowers turn toward the sun. 'I don't! cried Jo decidedly. 'Nor I, echoed the others. 'You think then, that it is better to have a few duties and live a little for others, do you? 'Lounging and larking doesn't pay, observed Jo, shaking her head. 'I'm tired of it and mean to go to work at something right off. 'Suppose you learn plain cooking. That's a useful accomplishment, which no woman should be without, said Mrs. March, laughing inaudibly at the recollection of Jo's dinner party, for she had met Miss Crocker and heard her account of it. 'Mother, did you go away and let everything be, just to see how we'd get on? cried Meg, who had had suspicions all day. 'Yes, I wanted you to see how the comfort of all depends on each doing her share faithfully. While Hannah and I did your work, you got on pretty well, though I don't think you were very happy or amiable. So I thought, as a little lesson, I would show you what happens when everyone thinks only of herself. Don't you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties which make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear and forbear, that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all? 'We do, Mother, we do! cried the girls. 'Then let me advise you to take up your little burdens again, for though they seem heavy sometimes, they are good for us, and lighten as we learn to carry them. Work is wholesome, and there is plenty for everyone. It keeps us from ennui and mischief, is good for health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion. 'We'll work like bees, and love it too, see if we don't, said Jo. 'I'll learn plain cooking for my holiday task, and the next dinner party I have shall be a success. 'I'll make the set of shirts for father, instead of letting you do it, Marmee. I can and I will, though I'm not fond of sewing. That will be better than fussing over my own things, which are plenty nice enough as they are. said Meg. 'I'll do my lessons every day, and not spend so much time with my music and dolls. I am a stupid thing, and ought to be studying, not playing, was Beth's resolution, while Amy followed their example by heroically declaring, 'I shall learn to make buttonholes, and attend to my parts of speech. 'Very good! Then I am quite satisfied with the experiment, and fancy that we shall not have to repeat it, only don't go to the other extreme and delve like slaves. Have regular hours for work and play, make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty. 'We'll remember, Mother! and they did. Beth was postmistress, for, being most at home, she could attend to it regularly, and dearly liked the daily task of unlocking the little door and distributing the mail. One July day she came in with her hands full, and went about the house leaving letters and parcels like the penny post. 'Here's your posy, Mother! Laurie never forgets that, she said, putting the fresh nosegay in the vase that stood in 'Marmee's corner', and was kept supplied by the affectionate boy. 'Miss Meg March, one letter and a glove, continued Beth, delivering the articles to her sister, who sat near her mother, stitching wristbands. 'Why, I left a pair over there, and here is only one, said Meg, looking at the gray cotton glove. 'Didn't you drop the other in the garden? 'No, I'm sure I didn't, for there was only one in the office. 'I hate to have odd gloves! Never mind, the other may be found. My letter is only a translation of the German song I wanted. I think Mr. Brooke did it, for this isn't Laurie's writing. Mrs. March glanced at Meg, who was looking very pretty in her gingham morning gown, with the little curls blowing about her forehead, and very womanly, as she sat sewing at her little worktable, full of tidy white rolls, so unconscious of the thought in her mother's mind as she sewed and sang, while her fingers flew and her thoughts were busied with girlish fancies as innocent and fresh as the pansies in her belt, that Mrs. March smiled and was satisfied. 'Two letters for Doctor Jo, a book, and a funny old hat, which covered the whole post office and stuck outside, said Beth, laughing as she went into the study where Jo sat writing. 'What a sly fellow Laurie is! I said I wished bigger hats were the fashion, because I burn my face every hot day. He said, 'Why mind the fashion? Wear a big hat, and be comfortable!' I said I would if I had one, and he has sent me this, to try me. I'll wear it for fun, and show him I don't care for the fashion. And hanging the antique broadbrim on a bust of Plato, Jo read her letters. One from her mother made her cheeks glow and her eyes fill, for it said to her... My Dear I write a little word to tell you with how much satisfaction I watch your efforts to control your temper. You say nothing about your trials, failures, or successes, and think, perhaps, that no one sees them but the Friend whose help you daily ask, if I may trust the wellworn cover of your guidebook. I, too, have seen them all, and heartily believe in the sincerity of your resolution, since it begins to bear fruit. Go on, dear, patiently and bravely, and always believe that no one sympathizes more tenderly with you than your loving... Mother 'That does me good! That's worth millions of money and pecks of praise. Oh, Marmee, I do try! I will keep on trying, and not get tired, since I have you to help me. Laying her head on her arms, Jo wet her little romance with a few happy tears, for she had thought that no one saw and appreciated her efforts to be good, and this assurance was doubly precious, doubly encouraging, because unexpected and from the person whose commendation she most valued. Feeling stronger than ever to meet and subdue her Apollyon, she pinned the note inside her frock, as a shield and a reminder, lest she be taken unaware, and proceeded to open her other letter, quite ready for either good or bad news. In a big, dashing hand, Laurie wrote... Dear Jo, What ho! Some English girls and boys are coming to see me tomorrow and I want to have a jolly time. If it's fine, I'm going to pitch my tent in Longmeadow, and row up the whole crew to lunch and croquethave a fire, make messes, gypsy fashion, and all sorts of larks. They are nice people, and like such things. Brooke will go to keep us boys steady, and Kate Vaughn will play propriety for the girls. I want you all to come, can't let Beth off at any price, and nobody shall worry her. Don't bother about rations, I'll see to that and everything else, only do come, there's a good fellow! In a tearing hurry, Yours ever, Laurie. 'Here's richness! cried Jo, flying in to tell the news to Meg. 'Of course we can go, Mother? It will be such a help to Laurie, for I can row, and Meg see to the lunch, and the children be useful in some way. 'I hope the Vaughns are not fine grownup people. Do you know anything about them, Jo? asked Meg. 'Only that there are four of them. Kate is older than you, Fred and Frank (twins) about my age, and a little girl (Grace), who is nine or ten. Laurie knew them abroad, and liked the boys. I fancied, from the way he primmed up his mouth in speaking of her, that he didn't admire Kate much. 'I'm so glad my French print is clean, it's just the thing and so becoming! observed Meg complacently. 'Have you anything decent, Jo? 'Scarlet and gray boating suit, good enough for me. I shall row and tramp about, so I don't want any starch to think of. You'll come, Betty? 'If you won't let any boys talk to me. 'Not a boy! 'I like to please Laurie, and I'm not afraid of Mr. Brooke, he is so kind. But I don't want to play, or sing, or say anything. I'll work hard and not trouble anyone, and you'll take care of me, Jo, so I'll go. 'That's my good girl. You do try to fight off your shyness, and I love you for it. Fighting faults isn't easy, as I know, and a cheery word kind of gives a lift. Thank you, Mother, And Jo gave the thin cheek a grateful kiss, more precious to Mrs. March than if it had given back the rosy roundness of her youth. 'I had a box of chocolate drops, and the picture I wanted to copy, said Amy, showing her mail. 'And I got a note from Mr. Laurence, asking me to come over and play to him tonight, before the lamps are lighted, and I shall go, added Beth, whose friendship with the old gentleman prospered finely. 'Now let's fly round, and do double duty today, so that we can play tomorrow with free minds, said Jo, preparing to replace her pen with a broom. When the sun peeped into the girls' room early next morning to promise them a fine day, he saw a comical sight. Each had made such preparation for the fete as seemed necessary and proper. Meg had an extra row of little curlpapers across her forehead, Jo had copiously anointed her afflicted face with cold cream, Beth had taken Joanna to bed with her to atone for the approaching separation, and Amy had capped the climax by putting a clothespin on her nose to uplift the offending feature. It was one of the kind artists use to hold the paper on their drawing boards, therefore quite appropriate and effective for the purpose it was now being put. This funny spectacle appeared to amuse the sun, for he burst out with such radiance that Jo woke up and roused her sisters by a hearty laugh at Amy's ornament. Sunshine and laughter were good omens for a pleasure party, and soon a lively bustle began in both houses. Beth, who was ready first, kept reporting what went on next door, and enlivened her sisters' toilets by frequent telegrams from the window. 'There goes the man with the tent! I see Mrs. Barker doing up the lunch in a hamper and a great basket. Now Mr. Laurence is looking up at the sky and the weathercock. I wish he would go too. There's Laurie, looking like a sailor, nice boy! Oh, mercy me! Here's a carriage full of people, a tall lady, a little girl, and two dreadful boys. One is lame, poor thing, he's got a crutch. Laurie didn't tell us that. Be quick, girls! It's getting late. Why, there is Ned Moffat, I do declare. Meg, isn't that the man who bowed to you one day when we were shopping? 'So it is. How queer that he should come. I thought he was at the mountains. There is Sallie. I'm glad she got back in time. Am I all right, Jo? cried Meg in a flutter. 'A regular daisy. Hold up your dress and put your hat on straight, it looks sentimental tipped that way and will fly off at the first puff. Now then, come on! 'Oh, Jo, you are not going to wear that awful hat? It's too absurd! You shall not make a guy of yourself, remonstrated Meg, as Jo tied down with a red ribbon the broadbrimmed, oldfashioned leghorn Laurie had sent for a joke. 'I just will, though, for it's capital, so shady, light, and big. It will make fun, and I don't mind being a guy if I'm comfortable. With that Jo marched straight away and the rest followed, a bright little band of sisters, all looking their best in summer suits, with happy faces under the jaunty hatbrims. Laurie ran to meet and present them to his friends in the most cordial manner. The lawn was the reception room, and for several minutes a lively scene was enacted there. Meg was grateful to see that Miss Kate, though twenty, was dressed with a simplicity which American girls would do well to imitate, and who was much flattered by Mr. Ned's assurances that he came especially to see her. Jo understood why Laurie 'primmed up his mouth' when speaking of Kate, for that young lady had a standoffdon'ttouchme air, which contrasted strongly with the free and easy demeanor of the other girls. Beth took an observation of the new boys and decided that the lame one was not 'dreadful', but gentle and feeble, and she would be kind to him on that account. Amy found Grace a wellmannered, merry, little person, and after staring dumbly at one another for a few minutes, they suddenly became very good friends. Tents, lunch, and croquet utensils having been sent on beforehand, the party was soon embarked, and the two boats pushed off together, leaving Mr. Laurence waving his hat on the shore. Laurie and Jo rowed one boat, Mr. Brooke and Ned the other, while Fred Vaughn, the riotous twin, did his best to upset both by paddling about in a wherry like a disturbed water bug. Jo's funny hat deserved a vote of thanks, for it was of general utility. It broke the ice in the beginning by producing a laugh, it created quite a refreshing breeze, flapping to and fro as she rowed, and would make an excellent umbrella for the whole party, if a shower came up, she said. Miss Kate decided that she was 'odd', but rather clever, and smiled upon her from afar. Meg, in the other boat, was delightfully situated, face to face with the rowers, who both admired the prospect and feathered their oars with uncommon 'skill and dexterity'. Mr. Brooke was a grave, silent young man, with handsome brown eyes and a pleasant voice. Meg liked his quiet manners and considered him a walking encyclopedia of useful knowledge. He never talked to her much, but he looked at her a good deal, and she felt sure that he did not regard her with aversion. Ned, being in college, of course put on all the airs which freshmen think it their bounden duty to assume. He was not very wise, but very goodnatured, and altogether an excellent person to carry on a picnic. Sallie Gardiner was absorbed in keeping her white pique dress clean and chattering with the ubiquitous Fred, who kept Beth in constant terror by his pranks. It was not far to Longmeadow, but the tent was pitched and the wickets down by the time they arrived. A pleasant green field, with three widespreading oaks in the middle and a smooth strip of turf for croquet. 'Welcome to Camp Laurence! said the young host, as they landed with exclamations of delight. 'Brooke is commander in chief, I am commissary general, the other fellows are staff officers, and you, ladies, are company. The tent is for your especial benefit and that oak is your drawing room, this is the messroom and the third is the camp kitchen. Now, let's have a game before it gets hot, and then we'll see about dinner. Frank, Beth, Amy, and Grace sat down to watch the game played by the other eight. Mr. Brooke chose Meg, Kate, and Fred. Laurie took Sallie, Jo, and Ned. The English played well, but the Americans played better, and contested every inch of the ground as strongly as if the spirit of ' inspired them. Jo and Fred had several skirmishes and once narrowly escaped high words. Jo was through the last wicket and had missed the stroke, which failure ruffled her a good deal. Fred was close behind her and his turn came before hers. He gave a stroke, his ball hit the wicket, and stopped an inch on the wrong side. No one was very near, and running up to examine, he gave it a sly nudge with his toe, which put it just an inch on the right side. 'I'm through! Now, Miss Jo, I'll settle you, and get in first, cried the young gentleman, swinging his mallet for another blow. 'You pushed it. I saw you. It's my turn now, said Jo sharply. 'Upon my word, I didn't move it. It rolled a bit, perhaps, but that is allowed. So, stand off please, and let me have a go at the stake. 'We don't cheat in America, but you can, if you choose, said Jo angrily. 'Yankees are a deal the most tricky, everybody knows. There you go! returned Fred, croqueting her ball far away. Jo opened her lips to say something rude, but checked herself in time, colored up to her forehead and stood a minute, hammering down a wicket with all her might, while Fred hit the stake and declared himself out with much exultation. She went off to get her ball, and was a long time finding it among the bushes, but she came back, looking cool and quiet, and waited her turn patiently. It took several strokes to regain the place she had lost, and when she got there, the other side had nearly won, for Kate's ball was the last but one and lay near the stake. 'By George, it's all up with us! Goodbye, Kate. Miss Jo owes me one, so you are finished, cried Fred excitedly, as they all drew near to see the finish. 'Yankees have a trick of being generous to their enemies, said Jo, with a look that made the lad redden, 'especially when they beat them, she added, as, leaving Kate's ball untouched, she won the game by a clever stroke. Laurie threw up his hat, then remembered that it wouldn't do to exult over the defeat of his guests, and stopped in the middle of the cheer to whisper to his friend, 'Good for you, Jo! He did cheat, I saw him. We can't tell him so, but he won't do it again, take my word for it. Meg drew her aside, under pretense of pinning up a loose braid, and said approvingly, 'It was dreadfully provoking, but you kept your temper, and I'm so glad, Jo. 'Don't praise me, Meg, for I could box his ears this minute. I should certainly have boiled over if I hadn't stayed among the nettles till I got my rage under control enough to hold my tongue. It's simmering now, so I hope he'll keep out of my way, returned Jo, biting her lips as she glowered at Fred from under her big hat. 'Time for lunch, said Mr. Brooke, looking at his watch. 'Commissary general, will you make the fire and get water, while Miss March, Miss Sallie, and I spread the table? Who can make good coffee? 'Jo can, said Meg, glad to recommend her sister. So Jo, feeling that her late lessons in cookery were to do her honor, went to preside over the coffeepot, while the children collected dry sticks, and the boys made a fire and got water from a spring near by. Miss Kate sketched and Frank talked to Beth, who was making little mats of braided rushes to serve as plates. The commander in chief and his aides soon spread the tablecloth with an inviting array of eatables and drinkables, prettily decorated with green leaves. Jo announced that the coffee was ready, and everyone settled themselves to a hearty meal, for youth is seldom dyspeptic, and exercise develops wholesome appetites. A very merry lunch it was, for everything seemed fresh and funny, and frequent peals of laughter startled a venerable horse who fed near by. There was a pleasing inequality in the table, which produced many mishaps to cups and plates, acorns dropped in the milk, little black ants partook of the refreshments without being invited, and fuzzy caterpillars swung down from the tree to see what was going on. Three whiteheaded children peeped over the fence, and an objectionable dog barked at them from the other side of the river with all his might and main. 'There's salt here, said Laurie, as he handed Jo a saucer of berries. 'Thank you, I prefer spiders, she replied, fishing up two unwary little ones who had gone to a creamy death. 'How dare you remind me of that horrid dinner party, when yours is so nice in every way? added Jo, as they both laughed and ate out of one plate, the china having run short. 'I had an uncommonly good time that day, and haven't got over it yet. This is no credit to me, you know, I don't do anything. It's you and Meg and Brooke who make it all go, and I'm no end obliged to you. What shall we do when we can't eat anymore? asked Laurie, feeling that his trump card had been played when lunch was over. 'Have games till it's cooler. I brought Authors, and I dare say Miss Kate knows something new and nice. Go and ask her. She's company, and you ought to stay with her more. 'Aren't you company too? I thought she'd suit Brooke, but he keeps talking to Meg, and Kate just stares at them through that ridiculous glass of hers. I'm going, so you needn't try to preach propriety, for you can't do it, Jo. Miss Kate did know several new games, and as the girls would not, and the boys could not, eat any more, they all adjourned to the drawing room to play Rigmarole. 'One person begins a story, any nonsense you like, and tells as long as he pleases, only taking care to stop short at some exciting point, when the next takes it up and does the same. It's very funny when well done, and makes a perfect jumble of tragical comical stuff to laugh over. Please start it, Mr. Brooke, said Kate, with a commanding air, which surprised Meg, who treated the tutor with as much respect as any other gentleman. Lying on the grass at the feet of the two young ladies, Mr. Brooke obediently began the story, with the handsome brown eyes steadily fixed upon the sunshiny river. 'Once on a time, a knight went out into the world to seek his fortune, for he had nothing but his sword and his shield. He traveled a long while, nearly eightandtwenty years, and had a hard time of it, till he came to the palace of a good old king, who had offered a reward to anyone who could tame and train a fine but unbroken colt, of which he was very fond. The knight agreed to try, and got on slowly but surely, for the colt was a gallant fellow, and soon learned to love his new master, though he was freakish and wild. Every day, when he gave his lessons to this pet of the king's, the knight rode him through the city, and as he rode, he looked everywhere for a certain beautiful face, which he had seen many times in his dreams, but never found. One day, as he went prancing down a quiet street, he saw at the window of a ruinous castle the lovely face. He was delighted, inquired who lived in this old castle, and was told that several captive princesses were kept there by a spell, and spun all day to lay up money to buy their liberty. The knight wished intensely that he could free them, but he was poor and could only go by each day, watching for the sweet face and longing to see it out in the sunshine. At last he resolved to get into the castle and ask how he could help them. He went and knocked. The great door flew open, and he beheld... 'A ravishingly lovely lady, who exclaimed, with a cry of rapture, 'At last! At last!' continued Kate, who had read French novels, and admired the style. ''Tis she!' cried Count Gustave, and fell at her feet in an ecstasy of joy. 'Oh, rise!' she said, extending a hand of marble fairness. 'Never! Till you tell me how I may rescue you,' swore the knight, still kneeling. 'Alas, my cruel fate condemns me to remain here till my tyrant is destroyed.' 'Where is the villain?' 'In the mauve salon. Go, brave heart, and save me from despair.' 'I obey, and return victorious or dead!' With these thrilling words he rushed away, and flinging open the door of the mauve salon, was about to enter, when he received... 'A stunning blow from the big Greek lexicon, which an old fellow in a black gown fired at him, said Ned. 'Instantly, Sir What'shisname recovered himself, pitched the tyrant out of the window, and turned to join the lady, victorious, but with a bump on his brow, found the door locked, tore up the curtains, made a rope ladder, got halfway down when the ladder broke, and he went headfirst into the moat, sixty feet below. Could swim like a duck, paddled round the castle till he came to a little door guarded by two stout fellows, knocked their heads together till they cracked like a couple of nuts, then, by a trifling exertion of his prodigious strength, he smashed in the door, went up a pair of stone steps covered with dust a foot thick, toads as big as your fist, and spiders that would frighten you into hysterics, Miss March. At the top of these steps he came plump upon a sight that took his breath away and chilled his blood... 'A tall figure, all in white with a veil over its face and a lamp in its wasted hand, went on Meg. 'It beckoned, gliding noiselessly before him down a corridor as dark and cold as any tomb. Shadowy effigies in armor stood on either side, a dead silence reigned, the lamp burned blue, and the ghostly figure ever and anon turned its face toward him, showing the glitter of awful eyes through its white veil. They reached a curtained door, behind which sounded lovely music. He sprang forward to enter, but the specter plucked him back, and waved threateningly before him a... 'Snuffbox, said Jo, in a sepulchral tone, which convulsed the audience. ''Thankee,' said the knight politely, as he took a pinch and sneezed seven times so violently that his head fell off. 'Ha! Ha!' laughed the ghost, and having peeped through the keyhole at the princesses spinning away for dear life, the evil spirit picked up her victim and put him in a large tin box, where there were eleven other knights packed together without their heads, like sardines, who all rose and began to... 'Dance a hornpipe, cut in Fred, as Jo paused for breath, 'and, as they danced, the rubbishy old castle turned to a manofwar in full sail. 'Up with the jib, reef the tops'l halliards, helm hard alee, and man the guns!' roared the captain, as a Portuguese pirate hove in sight, with a flag black as ink flying from her foremast. 'Go in and win, my hearties!' says the captain, and a tremendous fight began. Of course the British beatthey always do. 'No, they don't! cried Jo, aside. 'Having taken the pirate captain prisoner, sailed slap over the schooner, whose decks were piled high with dead and whose lee scuppers ran blood, for the order had been 'Cutlasses, and die hard!' 'Bosun's mate, take a bight of the flyingjib sheet, and start this villain if he doesn't confess his sins double quick,' said the British captain. The Portuguese held his tongue like a brick, and walked the plank, while the jolly tars cheered like mad. But the sly dog dived, came up under the manofwar, scuttled her, and down she went, with all sail set, 'To the bottom of the sea, sea, sea' where... 'Oh, gracious! What shall I say? cried Sallie, as Fred ended his rigmarole, in which he had jumbled together pellmell nautical phrases and facts out of one of his favorite books. 'Well, they went to the bottom, and a nice mermaid welcomed them, but was much grieved on finding the box of headless knights, and kindly pickled them in brine, hoping to discover the mystery about them, for being a woman, she was curious. Byandby a diver came down, and the mermaid said, 'I'll give you a box of pearls if you can take it up,' for she wanted to restore the poor things to life, and couldn't raise the heavy load herself. So the diver hoisted it up, and was much disappointed on opening it to find no pearls. He left it in a great lonely field, where it was found by a... 'Little goose girl, who kept a hundred fat geese in the field, said Amy, when Sallie's invention gave out. 'The little girl was sorry for them, and asked an old woman what she should do to help them. 'Your geese will tell you, they know everything.' said the old woman. So she asked what she should use for new heads, since the old ones were lost, and all the geese opened their hundred mouths and screamed... ''Cabbages!' continued Laurie promptly. ''Just the thing,' said the girl, and ran to get twelve fine ones from her garden. She put them on, the knights revived at once, thanked her, and went on their way rejoicing, never knowing the difference, for there were so many other heads like them in the world that no one thought anything of it. The knight in whom I'm interested went back to find the pretty face, and learned that the princesses had spun themselves free and all gone and married, but one. He was in a great state of mind at that, and mounting the colt, who stood by him through thick and thin, rushed to the castle to see which was left. Peeping over the hedge, he saw the queen of his affections picking flowers in her garden. 'Will you give me a rose?' said he. 'You must come and get it. I can't come to you, it isn't proper,' said she, as sweet as honey. He tried to climb over the hedge, but it seemed to grow higher and higher. Then he tried to push through, but it grew thicker and thicker, and he was in despair. So he patiently broke twig after twig till he had made a little hole through which he peeped, saying imploringly, 'Let me in! Let me in!' But the pretty princess did not seem to understand, for she picked her roses quietly, and left him to fight his way in. Whether he did or not, Frank will tell you. 'I can't. I'm not playing, I never do, said Frank, dismayed at the sentimental predicament out of which he was to rescue the absurd couple. Beth had disappeared behind Jo, and Grace was asleep. 'So the poor knight is to be left sticking in the hedge, is he? asked Mr. Brooke, still watching the river, and playing with the wild rose in his buttonhole. 'I guess the princess gave him a posy, and opened the gate after a while, said Laurie, smiling to himself, as he threw acorns at his tutor. 'What a piece of nonsense we have made! With practice we might do something quite clever. Do you know Truth? 'I hope so, said Meg soberly. 'The game, I mean? 'What is it? said Fred. 'Why, you pile up your hands, choose a number, and draw out in turn, and the person who draws at the number has to answer truly any question put by the rest. It's great fun. 'Let's try it, said Jo, who liked new experiments. Miss Kate and Mr. Brooke, Meg, and Ned declined, but Fred, Sallie, Jo, and Laurie piled and drew, and the lot fell to Laurie. 'Who are your heroes? asked Jo. 'Grandfather and Napoleon. 'Which lady here do you think prettiest? said Sallie. 'Margaret. 'Which do you like best? from Fred. 'Jo, of course. 'What silly questions you ask! And Jo gave a disdainful shrug as the rest laughed at Laurie's matteroffact tone. 'Try again. Truth isn't a bad game, said Fred. 'It's a very good one for you, retorted Jo in a low voice. Her turn came next. 'What is your greatest fault? asked Fred, by way of testing in her the virtue he lacked himself. 'A quick temper. 'What do you most wish for? said Laurie. 'A pair of boot lacings, returned Jo, guessing and defeating his purpose. 'Not a true answer. You must say what you really do want most. 'Genius. Don't you wish you could give it to me, Laurie? And she slyly smiled in his disappointed face. 'What virtues do you most admire in a man? asked Sallie. 'Courage and honesty. 'Now my turn, said Fred, as his hand came last. 'Let's give it to him, whispered Laurie to Jo, who nodded and asked at once... 'Didn't you cheat at croquet? 'Well, yes, a little bit. 'Good! Didn't you take your story out of The Sea Lion? said Laurie. 'Rather. 'Don't you think the English nation perfect in every respect? asked Sallie. 'I should be ashamed of myself if I didn't. 'He's a true John Bull. Now, Miss Sallie, you shall have a chance without waiting to draw. I'll harrrow up your feelings first by asking if you don't think you are something of a flirt, said Laurie, as Jo nodded to Fred as a sign that peace was declared. 'You impertinent boy! Of course I'm not, exclaimed Sallie, with an air that proved the contrary. 'What do you hate most? asked Fred. 'Spiders and rice pudding. 'What do you like best? asked Jo. 'Dancing and French gloves. 'Well, I think Truth is a very silly play. Let's have a sensible game of Authors to refresh our minds, proposed Jo. Ned, Frank, and the little girls joined in this, and while it went on, the three elders sat apart, talking. Miss Kate took out her sketch again, and Margaret watched her, while Mr. Brooke lay on the grass with a book, which he did not read. 'How beautifully you do it! I wish I could draw, said Meg, with mingled admiration and regret in her voice. 'Why don't you learn? I should think you had taste and talent for it, replied Miss Kate graciously. 'I haven't time. 'Your mamma prefers other accomplishments, I fancy. So did mine, but I proved to her that I had talent by taking a few lessons privately, and then she was quite willing I should go on. Can't you do the same with your governess? 'I have none. 'I forgot young ladies in America go to school more than with us. Very fine schools they are, too, Papa says. You go to a private one, I suppose? 'I don't go at all. I am a governess myself. 'Oh, indeed! said Miss Kate, but she might as well have said, 'Dear me, how dreadful! for her tone implied it, and something in her face made Meg color, and wish she had not been so frank. Mr. Brooke looked up and said quickly, 'Young ladies in America love independence as much as their ancestors did, and are admired and respected for supporting themselves. 'Oh, yes, of course it's very nice and proper in them to do so. We have many most respectable and worthy young women who do the same and are employed by the nobility, because, being the daughters of gentlemen, they are both well bred and accomplished, you know, said Miss Kate in a patronizing tone that hurt Meg's pride, and made her work seem not only more distasteful, but degrading. 'Did the German song suit, Miss March? inquired Mr. Brooke, breaking an awkward pause. 'Oh, yes! It was very sweet, and I'm much obliged to whoever translated it for me. And Meg's downcast face brightened as she spoke. 'Don't you read German? asked Miss Kate with a look of surprise. 'Not very well. My father, who taught me, is away, and I don't get on very fast alone, for I've no one to correct my pronunciation. 'Try a little now. Here is Schiller's Mary Stuart and a tutor who loves to teach. And Mr. Brooke laid his book on her lap with an inviting smile. 'It's so hard I'm afraid to try, said Meg, grateful, but bashful in the presence of the accomplished young lady beside her. 'I'll read a bit to encourage you. And Miss Kate read one of the most beautiful passages in a perfectly correct but perfectly expressionless manner. Mr. Brooke made no comment as she returned the book to Meg, who said innocently, 'I thought it was poetry. 'Some of it is. Try this passage. There was a queer smile about Mr. Brooke's mouth as he opened at poor Mary's lament. Meg obediently following the long grassblade which her new tutor used to point with, read slowly and timidly, unconsciously making poetry of the hard words by the soft intonation of her musical voice. Down the page went the green guide, and presently, forgetting her listener in the beauty of the sad scene, Meg read as if alone, giving a little touch of tragedy to the words of the unhappy queen. If she had seen the brown eyes then, she would have stopped short, but she never looked up, and the lesson was not spoiled for her. 'Very well indeed! said Mr. Brooke, as she paused, quite ignoring her many mistakes, and looking as if he did indeed love to teach. Miss Kate put up her glass, and, having taken a survey of the little tableau before her, shut her sketch book, saying with condescension, 'You've a nice accent and in time will be a clever reader. I advise you to learn, for German is a valuable accomplishment to teachers. I must look after Grace, she is romping. And Miss Kate strolled away, adding to herself with a shrug, 'I didn't come to chaperone a governess, though she is young and pretty. What odd people these Yankees are. I'm afraid Laurie will be quite spoiled among them. 'I forgot that English people rather turn up their noses at governesses and don't treat them as we do, said Meg, looking after the retreating figure with an annoyed expression. 'Tutors also have rather a hard time of it there, as I know to my sorrow. There's no place like America for us workers, Miss Margaret. And Mr. Brooke looked so contented and cheerful that Meg was ashamed to lament her hard lot. 'I'm glad I live in it then. I don't like my work, but I get a good deal of satisfaction out of it after all, so I won't complain. I only wished I liked teaching as you do. 'I think you would if you had Laurie for a pupil. I shall be very sorry to lose him next year, said Mr. Brooke, busily punching holes in the turf. 'Going to college, I suppose? Meg's lips asked the question, but her eyes added, 'And what becomes of you? 'Yes, it's high time he went, for he is ready, and as soon as he is off, I shall turn soldier. I am needed. 'I am glad of that! exclaimed Meg. 'I should think every young man would want to go, though it is hard for the mothers and sisters who stay at home, she added sorrowfully. 'I have neither, and very few friends to care whether I live or die, said Mr. Brooke rather bitterly as he absently put the dead rose in the hole he had made and covered it up, like a little grave. 'Laurie and his grandfather would care a great deal, and we should all be very sorry to have any harm happen to you, said Meg heartily. 'Thank you, that sounds pleasant, began Mr. Brooke, looking cheerful again, but before he could finish his speech, Ned, mounted on the old horse, came lumbering up to display his equestrian skill before the young ladies, and there was no more quiet that day. 'Don't you love to ride? asked Grace of Amy, as they stood resting after a race round the field with the others, led by Ned. 'I dote upon it. My sister, Meg, used to ride when Papa was rich, but we don't keep any horses now, except Ellen Tree, added Amy, laughing. 'Tell me about Ellen Tree. Is it a donkey? asked Grace curiously. 'Why, you see, Jo is crazy about horses and so am I, but we've only got an old sidesaddle and no horse. Out in our garden is an apple tree that has a nice low branch, so Jo put the saddle on it, fixed some reins on the part that turns up, and we bounce away on Ellen Tree whenever we like. 'How funny! laughed Grace. 'I have a pony at home, and ride nearly every day in the park with Fred and Kate. It's very nice, for my friends go too, and the Row is full of ladies and gentlemen. 'Dear, how charming! I hope I shall go abroad some day, but I'd rather go to Rome than the Row, said Amy, who had not the remotest idea what the Row was and wouldn't have asked for the world. Frank, sitting just behind the little girls, heard what they were saying, and pushed his crutch away from him with an impatient gesture as he watched the active lads going through all sorts of comical gymnastics. Beth, who was collecting the scattered Author cards, looked up and said, in her shy yet friendly way, 'I'm afraid you are tired. Can I do anything for you? 'Talk to me, please. It's dull, sitting by myself, answered Frank, who had evidently been used to being made much of at home. If he asked her to deliver a Latin oration, it would not have seemed a more impossible task to bashful Beth, but there was no place to run to, no Jo to hide behind now, and the poor boy looked so wistfully at her that she bravely resolved to try. 'What do you like to talk about? she asked, fumbling over the cards and dropping half as she tried to tie them up. 'Well, I like to hear about cricket and boating and hunting, said Frank, who had not yet learned to suit his amusements to his strength. My heart! What shall I do? I don't know anything about them, thought Beth, and forgetting the boy's misfortune in her flurry, she said, hoping to make him talk, 'I never saw any hunting, but I suppose you know all about it. 'I did once, but I can never hunt again, for I got hurt leaping a confounded fivebarred gate, so there are no more horses and hounds for me, said Frank with a sigh that made Beth hate herself for her innocent blunder. 'Your deer are much prettier than our ugly buffaloes, she said, turning to the prairies for help and feeling glad that she had read one of the boys' books in which Jo delighted. Buffaloes proved soothing and satisfactory, and in her eagerness to amuse another, Beth forgot herself, and was quite unconscious of her sisters' surprise and delight at the unusual spectacle of Beth talking away to one of the dreadful boys, against whom she had begged protection. 'Bless her heart! She pities him, so she is good to him, said Jo, beaming at her from the croquet ground. 'I always said she was a little saint, added Meg, as if there could be no further doubt of it. 'I haven't heard Frank laugh so much for ever so long, said Grace to Amy, as they sat discussing dolls and making tea sets out of the acorn cups. 'My sister Beth is a very fastidious girl, when she likes to be, said Amy, well pleased at Beth's success. She meant 'facinating', but as Grace didn't know the exact meaning of either word, fastidious sounded well and made a good impression. An impromptu circus, fox and geese, and an amicable game of croquet finished the afternoon. At sunset the tent was struck, hampers packed, wickets pulled up, boats loaded, and the whole party floated down the river, singing at the tops of their voices. Ned, getting sentimental, warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain... Alone, alone, ah! Woe, alone, and at the lines... We each are young, we each have a heart, Oh, why should we stand thus coldly apart? he looked at Meg with such a lackadaisical expression that she laughed outright and spoiled his song. 'How can you be so cruel to me? he whispered, under cover of a lively chorus. 'You've kept close to that starchedup Englishwoman all day, and now you snub me. 'I didn't mean to, but you looked so funny I really couldn't help it, replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach, for it was quite true that she had shunned him, remembering the Moffat party and the talk after it. Ned was offended and turned to Sallie for consolation, saying to her rather pettishly, 'There isn't a bit of flirt in that girl, is there? 'Not a particle, but she's a dear, returned Sallie, defending her friend even while confessing her shortcomings. 'She's not a stricken deer anyway, said Ned, trying to be witty, and succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do. On the lawn where it had gathered, the little party separated with cordial good nights and goodbyes, for the Vaughns were going to Canada. As the four sisters went home through the garden, Miss Kate looked after them, saying, without the patronizing tone in her voice, 'In spite of their demonstrative manners, American girls are very nice when one knows them. 'I quite agree with you, said Mr. Brooke. Laurie lay luxuriously swinging to and fro in his hammock one warm September afternoon, wondering what his neighbors were about, but too lazy to go and find out. He was in one of his moods, for the day had been both unprofitable and unsatisfactory, and he was wishing he could live it over again. The hot weather made him indolent, and he had shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke's patience to the utmost, displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself. Staring up into the green gloom of the horsechestnut trees above him, he dreamed dreams of all sorts, and was just imagining himself tossing on the ocean in a voyage round the world, when the sound of voices brought him ashore in a flash. Peeping through the meshes of the hammock, he saw the Marches coming out, as if bound on some expedition. 'What in the world are those girls about now? thought Laurie, opening his sleepy eyes to take a good look, for there was something rather peculiar in the appearance of his neighbors. Each wore a large, flapping hat, a brown linen pouch slung over one shoulder, and carried a long staff. Meg had a cushion, Jo a book, Beth a basket, and Amy a portfolio. All walked quietly through the garden, out at the little back gate, and began to climb the hill that lay between the house and river. 'Well, that's cool, said Laurie to himself, 'to have a picnic and never ask me! They can't be going in the boat, for they haven't got the key. Perhaps they forgot it. I'll take it to them, and see what's going on. Though possessed of half a dozen hats, it took him some time to find one, then there was a hunt for the key, which was at last discovered in his pocket, so that the girls were quite out of sight when he leaped the fence and ran after them. Taking the shortest way to the boathouse, he waited for them to appear, but no one came, and he went up the hill to take an observation. A grove of pines covered one part of it, and from the heart of this green spot came a clearer sound than the soft sigh of the pines or the drowsy chirp of the crickets. 'Here's a landscape! thought Laurie, peeping through the bushes, and looking wideawake and goodnatured already. It was a rather pretty little picture, for the sisters sat together in the shady nook, with sun and shadow flickering over them, the aromatic wind lifting their hair and cooling their hot cheeks, and all the little wood people going on with their affairs as if these were no strangers but old friends. Meg sat upon her cushion, sewing daintily with her white hands, and looking as fresh and sweet as a rose in her pink dress among the green. Beth was sorting the cones that lay thick under the hemlock near by, for she made pretty things with them. Amy was sketching a group of ferns, and Jo was knitting as she read aloud. A shadow passed over the boy's face as he watched them, feeling that he ought to go away because uninvited yet lingering because home seemed very lonely and this quiet party in the woods most attractive to his restless spirit. He stood so still that a squirrel, busy with its harvesting, ran down a pine close beside him, saw him suddenly and skipped back, scolding so shrilly that Beth looked up, espied the wistful face behind the birches, and beckoned with a reassuring smile. 'May I come in, please? Or shall I be a bother? he asked, advancing slowly. Meg lifted her eyebrows, but Jo scowled at her defiantly and said at once, 'Of course you may. We should have asked you before, only we thought you wouldn't care for such a girl's game as this. 'I always like your games, but if Meg doesn't want me, I'll go away. 'I've no objection, if you do something. It's against the rules to be idle here, replied Meg gravely but graciously. 'Much obliged. I'll do anything if you'll let me stop a bit, for it's as dull as the Desert of Sahara down there. Shall I sew, read, cone, draw, or do all at once? Bring on your bears. I'm ready. And Laurie sat down with a submissive expression delightful to behold. 'Finish this story while I set my heel, said Jo, handing him the book. 'Yes'm. was the meek answer, as he began, doing his best to prove his gratitude for the favor of admission into the 'Busy Bee Society'. The story was not a long one, and when it was finished, he ventured to ask a few questions as a reward of merit. 'Please, ma'am, could I inquire if this highly instructive and charming institution is a new one? 'Would you tell him? asked Meg of her sisters. 'He'll laugh, said Amy warningly. 'Who cares? said Jo. 'I guess he'll like it, added Beth. 'Of course I shall! I give you my word I won't laugh. Tell away, Jo, and don't be afraid. 'The idea of being afraid of you! Well, you see we used to play Pilgrim's Progress, and we have been going on with it in earnest, all winter and summer. 'Yes, I know, said Laurie, nodding wisely. 'Who told you? demanded Jo. 'Spirits. 'No, I did. I wanted to amuse him one night when you were all away, and he was rather dismal. He did like it, so don't scold, Jo, said Beth meekly. 'You can't keep a secret. Never mind, it saves trouble now. 'Go on, please, said Laurie, as Jo became absorbed in her work, looking a trifle displeased. 'Oh, didn't she tell you about this new plan of ours? Well, we have tried not to waste our holiday, but each has had a task and worked at it with a will. The vacation is nearly over, the stints are all done, and we are ever so glad that we didn't dawdle. 'Yes, I should think so, and Laurie thought regretfully of his own idle days. 'Mother likes to have us outofdoors as much as possible, so we bring our work here and have nice times. For the fun of it we bring our things in these bags, wear the old hats, use poles to climb the hill, and play pilgrims, as we used to do years ago. We call this hill the Delectable Mountain, for we can look far away and see the country where we hope to live some time. Jo pointed, and Laurie sat up to examine, for through an opening in the wood one could look cross the wide, blue river, the meadows on the other side, far over the outskirts of the great city, to the green hills that rose to meet the sky. The sun was low, and the heavens glowed with the splendor of an autumn sunset. Gold and purple clouds lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery white peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City. 'How beautiful that is! said Laurie softly, for he was quick to see and feel beauty of any kind. 'It's often so, and we like to watch it, for it is never the same, but always splendid, replied Amy, wishing she could paint it. 'Jo talks about the country where we hope to live sometimethe real country, she means, with pigs and chickens and haymaking. It would be nice, but I wish the beautiful country up there was real, and we could ever go to it, said Beth musingly. 'There is a lovelier country even than that, where we shall go, byandby, when we are good enough, answered Meg with her sweetest voice. 'It seems so long to wait, so hard to do. I want to fly away at once, as those swallows fly, and go in at that splendid gate. 'You'll get there, Beth, sooner or later, no fear of that, said Jo. 'I'm the one that will have to fight and work, and climb and wait, and maybe never get in after all. 'You'll have me for company, if that's any comfort. I shall have to do a deal of traveling before I come in sight of your Celestial City. If I arrive late, you'll say a good word for me, won't you, Beth? Something in the boy's face troubled his little friend, but she said cheerfully, with her quiet eyes on the changing clouds, 'If people really want to go, and really try all their lives, I think they will get in, for I don't believe there are any locks on that door or any guards at the gate. I always imagine it is as it is in the picture, where the shining ones stretch out their hands to welcome poor Christian as he comes up from the river. 'Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true, and we could live in them? said Jo, after a little pause. 'I've made such quantities it would be hard to choose which I'd have, said Laurie, lying flat and throwing cones at the squirrel who had betrayed him. 'You'd have to take your favorite one. What is it? asked Meg. 'If I tell mine, will you tell yours? 'Yes, if the girls will too. 'We will. Now, Laurie. 'After I'd seen as much of the world as I want to, I'd like to settle in Germany and have just as much music as I choose. I'm to be a famous musician myself, and all creation is to rush to hear me. And I'm never to be bothered about money or business, but just enjoy myself and live for what I like. That's my favorite castle. What's yours, Meg? Margaret seemed to find it a little hard to tell hers, and waved a brake before her face, as if to disperse imaginary gnats, while she said slowly, 'I should like a lovely house, full of all sorts of luxurious thingsnice food, pretty clothes, handsome furniture, pleasant people, and heaps of money. I am to be mistress of it, and manage it as I like, with plenty of servants, so I never need work a bit. How I should enjoy it! For I wouldn't be idle, but do good, and make everyone love me dearly. 'Wouldn't you have a master for your castle in the air? asked Laurie slyly. 'I said 'pleasant people', you know, and Meg carefully tied up her shoe as she spoke, so that no one saw her face. 'Why don't you say you'd have a splendid, wise, good husband and some angelic little children? You know your castle wouldn't be perfect without, said blunt Jo, who had no tender fancies yet, and rather scorned romance, except in books. 'You'd have nothing but horses, inkstands, and novels in yours, answered Meg petulantly. 'Wouldn't I though? I'd have a stable full of Arabian steeds, rooms piled high with books, and I'd write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous as Laurie's music. I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous, that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream. 'Mine is to stay at home safe with Father and Mother, and help take care of the family, said Beth contentedly. 'Don't you wish for anything else? asked Laurie. 'Since I had my little piano, I am perfectly satisfied. I only wish we may all keep well and be together, nothing else. 'I have ever so many wishes, but the pet one is to be an artist, and go to Rome, and do fine pictures, and be the best artist in the whole world, was Amy's modest desire. 'We're an ambitious set, aren't we? Every one of us, but Beth, wants to be rich and famous, and gorgeous in every respect. I do wonder if any of us will ever get our wishes, said Laurie, chewing grass like a meditative calf. 'I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen, observed Jo mysteriously. 'I've got the key to mine, but I'm not allowed to try it. Hang college! muttered Laurie with an impatient sigh. 'Here's mine! and Amy waved her pencil. 'I haven't got any, said Meg forlornly. 'Yes, you have, said Laurie at once. 'Where? 'In your face. 'Nonsense, that's of no use. 'Wait and see if it doesn't bring you something worth having, replied the boy, laughing at the thought of a charming little secret which he fancied he knew. Meg colored behind the brake, but asked no questions and looked across the river with the same expectant expression which Mr. Brooke had worn when he told the story of the knight. 'If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes, or how much nearer we are then than now, said Jo, always ready with a plan. 'Bless me! How old I shall be, twentyseven! exclaimed Meg, who felt grown up already, having just reached seventeen. 'You and I will be twentysix, Teddy, Beth twentyfour, and Amy twentytwo. What a venerable party! said Jo. 'I hope I shall have done something to be proud of by that time, but I'm such a lazy dog, I'm afraid I shall dawdle, Jo. 'You need a motive, Mother says, and when you get it, she is sure you'll work splendidly. 'Is she? By Jupiter, I will, if I only get the chance! cried Laurie, sitting up with sudden energy. 'I ought to be satisfied to please Grandfather, and I do try, but it's working against the grain, you see, and comes hard. He wants me to be an India merchant, as he was, and I'd rather be shot. I hate tea and silk and spices, and every sort of rubbish his old ships bring, and I don't care how soon they go to the bottom when I own them. Going to college ought to satisfy him, for if I give him four years he ought to let me off from the business. But he's set, and I've got to do just as he did, unless I break away and please myself, as my father did. If there was anyone left to stay with the old gentleman, I'd do it tomorrow. Laurie spoke excitedly, and looked ready to carry his threat into execution on the slightest provocation, for he was growing up very fast and, in spite of his indolent ways, had a young man's hatred of subjection, a young man's restless longing to try the world for himself. 'I advise you to sail away in one of your ships, and never come home again till you have tried your own way, said Jo, whose imagination was fired by the thought of such a daring exploit, and whose sympathy was excited by what she called 'Teddy's Wrongs'. 'That's not right, Jo. You mustn't talk in that way, and Laurie mustn't take your bad advice. You should do just what your grandfather wishes, my dear boy, said Meg in her most maternal tone. 'Do your best at college, and when he sees that you try to please him, I'm sure he won't be hard on you or unjust to you. As you say, there is no one else to stay with and love him, and you'd never forgive yourself if you left him without his permission. Don't be dismal or fret, but do your duty and you'll get your reward, as good Mr. Brooke has, by being respected and loved. 'What do you know about him? asked Laurie, grateful for the good advice, but objecting to the lecture, and glad to turn the conversation from himself after his unusual outbreak. 'Only what your grandpa told us about him, how he took good care of his own mother till she died, and wouldn't go abroad as tutor to some nice person because he wouldn't leave her. And how he provides now for an old woman who nursed his mother, and never tells anyone, but is just as generous and patient and good as he can be. 'So he is, dear old fellow! said Laurie heartily, as Meg paused, looking flushed and earnest with her story. 'It's like Grandpa to find out all about him without letting him know, and to tell all his goodness to others, so that they might like him. Brooke couldn't understand why your mother was so kind to him, asking him over with me and treating him in her beautiful friendly way. He thought she was just perfect, and talked about it for days and days, and went on about you all in flaming style. If ever I do get my wish, you see what I'll do for Brooke. 'Begin to do something now by not plaguing his life out, said Meg sharply. 'How do you know I do, Miss? 'I can always tell by his face when he goes away. If you have been good, he looks satisfied and walks briskly. If you have plagued him, he's sober and walks slowly, as if he wanted to go back and do his work better. 'Well, I like that? So you keep an account of my good and bad marks in Brooke's face, do you? I see him bow and smile as he passes your window, but I didn't know you'd got up a telegraph. 'We haven't. Don't be angry, and oh, don't tell him I said anything! It was only to show that I cared how you get on, and what is said here is said in confidence, you know, cried Meg, much alarmed at the thought of what might follow from her careless speech. 'I don't tell tales, replied Laurie, with his 'high and mighty' air, as Jo called a certain expression which he occasionally wore. 'Only if Brooke is going to be a thermometer, I must mind and have fair weather for him to report. 'Please don't be offended. I didn't mean to preach or tell tales or be silly. I only thought Jo was encouraging you in a feeling which you'd be sorry for byandby. You are so kind to us, we feel as if you were our brother and say just what we think. Forgive me, I meant it kindly. And Meg offered her hand with a gesture both affectionate and timid. Ashamed of his momentary pique, Laurie squeezed the kind little hand, and said frankly, 'I'm the one to be forgiven. I'm cross and have been out of sorts all day. I like to have you tell me my faults and be sisterly, so don't mind if I am grumpy sometimes. I thank you all the same. Bent on showing that he was not offended, he made himself as agreeable as possible, wound cotton for Meg, recited poetry to please Jo, shook down cones for Beth, and helped Amy with her ferns, proving himself a fit person to belong to the 'Busy Bee Society'. In the midst of an animated discussion on the domestic habits of turtles (one of those amiable creatures having strolled up from the river), the faint sound of a bell warned them that Hannah had put the tea 'to draw', and they would just have time to get home to supper. 'May I come again? asked Laurie. 'Yes, if you are good, and love your book, as the boys in the primer are told to do, said Meg, smiling. 'I'll try. 'Then you may come, and I'll teach you to knit as the Scotchmen do. There's a demand for socks just now, added Jo, waving hers like a big blue worsted banner as they parted at the gate. That night, when Beth played to Mr. Laurence in the twilight, Laurie, standing in the shadow of the curtain, listened to the little David, whose simple music always quieted his moody spirit, and watched the old man, who sat with his gray head on his hand, thinking tender thoughts of the dead child he had loved so much. Remembering the conversation of the afternoon, the boy said to himself, with the resolve to make the sacrifice cheerfully, 'I'll let my castle go, and stay with the dear old gentleman while he needs me, for I am all he has. Jo was very busy in the garret, for the October days began to grow chilly, and the afternoons were short. For two or three hours the sun lay warmly in the high window, showing Jo seated on the old sofa, writing busily, with her papers spread out upon a trunk before her, while Scrabble, the pet rat, promenaded the beams overhead, accompanied by his oldest son, a fine young fellow, who was evidently very proud of his whiskers. Quite absorbed in her work, Jo scribbled away till the last page was filled, when she signed her name with a flourish and threw down her pen, exclaiming... 'There, I've done my best! If this won't suit I shall have to wait till I can do better. Lying back on the sofa, she read the manuscript carefully through, making dashes here and there, and putting in many exclamation points, which looked like little balloons. Then she tied it up with a smart red ribbon, and sat a minute looking at it with a sober, wistful expression, which plainly showed how earnest her work had been. Jo's desk up here was an old tin kitchen which hung against the wall. In it she kept her papers, and a few books, safely shut away from Scrabble, who, being likewise of a literary turn, was fond of making a circulating library of such books as were left in his way by eating the leaves. From this tin receptacle Jo produced another manuscript, and putting both in her pocket, crept quietly downstairs, leaving her friends to nibble on her pens and taste her ink. She put on her hat and jacket as noiselessly as possible, and going to the back entry window, got out upon the roof of a low porch, swung herself down to the grassy bank, and took a roundabout way to the road. Once there, she composed herself, hailed a passing omnibus, and rolled away to town, looking very merry and mysterious. If anyone had been watching her, he would have thought her movements decidedly peculiar, for on alighting, she went off at a great pace till she reached a certain number in a certain busy street. Having found the place with some difficulty, she went into the doorway, looked up the dirty stairs, and after standing stock still a minute, suddenly dived into the street and walked away as rapidly as she came. This maneuver she repeated several times, to the great amusement of a blackeyed young gentleman lounging in the window of a building opposite. On returning for the third time, Jo gave herself a shake, pulled her hat over her eyes, and walked up the stairs, looking as if she were going to have all her teeth out. There was a dentist's sign, among others, which adorned the entrance, and after staring a moment at the pair of artificial jaws which slowly opened and shut to draw attention to a fine set of teeth, the young gentleman put on his coat, took his hat, and went down to post himself in the opposite doorway, saying with a smile and a shiver, 'It's like her to come alone, but if she has a bad time she'll need someone to help her home. In ten minutes Jo came running downstairs with a very red face and the general appearance of a person who had just passed through a trying ordeal of some sort. When she saw the young gentleman she looked anything but pleased, and passed him with a nod. But he followed, asking with an air of sympathy, 'Did you have a bad time? 'Not very. 'You got through quickly. 'Yes, thank goodness! 'Why did you go alone? 'Didn't want anyone to know. 'You're the oddest fellow I ever saw. How many did you have out? Jo looked at her friend as if she did not understand him, then began to laugh as if mightily amused at something. 'There are two which I want to have come out, but I must wait a week. 'What are you laughing at? You are up to some mischief, Jo, said Laurie, looking mystified. 'So are you. What were you doing, sir, up in that billiard saloon? 'Begging your pardon, ma'am, it wasn't a billiard saloon, but a gymnasium, and I was taking a lesson in fencing. 'I'm glad of that. 'Why? 'You can teach me, and then when we play Hamlet, you can be Laertes, and we'll make a fine thing of the fencing scene. Laurie burst out with a hearty boy's laugh, which made several passersby smile in spite of themselves. 'I'll teach you whether we play Hamlet or not. It's grand fun and will straighten you up capitally. But I don't believe that was your only reason for saying 'I'm glad' in that decided way, was it now? 'No, I was glad that you were not in the saloon, because I hope you never go to such places. Do you? 'Not often. 'I wish you wouldn't. 'It's no harm, Jo. I have billiards at home, but it's no fun unless you have good players, so, as I'm fond of it, I come sometimes and have a game with Ned Moffat or some of the other fellows. 'Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, for you'll get to liking it better and better, and will waste time and money, and grow like those dreadful boys. I did hope you'd stay respectable and be a satisfaction to your friends, said Jo, shaking her head. 'Can't a fellow take a little innocent amusement now and then without losing his respectability? asked Laurie, looking nettled. 'That depends upon how and where he takes it. I don't like Ned and his set, and wish you'd keep out of it. Mother won't let us have him at our house, though he wants to come. And if you grow like him she won't be willing to have us frolic together as we do now. 'Won't she? asked Laurie anxiously. 'No, she can't bear fashionable young men, and she'd shut us all up in bandboxes rather than have us associate with them. 'Well, she needn't get out her bandboxes yet. I'm not a fashionable party and don't mean to be, but I do like harmless larks now and then, don't you? 'Yes, nobody minds them, so lark away, but don't get wild, will you? Or there will be an end of all our good times. 'I'll be a double distilled saint. 'I can't bear saints. Just be a simple, honest, respectable boy, and we'll never desert you. I don't know what I should do if you acted like Mr. King's son. He had plenty of money, but didn't know how to spend it, and got tipsy and gambled, and ran away, and forged his father's name, I believe, and was altogether horrid. 'You think I'm likely to do the same? Much obliged. 'No, I don'toh, dear, no!but I hear people talking about money being such a temptation, and I sometimes wish you were poor. I shouldn't worry then. 'Do you worry about me, Jo? 'A little, when you look moody and discontented, as you sometimes do, for you've got such a strong will, if you once get started wrong, I'm afraid it would be hard to stop you. Laurie walked in silence a few minutes, and Jo watched him, wishing she had held her tongue, for his eyes looked angry, though his lips smiled as if at her warnings. 'Are you going to deliver lectures all the way home? he asked presently. 'Of course not. Why? 'Because if you are, I'll take a bus. If you're not, I'd like to walk with you and tell you something very interesting. 'I won't preach any more, and I'd like to hear the news immensely. 'Very well, then, come on. It's a secret, and if I tell you, you must tell me yours. 'I haven't got any, began Jo, but stopped suddenly, remembering that she had. 'You know you haveyou can't hide anything, so up and 'fess, or I won't tell, cried Laurie. 'Is your secret a nice one? 'Oh, isn't it! All about people you know, and such fun! You ought to hear it, and I've been aching to tell it this long time. Come, you begin. 'You'll not say anything about it at home, will you? 'Not a word. 'And you won't tease me in private? 'I never tease. 'Yes, you do. You get everything you want out of people. I don't know how you do it, but you are a born wheedler. 'Thank you. Fire away. 'Well, I've left two stories with a newspaperman, and he's to give his answer next week, whispered Jo, in her confidant's ear. 'Hurrah for Miss March, the celebrated American authoress! cried Laurie, throwing up his hat and catching it again, to the great delight of two ducks, four cats, five hens, and half a dozen Irish children, for they were out of the city now. 'Hush! It won't come to anything, I dare say, but I couldn't rest till I had tried, and I said nothing about it because I didn't want anyone else to be disappointed. 'It won't fail. Why, Jo, your stories are works of Shakespeare compared to half the rubbish that is published every day. Won't it be fun to see them in print, and shan't we feel proud of our authoress? Jo's eyes sparkled, for it is always pleasant to be believed in, and a friend's praise is always sweeter than a dozen newspaper puffs. 'Where's your secret? Play fair, Teddy, or I'll never believe you again, she said, trying to extinguish the brilliant hopes that blazed up at a word of encouragement. 'I may get into a scrape for telling, but I didn't promise not to, so I will, for I never feel easy in my mind till I've told you any plummy bit of news I get. I know where Meg's glove is. 'Is that all? said Jo, looking disappointed, as Laurie nodded and twinkled with a face full of mysterious intelligence. 'It's quite enough for the present, as you'll agree when I tell you where it is. 'Tell, then. Laurie bent, and whispered three words in Jo's ear, which produced a comical change. She stood and stared at him for a minute, looking both surprised and displeased, then walked on, saying sharply, 'How do you know? 'Saw it. 'Where? 'Pocket. 'All this time? 'Yes, isn't that romantic? 'No, it's horrid. 'Don't you like it? 'Of course I don't. It's ridiculous, it won't be allowed. My patience! What would Meg say? 'You are not to tell anyone. Mind that. 'I didn't promise. 'That was understood, and I trusted you. 'Well, I won't for the present, anyway, but I'm disgusted, and wish you hadn't told me. 'I thought you'd be pleased. 'At the idea of anybody coming to take Meg away? No, thank you. 'You'll feel better about it when somebody comes to take you away. 'I'd like to see anyone try it, cried Jo fiercely. 'So should I! and Laurie chuckled at the idea. 'I don't think secrets agree with me, I feel rumpled up in my mind since you told me that, said Jo rather ungratefully. 'Race down this hill with me, and you'll be all right, suggested Laurie. No one was in sight, the smooth road sloped invitingly before her, and finding the temptation irresistible, Jo darted away, soon leaving hat and comb behind her and scattering hairpins as she ran. Laurie reached the goal first and was quite satisfied with the success of his treatment, for his Atlanta came panting up with flying hair, bright eyes, ruddy cheeks, and no signs of dissatisfaction in her face. 'I wish I was a horse, then I could run for miles in this splendid air, and not lose my breath. It was capital, but see what a guy it's made me. Go, pick up my things, like a cherub, as you are, said Jo, dropping down under a maple tree, which was carpeting the bank with crimson leaves. Laurie leisurely departed to recover the lost property, and Jo bundled up her braids, hoping no one would pass by till she was tidy again. But someone did pass, and who should it be but Meg, looking particularly ladylike in her state and festival suit, for she had been making calls. 'What in the world are you doing here? she asked, regarding her disheveled sister with wellbred surprise. 'Getting leaves, meekly answered Jo, sorting the rosy handful she had just swept up. 'And hairpins, added Laurie, throwing half a dozen into Jo's lap. 'They grow on this road, Meg, so do combs and brown straw hats. 'You have been running, Jo. How could you? When will you stop such romping ways? said Meg reprovingly, as she settled her cuffs and smoothed her hair, with which the wind had taken liberties. 'Never till I'm stiff and old and have to use a crutch. Don't try to make me grow up before my time, Meg. It's hard enough to have you change all of a sudden. Let me be a little girl as long as I can. As she spoke, Jo bent over the leaves to hide the trembling of her lips, for lately she had felt that Margaret was fast getting to be a woman, and Laurie's secret made her dread the separation which must surely come some time and now seemed very near. He saw the trouble in her face and drew Meg's attention from it by asking quickly, 'Where have you been calling, all so fine? 'At the Gardiners', and Sallie has been telling me all about Belle Moffat's wedding. It was very splendid, and they have gone to spend the winter in Paris. Just think how delightful that must be! 'Do you envy her, Meg? said Laurie. 'I'm afraid I do. 'I'm glad of it! muttered Jo, tying on her hat with a jerk. 'Why? asked Meg, looking surprised. 'Because if you care much about riches, you will never go and marry a poor man, said Jo, frowning at Laurie, who was mutely warning her to mind what she said. 'I shall never 'go and marry' anyone, observed Meg, walking on with great dignity while the others followed, laughing, whispering, skipping stones, and 'behaving like children', as Meg said to herself, though she might have been tempted to join them if she had not had her best dress on. For a week or two, Jo behaved so queerly that her sisters were quite bewildered. She rushed to the door when the postman rang, was rude to Mr. Brooke whenever they met, would sit looking at Meg with a woebegone face, occasionally jumping up to shake and then kiss her in a very mysterious manner. Laurie and she were always making signs to one another, and talking about 'Spread Eagles' till the girls declared they had both lost their wits. On the second Saturday after Jo got out of the window, Meg, as she sat sewing at her window, was scandalized by the sight of Laurie chasing Jo all over the garden and finally capturing her in Amy's bower. What went on there, Meg could not see, but shrieks of laughter were heard, followed by the murmur of voices and a great flapping of newspapers. 'What shall we do with that girl? She never will behave like a young lady, sighed Meg, as she watched the race with a disapproving face. 'I hope she won't. She is so funny and dear as she is, said Beth, who had never betrayed that she was a little hurt at Jo's having secrets with anyone but her. 'It's very trying, but we never can make her commy la fo, added Amy, who sat making some new frills for herself, with her curls tied up in a very becoming way, two agreeable things that made her feel unusually elegant and ladylike. In a few minutes Jo bounced in, laid herself on the sofa, and affected to read. 'Have you anything interesting there? asked Meg, with condescension. 'Nothing but a story, won't amount to much, I guess, returned Jo, carefully keeping the name of the paper out of sight. 'You'd better read it aloud. That will amuse us and keep you out of mischief, said Amy in her most grownup tone. 'What's the name? asked Beth, wondering why Jo kept her face behind the sheet. 'The Rival Painters. 'That sounds well. Read it, said Meg. With a loud 'Hem! and a long breath, Jo began to read very fast. The girls listened with interest, for the tale was romantic, and somewhat pathetic, as most of the characters died in the end. 'I like that about the splendid picture, was Amy's approving remark, as Jo paused. 'I prefer the lovering part. Viola and Angelo are two of our favorite names, isn't that queer? said Meg, wiping her eyes, for the lovering part was tragical. 'Who wrote it? asked Beth, who had caught a glimpse of Jo's face. The reader suddenly sat up, cast away the paper, displaying a flushed countenance, and with a funny mixture of solemnity and excitement replied in a loud voice, 'Your sister. 'You? cried Meg, dropping her work. 'It's very good, said Amy critically. 'I knew it! I knew it! Oh, my Jo, I am so proud! and Beth ran to hug her sister and exult over this splendid success. Dear me, how delighted they all were, to be sure! How Meg wouldn't believe it till she saw the words. 'Miss Josephine March, actually printed in the paper. How graciously Amy criticized the artistic parts of the story, and offered hints for a sequel, which unfortunately couldn't be carried out, as the hero and heroine were dead. How Beth got excited, and skipped and sang with joy. How Hannah came in to exclaim, 'Sakes alive, well I never! in great astonishment at 'that Jo's doin's'. How proud Mrs. March was when she knew it. How Jo laughed, with tears in her eyes, as she declared she might as well be a peacock and done with it, and how the 'Spread Eagle' might be said to flap his wings triumphantly over the House of March, as the paper passed from hand to hand. 'Tell us about it. 'When did it come? 'How much did you get for it? 'What will Father say? 'Won't Laurie laugh? cried the family, all in one breath as they clustered about Jo, for these foolish, affectionate people made a jubilee of every little household joy. 'Stop jabbering, girls, and I'll tell you everything, said Jo, wondering if Miss Burney felt any grander over her Evelina than she did over her 'Rival Painters'. Having told how she disposed of her tales, Jo added, 'And when I went to get my answer, the man said he liked them both, but didn't pay beginners, only let them print in his paper, and noticed the stories. It was good practice, he said, and when the beginners improved, anyone would pay. So I let him have the two stories, and today this was sent to me, and Laurie caught me with it and insisted on seeing it, so I let him. And he said it was good, and I shall write more, and he's going to get the next paid for, and I am so happy, for in time I may be able to support myself and help the girls. Jo's breath gave out here, and wrapping her head in the paper, she bedewed her little story with a few natural tears, for to be independent and earn the praise of those she loved were the dearest wishes of her heart, and this seemed to be the first step toward that happy end. 'November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year, said Margaret, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden. 'That's the reason I was born in it, observed Jo pensively, quite unconscious of the blot on her nose. 'If something very pleasant should happen now, we should think it a delightful month, said Beth, who took a hopeful view of everything, even November. 'I dare say, but nothing pleasant ever does happen in this family, said Meg, who was out of sorts. 'We go grubbing along day after day, without a bit of change, and very little fun. We might as well be in a treadmill. 'My patience, how blue we are! cried Jo. 'I don't much wonder, poor dear, for you see other girls having splendid times, while you grind, grind, year in and year out. Oh, don't I wish I could manage things for you as I do for my heroines! You're pretty enough and good enough already, so I'd have some rich relation leave you a fortune unexpectedly. Then you'd dash out as an heiress, scorn everyone who has slighted you, go abroad, and come home my Lady Something in a blaze of splendor and elegance. 'People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays, men have to work and women marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world, said Meg bitterly. 'Jo and I are going to make fortunes for you all. Just wait ten years, and see if we don't, said Amy, who sat in a corner making mud pies, as Hannah called her little clay models of birds, fruit, and faces. 'Can't wait, and I'm afraid I haven't much faith in ink and dirt, though I'm grateful for your good intentions. Meg sighed, and turned to the frostbitten garden again. Jo groaned and leaned both elbows on the table in a despondent attitude, but Amy spatted away energetically, and Beth, who sat at the other window, said, smiling, 'Two pleasant things are going to happen right away. Marmee is coming down the street, and Laurie is tramping through the garden as if he had something nice to tell. In they both came, Mrs. March with her usual question, 'Any letter from Father, girls? and Laurie to say in his persuasive way, 'Won't some of you come for a drive? I've been working away at mathematics till my head is in a muddle, and I'm going to freshen my wits by a brisk turn. It's a dull day, but the air isn't bad, and I'm going to take Brooke home, so it will be gay inside, if it isn't out. Come, Jo, you and Beth will go, won't you? 'Of course we will. 'Much obliged, but I'm busy. And Meg whisked out her workbasket, for she had agreed with her mother that it was best, for her at least, not to drive too often with the young gentleman. 'We three will be ready in a minute, cried Amy, running away to wash her hands. 'Can I do anything for you, Madam Mother? asked Laurie, leaning over Mrs. March's chair with the affectionate look and tone he always gave her. 'No, thank you, except call at the office, if you'll be so kind, dear. It's our day for a letter, and the postman hasn't been. Father is as regular as the sun, but there's some delay on the way, perhaps. A sharp ring interrupted her, and a minute after Hannah came in with a letter. 'It's one of them horrid telegraph things, mum, she said, handling it as if she was afraid it would explode and do some damage. At the word 'telegraph', Mrs. March snatched it, read the two lines it contained, and dropped back into her chair as white as if the little paper had sent a bullet to her heart. Laurie dashed downstairs for water, while Meg and Hannah supported her, and Jo read aloud, in a frightened voice... Mrs. March Your husband is very ill. Come at once. S. HALE Blank Hospital, Washington. How still the room was as they listened breathlessly, how strangely the day darkened outside, and how suddenly the whole world seemed to change, as the girls gathered about their mother, feeling as if all the happiness and support of their lives was about to be taken from them. Mrs. March was herself again directly, read the message over, and stretched out her arms to her daughters, saying, in a tone they never forgot, 'I shall go at once, but it may be too late. Oh, children, children, help me to bear it! For several minutes there was nothing but the sound of sobbing in the room, mingled with broken words of comfort, tender assurances of help, and hopeful whispers that died away in tears. Poor Hannah was the first to recover, and with unconscious wisdom she set all the rest a good example, for with her, work was panacea for most afflictions. 'The Lord keep the dear man! I won't waste no time acryin', but git your things ready right away, mum, she said heartily, as she wiped her face on her apron, gave her mistress a warm shake of the hand with her own hard one, and went away to work like three women in one. 'She's right, there's no time for tears now. Be calm, girls, and let me think. They tried to be calm, poor things, as their mother sat up, looking pale but steady, and put away her grief to think and plan for them. 'Where's Laurie? she asked presently, when she had collected her thoughts and decided on the first duties to be done. 'Here, ma'am. Oh, let me do something! cried the boy, hurrying from the next room whither he had withdrawn, feeling that their first sorrow was too sacred for even his friendly eyes to see. 'Send a telegram saying I will come at once. The next train goes early in the morning. I'll take that. 'What else? The horses are ready. I can go anywhere, do anything, he said, looking ready to fly to the ends of the earth. 'Leave a note at Aunt March's. Jo, give me that pen and paper. Tearing off the blank side of one of her newly copied pages, Jo drew the table before her mother, well knowing that money for the long, sad journey must be borrowed, and feeling as if she could do anything to add a little to the sum for her father. 'Now go, dear, but don't kill yourself driving at a desperate pace. There is no need of that. Mrs. March's warning was evidently thrown away, for five minutes later Laurie tore by the window on his own fleet horse, riding as if for his life. 'Jo, run to the rooms, and tell Mrs. King that I can't come. On the way get these things. I'll put them down, they'll be needed and I must go prepared for nursing. Hospital stores are not always good. Beth, go and ask Mr. Laurence for a couple of bottles of old wine. I'm not too proud to beg for Father. He shall have the best of everything. Amy, tell Hannah to get down the black trunk, and Meg, come and help me find my things, for I'm half bewildered. Writing, thinking, and directing all at once might well bewilder the poor lady, and Meg begged her to sit quietly in her room for a little while, and let them work. Everyone scattered like leaves before a gust of wind, and the quiet, happy household was broken up as suddenly as if the paper had been an evil spell. Mr. Laurence came hurrying back with Beth, bringing every comfort the kind old gentleman could think of for the invalid, and friendliest promises of protection for the girls during the mother's absence, which comforted her very much. There was nothing he didn't offer, from his own dressing gown to himself as escort. But the last was impossible. Mrs. March would not hear of the old gentleman's undertaking the long journey, yet an expression of relief was visible when he spoke of it, for anxiety ill fits one for traveling. He saw the look, knit his heavy eyebrows, rubbed his hands, and marched abruptly away, saying he'd be back directly. No one had time to think of him again till, as Meg ran through the entry, with a pair of rubbers in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, she came suddenly upon Mr. Brooke. 'I'm very sorry to hear of this, Miss March, he said, in the kind, quiet tone which sounded very pleasantly to her perturbed spirit. 'I came to offer myself as escort to your mother. Mr. Laurence has commissions for me in Washington, and it will give me real satisfaction to be of service to her there. Down dropped the rubbers, and the tea was very near following, as Meg put out her hand, with a face so full of gratitude that Mr. Brooke would have felt repaid for a much greater sacrifice than the trifling one of time and comfort which he was about to take. 'How kind you all are! Mother will accept, I'm sure, and it will be such a relief to know that she has someone to take care of her. Thank you very, very much! Meg spoke earnestly, and forgot herself entirely till something in the brown eyes looking down at her made her remember the cooling tea, and lead the way into the parlor, saying she would call her mother. Everything was arranged by the time Laurie returned with a note from Aunt March, enclosing the desired sum, and a few lines repeating what she had often said before, that she had always told them it was absurd for March to go into the army, always predicted that no good would come of it, and she hoped they would take her advice the next time. Mrs. March put the note in the fire, the money in her purse, and went on with her preparations, with her lips folded tightly in a way which Jo would have understood if she had been there. The short afternoon wore away. All other errands were done, and Meg and her mother busy at some necessary needlework, while Beth and Amy got tea, and Hannah finished her ironing with what she called a 'slap and a bang', but still Jo did not come. They began to get anxious, and Laurie went off to find her, for no one knew what freak Jo might take into her head. He missed her, however, and she came walking in with a very queer expression of countenance, for there was a mixture of fun and fear, satisfaction and regret in it, which puzzled the family as much as did the roll of bills she laid before her mother, saying with a little choke in her voice, 'That's my contribution toward making Father comfortable and bringing him home! 'My dear, where did you get it? Twentyfive dollars! Jo, I hope you haven't done anything rash? 'No, it's mine honestly. I didn't beg, borrow, or steal it. I earned it, and I don't think you'll blame me, for I only sold what was my own. As she spoke, Jo took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose, for all her abundant hair was cut short. 'Your hair! Your beautiful hair! 'Oh, Jo, how could you? Your one beauty. 'My dear girl, there was no need of this. 'She doesn't look like my Jo any more, but I love her dearly for it! As everyone exclaimed, and Beth hugged the cropped head tenderly, Jo assumed an indifferent air, which did not deceive anyone a particle, and said, rumpling up the brown bush and trying to look as if she liked it, 'It doesn't affect the fate of the nation, so don't wail, Beth. It will be good for my vanity, I was getting too proud of my wig. It will do my brains good to have that mop taken off. My head feels deliciously light and cool, and the barber said I could soon have a curly crop, which will be boyish, becoming, and easy to keep in order. I'm satisfied, so please take the money and let's have supper. 'Tell me all about it, Jo. I am not quite satisfied, but I can't blame you, for I know how willingly you sacrificed your vanity, as you call it, to your love. But, my dear, it was not necessary, and I'm afraid you will regret it one of these days, said Mrs. March. 'No, I won't! returned Jo stoutly, feeling much relieved that her prank was not entirely condemned. 'What made you do it? asked Amy, who would as soon have thought of cutting off her head as her pretty hair. 'Well, I was wild to do something for Father, replied Jo, as they gathered about the table, for healthy young people can eat even in the midst of trouble. 'I hate to borrow as much as Mother does, and I knew Aunt March would croak, she always does, if you ask for a ninepence. Meg gave all her quarterly salary toward the rent, and I only got some clothes with mine, so I felt wicked, and was bound to have some money, if I sold the nose off my face to get it. 'You needn't feel wicked, my child! You had no winter things and got the simplest with your own hard earnings, said Mrs. March with a look that warmed Jo's heart. 'I hadn't the least idea of selling my hair at first, but as I went along I kept thinking what I could do, and feeling as if I'd like to dive into some of the rich stores and help myself. In a barber's window I saw tails of hair with the prices marked, and one black tail, not so thick as mine, was forty dollars. It came to me all of a sudden that I had one thing to make money out of, and without stopping to think, I walked in, asked if they bought hair, and what they would give for mine. 'I don't see how you dared to do it, said Beth in a tone of awe. 'Oh, he was a little man who looked as if he merely lived to oil his hair. He rather stared at first, as if he wasn't used to having girls bounce into his shop and ask him to buy their hair. He said he didn't care about mine, it wasn't the fashionable color, and he never paid much for it in the first place. The work put into it made it dear, and so on. It was getting late, and I was afraid if it wasn't done right away that I shouldn't have it done at all, and you know when I start to do a thing, I hate to give it up. So I begged him to take it, and told him why I was in such a hurry. It was silly, I dare say, but it changed his mind, for I got rather excited, and told the story in my topsyturvy way, and his wife heard, and said so kindly, 'Take it, Thomas, and oblige the young lady. I'd do as much for our Jimmy any day if I had a spire of hair worth selling. 'Who was Jimmy? asked Amy, who liked to have things explained as they went along. 'Her son, she said, who was in the army. How friendly such things make strangers feel, don't they? She talked away all the time the man clipped, and diverted my mind nicely. 'Didn't you feel dreadfully when the first cut came? asked Meg, with a shiver. 'I took a last look at my hair while the man got his things, and that was the end of it. I never snivel over trifles like that. I will confess, though, I felt queer when I saw the dear old hair laid out on the table, and felt only the short rough ends of my head. It almost seemed as if I'd an arm or leg off. The woman saw me look at it, and picked out a long lock for me to keep. I'll give it to you, Marmee, just to remember past glories by, for a crop is so comfortable I don't think I shall ever have a mane again. Mrs. March folded the wavy chestnut lock, and laid it away with a short gray one in her desk. She only said, 'Thank you, deary, but something in her face made the girls change the subject, and talk as cheerfully as they could about Mr. Brooke's kindness, the prospect of a fine day tomorrow, and the happy times they would have when Father came home to be nursed. No one wanted to go to bed when at ten o'clock Mrs. March put by the last finished job, and said, 'Come girls. Beth went to the piano and played the father's favorite hymn. All began bravely, but broke down one by one till Beth was left alone, singing with all her heart, for to her music was always a sweet consoler. 'Go to bed and don't talk, for we must be up early and shall need all the sleep we can get. Good night, my darlings, said Mrs. March, as the hymn ended, for no one cared to try another. They kissed her quietly, and went to bed as silently as if the dear invalid lay in the next room. Beth and Amy soon fell asleep in spite of the great trouble, but Meg lay awake, thinking the most serious thoughts she had ever known in her short life. Jo lay motionless, and her sister fancied that she was asleep, till a stifled sob made her exclaim, as she touched a wet cheek... 'Jo, dear, what is it? Are you crying about father? 'No, not now. 'What then? 'My... My hair! burst out poor Jo, trying vainly to smother her emotion in the pillow. It did not seem at all comical to Meg, who kissed and caressed the afflicted heroine in the tenderest manner. 'I'm not sorry, protested Jo, with a choke. 'I'd do it again tomorrow, if I could. It's only the vain part of me that goes and cries in this silly way. Don't tell anyone, it's all over now. I thought you were asleep, so I just made a little private moan for my one beauty. How came you to be awake? 'I can't sleep, I'm so anxious, said Meg. 'Think about something pleasant, and you'll soon drop off. 'I tried it, but felt wider awake than ever. 'What did you think of? 'Handsome faceseyes particularly, answered Meg, smiling to herself in the dark. 'What color do you like best? 'Brown, that is, sometimes. Blue are lovely. Jo laughed, and Meg sharply ordered her not to talk, then amiably promised to make her hair curl, and fell asleep to dream of living in her castle in the air. The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlet here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter. As she lifted the curtain to look out into the dreary night, the moon broke suddenly from behind the clouds and shone upon her like a bright, benignant face, which seemed to whisper in the silence, 'Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds. In the cold gray dawn the sisters lit their lamp and read their chapter with an earnestness never felt before. For now the shadow of a real trouble had come, the little books were full of help and comfort, and as they dressed, they agreed to say goodbye cheerfully and hopefully, and send their mother on her anxious journey unsaddened by tears or complaints from them. Everything seemed very strange when they went down, so dim and still outside, so full of light and bustle within. Breakfast at that early hour seemed odd, and even Hannah's familiar face looked unnatural as she flew about her kitchen with her nightcap on. The big trunk stood ready in the hall, Mother's cloak and bonnet lay on the sofa, and Mother herself sat trying to eat, but looking so pale and worn with sleeplessness and anxiety that the girls found it very hard to keep their resolution. Meg's eyes kept filling in spite of herself, Jo was obliged to hide her face in the kitchen roller more than once, and the little girls wore a grave, troubled expression, as if sorrow was a new experience to them. Nobody talked much, but as the time drew very near and they sat waiting for the carriage, Mrs. March said to the girls, who were all busied about her, one folding her shawl, another smoothing out the strings of her bonnet, a third putting on her overshoes, and a fourth fastening up her travelling bag... 'Children, I leave you to Hannah's care and Mr. Laurence's protection. Hannah is faithfulness itself, and our good neighbor will guard you as if you were his own. I have no fears for you, yet I am anxious that you should take this trouble rightly. Don't grieve and fret when I am gone, or think that you can be idle and comfort yourselves by being idle and trying to forget. Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace. Hope and keep busy, and whatever happens, remember that you never can be fatherless. 'Yes, Mother. 'Meg, dear, be prudent, watch over your sisters, consult Hannah, and in any perplexity, go to Mr. Laurence. Be patient, Jo, don't get despondent or do rash things, write to me often, and be my brave girl, ready to help and cheer all. Beth, comfort yourself with your music, and be faithful to the little home duties, and you, Amy, help all you can, be obedient, and keep happy safe at home. 'We will, Mother! We will! The rattle of an approaching carriage made them all start and listen. That was the hard minute, but the girls stood it well. No one cried, no one ran away or uttered a lamentation, though their hearts were very heavy as they sent loving messages to Father, remembering, as they spoke that it might be too late to deliver them. They kissed their mother quietly, clung about her tenderly, and tried to wave their hands cheerfully when she drove away. Laurie and his grandfather came over to see her off, and Mr. Brooke looked so strong and sensible and kind that the girls christened him 'Mr. Greatheart' on the spot. 'Goodby, my darlings! God bless and keep us all! whispered Mrs. March, as she kissed one dear little face after the other, and hurried into the carriage. As she rolled away, the sun came out, and looking back, she saw it shining on the group at the gate like a good omen. They saw it also, and smiled and waved their hands, and the last thing she beheld as she turned the corner was the four bright faces, and behind them like a bodyguard, old Mr. Laurence, faithful Hannah, and devoted Laurie. 'How kind everyone is to us! she said, turning to find fresh proof of it in the respectful sympathy of the young man's face. 'I don't see how they can help it, returned Mr. Brooke, laughing so infectiously that Mrs. March could not help smiling. And so the journey began with the good omens of sunshine, smiles, and cheerful words. 'I feel as if there had been an earthquake, said Jo, as their neighbors went home to breakfast, leaving them to rest and refresh themselves. 'It seems as if half the house was gone, added Meg forlornly. Beth opened her lips to say something, but could only point to the pile of nicely mended hose which lay on Mother's table, showing that even in her last hurried moments she had thought and worked for them. It was a little thing, but it went straight to their hearts, and in spite of their brave resolutions, they all broke down and cried bitterly. Hannah wisely allowed them to relieve their feelings, and when the shower showed signs of clearing up, she came to the rescue, armed with a coffeepot. 'Now, my dear young ladies, remember what your ma said, and don't fret. Come and have a cup of coffee all round, and then let's fall to work and be a credit to the family. Coffee was a treat, and Hannah showed great tact in making it that morning. No one could resist her persuasive nods, or the fragrant invitation issuing from the nose of the coffee pot. They drew up to the table, exchanged their handkerchiefs for napkins, and in ten minutes were all right again. ''Hope and keep busy', that's the motto for us, so let's see who will remember it best. I shall go to Aunt March, as usual. Oh, won't she lecture though! said Jo, as she sipped with returning spirit. 'I shall go to my Kings, though I'd much rather stay at home and attend to things here, said Meg, wishing she hadn't made her eyes so red. 'No need of that. Beth and I can keep house perfectly well, put in Amy, with an important air. 'Hannah will tell us what to do, and we'll have everything nice when you come home, added Beth, getting out her mop and dish tub without delay. 'I think anxiety is very interesting, observed Amy, eating sugar pensively. The girls couldn't help laughing, and felt better for it, though Meg shook her head at the young lady who could find consolation in a sugar bowl. The sight of the turnovers made Jo sober again and when the two went out to their daily tasks, they looked sorrowfully back at the window where they were accustomed to see their mother's face. It was gone, but Beth had remembered the little household ceremony, and there she was, nodding away at them like a rosyfaced mandarin. 'That's so like my Beth! said Jo, waving her hat, with a grateful face. 'Goodbye, Meggy, I hope the Kings won't strain today. Don't fret about Father, dear, she added, as they parted. 'And I hope Aunt March won't croak. Your hair is becoming, and it looks very boyish and nice, returned Meg, trying not to smile at the curly head, which looked comically small on her tall sister's shoulders. 'That's my only comfort. And, touching her hat a la Laurie, away went Jo, feeling like a shorn sheep on a wintry day. News from their father comforted the girls very much, for though dangerously ill, the presence of the best and tenderest of nurses had already done him good. Mr. Brooke sent a bulletin every day, and as the head of the family, Meg insisted on reading the dispatches, which grew more cheerful as the week passed. At first, everyone was eager to write, and plump envelopes were carefully poked into the letter box by one or other of the sisters, who felt rather important with their Washington correspondence. As one of these packets contained characteristic notes from the party, we will rob an imaginary mail, and read them. My dearest Mother It is impossible to tell you how happy your last letter made us, for the news was so good we couldn't help laughing and crying over it. How very kind Mr. Brooke is, and how fortunate that Mr. Laurence's business detains him near you so long, since he is so useful to you and Father. The girls are all as good as gold. Jo helps me with the sewing, and insists on doing all sorts of hard jobs. I should be afraid she might overdo, if I didn't know her 'moral fit' wouldn't last long. Beth is as regular about her tasks as a clock, and never forgets what you told her. She grieves about Father, and looks sober except when she is at her little piano. Amy minds me nicely, and I take great care of her. She does her own hair, and I am teaching her to make buttonholes and mend her stockings. She tries very hard, and I know you will be pleased with her improvement when you come. Mr. Laurence watches over us like a motherly old hen, as Jo says, and Laurie is very kind and neighborly. He and Jo keep us merry, for we get pretty blue sometimes, and feel like orphans, with you so far away. Hannah is a perfect saint. She does not scold at all, and always calls me Miss Margaret, which is quite proper, you know, and treats me with respect. We are all well and busy, but we long, day and night, to have you back. Give my dearest love to Father, and believe me, ever your own... MEG This note, prettily written on scented paper, was a great contrast to the next, which was scribbled on a big sheet of thin foreign paper, ornamented with blots and all manner of flourishes and curlytailed letters. My precious Marmee Three cheers for dear Father! Brooke was a trump to telegraph right off, and let us know the minute he was better. I rushed up garret when the letter came, and tried to thank God for being so good to us, but I could only cry, and say, 'I'm glad! I'm glad! Didn't that do as well as a regular prayer? For I felt a great many in my heart. We have such funny times, and now I can enjoy them, for everyone is so desperately good, it's like living in a nest of turtledoves. You'd laugh to see Meg head the table and try to be motherish. She gets prettier every day, and I'm in love with her sometimes. The children are regular archangels, and Iwell, I'm Jo, and never shall be anything else. Oh, I must tell you that I came near having a quarrel with Laurie. I freed my mind about a silly little thing, and he was offended. I was right, but didn't speak as I ought, and he marched home, saying he wouldn't come again till I begged pardon. I declared I wouldn't and got mad. It lasted all day. I felt bad and wanted you very much. Laurie and I are both so proud, it's hard to beg pardon. But I thought he'd come to it, for I was in the right. He didn't come, and just at night I remembered what you said when Amy fell into the river. I read my little book, felt better, resolved not to let the sun set on my anger, and ran over to tell Laurie I was sorry. I met him at the gate, coming for the same thing. We both laughed, begged each other's pardon, and felt all good and comfortable again. I made a 'pome' yesterday, when I was helping Hannah wash, and as Father likes my silly little things, I put it in to amuse him. Give him my lovingest hug that ever was, and kiss yourself a dozen times for your... TOPSYTURVY JO A SONG FROM THE SUDS Queen of my tub, I merrily sing, While the white foam rises high, And sturdily wash and rinse and wring, And fasten the clothes to dry. Then out in the free fresh air they swing, Under the sunny sky. I wish we could wash from our hearts and souls The stains of the week away, And let water and air by their magic make Ourselves as pure as they. Then on the earth there would be indeed, A glorious washing day! Along the path of a useful life, Will heart'sease ever bloom. The busy mind has no time to think Of sorrow or care or gloom. And anxious thoughts may be swept away, As we bravely wield a broom. I am glad a task to me is given, To labor at day by day, For it brings me health and strength and hope, And I cheerfully learn to say, 'Head, you may think, Heart, you may feel, But, Hand, you shall work alway! Dear Mother, There is only room for me to send my love, and some pressed pansies from the root I have been keeping safe in the house for Father to see. I read every morning, try to be good all day, and sing myself to sleep with Father's tune. I can't sing 'LAND OF THE LEAL' now, it makes me cry. Everyone is very kind, and we are as happy as we can be without you. Amy wants the rest of the page, so I must stop. I didn't forget to cover the holders, and I wind the clock and air the rooms every day. Kiss dear Father on the cheek he calls mine. Oh, do come soon to your loving... LITTLE BETH Ma Chere Mamma, We are all well I do my lessons always and never corroberate the girlsMeg says I mean contradick so I put in both words and you can take the properest. Meg is a great comfort to me and lets me have jelly every night at tea its so good for me Jo says because it keeps me sweet tempered. Laurie is not as respeckful as he ought to be now I am almost in my teens, he calls me Chick and hurts my feelings by talking French to me very fast when I say Merci or Bon jour as Hattie King does. The sleeves of my blue dress were all worn out, and Meg put in new ones, but the full front came wrong and they are more blue than the dress. I felt bad but did not fret I bear my troubles well but I do wish Hannah would put more starch in my aprons and have buckwheats every day. Can't she? Didn't I make that interrigation point nice? Meg says my punchtuation and spelling are disgraceful and I am mortyfied but dear me I have so many things to do, I can't stop. Adieu, I send heaps of love to Papa. Your affectionate daughter... AMY CURTIS MARCH Dear Mis March, I jes drop a line to say we git on fust rate. The girls is clever and fly round right smart. Miss Meg is going to make a proper good housekeeper. She hes the liking for it, and gits the hang of things surprisin quick. Jo doos beat all for goin ahead, but she don't stop to cal'k'late fust, and you never know where she's like to bring up. She done out a tub of clothes on Monday, but she starched 'em afore they was wrenched, and blued a pink calico dress till I thought I should a died a laughin. Beth is the best of little creeters, and a sight of help to me, bein so forehanded and dependable. She tries to learn everything, and really goes to market beyond her years, likewise keeps accounts, with my help, quite wonderful. We have got on very economical so fur. I don't let the girls hev coffee only once a week, accordin to your wish, and keep em on plain wholesome vittles. Amy does well without frettin, wearin her best clothes and eatin sweet stuff. Mr. Laurie is as full of didoes as usual, and turns the house upside down frequent, but he heartens the girls, so I let em hev full swing. The old gentleman sends heaps of things, and is rather wearin, but means wal, and it aint my place to say nothin. My bread is riz, so no more at this time. I send my duty to Mr. March, and hope he's seen the last of his Pewmonia. Yours respectful, Hannah Mullet Head Nurse of Ward No. , All serene on the Rappahannock, troops in fine condition, commisary department well conducted, the Home Guard under Colonel Teddy always on duty, Commander in Chief General Laurence reviews the army daily, Quartermaster Mullet keeps order in camp, and Major Lion does picket duty at night. A salute of twentyfour guns was fired on receipt of good news from Washington, and a dress parade took place at headquarters. Commander in chief sends best wishes, in which he is heartily joined by... COLONEL TEDDY Dear Madam The little girls are all well. Beth and my boy report daily. Hannah is a model servant, and guards pretty Meg like a dragon. Glad the fine weather holds. Pray make Brooke useful, and draw on me for funds if expenses exceed your estimate. Don't let your husband want anything. Thank God he is mending. Your sincere friend and servant, JAMES LAURENCE For a week the amount of virtue in the old house would have supplied the neighborhood. It was really amazing, for everyone seemed in a heavenly frame of mind, and selfdenial was all the fashion. Relieved of their first anxiety about their father, the girls insensibly relaxed their praiseworthy efforts a little, and began to fall back into old ways. They did not forget their motto, but hoping and keeping busy seemed to grow easier, and after such tremendous exertions, they felt that Endeavor deserved a holiday, and gave it a good many. Jo caught a bad cold through neglect to cover the shorn head enough, and was ordered to stay at home till she was better, for Aunt March didn't like to hear people read with colds in their heads. Jo liked this, and after an energetic rummage from garret to cellar, subsided on the sofa to nurse her cold with arsenicum and books. Amy found that housework and art did not go well together, and returned to her mud pies. Meg went daily to her pupils, and sewed, or thought she did, at home, but much time was spent in writing long letters to her mother, or reading the Washington dispatches over and over. Beth kept on, with only slight relapses into idleness or grieving. All the little duties were faithfully done each day, and many of her sisters' also, for they were forgetful, and the house seemed like a clock whose pendulum was gone avisiting. When her heart got heavy with longings for Mother or fears for Father, she went away into a certain closet, hid her face in the folds of a dear old gown, and made her little moan and prayed her little prayer quietly by herself. Nobody knew what cheered her up after a sober fit, but everyone felt how sweet and helpful Beth was, and fell into a way of going to her for comfort or advice in their small affairs. All were unconscious that this experience was a test of character, and when the first excitement was over, felt that they had done well and deserved praise. So they did, but their mistake was in ceasing to do well, and they learned this lesson through much anxiety and regret. 'Meg, I wish you'd go and see the Hummels. You know Mother told us not to forget them. said Beth, ten days after Mrs. March's departure. 'I'm too tired to go this afternoon, replied Meg, rocking comfortably as she sewed. 'Can't you, Jo? asked Beth. 'Too stormy for me with my cold. 'I thought it was almost well. 'It's well enough for me to go out with Laurie, but not well enough to go to the Hummels', said Jo, laughing, but looking a little ashamed of her inconsistency. 'Why don't you go yourself? asked Meg. 'I have been every day, but the baby is sick, and I don't know what to do for it. Mrs. Hummel goes away to work, and Lottchen takes care of it. But it gets sicker and sicker, and I think you or Hannah ought to go. Beth spoke earnestly, and Meg promised she would go tomorrow. 'Ask Hannah for some nice little mess, and take it round, Beth, the air will do you good, said Jo, adding apologetically, 'I'd go but I want to finish my writing. 'My head aches and I'm tired, so I thought maybe some of you would go, said Beth. 'Amy will be in presently, and she will run down for us, suggested Meg. So Beth lay down on the sofa, the others returned to their work, and the Hummels were forgotten. An hour passed. Amy did not come, Meg went to her room to try on a new dress, Jo was absorbed in her story, and Hannah was sound asleep before the kitchen fire, when Beth quietly put on her hood, filled her basket with odds and ends for the poor children, and went out into the chilly air with a heavy head and a grieved look in her patient eyes. It was late when she came back, and no one saw her creep upstairs and shut herself into her mother's room. Half an hour after, Jo went to 'Mother's closet' for something, and there found little Beth sitting on the medicine chest, looking very grave, with red eyes and a camphor bottle in her hand. 'Christopher Columbus! What's the matter? cried Jo, as Beth put out her hand as if to warn her off, and asked quickly. . . 'You've had the scarlet fever, haven't you? 'Years ago, when Meg did. Why? 'Then I'll tell you. Oh, Jo, the baby's dead! 'What baby? 'Mrs. Hummel's. It died in my lap before she got home, cried Beth with a sob. 'My poor dear, how dreadful for you! I ought to have gone, said Jo, taking her sister in her arms as she sat down in her mother's big chair, with a remorseful face. 'It wasn't dreadful, Jo, only so sad! I saw in a minute it was sicker, but Lottchen said her mother had gone for a doctor, so I took Baby and let Lotty rest. It seemed asleep, but all of a sudden if gave a little cry and trembled, and then lay very still. I tried to warm its feet, and Lotty gave it some milk, but it didn't stir, and I knew it was dead. 'Don't cry, dear! What did you do? 'I just sat and held it softly till Mrs. Hummel came with the doctor. He said it was dead, and looked at Heinrich and Minna, who have sore throats. 'Scarlet fever, ma'am. Ought to have called me before,' he said crossly. Mrs. Hummel told him she was poor, and had tried to cure baby herself, but now it was too late, and she could only ask him to help the others and trust to charity for his pay. He smiled then, and was kinder, but it was very sad, and I cried with them till he turned round all of a sudden, and told me to go home and take belladonna right away, or I'd have the fever. 'No, you won't! cried Jo, hugging her close, with a frightened look. 'Oh, Beth, if you should be sick I never could forgive myself! What shall we do? 'Don't be frightened, I guess I shan't have it badly. I looked in Mother's book, and saw that it begins with headache, sore throat, and queer feelings like mine, so I did take some belladonna, and I feel better, said Beth, laying her cold hands on her hot forehead and trying to look well. 'If Mother was only at home! exclaimed Jo, seizing the book, and feeling that Washington was an immense way off. She read a page, looked at Beth, felt her head, peeped into her throat, and then said gravely, 'You've been over the baby every day for more than a week, and among the others who are going to have it, so I'm afraid you are going to have it, Beth. I'll call Hannah, she knows all about sickness. 'Don't let Amy come. She never had it, and I should hate to give it to her. Can't you and Meg have it over again? asked Beth, anxiously. 'I guess not. Don't care if I do. Serve me right, selfish pig, to let you go, and stay writing rubbish myself! muttered Jo, as she went to consult Hannah. The good soul was wide awake in a minute, and took the lead at once, assuring that there was no need to worry every one had scarlet fever, and if rightly treated, nobody died, all of which Jo believed, and felt much relieved as they went up to call Meg. 'Now I'll tell you what we'll do, said Hannah, when she had examined and questioned Beth, 'we will have Dr. Bangs, just to take a look at you, dear, and see that we start right. Then we'll send Amy off to Aunt March's for a spell, to keep her out of harm's way, and one of you girls can stay at home and amuse Beth for a day or two. 'I shall stay, of course, I'm oldest, began Meg, looking anxious and selfreproachful. 'I shall, because it's my fault she is sick. I told Mother I'd do the errands, and I haven't, said Jo decidedly. 'Which will you have, Beth? There ain't no need of but one, aid Hannah. 'Jo, please. And Beth leaned her head against her sister with a contented look, which effectually settled that point. 'I'll go and tell Amy, said Meg, feeling a little hurt, yet rather relieved on the whole, for she did not like nursing, and Jo did. Amy rebelled outright, and passionately declared that she had rather have the fever than go to Aunt March. Meg reasoned, pleaded, and commanded, all in vain. Amy protested that she would not go, and Meg left her in despair to ask Hannah what should be done. Before she came back, Laurie walked into the parlor to find Amy sobbing, with her head in the sofa cushions. She told her story, expecting to be consoled, but Laurie only put his hands in his pockets and walked about the room, whistling softly, as he knit his brows in deep thought. Presently he sat down beside her, and said, in his most wheedlesome tone, 'Now be a sensible little woman, and do as they say. No, don't cry, but hear what a jolly plan I've got. You go to Aunt March's, and I'll come and take you out every day, driving or walking, and we'll have capital times. Won't that be better than moping here? 'I don't wish to be sent off as if I was in the way, began Amy, in an injured voice. 'Bless your heart, child, it's to keep you well. You don't want to be sick, do you? 'No, I'm sure I don't, but I dare say I shall be, for I've been with Beth all the time. 'That's the very reason you ought to go away at once, so that you may escape it. Change of air and care will keep you well, I dare say, or if it does not entirely, you will have the fever more lightly. I advise you to be off as soon as you can, for scarlet fever is no joke, miss. 'But it's dull at Aunt March's, and she is so cross, said Amy, looking rather frightened. 'It won't be dull with me popping in every day to tell you how Beth is, and take you out gallivanting. The old lady likes me, and I'll be as sweet as possible to her, so she won't peck at us, whatever we do. 'Will you take me out in the trotting wagon with Puck? 'On my honor as a gentleman. 'And come every single day? 'See if I don't! 'And bring me back the minute Beth is well? 'The identical minute. 'And go to the theater, truly? 'A dozen theaters, if we may. 'WellI guess I will, said Amy slowly. 'Good girl! Call Meg, and tell her you'll give in, said Laurie, with an approving pat, which annoyed Amy more than the 'giving in'. Meg and Jo came running down to behold the miracle which had been wrought, and Amy, feeling very precious and selfsacrificing, promised to go, if the doctor said Beth was going to be ill. 'How is the little dear? asked Laurie, for Beth was his especial pet, and he felt more anxious about her than he liked to show. 'She is lying down on Mother's bed, and feels better. The baby's death troubled her, but I dare say she has only got cold. Hannah says she thinks so, but she looks worried, and that makes me fidgety, answered Meg. 'What a trying world it is! said Jo, rumpling up her hair in a fretful way. 'No sooner do we get out of one trouble than down comes another. There doesn't seem to be anything to hold on to when Mother's gone, so I'm all at sea. 'Well, don't make a porcupine of yourself, it isn't becoming. Settle your wig, Jo, and tell me if I shall telegraph to your mother, or do anything? asked Laurie, who never had been reconciled to the loss of his friend's one beauty. 'That is what troubles me, said Meg. 'I think we ought to tell her if Beth is really ill, but Hannah says we mustn't, for Mother can't leave Father, and it will only make them anxious. Beth won't be sick long, and Hannah knows just what to do, and Mother said we were to mind her, so I suppose we must, but it doesn't seem quite right to me. 'Hum, well, I can't say. Suppose you ask Grandfather after the doctor has been. 'We will. Jo, go and get Dr. Bangs at once, commanded Meg. 'We can't decide anything till he has been. 'Stay where you are, Jo. I'm errand boy to this establishment, said Laurie, taking up his cap. 'I'm afraid you are busy, began Meg. 'No, I've done my lessons for the day. 'Do you study in vacation time? asked Jo. 'I follow the good example my neighbors set me, was Laurie's answer, as he swung himself out of the room. 'I have great hopes for my boy, observed Jo, watching him fly over the fence with an approving smile. 'He does very well, for a boy, was Meg's somewhat ungracious answer, for the subject did not interest her. Dr. Bangs came, said Beth had symptoms of the fever, but he thought she would have it lightly, though he looked sober over the Hummel story. Amy was ordered off at once, and provided with something to ward off danger, she departed in great state, with Jo and Laurie as escort. Aunt March received them with her usual hospitality. 'What do you want now? she asked, looking sharply over her spectacles, while the parrot, sitting on the back of her chair, called out... 'Go away. No boys allowed here. Laurie retired to the window, and Jo told her story. 'No more than I expected, if you are allowed to go poking about among poor folks. Amy can stay and make herself useful if she isn't sick, which I've no doubt she will be, looks like it now. Don't cry, child, it worries me to hear people sniff. Amy was on the point of crying, but Laurie slyly pulled the parrot's tail, which caused Polly to utter an astonished croak and call out, 'Bless my boots! in such a funny way, that she laughed instead. 'What do you hear from your mother? asked the old lady gruffly. 'Father is much better, replied Jo, trying to keep sober. 'Oh, is he? Well, that won't last long, I fancy. March never had any stamina, was the cheerful reply. 'Ha, ha! Never say die, take a pinch of snuff, goodbye, goodbye! squalled Polly, dancing on her perch, and clawing at the old lady's cap as Laurie tweaked him in the rear. 'Hold your tongue, you disrespectful old bird! And, Jo, you'd better go at once. It isn't proper to be gadding about so late with a rattlepated boy like... 'Hold your tongue, you disrespectful old bird! cried Polly, tumbling off the chair with a bounce, and running to peck the 'rattlepated' boy, who was shaking with laughter at the last speech. 'I don't think I can bear it, but I'll try, thought Amy, as she was left alone with Aunt March. 'Get along, you fright! screamed Polly, and at that rude speech Amy could not restrain a sniff. Beth did have the fever, and was much sicker than anyone but Hannah and the doctor suspected. The girls knew nothing about illness, and Mr. Laurence was not allowed to see her, so Hannah had everything her own way, and busy Dr. Bangs did his best, but left a good deal to the excellent nurse. Meg stayed at home, lest she should infect the Kings, and kept house, feeling very anxious and a little guilty when she wrote letters in which no mention was made of Beth's illness. She could not think it right to deceive her mother, but she had been bidden to mind Hannah, and Hannah wouldn't hear of 'Mrs. March bein' told, and worried just for sech a trifle.' Jo devoted herself to Beth day and night, not a hard task, for Beth was very patient, and bore her pain uncomplainingly as long as she could control herself. But there came a time when during the fever fits she began to talk in a hoarse, broken voice, to play on the coverlet as if on her beloved little piano, and try to sing with a throat so swollen that there was no music left, a time when she did not know the familiar faces around her, but addressed them by wrong names, and called imploringly for her mother. Then Jo grew frightened, Meg begged to be allowed to write the truth, and even Hannah said she 'would think of it, though there was no danger yet'. A letter from Washington added to their trouble, for Mr. March had had a relapse, and could not think of coming home for a long while. How dark the days seemed now, how sad and lonely the house, and how heavy were the hearts of the sisters as they worked and waited, while the shadow of death hovered over the once happy home. Then it was that Margaret, sitting alone with tears dropping often on her work, felt how rich she had been in things more precious than any luxuries money could buyin love, protection, peace, and health, the real blessings of life. Then it was that Jo, living in the darkened room, with that suffering little sister always before her eyes and that pathetic voice sounding in her ears, learned to see the beauty and the sweetness of Beth's nature, to feel how deep and tender a place she filled in all hearts, and to acknowledge the worth of Beth's unselfish ambition to live for others, and make home happy by that exercise of those simple virtues which all may possess, and which all should love and value more than talent, wealth, or beauty. And Amy, in her exile, longed eagerly to be at home, that she might work for Beth, feeling now that no service would be hard or irksome, and remembering, with regretful grief, how many neglected tasks those willing hands had done for her. Laurie haunted the house like a restless ghost, and Mr. Laurence locked the grand piano, because he could not bear to be reminded of the young neighbor who used to make the twilight pleasant for him. Everyone missed Beth. The milkman, baker, grocer, and butcher inquired how she did, poor Mrs. Hummel came to beg pardon for her thoughtlessness and to get a shroud for Minna, the neighbors sent all sorts of comforts and good wishes, and even those who knew her best were surprised to find how many friends shy little Beth had made. Meanwhile she lay on her bed with old Joanna at her side, for even in her wanderings she did not forget her forlorn protege. She longed for her cats, but would not have them brought, lest they should get sick, and in her quiet hours she was full of anxiety about Jo. She sent loving messages to Amy, bade them tell her mother that she would write soon, and often begged for pencil and paper to try to say a word, that Father might not think she had neglected him. But soon even these intervals of consciousness ended, and she lay hour after hour, tossing to and fro, with incoherent words on her lips, or sank into a heavy sleep which brought her no refreshment. Dr. Bangs came twice a day, Hannah sat up at night, Meg kept a telegram in her desk all ready to send off at any minute, and Jo never stirred from Beth's side. The first of December was a wintry day indeed to them, for a bitter wind blew, snow fell fast, and the year seemed getting ready for its death. When Dr. Bangs came that morning, he looked long at Beth, held the hot hand in both his own for a minute, and laid it gently down, saying, in a low voice to Hannah, 'If Mrs. March can leave her husband she'd better be sent for. Hannah nodded without speaking, for her lips twitched nervously, Meg dropped down into a chair as the strength seemed to go out of her limbs at the sound of those words, and Jo, standing with a pale face for a minute, ran to the parlor, snatched up the telegram, and throwing on her things, rushed out into the storm. She was soon back, and while noiselessly taking off her cloak, Laurie came in with a letter, saying that Mr. March was mending again. Jo read it thankfully, but the heavy weight did not seem lifted off her heart, and her face was so full of misery that Laurie asked quickly, 'What is it? Is Beth worse? 'I've sent for Mother, said Jo, tugging at her rubber boots with a tragic expression. 'Good for you, Jo! Did you do it on your own responsibility? asked Laurie, as he seated her in the hall chair and took off the rebellious boots, seeing how her hands shook. 'No. The doctor told us to. 'Oh, Jo, it's not so bad as that? cried Laurie, with a startled face. 'Yes, it is. She doesn't know us, she doesn't even talk about the flocks of green doves, as she calls the vine leaves on the wall. She doesn't look like my Beth, and there's nobody to help us bear it. Mother and father both gone, and God seems so far away I can't find Him. As the tears streamed fast down poor Jo's cheeks, she stretched out her hand in a helpless sort of way, as if groping in the dark, and Laurie took it in his, whispering as well as he could with a lump in his throat, 'I'm here. Hold on to me, Jo, dear! She could not speak, but she did 'hold on', and the warm grasp of the friendly human hand comforted her sore heart, and seemed to lead her nearer to the Divine arm which alone could uphold her in her trouble. Laurie longed to say something tender and comfortable, but no fitting words came to him, so he stood silent, gently stroking her bent head as her mother used to do. It was the best thing he could have done, far more soothing than the most eloquent words, for Jo felt the unspoken sympathy, and in the silence learned the sweet solace which affection administers to sorrow. Soon she dried the tears which had relieved her, and looked up with a grateful face. 'Thank you, Teddy, I'm better now. I don't feel so forlorn, and will try to bear it if it comes. 'Keep hoping for the best, that will help you, Jo. Soon your mother will be here, and then everything will be all right. 'I'm so glad Father is better. Now she won't feel so bad about leaving him. Oh, me! It does seem as if all the troubles came in a heap, and I got the heaviest part on my shoulders, sighed Jo, spreading her wet handkerchief over her knees to dry. 'Doesn't Meg pull fair? asked Laurie, looking indignant. 'Oh, yes, she tries to, but she can't love Bethy as I do, and she won't miss her as I shall. Beth is my conscience, and I can't give her up. I can't! I can't! Down went Jo's face into the wet handkerchief, and she cried despairingly, for she had kept up bravely till now and never shed a tear. Laurie drew his hand across his eyes, but could not speak till he had subdued the choky feeling in his throat and steadied his lips. It might be unmanly, but he couldn't help it, and I am glad of it. Presently, as Jo's sobs quieted, he said hopefully, 'I don't think she will die. She's so good, and we all love her so much, I don't believe God will take her away yet. 'The good and dear people always do die, groaned Jo, but she stopped crying, for her friend's words cheered her up in spite of her own doubts and fears. 'Poor girl, you're worn out. It isn't like you to be forlorn. Stop a bit. I'll hearten you up in a jiffy. Laurie went off two stairs at a time, and Jo laid her wearied head down on Beth's little brown hood, which no one had thought of moving from the table where she left it. It must have possessed some magic, for the submissive spirit of its gentle owner seemed to enter into Jo, and when Laurie came running down with a glass of wine, she took it with a smile, and said bravely, 'I drink Health to my Beth! You are a good doctor, Teddy, and such a comfortable friend. How can I ever pay you? she added, as the wine refreshed her body, as the kind words had done her troubled mind. 'I'll send my bill, byandby, and tonight I'll give you something that will warm the cockles of your heart better than quarts of wine, said Laurie, beaming at her with a face of suppressed satisfaction at something. 'What is it? cried Jo, forgetting her woes for a minute in her wonder. 'I telegraphed to your mother yesterday, and Brooke answered she'd come at once, and she'll be here tonight, and everything will be all right. Aren't you glad I did it? Laurie spoke very fast, and turned red and excited all in a minute, for he had kept his plot a secret, for fear of disappointing the girls or harming Beth. Jo grew quite white, flew out of her chair, and the moment he stopped speaking she electrified him by throwing her arms round his neck, and crying out, with a joyful cry, 'Oh, Laurie! Oh, Mother! I am so glad! She did not weep again, but laughed hysterically, and trembled and clung to her friend as if she was a little bewildered by the sudden news. Laurie, though decidedly amazed, behaved with great presence of mind. He patted her back soothingly, and finding that she was recovering, followed it up by a bashful kiss or two, which brought Jo round at once. Holding on to the banisters, she put him gently away, saying breathlessly, 'Oh, don't! I didn't mean to, it was dreadful of me, but you were such a dear to go and do it in spite of Hannah that I couldn't help flying at you. Tell me all about it, and don't give me wine again, it makes me act so. 'I don't mind, laughed Laurie, as he settled his tie. 'Why, you see I got fidgety, and so did Grandpa. We thought Hannah was overdoing the authority business, and your mother ought to know. She'd never forgive us if Beth... Well, if anything happened, you know. So I got grandpa to say it was high time we did something, and off I pelted to the office yesterday, for the doctor looked sober, and Hannah most took my head off when I proposed a telegram. I never can bear to be 'lorded over', so that settled my mind, and I did it. Your mother will come, I know, and the late train is in at two A.M. I shall go for her, and you've only got to bottle up your rapture, and keep Beth quiet till that blessed lady gets here. 'Laurie, you're an angel! How shall I ever thank you? 'Fly at me again. I rather liked it, said Laurie, looking mischievous, a thing he had not done for a fortnight. 'No, thank you. I'll do it by proxy, when your grandpa comes. Don't tease, but go home and rest, for you'll be up half the night. Bless you, Teddy, bless you! Jo had backed into a corner, and as she finished her speech, she vanished precipitately into the kitchen, where she sat down upon a dresser and told the assembled cats that she was 'happy, oh, so happy! while Laurie departed, feeling that he had made a rather neat thing of it. 'That's the interferingest chap I ever see, but I forgive him and do hope Mrs. March is coming right away, said Hannah, with an air of relief, when Jo told the good news. Meg had a quiet rapture, and then brooded over the letter, while Jo set the sickroom in order, and Hannah 'knocked up a couple of pies in case of company unexpected. A breath of fresh air seemed to blow through the house, and something better than sunshine brightened the quiet rooms. Everything appeared to feel the hopeful change. Beth's bird began to chirp again, and a halfblown rose was discovered on Amy's bush in the window. The fires seemed to burn with unusual cheeriness, and every time the girls met, their pale faces broke into smiles as they hugged one another, whispering encouragingly, 'Mother's coming, dear! Mother's coming! Every one rejoiced but Beth. She lay in that heavy stupor, alike unconscious of hope and joy, doubt and danger. It was a piteous sight, the once rosy face so changed and vacant, the once busy hands so weak and wasted, the once smiling lips quite dumb, and the once pretty, wellkept hair scattered rough and tangled on the pillow. All day she lay so, only rousing now and then to mutter, 'Water! with lips so parched they could hardly shape the word. All day Jo and Meg hovered over her, watching, waiting, hoping, and trusting in God and Mother, and all day the snow fell, the bitter wind raged, and the hours dragged slowly by. But night came at last, and every time the clock struck, the sisters, still sitting on either side of the bed, looked at each other with brightening eyes, for each hour brought help nearer. The doctor had been in to say that some change, for better or worse, would probably take place about midnight, at which time he would return. Hannah, quite worn out, lay down on the sofa at the bed's foot and fell fast asleep, Mr. Laurence marched to and fro in the parlor, feeling that he would rather face a rebel battery than Mrs. March's countenance as she entered. Laurie lay on the rug, pretending to rest, but staring into the fire with the thoughtful look which made his black eyes beautifully soft and clear. The girls never forgot that night, for no sleep came to them as they kept their watch, with that dreadful sense of powerlessness which comes to us in hours like those. 'If God spares Beth, I never will complain again, whispered Meg earnestly. 'If God spares Beth, I'll try to love and serve Him all my life, answered Jo, with equal fervor. 'I wish I had no heart, it aches so, sighed Meg, after a pause. 'If life is often as hard as this, I don't see how we ever shall get through it, added her sister despondently. Here the clock struck twelve, and both forgot themselves in watching Beth, for they fancied a change passed over her wan face. The house was still as death, and nothing but the wailing of the wind broke the deep hush. Weary Hannah slept on, and no one but the sisters saw the pale shadow which seemed to fall upon the little bed. An hour went by, and nothing happened except Laurie's quiet departure for the station. Another hour, still no one came, and anxious fears of delay in the storm, or accidents by the way, or, worst of all, a great grief at Washington, haunted the girls. It was past two, when Jo, who stood at the window thinking how dreary the world looked in its winding sheet of snow, heard a movement by the bed, and turning quickly, saw Meg kneeling before their mother's easy chair with her face hidden. A dreadful fear passed coldly over Jo, as she thought, 'Beth is dead, and Meg is afraid to tell me. She was back at her post in an instant, and to her excited eyes a great change seemed to have taken place. The fever flush and the look of pain were gone, and the beloved little face looked so pale and peaceful in its utter repose that Jo felt no desire to weep or to lament. Leaning low over this dearest of her sisters, she kissed the damp forehead with her heart on her lips, and softly whispered, 'Goodby, my Beth. Goodby! As if awaked by the stir, Hannah started out of her sleep, hurried to the bed, looked at Beth, felt her hands, listened at her lips, and then, throwing her apron over her head, sat down to rock to and fro, exclaiming, under her breath, 'The fever's turned, she's sleepin' nat'ral, her skin's damp, and she breathes easy. Praise be given! Oh, my goodness me! Before the girls could believe the happy truth, the doctor came to confirm it. He was a homely man, but they thought his face quite heavenly when he smiled and said, with a fatherly look at them, 'Yes, my dears, I think the little girl will pull through this time. Keep the house quiet, let her sleep, and when she wakes, give her... What they were to give, neither heard, for both crept into the dark hall, and, sitting on the stairs, held each other close, rejoicing with hearts too full for words. When they went back to be kissed and cuddled by faithful Hannah, they found Beth lying, as she used to do, with her cheek pillowed on her hand, the dreadful pallor gone, and breathing quietly, as if just fallen asleep. 'If Mother would only come now! said Jo, as the winter night began to wane. 'See, said Meg, coming up with a white, halfopened rose, 'I thought this would hardly be ready to lay in Beth's hand tomorrow if shewent away from us. But it has blossomed in the night, and now I mean to put it in my vase here, so that when the darling wakes, the first thing she sees will be the little rose, and Mother's face. Never had the sun risen so beautifully, and never had the world seemed so lovely as it did to the heavy eyes of Meg and Jo, as they looked out in the early morning, when their long, sad vigil was done. 'It looks like a fairy world, said Meg, smiling to herself, as she stood behind the curtain, watching the dazzling sight. 'Hark! cried Jo, starting to her feet. Yes, there was a sound of bells at the door below, a cry from Hannah, and then Laurie's voice saying in a joyful whisper, 'Girls, she's come! She's come! While these things were happening at home, Amy was having hard times at Aunt March's. She felt her exile deeply, and for the first time in her life, realized how much she was beloved and petted at home. Aunt March never petted any one she did not approve of it, but she meant to be kind, for the wellbehaved little girl pleased her very much, and Aunt March had a soft place in her old heart for her nephew's children, though she didn't think it proper to confess it. She really did her best to make Amy happy, but, dear me, what mistakes she made. Some old people keep young at heart in spite of wrinkles and gray hairs, can sympathize with children's little cares and joys, make them feel at home, and can hide wise lessons under pleasant plays, giving and receiving friendship in the sweetest way. But Aunt March had not this gift, and she worried Amy very much with her rules and orders, her prim ways, and long, prosy talks. Finding the child more docile and amiable than her sister, the old lady felt it her duty to try and counteract, as far as possible, the bad effects of home freedom and indulgence. So she took Amy by the hand, and taught her as she herself had been taught sixty years ago, a process which carried dismay to Amy's soul, and made her feel like a fly in the web of a very strict spider. She had to wash the cups every morning, and polish up the oldfashioned spoons, the fat silver teapot, and the glasses till they shone. Then she must dust the room, and what a trying job that was. Not a speck escaped Aunt March's eye, and all the furniture had claw legs and much carving, which was never dusted to suit. Then Polly had to be fed, the lap dog combed, and a dozen trips upstairs and down to get things or deliver orders, for the old lady was very lame and seldom left her big chair. After these tiresome labors, she must do her lessons, which was a daily trial of every virtue she possessed. Then she was allowed one hour for exercise or play, and didn't she enjoy it? Laurie came every day, and wheedled Aunt March till Amy was allowed to go out with him, when they walked and rode and had capital times. After dinner, she had to read aloud, and sit still while the old lady slept, which she usually did for an hour, as she dropped off over the first page. Then patchwork or towels appeared, and Amy sewed with outward meekness and inward rebellion till dusk, when she was allowed to amuse herself as she liked till teatime. The evenings were the worst of all, for Aunt March fell to telling long stories about her youth, which were so unutterably dull that Amy was always ready to go to bed, intending to cry over her hard fate, but usually going to sleep before she had squeezed out more than a tear or two. If it had not been for Laurie, and old Esther, the maid, she felt that she never could have got through that dreadful time. The parrot alone was enough to drive her distracted, for he soon felt that she did not admire him, and revenged himself by being as mischievous as possible. He pulled her hair whenever she came near him, upset his bread and milk to plague her when she had newly cleaned his cage, made Mop bark by pecking at him while Madam dozed, called her names before company, and behaved in all respects like an reprehensible old bird. Then she could not endure the dog, a fat, cross beast who snarled and yelped at her when she made his toilet, and who lay on his back with all his legs in the air and a most idiotic expression of countenance when he wanted something to eat, which was about a dozen times a day. The cook was badtempered, the old coachman was deaf, and Esther the only one who ever took any notice of the young lady. Esther was a Frenchwoman, who had lived with 'Madame', as she called her mistress, for many years, and who rather tyrannized over the old lady, who could not get along without her. Her real name was Estelle, but Aunt March ordered her to change it, and she obeyed, on condition that she was never asked to change her religion. She took a fancy to Mademoiselle, and amused her very much with odd stories of her life in France, when Amy sat with her while she got up Madame's laces. She also allowed her to roam about the great house, and examine the curious and pretty things stored away in the big wardrobes and the ancient chests, for Aunt March hoarded like a magpie. Amy's chief delight was an Indian cabinet, full of queer drawers, little pigeonholes, and secret places, in which were kept all sorts of ornaments, some precious, some merely curious, all more or less antique. To examine and arrange these things gave Amy great satisfaction, especially the jewel cases, in which on velvet cushions reposed the ornaments which had adorned a belle forty years ago. There was the garnet set which Aunt March wore when she came out, the pearls her father gave her on her wedding day, her lover's diamonds, the jet mourning rings and pins, the queer lockets, with portraits of dead friends and weeping willows made of hair inside, the baby bracelets her one little daughter had worn, Uncle March's big watch, with the red seal so many childish hands had played with, and in a box all by itself lay Aunt March's wedding ring, too small now for her fat finger, but put carefully away like the most precious jewel of them all. 'Which would Mademoiselle choose if she had her will? asked Esther, who always sat near to watch over and lock up the valuables. 'I like the diamonds best, but there is no necklace among them, and I'm fond of necklaces, they are so becoming. I should choose this if I might, replied Amy, looking with great admiration at a string of gold and ebony beads from which hung a heavy cross of the same. 'I, too, covet that, but not as a necklace. Ah, no! To me it is a rosary, and as such I should use it like a good catholic, said Esther, eyeing the handsome thing wistfully. 'Is it meant to use as you use the string of goodsmelling wooden beads hanging over your glass? asked Amy. 'Truly, yes, to pray with. It would be pleasing to the saints if one used so fine a rosary as this, instead of wearing it as a vain bijou. 'You seem to take a great deal of comfort in your prayers, Esther, and always come down looking quiet and satisfied. I wish I could. 'If Mademoiselle was a Catholic, she would find true comfort, but as that is not to be, it would be well if you went apart each day to meditate and pray, as did the good mistress whom I served before Madame. She had a little chapel, and in it found solacement for much trouble. 'Would it be right for me to do so too? asked Amy, who in her loneliness felt the need of help of some sort, and found that she was apt to forget her little book, now that Beth was not there to remind her of it. 'It would be excellent and charming, and I shall gladly arrange the little dressing room for you if you like it. Say nothing to Madame, but when she sleeps go you and sit alone a while to think good thoughts, and pray the dear God preserve your sister. Esther was truly pious, and quite sincere in her advice, for she had an affectionate heart, and felt much for the sisters in their anxiety. Amy liked the idea, and gave her leave to arrange the light closet next her room, hoping it would do her good. 'I wish I knew where all these pretty things would go when Aunt March dies, she said, as she slowly replaced the shining rosary and shut the jewel cases one by one. 'To you and your sisters. I know it, Madame confides in me. I witnessed her will, and it is to be so, whispered Esther smiling. 'How nice! But I wish she'd let us have them now. Procrastination is not agreeable, observed Amy, taking a last look at the diamonds. 'It is too soon yet for the young ladies to wear these things. The first one who is affianced will have the pearls, Madame has said it, and I have a fancy that the little turquoise ring will be given to you when you go, for Madame approves your good behavior and charming manners. 'Do you think so? Oh, I'll be a lamb, if I can only have that lovely ring! It's ever so much prettier than Kitty Bryant's. I do like Aunt March after all. And Amy tried on the blue ring with a delighted face and a firm resolve to earn it. From that day she was a model of obedience, and the old lady complacently admired the success of her training. Esther fitted up the closet with a little table, placed a footstool before it, and over it a picture taken from one of the shutup rooms. She thought it was of no great value, but, being appropriate, she borrowed it, well knowing that Madame would never know it, nor care if she did. It was, however, a very valuable copy of one of the famous pictures of the world, and Amy's beautyloving eyes were never tired of looking up at the sweet face of the Divine Mother, while her tender thoughts of her own were busy at her heart. On the table she laid her little testament and hymnbook, kept a vase always full of the best flowers Laurie brought her, and came every day to 'sit alone' thinking good thoughts, and praying the dear God to preserve her sister. Esther had given her a rosary of black beads with a silver cross, but Amy hung it up and did not use it, feeling doubtful as to its fitness for Protestant prayers. The little girl was very sincere in all this, for being left alone outside the safe home nest, she felt the need of some kind hand to hold by so sorely that she instinctively turned to the strong and tender Friend, whose fatherly love most closely surrounds His little children. She missed her mother's help to understand and rule herself, but having been taught where to look, she did her best to find the way and walk in it confidingly. But, Amy was a young pilgrim, and just now her burden seemed very heavy. She tried to forget herself, to keep cheerful, and be satisfied with doing right, though no one saw or praised her for it. In her first effort at being very, very good, she decided to make her will, as Aunt March had done, so that if she did fall ill and die, her possessions might be justly and generously divided. It cost her a pang even to think of giving up the little treasures which in her eyes were as precious as the old lady's jewels. During one of her play hours she wrote out the important document as well as she could, with some help from Esther as to certain legal terms, and when the goodnatured Frenchwoman had signed her name, Amy felt relieved and laid it by to show Laurie, whom she wanted as a second witness. As it was a rainy day, she went upstairs to amuse herself in one of the large chambers, and took Polly with her for company. In this room there was a wardrobe full of oldfashioned costumes with which Esther allowed her to play, and it was her favorite amusement to array herself in the faded brocades, and parade up and down before the long mirror, making stately curtsies, and sweeping her train about with a rustle which delighted her ears. So busy was she on this day that she did not hear Laurie's ring nor see his face peeping in at her as she gravely promenaded to and fro, flirting her fan and tossing her head, on which she wore a great pink turban, contrasting oddly with her blue brocade dress and yellow quilted petticoat. She was obliged to walk carefully, for she had on highheeled shoes, and, as Laurie told Jo afterward, it was a comical sight to see her mince along in her gay suit, with Polly sidling and bridling just behind her, imitating her as well as he could, and occasionally stopping to laugh or exclaim, 'Ain't we fine? Get along, you fright! Hold your tongue! Kiss me, dear! Ha! Ha! Having with difficulty restrained an explosion of merriment, lest it should offend her majesty, Laurie tapped and was graciously received. 'Sit down and rest while I put these things away, then I want to consult you about a very serious matter, said Amy, when she had shown her splendor and driven Polly into a corner. 'That bird is the trial of my life, she continued, removing the pink mountain from her head, while Laurie seated himself astride a chair. 'Yesterday, when Aunt was asleep and I was trying to be as still as a mouse, Polly began to squall and flap about in his cage, so I went to let him out, and found a big spider there. I poked it out, and it ran under the bookcase. Polly marched straight after it, stooped down and peeped under the bookcase, saying, in his funny way, with a cock of his eye, 'Come out and take a walk, my dear.' I couldn't help laughing, which made Poll swear, and Aunt woke up and scolded us both. 'Did the spider accept the old fellow's invitation? asked Laurie, yawning. 'Yes, out it came, and away ran Polly, frightened to death, and scrambled up on Aunt's chair, calling out, 'Catch her! Catch her! Catch her!' as I chased the spider. 'That's a lie! Oh, lor! cried the parrot, pecking at Laurie's toes. 'I'd wring your neck if you were mine, you old torment, cried Laurie, shaking his fist at the bird, who put his head on one side and gravely croaked, 'Allyluyer! bless your buttons, dear! 'Now I'm ready, said Amy, shutting the wardrobe and taking a piece of paper out of her pocket. 'I want you to read that, please, and tell me if it is legal and right. I felt I ought to do it, for life is uncertain and I don't want any ill feeling over my tomb. Laurie bit his lips, and turning a little from the pensive speaker, read the following document, with praiseworthy gravity, considering the spelling MY LAST WILL AND TESTIMENT I, Amy Curtis March, being in my sane mind, go give and bequeethe all my earthly propertyviz. to witnamely To my father, my best pictures, sketches, maps, and works of art, including frames. Also my , to do what he likes with. To my mother, all my clothes, except the blue apron with pocketsalso my likeness, and my medal, with much love. To my dear sister Margaret, I give my turkquoise ring (if I get it), also my green box with the doves on it, also my piece of real lace for her neck, and my sketch of her as a memorial of her 'little girl'. To Jo I leave my breastpin, the one mended with sealing wax, also my bronze inkstandshe lost the coverand my most precious plaster rabbit, because I am sorry I burned up her story. To Beth (if she lives after me) I give my dolls and the little bureau, my fan, my linen collars and my new slippers if she can wear them being thin when she gets well. And I herewith also leave her my regret that I ever made fun of old Joanna. To my friend and neighbor Theodore Laurence I bequeethe my paper mashay portfolio, my clay model of a horse though he did say it hadn't any neck. Also in return for his great kindness in the hour of affliction any one of my artistic works he likes, Noter Dame is the best. To our venerable benefactor Mr. Laurence I leave my purple box with a looking glass in the cover which will be nice for his pens and remind him of the departed girl who thanks him for his favors to her family, especially Beth. I wish my favorite playmate Kitty Bryant to have the blue silk apron and my goldbead ring with a kiss. To Hannah I give the bandbox she wanted and all the patchwork I leave hoping she 'will remember me, when it you see'. And now having disposed of my most valuable property I hope all will be satisfied and not blame the dead. I forgive everyone, and trust we may all meet when the trump shall sound. Amen. To this will and testiment I set my hand and seal on this th day of Nov. Anni Domino . Amy Curtis March Witnesses Estelle Valnor, Theodore Laurence. The last name was written in pencil, and Amy explained that he was to rewrite it in ink and seal it up for her properly. 'What put it into your head? Did anyone tell you about Beth's giving away her things? asked Laurie soberly, as Amy laid a bit of red tape, with sealing wax, a taper, and a standish before him. She explained and then asked anxiously, 'What about Beth? 'I'm sorry I spoke, but as I did, I'll tell you. She felt so ill one day that she told Jo she wanted to give her piano to Meg, her cats to you, and the poor old doll to Jo, who would love it for her sake. She was sorry she had so little to give, and left locks of hair to the rest of us, and her best love to Grandpa. She never thought of a will. Laurie was signing and sealing as he spoke, and did not look up till a great tear dropped on the paper. Amy's face was full of trouble, but she only said, 'Don't people put sort of postscripts to their wills, sometimes? 'Yes, 'codicils', they call them. 'Put one in mine then, that I wish all my curls cut off, and given round to my friends. I forgot it, but I want it done though it will spoil my looks. Laurie added it, smiling at Amy's last and greatest sacrifice. Then he amused her for an hour, and was much interested in all her trials. But when he came to go, Amy held him back to whisper with trembling lips, 'Is there really any danger about Beth? 'I'm afraid there is, but we must hope for the best, so don't cry, dear. And Laurie put his arm about her with a brotherly gesture which was very comforting. When he had gone, she went to her little chapel, and sitting in the twilight, prayed for Beth, with streaming tears and an aching heart, feeling that a million turquoise rings would not console her for the loss of her gentle little sister. I don't think I have any words in which to tell the meeting of the mother and daughters. Such hours are beautiful to live, but very hard to describe, so I will leave it to the imagination of my readers, merely saying that the house was full of genuine happiness, and that Meg's tender hope was realized, for when Beth woke from that long, healing sleep, the first objects on which her eyes fell were the little rose and Mother's face. Too weak to wonder at anything, she only smiled and nestled close in the loving arms about her, feeling that the hungry longing was satisfied at last. Then she slept again, and the girls waited upon their mother, for she would not unclasp the thin hand which clung to hers even in sleep. Hannah had 'dished up' an astonishing breakfast for the traveler, finding it impossible to vent her excitement in any other way, and Meg and Jo fed their mother like dutiful young storks, while they listened to her whispered account of Father's state, Mr. Brooke's promise to stay and nurse him, the delays which the storm occasioned on the homeward journey, and the unspeakable comfort Laurie's hopeful face had given her when she arrived, worn out with fatigue, anxiety, and cold. What a strange yet pleasant day that was. So brilliant and gay without, for all the world seemed abroad to welcome the first snow. So quiet and reposeful within, for everyone slept, spent with watching, and a Sabbath stillness reigned through the house, while nodding Hannah mounted guard at the door. With a blissful sense of burdens lifted off, Meg and Jo closed their weary eyes, and lay at rest, like stormbeaten boats safe at anchor in a quiet harbor. Mrs. March would not leave Beth's side, but rested in the big chair, waking often to look at, touch, and brood over her child, like a miser over some recovered treasure. Laurie meanwhile posted off to comfort Amy, and told his story so well that Aunt March actually 'sniffed' herself, and never once said 'I told you so. Amy came out so strong on this occasion that I think the good thoughts in the little chapel really began to bear fruit. She dried her tears quickly, restrained her impatience to see her mother, and never even thought of the turquoise ring, when the old lady heartily agreed in Laurie's opinion, that she behaved 'like a capital little woman'. Even Polly seemed impressed, for he called her a good girl, blessed her buttons, and begged her to 'come and take a walk, dear, in his most affable tone. She would very gladly have gone out to enjoy the bright wintry weather, but discovering that Laurie was dropping with sleep in spite of manful efforts to conceal the fact, she persuaded him to rest on the sofa, while she wrote a note to her mother. She was a long time about it, and when she returned, he was stretched out with both arms under his head, sound asleep, while Aunt March had pulled down the curtains and sat doing nothing in an unusual fit of benignity. After a while, they began to think he was not going to wake up till night, and I'm not sure that he would, had he not been effectually roused by Amy's cry of joy at sight of her mother. There probably were a good many happy little girls in and about the city that day, but it is my private opinion that Amy was the happiest of all, when she sat in her mother's lap and told her trials, receiving consolation and compensation in the shape of approving smiles and fond caresses. They were alone together in the chapel, to which her mother did not object when its purpose was explained to her. 'On the contrary, I like it very much, dear, looking from the dusty rosary to the wellworn little book, and the lovely picture with its garland of evergreen. 'It is an excellent plan to have some place where we can go to be quiet, when things vex or grieve us. There are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can always bear them if we ask help in the right way. I think my little girl is learning this. 'Yes, Mother, and when I go home I mean to have a corner in the big closet to put my books and the copy of that picture which I've tried to make. The woman's face is not good, it's too beautiful for me to draw, but the baby is done better, and I love it very much. I like to think He was a little child once, for then I don't seem so far away, and that helps me. As Amy pointed to the smiling Christ child on his Mother's knee, Mrs. March saw something on the lifted hand that made her smile. She said nothing, but Amy understood the look, and after a minute's pause, she added gravely, 'I wanted to speak to you about this, but I forgot it. Aunt gave me the ring today. She called me to her and kissed me, and put it on my finger, and said I was a credit to her, and she'd like to keep me always. She gave that funny guard to keep the turquoise on, as it's too big. I'd like to wear them Mother, can I? 'They are very pretty, but I think you're rather too young for such ornaments, Amy, said Mrs. March, looking at the plump little hand, with the band of skyblue stones on the forefinger, and the quaint guard formed of two tiny golden hands clasped together. 'I'll try not to be vain, said Amy. 'I don't think I like it only because it's so pretty, but I want to wear it as the girl in the story wore her bracelet, to remind me of something. 'Do you mean Aunt March? asked her mother, laughing. 'No, to remind me not to be selfish. Amy looked so earnest and sincere about it that her mother stopped laughing, and listened respectfully to the little plan. 'I've thought a great deal lately about my 'bundle of naughties', and being selfish is the largest one in it, so I'm going to try hard to cure it, if I can. Beth isn't selfish, and that's the reason everyone loves her and feels so bad at the thoughts of losing her. People wouldn't feel so bad about me if I was sick, and I don't deserve to have them, but I'd like to be loved and missed by a great many friends, so I'm going to try and be like Beth all I can. I'm apt to forget my resolutions, but if I had something always about me to remind me, I guess I should do better. May we try this way? 'Yes, but I have more faith in the corner of the big closet. Wear your ring, dear, and do your best. I think you will prosper, for the sincere wish to be good is half the battle. Now I must go back to Beth. Keep up your heart, little daughter, and we will soon have you home again. That evening while Meg was writing to her father to report the traveler's safe arrival, Jo slipped upstairs into Beth's room, and finding her mother in her usual place, stood a minute twisting her fingers in her hair, with a worried gesture and an undecided look. 'What is it, deary? asked Mrs. March, holding out her hand, with a face which invited confidence. 'I want to tell you something, Mother. 'About Meg? 'How quickly you guessed! Yes, it's about her, and though it's a little thing, it fidgets me. 'Beth is asleep. Speak low, and tell me all about it. That Moffat hasn't been here, I hope? asked Mrs. March rather sharply. 'No. I should have shut the door in his face if he had, said Jo, settling herself on the floor at her mother's feet. 'Last summer Meg left a pair of gloves over at the Laurences' and only one was returned. We forgot about it, till Teddy told me that Mr. Brooke owned that he liked Meg but didn't dare say so, she was so young and he so poor. Now, isn't it a dreadful state of things? 'Do you think Meg cares for him? asked Mrs. March, with an anxious look. 'Mercy me! I don't know anything about love and such nonsense! cried Jo, with a funny mixture of interest and contempt. 'In novels, the girls show it by starting and blushing, fainting away, growing thin, and acting like fools. Now Meg does not do anything of the sort. She eats and drinks and sleeps like a sensible creature, she looks straight in my face when I talk about that man, and only blushes a little bit when Teddy jokes about lovers. I forbid him to do it, but he doesn't mind me as he ought. 'Then you fancy that Meg is not interested in John? 'Who? cried Jo, staring. 'Mr. Brooke. I call him 'John' now. We fell into the way of doing so at the hospital, and he likes it. 'Oh, dear! I know you'll take his part. He's been good to Father, and you won't send him away, but let Meg marry him, if she wants to. Mean thing! To go petting Papa and helping you, just to wheedle you into liking him. And Jo pulled her hair again with a wrathful tweak. 'My dear, don't get angry about it, and I will tell you how it happened. John went with me at Mr. Laurence's request, and was so devoted to poor Father that we couldn't help getting fond of him. He was perfectly open and honorable about Meg, for he told us he loved her, but would earn a comfortable home before he asked her to marry him. He only wanted our leave to love her and work for her, and the right to make her love him if he could. He is a truly excellent young man, and we could not refuse to listen to him, but I will not consent to Meg's engaging herself so young. 'Of course not. It would be idiotic! I knew there was mischief brewing. I felt it, and now it's worse than I imagined. I just wish I could marry Meg myself, and keep her safe in the family. This odd arrangement made Mrs. March smile, but she said gravely, 'Jo, I confide in you and don't wish you to say anything to Meg yet. When John comes back, and I see them together, I can judge better of her feelings toward him. 'She'll see those handsome eyes that she talks about, and then it will be all up with her. She's got such a soft heart, it will melt like butter in the sun if anyone looks sentimentlly at her. She read the short reports he sent more than she did your letters, and pinched me when I spoke of it, and likes brown eyes, and doesn't think John an ugly name, and she'll go and fall in love, and there's an end of peace and fun, and cozy times together. I see it all! They'll go lovering around the house, and we shall have to dodge. Meg will be absorbed and no good to me any more. Brooke will scratch up a fortune somehow, carry her off, and make a hole in the family, and I shall break my heart, and everything will be abominably uncomfortable. Oh, dear me! Why weren't we all boys, then there wouldn't be any bother. Jo leaned her chin on her knees in a disconsolate attitude and shook her fist at the reprehensible John. Mrs. March sighed, and Jo looked up with an air of relief. 'You don't like it, Mother? I'm glad of it. Let's send him about his business, and not tell Meg a word of it, but all be happy together as we always have been. 'I did wrong to sigh, Jo. It is natural and right you should all go to homes of your own in time, but I do want to keep my girls as long as I can, and I am sorry that this happened so soon, for Meg is only seventeen and it will be some years before John can make a home for her. Your father and I have agreed that she shall not bind herself in any way, nor be married, before twenty. If she and John love one another, they can wait, and test the love by doing so. She is conscientious, and I have no fear of her treating him unkindly. My pretty, tender hearted girl! I hope things will go happily with her. 'Hadn't you rather have her marry a rich man? asked Jo, as her mother's voice faltered a little over the last words. 'Money is a good and useful thing, Jo, and I hope my girls will never feel the need of it too bitterly, nor be tempted by too much. I should like to know that John was firmly established in some good business, which gave him an income large enough to keep free from debt and make Meg comfortable. I'm not ambitious for a splendid fortune, a fashionable position, or a great name for my girls. If rank and money come with love and virtue, also, I should accept them gratefully, and enjoy your good fortune, but I know, by experience, how much genuine happiness can be had in a plain little house, where the daily bread is earned, and some privations give sweetness to the few pleasures. I am content to see Meg begin humbly, for if I am not mistaken, she will be rich in the possession of a good man's heart, and that is better than a fortune. 'I understand, Mother, and quite agree, but I'm disappointed about Meg, for I'd planned to have her marry Teddy byandby and sit in the lap of luxury all her days. Wouldn't it be nice? asked Jo, looking up with a brighter face. 'He is younger than she, you know, began Mrs. March, but Jo broke in... 'Only a little, he's old for his age, and tall, and can be quite grownup in his manners if he likes. Then he's rich and generous and good, and loves us all, and I say it's a pity my plan is spoiled. 'I'm afraid Laurie is hardly grownup enough for Meg, and altogether too much of a weathercock just now for anyone to depend on. Don't make plans, Jo, but let time and their own hearts mate your friends. We can't meddle safely in such matters, and had better not get 'romantic rubbish' as you call it, into our heads, lest it spoil our friendship. 'Well, I won't, but I hate to see things going all crisscross and getting snarled up, when a pull here and a snip there would straighten it out. I wish wearing flatirons on our heads would keep us from growing up. But buds will be roses, and kittens cats, more's the pity! 'What's that about flatirons and cats? asked Meg, as she crept into the room with the finished letter in her hand. 'Only one of my stupid speeches. I'm going to bed. Come, Peggy, said Jo, unfolding herself like an animated puzzle. 'Quite right, and beautifully written. Please add that I send my love to John, said Mrs. March, as she glanced over the letter and gave it back. 'Do you call him 'John'? asked Meg, smiling, with her innocent eyes looking down into her mother's. 'Yes, he has been like a son to us, and we are very fond of him, replied Mrs. March, returning the look with a keen one. 'I'm glad of that, he is so lonely. Good night, Mother, dear. It is so inexpressibly comfortable to have you here, was Meg's answer. The kiss her mother gave her was a very tender one, and as she went away, Mrs. March said, with a mixture of satisfaction and regret, 'She does not love John yet, but will soon learn to. Jo's face was a study next day, for the secret rather weighed upon her, and she found it hard not to look mysterious and important. Meg observed it, but did not trouble herself to make inquiries, for she had learned that the best way to manage Jo was by the law of contraries, so she felt sure of being told everything if she did not ask. She was rather surprised, therefore, when the silence remained unbroken, and Jo assumed a patronizing air, which decidedly aggravated Meg, who in turn assumed an air of dignified reserve and devoted herself to her mother. This left Jo to her own devices, for Mrs. March had taken her place as nurse, and bade her rest, exercise, and amuse herself after her long confinement. Amy being gone, Laurie was her only refuge, and much as she enjoyed his society, she rather dreaded him just then, for he was an incorrigible tease, and she feared he would coax the secret from her. She was quite right, for the mischiefloving lad no sooner suspected a mystery than he set himself to find it out, and led Jo a trying life of it. He wheedled, bribed, ridiculed, threatened, and scolded affected indifference, that he might surprise the truth from her declared he knew, then that he didn't care and at last, by dint of perseverance, he satisfied himself that it concerned Meg and Mr. Brooke. Feeling indignant that he was not taken into his tutor's confidence, he set his wits to work to devise some proper retaliation for the slight. Meg meanwhile had apparently forgotten the matter and was absorbed in preparations for her father's return, but all of a sudden a change seemed to come over her, and, for a day or two, she was quite unlike herself. She started when spoken to, blushed when looked at, was very quiet, and sat over her sewing, with a timid, troubled look on her face. To her mother's inquiries she answered that she was quite well, and Jo's she silenced by begging to be let alone. 'She feels it in the airlove, I meanand she's going very fast. She's got most of the symptomsis twittery and cross, doesn't eat, lies awake, and mopes in corners. I caught her singing that song he gave her, and once she said 'John', as you do, and then turned as red as a poppy. Whatever shall we do? said Jo, looking ready for any measures, however violent. 'Nothing but wait. Let her alone, be kind and patient, and Father's coming will settle everything, replied her mother. 'Here's a note to you, Meg, all sealed up. How odd! Teddy never seals mine, said Jo next day, as she distributed the contents of the little post office. Mrs. March and Jo were deep in their own affairs, when a sound from Meg made them look up to see her staring at her note with a frightened face. 'My child, what is it? cried her mother, running to her, while Jo tried to take the paper which had done the mischief. 'It's all a mistake, he didn't send it. Oh, Jo, how could you do it? and Meg hid her face in her hands, crying as if her heart were quite broken. 'Me! I've done nothing! What's she talking about? cried Jo, bewildered. Meg's mild eyes kindled with anger as she pulled a crumpled note from her pocket and threw it at Jo, saying reproachfully, 'You wrote it, and that bad boy helped you. How could you be so rude, so mean, and cruel to us both? Jo hardly heard her, for she and her mother were reading the note, which was written in a peculiar hand. 'My Dearest Margaret, 'I can no longer restrain my passion, and must know my fate before I return. I dare not tell your parents yet, but I think they would consent if they knew that we adored one another. Mr. Laurence will help me to some good place, and then, my sweet girl, you will make me happy. I implore you to say nothing to your family yet, but to send one word of hope through Laurie to, 'Your devoted John. 'Oh, the little villain! That's the way he meant to pay me for keeping my word to Mother. I'll give him a hearty scolding and bring him over to beg pardon, cried Jo, burning to execute immediate justice. But her mother held her back, saying, with a look she seldom wore... 'Stop, Jo, you must clear yourself first. You have played so many pranks that I am afraid you have had a hand in this. 'On my word, Mother, I haven't! I never saw that note before, and don't know anything about it, as true as I live! said Jo, so earnestly that they believed her. 'If I had taken part in it I'd have done it better than this, and have written a sensible note. I should think you'd have known Mr. Brooke wouldn't write such stuff as that, she added, scornfully tossing down the paper. 'It's like his writing, faltered Meg, comparing it with the note in her hand. 'Oh, Meg, you didn't answer it? cried Mrs. March quickly. 'Yes, I did! and Meg hid her face again, overcome with shame. 'Here's a scrape! Do let me bring that wicked boy over to explain and be lectured. I can't rest till I get hold of him. And Jo made for the door again. 'Hush! Let me handle this, for it is worse than I thought. Margaret, tell me the whole story, commanded Mrs. March, sitting down by Meg, yet keeping hold of Jo, lest she should fly off. 'I received the first letter from Laurie, who didn't look as if he knew anything about it, began Meg, without looking up. 'I was worried at first and meant to tell you, then I remembered how you liked Mr. Brooke, so I thought you wouldn't mind if I kept my little secret for a few days. I'm so silly that I liked to think no one knew, and while I was deciding what to say, I felt like the girls in books, who have such things to do. Forgive me, Mother, I'm paid for my silliness now. I never can look him in the face again. 'What did you say to him? asked Mrs. March. 'I only said I was too young to do anything about it yet, that I didn't wish to have secrets from you, and he must speak to father. I was very grateful for his kindness, and would be his friend, but nothing more, for a long while. Mrs. March smiled, as if well pleased, and Jo clapped her hands, exclaiming, with a laugh, 'You are almost equal to Caroline Percy, who was a pattern of prudence! Tell on, Meg. What did he say to that? 'He writes in a different way entirely, telling me that he never sent any love letter at all, and is very sorry that my roguish sister, Jo, should take liberties with our names. It's very kind and respectful, but think how dreadful for me! Meg leaned against her mother, looking the image of despair, and Jo tramped about the room, calling Laurie names. All of a sudden she stopped, caught up the two notes, and after looking at them closely, said decidedly, 'I don't believe Brooke ever saw either of these letters. Teddy wrote both, and keeps yours to crow over me with because I wouldn't tell him my secret. 'Don't have any secrets, Jo. Tell it to Mother and keep out of trouble, as I should have done, said Meg warningly. 'Bless you, child! Mother told me. 'That will do, Jo. I'll comfort Meg while you go and get Laurie. I shall sift the matter to the bottom, and put a stop to such pranks at once. Away ran Jo, and Mrs. March gently told Meg Mr. Brooke's real feelings. 'Now, dear, what are your own? Do you love him enough to wait till he can make a home for you, or will you keep yourself quite free for the present? 'I've been so scared and worried, I don't want to have anything to do with lovers for a long while, perhaps never, answered Meg petulantly. 'If John doesn't know anything about this nonsense, don't tell him, and make Jo and Laurie hold their tongues. I won't be deceived and plagued and made a fool of. It's a shame! Seeing Meg's usually gentle temper was roused and her pride hurt by this mischievous joke, Mrs. March soothed her by promises of entire silence and great discretion for the future. The instant Laurie's step was heard in the hall, Meg fled into the study, and Mrs. March received the culprit alone. Jo had not told him why he was wanted, fearing he wouldn't come, but he knew the minute he saw Mrs. March's face, and stood twirling his hat with a guilty air which convicted him at once. Jo was dismissed, but chose to march up and down the hall like a sentinel, having some fear that the prisoner might bolt. The sound of voices in the parlor rose and fell for half an hour, but what happened during that interview the girls never knew. When they were called in, Laurie was standing by their mother with such a penitent face that Jo forgave him on the spot, but did not think it wise to betray the fact. Meg received his humble apology, and was much comforted by the assurance that Brooke knew nothing of the joke. 'I'll never tell him to my dying day, wild horses shan't drag it out of me, so you'll forgive me, Meg, and I'll do anything to show how outandout sorry I am, he added, looking very much ashamed of himself. 'I'll try, but it was a very ungentlemanly thing to do, I didn't think you could be so sly and malicious, Laurie, replied Meg, trying to hide her maidenly confusion under a gravely reproachful air. 'It was altogether abominable, and I don't deserve to be spoken to for a month, but you will, though, won't you? And Laurie folded his hands together with such and imploring gesture, as he spoke in his irresistibly persuasive tone, that it was impossible to frown upon him in spite of his scandalous behavior. Meg pardoned him, and Mrs. March's grave face relaxed, in spite of her efforts to keep sober, when she heard him declare that he would atone for his sins by all sorts of penances, and abase himself like a worm before the injured damsel. Jo stood aloof, meanwhile, trying to harden her heart against him, and succeeding only in primming up her face into an expression of entire disapprobation. Laurie looked at her once or twice, but as she showed no sign of relenting, he felt injured, and turned his back on her till the others were done with him, when he made her a low bow and walked off without a word. As soon as he had gone, she wished she had been more forgiving, and when Meg and her mother went upstairs, she felt lonely and longed for Teddy. After resisting for some time, she yielded to the impulse, and armed with a book to return, went over to the big house. 'Is Mr. Laurence in? asked Jo, of a housemaid, who was coming downstairs. 'Yes, Miss, but I don't believe he's seeable just yet. 'Why not? Is he ill? 'La, no Miss, but he's had a scene with Mr. Laurie, who is in one of his tantrums about something, which vexes the old gentleman, so I dursn't go nigh him. 'Where is Laurie? 'Shut up in his room, and he won't answer, though I've been atapping. I don't know what's to become of the dinner, for it's ready, and there's no one to eat it. 'I'll go and see what the matter is. I'm not afraid of either of them. Up went Jo, and knocked smartly on the door of Laurie's little study. 'Stop that, or I'll open the door and make you! called out the young gentleman in a threatening tone. Jo immediately knocked again. The door flew open, and in she bounced before Laurie could recover from his surprise. Seeing that he really was out of temper, Jo, who knew how to manage him, assumed a contrite expression, and going artistically down upon her knees, said meekly, 'Please forgive me for being so cross. I came to make it up, and can't go away till I have. 'It's all right. Get up, and don't be a goose, Jo, was the cavalier reply to her petition. 'Thank you, I will. Could I ask what's the matter? You don't look exactly easy in your mind. 'I've been shaken, and I won't bear it! growled Laurie indignantly. 'Who did it? demanded Jo. 'Grandfather. If it had been anyone else I'd have... And the injured youth finished his sentence by an energetic gesture of the right arm. 'That's nothing. I often shake you, and you don't mind, said Jo soothingly. 'Pooh! You're a girl, and it's fun, but I'll allow no man to shake me! 'I don't think anyone would care to try it, if you looked as much like a thundercloud as you do now. Why were you treated so? 'Just because I wouldn't say what your mother wanted me for. I'd promised not to tell, and of course I wasn't going to break my word. 'Couldn't you satisfy your grandpa in any other way? 'No, he would have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I'd have told my part of the scrape, if I could without bringing Meg in. As I couldn't, I held my tongue, and bore the scolding till the old gentleman collared me. Then I bolted, for fear I should forget myself. 'It wasn't nice, but he's sorry, I know, so go down and make up. I'll help you. 'Hanged if I do! I'm not going to be lectured and pummelled by everyone, just for a bit of a frolic. I was sorry about Meg, and begged pardon like a man, but I won't do it again, when I wasn't in the wrong. 'He didn't know that. 'He ought to trust me, and not act as if I was a baby. It's no use, Jo, he's got to learn that I'm able to take care of myself, and don't need anyone's apron string to hold on by. 'What pepper pots you are! sighed Jo. 'How do you mean to settle this affair? 'Well, he ought to beg pardon, and believe me when I say I can't tell him what the fuss's about. 'Bless you! He won't do that. 'I won't go down till he does. 'Now, Teddy, be sensible. Let it pass, and I'll explain what I can. You can't stay here, so what's the use of being melodramatic? 'I don't intend to stay here long, anyway. I'll slip off and take a journey somewhere, and when Grandpa misses me he'll come round fast enough. 'I dare say, but you ought not to go and worry him. 'Don't preach. I'll go to Washington and see Brooke. It's gay there, and I'll enjoy myself after the troubles. 'What fun you'd have! I wish I could run off too, said Jo, forgetting her part of mentor in lively visions of martial life at the capital. 'Come on, then! Why not? You go and surprise your father, and I'll stir up old Brooke. It would be a glorious joke. Let's do it, Jo. We'll leave a letter saying we are all right, and trot off at once. I've got money enough. It will do you good, and no harm, as you go to your father. For a moment Jo looked as if she would agree, for wild as the plan was, it just suited her. She was tired of care and confinement, longed for change, and thoughts of her father blended temptingly with the novel charms of camps and hospitals, liberty and fun. Her eyes kindled as they turned wistfully toward the window, but they fell on the old house opposite, and she shook her head with sorrowful decision. 'If I was a boy, we'd run away together, and have a capital time, but as I'm a miserable girl, I must be proper and stop at home. Don't tempt me, Teddy, it's a crazy plan. 'That's the fun of it, began Laurie, who had got a willful fit on him and was possessed to break out of bounds in some way. 'Hold your tongue! cried Jo, covering her ears. ''Prunes and prisms' are my doom, and I may as well make up my mind to it. I came here to moralize, not to hear things that make me skip to think of. 'I know Meg would wetblanket such a proposal, but I thought you had more spirit, began Laurie insinuatingly. 'Bad boy, be quiet! Sit down and think of your own sins, don't go making me add to mine. If I get your grandpa to apologize for the shaking, will you give up running away? asked Jo seriously. 'Yes, but you won't do it, answered Laurie, who wished to make up, but felt that his outraged dignity must be appeased first. 'If I can manage the young one, I can the old one, muttered Jo, as she walked away, leaving Laurie bent over a railroad map with his head propped up on both hands. 'Come in! and Mr. Laurence's gruff voice sounded gruffer than ever, as Jo tapped at his door. 'It's only me, Sir, come to return a book, she said blandly, as she entered. 'Want any more? asked the old gentleman, looking grim and vexed, but trying not to show it. 'Yes, please. I like old Sam so well, I think I'll try the second volume, returned Jo, hoping to propitiate him by accepting a second dose of Boswell's Johnson, as he had recommended that lively work. The shaggy eyebrows unbent a little as he rolled the steps toward the shelf where the Johnsonian literature was placed. Jo skipped up, and sitting on the top step, affected to be searching for her book, but was really wondering how best to introduce the dangerous object of her visit. Mr. Laurence seemed to suspect that something was brewing in her mind, for after taking several brisk turns about the room, he faced round on her, speaking so abruptly that Rasselas tumbled face downward on the floor. 'What has that boy been about? Don't try to shield him. I know he has been in mischief by the way he acted when he came home. I can't get a word from him, and when I threatened to shake the truth out of him he bolted upstairs and locked himself into his room. 'He did wrong, but we forgave him, and all promised not to say a word to anyone, began Jo reluctantly. 'That won't do. He shall not shelter himself behind a promise from you softhearted girls. If he's done anything amiss, he shall confess, beg pardon, and be punished. Out with it, Jo. I won't be kept in the dark. Mr. Laurence looked so alarming and spoke so sharply that Jo would have gladly run away, if she could, but she was perched aloft on the steps, and he stood at the foot, a lion in the path, so she had to stay and brave it out. 'Indeed, Sir, I cannot tell. Mother forbade it. Laurie has confessed, asked pardon, and been punished quite enough. We don't keep silence to shield him, but someone else, and it will make more trouble if you interfere. Please don't. It was partly my fault, but it's all right now. So let's forget it, and talk about the Rambler or something pleasant. 'Hang the Rambler! Come down and give me your word that this harumscarum boy of mine hasn't done anything ungrateful or impertinent. If he has, after all your kindness to him, I'll thrash him with my own hands. The threat sounded awful, but did not alarm Jo, for she knew the irascible old gentleman would never lift a finger against his grandson, whatever he might say to the contrary. She obediently descended, and made as light of the prank as she could without betraying Meg or forgetting the truth. 'Hum... ha... well, if the boy held his tongue because he promised, and not from obstinacy, I'll forgive him. He's a stubborn fellow and hard to manage, said Mr. Laurence, rubbing up his hair till it looked as if he had been out in a gale, and smoothing the frown from his brow with an air of relief. 'So am I, but a kind word will govern me when all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't, said Jo, trying to say a kind word for her friend, who seemed to get out of one scrape only to fall into another. 'You think I'm not kind to him, hey? was the sharp answer. 'Oh, dear no, Sir. You are rather too kind sometimes, and then just a trifle hasty when he tries your patience. Don't you think you are? Jo was determined to have it out now, and tried to look quite placid, though she quaked a little after her bold speech. To her great relief and surprise, the old gentleman only threw his spectacles onto the table with a rattle and exclaimed frankly, 'You're right, girl, I am! I love the boy, but he tries my patience past bearing, and I know how it will end, if we go on so. 'I'll tell you, he'll run away. Jo was sorry for that speech the minute it was made. She meant to warn him that Laurie would not bear much restraint, and hoped he would be more forebearing with the lad. Mr. Laurence's ruddy face changed suddenly, and he sat down, with a troubled glance at the picture of a handsome man, which hung over his table. It was Laurie's father, who had run away in his youth, and married against the imperious old man's will. Jo fancied he remembered and regretted the past, and she wished she had held her tongue. 'He won't do it unless he is very much worried, and only threatens it sometimes, when he gets tired of studying. I often think I should like to, especially since my hair was cut, so if you ever miss us, you may advertise for two boys and look among the ships bound for India. She laughed as she spoke, and Mr. Laurence looked relieved, evidently taking the whole as a joke. 'You hussy, how dare you talk in that way? Where's your respect for me, and your proper bringing up? Bless the boys and girls! What torments they are, yet we can't do without them, he said, pinching her cheeks goodhumoredly. 'Go and bring that boy down to his dinner, tell him it's all right, and advise him not to put on tragedy airs with his grandfather. I won't bear it. 'He won't come, Sir. He feels badly because you didn't believe him when he said he couldn't tell. I think the shaking hurt his feelings very much. Jo tried to look pathetic but must have failed, for Mr. Laurence began to laugh, and she knew the day was won. 'I'm sorry for that, and ought to thank him for not shaking me, I suppose. What the dickens does the fellow expect? and the old gentleman looked a trifle ashamed of his own testiness. 'If I were you, I'd write him an apology, Sir. He says he won't come down till he has one, and talks about Washington, and goes on in an absurd way. A formal apology will make him see how foolish he is, and bring him down quite amiable. Try it. He likes fun, and this way is better than talking. I'll carry it up, and teach him his duty. Mr. Laurence gave her a sharp look, and put on his spectacles, saying slowly, 'You're a sly puss, but I don't mind being managed by you and Beth. Here, give me a bit of paper, and let us have done with this nonsense. The note was written in the terms which one gentleman would use to another after offering some deep insult. Jo dropped a kiss on the top of Mr. Laurence's bald head, and ran up to slip the apology under Laurie's door, advising him through the keyhole to be submissive, decorous, and a few other agreeable impossibilities. Finding the door locked again, she left the note to do its work, and was going quietly away, when the young gentleman slid down the banisters, and waited for her at the bottom, saying, with his most virtuous expression of countenance, 'What a good fellow you are, Jo! Did you get blown up? he added, laughing. 'No, he was pretty mild, on the whole. 'Ah! I got it all round. Even you cast me off over there, and I felt just ready to go to the deuce, he began apologetically. 'Don't talk that way, turn over a new leaf and begin again, Teddy, my son. 'I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks, and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end, he said dolefully. 'Go and eat your dinner, you'll feel better after it. Men always croak when they are hungry, and Jo whisked out at the front door after that. 'That's a 'label' on my 'sect', answered Laurie, quoting Amy, as he went to partake of humble pie dutifully with his grandfather, who was quite saintly in temper and overwhelmingly respectful in manner all the rest of the day. Everyone thought the matter ended and the little cloud blown over, but the mischief was done, for though others forgot it, Meg remembered. She never alluded to a certain person, but she thought of him a good deal, dreamed dreams more than ever, and once Jo, rummaging her sister's desk for stamps, found a bit of paper scribbled over with the words, 'Mrs. John Brooke', whereat she groaned tragically and cast it into the fire, feeling that Laurie's prank had hastened the evil day for her. Like sunshine after a storm were the peaceful weeks which followed. The invalids improved rapidly, and Mr. March began to talk of returning early in the new year. Beth was soon able to lie on the study sofa all day, amusing herself with the wellbeloved cats at first, and in time with doll's sewing, which had fallen sadly behindhand. Her once active limbs were so stiff and feeble that Jo took her for a daily airing about the house in her strong arms. Meg cheerfully blackened and burned her white hands cooking delicate messes for 'the dear', while Amy, a loyal slave of the ring, celebrated her return by giving away as many of her treasures as she could prevail on her sisters to accept. As Christmas approached, the usual mysteries began to haunt the house, and Jo frequently convulsed the family by proposing utterly impossible or magnificently absurd ceremonies, in honor of this unusually merry Christmas. Laurie was equally impracticable, and would have had bonfires, skyrockets, and triumphal arches, if he had had his own way. After many skirmishes and snubbings, the ambitious pair were considered effectually quenched and went about with forlorn faces, which were rather belied by explosions of laughter when the two got together. Several days of unusually mild weather fitly ushered in a splendid Christmas Day. Hannah 'felt in her bones' that it was going to be an unusually fine day, and she proved herself a true prophetess, for everybody and everything seemed bound to produce a grand success. To begin with, Mr. March wrote that he should soon be with them, then Beth felt uncommonly well that morning, and, being dressed in her mother's gift, a soft crimson merino wrapper, was borne in high triumph to the window to behold the offering of Jo and Laurie. The Unquenchables had done their best to be worthy of the name, for like elves they had worked by night and conjured up a comical surprise. Out in the garden stood a stately snow maiden, crowned with holly, bearing a basket of fruit and flowers in one hand, a great roll of music in the other, a perfect rainbow of an Afghan round her chilly shoulders, and a Christmas carol issuing from her lips on a pink paper streamer. THE JUNGFRAU TO BETH God bless you, dear Queen Bess! May nothing you dismay, But health and peace and happiness Be yours, this Christmas day. Here's fruit to feed our busy bee, And flowers for her nose. Here's music for her pianee, An afghan for her toes, A portrait of Joanna, see, By Raphael No. , Who laboured with great industry To make it fair and true. Accept a ribbon red, I beg, For Madam Purrer's tail, And ice cream made by lovely Peg, A Mont Blanc in a pail. Their dearest love my makers laid Within my breast of snow. Accept it, and the Alpine maid, From Laurie and from Jo. How Beth laughed when she saw it, how Laurie ran up and down to bring in the gifts, and what ridiculous speeches Jo made as she presented them. 'I'm so full of happiness, that if Father was only here, I couldn't hold one drop more, said Beth, quite sighing with contentment as Jo carried her off to the study to rest after the excitement, and to refresh herself with some of the delicious grapes the 'Jungfrau' had sent her. 'So am I, added Jo, slapping the pocket wherein reposed the longdesired Undine and Sintram. 'I'm sure I am, echoed Amy, poring over the engraved copy of the Madonna and Child, which her mother had given her in a pretty frame. 'Of course I am! cried Meg, smoothing the silvery folds of her first silk dress, for Mr. Laurence had insisted on giving it. 'How can I be otherwise? said Mrs. March gratefully, as her eyes went from her husband's letter to Beth's smiling face, and her hand caressed the brooch made of gray and golden, chestnut and dark brown hair, which the girls had just fastened on her breast. Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort it is. Half an hour after everyone had said they were so happy they could only hold one drop more, the drop came. Laurie opened the parlor door and popped his head in very quietly. He might just as well have turned a somersault and uttered an Indian war whoop, for his face was so full of suppressed excitement and his voice so treacherously joyful that everyone jumped up, though he only said, in a queer, breathless voice, 'Here's another Christmas present for the March family. Before the words were well out of his mouth, he was whisked away somehow, and in his place appeared a tall man, muffled up to the eyes, leaning on the arm of another tall man, who tried to say something and couldn't. Of course there was a general stampede, and for several minutes everybody seemed to lose their wits, for the strangest things were done, and no one said a word. Mr. March became invisible in the embrace of four pairs of loving arms. Jo disgraced herself by nearly fainting away, and had to be doctored by Laurie in the china closet. Mr. Brooke kissed Meg entirely by mistake, as he somewhat incoherently explained. And Amy, the dignified, tumbled over a stool, and never stopping to get up, hugged and cried over her father's boots in the most touching manner. Mrs. March was the first to recover herself, and held up her hand with a warning, 'Hush! Remember Beth. But it was too late. The study door flew open, the little red wrapper appeared on the threshold, joy put strength into the feeble limbs, and Beth ran straight into her father's arms. Never mind what happened just after that, for the full hearts overflowed, washing away the bitterness of the past and leaving only the sweetness of the present. It was not at all romantic, but a hearty laugh set everybody straight again, for Hannah was discovered behind the door, sobbing over the fat turkey, which she had forgotten to put down when she rushed up from the kitchen. As the laugh subsided, Mrs. March began to thank Mr. Brooke for his faithful care of her husband, at which Mr. Brooke suddenly remembered that Mr. March needed rest, and seizing Laurie, he precipitately retired. Then the two invalids were ordered to repose, which they did, by both sitting in one big chair and talking hard. Mr. March told how he had longed to surprise them, and how, when the fine weather came, he had been allowed by his doctor to take advantage of it, how devoted Brooke had been, and how he was altogether a most estimable and upright young man. Why Mr. March paused a minute just there, and after a glance at Meg, who was violently poking the fire, looked at his wife with an inquiring lift of the eyebrows, I leave you to imagine. Also why Mrs. March gently nodded her head and asked, rather abruptly, if he wouldn't like to have something to eat. Jo saw and understood the look, and she stalked grimly away to get wine and beef tea, muttering to herself as she slammed the door, 'I hate estimable young men with brown eyes! There never was such a Christmas dinner as they had that day. The fat turkey was a sight to behold, when Hannah sent him up, stuffed, browned, and decorated. So was the plum pudding, which melted in one's mouth, likewise the jellies, in which Amy reveled like a fly in a honeypot. Everything turned out well, which was a mercy, Hannah said, 'For my mind was that flustered, Mum, that it's a merrycle I didn't roast the pudding, and stuff the turkey with raisins, let alone bilin' of it in a cloth. Mr. Laurence and his grandson dined with them, also Mr. Brooke, at whom Jo glowered darkly, to Laurie's infinite amusement. Two easy chairs stood side by side at the head of the table, in which sat Beth and her father, feasting modestly on chicken and a little fruit. They drank healths, told stories, sang songs, 'reminisced', as the old folks say, and had a thoroughly good time. A sleigh ride had been planned, but the girls would not leave their father, so the guests departed early, and as twilight gathered, the happy family sat together round the fire. 'Just a year ago we were groaning over the dismal Christmas we expected to have. Do you remember? asked Jo, breaking a short pause which had followed a long conversation about many things. 'Rather a pleasant year on the whole! said Meg, smiling at the fire, and congratulating herself on having treated Mr. Brooke with dignity. 'I think it's been a pretty hard one, observed Amy, watching the light shine on her ring with thoughtful eyes. 'I'm glad it's over, because we've got you back, whispered Beth, who sat on her father's knee. 'Rather a rough road for you to travel, my little pilgrims, especially the latter part of it. But you have got on bravely, and I think the burdens are in a fair way to tumble off very soon, said Mr. March, looking with fatherly satisfaction at the four young faces gathered round him. 'How do you know? Did Mother tell you? asked Jo. 'Not much. Straws show which way the wind blows, and I've made several discoveries today. 'Oh, tell us what they are! cried Meg, who sat beside him. 'Here is one. And taking up the hand which lay on the arm of his chair, he pointed to the roughened forefinger, a burn on the back, and two or three little hard spots on the palm. 'I remember a time when this hand was white and smooth, and your first care was to keep it so. It was very pretty then, but to me it is much prettier now, for in this seeming blemishes I read a little history. A burnt offering has been made to vanity, this hardened palm has earned something better than blisters, and I'm sure the sewing done by these pricked fingers will last a long time, so much good will went into the stitches. Meg, my dear, I value the womanly skill which keeps home happy more than white hands or fashionable accomplishments. I'm proud to shake this good, industrious little hand, and hope I shall not soon be asked to give it away. If Meg had wanted a reward for hours of patient labor, she received it in the hearty pressure of her father's hand and the approving smile he gave her. 'What about Jo? Please say something nice, for she has tried so hard and been so very, very good to me, said Beth in her father's ear. He laughed and looked across at the tall girl who sat opposite, with an unusually mild expression in her face. 'In spite of the curly crop, I don't see the 'son Jo' whom I left a year ago, said Mr. March. 'I see a young lady who pins her collar straight, laces her boots neatly, and neither whistles, talks slang, nor lies on the rug as she used to do. Her face is rather thin and pale just now, with watching and anxiety, but I like to look at it, for it has grown gentler, and her voice is lower. She doesn't bounce, but moves quietly, and takes care of a certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tenderhearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don't know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn't find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the fiveandtwenty dollars my good girl sent me. Jo's keen eyes were rather dim for a minute, and her thin face grew rosy in the firelight as she received her father's praise, feeling that she did deserve a portion of it. 'Now, Beth, said Amy, longing for her turn, but ready to wait. 'There's so little of her, I'm afraid to say much, for fear she will slip away altogether, though she is not so shy as she used to be, began their father cheerfully. But recollecting how nearly he had lost her, he held her close, saying tenderly, with her cheek against his own, 'I've got you safe, my Beth, and I'll keep you so, please God. After a minute's silence, he looked down at Amy, who sat on the cricket at his feet, and said, with a caress of the shining hair... 'I observed that Amy took drumsticks at dinner, ran errands for her mother all the afternoon, gave Meg her place tonight, and has waited on every one with patience and good humor. I also observe that she does not fret much nor look in the glass, and has not even mentioned a very pretty ring which she wears, so I conclude that she has learned to think of other people more and of herself less, and has decided to try and mold her character as carefully as she molds her little clay figures. I am glad of this, for though I should be very proud of a graceful statue made by her, I shall be infinitely prouder of a lovable daughter with a talent for making life beautiful to herself and others. 'What are you thinking of, Beth? asked Jo, when Amy had thanked her father and told about her ring. 'I read in Pilgrim's Progress today how, after many troubles, Christian and Hopeful came to a pleasant green meadow where lilies bloomed all year round, and there they rested happily, as we do now, before they went on to their journey's end, answered Beth, adding, as she slipped out of her father's arms and went to the instrument, 'It's singing time now, and I want to be in my old place. I'll try to sing the song of the shepherd boy which the Pilgrims heard. I made the music for Father, because he likes the verses. So, sitting at the dear little piano, Beth softly touched the keys, and in the sweet voice they had never thought to hear again, sang to her own accompaniment the quaint hymn, which was a singularly fitting song for her. He that is down need fear no fall, He that is low no pride. He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide. I am content with what I have, Little be it, or much. And, Lord! Contentment still I crave, Because Thou savest such. Fulness to them a burden is, That go on pilgrimage. Here little, and hereafter bliss, Is best from age to age! Like bees swarming after their queen, mother and daughters hovered about Mr. March the next day, neglecting everything to look at, wait upon, and listen to the new invalid, who was in a fair way to be killed by kindness. As he sat propped up in a big chair by Beth's sofa, with the other three close by, and Hannah popping in her head now and then 'to peek at the dear man', nothing seemed needed to complete their happiness. But something was needed, and the elder ones felt it, though none confessed the fact. Mr. and Mrs. March looked at one another with an anxious expression, as their eyes followed Meg. Jo had sudden fits of sobriety, and was seen to shake her fist at Mr. Brooke's umbrella, which had been left in the hall. Meg was absentminded, shy, and silent, started when the bell rang, and colored when John's name was mentioned. Amy said, 'Everyone seemed waiting for something, and couldn't settle down, which was queer, since Father was safe at home, and Beth innocently wondered why their neighbors didn't run over as usual. Laurie went by in the afternoon, and seeing Meg at the window, seemed suddenly possessed with a melodramatic fit, for he fell down on one knee in the snow, beat his breast, tore his hair, and clasped his hands imploringly, as if begging some boon. And when Meg told him to behave himself and go away, he wrung imaginary tears out of his handkerchief, and staggered round the corner as if in utter despair. 'What does the goose mean? said Meg, laughing and trying to look unconscious. 'He's showing you how your John will go on byandby. Touching, isn't it? answered Jo scornfully. 'Don't say my John, it isn't proper or true, but Meg's voice lingered over the words as if they sounded pleasant to her. 'Please don't plague me, Jo, I've told you I don't care much about him, and there isn't to be anything said, but we are all to be friendly, and go on as before. 'We can't, for something has been said, and Laurie's mischief has spoiled you for me. I see it, and so does Mother. You are not like your old self a bit, and seem ever so far away from me. I don't mean to plague you and will bear it like a man, but I do wish it was all settled. I hate to wait, so if you mean ever to do it, make haste and have it over quickly, said Jo pettishly. 'I can't say anything till he speaks, and he won't, because Father said I was too young, began Meg, bending over her work with a queer little smile, which suggested that she did not quite agree with her father on that point. 'If he did speak, you wouldn't know what to say, but would cry or blush, or let him have his own way, instead of giving a good, decided no. 'I'm not so silly and weak as you think. I know just what I should say, for I've planned it all, so I needn't be taken unawares. There's no knowing what may happen, and I wished to be prepared. Jo couldn't help smiling at the important air which Meg had unconsciously assumed and which was as becoming as the pretty color varying in her cheeks. 'Would you mind telling me what you'd say? asked Jo more respectfully. 'Not at all. You are sixteen now, quite old enough to be my confidant, and my experience will be useful to you byandby, perhaps, in your own affairs of this sort. 'Don't mean to have any. It's fun to watch other people philander, but I should feel like a fool doing it myself, said Jo, looking alarmed at the thought. 'I think not, if you liked anyone very much, and he liked you. Meg spoke as if to herself, and glanced out at the lane where she had often seen lovers walking together in the summer twilight. 'I thought you were going to tell your speech to that man, said Jo, rudely shortening her sister's little reverie. 'Oh, I should merely say, quite calmly and decidedly, 'Thank you, Mr. Brooke, you are very kind, but I agree with Father that I am too young to enter into any engagement at present, so please say no more, but let us be friends as we were.' 'Hum, that's stiff and cool enough! I don't believe you'll ever say it, and I know he won't be satisfied if you do. If he goes on like the rejected lovers in books, you'll give in, rather than hurt his feelings. 'No, I won't. I shall tell him I've made up my mind, and shall walk out of the room with dignity. Meg rose as she spoke, and was just going to rehearse the dignified exit, when a step in the hall made her fly into her seat and begin to sew as fast as if her life depended on finishing that particular seam in a given time. Jo smothered a laugh at the sudden change, and when someone gave a modest tap, opened the door with a grim aspect which was anything but hospitable. 'Good afternoon. I came to get my umbrella, that is, to see how your father finds himself today, said Mr. Brooke, getting a trifle confused as his eyes went from one telltale face to the other. 'It's very well, he's in the rack. I'll get him, and tell it you are here. And having jumbled her father and the umbrella well together in her reply, Jo slipped out of the room to give Meg a chance to make her speech and air her dignity. But the instant she vanished, Meg began to sidle toward the door, murmuring... 'Mother will like to see you. Pray sit down, I'll call her. 'Don't go. Are you afraid of me, Margaret? and Mr. Brooke looked so hurt that Meg thought she must have done something very rude. She blushed up to the little curls on her forehead, for he had never called her Margaret before, and she was surprised to find how natural and sweet it seemed to hear him say it. Anxious to appear friendly and at her ease, she put out her hand with a confiding gesture, and said gratefully... 'How can I be afraid when you have been so kind to Father? I only wish I could thank you for it. 'Shall I tell you how? asked Mr. Brooke, holding the small hand fast in both his own, and looking down at Meg with so much love in the brown eyes that her heart began to flutter, and she both longed to run away and to stop and listen. 'Oh no, please don't, I'd rather not, she said, trying to withdraw her hand, and looking frightened in spite of her denial. 'I won't trouble you. I only want to know if you care for me a little, Meg. I love you so much, dear, added Mr. Brooke tenderly. This was the moment for the calm, proper speech, but Meg didn't make it. She forgot every word of it, hung her head, and answered, 'I don't know, so softly that John had to stoop down to catch the foolish little reply. He seemed to think it was worth the trouble, for he smiled to himself as if quite satisfied, pressed the plump hand gratefully, and said in his most persuasive tone, 'Will you try and find out? I want to know so much, for I can't go to work with any heart until I learn whether I am to have my reward in the end or not. 'I'm too young, faltered Meg, wondering why she was so fluttered, yet rather enjoying it. 'I'll wait, and in the meantime, you could be learning to like me. Would it be a very hard lesson, dear? 'Not if I chose to learn it, but. . . 'Please choose to learn, Meg. I love to teach, and this is easier than German, broke in John, getting possession of the other hand, so that she had no way of hiding her face as he bent to look into it. His tone was properly beseeching, but stealing a shy look at him, Meg saw that his eyes were merry as well as tender, and that he wore the satisfied smile of one who had no doubt of his success. This nettled her. Annie Moffat's foolish lessons in coquetry came into her mind, and the love of power, which sleeps in the bosoms of the best of little women, woke up all of a sudden and took possession of her. She felt excited and strange, and not knowing what else to do, followed a capricious impulse, and, withdrawing her hands, said petulantly, 'I don't choose. Please go away and let me be! Poor Mr. Brooke looked as if his lovely castle in the air was tumbling about his ears, for he had never seen Meg in such a mood before, and it rather bewildered him. 'Do you really mean that? he asked anxiously, following her as she walked away. 'Yes, I do. I don't want to be worried about such things. Father says I needn't, it's too soon and I'd rather not. 'Mayn't I hope you'll change your mind byandby? I'll wait and say nothing till you have had more time. Don't play with me, Meg. I didn't think that of you. 'Don't think of me at all. I'd rather you wouldn't, said Meg, taking a naughty satisfaction in trying her lover's patience and her own power. He was grave and pale now, and looked decidedly more like the novel heroes whom she admired, but he neither slapped his forehead nor tramped about the room as they did. He just stood looking at her so wistfully, so tenderly, that she found her heart relenting in spite of herself. What would have happened next I cannot say, if Aunt March had not come hobbling in at this interesting minute. The old lady couldn't resist her longing to see her nephew, for she had met Laurie as she took her airing, and hearing of Mr. March's arrival, drove straight out to see him. The family were all busy in the back part of the house, and she had made her way quietly in, hoping to surprise them. She did surprise two of them so much that Meg started as if she had seen a ghost, and Mr. Brooke vanished into the study. 'Bless me, what's all this? cried the old lady with a rap of her cane as she glanced from the pale young gentleman to the scarlet young lady. 'It's Father's friend. I'm so surprised to see you! stammered Meg, feeling that she was in for a lecture now. 'That's evident, returned Aunt March, sitting down. 'But what is Father's friend saying to make you look like a peony? There's mischief going on, and I insist upon knowing what it is, with another rap. 'We were only talking. Mr. Brooke came for his umbrella, began Meg, wishing that Mr. Brooke and the umbrella were safely out of the house. 'Brooke? That boy's tutor? Ah! I understand now. I know all about it. Jo blundered into a wrong message in one of your Father's letters, and I made her tell me. You haven't gone and accepted him, child? cried Aunt March, looking scandalized. 'Hush! He'll hear. Shan't I call Mother? said Meg, much troubled. 'Not yet. I've something to say to you, and I must free my mind at once. Tell me, do you mean to marry this Cook? If you do, not one penny of my money ever goes to you. Remember that, and be a sensible girl, said the old lady impressively. Now Aunt March possessed in perfection the art of rousing the spirit of opposition in the gentlest people, and enjoyed doing it. The best of us have a spice of perversity in us, especially when we are young and in love. If Aunt March had begged Meg to accept John Brooke, she would probably have declared she couldn't think of it, but as she was preemptorily ordered not to like him, she immediately made up her mind that she would. Inclination as well as perversity made the decision easy, and being already much excited, Meg opposed the old lady with unusual spirit. 'I shall marry whom I please, Aunt March, and you can leave your money to anyone you like, she said, nodding her head with a resolute air. 'Hightytighty! Is that the way you take my advice, Miss? You'll be sorry for it byandby, when you've tried love in a cottage and found it a failure. 'It can't be a worse one than some people find in big houses, retorted Meg. Aunt March put on her glasses and took a look at the girl, for she did not know her in this new mood. Meg hardly knew herself, she felt so brave and independent, so glad to defend John and assert her right to love him, if she liked. Aunt March saw that she had begun wrong, and after a little pause, made a fresh start, saying as mildly as she could, 'Now, Meg, my dear, be reasonable and take my advice. I mean it kindly, and don't want you to spoil your whole life by making a mistake at the beginning. You ought to marry well and help your family. It's your duty to make a rich match and it ought to be impressed upon you. 'Father and Mother don't think so. They like John though he is poor. 'Your parents, my dear, have no more worldly wisdom than a pair of babies. 'I'm glad of it, cried Meg stoutly. Aunt March took no notice, but went on with her lecture. 'This Rook is poor and hasn't got any rich relations, has he? 'No, but he has many warm friends. 'You can't live on friends, try it and see how cool they'll grow. He hasn't any business, has he? 'Not yet. Mr. Laurence is going to help him. 'That won't last long. James Laurence is a crotchety old fellow and not to be depended on. So you intend to marry a man without money, position, or business, and go on working harder than you do now, when you might be comfortable all your days by minding me and doing better? I thought you had more sense, Meg. 'I couldn't do better if I waited half my life! John is good and wise, he's got heaps of talent, he's willing to work and sure to get on, he's so energetic and brave. Everyone likes and respects him, and I'm proud to think he cares for me, though I'm so poor and young and silly, said Meg, looking prettier than ever in her earnestness. 'He knows you have got rich relations, child. That's the secret of his liking, I suspect. 'Aunt March, how dare you say such a thing? John is above such meanness, and I won't listen to you a minute if you talk so, cried Meg indignantly, forgetting everything but the injustice of the old lady's suspicions. 'My John wouldn't marry for money, any more than I would. We are willing to work and we mean to wait. I'm not afraid of being poor, for I've been happy so far, and I know I shall be with him because he loves me, and I... Meg stopped there, remembering all of a sudden that she hadn't made up her mind, that she had told 'her John' to go away, and that he might be overhearing her inconsistent remarks. Aunt March was very angry, for she had set her heart on having her pretty niece make a fine match, and something in the girl's happy young face made the lonely old woman feel both sad and sour. 'Well, I wash my hands of the whole affair! You are a willful child, and you've lost more than you know by this piece of folly. No, I won't stop. I'm disappointed in you, and haven't spirits to see your father now. Don't expect anything from me when you are married. Your Mr. Brooke's friends must take care of you. I'm done with you forever. And slamming the door in Meg's face, Aunt March drove off in high dudgeon. She seemed to take all the girl's courage with her, for when left alone, Meg stood for a moment, undecided whether to laugh or cry. Before she could make up her mind, she was taken possession of by Mr. Brooke, who said all in one breath, 'I couldn't help hearing, Meg. Thank you for defending me, and Aunt March for proving that you do care for me a little bit. 'I didn't know how much till she abused you, began Meg. 'And I needn't go away, but may stay and be happy, may I, dear? Here was another fine chance to make the crushing speech and the stately exit, but Meg never thought of doing either, and disgraced herself forever in Jo's eyes by meekly whispering, 'Yes, John, and hiding her face on Mr. Brooke's waistcoat. Fifteen minutes after Aunt March's departure, Jo came softly downstairs, paused an instant at the parlor door, and hearing no sound within, nodded and smiled with a satisfied expression, saying to herself, 'She has seen him away as we planned, and that affair is settled. I'll go and hear the fun, and have a good laugh over it. But poor Jo never got her laugh, for she was transfixed upon the threshold by a spectacle which held her there, staring with her mouth nearly as wide open as her eyes. Going in to exult over a fallen enemy and to praise a strongminded sister for the banishment of an objectionable lover, it certainly was a shock to behold the aforesaid enemy serenely sitting on the sofa, with the strongminded sister enthroned upon his knee and wearing an expression of the most abject submission. Jo gave a sort of gasp, as if a cold shower bath had suddenly fallen upon her, for such an unexpected turning of the tables actually took her breath away. At the odd sound the lovers turned and saw her. Meg jumped up, looking both proud and shy, but 'that man', as Jo called him, actually laughed and said coolly, as he kissed the astonished newcomer, 'Sister Jo, congratulate us! That was adding insult to injury, it was altogether too much, and making some wild demonstration with her hands, Jo vanished without a word. Rushing upstairs, she startled the invalids by exclaiming tragically as she burst into the room, 'Oh, do somebody go down quick! John Brooke is acting dreadfully, and Meg likes it! Mr. and Mrs. March left the room with speed, and casting herself upon the bed, Jo cried and scolded tempestuously as she told the awful news to Beth and Amy. The little girls, however, considered it a most agreeable and interesting event, and Jo got little comfort from them, so she went up to her refuge in the garret, and confided her troubles to the rats. Nobody ever knew what went on in the parlor that afternoon, but a great deal of talking was done, and quiet Mr. Brooke astonished his friends by the eloquence and spirit with which he pleaded his suit, told his plans, and persuaded them to arrange everything just as he wanted it. The tea bell rang before he had finished describing the paradise which he meant to earn for Meg, and he proudly took her in to supper, both looking so happy that Jo hadn't the heart to be jealous or dismal. Amy was very much impressed by John's devotion and Meg's dignity, Beth beamed at them from a distance, while Mr. and Mrs. March surveyed the young couple with such tender satisfaction that it was perfectly evident Aunt March was right in calling them as 'unworldly as a pair of babies'. No one ate much, but everyone looked very happy, and the old room seemed to brighten up amazingly when the first romance of the family began there. 'You can't say nothing pleasant ever happens now, can you, Meg? said Amy, trying to decide how she would group the lovers in a sketch she was planning to make. 'No, I'm sure I can't. How much has happened since I said that! It seems a year ago, answered Meg, who was in a blissful dream lifted far above such common things as bread and butter. 'The joys come close upon the sorrows this time, and I rather think the changes have begun, said Mrs. March. 'In most families there comes, now and then, a year full of events. This has been such a one, but it ends well, after all. 'Hope the next will end better, muttered Jo, who found it very hard to see Meg absorbed in a stranger before her face, for Jo loved a few persons very dearly and dreaded to have their affection lost or lessened in any way. 'I hope the third year from this will end better. I mean it shall, if I live to work out my plans, said Mr. Brooke, smiling at Meg, as if everything had become possible to him now. 'Doesn't it seem very long to wait? asked Amy, who was in a hurry for the wedding. 'I've got so much to learn before I shall be ready, it seems a short time to me, answered Meg, with a sweet gravity in her face never seen there before. 'You have only to wait, I am to do the work, said John beginning his labors by picking up Meg's napkin, with an expression which caused Jo to shake her head, and then say to herself with an air of relief as the front door banged, 'Here comes Laurie. Now we shall have some sensible conversation. But Jo was mistaken, for Laurie came prancing in, overflowing with good spirits, bearing a great bridallooking bouquet for 'Mrs. John Brooke', and evidently laboring under the delusion that the whole affair had been brought about by his excellent management. 'I knew Brooke would have it all his own way, he always does, for when he makes up his mind to accomplish anything, it's done though the sky falls, said Laurie, when he had presented his offering and his congratulations. 'Much obliged for that recommendation. I take it as a good omen for the future and invite you to my wedding on the spot, answered Mr. Brooke, who felt at peace with all mankind, even his mischievous pupil. 'I'll come if I'm at the ends of the earth, for the sight of Jo's face alone on that occasion would be worth a long journey. You don't look festive, ma'am, what's the matter? asked Laurie, following her into a corner of the parlor, whither all had adjourned to greet Mr. Laurence. 'I don't approve of the match, but I've made up my mind to bear it, and shall not say a word against it, said Jo solemnly. 'You can't know how hard it is for me to give up Meg, she continued with a little quiver in her voice. 'You don't give her up. You only go halves, said Laurie consolingly. 'It can never be the same again. I've lost my dearest friend, sighed Jo. 'You've got me, anyhow. I'm not good for much, I know, but I'll stand by you, Jo, all the days of my life. Upon my word I will! and Laurie meant what he said. 'I know you will, and I'm ever so much obliged. You are always a great comfort to me, Teddy, returned Jo, gratefully shaking hands. 'Well, now, don't be dismal, there's a good fellow. It's all right you see. Meg is happy, Brooke will fly round and get settled immediately, Grandpa will attend to him, and it will be very jolly to see Meg in her own little house. We'll have capital times after she is gone, for I shall be through college before long, and then we'll go abroad on some nice trip or other. Wouldn't that console you? 'I rather think it would, but there's no knowing what may happen in three years, said Jo thoughtfully. 'That's true. Don't you wish you could take a look forward and see where we shall all be then? I do, returned Laurie. 'I think not, for I might see something sad, and everyone looks so happy now, I don't believe they could be much improved. And Jo's eyes went slowly round the room, brightening as they looked, for the prospect was a pleasant one. Father and Mother sat together, quietly reliving the first chapter of the romance which for them began some twenty years ago. Amy was drawing the lovers, who sat apart in a beautiful world of their own, the light of which touched their faces with a grace the little artist could not copy. Beth lay on her sofa, talking cheerily with her old friend, who held her little hand as if he felt that it possessed the power to lead him along the peaceful way she walked. Jo lounged in her favorite low seat, with the grave quiet look which best became her, and Laurie, leaning on the back of her chair, his chin on a level with her curly head, smiled with his friendliest aspect, and nodded at her in the long glass which reflected them both. So the curtain falls upon Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Whether it ever rises again, depends upon the reception given the first act of the domestic drama called Little Women. In order that we may start afresh and go to Meg's wedding... In order that we may start afresh and go to Meg's wedding with free minds, it will be well to begin with a little gossip about the Marches. And here let me premise that if any of the elders think there is too much 'lovering' in the story, as I fear they may (I'm not afraid the young folks will make that objection), I can only say with Mrs. March, 'What can you expect when I have four gay girls in the house, and a dashing young neighbor over the way? The three years that have passed have brought but few changes to the quiet family. The war is over, and Mr. March safely at home, busy with his books and the small parish which found in him a minister by nature as by grace, a quiet, studious man, rich in the wisdom that is better than learning, the charity which calls all mankind 'brother', the piety that blossoms into character, making it august and lovely. These attributes, in spite of poverty and the strict integrity which shut him out from the more worldly successes, attracted to him many admirable persons, as naturally as sweet herbs draw bees, and as naturally he gave them the honey into which fifty years of hard experience had distilled no bitter drop. Earnest young men found the grayheaded scholar as young at heart as they thoughtful or troubled women instinctively brought their doubts to him, sure of finding the gentlest sympathy, the wisest counsel. Sinners told their sins to the purehearted old man and were both rebuked and saved. Gifted men found a companion in him. Ambitious men caught glimpses of nobler ambitions than their own, and even worldlings confessed that his beliefs were beautiful and true, although 'they wouldn't pay'. To outsiders the five energetic women seemed to rule the house, and so they did in many things, but the quiet scholar, sitting among his books, was still the head of the family, the household conscience, anchor, and comforter, for to him the busy, anxious women always turned in troublous times, finding him, in the truest sense of those sacred words, husband and father. The girls gave their hearts into their mother's keeping, their souls into their father's, and to both parents, who lived and labored so faithfully for them, they gave a love that grew with their growth and bound them tenderly together by the sweetest tie which blesses life and outlives death. Mrs. March is as brisk and cheery, though rather grayer, than when we saw her last, and just now so absorbed in Meg's affairs that the hospitals and homes still full of wounded 'boys' and soldiers' widows, decidedly miss the motherly missionary's visits. John Brooke did his duty manfully for a year, got wounded, was sent home, and not allowed to return. He received no stars or bars, but he deserved them, for he cheerfully risked all he had, and life and love are very precious when both are in full bloom. Perfectly resigned to his discharge, he devoted himself to getting well, preparing for business, and earning a home for Meg. With the good sense and sturdy independence that characterized him, he refused Mr. Laurence's more generous offers, and accepted the place of bookkeeper, feeling better satisfied to begin with an honestly earned salary than by running any risks with borrowed money. Meg had spent the time in working as well as waiting, growing womanly in character, wise in housewifely arts, and prettier than ever, for love is a great beautifier. She had her girlish ambitions and hopes, and felt some disappointment at the humble way in which the new life must begin. Ned Moffat had just married Sallie Gardiner, and Meg couldn't help contrasting their fine house and carriage, many gifts, and splendid outfit with her own, and secretly wishing she could have the same. But somehow envy and discontent soon vanished when she thought of all the patient love and labor John had put into the little home awaiting her, and when they sat together in the twilight, talking over their small plans, the future always grew so beautiful and bright that she forgot Sallie's splendor and felt herself the richest, happiest girl in Christendom. Jo never went back to Aunt March, for the old lady took such a fancy to Amy that she bribed her with the offer of drawing lessons from one of the best teachers going, and for the sake of this advantage, Amy would have served a far harder mistress. So she gave her mornings to duty, her afternoons to pleasure, and prospered finely. Jo meantime devoted herself to literature and Beth, who remained delicate long after the fever was a thing of the past. Not an invalid exactly, but never again the rosy, healthy creature she had been, yet always hopeful, happy, and serene, and busy with the quiet duties she loved, everyone's friend, and an angel in the house, long before those who loved her most had learned to know it. As long as The Spread Eagle paid her a dollar a column for her 'rubbish', as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of means, and spun her little romances diligently. But great plans fermented in her busy brain and ambitious mind, and the old tin kitchen in the garret held a slowly increasing pile of blotted manuscript, which was one day to place the name of March upon the roll of fame. Laurie, having dutifully gone to college to please his grandfather, was now getting through it in the easiest possible manner to please himself. A universal favorite, thanks to money, manners, much talent, and the kindest heart that ever got its owner into scrapes by trying to get other people out of them, he stood in great danger of being spoiled, and probably would have been, like many another promising boy, if he had not possessed a talisman against evil in the memory of the kind old man who was bound up in his success, the motherly friend who watched over him as if he were her son, and last, but not least by any means, the knowledge that four innocent girls loved, admired, and believed in him with all their hearts. Being only 'a glorious human boy', of course he frolicked and flirted, grew dandified, aquatic, sentimental, or gymnastic, as college fashions ordained, hazed and was hazed, talked slang, and more than once came perilously near suspension and expulsion. But as high spirits and the love of fun were the causes of these pranks, he always managed to save himself by frank confession, honorable atonement, or the irresistible power of persuasion which he possessed in perfection. In fact, he rather prided himself on his narrow escapes, and liked to thrill the girls with graphic accounts of his triumphs over wrathful tutors, dignified professors, and vanquished enemies. The 'men of my class', were heroes in the eyes of the girls, who never wearied of the exploits of 'our fellows', and were frequently allowed to bask in the smiles of these great creatures, when Laurie brought them home with him. Amy especially enjoyed this high honor, and became quite a belle among them, for her ladyship early felt and learned to use the gift of fascination with which she was endowed. Meg was too much absorbed in her private and particular John to care for any other lords of creation, and Beth too shy to do more than peep at them and wonder how Amy dared to order them about so, but Jo felt quite in her own element, and found it very difficult to refrain from imitating the gentlemanly attitudes, phrases, and feats, which seemed more natural to her than the decorums prescribed for young ladies. They all liked Jo immensely, but never fell in love with her, though very few escaped without paying the tribute of a sentimental sigh or two at Amy's shrine. And speaking of sentiment brings us very naturally to the 'Dovecote'. That was the name of the little brown house Mr. Brooke had prepared for Meg's first home. Laurie had christened it, saying it was highly appropriate to the gentle lovers who 'went on together like a pair of turtledoves, with first a bill and then a coo'. It was a tiny house, with a little garden behind and a lawn about as big as a pocket handkerchief in the front. Here Meg meant to have a fountain, shrubbery, and a profusion of lovely flowers, though just at present the fountain was represented by a weatherbeaten urn, very like a dilapidated slopbowl, the shrubbery consisted of several young larches, undecided whether to live or die, and the profusion of flowers was merely hinted by regiments of sticks to show where seeds were planted. But inside, it was altogether charming, and the happy bride saw no fault from garret to cellar. To be sure, the hall was so narrow it was fortunate that they had no piano, for one never could have been got in whole, the dining room was so small that six people were a tight fit, and the kitchen stairs seemed built for the express purpose of precipitating both servants and china pellmell into the coalbin. But once get used to these slight blemishes and nothing could be more complete, for good sense and good taste had presided over the furnishing, and the result was highly satisfactory. There were no marbletopped tables, long mirrors, or lace curtains in the little parlor, but simple furniture, plenty of books, a fine picture or two, a stand of flowers in the bay window, and, scattered all about, the pretty gifts which came from friendly hands and were the fairer for the loving messages they brought. I don't think the Parian Psyche Laurie gave lost any of its beauty because John put up the bracket it stood upon, that any upholsterer could have draped the plain muslin curtains more gracefully than Amy's artistic hand, or that any storeroom was ever better provided with good wishes, merry words, and happy hopes than that in which Jo and her mother put away Meg's few boxes, barrels, and bundles, and I am morally certain that the spandy new kitchen never could have looked so cozy and neat if Hannah had not arranged every pot and pan a dozen times over, and laid the fire all ready for lighting the minute 'Mis. Brooke came home'. I also doubt if any young matron ever began life with so rich a supply of dusters, holders, and piece bags, for Beth made enough to last till the silver wedding came round, and invented three different kinds of dishcloths for the express service of the bridal china. People who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small nest, from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table, was eloquent of home love and tender forethought. What happy times they had planning together, what solemn shopping excursions, what funny mistakes they made, and what shouts of laughter arose over Laurie's ridiculous bargains. In his love of jokes, this young gentleman, though nearly through college, was a much of a boy as ever. His last whim had been to bring with him on his weekly visits some new, useful, and ingenious article for the young housekeeper. Now a bag of remarkable clothespins, next, a wonderful nutmeg grater which fell to pieces at the first trial, a knife cleaner that spoiled all the knives, or a sweeper that picked the nap neatly off the carpet and left the dirt, laborsaving soap that took the skin off one's hands, infallible cements which stuck firmly to nothing but the fingers of the deluded buyer, and every kind of tinware, from a toy savings bank for odd pennies, to a wonderful boiler which would wash articles in its own steam with every prospect of exploding in the process. In vain Meg begged him to stop. John laughed at him, and Jo called him 'Mr. Toodles'. He was possessed with a mania for patronizing Yankee ingenuity, and seeing his friends fitly furnished forth. So each week beheld some fresh absurdity. Everything was done at last, even to Amy's arranging different colored soaps to match the different colored rooms, and Beth's setting the table for the first meal. 'Are you satisfied? Does it seem like home, and do you feel as if you should be happy here? asked Mrs. March, as she and her daughter went through the new kingdom arm in arm, for just then they seemed to cling together more tenderly than ever. 'Yes, Mother, perfectly satisfied, thanks to you all, and so happy that I can't talk about it, with a look that was far better than words. 'If she only had a servant or two it would be all right, said Amy, coming out of the parlor, where she had been trying to decide whether the bronze Mercury looked best on the whatnot or the mantlepiece. 'Mother and I have talked that over, and I have made up my mind to try her way first. There will be so little to do that with Lotty to run my errands and help me here and there, I shall only have enough work to keep me from getting lazy or homesick, answered Meg tranquilly. 'Sallie Moffat has four, began Amy. 'If Meg had four, the house wouldn't hold them, and master and missis would have to camp in the garden, broke in Jo, who, enveloped in a big blue pinafore, was giving the last polish to the door handles. 'Sallie isn't a poor man's wife, and many maids are in keeping with her fine establishment. Meg and John begin humbly, but I have a feeling that there will be quite as much happiness in the little house as in the big one. It's a great mistake for young girls like Meg to leave themselves nothing to do but dress, give orders, and gossip. When I was first married, I used to long for my new clothes to wear out or get torn, so that I might have the pleasure of mending them, for I got heartily sick of doing fancywork and tending my pocket handkerchief. 'Why didn't you go into the kitchen and make messes, as Sallie says she does to amuse herself, though they never turn out well and the servants laugh at her, said Meg. 'I did after a while, not to 'mess' but to learn of Hannah how things should be done, that my servants need not laugh at me. It was play then, but there came a time when I was truly grateful that I not only possessed the will but the power to cook wholesome food for my little girls, and help myself when I could no longer afford to hire help. You begin at the other end, Meg, dear, but the lessons you learn now will be of use to you byandby when John is a richer man, for the mistress of a house, however splendid, should know how work ought to be done, if she wishes to be well and honestly served. 'Yes, Mother, I'm sure of that, said Meg, listening respectfully to the little lecture, for the best of women will hold forth upon the all absorbing subject of house keeping. 'Do you know I like this room most of all in my baby house, added Meg, a minute after, as they went upstairs and she looked into her wellstored linen closet. Beth was there, laying the snowy piles smoothly on the shelves and exulting over the goodly array. All three laughed as Meg spoke, for that linen closet was a joke. You see, having said that if Meg married 'that Brooke' she shouldn't have a cent of her money, Aunt March was rather in a quandary when time had appeased her wrath and made her repent her vow. She never broke her word, and was much exercised in her mind how to get round it, and at last devised a plan whereby she could satisfy herself. Mrs. Carrol, Florence's mamma, was ordered to buy, have made, and marked a generous supply of house and table linen, and send it as her present, all of which was faithfully done, but the secret leaked out, and was greatly enjoyed by the family, for Aunt March tried to look utterly unconscious, and insisted that she could give nothing but the oldfashioned pearls long promised to the first bride. 'That's a housewifely taste which I am glad to see. I had a young friend who set up housekeeping with six sheets, but she had finger bowls for company and that satisfied her, said Mrs. March, patting the damask tablecloths, with a truly feminine appreciation of their fineness. 'I haven't a single finger bowl, but this is a setout that will last me all my days, Hannah says. And Meg looked quite contented, as well she might. A tall, broadshouldered young fellow, with a cropped head, a felt basin of a hat, and a flyaway coat, came tramping down the road at a great pace, walked over the low fence without stopping to open the gate, straight up to Mrs. March, with both hands out and a hearty... 'Here I am, Mother! Yes, it's all right. The last words were in answer to the look the elder lady gave him, a kindly questioning look which the handsome eyes met so frankly that the little ceremony closed, as usual, with a motherly kiss. 'For Mrs. John Brooke, with the maker's congratulations and compliments. Bless you, Beth! What a refreshing spectacle you are, Jo. Amy, you are getting altogether too handsome for a single lady. As Laurie spoke, he delivered a brown paper parcel to Meg, pulled Beth's hair ribbon, stared at Jo's big pinafore, and fell into an attitude of mock rapture before Amy, then shook hands all round, and everyone began to talk. 'Where is John? asked Meg anxiously. 'Stopped to get the license for tomorrow, ma'am. 'Which side won the last match, Teddy? inquired Jo, who persisted in feeling an interest in manly sports despite her nineteen years. 'Ours, of course. Wish you'd been there to see. 'How is the lovely Miss Randal? asked Amy with a significant smile. 'More cruel than ever. Don't you see how I'm pining away? and Laurie gave his broad chest a sounding slap and heaved a melodramatic sigh. 'What's the last joke? Undo the bundle and see, Meg, said Beth, eying the knobby parcel with curiosity. 'It's a useful thing to have in the house in case of fire or thieves, observed Laurie, as a watchman's rattle appeared, amid the laughter of the girls. 'Any time when John is away and you get frightened, Mrs. Meg, just swing that out of the front window, and it will rouse the neighborhood in a jiffy. Nice thing, isn't it? and Laurie gave them a sample of its powers that made them cover up their ears. 'There's gratitude for you! And speaking of gratitude reminds me to mention that you may thank Hannah for saving your wedding cake from destruction. I saw it going into your house as I came by, and if she hadn't defended it manfully I'd have had a pick at it, for it looked like a remarkably plummy one. 'I wonder if you will ever grow up, Laurie, said Meg in a matronly tone. 'I'm doing my best, ma'am, but can't get much higher, I'm afraid, as six feet is about all men can do in these degenerate days, responded the young gentleman, whose head was about level with the little chandelier. 'I suppose it would be profanation to eat anything in this spickandspan bower, so as I'm tremendously hungry, I propose an adjournment, he added presently. 'Mother and I are going to wait for John. There are some last things to settle, said Meg, bustling away. 'Beth and I are going over to Kitty Bryant's to get more flowers for tomorrow, added Amy, tying a picturesque hat over her picturesque curls, and enjoying the effect as much as anybody. 'Come, Jo, don't desert a fellow. I'm in such a state of exhaustion I can't get home without help. Don't take off your apron, whatever you do, it's peculiarly becoming, said Laurie, as Jo bestowed his especial aversion in her capacious pocket and offered her arm to support his feeble steps. 'Now, Teddy, I want to talk seriously to you about tomorrow, began Jo, as they strolled away together. 'You must promise to behave well, and not cut up any pranks, and spoil our plans. 'Not a prank. 'And don't say funny things when we ought to be sober. 'I never do. You are the one for that. 'And I implore you not to look at me during the ceremony. I shall certainly laugh if you do. 'You won't see me, you'll be crying so hard that the thick fog round you will obscure the prospect. 'I never cry unless for some great affliction. 'Such as fellows going to college, hey? cut in Laurie, with suggestive laugh. 'Don't be a peacock. I only moaned a trifle to keep the girls company. 'Exactly. I say, Jo, how is Grandpa this week? Pretty amiable? 'Very. Why, have you got into a scrape and want to know how he'll take it? asked Jo rather sharply. 'Now, Jo, do you think I'd look your mother in the face and say 'All right', if it wasn't? and Laurie stopped short, with an injured air. 'No, I don't. 'Then don't go and be suspicious. I only want some money, said Laurie, walking on again, appeased by her hearty tone. 'You spend a great deal, Teddy. 'Bless you, I don't spend it, it spends itself somehow, and is gone before I know it. 'You are so generous and kindhearted that you let people borrow, and can't say 'No' to anyone. We heard about Henshaw and all you did for him. If you always spent money in that way, no one would blame you, said Jo warmly. 'Oh, he made a mountain out of a molehill. You wouldn't have me let that fine fellow work himself to death just for want of a little help, when he is worth a dozen of us lazy chaps, would you? 'Of course not, but I don't see the use of your having seventeen waistcoats, endless neckties, and a new hat every time you come home. I thought you'd got over the dandy period, but every now and then it breaks out in a new spot. Just now it's the fashion to be hideous, to make your head look like a scrubbing brush, wear a strait jacket, orange gloves, and clumping squaretoed boots. If it was cheap ugliness, I'd say nothing, but it costs as much as the other, and I don't get any satisfaction out of it. Laurie threw back his head, and laughed so heartily at this attack, that the felt hat fell off, and Jo walked on it, which insult only afforded him an opportunity for expatiating on the advantages of a roughandready costume, as he folded up the maltreated hat, and stuffed it into his pocket. 'Don't lecture any more, there's a good soul! I have enough all through the week, and like to enjoy myself when I come home. I'll get myself up regardless of expense tomorrow and be a satisfaction to my friends. 'I'll leave you in peace if you'll only let your hair grow. I'm not aristocratic, but I do object to being seen with a person who looks like a young prize fighter, observed Jo severely. 'This unassuming style promotes study, that's why we adopt it, returned Laurie, who certainly could not be accused of vanity, having voluntarily sacrificed a handsome curly crop to the demand for quarterinchlong stubble. 'By the way, Jo, I think that little Parker is really getting desperate about Amy. He talks of her constantly, writes poetry, and moons about in a most suspicious manner. He'd better nip his little passion in the bud, hadn't he? added Laurie, in a confidential, elder brotherly tone, after a minute's silence. 'Of course he had. We don't want any more marrying in this family for years to come. Mercy on us, what are the children thinking of? and Jo looked as much scandalized as if Amy and little Parker were not yet in their teens. 'It's a fast age, and I don't know what we are coming to, ma'am. You are a mere infant, but you'll go next, Jo, and we'll be left lamenting, said Laurie, shaking his head over the degeneracy of the times. 'Don't be alarmed. I'm not one of the agreeable sort. Nobody will want me, and it's a mercy, for there should always be one old maid in a family. 'You won't give anyone a chance, said Laurie, with a sidelong glance and a little more color than before in his sunburned face. 'You won't show the soft side of your character, and if a fellow gets a peep at it by accident and can't help showing that he likes it, you treat him as Mrs. Gummidge did her sweetheart, throw cold water over him, and get so thorny no one dares touch or look at you. 'I don't like that sort of thing. I'm too busy to be worried with nonsense, and I think it's dreadful to break up families so. Now don't say any more about it. Meg's wedding has turned all our heads, and we talk of nothing but lovers and such absurdities. I don't wish to get cross, so let's change the subject and Jo looked quite ready to fling cold water on the slightest provocation. Whatever his feelings might have been, Laurie found a vent for them in a long low whistle and the fearful prediction as they parted at the gate, 'Mark my words, Jo, you'll go next. The June roses over the porch were awake bright and early on that morning, rejoicing with all their hearts in the cloudless sunshine, like friendly little neighbors, as they were. Quite flushed with excitement were their ruddy faces, as they swung in the wind, whispering to one another what they had seen, for some peeped in at the dining room windows where the feast was spread, some climbed up to nod and smile at the sisters as they dressed the bride, others waved a welcome to those who came and went on various errands in garden, porch, and hall, and all, from the rosiest fullblown flower to the palest baby bud, offered their tribute of beauty and fragrance to the gentle mistress who had loved and tended them so long. Meg looked very like a rose herself, for all that was best and sweetest in heart and soul seemed to bloom into her face that day, making it fair and tender, with a charm more beautiful than beauty. Neither silk, lace, nor orange flowers would she have. 'I don't want a fashionable wedding, but only those about me whom I love, and to them I wish to look and be my familiar self. So she made her wedding gown herself, sewing into it the tender hopes and innocent romances of a girlish heart. Her sisters braided up her pretty hair, and the only ornaments she wore were the lilies of the valley, which 'her John' liked best of all the flowers that grew. 'You do look just like our own dear Meg, only so very sweet and lovely that I should hug you if it wouldn't crumple your dress, cried Amy, surveying her with delight when all was done. 'Then I am satisfied. But please hug and kiss me, everyone, and don't mind my dress. I want a great many crumples of this sort put into it today, and Meg opened her arms to her sisters, who clung about her with April faces for a minute, feeling that the new love had not changed the old. 'Now I'm going to tie John's cravat for him, and then to stay a few minutes with Father quietly in the study, and Meg ran down to perform these little ceremonies, and then to follow her mother wherever she went, conscious that in spite of the smiles on the motherly face, there was a secret sorrow hid in the motherly heart at the flight of the first bird from the nest. As the younger girls stand together, giving the last touches to their simple toilet, it may be a good time to tell of a few changes which three years have wrought in their appearance, for all are looking their best just now. Jo's angles are much softened, she has learned to carry herself with ease, if not grace. The curly crop has lengthened into a thick coil, more becoming to the small head atop of the tall figure. There is a fresh color in her brown cheeks, a soft shine in her eyes, and only gentle words fall from her sharp tongue today. Beth has grown slender, pale, and more quiet than ever. The beautiful, kind eyes are larger, and in them lies an expression that saddens one, although it is not sad itself. It is the shadow of pain which touches the young face with such pathetic patience, but Beth seldom complains and always speaks hopefully of 'being better soon'. Amy is with truth considered 'the flower of the family', for at sixteen she has the air and bearing of a fullgrown woman, not beautiful, but possessed of that indescribable charm called grace. One saw it in the lines of her figure, the make and motion of her hands, the flow of her dress, the droop of her hair, unconscious yet harmonious, and as attractive to many as beauty itself. Amy's nose still afflicted her, for it never would grow Grecian, so did her mouth, being too wide, and having a decided chin. These offending features gave character to her whole face, but she never could see it, and consoled herself with her wonderfully fair complexion, keen blue eyes, and curls more golden and abundant than ever. All three wore suits of thin silver gray (their best gowns for the summer), with blush roses in hair and bosom, and all three looked just what they were, freshfaced, happyhearted girls, pausing a moment in their busy lives to read with wistful eyes the sweetest chapter in the romance of womanhood. There were to be no ceremonious performances, everything was to be as natural and homelike as possible, so when Aunt March arrived, she was scandalized to see the bride come running to welcome and lead her in, to find the bridegroom fastening up a garland that had fallen down, and to catch a glimpse of the paternal minister marching upstairs with a grave countenance and a wine bottle under each arm. 'Upon my word, here's a state of things! cried the old lady, taking the seat of honor prepared for her, and settling the folds of her lavender moire with a great rustle. 'You oughtn't to be seen till the last minute, child. 'I'm not a show, Aunty, and no one is coming to stare at me, to criticize my dress, or count the cost of my luncheon. I'm too happy to care what anyone says or thinks, and I'm going to have my little wedding just as I like it. John, dear, here's your hammer. And away went Meg to help 'that man' in his highly improper employment. Mr. Brooke didn't even say, 'Thank you, but as he stooped for the unromantic tool, he kissed his little bride behind the folding door, with a look that made Aunt March whisk out her pocket handkerchief with a sudden dew in her sharp old eyes. A crash, a cry, and a laugh from Laurie, accompanied by the indecorous exclamation, 'Jupiter Ammon! Jo's upset the cake again! caused a momentary flurry, which was hardly over when a flock of cousins arrived, and 'the party came in', as Beth used to say when a child. 'Don't let that young giant come near me, he worries me worse than mosquitoes, whispered the old lady to Amy, as the rooms filled and Laurie's black head towered above the rest. 'He has promised to be very good today, and he can be perfectly elegant if he likes, returned Amy, and gliding away to warn Hercules to beware of the dragon, which warning caused him to haunt the old lady with a devotion that nearly distracted her. There was no bridal procession, but a sudden silence fell upon the room as Mr. March and the young couple took their places under the green arch. Mother and sisters gathered close, as if loath to give Meg up. The fatherly voice broke more than once, which only seemed to make the service more beautiful and solemn. The bridegroom's hand trembled visibly, and no one heard his replies. But Meg looked straight up in her husband's eyes, and said, 'I will! with such tender trust in her own face and voice that her mother's heart rejoiced and Aunt March sniffed audibly. Jo did not cry, though she was very near it once, and was only saved from a demonstration by the consciousness that Laurie was staring fixedly at her, with a comical mixture of merriment and emotion in his wicked black eyes. Beth kept her face hidden on her mother's shoulder, but Amy stood like a graceful statue, with a most becoming ray of sunshine touching her white forehead and the flower in her hair. It wasn't at all the thing, I'm afraid, but the minute she was fairly married, Meg cried, 'The first kiss for Marmee! and turning, gave it with her heart on her lips. During the next fifteen minutes she looked more like a rose than ever, for everyone availed themselves of their privileges to the fullest extent, from Mr. Laurence to old Hannah, who, adorned with a headdress fearfully and wonderfully made, fell upon her in the hall, crying with a sob and a chuckle, 'Bless you, deary, a hundred times! The cake ain't hurt a mite, and everything looks lovely. Everybody cleared up after that, and said something brilliant, or tried to, which did just as well, for laughter is ready when hearts are light. There was no display of gifts, for they were already in the little house, nor was there an elaborate breakfast, but a plentiful lunch of cake and fruit, dressed with flowers. Mr. Laurence and Aunt March shrugged and smiled at one another when water, lemonade, and coffee were found to be to only sorts of nectar which the three Hebes carried round. No one said anything, till Laurie, who insisted on serving the bride, appeared before her, with a loaded salver in his hand and a puzzled expression on his face. 'Has Jo smashed all the bottles by accident? he whispered, 'or am I merely laboring under a delusion that I saw some lying about loose this morning? 'No, your grandfather kindly offered us his best, and Aunt March actually sent some, but Father put away a little for Beth, and dispatched the rest to the Soldier's Home. You know he thinks that wine should be used only in illness, and Mother says that neither she nor her daughters will ever offer it to any young man under her roof. Meg spoke seriously and expected to see Laurie frown or laugh, but he did neither, for after a quick look at her, he said, in his impetuous way, 'I like that! For I've seen enough harm done to wish other women would think as you do. 'You are not made wise by experience, I hope? and there was an anxious accent in Meg's voice. 'No. I give you my word for it. Don't think too well of me, either, this is not one of my temptations. Being brought up where wine is as common as water and almost as harmless, I don't care for it, but when a pretty girl offers it, one doesn't like to refuse, you see. 'But you will, for the sake of others, if not for your own. Come, Laurie, promise, and give me one more reason to call this the happiest day of my life. A demand so sudden and so serious made the young man hesitate a moment, for ridicule is often harder to bear than selfdenial. Meg knew that if he gave the promise he would keep it at all costs, and feeling her power, used it as a woman may for her friend's good. She did not speak, but she looked up at him with a face made very eloquent by happiness, and a smile which said, 'No one can refuse me anything today. Laurie certainly could not, and with an answering smile, he gave her his hand, saying heartily, 'I promise, Mrs. Brooke! 'I thank you, very, very much. 'And I drink 'long life to your resolution', Teddy, cried Jo, baptizing him with a splash of lemonade, as she waved her glass and beamed approvingly upon him. So the toast was drunk, the pledge made and loyally kept in spite of many temptations, for with instinctive wisdom, the girls seized a happy moment to do their friend a service, for which he thanked them all his life. After lunch, people strolled about, by twos and threes, through the house and garden, enjoying the sunshine without and within. Meg and John happened to be standing together in the middle of the grass plot, when Laurie was seized with an inspiration which put the finishing touch to this unfashionable wedding. 'All the married people take hands and dance round the newmade husband and wife, as the Germans do, while we bachelors and spinsters prance in couples outside! cried Laurie, promenading down the path with Amy, with such infectious spirit and skill that everyone else followed their example without a murmur. Mr. and Mrs. March, Aunt and Uncle Carrol began it, others rapidly joined in, even Sallie Moffat, after a moment's hesitation, threw her train over her arm and whisked Ned into the ring. But the crowning joke was Mr. Laurence and Aunt March, for when the stately old gentleman chasseed solemnly up to the old lady, she just tucked her cane under her arm, and hopped briskly away to join hands with the rest and dance about the bridal pair, while the young folks pervaded the garden like butterflies on a midsummer day. Want of breath brought the impromptu ball to a close, and then people began to go. 'I wish you well, my dear, I heartily wish you well, but I think you'll be sorry for it, said Aunt March to Meg, adding to the bridegroom, as he led her to the carriage, 'You've got a treasure, young man, see that you deserve it. 'That is the prettiest wedding I've been to for an age, Ned, and I don't see why, for there wasn't a bit of style about it, observed Mrs. Moffat to her husband, as they drove away. 'Laurie, my lad, if you ever want to indulge in this sort of thing, get one of those little girls to help you, and I shall be perfectly satisfied, said Mr. Laurence, settling himself in his easy chair to rest after the excitement of the morning. 'I'll do my best to gratify you, Sir, was Laurie's unusually dutiful reply, as he carefully unpinned the posy Jo had put in his buttonhole. The little house was not far away, and the only bridal journey Meg had was the quiet walk with John from the old home to the new. When she came down, looking like a pretty Quakeress in her dovecolored suit and straw bonnet tied with white, they all gathered about her to say 'goodby', as tenderly as if she had been going to make the grand tour. 'Don't feel that I am separated from you, Marmee dear, or that I love you any the less for loving John so much, she said, clinging to her mother, with full eyes for a moment. 'I shall come every day, Father, and expect to keep my old place in all your hearts, though I am married. Beth is going to be with me a great deal, and the other girls will drop in now and then to laugh at my housekeeping struggles. Thank you all for my happy wedding day. Goodby, goodby! They stood watching her, with faces full of love and hope and tender pride as she walked away, leaning on her husband's arm, with her hands full of flowers and the June sunshine brightening her happy faceand so Meg's married life began. It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women. Amy was learning this distinction through much tribulation, for mistaking enthusiasm for inspiration, she attempted every branch of art with youthful audacity. For a long time there was a lull in the 'mudpie' business, and she devoted herself to the finest penandink drawing, in which she showed such taste and skill that her graceful handiwork proved both pleasant and profitable. But overstrained eyes caused pen and ink to be laid aside for a bold attempt at pokersketching. While this attack lasted, the family lived in constant fear of a conflagration, for the odor of burning wood pervaded the house at all hours, smoke issued from attic and shed with alarming frequency, redhot pokers lay about promiscuously, and Hannah never went to bed without a pail of water and the dinner bell at her door in case of fire. Raphael's face was found boldly executed on the underside of the moulding board, and Bacchus on the head of a beer barrel. A chanting cherub adorned the cover of the sugar bucket, and attempts to portray Romeo and Juliet supplied kindling for some time. From fire to oil was a natural transition for burned fingers, and Amy fell to painting with undiminished ardor. An artist friend fitted her out with his castoff palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea. Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced seasickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of shipbuilding and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance. Swarthy boys and darkeyed Madonnas, staring at you from one corner of the studio, suggested Murillo oily brown shadows of faces with a lurid streak in the wrong place, meant Rembrandt buxom ladies and dropiscal infants, Rubens and Turner appeared in tempests of blue thunder, orange lightning, brown rain, and purple clouds, with a tomatocolored splash in the middle, which might be the sun or a bouy, a sailor's shirt or a king's robe, as the spectator pleased. Charcoal portraits came next, and the entire family hung in a row, looking as wild and crocky as if just evoked from a coalbin. Softened into crayon sketches, they did better, for the likenesses were good, and Amy's hair, Jo's nose, Meg's mouth, and Laurie's eyes were pronounced 'wonderfully fine'. A return to clay and plaster followed, and ghostly casts of her acquaintances haunted corners of the house, or tumbled off closet shelves onto people's heads. Children were enticed in as models, till their incoherent accounts of her mysterious doings caused Miss Amy to be regarded in the light of a young ogress. Her efforts in this line, however, were brought to an abrupt close by an untoward accident, which quenched her ardor. Other models failing her for a time, she undertook to cast her own pretty foot, and the family were one day alarmed by an unearthly bumping and screaming and running to the rescue, found the young enthusiast hopping wildly about the shed with her foot held fast in a pan full of plaster, which had hardened with unexpected rapidity. With much difficulty and some danger she was dug out, for Jo was so overcome with laughter while she excavated that her knife went too far, cut the poor foot, and left a lasting memorial of one artistic attempt, at least. After this Amy subsided, till a mania for sketching from nature set her to haunting river, field, and wood, for picturesque studies, and sighing for ruins to copy. She caught endless colds sitting on damp grass to book 'a delicious bit', composed of a stone, a stump, one mushroom, and a broken mullein stalk, or 'a heavenly mass of clouds', that looked like a choice display of featherbeds when done. She sacrificed her complexion floating on the river in the midsummer sun to study light and shade, and got a wrinkle over her nose trying after 'points of sight', or whatever the squintandstring performance is called. If 'genius is eternal patience', as Michelangelo affirms, Amy had some claim to the divine attribute, for she persevered in spite of all obstacles, failures, and discouragements, firmly believing that in time she should do something worthy to be called 'high art'. She was learning, doing, and enjoying other things, meanwhile, for she had resolved to be an attractive and accomplished woman, even if she never became a great artist. Here she succeeded better, for she was one of those happily created beings who please without effort, make friends everywhere, and take life so gracefully and easily that less fortunate souls are tempted to believe that such are born under a lucky star. Everybody liked her, for among her good gifts was tact. She had an instinctive sense of what was pleasing and proper, always said the right thing to the right person, did just what suited the time and place, and was so selfpossessed that her sisters used to say, 'If Amy went to court without any rehearsal beforehand, she'd know exactly what to do. One of her weaknesses was a desire to move in 'our best society', without being quite sure what the best really was. Money, position, fashionable accomplishments, and elegant manners were most desirable things in her eyes, and she liked to associate with those who possessed them, often mistaking the false for the true, and admiring what was not admirable. Never forgetting that by birth she was a gentlewoman, she cultivated her aristocratic tastes and feelings, so that when the opportunity came she might be ready to take the place from which poverty now excluded her. 'My lady, as her friends called her, sincerely desired to be a genuine lady, and was so at heart, but had yet to learn that money cannot buy refinement of nature, that rank does not always confer nobility, and that true breeding makes itself felt in spite of external drawbacks. 'I want to ask a favor of you, Mamma, Amy said, coming in with an important air one day. 'Well, little girl, what is it? replied her mother, in whose eyes the stately young lady still remained 'the baby'. 'Our drawing class breaks up next week, and before the girls separate for the summer, I want to ask them out here for a day. They are wild to see the river, sketch the broken bridge, and copy some of the things they admire in my book. They have been very kind to me in many ways, and I am grateful, for they are all rich and I know I am poor, yet they never made any difference. 'Why should they? and Mrs. March put the question with what the girls called her 'Maria Theresa air'. 'You know as well as I that it does make a difference with nearly everyone, so don't ruffle up like a dear, motherly hen, when your chickens get pecked by smarter birds. The ugly duckling turned out a swan, you know. and Amy smiled without bitterness, for she possessed a happy temper and hopeful spirit. Mrs. March laughed, and smoothed down her maternal pride as she asked, 'Well, my swan, what is your plan? 'I should like to ask the girls out to lunch next week, to take them for a drive to the places they want to see, a row on the river, perhaps, and make a little artistic fete for them. 'That looks feasible. What do you want for lunch? Cake, sandwiches, fruit, and coffee will be all that is necessary, I suppose? 'Oh, dear, no! We must have cold tongue and chicken, French chocolate and ice cream, besides. The girls are used to such things, and I want my lunch to be proper and elegant, though I do work for my living. 'How many young ladies are there? asked her mother, beginning to look sober. 'Twelve or fourteen in the class, but I dare say they won't all come. 'Bless me, child, you will have to charter an omnibus to carry them about. 'Why, Mother, how can you think of such a thing? Not more than six or eight will probably come, so I shall hire a beach wagon and borrow Mr. Laurence's cherrybounce. (Hannah's pronunciation of charabanc.) 'All of this will be expensive, Amy. 'Not very. I've calculated the cost, and I'll pay for it myself. 'Don't you think, dear, that as these girls are used to such things, and the best we can do will be nothing new, that some simpler plan would be pleasanter to them, as a change if nothing more, and much better for us than buying or borrowing what we don't need, and attempting a style not in keeping with our circumstances? 'If I can't have it as I like, I don't care to have it at all. I know that I can carry it out perfectly well, if you and the girls will help a little, and I don't see why I can't if I'm willing to pay for it, said Amy, with the decision which opposition was apt to change into obstinacy. Mrs. March knew that experience was an excellent teacher, and when it was possible she left her children to learn alone the lessons which she would gladly have made easier, if they had not objected to taking advice as much as they did salts and senna. 'Very well, Amy, if your heart is set upon it, and you see your way through without too great an outlay of money, time, and temper, I'll say no more. Talk it over with the girls, and whichever way you decide, I'll do my best to help you. 'Thanks, Mother, you are always so kind. and away went Amy to lay her plan before her sisters. Meg agreed at once, and promised her aid, gladly offering anything she possessed, from her little house itself to her very best saltspoons. But Jo frowned upon the whole project and would have nothing to do with it at first. 'Why in the world should you spend your money, worry your family, and turn the house upside down for a parcel of girls who don't care a sixpence for you? I thought you had too much pride and sense to truckle to any mortal woman just because she wears French boots and rides in a coupe, said Jo, who, being called from the tragic climax of her novel, was not in the best mood for social enterprises. 'I don't truckle, and I hate being patronized as much as you do! returned Amy indignantly, for the two still jangled when such questions arose. 'The girls do care for me, and I for them, and there's a great deal of kindness and sense and talent among them, in spite of what you call fashionable nonsense. You don't care to make people like you, to go into good society, and cultivate your manners and tastes. I do, and I mean to make the most of every chance that comes. You can go through the world with your elbows out and your nose in the air, and call it independence, if you like. That's not my way. When Amy had whetted her tongue and freed her mind she usually got the best of it, for she seldom failed to have common sense on her side, while Jo carried her love of liberty and hate of conventionalities to such an unlimited extent that she naturally found herself worsted in an argument. Amy's definition of Jo's idea of independence was such a good hit that both burst out laughing, and the discussion took a more amiable turn. Much against her will, Jo at length consented to sacrifice a day to Mrs. Grundy, and help her sister through what she regarded as 'a nonsensical business'. The invitations were sent, nearly all accepted, and the following Monday was set apart for the grand event. Hannah was out of humor because her week's work was deranged, and prophesied that 'ef the washin' and ironin' warn't done reg'lar, nothin' would go well anywheres. This hitch in the mainspring of the domestic machinery had a bad effect upon the whole concern, but Amy's motto was 'Nil desperandum', and having made up her mind what to do, she proceeded to do it in spite of all obstacles. To begin with, Hannah's cooking didn't turn out well. The chicken was tough, the tongue too salty, and the chocolate wouldn't froth properly. Then the cake and ice cost more than Amy expected, so did the wagon, and various other expenses, which seemed trifling at the outset, counted up rather alarmingly afterward. Beth got a cold and took to her bed. Meg had an unusual number of callers to keep her at home, and Jo was in such a divided state of mind that her breakages, accidents, and mistakes were uncommonly numerous, serious, and trying. If it was not fair on Monday, the young ladies were to come on Tuesday, an arrangement which aggravated Jo and Hannah to the last degree. On Monday morning the weather was in that undecided state which is more exasperating than a steady pour. It drizzled a little, shone a little, blew a little, and didn't make up its mind till it was too late for anyone else to make up theirs. Amy was up at dawn, hustling people out of their beds and through their breakfasts, that the house might be got in order. The parlor struck her as looking uncommonly shabby, but without stopping to sigh for what she had not, she skillfully made the best of what she had, arranging chairs over the worn places in the carpet, covering stains on the walls with homemade statuary, which gave an artistic air to the room, as did the lovely vases of flowers Jo scattered about. The lunch looked charming, and as she surveyed it, she sincerely hoped it would taste well, and that the borrowed glass, china, and silver would get safely home again. The carriages were promised, Meg and Mother were all ready to do the honors, Beth was able to help Hannah behind the scenes, Jo had engaged to be as lively and amiable as an absent mind, and aching head, and a very decided disapproval of everybody and everything would allow, and as she wearily dressed, Amy cheered herself with anticipations of the happy moment when, lunch safely over, she should drive away with her friends for an afternoon of artistic delights, for the 'cherry bounce' and the broken bridge were her strong points. Then came the hours of suspense, during which she vibrated from parlor to porch, while public opinion varied like the weathercock. A smart shower at eleven had evidently quenched the enthusiasm of the young ladies who were to arrive at twelve, for nobody came, and at two the exhausted family sat down in a blaze of sunshine to consume the perishable portions of the feast, that nothing might be lost. 'No doubt about the weather today, they will certainly come, so we must fly round and be ready for them, said Amy, as the sun woke her next morning. She spoke briskly, but in her secret soul she wished she had said nothing about Tuesday, for her interest like her cake was getting a little stale. 'I can't get any lobsters, so you will have to do without salad today, said Mr. March, coming in half an hour later, with an expression of placid despair. 'Use the chicken then, the toughness won't matter in a salad, advised his wife. 'Hannah left it on the kitchen table a minute, and the kittens got at it. I'm very sorry, Amy, added Beth, who was still a patroness of cats. 'Then I must have a lobster, for tongue alone won't do, said Amy decidedly. 'Shall I rush into town and demand one? asked Jo, with the magnanimity of a martyr. 'You'd come bringing it home under your arm without any paper, just to try me. I'll go myself, answered Amy, whose temper was beginning to fail. Shrouded in a thick veil and armed with a genteel traveling basket, she departed, feeling that a cool drive would soothe her ruffled spirit and fit her for the labors of the day. After some delay, the object of her desire was procured, likewise a bottle of dressing to prevent further loss of time at home, and off she drove again, well pleased with her own forethought. As the omnibus contained only one other passenger, a sleepy old lady, Amy pocketed her veil and beguiled the tedium of the way by trying to find out where all her money had gone to. So busy was she with her card full of refractory figures that she did not observe a newcomer, who entered without stopping the vehicle, till a masculine voice said, 'Good morning, Miss March, and, looking up, she beheld one of Laurie's most elegant college friends. Fervently hoping that he would get out before she did, Amy utterly ignored the basket at her feet, and congratulating herself that she had on her new traveling dress, returned the young man's greeting with her usual suavity and spirit. They got on excellently, for Amy's chief care was soon set at rest by learning that the gentleman would leave first, and she was chatting away in a peculiarly lofty strain, when the old lady got out. In stumbling to the door, she upset the basket, andoh horror!the lobster, in all its vulgar size and brilliancy, was revealed to the highborn eyes of a Tudor! 'By Jove, she's forgotten her dinner! cried the unconscious youth, poking the scarlet monster into its place with his cane, and preparing to hand out the basket after the old lady. 'Please don'tit'sit's mine, murmured Amy, with a face nearly as red as her fish. 'Oh, really, I beg pardon. It's an uncommonly fine one, isn't it? said Tudor, with great presence of mind, and an air of sober interest that did credit to his breeding. Amy recovered herself in a breath, set her basket boldly on the seat, and said, laughing, 'Don't you wish you were to have some of the salad he's going to make, and to see the charming young ladies who are to eat it? Now that was tact, for two of the ruling foibles of the masculine mind were touched. The lobster was instantly surrounded by a halo of pleasing reminiscences, and curiosity about 'the charming young ladies' diverted his mind from the comical mishap. 'I suppose he'll laugh and joke over it with Laurie, but I shan't see them, that's a comfort, thought Amy, as Tudor bowed and departed. She did not mention this meeting at home (though she discovered that, thanks to the upset, her new dress was much damaged by the rivulets of dressing that meandered down the skirt), but went through with the preparations which now seemed more irksome than before, and at twelve o'clock all was ready again. Feeling that the neighbors were interested in her movements, she wished to efface the memory of yesterday's failure by a grand success today, so she ordered the 'cherry bounce', and drove away in state to meet and escort her guests to the banquet. 'There's the rumble, they're coming! I'll go onto the porch and meet them. It looks hospitable, and I want the poor child to have a good time after all her trouble, said Mrs. March, suiting the action to the word. But after one glance, she retired, with an indescribable expression, for looking quite lost in the big carriage, sat Amy and one young lady. 'Run, Beth, and help Hannah clear half the things off the table. It will be too absurd to put a luncheon for twelve before a single girl, cried Jo, hurrying away to the lower regions, too excited to stop even for a laugh. In came Amy, quite calm and delightfully cordial to the one guest who had kept her promise. The rest of the family, being of a dramatic turn, played their parts equally well, and Miss Eliott found them a most hilarious set, for it was impossible to control entirely the merriment which possessed them. The remodeled lunch being gaily partaken of, the studio and garden visited, and art discussed with enthusiasm, Amy ordered a buggy (alas for the elegant cherrybounce), and drove her friend quietly about the neighborhood till sunset, when 'the party went out'. As she came walking in, looking very tired but as composed as ever, she observed that every vestige of the unfortunate fete had disappeared, except a suspicious pucker about the corners of Jo's mouth. 'You've had a loverly afternoon for your drive, dear, said her mother, as respectfully as if the whole twelve had come. 'Miss Eliott is a very sweet girl, and seemed to enjoy herself, I thought, observed Beth, with unusual warmth. 'Could you spare me some of your cake? I really need some, I have so much company, and I can't make such delicious stuff as yours, asked Meg soberly. 'Take it all. I'm the only one here who likes sweet things, and it will mold before I can dispose of it, answered Amy, thinking with a sigh of the generous store she had laid in for such an end as this. 'It's a pity Laurie isn't here to help us, began Jo, as they sat down to ice cream and salad for the second time in two days. A warning look from her mother checked any further remarks, and the whole family ate in heroic silence, till Mr. March mildly observed, 'salad was one of the favorite dishes of the ancients, and Evelyn... Here a general explosion of laughter cut short the 'history of salads', to the great surprise of the learned gentleman. 'Bundle everything into a basket and send it to the Hummels. Germans like messes. I'm sick of the sight of this, and there's no reason you should all die of a surfeit because I've been a fool, cried Amy, wiping her eyes. 'I thought I should have died when I saw you two girls rattling about in the whatyoucallit, like two little kernels in a very big nutshell, and Mother waiting in state to receive the throng, sighed Jo, quite spent with laughter. 'I'm very sorry you were disappointed, dear, but we all did our best to satisfy you, said Mrs. March, in a tone full of motherly regret. 'I am satisfied. I've done what I undertook, and it's not my fault that it failed. I comfort myself with that, said Amy with a little quiver in her voice. 'I thank you all very much for helping me, and I'll thank you still more if you won't allude to it for a month, at least. No one did for several months, but the word 'fete' always produced a general smile, and Laurie's birthday gift to Amy was a tiny coral lobster in the shape of a charm for her watch guard. Fortune suddenly smiled upon Jo, and dropped a good luck penny in her path. Not a golden penny, exactly, but I doubt if half a million would have given more real happiness then did the little sum that came to her in this wise. Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and 'fall into a vortex', as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace. Her 'scribbling suit' consisted of a black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This cap was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads semioccasionally to ask, with interest, 'Does genius burn, Jo? They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on, in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew, and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor. At such times the intruder silently withdrew, and not until the red bow was seen gaily erect upon the gifted brow, did anyone dare address Jo. She did not think herself a genius by any means, but when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real and dear to her as any in the flesh. Sleep forsook her eyes, meals stood untasted, day and night were all too short to enjoy the happiness which blessed her only at such times, and made these hours worth living, even if they bore no other fruit. The divine afflatus usually lasted a week or two, and then she emerged from her 'vortex', hungry, sleepy, cross, or despondent. She was just recovering from one of these attacks when she was prevailed upon to escort Miss Crocker to a lecture, and in return for her virtue was rewarded with a new idea. It was a People's Course, the lecture on the Pyramids, and Jo rather wondered at the choice of such a subject for such an audience, but took it for granted that some great social evil would be remedied or some great want supplied by unfolding the glories of the Pharaohs to an audience whose thoughts were busy with the price of coal and flour, and whose lives were spent in trying to solve harder riddles than that of the Sphinx. They were early, and while Miss Crocker set the heel of her stocking, Jo amused herself by examining the faces of the people who occupied the seat with them. On her left were two matrons, with massive foreheads and bonnets to match, discussing Women's Rights and making tatting. Beyond sat a pair of humble lovers, artlessly holding each other by the hand, a somber spinster eating peppermints out of a paper bag, and an old gentleman taking his preparatory nap behind a yellow bandanna. On her right, her only neighbor was a studious looking lad absorbed in a newspaper. It was a pictorial sheet, and Jo examined the work of art nearest her, idly wondering what fortuitous concatenation of circumstances needed the melodramatic illustration of an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat, while two infuriated young gentlemen, with unnaturally small feet and big eyes, were stabbing each other close by, and a disheveled female was flying away in the background with her mouth wide open. Pausing to turn a page, the lad saw her looking and, with boyish good nature offered half his paper, saying bluntly, 'want to read it? That's a firstrate story. Jo accepted it with a smile, for she had never outgrown her liking for lads, and soon found herself involved in the usual labyrinth of love, mystery, and murder, for the story belonged to that class of light literature in which the passions have a holiday, and when the author's invention fails, a grand catastrophe clears the stage of one half the dramatis personae, leaving the other half to exult over their downfall. 'Prime, isn't it? asked the boy, as her eye went down the last paragraph of her portion. 'I think you and I could do as well as that if we tried, returned Jo, amused at his admiration of the trash. 'I should think I was a pretty lucky chap if I could. She makes a good living out of such stories, they say. and he pointed to the name of Mrs. S.L.A.N.G. Northbury, under the title of the tale. 'Do you know her? asked Jo, with sudden interest. 'No, but I read all her pieces, and I know a fellow who works in the office where this paper is printed. 'Do you say she makes a good living out of stories like this? and Jo looked more respectfully at the agitated group and thickly sprinkled exclamation points that adorned the page. 'Guess she does! She knows just what folks like, and gets paid well for writing it. Here the lecture began, but Jo heard very little of it, for while Professor Sands was prosing away about Belzoni, Cheops, scarabei, and hieroglyphics, she was covertly taking down the address of the paper, and boldly resolving to try for the hundreddollar prize offered in its columns for a sensational story. By the time the lecture ended and the audience awoke, she had built up a splendid fortune for herself (not the first founded on paper), and was already deep in the concoction of her story, being unable to decide whether the duel should come before the elopement or after the murder. She said nothing of her plan at home, but fell to work next day, much to the disquiet of her mother, who always looked a little anxious when 'genius took to burning'. Jo had never tried this style before, contenting herself with very mild romances for The Spread Eagle. Her experience and miscellaneous reading were of service now, for they gave her some idea of dramatic effect, and supplied plot, language, and costumes. Her story was as full of desperation and despair as her limited acquaintance with those uncomfortable emotions enabled her to make it, and having located it in Lisbon, she wound up with an earthquake, as a striking and appropriate denouement. The manuscript was privately dispatched, accompanied by a note, modestly saying that if the tale didn't get the prize, which the writer hardly dared expect, she would be very glad to receive any sum it might be considered worth. Six weeks is a long time to wait, and a still longer time for a girl to keep a secret, but Jo did both, and was just beginning to give up all hope of ever seeing her manuscript again, when a letter arrived which almost took her breath away, for on opening it, a check for a hundred dollars fell into her lap. For a minute she stared at it as if it had been a snake, then she read her letter and began to cry. If the amiable gentleman who wrote that kindly note could have known what intense happiness he was giving a fellow creature, I think he would devote his leisure hours, if he has any, to that amusement, for Jo valued the letter more than the money, because it was encouraging, and after years of effort it was so pleasant to find that she had learned to do something, though it was only to write a sensation story. A prouder young woman was seldom seen than she, when, having composed herself, she electrified the family by appearing before them with the letter in one hand, the check in the other, announcing that she had won the prize. Of course there was a great jubilee, and when the story came everyone read and praised it, though after her father had told her that the language was good, the romance fresh and hearty, and the tragedy quite thrilling, he shook his head, and said in his unworldly way... 'You can do better than this, Jo. Aim at the highest, and never mind the money. 'I think the money is the best part of it. What will you do with such a fortune? asked Amy, regarding the magic slip of paper with a reverential eye. 'Send Beth and Mother to the seaside for a month or two, answered Jo promptly. To the seaside they went, after much discussion, and though Beth didn't come home as plump and rosy as could be desired, she was much better, while Mrs. March declared she felt ten years younger. So Jo was satisfied with the investment of her prize money, and fell to work with a cheery spirit, bent on earning more of those delightful checks. She did earn several that year, and began to feel herself a power in the house, for by the magic of a pen, her 'rubbish' turned into comforts for them all. The Duke's Daughter paid the butcher's bill, A Phantom Hand put down a new carpet, and the Curse of the Coventrys proved the blessing of the Marches in the way of groceries and gowns. Wealth is certainly a most desirable thing, but poverty has its sunny side, and one of the sweet uses of adversity is the genuine satisfaction which comes from hearty work of head or hand, and to the inspiration of necessity, we owe half the wise, beautiful, and useful blessings of the world. Jo enjoyed a taste of this satisfaction, and ceased to envy richer girls, taking great comfort in the knowledge that she could supply her own wants, and need ask no one for a penny. Little notice was taken of her stories, but they found a market, and encouraged by this fact, she resolved to make a bold stroke for fame and fortune. Having copied her novel for the fourth time, read it to all her confidential friends, and submitted it with fear and trembling to three publishers, she at last disposed of it, on condition that she would cut it down one third, and omit all the parts which she particularly admired. 'Now I must either bundle it back in to my tin kitchen to mold, pay for printing it myself, or chop it up to suit purchasers and get what I can for it. Fame is a very good thing to have in the house, but cash is more convenient, so I wish to take the sense of the meeting on this important subject, said Jo, calling a family council. 'Don't spoil your book, my girl, for there is more in it than you know, and the idea is well worked out. Let it wait and ripen, was her father's advice, and he practiced what he preached, having waited patiently thirty years for fruit of his own to ripen, and being in no haste to gather it even now when it was sweet and mellow. 'It seems to me that Jo will profit more by taking the trial than by waiting, said Mrs. March. 'Criticism is the best test of such work, for it will show her both unsuspected merits and faults, and help her to do better next time. We are too partial, but the praise and blame of outsiders will prove useful, even if she gets but little money. 'Yes, said Jo, knitting her brows, 'that's just it. I've been fussing over the thing so long, I really don't know whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. It will be a great help to have cool, impartial persons take a look at it, and tell me what they think of it. 'I wouldn't leave a word out of it. You'll spoil it if you do, for the interest of the story is more in the minds than in the actions of the people, and it will be all a muddle if you don't explain as you go on, said Meg, who firmly believed that this book was the most remarkable novel ever written. 'But Mr. Allen says, 'Leave out the explanations, make it brief and dramatic, and let the characters tell the story', interrupted Jo, turning to the publisher's note. 'Do as he tells you. He knows what will sell, and we don't. Make a good, popular book, and get as much money as you can. Byandby, when you've got a name, you can afford to digress, and have philosophical and metaphysical people in your novels, said Amy, who took a strictly practical view of the subject. 'Well, said Jo, laughing, 'if my people are 'philosophical and metaphysical', it isn't my fault, for I know nothing about such things, except what I hear father say, sometimes. If I've got some of his wise ideas jumbled up with my romance, so much the better for me. Now, Beth, what do you say? 'I should so like to see it printed soon, was all Beth said, and smiled in saying it. But there was an unconscious emphasis on the last word, and a wistful look in the eyes that never lost their childlike candor, which chilled Jo's heart for a minute with a forboding fear, and decided her to make her little venture 'soon'. So, with Spartan firmness, the young authoress laid her firstborn on her table, and chopped it up as ruthlessly as any ogre. In the hope of pleasing everyone, she took everyone's advice, and like the old man and his donkey in the fable suited nobody. Her father liked the metaphysical streak which had unconsciously got into it, so that was allowed to remain though she had her doubts about it. Her mother thought that there was a trifle too much description. Out, therefore it came, and with it many necessary links in the story. Meg admired the tragedy, so Jo piled up the agony to suit her, while Amy objected to the fun, and, with the best intentions in life, Jo quenched the spritly scenes which relieved the somber character of the story. Then, to complicate the ruin, she cut it down one third, and confidingly sent the poor little romance, like a picked robin, out into the big, busy world to try its fate. Well, it was printed, and she got three hundred dollars for it, likewise plenty of praise and blame, both so much greater than she expected that she was thrown into a state of bewilderment from which it took her some time to recover. 'You said, Mother, that criticism would help me. But how can it, when it's so contradictory that I don't know whether I've written a promising book or broken all the ten commandments? cried poor Jo, turning over a heap of notices, the perusal of which filled her with pride and joy one minute, wrath and dismay the next. 'This man says, 'An exquisite book, full of truth, beauty, and earnestness.' 'All is sweet, pure, and healthy.' continued the perplexed authoress. 'The next, 'The theory of the book is bad, full of morbid fancies, spiritualistic ideas, and unnatural characters.' Now, as I had no theory of any kind, don't believe in Spiritualism, and copied my characters from life, I don't see how this critic can be right. Another says, 'It's one of the best American novels which has appeared for years.' (I know better than that), and the next asserts that 'Though it is original, and written with great force and feeling, it is a dangerous book.' 'Tisn't! Some make fun of it, some overpraise, and nearly all insist that I had a deep theory to expound, when I only wrote it for the pleasure and the money. I wish I'd printed the whole or not at all, for I do hate to be so misjudged. Her family and friends administered comfort and commendation liberally. Yet it was a hard time for sensitive, highspirited Jo, who meant so well and had apparently done so ill. But it did her good, for those whose opinion had real value gave her the criticism which is an author's best education, and when the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received. 'Not being a genius, like Keats, it won't kill me, she said stoutly, 'and I've got the joke on my side, after all, for the parts that were taken straight out of real life are denounced as impossible and absurd, and the scenes that I made up out of my own silly head are pronounced 'charmingly natural, tender, and true'. So I'll comfort myself with that, and when I'm ready, I'll up again and take another. Like most other young matrons, Meg began her married life with the determination to be a model housekeeper. John should find home a paradise, he should always see a smiling face, should fare sumptuously every day, and never know the loss of a button. She brought so much love, energy, and cheerfulness to the work that she could not but succeed, in spite of some obstacles. Her paradise was not a tranquil one, for the little woman fussed, was overanxious to please, and bustled about like a true Martha, cumbered with many cares. She was too tired, sometimes, even to smile, John grew dyspeptic after a course of dainty dishes and ungratefully demanded plain fare. As for buttons, she soon learned to wonder where they went, to shake her head over the carelessness of men, and to threaten to make him sew them on himself, and see if his work would stand impatient and clumsy fingers any better than hers. They were very happy, even after they discovered that they couldn't live on love alone. John did not find Meg's beauty diminished, though she beamed at him from behind the familiar coffee pot. Nor did Meg miss any of the romance from the daily parting, when her husband followed up his kiss with the tender inquiry, 'Shall I send some veal or mutton for dinner, darling? The little house ceased to be a glorified bower, but it became a home, and the young couple soon felt that it was a change for the better. At first they played keephouse, and frolicked over it like children. Then John took steadily to business, feeling the cares of the head of a family upon his shoulders, and Meg laid by her cambric wrappers, put on a big apron, and fell to work, as before said, with more energy than discretion. While the cooking mania lasted she went through Mrs. Cornelius's Receipt Book as if it were a mathematical exercise, working out the problems with patience and care. Sometimes her family were invited in to help eat up a too bounteous feast of successes, or Lotty would be privately dispatched with a batch of failures, which were to be concealed from all eyes in the convenient stomachs of the little Hummels. An evening with John over the account books usually produced a temporary lull in the culinary enthusiasm, and a frugal fit would ensue, during which the poor man was put through a course of bread pudding, hash, and warmedover coffee, which tried his soul, although he bore it with praiseworthy fortitude. Before the golden mean was found, however, Meg added to her domestic possessions what young couples seldom get on long without, a family jar. Fired with a housewifely wish to see her storeroom stocked with homemade preserves, she undertook to put up her own currant jelly. John was requested to order home a dozen or so of little pots and an extra quantity of sugar, for their own currants were ripe and were to be attended to at once. As John firmly believed that 'my wife' was equal to anything, and took a natural pride in her skill, he resolved that she should be gratified, and their only crop of fruit laid by in a most pleasing form for winter use. Home came four dozen delightful little pots, half a barrel of sugar, and a small boy to pick the currants for her. With her pretty hair tucked into a little cap, arms bared to the elbow, and a checked apron which had a coquettish look in spite of the bib, the young housewife fell to work, feeling no doubts about her success, for hadn't she seen Hannah do it hundreds of times? The array of pots rather amazed her at first, but John was so fond of jelly, and the nice little jars would look so well on the top shelf, that Meg resolved to fill them all, and spent a long day picking, boiling, straining, and fussing over her jelly. She did her best, she asked advice of Mrs. Cornelius, she racked her brain to remember what Hannah did that she left undone, she reboiled, resugared, and restrained, but that dreadful stuff wouldn't 'jell'. She longed to run home, bib and all, and ask Mother to lend her a hand, but John and she had agreed that they would never annoy anyone with their private worries, experiments, or quarrels. They had laughed over that last word as if the idea it suggested was a most preposterous one, but they had held to their resolve, and whenever they could get on without help they did so, and no one interfered, for Mrs. March had advised the plan. So Meg wrestled alone with the refractory sweetmeats all that hot summer day, and at five o'clock sat down in her topsyturvey kitchen, wrung her bedaubed hands, lifted up her voice and wept. Now, in the first flush of the new life, she had often said, 'My husband shall always feel free to bring a friend home whenever he likes. I shall always be prepared. There shall be no flurry, no scolding, no discomfort, but a neat house, a cheerful wife, and a good dinner. John, dear, never stop to ask my leave, invite whom you please, and be sure of a welcome from me. How charming that was, to be sure! John quite glowed with pride to hear her say it, and felt what a blessed thing it was to have a superior wife. But, although they had had company from time to time, it never happened to be unexpected, and Meg had never had an opportunity to distinguish herself till now. It always happens so in this vale of tears, there is an inevitability about such things which we can only wonder at, deplore, and bear as we best can. If John had not forgotten all about the jelly, it really would have been unpardonable in him to choose that day, of all the days in the year, to bring a friend home to dinner unexpectedly. Congratulating himself that a handsome repast had been ordered that morning, feeling sure that it would be ready to the minute, and indulging in pleasant anticipations of the charming effect it would produce, when his pretty wife came running out to meet him, he escorted his friend to his mansion, with the irrepressible satisfaction of a young host and husband. It is a world of disappointments, as John discovered when he reached the Dovecote. The front door usually stood hospitably open. Now it was not only shut, but locked, and yesterday's mud still adorned the steps. The parlor windows were closed and curtained, no picture of the pretty wife sewing on the piazza, in white, with a distracting little bow in her hair, or a brighteyed hostess, smiling a shy welcome as she greeted her guest. Nothing of the sort, for not a soul appeared but a sanginarylooking boy asleep under the current bushes. 'I'm afraid something has happened. Step into the garden, Scott, while I look up Mrs. Brooke, said John, alarmed at the silence and solitude. Round the house he hurried, led by a pungent smell of burned sugar, and Mr. Scott strolled after him, with a queer look on his face. He paused discreetly at a distance when Brooke disappeared, but he could both see and hear, and being a bachelor, enjoyed the prospect mightily. In the kitchen reigned confusion and despair. One edition of jelly was trickled from pot to pot, another lay upon the floor, and a third was burning gaily on the stove. Lotty, with Teutonic phlegm, was calmly eating bread and currant wine, for the jelly was still in a hopelessly liquid state, while Mrs. Brooke, with her apron over her head, sat sobbing dismally. 'My dearest girl, what is the matter? cried John, rushing in, with awful visions of scalded hands, sudden news of affliction, and secret consternation at the thought of the guest in the garden. 'Oh, John, I am so tired and hot and cross and worried! I've been at it till I'm all worn out. Do come and help me or I shall die! and the exhausted housewife cast herself upon his breast, giving him a sweet welcome in every sense of the word, for her pinafore had been baptized at the same time as the floor. 'What worries you dear? Has anything dreadful happened? asked the anxious John, tenderly kissing the crown of the little cap, which was all askew. 'Yes, sobbed Meg despairingly. 'Tell me quick, then. Don't cry. I can bear anything better than that. Out with it, love. 'The... The jelly won't jell and I don't know what to do! John Brooke laughed then as he never dared to laugh afterward, and the derisive Scott smiled involuntarily as he heard the hearty peal, which put the finishing stroke to poor Meg's woe. 'Is that all? Fling it out of the window, and don't bother any more about it. I'll buy you quarts if you want it, but for heaven's sake don't have hysterics, for I've brought Jack Scott home to dinner, and... John got no further, for Meg cast him off, and clasped her hands with a tragic gesture as she fell into a chair, exclaiming in a tone of mingled indignation, reproach, and dismay... 'A man to dinner, and everything in a mess! John Brooke, how could you do such a thing? 'Hush, he's in the garden! I forgot the confounded jelly, but it can't be helped now, said John, surveying the prospect with an anxious eye. 'You ought to have sent word, or told me this morning, and you ought to have remembered how busy I was, continued Meg petulantly, for even turtledoves will peck when ruffled. 'I didn't know it this morning, and there was no time to send word, for I met him on the way out. I never thought of asking leave, when you have always told me to do as I liked. I never tried it before, and hang me if I ever do again! added John, with an aggrieved air. 'I should hope not! Take him away at once. I can't see him, and there isn't any dinner. 'Well, I like that! Where's the beef and vegetables I sent home, and the pudding you promised? cried John, rushing to the larder. 'I hadn't time to cook anything. I meant to dine at Mother's. I'm sorry, but I was so busy, and Meg's tears began again. John was a mild man, but he was human, and after a long day's work to come home tired, hungry, and hopeful, to find a chaotic house, an empty table, and a cross wife was not exactly conducive to repose of mind or manner. He restrained himself however, and the little squall would have blown over, but for one unlucky word. 'It's a scrape, I acknowledge, but if you will lend a hand, we'll pull through and have a good time yet. Don't cry, dear, but just exert yourself a bit, and fix us up something to eat. We're both as hungry as hunters, so we shan't mind what it is. Give us the cold meat, and bread and cheese. We won't ask for jelly. He meant it to be a goodnatured joke, but that one word sealed his fate. Meg thought it was too cruel to hint about her sad failure, and the last atom of patience vanished as he spoke. 'You must get yourself out of the scrape as you can. I'm too used up to 'exert' myself for anyone. It's like a man to propose a bone and vulgar bread and cheese for company. I won't have anything of the sort in my house. Take that Scott up to Mother's, and tell him I'm away, sick, dead, anything. I won't see him, and you two can laugh at me and my jelly as much as you like. You won't have anything else here. and having delivered her defiance all on one breath, Meg cast away her pinafore and precipitately left the field to bemoan herself in her own room. What those two creatures did in her absence, she never knew, but Mr. Scott was not taken 'up to Mother's', and when Meg descended, after they had strolled away together, she found traces of a promiscuous lunch which filled her with horror. Lotty reported that they had eaten 'a much, and greatly laughed, and the master bid her throw away all the sweet stuff, and hide the pots. Meg longed to go and tell Mother, but a sense of shame at her own shortcomings, of loyalty to John, 'who might be cruel, but nobody should know it, restrained her, and after a summary cleaning up, she dressed herself prettily, and sat down to wait for John to come and be forgiven. Unfortunately, John didn't come, not seeing the matter in that light. He had carried it off as a good joke with Scott, excused his little wife as well as he could, and played the host so hospitably that his friend enjoyed the impromptu dinner, and promised to come again, but John was angry, though he did not show it, he felt that Meg had deserted him in his hour of need. 'It wasn't fair to tell a man to bring folks home any time, with perfect freedom, and when he took you at your word, to flame up and blame him, and leave him in the lurch, to be laughed at or pitied. No, by George, it wasn't! And Meg must know it. He had fumed inwardly during the feast, but when the flurry was over and he strolled home after seeing Scott off, a milder mood came over him. 'Poor little thing! It was hard upon her when she tried so heartily to please me. She was wrong, of course, but then she was young. I must be patient and teach her. He hoped she had not gone homehe hated gossip and interference. For a minute he was ruffled again at the mere thought of it, and then the fear that Meg would cry herself sick softened his heart, and sent him on at a quicker pace, resolving to be calm and kind, but firm, quite firm, and show her where she had failed in her duty to her spouse. Meg likewise resolved to be 'calm and kind, but firm', and show him his duty. She longed to run to meet him, and beg pardon, and be kissed and comforted, as she was sure of being, but, of course, she did nothing of the sort, and when she saw John coming, began to hum quite naturally, as she rocked and sewed, like a lady of leisure in her best parlor. John was a little disappointed not to find a tender Niobe, but feeling that his dignity demanded the first apology, he made none, only came leisurely in and laid himself upon the sofa with the singularly relevant remark, 'We are going to have a new moon, my dear. 'I've no objection, was Meg's equally soothing remark. A few other topics of general interest were introduced by Mr. Brooke and wetblanketed by Mrs. Brooke, and conversation languished. John went to one window, unfolded his paper, and wrapped himself in it, figuratively speaking. Meg went to the other window, and sewed as if new rosettes for slippers were among the necessaries of life. Neither spoke. Both looked quite 'calm and firm', and both felt desperately uncomfortable. 'Oh, dear, thought Meg, 'married life is very trying, and does need infinite patience as well as love, as Mother says. The word 'Mother' suggested other maternal counsels given long ago, and received with unbelieving protests. 'John is a good man, but he has his faults, and you must learn to see and bear with them, remembering your own. He is very decided, but never will be obstinate, if you reason kindly, not oppose impatiently. He is very accurate, and particular about the trutha good trait, though you call him 'fussy'. Never deceive him by look or word, Meg, and he will give you the confidence you deserve, the support you need. He has a temper, not like oursone flash and then all overbut the white, still anger that is seldom stirred, but once kindled is hard to quench. Be careful, be very careful, not to wake his anger against yourself, for peace and happiness depend on keeping his respect. Watch yourself, be the first to ask pardon if you both err, and guard against the little piques, misunderstandings, and hasty words that often pave the way for bitter sorrow and regret. These words came back to Meg, as she sat sewing in the sunset, especially the last. This was the first serious disagreement, her own hasty speeches sounded both silly and unkind, as she recalled them, her own anger looked childish now, and thoughts of poor John coming home to such a scene quite melted her heart. She glanced at him with tears in her eyes, but he did not see them. She put down her work and got up, thinking, 'I will be the first to say, 'Forgive me', but he did not seem to hear her. She went very slowly across the room, for pride was hard to swallow, and stood by him, but he did not turn his head. For a minute she felt as if she really couldn't do it, then came the thought, 'This is the beginning. I'll do my part, and have nothing to reproach myself with, and stooping down, she softly kissed her husband on the forehead. Of course that settled it. The penitent kiss was better than a world of words, and John had her on his knee in a minute, saying tenderly... 'It was too bad to laugh at the poor little jelly pots. Forgive me, dear. I never will again! But he did, oh bless you, yes, hundreds of times, and so did Meg, both declaring that it was the sweetest jelly they ever made, for family peace was preserved in that little family jar. After this, Meg had Mr. Scott to dinner by special invitation, and served him up a pleasant feast without a cooked wife for the first course, on which occasion she was so gay and gracious, and made everything go off so charmingly, that Mr. Scott told John he was a lucky fellow, and shook his head over the hardships of bachelorhood all the way home. In the autumn, new trials and experiences came to Meg. Sallie Moffat renewed her friendship, was always running out for a dish of gossip at the little house, or inviting 'that poor dear' to come in and spend the day at the big house. It was pleasant, for in dull weather Meg often felt lonely. All were busy at home, John absent till night, and nothing to do but sew, or read, or potter about. So it naturally fell out that Meg got into the way of gadding and gossiping with her friend. Seeing Sallie's pretty things made her long for such, and pity herself because she had not got them. Sallie was very kind, and often offered her the coveted trifles, but Meg declined them, knowing that John wouldn't like it, and then this foolish little woman went and did what John disliked even worse. She knew her husband's income, and she loved to feel that he trusted her, not only with his happiness, but what some men seem to value morehis money. She knew where it was, was free to take what she liked, and all he asked was that she should keep account of every penny, pay bills once a month, and remember that she was a poor man's wife. Till now she had done well, been prudent and exact, kept her little account books neatly, and showed them to him monthly without fear. But that autumn the serpent got into Meg's paradise, and tempted her like many a modern Eve, not with apples, but with dress. Meg didn't like to be pitied and made to feel poor. It irritated her, but she was ashamed to confess it, and now and then she tried to console herself by buying something pretty, so that Sallie needn't think she had to economize. She always felt wicked after it, for the pretty things were seldom necessaries, but then they cost so little, it wasn't worth worrying about, so the trifles increased unconsciously, and in the shopping excursions she was no longer a passive lookeron. But the trifles cost more than one would imagine, and when she cast up her accounts at the end of the month the sum total rather scared her. John was busy that month and left the bills to her, the next month he was absent, but the third he had a grand quarterly settling up, and Meg never forgot it. A few days before she had done a dreadful thing, and it weighed upon her conscience. Sallie had been buying silks, and Meg longed for a new one, just a handsome light one for parties, her black silk was so common, and thin things for evening wear were only proper for girls. Aunt March usually gave the sisters a present of twentyfive dollars apiece at New Year's. That was only a month to wait, and here was a lovely violet silk going at a bargain, and she had the money, if she only dared to take it. John always said what was his was hers, but would he think it right to spend not only the prospective fiveandtwenty, but another fiveandtwenty out of the household fund? That was the question. Sallie had urged her to do it, had offered to lend the money, and with the best intentions in life had tempted Meg beyond her strength. In an evil moment the shopman held up the lovely, shimmering folds, and said, 'A bargain, I assure, you, ma'am. She answered, 'I'll take it, and it was cut off and paid for, and Sallie had exulted, and she had laughed as if it were a thing of no consequence, and driven away, feeling as if she had stolen something, and the police were after her. When she got home, she tried to assuage the pangs of remorse by spreading forth the lovely silk, but it looked less silvery now, didn't become her, after all, and the words 'fifty dollars' seemed stamped like a pattern down each breadth. She put it away, but it haunted her, not delightfully as a new dress should, but dreadfully like the ghost of a folly that was not easily laid. When John got out his books that night, Meg's heart sank, and for the first time in her married life, she was afraid of her husband. The kind, brown eyes looked as if they could be stern, and though he was unusually merry, she fancied he had found her out, but didn't mean to let her know it. The house bills were all paid, the books all in order. John had praised her, and was undoing the old pocketbook which they called the 'bank', when Meg, knowing that it was quite empty, stopped his hand, saying nervously... 'You haven't seen my private expense book yet. John never asked to see it, but she always insisted on his doing so, and used to enjoy his masculine amazement at the queer things women wanted, and made him guess what piping was, demand fiercely the meaning of a hugmetight, or wonder how a little thing composed of three rosebuds, a bit of velvet, and a pair of strings, could possibly be a bonnet, and cost six dollars. That night he looked as if he would like the fun of quizzing her figures and pretending to be horrified at her extravagance, as he often did, being particularly proud of his prudent wife. The little book was brought slowly out and laid down before him. Meg got behind his chair under pretense of smoothing the wrinkles out of his tired forehead, and standing there, she said, with her panic increasing with every word... 'John, dear, I'm ashamed to show you my book, for I've really been dreadfully extravagant lately. I go about so much I must have things, you know, and Sallie advised my getting it, so I did, and my New Year's money will partly pay for it, but I was sorry after I had done it, for I knew you'd think it wrong in me. John laughed, and drew her round beside him, saying goodhumoredly, 'Don't go and hide. I won't beat you if you have got a pair of killing boots. I'm rather proud of my wife's feet, and don't mind if she does pay eight or nine dollars for her boots, if they are good ones. That had been one of her last 'trifles', and John's eye had fallen on it as he spoke. 'Oh, what will he say when he comes to that awful fifty dollars! thought Meg, with a shiver. 'It's worse than boots, it's a silk dress, she said, with the calmness of desperation, for she wanted the worst over. 'Well, dear, what is the 'dem'd total', as Mr. Mantalini says? That didn't sound like John, and she knew he was looking up at her with the straightforward look that she had always been ready to meet and answer with one as frank till now. She turned the page and her head at the same time, pointing to the sum which would have been bad enough without the fifty, but which was appalling to her with that added. For a minute the room was very still, then John said slowlybut she could feel it cost him an effort to express no displeasure. . . 'Well, I don't know that fifty is much for a dress, with all the furbelows and notions you have to have to finish it off these days. 'It isn't made or trimmed, sighed Meg, faintly, for a sudden recollection of the cost still to be incurred quite overwhelmed her. 'Twentyfive yards of silk seems a good deal to cover one small woman, but I've no doubt my wife will look as fine as Ned Moffat's when she gets it on, said John dryly. 'I know you are angry, John, but I can't help it. I don't mean to waste your money, and I didn't think those little things would count up so. I can't resist them when I see Sallie buying all she wants, and pitying me because I don't. I try to be contented, but it is hard, and I'm tired of being poor. The last words were spoken so low she thought he did not hear them, but he did, and they wounded him deeply, for he had denied himself many pleasures for Meg's sake. She could have bitten her tongue out the minute she had said it, for John pushed the books away and got up, saying with a little quiver in his voice, 'I was afraid of this. I do my best, Meg. If he had scolded her, or even shaken her, it would not have broken her heart like those few words. She ran to him and held him close, crying, with repentant tears, 'Oh, John, my dear, kind, hardworking boy. I didn't mean it! It was so wicked, so untrue and ungrateful, how could I say it! Oh, how could I say it! He was very kind, forgave her readily, and did not utter one reproach, but Meg knew that she had done and said a thing which would not be forgotten soon, although he might never allude to it again. She had promised to love him for better or worse, and then she, his wife, had reproached him with his poverty, after spending his earnings recklessly. It was dreadful, and the worst of it was John went on so quietly afterward, just as if nothing had happened, except that he stayed in town later, and worked at night when she had gone to cry herself to sleep. A week of remorse nearly made Meg sick, and the discovery that John had countermanded the order for his new greatcoat reduced her to a state of despair which was pathetic to behold. He had simply said, in answer to her surprised inquiries as to the change, 'I can't afford it, my dear. Meg said no more, but a few minutes after he found her in the hall with her face buried in the old greatcoat, crying as if her heart would break. They had a long talk that night, and Meg learned to love her husband better for his poverty, because it seemed to have made a man of him, given him the strength and courage to fight his own way, and taught him a tender patience with which to bear and comfort the natural longings and failures of those he loved. Next day she put her pride in her pocket, went to Sallie, told the truth, and asked her to buy the silk as a favor. The goodnatured Mrs. Moffat willingly did so, and had the delicacy not to make her a present of it immediately afterward. Then Meg ordered home the greatcoat, and when John arrived, she put it on, and asked him how he liked her new silk gown. One can imagine what answer he made, how he received his present, and what a blissful state of things ensued. John came home early, Meg gadded no more, and that greatcoat was put on in the morning by a very happy husband, and taken off at night by a most devoted little wife. So the year rolled round, and at midsummer there came to Meg a new experience, the deepest and tenderest of a woman's life. Laurie came sneaking into the kitchen of the Dovecote one Saturday, with an excited face, and was received with the clash of cymbals, for Hannah clapped her hands with a saucepan in one and the cover in the other. 'How's the little mamma? Where is everybody? Why didn't you tell me before I came home? began Laurie in a loud whisper. 'Happy as a queen, the dear! Every soul of 'em is upstairs a worshipin'. We didn't want no hurrycanes round. Now you go into the parlor, and I'll send 'em down to you, with which somewhat involved reply Hannah vanished, chuckling ecstatically. Presently Jo appeared, proudly bearing a flannel bundle laid forth upon a large pillow. Jo's face was very sober, but her eyes twinkled, and there was an odd sound in her voice of repressed emotion of some sort. 'Shut your eyes and hold out your arms, she said invitingly. Laurie backed precipitately into a corner, and put his hands behind him with an imploring gesture. 'No, thank you. I'd rather not. I shall drop it or smash it, as sure as fate. 'Then you shan't see your nevvy, said Jo decidedly, turning as if to go. 'I will, I will! Only you must be responsible for damages. and obeying orders, Laurie heroically shut his eyes while something was put into his arms. A peal of laughter from Jo, Amy, Mrs. March, Hannah, and John caused him to open them the next minute, to find himself invested with two babies instead of one. No wonder they laughed, for the expression of his face was droll enough to convulse a Quaker, as he stood and stared wildly from the unconscious innocents to the hilarious spectators with such dismay that Jo sat down on the floor and screamed. 'Twins, by Jupiter! was all he said for a minute, then turning to the women with an appealing look that was comically piteous, he added, 'Take 'em quick, somebody! I'm going to laugh, and I shall drop 'em. Jo rescued his babies, and marched up and down, with one on each arm, as if already initiated into the mysteries of babytending, while Laurie laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. 'It's the best joke of the season, isn't it? I wouldn't have told you, for I set my heart on surprising you, and I flatter myself I've done it, said Jo, when she got her breath. 'I never was more staggered in my life. Isn't it fun? Are they boys? What are you going to name them? Let's have another look. Hold me up, Jo, for upon my life it's one too many for me, returned Laurie, regarding the infants with the air of a big, benevolent Newfoundland looking at a pair of infantile kittens. 'Boy and girl. Aren't they beauties? said the proud papa, beaming upon the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels. 'Most remarkable children I ever saw. Which is which? and Laurie bent like a wellsweep to examine the prodigies. 'Amy put a blue ribbon on the boy and a pink on the girl, French fashion, so you can always tell. Besides, one has blue eyes and one brown. Kiss them, Uncle Teddy, said wicked Jo. 'I'm afraid they mightn't like it, began Laurie, with unusual timidity in such matters. 'Of course they will, they are used to it now. Do it this minute, sir! commanded Jo, fearing he might propose a proxy. Laurie screwed up his face and obeyed with a gingerly peck at each little cheek that produced another laugh, and made the babies squeal. 'There, I knew they didn't like it! That's the boy, see him kick, he hits out with his fists like a good one. Now then, young Brooke, pitch into a man of your own size, will you? cried Laurie, delighted with a poke in the face from a tiny fist, flapping aimlessly about. 'He's to be named John Laurence, and the girl Margaret, after mother and grandmother. We shall call her Daisey, so as not to have two Megs, and I suppose the mannie will be Jack, unless we find a better name, said Amy, with auntlike interest. 'Name him Demijohn, and call him Demi for short, said Laurie. 'Daisy and Demi, just the thing! I knew Teddy would do it, cried Jo clapping her hands. Teddy certainly had done it that time, for the babies were 'Daisy' and 'Demi' to the end of the chapter. 'Come, Jo, it's time. 'For what? 'You don't mean to say you have forgotten that you promised to make half a dozen calls with me today? 'I've done a good many rash and foolish things in my life, but I don't think I ever was mad enough to say I'd make six calls in one day, when a single one upsets me for a week. 'Yes, you did, it was a bargain between us. I was to finish the crayon of Beth for you, and you were to go properly with me, and return our neighbors' visits. 'If it was fair, that was in the bond, and I stand to the letter of my bond, Shylock. There is a pile of clouds in the east, it's not fair, and I don't go. 'Now, that's shirking. It's a lovely day, no prospect of rain, and you pride yourself on keeping promises, so be honorable, come and do your duty, and then be at peace for another six months. At that minute Jo was particularly absorbed in dressmaking, for she was mantuamaker general to the family, and took especial credit to herself because she could use a needle as well as a pen. It was very provoking to be arrested in the act of a first tryingon, and ordered out to make calls in her best array on a warm July day. She hated calls of the formal sort, and never made any till Amy compelled her with a bargain, bribe, or promise. In the present instance there was no escape, and having clashed her scissors rebelliously, while protesting that she smelled thunder, she gave in, put away her work, and taking up her hat and gloves with an air of resignation, told Amy the victim was ready. 'Jo March, you are perverse enough to provoke a saint! You don't intend to make calls in that state, I hope, cried Amy, surveying her with amazement. 'Why not? I'm neat and cool and comfortable, quite proper for a dusty walk on a warm day. If people care more for my clothes than they do for me, I don't wish to see them. You can dress for both, and be as elegant as you please. It pays for you to be fine. It doesn't for me, and furbelows only worry me. 'Oh, dear! sighed Amy, 'now she's in a contrary fit, and will drive me distracted before I can get her properly ready. I'm sure it's no pleasure to me to go today, but it's a debt we owe society, and there's no one to pay it but you and me. I'll do anything for you, Jo, if you'll only dress yourself nicely, and come and help me do the civil. You can talk so well, look so aristocratic in your best things, and behave so beautifully, if you try, that I'm proud of you. I'm afraid to go alone, do come and take care of me. 'You're an artful little puss to flatter and wheedle your cross old sister in that way. The idea of my being aristocratic and wellbred, and your being afraid to go anywhere alone! I don't know which is the most absurd. Well, I'll go if I must, and do my best. You shall be commander of the expedition, and I'll obey blindly, will that satisfy you? said Jo, with a sudden change from perversity to lamblike submission. 'You're a perfect cherub! Now put on all your best things, and I'll tell you how to behave at each place, so that you will make a good impression. I want people to like you, and they would if you'd only try to be a little more agreeable. Do your hair the pretty way, and put the pink rose in your bonnet. It's becoming, and you look too sober in your plain suit. Take your light gloves and the embroidered handkerchief. We'll stop at Meg's, and borrow her white sunshade, and then you can have my dovecolored one. While Amy dressed, she issued her orders, and Jo obeyed them, not without entering her protest, however, for she sighed as she rustled into her new organdie, frowned darkly at herself as she tied her bonnet strings in an irreproachable bow, wrestled viciously with pins as she put on her collar, wrinkled up her features generally as she shook out the handkerchief, whose embroidery was as irritating to her nose as the present mission was to her feelings, and when she had squeezed her hands into tight gloves with three buttons and a tassel, as the last touch of elegance, she turned to Amy with an imbecile expression of countenance, saying meekly... 'I'm perfectly miserable, but if you consider me presentable, I die happy. 'You're highly satisfactory. Turn slowly round, and let me get a careful view. Jo revolved, and Amy gave a touch here and there, then fell back, with her head on one side, observing graciously, 'Yes, you'll do. Your head is all I could ask, for that white bonnet with the rose is quite ravishing. Hold back your shoulders, and carry your hands easily, no matter if your gloves do pinch. There's one thing you can do well, Jo, that is, wear a shawl. I can't, but it's very nice to see you, and I'm so glad Aunt March gave you that lovely one. It's simple, but handsome, and those folds over the arm are really artistic. Is the point of my mantle in the middle, and have I looped my dress evenly? I like to show my boots, for my feet are pretty, though my nose isn't. 'You are a thing of beauty and a joy forever, said Jo, looking through her hand with the air of a connoisseur at the blue feather against the golden hair. 'Am I to drag my best dress through the dust, or loop it up, please, ma'am? 'Hold it up when you walk, but drop it in the house. The sweeping style suits you best, and you must learn to trail your skirts gracefully. You haven't half buttoned one cuff, do it at once. You'll never look finished if you are not careful about the little details, for they make up the pleasing whole. Jo sighed, and proceeded to burst the buttons off her glove, in doing up her cuff, but at last both were ready, and sailed away, looking as 'pretty as picters', Hannah said, as she hung out of the upper window to watch them. 'Now, Jo dear, the Chesters consider themselves very elegant people, so I want you to put on your best deportment. Don't make any of your abrupt remarks, or do anything odd, will you? Just be calm, cool, and quiet, that's safe and ladylike, and you can easily do it for fifteen minutes, said Amy, as they approached the first place, having borrowed the white parasol and been inspected by Meg, with a baby on each arm. 'Let me see. 'Calm, cool, and quiet', yes, I think I can promise that. I've played the part of a prim young lady on the stage, and I'll try it off. My powers are great, as you shall see, so be easy in your mind, my child. Amy looked relieved, but naughty Jo took her at her word, for during the first call she sat with every limb gracefully composed, every fold correctly draped, calm as a summer sea, cool as a snowbank, and as silent as the sphinx. In vain Mrs. Chester alluded to her 'charming novel', and the Misses Chester introduced parties, picnics, the opera, and the fashions. Each and all were answered by a smile, a bow, and a demure 'Yes or 'No with the chill on. In vain Amy telegraphed the word 'talk', tried to draw her out, and administered covert pokes with her foot. Jo sat as if blandly unconscious of it all, with deportment like Maud's face, 'icily regular, splendidly null'. 'What a haughty, uninteresting creature that oldest Miss March is! was the unfortunately audible remark of one of the ladies, as the door closed upon their guests. Jo laughed noiselessly all through the hall, but Amy looked disgusted at the failure of her instructions, and very naturally laid the blame upon Jo. 'How could you mistake me so? I merely meant you to be properly dignified and composed, and you made yourself a perfect stock and stone. Try to be sociable at the Lambs'. Gossip as other girls do, and be interested in dress and flirtations and whatever nonsense comes up. They move in the best society, are valuable persons for us to know, and I wouldn't fail to make a good impression there for anything. 'I'll be agreeable. I'll gossip and giggle, and have horrors and raptures over any trifle you like. I rather enjoy this, and now I'll imitate what is called 'a charming girl'. I can do it, for I have May Chester as a model, and I'll improve upon her. See if the Lambs don't say, 'What a lively, nice creature that Jo March is! Amy felt anxious, as well she might, for when Jo turned freakish there was no knowing where she would stop. Amy's face was a study when she saw her sister skim into the next drawing room, kiss all the young ladies with effusion, beam graciously upon the young gentlemen, and join in the chat with a spirit which amazed the beholder. Amy was taken possession of by Mrs. Lamb, with whom she was a favorite, and forced to hear a long account of Lucretia's last attack, while three delightful young gentlemen hovered near, waiting for a pause when they might rush in and rescue her. So situated, she was powerless to check Jo, who seemed possessed by a spirit of mischief, and talked away as volubly as the lady. A knot of heads gathered about her, and Amy strained her ears to hear what was going on, for broken sentences filled her with curiosity, and frequent peals of laughter made her wild to share the fun. One may imagine her suffering on overhearing fragments of this sort of conversation. 'She rides splendidly. Who taught her? 'No one. She used to practice mounting, holding the reins, and sitting straight on an old saddle in a tree. Now she rides anything, for she doesn't know what fear is, and the stableman lets her have horses cheap because she trains them to carry ladies so well. She has such a passion for it, I often tell her if everything else fails, she can be a horsebreaker, and get her living so. At this awful speech Amy contained herself with difficulty, for the impression was being given that she was rather a fast young lady, which was her especial aversion. But what could she do? For the old lady was in the middle of her story, and long before it was done, Jo was off again, making more droll revelations and committing still more fearful blunders. 'Yes, Amy was in despair that day, for all the good beasts were gone, and of three left, one was lame, one blind, and the other so balky that you had to put dirt in his mouth before he would start. Nice animal for a pleasure party, wasn't it? 'Which did she choose? asked one of the laughing gentlemen, who enjoyed the subject. 'None of them. She heard of a young horse at the farm house over the river, and though a lady had never ridden him, she resolved to try, because he was handsome and spirited. Her struggles were really pathetic. There was no one to bring the horse to the saddle, so she took the saddle to the horse. My dear creature, she actually rowed it over the river, put it on her head, and marched up to the barn to the utter amazement of the old man! 'Did she ride the horse? 'Of course she did, and had a capital time. I expected to see her brought home in fragments, but she managed him perfectly, and was the life of the party. 'Well, I call that plucky! and young Mr. Lamb turned an approving glance upon Amy, wondering what his mother could be saying to make the girl look so red and uncomfortable. She was still redder and more uncomfortable a moment after, when a sudden turn in the conversation introduced the subject of dress. One of the young ladies asked Jo where she got the pretty drab hat she wore to the picnic and stupid Jo, instead of mentioning the place where it was bought two years ago, must needs answer with unnecessary frankness, 'Oh, Amy painted it. You can't buy those soft shades, so we paint ours any color we like. It's a great comfort to have an artistic sister. 'Isn't that an original idea? cried Miss Lamb, who found Jo great fun. 'That's nothing compared to some of her brilliant performances. There's nothing the child can't do. Why, she wanted a pair of blue boots for Sallie's party, so she just painted her soiled white ones the loveliest shade of sky blue you ever saw, and they looked exactly like satin, added Jo, with an air of pride in her sister's accomplishments that exasperated Amy till she felt that it would be a relief to throw her cardcase at her. 'We read a story of yours the other day, and enjoyed it very much, observed the elder Miss Lamb, wishing to compliment the literary lady, who did not look the character just then, it must be confessed. Any mention of her 'works' always had a bad effect upon Jo, who either grew rigid and looked offended, or changed the subject with a brusque remark, as now. 'Sorry you could find nothing better to read. I write that rubbish because it sells, and ordinary people like it. Are you going to New York this winter? As Miss Lamb had 'enjoyed' the story, this speech was not exactly grateful or complimentary. The minute it was made Jo saw her mistake, but fearing to make the matter worse, suddenly remembered that it was for her to make the first move toward departure, and did so with an abruptness that left three people with halffinished sentences in their mouths. 'Amy, we must go. Goodby, dear, do come and see us. We are pining for a visit. I don't dare to ask you, Mr. Lamb, but if you should come, I don't think I shall have the heart to send you away. Jo said this with such a droll imitation of May Chester's gushing style that Amy got out of the room as rapidly as possible, feeling a strong desire to laugh and cry at the same time. 'Didn't I do well? asked Jo, with a satisfied air as they walked away. 'Nothing could have been worse, was Amy's crushing reply. 'What possessed you to tell those stories about my saddle, and the hats and boots, and all the rest of it? 'Why, it's funny, and amuses people. They know we are poor, so it's no use pretending that we have grooms, buy three or four hats a season, and have things as easy and fine as they do. 'You needn't go and tell them all our little shifts, and expose our poverty in that perfectly unnecessary way. You haven't a bit of proper pride, and never will learn when to hold your tongue and when to speak, said Amy despairingly. Poor Jo looked abashed, and silently chafed the end of her nose with the stiff handkerchief, as if performing a penance for her misdemeanors. 'How shall I behave here? she asked, as they approached the third mansion. 'Just as you please. I wash my hands of you, was Amy's short answer. 'Then I'll enjoy myself. The boys are at home, and we'll have a comfortable time. Goodness knows I need a little change, for elegance has a bad effect upon my constitution, returned Jo gruffly, being disturbed by her failure to suit. An enthusiastic welcome from three big boys and several pretty children speedily soothed her ruffled feelings, and leaving Amy to entertain the hostess and Mr. Tudor, who happened to be calling likewise, Jo devoted herself to the young folks and found the change refreshing. She listened to college stories with deep interest, caressed pointers and poodles without a murmur, agreed heartily that 'Tom Brown was a brick, regardless of the improper form of praise, and when one lad proposed a visit to his turtle tank, she went with an alacrity which caused Mamma to smile upon her, as that motherly lady settled the cap which was left in a ruinous condition by filial hugs, bearlike but affectionate, and dearer to her than the most faultless coiffure from the hands of an inspired Frenchwoman. Leaving her sister to her own devices, Amy proceeded to enjoy herself to her heart's content. Mr. Tudor's uncle had married an English lady who was third cousin to a living lord, and Amy regarded the whole family with great respect, for in spite of her American birth and breeding, she possessed that reverence for titles which haunts the best of usthat unacknowledged loyalty to the early faith in kings which set the most democratic nation under the sun in ferment at the coming of a royal yellowhaired laddie, some years ago, and which still has something to do with the love the young country bears the old, like that of a big son for an imperious little mother, who held him while she could, and let him go with a farewell scolding when he rebelled. But even the satisfaction of talking with a distant connection of the British nobility did not render Amy forgetful of time, and when the proper number of minutes had passed, she reluctantly tore herself from this aristocratic society, and looked about for Jo, fervently hoping that her incorrigible sister would not be found in any position which should bring disgrace upon the name of March. It might have been worse, but Amy considered it bad. For Jo sat on the grass, with an encampment of boys about her, and a dirtyfooted dog reposing on the skirt of her state and festival dress, as she related one of Laurie's pranks to her admiring audience. One small child was poking turtles with Amy's cherished parasol, a second was eating gingerbread over Jo's best bonnet, and a third playing ball with her gloves, but all were enjoying themselves, and when Jo collected her damaged property to go, her escort accompanied her, begging her to come again, 'It was such fun to hear about Laurie's larks. 'Capital boys, aren't they? I feel quite young and brisk again after that. said Jo, strolling along with her hands behind her, partly from habit, partly to conceal the bespattered parasol. 'Why do you always avoid Mr. Tudor? asked Amy, wisely refraining from any comment upon Jo's dilapidated appearance. 'Don't like him, he puts on airs, snubs his sisters, worries his father, and doesn't speak respectfully of his mother. Laurie says he is fast, and I don't consider him a desirable acquaintance, so I let him alone. 'You might treat him civilly, at least. You gave him a cool nod, and just now you bowed and smiled in the politest way to Tommy Chamberlain, whose father keeps a grocery store. If you had just reversed the nod and the bow, it would have been right, said Amy reprovingly. 'No, it wouldn't, returned Jo, 'I neither like, respect, nor admire Tudor, though his grandfather's uncle's nephew's niece was a third cousin to a lord. Tommy is poor and bashful and good and very clever. I think well of him, and like to show that I do, for he is a gentleman in spite of the brown paper parcels. 'It's no use trying to argue with you, began Amy. 'Not the least, my dear, interrupted Jo, 'so let us look amiable, and drop a card here, as the Kings are evidently out, for which I'm deeply grateful. The family cardcase having done its duty the girls walked on, and Jo uttered another thanksgiving on reaching the fifth house, and being told that the young ladies were engaged. 'Now let us go home, and never mind Aunt March today. We can run down there any time, and it's really a pity to trail through the dust in our best bibs and tuckers, when we are tired and cross. 'Speak for yourself, if you please. Aunt March likes to have us pay her the compliment of coming in style, and making a formal call. It's a little thing to do, but it gives her pleasure, and I don't believe it will hurt your things half so much as letting dirty dogs and clumping boys spoil them. Stoop down, and let me take the crumbs off of your bonnet. 'What a good girl you are, Amy! said Jo, with a repentant glance from her own damaged costume to that of her sister, which was fresh and spotless still. 'I wish it was as easy for me to do little things to please people as it is for you. I think of them, but it takes too much time to do them, so I wait for a chance to confer a great favor, and let the small ones slip, but they tell best in the end, I fancy. Amy smiled and was mollified at once, saying with a maternal air, 'Women should learn to be agreeable, particularly poor ones, for they have no other way of repaying the kindnesses they receive. If you'd remember that, and practice it, you'd be better liked than I am, because there is more of you. 'I'm a crotchety old thing, and always shall be, but I'm willing to own that you are right, only it's easier for me to risk my life for a person than to be pleasant to him when I don't feel like it. It's a great misfortune to have such strong likes and dislikes, isn't it? 'It's a greater not to be able to hide them. I don't mind saying that I don't approve of Tudor any more than you do, but I'm not called upon to tell him so. Neither are you, and there is no use in making yourself disagreeable because he is. 'But I think girls ought to show when they disapprove of young men, and how can they do it except by their manners? Preaching does not do any good, as I know to my sorrow, since I've had Teddie to manage. But there are many little ways in which I can influence him without a word, and I say we ought to do it to others if we can. 'Teddy is a remarkable boy, and can't be taken as a sample of other boys, said Amy, in a tone of solemn conviction, which would have convulsed the 'remarkable boy' if he had heard it. 'If we were belles, or women of wealth and position, we might do something, perhaps, but for us to frown at one set of young gentlemen because we don't approve of them, and smile upon another set because we do, wouldn't have a particle of effect, and we should only be considered odd and puritanical. 'So we are to countenance things and people which we detest, merely because we are not belles and millionaires, are we? That's a nice sort of morality. 'I can't argue about it, I only know that it's the way of the world, and people who set themselves against it only get laughed at for their pains. I don't like reformers, and I hope you never try to be one. 'I do like them, and I shall be one if I can, for in spite of the laughing the world would never get on without them. We can't agree about that, for you belong to the old set, and I to the new. You will get on the best, but I shall have the liveliest time of it. I should rather enjoy the brickbats and hooting, I think. 'Well, compose yourself now, and don't worry Aunt with your new ideas. 'I'll try not to, but I'm always possessed to burst out with some particularly blunt speech or revolutionary sentiment before her. It's my doom, and I can't help it. They found Aunt Carrol with the old lady, both absorbed in some very interesting subject, but they dropped it as the girls came in, with a conscious look which betrayed that they had been talking about their nieces. Jo was not in a good humor, and the perverse fit returned, but Amy, who had virtuously done her duty, kept her temper and pleased everybody, was in a most angelic frame of mind. This amiable spirit was felt at once, and both aunts 'my deared' her affectionately, looking what they afterward said emphatically, 'That child improves every day. 'Are you going to help about the fair, dear? asked Mrs. Carrol, as Amy sat down beside her with the confiding air elderly people like so well in the young. 'Yes, Aunt. Mrs. Chester asked me if I would, and I offered to tend a table, as I have nothing but my time to give. 'I'm not, put in Jo decidedly. 'I hate to be patronized, and the Chesters think it's a great favor to allow us to help with their highly connected fair. I wonder you consented, Amy, they only want you to work. 'I am willing to work. It's for the freedmen as well as the Chesters, and I think it very kind of them to let me share the labor and the fun. Patronage does not trouble me when it is well meant. 'Quite right and proper. I like your grateful spirit, my dear. It's a pleasure to help people who appreciate our efforts. Some do not, and that is trying, observed Aunt March, looking over her spectacles at Jo, who sat apart, rocking herself, with a somewhat morose expression. If Jo had only known what a great happiness was wavering in the balance for one of them, she would have turned dovelike in a minute, but unfortunately, we don't have windows in our breasts, and cannot see what goes on in the minds of our friends. Better for us that we cannot as a general thing, but now and then it would be such a comfort, such a saving of time and temper. By her next speech, Jo deprived herself of several years of pleasure, and received a timely lesson in the art of holding her tongue. 'I don't like favors, they oppress and make me feel like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent. 'Ahem! coughed Aunt Carrol softly, with a look at Aunt March. 'I told you so, said Aunt March, with a decided nod to Aunt Carrol. Mercifully unconscious of what she had done, Jo sat with her nose in the air, and a revolutionary aspect which was anything but inviting. 'Do you speak French, dear? asked Mrs. Carrol, laying a hand on Amy's. 'Pretty well, thanks to Aunt March, who lets Esther talk to me as often as I like, replied Amy, with a grateful look, which caused the old lady to smile affably. 'How are you about languages? asked Mrs. Carrol of Jo. 'Don't know a word. I'm very stupid about studying anything, can't bear French, it's such a slippery, silly sort of language, was the brusque reply. Another look passed between the ladies, and Aunt March said to Amy, 'You are quite strong and well now, dear, I believe? Eyes don't trouble you any more, do they? 'Not at all, thank you, ma'am. I'm very well, and mean to do great things next winter, so that I may be ready for Rome, whenever that joyful time arrives. 'Good girl! You deserve to go, and I'm sure you will some day, said Aunt March, with an approving pat on the head, as Amy picked up her ball for her. Crosspatch, draw the latch, Sit by the fire and spin, squalled Polly, bending down from his perch on the back of her chair to peep into Jo's face, with such a comical air of impertinent inquiry that it was impossible to help laughing. 'Most observing bird, said the old lady. 'Come and take a walk, my dear? cried Polly, hopping toward the china closet, with a look suggestive of a lump of sugar. 'Thank you, I will. Come Amy. and Jo brought the visit to an end, feeling more strongly than ever that calls did have a bad effect upon her constitution. She shook hands in a gentlemanly manner, but Amy kissed both the aunts, and the girls departed, leaving behind them the impression of shadow and sunshine, which impression caused Aunt March to say, as they vanished... 'You'd better do it, Mary. I'll supply the money. and Aunt Carrol to reply decidedly, 'I certainly will, if her father and mother consent. Mrs. Chester's fair was so very elegant and select that it was considered a great honor by the young ladies of the neighborhood to be invited to take a table, and everyone was much interested in the matter. Amy was asked, but Jo was not, which was fortunate for all parties, as her elbows were decidedly akimbo at this period of her life, and it took a good many hard knocks to teach her how to get on easily. The 'haughty, uninteresting creature' was let severely alone, but Amy's talent and taste were duly complimented by the offer of the art table, and she exerted herself to prepare and secure appropriate and valuable contributions to it. Everything went on smoothly till the day before the fair opened, then there occurred one of the little skirmishes which it is almost impossible to avoid, when some fiveandtwenty women, old and young, with all their private piques and prejudices, try to work together. May Chester was rather jealous of Amy because the latter was a greater favorite than herself, and just at this time several trifling circumstances occurred to increase the feeling. Amy's dainty penandink work entirely eclipsed May's painted vasesthat was one thorn. Then the all conquering Tudor had danced four times with Amy at a late party and only once with Maythat was thorn number two. But the chief grievance that rankled in her soul, and gave an excuse for her unfriendly conduct, was a rumor which some obliging gossip had whispered to her, that the March girls had made fun of her at the Lambs'. All the blame of this should have fallen upon Jo, for her naughty imitation had been too lifelike to escape detection, and the frolicsome Lambs had permitted the joke to escape. No hint of this had reached the culprits, however, and Amy's dismay can be imagined, when, the very evening before the fair, as she was putting the last touches to her pretty table, Mrs. Chester, who, of course, resented the supposed ridicule of her daughter, said, in a bland tone, but with a cold look... 'I find, dear, that there is some feeling among the young ladies about my giving this table to anyone but my girls. As this is the most prominent, and some say the most attractive table of all, and they are the chief gettersup of the fair, it is thought best for them to take this place. I'm sorry, but I know you are too sincerely interested in the cause to mind a little personal disappointment, and you shall have another table if you like. Mrs. Chester fancied beforehand that it would be easy to deliver this little speech, but when the time came, she found it rather difficult to utter it naturally, with Amy's unsuspicious eyes looking straight at her full of surprise and trouble. Amy felt that there was something behind this, but could not guess what, and said quietly, feeling hurt, and showing that she did, 'Perhaps you had rather I took no table at all? 'Now, my dear, don't have any ill feeling, I beg. It's merely a matter of expediency, you see, my girls will naturally take the lead, and this table is considered their proper place. I think it very appropriate to you, and feel very grateful for your efforts to make it so pretty, but we must give up our private wishes, of course, and I will see that you have a good place elsewhere. Wouldn't you like the flower table? The little girls undertook it, but they are discouraged. You could make a charming thing of it, and the flower table is always attractive you know. 'Especially to gentlemen, added May, with a look which enlightened Amy as to one cause of her sudden fall from favor. She colored angrily, but took no other notice of that girlish sarcasm, and answered with unexpected amiability... 'It shall be as you please, Mrs. Chester. I'll give up my place here at once, and attend to the flowers, if you like. 'You can put your own things on your own table, if you prefer, began May, feeling a little consciencestricken, as she looked at the pretty racks, the painted shells, and quaint illuminations Amy had so carefully made and so gracefully arranged. She meant it kindly, but Amy mistook her meaning, and said quickly... 'Oh, certainly, if they are in your way, and sweeping her contributions into her apron, pellmell, she walked off, feeling that herself and her works of art had been insulted past forgiveness. 'Now she's mad. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn't asked you to speak, Mama, said May, looking disconsolately at the empty spaces on her table. 'Girls' quarrels are soon over, returned her mother, feeling a trifle ashamed of her own part in this one, as well she might. The little girls hailed Amy and her treasures with delight, which cordial reception somewhat soothed her perturbed spirit, and she fell to work, determined to succeed florally, if she could not artistically. But everything seemed against her. It was late, and she was tired. Everyone was too busy with their own affairs to help her, and the little girls were only hindrances, for the dears fussed and chattered like so many magpies, making a great deal of confusion in their artless efforts to preserve the most perfect order. The evergreen arch wouldn't stay firm after she got it up, but wiggled and threatened to tumble down on her head when the hanging baskets were filled. Her best tile got a splash of water, which left a sepia tear on the Cupid's cheek. She bruised her hands with hammering, and got cold working in a draft, which last affliction filled her with apprehensions for the morrow. Any girl reader who has suffered like afflictions will sympathize with poor Amy and wish her well through her task. There was great indignation at home when she told her story that evening. Her mother said it was a shame, but told her she had done right. Beth declared she wouldn't go to the fair at all, and Jo demanded why she didn't take all her pretty things and leave those mean people to get on without her. 'Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it. They will feel that more than angry speeches or huffy actions, won't they, Marmee? 'That's the right spirit, my dear. A kiss for a blow is always best, though it's not very easy to give it sometimes, said her mother, with the air of one who had learned the difference between preaching and practicing. In spite of various very natural temptations to resent and retaliate, Amy adhered to her resolution all the next day, bent on conquering her enemy by kindness. She began well, thanks to a silent reminder that came to her unexpectedly, but most opportunely. As she arranged her table that morning, while the little girls were in the anteroom filling the baskets, she took up her pet production, a little book, the antique cover of which her father had found among his treasures, and in which on leaves of vellum she had beautifully illuminated different texts. As she turned the pages rich in dainty devices with very pardonable pride, her eye fell upon one verse that made her stop and think. Framed in a brilliant scrollwork of scarlet, blue and gold, with little spirits of good will helping one another up and down among the thorns and flowers, were the words, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 'I ought, but I don't, thought Amy, as her eye went from the bright page to May's discontented face behind the big vases, that could not hide the vacancies her pretty work had once filled. Amy stood a minute, turning the leaves in her hand, reading on each some sweet rebuke for all heartburnings and uncharitableness of spirit. Many wise and true sermons are preached us every day by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home. Even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season. Amy's conscience preached her a little sermon from that text, then and there, and she did what many of us do not always do, took the sermon to heart, and straightway put it in practice. A group of girls were standing about May's table, admiring the pretty things, and talking over the change of saleswomen. They dropped their voices, but Amy knew they were speaking of her, hearing one side of the story and judging accordingly. It was not pleasant, but a better spirit had come over her, and presently a chance offered for proving it. She heard May say sorrowfully... 'It's too bad, for there is no time to make other things, and I don't want to fill up with odds and ends. The table was just complete then. Now it's spoiled. 'I dare say she'd put them back if you asked her, suggested someone. 'How could I after all the fuss? began May, but she did not finish, for Amy's voice came across the hall, saying pleasantly... 'You may have them, and welcome, without asking, if you want them. I was just thinking I'd offer to put them back, for they belong to your table rather than mine. Here they are, please take them, and forgive me if I was hasty in carrying them away last night. As she spoke, Amy returned her contribution, with a nod and a smile, and hurried away again, feeling that it was easier to do a friendly thing than it was to stay and be thanked for it. 'Now, I call that lovely of her, don't you? cried one girl. May's answer was inaudible, but another young lady, whose temper was evidently a little soured by making lemonade, added, with a disagreeable laugh, 'Very lovely, for she knew she wouldn't sell them at her own table. Now, that was hard. When we make little sacrifices we like to have them appreciated, at least, and for a minute Amy was sorry she had done it, feeling that virtue was not always its own reward. But it is, as she presently discovered, for her spirits began to rise, and her table to blossom under her skillful hands, the girls were very kind, and that one little act seemed to have cleared the atmosphere amazingly. It was a very long day and a hard one for Amy, as she sat behind her table, often quite alone, for the little girls deserted very soon. Few cared to buy flowers in summer, and her bouquets began to droop long before night. The art table was the most attractive in the room. There was a crowd about it all day long, and the tenders were constantly flying to and fro with important faces and rattling money boxes. Amy often looked wistfully across, longing to be there, where she felt at home and happy, instead of in a corner with nothing to do. It might seem no hardship to some of us, but to a pretty, blithe young girl, it was not only tedious, but very trying, and the thought of Laurie and his friends made it a real martyrdom. She did not go home till night, and then she looked so pale and quiet that they knew the day had been a hard one, though she made no complaint, and did not even tell what she had done. Her mother gave her an extra cordial cup of tea. Beth helped her dress, and made a charming little wreath for her hair, while Jo astonished her family by getting herself up with unusual care, and hinting darkly that the tables were about to be turned. 'Don't do anything rude, pray Jo I won't have any fuss made, so let it all pass and behave yourself, begged Amy, as she departed early, hoping to find a reinforcement of flowers to refresh her poor little table. 'I merely intend to make myself entrancingly agreeable to every one I know, and to keep them in your corner as long as possible. Teddy and his boys will lend a hand, and we'll have a good time yet. returned Jo, leaning over the gate to watch for Laurie. Presently the familiar tramp was heard in the dusk, and she ran out to meet him. 'Is that my boy? 'As sure as this is my girl! and Laurie tucked her hand under his arm with the air of a man whose every wish was gratified. 'Oh, Teddy, such doings! and Jo told Amy's wrongs with sisterly zeal. 'A flock of our fellows are going to drive over byandby, and I'll be hanged if I don't make them buy every flower she's got, and camp down before her table afterward, said Laurie, espousing her cause with warmth. 'The flowers are not at all nice, Amy says, and the fresh ones may not arrive in time. I don't wish to be unjust or suspicious, but I shouldn't wonder if they never came at all. When people do one mean thing they are very likely to do another, observed Jo in a disgusted tone. 'Didn't Hayes give you the best out of our gardens? I told him to. 'I didn't know that, he forgot, I suppose, and, as your grandpa was poorly, I didn't like to worry him by asking, though I did want some. 'Now, Jo, how could you think there was any need of asking? They are just as much yours as mine. Don't we always go halves in everything? began Laurie, in the tone that always made Jo turn thorny. 'Gracious, I hope not! Half of some of your things wouldn't suit me at all. But we mustn't stand philandering here. I've got to help Amy, so you go and make yourself splendid, and if you'll be so very kind as to let Hayes take a few nice flowers up to the Hall, I'll bless you forever. 'Couldn't you do it now? asked Laurie, so suggestively that Jo shut the gate in his face with inhospitable haste, and called through the bars, 'Go away, Teddy, I'm busy. Thanks to the conspirators, the tables were turned that night, for Hayes sent up a wilderness of flowers, with a lovely basket arranged in his best manner for a centerpiece. Then the March family turned out en masse, and Jo exerted herself to some purpose, for people not only came, but stayed, laughing at her nonsense, admiring Amy's taste, and apparently enjoying themselves very much. Laurie and his friends gallantly threw themselves into the breach, bought up the bouquets, encamped before the table, and made that corner the liveliest spot in the room. Amy was in her element now, and out of gratitude, if nothing more, was as spritely and gracious as possible, coming to the conclusion, about that time, that virtue was its own reward, after all. Jo behaved herself with exemplary propriety, and when Amy was happily surrounded by her guard of honor, Jo circulated about the Hall, picking up various bits of gossip, which enlightened her upon the subject of the Chester change of base. She reproached herself for her share of the ill feeling and resolved to exonerate Amy as soon as possible. She also discovered what Amy had done about the things in the morning, and considered her a model of magnanimity. As she passed the art table, she glanced over it for her sister's things, but saw no sign of them. 'Tucked away out of sight, I dare say, thought Jo, who could forgive her own wrongs, but hotly resented any insult offered her family. 'Good evening, Miss Jo. How does Amy get on? asked May with a conciliatory air, for she wanted to show that she also could be generous. 'She has sold everything she had that was worth selling, and now she is enjoying herself. The flower table is always attractive, you know, 'especially to gentlemen'. Jo couldn't resist giving that little slap, but May took it so meekly she regretted it a minute after, and fell to praising the great vases, which still remained unsold. 'Is Amy's illumination anywhere about? I took a fancy to buy that for Father, said Jo, very anxious to learn the fate of her sister's work. 'Everything of Amy's sold long ago. I took care that the right people saw them, and they made a nice little sum of money for us, returned May, who had overcome sundry small temptations, as well as Amy had, that day. Much gratified, Jo rushed back to tell the good news, and Amy looked both touched and surprised by the report of May's word and manner. 'Now, gentlemen, I want you to go and do your duty by the other tables as generously as you have by mine, especially the art table, she said, ordering out 'Teddy's own', as the girls called the college friends. ''Charge, Chester, charge!' is the motto for that table, but do your duty like men, and you'll get your money's worth of art in every sense of the word, said the irrepressible Jo, as the devoted phalanx prepared to take the field. 'To hear is to obey, but March is fairer far than May, said little Parker, making a frantic effort to be both witty and tender, and getting promptly quenched by Laurie, who said... 'Very well, my son, for a small boy! and walked him off, with a paternal pat on the head. 'Buy the vases, whispered Amy to Laurie, as a final heaping of coals of fire on her enemy's head. To May's great delight, Mr. Laurence not only bought the vases, but pervaded the hall with one under each arm. The other gentlemen speculated with equal rashness in all sorts of frail trifles, and wandered helplessly about afterward, burdened with wax flowers, painted fans, filigree portfolios, and other useful and appropriate purchases. Aunt Carrol was there, heard the story, looked pleased, and said something to Mrs. March in a corner, which made the latter lady beam with satisfaction, and watch Amy with a face full of mingled pride and anxiety, though she did not betray the cause of her pleasure till several days later. The fair was pronounced a success, and when May bade Amy goodnight, she did not gush as usual, but gave her an affectionate kiss, and a look which said 'forgive and forget'. That satisfied Amy, and when she got home she found the vases paraded on the parlor chimney piece with a great bouquet in each. 'The reward of merit for a magnanimous March, as Laurie announced with a flourish. 'You've a deal more principle and generosity and nobleness of character than I ever gave you credit for, Amy. You've behaved sweetly, and I respect you with all my heart, said Jo warmly, as they brushed their hair together late that night. 'Yes, we all do, and love her for being so ready to forgive. It must have been dreadfully hard, after working so long and setting your heart on selling your own pretty things. I don't believe I could have done it as kindly as you did, added Beth from her pillow. 'Why, girls, you needn't praise me so. I only did as I'd be done by. You laugh at me when I say I want to be a lady, but I mean a true gentlewoman in mind and manners, and I try to do it as far as I know how. I can't explain exactly, but I want to be above the little meannesses and follies and faults that spoil so many women. I'm far from it now, but I do my best, and hope in time to be what Mother is. Amy spoke earnestly, and Jo said, with a cordial hug, 'I understand now what you mean, and I'll never laugh at you again. You are getting on faster than you think, and I'll take lessons of you in true politeness, for you've learned the secret, I believe. Try away, deary, you'll get your reward some day, and no one will be more delighted than I shall. A week later Amy did get her reward, and poor Jo found it hard to be delighted. A letter came from Aunt Carrol, and Mrs. March's face was illuminated to such a degree when she read it that Jo and Beth, who were with her, demanded what the glad tidings were. 'Aunt Carrol is going abroad next month, and wants... 'Me to go with her! burst in Jo, flying out of her chair in an uncontrollable rapture. 'No, dear, not you. It's Amy. 'Oh, Mother! She's too young, it's my turn first. I've wanted it so long. It would do me so much good, and be so altogether splendid. I must go! 'I'm afraid it's impossible, Jo. Aunt says Amy, decidedly, and it is not for us to dictate when she offers such a favor. 'It's always so. Amy has all the fun and I have all the work. It isn't fair, oh, it isn't fair! cried Jo passionately. 'I'm afraid it's partly your own fault, dear. When Aunt spoke to me the other day, she regretted your blunt manners and too independent spirit, and here she writes, as if quoting something you had said'I planned at first to ask Jo, but as 'favors burden her', and she 'hates French', I think I won't venture to invite her. Amy is more docile, will make a good companion for Flo, and receive gratefully any help the trip may give her. 'Oh, my tongue, my abominable tongue! Why can't I learn to keep it quiet? groaned Jo, remembering words which had been her undoing. When she had heard the explanation of the quoted phrases, Mrs. March said sorrowfully... 'I wish you could have gone, but there is no hope of it this time, so try to bear it cheerfully, and don't sadden Amy's pleasure by reproaches or regrets. 'I'll try, said Jo, winking hard as she knelt down to pick up the basket she had joyfully upset. 'I'll take a leaf out of her book, and try not only to seem glad, but to be so, and not grudge her one minute of happiness. But it won't be easy, for it is a dreadful disappointment, and poor Jo bedewed the little fat pincushion she held with several very bitter tears. 'Jo, dear, I'm very selfish, but I couldn't spare you, and I'm glad you are not going quite yet, whispered Beth, embracing her, basket and all, with such a clinging touch and loving face that Jo felt comforted in spite of the sharp regret that made her want to box her own ears, and humbly beg Aunt Carrol to burden her with this favor, and see how gratefully she would bear it. By the time Amy came in, Jo was able to take her part in the family jubilation, not quite as heartily as usual, perhaps, but without repinings at Amy's good fortune. The young lady herself received the news as tidings of great joy, went about in a solemn sort of rapture, and began to sort her colors and pack her pencils that evening, leaving such trifles as clothes, money, and passports to those less absorbed in visions of art than herself. 'It isn't a mere pleasure trip to me, girls, she said impressively, as she scraped her best palette. 'It will decide my career, for if I have any genius, I shall find it out in Rome, and will do something to prove it. 'Suppose you haven't? said Jo, sewing away, with red eyes, at the new collars which were to be handed over to Amy. 'Then I shall come home and teach drawing for my living, replied the aspirant for fame, with philosophic composure. But she made a wry face at the prospect, and scratched away at her palette as if bent on vigorous measures before she gave up her hopes. 'No, you won't. You hate hard work, and you'll marry some rich man, and come home to sit in the lap of luxury all your days, said Jo. 'Your predictions sometimes come to pass, but I don't believe that one will. I'm sure I wish it would, for if I can't be an artist myself, I should like to be able to help those who are, said Amy, smiling, as if the part of Lady Bountiful would suit her better than that of a poor drawing teacher. 'Hum! said Jo, with a sigh. 'If you wish it you'll have it, for your wishes are always grantedmine never. 'Would you like to go? asked Amy, thoughtfully patting her nose with her knife. 'Rather! 'Well, in a year or two I'll send for you, and we'll dig in the Forum for relics, and carry out all the plans we've made so many times. 'Thank you. I'll remind you of your promise when that joyful day comes, if it ever does, returned Jo, accepting the vague but magnificent offer as gratefully as she could. There was not much time for preparation, and the house was in a ferment till Amy was off. Jo bore up very well till the last flutter of blue ribbon vanished, when she retired to her refuge, the garret, and cried till she couldn't cry any more. Amy likewise bore up stoutly till the steamer sailed. Then just as the gangway was about to be withdrawn, it suddenly came over her that a whole ocean was soon to roll between her and those who loved her best, and she clung to Laurie, the last lingerer, saying with a sob... 'Oh, take care of them for me, and if anything should happen... 'I will, dear, I will, and if anything happens, I'll come and comfort you, whispered Laurie, little dreaming that he would be called upon to keep his word. So Amy sailed away to find the Old World, which is always new and beautiful to young eyes, while her father and friend watched her from the shore, fervently hoping that none but gentle fortunes would befall the happyhearted girl, who waved her hand to them till they could see nothing but the summer sunshine dazzling on the sea. London Dearest People, Here I really sit at a front window of the Bath Hotel, Piccadilly. It's not a fashionable place, but Uncle stopped here years ago, and won't go anywhere else. However, we don't mean to stay long, so it's no great matter. Oh, I can't begin to tell you how I enjoy it all! I never can, so I'll only give you bits out of my notebook, for I've done nothing but sketch and scribble since I started. I sent a line from Halifax, when I felt pretty miserable, but after that I got on delightfully, seldom ill, on deck all day, with plenty of pleasant people to amuse me. Everyone was very kind to me, especially the officers. Don't laugh, Jo, gentlemen really are very necessary aboard ship, to hold on to, or to wait upon one, and as they have nothing to do, it's a mercy to make them useful, otherwise they would smoke themselves to death, I'm afraid. Aunt and Flo were poorly all the way, and liked to be let alone, so when I had done what I could for them, I went and enjoyed myself. Such walks on deck, such sunsets, such splendid air and waves! It was almost as exciting as riding a fast horse, when we went rushing on so grandly. I wish Beth could have come, it would have done her so much good. As for Jo, she would have gone up and sat on the maintop jib, or whatever the high thing is called, made friends with the engineers, and tooted on the captain's speaking trumpet, she'd have been in such a state of rapture. It was all heavenly, but I was glad to see the Irish coast, and found it very lovely, so green and sunny, with brown cabins here and there, ruins on some of the hills, and gentlemen's countryseats in the valleys, with deer feeding in the parks. It was early in the morning, but I didn't regret getting up to see it, for the bay was full of little boats, the shore so picturesque, and a rosy sky overhead. I never shall forget it. At Queenstown one of my new acquaintances left us, Mr. Lennox, and when I said something about the Lakes of Killarney, he sighed, and sung, with a look at me... 'Oh, have you e'er heard of Kate Kearney? She lives on the banks of Killarney From the glance of her eye, Shun danger and fly, For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney. Wasn't that nonsensical? We only stopped at Liverpool a few hours. It's a dirty, noisy place, and I was glad to leave it. Uncle rushed out and bought a pair of dogskin gloves, some ugly, thick shoes, and an umbrella, and got shaved  la mutton chop, the first thing. Then he flattered himself that he looked like a true Briton, but the first time he had the mud cleaned off his shoes, the little bootblack knew that an American stood in them, and said, with a grin, 'There yer har, sir. I've given 'em the latest Yankee shine. It amused Uncle immensely. Oh, I must tell you what that absurd Lennox did! He got his friend Ward, who came on with us, to order a bouquet for me, and the first thing I saw in my room was a lovely one, with 'Robert Lennox's compliments, on the card. Wasn't that fun, girls? I like traveling. I never shall get to London if I don't hurry. The trip was like riding through a long picture gallery, full of lovely landscapes. The farmhouses were my delight, with thatched roofs, ivy up to the eaves, latticed windows, and stout women with rosy children at the doors. The very cattle looked more tranquil than ours, as they stood kneedeep in clover, and the hens had a contented cluck, as if they never got nervous like Yankee biddies. Such perfect color I never saw, the grass so green, sky so blue, grain so yellow, woods so dark, I was in a rapture all the way. So was Flo, and we kept bouncing from one side to the other, trying to see everything while we were whisking along at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Aunt was tired and went to sleep, but Uncle read his guidebook, and wouldn't be astonished at anything. This is the way we went on. Amy, flying up'Oh, that must be Kenilworth, that gray place among the trees! Flo, darting to my window'How sweet! We must go there sometime, won't we Papa? Uncle, calmly admiring his boots'No, my dear, not unless you want beer, that's a brewery. A pausethen Flo cried out, 'Bless me, there's a gallows and a man going up. 'Where, where? shrieks Amy, staring out at two tall posts with a crossbeam and some dangling chains. 'A colliery, remarks Uncle, with a twinkle of the eye. 'Here's a lovely flock of lambs all lying down, says Amy. 'See, Papa, aren't they pretty? added Flo sentimentally. 'Geese, young ladies, returns Uncle, in a tone that keeps us quiet till Flo settles down to enjoy the Flirtations of Captain Cavendish, and I have the scenery all to myself. Of course it rained when we got to London, and there was nothing to be seen but fog and umbrellas. We rested, unpacked, and shopped a little between the showers. Aunt Mary got me some new things, for I came off in such a hurry I wasn't half ready. A white hat and blue feather, a muslin dress to match, and the loveliest mantle you ever saw. Shopping in Regent Street is perfectly splendid. Things seem so cheap, nice ribbons only sixpence a yard. I laid in a stock, but shall get my gloves in Paris. Doesn't that sound sort of elegant and rich? Flo and I, for the fun of it, ordered a hansom cab, while Aunt and Uncle were out, and went for a drive, though we learned afterward that it wasn't the thing for young ladies to ride in them alone. It was so droll! For when we were shut in by the wooden apron, the man drove so fast that Flo was frightened, and told me to stop him, but he was up outside behind somewhere, and I couldn't get at him. He didn't hear me call, nor see me flap my parasol in front, and there we were, quite helpless, rattling away, and whirling around corners at a breakneck pace. At last, in my despair, I saw a little door in the roof, and on poking it open, a red eye appeared, and a beery voice said... 'Now, then, mum? I gave my order as soberly as I could, and slamming down the door, with an 'Aye, aye, mum, the man made his horse walk, as if going to a funeral. I poked again and said, 'A little faster, then off he went, helterskelter as before, and we resigned ourselves to our fate. Today was fair, and we went to Hyde Park, close by, for we are more aristocratic than we look. The Duke of Devonshire lives near. I often see his footmen lounging at the back gate, and the Duke of Wellington's house is not far off. Such sights as I saw, my dear! It was as good as Punch, for there were fat dowagers rolling about in their red and yellow coaches, with gorgeous Jeameses in silk stockings and velvet coats, up behind, and powdered coachmen in front. Smart maids, with the rosiest children I ever saw, handsome girls, looking half asleep, dandies in queer English hats and lavender kids lounging about, and tall soldiers, in short red jackets and muffin caps stuck on one side, looking so funny I longed to sketch them. Rotten Row means 'Route de Roi', or the king's way, but now it's more like a riding school than anything else. The horses are splendid, and the men, especially the grooms, ride well, but the women are stiff, and bounce, which isn't according to our rules. I longed to show them a tearing American gallop, for they trotted solemnly up and down, in their scant habits and high hats, looking like the women in a toy Noah's Ark. Everyone ridesold men, stout ladies, little childrenand the young folks do a deal of flirting here, I saw a pair exchange rose buds, for it's the thing to wear one in the buttonhole, and I thought it rather a nice little idea. In the P.M. to Westminster Abbey, but don't expect me to describe it, that's impossible, so I'll only say it was sublime! This evening we are going to see Fechter, which will be an appropriate end to the happiest day of my life. It's very late, but I can't let my letter go in the morning without telling you what happened last evening. Who do you think came in, as we were at tea? Laurie's English friends, Fred and Frank Vaughn! I was so surprised, for I shouldn't have known them but for the cards. Both are tall fellows with whiskers, Fred handsome in the English style, and Frank much better, for he only limps slightly, and uses no crutches. They had heard from Laurie where we were to be, and came to ask us to their house, but Uncle won't go, so we shall return the call, and see them as we can. They went to the theater with us, and we did have such a good time, for Frank devoted himself to Flo, and Fred and I talked over past, present, and future fun as if we had known each other all our days. Tell Beth Frank asked for her, and was sorry to hear of her ill health. Fred laughed when I spoke of Jo, and sent his 'respectful compliments to the big hat'. Neither of them had forgotten Camp Laurence, or the fun we had there. What ages ago it seems, doesn't it? Aunt is tapping on the wall for the third time, so I must stop. I really feel like a dissipated London fine lady, writing here so late, with my room full of pretty things, and my head a jumble of parks, theaters, new gowns, and gallant creatures who say 'Ah! and twirl their blond mustaches with the true English lordliness. I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ever, your loving... AMY PARIS Dear girls, In my last I told you about our London visit, how kind the Vaughns were, and what pleasant parties they made for us. I enjoyed the trips to Hampton Court and the Kensington Museum more than anything else, for at Hampton I saw Raphael's cartoons, and at the Museum, rooms full of pictures by Turner, Lawrence, Reynolds, Hogarth, and the other great creatures. The day in Richmond Park was charming, for we had a regular English picnic, and I had more splendid oaks and groups of deer than I could copy, also heard a nightingale, and saw larks go up. We 'did' London to our heart's content, thanks to Fred and Frank, and were sorry to go away, for though English people are slow to take you in, when they once make up their minds to do it they cannot be outdone in hospitality, I think. The Vaughns hope to meet us in Rome next winter, and I shall be dreadfully disappointed if they don't, for Grace and I are great friends, and the boys very nice fellows, especially Fred. Well, we were hardly settled here, when he turned up again, saying he had come for a holiday, and was going to Switzerland. Aunt looked sober at first, but he was so cool about it she couldn't say a word. And now we get on nicely, and are very glad he came, for he speaks French like a native, and I don't know what we should do without him. Uncle doesn't know ten words, and insists on talking English very loud, as if it would make people understand him. Aunt's pronunciation is oldfashioned, and Flo and I, though we flattered ourselves that we knew a good deal, find we don't, and are very grateful to have Fred do the 'parley vooing', as Uncle calls it. Such delightful times as we are having! Sightseeing from morning till night, stopping for nice lunches in the gay cafes, and meeting with all sorts of droll adventures. Rainy days I spend in the Louvre, revelling in pictures. Jo would turn up her naughty nose at some of the finest, because she has no soul for art, but I have, and I'm cultivating eye and taste as fast as I can. She would like the relics of great people better, for I've seen her Napoleon's cocked hat and gray coat, his baby's cradle and his old toothbrush, also Marie Antoinette's little shoe, the ring of Saint Denis, Charlemagne's sword, and many other interesting things. I'll talk for hours about them when I come, but haven't time to write. The Palais Royale is a heavenly place, so full of bijouterie and lovely things that I'm nearly distracted because I can't buy them. Fred wanted to get me some, but of course I didn't allow it. Then the Bois and Champs Elysees are tres magnifique. I've seen the imperial family several times, the emperor an ugly, hardlooking man, the empress pale and pretty, but dressed in bad taste, I thoughtpurple dress, green hat, and yellow gloves. Little Nap is a handsome boy, who sits chatting to his tutor, and kisses his hand to the people as he passes in his fourhorse barouche, with postilions in red satin jackets and a mounted guard before and behind. We often walk in the Tuileries Gardens, for they are lovely, though the antique Luxembourg Gardens suit me better. Pere la Chaise is very curious, for many of the tombs are like small rooms, and looking in, one sees a table, with images or pictures of the dead, and chairs for the mourners to sit in when they come to lament. That is so Frenchy. Our rooms are on the Rue de Rivoli, and sitting on the balcony, we look up and down the long, brilliant street. It is so pleasant that we spend our evenings talking there when too tired with our day's work to go out. Fred is very entertaining, and is altogether the most agreeable young man I ever knewexcept Laurie, whose manners are more charming. I wish Fred was dark, for I don't fancy light men, however, the Vaughns are very rich and come of an excellent family, so I won't find fault with their yellow hair, as my own is yellower. Next week we are off to Germany and Switzerland, and as we shall travel fast, I shall only be able to give you hasty letters. I keep my diary, and try to 'remember correctly and describe clearly all that I see and admire', as Father advised. It is good practice for me, and with my sketchbook will give you a better idea of my tour than these scribbles. Adieu, I embrace you tenderly. 'Votre Amie. HEIDELBERG My dear Mamma, Having a quiet hour before we leave for Berne, I'll try to tell you what has happened, for some of it is very important, as you will see. The sail up the Rhine was perfect, and I just sat and enjoyed it with all my might. Get Father's old guidebooks and read about it. I haven't words beautiful enough to describe it. At Coblentz we had a lovely time, for some students from Bonn, with whom Fred got acquainted on the boat, gave us a serenade. It was a moonlight night, and about one o'clock Flo and I were waked by the most delicious music under our windows. We flew up, and hid behind the curtains, but sly peeps showed us Fred and the students singing away down below. It was the most romantic thing I ever sawthe river, the bridge of boats, the great fortress opposite, moonlight everywhere, and music fit to melt a heart of stone. When they were done we threw down some flowers, and saw them scramble for them, kiss their hands to the invisible ladies, and go laughing away, to smoke and drink beer, I suppose. Next morning Fred showed me one of the crumpled flowers in his vest pocket, and looked very sentimental. I laughed at him, and said I didn't throw it, but Flo, which seemed to disgust him, for he tossed it out of the window, and turned sensible again. I'm afraid I'm going to have trouble with that boy, it begins to look like it. The baths at Nassau were very gay, so was BadenBaden, where Fred lost some money, and I scolded him. He needs someone to look after him when Frank is not with him. Kate said once she hoped he'd marry soon, and I quite agree with her that it would be well for him. Frankfurt was delightful. I saw Goethe's house, Schiller's statue, and Dannecker's famous 'Ariadne.' It was very lovely, but I should have enjoyed it more if I had known the story better. I didn't like to ask, as everyone knew it or pretended they did. I wish Jo would tell me all about it. I ought to have read more, for I find I don't know anything, and it mortifies me. Now comes the serious part, for it happened here, and Fred has just gone. He has been so kind and jolly that we all got quite fond of him. I never thought of anything but a traveling friendship till the serenade night. Since then I've begun to feel that the moonlight walks, balcony talks, and daily adventures were something more to him than fun. I haven't flirted, Mother, truly, but remembered what you said to me, and have done my very best. I can't help it if people like me. I don't try to make them, and it worries me if I don't care for them, though Jo says I haven't got any heart. Now I know Mother will shake her head, and the girls say, 'Oh, the mercenary little wretch!, but I've made up my mind, and if Fred asks me, I shall accept him, though I'm not madly in love. I like him, and we get on comfortably together. He is handsome, young, clever enough, and very richever so much richer than the Laurences. I don't think his family would object, and I should be very happy, for they are all kind, wellbred, generous people, and they like me. Fred, as the eldest twin, will have the estate, I suppose, and such a splendid one it is! A city house in a fashionable street, not so showy as our big houses, but twice as comfortable and full of solid luxury, such as English people believe in. I like it, for it's genuine. I've seen the plate, the family jewels, the old servants, and pictures of the country place, with its park, great house, lovely grounds, and fine horses. Oh, it would be all I should ask! And I'd rather have it than any title such as girls snap up so readily, and find nothing behind. I may be mercenary, but I hate poverty, and don't mean to bear it a minute longer than I can help. One of us must marry well. Meg didn't, Jo won't, Beth can't yet, so I shall, and make everything okay all round. I wouldn't marry a man I hated or despised. You may be sure of that, and though Fred is not my model hero, he does very well, and in time I should get fond enough of him if he was very fond of me, and let me do just as I liked. So I've been turning the matter over in my mind the last week, for it was impossible to help seeing that Fred liked me. He said nothing, but little things showed it. He never goes with Flo, always gets on my side of the carriage, table, or promenade, looks sentimental when we are alone, and frowns at anyone else who ventures to speak to me. Yesterday at dinner, when an Austrian officer stared at us and then said something to his friend, a rakishlooking baron, about 'ein wonderschones Blondchen', Fred looked as fierce as a lion, and cut his meat so savagely it nearly flew off his plate. He isn't one of the cool, stiff Englishmen, but is rather peppery, for he has Scotch blood in him, as one might guess from his bonnie blue eyes. Well, last evening we went up to the castle about sunset, at least all of us but Fred, who was to meet us there after going to the Post Restante for letters. We had a charming time poking about the ruins, the vaults where the monster tun is, and the beautiful gardens made by the elector long ago for his English wife. I liked the great terrace best, for the view was divine, so while the rest went to see the rooms inside, I sat there trying to sketch the gray stone lion's head on the wall, with scarlet woodbine sprays hanging round it. I felt as if I'd got into a romance, sitting there, watching the Neckar rolling through the valley, listening to the music of the Austrian band below, and waiting for my lover, like a real storybook girl. I had a feeling that something was going to happen and I was ready for it. I didn't feel blushy or quakey, but quite cool and only a little excited. Byandby I heard Fred's voice, and then he came hurrying through the great arch to find me. He looked so troubled that I forgot all about myself, and asked what the matter was. He said he'd just got a letter begging him to come home, for Frank was very ill. So he was going at once on the night train and only had time to say goodby. I was very sorry for him, and disappointed for myself, but only for a minute because he said, as he shook hands, and said it in a way that I could not mistake, 'I shall soon come back, you won't forget me, Amy? I didn't promise, but I looked at him, and he seemed satisfied, and there was no time for anything but messages and goodbyes, for he was off in an hour, and we all miss him very much. I know he wanted to speak, but I think, from something he once hinted, that he had promised his father not to do anything of the sort yet a while, for he is a rash boy, and the old gentleman dreads a foreign daughterinlaw. We shall soon meet in Rome, and then, if I don't change my mind, I'll say 'Yes, thank you, when he says 'Will you, please? Of course this is all very private, but I wished you to know what was going on. Don't be anxious about me, remember I am your 'prudent Amy', and be sure I will do nothing rashly. Send me as much advice as you like. I'll use it if I can. I wish I could see you for a good talk, Marmee. Love and trust me. Ever your AMY 'Jo, I'm anxious about Beth. 'Why, Mother, she has seemed unusually well since the babies came. 'It's not her health that troubles me now, it's her spirits. I'm sure there is something on her mind, and I want you to discover what it is. 'What makes you think so, Mother? 'She sits alone a good deal, and doesn't talk to her father as much as she used. I found her crying over the babies the other day. When she sings, the songs are always sad ones, and now and then I see a look in her face that I don't understand. This isn't like Beth, and it worries me. 'Have you asked her about it? 'I have tried once or twice, but she either evaded my questions or looked so distressed that I stopped. I never force my children's confidence, and I seldom have to wait for long. Mrs. March glanced at Jo as she spoke, but the face opposite seemed quite unconscious of any secret disquietude but Beth's, and after sewing thoughtfully for a minute, Jo said, 'I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them. Why, Mother, Beth's eighteen, but we don't realize it, and treat her like a child, forgetting she's a woman. 'So she is. Dear heart, how fast you do grow up, returned her mother with a sigh and a smile. 'Can't be helped, Marmee, so you must resign yourself to all sorts of worries, and let your birds hop out of the nest, one by one. I promise never to hop very far, if that is any comfort to you. 'It's a great comfort, Jo. I always feel strong when you are at home, now Meg is gone. Beth is too feeble and Amy too young to depend upon, but when the tug comes, you are always ready. 'Why, you know I don't mind hard jobs much, and there must always be one scrub in a family. Amy is splendid in fine works and I'm not, but I feel in my element when all the carpets are to be taken up, or half the family fall sick at once. Amy is distinguishing herself abroad, but if anything is amiss at home, I'm your man. 'I leave Beth to your hands, then, for she will open her tender little heart to her Jo sooner than to anyone else. Be very kind, and don't let her think anyone watches or talks about her. If she only would get quite strong and cheerful again, I shouldn't have a wish in the world. 'Happy woman! I've got heaps. 'My dear, what are they? 'I'll settle Bethy's troubles, and then I'll tell you mine. They are not very wearing, so they'll keep. and Jo stitched away, with a wise nod which set her mother's heart at rest about her for the present at least. While apparently absorbed in her own affairs, Jo watched Beth, and after many conflicting conjectures, finally settled upon one which seemed to explain the change in her. A slight incident gave Jo the clue to the mystery, she thought, and lively fancy, loving heart did the rest. She was affecting to write busily one Saturday afternoon, when she and Beth were alone together. Yet as she scribbled, she kept her eye on her sister, who seemed unusually quiet. Sitting at the window, Beth's work often dropped into her lap, and she leaned her head upon her hand, in a dejected attitude, while her eyes rested on the dull, autumnal landscape. Suddenly some one passed below, whistling like an operatic blackbird, and a voice called out, 'All serene! Coming in tonight. Beth started, leaned forward, smiled and nodded, watched the passerby till his quick tramp died away, then said softly as if to herself, 'How strong and well and happy that dear boy looks. 'Hum! said Jo, still intent upon her sister's face, for the bright color faded as quickly as it came, the smile vanished, and presently a tear lay shining on the window ledge. Beth whisked it off, and in her halfaverted face read a tender sorrow that made her own eyes fill. Fearing to betray herself, she slipped away, murmuring something about needing more paper. 'Mercy on me, Beth loves Laurie! she said, sitting down in her own room, pale with the shock of the discovery which she believed she had just made. 'I never dreamed of such a thing. What will Mother say? I wonder if her... there Jo stopped and turned scarlet with a sudden thought. 'If he shouldn't love back again, how dreadful it would be. He must. I'll make him! and she shook her head threateningly at the picture of the mischievouslooking boy laughing at her from the wall. 'Oh dear, we are growing up with a vengeance. Here's Meg married and a mamma, Amy flourishing away at Paris, and Beth in love. I'm the only one that has sense enough to keep out of mischief. Jo thought intently for a minute with her eyes fixed on the picture, then she smoothed out her wrinkled forehead and said, with a decided nod at the face opposite, 'No thank you, sir, you're very charming, but you've no more stability than a weathercock. So you needn't write touching notes and smile in that insinuating way, for it won't do a bit of good, and I won't have it. Then she sighed, and fell into a reverie from which she did not wake till the early twilight sent her down to take new observations, which only confirmed her suspicion. Though Laurie flirted with Amy and joked with Jo, his manner to Beth had always been peculiarly kind and gentle, but so was everybody's. Therefore, no one thought of imagining that he cared more for her than for the others. Indeed, a general impression had prevailed in the family of late that 'our boy' was getting fonder than ever of Jo, who, however, wouldn't hear a word upon the subject and scolded violently if anyone dared to suggest it. If they had known the various tender passages which had been nipped in the bud, they would have had the immense satisfaction of saying, 'I told you so. But Jo hated 'philandering', and wouldn't allow it, always having a joke or a smile ready at the least sign of impending danger. When Laurie first went to college, he fell in love about once a month, but these small flames were as brief as ardent, did no damage, and much amused Jo, who took great interest in the alternations of hope, despair, and resignation, which were confided to her in their weekly conferences. But there came a time when Laurie ceased to worship at many shrines, hinted darkly at one allabsorbing passion, and indulged occasionally in Byronic fits of gloom. Then he avoided the tender subject altogether, wrote philosophical notes to Jo, turned studious, and gave out that he was going to 'dig', intending to graduate in a blaze of glory. This suited the young lady better than twilight confidences, tender pressures of the hand, and eloquent glances of the eye, for with Jo, brain developed earlier than heart, and she preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable. Things were in this state when the grand discovery was made, and Jo watched Laurie that night as she had never done before. If she had not got the new idea into her head, she would have seen nothing unusual in the fact that Beth was very quiet, and Laurie very kind to her. But having given the rein to her lively fancy, it galloped away with her at a great pace, and common sense, being rather weakened by a long course of romance writing, did not come to the rescue. As usual Beth lay on the sofa and Laurie sat in a low chair close by, amusing her with all sorts of gossip, for she depended on her weekly 'spin', and he never disappointed her. But that evening Jo fancied that Beth's eyes rested on the lively, dark face beside her with peculiar pleasure, and that she listened with intense interest to an account of some exciting cricket match, though the phrases, 'caught off a tice', 'stumped off his ground', and 'the leg hit for three', were as intelligible to her as Sanskrit. She also fancied, having set her heart upon seeing it, that she saw a certain increase of gentleness in Laurie's manner, that he dropped his voice now and then, laughed less than usual, was a little absentminded, and settled the afghan over Beth's feet with an assiduity that was really almost tender. 'Who knows? Stranger things have happened, thought Jo, as she fussed about the room. 'She will make quite an angel of him, and he will make life delightfully easy and pleasant for the dear, if they only love each other. I don't see how he can help it, and I do believe he would if the rest of us were out of the way. As everyone was out of the way but herself, Jo began to feel that she ought to dispose of herself with all speed. But where should she go? And burning to lay herself upon the shrine of sisterly devotion, she sat down to settle that point. Now, the old sofa was a regular patriarch of a sofalong, broad, wellcushioned, and low, a trifle shabby, as well it might be, for the girls had slept and sprawled on it as babies, fished over the back, rode on the arms, and had menageries under it as children, and rested tired heads, dreamed dreams, and listened to tender talk on it as young women. They all loved it, for it was a family refuge, and one corner had always been Jo's favorite lounging place. Among the many pillows that adorned the venerable couch was one, hard, round, covered with prickly horsehair, and furnished with a knobby button at each end. This repulsive pillow was her especial property, being used as a weapon of defense, a barricade, or a stern preventive of too much slumber. Laurie knew this pillow well, and had cause to regard it with deep aversion, having been unmercifully pummeled with it in former days when romping was allowed, and now frequently debarred by it from the seat he most coveted next to Jo in the sofa corner. If 'the sausage' as they called it, stood on end, it was a sign that he might approach and repose, but if it lay flat across the sofa, woe to man, woman, or child who dared disturb it! That evening Jo forgot to barricade her corner, and had not been in her seat five minutes, before a massive form appeared beside her, and with both arms spread over the sofa back, both long legs stretched out before him, Laurie exclaimed, with a sigh of satisfaction... 'Now, this is filling at the price. 'No slang, snapped Jo, slamming down the pillow. But it was too late, there was no room for it, and coasting onto the floor, it disappeared in a most mysterious manner. 'Come, Jo, don't be thorny. After studying himself to a skeleton all the week, a fellow deserves petting and ought to get it. 'Beth will pet you. I'm busy. 'No, she's not to be bothered with me, but you like that sort of thing, unless you've suddenly lost your taste for it. Have you? Do you hate your boy, and want to fire pillows at him? Anything more wheedlesome than that touching appeal was seldom heard, but Jo quenched 'her boy' by turning on him with a stern query, 'How many bouquets have you sent Miss Randal this week? 'Not one, upon my word. She's engaged. Now then. 'I'm glad of it, that's one of your foolish extravagances, sending flowers and things to girls for whom you don't care two pins, continued Jo reprovingly. 'Sensible girls for whom I do care whole papers of pins won't let me send them 'flowers and things', so what can I do? My feelings need a 'vent'. 'Mother doesn't approve of flirting even in fun, and you do flirt desperately, Teddy. 'I'd give anything if I could answer, 'So do you'. As I can't, I'll merely say that I don't see any harm in that pleasant little game, if all parties understand that it's only play. 'Well, it does look pleasant, but I can't learn how it's done. I've tried, because one feels awkward in company not to do as everybody else is doing, but I don't seem to get on, said Jo, forgetting to play mentor. 'Take lessons of Amy, she has a regular talent for it. 'Yes, she does it very prettily, and never seems to go too far. I suppose it's natural to some people to please without trying, and others to always say and do the wrong thing in the wrong place. 'I'm glad you can't flirt. It's really refreshing to see a sensible, straightforward girl, who can be jolly and kind without making a fool of herself. Between ourselves, Jo, some of the girls I know really do go on at such a rate I'm ashamed of them. They don't mean any harm, I'm sure, but if they knew how we fellows talked about them afterward, they'd mend their ways, I fancy. 'They do the same, and as their tongues are the sharpest, you fellows get the worst of it, for you are as silly as they, every bit. If you behaved properly, they would, but knowing you like their nonsense, they keep it up, and then you blame them. 'Much you know about it, ma'am, said Laurie in a superior tone. 'We don't like romps and flirts, though we may act as if we did sometimes. The pretty, modest girls are never talked about, except respectfully, among gentleman. Bless your innocent soul! If you could be in my place for a month you'd see things that would astonish you a trifle. Upon my word, when I see one of those harumscarum girls, I always want to say with our friend Cock Robin... 'Out upon you, fie upon you, Boldfaced jig! It was impossible to help laughing at the funny conflict between Laurie's chivalrous reluctance to speak ill of womankind, and his very natural dislike of the unfeminine folly of which fashionable society showed him many samples. Jo knew that 'young Laurence' was regarded as a most eligible parti by worldly mamas, was much smiled upon by their daughters, and flattered enough by ladies of all ages to make a coxcomb of him, so she watched him rather jealously, fearing he would be spoiled, and rejoiced more than she confessed to find that he still believed in modest girls. Returning suddenly to her admonitory tone, she said, dropping her voice, 'If you must have a 'vent', Teddy, go and devote yourself to one of the 'pretty, modest girls' whom you do respect, and not waste your time with the silly ones. 'You really advise it? and Laurie looked at her with an odd mixture of anxiety and merriment in his face. 'Yes, I do, but you'd better wait till you are through college, on the whole, and be fitting yourself for the place meantime. You're not half good enough forwell, whoever the modest girl may be. and Jo looked a little queer likewise, for a name had almost escaped her. 'That I'm not! acquiesced Laurie, with an expression of humility quite new to him, as he dropped his eyes and absently wound Jo's apron tassel round his finger. 'Mercy on us, this will never do, thought Jo, adding aloud, 'Go and sing to me. I'm dying for some music, and always like yours. 'I'd rather stay here, thank you. 'Well, you can't, there isn't room. Go and make yourself useful, since you are too big to be ornamental. I thought you hated to be tied to a woman's apron string? retorted Jo, quoting certain rebellious words of his own. 'Ah, that depends on who wears the apron! and Laurie gave an audacious tweak at the tassel. 'Are you going? demanded Jo, diving for the pillow. He fled at once, and the minute it was well, 'Up with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee, she slipped away to return no more till the young gentleman departed in high dudgeon. Jo lay long awake that night, and was just dropping off when the sound of a stifled sob made her fly to Beth's bedside, with the anxious inquiry, 'What is it, dear? 'I thought you were asleep, sobbed Beth. 'Is it the old pain, my precious? 'No, it's a new one, but I can bear it, and Beth tried to check her tears. 'Tell me all about it, and let me cure it as I often did the other. 'You can't, there is no cure. There Beth's voice gave way, and clinging to her sister, she cried so despairingly that Jo was frightened. 'Where is it? Shall I call Mother? 'No, no, don't call her, don't tell her. I shall be better soon. Lie down here and 'poor' my head. I'll be quiet and go to sleep, indeed I will. Jo obeyed, but as her hand went softly to and fro across Beth's hot forehead and wet eyelids, her heart was very full and she longed to speak. But young as she was, Jo had learned that hearts, like flowers, cannot be rudely handled, but must open naturally, so though she believed she knew the cause of Beth's new pain, she only said, in her tenderest tone, 'Does anything trouble you, deary? 'Yes, Jo, after a long pause. 'Wouldn't it comfort you to tell me what it is? 'Not now, not yet. 'Then I won't ask, but remember, Bethy, that Mother and Jo are always glad to hear and help you, if they can. 'I know it. I'll tell you byandby. 'Is the pain better now? 'Oh, yes, much better, you are so comfortable, Jo. 'Go to sleep, dear. I'll stay with you. So cheek to cheek they fell asleep, and on the morrow Beth seemed quite herself again, for at eighteen neither heads nor hearts ache long, and a loving word can medicine most ills. But Jo had made up her mind, and after pondering over a project for some days, she confided it to her mother. 'You asked me the other day what my wishes were. I'll tell you one of them, Marmee, she began, as they sat along together. 'I want to go away somewhere this winter for a change. 'Why, Jo? and her mother looked up quickly, as if the words suggested a double meaning. With her eyes on her work Jo answered soberly, 'I want something new. I feel restless and anxious to be seeing, doing, and learning more than I am. I brood too much over my own small affairs, and need stirring up, so as I can be spared this winter, I'd like to hop a little way and try my wings. 'Where will you hop? 'To New York. I had a bright idea yesterday, and this is it. You know Mrs. Kirke wrote to you for some respectable young person to teach her children and sew. It's rather hard to find just the thing, but I think I should suit if I tried. 'My dear, go out to service in that great boarding house! and Mrs. March looked surprised, but not displeased. 'It's not exactly going out to service, for Mrs. Kirke is your friendthe kindest soul that ever livedand would make things pleasant for me, I know. Her family is separate from the rest, and no one knows me there. Don't care if they do. It's honest work, and I'm not ashamed of it. 'Nor I. But your writing? 'All the better for the change. I shall see and hear new things, get new ideas, and even if I haven't much time there, I shall bring home quantities of material for my rubbish. 'I have no doubt of it, but are these your only reasons for this sudden fancy? 'No, Mother. 'May I know the others? Jo looked up and Jo looked down, then said slowly, with sudden color in her cheeks. 'It may be vain and wrong to say it, butI'm afraidLaurie is getting too fond of me. 'Then you don't care for him in the way it is evident he begins to care for you? and Mrs. March looked anxious as she put the question. 'Mercy, no! I love the dear boy, as I always have, and am immensely proud of him, but as for anything more, it's out of the question. 'I'm glad of that, Jo. 'Why, please? 'Because, dear, I don't think you suited to one another. As friends you are very happy, and your frequent quarrels soon blow over, but I fear you would both rebel if you were mated for life. You are too much alike and too fond of freedom, not to mention hot tempers and strong wills, to get on happily together, in a relation which needs infinite patience and forbearance, as well as love. 'That's just the feeling I had, though I couldn't express it. I'm glad you think he is only beginning to care for me. It would trouble me sadly to make him unhappy, for I couldn't fall in love with the dear old fellow merely out of gratitude, could I? 'You are sure of his feeling for you? The color deepened in Jo's cheeks as she answered, with the look of mingled pleasure, pride, and pain which young girls wear when speaking of first lovers, 'I'm afraid it is so, Mother. He hasn't said anything, but he looks a great deal. I think I had better go away before it comes to anything. 'I agree with you, and if it can be managed you shall go. Jo looked relieved, and after a pause, said, smiling, 'How Mrs. Moffat would wonder at your want of management, if she knew, and how she will rejoice that Annie may still hope. 'Ah, Jo, mothers may differ in their management, but the hope is the same in allthe desire to see their children happy. Meg is so, and I am content with her success. You I leave to enjoy your liberty till you tire of it, for only then will you find that there is something sweeter. Amy is my chief care now, but her good sense will help her. For Beth, I indulge no hopes except that she may be well. By the way, she seems brighter this last day or two. Have you spoken to her?' 'Yes, she owned she had a trouble, and promised to tell me byandby. I said no more, for I think I know it, and Jo told her little story. Mrs. March shook her head, and did not take so romantic a view of the case, but looked grave, and repeated her opinion that for Laurie's sake Jo should go away for a time. 'Let us say nothing about it to him till the plan is settled, then I'll run away before he can collect his wits and be tragic. Beth must think I'm going to please myself, as I am, for I can't talk about Laurie to her. But she can pet and comfort him after I'm gone, and so cure him of this romantic notion. He's been through so many little trials of the sort, he's used to it, and will soon get over his lovelornity. Jo spoke hopefully, but could not rid herself of the foreboding fear that this 'little trial' would be harder than the others, and that Laurie would not get over his 'lovelornity' as easily as heretofore. The plan was talked over in a family council and agreed upon, for Mrs. Kirke gladly accepted Jo, and promised to make a pleasant home for her. The teaching would render her independent, and such leisure as she got might be made profitable by writing, while the new scenes and society would be both useful and agreeable. Jo liked the prospect and was eager to be gone, for the home nest was growing too narrow for her restless nature and adventurous spirit. When all was settled, with fear and trembling she told Laurie, but to her surprise he took it very quietly. He had been graver than usual of late, but very pleasant, and when jokingly accused of turning over a new leaf, he answered soberly, 'So I am, and I mean this one shall stay turned. Jo was very much relieved that one of his virtuous fits should come on just then, and made her preparations with a lightened heart, for Beth seemed more cheerful, and hoped she was doing the best for all. 'One thing I leave in your especial care, she said, the night before she left. 'You mean your papers? asked Beth. 'No, my boy. Be very good to him, won't you? 'Of course I will, but I can't fill your place, and he'll miss you sadly. 'It won't hurt him, so remember, I leave him in your charge, to plague, pet, and keep in order. 'I'll do my best, for your sake, promised Beth, wondering why Jo looked at her so queerly. When Laurie said goodby, he whispered significantly, 'It won't do a bit of good, Jo. My eye is on you, so mind what you do, or I'll come and bring you home. New York, November Dear Marmee and Beth, I'm going to write you a regular volume, for I've got heaps to tell, though I'm not a fine young lady traveling on the continent. When I lost sight of Father's dear old face, I felt a trifle blue, and might have shed a briny drop or two, if an Irish lady with four small children, all crying more or less, hadn't diverted my mind, for I amused myself by dropping gingerbread nuts over the seat every time they opened their mouths to roar. Soon the sun came out, and taking it as a good omen, I cleared up likewise and enjoyed my journey with all my heart. Mrs. Kirke welcomed me so kindly I felt at home at once, even in that big house full of strangers. She gave me a funny little sky parlorall she had, but there is a stove in it, and a nice table in a sunny window, so I can sit here and write whenever I like. A fine view and a church tower opposite atone for the many stairs, and I took a fancy to my den on the spot. The nursery, where I am to teach and sew, is a pleasant room next Mrs. Kirke's private parlor, and the two little girls are pretty children, rather spoiled, I fancy, but they took to me after telling them The Seven Bad Pigs, and I've no doubt I shall make a model governess. I am to have my meals with the children, if I prefer it to the great table, and for the present I do, for I am bashful, though no one will believe it. 'Now, my dear, make yourself at home, said Mrs. K. in her motherly way, 'I'm on the drive from morning to night, as you may suppose with such a family, but a great anxiety will be off my mind if I know the children are safe with you. My rooms are always open to you, and your own shall be as comfortable as I can make it. There are some pleasant people in the house if you feel sociable, and your evenings are always free. Come to me if anything goes wrong, and be as happy as you can. There's the tea bell, I must run and change my cap. And off she bustled, leaving me to settle myself in my new nest. As I went downstairs soon after, I saw something I liked. The flights are very long in this tall house, and as I stood waiting at the head of the third one for a little servant girl to lumber up, I saw a gentleman come along behind her, take the heavy hod of coal out of her hand, carry it all the way up, put it down at a door near by, and walk away, saying, with a kind nod and a foreign accent, 'It goes better so. The little back is too young to haf such heaviness. Wasn't it good of him? I like such things, for as Father says, trifles show character. When I mentioned it to Mrs. K., that evening, she laughed, and said, 'That must have been Professor Bhaer, he's always doing things of that sort. Mrs. K. told me he was from Berlin, very learned and good, but poor as a church mouse, and gives lessons to support himself and two little orphan nephews whom he is educating here, according to the wishes of his sister, who married an American. Not a very romantic story, but it interested me, and I was glad to hear that Mrs. K. lends him her parlor for some of his scholars. There is a glass door between it and the nursery, and I mean to peep at him, and then I'll tell you how he looks. He's almost forty, so it's no harm, Marmee. After tea and a gotobed romp with the little girls, I attacked the big workbasket, and had a quiet evening chatting with my new friend. I shall keep a journalletter, and send it once a week, so goodnight, and more tomorrow. Tuesday Eve Had a lively time in my seminary this morning, for the children acted like Sancho, and at one time I really thought I should shake them all round. Some good angel inspired me to try gymnastics, and I kept it up till they were glad to sit down and keep still. After luncheon, the girl took them out for a walk, and I went to my needlework like little Mabel 'with a willing mind'. I was thanking my stars that I'd learned to make nice buttonholes, when the parlor door opened and shut, and someone began to hum, Kennst Du Das Land, like a big bumblebee. It was dreadfully improper, I know, but I couldn't resist the temptation, and lifting one end of the curtain before the glass door, I peeped in. Professor Bhaer was there, and while he arranged his books, I took a good look at him. A regular Germanrather stout, with brown hair tumbled all over his head, a bushy beard, good nose, the kindest eyes I ever saw, and a splendid big voice that does one's ears good, after our sharp or slipshod American gabble. His clothes were rusty, his hands were large, and he hadn't a really handsome feature in his face, except his beautiful teeth, yet I liked him, for he had a fine head, his linen was very nice, and he looked like a gentleman, though two buttons were off his coat and there was a patch on one shoe. He looked sober in spite of his humming, till he went to the window to turn the hyacinth bulbs toward the sun, and stroke the cat, who received him like an old friend. Then he smiled, and when a tap came at the door, called out in a loud, brisk tone, 'Herein! I was just going to run, when I caught sight of a morsel of a child carrying a big book, and stopped, to see what was going on. 'Me wants me Bhaer, said the mite, slamming down her book and running to meet him. 'Thou shalt haf thy Bhaer. Come, then, and take a goot hug from him, my Tina, said the Professor, catching her up with a laugh, and holding her so high over his head that she had to stoop her little face to kiss him. 'Now me mus tuddy my lessin, went on the funny little thing. So he put her up at the table, opened the great dictionary she had brought, and gave her a paper and pencil, and she scribbled away, turning a leaf now and then, and passing her little fat finger down the page, as if finding a word, so soberly that I nearly betrayed myself by a laugh, while Mr. Bhaer stood stroking her pretty hair with a fatherly look that made me think she must be his own, though she looked more French than German. Another knock and the appearance of two young ladies sent me back to my work, and there I virtuously remained through all the noise and gabbling that went on next door. One of the girls kept laughing affectedly, and saying, 'Now Professor, in a coquettish tone, and the other pronounced her German with an accent that must have made it hard for him to keep sober. Both seemed to try his patience sorely, for more than once I heard him say emphatically, 'No, no, it is not so, you haf not attend to what I say, and once there was a loud rap, as if he struck the table with his book, followed by the despairing exclamation, 'Prut! It all goes bad this day. Poor man, I pitied him, and when the girls were gone, took just one more peep to see if he survived it. He seemed to have thrown himself back in his chair, tired out, and sat there with his eyes shut till the clock struck two, when he jumped up, put his books in his pocket, as if ready for another lesson, and taking little Tina who had fallen asleep on the sofa in his arms, he carried her quietly away. I fancy he has a hard life of it. Mrs. Kirke asked me if I wouldn't go down to the five o'clock dinner, and feeling a little bit homesick, I thought I would, just to see what sort of people are under the same roof with me. So I made myself respectable and tried to slip in behind Mrs. Kirke, but as she is short and I'm tall, my efforts at concealment were rather a failure. She gave me a seat by her, and after my face cooled off, I plucked up courage and looked about me. The long table was full, and every one intent on getting their dinner, the gentlemen especially, who seemed to be eating on time, for they bolted in every sense of the word, vanishing as soon as they were done. There was the usual assortment of young men absorbed in themselves, young couples absorbed in each other, married ladies in their babies, and old gentlemen in politics. I don't think I shall care to have much to do with any of them, except one sweetfaced maiden lady, who looks as if she had something in her. Cast away at the very bottom of the table was the Professor, shouting answers to the questions of a very inquisitive, deaf old gentleman on one side, and talking philosophy with a Frenchman on the other. If Amy had been here, she'd have turned her back on him forever because, sad to relate, he had a great appetite, and shoveled in his dinner in a manner which would have horrified 'her ladyship'. I didn't mind, for I like 'to see folks eat with a relish', as Hannah says, and the poor man must have needed a deal of food after teaching idiots all day. As I went upstairs after dinner, two of the young men were settling their hats before the hall mirror, and I heard one say low to the other, 'Who's the new party? 'Governess, or something of that sort. 'What the deuce is she at our table for? 'Friend of the old lady's. 'Handsome head, but no style. 'Not a bit of it. Give us a light and come on. I felt angry at first, and then I didn't care, for a governess is as good as a clerk, and I've got sense, if I haven't style, which is more than some people have, judging from the remarks of the elegant beings who clattered away, smoking like bad chimneys. I hate ordinary people! Thursday Yesterday was a quiet day spent in teaching, sewing, and writing in my little room, which is very cozy, with a light and fire. I picked up a few bits of news and was introduced to the Professor. It seems that Tina is the child of the Frenchwoman who does the fine ironing in the laundry here. The little thing has lost her heart to Mr. Bhaer, and follows him about the house like a dog whenever he is at home, which delights him, as he is very fond of children, though a 'bacheldore'. Kitty and Minnie Kirke likewise regard him with affection, and tell all sorts of stories about the plays he invents, the presents he brings, and the splendid tales he tells. The younger men quiz him, it seems, call him Old Fritz, Lager Beer, Ursa Major, and make all manner of jokes on his name. But he enjoys it like a boy, Mrs. Kirke says, and takes it so goodnaturedly that they all like him in spite of his foreign ways. The maiden lady is a Miss Norton, rich, cultivated, and kind. She spoke to me at dinner today (for I went to table again, it's such fun to watch people), and asked me to come and see her at her room. She has fine books and pictures, knows interesting persons, and seems friendly, so I shall make myself agreeable, for I do want to get into good society, only it isn't the same sort that Amy likes. I was in our parlor last evening when Mr. Bhaer came in with some newspapers for Mrs. Kirke. She wasn't there, but Minnie, who is a little old woman, introduced me very prettily. 'This is Mamma's friend, Miss March. 'Yes, and she's jolly and we like her lots, added Kitty, who is an 'enfant terrible'. We both bowed, and then we laughed, for the prim introduction and the blunt addition were rather a comical contrast. 'Ah, yes, I hear these naughty ones go to vex you, Mees Marsch. If so again, call at me and I come, he said, with a threatening frown that delighted the little wretches. I promised I would, and he departed, but it seems as if I was doomed to see a good deal of him, for today as I passed his door on my way out, by accident I knocked against it with my umbrella. It flew open, and there he stood in his dressing gown, with a big blue sock on one hand and a darning needle in the other. He didn't seem at all ashamed of it, for when I explained and hurried on, he waved his hand, sock and all, saying in his loud, cheerful way... 'You haf a fine day to make your walk. Bon voyage, Mademoiselle. I laughed all the way downstairs, but it was a little pathetic, also to think of the poor man having to mend his own clothes. The German gentlemen embroider, I know, but darning hose is another thing and not so pretty. Saturday Nothing has happened to write about, except a call on Miss Norton, who has a room full of pretty things, and who was very charming, for she showed me all her treasures, and asked me if I would sometimes go with her to lectures and concerts, as her escort, if I enjoyed them. She put it as a favor, but I'm sure Mrs. Kirke has told her about us, and she does it out of kindness to me. I'm as proud as Lucifer, but such favors from such people don't burden me, and I accepted gratefully. When I got back to the nursery there was such an uproar in the parlor that I looked in, and there was Mr. Bhaer down on his hands and knees, with Tina on his back, Kitty leading him with a jump rope, and Minnie feeding two small boys with seedcakes, as they roared and ramped in cages built of chairs. 'We are playing nargerie, explained Kitty. 'Dis is mine effalunt! added Tina, holding on by the Professor's hair. 'Mamma always allows us to do what we like Saturday afternoon, when Franz and Emil come, doesn't she, Mr. Bhaer? said Minnie. The 'effalunt' sat up, looking as much in earnest as any of them, and said soberly to me, 'I gif you my wort it is so, if we make too large a noise you shall say Hush! to us, and we go more softly. I promised to do so, but left the door open and enjoyed the fun as much as they did, for a more glorious frolic I never witnessed. They played tag and soldiers, danced and sang, and when it began to grow dark they all piled onto the sofa about the Professor, while he told charming fairy stories of the storks on the chimney tops, and the little 'koblods', who ride the snowflakes as they fall. I wish Americans were as simple and natural as Germans, don't you? I'm so fond of writing, I should go spinning on forever if motives of economy didn't stop me, for though I've used thin paper and written fine, I tremble to think of the stamps this long letter will need. Pray forward Amy's as soon as you can spare them. My small news will sound very flat after her splendors, but you will like them, I know. Is Teddy studying so hard that he can't find time to write to his friends? Take good care of him for me, Beth, and tell me all about the babies, and give heaps of love to everyone. From your faithful Jo. P.S. On reading over my letter, it strikes me as rather Bhaery, but I am always interested in odd people, and I really had nothing else to write about. Bless you! DECEMBER My Precious Betsey, As this is to be a scribblescrabble letter, I direct it to you, for it may amuse you, and give you some idea of my goings on, for though quiet, they are rather amusing, for which, oh, be joyful! After what Amy would call Herculaneum efforts, in the way of mental and moral agriculture, my young ideas begin to shoot and my little twigs to bend as I could wish. They are not so interesting to me as Tina and the boys, but I do my duty by them, and they are fond of me. Franz and Emil are jolly little lads, quite after my own heart, for the mixture of German and American spirit in them produces a constant state of effervescence. Saturday afternoons are riotous times, whether spent in the house or out, for on pleasant days they all go to walk, like a seminary, with the Professor and myself to keep order, and then such fun! We are very good friends now, and I've begun to take lessons. I really couldn't help it, and it all came about in such a droll way that I must tell you. To begin at the beginning, Mrs. Kirke called to me one day as I passed Mr. Bhaer's room where she was rummaging. 'Did you ever see such a den, my dear? Just come and help me put these books to rights, for I've turned everything upside down, trying to discover what he has done with the six new handkerchiefs I gave him not long ago. I went in, and while we worked I looked about me, for it was 'a den' to be sure. Books and papers everywhere, a broken meerschaum, and an old flute over the mantlepiece as if done with, a ragged bird without any tail chirped on one window seat, and a box of white mice adorned the other. Halffinished boats and bits of string lay among the manuscripts. Dirty little boots stood drying before the fire, and traces of the dearly beloved boys, for whom he makes a slave of himself, were to be seen all over the room. After a grand rummage three of the missing articles were found, one over the bird cage, one covered with ink, and a third burned brown, having been used as a holder. 'Such a man! laughed goodnatured Mrs. K., as she put the relics in the rag bag. 'I suppose the others are torn up to rig ships, bandage cut fingers, or make kite tails. It's dreadful, but I can't scold him. He's so absentminded and goodnatured, he lets those boys ride over him roughshod. I agreed to do his washing and mending, but he forgets to give out his things and I forget to look them over, so he comes to a sad pass sometimes. 'Let me mend them, said I. 'I don't mind it, and he needn't know. I'd like to, he's so kind to me about bringing my letters and lending books. So I have got his things in order, and knit heels into two pairs of the socks, for they were boggled out of shape with his queer darns. Nothing was said, and I hoped he wouldn't find it out, but one day last week he caught me at it. Hearing the lessons he gives to others has interested and amused me so much that I took a fancy to learn, for Tina runs in and out, leaving the door open, and I can hear. I had been sitting near this door, finishing off the last sock, and trying to understand what he said to a new scholar, who is as stupid as I am. The girl had gone, and I thought he had also, it was so still, and I was busily gabbling over a verb, and rocking to and fro in a most absurd way, when a little crow made me look up, and there was Mr. Bhaer looking and laughing quietly, while he made signs to Tina not to betray him. 'So! he said, as I stopped and stared like a goose, 'you peep at me, I peep at you, and this is not bad, but see, I am not pleasanting when I say, haf you a wish for German? 'Yes, but you are too busy. I am too stupid to learn, I blundered out, as red as a peony. 'Prut! We will make the time, and we fail not to find the sense. At efening I shall gif a little lesson with much gladness, for look you, Mees Marsch, I haf this debt to pay. And he pointed to my work 'Yes,' they say to one another, these so kind ladies, 'he is a stupid old fellow, he will see not what we do, he will never observe that his sock heels go not in holes any more, he will think his buttons grow out new when they fall, and believe that strings make theirselves.' 'Ah! But I haf an eye, and I see much. I haf a heart, and I feel thanks for this. Come, a little lesson then and now, orno more good fairy works for me and mine. Of course I couldn't say anything after that, and as it really is a splendid opportunity, I made the bargain, and we began. I took four lessons, and then I stuck fast in a grammatical bog. The Professor was very patient with me, but it must have been torment to him, and now and then he'd look at me with such an expression of mild despair that it was a tossup with me whether to laugh or cry. I tried both ways, and when it came to a sniff or utter mortification and woe, he just threw the grammar on to the floor and marched out of the room. I felt myself disgraced and deserted forever, but didn't blame him a particle, and was scrambling my papers together, meaning to rush upstairs and shake myself hard, when in he came, as brisk and beaming as if I'd covered myself in glory. 'Now we shall try a new way. You and I will read these pleasant little marchen together, and dig no more in that dry book, that goes in the corner for making us trouble. He spoke so kindly, and opened Hans Anderson's fairy tales so invitingly before me, that I was more ashamed than ever, and went at my lesson in a neckornothing style that seemed to amuse him immensely. I forgot my bashfulness, and pegged away (no other word will express it) with all my might, tumbling over long words, pronouncing according to inspiration of the minute, and doing my very best. When I finished reading my first page, and stopped for breath, he clapped his hands and cried out in his hearty way, 'Das ist gut! Now we go well! My turn. I do him in German, gif me your ear. And away he went, rumbling out the words with his strong voice and a relish which was good to see as well as hear. Fortunately the story was The Constant Tin Soldier, which is droll, you know, so I could laugh, and I did, though I didn't understand half he read, for I couldn't help it, he was so earnest, I so excited, and the whole thing so comical. After that we got on better, and now I read my lessons pretty well, for this way of studying suits me, and I can see that the grammar gets tucked into the tales and poetry as one gives pills in jelly. I like it very much, and he doesn't seem tired of it yet, which is very good of him, isn't it? I mean to give him something on Christmas, for I dare not offer money. Tell me something nice, Marmee. I'm glad Laurie seems so happy and busy, that he has given up smoking and lets his hair grow. You see Beth manages him better than I did. I'm not jealous, dear, do your best, only don't make a saint of him. I'm afraid I couldn't like him without a spice of human naughtiness. Read him bits of my letters. I haven't time to write much, and that will do just as well. Thank Heaven Beth continues so comfortable. JANUARY A Happy New Year to you all, my dearest family, which of course includes Mr. L. and a young man by the name of Teddy. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed your Christmas bundle, for I didn't get it till night and had given up hoping. Your letter came in the morning, but you said nothing about a parcel, meaning it for a surprise, so I was disappointed, for I'd had a 'kind of feeling' that you wouldn't forget me. I felt a little low in my mind as I sat up in my room after tea, and when the big, muddy, batteredlooking bundle was brought to me, I just hugged it and pranced. It was so homey and refreshing that I sat down on the floor and read and looked and ate and laughed and cried, in my usual absurd way. The things were just what I wanted, and all the better for being made instead of bought. Beth's new 'ink bib' was capital, and Hannah's box of hard gingerbread will be a treasure. I'll be sure and wear the nice flannels you sent, Marmee, and read carefully the books Father has marked. Thank you all, heaps and heaps! Speaking of books reminds me that I'm getting rich in that line, for on New Year's Day Mr. Bhaer gave me a fine Shakespeare. It is one he values much, and I've often admired it, set up in the place of honor with his German Bible, Plato, Homer, and Milton, so you may imagine how I felt when he brought it down, without its cover, and showed me my own name in it, 'from my friend Friedrich Bhaer. 'You say often you wish a library. Here I gif you one, for between these lids (he meant covers) is many books in one. Read him well, and he will help you much, for the study of character in this book will help you to read it in the world and paint it with your pen. I thanked him as well as I could, and talk now about 'my library', as if I had a hundred books. I never knew how much there was in Shakespeare before, but then I never had a Bhaer to explain it to me. Now don't laugh at his horrid name. It isn't pronounced either Bear or Beer, as people will say it, but something between the two, as only Germans can give it. I'm glad you both like what I tell you about him, and hope you will know him some day. Mother would admire his warm heart, Father his wise head. I admire both, and feel rich in my new 'friend Friedrich Bhaer'. Not having much money, or knowing what he'd like, I got several little things, and put them about the room, where he would find them unexpectedly. They were useful, pretty, or funny, a new standish on his table, a little vase for his flower, he always has one, or a bit of green in a glass, to keep him fresh, he says, and a holder for his blower, so that he needn't burn up what Amy calls 'mouchoirs'. I made it like those Beth invented, a big butterfly with a fat body, and black and yellow wings, worsted feelers, and bead eyes. It took his fancy immensely, and he put it on his mantlepiece as an article of virtue, so it was rather a failure after all. Poor as he is, he didn't forget a servant or a child in the house, and not a soul here, from the French laundrywoman to Miss Norton forgot him. I was so glad of that. They got up a masquerade, and had a gay time New Year's Eve. I didn't mean to go down, having no dress. But at the last minute, Mrs. Kirke remembered some old brocades, and Miss Norton lent me lace and feathers. So I dressed up as Mrs. Malaprop, and sailed in with a mask on. No one knew me, for I disguised my voice, and no one dreamed of the silent, haughty Miss March (for they think I am very stiff and cool, most of them, and so I am to whippersnappers) could dance and dress, and burst out into a 'nice derangement of epitaphs, like an allegory on the banks of the Nile'. I enjoyed it very much, and when we unmasked it was fun to see them stare at me. I heard one of the young men tell another that he knew I'd been an actress, in fact, he thought he remembered seeing me at one of the minor theaters. Meg will relish that joke. Mr. Bhaer was Nick Bottom, and Tina was Titania, a perfect little fairy in his arms. To see them dance was 'quite a landscape', to use a Teddyism. I had a very happy New Year, after all, and when I thought it over in my room, I felt as if I was getting on a little in spite of my many failures, for I'm cheerful all the time now, work with a will, and take more interest in other people than I used to, which is satisfactory. Bless you all! Ever your loving... Jo Though very happy in the social atmosphere about her, and very busy with the daily work that earned her bread and made it sweeter for the effort, Jo still found time for literary labors. The purpose which now took possession of her was a natural one to a poor and ambitious girl, but the means she took to gain her end were not the best. She saw that money conferred power, money and power, therefore, she resolved to have, not to be used for herself alone, but for those whom she loved more than life. The dream of filling home with comforts, giving Beth everything she wanted, from strawberries in winter to an organ in her bedroom, going abroad herself, and always having more than enough, so that she might indulge in the luxury of charity, had been for years Jo's most cherished castle in the air. The prizestory experience had seemed to open a way which might, after long traveling and much uphill work, lead to this delightful chateau en Espagne. But the novel disaster quenched her courage for a time, for public opinion is a giant which has frightened stouterhearted Jacks on bigger beanstalks than hers. Like that immortal hero, she reposed awhile after the first attempt, which resulted in a tumble and the least lovely of the giant's treasures, if I remember rightly. But the 'up again and take another' spirit was as strong in Jo as in Jack, so she scrambled up on the shady side this time and got more booty, but nearly left behind her what was far more precious than the moneybags. She took to writing sensation stories, for in those dark ages, even allperfect America read rubbish. She told no one, but concocted a 'thrilling tale', and boldly carried it herself to Mr. Dashwood, editor of the Weekly Volcano. She had never read Sartor Resartus, but she had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners. So she dressed herself in her best, and trying to persuade herself that she was neither excited nor nervous, bravely climbed two pairs of dark and dirty stairs to find herself in a disorderly room, a cloud of cigar smoke, and the presence of three gentlemen, sitting with their heels rather higher than their hats, which articles of dress none of them took the trouble to remove on her appearance. Somewhat daunted by this reception, Jo hesitated on the threshold, murmuring in much embarrassment... 'Excuse me, I was looking for the Weekly Volcano office. I wished to see Mr. Dashwood. Down went the highest pair of heels, up rose the smokiest gentleman, and carefully cherishing his cigar between his fingers, he advanced with a nod and a countenance expressive of nothing but sleep. Feeling that she must get through the matter somehow, Jo produced her manuscript and, blushing redder and redder with each sentence, blundered out fragments of the little speech carefully prepared for the occasion. 'A friend of mine desired me to offera storyjust as an experimentwould like your opinionbe glad to write more if this suits. While she blushed and blundered, Mr. Dashwood had taken the manuscript, and was turning over the leaves with a pair of rather dirty fingers, and casting critical glances up and down the neat pages. 'Not a first attempt, I take it? observing that the pages were numbered, covered only on one side, and not tied up with a ribbonsure sign of a novice. 'No, sir. She has had some experience, and got a prize for a tale in the Blarneystone Banner. 'Oh, did she? and Mr. Dashwood gave Jo a quick look, which seemed to take note of everything she had on, from the bow in her bonnet to the buttons on her boots. 'Well, you can leave it, if you like. We've more of this sort of thing on hand than we know what to do with at present, but I'll run my eye over it, and give you an answer next week. Now, Jo did not like to leave it, for Mr. Dashwood didn't suit her at all, but, under the circumstances, there was nothing for her to do but bow and walk away, looking particularly tall and dignified, as she was apt to do when nettled or abashed. Just then she was both, for it was perfectly evident from the knowing glances exchanged among the gentlemen that her little fiction of 'my friend' was considered a good joke, and a laugh, produced by some inaudible remark of the editor, as he closed the door, completed her discomfiture. Half resolving never to return, she went home, and worked off her irritation by stitching pinafores vigorously, and in an hour or two was cool enough to laugh over the scene and long for next week. When she went again, Mr. Dashwood was alone, whereat she rejoiced. Mr. Dashwood was much wider awake than before, which was agreeable, and Mr. Dashwood was not too deeply absorbed in a cigar to remember his manners, so the second interview was much more comfortable than the first. 'We'll take this (editors never say I), if you don't object to a few alterations. It's too long, but omitting the passages I've marked will make it just the right length, he said, in a businesslike tone. Jo hardly knew her own MS. again, so crumpled and underscored were its pages and paragraphs, but feeling as a tender parent might on being asked to cut off her baby's legs in order that it might fit into a new cradle, she looked at the marked passages and was surprised to find that all the moral reflectionswhich she had carefully put in as ballast for much romancehad been stricken out. 'But, Sir, I thought every story should have some sort of a moral, so I took care to have a few of my sinners repent. Mr. Dashwoods's editorial gravity relaxed into a smile, for Jo had forgotten her 'friend', and spoken as only an author could. 'People want to be amused, not preached at, you know. Morals don't sell nowadays. Which was not quite a correct statement, by the way. 'You think it would do with these alterations, then? 'Yes, it's a new plot, and pretty well worked uplanguage good, and so on, was Mr. Dashwood's affable reply. 'What do youthat is, what compensation began Jo, not exactly knowing how to express herself. 'Oh, yes, well, we give from twentyfive to thirty for things of this sort. Pay when it comes out, returned Mr. Dashwood, as if that point had escaped him. Such trifles do escape the editorial mind, it is said. 'Very well, you can have it, said Jo, handing back the story with a satisfied air, for after the dollaracolumn work, even twentyfive seemed good pay. 'Shall I tell my friend you will take another if she has one better than this? asked Jo, unconscious of her little slip of the tongue, and emboldened by her success. 'Well, we'll look at it. Can't promise to take it. Tell her to make it short and spicy, and never mind the moral. What name would your friend like to put on it? in a careless tone. 'None at all, if you please, she doesn't wish her name to appear and has no nom de plume, said Jo, blushing in spite of herself. 'Just as she likes, of course. The tale will be out next week. Will you call for the money, or shall I send it? asked Mr. Dashwood, who felt a natural desire to know who his new contributor might be. 'I'll call. Good morning, Sir. As she departed, Mr. Dashwood put up his feet, with the graceful remark, 'Poor and proud, as usual, but she'll do. Following Mr. Dashwood's directions, and making Mrs. Northbury her model, Jo rashly took a plunge into the frothy sea of sensational literature, but thanks to the life preserver thrown her by a friend, she came up again not much the worse for her ducking. Like most young scribblers, she went abroad for her characters and scenery, and banditti, counts, gypsies, nuns, and duchesses appeared upon her stage, and played their parts with as much accuracy and spirit as could be expected. Her readers were not particular about such trifles as grammar, punctuation, and probability, and Mr. Dashwood graciously permitted her to fill his columns at the lowest prices, not thinking it necessary to tell her that the real cause of his hospitality was the fact that one of his hacks, on being offered higher wages, had basely left him in the lurch. She soon became interested in her work, for her emaciated purse grew stout, and the little hoard she was making to take Beth to the mountains next summer grew slowly but surely as the weeks passed. One thing disturbed her satisfaction, and that was that she did not tell them at home. She had a feeling that Father and Mother would not approve, and preferred to have her own way first, and beg pardon afterward. It was easy to keep her secret, for no name appeared with her stories. Mr. Dashwood had of course found it out very soon, but promised to be dumb, and for a wonder kept his word. She thought it would do her no harm, for she sincerely meant to write nothing of which she would be ashamed, and quieted all pricks of conscience by anticipations of the happy minute when she should show her earnings and laugh over her wellkept secret. But Mr. Dashwood rejected any but thrilling tales, and as thrills could not be produced except by harrowing up the souls of the readers, history and romance, land and sea, science and art, police records and lunatic asylums, had to be ransacked for the purpose. Jo soon found that her innocent experience had given her but few glimpses of the tragic world which underlies society, so regarding it in a business light, she set about supplying her deficiencies with characteristic energy. Eager to find material for stories, and bent on making them original in plot, if not masterly in execution, she searched newspapers for accidents, incidents, and crimes. She excited the suspicions of public librarians by asking for works on poisons. She studied faces in the street, and characters, good, bad, and indifferent, all about her. She delved in the dust of ancient times for facts or fictions so old that they were as good as new, and introduced herself to folly, sin, and misery, as well as her limited opportunities allowed. She thought she was prospering finely, but unconsciously she was beginning to desecrate some of the womanliest attributes of a woman's character. She was living in bad society, and imaginary though it was, its influence affected her, for she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial food, and was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her nature by a premature acquaintance with the darker side of life, which comes soon enough to all of us. She was beginning to feel rather than see this, for much describing of other people's passions and feelings set her to studying and speculating about her own, a morbid amusement in which healthy young minds do not voluntarily indulge. Wrongdoing always brings its own punishment, and when Jo most needed hers, she got it. I don't know whether the study of Shakespeare helped her to read character, or the natural instinct of a woman for what was honest, brave, and strong, but while endowing her imaginary heroes with every perfection under the sun, Jo was discovering a live hero, who interested her in spite of many human imperfections. Mr. Bhaer, in one of their conversations, had advised her to study simple, true, and lovely characters, wherever she found them, as good training for a writer. Jo took him at his word, for she coolly turned round and studied hima proceeding which would have much surprised him, had he known it, for the worthy Professor was very humble in his own conceit. Why everybody liked him was what puzzled Jo, at first. He was neither rich nor great, young nor handsome, in no respect what is called fascinating, imposing, or brilliant, and yet he was as attractive as a genial fire, and people seemed to gather about him as naturally as about a warm hearth. He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away a stranger, yet everyone was his friend no longer young, but as happyhearted as a boy plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many, and his oddities were freely forgiven for his sake. Jo often watched him, trying to discover the charm, and at last decided that it was benevolence which worked the miracle. If he had any sorrow, 'it sat with its head under its wing', and he turned only his sunny side to the world. There were lines upon his forehead, but Time seemed to have touched him gently, remembering how kind he was to others. The pleasant curves about his mouth were the memorials of many friendly words and cheery laughs, his eyes were never cold or hard, and his big hand had a warm, strong grasp that was more expressive than words. His very clothes seemed to partake of the hospitable nature of the wearer. They looked as if they were at ease, and liked to make him comfortable. His capacious waistcoat was suggestive of a large heart underneath. His rusty coat had a social air, and the baggy pockets plainly proved that little hands often went in empty and came out full. His very boots were benevolent, and his collars never stiff and raspy like other people's. 'That's it! said Jo to herself, when she at length discovered that genuine good will toward one's fellow men could beautify and dignify even a stout German teacher, who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks, and was burdened with the name of Bhaer. Jo valued goodness highly, but she also possessed a most feminine respect for intellect, and a little discovery which she made about the Professor added much to her regard for him. He never spoke of himself, and no one ever knew that in his native city he had been a man much honored and esteemed for learning and integrity, till a countryman came to see him. He never spoke of himself, and in a conversation with Miss Norton divulged the pleasing fact. From her Jo learned it, and liked it all the better because Mr. Bhaer had never told it. She felt proud to know that he was an honored Professor in Berlin, though only a poor languagemaster in America, and his homely, hardworking life was much beautified by the spice of romance which this discovery gave it. Another and a better gift than intellect was shown her in a most unexpected manner. Miss Norton had the entree into most society, which Jo would have had no chance of seeing but for her. The solitary woman felt an interest in the ambitious girl, and kindly conferred many favors of this sort both on Jo and the Professor. She took them with her one night to a select symposium, held in honor of several celebrities. Jo went prepared to bow down and adore the mighty ones whom she had worshiped with youthful enthusiasm afar off. But her reverence for genius received a severe shock that night, and it took her some time to recover from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after all. Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on 'spirit, fire, and dew', to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance. Turning as from a fallen idol, she made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions. The great novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staels of the age, who looked daggers at another Corinne, who was amiably satirizing her, after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher, who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber, the loquacity of the lady rendering speech impossible. The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy the young musician, who was charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party. Before the evening was half over, Jo felt so completely disillusioned, that she sat down in a corner to recover herself. Mr. Bhaer soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess. The conversations were miles beyond Jo's comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms, and the only thing 'evolved from her inner consciousness' was a bad headache after it was all over. It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God. Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday. She looked round to see how the Professor liked it, and found him looking at her with the grimmest expression she had ever seen him wear. He shook his head and beckoned her to come away, but she was fascinated just then by the freedom of Speculative Philosophy, and kept her seat, trying to find out what the wise gentlemen intended to rely upon after they had annihilated all the old beliefs. Now, Mr. Bhaer was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions, not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken. As he glanced from Jo to several other young people, attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brows and longed to speak, fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by the rockets, to find when the display was over that they had only an empty stick or a scorched hand. He bore it as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truthan eloquence which made his broken English musical and his plain face beautiful. He had a hard fight, for the wise men argued well, but he didn't know when he was beaten and stood to his colors like a man. Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo. The old beliefs, that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new. God was not a blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact. She felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again, and when Mr. Bhaer paused, outtalked but not one whit convinced, Jo wanted to clap her hands and thank him. She did neither, but she remembered the scene, and gave the Professor her heartiest respect, for she knew it cost him an effort to speak out then and there, because his conscience would not let him be silent. She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, 'truth, reverence, and good will', then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great. This belief strengthened daily. She valued his esteem, she coveted his respect, she wanted to be worthy of his friendship, and just when the wish was sincerest, she came near to losing everything. It all grew out of a cocked hat, for one evening the Professor came in to give Jo her lesson with a paper soldier cap on his head, which Tina had put there and he had forgotten to take off. 'It's evident he doesn't look in his glass before coming down, thought Jo, with a smile, as he said 'Goot efening, and sat soberly down, quite unconscious of the ludicrous contrast between his subject and his headgear, for he was going to read her the Death of Wallenstein. She said nothing at first, for she liked to hear him laugh out his big, hearty laugh when anything funny happened, so she left him to discover it for himself, and presently forgot all about it, for to hear a German read Schiller is rather an absorbing occupation. After the reading came the lesson, which was a lively one, for Jo was in a gay mood that night, and the cocked hat kept her eyes dancing with merriment. The Professor didn't know what to make of her, and stopped at last to ask with an air of mild surprise that was irresistible. . . 'Mees Marsch, for what do you laugh in your master's face? Haf you no respect for me, that you go on so bad? 'How can I be respectful, Sir, when you forget to take your hat off? said Jo. Lifting his hand to his head, the absentminded Professor gravely felt and removed the little cocked hat, looked at it a minute, and then threw back his head and laughed like a merry bass viol. 'Ah! I see him now, it is that imp Tina who makes me a fool with my cap. Well, it is nothing, but see you, if this lesson goes not well, you too shall wear him. But the lesson did not go at all for a few minutes because Mr. Bhaer caught sight of a picture on the hat, and unfolding it, said with great disgust, 'I wish these papers did not come in the house. They are not for children to see, nor young people to read. It is not well, and I haf no patience with those who make this harm. Jo glanced at the sheet and saw a pleasing illustration composed of a lunatic, a corpse, a villain, and a viper. She did not like it, but the impulse that made her turn it over was not one of displeasure but fear, because for a minute she fancied the paper was the Volcano. It was not, however, and her panic subsided as she remembered that even if it had been and one of her own tales in it, there would have been no name to betray her. She had betrayed herself, however, by a look and a blush, for though an absent man, the Professor saw a good deal more than people fancied. He knew that Jo wrote, and had met her down among the newspaper offices more than once, but as she never spoke of it, he asked no questions in spite of a strong desire to see her work. Now it occurred to him that she was doing what she was ashamed to own, and it troubled him. He did not say to himself, 'It is none of my business. I've no right to say anything, as many people would have done. He only remembered that she was young and poor, a girl far away from mother's love and father's care, and he was moved to help her with an impulse as quick and natural as that which would prompt him to put out his hand to save a baby from a puddle. All this flashed through his mind in a minute, but not a trace of it appeared in his face, and by the time the paper was turned, and Jo's needle threaded, he was ready to say quite naturally, but very gravely... 'Yes, you are right to put it from you. I do not think that good young girls should see such things. They are made pleasant to some, but I would more rather give my boys gunpowder to play with than this bad trash. 'All may not be bad, only silly, you know, and if there is a demand for it, I don't see any harm in supplying it. Many very respectable people make an honest living out of what are called sensation stories, said Jo, scratching gathers so energetically that a row of little slits followed her pin. 'There is a demand for whisky, but I think you and I do not care to sell it. If the respectable people knew what harm they did, they would not feel that the living was honest. They haf no right to put poison in the sugarplum, and let the small ones eat it. No, they should think a little, and sweep mud in the street before they do this thing. Mr. Bhaer spoke warmly, and walked to the fire, crumpling the paper in his hands. Jo sat still, looking as if the fire had come to her, for her cheeks burned long after the cocked hat had turned to smoke and gone harmlessly up the chimney. 'I should like much to send all the rest after him, muttered the Professor, coming back with a relieved air. Jo thought what a blaze her pile of papers upstairs would make, and her hardearned money lay rather heavily on her conscience at that minute. Then she thought consolingly to herself, 'Mine are not like that, they are only silly, never bad, so I won't be worried, and taking up her book, she said, with a studious face, 'Shall we go on, Sir? I'll be very good and proper now. 'I shall hope so, was all he said, but he meant more than she imagined, and the grave, kind look he gave her made her feel as if the words Weekly Volcano were printed in large type on her forehead. As soon as she went to her room, she got out her papers, and carefully reread every one of her stories. Being a little shortsighted, Mr. Bhaer sometimes used eye glasses, and Jo had tried them once, smiling to see how they magnified the fine print of her book. Now she seemed to have on the Professor's mental or moral spectacles also, for the faults of these poor stories glared at her dreadfully and filled her with dismay. 'They are trash, and will soon be worse trash if I go on, for each is more sensational than the last. I've gone blindly on, hurting myself and other people, for the sake of money. I know it's so, for I can't read this stuff in sober earnest without being horribly ashamed of it, and what should I do if they were seen at home or Mr. Bhaer got hold of them? Jo turned hot at the bare idea, and stuffed the whole bundle into her stove, nearly setting the chimney afire with the blaze. 'Yes, that's the best place for such inflammable nonsense. I'd better burn the house down, I suppose, than let other people blow themselves up with my gunpowder, she thought as she watched the Demon of the Jura whisk away, a little black cinder with fiery eyes. But when nothing remained of all her three month's work except a heap of ashes and the money in her lap, Jo looked sober, as she sat on the floor, wondering what she ought to do about her wages. 'I think I haven't done much harm yet, and may keep this to pay for my time, she said, after a long meditation, adding impatiently, 'I almost wish I hadn't any conscience, it's so inconvenient. If I didn't care about doing right, and didn't feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally. I can't help wishing sometimes, that Mother and Father hadn't been so particular about such things. Ah, Jo, instead of wishing that, thank God that 'Father and Mother were particular', and pity from your heart those who have no such guardians to hedge them round with principles which may seem like prison walls to impatient youth, but which will prove sure foundations to build character upon in womanhood. Jo wrote no more sensational stories, deciding that the money did not pay for her share of the sensation, but going to the other extreme, as is the way with people of her stamp, she took a course of Mrs. Sherwood, Miss Edgeworth, and Hannah More, and then produced a tale which might have been more properly called an essay or a sermon, so intensely moral was it. She had her doubts about it from the beginning, for her lively fancy and girlish romance felt as ill at ease in the new style as she would have done masquerading in the stiff and cumbrous costume of the last century. She sent this didactic gem to several markets, but it found no purchaser, and she was inclined to agree with Mr. Dashwood that morals didn't sell. Then she tried a child's story, which she could easily have disposed of if she had not been mercenary enough to demand filthy lucre for it. The only person who offered enough to make it worth her while to try juvenile literature was a worthy gentleman who felt it his mission to convert all the world to his particular belief. But much as she liked to write for children, Jo could not consent to depict all her naughty boys as being eaten by bears or tossed by mad bulls because they did not go to a particular Sabbath school, nor all the good infants who did go as rewarded by every kind of bliss, from gilded gingerbread to escorts of angels when they departed this life with psalms or sermons on their lisping tongues. So nothing came of these trials, and Jo corked up her inkstand, and said in a fit of very wholesome humility... 'I don't know anything. I'll wait until I do before I try again, and meantime, 'sweep mud in the street' if I can't do better, that's honest, at least. Which decision proved that her second tumble down the beanstalk had done her some good. While these internal revolutions were going on, her external life had been as busy and uneventful as usual, and if she sometimes looked serious or a little sad no one observed it but Professor Bhaer. He did it so quietly that Jo never knew he was watching to see if she would accept and profit by his reproof, but she stood the test, and he was satisfied, for though no words passed between them, he knew that she had given up writing. Not only did he guess it by the fact that the second finger of her right hand was no longer inky, but she spent her evenings downstairs now, was met no more among newspaper offices, and studied with a dogged patience, which assured him that she was bent on occupying her mind with something useful, if not pleasant. He helped her in many ways, proving himself a true friend, and Jo was happy, for while her pen lay idle, she was learning other lessons besides German, and laying a foundation for the sensation story of her own life. It was a pleasant winter and a long one, for she did not leave Mrs. Kirke till June. Everyone seemed sorry when the time came. The children were inconsolable, and Mr. Bhaer's hair stuck straight up all over his head, for he always rumpled it wildly when disturbed in mind. 'Going home? Ah, you are happy that you haf a home to go in, he said, when she told him, and sat silently pulling his beard in the corner, while she held a little levee on that last evening. She was going early, so she bade them all goodbye overnight, and when his turn came, she said warmly, 'Now, Sir, you won't forget to come and see us, if you ever travel our way, will you? I'll never forgive you if you do, for I want them all to know my friend. 'Do you? Shall I come? he asked, looking down at her with an eager expression which she did not see. 'Yes, come next month. Laurie graduates then, and you'd enjoy commencement as something new. 'That is your best friend, of whom you speak? he said in an altered tone. 'Yes, my boy Teddy. I'm very proud of him and should like you to see him. Jo looked up then, quite unconscious of anything but her own pleasure in the prospect of showing them to one another. Something in Mr. Bhaer's face suddenly recalled the fact that she might find Laurie more than a 'best friend', and simply because she particularly wished not to look as if anything was the matter, she involuntarily began to blush, and the more she tried not to, the redder she grew. If it had not been for Tina on her knee. She didn't know what would have become of her. Fortunately the child was moved to hug her, so she managed to hide her face an instant, hoping the Professor did not see it. But he did, and his own changed again from that momentary anxiety to its usual expression, as he said cordially... 'I fear I shall not make the time for that, but I wish the friend much success, and you all happiness. Gott bless you! And with that, he shook hands warmly, shouldered Tina, and went away. But after the boys were abed, he sat long before his fire with the tired look on his face and the 'heimweh', or homesickness, lying heavy at his heart. Once, when he remembered Jo as she sat with the little child in her lap and that new softness in her face, he leaned his head on his hands a minute, and then roamed about the room, as if in search of something that he could not find. 'It is not for me, I must not hope it now, he said to himself, with a sigh that was almost a groan. Then, as if reproaching himself for the longing that he could not repress, he went and kissed the two tousled heads upon the pillow, took down his seldomused meerschaum, and opened his Plato. He did his best and did it manfully, but I don't think he found that a pair of rampant boys, a pipe, or even the divine Plato, were very satisfactory substitutes for wife and child at home. Early as it was, he was at the station next morning to see Jo off, and thanks to him, she began her solitary journey with the pleasant memory of a familiar face smiling its farewell, a bunch of violets to keep her company, and best of all, the happy thought, 'Well, the winter's gone, and I've written no books, earned no fortune, but I've made a friend worth having and I'll try to keep him all my life. Whatever his motive might have been, Laurie studied to some purpose that year, for he graduated with honor, and gave the Latin oration with the grace of a Phillips and the eloquence of a Demosthenes, so his friends said. They were all there, his grandfatheroh, so proudMr. and Mrs. March, John and Meg, Jo and Beth, and all exulted over him with the sincere admiration which boys make light of at the time, but fail to win from the world by any aftertriumphs. 'I've got to stay for this confounded supper, but I shall be home early tomorrow. You'll come and meet me as usual, girls? Laurie said, as he put the sisters into the carriage after the joys of the day were over. He said 'girls', but he meant Jo, for she was the only one who kept up the old custom. She had not the heart to refuse her splendid, successful boy anything, and answered warmly... 'I'll come, Teddy, rain or shine, and march before you, playing 'Hail the conquering hero comes' on a jew'sharp. Laurie thanked her with a look that made her think in a sudden panic, 'Oh, deary me! I know he'll say something, and then what shall I do? Evening meditation and morning work somewhat allayed her fears, and having decided that she wouldn't be vain enough to think people were going to propose when she had given them every reason to know what her answer would be, she set forth at the appointed time, hoping Teddy wouldn't do anything to make her hurt his poor feelings. A call at Meg's, and a refreshing sniff and sip at the Daisy and Demijohn, still further fortified her for the teteatete, but when she saw a stalwart figure looming in the distance, she had a strong desire to turn about and run away. 'Where's the jew'sharp, Jo? cried Laurie, as soon as he was within speaking distance. 'I forgot it. And Jo took heart again, for that salutation could not be called loverlike. She always used to take his arm on these occasions, now she did not, and he made no complaint, which was a bad sign, but talked on rapidly about all sorts of faraway subjects, till they turned from the road into the little path that led homeward through the grove. Then he walked more slowly, suddenly lost his fine flow of language, and now and then a dreadful pause occurred. To rescue the conversation from one of the wells of silence into which it kept falling, Jo said hastily, 'Now you must have a good long holiday! 'I intend to. Something in his resolute tone made Jo look up quickly to find him looking down at her with an expression that assured her the dreaded moment had come, and made her put out her hand with an imploring, 'No, Teddy. Please don't! 'I will, and you must hear me. It's no use, Jo, we've got to have it out, and the sooner the better for both of us, he answered, getting flushed and excited all at once. 'Say what you like then. I'll listen, said Jo, with a desperate sort of patience. Laurie was a young lover, but he was in earnest, and meant to 'have it out', if he died in the attempt, so he plunged into the subject with characteristic impetuousity, saying in a voice that would get choky now and then, in spite of manful efforts to keep it steady... 'I've loved you ever since I've known you, Jo, couldn't help it, you've been so good to me. I've tried to show it, but you wouldn't let me. Now I'm going to make you hear, and give me an answer, for I can't go on so any longer. 'I wanted to save you this. I thought you'd understand... began Jo, finding it a great deal harder than she expected. 'I know you did, but the girls are so queer you never know what they mean. They say no when they mean yes, and drive a man out of his wits just for the fun of it, returned Laurie, entrenching himself behind an undeniable fact. 'I don't. I never wanted to make you care for me so, and I went away to keep you from it if I could. 'I thought so. It was like you, but it was no use. I only loved you all the more, and I worked hard to please you, and I gave up billiards and everything you didn't like, and waited and never complained, for I hoped you'd love me, though I'm not half good enough... Here there was a choke that couldn't be controlled, so he decapitated buttercups while he cleared his 'confounded throat'. 'You, you are, you're a great deal too good for me, and I'm so grateful to you, and so proud and fond of you, I don't know why I can't love you as you want me to. I've tried, but I can't change the feeling, and it would be a lie to say I do when I don't. 'Really, truly, Jo? He stopped short, and caught both her hands as he put his question with a look that she did not soon forget. 'Really, truly, dear. They were in the grove now, close by the stile, and when the last words fell reluctantly from Jo's lips, Laurie dropped her hands and turned as if to go on, but for once in his life the fence was too much for him. So he just laid his head down on the mossy post, and stood so still that Jo was frightened. 'Oh, Teddy, I'm sorry, so desperately sorry, I could kill myself if it would do any good! I wish you wouldn't take it so hard, I can't help it. You know it's impossible for people to make themselves love other people if they don't, cried Jo inelegantly but remorsefully, as she softly patted his shoulder, remembering the time when he had comforted her so long ago. 'They do sometimes, said a muffled voice from the post. 'I don't believe it's the right sort of love, and I'd rather not try it, was the decided answer. There was a long pause, while a blackbird sung blithely on the willow by the river, and the tall grass rustled in the wind. Presently Jo said very soberly, as she sat down on the step of the stile, 'Laurie, I want to tell you something. He started as if he had been shot, threw up his head, and cried out in a fierce tone, 'Don't tell me that, Jo, I can't bear it now! 'Tell what? she asked, wondering at his violence. 'That you love that old man. 'What old man? demanded Jo, thinking he must mean his grandfather. 'That devilish Professor you were always writing about. If you say you love him, I know I shall do something desperate and he looked as if he would keep his word, as he clenched his hands with a wrathful spark in his eyes. Jo wanted to laugh, but restrained herself and said warmly, for she too, was getting excited with all this, 'Don't swear, Teddy! He isn't old, nor anything bad, but good and kind, and the best friend I've got, next to you. Pray, don't fly into a passion. I want to be kind, but I know I shall get angry if you abuse my Professor. I haven't the least idea of loving him or anybody else. 'But you will after a while, and then what will become of me? 'You'll love someone else too, like a sensible boy, and forget all this trouble. 'I can't love anyone else, and I'll never forget you, Jo, Never! Never! with a stamp to emphasize his passionate words. 'What shall I do with him? sighed Jo, finding that emotions were more unmanagable than she expected. 'You haven't heard what I wanted to tell you. Sit down and listen, for indeed I want to do right and make you happy, she said, hoping to soothe him with a little reason, which proved that she knew nothing about love. Seeing a ray of hope in that last speech, Laurie threw himself down on the grass at her feet, leaned his arm on the lower step of the stile, and looked up at her with an expectant face. Now that arrangement was not conducive to calm speech or clear thought on Jo's part, for how could she say hard things to her boy while he watched her with eyes full of love and longing, and lashes still wet with the bitter drop or two her hardness of heart had wrung from him? She gently turned his head away, saying, as she stroked the wavy hair which had been allowed to grow for her sakehow touching that was, to be sure! 'I agree with Mother that you and I are not suited to each other, because our quick tempers and strong wills would probably make us very miserable, if we were so foolish as to... Jo paused a little over the last word, but Laurie uttered it with a rapturous expression. 'Marryno we shouldn't! If you loved me, Jo, I should be a perfect saint, for you could make me anything you like. 'No, I can't. I've tried and failed, and I won't risk our happiness by such a serious experiment. We don't agree and we never shall, so we'll be good friends all our lives, but we won't go and do anything rash. 'Yes, we will if we get the chance, muttered Laurie rebelliously. 'Now do be reasonable, and take a sensible view of the case, implored Jo, almost at her wit's end. 'I won't be reasonable. I don't want to take what you call 'a sensible view'. It won't help me, and it only makes it harder. I don't believe you've got any heart. 'I wish I hadn't. There was a little quiver in Jo's voice, and thinking it a good omen, Laurie turned round, bringing all his persuasive powers to bear as he said, in the wheedlesome tone that had never been so dangerously wheedlesome before, 'Don't disappoint us, dear! Everyone expects it. Grandpa has set his heart upon it, your people like it, and I can't get on without you. Say you will, and let's be happy. Do, do! Not until months afterward did Jo understand how she had the strength of mind to hold fast to the resolution she had made when she decided that she did not love her boy, and never could. It was very hard to do, but she did it, knowing that delay was both useless and cruel. 'I can't say 'yes' truly, so I won't say it at all. You'll see that I'm right, byandby, and thank me for it... she began solemnly. 'I'll be hanged if I do! and Laurie bounced up off the grass, burning with indignation at the very idea. 'Yes, you will! persisted Jo. 'You'll get over this after a while, and find some lovely accomplished girl, who will adore you, and make a fine mistress for your fine house. I shouldn't. I'm homely and awkward and odd and old, and you'd be ashamed of me, and we should quarrelwe can't help it even now, you seeand I shouldn't like elegant society and you would, and you'd hate my scribbling, and I couldn't get on without it, and we should be unhappy, and wish we hadn't done it, and everything would be horrid! 'Anything more? asked Laurie, finding it hard to listen patiently to this prophetic burst. 'Nothing more, except that I don't believe I shall ever marry. I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man. 'I know better! broke in Laurie. 'You think so now, but there'll come a time when you will care for somebody, and you'll love him tremendously, and live and die for him. I know you will, it's your way, and I shall have to stand by and see it, and the despairing lover cast his hat upon the ground with a gesture that would have seemed comical, if his face had not been so tragic. 'Yes, I will live and die for him, if he ever comes and makes me love him in spite of myself, and you must do the best you can! cried Jo, losing patience with poor Teddy. 'I've done my best, but you won't be reasonable, and it's selfish of you to keep teasing for what I can't give. I shall always be fond of you, very fond indeed, as a friend, but I'll never marry you, and the sooner you believe it the better for both of usso now! That speech was like gunpowder. Laurie looked at her a minute as if he did not quite know what to do with himself, then turned sharply away, saying in a desperate sort of tone, 'You'll be sorry some day, Jo. 'Oh, where are you going? she cried, for his face frightened her. 'To the devil! was the consoling answer. For a minute Jo's heart stood still, as he swung himself down the bank toward the river, but it takes much folly, sin or misery to send a young man to a violent death, and Laurie was not one of the weak sort who are conquered by a single failure. He had no thought of a melodramatic plunge, but some blind instinct led him to fling hat and coat into his boat, and row away with all his might, making better time up the river than he had done in any race. Jo drew a long breath and unclasped her hands as she watched the poor fellow trying to outstrip the trouble which he carried in his heart. 'That will do him good, and he'll come home in such a tender, penitent state of mind, that I shan't dare to see him, she said, adding, as she went slowly home, feeling as if she had murdered some innocent thing, and buried it under the leaves. 'Now I must go and prepare Mr. Laurence to be very kind to my poor boy. I wish he'd love Beth, perhaps he may in time, but I begin to think I was mistaken about her. Oh dear! How can girls like to have lovers and refuse them? I think it's dreadful. Being sure that no one could do it so well as herself, she went straight to Mr. Laurence, told the hard story bravely through, and then broke down, crying so dismally over her own insensibility that the kind old gentleman, though sorely disappointed, did not utter a reproach. He found it difficult to understand how any girl could help loving Laurie, and hoped she would change her mind, but he knew even better than Jo that love cannot be forced, so he shook his head sadly and resolved to carry his boy out of harm's way, for Young Impetuosity's parting words to Jo disturbed him more than he would confess. When Laurie came home, dead tired but quite composed, his grandfather met him as if he knew nothing, and kept up the delusion very successfully for an hour or two. But when they sat together in the twilight, the time they used to enjoy so much, it was hard work for the old man to ramble on as usual, and harder still for the young one to listen to praises of the last year's success, which to him now seemed like love's labor lost. He bore it as long as he could, then went to his piano and began to play. The windows were open, and Jo, walking in the garden with Beth, for once understood music better than her sister, for he played the 'Sonata Pathetique', and played it as he never did before. 'That's very fine, I dare say, but it's sad enough to make one cry. Give us something gayer, lad, said Mr. Laurence, whose kind old heart was full of sympathy, which he longed to show but knew not how. Laurie dashed into a livelier strain, played stormily for several minutes, and would have got through bravely, if in a momentary lull Mrs. March's voice had not been heard calling, 'Jo, dear, come in. I want you. Just what Laurie longed to say, with a different meaning! As he listened, he lost his place, the music ended with a broken chord, and the musician sat silent in the dark. 'I can't stand this, muttered the old gentleman. Up he got, groped his way to the piano, laid a kind hand on either of the broad shoulders, and said, as gently as a woman, 'I know, my boy, I know. No answer for an instant, then Laurie asked sharply, 'Who told you? 'Jo herself. 'Then there's an end of it! And he shook off his grandfather's hands with an impatient motion, for though grateful for the sympathy, his man's pride could not bear a man's pity. 'Not quite. I want to say one thing, and then there shall be an end of it, returned Mr. Laurence with unusual mildness. 'You won't care to stay at home now, perhaps? 'I don't intend to run away from a girl. Jo can't prevent my seeing her, and I shall stay and do it as long as I like, interrupted Laurie in a defiant tone. 'Not if you are the gentleman I think you. I'm disappointed, but the girl can't help it, and the only thing left for you to do is to go away for a time. Where will you go? 'Anywhere. I don't care what becomes of me, and Laurie got up with a reckless laugh that grated on his grandfather's ear. 'Take it like a man, and don't do anything rash, for God's sake. Why not go abroad, as you planned, and forget it? 'I can't. 'But you've been wild to go, and I promised you should when you got through college. 'Ah, but I didn't mean to go alone! and Laurie walked fast through the room with an expression which it was well his grandfather did not see. 'I don't ask you to go alone. There's someone ready and glad to go with you, anywhere in the world. 'Who, Sir? stopping to listen. 'Myself. Laurie came back as quickly as he went, and put out his hand, saying huskily, 'I'm a selfish brute, butyou knowGrandfather 'Lord help me, yes, I do know, for I've been through it all before, once in my own young days, and then with your father. Now, my dear boy, just sit quietly down and hear my plan. It's all settled, and can be carried out at once, said Mr. Laurence, keeping hold of the young man, as if fearful that he would break away as his father had done before him. 'Well, sir, what is it? and Laurie sat down, without a sign of interest in face or voice. 'There is business in London that needs looking after. I meant you should attend to it, but I can do it better myself, and things here will get on very well with Brooke to manage them. My partners do almost everything, I'm merely holding on until you take my place, and can be off at any time. 'But you hate traveling, Sir. I can't ask it of you at your age, began Laurie, who was grateful for the sacrifice, but much preferred to go alone, if he went at all. The old gentleman knew that perfectly well, and particularly desired to prevent it, for the mood in which he found his grandson assured him that it would not be wise to leave him to his own devices. So, stifling a natural regret at the thought of the home comforts he would leave behind him, he said stoutly, 'Bless your soul, I'm not superannuated yet. I quite enjoy the idea. It will do me good, and my old bones won't suffer, for traveling nowadays is almost as easy as sitting in a chair. A restless movement from Laurie suggested that his chair was not easy, or that he did not like the plan, and made the old man add hastily, 'I don't mean to be a marplot or a burden. I go because I think you'd feel happier than if I was left behind. I don't intend to gad about with you, but leave you free to go where you like, while I amuse myself in my own way. I've friends in London and Paris, and should like to visit them. Meantime you can go to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, where you will, and enjoy pictures, music, scenery, and adventures to your heart's content. Now, Laurie felt just then that his heart was entirely broken and the world a howling wilderness, but at the sound of certain words which the old gentleman artfully introduced into his closing sentence, the broken heart gave an unexpected leap, and a green oasis or two suddenly appeared in the howling wilderness. He sighed, and then said, in a spiritless tone, 'Just as you like, Sir. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do. 'It does to me, remember that, my lad. I give you entire liberty, but I trust you to make an honest use of it. Promise me that, Laurie. 'Anything you like, Sir. 'Good, thought the old gentleman. 'You don't care now, but there'll come a time when that promise will keep you out of mischief, or I'm much mistaken. Being an energetic individual, Mr. Laurence struck while the iron was hot, and before the blighted being recovered spirit enough to rebel, they were off. During the time necessary for preparation, Laurie bore himself as young gentleman usually do in such cases. He was moody, irritable, and pensive by turns, lost his appetite, neglected his dress and devoted much time to playing tempestuously on his piano, avoided Jo, but consoled himself by staring at her from his window, with a tragic face that haunted her dreams by night and oppressed her with a heavy sense of guilt by day. Unlike some sufferers, he never spoke of his unrequited passion, and would allow no one, not even Mrs. March, to attempt consolation or offer sympathy. On some accounts, this was a relief to his friends, but the weeks before his departure were very uncomfortable, and everyone rejoiced that the 'poor, dear fellow was going away to forget his trouble, and come home happy'. Of course, he smiled darkly at their delusion, but passed it by with the sad superiority of one who knew that his fidelity like his love was unalterable. When the parting came he affected high spirits, to conceal certain inconvenient emotions which seemed inclined to assert themselves. This gaiety did not impose upon anybody, but they tried to look as if it did for his sake, and he got on very well till Mrs. March kissed him, with a whisper full of motherly solicitude. Then feeling that he was going very fast, he hastily embraced them all round, not forgetting the afflicted Hannah, and ran downstairs as if for his life. Jo followed a minute after to wave her hand to him if he looked round. He did look round, came back, put his arms about her as she stood on the step above him, and looked up at her with a face that made his short appeal eloquent and pathetic. 'Oh, Jo, can't you? 'Teddy, dear, I wish I could! That was all, except a little pause. Then Laurie straightened himself up, said, 'It's all right, never mind, and went away without another word. Ah, but it wasn't all right, and Jo did mind, for while the curly head lay on her arm a minute after her hard answer, she felt as if she had stabbed her dearest friend, and when he left her without a look behind him, she knew that the boy Laurie never would come again. When Jo came home that spring, she had been struck with the change in Beth. No one spoke of it or seemed aware of it, for it had come too gradually to startle those who saw her daily, but to eyes sharpened by absence, it was very plain and a heavy weight fell on Jo's heart as she saw her sister's face. It was no paler and but littler thinner than in the autumn, yet there was a strange, transparent look about it, as if the mortal was being slowly refined away, and the immortal shining through the frail flesh with an indescribably pathetic beauty. Jo saw and felt it, but said nothing at the time, and soon the first impression lost much of its power, for Beth seemed happy, no one appeared to doubt that she was better, and presently in other cares Jo for a time forgot her fear. But when Laurie was gone, and peace prevailed again, the vague anxiety returned and haunted her. She had confessed her sins and been forgiven, but when she showed her savings and proposed a mountain trip, Beth had thanked her heartily, but begged not to go so far away from home. Another little visit to the seashore would suit her better, and as Grandma could not be prevailed upon to leave the babies, Jo took Beth down to the quiet place, where she could live much in the open air, and let the fresh sea breezes blow a little color into her pale cheeks. It was not a fashionable place, but even among the pleasant people there, the girls made few friends, preferring to live for one another. Beth was too shy to enjoy society, and Jo too wrapped up in her to care for anyone else. So they were all in all to each other, and came and went, quite unconscious of the interest they excited in those about them, who watched with sympathetic eyes the strong sister and the feeble one, always together, as if they felt instinctively that a long separation was not far away. They did feel it, yet neither spoke of it, for often between ourselves and those nearest and dearest to us there exists a reserve which it is very hard to overcome. Jo felt as if a veil had fallen between her heart and Beth's, but when she put out her hand to lift it up, there seemed something sacred in the silence, and she waited for Beth to speak. She wondered, and was thankful also, that her parents did not seem to see what she saw, and during the quiet weeks when the shadows grew so plain to her, she said nothing of it to those at home, believing that it would tell itself when Beth came back no better. She wondered still more if her sister really guessed the hard truth, and what thoughts were passing through her mind during the long hours when she lay on the warm rocks with her head in Jo's lap, while the winds blew healthfully over her and the sea made music at her feet. One day Beth told her. Jo thought she was asleep, she lay so still, and putting down her book, sat looking at her with wistful eyes, trying to see signs of hope in the faint color on Beth's cheeks. But she could not find enough to satisfy her, for the cheeks were very thin, and the hands seemed too feeble to hold even the rosy little shells they had been collecting. It came to her then more bitterly than ever that Beth was slowly drifting away from her, and her arms instinctively tightened their hold upon the dearest treasure she possessed. For a minute her eyes were too dim for seeing, and when they cleared, Beth was looking up at her so tenderly that there was hardly any need for her to say, 'Jo, dear, I'm glad you know it. I've tried to tell you, but I couldn't. There was no answer except her sister's cheek against her own, not even tears, for when most deeply moved, Jo did not cry. She was the weaker then, and Beth tried to comfort and sustain her, with her arms about her and the soothing words she whispered in her ear. 'I've known it for a good while, dear, and now I'm used to it, it isn't hard to think of or to bear. Try to see it so and don't be troubled about me, because it's best, indeed it is. 'Is this what made you so unhappy in the autumn, Beth? You did not feel it then, and keep it to yourself so long, did you? asked Jo, refusing to see or say that it was best, but glad to know that Laurie had no part in Beth's trouble. 'Yes, I gave up hoping then, but I didn't like to own it. I tried to think it was a sick fancy, and would not let it trouble anyone. But when I saw you all so well and strong and full of happy plans, it was hard to feel that I could never be like you, and then I was miserable, Jo. 'Oh, Beth, and you didn't tell me, didn't let me comfort and help you? How could you shut me out, bear it all alone? Jo's voice was full of tender reproach, and her heart ached to think of the solitary struggle that must have gone on while Beth learned to say goodbye to health, love, and life, and take up her cross so cheerfully. 'Perhaps it was wrong, but I tried to do right. I wasn't sure, no one said anything, and I hoped I was mistaken. It would have been selfish to frighten you all when Marmee was so anxious about Meg, and Amy away, and you so happy with Laurieat least I thought so then. 'And I thought you loved him, Beth, and I went away because I couldn't, cried Jo, glad to say all the truth. Beth looked so amazed at the idea that Jo smiled in spite of her pain, and added softly, 'Then you didn't, dearie? I was afraid it was so, and imagined your poor little heart full of lovelornity all that while. 'Why, Jo, how could I, when he was so fond of you? asked Beth, as innocently as a child. 'I do love him dearly. He is so good to me, how can I help It? But he could never be anything to me but my brother. I hope he truly will be, sometime. 'Not through me, said Jo decidedly. 'Amy is left for him, and they would suit excellently, but I have no heart for such things, now. I don't care what becomes of anybody but you, Beth. You must get well. 'I want to, oh, so much! I try, but every day I lose a little, and feel more sure that I shall never gain it back. It's like the tide, Jo, when it turns, it goes slowly, but it can't be stopped. 'It shall be stopped, your tide must not turn so soon, nineteen is too young, Beth. I can't let you go. I'll work and pray and fight against it. I'll keep you in spite of everything. There must be ways, it can't be too late. God won't be so cruel as to take you from me, cried poor Jo rebelliously, for her spirit was far less piously submissive than Beth's. Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations. Beth could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come. She did not rebuke Jo with saintly speeches, only loved her better for her passionate affection, and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself. She could not say, 'I'm glad to go, for life was very sweet for her. She could only sob out, 'I try to be willing, while she held fast to Jo, as the first bitter wave of this great sorrow broke over them together. By and by Beth said, with recovered serenity, 'You'll tell them this when we go home? 'I think they will see it without words, sighed Jo, for now it seemed to her that Beth changed every day. 'Perhaps not. I've heard that the people who love best are often blindest to such things. If they don't see it, you will tell them for me. I don't want any secrets, and it's kinder to prepare them. Meg has John and the babies to comfort her, but you must stand by Father and Mother, won't you Jo? 'If I can. But, Beth, I don't give up yet. I'm going to believe that it is a sick fancy, and not let you think it's true. said Jo, trying to speak cheerfully. Beth lay a minute thinking, and then said in her quiet way, 'I don't know how to express myself, and shouldn't try to anyone but you, because I can't speak out except to my Jo. I only mean to say that I have a feeling that it never was intended I should live long. I'm not like the rest of you. I never made any plans about what I'd do when I grew up. I never thought of being married, as you all did. I couldn't seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there. I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven. Jo could not speak, and for several minutes there was no sound but the sigh of the wind and the lapping of the tide. A whitewinged gull flew by, with the flash of sunshine on its silvery breast. Beth watched it till it vanished, and her eyes were full of sadness. A little graycoated sand bird came tripping over the beach 'peeping' softly to itself, as if enjoying the sun and sea. It came quite close to Beth, and looked at her with a friendly eye and sat upon a warm stone, dressing its wet feathers, quite at home. Beth smiled and felt comforted, for the tiny thing seemed to offer its small friendship and remind her that a pleasant world was still to be enjoyed. 'Dear little bird! See, Jo, how tame it is. I like peeps better than the gulls. They are not so wild and handsome, but they seem happy, confiding little things. I used to call them my birds last summer, and Mother said they reminded her of mebusy, quakercolored creatures, always near the shore, and always chirping that contented little song of theirs. You are the gull, Jo, strong and wild, fond of the storm and the wind, flying far out to sea, and happy all alone. Meg is the turtledove, and Amy is like the lark she writes about, trying to get up among the clouds, but always dropping down into its nest again. Dear little girl! She's so ambitious, but her heart is good and tender, and no matter how high she flies, she never will forget home. I hope I shall see her again, but she seems so far away. 'She is coming in the spring, and I mean that you shall be all ready to see and enjoy her. I'm going to have you well and rosy by that time, began Jo, feeling that of all the changes in Beth, the talking change was the greatest, for it seemed to cost no effort now, and she thought aloud in a way quite unlike bashful Beth. 'Jo, dear, don't hope any more. It won't do any good. I'm sure of that. We won't be miserable, but enjoy being together while we wait. We'll have happy times, for I don't suffer much, and I think the tide will go out easily, if you help me. Jo leaned down to kiss the tranquil face, and with that silent kiss, she dedicated herself soul and body to Beth. She was right. There was no need of any words when they got home, for Father and Mother saw plainly now what they had prayed to be saved from seeing. Tired with her short journey, Beth went at once to bed, saying how glad she was to be home, and when Jo went down, she found that she would be spared the hard task of telling Beth's secret. Her father stood leaning his head on the mantelpiece and did not turn as she came in, but her mother stretched out her arms as if for help, and Jo went to comfort her without a word. At three o'clock in the afternoon, all the fashionable world at Nice may be seen on the Promenade des Anglaisa charming place, for the wide walk, bordered with palms, flowers, and tropical shrubs, is bounded on one side by the sea, on the other by the grand drive, lined with hotels and villas, while beyond lie orange orchards and the hills. Many nations are represented, many languages spoken, many costumes worn, and on a sunny day the spectacle is as gay and brilliant as a carnival. Haughty English, lively French, sober Germans, handsome Spaniards, ugly Russians, meek Jews, freeandeasy Americans, all drive, sit, or saunter here, chatting over the news, and criticizing the latest celebrity who has arrivedRistori or Dickens, Victor Emmanuel or the Queen of the Sandwich Islands. The equipages are as varied as the company and attract as much attention, especially the low basket barouches in which ladies drive themselves, with a pair of dashing ponies, gay nets to keep their voluminous flounces from overflowing the diminutive vehicles, and little grooms on the perch behind. Along this walk, on Christmas Day, a tall young man walked slowly, with his hands behind him, and a somewhat absent expression of countenance. He looked like an Italian, was dressed like an Englishman, and had the independent air of an Americana combination which caused sundry pairs of feminine eyes to look approvingly after him, and sundry dandies in black velvet suits, with rosecolored neckties, buff gloves, and orange flowers in their buttonholes, to shrug their shoulders, and then envy him his inches. There were plenty of pretty faces to admire, but the young man took little notice of them, except to glance now and then at some blonde girl in blue. Presently he strolled out of the promenade and stood a moment at the crossing, as if undecided whether to go and listen to the band in the Jardin Publique, or to wander along the beach toward Castle Hill. The quick trot of ponies' feet made him look up, as one of the little carriages, containing a single young lady, came rapidly down the street. The lady was young, blonde, and dressed in blue. He stared a minute, then his whole face woke up, and, waving his hat like a boy, he hurried forward to meet her. 'Oh, Laurie, is it really you? I thought you'd never come! cried Amy, dropping the reins and holding out both hands, to the great scandalization of a French mamma, who hastened her daughter's steps, lest she should be demoralized by beholding the free manners of these 'mad English'. 'I was detained by the way, but I promised to spend Christmas with you, and here I am. 'How is your grandfather? When did you come? Where are you staying? 'Very welllast nightat the Chauvain. I called at your hotel, but you were out. 'I have so much to say, I don't know where to begin! Get in and we can talk at our ease. I was going for a drive and longing for company. Flo's saving up for tonight. 'What happens then, a ball? 'A Christmas party at our hotel. There are many Americans there, and they give it in honor of the day. You'll go with us, of course? Aunt will be charmed. 'Thank you. Where now? asked Laurie, leaning back and folding his arms, a proceeding which suited Amy, who preferred to drive, for her parasol whip and blue reins over the white ponies' backs afforded her infinite satisfaction. 'I'm going to the bankers first for letters, and then to Castle Hill. The view is so lovely, and I like to feed the peacocks. Have you ever been there? 'Often, years ago, but I don't mind having a look at it. 'Now tell me all about yourself. The last I heard of you, your grandfather wrote that he expected you from Berlin. 'Yes, I spent a month there and then joined him in Paris, where he has settled for the winter. He has friends there and finds plenty to amuse him, so I go and come, and we get on capitally. 'That's a sociable arrangement, said Amy, missing something in Laurie's manner, though she couldn't tell what. 'Why, you see, he hates to travel, and I hate to keep still, so we each suit ourselves, and there is no trouble. I am often with him, and he enjoys my adventures, while I like to feel that someone is glad to see me when I get back from my wanderings. Dirty old hole, isn't it? he added, with a look of disgust as they drove along the boulevard to the Place Napoleon in the old city. 'The dirt is picturesque, so I don't mind. The river and the hills are delicious, and these glimpses of the narrow cross streets are my delight. Now we shall have to wait for that procession to pass. It's going to the Church of St. John. While Laurie listlessly watched the procession of priests under their canopies, whiteveiled nuns bearing lighted tapers, and some brotherhood in blue chanting as they walked, Amy watched him, and felt a new sort of shyness steal over her, for he was changed, and she could not find the merryfaced boy she left in the moodylooking man beside her. He was handsomer than ever and greatly improved, she thought, but now that the flush of pleasure at meeting her was over, he looked tired and spiritlessnot sick, nor exactly unhappy, but older and graver than a year or two of prosperous life should have made him. She couldn't understand it and did not venture to ask questions, so she shook her head and touched up her ponies, as the procession wound away across the arches of the Paglioni bridge and vanished in the church. 'Que pensezvous? she said, airing her French, which had improved in quantity, if not in quality, since she came abroad. 'That mademoiselle has made good use of her time, and the result is charming, replied Laurie, bowing with his hand on his heart and an admiring look. She blushed with pleasure, but somehow the compliment did not satisfy her like the blunt praises he used to give her at home, when he promenaded round her on festival occasions, and told her she was 'altogether jolly', with a hearty smile and an approving pat on the head. She didn't like the new tone, for though not blase, it sounded indifferent in spite of the look. 'If that's the way he's going to grow up, I wish he'd stay a boy, she thought, with a curious sense of disappointment and discomfort, trying meantime to seem quite easy and gay. At Avigdor's she found the precious home letters and, giving the reins to Laurie, read them luxuriously as they wound up the shady road between green hedges, where tea roses bloomed as freshly as in June. 'Beth is very poorly, Mother says. I often think I ought to go home, but they all say 'stay'. So I do, for I shall never have another chance like this, said Amy, looking sober over one page. 'I think you are right, there. You could do nothing at home, and it is a great comfort to them to know that you are well and happy, and enjoying so much, my dear. He drew a little nearer, and looked more like his old self as he said that, and the fear that sometimes weighed on Amy's heart was lightened, for the look, the act, the brotherly 'my dear', seemed to assure her that if any trouble did come, she would not be alone in a strange land. Presently she laughed and showed him a small sketch of Jo in her scribbling suit, with the bow rampantly erect upon her cap, and issuing from her mouth the words, 'Genius burns!'. Laurie smiled, took it, put it in his vest pocket 'to keep it from blowing away', and listened with interest to the lively letter Amy read him. 'This will be a regularly merry Christmas to me, with presents in the morning, you and letters in the afternoon, and a party at night, said Amy, as they alighted among the ruins of the old fort, and a flock of splendid peacocks came trooping about them, tamely waiting to be fed. While Amy stood laughing on the bank above him as she scattered crumbs to the brilliant birds, Laurie looked at her as she had looked at him, with a natural curiosity to see what changes time and absence had wrought. He found nothing to perplex or disappoint, much to admire and approve, for overlooking a few little affectations of speech and manner, she was as sprightly and graceful as ever, with the addition of that indescribable something in dress and bearing which we call elegance. Always mature for her age, she had gained a certain aplomb in both carriage and conversation, which made her seem more of a woman of the world than she was, but her old petulance now and then showed itself, her strong will still held its own, and her native frankness was unspoiled by foreign polish. Laurie did not read all this while he watched her feed the peacocks, but he saw enough to satisfy and interest him, and carried away a pretty little picture of a brightfaced girl standing in the sunshine, which brought out the soft hue of her dress, the fresh color of her cheeks, the golden gloss of her hair, and made her a prominent figure in the pleasant scene. As they came up onto the stone plateau that crowns the hill, Amy waved her hand as if welcoming him to her favorite haunt, and said, pointing here and there, 'Do you remember the Cathedral and the Corso, the fishermen dragging their nets in the bay, and the lovely road to Villa Franca, Schubert's Tower, just below, and best of all, that speck far out to sea which they say is Corsica? 'I remember. It's not much changed, he answered without enthusiasm. 'What Jo would give for a sight of that famous speck! said Amy, feeling in good spirits and anxious to see him so also. 'Yes, was all he said, but he turned and strained his eyes to see the island which a greater usurper than even Napoleon now made interesting in his sight. 'Take a good look at it for her sake, and then come and tell me what you have been doing with yourself all this while, said Amy, seating herself, ready for a good talk. But she did not get it, for though he joined her and answered all her questions freely, she could only learn that he had roved about the Continent and been to Greece. So after idling away an hour, they drove home again, and having paid his respects to Mrs. Carrol, Laurie left them, promising to return in the evening. It must be recorded of Amy that she deliberately prinked that night. Time and absence had done its work on both the young people. She had seen her old friend in a new light, not as 'our boy', but as a handsome and agreeable man, and she was conscious of a very natural desire to find favor in his sight. Amy knew her good points, and made the most of them with the taste and skill which is a fortune to a poor and pretty woman. Tarlatan and tulle were cheap at Nice, so she enveloped herself in them on such occasions, and following the sensible English fashion of simple dress for young girls, got up charming little toilettes with fresh flowers, a few trinkets, and all manner of dainty devices, which were both inexpensive and effective. It must be confessed that the artist sometimes got possession of the woman, and indulged in antique coiffures, statuesque attitudes, and classic draperies. But, dear heart, we all have our little weaknesses, and find it easy to pardon such in the young, who satisfy our eyes with their comeliness, and keep our hearts merry with their artless vanities. 'I do want him to think I look well, and tell them so at home, said Amy to herself, as she put on Flo's old white silk ball dress, and covered it with a cloud of fresh illusion, out of which her white shoulders and golden head emerged with a most artistic effect. Her hair she had the sense to let alone, after gathering up the thick waves and curls into a Hebelike knot at the back of her head. 'It's not the fashion, but it's becoming, and I can't afford to make a fright of myself, she used to say, when advised to frizzle, puff, or braid, as the latest style commanded. Having no ornaments fine enough for this important occasion, Amy looped her fleecy skirts with rosy clusters of azalea, and framed the white shoulders in delicate green vines. Remembering the painted boots, she surveyed her white satin slippers with girlish satisfaction, and chasseed down the room, admiring her aristocratic feet all by herself. 'My new fan just matches my flowers, my gloves fit to a charm, and the real lace on Aunt's mouchoir gives an air to my whole dress. If I only had a classical nose and mouth I should be perfectly happy, she said, surveying herself with a critical eye and a candle in each hand. In spite of this affliction, she looked unusually gay and graceful as she glided away. She seldom ranit did not suit her style, she thought, for being tall, the stately and Junoesque was more appropriate than the sportive or piquante. She walked up and down the long saloon while waiting for Laurie, and once arranged herself under the chandelier, which had a good effect upon her hair, then she thought better of it, and went away to the other end of the room, as if ashamed of the girlish desire to have the first view a propitious one. It so happened that she could not have done a better thing, for Laurie came in so quietly she did not hear him, and as she stood at the distant window, with her head half turned and one hand gathering up her dress, the slender, white figure against the red curtains was as effective as a wellplaced statue. 'Good evening, Diana! said Laurie, with the look of satisfaction she liked to see in his eyes when they rested on her. 'Good evening, Apollo! she answered, smiling back at him, for he too looked unusually debonair, and the thought of entering the ballroom on the arm of such a personable man caused Amy to pity the four plain Misses Davis from the bottom of her heart. 'Here are your flowers. I arranged them myself, remembering that you didn't like what Hannah calls a 'sotbookay', said Laurie, handing her a delicate nosegay, in a holder that she had long coveted as she daily passed it in Cardiglia's window. 'How kind you are! she exclaimed gratefully. 'If I'd known you were coming I'd have had something ready for you today, though not as pretty as this, I'm afraid. 'Thank you. It isn't what it should be, but you have improved it, he added, as she snapped the silver bracelet on her wrist. 'Please don't. 'I thought you liked that sort of thing. 'Not from you, it doesn't sound natural, and I like your old bluntness better. 'I'm glad of it, he answered, with a look of relief, then buttoned her gloves for her, and asked if his tie was straight, just as he used to do when they went to parties together at home. The company assembled in the long salle a manger, that evening, was such as one sees nowhere but on the Continent. The hospitable Americans had invited every acquaintance they had in Nice, and having no prejudice against titles, secured a few to add luster to their Christmas ball. A Russian prince condescended to sit in a corner for an hour and talk with a massive lady, dressed like Hamlet's mother in black velvet with a pearl bridle under her chin. A Polish count, aged eighteen, devoted himself to the ladies, who pronounced him, 'a fascinating dear', and a German Serene Something, having come to supper alone, roamed vaguely about, seeking what he might devour. Baron Rothschild's private secretary, a largenosed Jew in tight boots, affably beamed upon the world, as if his master's name crowned him with a golden halo. A stout Frenchman, who knew the Emperor, came to indulge his mania for dancing, and Lady de Jones, a British matron, adorned the scene with her little family of eight. Of course, there were many lightfooted, shrillvoiced American girls, handsome, lifelesslooking English ditto, and a few plain but piquante French demoiselles, likewise the usual set of traveling young gentlemen who disported themselves gaily, while mammas of all nations lined the walls and smiled upon them benignly when they danced with their daughters. Any young girl can imagine Amy's state of mind when she 'took the stage' that night, leaning on Laurie's arm. She knew she looked well, she loved to dance, she felt that her foot was on her native heath in a ballroom, and enjoyed the delightful sense of power which comes when young girls first discover the new and lovely kingdom they are born to rule by virtue of beauty, youth, and womanhood. She did pity the Davis girls, who were awkward, plain, and destitute of escort, except a grim papa and three grimmer maiden aunts, and she bowed to them in her friendliest manner as she passed, which was good of her, as it permitted them to see her dress, and burn with curiosity to know who her distinguishedlooking friend might be. With the first burst of the band, Amy's color rose, her eyes began to sparkle, and her feet to tap the floor impatiently, for she danced well and wanted Laurie to know it. Therefore the shock she received can better be imagined than described, when he said in a perfectly tranquil tone, 'Do you care to dance? 'One usually does at a ball. Her amazed look and quick answer caused Laurie to repair his error as fast as possible. 'I meant the first dance. May I have the honor? 'I can give you one if I put off the Count. He dances divinely, but he will excuse me, as you are an old friend, said Amy, hoping that the name would have a good effect, and show Laurie that she was not to be trifled with. 'Nice little boy, but rather a short Pole to support... A daughter of the gods, Devinely tall, and most divinely fair, was all the satisfaction she got, however. The set in which they found themselves was composed of English, and Amy was compelled to walk decorously through a cotillion, feeling all the while as if she could dance the tarantella with relish. Laurie resigned her to the 'nice little boy', and went to do his duty to Flo, without securing Amy for the joys to come, which reprehensible want of forethought was properly punished, for she immediately engaged herself till supper, meaning to relent if he then gave any signs penitence. She showed him her ball book with demure satisfaction when he strolled instead of rushed up to claim her for the next, a glorious polka redowa. But his polite regrets didn't impose upon her, and when she galloped away with the Count, she saw Laurie sit down by her aunt with an actual expression of relief. That was unpardonable, and Amy took no more notice of him for a long while, except a word now and then when she came to her chaperon between the dances for a necessary pin or a moment's rest. Her anger had a good effect, however, for she hid it under a smiling face, and seemed unusually blithe and brilliant. Laurie's eyes followed her with pleasure, for she neither romped nor sauntered, but danced with spirit and grace, making the delightsome pastime what it should be. He very naturally fell to studying her from this new point of view, and before the evening was half over, had decided that 'little Amy was going to make a very charming woman'. It was a lively scene, for soon the spirit of the social season took possession of everyone, and Christmas merriment made all faces shine, hearts happy, and heels light. The musicians fiddled, tooted, and banged as if they enjoyed it, everybody danced who could, and those who couldn't admired their neighbors with uncommon warmth. The air was dark with Davises, and many Joneses gamboled like a flock of young giraffes. The golden secretary darted through the room like a meteor with a dashing Frenchwoman who carpeted the floor with her pink satin train. The serene Teuton found the suppertable and was happy, eating steadily through the bill of fare, and dismayed the garcons by the ravages he committed. But the Emperor's friend covered himself with glory, for he danced everything, whether he knew it or not, and introduced impromptu pirouettes when the figures bewildered him. The boyish abandon of that stout man was charming to behold, for though he 'carried weight', he danced like an Indiarubber ball. He ran, he flew, he pranced, his face glowed, his bald head shown, his coattails waved wildly, his pumps actually twinkled in the air, and when the music stopped, he wiped the drops from his brow, and beamed upon his fellow men like a French Pickwick without glasses. Amy and her Pole distinguished themselves by equal enthusiasm but more graceful agility, and Laurie found himself involuntarily keeping time to the rhythmic rise and fall of the white slippers as they flew by as indefatigably as if winged. When little Vladimir finally relinquished her, with assurances that he was 'desolated to leave so early', she was ready to rest, and see how her recreant knight had borne his punishment. It had been successful, for at threeandtwenty, blighted affections find a balm in friendly society, and young nerves will thrill, young blood dance, and healthy young spirits rise, when subjected to the enchantment of beauty, light, music, and motion. Laurie had a wakedup look as he rose to give her his seat, and when he hurried away to bring her some supper, she said to herself, with a satisfied smile, 'Ah, I thought that would do him good! 'You look like Balzac's 'Femme Peinte Par ElleMeme', he said, as he fanned her with one hand and held her coffee cup in the other. 'My rouge won't come off. and Amy rubbed her brilliant cheek, and showed him her white glove with a sober simplicity that made him laugh outright. 'What do you call this stuff? he asked, touching a fold of her dress that had blown over his knee. 'Illusion. 'Good name for it. It's very prettynew thing, isn't it? 'It's as old as the hills. You have seen it on dozens of girls, and you never found out that it was pretty till nowstupide! 'I never saw it on you before, which accounts for the mistake, you see. 'None of that, it is forbidden. I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now. No, don't lounge, it makes me nervous. Laurie sat bold upright, and meekly took her empty plate feeling an odd sort of pleasure in having 'little Amy' order him about, for she had lost her shyness now, and felt an irrestible desire to trample on him, as girls have a delightful way of doing when lords of creation show any signs of subjection. 'Where did you learn all this sort of thing? he asked with a quizzical look. 'As 'this sort of thing' is rather a vague expression, would you kindly explain? returned Amy, knowing perfectly well what he meant, but wickedly leaving him to describe what is indescribable. 'Wellthe general air, the style, the selfpossession, thetheillusionyou know, laughed Laurie, breaking down and helping himself out of his quandary with the new word. Amy was gratified, but of course didn't show it, and demurely answered, 'Foreign life polishes one in spite of one's self. I study as well as play, and as for thiswith a little gesture toward her dress'why, tulle is cheap, posies to be had for nothing, and I am used to making the most of my poor little things. Amy rather regretted that last sentence, fearing it wasn't in good taste, but Laurie liked her better for it, and found himself both admiring and respecting the brave patience that made the most of opportunity, and the cheerful spirit that covered poverty with flowers. Amy did not know why he looked at her so kindly, nor why he filled up her book with his own name, and devoted himself to her for the rest of the evening in the most delightful manner but the impulse that wrought this agreeable change was the result of one of the new impressions which both of them were unconsciously giving and receiving. In France the young girls have a dull time of it till they are married, when 'Vive la liberte!' becomes their motto. In America, as everyone knows, girls early sign the declaration of independence, and enjoy their freedom with republican zest, but the young matrons usually abdicate with the first heir to the throne and go into a seclusion almost as close as a French nunnery, though by no means as quiet. Whether they like it or not, they are virtually put upon the shelf as soon as the wedding excitement is over, and most of them might exclaim, as did a very pretty woman the other day, 'I'm as handsome as ever, but no one takes any notice of me because I'm married. Not being a belle or even a fashionable lady, Meg did not experience this affliction till her babies were a year old, for in her little world primitive customs prevailed, and she found herself more admired and beloved than ever. As she was a womanly little woman, the maternal instinct was very strong, and she was entirely absorbed in her children, to the utter exclusion of everything and everybody else. Day and night she brooded over them with tireless devotion and anxiety, leaving John to the tender mercies of the help, for an Irish lady now presided over the kitchen department. Being a domestic man, John decidedly missed the wifely attentions he had been accustomed to receive, but as he adored his babies, he cheerfully relinquished his comfort for a time, supposing with masculine ignorance that peace would soon be restored. But three months passed, and there was no return of repose. Meg looked worn and nervous, the babies absorbed every minute of her time, the house was neglected, and Kitty, the cook, who took life 'aisy', kept him on short commons. When he went out in the morning he was bewildered by small commissions for the captive mamma, if he came gaily in at night, eager to embrace his family, he was quenched by a 'Hush! They are just asleep after worrying all day. If he proposed a little amusement at home, 'No, it would disturb the babies. If he hinted at a lecture or a concert, he was answered with a reproachful look, and a decided'Leave my children for pleasure, never! His sleep was broken by infant wails and visions of a phantom figure pacing noiselessly to and fro in the watches of the night. His meals were interrupted by the frequent flight of the presiding genius, who deserted him, halfhelped, if a muffled chirp sounded from the nest above. And when he read his paper of an evening, Demi's colic got into the shipping list and Daisy's fall affected the price of stocks, for Mrs. Brooke was only interested in domestic news. The poor man was very uncomfortable, for the children had bereft him of his wife, home was merely a nursery and the perpetual 'hushing' made him feel like a brutal intruder whenever he entered the sacred precincts of Babyland. He bore it very patiently for six months, and when no signs of amendment appeared, he did what other paternal exiles dotried to get a little comfort elsewhere. Scott had married and gone to housekeeping not far off, and John fell into the way of running over for an hour or two of an evening, when his own parlor was empty, and his own wife singing lullabies that seemed to have no end. Mrs. Scott was a lively, pretty girl, with nothing to do but be agreeable, and she performed her mission most successfully. The parlor was always bright and attractive, the chessboard ready, the piano in tune, plenty of gay gossip, and a nice little supper set forth in tempting style. John would have preferred his own fireside if it had not been so lonely, but as it was he gratefully took the next best thing and enjoyed his neighbor's society. Meg rather approved of the new arrangement at first, and found it a relief to know that John was having a good time instead of dozing in the parlor, or tramping about the house and waking the children. But byandby, when the teething worry was over and the idols went to sleep at proper hours, leaving Mamma time to rest, she began to miss John, and find her workbasket dull company, when he was not sitting opposite in his old dressing gown, comfortably scorching his slippers on the fender. She would not ask him to stay at home, but felt injured because he did not know that she wanted him without being told, entirely forgetting the many evenings he had waited for her in vain. She was nervous and worn out with watching and worry, and in that unreasonable frame of mind which the best of mothers occasionally experience when domestic cares oppress them. Want of exercise robs them of cheerfulness, and too much devotion to that idol of American women, the teapot, makes them feel as if they were all nerve and no muscle. 'Yes, she would say, looking in the glass, 'I'm getting old and ugly. John doesn't find me interesting any longer, so he leaves his faded wife and goes to see his pretty neighbor, who has no incumbrances. Well, the babies love me, they don't care if I am thin and pale and haven't time to crimp my hair, they are my comfort, and some day John will see what I've gladly sacrificed for them, won't he, my precious? To which pathetic appeal Daisy would answer with a coo, or Demi with a crow, and Meg would put by her lamentations for a maternal revel, which soothed her solitude for the time being. But the pain increased as politics absorbed John, who was always running over to discuss interesting points with Scott, quite unconscious that Meg missed him. Not a word did she say, however, till her mother found her in tears one day, and insisted on knowing what the matter was, for Meg's drooping spirits had not escaped her observation. 'I wouldn't tell anyone except you, Mother, but I really do need advice, for if John goes on much longer I might as well be widowed, replied Mrs. Brooke, drying her tears on Daisy's bib with an injured air. 'Goes on how, my dear? asked her mother anxiously. 'He's away all day, and at night when I want to see him, he is continually going over to the Scotts'. It isn't fair that I should have the hardest work, and never any amusement. Men are very selfish, even the best of them. 'So are women. Don't blame John till you see where you are wrong yourself. 'But it can't be right for him to neglect me. 'Don't you neglect him? 'Why, Mother, I thought you'd take my part! 'So I do, as far as sympathizing goes, but I think the fault is yours, Meg. 'I don't see how. 'Let me show you. Did John ever neglect you, as you call it, while you made it a point to give him your society of an evening, his only leisure time? 'No, but I can't do it now, with two babies to tend. 'I think you could, dear, and I think you ought. May I speak quite freely, and will you remember that it's Mother who blames as well as Mother who sympathizes? 'Indeed I will! Speak to me as if I were little Meg again. I often feel as if I needed teaching more than ever since these babies look to me for everything. Meg drew her low chair beside her mother's, and with a little interruption in either lap, the two women rocked and talked lovingly together, feeling that the tie of motherhood made them more one than ever. 'You have only made the mistake that most young wives makeforgotten your duty to your husband in your love for your children. A very natural and forgivable mistake, Meg, but one that had better be remedied before you take to different ways, for children should draw you nearer than ever, not separate you, as if they were all yours, and John had nothing to do but support them. I've seen it for some weeks, but have not spoken, feeling sure it would come right in time. 'I'm afraid it won't. If I ask him to stay, he'll think I'm jealous, and I wouldn't insult him by such an idea. He doesn't see that I want him, and I don't know how to tell him without words. 'Make it so pleasant he won't want to go away. My dear, he's longing for his little home, but it isn't home without you, and you are always in the nursery. 'Oughtn't I to be there? 'Not all the time, too much confinement makes you nervous, and then you are unfitted for everything. Besides, you owe something to John as well as to the babies. Don't neglect husband for children, don't shut him out of the nursery, but teach him how to help in it. His place is there as well as yours, and the children need him. Let him feel that he has a part to do, and he will do it gladly and faithfully, and it will be better for you all. 'You really think so, Mother? 'I know it, Meg, for I've tried it, and I seldom give advice unless I've proved its practicability. When you and Jo were little, I went on just as you are, feeling as if I didn't do my duty unless I devoted myself wholly to you. Poor Father took to his books, after I had refused all offers of help, and left me to try my experiment alone. I struggled along as well as I could, but Jo was too much for me. I nearly spoiled her by indulgence. You were poorly, and I worried about you till I fell sick myself. Then Father came to the rescue, quietly managed everything, and made himself so helpful that I saw my mistake, and never have been able to get on without him since. That is the secret of our home happiness. He does not let business wean him from the little cares and duties that affect us all, and I try not to let domestic worries destroy my interest in his pursuits. Each do our part alone in many things, but at home we work together, always. 'It is so, Mother, and my great wish is to be to my husband and children what you have been to yours. Show me how, I'll do anything you say. 'You always were my docile daughter. Well, dear, if I were you, I'd let John have more to do with the management of Demi, for the boy needs training, and it's none too soon to begin. Then I'd do what I have often proposed, let Hannah come and help you. She is a capital nurse, and you may trust the precious babies to her while you do more housework. You need the exercise, Hannah would enjoy the rest, and John would find his wife again. Go out more, keep cheerful as well as busy, for you are the sunshinemaker of the family, and if you get dismal there is no fair weather. Then I'd try to take an interest in whatever John likestalk with him, let him read to you, exchange ideas, and help each other in that way. Don't shut yourself up in a bandbox because you are a woman, but understand what is going on, and educate yourself to take your part in the world's work, for it all affects you and yours. 'John is so sensible, I'm afraid he will think I'm stupid if I ask questions about politics and things. 'I don't believe he would. Love covers a multitude of sins, and of whom could you ask more freely than of him? Try it, and see if he doesn't find your society far more agreeable than Mrs. Scott's suppers. 'I will. Poor John! I'm afraid I have neglected him sadly, but I thought I was right, and he never said anything. 'He tried not to be selfish, but he has felt rather forlorn, I fancy. This is just the time, Meg, when young married people are apt to grow apart, and the very time when they ought to be most together, for the first tenderness soon wears off, unless care is taken to preserve it. And no time is so beautiful and precious to parents as the first years of the little lives given to them to train. Don't let John be a stranger to the babies, for they will do more to keep him safe and happy in this world of trial and temptation than anything else, and through them you will learn to know and love one another as you should. Now, dear, goodby. Think over Mother's preachment, act upon it if it seems good, and God bless you all. Meg did think it over, found it good, and acted upon it, though the first attempt was not made exactly as she planned to have it. Of course the children tyrannized over her, and ruled the house as soon as they found out that kicking and squalling brought them whatever they wanted. Mamma was an abject slave to their caprices, but Papa was not so easily subjugated, and occasionally afflicted his tender spouse by an attempt at paternal discipline with his obstreperous son. For Demi inherited a trifle of his sire's firmness of character, we won't call it obstinacy, and when he made up his little mind to have or to do anything, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not change that pertinacious little mind. Mamma thought the dear too young to be taught to conquer his prejudices, but Papa believed that it never was too soon to learn obedience. So Master Demi early discovered that when he undertook to 'wrastle' with 'Parpar', he always got the worst of it, yet like the Englishman, baby respected the man who conquered him, and loved the father whose grave 'No, no, was more impressive than all Mamma's love pats. A few days after the talk with her mother, Meg resolved to try a social evening with John, so she ordered a nice supper, set the parlor in order, dressed herself prettily, and put the children to bed early, that nothing should interfere with her experiment. But unfortunately Demi's most unconquerable prejudice was against going to bed, and that night he decided to go on a rampage. So poor Meg sang and rocked, told stories and tried every sleepprevoking wile she could devise, but all in vain, the big eyes wouldn't shut, and long after Daisy had gone to byelow, like the chubby little bunch of good nature she was, naughty Demi lay staring at the light, with the most discouragingly wideawake expression of countenance. 'Will Demi lie still like a good boy, while Mamma runs down and gives poor Papa his tea? asked Meg, as the hall door softly closed, and the wellknown step went tiptoeing into the dining room. 'Me has tea! said Demi, preparing to join in the revel. 'No, but I'll save you some little cakies for breakfast, if you'll go byebye like Daisy. Will you, lovey? 'Iss! and Demi shut his eyes tight, as if to catch sleep and hurry the desired day. Taking advantage of the propitious moment, Meg slipped away and ran down to greet her husband with a smiling face and the little blue bow in her hair which was his especial admiration. He saw it at once and said with pleased surprise, 'Why, little mother, how gay we are tonight. Do you expect company? 'Only you, dear. 'Is it a birthday, anniversary, or anything? 'No, I'm tired of being dowdy, so I dressed up as a change. You always make yourself nice for table, no matter how tired you are, so why shouldn't I when I have the time? 'I do it out of respect for you, my dear, said oldfashioned John. 'Ditto, ditto, Mr. Brooke, laughed Meg, looking young and pretty again, as she nodded to him over the teapot. 'Well, it's altogether delightful, and like old times. This tastes right. I drink your health, dear. and John sipped his tea with an air of reposeful rapture, which was of very short duration however, for as he put down his cup, the door handle rattled mysteriously, and a little voice was heard, saying impatiently... 'Opy doy. Me's tummin! 'It's that naughty boy. I told him to go to sleep alone, and here he is, downstairs, getting his death acold pattering over that canvas, said Meg, answering the call. 'Mornin' now, announced Demi in joyful tone as he entered, with his long nightgown gracefully festooned over his arm and every curl bobbing gayly as he pranced about the table, eyeing the 'cakies' with loving glances. 'No, it isn't morning yet. You must go to bed, and not trouble poor Mamma. Then you can have the little cake with sugar on it. 'Me loves Parpar, said the artful one, preparing to climb the paternal knee and revel in forbidden joys. But John shook his head, and said to Meg... 'If you told him to stay up there, and go to sleep alone, make him do it, or he will never learn to mind you. 'Yes, of course. Come, Demi, and Meg led her son away, feeling a strong desire to spank the little marplot who hopped beside her, laboring under the delusion that the bribe was to be administered as soon as they reached the nursery. Nor was he disappointed, for that shortsighted woman actually gave him a lump of sugar, tucked him into his bed, and forbade any more promenades till morning. 'Iss! said Demi the perjured, blissfully sucking his sugar, and regarding his first attempt as eminently successful. Meg returned to her place, and supper was progressing pleasantly, when the little ghost walked again, and exposed the maternal delinquencies by boldly demanding, 'More sudar, Marmar. 'Now this won't do, said John, hardening his heart against the engaging little sinner. 'We shall never know any peace till that child learns to go to bed properly. You have made a slave of yourself long enough. Give him one lesson, and then there will be an end of it. Put him in his bed and leave him, Meg. 'He won't stay there, he never does unless I sit by him. 'I'll manage him. Demi, go upstairs, and get into your bed, as Mamma bids you. 'S'ant! replied the young rebel, helping himself to the coveted 'cakie', and beginning to eat the same with calm audacity. 'You must never say that to Papa. I shall carry you if you don't go yourself. 'Go 'way, me don't love Parpar. and Demi retired to his mother's skirts for protection. But even that refuge proved unavailing, for he was delivered over to the enemy, with a 'Be gentle with him, John, which struck the culprit with dismay, for when Mamma deserted him, then the judgment day was at hand. Bereft of his cake, defrauded of his frolic, and borne away by a strong hand to that detested bed, poor Demi could not restrain his wrath, but openly defied Papa, and kicked and screamed lustily all the way upstairs. The minute he was put into bed on one side, he rolled out on the other, and made for the door, only to be ignominiously caught up by the tail of his little toga and put back again, which lively performance was kept up till the young man's strength gave out, when he devoted himself to roaring at the top of his voice. This vocal exercise usually conquered Meg, but John sat as unmoved as the post which is popularly believed to be deaf. No coaxing, no sugar, no lullaby, no story, even the light was put out and only the red glow of the fire enlivened the 'big dark' which Demi regarded with curiosity rather than fear. This new order of things disgusted him, and he howled dismally for 'Marmar', as his angry passions subsided, and recollections of his tender bondwoman returned to the captive autocrat. The plaintive wail which succeeded the passionate roar went to Meg's heart, and she ran up to say beseechingly... 'Let me stay with him, he'll be good now, John. 'No, my dear. I've told him he must go to sleep, as you bid him, and he must, if I stay here all night. 'But he'll cry himself sick, pleaded Meg, reproaching herself for deserting her boy. 'No, he won't, he's so tired he will soon drop off and then the matter is settled, for he will understand that he has got to mind. Don't interfere, I'll manage him. 'He's my child, and I can't have his spirit broken by harshness. 'He's my child, and I won't have his temper spoiled by indulgence. Go down, my dear, and leave the boy to me. When John spoke in that masterful tone, Meg always obeyed, and never regretted her docility. 'Please let me kiss him once, John? 'Certainly. Demi, say good night to Mamma, and let her go and rest, for she is very tired with taking care of you all day. Meg always insisted upon it that the kiss won the victory, for after it was given, Demi sobbed more quietly, and lay quite still at the bottom of the bed, whither he had wriggled in his anguish of mind. 'Poor little man, he's worn out with sleep and crying. I'll cover him up, and then go and set Meg's heart at rest, thought John, creeping to the bedside, hoping to find his rebellious heir asleep. But he wasn't, for the moment his father peeped at him, Demi's eyes opened, his little chin began to quiver, and he put up his arms, saying with a penitent hiccough, 'Me's dood, now. Sitting on the stairs outside Meg wondered at the long silence which followed the uproar, and after imagining all sorts of impossible accidents, she slipped into the room to set her fears at rest. Demi lay fast asleep, not in his usual spreadeagle attitude, but in a subdued bunch, cuddled close in the circle of his father's arm and holding his father's finger, as if he felt that justice was tempered with mercy, and had gone to sleep a sadder and wiser baby. So held, John had waited with a womanly patience till the little hand relaxed its hold, and while waiting had fallen asleep, more tired by that tussle with his son than with his whole day's work. As Meg stood watching the two faces on the pillow, she smiled to herself, and then slipped away again, saying in a satisfied tone, 'I never need fear that John will be too harsh with my babies. He does know how to manage them, and will be a great help, for Demi is getting too much for me. When John came down at last, expecting to find a pensive or reproachful wife, he was agreeably surprised to find Meg placidly trimming a bonnet, and to be greeted with the request to read something about the election, if he was not too tired. John saw in a minute that a revolution of some kind was going on, but wisely asked no questions, knowing that Meg was such a transparent little person, she couldn't keep a secret to save her life, and therefore the clue would soon appear. He read a long debate with the most amiable readiness and then explained it in his most lucid manner, while Meg tried to look deeply interested, to ask intelligent questions, and keep her thoughts from wandering from the state of the nation to the state of her bonnet. In her secret soul, however, she decided that politics were as bad as mathematics, and that the mission of politicians seemed to be calling each other names, but she kept these feminine ideas to herself, and when John paused, shook her head and said with what she thought diplomatic ambiguity, 'Well, I really don't see what we are coming to. John laughed, and watched her for a minute, as she poised a pretty little preparation of lace and flowers on her hand, and regarded it with the genuine interest which his harangue had failed to waken. 'She is trying to like politics for my sake, so I'll try and like millinery for hers, that's only fair, thought John the Just, adding aloud, 'That's very pretty. Is it what you call a breakfast cap? 'My dear man, it's a bonnet! My very best gotoconcertandtheater bonnet. 'I beg your pardon, it was so small, I naturally mistook it for one of the flyaway things you sometimes wear. How do you keep it on? 'These bits of lace are fastened under the chin with a rosebud, so, and Meg illustrated by putting on the bonnet and regarding him with an air of calm satisfaction that was irresistible. 'It's a love of a bonnet, but I prefer the face inside, for it looks young and happy again, and John kissed the smiling face, to the great detriment of the rosebud under the chin. 'I'm glad you like it, for I want you to take me to one of the new concerts some night. I really need some music to put me in tune. Will you, please? 'Of course I will, with all my heart, or anywhere else you like. You have been shut up so long, it will do you no end of good, and I shall enjoy it, of all things. What put it into your head, little mother? 'Well, I had a talk with Marmee the other day, and told her how nervous and cross and out of sorts I felt, and she said I needed change and less care, so Hannah is to help me with the children, and I'm to see to things about the house more, and now and then have a little fun, just to keep me from getting to be a fidgety, brokendown old woman before my time. It's only an experiment, John, and I want to try it for your sake as much as for mine, because I've neglected you shamefully lately, and I'm going to make home what it used to be, if I can. You don't object, I hope? Never mind what John said, or what a very narrow escape the little bonnet had from utter ruin. All that we have any business to know is that John did not appear to object, judging from the changes which gradually took place in the house and its inmates. It was not all Paradise by any means, but everyone was better for the division of labor system. The children throve under the paternal rule, for accurate, steadfast John brought order and obedience into Babydom, while Meg recovered her spirits and composed her nerves by plenty of wholesome exercise, a little pleasure, and much confidential conversation with her sensible husband. Home grew homelike again, and John had no wish to leave it, unless he took Meg with him. The Scotts came to the Brookes' now, and everyone found the little house a cheerful place, full of happiness, content, and family love. Even Sallie Moffatt liked to go there. 'It is always so quiet and pleasant here, it does me good, Meg, she used to say, looking about her with wistful eyes, as if trying to discover the charm, that she might use it in her great house, full of splendid loneliness, for there were no riotous, sunnyfaced babies there, and Ned lived in a world of his own, where there was no place for her. This household happiness did not come all at once, but John and Meg had found the key to it, and each year of married life taught them how to use it, unlocking the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy. This is the sort of shelf on which young wives and mothers may consent to be laid, safe from the restless fret and fever of the world, finding loyal lovers in the little sons and daughters who cling to them, undaunted by sorrow, poverty, or age, walking side by side, through fair and stormy weather, with a faithful friend, who is, in the true sense of the good old Saxon word, the 'houseband', and learning, as Meg learned, that a woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor the art of ruling it not as a queen, but as a wise wife and mother. Laurie went to Nice intending to stay a week, and remained a month. He was tired of wandering about alone, and Amy's familiar presence seemed to give a homelike charm to the foreign scenes in which she bore a part. He rather missed the 'petting' he used to receive, and enjoyed a taste of it again, for no attentions, however flattering, from strangers, were half so pleasant as the sisterly adoration of the girls at home. Amy never would pet him like the others, but she was very glad to see him now, and quite clung to him, feeling that he was the representative of the dear family for whom she longed more than she would confess. They naturally took comfort in each other's society and were much together, riding, walking, dancing, or dawdling, for at Nice no one can be very industrious during the gay season. But, while apparently amusing themselves in the most careless fashion, they were halfconsciously making discoveries and forming opinions about each other. Amy rose daily in the estimation of her friend, but he sank in hers, and each felt the truth before a word was spoken. Amy tried to please, and succeeded, for she was grateful for the many pleasures he gave her, and repaid him with the little services to which womanly women know how to lend an indescribable charm. Laurie made no effort of any kind, but just let himself drift along as comfortably as possible, trying to forget, and feeling that all women owed him a kind word because one had been cold to him. It cost him no effort to be generous, and he would have given Amy all the trinkets in Nice if she would have taken them, but at the same time he felt that he could not change the opinion she was forming of him, and he rather dreaded the keen blue eyes that seemed to watch him with such halfsorrowful, halfscornful surprise. 'All the rest have gone to Monaco for the day. I preferred to stay at home and write letters. They are done now, and I am going to Valrosa to sketch, will you come? said Amy, as she joined Laurie one lovely day when he lounged in as usual, about noon. 'Well, yes, but isn't it rather warm for such a long walk? he answered slowly, for the shaded salon looked inviting after the glare without. 'I'm going to have the little carriage, and Baptiste can drive, so you'll have nothing to do but hold your umbrella, and keep your gloves nice, returned Amy, with a sarcastic glance at the immaculate kids, which were a weak point with Laurie. 'Then I'll go with pleasure. and he put out his hand for her sketchbook. But she tucked it under her arm with a sharp... 'Don't trouble yourself. It's no exertion to me, but you don't look equal to it. Laurie lifted his eyebrows and followed at a leisurely pace as she ran downstairs, but when they got into the carriage he took the reins himself, and left little Baptiste nothing to do but fold his arms and fall asleep on his perch. The two never quarreled. Amy was too wellbred, and just now Laurie was too lazy, so in a minute he peeped under her hatbrim with an inquiring air. She answered him with a smile, and they went on together in the most amicable manner. It was a lovely drive, along winding roads rich in the picturesque scenes that delight beautyloving eyes. Here an ancient monastery, whence the solemn chanting of the monks came down to them. There a barelegged shepherd, in wooden shoes, pointed hat, and rough jacket over one shoulder, sat piping on a stone while his goats skipped among the rocks or lay at his feet. Meek, mousecolored donkeys, laden with panniers of freshly cut grass passed by, with a pretty girl in a capaline sitting between the green piles, or an old woman spinning with a distaff as she went. Brown, softeyed children ran out from the quaint stone hovels to offer nosegays, or bunches of oranges still on the bough. Gnarled olive trees covered the hills with their dusky foliage, fruit hung golden in the orchard, and great scarlet anemones fringed the roadside, while beyond green slopes and craggy heights, the Maritime Alps rose sharp and white against the blue Italian sky. Valrosa well deserved its name, for in that climate of perpetual summer roses blossomed everywhere. They overhung the archway, thrust themselves between the bars of the great gate with a sweet welcome to passersby, and lined the avenue, winding through lemon trees and feathery palms up to the villa on the hill. Every shadowy nook, where seats invited one to stop and rest, was a mass of bloom, every cool grotto had its marble nymph smiling from a veil of flowers and every fountain reflected crimson, white, or pale pink roses, leaning down to smile at their own beauty. Roses covered the walls of the house, draped the cornices, climbed the pillars, and ran riot over the balustrade of the wide terrace, whence one looked down on the sunny Mediterranean, and the whitewalled city on its shore. 'This is a regular honeymoon paradise, isn't it? Did you ever see such roses? asked Amy, pausing on the terrace to enjoy the view, and a luxurious whiff of perfume that came wandering by. 'No, nor felt such thorns, returned Laurie, with his thumb in his mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that grew just beyond his reach. 'Try lower down, and pick those that have no thorns, said Amy, gathering three of the tiny creamcolored ones that starred the wall behind her. She put them in his buttonhole as a peace offering, and he stood a minute looking down at them with a curious expression, for in the Italian part of his nature there was a touch of superstition, and he was just then in that state of halfsweet, halfbitter melancholy, when imaginative young men find significance in trifles and food for romance everywhere. He had thought of Jo in reaching after the thorny red rose, for vivid flowers became her, and she had often worn ones like that from the greenhouse at home. The pale roses Amy gave him were the sort that the Italians lay in dead hands, never in bridal wreaths, and for a moment he wondered if the omen was for Jo or for himself, but the next instant his American common sense got the better of sentimentality, and he laughed a heartier laugh than Amy had heard since he came. 'It's good advice, you'd better take it and save your fingers, she said, thinking her speech amused him. 'Thank you, I will, he answered in jest, and a few months later he did it in earnest. 'Laurie, when are you going to your grandfather? she asked presently, as she settled herself on a rustic seat. 'Very soon. 'You have said that a dozen times within the last three weeks. 'I dare say, short answers save trouble. 'He expects you, and you really ought to go. 'Hospitable creature! I know it. 'Then why don't you do it? 'Natural depravity, I suppose. 'Natural indolence, you mean. It's really dreadful! and Amy looked severe. 'Not so bad as it seems, for I should only plague him if I went, so I might as well stay and plague you a little longer, you can bear it better, in fact I think it agrees with you excellently, and Laurie composed himself for a lounge on the broad ledge of the balustrade. Amy shook her head and opened her sketchbook with an air of resignation, but she had made up her mind to lecture 'that boy' and in a minute she began again. 'What are you doing just now? 'Watching lizards. 'No, no. I mean what do you intend and wish to do? 'Smoke a cigarette, if you'll allow me. 'How provoking you are! I don't approve of cigars and I will only allow it on condition that you let me put you into my sketch. I need a figure. 'With all the pleasure in life. How will you have me, full length or threequarters, on my head or my heels? I should respectfully suggest a recumbent posture, then put yourself in also and call it 'Dolce far niente'. 'Stay as you are, and go to sleep if you like. I intend to work hard, said Amy in her most energetic tone. 'What delightful enthusiasm! and he leaned against a tall urn with an air of entire satisfaction. 'What would Jo say if she saw you now? asked Amy impatiently, hoping to stir him up by the mention of her still more energetic sister's name. 'As usual, 'Go away, Teddy. I'm busy!' He laughed as he spoke, but the laugh was not natural, and a shade passed over his face, for the utterance of the familiar name touched the wound that was not healed yet. Both tone and shadow struck Amy, for she had seen and heard them before, and now she looked up in time to catch a new expression on Laurie's facea hard bitter look, full of pain, dissatisfaction, and regret. It was gone before she could study it and the listless expression back again. She watched him for a moment with artistic pleasure, thinking how like an Italian he looked, as he lay basking in the sun with uncovered head and eyes full of southern dreaminess, for he seemed to have forgotten her and fallen into a reverie. 'You look like the effigy of a young knight asleep on his tomb, she said, carefully tracing the wellcut profile defined against the dark stone. 'Wish I was! 'That's a foolish wish, unless you have spoiled your life. You are so changed, I sometimes think there Amy stopped, with a halftimid, halfwistful look, more significant than her unfinished speech. Laurie saw and understood the affectionate anxiety which she hesitated to express, and looking straight into her eyes, said, just as he used to say it to her mother, 'It's all right, ma'am. That satisfied her and set at rest the doubts that had begun to worry her lately. It also touched her, and she showed that it did, by the cordial tone in which she said... 'I'm glad of that! I didn't think you'd been a very bad boy, but I fancied you might have wasted money at that wicked BadenBaden, lost your heart to some charming Frenchwoman with a husband, or got into some of the scrapes that young men seem to consider a necessary part of a foreign tour. Don't stay out there in the sun, come and lie on the grass here and 'let us be friendly', as Jo used to say when we got in the sofa corner and told secrets. Laurie obediently threw himself down on the turf, and began to amuse himself by sticking daisies into the ribbons of Amy's hat, that lay there. 'I'm all ready for the secrets. and he glanced up with a decided expression of interest in his eyes. 'I've none to tell. You may begin. 'Haven't one to bless myself with. I thought perhaps you'd had some news from home.. 'You have heard all that has come lately. Don't you hear often? I fancied Jo would send you volumes. 'She's very busy. I'm roving about so, it's impossible to be regular, you know. When do you begin your great work of art, Raphaella? he asked, changing the subject abruptly after another pause, in which he had been wondering if Amy knew his secret and wanted to talk about it. 'Never, she answered, with a despondent but decided air. 'Rome took all the vanity out of me, for after seeing the wonders there, I felt too insignificant to live and gave up all my foolish hopes in despair. 'Why should you, with so much energy and talent? 'That's just why, because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a commonplace dauber, so I don't intend to try any more. 'And what are you going to do with yourself now, if I may ask? 'Polish up my other talents, and be an ornament to society, if I get the chance. It was a characteristic speech, and sounded daring, but audacity becomes young people, and Amy's ambition had a good foundation. Laurie smiled, but he liked the spirit with which she took up a new purpose when a longcherished one died, and spent no time lamenting. 'Good! And here is where Fred Vaughn comes in, I fancy. Amy preserved a discreet silence, but there was a conscious look in her downcast face that made Laurie sit up and say gravely, 'Now I'm going to play brother, and ask questions. May I? 'I don't promise to answer. 'Your face will, if your tongue won't. You aren't woman of the world enough yet to hide your feelings, my dear. I heard rumors about Fred and you last year, and it's my private opinion that if he had not been called home so suddenly and detained so long, something would have come of it, hey? 'That's not for me to say, was Amy's grim reply, but her lips would smile, and there was a traitorous sparkle of the eye which betrayed that she knew her power and enjoyed the knowledge. 'You are not engaged, I hope? and Laurie looked very elderbrotherly and grave all of a sudden. 'No. 'But you will be, if he comes back and goes properly down on his knees, won't you? 'Very likely. 'Then you are fond of old Fred? 'I could be, if I tried. 'But you don't intend to try till the proper moment? Bless my soul, what unearthly prudence! He's a good fellow, Amy, but not the man I fancied you'd like. 'He is rich, a gentleman, and has delightful manners, began Amy, trying to be quite cool and dignified, but feeling a little ashamed of herself, in spite of the sincerity of her intentions. 'I understand. Queens of society can't get on without money, so you mean to make a good match, and start in that way? Quite right and proper, as the world goes, but it sounds odd from the lips of one of your mother's girls. 'True, nevertheless. A short speech, but the quiet decision with which it was uttered contrasted curiously with the young speaker. Laurie felt this instinctively and laid himself down again, with a sense of disappointment which he could not explain. His look and silence, as well as a certain inward selfdisapproval, ruffled Amy, and made her resolve to deliver her lecture without delay. 'I wish you'd do me the favor to rouse yourself a little, she said sharply. 'Do it for me, there's a dear girl. 'I could, if I tried. and she looked as if she would like doing it in the most summary style. 'Try, then. I give you leave, returned Laurie, who enjoyed having someone to tease, after his long abstinence from his favorite pastime. 'You'd be angry in five minutes. 'I'm never angry with you. It takes two flints to make a fire. You are as cool and soft as snow. 'You don't know what I can do. Snow produces a glow and a tingle, if applied rightly. Your indifference is half affectation, and a good stirring up would prove it. 'Stir away, it won't hurt me and it may amuse you, as the big man said when his little wife beat him. Regard me in the light of a husband or a carpet, and beat till you are tired, if that sort of exercise agrees with you. Being decidedly nettled herself, and longing to see him shake off the apathy that so altered him, Amy sharpened both tongue and pencil, and began. 'Flo and I have got a new name for you. It's Lazy Laurence. How do you like it? She thought it would annoy him, but he only folded his arms under his head, with an imperturbable, 'That's not bad. Thank you, ladies. 'Do you want to know what I honestly think of you? 'Pining to be told. 'Well, I despise you. If she had even said 'I hate you' in a petulant or coquettish tone, he would have laughed and rather liked it, but the grave, almost sad, accent in her voice made him open his eyes, and ask quickly... 'Why, if you please? 'Because, with every chance for being good, useful, and happy, you are faulty, lazy, and miserable. 'Strong language, mademoiselle. 'If you like it, I'll go on. 'Pray do, it's quite interesting. 'I thought you'd find it so. Selfish people always like to talk about themselves. 'Am I selfish? the question slipped out involuntarily and in a tone of surprise, for the one virtue on which he prided himself was generosity. 'Yes, very selfish, continued Amy, in a calm, cool voice, twice as effective just then as an angry one. 'I'll show you how, for I've studied you while we were frolicking, and I'm not at all satisfied with you. Here you have been abroad nearly six months, and done nothing but waste time and money and disappoint your friends. 'Isn't a fellow to have any pleasure after a fouryear grind? 'You don't look as if you'd had much. At any rate, you are none the better for it, as far as I can see. I said when we first met that you had improved. Now I take it all back, for I don't think you half so nice as when I left you at home. You have grown abominably lazy, you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones. With money, talent, position, health, and beauty, ah you like that old Vanity! But it's the truth, so I can't help saying it, with all these splendid things to use and enjoy, you can find nothing to do but dawdle, and instead of being the man you ought to be, you are only... there she stopped, with a look that had both pain and pity in it. 'Saint Laurence on a gridiron, added Laurie, blandly finishing the sentence. But the lecture began to take effect, for there was a wideawake sparkle in his eyes now and a halfangry, halfinjured expression replaced the former indifference. 'I supposed you'd take it so. You men tell us we are angels, and say we can make you what we will, but the instant we honestly try to do you good, you laugh at us and won't listen, which proves how much your flattery is worth. Amy spoke bitterly, and turned her back on the exasperating martyr at her feet. In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not draw, and Laurie's voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, 'I will be good, oh, I will be good! But Amy did not laugh, for she was in earnest, and tapping on the outspread hand with her pencil, said soberly, 'Aren't you ashamed of a hand like that? It's as soft and white as a woman's, and looks as if it never did anything but wear Jouvin's best gloves and pick flowers for ladies. You are not a dandy, thank Heaven, so I'm glad to see there are no diamonds or big seal rings on it, only the little old one Jo gave you so long ago. Dear soul, I wish she was here to help me! 'So do I! The hand vanished as suddenly as it came, and there was energy enough in the echo of her wish to suit even Amy. She glanced down at him with a new thought in her mind, but he was lying with his hat half over his face, as if for shade, and his mustache hid his mouth. She only saw his chest rise and fall, with a long breath that might have been a sigh, and the hand that wore the ring nestled down into the grass, as if to hide something too precious or too tender to be spoken of. All in a minute various hints and trifles assumed shape and significance in Amy's mind, and told her what her sister never had confided to her. She remembered that Laurie never spoke voluntarily of Jo, she recalled the shadow on his face just now, the change in his character, and the wearing of the little old ring which was no ornament to a handsome hand. Girls are quick to read such signs and feel their eloquence. Amy had fancied that perhaps a love trouble was at the bottom of the alteration, and now she was sure of it. Her keen eyes filled, and when she spoke again, it was in a voice that could be beautifully soft and kind when she chose to make it so. 'I know I have no right to talk so to you, Laurie, and if you weren't the sweetesttempered fellow in the world, you'd be very angry with me. But we are all so fond and proud of you, I couldn't bear to think they should be disappointed in you at home as I have been, though, perhaps they would understand the change better than I do. 'I think they would, came from under the hat, in a grim tone, quite as touching as a broken one. 'They ought to have told me, and not let me go blundering and scolding, when I should have been more kind and patient than ever. I never did like that Miss Randal and now I hate her! said artful Amy, wishing to be sure of her facts this time. 'Hang Miss Randal! and Laurie knocked the hat off his face with a look that left no doubt of his sentiments toward that young lady. 'I beg pardon, I thought... and there she paused diplomatically. 'No, you didn't, you knew perfectly well I never cared for anyone but Jo, Laurie said that in his old, impetuous tone, and turned his face away as he spoke. 'I did think so, but as they never said anything about it, and you came away, I supposed I was mistaken. And Jo wouldn't be kind to you? Why, I was sure she loved you dearly. 'She was kind, but not in the right way, and it's lucky for her she didn't love me, if I'm the goodfornothing fellow you think me. It's her fault though, and you may tell her so. The hard, bitter look came back again as he said that, and it troubled Amy, for she did not know what balm to apply. 'I was wrong, I didn't know. I'm very sorry I was so cross, but I can't help wishing you'd bear it better, Teddy, dear. 'Don't, that's her name for me! and Laurie put up his hand with a quick gesture to stop the words spoken in Jo's halfkind, halfreproachful tone. 'Wait till you've tried it yourself, he added in a low voice, as he pulled up the grass by the handful. 'I'd take it manfully, and be respected if I couldn't be loved, said Amy, with the decision of one who knew nothing about it. Now, Laurie flattered himself that he had borne it remarkably well, making no moan, asking no sympathy, and taking his trouble away to live it down alone. Amy's lecture put the matter in a new light, and for the first time it did look weak and selfish to lose heart at the first failure, and shut himself up in moody indifference. He felt as if suddenly shaken out of a pensive dream and found it impossible to go to sleep again. Presently he sat up and asked slowly, 'Do you think Jo would despise me as you do? 'Yes, if she saw you now. She hates lazy people. Why don't you do something splendid, and make her love you? 'I did my best, but it was no use. 'Graduating well, you mean? That was no more than you ought to have done, for your grandfather's sake. It would have been shameful to fail after spending so much time and money, when everyone knew that you could do well. 'I did fail, say what you will, for Jo wouldn't love me, began Laurie, leaning his head on his hand in a despondent attitude. 'No, you didn't, and you'll say so in the end, for it did you good, and proved that you could do something if you tried. If you'd only set about another task of some sort, you'd soon be your hearty, happy self again, and forget your trouble. 'That's impossible. 'Try it and see. You needn't shrug your shoulders, and think, 'Much she knows about such things'. I don't pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you'd imagine. I'm interested in other people's experiences and inconsistencies, and though I can't explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit. Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want. There, I won't lecture any more, for I know you'll wake up and be a man in spite of that hardhearted girl. Neither spoke for several minutes. Laurie sat turning the little ring on his finger, and Amy put the last touches to the hasty sketch she had been working at while she talked. Presently she put it on his knee, merely saying, 'How do you like that? He looked and then he smiled, as he could not well help doing, for it was capitally done, the long, lazy figure on the grass, with listless face, halfshut eyes, and one hand holding a cigar, from which came the little wreath of smoke that encircled the dreamer's head. 'How well you draw! he said, with a genuine surprise and pleasure at her skill, adding, with a halflaugh, 'Yes, that's me. 'As you are. This is as you were. and Amy laid another sketch beside the one he held. It was not nearly so well done, but there was a life and spirit in it which atoned for many faults, and it recalled the past so vividly that a sudden change swept over the young man's face as he looked. Only a rough sketch of Laurie taming a horse. Hat and coat were off, and every line of the active figure, resolute face, and commanding attitude was full of energy and meaning. The handsome brute, just subdued, stood arching his neck under the tightly drawn rein, with one foot impatiently pawing the ground, and ears pricked up as if listening for the voice that had mastered him. In the ruffled mane, the rider's breezy hair and erect attitude, there was a suggestion of suddenly arrested motion, of strength, courage, and youthful buoyancy that contrasted sharply with the supine grace of the 'Dolce far Niente' sketch. Laurie said nothing but as his eye went from one to the other, Amy saw him flush up and fold his lips together as if he read and accepted the little lesson she had given him. That satisfied her, and without waiting for him to speak, she said, in her sprightly way... 'Don't you remember the day you played Rarey with Puck, and we all looked on? Meg and Beth were frightened, but Jo clapped and pranced, and I sat on the fence and drew you. I found that sketch in my portfolio the other day, touched it up, and kept it to show you. 'Much obliged. You've improved immensely since then, and I congratulate you. May I venture to suggest in 'a honeymoon paradise' that five o'clock is the dinner hour at your hotel? Laurie rose as he spoke, returned the pictures with a smile and a bow and looked at his watch, as if to remind her that even moral lectures should have an end. He tried to resume his former easy, indifferent air, but it was an affectation now, for the rousing had been more effacious than he would confess. Amy felt the shade of coldness in his manner, and said to herself... 'Now, I've offended him. Well, if it does him good, I'm glad, if it makes him hate me, I'm sorry, but it's true, and I can't take back a word of it. They laughed and chatted all the way home, and little Baptiste, up behind, thought that monsieur and madamoiselle were in charming spirits. But both felt ill at ease. The friendly frankness was disturbed, the sunshine had a shadow over it, and despite their apparent gaiety, there was a secret discontent in the heart of each. 'Shall we see you this evening, mon frere? asked Amy, as they parted at her aunt's door. 'Unfortunately I have an engagement. Au revoir, madamoiselle, and Laurie bent as if to kiss her hand, in the foreign fashion, which became him better than many men. Something in his face made Amy say quickly and warmly... 'No, be yourself with me, Laurie, and part in the good old way. I'd rather have a hearty English handshake than all the sentimental salutations in France. 'Goodbye, dear, and with these words, uttered in the tone she liked, Laurie left her, after a handshake almost painful in its heartiness. Next morning, instead of the usual call, Amy received a note which made her smile at the beginning and sigh at the end. My Dear Mentor, Please make my adieux to your aunt, and exult within yourself, for 'Lazy Laurence' has gone to his grandpa, like the best of boys. A pleasant winter to you, and may the gods grant you a blissful honeymoon at Valrosa! I think Fred would be benefited by a rouser. Tell him so, with my congratulations. Yours gratefully, Telemachus 'Good boy! I'm glad he's gone, said Amy, with an approving smile. The next minute her face fell as she glanced about the empty room, adding, with an involuntary sigh, 'Yes, I am glad, but how I shall miss him. When the first bitterness was over, the family accepted the inevitable, and tried to bear it cheerfully, helping one another by the increased affection which comes to bind households tenderly together in times of trouble. They put away their grief, and each did his or her part toward making that last year a happy one. The pleasantest room in the house was set apart for Beth, and in it was gathered everything that she most loved, flowers, pictures, her piano, the little worktable, and the beloved pussies. Father's best books found their way there, Mother's easy chair, Jo's desk, Amy's finest sketches, and every day Meg brought her babies on a loving pilgrimage, to make sunshine for Aunty Beth. John quietly set apart a little sum, that he might enjoy the pleasure of keeping the invalid supplied with the fruit she loved and longed for. Old Hannah never wearied of concocting dainty dishes to tempt a capricious appetite, dropping tears as she worked, and from across the sea came little gifts and cheerful letters, seeming to bring breaths of warmth and fragrance from lands that know no winter. Here, cherished like a household saint in its shrine, sat Beth, tranquil and busy as ever, for nothing could change the sweet, unselfish nature, and even while preparing to leave life, she tried to make it happier for those who should remain behind. The feeble fingers were never idle, and one of her pleasures was to make little things for the school children daily passing to and fro, to drop a pair of mittens from her window for a pair of purple hands, a needlebook for some small mother of many dolls, penwipers for young penmen toiling through forests of pothooks, scrapbooks for pictureloving eyes, and all manner of pleasant devices, till the reluctant climbers of the ladder of learning found their way strewn with flowers, as it were, and came to regard the gentle giver as a sort of fairy godmother, who sat above there, and showered down gifts miraculously suited to their tastes and needs. If Beth had wanted any reward, she found it in the bright little faces always turned up to her window, with nods and smiles, and the droll little letters which came to her, full of blots and gratitude. The first few months were very happy ones, and Beth often used to look round, and say 'How beautiful this is! as they all sat together in her sunny room, the babies kicking and crowing on the floor, mother and sisters working near, and father reading, in his pleasant voice, from the wise old books which seemed rich in good and comfortable words, as applicable now as when written centuries ago, a little chapel, where a paternal priest taught his flock the hard lessons all must learn, trying to show them that hope can comfort love, and faith make resignation possible. Simple sermons, that went straight to the souls of those who listened, for the father's heart was in the minister's religion, and the frequent falter in the voice gave a double eloquence to the words he spoke or read. It was well for all that this peaceful time was given them as preparation for the sad hours to come, for byandby, Beth said the needle was 'so heavy', and put it down forever. Talking wearied her, faces troubled her, pain claimed her for its own, and her tranquil spirit was sorrowfully perturbed by the ills that vexed her feeble flesh. Ah me! Such heavy days, such long, long nights, such aching hearts and imploring prayers, when those who loved her best were forced to see the thin hands stretched out to them beseechingly, to hear the bitter cry, 'Help me, help me! and to feel that there was no help. A sad eclipse of the serene soul, a sharp struggle of the young life with death, but both were mercifully brief, and then the natural rebellion over, the old peace returned more beautiful than ever. With the wreck of her frail body, Beth's soul grew strong, and though she said little, those about her felt that she was ready, saw that the first pilgrim called was likewise the fittest, and waited with her on the shore, trying to see the Shining Ones coming to receive her when she crossed the river. Jo never left her for an hour since Beth had said 'I feel stronger when you are here. She slept on a couch in the room, waking often to renew the fire, to feed, lift, or wait upon the patient creature who seldom asked for anything, and 'tried not to be a trouble'. All day she haunted the room, jealous of any other nurse, and prouder of being chosen then than of any honor her life ever brought her. Precious and helpful hours to Jo, for now her heart received the teaching that it needed. Lessons in patience were so sweetly taught her that she could not fail to learn them, charity for all, the lovely spirit that can forgive and truly forget unkindness, the loyalty to duty that makes the hardest easy, and the sincere faith that fears nothing, but trusts undoubtingly. Often when she woke Jo found Beth reading in her wellworn little book, heard her singing softly, to beguile the sleepless night, or saw her lean her face upon her hands, while slow tears dropped through the transparent fingers, and Jo would lie watching her with thoughts too deep for tears, feeling that Beth, in her simple, unselfish way, was trying to wean herself from the dear old life, and fit herself for the life to come, by sacred words of comfort, quiet prayers, and the music she loved so well. Seeing this did more for Jo than the wisest sermons, the saintliest hymns, the most fervent prayers that any voice could utter. For with eyes made clear by many tears, and a heart softened by the tenderest sorrow, she recognized the beauty of her sister's lifeuneventful, unambitious, yet full of the genuine virtues which 'smell sweet, and blossom in the dust', the selfforgetfulness that makes the humblest on earth remembered soonest in heaven, the true success which is possible to all. One night when Beth looked among the books upon her table, to find something to make her forget the mortal weariness that was almost as hard to bear as pain, as she turned the leaves of her old favorite, Pilgrims's Progress, she found a little paper, scribbled over in Jo's hand. The name caught her eye and the blurred look of the lines made her sure that tears had fallen on it. 'Poor Jo! She's fast asleep, so I won't wake her to ask leave. She shows me all her things, and I don't think she'll mind if I look at this, thought Beth, with a glance at her sister, who lay on the rug, with the tongs beside her, ready to wake up the minute the log fell apart. MY BETH Sitting patient in the shadow Till the blessed light shall come, A serene and saintly presence Sanctifies our troubled home. Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows Break like ripples on the strand Of the deep and solemn river Where her willing feet now stand. O my sister, passing from me, Out of human care and strife, Leave me, as a gift, those virtues Which have beautified your life. Dear, bequeath me that great patience Which has power to sustain A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit In its prisonhouse of pain. Give me, for I need it sorely, Of that courage, wise and sweet, Which has made the path of duty Green beneath your willing feet. Give me that unselfish nature, That with charity divine Can pardon wrong for love's dear sake Meek heart, forgive me mine! Thus our parting daily loseth Something of its bitter pain, And while learning this hard lesson, My great loss becomes my gain. For the touch of grief will render My wild nature more serene, Give to life new aspirations, A new trust in the unseen. Henceforth, safe across the river, I shall see forever more A beloved, household spirit Waiting for me on the shore. Hope and faith, born of my sorrow, Guardian angels shall become, And the sister gone before me By their hands shall lead me home. Blurred and blotted, faulty and feeble as the lines were, they brought a look of inexpressible comfort to Beth's face, for her one regret had been that she had done so little, and this seemed to assure her that her life had not been useless, that her death would not bring the despair she feared. As she sat with the paper folded between her hands, the charred log fell asunder. Jo started up, revived the blaze, and crept to the bedside, hoping Beth slept. 'Not asleep, but so happy, dear. See, I found this and read it. I knew you wouldn't care. Have I been all that to you, Jo? she asked, with wistful, humble earnestness. 'Oh, Beth, so much, so much! and Jo's head went down upon the pillow beside her sister's. 'Then I don't feel as if I'd wasted my life. I'm not so good as you make me, but I have tried to do right. And now, when it's too late to begin even to do better, it's such a comfort to know that someone loves me so much, and feels as if I'd helped them. 'More than any one in the world, Beth. I used to think I couldn't let you go, but I'm learning to feel that I don't lose you, that you'll be more to me than ever, and death can't part us, though it seems to. 'I know it cannot, and I don't fear it any longer, for I'm sure I shall be your Beth still, to love and help you more than ever. You must take my place, Jo, and be everything to Father and Mother when I'm gone. They will turn to you, don't fail them, and if it's hard to work alone, remember that I don't forget you, and that you'll be happier in doing that than writing splendid books or seeing all the world, for love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy. 'I'll try, Beth. and then and there Jo renounced her old ambition, pledged herself to a new and better one, acknowledging the poverty of other desires, and feeling the blessed solace of a belief in the immortality of love. So the spring days came and went, the sky grew clearer, the earth greener, the flowers were up fairly early, and the birds came back in time to say goodbye to Beth, who, like a tired but trustful child, clung to the hands that had led her all her life, as Father and Mother guided her tenderly through the Valley of the Shadow, and gave her up to God. Seldom except in books do the dying utter memorable words, see visions, or depart with beatified countenances, and those who have sped many parting souls know that to most the end comes as naturally and simply as sleep. As Beth had hoped, the 'tide went out easily', and in the dark hour before dawn, on the bosom where she had drawn her first breath, she quietly drew her last, with no farewell but one loving look, one little sigh. With tears and prayers and tender hands, Mother and sisters made her ready for the long sleep that pain would never mar again, seeing with grateful eyes the beautiful serenity that soon replaced the pathetic patience that had wrung their hearts so long, and feeling with reverent joy that to their darling death was a benignant angel, not a phantom full of dread. When morning came, for the first time in many months the fire was out, Jo's place was empty, and the room was very still. But a bird sang blithely on a budding bough, close by, the snowdrops blossomed freshly at the window, and the spring sunshine streamed in like a benediction over the placid face upon the pillow, a face so full of painless peace that those who loved it best smiled through their tears, and thanked God that Beth was well at last. Amy's lecture did Laurie good, though, of course, he did not own it till long afterward. Men seldom do, for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole. Laurie went back to his grandfather, and was so dutifully devoted for several weeks that the old gentleman declared the climate of Nice had improved him wonderfully, and he had better try it again. There was nothing the young gentleman would have liked better, but elephants could not have dragged him back after the scolding he had received. Pride forbid, and whenever the longing grew very strong, he fortified his resolution by repeating the words that had made the deepest impression'I despise you. 'Go and do something splendid that will make her love you. Laurie turned the matter over in his mind so often that he soon brought himself to confess that he had been selfish and lazy, but then when a man has a great sorrow, he should be indulged in all sorts of vagaries till he has lived it down. He felt that his blighted affections were quite dead now, and though he should never cease to be a faithful mourner, there was no occasion to wear his weeds ostentatiously. Jo wouldn't love him, but he might make her respect and admire him by doing something which should prove that a girl's 'No' had not spoiled his life. He had always meant to do something, and Amy's advice was quite unnecessary. He had only been waiting till the aforesaid blighted affections were decently interred. That being done, he felt that he was ready to 'hide his stricken heart, and still toil on'. As Goethe, when he had a joy or a grief, put it into a song, so Laurie resolved to embalm his love sorrow in music, and to compose a Requiem which should harrow up Jo's soul and melt the heart of every hearer. Therefore the next time the old gentleman found him getting restless and moody and ordered him off, he went to Vienna, where he had musical friends, and fell to work with the firm determination to distinguish himself. But whether the sorrow was too vast to be embodied in music, or music too ethereal to uplift a mortal woe, he soon discovered that the Requiem was beyond him just at present. It was evident that his mind was not in working order yet, and his ideas needed clarifying, for often in the middle of a plaintive strain, he would find himself humming a dancing tune that vividly recalled the Christmas ball at Nice, especially the stout Frenchman, and put an effectual stop to tragic composition for the time being. Then he tried an opera, for nothing seemed impossible in the beginning, but here again unforeseen difficulties beset him. He wanted Jo for his heroine, and called upon his memory to supply him with tender recollections and romantic visions of his love. But memory turned traitor, and as if possessed by the perverse spirit of the girl, would only recall Jo's oddities, faults, and freaks, would only show her in the most unsentimental aspectsbeating mats with her head tied up in a bandanna, barricading herself with the sofa pillow, or throwing cold water over his passion a la Gummidgeand an irresistable laugh spoiled the pensive picture he was endeavoring to paint. Jo wouldn't be put into the opera at any price, and he had to give her up with a 'Bless that girl, what a torment she is! and a clutch at his hair, as became a distracted composer. When he looked about him for another and a less intractable damsel to immortalize in melody, memory produced one with the most obliging readiness. This phantom wore many faces, but it always had golden hair, was enveloped in a diaphanous cloud, and floated airily before his mind's eye in a pleasing chaos of roses, peacocks, white ponies, and blue ribbons. He did not give the complacent wraith any name, but he took her for his heroine and grew quite fond of her, as well he might, for he gifted her with every gift and grace under the sun, and escorted her, unscathed, through trials which would have annihilated any mortal woman. Thanks to this inspiration, he got on swimmingly for a time, but gradually the work lost its charm, and he forgot to compose, while he sat musing, pen in hand, or roamed about the gay city to get some new ideas and refresh his mind, which seemed to be in a somewhat unsettled state that winter. He did not do much, but he thought a great deal and was conscious of a change of some sort going on in spite of himself. 'It's genius simmering, perhaps. I'll let it simmer, and see what comes of it, he said, with a secret suspicion all the while that it wasn't genius, but something far more common. Whatever it was, it simmered to some purpose, for he grew more and more discontented with his desultory life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at, soul and body, and finally came to the wise conclusion that everyone who loved music was not a composer. Returning from one of Mozart's grand operas, splendidly performed at the Royal Theatre, he looked over his own, played a few of the best parts, sat staring at the busts of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Bach, who stared benignly back again. Then suddenly he tore up his music sheets, one by one, and as the last fluttered out of his hand, he said soberly to himself... 'She is right! Talent isn't genius, and you can't make it so. That music has taken the vanity out of me as Rome took it out of her, and I won't be a humbug any longer. Now what shall I do? That seemed a hard question to answer, and Laurie began to wish he had to work for his daily bread. Now if ever, occurred an eligible opportunity for 'going to the devil', as he once forcibly expressed it, for he had plenty of money and nothing to do, and Satan is proverbially fond of providing employment for full and idle hands. The poor fellow had temptations enough from without and from within, but he withstood them pretty well, for much as he valued liberty, he valued good faith and confidence more, so his promise to his grandfather, and his desire to be able to look honestly into the eyes of the women who loved him, and say 'All's well, kept him safe and steady. Very likely some Mrs. Grundy will observe, 'I don't believe it, boys will be boys, young men must sow their wild oats, and women must not expect miracles. I dare say you don't, Mrs. Grundy, but it's true nevertheless. Women work a good many miracles, and I have a persuasion that they may perform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings. Let the boys be boys, the longer the better, and let the young men sow their wild oats if they must. But mothers, sisters, and friends may help to make the crop a small one, and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest, by believing, and showing that they believe, in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes. If it is a feminine delusion, leave us to enjoy it while we may, for without it half the beauty and the romance of life is lost, and sorrowful forebodings would embitter all our hopes of the brave, tenderhearted little lads, who still love their mothers better than themselves and are not ashamed to own it. Laurie thought that the task of forgetting his love for Jo would absorb all his powers for years, but to his great surprise he discovered it grew easier every day. He refused to believe it at first, got angry with himself, and couldn't understand it, but these hearts of ours are curious and contrary things, and time and nature work their will in spite of us. Laurie's heart wouldn't ache. The wound persisted in healing with a rapidity that astonished him, and instead of trying to forget, he found himself trying to remember. He had not foreseen this turn of affairs, and was not prepared for it. He was disgusted with himself, surprised at his own fickleness, and full of a queer mixture of disappointment and relief that he could recover from such a tremendous blow so soon. He carefully stirred up the embers of his lost love, but they refused to burst into a blaze. There was only a comfortable glow that warmed and did him good without putting him into a fever, and he was reluctantly obliged to confess that the boyish passion was slowly subsiding into a more tranquil sentiment, very tender, a little sad and resentful still, but that was sure to pass away in time, leaving a brotherly affection which would last unbroken to the end. As the word 'brotherly' passed through his mind in one of his reveries, he smiled, and glanced up at the picture of Mozart that was before him... 'Well, he was a great man, and when he couldn't have one sister he took the other, and was happy. Laurie did not utter the words, but he thought them, and the next instant kissed the little old ring, saying to himself, 'No, I won't! I haven't forgotten, I never can. I'll try again, and if that fails, why then... Leaving his sentence unfinished, he seized pen and paper and wrote to Jo, telling her that he could not settle to anything while there was the least hope of her changing her mind. Couldn't she, wouldn't sheand let him come home and be happy? While waiting for an answer he did nothing, but he did it energetically, for he was in a fever of impatience. It came at last, and settled his mind effectually on one point, for Jo decidedly couldn't and wouldn't. She was wrapped up in Beth, and never wished to hear the word love again. Then she begged him to be happy with somebody else, but always keep a little corner of his heart for his loving sister Jo. In a postscript she desired him not to tell Amy that Beth was worse, she was coming home in the spring and there was no need of saddening the remainder of her stay. That would be time enough, please God, but Laurie must write to her often, and not let her feel lonely, homesick or anxious. 'So I will, at once. Poor little girl, it will be a sad going home for her, I'm afraid, and Laurie opened his desk, as if writing to Amy had been the proper conclusion of the sentence left unfinished some weeks before. But he did not write the letter that day, for as he rummaged out his best paper, he came across something which changed his purpose. Tumbling about in one part of the desk among bills, passports, and business documents of various kinds were several of Jo's letters, and in another compartment were three notes from Amy, carefully tied up with one of her blue ribbons and sweetly suggestive of the little dead roses put away inside. With a halfrepentant, halfamused expression, Laurie gathered up all Jo's letters, smoothed, folded, and put them neatly into a small drawer of the desk, stood a minute turning the ring thoughtfully on his finger, then slowly drew it off, laid it with the letters, locked the drawer, and went out to hear High Mass at Saint Stefan's, feeling as if there had been a funeral, and though not overwhelmed with affliction, this seemed a more proper way to spend the rest of the day than in writing letters to charming young ladies. The letter went very soon, however, and was promptly answered, for Amy was homesick, and confessed it in the most delightfully confiding manner. The correspondence flourished famously, and letters flew to and fro with unfailing regularity all through the early spring. Laurie sold his busts, made allumettes of his opera, and went back to Paris, hoping somebody would arrive before long. He wanted desperately to go to Nice, but would not till he was asked, and Amy would not ask him, for just then she was having little experiences of her own, which made her rather wish to avoid the quizzical eyes of 'our boy'. Fred Vaughn had returned, and put the question to which she had once decided to answer, 'Yes, thank you, but now she said, 'No, thank you, kindly but steadily, for when the time came, her courage failed her, and she found that something more than money and position was needed to satisfy the new longing that filled her heart so full of tender hopes and fears. The words, 'Fred is a good fellow, but not at all the man I fancied you would ever like, and Laurie's face when he uttered them, kept returning to her as pertinaciously as her own did when she said in look, if not in words, 'I shall marry for money. It troubled her to remember that now, she wished she could take it back, it sounded so unwomanly. She didn't want Laurie to think her a heartless, worldly creature. She didn't care to be a queen of society now half so much as she did to be a lovable woman. She was so glad he didn't hate her for the dreadful things she said, but took them so beautifully and was kinder than ever. His letters were such a comfort, for the home letters were very irregular and not half so satisfactory as his when they did come. It was not only a pleasure, but a duty to answer them, for the poor fellow was forlorn, and needed petting, since Jo persisted in being stonyhearted. She ought to have made an effort and tried to love him. It couldn't be very hard, many people would be proud and glad to have such a dear boy care for them. But Jo never would act like other girls, so there was nothing to do but be very kind and treat him like a brother. If all brothers were treated as well as Laurie was at this period, they would be a much happier race of beings than they are. Amy never lectured now. She asked his opinion on all subjects, she was interested in everything he did, made charming little presents for him, and sent him two letters a week, full of lively gossip, sisterly confidences, and captivating sketches of the lovely scenes about her. As few brothers are complimented by having their letters carried about in their sister's pockets, read and reread diligently, cried over when short, kissed when long, and treasured carefully, we will not hint that Amy did any of these fond and foolish things. But she certainly did grow a little pale and pensive that spring, lost much of her relish for society, and went out sketching alone a good deal. She never had much to show when she came home, but was studying nature, I dare say, while she sat for hours, with her hands folded, on the terrace at Valrosa, or absently sketched any fancy that occurred to her, a stalwart knight carved on a tomb, a young man asleep in the grass, with his hat over his eyes, or a curly haired girl in gorgeous array, promenading down a ballroom on the arm of a tall gentleman, both faces being left a blur according to the last fashion in art, which was safe but not altogether satisfactory. Her aunt thought that she regretted her answer to Fred, and finding denials useless and explanations impossible, Amy left her to think what she liked, taking care that Laurie should know that Fred had gone to Egypt. That was all, but he understood it, and looked relieved, as he said to himself, with a venerable air... 'I was sure she would think better of it. Poor old fellow! I've been through it all, and I can sympathize. With that he heaved a great sigh, and then, as if he had discharged his duty to the past, put his feet up on the sofa and enjoyed Amy's letter luxuriously. While these changes were going on abroad, trouble had come at home. But the letter telling that Beth was failing never reached Amy, and when they next found her the grass was green above her sister. The sad news met her at at Vevay, for the heat had driven them from Nice in May, and they had travelled slowly to Switzerland, by way of Genoa and the Italian lakes. She bore it very well, and quietly submitted to the family decree that she should not shorten her visit, for since it was too late to say goodbye to Beth, she had better stay, and let absence soften her sorrow. But her heart was very heavy, she longed to be at home, and every day looked wistfully across the lake, waiting for Laurie to come and comfort her. He did come very soon, for the same mail brought letters to them both, but he was in Germany, and it took some days to reach him. The moment he read it, he packed his knapsack, bade adieu to his fellow pedestrians, and was off to keep his promise, with a heart full of joy and sorrow, hope and suspense. He knew Vevay well, and as soon as the boat touched the little quay, he hurried along the shore to La Tour, where the Carrols were living en pension. The garcon was in despair that the whole family had gone to take a promenade on the lake, but no, the blonde mademoiselle might be in the chateau garden. If monsieur would give himself the pain of sitting down, a flash of time should present her. But monsieur could not wait even a 'flash of time', and in the middle of the speech departed to find mademoiselle himself. A pleasant old garden on the borders of the lovely lake, with chestnuts rustling overhead, ivy climbing everywhere, and the black shadow of the tower falling far across the sunny water. At one corner of the wide, low wall was a seat, and here Amy often came to read or work, or console herself with the beauty all about her. She was sitting here that day, leaning her head on her hand, with a homesick heart and heavy eyes, thinking of Beth and wondering why Laurie did not come. She did not hear him cross the courtyard beyond, nor see him pause in the archway that led from the subterranean path into the garden. He stood a minute looking at her with new eyes, seeing what no one had ever seen before, the tender side of Amy's character. Everything about her mutely suggested love and sorrow, the blotted letters in her lap, the black ribbon that tied up her hair, the womanly pain and patience in her face, even the little ebony cross at her throat seemed pathetic to Laurie, for he had given it to her, and she wore it as her only ornament. If he had any doubts about the reception she would give him, they were set at rest the minute she looked up and saw him, for dropping everything, she ran to him, exclaiming in a tone of unmistakable love and longing... 'Oh, Laurie, Laurie, I knew you'd come to me! I think everything was said and settled then, for as they stood together quite silent for a moment, with the dark head bent down protectingly over the light one, Amy felt that no one could comfort and sustain her so well as Laurie, and Laurie decided that Amy was the only woman in the world who could fill Jo's place and make him happy. He did not tell her so, but she was not disappointed, for both felt the truth, were satisfied, and gladly left the rest to silence. In a minute Amy went back to her place, and while she dried her tears, Laurie gathered up the scattered papers, finding in the sight of sundry wellworn letters and suggestive sketches good omens for the future. As he sat down beside her, Amy felt shy again, and turned rosy red at the recollection of her impulsive greeting. 'I couldn't help it, I felt so lonely and sad, and was so very glad to see you. It was such a surprise to look up and find you, just as I was beginning to fear you wouldn't come, she said, trying in vain to speak quite naturally. 'I came the minute I heard. I wish I could say something to comfort you for the loss of dear little Beth, but I can only feel, and... He could not get any further, for he too turned bashful all of a sudden, and did not quite know what to say. He longed to lay Amy's head down on his shoulder, and tell her to have a good cry, but he did not dare, so took her hand instead, and gave it a sympathetic squeeze that was better than words. 'You needn't say anything, this comforts me, she said softly. 'Beth is well and happy, and I mustn't wish her back, but I dread the going home, much as I long to see them all. We won't talk about it now, for it makes me cry, and I want to enjoy you while you stay. You needn't go right back, need you? 'Not if you want me, dear. 'I do, so much. Aunt and Flo are very kind, but you seem like one of the family, and it would be so comfortable to have you for a little while. Amy spoke and looked so like a homesick child whose heart was full that Laurie forgot his bashfulness all at once, and gave her just what she wantedthe petting she was used to and the cheerful conversation she needed. 'Poor little soul, you look as if you'd grieved yourself half sick! I'm going to take care of you, so don't cry any more, but come and walk about with me, the wind is too chilly for you to sit still, he said, in the halfcaressing, halfcommanding way that Amy liked, as he tied on her hat, drew her arm through his, and began to pace up and down the sunny walk under the newleaved chestnuts. He felt more at ease upon his legs, and Amy found it pleasant to have a strong arm to lean upon, a familiar face to smile at her, and a kind voice to talk delightfully for her alone. The quaint old garden had sheltered many pairs of lovers, and seemed expressly made for them, so sunny and secluded was it, with nothing but the tower to overlook them, and the wide lake to carry away the echo of their words, as it rippled by below. For an hour this new pair walked and talked, or rested on the wall, enjoying the sweet influences which gave such a charm to time and place, and when an unromantic dinner bell warned them away, Amy felt as if she left her burden of loneliness and sorrow behind her in the chateau garden. The moment Mrs. Carrol saw the girl's altered face, she was illuminated with a new idea, and exclaimed to herself, 'Now I understand it allthe child has been pining for young Laurence. Bless my heart, I never thought of such a thing! With praiseworthy discretion, the good lady said nothing, and betrayed no sign of enlightenment, but cordially urged Laurie to stay and begged Amy to enjoy his society, for it would do her more good than so much solitude. Amy was a model of docility, and as her aunt was a good deal occupied with Flo, she was left to entertain her friend, and did it with more than her usual success. At Nice, Laurie had lounged and Amy had scolded. At Vevay, Laurie was never idle, but always walking, riding, boating, or studying in the most energetic manner, while Amy admired everything he did and followed his example as far and as fast as she could. He said the change was owing to the climate, and she did not contradict him, being glad of a like excuse for her own recovered health and spirits. The invigorating air did them both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them saying, 'Little children, love one another. In spite of the new sorrow, it was a very happy time, so happy that Laurie could not bear to disturb it by a word. It took him a little while to recover from his surprise at the cure of his first, and as he had firmly believed, his last and only love. He consoled himself for the seeming disloyalty by the thought that Jo's sister was almost the same as Jo's self, and the conviction that it would have been impossible to love any other woman but Amy so soon and so well. His first wooing had been of the tempestuous order, and he looked back upon it as if through a long vista of years with a feeling of compassion blended with regret. He was not ashamed of it, but put it away as one of the bittersweet experiences of his life, for which he could be grateful when the pain was over. His second wooing, he resolved, should be as calm and simple as possible. There was no need of having a scene, hardly any need of telling Amy that he loved her, she knew it without words and had given him his answer long ago. It all came about so naturally that no one could complain, and he knew that everybody would be pleased, even Jo. But when our first little passion has been crushed, we are apt to be wary and slow in making a second trial, so Laurie let the days pass, enjoying every hour, and leaving to chance the utterance of the word that would put an end to the first and sweetest part of his new romance. He had rather imagined that the denoument would take place in the chateau garden by moonlight, and in the most graceful and decorous manner, but it turned out exactly the reverse, for the matter was settled on the lake at noonday in a few blunt words. They had been floating about all the morning, from gloomy St. Gingolf to sunny Montreux, with the Alps of Savoy on one side, Mont St. Bernard and the Dent du Midi on the other, pretty Vevay in the valley, and Lausanne upon the hill beyond, a cloudless blue sky overhead, and the bluer lake below, dotted with the picturesque boats that look like whitewinged gulls. They had been talking of Bonnivard, as they glided past Chillon, and of Rousseau, as they looked up at Clarens, where he wrote his Heloise. Neither had read it, but they knew it was a love story, and each privately wondered if it was half as interesting as their own. Amy had been dabbling her hand in the water during the little pause that fell between them, and when she looked up, Laurie was leaning on his oars with an expression in his eyes that made her say hastily, merely for the sake of saying something... 'You must be tired. Rest a little, and let me row. It will do me good, for since you came I have been altogether lazy and luxurious. 'I'm not tired, but you may take an oar, if you like. There's room enough, though I have to sit nearly in the middle, else the boat won't trim, returned Laurie, as if he rather liked the arrangement. Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the offered third of a seat, shook her hair over her face, and accepted an oar. She rowed as well as she did many other things, and though she used both hands, and Laurie but one, the oars kept time, and the boat went smoothly through the water. 'How well we pull together, don't we? said Amy, who objected to silence just then. 'So well that I wish we might always pull in the same boat. Will you, Amy? very tenderly. 'Yes, Laurie, very low. Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the dissolving views reflected in the lake. It was easy to promise selfabnegation when self was wrapped up in another, and heart and soul were purified by a sweet example. But when the helpful voice was silent, the daily lesson over, the beloved presence gone, and nothing remained but loneliness and grief, then Jo found her promise very hard to keep. How could she 'comfort Father and Mother' when her own heart ached with a ceaseless longing for her sister, how could she 'make the house cheerful' when all its light and warmth and beauty seemed to have deserted it when Beth left the old home for the new, and where in all the world could she 'find some useful, happy work to do', that would take the place of the loving service which had been its own reward? She tried in a blind, hopeless way to do her duty, secretly rebelling against it all the while, for it seemed unjust that her few joys should be lessened, her burdens made heavier, and life get harder and harder as she toiled along. Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow. It was not fair, for she tried more than Amy to be good, but never got any reward, only disappointment, trouble and hard work. Poor Jo, these were dark days to her, for something like despair came over her when she thought of spending all her life in that quiet house, devoted to humdrum cares, a few small pleasures, and the duty that never seemed to grow any easier. 'I can't do it. I wasn't meant for a life like this, and I know I shall break away and do something desperate if somebody doesn't come and help me, she said to herself, when her first efforts failed and she fell into the moody, miserable state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the inevitable. But someone did come and help her, though Jo did not recognize her good angels at once because they wore familiar shapes and used the simple spells best fitted to poor humanity. Often she started up at night, thinking Beth called her, and when the sight of the little empty bed made her cry with the bitter cry of unsubmissive sorrow, 'Oh, Beth, come back! Come back! she did not stretch out her yearning arms in vain. For, as quick to hear her sobbing as she had been to hear her sister's faintest whisper, her mother came to comfort her, not with words only, but the patient tenderness that soothes by a touch, tears that were mute reminders of a greater grief than Jo's, and broken whispers, more eloquent than prayers, because hopeful resignation went handinhand with natural sorrow. Sacred moments, when heart talked to heart in the silence of the night, turning affliction to a blessing, which chastened grief and strengthened love. Feeling this, Jo's burden seemed easier to bear, duty grew sweeter, and life looked more endurable, seen from the safe shelter of her mother's arms. When aching heart was a little comforted, troubled mind likewise found help, for one day she went to the study, and leaning over the good gray head lifted to welcome her with a tranquil smile, she said very humbly, 'Father, talk to me as you did to Beth. I need it more than she did, for I'm all wrong. 'My dear, nothing can comfort me like this, he answered, with a falter in his voice, and both arms round her, as if he too, needed help, and did not fear to ask for it. Then, sitting in Beth's little chair close beside him, Jo told her troubles, the resentful sorrow for her loss, the fruitless efforts that discouraged her, the want of faith that made life look so dark, and all the sad bewilderment which we call despair. She gave him entire confidence, he gave her the help she needed, and both found consolation in the act. For the time had come when they could talk together not only as father and daughter, but as man and woman, able and glad to serve each other with mutual sympathy as well as mutual love. Happy, thoughtful times there in the old study which Jo called 'the church of one member', and from which she came with fresh courage, recovered cheerfulness, and a more submissive spirit. For the parents who had taught one child to meet death without fear, were trying now to teach another to accept life without despondency or distrust, and to use its beautiful opportunities with gratitude and power. Other helps had Johumble, wholesome duties and delights that would not be denied their part in serving her, and which she slowly learned to see and value. Brooms and dishcloths never could be as distasteful as they once had been, for Beth had presided over both, and something of her housewifely spirit seemed to linger around the little mop and the old brush, never thrown away. As she used them, Jo found herself humming the songs Beth used to hum, imitating Beth's orderly ways, and giving the little touches here and there that kept everything fresh and cozy, which was the first step toward making home happy, though she didn't know it till Hannah said with an approving squeeze of the hand... 'You thoughtful creeter, you're determined we shan't miss that dear lamb ef you can help it. We don't say much, but we see it, and the Lord will bless you for't, see ef He don't. As they sat sewing together, Jo discovered how much improved her sister Meg was, how well she could talk, how much she knew about good, womanly impulses, thoughts, and feelings, how happy she was in husband and children, and how much they were all doing for each other. 'Marriage is an excellent thing, after all. I wonder if I should blossom out half as well as you have, if I tried it?, always 'perwisin' I could, said Jo, as she constructed a kite for Demi in the topsyturvy nursery. 'It's just what you need to bring out the tender womanly half of your nature, Jo. You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silkysoft within, and a sweet kernal, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart one day, and then the rough burr will fall off. 'Frost opens chestnut burrs, ma'am, and it takes a good shake to bring them down. Boys go nutting, and I don't care to be bagged by them, returned Jo, pasting away at the kite which no wind that blows would ever carry up, for Daisy had tied herself on as a bob. Meg laughed, for she was glad to see a glimmer of Jo's old spirit, but she felt it her duty to enforce her opinion by every argument in her power, and the sisterly chats were not wasted, especially as two of Meg's most effective arguments were the babies, whom Jo loved tenderly. Grief is the best opener of some hearts, and Jo's was nearly ready for the bag. A little more sunshine to ripen the nut, then, not a boy's impatient shake, but a man's hand reached up to pick it gently from the burr, and find the kernal sound and sweet. If she suspected this, she would have shut up tight, and been more prickly than ever, fortunately she wasn't thinking about herself, so when the time came, down she dropped. Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral storybook, she ought at this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in her pocket. But, you see, Jo wasn't a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested. It's highly virtuous to say we'll be good, but we can't do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way. Jo had got so far, she was learning to do her duty, and to feel unhappy if she did not, but to do it cheerfully, ah, that was another thing! She had often said she wanted to do something splendid, no matter how hard, and now she had her wish, for what could be more beautiful than to devote her life to Father and Mother, trying to make home as happy to them as they had to her? And if difficulties were necessary to increase the splendor of the effort, what could be harder for a restless, ambitious girl than to give up her own hopes, plans, and desires, and cheerfully live for others? Providence had taken her at her word. Here was the task, not what she had expected, but better because self had no part in it. Now, could she do it? She decided that she would try, and in her first attempt she found the helps I have suggested. Still another was given her, and she took it, not as a reward, but as a comfort, as Christian took the refreshment afforded by the little arbor where he rested, as he climbed the hill called Difficulty. 'Why don't you write? That always used to make you happy, said her mother once, when the desponding fit overshadowed Jo. 'I've no heart to write, and if I had, nobody cares for my things. 'We do. Write something for us, and never mind the rest of the world. Try it, dear. I'm sure it would do you good, and please us very much. 'Don't believe I can. But Jo got out her desk and began to overhaul her halffinished manuscripts. An hour afterward her mother peeped in and there she was, scratching away, with her black pinafore on, and an absorbed expression, which caused Mrs. March to smile and slip away, well pleased with the success of her suggestion. Jo never knew how it happened, but something got into that story that went straight to the hearts of those who read it, for when her family had laughed and cried over it, her father sent it, much against her will, to one of the popular magazines, and to her utter surprise, it was not only paid for, but others requested. Letters from several persons, whose praise was honor, followed the appearance of the little story, newspapers copied it, and strangers as well as friends admired it. For a small thing it was a great success, and Jo was more astonished than when her novel was commended and condemned all at once. 'I don't understand it. What can there be in a simple little story like that to make people praise it so? she said, quite bewildered. 'There is truth in it, Jo, that's the secret. Humor and pathos make it alive, and you have found your style at last. You wrote with no thoughts of fame and money, and put your heart into it, my daughter. You have had the bitter, now comes the sweet. Do your best, and grow as happy as we are in your success. 'If there is anything good or true in what I write, it isn't mine. I owe it all to you and Mother and Beth, said Jo, more touched by her father's words than by any amount of praise from the world. So taught by love and sorrow, Jo wrote her little stories, and sent them away to make friends for themselves and her, finding it a very charitable world to such humble wanderers, for they were kindly welcomed, and sent home comfortable tokens to their mother, like dutiful children whom good fortune overtakes. When Amy and Laurie wrote of their engagement, Mrs. March feared that Jo would find it difficult to rejoice over it, but her fears were soon set at rest, for though Jo looked grave at first, she took it very quietly, and was full of hopes and plans for 'the children' before she read the letter twice. It was a sort of written duet, wherein each glorified the other in loverlike fashion, very pleasant to read and satisfactory to think of, for no one had any objection to make. 'You like it, Mother? said Jo, as they laid down the closely written sheets and looked at one another. 'Yes, I hoped it would be so, ever since Amy wrote that she had refused Fred. I felt sure then that something better than what you call the 'mercenary spirit' had come over her, and a hint here and there in her letters made me suspect that love and Laurie would win the day. 'How sharp you are, Marmee, and how silent! You never said a word to me. 'Mothers have need of sharp eyes and discreet tongues when they have girls to manage. I was half afraid to put the idea into your head, lest you should write and congratulate them before the thing was settled. 'I'm not the scatterbrain I was. You may trust me. I'm sober and sensible enough for anyone's confidante now. 'So you are, my dear, and I should have made you mine, only I fancied it might pain you to learn that your Teddy loved someone else. 'Now, Mother, did you really think I could be so silly and selfish, after I'd refused his love, when it was freshest, if not best? 'I knew you were sincere then, Jo, but lately I have thought that if he came back, and asked again, you might perhaps, feel like giving another answer. Forgive me, dear, I can't help seeing that you are very lonely, and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to my heart. So I fancied that your boy might fill the empty place if he tried now. 'No, Mother, it is better as it is, and I'm glad Amy has learned to love him. But you are right in one thing. I am lonely, and perhaps if Teddy had tried again, I might have said 'Yes', not because I love him any more, but because I care more to be loved than when he went away. 'I'm glad of that, Jo, for it shows that you are getting on. There are plenty to love you, so try to be satisfied with Father and Mother, sisters and brothers, friends and babies, till the best lover of all comes to give you your reward. 'Mothers are the best lovers in the world, but I don't mind whispering to Marmee that I'd like to try all kinds. It's very curious, but the more I try to satisfy myself with all sorts of natural affections, the more I seem to want. I'd no idea hearts could take in so many. Mine is so elastic, it never seems full now, and I used to be quite contented with my family. I don't understand it. 'I do, and Mrs. March smiled her wise smile, as Jo turned back the leaves to read what Amy said of Laurie. 'It is so beautiful to be loved as Laurie loves me. He isn't sentimental, doesn't say much about it, but I see and feel it in all he says and does, and it makes me so happy and so humble that I don't seem to be the same girl I was. I never knew how good and generous and tender he was till now, for he lets me read his heart, and I find it full of noble impulses and hopes and purposes, and am so proud to know it's mine. He says he feels as if he 'could make a prosperous voyage now with me aboard as mate, and lots of love for ballast'. I pray he may, and try to be all he believes me, for I love my gallant captain with all my heart and soul and might, and never will desert him, while God lets us be together. Oh, Mother, I never knew how much like heaven this world could be, when two people love and live for one another! 'And that's our cool, reserved, and worldly Amy! Truly, love does work miracles. How very, very happy they must be! and Jo laid the rustling sheets together with a careful hand, as one might shut the covers of a lovely romance, which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he finds himself alone in the workaday world again. Byandby Jo roamed away upstairs, for it was rainy, and she could not walk. A restless spirit possessed her, and the old feeling came again, not bitter as it once was, but a sorrowfully patient wonder why one sister should have all she asked, the other nothing. It was not true, she knew that and tried to put it away, but the natural craving for affection was strong, and Amy's happiness woke the hungry longing for someone to 'love with heart and soul, and cling to while God let them be together'. Up in the garret, where Jo's unquiet wanderings ended stood four little wooden chests in a row, each marked with its owners name, and each filled with relics of the childhood and girlhood ended now for all. Jo glanced into them, and when she came to her own, leaned her chin on the edge, and stared absently at the chaotic collection, till a bundle of old exercise books caught her eye. She drew them out, turned them over, and relived that pleasant winter at kind Mrs. Kirke's. She had smiled at first, then she looked thoughtful, next sad, and when she came to a little message written in the Professor's hand, her lips began to tremble, the books slid out of her lap, and she sat looking at the friendly words, as they took a new meaning, and touched a tender spot in her heart. 'Wait for me, my friend. I may be a little late, but I shall surely come. 'Oh, if he only would! So kind, so good, so patient with me always, my dear old Fritz. I didn't value him half enough when I had him, but now how I should love to see him, for everyone seems going away from me, and I'm all alone. And holding the little paper fast, as if it were a promise yet to be fulfilled, Jo laid her head down on a comfortable rag bag, and cried, as if in opposition to the rain pattering on the roof. Was it all selfpity, loneliness, or low spirits? Or was it the waking up of a sentiment which had bided its time as patiently as its inspirer? Who shall say? Jo was alone in the twilight, lying on the old sofa, looking at the fire, and thinking. It was her favorite way of spending the hour of dusk. No one disturbed her, and she used to lie there on Beth's little red pillow, planning stories, dreaming dreams, or thinking tender thoughts of the sister who never seemed far away. Her face looked tired, grave, and rather sad, for tomorrow was her birthday, and she was thinking how fast the years went by, how old she was getting, and how little she seemed to have accomplished. Almost twentyfive, and nothing to show for it. Jo was mistaken in that. There was a good deal to show, and byandby she saw, and was grateful for it. 'An old maid, that's what I'm to be. A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and twenty years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps, when, like poor Johnson, I'm old and can't enjoy it, solitary, and can't share it, independent, and don't need it. Well, I needn't be a sour saint nor a selfish sinner, and, I dare say, old maids are very comfortable when they get used to it, but... and there Jo sighed, as if the prospect was not inviting. It seldom is, at first, and thirty seems the end of all things to fiveandtwenty. But it's not as bad as it looks, and one can get on quite happily if one has something in one's self to fall back upon. At twentyfive, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will be. At thirty they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact, and if sensible, console themselves by remembering that they have twenty more useful, happy years, in which they may be learning to grow old gracefully. Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason. And looking at them with compassion, not contempt, girls in their bloom should remember that they too may miss the blossom time. That rosy cheeks don't last forever, that silver threads will come in the bonnie brown hair, and that, byandby, kindness and respect will be as sweet as love and admiration now. Gentlemen, which means boys, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color. Just recollect the good aunts who have not only lectured and fussed, but nursed and petted, too often without thanks, the scrapes they have helped you out of, the tips they have given you from their small store, the stitches the patient old fingers have set for you, the steps the willing old feet have taken, and gratefully pay the dear old ladies the little attentions that women love to receive as long as they live. The brighteyed girls are quick to see such traits, and will like you all the better for them, and if death, almost the only power that can part mother and son, should rob you of yours, you will be sure to find a tender welcome and maternal cherishing from some Aunt Priscilla, who has kept the warmest corner of her lonely old heart for 'the best nevvy in the world'. Jo must have fallen asleep (as I dare say my reader has during this little homily), for suddenly Laurie's ghost seemed to stand before her, a substantial, lifelike ghost, leaning over her with the very look he used to wear when he felt a good deal and didn't like to show it. But, like Jenny in the ballad... 'She could not think it he, and lay staring up at him in startled silence, till he stooped and kissed her. Then she knew him, and flew up, crying joyfully... 'Oh my Teddy! Oh my Teddy! 'Dear Jo, you are glad to see me, then? 'Glad! My blessed boy, words can't express my gladness. Where's Amy? 'Your mother has got her down at Meg's. We stopped there by the way, and there was no getting my wife out of their clutches. 'Your what? cried Jo, for Laurie uttered those two words with an unconscious pride and satisfaction which betrayed him. 'Oh, the dickens! Now I've done it, and he looked so guilty that Jo was down on him like a flash. 'You've gone and got married! 'Yes, please, but I never will again, and he went down upon his knees, with a penitent clasping of hands, and a face full of mischief, mirth, and triumph. 'Actually married? 'Very much so, thank you. 'Mercy on us. What dreadful thing will you do next? and Jo fell into her seat with a gasp. 'A characteristic, but not exactly complimentary, congratulation, returned Laurie, still in an abject attitude, but beaming with satisfaction. 'What can you expect, when you take one's breath away, creeping in like a burglar, and letting cats out of bags like that? Get up, you ridiculous boy, and tell me all about it. 'Not a word, unless you let me come in my old place, and promise not to barricade. Jo laughed at that as she had not done for many a long day, and patted the sofa invitingly, as she said in a cordial tone, 'The old pillow is up garret, and we don't need it now. So, come and 'fess, Teddy. 'How good it sounds to hear you say 'Teddy'! No one ever calls me that but you, and Laurie sat down with an air of great content. 'What does Amy call you? 'My lord. 'That's like her. Well, you look it, and Jo's eye plainly betrayed that she found her boy comelier than ever. The pillow was gone, but there was a barricade, nevertheless, a natural one, raised by time, absence, and change of heart. Both felt it, and for a minute looked at one another as if that invisible barrier cast a little shadow over them. It was gone directly however, for Laurie said, with a vain attempt at dignity... 'Don't I look like a married man and the head of a family? 'Not a bit, and you never will. You've grown bigger and bonnier, but you are the same scapegrace as ever. 'Now really, Jo, you ought to treat me with more respect, began Laurie, who enjoyed it all immensely. 'How can I, when the mere idea of you, married and settled, is so irresistibly funny that I can't keep sober! answered Jo, smiling all over her face, so infectiously that they had another laugh, and then settled down for a good talk, quite in the pleasant old fashion. 'It's no use your going out in the cold to get Amy, for they are all coming up presently. I couldn't wait. I wanted to be the one to tell you the grand surprise, and have 'first skim' as we used to say when we squabbled about the cream. 'Of course you did, and spoiled your story by beginning at the wrong end. Now, start right, and tell me how it all happened. I'm pining to know. 'Well, I did it to please Amy, began Laurie, with a twinkle that made Jo exclaim... 'Fib number one. Amy did it to please you. Go on, and tell the truth, if you can, sir. 'Now she's beginning to marm it. Isn't it jolly to hear her? said Laurie to the fire, and the fire glowed and sparkled as if it quite agreed. 'It's all the same, you know, she and I being one. We planned to come home with the Carrols, a month or more ago, but they suddenly changed their minds, and decided to pass another winter in Paris. But Grandpa wanted to come home. He went to please me, and I couldn't let him go alone, neither could I leave Amy, and Mrs. Carrol had got English notions about chaperons and such nonsense, and wouldn't let Amy come with us. So I just settled the difficulty by saying, 'Let's be married, and then we can do as we like'. 'Of course you did. You always have things to suit you. 'Not always, and something in Laurie's voice made Jo say hastily... 'How did you ever get Aunt to agree? 'It was hard work, but between us, we talked her over, for we had heaps of good reasons on our side. There wasn't time to write and ask leave, but you all liked it, had consented to it byandby, and it was only 'taking time by the fetlock', as my wife says. 'Aren't we proud of those two words, and don't we like to say them? interrupted Jo, addressing the fire in her turn, and watching with delight the happy light it seemed to kindle in the eyes that had been so tragically gloomy when she saw them last. 'A trifle, perhaps, she's such a captivating little woman I can't help being proud of her. Well, then Uncle and Aunt were there to play propriety. We were so absorbed in one another we were of no mortal use apart, and that charming arrangement would make everything easy all round, so we did it. 'When, where, how? asked Jo, in a fever of feminine interest and curiosity, for she could not realize it a particle. 'Six weeks ago, at the American consul's, in Paris, a very quiet wedding of course, for even in our happiness we didn't forget dear little Beth. Jo put her hand in his as he said that, and Laurie gently smoothed the little red pillow, which he remembered well. 'Why didn't you let us know afterward? asked Jo, in a quieter tone, when they had sat quite still a minute. 'We wanted to surprise you. We thought we were coming directly home, at first, but the dear old gentleman, as soon as we were married, found he couldn't be ready under a month, at least, and sent us off to spend our honeymoon wherever we liked. Amy had once called Valrosa a regular honeymoon home, so we went there, and were as happy as people are but once in their lives. My faith! Wasn't it love among the roses! Laurie seemed to forget Jo for a minute, and Jo was glad of it, for the fact that he told her these things so freely and so naturally assured her that he had quite forgiven and forgotten. She tried to draw away her hand, but as if he guessed the thought that prompted the halfinvoluntary impulse, Laurie held it fast, and said, with a manly gravity she had never seen in him before... 'Jo, dear, I want to say one thing, and then we'll put it by forever. As I told you in my letter when I wrote that Amy had been so kind to me, I never shall stop loving you, but the love is altered, and I have learned to see that it is better as it is. Amy and you changed places in my heart, that's all. I think it was meant to be so, and would have come about naturally, if I had waited, as you tried to make me, but I never could be patient, and so I got a heartache. I was a boy then, headstrong and violent, and it took a hard lesson to show me my mistake. For it was one, Jo, as you said, and I found it out, after making a fool of myself. Upon my word, I was so tumbled up in my mind, at one time, that I didn't know which I loved best, you or Amy, and tried to love you both alike. But I couldn't, and when I saw her in Switzerland, everything seemed to clear up all at once. You both got into your right places, and I felt sure that it was well off with the old love before it was on with the new, that I could honestly share my heart between sister Jo and wife Amy, and love them dearly. Will you believe it, and go back to the happy old times when we first knew one another? 'I'll believe it, with all my heart, but, Teddy, we never can be boy and girl again. The happy old times can't come back, and we mustn't expect it. We are man and woman now, with sober work to do, for playtime is over, and we must give up frolicking. I'm sure you feel this. I see the change in you, and you'll find it in me. I shall miss my boy, but I shall love the man as much, and admire him more, because he means to be what I hoped he would. We can't be little playmates any longer, but we will be brother and sister, to love and help one another all our lives, won't we, Laurie? He did not say a word, but took the hand she offered him, and laid his face down on it for a minute, feeling that out of the grave of a boyish passion, there had risen a beautiful, strong friendship to bless them both. Presently Jo said cheerfully, for she didn't want the coming home to be a sad one, 'I can't make it true that you children are really married and going to set up housekeeping. Why, it seems only yesterday that I was buttoning Amy's pinafore, and pulling your hair when you teased. Mercy me, how time does fly! 'As one of the children is older than yourself, you needn't talk so like a grandma. I flatter myself I'm a 'gentleman growed' as Peggotty said of David, and when you see Amy, you'll find her rather a precocious infant, said Laurie, looking amused at her maternal air. 'You may be a little older in years, but I'm ever so much older in feeling, Teddy. Women always are, and this last year has been such a hard one that I feel forty. 'Poor Jo! We left you to bear it alone, while we went pleasuring. You are older. Here's a line, and there's another. Unless you smile, your eyes look sad, and when I touched the cushion, just now, I found a tear on it. You've had a great deal to bear, and had to bear it all alone. What a selfish beast I've been! and Laurie pulled his own hair, with a remorseful look. But Jo only turned over the traitorous pillow, and answered, in a tone which she tried to make more cheerful, 'No, I had Father and Mother to help me, and the dear babies to comfort me, and the thought that you and Amy were safe and happy, to make the troubles here easier to bear. I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me, and... 'You never shall be again, broke in Laurie, putting his arm about her, as if to fence out every human ill. 'Amy and I can't get on without you, so you must come and teach 'the children' to keep house, and go halves in everything, just as we used to do, and let us pet you, and all be blissfully happy and friendly together. 'If I shouldn't be in the way, it would be very pleasant. I begin to feel quite young already, for somehow all my troubles seemed to fly away when you came. You always were a comfort, Teddy, and Jo leaned her head on his shoulder, just as she did years ago, when Beth lay ill and Laurie told her to hold on to him. He looked down at her, wondering if she remembered the time, but Jo was smiling to herself, as if in truth her troubles had all vanished at his coming. 'You are the same Jo still, dropping tears about one minute, and laughing the next. You look a little wicked now. What is it, Grandma? 'I was wondering how you and Amy get on together. 'Like angels! 'Yes, of course, but which rules? 'I don't mind telling you that she does now, at least I let her think so, it pleases her, you know. Byandby we shall take turns, for marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties. 'You'll go on as you begin, and Amy will rule you all the days of your life. 'Well, she does it so imperceptibly that I don't think I shall mind much. She is the sort of woman who knows how to rule well. In fact, I rather like it, for she winds one round her finger as softly and prettily as a skein of silk, and makes you feel as if she was doing you a favor all the while. 'That ever I should live to see you a henpecked husband and enjoying it! cried Jo, with uplifted hands. It was good to see Laurie square his shoulders, and smile with masculine scorn at that insinuation, as he replied, with his 'high and mighty air, 'Amy is too wellbred for that, and I am not the sort of man to submit to it. My wife and I respect ourselves and one another too much ever to tyrannize or quarrel. Jo liked that, and thought the new dignity very becoming, but the boy seemed changing very fast into the man, and regret mingled with her pleasure. 'I am sure of that. Amy and you never did quarrel as we used to. She is the sun and I the wind, in the fable, and the sun managed the man best, you remember. 'She can blow him up as well as shine on him, laughed Laurie. 'Such a lecture as I got at Nice! I give you my word it was a deal worse than any of your scoldings, a regular rouser. I'll tell you all about it sometime, she never will, because after telling me that she despised and was ashamed of me, she lost her heart to the despicable party and married the goodfornothing. 'What baseness! Well, if she abuses you, come to me, and I'll defend you. 'I look as if I needed it, don't I? said Laurie, getting up and striking an attitude which suddenly changed from the imposing to the rapturous, as Amy's voice was heard calling, 'Where is she? Where's my dear old Jo? In trooped the whole family, and everyone was hugged and kissed all over again, and after several vain attempts, the three wanderers were set down to be looked at and exulted over. Mr. Laurence, hale and hearty as ever, was quite as much improved as the others by his foreign tour, for the crustiness seemed to be nearly gone, and the oldfashioned courtliness had received a polish which made it kindlier than ever. It was good to see him beam at 'my children', as he called the young pair. It was better still to see Amy pay him the daughterly duty and affection which completely won his old heart, and best of all, to watch Laurie revolve about the two, as if never tired of enjoying the pretty picture they made. The minute she put her eyes upon Amy, Meg became conscious that her own dress hadn't a Parisian air, that young Mrs. Moffat would be entirely eclipsed by young Mrs. Laurence, and that 'her ladyship' was altogether a most elegant and graceful woman. Jo thought, as she watched the pair, 'How well they look together! I was right, and Laurie has found the beautiful, accomplished girl who will become his home better than clumsy old Jo, and be a pride, not a torment to him. Mrs. March and her husband smiled and nodded at each other with happy faces, for they saw that their youngest had done well, not only in worldly things, but the better wealth of love, confidence, and happiness. For Amy's face was full of the soft brightness which betokens a peaceful heart, her voice had a new tenderness in it, and the cool, prim carriage was changed to a gentle dignity, both womanly and winning. No little affectations marred it, and the cordial sweetness of her manner was more charming than the new beauty or the old grace, for it stamped her at once with the unmistakable sign of the true gentlewoman she had hoped to become. 'Love has done much for our little girl, said her mother softly. 'She has had a good example before her all her life, my dear, Mr. March whispered back, with a loving look at the worn face and gray head beside him. Daisy found it impossible to keep her eyes off her 'pitty aunty', but attached herself like a lap dog to the wonderful chatelaine full of delightful charms. Demi paused to consider the new relationship before he compromised himself by the rash acceptance of a bribe, which took the tempting form of a family of wooden bears from Berne. A flank movement produced an unconditional surrender, however, for Laurie knew where to have him. 'Young man, when I first had the honor of making your acquaintance you hit me in the face. Now I demand the satisfaction of a gentleman, and with that the tall uncle proceeded to toss and tousle the small nephew in a way that damaged his philosophical dignity as much as it delighted his boyish soul. 'Blest if she ain't in silk from head to foot ain't it a relishin' sight to see her settin' there as fine as a fiddle, and hear folks calling little Amy 'Mis. Laurence!' muttered old Hannah, who could not resist frequent 'peeks through the slide as she set the table in a most decidedly promiscuous manner. Mercy on us, how they did talk! first one, then the other, then all burst out togethertrying to tell the history of three years in half an hour. It was fortunate that tea was at hand, to produce a lull and provide refreshmentfor they would have been hoarse and faint if they had gone on much longer. Such a happy procession as filed away into the little dining room! Mr. March proudly escorted Mrs. Laurence. Mrs. March as proudly leaned on the arm of 'my son'. The old gentleman took Jo, with a whispered, 'You must be my girl now, and a glance at the empty corner by the fire, that made Jo whisper back, 'I'll try to fill her place, sir. The twins pranced behind, feeling that the millennium was at hand, for everyone was so busy with the newcomers that they were left to revel at their own sweet will, and you may be sure they made the most of the opportunity. Didn't they steal sips of tea, stuff gingerbread ad libitum, get a hot biscuit apiece, and as a crowning trespass, didn't they each whisk a captivating little tart into their tiny pockets, there to stick and crumble treacherously, teaching them that both human nature and a pastry are frail? Burdened with the guilty consciousness of the sequestered tarts, and fearing that Dodo's sharp eyes would pierce the thin disguise of cambric and merino which hid their booty, the little sinners attached themselves to 'Dranpa', who hadn't his spectacles on. Amy, who was handed about like refreshments, returned to the parlor on Father Laurence's arm. The others paired off as before, and this arrangement left Jo companionless. She did not mind it at the minute, for she lingered to answer Hannah's eager inquiry. 'Will Miss Amy ride in her coop (coupe), and use all them lovely silver dishes that's stored away over yander? 'Shouldn't wonder if she drove six white horses, ate off gold plate, and wore diamonds and point lace every day. Teddy thinks nothing too good for her, returned Jo with infinite satisfaction. 'No more there is! Will you have hash or fishballs for breakfast? asked Hannah, who wisely mingled poetry and prose. 'I don't care, and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an uncongenial topic just then. She stood a minute looking at the party vanishing above, and as Demi's short plaid legs toiled up the last stair, a sudden sense of loneliness came over her so strongly that she looked about her with dim eyes, as if to find something to lean upon, for even Teddy had deserted her. If she had known what birthday gift was coming every minute nearer and nearer, she would not have said to herself, 'I'll weep a little weep when I go to bed. It won't do to be dismal now. Then she drew her hand over her eyes, for one of her boyish habits was never to know where her handkerchief was, and had just managed to call up a smile when there came a knock at the porch door. She opened with hospitable haste, and started as if another ghost had come to surprise her, for there stood a tall bearded gentleman, beaming on her from the darkness like a midnight sun. 'Oh, Mr. Bhaer, I am so glad to see you! cried Jo, with a clutch, as if she feared the night would swallow him up before she could get him in. 'And I to see Miss Marsch, but no, you haf a party, and the Professor paused as the sound of voices and the tap of dancing feet came down to them. 'No, we haven't, only the family. My sister and friends have just come home, and we are all very happy. Come in, and make one of us. Though a very social man, I think Mr. Bhaer would have gone decorously away, and come again another day, but how could he, when Jo shut the door behind him, and bereft him of his hat? Perhaps her face had something to do with it, for she forgot to hide her joy at seeing him, and showed it with a frankness that proved irresistible to the solitary man, whose welcome far exceeded his boldest hopes. 'If I shall not be Monsieur de Trop, I will so gladly see them all. You haf been ill, my friend? He put the question abruptly, for, as Jo hung up his coat, the light fell on her face, and he saw a change in it. 'Not ill, but tired and sorrowful. We have had trouble since I saw you last. 'Ah, yes, I know. My heart was sore for you when I heard that, and he shook hands again, with such a sympathetic face that Jo felt as if no comfort could equal the look of the kind eyes, the grasp of the big, warm hand. 'Father, Mother, this is my friend, Professor Bhaer, she said, with a face and tone of such irrepressible pride and pleasure that she might as well have blown a trumpet and opened the door with a flourish. If the stranger had any doubts about his reception, they were set at rest in a minute by the cordial welcome he received. Everyone greeted him kindly, for Jo's sake at first, but very soon they liked him for his own. They could not help it, for he carried the talisman that opens all hearts, and these simple people warmed to him at once, feeling even the more friendly because he was poor. For poverty enriches those who live above it, and is a sure passport to truly hospitable spirits. Mr. Bhaer sat looking about him with the air of a traveler who knocks at a strange door, and when it opens, finds himself at home. The children went to him like bees to a honeypot, and establishing themselves on each knee, proceeded to captivate him by rifling his pockets, pulling his beard, and investigating his watch, with juvenile audacity. The women telegraphed their approval to one another, and Mr. March, feeling that he had got a kindred spirit, opened his choicest stores for his guest's benefit, while silent John listened and enjoyed the talk, but said not a word, and Mr. Laurence found it impossible to go to sleep. If Jo had not been otherwise engaged, Laurie's behavior would have amused her, for a faint twinge, not of jealousy, but something like suspicion, caused that gentleman to stand aloof at first, and observe the newcomer with brotherly circumspection. But it did not last long. He got interested in spite of himself, and before he knew it, was drawn into the circle. For Mr. Bhaer talked well in this genial atmosphere, and did himself justice. He seldom spoke to Laurie, but he looked at him often, and a shadow would pass across his face, as if regretting his own lost youth, as he watched the young man in his prime. Then his eyes would turn to Jo so wistfully that she would have surely answered the mute inquiry if she had seen it. But Jo had her own eyes to take care of, and feeling that they could not be trusted, she prudently kept them on the little sock she was knitting, like a model maiden aunt. A stealthy glance now and then refreshed her like sips of fresh water after a dusty walk, for the sidelong peeps showed her several propitious omens. Mr. Bhaer's face had lost the absentminded expression, and looked all alive with interest in the present moment, actually young and handsome, she thought, forgetting to compare him with Laurie, as she usually did strange men, to their great detriment. Then he seemed quite inspired, though the burial customs of the ancients, to which the conversation had strayed, might not be considered an exhilarating topic. Jo quite glowed with triumph when Teddy got quenched in an argument, and thought to herself, as she watched her father's absorbed face, 'How he would enjoy having such a man as my Professor to talk with every day! Lastly, Mr. Bhaer was dressed in a new suit of black, which made him look more like a gentleman than ever. His bushy hair had been cut and smoothly brushed, but didn't stay in order long, for in exciting moments, he rumpled it up in the droll way he used to do, and Jo liked it rampantly erect better than flat, because she thought it gave his fine forehead a Jovelike aspect. Poor Jo, how she did glorify that plain man, as she sat knitting away so quietly, yet letting nothing escape her, not even the fact that Mr. Bhaer actually had gold sleevebuttons in his immaculate wristbands. 'Dear old fellow! He couldn't have got himself up with more care if he'd been going awooing, said Jo to herself, and then a sudden thought born of the words made her blush so dreadfully that she had to drop her ball, and go down after it to hide her face. The maneuver did not succeed as well as she expected, however, for though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral pyre, the Professor dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking, and made a dive after the little blue ball. Of course they bumped their heads smartly together, saw stars, and both came up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to resume their seats, wishing they had not left them. Nobody knew where the evening went to, for Hannah skillfully abstracted the babies at an early hour, nodding like two rosy poppies, and Mr. Laurence went home to rest. The others sat round the fire, talking away, utterly regardless of the lapse of time, till Meg, whose maternal mind was impressed with a firm conviction that Daisy had tumbled out of bed, and Demi set his nightgown afire studying the structure of matches, made a move to go. 'We must have our sing, in the good old way, for we are all together again once more, said Jo, feeling that a good shout would be a safe and pleasant vent for the jubilant emotions of her soul. They were not all there. But no one found the words thoughtless or untrue, for Beth still seemed among them, a peaceful presence, invisible, but dearer than ever, since death could not break the household league that love made dissoluble. The little chair stood in its old place. The tidy basket, with the bit of work she left unfinished when the needle grew 'so heavy', was still on its accustomed shelf. The beloved instrument, seldom touched now had not been moved, and above it Beth's face, serene and smiling, as in the early days, looked down upon them, seeming to say, 'Be happy. I am here. 'Play something, Amy. Let them hear how much you have improved, said Laurie, with pardonable pride in his promising pupil. But Amy whispered, with full eyes, as she twirled the faded stool, 'Not tonight, dear. I can't show off tonight. But she did show something better than brilliancy or skill, for she sang Beth's songs with a tender music in her voice which the best master could not have taught, and touched the listener's hearts with a sweeter power than any other inspiration could have given her. The room was very still, when the clear voice failed suddenly at the last line of Beth's favorite hymn. It was hard to say... Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal and Amy leaned against her husband, who stood behind her, feeling that her welcome home was not quite perfect without Beth's kiss. 'Now, we must finish with Mignon's song, for Mr. Bhaer sings that, said Jo, before the pause grew painful. And Mr. Bhaer cleared his throat with a gratified 'Hem! as he stepped into the corner where Jo stood, saying... 'You will sing with me? We go excellently well together. A pleasing fiction, by the way, for Jo had no more idea of music than a grasshopper. But she would have consented if he had proposed to sing a whole opera, and warbled away, blissfully regardless of time and tune. It didn't much matter, for Mr. Bhaer sang like a true German, heartily and well, and Jo soon subsided into a subdued hum, that she might listen to the mellow voice that seemed to sing for her alone. Know'st thou the land where the citron blooms, used to be the Professor's favorite line, for 'das land' meant Germany to him, but now he seemed to dwell, with peculiar warmth and melody, upon the words... There, oh there, might I with thee, O, my beloved, go and one listener was so thrilled by the tender invitation that she longed to say she did know the land, and would joyfully depart thither whenever he liked. The song was considered a great success, and the singer retired covered with laurels. But a few minutes afterward, he forgot his manners entirely, and stared at Amy putting on her bonnet, for she had been introduced simply as 'my sister', and no one had called her by her new name since he came. He forgot himself still further when Laurie said, in his most gracious manner, at parting... 'My wife and I are very glad to meet you, sir. Please remember that there is always a welcome waiting for you over the way. Then the Professor thanked him so heartily, and looked so suddenly illuminated with satisfaction, that Laurie thought him the most delightfully demonstrative old fellow he ever met. 'I too shall go, but I shall gladly come again, if you will gif me leave, dear madame, for a little business in the city will keep me here some days. He spoke to Mrs. March, but he looked at Jo, and the mother's voice gave as cordial an assent as did the daughter's eyes, for Mrs. March was not so blind to her children's interest as Mrs. Moffat supposed. 'I suspect that is a wise man, remarked Mr. March, with placid satisfaction, from the hearthrug, after the last guest had gone. 'I know he is a good one, added Mrs. March, with decided approval, as she wound up the clock. 'I thought you'd like him, was all Jo said, as she slipped away to her bed. She wondered what the business was that brought Mr. Bhaer to the city, and finally decided that he had been appointed to some great honor, somewhere, but had been too modest to mention the fact. If she had seen his face when, safe in his own room, he looked at the picture of a severe and rigid young lady, with a good deal of hair, who appeared to be gazing darkly into futurity, it might have thrown some light upon the subject, especially when he turned off the gas, and kissed the picture in the dark. 'Please, Madam Mother, could you lend me my wife for half an hour? The luggage has come, and I've been making hay of Amy's Paris finery, trying to find some things I want, said Laurie, coming in the next day to find Mrs. Laurence sitting in her mother's lap, as if being made 'the baby' again. 'Certainly. Go, dear, I forgot that you have any home but this, and Mrs. March pressed the white hand that wore the wedding ring, as if asking pardon for her maternal covetousness. 'I shouldn't have come over if I could have helped it, but I can't get on without my little woman any more than a... 'Weathercock can without the wind, suggested Jo, as he paused for a simile. Jo had grown quite her own saucy self again since Teddy came home. 'Exactly, for Amy keeps me pointing due west most of the time, with only an occasional whiffle round to the south, and I haven't had an easterly spell since I was married. Don't know anything about the north, but am altogether salubrious and balmy, hey, my lady? 'Lovely weather so far. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. Come home, dear, and I'll find your bootjack. I suppose that's what you are rummaging after among my things. Men are so helpless, Mother, said Amy, with a matronly air, which delighted her husband. 'What are you going to do with yourselves after you get settled? asked Jo, buttoning Amy's cloak as she used to button her pinafores. 'We have our plans. We don't mean to say much about them yet, because we are such very new brooms, but we don't intend to be idle. I'm going into business with a devotion that shall delight Grandfather, and prove to him that I'm not spoiled. I need something of the sort to keep me steady. I'm tired of dawdling, and mean to work like a man. 'And Amy, what is she going to do? asked Mrs. March, well pleased at Laurie's decision and the energy with which he spoke. 'After doing the civil all round, and airing our best bonnet, we shall astonish you by the elegant hospitalities of our mansion, the brilliant society we shall draw about us, and the beneficial influence we shall exert over the world at large. That's about it, isn't it, Madame Recamier? asked Laurie with a quizzical look at Amy. 'Time will show. Come away, Impertinence, and don't shock my family by calling me names before their faces, answered Amy, resolving that there should be a home with a good wife in it before she set up a salon as a queen of society. 'How happy those children seem together! observed Mr. March, finding it difficult to become absorbed in his Aristotle after the young couple had gone. 'Yes, and I think it will last, added Mrs. March, with the restful expression of a pilot who has brought a ship safely into port. 'I know it will. Happy Amy! and Jo sighed, then smiled brightly as Professor Bhaer opened the gate with an impatient push. Later in the evening, when his mind had been set at rest about the bootjack, Laurie said suddenly to his wife, 'Mrs. Laurence. 'My Lord! 'That man intends to marry our Jo! 'I hope so, don't you, dear? 'Well, my love, I consider him a trump, in the fullest sense of that expressive word, but I do wish he was a little younger and a good deal richer. 'Now, Laurie, don't be too fastidious and worldlyminded. If they love one another it doesn't matter a particle how old they are nor how poor. Women never should marry for money... Amy caught herself up short as the words escaped her, and looked at her husband, who replied, with malicious gravity... 'Certainly not, though you do hear charming girls say that they intend to do it sometimes. If my memory serves me, you once thought it your duty to make a rich match. That accounts, perhaps, for your marrying a goodfornothing like me. 'Oh, my dearest boy, don't, don't say that! I forgot you were rich when I said 'Yes'. I'd have married you if you hadn't a penny, and I sometimes wish you were poor that I might show how much I love you. And Amy, who was very dignified in public and very fond in private, gave convincing proofs of the truth of her words. 'You don't really think I am such a mercenary creature as I tried to be once, do you? It would break my heart if you didn't believe that I'd gladly pull in the same boat with you, even if you had to get your living by rowing on the lake. 'Am I an idiot and a brute? How could I think so, when you refused a richer man for me, and won't let me give you half I want to now, when I have the right? Girls do it every day, poor things, and are taught to think it is their only salvation, but you had better lessons, and though I trembled for you at one time, I was not disappointed, for the daughter was true to the mother's teaching. I told Mamma so yesterday, and she looked as glad and grateful as if I'd given her a check for a million, to be spent in charity. You are not listening to my moral remarks, Mrs. Laurence, and Laurie paused, for Amy's eyes had an absent look, though fixed upon his face. 'Yes, I am, and admiring the mole in your chin at the same time. I don't wish to make you vain, but I must confess that I'm prouder of my handsome husband than of all his money. Don't laugh, but your nose is such a comfort to me, and Amy softly caressed the wellcut feature with artistic satisfaction. Laurie had received many compliments in his life, but never one that suited him better, as he plainly showed though he did laugh at his wife's peculiar taste, while she said slowly, 'May I ask you a question, dear? 'Of course, you may. 'Shall you care if Jo does marry Mr. Bhaer? 'Oh, that's the trouble is it? I thought there was something in the dimple that didn't quite suit you. Not being a dog in the manger, but the happiest fellow alive, I assure you I can dance at Jo's wedding with a heart as light as my heels. Do you doubt it, my darling? Amy looked up at him, and was satisfied. Her little jealous fear vanished forever, and she thanked him, with a face full of love and confidence. 'I wish we could do something for that capital old Professor. Couldn't we invent a rich relation, who shall obligingly die out there in Germany, and leave him a tidy little fortune? said Laurie, when they began to pace up and down the long drawing room, arm in arm, as they were fond of doing, in memory of the chateau garden. 'Jo would find us out, and spoil it all. She is very proud of him, just as he is, and said yesterday that she thought poverty was a beautiful thing. 'Bless her dear heart! She won't think so when she has a literary husband, and a dozen little professors and professorins to support. We won't interfere now, but watch our chance, and do them a good turn in spite of themselves. I owe Jo for a part of my education, and she believes in people's paying their honest debts, so I'll get round her in that way. 'How delightful it is to be able to help others, isn't it? That was always one of my dreams, to have the power of giving freely, and thanks to you, the dream has come true. 'Ah, we'll do quantities of good, won't we? There's one sort of poverty that I particularly like to help. Outandout beggars get taken care of, but poor gentle folks fare badly, because they won't ask, and people don't dare to offer charity. Yet there are a thousand ways of helping them, if one only knows how to do it so delicately that it does not offend. I must say, I like to serve a decayed gentleman better than a blarnerying beggar. I suppose it's wrong, but I do, though it is harder. 'Because it takes a gentleman to do it, added the other member of the domestic admiration society. 'Thank you, I'm afraid I don't deserve that pretty compliment. But I was going to say that while I was dawdling about abroad, I saw a good many talented young fellows making all sorts of sacrifices, and enduring real hardships, that they might realize their dreams. Splendid fellows, some of them, working like heros, poor and friendless, but so full of courage, patience, and ambition that I was ashamed of myself, and longed to give them a right good lift. Those are people whom it's a satisfaction to help, for if they've got genius, it's an honor to be allowed to serve them, and not let it be lost or delayed for want of fuel to keep the pot boiling. If they haven't, it's a pleasure to comfort the poor souls, and keep them from despair when they find it out. 'Yes, indeed, and there's another class who can't ask, and who suffer in silence. I know something of it, for I belonged to it before you made a princess of me, as the king does the beggarmaid in the old story. Ambitious girls have a hard time, Laurie, and often have to see youth, health, and precious opportunities go by, just for want of a little help at the right minute. People have been very kind to me, and whenever I see girls struggling along, as we used to do, I want to put out my hand and help them, as I was helped. 'And so you shall, like an angel as you are! cried Laurie, resolving, with a glow of philanthropic zeal, to found and endow an institution for the express benefit of young women with artistic tendencies. 'Rich people have no right to sit down and enjoy themselves, or let their money accumulate for others to waste. It's not half so sensible to leave legacies when one dies as it is to use the money wisely while alive, and enjoy making one's fellow creatures happy with it. We'll have a good time ourselves, and add an extra relish to our own pleasure by giving other people a generous taste. Will you be a little Dorcas, going about emptying a big basket of comforts, and filling it up with good deeds? 'With all my heart, if you will be a brave St. Martin, stopping as you ride gallantly through the world to share your cloak with the beggar. 'It's a bargain, and we shall get the best of it! So the young pair shook hands upon it, and then paced happily on again, feeling that their pleasant home was more homelike because they hoped to brighten other homes, believing that their own feet would walk more uprightly along the flowery path before them, if they smoothed rough ways for other feet, and feeling that their hearts were more closely knit together by a love which could tenderly remember those less blest than they. I cannot feel that I have done my duty as humble historian of the March family, without devoting at least one chapter to the two most precious and important members of it. Daisy and Demi had now arrived at years of discretion, for in this fast age babies of three or four assert their rights, and get them, too, which is more than many of their elders do. If there ever were a pair of twins in danger of being utterly spoiled by adoration, it was these prattling Brookes. Of course they were the most remarkable children ever born, as will be shown when I mention that they walked at eight months, talked fluently at twelve months, and at two years they took their places at table, and behaved with a propriety which charmed all beholders. At three, Daisy demanded a 'needler', and actually made a bag with four stitches in it. She likewise set up housekeeping in the sideboard, and managed a microscopic cooking stove with a skill that brought tears of pride to Hannah's eyes, while Demi learned his letters with his grandfather, who invented a new mode of teaching the alphabet by forming letters with his arms and legs, thus uniting gymnastics for head and heels. The boy early developed a mechanical genius which delighted his father and distracted his mother, for he tried to imitate every machine he saw, and kept the nursery in a chaotic condition, with his 'sewinsheen', a mysterious structure of string, chairs, clothespins, and spools, for wheels to go 'wound and wound'. Also a basket hung over the back of a chair, in which he vainly tried to hoist his too confiding sister, who, with feminine devotion, allowed her little head to be bumped till rescued, when the young inventor indignantly remarked, 'Why, Marmar, dat's my lellywaiter, and me's trying to pull her up. Though utterly unlike in character, the twins got on remarkably well together, and seldom quarreled more than thrice a day. Of course, Demi tyrannized over Daisy, and gallantly defended her from every other aggressor, while Daisy made a galley slave of herself, and adored her brother as the one perfect being in the world. A rosy, chubby, sunshiny little soul was Daisy, who found her way to everybody's heart, and nestled there. One of the captivating children, who seem made to be kissed and cuddled, adorned and adored like little goddesses, and produced for general approval on all festive occasions. Her small virtues were so sweet that she would have been quite angelic if a few small naughtinesses had not kept her delightfully human. It was all fair weather in her world, and every morning she scrambled up to the window in her little nightgown to look out, and say, no matter whether it rained or shone, 'Oh, pitty day, oh, pitty day! Everyone was a friend, and she offered kisses to a stranger so confidingly that the most inveterate bachelor relented, and babylovers became faithful worshipers. 'Me loves evvybody, she once said, opening her arms, with her spoon in one hand, and her mug in the other, as if eager to embrace and nourish the whole world. As she grew, her mother began to feel that the Dovecote would be blessed by the presence of an inmate as serene and loving as that which had helped to make the old house home, and to pray that she might be spared a loss like that which had lately taught them how long they had entertained an angel unawares. Her grandfather often called her 'Beth', and her grandmother watched over her with untiring devotion, as if trying to atone for some past mistake, which no eye but her own could see. Demi, like a true Yankee, was of an inquiring turn, wanting to know everything, and often getting much disturbed because he could not get satisfactory answers to his perpetual 'What for? He also possessed a philosophic bent, to the great delight of his grandfather, who used to hold Socratic conversations with him, in which the precocious pupil occasionally posed his teacher, to the undisguised satisfaction of the womenfolk. 'What makes my legs go, Dranpa? asked the young philosopher, surveying those active portions of his frame with a meditative air, while resting after a gotobed frolic one night. 'It's your little mind, Demi, replied the sage, stroking the yellow head respectfully. 'What is a little mine? 'It is something which makes your body move, as the spring made the wheels go in my watch when I showed it to you. 'Open me. I want to see it go wound. 'I can't do that any more than you could open the watch. God winds you up, and you go till He stops you. 'Does I? and Demi's brown eyes grew big and bright as he took in the new thought. 'Is I wounded up like the watch? 'Yes, but I can't show you how, for it is done when we don't see. Demi felt his back, as if expecting to find it like that of the watch, and then gravely remarked, 'I dess Dod does it when I's asleep. A careful explanation followed, to which he listened so attentively that his anxious grandmother said, 'My dear, do you think it wise to talk about such things to that baby? He's getting great bumps over his eyes, and learning to ask the most unanswerable questions. 'If he is old enough to ask the question he is old enough to receive true answers. I am not putting the thoughts into his head, but helping him unfold those already there. These children are wiser than we are, and I have no doubt the boy understands every word I have said to him. Now, Demi, tell me where you keep your mind. If the boy had replied like Alcibiades, 'By the gods, Socrates, I cannot tell, his grandfather would not have been surprised, but when, after standing a moment on one leg, like a meditative young stork, he answered, in a tone of calm conviction, 'In my little belly, the old gentleman could only join in Grandma's laugh, and dismiss the class in metaphysics. There might have been cause for maternal anxiety, if Demi had not given convincing proofs that he was a true boy, as well as a budding philosopher, for often, after a discussion which caused Hannah to prophesy, with ominous nods, 'That child ain't long for this world, he would turn about and set her fears at rest by some of the pranks with which dear, dirty, naughty little rascals distract and delight their parent's souls. Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers? 'No more raisins, Demi. They'll make you sick, says Mamma to the young person who offers his services in the kitchen with unfailing regularity on plumpudding day. 'Me likes to be sick. 'I don't want to have you, so run away and help Daisy make patty cakes. He reluctantly departs, but his wrongs weigh upon his spirit, and byandby when an opportunity comes to redress them, he outwits Mamma by a shrewd bargain. 'Now you have been good children, and I'll play anything you like, says Meg, as she leads her assistant cooks upstairs, when the pudding is safely bouncing in the pot. 'Truly, Marmar? asks Demi, with a brilliant idea in his wellpowdered head. 'Yes, truly. Anything you say, replies the shortsighted parent, preparing herself to sing, 'The Three Little Kittens half a dozen times over, or to take her family to 'Buy a penny bun, regardless of wind or limb. But Demi corners her by the cool reply... 'Then we'll go and eat up all the raisins. Aunt Dodo was chief playmate and confidante of both children, and the trio turned the little house topsyturvy. Aunt Amy was as yet only a name to them, Aunt Beth soon faded into a pleasantly vague memory, but Aunt Dodo was a living reality, and they made the most of her, for which compliment she was deeply grateful. But when Mr. Bhaer came, Jo neglected her playfellows, and dismay and desolation fell upon their little souls. Daisy, who was fond of going about peddling kisses, lost her best customer and became bankrupt. Demi, with infantile penetration, soon discovered that Dodo like to play with 'the bearman' better than she did him, but though hurt, he concealed his anguish, for he hadn't the heart to insult a rival who kept a mine of chocolate drops in his waistcoat pocket, and a watch that could be taken out of its case and freely shaken by ardent admirers. Some persons might have considered these pleasing liberties as bribes, but Demi didn't see it in that light, and continued to patronize the 'the bearman' with pensive affability, while Daisy bestowed her small affections upon him at the third call, and considered his shoulder her throne, his arm her refuge, his gifts treasures surpassing worth. Gentlemen are sometimes seized with sudden fits of admiration for the young relatives of ladies whom they honor with their regard, but this counterfeit philoprogenitiveness sits uneasily upon them, and does not deceive anybody a particle. Mr. Bhaer's devotion was sincere, however likewise effectivefor honesty is the best policy in love as in law. He was one of the men who are at home with children, and looked particularly well when little faces made a pleasant contrast with his manly one. His business, whatever it was, detained him from day to day, but evening seldom failed to bring him out to seewell, he always asked for Mr. March, so I suppose he was the attraction. The excellent papa labored under the delusion that he was, and reveled in long discussions with the kindred spirit, till a chance remark of his more observing grandson suddenly enlightened him. Mr. Bhaer came in one evening to pause on the threshold of the study, astonished by the spectacle that met his eye. Prone upon the floor lay Mr. March, with his respectable legs in the air, and beside him, likewise prone, was Demi, trying to imitate the attitude with his own short, scarletstockinged legs, both grovelers so seriously absorbed that they were unconscious of spectators, till Mr. Bhaer laughed his sonorous laugh, and Jo cried out, with a scandalized face... 'Father, Father, here's the Professor! Down went the black legs and up came the gray head, as the preceptor said, with undisturbed dignity, 'Good evening, Mr. Bhaer. Excuse me for a moment. We are just finishing our lesson. Now, Demi, make the letter and tell its name. 'I knows him! and, after a few convulsive efforts, the red legs took the shape of a pair of compasses, and the intelligent pupil triumphantly shouted, 'It's a We, Dranpa, it's a We! 'He's a born Weller, laughed Jo, as her parent gathered himself up, and her nephew tried to stand on his head, as the only mode of expressing his satisfaction that school was over. 'What have you been at today, bubchen? asked Mr. Bhaer, picking up the gymnast. 'Me went to see little Mary. 'And what did you there? 'I kissed her, began Demi, with artless frankness. 'Prut! Thou beginnest early. What did the little Mary say to that? asked Mr. Bhaer, continuing to confess the young sinner, who stood upon the knee, exploring the waistcoat pocket. 'Oh, she liked it, and she kissed me, and I liked it. Don't little boys like little girls? asked Demi, with his mouth full, and an air of bland satisfaction. 'You precocious chick! Who put that into your head? said Jo, enjoying the innocent revelation as much as the Professor. ''Tisn't in mine head, it's in mine mouf, answered literal Demi, putting out his tongue, with a chocolate drop on it, thinking she alluded to confectionery, not ideas. 'Thou shouldst save some for the little friend. Sweets to the sweet, mannling, and Mr. Bhaer offered Jo some, with a look that made her wonder if chocolate was not the nectar drunk by the gods. Demi also saw the smile, was impressed by it, and artlessy inquired. .. 'Do great boys like great girls, to, 'Fessor? Like young Washington, Mr. Bhaer 'couldn't tell a lie', so he gave the somewhat vague reply that he believed they did sometimes, in a tone that made Mr. March put down his clothesbrush, glance at Jo's retiring face, and then sink into his chair, looking as if the 'precocious chick' had put an idea into his head that was both sweet and sour. Why Dodo, when she caught him in the china closet half an hour afterward, nearly squeezed the breath out of his little body with a tender embrace, instead of shaking him for being there, and why she followed up this novel performance by the unexpected gift of a big slice of bread and jelly, remained one of the problems over which Demi puzzled his small wits, and was forced to leave unsolved forever. While Laurie and Amy were taking conjugal strolls over velvet carpets, as they set their house in order, and planned a blissful future, Mr. Bhaer and Jo were enjoying promenades of a different sort, along muddy roads and sodden fields. 'I always do take a walk toward evening, and I don't know why I should give it up, just because I happen to meet the Professor on his way out, said Jo to herself, after two or three encounters, for though there were two paths to Meg's whichever one she took she was sure to meet him, either going or returning. He was always walking rapidly, and never seemed to see her until quite close, when he would look as if his shortsighted eyes had failed to recognize the approaching lady till that moment. Then, if she was going to Meg's he always had something for the babies. If her face was turned homeward, he had merely strolled down to see the river, and was just returning, unless they were tired of his frequent calls. Under the circumstances, what could Jo do but greet him civilly, and invite him in? If she was tired of his visits, she concealed her weariness with perfect skill, and took care that there should be coffee for supper, 'as FriedrichI mean Mr. Bhaerdoesn't like tea. By the second week, everyone knew perfectly well what was going on, yet everyone tried to look as if they were stoneblind to the changes in Jo's face. They never asked why she sang about her work, did up her hair three times a day, and got so blooming with her evening exercise. And no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion that Professor Bhaer, while talking philosophy with the father, was giving the daughter lessons in love. Jo couldn't even lose her heart in a decorous manner, but sternly tried to quench her feelings, and failing to do so, led a somewhat agitated life. She was mortally afraid of being laughed at for surrendering, after her many and vehement declarations of independence. Laurie was her especial dread, but thanks to the new manager, he behaved with praiseworthy propriety, never called Mr. Bhaer 'a capital old fellow' in public, never alluded, in the remotest manner, to Jo's improved appearance, or expressed the least surprise at seeing the Professor's hat on the Marches' table nearly every evening. But he exulted in private and longed for the time to come when he could give Jo a piece of plate, with a bear and a ragged staff on it as an appropriate coat of arms. For a fortnight, the Professor came and went with loverlike regularity. Then he stayed away for three whole days, and made no sign, a proceeding which caused everybody to look sober, and Jo to become pensive, at first, and thenalas for romancevery cross. 'Disgusted, I dare say, and gone home as suddenly as he came. It's nothing to me, of course, but I should think he would have come and bid us goodbye like a gentleman, she said to herself, with a despairing look at the gate, as she put on her things for the customary walk one dull afternoon. 'You'd better take the little umbrella, dear. It looks like rain, said her mother, observing that she had on her new bonnet, but not alluding to the fact. 'Yes, Marmee, do you want anything in town? I've got to run in and get some paper, returned Jo, pulling out the bow under her chin before the glass as an excuse for not looking at her mother. 'Yes, I want some twilled silesia, a paper of number nine needles, and two yards of narrow lavender ribbon. Have you got your thick boots on, and something warm under your cloak? 'I believe so, answered Jo absently. 'If you happen to meet Mr. Bhaer, bring him home to tea. I quite long to see the dear man, added Mrs. March. Jo heard that, but made no answer, except to kiss her mother, and walk rapidly away, thinking with a glow of gratitude, in spite of her heartache, 'How good she is to me! What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles? The drygoods stores were not down among the countinghouses, banks, and wholesale warerooms, where gentlemen most do congregate, but Jo found herself in that part of the city before she did a single errand, loitering along as if waiting for someone, examining engineering instruments in one window and samples of wool in another, with most unfeminine interest, tumbling over barrels, being halfsmothered by descending bales, and hustled unceremoniously by busy men who looked as if they wondered 'how the deuce she got there'. A drop of rain on her cheek recalled her thoughts from baffled hopes to ruined ribbons. For the drops continued to fall, and being a woman as well as a lover, she felt that, though it was too late to save her heart, she might her bonnet. Now she remembered the little umbrella, which she had forgotten to take in her hurry to be off, but regret was unavailing, and nothing could be done but borrow one or submit to a drenching. She looked up at the lowering sky, down at the crimson bow already flecked with black, forward along the muddy street, then one long, lingering look behind, at a certain grimy warehouse, with 'Hoffmann, Swartz,  Co.' over the door, and said to herself, with a sternly reproachful air... 'It serves me right! what business had I to put on all my best things and come philandering down here, hoping to see the Professor? Jo, I'm ashamed of you! No, you shall not go there to borrow an umbrella, or find out where he is, from his friends. You shall trudge away, and do your errands in the rain, and if you catch your death and ruin your bonnet, it's no more than you deserve. Now then! With that she rushed across the street so impetuously that she narrowly escaped annihilation from a passing truck, and precipitated herself into the arms of a stately old gentleman, who said, 'I beg pardon, ma'am, and looked mortally offended. Somewhat daunted, Jo righted herself, spread her handkerchief over the devoted ribbons, and putting temptation behind her, hurried on, with increasing dampness about the ankles, and much clashing of umbrellas overhead. The fact that a somewhat dilapidated blue one remained stationary above the unprotected bonnet attracted her attention, and looking up, she saw Mr. Bhaer looking down. 'I feel to know the strongminded lady who goes so bravely under many horse noses, and so fast through much mud. What do you down here, my friend? 'I'm shopping. Mr. Bhaer smiled, as he glanced from the pickle factory on one side to the wholesale hide and leather concern on the other, but he only said politely, 'You haf no umbrella. May I go also, and take for you the bundles? 'Yes, thank you. Jo's cheeks were as red as her ribbon, and she wondered what he thought of her, but she didn't care, for in a minute she found herself walking away arm in arm with her Professor, feeling as if the sun had suddenly burst out with uncommon brilliancy, that the world was all right again, and that one thoroughly happy woman was paddling through the wet that day. 'We thought you had gone, said Jo hastily, for she knew he was looking at her. Her bonnet wasn't big enough to hide her face, and she feared he might think the joy it betrayed unmaidenly. 'Did you believe that I should go with no farewell to those who haf been so heavenly kind to me? he asked so reproachfully that she felt as if she had insulted him by the suggestion, and answered heartily... 'No, I didn't. I knew you were busy about your own affairs, but we rather missed you, Father and Mother especially. 'And you? 'I'm always glad to see you, sir. In her anxiety to keep her voice quite calm, Jo made it rather cool, and the frosty little monosyllable at the end seemed to chill the Professor, for his smile vanished, as he said gravely... 'I thank you, and come one more time before I go. 'You are going, then? 'I haf no longer any business here, it is done. 'Successfully, I hope? said Jo, for the bitterness of disappointment was in that short reply of his. 'I ought to think so, for I haf a way opened to me by which I can make my bread and gif my Junglings much help. 'Tell me, please! I like to know all about thethe boys, said Jo eagerly. 'That is so kind, I gladly tell you. My friends find for me a place in a college, where I teach as at home, and earn enough to make the way smooth for Franz and Emil. For this I should be grateful, should I not? 'Indeed you should. How splendid it will be to have you doing what you like, and be able to see you often, and the boys! cried Jo, clinging to the lads as an excuse for the satisfaction she could not help betraying. 'Ah! But we shall not meet often, I fear, this place is at the West. 'So far away! and Jo left her skirts to their fate, as if it didn't matter now what became of her clothes or herself. Mr. Bhaer could read several languages, but he had not learned to read women yet. He flattered himself that he knew Jo pretty well, and was, therefore, much amazed by the contradictions of voice, face, and manner, which she showed him in rapid succession that day, for she was in half a dozen different moods in the course of half an hour. When she met him she looked surprised, though it was impossible to help suspecting that she had come for that express purpose. When he offered her his arm, she took it with a look that filled him with delight, but when he asked if she missed him, she gave such a chilly, formal reply that despair fell upon him. On learning his good fortune she almost clapped her hands. Was the joy all for the boys? Then on hearing his destination, she said, 'So far away! in a tone of despair that lifted him on to a pinnacle of hope, but the next minute she tumbled him down again by observing, like one entirely absorbed in the matter... 'Here's the place for my errands. Will you come in? It won't take long. Jo rather prided herself upon her shopping capabilities, and particularly wished to impress her escort with the neatness and dispatch with which she would accomplish the business. But owing to the flutter she was in, everything went amiss. She upset the tray of needles, forgot the silesia was to be 'twilled' till it was cut off, gave the wrong change, and covered herself with confusion by asking for lavender ribbon at the calico counter. Mr. Bhaer stood by, watching her blush and blunder, and as he watched, his own bewilderment seemed to subside, for he was beginning to see that on some occasions, women, like dreams, go by contraries. When they came out, he put the parcel under his arm with a more cheerful aspect, and splashed through the puddles as if he rather enjoyed it on the whole. 'Should we no do a little what you call shopping for the babies, and haf a farewell feast tonight if I go for my last call at your so pleasant home? he asked, stopping before a window full of fruit and flowers. 'What will we buy? asked Jo, ignoring the latter part of his speech, and sniffing the mingled odors with an affectation of delight as they went in. 'May they haf oranges and figs? asked Mr. Bhaer, with a paternal air. 'They eat them when they can get them. 'Do you care for nuts? 'Like a squirrel. 'Hamburg grapes. Yes, we shall drink to the Fatherland in those? Jo frowned upon that piece of extravagance, and asked why he didn't buy a frail of dates, a cask of raisins, and a bag of almonds, and be done with it? Whereat Mr. Bhaer confiscated her purse, produced his own, and finished the marketing by buying several pounds of grapes, a pot of rosy daisies, and a pretty jar of honey, to be regarded in the light of a demijohn. Then distorting his pockets with knobby bundles, and giving her the flowers to hold, he put up the old umbrella, and they traveled on again. 'Miss Marsch, I haf a great favor to ask of you, began the Professor, after a moist promenade of half a block. 'Yes, sir? and Jo's heart began to beat so hard she was afraid he would hear it. 'I am bold to say it in spite of the rain, because so short a time remains to me. 'Yes, sir, and Jo nearly crushed the small flowerpot with the sudden squeeze she gave it. 'I wish to get a little dress for my Tina, and I am too stupid to go alone. Will you kindly gif me a word of taste and help? 'Yes, sir, and Jo felt as calm and cool all of a sudden as if she had stepped into a refrigerator. 'Perhaps also a shawl for Tina's mother, she is so poor and sick, and the husband is such a care. Yes, yes, a thick, warm shawl would be a friendly thing to take the little mother. 'I'll do it with pleasure, Mr. Bhaer. 'I'm going very fast, and he's getting dearer every minute, added Jo to herself, then with a mental shake she entered into the business with an energy that was pleasant to behold. Mr. Bhaer left it all to her, so she chose a pretty gown for Tina, and then ordered out the shawls. The clerk, being a married man, condescended to take an interest in the couple, who appeared to be shopping for their family. 'Your lady may prefer this. It's a superior article, a most desirable color, quite chaste and genteel, he said, shaking out a comfortable gray shawl, and throwing it over Jo's shoulders. 'Does this suit you, Mr. Bhaer? she asked, turning her back to him, and feeling deeply grateful for the chance of hiding her face. 'Excellently well, we will haf it, answered the Professor, smiling to himself as he paid for it, while Jo continued to rummage the counters like a confirmed bargainhunter. 'Now shall we go home? he asked, as if the words were very pleasant to him. 'Yes, it's late, and I'm so tired. Jo's voice was more pathetic than she knew. For now the sun seemed to have gone in as suddenly as it came out, and the world grew muddy and miserable again, and for the first time she discovered that her feet were cold, her head ached, and that her heart was colder than the former, fuller of pain than the latter. Mr. Bhaer was going away, he only cared for her as a friend, it was all a mistake, and the sooner it was over the better. With this idea in her head, she hailed an approaching omnibus with such a hasty gesture that the daisies flew out of the pot and were badly damaged. 'This is not our omniboos, said the Professor, waving the loaded vehicle away, and stopping to pick up the poor little flowers. 'I beg your pardon. I didn't see the name distinctly. Never mind, I can walk. I'm used to plodding in the mud, returned Jo, winking hard, because she would have died rather than openly wipe her eyes. Mr. Bhaer saw the drops on her cheeks, though she turned her head away. The sight seemed to touch him very much, for suddenly stooping down, he asked in a tone that meant a great deal, 'Heart's dearest, why do you cry? Now, if Jo had not been new to this sort of thing she would have said she wasn't crying, had a cold in her head, or told any other feminine fib proper to the occasion. Instead of which, that undignified creature answered, with an irrepressible sob, 'Because you are going away. 'Ach, mein Gott, that is so good! cried Mr. Bhaer, managing to clasp his hands in spite of the umbrella and the bundles, 'Jo, I haf nothing but much love to gif you. I came to see if you could care for it, and I waited to be sure that I was something more than a friend. Am I? Can you make a little place in your heart for old Fritz? he added, all in one breath. 'Oh, yes! said Jo, and he was quite satisfied, for she folded both hands over his arm, and looked up at him with an expression that plainly showed how happy she would be to walk through life beside him, even though she had no better shelter than the old umbrella, if he carried it. It was certainly proposing under difficulties, for even if he had desired to do so, Mr. Bhaer could not go down upon his knees, on account of the mud. Neither could he offer Jo his hand, except figuratively, for both were full. Much less could he indulge in tender remonstrations in the open street, though he was near it. So the only way in which he could express his rapture was to look at her, with an expression which glorified his face to such a degree that there actually seemed to be little rainbows in the drops that sparkled on his beard. If he had not loved Jo very much, I don't think he could have done it then, for she looked far from lovely, with her skirts in a deplorable state, her rubber boots splashed to the ankle, and her bonnet a ruin. Fortunately, Mr. Bhaer considered her the most beautiful woman living, and she found him more 'Jovelike than ever, though his hatbrim was quite limp with the little rills trickling thence upon his shoulders (for he held the umbrella all over Jo), and every finger of his gloves needed mending. Passersby probably thought them a pair of harmless lunatics, for they entirely forgot to hail a bus, and strolled leisurely along, oblivious of deepening dusk and fog. Little they cared what anybody thought, for they were enjoying the happy hour that seldom comes but once in any life, the magical moment which bestows youth on the old, beauty on the plain, wealth on the poor, and gives human hearts a foretaste of heaven. The Professor looked as if he had conquered a kingdom, and the world had nothing more to offer him in the way of bliss. While Jo trudged beside him, feeling as if her place had always been there, and wondering how she ever could have chosen any other lot. Of course, she was the first to speakintelligibly, I mean, for the emotional remarks which followed her impetuous 'Oh, yes! were not of a coherent or reportable character. 'Friedrich, why didn't you... 'Ah, heaven, she gifs me the name that no one speaks since Minna died! cried the Professor, pausing in a puddle to regard her with grateful delight. 'I always call you so to myselfI forgot, but I won't unless you like it. 'Like it? It is more sweet to me than I can tell. Say 'thou', also, and I shall say your language is almost as beautiful as mine. 'Isn't 'thou' a little sentimental? asked Jo, privately thinking it a lovely monosyllable. 'Sentimental? Yes. Thank Gott, we Germans believe in sentiment, and keep ourselves young mit it. Your English 'you' is so cold, say 'thou', heart's dearest, it means so much to me, pleaded Mr. Bhaer, more like a romantic student than a grave professor. 'Well, then, why didn't thou tell me all this sooner? asked Jo bashfully. 'Now I shall haf to show thee all my heart, and I so gladly will, because thou must take care of it hereafter. See, then, my Joah, the dear, funny little nameI had a wish to tell something the day I said goodbye in New York, but I thought the handsome friend was betrothed to thee, and so I spoke not. Wouldst thou have said 'Yes', then, if I had spoken? 'I don't know. I'm afraid not, for I didn't have any heart just then. 'Prut! That I do not believe. It was asleep till the fairy prince came through the wood, and waked it up. Ah, well, 'Die erste Liebe ist die beste', but that I should not expect. 'Yes, the first love is the best, but be so contented, for I never had another. Teddy was only a boy, and soon got over his little fancy, said Jo, anxious to correct the Professor's mistake. 'Good! Then I shall rest happy, and be sure that thou givest me all. I haf waited so long, I am grown selfish, as thou wilt find, Professorin. 'I like that, cried Jo, delighted with her new name. 'Now tell me what brought you, at last, just when I wanted you? 'This, and Mr. Bhaer took a little worn paper out of his waistcoat pocket. Jo unfolded it, and looked much abashed, for it was one of her own contributions to a paper that paid for poetry, which accounted for her sending it an occasional attempt. 'How could that bring you? she asked, wondering what he meant. 'I found it by chance. I knew it by the names and the initials, and in it there was one little verse that seemed to call me. Read and find him. I will see that you go not in the wet. IN THE GARRET Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with wellknown care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Halfwrit poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain 'Be worthy, love, and love will come, In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prisonhouse of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spiritstirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain. 'It's very bad poetry, but I felt it when I wrote it, one day when I was very lonely, and had a good cry on a rag bag. I never thought it would go where it could tell tales, said Jo, tearing up the verses the Professor had treasured so long. 'Let it go, it has done its duty, and I will haf a fresh one when I read all the brown book in which she keeps her little secrets, said Mr. Bhaer with a smile as he watched the fragments fly away on the wind. 'Yes, he added earnestly, 'I read that, and I think to myself, She has a sorrow, she is lonely, she would find comfort in true love. I haf a heart full, full for her. Shall I not go and say, 'If this is not too poor a thing to gif for what I shall hope to receive, take it in Gott's name?' 'And so you came to find that it was not too poor, but the one precious thing I needed, whispered Jo. 'I had no courage to think that at first, heavenly kind as was your welcome to me. But soon I began to hope, and then I said, 'I will haf her if I die for it,' and so I will! cried Mr. Bhaer, with a defiant nod, as if the walls of mist closing round them were barriers which he was to surmount or valiantly knock down. Jo thought that was splendid, and resolved to be worthy of her knight, though he did not come prancing on a charger in gorgeous array. 'What made you stay away so long? she asked presently, finding it so pleasant to ask confidential questions and get delightful answers that she could not keep silent. 'It was not easy, but I could not find the heart to take you from that so happy home until I could haf a prospect of one to gif you, after much time, perhaps, and hard work. How could I ask you to gif up so much for a poor old fellow, who has no fortune but a little learning? 'I'm glad you are poor. I couldn't bear a rich husband, said Jo decidedly, adding in a softer tone, 'Don't fear poverty. I've known it long enough to lose my dread and be happy working for those I love, and don't call yourself oldforty is the prime of life. I couldn't help loving you if you were seventy! The Professor found that so touching that he would have been glad of his handkerchief, if he could have got at it. As he couldn't, Jo wiped his eyes for him, and said, laughing, as she took away a bundle or two... 'I may be strongminded, but no one can say I'm out of my sphere now, for woman's special mission is supposed to be drying tears and bearing burdens. I'm to carry my share, Friedrich, and help to earn the home. Make up your mind to that, or I'll never go, she added resolutely, as he tried to reclaim his load. 'We shall see. Haf you patience to wait a long time, Jo? I must go away and do my work alone. I must help my boys first, because, even for you, I may not break my word to Minna. Can you forgif that, and be happy while we hope and wait? 'Yes, I know I can, for we love one another, and that makes all the rest easy to bear. I have my duty, also, and my work. I couldn't enjoy myself if I neglected them even for you, so there's no need of hurry or impatience. You can do your part out West, I can do mine here, and both be happy hoping for the best, and leaving the future to be as God wills. 'Ah! Thou gifest me such hope and courage, and I haf nothing to gif back but a full heart and these empty hands, cried the Professor, quite overcome. Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she just put both hands into his, whispering tenderly, 'Not empty now, and stooping down, kissed her Friedrich under the umbrella. It was dreadful, but she would have done it if the flock of draggletailed sparrows on the hedge had been human beings, for she was very far gone indeed, and quite regardless of everything but her own happiness. Though it came in such a very simple guise, that was the crowning moment of both their lives, when, turning from the night and storm and loneliness to the household light and warmth and peace waiting to receive them, with a glad 'Welcome home! Jo led her lover in, and shut the door. For a year Jo and her Professor worked and waited, hoped and loved, met occasionally, and wrote such voluminous letters that the rise in the price of paper was accounted for, Laurie said. The second year began rather soberly, for their prospects did not brighten, and Aunt March died suddenly. But when their first sorrow was overfor they loved the old lady in spite of her sharp tonguethey found they had cause for rejoicing, for she had left Plumfield to Jo, which made all sorts of joyful things possible. 'It's a fine old place, and will bring a handsome sum, for of course you intend to sell it, said Laurie, as they were all talking the matter over some weeks later. 'No, I don't, was Jo's decided answer, as she petted the fat poodle, whom she had adopted, out of respect to his former mistress. 'You don't mean to live there? 'Yes, I do. 'But, my dear girl, it's an immense house, and will take a power of money to keep it in order. The garden and orchard alone need two or three men, and farming isn't in Bhaer's line, I take it. 'He'll try his hand at it there, if I propose it. 'And you expect to live on the produce of the place? Well, that sounds paradisiacal, but you'll find it desperate hard work. 'The crop we are going to raise is a profitable one, and Jo laughed. 'Of what is this fine crop to consist, ma'am? 'Boys. I want to open a school for little ladsa good, happy, homelike school, with me to take care of them and Fritz to teach them. 'That's a truly Joian plan for you! Isn't that just like her? cried Laurie, appealing to the family, who looked as much surprised as he. 'I like it, said Mrs. March decidedly. 'So do I, added her husband, who welcomed the thought of a chance for trying the Socratic method of education on modern youth. 'It will be an immense care for Jo, said Meg, stroking the head of her one allabsorbing son. 'Jo can do it, and be happy in it. It's a splendid idea. Tell us all about it, cried Mr. Laurence, who had been longing to lend the lovers a hand, but knew that they would refuse his help. 'I knew you'd stand by me, sir. Amy does tooI see it in her eyes, though she prudently waits to turn it over in her mind before she speaks. Now, my dear people, continued Jo earnestly, 'just understand that this isn't a new idea of mine, but a long cherished plan. Before my Fritz came, I used to think how, when I'd made my fortune, and no one needed me at home, I'd hire a big house, and pick up some poor, forlorn little lads who hadn't any mothers, and take care of them, and make life jolly for them before it was too late. I see so many going to ruin for want of help at the right minute, I love so to do anything for them, I seem to feel their wants, and sympathize with their troubles, and oh, I should so like to be a mother to them! Mrs. March held out her hand to Jo, who took it, smiling, with tears in her eyes, and went on in the old enthusiastic way, which they had not seen for a long while. 'I told my plan to Fritz once, and he said it was just what he would like, and agreed to try it when we got rich. Bless his dear heart, he's been doing it all his lifehelping poor boys, I mean, not getting rich, that he'll never be. Money doesn't stay in his pocket long enough to lay up any. But now, thanks to my good old aunt, who loved me better than I ever deserved, I'm rich, at least I feel so, and we can live at Plumfield perfectly well, if we have a flourishing school. It's just the place for boys, the house is big, and the furniture strong and plain. There's plenty of room for dozens inside, and splendid grounds outside. They could help in the garden and orchard. Such work is healthy, isn't it, sir? Then Fritz could train and teach in his own way, and Father will help him. I can feed and nurse and pet and scold them, and Mother will be my standby. I've always longed for lots of boys, and never had enough, now I can fill the house full and revel in the little dears to my heart's content. Think what luxury Plumfield my own, and a wilderness of boys to enjoy it with me. As Jo waved her hands and gave a sigh of rapture, the family went off into a gale of merriment, and Mr. Laurence laughed till they thought he'd have an apoplectic fit. 'I don't see anything funny, she said gravely, when she could be heard. 'Nothing could be more natural and proper than for my Professor to open a school, and for me to prefer to reside in my own estate. 'She is putting on airs already, said Laurie, who regarded the idea in the light of a capital joke. 'But may I inquire how you intend to support the establishment? If all the pupils are little ragamuffins, I'm afraid your crop won't be profitable in a worldly sense, Mrs. Bhaer. 'Now don't be a wetblanket, Teddy. Of course I shall have rich pupils, alsoperhaps begin with such altogether. Then, when I've got a start, I can take in a ragamuffin or two, just for a relish. Rich people's children often need care and comfort, as well as poor. I've seen unfortunate little creatures left to servants, or backward ones pushed forward, when it's real cruelty. Some are naughty through mismanagment or neglect, and some lose their mothers. Besides, the best have to get through the hobbledehoy age, and that's the very time they need most patience and kindness. People laugh at them, and hustle them about, try to keep them out of sight, and expect them to turn all at once from pretty children into fine young men. They don't complain muchplucky little soulsbut they feel it. I've been through something of it, and I know all about it. I've a special interest in such young bears, and like to show them that I see the warm, honest, wellmeaning boys' hearts, in spite of the clumsy arms and legs and the topsyturvy heads. I've had experience, too, for haven't I brought up one boy to be a pride and honor to his family? 'I'll testify that you tried to do it, said Laurie with a grateful look. 'And I've succeeded beyond my hopes, for here you are, a steady, sensible businessman, doing heaps of good with your money, and laying up the blessings of the poor, instead of dollars. But you are not merely a businessman, you love good and beautiful things, enjoy them yourself, and let others go halves, as you always did in the old times. I am proud of you, Teddy, for you get better every year, and everyone feels it, though you won't let them say so. Yes, and when I have my flock, I'll just point to you, and say 'There's your model, my lads'. Poor Laurie didn't know where to look, for, man though he was, something of the old bashfulness came over him as this burst of praise made all faces turn approvingly upon him. 'I say, Jo, that's rather too much, he began, just in his old boyish way. 'You have all done more for me than I can ever thank you for, except by doing my best not to disappoint you. You have rather cast me off lately, Jo, but I've had the best of help, nevertheless. So, if I've got on at all, you may thank these two for it, and he laid one hand gently on his grandfather's head, and the other on Amy's golden one, for the three were never far apart. 'I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world! burst out Jo, who was in an unusually uplifted frame of mind just then. 'When I have one of my own, I hope it will be as happy as the three I know and love the best. If John and my Fritz were only here, it would be quite a little heaven on earth, she added more quietly. And that night when she went to her room after a blissful evening of family counsels, hopes, and plans, her heart was so full of happiness that she could only calm it by kneeling beside the empty bed always near her own, and thinking tender thoughts of Beth. It was a very astonishing year altogether, for things seemed to happen in an unusually rapid and delightful manner. Almost before she knew where she was, Jo found herself married and settled at Plumfield. Then a family of six or seven boys sprung up like mushrooms, and flourished surprisingly, poor boys as well as rich, for Mr. Laurence was continually finding some touching case of destitution, and begging the Bhaers to take pity on the child, and he would gladly pay a trifle for its support. In this way, the sly old gentleman got round proud Jo, and furnished her with the style of boy in which she most delighted. Of course it was uphill work at first, and Jo made queer mistakes, but the wise Professor steered her safely into calmer waters, and the most rampant ragamuffin was conquered in the end. How Jo did enjoy her 'wilderness of boys', and how poor, dear Aunt March would have lamented had she been there to see the sacred precincts of prim, wellordered Plumfield overrun with Toms, Dicks, and Harrys! There was a sort of poetic justice about it, after all, for the old lady had been the terror of the boys for miles around, and now the exiles feasted freely on forbidden plums, kicked up the gravel with profane boots unreproved, and played cricket in the big field where the irritable 'cow with a crumpled horn' used to invite rash youths to come and be tossed. It became a sort of boys' paradise, and Laurie suggested that it should be called the 'Bhaergarten', as a compliment to its master and appropriate to its inhabitants. It never was a fashionable school, and the Professor did not lay up a fortune, but it was just what Jo intended it to be'a happy, homelike place for boys, who needed teaching, care, and kindness'. Every room in the big house was soon full. Every little plot in the garden soon had its owner. A regular menagerie appeared in barn and shed, for pet animals were allowed. And three times a day, Jo smiled at her Fritz from the head of a long table lined on either side with rows of happy young faces, which all turned to her with affectionate eyes, confiding words, and grateful hearts, full of love for 'Mother Bhaer'. She had boys enough now, and did not tire of them, though they were not angels, by any means, and some of them caused both Professor and Professorin much trouble and anxiety. But her faith in the good spot which exists in the heart of the naughtiest, sauciest, most tantalizing little ragamuffin gave her patience, skill, and in time success, for no mortal boy could hold out long with Father Bhaer shining on him as benevolently as the sun, and Mother Bhaer forgiving him seventy times seven. Very precious to Jo was the friendship of the lads, their penitent sniffs and whispers after wrongdoing, their droll or touching little confidences, their pleasant enthusiasms, hopes, and plans, even their misfortunes, for they only endeared them to her all the more. There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was welcome to the 'Bhaergarten', though some people predicted that his admission would ruin the school. Yes, Jo was a very happy woman there, in spite of hard work, much anxiety, and a perpetual racket. She enjoyed it heartily and found the applause of her boys more satisfying than any praise of the world, for now she told no stories except to her flock of enthusiastic believers and admirers. As the years went on, two little lads of her own came to increase her happinessRob, named for Grandpa, and Teddy, a happygolucky baby, who seemed to have inherited his papa's sunshiny temper as well as his mother's lively spirit. How they ever grew up alive in that whirlpool of boys was a mystery to their grandma and aunts, but they flourished like dandelions in spring, and their rough nurses loved and served them well. There were a great many holidays at Plumfield, and one of the most delightful was the yearly applepicking. For then the Marches, Laurences, Brookes and Bhaers turned out in full force and made a day of it. Five years after Jo's wedding, one of these fruitful festivals occurred, a mellow October day, when the air was full of an exhilarating freshness which made the spirits rise and the blood dance healthily in the veins. The old orchard wore its holiday attire. Goldenrod and asters fringed the mossy walls. Grasshoppers skipped briskly in the sere grass, and crickets chirped like fairy pipers at a feast. Squirrels were busy with their small harvesting. Birds twittered their adieux from the alders in the lane, and every tree stood ready to send down its shower of red or yellow apples at the first shake. Everybody was there. Everybody laughed and sang, climbed up and tumbled down. Everybody declared that there never had been such a perfect day or such a jolly set to enjoy it, and everyone gave themselves up to the simple pleasures of the hour as freely as if there were no such things as care or sorrow in the world. Mr. March strolled placidly about, quoting Tusser, Cowley, and Columella to Mr. Laurence, while enjoying... The gentle apple's winey juice. The Professor charged up and down the green aisles like a stout Teutonic knight, with a pole for a lance, leading on the boys, who made a hook and ladder company of themselves, and performed wonders in the way of ground and lofty tumbling. Laurie devoted himself to the little ones, rode his small daughter in a bushelbasket, took Daisy up among the bird's nests, and kept adventurous Rob from breaking his neck. Mrs. March and Meg sat among the apple piles like a pair of Pomonas, sorting the contributions that kept pouring in, while Amy with a beautiful motherly expression in her face sketched the various groups, and watched over one pale lad, who sat adoring her with his little crutch beside him. Jo was in her element that day, and rushed about, with her gown pinned up, and her hat anywhere but on her head, and her baby tucked under her arm, ready for any lively adventure which might turn up. Little Teddy bore a charmed life, for nothing ever happened to him, and Jo never felt any anxiety when he was whisked up into a tree by one lad, galloped off on the back of another, or supplied with sour russets by his indulgent papa, who labored under the Germanic delusion that babies could digest anything, from pickled cabbage to buttons, nails, and their own small shoes. She knew that little Ted would turn up again in time, safe and rosy, dirty and serene, and she always received him back with a hearty welcome, for Jo loved her babies tenderly. At four o'clock a lull took place, and baskets remained empty, while the apple pickers rested and compared rents and bruises. Then Jo and Meg, with a detachment of the bigger boys, set forth the supper on the grass, for an outofdoor tea was always the crowning joy of the day. The land literally flowed with milk and honey on such occasions, for the lads were not required to sit at table, but allowed to partake of refreshment as they likedfreedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul. They availed themselves of the rare privilege to the fullest extent, for some tried the pleasing experiment of drinking milk while standing on their heads, others lent a charm to leapfrog by eating pie in the pauses of the game, cookies were sown broadcast over the field, and apple turnovers roosted in the trees like a new style of bird. The little girls had a private tea party, and Ted roved among the edibles at his own sweet will. When no one could eat any more, the Professor proposed the first regular toast, which was always drunk at such times'Aunt March, God bless her! A toast heartily given by the good man, who never forgot how much he owed her, and quietly drunk by the boys, who had been taught to keep her memory green. 'Now, Grandma's sixtieth birthday! Long life to her, with three times three! That was given with a will, as you may well believe, and the cheering once begun, it was hard to stop it. Everybody's health was proposed, from Mr. Laurence, who was considered their special patron, to the astonished guinea pig, who had strayed from its proper sphere in search of its young master. Demi, as the oldest grandchild, then presented the queen of the day with various gifts, so numerous that they were transported to the festive scene in a wheelbarrow. Funny presents, some of them, but what would have been defects to other eyes were ornaments to Grandma'sfor the children's gifts were all their own. Every stitch Daisy's patient little fingers had put into the handkerchiefs she hemmed was better than embroidery to Mrs. March. Demi's miracle of mechanical skill, though the cover wouldn't shut, Rob's footstool had a wiggle in its uneven legs that she declared was soothing, and no page of the costly book Amy's child gave her was so fair as that on which appeared in tipsy capitals, the words'To dear Grandma, from her little Beth. During the ceremony the boys had mysteriously disappeared, and when Mrs. March had tried to thank her children, and broken down, while Teddy wiped her eyes on his pinafore, the Professor suddenly began to sing. Then, from above him, voice after voice took up the words, and from tree to tree echoed the music of the unseen choir, as the boys sang with all their hearts the little song that Jo had written, Laurie set to music, and the Professor trained his lads to give with the best effect. This was something altogether new, and it proved a grand success, for Mrs. March couldn't get over her surprise, and insisted on shaking hands with every one of the featherless birds, from tall Franz and Emil to the little quadroon, who had the sweetest voice of all. After this, the boys dispersed for a final lark, leaving Mrs. March and her daughters under the festival tree. 'I don't think I ever ought to call myself 'unlucky Jo' again, when my greatest wish has been so beautifully gratified, said Mrs. Bhaer, taking Teddy's little fist out of the milk pitcher, in which he was rapturously churning. 'And yet your life is very different from the one you pictured so long ago. Do you remember our castles in the air? asked Amy, smiling as she watched Laurie and John playing cricket with the boys. 'Dear fellows! It does my heart good to see them forget business and frolic for a day, answered Jo, who now spoke in a maternal way of all mankind. 'Yes, I remember, but the life I wanted then seems selfish, lonely, and cold to me now. I haven't given up the hope that I may write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I'm sure it will be all the better for such experiences and illustrations as these, and Jo pointed from the lively lads in the distance to her father, leaning on the Professor's arm, as they walked to and fro in the sunshine, deep in one of the conversations which both enjoyed so much, and then to her mother, sitting enthroned among her daughters, with their children in her lap and at her feet, as if all found help and happiness in the face which never could grow old to them. 'My castle was the most nearly realized of all. I asked for splendid things, to be sure, but in my heart I knew I should be satisfied, if I had a little home, and John, and some dear children like these. I've got them all, thank God, and am the happiest woman in the world, and Meg laid her hand on her tall boy's head, with a face full of tender and devout content. 'My castle is very different from what I planned, but I would not alter it, though, like Jo, I don't relinquish all my artistic hopes, or confine myself to helping others fulfill their dreams of beauty. I've begun to model a figure of baby, and Laurie says it is the best thing I've ever done. I think so, myself, and mean to do it in marble, so that, whatever happens, I may at least keep the image of my little angel. As Amy spoke, a great tear dropped on the golden hair of the sleeping child in her arms, for her one wellbeloved daughter was a frail little creature and the dread of losing her was the shadow over Amy's sunshine. This cross was doing much for both father and mother, for one love and sorrow bound them closely together. Amy's nature was growing sweeter, deeper, and more tender. Laurie was growing more serious, strong, and firm, and both were learning that beauty, youth, good fortune, even love itself, cannot keep care and pain, loss and sorrow, from the most blessed for ... Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and sad and dreary. 'She is growing better, I am sure of it, my dear. Don't despond, but hope and keep happy, said Mrs. March, as tenderhearted Daisy stooped from her knee to lay her rosy cheek against her little cousin's pale one. 'I never ought to, while I have you to cheer me up, Marmee, and Laurie to take more than half of every burden, replied Amy warmly. 'He never lets me see his anxiety, but is so sweet and patient with me, so devoted to Beth, and such a stay and comfort to me always that I can't love him enough. So, in spite of my one cross, I can say with Meg, 'Thank God, I'm a happy woman.' 'There's no need for me to say it, for everyone can see that I'm far happier than I deserve, added Jo, glancing from her good husband to her chubby children, tumbling on the grass beside her. 'Fritz is getting gray and stout. I'm growing as thin as a shadow, and am thirty. We never shall be rich, and Plumfield may burn up any night, for that incorrigible Tommy Bangs will smoke sweetfern cigars under the bedclothes, though he's set himself afire three times already. But in spite of these unromantic facts, I have nothing to complain of, and never was so jolly in my life. Excuse the remark, but living among boys, I can't help using their expressions now and then. 'Yes, Jo, I think your harvest will be a good one, began Mrs. March, frightening away a big black cricket that was staring Teddy out of countenance. 'Not half so good as yours, Mother. Here it is, and we never can thank you enough for the patient sowing and reaping you have done, cried Jo, with the loving impetuosity which she never would outgrow. 'I hope there will be more wheat and fewer tares every year, said Amy softly. 'A large sheaf, but I know there's room in your heart for it, Marmee dear, added Meg's tender voice. Touched to the heart, Mrs. March could only stretch out her arms, as if to gather children and grandchildren to herself, and say, with face and voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility... 'Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!
So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny so long as the three great problems of the centurythe degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of lightare unsolved so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the worldin other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misrables cannot fail to be of use. HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, . In , M. CharlesFranoisBienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D He was an old man of about seventyfive years of age he had occupied the see of D since . Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry. The Revolution came events succeeded each other with precipitation the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the Revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest, from which she had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate of M. Myriel? The ruin of the French society of the olden days, the fall of his own family, the tragic spectacles of ', which were, perhaps, even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from a distance, with the magnifying powers of terror,did these cause the ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst of these distractions, these affections which absorbed his life, suddenly smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by striking to his heart, a man whom public catastrophes would not shake, by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one could have told all that was known was, that when he returned from Italy he was a priest. In , M. Myriel was the Cur of B Brignolles. He was already advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner. About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with his curacyjust what, is not precisely knowntook him to Paris. Among other powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his parishioners was M. le Cardinal Fesch. One day, when the Emperor had come to visit his uncle, the worthy Cur, who was waiting in the anteroom, found himself present when His Majesty passed. Napoleon, on finding himself observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, turned round and said abruptly 'Who is this good man who is staring at me? 'Sire, said M. Myriel, 'you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man. Each of us can profit by it. That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Cur, and some time afterwards M. Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that he had been appointed Bishop of D What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as to the early portion of M. Myriel's life? No one knew. Very few families had been acquainted with the Myriel family before the Revolution. M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name was connected were rumors only,noise, sayings, words less than wordspalabres, as the energetic language of the South expresses it. However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of residence in D, all the stories and subjects of conversation which engross petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them no one would have dared to recall them. M. Myriel had arrived at D accompanied by an elderly spinster, Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior. Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as Mademoiselle Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having been the servant of M. le Cur, now assumed the double title of maid to Mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur. Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature she realized the ideal expressed by the word 'respectable for it seems that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She had never been pretty her whole life, which had been nothing but a succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of pallor and transparency and as she advanced in years she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in her youth had become transparency in her maturity and this diaphaneity allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her person seemed made of a shadow there was hardly sufficient body to provide for sex a little matter enclosing a light large eyes forever droopinga mere pretext for a soul's remaining on the earth. Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and bustling always out of breath,in the first place, because of her activity, and in the next, because of her asthma. On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palace with the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop immediately after a majorgeneral. The mayor and the president paid the first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general and the prefect. The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work. The episcopal palace of D adjoins the hospital. The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology of the Faculty of Paris, Abb of Simore, who had been Bishop of D in . This palace was a genuine seignorial residence. Everything about it had a grand air,the apartments of the Bishop, the drawingrooms, the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens planted with magnificent trees. In the diningroom, a long and superb gallery which was situated on the ground floor and opened on the gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July , , My Lords Charles Brlart de Genlis, archbishop Prince d'Embrun Antoine de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse Philippe de Vendme, Grand Prior of France, Abb of Saint Honor de Lrins Franois de Berton de Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence Csar de Sabran de Forcalquier, bishop, Seignor of Glandve and Jean Soanen, Priest of the Oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, bishop, Seignor of Senez. The portraits of these seven reverend personages decorated this apartment and this memorable date, the th of July, , was there engraved in letters of gold on a table of white marble. The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a small garden. Three days after his arrival, the Bishop visited the hospital. The visit ended, he had the director requested to be so good as to come to his house. 'Monsieur the director of the hospital, said he to him, 'how many sick people have you at the present moment? 'Twentysix, Monseigneur. 'That was the number which I counted, said the Bishop. 'The beds, pursued the director, 'are very much crowded against each other. 'That is what I observed. 'The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air can be changed in them. 'So it seems to me. 'And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the convalescents. 'That was what I said to myself. 'In case of epidemics,we have had the typhus fever this year we had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at times,we know not what to do. 'That is the thought which occurred to me. 'What would you have, Monseigneur? said the director. 'One must resign one's self. This conversation took place in the gallery diningroom on the ground floor. The Bishop remained silent for a moment then he turned abruptly to the director of the hospital. 'Monsieur, said he, 'how many beds do you think this hall alone would hold? 'Monseigneur's diningroom? exclaimed the stupefied director. The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking measures and calculations with his eyes. 'It would hold full twenty beds, said he, as though speaking to himself. Then, raising his voice 'Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirtysix of you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you you have my house, and I have yours. Give me back my house you are at home here. On the following day the thirtysix patients were installed in the Bishop's palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital. M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage. M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once for all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his own hand NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES. M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period that he occupied the see of D As has been seen, he called it regulating his household expenses. This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D as at one and the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed when he acted, she yielded her adherence. Their only servant, Madame Magloire, grumbled a little. It will be observed that Monsieur the Bishop had reserved for himself only one thousand livres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle Baptistine, made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen hundred francs these two old women and the old man subsisted. And when a village curate came to D, the Bishop still found means to entertain him, thanks to the severe economy of Madame Magloire, and to the intelligent administration of Mademoiselle Baptistine. One day, after he had been in D about three months, the Bishop said 'And still I am quite cramped with it all! 'I should think so! exclaimed Madame Magloire. 'Monseigneur has not even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the expense of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the diocese. It was customary for bishops in former days. 'Hold! cried the Bishop, 'you are quite right, Madame Magloire. And he made his demand. Some time afterwards the General Council took this demand under consideration, and voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs, under this heading Allowance to M. the Bishop for expenses of carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits. This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses and a senator of the Empire, a former member of the Council of the Five Hundred which favored the  Brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of D, wrote to M. Bigot de Prameneu, the minister of public worship, a very angry and confidential note on the subject, from which we extract these authentic lines 'Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use of these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and ChteauArnoux can barely support oxteams. These priests are all thus, greedy and avaricious. This man played the good priest when he first came. Now he does like the rest he must have a carriage and a postingchaise, he must have luxuries, like the bishops of the olden days. Oh, all this priesthood! Things will not go well, M. le Comte, until the Emperor has freed us from these blackcapped rascals. Down with the Pope! Matters were getting embroiled with Rome. For my part, I am for Csar alone. Etc., etc. On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to Madame Magloire. 'Good, said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine 'Monseigneur began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand francs for us! At last! That same evening the Bishop wrote out and handed to his sister a memorandum conceived in the following terms EXPENSES OF CARRIAGE AND CIRCUIT. Such was M. Myriel's budget. As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bans, dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with all the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy. After a time, offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who lacked knocked at M. Myriel's door,the latter in search of the alms which the former came to deposit. In less than a year the Bishop had become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those in distress. Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but nothing could induce him to make any change whatever in his mode of life, or add anything superfluous to his bare necessities. Far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than there is brotherhood above, all was given away, so to speak, before it was received. It was like water on dry soil no matter how much money he received, he never had any. Then he stripped himself. The usage being that bishops shall announce their baptismal names at the head of their charges and their pastoral letters, the poor people of the countryside had selected, with a sort of affectionate instinct, among the names and prenomens of their bishop, that which had a meaning for them and they never called him anything except Monseigneur Bienvenu Welcome. We will follow their example, and will also call him thus when we have occasion to name him. Moreover, this appellation pleased him. 'I like that name, said he. 'Bienvenu makes up for the Monseigneur. We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable we confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original. The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted his carriage into alms. The diocese of D is a fatiguing one. There are very few plains and a great many mountains hardly any roads, as we have just seen thirtytwo curacies, fortyone vicarships, and two hundred and eightyfive auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task. The Bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in the neighborhood, in a tilted springcart when it was on the plain, and on a donkey in the mountains. The two old women accompanied him. When the trip was too hard for them, he went alone. One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He was mounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at that moment, did not permit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to receive him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass, with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around him. 'Monsieur the Mayor, said the Bishop, 'and Messieurs Citizens, I perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity. In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and his examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the example of a neighboring district. In the cantons where they were harsh to the poor, he said 'Look at the people of Brianon! They have conferred on the poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mown three days in advance of every one else. They rebuild their houses for them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which is blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a single murderer among them. In villages which were greedy for profit and harvest, he said 'Look at the people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a family has his son away on service in the army, and his daughters at service in the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the cur recommends him to the prayers of the congregation and on Sunday, after the mass, all the inhabitants of the villagemen, women, and childrengo to the poor man's field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and his grain to his granary. To families divided by questions of money and inheritance he said 'Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find husbands. To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where the farmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said 'Look at those good peasants in the valley of Queyras! There are three thousand souls of them. Mon Dieu! it is like a little republic. Neither judge nor bailiff is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts, taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides inheritances without charge, pronounces sentences gratuitously and he is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men. To villages where he found no schoolmaster, he quoted once more the people of Queyras 'Do you know how they manage? he said. 'Since a little country of a dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they have schoolmasters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the round of the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days in that, and instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there. They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear in the cord of their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen those who teach reading and reckoning have two pens those who teach reading, reckoning, and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do like the people of Queyras! Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally in default of examples, he invented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases and many images, which characteristic formed the real eloquence of Jesus Christ. And being convinced himself, he was persuasive. His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with the two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he laughed, it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call him Your Grace Votre Grandeur. One day he rose from his armchair, and went to his library in search of a book. This book was on one of the upper shelves. As the bishop was rather short of stature, he could not reach it. 'Madame Magloire, said he, 'fetch me a chair. My greatness grandeur does not reach as far as that shelf. One of his distant relatives, Madame la Comtesse de L, rarely allowed an opportunity to escape of enumerating, in his presence, what she designated as 'the expectations of her three sons. She had numerous relatives, who were very old and near to death, and of whom her sons were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a grandaunt a good hundred thousand livres of income the second was the heir by entail to the title of the Duke, his uncle the eldest was to succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to listen in silence to these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On one occasion, however, he appeared to be more thoughtful than usual, while Madame de L was relating once again the details of all these inheritances and all these 'expectations. She interrupted herself impatiently 'Mon Dieu, cousin! What are you thinking about? 'I am thinking, replied the Bishop, 'of a singular remark, which is to be found, I believe, in St. Augustine,'Place your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit.' At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a gentleman of the countryside, wherein not only the dignities of the dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his relatives, spread over an entire page 'What a stout back Death has! he exclaimed. 'What a strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed on him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb into the service of vanity! He was gifted, on occasion, with a gentle raillery, which almost always concealed a serious meaning. In the course of one Lent, a youthful vicar came to D, and preached in the cathedral. He was tolerably eloquent. The subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to give to the poor, in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most frightful manner of which he was capable, and to win paradise, which he represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was a wealthy retired merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M. Gborand, who had amassed two millions in the manufacture of coarse cloth, serges, and woollen galloons. Never in his whole life had M. Gborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that sermon, it was observed that he gave a sou every Sunday to the poor old beggarwomen at the door of the cathedral. There were six of them to share it. One day the Bishop caught sight of him in the act of bestowing this charity, and said to his sister, with a smile, 'There is M. Gborand purchasing paradise for a sou. When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by a refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawingroom of the town there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, an ultraroyalist and an ultraVoltairian. This variety of man has actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm, 'You must give me something, M. le Marquis. The Marquis turned round and answered dryly, 'I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur. 'Give them to me, replied the Bishop. One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral 'My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred and twenty thousand peasants' dwellings in France which have but three openings eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but two openings, the door and one window and three hundred and fortysix thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings, and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to men the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. In the department of the Isre, in the Var, in the two departments of the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even wheelbarrows they transport their manure on the backs of men they have no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly country of Dauphin. They make bread for six months at one time they bake it with dried cowdung. In the winter they break this bread up with an axe, and they soak it for twentyfour hours, in order to render it eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of you! Born a Provenal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the south. He said, 'En b! moussu, ss sag? as in lower Languedoc 'Ont anaras passa? as in the BassesAlpes 'Puerte un bouen moutu embe un bouen fromage grase, as in upper Dauphin. This pleased the people extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts. Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards the lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking circumstances into account. He said, 'Examine the road over which the fault has passed. Being, as he described himself with a smile, an exsinner, he had none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a doctrine which may be summed up as follows 'Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault even in this obedience but the fault thus committed is venial it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer. 'To be a saint is the exception to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright. 'The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation. When he saw everyone exclaiming very loudly, and growing angry very quickly, 'Oh! oh! he said, with a smile 'to all appearance, this is a great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies which have taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put themselves under shelter. He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of human society rest. He said, 'The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise. He said, moreover, 'Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow. It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging things I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the point of trial, discussed in a drawingroom. A wretched man, being at the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for a woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested in the act of passing the first false piece made by the man. She was held, but there were no proofs except against her. She alone could accuse her lover, and destroy him by her confession. She denied they insisted. She persisted in her denial. Thereupon an idea occurred to the attorney for the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of the lover, and succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly presented, in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival, and that the man was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she denounced her lover, confessed all, proved all. The man was ruined. He was shortly to be tried at Aix with his accomplice. They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy into play, he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath, he had educed the justice of revenge. The Bishop listened to all this in silence. When they had finished, he inquired, 'Where are this man and woman to be tried? 'At the Court of Assizes. He went on, 'And where will the advocate of the crown be tried? A tragic event occurred at D A man was condemned to death for murder. He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly ignorant, who had been a mountebank at fairs, and a writer for the public. The town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the day fixed for the execution of the condemned man, the chaplain of the prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his last moments. They sent for the cur. It seems that he refused to come, saying, 'That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mountebank I, too, am ill and besides, it is not my place. This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, 'Monsieur le Cur is right it is not his place it is mine. He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the 'mountebank, called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the condemned man for his own. He told him the best truths, which are also the most simple. He was father, brother, friend he was bishop only to bless. He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery of things, and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this world through these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness. The Bishop made him see light. On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the Bishop was still there. He followed him, and exhibited himself to the eyes of the crowd in his purple camail and with his episcopal cross upon his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords. He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him. The sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day, was radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God. The Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall, he said to him 'God raises from the dead him whom man slays he whom his brothers have rejected finds his Father once more. Pray, believe, enter into life the Father is there. When he descended from the scaffold, there was something in his look which made the people draw aside to let him pass. They did not know which was most worthy of admiration, his pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble dwelling, which he designated, with a smile, as his palace, he said to his sister, 'I have just officiated pontifically. Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least understood, there were people in the town who said, when commenting on this conduct of the Bishop, 'It is affectation. This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawingrooms. The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and admired him. As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, and it was a long time before he recovered from it. In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law it is called vindicate it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this choppingknife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry the scaffold is not a machine the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords. It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre initiative one would say that this piece of carpenter's work saw, that this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner it devours, it eats flesh, it drinks blood the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted. Therefore, the impression was terrible and profound on the day following the execution, and on many succeeding days, the Bishop appeared to be crushed. The almost violent serenity of the funereal moment had disappeared the phantom of social justice tormented him. He, who generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant satisfaction, seemed to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to himself, and stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his sister overheard one evening and preserved 'I did not think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing? In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished. Nevertheless, it was observed that the Bishop thenceforth avoided passing the place of execution. M. Myriel could be summoned at any hour to the bedside of the sick and dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty and his greatest labor. Widowed and orphaned families had no need to summon him he came of his own accord. He understood how to sit down and hold his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his love, of the mother who had lost her child. As he knew the moment for silence he knew also the moment for speech. Oh, admirable consoler! He sought not to efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to magnify and dignify it by hope. He said 'Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think not of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living light of your wellbeloved dead in the depths of heaven. He knew that faith is wholesome. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing man, by pointing out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief which gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze upon a star. The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D lived, would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have viewed it close at hand. Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little. This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk of his own cows. Then he set to work. A Bishop is a very busy man he must every day receive the secretary of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his vicarsgeneral. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,prayerbooks, diocesan catechisms, books of hours, etc.,charges to write, sermons to authorize, curs and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an administrative correspondence on one side the State, on the other the Holy See and a thousand matters of business. What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, and his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous, the sick, and the afflicted the time which was left to him from the afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes he dug in his garden again, he read or wrote. He had but one word for both these kinds of toil he called them gardening. 'The mind is a garden, said he. Towards midday, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down, supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarse shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tassels of large bullion to droop from its three points. It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for the sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They pointed out his house to any one who was in need of anything. Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and smiled upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money when he no longer had any, he visited the rich. As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak. This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer. On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast. At halfpast eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his curs to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some fine game from the mountains. Every cur furnished the pretext for a good meal the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil soup. Thus it was said in the town, when the Bishop does not indulge in the cheer of a cur, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist. After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire then he retired to his own room and set to writing, sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some folio. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six very curious manuscripts among others, a dissertation on this verse in Genesis, In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the waters. With this verse he compares three texts the Arabic verse which says, The winds of God blew Flavius Josephus who says, A wind from above was precipitated upon the earth and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, A wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters. In another dissertation, he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemas, greatgranduncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be attributed the divers little works published during the last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt. Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written by him on the margin of a quarto entitled Correspondence of Lord Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the American station. Versailles, Poinot, bookseller and Paris, Pissot, bookseller, Quai des Augustins. Here is the note 'Oh, you who are! 'Ecclesiastes calls you the Allpowerful the Maccabees call you the Creator the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty Baruch calls you Immensity the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth John calls you Light the Books of Kings call you Lord Exodus calls you Providence Leviticus, Sanctity Esdras, Justice the creation calls you God man calls you Father but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names. Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until morning on the ground floor. It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the dwelling of the Bishop of D The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a ground floor, and one story above three rooms on the ground floor, three chambers on the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was a garden, a quarter of an acre in extent. The two women occupied the first floor the Bishop was lodged below. The first room, opening on the street, served him as diningroom, the second was his bedroom, and the third his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory, except by passing through the bedroom, nor from the bedroom, without passing through the diningroom. At the end of the suite, in the oratory, there was a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of hospitality. The Bishop offered this bed to country curates whom business or the requirements of their parishes brought to D The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been added to the house, and abutted on the garden, had been transformed into a kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a stable, which had formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and in which the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they gave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick people in the hospital. 'I am paying my tithes, he said. His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in bad weather. As wood is extremely dear at D, he hit upon the idea of having a compartment of boards constructed in the cowshed. Here he passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold he called it his winter salon. In this winter salon, as in the diningroom, there was no other furniture than a square table in white wood, and four strawseated chairs. In addition to this the diningroom was ornamented with an antique sideboard, painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similar sideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, the Bishop had constructed the altar which decorated his oratory. His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of D had more than once assessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar for Monseigneur's oratory on each occasion he had taken the money and had given it to the poor. 'The most beautiful of altars, he said, 'is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God. In his oratory there were two straw prieDieu, and there was an armchair, also in straw, in his bedroom. When, by chance, he received seven or eight persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or the staff of the regiment in garrison, or several pupils from the little seminary, the chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in the stable, the prieDieu from the oratory, and the armchair from the bedroom in this way as many as eleven chairs could be collected for the visitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest. It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party the Bishop then relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in front of the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it was summer. There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was half gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of service only when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptistine had also in her own room a very large easychair of wood, which had formerly been gilded, and which was covered with flowered pekin but they had been obliged to hoist this bergre up to the first story through the window, as the staircase was too narrow it could not, therefore, be reckoned among the possibilities in the way of furniture. Mademoiselle Baptistine's ambition had been to be able to purchase a set of drawingroom furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a rose pattern, and with mahogany in swan's neck style, with a sofa. But this would have cost five hundred francs at least, and in view of the fact that she had only been able to lay by fortytwo francs and ten sous for this purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncing the idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal? Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop's bedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden opposite this was the bed,a hospital bed of iron, with a canopy of green serge in the shadow of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet, which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world there were two doors, one near the chimney, opening into the oratory the other near the bookcase, opening into the diningroom. The bookcase was a large cupboard with glass doors filled with books the chimney was of wood painted to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the chimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two garlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silvered with silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury above the chimneypiece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off, fixed on a background of threadbare velvet in a wooden frame from which the gilding had fallen near the glass door a large table with an inkstand, loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge volumes before the table an armchair of straw in front of the bed a prieDieu, borrowed from the oratory. Two portraits in oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side of the bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at the side of these figures indicated that the portraits represented, one the Abb of Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude the other, the Abb Tourteau, vicargeneral of Agde, abb of GrandChamp, order of Cteaux, diocese of Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, after the hospital patients, he had found these portraits there, and had left them. They were priests, and probably donorstwo reasons for respecting them. All that he knew about these two persons was, that they had been appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his benefice, on the same day, the th of April, . Madame Magloire having taken the pictures down to dust, the Bishop had discovered these particulars written in whitish ink on a little square of paper, yellowed by time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abb of GrandChamp with four wafers. At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woollen stuff, which finally became so old, that, in order to avoid the expense of a new one, Madame Magloire was forced to take a large seam in the very middle of it. This seam took the form of a cross. The Bishop often called attention to it 'How delightful that is! he said. All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground floor as well as those on the first floor, were whitewashed, which is a fashion in barracks and hospitals. However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath the paper which had been washed over, paintings, ornamenting the apartment of Mademoiselle Baptistine, as we shall see further on. Before becoming a hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of the Bourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks, which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds. Altogether, this dwelling, which was attended to by the two women, was exquisitely clean from top to bottom. This was the sole luxury which the Bishop permitted. He said, 'That takes nothing from the poor. It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his former possessions six silver knives and forks and a soupladle, which Madame Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened splendidly upon the coarse linen cloth. And since we are now painting the Bishop of D as he was in reality, we must add that he had said more than once, 'I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver dishes. To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive silver, which he had inherited from a greataunt. These candlesticks held two wax candles, and usually figured on the Bishop's chimneypiece. When he had any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted the two candles and set the candlesticks on the table. In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small cupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives and forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that the key was never removed. The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which we have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in crossform, radiating from a tank. Another walk made the circuit of the garden, and skirted the white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four square plots rimmed with box. In three of these, Madame Magloire cultivated vegetables in the fourth, the Bishop had planted some flowers here and there stood a few fruittrees. Madame Magloire had once remarked, with a sort of gentle malice 'Monseigneur, you who turn everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be better to grow salads there than bouquets. 'Madame Magloire, retorted the Bishop, 'you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful. He added after a pause, 'More so, perhaps. This plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the Bishop almost as much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there, trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into which he dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener could have wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions to botany he ignored groups and consistency he made not the slightest effort to decide between Tournefort and the natural method he took part neither with the buds against the cotyledons, nor with Jussieu against Linnus. He did not study plants he loved flowers. He respected learned men greatly he respected the ignorant still more and, without ever failing in these two respects, he watered his flowerbeds every summer evening with a tin wateringpot painted green. The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the diningroom, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral square, had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door of a prison. The Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this door was never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except the latch. All that the first passerby had to do at any hour, was to give it a push. At first, the two women had been very much tried by this door, which was never fastened, but Monsieur de D had said to them, 'Have bolts put on your rooms, if that will please you. They had ended by sharing his confidence, or by at least acting as though they shared it. Madame Magloire alone had frights from time to time. As for the Bishop, his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, in the three lines which he wrote on the margin of a Bible, 'This is the shade of difference the door of the physician should never be shut, the door of the priest should always be open. On another book, entitled Philosophy of the Medical Science, he had written this other note 'Am not I a physician like them? I also have my patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates. Again he wrote 'Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of you. The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs shelter. It chanced that a worthy cur, I know not whether it was the cur of Couloubroux or the cur of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask him one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, whether Monsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the mercy of any one who should choose to enter, and whether, in short, he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little guarded. The Bishop touched his shoulder, with gentle gravity, and said to him, 'Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui custodiunt eam, Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch who guard it. Then he spoke of something else. He was fond of saying, 'There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,only, he added, 'ours must be tranquil. It is here that a fact falls naturally into place, which we must not omit, because it is one of the sort which show us best what sort of a man the Bishop of D was. After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bs, who had infested the gorges of Ollioules, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte, took refuge in the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the remnant of Gaspard Bs's troop, in the county of Nice then he made his way to Pidmont, and suddenly reappeared in France, in the vicinity of Barcelonette. He was first seen at Jauziers, then at Tuiles. He hid himself in the caverns of the Jougdel'Aigle, and thence he descended towards the hamlets and villages through the ravines of Ubaye and Ubayette. He even pushed as far as Embrun, entered the cathedral one night, and despoiled the sacristy. His highway robberies laid waste the countryside. The gendarmes were set on his track, but in vain. He always escaped sometimes he resisted by main force. He was a bold wretch. In the midst of all this terror the Bishop arrived. He was making his circuit to Chastelar. The mayor came to meet him, and urged him to retrace his steps. Cravatte was in possession of the mountains as far as Arche, and beyond there was danger even with an escort it merely exposed three or four unfortunate gendarmes to no purpose. 'Therefore, said the Bishop, 'I intend to go without escort. 'You do not really mean that, Monseigneur! exclaimed the mayor. 'I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and shall set out in an hour. 'Set out? 'Set out. 'Alone? 'Alone. 'Monseigneur, you will not do that! 'There exists yonder in the mountains, said the Bishop, 'a tiny community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would they say if I did not go? 'But the brigands, Monseigneur? 'Hold, said the Bishop, 'I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God. 'But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves! 'Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of Providence? 'They will rob you, Monseigneur. 'I have nothing. 'They will kill you. 'An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! To what purpose? 'Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them! 'I should beg alms of them for my poor. 'Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your life! 'Monsieur le maire, said the Bishop, 'is that really all? I am not in the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls. They had to allow him to do as he pleased. He set out, accompanied only by a child who offered to serve as a guide. His obstinacy was bruited about the countryside, and caused great consternation. He would take neither his sister nor Madame Magloire. He traversed the mountain on muleback, encountered no one, and arrived safe and sound at the residence of his 'good friends, the shepherds. He remained there for a fortnight, preaching, administering the sacrament, teaching, exhorting. When the time of his departure approached, he resolved to chant a Te Deum pontifically. He mentioned it to the cur. But what was to be done? There were no episcopal ornaments. They could only place at his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a few ancient chasubles of threadbare damask adorned with imitation lace. 'Bah! said the Bishop. 'Let us announce our Te Deum from the pulpit, nevertheless, Monsieur le Cur. Things will arrange themselves. They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood. All the magnificence of these humble parishes combined would not have sufficed to clothe the chorister of a cathedral properly. While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen, who departed on the instant. The chest was opened it contained a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, a magnificent crosier,all the pontifical vestments which had been stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre Dame d'Embrun. In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written, 'From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu. 'Did not I say that things would come right of themselves? said the Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, 'To him who contents himself with the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop. 'Monseigneur, murmured the cur, throwing back his head with a smile. 'Godor the Devil. The Bishop looked steadily at the cur, and repeated with authority, 'God! When he returned to Chastelar, the people came out to stare at him as at a curiosity, all along the road. At the priest's house in Chastelar he rejoined Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire, who were waiting for him, and he said to his sister 'Well! was I in the right? The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral. That evening, before he went to bed, he said again 'Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul. Then, turning to his sister 'Sister, never a precaution on the part of the priest, against his fellowman. That which his fellow does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into sin on our account. However, such incidents were rare in his life. We relate those of which we know but generally he passed his life in doing the same things at the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day. As to what became of 'the treasure of the cathedral of Embrun, we should be embarrassed by any inquiry in that direction. It consisted of very handsome things, very tempting things, and things which were very well adapted to be stolen for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen they had already been elsewhere. Half of the adventure was completed it only remained to impart a new direction to the theft, and to cause it to take a short trip in the direction of the poor. However, we make no assertions on this point. Only, a rather obscure note was found among the Bishop's papers, which may bear some relation to this matter, and which is couched in these terms, 'The question is, to decide whether this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the hospital. The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty he had marched straight to his goal, without once flinching in the line of his advancement and his interest. He was an old attorney, softened by success not a bad man by any means, who rendered all the small services in his power to his sons, his sonsinlaw, his relations, and even to his friends, having wisely seized upon, in life, good sides, good opportunities, good windfalls. Everything else seemed to him very stupid. He was intelligent, and just sufficiently educated to think himself a disciple of Epicurus while he was, in reality, only a product of PigaultLebrun. He laughed willingly and pleasantly over infinite and eternal things, and at the 'crotchets of that good old fellow the Bishop. He even sometimes laughed at him with an amiable authority in the presence of M. Myriel himself, who listened to him. On some semiofficial occasion or other, I do not recollect what, Count this senator and M. Myriel were to dine with the prefect. At dessert, the senator, who was slightly exhilarated, though still perfectly dignified, exclaimed 'Egad, Bishop, let's have a discussion. It is hard for a senator and a bishop to look at each other without winking. We are two augurs. I am going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own. 'And you are right, replied the Bishop. 'As one makes one's philosophy, so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator. The senator was encouraged, and went on 'Let us be good fellows. 'Good devils even, said the Bishop. 'I declare to you, continued the senator, 'that the Marquis d'Argens, Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the philosophers in my library gilded on the edges. 'Like yourself, Count, interposed the Bishop. The senator resumed 'I hate Diderot he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies the fiat lux. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for nothing but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in peace! Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation why? Sacrifice to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top let us have a superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if one sees no further than the end of other people's noses? Let us live merrily. Life is all. That man has another future elsewhere, on high, below, anywhere, I don't believe not one single word of it. Ah! sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me I must take heed to everything I do I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the just and the unjust, over the fas and the nefas. Why? Because I shall have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What a fine dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can catch me. Have a handful of dust seized by a shadowhand, if you can. Let us tell the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the veil of Isis there is no such thing as either good or evil there is vegetation. Let us seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let us go into it thoroughly. What the deuce! let us go to the bottom of it! We must scent out the truth dig in the earth for it, and seize it. Then it gives you exquisite joys. Then you grow strong, and you laugh. I am square on the bottom, I am. Immortality, Bishop, is a chance, a waiting for dead men's shoes. Ah! what a charming promise! trust to it, if you like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, with blue wings on our shoulderblades. Do come to my assistance is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these paradises are! God is a nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the Moniteur, egad! but I may whisper it among friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the infinite! I'm not such a fool. I am a nought. I call myself Monsieur le Comte Nought, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist after death? No. What am I? A little dust collected in an organism. What am I to do on this earth? The choice rests with me suffer or enjoy. Whither will suffering lead me? To nothingness but I shall have suffered. Whither will enjoyment lead me? To nothingness but I shall have enjoyed myself. My choice is made. One must eat or be eaten. I shall eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my wisdom. After which, go whither I push thee, the gravedigger is there the Pantheon for some of us all falls into the great hole. End. Finis. Total liquidation. This is the vanishingpoint. Death is death, believe me. I laugh at the idea of there being any one who has anything to tell me on that subject. Fables of nurses bugaboo for children Jehovah for men. No our tomorrow is the night. Beyond the tomb there is nothing but equal nothingness. You have been Sardanapalus, you have been Vincent de Paulit makes no difference. That is the truth. Then live your life, above all things. Make use of your I while you have it. In truth, Bishop, I tell you that I have a philosophy of my own, and I have my philosophers. I don't let myself be taken in with that nonsense. Of course, there must be something for those who are down,for the barefooted beggars, knifegrinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, chimras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing else has the good God. That is the least he can have. I oppose no objection to that but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The good God is good for the populace. The Bishop clapped his hands. 'That's talking! he exclaimed. 'What an excellent and really marvellous thing is this materialism! Not every one who wants it can have it. Ah! when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe, one does not stupidly allow one's self to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned like Stephen, nor burned alive like Jeanne d'Arc. Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without uneasiness,places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory capitulations of conscience,and that they shall enter the tomb with their digestion accomplished. How agreeable that is! I do not say that with reference to you, senator. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me to refrain from congratulating you. You great lords have, so you say, a philosophy of your own, and for yourselves, which is exquisite, refined, accessible to the rich alone, good for all sauces, and which seasons the voluptuousness of life admirably. This philosophy has been extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special seekers. But you are goodnatured princes, and you do not think it a bad thing that belief in the good God should constitute the philosophy of the people, very much as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the truffled turkey of the poor. In order to furnish an idea of the private establishment of the Bishop of D, and of the manner in which those two sainted women subordinated their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts even, which are easily alarmed, to the habits and purposes of the Bishop, without his even taking the trouble of speaking in order to explain them, we cannot do better than transcribe in this place a letter from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the friend of her childhood. This letter is in our possession. D, Dec. , . MY GOOD MADAM Not a day passes without our speaking of you. It is our established custom but there is another reason besides. Just imagine, while washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madam Magloire has made some discoveries now our two chambers hung with antique paper whitewashed over, would not discredit a chteau in the style of yours. Madam Magloire has pulled off all the paper. There were things beneath. My drawingroom, which contains no furniture, and which we use for spreading out the linen after washing, is fifteen feet in height, eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded, and with beams, as in yours. This was covered with a cloth while this was the hospital. And the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. But my room is the one you ought to see. Madam Magloire has discovered, under at least ten thicknesses of paper pasted on top, some paintings, which without being good are very tolerable. The subject is Telemachus being knighted by Minerva in some gardens, the name of which escapes me. In short, where the Roman ladies repaired on one single night. What shall I say to you? I have Romans, and Roman ladies here occurs an illegible word, and the whole train. Madam Magloire has cleaned it all off this summer she is going to have some small injuries repaired, and the whole revarnished, and my chamber will be a regular museum. She has also found in a corner of the attic two wooden piertables of ancient fashion. They asked us two crowns of six francs each to regild them, but it is much better to give the money to the poor and they are very ugly besides, and I should much prefer a round table of mahogany. I am always very happy. My brother is so good. He gives all he has to the poor and sick. We are very much cramped. The country is trying in the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. We are almost comfortably lighted and warmed. You see that these are great treats. My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop ought to be so. Just imagine! the door of our house is never fastened. Whoever chooses to enter finds himself at once in my brother's room. He fears nothing, even at night. That is his sort of bravery, he says. He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He exposes himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even seem to notice it. One must know how to understand him. He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in winter. He fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters, nor night. Last year he went quite alone into a country of robbers. He would not take us. He was absent for a fortnight. On his return nothing had happened to him he was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and said, 'This is the way I have been robbed! And then he opened a trunk full of jewels, all the jewels of the cathedral of Embrun, which the thieves had given him. When he returned on that occasion, I could not refrain from scolding him a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the carriage was making a noise, so that no one might hear me. At first I used to say to myself, 'There are no dangers which will stop him he is terrible. Now I have ended by getting used to it. I make a sign to Madam Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself as he sees fit. I carry off Madam Magloire, I enter my chamber, I pray for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything were to happen to him, it would be the end of me. I should go to the good God with my brother and my bishop. It has cost Madam Magloire more trouble than it did me to accustom herself to what she terms his imprudences. But now the habit has been acquired. We pray together, we tremble together, and we fall asleep. If the devil were to enter this house, he would be allowed to do so. After all, what is there for us to fear in this house? There is always some one with us who is stronger than we. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here. This suffices me. My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who possesses grandeur of soul. I have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which you desire on the subject of the Faux family. You are aware that he knows everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux, a Jean de Faux, and a Thomas de Faux, who were gentlemen, and one of whom was a seigneur de Rochefort. The last was GuytienneAlexandre, and was commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of Bretagne. His daughter, MarieLouise, married AdrienCharles de Gramont, son of the Duke Louis de Gramont, peer of France, colonel of the French guards, and lieutenantgeneral of the army. It is written Faux, Fauq, and Faoucq. Good Madame, recommend us to the prayers of your sainted relative, Monsieur the Cardinal. As for your dear Sylvanie, she has done well in not wasting the few moments which she passes with you in writing to me. She is well, works as you would wish, and loves me. That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very bad, and yet I grow thinner every day. Farewell my paper is at an end, and this forces me to leave you. A thousand good wishes. BAPTISTINE. P.S. Your grand nephew is charming. Do you know that he will soon be five years old? Yesterday he saw some one riding by on horseback who had on kneecaps, and he said, 'What has he got on his knees? He is a charming child! His little brother is dragging an old broom about the room, like a carriage, and saying, 'Hu! As will be perceived from this letter, these two women understood how to mould themselves to the Bishop's ways with that special feminine genius which comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself. The Bishop of D, in spite of the gentle and candid air which never deserted him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and magnificent, without seeming to have even a suspicion of the fact. They trembled, but they let him alone. Sometimes Madame Magloire essayed a remonstrance in advance, but never at the time, nor afterwards. They never interfered with him by so much as a word or sign, in any action once entered upon. At certain moments, without his having occasion to mention it, when he was not even conscious of it himself in all probability, so perfect was his simplicity, they vaguely felt that he was acting as a bishop then they were nothing more than two shadows in the house. They served him passively and if obedience consisted in disappearing, they disappeared. They understood, with an admirable delicacy of instinct, that certain cares may be put under constraint. Thus, even when believing him to be in peril, they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature, to such a degree that they no longer watched over him. They confided him to God. Moreover, Baptistine said, as we have just read, that her brother's end would prove her own. Madame Magloire did not say this, but she knew it. At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in the preceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to be believed, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mountains infested with bandits. In the country near D a man lived quite alone. This man, we will state at once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G Member of the Convention, G was mentioned with a sort of horror in the little world of D A member of the Conventioncan you imagine such a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other thou, and when they said 'citizen. This man was almost a monster. He had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was a quasiregicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen that such a man had not been brought before a provost's court, on the return of the legitimate princes? They need not have cut off his head, if you please clemency must be exercised, agreed but a good banishment for life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture. Was G a vulture after all? Yes if he were to be judged by the element of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted for the death of the king, he had not been included in the decrees of exile, and had been able to remain in France. He dwelt at a distance of threequarters of an hour from the city, far from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wild valley, no one knew exactly where. He had there, it was said, a sort of field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors, not even passersby. Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path which led thither had disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as though it had been the dwelling of a hangman. Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time to time he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked the valley of the former member of the Convention, and he said, 'There is a soul yonder which is lonely. And he added, deep in his own mind, 'I owe him a visit. But, let us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first blush, appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, and almost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general impression, and the old member of the Convention inspired him, without his being clearly conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on hate, and which is so well expressed by the word estrangement. Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No. But what a sheep! The good Bishop was perplexed. Sometimes he set out in that direction then he returned. Finally, the rumor one day spread through the town that a sort of young shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had come in quest of a doctor that the old wretch was dying, that paralysis was gaining on him, and that he would not live over night.'Thank God! some added. The Bishop took his staff, put on his cloak, on account of his too threadbare cassock, as we have mentioned, and because of the evening breeze which was sure to rise soon, and set out. The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishop arrived at the excommunicated spot. With a certain beating of the heart, he recognized the fact that he was near the lair. He strode over a ditch, leaped a hedge, made his way through a fence of dead boughs, entered a neglected paddock, took a few steps with a good deal of boldness, and suddenly, at the extremity of the waste land, and behind lofty brambles, he caught sight of the cavern. It was a very low hut, poor, small, and clean, with a vine nailed against the outside. Near the door, in an old wheelchair, the armchair of the peasants, there was a whitehaired man, smiling at the sun. Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was offering the old man a jar of milk. While the Bishop was watching him, the old man spoke 'Thank you, he said, 'I need nothing. And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon the child. The Bishop stepped forward. At the sound which he made in walking, the old man turned his head, and his face expressed the sum total of the surprise which a man can still feel after a long life. 'This is the first time since I have been here, said he, 'that any one has entered here. Who are you, sir? The Bishop answered 'My name is Bienvenu Myriel. 'Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the people call Monseigneur Welcome? 'I am. The old man resumed with a halfsmile 'In that case, you are my bishop? 'Something of that sort. 'Enter, sir. The member of the Convention extended his hand to the Bishop, but the Bishop did not take it. The Bishop confined himself to the remark 'I am pleased to see that I have been misinformed. You certainly do not seem to me to be ill. 'Monsieur, replied the old man, 'I am going to recover. He paused, and then said 'I shall die three hours hence. Then he continued 'I am something of a doctor I know in what fashion the last hour draws on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold today, the chill has ascended to my knees now I feel it mounting to my waist when it reaches the heart, I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself wheeled out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me it does not fatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who is on the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at that moment. One has one's caprices I should have liked to last until the dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight. The old man turned to the shepherd lad 'Go to thy bed thou wert awake all last night thou art tired. The child entered the hut. The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking to himself 'I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors. The Bishop was not touched as it seems that he should have been. He did not think he discerned God in this manner of dying let us say the whole, for these petty contradictions of great hearts must be indicated like the rest he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at 'His Grace, was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and he was almost tempted to retort 'citizen. He was assailed by a fancy for peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but which was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the powerful ones of the earth for the first time in his life, probably, the Bishop felt in a mood to be severe. Meanwhile, the member of the Convention had been surveying him with a modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning to dust. The Bishop, on his side, although he generally restrained his curiosity, which, in his opinion, bordered on a fault, could not refrain from examining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as it did not have its course in sympathy, would have served his conscience as a matter of reproach, in connection with any other man. A member of the Convention produced on him somewhat the effect of being outside the pale of the law, even of the law of charity. G, calm, his body almost upright, his voice vibrating, was one of those octogenarians who form the subject of astonishment to the physiologist. The Revolution had many of these men, proportioned to the epoch. In this old man one was conscious of a man put to the proof. Though so near to his end, he preserved all the gestures of health. In his clear glance, in his firm tone, in the robust movement of his shoulders, there was something calculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mohammedan angel of the sepulchre, would have turned back, and thought that he had mistaken the door. G seemed to be dying because he willed it so. There was freedom in his agony. His legs alone were motionless. It was there that the shadows held him fast. His feet were cold and dead, but his head survived with all the power of life, and seemed full of light. G, at this solemn moment, resembled the king in that tale of the Orient who was flesh above and marble below. There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt. 'I congratulate you, said he, in the tone which one uses for a reprimand. 'You did not vote for the death of the king, after all. The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bitter meaning underlying the words 'after all. He replied. The smile had quite disappeared from his face. 'Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the tyrant. It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity. 'What do you mean to say? resumed the Bishop. 'I mean to say that man has a tyrant,ignorance. I voted for the death of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man should be governed only by science. 'And conscience, added the Bishop. 'It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate science which we have within us. Monseigneur Bienvenu listened in some astonishment to this language, which was very new to him. The member of the Convention resumed 'So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said 'no.' I did not think that I had the right to kill a man but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child. In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity, concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices and errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. We have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn of joy. 'Mixed joy, said the Bishop. 'You may say troubled joy, and today, after that fatal return of the past, which is called , joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work was incomplete, I admit we demolished the ancient regime in deeds we were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not sufficient customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer the wind is still there. 'You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a demolition complicated with wrath. 'Right has its wrath, Bishop and the wrath of right is an element of progress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the advent of Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all the unknown social quantities it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased, enlightened it caused the waves of civilization to flow over the earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of humanity. The Bishop could not refrain from murmuring 'Yes? '! The member of the Convention straightened himself up in his chair with an almost lugubrious solemnity, and exclaimed, so far as a dying man is capable of exclamation 'Ah, there you go '! I was expecting that word. A cloud had been forming for the space of fifteen hundred years at the end of fifteen hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial. The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within him had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on the matter. He replied 'The judge speaks in the name of justice the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt should commit no error. And he added, regarding the member of the Convention steadily the while, 'Louis XVII.? The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop's arm. 'Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent child? very good in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche, an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grve, until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime of having been grandson of Louis XV. 'Monsieur, said the Bishop, 'I like not this conjunction of names. 'Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object? A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken. The conventionary resumed 'Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, 'Sinite parvulos,' he made no distinction between the little children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags as in fleurs de lys. 'That is true, said the Bishop in a low voice. 'I persist, continued the conventionary G 'You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back further than ', and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people. 'I weep for all, said the Bishop. 'Equally! exclaimed conventionary G 'and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer. Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first to break it. He raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of the death agony. It was almost an explosion. 'Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And hold! that is not all, either why have you just questioned me and talked to me about Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever since I have been in these parts I have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside, and seeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me in a confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must admit but that signifies nothing clever men have so many ways of imposing on that honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear the sound of your carriage you have left it yonder, behind the coppice at the fork of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me that you are the Bishop but that affords me no information as to your moral personality. In short, I repeat my question. Who are you? You are a bishop that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,the bishopric of D fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand in perquisites total, twentyfive thousand francs,who have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moorhens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus Christ who went barefoot! You are a prelate,revenues, palace, horses, servants, good table, all the sensualities of life you have this like the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it it is well but this says either too much or too little this does not enlighten me upon the intrinsic and essential value of the man who comes with the probable intention of bringing wisdom to me. To whom do I speak? Who are you? The Bishop hung his head and replied, 'Vermis sumI am a worm. 'A worm of the earth in a carriage? growled the conventionary. It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be humble. The Bishop resumed mildly 'So be it, sir. But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moorhens which I eat on Friday, how my twentyfive thousand francs income, how my palace and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that ' was not inexorable. The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweep away a cloud. 'Before replying to you, he said, 'I beseech you to pardon me. I have just committed a wrong, sir. You are at my house, you are my guest, I owe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine myself to combating your arguments. Your riches and your pleasures are advantages which I hold over you in the debate but good taste dictates that I shall not make use of them. I promise you to make no use of them in the future. 'I thank you, said the Bishop. G resumed. 'Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where were we? What were you saying to me? That ' was inexorable? 'Inexorable yes, said the Bishop. 'What think you of Marat clapping his hands at the guillotine? 'What think you of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over the dragonnades? The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directness of a point of steel. The Bishop quivered under it no reply occurred to him but he was offended by this mode of alluding to Bossuet. The best of minds will have their fetiches, and they sometimes feel vaguely wounded by the want of respect of logic. The conventionary began to pant the asthma of the agony which is mingled with the last breaths interrupted his voice still, there was a perfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on 'Let me say a few words more in this and that direction I am willing. Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human affirmation, ' is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit but what name do you give to Montrevel? FouquierTainville is a rascal but what is your opinion as to LamoignonBville? Maillard is terrible but SaulxTavannes, if you please? Duchne senior is ferocious but what epithet will you allow me for the elder Letellier? JourdanCoupeTet is a monster but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir, sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen but I am also sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in , under Louis the Great, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist, to a stake, and the child kept at a distance her breast swelled with milk and her heart with anguish the little one, hungry and pale, beheld that breast and cried and agonized the executioner said to the woman, a mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that torture of Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in mind sir the French Revolution had its reasons for existence its wrath will be absolved by the future its result is the world made better. From its most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race. I abridge, I stop, I have too much the advantage moreover, I am dying. And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded his thoughts in these tranquil words 'Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this fact is recognized,that the human race has been treated harshly, but that it has progressed. The conventionary doubted not that he had successively conquered all the inmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from this intrenchment, the last resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu's resistance, came forth this reply, wherein appeared nearly all the harshness of the beginning 'Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race. The former representative of the people made no reply. He was seized with a fit of trembling. He looked towards heaven, and in his glance a tear gathered slowly. When the eyelid was full, the tear trickled down his livid cheek, and he said, almost in a stammer, quite low, and to himself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths 'O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest! The Bishop experienced an indescribable shock. After a pause, the old man raised a finger heavenward and said 'The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person would be without limit it would not be infinite in other words, it would not exist. There is, then, an I. That I of the infinite is God. The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and with the shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had spoken, his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It was evident that he had just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been left to him. That which he had said brought him nearer to him who is in death. The supreme moment was approaching. The Bishop understood this time pressed it was as a priest that he had come from extreme coldness he had passed by degrees to extreme emotion he gazed at those closed eyes, he took that wrinkled, aged and icecold hand in his, and bent over the dying man. 'This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think that it would be regrettable if we had met in vain? The conventionary opened his eyes again. A gravity mingled with gloom was imprinted on his countenance. 'Bishop, said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from his dignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, 'I have passed my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of age when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with its affairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them tyrannies existed, I destroyed them rights and principles existed, I proclaimed and confessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it France was menaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich I am poor. I have been one of the masters of the state the vaults of the treasury were encumbered with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls, which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and silver I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twentytwo sous. I have succored the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth from the altar, it is true but it was to bind up the wounds of my country. I have always upheld the march forward of the human race, forward towards the light, and I have sometimes resisted progress without pity. I have, when the occasion offered, protected my own adversaries, men of your profession. And there is at Peteghem, in Flanders, at the very spot where the Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a convent of Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu, which I saved in . I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the good that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted, blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many years past, I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think they have the right to despise me to the poor ignorant masses I present the visage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of hatred, without hating any one myself. Now I am eightysix years old I am on the point of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me? 'Your blessing, said the Bishop. And he knelt down. When the Bishop raised his head again, the face of the conventionary had become august. He had just expired. The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannot be known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer. On the following morning some bold and curious persons attempted to speak to him about member of the Convention G he contented himself with pointing heavenward. From that moment he redoubled his tenderness and brotherly feeling towards all children and sufferers. Any allusion to 'that old wretch of a G caused him to fall into a singular preoccupation. No one could say that the passage of that soul before his, and the reflection of that grand conscience upon his, did not count for something in his approach to perfection. This 'pastoral visit naturally furnished an occasion for a murmur of comment in all the little local coteries. 'Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for a bishop? There was evidently no conversion to be expected. All those revolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there? What was there to be seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried off by the devil. One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself spiritual, addressed this sally to him, 'Monseigneur, people are inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!'Oh! oh! that's a coarse color, replied the Bishop. 'It is lucky that those who despise it in a cap revere it in a hat. We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to conclude from this that Monseigneur Welcome was 'a philosophical bishop, or a 'patriotic cur. His meeting, which may almost be designated as his union, with conventionary G, left behind it in his mind a sort of astonishment, which rendered him still more gentle. That is all. Although Monseigneur Bienvenu was far from being a politician, this is, perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in the events of that epoch, supposing that Monseigneur Bienvenu ever dreamed of having an attitude. Let us, then, go back a few years. Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopate, the Emperor had made him a baron of the Empire, in company with many other bishops. The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on the night of the th to the th of July,  on this occasion, M. Myriel was summoned by Napoleon to the synod of the bishops of France and Italy convened at Paris. This synod was held at NotreDame, and assembled for the first time on the th of June, , under the presidency of Cardinal Fesch. M. Myriel was one of the ninetyfive bishops who attended it. But he was present only at one sitting and at three or four private conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living so very close to nature, in rusticity and deprivation, it appeared that he imported among these eminent personages, ideas which altered the temperature of the assembly. He very soon returned to D He was interrogated as to this speedy return, and he replied 'I embarrassed them. The outside air penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an open door. On another occasion he said, 'What would you have? Those gentlemen are princes. I am only a poor peasant bishop. The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it is said that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself at the house of one of his most notable colleagues 'What beautiful clocks! What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a great trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantly in my ears 'There are people who are hungry! There are people who are cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!' Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts. Nevertheless, in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with representations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which have very little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is a contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come in contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all these misfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one's own person a little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who is working near a furnace, and who has neither a singed hair, nor blackened nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first proof of charity in the priest, in the bishop especially, is poverty. This is, no doubt, what the Bishop of D thought. It must not be supposed, however, that he shared what we call the 'ideas of the century on certain delicate points. He took very little part in the theological quarrels of the moment, and maintained silence on questions in which Church and State were implicated but if he had been strongly pressed, it seems that he would have been found to be an ultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait, and since we do not wish to conceal anything, we are forced to add that he was glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with , he gave in his adherence to or applauded all hostile manifestations. He refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island of Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperor in his diocese during the Hundred Days. Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one a general, the other a prefect. He wrote to both with tolerable frequency. He was harsh for a time towards the former, because, holding a command in Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the general had put himself at the head of twelve hundred men and had pursued the Emperor as though the latter had been a person whom one is desirous of allowing to escape. His correspondence with the other brother, the exprefect, a fine, worthy man who lived in retirement at Paris, Rue Cassette, remained more affectionate. Thus Monseigneur Bienvenu also had his hour of party spirit, his hour of bitterness, his cloud. The shadow of the passions of the moment traversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things. Certainly, such a man would have done well not to entertain any political opinions. Let there be no mistake as to our meaning we are not confounding what is called 'political opinions with the grand aspiration for progress, with the sublime faith, patriotic, democratic, humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every generous intellect. Without going deeply into questions which are only indirectly connected with the subject of this book, we will simply say this It would have been well if Monseigneur Bienvenu had not been a Royalist, and if his glance had never been, for a single instant, turned away from that serene contemplation in which is distinctly discernible, above the fictions and the hatreds of this world, above the stormy vicissitudes of human things, the beaming of those three pure radiances, truth, justice, and charity. While admitting that it was not for a political office that God created Monseigneur Welcome, we should have understood and admired his protest in the name of right and liberty, his proud opposition, his just but perilous resistance to the allpowerful Napoleon. But that which pleases us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people who are falling. We only love the fray so long as there is danger, and in any case, the combatants of the first hour have alone the right to be the exterminators of the last. He who has not been a stubborn accuser in prosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator of success is the only legitimate executioner of the fall. As for us, when Providence intervenes and strikes, we let it work.  commenced to disarm us. In  the cowardly breach of silence of that taciturn legislative body, emboldened by catastrophe, possessed only traits which aroused indignation. And it was a crime to applaud, in , in the presence of those marshals who betrayed in the presence of that senate which passed from one dunghill to another, insulting after having deified in the presence of that idolatry which was loosing its footing and spitting on its idol,it was a duty to turn aside the head. In , when the supreme disasters filled the air, when France was seized with a shiver at their sinister approach, when Waterloo could be dimly discerned opening before Napoleon, the mournful acclamation of the army and the people to the condemned of destiny had nothing laughable in it, and, after making all allowance for the despot, a heart like that of the Bishop of D, ought not perhaps to have failed to recognize the august and touching features presented by the embrace of a great nation and a great man on the brink of the abyss. With this exception, he was in all things just, true, equitable, intelligent, humble and dignified, beneficent and kindly, which is only another sort of benevolence. He was a priest, a sage, and a man. It must be admitted, that even in the political views with which we have just reproached him, and which we are disposed to judge almost with severity, he was tolerant and easy, more so, perhaps, than we who are speaking here. The porter of the townhall had been placed there by the Emperor. He was an old noncommissioned officer of the old guard, a member of the Legion of Honor at Austerlitz, as much of a Bonapartist as the eagle. This poor fellow occasionally let slip inconsiderate remarks, which the law then stigmatized as seditious speeches. After the imperial profile disappeared from the Legion of Honor, he never dressed himself in his regimentals, as he said, so that he should not be obliged to wear his cross. He had himself devoutly removed the imperial effigy from the cross which Napoleon had given him this made a hole, and he would not put anything in its place. 'I will die, he said, 'rather than wear the three frogs upon my heart! He liked to scoff aloud at Louis XVIII. 'The gouty old creature in English gaiters! he said 'let him take himself off to Prussia with that queue of his. He was happy to combine in the same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussia and England. He did it so often that he lost his place. There he was, turned out of the house, with his wife and children, and without bread. The Bishop sent for him, reproved him gently, and appointed him beadle in the cathedral. In the course of nine years Monseigneur Bienvenu had, by dint of holy deeds and gentle manners, filled the town of Dwith a sort of tender and filial reverence. Even his conduct towards Napoleon had been accepted and tacitly pardoned, as it were, by the people, the good and weakly flock who adored their emperor, but loved their bishop. A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little abbs, just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what that charming Saint Franois de Sales calls somewhere 'les prtres blancsbecs, callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power which has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not its court. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present. Every metropolis has its staff of officials. Every bishop who possesses the least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, and mounts guard over monseigneur's smile. To please a bishop is equivalent to getting one's foot in the stirrup for a subdiaconate. It is necessary to walk one's path discreetly the apostleship does not disdain the canonship. Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church. These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting links between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbs rather than priests, prelates rather than bishops. Happy those who approach them! Being persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the assiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understand the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. As they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind the scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of the patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is Rome. A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an archbishop who knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the pallium, and behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor, and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminence and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot. Every skullcap may dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a king in a regular manner and what a king! the supreme king. Then what a nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, how many youthful abbs bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk! Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation? in good faith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that it is. Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted among the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of young priests about him. We have seen that he 'did not take in Paris. Not a single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man. Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth its foliage in his shadow. His canons and grandvicars were good old men, rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese, without exit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with this difference, that they were finished and he was completed. The impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well understood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the seminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it, men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation is a dangerous neighbor he might communicate to you, by contagion, an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire and this infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success that is the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption. Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menchmus of talent, has one dupe,history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In our day, a philosophy which is almost official has entered into its service, wears the livery of success, and performs the service of its antechamber. Succeed theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that. Be lucky, and you will have all the rest be happy, and people will think you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing but shortsightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the first arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd. That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, schylus, Dante, Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by acclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may consist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy let a false Corneille compose Tiridate let a eunuch come to possess a harem let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch let an apothecary invent cardboard shoesoles for the army of the SambreandMeuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard, sold as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income let a porkpacker espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight millions, of which he is the father and of which it is the mother let a preacher become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl let the steward of a fine family be so rich on retiring from service that he is made minister of finances,and men call that Genius, just as they call the face of Mousqueton Beauty, and the mien of Claude Majesty. With the constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks. We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of D on the score of orthodoxy. In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood but respect. The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his word. Moreover, certain natures being given, we admit the possible development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs from our own. What did he think of this dogma, or of that mystery? These secrets of the inner tribunal of the conscience are known only to the tomb, where souls enter naked. The point on which we are certain is, that the difficulties of faith never resolved themselves into hypocrisy in his case. No decay is possible to the diamond. He believed to the extent of his powers. 'Credo in Patrem, he often exclaimed. Moreover, he drew from good works that amount of satisfaction which suffices to the conscience, and which whispers to a man, 'Thou art with God! The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside of and beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess of love. It was in that quarter, quia multum amavit,because he loved muchthat he was regarded as vulnerable by 'serious men, 'grave persons and 'reasonable people favorite locutions of our sad world where egotism takes its word of command from pedantry. What was this excess of love? It was a serene benevolence which overflowed men, as we have already pointed out, and which, on occasion, extended even to things. He lived without disdain. He was indulgent towards God's creation. Every man, even the best, has within him a thoughtless harshness which he reserves for animals. The Bishop of D had none of that harshness, which is peculiar to many priests, nevertheless. He did not go as far as the Brahmin, but he seemed to have weighed this saying of Ecclesiastes 'Who knoweth whither the soul of the animal goeth? Hideousness of aspect, deformity of instinct, troubled him not, and did not arouse his indignation. He was touched, almost softened by them. It seemed as though he went thoughtfully away to seek beyond the bounds of life which is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for them. He seemed at times to be asking God to commute these penalties. He examined without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is deciphering a palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in nature. This reverie sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One morning he was in his garden, and thought himself alone, but his sister was walking behind him, unseen by him suddenly he paused and gazed at something on the ground it was a large, black, hairy, frightful spider. His sister heard him say 'Poor beast! It is not its fault! Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings of kindness? Puerile they may be but these sublime puerilities were peculiar to Saint Francis d'Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius. One day he sprained his ankle in his effort to avoid stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just man. Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing more venerable possible. Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories anent his youth, and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate, and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly, thought by thought for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable these formations are indestructible. In , as we think we have already said, he reached his seventyfifth birthday, but he did not appear to be more than sixty. He was not tall he was rather plump and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond of taking long strolls on foot his step was firm, and his form was but slightly bent, a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. Monseigneur Welcome had what the people term a 'fine head, but so amiable was he that they forgot that it was fine. When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was one of his charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt at their ease with him, and joy seemed to radiate from his whole person. His fresh and ruddy complexion, his very white teeth, all of which he had preserved, and which were displayed by his smile, gave him that open and easy air which cause the remark to be made of a man, 'He's a good fellow and of an old man, 'He is a fine man. That, it will be recalled, was the effect which he produced upon Napoleon. On the first encounter, and to one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing, in fact, but a fine man. But if one remained near him for a few hours, and beheld him in the least degree pensive, the fine man became gradually transfigured, and took on some imposing quality, I know not what his broad and serious brow, rendered august by his white locks, became august also by virtue of meditation majesty radiated from his goodness, though his goodness ceased not to be radiant one experienced something of the emotion which one would feel on beholding a smiling angel slowly unfold his wings, without ceasing to smile. Respect, an unutterable respect, penetrated you by degrees and mounted to your heart, and one felt that one had before him one of those strong, thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls where thought is so grand that it can no longer be anything but gentle. As we have seen, prayer, the celebration of the offices of religion, almsgiving, the consolation of the afflicted, the cultivation of a bit of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation, confidence, study, work, filled every day of his life. Filled is exactly the word certainly the Bishop's day was quite full to the brim, of good words and good deeds. Nevertheless, it was not complete if cold or rainy weather prevented his passing an hour or two in his garden before going to bed, and after the two women had retired. It seemed to be a sort of rite with him, to prepare himself for slumber by meditation in the presence of the grand spectacles of the nocturnal heavens. Sometimes, if the two old women were not asleep, they heard him pacing slowly along the walks at a very advanced hour of the night. He was there alone, communing with himself, peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his heart to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, while he offered his heart at the hour when nocturnal flowers offer their perfume, illuminated like a lamp amid the starry night, as he poured himself out in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not have told himself, probably, what was passing in his spirit he felt something take its flight from him, and something descend into him. Mysterious exchange of the abysses of the soul with the abysses of the universe! He thought of the grandeur and presence of God of the future eternity, that strange mystery of the eternity past, a mystery still more strange of all the infinities, which pierced their way into all his senses, beneath his eyes and, without seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, he gazed upon it. He did not study God he was dazzled by him. He considered those magnificent conjunctions of atoms, which communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by verifying them, create individualities in unity, proportions in extent, the innumerable in the infinite, and, through light, produce beauty. These conjunctions are formed and dissolved incessantly hence life and death. He seated himself on a wooden bench, with his back against a decrepit vine he gazed at the stars, past the puny and stunted silhouettes of his fruittrees. This quarter of an acre, so poorly planted, so encumbered with mean buildings and sheds, was dear to him, and satisfied his wants. What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure of his life, where there was so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the heavens for a ceiling, sufficient to enable him to adore God in his most divine works, in turn? Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one's feet that which can be cultivated and plucked over head that which one can study and meditate upon some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky. One last word. Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D a certain 'pantheistical physiognomy, and induce the belief, either to his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from there. No systems many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo no, there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses. The apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would probably have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds. There is a sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma those gloomy openings stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a passerby in life, that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates thither! Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure speculation, situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their ideas to God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their adoration interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs. Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature the mysterious world which surrounds us renders back what it has received it is probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be, there are on earth men whoare they men?perceive distinctly at the verge of the horizons of reverie the heights of the absolute, and who have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome was one of these men Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which shortens,the Gospel's. He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah's mantle he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of events he did not see to condense in flame the light of things he had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This humble soul loved, and that was all. That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is probable but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much and if it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts, Saint Theresa and Saint Jerome would be heretics. He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe appeared to him like an immense malady everywhere he felt fever, everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle of created things developed tenderness in him he was occupied only in finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation. There are men who toil at extracting gold he toiled at the extraction of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who believed himself to be a 'philosopher, the senator who has already been alluded to, said to the Bishop 'Just survey the spectacle of the world all war against all the strongest has the most wit. Your love each other is nonsense.'Well, replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting the point, 'if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it, as the pearl in the oyster. Thus he shut himself up, he lived there, he was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of abstraction, the precipices of metaphysicsall those profundities which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent I, the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature, liberty, necessity perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind formidable abysses, which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to cause stars to blaze forth there. Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who took note of the exterior of mysterious questions without scrutinizing them, and without troubling his own mind with them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave respect for darkness. Early in the month of October, , about an hour before sunset, a man who was travelling on foot entered the little town of D The few inhabitants who were at their windows or on their thresholds at the moment stared at this traveller with a sort of uneasiness. It was difficult to encounter a wayfarer of more wretched appearance. He was a man of medium stature, thickset and robust, in the prime of life. He might have been fortysix or fortyeight years old. A cap with a drooping leather visor partly concealed his face, burned and tanned by sun and wind, and dripping with perspiration. His shirt of coarse yellow linen, fastened at the neck by a small silver anchor, permitted a view of his hairy breast he had a cravat twisted into a string trousers of blue drilling, worn and threadbare, white on one knee and torn on the other an old gray, tattered blouse, patched on one of the elbows with a bit of green cloth sewed on with twine a tightly packed soldier knapsack, well buckled and perfectly new, on his back an enormous, knotty stick in his hand ironshod shoes on his stockingless feet a shaved head and a long beard. The sweat, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, added I know not what sordid quality to this dilapidated whole. His hair was closely cut, yet bristling, for it had begun to grow a little, and did not seem to have been cut for some time. No one knew him. He was evidently only a chance passerby. Whence came he? From the south from the seashore, perhaps, for he made his entrance into D by the same street which, seven months previously, had witnessed the passage of the Emperor Napoleon on his way from Cannes to Paris. This man must have been walking all day. He seemed very much fatigued. Some women of the ancient market town which is situated below the city had seen him pause beneath the trees of the boulevard Gassendi, and drink at the fountain which stands at the end of the promenade. He must have been very thirsty for the children who followed him saw him stop again for a drink, two hundred paces further on, at the fountain in the marketplace. On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned to the left, and directed his steps toward the townhall. He entered, then came out a quarter of an hour later. A gendarme was seated near the door, on the stone bench which General Drouot had mounted on the th of March to read to the frightened throng of the inhabitants of D the proclamation of the Gulf Juan. The man pulled off his cap and humbly saluted the gendarme. The gendarme, without replying to his salute, stared attentively at him, followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered the townhall. There then existed at D a fine inn at the sign of the Cross of Colbas. This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man of consideration in the town on account of his relationship to another Labarre, who kept the inn of the Three Dauphins in Grenoble, and had served in the Guides. At the time of the Emperor's landing, many rumors had circulated throughout the country with regard to this inn of the Three Dauphins. It was said that General Bertrand, disguised as a carter, had made frequent trips thither in the month of January, and that he had distributed crosses of honor to the soldiers and handfuls of gold to the citizens. The truth is, that when the Emperor entered Grenoble he had refused to install himself at the hotel of the prefecture he had thanked the mayor, saying, 'I am going to the house of a brave man of my acquaintance and he had betaken himself to the Three Dauphins. This glory of the Labarre of the Three Dauphins was reflected upon the Labarre of the Cross of Colbas, at a distance of five and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, 'That is the cousin of the man of Grenoble. The man bent his steps towards this inn, which was the best in the countryside. He entered the kitchen, which opened on a level with the street. All the stoves were lighted a huge fire blazed gayly in the fireplace. The host, who was also the chief cook, was going from one stewpan to another, very busily superintending an excellent dinner designed for the wagoners, whose loud talking, conversation, and laughter were audible from an adjoining apartment. Any one who has travelled knows that there is no one who indulges in better cheer than wagoners. A fat marmot, flanked by white partridges and heathercocks, was turning on a long spit before the fire on the stove, two huge carps from Lake Lauzet and a trout from Lake Alloz were cooking. The host, hearing the door open and seeing a newcomer enter, said, without raising his eyes from his stoves 'What do you wish, sir? 'Food and lodging, said the man. 'Nothing easier, replied the host. At that moment he turned his head, took in the traveller's appearance with a single glance, and added, 'By paying for it. The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and answered, 'I have money. 'In that case, we are at your service, said the host. The man put his purse back in his pocket, removed his knapsack from his back, put it on the ground near the door, retained his stick in his hand, and seated himself on a low stool close to the fire. D is in the mountains. The evenings are cold there in October. But as the host went back and forth, he scrutinized the traveller. 'Will dinner be ready soon? said the man. 'Immediately, replied the landlord. While the newcomer was warming himself before the fire, with his back turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil from his pocket, then tore off the corner of an old newspaper which was lying on a small table near the window. On the white margin he wrote a line or two, folded it without sealing, and then intrusted this scrap of paper to a child who seemed to serve him in the capacity both of scullion and lackey. The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the child set off on a run in the direction of the townhall. The traveller saw nothing of all this. Once more he inquired, 'Will dinner be ready soon? 'Immediately, responded the host. The child returned. He brought back the paper. The host unfolded it eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply. He seemed to read it attentively, then tossed his head, and remained thoughtful for a moment. Then he took a step in the direction of the traveller, who appeared to be immersed in reflections which were not very serene. 'I cannot receive you, sir, said he. The man half rose. 'What! Are you afraid that I will not pay you? Do you want me to pay you in advance? I have money, I tell you. 'It is not that. 'What then? 'You have money 'Yes, said the man. 'And I, said the host, 'have no room. The man resumed tranquilly, 'Put me in the stable. 'I cannot. 'Why? 'The horses take up all the space. 'Very well! retorted the man 'a corner of the loft then, a truss of straw. We will see about that after dinner. 'I cannot give you any dinner. This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck the stranger as grave. He rose. 'Ah! bah! But I am dying of hunger. I have been walking since sunrise. I have travelled twelve leagues. I pay. I wish to eat. 'I have nothing, said the landlord. The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace and the stoves 'Nothing! and all that? 'All that is engaged. 'By whom? 'By messieurs the wagoners. 'How many are there of them? 'Twelve. 'There is enough food there for twenty. 'They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in advance. The man seated himself again, and said, without raising his voice, 'I am at an inn I am hungry, and I shall remain. Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which made him start, 'Go away! At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting some brands into the fire with the ironshod tip of his staff he turned quickly round, and as he opened his mouth to reply, the host gazed steadily at him and added, still in a low voice 'Stop! there's enough of that sort of talk. Do you want me to tell you your name? Your name is Jean Valjean. Now do you want me to tell you who you are? When I saw you come in I suspected something I sent to the townhall, and this was the reply that was sent to me. Can you read? So saying, he held out to the stranger, fully unfolded, the paper which had just travelled from the inn to the townhall, and from the townhall to the inn. The man cast a glance upon it. The landlord resumed after a pause. 'I am in the habit of being polite to every one. Go away! The man dropped his head, picked up the knapsack which he had deposited on the ground, and took his departure. He chose the principal street. He walked straight on at a venture, keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not turn round a single time. Had he done so, he would have seen the host of the Cross of Colbas standing on his threshold, surrounded by all the guests of his inn, and all the passersby in the street, talking vivaciously, and pointing him out with his finger and, from the glances of terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined that his arrival would speedily become an event for the whole town. He saw nothing of all this. People who are crushed do not look behind them. They know but too well the evil fate which follows them. Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs of hunger sharply. Night was drawing near. He glanced about him, to see whether he could not discover some shelter. The fine hostelry was closed to him he was seeking some very humble public house, some hovel, however lowly. Just then a light flashed up at the end of the streets a pine branch suspended from a crossbeam of iron was outlined against the white sky of the twilight. He proceeded thither. It proved to be, in fact, a public house. The public house which is in the Rue de Chaffaut. The wayfarer halted for a moment, and peeped through the window into the interior of the lowstudded room of the public house, illuminated by a small lamp on a table and by a large fire on the hearth. Some men were engaged in drinking there. The landlord was warming himself. An iron pot, suspended from a crane, bubbled over the flame. The entrance to this public house, which is also a sort of an inn, is by two doors. One opens on the street, the other upon a small yard filled with manure. The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He slipped into the yard, halted again, then raised the latch timidly and opened the door. 'Who goes there? said the master. 'Some one who wants supper and bed. 'Good. We furnish supper and bed here. He entered. All the men who were drinking turned round. The lamp illuminated him on one side, the firelight on the other. They examined him for some time while he was taking off his knapsack. The host said to him, 'There is the fire. The supper is cooking in the pot. Come and warm yourself, comrade. He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched out his feet, which were exhausted with fatigue, to the fire a fine odor was emitted by the pot. All that could be distinguished of his face, beneath his cap, which was well pulled down, assumed a vague appearance of comfort, mingled with that other poignant aspect which habitual suffering bestows. It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile. This physiognomy was strangely composed it began by seeming humble, and ended by seeming severe. The eye shone beneath its lashes like a fire beneath brushwood. One of the men seated at the table, however, was a fishmonger who, before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut, had been to stable his horse at Labarre's. It chanced that he had that very morning encountered this unprepossessing stranger on the road between Bras d'Asse andI have forgotten the name. I think it was Escoublon. Now, when he met him, the man, who then seemed already extremely weary, had requested him to take him on his crupper to which the fishmonger had made no reply except by redoubling his gait. This fishmonger had been a member half an hour previously of the group which surrounded Jacquin Labarre, and had himself related his disagreeable encounter of the morning to the people at the Cross of Colbas. From where he sat he made an imperceptible sign to the tavernkeeper. The tavernkeeper went to him. They exchanged a few words in a low tone. The man had again become absorbed in his reflections. The tavernkeeper returned to the fireplace, laid his hand abruptly on the shoulder of the man, and said to him 'You are going to get out of here. The stranger turned round and replied gently, 'Ah! You know? 'Yes. 'I was sent away from the other inn. 'And you are to be turned out of this one. 'Where would you have me go? 'Elsewhere. The man took his stick and his knapsack and departed. As he went out, some children who had followed him from the Cross of Colbas, and who seemed to be lying in wait for him, threw stones at him. He retraced his steps in anger, and threatened them with his stick the children dispersed like a flock of birds. He passed before the prison. At the door hung an iron chain attached to a bell. He rang. The wicket opened. 'Turnkey, said he, removing his cap politely, 'will you have the kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the night? A voice replied 'The prison is not an inn. Get yourself arrested, and you will be admitted. The wicket closed again. He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of them are enclosed only by hedges, which lends a cheerful aspect to the street. In the midst of these gardens and hedges he caught sight of a small house of a single story, the window of which was lighted up. He peered through the pane as he had done at the public house. Within was a large whitewashed room, with a bed draped in printed cotton stuff, and a cradle in one corner, a few wooden chairs, and a doublebarrelled gun hanging on the wall. A table was spread in the centre of the room. A copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen, the pewter jug shining like silver, and filled with wine, and the brown, smoking souptureen. At this table sat a man of about forty, with a merry and open countenance, who was dandling a little child on his knees. Close by a very young woman was nursing another child. The father was laughing, the child was laughing, the mother was smiling. The stranger paused a moment in reverie before this tender and calming spectacle. What was taking place within him? He alone could have told. It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness, he would find perhaps a little pity. He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock. They did not hear him. He tapped again. He heard the woman say, 'It seems to me, husband, that some one is knocking. 'No, replied the husband. He tapped a third time. The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened. He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a hammer, a red handkerchief, a powderhorn, and all sorts of objects which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out. He carried his head thrown backwards his shirt, widely opened and turned back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare. He had thick eyelashes, enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face like a snout and besides all this, that air of being on his own ground, which is indescribable. 'Pardon me, sir, said the wayfarer, 'Could you, in consideration of payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the garden, in which to sleep? Tell me can you? For money? 'Who are you? demanded the master of the house. The man replied 'I have just come from PuyMoisson. I have walked all day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?if I pay? 'I would not refuse, said the peasant, 'to lodge any respectable man who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn? 'There is no room. 'Bah! Impossible. This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you been to Labarre? 'Yes. 'Well? The traveller replied with embarrassment 'I do not know. He did not receive me. 'Have you been to What'shisname's, in the Rue Chaffaut? The stranger's embarrassment increased he stammered, 'He did not receive me either. The peasant's countenance assumed an expression of distrust he surveyed the newcomer from head to feet, and suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of shudder 'Are you the man? He cast a fresh glance upon the stranger, took three steps backwards, placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down from the wall. Meanwhile, at the words, Are you the man? the woman had risen, had clasped her two children in her arms, and had taken refuge precipitately behind her husband, staring in terror at the stranger, with her bosom uncovered, and with frightened eyes, as she murmured in a low tone, 'Tsomaraude. All this took place in less time than it requires to picture it to one's self. After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as one scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door and said 'Clear out! 'For pity's sake, a glass of water, said the man. 'A shot from my gun! said the peasant. Then he closed the door violently, and the man heard him shoot two large bolts. A moment later, the windowshutter was closed, and the sound of a bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside. Night continued to fall. A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the light of the expiring day the stranger perceived, in one of the gardens which bordered the street, a sort of hut, which seemed to him to be built of sods. He climbed over the wooden fence resolutely, and found himself in the garden. He approached the hut its door consisted of a very low and narrow aperture, and it resembled those buildings which roadlaborers construct for themselves along the roads. He thought without doubt, that it was, in fact, the dwelling of a roadlaborer he was suffering from cold and hunger, but this was, at least, a shelter from the cold. This sort of dwelling is not usually occupied at night. He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut. It was warm there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw. He lay, for a moment, stretched out on this bed, without the power to make a movement, so fatigued was he. Then, as the knapsack on his back was in his way, and as it furnished, moreover, a pillow ready to his hand, he set about unbuckling one of the straps. At that moment, a ferocious growl became audible. He raised his eyes. The head of an enormous dog was outlined in the darkness at the entrance of the hut. It was a dog's kennel. He was himself vigorous and formidable he armed himself with his staff, made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the kennel in the best way he could, not without enlarging the rents in his rags. He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being obliged, in order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manuvre with his stick which masters in that sort of fencing designate as la rose couverte. When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge, without shelter, without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of straw and from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated himself on a stone, and it appears that a passerby heard him exclaim, 'I am not even a dog! He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town, hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford him shelter. He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he felt himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and gazed searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those low hills covered with closecut stubble, which, after the harvest, resemble shaved heads. The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of night it was caused by very lowhanging clouds which seemed to rest upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a gleam of light fell upon the earth. The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces a particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was poor and mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow. There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree, which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer. This man was evidently very far from having those delicate habits of intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to the mysterious aspects of things nevertheless, there was something in that sky, in that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which was so profoundly desolate, that after a moment of immobility and reverie he turned back abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile. He retraced his steps the gates of D were closed. D, which had sustained sieges during the wars of religion, was still surrounded in  by ancient walls flanked by square towers which have been demolished since. He passed through a breach and entered the town again. It might have been eight o'clock in the evening. As he was not acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random. In this way he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary. As he passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at the church. At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment. It is there that the proclamations of the Emperor and of the Imperial Guard to the army, brought from the Island of Elba and dictated by Napoleon himself, were printed for the first time. Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope, he lay down on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office. At that moment an old woman came out of the church. She saw the man stretched out in the shadow. 'What are you doing there, my friend? said she. He answered harshly and angrily 'As you see, my good woman, I am sleeping. The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was the Marquise de R 'On this bench? she went on. 'I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years, said the man 'today I have a mattress of stone. 'You have been a soldier? 'Yes, my good woman, a soldier. 'Why do you not go to the inn? 'Because I have no money. 'Alas! said Madame de R, 'I have only four sous in my purse. 'Give it to me all the same. The man took the four sous. Madame de R continued 'You cannot obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a sum. But have you tried? It is impossible for you to pass the night thus. You are cold and hungry, no doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity. 'I have knocked at all doors. 'Well? 'I have been driven away everywhere. The 'good woman touched the man's arm, and pointed out to him on the other side of the street a small, low house, which stood beside the Bishop's palace. 'You have knocked at all doors? 'Yes. 'Have you knocked at that one? 'No. 'Knock there. That evening, the Bishop of D, after his promenade through the town, remained shut up rather late in his room. He was busy over a great work on Duties, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully compiling everything that the Fathers and the doctors have said on this important subject. His book was divided into two parts firstly, the duties of all secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the class to which he belongs. The duties of all are the great duties. There are four of these. Saint Matthew points them out duties towards God (Matt. vi.) duties towards one's self (Matt. v. , ) duties towards one's neighbor (Matt. vii. ) duties towards animals (Matt. vi. , ). As for the other duties the Bishop found them pointed out and prescribed elsewhere to sovereigns and subjects, in the Epistle to the Romans to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to young men, by Saint Peter to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in the Epistle to the Ephesians to the faithful, in the Epistle to the Hebrews to virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. Out of these precepts he was laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he desired to present to souls. At eight o'clock he was still at work, writing with a good deal of inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the silverware from the cupboard near his bed. A moment later, the Bishop, knowing that the table was set, and that his sister was probably waiting for him, shut his book, rose from his table, and entered the diningroom. The diningroom was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on the garden. Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the table. As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle Baptistine. A lamp stood on the table the table was near the fireplace. A wood fire was burning there. One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom were over sixty years of age. Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious Mademoiselle Baptistine gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than her brother, dressed in a gown of pucecolored silk, of the fashion of , which she had purchased at that date in Paris, and which had lasted ever since. To borrow vulgar phrases, which possess the merit of giving utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would hardly suffice to express, Madame Magloire had the air of a peasant, and Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a lady. Madame Magloire wore a white quilted cap, a gold Jeannette cross on a velvet ribbon upon her neck, the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was in the house, a very white fichu puffing out from a gown of coarse black woollen stuff, with large, short sleeves, an apron of cotton cloth in red and green checks, knotted round the waist with a green ribbon, with a stomacher of the same attached by two pins at the upper corners, coarse shoes on her feet, and yellow stockings, like the women of Marseilles. Mademoiselle Baptistine's gown was cut on the patterns of , with a short waist, a narrow, sheathlike skirt, puffed sleeves, with flaps and buttons. She concealed her gray hair under a frizzed wig known as the baby wig. Madame Magloire had an intelligent, vivacious, and kindly air the two corners of her mouth unequally raised, and her upper lip, which was larger than the lower, imparted to her a rather crabbed and imperious look. So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she talked to him resolutely with a mixture of respect and freedom but as soon as Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like her mistress. Mademoiselle Baptistine did not even speak. She confined herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had never been pretty, even when she was young she had large, blue, prominent eyes, and a long arched nose but her whole visage, her whole person, breathed forth an ineffable goodness, as we stated in the beginning. She had always been predestined to gentleness but faith, charity, hope, those three virtues which mildly warm the soul, had gradually elevated that gentleness to sanctity. Nature had made her a lamb, religion had made her an angel. Poor sainted virgin! Sweet memory which has vanished! Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed at the episcopal residence that evening, that there are many people now living who still recall the most minute details. At the moment when the Bishop entered, Madame Magloire was talking with considerable vivacity. She was haranguing Mademoiselle Baptistine on a subject which was familiar to her and to which the Bishop was also accustomed. The question concerned the lock upon the entrance door. It appears that while procuring some provisions for supper, Madame Magloire had heard things in divers places. People had spoken of a prowler of evil appearance a suspicious vagabond had arrived who must be somewhere about the town, and those who should take it into their heads to return home late that night might be subjected to unpleasant encounters. The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to injure each other by making things happen. It behooved wise people to play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the doors well. Madame Magloire emphasized these last words but the Bishop had just come from his room, where it was rather cold. He seated himself in front of the fire, and warmed himself, and then fell to thinking of other things. He did not take up the remark dropped with design by Madame Magloire. She repeated it. Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of satisfying Madame Magloire without displeasing her brother, ventured to say timidly 'Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother? 'I have heard something of it in a vague way, replied the Bishop. Then halfturning in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, and raising towards the old servant woman his cordial face, which so easily grew joyous, and which was illuminated from below by the firelight,'Come, what is the matter? What is the matter? Are we in any great danger? Then Madame Magloire began the whole story afresh, exaggerating it a little without being aware of the fact. It appeared that a Bohemian, a barefooted vagabond, a sort of dangerous mendicant, was at that moment in the town. He had presented himself at Jacquin Labarre's to obtain lodgings, but the latter had not been willing to take him in. He had been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about the streets in the gloaming. A gallowsbird with a terrible face. 'Really! said the Bishop. This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire it seemed to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point of becoming alarmed she pursued triumphantly 'Yes, Monseigneur. That is how it is. There will be some sort of catastrophe in this town tonight. Every one says so. And withal, the police is so badly regulated (a useful repetition). 'The idea of living in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the streets at night! One goes out. Black as ovens, indeed! And I say, Monseigneur, and Mademoiselle there says with me 'I, interrupted his sister, 'say nothing. What my brother does is well done. Madame Magloire continued as though there had been no protest 'We say that this house is not safe at all that if Monseigneur will permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and replace the ancient locks on the doors we have them, and it is only the work of a moment for I say that nothing is more terrible than a door which can be opened from the outside with a latch by the first passerby and I say that we need bolts, Monseigneur, if only for this night moreover, Monseigneur has the habit of always saying 'come in' and besides, even in the middle of the night, O mon Dieu! there is no need to ask permission. At that moment there came a tolerably violent knock on the door. 'Come in, said the Bishop. The door opened. It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though some one had given it an energetic and resolute push. A man entered. We already know the man. It was the wayfarer whom we have seen wandering about in search of shelter. He entered, advanced a step, and halted, leaving the door open behind him. He had his knapsack on his shoulders, his cudgel in his hand, a rough, audacious, weary, and violent expression in his eyes. The fire on the hearth lighted him up. He was hideous. It was a sinister apparition. Madame Magloire had not even the strength to utter a cry. She trembled, and stood with her mouth wide open. Mademoiselle Baptistine turned round, beheld the man entering, and half started up in terror then, turning her head by degrees towards the fireplace again, she began to observe her brother, and her face became once more profoundly calm and serene. The Bishop fixed a tranquil eye on the man. As he opened his mouth, doubtless to ask the newcomer what he desired, the man rested both hands on his staff, directed his gaze at the old man and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he said, in a loud voice 'See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a dozen leagues today on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport, which I had shown at the townhall. I had to do it. I went to an inn. They said to me, 'Be off,' at both places. No one would take me. I went to the prison the jailer would not admit me. I went into a dog's kennel the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a man. One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the fields, intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There were no stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I reentered the town, to seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant to sleep on a stone bench. A good woman pointed out your house to me, and said to me, 'Knock there!' I have knocked. What is this place? Do you keep an inn? I have moneysavings. One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course of nineteen years. I will pay. What is that to me? I have money. I am very weary twelve leagues on foot I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should remain? 'Madame Magloire, said the Bishop, 'you will set another place. The man advanced three paces, and approached the lamp which was on the table. 'Stop, he resumed, as though he had not quite understood 'that's not it. Did you hear? I am a galleyslave a convict. I come from the galleys. He drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow paper, which he unfolded. 'Here's my passport. Yellow, as you see. This serves to expel me from every place where I go. Will you read it? I know how to read. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for those who choose to learn. Hold, this is what they put on this passport 'Jean Valjean, discharged convict, native of'that is nothing to you'has been nineteen years in the galleys five years for housebreaking and burglary fourteen years for having attempted to escape on four occasions. He is a very dangerous man.' There! Every one has cast me out. Are you willing to receive me? Is this an inn? Will you give me something to eat and a bed? Have you a stable? 'Madame Magloire, said the Bishop, 'you will put white sheets on the bed in the alcove. We have already explained the character of the two women's obedience. Madame Magloire retired to execute these orders. The Bishop turned to the man. 'Sit down, sir, and warm yourself. We are going to sup in a few moments, and your bed will be prepared while you are supping. At this point the man suddenly comprehended. The expression of his face, up to that time sombre and harsh, bore the imprint of stupefaction, of doubt, of joy, and became extraordinary. He began stammering like a crazy man 'Really? What! You will keep me? You do not drive me forth? A convict! You call me sir! You do not address me as thou? 'Get out of here, you dog!' is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would expel me, so I told you at once who I am. Oh, what a good woman that was who directed me hither! I am going to sup! A bed with a mattress and sheets, like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years since I have slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are good people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me, monsieur the innkeeper, but what is your name? I will pay anything you ask. You are a fine man. You are an innkeeper, are you not? 'I am, replied the Bishop, 'a priest who lives here. 'A priest! said the man. 'Oh, what a fine priest! Then you are not going to demand any money of me? You are the cur, are you not? the cur of this big church? Well! I am a fool, truly! I had not perceived your skullcap. As he spoke, he deposited his knapsack and his cudgel in a corner, replaced his passport in his pocket, and seated himself. Mademoiselle Baptistine gazed mildly at him. He continued 'You are humane, Monsieur le Cur you have not scorned me. A good priest is a very good thing. Then you do not require me to pay? 'No, said the Bishop 'keep your money. How much have you? Did you not tell me one hundred and nine francs? 'And fifteen sous, added the man. 'One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous. And how long did it take you to earn that? 'Nineteen years. 'Nineteen years! The Bishop sighed deeply. The man continued 'I have still the whole of my money. In four days I have spent only twentyfive sous, which I earned by helping unload some wagons at Grasse. Since you are an abb, I will tell you that we had a chaplain in the galleys. And one day I saw a bishop there. Monseigneur is what they call him. He was the Bishop of Majore at Marseilles. He is the cur who rules over the other curs, you understand. Pardon me, I say that very badly but it is such a faroff thing to me! You understand what we are! He said mass in the middle of the galleys, on an altar. He had a pointed thing, made of gold, on his head it glittered in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on the three sides, with cannons with lighted matches facing us. We could not see very well. He spoke but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That is what a bishop is like. While he was speaking, the Bishop had gone and shut the door, which had remained wide open. Madame Magloire returned. She brought a silver fork and spoon, which she placed on the table. 'Madame Magloire, said the Bishop, 'place those things as near the fire as possible. And turning to his guest 'The night wind is harsh on the Alps. You must be cold, sir. Each time that he uttered the word sir, in his voice which was so gently grave and polished, the man's face lighted up. Monsieur to a convict is like a glass of water to one of the shipwrecked of the Medusa. Ignominy thirsts for consideration. 'This lamp gives a very bad light, said the Bishop. Madame Magloire understood him, and went to get the two silver candlesticks from the chimneypiece in Monseigneur's bedchamber, and placed them, lighted, on the table. 'Monsieur le Cur, said the man, 'you are good you do not despise me. You receive me into your house. You light your candles for me. Yet I have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate man. The Bishop, who was sitting close to him, gently touched his hand. 'You could not help telling me who you were. This is not my house it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are hungry and thirsty you are welcome. And do not thank me do not say that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me you had one which I knew. The man opened his eyes in astonishment. 'Really? You knew what I was called? 'Yes, replied the Bishop, 'you are called my brother. 'Stop, Monsieur le Cur, exclaimed the man. 'I was very hungry when I entered here but you are so good, that I no longer know what has happened to me. The Bishop looked at him, and said, 'You have suffered much? 'Oh, the red coat, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, the cell for one word even sick and in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs are happier! Nineteen years! I am fortysix. Now there is the yellow passport. That is what it is like. 'Yes, resumed the Bishop, 'you have come from a very sad place. Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tearbathed face of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men. If you emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath against mankind, you are deserving of pity if you emerge with thoughts of goodwill and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us. In the meantime, Madame Magloire had served supper soup, made with water, oil, bread, and salt a little bacon, a bit of mutton, figs, a fresh cheese, and a large loaf of rye bread. She had, of her own accord, added to the Bishop's ordinary fare a bottle of his old Mauves wine. The Bishop's face at once assumed that expression of gayety which is peculiar to hospitable natures. 'To table! he cried vivaciously. As was his custom when a stranger supped with him, he made the man sit on his right. Mademoiselle Baptistine, perfectly peaceable and natural, took her seat at his left. The Bishop asked a blessing then helped the soup himself, according to his custom. The man began to eat with avidity. All at once the Bishop said 'It strikes me there is something missing on this table. Madame Magloire had, in fact, only placed the three sets of forks and spoons which were absolutely necessary. Now, it was the usage of the house, when the Bishop had any one to supper, to lay out the whole six sets of silver on the tableclothan innocent ostentation. This graceful semblance of luxury was a kind of child's play, which was full of charm in that gentle and severe household, which raised poverty into dignity. Madame Magloire understood the remark, went out without saying a word, and a moment later the three sets of silver forks and spoons demanded by the Bishop were glittering upon the cloth, symmetrically arranged before the three persons seated at the table. Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle Baptistine's letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the conversation between the convict and the Bishop is described with ingenious minuteness. '. . . This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the voracity of a starving man. However, after supper he said ''Monsieur le Cur of the good God, all this is far too good for me but I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep a better table than you do.' 'Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me. My brother replied ''They are more fatigued than I.' ''No,' returned the man, 'they have more money. You are poor I see that plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a cur? Ah, if the good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a cur!' ''The good God is more than just,' said my brother. 'A moment later he added ''Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?' ''With my road marked out for me.' 'I think that is what the man said. Then he went on ''I must be on my way by daybreak tomorrow. Travelling is hard. If the nights are cold, the days are hot.' ''You are going to a good country,' said my brother. 'During the Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in FrancheComt at first, and there I lived for some time by the toil of my hands. My will was good. I found plenty to occupy me. One has only to choose. There are paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch factories on a large scale, steel mills, copper works, twenty iron foundries at least, four of which, situated at Lods, at Chtillon, at Audincourt, and at Beure, are tolerably large.' 'I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the names which my brother mentioned. Then he interrupted himself and addressed me ''Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister?' 'I replied, ''We did have some among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the gates at Pontarlier under the old rgime.' ''Yes,' resumed my brother 'but in ', one had no longer any relatives, one had only one's arms. I worked. They have, in the country of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a truly patriarchal and truly charming industry, my sister. It is their cheesedairies, which they call fruitires.' 'Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with great minuteness, what these fruitires of Pontarlier were that they were divided into two classes the big barns which belong to the rich, and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitires, which belong to the poor these are the peasants of midmountain, who hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds. 'They engage the services of a cheesemaker, whom they call the grurin the grurin receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the quantity on a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the work of the cheesedairies begins it is towards the middle of June that the cheesemakers drive their cows to the mountains.' 'The man recovered his animation as he ate. My brother made him drink that good Mauves wine, which he does not drink himself, because he says that wine is expensive. My brother imparted all these details with that easy gayety of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his words with graceful attentions to me. He recurred frequently to that comfortable trade of grurin, as though he wished the man to understand, without advising him directly and harshly, that this would afford him a refuge. One thing struck me. This man was what I have told you. Well, neither during supper, nor during the entire evening, did my brother utter a single word, with the exception of a few words about Jesus when he entered, which could remind the man of what he was, nor of what my brother was. To all appearances, it was an occasion for preaching him a little sermon, and of impressing the Bishop on the convict, so that a mark of the passage might remain behind. This might have appeared to any one else who had this, unfortunate man in his hands to afford a chance to nourish his soul as well as his body, and to bestow upon him some reproach, seasoned with moralizing and advice, or a little commiseration, with an exhortation to conduct himself better in the future. My brother did not even ask him from what country he came, nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault, and my brother seemed to avoid everything which could remind him of it. To such a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my brother was speaking of the mountaineers of Pontarlier, who exercise a gentle labor near heaven, and who, he added, are happy because they are innocent, he stopped short, fearing lest in this remark there might have escaped him something which might wound the man. By dint of reflection, I think I have comprehended what was passing in my brother's heart. He was thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name is Jean Valjean, had his misfortune only too vividly present in his mind that the best thing was to divert him from it, and to make him believe, if only momentarily, that he was a person like any other, by treating him just in his ordinary way. Is not this indeed, to understand charity well? Is there not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in this delicacy which abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the truest pity, when a man has a sore point, not to touch it at all? It has seemed to me that this might have been my brother's private thought. In any case, what I can say is that, if he entertained all these ideas, he gave no sign of them from beginning to end, even to me he was the same as he is every evening, and he supped with this Jean Valjean with the same air and in the same manner in which he would have supped with M. Gdon le Prvost, or with the curate of the parish. 'Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there came a knock at the door. It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud. The man was not paying much heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother said grace then he turned to the man and said to him, 'You must be in great need of your bed.' Madame Magloire cleared the table very promptly. I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this traveller to go to sleep, and we both went upstairs. Nevertheless, I sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man's bed a goat skin from the Black Forest, which was in my room. The nights are frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin is old all the hair is falling out. My brother bought it while he was in Germany, at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the little ivoryhandled knife which I use at table. 'Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the drawingroom, where we hang up the linen, and then we each retired to our own chambers, without saying a word to each other. After bidding his sister good night, Monseigneur Bienvenu took one of the two silver candlesticks from the table, handed the other to his guest, and said to him, 'Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room. The man followed him. As might have been observed from what has been said above, the house was so arranged that in order to pass into the oratory where the alcove was situated, or to get out of it, it was necessary to traverse the Bishop's bedroom. At the moment when he was crossing this apartment, Madame Magloire was putting away the silverware in the cupboard near the head of the bed. This was her last care every evening before she went to bed. The Bishop installed his guest in the alcove. A fresh white bed had been prepared there. The man set the candle down on a small table. 'Well, said the Bishop, 'may you pass a good night. Tomorrow morning, before you set out, you shall drink a cup of warm milk from our cows. 'Thanks, Monsieur l'Abb, said the man. Hardly had he pronounced these words full of peace, when all of a sudden, and without transition, he made a strange movement, which would have frozen the two sainted women with horror, had they witnessed it. Even at this day it is difficult for us to explain what inspired him at that moment. Did he intend to convey a warning or to throw out a menace? Was he simply obeying a sort of instinctive impulse which was obscure even to himself? He turned abruptly to the old man, folded his arms, and bending upon his host a savage gaze, he exclaimed in a hoarse voice 'Ah! really! You lodge me in your house, close to yourself like this? He broke off, and added with a laugh in which there lurked something monstrous 'Have you really reflected well? How do you know that I have not been an assassin? The Bishop replied 'That is the concern of the good God. Then gravely, and moving his lips like one who is praying or talking to himself, he raised two fingers of his right hand and bestowed his benediction on the man, who did not bow, and without turning his head or looking behind him, he returned to his bedroom. When the alcove was in use, a large serge curtain drawn from wall to wall concealed the altar. The Bishop knelt before this curtain as he passed and said a brief prayer. A moment later he was in his garden, walking, meditating, contemplating, his heart and soul wholly absorbed in those grand and mysterious things which God shows at night to the eyes which remain open. As for the man, he was actually so fatigued that he did not even profit by the nice white sheets. Snuffing out his candle with his nostrils after the manner of convicts, he dropped, all dressed as he was, upon the bed, where he immediately fell into a profound sleep. Midnight struck as the Bishop returned from his garden to his apartment. A few minutes later all were asleep in the little house. Towards the middle of the night Jean Valjean woke. Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie. He had not learned to read in his childhood. When he reached man's estate, he became a treepruner at Faverolles. His mother was named Jeanne Mathieu his father was called Jean Valjean or Vlajean, probably a sobriquet, and a contraction of voil Jean, 'here's Jean. Jean Valjean was of that thoughtful but not gloomy disposition which constitutes the peculiarity of affectionate natures. On the whole, however, there was something decidedly sluggish and insignificant about Jean Valjean in appearance, at least. He had lost his father and mother at a very early age. His mother had died of a milk fever, which had not been properly attended to. His father, a treepruner, like himself, had been killed by a fall from a tree. All that remained to Jean Valjean was a sister older than himself,a widow with seven children, boys and girls. This sister had brought up Jean Valjean, and so long as she had a husband she lodged and fed her young brother. The husband died. The eldest of the seven children was eight years old. The youngest, one. Jean Valjean had just attained his twentyfifth year. He took the father's place, and, in his turn, supported the sister who had brought him up. This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly on the part of Jean Valjean. Thus his youth had been spent in rude and illpaid toil. He had never known a 'kind woman friend in his native parts. He had not had the time to fall in love. He returned at night weary, and ate his broth without uttering a word. His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from his bowl while he was eating,a bit of meat, a slice of bacon, the heart of the cabbage,to give to one of her children. As he went on eating, with his head bent over the table and almost into his soup, his long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his eyes, he had the air of perceiving nothing and allowing it. There was at Faverolles, not far from the Valjean thatched cottage, on the other side of the lane, a farmer's wife named MarieClaude the Valjean children, habitually famished, sometimes went to borrow from MarieClaude a pint of milk, in their mother's name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little girls spilled it on their aprons and down their necks. If their mother had known of this marauding, she would have punished the delinquents severely. Jean Valjean gruffly and grumblingly paid MarieClaude for the pint of milk behind their mother's back, and the children were not punished. In pruning season he earned eighteen sous a day then he hired out as a haymaker, as laborer, as neatherd on a farm, as a drudge. He did whatever he could. His sister worked also but what could she do with seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was being gradually annihilated. A very hard winter came. Jean had no work. The family had no bread. No bread literally. Seven children! One Sunday evening, Maubert Isabeau, the baker on the Church Square at Faverolles, was preparing to go to bed, when he heard a violent blow on the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed through a hole made by a blow from a fist, through the grating and the glass. The arm seized a loaf of bread and carried it off. Isabeau ran out in haste the robber fled at the full speed of his legs. Isabeau ran after him and stopped him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but his arm was still bleeding. It was Jean Valjean. This took place in . Jean Valjean was taken before the tribunals of the time for theft and breaking and entering an inhabited house at night. He had a gun which he used better than any one else in the world, he was a bit of a poacher, and this injured his case. There exists a legitimate prejudice against poachers. The poacher, like the smuggler, smacks too strongly of the brigand. Nevertheless, we will remark cursorily, there is still an abyss between these races of men and the hideous assassin of the towns. The poacher lives in the forest, the smuggler lives in the mountains or on the sea. The cities make ferocious men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, make savage men they develop the fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side. Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty. The terms of the Code were explicit. There occur formidable hours in our civilization there are moments when the penal laws decree a shipwreck. What an ominous minute is that in which society draws back and consummates the irreparable abandonment of a sentient being! Jean Valjean was condemned to five years in the galleys. On the d of April, , the victory of Montenotte, won by the generalinchief of the army of Italy, whom the message of the Directory to the Five Hundred, of the d of Floral, year IV., calls BuonaParte, was announced in Paris on that same day a great gang of galleyslaves was put in chains at Bictre. Jean Valjean formed a part of that gang. An old turnkey of the prison, who is now nearly eighty years old, still recalls perfectly that unfortunate wretch who was chained to the end of the fourth line, in the north angle of the courtyard. He was seated on the ground like the others. He did not seem to comprehend his position, except that it was horrible. It is probable that he, also, was disentangling from amid the vague ideas of a poor man, ignorant of everything, something excessive. While the bolt of his iron collar was being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, his tears stifled him, they impeded his speech he only managed to say from time to time, 'I was a treepruner at Faverolles. Then still sobbing, he raised his right hand and lowered it gradually seven times, as though he were touching in succession seven heads of unequal heights, and from this gesture it was divined that the thing which he had done, whatever it was, he had done for the sake of clothing and nourishing seven little children. He set out for Toulon. He arrived there, after a journey of twentyseven days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he was clothed in the red cassock. All that had constituted his life, even to his name, was effaced he was no longer even Jean Valjean he was number ,. What became of his sister? What became of the seven children? Who troubled himself about that? What becomes of the handful of leaves from the young tree which is sawed off at the root? It is always the same story. These poor living beings, these creatures of God, henceforth without support, without guide, without refuge, wandered away at random,who even knows?each in his own direction perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which engulfs solitary destinies gloomy shades, into which disappear in succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race. They quitted the country. The clocktower of what had been their village forgot them the boundary line of what had been their field forgot them after a few years' residence in the galleys, Jean Valjean himself forgot them. In that heart, where there had been a wound, there was a scar. That is all. Only once, during all the time which he spent at Toulon, did he hear his sister mentioned. This happened, I think, towards the end of the fourth year of his captivity. I know not through what channels the news reached him. Some one who had known them in their own country had seen his sister. She was in Paris. She lived in a poor street near SaintSulpice, in the Rue du Gindre. She had with her only one child, a little boy, the youngest. Where were the other six? Perhaps she did not know herself. Every morning she went to a printing office, No.  Rue du Sabot, where she was a folder and stitcher. She was obliged to be there at six o'clock in the morninglong before daylight in winter. In the same building with the printing office there was a school, and to this school she took her little boy, who was seven years old. But as she entered the printing office at six, and the school only opened at seven, the child had to wait in the courtyard, for the school to open, for an hourone hour of a winter night in the open air! They would not allow the child to come into the printing office, because he was in the way, they said. When the workmen passed in the morning, they beheld this poor little being seated on the pavement, overcome with drowsiness, and often fast asleep in the shadow, crouched down and doubled up over his basket. When it rained, an old woman, the portress, took pity on him she took him into her den, where there was a pallet, a spinningwheel, and two wooden chairs, and the little one slumbered in a corner, pressing himself close to the cat that he might suffer less from cold. At seven o'clock the school opened, and he entered. That is what was told to Jean Valjean. They talked to him about it for one day it was a moment, a flash, as though a window had suddenly been opened upon the destiny of those things whom he had loved then all closed again. He heard nothing more forever. Nothing from them ever reached him again he never beheld them he never met them again and in the continuation of this mournful history they will not be met with any more. Towards the end of this fourth year Jean Valjean's turn to escape arrived. His comrades assisted him, as is the custom in that sad place. He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the head every instant, to quake at the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,of a smoking roof, of a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking clock, of the day because one can see, of the night because one cannot see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush, of sleep. On the evening of the second day he was captured. He had neither eaten nor slept for thirtysix hours. The maritime tribunal condemned him, for this crime, to a prolongation of his term for three years, which made eight years. In the sixth year his turn to escape occurred again he availed himself of it, but could not accomplish his flight fully. He was missing at rollcall. The cannon were fired, and at night the patrol found him hidden under the keel of a vessel in process of construction he resisted the galley guards who seized him. Escape and rebellion. This case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition of five years, two of them in the double chain. Thirteen years. In the tenth year his turn came round again he again profited by it he succeeded no better. Three years for this fresh attempt. Sixteen years. Finally, I think it was during his thirteenth year, he made a last attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of four hours of absence. Three years for those four hours. Nineteen years. In October, , he was released he had entered there in , for having broken a pane of glass and taken a loaf of bread. Room for a brief parenthesis. This is the second time, during his studies on the penal question and damnation by law, that the author of this book has come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the point of departure for the disaster of a destiny. Claude Gaux had stolen a loaf Jean Valjean had stolen a loaf. English statistics prove the fact that four thefts out of five in London have hunger for their immediate cause. Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering he emerged impassive. He had entered in despair he emerged gloomy. What had taken place in that soul? Let us try to say it. It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is itself which creates them. He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The light of nature was ignited in him. Unhappiness, which also possesses a clearness of vision of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight which existed in this mind. Beneath the cudgel, beneath the chain, in the cell, in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the galleys, upon the plank bed of the convict, he withdrew into his own consciousness and meditated. He constituted himself the tribunal. He began by putting himself on trial. He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly punished. He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy act that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to him had he asked for it that, in any case, it would have been better to wait until he could get it through compassion or through work that it is not an unanswerable argument to say, 'Can one wait when one is hungry? That, in the first place, it is very rare for any one to die of hunger, literally and next, that, fortunately or unfortunately, man is so constituted that he can suffer long and much, both morally and physically, without dying that it is therefore necessary to have patience that that would even have been better for those poor little children that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable, unfortunate wretch, to take society at large violently by the collar, and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft that that is in any case a poor door through which to escape from misery through which infamy enters in short, that he was in the wrong. Then he asked himself Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he, an industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault once committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious and disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse on the part of the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part of the culprit in respect to his fault. Whether there had not been an excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which contains expiation. Whether the overweight of the penalty was not equivalent to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in reversing the situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor into the creditor, and of ranging the law definitely on the side of the man who had violated it. Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a crime which had lasted nineteen years. He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force its members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight and to seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of work and an excess of punishment. Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration. These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it. He condemned it to his hatred. He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done to him he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous. Anger may be both foolish and absurd one can be irritated wrongfully one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one's side at bottom. Jean Valjean felt himself exasperated. And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm he had never seen anything of it save that angry face which it calls Justice, and which it shows to those whom it strikes. Men had only touched him to bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since his infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a war and that in this war he was the conquered. He had no other weapon than his hate. He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away with him when he departed. There was at Toulon a school for the convicts, kept by the Ignorantin friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the unfortunate men who had a mind for them. He was of the number who had a mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, to write, to cipher. He felt that to fortify his intelligence was to fortify his hate. In certain cases, education and enlightenment can serve to eke out evil. This is a sad thing to say after having judged society, which had caused his unhappiness, he judged Providence, which had made society, and he condemned it also. Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and at the same time fell. Light entered it on one side, and darkness on the other. Jean Valjean had not, as we have seen, an evil nature. He was still good when he arrived at the galleys. He there condemned society, and felt that he was becoming wicked he there condemned Providence, and was conscious that he was becoming impious. It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point. Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom? Can the man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil? Can the heart become misshapen and contract incurable deformities and infirmities under the oppression of a disproportionate unhappiness, as the vertebral column beneath too low a vault? Is there not in every human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish? Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean Valjean hours of reverie, this gloomy galleyslave, seated with folded arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust into his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and thoughtful, a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath, condemned by civilization, and regarding heaven with severity. Certainly,and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,the observing physiologist would have beheld an irremediable misery he would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law's making but he would not have even essayed any treatment he would have turned aside his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have effaced from this existence the word which the finger of God has, nevertheless, inscribed upon the brow of every man,hope. Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for those who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed within him, and of all that was working there? That is something which we do not presume to state it is something which we do not even believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in the shadows he suffered in the shadows he hated in the shadows one might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt habitually in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer. Only, at intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without and from within, an access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny. The flash passed, the night closed in again and where was he? He no longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which that which is pitilessthat is to say, that which is brutalizingpredominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast sometimes into a ferocious beast. Jean Valjean's successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul. Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, 'Flee! Reason would have said, 'Remain! But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason vanished nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted. When he was recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on him only served to render him still more wild. One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical strength which was not approached by a single one of the denizens of the galleys. At work, at paying out a cable or winding up a capstan, Jean Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous weights on his back and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced that implement which is called a jackscrew, and was formerly called orgueil pride, whence, we may remark in passing, is derived the name of the Rue Montorgueil, near the Halles Fishmarket in Paris. His comrades had nicknamed him Jean the Jackscrew. Once, when they were repairing the balcony of the townhall at Toulon, one of those admirable caryatids of Puget, which support the balcony, became loosened, and was on the point of falling. Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the caryatid with his shoulder, and gave the workmen time to arrive. His suppleness even exceeded his strength. Certain convicts who were forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of force and skill combined. It is the science of muscles. An entire system of mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who are forever envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find points of support where hardly a projection was visible, was play to Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given, with the tension of his back and legs, with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness of the stone, he raised himself as if by magic to the third story. He sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison. He spoke but little. He laughed not at all. An excessive emotion was required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of something terrible. He was absorbed, in fact. Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was resting on him. In that obscure and wan shadow within which he crawled, each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, he perceived with terror, mingled with rage, a sort of frightful accumulation of things, collecting and mounting above him, beyond the range of his vision,laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,whose outlines escaped him, whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than that prodigious pyramid which we call civilization. He distinguished, here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now afar off and on inaccessible tablelands, some group, some detail, vividly illuminated here the galleysergeant and his cudgel there the gendarme and his sword yonder the mitred archbishop away at the top, like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him that these distant splendors, far from dissipating his night, rendered it more funereal and more black. All thislaws, prejudices, deeds, men, thingswent and came above him, over his head, in accordance with the complicated and mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization, walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness in its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference. Souls which have fallen to the bottom of all possible misfortune, unhappy men lost in the lowest of those limbos at which no one any longer looks, the reproved of the law, feel the whole weight of this human society, so formidable for him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon their heads. In this situation Jean Valjean meditated and what could be the nature of his meditation? If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would, doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought. All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of realities, had eventually created for him a sort of interior state which is almost indescribable. At times, amid his convict toil, he paused. He fell to thinking. His reason, at one and the same time riper and more troubled than of yore, rose in revolt. Everything which had happened to him seemed to him absurd everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said to himself, 'It is a dream. He gazed at the galleysergeant standing a few paces from him the galleysergeant seemed a phantom to him. All of a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel. Visible nature hardly existed for him. It would almost be true to say that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what venthole daylight habitually illumined his soul. To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will confine ourselves to the statement that, in the course of nineteen years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive treepruner of Faverolles, the formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner in which the galleys had moulded him, of two sorts of evil action firstly, of evil action which was rapid, unpremeditated, dashing, entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which he had undergone secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave, consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through three successive phases, which natures of a certain stamp can alone traverse,reasoning, will, perseverance. He had for moving causes his habitual wrath, bitterness of soul, a profound sense of indignities suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law that hatred which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was not without reason that Jean Valjean's passport described him as a very dangerous man. From year to year this soul had dried away slowly, but with fatal sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is dry. On his departure from the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear. A man overboard! What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on. The man disappears, then reappears he plunges, he rises again to the surface he calls, he stretches out his arms he is not heard. The vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own workings the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre is that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It retreats, it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just now, he was one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has taken place? He has slipped, he has fallen all is at an end. He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what flees and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him hideously the tossings of the abyss bear him away all the tongues of water dash over his head a populace of waves spits upon him confused openings half devour him every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses of precipices filled with night frightful and unknown vegetations seize him, knot about his feet, draw him to them he is conscious that he is becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam the waves toss him from one to another he drinks in the bitterness the cowardly ocean attacks him furiously, to drown him the enormity plays with his agony. It seems as though all that water were hate. Nevertheless, he struggles. He tries to defend himself he tries to sustain himself he makes an effort he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, combats the inexhaustible. Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of the horizon. The wind blows in gusts all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his eyes and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid his deathpangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this madness he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region beyond. There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human distresses but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, and he, he rattles in the death agony. He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time the one is a tomb the other is a shroud. Night descends he has been swimming for hours his strength is exhausted that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has vanished he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf he sinks, he stiffens himself, he twists himself he feels under him the monstrous billows of the invisible he shouts. There are no more men. Where is God? He shouts. Help! Help! He still shouts on. Nothing on the horizon nothing in heaven. He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef they are deaf. He beseeches the tempest the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite. Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult, the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively they close, and grasp nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is to be done? The desperate man gives up he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death he resists not he lets himself go he abandons his grip and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths of engulfment. Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death! The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness. The soul, going downstream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it? When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, Thou art free! the moment seemed improbable and unprecedented a ray of vivid light, a ray of the true light of the living, suddenly penetrated within him. But it was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by the idea of liberty. He had believed in a new life. He very speedily perceived what sort of liberty it is to which a yellow passport is provided. And this was encompassed with much bitterness. He had calculated that his earnings, during his sojourn in the galleys, ought to amount to a hundred and seventyone francs. It is but just to add that he had forgotten to include in his calculations the forced repose of Sundays and festival days during nineteen years, which entailed a diminution of about eighty francs. At all events, his hoard had been reduced by various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, which had been counted out to him on his departure. He had understood nothing of this, and had thought himself wronged. Let us say the wordrobbed. On the day following his liberation, he saw, at Grasse, in front of an orangeflower distillery, some men engaged in unloading bales. He offered his services. Business was pressing they were accepted. He set to work. He was intelligent, robust, adroit he did his best the master seemed pleased. While he was at work, a gendarme passed, observed him, and demanded his papers. It was necessary to show him the yellow passport. That done, Jean Valjean resumed his labor. A little while before he had questioned one of the workmen as to the amount which they earned each day at this occupation he had been told thirty sous. When evening arrived, as he was forced to set out again on the following day, he presented himself to the owner of the distillery and requested to be paid. The owner did not utter a word, but handed him fifteen sous. He objected. He was told, 'That is enough for thee. He persisted. The master looked him straight between the eyes, and said to him 'Beware of the prison. There, again, he considered that he had been robbed. Society, the State, by diminishing his hoard, had robbed him wholesale. Now it was the individual who was robbing him at retail. Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not from the sentence. That is what happened to him at Grasse. We have seen in what manner he was received at D As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke. What woke him was that his bed was too good. It was nearly twenty years since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the sensation was too novel not to disturb his slumbers. He had slept more than four hours. His fatigue had passed away. He was accustomed not to devote many hours to repose. He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded him then he closed them again, with the intention of going to sleep once more. When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. Sleep comes more easily than it returns. This is what happened to Jean Valjean. He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking. He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one's mind are troubled. There was a sort of dark confusion in his brain. His memories of the olden time and of the immediate present floated there pellmell and mingled confusedly, losing their proper forms, becoming disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and perturbed pool. Many thoughts occurred to him but there was one which kept constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all others. We will mention this thought at once he had observed the six sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle which Madame Magloire had placed on the table. Those six sets of silver haunted him.They were there.A few paces distant.Just as he was traversing the adjoining room to reach the one in which he then was, the old servantwoman had been in the act of placing them in a little cupboard near the head of the bed.He had taken careful note of this cupboard.On the right, as you entered from the diningroom.They were solid.And old silver.From the ladle one could get at least two hundred francs.Double what he had earned in nineteen years.It is true that he would have earned more if 'the administration had not robbed him. His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was certainly mingled some struggle. Three o'clock struck. He opened his eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a corner of the alcove then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed, and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost without knowing it, seated on his bed. He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which would have been suggestive of something sinister for any one who had seen him thus in the dark, the only person awake in that house where all were sleeping. All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed them softly on the mat beside the bed then he resumed his thoughtful attitude, and became motionless once more. Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we have above indicated moved incessantly through his brain entered, withdrew, reentered, and in a manner oppressed him and then he thought, also, without knowing why, and with the mechanical persistence of reverie, of a convict named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose trousers had been upheld by a single suspender of knitted cotton. The checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind. He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely, even until daybreak, had not the clock struck onethe half or quarter hour. It seemed to him that that stroke said to him, 'Come on! He rose to his feet, hesitated still another moment, and listened all was quiet in the house then he walked straight ahead, with short steps, to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not very dark there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by the wind. This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams of light, eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds and indoors a sort of twilight. This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see his way, intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of livid light which falls through an airhole in a cellar, before which the passersby come and go. On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it. It had no grating it opened in the garden and was fastened, according to the fashion of the country, only by a small pin. He opened it but as a rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the room abruptly, he closed it again immediately. He scrutinized the garden with that attentive gaze which studies rather than looks. The garden was enclosed by a tolerably low white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived tops of trees, spaced at regular intervals, which indicated that the wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with trees. Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on the bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole thing up again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and placed it in the angle of the window then returned to the bed, and resolutely seized the object which he had deposited there. It resembled a short bar of iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been difficult to distinguish in that darkness for what employment that bit of iron could have been designed. Perhaps it was a lever possibly it was a club. In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing more than a miner's candlestick. Convicts were, at that period, sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which environ Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners' tools at their command. These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated at the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are stuck into the rock. He took the candlestick in his right hand holding his breath and trying to deaden the sound of his tread, he directed his steps to the door of the adjoining room, occupied by the Bishop, as we already know. On arriving at this door, he found it ajar. The Bishop had not closed it. Jean Valjean listened. Not a sound. He gave the door a push. He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering. The door yielded to this pressure, and made an imperceptible and silent movement, which enlarged the opening a little. He waited a moment then gave the door a second and a bolder push. It continued to yield in silence. The opening was now large enough to allow him to pass. But near the door there stood a little table, which formed an embarrassing angle with it, and barred the entrance. Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, to enlarge the aperture still further. He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push, more energetic than the two preceding. This time a badly oiled hinge suddenly emitted amid the silence a hoarse and prolonged cry. Jean Valjean shuddered. The noise of the hinge rang in his ears with something of the piercing and formidable sound of the trump of the Day of Judgment. In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined that that hinge had just become animated, and had suddenly assumed a terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one, and warn and to wake those who were asleep. He halted, shuddering, bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers, and it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar of the wind issuing from a cavern. It seemed impossible to him that the horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the entire household, like the shock of an earthquake the door, pushed by him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted the old man would rise at once the two old women would shriek out people would come to their assistance in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself lost. He remained where he was, petrified like the statue of salt, not daring to make a movement. Several minutes elapsed. The door had fallen wide open. He ventured to peep into the next room. Nothing had stirred there. He lent an ear. Nothing was moving in the house. The noise made by the rusty hinge had not awakened any one. This first danger was past but there still reigned a frightful tumult within him. Nevertheless, he did not retreat. Even when he had thought himself lost, he had not drawn back. His only thought now was to finish as soon as possible. He took a step and entered the room. This room was in a state of perfect calm. Here and there vague and confused forms were distinguishable, which in the daylight were papers scattered on a table, open folios, volumes piled upon a stool, an armchair heaped with clothing, a prieDieu, and which at that hour were only shadowy corners and whitish spots. Jean Valjean advanced with precaution, taking care not to knock against the furniture. He could hear, at the extremity of the room, the even and tranquil breathing of the sleeping Bishop. He suddenly came to a halt. He was near the bed. He had arrived there sooner than he had thought for. Nature sometimes mingles her effects and her spectacles with our actions with sombre and intelligent appropriateness, as though she desired to make us reflect. For the last halfhour a large cloud had covered the heavens. At the moment when Jean Valjean paused in front of the bed, this cloud parted, as though on purpose, and a ray of light, traversing the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop's pale face. He was sleeping peacefully. He lay in his bed almost completely dressed, on account of the cold of the BassesAlps, in a garment of brown wool, which covered his arms to the wrists. His head was thrown back on the pillow, in the careless attitude of repose his hand, adorned with the pastoral ring, and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many holy actions, was hanging over the edge of the bed. His whole face was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction, of hope, and of felicity. It was more than a smile, and almost a radiance. He bore upon his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible. The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven. A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop. It was, at the same time, a luminous transparency, for that heaven was within him. That heaven was his conscience. At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak, upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable halflight. That moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver, that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man, and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant. There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, without being himself aware of it. Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had he beheld anything like this. This confidence terrified him. The moral world has no grander spectacle than this a troubled and uneasy conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action, contemplating the slumber of the just. That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously conscious. No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself. In order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of the most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle. Even on his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and that was all. But what was his thought? It would have been impossible to divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded. But what was the nature of this emotion? His eye never quitted the old man. The only thing which was clearly to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses,the one in which one loses one's self and that in which one saves one's self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that hand. At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards his brow, and he took off his cap then his arm fell back with the same deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over his savage head. The Bishop continued to sleep in profound peace beneath that terrifying gaze. The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the chimneypiece, which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them, with a benediction for one and pardon for the other. Suddenly Jean Valjean replaced his cap on his brow then stepped rapidly past the bed, without glancing at the Bishop, straight to the cupboard, which he saw near the head he raised his iron candlestick as though to force the lock the key was there he opened it the first thing which presented itself to him was the basket of silverware he seized it, traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any precautions and without troubling himself about the noise, gained the door, reentered the oratory, opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode the windowsill of the ground floor, put the silver into his knapsack, threw away the basket, crossed the garden, leaped over the wall like a tiger, and fled. The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu was strolling in his garden. Madame Magloire ran up to him in utter consternation. 'Monseigneur, Monseigneur! she exclaimed, 'does your Grace know where the basket of silver is? 'Yes, replied the Bishop. 'Jesus the Lord be blessed! she resumed 'I did not know what had become of it. The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flowerbed. He presented it to Madame Magloire. 'Here it is. 'Well! said she. 'Nothing in it! And the silver? 'Ah, returned the Bishop, 'so it is the silver which troubles you? I don't know where it is. 'Great, good God! It is stolen! That man who was here last night has stolen it. In a twinkling, with all the vivacity of an alert old woman, Madame Magloire had rushed to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned to the Bishop. The Bishop had just bent down, and was sighing as he examined a plant of cochlearia des Guillons, which the basket had broken as it fell across the bed. He rose up at Madame Magloire's cry. 'Monseigneur, the man is gone! The silver has been stolen! As she uttered this exclamation, her eyes fell upon a corner of the garden, where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible. The coping of the wall had been torn away. 'Stay! yonder is the way he went. He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane. Ah, the abomination! He has stolen our silver! The Bishop remained silent for a moment then he raised his grave eyes, and said gently to Madame Magloire 'And, in the first place, was that silver ours? Madame Magloire was speechless. Another silence ensued then the Bishop went on 'Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, evidently. 'Alas! Jesus! returned Madame Magloire. 'It is not for my sake, nor for Mademoiselle's. It makes no difference to us. But it is for the sake of Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now? The Bishop gazed at her with an air of amazement. 'Ah, come! Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons? Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders. 'Pewter has an odor. 'Iron forks and spoons, then. Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace. 'Iron has a taste. 'Very well, said the Bishop 'wooden ones then. A few moments later he was breakfasting at the very table at which Jean Valjean had sat on the previous evening. As he ate his breakfast, Monseigneur Welcome remarked gayly to his sister, who said nothing, and to Madame Magloire, who was grumbling under her breath, that one really does not need either fork or spoon, even of wood, in order to dip a bit of bread in a cup of milk. 'A pretty idea, truly, said Madame Magloire to herself, as she went and came, 'to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one's self! And how fortunate that he did nothing but steal! Ah, mon Dieu! it makes one shudder to think of it! As the brother and sister were about to rise from the table, there came a knock at the door. 'Come in, said the Bishop. The door opened. A singular and violent group made its appearance on the threshold. Three men were holding a fourth man by the collar. The three men were gendarmes the other was Jean Valjean. A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was standing near the door. He entered and advanced to the Bishop, making a military salute. 'Monseigneur said he. At this word, Jean Valjean, who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed, raised his head with an air of stupefaction. 'Monseigneur! he murmured. 'So he is not the cur? 'Silence! said the gendarme. 'He is Monseigneur the Bishop. In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his great age permitted. 'Ah! here you are! he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. 'I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons? Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of. 'Monseigneur, said the brigadier of gendarmes, 'so what this man said is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this silver 'And he told you, interposed the Bishop with a smile, 'that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back here? It is a mistake. 'In that case, replied the brigadier, 'we can let him go? 'Certainly, replied the Bishop. The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled. 'Is it true that I am to be released? he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep. 'Yes, thou art released dost thou not understand? said one of the gendarmes. 'My friend, resumed the Bishop, 'before you go, here are your candlesticks. Take them. He stepped to the chimneypiece, took the two silver candlesticks, and brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the Bishop. Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks mechanically, and with a bewildered air. 'Now, said the Bishop, 'go in peace. By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night. Then, turning to the gendarmes 'You may retire, gentlemen. The gendarmes retired. Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting. The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice 'Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man. Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity 'Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God. Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set out at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was incessantly retracing his steps. He wandered thus the whole morning, without having eaten anything and without feeling hungry. He was the prey of a throng of novel sensations. He was conscious of a sort of rage he did not know against whom it was directed. He could not have told whether he was touched or humiliated. There came over him at moments a strange emotion which he resisted and to which he opposed the hardness acquired during the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within him. He asked himself what would replace this. At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way it would have agitated him less. Although the season was tolerably far advanced, there were still a few late flowers in the hedgerows here and there, whose odor as he passed through them in his march recalled to him memories of his childhood. These memories were almost intolerable to him, it was so long since they had recurred to him. Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long. As the sun declined to its setting, casting long shadows athwart the soil from every pebble, Jean Valjean sat down behind a bush upon a large ruddy plain, which was absolutely deserted. There was nothing on the horizon except the Alps. Not even the spire of a distant village. Jean Valjean might have been three leagues distant from D A path which intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush. In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not a little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have encountered him, a joyous sound became audible. He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age, coming up the path and singing, his hurdygurdy on his hip, and his marmotbox on his back. One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land affording a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers. Without stopping his song, the lad halted in his march from time to time, and played at knucklebones with some coins which he had in his handhis whole fortune, probably. Among this money there was one fortysou piece. The child halted beside the bush, without perceiving Jean Valjean, and tossed up his handful of sous, which, up to that time, he had caught with a good deal of adroitness on the back of his hand. This time the fortysou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the brushwood until it reached Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean set his foot upon it. In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught sight of him. He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man. The spot was absolutely solitary. As far as the eye could see there was not a person on the plain or on the path. The only sound was the tiny, feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the heavens at an immense height. The child was standing with his back to the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its bloodred gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean. 'Sir, said the little Savoyard, with that childish confidence which is composed of ignorance and innocence, 'my money. 'What is your name? said Jean Valjean. 'Little Gervais, sir. 'Go away, said Jean Valjean. 'Sir, resumed the child, 'give me back my money. Jean Valjean dropped his head, and made no reply. The child began again, 'My money, sir. Jean Valjean's eyes remained fixed on the earth. 'My piece of money! cried the child, 'my white piece! my silver! It seemed as though Jean Valjean did not hear him. The child grasped him by the collar of his blouse and shook him. At the same time he made an effort to displace the big ironshod shoe which rested on his treasure. 'I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous! The child wept. Jean Valjean raised his head. He still remained seated. His eyes were troubled. He gazed at the child, in a sort of amazement, then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a terrible voice, 'Who's there? 'I, sir, replied the child. 'Little Gervais! I! Give me back my forty sous, if you please! Take your foot away, sir, if you please! Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing 'Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we'll see! 'Ah! It's still you! said Jean Valjean, and rising abruptly to his feet, his foot still resting on the silver piece, he added 'Will you take yourself off! The frightened child looked at him, then began to tremble from head to foot, and after a few moments of stupor he set out, running at the top of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry. Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own reverie. At the end of a few moments the child had disappeared. The sun had set. The shadows were descending around Jean Valjean. He had eaten nothing all day it is probable that he was feverish. He had remained standing and had not changed his attitude after the child's flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular intervals. His gaze, fixed ten or twelve paces in front of him, seemed to be scrutinizing with profound attention the shape of an ancient fragment of blue earthenware which had fallen in the grass. All at once he shivered he had just begun to feel the chill of evening. He settled his cap more firmly on his brow, sought mechanically to cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his cudgel. At that moment he caught sight of the fortysou piece, which his foot had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the pebbles. It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. 'What is this? he muttered between his teeth. He recoiled three paces, then halted, without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his foot had trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay glittering there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him. At the expiration of a few moments he darted convulsively towards the silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like a terrified wild animal which is seeking refuge. He saw nothing. Night was falling, the plain was cold and vague, great banks of violet haze were rising in the gleam of the twilight. He said, 'Ah! and set out rapidly in the direction in which the child had disappeared. After about thirty paces he paused, looked about him and saw nothing. Then he shouted with all his might 'Little Gervais! Little Gervais! He paused and waited. There was no reply. The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space. There was nothing around him but an obscurity in which his gaze was lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice. An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a sort of lugubrious life. The bushes shook their thin little arms with incredible fury. One would have said that they were threatening and pursuing some one. He set out on his march again, then he began to run and from time to time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice which was the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to hear, 'Little Gervais! Little Gervais! Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child was no doubt already far away. He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said 'Monsieur le Cur, have you seen a child pass? 'No, said the priest. 'One named Little Gervais? 'I have seen no one. He drew two fivefranc pieces from his moneybag and handed them to the priest. 'Monsieur le Cur, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Cur, he was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a hurdygurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know? 'I have not seen him. 'Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me? 'If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them. Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence, and gave them to the priest. 'For your poor, he said. Then he added, wildly 'Monsieur l'Abb, have me arrested. I am a thief. The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed. Jean Valjean set out on a run, in the direction which he had first taken. In this way he traversed a tolerably long distance, gazing, calling, shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain towards something which conveyed to him the effect of a human being reclining or crouching down it turned out to be nothing but brushwood or rocks nearly on a level with the earth. At length, at a spot where three paths intersected each other, he stopped. The moon had risen. He sent his gaze into the distance and shouted for the last time, 'Little Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais! His shout died away in the mist, without even awakening an echo. He murmured yet once more, 'Little Gervais! but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was his last effort his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible power had suddenly overwhelmed him with the weight of his evil conscience he fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, 'I am a wretch! Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that he had wept in nineteen years. When Jean Valjean left the Bishop's house, he was, as we have seen, quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man. 'You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. I take it away from the spirit of perversity I give it to the good God. This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be conquered and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man. In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is intoxicated. As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at D? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny that there no longer remained a middle course for him that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict that if he wished to become good he must become an angel that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put to ourselves elsewhere did he catch some shadow of all this in his thought, in a confused way? Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does form the education of the intelligence nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion. On emerging from that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue. That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him. In this state of mind he had encountered little Gervais, and had robbed him of his forty sous. Why? He certainly could not have explained it was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the evil thoughts which he had brought away from the galleys,a remnant of impulse, a result of what is called in statics, acquired force? It was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it simply, it was not he who stole it was not the man it was the beast, who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money, while the intelligence was struggling amid so many novel and hitherto unheardof thoughts besetting it. When intelligence reawakened and beheld that action of the brute, Jean Valjean recoiled with anguish and uttered a cry of terror. It was because,strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only in the situation in which he found himself,in stealing the money from that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable. However that may be, this last evil action had a decisive effect on him it abruptly traversed that chaos which he bore in his mind, and dispersed it, placed on one side the thick obscurity, and on the other the light, and acted on his soul, in the state in which it then was, as certain chemical reagents act upon a troubled mixture by precipitating one element and clarifying the other. First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the child in order to return his money to him then, when he recognized the fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when he exclaimed 'I am a wretch! he had just perceived what he was, and he was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galleyconvict, Jean Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, with his thoughts filled with abominable projects. Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort a visionary. This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him. His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm moments in which reverie is so profound that it absorbs reality. One no longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as though apart from one's self, the figures which one has in one's own mind. Thus he contemplated himself, so to speak, face to face, and at the same time, athwart this hallucination, he perceived in a mysterious depth a sort of light which he at first took for a torch. On scrutinizing this light which appeared to his conscience with more attention, he recognized the fact that it possessed a human form and that this torch was the Bishop. His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed before it,the Bishop and Jean Valjean. Nothing less than the first was required to soften the second. By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his reverie continued, as the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance. Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child. As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul an extraordinary light a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the more cowardly, and all the more monstrous since it had come after the Bishop's pardon,all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto witnessed. He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him his soul, and it seemed frightful to him. In the meantime a gentle light rested over this life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld Satan by the light of Paradise. How many hours did he weep thus? What did he do after he had wept? Whither did he go! No one ever knew. The only thing which seems to be authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble at that epoch, and who arrived at D about three o'clock in the morning, saw, as he traversed the street in which the Bishop's residence was situated, a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on the pavement in the shadow, in front of the door of Monseigneur Welcome.  is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twentysecond of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguire de Sorsum was celebrated. All the hairdressers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, were besmeared with azure and decked with fleursdelys. It was the candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as churchwarden in the churchwarden's pew of SaintGermaindesPrs, in his costume of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose and the majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a brilliant action. The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this being mayor of Bordeaux, on the th of March, , he had surrendered the city a little too promptly to M. the Duke d'Angoulme. Hence his peerage. In  fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six years of age in vast caps of morocco leather with eartabs resembling Esquimaux mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode of the Austrian the regiments were called legions instead of numbers they bore the names of departments Napoleon was at St. Helena and since England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats turned. In  Pelligrini sang Mademoiselle Bigottini danced Potier reigned Odry did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso. There were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the head, of Pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The Prince de Talleyrand, grand chamberlain, and the Abb Louis, appointed minister of finance, laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the two augurs both of them had celebrated, on the th of July, , the mass of federation in the Champ de Mars Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served it in the capacity of deacon. In , in the sidealleys of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted blue, with traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was falling. These were the columns which two years before had upheld the Emperor's platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and there with the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near GrosCaillou. Two or three of these columns had disappeared in these bivouac fires, and had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops. The Field of May had this remarkable point that it had been held in the month of June and in the Field of March (Mars). In this year, , two things were popular the VoltaireTouquet and the snuffbox  la Charter. The most recent Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's head into the fountain of the FlowerMarket. They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Gricault with glory. Colonel Selves was going to Egypt to become SolimanPasha. The palace of Thermes, in the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On the platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed of boards, which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval astronomer under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse de Duras read to three or four friends her unpublished Ourika, in her boudoir furnished by X. in skyblue satin. The N's were scratched off the Louvre. The bridge of Austerlitz had abdicated, and was entitled the bridge of the King's Garden du Jardin du Roi, a double enigma, which disguised the bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin des Plantes at one stroke. Louis XVIII., much preoccupied while annotating Horace with the corner of his fingernail, heroes who have become emperors, and makers of wooden shoes who have become dauphins, had two anxieties,Napoleon and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy had given for its prize subject, The Happiness procured through Study. M. Bellart was officially eloquent. In his shadow could be seen germinating that future advocategeneral of Bro, dedicated to the sarcasms of PaulLouis Courier. There was a false Chateaubriand, named Marchangy, in the interim, until there should be a false Marchangy, named d'Arlincourt. Claire d'Albe and MalekAdel were masterpieces Madame Cottin was proclaimed the chief writer of the epoch. The Institute had the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken from its list of members. A royal ordinance erected Angoulme into a naval school for the Duc d'Angoulme, being lord high admiral, it was evident that the city of Angoulme had all the qualities of a seaport otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In the Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes representing slackrope performances, which adorned Franconi's advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins, should be tolerated. M. Par, the author of Agnese, a good sort of fellow, with a square face and a wart on his cheek, directed the little private concerts of the Marquise de Sasenaye in the Rue Ville l'vque. All the young girls were singing the Hermit of SaintAvelle, with words by Edmond Graud. The Yellow Dwarf was transferred into Mirror. The Caf Lemblin stood up for the Emperor, against the Caf Valois, which upheld the Bourbons. The Duc de Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by Louvel, had just been married to a princess of Sicily. Madame de Stal had died a year previously. The bodyguard hissed Mademoiselle Mars. The grand newspapers were all very small. Their form was restricted, but their liberty was great. The Constitutionnel was constitutional. La Minerve called Chateaubriand Chateaubriant. That t made the good middleclass people laugh heartily at the expense of the great writer. In journals which sold themselves, prostituted journalists, insulted the exiles of . David had no longer any talent, Arnault had no longer any wit, Carnot was no longer honest, Soult had won no battles it is true that Napoleon had no longer any genius. No one is ignorant of the fact that letters sent to an exile by post very rarely reached him, as the police made it their religious duty to intercept them. This is no new fact Descartes complained of it in his exile. Now David, having, in a Belgian publication, shown some displeasure at not receiving letters which had been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as amusing and they derided the prescribed man well on this occasion. What separated two men more than an abyss was to say, the regicides, or to say the voters to say the enemies, or to say the allies to say Napoleon, or to say Buonaparte. All sensible people were agreed that the era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis XVIII., surnamed 'The Immortal Author of the Charter. On the platform of the PontNeuf, the word Redivivus was carved on the pedestal that awaited the statue of Henry IV. M. Piet, in the Rue Thrse, No. , was making the rough draft of his privy assembly to consolidate the monarchy. The leaders of the Right said at grave conjunctures, 'We must write to Bacot. MM. Canuel, O'Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were preparing the sketch, to some extent with Monsieur's approval, of what was to become later on 'The Conspiracy of the Bord de l'Eauof the waterside. L'pingle Noire was already plotting in his own quarter. Delaverderie was conferring with Trogoff. M. Decazes, who was liberal to a degree, reigned. Chateaubriand stood every morning at his window at No.  Rue SaintDominique, clad in footed trousers, and slippers, with a madras kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, a complete set of dentist's instruments spread out before him, cleaning his teeth, which were charming, while he dictated The Monarchy according to the Charter to M. Pilorge, his secretary. Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Fletez signed himself A. M. Hoffmann signed himself Z. Charles Nodier wrote Thrse Aubert. Divorce was abolished. Lyceums called themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated on the collar with a golden fleurdelys, fought each other apropos of the King of Rome. The counterpolice of the chteau had denounced to her Royal Highness Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d'Orlans, who made a better appearance in his uniform of a colonelgeneral of hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of colonelgeneral of dragoonsa serious inconvenience. The city of Paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or such an occasion M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points from M. Clausel de Coussergues M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. The comedian Picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Molire had not been able to do, had The Two Philiberts played at the Odon, upon whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF THE EMPRESS to be plainly read. People took part for or against Cugnet de Montarlot. Fabvier was factious Bavoux was revolutionary. The Liberal, Plicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy. 'That will attract purchasers, said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M. Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century envy was beginning to gnaw at hima sign of glory and this verse was composed on him 'Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws. As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie, administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of Dappes was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from Captain, afterwards General Dufour. SaintSimon, ignored, was erecting his sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of Science, whom posterity has forgotten and in some garret an obscure Fourier, whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in these terms a certain Lord Baron. David d'Angers was trying to work in marble. The Abb Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a private gathering of seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines, of an unknown priest, named FlicitRobert, who, at a latter date, became Lamennais. A thing which smoked and clattered on the Seine with the noise of a swimming dog went and came beneath the windows of the Tuileries, from the Pont Royal to the Pont Louis XV. it was a piece of mechanism which was not good for much a sort of plaything, the idle dream of a dreamridden inventor an utopiaa steamboat. The Parisians stared indifferently at this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the reformer of the Institute by a coup d'tat, the distinguished author of numerous academicians, ordinances, and batches of members, after having created them, could not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg SaintGermain and the pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for prefect of police, on account of his piety. Dupuytren and Rcamier entered into a quarrel in the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other with their fists on the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Cuvier, with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, tried to please bigoted reaction by reconciling fossils with texts and by making mastodons flatter Moses. M. Franois de Neufchteau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory of Parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have pomme de terre potato pronounced parmentire, and succeeded therein not at all. The Abb Grgoire, exbishop, exconventionary, exsenator, had passed, in the royalist polemics, to the state of 'Infamous Grgoire. The locution of which we have made usepassed to the state ofhas been condemned as a neologism by M. Royer Collard. Under the third arch of the Pont de Jna, the new stone with which, the two years previously, the mining aperture made by Blcher to blow up the bridge had been stopped up, was still recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice summoned to its bar a man who, on seeing the Comte d'Artois enter Notre Dame, had said aloud 'Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm. A seditious utterance. Six months in prison. Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned men who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of battle made no secret of their recompense, and strutted immodestly in the light of day, in the cynicism of riches and dignities deserters from Ligny and QuatreBras, in the brazenness of their wellpaid turpitude, exhibited their devotion to the monarchy in the most barefaced manner. This is what floats up confusedly, pellmell, for the year , and is now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot do otherwise the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless, these details, which are wrongly called trivial,there are no trivial facts in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,are useful. It is of the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is composed. In this year of  four young Parisians arranged 'a fine farce. These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban but they were students and when one says student, one says Parisian to study in Paris is to be born in Paris. These young men were insignificant every one has seen such faces four specimens of humanity taken at random neither good nor bad, neither wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools handsome, with that charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars for, at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. Burn for him the perfumes of Araby! exclaimed romance. Oscar advances. Oscar, I shall behold him! People had just emerged from Ossian elegance was Scandinavian and Caledonian the pure English style was only to prevail later, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the battle of Waterloo. These Oscars bore the names, one of Flix Tholomys, of Toulouse the second, Listolier, of Cahors the next, Fameuil, of Limoges the last, Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally, each of them had his mistress. Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a flower Fameuil idolized Zphine, an abridgment of Josphine Tholomys had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair. Favourite, Dahlia, Zphine, and Fantine were four ravishing young women, perfumed and radiant, still a little like workingwomen, and not yet entirely divorced from their needles somewhat disturbed by intrigues, but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity of toil, and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the first fall in woman. One of the four was called the young, because she was the youngest of them, and one was called the old the old one was twentythree. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of life than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions. Dahlia, Zphine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much. There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though hardly begun and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave in the third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors one scolds and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the people have both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side. These badly guarded souls listen. Hence the falls which they accomplish, and the stones which are thrown at them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jungfrau were hungry? Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zphine. She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on a fender he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident. The result had been Favourite. She met her father from time to time, and he bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of a devotee, had entered her apartments, and had said to her, 'You do not know me, Mamemoiselle? 'No. 'I am your mother. Then the old woman opened the sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned brought in, and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother never spoke to Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word, breakfasted, dined, and supped for four, and went down to the porter's quarters for company, where she spoke ill of her daughter. It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such nails work? She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her hands. As for Zphine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and caressing little way of saying 'Yes, sir. The young men were comrades the young girls were friends. Such loves are always accompanied by such friendships. Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things the proof of this is that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular households, Favourite, Zphine, and Dahlia were philosophical young women, while Fantine was a good girl. Good! some one will exclaim and Tholomys? Solomon would reply that love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love. She alone, of all the four, was not called 'thou by a single one of them. Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can say? She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed. She had no family name she had no family no baptismal name the Church no longer existed. She bore the name which pleased the first random passerby, who had encountered her, when a very small child, running barelegged in the street. She received the name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. She was called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This human creature had entered life in just this way. At the age of ten, Fantine quitted the town and went to service with some farmers in the neighborhood. At fifteen she came to Paris 'to seek her fortune. Fantine was beautiful, and remained pure as long as she could. She was a lovely blonde, with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry but her gold was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth. She worked for her living then, still for the sake of her living,for the heart, also, has its hunger,she loved. She loved Tholomys. An amour for him passion for her. The streets of the Latin quarter, filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw the beginning of their dream. Fantine had long evaded Tholomys in the mazes of the hill of the Pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in such a way as constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of avoiding which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took place. Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of which Tholomys was the head. It was he who possessed the wit. Tholomys was the antique old student he was rich he had an income of four thousand francs four thousand francs! a splendid scandal on Mount SainteGenevive. Tholomys was a fast man of thirty, and badly preserved. He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning of a bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, the skull at thirty, the knee at forty. His digestion was mediocre, and he had been attacked by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his youth disappeared, gayety was kindled he replaced his teeth with buffooneries, his hair with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping eye laughed incessantly. He was dilapidated but still in flower. His youth, which was packing up for departure long before its time, beat a retreat in good order, bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything but fire. He had had a piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few verses now and then. In addition to this he doubted everything to the last degree, which is a vast force in the eyes of the weak. Being thus ironical and bald, he was the leader. Iron is an English word. Is it possible that irony is derived from it? One day Tholomys took the three others aside, with the gesture of an oracle, and said to them 'Fantine, Dahlia, Zphine, and Favourite have been teasing us for nearly a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly that we would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in particular, just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius, 'Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,' so our beauties say to me incessantly, 'Tholomys, when will you bring forth your surprise?' At the same time our parents keep writing to us. Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to me let us discuss the question. Thereupon, Tholomys lowered his voice and articulated something so mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, 'That is an idea. A smoky taproom presented itself they entered, and the remainder of their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow. The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party which took place on the following Sunday, the four young men inviting the four young girls. It is hard nowadays to picture to one's self what a pleasuretrip of students and grisettes to the country was like, fortyfive years ago. The suburbs of Paris are no longer the same the physiognomy of what may be called circumparisian life has changed completely in the last halfcentury where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car where there was a tenderboat, there is now the steamboat people speak of Fcamp nowadays as they spoke of SaintCloud in those days. The Paris of  is a city which has France for its outskirts. The four couples conscientiously went through with all the country follies possible at that time. The vacation was beginning, and it was a warm, bright, summer day. On the preceding day, Favourite, the only one who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomys in the name of the four 'It is a good hour to emerge from happiness. That is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to SaintCloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and exclaimed, 'This must be very beautiful when there is water! They breakfasted at the TteNoir, where Castaing had not yet been they treated themselves to a game of ringthrowing under the quincunx of trees of the grand fountain they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons at the roulette establishment of the Pont de Svres, picked bouquets at Pateaux, bought reedpipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and were perfectly happy. The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped from their cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time they bestowed little taps on the young men. Matutinal intoxication of life! adorable years! the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not remember? Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you? Have you slid, laughing, down a slope all wet with rain, with a beloved woman holding your hand, and crying, 'Ah, my new boots! what a state they are in! Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was lacking in the case of this goodhumored party, although Favourite had said as they set out, with a magisterial and maternal tone, 'The slugs are crawling in the paths,a sign of rain, children. All four were madly pretty. A good old classic poet, then famous, a good fellow who had an lonore, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, as he strolled that day beneath the chestnuttrees of SaintCloud, saw them pass about ten o'clock in the morning, and exclaimed, 'There is one too many of them, as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle's friend, the one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly over bushes, and presided over this merrymaking with the spirit of a young female faun. Zphine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful in such a way that they set each off when they were together, and completed each other, never left each other, more from an instinct of coquetry than from friendship, and clinging to each other, they assumed English poses the first keepsakes had just made their appearance, melancholy was dawning for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men and the hair of the tender sex began to droop dolefully. Zphine and Dahlia had their hair dressed in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, who were engaged in discussing their professors, explained to Fantine the difference that existed between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau. Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite's singlebordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux's manufacture, on his arm on Sundays. Tholomys followed, dominating the group. He was very gay, but one felt the force of government in him there was dictation in his joviality his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephantleg pattern of nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire he carried a stout rattan worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was sacred to him he smoked. 'That Tholomys is astounding! said the others, with veneration. 'What trousers! What energy! As for Fantine, she was a joy to behold. Her splendid teeth had evidently received an office from God,laughter. She preferred to carry her little hat of sewed straw, with its long white strings, in her hand rather than on her head. Her thick blond hair, which was inclined to wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the willows. Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an air of encouraging the audacious but her long, shadowy lashes drooped discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barge, little reddish brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, openworked stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, whose name, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aot, pronounced after the fashion of the Canebire, signifies fine weather, heat, and midday. The three others, less timid, as we have already said, wore lownecked dresses without disguise, which in summer, beneath floweradorned hats, are very graceful and enticing but by the side of these audacious outfits, blond Fantine's canezou, with its transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence, concealing and displaying at one and the same time, seemed an alluring godsend of decency, and the famous Court of Love, presided over by the Vicomtesse de Cette, with the seagreen eyes, would, perhaps, have awarded the prize for coquetry to this canezou, in the contest for the prize of modesty. The most ingenious is, at times, the wisest. This does happen. Brilliant of face, delicate of profile, with eyes of a deep blue, heavy lids, feet arched and small, wrists and ankles admirably formed, a white skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the veins to be seen, joy, a cheek that was young and fresh, the robust throat of the Juno of gina, a strong and supple nape of the neck, shoulders modelled as though by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in the middle, visible through the muslin a gayety cooled by dreaminess sculptural and exquisitesuch was Fantine and beneath these feminine adornments and these ribbons one could divine a statue, and in that statue a soul. Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it. Those rare dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront everything with perfection, would have caught a glimpse in this little workingwoman, through the transparency of her Parisian grace, of the ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred. She was beautiful in the two waysstyle and rhythm. Style is the form of the ideal rhythm is its movement. We have said that Fantine was joy she was also modesty. To an observer who studied her attentively, that which breathed from her athwart all the intoxication of her age, the season, and her love affair, was an invincible expression of reserve and modesty. She remained a little astonished. This chaste astonishment is the shade of difference which separates Psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long, white, fine fingers of the vestal virgin who stirs the ashes of the sacred fire with a golden pin. Although she would have refused nothing to Tholomys, as we shall have more than ample opportunity to see, her face in repose was supremely virginal a sort of serious and almost austere dignity suddenly overwhelmed her at certain times, and there was nothing more singular and disturbing than to see gayety become so suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without any transition state. This sudden and sometimes severely accentuated gravity resembled the disdain of a goddess. Her brow, her nose, her chin, presented that equilibrium of outline which is quite distinct from equilibrium of proportion, and from which harmony of countenance results in the very characteristic interval which separates the base of the nose from the upper lip, she had that imperceptible and charming fold, a mysterious sign of chastity, which makes Barberousse fall in love with a Diana found in the treasures of Iconia. Love is a fault so be it. Fantine was innocence floating high over fault. That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flowerbeds of SaintCloud perfumed the air the breath of the Seine rustled the leaves vaguely the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged the jasmines a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow, the clover, and the sterile oats in the august park of the King of France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds. The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, the trees, were resplendent. And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, openwork stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine, who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed of dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. 'You always have a queer look about you, said Favourite to her. Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests expressly for those in love,in that eternal hedgeschool of lovers, which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers. The patrician and the knifegrinder, the duke and the peer, the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt, and there is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosiswhat a transfiguration effected by love! Notaries' clerks are gods. And the little cries, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in the manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth by another,all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestial glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that this will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets, painters, observe these ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau Lancret, the painter of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into the azure sky Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, and d'Urf mingles druids with them. After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King's Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes our memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting all Paris to SaintCloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem, whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, were covered with a million tiny white rosettes this gave the shrub the air of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiring crowd about it. After viewing the shrub, Tholomys exclaimed, 'I offer you asses! and having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnuttrees celebrated by the Abb de Bernis. As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomys, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the old ballad gallega, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees 'Soy de Badajoz, Amor me llama, Toda mi alma, Es en mi ojos, Porque enseas, A tuas piernas. 'Badajoz is my home, And Love is my name To my eyes in flame, All my soul doth come For instruction meet I receive at thy feet Fantine alone refused to swing. 'I don't like to have people put on airs like that, muttered Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony. After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight they crossed the Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the barrier of l'toile. They had been up since five o'clock that morning, as the reader will remember but bah! there is no such thing as fatigue on Sunday, said Favourite on Sunday fatigue does not work. About three o'clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible above the trees of the Champslyses. From time to time Favourite exclaimed 'And the surprise? I claim the surprise. 'Patience, replied Tholomys. The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about dinner and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became stranded in Bombarda's public house, a branch establishment which had been set up in the Champslyses by that famous restaurantkeeper, Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near Delorme Alley. A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday crowd) two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay and the river a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the panes two tables upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets, mingled with the hats of men and women at the other the four couples seated round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and bottles jugs of beer mingled with flasks of wine very little order on the table, some disorder beneath it 'They made beneath the table A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable, says Molire. This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o'clock in the morning, had reached at halfpast four in the afternoon. The sun was setting their appetites were satisfied. The Champslyses, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud of gold. Carriages were going and coming. A squadron of magnificent bodyguards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the Avenue de Neuilly the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde, which had become the Place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy promenaders. Many wore the silver fleurdelys suspended from the whitewatered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from buttonholes in the year . Here and there choruses of little girls threw to the winds, amid the passersby, who formed into circles and applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to strike the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain 'Rendeznous notre pre de Gand, Rendeznous notre pre. 'Give us back our father from Ghent, Give us back our father. Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even decorated with the fleurdelys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and revolving on the wooden horses others were engaged in drinking some journeyman printers had on paper caps their laughter was audible. Everything was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist security it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief of Police Angls to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of Paris, terminated with these lines 'Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. The populace is restless in the provinces it is not in Paris. These are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble. Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform itself into a lion that does happen, however, and in that lies the miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised by Count Angls possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their eyes it was liberty incarnate and as though to serve as pendant to the Minerva Aptera of the Pirus, there stood on the public square in Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too 'rosecolored a light it is not so much of 'an amiable rabble as it is thought. The Parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek no one sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness let him not be trusted nevertheless he is ready for any sort of cool deed but when there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in every sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the th of August give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon's stay and Danton's resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists is it a question of liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled with wrath, is epic his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys. Take care! he will make of the first Rue Grentat which comes to hand Caudine Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in stature this little man will arise, and his gaze will be terrible, and his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the Alps. It is, thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the Revolution, mixed with arms, conquers Europe. He sings it is his delight. Proportion his song to his nature, and you will see! As long as he has for refrain nothing but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI. make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world. This note jotted down on the margin of Angls' report, we will return to our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close. Chat at table, the chat of love it is as impossible to reproduce one as the other the chat of love is a cloud the chat at table is smoke. Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomys was drinking. Zphine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at SaintCloud. Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said 'Blachevelle, I adore you. This called forth a question from Blachevelle 'What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you? 'I! cried Favourite. 'Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you arrested. Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous selfconceit of a man who is tickled in his selflove. Favourite resumed 'Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain myself, not at all! Rabble! Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed both eyes proudly. Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar 'So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours? 'I? I detest him, replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork again. 'He is avaricious. I love the little fellow opposite me in my house. He is very nice, that young man do you know him? One can see that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes in, his mother says to him 'Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone. There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting my head!' So he goes up to ratridden garrets, to black holes, as high as he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know what? so that he can be heard downstairs! He earns twenty sous a day at an attorney's by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor of SaintJacquesduHautPas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes me so, that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to me 'Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.' It is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never mind I tell Blachevelle that I adore himhow I lie! Hey! How I do lie! Favourite paused, and then went on 'I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer the wind irritates me the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very stingy there are hardly any green peas in the market one does not know what to eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life. In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously all at once it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomys intervened. 'Let us not talk at random nor too fast, he exclaimed. 'Let us reflect, if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen. Let us mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with meditation let us make haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime if it makes haste, it is done for that is to say, it gets frozen. Excess of zeal ruins peachtrees and apricottrees. Excess of zeal kills the grace and the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen! Grimod de la Reynire agrees with Talleyrand. A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group. 'Leave us in peace, Tholomys, said Blachevelle. 'Down with the tyrant! said Fameuil. 'Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel! cried Listolier. 'Sunday exists, resumed Fameuil. 'We are sober, added Listolier. 'Tholomys, remarked Blachevelle, 'contemplate my calmness mon calme. 'You are the Marquis of that, retorted Tholomys. This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool. The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the frogs held their peace. 'Friends, cried Tholomys, with the accent of a man who had recovered his empire, 'Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The pun is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter where and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into the azure depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not prevent the condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the pun! I honor it in proportion to its merits nothing more. All the most august, the most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St. Peter, Moses on Isaac, schylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius. And observe that Cleopatra's pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a Greek name which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I return to my exhortation. I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no hubbub, no excess even in witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me. I have the prudence of Amphiaras and the baldness of Csar. There must be a limit, even to rebuses. Est modus in rebus. 'There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple turnovers, ladies do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the glutton, Gula punit Gulax. Indigestion is charged by the good God with preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this each one of our passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In all things the word finis must be written in good season selfcontrol must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent the bolt must be drawn on appetite one must set one's own fantasy to the violin, and carry one's self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence in me, for I have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference between the question put and the question pending, for I have sustained a thesis in Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at Rome at the epoch when Munatius Demens was qustor of the Parricide because I am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Flix Tholomys I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes. Favourite listened with profound attention. 'Flix, said she, 'what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin it means prosper. Tholomys went on 'Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing more simple. Here is the receipt lemonade, excessive exercise, hard labor work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil, gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphas drink emulsions of poppies and agnus castus season this with a strict diet, starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of lead, and fomentations of oxycrat. 'I prefer a woman, said Listolier. 'Woman, resumed Tholomys 'distrust her. Woe to him who yields himself to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The serpent is the shop over the way. 'Tholomys! cried Blachevelle, 'you are drunk! 'Pardieu, said Tholomys. 'Then be gay, resumed Blachevelle. 'I agree to that, responded Tholomys. And, refilling his glass, he rose. 'Glory to wine! Nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon me ladies that is Spanish. And the proof of it, seoras, is this like people, like cask. The arrobe of Castille contains sixteen litres the cantaro of Alicante, twelve the almude of the Canaries, twentyfive the cuartin of the Balearic Isles, twentysix the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend make a mistake in your neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English servingmaid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not made for that it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error is human I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zphine, O Josphine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue GurinBoisseau, he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve it is thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letterspatent of the beautiful woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as 'thou,' because I pass from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little while ago. That touched me but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names. They may delude us. I am called Flix, and I am not happy. Words are liars. Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us. It would be a mistake to write to Lige  for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of Fantine she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person she is a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in existence. O Fantine, know this I, Tholomys, I am an illusion but she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras! as for the rest, everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth, sweet morning light. O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or Pearl, you are a woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second piece of advice do not marry marriage is a graft it takes well or ill avoid that risk. But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not prevent the waistcoatmakers and the shoestitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt. All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood hence tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live. I turn to the men gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your wellbeloved without remorse. Chassez across. In love there are no friends. Everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a casus belli a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions of history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is man's right. Romulus carried off the Sabines William carried off the Saxon women Csar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men and for my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the army of Italy 'Soldiers, you are in need of everything the enemy has it. Tholomys paused. 'Take breath, Tholomys, said Blachevelle. At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the wind, which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and take their flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group replied to Tholomys' harangue 'The father turkeycocks so grave Some money to an agent gave, That master good ClermontTonnerre Might be made pope on Saint Johns' day fair. But this good Clermont could not be Made pope, because no priest was he And then their agent, whose wrath burned, With all their money back returned. This was not calculated to calm Tholomys' improvisation he emptied his glass, filled, refilled it, and began again 'Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither prudes nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth be merry. Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy in the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee! O Luxembourg! O Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Alle de l'Observatoire! O pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming nurses who, while they guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odon. My soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas. All is beautiful. The flies buzz in the sun. The sun has sneezed out the humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine! He made a mistake and embraced Favourite. 'The dinners are better at don's than at Bombarda's, exclaimed Zphine. 'I prefer Bombarda to don, declared Blachevelle. 'There is more luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs there are mirrors glaces on the walls. 'I prefer them glaces, ices on my plate, said Favourite. Blachevelle persisted 'Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda's and of bone at don's. Now, silver is more valuable than bone. 'Except for those who have a silver chin, observed Tholomys. He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from Bombarda's windows. A pause ensued. 'Tholomys, exclaimed Fameuil, 'Listolier and I were having a discussion just now. 'A discussion is a good thing, replied Tholomys 'a quarrel is better. 'We were disputing about philosophy. 'Well? 'Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza? 'Dsaugiers, said Tholomys. This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on 'I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie. One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eatinghouse keeper, gives you those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty centimes. Again Fameuil interrupted him 'Tholomys, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author? 'Ber 'Quin? 'No Choux. And Tholomys continued 'Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but get me an Indian dancinggirl, and Thygelion of Chronea if he could bring me a Greek courtesan for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, and nothing new nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation! Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon amor omnibus idem, says Virgil and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at SaintCloud, as Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul a soul of a rosy and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met she was the goddess prostitute Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus. Tholomys, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping, had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was dragging a very heavy cart. On arriving in front of Bombarda's, the wornout, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, Mtin (the jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, never to rise again. On hearing the hubbub made by the passersby, Tholomys' merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomys took advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with this melancholy strophe 'Elle tait de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses Ont le mme destin Et, rosse, elle a vcu ce que vivant les rosses, L'espace d'un mtin!  'Poor horse! sighed Fantine. And Dahlia exclaimed 'There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be such a pitiful fool as that! At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back, looked resolutely at Tholomys and said 'Come, now! the surprise? 'Exactly. The moment has arrived, replied Tholomys. 'Gentlemen, the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a moment, ladies. 'It begins with a kiss, said Blachevelle. 'On the brow, added Tholomys. Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress's brow then all four filed out through the door, with their fingers on their lips. Favourite clapped her hands on their departure. 'It is beginning to be amusing already, said she. 'Don't be too long, murmured Fantine 'we are waiting for you. When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the windowsills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one window to the other. They saw the young men emerge from the Caf Bombarda arm in arm. The latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the Champslyses. 'Don't be long! cried Fantine. 'What are they going to bring us? said Zphine. 'It will certainly be something pretty, said Dahlia. 'For my part, said Favourite, 'I want it to be of gold. Their attention was soon distracted by the movements on the shore of the lake, which they could see through the branches of the large trees, and which diverted them greatly. It was the hour for the departure of the mailcoaches and diligences. Nearly all the stagecoaches for the south and west passed through the Champslyses. The majority followed the quay and went through the Passy Barrier. From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless by trunks, tarpaulins, and valises, full of heads which immediately disappeared, rushed through the crowd with all the sparks of a forge, with dust for smoke, and an air of fury, grinding the pavements, changing all the pavingstones into steels. This uproar delighted the young girls. Favourite exclaimed 'What a row! One would say that it was a pile of chains flying away. It chanced that one of these vehicles, which they could only see with difficulty through the thick elms, halted for a moment, then set out again at a gallop. This surprised Fantine. 'That's odd! said she. 'I thought the diligence never stopped. Favourite shrugged her shoulders. 'This Fantine is surprising. I am coming to take a look at her out of curiosity. She is dazzled by the simplest things. Suppose a case I am a traveller I say to the diligence, 'I will go on in advance you shall pick me up on the quay as you pass.' The diligence passes, sees me, halts, and takes me. That is done every day. You do not know life, my dear. In this manner a certain time elapsed. All at once Favourite made a movement, like a person who is just waking up. 'Well, said she, 'and the surprise? 'Yes, by the way, joined in Dahlia, 'the famous surprise? 'They are a very long time about it! said Fantine. As Fantine concluded this sigh, the waiter who had served them at dinner entered. He held in his hand something which resembled a letter. 'What is that? demanded Favourite. The waiter replied 'It is a paper that those gentlemen left for these ladies. 'Why did you not bring it at once? 'Because, said the waiter, 'the gentlemen ordered me not to deliver it to the ladies for an hour. Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hand. It was, in fact, a letter. 'Stop! said she 'there is no address but this is what is written on it 'THIS IS THE SURPRISE. She tore the letter open hastily, opened it, and read she knew how to read 'OUR BELOVED 'You must know that we have parents. Parentsyou do not know much about such things. They are called fathers and mothers by the civil code, which is puerile and honest. Now, these parents groan, these old folks implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons they desire our return, and offer to kill calves for us. Being virtuous, we obey them. At the hour when you read this, five fiery horses will be bearing us to our papas and mammas. We are pulling up our stakes, as Bossuet says. We are going we are gone. We flee in the arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence tears us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties! We return to society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the rate of three leagues an hour. It is necessary for the good of the country that we should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, rural police, and councillors of state. Venerate us. We are sacrificing ourselves. Mourn for us in haste, and replace us with speed. If this letter lacerates you, do the same by it. Adieu. 'For the space of nearly two years we have made you happy. We bear you no grudge for that. 'Signed BLACHEVELLE. FAMUEIL. LISTOLIER. FLIX THOLOMYS. 'Postscriptum. The dinner is paid for. The four young women looked at each other. Favourite was the first to break the silence. 'Well! she exclaimed, 'it's a very pretty farce, all the same. 'It is very droll, said Zphine. 'That must have been Blachevelle's idea, resumed Favourite. 'It makes me in love with him. No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an adventure, indeed. 'No, said Dahlia 'it was one of Tholomys' ideas. That is evident. 'In that case, retorted Favourite, 'death to Blachevelle, and long live Tholomys! 'Long live Tholomys! exclaimed Dahlia and Zphine. And they burst out laughing. Fantine laughed with the rest. An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was her first love affair, as we have said she had given herself to this Tholomys as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child. There was, at Montfermeil, near Paris, during the first quarter of this century, a sort of cookshop which no longer exists. This cookshop was kept by some people named Thnardier, husband and wife. It was situated in Boulanger Lane. Over the door there was a board nailed flat against the wall. Upon this board was painted something which resembled a man carrying another man on his back, the latter wearing the big gilt epaulettes of a general, with large silver stars red spots represented blood the rest of the picture consisted of smoke, and probably represented a battle. Below ran this inscription AT THE SIGN OF SERGEANT OF WATERLOO (Au Sargent de Waterloo). Nothing is more common than a cart or a truck at the door of a hostelry. Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the fragment of a vehicle, which encumbered the street in front of the cookshop of the Sergeant of Waterloo, one evening in the spring of , would certainly have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any painter who had passed that way. It was the forecarriage of one of those trucks which are used in wooded tracts of country, and which serve to transport thick planks and the trunks of trees. This forecarriage was composed of a massive iron axletree with a pivot, into which was fitted a heavy shaft, and which was supported by two huge wheels. The whole thing was compact, overwhelming, and misshapen. It seemed like the guncarriage of an enormous cannon. The ruts of the road had bestowed on the wheels, the fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the iron beneath rust. Under the axletree hung, like drapery, a huge chain, worthy of some Goliath of a convict. This chain suggested, not the beams, which it was its office to transport, but the mastodons and mammoths which it might have served to harness it had the air of the galleys, but of cyclopean and superhuman galleys, and it seemed to have been detached from some monster. Homer would have bound Polyphemus with it, and Shakespeare, Caliban. Why was that forecarriage of a truck in that place in the street? In the first place, to encumber the street next, in order that it might finish the process of rusting. There is a throng of institutions in the old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the above. The centre of the chain swung very near the ground in the middle, and in the loop, as in the rope of a swing, there were seated and grouped, on that particular evening, in exquisite interlacement, two little girls one about two years and a half old, the other, eighteen months the younger in the arms of the other. A handkerchief, cleverly knotted about them, prevented their falling out. A mother had caught sight of that frightful chain, and had said, 'Come! there's a plaything for my children. The two children, who were dressed prettily and with some elegance, were radiant with pleasure one would have said that they were two roses amid old iron their eyes were a triumph their fresh cheeks were full of laughter. One had chestnut hair the other, brown. Their innocent faces were two delighted surprises a blossoming shrub which grew near wafted to the passersby perfumes which seemed to emanate from them the child of eighteen months displayed her pretty little bare stomach with the chaste indecency of childhood. Above and around these two delicate heads, all made of happiness and steeped in light, the gigantic forecarriage, black with rust, almost terrible, all entangled in curves and wild angles, rose in a vault, like the entrance of a cavern. A few paces apart, crouching down upon the threshold of the hostelry, the mother, not a very prepossessing woman, by the way, though touching at that moment, was swinging the two children by means of a long cord, watching them carefully, for fear of accidents, with that animal and celestial expression which is peculiar to maternity. At every backward and forward swing the hideous links emitted a strident sound, which resembled a cry of rage the little girls were in ecstasies the setting sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be more charming than this caprice of chance which had made of a chain of Titans the swing of cherubim. As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice a romance then celebrated 'It must be, said a warrior. Her song, and the contemplation of her daughters, prevented her hearing and seeing what was going on in the street. In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the first couplet of the romance, and suddenly she heard a voice saying very near her ear 'You have two beautiful children there, Madame. 'To the fair and tender Imogene replied the mother, continuing her romance then she turned her head. A woman stood before her, a few paces distant. This woman also had a child, which she carried in her arms. She was carrying, in addition, a large carpetbag, which seemed very heavy. This woman's child was one of the most divine creatures that it is possible to behold. It was a girl, two or three years of age. She could have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as the coquetry of her dress was concerned she wore a cap of fine linen, ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks. Of her eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep. She slept with that slumber of absolute confidence peculiar to her age. The arms of mothers are made of tenderness in them children sleep profoundly. As for the mother, her appearance was sad and povertystricken. She was dressed like a workingwoman who is inclined to turn into a peasant again. She was young. Was she handsome? Perhaps but in that attire it was not apparent. Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close, nunlike cap, tied under the chin. A smile displays beautiful teeth when one has them but she did not smile. Her eyes did not seem to have been dry for a very long time. She was pale she had a very weary and rather sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child. A large blue handkerchief, such as the Invalides use, was folded into a fichu, and concealed her figure clumsily. Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted with freckles, her forefinger was hardened and lacerated with the needle she wore a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a linen gown, and coarse shoes. It was Fantine. It was Fantine, but difficult to recognize. Nevertheless, on scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained her beauty. A melancholy fold, which resembled the beginning of irony, wrinkled her right cheek. As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful and dazzling hoarfrost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight it melts and leaves the branch quite black. Ten months had elapsed since the 'pretty farce. What had taken place during those ten months? It can be divined. After abandonment, straightened circumstances. Fantine had immediately lost sight of Favourite, Zphine and Dahlia the bond once broken on the side of the men, it was loosed between the women they would have been greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they had been friends there no longer existed any reason for such a thing. Fantine had remained alone. The father of her child gone,alas! such ruptures are irrevocable,she found herself absolutely isolated, minus the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure. Drawn away by her liaison with Tholomys to disdain the pretty trade which she knew, she had neglected to keep her market open it was now closed to her. She had no resource. Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not know how to write in her childhood she had only been taught to sign her name she had a public letterwriter indite an epistle to Tholomys, then a second, then a third. Tholomys replied to none of them. Fantine heard the gossips say, as they looked at her child 'Who takes those children seriously! One only shrugs one's shoulders over such children! Then she thought of Tholomys, who had shrugged his shoulders over his child, and who did not take that innocent being seriously and her heart grew gloomy toward that man. But what was she to do? She no longer knew to whom to apply. She had committed a fault, but the foundation of her nature, as will be remembered, was modesty and virtue. She was vaguely conscious that she was on the verge of falling into distress, and of gliding into a worse state. Courage was necessary she possessed it, and held herself firm. The idea of returning to her native town of M. sur M. occurred to her. There, some one might possibly know her and give her work yes, but it would be necessary to conceal her fault. In a confused way she perceived the necessity of a separation which would be more painful than the first one. Her heart contracted, but she took her resolution. Fantine, as we shall see, had the fierce bravery of life. She had already valiantly renounced finery, had dressed herself in linen, and had put all her silks, all her ornaments, all her ribbons, and all her laces on her daughter, the only vanity which was left to her, and a holy one it was. She sold all that she had, which produced for her two hundred francs her little debts paid, she had only about eighty francs left. At the age of twentytwo, on a beautiful spring morning, she quitted Paris, bearing her child on her back. Any one who had seen these two pass would have had pity on them. This woman had, in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the world, no one but this woman. Fantine had nursed her child, and this had tired her chest, and she coughed a little. We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. Flix Tholomys. Let us confine ourselves to saying, that, twenty years later, under King Louis Philippe, he was a great provincial lawyer, wealthy and influential, a wise elector, and a very severe juryman he was still a man of pleasure. Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the sake of resting herself, travelled, for three or four sous a league, in what was then known as the Petites Voitures des Environs de Paris, the 'little suburban coach service, Fantine found herself at Montfermeil, in the alley Boulanger. As she passed the Thnardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful in the monster swing, had dazzled her in a manner, and she had halted in front of that vision of joy. Charms exist. These two little girls were a charm to this mother. She gazed at them in much emotion. The presence of angels is an announcement of Paradise. She thought that, above this inn, she beheld the mysterious HERE of Providence. These two little creatures were evidently happy. She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between two couplets of her song, she could not refrain from addressing to her the remark which we have just read 'You have two pretty children, Madame. The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their young. The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer sit down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the threshold. The two women began to chat. 'My name is Madame Thnardier, said the mother of the two little girls. 'We keep this inn. Then, her mind still running on her romance, she resumed humming between her teeth 'It must be so I am a knight, And I am off to Palestine. This Madame Thnardier was a sandycomplexioned woman, thin and angularthe type of the soldier's wife in all its unpleasantness and what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal of romances. She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cookshop woman. She was still young she was barely thirty. If this crouching woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead of standing erectdestinies hang upon such a thing as that. The traveller told her story, with slight modifications. That she was a workingwoman that her husband was dead that her work in Paris had failed her, and that she was on her way to seek it elsewhere, in her own native parts that she had left Paris that morning on foot that, as she was carrying her child, and felt fatigued, she had got into the Villemomble coach when she met it that from Villemomble she had come to Montfermeil on foot that the little one had walked a little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen asleep. At this word she bestowed on her daughter a passionate kiss, which woke her. The child opened her eyes, great blue eyes like her mother's, and looked atwhat? Nothing with that serious and sometimes severe air of little children, which is a mystery of their luminous innocence in the presence of our twilight of virtue. One would say that they feel themselves to be angels, and that they know us to be men. Then the child began to laugh and although the mother held fast to her, she slipped to the ground with the unconquerable energy of a little being which wished to run. All at once she caught sight of the two others in the swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue, in sign of admiration. Mother Thnardier released her daughters, made them descend from the swing, and said 'Now amuse yourselves, all three of you. Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration of a minute the little Thnardiers were playing with the newcomer at making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure. The newcomer was very gay the goodness of the mother is written in the gayety of the child she had seized a scrap of wood which served her for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly. The gravedigger's business becomes a subject for laughter when performed by a child. The two women pursued their chat. 'What is your little one's name? 'Cosette. For Cosette, read Euphrasie. The child's name was Euphrasie. But out of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful instinct of mothers and of the populace which changes Josepha into Pepita, and Franoise into Sillette. It is a sort of derivative which disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists. We have known a grandmother who succeeded in turning Theodore into Gnon. 'How old is she? 'She is going on three. 'That is the age of my eldest. In the meantime, the three little girls were grouped in an attitude of profound anxiety and blissfulness an event had happened a big worm had emerged from the ground, and they were afraid and they were in ecstasies over it. Their radiant brows touched each other one would have said that there were three heads in one aureole. 'How easily children get acquainted at once! exclaimed Mother Thnardier 'one would swear that they were three sisters! This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been waiting for. She seized the Thnardier's hand, looked at her fixedly, and said 'Will you keep my child for me? The Thnardier made one of those movements of surprise which signify neither assent nor refusal. Cosette's mother continued 'You see, I cannot take my daughter to the country. My work will not permit it. With a child one can find no situation. People are ridiculous in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When I caught sight of your little ones, so pretty, so clean, and so happy, it overwhelmed me. I said 'Here is a good mother. That is just the thing that will make three sisters.' And then, it will not be long before I return. Will you keep my child for me? 'I must see about it, replied the Thnardier. 'I will give you six francs a month. Here a man's voice called from the depths of the cookshop 'Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance. 'Six times seven makes fortytwo, said the Thnardier. 'I will give it, said the mother. 'And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses, added the man's voice. 'Total, fiftyseven francs, said Madame Thnardier. And she hummed vaguely, with these figures 'It must be, said a warrior. 'I will pay it, said the mother. 'I have eighty francs. I shall have enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall earn money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my darling. The man's voice resumed 'The little one has an outfit? 'That is my husband, said the Thnardier. 'Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.I understood perfectly that it was your husband.And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady. It is here, in my carpetbag. 'You must hand it over, struck in the man's voice again. 'Of course I shall give it to you, said the mother. 'It would be very queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked! The master's face appeared. 'That's good, said he. The bargain was concluded. The mother passed the night at the inn, gave up her money and left her child, fastened her carpetbag once more, now reduced in volume by the removal of the outfit, and light henceforth and set out on the following morning, intending to return soon. People arrange such departures tranquilly but they are despairs! A neighbor of the Thnardiers met this mother as she was setting out, and came back with the remark 'I have just seen a woman crying in the street so that it was enough to rend your heart. When Cosette's mother had taken her departure, the man said to the woman 'That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which falls due tomorrow I lacked fifty francs. Do you know that I should have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mousetrap nicely with your young ones. 'Without suspecting it, said the woman. The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen but the cat rejoices even over a lean mouse. Who were these Thnardiers? Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later on. These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended in the scale, which is between the class called 'middle and the class denominated as 'inferior, and which combines some of the defects of the second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the bourgeois. They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm them up, easily become monstrous. There was in the woman a substratum of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. Both were susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress which is accomplished in the direction of evil. There exist crablike souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more and more impregnated with an everaugmenting blackness. This man and woman possessed such souls. Thnardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can only look at some men to distrust them for one feels that they are dark in both directions. They are uneasy in the rear and threatening in front. There is something of the unknown about them. One can no more answer for what they have done than for what they will do. The shadow which they bear in their glance denounces them. From merely hearing them utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future. This Thnardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldiera sergeant, he said. He had probably been through the campaign of , and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. We shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. He had painted it himself for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly. It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after having been Cllie, was no longer anything but Lodoska, still noble, but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle de Scudri to Madame BournonMalarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to Madame BarthlemyHadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses of Paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some extent. Madame Thnardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort of books. She lived on them. In them she drowned what brains she possessed. This had given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse and fine at one and the same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was concerned, given to the perusal of PigaultLebrun, and 'in what concerns the sex, as he said in his jargona downright, unmitigated lout. His wife was twelve or fifteen years younger than he was. Later on, when her hair, arranged in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Megra began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thnardier was nothing but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest daughter was named ponine as for the younger, the poor little thing came near being called Gulnare I know not to what diversion, effected by a romance of DucrayDumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore the name of Azelma. However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd's boy nowadays to bear the name of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomteif there are still any vicomtesto be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This displacement, which places the 'elegant name on the plebeian and the rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality. The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a profound thing,the French Revolution. It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The cookshop was in a bad way. Thanks to the traveller's fiftyseven francs, Thnardier had been able to avoid a protest and to honor his signature. On the following month they were again in need of money. The woman took Cosette's outfit to Paris, and pawned it at the pawnbroker's for sixty francs. As soon as that sum was spent, the Thnardiers grew accustomed to look on the little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity and they treated her accordingly. As she had no longer any clothes, they dressed her in the castoff petticoats and chemises of the Thnardier brats that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the rest had lefta little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat. Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual tablecompanions Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to theirs. The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at M. sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter every month, that she might have news of her child. The Thnardiers replied invariably, 'Cosette is doing wonderfully well. At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable regularity from month to month. The year was not completed when Thnardier said 'A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she expect us to do with her seven francs? and he wrote to demand twelve francs. The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her child was happy, 'and was coming on well, submitted, and forwarded the twelve francs. Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the other. Mother Thnardier loved her two daughters passionately, which caused her to hate the stranger. It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to her as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received the whole of it but the stranger did them the service to divert the blows to herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses. Cosette could not make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy shower of violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble being, who should not have understood anything of this world or of God, incessantly punished, scolded, illused, beaten, and seeing beside her two little creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of dawn! Madame Thnardier was vicious with Cosette. ponine and Azelma were vicious. Children at that age are only copies of their mother. The size is smaller that is all. A year passed then another. People in the village said 'Those Thnardiers are good people. They are not rich, and yet they are bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands! They thought that Cosette's mother had forgotten her. In the meanwhile, Thnardier, having learned, it is impossible to say by what obscure means, that the child was probably a bastard, and that the mother could not acknowledge it, exacted fifteen francs a month, saying that 'the creature was growing and 'eating, and threatening to send her away. 'Let her not bother me, he exclaimed, 'or I'll fire her brat right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase. The mother paid the fifteen francs. From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness. As long as Cosette was little, she was the scapegoat of the two other children as soon as she began to develop a little, that is to say, before she was even five years old, she became the servant of the household. Five years old! the reader will say that is not probable. Alas! it is true. Social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not recently seen the trial of a man named Dumollard, an orphan turned bandit, who, from the age of five, as the official documents state, being alone in the world, 'worked for his living and stole? Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard, the street, to wash the dishes, to even carry burdens. The Thnardiers considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner, since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in her payments. Some months she was in arrears. If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three years, she would not have recognized her child. Cosette, so pretty and rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an indescribably uneasy look. 'The sly creature, said the Thnardiers. Injustice had made her peevish, and misery had made her ugly. Nothing remained to her except her beautiful eyes, which inspired pain, because, large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a still larger amount of sadness. It was a heartbreaking thing to see this poor child, not yet six years old, shivering in the winter in her old rags of linen, full of holes, sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny red hands, and a tear in her great eyes. She was called the Lark in the neighborhood. The populace, who are fond of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name on this trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before daybreak. Only the little lark never sang. And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where was she? What was she doing? After leaving her little Cosette with the Thnardiers, she had continued her journey, and had reached M. sur M. This, it will be remembered, was in . Fantine had quitted her province ten years before. M. sur M. had changed its aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from wretchedness to wretchedness, her native town had prospered. About two years previously one of those industrial facts which are the grand events of small districts had taken place. This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at length we should almost say, to underline it. From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry the imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. This industry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the raw material, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantine returned to M. sur M., an unheardof transformation had taken place in the production of 'black goods. Towards the close of  a man, a stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspired with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gumlac for resin, and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheetiron simply laid together, for slides of soldered sheetiron. This very small change had effected a revolution. This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost of the raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, to raise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country in the second place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer in the third place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, which was a benefit to the manufacturer. Thus three results ensued from one idea. In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, which is good, and had made every one about him rich, which is better. He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known of the beginning of his career, very little. It was rumored that he had come to town with very little money, a few hundred francs at the most. It was from this slender capital, enlisted in the service of an ingenious idea, developed by method and thought, that he had drawn his own fortune, and the fortune of the whole countryside. On his arrival at M. sur M. he had only the garments, the appearance, and the language of a workingman. It appears that on the very day when he made his obscure entry into the little town of M. sur M., just at nightfall, on a December evening, knapsack on back and thorn club in hand, a large fire had broken out in the townhall. This man had rushed into the flames and saved, at the risk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of the gendarmerie this is why they had forgotten to ask him for his passport. Afterwards they had learned his name. He was called Father Madeleine. He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air, and who was good. That was all that could be said about him. Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so admirably reconstructed, M. sur M. had become a rather important centre of trade. Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet, made enormous purchases there each year. M. sur M. almost rivalled London and Berlin in this branch of commerce. Father Madeleine's profits were such, that at the end of the second year he was able to erect a large factory, in which there were two vast workrooms, one for the men, and the other for women. Any one who was hungry could present himself there, and was sure of finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good will, of the women pure morals, and of all, probity. He had separated the workrooms in order to separate the sexes, and so that the women and girls might remain discreet. On this point he was inflexible. It was the only thing in which he was in a manner intolerant. He was all the more firmly set on this severity, since M. sur M., being a garrison town, opportunities for corruption abounded. However, his coming had been a boon, and his presence was a godsend. Before Father Madeleine's arrival, everything had languished in the country now everything lived with a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed everything and penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons and wretchedness were unknown. There was no pocket so obscure that it had not a little money in it no dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy within it. Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted but one thing Be an honest man. Be an honest woman. As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he was the cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune but a singular thing in a simple man of business, it did not seem as though that were his chief care. He appeared to be thinking much of others, and little of himself. In  he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty thousand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte but before reserving these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he had spent more than a million for the town and its poor. The hospital was badly endowed he founded six beds there. M. sur M. is divided into the upper and the lower town. The lower town, in which he lived, had but one school, a miserable hovel, which was falling to ruin he constructed two, one for girls, the other for boys. He allotted a salary from his own funds to the two instructors, a salary twice as large as their meagre official salary, and one day he said to some one who expressed surprise, 'The two prime functionaries of the state are the nurse and the schoolmaster. He created at his own expense an infant school, a thing then almost unknown in France, and a fund for aiding old and infirm workmen. As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which there were a good many indigent families, rose rapidly around him he established there a free dispensary. At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said, 'He's a jolly fellow who means to get rich. When they saw him enriching the country before he enriched himself, the good souls said, 'He is an ambitious man. This seemed all the more probable since the man was religious, and even practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing which was very favorably viewed at that epoch. He went regularly to low mass every Sunday. The local deputy, who nosed out all rivalry everywhere, soon began to grow uneasy over this religion. This deputy had been a member of the legislative body of the Empire, and shared the religious ideas of a father of the Oratoire, known under the name of Fouch, Duc d'Otrante, whose creature and friend he had been. He indulged in gentle raillery at God with closed doors. But when he beheld the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going to low mass at seven o'clock, he perceived in him a possible candidate, and resolved to outdo him he took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to vespers. Ambition was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the word, a race to the steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well as the good God, for the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the hospital, which made twelve. Nevertheless, in  a rumor one morning circulated through the town to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect and in consideration of the services rendered by him to the country, Father Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who had pronounced this newcomer to be 'an ambitious fellow, seized with delight on this opportunity which all men desire, to exclaim, 'There! what did we say! All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well founded. Several days later the appointment appeared in the Moniteur. On the following day Father Madeleine refused. In this same year of  the products of the new process invented by Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition when the jury made their report, the King appointed the inventor a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. A fresh excitement in the little town. Well, so it was the cross that he wanted! Father Madeleine refused the cross. Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their predicament by saying, 'After all, he is some sort of an adventurer. We have seen that the country owed much to him the poor owed him everything he was so useful and he was so gentle that people had been obliged to honor and respect him. His workmen, in particular, adored him, and he endured this adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity. When he was known to be rich, 'people in society bowed to him, and he received invitations in the town he was called, in town, Monsieur Madeleine his workmen and the children continued to call him Father Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him smile. In proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him. 'Society claimed him for its own. The prim little drawingrooms on M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed to the artisan, opened both leaves of their foldingdoors to the millionnaire. They made a thousand advances to him. He refused. This time the good gossips had no trouble. 'He is an ignorant man, of no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how to read. When they saw him making money, they said, 'He is a man of business. When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, 'He is an ambitious man. When he was seen to decline honors, they said, 'He is an adventurer. When they saw him repulse society, they said, 'He is a brute. In , five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services which he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion of the whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King again appointed him mayor of the town. He again declined but the prefect resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore him, the people in the street besought him the urging was so vigorous that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to him from her threshold, in an angry way 'A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he drawing back before the good which he can do? This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire. On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first day. He had gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion of a laborer, the thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat with a wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin. He fulfilled his duties as mayor but, with that exception, he lived in solitude. He spoke to but few people. He avoided polite attentions he escaped quickly he smiled to relieve himself of the necessity of talking he gave, in order to get rid of the necessity for smiling. The women said of him, 'What a goodnatured bear! His pleasure consisted in strolling in the fields. He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he read. He had a wellselected little library. He loved books books are cold but safe friends. In proportion as leisure came to him with fortune, he seemed to take advantage of it to cultivate his mind. It had been observed that, ever since his arrival at M. sur M., his language had grown more polished, more choice, and more gentle with every passing year. He liked to carry a gun with him on his strolls, but he rarely made use of it. When he did happen to do so, his shooting was something so infallible as to inspire terror. He never killed an inoffensive animal. He never shot at a little bird. Although he was no longer young, it was thought that he was still prodigiously strong. He offered his assistance to any one who was in need of it, lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud, or stopped a runaway bull by the horns. He always had his pockets full of money when he went out but they were empty on his return. When he passed through a village, the ragged brats ran joyously after him, and surrounded him like a swarm of gnats. It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country life, since he knew all sorts of useful secrets, which he taught to the peasants. He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling it and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a solution of common salt and how to chase away weevils by hanging up orviot in bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings, among the grass and in the houses. He had 'recipes for exterminating from a field, blight, tares, foxtail, and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended a rabbit warren against rats, simply by the odor of a guineapig which he placed in it. One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried, and said 'They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent vegetable when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles are good for poultry pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloringmatter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle! He added, after a pause 'Remember this, my friends there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators. The children loved him because he knew how to make charming little trifles of straw and cocoanuts. When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered he sought out funerals as other men seek christenings. Widowhood and the grief of others attracted him, because of his great gentleness he mingled with the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with the priests groaning around a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his thoughts for text these funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of the other world. With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a sort of aspiration towards all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad voices which sing on the verge of the obscure abyss of death. He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them as a man conceals himself because of evil actions. He penetrated houses privately, at night he ascended staircases furtively. A poor wretch on returning to his attic would find that his door had been opened, sometimes even forced, during his absence. The poor man made a clamor over it some malefactor had been there! He entered, and the first thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying forgotten on some piece of furniture. The 'malefactor who had been there was Father Madeleine. He was affable and sad. The people said 'There is a rich man who has not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air. Some people maintained that he was a mysterious person, and that no one ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite's cell, furnished with winged hourglasses and enlivened by crossbones and skulls of dead men! This was much talked of, so that one of the elegant and malicious young women of M. sur M. came to him one day, and asked 'Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is said to be a grotto. He smiled, and introduced them instantly into this 'grotto. They were well punished for their curiosity. The room was very simply furnished in mahogany, which was rather ugly, like all furniture of that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see nothing remarkable about it, except two candlesticks of antique pattern which stood on the chimneypiece and appeared to be silver, 'for they were hallmarked, an observation full of the type of wit of petty towns. Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got into the room, and that it was a hermit's cave, a mysterious retreat, a hole, a tomb. It was also whispered about that he had 'immense sums deposited with Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that they were always at his immediate disposal, so that, it was added, M. Madeleine could make his appearance at Laffitte's any morning, sign a receipt, and carry off his two or three millions in ten minutes. In reality, 'these two or three millions were reducible, as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or forty thousand francs. At the beginning of  the newspapers announced the death of M. Myriel, Bishop of D, surnamed 'Monseigneur Bienvenu, who had died in the odor of sanctity at the age of eightytwo. The Bishop of D to supply here a detail which the papers omittedhad been blind for many years before his death, and content to be blind, as his sister was beside him. Let us remark by the way, that to be blind and to be loved, is, in fact, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, where nothing is complete. To have continually at one's side a woman, a daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her and because she cannot do without you to know that we are indispensable to a person who is necessary to us to be able to incessantly measure one's affection by the amount of her presence which she bestows on us, and to say to ourselves, 'Since she consecrates the whole of her time to me, it is because I possess the whole of her heart to behold her thought in lieu of her face to be able to verify the fidelity of one being amid the eclipse of the world to regard the rustle of a gown as the sound of wings to hear her come and go, retire, speak, return, sing, and to think that one is the centre of these steps, of this speech to manifest at each instant one's personal attraction to feel one's self all the more powerful because of one's infirmity to become in one's obscurity, and through one's obscurity, the star around which this angel gravitates,few felicities equal this. The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved loved for one's own sakelet us say rather, loved in spite of one's self this conviction the blind man possesses. To be served in distress is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? No. One does not lose the sight when one has love. And what love! A love wholly constituted of virtue! There is no blindness where there is certainty. Soul seeks soul, gropingly, and finds it. And this soul, found and tested, is a woman. A hand sustains you it is hers a mouth lightly touches your brow it is her mouth you hear a breath very near you it is hers. To have everything of her, from her worship to her pity, never to be left, to have that sweet weakness aiding you, to lean upon that immovable reed, to touch Providence with one's hands, and to be able to take it in one's arms,God made tangible,what bliss! The heart, that obscure, celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would not exchange that shadow for all brightness! The angel soul is there, uninterruptedly there if she departs, it is but to return again she vanishes like a dream, and reappears like reality. One feels warmth approaching, and behold! she is there. One overflows with serenity, with gayety, with ecstasy one is a radiance amid the night. And there are a thousand little cares. Nothings, which are enormous in that void. The most ineffable accents of the feminine voice employed to lull you, and supplying the vanished universe to you. One is caressed with the soul. One sees nothing, but one feels that one is adored. It is a paradise of shadows. It was from this paradise that Monseigneur Welcome had passed to the other. The announcement of his death was reprinted by the local journal of M. sur M. On the following day, M. Madeleine appeared clad wholly in black, and with crape on his hat. This mourning was noticed in the town, and commented on. It seemed to throw a light on M. Madeleine's origin. It was concluded that some relationship existed between him and the venerable Bishop. 'He has gone into mourning for the Bishop of D said the drawingrooms this raised M. Madeleine's credit greatly, and procured for him, instantly and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world of M. sur M. The microscopic Faubourg SaintGermain of the place meditated raising the quarantine against M. Madeleine, the probable relative of a bishop. M. Madeleine perceived the advancement which he had obtained, by the more numerous courtesies of the old women and the more plentiful smiles of the young ones. One evening, a ruler in that petty great world, who was curious by right of seniority, ventured to ask him, 'M. le Maire is doubtless a cousin of the late Bishop of D? He said, 'No, Madame. 'But, resumed the dowager, 'you are wearing mourning for him. He replied, 'It is because I was a servant in his family in my youth. Another thing which was remarked, was, that every time that he encountered in the town a young Savoyard who was roaming about the country and seeking chimneys to sweep, the mayor had him summoned, inquired his name, and gave him money. The little Savoyards told each other about it a great many of them passed that way. Little by little, and in the course of time, all this opposition subsided. There had at first been exercised against M. Madeleine, in virtue of a sort of law which all those who rise must submit to, blackening and calumnies then they grew to be nothing more than illnature, then merely malicious remarks, then even this entirely disappeared respect became complete, unanimous, cordial, and towards  the moment arrived when the word 'Monsieur le Maire was pronounced at M. sur M. with almost the same accent as 'Monseigneur the Bishop had been pronounced in D in . People came from a distance of ten leagues around to consult M. Madeleine. He put an end to differences, he prevented lawsuits, he reconciled enemies. Every one took him for the judge, and with good reason. It seemed as though he had for a soul the book of the natural law. It was like an epidemic of veneration, which in the course of six or seven years gradually took possession of the whole district. One single man in the town, in the arrondissement, absolutely escaped this contagion, and, whatever Father Madeleine did, remained his opponent as though a sort of incorruptible and imperturbable instinct kept him on the alert and uneasy. It seems, in fact, as though there existed in certain men a veritable bestial instinct, though pure and upright, like all instincts, which creates antipathies and sympathies, which fatally separates one nature from another nature, which does not hesitate, which feels no disquiet, which does not hold its peace, and which never belies itself, clear in its obscurity, infallible, imperious, intractable, stubborn to all counsels of the intelligence and to all the dissolvents of reason, and which, in whatever manner destinies are arranged, secretly warns the mandog of the presence of the mancat, and the manfox of the presence of the manlion. It frequently happened that when M. Madeleine was passing along a street, calm, affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all, a man of lofty stature, clad in an irongray frockcoat, armed with a heavy cane, and wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly behind him, and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with his lower to his nose, a sort of significant grimace which might be translated by 'What is that man, after all? I certainly have seen him somewhere. In any case, I am not his dupe. This person, grave with a gravity which was almost menacing, was one of those men who, even when only seen by a rapid glimpse, arrest the spectator's attention. His name was Javert, and he belonged to the police. At M. sur M. he exercised the unpleasant but useful functions of an inspector. He had not seen Madeleine's beginnings. Javert owed the post which he occupied to the protection of M. Chabouillet, the secretary of the Minister of State, Comte Angls, then prefect of police at Paris. When Javert arrived at M. sur M. the fortune of the great manufacturer was already made, and Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine. Certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy, which is complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority. Javert possessed this physiognomy minus the baseness. It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal creation and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived by the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man. Sometimes even several of them at a time. Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices, straying before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls. God shows them to us in order to induce us to reflect. Only since animals are mere shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the full sense of the word what is the use? On the contrary, our souls being realities and having a goal which is appropriate to them, God has bestowed on them intelligence that is to say, the possibility of education. Social education, when well done, can always draw from a soul, of whatever sort it may be, the utility which it contains. This, be it said, is of course from the restricted point of view of the terrestrial life which is apparent, and without prejudging the profound question of the anterior or ulterior personality of the beings which are not man. The visible I in nowise authorizes the thinker to deny the latent I. Having made this reservation, let us pass on. Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us to say what there was in Police Officer Javert. The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as he grew up, he would devour the other little ones. Give to this dogson of a wolf a human face, and the result will be Javert. Javert had been born in prison, of a fortuneteller, whose husband was in the galleys. As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale of society, and he despaired of ever reentering it. He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,those who attack it and those who guard it he had no choice except between these two classes at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung. He entered the police he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was an inspector. During his youth he had been employed in the convict establishments of the South. Before proceeding further, let us come to an understanding as to the words, 'human face, which we have just applied to Javert. The human face of Javert consisted of a flat nose, with two deep nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns for the first time. When Javert laughed,and his laugh was rare and terrible,his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth, but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage fold, as on the muzzle of a wild beast. Javert, serious, was a watchdog when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very little skull and a great deal of jaw his hair concealed his forehead and fell over his eyebrows between his eyes there was a permanent, central frown, like an imprint of wrath his gaze was obscure his mouth pursed up and terrible his air that of ferocious command. This man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments, comparatively but he rendered them almost bad, by dint of exaggerating them,respect for authority, hatred of rebellion and in his eyes, murder, robbery, all crimes, are only forms of rebellion. He enveloped in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the state, from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with scorn, aversion, and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal threshold of evil. He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions. On the one hand, he said, 'The functionary can make no mistake the magistrate is never the wrong. On the other hand, he said, 'These men are irremediably lost. Nothing good can come from them. He fully shared the opinion of those extreme minds which attribute to human law I know not what power of making, or, if the reader will have it so, of authenticating, demons, and who place a Styx at the base of society. He was stoical, serious, austere a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics. His glance was like a gimlet, cold and piercing. His whole life hung on these two words watchfulness and supervision. He had introduced a straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world he possessed the conscience of his usefulness, the religion of his functions, and he was a spy as other men are priests. Woe to the man who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father, if the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his mother, if she had broken her ban. And he would have done it with that sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, a life of privation, isolation, abnegation, chastity, with never a diversion. It was implacable duty the police understood, as the Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless lying in wait, a ferocious honesty, a marble informer, Brutus in Vidocq. Javert's whole person was expressive of the man who spies and who withdraws himself from observation. The mystical school of Joseph de Maistre, which at that epoch seasoned with lofty cosmogony those things which were called the ultra newspapers, would not have failed to declare that Javert was a symbol. His brow was not visible it disappeared beneath his hat his eyes were not visible, since they were lost under his eyebrows his chin was not visible, for it was plunged in his cravat his hands were not visible they were drawn up in his sleeves and his cane was not visible he carried it under his coat. But when the occasion presented itself, there was suddenly seen to emerge from all this shadow, as from an ambuscade, a narrow and angular forehead, a baleful glance, a threatening chin, enormous hands, and a monstrous cudgel. In his leisure moments, which were far from frequent, he read, although he hated books this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could be recognized by some emphasis in his speech. As we have said, he had no vices. When he was pleased with himself, he permitted himself a pinch of snuff. Therein lay his connection with humanity. The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the terror of that whole class which the annual statistics of the Ministry of Justice designates under the rubric, Vagrants. The name of Javert routed them by its mere utterance the face of Javert petrified them at sight. Such was this formidable man. Javert was like an eye constantly fixed on M. Madeleine. An eye full of suspicion and conjecture. M. Madeleine had finally perceived the fact but it seemed to be of no importance to him. He did not even put a question to Javert he neither sought nor avoided him he bore that embarrassing and almost oppressive gaze without appearing to notice it. He treated Javert with ease and courtesy, as he did all the rest of the world. It was divined, from some words which escaped Javert, that he had secretly investigated, with that curiosity which belongs to the race, and into which there enters as much instinct as will, all the anterior traces which Father Madeleine might have left elsewhere. He seemed to know, and he sometimes said in covert words, that some one had gleaned certain information in a certain district about a family which had disappeared. Once he chanced to say, as he was talking to himself, 'I think I have him! Then he remained pensive for three days, and uttered not a word. It seemed that the thread which he thought he held had broken. Moreover, and this furnishes the necessary corrective for the too absolute sense which certain words might present, there can be nothing really infallible in a human creature, and the peculiarity of instinct is that it can become confused, thrown off the track, and defeated. Otherwise, it would be superior to intelligence, and the beast would be found to be provided with a better light than man. Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the perfect naturalness and tranquillity of M. Madeleine. One day, nevertheless, his strange manner appeared to produce an impression on M. Madeleine. It was on the following occasion. One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley of M. sur M. he heard a noise, and saw a group some distance away. He approached. An old man named Father Fauchelevent had just fallen beneath his cart, his horse having tumbled down. This Fauchelevent was one of the few enemies whom M. Madeleine had at that time. When Madeleine arrived in the neighborhood, Fauchelevent, an exnotary and a peasant who was almost educated, had a business which was beginning to be in a bad way. Fauchelevent had seen this simple workman grow rich, while he, a lawyer, was being ruined. This had filled him with jealousy, and he had done all he could, on every occasion, to injure Madeleine. Then bankruptcy had come and as the old man had nothing left but a cart and a horse, and neither family nor children, he had turned carter. The horse had two broken legs and could not rise. The old man was caught in the wheels. The fall had been so unlucky that the whole weight of the vehicle rested on his breast. The cart was quite heavily laden. Father Fauchelevent was rattling in the throat in the most lamentable manner. They had tried, but in vain, to drag him out. An unmethodical effort, aid awkwardly given, a wrong shake, might kill him. It was impossible to disengage him otherwise than by lifting the vehicle off of him. Javert, who had come up at the moment of the accident, had sent for a jackscrew. M. Madeleine arrived. People stood aside respectfully. 'Help! cried old Fauchelevent. 'Who will be good and save the old man? M. Madeleine turned towards those present 'Is there a jackscrew to be had? 'One has been sent for, answered the peasant. 'How long will it take to get it? 'They have gone for the nearest, to Flachot's place, where there is a farrier but it makes no difference it will take a good quarter of an hour. 'A quarter of an hour! exclaimed Madeleine. It had rained on the preceding night the soil was soaked. The cart was sinking deeper into the earth every moment, and crushing the old carter's breast more and more. It was evident that his ribs would be broken in five minutes more. 'It is impossible to wait another quarter of an hour, said Madeleine to the peasants, who were staring at him. 'We must! 'But it will be too late then! Don't you see that the cart is sinking? 'Well! 'Listen, resumed Madeleine 'there is still room enough under the cart to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back. Only half a minute, and the poor man can be taken out. Is there any one here who has stout loins and heart? There are five louis d'or to be earned! Not a man in the group stirred. 'Ten louis, said Madeleine. The persons present dropped their eyes. One of them muttered 'A man would need to be devilish strong. And then he runs the risk of getting crushed! 'Come, began Madeleine again, 'twenty louis. The same silence. 'It is not the will which is lacking, said a voice. M. Madeleine turned round, and recognized Javert. He had not noticed him on his arrival. Javert went on 'It is strength. One would have to be a terrible man to do such a thing as lift a cart like that on his back. Then, gazing fixedly at M. Madeleine, he went on, emphasizing every word that he uttered 'Monsieur Madeleine, I have never known but one man capable of doing what you ask. Madeleine shuddered. Javert added, with an air of indifference, but without removing his eyes from Madeleine 'He was a convict. 'Ah! said Madeleine. 'In the galleys at Toulon. Madeleine turned pale. Meanwhile, the cart continued to sink slowly. Father Fauchelevent rattled in the throat, and shrieked 'I am strangling! My ribs are breaking! a screw! something! Ah! Madeleine glanced about him. 'Is there, then, no one who wishes to earn twenty louis and save the life of this poor old man? No one stirred. Javert resumed 'I have never known but one man who could take the place of a screw, and he was that convict. 'Ah! It is crushing me! cried the old man. Madeleine raised his head, met Javert's falcon eye still fixed upon him, looked at the motionless peasants, and smiled sadly. Then, without saying a word, he fell on his knees, and before the crowd had even had time to utter a cry, he was underneath the vehicle. A terrible moment of expectation and silence ensued. They beheld Madeleine, almost flat on his stomach beneath that terrible weight, make two vain efforts to bring his knees and his elbows together. They shouted to him, 'Father Madeleine, come out! Old Fauchelevent himself said to him, 'Monsieur Madeleine, go away! You see that I am fated to die! Leave me! You will get yourself crushed also! Madeleine made no reply. All the spectators were panting. The wheels had continued to sink, and it had become almost impossible for Madeleine to make his way from under the vehicle. Suddenly the enormous mass was seen to quiver, the cart rose slowly, the wheels half emerged from the ruts. They heard a stifled voice crying, 'Make haste! Help! It was Madeleine, who had just made a final effort. They rushed forwards. The devotion of a single man had given force and courage to all. The cart was raised by twenty arms. Old Fauchelevent was saved. Madeleine rose. He was pale, though dripping with perspiration. His clothes were torn and covered with mud. All wept. The old man kissed his knees and called him the good God. As for him, he bore upon his countenance an indescribable expression of happy and celestial suffering, and he fixed his tranquil eye on Javert, who was still staring at him. Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall. Father Madeleine had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by two sisters of charity. On the following morning the old man found a thousandfranc banknote on his nightstand, with these words in Father Madeleine's writing 'I purchase your horse and cart. The cart was broken, and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee remained stiff. M. Madeleine, on the recommendation of the sisters of charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a female convent in the Rue SaintAntoine in Paris. Some time afterwards, M. Madeleine was appointed mayor. The first time that Javert beheld M. Madeleine clothed in the scarf which gave him authority over the town, he felt the sort of shudder which a watchdog might experience on smelling a wolf in his master's clothes. From that time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could. When the requirements of the service imperatively demanded it, and he could not do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound respect. This prosperity created at M. sur M. by Father Madeleine had, besides the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was nonetheless significant for not being visible. This never deceives. When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no commerce, the taxpayer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in the charges for compelling and collection. When work is abundant, when the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the state nothing. It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer of the public misery and riches,the cost of collecting the taxes. In the course of seven years the expense of collecting the taxes had diminished threefourths in the arrondissement of M. sur M., and this led to this arrondissement being frequently cited from all the rest by M. de Villle, then Minister of Finance. Such was the condition of the country when Fantine returned thither. No one remembered her. Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine's factory was like the face of a friend. She presented herself there, and was admitted to the women's workroom. The trade was entirely new to Fantine she could not be very skilful at it, and she therefore earned but little by her day's work but it was sufficient the problem was solved she was earning her living. When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt joyful for a moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The taste for work had really returned to her. She bought a lookingglass, took pleasure in surveying in it her youth, her beautiful hair, her fine teeth she forgot many things she thought only of Cosette and of the possible future, and was almost happy. She hired a little room and furnished on credit on the strength of her future worka lingering trace of her improvident ways. As she was not able to say that she was married she took good care, as we have seen, not to mention her little girl. At first, as the reader has seen, she paid the Thnardiers promptly. As she only knew how to sign her name, she was obliged to write through a public letterwriter. She wrote often, and this was noticed. It began to be said in an undertone, in the women's workroom, that Fantine 'wrote letters and that 'she had ways about her. There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them. Why does that gentleman never come except at nightfall? Why does Mr. SoandSo never hang his key on its nail on Tuesday? Why does he always take the narrow streets? Why does Madame always descend from her hackneycoach before reaching her house? Why does she send out to purchase six sheets of note paper, when she has a 'whole stationer's shop full of it? etc. There exist beings who, for the sake of obtaining the key to these enigmas, which are, moreover, of no consequence whatever to them, spend more money, waste more time, take more trouble, than would be required for ten good actions, and that gratuitously, for their own pleasure, without receiving any other payment for their curiosity than curiosity. They will follow up such and such a man or woman for whole days they will do sentry duty for hours at a time on the corners of the streets, under alleyway doors at night, in cold and rain they will bribe errandporters, they will make the drivers of hackneycoaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waitingmaid, suborn a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy of those who have 'found out everything, without any interest in the matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing. Certain persons are malicious solely through a necessity for talking. Their conversation, the chat of the drawingroom, gossip of the anteroom, is like those chimneys which consume wood rapidly they need a great amount of combustibles and their combustibles are furnished by their neighbors. So Fantine was watched. In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and of her white teeth. It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside, in the midst of the rest, to wipe away a tear. These were the moments when she was thinking of her child perhaps, also, of the man whom she had loved. Breaking the gloomy bonds of the past is a mournful task. It was observed that she wrote twice a month at least, and that she paid the carriage on the letter. They managed to obtain the address Monsieur, Monsieur Thnardier, innkeeper at Montfermeil. The public writer, a good old man who could not fill his stomach with red wine without emptying his pocket of secrets, was made to talk in the wineshop. In short, it was discovered that Fantine had a child. 'She must be a pretty sort of a woman. An old gossip was found, who made the trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thnardiers, and said on her return 'For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind. I have seen the child. The gossip who did this thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien, the guardian and doorkeeper of every one's virtue. Madame Victurnien was fiftysix, and reenforced the mask of ugliness with the mask of age. A quavering voice, a whimsical mind. This old dame had once been youngastonishing fact! In her youth, in ', she had married a monk who had fled from his cloister in a red cap, and passed from the Bernardines to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, peevish, sharp, captious, almost venomous all this in memory of her monk, whose widow she was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his will. She was a nettle in which the rustle of the cassock was visible. At the Restoration she had turned bigot, and that with so much energy that the priests had forgiven her her monk. She had a small property, which she bequeathed with much ostentation to a religious community. She was in high favor at the episcopal palace of Arras. So this Madame Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned with the remark, 'I have seen the child. All this took time. Fantine had been at the factory for more than a year, when, one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her fifty francs from the mayor, told her that she was no longer employed in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor's name, to leave the neighborhood. This was the very month when the Thnardiers, after having demanded twelve francs instead of six, had just exacted fifteen francs instead of twelve. Fantine was overwhelmed. She could not leave the neighborhood she was in debt for her rent and furniture. Fifty francs was not sufficient to cancel this debt. She stammered a few supplicating words. The superintendent ordered her to leave the shop on the instant. Besides, Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to her room. So her fault was now known to every one. She no longer felt strong enough to say a word. She was advised to see the mayor she did not dare. The mayor had given her fifty francs because he was good, and had dismissed her because he was just. She bowed before the decision. So the monk's widow was good for something. But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just such combinations of events. M. Madeleine was in the habit of almost never entering the women's workroom. At the head of this room he had placed an elderly spinster, whom the priest had provided for him, and he had full confidence in this superintendent,a truly respectable person, firm, equitable, upright, full of the charity which consists in giving, but not having in the same degree that charity which consists in understanding and in forgiving. M. Madeleine relied wholly on her. The best men are often obliged to delegate their authority. It was with this full power, and the conviction that she was doing right, that the superintendent had instituted the suit, judged, condemned, and executed Fantine. As regards the fifty francs, she had given them from a fund which M. Madeleine had intrusted to her for charitable purposes, and for giving assistance to the workwomen, and of which she rendered no account. Fantine tried to obtain a situation as a servant in the neighborhood she went from house to house. No one would have her. She could not leave town. The secondhand dealer, to whom she was in debt for her furnitureand what furniture!said to her, 'If you leave, I will have you arrested as a thief. The householder, whom she owed for her rent, said to her, 'You are young and pretty you can pay. She divided the fifty francs between the landlord and the furnituredealer, returned to the latter threequarters of his goods, kept only necessaries, and found herself without work, without a trade, with nothing but her bed, and still about fifty francs in debt. She began to make coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison, and earned twelve sous a day. Her daughter cost her ten. It was at this point that she began to pay the Thnardiers irregularly. However, the old woman who lighted her candle for her when she returned at night, taught her the art of living in misery. Back of living on little, there is the living on nothing. These are the two chambers the first is dark, the second is black. Fantine learned how to live without fire entirely in the winter how to give up a bird which eats a half a farthing's worth of millet every two days how to make a coverlet of one's petticoat, and a petticoat of one's coverlet how to save one's candle, by taking one's meals by the light of the opposite window. No one knows all that certain feeble creatures, who have grown old in privation and honesty, can get out of a sou. It ends by being a talent. Fantine acquired this sublime talent, and regained a little courage. At this epoch she said to a neighbor, 'Bah! I say to myself, by only sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the time at my sewing, I shall always manage to nearly earn my bread. And, then, when one is sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one hand, trouble on the other,all this will support me. It would have been a great happiness to have her little girl with her in this distress. She thought of having her come. But what then! Make her share her own destitution! And then, she was in debt to the Thnardiers! How could she pay them? And the journey! How pay for that? The old woman who had given her lessons in what may be called the life of indigence, was a sainted spinster named Marguerite, who was pious with a true piety, poor and charitable towards the poor, and even towards the rich, knowing how to write just sufficiently to sign herself Marguerite, and believing in God, which is science. There are many such virtuous people in this lower world some day they will be in the world above. This life has a morrow. At first, Fantine had been so ashamed that she had not dared to go out. When she was in the street, she divined that people turned round behind her, and pointed at her every one stared at her and no one greeted her the cold and bitter scorn of the passersby penetrated her very flesh and soul like a north wind. It seems as though an unfortunate woman were utterly bare beneath the sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small towns. In Paris, at least, no one knows you, and this obscurity is a garment. Oh! how she would have liked to betake herself to Paris! Impossible! She was obliged to accustom herself to disrepute, as she had accustomed herself to indigence. Gradually she decided on her course. At the expiration of two or three months she shook off her shame, and began to go about as though there were nothing the matter. 'It is all the same to me, she said. She went and came, bearing her head well up, with a bitter smile, and was conscious that she was becoming brazenfaced. Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from her window, noticed the distress of 'that creature who, 'thanks to her, had been 'put back in her proper place, and congratulated herself. The happiness of the evilminded is black. Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough which troubled her increased. She sometimes said to her neighbor, Marguerite, 'Just feel how hot my hands are! Nevertheless, when she combed her beautiful hair in the morning with an old broken comb, and it flowed about her like floss silk, she experienced a moment of happy coquetry. She had been dismissed towards the end of the winter the summer passed, but winter came again. Short days, less work. Winter no warmth, no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning, fogs, twilight the window is gray it is impossible to see clearly at it. The sky is but a venthole. The whole day is a cavern. The sun has the air of a beggar. A frightful season! Winter changes the water of heaven and the heart of man into a stone. Her creditors harrassed her. Fantine earned too little. Her debts had increased. The Thnardiers, who were not promptly paid, wrote to her constantly letters whose contents drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day they wrote to her that her little Cosette was entirely naked in that cold weather, that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least ten francs for this. She received the letter, and crushed it in her hands all day long. That evening she went into a barber's shop at the corner of the street, and pulled out her comb. Her admirable golden hair fell to her knees. 'What splendid hair! exclaimed the barber. 'How much will you give me for it? said she. 'Ten francs. 'Cut it off. She purchased a knitted petticoat and sent it to the Thnardiers. This petticoat made the Thnardiers furious. It was the money that they wanted. They gave the petticoat to ponine. The poor Lark continued to shiver. Fantine thought 'My child is no longer cold. I have clothed her with my hair. She put on little round caps which concealed her shorn head, and in which she was still pretty. Dark thoughts held possession of Fantine's heart. When she saw that she could no longer dress her hair, she began to hate every one about her. She had long shared the universal veneration for Father Madeleine yet, by dint of repeating to herself that it was he who had discharged her, that he was the cause of her unhappiness, she came to hate him also, and most of all. When she passed the factory in working hours, when the workpeople were at the door, she affected to laugh and sing. An old workwoman who once saw her laughing and singing in this fashion said, 'There's a girl who will come to a bad end. She took a lover, the first who offered, a man whom she did not love, out of bravado and with rage in her heart. He was a miserable scamp, a sort of mendicant musician, a lazy beggar, who beat her, and who abandoned her as she had taken him, in disgust. She adored her child. The lower she descended, the darker everything grew about her, the more radiant shone that little angel at the bottom of her heart. She said, 'When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me and she laughed. Her cough did not leave her, and she had sweats on her back. One day she received from the Thnardiers a letter couched in the following terms 'Cosette is ill with a malady which is going the rounds of the neighborhood. A miliary fever, they call it. Expensive drugs are required. This is ruining us, and we can no longer pay for them. If you do not send us forty francs before the week is out, the little one will be dead. She burst out laughing, and said to her old neighbor 'Ah! they are good! Forty francs! the idea! That makes two napoleons! Where do they think I am to get them? These peasants are stupid, truly. Nevertheless she went to a dormer window in the staircase and read the letter once more. Then she descended the stairs and emerged, running and leaping and still laughing. Some one met her and said to her, 'What makes you so gay? She replied 'A fine piece of stupidity that some country people have written to me. They demand forty francs of me. So much for you, you peasants! As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around a carriage of eccentric shape, upon the top of which stood a man dressed in red, who was holding forth. He was a quack dentist on his rounds, who was offering to the public full sets of teeth, opiates, powders and elixirs. Fantine mingled in the group, and began to laugh with the rest at the harangue, which contained slang for the populace and jargon for respectable people. The toothpuller espied the lovely, laughing girl, and suddenly exclaimed 'You have beautiful teeth, you girl there, who are laughing if you want to sell me your palettes, I will give you a gold napoleon apiece for them. 'What are my palettes? asked Fantine. 'The palettes, replied the dental professor, 'are the front teeth, the two upper ones. 'How horrible! exclaimed Fantine. 'Two napoleons! grumbled a toothless old woman who was present. 'Here's a lucky girl! Fantine fled and stopped her ears that she might not hear the hoarse voice of the man shouting to her 'Reflect, my beauty! two napoleons they may prove of service. If your heart bids you, come this evening to the inn of the Tillac d'Argent you will find me there. Fantine returned home. She was furious, and related the occurrence to her good neighbor Marguerite 'Can you understand such a thing? Is he not an abominable man? How can they allow such people to go about the country! Pull out my two front teeth! Why, I should be horrible! My hair will grow again, but my teeth! Ah! what a monster of a man! I should prefer to throw myself head first on the pavement from the fifth story! He told me that he should be at the Tillac d'Argent this evening. 'And what did he offer? asked Marguerite. 'Two napoleons. 'That makes forty francs. 'Yes, said Fantine 'that makes forty francs. She remained thoughtful, and began her work. At the expiration of a quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to read the Thnardiers' letter once more on the staircase. On her return, she said to Marguerite, who was at work beside her 'What is a miliary fever? Do you know? 'Yes, answered the old spinster 'it is a disease. 'Does it require many drugs? 'Oh! terrible drugs. 'How does one get it? 'It is a malady that one gets without knowing how. 'Then it attacks children? 'Children in particular. 'Do people die of it? 'They may, said Marguerite. Fantine left the room and went to read her letter once more on the staircase. That evening she went out, and was seen to turn her steps in the direction of the Rue de Paris, where the inns are situated. The next morning, when Marguerite entered Fantine's room before daylight,for they always worked together, and in this manner used only one candle for the two,she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and frozen. She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees. Her candle had burned all night, and was almost entirely consumed. Marguerite halted on the threshold, petrified at this tremendous wastefulness, and exclaimed 'Lord! the candle is all burned out! Something has happened. Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its hair. Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. 'Jesus! said Marguerite, 'what is the matter with you, Fantine? 'Nothing, replied Fantine. 'Quite the contrary. My child will not die of that frightful malady, for lack of succor. I am content. So saying, she pointed out to the spinster two napoleons which were glittering on the table. 'Ah! Jesus God! cried Marguerite. 'Why, it is a fortune! Where did you get those louis d'or? 'I got them, replied Fantine. At the same time she smiled. The candle illuminated her countenance. It was a bloody smile. A reddish saliva soiled the corners of her lips, and she had a black hole in her mouth. The two teeth had been extracted. She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil. After all it was a ruse of the Thnardiers to obtain money. Cosette was not ill. Fantine threw her mirror out of the window. She had long since quitted her cell on the second floor for an attic with only a latch to fasten it, next the roof one of those attics whose extremity forms an angle with the floor, and knocks you on the head every instant. The poor occupant can reach the end of his chamber as he can the end of his destiny, only by bending over more and more. She had no longer a bed a rag which she called her coverlet, a mattress on the floor, and a seatless chair still remained. A little rosebush which she had, had dried up, forgotten, in one corner. In the other corner was a butterpot to hold water, which froze in winter, and in which the various levels of the water remained long marked by these circles of ice. She had lost her shame she lost her coquetry. A final sign. She went out, with dirty caps. Whether from lack of time or from indifference, she no longer mended her linen. As the heels wore out, she dragged her stockings down into her shoes. This was evident from the perpendicular wrinkles. She patched her bodice, which was old and worn out, with scraps of calico which tore at the slightest movement. The people to whom she was indebted made 'scenes and gave her no peace. She found them in the street, she found them again on her staircase. She passed many a night weeping and thinking. Her eyes were very bright, and she felt a steady pain in her shoulder towards the top of the left shoulderblade. She coughed a great deal. She deeply hated Father Madeleine, but made no complaint. She sewed seventeen hours a day but a contractor for the work of prisons, who made the prisoners work at a discount, suddenly made prices fall, which reduced the daily earnings of workingwomen to nine sous. Seventeen hours of toil, and nine sous a day! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever. The secondhand dealer, who had taken back nearly all his furniture, said to her incessantly, 'When will you pay me, you hussy? What did they want of her, good God! She felt that she was being hunted, and something of the wild beast developed in her. About the same time, Thnardier wrote to her that he had waited with decidedly too much amiability and that he must have a hundred francs at once otherwise he would turn little Cosette out of doors, convalescent as she was from her heavy illness, into the cold and the streets, and that she might do what she liked with herself, and die if she chose. 'A hundred francs, thought Fantine. 'But in what trade can one earn a hundred sous a day? 'Come! said she, 'let us sell what is left. The unfortunate girl became a woman of the town. What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. From whom? From misery. From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul for a morsel of bread. Misery offers society accepts. The sacred law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does not, as yet, permeate it it is said that slavery has disappeared from European civilization. This is a mistake. It still exists but it weighs only upon the woman, and it is called prostitution. It weighs upon the woman, that is to say, upon grace, weakness, beauty, maternity. This is not one of the least of man's disgraces. At the point in this melancholy drama which we have now reached, nothing is left to Fantine of that which she had formerly been. She has become marble in becoming mire. Whoever touches her feels cold. She passes she endures you she ignores you she is the severe and dishonored figure. Life and the social order have said their last word for her. All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep. She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a sponge that is soaked. At least, she believes it to be so but it is an error to imagine that fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything whatever. Alas! What are all these fates, driven on pellmell? Whither are they going? Why are they thus? He who knows that sees the whole of the shadow. He is alone. His name is God. There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular, a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred thousand francs a year in Paris. These are beings of the great neuter species impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a little folly, a little wit who would be rustics in a drawingroom, and who think themselves gentlemen in the dramshop who say, 'My fields, my peasants, my woods who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that they are persons of taste quarrel with the officers of the garrison to prove that they are men of war hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the diligence, live at the caf, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris through the medium of PontMousson, grow old as dullards, never work, serve no use, and do no great harm. M. Flix Tholomys, had he remained in his own province and never beheld Paris, would have been one of these men. If they were richer, one would say, 'They are dandies if they were poorer, one would say, 'They are idlers. They are simply men without employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored, dreamers, and some knaves. At that period a dandy was composed of a tall collar, a big cravat, a watch with trinkets, three vests of different colors, worn one on top of the otherthe red and blue inside of a shortwaisted olive coat, with a codfish tail, a double row of silver buttons set close to each other and running up to the shoulder and a pair of trousers of a lighter shade of olive, ornamented on the two seams with an indefinite, but always uneven, number of lines, varying from one to elevena limit which was never exceeded. Add to this, high shoes with little irons on the heels, a tall hat with a narrow brim, hair worn in a tuft, an enormous cane, and conversation set off by puns of Potier. Over all, spurs and a moustache. At that epoch moustaches indicated the bourgeois, and spurs the pedestrian. The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of moustaches. It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America with the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrowbrimmed hats were royalist, and were called morillos liberals wore hats with wide brims, which were called bolivars. Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding pages, towards the first of January, , on a snowy evening, one of these dandies, one of these unemployed, a 'right thinker, for he wore a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a balldress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of the officers' caf. This dandy was smoking, for he was decidedly fashionable. Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her, together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he considered witty and mirthful, such as, 'How ugly you are!Will you get out of my sight?You have no teeth! etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M. Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even glance at him, and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and with a sombre regularity, which brought her every five minutes within reach of this sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the rods. The small effect which he produced no doubt piqued the lounger and taking advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up behind her with the gait of a wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down, picked up a handful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly into her back, between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a roar, whirled round, gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the man, burying her nails in his face, with the most frightful words which could fall from the guardroom into the gutter. These insults, poured forth in a voice roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous wise from a mouth which lacked its two front teeth. It was Fantine. At the noise thus produced, the officers ran out in throngs from the caf, passersby collected, and a large and merry circle, hooting and applauding, was formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings, whom there was some difficulty in recognizing as a man and a woman the man struggling, his hat on the ground the woman striking out with feet and fists, bareheaded, howling, minus hair and teeth, livid with wrath, horrible. Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd, seized the woman by her satin bodice, which was covered with mud, and said to her, 'Follow me! The woman raised her head her furious voice suddenly died away. Her eyes were glassy she turned pale instead of livid, and she trembled with a quiver of terror. She had recognized Javert. The dandy took advantage of the incident to make his escape. Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out with long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of spectators followed, jesting, in a paroxysm of delight. Supreme misery an occasion for obscenity. On arriving at the police station, which was a low room, warmed by a stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the stationhouse, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. To see is to devour. On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless and mute, crouching down like a terrified dog. The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the table. Javert seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and began to write. This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to the discretion of the police. The latter do what they please, punish them, as seems good to them, and confiscate at their will those two sorry things which they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive his grave face betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was seriously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he was exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a severe conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment he was conscious that his police agent's stool was a tribunal. He was entering judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas which could possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he was doing. The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. It was evident that he had just witnessed the commission of a crime. He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the person of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was outside all pales. A prostitute had made an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He wrote in silence. When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and said to the sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, 'Take three men and conduct this creature to jail. Then, turning to Fantine, 'You are to have six months of it. The unhappy woman shuddered. 'Six months! six months of prison! she exclaimed. 'Six months in which to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter! my daughter! But I still owe the Thnardiers over a hundred francs do you know that, Monsieur Inspector? She dragged herself across the damp floor, among the muddy boots of all those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides on her knees. 'Monsieur Javert, said she, 'I beseech your mercy. I assure you that I was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time 'You are ugly! you have no teeth!' I know well that I have no longer those teeth. I did nothing I said to myself, 'The gentleman is amusing himself.' I was honest with him I did not speak to him. It was at that moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can tell you that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You know that one is not master of one's self at the first moment. One gives way to vivacity and then, when some one puts something cold down your back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that gentleman's hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my God! It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the favor today, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know that in prison one can earn only seven sous a day it is not the government's fault, but seven sous is one's earnings and just fancy, I must pay one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my Cosette! Oh, my little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of her, poor creature? I will tell you it is the Thnardiers, innkeepers, peasants and such people are unreasonable. They want money. Don't put me in prison! You see, there is a little girl who will be turned out into the street to get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter and you must have pity on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she might earn her living but it cannot be done at that age. I am not a bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and gluttony that have made me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not love it but it benumbs the senses. When I was happy, it was only necessary to glance into my closets, and it would have been evident that I was not a coquettish and untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of linen. Have pity on me, Monsieur Javert! She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had become beautiful once more. From time to time she paused, and tenderly kissed the police agent's coat. She would have softened a heart of granite but a heart of wood cannot be softened. 'Come! said Javert, 'I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could do nothing more. At these solemn words, 'the Eternal Father in person could do nothing more, she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down, murmuring, 'Mercy! Javert turned his back. The soldiers seized her by the arms. A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed to him. He shut the door, leaned his back against it, and listened to Fantine's despairing supplications. At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate woman, who would not rise, he emerged from the shadow, and said 'One moment, if you please. Javert raised his eyes and recognized M. Madeleine. He removed his hat, and, saluting him with a sort of aggrieved awkwardness 'Excuse me, Mr. Mayor The words 'Mr. Mayor produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth, thrust aside the soldiers with both arms, walked straight up to M. Madeleine before any one could prevent her, and gazing intently at him, with a bewildered air, she cried 'Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire! Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face. M. Madeleine wiped his face, and said 'Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty. Javert felt that he was on the verge of going mad. He experienced at that moment, blow upon blow and almost simultaneously, the most violent emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life. To see a woman of the town spit in the mayor's face was a thing so monstrous that, in his most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege to believe it possible. On the other hand, at the very bottom of his thought, he made a hideous comparison as to what this woman was, and as to what this mayor might be and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But when he beheld that mayor, that magistrate, calmly wipe his face and say, 'Set this woman at liberty, he underwent a sort of intoxication of amazement thought and word failed him equally the sum total of possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute. The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in a low voice, as though talking to herself 'At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If that is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you see you are earning twelve sous at shirtmaking, the price falls to nine sous and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was actually forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is that that blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I stamped on that gentleman's hat in front of the officers' caf but he had spoiled my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress for evening wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberatelytruly, Monsieur Javert and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked than I, and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who gave orders that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak to my landlord I am paying my rent now they will tell you that I am perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon I have unintentionally touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke. M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine, 'How much did you say that you owed? Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him 'Was I speaking to you? Then, addressing the soldiers 'Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I'm not afraid of you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur Javert! So saying, she turned to the inspector again 'And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector in fact, it is perfectly simple a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman's back, and that makes the officers laugh one must divert themselves in some way and wewell, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course! And then, you, you come you are certainly obliged to preserve order, you lead off the woman who is in the wrong but on reflection, since you are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty it is for the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my supporting my child. 'Only, don't do it again, you hussy!' Oh! I won't do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me now I will not stir. But today, you see, I cried because it hurt me. I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all and then as I told you, I am not well I have a cough I seem to have a burning ball in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, 'Take care of yourself.' Here, feel, give me your hand don't be afraidit is here. She no longer wept, her voice was caressing she placed Javert's coarse hand on her delicate, white throat and looked smilingly at him. All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the folds of her skirt, which had been pushed up as she dragged herself along, almost to the height of her knee, and stepped towards the door, saying to the soldiers in a low voice, and with a friendly nod 'Children, Monsieur l'Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and I am going. She laid her hand on the latch of the door. One step more and she would be in the street. Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced statue, which is waiting to be put away somewhere. The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming in proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the man of no estate. 'Sergeant! he cried, 'don't you see that that jade is walking off! Who bade you let her go? 'I, said Madeleine. Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert's voice, and let go of the latch as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the sound of Madeleine's voice she turned around, and from that moment forth she uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but her glance strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to Madeleine in turn, according to which was speaking. It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure before he would permit himself to apostrophize the sergeant as he had done, after the mayor's suggestion that Fantine should be set at liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor's presence? Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any 'authority should have given such an order, and that the mayor must certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for the past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to recur to supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that the small should be made great, that the police spy should transform himself into a magistrate, that the policeman should become a dispenser of justice, and that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert? However that may be, when M. Madeleine uttered that word, I, as we have just heard, Police Inspector Javert was seen to turn toward the mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, and a look of despair, his whole body agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented occurrence, and say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice 'Mr. Mayor, that cannot be. 'Why not? said M. Madeleine. 'This miserable woman has insulted a citizen. 'Inspector Javert, replied the mayor, in a calm and conciliating tone, 'listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining matters to you. Here is the true state of the case I was passing through the square just as you were leading this woman away there were still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned everything it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should have been arrested by properly conducted police. Javert retorted 'This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire. 'That concerns me, said M. Madeleine. 'My own insult belongs to me, I think. I can do what I please about it. 'I beg Monsieur le Maire's pardon. The insult is not to him but to the law. 'Inspector Javert, replied M. Madeleine, 'the highest law is conscience. I have heard this woman I know what I am doing. 'And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see. 'Then content yourself with obeying. 'I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six months in prison. M. Madeleine replied gently 'Heed this well she will not serve a single day. At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the mayor and to say, but in a tone of voice that was still profoundly respectful 'I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire it is for the first time in my life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself on Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain this woman Fantine. Then M. Madeleine folded his arms, and said in a severe voice which no one in the town had heard hitherto 'The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixtysix of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order that this woman shall be set at liberty. Javert ventured to make a final effort. 'But, Mr. Mayor 'I refer you to article eightyone of the law of the th of December, , in regard to arbitrary detention. 'Monsieur le Maire, permit me 'Not another word. 'But 'Leave the room, said M. Madeleine. Javert received the blow erect, full in the face, in his breast, like a Russian soldier. He bowed to the very earth before the mayor and left the room. Fantine stood aside from the door and stared at him in amazement as he passed. Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She had seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, her child, in combat before her very eyes one of these men was drawing her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards the light. In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of terror, these two men had appeared to her like two giants the one spoke like her demon, the other like her good angel. The angel had conquered the demon, and, strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the very man whom she abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as the author of all her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when she had insulted him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had she, then, been mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not know she trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in affright, and at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the frightful shades of hatred crumble and melt within her, and something warm and ineffable, indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and love, dawn in her heart. When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and said to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish to weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking 'I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even ignorant of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply to me? But here I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or you shall go to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if you do not like. I will give all the money you require. You shall be honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say,and I do not doubt it,you have never ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman. This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette to see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and could only give vent to two or three sobs, 'Oh! Oh! Oh! Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her lips to it. Then she fainted. M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he had established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A burning fever had come on. She passed a part of the night in delirium and raving. At length, however, she fell asleep. On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke. She heard some one breathing close to her bed she drew aside the curtain and saw M. Madeleine standing there and looking at something over her head. His gaze was full of pity, anguish, and supplication. She followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed on a crucifix which was nailed to the wall. Thenceforth, M. Madeleine was transfigured in Fantine's eyes. He seemed to her to be clothed in light. He was absorbed in a sort of prayer. She gazed at him for a long time without daring to interrupt him. At last she said timidly 'What are you doing? M. Madeleine had been there for an hour. He had been waiting for Fantine to awake. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and replied 'How do you feel? 'Well, I have slept, she replied 'I think that I am better. It is nothing. He answered, responding to the first question which she had put to him as though he had just heard it 'I was praying to the martyr there on high. And he added in his own mind, 'For the martyr here below. M. Madeleine had passed the night and the morning in making inquiries. He knew all now. He knew Fantine's history in all its heartrending details. He went on 'You have suffered much, poor mother. Oh! do not complain you now have the dowry of the elect. It is thus that men are transformed into angels. It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise. You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of heaven. It was necessary to begin there. He sighed deeply. But she smiled on him with that sublime smile in which two teeth were lacking. That same night, Javert wrote a letter. The next morning be posted it himself at the office of M. sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the superscription ran To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur le Prfet of Police. As the affair in the stationhouse had been bruited about, the postmistress and some other persons who saw the letter before it was sent off, and who recognized Javert's handwriting on the cover, thought that he was sending in his resignation. M. Madeleine made haste to write to the Thnardiers. Fantine owed them one hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs, telling them to pay themselves from that sum, and to fetch the child instantly to M. sur M., where her sick mother required her presence. This dazzled Thnardier. 'The devil! said the man to his wife 'don't let's allow the child to go. This lark is going to turn into a milch cow. I see through it. Some ninny has taken a fancy to the mother. He replied with a very well drawnup bill for five hundred and some odd francs. In this memorandum two indisputable items figured up over three hundred francs,one for the doctor, the other for the apothecary who had attended and physicked ponine and Azelma through two long illnesses. Cosette, as we have already said, had not been ill. It was only a question of a trifling substitution of names. At the foot of the memorandum Thnardier wrote, Received on account, three hundred francs. M. Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and wrote, 'Make haste to bring Cosette. 'Christi! said Thnardier, 'let's not give up the child. In the meantime, Fantine did not recover. She still remained in the infirmary. The sisters had at first only received and nursed 'that woman with repugnance. Those who have seen the basreliefs of Rheims will recall the inflation of the lower lip of the wise virgins as they survey the foolish virgins. The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubaj is one of the most profound instincts of feminine dignity the sisters felt it with the double force contributed by religion. But in a few days Fantine disarmed them. She said all kinds of humble and gentle things, and the mother in her provoked tenderness. One day the sisters heard her say amid her fever 'I have been a sinner but when I have my child beside me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I was leading a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with me I could not have borne her sad, astonished eyes. It was for her sake that I did evil, and that is why God pardons me. I shall feel the benediction of the good God when Cosette is here. I shall gaze at her it will do me good to see that innocent creature. She knows nothing at all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At that age the wings have not fallen off. M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and each time she asked him 'Shall I see my Cosette soon? He answered 'Tomorrow, perhaps. She may arrive at any moment. I am expecting her. And the mother's pale face grew radiant. 'Oh! she said, 'how happy I am going to be! We have just said that she did not recover her health. On the contrary, her condition seemed to become more grave from week to week. That handful of snow applied to her bare skin between her shoulderblades had brought about a sudden suppression of perspiration, as a consequence of which the malady which had been smouldering within her for many years was violently developed at last. At that time people were beginning to follow the fine Lannec's fine suggestions in the study and treatment of chest maladies. The doctor sounded Fantine's chest and shook his head. M. Madeleine said to the doctor 'Well? 'Has she not a child which she desires to see? said the doctor. 'Yes. 'Well! Make haste and get it here! M. Madeleine shuddered. Fantine inquired 'What did the doctor say? M. Madeleine forced himself to smile. 'He said that your child was to be brought speedily. That that would restore your health. 'Oh! she rejoined, 'he is right! But what do those Thnardiers mean by keeping my Cosette from me! Oh! she is coming. At last I behold happiness close beside me! In the meantime Thnardier did not 'let go of the child, and gave a hundred insufficient reasons for it. Cosette was not quite well enough to take a journey in the winter. And then, there still remained some petty but pressing debts in the neighborhood, and they were collecting the bills for them, etc., etc. 'I shall send some one to fetch Cosette! said Father Madeleine. 'If necessary, I will go myself. He wrote the following letter to Fantine's dictation, and made her sign it 'MONSIEUR THNARDIER You will deliver Cosette to this person. You will be paid for all the little things. I have the honor to salute you with respect. 'FANTINE. In the meantime a serious incident occurred. Carve as we will the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny constantly reappears in it. One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, occupied in arranging in advance some pressing matters connected with the mayor's office, in case he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he was informed that Police Inspector Javert was desirous of speaking with him. Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression on hearing this name. Javert had avoided him more than ever since the affair of the policestation, and M. Madeleine had not seen him. 'Admit him, he said. Javert entered. M. Madeleine had retained his seat near the fire, pen in hand, his eyes fixed on the docket which he was turning over and annotating, and which contained the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction of police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert's account. He could not help thinking of poor Fantine, and it suited him to be glacial in his manner. Javert bestowed a respectful salute on the mayor, whose back was turned to him. The mayor did not look at him, but went on annotating this docket. Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without breaking the silence. If any physiognomist who had been familiar with Javert, and who had made a lengthy study of this savage in the service of civilization, this singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the corporal, this spy who was incapable of a lie, this unspotted police agentif any physiognomist had known his secret and longcherished aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of Fantine, and had examined Javert at that moment, he would have said to himself, 'What has taken place? It was evident to any one acquainted with that clear, upright, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also in his countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to abrupt changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar and startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust he halted a few paces in the rear of the mayor's armchair, and there he stood, perfectly erect, in an attitude almost of discipline, with the cold, ingenuous roughness of a man who has never been gentle and who has always been patient he waited without uttering a word, without making a movement, in genuine humility and tranquil resignation, calm, serious, hat in hand, with eyes cast down, and an expression which was halfway between that of a soldier in the presence of his officer and a criminal in the presence of his judge, until it should please the mayor to turn round. All the sentiments as well as all the memories which one might have attributed to him had disappeared. That face, as impenetrable and simple as granite, no longer bore any trace of anything but a melancholy depression. His whole person breathed lowliness and firmness and an indescribable courageous despondency. At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned half round. 'Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert? Javert remained silent for an instant as though collecting his ideas, then raised his voice with a sort of sad solemnity, which did not, however, preclude simplicity. 'This is the matter, Mr. Mayor a culpable act has been committed. 'What act? 'An inferior agent of the authorities has failed in respect, and in the gravest manner, towards a magistrate. I have come to bring the fact to your knowledge, as it is my duty to do. 'Who is the agent? asked M. Madeleine. 'I, said Javert. 'You? 'I. 'And who is the magistrate who has reason to complain of the agent? 'You, Mr. Mayor. M. Madeleine sat erect in his armchair. Javert went on, with a severe air and his eyes still cast down. 'Mr. Mayor, I have come to request you to instigate the authorities to dismiss me. M. Madeleine opened his mouth in amazement. Javert interrupted him 'You will say that I might have handed in my resignation, but that does not suffice. Handing in one's resignation is honorable. I have failed in my duty I ought to be punished I must be turned out. And after a pause he added 'Mr. Mayor, you were severe with me the other day, and unjustly. Be so today, with justice. 'Come, now! Why? exclaimed M. Madeleine. 'What nonsense is this? What is the meaning of this? What culpable act have you been guilty of towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard to me? You accuse yourself you wish to be superseded 'Turned out, said Javert. 'Turned out so it be, then. That is well. I do not understand. 'You shall understand, Mr. Mayor. Javert sighed from the very bottom of his chest, and resumed, still coldly and sadly 'Mr. Mayor, six weeks ago, in consequence of the scene over that woman, I was furious, and I informed against you. 'Informed against me! 'At the Prefecture of Police in Paris. M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than Javert himself, burst out laughing now 'As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police? 'As an exconvict. The mayor turned livid. Javert, who had not raised his eyes, went on 'I thought it was so. I had had an idea for a long time a resemblance inquiries which you had caused to be made at Faverolles the strength of your loins the adventure with old Fauchelevant your skill in marksmanship your leg, which you drag a littleI hardly know what all,absurdities! But, at all events, I took you for a certain Jean Valjean. 'A certainWhat did you say the name was? 'Jean Valjean. He was a convict whom I was in the habit of seeing twenty years ago, when I was adjutantguard of convicts at Toulon. On leaving the galleys, this Jean Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop then he committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public highway on the person of a little Savoyard. He disappeared eight years ago, no one knows how, and he has been sought, I fancied. In short, I did this thing! Wrath impelled me I denounced you at the Prefecture! M. Madeleine, who had taken up the docket again several moments before this, resumed with an air of perfect indifference 'And what reply did you receive? 'That I was mad. 'Well? 'Well, they were right. 'It is lucky that you recognize the fact. 'I am forced to do so, since the real Jean Valjean has been found. The sheet of paper which M. Madeleine was holding dropped from his hand he raised his head, gazed fixedly at Javert, and said with his indescribable accent 'Ah! Javert continued 'This is the way it is, Mr. Mayor. It seems that there was in the neighborhood near AillyleHautClocher an old fellow who was called Father Champmathieu. He was a very wretched creature. No one paid any attention to him. No one knows what such people subsist on. Lately, last autumn, Father Champmathieu was arrested for the theft of some cider apples fromWell, no matter, a theft had been committed, a wall scaled, branches of trees broken. My Champmathieu was arrested. He still had the branch of appletree in his hand. The scamp is locked up. Up to this point it was merely an affair of a misdemeanor. But here is where Providence intervened. 'The jail being in a bad condition, the examining magistrate finds it convenient to transfer Champmathieu to Arras, where the departmental prison is situated. In this prison at Arras there is an exconvict named Brevet, who is detained for I know not what, and who has been appointed turnkey of the house, because of good behavior. Mr. Mayor, no sooner had Champmathieu arrived than Brevet exclaims 'Eh! Why, I know that man! He is a fagot! Take a good look at me, my good man! You are Jean Valjean!' 'Jean Valjean! who's Jean Valjean?' Champmathieu feigns astonishment. 'Don't play the innocent dodge,' says Brevet. 'You are Jean Valjean! You have been in the galleys of Toulon it was twenty years ago we were there together.' Champmathieu denies it. Parbleu! You understand. The case is investigated. The thing was well ventilated for me. This is what they discovered This Champmathieu had been, thirty years ago, a pruner of trees in various localities, notably at Faverolles. There all trace of him was lost. A long time afterwards he was seen again in Auvergne then in Paris, where he is said to have been a wheelwright, and to have had a daughter, who was a laundress but that has not been proved. Now, before going to the galleys for theft, what was Jean Valjean? A pruner of trees. Where? At Faverolles. Another fact. This Valjean's Christian name was Jean, and his mother's surname was Mathieu. What more natural to suppose than that, on emerging from the galleys, he should have taken his mother's name for the purpose of concealing himself, and have called himself Jean Mathieu? He goes to Auvergne. The local pronunciation turns Jean into Chanhe is called Chan Mathieu. Our man offers no opposition, and behold him transformed into Champmathieu. You follow me, do you not? Inquiries were made at Faverolles. The family of Jean Valjean is no longer there. It is not known where they have gone. You know that among those classes a family often disappears. Search was made, and nothing was found. When such people are not mud, they are dust. And then, as the beginning of the story dates thirty years back, there is no longer any one at Faverolles who knew Jean Valjean. Inquiries were made at Toulon. Besides Brevet, there are only two convicts in existence who have seen Jean Valjean they are Cochepaille and Chenildieu, and are sentenced for life. They are taken from the galleys and confronted with the pretended Champmathieu. They do not hesitate he is Jean Valjean for them as well as for Brevet. The same age,he is fiftyfour,the same height, the same air, the same man in short, it is he. It was precisely at this moment that I forwarded my denunciation to the Prefecture in Paris. I was told that I had lost my reason, and that Jean Valjean is at Arras, in the power of the authorities. You can imagine whether this surprised me, when I thought that I had that same Jean Valjean here. I write to the examining judge he sends for me Champmathieu is conducted to me 'Well? interposed M. Madeleine. Javert replied, his face incorruptible, and as melancholy as ever 'Mr. Mayor, the truth is the truth. I am sorry but that man is Jean Valjean. I recognized him also. M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice 'You are sure? Javert began to laugh, with that mournful laugh which comes from profound conviction. 'O! Sure! He stood there thoughtfully for a moment, mechanically taking pinches of powdered wood for blotting ink from the wooden bowl which stood on the table, and he added 'And even now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I do not see how I could have thought otherwise. I beg your pardon, Mr. Mayor. Javert, as he addressed these grave and supplicating words to the man, who six weeks before had humiliated him in the presence of the whole stationhouse, and bade him 'leave the room,Javert, that haughty man, was unconsciously full of simplicity and dignity,M. Madeleine made no other reply to his prayer than the abrupt question 'And what does this man say? 'Ah! Indeed, Mr. Mayor, it's a bad business. If he is Jean Valjean, he has his previous conviction against him. To climb a wall, to break a branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child for a man it is a misdemeanor for a convict it is a crime. Robbing and housebreakingit is all there. It is no longer a question of correctional police it is a matter for the Court of Assizes. It is no longer a matter of a few days in prison it is the galleys for life. And then, there is the affair with the little Savoyard, who will return, I hope. The deuce! there is plenty to dispute in the matter, is there not? Yes, for any one but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a sly dog. That is the way I recognized him. Any other man would have felt that things were getting hot for him he would struggle, he would cry outthe kettle sings before the fire he would not be Jean Valjean, et cetera. But he has not the appearance of understanding he says, 'I am Champmathieu, and I won't depart from that!' He has an astonished air, he pretends to be stupid it is far better. Oh! the rogue is clever! But it makes no difference. The proofs are there. He has been recognized by four persons the old scamp will be condemned. The case has been taken to the Assizes at Arras. I shall go there to give my testimony. I have been summoned. M. Madeleine had turned to his desk again, and taken up his docket, and was turning over the leaves tranquilly, reading and writing by turns, like a busy man. He turned to Javert 'That will do, Javert. In truth, all these details interest me but little. We are wasting our time, and we have pressing business on hand. Javert, you will betake yourself at once to the house of the woman Buseaupied, who sells herbs at the corner of the Rue SaintSaulve. You will tell her that she must enter her complaint against carter Pierre Chesnelong. The man is a brute, who came near crushing this woman and her child. He must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcellay, Rue MontredeChampigny. He complained that there is a gutter on the adjoining house which discharges rainwater on his premises, and is undermining the foundations of his house. After that, you will verify the infractions of police regulations which have been reported to me in the Rue Guibourg, at Widow Doris's, and Rue du GarraudBlanc, at Madame Rene le Boss's, and you will prepare documents. But I am giving you a great deal of work. Are you not to be absent? Did you not tell me that you were going to Arras on that matter in a week or ten days? 'Sooner than that, Mr. Mayor. 'On what day, then? 'Why, I thought that I had said to Monsieur le Maire that the case was to be tried tomorrow, and that I am to set out by diligence tonight. M. Madeleine made an imperceptible movement. 'And how long will the case last? 'One day, at the most. The judgment will be pronounced tomorrow evening at latest. But I shall not wait for the sentence, which is certain I shall return here as soon as my deposition has been taken. 'That is well, said M. Madeleine. And he dismissed Javert with a wave of the hand. Javert did not withdraw. 'Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, said he. 'What is it now? demanded M. Madeleine. 'Mr. Mayor, there is still something of which I must remind you. 'What is it? 'That I must be dismissed. M. Madeleine rose. 'Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you. You exaggerate your fault. Moreover, this is an offence which concerns me. Javert, you deserve promotion instead of degradation. I wish you to retain your post. Javert gazed at M. Madeleine with his candid eyes, in whose depths his not very enlightened but pure and rigid conscience seemed visible, and said in a tranquil voice 'Mr. Mayor, I cannot grant you that. 'I repeat, replied M. Madeleine, 'that the matter concerns me. But Javert, heeding his own thought only, continued 'So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating. This is the way I reason I have suspected you unjustly. That is nothing. It is our right to cherish suspicion, although suspicion directed above ourselves is an abuse. But without proofs, in a fit of rage, with the object of wreaking my vengeance, I have denounced you as a convict, you, a respectable man, a mayor, a magistrate! That is serious, very serious. I have insulted authority in your person, I, an agent of the authorities! If one of my subordinates had done what I have done, I should have declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled him. Well? Stop, Mr. Mayor one word more. I have often been severe in the course of my life towards others. That is just. I have done well. Now, if I were not severe towards myself, all the justice that I have done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No! What! I should be good for nothing but to chastise others, and not myself! Why, I should be a blackguard! Those who say, 'That blackguard of a Javert!' would be in the right. Mr. Mayor, I do not desire that you should treat me kindly your kindness roused sufficient bad blood in me when it was directed to others. I want none of it for myself. The kindness which consists in upholding a woman of the town against a citizen, the police agent against the mayor, the man who is down against the man who is up in the world, is what I call false kindness. That is the sort of kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it is very easy to be kind the difficulty lies in being just. Come! if you had been what I thought you, I should not have been kind to you, not I! You would have seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. When I have subdued malefactors, when I have proceeded with vigor against rascals, I have often said to myself, 'If you flinch, if I ever catch you in fault, you may rest at your ease!' I have flinched, I have caught myself in a fault. So much the worse! Come, discharged, cashiered, expelled! That is well. I have arms. I will till the soil it makes no difference to me. Mr. Mayor, the good of the service demands an example. I simply require the discharge of Inspector Javert. All this was uttered in a proud, humble, despairing, yet convinced tone, which lent indescribable grandeur to this singular, honest man. 'We shall see, said M. Madeleine. And he offered him his hand. Javert recoiled, and said in a wild voice 'Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his hand to a police spy. He added between his teeth 'A police spy, yes from the moment when I have misused the police. I am no more than a police spy. Then he bowed profoundly, and directed his steps towards the door. There he wheeled round, and with eyes still downcast 'Mr. Mayor, he said, 'I shall continue to serve until I am superseded. He withdrew. M. Madeleine remained thoughtfully listening to the firm, sure step, which died away on the pavement of the corridor. The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at M. sur M. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memory in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we did not narrate them in their most minute details. Among these details the reader will encounter two or three improbable circumstances, which we preserve out of respect for the truth. On the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine went to see Fantine according to his wont. Before entering Fantine's room, he had Sister Simplice summoned. The two nuns who performed the services of nurse in the infirmary, Lazariste ladies, like all sisters of charity, bore the names of Sister Perptue and Sister Simplice. Sister Perptue was an ordinary villager, a sister of charity in a coarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any other service. She was a nun as other women are cooks. This type is not so very rare. The monastic orders gladly accept this heavy peasant earthenware, which is easily fashioned into a Capuchin or an Ursuline. These rustics are utilized for the rough work of devotion. The transition from a drover to a Carmelite is not in the least violent the one turns into the other without much effort the fund of ignorance common to the village and the cloister is a preparation ready at hand, and places the boor at once on the same footing as the monk a little more amplitude in the smock, and it becomes a frock. Sister Perptue was a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois, droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or the hypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, was crabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned their death agony with prayers mumbled in a rage was bold, honest, and ruddy. Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor. Beside Sister Perptue, she was the taper beside the candle. Vincent de Paul has divinely traced the features of the Sister of Charity in these admirable words, in which he mingles as much freedom as servitude 'They shall have for their convent only the house of the sick for cell only a hired room for chapel only their parish church for cloister only the streets of the town and the wards of the hospitals for enclosure only obedience for gratings only the fear of God for veil only modesty. This ideal was realized in the living person of Sister Simplice she had never been young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one could have told Sister Simplice's age. She was a personwe dare not say a womanwho was gentle, austere, wellbred, cold, and who had never lied. She was so gentle that she appeared fragile but she was more solid than granite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were charmingly pure and fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her speech she said just what was necessary, and she possessed a tone of voice which would have equally edified a confessional or enchanted a drawingroom. This delicacy accommodated itself to the serge gown, finding in this harsh contact a continual reminder of heaven and of God. Let us emphasize one detail. Never to have lied, never to have said, for any interest whatever, even in indifference, any single thing which was not the truth, the sacred truth, was Sister Simplice's distinctive trait it was the accent of her virtue. She was almost renowned in the congregation for this imperturbable veracity. The Abb Sicard speaks of Sister Simplice in a letter to the deafmute Massieu. However pure and sincere we may be, we all bear upon our candor the crack of the little, innocent lie. She did not. Little lie, innocent liedoes such a thing exist? To lie is the absolute form of evil. To lie a little is not possible he who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon. Satan has two names he is called Satan and Lying. That is what she thought and as she thought, so she did. The result was the whiteness which we have mentioneda whiteness which covered even her lips and her eyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white. There was not a single spider's web, not a grain of dust, on the glass window of that conscience. On entering the order of Saint Vincent de Paul, she had taken the name of Simplice by special choice. Simplice of Sicily, as we know, is the saint who preferred to allow both her breasts to be torn off rather than to say that she had been born at Segesta when she had been born at Syracusea lie which would have saved her. This patron saint suited this soul. Sister Simplice, on her entrance into the order, had had two faults which she had gradually corrected she had a taste for dainties, and she liked to receive letters. She never read anything but a book of prayers printed in Latin, in coarse type. She did not understand Latin, but she understood the book. This pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine, probably feeling a latent virtue there, and she had devoted herself almost exclusively to her care. M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to her in a singular tone, which the sister recalled later on. On leaving the sister, he approached Fantine. Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a ray of warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, 'I only live when Monsieur le Maire is here. She had a great deal of fever that day. As soon as she saw M. Madeleine she asked him 'And Cosette? He replied with a smile 'Soon. M. Madeleine was the same as usual with Fantine. Only he remained an hour instead of half an hour, to Fantine's great delight. He urged every one repeatedly not to allow the invalid to want for anything. It was noticed that there was a moment when his countenance became very sombre. But this was explained when it became known that the doctor had bent down to his ear and said to him, 'She is losing ground fast. Then he returned to the townhall, and the clerk observed him attentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. He wrote a few figures on a bit of paper with a pencil. From the townhall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a Fleming named Master Scaufflaer, French Scaufflaire, who let out 'horses and cabriolets as desired. In order to reach this Scaufflaire, the shortest way was to take the littlefrequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the parish in which M. Madeleine resided. The cur was, it was said, a worthy, respectable, and sensible man. At the moment when M. Madeleine arrived in front of the parsonage there was but one passerby in the street, and this person noticed this After the mayor had passed the priest's house he halted, stood motionless, then turned about, and retraced his steps to the door of the parsonage, which had an iron knocker. He laid his hand quickly on the knocker and lifted it then he paused again and stopped short, as though in thought, and after the lapse of a few seconds, instead of allowing the knocker to fall abruptly, he placed it gently, and resumed his way with a sort of haste which had not been apparent previously. M. Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home, engaged in stitching a harness over. 'Master Scaufflaire, he inquired, 'have you a good horse? 'Mr. Mayor, said the Fleming, 'all my horses are good. What do you mean by a good horse? 'I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day. 'The deuce! said the Fleming. 'Twenty leagues! 'Yes. 'Hitched to a cabriolet? 'Yes. 'And how long can he rest at the end of his journey? 'He must be able to set out again on the next day if necessary. 'To traverse the same road? 'Yes. 'The deuce! the deuce! And it is twenty leagues? M. Madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled some figures. He showed it to the Fleming. The figures were , , . 'You see, he said, 'total, nineteen and a half as well say twenty leagues. 'Mr. Mayor, returned the Fleming, 'I have just what you want. My little white horseyou may have seen him pass occasionally he is a small beast from Lower Boulonnais. He is full of fire. They wanted to make a saddlehorse of him at first. Bah! He reared, he kicked, he laid everybody flat on the ground. He was thought to be vicious, and no one knew what to do with him. I bought him. I harnessed him to a carriage. That is what he wanted, sir he is as gentle as a girl he goes like the wind. Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas to be a saddlehorse. Every one has his ambition. 'Draw? Yes. Carry? No.' We must suppose that is what he said to himself. 'And he will accomplish the trip? 'Your twenty leagues all at a full trot, and in less than eight hours. But here are the conditions. 'State them. 'In the first place, you will give him half an hour's breathing spell midway of the road he will eat and some one must be by while he is eating to prevent the stable boy of the inn from stealing his oats for I have noticed that in inns the oats are more often drunk by the stable men than eaten by the horses. 'Some one will be by. 'In the second placeis the cabriolet for Monsieur le Maire? 'Yes. 'Does Monsieur le Maire know how to drive? 'Yes. 'Well, Monsieur le Maire will travel alone and without baggage, in order not to overload the horse? 'Agreed. 'But as Monsieur le Maire will have no one with him, he will be obliged to take the trouble himself of seeing that the oats are not stolen. 'That is understood. 'I am to have thirty francs a day. The days of rest to be paid for alsonot a farthing less and the beast's food to be at Monsieur le Maire's expense. M. Madeleine drew three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the table. 'Here is the pay for two days in advance. 'Fourthly, for such a journey a cabriolet would be too heavy, and would fatigue the horse. Monsieur le Maire must consent to travel in a little tilbury that I own. 'I consent to that. 'It is light, but it has no cover. 'That makes no difference to me. 'Has Monsieur le Maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter? M. Madeleine did not reply. The Fleming resumed 'That it is very cold? M. Madeleine preserved silence. Master Scaufflaire continued 'That it may rain? M. Madeleine raised his head and said 'The tilbury and the horse will be in front of my door tomorrow morning at halfpast four o'clock. 'Of course, Monsieur le Maire, replied Scaufflaire then, scratching a speck in the wood of the table with his thumbnail, he resumed with that careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle with their shrewdness 'But this is what I am thinking of now Monsieur le Maire has not told me where he is going. Where is Monsieur le Maire going? He had been thinking of nothing else since the beginning of the conversation, but he did not know why he had not dared to put the question. 'Are your horse's forelegs good? said M. Madeleine. 'Yes, Monsieur le Maire. You must hold him in a little when going down hill. Are there many descends between here and the place whither you are going? 'Do not forget to be at my door at precisely halfpast four o'clock tomorrow morning, replied M. Madeleine and he took his departure. The Fleming remained 'utterly stupid, as he himself said some time afterwards. The mayor had been gone two or three minutes when the door opened again it was the mayor once more. He still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air. 'Monsieur Scaufflaire, said he, 'at what sum do you estimate the value of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me,the one bearing the other? 'The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire, said the Fleming, with a broad smile. 'So be it. Well? 'Does Monsieur le Maire wish to purchase them or me? 'No but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back the sum at my return. At what value do you estimate your horse and cabriolet? 'Five hundred francs, Monsieur le Maire. 'Here it is. M. Madeleine laid a bankbill on the table, then left the room and this time he did not return. Master Scaufflaire experienced a frightful regret that he had not said a thousand francs. Besides the horse and tilbury together were worth but a hundred crowns. The Fleming called his wife, and related the affair to her. 'Where the devil could Monsieur le Maire be going? They held counsel together. 'He is going to Paris, said the wife. 'I don't believe it, said the husband. M. Madeleine had forgotten the paper with the figures on it, and it lay on the chimneypiece. The Fleming picked it up and studied it. 'Five, six, eight and a half? That must designate the posting relays. He turned to his wife 'I have found out. 'What? 'It is five leagues from here to Hesdin, six from Hesdin to SaintPol, eight and a half from SaintPol to Arras. He is going to Arras. Meanwhile, M. Madeleine had returned home. He had taken the longest way to return from Master Scaufflaire's, as though the parsonage door had been a temptation for him, and he had wished to avoid it. He ascended to his room, and there he shut himself up, which was a very simple act, since he liked to go to bed early. Nevertheless, the portress of the factory, who was, at the same time, M. Madeleine's only servant, noticed that the latter's light was extinguished at halfpast eight, and she mentioned it to the cashier when he came home, adding 'Is Monsieur le Maire ill? I thought he had a rather singular air. This cashier occupied a room situated directly under M. Madeleine's chamber. He paid no heed to the portress's words, but went to bed and to sleep. Towards midnight he woke up with a start in his sleep he had heard a noise above his head. He listened it was a footstep pacing back and forth, as though some one were walking in the room above him. He listened more attentively, and recognized M. Madeleine's step. This struck him as strange usually, there was no noise in M. Madeleine's chamber until he rose in the morning. A moment later the cashier heard a noise which resembled that of a cupboard being opened, and then shut again then a piece of furniture was disarranged then a pause ensued then the step began again. The cashier sat up in bed, quite awake now, and staring and through his windowpanes he saw the reddish gleam of a lighted window reflected on the opposite wall from the direction of the rays, it could only come from the window of M. Madeleine's chamber. The reflection wavered, as though it came rather from a fire which had been lighted than from a candle. The shadow of the windowframe was not shown, which indicated that the window was wide open. The fact that this window was open in such cold weather was surprising. The cashier fell asleep again. An hour or two later he waked again. The same step was still passing slowly and regularly back and forth overhead. The reflection was still visible on the wall, but now it was pale and peaceful, like the reflection of a lamp or of a candle. The window was still open. This is what had taken place in M. Madeleine's room. The reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no other than Jean Valjean. We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience the moment has now come when we must take another look into it. We do so not without emotion and trepidation. There is nothing more terrible in existence than this sort of contemplation. The eye of the spirit can nowhere find more dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man it can fix itself on no other thing which is more formidable, more complicated, more mysterious, and more infinite. There is a spectacle more grand than the sea it is heaven there is a spectacle more grand than heaven it is the inmost recesses of the soul. To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference to a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic. Conscience is the chaos of chimras, of lusts, and of temptations the furnace of dreams the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed it is the pandemonium of sophisms it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, at certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engaged in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into that obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants, like those recorded in Homer, are in progress skirmishes of dragons and hydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton visionary circles, as in Dante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every man bears within him, and which he measures with despair against the caprices of his brain and the actions of his life! Alighieri one day met with a sinisterlooking door, before which he hesitated. Here is one before us, upon whose threshold we hesitate. Let us enter, nevertheless. We have but little to add to what the reader already knows of what had happened to Jean Valjean after the adventure with Little Gervais. From that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. What the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was more than a transformation it was a transfiguration. He succeeded in disappearing, sold the Bishop's silver, reserving only the candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversed France, came to M. sur M., conceived the idea which we have mentioned, accomplished what we have related, succeeded in rendering himself safe from seizure and inaccessible, and, thenceforth, established at M. sur M., happy in feeling his conscience saddened by the past and the first half of his existence belied by the last, he lived in peace, reassured and hopeful, having henceforth only two thoughts,to conceal his name and to sanctify his life to escape men and to return to God. These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind that they formed but a single one there both were equally absorbing and imperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspired to regulate the conduct of his life they turned him towards the gloom they rendered him kindly and simple they counselled him to the same things. Sometimes, however, they conflicted. In that case, as the reader will remember, the man whom all the country of M. sur M. called M. Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the secondhis security to his virtue. Thus, in spite of all his reserve and all his prudence, he had preserved the Bishop's candlesticks, worn mourning for him, summoned and interrogated all the little Savoyards who passed that way, collected information regarding the families at Faverolles, and saved old Fauchelevent's life, despite the disquieting insinuations of Javert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, as though he thought, following the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just, that his first duty was not towards himself. At the same time, it must be confessed, nothing just like this had yet presented itself. Never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whose sufferings we are narrating, engaged in so serious a struggle. He understood this confusedly but profoundly at the very first words pronounced by Javert, when the latter entered his study. At the moment when that name, which he had buried beneath so many layers, was so strangely articulated, he was struck with stupor, and as though intoxicated with the sinister eccentricity of his destiny and through this stupor he felt that shudder which precedes great shocks. He bent like an oak at the approach of a storm, like a soldier at the approach of an assault. He felt shadows filled with thunders and lightnings descending upon his head. As he listened to Javert, the first thought which occurred to him was to go, to run and denounce himself, to take that Champmathieu out of prison and place himself there this was as painful and as poignant as an incision in the living flesh. Then it passed away, and he said to himself, 'We will see! We will see! He repressed this first, generous instinct, and recoiled before heroism. It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop's holy words, after so many years of repentance and abnegation, in the midst of a penitence admirably begun, if this man had not flinched for an instant, even in the presence of so terrible a conjecture, but had continued to walk with the same step towards this yawning precipice, at the bottom of which lay heaven that would have been beautiful but it was not thus. We must render an account of the things which went on in this soul, and we can only tell what there was there. He was carried away, at first, by the instinct of selfpreservation he rallied all his ideas in haste, stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert's presence, that great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shook off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler. He remained in this state during the rest of the day, a whirlwind within, a profound tranquillity without. He took no 'preservative measures, as they may be called. Everything was still confused, and jostling together in his brain. His trouble was so great that he could not perceive the form of a single idea distinctly, and he could have told nothing about himself, except that he had received a great blow. He repaired to Fantine's bed of suffering, as usual, and prolonged his visit, through a kindly instinct, telling himself that he must behave thus, and recommend her well to the sisters, in case he should be obliged to be absent himself. He had a vague feeling that he might be obliged to go to Arras and without having the least in the world made up his mind to this trip, he said to himself that being, as he was, beyond the shadow of any suspicion, there could be nothing out of the way in being a witness to what was to take place, and he engaged the tilbury from Scaufflaire in order to be prepared in any event. He dined with a good deal of appetite. On returning to his room, he communed with himself. He examined the situation, and found it unprecedented so unprecedented that in the midst of his reverie he rose from his chair, moved by some inexplicable impulse of anxiety, and bolted his door. He feared lest something more should enter. He was barricading himself against possibilities. A moment later he extinguished his light it embarrassed him. It seemed to him as though he might be seen. By whom? Alas! That on which he desired to close the door had already entered that which he desired to blind was staring him in the face,his conscience. His conscience that is to say, God. Nevertheless, he deluded himself at first he had a feeling of security and of solitude the bolt once drawn, he thought himself impregnable the candle extinguished, he felt himself invisible. Then he took possession of himself he set his elbows on the table, leaned his head on his hand, and began to meditate in the dark. 'Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really true that I have seen that Javert, and that he spoke to me in that manner? Who can that Champmathieu be? So he resembles me! Is it possible? When I reflect that yesterday I was so tranquil, and so far from suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What is there in this incident? What will the end be? What is to be done? This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost its power of retaining ideas they passed like waves, and he clutched his brow in both hands to arrest them. Nothing but anguish extricated itself from this tumult which overwhelmed his will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw proof and resolution. His head was burning. He went to the window and threw it wide open. There were no stars in the sky. He returned and seated himself at the table. The first hour passed in this manner. Gradually, however, vague outlines began to take form and to fix themselves in his meditation, and he was able to catch a glimpse with precision of the reality,not the whole situation, but some of the details. He began by recognizing the fact that, critical and extraordinary as was this situation, he was completely master of it. This only caused an increase of his stupor. Independently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned to his actions, all that he had made up to that day had been nothing but a hole in which to bury his name. That which he had always feared most of all in his hours of selfcommunion, during his sleepless nights, was to ever hear that name pronounced he had said to himself, that that would be the end of all things for him that on the day when that name made its reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from about him, andwho knows?perhaps even his new soul within him, also. He shuddered at the very thought that this was possible. Assuredly, if any one had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that name would ring in his ears, when the hideous words, Jean Valjean, would suddenly emerge from the darkness and rise in front of him, when that formidable light, capable of dissipating the mystery in which he had enveloped himself, would suddenly blaze forth above his head, and that that name would not menace him, that that light would but produce an obscurity more dense, that this rent veil would but increase the mystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that this prodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he was concerned, if so it seemed good to him, than that of rendering his existence at once clearer and more impenetrable, and that, out of his confrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthy citizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more honored, more peaceful, and more respected than everif any one had told him that, he would have tossed his head and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well, all this was precisely what had just come to pass all that accumulation of impossibilities was a fact, and God had permitted these wild fancies to become real things! His reverie continued to grow clearer. He came more and more to an understanding of his position. It seemed to him that he had but just waked up from some inexplicable dream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the middle of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and whom she was thrusting into the gulf in his stead in order that the gulf might close once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or that other man, should fall into it he had only let things take their course. The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself That his place was empty in the galleys that do what he would, it was still awaiting him that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to it that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he filled it that this was inevitable and fatal and then he said to himself, 'that, at this moment, he had a substitute that it appeared that a certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards himself, being present in the galleys in the person of that Champmathieu, present in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear, provided that he did not prevent men from sealing over the head of that Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the stone of the sepulchre, falls once, never to rise again. All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two or three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the conscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart, which is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be called an outburst of inward laughter. He hastily relighted his candle. 'Well, what then? he said to himself 'what am I afraid of? What is there in all that for me to think about? I am safe all is over. I had but one partly open door through which my past might invade my life, and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been annoying me so long that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined me, which had divined megood God! and which followed me everywhere that frightful huntingdog, always making a point at me, is thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail henceforth he is satisfied he will leave me in peace he has his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count for nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in this? Upon my honor, people would think, to see me, that some catastrophe had happened to me! After all, if it does bring harm to some one, that is not my fault in the least it is Providence which has done it all it is because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrange what it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should I meddle? It does not concern me what! I am not satisfied but what more do I want? The goal to which I have aspired for so many years, the dream of my nights, the object of my prayers to Heaven,security,I have now attained it is God who wills it I can do nothing against the will of God, and why does God will it? In order that I may continue what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example, that it may be said at last, that a little happiness has been attached to the penance which I have undergone, and to that virtue to which I have returned. Really, I do not understand why I was afraid, a little while ago, to enter the house of that good cur, and to ask his advice this is evidently what he would have said to me It is settled let things take their course let the good God do as he likes! Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bending over what may be called his own abyss he rose from his chair, and began to pace the room 'Come, said he, 'let us think no more about it my resolve is taken! but he felt no joy. Quite the reverse. One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can the sea from returning to the shore the sailor calls it the tide the guilty man calls it remorse God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean. After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, saying that which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to that which he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious power which said to him 'Think! as it said to another condemned man, two thousand years ago, 'March on! Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully understood, let us insist upon one necessary observation. It is certain that people do talk to themselves there is no living being who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is never a more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to conscience within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought it is in this sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, he said, he exclaimed, must be understood one speaks to one's self, talks to one's self, exclaims to one's self without breaking the external silence there is a great tumult everything about us talks except the mouth. The realities of the soul are nonetheless realities because they are not visible and palpable. So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that 'settled resolve. He confessed to himself that all that he had just arranged in his mind was monstrous, that 'to let things take their course, to let the good God do as he liked, was simply horrible to allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder it, to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short, was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime! For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action. He spit it out with disgust. He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he had meant by this, 'My object is attained! He declared to himself that his life really had an object but what object? To conceal his name? To deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the true oneto save, not his person, but his soul to become honest and good once more to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that alone, which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon himto shut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great God! he was reopening it by committing an infamous action! He was becoming a thief once more, and the most odious of thieves! He was robbing another of his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the sunshine. He was becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally murdering, a wretched man. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that death beneath the open sky, which is called the galleys. On the other hand, to surrender himself to save that man, struck down with so melancholy an error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, the convict Jean Valjean, that was, in truth, to achieve his resurrection, and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged to fall back there in appearance was to escape from it in reality. This must be done! He had done nothing if he did not do all this his whole life was useless all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need of saying, 'What is the use? He felt that the Bishop was there, that the Bishop was present all the more because he was dead, that the Bishop was gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his virtues, would be abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjean would be pure and admirable in his sight that men beheld his mask, but that the Bishop saw his face that men saw his life, but that the Bishop beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean Valjean, and denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of sacrifices, the most poignant of victories, the last step to take but it must be done. Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men. 'Well, said he, 'let us decide upon this let us do our duty let us save this man. He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that he was speaking aloud. He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He flung in the fire a bundle of bills which he had against petty and embarrassed tradesmen. He wrote and sealed a letter, and on the envelope it might have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment, To Monsieur Laffitte, Banker, Rue d'Artois, Paris. He drew from his secretary a pocketbook which contained several banknotes and the passport of which he had made use that same year when he went to the elections. Any one who had seen him during the execution of these various acts, into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no suspicion of what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his lips move at other times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon some point of the wall, as though there existed at that point something which he wished to elucidate or interrogate. When he had finished the letter to M. Laffitte, he put it into his pocket, together with the pocketbook, and began his walk once more. His reverie had not swerved from its course. He continued to see his duty clearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes and changed its place as he altered the direction of his glance 'Go! Tell your name! Denounce yourself! In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him in visible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time, formed the double rule of his soul,the concealment of his name, the sanctification of his life. For the first time they appeared to him as absolutely distinct, and he perceived the distance which separated them. He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily, good, while the other might become bad that the first was selfdevotion, and that the other was personality that the one said, my neighbour, and that the other said, myself that one emanated from the light, and the other from darkness. They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion as he meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had now attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the midst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending. He was filled with terror but it seemed to him that the good thought was getting the upper hand. He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis of his conscience and of his destiny that the Bishop had marked the first phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. After the grand crisis, the grand test. But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possession of him. A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued to fortify him in his resolution. One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter too keenly that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, and that he had actually been guilty of theft. He answered himself 'If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, that means a month in prison. It is a long way from that to the galleys. And who knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of Jean Valjean overwhelms him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not the attorneys for the Crown always proceed in this manner? He is supposed to be a thief because he is known to be a convict. In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when he denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps, be taken into consideration, and his honest life for the last seven years, and what he had done for the district, and that they would have mercy on him. But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled bitterly as he remembered that the theft of the forty sous from little Gervais put him in the position of a man guilty of a second offence after conviction, that this affair would certainly come up, and, according to the precise terms of the law, would render him liable to penal servitude for life. He turned aside from all illusions, detached himself more and more from earth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere. He told himself that he must do his duty that perhaps he should not be more unhappy after doing his duty than after having avoided it that if he allowed things to take their own course, if he remained at M. sur M., his consideration, his good name, his good works, the deference and veneration paid to him, his charity, his wealth, his popularity, his virtue, would be seasoned with a crime. And what would be the taste of all these holy things when bound up with this hideous thing? while, if he accomplished his sacrifice, a celestial idea would be mingled with the galleys, the post, the iron necklet, the green cap, unceasing toil, and pitiless shame. At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thus allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made on high, that, in any case, he must make his choice virtue without and abomination within, or holiness within and infamy without. The stirring up of these lugubrious ideas did not cause his courage to fail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, of indifferent matters, in spite of himself. The veins in his temples throbbed violently he still paced to and fro midnight sounded first from the parish church, then from the townhall he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks, and compared the sounds of the two bells he recalled in this connection the fact that, a few days previously, he had seen in an ironmonger's shop an ancient clock for sale, upon which was written the name, AntoineAlbin de Romainville. He was cold he lighted a small fire it did not occur to him to close the window. In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor he was obliged to make a tolerably vigorous effort to recall what had been the subject of his thoughts before midnight had struck he finally succeeded in doing this. 'Ah! yes, he said to himself, 'I had resolved to inform against myself. And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine. 'Hold! said he, 'and what about that poor woman? Here a fresh crisis declared itself. Fantine, by appearing thus abruptly in his reverie, produced the effect of an unexpected ray of light it seemed to him as though everything about him were undergoing a change of aspect he exclaimed 'Ah! but I have hitherto considered no one but myself it is proper for me to hold my tongue or to denounce myself, to conceal my person or to save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an infamous and venerable convict it is I, it is always I and nothing but I but, good God! all this is egotism these are diverse forms of egotism, but it is egotism all the same. What if I were to think a little about others? The highest holiness is to think of others come, let us examine the matter. The I excepted, the I effaced, the I forgotten, what would be the result of all this? What if I denounce myself? I am arrested this Champmathieu is released I am put back in the galleys that is welland what then? What is going on here? Ah! here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry, workers, both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people! All this I have created all these I provide with their living everywhere where there is a smoking chimney, it is I who have placed the brand on the hearth and meat in the pot I have created ease, circulation, credit before me there was nothing I have elevated, vivified, informed with life, fecundated, stimulated, enriched the whole countryside lacking me, the soul is lacking I take myself off, everything dies and this woman, who has suffered so much, who possesses so many merits in spite of her fall the cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been! And that child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have promised to her mother do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for the evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens? The mother dies the child becomes what it can that is what will take place, if I denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? come, let us see how it will be if I do not denounce myself. After putting this question to himself, he paused he seemed to undergo a momentary hesitation and trepidation but it did not last long, and he answered himself calmly 'Well, this man is going to the galleys it is true, but what the deuce! he has stolen! There is no use in my saying that he has not been guilty of theft, for he has! I remain here I go on in ten years I shall have made ten millions I scatter them over the country I have nothing of my own what is that to me? It is not for myself that I am doing it the prosperity of all goes on augmenting industries are aroused and animated factories and shops are multiplied families, a hundred families, a thousand families, are happy the district becomes populated villages spring up where there were only farms before farms rise where there was nothing wretchedness disappears, and with wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder all vices disappear, all crimes and this poor mother rears her child and behold a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! what was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must pay attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would have pleased me to play the grand and generous this is melodrama, after all because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for the sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, perhaps, but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a goodfornothing, evidently, a whole countryside must perish! a poor woman must die in the hospital! a poor little girl must die in the street! like dogs ah, this is abominable! And without the mother even having seen her child once more, almost without the child's having known her mother and all that for the sake of an old wretch of an applethief who, most assuredly, has deserved the galleys for something else, if not for that fine scruples, indeed, which save a guilty man and sacrifice the innocent, which save an old vagabond who has only a few years to live at most, and who will not be more unhappy in the galleys than in his hovel, and which sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives, children. This poor little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is, no doubt, blue with cold at this moment in the den of those Thnardiers those peoples are rascals and I was going to neglect my duty towards all these poor creatures and I was going off to denounce myself and I was about to commit that unspeakable folly! Let us put it at the worst suppose that there is a wrong action on my part in this, and that my conscience will reproach me for it some day, to accept, for the good of others, these reproaches which weigh only on myself this evil action which compromises my soul alone in that lies selfsacrifice in that alone there is virtue. He rose and resumed his march this time, he seemed to be content. Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him, that, after having descended into these depths, after having long groped among the darkest of these shadows, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he now held it in his hand, and he was dazzled as he gazed upon it. 'Yes, he thought, 'this is right I am on the right road I have the solution I must end by holding fast to something my resolve is taken let things take their course let us no longer vacillate let us no longer hang back this is for the interest of all, not for my own I am Madeleine, and Madeleine I remain. Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean! I am no longer he I do not know that man I no longer know anything it turns out that some one is Jean Valjean at the present moment let him look out for himself that does not concern me it is a fatal name which was floating abroad in the night if it halts and descends on a head, so much the worse for that head. He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimneypiece, and said 'Hold! it has relieved me to come to a decision I am quite another man now. He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short. 'Come! he said, 'I must not flinch before any of the consequences of the resolution which I have once adopted there are still threads which attach me to that Jean Valjean they must be broken in this very room there are objects which would betray me, dumb things which would bear witness against me it is settled all these things must disappear. He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took out a small key he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture could hardly be seen, so hidden was it in the most sombre tones of the design which covered the wallpaper a secret receptacle opened, a sort of false cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and the chimneypiece in this hidingplace there were some ragsa blue linen blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old knapsack, and a huge thorn cudgel shod with iron at both ends. Those who had seen Jean Valjean at the epoch when he passed through D in October, , could easily have recognized all the pieces of this miserable outfit. He had preserved them as he had preserved the silver candlesticks, in order to remind himself continually of his startingpoint, but he had concealed all that came from the galleys, and he had allowed the candlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen. He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared that it would open in spite of the bolt which fastened it then, with a quick and abrupt movement, he took the whole in his arms at once, without bestowing so much as a glance on the things which he had so religiously and so perilously preserved for so many years, and flung them all, rags, cudgel, knapsack, into the fire. He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions, henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the door behind a heavy piece of furniture, which he pushed in front of it. After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall were lighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow. Everything was on fire the thorn cudgel snapped and threw out sparks to the middle of the chamber. As the knapsack was consumed, together with the hideous rags which it contained, it revealed something which sparkled in the ashes. By bending over, one could have readily recognized a coin,no doubt the fortysou piece stolen from the little Savoyard. He did not look at the fire, but paced back and forth with the same step. All at once his eye fell on the two silver candlesticks, which shone vaguely on the chimneypiece, through the glow. 'Hold! he thought 'the whole of Jean Valjean is still in them. They must be destroyed also. He seized the two candlesticks. There was still fire enough to allow of their being put out of shape, and converted into a sort of unrecognizable bar of metal. He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment. He felt a sense of real comfort. 'How good warmth is! said he. He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks. A minute more, and they were both in the fire. At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within him shouting 'Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean! His hair rose upright he became like a man who is listening to some terrible thing. 'Yes, that's it! finish! said the voice. 'Complete what you are about! Destroy these candlesticks! Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the Bishop! Forget everything! Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is right! Applaud yourself! So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed here is an old man who does not know what is wanted of him, who has, perhaps, done nothing, an innocent man, whose whole misfortune lies in your name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime, who is about to be taken for you, who will be condemned, who will finish his days in abjectness and horror. That is good! Be an honest man yourself remain Monsieur le Maire remain honorable and honored enrich the town nourish the indigent rear the orphan live happy, virtuous, and admired and, during this time, while you are here in the midst of joy and light, there will be a man who will wear your red blouse, who will bear your name in ignominy, and who will drag your chain in the galleys. Yes, it is well arranged thus. Ah, wretch! The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. The voice continued 'Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make a great noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, and only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark. Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before they reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God. This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from the most obscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become startling and formidable, and he now heard it in his very ear. It seemed to him that it had detached itself from him, and that it was now speaking outside of him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that he glanced around the room in a sort of terror. 'Is there any one here? he demanded aloud, in utter bewilderment. Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot 'How stupid I am! There can be no one! There was some one but the person who was there was of those whom the human eye cannot see. He placed the candlesticks on the chimneypiece. Then he resumed his monotonous and lugubrious tramp, which troubled the dreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke him with a start. This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated him. It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved about for the purpose of asking advice of everything that they may encounter by change of place. After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew his position. He now recoiled in equal terror before both the resolutions at which he had arrived in turn. The two ideas which counselled him appeared to him equally fatal. What a fatality! What conjunction that that Champmathieu should have been taken for him to be overwhelmed by precisely the means which Providence seemed to have employed, at first, to strengthen his position! There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself, great God! Deliver himself up! With immense despair he faced all that he should be obliged to leave, all that he should be obliged to take up once more. He should have to bid farewell to that existence which was so good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to liberty. He should never more stroll in the fields he should never more hear the birds sing in the month of May he should never more bestow alms on the little children he should never more experience the sweetness of having glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him he should quit that house which he had built, that little chamber! Everything seemed charming to him at that moment. Never again should he read those books never more should he write on that little table of white wood his old portress, the only servant whom he kept, would never more bring him his coffee in the morning. Great God! instead of that, the convict gang, the iron necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, the camp bed all those horrors which he knew so well! At his age, after having been what he was! If he were only young again! but to be addressed in his old age as 'thou by any one who pleased to be searched by the convictguard to receive the galleysergeant's cudgellings to wear ironbound shoes on his bare feet to have to stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of the roundsman who visits the gang to submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would be told 'That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean, who was mayor of M. sur M. and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with lassitude, their green caps drawn over their eyes, to remount, two by two, the ladder staircase of the galleys beneath the sergeant's whip. Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligent being, and become as monstrous as the human heart? And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemma which lay at the foundation of his reverie 'Should he remain in paradise and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel? What was to be done? Great God! what was to be done? The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty was unchained afresh within him. His ideas began to grow confused once more they assumed a kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which is peculiar to despair. The name of Romainville recurred incessantly to his mind, with the two verses of a song which he had heard in the past. He thought that Romainville was a little grove near Paris, where young lovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April. He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little child who is permitted to toddle alone. At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort to recover the mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the last time, and definitely, the problem over which he had, in a manner, fallen prostrate with fatigue Ought he to denounce himself? Ought he to hold his peace? He could not manage to see anything distinctly. The vague aspects of all the courses of reasoning which had been sketched out by his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke. He only felt that, to whatever course of action he made up his mind, something in him must die, and that of necessity, and without his being able to escape the fact that he was entering a sepulchre on the right hand as much as on the left that he was passing through a death agony,the agony of his happiness, or the agony of his virtue. Alas! all his resolution had again taken possession of him. He was no further advanced than at the beginning. Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom are summed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity had also long thrust aside with his hand, while the olivetrees quivered in the wild wind of the infinite, the terrible cup which appeared to Him dripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths all studded with stars. Three o'clock in the morning had just struck, and he had been walking thus for five hours, almost uninterruptedly, when he at length allowed himself to drop into his chair. There he fell asleep and had a dream. This dream, like the majority of dreams, bore no relation to the situation, except by its painful and heartrending character, but it made an impression on him. This nightmare struck him so forcibly that he wrote it down later on. It is one of the papers in his own handwriting which he has bequeathed to us. We think that we have here reproduced the thing in strict accordance with the text. Of whatever nature this dream may be, the history of this night would be incomplete if we were to omit it it is the gloomy adventure of an ailing soul. Here it is. On the envelope we find this line inscribed, 'The Dream I had that Night. 'I was in a plain a vast, gloomy plain, where there was no grass. It did not seem to me to be daylight nor yet night. 'I was walking with my brother, the brother of my childish years, the brother of whom, I must say, I never think, and whom I now hardly remember. 'We were conversing and we met some passersby. We were talking of a neighbor of ours in former days, who had always worked with her window open from the time when she came to live on the street. As we talked we felt cold because of that open window. 'There were no trees in the plain. We saw a man passing close to us. He was entirely nude, of the hue of ashes, and mounted on a horse which was earth color. The man had no hair we could see his skull and the veins on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a vineshoot and as heavy as iron. This horseman passed and said nothing to us. 'My brother said to me, 'Let us take to the hollow road.' 'There existed a hollow way wherein one saw neither a single shrub nor a spear of moss. Everything was dirtcolored, even the sky. After proceeding a few paces, I received no reply when I spoke I perceived that my brother was no longer with me. 'I entered a village which I espied. I reflected that it must be Romainville. (Why Romainville?) 'The first street that I entered was deserted. I entered a second street. Behind the angle formed by the two streets, a man was standing erect against the wall. I said to this man ''What country is this? Where am I?' The man made no reply. I saw the door of a house open, and I entered. 'The first chamber was deserted. I entered the second. Behind the door of this chamber a man was standing erect against the wall. I inquired of this man, 'Whose house is this? Where am I?' The man replied not. 'The house had a garden. I quitted the house and entered the garden. The garden was deserted. Behind the first tree I found a man standing upright. I said to this man, 'What garden is this? Where am I?' The man did not answer. 'I strolled into the village, and perceived that it was a town. All the streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living being was passing in the streets, walking through the chambers or strolling in the gardens. But behind each angle of the walls, behind each door, behind each tree, stood a silent man. Only one was to be seen at a time. These men watched me pass. 'I left the town and began to ramble about the fields. 'After the lapse of some time I turned back and saw a great crowd coming up behind me. I recognized all the men whom I had seen in that town. They had strange heads. They did not seem to be in a hurry, yet they walked faster than I did. They made no noise as they walked. In an instant this crowd had overtaken and surrounded me. The faces of these men were earthen in hue. 'Then the first one whom I had seen and questioned on entering the town said to me ''Whither are you going! Do you not know that you have been dead this long time?' 'I opened my mouth to reply, and I perceived that there was no one near me. He woke. He was icy cold. A wind which was chill like the breeze of dawn was rattling the leaves of the window, which had been left open on their hinges. The fire was out. The candle was nearing its end. It was still black night. He rose, he went to the window. There were no stars in the sky even yet. From his window the yard of the house and the street were visible. A sharp, harsh noise, which made him drop his eyes, resounded from the earth. Below him he perceived two red stars, whose rays lengthened and shortened in a singular manner through the darkness. As his thoughts were still half immersed in the mists of sleep, 'Hold! said he, 'there are no stars in the sky. They are on earth now. But this confusion vanished a second sound similar to the first roused him thoroughly he looked and recognized the fact that these two stars were the lanterns of a carriage. By the light which they cast he was able to distinguish the form of this vehicle. It was a tilbury harnessed to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the trampling of the horse's hoofs on the pavement. 'What vehicle is this? he said to himself. 'Who is coming here so early in the morning? At that moment there came a light tap on the door of his chamber. He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice 'Who is there? Some one said 'I, Monsieur le Maire. He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress. 'Well! he replied, 'what is it? 'Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o'clock in the morning. 'What is that to me? 'The cabriolet is here, Monsieur le Maire. 'What cabriolet? 'The tilbury. 'What tilbury? 'Did not Monsieur le Maire order a tilbury? 'No, said he. 'The coachman says that he has come for Monsieur le Maire. 'What coachman? 'M. Scaufflaire's coachman. 'M. Scaufflaire? That name sent a shudder over him, as though a flash of lightning had passed in front of his face. 'Ah! yes, he resumed 'M. Scaufflaire! If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been frightened. A tolerably long silence ensued. He examined the flame of the candle with a stupid air, and from around the wick he took some of the burning wax, which he rolled between his fingers. The old woman waited for him. She even ventured to uplift her voice once more 'What am I to say, Monsieur le Maire? 'Say that it is well, and that I am coming down. The posting service from Arras to M. sur M. was still operated at this period by small mailwagons of the time of the Empire. These mailwagons were twowheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside with fawncolored leather, hung on springs, and having but two seats, one for the postboy, the other for the traveller. The wheels were armed with those long, offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a distance, and which may still be seen on the road in Germany. The despatch box, an immense oblong coffer, was placed behind the vehicle and formed a part of it. This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow. These vehicles, which have no counterparts nowadays, had something distorted and hunchbacked about them and when one saw them passing in the distance, and climbing up some road to the horizon, they resembled the insects which are called, I think, termites, and which, though with but little corselet, drag a great train behind them. But they travelled at a very rapid rate. The postwagon which set out from Arras at one o'clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at M. sur M. a little before five o'clock in the morning. That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin road, collided at the corner of a street, just as it was entering the town, with a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, which was going in the opposite direction, and in which there was but one person, a man enveloped in a mantle. The wheel of the tilbury received quite a violent shock. The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the traveller paid no heed and pursued his road at full gallop. 'That man is in a devilish hurry! said the postman. The man thus hastening on was the one whom we have just seen struggling in convulsions which are certainly deserving of pity. Whither was he going? He could not have told. Why was he hastening? He did not know. He was driving at random, straight ahead. Whither? To Arras, no doubt but he might have been going elsewhere as well. At times he was conscious of it, and he shuddered. He plunged into the night as into a gulf. Something urged him forward something drew him on. No one could have told what was taking place within him every one will understand it. What man is there who has not entered, at least once in his life, into that obscure cavern of the unknown? However, he had resolved on nothing, decided nothing, formed no plan, done nothing. None of the actions of his conscience had been decisive. He was, more than ever, as he had been at the first moment. Why was he going to Arras? He repeated what he had already said to himself when he had hired Scaufflaire's cabriolet that, whatever the result was to be, there was no reason why he should not see with his own eyes, and judge of matters for himself that this was even prudent that he must know what took place that no decision could be arrived at without having observed and scrutinized that one made mountains out of everything from a distance that, at any rate, when he should have seen that Champmathieu, some wretch, his conscience would probably be greatly relieved to allow him to go to the galleys in his stead that Javert would indeed be there and that Brevet, that Chenildieu, that Cochepaille, old convicts who had known him but they certainly would not recognize himbah! what an idea! that Javert was a hundred leagues from suspecting the truth that all conjectures and all suppositions were fixed on Champmathieu, and that there is nothing so headstrong as suppositions and conjectures that accordingly there was no danger. That it was, no doubt, a dark moment, but that he should emerge from it that, after all, he held his destiny, however bad it might be, in his own hand that he was master of it. He clung to this thought. At bottom, to tell the whole truth, he would have preferred not to go to Arras. Nevertheless, he was going thither. As he meditated, he whipped up his horse, which was proceeding at that fine, regular, and even trot which accomplishes two leagues and a half an hour. In proportion as the cabriolet advanced, he felt something within him draw back. At daybreak he was in the open country the town of M. sur M. lay far behind him. He watched the horizon grow white he stared at all the chilly figures of a winter's dawn as they passed before his eyes, but without seeing them. The morning has its spectres as well as the evening. He did not see them but without his being aware of it, and by means of a sort of penetration which was almost physical, these black silhouettes of trees and of hills added some gloomy and sinister quality to the violent state of his soul. Each time that he passed one of those isolated dwellings which sometimes border on the highway, he said to himself, 'And yet there are people there within who are sleeping! The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels on the road, produced a gentle, monotonous noise. These things are charming when one is joyous, and lugubrious when one is sad. It was broad daylight when he arrived at Hesdin. He halted in front of the inn, to allow the horse a breathing spell, and to have him given some oats. The horse belonged, as Scaufflaire had said, to that small race of the Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough neck and shoulders, but which has a broad chest, a large crupper, thin, fine legs, and solid hoofsa homely, but a robust and healthy race. The excellent beast had travelled five leagues in two hours, and had not a drop of sweat on his loins. He did not get out of the tilbury. The stableman who brought the oats suddenly bent down and examined the left wheel. 'Are you going far in this condition? said the man. He replied, with an air of not having roused himself from his reverie 'Why? 'Have you come from a great distance? went on the man. 'Five leagues. 'Ah! 'Why do you say, 'Ah?' The man bent down once more, was silent for a moment, with his eyes fixed on the wheel then he rose erect and said 'Because, though this wheel has travelled five leagues, it certainly will not travel another quarter of a league. He sprang out of the tilbury. 'What is that you say, my friend? 'I say that it is a miracle that you should have travelled five leagues without you and your horse rolling into some ditch on the highway. Just see here! The wheel really had suffered serious damage. The shock administered by the mailwagon had split two spokes and strained the hub, so that the nut no longer held firm. 'My friend, he said to the stableman, 'is there a wheelwright here? 'Certainly, sir. 'Do me the service to go and fetch him. 'He is only a step from here. Hey! Master Bourgaillard! Master Bourgaillard, the wheelwright, was standing on his own threshold. He came, examined the wheel and made a grimace like a surgeon when the latter thinks a limb is broken. 'Can you repair this wheel immediately? 'Yes, sir. 'When can I set out again? 'Tomorrow. 'Tomorrow! 'There is a long day's work on it. Are you in a hurry, sir? 'In a very great hurry. I must set out again in an hour at the latest. 'Impossible, sir. 'I will pay whatever you ask. 'Impossible. 'Well, in two hours, then. 'Impossible today. Two new spokes and a hub must be made. Monsieur will not be able to start before tomorrow morning. 'The matter cannot wait until tomorrow. What if you were to replace this wheel instead of repairing it? 'How so? 'You are a wheelwright? 'Certainly, sir. 'Have you not a wheel that you can sell me? Then I could start again at once. 'A spare wheel? 'Yes. 'I have no wheel on hand that would fit your cabriolet. Two wheels make a pair. Two wheels cannot be put together haphazard. 'In that case, sell me a pair of wheels. 'Not all wheels fit all axles, sir. 'Try, nevertheless. 'It is useless, sir. I have nothing to sell but cartwheels. We are but a poor country here. 'Have you a cabriolet that you can let me have? The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders. 'You treat the cabriolets that people let you so well! If I had one, I would not let it to you! 'Well, sell it to me, then. 'I have none. 'What! not even a springcart? I am not hard to please, as you see. 'We live in a poor country. There is, in truth, added the wheelwright, 'an old calash under the shed yonder, which belongs to a bourgeois of the town, who gave it to me to take care of, and who only uses it on the thirtysixth of the monthnever, that is to say. I might let that to you, for what matters it to me? But the bourgeois must not see it passand then, it is a calash it would require two horses. 'I will take two posthorses. 'Where is Monsieur going? 'To Arras. 'And Monsieur wishes to reach there today? 'Yes, of course. 'By taking two posthorses? 'Why not? 'Does it make any difference whether Monsieur arrives at four o'clock tomorrow morning? 'Certainly not. 'There is one thing to be said about that, you see, by taking posthorsesMonsieur has his passport? 'Yes. 'Well, by taking posthorses, Monsieur cannot reach Arras before tomorrow. We are on a crossroad. The relays are badly served, the horses are in the fields. The season for ploughing is just beginning heavy teams are required, and horses are seized upon everywhere, from the post as well as elsewhere. Monsieur will have to wait three or four hours at the least at every relay. And, then, they drive at a walk. There are many hills to ascend. 'Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one can surely sell me a saddle in the neighborhood. 'Without doubt. But will this horse bear the saddle? 'That is true you remind me of that he will not bear it. 'Then 'But I can surely hire a horse in the village? 'A horse to travel to Arras at one stretch? 'Yes. 'That would require such a horse as does not exist in these parts. You would have to buy it to begin with, because no one knows you. But you will not find one for sale nor to let, for five hundred francs, or for a thousand. 'What am I to do? 'The best thing is to let me repair the wheel like an honest man, and set out on your journey tomorrow. 'Tomorrow will be too late. 'The deuce! 'Is there not a mailwagon which runs to Arras? When will it pass? 'Tonight. Both the posts pass at night the one going as well as the one coming. 'What! It will take you a day to mend this wheel? 'A day, and a good long one. 'If you set two men to work? 'If I set ten men to work. 'What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes? 'That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub and the felly is in a bad state, too. 'Is there any one in this village who lets out teams? 'No. 'Is there another wheelwright? The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of the head. 'No. He felt an immense joy. It was evident that Providence was intervening. That it was it who had broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road. He had not yielded to this sort of first summons he had just made every possible effort to continue the journey he had loyally and scrupulously exhausted all means he had been deterred neither by the season, nor fatigue, nor by the expense he had nothing with which to reproach himself. If he went no further, that was no fault of his. It did not concern him further. It was no longer his fault. It was not the act of his own conscience, but the act of Providence. He breathed again. He breathed freely and to the full extent of his lungs for the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the hand of iron which had held his heart in its grasp for the last twenty hours had just released him. It seemed to him that God was for him now, and was manifesting Himself. He said to himself that he had done all he could, and that now he had nothing to do but retrace his steps quietly. If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a chamber of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, no one would have heard him, things would have rested there, and it is probable that we should not have had to relate any of the occurrences which the reader is about to peruse but this conversation had taken place in the street. Any colloquy in the street inevitably attracts a crowd. There are always people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and forth halted around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young lad, to whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group and ran off. At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which we have just described, resolved to retrace his steps, this child returned. He was accompanied by an old woman. 'Monsieur, said the woman, 'my boy tells me that you wish to hire a cabriolet. These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand which had relaxed its grasp reappear in the darkness behind him, ready to seize him once more. He answered 'Yes, my good woman I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire. And he hastened to add 'But there is none in the place. 'Certainly there is, said the old woman. 'Where? interpolated the wheelwright. 'At my house, replied the old woman. He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again. The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket springcart. The wheelwright and the stableman, in despair at the prospect of the traveller escaping their clutches, interfered. 'It was a frightful old trap it rests flat on the axle it is an actual fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs the rain came into it the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture it would not go much further than the tilbury a regular ramshackle old stagewagon the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted himself to it, etc., etc. All this was true but this trap, this ramshackle old vehicle, this thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and could go to Arras. He paid what was asked, left the tilbury with the wheelwright to be repaired, intending to reclaim it on his return, had the white horse put to the cart, climbed into it, and resumed the road which he had been travelling since morning. At the moment when the cart moved off, he admitted that he had felt, a moment previously, a certain joy in the thought that he should not go whither he was now proceeding. He examined this joy with a sort of wrath, and found it absurd. Why should he feel joy at turning back? After all, he was taking this trip of his own free will. No one was forcing him to it. And assuredly nothing would happen except what he should choose. As he left Hesdin, he heard a voice shouting to him 'Stop! Stop! He halted the cart with a vigorous movement which contained a feverish and convulsive element resembling hope. It was the old woman's little boy. 'Monsieur, said the latter, 'it was I who got the cart for you. 'Well? 'You have not given me anything. He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost odious. 'Ah! it's you, you scamp? said he 'you shall have nothing. He whipped up his horse and set off at full speed. He had lost a great deal of time at Hesdin. He wanted to make it good. The little horse was courageous, and pulled for two but it was the month of February, there had been rain the roads were bad. And then, it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition, there were many ascents. He took nearly four hours to go from Hesdin to SaintPol four hours for five leagues. At SaintPol he had the horse unharnessed at the first inn he came to and led to the stable as he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood beside the manger while the horse was eating he thought of sad and confusing things. The innkeeper's wife came to the stable. 'Does not Monsieur wish to breakfast? 'Come, that is true I even have a good appetite. He followed the woman, who had a rosy, cheerful face she led him to the public room where there were tables covered with waxed cloth. 'Make haste! said he 'I must start again I am in a hurry. A big Flemish servantmaid placed his knife and fork in all haste he looked at the girl with a sensation of comfort. 'That is what ailed me, he thought 'I had not breakfasted. His breakfast was served he seized the bread, took a mouthful, and then slowly replaced it on the table, and did not touch it again. A carter was eating at another table he said to this man 'Why is their bread so bitter here? The carter was a German and did not understand him. He returned to the stable and remained near the horse. An hour later he had quitted SaintPol and was directing his course towards Tinques, which is only five leagues from Arras. What did he do during this journey? Of what was he thinking? As in the morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields pass by, and the way in which the landscape, broken at every turn of the road, vanished this is a sort of contemplation which sometimes suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every instant perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence all the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us the dark and bright intervals are intermingled after a dazzling moment, an eclipse we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands to grasp what is passing each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old we feel a shock all is black we distinguish an obscure door the gloomy horse of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows. Twilight was falling when the children who were coming out of school beheld this traveller enter Tinques it is true that the days were still short he did not halt at Tinques as he emerged from the village, a laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his head and said to him 'That horse is very much fatigued. The poor beast was, in fact, going at a walk. 'Are you going to Arras? added the roadmender. 'Yes. 'If you go on at that rate you will not arrive very early. He stopped his horse, and asked the laborer 'How far is it from here to Arras? 'Nearly seven good leagues. 'How is that? the posting guide only says five leagues and a quarter. 'Ah! returned the roadmender, 'so you don't know that the road is under repair? You will find it barred a quarter of an hour further on there is no way to proceed further. 'Really? 'You will take the road on the left, leading to Carency you will cross the river when you reach Camblin, you will turn to the right that is the road to MontSaintloy which leads to Arras. 'But it is night, and I shall lose my way. 'You do not belong in these parts? 'No. 'And, besides, it is all crossroads stop! sir, resumed the roadmender 'shall I give you a piece of advice? your horse is tired return to Tinques there is a good inn there sleep there you can reach Arras tomorrow. 'I must be there this evening. 'That is different but go to the inn all the same, and get an extra horse the stableboy will guide you through the crossroads. He followed the roadmender's advice, retraced his steps, and, half an hour later, he passed the same spot again, but this time at full speed, with a good horse to aid a stableboy, who called himself a postilion, was seated on the shaft of the cariole. Still, he felt that he had lost time. Night had fully come. They turned into the crossroad the way became frightfully bad the cart lurched from one rut to the other he said to the postilion 'Keep at a trot, and you shall have a double fee. In one of the jolts, the whiffletree broke. 'There's the whiffletree broken, sir, said the postilion 'I don't know how to harness my horse now this road is very bad at night if you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras early tomorrow morning. He replied, 'Have you a bit of rope and a knife? 'Yes, sir. He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffletree of it. This caused another loss of twenty minutes but they set out again at a gallop. The plain was gloomy lowhanging, black, crisp fogs crept over the hills and wrenched themselves away like smoke there were whitish gleams in the clouds a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced a sound in all quarters of the horizon, as of some one moving furniture everything that could be seen assumed attitudes of terror. How many things shiver beneath these vast breaths of the night! He was stiff with cold he had eaten nothing since the night before he vaguely recalled his other nocturnal trip in the vast plain in the neighborhood of D, eight years previously, and it seemed but yesterday. The hour struck from a distant tower he asked the boy 'What time is it? 'Seven o'clock, sir we shall reach Arras at eight we have but three leagues still to go. At that moment, he for the first time indulged in this reflection, thinking it odd the while that it had not occurred to him sooner that all this trouble which he was taking was, perhaps, useless that he did not know so much as the hour of the trial that he should, at least, have informed himself of that that he was foolish to go thus straight ahead without knowing whether he would be of any service or not then he sketched out some calculations in his mind that, ordinarily, the sittings of the Court of Assizes began at nine o'clock in the morning that it could not be a long affair that the theft of the apples would be very brief that there would then remain only a question of identity, four or five depositions, and very little for the lawyers to say that he should arrive after all was over. The postilion whipped up the horses they had crossed the river and left MontSaintloy behind them. The night grew more profound. But at that moment Fantine was joyous. She had passed a very bad night her cough was frightful her fever had doubled in intensity she had had dreams in the morning, when the doctor paid his visit, she was delirious he assumed an alarmed look, and ordered that he should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived. All the morning she was melancholy, said but little, and laid plaits in her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations which seemed to be calculations of distances. Her eyes were hollow and staring. They seemed almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up again and shone like stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a certain dark hour, the light of heaven fills those who are quitting the light of earth. Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she replied invariably, 'Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine. Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of herself now she was the spectre of herself. Physical suffering had completed the work of moral suffering. This creature of five and twenty had a wrinkled brow, flabby cheeks, pinched nostrils, teeth from which the gums had receded, a leaden complexion, a bony neck, prominent shoulderblades, frail limbs, a clayey skin, and her golden hair was growing out sprinkled with gray. Alas! how illness improvises oldage! At midday the physician returned, gave some directions, inquired whether the mayor had made his appearance at the infirmary, and shook his head. M. Madeleine usually came to see the invalid at three o'clock. As exactness is kindness, he was exact. About halfpast two, Fantine began to be restless. In the course of twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times, 'What time is it, sister? Three o'clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up in bed she who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her yellow, fleshless hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the nun heard her utter one of those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine turned and looked at the door. No one entered the door did not open. She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, her eyes riveted on the door, motionless and apparently holding her breath. The sister dared not speak to her. The clock struck a quarter past three. Fantine fell back on her pillow. She said nothing, but began to plait the sheets once more. Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came every time the clock struck, Fantine started up and looked towards the door, then fell back again. Her thought was clearly perceptible, but she uttered no name, she made no complaint, she blamed no one. But she coughed in a melancholy way. One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She was livid and her lips were blue. She smiled now and then. Five o'clock struck. Then the sister heard her say, very low and gently, 'He is wrong not to come today, since I am going away tomorrow. Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine's delay. In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She seemed to be endeavoring to recall something. All at once she began to sing in a voice as feeble as a breath. The nun listened. This is what Fantine was singing 'Lovely things we will buy As we stroll the faubourgs through. Roses are pink, cornflowers are blue, I love my love, cornflowers are blue. 'Yestere'en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my veil the child whom you one day begged from me. Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy thread.' 'Lovely things we will buy As we stroll the faubourgs through. 'Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons decked. God may give me his loveliest star I prefer the child thou hast granted me. 'Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?''Make of it clothes for thy newborn babe.' 'Roses are pink and cornflowers are blue, I love my love, and cornflowers are blue. ''Wash this linen.''Where?''In the stream. Make of it, soiling not, spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine, which I will embroider and fill with flowers.''Madame, the child is no longer here what is to be done?''Then make of it a windingsheet in which to bury me.' 'Lovely things we will buy As we stroll the faubourgs through, Roses are pink, cornflowers are blue, I love my love, cornflowers are blue. This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in former days, lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which had never recurred to her mind in all the five years during which she had been parted from her child. She sang it in so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it was enough to make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes. The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She no longer seemed to pay attention to anything about her. Sister Simplice sent a servingmaid to inquire of the portress of the factory, whether the mayor had returned, and if he would not come to the infirmary soon. The girl returned in a few minutes. Fantine was still motionless and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts. The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the mayor had set out that morning before six o'clock, in a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was that he had gone alone, without even a driver that no one knew what road he had taken that people said he had been seen to turn into the road to Arras that others asserted that they had met him on the road to Paris. That when he went away he had been very gentle, as usual, and that he had merely told the portress not to expect him that night. While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned to Fantine's bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing, Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried 'You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking so low? What is he doing? Why does he not come? Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women thought they heard the voice of a man they wheeled round in affright. 'Answer me! cried Fantine. The servant stammered 'The portress told me that he could not come today. 'Be calm, my child, said the sister 'lie down again. Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and with an accent that was both imperious and heartrending 'He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to each other there. I want to know it. The servantmaid hastened to say in the nun's ear, 'Say that he is busy with the city council. Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had proposed to her. On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow, and that this was a serious matter in Fantine's present state. Her flush did not last long the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and said, 'Monsieur le Maire has gone away. Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed her eyes sparkled indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy face. 'Gone! she cried 'he has gone to get Cosette. Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became ineffable her lips moved she was praying in a low voice. When her prayer was finished, 'Sister, she said, 'I am willing to lie down again I will do anything you wish I was naughty just now I beg your pardon for having spoken so loud it is very wrong to talk loudly I know that well, my good sister, but, you see, I am very happy the good God is good M. Madeleine is good just think! he has gone to Montfermeil to get my little Cosette. She lay down again, with the nun's assistance, helped the nun to arrange her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross which she wore on her neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her. 'My child, said the sister, 'try to rest now, and do not talk any more. Fantine took the sister's hand in her moist hands, and the latter was pained to feel that perspiration. 'He set out this morning for Paris in fact, he need not even go through Paris Montfermeil is a little to the left as you come thence. Do you remember how he said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him of Cosette, Soon, soon? He wants to give me a surprise, you know! he made me sign a letter so that she could be taken from the Thnardiers they cannot say anything, can they? they will give back Cosette, for they have been paid the authorities will not allow them to keep the child since they have received their pay. Do not make signs to me that I must not talk, sister! I am extremely happy I am doing well I am not ill at all any more I am going to see Cosette again I am even quite hungry it is nearly five years since I saw her last you cannot imagine how much attached one gets to children, and then, she will be so pretty you will see! If you only knew what pretty little rosy fingers she had! In the first place, she will have very beautiful hands she had ridiculous hands when she was only a year old like this! she must be a big girl now she is seven years old she is quite a young lady I call her Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie. Stop! this morning I was looking at the dust on the chimneypiece, and I had a sort of idea come across me, like that, that I should see Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! how wrong it is not to see one's children for years! One ought to reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good M. le Maire is to go! it is very cold! it is true he had on his cloak, at least? he will be here tomorrow, will he not? tomorrow will be a festival day tomorrow morning, sister, you must remind me to put on my little cap that has lace on it. What a place that Montfermeil is! I took that journey on foot once it was very long for me, but the diligences go very quickly! he will be here tomorrow with Cosette how far is it from here to Montfermeil? The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, 'Oh, I think that he will be here tomorrow. 'Tomorrow! tomorrow! said Fantine, 'I shall see Cosette tomorrow! you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no longer ill I am mad I could dance if any one wished it. A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not have understood the change she was all rosy now she spoke in a lively and natural voice her whole face was one smile now and then she talked, she laughed softly the joy of a mother is almost infantile. 'Well, resumed the nun, 'now that you are happy, mind me, and do not talk any more. Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice 'Yes, lie down again be good, for you are going to have your child Sister Simplice is right every one here is right. And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to stare all about her with wideopen eyes and a joyous air, and she said nothing more. The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would fall into a doze. Between seven and eight o'clock the doctor came not hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and approached the bed on tiptoe he opened the curtains a little, and, by the light of the taper, he saw Fantine's big eyes gazing at him. She said to him, 'She will be allowed to sleep beside me in a little bed, will she not, sir? The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added 'See! there is just room. The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained matters to him that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or two, and that in their doubt they had not thought it well to undeceive the invalid, who believed that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil that it was possible, after all, that her guess was correct the doctor approved. He returned to Fantine's bed, and she went on 'You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot sleep at night, I can hear her asleep her little gentle breathing will do me good. 'Give me your hand, said the doctor. She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh 'Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it I am cured Cosette will arrive tomorrow. The doctor was surprised she was better the pressure on her chest had decreased her pulse had regained its strength a sort of life had suddenly supervened and reanimated this poor, wornout creature. 'Doctor, she went on, 'did the sister tell you that M. le Maire has gone to get that mite of a child? The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be avoided he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the fever should increase again during the night, a calming potion. As he took his departure, he said to the sister 'She is doing better if good luck willed that the mayor should actually arrive tomorrow with the child, who knows? there are crises so astounding great joy has been known to arrest maladies I know well that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all those things are such mysteries we may be able to save her. It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening when the cart, which we left on the road, entered the portecochre of the Hotel de la Poste in Arras the man whom we have been following up to this moment alighted from it, responded with an abstracted air to the attentions of the people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands led the little white horse to the stable then he opened the door of a billiardroom which was situated on the ground floor, sat down there, and leaned his elbows on a table he had taken fourteen hours for the journey which he had counted on making in six he did himself the justice to acknowledge that it was not his fault, but at bottom, he was not sorry. The landlady of the hotel entered. 'Does Monsieur wish a bed? Does Monsieur require supper? He made a sign of the head in the negative. 'The stableman says that Monsieur's horse is extremely fatigued. Here he broke his silence. 'Will not the horse be in a condition to set out again tomorrow morning? 'Oh, Monsieur! he must rest for two days at least. He inquired 'Is not the postingstation located here? 'Yes, sir. The hostess conducted him to the office he showed his passport, and inquired whether there was any way of returning that same night to M. sur M. by the mailwagon the seat beside the postboy chanced to be vacant he engaged it and paid for it. 'Monsieur, said the clerk, 'do not fail to be here ready to start at precisely one o'clock in the morning. This done, he left the hotel and began to wander about the town. He was not acquainted with Arras the streets were dark, and he walked on at random but he seemed bent upon not asking the way of the passersby. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a labyrinth of narrow alleys where he lost his way. A citizen was passing along with a lantern. After some hesitation, he decided to apply to this man, not without having first glanced behind and in front of him, as though he feared lest some one should hear the question which he was about to put. 'Monsieur, said he, 'where is the courthouse, if you please. 'You do not belong in town, sir? replied the bourgeois, who was an oldish man 'well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of the courthouse, that is to say, in the direction of the hotel of the prefecture for the courthouse is undergoing repairs just at this moment, and the courts are holding their sittings provisionally in the prefecture. 'Is it there that the Assizes are held? he asked. 'Certainly, sir you see, the prefecture of today was the bishop's palace before the Revolution. M. de Conzi, who was bishop in ', built a grand hall there. It is in this grand hall that the court is held. On the way, the bourgeois said to him 'If Monsieur desires to witness a case, it is rather late. The sittings generally close at six o'clock. When they arrived on the grand square, however, the man pointed out to him four long windows all lighted up, in the front of a vast and gloomy building. 'Upon my word, sir, you are in luck you have arrived in season. Do you see those four windows? That is the Court of Assizes. There is light there, so they are not through. The matter must have been greatly protracted, and they are holding an evening session. Do you take an interest in this affair? Is it a criminal case? Are you a witness? He replied 'I have not come on any business I only wish to speak to one of the lawyers. 'That is different, said the bourgeois. 'Stop, sir here is the door where the sentry stands. You have only to ascend the grand staircase. He conformed to the bourgeois's directions, and a few minutes later he was in a hall containing many people, and where groups, intermingled with lawyers in their gowns, were whispering together here and there. It is always a heartbreaking thing to see these congregations of men robed in black, murmuring together in low voices, on the threshold of the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome of these words. Condemnations pronounced in advance are more likely to be the result. All these groups seem to the passing and thoughtful observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in concert all sorts of dark edifices. This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace of justice. A doubleleaved door, which was closed at that moment, separated it from the large apartment where the court was sitting. The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer whom he met. 'What stage have they reached, sir? he asked. 'It is finished, said the lawyer. 'Finished! This word was repeated in such accents that the lawyer turned round. 'Excuse me sir perhaps you are a relative? 'No I know no one here. Has judgment been pronounced? 'Of course. Nothing else was possible. 'To penal servitude? 'For life. He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible 'Then his identity was established? 'What identity? replied the lawyer. 'There was no identity to be established. The matter was very simple. The woman had murdered her child the infanticide was proved the jury threw out the question of premeditation, and she was condemned for life. 'So it was a woman? said he. 'Why, certainly. The Limosin woman. Of what are you speaking? 'Nothing. But since it is all over, how comes it that the hall is still lighted? 'For another case, which was begun about two hours ago. 'What other case? 'Oh! this one is a clear case also. It is about a sort of blackguard a man arrested for a second offence a convict who has been guilty of theft. I don't know his name exactly. There's a bandit's phiz for you! I'd send him to the galleys on the strength of his face alone. 'Is there any way of getting into the courtroom, sir? said he. 'I really think that there is not. There is a great crowd. However, the hearing has been suspended. Some people have gone out, and when the hearing is resumed, you might make an effort. 'Where is the entrance? 'Through yonder large door. The lawyer left him. In the course of a few moments he had experienced, almost simultaneously, almost intermingled with each other, all possible emotions. The words of this indifferent spectator had, in turn, pierced his heart like needles of ice and like blades of fire. When he saw that nothing was settled, he breathed freely once more but he could not have told whether what he felt was pain or pleasure. He drew near to many groups and listened to what they were saying. The docket of the session was very heavy the president had appointed for the same day two short and simple cases. They had begun with the infanticide, and now they had reached the convict, the old offender, the 'return horse. This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear to be entirely proved what had been proved was, that he had already been in the galleys at Toulon. It was that which lent a bad aspect to his case. However, the man's examination and the depositions of the witnesses had been completed, but the lawyer's plea, and the speech of the public prosecutor were still to come it could not be finished before midnight. The man would probably be condemned the attorneygeneral was very clever, and never missed his culprits he was a brilliant fellow who wrote verses. An usher stood at the door communicating with the hall of the Assizes. He inquired of this usher 'Will the door be opened soon, sir? 'It will not be opened at all, replied the usher. 'What! It will not be opened when the hearing is resumed? Is not the hearing suspended? 'The hearing has just been begun again, replied the usher, 'but the door will not be opened again. 'Why? 'Because the hall is full. 'What! There is not room for one more? 'Not another one. The door is closed. No one can enter now. The usher added after a pause 'There are, to tell the truth, two or three extra places behind Monsieur le Prsident, but Monsieur le Prsident only admits public functionaries to them. So saying, the usher turned his back. He retired with bowed head, traversed the antechamber, and slowly descended the stairs, as though hesitating at every step. It is probable that he was holding counsel with himself. The violent conflict which had been going on within him since the preceding evening was not yet ended and every moment he encountered some new phase of it. On reaching the landingplace, he leaned his back against the balusters and folded his arms. All at once he opened his coat, drew out his pocketbook, took from it a pencil, tore out a leaf, and upon that leaf he wrote rapidly, by the light of the street lantern, this line M. Madeleine, Mayor of M. sur M. then he ascended the stairs once more with great strides, made his way through the crowd, walked straight up to the usher, handed him the paper, and said in an authoritative manner 'Take this to Monsieur le Prsident. The usher took the paper, cast a glance upon it, and obeyed. Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed a sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais it had eventually passed the confines of a small district and had been spread abroad through two or three neighboring departments. Besides the service which he had rendered to the chief town by resuscitating the black jet industry, there was not one out of the hundred and forty communes of the arrondissement of M. sur M. which was not indebted to him for some benefit. He had even at need contrived to aid and multiply the industries of other arrondissements. It was thus that he had, when occasion offered, supported with his credit and his funds the linen factory at Boulogne, the flaxspinning industry at Frvent, and the hydraulic manufacture of cloth at BouberssurCanche. Everywhere the name of M. Madeleine was pronounced with veneration. Arras and Douai envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor. The Councillor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was presiding over this session of the Assizes at Arras, was acquainted, in common with the rest of the world, with this name which was so profoundly and universally honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which connected the councilchamber with the courtroom, bent over the back of the President's armchair and handed him the paper on which was inscribed the line which we have just perused, adding 'The gentleman desires to be present at the trial, the President, with a quick and deferential movement, seized a pen and wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper and returned it to the usher, saying, 'Admit him. The unhappy man whose history we are relating had remained near the door of the hall, in the same place and the same attitude in which the usher had left him. In the midst of his reverie he heard some one saying to him, 'Will Monsieur do me the honor to follow me? It was the same usher who had turned his back upon him but a moment previously, and who was now bowing to the earth before him. At the same time, the usher handed him the paper. He unfolded it, and as he chanced to be near the light, he could read it. 'The President of the Court of Assizes presents his respects to M. Madeleine. He crushed the paper in his hand as though those words contained for him a strange and bitter aftertaste. He followed the usher. A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a table with a green cloth. The last words of the usher who had just quitted him still rang in his ears 'Monsieur, you are now in the councilchamber you have only to turn the copper handle of yonder door, and you will find yourself in the courtroom, behind the President's chair. These words were mingled in his thoughts with a vague memory of narrow corridors and dark staircases which he had recently traversed. The usher had left him alone. The supreme moment had arrived. He sought to collect his faculties, but could not. It is chiefly at the moment when there is the greatest need for attaching them to the painful realities of life, that the threads of thought snap within the brain. He was in the very place where the judges deliberated and condemned. With stupid tranquillity he surveyed this peaceful and terrible apartment, where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring with his name, and which his fate was at that moment traversing. He stared at the wall, then he looked at himself, wondering that it should be that chamber and that it should be he. He had eaten nothing for four and twenty hours he was worn out by the jolts of the cart, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed to him that he felt nothing. He approached a black frame which was suspended on the wall, and which contained, under glass, an ancient autograph letter of Jean Nicolas Pache, mayor of Paris and minister, and dated, through an error, no doubt, the th of June, of the year II., and in which Pache forwarded to the commune the list of ministers and deputies held in arrest by them. Any spectator who had chanced to see him at that moment, and who had watched him, would have imagined, doubtless, that this letter struck him as very curious, for he did not take his eyes from it, and he read it two or three times. He read it without paying any attention to it, and unconsciously. He was thinking of Fantine and Cosette. As he dreamed, he turned round, and his eyes fell upon the brass knob of the door which separated him from the Court of Assizes. He had almost forgotten that door. His glance, calm at first, paused there, remained fixed on that brass handle, then grew terrified, and little by little became impregnated with fear. Beads of perspiration burst forth among his hair and trickled down upon his temples. At a certain moment he made that indescribable gesture of a sort of authority mingled with rebellion, which is intended to convey, and which does so well convey, 'Pardieu! who compels me to this? Then he wheeled briskly round, caught sight of the door through which he had entered in front of him, went to it, opened it, and passed out. He was no longer in that chamber he was outside in a corridor, a long, narrow corridor, broken by steps and gratings, making all sorts of angles, lighted here and there by lanterns similar to the night taper of invalids, the corridor through which he had approached. He breathed, he listened not a sound in front, not a sound behind him, and he fled as though pursued. When he had turned many angles in this corridor, he still listened. The same silence reigned, and there was the same darkness around him. He was out of breath he staggered he leaned against the wall. The stone was cold the perspiration lay icecold on his brow he straightened himself up with a shiver. Then, there alone in the darkness, trembling with cold and with something else, too, perchance, he meditated. He had meditated all night long he had meditated all the day he heard within him but one voice, which said, 'Alas! A quarter of an hour passed thus. At length he bowed his head, sighed with agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his steps. He walked slowly, and as though crushed. It seemed as though some one had overtaken him in his flight and was leading him back. He reentered the councilchamber. The first thing he caught sight of was the knob of the door. This knob, which was round and of polished brass, shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at it as a lamb might gaze into the eye of a tiger. He could not take his eyes from it. From time to time he advanced a step and approached the door. Had he listened, he would have heard the sound of the adjoining hall like a sort of confused murmur but he did not listen, and he did not hear. Suddenly, without himself knowing how it happened, he found himself near the door he grasped the knob convulsively the door opened. He was in the courtroom. He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically behind him, and remained standing, contemplating what he saw. It was a vast and badly lighted apartment, now full of uproar, now full of silence, where all the apparatus of a criminal case, with its petty and mournful gravity in the midst of the throng, was in process of development. At the one end of the hall, the one where he was, were judges, with abstracted air, in threadbare robes, who were gnawing their nails or closing their eyelids at the other end, a ragged crowd lawyers in all sorts of attitudes soldiers with hard but honest faces ancient, spotted woodwork, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge that was yellow rather than green doors blackened by handmarks taproom lamps which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in the wainscot on the tables candles in brass candlesticks darkness, ugliness, sadness and from all this there was disengaged an austere and august impression, for one there felt that grand human thing which is called the law, and that grand divine thing which is called justice. No one in all that throng paid any attention to him all glances were directed towards a single point, a wooden bench placed against a small door, in the stretch of wall on the President's left on this bench, illuminated by several candles, sat a man between two gendarmes. This man was the man. He did not seek him he saw him his eyes went thither naturally, as though they had known beforehand where that figure was. He thought he was looking at himself, grown old not absolutely the same in face, of course, but exactly similar in attitude and aspect, with his bristling hair, with that wild and uneasy eye, with that blouse, just as it was on the day when he entered D, full of hatred, concealing his soul in that hideous mass of frightful thoughts which he had spent nineteen years in collecting on the floor of the prison. He said to himself with a shudder, 'Good God! shall I become like that again? This creature seemed to be at least sixty there was something indescribably coarse, stupid, and frightened about him. At the sound made by the opening door, people had drawn aside to make way for him the President had turned his head, and, understanding that the personage who had just entered was the mayor of M. sur M., he had bowed to him the attorneygeneral, who had seen M. Madeleine at M. sur M., whither the duties of his office had called him more than once, recognized him and saluted him also he had hardly perceived it he was the victim of a sort of hallucination he was watching. Judges, clerks, gendarmes, a throng of cruelly curious heads, all these he had already beheld once, in days gone by, twentyseven years before he had encountered those fatal things once more there they were they moved they existed it was no longer an effort of his memory, a mirage of his thought they were real gendarmes and real judges, a real crowd, and real men of flesh and blood it was all over he beheld the monstrous aspects of his past reappear and live once more around him, with all that there is formidable in reality. All this was yawning before him. He was horrified by it he shut his eyes, and exclaimed in the deepest recesses of his soul, 'Never! And by a tragic play of destiny which made all his ideas tremble, and rendered him nearly mad, it was another self of his that was there! all called that man who was being tried Jean Valjean. Under his very eyes, unheardof vision, he had a sort of representation of the most horrible moment of his life, enacted by his spectre. Everything was there the apparatus was the same, the hour of the night, the faces of the judges, of soldiers, and of spectators all were the same, only above the President's head there hung a crucifix, something which the courts had lacked at the time of his condemnation God had been absent when he had been judged. There was a chair behind him he dropped into it, terrified at the thought that he might be seen when he was seated, he took advantage of a pile of cardboard boxes, which stood on the judge's desk, to conceal his face from the whole room he could now see without being seen he had fully regained consciousness of the reality of things gradually he recovered he attained that phase of composure where it is possible to listen. M. Bamatabois was one of the jurors. He looked for Javert, but did not see him the seat of the witnesses was hidden from him by the clerk's table, and then, as we have just said, the hall was sparely lighted. At the moment of this entrance, the defendant's lawyer had just finished his plea. The attention of all was excited to the highest pitch the affair had lasted for three hours for three hours that crowd had been watching a strange man, a miserable specimen of humanity, either profoundly stupid or profoundly subtle, gradually bending beneath the weight of a terrible likeness. This man, as the reader already knows, was a vagabond who had been found in a field carrying a branch laden with ripe apples, broken in the orchard of a neighbor, called the Pierron orchard. Who was this man? an examination had been made witnesses had been heard, and they were unanimous light had abounded throughout the entire debate the accusation said 'We have in our grasp not only a marauder, a stealer of fruit we have here, in our hands, a bandit, an old offender who has broken his ban, an exconvict, a miscreant of the most dangerous description, a malefactor named Jean Valjean, whom justice has long been in search of, and who, eight years ago, on emerging from the galleys at Toulon, committed a highway robbery, accompanied by violence, on the person of a child, a Savoyard named Little Gervais a crime provided for by article  of the Penal Code, the right to try him for which we reserve hereafter, when his identity shall have been judicially established. He has just committed a fresh theft it is a case of a second offence condemn him for the fresh deed later on he will be judged for the old crime. In the face of this accusation, in the face of the unanimity of the witnesses, the accused appeared to be astonished more than anything else he made signs and gestures which were meant to convey No, or else he stared at the ceiling he spoke with difficulty, replied with embarrassment, but his whole person, from head to foot, was a denial he was an idiot in the presence of all these minds ranged in order of battle around him, and like a stranger in the midst of this society which was seizing fast upon him nevertheless, it was a question of the most menacing future for him the likeness increased every moment, and the entire crowd surveyed, with more anxiety than he did himself, that sentence freighted with calamity, which descended ever closer over his head there was even a glimpse of a possibility afforded besides the galleys, a possible death penalty, in case his identity were established, and the affair of Little Gervais were to end thereafter in condemnation. Who was this man? what was the nature of his apathy? was it imbecility or craft? Did he understand too well, or did he not understand at all? these were questions which divided the crowd, and seemed to divide the jury there was something both terrible and puzzling in this case the drama was not only melancholy it was also obscure. The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that provincial tongue which has long constituted the eloquence of the bar, and which was formerly employed by all advocates, at Paris as well as at Romorantin or at Montbrison, and which today, having become classic, is no longer spoken except by the official orators of magistracy, to whom it is suited on account of its grave sonorousness and its majestic stride a tongue in which a husband is called a consort, and a woman a spouse Paris, the centre of art and civilization the king, the monarch Monseigneur the Bishop, a sainted pontiff the districtattorney, the eloquent interpreter of public prosecution the arguments, the accents which we have just listened to the age of Louis XIV., the grand age a theatre, the temple of Melpomene the reigning family, the august blood of our kings a concert, a musical solemnity the General Commandant of the province, the illustrious warrior, who, etc. the pupils in the seminary, these tender levities errors imputed to newspapers, the imposture which distills its venom through the columns of those organs etc. The lawyer had, accordingly, begun with an explanation as to the theft of the apples,an awkward matter couched in fine style but Bnigne Bossuet himself was obliged to allude to a chicken in the midst of a funeral oration, and he extricated himself from the situation in stately fashion. The lawyer established the fact that the theft of the apples had not been circumstantially proved. His client, whom he, in his character of counsel, persisted in calling Champmathieu, had not been seen scaling that wall nor breaking that branch by any one. He had been taken with that branch (which the lawyer preferred to call a bough) in his possession but he said that he had found it broken off and lying on the ground, and had picked it up. Where was there any proof to the contrary? No doubt that branch had been broken off and concealed after the scaling of the wall, then thrown away by the alarmed marauder there was no doubt that there had been a thief in the case. But what proof was there that that thief had been Champmathieu? One thing only. His character as an exconvict. The lawyer did not deny that that character appeared to be, unhappily, well attested the accused had resided at Faverolles the accused had exercised the calling of a treepruner there the name of Champmathieu might well have had its origin in Jean Mathieu all that was true,in short, four witnesses recognize Champmathieu, positively and without hesitation, as that convict, Jean Valjean to these signs, to this testimony, the counsel could oppose nothing but the denial of his client, the denial of an interested party but supposing that he was the convict Jean Valjean, did that prove that he was the thief of the apples? that was a presumption at the most, not a proof. The prisoner, it was true, and his counsel, 'in good faith, was obliged to admit it, had adopted 'a bad system of defence. He obstinately denied everything, the theft and his character of convict. An admission upon this last point would certainly have been better, and would have won for him the indulgence of his judges the counsel had advised him to do this but the accused had obstinately refused, thinking, no doubt, that he would save everything by admitting nothing. It was an error but ought not the paucity of this intelligence to be taken into consideration? This man was visibly stupid. Longcontinued wretchedness in the galleys, long misery outside the galleys, had brutalized him, etc. He defended himself badly was that a reason for condemning him? As for the affair with Little Gervais, the counsel need not discuss it it did not enter into the case. The lawyer wound up by beseeching the jury and the court, if the identity of Jean Valjean appeared to them to be evident, to apply to him the police penalties which are provided for a criminal who has broken his ban, and not the frightful chastisement which descends upon the convict guilty of a second offence. The districtattorney answered the counsel for the defence. He was violent and florid, as districtattorneys usually are. He congratulated the counsel for the defence on his 'loyalty, and skilfully took advantage of this loyalty. He reached the accused through all the concessions made by his lawyer. The advocate had seemed to admit that the prisoner was Jean Valjean. He took note of this. So this man was Jean Valjean. This point had been conceded to the accusation and could no longer be disputed. Here, by means of a clever autonomasia which went back to the sources and causes of crime, the districtattorney thundered against the immorality of the romantic school, then dawning under the name of the Satanic school, which had been bestowed upon it by the critics of the Quotidienne and the Oriflamme he attributed, not without some probability, to the influence of this perverse literature the crime of Champmathieu, or rather, to speak more correctly, of Jean Valjean. Having exhausted these considerations, he passed on to Jean Valjean himself. Who was this Jean Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean a monster spewed forth, etc. The model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of Thramne, which is not useful to tragedy, but which every day renders great services to judicial eloquence. The audience and the jury 'shuddered. The description finished, the districtattorney resumed with an oratorical turn calculated to raise the enthusiasm of the journal of the prefecture to the highest pitch on the following day And it is such a man, etc., etc., etc., vagabond, beggar, without means of existence, etc., etc., inured by his past life to culpable deeds, and but little reformed by his sojourn in the galleys, as was proved by the crime committed against Little Gervais, etc., etc. it is such a man, caught upon the highway in the very act of theft, a few paces from a wall that had been scaled, still holding in his hand the object stolen, who denies the crime, the theft, the climbing the wall denies everything denies even his own identity! In addition to a hundred other proofs, to which we will not recur, four witnesses recognize himJavert, the upright inspector of police Javert, and three of his former companions in infamy, the convicts Brevet, Chenildieu, and Cochepaille. What does he offer in opposition to this overwhelming unanimity? His denial. What obduracy! You will do justice, gentlemen of the jury, etc., etc. While the districtattorney was speaking, the accused listened to him openmouthed, with a sort of amazement in which some admiration was assuredly blended. He was evidently surprised that a man could talk like that. From time to time, at those 'energetic moments of the prosecutor's speech, when eloquence which cannot contain itself overflows in a flood of withering epithets and envelops the accused like a storm, he moved his head slowly from right to left and from left to right in the sort of mute and melancholy protest with which he had contented himself since the beginning of the argument. Two or three times the spectators who were nearest to him heard him say in a low voice, 'That is what comes of not having asked M. Baloup. The districtattorney directed the attention of the jury to this stupid attitude, evidently deliberate, which denoted not imbecility, but craft, skill, a habit of deceiving justice, and which set forth in all its nakedness the 'profound perversity of this man. He ended by making his reserves on the affair of Little Gervais and demanding a severe sentence. At that time, as the reader will remember, it was penal servitude for life. The counsel for the defence rose, began by complimenting Monsieur l'AvocatGeneral on his 'admirable speech, then replied as best he could but he weakened the ground was evidently slipping away from under his feet. The moment for closing the debate had arrived. The President had the accused stand up, and addressed to him the customary question, 'Have you anything to add to your defence? The man did not appear to understand, as he stood there, twisting in his hands a terrible cap which he had. The President repeated the question. This time the man heard it. He seemed to understand. He made a motion like a man who is just waking up, cast his eyes about him, stared at the audience, the gendarmes, his counsel, the jury, the court, laid his monstrous fist on the rim of woodwork in front of his bench, took another look, and all at once, fixing his glance upon the districtattorney, he began to speak. It was like an eruption. It seemed, from the manner in which the words escaped from his mouth,incoherent, impetuous, pellmell, tumbling over each other,as though they were all pressing forward to issue forth at once. He said 'This is what I have to say. That I have been a wheelwright in Paris, and that it was with Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the wheelwright's trade one works always in the open air, in courtyards, under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops, because space is required, you see. In winter one gets so cold that one beats one's arms together to warm one's self but the masters don't like it they say it wastes time. Handling iron when there is ice between the pavingstones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly. One is old while he is still quite young in that trade. At forty a man is done for. I was fiftythree. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen are so mean! When a man is no longer young, they call him nothing but an old bird, old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day. They paid me as little as possible. The masters took advantage of my ageand then I had my daughter, who was a laundress at the river. She earned a little also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also all day long up to her waist in a tub, in rain, in snow. When the wind cuts your face, when it freezes, it is all the same you must still wash. There are people who have not much linen, and wait until late if you do not wash, you lose your custom. The planks are badly joined, and water drops on you from everywhere you have your petticoats all damp above and below. That penetrates. She has also worked at the laundry of the EnfantsRouges, where the water comes through faucets. You are not in the tub there you wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in a basin behind you. As it is enclosed, you are not so cold but there is that hot steam, which is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She came home at seven o'clock in the evening, and went to bed at once, she was so tired. Her husband beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy. She was a good girl, who did not go to the ball, and who was very peaceable. I remember one ShroveTuesday when she went to bed at eight o'clock. There, I am telling the truth you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Baloup does, I tell you. Go see at M. Baloup's and after all, I don't know what is wanted of me. The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and savage ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd. The sort of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at random came like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture of a woodcutter who is splitting wood. When he had finished, the audience burst into a laugh. He stared at the public, and, perceiving that they were laughing, and not understanding why, he began to laugh himself. It was inauspicious. The President, an attentive and benevolent man, raised his voice. He reminded 'the gentlemen of the jury that 'the sieur Baloup, formerly a masterwheelwright, with whom the accused stated that he had served, had been summoned in vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not to be found. Then turning to the accused, he enjoined him to listen to what he was about to say, and added 'You are in a position where reflection is necessary. The gravest presumptions rest upon you, and may induce vital results. Prisoner, in your own interests, I summon you for the last time to explain yourself clearly on two points. In the first place, did you or did you not climb the wall of the Pierron orchard, break the branch, and steal the apples that is to say, commit the crime of breaking in and theft? In the second place, are you the discharged convict, Jean Valjeanyes or no? The prisoner shook his head with a capable air, like a man who has thoroughly understood, and who knows what answer he is going to make. He opened his mouth, turned towards the President, and said 'In the first place Then he stared at his cap, stared at the ceiling, and held his peace. 'Prisoner, said the districtattorney, in a severe voice 'pay attention. You are not answering anything that has been asked of you. Your embarrassment condemns you. It is evident that your name is not Champmathieu that you are the convict, Jean Valjean, concealed first under the name of Jean Mathieu, which was the name of his mother that you went to Auvergne that you were born at Faverolles, where you were a pruner of trees. It is evident that you have been guilty of entering, and of the theft of ripe apples from the Pierron orchard. The gentlemen of the jury will form their own opinion. The prisoner had finally resumed his seat he arose abruptly when the districtattorney had finished, and exclaimed 'You are very wicked that you are! This what I wanted to say I could not find words for it at first. I have stolen nothing. I am a man who does not have something to eat every day. I was coming from Ailly I was walking through the country after a shower, which had made the whole country yellow even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing sprang from the sand any more but the little blades of grass at the wayside. I found a broken branch with apples on the ground I picked up the branch without knowing that it would get me into trouble. I have been in prison, and they have been dragging me about for the last three months more than that I cannot say people talk against me, they tell me, 'Answer!' The gendarme, who is a good fellow, nudges my elbow, and says to me in a low voice, 'Come, answer!' I don't know how to explain I have no education I am a poor man that is where they wrong me, because they do not see this. I have not stolen I picked up from the ground things that were lying there. You say, Jean Valjean, Jean Mathieu! I don't know those persons they are villagers. I worked for M. Baloup, Boulevard de l'Hpital my name is Champmathieu. You are very clever to tell me where I was born I don't know myself it's not everybody who has a house in which to come into the world that would be too convenient. I think that my father and mother were people who strolled along the highways I know nothing different. When I was a child, they called me young fellow now they call me old Fellow those are my baptismal names take that as you like. I have been in Auvergne I have been at Faverolles. Pardi. Well! can't a man have been in Auvergne, or at Faverolles, without having been in the galleys? I tell you that I have not stolen, and that I am Father Champmathieu I have been with M. Baloup I have had a settled residence. You worry me with your nonsense, there! Why is everybody pursuing me so furiously? The districtattorney had remained standing he addressed the President 'Monsieur le Prsident, in view of the confused but exceedingly clever denials of the prisoner, who would like to pass himself off as an idiot, but who will not succeed in so doing,we shall attend to that,we demand that it shall please you and that it shall please the court to summon once more into this place the convicts Brevet, Cochepaille, and Chenildieu, and PoliceInspector Javert, and question them for the last time as to the identity of the prisoner with the convict Jean Valjean. 'I would remind the districtattorney, said the President, 'that PoliceInspector Javert, recalled by his duties to the capital of a neighboring arrondissement, left the courtroom and the town as soon as he had made his deposition we have accorded him permission, with the consent of the districtattorney and of the counsel for the prisoner. 'That is true, Mr. President, responded the districtattorney. 'In the absence of sieur Javert, I think it my duty to remind the gentlemen of the jury of what he said here a few hours ago. Javert is an estimable man, who does honor by his rigorous and strict probity to inferior but important functions. These are the terms of his deposition 'I do not even stand in need of circumstantial proofs and moral presumptions to give the lie to the prisoner's denial. I recognize him perfectly. The name of this man is not Champmathieu he is an exconvict named Jean Valjean, and is very vicious and much to be feared. It is only with extreme regret that he was released at the expiration of his term. He underwent nineteen years of penal servitude for theft. He made five or six attempts to escape. Besides the theft from Little Gervais, and from the Pierron orchard, I suspect him of a theft committed in the house of His Grace the late Bishop of D I often saw him at the time when I was adjutant of the galleyguard at the prison in Toulon. I repeat that I recognize him perfectly.' This extremely precise statement appeared to produce a vivid impression on the public and on the jury. The districtattorney concluded by insisting, that in default of Javert, the three witnesses Brevet, Chenildieu, and Cochepaille should be heard once more and solemnly interrogated. The President transmitted the order to an usher, and, a moment later, the door of the witnesses' room opened. The usher, accompanied by a gendarme ready to lend him armed assistance, introduced the convict Brevet. The audience was in suspense and all breasts heaved as though they had contained but one soul. The exconvict Brevet wore the black and gray waistcoat of the central prisons. Brevet was a person sixty years of age, who had a sort of business man's face, and the air of a rascal. The two sometimes go together. In prison, whither fresh misdeeds had led him, he had become something in the nature of a turnkey. He was a man of whom his superiors said, 'He tries to make himself of use. The chaplains bore good testimony as to his religious habits. It must not be forgotten that this passed under the Restoration. 'Brevet, said the President, 'you have undergone an ignominious sentence, and you cannot take an oath. Brevet dropped his eyes. 'Nevertheless, continued the President, 'even in the man whom the law has degraded, there may remain, when the divine mercy permits it, a sentiment of honor and of equity. It is to this sentiment that I appeal at this decisive hour. If it still exists in you,and I hope it does,reflect before replying to me consider on the one hand, this man, whom a word from you may ruin on the other hand, justice, which a word from you may enlighten. The instant is solemn there is still time to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, take a good look at the accused, recall your souvenirs, and tell us on your soul and conscience, if you persist in recognizing this man as your former companion in the galleys, Jean Valjean? Brevet looked at the prisoner, then turned towards the court. 'Yes, Mr. President, I was the first to recognize him, and I stick to it that man is Jean Valjean, who entered at Toulon in , and left in . I left a year later. He has the air of a brute now but it must be because age has brutalized him he was sly at the galleys I recognize him positively. 'Take your seat, said the President. 'Prisoner, remain standing. Chenildieu was brought in, a prisoner for life, as was indicated by his red cassock and his green cap. He was serving out his sentence at the galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for this case. He was a small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazenfaced, feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and his whole person, and an immense force in his glance. His companions in the galleys had nicknamed him IdenyGod (Jenie Dieu, Chenildieu). The President addressed him in nearly the same words which he had used to Brevet. At the moment when he reminded him of his infamy which deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his head and looked the crowd in the face. The President invited him to reflection, and asked him as he had asked Brevet, if he persisted in recognition of the prisoner. Chenildieu burst out laughing. 'Pardieu, as if I didn't recognize him! We were attached to the same chain for five years. So you are sulking, old fellow? 'Go take your seat, said the President. The usher brought in Cochepaille. He was another convict for life, who had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was a peasant from Lourdes, and a halfbear of the Pyrenees. He had guarded the flocks among the mountains, and from a shepherd he had slipped into a brigand. Cochepaille was no less savage and seemed even more stupid than the prisoner. He was one of those wretched men whom nature has sketched out for wild beasts, and on whom society puts the finishing touches as convicts in the galleys. The President tried to touch him with some grave and pathetic words, and asked him, as he had asked the other two, if he persisted, without hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man who was standing before him. 'He is Jean Valjean, said Cochepaille. 'He was even called JeantheScrew, because he was so strong. Each of these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for the prisoner,a murmur which increased and lasted longer each time that a fresh declaration was added to the proceeding. The prisoner had listened to them, with that astounded face which was, according to the accusation, his principal means of defence at the first, the gendarmes, his neighbors, had heard him mutter between his teeth 'Ah, well, he's a nice one! after the second, he said, a little louder, with an air that was almost that of satisfaction, 'Good! at the third, he cried, 'Famous! The President addressed him 'Have you heard, prisoner? What have you to say? He replied 'I say, 'Famous!' An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the jury it was evident that the man was lost. 'Ushers, said the President, 'enforce silence! I am going to sum up the arguments. At that moment there was a movement just beside the President a voice was heard crying 'Brevet! Chenildieu! Cochepaille! look here! All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was it all eyes were turned to the point whence it had proceeded. A man, placed among the privileged spectators who were seated behind the court, had just risen, had pushed open the halfdoor which separated the tribunal from the audience, and was standing in the middle of the hall the President, the districtattorney, M. Bamatabois, twenty persons, recognized him, and exclaimed in concert 'M. Madeleine! It was he, in fact. The clerk's lamp illumined his countenance. He held his hat in his hand there was no disorder in his clothing his coat was carefully buttoned he was very pale, and he trembled slightly his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now entirely white it had turned white during the hour he had sat there. All heads were raised the sensation was indescribable there was a momentary hesitation in the audience, the voice had been so heartrending the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did not understand at first. They asked themselves whether he had indeed uttered that cry they could not believe that that tranquil man had been the one to give that terrible outcry. This indecision only lasted a few seconds. Even before the President and the districtattorney could utter a word, before the ushers and the gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille, Brevet, and Chenildieu. 'Do you not recognize me? said he. All three remained speechless, and indicated by a sign of the head that they did not know him. Cochepaille, who was intimidated, made a military salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court, and said in a gentle voice 'Gentlemen of the jury, order the prisoner to be released! Mr. President, have me arrested. He is not the man whom you are in search of it is I I am Jean Valjean. Not a mouth breathed the first commotion of astonishment had been followed by a silence like that of the grave those within the hall experienced that sort of religious terror which seizes the masses when something grand has been done. In the meantime, the face of the President was stamped with sympathy and sadness he had exchanged a rapid sign with the districtattorney and a few lowtoned words with the assistant judges he addressed the public, and asked in accents which all understood 'Is there a physician present? The districtattorney took the word 'Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident which disturbs the audience inspires us, like yourselves, only with a sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express. You all know, by reputation at least, the honorable M. Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M. if there is a physician in the audience, we join the President in requesting him to attend to M. Madeleine, and to conduct him to his home. M. Madeleine did not allow the districtattorney to finish he interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority. These are the words which he uttered here they are literally, as they were written down, immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this scene, and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty years ago 'I thank you, Mr. DistrictAttorney, but I am not mad you shall see you were on the point of committing a great error release this man! I am fulfilling a duty I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that suffices. You can take me, for here I am but I have done my best I concealed myself under another name I have become rich I have become a mayor I have tried to reenter the ranks of the honest. It seems that that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I cannot tell. I will not narrate the story of my life to you you will hear it one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true it is true that I robbed Little Gervais they were right in telling you that Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps it was not altogether his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence, nor any advice to give to society but, you see, the infamy from which I have tried to escape is an injurious thing the galleys make the convict what he is reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort of idiot the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid I became vicious I was a block of wood I became a firebrand. Later on, indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me. But, pardon me, you cannot understand what I am saying. You will find at my house, among the ashes in the fireplace, the fortysou piece which I stole, seven years ago, from Little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add take me. Good God! the districtattorney shakes his head you say, 'M. Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I wish Javert were here he would recognize me. Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which accompanied these words. He turned to the three convicts, and said 'Well, I recognize you do you remember, Brevet? He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said 'Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which you wore in the galleys? Brevet gave a start of surprise, and surveyed him from head to foot with a frightened air. He continued 'Chenildieu, you who conferred on yourself the name of 'JenieDieu,' your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn, because you one day laid your shoulder against the chafingdish full of coals, in order to efface the three letters T. F. P., which are still visible, nevertheless answer, is this true? 'It is true, said Chenildieu. He addressed himself to Cochepaille 'Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped in blue letters with burnt powder the date is that of the landing of the Emperor at Cannes, March ,  pull up your sleeve! Cochepaille pushed up his sleeve all eyes were focused on him and on his bare arm. A gendarme held a light close to it there was the date. The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of it. It was a smile of triumph it was also a smile of despair. 'You see plainly, he said, 'that I am Jean Valjean. In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor gendarmes there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts. No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon to play the districtattorney forgot he was there for the purpose of prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel for the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking circumstance that no question was put, that no authority intervened. The peculiarity of sublime spectacles is, that they capture all souls and turn witnesses into spectators. No one, probably, could have explained what he felt no one, probably, said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid outburst of a grand light all felt themselves inwardly dazzled. It was evident that they had Jean Valjean before their eyes. That was clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously, without any further explanation the whole crowd, as by a sort of electric revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so that another man might not be condemned in his stead. The details, the hesitations, little possible oppositions, were swallowed up in that vast and luminous fact. It was an impression which vanished speedily, but which was irresistible at the moment. 'I do not wish to disturb the court further, resumed Jean Valjean. 'I shall withdraw, since you do not arrest me. I have many things to do. The districtattorney knows who I am he knows whither I am going he can have me arrested when he likes. He directed his steps towards the door. Not a voice was raised, not an arm extended to hinder him. All stood aside. At that moment there was about him that divine something which causes multitudes to stand aside and make way for a man. He traversed the crowd slowly. It was never known who opened the door, but it is certain that he found the door open when he reached it. On arriving there he turned round and said 'I am at your command, Mr. DistrictAttorney. Then he addressed the audience 'All of you, all who are presentconsider me worthy of pity, do you not? Good God! When I think of what I was on the point of doing, I consider that I am to be envied. Nevertheless, I should have preferred not to have had this occur. He withdrew, and the door closed behind him as it had opened, for those who do certain sovereign things are always sure of being served by some one in the crowd. Less than an hour after this, the verdict of the jury freed the said Champmathieu from all accusations and Champmathieu, being at once released, went off in a state of stupefaction, thinking that all men were fools, and comprehending nothing of this vision. The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish night, filled with happy visions at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself of this slumber to go and prepare a new potion of chinchona. The worthy sister had been in the laboratory of the infirmary but a few moments, bending over her drugs and phials, and scrutinizing things very closely, on account of the dimness which the halflight of dawn spreads over all objects. Suddenly she raised her head and uttered a faint shriek. M. Madeleine stood before her he had just entered silently. 'Is it you, Mr. Mayor? she exclaimed. He replied in a low voice 'How is that poor woman? 'Not so bad just now but we have been very uneasy. She explained to him what had passed that Fantine had been very ill the day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared not question the mayor but she perceived plainly from his air that he had not come from there. 'All that is good, said he 'you were right not to undeceive her. 'Yes, responded the sister 'but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and will not see her child. What shall we say to her? He reflected for a moment. 'God will inspire us, said he. 'But we cannot tell a lie, murmured the sister, half aloud. It was broad daylight in the room. The light fell full on M. Madeleine's face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it. 'Good God, sir! she exclaimed 'what has happened to you? Your hair is perfectly white! 'White! said he. Sister Simplice had no mirror. She rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether a patient was dead and whether he no longer breathed. M. Madeleine took the mirror, looked at his hair, and said 'Well! He uttered the word indifferently, and as though his mind were on something else. The sister felt chilled by something strange of which she caught a glimpse in all this. He inquired 'Can I see her? 'Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her? said the sister, hardly venturing to put the question. 'Of course but it will take two or three days at least. 'If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time, went on the sister, timidly, 'she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience and when the child arrived, she would naturally think Monsieur le Maire had just come with the child. We should not have to enact a lie. M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments then he said with his calm gravity 'No, sister, I must see her. I may, perhaps, be in haste. The nun did not appear to notice this word 'perhaps, which communicated an obscure and singular sense to the words of the mayor's speech. She replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully 'In that case, she is asleep but Monsieur le Maire may enter. He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of which might awaken the sick woman then he entered Fantine's chamber, approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her breath issued from her breast with that tragic sound which is peculiar to those maladies, and which breaks the hearts of mothers when they are watching through the night beside their sleeping child who is condemned to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of ineffable serenity which overspread her countenance, and which transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor had become whiteness her cheeks were crimson her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her youth and her virginity which remained to her, palpitated, though they remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her away, which could be felt as they rustled, though they could not be seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was an invalid whose life was almost despaired of. She resembled rather something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of dying. The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time. The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul. M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her in that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitudeshe sleeping, he praying only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair was gray and his was white. The sister had not entered with him. He stood beside the bed, with his finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom he must enjoin to silence. She opened her eyes, saw him, and said quietly, with a smile 'And Cosette? She made no movement of either surprise or of joy she was joy itself. That simple question, 'And Cosette? was put with so profound a faith, with so much certainty, with such a complete absence of disquiet and of doubt, that he found not a word of reply. She continued 'I knew that you were there. I was asleep, but I saw you. I have seen you for a long, long time. I have been following you with my eyes all night long. You were in a glory, and you had around you all sorts of celestial forms. He raised his glance to the crucifix. 'But, she resumed, 'tell me where Cosette is. Why did not you place her on my bed against the moment of my waking? He made some mechanical reply which he was never afterwards able to recall. Fortunately, the doctor had been warned, and he now made his appearance. He came to the aid of M. Madeleine. 'Calm yourself, my child, said the doctor 'your child is here. Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped her hands with an expression which contained all that is possible to prayer in the way of violence and tenderness. 'Oh! she exclaimed, 'bring her to me! Touching illusion of a mother! Cosette was, for her, still the little child who is carried. 'Not yet, said the doctor, 'not just now. You still have some fever. The sight of your child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be cured first. She interrupted him impetuously 'But I am cured! Oh, I tell you that I am cured! What an ass that doctor is! The idea! I want to see my child! 'You see, said the doctor, 'how excited you become. So long as you are in this state I shall oppose your having your child. It is not enough to see her it is necessary that you should live for her. When you are reasonable, I will bring her to you myself. The poor mother bowed her head. 'I beg your pardon, doctor, I really beg your pardon. Formerly I should never have spoken as I have just done so many misfortunes have happened to me, that I sometimes do not know what I am saying. I understand you you fear the emotion. I will wait as long as you like, but I swear to you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter. I have been seeing her I have not taken my eyes from her since yesterday evening. Do you know? If she were brought to me now, I should talk to her very gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I should desire to see my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly from Montfermeil? I am not angry. I know well that I am about to be happy. All night long I have seen white things, and persons who smiled at me. When Monsieur le Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I have no longer any fever I am well. I am perfectly conscious that there is nothing the matter with me any more but I am going to behave as though I were ill, and not stir, to please these ladies here. When it is seen that I am very calm, they will say, 'She must have her child.' M. Madeleine was sitting on a chair beside the bed. She turned towards him she was making a visible effort to be calm and 'very good, as she expressed it in the feebleness of illness which resembles infancy, in order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no difficulty about bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she could not refrain from questioning M. Madeleine. 'Did you have a pleasant trip, Monsieur le Maire? Oh! how good you were to go and get her for me! Only tell me how she is. Did she stand the journey well? Alas! she will not recognize me. She must have forgotten me by this time, poor darling! Children have no memories. They are like birds. A child sees one thing today and another thing tomorrow, and thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those Thnardiers keep her clean? How have they fed her? Oh! if you only knew how I have suffered, putting such questions as that to myself during all the time of my wretchedness. Now, it is all past. I am happy. Oh, how I should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le Maire? Is not my daughter beautiful? You must have been very cold in that diligence! Could she not be brought for just one little instant? She might be taken away directly afterwards. Tell me you are the master it could be so if you chose! He took her hand. 'Cosette is beautiful, he said, 'Cosette is well. You shall see her soon but calm yourself you are talking with too much vivacity, and you are throwing your arms out from under the clothes, and that makes you cough. In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word. Fantine did not murmur she feared that she had injured by her too passionate lamentations the confidence which she was desirous of inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things. 'Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure parties in summer. Are the Thnardiers prosperous? There are not many travellers in their parts. That inn of theirs is a sort of a cookshop. M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with anxiety it was evident that he had come to tell her things before which his mind now hesitated. The doctor, having finished his visit, retired. Sister Simplice remained alone with them. But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed 'I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her! She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath, and began to listen with rapture. There was a child playing in the yardthe child of the portress or of some workwoman. It was one of those accidents which are always occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious stagesetting of mournful scenes. The childa little girlwas going and coming, running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice. Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this little girl whom Fantine heard singing. 'Oh! she resumed, 'it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice. The child retreated as it had come the voice died away. Fantine listened for a while longer, then her face clouded over, and M. Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice 'How wicked that doctor is not to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance, that he has. But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow 'How happy we are going to be! We shall have a little garden the very first thing M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will play in the garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell. She will run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then she will take her first communion. Ah! when will she take her first communion? She began to reckon on her fingers. 'One, two, three, fourshe is seven years old. In five years she will have a white veil, and openwork stockings she will look like a little woman. O my good sister, you do not know how foolish I become when I think of my daughter's first communion! She began to laugh. He had released Fantine's hand. He listened to her words as one listens to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind absorbed in reflection which had no bottom. All at once she ceased speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically. Fantine had become terrible. She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed she had raised herself to a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise her face, which had been radiant but a moment before, was ghastly, and she seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on something alarming at the other extremity of the room. 'Good God! he exclaimed 'what ails you, Fantine? She made no reply she did not remove her eyes from the object which she seemed to see. She removed one hand from his arm, and with the other made him a sign to look behind him. He turned, and beheld Javert. This is what had taken place. The halfhour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set out again by the mailwagon, in which he had engaged his place. A little before six o'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. sur M., and his first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the infirmary and see Fantine. However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of Assizes, when the districtattorney, recovering from his first shock, had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of the honorable mayor of M. sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter, and to demand, in the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu, who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The districtattorney's persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one, of the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the defence had some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in establishing that, in consequence of the revelations of M. Madeleine, that is to say, of the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the matter had been thoroughly altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an innocent man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc. the President, in his summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence, and in a few minutes the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case. Nevertheless, the districtattorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine. Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the districtattorney shut himself up with the President. They conferred 'as to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M. This phrase, in which there was a great deal of of, is the districtattorney's, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his report to the attorneygeneral. His first emotion having passed off, the President did not offer many objections. Justice must, after all, take its course. And then, when all was said, although the President was a kindly and a tolerably intelligent man, he was, at the same time, a devoted and almost an ardent royalist, and he had been shocked to hear the Mayor of M. sur M. say the Emperor, and not Bonaparte, when alluding to the landing at Cannes. The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The districtattorney forwarded it to M. sur M. by a special messenger, at full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police Inspector Javert. The reader knows that Javert had returned to M. sur M. immediately after having given his deposition. Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner. The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in two words, informed Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order of arrest, signed by the districtattorney, was couched in these words 'Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M., who, in this day's session of the court, was recognized as the liberated convict, Jean Valjean. Any one who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the moment when he penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have divined nothing of what had taken place, and would have thought his air the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm, grave, his gray hair was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted the stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly acquainted with him, and who had examined him attentively at the moment, would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under his left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed unwonted agitation. Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or in his uniform methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of his coat. That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those emotions which may be designated as internal earthquakes. He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring post for a corporal and four soldiers, had left the soldiers in the courtyard, had had Fantine's room pointed out to him by the portress, who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing armed men inquiring for the mayor. On arriving at Fantine's chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed the door open with the gentleness of a sicknurse or a police spy, and entered. Properly speaking, he did not enter. He stood erect in the halfopen door, his hat on his head and his left hand thrust into his coat, which was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend of his elbow the leaden head of his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be seen. Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M. Madeleine turn round. The instant that Madeleine's glance encountered Javert's glance, Javert, without stirring, without moving from his post, without approaching him, became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible as joy. It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul. The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that was in his soul to appear in his countenance. The depths having been stirred up, mounted to the surface. The humiliation of having, in some slight degree, lost the scent, and of having indulged, for a few moments, in an error with regard to Champmathieu, was effaced by pride at having so well and accurately divined in the first place, and of having for so long cherished a just instinct. Javert's content shone forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph overspread that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied face can afford were there. Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his presence and of his success, he, Javert, personified justice, light, and truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. Behind him and around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the case judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the stars he was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the absolute, he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed in his victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was accomplishing caused the vague flash of the social sword to be visible in his clenched fist happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime, vice, rebellion, perdition, hell he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael. Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed but which, even when hideous, remain grand their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror they are virtues which have one vice,error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the good. Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only thing which she did not doubt was that he had come to get her. She could not endure that terrible face she felt her life quitting her she hid her face in both hands, and shrieked in her anguish 'Monsieur Madeleine, save me! Jean Valjeanwe shall henceforth not speak of him otherwisehad risen. He said to Fantine in the gentlest and calmest of voices 'Be at ease it is not for you that he is come. Then he addressed Javert, and said 'I know what you want. Javert replied 'Be quick about it! There lay in the inflection of voice which accompanied these words something indescribably fierce and frenzied. Javert did not say, 'Be quick about it! he said 'Bequiabouit. No orthography can do justice to the accent with which it was uttered it was no longer a human word it was a roar. He did not proceed according to his custom, he did not enter into the matter, he exhibited no warrant of arrest. In his eyes, Jean Valjean was a sort of mysterious combatant, who was not to be laid hands upon, a wrestler in the dark whom he had had in his grasp for the last five years, without being able to throw him. This arrest was not a beginning, but an end. He confined himself to saying, 'Be quick about it! As he spoke thus, he did not advance a single step he hurled at Jean Valjean a glance which he threw out like a grapplinghook, and with which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him. It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very marrow of her bones two months previously. At Javert's exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the mayor was there what had she to fear? Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried 'See here now! Art thou coming? The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of 'thou be addressed? To her only. She shuddered. Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest deliriums of fever. She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar she saw the mayor bow his head. It seemed to her that the world was coming to an end. Javert had, in fact, grasped Jean Valjean by the collar. 'Monsieur le Maire! shrieked Fantine. Javert burst out laughing with that frightful laugh which displayed all his gums. 'There is no longer any Monsieur le Maire here! Jean Valjean made no attempt to disengage the hand which grasped the collar of his coat. He said 'Javert Javert interrupted him 'Call me Mr. Inspector. 'Monsieur, said Jean Valjean, 'I should like to say a word to you in private. 'Aloud! Say it aloud! replied Javert 'people are in the habit of talking aloud to me. Jean Valjean went on in a lower tone 'I have a request to make of you 'I tell you to speak loud. 'But you alone should hear it 'What difference does that make to me? I shall not listen. Jean Valjean turned towards him and said very rapidly and in a very low voice 'Grant me three days' grace! three days in which to go and fetch the child of this unhappy woman. I will pay whatever is necessary. You shall accompany me if you choose. 'You are making sport of me! cried Javert. 'Come now, I did not think you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run away! You say that it is for the purpose of fetching that creature's child! Ah! Ah! That's good! That's really capital! Fantine was seized with a fit of trembling. 'My child! she cried, 'to go and fetch my child! She is not here, then! Answer me, sister where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire! Javert stamped his foot. 'And now there's the other one! Will you hold your tongue, you hussy? It's a pretty sort of a place where convicts are magistrates, and where women of the town are cared for like countesses! Ah! But we are going to change all that it is high time! He stared intently at Fantine, and added, once more taking into his grasp Jean Valjean's cravat, shirt and collar 'I tell you that there is no Monsieur Madeleine and that there is no Monsieur le Maire. There is a thief, a brigand, a convict named Jean Valjean! And I have him in my grasp! That's what there is! Fantine raised herself in bed with a bound, supporting herself on her stiffened arms and on both hands she gazed at Jean Valjean, she gazed at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to speak a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth chattered she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person then suddenly fell back on her pillow. Her head struck the headboard of the bed and fell forwards on her breast, with gaping mouth and staring, sightless eyes. She was dead. Jean Valjean laid his hand upon the detaining hand of Javert, and opened it as he would have opened the hand of a baby then he said to Javert 'You have murdered that woman. 'Let's have an end of this! shouted Javert, in a fury 'I am not here to listen to argument. Let us economize all that the guard is below march on instantly, or you'll get the thumbscrews! In the corner of the room stood an old iron bedstead, which was in a decidedly decrepit state, and which served the sisters as a campbed when they were watching with the sick. Jean Valjean stepped up to this bed, in a twinkling wrenched off the headpiece, which was already in a dilapidated condition, an easy matter to muscles like his, grasped the principal rod like a bludgeon, and glanced at Javert. Javert retreated towards the door. Jean Valjean, armed with his bar of iron, walked slowly up to Fantine's couch. When he arrived there he turned and said to Javert, in a voice that was barely audible 'I advise you not to disturb me at this moment. One thing is certain, and that is, that Javert trembled. It did occur to him to summon the guard, but Jean Valjean might avail himself of that moment to effect his escape so he remained, grasped his cane by the small end, and leaned against the doorpost, without removing his eyes from Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean rested his elbow on the knob at the head of the bed, and his brow on his hand, and began to contemplate the motionless body of Fantine, which lay extended there. He remained thus, mute, absorbed, evidently with no further thought of anything connected with this life. Upon his face and in his attitude there was nothing but inexpressible pity. After a few moments of this meditation he bent towards Fantine, and spoke to her in a low voice. What did he say to her? What could this man, who was reproved, say to that woman, who was dead? What words were those? No one on earth heard them. Did the dead woman hear them? There are some touching illusions which are, perhaps, sublime realities. The point as to which there exists no doubt is, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of the incident, often said that at the moment that Jean Valjean whispered in Fantine's ear, she distinctly beheld an ineffable smile dawn on those pale lips, and in those dim eyes, filled with the amazement of the tomb. Jean Valjean took Fantine's head in both his hands, and arranged it on the pillow as a mother might have done for her child then he tied the string of her chemise, and smoothed her hair back under her cap. That done, he closed her eyes. Fantine's face seemed strangely illuminated at that moment. Death, that signifies entrance into the great light. Fantine's hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean knelt down before that hand, lifted it gently, and kissed it. Then he rose, and turned to Javert. 'Now, said he, 'I am at your disposal. Javert deposited Jean Valjean in the city prison. The arrest of M. Madeleine occasioned a sensation, or rather, an extraordinary commotion in M. sur M. We are sorry that we cannot conceal the fact, that at the single word, 'He was a convict, nearly every one deserted him. In less than two hours all the good that he had done had been forgotten, and he was nothing but a 'convict from the galleys. It is just to add that the details of what had taken place at Arras were not yet known. All day long conversations like the following were to be heard in all quarters of the town 'You don't know? He was a liberated convict! 'Who? 'The mayor. 'Bah! M. Madeleine? 'Yes. 'Really? 'His name was not Madeleine at all he had a frightful name, Bjean, Bojean, Boujean. 'Ah! Good God! 'He has been arrested. 'Arrested! 'In prison, in the city prison, while waiting to be transferred. 'Until he is transferred! 'He is to be transferred! 'Where is he to be taken? 'He will be tried at the Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago. 'Well! I suspected as much. That man was too good, too perfect, too affected. He refused the cross he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that. The 'drawingrooms particularly abounded in remarks of this nature. One old lady, a subscriber to the Drapeau Blanc, made the following remark, the depth of which it is impossible to fathom 'I am not sorry. It will be a lesson to the Bonapartists! It was thus that the phantom which had been called M. Madeleine vanished from M. sur M. Only three or four persons in all the town remained faithful to his memory. The old portress who had served him was among the number. On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her lodge, still in a thorough fright, and absorbed in sad reflections. The factory had been closed all day, the carriage gate was bolted, the street was deserted. There was no one in the house but the two nuns, Sister Perptue and Sister Simplice, who were watching beside the body of Fantine. Towards the hour when M. Madeleine was accustomed to return home, the good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of M. Madeleine's chamber, and the flat candlestick which he used every evening to go up to his quarters then she hung the key on the nail whence he was accustomed to take it, and set the candlestick on one side, as though she was expecting him. Then she sat down again on her chair, and became absorbed in thought once more. The poor, good old woman had done all this without being conscious of it. It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from her reverie, and exclaimed, 'Hold! My good God Jesus! And I hung his key on the nail! At that moment the small window in the lodge opened, a hand passed through, seized the key and the candlestick, and lighted the taper at the candle which was burning there. The portress raised her eyes, and stood there with gaping mouth, and a shriek which she confined to her throat. She knew that hand, that arm, the sleeve of that coat. It was M. Madeleine. It was several seconds before she could speak she had a seizure, as she said herself, when she related the adventure afterwards. 'Good God, Monsieur le Maire, she cried at last, 'I thought you were She stopped the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in respect towards the beginning. Jean Valjean was still Monsieur le Maire to her. He finished her thought. 'In prison, said he. 'I was there I broke a bar of one of the windows I let myself drop from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am going up to my room go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with that poor woman, no doubt. The old woman obeyed in all haste. He gave her no orders he was quite sure that she would guard him better than he should guard himself. No one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him, a passkey which opened a little sidedoor but he must have been searched, and his latchkey must have been taken from him. This point was never explained. He ascended the staircase leading to his chamber. On arriving at the top, he left his candle on the top step of his stairs, opened his door with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by feeling, then returned for his candle and reentered his room. It was a useful precaution it will be recollected that his window could be seen from the street. He cast a glance about him, at his table, at his chair, at his bed which had not been disturbed for three days. No trace of the disorder of the night before last remained. The portress had 'done up his room only she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the two iron ends of the cudgel and the fortysou piece which had been blackened by the fire. He took a sheet of paper, on which he wrote 'These are the two tips of my ironshod cudgel and the fortysou piece stolen from Little Gervais, which I mentioned at the Court of Assizes, and he arranged this piece of paper, the bits of iron, and the coin in such a way that they were the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he pulled out one of his old shirts, which he tore in pieces. In the strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks. He betrayed neither haste nor agitation and while he was wrapping up the Bishop's candlesticks, he nibbled at a piece of black bread. It was probably the prisonbread which he had carried with him in his flight. This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floor of the room when the authorities made an examination later on. There came two taps at the door. 'Come in, said he. It was Sister Simplice. She was pale her eyes were red the candle which she carried trembled in her hand. The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that however polished or cool we may be, they wring human nature from our very bowels, and force it to reappear on the surface. The emotions of that day had turned the nun into a woman once more. She had wept, and she was trembling. Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he handed to the nun, saying, 'Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le Cur. The paper was not folded. She cast a glance upon it. 'You can read it, said he. She read 'I beg Monsieur le Cur to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me. He will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of the funeral of the woman who died yesterday. The rest is for the poor. The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few inarticulate sounds. She succeeded in saying, however 'Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor, unhappy woman? 'No, said he 'I am pursued it would only end in their arresting me in that room, and that would disturb her. He had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the staircase. They heard a tumult of ascending footsteps, and the old portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones 'My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not even left the door. A man responded 'But there is a light in that room, nevertheless. They recognized Javert's voice. The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed himself in this angle. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table. The door opened. Javert entered. The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were audible in the corridor. The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying. The candle was on the chimneypiece, and gave but very little light. Javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement. It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his element, the very air he breathed, was veneration for all authority. This was impregnable, and admitted of neither objection nor restriction. In his eyes, of course, the ecclesiastical authority was the chief of all he was religious, superficial and correct on this point as on all others. In his eyes, a priest was a mind, who never makes a mistake a nun was a creature who never sins they were souls walled in from this world, with a single door which never opened except to allow the truth to pass through. On perceiving the sister, his first movement was to retire. But there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him imperiously in the opposite direction. His second movement was to remain and to venture on at least one question. This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life. Javert knew it, and held her in special veneration in consequence. 'Sister, said he, 'are you alone in this room? A terrible moment ensued, during which the poor portress felt as though she should faint. The sister raised her eyes and answered 'Yes. 'Then, resumed Javert, 'you will excuse me if I persist it is my duty you have not seen a certain persona manthis evening? He has escaped we are in search of himthat Jean Valjean you have not seen him? The sister replied 'No. She lied. She had lied twice in succession, one after the other, without hesitation, promptly, as a person does when sacrificing herself. 'Pardon me, said Javert, and he retired with a deep bow. O sainted maid! you left this world many years ago you have rejoined your sisters, the virgins, and your brothers, the angels, in the light may this lie be counted to your credit in paradise! The sister's affirmation was for Javert so decisive a thing that he did not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been extinguished, and which was still smoking on the table. An hour later, a man, marching amid trees and mists, was rapidly departing from M. sur M. in the direction of Paris. That man was Jean Valjean. It has been established by the testimony of two or three carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle that he was dressed in a blouse. Where had he obtained that blouse? No one ever found out. But an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days before, leaving behind him nothing but his blouse. Perhaps that was the one. One last word about Fantine. We all have a mother,the earth. Fantine was given back to that mother. The cur thought that he was doing right, and perhaps he really was, in reserving as much money as possible from what Jean Valjean had left for the poor. Who was concerned, after all? A convict and a woman of the town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced it to that strictly necessary form known as the pauper's grave. So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God knows where to find the soul again. Fantine was laid in the shade, among the first bones that came to hand she was subjected to the promiscuousness of ashes. She was thrown into the public grave. Her grave resembled her bed. THE END OF VOLUME I 'FANTINE Last year (), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a broad paved road, which undulated between two rows of trees, over the hills which succeed each other, raise the road and let it fall again, and produce something in the nature of enormous waves. He had passed Lillois and BoisSeigneurIsaac. In the west he perceived the slateroofed tower of Brainel'Alleud, which has the form of a reversed vase. He had just left behind a wood upon an eminence and at the angle of the crossroad, by the side of a sort of mouldy gibbet bearing the inscription Ancient Barrier No. , a public house, bearing on its front this sign At the Four Winds (Aux Quatre Vents). chabeau, Private Caf. A quarter of a league further on, he arrived at the bottom of a little valley, where there is water which passes beneath an arch made through the embankment of the road. The clump of sparsely planted but very green trees, which fills the valley on one side of the road, is dispersed over the meadows on the other, and disappears gracefully and as in order in the direction of Brainel'Alleud. On the right, close to the road, was an inn, with a fourwheeled cart at the door, a large bundle of hoppoles, a plough, a heap of dried brushwood near a flourishing hedge, lime smoking in a square hole, and a ladder suspended along an old penthouse with straw partitions. A young girl was weeding in a field, where a huge yellow poster, probably of some outside spectacle, such as a parish festival, was fluttering in the wind. At one corner of the inn, beside a pool in which a flotilla of ducks was navigating, a badly paved path plunged into the bushes. The wayfarer struck into this. After traversing a hundred paces, skirting a wall of the fifteenth century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he found himself before a large door of arched stone, with a rectilinear impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat medallions. A severe faade rose above this door a wall, perpendicular to the faade, almost touched the door, and flanked it with an abrupt right angle. In the meadow before the door lay three harrows, through which, in disorder, grew all the flowers of May. The door was closed. The two decrepit leaves which barred it were ornamented with an old rusty knocker. The sun was charming the branches had that soft shivering of May, which seems to proceed rather from the nests than from the wind. A brave little bird, probably a lover, was carolling in a distracted manner in a large tree. The wayfarer bent over and examined a rather large circular excavation, resembling the hollow of a sphere, in the stone on the left, at the foot of the pier of the door. At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasant woman emerged. She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at. 'It was a French cannonball which made that, she said to him. And she added 'That which you see there, higher up in the door, near a nail, is the hole of a big iron bullet as large as an egg. The bullet did not pierce the wood. 'What is the name of this place? inquired the wayfarer. 'Hougomont, said the peasant woman. The traveller straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces, and went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizon through the trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation, and on this elevation something which at that distance resembled a lion. He was on the battlefield of Waterloo. Hougomont,this was a funereal spot, the beginning of the obstacle, the first resistance, which that great woodcutter of Europe, called Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo, the first knot under the blows of his axe. It was a chteau it is no longer anything but a farm. For the antiquary, Hougomont is Hugomons. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of Villiers. The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an ancient calash under the porch, and entered the courtyard. The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the sixteenth century, which here simulates an arcade, everything else having fallen prostrate around it. A monumental aspect often has its birth in ruin. In a wall near the arcade opens another arched door, of the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard beside this door, a manurehole, some pickaxes, some shovels, some carts, an old well, with its flagstone and its iron reel, a chicken jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a small belltower, a blossoming peartree trained in espalier against the wall of the chapelbehold the court, the conquest of which was one of Napoleon's dreams. This corner of earth, could he but have seized it, would, perhaps, have given him the world likewise. Chickens are scattering its dust abroad with their beaks. A growl is audible it is a huge dog, who shows his teeth and replaces the English. The English behaved admirably there. Cooke's four companies of guards there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army. Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising buildings and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun's length away. Hougomont has two doors,the southern door, that of the chteau and the northern door, belonging to the farm. Napoleon sent his brother Jrme against Hougomont the divisions of Foy, Guilleminot, and Bachelu hurled themselves against it nearly the entire corps of Reille was employed against it, and miscarried Kellermann's balls were exhausted on this heroic section of wall. Bauduin's brigade was not strong enough to force Hougomont on the north, and the brigade of Soye could not do more than effect the beginning of a breach on the south, but without taking it. The farm buildings border the courtyard on the south. A bit of the north door, broken by the French, hangs suspended to the wall. It consists of four planks nailed to two crossbeams, on which the scars of the attack are visible. The northern door, which was beaten in by the French, and which has had a piece applied to it to replace the panel suspended on the wall, stands halfopen at the bottom of the paddock it is cut squarely in the wall, built of stone below, of brick above which closes in the courtyard on the north. It is a simple door for carts, such as exist in all farms, with the two large leaves made of rustic planks beyond lie the meadows. The dispute over this entrance was furious. For a long time, all sorts of imprints of bloody hands were visible on the doorposts. It was there that Bauduin was killed. The storm of the combat still lingers in this courtyard its horror is visible there the confusion of the fray was petrified there it lives and it dies there it was only yesterday. The walls are in the death agony, the stones fall the breaches cry aloud the holes are wounds the drooping, quivering trees seem to be making an effort to flee. This courtyard was more built up in  than it is today. Buildings which have since been pulled down then formed redans and angles. The English barricaded themselves there the French made their way in, but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the chteau, the only ruin now remaining of the manor of Hougomont, rises in a crumbling state,disembowelled, one might say. The chteau served for a dungeon, the chapel for a blockhouse. There men exterminated each other. The French, fired on from every point,from behind the walls, from the summits of the garrets, from the depths of the cellars, through all the casements, through all the airholes, through every crack in the stones,fetched fagots and set fire to walls and men the reply to the grapeshot was a conflagration. In the ruined wing, through windows garnished with bars of iron, the dismantled chambers of the main building of brick are visible the English guards were in ambush in these rooms the spiral of the staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears like the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories the English, besieged on the staircase, and massed on its upper steps, had cut off the lower steps. These consisted of large slabs of blue stone, which form a heap among the nettles. Half a score of steps still cling to the wall on the first is cut the figure of a trident. These inaccessible steps are solid in their niches. All the rest resembles a jaw which has been denuded of its teeth. There are two old trees there one is dead the other is wounded at its base, and is clothed with verdure in April. Since  it has taken to growing through the staircase. A massacre took place in the chapel. The interior, which has recovered its calm, is singular. The mass has not been said there since the carnage. Nevertheless, the altar has been left therean altar of unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square airhole stopped up with a bundle of hay on the ground, in one corner, an old windowframe with the glass all broken to piecessuch is the chapel. Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint Anne, of the fifteenth century the head of the infant Jesus has been carried off by a large ball. The French, who were masters of the chapel for a moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it. The flames filled this building it was a perfect furnace the door was burned, the floor was burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen then it stopped,a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the neighborhood. The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate than the Christ. The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of Christ this name is to be read Henquinez. Then these others Conde de Rio Maior Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana). There are French names with exclamation points,a sign of wrath. The wall was freshly whitewashed in . The nations insulted each other there. It was at the door of this chapel that the corpse was picked up which held an axe in its hand this corpse was SubLieutenant Legros. On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left. There are two in this courtyard. One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons. The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there. On the th of June, , his family fled and concealed themselves in the woods. The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these unfortunate people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and nights. There are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old boles of burned trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs trembling in the depths of the thickets. Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, 'to guard the chteau, and concealed himself in the cellar. The English discovered him there. They tore him from his hidingplace, and the combatants forced this frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of their swords. They were thirsty this Guillaume brought them water. It was from this well that he drew it. Many drank there their last draught. This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die itself. After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies. Death has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow glory. The typhus is a concomitant of triumph. This well was deep, and it was turned into a sepulchre. Three hundred dead bodies were cast into it. With too much haste perhaps. Were they all dead? Legend says they were not. It seems that on the night succeeding the interment, feeble voices were heard calling from the well. This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, part stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded like the leaves of a screen, surround it on all sides. The fourth side is open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom has a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell. This little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The iron supports of the well on the right form a cross. On leaning over, the eye is lost in a deep cylinder of brick which is filled with a heapedup mass of shadows. The base of the walls all about the well is concealed in a growth of nettles. This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a crossbeam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of knotty and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer either pail, chain, or pulley but there is still the stone basin which served the overflow. The rainwater collects there, and from time to time a bird of the neighboring forests comes thither to drink, and then flies away. One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited. The door of this house opens on the courtyard. Upon this door, beside a pretty Gothic lockplate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed slanting. At the moment when the Hanoverian lieutenant, Wilda, grasped this handle in order to take refuge in the farm, a French sapper hewed off his hand with an axe. The family who occupy the house had for their grandfather Guillaume van Kylsom, the old gardener, dead long since. A woman with gray hair said to us 'I was there. I was three years old. My sister, who was older, was terrified and wept. They carried us off to the woods. I went there in my mother's arms. We glued our ears to the earth to hear. I imitated the cannon, and went boum! boum! A door opening from the courtyard on the left led into the orchard, so we were told. The orchard is terrible. It is in three parts one might almost say, in three acts. The first part is a garden, the second is an orchard, the third is a wood. These three parts have a common enclosure on the side of the entrance, the buildings of the chteau and the farm on the left, a hedge on the right, a wall and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut stone, with balustrade with a double curve. It was a seignorial garden in the first French style which preceded Le Ntre today it is ruins and briars. The pilasters are surmounted by globes which resemble cannonballs of stone. Fortythree balusters can still be counted on their sockets the rest lie prostrate in the grass. Almost all bear scratches of bullets. One broken baluster is placed on the pediment like a fractured leg. It was in this garden, further down than the orchard, that six lightinfantry men of the st, having made their way thither, and being unable to escape, hunted down and caught like bears in their dens, accepted the combat with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was armed with carbines. The Hanoverians lined this balustrade and fired from above. The infantry men, replying from below, six against two hundred, intrepid and with no shelter save the currantbushes, took a quarter of an hour to die. One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard, properly speaking. There, within the limits of those few square fathoms, fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems ready to renew the combat. Thirtyeight loopholes, pierced by the English at irregular heights, are there still. In front of the sixth are placed two English tombs of granite. There are loopholes only in the south wall, as the principal attack came from that quarter. The wall is hidden on the outside by a tall hedge the French came up, thinking that they had to deal only with a hedge, crossed it, and found the wall both an obstacle and an ambuscade, with the English guards behind it, the thirtyeight loopholes firing at once a shower of grapeshot and balls, and Soye's brigade was broken against it. Thus Waterloo began. Nevertheless, the orchard was taken. As they had no ladders, the French scaled it with their nails. They fought hand to hand amid the trees. All this grass has been soaked in blood. A battalion of Nassau, seven hundred strong, was overwhelmed there. The outside of the wall, against which Kellermann's two batteries were trained, is gnawed by grapeshot. This orchard is sentient, like others, in the month of May. It has its buttercups and its daisies the grass is tall there the carthorses browse there cords of hair, on which linen is drying, traverse the spaces between the trees and force the passerby to bend his head one walks over this uncultivated land, and one's foot dives into moleholes. In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted treebole which lies there all verdant. Major Blackmann leaned against it to die. Beneath a great tree in the neighborhood fell the German general, Duplat, descended from a French family which fled on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. An aged and falling appletree leans far over to one side, its wound dressed with a bandage of straw and of clayey loam. Nearly all the appletrees are falling with age. There is not one which has not had its bullet or its biscayan. The skeletons of dead trees abound in this orchard. Crows fly through their branches, and at the end of it is a wood full of violets. Bauduin killed, Foy wounded, conflagration, massacre, carnage, a rivulet formed of English blood, French blood, German blood mingled in fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the English Guards mutilated, twenty French battalions, besides the forty from Reille's corps, decimated, three thousand men in that hovel of Hougomont alone cut down, slashed to pieces, shot, burned, with their throats cut,and all this so that a peasant can say today to the traveller Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will explain to you the affair of Waterloo! Let us turn back,that is one of the storyteller's rights,and put ourselves once more in the year , and even a little earlier than the epoch when the action narrated in the first part of this book took place. If it had not rained in the night between the th and the th of June, , the fate of Europe would have been different. A few drops of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that Providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Austerlitz was a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season sufficed to make a world crumble. The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until halfpast eleven o'clock, and that gave Blcher time to come up. Why? Because the ground was wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer before they could manuvre. Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the effects of this. The foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report to the Directory on Aboukir, said Such a one of our balls killed six men. All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to his victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated the strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach in it. He overwhelmed the weak point with grapeshot he joined and dissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter in his genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break lines, to crush and disperse masses,for him everything lay in this, to strike, strike, strike incessantly,and he intrusted this task to the cannonball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for the space of fifteen years. On the th of June, , he relied all the more on his artillery, because he had numbers on his side. Wellington had only one hundred and fiftynine mouths of fire Napoleon had two hundred and forty. Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action would have begun at six o'clock in the morning. The battle would have been won and ended at two o'clock, three hours before the change of fortune in favor of the Prussians. What amount of blame attaches to Napoleon for the loss of this battle? Is the shipwreck due to the pilot? Was it the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated this epoch by an inward diminution of force? Had the twenty years of war worn out the blade as it had worn the scabbard, the soul as well as the body? Did the veteran make himself disastrously felt in the leader? In a word, was this genius, as many historians of note have thought, suffering from an eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in order to disguise his weakened powers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the delusion of a breath of adventure? Had he becomea grave matter in a generalunconscious of peril? Is there an age, in this class of material great men, who may be called the giants of action, when genius grows shortsighted? Old age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal for the Dantes and Michael Angelos to grow old is to grow in greatness is it to grow less for the Hannibals and the Bonapartes? Had Napoleon lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he could no longer recognize the reef, could no longer divine the snare, no longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power of scenting out catastrophes? He who had in former days known all the roads to triumph, and who, from the summit of his chariot of lightning, pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached that state of sinister amazement when he could lead his tumultuous legions harnessed to it, to the precipice? Was he seized at the age of fortysix with a supreme madness? Was that titanic charioteer of destiny no longer anything more than an immense daredevil? We do not think so. His plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a masterpiece. To go straight to the centre of the Allies' line, to make a breach in the enemy, to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on Hal, and the Prussian half on Tongres, to make two shattered fragments of Wellington and Blcher, to carry MontSaintJean, to seize Brussels, to hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All this was contained in that battle, according to Napoleon. Afterwards people would see. Of course, we do not here pretend to furnish a history of the battle of Waterloo one of the scenes of the foundation of the story which we are relating is connected with this battle, but this history is not our subject this history, moreover, has been finished, and finished in a masterly manner, from one point of view by Napoleon, and from another point of view by a whole pleiad of historians. As for us, we leave the historians at loggerheads we are but a distant witness, a passerby on the plain, a seeker bending over that soil all made of human flesh, taking appearances for realities, perchance we have no right to oppose, in the name of science, a collection of facts which contain illusions, no doubt we possess neither military practice nor strategic ability which authorize a system in our opinion, a chain of accidents dominated the two leaders at Waterloo and when it becomes a question of destiny, that mysterious culprit, we judge like that ingenious judge, the populace. Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A. The left limb of the A is the road to Nivelles, the right limb is the road to Genappe, the tie of the A is the hollow road to Ohain from Brainel'Alleud. The top of the A is MontSaintJean, where Wellington is the lower left tip is Hougomont, where Reille is stationed with Jrme Bonaparte the right tip is the BelleAlliance, where Napoleon was. At the centre of this chord is the precise point where the final word of the battle was pronounced. It was there that the lion has been placed, the involuntary symbol of the supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard. The triangle included in the top of the A, between the two limbs and the tie, is the plateau of MontSaintJean. The dispute over this plateau constituted the whole battle. The wings of the two armies extended to the right and left of the two roads to Genappe and Nivelles d'Erlon facing Picton, Reille facing Hill. Behind the tip of the A, behind the plateau of MontSaintJean, is the forest of Soignes. As for the plain itself, let the reader picture to himself a vast undulating sweep of ground each rise commands the next rise, and all the undulations mount towards MontSaintJean, and there end in the forest. Two hostile troops on a field of battle are two wrestlers. It is a question of seizing the opponent round the waist. The one seeks to trip up the other. They clutch at everything a bush is a point of support an angle of the wall offers them a rest to the shoulder for the lack of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its ground an unevenness in the ground, a chance turn in the landscape, a crosspath encountered at the right moment, a grove, a ravine, can stay the heel of that colossus which is called an army, and prevent its retreat. He who quits the field is beaten hence the necessity devolving on the responsible leader, of examining the most insignificant clump of trees, and of studying deeply the slightest relief in the ground. The two generals had attentively studied the plain of MontSaintJean, now called the plain of Waterloo. In the preceding year, Wellington, with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of a great battle. Upon this spot, and for this duel, on the th of June, Wellington had the good post, Napoleon the bad post. The English army was stationed above, the French army below. It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on horseback, glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at daybreak, on June , . All the world has seen him before we can show him. That calm profile under the little threecornered hat of the school of Brienne, that green uniform, the white revers concealing the star of the Legion of Honor, his great coat hiding his epaulets, the corner of red ribbon peeping from beneath his vest, his leather trousers, the white horse with the saddlecloth of purple velvet bearing on the corners crowned N's and eagles, Hessian boots over silk stockings, silver spurs, the sword of Marengo,that whole figure of the last of the Csars is present to all imaginations, saluted with acclamations by some, severely regarded by others. That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light this arose from a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and which always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time but today history and daylight have arrived. That light called history is pitiless it possesses this peculiar and divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had hitherto beheld rays from the same man it constructs two different phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader. Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations. Babylon violated lessens Alexander, Rome enchained lessens Csar, Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a misfortune for a man to leave behind him the night which bears his form. Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle a beginning which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both armies, but still more so for the English than for the French. It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the water had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as if in casks at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buried up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports on the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath the wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction of Papelotte would have been impossible. The affair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle and it had been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It was no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired, the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it was thirtyfive minutes past eleven. The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than the Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting on Hougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling Quiot's brigade on La HaieSainte, and Ney pushed forward the right wing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested on Papelotte. The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint the plan was to draw Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left. This plan would have succeeded if the four companies of the English guards and the brave Belgians of Perponcher's division had not held the position solidly, and Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himself to despatching thither, as reinforcements, only four more companies of guards and one battalion from Brunswick. The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was calculated, in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to Brussels, to bar the passage against possible Prussians, to force MontSaintJean, to turn Wellington back on Hougomont, thence on Brainel'Alleud, thence on Hal nothing easier. With the exception of a few incidents this attack succeeded. Papelotte was taken La HaieSainte was carried. A detail to be noted. There was in the English infantry, particularly in Kempt's brigade, a great many raw recruits. These young soldiers were valiant in the presence of our redoubtable infantry their inexperience extricated them intrepidly from the dilemma they performed particularly excellent service as skirmishers the soldier skirmisher, left somewhat to himself, becomes, so to speak, his own general. These recruits displayed some of the French ingenuity and fury. This novice of an infantry had dash. This displeased Wellington. After the taking of La HaieSainte the battle wavered. There is in this day an obscure interval, from midday to four o'clock the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct, and participates in the sombreness of the handtohand conflict. Twilight reigns over it. We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy mirage, paraphernalia of war almost unknown today, pendant colbacks, floating sabretaches, crossbelts, cartridgeboxes for grenades, hussar dolmans, red boots with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos garlanded with torsades, the almost black infantry of Brunswick mingled with the scarlet infantry of England, the English soldiers with great, white circular pads on the slopes of their shoulders for epaulets, the Hanoverian lighthorse with their oblong casques of leather, with brass hands and red horsetails, the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaiters of our grenadiers pictures, not strategic lineswhat Salvator Rosa requires, not what is suited to the needs of Gribeauval. A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. Quid obscurum, quid divinum. Each historian traces, to some extent, the particular feature which pleases him amid this pellmell. Whatever may be the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an incalculable ebb. During the action the plans of the two leaders enter into each other and become mutually thrown out of shape. Such a point of the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just as more or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water which is poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers than one would like a series of expenditures which are the unforeseen. The line of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the trails of blood gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments form capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw all these reefs are continually moving in front of each other. Where the infantry stood the artillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, the battalions are like smoke. There was something there seek it. It has disappeared the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and retreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes forward, hurls back, distends, and disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a fray? an oscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute, not a day. In order to depict a battle, there is required one of those powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is better than Vandermeulen Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at three o'clock. Geometry is deceptive the hurricane alone is trustworthy. That is what confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, that there is a certain instant when the battle degenerates into a combat, becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats, which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, 'belong rather to the biography of the regiments than to the history of the army. The historian has, in this case, the evident right to sum up the whole. He cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, and it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be, to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called a battle. This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly applicable to Waterloo. Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle came to a point. Towards four o'clock the condition of the English army was serious. The Prince of Orange was in command of the centre, Hill of the right wing, Picton of the left wing. The Prince of Orange, desperate and intrepid, shouted to the HollandoBelgians 'Nassau! Brunswick! Never retreat! Hill, having been weakened, had come up to the support of Wellington Picton was dead. At the very moment when the English had captured from the French the flag of the th of the line, the French had killed the English general, Picton, with a bullet through the head. The battle had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La HaieSainte Hougomont still held out, but was on fire La HaieSainte was taken. Of the German battalion which defended it, only fortytwo men survived all the officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulnerable by his companions, had been killed there by a little French drummerboy. Baring had been dislodged, Alten put to the sword. Many flags had been lost, one from Alten's division, and one from the battalion of Lunenburg, carried by a prince of the house of DeuxPonts. The Scotch Grays no longer existed Ponsonby's great dragoons had been hacked to pieces. That valiant cavalry had bent beneath the lancers of Bro and beneath the cuirassiers of Travers out of twelve hundred horses, six hundred remained out of three lieutenantcolonels, two lay on the earth,Hamilton wounded, Mater slain. Ponsonby had fallen, riddled by seven lancethrusts. Gordon was dead. Marsh was dead. Two divisions, the fifth and the sixth, had been annihilated. Hougomont injured, La HaieSainte taken, there now existed but one rallyingpoint, the centre. That point still held firm. Wellington reinforced it. He summoned thither Hill, who was at MerleBraine he summoned Chass, who was at Brainel'Alleud. The centre of the English army, rather concave, very dense, and very compact, was strongly posted. It occupied the plateau of MontSaintJean, having behind it the village, and in front of it the slope, which was tolerably steep then. It rested on that stout stone dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and which marks the intersection of the roadsa pile of the sixteenth century, and so robust that the cannonballs rebounded from it without injuring it. All about the plateau the English had cut the hedges here and there, made embrasures in the hawthorntrees, thrust the throat of a cannon between two branches, embattled the shrubs. There artillery was ambushed in the brushwood. This punic labor, incontestably authorized by war, which permits traps, was so well done, that Haxo, who had been despatched by the Emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to reconnoitre the enemy's batteries, had discovered nothing of it, and had returned and reported to Napoleon that there were no obstacles except the two barricades which barred the road to Nivelles and to Genappe. It was at the season when the grain is tall on the edge of the plateau a battalion of Kempt's brigade, the th, armed with carabines, was concealed in the tall wheat. Thus assured and buttressed, the centre of the AngloDutch army was well posted. The peril of this position lay in the forest of Soignes, then adjoining the field of battle, and intersected by the ponds of Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat thither without dissolving the regiments would have broken up immediately there. The artillery would have been lost among the morasses. The retreat, according to many a man versed in the art,though it is disputed by others,would have been a disorganized flight. To this centre, Wellington added one of Chass's brigades taken from the right wing, and one of Wincke's brigades taken from the left wing, plus Clinton's division. To his English, to the regiments of Halkett, to the brigades of Mitchell, to the guards of Maitland, he gave as reinforcements and aids, the infantry of Brunswick, Nassau's contingent, Kielmansegg's Hanoverians, and Ompteda's Germans. This placed twentysix battalions under his hand. The right wing, as Charras says, was thrown back on the centre. An enormous battery was masked by sacks of earth at the spot where there now stands what is called the 'Museum of Waterloo. Besides this, Wellington had, behind a rise in the ground, Somerset's Dragoon Guards, fourteen hundred horse strong. It was the remaining half of the justly celebrated English cavalry. Ponsonby destroyed, Somerset remained. The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was ranged behind a very low garden wall, backed up with a coating of bags of sand and a large slope of earth. This work was not finished there had been no time to make a palisade for it. Wellington, uneasy but impassive, was on horseback, and there remained the whole day in the same attitude, a little in advance of the old mill of MontSaintJean, which is still in existence, beneath an elm, which an Englishman, an enthusiastic vandal, purchased later on for two hundred francs, cut down, and carried off. Wellington was coldly heroic. The bullets rained about him. His aidedecamp, Gordon, fell at his side. Lord Hill, pointing to a shell which had burst, said to him 'My lord, what are your orders in case you are killed? 'To do like me, replied Wellington. To Clinton he said laconically, 'To hold this spot to the last man. The day was evidently turning out ill. Wellington shouted to his old companions of Talavera, of Vittoria, of Salamanca 'Boys, can retreat be thought of? Think of old England! Towards four o'clock, the English line drew back. Suddenly nothing was visible on the crest of the plateau except the artillery and the sharpshooters the rest had disappeared the regiments, dislodged by the shells and the French bullets, retreated into the bottom, now intersected by the back road of the farm of MontSaintJean a retrograde movement took place, the English front hid itself, Wellington drew back. 'The beginning of retreat! cried Napoleon. The Emperor, though ill and discommoded on horseback by a local trouble, had never been in a better humor than on that day. His impenetrability had been smiling ever since the morning. On the th of June, that profound soul masked by marble beamed blindly. The man who had been gloomy at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest favorites of destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme smile is God's alone. Ridet Csar, Pompeius flebit, said the legionaries of the Fulminatrix Legion. Pompey was not destined to weep on that occasion, but it is certain that Csar laughed. While exploring on horseback at one o'clock on the preceding night, in storm and rain, in company with Bertrand, the communes in the neighborhood of Rossomme, satisfied at the sight of the long line of the English campfires illuminating the whole horizon from Frischemont to Brainel'Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to whom he had assigned a day on the field of Waterloo, was exact to the appointment he stopped his horse, and remained for some time motionless, gazing at the lightning and listening to the thunder and this fatalist was heard to cast into the darkness this mysterious saying, 'We are in accord. Napoleon was mistaken. They were no longer in accord. He took not a moment for sleep every instant of that night was marked by a joy for him. He traversed the line of the principal outposts, halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At halfpast two, near the wood of Hougomont, he heard the tread of a column on the march he thought at the moment that it was a retreat on the part of Wellington. He said 'It is the rearguard of the English getting under way for the purpose of decamping. I will take prisoners the six thousand English who have just arrived at Ostend. He conversed expansively he regained the animation which he had shown at his landing on the first of March, when he pointed out to the GrandMarshal the enthusiastic peasant of the Gulf Juan, and cried, 'Well, Bertrand, here is a reinforcement already! On the night of the th to the th of June he rallied Wellington. 'That little Englishman needs a lesson, said Napoleon. The rain redoubled in violence the thunder rolled while the Emperor was speaking. At halfpast three o'clock in the morning, he lost one illusion officers who had been despatched to reconnoitre announced to him that the enemy was not making any movement. Nothing was stirring not a bivouacfire had been extinguished the English army was asleep. The silence on earth was profound the only noise was in the heavens. At four o'clock, a peasant was brought in to him by the scouts this peasant had served as guide to a brigade of English cavalry, probably Vivian's brigade, which was on its way to take up a position in the village of Ohain, at the extreme left. At five o'clock, two Belgian deserters reported to him that they had just quitted their regiment, and that the English army was ready for battle. 'So much the better! exclaimed Napoleon. 'I prefer to overthrow them rather than to drive them back. In the morning he dismounted in the mud on the slope which forms an angle with the Plancenoit road, had a kitchen table and a peasant's chair brought to him from the farm of Rossomme, seated himself, with a truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart of the battlefield, saying to Soult as he did so, 'A pretty checkerboard. In consequence of the rains during the night, the transports of provisions, embedded in the soft roads, had not been able to arrive by morning the soldiers had had no sleep they were wet and fasting. This did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Ney, 'We have ninety chances out of a hundred. At eight o'clock the Emperor's breakfast was brought to him. He invited many generals to it. During breakfast, it was said that Wellington had been to a ball two nights before, in Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond's and Soult, a rough man of war, with a face of an archbishop, said, 'The ball takes place today. The Emperor jested with Ney, who said, 'Wellington will not be so simple as to wait for Your Majesty. That was his way, however. 'He was fond of jesting, says Fleury de Chaboulon. 'A merry humor was at the foundation of his character, says Gourgaud. 'He abounded in pleasantries, which were more peculiar than witty, says Benjamin Constant. These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. It was he who called his grenadiers 'his grumblers he pinched their ears he pulled their moustaches. 'The Emperor did nothing but play pranks on us, is the remark of one of them. During the mysterious trip from the island of Elba to France, on the th of February, on the open sea, the French brig of war, Le Zphyr, having encountered the brig L'Inconstant, on which Napoleon was concealed, and having asked the news of Napoleon from L'Inconstant, the Emperor, who still wore in his hat the white and amaranthine cockade sown with bees, which he had adopted at the isle of Elba, laughingly seized the speakingtrumpet, and answered for himself, 'The Emperor is well. A man who laughs like that is on familiar terms with events. Napoleon indulged in many fits of this laughter during the breakfast at Waterloo. After breakfast he meditated for a quarter of an hour then two generals seated themselves on the truss of straw, pen in hand and their paper on their knees, and the Emperor dictated to them the order of battle. At nine o'clock, at the instant when the French army, ranged in echelons and set in motion in five columns, had deployedthe divisions in two lines, the artillery between the brigades, the music at their head as they beat the march, with rolls on the drums and the blasts of trumpets, mighty, vast, joyous, a sea of casques, of sabres, and of bayonets on the horizon, the Emperor was touched, and twice exclaimed, 'Magnificent! Magnificent! Between nine o'clock and halfpast ten the whole army, incredible as it may appear, had taken up its position and ranged itself in six lines, forming, to repeat the Emperor's expression, 'the figure of six V's. A few moments after the formation of the battlearray, in the midst of that profound silence, like that which heralds the beginning of a storm, which precedes engagements, the Emperor tapped Haxo on the shoulder, as he beheld the three batteries of twelvepounders, detached by his orders from the corps of Erlon, Reille, and Lobau, and destined to begin the action by taking MontSaintJean, which was situated at the intersection of the Nivelles and the Genappe roads, and said to him, 'There are four and twenty handsome maids, General. Sure of the issue, he encouraged with a smile, as they passed before him, the company of sappers of the first corps, which he had appointed to barricade MontSaintJean as soon as the village should be carried. All this serenity had been traversed by but a single word of haughty pity perceiving on his left, at a spot where there now stands a large tomb, those admirable Scotch Grays, with their superb horses, massing themselves, he said, 'It is a pity. Then he mounted his horse, advanced beyond Rossomme, and selected for his post of observation a contracted elevation of turf to the right of the road from Genappe to Brussels, which was his second station during the battle. The third station, the one adopted at seven o'clock in the evening, between La BelleAlliance and La HaieSainte, is formidable it is a rather elevated knoll, which still exists, and behind which the guard was massed on a slope of the plain. Around this knoll the balls rebounded from the pavements of the road, up to Napoleon himself. As at Brienne, he had over his head the shriek of the bullets and of the heavy artillery. Mouldy cannonballs, old swordblades, and shapeless projectiles, eaten up with rust, were picked up at the spot where his horse's feet stood. Scabra rubigine. A few years ago, a shell of sixty pounds, still charged, and with its fuse broken off level with the bomb, was unearthed. It was at this last post that the Emperor said to his guide, Lacoste, a hostile and terrified peasant, who was attached to the saddle of a hussar, and who turned round at every discharge of canister and tried to hide behind Napoleon 'Fool, it is shameful! You'll get yourself killed with a ball in the back. He who writes these lines has himself found, in the friable soil of this knoll, on turning over the sand, the remains of the neck of a bomb, disintegrated, by the oxidization of six and forty years, and old fragments of iron which parted like eldertwigs between the fingers. Every one is aware that the variously inclined undulations of the plains, where the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington took place, are no longer what they were on June , . By taking from this mournful field the wherewithal to make a monument to it, its real relief has been taken away, and history, disconcerted, no longer finds her bearings there. It has been disfigured for the sake of glorifying it. Wellington, when he beheld Waterloo once more, two years later, exclaimed, 'They have altered my field of battle! Where the great pyramid of earth, surmounted by the lion, rises today, there was a hillock which descended in an easy slope towards the Nivelles road, but which was almost an escarpment on the side of the highway to Genappe. The elevation of this escarpment can still be measured by the height of the two knolls of the two great sepulchres which enclose the road from Genappe to Brussels one, the English tomb, is on the left the other, the German tomb, is on the right. There is no French tomb. The whole of that plain is a sepulchre for France. Thanks to the thousands upon thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau of MontSaintJean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of battle, particularly on the side of La HaieSainte, it was abrupt and difficult of approach. The slope there is so steep that the English cannon could not see the farm, situated in the bottom of the valley, which was the centre of the combat. On the th of June, , the rains had still farther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated the problem of the ascent, and the men not only slipped back, but stuck fast in the mire. Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort of trench whose presence it was impossible for the distant observer to divine. What was this trench? Let us explain. Brainel'Alleud is a Belgian village Ohain is another. These villages, both of them concealed in curves of the landscape, are connected by a road about a league and a half in length, which traverses the plain along its undulating level, and often enters and buries itself in the hills like a furrow, which makes a ravine of this road in some places. In , as at the present day, this road cut the crest of the plateau of MontSaintJean between the two highways from Genappe and Nivelles only, it is now on a level with the plain it was then a hollow way. Its two slopes have been appropriated for the monumental hillock. This road was, and still is, a trench throughout the greater portion of its course a hollow trench, sometimes a dozen feet in depth, and whose banks, being too steep, crumbled away here and there, particularly in winter, under driving rains. Accidents happened here. The road was so narrow at the Brainel'Alleud entrance that a passerby was crushed by a cart, as is proved by a stone cross which stands near the cemetery, and which gives the name of the dead, Monsieur Bernard Debrye, Merchant of Brussels, and the date of the accident, February, . It was so deep on the tableland of MontSaintJean that a peasant, Mathieu Nicaise, was crushed there, in , by a slide from the slope, as is stated on another stone cross, the top of which has disappeared in the process of clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on the grassy slope to the left of the highway between La HaieSainte and the farm of MontSaintJean. On the day of battle, this hollow road whose existence was in no way indicated, bordering the crest of MontSaintJean, a trench at the summit of the escarpment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible that is to say, terrible. So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was content. He was right the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen, really admirable. The battle once begun, its very various changes,the resistance of Hougomont the tenacity of La HaieSainte the killing of Bauduin the disabling of Foy the unexpected wall against which Soye's brigade was shattered Guilleminot's fatal heedlessness when he had neither petard nor powder sacks the miring of the batteries the fifteen unescorted pieces overwhelmed in a hollow way by Uxbridge the small effect of the bombs falling in the English lines, and there embedding themselves in the rainsoaked soil, and only succeeding in producing volcanoes of mud, so that the canister was turned into a splash the uselessness of Pir's demonstration on Brainel'Alleud all that cavalry, fifteen squadrons, almost exterminated the right wing of the English badly alarmed, the left wing badly cut into Ney's strange mistake in massing, instead of echelonning the four divisions of the first corps men delivered over to grapeshot, arranged in ranks twentyseven deep and with a frontage of two hundred the frightful holes made in these masses by the cannonballs attacking columns disorganized the sidebattery suddenly unmasked on their flank Bourgeois, Donzelot, and Durutte compromised Quiot repulsed Lieutenant Vieux, that Hercules graduated at the Polytechnic School, wounded at the moment when he was beating in with an axe the door of La HaieSainte under the downright fire of the English barricade which barred the angle of the road from Genappe to Brussels Marcognet's division caught between the infantry and the cavalry, shot down at the very muzzle of the guns amid the grain by Best and Pack, put to the sword by Ponsonby his battery of seven pieces spiked the Prince of SaxeWeimar holding and guarding, in spite of the Comte d'Erlon, both Frischemont and Smohain the flag of the th taken, the flag of the th captured that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the flying column of three hundred light cavalry on the scout between Wavre and Plancenoit the alarming things that had been said by prisoners Grouchy's delay fifteen hundred men killed in the orchard of Hougomont in less than an hour eighteen hundred men overthrown in a still shorter time about La HaieSainte,all these stormy incidents passing like the clouds of battle before Napoleon, had hardly troubled his gaze and had not overshadowed that face of imperial certainty. Napoleon was accustomed to gaze steadily at war he never added up the heartrending details, cipher by cipher ciphers mattered little to him, provided that they furnished the totalvictory he was not alarmed if the beginnings did go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor at the end he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the question, and he treated destiny as his equal he seemed to say to fate, Thou wilt not dare. Composed half of light and half of shadow, Napoleon thought himself protected in good and tolerated in evil. He had, or thought that he had, a connivance, one might almost say a complicity, of events in his favor, which was equivalent to the invulnerability of antiquity. Nevertheless, when one has Brsina, Leipzig, and Fontainebleau behind one, it seems as though one might distrust Waterloo. A mysterious frown becomes perceptible in the depths of the heavens. At the moment when Wellington retreated, Napoleon shuddered. He suddenly beheld the tableland of MontSaintJean cleared, and the van of the English army disappear. It was rallying, but hiding itself. The Emperor half rose in his stirrups. The lightning of victory flashed from his eyes. Wellington, driven into a corner at the forest of Soignes and destroyedthat was the definitive conquest of England by France it was Crcy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Marengo was wiping out Agincourt. So the Emperor, meditating on this terrible turn of fortune, swept his glass for the last time over all the points of the field of battle. His guard, standing behind him with grounded arms, watched him from below with a sort of religion. He pondered he examined the slopes, noted the declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the path he seemed to be counting each bush. He gazed with some intentness at the English barricades of the two highways,two large abatis of trees, that on the road to Genappe above La HaieSainte, armed with two cannon, the only ones out of all the English artillery which commanded the extremity of the field of battle, and that on the road to Nivelles where gleamed the Dutch bayonets of Chass's brigade. Near this barricade he observed the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white, which stands at the angle of the crossroad near Brainel'Alleud he bent down and spoke in a low voice to the guide Lacoste. The guide made a negative sign with his head, which was probably perfidious. The Emperor straightened himself up and fell to thinking. Wellington had drawn back. All that remained to do was to complete this retreat by crushing him. Napoleon turning round abruptly, despatched an express at full speed to Paris to announce that the battle was won. Napoleon was one of those geniuses from whom thunder darts. He had just found his clap of thunder. He gave orders to Milhaud's cuirassiers to carry the tableland of MontSaintJean. There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a quarter of a league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses. There were six and twenty squadrons of them and they had behind them to support them LefebvreDesnouettes's division,the one hundred and six picked gendarmes, the light cavalry of the Guard, eleven hundred and ninetyseven men, and the lancers of the guard of eight hundred and eighty lances. They wore casques without horsetails, and cuirasses of beaten iron, with horsepistols in their holsters, and long sabreswords. That morning the whole army had admired them, when, at nine o'clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing 'Let us watch o'er the Safety of the Empire, they had come in a solid column, with one of their batteries on their flank, another in their centre, and deployed in two ranks between the roads to Genappe and Frischemont, and taken up their position for battle in that powerful second line, so cleverly arranged by Napoleon, which, having on its extreme left Kellermann's cuirassiers and on its extreme right Milhaud's cuirassiers, had, so to speak, two wings of iron. Aidedecamp Bernard carried them the Emperor's orders. Ney drew his sword and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set in motion. Then a formidable spectacle was seen. All their cavalry, with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung to the breeze, formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a simultaneous movement and like one man, with the precision of a brazen batteringram which is effecting a breach, the hill of La Belle Alliance, plunged into the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the other side of the valley, still compact and in close ranks, mounting at a full trot, through a storm of grapeshot which burst upon them, the terrible muddy slope of the tableland of MontSaintJean. They ascended, grave, threatening, imperturbable in the intervals between the musketry and the artillery, their colossal trampling was audible. Being two divisions, there were two columns of them Wathier's division held the right, Delort's division was on the left. It seemed as though two immense adders of steel were to be seen crawling towards the crest of the tableland. It traversed the battle like a prodigy. Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of the Muskowa by the heavy cavalry Murat was lacking here, but Ney was again present. It seemed as though that mass had become a monster and had but one soul. Each column undulated and swelled like the ring of a polyp. They could be seen through a vast cloud of smoke which was rent here and there. A confusion of helmets, of cries, of sabres, a stormy heaving of the cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of trumpets, a terrible and disciplined tumult over all, the cuirasses like the scales on the hydra. These narrations seemed to belong to another age. Something parallel to this vision appeared, no doubt, in the ancient Orphic epics, which told of the centaurs, the old hippanthropes, those Titans with human heads and equestrian chests who scaled Olympus at a gallop, horrible, invulnerable, sublimegods and beasts. Odd numerical coincidence,twentysix battalions rode to meet twentysix battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of the masked battery, the English infantry, formed into thirteen squares, two battalions to the square, in two lines, with seven in the first line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders, taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, mute, motionless. They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers did not see them. They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the alternate and symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand and savage breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence then, all at once, a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared above the crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand heads with gray moustaches, shouting, 'Vive l'Empereur! All this cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance of an earthquake. All at once, a tragic incident on the English left, on our right, the head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On arriving at the culminating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly given over to fury and their course of extermination of the squares and cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench,a trench between them and the English. It was the hollow road of Ohain. It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected, yawning, directly under the horses' feet, two fathoms deep between its double slopes the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed on the second the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and overwhelming the riders and there being no means of retreat,the whole column being no longer anything more than a projectile,the force which had been acquired to crush the English crushed the French the inexorable ravine could only yield when filled horses and riders rolled there pellmell, grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf when this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss. This began the loss of the battle. A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates matters, says that two thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the hollow road of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which were flung into this ravine the day after the combat. Let us note in passing that it was Dubois's sorely tried brigade which, an hour previously, making a charge to one side, had captured the flag of the Lunenburg battalion. Napoleon, before giving the order for this charge of Milhaud's cuirassiers, had scrutinized the ground, but had not been able to see that hollow road, which did not even form a wrinkle on the surface of the plateau. Warned, nevertheless, and put on the alert by the little white chapel which marks its angle of junction with the Nivelles highway, he had probably put a question as to the possibility of an obstacle, to the guide Lacoste. The guide had answered No. We might almost affirm that Napoleon's catastrophe originated in that sign of a peasant's head. Other fatalities were destined to arise. Was it possible that Napoleon should have won that battle? We answer No. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blcher? No. Because of God. Bonaparte victor at Waterloo that does not come within the law of the nineteenth century. Another series of facts was in preparation, in which there was no longer any room for Napoleon. The ill will of events had declared itself long before. It was time that this vast man should fall. The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. This individual alone counted for more than a universal group. These plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single head the world mounting to the brain of one man,this would be mortal to civilization were it to last. The moment had arrived for the incorruptible and supreme equity to alter its plan. Probably the principles and the elements, on which the regular gravitations of the moral, as of the material, world depend, had complained. Smoking blood, overfilled cemeteries, mothers in tears,these are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there are mysterious groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear. Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been decided on. He embarrassed God. Waterloo is not a battle it is a change of front on the part of the Universe. The battery was unmasked at the same moment with the ravine. Sixty cannons and the thirteen squares darted lightning pointblank on the cuirassiers. The intrepid General Delort made the military salute to the English battery. The whole of the flying artillery of the English had reentered the squares at a gallop. The cuirassiers had not had even the time for a halt. The disaster of the hollow road had decimated, but not discouraged them. They belonged to that class of men who, when diminished in number, increase in courage. Wathier's column alone had suffered in the disaster Delort's column, which Ney had deflected to the left, as though he had a presentiment of an ambush, had arrived whole. The cuirassiers hurled themselves on the English squares. At full speed, with bridles loose, swords in their teeth, pistols in fist,such was the attack. There are moments in battles in which the soul hardens the man until the soldier is changed into a statue, and when all this flesh turns into granite. The English battalions, desperately assaulted, did not stir. Then it was terrible. All the faces of the English squares were attacked at once. A frenzied whirl enveloped them. That cold infantry remained impassive. The first rank knelt and received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second ranks shot them down behind the second rank the cannoneers charged their guns, the front of the square parted, permitted the passage of an eruption of grapeshot, and closed again. The cuirassiers replied by crushing them. Their great horses reared, strode across the ranks, leaped over the bayonets and fell, gigantic, in the midst of these four living wells. The cannonballs ploughed furrows in these cuirassiers the cuirassiers made breaches in the squares. Files of men disappeared, ground to dust under the horses. The bayonets plunged into the bellies of these centaurs hence a hideousness of wounds which has probably never been seen anywhere else. The squares, wasted by this mad cavalry, closed up their ranks without flinching. Inexhaustible in the matter of grapeshot, they created explosions in their assailants' midst. The form of this combat was monstrous. These squares were no longer battalions, they were craters those cuirassiers were no longer cavalry, they were a tempest. Each square was a volcano attacked by a cloud lava contended with lightning. The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the air, was almost annihilated at the very first shock. lt was formed of the th regiment of Highlanders. The bagpipeplayer in the centre dropped his melancholy eyes, filled with the reflections of the forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being exterminated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch under his arm, played the Highland airs. These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben Lothian, as did the Greeks recalling Argos. The sword of a cuirassier, which hewed down the bagpipes and the arm which bore it, put an end to the song by killing the singer. The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, and still further diminished by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost the whole English army against them, but they multiplied themselves so that each man of them was equal to ten. Nevertheless, some Hanoverian battalions yielded. Wellington perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at that same moment thought of his infantry, he would have won the battle. This forgetfulness was his great and fatal mistake. All at once, the cuirassiers, who had been the assailants, found themselves assailed. The English cavalry was at their back. Before them two squares, behind them Somerset Somerset meant fourteen hundred dragoons of the guard. On the right, Somerset had Dornberg with the German lighthorse, and on his left, Trip with the Belgian carabineers the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front, before and in the rear, by infantry and cavalry, had to face all sides. What mattered it to them? They were a whirlwind. Their valor was something indescribable. In addition to this, they had behind them the battery, which was still thundering. It was necessary that it should be so, or they could never have been wounded in the back. One of their cuirasses, pierced on the shoulder by a ball from a biscayan, is in the collection of the Waterloo Museum. For such Frenchmen nothing less than such Englishmen was needed. It was no longer a handtohand conflict it was a shadow, a fury, a dizzy transport of souls and courage, a hurricane of lightning swords. In an instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred. Fuller, their lieutenantcolonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up with the lancers and LefebvreDesnouettes's lighthorse. The plateau of MontSaintJean was captured, recaptured, captured again. The cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry or, to put it more exactly, the whole of that formidable rout collared each other without releasing the other. The squares still held firm. There were a dozen assaults. Ney had four horses killed under him. Half the cuirassiers remained on the plateau. This conflict lasted two hours. The English army was profoundly shaken. There is no doubt that, had they not been enfeebled in their first shock by the disaster of the hollow road the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed the centre and decided the victory. This extraordinary cavalry petrified Clinton, who had seen Talavera and Badajoz. Wellington, threequarters vanquished, admired heroically. He said in an undertone, 'Sublime! The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen, took or spiked sixty pieces of ordnance, and captured from the English regiments six flags, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the Guard bore to the Emperor, in front of the farm of La Belle Alliance. Wellington's situation had grown worse. This strange battle was like a duel between two raging, wounded men, each of whom, still fighting and still resisting, is expending all his blood. Which of the two will be the first to fall? The conflict on the plateau continued. What had become of the cuirassiers? No one could have told. One thing is certain, that on the day after the battle, a cuirassier and his horse were found dead among the woodwork of the scales for vehicles at MontSaintJean, at the very point where the four roads from Nivelles, Genappe, La Hulpe, and Brussels meet and intersect each other. This horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up the body still lives at MontSaintJean. His name is Dehaze. He was eighteen years old at that time. Wellington felt that he was yielding. The crisis was at hand. The cuirassiers had not succeeded, since the centre was not broken through. As every one was in possession of the plateau, no one held it, and in fact it remained, to a great extent, with the English. Wellington held the village and the culminating plain Ney had only the crest and the slope. They seemed rooted in that fatal soil on both sides. But the weakening of the English seemed irremediable. The bleeding of that army was horrible. Kempt, on the left wing, demanded reinforcements. 'There are none, replied Wellington 'he must let himself be killed! Almost at that same moment, a singular coincidence which paints the exhaustion of the two armies, Ney demanded infantry from Napoleon, and Napoleon exclaimed, 'Infantry! Where does he expect me to get it? Does he think I can make it? Nevertheless, the English army was in the worse case of the two. The furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing. A few men clustered round a flag marked the post of a regiment such and such a battalion was commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant Alten's division, already so roughly handled at La HaieSainte, was almost destroyed the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze's brigade strewed the ryefields all along the Nivelles road hardly anything was left of those Dutch grenadiers, who, intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks in , fought against Wellington and who, in , rallied to the English standard, fought against Napoleon. The loss in officers was considerable. Lord Uxbridge, who had his leg buried on the following day, had his knee shattered. If, on the French side, in that tussle of the cuirassiers, Delort, l'Hritier, Colbert, Dnop, Travers, and Blancard were disabled, on the side of the English there was Alten wounded, Barne wounded, Delancey killed, Van Meeren killed, Ompteda killed, the whole of Wellington's staff decimated, and England had the worse of it in that bloody scale. The second regiment of footguards had lost five lieutenantcolonels, four captains, and three ensigns the first battalion of the th infantry had lost  officers and , soldiers the th Highlanders had lost  officers wounded,  officers killed,  soldiers killed. The Hanoverian hussars of Cumberland, a whole regiment, with Colonel Hacke at its head, who was destined to be tried later on and cashiered, had turned bridle in the presence of the fray, and had fled to the forest of Soignes, sowing defeat all the way to Brussels. The transports, ammunitionwagons, the baggagewagons, the wagons filled with wounded, on perceiving that the French were gaining ground and approaching the forest, rushed headlong thither. The Dutch, mowed down by the French cavalry, cried, 'Alarm! From VertCoucou to Groenendael, for a distance of nearly two leagues in the direction of Brussels, according to the testimony of eyewitnesses who are still alive, the roads were encumbered with fugitives. This panic was such that it attacked the Prince de Cond at Mechlin, and Louis XVIII. at Ghent. With the exception of the feeble reserve echelonned behind the ambulance established at the farm of MontSaintJean, and of Vivian's and Vandeleur's brigades, which flanked the left wing, Wellington had no cavalry left. A number of batteries lay unhorsed. These facts are attested by Siborne and Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, goes so far as to say that the AngloDutch army was reduced to thirtyfour thousand men. The Iron Duke remained calm, but his lips blanched. Vincent, the Austrian commissioner, Alava, the Spanish commissioner, who were present at the battle in the English staff, thought the Duke lost. At five o'clock Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these sinister words, 'Blcher, or night! It was at about that moment that a distant line of bayonets gleamed on the heights in the direction of Frischemont. Here comes the change of face in this giant drama. The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for, Blcher arriving. Death instead of life. Fate has these turns the throne of the world was expected it was Saint Helena that was seen. If the little shepherd who served as guide to Blow, Blcher's lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenth century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit, the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for artillery, and Blow would not have arrived. Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's delay, and Blcher would not have found Wellington on his feet. 'The battle was lost. It was time that Blow should arrive, as will be seen. He had, moreover, been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at DionleMont, and had set out at daybreak but the roads were impassable, and his divisions stuck fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so the caissons and ammunitionwagons could not pass between two rows of burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the conflagration was extinguished. It was midday before Blow's vanguard had been able to reach ChapelleSaintLambert. Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over at four o'clock, and Blcher would have fallen on the battle won by Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite which we cannot comprehend. The Emperor had been the first, as early as midday, to descry with his fieldglass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his attention. He had said, 'I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be troops. Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, 'Soult, what do you see in the direction of ChapelleSaintLambert? The marshal, levelling his glass, answered, 'Four or five thousand men, Sire evidently Grouchy. But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staff had studied 'the cloud pointed out by the Emperor. Some said 'It is trees. The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached Domon's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter. Blow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before entering into line but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril, Blcher ordered Blow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words 'We must give air to the English army. A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the Prussian cannonballs began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in reserve behind Napoleon. Every one knows the rest,the irruption of a third army the battle broken to pieces eightysix mouths of fire thundering simultaneously Pirch the first coming up with Blow Zieten's cavalry led by Blcher in person, the French driven back Marcognet swept from the plateau of Ohain Durutte dislodged from Papelotte Donzelot and Quiot retreating Lobau caught on the flank a fresh battle precipitating itself on our dismantled regiments at nightfall the whole English line resuming the offensive and thrust forward the gigantic breach made in the French army the English grapeshot and the Prussian grapeshot aiding each other the extermination disaster in front disaster on the flank the Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all things. Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, 'Vive l'Empereur! History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in acclamations. The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very moment,it was eight o'clock in the eveningthe clouds on the horizon parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it rise at Austerlitz. Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this final catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan, were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with their large plaques bearing the eagle appeared, symmetrical, in line, tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for France they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the field of battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors, believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated but Wellington shouted, 'Up, Guards, and aim straight! The red regiment of English guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grapeshot riddled the tricolored flag and whistled round our eagles all hurled themselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, the Imperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vast shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the place of the 'Vive l'Empereur! and, with flight behind it, it continued to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that it took. There were none who hesitated, no timid men in its ranks. The soldier in that troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man was missing in that suicide. Ney, bewildered, great with all the grandeur of accepted death, offered himself to all blows in that tempest. He had his fifth horse killed under him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth, with uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut off by a swordstroke from a horseguard, his plaque with the great eagle dented by a bullet bleeding, bemired, magnificent, a broken sword in his hand, he said, 'Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of battle! But in vain he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At Drouet d'Erlon he hurled this question, 'Are you not going to get yourself killed? In the midst of all that artillery engaged in crushing a handful of men, he shouted 'So there is nothing for me! Oh! I should like to have all these English bullets enter my bowels! Unhappy man, thou wert reserved for French bullets! The rout behind the Guard was melancholy. The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once,Hougomont, La HaieSainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry 'Treachery! was followed by a cry of 'Save yourselves who can! An army which is disbanding is like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, hastens, is precipitated. The disintegration is unprecedented. Ney borrows a horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword, places himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English and French. He strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its duty, he insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed. The soldiers fly from him, shouting, 'Long live Marshal Ney! Two of Durutte's regiments go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the swords of the Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best, Pack, and Rylandt the worst of handtohand conflicts is the defeat friends kill each other in order to escape squadrons and battalions break and disperse against each other, like the tremendous foam of battle. Lobau at one extremity, and Reille at the other, are drawn into the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of his Guard in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann before Vandeleur, Lobau before Blow, Morand before Pirch, Domon and Subervic before Prince William of Prussia Guyot, who led the Emperor's squadrons to the charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon gallops past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats them. All the mouths which in the morning had shouted, 'Long live the Emperor! remain gaping they hardly recognize him. The Prussian cavalry, newly arrived, dashes forwards, flies, hews, slashes, kills, exterminates. Horses lash out, the cannons flee the soldiers of the artillerytrain unharness the caissons and use the horses to make their escape transports overturned, with all four wheels in the air, clog the road and occasion massacres. Men are crushed, trampled down, others walk over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the roads, the paths, the bridges, the plains, the hills, the valleys, the woods, encumbered by this invasion of forty thousand men. Shouts despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye, passages forced at the point of the sword, no more comrades, no more officers, no more generals, an inexpressible terror. Zieten putting France to the sword at its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such was the flight. At Genappe, an effort was made to wheel about, to present a battle front, to draw up in line. Lobau rallied three hundred men. The entrance to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of Prussian canister, all took to flight again, and Lobau was taken. That volley of grapeshot can be seen today imprinted on the ancient gable of a brick building on the right of the road at a few minutes' distance before you enter Genappe. The Prussians threw themselves into Genappe, furious, no doubt, that they were not more entirely the conquerors. The pursuit was stupendous. Blcher ordered extermination. Roguet had set the lugubrious example of threatening with death any French grenadier who should bring him a Prussian prisoner. Blcher outdid Roguet. Duhesme, the general of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an inn at Genappe, surrendered his sword to a huzzar of death, who took the sword and slew the prisoner. The victory was completed by the assassination of the vanquished. Let us inflict punishment, since we are history old Blcher disgraced himself. This ferocity put the finishing touch to the disaster. The desperate route traversed Genappe, traversed QuatreBras, traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes, traversed Charleroi, traversed Thuin, and only halted at the frontier. Alas! and who, then, was fleeing in that manner? The Grand Army. This vertigo, this terror, this downfall into ruin of the loftiest bravery which ever astounded history,is that causeless? No. The shadow of an enormous right is projected athwart Waterloo. It is the day of destiny. The force which is mightier than man produced that day. Hence the terrified wrinkle of those brows hence all those great souls surrendering their swords. Those who had conquered Europe have fallen prone on the earth, with nothing left to say nor to do, feeling the present shadow of a terrible presence. Hoc erat in fatis. That day the perspective of the human race underwent a change. Waterloo is the hinge of the nineteenth century. The disappearance of the great man was necessary to the advent of the great century. Some one, a person to whom one replies not, took the responsibility on himself. The panic of heroes can be explained. In the battle of Waterloo there is something more than a cloud, there is something of the meteor. God has passed by. At nightfall, in a meadow near Genappe, Bernard and Bertrand seized by the skirt of his coat and detained a man, haggard, pensive, sinister, gloomy, who, dragged to that point by the current of the rout, had just dismounted, had passed the bridle of his horse over his arm, and with wild eye was returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled, essaying once more to advance. Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the defeat, as rocks in running water, held their own until night. Night came, death also they awaited that double shadow, and, invincible, allowed themselves to be enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated from the rest, and having no bond with the army, now shattered in every part, died alone. They had taken up position for this final action, some on the heights of Rossomme, others on the plain of MontSaintJean. There, abandoned, vanquished, terrible, those gloomy squares endured their deaththroes in formidable fashion. Ulm, Wagram, Jena, Friedland, died with them. At twilight, towards nine o'clock in the evening, one of them was left at the foot of the plateau of MontSaintJean. In that fatal valley, at the foot of that declivity which the cuirassiers had ascended, now inundated by the masses of the English, under the converging fires of the victorious hostile cavalry, under a frightful density of projectiles, this square fought on. It was commanded by an obscure officer named Cambronne. At each discharge, the square diminished and replied. It replied to the grapeshot with a fusillade, continually contracting its four walls. The fugitives pausing breathless for a moment in the distance, listened in the darkness to that gloomy and everdecreasing thunder. When this legion had been reduced to a handful, when nothing was left of their flag but a rag, when their guns, the bullets all gone, were no longer anything but clubs, when the heap of corpses was larger than the group of survivors, there reigned among the conquerors, around those men dying so sublimely, a sort of sacred terror, and the English artillery, taking breath, became silent. This furnished a sort of respite. These combatants had around them something in the nature of a swarm of spectres, silhouettes of men on horseback, the black profiles of cannon, the white sky viewed through wheels and guncarriages, the colossal death'shead, which the heroes saw constantly through the smoke, in the depths of the battle, advanced upon them and gazed at them. Through the shades of twilight they could hear the pieces being loaded the matches all lighted, like the eyes of tigers at night, formed a circle round their heads all the lintstocks of the English batteries approached the cannons, and then, with emotion, holding the supreme moment suspended above these men, an English general, Colville according to some, Maitland according to others, shouted to them, 'Surrender, brave Frenchmen! Cambronne replied, '. EDITOR'S COMMENTARY Another edition of this book has the word 'Merde! in lieu of the  above. If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, one would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhaps the finest reply that a Frenchman ever made. This would enjoin us from consigning something sublime to History. At our own risk and peril, let us violate this injunction. Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan,Cambronne. To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being willing to die is the same as to die and it was not this man's fault if he survived after he was shot. The winner of the battle of Waterloo was not Napoleon, who was put to flight nor Wellington, giving way at four o'clock, in despair at five nor Blcher, who took no part in the engagement. The winner of Waterloo was Cambronne. To thunder forth such a reply at the lightningflash that kills you is to conquer! Thus to answer the Catastrophe, thus to speak to Fate, to give this pedestal to the future lion, to hurl such a challenge to the midnight rainstorm, to the treacherous wall of Hougomont, to the sunken road of Ohain, to Grouchy's delay, to Blcher's arrival, to be Irony itself in the tomb, to act so as to stand upright though fallen, to drown in two syllables the European coalition, to offer kings privies which the Csars once knew, to make the lowest of words the most lofty by entwining with it the glory of France, insolently to end Waterloo with Mardigras, to finish Leonidas with Rabellais, to set the crown on this victory by a word impossible to speak, to lose the field and preserve history, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,this is immense! It was an insult such as a thundercloud might hurl! It reaches the grandeur of schylus! Cambronne's reply produces the effect of a violent break. 'Tis like the breaking of a heart under a weight of scorn. 'Tis the overflow of agony bursting forth. Who conquered? Wellington? No! Had it not been for Blcher, he was lost. Was it Blcher? No! If Wellington had not begun, Blcher could not have finished. This Cambronne, this man spending his last hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizes that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly agonizing and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of it, he is offered this mockery,life! How could he restrain himself? Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory, the Jupiter's darting thunderbolts they have a hundred thousand victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million their cannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted they grind down under their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army they have just crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,only this earthworm is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is the word. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victory which counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. He grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression 'Excrment! We repeat it,to use that word, to do thus, to invent such an expression, is to be the conqueror! The spirit of mighty days at that portentous moment made its descent on that unknown man. Cambronne invents the word for Waterloo as Rouget invents the 'Marseillaise, under the visitation of a breath from on high. An emanation from the divine whirlwind leaps forth and comes sweeping over these men, and they shake, and one of them sings the song supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry. This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not only at Europe in the name of the Empire,that would be a trifle he hurls it at the past in the name of the Revolution. It is heard, and Cambronne is recognized as possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be speaking! Klber seems to be bellowing! At that word from Cambronne, the English voice responded, 'Fire! The batteries flamed, the hill trembled, from all those brazen mouths belched a last terrible gush of grapeshot a vast volume of smoke, vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the smoke dispersed, there was no longer anything there. That formidable remnant had been annihilated the Guard was dead. The four walls of the living redoubt lay prone, and hardly was there discernible, here and there, even a quiver in the bodies it was thus that the French legions, greater than the Roman legions, expired on MontSaintJean, on the soil watered with rain and blood, amid the gloomy grain, on the spot where nowadays Joseph, who drives the postwagon from Nivelles, passes whistling, and cheerfully whipping up his horse at four o'clock in the morning. The battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those who won it as to those who lost it. For Napoleon it was a panic Blcher sees nothing in it but fire Wellington understands nothing in regard to it. Look at the reports. The bulletins are confused, the commentaries involved. Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments Muffling cuts it up into three changes Charras alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points, seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy in fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of kings, drew all the kingdoms after itthe fall of force, the defeat of war. In this event, stamped with superhuman necessity, the part played by men amounts to nothing. If we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blcher, do we thereby deprive England and Germany of anything? No. Neither that illustrious England nor that august Germany enter into the problem of Waterloo. Thank Heaven, nations are great, independently of the lugubrious feats of the sword. Neither England, nor Germany, nor France is contained in a scabbard. At this epoch when Waterloo is only a clashing of swords, above Blcher, Germany has Schiller above Wellington, England has Byron. A vast dawn of ideas is the peculiarity of our century, and in that aurora England and Germany have a magnificent radiance. They are majestic because they think. The elevation of level which they contribute to civilization is intrinsic with them it proceeds from themselves and not from an accident. The aggrandizement which they have brought to the nineteenth century has not Waterloo as its source. It is only barbarous peoples who undergo rapid growth after a victory. That is the temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized people, especially in our day, are neither elevated nor abased by the good or bad fortune of a captain. Their specific gravity in the human species results from something more than a combat. Their honor, thank God! their dignity, their intelligence, their genius, are not numbers which those gamblers, heroes and conquerors, can put in the lottery of battles. Often a battle is lost and progress is conquered. There is less glory and more liberty. The drum holds its peace reason takes the word. It is a game in which he who loses wins. Let us, therefore, speak of Waterloo coldly from both sides. Let us render to chance that which is due to chance, and to God that which is due to God. What is Waterloo? A victory? No. The winning number in the lottery. The quine  won by Europe, paid by France. It was not worthwhile to place a lion there. Waterloo, moreover, is the strangest encounter in history. Napoleon and Wellington. They are not enemies they are opposites. Never did God, who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more extraordinary comparison. On one side, precision, foresight, geometry, prudence, an assured retreat, reserves spared, with an obstinate coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage of the ground, tactics, which preserve the equilibrium of battalions, carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand, nothing voluntarily left to chance, the ancient classic courage, absolute regularity on the other, intuition, divination, military oddity, superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an indescribable something which gazes like an eagle, and which strikes like the lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries of a profound soul, associated with destiny the stream, the plain, the forest, the hill, summoned, and in a manner, forced to obey, the despot going even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle faith in a star mingled with strategic science, elevating but perturbing it. Wellington was the Barme of war Napoleon was its Michael Angelo and on this occasion, genius was vanquished by calculation. On both sides some one was awaited. It was the exact calculator who succeeded. Napoleon was waiting for Grouchy he did not come. Wellington expected Blcher he came. Wellington is classic war taking its revenge. Bonaparte, at his dawning, had encountered him in Italy, and beaten him superbly. The old owl had fled before the young vulture. The old tactics had been not only struck as by lightning, but disgraced. Who was that Corsican of six and twenty? What signified that splendid ignoramus, who, with everything against him, nothing in his favor, without provisions, without ammunition, without cannon, without shoes, almost without an army, with a mere handful of men against masses, hurled himself on Europe combined, and absurdly won victories in the impossible? Whence had issued that fulminating convict, who almost without taking breath, and with the same set of combatants in hand, pulverized, one after the other, the five armies of the emperor of Germany, upsetting Beaulieu on Alvinzi, Wurmser on Beaulieu, Mlas on Wurmser, Mack on Mlas? Who was this novice in war with the effrontery of a luminary? The academical military school excommunicated him, and as it lost its footing hence, the implacable rancor of the old Csarism against the new of the regular sword against the flaming sword and of the exchequer against genius. On the th of June, , that rancor had the last word, and beneath Lodi, Montebello, Montenotte, Mantua, Arcola, it wrote Waterloo. A triumph of the mediocres which is sweet to the majority. Destiny consented to this irony. In his decline, Napoleon found Wurmser, the younger, again in front of him. In fact, to get Wurmser, it sufficed to blanch the hair of Wellington. Waterloo is a battle of the first order, won by a captain of the second. That which must be admired in the battle of Waterloo, is England the English firmness, the English resolution, the English blood the superb thing about England there, no offence to her, was herself. It was not her captain it was her army. Wellington, oddly ungrateful, declares in a letter to Lord Bathurst, that his army, the army which fought on the th of June, , was a 'detestable army. What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried beneath the furrows of Waterloo think of that? England has been too modest in the matter of Wellington. To make Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is nothing but a hero like many another. Those Scotch Grays, those Horse Guards, those regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt, that cavalry of Ponsonby and Somerset, those Highlanders playing the pibroch under the shower of grapeshot, those battalions of Rylandt, those utterly raw recruits, who hardly knew how to handle a musket holding their own against Essling's and Rivoli's old troops,that is what was grand. Wellington was tenacious in that lay his merit, and we are not seeking to lessen it but the least of his footsoldiers and of his cavalry would have been as solid as he. The iron soldier is worth as much as the Iron Duke. As for us, all our glorification goes to the English soldier, to the English army, to the English people. If trophy there be, it is to England that the trophy is due. The column of Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore on high the statue of a people. But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She still cherishes, after her own  and our , the feudal illusion. She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people. And as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained as a soldier, it allows itself to be flogged. It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a sergeant who had, it appears, saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Paglan, as the English military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports. That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the nature of Waterloo, is the marvellous cleverness of chance. A nocturnal rain, the wall of Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, Napoleon's guide deceiving him, Blow's guide enlightening him,the whole of this cataclysm is wonderfully conducted. On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a massacre than of a battle at Waterloo. Of all pitched battles, Waterloo is the one which has the smallest front for such a number of combatants. Napoleon threequarters of a league Wellington, half a league seventytwo thousand combatants on each side. From this denseness the carnage arose. The following calculation has been made, and the following proportion established Loss of men at Austerlitz, French, fourteen per cent Russians, thirty per cent Austrians, fortyfour per cent. At Wagram, French, thirteen per cent Austrians, fourteen. At the Moskowa, French, thirtyseven per cent Russians, fortyfour. At Bautzen, French, thirteen per cent Russians and Prussians, fourteen. At Waterloo, French, fiftysix per cent the Allies, thirtyone. Total for Waterloo, fortyone per cent one hundred and fortyfour thousand combatants sixty thousand dead. Today the field of Waterloo has the calm which belongs to the earth, the impassive support of man, and it resembles all plains. At night, moreover, a sort of visionary mist arises from it and if a traveller strolls there, if he listens, if he watches, if he dreams like Virgil in the fatal plains of Philippi, the hallucination of the catastrophe takes possession of him. The frightful th of June lives again the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in air, the battlefield resumes its reality, lines of infantry undulate over the plain, furious gallops traverse the horizon the frightened dreamer beholds the flash of sabres, the gleam of bayonets, the flare of bombs, the tremendous interchange of thunders he hears, as it were, the death rattle in the depths of a tomb, the vague clamor of the battle phantom those shadows are grenadiers, those lights are cuirassiers that skeleton Napoleon, that other skeleton is Wellington all this no longer exists, and yet it clashes together and combats still and the ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there is fury even in the clouds and in the shadows all those terrible heights, Hougomont, MontSaintJean, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, appear confusedly crowned with whirlwinds of spectres engaged in exterminating each other. There exists a very respectable liberal school which does not hate Waterloo. We do not belong to it. To us, Waterloo is but the stupefied date of liberty. That such an eagle should emerge from such an egg is certainly unexpected. If one places one's self at the culminating point of view of the question, Waterloo is intentionally a counterrevolutionary victory. It is Europe against France it is Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna against Paris it is the statu quo against the initiative it is the th of July, , attacked through the th of March,  it is the monarchies clearing the decks in opposition to the indomitable French rioting. The final extinction of that vast people which had been in eruption for twentysix yearssuch was the dream. The solidarity of the Brunswicks, the Nassaus, the Romanoffs, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs with the Bourbons. Waterloo bears divine right on its crupper. It is true, that the Empire having been despotic, the kingdom by the natural reaction of things, was forced to be liberal, and that a constitutional order was the unwilling result of Waterloo, to the great regret of the conquerors. It is because revolution cannot be really conquered, and that being providential and absolutely fatal, it is always cropping up afresh before Waterloo, in Bonaparte overthrowing the old thrones after Waterloo, in Louis XVIII. granting and conforming to the charter. Bonaparte places a postilion on the throne of Naples, and a sergeant on the throne of Sweden, employing inequality to demonstrate equality Louis XVIII. at SaintOuen countersigns the declaration of the rights of man. If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it Tomorrow. Tomorrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it today. It always reaches its goal strangely. It employs Wellington to make of Foy, who was only a soldier, an orator. Foy falls at Hougomont and rises again in the tribune. Thus does progress proceed. There is no such thing as a bad tool for that workman. It does not become disconcerted, but adjusts to its divine work the man who has bestridden the Alps, and the good old tottering invalid of Father lyse. It makes use of the gouty man as well as of the conqueror of the conqueror without, of the gouty man within. Waterloo, by cutting short the demolition of European thrones by the sword, had no other effect than to cause the revolutionary work to be continued in another direction. The slashers have finished it was the turn of the thinkers. The century that Waterloo was intended to arrest has pursued its march. That sinister victory was vanquished by liberty. In short, and incontestably, that which triumphed at Waterloo that which smiled in Wellington's rear that which brought him all the marshals' staffs of Europe, including, it is said, the staff of a marshal of France that which joyously trundled the barrows full of bones to erect the knoll of the lion that which triumphantly inscribed on that pedestal the date 'June ,  that which encouraged Blcher, as he put the flying army to the sword that which, from the heights of the plateau of MontSaintJean, hovered over France as over its prey, was the counterrevolution. It was the counterrevolution which murmured that infamous word 'dismemberment. On arriving in Paris, it beheld the crater close at hand it felt those ashes which scorched its feet, and it changed its mind it returned to the stammer of a charter. Let us behold in Waterloo only that which is in Waterloo. Of intentional liberty there is none. The counterrevolution was involuntarily liberal, in the same manner as, by a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was involuntarily revolutionary. On the th of June, , the mounted Robespierre was hurled from his saddle. End of the dictatorship. A whole European system crumbled away. The Empire sank into a gloom which resembled that of the Roman world as it expired. Again we behold the abyss, as in the days of the barbarians only the barbarism of , which must be called by its pet name of the counterrevolution, was not long breathed, soon fell to panting, and halted short. The Empire was bewept,let us acknowledge the fact,and bewept by heroic eyes. If glory lies in the sword converted into a sceptre, the Empire had been glory in person. It had diffused over the earth all the light which tyranny can givea sombre light. We will say more an obscure light. Compared to the true daylight, it is night. This disappearance of night produces the effect of an eclipse. Louis XVIII. reentered Paris. The circling dances of the th of July effaced the enthusiasms of the th of March. The Corsican became the antithesis of the Bearnese. The flag on the dome of the Tuileries was white. The exile reigned. Hartwell's pine table took its place in front of the fleurdelysstrewn throne of Louis XIV. Bouvines and Fontenoy were mentioned as though they had taken place on the preceding day, Austerlitz having become antiquated. The altar and the throne fraternized majestically. One of the most undisputed forms of the health of society in the nineteenth century was established over France, and over the continent. Europe adopted the white cockade. Trestaillon was celebrated. The device non pluribus impar reappeared on the stone rays representing a sun upon the front of the barracks on the Quai d'Orsay. Where there had been an Imperial Guard, there was now a red house. The Arc du Carrousel, all laden with badly borne victories, thrown out of its element among these novelties, a little ashamed, it may be, of Marengo and Arcola, extricated itself from its predicament with the statue of the Duc d'Angoulme. The cemetery of the Madeleine, a terrible pauper's grave in , was covered with jasper and marble, since the bones of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette lay in that dust. In the moat of Vincennes a sepulchral shaft sprang from the earth, recalling the fact that the Duc d'Enghien had perished in the very month when Napoleon was crowned. Pope Pius VII., who had performed the coronation very near this death, tranquilly bestowed his blessing on the fall as he had bestowed it on the elevation. At Schoenbrunn there was a little shadow, aged four, whom it was seditious to call the King of Rome. And these things took place, and the kings resumed their thrones, and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became the new regime, and all the shadows and all the light of the earth changed place, because, on the afternoon of a certain summer's day, a shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, 'Go this way, and not that! This  was a sort of lugubrious April. Ancient unhealthy and poisonous realities were covered with new appearances. A lie wedded  the right divine was masked under a charter fictions became constitutional prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations, with Article  in the heart, were varnished over with liberalism. It was the serpent's change of skin. Man had been rendered both greater and smaller by Napoleon. Under this reign of splendid matter, the ideal had received the strange name of ideology! It is a grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future into derision. The populace, however, that food for cannon which is so fond of the cannoneer, sought him with its glance. Where is he? What is he doing? 'Napoleon is dead, said a passerby to a veteran of Marengo and Waterloo. 'He dead! cried the soldier 'you don't know him. Imagination distrusted this man, even when overthrown. The depths of Europe were full of darkness after Waterloo. Something enormous remained long empty through Napoleon's disappearance. The kings placed themselves in this void. Ancient Europe profited by it to undertake reforms. There was a Holy Alliance BelleAlliance, Beautiful Alliance, the fatal field of Waterloo had said in advance. In presence and in face of that antique Europe reconstructed, the features of a new France were sketched out. The future, which the Emperor had rallied, made its entry. On its brow it bore the star, Liberty. The glowing eyes of all young generations were turned on it. Singular fact! people were, at one and the same time, in love with the future, Liberty, and the past, Napoleon. Defeat had rendered the vanquished greater. Bonaparte fallen seemed more lofty than Napoleon erect. Those who had triumphed were alarmed. England had him guarded by Hudson Lowe, and France had him watched by Montchenu. His folded arms became a source of uneasiness to thrones. Alexander called him 'my sleeplessness. This terror was the result of the quantity of revolution which was contained in him. That is what explains and excuses Bonapartist liberalism. This phantom caused the old world to tremble. The kings reigned, but ill at their ease, with the rock of Saint Helena on the horizon. While Napoleon was passing through the death struggle at Longwood, the sixty thousand men who had fallen on the field of Waterloo were quietly rotting, and something of their peace was shed abroad over the world. The Congress of Vienna made the treaties in , and Europe called this the Restoration. This is what Waterloo was. But what matters it to the Infinite? all that tempest, all that cloud, that war, then that peace? All that darkness did not trouble for a moment the light of that immense Eye before which a grub skipping from one blade of grass to another equals the eagle soaring from belfry to belfry on the towers of Notre Dame. Let us returnit is a necessity in this bookto that fatal battlefield. On the th of June the moon was full. Its light favored Blcher's ferocious pursuit, betrayed the traces of the fugitives, delivered up that disastrous mass to the eager Prussian cavalry, and aided the massacre. Such tragic favors of the night do occur sometimes during catastrophes. After the last cannonshot had been fired, the plain of MontSaintJean remained deserted. The English occupied the encampment of the French it is the usual sign of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished. They established their bivouac beyond Rossomme. The Prussians, let loose on the retreating rout, pushed forward. Wellington went to the village of Waterloo to draw up his report to Lord Bathurst. If ever the sic vos non vobis was applicable, it certainly is to that village of Waterloo. Waterloo took no part, and lay half a league from the scene of action. MontSaintJean was cannonaded, Hougomont was burned, La HaieSainte was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned, Plancenoit was burned, La BelleAlliance beheld the embrace of the two conquerors these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked not in the battle, bears off all the honor. We are not of the number of those who flatter war when the occasion presents itself, we tell the truth about it. War has frightful beauties which we have not concealed it has also, we acknowledge, some hideous features. One of the most surprising is the prompt stripping of the bodies of the dead after the victory. The dawn which follows a battle always rises on naked corpses. Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand is that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some philosophersVoltaire among the numberaffirm that it is precisely those persons who have made the glory. It is the same men, they say there is no relief corps those who are erect pillage those who are prone on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night. One has assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit when one is the author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so it seems to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and purloin the shoes from a dead man. One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow thieves. But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary soldier, out of the question. Every army has a rearguard, and it is that which must be blamed. Batlike creatures, half brigands and lackeys all the sorts of vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders wearers of uniforms, who take no part in the fighting pretended invalids formidable limpers interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which they sell again beggars offering themselves as guides to officers soldiers' servants marauders armies on the march in days gone by,we are not speaking of the present,dragged all this behind them, so that in the special language they are called 'stragglers. No army, no nation, was responsible for those beings they spoke Italian and followed the Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. It was by one of these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon, and taking him for one of our own men, was traitorously slain and robbed on the battlefield itself, in the course of the night which followed the victory of Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, Live on the enemy! produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive one does not always know why certain generals, great in other directions, have been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers because he tolerated pillage evil permitted constitutes part of goodness. Turenne was so good that he allowed the Palatinate to be delivered over to fire and blood. The marauders in the train of an army were more or less in number, according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and Marceau had no stragglers Wellington had few, and we do him the justice to mention it. Nevertheless, on the night from the th to the th of June, the dead were robbed. Wellington was rigid he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another. The moon was sinister over this plain. Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the direction of the hollow road of Ohain. To all appearance he was one of those whom we have just described,neither English nor French, neither peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul attracted by the scent of the dead bodies having theft for his victory, and come to rifle Waterloo. He was clad in a blouse that was something like a great coat he was uneasy and audacious he walked forwards and gazed behind him. Who was this man? The night probably knew more of him than the day. He had no sack, but evidently he had large pockets under his coat. From time to time he halted, scrutinized the plain around him as though to see whether he were observed, bent over abruptly, disturbed something silent and motionless on the ground, then rose and fled. His sliding motion, his attitudes, his mysterious and rapid gestures, caused him to resemble those twilight larv which haunt ruins, and which ancient Norman legends call the Alleurs. Certain nocturnal wading birds produce these silhouettes among the marshes. A glance capable of piercing all that mist deeply would have perceived at some distance a sort of little sutler's wagon with a fluted wicker hood, harnessed to a famished nag which was cropping the grass across its bit as it halted, hidden, as it were, behind the hovel which adjoins the highway to Nivelles, at the angle of the road from MontSaintJean to Braine l'Alleud and in the wagon, a sort of woman seated on coffers and packages. Perhaps there was some connection between that wagon and that prowler. The darkness was serene. Not a cloud in the zenith. What matters it if the earth be red! the moon remains white these are the indifferences of the sky. In the fields, branches of trees broken by grapeshot, but not fallen, upheld by their bark, swayed gently in the breeze of night. A breath, almost a respiration, moved the shrubbery. Quivers which resembled the departure of souls ran through the grass. In the distance the coming and going of patrols and the general rounds of the English camp were audible. Hougomont and La HaieSainte continued to burn, forming, one in the west, the other in the east, two great flames which were joined by the cordon of bivouac fires of the English, like a necklace of rubies with two carbuncles at the extremities, as they extended in an immense semicircle over the hills along the horizon. We have described the catastrophe of the road of Ohain. The heart is terrified at the thought of what that death must have been to so many brave men. If there is anything terrible, if there exists a reality which surpasses dreams, it is this to live, to see the sun to be in full possession of virile force to possess health and joy to laugh valiantly to rush towards a glory which one sees dazzling in front of one to feel in one's breast lungs which breathe, a heart which beats, a will which reasons to speak, think, hope, love to have a mother, to have a wife, to have children to have the lightand all at once, in the space of a shout, in less than a minute, to sink into an abyss to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed to see ears of wheat, flowers, leaves, branches not to be able to catch hold of anything to feel one's sword useless, men beneath one, horses on top of one to struggle in vain, since one's bones have been broken by some kick in the darkness to feel a heel which makes one's eyes start from their sockets to bite horses' shoes in one's rage to stifle, to yell, to writhe to be beneath, and to say to one's self, 'But just a little while ago I was a living man! There, where that lamentable disaster had uttered its deathrattle, all was silence now. The edges of the hollow road were encumbered with horses and riders, inextricably heaped up. Terrible entanglement! There was no longer any slope, for the corpses had levelled the road with the plain, and reached the brim like a wellfilled bushel of barley. A heap of dead bodies in the upper part, a river of blood in the lower partsuch was that road on the evening of the th of June, . The blood ran even to the Nivelles highway, and there overflowed in a large pool in front of the abatis of trees which barred the way, at a spot which is still pointed out. It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point, in the direction of the Genappe road, that the destruction of the cuirassiers had taken place. The thickness of the layer of bodies was proportioned to the depth of the hollow road. Towards the middle, at the point where it became level, where Delort's division had passed, the layer of corpses was thinner. The nocturnal prowler whom we have just shown to the reader was going in that direction. He was searching that vast tomb. He gazed about. He passed the dead in some sort of hideous review. He walked with his feet in the blood. All at once he paused. A few paces in front of him, in the hollow road, at the point where the pile of dead came to an end, an open hand, illumined by the moon, projected from beneath that heap of men. That hand had on its finger something sparkling, which was a ring of gold. The man bent over, remained in a crouching attitude for a moment, and when he rose there was no longer a ring on the hand. He did not precisely rise he remained in a stooping and frightened attitude, with his back turned to the heap of dead, scanning the horizon on his knees, with the whole upper portion of his body supported on his two forefingers, which rested on the earth, and his head peering above the edge of the hollow road. The jackal's four paws suit some actions. Then coming to a decision, he rose to his feet. At that moment, he gave a terrible start. He felt some one clutch him from behind. He wheeled round it was the open hand, which had closed, and had seized the skirt of his coat. An honest man would have been terrified this man burst into a laugh. 'Come, said he, 'it's only a dead body. I prefer a spook to a gendarme. But the hand weakened and released him. Effort is quickly exhausted in the grave. 'Well now, said the prowler, 'is that dead fellow alive? Let's see. He bent down again, fumbled among the heap, pushed aside everything that was in his way, seized the hand, grasped the arm, freed the head, pulled out the body, and a few moments later he was dragging the lifeless, or at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He was a cuirassier, an officer, and even an officer of considerable rank a large gold epaulette peeped from beneath the cuirass this officer no longer possessed a helmet. A furious swordcut had scarred his face, where nothing was discernible but blood. However, he did not appear to have any broken limbs, and, by some happy chance, if that word is permissible here, the dead had been vaulted above him in such a manner as to preserve him from being crushed. His eyes were still closed. On his cuirass he wore the silver cross of the Legion of Honor. The prowler tore off this cross, which disappeared into one of the gulfs which he had beneath his great coat. Then he felt of the officer's fob, discovered a watch there, and took possession of it. Next he searched his waistcoat, found a purse and pocketed it. When he had arrived at this stage of succor which he was administering to this dying man, the officer opened his eyes. 'Thanks, he said feebly. The abruptness of the movements of the man who was manipulating him, the freshness of the night, the air which he could inhale freely, had roused him from his lethargy. The prowler made no reply. He raised his head. A sound of footsteps was audible in the plain some patrol was probably approaching. The officer murmured, for the death agony was still in his voice 'Who won the battle? 'The English, answered the prowler. The officer went on 'Look in my pockets you will find a watch and a purse. Take them. It was already done. The prowler executed the required feint, and said 'There is nothing there. 'I have been robbed, said the officer 'I am sorry for that. You should have had them. The steps of the patrol became more and more distinct. 'Some one is coming, said the prowler, with the movement of a man who is taking his departure. The officer raised his arm feebly, and detained him. 'You have saved my life. Who are you? The prowler answered rapidly, and in a low voice 'Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If they were to catch me, they would shoot me. I have saved your life. Now get out of the scrape yourself. 'What is your rank? 'Sergeant. 'What is your name? 'Thnardier. 'I shall not forget that name, said the officer 'and do you remember mine. My name is Pontmercy. Jean Valjean had been recaptured. The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs published by the journals of that day, a few months after the surprising events which had taken place at M. sur M. These articles are rather summary. It must be remembered, that at that epoch the Gazette des Tribunaux was not yet in existence. We borrow the first from the Drapeau Blanc. It bears the date of July , . An arrondissement of the Pas de Calais has just been the theatre of an event quite out of the ordinary course. A man, who was a stranger in the Department, and who bore the name of M. Madeleine, had, thanks to the new methods, resuscitated some years ago an ancient local industry, the manufacture of jet and of black glass trinkets. He had made his fortune in the business, and that of the arrondissement as well, we will admit. He had been appointed mayor, in recognition of his services. The police discovered that M. Madeleine was no other than an exconvict who had broken his ban, condemned in  for theft, and named Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean has been recommitted to prison. It appears that previous to his arrest he had succeeded in withdrawing from the hands of M. Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he had lodged there, and which he had, moreover, and by perfectly legitimate means, acquired in his business. No one has been able to discover where Jean Valjean has concealed this money since his return to prison at Toulon. The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is an extract from the Journal de Paris, of the same date. A former convict, who had been liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Var, under circumstances calculated to attract attention. This wretch had succeeded in escaping the vigilance of the police, he had changed his name, and had succeeded in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small northern towns in this town he had established a considerable commerce. He has at last been unmasked and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is endowed with Herculean strength, found means to escape but three or four days after his flight the police laid their hands on him once more, in Paris itself, at the very moment when he was entering one of those little vehicles which run between the capital and the village of Montfermeil (SeineetOise). He is said to have profited by this interval of three or four days of liberty, to withdraw a considerable sum deposited by him with one of our leading bankers. This sum has been estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs. If the indictment is to be trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself alone, and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be, the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the Assizes of the Department of the Var as accused of highway robbery accompanied with violence, about eight years ago, on the person of one of those honest children who, as the patriarch of Ferney has said, in immortal verse, '. . . Arrive from Savoy every year, And who, with gentle hands, do clear Those long canals choked up with soot. This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and eloquent representative of the public prosecutor, that the theft was committed in complicity with others, and that Jean Valjean was a member of a band of robbers in the south. Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence. This criminal refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency, has deigned to commute his penalty to that of penal servitude for life. Jean Valjean was immediately taken to the prison at Toulon. The reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had religious habits at M. sur M. Some papers, among others the Constitutional, presented this commutation as a triumph of the priestly party. Jean Valjean changed his number in the galleys. He was called ,. However, and we will mention it at once in order that we may not be obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of M. sur M. vanished with M. Madeleine all that he had foreseen during his night of fever and hesitation was realized lacking him, there actually was a soul lacking. After this fall, there took place at M. sur M. that egotistical division of great existences which have fallen, that fatal dismemberment of flourishing things which is accomplished every day, obscurely, in the human community, and which history has noted only once, because it occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants are crowned kings superintendents improvise manufacturers out of themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine's vast workshops were shut his buildings fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of them quitted the country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth, everything was done on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale for lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre everywhere there was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had reigned over all and directed all. No sooner had he fallen, than each pulled things to himself the spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit of organization, bitterness to cordiality, hatred of one another to the benevolence of the founder towards all the threads which M. Madeleine had set were tangled and broken, the methods were adulterated, the products were debased, confidence was killed the market diminished, for lack of orders salaries were reduced, the workshops stood still, bankruptcy arrived. And then there was nothing more for the poor. All had vanished. The state itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere. Less than four years after the judgment of the Court of Assizes establishing the identity of Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine, for the benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in the arrondissement of M. sur M. and M. de Villle called attention to the fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, . Before proceeding further, it will be to the purpose to narrate in some detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch, in Montfermeil, and which is not lacking in coincidence with certain conjectures of the indictment. There exists in the region of Montfermeil a very ancient superstition, which is all the more curious and all the more precious, because a popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an aloe in Siberia. We are among those who respect everything which is in the nature of a rare plant. Here, then, is the superstition of Montfermeil it is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the forest as a hidingplace for his treasures. Goodwives affirm that it is no rarity to encounter at nightfall, in secluded nooks of the forest, a black man with the air of a carter or a woodchopper, wearing wooden shoes, clad in trousers and a blouse of linen, and recognizable by the fact, that, instead of a cap or hat, he has two immense horns on his head. This ought, in fact, to render him recognizable. This man is habitually engaged in digging a hole. There are three ways of profiting by such an encounter. The first is to approach the man and speak to him. Then it is seen that the man is simply a peasant, that he appears black because it is nightfall that he is not digging any hole whatever, but is cutting grass for his cows, and that what had been taken for horns is nothing but a dungfork which he is carrying on his back, and whose teeth, thanks to the perspective of evening, seemed to spring from his head. The man returns home and dies within the week. The second way is to watch him, to wait until he has dug his hole, until he has filled it and has gone away then to run with great speed to the trench, to open it once more and to seize the 'treasure which the black man has necessarily placed there. In this case one dies within the month. Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black man, not to look at him, and to flee at the best speed of one's legs. One then dies within the year. As all three methods are attended with their special inconveniences, the second, which at all events, presents some advantages, among others that of possessing a treasure, if only for a month, is the one most generally adopted. So bold men, who are tempted by every chance, have quite frequently, as we are assured, opened the holes excavated by the black man, and tried to rob the devil. The success of the operation appears to be but moderate. At least, if the tradition is to be believed, and in particular the two enigmatical lines in barbarous Latin, which an evil Norman monk, a bit of a sorcerer, named Tryphon has left on this subject. This Tryphon is buried at the Abbey of SaintGeorges de Bocherville, near Rouen, and toads spawn on his grave. Accordingly, enormous efforts are made. Such trenches are ordinarily extremely deep a man sweats, digs, toils all nightfor it must be done at night he wets his shirt, burns out his candle, breaks his mattock, and when he arrives at the bottom of the hole, when he lays his hand on the 'treasure, what does he find? What is the devil's treasure? A sou, sometimes a crownpiece, a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding body, sometimes a spectre folded in four like a sheet of paper in a portfolio, sometimes nothing. This is what Tryphon's verses seem to announce to the indiscreet and curious 'Fodit, et in fossa thesauros condit opaca, As, nummas, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque. It seems that in our day there is sometimes found a powderhorn with bullets, sometimes an old pack of cards greasy and worn, which has evidently served the devil. Tryphon does not record these two finds, since Tryphon lived in the twelfth century, and since the devil does not appear to have had the wit to invent powder before Roger Bacon's time, and cards before the time of Charles VI. Moreover, if one plays at cards, one is sure to lose all that one possesses! and as for the powder in the horn, it possesses the property of making your gun burst in your face. Now, a very short time after the epoch when it seemed to the prosecuting attorney that the liberated convict Jean Valjean during his flight of several days had been prowling around Montfermeil, it was remarked in that village that a certain old roadlaborer, named Boulatruelle, had 'peculiar ways in the forest. People thereabouts thought they knew that this Boulatruelle had been in the galleys. He was subjected to certain police supervision, and, as he could find work nowhere, the administration employed him at reduced rates as a roadmender on the crossroad from Gagny to Lagny. This Boulatruelle was a man who was viewed with disfavor by the inhabitants of the district as too respectful, too humble, too prompt in removing his cap to every one, and trembling and smiling in the presence of the gendarmes,probably affiliated to robber bands, they said suspected of lying in ambush at verge of copses at nightfall. The only thing in his favor was that he was a drunkard. This is what people thought they had noticed Of late, Boulatruelle had taken to quitting his task of stonebreaking and care of the road at a very early hour, and to betaking himself to the forest with his pickaxe. He was encountered towards evening in the most deserted clearings, in the wildest thickets and he had the appearance of being in search of something, and sometimes he was digging holes. The goodwives who passed took him at first for Beelzebub then they recognized Boulatruelle, and were not in the least reassured thereby. These encounters seemed to cause Boulatruelle a lively displeasure. It was evident that he sought to hide, and that there was some mystery in what he was doing. It was said in the village 'It is clear that the devil has appeared. Boulatruelle has seen him, and is on the search. In sooth, he is cunning enough to pocket Lucifer's hoard. The Voltairians added, 'Will Boulatruelle catch the devil, or will the devil catch Boulatruelle? The old women made a great many signs of the cross. In the meantime, Boulatruelle's manuvres in the forest ceased and he resumed his regular occupation of roadmending and people gossiped of something else. Some persons, however, were still curious, surmising that in all this there was probably no fabulous treasure of the legends, but some fine windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil's bankbills, and that the roadmender had half discovered the secret. The most 'puzzled were the schoolmaster and Thnardier, the proprietor of the tavern, who was everybody's friend, and had not disdained to ally himself with Boulatruelle. 'He has been in the galleys, said Thnardier. 'Eh! Good God! no one knows who has been there or will be there. One evening the schoolmaster affirmed that in former times the law would have instituted an inquiry as to what Boulatruelle did in the forest, and that the latter would have been forced to speak, and that he would have been put to the torture in case of need, and that Boulatruelle would not have resisted the water test, for example. 'Let us put him to the wine test, said Thnardier. They made an effort, and got the old roadmender to drinking. Boulatruelle drank an enormous amount, but said very little. He combined with admirable art, and in masterly proportions, the thirst of a gormandizer with the discretion of a judge. Nevertheless, by dint of returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few obscure words which he did allow to escape him, this is what Thnardier and the schoolmaster imagined that they had made out One morning, when Boulatruelle was on his way to his work, at daybreak, he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the underbrush, a shovel and a pickaxe, concealed, as one might say. However, he might have supposed that they were probably the shovel and pick of Father SixFours, the watercarrier, and would have thought no more about it. But, on the evening of that day, he saw, without being seen himself, as he was hidden by a large tree, 'a person who did not belong in those parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew well, directing his steps towards the densest part of the wood. Translation by Thnardier A comrade of the galleys. Boulatruelle obstinately refused to reveal his name. This person carried a packagesomething square, like a large box or a small trunk. Surprise on the part of Boulatruelle. However, it was only after the expiration of seven or eight minutes that the idea of following that 'person had occurred to him. But it was too late the person was already in the thicket, night had descended, and Boulatruelle had not been able to catch up with him. Then he had adopted the course of watching for him at the edge of the woods. 'It was moonlight. Two or three hours later, Boulatruelle had seen this person emerge from the brushwood, carrying no longer the coffer, but a shovel and pick. Boulatruelle had allowed the person to pass, and had not dreamed of accosting him, because he said to himself that the other man was three times as strong as he was, and armed with a pickaxe, and that he would probably knock him over the head on recognizing him, and on perceiving that he was recognized. Touching effusion of two old comrades on meeting again. But the shovel and pick had served as a ray of light to Boulatruelle he had hastened to the thicket in the morning, and had found neither shovel nor pick. From this he had drawn the inference that this person, once in the forest, had dug a hole with his pick, buried the coffer, and reclosed the hole with his shovel. Now, the coffer was too small to contain a body therefore it contained money. Hence his researches. Boulatruelle had explored, sounded, searched the entire forest and the thicket, and had dug wherever the earth appeared to him to have been recently turned up. In vain. He had 'ferreted out nothing. No one in Montfermeil thought any more about it. There were only a few brave gossips, who said, 'You may be certain that the mender on the Gagny road did not take all that trouble for nothing he was sure that the devil had come. Towards the end of October, in that same year, , the inhabitants of Toulon beheld the entry into their port, after heavy weather, and for the purpose of repairing some damages, of the ship Orion, which was employed later at Brest as a schoolship, and which then formed a part of the Mediterranean squadron. This vessel, battered as it was,for the sea had handled it roughly,produced a fine effect as it entered the roads. It flew some colors which procured for it the regulation salute of eleven guns, which it returned, shot for shot total, twentytwo. It has been calculated that what with salvos, royal and military politenesses, courteous exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of four and twenty hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots. At six francs the shot, that comes to nine hundred thousand francs a day, three hundred millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere detail. All this time the poor were dying of hunger. The year  was what the Restoration called 'the epoch of the Spanish war. This war contained many events in one, and a quantity of peculiarities. A grand family affair for the house of Bourbon the branch of France succoring and protecting the branch of Madrid, that is to say, performing an act devolving on the elder an apparent return to our national traditions, complicated by servitude and by subjection to the cabinets of the North M. le Duc d'Angoulme, surnamed by the liberal sheets the hero of Andujar, compressing in a triumphal attitude that was somewhat contradicted by his peaceable air, the ancient and very powerful terrorism of the Holy Office at variance with the chimerical terrorism of the liberals the sansculottes resuscitated, to the great terror of dowagers, under the name of descamisados monarchy opposing an obstacle to progress described as anarchy the theories of ' roughly interrupted in the sap a European halt, called to the French idea, which was making the tour of the world beside the son of France as generalissimo, the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles Albert, enrolling himself in that crusade of kings against people as a volunteer, with grenadier epaulets of red worsted the soldiers of the Empire setting out on a fresh campaign, but aged, saddened, after eight years of repose, and under the white cockade the tricolored standard waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard had been thirty years earlier at Coblentz monks mingled with our troops the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by bayonets principles slaughtered by cannonades France undoing by her arms that which she had done by her mind in addition to this, hostile leaders sold, soldiers hesitating, cities besieged by millions no military perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is surprised and invaded but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame for some, glory for no one. Such was this war, made by the princes descended from Louis XIV., and conducted by generals who had been under Napoleon. Its sad fate was to recall neither the grand war nor grand politics. Some feats of arms were serious the taking of the Trocadro, among others, was a fine military action but after all, we repeat, the trumpets of this war give back a cracked sound, the whole effect was suspicious history approves of France for making a difficulty about accepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanish officers charged with resistance yielded too easily the idea of corruption was connected with the victory it appears as though generals and not battles had been won, and the conquering soldier returned humiliated. A debasing war, in short, in which the Bank of France could be read in the folds of the flag. Soldiers of the war of , on whom Saragossa had fallen in formidable ruin, frowned in  at the easy surrender of citadels, and began to regret Palafox. It is the nature of France to prefer to have Rostopchine rather than Ballesteros in front of her. From a still more serious point of view, and one which it is also proper to insist upon here, this war, which wounded the military spirit of France, enraged the democratic spirit. It was an enterprise of enthralment. In that campaign, the object of the French soldier, the son of democracy, was the conquest of a yoke for others. A hideous contradiction. France is made to arouse the soul of nations, not to stifle it. All the revolutions of Europe since  are the French Revolution liberty darts rays from France. That is a solar fact. Blind is he who will not see! It was Bonaparte who said it. The war of , an outrage on the generous Spanish nation, was then, at the same time, an outrage on the French Revolution. It was France who committed this monstrous violence by foul means, for, with the exception of wars of liberation, everything that armies do is by foul means. The words passive obedience indicate this. An army is a strange masterpiece of combination where force results from an enormous sum of impotence. Thus is war, made by humanity against humanity, despite humanity, explained. As for the Bourbons, the war of  was fatal to them. They took it for a success. They did not perceive the danger that lies in having an idea slain to order. They went astray, in their innocence, to such a degree that they introduced the immense enfeeblement of a crime into their establishment as an element of strength. The spirit of the ambush entered into their politics.  had its germ in . The Spanish campaign became in their counsels an argument for force and for adventures by right Divine. France, having reestablished el rey netto in Spain, might well have reestablished the absolute king at home. They fell into the alarming error of taking the obedience of the soldier for the consent of the nation. Such confidence is the ruin of thrones. It is not permitted to fall asleep, either in the shadow of a machineel tree, nor in the shadow of an army. Let us return to the ship Orion. During the operations of the army commanded by the prince generalissimo, a squadron had been cruising in the Mediterranean. We have just stated that the Orion belonged to this fleet, and that accidents of the sea had brought it into port at Toulon. The presence of a vessel of war in a port has something about it which attracts and engages a crowd. It is because it is great, and the crowd loves what is great. A ship of the line is one of the most magnificent combinations of the genius of man with the powers of nature. A ship of the line is composed, at the same time, of the heaviest and the lightest of possible matter, for it deals at one and the same time with three forms of substance,solid, liquid, and fluid,and it must do battle with all three. It has eleven claws of iron with which to seize the granite on the bottom of the sea, and more wings and more antenn than winged insects, to catch the wind in the clouds. Its breath pours out through its hundred and twenty cannons as through enormous trumpets, and replies proudly to the thunder. The ocean seeks to lead it astray in the alarming sameness of its billows, but the vessel has its soul, its compass, which counsels it and always shows it the north. In the blackest nights, its lanterns supply the place of the stars. Thus, against the wind, it has its cordage and its canvas against the water, wood against the rocks, its iron, brass, and lead against the shadows, its light against immensity, a needle. If one wishes to form an idea of all those gigantic proportions which, taken as a whole, constitute the ship of the line, one has only to enter one of the sixstory covered construction stocks, in the ports of Brest or Toulon. The vessels in process of construction are under a bellglass there, as it were. This colossal beam is a yard that great column of wood which stretches out on the earth as far as the eye can reach is the mainmast. Taking it from its root in the stocks to its tip in the clouds, it is sixty fathoms long, and its diameter at its base is three feet. The English mainmast rises to a height of two hundred and seventeen feet above the waterline. The navy of our fathers employed cables, ours employs chains. The simple pile of chains on a ship of a hundred guns is four feet high, twenty feet in breadth, and eight feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this ship? Three thousand cubic metres. It is a floating forest. And moreover, let this be borne in mind, it is only a question here of the military vessel of forty years ago, of the simple sailingvessel steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to that prodigy which is called a war vessel. At the present time, for example, the mixed vessel with a screw is a surprising machine, propelled by three thousand square metres of canvas and by an engine of two thousand five hundred horsepower. Not to mention these new marvels, the ancient vessel of Christopher Columbus and of De Ruyter is one of the masterpieces of man. It is as inexhaustible in force as is the Infinite in gales it stores up the wind in its sails, it is precise in the immense vagueness of the billows, it floats, and it reigns. There comes an hour, nevertheless, when the gale breaks that sixtyfoot yard like a straw, when the wind bends that mast four hundred feet tall, when that anchor, which weighs tens of thousands, is twisted in the jaws of the waves like a fisherman's hook in the jaws of a pike, when those monstrous cannons utter plaintive and futile roars, which the hurricane bears forth into the void and into night, when all that power and all that majesty are engulfed in a power and majesty which are superior. Every time that immense force is displayed to culminate in an immense feebleness it affords men food for thought. Hence in the ports curious people abound around these marvellous machines of war and of navigation, without being able to explain perfectly to themselves why. Every day, accordingly, from morning until night, the quays, sluices, and the jetties of the port of Toulon were covered with a multitude of idlers and loungers, as they say in Paris, whose business consisted in staring at the Orion. The Orion was a ship that had been ailing for a long time in the course of its previous cruises thick layers of barnacles had collected on its keel to such a degree as to deprive it of half its speed it had gone into the dry dock the year before this, in order to have the barnacles scraped off, then it had put to sea again but this cleaning had affected the bolts of the keel in the neighborhood of the Balearic Isles the sides had been strained and had opened and, as the plating in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. A violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in a grating and a porthole on the larboard side, and damaged the foretopgallantshrouds in consequence of these injuries, the Orion had run back to Toulon. It anchored near the Arsenal it was fully equipped, and repairs were begun. The hull had received no damage on the starboard, but some of the planks had been unnailed here and there, according to custom, to permit of air entering the hold. One morning the crowd which was gazing at it witnessed an accident. The crew was busy bending the sails the topman, who had to take the upper corner of the maintopsail on the starboard, lost his balance he was seen to waver the multitude thronging the Arsenal quay uttered a cry the man's head overbalanced his body the man fell around the yard, with his hands outstretched towards the abyss on his way he seized the footrope, first with one hand, then with the other, and remained hanging from it the sea lay below him at a dizzy depth the shock of his fall had imparted to the footrope a violent swinging motion the man swayed back and forth at the end of that rope, like a stone in a sling. It was incurring a frightful risk to go to his assistance not one of the sailors, all fishermen of the coast, recently levied for the service, dared to attempt it. In the meantime, the unfortunate topman was losing his strength his anguish could not be discerned on his face, but his exhaustion was visible in every limb his arms were contracted in horrible twitchings every effort which he made to reascend served but to augment the oscillations of the footrope he did not shout, for fear of exhausting his strength. All were awaiting the minute when he should release his hold on the rope, and, from instant to instant, heads were turned aside that his fall might not be seen. There are moments when a bit of rope, a pole, the branch of a tree, is life itself, and it is a terrible thing to see a living being detach himself from it and fall like a ripe fruit. All at once a man was seen climbing into the rigging with the agility of a tigercat this man was dressed in red he was a convict he wore a green cap he was a life convict. On arriving on a level with the top, a gust of wind carried away his cap, and allowed a perfectly white head to be seen he was not a young man. A convict employed on board with a detachment from the galleys had, in fact, at the very first instant, hastened to the officer of the watch, and, in the midst of the consternation and the hesitation of the crew, while all the sailors were trembling and drawing back, he had asked the officer's permission to risk his life to save the topman at an affirmative sign from the officer he had broken the chain riveted to his ankle with one blow of a hammer, then he had caught up a rope, and had dashed into the rigging no one noticed, at the instant, with what ease that chain had been broken it was only later on that the incident was recalled. In a twinkling he was on the yard he paused for a few seconds and appeared to be measuring it with his eye these seconds, during which the breeze swayed the topman at the extremity of a thread, seemed centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his eyes to heaven and advanced a step the crowd drew a long breath. He was seen to run out along the yard on arriving at the point, he fastened the rope which he had brought to it, and allowed the other end to hang down, then he began to descend the rope, hand over hand, and then,and the anguish was indescribable,instead of one man suspended over the gulf, there were two. One would have said it was a spider coming to seize a fly, only here the spider brought life, not death. Ten thousand glances were fastened on this group not a cry, not a word the same tremor contracted every brow all mouths held their breath as though they feared to add the slightest puff to the wind which was swaying the two unfortunate men. In the meantime, the convict had succeeded in lowering himself to a position near the sailor. It was high time one minute more, and the exhausted and despairing man would have allowed himself to fall into the abyss. The convict had moored him securely with the cord to which he clung with one hand, while he was working with the other. At last, he was seen to climb back on the yard, and to drag the sailor up after him he held him there a moment to allow him to recover his strength, then he grasped him in his arms and carried him, walking on the yard himself to the cap, and from there to the maintop, where he left him in the hands of his comrades. At that moment the crowd broke into applause old convictsergeants among them wept, and women embraced each other on the quay, and all voices were heard to cry with a sort of tender rage, 'Pardon for that man! He, in the meantime, had immediately begun to make his descent to rejoin his detachment. In order to reach them the more speedily, he dropped into the rigging, and ran along one of the lower yards all eyes were following him. At a certain moment fear assailed them whether it was that he was fatigued, or that his head turned, they thought they saw him hesitate and stagger. All at once the crowd uttered a loud shout the convict had fallen into the sea. The fall was perilous. The frigate Algsiras was anchored alongside the Orion, and the poor convict had fallen between the two vessels it was to be feared that he would slip under one or the other of them. Four men flung themselves hastily into a boat the crowd cheered them on anxiety again took possession of all souls the man had not risen to the surface he had disappeared in the sea without leaving a ripple, as though he had fallen into a cask of oil they sounded, they dived. In vain. The search was continued until the evening they did not even find the body. On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed these lines 'Nov. , . Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on board of the Orion, on his return from rendering assistance to a sailor, fell into the sea and was drowned. The body has not yet been found it is supposed that it is entangled among the piles of the Arsenal point this man was committed under the number ,, and his name was Jean Valjean. Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge of that lofty tableland which separates the Ourcq from the Marne. At the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented all the year through with plaster villas, and on Sundays with beaming bourgeois. In  there were at Montfermeil neither so many white houses nor so many wellsatisfied citizens it was only a village in the forest. Some pleasurehouses of the last century were to be met with there, to be sure, which were recognizable by their grand air, their balconies in twisted iron, and their long windows, whose tiny panes cast all sorts of varying shades of green on the white of the closed shutters but Montfermeil was nonetheless a village. Retired clothmerchants and rusticating attorneys had not discovered it as yet it was a peaceful and charming place, which was not on the road to anywhere there people lived, and cheaply, that peasant rustic life which is so bounteous and so easy only, water was rare there, on account of the elevation of the plateau. It was necessary to fetch it from a considerable distance the end of the village towards Gagny drew its water from the magnificent ponds which exist in the woods there. The other end, which surrounds the church and which lies in the direction of Chelles, found drinkingwater only at a little spring halfway down the slope, near the road to Chelles, about a quarter of an hour from Montfermeil. Thus each household found it hard work to keep supplied with water. The large houses, the aristocracy, of which the Thnardier tavern formed a part, paid half a farthing a bucketful to a man who made a business of it, and who earned about eight sous a day in his enterprise of supplying Montfermeil with water but this good man only worked until seven o'clock in the evening in summer, and five in winter and night once come and the shutters on the ground floor once closed, he who had no water to drink went to fetch it for himself or did without it. This constituted the terror of the poor creature whom the reader has probably not forgotten,little Cosette. It will be remembered that Cosette was useful to the Thnardiers in two ways they made the mother pay them, and they made the child serve them. So when the mother ceased to pay altogether, the reason for which we have read in preceding chapters, the Thnardiers kept Cosette. She took the place of a servant in their house. In this capacity she it was who ran to fetch water when it was required. So the child, who was greatly terrified at the idea of going to the spring at night, took great care that water should never be lacking in the house. Christmas of the year  was particularly brilliant at Montfermeil. The beginning of the winter had been mild there had been neither snow nor frost up to that time. Some mountebanks from Paris had obtained permission of the mayor to erect their booths in the principal street of the village, and a band of itinerant merchants, under protection of the same tolerance, had constructed their stalls on the Church Square, and even extended them into Boulanger Alley, where, as the reader will perhaps remember, the Thnardiers' hostelry was situated. These people filled the inns and drinkingshops, and communicated to that tranquil little district a noisy and joyous life. In order to play the part of a faithful historian, we ought even to add that, among the curiosities displayed in the square, there was a menagerie, in which frightful clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to the peasants of Montfermeil in  one of those horrible Brazilian vultures, such as our Royal Museum did not possess until , and which have a tricolored cockade for an eye. I believe that naturalists call this bird Caracara Polyborus it belongs to the order of the Apicides, and to the family of the vultures. Some good old Bonapartist soldiers, who had retired to the village, went to see this creature with great devotion. The mountebanks gave out that the tricolored cockade was a unique phenomenon made by God expressly for their menagerie. On Christmas eve itself, a number of men, carters, and peddlers, were seated at table, drinking and smoking around four or five candles in the public room of Thnardier's hostelry. This room resembled all drinkingshop rooms,tables, pewter jugs, bottles, drinkers, smokers but little light and a great deal of noise. The date of the year  was indicated, nevertheless, by two objects which were then fashionable in the bourgeois class to wit, a kaleidoscope and a lamp of ribbed tin. The female Thnardier was attending to the supper, which was roasting in front of a clear fire her husband was drinking with his customers and talking politics. Besides political conversations which had for their principal subjects the Spanish war and M. le Duc d'Angoulme, strictly local parentheses, like the following, were audible amid the uproar 'About Nanterre and Suresnes the vines have flourished greatly. When ten pieces were reckoned on there have been twelve. They have yielded a great deal of juice under the press. 'But the grapes cannot be ripe? 'In those parts the grapes should not be ripe the wine turns oily as soon as spring comes. 'Then it is very thin wine? 'There are wines poorer even than these. The grapes must be gathered while green. Etc. Or a miller would call out 'Are we responsible for what is in the sacks? We find in them a quantity of small seed which we cannot sift out, and which we are obliged to send through the millstones there are tares, fennel, vetches, hempseed, foxtail, and a host of other weeds, not to mention pebbles, which abound in certain wheat, especially in Breton wheat. I am not fond of grinding Breton wheat, any more than longsawyers like to saw beams with nails in them. You can judge of the bad dust that makes in grinding. And then people complain of the flour. They are in the wrong. The flour is no fault of ours. In a space between two windows a mower, who was seated at table with a landed proprietor who was fixing on a price for some meadow work to be performed in the spring, was saying 'It does no harm to have the grass wet. It cuts better. Dew is a good thing, sir. It makes no difference with that grass. Your grass is young and very hard to cut still. It's terribly tender. It yields before the iron. Etc. Cosette was in her usual place, seated on the crossbar of the kitchen table near the chimney. She was in rags her bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was engaged in knitting woollen stockings destined for the young Thnardiers. A very young kitten was playing about among the chairs. Laughter and chatter were audible in the adjoining room, from two fresh children's voices it was ponine and Azelma. In the chimneycorner a cato'ninetails was hanging on a nail. At intervals the cry of a very young child, which was somewhere in the house, rang through the noise of the dramshop. It was a little boy who had been born to the Thnardiers during one of the preceding winters,'she did not know why, she said, 'the result of the cold,and who was a little more than three years old. The mother had nursed him, but she did not love him. When the persistent clamor of the brat became too annoying, 'Your son is squalling, Thnardier would say 'do go and see what he wants. 'Bah! the mother would reply, 'he bothers me. And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark. So far in this book the Thnardiers have been viewed only in profile the moment has arrived for making the circuit of this couple, and considering it under all its aspects. Thnardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday Madame Thnardier was approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman so that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife. Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thnardier woman, ever since her first appearance,tall, blond, red, fat, angular, square, enormous, and agile she belonged, as we have said, to the race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves at fairs with pavingstones hanging from their hair. She did everything about the house,made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and everything else. Cosette was her only servant a mouse in the service of an elephant. Everything trembled at the sound of her voice,window panes, furniture, and people. Her big face, dotted with red blotches, presented the appearance of a skimmer. She had a beard. She was an ideal marketporter dressed in woman's clothes. She swore splendidly she boasted of being able to crack a nut with one blow of her fist. Except for the romances which she had read, and which made the affected lady peep through the ogress at times, in a very queer way, the idea would never have occurred to any one to say of her, 'That is a woman. This Thnardier female was like the product of a wench engrafted on a fishwife. When one heard her speak, one said, 'That is a gendarme when one saw her drink, one said, 'That is a carter when one saw her handle Cosette, one said, 'That is the hangman. One of her teeth projected when her face was in repose. Thnardier was a small, thin, pale, angular, bony, feeble man, who had a sickly air and who was wonderfully healthy. His cunning began here he smiled habitually, by way of precaution, and was almost polite to everybody, even to the beggar to whom he refused half a farthing. He had the glance of a polecat and the bearing of a man of letters. He greatly resembled the portraits of the Abb Delille. His coquetry consisted in drinking with the carters. No one had ever succeeded in rendering him drunk. He smoked a big pipe. He wore a blouse, and under his blouse an old black coat. He made pretensions to literature and to materialism. There were certain names which he often pronounced to support whatever things he might be saying,Voltaire, Raynal, Parny, and, singularly enough, Saint Augustine. He declared that he had 'a system. In addition, he was a great swindler. A filousophe philosophe, a scientific thief. The species does exist. It will be remembered that he pretended to have served in the army he was in the habit of relating with exuberance, how, being a sergeant in the th or the th light something or other, at Waterloo, he had alone, and in the presence of a squadron of deathdealing hussars, covered with his body and saved from death, in the midst of the grapeshot, 'a general, who had been dangerously wounded. Thence arose for his wall the flaring sign, and for his inn the name which it bore in the neighborhood, of 'the cabaret of the Sergeant of Waterloo. He was a liberal, a classic, and a Bonapartist. He had subscribed for the Champ d'Asile. It was said in the village that he had studied for the priesthood. We believe that he had simply studied in Holland for an innkeeper. This rascal of composite order was, in all probability, some Fleming from Lille, in Flanders, a Frenchman in Paris, a Belgian at Brussels, being comfortably astride of both frontiers. As for his prowess at Waterloo, the reader is already acquainted with that. It will be perceived that he exaggerated it a trifle. Ebb and flow, wandering, adventure, was the leven of his existence a tattered conscience entails a fragmentary life, and, apparently at the stormy epoch of June , , Thnardier belonged to that variety of marauding sutlers of which we have spoken, beating about the country, selling to some, stealing from others, and travelling like a family man, with wife and children, in a rickety cart, in the rear of troops on the march, with an instinct for always attaching himself to the victorious army. This campaign ended, and having, as he said, 'some quibus, he had come to Montfermeil and set up an inn there. This quibus, composed of purses and watches, of gold rings and silver crosses, gathered in harvesttime in furrows sown with corpses, did not amount to a large total, and did not carry this sutler turned eatinghousekeeper very far. Thnardier had that peculiar rectilinear something about his gestures which, accompanied by an oath, recalls the barracks, and by a sign of the cross, the seminary. He was a fine talker. He allowed it to be thought that he was an educated man. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster had noticed that he pronounced improperly. He composed the travellers' tariff card in a superior manner, but practised eyes sometimes spied out orthographical errors in it. Thnardier was cunning, greedy, slothful, and clever. He did not disdain his servants, which caused his wife to dispense with them. This giantess was jealous. It seemed to her that that thin and yellow little man must be an object coveted by all. Thnardier, who was, above all, an astute and wellbalanced man, was a scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species hypocrisy enters into it. It is not that Thnardier was not, on occasion, capable of wrath to quite the same degree as his wife but this was very rare, and at such times, since he was enraged with the human race in general, as he bore within him a deep furnace of hatred. And since he was one of those people who are continually avenging their wrongs, who accuse everything that passes before them of everything which has befallen them, and who are always ready to cast upon the first person who comes to hand, as a legitimate grievance, the sum total of the deceptions, the bankruptcies, and the calamities of their lives,when all this leaven was stirred up in him and boiled forth from his mouth and eyes, he was terrible. Woe to the person who came under his wrath at such a time! In addition to his other qualities, Thnardier was attentive and penetrating, silent or talkative, according to circumstances, and always highly intelligent. He had something of the look of sailors, who are accustomed to screw up their eyes to gaze through marine glasses. Thnardier was a statesman. Every newcomer who entered the tavern said, on catching sight of Madame Thnardier, 'There is the master of the house. A mistake. She was not even the mistress. The husband was both master and mistress. She worked he created. He directed everything by a sort of invisible and constant magnetic action. A word was sufficient for him, sometimes a sign the mastodon obeyed. Thnardier was a sort of special and sovereign being in Madame Thnardier's eyes, though she did not thoroughly realize it. She was possessed of virtues after her own kind if she had ever had a disagreement as to any detail with 'Monsieur Thnardier,which was an inadmissible hypothesis, by the way,she would not have blamed her husband in public on any subject whatever. She would never have committed 'before strangers that mistake so often committed by women, and which is called in parliamentary language, 'exposing the crown. Although their concord had only evil as its result, there was contemplation in Madame Thnardier's submission to her husband. That mountain of noise and of flesh moved under the little finger of that frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side, this was that grand and universal thing, the adoration of mind by matter for certain ugly features have a cause in the very depths of eternal beauty. There was an unknown quantity about Thnardier hence the absolute empire of the man over that woman. At certain moments she beheld him like a lighted candle at others she felt him like a claw. This woman was a formidable creature who loved no one except her children, and who did not fear any one except her husband. She was a mother because she was mammiferous. But her maternity stopped short with her daughters, and, as we shall see, did not extend to boys. The man had but one thought,how to enrich himself. He did not succeed in this. A theatre worthy of this great talent was lacking. Thnardier was ruining himself at Montfermeil, if ruin is possible to zero in Switzerland or in the Pyrenees this penniless scamp would have become a millionaire but an innkeeper must browse where fate has hitched him. It will be understood that the word innkeeper is here employed in a restricted sense, and does not extend to an entire class. In this same year, , Thnardier was burdened with about fifteen hundred francs' worth of petty debts, and this rendered him anxious. Whatever may have been the obstinate injustice of destiny in this case, Thnardier was one of those men who understand best, with the most profundity and in the most modern fashion, that thing which is a virtue among barbarous peoples and an object of merchandise among civilized peoples,hospitality. Besides, he was an admirable poacher, and quoted for his skill in shooting. He had a certain cold and tranquil laugh, which was particularly dangerous. His theories as a landlord sometimes burst forth in lightning flashes. He had professional aphorisms, which he inserted into his wife's mind. 'The duty of the innkeeper, he said to her one day, violently, and in a low voice, 'is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile to stop passersby, to empty small purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones to shelter travelling families respectfully to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the child clean to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimneycorner, the armchair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the featherbed, the mattress and the truss of straw to know how much the shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it and, by five hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dog eats! This man and this woman were ruse and rage weddeda hideous and terrible team. While the husband pondered and combined, Madame Thnardier thought not of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of tomorrow, and lived in a fit of anger, all in a minute. Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them, subjected to their double pressure, like a creature who is at the same time being ground up in a mill and pulled to pieces with pincers. The man and the woman each had a different method Cosette was overwhelmed with blowsthis was the woman's she went barefooted in winterthat was the man's doing. Cosette ran upstairs and down, washed, swept, rubbed, dusted, ran, fluttered about, panted, moved heavy articles, and weak as she was, did the coarse work. There was no mercy for her a fierce mistress and venomous master. The Thnardier hostelry was like a spider's web, in which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. The ideal of oppression was realized by this sinister household. It was something like the fly serving the spiders. The poor child passively held her peace. What takes place within these souls when they have but just quitted God, find themselves thus, at the very dawn of life, very small and in the midst of men all naked! Four new travellers had arrived. Cosette was meditating sadly for, although she was only eight years old, she had already suffered so much that she reflected with the lugubrious air of an old woman. Her eye was black in consequence of a blow from Madame Thnardier's fist, which caused the latter to remark from time to time, 'How ugly she is with her fistblow on her eye! Cosette was thinking that it was dark, very dark, that the pitchers and caraffes in the chambers of the travellers who had arrived must have been filled and that there was no more water in the cistern. She was somewhat reassured because no one in the Thnardier establishment drank much water. Thirsty people were never lacking there but their thirst was of the sort which applies to the jug rather than to the pitcher. Any one who had asked for a glass of water among all those glasses of wine would have appeared a savage to all these men. But there came a moment when the child trembled Madame Thnardier raised the cover of a stewpan which was boiling on the stove, then seized a glass and briskly approached the cistern. She turned the faucet the child had raised her head and was following all the woman's movements. A thin stream of water trickled from the faucet, and half filled the glass. 'Well, said she, 'there is no more water! A momentary silence ensued. The child did not breathe. 'Bah! resumed Madame Thnardier, examining the halffilled glass, 'this will be enough. Cosette applied herself to her work once more, but for a quarter of an hour she felt her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snowflake. She counted the minutes that passed in this manner, and wished it were the next morning. From time to time one of the drinkers looked into the street, and exclaimed, 'It's as black as an oven! or, 'One must needs be a cat to go about the streets without a lantern at this hour! And Cosette trembled. All at once one of the pedlers who lodged in the hostelry entered, and said in a harsh voice 'My horse has not been watered. 'Yes, it has, said Madame Thnardier. 'I tell you that it has not, retorted the pedler. Cosette had emerged from under the table. 'Oh, yes, sir! said she, 'the horse has had a drink he drank out of a bucket, a whole bucketful, and it was I who took the water to him, and I spoke to him. It was not true Cosette lied. 'There's a brat as big as my fist who tells lies as big as the house, exclaimed the pedler. 'I tell you that he has not been watered, you little jade! He has a way of blowing when he has had no water, which I know well. Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse with anguish, and which was hardly audible 'And he drank heartily. 'Come, said the pedler, in a rage, 'this won't do at all, let my horse be watered, and let that be the end of it! Cosette crept under the table again. 'In truth, that is fair! said Madame Thnardier, 'if the beast has not been watered, it must be. Then glancing about her 'Well, now! Where's that other beast? She bent down and discovered Cosette cowering at the other end of the table, almost under the drinkers' feet. 'Are you coming? shrieked Madame Thnardier. Cosette crawled out of the sort of hole in which she had hidden herself. The Thnardier resumed 'Mademoiselle Doglackname, go and water that horse. 'But, Madame, said Cosette, feebly, 'there is no water. The Thnardier threw the street door wide open 'Well, go and get some, then! Cosette dropped her head, and went for an empty bucket which stood near the chimneycorner. This bucket was bigger than she was, and the child could have set down in it at her ease. The Thnardier returned to her stove, and tasted what was in the stewpan, with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while 'There's plenty in the spring. There never was such a malicious creature as that. I think I should have done better to strain my onions. Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained sous, pepper, and shallots. 'See here, Mam'selle Toad, she added, 'on your way back, you will get a big loaf from the baker. Here's a fifteensou piece. Cosette had a little pocket on one side of her apron she took the coin without saying a word, and put it in that pocket. Then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue. 'Get along with you! screamed the Thnardier. Cosette went out. The door closed behind her. The line of openair booths starting at the church, extended, as the reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thnardiers. These booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon pass on their way to the midnight mass, with candles burning in paper funnels, which, as the schoolmaster, then seated at the table at the Thnardiers' observed, produced 'a magical effect. In compensation, not a star was visible in the sky. The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the Thnardiers' door, was a toyshop all glittering with tinsel, glass, and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll, nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold wheatears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All that day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passersby under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to her child. ponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is true. At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to that wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it. The poor child paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The whole shop seemed a palace to her the doll was not a doll it was a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a 'thing like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, 'How happy that doll must be! She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She thought she was gazing at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant, who was pacing back and forth in front of his shop, produced on her somewhat the effect of being the Eternal Father. In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she was charged. All at once the Thnardier's coarse voice recalled her to reality 'What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Wait! I'll give it to you! I want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster! The Thnardier had cast a glance into the street, and had caught sight of Cosette in her ecstasy. Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which she was capable. As the Thnardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water. She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long as she was in Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of the church, the lighted stalls illuminated the road but soon the last light from the last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked along. This made a noise which afforded her company. The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one in the streets. However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around on seeing her, and stood still, muttering between her teeth 'Where can that child be going? Is it a werewolf child? Then the woman recognized Cosette. 'Well, said she, 'it's the Lark! In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time to time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a shutterthis was light and life there were people there, and it reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace slackened mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the corner of the last house, Cosette paused. It had been hard to advance further than the last stall it became impossible to proceed further than the last house. She set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair, and began slowly to scratch her head,a gesture peculiar to children when terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil it was the open fields. Black and desert space was before her. She gazed in despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one, where there were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took a good look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket again fear had lent her audacity. 'Bah! said she 'I will tell him that there was no more water! And she resolutely reentered Montfermeil. Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to scratch her head again. Now it was the Thnardier who appeared to her, with her hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The child cast a melancholy glance before her and behind her. What was she to do? What was to become of her? Where was she to go? In front of her was the spectre of the Thnardier behind her all the phantoms of the night and of the forest. It was before the Thnardier that she recoiled. She resumed her path to the spring, and began to run. She emerged from the village, she entered the forest at a run, no longer looking at or listening to anything. She only paused in her course when her breath failed her but she did not halt in her advance. She went straight before her in desperation. As she ran she felt like crying. The nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely. She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was facing this tiny creature. On the one hand, all shadow on the other, an atom. It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the woods to the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many times in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of instinct guided her vaguely. But she did not turn her eyes either to right or to left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the brushwood. In this manner she reached the spring. It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey soil, about two feet deep, surrounded with moss and with those tall, crimped grasses which are called Henry IV.'s frills, and paved with several large stones. A brook ran out of it, with a tranquil little noise. Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was in the habit of coming to this spring. She felt with her left hand in the dark for a young oak which leaned over the spring, and which usually served to support her, found one of its branches, clung to it, bent down, and plunged the bucket in the water. She was in a state of such violent excitement that her strength was trebled. While thus bent over, she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied itself into the spring. The fifteensou piece fell into the water. Cosette neither saw nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it on the grass. That done, she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She would have liked to set out again at once, but the effort required to fill the bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step. She was forced to sit down. She dropped on the grass, and remained crouching there. She shut her eyes then she opened them again, without knowing why, but because she could not do otherwise. The agitated water in the bucket beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents. Overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds, which were like masses of smoke. The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over the child. Jupiter was setting in the depths. The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which she was unfamiliar, and which terrified her. The planet was, in fact, very near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which imparted to it a horrible ruddy hue. The mist, gloomily empurpled, magnified the star. One would have called it a luminous wound. A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf was moving there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide. Great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise. Slender and misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings. The tall grasses undulated like eels under the north wind. The nettles seemed to twist long arms furnished with claws in search of prey. Some bits of dry heather, tossed by the breeze, flew rapidly by, and had the air of fleeing in terror before something which was coming after. On all sides there were lugubrious stretches. The darkness was bewildering. Man requires light. Whoever buries himself in the opposite of day feels his heart contract. When the eye sees black, the heart sees trouble. In an eclipse in the night, in the sooty opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one walks alone in the forest at night without trembling. Shadows and treestwo formidable densities. A chimerical reality appears in the indistinct depths. The inconceivable is outlined a few paces distant from you with a spectral clearness. One beholds floating, either in space or in one's own brain, one knows not what vague and intangible thing, like the dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce attitudes on the horizon. One inhales the effluvia of the great black void. One is afraid to glance behind him, yet desirous of doing so. The cavities of night, things grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one advances, obscure dishevelments, irritated tufts, livid pools, the lugubrious reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of silence, unknown but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches, alarming torsos of trees, long handfuls of quivering plants,against all this one has no protection. There is no hardihood which does not shudder and which does not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is conscious of something hideous, as though one's soul were becoming amalgamated with the darkness. This penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a child. Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul produces a sound of agony beneath their monstrous vault. Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she was seized upon by that black enormity of nature it was no longer terror alone which was gaining possession of her it was something more terrible even than terror she shivered. There are no words to express the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of her heart her eye grew wild she thought she felt that she should not be able to refrain from returning there at the same hour on the morrow. Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count aloud, one, two, three, four, and so on up to ten, in order to escape from that singular state which she did not understand, but which terrified her, and, when she had finished, she began again this restored her to a true perception of the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the water, felt cold she rose her terror, a natural and unconquerable terror, had returned she had but one thought now,to flee at full speed through the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the windows, to the lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her such was the fright which the Thnardier inspired in her, that she dared not flee without that bucket of water she seized the handle with both hands she could hardly lift the pail. In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full it was heavy she was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took breath for an instant, then lifted the handle of the bucket again, and resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she was obliged to pause. After some seconds of repose she set out again. She walked bent forward, with drooping head, like an old woman the weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands she was forced to halt from time to time, and each time that she did so, the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs. This took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in winter, far from all human sight she was a child of eight no one but God saw that sad thing at the moment. And her mother, no doubt, alas! For there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their graves. She panted with a sort of painful rattle sobs contracted her throat, but she dared not weep, so afraid was she of the Thnardier, even at a distance it was her custom to imagine the Thnardier always present. However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went on very slowly. In spite of diminishing the length of her stops, and of walking as long as possible between them, she reflected with anguish that it would take her more than an hour to return to Montfermeil in this manner, and that the Thnardier would beat her. This anguish was mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night she was worn out with fatigue, and had not yet emerged from the forest. On arriving near an old chestnuttree with which she was acquainted, made a last halt, longer than the rest, in order that she might get well rested then she summoned up all her strength, picked up her bucket again, and courageously resumed her march, but the poor little desperate creature could not refrain from crying, 'O my God! my God! At that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer weighed anything at all a hand, which seemed to her enormous, had just seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A large black form, straight and erect, was walking beside her through the darkness it was a man who had come up behind her, and whose approach she had not heard. This man, without uttering a word, had seized the handle of the bucket which she was carrying. There are instincts for all the encounters of life. The child was not afraid. On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, , a man had walked for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de l'Hpital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is seeking lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg SaintMarceau. We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber in that isolated quarter. This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type of what may be called the wellbred mendicant,extreme wretchedness combined with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare mixture which inspires intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels for the man who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He wore a very old and very well brushed round hat a coarse coat, worn perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the least eccentric at that epoch a large waistcoat with pockets of a venerable cut black breeches, worn gray at the knee, stockings of black worsted and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been pronounced a preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration. He would have been taken for more than sixty years of age, from his perfectly white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and his countenance, where everything breathed depression and weariness of life. Judging from his firm tread, from the singular vigor which stamped all his movements, he would have hardly been thought fifty. The wrinkles on his brow were well placed, and would have disposed in his favor any one who observed him attentively. His lip contracted with a strange fold which seemed severe, and which was humble. There was in the depth of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity. In his left hand he carried a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief in his right he leaned on a sort of a cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and had an air that was not too threatening the most had been made of its knots, and it had received a corallike head, made from red wax it was a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane. There are but few passersby on that boulevard, particularly in the winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them, but this without any affectation. At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day to ChoisyleRoi it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two o'clock, almost invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade was seen to pass at full speed along the Boulevard de l'Hpital. This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the quarter who said, 'It is two o'clock there he is returning to the Tuileries. And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king always creates a tumult besides, the appearance and disappearance of Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop as he was not able to walk, he wished to run that cripple would gladly have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe, in the midst of naked swords. His massive couch, all covered with gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered  l'oiseau royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of Honor, the silver plaque of the SaintEsprit, a huge belly, and a wide blue ribbon it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English gaiters when he reentered the city, he put on his hat and saluted rarely he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind. When he appeared for the first time in the SaintMarceau quarter, the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, 'That big fellow yonder is the government. This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore, the daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hpital. The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in the quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as to this detail. When, at two o'clock, the royal carriage, surrounded by a squadron of the bodyguard all covered with silver lace, debouched on the boulevard, after having made the turn of the Salptrire, he appeared surprised and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in this crosslane. He drew up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an enclosure, though this did not prevent M. le Duc de Havr from spying him out. M. le Duc de Havr, as captain of the guard on duty that day, was seated in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his Majesty, 'Yonder is an evillooking man. Members of the police, who were clearing the king's route, took equal note of him one of them received an order to follow him. But the man plunged into the deserted little streets of the faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening to M. le Comte d'Angls, Minister of State, Prefect of Police. When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off his track, he redoubled his pace, not without turning round many a time to assure himself that he was not being followed. At a quarterpast four, that is to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the theatre of the Porte SaintMartin, where The Two Convicts was being played that day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him for, although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it. An instant later he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the Plat d'Etain the Pewter Platter, where the office of the coach for Lagny was then situated. This coach set out at halfpast four. The horses were harnessed, and the travellers, summoned by the coachman, were hastily climbing the lofty iron ladder of the vehicle. The man inquired 'Have you a place? 'Only onebeside me on the box, said the coachman. 'I will take it. 'Climb up. Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance at the traveller's shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle, and made him pay his fare. 'Are you going as far as Lagny? demanded the coachman. 'Yes, said the man. The traveller paid to Lagny. They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman tried to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied in monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his horses. The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man did not appear to be thinking of that. Thus they passed Gournay and NeuillysurMarne. Towards six o'clock in the evening they reached Chelles. The coachman drew up in front of the carters' inn installed in the ancient buildings of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell. 'I get down here, said the man. He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle. An instant later he had disappeared. He did not enter the inn. When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not encounter him in the principal street of Chelles. The coachman turned to the inside travellers. 'There, said he, 'is a man who does not belong here, for I do not know him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not consider money he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is night all the houses are shut he does not enter the inn, and he is not to be found. So he has dived through the earth. The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone with great strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles, then he had turned to the right before reaching the church, into the crossroad leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the country and had been there before. He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is intersected by the ancient treebordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny, he heard people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there waited until the passersby were at a distance. The precaution was nearly superfluous, however for, as we have already said, it was a very dark December night. Not more than two or three stars were visible in the sky. It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The man did not return to the road to Montfermeil he struck across the fields to the right, and entered the forest with long strides. Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There came a moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in indecision. At last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch by inch, at a clearing where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He stepped up briskly to these stones, and examined them attentively through the mists of night, as though he were passing them in review. A large tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, stood a few paces distant from the pile of stones. He went up to this tree and passed his hand over the bark of the trunk, as though seeking to recognize and count all the warts. Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnuttree, suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe and touched this band of zinc. Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed. That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through the forest. It was the man who had just met Cosette. As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he had espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a burden on the ground, then taking it up and setting out again. He drew near, and perceived that it was a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle of the bucket. Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened. The man accosted her. He spoke in a voice that was grave and almost bass. 'My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you. Cosette raised her head and replied 'Yes, sir. 'Give it to me, said the man 'I will carry it for you. Cosette let go of the buckethandle. The man walked along beside her. 'It really is very heavy, he muttered between his teeth. Then he added 'How old are you, little one? 'Eight, sir. 'And have you come from far like this? 'From the spring in the forest. 'Are you going far? 'A good quarter of an hour's walk from here. The man said nothing for a moment then he remarked abruptly 'So you have no mother. 'I don't know, answered the child. Before the man had time to speak again, she added 'I don't think so. Other people have mothers. I have none. And after a silence she went on 'I think that I never had any. The man halted he set the bucket on the ground, bent down and placed both hands on the child's shoulders, making an effort to look at her and to see her face in the dark. Cosette's thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light in the sky. 'What is your name? said the man. 'Cosette. The man seemed to have received an electric shock. He looked at her once more then he removed his hands from Cosette's shoulders, seized the bucket, and set out again. After a moment he inquired 'Where do you live, little one? 'At Montfermeil, if you know where that is. 'That is where we are going? 'Yes, sir. He paused then began again 'Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest? 'It was Madame Thnardier. The man resumed, in a voice which he strove to render indifferent, but in which there was, nevertheless, a singular tremor 'What does your Madame Thnardier do? 'She is my mistress, said the child. 'She keeps the inn. 'The inn? said the man. 'Well, I am going to lodge there tonight. Show me the way. 'We are on the way there, said the child. The man walked tolerably fast. Cosette followed him without difficulty. She no longer felt any fatigue. From time to time she raised her eyes towards the man, with a sort of tranquillity and an indescribable confidence. She had never been taught to turn to Providence and to pray nevertheless, she felt within her something which resembled hope and joy, and which mounted towards heaven. Several minutes elapsed. The man resumed 'Is there no servant in Madame Thnardier's house? 'No, sir. 'Are you alone there? 'Yes, sir. Another pause ensued. Cosette lifted up her voice 'That is to say, there are two little girls. 'What little girls? 'Ponine and Zelma. This was the way the child simplified the romantic names so dear to the female Thnardier. 'Who are Ponine and Zelma? 'They are Madame Thnardier's young ladies her daughters, as you would say. 'And what do those girls do? 'Oh! said the child, 'they have beautiful dolls things with gold in them, all full of affairs. They play they amuse themselves. 'All day long? 'Yes, sir. 'And you? 'I? I work. 'All day long? The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not visible because of the darkness, and replied gently 'Yes, sir. After an interval of silence she went on 'Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they let me, I amuse myself, too. 'How do you amuse yourself? 'In the best way I can. They let me alone but I have not many playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I have only a little lead sword, no longer than that. The child held up her tiny finger. 'And it will not cut? 'Yes, sir, said the child 'it cuts salad and the heads of flies. They reached the village. Cosette guided the stranger through the streets. They passed the bakeshop, but Cosette did not think of the bread which she had been ordered to fetch. The man had ceased to ply her with questions, and now preserved a gloomy silence. When they had left the church behind them, the man, on perceiving all the openair booths, asked Cosette 'So there is a fair going on here? 'No, sir it is Christmas. As they approached the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his arm 'Monsieur? 'What, my child? 'We are quite near the house. 'Well? 'Will you let me take my bucket now? 'Why? 'If Madame sees that some one has carried it for me, she will beat me. The man handed her the bucket. An instant later they were at the tavern door. Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big doll, which was still displayed at the toymerchant's then she knocked. The door opened. The Thnardier appeared with a candle in her hand. 'Ah! so it's you, you little wretch! good mercy, but you've taken your time! The hussy has been amusing herself! 'Madame, said Cosette, trembling all over, 'here's a gentleman who wants a lodging. The Thnardier speedily replaced her gruff air by her amiable grimace, a change of aspect common to tavernkeepers, and eagerly sought the newcomer with her eyes. 'This is the gentleman? said she. 'Yes, Madame, replied the man, raising his hand to his hat. Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an inspection of the stranger's costume and baggage, which the Thnardier passed in review with one glance, caused the amiable grimace to vanish, and the gruff mien to reappear. She resumed dryly 'Enter, my good man. The 'good man entered. The Thnardier cast a second glance at him, paid particular attention to his frockcoat, which was absolutely threadbare, and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing her head, wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, who was still drinking with the carters. The husband replied by that imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which, backed up by an inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases A regular beggar. Thereupon, the Thnardier exclaimed 'Ah! see here, my good man I am very sorry, but I have no room left. 'Put me where you like, said the man 'in the attic, in the stable. I will pay as though I occupied a room. 'Forty sous. 'Forty sous agreed. 'Very well, then! 'Forty sous! said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thnardier woman 'why, the charge is only twenty sous! 'It is forty in his case, retorted the Thnardier, in the same tone. 'I don't lodge poor folks for less. 'That's true, added her husband, gently 'it ruins a house to have such people in it. In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his cudgel on a bench, had seated himself at a table, on which Cosette made haste to place a bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant who had demanded the bucket of water took it to his horse himself. Cosette resumed her place under the kitchen table, and her knitting. The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had poured out for himself, observed the child with peculiar attention. Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was thin and pale she was nearly eight years old, but she seemed to be hardly six. Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put out with weeping. The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual anguish which is seen in condemned persons and desperately sick people. Her hands were, as her mother had divined, 'ruined with chilblains. The fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all the angles of her bones, and rendered her thinness frightfully apparent. As she was always shivering, she had acquired the habit of pressing her knees one against the other. Her entire clothing was but a rag which would have inspired pity in summer, and which inspired horror in winter. All she had on was holeridden linen, not a scrap of woollen. Her skin was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be descried, which marked the places where the Thnardier woman had touched her. Her naked legs were thin and red. The hollows in her neck were enough to make one weep. This child's whole person, her mien, her attitude, the sound of her voice, the intervals which she allowed to elapse between one word and the next, her glance, her silence, her slightest gesture, expressed and betrayed one sole idea,fear. Fear was diffused all over her she was covered with it, so to speak fear drew her elbows close to her hips, withdrew her heels under her petticoat, made her occupy as little space as possible, allowed her only the breath that was absolutely necessary, and had become what might be called the habit of her body, admitting of no possible variation except an increase. In the depths of her eyes there was an astonished nook where terror lurked. Her fear was such, that on her arrival, wet as she was, Cosette did not dare to approach the fire and dry herself, but sat silently down to her work again. The expression in the glance of that child of eight years was habitually so gloomy, and at times so tragic, that it seemed at certain moments as though she were on the verge of becoming an idiot or a demon. As we have stated, she had never known what it is to pray she had never set foot in a church. 'Have I the time? said the Thnardier. The man in the yellow coat never took his eyes from Cosette. All at once, the Thnardier exclaimed 'By the way, where's that bread? Cosette, according to her custom whenever the Thnardier uplifted her voice, emerged with great haste from beneath the table. She had completely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to the expedient of children who live in a constant state of fear. She lied. 'Madame, the baker's shop was shut. 'You should have knocked. 'I did knock, Madame. 'Well? 'He did not open the door. 'I'll find out tomorrow whether that is true, said the Thnardier 'and if you are telling me a lie, I'll lead you a pretty dance. In the meantime, give me back my fifteensou piece. Cosette plunged her hand into the pocket of her apron, and turned green. The fifteensou piece was not there. 'Ah, come now, said Madame Thnardier, 'did you hear me? Cosette turned her pocket inside out there was nothing in it. What could have become of that money? The unhappy little creature could not find a word to say. She was petrified. 'Have you lost that fifteensou piece? screamed the Thnardier, hoarsely, 'or do you want to rob me of it? At the same time, she stretched out her arm towards the cato'ninetails which hung on a nail in the chimneycorner. This formidable gesture restored to Cosette sufficient strength to shriek 'Mercy, Madame, Madame! I will not do so any more! The Thnardier took down the whip. In the meantime, the man in the yellow coat had been fumbling in the fob of his waistcoat, without any one having noticed his movements. Besides, the other travellers were drinking or playing cards, and were not paying attention to anything. Cosette contracted herself into a ball, with anguish, within the angle of the chimney, endeavoring to gather up and conceal her poor halfnude limbs. The Thnardier raised her arm. 'Pardon me, Madame, said the man, 'but just now I caught sight of something which had fallen from this little one's apron pocket, and rolled aside. Perhaps this is it. At the same time he bent down and seemed to be searching on the floor for a moment. 'Exactly here it is, he went on, straightening himself up. And he held out a silver coin to the Thnardier. 'Yes, that's it, said she. It was not it, for it was a twentysou piece but the Thnardier found it to her advantage. She put the coin in her pocket, and confined herself to casting a fierce glance at the child, accompanied with the remark, 'Don't let this ever happen again! Cosette returned to what the Thnardier called 'her kennel, and her large eyes, which were riveted on the traveller, began to take on an expression such as they had never worn before. Thus far it was only an innocent amazement, but a sort of stupefied confidence was mingled with it. 'By the way, would you like some supper? the Thnardier inquired of the traveller. He made no reply. He appeared to be absorbed in thought. 'What sort of a man is that? she muttered between her teeth. 'He's some frightfully poor wretch. He hasn't a sou to pay for a supper. Will he even pay me for his lodging? It's very lucky, all the same, that it did not occur to him to steal the money that was on the floor. In the meantime, a door had opened, and ponine and Azelma entered. They were two really pretty little girls, more bourgeois than peasant in looks, and very charming the one with shining chestnut tresses, the other with long black braids hanging down her back, both vivacious, neat, plump, rosy, and healthy, and a delight to the eye. They were warmly clad, but with so much maternal art that the thickness of the stuffs did not detract from the coquetry of arrangement. There was a hint of winter, though the springtime was not wholly effaced. Light emanated from these two little beings. Besides this, they were on the throne. In their toilettes, in their gayety, in the noise which they made, there was sovereignty. When they entered, the Thnardier said to them in a grumbling tone which was full of adoration, 'Ah! there you are, you children! Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their hair, tying their ribbons afresh, and then releasing them with that gentle manner of shaking off which is peculiar to mothers, she exclaimed, 'What frights they are! They went and seated themselves in the chimneycorner. They had a doll, which they turned over and over on their knees with all sorts of joyous chatter. From time to time Cosette raised her eyes from her knitting, and watched their play with a melancholy air. ponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. She was the same as a dog to them. These three little girls did not yet reckon up four and twenty years between them, but they already represented the whole society of man envy on the one side, disdain on the other. The doll of the Thnardier sisters was very much faded, very old, and much broken but it seemed nonetheless admirable to Cosette, who had never had a doll in her life, a real doll, to make use of the expression which all children will understand. All at once, the Thnardier, who had been going back and forth in the room, perceived that Cosette's mind was distracted, and that, instead of working, she was paying attention to the little ones at their play. 'Ah! I've caught you at it! she cried. 'So that's the way you work! I'll make you work to the tune of the whip that I will. The stranger turned to the Thnardier, without quitting his chair. 'Bah, Madame, he said, with an almost timid air, 'let her play! Such a wish expressed by a traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton and had drunk a couple of bottles of wine with his supper, and who had not the air of being frightfully poor, would have been equivalent to an order. But that a man with such a hat should permit himself such a desire, and that a man with such a coat should permit himself to have a will, was something which Madame Thnardier did not intend to tolerate. She retorted with acrimony 'She must work, since she eats. I don't feed her to do nothing. 'What is she making? went on the stranger, in a gentle voice which contrasted strangely with his beggarly garments and his porter's shoulders. The Thnardier deigned to reply 'Stockings, if you please. Stockings for my little girls, who have none, so to speak, and who are absolutely barefoot just now. The man looked at Cosette's poor little red feet, and continued 'When will she have finished this pair of stockings? 'She has at least three or four good days' work on them still, the lazy creature! 'And how much will that pair of stockings be worth when she has finished them? The Thnardier cast a glance of disdain on him. 'Thirty sous at least. 'Will you sell them for five francs? went on the man. 'Good heavens! exclaimed a carter who was listening, with a loud laugh 'five francs! the deuce, I should think so! five balls! Thnardier thought it time to strike in. 'Yes, sir if such is your fancy, you will be allowed to have that pair of stockings for five francs. We can refuse nothing to travellers. 'You must pay on the spot, said the Thnardier, in her curt and peremptory fashion. 'I will buy that pair of stockings, replied the man, 'and, he added, drawing a fivefranc piece from his pocket, and laying it on the table, 'I will pay for them. Then he turned to Cosette. 'Now I own your work play, my child. The carter was so much touched by the fivefranc piece, that he abandoned his glass and hastened up. 'But it's true! he cried, examining it. 'A real hind wheel! and not counterfeit! Thnardier approached and silently put the coin in his pocket. The Thnardier had no reply to make. She bit her lips, and her face assumed an expression of hatred. In the meantime, Cosette was trembling. She ventured to ask 'Is it true, Madame? May I play? 'Play! said the Thnardier, in a terrible voice. 'Thanks, Madame, said Cosette. And while her mouth thanked the Thnardier, her whole little soul thanked the traveller. Thnardier had resumed his drinking his wife whispered in his ear 'Who can this yellow man be? 'I have seen millionaires with coats like that, replied Thnardier, in a sovereign manner. Cosette had dropped her knitting, but had not left her seat. Cosette always moved as little as possible. She picked up some old rags and her little lead sword from a box behind her. ponine and Azelma paid no attention to what was going on. They had just executed a very important operation they had just got hold of the cat. They had thrown their doll on the ground, and ponine, who was the elder, was swathing the little cat, in spite of its mewing and its contortions, in a quantity of clothes and red and blue scraps. While performing this serious and difficult work she was saying to her sister in that sweet and adorable language of children, whose grace, like the splendor of the butterfly's wing, vanishes when one essays to fix it fast. 'You see, sister, this doll is more amusing than the other. She twists, she cries, she is warm. See, sister, let us play with her. She shall be my little girl. I will be a lady. I will come to see you, and you shall look at her. Gradually, you will perceive her whiskers, and that will surprise you. And then you will see her ears, and then you will see her tail and it will amaze you. And you will say to me, 'Ah! Mon Dieu!' and I will say to you 'Yes, Madame, it is my little girl. Little girls are made like that just at present.' Azelma listened admiringly to ponine. In the meantime, the drinkers had begun to sing an obscene song, and to laugh at it until the ceiling shook. Thnardier accompanied and encouraged them. As birds make nests out of everything, so children make a doll out of anything which comes to hand. While ponine and Azelma were bundling up the cat, Cosette, on her side, had dressed up her sword. That done, she laid it in her arms, and sang to it softly, to lull it to sleep. The doll is one of the most imperious needs and, at the same time, one of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to sleep, to imagine that something is some one,therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child is the continuation of the last doll. A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children. So Cosette had made herself a doll out of the sword. Madame Thnardier approached the yellow man 'My husband is right, she thought 'perhaps it is M. Laffitte there are such queer rich men! She came and set her elbows on the table. 'Monsieur, said she. At this word, Monsieur, the man turned up to that time, the Thnardier had addressed him only as brave homme or bonhomme. 'You see, sir, she pursued, assuming a sweetish air that was even more repulsive to behold than her fierce mien, 'I am willing that the child should play I do not oppose it, but it is good for once, because you are generous. You see, she has nothing she must needs work. 'Then this child is not yours? demanded the man. 'Oh! mon Dieu! no, sir! she is a little beggar whom we have taken in through charity a sort of imbecile child. She must have water on the brain she has a large head, as you see. We do what we can for her, for we are not rich we have written in vain to her native place, and have received no reply these six months. It must be that her mother is dead. 'Ah! said the man, and fell into his reverie once more. 'Her mother didn't amount to much, added the Thnardier 'she abandoned her child. During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some instinct that she was under discussion, had not taken her eyes from the Thnardier's face she listened vaguely she caught a few words here and there. Meanwhile, the drinkers, all threequarters intoxicated, were repeating their unclean refrain with redoubled gayety it was a highly spiced and wanton song, in which the Virgin and the infant Jesus were introduced. The Thnardier went off to take part in the shouts of laughter. Cosette, from her post under the table, gazed at the fire, which was reflected from her fixed eyes. She had begun to rock the sort of baby which she had made, and, as she rocked it, she sang in a low voice, 'My mother is dead! my mother is dead! my mother is dead! On being urged afresh by the hostess, the yellow man, 'the millionaire, consented at last to take supper. 'What does Monsieur wish? 'Bread and cheese, said the man. 'Decidedly, he is a beggar thought Madame Thnardier. The drunken men were still singing their song, and the child under the table was singing hers. All at once, Cosette paused she had just turned round and caught sight of the little Thnardiers' doll, which they had abandoned for the cat and had left on the floor a few paces from the kitchen table. Then she dropped the swaddled sword, which only half met her needs, and cast her eyes slowly round the room. Madame Thnardier was whispering to her husband and counting over some money Ponine and Zelma were playing with the cat the travellers were eating or drinking or singing not a glance was fixed on her. She had not a moment to lose she crept out from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that no one was watching her then she slipped quickly up to the doll and seized it. An instant later she was in her place again, seated motionless, and only turned so as to cast a shadow on the doll which she held in her arms. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare for her that it contained all the violence of voluptuousness. No one had seen her, except the traveller, who was slowly devouring his meagre supper. This joy lasted about a quarter of an hour. But with all the precautions that Cosette had taken she did not perceive that one of the doll's legs stuck out and that the fire on the hearth lighted it up very vividly. That pink and shining foot, projecting from the shadow, suddenly struck the eye of Azelma, who said to ponine, 'Look! sister. The two little girls paused in stupefaction Cosette had dared to take their doll! ponine rose, and, without releasing the cat, she ran to her mother, and began to tug at her skirt. 'Let me alone! said her mother 'what do you want? 'Mother, said the child, 'look there! And she pointed to Cosette. Cosette, absorbed in the ecstasies of possession, no longer saw or heard anything. Madame Thnardier's countenance assumed that peculiar expression which is composed of the terrible mingled with the trifles of life, and which has caused this style of woman to be named Megaeras. On this occasion, wounded pride exasperated her wrath still further. Cosette had overstepped all bounds Cosette had laid violent hands on the doll belonging to 'these young ladies. A czarina who should see a muzhik trying on her imperial son's blue ribbon would wear no other face. She shrieked in a voice rendered hoarse with indignation 'Cosette! Cosette started as though the earth had trembled beneath her she turned round. 'Cosette! repeated the Thnardier. Cosette took the doll and laid it gently on the floor with a sort of veneration, mingled with despair then, without taking her eyes from it, she clasped her hands, and, what is terrible to relate of a child of that age, she wrung them thennot one of the emotions of the day, neither the trip to the forest, nor the weight of the bucket of water, nor the loss of the money, nor the sight of the whip, nor even the sad words which she had heard Madame Thnardier utter had been able to wring this from hershe wept she burst out sobbing. Meanwhile, the traveller had risen to his feet. 'What is the matter? he said to the Thnardier. 'Don't you see? said the Thnardier, pointing to the corpus delicti which lay at Cosette's feet. 'Well, what of it? resumed the man. 'That beggar, replied the Thnardier, 'has permitted herself to touch the children's doll! 'All this noise for that! said the man 'well, what if she did play with that doll? 'She touched it with her dirty hands! pursued the Thnardier, 'with her frightful hands! Here Cosette redoubled her sobs. 'Will you stop your noise? screamed the Thnardier. The man went straight to the street door, opened it, and stepped out. As soon as he had gone, the Thnardier profited by his absence to give Cosette a hearty kick under the table, which made the child utter loud cries. The door opened again, the man reappeared he carried in both hands the fabulous doll which we have mentioned, and which all the village brats had been staring at ever since the morning, and he set it upright in front of Cosette, saying 'Here this is for you. It must be supposed that in the course of the hour and more which he had spent there he had taken confused notice through his reverie of that toy shop, lighted up by firepots and candles so splendidly that it was visible like an illumination through the window of the drinkingshop. Cosette raised her eyes she gazed at the man approaching her with that doll as she might have gazed at the sun she heard the unprecedented words, 'It is for you she stared at him she stared at the doll then she slowly retreated, and hid herself at the extreme end, under the table in a corner of the wall. She no longer cried she no longer wept she had the appearance of no longer daring to breathe. The Thnardier, ponine, and Azelma were like statues also the very drinkers had paused a solemn silence reigned through the whole room. Madame Thnardier, petrified and mute, recommenced her conjectures 'Who is that old fellow? Is he a poor man? Is he a millionaire? Perhaps he is both that is to say, a thief. The face of the male Thnardier presented that expressive fold which accentuates the human countenance whenever the dominant instinct appears there in all its bestial force. The tavernkeeper stared alternately at the doll and at the traveller he seemed to be scenting out the man, as he would have scented out a bag of money. This did not last longer than the space of a flash of lightning. He stepped up to his wife and said to her in a low voice 'That machine costs at least thirty francs. No nonsense. Down on your belly before that man! Gross natures have this in common with nave natures, that they possess no transition state. 'Well, Cosette, said the Thnardier, in a voice that strove to be sweet, and which was composed of the bitter honey of malicious women, 'aren't you going to take your doll? Cosette ventured to emerge from her hole. 'The gentleman has given you a doll, my little Cosette, said Thnardier, with a caressing air. 'Take it it is yours. Cosette gazed at the marvellous doll in a sort of terror. Her face was still flooded with tears, but her eyes began to fill, like the sky at daybreak, with strange beams of joy. What she felt at that moment was a little like what she would have felt if she had been abruptly told, 'Little one, you are the Queen of France. It seemed to her that if she touched that doll, lightning would dart from it. This was true, up to a certain point, for she said to herself that the Thnardier would scold and beat her. Nevertheless, the attraction carried the day. She ended by drawing near and murmuring timidly as she turned towards Madame Thnardier 'May I, Madame? No words can render that air, at once despairing, terrified, and ecstatic. 'Pardi! cried the Thnardier, 'it is yours. The gentleman has given it to you. 'Truly, sir? said Cosette. 'Is it true? Is the 'lady' mine? The stranger's eyes seemed to be full of tears. He appeared to have reached that point of emotion where a man does not speak for fear lest he should weep. He nodded to Cosette, and placed the 'lady's hand in her tiny hand. Cosette hastily withdrew her hand, as though that of the 'lady scorched her, and began to stare at the floor. We are forced to add that at that moment she stuck out her tongue immoderately. All at once she wheeled round and seized the doll in a transport. 'I shall call her Catherine, she said. It was an odd moment when Cosette's rags met and clasped the ribbons and fresh pink muslins of the doll. 'Madame, she resumed, 'may I put her on a chair? 'Yes, my child, replied the Thnardier. It was now the turn of ponine and Azelma to gaze at Cosette with envy. Cosette placed Catherine on a chair, then seated herself on the floor in front of her, and remained motionless, without uttering a word, in an attitude of contemplation. 'Play, Cosette, said the stranger. 'Oh! I am playing, returned the child. This stranger, this unknown individual, who had the air of a visit which Providence was making on Cosette, was the person whom the Thnardier hated worse than any one in the world at that moment. However, it was necessary to control herself. Habituated as she was to dissimulation through endeavoring to copy her husband in all his actions, these emotions were more than she could endure. She made haste to send her daughters to bed, then she asked the man's permission to send Cosette off also 'for she has worked hard all day, she added with a maternal air. Cosette went off to bed, carrying Catherine in her arms. From time to time the Thnardier went to the other end of the room where her husband was, to relieve her soul, as she said. She exchanged with her husband words which were all the more furious because she dared not utter them aloud. 'Old beast! What has he got in his belly, to come and upset us in this manner! To want that little monster to play! to give away fortyfranc dolls to a jade that I would sell for forty sous, so I would! A little more and he will be saying Your Majesty to her, as though to the Duchesse de Berry! Is there any sense in it? Is he mad, then, that mysterious old fellow? 'Why! it is perfectly simple, replied Thnardier, 'if that amuses him! It amuses you to have the little one work it amuses him to have her play. He's all right. A traveller can do what he pleases when he pays for it. If the old fellow is a philanthropist, what is that to you? If he is an imbecile, it does not concern you. What are you worrying for, so long as he has money? The language of a master, and the reasoning of an innkeeper, neither of which admitted of any reply. The man had placed his elbows on the table, and resumed his thoughtful attitude. All the other travellers, both pedlers and carters, had withdrawn a little, and had ceased singing. They were staring at him from a distance, with a sort of respectful awe. This poorly dressed man, who drew 'hindwheels from his pocket with so much ease, and who lavished gigantic dolls on dirty little brats in wooden shoes, was certainly a magnificent fellow, and one to be feared. Many hours passed. The midnight mass was over, the chimes had ceased, the drinkers had taken their departure, the drinkingshop was closed, the public room was deserted, the fire extinct, the stranger still remained in the same place and the same attitude. From time to time he changed the elbow on which he leaned. That was all but he had not said a word since Cosette had left the room. The Thnardiers alone, out of politeness and curiosity, had remained in the room. 'Is he going to pass the night in that fashion? grumbled the Thnardier. When two o'clock in the morning struck, she declared herself vanquished, and said to her husband, 'I'm going to bed. Do as you like. Her husband seated himself at a table in the corner, lighted a candle, and began to read the Courrier Franais. A good hour passed thus. The worthy innkeeper had perused the Courrier Franais at least three times, from the date of the number to the printer's name. The stranger did not stir. Thnardier fidgeted, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked his chair. Not a movement on the man's part. 'Is he asleep? thought Thnardier. The man was not asleep, but nothing could arouse him. At last Thnardier took off his cap, stepped gently up to him, and ventured to say 'Is not Monsieur going to his repose? Not going to bed would have seemed to him excessive and familiar. To repose smacked of luxury and respect. These words possess the mysterious and admirable property of swelling the bill on the following day. A chamber where one sleeps costs twenty sous a chamber in which one reposes costs twenty francs. 'Well! said the stranger, 'you are right. Where is your stable? 'Sir! exclaimed Thnardier, with a smile, 'I will conduct you, sir. He took the candle the man picked up his bundle and cudgel, and Thnardier conducted him to a chamber on the first floor, which was of rare splendor, all furnished in mahogany, with a low bedstead, curtained with red calico. 'What is this? said the traveller. 'It is really our bridal chamber, said the tavernkeeper. 'My wife and I occupy another. This is only entered three or four times a year. 'I should have liked the stable quite as well, said the man, abruptly. Thnardier pretended not to hear this unamiable remark. He lighted two perfectly fresh wax candles which figured on the chimneypiece. A very good fire was flickering on the hearth. On the chimneypiece, under a glass globe, stood a woman's headdress in silver wire and orange flowers. 'And what is this? resumed the stranger. 'That, sir, said Thnardier, 'is my wife's wedding bonnet. The traveller surveyed the object with a glance which seemed to say, 'There really was a time, then, when that monster was a maiden? Thnardier lied, however. When he had leased this paltry building for the purpose of converting it into a tavern, he had found this chamber decorated in just this manner, and had purchased the furniture and obtained the orange flowers at second hand, with the idea that this would cast a graceful shadow on 'his spouse, and would result in what the English call respectability for his house. When the traveller turned round, the host had disappeared. Thnardier had withdrawn discreetly, without venturing to wish him a good night, as he did not wish to treat with disrespectful cordiality a man whom he proposed to fleece royally the following morning. The innkeeper retired to his room. His wife was in bed, but she was not asleep. When she heard her husband's step she turned over and said to him 'Do you know, I'm going to turn Cosette out of doors tomorrow. Thnardier replied coldly 'How you do go on! They exchanged no further words, and a few moments later their candle was extinguished. As for the traveller, he had deposited his cudgel and his bundle in a corner. The landlord once gone, he threw himself into an armchair and remained for some time buried in thought. Then he removed his shoes, took one of the two candles, blew out the other, opened the door, and quitted the room, gazing about him like a person who is in search of something. He traversed a corridor and came upon a staircase. There he heard a very faint and gentle sound like the breathing of a child. He followed this sound, and came to a sort of triangular recess built under the staircase, or rather formed by the staircase itself. This recess was nothing else than the space under the steps. There, in the midst of all sorts of old papers and potsherds, among dust and spiders' webs, was a bedif one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so full of holes as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to show the pallet. No sheets. This was placed on the floor. In this bed Cosette was sleeping. The man approached and gazed down upon her. Cosette was in a profound sleep she was fully dressed. In the winter she did not undress, in order that she might not be so cold. Against her breast was pressed the doll, whose large eyes, wide open, glittered in the dark. From time to time she gave vent to a deep sigh as though she were on the point of waking, and she strained the doll almost convulsively in her arms. Beside her bed there was only one of her wooden shoes. A door which stood open near Cosette's pallet permitted a view of a rather large, dark room. The stranger stepped into it. At the further extremity, through a glass door, he saw two small, very white beds. They belonged to ponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half hidden, stood an uncurtained wicker cradle, in which the little boy who had cried all the evening lay asleep. The stranger conjectured that this chamber connected with that of the Thnardier pair. He was on the point of retreating when his eye fell upon the fireplaceone of those vast tavern chimneys where there is always so little fire when there is any fire at all, and which are so cold to look at. There was no fire in this one, there was not even ashes but there was something which attracted the stranger's gaze, nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape and unequal in size. The traveller recalled the graceful and immemorial custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling gift from their good fairy. ponine and Azelma had taken care not to omit this, and each of them had set one of her shoes on the hearth. The traveller bent over them. The fairy, that is to say, their mother, had already paid her visit, and in each he saw a brandnew and shining tensou piece. The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, when far in, in the darkest corner of the hearth, he caught sight of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's sabot. Cosette, with that touching trust of childhood, which can always be deceived yet never discouraged, had placed her shoe on the hearthstone also. Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and touching thing. There was nothing in this wooden shoe. The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over and placed a louis d'or in Cosette's shoe. Then he regained his own chamber with the stealthy tread of a wolf. On the following morning, two hours at least before daybreak, Thnardier, seated beside a candle in the public room of the tavern, pen in hand, was making out the bill for the traveller with the yellow coat. His wife, standing beside him, and half bent over him, was following him with her eyes. They exchanged not a word. On the one hand, there was profound meditation, on the other, the religious admiration with which one watches the birth and development of a marvel of the human mind. A noise was audible in the house it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. After the lapse of a good quarter of an hour, and some erasures, Thnardier produced the following masterpiece BILL OF THE GENTLEMAN IN No. . Service was written servisse. 'Twentythree francs! cried the woman, with an enthusiasm which was mingled with some hesitation. Like all great artists, Thnardier was dissatisfied. 'Peuh! he exclaimed. It was the accent of Castlereagh auditing France's bill at the Congress of Vienna. 'Monsieur Thnardier, you are right he certainly owes that, murmured the wife, who was thinking of the doll bestowed on Cosette in the presence of her daughters. 'It is just, but it is too much. He will not pay it. Thnardier laughed coldly, as usual, and said 'He will pay. This laugh was the supreme assertion of certainty and authority. That which was asserted in this manner must needs be so. His wife did not insist. She set about arranging the table her husband paced the room. A moment later he added 'I owe full fifteen hundred francs! He went and seated himself in the chimneycorner, meditating, with his feet among the warm ashes. 'Ah! by the way, resumed his wife, 'you don't forget that I'm going to turn Cosette out of doors today? The monster! She breaks my heart with that doll of hers! I'd rather marry Louis XVIII. than keep her another day in the house! Thnardier lighted his pipe, and replied between two puffs 'You will hand that bill to the man. Then he went out. Hardly had he left the room when the traveller entered. Thnardier instantly reappeared behind him and remained motionless in the halfopen door, visible only to his wife. The yellow man carried his bundle and his cudgel in his hand. 'Up so early? said Madame Thnardier 'is Monsieur leaving us already? As she spoke thus, she was twisting the bill about in her hands with an embarrassed air, and making creases in it with her nails. Her hard face presented a shade which was not habitual with it,timidity and scruples. To present such a bill to a man who had so completely the air 'of a poor wretch seemed difficult to her. The traveller appeared to be preoccupied and absentminded. He replied 'Yes, Madame, I am going. 'So Monsieur has no business in Montfermeil? 'No, I was passing through. That is all. What do I owe you, Madame, he added. The Thnardier silently handed him the folded bill. The man unfolded the paper and glanced at it but his thoughts were evidently elsewhere. 'Madame, he resumed, 'is business good here in Montfermeil? 'So so, Monsieur, replied the Thnardier, stupefied at not witnessing another sort of explosion. She continued, in a dreary and lamentable tone 'Oh! Monsieur, times are so hard! and then, we have so few bourgeois in the neighborhood! All the people are poor, you see. If we had not, now and then, some rich and generous travellers like Monsieur, we should not get along at all. We have so many expenses. Just see, that child is costing us our very eyes. 'What child? 'Why, the little one, you know! Cosettethe Lark, as she is called hereabouts! 'Ah! said the man. She went on 'How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She has more the air of a bat than of a lark. You see, sir, we do not ask charity, and we cannot bestow it. We earn nothing and we have to pay out a great deal. The license, the imposts, the door and window tax, the hundredths! Monsieur is aware that the government demands a terrible deal of money. And then, I have my daughters. I have no need to bring up other people's children. The man resumed, in that voice which he strove to render indifferent, and in which there lingered a tremor 'What if one were to rid you of her? 'Who? Cosette? 'Yes. The landlady's red and violent face brightened up hideously. 'Ah! sir, my dear sir, take her, keep her, lead her off, carry her away, sugar her, stuff her with truffles, drink her, eat her, and the blessings of the good holy Virgin and of all the saints of paradise be upon you! 'Agreed. 'Really! You will take her away? 'I will take her away. 'Immediately? 'Immediately. Call the child. 'Cosette! screamed the Thnardier. 'In the meantime, pursued the man, 'I will pay you what I owe you. How much is it? He cast a glance on the bill, and could not restrain a start of surprise 'Twentythree francs! He looked at the landlady, and repeated 'Twentythree francs? There was in the enunciation of these words, thus repeated, an accent between an exclamation and an interrogation point. The Thnardier had had time to prepare herself for the shock. She replied, with assurance 'Good gracious, yes, sir, it is twentythree francs. The stranger laid five fivefranc pieces on the table. 'Go and get the child, said he. At that moment Thnardier advanced to the middle of the room, and said 'Monsieur owes twentysix sous. 'Twentysix sous! exclaimed his wife. 'Twenty sous for the chamber, resumed Thnardier, coldly, 'and six sous for his supper. As for the child, I must discuss that matter a little with the gentleman. Leave us, wife. Madame Thnardier was dazzled as with the shock caused by unexpected lightning flashes of talent. She was conscious that a great actor was making his entrance on the stage, uttered not a word in reply, and left the room. As soon as they were alone, Thnardier offered the traveller a chair. The traveller seated himself Thnardier remained standing, and his face assumed a singular expression of goodfellowship and simplicity. 'Sir, said he, 'what I have to say to you is this, that I adore that child. The stranger gazed intently at him. 'What child? Thnardier continued 'How strange it is, one grows attached. What money is that? Take back your hundredsou piece. I adore the child. 'Whom do you mean? demanded the stranger. 'Eh! our little Cosette! Are you not intending to take her away from us? Well, I speak frankly as true as you are an honest man, I will not consent to it. I shall miss that child. I saw her first when she was a tiny thing. It is true that she costs us money it is true that she has her faults it is true that we are not rich it is true that I have paid out over four hundred francs for drugs for just one of her illnesses! But one must do something for the good God's sake. She has neither father nor mother. I have brought her up. I have bread enough for her and for myself. In truth, I think a great deal of that child. You understand, one conceives an affection for a person I am a good sort of a beast, I am I do not reason I love that little girl my wife is quicktempered, but she loves her also. You see, she is just the same as our own child. I want to keep her to babble about the house. The stranger kept his eye intently fixed on Thnardier. The latter continued 'Excuse me, sir, but one does not give away one's child to a passerby, like that. I am right, am I not? Still, I don't sayyou are rich you have the air of a very good man,if it were for her happiness. But one must find out that. You understand suppose that I were to let her go and to sacrifice myself, I should like to know what becomes of her I should not wish to lose sight of her I should like to know with whom she is living, so that I could go to see her from time to time so that she may know that her good fosterfather is alive, that he is watching over her. In short, there are things which are not possible. I do not even know your name. If you were to take her away, I should say 'Well, and the Lark, what has become of her?' One must, at least, see some petty scrap of paper, some trifle in the way of a passport, you know! The stranger, still surveying him with that gaze which penetrates, as the saying goes, to the very depths of the conscience, replied in a grave, firm voice 'Monsieur Thnardier, one does not require a passport to travel five leagues from Paris. If I take Cosette away, I shall take her away, and that is the end of the matter. You will not know my name, you will not know my residence, you will not know where she is and my intention is that she shall never set eyes on you again so long as she lives. I break the thread which binds her foot, and she departs. Does that suit you? Yes or no? Since geniuses, like demons, recognize the presence of a superior God by certain signs, Thnardier comprehended that he had to deal with a very strong person. It was like an intuition he comprehended it with his clear and sagacious promptitude. While drinking with the carters, smoking, and singing coarse songs on the preceding evening, he had devoted the whole of the time to observing the stranger, watching him like a cat, and studying him like a mathematician. He had watched him, both on his own account, for the pleasure of the thing, and through instinct, and had spied upon him as though he had been paid for so doing. Not a movement, not a gesture, on the part of the man in the yellow greatcoat had escaped him. Even before the stranger had so clearly manifested his interest in Cosette, Thnardier had divined his purpose. He had caught the old man's deep glances returning constantly to the child. Who was this man? Why this interest? Why this hideous costume, when he had so much money in his purse? Questions which he put to himself without being able to solve them, and which irritated him. He had pondered it all night long. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he her grandfather? Then why not make himself known at once? When one has a right, one asserts it. This man evidently had no right over Cosette. What was it, then? Thnardier lost himself in conjectures. He caught glimpses of everything, but he saw nothing. Be that as it may, on entering into conversation with the man, sure that there was some secret in the case, that the latter had some interest in remaining in the shadow, he felt himself strong when he perceived from the stranger's clear and firm retort, that this mysterious personage was mysterious in so simple a way, he became conscious that he was weak. He had expected nothing of the sort. His conjectures were put to the rout. He rallied his ideas. He weighed everything in the space of a second. Thnardier was one of those men who take in a situation at a glance. He decided that the moment had arrived for proceeding straightforward, and quickly at that. He did as great leaders do at the decisive moment, which they know that they alone recognize he abruptly unmasked his batteries. 'Sir, said he, 'I am in need of fifteen hundred francs. The stranger took from his side pocket an old pocketbook of black leather, opened it, drew out three bankbills, which he laid on the table. Then he placed his large thumb on the notes and said to the innkeeper 'Go and fetch Cosette. While this was taking place, what had Cosette been doing? On waking up, Cosette had run to get her shoe. In it she had found the gold piece. It was not a Napoleon it was one of those perfectly new twentyfranc pieces of the Restoration, on whose effigy the little Prussian queue had replaced the laurel wreath. Cosette was dazzled. Her destiny began to intoxicate her. She did not know what a gold piece was she had never seen one she hid it quickly in her pocket, as though she had stolen it. Still, she felt that it really was hers she guessed whence her gift had come, but the joy which she experienced was full of fear. She was happy above all she was stupefied. Such magnificent and beautiful things did not appear real. The doll frightened her, the gold piece frightened her. She trembled vaguely in the presence of this magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her. On the contrary, he reassured her. Ever since the preceding evening, amid all her amazement, even in her sleep, she had been thinking in her little childish mind of that man who seemed to be so poor and so sad, and who was so rich and so kind. Everything had changed for her since she had met that good man in the forest. Cosette, less happy than the most insignificant swallow of heaven, had never known what it was to take refuge under a mother's shadow and under a wing. For the last five years, that is to say, as far back as her memory ran, the poor child had shivered and trembled. She had always been exposed completely naked to the sharp wind of adversity now it seemed to her she was clothed. Formerly her soul had seemed cold, now it was warm. Cosette was no longer afraid of the Thnardier. She was no longer alone there was some one there. She hastily set about her regular morning duties. That louis, which she had about her, in the very apron pocket whence the fifteensou piece had fallen on the night before, distracted her thoughts. She dared not touch it, but she spent five minutes in gazing at it, with her tongue hanging out, if the truth must be told. As she swept the staircase, she paused, remained standing there motionless, forgetful of her broom and of the entire universe, occupied in gazing at that star which was blazing at the bottom of her pocket. It was during one of these periods of contemplation that the Thnardier joined her. She had gone in search of Cosette at her husband's orders. What was quite unprecedented, she neither struck her nor said an insulting word to her. 'Cosette, she said, almost gently, 'come immediately. An instant later Cosette entered the public room. The stranger took up the bundle which he had brought and untied it. This bundle contained a little woollen gown, an apron, a fustian bodice, a kerchief, a petticoat, woollen stockings, shoesa complete outfit for a girl of seven years. All was black. 'My child, said the man, 'take these, and go and dress yourself quickly. Daylight was appearing when those of the inhabitants of Montfermeil who had begun to open their doors beheld a poorly clad old man leading a little girl dressed in mourning, and carrying a pink doll in her arms, pass along the road to Paris. They were going in the direction of Livry. It was our man and Cosette. No one knew the man as Cosette was no longer in rags, many did not recognize her. Cosette was going away. With whom? She did not know. Whither? She knew not. All that she understood was that she was leaving the Thnardier tavern behind her. No one had thought of bidding her farewell, nor had she thought of taking leave of any one. She was leaving that hated and hating house. Poor, gentle creature, whose heart had been repressed up to that hour! Cosette walked along gravely, with her large eyes wide open, and gazing at the sky. She had put her louis in the pocket of her new apron. From time to time, she bent down and glanced at it then she looked at the good man. She felt something as though she were beside the good God. Madame Thnardier had allowed her husband to have his own way, as was her wont. She had expected great results. When the man and Cosette had taken their departure, Thnardier allowed a full quarter of an hour to elapse then he took her aside and showed her the fifteen hundred francs. 'Is that all? said she. It was the first time since they had set up housekeeping that she had dared to criticise one of the master's acts. The blow told. 'You are right, in sooth, said he 'I am a fool. Give me my hat. He folded up the three bankbills, thrust them into his pocket, and ran out in all haste but he made a mistake and turned to the right first. Some neighbors, of whom he made inquiries, put him on the track again the Lark and the man had been seen going in the direction of Livry. He followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself the while 'That man is evidently a million dressed in yellow, and I am an animal. First he gave twenty sous, then five francs, then fifty francs, then fifteen hundred francs, all with equal readiness. He would have given fifteen thousand francs. But I shall overtake him. And then, that bundle of clothes prepared beforehand for the child all that was singular many mysteries lay concealed under it. One does not let mysteries out of one's hand when one has once grasped them. The secrets of the wealthy are sponges of gold one must know how to subject them to pressure. All these thoughts whirled through his brain. 'I am an animal, said he. When one leaves Montfermeil and reaches the turn which the road takes that runs to Livry, it can be seen stretching out before one to a great distance across the plateau. On arriving there, he calculated that he ought to be able to see the old man and the child. He looked as far as his vision reached, and saw nothing. He made fresh inquiries, but he had wasted time. Some passersby informed him that the man and child of whom he was in search had gone towards the forest in the direction of Gagny. He hastened in that direction. They were far in advance of him but a child walks slowly, and he walked fast and then, he was well acquainted with the country. All at once he paused and dealt himself a blow on his forehead like a man who has forgotten some essential point and who is ready to retrace his steps. 'I ought to have taken my gun, said he to himself. Thnardier was one of those double natures which sometimes pass through our midst without our being aware of the fact, and who disappear without our finding them out, because destiny has only exhibited one side of them. It is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged. In a calm and even situation, Thnardier possessed all that is required to makewe will not say to bewhat people have agreed to call an honest trader, a good bourgeois. At the same time certain circumstances being given, certain shocks arriving to bring his undernature to the surface, he had all the requisites for a blackguard. He was a shopkeeper in whom there was some taint of the monster. Satan must have occasionally crouched down in some corner of the hovel in which Thnardier dwelt, and have fallen adreaming in the presence of this hideous masterpiece. After a momentary hesitation 'Bah! he thought 'they will have time to make their escape. And he pursued his road, walking rapidly straight ahead, and with almost an air of certainty, with the sagacity of a fox scenting a covey of partridges. In truth, when he had passed the ponds and had traversed in an oblique direction the large clearing which lies on the right of the Avenue de Bellevue, and reached that turf alley which nearly makes the circuit of the hill, and covers the arch of the ancient aqueduct of the Abbey of Chelles, he caught sight, over the top of the brushwood, of the hat on which he had already erected so many conjectures it was that man's hat. The brushwood was not high. Thnardier recognized the fact that the man and Cosette were sitting there. The child could not be seen on account of her small size, but the head of her doll was visible. Thnardier was not mistaken. The man was sitting there, and letting Cosette get somewhat rested. The innkeeper walked round the brushwood and presented himself abruptly to the eyes of those whom he was in search of. 'Pardon, excuse me, sir, he said, quite breathless, 'but here are your fifteen hundred francs. So saying, he handed the stranger the three bankbills. The man raised his eyes. 'What is the meaning of this? Thnardier replied respectfully 'It means, sir, that I shall take back Cosette. Cosette shuddered, and pressed close to the old man. He replied, gazing to the very bottom of Thnardier's eyes the while, and enunciating every syllable distinctly 'You are going to take back Cosette? 'Yes, sir, I am. I will tell you I have considered the matter. In fact, I have not the right to give her to you. I am an honest man, you see this child does not belong to me she belongs to her mother. It was her mother who confided her to me I can only resign her to her mother. You will say to me, 'But her mother is dead.' Good in that case I can only give the child up to the person who shall bring me a writing, signed by her mother, to the effect that I am to hand the child over to the person therein mentioned that is clear. The man, without making any reply, fumbled in his pocket, and Thnardier beheld the pocketbook of bankbills make its appearance once more. The tavernkeeper shivered with joy. 'Good! thought he 'let us hold firm he is going to bribe me! Before opening the pocketbook, the traveller cast a glance about him the spot was absolutely deserted there was not a soul either in the woods or in the valley. The man opened his pocketbook once more and drew from it, not the handful of bills which Thnardier expected, but a simple little paper, which he unfolded and presented fully open to the innkeeper, saying 'You are right read! Thnardier took the paper and read 'M. SUR M., March , . 'MONSIEUR THNARDIER You will deliver Cosette to this person. You will be paid for all the little things. I have the honor to salute you with respect, FANTINE. 'You know that signature? resumed the man. It certainly was Fantine's signature Thnardier recognized it. There was no reply to make he experienced two violent vexations, the vexation of renouncing the bribery which he had hoped for, and the vexation of being beaten the man added 'You may keep this paper as your receipt. Thnardier retreated in tolerably good order. 'This signature is fairly well imitated, he growled between his teeth 'however, let it go! Then he essayed a desperate effort. 'It is well, sir, he said, 'since you are the person, but I must be paid for all those little things. A great deal is owing to me. The man rose to his feet, filliping the dust from his threadbare sleeve 'Monsieur Thnardier, in January last, the mother reckoned that she owed you one hundred and twenty francs. In February, you sent her a bill of five hundred francs you received three hundred francs at the end of February, and three hundred francs at the beginning of March. Since then nine months have elapsed, at fifteen francs a month, the price agreed upon, which makes one hundred and thirtyfive francs. You had received one hundred francs too much that makes thirtyfive still owing you. I have just given you fifteen hundred francs. Thnardier's sensations were those of the wolf at the moment when he feels himself nipped and seized by the steel jaw of the trap. 'Who is this devil of a man? he thought. He did what the wolf does he shook himself. Audacity had succeeded with him once. 'MonsieurIdon'tknowyourname, he said resolutely, and this time casting aside all respectful ceremony, 'I shall take back Cosette if you do not give me a thousand crowns. The stranger said tranquilly 'Come, Cosette. He took Cosette by his left hand, and with his right he picked up his cudgel, which was lying on the ground. Thnardier noted the enormous size of the cudgel and the solitude of the spot. The man plunged into the forest with the child, leaving the innkeeper motionless and speechless. While they were walking away, Thnardier scrutinized his huge shoulders, which were a little rounded, and his great fists. Then, bringing his eyes back to his own person, they fell upon his feeble arms and his thin hands. 'I really must have been exceedingly stupid not to have thought to bring my gun, he said to himself, 'since I was going hunting! However, the innkeeper did not give up. 'I want to know where he is going, said he, and he set out to follow them at a distance. Two things were left on his hands, an irony in the shape of the paper signed Fantine, and a consolation, the fifteen hundred francs. The man led Cosette off in the direction of Livry and Bondy. He walked slowly, with drooping head, in an attitude of reflection and sadness. The winter had thinned out the forest, so that Thnardier did not lose them from sight, although he kept at a good distance. The man turned round from time to time, and looked to see if he was being followed. All at once he caught sight of Thnardier. He plunged suddenly into the brushwood with Cosette, where they could both hide themselves. 'The deuce! said Thnardier, and he redoubled his pace. The thickness of the undergrowth forced him to draw nearer to them. When the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled round. It was in vain that Thnardier sought to conceal himself in the branches he could not prevent the man seeing him. The man cast upon him an uneasy glance, then elevated his head and continued his course. The innkeeper set out again in pursuit. Thus they continued for two or three hundred paces. All at once the man turned round once more he saw the innkeeper. This time he gazed at him with so sombre an air that Thnardier decided that it was 'useless to proceed further. Thnardier retraced his steps. Jean Valjean was not dead. When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself into it, he was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under water until he reached a vessel at anchor, to which a boat was moored. He found means of hiding himself in this boat until night. At night he swam off again, and reached the shore a little way from Cape Brun. There, as he did not lack money, he procured clothing. A small countryhouse in the neighborhood of Balaguier was at that time the dressingroom of escaped convicts,a lucrative specialty. Then Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives who are seeking to evade the vigilance of the law and social fatality, pursued an obscure and undulating itinerary. He found his first refuge at Pradeaux, near Beausset. Then he directed his course towards GrandVillard, near Brianon, in the HautesAlpes. It was a fumbling and uneasy flight,a mole's track, whose branchings are untraceable. Later on, some trace of his passage into Ain, in the territory of Civrieux, was discovered in the Pyrenees, at Accons at the spot called GrangedeDoumec, near the market of Chavailles, and in the environs of Perigueux at Brunies, canton of La ChapelleGonaguet. He reached Paris. We have just seen him at Montfermeil. His first care on arriving in Paris had been to buy mourning clothes for a little girl of from seven to eight years of age then to procure a lodging. That done, he had betaken himself to Montfermeil. It will be remembered that already, during his preceding escape, he had made a mysterious trip thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood, of which the law had gathered an inkling. However, he was thought to be dead, and this still further increased the obscurity which had gathered about him. At Paris, one of the journals which chronicled the fact fell into his hands. He felt reassured and almost at peace, as though he had really been dead. On the evening of the day when Jean Valjean rescued Cosette from the claws of the Thnardiers, he returned to Paris. He reentered it at nightfall, with the child, by way of the Barrier Monceaux. There he entered a cabriolet, which took him to the esplanade of the Observatoire. There he got out, paid the coachman, took Cosette by the hand, and together they directed their steps through the darkness,through the deserted streets which adjoin the Ourcine and the Glacire, towards the Boulevard de l'Hpital. The day had been strange and filled with emotions for Cosette. They had eaten some bread and cheese purchased in isolated taverns, behind hedges they had changed carriages frequently they had travelled short distances on foot. She made no complaint, but she was weary, and Jean Valjean perceived it by the way she dragged more and more on his hand as she walked. He took her on his back. Cosette, without letting go of Catherine, laid her head on Jean Valjean's shoulder, and there fell asleep. Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of the Salptrire, and who had mounted to the Barrire d'Italie by way of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said that Paris disappeared. It was no longer solitude, for there were passersby it was not the country, for there were houses and streets it was not the city, for the streets had ruts like highways, and the grass grew in them it was not a village, the houses were too lofty. What was it, then? It was an inhabited spot where there was no one it was a desert place where there was some one it was a boulevard of the great city, a street of Paris more wild at night than the forest, more gloomy by day than a cemetery. It was the old quarter of the MarchauxChevaux. The rambler, if he risked himself outside the four decrepit walls of this MarchauxChevaux if he consented even to pass beyond the Rue du PetitBanquier, after leaving on his right a garden protected by high walls then a field in which tanbark mills rose like gigantic beaver huts then an enclosure encumbered with timber, with a heap of stumps, sawdust, and shavings, on which stood a large dog, barking then a long, low, utterly dilapidated wall, with a little black door in mourning, laden with mosses, which were covered with flowers in the spring then, in the most deserted spot, a frightful and decrepit building, on which ran the inscription in large letters POST NO BILLS,this daring rambler would have reached little known latitudes at the corner of the Rue des VignesSaintMarcel. There, near a factory, and between two garden walls, there could be seen, at that epoch, a mean building, which, at the first glance, seemed as small as a thatched hovel, and which was, in reality, as large as a cathedral. It presented its side and gable to the public road hence its apparent diminutiveness. Nearly the whole of the house was hidden. Only the door and one window could be seen. This hovel was only one story high. The first detail that struck the observer was, that the door could never have been anything but the door of a hovel, while the window, if it had been carved out of dressed stone instead of being in rough masonry, might have been the lattice of a lordly mansion. The door was nothing but a collection of wormeaten planks roughly bound together by crossbeams which resembled roughly hewn logs. It opened directly on a steep staircase of lofty steps, muddy, chalky, plasterstained, dusty steps, of the same width as itself, which could be seen from the street, running straight up like a ladder and disappearing in the darkness between two walls. The top of the shapeless bay into which this door shut was masked by a narrow scantling in the centre of which a triangular hole had been sawed, which served both as wicket and airhole when the door was closed. On the inside of the door the figures  had been traced with a couple of strokes of a brush dipped in ink, and above the scantling the same hand had daubed the number , so that one hesitated. Where was one? Above the door it said, 'Number  the inside replied, 'no, Number . No one knows what dustcolored figures were suspended like draperies from the triangular opening. The window was large, sufficiently elevated, garnished with Venetian blinds, and with a frame in large square panes only these large panes were suffering from various wounds, which were both concealed and betrayed by an ingenious paper bandage. And the blinds, dislocated and unpasted, threatened passersby rather than screened the occupants. The horizontal slats were missing here and there and had been navely replaced with boards nailed on perpendicularly so that what began as a blind ended as a shutter. This door with an unclean, and this window with an honest though dilapidated air, thus beheld on the same house, produced the effect of two incomplete beggars walking side by side, with different miens beneath the same rags, the one having always been a mendicant, and the other having once been a gentleman. The staircase led to a very vast edifice which resembled a shed which had been converted into a house. This edifice had, for its intestinal tube, a long corridor, on which opened to right and left sorts of compartments of varied dimensions which were inhabitable under stress of circumstances, and rather more like stalls than cells. These chambers received their light from the vague waste grounds in the neighborhood. All this was dark, disagreeable, wan, melancholy, sepulchral traversed according as the crevices lay in the roof or in the door, by cold rays or by icy winds. An interesting and picturesque peculiarity of this sort of dwelling is the enormous size of the spiders. To the left of the entrance door, on the boulevard side, at about the height of a man from the ground, a small window which had been walled up formed a square niche full of stones which the children had thrown there as they passed by. A portion of this building has recently been demolished. From what still remains of it one can form a judgment as to what it was in former days. As a whole, it was not over a hundred years old. A hundred years is youth in a church and age in a house. It seems as though man's lodging partook of his ephemeral character, and God's house of his eternity. The postmen called the house Number  but it was known in the neighborhood as the Gorbeau house. Let us explain whence this appellation was derived. Collectors of petty details, who become herbalists of anecdotes, and prick slippery dates into their memories with a pin, know that there was in Paris, during the last century, about , two attorneys at the Chtelet named, one Corbeau (Raven), the other Renard (Fox). The two names had been forestalled by La Fontaine. The opportunity was too fine for the lawyers they made the most of it. A parody was immediately put in circulation in the galleries of the courthouse, in verses that limped a little Matre Corbeau, sur un dossier perch, Tenait dans son bec une saisie excutoire Matre Renard, par l'odeur allch, Lui fit  peu prs cette histoire H! bonjour. Etc. The two honest practitioners, embarrassed by the jests, and finding the bearing of their heads interfered with by the shouts of laughter which followed them, resolved to get rid of their names, and hit upon the expedient of applying to the king. Their petition was presented to Louis XV. on the same day when the Papal Nuncio, on the one hand, and the Cardinal de la RocheAymon on the other, both devoutly kneeling, were each engaged in putting on, in his Majesty's presence, a slipper on the bare feet of Madame du Barry, who had just got out of bed. The king, who was laughing, continued to laugh, passed gayly from the two bishops to the two lawyers, and bestowed on these limbs of the law their former names, or nearly so. By the kings command, Matre Corbeau was permitted to add a tail to his initial letter and to call himself Gorbeau. Matre Renard was less lucky all he obtained was leave to place a P in front of his R, and to call himself Prenard so that the second name bore almost as much resemblance as the first. Now, according to local tradition, this Matre Gorbeau had been the proprietor of the building numbered  on the Boulevard de l'Hpital. He was even the author of the monumental window. Hence the edifice bore the name of the Gorbeau house. Opposite this house, among the trees of the boulevard, rose a great elm which was threequarters dead almost directly facing it opens the Rue de la Barrire des Gobelins, a street then without houses, unpaved, planted with unhealthy trees, which was green or muddy according to the season, and which ended squarely in the exterior wall of Paris. An odor of copperas issued in puffs from the roofs of the neighboring factory. The barrier was close at hand. In  the city wall was still in existence. This barrier itself evoked gloomy fancies in the mind. It was the road to Bictre. It was through it that, under the Empire and the Restoration, prisoners condemned to death reentered Paris on the day of their execution. It was there, that, about , was committed that mysterious assassination, called 'The assassination of the Fontainebleau barrier, whose authors justice was never able to discover a melancholy problem which has never been elucidated, a frightful enigma which has never been unriddled. Take a few steps, and you come upon that fatal Rue Croulebarbe, where Ulbach stabbed the goatgirl of Ivry to the sound of thunder, as in the melodramas. A few paces more, and you arrive at the abominable pollarded elms of the Barrire SaintJacques, that expedient of the philanthropist to conceal the scaffold, that miserable and shameful Place de Grve of a shopkeeping and bourgeois society, which recoiled before the death penalty, neither daring to abolish it with grandeur, nor to uphold it with authority. Leaving aside this Place SaintJacques, which was, as it were, predestined, and which has always been horrible, probably the most mournful spot on that mournful boulevard, seven and thirty years ago, was the spot which even today is so unattractive, where stood the building Number . Bourgeois houses only began to spring up there twentyfive years later. The place was unpleasant. In addition to the gloomy thoughts which assailed one there, one was conscious of being between the Salptrire, a glimpse of whose dome could be seen, and Bictre, whose outskirts one was fairly touching that is to say, between the madness of women and the madness of men. As far as the eye could see, one could perceive nothing but the abattoirs, the city wall, and the fronts of a few factories, resembling barracks or monasteries everywhere about stood hovels, rubbish, ancient walls blackened like cerecloths, new white walls like windingsheets everywhere parallel rows of trees, buildings erected on a line, flat constructions, long, cold rows, and the melancholy sadness of right angles. Not an unevenness of the ground, not a caprice in the architecture, not a fold. The ensemble was glacial, regular, hideous. Nothing oppresses the heart like symmetry. It is because symmetry is ennui, and ennui is at the very foundation of grief. Despair yawns. Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell existed, that bit of the Boulevard de l'Hpital might have formed the entrance to it. Nevertheless, at nightfall, at the moment when the daylight is vanishing, especially in winter, at the hour when the twilight breeze tears from the elms their last russet leaves, when the darkness is deep and starless, or when the moon and the wind are making openings in the clouds and losing themselves in the shadows, this boulevard suddenly becomes frightful. The black lines sink inwards and are lost in the shades, like morsels of the infinite. The passerby cannot refrain from recalling the innumerable traditions of the place which are connected with the gibbet. The solitude of this spot, where so many crimes have been committed, had something terrible about it. One almost had a presentiment of meeting with traps in that darkness all the confused forms of the darkness seemed suspicious, and the long, hollow square, of which one caught a glimpse between each tree, seemed graves by day it was ugly in the evening melancholy by night it was sinister. In summer, at twilight, one saw, here and there, a few old women seated at the foot of the elm, on benches mouldy with rain. These good old women were fond of begging. However, this quarter, which had a superannuated rather than an antique air, was tending even then to transformation. Even at that time any one who was desirous of seeing it had to make haste. Each day some detail of the whole effect was disappearing. For the last twenty years the station of the Orleans railway has stood beside the old faubourg and distracted it, as it does today. Wherever it is placed on the borders of a capital, a railway station is the death of a suburb and the birth of a city. It seems as though, around these great centres of the movements of a people, the earth, full of germs, trembled and yawned, to engulf the ancient dwellings of men and to allow new ones to spring forth, at the rattle of these powerful machines, at the breath of these monstrous horses of civilization which devour coal and vomit fire. The old houses crumble and new ones rise. Since the Orleans railway has invaded the region of the Salptrire, the ancient, narrow streets which adjoin the moats SaintVictor and the Jardin des Plantes tremble, as they are violently traversed three or four times each day by those currents of coach fiacres and omnibuses which, in a given time, crowd back the houses to the right and the left for there are things which are odd when said that are rigorously exact and just as it is true to say that in large cities the sun makes the southern fronts of houses to vegetate and grow, it is certain that the frequent passage of vehicles enlarges streets. The symptoms of a new life are evident. In this old provincial quarter, in the wildest nooks, the pavement shows itself, the sidewalks begin to crawl and to grow longer, even where there are as yet no pedestrians. One morning,a memorable morning in July, ,black pots of bitumen were seen smoking there on that day it might be said that civilization had arrived in the Rue de l'Ourcine, and that Paris had entered the suburb of SaintMarceau. It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like wild birds, he had chosen this desert place to construct his nest. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a sort of a passkey, opened the door, entered, closed it again carefully, and ascended the staircase, still carrying Cosette. At the top of the stairs he drew from his pocket another key, with which he opened another door. The chamber which he entered, and which he closed again instantly, was a kind of moderately spacious attic, furnished with a mattress laid on the floor, a table, and several chairs a stove in which a fire was burning, and whose embers were visible, stood in one corner. A lantern on the boulevard cast a vague light into this poor room. At the extreme end there was a dressingroom with a folding bed Jean Valjean carried the child to this bed and laid her down there without waking her. He struck a match and lighted a candle. All this was prepared beforehand on the table, and, as he had done on the previous evening, he began to scrutinize Cosette's face with a gaze full of ecstasy, in which the expression of kindness and tenderness almost amounted to aberration. The little girl, with that tranquil confidence which belongs only to extreme strength and extreme weakness, had fallen asleep without knowing with whom she was, and continued to sleep without knowing where she was. Jean Valjean bent down and kissed that child's hand. Nine months before he had kissed the hand of the mother, who had also just fallen asleep. The same sad, piercing, religious sentiment filled his heart. He knelt beside Cosette's bed. lt was broad daylight, and the child still slept. A wan ray of the December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the ceiling in long threads of light and shade. All at once a heavily laden carrier's cart, which was passing along the boulevard, shook the frail bed, like a clap of thunder, and made it quiver from top to bottom. 'Yes, madame! cried Cosette, waking with a start, 'here I am! here I am! And she sprang out of bed, her eyes still half shut with the heaviness of sleep, extending her arms towards the corner of the wall. 'Ah! mon Dieu, my broom! said she. She opened her eyes wide now, and beheld the smiling countenance of Jean Valjean. 'Ah! so it is true! said the child. 'Good morning, Monsieur. Children accept joy and happiness instantly and familiarly, being themselves by nature joy and happiness. Cosette caught sight of Catherine at the foot of her bed, and took possession of her, and, as she played, she put a hundred questions to Jean Valjean. Where was she? Was Paris very large? Was Madame Thnardier very far away? Was she to go back? etc., etc. All at once she exclaimed, 'How pretty it is here! It was a frightful hole, but she felt free. 'Must I sweep? she resumed at last. 'Play! said Jean Valjean. The day passed thus. Cosette, without troubling herself to understand anything, was inexpressibly happy with that doll and that kind man. On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean was still by Cosette's bedside he watched there motionless, waiting for her to wake. Some new thing had come into his soul. Jean Valjean had never loved anything for twentyfive years he had been alone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. In the prison he had been vicious, gloomy, chaste, ignorant, and shy. The heart of that exconvict was full of virginity. His sister and his sister's children had left him only a vague and faroff memory which had finally almost completely vanished he had made every effort to find them, and not having been able to find them, he had forgotten them. Human nature is made thus the other tender emotions of his youth, if he had ever had any, had fallen into an abyss. When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession of her, carried her off, and delivered her, he felt his heart moved within him. All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards that child. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled with joy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what it meant for that great and singular movement of a heart which begins to love is a very obscure and a very sweet thing. Poor old man, with a perfectly new heart! Only, as he was five and fifty, and Cosette eight years of age, all that might have been love in the whole course of his life flowed together into a sort of ineffable light. It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop had caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon Cosette caused the dawn of love to rise. The early days passed in this dazzled state. Cosette, on her side, had also, unknown to herself, become another being, poor little thing! She was so little when her mother left her, that she no longer remembered her. Like all children, who resemble young shoots of the vine, which cling to everything, she had tried to love she had not succeeded. All had repulsed her,the Thnardiers, their children, other children. She had loved the dog, and he had died, after which nothing and nobody would have anything to do with her. It is a sad thing to say, and we have already intimated it, that, at eight years of age, her heart was cold. It was not her fault it was not the faculty of loving that she lacked alas! it was the possibility. Thus, from the very first day, all her sentient and thinking powers loved this kind man. She felt that which she had never felt beforea sensation of expansion. The man no longer produced on her the effect of being old or poor she thought Jean Valjean handsome, just as she thought the hovel pretty. These are the effects of the dawn, of childhood, of joy. The novelty of the earth and of life counts for something here. Nothing is so charming as the coloring reflection of happiness on a garret. We all have in our past a delightful garret. Nature, a difference of fifty years, had set a profound gulf between Jean Valjean and Cosette destiny filled in this gulf. Destiny suddenly united and wedded with its irresistible power these two uprooted existences, differing in age, alike in sorrow. One, in fact, completed the other. Cosette's instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean's instinct sought a child. To meet was to find each other. At the mysterious moment when their hands touched, they were welded together. When these two souls perceived each other, they recognized each other as necessary to each other, and embraced each other closely. Taking the words in their most comprehensive and absolute sense, we may say that, separated from every one by the walls of the tomb, Jean Valjean was the widower, and Cosette was the orphan this situation caused Jean Valjean to become Cosette's father after a celestial fashion. And in truth, the mysterious impression produced on Cosette in the depths of the forest of Chelles by the hand of Jean Valjean grasping hers in the dark was not an illusion, but a reality. The entrance of that man into the destiny of that child had been the advent of God. Moreover, Jean Valjean had chosen his refuge well. There he seemed perfectly secure. The chamber with a dressingroom, which he occupied with Cosette, was the one whose window opened on the boulevard. This being the only window in the house, no neighbors' glances were to be feared from across the way or at the side. The ground floor of Number , a sort of dilapidated penthouse, served as a wagonhouse for marketgardeners, and no communication existed between it and the first story. It was separated by the flooring, which had neither traps nor stairs, and which formed the diaphragm of the building, as it were. The first story contained, as we have said, numerous chambers and several attics, only one of which was occupied by the old woman who took charge of Jean Valjean's housekeeping all the rest was uninhabited. It was this old woman, ornamented with the name of the principal lodger, and in reality intrusted with the functions of portress, who had let him the lodging on Christmas eve. He had represented himself to her as a gentleman of means who had been ruined by Spanish bonds, who was coming there to live with his little daughter. He had paid her six months in advance, and had commissioned the old woman to furnish the chamber and dressingroom, as we have seen. It was this good woman who had lighted the fire in the stove, and prepared everything on the evening of their arrival. Week followed week these two beings led a happy life in that hovel. Cosette laughed, chattered, and sang from daybreak. Children have their morning song as well as birds. It sometimes happened that Jean Valjean clasped her tiny red hand, all cracked with chilblains, and kissed it. The poor child, who was used to being beaten, did not know the meaning of this, and ran away in confusion. At times she became serious and stared at her little black gown. Cosette was no longer in rags she was in mourning. She had emerged from misery, and she was entering into life. Jean Valjean had undertaken to teach her to read. Sometimes, as he made the child spell, he remembered that it was with the idea of doing evil that he had learned to read in prison. This idea had ended in teaching a child to read. Then the exconvict smiled with the pensive smile of the angels. He felt in it a premeditation from on high, the will of some one who was not man, and he became absorbed in reverie. Good thoughts have their abysses as well as evil ones. To teach Cosette to read, and to let her play, this constituted nearly the whole of Jean Valjean's existence. And then he talked of her mother, and he made her pray. She called him father, and knew no other name for him. He passed hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full of interest men seemed to him good and just he no longer reproached any one in thought he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future stretching out before him, illuminated by Cosette as by a charming light. The best of us are not exempt from egotistical thoughts. At times, he reflected with a sort of joy that she would be ugly. This is only a personal opinion but, to utter our whole thought, at the point where Jean Valjean had arrived when he began to love Cosette, it is by no means clear to us that he did not need this encouragement in order that he might persevere in welldoing. He had just viewed the malice of men and the misery of society under a new aspectincomplete aspects, which unfortunately only exhibited one side of the truth, the fate of woman as summed up in Fantine, and public authority as personified in Javert. He had returned to prison, this time for having done right he had quaffed fresh bitterness disgust and lassitude were overpowering him even the memory of the Bishop probably suffered a temporary eclipse, though sure to reappear later on luminous and triumphant but, after all, that sacred memory was growing dim. Who knows whether Jean Valjean had not been on the eve of growing discouraged and of falling once more? He loved and grew strong again. Alas! he walked with no less indecision than Cosette. He protected her, and she strengthened him. Thanks to him, she could walk through life thanks to her, he could continue in virtue. He was that child's stay, and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the balances of destiny! Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every evening, at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to SaintMdard, which is the nearest church. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained with the old woman but the child's delight was to go out with the good man. She preferred an hour with him to all her rapturous ttettes with Catherine. He held her hand as they walked, and said sweet things to her. It turned out that Cosette was a very gay little person. The old woman attended to the housekeeping and cooking and went to market. They lived soberly, always having a little fire, but like people in very moderate circumstances. Jean Valjean had made no alterations in the furniture as it was the first day he had merely had the glass door leading to Cosette's dressingroom replaced by a solid door. He still wore his yellow coat, his black breeches, and his old hat. In the street, he was taken for a poor man. It sometimes happened that kindhearted women turned back to bestow a sou on him. Jean Valjean accepted the sou with a deep bow. It also happened occasionally that he encountered some poor wretch asking alms then he looked behind him to make sure that no one was observing him, stealthily approached the unfortunate man, put a piece of money into his hand, often a silver coin, and walked rapidly away. This had its disadvantages. He began to be known in the neighborhood under the name of the beggar who gives alms. The old principal lodger, a crosslooking creature, who was thoroughly permeated, so far as her neighbors were concerned, with the inquisitiveness peculiar to envious persons, scrutinized Jean Valjean a great deal, without his suspecting the fact. She was a little deaf, which rendered her talkative. There remained to her from her past, two teeth,one above, the other below,which she was continually knocking against each other. She had questioned Cosette, who had not been able to tell her anything, since she knew nothing herself except that she had come from Montfermeil. One morning, this spy saw Jean Valjean, with an air which struck the old gossip as peculiar, entering one of the uninhabited compartments of the hovel. She followed him with the step of an old cat, and was able to observe him without being seen, through a crack in the door, which was directly opposite him. Jean Valjean had his back turned towards this door, by way of greater security, no doubt. The old woman saw him fumble in his pocket and draw thence a case, scissors, and thread then he began to rip the lining of one of the skirts of his coat, and from the opening he took a bit of yellowish paper, which he unfolded. The old woman recognized, with terror, the fact that it was a bankbill for a thousand francs. It was the second or third only that she had seen in the course of her existence. She fled in alarm. A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her to go and get this thousandfranc bill changed for him, adding that it was his quarterly income, which he had received the day before. 'Where? thought the old woman. 'He did not go out until six o'clock in the evening, and the government bank certainly is not open at that hour. The old woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises. That thousandfranc note, commented on and multiplied, produced a vast amount of terrified discussion among the gossips of the Rue des Vignes SaintMarcel. A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing some wood, in his shirtsleeves, in the corridor. The old woman was in the chamber, putting things in order. She was alone. Cosette was occupied in admiring the wood as it was sawed. The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging on a nail, and examined it. The lining had been sewed up again. The good woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed in the skirts and revers thicknesses of paper. More thousandfranc bankbills, no doubt! She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the pockets. Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she had seen, but a big pocketbook, a very large knife, anda suspicious circumstanceseveral wigs of various colors. Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in a manner provided against unexpected accidents. Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of winter. Near SaintMdard's church there was a poor man who was in the habit of crouching on the brink of a public well which had been condemned, and on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing charity. He never passed this man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he spoke to him. Those who envied this mendicant said that he belonged to the police. He was an exbeadle of seventyfive, who was constantly mumbling his prayers. One evening, as Jean Valjean was passing by, when he had not Cosette with him, he saw the beggar in his usual place, beneath the lantern which had just been lighted. The man seemed engaged in prayer, according to his custom, and was much bent over. Jean Valjean stepped up to him and placed his customary alms in his hand. The mendicant raised his eyes suddenly, stared intently at Jean Valjean, then dropped his head quickly. This movement was like a flash of lightning. Jean Valjean was seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that he had just caught sight, by the light of the street lantern, not of the placid and beaming visage of the old beadle, but of a wellknown and startling face. He experienced the same impression that one would have on finding one's self, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He recoiled, terrified, petrified, daring neither to breathe, to speak, to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who had dropped his head, which was enveloped in a rag, and no longer appeared to know that he was there. At this strange moment, an instinctpossibly the mysterious instinct of selfpreservation,restrained Jean Valjean from uttering a word. The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance as he had every day. 'Bah! said Jean Valjean, 'I am mad! I am dreaming! Impossible! And he returned profoundly troubled. He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face which he thought he had seen was the face of Javert. That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his head a second time. On the following day, at nightfall, he went back. The beggar was at his post. 'Good day, my good man, said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing him a sou. The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice, 'Thanks, my good sir. It was unmistakably the exbeadle. Jean Valjean felt completely reassured. He began to laugh. 'How the deuce could I have thought that I saw Javert there? he thought. 'Am I going to lose my eyesight now? And he thought no more about it. A few days afterwards,it might have been at eight o'clock in the evening,he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette spell aloud, when he heard the house door open and then shut again. This struck him as singular. The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house except himself, always went to bed at nightfall, so that she might not burn out her candles. Jean Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be quiet. He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary's. Jean Valjean listened. The step was heavy, and sounded like that of a man but the old woman wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the step of a man as that of an old woman. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blew out his candle. He had sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice, 'Get into bed very softly and as he kissed her brow, the steps paused. Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards the door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and holding his breath in the dark. After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned round, as he heard nothing more, and, as he raised his eyes towards the door of his chamber, he saw a light through the keyhole. This light formed a sort of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was evidently some one there, who was holding a candle in his hand and listening. Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated. But he heard no sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the person who had been listening at the door had removed his shoes. Jean Valjean threw himself, all dressed as he was, on his bed, and could not close his eyes all night. At daybreak, just as he was falling into a doze through fatigue, he was awakened by the creaking of a door which opened on some attic at the end of the corridor, then he heard the same masculine footstep which had ascended the stairs on the preceding evening. The step was approaching. He sprang off the bed and applied his eye to the keyhole, which was tolerably large, hoping to see the person who had made his way by night into the house and had listened at his door, as he passed. It was a man, in fact, who passed, this time without pausing, in front of Jean Valjean's chamber. The corridor was too dark to allow of the person's face being distinguished but when the man reached the staircase, a ray of light from without made it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean Valjean had a complete view of his back. The man was of lofty stature, clad in a long frockcoat, with a cudgel under his arm. The formidable neck and shoulders belonged to Javert. Jean Valjean might have attempted to catch another glimpse of him through his window opening on the boulevard, but he would have been obliged to open the window he dared not. It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like himself. Who had given him that key? What was the meaning of this? When the old woman came to do the work, at seven o'clock in the morning, Jean Valjean cast a penetrating glance on her, but he did not question her. The good woman appeared as usual. As she swept up she remarked to him 'Possibly Monsieur may have heard some one come in last night? At that age, and on that boulevard, eight o'clock in the evening was the dead of the night. 'That is true, by the way, he replied, in the most natural tone possible. 'Who was it? 'It was a new lodger who has come into the house, said the old woman. 'And what is his name? 'I don't know exactly Dumont, or Daumont, or some name of that sort. 'And who is this Monsieur Dumont? The old woman gazed at him with her little polecat eyes, and answered 'A gentleman of property, like yourself. Perhaps she had no ulterior meaning. Jean Valjean thought he perceived one. When the old woman had taken her departure, he did up a hundred francs which he had in a cupboard, into a roll, and put it in his pocket. In spite of all the precautions which he took in this operation so that he might not be heard rattling silver, a hundredsou piece escaped from his hands and rolled noisily on the floor. When darkness came on, he descended and carefully scrutinized both sides of the boulevard. He saw no one. The boulevard appeared to be absolutely deserted. It is true that a person can conceal himself behind trees. He went upstairs again. 'Come. he said to Cosette. He took her by the hand, and they both went out. An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the reader is about to peruse, and of others which will be met with further on. The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning himself, has been absent from Paris for many years. Paris has been transformed since he quitted it. A new city has arisen, which is, after a fashion, unknown to him. There is no need for him to say that he loves Paris Paris is his mind's natal city. In consequence of demolitions and reconstructions, the Paris of his youth, that Paris which he bore away religiously in his memory, is now a Paris of days gone by. He must be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is possible that when the author conducts his readers to a spot and says, 'In such a street there stands such and such a house, neither street nor house will any longer exist in that locality. Readers may verify the facts if they care to take the trouble. For his own part, he is unacquainted with the new Paris, and he writes with the old Paris before his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him. It is a delight to him to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he beheld when he was in his own country, and that all has not vanished. So long as you go and come in your native land, you imagine that those streets are a matter of indifference to you that those windows, those roofs, and those doors are nothing to you that those walls are strangers to you that those trees are merely the first encountered haphazard that those houses, which you do not enter, are useless to you that the pavements which you tread are merely stones. Later on, when you are no longer there, you perceive that the streets are dear to you that you miss those roofs, those doors and that those walls are necessary to you, those trees are well beloved by you that you entered those houses which you never entered, every day, and that you have left a part of your heart, of your blood, of your soul, in those pavements. All those places which you no longer behold, which you may never behold again, perchance, and whose memory you have cherished, take on a melancholy charm, recur to your mind with the melancholy of an apparition, make the holy land visible to you, and are, so to speak, the very form of France, and you love them and you call them up as they are, as they were, and you persist in this, and you will submit to no change for you are attached to the figure of your fatherland as to the face of your mother. May we, then, be permitted to speak of the past in the present? That said, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we continue. Jean Valjean instantly quitted the boulevard and plunged into the streets, taking the most intricate lines which he could devise, returning on his track at times, to make sure that he was not being followed. This manuvre is peculiar to the hunted stag. On soil where an imprint of the track may be left, this manuvre possesses, among other advantages, that of deceiving the huntsmen and the dogs, by throwing them on the wrong scent. In venery this is called false reimbushment. The moon was full that night. Jean Valjean was not sorry for this. The moon, still very close to the horizon, cast great masses of light and shadow in the streets. Jean Valjean could glide along close to the houses on the dark side, and yet keep watch on the light side. He did not, perhaps, take sufficiently into consideration the fact that the dark side escaped him. Still, in the deserted lanes which lie near the Rue Poliveau, he thought he felt certain that no one was following him. Cosette walked on without asking any questions. The sufferings of the first six years of her life had instilled something passive into her nature. Moreover,and this is a remark to which we shall frequently have occasion to recur,she had grown used, without being herself aware of it, to the peculiarities of this good man and to the freaks of destiny. And then she was with him, and she felt safe. Jean Valjean knew no more where he was going than did Cosette. He trusted in God, as she trusted in him. It seemed as though he also were clinging to the hand of some one greater than himself he thought he felt a being leading him, though invisible. However, he had no settled idea, no plan, no project. He was not even absolutely sure that it was Javert, and then it might have been Javert, without Javert knowing that he was Jean Valjean. Was not he disguised? Was not he believed to be dead? Still, queer things had been going on for several days. He wanted no more of them. He was determined not to return to the Gorbeau house. Like the wild animal chased from its lair, he was seeking a hole in which he might hide until he could find one where he might dwell. Jean Valjean described many and varied labyrinths in the Mouffetard quarter, which was already asleep, as though the discipline of the Middle Ages and the yoke of the curfew still existed he combined in various manners, with cunning strategy, the Rue Censier and the Rue Copeau, the Rue du BattoirSaintVictor and the Rue du Puits l'Ermite. There are lodging houses in this locality, but he did not even enter one, finding nothing which suited him. He had no doubt that if any one had chanced to be upon his track, they would have lost it. As eleven o'clock struck from SainttienneduMont, he was traversing the Rue de Pontoise, in front of the office of the commissary of police, situated at No. . A few moments later, the instinct of which we have spoken above made him turn round. At that moment he saw distinctly, thanks to the commissary's lantern, which betrayed them, three men who were following him closely, pass, one after the other, under that lantern, on the dark side of the street. One of the three entered the alley leading to the commissary's house. The one who marched at their head struck him as decidedly suspicious. 'Come, child, he said to Cosette and he made haste to quit the Rue Pontoise. He took a circuit, turned into the Passage des Patriarches, which was closed on account of the hour, strode along the Rue de l'pedeBois and the Rue de l'Arbalte, and plunged into the Rue des Postes. At that time there was a square formed by the intersection of streets, where the College Rollin stands today, and where the Rue NeuveSainteGenevive turns off. It is understood, of course, that the Rue NeuveSainteGenevive is an old street, and that a postingchaise does not pass through the Rue des Postes once in ten years. In the thirteenth century this Rue des Postes was inhabited by potters, and its real name is Rue des Pots. The moon cast a livid light into this open space. Jean Valjean went into ambush in a doorway, calculating that if the men were still following him, he could not fail to get a good look at them, as they traversed this illuminated space. In point of fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the men made their appearance. There were four of them now. All were tall, dressed in long, brown coats, with round hats, and huge cudgels in their hands. Their great stature and their vast fists rendered them no less alarming than did their sinister stride through the darkness. One would have pronounced them four spectres disguised as bourgeois. They halted in the middle of the space and formed a group, like men in consultation. They had an air of indecision. The one who appeared to be their leader turned round and pointed hastily with his right hand in the direction which Jean Valjean had taken another seemed to indicate the contrary direction with considerable obstinacy. At the moment when the first man wheeled round, the moon fell full in his face. Jean Valjean recognized Javert perfectly. Uncertainty was at an end for Jean Valjean fortunately it still lasted for the men. He took advantage of their hesitation. It was time lost for them, but gained for him. He slipped from under the gate where he had concealed himself, and went down the Rue des Postes, towards the region of the Jardin des Plantes. Cosette was beginning to be tired. He took her in his arms and carried her. There were no passersby, and the street lanterns had not been lighted on account of there being a moon. He redoubled his pace. In a few strides he had reached the Goblet potteries, on the front of which the moonlight rendered distinctly legible the ancient inscription De Goblet fils c'est ici la fabrique Venez choisir des cruches et des brocs, Des pots  fleurs, des tuyaux, de la brique.  tout venant le Cur vend des Carreaux. He left behind him the Rue de la Clef, then the Fountain SaintVictor, skirted the Jardin des Plantes by the lower streets, and reached the quay. There he turned round. The quay was deserted. The streets were deserted. There was no one behind him. He drew a long breath. He gained the Pont d'Austerlitz. Tolls were still collected there at that epoch. He presented himself at the toll office and handed over a sou. 'It is two sous, said the old soldier in charge of the bridge. 'You are carrying a child who can walk. Pay for two. He paid, vexed that his passage should have aroused remark. Every flight should be an imperceptible slipping away. A heavy cart was crossing the Seine at the same time as himself, and on its way, like him, to the right bank. This was of use to him. He could traverse the bridge in the shadow of the cart. Towards the middle of the Bridge, Cosette, whose feet were benumbed, wanted to walk. He set her on the ground and took her hand again. The bridge once crossed, he perceived some timberyards on his right. He directed his course thither. In order to reach them, it was necessary to risk himself in a tolerably large unsheltered and illuminated space. He did not hesitate. Those who were on his track had evidently lost the scent, and Jean Valjean believed himself to be out of danger. Hunted, yes followed, no. A little street, the Rue du CheminVertSaintAntoine, opened out between two timberyards enclosed in walls. This street was dark and narrow and seemed made expressly for him. Before entering it he cast a glance behind him. From the point where he stood he could see the whole extent of the Pont d'Austerlitz. Four shadows were just entering on the bridge. These shadows had their backs turned to the Jardin des Plantes and were on their way to the right bank. These four shadows were the four men. Jean Valjean shuddered like the wild beast which is recaptured. One hope remained to him it was, that the men had not, perhaps, stepped on the bridge, and had not caught sight of him while he was crossing the large illuminated space, holding Cosette by the hand. In that case, by plunging into the little street before him, he might escape, if he could reach the timberyards, the marshes, the marketgardens, the uninhabited ground which was not built upon. It seemed to him that he might commit himself to that silent little street. He entered it. Three hundred paces further on, he arrived at a point where the street forked. It separated into two streets, which ran in a slanting line, one to the right, and the other to the left. Jean Valjean had before him what resembled the two branches of a Y. Which should he choose? He did not hesitate, but took the one on the right. Why? Because that to the left ran towards a suburb, that is to say, towards inhabited regions, and the right branch towards the open country, that is to say, towards deserted regions. However, they no longer walked very fast. Cosette's pace retarded Jean Valjean's. He took her up and carried her again. Cosette laid her head on the shoulder of the good man and said not a word. He turned round from time to time and looked behind him. He took care to keep always on the dark side of the street. The street was straight in his rear. The first two or three times that he turned round he saw nothing the silence was profound, and he continued his march somewhat reassured. All at once, on turning round, he thought he perceived in the portion of the street which he had just passed through, far off in the obscurity, something which was moving. He rushed forward precipitately rather than walked, hoping to find some sidestreet, to make his escape through it, and thus to break his scent once more. He arrived at a wall. This wall, however, did not absolutely prevent further progress it was a wall which bordered a transverse street, in which the one he had taken ended. Here again, he was obliged to come to a decision should he go to the right or to the left. He glanced to the right. The fragmentary lane was prolonged between buildings which were either sheds or barns, then ended at a blind alley. The extremity of the culdesac was distinctly visible,a lofty white wall. He glanced to the left. On that side the lane was open, and about two hundred paces further on, ran into a street of which it was the affluent. On that side lay safety. At the moment when Jean Valjean was meditating a turn to the left, in an effort to reach the street which he saw at the end of the lane, he perceived a sort of motionless, black statue at the corner of the lane and the street towards which he was on the point of directing his steps. It was some one, a man, who had evidently just been posted there, and who was barring the passage and waiting. Jean Valjean recoiled. The point of Paris where Jean Valjean found himself, situated between the Faubourg SaintAntoine and la Rpe, is one of those which recent improvements have transformed from top to bottom,resulting in disfigurement according to some, and in a transfiguration according to others. The marketgardens, the timberyards, and the old buildings have been effaced. Today, there are brandnew, wide streets, arenas, circuses, hippodromes, railway stations, and a prison, Mazas, there progress, as the reader sees, with its antidote. Half a century ago, in that ordinary, popular tongue, which is all compounded of traditions, which persists in calling the Institut les QuatreNations, and the OperaComique Feydeau, the precise spot whither Jean Valjean had arrived was called le PetitPicpus. The Porte SaintJacques, the Porte Paris, the Barrire des Sergents, the Porcherons, la Galiote, les Clestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, l'Arbre de Cracovie, la PetitePolognethese are the names of old Paris which survive amid the new. The memory of the populace hovers over these relics of the past. Le PetitPicpus, which, moreover, hardly ever had any existence, and never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the monkish aspect of a Spanish town. The roads were not much paved the streets were not much built up. With the exception of the two or three streets, of which we shall presently speak, all was wall and solitude there. Not a shop, not a vehicle, hardly a candle lighted here and there in the windows all lights extinguished after ten o'clock. Gardens, convents, timberyards, marshes occasional lowly dwellings and great walls as high as the houses. Such was this quarter in the last century. The Revolution snubbed it soundly. The republican government demolished and cut through it. Rubbish shoots were established there. Thirty years ago, this quarter was disappearing under the erasing process of new buildings. Today, it has been utterly blotted out. The PetitPicpus, of which no existing plan has preserved a trace, is indicated with sufficient clearness in the plan of , published at Paris by Denis Thierry, Rue SaintJacques, opposite the Rue du Pltre and at Lyons, by Jean Girin, Rue Mercire, at the sign of Prudence. PetitPicpus had, as we have just mentioned, a Y of streets, formed by the Rue du CheminVertSaintAntoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on the left the name of Little Picpus Street, and on the right the name of the Rue Polonceau. The two limbs of the Y were connected at the apex as by a bar this bar was called Rue DroitMur. The Rue Polonceau ended there Rue PetitPicpus passed on, and ascended towards the Lenoir market. A person coming from the Seine reached the extremity of the Rue Polonceau, and had on his right the Rue DroitMur, turning abruptly at a right angle, in front of him the wall of that street, and on his right a truncated prolongation of the Rue DroitMur, which had no issue and was called the CuldeSac Genrot. It was here that Jean Valjean stood. As we have just said, on catching sight of that black silhouette standing on guard at the angle of the Rue DroitMur and the Rue PetitPicpus, he recoiled. There could be no doubt of it. That phantom was lying in wait for him. What was he to do? The time for retreating was passed. That which he had perceived in movement an instant before, in the distant darkness, was Javert and his squad without a doubt. Javert was probably already at the commencement of the street at whose end Jean Valjean stood. Javert, to all appearances, was acquainted with this little labyrinth, and had taken his precautions by sending one of his men to guard the exit. These surmises, which so closely resembled proofs, whirled suddenly, like a handful of dust caught up by an unexpected gust of wind, through Jean Valjean's mournful brain. He examined the CuldeSac Genrot there he was cut off. He examined the Rue PetitPicpus there stood a sentinel. He saw that black form standing out in relief against the white pavement, illuminated by the moon to advance was to fall into this man's hands to retreat was to fling himself into Javert's arms. Jean Valjean felt himself caught, as in a net, which was slowly contracting he gazed heavenward in despair. In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form an exact idea of the DroitMur lane, and, in particular, of the angle which one leaves on the left when one emerges from the Rue Polonceau into this lane. DroitMur lane was almost entirely bordered on the right, as far as the Rue PetitPicpus, by houses of mean aspect on the left by a solitary building of severe outlines, composed of numerous parts which grew gradually higher by a story or two as they approached the Rue PetitPicpus side so that this building, which was very lofty on the Rue PetitPicpus side, was tolerably low on the side adjoining the Rue Polonceau. There, at the angle of which we have spoken, it descended to such a degree that it consisted of merely a wall. This wall did not abut directly on the street it formed a deeply retreating niche, concealed by its two corners from two observers who might have been, one in the Rue Polonceau, the other in the Rue DroitMur. Beginning with these angles of the niche, the wall extended along the Rue Polonceau as far as a house which bore the number , and along the Rue DroitMur, where the fragment was much shorter, as far as the gloomy building which we have mentioned and whose gable it intersected, thus forming another retreating angle in the street. This gable was sombre of aspect only one window was visible, or, to speak more correctly, two shutters covered with a sheet of zinc and kept constantly closed. The state of the places of which we are here giving a description is rigorously exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise memory in the mind of old inhabitants of the quarter. The niche was entirely filled by a thing which resembled a colossal and wretched door it was a vast, formless assemblage of perpendicular planks, the upper ones being broader than the lower, bound together by long transverse strips of iron. At one side there was a carriage gate of the ordinary dimensions, and which had evidently not been cut more than fifty years previously. A lindentree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall was covered with ivy on the side of the Rue Polonceau. In the imminent peril in which Jean Valjean found himself, this sombre building had about it a solitary and uninhabited look which tempted him. He ran his eyes rapidly over it he said to himself, that if he could contrive to get inside it, he might save himself. First he conceived an idea, then a hope. In the central portion of the front of this building, on the Rue DroitMur side, there were at all the windows of the different stories ancient cistern pipes of lead. The various branches of the pipes which led from one central pipe to all these little basins sketched out a sort of tree on the front. These ramifications of pipes with their hundred elbows imitated those old leafless vinestocks which writhe over the fronts of old farmhouses. This odd espalier, with its branches of lead and iron, was the first thing that struck Jean Valjean. He seated Cosette with her back against a stone post, with an injunction to be silent, and ran to the spot where the conduit touched the pavement. Perhaps there was some way of climbing up by it and entering the house. But the pipe was dilapidated and past service, and hardly hung to its fastenings. Moreover, all the windows of this silent dwelling were grated with heavy iron bars, even the attic windows in the roof. And then, the moon fell full upon that faade, and the man who was watching at the corner of the street would have seen Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done with Cosette? How was she to be drawn up to the top of a threestory house? He gave up all idea of climbing by means of the drainpipe, and crawled along the wall to get back into the Rue Polonceau. When he reached the slant of the wall where he had left Cosette, he noticed that no one could see him there. As we have just explained, he was concealed from all eyes, no matter from which direction they were approaching besides this, he was in the shadow. Finally, there were two doors perhaps they might be forced. The wall above which he saw the lindentree and the ivy evidently abutted on a garden where he could, at least, hide himself, although there were as yet no leaves on the trees, and spend the remainder of the night. Time was passing he must act quickly. He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recognized the fact that it was impracticable outside and in. He approached the other door with more hope it was frightfully decrepit its very immensity rendered it less solid the planks were rotten the iron bandsthere were only three of themwere rusted. It seemed as though it might be possible to pierce this wormeaten barrier. On examining it he found that the door was not a door it had neither hinges, crossbars, lock, nor fissure in the middle the iron bands traversed it from side to side without any break. Through the crevices in the planks he caught a view of unhewn slabs and blocks of stone roughly cemented together, which passersby might still have seen there ten years ago. He was forced to acknowledge with consternation that this apparent door was simply the wooden decoration of a building against which it was placed. It was easy to tear off a plank but then, one found one's self face to face with a wall. At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some distance. Jean Valjean risked a glance round the corner of the street. Seven or eight soldiers, drawn up in a platoon, had just debouched into the Rue Polonceau. He saw the gleam of their bayonets. They were advancing towards him these soldiers, at whose head he distinguished Javert's tall figure, advanced slowly and cautiously. They halted frequently it was plain that they were searching all the nooks of the walls and all the embrasures of the doors and alleys. This was some patrol that Javert had encounteredthere could be no mistake as to this surmiseand whose aid he had demanded. Javert's two acolytes were marching in their ranks. At the rate at which they were marching, and in consideration of the halts which they were making, it would take them about a quarter of an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean stood. It was a frightful moment. A few minutes only separated Jean Valjean from that terrible precipice which yawned before him for the third time. And the galleys now meant not only the galleys, but Cosette lost to him forever that is to say, a life resembling the interior of a tomb. There was but one thing which was possible. Jean Valjean had this peculiarity, that he carried, as one might say, two beggar's pouches in one he kept his saintly thoughts in the other the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the other, according to circumstances. Among his other resources, thanks to his numerous escapes from the prison at Toulon, he was, as it will be remembered, a past master in the incredible art of crawling up without ladder or climbingirons, by sheer muscular force, by leaning on the nape of his neck, his shoulders, his hips, and his knees, by helping himself on the rare projections of the stone, in the right angle of a wall, as high as the sixth story, if need be an art which has rendered so celebrated and so alarming that corner of the wall of the Conciergerie of Paris by which Battemolle, condemned to death, made his escape twenty years ago. Jean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which he espied the linden it was about eighteen feet in height. The angle which it formed with the gable of the large building was filled, at its lower extremity, by a mass of masonry of a triangular shape, probably intended to preserve that too convenient corner from the rubbish of those dirty creatures called the passersby. This practice of filling up corners of the wall is much in use in Paris. This mass was about five feet in height the space above the summit of this mass which it was necessary to climb was not more than fourteen feet. The wall was surmounted by a flat stone without a coping. Cosette was the difficulty, for she did not know how to climb a wall. Should he abandon her? Jean Valjean did not once think of that. It was impossible to carry her. A man's whole strength is required to successfully carry out these singular ascents. The least burden would disturb his centre of gravity and pull him downwards. A rope would have been required Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to get a rope at midnight, in the Rue Polonceau? Certainly, if Jean Valjean had had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope at that moment. All extreme situations have their lightning flashes which sometimes dazzle, sometimes illuminate us. Jean Valjean's despairing glance fell on the street lanternpost of the blind alley Genrot. At that epoch there were no gasjets in the streets of Paris. At nightfall lanterns placed at regular distances were lighted they were ascended and descended by means of a rope, which traversed the street from side to side, and was adjusted in a groove of the post. The pulley over which this rope ran was fastened underneath the lantern in a little iron box, the key to which was kept by the lamplighter, and the rope itself was protected by a metal case. Jean Valjean, with the energy of a supreme struggle, crossed the street at one bound, entered the blind alley, broke the latch of the little box with the point of his knife, and an instant later he was beside Cosette once more. He had a rope. These gloomy inventors of expedients work rapidly when they are fighting against fatality. We have already explained that the lanterns had not been lighted that night. The lantern in the CuldeSac Genrot was thus naturally extinct, like the rest and one could pass directly under it without even noticing that it was no longer in its place. Nevertheless, the hour, the place, the darkness, Jean Valjean's absorption, his singular gestures, his goings and comings, all had begun to render Cosette uneasy. Any other child than she would have given vent to loud shrieks long before. She contented herself with plucking Jean Valjean by the skirt of his coat. They could hear the sound of the patrol's approach ever more and more distinctly. 'Father, said she, in a very low voice, 'I am afraid. Who is coming yonder? 'Hush! replied the unhappy man 'it is Madame Thnardier. Cosette shuddered. He added 'Say nothing. Don't interfere with me. If you cry out, if you weep, the Thnardier is lying in wait for you. She is coming to take you back. Then, without haste, but without making a useless movement, with firm and curt precision, the more remarkable at a moment when the patrol and Javert might come upon him at any moment, he undid his cravat, passed it round Cosette's body under the armpits, taking care that it should not hurt the child, fastened this cravat to one end of the rope, by means of that knot which seafaring men call a 'swallow knot, took the other end of the rope in his teeth, pulled off his shoes and stockings, which he threw over the wall, stepped upon the mass of masonry, and began to raise himself in the angle of the wall and the gable with as much solidity and certainty as though he had the rounds of a ladder under his feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on his knees on the wall. Cosette gazed at him in stupid amazement, without uttering a word. Jean Valjean's injunction, and the name of Madame Thnardier, had chilled her blood. All at once she heard Jean Valjean's voice crying to her, though in a very low tone 'Put your back against the wall. She obeyed. 'Don't say a word, and don't be alarmed, went on Jean Valjean. And she felt herself lifted from the ground. Before she had time to recover herself, she was on the top of the wall. Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her two tiny hands in his large left hand, lay down flat on his stomach and crawled along on top of the wall as far as the cant. As he had guessed, there stood a building whose roof started from the top of the wooden barricade and descended to within a very short distance of the ground, with a gentle slope which grazed the lindentree. A lucky circumstance, for the wall was much higher on this side than on the street side. Jean Valjean could only see the ground at a great depth below him. He had just reached the slope of the roof, and had not yet left the crest of the wall, when a violent uproar announced the arrival of the patrol. The thundering voice of Javert was audible 'Search the blind alley! The Rue DroitMur is guarded! so is the Rue PetitPicpus. I'll answer for it that he is in the blind alley. The soldiers rushed into the Genrot alley. Jean Valjean allowed himself to slide down the roof, still holding fast to Cosette, reached the lindentree, and leaped to the ground. Whether from terror or courage, Cosette had not breathed a sound, though her hands were a little abraded. Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and of singular aspect one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape, with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall forest trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre, where could be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruittrees, gnarled and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch, whose glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and there stood stone benches which seemed black with moss. The alleys were bordered with gloomy and very erect little shrubs. The grass had half taken possession of them, and a green mould covered the rest. Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as a means of descent, a pile of fagots, and, behind the fagots, directly against the wall, a stone statue, whose mutilated face was no longer anything more than a shapeless mask which loomed vaguely through the gloom. The building was a sort of ruin, where dismantled chambers were distinguishable, one of which, much encumbered, seemed to serve as a shed. The large building of the Rue DroitMur, which had a wing on the Rue PetitPicpus, turned two faades, at right angles, towards this garden. These interior faades were even more tragic than the exterior. All the windows were grated. Not a gleam of light was visible at any one of them. The upper story had scuttles like prisons. One of those faades cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an immense black pall. No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist and darkness. Nevertheless, walls could be confusedly made out, which intersected as though there were more cultivated land beyond, and the low roofs of the Rue Polonceau. Nothing more wild and solitary than this garden could be imagined. There was no one in it, which was quite natural in view of the hour but it did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk in, even in broad daylight. Jean Valjean's first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put them on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette. A man who is fleeing never thinks himself sufficiently hidden. The child, whose thoughts were still on the Thnardier, shared his instinct for withdrawing from sight as much as possible. Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets the blows of their gunstocks against the stones Javert's appeals to the police spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with words which could not be distinguished. At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held his breath. He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette's mouth. However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm, that this frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him by so much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those walls had been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak. All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose a sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,voices which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom. Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees. They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were but both of them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that they must kneel. These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant in an uninhabited house. While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no longer beheld the night he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding. The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment. All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had reassured him,all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds on the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy sound. The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one and two o'clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean had fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her. Cosette's eyes were wide open, and her thoughtful air pained Jean Valjean. She was still trembling. 'Are you sleepy? said Jean Valjean. 'I am very cold, she replied. A moment later she resumed 'Is she still there? 'Who? said Jean Valjean. 'Madame Thnardier. Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to make Cosette keep silent. 'Ah! said he, 'she is gone. You need fear nothing further. The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the breeze grew more keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round Cosette. 'Are you less cold now? said he. 'Oh, yes, father. 'Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back. He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were bars at all the windows of the ground floor. Just after he had turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observed that he was coming to some arched windows, where he perceived a light. He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all opened on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up by arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows were visible. The light came from a taper which was burning in one corner. The apartment was deserted, and nothing was stirring in it. Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the ground something which appeared to be covered with a windingsheet, and which resembled a human form. This form was lying face downward, flat on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of serpent which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a rope round its neck. The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are sparely illuminated, which adds to horror. Jean Valjean often said afterwards, that, although many funereal spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything more bloodcurdling and terrible than that enigmatical form accomplishing some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and beheld thus at night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was perhaps dead and still more alarming to think that it was perhaps alive. He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass, and to watch whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what seemed to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement. All at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and he fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind him. It seemed to him, that if he turned his head, he should see that form following him with great strides and waving its arms. He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way beneath him the perspiration was pouring from him. Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of sepulchre in the midst of Paris! What was this strange house? An edifice full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the darkness with the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them abruptly that terrible vision promising to open the radiant portals of heaven, and then opening the horrible gates of the tomb! And it actually was an edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It was not a dream! He had to touch the stones to convince himself that such was the fact. Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. He stepped up to Cosette. She was asleep. The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep. He sat down beside her and began to think. Little by little, as he gazed at her, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of mind. He clearly perceived this truth, the foundation of his life henceforth, that so long as she was there, so long as he had her near him, he should need nothing except for her, he should fear nothing except for her. He was not even conscious that he was very cold, since he had taken off his coat to cover her. Nevertheless, athwart this reverie into which he had fallen he had heard for some time a peculiar noise. It was like the tinkling of a bell. This sound proceeded from the garden. It could be heard distinctly though faintly. It resembled the faint, vague music produced by the bells of cattle at night in the pastures. This noise made Valjean turn round. He looked and saw that there was some one in the garden. A being resembling a man was walking amid the bellglasses of the melon beds, rising, stooping, halting, with regular movements, as though he were dragging or spreading out something on the ground. This person appeared to limp. Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For them everything is hostile and suspicious. They distrust the day because it enables people to see them, and the night because it aids in surprising them. A little while before he had shivered because the garden was deserted, and now he shivered because there was some one there. He fell back from chimerical terrors to real terrors. He said to himself that Javert and the spies had, perhaps, not taken their departure that they had, no doubt, left people on the watch in the street that if this man should discover him in the garden, he would cry out for help against thieves and deliver him up. He took the sleeping Cosette gently in his arms and carried her behind a heap of old furniture, which was out of use, in the most remote corner of the shed. Cosette did not stir. From that point he scrutinized the appearance of the being in the melon patch. The strange thing about it was, that the sound of the bell followed each of this man's movements. When the man approached, the sound approached when the man retreated, the sound retreated if he made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture when he halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was attached to that man but what could that signify? Who was this man who had a bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox? As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette's hands. They were icy cold. 'Ah! good God! he cried. He spoke to her in a low voice 'Cosette! She did not open her eyes. He shook her vigorously. She did not wake. 'Is she dead? he said to himself, and sprang to his feet, quivering from head to foot. The most frightful thoughts rushed pellmell through his mind. There are moments when hideous surmises assail us like a cohort of furies, and violently force the partitions of our brains. When those we love are in question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. He remembered that sleep in the open air on a cold night may be fatal. Cosette was pale, and had fallen at full length on the ground at his feet, without a movement. He listened to her breathing she still breathed, but with a respiration which seemed to him weak and on the point of extinction. How was he to warm her back to life? How was he to rouse her? All that was not connected with this vanished from his thoughts. He rushed wildly from the ruin. It was absolutely necessary that Cosette should be in bed and beside a fire in less than a quarter of an hour. He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had taken in his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his waistcoat. The man's head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching. In a few strides Jean Valjean stood beside him. Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry 'One hundred francs! The man gave a start and raised his eyes. 'You can earn a hundred francs, went on Jean Valjean, 'if you will grant me shelter for this night. The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance. 'What! so it is you, Father Madeleine! said the man. That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour, in that unknown spot, by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back. He had expected anything but that. The person who thus addressed him was a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on his left knee a leather kneecap, whence hung a moderately large bell. His face, which was in the shadow, was not distinguishable. However, the goodman had removed his cap, and exclaimed, trembling all over 'Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did you enter? DieuJsus! Did you fall from heaven? There is no trouble about that if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And what a state you are in! You have no cravat you have no hat you have no coat! Do you know, you would have frightened any one who did not know you? No coat! Lord God! Are the saints going mad nowadays? But how did you get in here? His words tumbled over each other. The goodman talked with a rustic volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was uttered with a mixture of stupefaction and nave kindliness. 'Who are you? and what house is this? demanded Jean Valjean. 'Ah! pardieu, this is too much! exclaimed the old man. 'I am the person for whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you had me placed. What! You don't recognize me? 'No, said Jean Valjean 'and how happens it that you know me? 'You saved my life, said the man. He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and Jean Valjean recognized old Fauchelevent. 'Ah! said Jean Valjean, 'so it is you? Yes, I recollect you. 'That is very lucky, said the old man, in a reproachful tone. 'And what are you doing here? resumed Jean Valjean. 'Why, I am covering my melons, of course! In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old Fauchelevent held in his hand the end of a straw mat which he was occupied in spreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he had been in the garden he had already spread out a number of them. It was this operation which had caused him to execute the peculiar movements observed from the shed by Jean Valjean. He continued 'I said to myself, 'The moon is bright it is going to freeze. What if I were to put my melons into their greatcoats?' And, he added, looking at Jean Valjean with a broad smile,'pardieu! you ought to have done the same! But how do you come here? Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under the name of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only with caution. He multiplied his questions. Strange to say, their rles seemed to be reversed. It was he, the intruder, who interrogated. 'And what is this bell which you wear on your knee? 'This, replied Fauchelevent, 'is so that I may be avoided. 'What! so that you may be avoided? Old Fauchelevent winked with an indescribable air. 'Ah, goodness! there are only women in this housemany young girls. It appears that I should be a dangerous person to meet. The bell gives them warning. When I come, they go. 'What house is this? 'Come, you know well enough. 'But I do not. 'Not when you got me the place here as gardener? 'Answer me as though I knew nothing. 'Well, then, this is the PetitPicpus convent. Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say, Providence, had cast him into precisely that convent in the Quartier SaintAntoine where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been admitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, as though talking to himself 'The PetitPicpus convent. 'Exactly, returned old Fauchelevent. 'But to come to the point, how the deuce did you manage to get in here, you, Father Madeleine? No matter if you are a saint you are a man as well, and no man enters here. 'You certainly are here. 'There is no one but me. 'Still, said Jean Valjean, 'I must stay here. 'Ah, good God! cried Fauchelevent. Jean Valjean drew near to the old man, and said to him in a grave voice 'Father Fauchelevent, I saved your life. 'I was the first to recall it, returned Fauchelevent. 'Well, you can do today for me that which I did for you in the olden days. Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands Jean Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as though incapable of speaking. At length he exclaimed 'Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make you some little return for that! Save your life! Monsieur le Maire, dispose of the old man! A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance seemed to emit a ray of light. 'What do you wish me to do? he resumed. 'That I will explain to you. You have a chamber? 'I have an isolated hovel yonder, behind the ruins of the old convent, in a corner which no one ever looks into. There are three rooms in it. The hut was, in fact, so well hidden behind the ruins, and so cleverly arranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean had not perceived it. 'Good, said Jean Valjean. 'Now I am going to ask two things of you. 'What are they, Mr. Mayor? 'In the first place, you are not to tell any one what you know about me. In the second, you are not to try to find out anything more. 'As you please. I know that you can do nothing that is not honest, that you have always been a man after the good God's heart. And then, moreover, you it was who placed me here. That concerns you. I am at your service. 'That is settled then. Now, come with me. We will go and get the child. 'Ah! said Fauchelevent, 'so there is a child? He added not a word further, and followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows his master. Less than half an hour afterwards Cosette, who had grown rosy again before the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more his hat, which he had flung over the wall, had been found and picked up. While Jean Valjean was putting on his coat, Fauchelevent had removed the bell and kneecap, which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket that adorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves with their elbows resting on a table upon which Fauchelevent had placed a bit of cheese, black bread, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man was saying to Jean Valjean, as he laid his hand on the latter's knee 'Ah! Father Madeleine! You did not recognize me immediately you save people's lives, and then you forget them! That is bad! But they remember you! You are an ingrate! The events of which we have just beheld the reverse side, so to speak, had come about in the simplest possible manner. When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had arrested him beside Fantine's deathbed, had escaped from the town jail of M. sur M., the police had supposed that he had betaken himself to Paris. Paris is a maelstrom where everything is lost, and everything disappears in this belly of the world, as in the belly of the sea. No forest hides a man as does that crowd. Fugitives of every sort know this. They go to Paris as to an abyss there are gulfs which save. The police know it also, and it is in Paris that they seek what they have lost elsewhere. They sought the exmayor of M. sur M. Javert was summoned to Paris to throw light on their researches. Javert had, in fact, rendered powerful assistance in the recapture of Jean Valjean. Javert's zeal and intelligence on that occasion had been remarked by M. Chabouillet, secretary of the Prefecture under Comte Angls. M. Chabouillet, who had, moreover, already been Javert's patron, had the inspector of M. sur M. attached to the police force of Paris. There Javert rendered himself useful in divers and, though the word may seem strange for such services, honorable manners. He no longer thought of Jean Valjean,the wolf of today causes these dogs who are always on the chase to forget the wolf of yesterday,when, in December, , he read a newspaper, he who never read newspapers but Javert, a monarchical man, had a desire to know the particulars of the triumphal entry of the 'Prince Generalissimo into Bayonne. Just as he was finishing the article, which interested him a name, the name of Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of a page. The paper announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined himself to the remark, 'That's a good entry. Then he threw aside the paper, and thought no more about it. Some time afterwards, it chanced that a police report was transmitted from the prefecture of the SeineetOise to the prefecture of police in Paris, concerning the abduction of a child, which had taken place, under peculiar circumstances, as it was said, in the commune of Montfermeil. A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report said, who had been intrusted by her mother to an innkeeper of that neighborhood, had been stolen by a stranger this child answered to the name of Cosette, and was the daughter of a girl named Fantine, who had died in the hospital, it was not known where or when. This report came under Javert's eye and set him to thinking. The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean Valjean had made him, Javert, burst into laughter, by asking him for a respite of three days, for the purpose of going to fetch that creature's child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris at the very moment when he was stepping into the coach for Montfermeil. Some signs had made him suspect at the time that this was the second occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the previous day, made an excursion to the neighborhood of that village, for he had not been seen in the village itself. What had he been intending to do in that region of Montfermeil? It could not even be surmised. Javert understood it now. Fantine's daughter was there. Jean Valjean was going there in search of her. And now this child had been stolen by a stranger! Who could that stranger be? Could it be Jean Valjean? But Jean Valjean was dead. Javert, without saying anything to anybody, took the coach from the Pewter Platter, CuldeSac de la Planchette, and made a trip to Montfermeil. He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there he found a great deal of obscurity. For the first few days the Thnardiers had chattered in their rage. The disappearance of the Lark had created a sensation in the village. He immediately obtained numerous versions of the story, which ended in the abduction of a child. Hence the police report. But their first vexation having passed off, Thnardier, with his wonderful instinct, had very quickly comprehended that it is never advisable to stir up the prosecutor of the Crown, and that his complaints with regard to the abduction of Cosette would have as their first result to fix upon himself, and upon many dark affairs which he had on hand, the glittering eye of justice. The last thing that owls desire is to have a candle brought to them. And in the first place, how explain the fifteen hundred francs which he had received? He turned squarely round, put a gag on his wife's mouth, and feigned astonishment when the stolen child was mentioned to him. He understood nothing about it no doubt he had grumbled for awhile at having that dear little creature 'taken from him so hastily he should have liked to keep her two or three days longer, out of tenderness but her 'grandfather had come for her in the most natural way in the world. He added the 'grandfather, which produced a good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he arrived at Montfermeil. The grandfather caused Jean Valjean to vanish. Nevertheless, Javert dropped a few questions, like plummets, into Thnardier's history. 'Who was that grandfather? and what was his name? Thnardier replied with simplicity 'He is a wealthy farmer. I saw his passport. I think his name was M. Guillaume Lambert. Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring name. Thereupon Javert returned to Paris. 'Jean Valjean is certainly dead, said he, 'and I am a ninny. He had again begun to forget this history, when, in the course of March, , he heard of a singular personage who dwelt in the parish of SaintMdard and who had been surnamed 'the mendicant who gives alms. This person, the story ran, was a man of means, whose name no one knew exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of eight years, who knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermeil. Montfermeil! that name was always coming up, and it made Javert prick up his ears. An old beggar police spy, an exbeadle, to whom this person had given alms, added a few more details. This gentleman of property was very shy,never coming out except in the evening, speaking to no one, except, occasionally to the poor, and never allowing any one to approach him. He wore a horrible old yellow frockcoat, which was worth many millions, being all wadded with bankbills. This piqued Javert's curiosity in a decided manner. In order to get a close look at this fantastic gentleman without alarming him, he borrowed the beadle's outfit for a day, and the place where the old spy was in the habit of crouching every evening, whining orisons through his nose, and playing the spy under cover of prayer. 'The suspected individual did indeed approach Javert thus disguised, and bestow alms on him. At that moment Javert raised his head, and the shock which Jean Valjean received on recognizing Javert was equal to the one received by Javert when he thought he recognized Jean Valjean. However, the darkness might have misled him Jean Valjean's death was official Javert cherished very grave doubts and when in doubt, Javert, the man of scruples, never laid a finger on any one's collar. He followed his man to the Gorbeau house, and got 'the old woman to talking, which was no difficult matter. The old woman confirmed the fact regarding the coat lined with millions, and narrated to him the episode of the thousandfranc bill. She had seen it! She had handled it! Javert hired a room that evening he installed himself in it. He came and listened at the mysterious lodger's door, hoping to catch the sound of his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the keyhole, and foiled the spy by keeping silent. On the following day Jean Valjean decamped but the noise made by the fall of the fivefranc piece was noticed by the old woman, who, hearing the rattling of coin, suspected that he might be intending to leave, and made haste to warn Javert. At night, when Jean Valjean came out, Javert was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two men. Javert had demanded assistance at the Prefecture, but he had not mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize that was his secret, and he had kept it for three reasons in the first place, because the slightest indiscretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert next, because, to lay hands on an exconvict who had made his escape and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly classed forever as among malefactors of the most dangerous sort, was a magnificent success which the old members of the Parisian police would assuredly not leave to a newcomer like Javert, and he was afraid of being deprived of his convict and lastly, because Javert, being an artist, had a taste for the unforeseen. He hated those wellheralded successes which are talked of long in advance and have had the bloom brushed off. He preferred to elaborate his masterpieces in the dark and to unveil them suddenly at the last. Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single instant even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to be the most secure Javert's eye had been on him. Why had not Javert arrested Jean Valjean? Because he was still in doubt. It must be remembered that at that epoch the police was not precisely at its ease the free press embarrassed it several arbitrary arrests denounced by the newspapers, had echoed even as far as the Chambers, and had rendered the Prefecture timid. Interference with individual liberty was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a mistake the prefect laid the blame on them a mistake meant dismissal. The reader can imagine the effect which this brief paragraph, reproduced by twenty newspapers, would have caused in Paris 'Yesterday, an aged grandfather, with white hair, a respectable and welltodo gentleman, who was walking with his grandchild, aged eight, was arrested and conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict! Let us repeat in addition that Javert had scruples of his own injunctions of his conscience were added to the injunctions of the prefect. He was really in doubt. Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. Sadness, uneasiness, anxiety, depression, this fresh misfortune of being forced to flee by night, to seek a chance refuge in Paris for Cosette and himself, the necessity of regulating his pace to the pace of the childall this, without his being aware of it, had altered Jean Valjean's walk, and impressed on his bearing such senility, that the police themselves, incarnate in the person of Javert, might, and did in fact, make a mistake. The impossibility of approaching too close, his costume of an migr preceptor, the declaration of Thnardier which made a grandfather of him, and, finally, the belief in his death in prison, added still further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in Javert's mind. For an instant it occurred to him to make an abrupt demand for his papers but if the man was not Jean Valjean, and if this man was not a good, honest old fellow living on his income, he was probably some merry blade deeply and cunningly implicated in the obscure web of Parisian misdeeds, some chief of a dangerous band, who gave alms to conceal his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, accomplices' retreats in case of emergencies, in which he would, no doubt, take refuge. All these turns which he was making through the streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple and honest man. To arrest him too hastily would be 'to kill the hen that laid the golden eggs. Where was the inconvenience in waiting? Javert was very sure that he would not escape. Thus he proceeded in a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical personage. It was only quite late in the Rue de Pontoise, that, thanks to the brilliant light thrown from a dramshop, he decidedly recognized Jean Valjean. There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,the mother who recovers her child and the tiger who recovers his prey. Javert gave that profound start. As soon as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the formidable convict, he perceived that there were only three of them, and he asked for reinforcements at the police station of the Rue de Pontoise. One puts on gloves before grasping a thorn cudgel. This delay and the halt at the Carrefour Rollin to consult with his agents came near causing him to lose the trail. He speedily divined, however, that Jean Valjean would want to put the river between his pursuers and himself. He bent his head and reflected like a bloodhound who puts his nose to the ground to make sure that he is on the right scent. Javert, with his powerful rectitude of instinct, went straight to the bridge of Austerlitz. A word with the tollkeeper furnished him with the information which he required 'Have you seen a man with a little girl? 'I made him pay two sous, replied the tollkeeper. Javert reached the bridge in season to see Jean Valjean traverse the small illuminated spot on the other side of the water, leading Cosette by the hand. He saw him enter the Rue du CheminVertSaintAntoine he remembered the CuldeSac Genrot arranged there like a trap, and of the sole exit of the Rue DroitMur into the Rue PetitPicpus. He made sure of his back burrows, as huntsmen say he hastily despatched one of his agents, by a roundabout way, to guard that issue. A patrol which was returning to the Arsenal post having passed him, he made a requisition on it, and caused it to accompany him. In such games soldiers are aces. Moreover, the principle is, that in order to get the best of a wild boar, one must employ the science of venery and plenty of dogs. These combinations having been effected, feeling that Jean Valjean was caught between the blind alley Genrot on the right, his agent on the left, and himself, Javert, in the rear, he took a pinch of snuff. Then he began the game. He experienced one ecstatic and infernal moment he allowed his man to go on ahead, knowing that he had him safe, but desirous of postponing the moment of arrest as long as possible, happy at the thought that he was taken and yet at seeing him free, gloating over him with his gaze, with that voluptuousness of the spider which allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse run. Claws and talons possess a monstrous sensuality,the obscure movements of the creature imprisoned in their pincers. What a delight this strangling is! Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were stoutly knotted. He was sure of success all he had to do now was to close his hand. Accompanied as he was, the very idea of resistance was impossible, however vigorous, energetic, and desperate Jean Valjean might be. Javert advanced slowly, sounding, searching on his way all the nooks of the street like so many pockets of thieves. When he reached the centre of the web he found the fly no longer there. His exasperation can be imagined. He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues DroitMur and PetitPicpus that agent, who had remained imperturbably at his post, had not seen the man pass. It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns that is to say, he escapes although he has the pack on his very heels, and then the oldest huntsmen know not what to say. Duvivier, Ligniville, and Desprez halt short. In a discomfiture of this sort, Artonge exclaims, 'It was not a stag, but a sorcerer. Javert would have liked to utter the same cry. His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage. It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia, that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Csar made mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war in Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean Valjean. He was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the exconvict. The first glance should have sufficed him. He was wrong in not arresting him purely and simply in the old building he was wrong in not arresting him when he positively recognized him in the Rue de Pontoise. He was wrong in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the full light of the moon in the Carrefour Rollin. Advice is certainly useful it is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs who deserve confidence but the hunter cannot be too cautious when he is chasing uneasy animals like the wolf and the convict. Javert, by taking too much thought as to how he should set the bloodhounds of the pack on the trail, alarmed the beast by giving him wind of the dart, and so made him run. Above all, he was wrong in that after he had picked up the scent again on the bridge of Austerlitz, he played that formidable and puerile game of keeping such a man at the end of a thread. He thought himself stronger than he was, and believed that he could play at the game of the mouse and the lion. At the same time, he reckoned himself as too weak, when he judged it necessary to obtain reinforcement. Fatal precaution, waste of precious time! Javert committed all these blunders, and nonetheless was one of the cleverest and most correct spies that ever existed. He was, in the full force of the term, what is called in venery a knowing dog. But what is there that is perfect? Great strategists have their eclipses. The greatest follies are often composed, like the largest ropes, of a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take all the petty determining motives separately, and you can break them one after the other, and you say, 'That is all there is of it! Braid them, twist them together the result is enormous it is Attila hesitating between Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west it is Hannibal tarrying at Capua it is Danton falling asleep at ArcissurAube. However that may be, even at the moment when he saw that Jean Valjean had escaped him, Javert did not lose his head. Sure that the convict who had broken his ban could not be far off, he established sentinels, he organized traps and ambuscades, and beat the quarter all that night. The first thing he saw was the disorder in the street lantern whose rope had been cut. A precious sign which, however, led him astray, since it caused him to turn all his researches in the direction of the CuldeSac Genrot. In this blind alley there were tolerably low walls which abutted on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of waste land. Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction. The fact is, that had he penetrated a little further in the CuldeSac Genrot, he would probably have done so and have been lost. Javert explored these gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a needle. At daybreak he left two intelligent men on the outlook, and returned to the Prefecture of Police, as much ashamed as a police spy who had been captured by a robber might have been. Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate than the carriage gate of Number  Rue PetitPicpus. This entrance, which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a view of two things, neither of which have anything very funereal about them,a courtyard surrounded by walls hung with vines, and the face of a lounging porter. Above the wall, at the bottom of the court, tall trees were visible. When a ray of sunlight enlivened the courtyard, when a glass of wine cheered up the porter, it was difficult to pass Number  Little Picpus Street without carrying away a smiling impression of it. Nevertheless, it was a sombre place of which one had had a glimpse. The threshold smiled the house prayed and wept. If one succeeded in passing the porter, which was not easy,which was even nearly impossible for every one, for there was an open sesame! which it was necessary to know,if, the porter once passed, one entered a little vestibule on the right, on which opened a staircase shut in between two walls and so narrow that only one person could ascend it at a time, if one did not allow one's self to be alarmed by a daubing of canary yellow, with a dado of chocolate which clothed this staircase, if one ventured to ascend it, one crossed a first landing, then a second, and arrived on the first story at a corridor where the yellow wash and the chocolatehued plinth pursued one with a peaceable persistency. Staircase and corridor were lighted by two beautiful windows. The corridor took a turn and became dark. If one doubled this cape, one arrived a few paces further on, in front of a door which was all the more mysterious because it was not fastened. If one opened it, one found one's self in a little chamber about six feet square, tiled, wellscrubbed, clean, cold, and hung with nankin paper with green flowers, at fifteen sous the roll. A white, dull light fell from a large window, with tiny panes, on the left, which usurped the whole width of the room. One gazed about, but saw no one one listened, one heard neither a footstep nor a human murmur. The walls were bare, the chamber was not furnished there was not even a chair. One looked again, and beheld on the wall facing the door a quadrangular hole, about a foot square, with a grating of interlacing iron bars, black, knotted, solid, which formed squaresI had almost said meshesof less than an inch and a half in diagonal length. The little green flowers of the nankin paper ran in a calm and orderly manner to those iron bars, without being startled or thrown into confusion by their funereal contact. Supposing that a living being had been so wonderfully thin as to essay an entrance or an exit through the square hole, this grating would have prevented it. It did not allow the passage of the body, but it did allow the passage of the eyes that is to say, of the mind. This seems to have occurred to them, for it had been reenforced by a sheet of tin inserted in the wall a little in the rear, and pierced with a thousand holes more microscopic than the holes of a strainer. At the bottom of this plate, an aperture had been pierced exactly similar to the orifice of a letter box. A bit of tape attached to a bellwire hung at the right of the grated opening. If the tape was pulled, a bell rang, and one heard a voice very near at hand, which made one start. 'Who is there? the voice demanded. It was a woman's voice, a gentle voice, so gentle that it was mournful. Here, again, there was a magical word which it was necessary to know. If one did not know it, the voice ceased, the wall became silent once more, as though the terrified obscurity of the sepulchre had been on the other side of it. If one knew the password, the voice resumed, 'Enter on the right. One then perceived on the right, facing the window, a glass door surmounted by a frame glazed and painted gray. On raising the latch and crossing the threshold, one experienced precisely the same impression as when one enters at the theatre into a grated baignoire, before the grating is lowered and the chandelier is lighted. One was, in fact, in a sort of theatrebox, narrow, furnished with two old chairs, and a muchfrayed straw matting, sparely illuminated by the vague light from the glass door a regular box, with its front just of a height to lean upon, bearing a tablet of black wood. This box was grated, only the grating of it was not of gilded wood, as at the opera it was a monstrous lattice of iron bars, hideously interlaced and riveted to the wall by enormous fastenings which resembled clenched fists. The first minutes passed when one's eyes began to grow used to this cellarlike halftwilight, one tried to pass the grating, but got no further than six inches beyond it. There he encountered a barrier of black shutters, reenforced and fortified with transverse beams of wood painted a gingerbread yellow. These shutters were divided into long, narrow slats, and they masked the entire length of the grating. They were always closed. At the expiration of a few moments one heard a voice proceeding from behind these shutters, and saying 'I am here. What do you wish with me? It was a beloved, sometimes an adored, voice. No one was visible. Hardly the sound of a breath was audible. It seemed as though it were a spirit which had been evoked, that was speaking to you across the walls of the tomb. If one chanced to be within certain prescribed and very rare conditions, the slat of one of the shutters opened opposite you the evoked spirit became an apparition. Behind the grating, behind the shutter, one perceived so far as the grating permitted sight, a head, of which only the mouth and the chin were visible the rest was covered with a black veil. One caught a glimpse of a black guimpe, and a form that was barely defined, covered with a black shroud. That head spoke with you, but did not look at you and never smiled at you. The light which came from behind you was adjusted in such a manner that you saw her in the white, and she saw you in the black. This light was symbolical. Nevertheless, your eyes plunged eagerly through that opening which was made in that place shut off from all glances. A profound vagueness enveloped that form clad in mourning. Your eyes searched that vagueness, and sought to make out the surroundings of the apparition. At the expiration of a very short time you discovered that you could see nothing. What you beheld was night, emptiness, shadows, a wintry mist mingled with a vapor from the tomb, a sort of terrible peace, a silence from which you could gather nothing, not even sighs, a gloom in which you could distinguish nothing, not even phantoms. What you beheld was the interior of a cloister. It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice which was called the Convent of the Bernardines of the Perpetual Adoration. The box in which you stood was the parlor. The first voice which had addressed you was that of the portress who always sat motionless and silent, on the other side of the wall, near the square opening, screened by the iron grating and the plate with its thousand holes, as by a double visor. The obscurity which bathed the grated box arose from the fact that the parlor, which had a window on the side of the world, had none on the side of the convent. Profane eyes must see nothing of that sacred place. Nevertheless, there was something beyond that shadow there was a light there was life in the midst of that death. Although this was the most strictly walled of all convents, we shall endeavor to make our way into it, and to take the reader in, and to say, without transgressing the proper bounds, things which storytellers have never seen, and have, therefore, never described. This convent, which in  had already existed for many a long year in the Rue PetitPicpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of Martin Verga. These Bernardines were attached, in consequence, not to Clairvaux, like the Bernardine monks, but to Cteaux, like the Benedictine monks. In other words, they were the subjects, not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint Benot. Any one who has turned over old folios to any extent knows that Martin Verga founded in  a congregation of BernardinesBenedictines, with Salamanca for the head of the order, and Alcala as the branch establishment. This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic countries of Europe. There is nothing unusual in the Latin Church in these grafts of one order on another. To mention only a single order of SaintBenot, which is here in question there are attached to this order, without counting the obedience of Martin Verga, four congregations,two in Italy, MontCassin and SainteJustine of Padua two in France, Cluny and SaintMaur and nine orders,Vallombrosa, Granmont, the Clestins, the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humilis, the Olivateurs, the Silvestrins, and lastly, Cteaux for Cteaux itself, a trunk for other orders, is only an offshoot of SaintBenot. Cteaux dates from Saint Robert, Abb de Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, in . Now it was in  that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiacohe was oldhad he turned hermit?was chased from the ancient temple of Apollo, where he dwelt, by SaintBenot, then aged seventeen. After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the BernardinesBenedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, with a guimpe, which, in accordance with the express command of SaintBenot, mounts to the chin. A robe of serge with large sleeves, a large woollen veil, the guimpe which mounts to the chin cut square on the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,this is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The novices wear the same habit, but all in white. The professed nuns also wear a rosary at their side. The BernardinesBenedictines of Martin Verga practise the Perpetual Adoration, like the Benedictines called Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, who, at the beginning of this century, had two houses in Paris,one at the Temple, the other in the Rue NeuveSainteGenevive. However, the BernardinesBenedictines of the PetitPicpus, of whom we are speaking, were a totally different order from the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, cloistered in the Rue NeuveSainteGenevive and at the Temple. There were numerous differences in their rule there were some in their costume. The BernardinesBenedictines of the PetitPicpus wore the black guimpe, and the Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament and of the Rue NeuveSainteGenevive wore a white one, and had, besides, on their breasts, a Holy Sacrament about three inches long, in silver gilt or gilded copper. The nuns of the PetitPicpus did not wear this Holy Sacrament. The Perpetual Adoration, which was common to the house of the PetitPicpus and to the house of the Temple, leaves those two orders perfectly distinct. Their only resemblance lies in this practice of the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament and the Bernardines of Martin Verga, just as there existed a similarity in the study and the glorification of all the mysteries relating to the infancy, the life, and death of Jesus Christ and the Virgin, between the two orders, which were, nevertheless, widely separated, and on occasion even hostile. The Oratory of Italy, established at Florence by Philip de Neri, and the Oratory of France, established by Pierre de Brulle. The Oratory of France claimed the precedence, since Philip de Neri was only a saint, while Brulle was a cardinal. Let us return to the harsh Spanish rule of Martin Verga. The BernardinesBenedictines of this obedience fast all the year round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from September th, which is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are a modification the rule says all the year, but this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates. The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called mres vocales because they have a voice in the chapter. A prioress can only be reelected twice, which fixes the longest possible reign of a prioress at nine years. They never see the officiating priest, who is always hidden from them by a serge curtain nine feet in height. During the sermon, when the preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veils over their faces. They must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their heads bowed. One man only is allowed to enter the convent,the archbishop of the diocese. There is really one other,the gardener. But he is always an old man, and, in order that he may always be alone in the garden, and that the nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell is attached to his knee. Their submission to the prioress is absolute and passive. It is the canonical subjection in the full force of its abnegation. As at the voice of Christ, ut voci Christi, at a gesture, at the first sign, ad nutum, ad primum signum, immediately, with cheerfulness, with perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, prompte, hilariter, perseveranter et cca quadam obedientia, as the file in the hand of the workman, quasi limam in manibus fabri, without power to read or to write without express permission, legere vel scribere non addiscerit sine expressa superioris licentia. Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the crimes committed on earth. For the space of twelve consecutive hours, from four o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock in the morning, or from four o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees on the stone before the Holy Sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity. As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it is called without distinction, to make reparation or to be at the post. The nuns even prefer, out of humility, this last expression, which contains an idea of torture and abasement. To make reparation is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall directly behind her. Besides this, there is always a sister kneeling before the Holy Sacrament. This station lasts an hour. They relieve each other like soldiers on guard. This is the Perpetual Adoration. The prioresses and the mothers almost always bear names stamped with peculiar solemnity, recalling, not the saints and martyrs, but moments in the life of Jesus Christ as Mother Nativity, Mother Conception, Mother Presentation, Mother Passion. But the names of saints are not interdicted. When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths. All their teeth are yellow. No toothbrush ever entered that convent. Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the loss of one's soul. They never say my. They possess nothing of their own, and they must not attach themselves to anything. They call everything our thus our veil, our chaplet if they were speaking of their chemise, they would say our chemise. Sometimes they grow attached to some petty object,to a book of hours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed. As soon as they become aware that they are growing attached to this object, they must give it up. They recall the words of Saint Thrse, to whom a great lady said, as she was on the point of entering her order, 'Permit me, mother, to send for a Bible to which I am greatly attached. 'Ah, you are attached to something! In that case, do not enter our order! Every person whatever is forbidden to shut herself up, to have a place of her own, a chamber. They live with their cells open. When they meet, one says, 'Blessed and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar! The other responds, 'Forever. The same ceremony when one taps at the other's door. Hardly has she touched the door when a soft voice on the other side is heard to say hastily, 'Forever! Like all practices, this becomes mechanical by force of habit and one sometimes says forever before the other has had time to say the rather long sentence, 'Praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar. Among the Visitandines the one who enters says 'Ave Maria, and the one whose cell is entered says, 'Gratia plena. It is their way of saying good day, which is in fact full of grace. At each hour of the day three supplementary strokes sound from the church bell of the convent. At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, professed nuns, laysisters, novices, postulants, interrupt what they are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say in unison if it is five o'clock, for instance, 'At five o'clock and at all hours praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar! If it is eight o'clock, 'At eight o'clock and at all hours! and so on, according to the hour. This custom, the object of which is to break the thread of thought and to lead it back constantly to God, exists in many communities the formula alone varies. Thus at The Infant Jesus they say, 'At this hour and at every hour may the love of Jesus kindle my heart! The BernardinesBenedictines of Martin Verga, cloistered fifty years ago at PetitPicpus, chant the offices to a solemn psalmody, a pure Gregorian chant, and always with full voice during the whole course of the office. Everywhere in the missal where an asterisk occurs they pause, and say in a low voice, 'JesusMarieJoseph. For the office of the dead they adopt a tone so low that the voices of women can hardly descend to such a depth. The effect produced is striking and tragic. The nuns of the PetitPicpus had made a vault under their grand altar for the burial of their community. The Government, as they say, does not permit this vault to receive coffins so they leave the convent when they die. This is an affliction to them, and causes them consternation as an infraction of the rules. They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best,permission to be interred at a special hour and in a special corner in the ancient Vaugirard cemetery, which was made of land which had formerly belonged to their community. On Fridays the nuns hear high mass, vespers, and all the offices, as on Sunday. They scrupulously observe in addition all the little festivals unknown to people of the world, of which the Church of France was so prodigal in the olden days, and of which it is still prodigal in Spain and Italy. Their stations in the chapel are interminable. As for the number and duration of their prayers we can convey no better idea of them than by quoting the ingenuous remark of one of them 'The prayers of the postulants are frightful, the prayers of the novices are still worse, and the prayers of the professed nuns are still worse. Once a week the chapter assembles the prioress presides the vocal mothers assist. Each sister kneels in turn on the stones, and confesses aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has committed during the week. The vocal mothers consult after each confession and inflict the penance aloud. Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offences what they call the coulpe. To make one's coulpe means to prostrate one's self flat on one's face during the office in front of the prioress until the latter, who is never called anything but our mother, notifies the culprit by a slight tap of her foot against the wood of her stall that she can rise. The coulpe or peccavi, is made for a very small mattera broken glass, a torn veil, an involuntary delay of a few seconds at an office, a false note in church, etc. this suffices, and the coulpe is made. The coulpe is entirely spontaneous it is the culpable person herself (the word is etymologically in its place here) who judges herself and inflicts it on herself. On festival days and Sundays four mother precentors intone the offices before a large readingdesk with four places. One day one of the mother precentors intoned a psalm beginning with Ecce, and instead of Ecce she uttered aloud the three notes do si sol for this piece of absentmindedness she underwent a coulpe which lasted during the whole service what rendered the fault enormous was the fact that the chapter had laughed. When a nun is summoned to the parlor, even were it the prioress herself, she drops her veil, as will be remembered, so that only her mouth is visible. The prioress alone can hold communication with strangers. The others can see only their immediate family, and that very rarely. If, by chance, an outsider presents herself to see a nun, or one whom she has known and loved in the outer world, a regular series of negotiations is required. If it is a woman, the authorization may sometimes be granted the nun comes, and they talk to her through the shutters, which are opened only for a mother or sister. It is unnecessary to say that permission is always refused to men. Such is the rule of SaintBenot, aggravated by Martin Verga. These nuns are not gay, rosy, and fresh, as the daughters of other orders often are. They are pale and grave. Between  and  three of them went mad. One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four a novice for four. It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced earlier than the age of twentythree or twentyfour years. The BernardinesBenedictines of Martin Verga do not admit widows to their order. In their cells, they deliver themselves up to many unknown macerations, of which they must never speak. On the day when a novice makes her profession, she is dressed in her handsomest attire, she is crowned with white roses, her hair is brushed until it shines, and curled. Then she prostrates herself a great black veil is thrown over her, and the office for the dead is sung. Then the nuns separate into two files one file passes close to her, saying in plaintive accents, 'Our sister is dead and the other file responds in a voice of ecstasy, 'Our sister is alive in Jesus Christ! At the epoch when this story takes place, a boardingschool was attached to the conventa boardingschool for young girls of noble and mostly wealthy families, among whom could be remarked Mademoiselle de SaintAulaire and de Blissen, and an English girl bearing the illustrious Catholic name of Talbot. These young girls, reared by these nuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of the age. One of them said to us one day, 'The sight of the street pavement made me shudder from head to foot. They were dressed in blue, with a white cap and a Holy Spirit of silver gilt or of copper on their breast. On certain grand festival days, particularly Saint Martha's day, they were permitted, as a high favor and a supreme happiness, to dress themselves as nuns and to carry out the offices and practice of SaintBenot for a whole day. In the early days the nuns were in the habit of lending them their black garments. This seemed profane, and the prioress forbade it. Only the novices were permitted to lend. It is remarkable that these performances, tolerated and encouraged, no doubt, in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in order to give these children a foretaste of the holy habit, were a genuine happiness and a real recreation for the scholars. They simply amused themselves with it. It was new it gave them a change. Candid reasons of childhood, which do not, however, succeed in making us worldlings comprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's hand and standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front of a readingdesk. The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the practices of the convent. There was a certain young woman who entered the world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever any one knocked at her door, 'forever! Like the nuns, the pupils saw their relatives only in the parlor. Their very mothers did not obtain permission to embrace them. The following illustrates to what a degree severity on that point was carried. One day a young girl received a visit from her mother, who was accompanied by a little sister three years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace her sister. Impossible. She begged that, at least, the child might be permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could kiss it. This was almost indignantly refused. Nonetheless, these young girls filled this grave house with charming souvenirs. At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister. The recreation hour struck. A door swung on its hinges. The birds said, 'Good here come the children! An irruption of youth inundated that garden intersected with a cross like a shroud. Radiant faces, white foreheads, innocent eyes, full of merry light, all sorts of auroras, were scattered about amid these shadows. After the psalmodies, the bells, the peals, and knells and offices, the sound of these little girls burst forth on a sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened, and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, they formed into groups, they ran about pretty little white teeth chattered in the corners the veils superintended the laughs from a distance, shades kept watch of the sunbeams, but what mattered it? Still they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment of dazzling brilliancy. They looked on, vaguely blanched with the reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives. It was like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mourning. The young girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns the gaze of impeccability does not embarrass innocence. Thanks to these children, there was, among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones skipped about the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled with heaven. Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh, expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with Perrault and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise, cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles of all their ancestresses, those of the epic as well as those of the fairytale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage from Hecuba to la MreGrand. In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise those children's sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of thoughtfulness. It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of five years exclaimed one day 'Mother! one of the big girls has just told me that I have only nine years and ten months longer to remain here. What happiness! It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took place A Vocal Mother. Why are you weeping, my child? The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She says that I do not know it, but I do. Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No she does not know it. The Mother. How is that, my child? Alix. She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question in the book, and she would answer it. 'Well? 'She did not answer it. 'Let us see about it. What did you ask her? 'I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first question that I came across. 'And what was the question? 'It was, 'What happened after that?' It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder 'How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just like a person! It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years 'Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious. 'Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress. 'Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen. It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six years of age improvised the following tale, which was listened to by blue eyes aged four and five years 'There were three little cocks who owned a country where there were a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their pockets. After that they plucked the leaves and put them in their playthings. There was a wolf in that country there was a great deal of forest and the wolf was in the forest and he ate the little cocks. And this other poem 'There came a blow with a stick. 'It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the cat. 'It was not good for her it hurt her. 'Then a lady put Punchinello in prison. It was there that a little abandoned child, a foundling whom the convent was bringing up out of charity, uttered this sweet and heartbreaking saying. She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured in her corner 'As for me, my mother was not there when I was born! There was a stout portress who could always be seen hurrying through the corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha. The big big girlsthose over ten years of agecalled her Agathocles. The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children say, full of beasts. All the places round about furnished their contingent of insects. Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, a special and expressive name. There was Spider corner, Caterpillar corner, Woodlouse corner, and Cricket corner. Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not so cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory the names had passed to the boardingschool, and there served as in the old College Mazarin to distinguish four nations. Every pupil belonged to one of these four nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at meals. One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the classroom through which he was passing. He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who stood near him 'Who is that? 'She is a spider, Monseigneur. 'Bah! And that one yonder? 'She is a cricket. 'And that one? 'She is a caterpillar. 'Really! and yourself? 'I am a woodlouse, Monseigneur. Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities. At the beginning of this century couen was one of those strict and graceful places where young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At couen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the 'dais and the 'censors,the first who held the cords of the dais, and the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament. The flowers belonged by right to the florists. Four 'virgins walked in advance. On the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question put in the dormitory, 'Who is a virgin? Madame Campan used to quote this saying of a 'little one of seven years, to a 'big girl of sixteen, who took the head of the procession, while she, the little one, remained at the rear, 'You are a virgin, but I am not. Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the white Paternoster, and which possessed the property of bearing people straight to paradise, was inscribed in large black letters 'Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God said, which God placed in paradise. In the evening, when I went to bed, I found three angels sitting on my bed, one at the foot, two at the head, the good Virgin Mary in the middle, who told me to lie down without hesitation. The good God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the three apostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. The shirt in which God was born envelopes my body Saint Margaret's cross is written on my breast. Madame the Virgin was walking through the meadows, weeping for God, when she met M. Saint John. 'Monsieur Saint John, whence come you?' 'I come from Ave Salus.' 'You have not seen the good God where is he?' 'He is on the tree of the Cross, his feet hanging, his hands nailed, a little cap of white thorns on his head.' Whoever shall say this thrice at eventide, thrice in the morning, shall win paradise at the last. In  this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under a triple coating of daubing paint. At the present time it is finally disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, and who are old women now. A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this refectory, whose only door, as we think we have mentioned, opened on the garden. Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formed two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory. The walls were white, the tables were black these two mourning colors constitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, and the food of the children themselves severe. A single dish of meat and vegetables combined, or salt fishsuch was their luxury. This meagre fare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, an exception. The children ate in silence, under the eye of the mother whose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against the rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silence was seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a little pulpit with a desk, which was situated at the foot of the crucifix. The reader was one of the big girls, in weekly turn. At regular distances, on the bare tables, there were large, varnished bowls in which the pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into which they sometimes threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish this was punished. These bowls were called ronds d'eau. The child who broke the silence 'made a cross with her tongue. Where? On the ground. She licked the pavement. The dust, that end of all joys, was charged with the chastisement of those poor little roseleaves which had been guilty of chirping. There was in the convent a book which has never been printed except as a unique copy, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule of SaintBenot. An arcanum which no profane eye must penetrate. Nemo regulas, seu constitutiones nostras, externis communicabit. The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book, and set to reading it with avidity, a reading which was often interrupted by the fear of being caught, which caused them to close the volume precipitately. From the great danger thus incurred they derived but a very moderate amount of pleasure. The most 'interesting thing they found were some unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys. They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby fruittrees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or an inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech to a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty years ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse de , one of the most elegant women in Paris. I quote literally 'One hides one's pear or one's apple as best one may. When one goes upstairs to put the veil on the bed before supper, one stuffs them under one's pillow and at night one eats them in bed, and when one cannot do that, one eats them in the closet. That was one of their greatest luxuries. Onceit was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to the conventone of the young girls, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who was connected with the Montmorency family, laid a wager that she would ask for a day's leave of absencean enormity in so austere a community. The wager was accepted, but not one of those who bet believed that she would do it. When the moment came, as the archbishop was passing in front of the pupils, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable terror of her companions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, 'Monseigneur, a day's leave of absence. Mademoiselle Bouchard was tall, blooming, with the prettiest little rosy face in the world. M. de Qulen smiled and said, 'What, my dear child, a day's leave of absence! Three days if you like. I grant you three days. The prioress could do nothing the archbishop had spoken. Horror of the convent, but joy of the pupil. The effect may be imagined. This stern cloister was not so well walled off, however, but that the life of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance, did not make their way in. To prove this, we will confine ourselves to recording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact, which, however, bears no reference in itself to, and is not connected by any thread whatever with the story which we are relating. We mention the fact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in the reader's mind. About this time there was in the convent a mysterious person who was not a nun, who was treated with great respect, and who was addressed as Madame Albertine. Nothing was known about her, save that she was mad, and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history it was said there lay the arrangements of fortune necessary for a great marriage. This woman, hardly thirty years of age, of dark complexion and tolerably pretty, had a vague look in her large black eyes. Could she see? There was some doubt about this. She glided rather than walked, she never spoke it was not quite known whether she breathed. Her nostrils were livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh. To touch her hand was like touching snow. She possessed a strange spectral grace. Wherever she entered, people felt cold. One day a sister, on seeing her pass, said to another sister, 'She passes for a dead woman. 'Perhaps she is one, replied the other. A hundred tales were told of Madame Albertine. This arose from the eternal curiosity of the pupils. In the chapel there was a gallery called L'il de Buf. It was in this gallery, which had only a circular bay, an il de buf, that Madame Albertine listened to the offices. She always occupied it alone because this gallery, being on the level of the first story, the preacher or the officiating priest could be seen, which was interdicted to the nuns. One day the pulpit was occupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer of France, officer of the Red Musketeers in  when he was Prince de Lon, and who died afterward, in , as cardinal and Archbishop of Besanon. It was the first time that M. de Rohan had preached at the PetitPicpus convent. Madame Albertine usually preserved perfect calmness and complete immobility during the sermons and services. That day, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, and said, in a loud voice, amid the silence of the chapel, 'Ah! Auguste! The whole community turned their heads in amazement, the preacher raised his eyes, but Madame Albertine had relapsed into her immobility. A breath from the outer world, a flash of life, had passed for an instant across that cold and lifeless face and had then vanished, and the mad woman had become a corpse again. Those two words, however, had set every one in the convent who had the privilege of speech to chattering. How many things were contained in that 'Ah! Auguste! what revelations! M. de Rohan's name really was Auguste. It was evident that Madame Albertine belonged to the very highest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, and that her own rank there was of the highest, since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord, and that there existed between them some connection, of relationship, perhaps, but a very close one in any case, since she knew his 'pet name. Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Srent, often visited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue of the privilege Magnates mulieres, and caused great consternation in the boardingschool. When these two old ladies passed by, all the poor young girls trembled and dropped their eyes. Moreover, M. de Rohan, quite unknown to himself, was an object of attention to the schoolgirls. At that epoch he had just been made, while waiting for the episcopate, vicargeneral of the Archbishop of Paris. It was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate the offices in the chapel of the nuns of the PetitPicpus. Not one of the young recluses could see him, because of the serge curtain, but he had a sweet and rather shrill voice, which they had come to know and to distinguish. He had been a mousquetaire, and then, he was said to be very coquettish, that his handsome brown hair was very well dressed in a roll around his head, and that he had a broad girdle of magnificent moire, and that his black cassock was of the most elegant cut in the world. He held a great place in all these imaginations of sixteen years. Not a sound from without made its way into the convent. But there was one year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither. This was an event, and the girls who were at school there at the time still recall it. It was a flute which was played in the neighborhood. This flute always played the same air, an air which is very far away nowadays,'My Ztulb, come reign o'er my soul,and it was heard two or three times a day. The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal mothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended in showers. This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or less in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she was Ztulb. The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the Rue DroitMur and they would have given anything, compromised everything, attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if only for a second, of the 'young man who played that flute so deliciously, and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time. There were some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to the third story on the Rue DroitMur side, in order to attempt to catch a glimpse through the gaps. Impossible! One even went so far as to thrust her arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Two were still bolder. They found means to climb on a roof, and risked their lives there, and succeeded at last in seeing 'the young man. He was an old migr gentleman, blind and penniless, who was playing his flute in his attic, in order to pass the time. In this enclosure of the PetitPicpus there were three perfectly distinct buildings,the Great Convent, inhabited by the nuns, the Boardingschool, where the scholars were lodged and lastly, what was called the Little Convent. It was a building with a garden, in which lived all sorts of aged nuns of various orders, the relics of cloisters destroyed in the Revolution a reunion of all the black, gray, and white medleys of all communities and all possible varieties what might be called, if such a coupling of words is permissible, a sort of harlequin convent. When the Empire was established, all these poor old dispersed and exiled women had been accorded permission to come and take shelter under the wings of the BernardinesBenedictines. The government paid them a small pension, the ladies of the PetitPicpus received them cordially. It was a singular pellmell. Each followed her own rule. Sometimes the pupils of the boardingschool were allowed, as a great recreation, to pay them a visit the result is, that all those young memories have retained among other souvenirs that of Mother SainteBazile, Mother SainteScolastique, and Mother Jacob. One of these refugees found herself almost at home. She was a nun of SainteAure, the only one of her order who had survived. The ancient convent of the ladies of SainteAure occupied, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, this very house of the PetitPicpus, which belonged later to the Benedictines of Martin Verga. This holy woman, too poor to wear the magnificent habit of her order, which was a white robe with a scarlet scapulary, had piously put it on a little manikin, which she exhibited with complacency and which she bequeathed to the house at her death. In , only one nun of this order remained today, there remains only a doll. In addition to these worthy mothers, some old society women had obtained permission of the prioress, like Madame Albertine, to retire into the Little Convent. Among the number were Madame Beaufort d'Hautpoul and Marquise Dufresne. Another was never known in the convent except by the formidable noise which she made when she blew her nose. The pupils called her Madame Vacarmini (hubbub). About  or , Madame de Genlis, who was at that time editing a little periodical publication called l'Intrpide, asked to be allowed to enter the convent of the PetitPicpus as lady resident. The Duc d'Orlans recommended her. Uproar in the hive the vocalmothers were all in a flutter Madame de Genlis had made romances. But she declared that she was the first to detest them, and then, she had reached her fierce stage of devotion. With the aid of God, and of the Prince, she entered. She departed at the end of six or eight months, alleging as a reason, that there was no shade in the garden. The nuns were delighted. Although very old, she still played the harp, and did it very well. When she went away she left her mark in her cell. Madame de Genlis was superstitious and a Latinist. These two words furnish a tolerably good profile of her. A few years ago, there were still to be seen, pasted in the inside of a little cupboard in her cell in which she locked up her silverware and her jewels, these five lines in Latin, written with her own hand in red ink on yellow paper, and which, in her opinion, possessed the property of frightening away robbers Imparibus meritis pendent tria corpora ramis Dismas et Gesmas, media est divina potestas Alta petit Dismas, infelix, infima, Gesmas Nos et res nostras conservet summa potestas. Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas. These verses in sixth century Latin raise the question whether the two thieves of Calvary were named, as is commonly believed, Dismas and Gestas, or Dismas and Gesmas. This orthography might have confounded the pretensions put forward in the last century by the Vicomte de Gestas, of a descent from the wicked thief. However, the useful virtue attached to these verses forms an article of faith in the order of the Hospitallers. The church of the house, constructed in such a manner as to separate the Great Convent from the Boardingschool like a veritable intrenchment, was, of course, common to the Boardingschool, the Great Convent, and the Little Convent. The public was even admitted by a sort of lazaretto entrance on the street. But all was so arranged, that none of the inhabitants of the cloister could see a face from the outside world. Suppose a church whose choir is grasped in a gigantic hand, and folded in such a manner as to form, not, as in ordinary churches, a prolongation behind the altar, but a sort of hall, or obscure cellar, to the right of the officiating priest suppose this hall to be shut off by a curtain seven feet in height, of which we have already spoken in the shadow of that curtain, pile up on wooden stalls the nuns in the choir on the left, the schoolgirls on the right, the laysisters and the novices at the bottom, and you will have some idea of the nuns of the PetitPicpus assisting at divine service. That cavern, which was called the choir, communicated with the cloister by a lobby. The church was lighted from the garden. When the nuns were present at services where their rule enjoined silence, the public was warned of their presence only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling. During the six years which separate  from , the prioress of the PetitPicpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, was Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur, author of Lives of the Saints of the Order of SaintBenot. She had been reelected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short, thick, 'singing like a cracked pot, says the letter which we have already quoted an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in the whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned, erudite, wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with Latin, stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine monk than a Benedictine nun. The subprioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost blind. The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother SainteHonorine the treasurer, Mother SainteGertrude, the chief mistress of the novices MotherSaintAnge, the assistant mistress Mother Annonciation, the sacristan Mother SaintAugustin, the nurse, the only one in the convent who was malicious then Mother SainteMechtilde (Mademoiselle Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice Mother des Anges (Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the FillesDieu, and in the convent du Trsor, between Gisors and Magny Mother SaintJoseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother SainteAdlaide (Mademoiselle d'Auverney), Mother Misricorde (Mademoiselle de Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion (Mademoiselle de la Miltire, received at the age of sixty in defiance of the rule, and very wealthy) Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de Laudinire), Mother Prsentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was prioress in  and finally, Mother SainteCligne (sister of the sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad Mother SainteChantal (Mademoiselle de Suzon), who went mad. There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three and twenty, who was from the Isle de Bourbon, a descendant of the Chevalier Roze, whose name had been Mademoiselle Roze, and who was called Mother Assumption. Mother SainteMechtilde, intrusted with the singing and the choir, was fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter. She usually took a complete scale of them, that is to say, seven, from ten to sixteen years of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made sing standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the smallest to the largest. This presented to the eye, something in the nature of a reedpipe of young girls, a sort of living Panpipe made of angels. Those of the laysisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister Euphrasie, Sister SainteMargurite, Sister SainteMarthe, who was in her dotage, and Sister SainteMichel, whose long nose made them laugh. All these women were gentle with the children. The nuns were severe only towards themselves. No fire was lighted except in the school, and the food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they lavished a thousand cares on their scholars. Only, when a child passed near a nun and addressed her, the nun never replied. This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole convent, speech had been withdrawn from human creatures, and bestowed on inanimate objects. Now it was the churchbell which spoke, now it was the gardener's bell. A very sonorous bell, placed beside the portress, and which was audible throughout the house, indicated by its varied peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the actions of material life which were to be performed, and summoned to the parlor, in case of need, such or such an inhabitant of the house. Each person and each thing had its own peal. The prioress had one and one, the subprioress one and two. Sixfive announced lessons, so that the pupils never said 'to go to lessons, but 'to go to sixfive. Fourfour was Madame de Genlis's signal. It was very often heard. 'C'est le diable a quatre,it's the very deucesaid the uncharitable. Tennine strokes announced a great event. It was the opening of the door of seclusion, a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts which only turned on its hinges in the presence of the archbishop. With the exception of the archbishop and the gardener, no man entered the convent, as we have already said. The schoolgirls saw two others one, the chaplain, the Abb Bans, old and ugly, whom they were permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating the other the drawingmaster, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter, of which we have perused a few lines, calls M. Anciot, and describes as a frightful old hunchback. It will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen. Such was this curious house. After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove unprofitable to point out, in a few words, its material configuration. The reader already has some idea of it. The convent of the PetitPicpusSainteAntoine filled almost the whole of the vast trapezium which resulted from the intersection of the Rue Polonceau, the Rue DroitMur, the Rue PetitPicpus, and the unused lane, called Rue Aumarais on old plans. These four streets surrounded this trapezium like a moat. The convent was composed of several buildings and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a juxtaposition of hybrid constructions which, viewed from a bird'seye view, outlined, with considerable exactness, a gibbet laid flat on the ground. The main arm of the gibbet occupied the whole of the fragment of the Rue DroitMur comprised between the Rue PetitPicpus and the Rue Polonceau the lesser arm was a lofty, gray, severe grated faade which faced the Rue PetitPicpus the carriage entrance No.  marked its extremity. Towards the centre of this faade was a low, arched door, whitened with dust and ashes, where the spiders wove their webs, and which was open only for an hour or two on Sundays, and on rare occasions, when the coffin of a nun left the convent. This was the public entrance of the church. The elbow of the gibbet was a square hall which was used as the servants' hall, and which the nuns called the buttery. In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters, and the novices. In the lesser arm lay the kitchens, the refectory, backed up by the cloisters and the church. Between the door No.  and the corner of the closed Aumarais Lane, was the school, which was not visible from without. The remainder of the trapezium formed the garden, which was much lower than the level of the Rue Polonceau, which caused the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside. The garden, which was slightly arched, had in its centre, on the summit of a hillock, a fine pointed and conical firtree, whence ran, as from the peaked boss of a shield, four grand alleys, and, ranged by twos in between the branchings of these, eight small ones, so that, if the enclosure had been circular, the geometrical plan of the alleys would have resembled a cross superposed on a wheel. As the alleys all ended in the very irregular walls of the garden, they were of unequal length. They were bordered with currant bushes. At the bottom, an alley of tall poplars ran from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the angle of the Rue DroitMur to the house of the Little Convent, which was at the angle of the Aumarais Lane. In front of the Little Convent was what was called the little garden. To this whole, let the reader add a courtyard, all sorts of varied angles formed by the interior buildings, prison walls, the long black line of roofs which bordered the other side of the Rue Polonceau for its sole perspective and neighborhood, and he will be able to form for himself a complete image of what the house of the Bernardines of the PetitPicpus was forty years ago. This holy house had been built on the precise site of a famous tennisground of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the 'tennisground of the eleven thousand devils. All these streets, moreover, were more ancient than Paris. These names, DroitMur and Aumarais, are very ancient the streets which bear them are very much more ancient still. Aumarais Lane was called Maugout Lane the Rue DroitMur was called the Rue des glantiers, for God opened flowers before man cut stones. Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the PetitPicpus was in former times, and since we have ventured to open a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other little digression, utterly foreign to this book, but characteristic and useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures. In the Little Convent there was a centenarian who came from the Abbey of Fontevrault. She had even been in society before the Revolution. She talked a great deal of M. de Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals under Louis XVI. and of a Presidentess Duplat, with whom she had been very intimate. It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these names on every pretext. She told wonders of the Abbey of Fontevrault,that it was like a city, and that there were streets in the monastery. She talked with a Picard accent which amused the pupils. Every year, she solemnly renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath, she said to the priest, 'Monseigneur SaintFranois gave it to Monseigneur SaintJulien, Monseigneur SaintJulien gave it to Monseigneur SaintEusebius, Monseigneur SaintEusebius gave it to Monseigneur SaintProcopius, etc., etc. and thus I give it to you, father. And the schoolgirls would begin to laugh, not in their sleeves, but under their veils charming little stifled laughs which made the vocal mothers frown. On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories. She said that in her youth the Bernardine monks were every whit as good as the mousquetaires. It was a century which spoke through her, but it was the eighteenth century. She told about the custom of the four wines, which existed before the Revolution in Champagne and Bourgogne. When a great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke, and a peer, traversed a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue him and presented him with four silver gondolas into which they had poured four different sorts of wine. On the first goblet this inscription could be read, monkey wine on the second, lion wine on the third, sheep wine on the fourth, hog wine. These four legends express the four stages descended by the drunkard the first, intoxication, which enlivens the second, that which irritates the third, that which dulls and the fourth, that which brutalizes. In a cupboard, under lock and key, she kept a mysterious object of which she thought a great deal. The rule of Fontevrault did not forbid this. She would not show this object to anyone. She shut herself up, which her rule allowed her to do, and hid herself, every time that she desired to contemplate it. If she heard a footstep in the corridor, she closed the cupboard again as hastily as it was possible with her aged hands. As soon as it was mentioned to her, she became silent, she who was so fond of talking. The most curious were baffled by her silence and the most tenacious by her obstinacy. Thus it furnished a subject of comment for all those who were unoccupied or bored in the convent. What could that treasure of the centenarian be, which was so precious and so secret? Some holy book, no doubt? Some unique chaplet? Some authentic relic? They lost themselves in conjectures. When the poor old woman died, they rushed to her cupboard more hastily than was fitting, perhaps, and opened it. They found the object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral Love conquered by the colic. This platter, which is very curious, and which had, possibly, the honor of furnishing Molire with an idea, was still in existence in September,  it was for sale by a bricbrac merchant in the Boulevard Beaumarchais. This good old woman would not receive any visits from outside because, said she, the parlor is too gloomy. However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought to convey an idea, is a purely local trait which is not reproduced with the same severity in other convents. At the convent of the Rue du Temple, in particular, which belonged, in truth, to another order, the black shutters were replaced by brown curtains, and the parlor itself was a salon with a polished wood floor, whose windows were draped in white muslin curtains and whose walls admitted all sorts of frames, a portrait of a Benedictine nun with unveiled face, painted bouquets, and even the head of a Turk. It is in that garden of the Temple convent, that stood that famous chestnuttree which was renowned as the finest and the largest in France, and which bore the reputation among the good people of the eighteenth century of being the father of all the chestnut trees of the realm. As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied by Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration, Benedictines quite different from those who depended on Cteaux. This order of the Perpetual Adoration is not very ancient and does not go back more than two hundred years. In  the holy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in two churches in Paris, at SaintSulpice and at SaintJean en Grve, a rare and frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar. M. the Prior and VicarGeneral of SaintGermain des Prs ordered a solemn procession of all his clergy, in which the Pope's Nuncio officiated. But this expiation did not satisfy two sainted women, Madame Courtin, Marquise de Boucs, and the Comtesse de Chteauvieux. This outrage committed on 'the most holy sacrament of the altar, though but temporary, would not depart from these holy souls, and it seemed to them that it could only be extenuated by a 'Perpetual Adoration in some female monastery. Both of them, one in , the other in , made donations of notable sums to Mother Catherine de Bar, called of the Holy Sacrament, a Benedictine nun, for the purpose of founding, to this pious end, a monastery of the order of SaintBenot the first permission for this foundation was given to Mother Catherine de Bar by M. de Metz, Abb of SaintGermain, 'on condition that no woman could be received unless she contributed three hundred livres income, which amounts to six thousand livres, to the principal. After the Abb of SaintGermain, the king accorded letterspatent and all the rest, abbatial charter, and royal letters, was confirmed in  by the Chamber of Accounts and the Parliament. Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of the Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament at Paris. Their first convent was 'a new building in the Rue Cassette, out of the contributions of Mesdames de Boucs and de Chteauvieux. This order, as it will be seen, was not to be confounded with the Benedictine nuns of Cteaux. It mounted back to the Abb of SaintGermain des Prs, in the same manner that the ladies of the Sacred Heart go back to the general of the Jesuits, and the sisters of charity to the general of the Lazarists. It was also totally different from the Bernardines of the PetitPicpus, whose interior we have just shown. In , Pope Alexander VII. had authorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue PetitPicpus, to practise the Perpetual Adoration like the Benedictine nuns of the Holy Sacrament. But the two orders remained distinct nonetheless. At the beginning of the Restoration, the convent of the PetitPicpus was in its decay this forms a part of the general death of the order, which, after the eighteenth century, has been disappearing like all the religious orders. Contemplation is, like prayer, one of humanity's needs but, like everything which the Revolution touched, it will be transformed, and from being hostile to social progress, it will become favorable to it. The house of the PetitPicpus was becoming rapidly depopulated. In , the Little Convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There were no longer any old women, nor young girls the first were dead, the latter had taken their departure. Volaverunt. The rule of the Perpetual Adoration is so rigid in its nature that it alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order receives no recruits. In , it still obtained laysisters here and there. But of professed nuns, none at all. Forty years ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred fifteen years ago there were not more than twentyeight of them. How many are there today? In , the prioress was young, a sign that the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years old. In proportion as the number diminishes, the fatigue increases, the service of each becomes more painful the moment could then be seen drawing near when there would be but a dozen bent and aching shoulders to bear the heavy rule of SaintBenot. The burden is implacable, and remains the same for the few as for the many. It weighs down, it crushes. Thus they die. At the period when the author of this book still lived in Paris, two died. One was twentyfive years old, the other twentythree. This latter can say, like Julia Alpinula 'Hic jaceo. Vixi annos viginti et tres. It is in consequence of this decay that the convent gave up the education of girls. We have not felt able to pass before this extraordinary house without entering it, and without introducing the minds which accompany us, and which are listening to our tale, to the profit of some, perchance, of the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this community, full of those old practices which seem so novel today. It is the closed garden, hortus conclusus. We have spoken of this singular place in detail, but with respect, in so far, at least, as detail and respect are compatible. We do not understand all, but we insult nothing. We are equally far removed from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who wound up by anointing the executioner, and from the sneer of Voltaire, who even goes so far as to ridicule the cross. An illogical act on Voltaire's part, we may remark, by the way for Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended Calas and even for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix represent? The assassinated sage. In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, while unlearning them they learn this There is no vacuum in the human heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions. In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage and let us tear off the mask. As for convents, they present a complex problem,a question of civilization, which condemns them a question of liberty, which protects them. This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. Man is the second. Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which is common to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the Infinite. This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain ideas nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we encounter man in the Infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, and a sublime side, which we adore. What a contemplation for the mind, and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the human wall! From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres of idleness where centres of labor should exist. Monastic communities are to the great social community what the mistletoe is to the oak, what the wart is to the human body. Their prosperity and their fatness mean the impoverishment of the country. The monastic regime, good at the beginning of civilization, useful in the reduction of the brutal by the spiritual, is bad when peoples have reached their manhood. Moreover, when it becomes relaxed, and when it enters into its period of disorder, it becomes bad for the very reasons which rendered it salutary in its period of purity, because it still continues to set the example. Claustration has had its day. Cloisters, useful in the early education of modern civilization, have embarrassed its growth, and are injurious to its development. So far as institution and formation with relation to man are concerned, monasteries, which were good in the tenth century, questionable in the fifteenth, are detestable in the nineteenth. The leprosy of monasticism has gnawed nearly to a skeleton two wonderful nations, Italy and Spain the one the light, the other the splendor of Europe for centuries and, at the present day, these two illustrious peoples are but just beginning to convalesce, thanks to the healthy and vigorous hygiene of  alone. The conventthe ancient female convent in particular, such as it still presents itself on the threshold of this century, in Italy, in Austria, in Spainis one of the most sombre concretions of the Middle Ages. The cloister, that cloister, is the point of intersection of horrors. The Catholic cloister, properly speaking, is wholly filled with the black radiance of death. The Spanish convent is the most funereal of all. There rise, in obscurity, beneath vaults filled with gloom, beneath domes vague with shadow, massive altars of Babel, as high as cathedrals there immense white crucifixes hang from chains in the dark there are extended, all nude on the ebony, great Christs of ivory more than bleeding,bloody hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their kneepans showing their integuments, their wounds showing their flesh, crowned with silver thorns, nailed with nails of gold, with blood drops of rubies on their brows, and diamond tears in their eyes. The diamonds and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, their sides bruised with the hair shirt and their irontipped scourges, their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excoriated with prayer women who think themselves wives, spectres who think themselves seraphim. Do these women think? No. Have they any will? No. Do they love? No. Do they live? No. Their nerves have turned to bone their bones have turned to stone. Their veil is of woven night. Their breath under their veil resembles the indescribably tragic respiration of death. The abbess, a spectre, sanctifies them and terrifies them. The immaculate one is there, and very fierce. Such are the ancient monasteries of Spain. Liars of terrible devotion, caverns of virgins, ferocious places. Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself. The Spanish convent was, above all others, the Catholic convent. There was a flavor of the Orient about it. The archbishop, the kislaraga of heaven, locked up and kept watch over this seraglio of souls reserved for God. The nun was the odalisque, the priest was the eunuch. The fervent were chosen in dreams and possessed Christ. At night, the beautiful, nude young man descended from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one. Lofty walls guarded the mystic sultana, who had the crucified for her sultan, from all living distraction. A glance on the outer world was infidelity. The in pace replaced the leather sack. That which was cast into the sea in the East was thrown into the ground in the West. In both quarters, women wrung their hands the waves for the first, the grave for the last here the drowned, there the buried. Monstrous parallel. Today the upholders of the past, unable to deny these things, have adopted the expedient of smiling at them. There has come into fashion a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history, of invalidating the commentaries of philosophy, of eliding all embarrassing facts and all gloomy questions. A matter for declamations, say the clever. Declamations, repeat the foolish. JeanJacques a declaimer Diderot a declaimer Voltaire on Calas, Labarre, and Sirven, declaimers. I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declaimer, that Nero was a victim, and that pity is decidedly due to 'that poor Holofernes. Facts, however, are awkward things to disconcert, and they are obstinate. The author of this book has seen, with his own eyes, eight leagues distant from Brussels,there are relics of the Middle Ages there which are attainable for everybody,at the Abbey of Villers, the hole of the oubliettes, in the middle of the field which was formerly the courtyard of the cloister, and on the banks of the Thil, four stone dungeons, half under ground, half under the water. They were in pace. Each of these dungeons has the remains of an iron door, a vault, and a grated opening which, on the outside, is two feet above the level of the river, and on the inside, six feet above the level of the ground. Four feet of river flow past along the outside wall. The ground is always soaked. The occupant of the in pace had this wet soil for his bed. In one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklet riveted to the wall in another, there can be seen a square box made of four slabs of granite, too short for a person to lie down in, too low for him to stand upright in. A human being was put inside, with a coverlid of stone on top. This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These in pace, these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peephole on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those oozing walls,what declaimers! Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in Thibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization. It stops life short. It simply depopulates. Claustration, castration. It has been the scourge of Europe. Add to this the violence so often done to the conscience, the forced vocations, feudalism bolstered up by the cloister, the right of the firstborn pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the ferocities of which we have just spoken, the in pace, the closed mouths, the walledup brains, so many unfortunate minds placed in the dungeon of eternal vows, the taking of the habit, the interment of living souls. Add individual tortures to national degradations, and, whoever you may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil,those two windingsheets of human devising. Nevertheless, at certain points and in certain places, in spite of philosophy, in spite of progress, the spirit of the cloister persists in the midst of the nineteenth century, and a singular ascetic recrudescence is, at this moment, astonishing the civilized world. The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which should return to embrace the living. 'Ingrates! says the garment, 'I protected you in inclement weather. Why will you have nothing to do with me? 'I have just come from the deep sea, says the fish. 'I have been a rose, says the perfume. 'I have loved you, says the corpse. 'I have civilized you, says the convent. To this there is but one reply 'In former days. To dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things, and of the government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, to regild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to rebless reliquaries, to refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of parasites, to force the past on the present,this seems strange. Still, there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists, who are in other respects people of intelligence, have a very simple process they apply to the past a glazing which they call social order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion and they go about shouting, 'Look! take this, honest people. This logic was known to the ancients. The soothsayers practise it. They rubbed a black heifer over with chalk, and said, 'She is white, Bos cretatus. As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it. Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms, all forms as they are, are tenacious of life they have teeth and nails in their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must be made on them, and that without truce for it is one of the fatalities of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth. A convent in France, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, is a college of owls facing the light. A cloister, caught in the very act of asceticism, in the very heart of the city of ' and of  and of , Rome blossoming out in Paris, is an anachronism. In ordinary times, in order to dissolve an anachronism and to cause it to vanish, one has only to make it spell out the date. But we are not in ordinary times. Let us fight. Let us fight, but let us make a distinction. The peculiar property of truth is never to commit excesses. What need has it of exaggeration? There is that which it is necessary to destroy, and there is that which it is simply necessary to elucidate and examine. What a force is kindly and serious examination! Let us not apply a flame where only a light is required. So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed, as a general proposition, and among all peoples, in Asia as well as in Europe, in India as well as in Turkey, to ascetic claustration. Whoever says cloister, says marsh. Their putrescence is evident, their stagnation is unhealthy, their fermentation infects people with fever, and etiolates them their multiplication becomes a plague of Egypt. We cannot think without affright of those lands where fakirs, bonzes, santons, Greek monks, marabouts, talapoins, and dervishes multiply even like swarms of vermin. This said, the religious question remains. This question has certain mysterious, almost formidable sides may we be permitted to look at it fixedly. Men unite themselves and dwell in communities. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right of association. They shut themselves up at home. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right which every man has to open or shut his door. They do not come forth. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right to go and come, which implies the right to remain at home. There, at home, what do they do? They speak in low tones they drop their eyes they toil. They renounce the world, towns, sensualities, pleasures, vanities, pride, interests. They are clothed in coarse woollen or coarse linen. Not one of them possesses in his own right anything whatever. On entering there, each one who was rich makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all. He who was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal of him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all. All undergo the same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on the same straw, die on the same ashes. The same sack on their backs, the same rope around their loins. If the decision has been to go barefoot, all go barefoot. There may be a prince among them that prince is the same shadow as the rest. No titles. Even family names have disappeared. They bear only first names. All are bowed beneath the equality of baptismal names. They have dissolved the carnal family, and constituted in their community a spiritual family. They have no other relatives than all men. They succor the poor, they care for the sick. They elect those whom they obey. They call each other 'my brother. You stop me and exclaim, 'But that is the ideal convent! It is sufficient that it may be the possible convent, that I should take notice of it. Thence it results that, in the preceding book, I have spoken of a convent with respectful accents. The Middle Ages cast aside, Asia cast aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant policy, on condition that the monastery shall be absolutely a voluntary matter and shall contain only consenting parties, I shall always consider a cloistered community with a certain attentive, and, in some respects, a deferential gravity. Wherever there is a community, there is a commune where there is a commune, there is right. The monastery is the product of the formula Equality, Fraternity. Oh! how grand is liberty! And what a splendid transfiguration! Liberty suffices to transform the monastery into a republic. Let us continue. But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls. They dress themselves in coarse woollen, they are equals, they call each other brothers, that is well but they do something else? Yes. What? They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their hands. What does this signify? They pray. To whom? To God. To pray to God,what is the meaning of these words? Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent necessarily substantial, since it is infinite and because, if it lacked matter it would be bounded necessarily intelligent, since it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would end there? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it not the absolute, of which we are only the relative? At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not an infinite within us? Are not these two infinites (what an alarming plural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter's mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does it love? Does it will? If these two infinities are intelligent, each of them has a will principle, and there is an I in the upper infinity as there is an I in the lower infinity. The I below is the soul the I on high is God. To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, with the infinity on high, is called praying. Let us take nothing from the human mind to suppress is bad. We must reform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towards the Unknown thought, reverie, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, reverie, prayer,these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them. Whither go these majestic irradiations of the soul? Into the shadow that is to say, to the light. The grandeur of democracy is to disown nothing and to deny nothing of humanity. Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, there exists the right of the soul. To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of creation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. We have a duty to labor over the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, to admit, as an inexplicable fact, only what is necessary, to purify belief, to remove superstitions from above religion to clear God of caterpillars. With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere. Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite. There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun this philosophy is called blindness. To erect a sense which we lack into a source of truth, is a fine blind man's selfsufficiency. The curious thing is the haughty, superior, and compassionate airs which this groping philosophy assumes towards the philosophy which beholds God. One fancies he hears a mole crying, 'I pity them with their sun! There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God. We salute them as philosophers, while inexorably denouncing their philosophy. Let us go on. The remarkable thing about it is, also, their facility in paying themselves off with words. A metaphysical school of the North, impregnated to some extent with fog, has fancied that it has worked a revolution in human understanding by replacing the word Force with the word Will. To say 'the plant wills, instead of 'the plant grows this would be fecund in results, indeed, if we were to add 'the universe wills. Why? Because it would come to this the plant wills, therefore it has an I the universe wills, therefore it has a God. As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject nothing a priori, a will in the plant, accepted by this school, appears to us more difficult to admit than a will in the universe denied by it. To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible on any other conditions than a denial of the infinite. We have demonstrated this. The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes 'a mental conception. With nihilism, no discussion is possible for the nihilist logic doubts the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists itself. From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself, only 'a mental conception. Only, it does not perceive that all which it has denied it admits in the lump, simply by the utterance of the word, mind. In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all end in the monosyllable, No. To No there is only one reply, Yes. Nihilism has no point. There is no such thing as nothingness. Zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread. Even to see and to show does not suffice. Philosophy should be an energy it should have for effort and effect to ameliorate the condition of man. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius in other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge from the man of felicity. Eden should be changed into a Lyceum. Science should be a cordial. To enjoy,what a sad aim, and what a paltry ambition! The brute enjoys. To offer thought to the thirst of men, to give them all as an elixir the notion of God, to make conscience and science fraternize in them, to render them just by this mysterious confrontation such is the function of real philosophy. Morality is a blossoming out of truths. Contemplation leads to action. The absolute should be practicable. It is necessary that the ideal should be breathable, drinkable, and eatable to the human mind. It is the ideal which has the right to say Take, this is my body, this is my blood. Wisdom is holy communion. It is on this condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of science and becomes the one and sovereign mode of human rallying, and that philosophy herself is promoted to religion. Philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to curiosity. For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand man as a point of departure nor progress as an end, without those two forces which are their two motors faith and love. Progress is the goal, the ideal is the type. What is this ideal? It is God. Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinity identical words. History and philosophy have eternal duties, which are, at the same time, simple duties to combat Caiphas the Highpriest, Draco the Lawgiver, Trimalcion the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor this is clear, direct, and limpid, and offers no obscurity. But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and its abuses, insists on being stated and taken into account. Cenobitism is a human problem. When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, of aberration but of goodwill, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture but of martyrdom, it always becomes necessary to say either yes or no. A convent is a contradiction. Its object, salvation its means thereto, sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme abnegation. To abdicate with the object of reigning seems to be the device of monasticism. In the cloister, one suffers in order to enjoy. One draws a bill of exchange on death. One discounts in terrestrial gloom celestial light. In the cloister, hell is accepted in advance as a post obit on paradise. The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide paid for with eternity. It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible. All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad. The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We understand wrath, but not malice. A few words more. We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the spiritual which is harsh toward the temporal but we everywhere honor the thoughtful man. We salute the man who kneels. A faith this is a necessity for man. Woe to him who believes nothing. One is not unoccupied because one is absorbed. There is visible labor and invisible labor. To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act. Folded arms toil, clasped hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven is a work. Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy. In our opinion, cenobites are not lazy men, and recluses are not idlers. To meditate on the Shadow is a serious thing. Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree. We must die. The Abb de la Trappe replies to Horace. To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre,this is the law of the sage and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect, the ascetic and the sage converge. There is a material growth we admit it. There is a moral grandeur we hold to that. Thoughtless and vivacious spirits say 'What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery? What purpose do they serve? What do they do? Alas! In the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of us, we reply 'There is probably no work more divine than that performed by these souls. And we add 'There is probably no work which is more useful. There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never pray at all. In our opinion the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is mingled with prayer. Leibnitz praying is grand, Voltaire adoring is fine. Deo erexit Voltaire. We are for religion as against religions. We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of orisons, and the sublimity of prayer. Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,a minute which will not, fortunately, leave its impress on the nineteenth century,at this hour, when so many men have low brows and souls but little elevated, among so many mortals whose morality consists in enjoyment, and who are busied with the brief and misshapen things of matter, whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration to us. The monastery is a renunciation. Sacrifice wrongly directed is still sacrifice. To mistake a grave error for a duty has a grandeur of its own. Taken by itself, and ideally, and in order to examine the truth on all sides until all aspects have been impartially exhausted, the monastery, the female convent in particular,for in our century it is woman who suffers the most, and in this exile of the cloister there is something of protestation,the female convent has incontestably a certain majesty. This cloistered existence which is so austere, so depressing, a few of whose features we have just traced, is not life, for it is not liberty it is not the tomb, for it is not plenitude it is the strange place whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side the abyss where we are, on the other, the abyss whither we shall go it is the narrow and misty frontier separating two worlds, illuminated and obscured by both at the same time, where the ray of life which has become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray of death it is the half obscurity of the tomb. We, who do not believe what these women believe, but who, like them, live by faith,we have never been able to think without a sort of tender and religious terror, without a sort of pity, that is full of envy, of those devoted, trembling and trusting creatures, of these humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the mystery, waiting between the world which is closed and heaven which is not yet open, turned towards the light which one cannot see, possessing the sole happiness of thinking that they know where it is, aspiring towards the gulf, and the unknown, their eyes fixed motionless on the darkness, kneeling, bewildered, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted, at times, by the deep breaths of eternity. It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed it, 'fallen from the sky. He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle of the night, was the nuns chanting matins that hall, of which he had caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he had seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation that bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised him, was the gardener's bell attached to the knee of Father Fauchelevent. Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent had, as we have already seen, supped on a glass of wine and a bit of cheese before a good, crackling fire then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw. Before he shut his eyes, Jean Valjean said 'I must remain here henceforth. This remark trotted through Fauchelevent's head all night long. To tell the truth, neither of them slept. Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and that Javert was on his scent, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they returned to Paris. Then the new storm which had just burst upon him had stranded him in this cloister. Jean Valjean had, henceforth, but one thought,to remain there. Now, for an unfortunate man in his position, this convent was both the safest and the most dangerous of places the most dangerous, because, as no men might enter there, if he were discovered, it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step intervening between the convent and prison the safest, because, if he could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would ever seek him in such a place? To dwell in an impossible place was safety. On his side, Fauchelevent was cudgelling his brains. He began by declaring to himself that he understood nothing of the matter. How had M. Madeleine got there, when the walls were what they were? Cloister walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one's arms. Who was that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had lived in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew nothing of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air which discouraged questions and besides, Fauchelevent said to himself 'One does not question a saint. M. Madeleine had preserved all his prestige in Fauchelevent's eyes. Only, from some words which Jean Valjean had let fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that M. Madeleine had probably become bankrupt through the hard times, and that he was pursued by his creditors or that he had compromised himself in some political affair, and was in hiding which last did not displease Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North, had an old fund of Bonapartism about him. While in hiding, M. Madeleine had selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he should wish to remain there. But the inexplicable point, to which Fauchelevent returned constantly and over which he wearied his brain, was that M. Madeleine should be there, and that he should have that little girl with him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did not believe it possible. The incomprehensible had just made its entrance into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and could see nothing clearly but this 'M. Madeleine saved my life. This certainty alone was sufficient and decided his course. He said to himself 'It is my turn now. He added in his conscience 'M. Madeleine did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself under the cart for the purpose of dragging me out. He made up his mind to save M. Madeleine. Nevertheless, he put many questions to himself and made himself divers replies 'After what he did for me, would I save him if he were a thief? Just the same. If he were an assassin, would I save him? Just the same. Since he is a saint, shall I save him? Just the same. But what a problem it was to manage to have him remain in the convent! Fauchelevent did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical undertaking this poor peasant of Picardy without any other ladder than his selfdevotion, his good will, and a little of that old rustic cunning, on this occasion enlisted in the service of a generous enterprise, undertook to scale the difficulties of the cloister, and the steep escarpments of the rule of SaintBenot. Father Fauchelevent was an old man who had been an egoist all his life, and who, towards the end of his days, halt, infirm, with no interest left to him in the world, found it sweet to be grateful, and perceiving a generous action to be performed, flung himself upon it like a man, who at the moment when he is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine which he had never tasted, and should swallow it with avidity. We may add, that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent had destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good action of some kind absolutely necessary to him. So he took his resolve to devote himself to M. Madeleine. We have just called him a poor peasant of Picardy. That description is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent's physiology becomes useful. He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a carter and a laborer. But, in spite of oaths and lashings, which horses seem to require, something of the notary had lingered in him. He had some natural wit he talked good grammar he conversed, which is a rare thing in a village and the other peasants said of him 'He talks almost like a gentleman with a hat. Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to that species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last century qualified as demibourgeois, demilout, and which the metaphors showered by the chteau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the pigeonhole of the plebeian rather rustic, rather citified pepper and salt. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by fate, worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nevertheless, an impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions a precious quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his vices, for he had some, were all superficial in short, his physiognomy was of the kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had none of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which signify malice or stupidity. At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, after having done an enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss of straw, and watching Cosette's slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and said 'Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter? This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his reverie. The two men took counsel together. 'In the first place, said Fauchelevent, 'you will begin by not setting foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child. One step in the garden and we are done for. 'That is true. 'Monsieur Madeleine, resumed Fauchelevent, 'you have arrived at a very auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment one of the ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. The one who is on the point of departure is a saint. In fact, we are all saints here all the difference between them and me is that they say 'our cell,' and that I say 'my cabin.' The prayers for the dying are to be said, and then the prayers for the dead. We shall be at peace here for today but I will not answer for tomorrow. 'Still, observed Jean Valjean, 'this cottage is in the niche of the wall, it is hidden by a sort of ruin, there are trees, it is not visible from the convent. 'And I add that the nuns never come near it. 'Well? said Jean Valjean. The interrogation mark which accentuated this 'well signified 'it seems to me that one may remain concealed here? It was to this interrogation point that Fauchelevent responded 'There are the little girls. 'What little girls? asked Jean Valjean. Just as Fauchelevent opened his mouth to explain the words which he had uttered, a bell emitted one stroke. 'The nun is dead, said he. 'There is the knell. And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen. The bell struck a second time. 'It is the knell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will continue to strike once a minute for twentyfour hours, until the body is taken from the church.You see, they play. At recreation hours it suffices to have a ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils. 'Who? asked Jean Valjean. 'The little girls. You would be very quickly discovered. They would shriek 'Oh! a man!' There is no danger today. There will be no recreation hour. The day will be entirely devoted to prayers. You hear the bell. As I told you, a stroke each minute. It is the death knell. 'I understand, Father Fauchelevent. There are pupils. And Jean Valjean thought to himself 'Here is Cosette's education already provided. Fauchelevent exclaimed 'Pardine! There are little girls indeed! And they would bawl around you! And they would rush off! To be a man here is to have the plague. You see how they fasten a bell to my paw as though I were a wild beast. Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought.'This convent would be our salvation, he murmured. Then he raised his voice 'Yes, the difficulty is to remain here. 'No, said Fauchelevent, 'the difficulty is to get out. Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart. 'To get out! 'Yes, Monsieur Madeleine. In order to return here it is first necessary to get out. And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had sounded, Fauchelevent went on 'You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence come you? For me, you fall from heaven, because I know you but the nuns require one to enter by the door. All at once they heard a rather complicated pealing from another bell. 'Ah! said Fauchelevent, 'they are ringing up the vocal mothers. They are going to the chapter. They always hold a chapter when any one dies. She died at daybreak. People generally do die at daybreak. But cannot you get out by the way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the sake of questioning you, but how did you get in? Jean Valjean turned pale the very thought of descending again into that terrible street made him shudder. You make your way out of a forest filled with tigers, and once out of it, imagine a friendly counsel that shall advise you to return thither! Jean Valjean pictured to himself the whole police force still engaged in swarming in that quarter, agents on the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists extended towards his collar, Javert at the corner of the intersection of the streets perhaps. 'Impossible! said he. 'Father Fauchelevent, say that I fell from the sky. 'But I believe it, I believe it, retorted Fauchelevent. 'You have no need to tell me that. The good God must have taken you in his hand for the purpose of getting a good look at you close to, and then dropped you. Only, he meant to place you in a man's convent he made a mistake. Come, there goes another peal, that is to order the porter to go and inform the municipality that the deaddoctor is to come here and view a corpse. All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not at all fond of that visit. A doctor is a man who does not believe in anything. He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else too. How quickly they have had the doctor summoned this time! What is the matter? Your little one is still asleep. What is her name? 'Cosette. 'She is your daughter? You are her grandfather, that is? 'Yes. 'It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service door which opens on the courtyard. I knock. The porter opens I have my vintage basket on my back, the child is in it, I go out. Father Fauchelevent goes out with his basketthat is perfectly natural. You will tell the child to keep very quiet. She will be under the cover. I will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a fruitseller whom I know in the Rue CheminVert, who is deaf, and who has a little bed. I will shout in the fruitseller's ear, that she is a niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until tomorrow. Then the little one will reenter with you for I will contrive to have you reenter. It must be done. But how will you manage to get out? Jean Valjean shook his head. 'No one must see me, the whole point lies there, Father Fauchelevent. Find some means of getting me out in a basket, under cover, like Cosette. Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his left hand, a sign of serious embarrassment. A third peal created a diversion. 'That is the deaddoctor taking his departure, said Fauchelevent. 'He has taken a look and said 'She is dead, that is well.' When the doctor has signed the passport for paradise, the undertaker's company sends a coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out if she is a sister, the sisters lay her out. After which, I nail her up. That forms a part of my gardener's duty. A gardener is a bit of a gravedigger. She is placed in a lower hall of the church which communicates with the street, and into which no man may enter save the doctor of the dead. I don't count the undertaker's men and myself as men. It is in that hall that I nail up the coffin. The undertaker's men come and get it, and whip up, coachman! that's the way one goes to heaven. They fetch a box with nothing in it, they take it away again with something in it. That's what a burial is like. De profundis. A horizontal ray of sunshine lightly touched the face of the sleeping Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her. He was no longer listening to Fauchelevent. That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The good old gardener went on tranquilly with his babble 'The grave is dug in the Vaugirard cemetery. They declare that they are going to suppress that Vaugirard cemetery. It is an ancient cemetery which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform, and which is going to retire. It is a shame, for it is convenient. I have a friend there, Father Mestienne, the gravedigger. The nuns here possess one privilege, it is to be taken to that cemetery at nightfall. There is a special permission from the Prefecture on their behalf. But how many events have happened since yesterday! Mother Crucifixion is dead, and Father Madeleine 'Is buried, said Jean Valjean, smiling sadly. Fauchelevent caught the word. 'Goodness! if you were here for good, it would be a real burial. A fourth peal burst out. Fauchelevent hastily detached the belled kneecap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again. 'This time it is for me. The Mother Prioress wants me. Good, now I am pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don't stir from here, and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are hungry, there is wine, bread and cheese. And he hastened out of the hut, crying 'Coming! coming! Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as fast as his crooked leg would permit, casting a sidelong glance by the way on his melon patch. Less than ten minutes later, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell put the nuns in his road to flight, tapped gently at a door, and a gentle voice replied 'Forever! Forever! that is to say 'Enter. The door was the one leading to the parlor reserved for seeing the gardener on business. This parlor adjoined the chapter hall. The prioress, seated on the only chair in the parlor, was waiting for Fauchelevent. It is the peculiarity of certain persons and certain professions, notably priests and nuns, to wear a grave and agitated air on critical occasions. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, this double form of preoccupation was imprinted on the countenance of the prioress, who was that wise and charming Mademoiselle de Blemeur, Mother Innocente, who was ordinarily cheerful. The gardener made a timid bow, and remained at the door of the cell. The prioress, who was telling her beads, raised her eyes and said 'Ah! it is you, Father Fauvent. This abbreviation had been adopted in the convent. Fauchelevent bowed again. 'Father Fauvent, I have sent for you. 'Here I am, reverend Mother. 'I have something to say to you. 'And so have I, said Fauchelevent with a boldness which caused him inward terror, 'I have something to say to the very reverend Mother. The prioress stared at him. 'Ah! you have a communication to make to me. 'A request. 'Very well, speak. Goodman Fauchelevent, the exnotary, belonged to the category of peasants who have assurance. A certain clever ignorance constitutes a force you do not distrust it, and you are caught by it. Fauchelevent had been a success during the something more than two years which he had passed in the convent. Always solitary and busied about his gardening, he had nothing else to do than to indulge his curiosity. As he was at a distance from all those veiled women passing to and fro, he saw before him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness he had succeeded in clothing all those phantoms with flesh, and those corpses were alive for him. He was like a deaf man whose sight grows keener, and like a blind man whose hearing becomes more acute. He had applied himself to riddling out the significance of the different peals, and he had succeeded, so that this taciturn and enigmatical cloister possessed no secrets for him the sphinx babbled all her secrets in his ear. Fauchelevent knew all and concealed all that constituted his art. The whole convent thought him stupid. A great merit in religion. The vocal mothers made much of Fauchelevent. He was a curious mute. He inspired confidence. Moreover, he was regular, and never went out except for welldemonstrated requirements of the orchard and vegetable garden. This discretion of conduct had inured to his credit. Nonetheless, he had set two men to chattering the porter, in the convent, and he knew the singularities of their parlor, and the gravedigger, at the cemetery, and he was acquainted with the peculiarities of their sepulture in this way, he possessed a double light on the subject of these nuns, one as to their life, the other as to their death. But he did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the bargain,what qualities! They would have found it difficult to replace him. The goodman, with the assurance of a person who feels that he is appreciated, entered into a rather diffuse and very deep rustic harangue to the reverend prioress. He talked a long time about his age, his infirmities, the surcharge of years counting double for him henceforth, of the increasing demands of his work, of the great size of the garden, of nights which must be passed, like the last, for instance, when he had been obliged to put straw mats over the melon beds, because of the moon, and he wound up as follows 'That he had a brother(the prioress made a movement),'a brother no longer young(a second movement on the part of the prioress, but one expressive of reassurance),'that, if he might be permitted, this brother would come and live with him and help him, that he was an excellent gardener, that the community would receive from him good service, better than his own that, otherwise, if his brother were not admitted, as he, the elder, felt that his health was broken and that he was insufficient for the work, he should be obliged, greatly to his regret, to go away and that his brother had a little daughter whom he would bring with him, who might be reared for God in the house, and who might, who knows, become a nun some day. When he had finished speaking, the prioress stayed the slipping of her rosary between her fingers, and said to him 'Could you procure a stout iron bar between now and this evening? 'For what purpose? 'To serve as a lever. 'Yes, reverend Mother, replied Fauchelevent. The prioress, without adding a word, rose and entered the adjoining room, which was the hall of the chapter, and where the vocal mothers were probably assembled. Fauchelevent was left alone. About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The prioress returned and seated herself once more on her chair. The two interlocutors seemed preoccupied. We will present a stenographic report of the dialogue which then ensued, to the best of our ability. 'Father Fauvent! 'Reverend Mother! 'Do you know the chapel? 'I have a little cage there, where I hear the mass and the offices. 'And you have been in the choir in pursuance of your duties? 'Two or three times. 'There is a stone to be raised. 'Heavy? 'The slab of the pavement which is at the side of the altar. 'The slab which closes the vault? 'Yes. 'It would be a good thing to have two men for it. 'Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you. 'A woman is never a man. 'We have only a woman here to help you. Each one does what he can. Because Dom Mabillon gives four hundred and seventeen epistles of Saint Bernard, while Merlonus Horstius only gives three hundred and sixtyseven, I do not despise Merlonus Horstius. 'Neither do I. 'Merit consists in working according to one's strength. A cloister is not a dockyard. 'And a woman is not a man. But my brother is the strong one, though! 'And can you get a lever? 'That is the only sort of key that fits that sort of door. 'There is a ring in the stone. 'I will put the lever through it. 'And the stone is so arranged that it swings on a pivot. 'That is good, reverend Mother. I will open the vault. 'And the four Mother Precentors will help you. 'And when the vault is open? 'It must be closed again. 'Will that be all? 'No. 'Give me your orders, very reverend Mother. 'Fauvent, we have confidence in you. 'I am here to do anything you wish. 'And to hold your peace about everything! 'Yes, reverend Mother. 'When the vault is open 'I will close it again. 'But before that 'What, reverend Mother? 'Something must be lowered into it. A silence ensued. The prioress, after a pout of the under lip which resembled hesitation, broke it. 'Father Fauvent! 'Reverend Mother! 'You know that a mother died this morning? 'No. 'Did you not hear the bell? 'Nothing can be heard at the bottom of the garden. 'Really? 'I can hardly distinguish my own signal. 'She died at daybreak. 'And then, the wind did not blow in my direction this morning. 'It was Mother Crucifixion. A blessed woman. The prioress paused, moved her lips, as though in mental prayer, and resumed 'Three years ago, Madame de Bthune, a Jansenist, turned orthodox, merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer. 'Ah! yes, now I hear the knell, reverend Mother. 'The mothers have taken her to the deadroom, which opens on the church. 'I know. 'No other man than you can or must enter that chamber. See to that. A fine sight it would be, to see a man enter the deadroom! 'More often! 'Hey? 'More often! 'What do you say? 'I say more often. 'More often than what? 'Reverend Mother, I did not say more often than what, I said more often. 'I don't understand you. Why do you say more often? 'In order to speak like you, reverend Mother. 'But I did not say 'more often.' At that moment, nine o'clock struck. 'At nine o'clock in the morning and at all hours, praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar, said the prioress. 'Amen, said Fauchelevent. The clock struck opportunely. It cut 'more often short. It is probable, that had it not been for this, the prioress and Fauchelevent would never have unravelled that skein. Fauchelevent mopped his forehead. The prioress indulged in another little inward murmur, probably sacred, then raised her voice 'In her lifetime, Mother Crucifixion made converts after her death, she will perform miracles. 'She will! replied Father Fauchelevent, falling into step, and striving not to flinch again. 'Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion. No doubt, it is not granted to every one to die, like Cardinal de Brulle, while saying the holy mass, and to breathe forth their souls to God, while pronouncing these words Hanc igitur oblationem. But without attaining to such happiness, Mother Crucifixion's death was very precious. She retained her consciousness to the very last moment. She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave us her last commands. If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been in her cell, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it. She smiled. We felt that she was regaining her life in God. There was something of paradise in that death. Fauchelevent thought that it was an orison which she was finishing. 'Amen, said he. 'Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done. The prioress took off several beads of her chaplet. Fauchelevent held his peace. She went on 'I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in Our Lord, who occupy themselves in the exercises of the clerical life, and who bear wonderful fruit. 'Reverend Mother, you can hear the knell much better here than in the garden. 'Besides, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint. 'Like yourself, reverend Mother. 'She slept in her coffin for twenty years, by express permission of our Holy Father, Pius VII. 'The one who crowned the EmpBuonaparte. For a clever man like Fauchelevent, this allusion was an awkward one. Fortunately, the prioress, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did not hear it. She continued 'Father Fauvent? 'Reverend Mother? 'Saint Didorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, desired that this single word might be inscribed on his tomb Acarus, which signifies, a worm of the earth this was done. Is this true? 'Yes, reverend Mother. 'The blessed Mezzocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the gallows this was done. 'That is true. 'Saint Terentius, Bishop of Port, where the mouth of the Tiber empties into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the sign which was placed on the graves of parricides, in the hope that passersby would spit on his tomb. This was done. The dead must be obeyed. 'So be it. 'The body of Bernard Guidonis, born in France near RocheAbeille, was, as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was Bishop of Tuy in Spain. Can the contrary be affirmed? 'For that matter, no, reverend Mother. 'The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse. Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The prioress resumed 'Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in which she has slept for the last twenty years. 'That is just. 'It is a continuation of her slumber. 'So I shall have to nail up that coffin? 'Yes. 'And we are to reject the undertaker's coffin? 'Precisely. 'I am at the orders of the very reverend community. 'The four Mother Precentors will assist you. 'In nailing up the coffin? I do not need them. 'No. In lowering the coffin. 'Where? 'Into the vault. 'What vault? 'Under the altar. Fauchelevent started. 'The vault under the altar? 'Under the altar. 'But 'You will have an iron bar. 'Yes, but 'You will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring. 'But 'The dead must be obeyed. To be buried in the vault under the altar of the chapel, not to go to profane earth to remain there in death where she prayed while living such was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion. She asked it of us that is to say, commanded us. 'But it is forbidden. 'Forbidden by men, enjoined by God. 'What if it became known? 'We have confidence in you. 'Oh! I am a stone in your walls. 'The chapter assembled. The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother Crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin, under our altar. Think, Father Fauvent, if she were to work miracles here! What a glory of God for the community! And miracles issue from tombs. 'But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the sanitary commission 'Saint Benot II., in the matter of sepulture, resisted Constantine Pogonatus. 'But the commissary of police 'Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered among the Gauls under the Empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right of nuns to be buried in religion, that is to say, beneath the altar. 'But the inspector from the Prefecture 'The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the eleventh general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device Stat crux dum volvitur orbis. 'Amen, said Fauchelevent, who imperturbably extricated himself in this manner from the dilemma, whenever he heard Latin. Any audience suffices for a person who has held his peace too long. On the day when the rhetorician Gymnastoras left his prison, bearing in his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he halted in front of the first tree which he came to, harangued it and made very great efforts to convince it. The prioress, who was usually subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull, rose and exclaimed with the loquacity of a dam which has broken away 'I have on my right Benot and on my left Bernard. Who was Bernard? The first abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is blest because it gave him birth. His father was named Tcelin, and his mother Althe. He began at Cteaux, to end in Clairvaux he was ordained abbot by the bishop of ChlonsurSane, Guillaume de Champeaux he had seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and sixty monasteries he overthrew Abeilard at the council of Sens in , and Pierre de Bruys and Henry his disciple, and another sort of erring spirits who were called the Apostolics he confounded Arnauld de Brescia, darted lightning at the monk Raoul, the murderer of the Jews, dominated the council of Reims in , caused the condemnation of Gilbert de Pora, Bishop of Poitiers, caused the condemnation of on de l'toile, arranged the disputes of princes, enlightened King Louis the Young, advised Pope Eugene III., regulated the Temple, preached the crusade, performed two hundred and fifty miracles during his lifetime, and as many as thirtynine in one day. Who was Benot? He was the patriarch of MontCassin he was the second founder of the Saintet Claustrale, he was the Basil of the West. His order has produced forty popes, two hundred cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen hundred archbishops, four thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve empresses, fortysix kings, fortyone queens, three thousand six hundred canonized saints, and has been in existence for fourteen hundred years. On one side Saint Bernard, on the other the agent of the sanitary department! On one side Saint Benot, on the other the inspector of public ways! The state, the road commissioners, the public undertaker, regulations, the administration, what do we know of all that? There is not a chance passerby who would not be indignant to see how we are treated. We have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ! Your sanitary department is a revolutionary invention. God subordinated to the commissary of police such is the age. Silence, Fauvent! Fauchelevent was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The prioress continued 'No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulture. Only fanatics and those in error deny it. We live in times of terrible confusion. We do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which we should ignore. We are ignorant and impious. In this age there exist people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century. Others are so blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of Jesus Christ. Louis XVI. was merely a king. Let us beware of God! There is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not the name of Csar de Bus. Nevertheless, Csar de Bus is a man of blessed memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last archbishop, the Cardinal de Prigord, did not even know that Charles de Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and Franois Bourgoin to Gondren, and JeanFranois Senault to Bourgoin, and Father SainteMarthe to JeanFranois Senault. The name of Father Coton is known, not because he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint Franois de Sales, is that he cheated at play. And then, religion is attacked. Why? Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap, was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them followed Mommol. What has that to do with the question? Does that prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to the truth. Darkness is the rule. The most ferocious beasts are beasts which are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh! how wicked people are! By order of the king signifies today, by order of the revolution. One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. Saint Leo II. wrote two special letters, one to Pierre Notaire, the other to the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the supremacy of the Emperor. Gauthier, Bishop of Chlons, held his own in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magistracy agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on matters of the day. The Abbot of Cteaux, the general of the order, was councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy. We do what we please with our dead. Is not the body of Saint Benot himself in France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint BenotsurLoire, although he died in Italy at MontCassin, on Saturday, the st of the month of March, of the year ? All this is incontestable. I abhor psalmsingers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest yet more any one who should maintain the contrary. One has only to read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus, Maurolics, and Dom Luc d'Achery. The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent. 'Is it settled, Father Fauvent? 'It is settled, reverend Mother. 'We may depend on you? 'I will obey. 'That is well. 'I am entirely devoted to the convent. 'That is understood. You will close the coffin. The sisters will carry it to the chapel. The office for the dead will then be said. Then we shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you will come with your iron bar. All will be done in the most profound secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, Mother Ascension and yourself. 'And the sister at the post? 'She will not turn round. 'But she will hear. 'She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns not. A pause ensued. The prioress went on 'You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at the post should perceive your presence. 'Reverend Mother? 'What, Father Fauvent? 'Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit? 'He will pay it at four o'clock today. The peal which orders the doctor for the dead to be summoned has already been rung. But you do not understand any of the peals? 'I pay no attention to any but my own. 'That is well, Father Fauvent. 'Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required. 'Where will you obtain it? 'Where gratings are not lacking, iron bars are not lacking. I have my heap of old iron at the bottom of the garden. 'About threequarters of an hour before midnight do not forget. 'Reverend Mother? 'What? 'If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is the strong man for you. A perfect Turk! 'You will do it as speedily as possible. 'I cannot work very fast. I am infirm that is why I require an assistant. I limp. 'To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing. The Emperor Henry II., who combated Antipope Gregory and reestablished Benot VIII., has two surnames, the Saint and the Lame. 'Two surtouts are a good thing, murmured Fauchelevent, who really was a little hard of hearing. 'Now that I think of it, Father Fauvent, let us give a whole hour to it. That is not too much. Be near the principal altar, with your iron bar, at eleven o'clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must have been completed a good quarter of an hour before that. 'I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are my orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to be in the chapel. The Mother Precentors will be there. Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would be better. However, never mind! I shall have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the coffin, and we will close the vault again. After which, there will be no trace of anything. The government will have no suspicion. Thus all has been arranged, reverend Mother? 'No! 'What else remains? 'The empty coffin remains. This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The prioress meditated. 'What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent? 'It will be given to the earth. 'Empty? Another silence. Fauchelevent made, with his left hand, that sort of a gesture which dismisses a troublesome subject. 'Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I will cover the coffin with the pall. 'Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it. 'Ah! the de! exclaimed Fauchelevent. The prioress began to make the sign of the cross, and looked fixedly at the gardener. The vil stuck fast in his throat. He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath. 'I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother. That will produce the effect of a corpse. 'You are right. Earth, that is the same thing as man. So you will manage the empty coffin? 'I will make that my special business. The prioress's face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene once more. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to him. Fauchelevent went towards the door. As he was on the point of passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently 'I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent bring your brother to me tomorrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter. The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a oneeyed man they do not reach their goal very promptly. Moreover, Fauchelevent was in a dilemma. He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his cottage in the garden. Cosette had waked up. Jean Valjean had placed her near the fire. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was pointing out to her the vintner's basket on the wall, and saying to her, 'Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette. We must go away from this house, but we shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here. The good man who lives here is going to carry you off on his back in that. You will wait for me at a lady's house. I shall come to fetch you. Obey, and say nothing, above all things, unless you want Madame Thnardier to get you again! Cosette nodded gravely. Jean Valjean turned round at the noise made by Fauchelevent opening the door. 'Well? 'Everything is arranged, and nothing is, said Fauchelevent. 'I have permission to bring you in but before bringing you in you must be got out. That's where the difficulty lies. It is easy enough with the child. 'You will carry her out? 'And she will hold her tongue? 'I answer for that. 'But you, Father Madeleine? And, after a silence, fraught with anxiety, Fauchelevent exclaimed 'Why, get out as you came in! Jean Valjean, as in the first instance, contented himself with saying, 'Impossible. Fauchelevent grumbled, more to himself than to Jean Valjean 'There is another thing which bothers me. I have said that I would put earth in it. When I come to think it over, the earth instead of the corpse will not seem like the real thing, it won't do, it will get displaced, it will move about. The men will bear it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the government will notice it. Jean Valjean stared him straight in the eye and thought that he was raving. Fauchelevent went on 'How the deuce are you going to get out? It must all be done by tomorrow morning. It is tomorrow that I am to bring you in. The prioress expects you. Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense for a service which he, Fauchelevent, was to render to the community. That it fell among his duties to take part in their burials, that he nailed up the coffins and helped the gravedigger at the cemetery. That the nun who had died that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which had served her for a bed, and interred in the vault under the altar of the chapel. That the police regulations forbade this, but that she was one of those dead to whom nothing is refused. That the prioress and the vocal mothers intended to fulfil the wish of the deceased. That it was so much the worse for the government. That he, Fauchelevent, was to nail up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and lower the corpse into the vault. And that, by way of thanks, the prioress was to admit his brother to the house as a gardener, and his niece as a pupil. That his brother was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette. That the prioress had told him to bring his brother on the following evening, after the counterfeit interment in the cemetery. But that he could not bring M. Madeleine in from the outside if M. Madeleine was not outside. That that was the first problem. And then, that there was another the empty coffin. 'What is that empty coffin? asked Jean Valjean. Fauchelevent replied 'The coffin of the administration. 'What coffin? What administration? 'A nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and says, 'A nun has died.' The government sends a coffin. The next day it sends a hearse and undertaker's men to get the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. The undertaker's men will come and lift the coffin there will be nothing in it. 'Put something in it. 'A corpse? I have none. 'No. 'What then? 'A living person. 'What person? 'Me! said Jean Valjean. Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as though a bomb had burst under his chair. 'You! 'Why not? Jean Valjean gave way to one of those rare smiles which lighted up his face like a flash from heaven in the winter. 'You know, Fauchelevent, what you have said 'Mother Crucifixion is dead.' and I add 'and Father Madeleine is buried.' 'Ah! good, you can laugh, you are not speaking seriously. 'Very seriously, I must get out of this place. 'Certainly. 'l have told you to find a basket, and a cover for me also. 'Well? 'The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth. 'In the first place, it will be a white cloth. Nuns are buried in white. 'Let it be a white cloth, then. 'You are not like other men, Father Madeleine. To behold such devices, which are nothing else than the savage and daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things which surrounded him, and mingle with what he called the 'petty course of life in the convent, caused Fauchelevent as much amazement as a gull fishing in the gutter of the Rue SaintDenis would inspire in a passerby. Jean Valjean went on 'The problem is to get out of here without being seen. This offers the means. But give me some information, in the first place. How is it managed? Where is this coffin? 'The empty one? 'Yes. 'Downstairs, in what is called the deadroom. It stands on two trestles, under the pall. 'How long is the coffin? 'Six feet. 'What is this deadroom? 'It is a chamber on the ground floor which has a grated window opening on the garden, which is closed on the outside by a shutter, and two doors one leads into the convent, the other into the church. 'What church? 'The church in the street, the church which any one can enter. 'Have you the keys to those two doors? 'No I have the key to the door which communicates with the convent the porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church. 'When does the porter open that door? 'Only to allow the undertaker's men to enter, when they come to get the coffin. When the coffin has been taken out, the door is closed again. 'Who nails up the coffin? 'I do. 'Who spreads the pall over it? 'I do. 'Are you alone? 'Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the deadroom. That is even written on the wall. 'Could you hide me in that room tonight when every one is asleep? 'No. But I could hide you in a small, dark nook which opens on the deadroom, where I keep my tools to use for burials, and of which I have the key. 'At what time will the hearse come for the coffin tomorrow? 'About three o'clock in the afternoon. The burial will take place at the Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall. It is not very near. 'I will remain concealed in your toolcloset all night and all the morning. And how about food? I shall be hungry. 'I will bring you something. 'You can come and nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock. Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his fingerjoints. 'But that is impossible! 'Bah! Impossible to take a hammer and drive some nails in a plank? What seemed unprecedented to Fauchelevent was, we repeat, a simple matter to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had been in worse straits than this. Any man who has been a prisoner understands how to contract himself to fit the diameter of the escape. The prisoner is subject to flight as the sick man is subject to a crisis which saves or kills him. An escape is a cure. What does not a man undergo for the sake of a cure? To have himself nailed up in a case and carried off like a bale of goods, to live for a long time in a box, to find air where there is none, to economize his breath for hours, to know how to stifle without dyingthis was one of Jean Valjean's gloomy talents. Moreover, a coffin containing a living being,that convict's expedient,is also an imperial expedient. If we are to credit the monk Austin Castillejo, this was the means employed by Charles the Fifth, desirous of seeing the Plombes for the last time after his abdication. He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of SaintYuste in this manner. Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed 'But how will you manage to breathe? 'I will breathe. 'In that box! The mere thought of it suffocates me. 'You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and there, around my mouth, and you will nail the top plank on loosely. 'Good! And what if you should happen to cough or to sneeze? 'A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze. And Jean Valjean added 'Father Fauchelevent, we must come to a decision I must either be caught here, or accept this escape through the hearse. Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a halfshut door. Who is there who has not said to a cat, 'Do come in! There are men who, when an incident stands halfopen before them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision between two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The overprudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur more danger than the audacious. Fauchelevent was of this hesitating nature. But Jean Valjean's coolness prevailed over him in spite of himself. He grumbled 'Well, since there is no other means. Jean Valjean resumed 'The only thing which troubles me is what will take place at the cemetery. 'That is the very point that is not troublesome, exclaimed Fauchelevent. 'If you are sure of coming out of the coffin all right, I am sure of getting you out of the grave. The gravedigger is a drunkard, and a friend of mine. He is Father Mestienne. An old fellow of the old school. The gravedigger puts the corpses in the grave, and I put the gravedigger in my pocket. I will tell you what will take place. They will arrive a little before dusk, threequarters of an hour before the gates of the cemetery are closed. The hearse will drive directly up to the grave. I shall follow that is my business. I shall have a hammer, a chisel, and some pincers in my pocket. The hearse halts, the undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy water, and takes his departure. I am left alone with Father Mestienne. He is my friend, I tell you. One of two things will happen, he will either be sober, or he will not be sober. If he is not drunk, I shall say to him 'Come and drink a bout while the Bon Coing the Good Quince is open.' I carry him off, I get him drunk,it does not take long to make Father Mestienne drunk, he always has the beginning of it about him,I lay him under the table, I take his card, so that I can get into the cemetery again, and I return without him. Then you have no longer any one but me to deal with. If he is drunk, I shall say to him 'Be off I will do your work for you.' Off he goes, and I drag you out of the hole. Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant. 'That is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well. 'Provided nothing goes wrong, thought Fauchelevent. 'In that case, it would be terrible. On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passersby on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an oldfashioned hearse, ornamented with skulls, crossbones, and tears. This hearse contained a coffin covered with a white cloth over which spread a large black cross, like a huge corpse with drooping arms. A mourningcoach, in which could be seen a priest in his surplice, and a choir boy in his red cap, followed. Two undertaker's men in gray uniforms trimmed with black walked on the right and the left of the hearse. Behind it came an old man in the garments of a laborer, who limped along. The procession was going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery. The handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold chisel, and the antenn of a pair of pincers were visible, protruding from the man's pocket. The Vaugirard cemetery formed an exception among the cemeteries of Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung tenaciously to ancient words, still called the porte cavalire and the porte pitonne. The BernardinesBenedictines of the Rue PetitPicpus had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there in a corner apart, and at night, the plot of land having formerly belonged to their community. The gravediggers being thus bound to service in the evening in summer and at night in winter, in this cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline. The gates of the Paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown, and this being a municipal regulation, the Vaugirard cemetery was bound by it like the rest. The carriage gate and the house door were two contiguous grated gates, adjoining a pavilion built by the architect Perronet, and inhabited by the doorkeeper of the cemetery. These gates, therefore, swung inexorably on their hinges at the instant when the sun disappeared behind the dome of the Invalides. If any gravedigger were delayed after that moment in the cemetery, there was but one way for him to get outhis gravedigger's card furnished by the department of public funerals. A sort of letterbox was constructed in the porter's window. The gravedigger dropped his card into this box, the porter heard it fall, pulled the rope, and the small door opened. If the man had not his card, he mentioned his name, the porter, who was sometimes in bed and asleep, rose, came out and identified the man, and opened the gate with his key the gravedigger stepped out, but had to pay a fine of fifteen francs. This cemetery, with its peculiarities outside the regulations, embarrassed the symmetry of the administration. It was suppressed a little later than . The cemetery of MontParnasse, called the Eastern cemetery, succeeded to it, and inherited that famous dramshop next to the Vaugirard cemetery, which was surmounted by a quince painted on a board, and which formed an angle, one side on the drinkers' tables, and the other on the tombs, with this sign Au Bon Coing. The Vaugirard cemetery was what may be called a faded cemetery. It was falling into disuse. Dampness was invading it, the flowers were deserting it. The bourgeois did not care much about being buried in the Vaugirard it hinted at poverty. PreLachaise if you please! to be buried in PreLachaise is equivalent to having furniture of mahogany. It is recognized as elegant. The Vaugirard cemetery was a venerable enclosure, planted like an oldfashioned French garden. Straight alleys, box, thuyatrees, holly, ancient tombs beneath aged cypresstrees, and very tall grass. In the evening it was tragic there. There were very lugubrious lines about it. The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall and the black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard cemetery. The lame man who followed it was no other than Fauchelevent. The interment of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar, the exit of Cosette, the introduction of Jean Valjean to the deadroom,all had been executed without difficulty, and there had been no hitch. Let us remark in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion under the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight. It is one of the faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had committed it, not only without difficulty, but even with the applause of their own consciences. In the cloister, what is called the 'government is only an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always questionable. In the first place, the rule as for the code, we shall see. Make as many laws as you please, men but keep them for yourselves. The tribute to Csar is never anything but the remnants of the tribute to God. A prince is nothing in the presence of a principle. Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse in a very contented frame of mind. His twin plots, the one with the nuns, the one for the convent, the other against it, the other with M. Madeleine, had succeeded, to all appearance. Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful tranquillities which are contagious. Fauchelevent no longer felt doubtful as to his success. What remained to be done was a mere nothing. Within the last two years, he had made good Father Mestienne, a chubbycheeked person, drunk at least ten times. He played with Father Mestienne. He did what he liked with him. He made him dance according to his whim. Mestienne's head adjusted itself to the cap of Fauchelevent's will. Fauchelevent's confidence was perfect. At the moment when the convoy entered the avenue leading to the cemetery, Fauchelevent glanced cheerfully at the hearse, and said half aloud, as he rubbed his big hands 'Here's a fine farce! All at once the hearse halted it had reached the gate. The permission for interment must be exhibited. The undertaker's man addressed himself to the porter of the cemetery. During this colloquy, which always is productive of a delay of from one to two minutes, some one, a stranger, came and placed himself behind the hearse, beside Fauchelevent. He was a sort of laboring man, who wore a waistcoat with large pockets and carried a mattock under his arm. Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger. 'Who are you? he demanded. 'The man replied 'The gravedigger. If a man could survive the blow of a cannonball full in the breast, he would make the same face that Fauchelevent made. 'The gravedigger? 'Yes. 'You? 'I. 'Father Mestienne is the gravedigger. 'He was. 'What! He was? 'He is dead. Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a gravedigger could die. It is true, nevertheless, that gravediggers do die themselves. By dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one's own. Fauchelevent stood there with his mouth wide open. He had hardly the strength to stammer 'But it is not possible! 'It is so. 'But, he persisted feebly, 'Father Mestienne is the gravedigger. 'After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name is Gribier. Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier. He was a tall, thin, livid, utterly funereal man. He had the air of an unsuccessful doctor who had turned gravedigger. Fauchelevent burst out laughing. 'Ah! said he, 'what queer things do happen! Father Mestienne is dead, but long live little Father Lenoir! Do you know who little Father Lenoir is? He is a jug of red wine. It is a jug of Surne, morbigou! of real Paris Surne? Ah! So old Mestienne is dead! I am sorry for it he was a jolly fellow. But you are a jolly fellow, too. Are you not, comrade? We'll go and have a drink together presently. The man replied 'I have been a student. I passed my fourth examination. I never drink. The hearse had set out again, and was rolling up the grand alley of the cemetery. Fauchelevent had slackened his pace. He limped more out of anxiety than from infirmity. The gravedigger walked on in front of him. Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review. He was one of those men who, though very young, have the air of age, and who, though slender, are extremely strong. 'Comrade! cried Fauchelevent. The man turned round. 'I am the convent gravedigger. 'My colleague, said the man. Fauchelevent, who was illiterate but very sharp, understood that he had to deal with a formidable species of man, with a fine talker. He muttered 'So Father Mestienne is dead. The man replied 'Completely. The good God consulted his notebook which shows when the time is up. It was Father Mestienne's turn. Father Mestienne died. Fauchelevent repeated mechanically 'The good God 'The good God, said the man authoritatively. 'According to the philosophers, the Eternal Father according to the Jacobins, the Supreme Being. 'Shall we not make each other's acquaintance? stammered Fauchelevent. 'It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian. 'People do not know each other until they have drunk together. He who empties his glass empties his heart. You must come and have a drink with me. Such a thing cannot be refused. 'Business first. Fauchelevent thought 'I am lost. They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the small alley leading to the nuns' corner. The gravedigger resumed 'Peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed. As they must eat, I cannot drink. And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who is turning a phrase well 'Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst. The hearse skirted a clump of cypresstrees, quitted the grand alley, turned into a narrow one, entered the waste land, and plunged into a thicket. This indicated the immediate proximity of the place of sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the hearse. Fortunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter rains, clogged the wheels and retarded its speed. He approached the gravedigger. 'They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine, murmured Fauchelevent. 'Villager, retorted the man, 'I ought not be a gravedigger. My father was a porter at the Prytaneum TownHall. He destined me for literature. But he had reverses. He had losses on 'change. I was obliged to renounce the profession of author. But I am still a public writer. 'So you are not a gravedigger, then? returned Fauchelevent, clutching at this branch, feeble as it was. 'The one does not hinder the other. I cumulate. Fauchelevent did not understand this last word. 'Come have a drink, said he. Here a remark becomes necessary. Fauchelevent, whatever his anguish, offered a drink, but he did not explain himself on one point who was to pay? Generally, Fauchelevent offered and Father Mestienne paid. An offer of a drink was the evident result of the novel situation created by the new gravedigger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old gardener left the proverbial quarter of an hour named after Rabelais in the dark, and that not unintentionally. As for himself, Fauchelevent did not wish to pay, troubled as he was. The gravedigger went on with a superior smile 'One must eat. I have accepted Father Mestienne's reversion. One gets to be a philosopher when one has nearly completed his classes. To the labor of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in the market of the Rue de Svres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the cooks of the Red Cross apply to me. I scribble their declarations of love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters in the evening I dig graves. Such is life, rustic. The hearse was still advancing. Fauchelevent, uneasy to the last degree, was gazing about him on all sides. Great drops of perspiration trickled down from his brow. 'But, continued the gravedigger, 'a man cannot serve two mistresses. I must choose between the pen and the mattock. The mattock is ruining my hand. The hearse halted. The choir boy alighted from the mourningcoach, then the priest. One of the small front wheels of the hearse had run up a little on a pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible. 'What a farce this is! repeated Fauchelevent in consternation. Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist there, and he could almost breathe. It is a strange thing to what a degree security of conscience confers security of the rest. Every combination thought out by Jean Valjean had been progressing, and progressing favorably, since the preceding day. He, like Fauchelevent, counted on Father Mestienne. He had no doubt as to the end. Never was there a more critical situation, never more complete composure. The four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of terrible peace. It seemed as though something of the repose of the dead entered into Jean Valjean's tranquillity. From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had followed, all the phases of the terrible drama which he was playing with death. Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the upper plank, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then driven off. He knew, from the diminution in the jolting, when they left the pavements and reached the earth road. He had divined, from a dull noise, that they were crossing the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood that they were entering the cemetery at the second halt, he said to himself 'Here is the grave. Suddenly, he felt hands seize the coffin, then a harsh grating against the planks he explained it to himself as the rope which was being fastened round the casket in order to lower it into the cavity. Then he experienced a giddiness. The undertaker's man and the gravedigger had probably allowed the coffin to lose its balance, and had lowered the head before the foot. He recovered himself fully when he felt himself horizontal and motionless. He had just touched the bottom. He had a certain sensation of cold. A voice rose above him, glacial and solemn. He heard Latin words, which he did not understand, pass over him, so slowly that he was able to catch them one by one 'Qui dormiunt in terr pulvere, evigilabunt alii in vitam ternam, et alii in approbrium, ut videant semper. A child's voice said 'De profundis. The grave voice began again 'Requiem ternam dona ei, Domine. The child's voice responded 'Et lux perpetua luceat ei. He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops of rain on the plank which covered him. It was probably the holy water. He thought 'This will be over soon now. Patience for a little while longer. The priest will take his departure. Fauchelevent will take Mestienne off to drink. I shall be left. Then Fauchelevent will return alone, and I shall get out. That will be the work of a good hour. The grave voice resumed 'Requiescat in pace. And the child's voice said 'Amen. Jean Valjean strained his ears, and heard something like retreating footsteps. 'There, they are going now, thought he. 'I am alone. All at once, he heard over his head a sound which seemed to him to be a clap of thunder. It was a shovelful of earth falling on the coffin. A second shovelful fell. One of the holes through which he breathed had just been stopped up. A third shovelful of earth fell. Then a fourth. There are things which are too strong for the strongest man. Jean Valjean lost consciousness. This is what had taken place above the coffin in which lay Jean Valjean. When the hearse had driven off, when the priest and the choir boy had entered the carriage again and taken their departure, Fauchelevent, who had not taken his eyes from the gravedigger, saw the latter bend over and grasp his shovel, which was sticking upright in the heap of dirt. Then Fauchelevent took a supreme resolve. He placed himself between the grave and the gravedigger, crossed his arms and said 'I am the one to pay! The gravedigger stared at him in amazement, and replied 'What's that, peasant? Fauchelevent repeated 'I am the one who pays! 'What? 'For the wine. 'What wine? 'That Argenteuil wine. 'Where is the Argenteuil? 'At the Bon Coing. 'Go to the devil! said the gravedigger. And he flung a shovelful of earth on the coffin. The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent felt himself stagger and on the point of falling headlong into the grave himself. He shouted in a voice in which the strangling sound of the death rattle began to mingle 'Comrade! Before the Bon Coing is shut! The gravedigger took some more earth on his shovel. Fauchelevent continued. 'I will pay. And he seized the man's arm. 'Listen to me, comrade. I am the convent gravedigger, I have come to help you. It is a business which can be performed at night. Let us begin, then, by going for a drink. And as he spoke, and clung to this desperate insistence, this melancholy reflection occurred to him 'And if he drinks, will he get drunk? 'Provincial, said the man, 'if you positively insist upon it, I consent. We will drink. After work, never before. And he flourished his shovel briskly. Fauchelevent held him back. 'It is Argenteuil wine, at six. 'Oh, come, said the gravedigger, 'you are a bellringer. Ding dong, ding dong, that's all you know how to say. Go hang yourself. And he threw in a second shovelful. Fauchelevent had reached a point where he no longer knew what he was saying. 'Come along and drink, he cried, 'since it is I who pays the bill. 'When we have put the child to bed, said the gravedigger. He flung in a third shovelful. Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added 'It's cold tonight, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us if we were to plant her there without a coverlet. At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the gravedigger bent over, and the pocket of his waistcoat gaped. Fauchelevent's wild gaze fell mechanically into that pocket, and there it stopped. The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon there was still light enough to enable him to distinguish something white at the bottom of that yawning pocket. The sum total of lightning that the eye of a Picard peasant can contain, traversed Fauchelevent's pupils. An idea had just occurred to him. He thrust his hand into the pocket from behind, without the gravedigger, who was wholly absorbed in his shovelful of earth, observing it, and pulled out the white object which lay at the bottom of it. The man sent a fourth shovelful tumbling into the grave. Just as he turned round to get the fifth, Fauchelevent looked calmly at him and said 'By the way, you new man, have you your card? The gravedigger paused. 'What card? 'The sun is on the point of setting. 'That's good, it is going to put on its nightcap. 'The gate of the cemetery will close immediately. 'Well, what then? 'Have you your card? 'Ah! my card? said the gravedigger. And he fumbled in his pocket. Having searched one pocket, he proceeded to search the other. He passed on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second. 'Why, no, said he, 'I have not my card. I must have forgotten it. 'Fifteen francs fine, said Fauchelevent. The gravedigger turned green. Green is the pallor of livid people. 'Ah! JsusmonDieubancrochebaslalune! he exclaimed. 'Fifteen francs fine! 'Three pieces of a hundred sous, said Fauchelevent. The gravedigger dropped his shovel. Fauchelevent's turn had come. 'Ah, come now, conscript, said Fauchelevent, 'none of this despair. There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to pay it. I am an old hand, you are a new one. I know all the ropes and the devices. I will give you some friendly advice. One thing is clear, the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the cemetery will be closed in five minutes more. 'That is true, replied the man. 'Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is as hollow as the devil, this grave, and to reach the gate in season to pass it before it is shut. 'That is true. 'In that case, a fine of fifteen francs. 'Fifteen francs. 'But you have time. Where do you live? 'A couple of steps from the barrier, a quarter of an hour from here. No.  Rue de Vaugirard. 'You have just time to get out by taking to your heels at your best speed. 'That is exactly so. 'Once outside the gate, you gallop home, you get your card, you return, the cemetery porter admits you. As you have your card, there will be nothing to pay. And you will bury your corpse. I'll watch it for you in the meantime, so that it shall not run away. 'I am indebted to you for my life, peasant. 'Decamp! said Fauchelevent. The gravedigger, overwhelmed with gratitude, shook his hand and set off on a run. When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until he heard his footsteps die away in the distance, then he leaned over the grave, and said in a low tone 'Father Madeleine! There was no reply. Fauchelevent was seized with a shudder. He tumbled rather than climbed into the grave, flung himself on the head of the coffin and cried 'Are you there? Silence in the coffin. Fauchelevent, hardly able to draw his breath for trembling, seized his cold chisel and his hammer, and pried up the coffin lid. Jean Valjean's face appeared in the twilight it was pale and his eyes were closed. Fauchelevent's hair rose upright on his head, he sprang to his feet, then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the coffin. He stared at Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless. Fauchelevent murmured in a voice as faint as a sigh 'He is dead! And, drawing himself up, and folding his arms with such violence that his clenched fists came in contact with his shoulders, he cried 'And this is the way I save his life! Then the poor man fell to sobbing. He soliloquized the while, for it is an error to suppose that the soliloquy is unnatural. Powerful emotion often talks aloud. 'It is Father Mestienne's fault. Why did that fool die? What need was there for him to give up the ghost at the very moment when no one was expecting it? It is he who has killed M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine! He is in the coffin. It is quite handy. All is over. Now, is there any sense in these things? Ah! my God! he is dead! Well! and his little girl, what am I to do with her? What will the fruitseller say? The idea of its being possible for a man like that to die like this! When I think how he put himself under that cart! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Pardine! He was suffocated, I said so. He wouldn't believe me. Well! Here's a pretty trick to play! He is dead, that good man, the very best man out of all the good God's good folks! And his little girl! Ah! In the first place, I won't go back there myself. I shall stay here. After having done such a thing as that! What's the use of being two old men, if we are two old fools! But, in the first place, how did he manage to enter the convent? That was the beginning of it all. One should not do such things. Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Madeleine! Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire! He does not hear me. Now get out of this scrape if you can! And he tore his hair. A grating sound became audible through the trees in the distance. It was the cemetery gate closing. Fauchelevent bent over Jean Valjean, and all at once he bounded back and recoiled so far as the limits of a grave permit. Jean Valjean's eyes were open and gazing at him. To see a corpse is alarming, to behold a resurrection is almost as much so. Fauchelevent became like stone, pale, haggard, overwhelmed by all these excesses of emotion, not knowing whether he had to do with a living man or a dead one, and staring at Jean Valjean, who was gazing at him. 'I fell asleep, said Jean Valjean. And he raised himself to a sitting posture. Fauchelevent fell on his knees. 'Just, good Virgin! How you frightened me! Then he sprang to his feet and cried 'Thanks, Father Madeleine! Jean Valjean had merely fainted. The fresh air had revived him. Joy is the ebb of terror. Fauchelevent found almost as much difficulty in recovering himself as Jean Valjean had. 'So you are not dead! Oh! How wise you are! I called you so much that you came back. When I saw your eyes shut, I said 'Good! there he is, stifled,' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket. They would have put me in Bictre. What do you suppose I should have done if you had been dead? And your little girl? There's that fruitseller,she would never have understood it! The child is thrust into your arms, and thenthe grandfather is dead! What a story! good saints of paradise, what a tale! Ah! you are alive, that's the best of it! 'I am cold, said Jean Valjean. This remark recalled Fauchelevent thoroughly to reality, and there was pressing need of it. The souls of these two men were troubled even when they had recovered themselves, although they did not realize it, and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister bewilderment inspired by the place. 'Let us get out of here quickly, exclaimed Fauchelevent. He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a gourd with which he had provided himself. 'But first, take a drop, said he. The flask finished what the fresh air had begun, Jean Valjean swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and regained full possession of his faculties. He got out of the coffin, and helped Fauchelevent to nail on the lid again. Three minutes later they were out of the grave. Moreover, Fauchelevent was perfectly composed. He took his time. The cemetery was closed. The arrival of the gravedigger Gribier was not to be apprehended. That 'conscript was at home busily engaged in looking for his card, and at some difficulty in finding it in his lodgings, since it was in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without a card, he could not get back into the cemetery. Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pickaxe, and together they buried the empty coffin. When the grave was full, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean 'Let us go. I will keep the shovel do you carry off the mattock. Night was falling. Jean Valjean experienced some difficulty in moving and in walking. He had stiffened himself in that coffin, and had become a little like a corpse. The rigidity of death had seized upon him between those four planks. He had, in a manner, to thaw out, from the tomb. 'You are benumbed, said Fauchelevent. 'It is a pity that I have a game leg, for otherwise we might step out briskly. 'Bah! replied Jean Valjean, 'four paces will put life into my legs once more. They set off by the alleys through which the hearse had passed. On arriving before the closed gate and the porter's pavilion Fauchelevent, who held the gravedigger's card in his hand, dropped it into the box, the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out. 'How well everything is going! said Fauchelevent 'what a capital idea that was of yours, Father Madeleine! They passed the Vaugirard barrier in the simplest manner in the world. In the neighborhood of the cemetery, a shovel and pick are equal to two passports. The Rue Vaugirard was deserted. 'Father Madeleine, said Fauchelevent as they went along, and raising his eyes to the houses, 'Your eyes are better than mine. Show me No. . 'Here it is, said Jean Valjean. 'There is no one in the street, said Fauchelevent. 'Give me your mattock and wait a couple of minutes for me. Fauchelevent entered No. , ascended to the very top, guided by the instinct which always leads the poor man to the garret, and knocked in the dark, at the door of an attic. A voice replied 'Come in. It was Gribier's voice. Fauchelevent opened the door. The gravedigger's dwelling was, like all such wretched habitations, an unfurnished and encumbered garret. A packingcasea coffin, perhapstook the place of a commode, a butterpot served for a drinkingfountain, a straw mattress served for a bed, the floor served instead of tables and chairs. In a corner, on a tattered fragment which had been a piece of an old carpet, a thin woman and a number of children were piled in a heap. The whole of this povertystricken interior bore traces of having been overturned. One would have said that there had been an earthquake 'for one. The covers were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had been crying, the children had probably been beaten traces of a vigorous and illtempered search. It was plain that the gravedigger had made a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret, from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss. He wore an air of desperation. But Fauchelevent was in too great a hurry to terminate this adventure to take any notice of this sad side of his success. He entered and said 'I have brought you back your shovel and pick. Gribier gazed at him in stupefaction. 'Is it you, peasant? 'And tomorrow morning you will find your card with the porter of the cemetery. And he laid the shovel and mattock on the floor. 'What is the meaning of this? demanded Gribier. 'The meaning of it is, that you dropped your card out of your pocket, that I found it on the ground after you were gone, that I have buried the corpse, that I have filled the grave, that I have done your work, that the porter will return your card to you, and that you will not have to pay fifteen francs. There you have it, conscript. 'Thanks, villager! exclaimed Gribier, radiant. 'The next time I will pay for the drinks. An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented themselves at No.  Rue PetitPicpus. The elder of the men lifted the knocker and rapped. They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette. The two old men had gone to fetch Cosette from the fruiterer's in the Rue du CheminVert, where Fauchelevent had deposited her on the preceding day. Cosette had passed these twentyfour hours trembling silently and understanding nothing. She trembled to such a degree that she wept. She had neither eaten nor slept. The worthy fruitseller had plied her with a hundred questions, without obtaining any other reply than a melancholy and unvarying gaze. Cosette had betrayed nothing of what she had seen and heard during the last two days. She divined that they were passing through a crisis. She was deeply conscious that it was necessary to 'be good. Who has not experienced the sovereign power of those two words, pronounced with a certain accent in the ear of a terrified little being Say nothing! Fear is mute. Moreover, no one guards a secret like a child. But when, at the expiration of these lugubrious twentyfour hours, she beheld Jean Valjean again, she gave vent to such a cry of joy, that any thoughtful person who had chanced to hear that cry, would have guessed that it issued from an abyss. Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew the passwords. All the doors opened. Thus was solved the double and alarming problem of how to get out and how to get in. The porter, who had received his instructions, opened the little servant's door which connected the courtyard with the garden, and which could still be seen from the street twenty years ago, in the wall at the bottom of the court, which faced the carriage entrance. The porter admitted all three of them through this door, and from that point they reached the inner, reserved parlor where Fauchelevent, on the preceding day, had received his orders from the prioress. The prioress, rosary in hand, was waiting for them. A vocal mother, with her veil lowered, stood beside her. A discreet candle lighted, one might almost say, made a show of lighting the parlor. The prioress passed Jean Valjean in review. There is nothing which examines like a downcast eye. Then she questioned him 'You are the brother? 'Yes, reverend Mother, replied Fauchelevent. 'What is your name? Fauchelevent replied 'Ultime Fauchelevent. He really had had a brother named Ultime, who was dead. 'Where do you come from? Fauchelevent replied 'From Picquigny, near Amiens. 'What is your age? Fauchelevent replied 'Fifty. 'What is your profession? Fauchelevent replied 'Gardener. 'Are you a good Christian? Fauchelevent replied 'Every one is in the family. 'Is this your little girl? Fauchelevent replied 'Yes, reverend Mother. 'You are her father? Fauchelevent replied 'Her grandfather. The vocal mother said to the prioress in a low voice 'He answers well. Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. The prioress looked attentively at Cosette, and said half aloud to the vocal mother 'She will grow up ugly. The two mothers consulted for a few moments in very low tones in the corner of the parlor, then the prioress turned round and said 'Father Fauvent, you will get another kneecap with a bell. Two will be required now. On the following day, therefore, two bells were audible in the garden, and the nuns could not resist the temptation to raise the corner of their veils. At the extreme end of the garden, under the trees, two men, Fauvent and another man, were visible as they dug side by side. An enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each other 'He is an assistant gardener. The vocal mothers added 'He is a brother of Father Fauvent. Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed he had his belled kneecap henceforth he was official. His name was Ultime Fauchelevent. The most powerful determining cause of his admission had been the prioress's observation upon Cosette 'She will grow up ugly. The prioress, that pronounced prognosticator, immediately took a fancy to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil. There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this. It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent, women are conscious of their faces now, girls who are conscious of their beauty do not easily become nuns the vocation being voluntary in inverse proportion to their good looks, more is to be hoped from the ugly than from the pretty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls. The whole of this adventure increased the importance of good, old Fauchelevent he won a triple success in the eyes of Jean Valjean, whom he had saved and sheltered in those of gravedigger Gribier, who said to himself 'He spared me that fine with the convent, which, being enabled, thanks to him, to retain the coffin of Mother Crucifixion under the altar, eluded Csar and satisfied God. There was a coffin containing a body in the PetitPicpus, and a coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery, public order had no doubt been deeply disturbed thereby, but no one was aware of it. As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was very great. Fauchelevent became the best of servitors and the most precious of gardeners. Upon the occasion of the archbishop's next visit, the prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a confession at the same time, and yet boasting of her deed. On leaving the convent, the archbishop mentioned it with approval, and in a whisper to M. de Latil, Monsieur's confessor, afterwards Archbishop of Reims and Cardinal. This admiration for Fauchelevent became widespread, for it made its way to Rome. We have seen a note addressed by the then reigning Pope, Leo XII., to one of his relatives, a Monsignor in the Nuncio's establishment in Paris, and bearing, like himself, the name of Della Genga it contained these lines 'It appears that there is in a convent in Paris an excellent gardener, who is also a holy man, named Fauvent. Nothing of this triumph reached Fauchelevent in his hut he went on grafting, weeding, and covering up his melon beds, without in the least suspecting his excellences and his sanctity. Neither did he suspect his glory, any more than a Durham or Surrey bull whose portrait is published in the London Illustrated News, with this inscription 'Bull which carried off the prize at the Cattle Show. Cosette continued to hold her tongue in the convent. It was quite natural that Cosette should think herself Jean Valjean's daughter. Moreover, as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and then, she would not have said anything in any case. As we have just observed, nothing trains children to silence like unhappiness. Cosette had suffered so much, that she feared everything, even to speak or to breathe. A single word had so often brought down an avalanche upon her. She had hardly begun to regain her confidence since she had been with Jean Valjean. She speedily became accustomed to the convent. Only she regretted Catherine, but she dared not say so. Once, however, she did say to Jean Valjean 'Father, if I had known, I would have brought her away with me. Cosette had been obliged, on becoming a scholar in the convent, to don the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean succeeded in getting them to restore to him the garments which she laid aside. This was the same mourning suit which he had made her put on when she had quitted the Thnardiers' inn. It was not very threadbare even now. Jean Valjean locked up these garments, plus the stockings and the shoes, with a quantity of camphor and all the aromatics in which convents abound, in a little valise which he found means of procuring. He set this valise on a chair near his bed, and he always carried the key about his person. 'Father, Cosette asked him one day, 'what is there in that box which smells so good? Father Fauchelevent received other recompense for his good action, in addition to the glory which we just mentioned, and of which he knew nothing in the first place it made him happy next, he had much less work, since it was shared. Lastly, as he was very fond of snuff, he found the presence of M. Madeleine an advantage, in that he used three times as much as he had done previously, and that in an infinitely more luxurious manner, seeing that M. Madeleine paid for it. The nuns did not adopt the name of Ultime they called Jean Valjean the other Fauvent. If these holy women had possessed anything of Javert's glance, they would eventually have noticed that when there was any errand to be done outside in the behalf of the garden, it was always the elder Fauchelevent, the old, the infirm, the lame man, who went, and never the other but whether it is that eyes constantly fixed on God know not how to spy, or whether they were, by preference, occupied in keeping watch on each other, they paid no heed to this. Moreover, it was well for Jean Valjean that he kept close and did not stir out. Javert watched the quarter for more than a month. This convent was for Jean Valjean like an island surrounded by gulfs. Henceforth, those four walls constituted his world. He saw enough of the sky there to enable him to preserve his serenity, and Cosette enough to remain happy. A very sweet life began for him. He inhabited the old hut at the end of the garden, in company with Fauchelevent. This hovel, built of old rubbish, which was still in existence in , was composed, as the reader already knows, of three chambers, all of which were utterly bare and had nothing beyond the walls. The principal one had been given up, by force, for Jean Valjean had opposed it in vain, to M. Madeleine, by Father Fauchelevent. The walls of this chamber had for ornament, in addition to the two nails whereon to hang the kneecap and the basket, a Royalist banknote of ', applied to the wall over the chimneypiece, and of which the following is an exact facsimile This specimen of Vendean paper money had been nailed to the wall by the preceding gardener, an old Chouan, who had died in the convent, and whose place Fauchelevent had taken. Jean Valjean worked in the garden every day and made himself very useful. He had formerly been a pruner of trees, and he gladly found himself a gardener once more. It will be remembered that he knew all sorts of secrets and receipts for agriculture. He turned these to advantage. Almost all the trees in the orchard were ungrafted, and wild. He budded them and made them produce excellent fruit. Cosette had permission to pass an hour with him every day. As the sisters were melancholy and he was kind, the child made comparisons and adored him. At the appointed hour she flew to the hut. When she entered the lowly cabin, she filled it with paradise. Jean Valjean blossomed out and felt his happiness increase with the happiness which he afforded Cosette. The joy which we inspire has this charming property, that, far from growing meagre, like all reflections, it returns to us more radiant than ever. At recreation hours, Jean Valjean watched her running and playing in the distance, and he distinguished her laugh from that of the rest. For Cosette laughed now. Cosette's face had even undergone a change, to a certain extent. The gloom had disappeared from it. A smile is the same as sunshine it banishes winter from the human countenance. Recreation over, when Cosette went into the house again, Jean Valjean gazed at the windows of her classroom, and at night he rose to look at the windows of her dormitory. God has his own ways, moreover the convent contributed, like Cosette, to uphold and complete the Bishop's work in Jean Valjean. It is certain that virtue adjoins pride on one side. A bridge built by the devil exists there. Jean Valjean had been, unconsciously, perhaps, tolerably near that side and that bridge, when Providence cast his lot in the convent of the PetitPicpus so long as he had compared himself only to the Bishop, he had regarded himself as unworthy and had remained humble but for some time past he had been comparing himself to men in general, and pride was beginning to spring up. Who knows? He might have ended by returning very gradually to hatred. The convent stopped him on that downward path. This was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, in what had been for him the beginning of his life, and later on, quite recently again, he had beheld another,a frightful place, a terrible place, whose severities had always appeared to him the iniquity of justice, and the crime of the law. Now, after the galleys, he saw the cloister and when he meditated how he had formed a part of the galleys, and that he now, so to speak, was a spectator of the cloister, he confronted the two in his own mind with anxiety. Sometimes he crossed his arms and leaned on his hoe, and slowly descended the endless spirals of reverie. He recalled his former companions how wretched they were they rose at dawn, and toiled until night hardly were they permitted to sleep they lay on camp beds, where nothing was tolerated but mattresses two inches thick, in rooms which were heated only in the very harshest months of the year they were clothed in frightful red blouses they were allowed, as a great favor, linen trousers in the hottest weather, and a woollen carter's blouse on their backs when it was very cold they drank no wine, and ate no meat, except when they went on 'fatigue duty. They lived nameless, designated only by numbers, and converted, after a manner, into ciphers themselves, with downcast eyes, with lowered voices, with shorn heads, beneath the cudgel and in disgrace. Then his mind reverted to the beings whom he had under his eyes. These beings also lived with shorn heads, with downcast eyes, with lowered voices, not in disgrace, but amid the scoffs of the world, not with their backs bruised with the cudgel, but with their shoulders lacerated with their discipline. Their names, also, had vanished from among men they no longer existed except under austere appellations. They never ate meat and they never drank wine they often remained until evening without food they were attired, not in a red blouse, but in a black shroud, of woollen, which was heavy in summer and thin in winter, without the power to add or subtract anything from it without having even, according to the season, the resource of the linen garment or the woollen cloak and for six months in the year they wore serge chemises which gave them fever. They dwelt, not in rooms warmed only during rigorous cold, but in cells where no fire was ever lighted they slept, not on mattresses two inches thick, but on straw. And finally, they were not even allowed their sleep every night, after a day of toil, they were obliged, in the weariness of their first slumber, at the moment when they were falling sound asleep and beginning to get warm, to rouse themselves, to rise and to go and pray in an icecold and gloomy chapel, with their knees on the stones. On certain days each of these beings in turn had to remain for twelve successive hours in a kneeling posture, or prostrate, with face upon the pavement, and arms outstretched in the form of a cross. The others were men these were women. What had those men done? They had stolen, violated, pillaged, murdered, assassinated. They were bandits, counterfeiters, poisoners, incendiaries, murderers, parricides. What had these women done? They had done nothing whatever. On the one hand, highway robbery, fraud, deceit, violence, sensuality, homicide, all sorts of sacrilege, every variety of crime on the other, one thing only, innocence. Perfect innocence, almost caught up into heaven in a mysterious assumption, attached to the earth by virtue, already possessing something of heaven through holiness. On the one hand, confidences over crimes, which are exchanged in whispers on the other, the confession of faults made aloud. And what crimes! And what faults! On the one hand, miasms on the other, an ineffable perfume. On the one hand, a moral pest, guarded from sight, penned up under the range of cannon, and literally devouring its plaguestricken victims on the other, the chaste flame of all souls on the same hearth. There, darkness here, the shadow but a shadow filled with gleams of light, and of gleams full of radiance. Two strongholds of slavery but in the first, deliverance possible, a legal limit always in sight, and then, escape. In the second, perpetuity the sole hope, at the distant extremity of the future, that faint light of liberty which men call death. In the first, men are bound only with chains in the other, chained by faith. What flowed from the first? An immense curse, the gnashing of teeth, hatred, desperate viciousness, a cry of rage against human society, a sarcasm against heaven. What results flowed from the second? Blessings and love. And in these two places, so similar yet so unlike, these two species of beings who were so very unlike, were undergoing the same work, expiation. Jean Valjean understood thoroughly the expiation of the former that personal expiation, the expiation for one's self. But he did not understand that of these last, that of creatures without reproach and without stain, and he trembled as he asked himself The expiation of what? What expiation? A voice within his conscience replied 'The most divine of human generosities, the expiation for others. Here all personal theory is withheld we are only the narrator we place ourselves at Jean Valjean's point of view, and we translate his impressions. Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnegation, the highest possible pitch of virtue the innocence which pardons men their faults, and which expiates in their stead servitude submitted to, torture accepted, punishment claimed by souls which have not sinned, for the sake of sparing it to souls which have fallen the love of humanity swallowed up in the love of God, but even there preserving its distinct and mediatorial character sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery of those who are punished and the smile of those who are recompensed. And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! Often, in the middle of the night, he rose to listen to the grateful song of those innocent creatures weighed down with severities, and the blood ran cold in his veins at the thought that those who were justly chastised raised their voices heavenward only in blasphemy, and that he, wretch that he was, had shaken his fist at God. There was one striking thing which caused him to meditate deeply, like a warning whisper from Providence itself the scaling of that wall, the passing of those barriers, the adventure accepted even at the risk of death, the painful and difficult ascent, all those efforts even, which he had made to escape from that other place of expiation, he had made in order to gain entrance into this one. Was this a symbol of his destiny? This house was a prison likewise and bore a melancholy resemblance to that other one whence he had fled, and yet he had never conceived an idea of anything similar. Again he beheld gratings, bolts, iron barsto guard whom? Angels. These lofty walls which he had seen around tigers, he now beheld once more around lambs. This was a place of expiation, and not of punishment and yet, it was still more austere, more gloomy, and more pitiless than the other. These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts. A cold, harsh wind, that wind which had chilled his youth, traversed the barred and padlocked grating of the vultures a still harsher and more biting breeze blew in the cage of these doves. Why? When he thought on these things, all that was within him was lost in amazement before this mystery of sublimity. In these meditations, his pride vanished. He scrutinized his own heart in all manner of ways he felt his pettiness, and many a time he wept. All that had entered into his life for the last six months had led him back towards the Bishop's holy injunctions Cosette through love, the convent through humility. Sometimes at eventide, in the twilight, at an hour when the garden was deserted, he could be seen on his knees in the middle of the walk which skirted the chapel, in front of the window through which he had gazed on the night of his arrival, and turned towards the spot where, as he knew, the sister was making reparation, prostrated in prayer. Thus he prayed as he knelt before the sister. It seemed as though he dared not kneel directly before God. Everything that surrounded him, that peaceful garden, those fragrant flowers, those children who uttered joyous cries, those grave and simple women, that silent cloister, slowly permeated him, and little by little, his soul became compounded of silence like the cloister, of perfume like the flowers, of simplicity like the women, of joy like the children. And then he reflected that these had been two houses of God which had received him in succession at two critical moments in his life the first, when all doors were closed and when human society rejected him the second, at a moment when human society had again set out in pursuit of him, and when the galleys were again yawning and that, had it not been for the first, he should have relapsed into crime, and had it not been for the second, into torment. His whole heart melted in gratitude, and he loved more and more. Many years passed in this manner Cosette was growing up. THE END OF VOLUME II 'COSETTE Paris has a child, and the forest has a bird the bird is called the sparrow the child is called the gamin. Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other all the dawn strike these two sparks together, Paris, childhood there leaps out from them a little being. Homuncio, Plautus would say. This little being is joyous. He has not food every day, and he goes to the play every evening, if he sees good. He has no shirt on his body, no shoes on his feet, no roof over his head he is like the flies of heaven, who have none of these things. He is from seven to thirteen years of age, he lives in bands, roams the streets, lodges in the open air, wears an old pair of trousers of his father's, which descend below his heels, an old hat of some other father, which descends below his ears, a single suspender of yellow listing he runs, lies in wait, rummages about, wastes time, blackens pipes, swears like a convict, haunts the wineshop, knows thieves, calls gay women thou, talks slang, sings obscene songs, and has no evil in his heart. This is because he has in his heart a pearl, innocence and pearls are not to be dissolved in mud. So long as man is in his childhood, God wills that he shall be innocent. If one were to ask that enormous city 'What is this? she would reply 'It is my little one. The gaminthe street Arabof Paris is the dwarf of the giant. Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt, but, in that case, he owns but one he sometimes has shoes, but then they have no soles he sometimes has a lodging, and he loves it, for he finds his mother there but he prefers the street, because there he finds liberty. He has his own games, his own bits of mischief, whose foundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois his peculiar metaphors to be dead is to eat dandelions by the root his own occupations, calling hackneycoaches, letting down carriagesteps, establishing means of transit between the two sides of a street in heavy rains, which he calls making the bridge of arts, crying discourses pronounced by the authorities in favor of the French people, cleaning out the cracks in the pavement he has his own coinage, which is composed of all the little morsels of worked copper which are found on the public streets. This curious money, which receives the name of loquesragshas an invariable and wellregulated currency in this little Bohemia of children. Lastly, he has his own fauna, which he observes attentively in the corners the ladybird, the death'shead plantlouse, the daddylonglegs, 'the devil, a black insect, which menaces by twisting about its tail armed with two horns. He has his fabulous monster, which has scales under its belly, but is not a lizard, which has pustules on its back, but is not a toad, which inhabits the nooks of old limekilns and wells that have run dry, which is black, hairy, sticky, which crawls sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, which has no cry, but which has a look, and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it he calls this monster 'the deaf thing. The search for these 'deaf things among the stones is a joy of formidable nature. Another pleasure consists in suddenly prying up a pavingstone, and taking a look at the woodlice. Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which are to be found there. There are earwigs in the timberyards of the Ursulines, there are millepeds in the Pantheon, there are tadpoles in the ditches of the ChampsdeMars. As far as sayings are concerned, this child has as many of them as Talleyrand. He is no less cynical, but he is more honest. He is endowed with a certain indescribable, unexpected joviality he upsets the composure of the shopkeeper with his wild laughter. He ranges boldly from high comedy to farce. A funeral passes by. Among those who accompany the dead there is a doctor. 'Hey there! shouts some street Arab, 'how long has it been customary for doctors to carry home their own work? Another is in a crowd. A grave man, adorned with spectacles and trinkets, turns round indignantly 'You goodfornothing, you have seized my wife's waist!'I, sir? Search me! In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means to procure, the homuncio enters a theatre. On crossing that magic threshold, he becomes transfigured he was the street Arab, he becomes the titi. Theatres are a sort of ship turned upside down with the keel in the air. It is in that keel that the titi huddle together. The titi is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva the same being endowed with wings and soaring. It suffices for him to be there, with his radiance of happiness, with his power of enthusiasm and joy, with his handclapping, which resembles a clapping of wings, to confer on that narrow, dark, fetid, sordid, unhealthy, hideous, abominable keel, the name of Paradise. Bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary, and you have the gamin. The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say it with the proper amount of regret, would not constitute classic taste. He is not very academic by nature. Thus, to give an example, the popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy children was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her Mademoiselle Muche'hide yourself. This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has rags like a baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in the cesspool, extracts mirth from foulness, whips up the squares with his wit, grins and bites, whistles and sings, shouts, and shrieks, tempers Alleluia with Matanturlurette, chants every rhythm from the De Profundis to the Jackpudding, finds without seeking, knows what he is ignorant of, is a Spartan to the point of thieving, is mad to wisdom, is lyrical to filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the dunghill and emerges from it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais in this youth. He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watchpocket. He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified, he makes songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations, he twits mysteries, he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts, he takes the poetry out of stilted things, he introduces caricature into epic extravaganzas. It is not that he is prosaic far from that but he replaces the solemn vision by the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor were to appear to him, the street Arab would say 'Hi there! The bugaboo! Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, two beings of which no other city is capable the passive acceptance, which contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative Prudhomme and Fouillou. Paris alone has this in its natural history. The whole of the monarchy is contained in the lounger the whole of anarchy in the gamin. This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and develops, makes connections, 'grows supple in suffering, in the presence of social realities and of human things, a thoughtful witness. He thinks himself heedless and he is not. He looks and is on the verge of laughter he is on the verge of something else also. Whoever you may be, if your name is Prejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despotism, Injustice, Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the gaping gamin. The little fellow will grow up. Of what clay is he made? Of the first mud that comes to hand. A handful of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam. It suffices for a God to pass by. A God has always passed over the street Arab. Fortune labors at this tiny being. By the word 'fortune we mean chance, to some extent. That pigmy kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low. Will that become an Ionian or a Botian? Wait, currit rota, the Spirit of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and the men of destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of a jug an amphora. The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has something of the sage in him. Urbis amator, like Fuscus ruris amator, like Flaccus. To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher particularly in that rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities, notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal. End of the trees, beginning of the roofs end of the grass, beginning of the pavements end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of the wheelruts, beginning of the passions end of the divine murmur, beginning of the human uproar hence an extraordinary interest. Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by the passing stroller with the epithet melancholy, the apparently objectless promenades of the dreamer. He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers of Paris, and it is for him a source of profound souvenirs. That closeshaven turf, those pebbly paths, that chalk, those pools, those harsh monotonies of waste and fallow lands, the plants of early marketgarden suddenly springing into sight in a bottom, that mixture of the savage and the citizen, those vast desert nooks where the garrison drums practise noisily, and produce a sort of lisping of battle, those hermits by day and cutthroats by night, that clumsy mill which turns in the wind, the hoistingwheels of the quarries, the teagardens at the corners of the cemeteries the mysterious charm of great, sombre walls squarely intersecting immense, vague stretches of land inundated with sunshine and full of butterflies,all this attracted him. There is hardly any one on earth who is not acquainted with those singular spots, the Glacire, the Cunette, the hideous wall of Grenelle all speckled with balls, MontParnasse, the FosseauxLoups, Aubiers on the bank of the Marne, MontSouris, the TombeIssoire, the PierrePlate de Chtillon, where there is an old, exhausted quarry which no longer serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a level with the ground, by a trapdoor of rotten planks. The campagna of Rome is one idea, the banlieue of Paris is another to behold nothing but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is to remain on the surface all aspects of things are thoughts of God. The spot where a plain effects its junction with a city is always stamped with a certain piercing melancholy. Nature and humanity both appeal to you at the same time there. Local originalities there make their appearance. Any one who, like ourselves, has wandered about in these solitudes contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of Paris, has seen here and there, in the most desert spot, at the most unexpected moment, behind a meagre hedge, or in the corner of a lugubrious wall, children grouped tumultuously, fetid, muddy, dusty, ragged, dishevelled, playing hideandseek, and crowned with cornflowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space the suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with their thumbs, quarrelling over halffarthings, irresponsible, volatile, free and happy and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange children are one of the charming and at the same time poignant graces of the environs of Paris. Sometimes there are little girls among the throng of boys,are they their sisters?who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with sunburnt hands, covered with freckles, crowned with poppies and ears of rye, gay, haggard, barefooted. They can be seen devouring cherries among the wheat. In the evening they can be heard laughing. These groups, warmly illuminated by the full glow of midday, or indistinctly seen in the twilight, occupy the thoughtful man for a very long time, and these visions mingle with his dreams. Paris, centre, banlieue, circumference this constitutes all the earth to those children. They never venture beyond this. They can no more escape from the Parisian atmosphere than fish can escape from the water. For them, nothing exists two leagues beyond the barriers Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Mnilmontant, ChoisyleRoi, Billancourt, Meudon, Issy, Vanvre, Svres, Puteaux, Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnires, Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, NoisyleSec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy, Gonesse the universe ends there. At the epoch, nearly contemporary by the way, when the action of this book takes place, there was not, as there is today, a policeman at the corner of every street (a benefit which there is no time to discuss here) stray children abounded in Paris. The statistics give an average of two hundred and sixty homeless children picked up annually at that period, by the police patrols, in unenclosed lands, in houses in process of construction, and under the arches of the bridges. One of these nests, which has become famous, produced 'the swallows of the bridge of Arcola. This is, moreover, the most disastrous of social symptoms. All crimes of the man begin in the vagabondage of the child. Let us make an exception in favor of Paris, nevertheless. In a relative measure, and in spite of the souvenir which we have just recalled, the exception is just. While in any other great city the vagabond child is a lost man, while nearly everywhere the child left to itself is, in some sort, sacrificed and abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the public vices which devour in him honesty and conscience, the street boy of Paris, we insist on this point, however defaced and injured on the surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a magnificent thing to put on record, and one which shines forth in the splendid probity of our popular revolutions, that a certain incorruptibility results from the idea which exists in the air of Paris, as salt exists in the water of the ocean. To breathe Paris preserves the soul. What we have just said takes away nothing of the anguish of heart which one experiences every time that one meets one of these children around whom one fancies that he beholds floating the threads of a broken family. In the civilization of the present day, incomplete as it still is, it is not a very abnormal thing to behold these fractured families pouring themselves out into the darkness, not knowing clearly what has become of their children, and allowing their own entrails to fall on the public highway. Hence these obscure destinies. This is called, for this sad thing has given rise to an expression, 'to be cast on the pavements of Paris. Let it be said by the way, that this abandonment of children was not discouraged by the ancient monarchy. A little of Egypt and Bohemia in the lower regions suited the upper spheres, and compassed the aims of the powerful. The hatred of instruction for the children of the people was a dogma. What is the use of 'halflights? Such was the countersign. Now, the erring child is the corollary of the ignorant child. Besides this, the monarchy sometimes was in need of children, and in that case it skimmed the streets. Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king rightly desired to create a fleet. The idea was a good one. But let us consider the means. There can be no fleet, if, beside the sailing ship, that plaything of the winds, and for the purpose of towing it, in case of necessity, there is not the vessel which goes where it pleases, either by means of oars or of steam the galleys were then to the marine what steamers are today. Therefore, galleys were necessary but the galley is moved only by the galleyslave hence, galleyslaves were required. Colbert had the commissioners of provinces and the parliaments make as many convicts as possible. The magistracy showed a great deal of complaisance in the matter. A man kept his hat on in the presence of a processionit was a Huguenot attitude he was sent to the galleys. A child was encountered in the streets provided that he was fifteen years of age and did not know where he was to sleep, he was sent to the galleys. Grand reign grand century. Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris the police carried them off, for what mysterious purpose no one knew. People whispered with terror monstrous conjectures as to the king's baths of purple. Barbier speaks ingenuously of these things. It sometimes happened that the exempts of the guard, when they ran short of children, took those who had fathers. The fathers, in despair, attacked the exempts. In that case, the parliament intervened and had some one hung. Who? The exempts? No, the fathers. The body of street Arabs in Paris almost constitutes a caste. One might almost say Not every one who wishes to belong to it can do so. This word gamin was printed for the first time, and reached popular speech through the literary tongue, in . It is in a little work entitled Claude Gueux that this word made its appearance. The horror was lively. The word passed into circulation. The elements which constitute the consideration of the gamins for each other are very various. We have known and associated with one who was greatly respected and vastly admired because he had seen a man fall from the top of the tower of NotreDame another, because he had succeeded in making his way into the rear courtyard where the statues of the dome of the Invalides had been temporarily deposited, and had 'prigged some lead from them a third, because he had seen a diligence tip over still another, because he 'knew a soldier who came near putting out the eye of a citizen. This explains that famous exclamation of a Parisian gamin, a profound epiphonema, which the vulgar herd laughs at without comprehending, Dieu de Dieu! What illluck I do have! to think that I have never yet seen anybody tumble from a fifthstory window! (I have pronounced I'ave and fifth pronounced fift'.) Surely, this saying of a peasant is a fine one 'Father SoandSo, your wife has died of her malady why did you not send for the doctor? 'What would you have, sir, we poor folks die of ourselves. But if the peasant's whole passivity lies in this saying, the whole of the freethinking anarchy of the brat of the faubourgs is, assuredly, contained in this other saying. A man condemned to death is listening to his confessor in the tumbrel. The child of Paris exclaims 'He is talking to his black cap! Oh, the sneak! A certain audacity on matters of religion sets off the gamin. To be strongminded is an important item. To be present at executions constitutes a duty. He shows himself at the guillotine, and he laughs. He calls it by all sorts of pet names The End of the Soup, The Growler, The Mother in the Blue (the sky), The Last Mouthful, etc., etc. In order not to lose anything of the affair, he scales the walls, he hoists himself to balconies, he ascends trees, he suspends himself to gratings, he clings fast to chimneys. The gamin is born a tiler as he is born a mariner. A roof inspires him with no more fear than a mast. There is no festival which comes up to an execution on the Place de Grve. Samson and the Abb Monts are the truly popular names. They hoot at the victim in order to encourage him. They sometimes admire him. Lacenaire, when a gamin, on seeing the hideous Dautin die bravely, uttered these words which contain a future 'I was jealous of him. In the brotherhood of gamins Voltaire is not known, but Papavoine is. 'Politicians are confused with assassins in the same legend. They have a tradition as to everybody's last garment. It is known that Tolleron had a fireman's cap, Avril an otter cap, Losvel a round hat, that old Delaporte was bald and bareheaded, that Castaing was all ruddy and very handsome, that Bories had a romantic small beard, that Jean Martin kept on his suspenders, that Lecouff and his mother quarrelled. 'Don't reproach each other for your basket, shouted a gamin to them. Another, in order to get a look at Debacker as he passed, and being too small in the crowd, caught sight of the lantern on the quay and climbed it. A gendarme stationed opposite frowned. 'Let me climb up, m'sieu le gendarme, said the gamin. And, to soften the heart of the authorities he added 'I will not fall. 'I don't care if you do, retorted the gendarme. In the brotherhood of gamins, a memorable accident counts for a great deal. One reaches the height of consideration if one chances to cut one's self very deeply, 'to the very bone. The fist is no mediocre element of respect. One of the things that the gamin is fondest of saying is 'I am fine and strong, come now! To be lefthanded renders you very enviable. A squint is highly esteemed. In summer, he metamorphoses himself into a frog and in the evening, when night is falling, in front of the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena, from the tops of coal wagons, and the washerwomen's boats, he hurls himself headlong into the Seine, and into all possible infractions of the laws of modesty and of the police. Nevertheless the police keep an eye on him, and the result is a highly dramatic situation which once gave rise to a fraternal and memorable cry that cry which was celebrated about , is a strategic warning from gamin to gamin it scans like a verse from Homer, with a notation as inexpressible as the eleusiac chant of the Panathena, and in it one encounters again the ancient Evohe. Here it is 'Oh, Titi, oh! Here comes the bobby, here comes the p'lice, pick up your duds and be off, through the sewer with you! Sometimes this gnatthat is what he calls himselfknows how to read sometimes he knows how to write he always knows how to daub. He does not hesitate to acquire, by no one knows what mysterious mutual instruction, all the talents which can be of use to the public from  to , he imitated the cry of the turkey from  to , he scrawled pears on the walls. One summer evening, when Louis Philippe was returning home on foot, he saw a little fellow, no higher than his knee, perspiring and climbing up to draw a gigantic pear in charcoal on one of the pillars of the gate of Neuilly the King, with that goodnature which came to him from Henry IV., helped the gamin, finished the pear, and gave the child a louis, saying 'The pear is on that also. The gamin loves uproar. A certain state of violence pleases him. He execrates 'the curs. One day, in the Rue de l'Universit, one of these scamps was putting his thumb to his nose at the carriage gate of No. . 'Why are you doing that at the gate? a passerby asked. The boy replied 'There is a cur there. It was there, in fact, that the Papal Nuncio lived. Nevertheless, whatever may be the Voltairianism of the small gamin, if the occasion to become a chorister presents itself, it is quite possible that he will accept, and in that case he serves the mass civilly. There are two things to which he plays Tantalus, and which he always desires without ever attaining them to overthrow the government, and to get his trousers sewed up again. The gamin in his perfect state possesses all the policemen of Paris, and can always put the name to the face of any one which he chances to meet. He can tell them off on the tips of his fingers. He studies their habits, and he has special notes on each one of them. He reads the souls of the police like an open book. He will tell you fluently and without flinching 'Such an one is a traitor such another is very malicious such another is great such another is ridiculous. (All these words traitor, malicious, great, ridiculous, have a particular meaning in his mouth.) That one imagines that he owns the PontNeuf, and he prevents people from walking on the cornice outside the parapet that other has a mania for pulling person's ears etc., etc. There was something of that boy in Poquelin, the son of the fishmarket Beaumarchais had something of it. Gaminerie is a shade of the Gallic spirit. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force to the latter, as alcohol does to wine. Sometimes it is a defect. Homer repeats himself eternally, granted one may say that Voltaire plays the gamin. Camille Desmoulins was a native of the faubourgs. Championnet, who treated miracles brutally, rose from the pavements of Paris he had, when a small lad, inundated the porticos of SaintJean de Beauvais, and of Sainttienne du Mont he had addressed the shrine of SainteGenevive familiarly to give orders to the phial of Saint Januarius. The gamin of Paris is respectful, ironical, and insolent. He has villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers, and handsome eyes because he has wit. If Jehovah himself were present, he would go hopping up the steps of paradise on one foot. He is strong on boxing. All beliefs are possible to him. He plays in the gutter, and straightens himself up with a revolt his effrontery persists even in the presence of grapeshot he was a scapegrace, he is a hero like the little Theban, he shakes the skin from the lion Barra the drummerboy was a gamin of Paris he Shouts 'Forward! as the horse of Scripture says 'Vah! and in a moment he has passed from the small brat to the giant. This child of the puddle is also the child of the ideal. Measure that spread of wings which reaches from Molire to Barra. To sum up the whole, and in one word, the gamin is a being who amuses himself, because he is unhappy. To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of today, like the grculus of Rome in days gone by, is the infant populace with the wrinkle of the old world on his brow. The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease a disease which must be cured, how? By light. Light renders healthy. Light kindles. All generous social irradiations spring from science, letters, arts, education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm you. Sooner or later the splendid question of universal education will present itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth and then, those who govern under the superintendence of the French idea will have to make this choice the children of France or the gamins of Paris flames in the light or willo'thewisps in the gloom. The gamin expresses Paris, and Paris expresses the world. For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. The whole of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners and living manners. He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all history with heaven and constellations in the intervals. Paris has a capital, the TownHall, a Parthenon, NotreDame, a Mount Aventine, the Faubourg SaintAntoine, an Asinarium, the Sorbonne, a Pantheon, the Pantheon, a Via Sacra, the Boulevard des Italiens, a temple of the winds, opinion and it replaces the Gemoni by ridicule. Its majo is called 'faraud, its Transteverin is the man of the faubourgs, its hammal is the marketporter, its lazzarone is the pgre, its cockney is the native of Ghent. Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris. The fishwoman of Dumarsais can retort on the herbseller of Euripides, the discobols Vejanus lives again in the Forioso, the tightrope dancer. Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncur the grenadier, Damasippus the secondhand dealer would be happy among bricbrac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist as just as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la Reynire discovered larded roast beef, as Curtillus invented roast hedgehog, we see the trapeze which figures in Plautus reappear under the vault of the Arc of l'Etoile, the swordeater of Pcilus encountered by Apuleius is a swordswallower on the PontNeuf, the nephew of Rameau and Curculio the parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented to Cambacres by d'Aigrefeuille the four dandies of Rome Alcesimarchus, Phdromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippus, descend from Courtille in Labatut's postingchaise Aulus Gellius would halt no longer in front of Congrio than would Charles Nodier in front of Punchinello Marto is not a tigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon Pantolabus the wag jeers in the Caf Anglais at Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a tenor in the Champslyses, and round him, Thracius the beggar, clad like Bobche, takes up a collection the bore who stops you by the button of your coat in the Tuileries makes you repeat after a lapse of two thousand years Thesprion's apostrophe Quis properantem me prehendit pallio? The wine on Surne is a parody of the wine of Alba, the red border of Desaugiers forms a balance to the great cutting of Balatro, PreLachaise exhales beneath nocturnal rains the same gleams as the Esquili, and the grave of the poor bought for five years, is certainly the equivalent of the slave's hived coffin. Seek something that Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius contains nothing that is not in Mesmer's tub Ergaphilas lives again in Cagliostro the Brahmin Vsaphant become incarnate in the Comte de SaintGermain the cemetery of SaintMdard works quite as good miracles as the Mosque of Oumoumi at Damascus. Paris has an sopMayeux, and a Canidia, Mademoiselle Lenormand. It is terrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision it makes tables turn as Dodona did tripods. It places the grisette on the throne, as Rome placed the courtesan there and, taking it altogether, if Louis XV. is worse than Claudian, Madame Dubarry is better than Messalina. Paris combines in an unprecedented type, which has existed and which we have elbowed, Grecian nudity, the Hebraic ulcer, and the Gascon pun. It mingles Diogenes, Job, and Jackpudding, dresses up a spectre in old numbers of the Constitutional, and makes Chodruc Duclos. Although Plutarch says the tyrant never grows old, Rome, under Sylla as under Domitian, resigned itself and willingly put water in its wine. The Tiber was a Lethe, if the rather doctrinary eulogium made of it by Varus Vibiscus is to be credited Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus, Bibere Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci. Paris drinks a million litres of water a day, but that does not prevent it from occasionally beating the general alarm and ringing the tocsin. With that exception, Paris is amiable. It accepts everything royally it is not too particular about its Venus its Callipyge is Hottentot provided that it is made to laugh, it condones ugliness cheers it, deformity provokes it to laughter, vice diverts it be eccentric and you may be an eccentric even hypocrisy, that supreme cynicism, does not disgust it it is so literary that it does not hold its nose before Basile, and is no more scandalized by the prayer of Tartuffe than Horace was repelled by the 'hiccup of Priapus. No trait of the universal face is lacking in the profile of Paris. The bal Mabile is not the polymnia dance of the Janiculum, but the dealer in ladies' wearing apparel there devours the lorette with her eyes, exactly as the procuress Staphyla lay in wait for the virgin Planesium. The Barrire du Combat is not the Coliseum, but people are as ferocious there as though Csar were looking on. The Syrian hostess has more grace than Mother Saguet, but, if Virgil haunted the Roman wineshop, David d'Angers, Balzac and Charlet have sat at the tables of Parisian taverns. Paris reigns. Geniuses flash forth there, the red tails prosper there. Adona passes on his chariot with its twelve wheels of thunder and lightning Silenus makes his entry there on his ass. For Silenus read Ramponneau. Paris is the synonym of Cosmos, Paris is Athens, Sybaris, Jerusalem, Pantin. All civilizations are there in an abridged form, all barbarisms also. Paris would greatly regret it if it had not a guillotine. A little of the Place de Grve is a good thing. What would all that eternal festival be without this seasoning? Our laws are wisely provided, and thanks to them, this blade drips on this Shrove Tuesday. There is no limit to Paris. No city has had that domination which sometimes derides those whom it subjugates. To please you, O Athenians! exclaimed Alexander. Paris makes more than the law, it makes the fashion Paris sets more than the fashion, it sets the routine. Paris may be stupid, if it sees fit it sometimes allows itself this luxury then the universe is stupid in company with it then Paris awakes, rubs its eyes, says 'How stupid I am! and bursts out laughing in the face of the human race. What a marvel is such a city! it is a strange thing that this grandioseness and this burlesque should be amicable neighbors, that all this majesty should not be thrown into disorder by all this parody, and that the same mouth can today blow into the trump of the Judgment Day, and tomorrow into the reedflute! Paris has a sovereign joviality. Its gayety is of the thunder and its farce holds a sceptre. Its tempest sometimes proceeds from a grimace. Its explosions, its days, its masterpieces, its prodigies, its epics, go forth to the bounds of the universe, and so also do its cockandbull stories. Its laugh is the mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth. Its jests are sparks. It imposes its caricatures as well as its ideal on people the highest monuments of human civilization accept its ironies and lend their eternity to its mischievous pranks. It is superb it has a prodigious th of July, which delivers the globe it forces all nations to take the oath of tennis its night of the th of August dissolves in three hours a thousand years of feudalism it makes of its logic the muscle of unanimous will it multiplies itself under all sorts of forms of the sublime it fills with its light Washington, Kosciusko, Bolivar, Bozzaris, Riego, Bem, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi it is everywhere where the future is being lighted up, at Boston in , at the Isle de Lon in , at Pesth in , at Palermo in , it whispers the mighty countersign Liberty, in the ear of the American abolitionists grouped about the boat at Harper's Ferry, and in the ear of the patriots of Ancona assembled in the shadow, to the Archi before the Gozzi inn on the seashore it creates Canaris it creates Quiroga it creates Pisacane it irradiates the great on earth it was while proceeding whither its breath urge them, that Byron perished at Missolonghi, and that Mazet died at Barcelona it is the tribune under the feet of Mirabeau, and a crater under the feet of Robespierre its books, its theatre, its art, its science, its literature, its philosophy, are the manuals of the human race it has Pascal, Rgnier, Corneille, Descartes, JeanJacques Voltaire for all moments, Molire for all centuries it makes its language to be talked by the universal mouth, and that language becomes the word it constructs in all minds the idea of progress, the liberating dogmas which it forges are for the generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and its poets that all heroes of all nations have been made since  this does not prevent vagabondism, and that enormous genius which is called Paris, while transfiguring the world by its light, sketches in charcoal Bouginier's nose on the wall of the temple of Theseus and writes Credeville the thief on the Pyramids. Paris is always showing its teeth when it is not scolding it is laughing. Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs forms the ideas of the universe. A heap of mud and stone, if you will, but, above all, a moral being. It is more than great, it is immense. Why? Because it is daring. To dare that is the price of progress. All sublime conquests are, more or less, the prizes of daring. In order that the Revolution should take place, it does not suffice that Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should calculate it, that Arouet should prepare it, that Rousseau should premeditate it it is necessary that Danton should dare it. The cry Audacity! is a Fiat lux. It is necessary, for the sake of the forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and are one of man's great sources of light. The dawn dares when it rises. To attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to insult drunken victory, to hold one's position, to stand one's ground that is the example which nations need, that is the light which electrifies them. The same formidable lightning proceeds from the torch of Prometheus to Cambronne's short pipe. As for the Parisian populace, even when a man grown, it is always the street Arab to paint the child is to paint the city and it is for that reason that we have studied this eagle in this arrant sparrow. It is in the faubourgs, above all, we maintain, that the Parisian race appears there is the pure blood there is the true physiognomy there this people toils and suffers, and suffering and toil are the two faces of man. There exist there immense numbers of unknown beings, among whom swarm types of the strangest, from the porter of la Rpe to the knacker of Montfaucon. Fex urbis, exclaims Cicero mob, adds Burke, indignantly rabble, multitude, populace. These are words and quickly uttered. But so be it. What does it matter? What is it to me if they do go barefoot! They do not know how to read so much the worse. Would you abandon them for that? Would you turn their distress into a malediction? Cannot the light penetrate these masses? Let us return to that cry Light! and let us obstinately persist therein! Light! Light! Who knows whether these opacities will not become transparent? Are not revolutions transfigurations? Come, philosophers, teach, enlighten, light up, think aloud, speak aloud, hasten joyously to the great sun, fraternize with the public place, announce the good news, spend your alphabets lavishly, proclaim rights, sing the Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear green boughs from the oaks. Make a whirlwind of the idea. This crowd may be rendered sublime. Let us learn how to make use of that vast conflagration of principles and virtues, which sparkles, bursts forth and quivers at certain hours. These bare feet, these bare arms, these rags, these ignorances, these abjectnesses, these darknesses, may be employed in the conquest of the ideal. Gaze past the people, and you will perceive truth. Let that vile sand which you trample under foot be cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a splendid crystal, and it is thanks to it that Galileo and Newton will discover stars. Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the second part of this story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of the Chteaud'Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years of age, who would have realized with tolerable accuracy that ideal of the gamin sketched out above, if, with the laugh of his age on his lips, he had not had a heart absolutely sombre and empty. This child was well muffled up in a pair of man's trousers, but he did not get them from his father, and a woman's chemise, but he did not get it from his mother. Some people or other had clothed him in rags out of charity. Still, he had a father and a mother. But his father did not think of him, and his mother did not love him. He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of those who have father and mother, and who are orphans nevertheless. This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart. His parents had despatched him into life with a kick. He simply took flight. He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wideawake, jeering, lad, with a vivacious but sickly air. He went and came, sang, played at hopscotch, scraped the gutters, stole a little, but, like cats and sparrows, gayly laughed when he was called a rogue, and got angry when called a thief. He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love but he was merry because he was free. When these poor creatures grow to be men, the millstones of the social order meet them and crush them, but so long as they are children, they escape because of their smallness. The tiniest hole saves them. Nevertheless, abandoned as this child was, it sometimes happened, every two or three months, that he said, 'Come, I'll go and see mamma! Then he quitted the boulevard, the Cirque, the Porte SaintMartin, descended to the quays, crossed the bridges, reached the suburbs, arrived at the Salptrire, and came to a halt, where? Precisely at that double number  with which the reader is acquaintedat the Gorbeau hovel. At that epoch, the hovel  generally deserted and eternally decorated with the placard 'Chambers to let, chanced to be, a rare thing, inhabited by numerous individuals who, however, as is always the case in Paris, had no connection with each other. All belonged to that indigent class which begins to separate from the lowest of petty bourgeoisie in straitened circumstances, and which extends from misery to misery into the lowest depths of society down to those two beings in whom all the material things of civilization end, the sewerman who sweeps up the mud, and the ragpicker who collects scraps. The 'principal lodger of Jean Valjean's day was dead and had been replaced by another exactly like her. I know not what philosopher has said 'Old women are never lacking. This new old woman was named Madame Bourgon, and had nothing remarkable about her life except a dynasty of three paroquets, who had reigned in succession over her soul. The most miserable of those who inhabited the hovel were a family of four persons, consisting of father, mother, and two daughters, already well grown, all four of whom were lodged in the same attic, one of the cells which we have already mentioned. At first sight, this family presented no very special feature except its extreme destitution the father, when he hired the chamber, had stated that his name was Jondrette. Some time after his moving in, which had borne a singular resemblance to the entrance of nothing at all, to borrow the memorable expression of the principal tenant, this Jondrette had said to the woman, who, like her predecessor, was at the same time portress and stairsweeper 'Mother SoandSo, if any one should chance to come and inquire for a Pole or an Italian, or even a Spaniard, perchance, it is I. This family was that of the merry barefoot boy. He arrived there and found distress, and, what is still sadder, no smile a cold hearth and cold hearts. When he entered, he was asked 'Whence come you? He replied 'From the street. When he went away, they asked him 'Whither are you going? He replied 'Into the streets. His mother said to him 'What did you come here for? This child lived, in this absence of affection, like the pale plants which spring up in cellars. It did not cause him suffering, and he blamed no one. He did not know exactly how a father and mother should be. Nevertheless, his mother loved his sisters. We have forgotten to mention, that on the Boulevard du Temple this child was called Little Gavroche. Why was he called Little Gavroche? Probably because his father's name was Jondrette. It seems to be the instinct of certain wretched families to break the thread. The chamber which the Jondrettes inhabited in the Gorbeau hovel was the last at the end of the corridor. The cell next to it was occupied by a very poor young man who was called M. Marius. Let us explain who this M. Marius was. In the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie and the Rue de Saintonge there still exist a few ancient inhabitants who have preserved the memory of a worthy man named M. Gillenormand, and who mention him with complaisance. This good man was old when they were young. This silhouette has not yet entirely disappearedfor those who regard with melancholy that vague swarm of shadows which is called the pastfrom the labyrinth of streets in the vicinity of the Temple to which, under Louis XIV., the names of all the provinces of France were appended exactly as in our day, the streets of the new Tivoli quarter have received the names of all the capitals of Europe a progression, by the way, in which progress is visible. M. Gillenormand, who was as much alive as possible in , was one of those men who had become curiosities to be viewed, simply because they have lived a long time, and who are strange because they formerly resembled everybody, and now resemble nobody. He was a peculiar old man, and in very truth, a man of another age, the real, complete and rather haughty bourgeois of the eighteenth century, who wore his good, old bourgeoisie with the air with which marquises wear their marquisates. He was over ninety years of age, his walk was erect, he talked loudly, saw clearly, drank neat, ate, slept, and snored. He had all thirtytwo of his teeth. He only wore spectacles when he read. He was of an amorous disposition, but declared that, for the last ten years, he had wholly and decidedly renounced women. He could no longer please, he said he did not add 'I am too old, but 'I am too poor. He said 'If I were not ruinedHe! All he had left, in fact, was an income of about fifteen thousand francs. His dream was to come into an inheritance and to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses. He did not belong, as the reader will perceive, to that puny variety of octogenaries who, like M. de Voltaire, have been dying all their life his was no longevity of a cracked pot this jovial old man had always had good health. He was superficial, rapid, easily angered. He flew into a passion at everything, generally quite contrary to all reason. When contradicted, he raised his cane he beat people as he had done in the great century. He had a daughter over fifty years of age, and unmarried, whom he chastised severely with his tongue, when in a rage, and whom he would have liked to whip. She seemed to him to be eight years old. He boxed his servants' ears soundly, and said 'Ah! carogne! One of his oaths was 'By the pantoufloche of the pantouflochade! He had singular freaks of tranquillity he had himself shaved every day by a barber who had been mad and who detested him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on account of his wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was extremely sagacious here is one of his sayings 'I have, in truth, some penetration I am able to say when a flea bites me, from what woman it came. The words which he uttered the most frequently were the sensible man, and nature. He did not give to this last word the grand acceptation which our epoch has accorded to it, but he made it enter, after his own fashion, into his little chimneycorner satires 'Nature, he said, 'in order that civilization may have a little of everything, gives it even specimens of its amusing barbarism. Europe possesses specimens of Asia and Africa on a small scale. The cat is a drawingroom tiger, the lizard is a pocket crocodile. The dancers at the opera are pink female savages. They do not eat men, they crunch them or, magicians that they are, they transform them into oysters and swallow them. The Caribbeans leave only the bones, they leave only the shell. Such are our morals. We do not devour, we gnaw we do not exterminate, we claw. He lived in the Marais, Rue des FillesduCalvaire, No. . He owned the house. This house has since been demolished and rebuilt, and the number has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the streets of Paris undergo. He occupied an ancient and vast apartment on the first floor, between street and gardens, furnished to the very ceilings with great Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries representing pastoral scenes the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were repeated in miniature on the armchairs. He enveloped his bed in a vast, nineleaved screen of Coromandel lacquer. Long, full curtains hung from the windows, and formed great, broken folds that were very magnificent. The garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that one of them which formed the angle, by means of a staircase twelve or fifteen steps long, which the old gentleman ascended and descended with great agility. In addition to a library adjoining his chamber, he had a boudoir of which he thought a great deal, a gallant and elegant retreat, with magnificent hangings of straw, with a pattern of flowers and fleursdelys made on the galleys of Louis XIV. and ordered of his convicts by M. de Vivonne for his mistress. M. Gillenormand had inherited it from a grim maternal greataunt, who had died a centenarian. He had had two wives. His manners were something between those of the courtier, which he had never been, and the lawyer, which he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he had a mind. In his youth he had been one of those men who are always deceived by their wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same time, the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of lovers in existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his chamber a marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens, executed with great dashes of the brush, with millions of details, in a confused and haphazard manner. M. Gillenormand's attire was not the habit of Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI. it was that of the Incroyables of the Directory. He had thought himself young up to that period and had followed the fashions. His coat was of lightweight cloth with voluminous revers, a long swallowtail and large steel buttons. With this he wore kneebreeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands into his fobs. He said authoritatively 'The French Revolution is a heap of blackguards. At the age of sixteen, one evening at the opera, he had had the honor to be stared at through operaglasses by two beauties at the same timeripe and celebrated beauties then, and sung by Voltaire, the Camargo and the Sall. Caught between two fires, he had beaten a heroic retreat towards a little dancer, a young girl named Nahenry, who was sixteen like himself, obscure as a cat, and with whom he was in love. He abounded in memories. He was accustomed to exclaim 'How pretty she wasthat GuimardGuimardiniGuimardinette, the last time I saw her at Longchamps, her hair curled in sustained sentiments, with her comeandsee of turquoises, her gown of the color of persons newly arrived, and her little agitation muff! He had worn in his young manhood a waistcoat of NainLondrin, which he was fond of talking about effusively. 'I was dressed like a Turk of the Levant Levantin, said he. Madame de Boufflers, having seen him by chance when he was twenty, had described him as 'a charming fool. He was horrified by all the names which he saw in politics and in power, regarding them as vulgar and bourgeois. He read the journals, the newspapers, the gazettes as he said, stifling outbursts of laughter the while. 'Oh! he said, 'what people these are! Corbire! Humann! Casimir Prier! There's a minister for you! I can imagine this in a journal 'M. Gillenorman, minister!' that would be a farce. Well! They are so stupid that it would pass he merrily called everything by its name, whether decent or indecent, and did not restrain himself in the least before ladies. He uttered coarse speeches, obscenities, and filth with a certain tranquillity and lack of astonishment which was elegant. It was in keeping with the unceremoniousness of his century. It is to be noted that the age of periphrase in verse was the age of crudities in prose. His godfather had predicted that he would turn out a man of genius, and had bestowed on him these two significant names LucEsprit. He had taken prizes in his boyhood at the College of Moulins, where he was born, and he had been crowned by the hand of the Duc de Nivernais, whom he called the Duc de Nevers. Neither the Convention, nor the death of Louis XVI., nor the Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, nor anything else had been able to efface the memory of this crowning. The Duc de Nevers was, in his eyes, the great figure of the century. 'What a charming grand seigneur, he said, 'and what a fine air he had with his blue ribbon! In the eyes of M. Gillenormand, Catherine the Second had made reparation for the crime of the partition of Poland by purchasing, for three thousand roubles, the secret of the elixir of gold, from Bestucheff. He grew animated on this subject 'The elixir of gold, he exclaimed, 'the yellow dye of Bestucheff, General Lamotte's drops, in the eighteenth century,this was the great remedy for the catastrophes of love, the panacea against Venus, at one louis the halfounce phial. Louis XV. sent two hundred phials of it to the Pope. He would have been greatly irritated and thrown off his balance, had any one told him that the elixir of gold is nothing but the perchloride of iron. M. Gillenormand adored the Bourbons, and had a horror of  he was forever narrating in what manner he had saved himself during the Terror, and how he had been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to escape having his head cut off. If any young man ventured to pronounce an eulogium on the Republic in his presence, he turned purple and grew so angry that he was on the point of swooning. He sometimes alluded to his ninety years, and said, 'I hope that I shall not see ninetythree twice. On these occasions, he hinted to people that he meant to live to be a hundred. He had theories. Here is one of them 'When a man is passionately fond of women, and when he has himself a wife for whom he cares but little, who is homely, cross, legitimate, with plenty of rights, perched on the code, and jealous at need, there is but one way of extricating himself from the quandry and of procuring peace, and that is to let his wife control the pursestrings. This abdication sets him free. Then his wife busies herself, grows passionately fond of handling coin, gets her fingers covered with verdigris in the process, undertakes the education of halfshare tenants and the training of farmers, convokes lawyers, presides over notaries, harangues scriveners, visits limbs of the law, follows lawsuits, draws up leases, dictates contracts, feels herself the sovereign, sells, buys, regulates, promises and compromises, binds fast and annuls, yields, concedes and retrocedes, arranges, disarranges, hoards, lavishes she commits follies, a supreme and personal delight, and that consoles her. While her husband disdains her, she has the satisfaction of ruining her husband. This theory M. Gillenormand had himself applied, and it had become his history. His wifethe second onehad administered his fortune in such a manner that, one fine day, when M. Gillenormand found himself a widower, there remained to him just sufficient to live on, by sinking nearly the whole of it in an annuity of fifteen thousand francs, threequarters of which would expire with him. He had not hesitated on this point, not being anxious to leave a property behind him. Besides, he had noticed that patrimonies are subject to adventures, and, for instance, become national property he had been present at the avatars of consolidated three per cents, and he had no great faith in the Great Book of the Public Debt. 'All that's the Rue Quincampois! he said. His house in the Rue des FillesduCalvaire belonged to him, as we have already stated. He had two servants, 'a male and a female. When a servant entered his establishment, M. Gillenormand rebaptized him. He bestowed on the men the name of their province Nmois, Comtois, Poitevin, Picard. His last valet was a big, foundered, shortwinded fellow of fiftyfive, who was incapable of running twenty paces but, as he had been born at Bayonne, M. Gillenormand called him Basque. All the female servants in his house were called Nicolette (even the Magnon, of whom we shall hear more farther on). One day, a haughty cook, a cordon bleu, of the lofty race of porters, presented herself. 'How much wages do you want a month? asked M. Gillenormand. 'Thirty francs. 'What is your name? 'Olympie. 'You shall have fifty francs, and you shall be called Nicolette. With M. Gillenormand, sorrow was converted into wrath he was furious at being in despair. He had all sorts of prejudices and took all sorts of liberties. One of the facts of which his exterior relief and his internal satisfaction was composed, was, as we have just hinted, that he had remained a brisk spark, and that he passed energetically for such. This he called having 'royal renown. This royal renown sometimes drew down upon him singular windfalls. One day, there was brought to him in a basket, as though it had been a basket of oysters, a stout, newly born boy, who was yelling like the deuce, and duly wrapped in swaddlingclothes, which a servantmaid, dismissed six months previously, attributed to him. M. Gillenormand had, at that time, fully completed his eightyfourth year. Indignation and uproar in the establishment. And whom did that bold hussy think she could persuade to believe that? What audacity! What an abominable calumny! M. Gillenormand himself was not at all enraged. He gazed at the brat with the amiable smile of a good man who is flattered by the calumny, and said in an aside 'Well, what now? What's the matter? You are finely taken aback, and really, you are excessively ignorant. M. le Duc d'Angoulme, the bastard of his Majesty Charles IX., married a silly jade of fifteen when he was eightyfive M. Virginal, Marquis d'Alluye, brother to the Cardinal de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux, had, at the age of eightythree, by the maid of Madame la Prsidente Jacquin, a son, a real child of love, who became a Chevalier of Malta and a counsellor of state one of the great men of this century, the Abb Tabaraud, is the son of a man of eightyseven. There is nothing out of the ordinary in these things. And then, the Bible! Upon that I declare that this little gentleman is none of mine. Let him be taken care of. It is not his fault. This manner of procedure was goodtempered. The woman, whose name was Magnon, sent him another parcel in the following year. It was a boy again. Thereupon, M. Gillenormand capitulated. He sent the two brats back to their mother, promising to pay eighty francs a month for their maintenance, on the condition that the said mother would not do so any more. He added 'I insist upon it that the mother shall treat them well. I shall go to see them from time to time. And this he did. He had had a brother who was a priest, and who had been rector of the Academy of Poitiers for three and thirty years, and had died at seventynine. 'I lost him young, said he. This brother, of whom but little memory remains, was a peaceable miser, who, being a priest, thought himself bound to bestow alms on the poor whom he met, but he never gave them anything except bad or demonetized sous, thereby discovering a means of going to hell by way of paradise. As for M. Gillenormand the elder, he never haggled over his almsgiving, but gave gladly and nobly. He was kindly, abrupt, charitable, and if he had been rich, his turn of mind would have been magnificent. He desired that all which concerned him should be done in a grand manner, even his rogueries. One day, having been cheated by a business man in a matter of inheritance, in a gross and apparent manner, he uttered this solemn exclamation 'That was indecently done! I am really ashamed of this pilfering. Everything has degenerated in this century, even the rascals. Morbleu! this is not the way to rob a man of my standing. I am robbed as though in a forest, but badly robbed. Silv sint consule dign!  He had had two wives, as we have already mentioned by the first he had had a daughter, who had remained unmarried, and by the second another daughter, who had died at about the age of thirty, who had wedded, through love, or chance, or otherwise, a soldier of fortune who had served in the armies of the Republic and of the Empire, who had won the cross at Austerlitz and had been made colonel at Waterloo. 'He is the disgrace of my family, said the old bourgeois. He took an immense amount of snuff, and had a particularly graceful manner of plucking at his lace ruffle with the back of one hand. He believed very little in God. Such was M. LucEsprit Gillenormand, who had not lost his hair,which was gray rather than white,and which was always dressed in 'dog's ears. To sum up, he was venerable in spite of all this. He had something of the eighteenth century about him frivolous and great. In  and during the early years of the Restoration, M. Gillenormand, who was still young,he was only seventyfour,lived in the Faubourg Saint Germain, Rue Servandoni, near SaintSulpice. He had only retired to the Marais when he quitted society, long after attaining the age of eighty. And, on abandoning society, he had immured himself in his habits. The principal one, and that which was invariable, was to keep his door absolutely closed during the day, and never to receive any one whatever except in the evening. He dined at five o'clock, and after that his door was open. That had been the fashion of his century, and he would not swerve from it. 'The day is vulgar, said he, 'and deserves only a closed shutter. Fashionable people only light up their minds when the zenith lights up its stars. And he barricaded himself against every one, even had it been the king himself. This was the antiquated elegance of his day. We have just spoken of M. Gillenormand's two daughters. They had come into the world ten years apart. In their youth they had borne very little resemblance to each other, either in character or countenance, and had also been as little like sisters to each other as possible. The youngest had a charming soul, which turned towards all that belongs to the light, was occupied with flowers, with verses, with music, which fluttered away into glorious space, enthusiastic, ethereal, and was wedded from her very youth, in ideal, to a vague and heroic figure. The elder had also her chimera she espied in the azure some very wealthy purveyor, a contractor, a splendidly stupid husband, a million made man, or even a prefect the receptions of the Prefecture, an usher in the antechamber with a chain on his neck, official balls, the harangues of the townhall, to be 'Madame la Prfte,all this had created a whirlwind in her imagination. Thus the two sisters strayed, each in her own dream, at the epoch when they were young girls. Both had wings, the one like an angel, the other like a goose. No ambition is ever fully realized, here below at least. No paradise becomes terrestrial in our day. The younger wedded the man of her dreams, but she died. The elder did not marry at all. At the moment when she makes her entrance into this history which we are relating, she was an antique virtue, an incombustible prude, with one of the sharpest noses, and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible to see. A characteristic detail outside of her immediate family, no one had ever known her first name. She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand, the elder. In the matter of cant, Mademoiselle Gillenormand could have given points to a miss. Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of blackness. She cherished a frightful memory of her life one day, a man had beheld her garter. Age had only served to accentuate this pitiless modesty. Her guimpe was never sufficiently opaque, and never ascended sufficiently high. She multiplied clasps and pins where no one would have dreamed of looking. The peculiarity of prudery is to place all the more sentinels in proportion as the fortress is the less menaced. Nevertheless, let him who can explain these antique mysteries of innocence, she allowed an officer of the Lancers, her grand nephew, named Thodule, to embrace her without displeasure. In spite of this favored Lancer, the label Prude, under which we have classed her, suited her to absolute perfection. Mademoiselle Gillenormand was a sort of twilight soul. Prudery is a demivirtue and a demivice. To prudery she added bigotry, a wellassorted lining. She belonged to the society of the Virgin, wore a white veil on certain festivals, mumbled special orisons, revered 'the holy blood, venerated 'the sacred heart, remained for hours in contemplation before a rococojesuit altar in a chapel which was inaccessible to the rank and file of the faithful, and there allowed her soul to soar among little clouds of marble, and through great rays of gilded wood. She had a chapel friend, an ancient virgin like herself, named Mademoiselle Vaubois, who was a positive blockhead, and beside whom Mademoiselle Gillenormand had the pleasure of being an eagle. Beyond the Agnus Dei and Ave Maria, Mademoiselle Vaubois had no knowledge of anything except of the different ways of making preserves. Mademoiselle Vaubois, perfect in her style, was the ermine of stupidity without a single spot of intelligence. Let us say it plainly, Mademoiselle Gillenormand had gained rather than lost as she grew older. This is the case with passive natures. She had never been malicious, which is relative kindness and then, years wear away the angles, and the softening which comes with time had come to her. She was melancholy with an obscure sadness of which she did not herself know the secret. There breathed from her whole person the stupor of a life that was finished, and which had never had a beginning. She kept house for her father. M. Gillenormand had his daughter near him, as we have seen that Monseigneur Bienvenu had his sister with him. These households comprised of an old man and an old spinster are not rare, and always have the touching aspect of two weaknesses leaning on each other for support. There was also in this house, between this elderly spinster and this old man, a child, a little boy, who was always trembling and mute in the presence of M. Gillenormand. M. Gillenormand never addressed this child except in a severe voice, and sometimes, with uplifted cane 'Here, sir! rascal, scoundrel, come here!Answer me, you scamp! Just let me see you, you goodfornothing! etc., etc. He idolized him. This was his grandson. We shall meet with this child again later on. When M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he had frequented many very good and very aristocratic salons. Although a bourgeois, M. Gillenormand was received in society. As he had a double measure of wit, in the first place, that which was born with him, and secondly, that which was attributed to him, he was even sought out and made much of. He never went anywhere except on condition of being the chief person there. There are people who will have influence at any price, and who will have other people busy themselves over them when they cannot be oracles, they turn wags. M. Gillenormand was not of this nature his domination in the Royalist salons which he frequented cost his selfrespect nothing. He was an oracle everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his own against M. de Bonald, and even against M. BengyPuyValle. About , he invariably passed two afternoons a week in a house in his own neighborhood, in the Rue Frou, with Madame la Baronne de T., a worthy and respectable person, whose husband had been Ambassador of France to Berlin under Louis XVI. Baron de T., who, during his lifetime, had gone very passionately into ecstasies and magnetic visions, had died bankrupt, during the emigration, leaving, as his entire fortune, some very curious Memoirs about Mesmer and his tub, in ten manuscript volumes, bound in red morocco and gilded on the edges. Madame de T. had not published the memoirs, out of pride, and maintained herself on a meagre income which had survived no one knew how. Madame de T. lived far from the Court 'a very mixed society, as she said, in a noble isolation, proud and poor. A few friends assembled twice a week about her widowed hearth, and these constituted a purely Royalist salon. They sipped tea there, and uttered groans or cries of horror at the century, the charter, the Bonapartists, the prostitution of the blue ribbon, or the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII., according as the wind veered towards elegy or dithyrambs and they spoke in low tones of the hopes which were presented by Monsieur, afterwards Charles X. The songs of the fishwomen, in which Napoleon was called Nicolas, were received there with transports of joy. Duchesses, the most delicate and charming women in the world, went into ecstasies over couplets like the following, addressed to 'the federates Refoncez dans vos culottes Le bout d' chemis' qui vous pend. Qu'on n' dis' pas qu' les patriotes Ont arbor l' drapeau blanc? There they amused themselves with puns which were considered terrible, with innocent plays upon words which they supposed to be venomous, with quatrains, with distiches even thus, upon the Dessolles ministry, a moderate cabinet, of which MM. Decazes and Deserre were members Pour raffermir le trne branl sur sa base, Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case. Or they drew up a list of the chamber of peers, 'an abominably Jacobin chamber, and from this list they combined alliances of names, in such a manner as to form, for example, phrases like the following Damas. Sabran. GouvionSaintCyr.All this was done merrily. In that society, they parodied the Revolution. They used I know not what desires to give point to the same wrath in inverse sense. They sang their little a ira  Ah! a ira a ira a ira! Les Bonapartistes  la lanterne! Songs are like the guillotine they chop away indifferently, today this head, tomorrow that. It is only a variation. In the Fualds affair, which belongs to this epoch, , they took part for Bastide and Jausion, because Fualds was 'a Buonapartist. They designated the liberals as friends and brothers this constituted the most deadly insult. Like certain church towers, Madame de T.'s salon had two cocks. One of them was M. Gillenormand, the other was Comte de LamotheValois, of whom it was whispered about, with a sort of respect 'Do you know? That is the Lamothe of the affair of the necklace. These singular amnesties do occur in parties. Let us add the following in the bourgeoisie, honored situations decay through too easy relations one must beware whom one admits in the same way that there is a loss of caloric in the vicinity of those who are cold, there is a diminution of consideration in the approach of despised persons. The ancient society of the upper classes held themselves above this law, as above every other. Marigny, the brother of the Pompadour, had his entry with M. le Prince de Soubise. In spite of? No, because. Du Barry, the godfather of the Vaubernier, was very welcome at the house of M. le Marchal de Richelieu. This society is Olympus. Mercury and the Prince de Gumene are at home there. A thief is admitted there, provided he be a god. The Comte de Lamothe, who, in , was an old man seventyfive years of age, had nothing remarkable about him except his silent and sententious air, his cold and angular face, his perfectly polished manners, his coat buttoned up to his cravat, and his long legs always crossed in long, flabby trousers of the hue of burnt sienna. His face was the same color as his trousers. This M. de Lamothe was 'held in consideration in this salon on account of his 'celebrity and, strange to say, though true, because of his name of Valois. As for M. Gillenormand, his consideration was of absolutely firstrate quality. He had, in spite of his levity, and without its interfering in any way with his dignity, a certain manner about him which was imposing, dignified, honest, and lofty, in a bourgeois fashion and his great age added to it. One is not a century with impunity. The years finally produce around a head a venerable dishevelment. In addition to this, he said things which had the genuine sparkle of the old rock. Thus, when the King of Prussia, after having restored Louis XVIII., came to pay the latter a visit under the name of the Count de Ruppin, he was received by the descendant of Louis XIV. somewhat as though he had been the Marquis de Brandebourg, and with the most delicate impertinence. M. Gillenormand approved 'All kings who are not the King of France, said he, 'are provincial kings. One day, the following question was put and the following answer returned in his presence 'To what was the editor of the Courrier Franais condemned? 'To be suspended. 'Sus is superfluous, observed M. Gillenormand. Remarks of this nature found a situation. At the Te Deum on the anniversary of the return of the Bourbons, he said, on seeing M. de Talleyrand pass by 'There goes his Excellency the Evil One. M. Gillenormand was always accompanied by his daughter, that tall mademoiselle, who was over forty and looked fifty, and by a handsome little boy of seven years, white, rosy, fresh, with happy and trusting eyes, who never appeared in that salon without hearing voices murmur around him 'How handsome he is! What a pity! Poor child! This child was the one of whom we dropped a word a while ago. He was called 'poor child, because he had for a father 'a brigand of the Loire. This brigand of the Loire was M. Gillenormand's soninlaw, who has already been mentioned, and whom M. Gillenormand called 'the disgrace of his family. Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at this epoch, and who had happened to walk across that fine monumental bridge, which will soon be succeeded, let us hope, by some hideous iron cable bridge, might have observed, had he dropped his eyes over the parapet, a man about fifty years of age wearing a leather cap, and trousers and a waistcoat of coarse gray cloth, to which something yellow which had been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden sabots, tanned by the sun, his face nearly black and his hair nearly white, a large scar on his forehead which ran down upon his cheek, bowed, bent, prematurely aged, who walked nearly every day, hoe and sickle in hand, in one of those compartments surrounded by walls which abut on the bridge, and border the left bank of the Seine like a chain of terraces, charming enclosures full of flowers of which one could say, were they much larger 'these are gardens, and were they a little smaller 'these are bouquets. All these enclosures abut upon the river at one end, and on a house at the other. The man in the waistcoat and the wooden shoes of whom we have just spoken, inhabited the smallest of these enclosures and the most humble of these houses about . He lived there alone and solitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young nor old, neither homely nor pretty, neither a peasant nor a bourgeoise, who served him. The plot of earth which he called his garden was celebrated in the town for the beauty of the flowers which he cultivated there. These flowers were his occupation. By dint of labor, of perseverance, of attention, and of buckets of water, he had succeeded in creating after the Creator, and he had invented certain tulips and certain dahlias which seemed to have been forgotten by nature. He was ingenious he had forestalled Soulange Bodin in the formation of little clumps of earth of heath mould, for the cultivation of rare and precious shrubs from America and China. He was in his alleys from the break of day, in summer, planting, cutting, hoeing, watering, walking amid his flowers with an air of kindness, sadness, and sweetness, sometimes standing motionless and thoughtful for hours, listening to the song of a bird in the trees, the babble of a child in a house, or with his eyes fixed on a drop of dew at the tip of a spear of grass, of which the sun made a carbuncle. His table was very plain, and he drank more milk than wine. A child could make him give way, and his servant scolded him. He was so timid that he seemed shy, he rarely went out, and he saw no one but the poor people who tapped at his pane and his cur, the Abb Mabeuf, a good old man. Nevertheless, if the inhabitants of the town, or strangers, or any chance comers, curious to see his tulips, rang at his little cottage, he opened his door with a smile. He was the 'brigand of the Loire. Any one who had, at the same time, read military memoirs, biographies, the Moniteur, and the bulletins of the grand army, would have been struck by a name which occurs there with tolerable frequency, the name of Georges Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had been a soldier in Saintonge's regiment. The revolution broke out. Saintonge's regiment formed a part of the army of the Rhine for the old regiments of the monarchy preserved their names of provinces even after the fall of the monarchy, and were only divided into brigades in . Pontmercy fought at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, at Mayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed Houchard's rearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground against the corps of the Prince of Hesse, behind the old rampart of Andernach, and only rejoined the main body of the army when the enemy's cannon had opened a breach from the cord of the parapet to the foot of the glacis. He was under Klber at Marchiennes and at the battle of MontPalissel, where a ball from a biscaen broke his arm. Then he passed to the frontier of Italy, and was one of the thirty grenadiers who defended the Col de Tende with Joubert. Joubert was appointed its adjutantgeneral, and Pontmercy sublieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthier's side in the midst of the grapeshot of that day at Lodi which caused Bonaparte to say 'Berthier has been cannoneer, cavalier, and grenadier. He beheld his old general, Joubert, fall at Novi, at the moment when, with uplifted sabre, he was shouting 'Forward! Having been embarked with his company in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace which was proceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on the coast, he fell into a wasps'nest of seven or eight English vessels. The Genoese commander wanted to throw his cannon into the sea, to hide the soldiers between decks, and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy had the colors hoisted to the peak, and sailed proudly past under the guns of the British frigates. Twenty leagues further on, his audacity having increased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large English transport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loaded down with men and horses that the vessel was sunk to the level of the sea. In  he was in that Malher division which took Gnzberg from the Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath a storm of bullets, Colonel Maupetit, mortally wounded at the head of the th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirable march in echelons effected under the enemy's fire. When the cavalry of the Imperial Russian Guard crushed a battalion of the th of the line, Pontmercy was one of those who took their revenge and overthrew the Guard. The Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at Mantua, Mlas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made prisoners in succession. He formed a part of the eighth corps of the grand army which Mortier commanded, and which captured Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the th of the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders. At Eylau he was in the cemetery where, for the space of two hours, the heroic Captain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the author of this book, sustained alone with his company of eightythree men every effort of the hostile army. Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from that cemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Brsina, then Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles of Gelenhausen then Montmirail, ChteauThierry, Craon, the banks of the Marne, the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon. At ArnayLeDuc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword, and saved, not his general, but his corporal. He was well slashed up on this occasion, and twentyseven splinters were extracted from his left arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris he had just exchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry. He had what was called under the old regime, the double hand, that is to say, an equal aptitude for handling the sabre or the musket as a soldier, or a squadron or a battalion as an officer. It is from this aptitude, perfected by a military education, which certain special branches of the service arise, the dragoons, for example, who are both cavalrymen and infantry at one and the same time. He accompanied Napoleon to the Island of Elba. At Waterloo, he was chief of a squadron of cuirassiers, in Dubois' brigade. It was he who captured the standard of the Lunenburg battalion. He came and cast the flag at the Emperor's feet. He was covered with blood. While tearing down the banner he had received a swordcut across his face. The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him 'You are a colonel, you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legion of Honor! Pontmercy replied 'Sire, I thank you for my widow. An hour later, he fell in the ravine of Ohain. Now, who was this Georges Pontmercy? He was this same 'brigand of the Loire. We have already seen something of his history. After Waterloo, Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it will be remembered, had succeeded in joining the army, and had dragged himself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the Loire. The Restoration had placed him on halfpay, then had sent him into residence, that is to say, under surveillance, at Vernon. King Louis XVIII., regarding all that which had taken place during the Hundred Days as not having occurred at all, did not recognize his quality as an officer of the Legion of Honor, nor his grade of colonel, nor his title of baron. He, on his side, neglected no occasion of signing himself 'Colonel Baron Pontmercy. He had only an old blue coat, and he never went out without fastening to it his rosette as an officer of the Legion of Honor. The Attorney for the Crown had him warned that the authorities would prosecute him for 'illegal wearing of this decoration. When this notice was conveyed to him through an officious intermediary, Pontmercy retorted with a bitter smile 'I do not know whether I no longer understand French, or whether you no longer speak it but the fact is that I do not understand. Then he went out for eight successive days with his rosette. They dared not interfere with him. Two or three times the Minister of War and the general in command of the department wrote to him with the following address 'A Monsieur le Commandant Pontmercy. He sent back the letters with the seals unbroken. At the same moment, Napoleon at Saint Helena was treating in the same fashion the missives of Sir Hudson Lowe addressed to General Bonaparte. Pontmercy had ended, may we be pardoned the expression, by having in his mouth the same saliva as his Emperor. In the same way, there were at Rome Carthaginian prisoners who refused to salute Flaminius, and who had a little of Hannibal's spirit. One day he encountered the districtattorney in one of the streets of Vernon, stepped up to him, and said 'Mr. Crown Attorney, am I permitted to wear my scar? He had nothing save his meagre halfpay as chief of squadron. He had hired the smallest house which he could find at Vernon. He lived there alone, we have just seen how. Under the Empire, between two wars, he had found time to marry Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The old bourgeois, thoroughly indignant at bottom, had given his consent with a sigh, saying 'The greatest families are forced into it. In , Madame Pontmercy, an admirable woman in every sense, by the way, lofty in sentiment and rare, and worthy of her husband, died, leaving a child. This child had been the colonel's joy in his solitude but the grandfather had imperatively claimed his grandson, declaring that if the child were not given to him he would disinherit him. The father had yielded in the little one's interest, and had transferred his love to flowers. Moreover, he had renounced everything, and neither stirred up mischief nor conspired. He shared his thoughts between the innocent things which he was then doing and the great things which he had done. He passed his time in expecting a pink or in recalling Austerlitz. M. Gillenormand kept up no relations with his soninlaw. The colonel was 'a bandit to him. M. Gillenormand never mentioned the colonel, except when he occasionally made mocking allusions to 'his Baronship. It had been expressly agreed that Pontmercy should never attempt to see his son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handed over to him disowned and disinherited. For the Gillenormands, Pontmercy was a man afflicted with the plague. They intended to bring up the child in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right and sacrificing no one but himself. The inheritance of Father Gillenormand did not amount to much but the inheritance of Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder was considerable. This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal side, and her sister's son was her natural heir. The boy, whose name was Marius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more. No one opened his mouth to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society into which his grandfather took him, whispers, innuendoes, and winks, had eventually enlightened the little boy's mind he had finally understood something of the case, and as he naturally took in the ideas and opinions which were, so to speak, the air he breathed, by a sort of infiltration and slow penetration, he gradually came to think of his father only with shame and with a pain at his heart. While he was growing up in this fashion, the colonel slipped away every two or three months, came to Paris on the sly, like a criminal breaking his ban, and went and posted himself at SaintSulpice, at the hour when Aunt Gillenormand led Marius to the mass. There, trembling lest the aunt should turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not daring to breathe, he gazed at his child. The scarred veteran was afraid of that old spinster. From this had arisen his connection with the cur of Vernon, M. l'Abb Mabeuf. That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of SaintSulpice, who had often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek, and the large tears in his eyes. That man, who had so manly an air, yet who was weeping like a woman, had struck the warden. That face had clung to his mind. One day, having gone to Vernon to see his brother, he had encountered Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge, and had recognized the man of SaintSulpice. The warden had mentioned the circumstance to the cur, and both had paid the colonel a visit, on some pretext or other. This visit led to others. The colonel, who had been extremely reserved at first, ended by opening his heart, and the cur and the warden finally came to know the whole history, and how Pontmercy was sacrificing his happiness to his child's future. This caused the cur to regard him with veneration and tenderness, and the colonel, on his side, became fond of the cur. And moreover, when both are sincere and good, no men so penetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an old priest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one has devoted his life to his country here below, the other to his country on high that is the only difference. Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's day, Marius wrote duty letters to his father, which were dictated by his aunt, and which one would have pronounced to be copied from some formula this was all that M. Gillenormand tolerated and the father answered them with very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread. Madame de T.'s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It was the only opening through which he could get a glimpse of life. This opening was sombre, and more cold than warmth, more night than day, came to him through this skylight. This child, who had been all joy and light on entering this strange world, soon became melancholy, and, what is still more contrary to his age, grave. Surrounded by all those singular and imposing personages, he gazed about him with serious amazement. Everything conspired to increase this astonishment in him. There were in Madame de T.'s salon some very noble ladies named Mathan, No, Lvis,which was pronounced Lvi,Cambis, pronounced Cambyse. These antique visages and these Biblical names mingled in the child's mind with the Old Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely lighted by a lamp shaded with green, with their severe profiles, their gray or white hair, their long gowns of another age, whose lugubrious colors could not be distinguished, dropping, at rare intervals, words which were both majestic and severe, little Marius stared at them with frightened eyes, in the conviction that he beheld not women, but patriarchs and magi, not real beings, but phantoms. With these phantoms, priests were sometimes mingled, frequenters of this ancient salon, and some gentlemen the Marquis de Sass, private secretary to Madame de Berry, the Vicomte de Val, who published, under the pseudonym of CharlesAntoine, monorhymed odes, the Prince de Beauff, who, though very young, had a gray head and a pretty and witty wife, whose very lownecked toilettes of scarlet velvet with gold torsades alarmed these shadows, the Marquis de C d'E, the man in all France who best understood 'proportioned politeness, the Comte d'Am, the kindly man with the amiable chin, and the Chvalier de PortdeGuy, a pillar of the library of the Louvre, called the King's cabinet, M. de PortdeGuy, bald, and rather aged than old, was wont to relate that in , at the age of sixteen, he had been put in the galleys as refractory and chained with an octogenarian, the Bishop of Mirepoix, also refractory, but as a priest, while he was so in the capacity of a soldier. This was at Toulon. Their business was to go at night and gather up on the scaffold the heads and bodies of the persons who had been guillotined during the day they bore away on their backs these dripping corpses, and their red galleyslave blouses had a clot of blood at the back of the neck, which was dry in the morning and wet at night. These tragic tales abounded in Madame de T.'s salon, and by dint of cursing Marat, they applauded Trestaillon. Some deputies of the undiscoverable variety played their whist there M. Thibord du Chalard, M. Lemarchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated scoffer of the right, M. CornetDincourt. The bailiff de Ferrette, with his short breeches and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon on his way to M. de Talleyrand. He had been M. le Comte d'Artois' companion in pleasures and unlike Aristotle crouching under Campaspe, he had made the Guimard crawl on all fours, and in that way he had exhibited to the ages a philosopher avenged by a bailiff. As for the priests, there was the Abb Halma, the same to whom M. Larose, his collaborator on la Foudre, said 'Bah! Who is there who is not fifty years old? a few greenhorns perhaps? The Abb Letourneur, preacher to the King, the Abb Frayssinous, who was not, as yet, either count, or bishop, or minister, or peer, and who wore an old cassock whose buttons were missing, and the Abb Keravenant, Cur of SaintGermaindesPrs also the Pope's Nuncio, then Monsignor Macchi, Archbishop of Nisibi, later on Cardinal, remarkable for his long, pensive nose, and another Monsignor, entitled thus Abbate Palmieri, domestic prelate, one of the seven participant prothonotaries of the Holy See, Canon of the illustrious Liberian basilica, Advocate of the saints, Postulatore dei Santi, which refers to matters of canonization, and signifies very nearly Master of Requests of the section of Paradise. Lastly, two cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl T. The Cardinal of Luzerne was a writer and was destined to have, a few years later, the honor of signing in the Conservateur articles side by side with Chateaubriand M. de Cl T was Archbishop of Toul, and often made trips to Paris, to his nephew, the Marquis de T, who was Minister of Marine and War. The Cardinal of Cl T was a merry little man, who displayed his red stockings beneath his tuckedup cassock his specialty was a hatred of the Encyclopdia, and his desperate play at billiards, and persons who, at that epoch, passed through the Rue M on summer evenings, where the hotel de Cl T then stood, halted to listen to the shock of the balls and the piercing voice of the Cardinal shouting to his conclavist, Monseigneur Cotiret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste 'Mark, Abb, I make a cannon. The Cardinal de Cl T had been brought to Madame de T.'s by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, former Bishop of Senlis, and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was notable for his lofty figure and his assiduity at the Academy through the glass door of the neighboring hall of the library where the French Academy then held its meetings, the curious could, on every Tuesday, contemplate the ExBishop of Senlis, usually standing erect, freshly powdered, in violet hose, with his back turned to the door, apparently for the purpose of allowing a better view of his little collar. All these ecclesiastics, though for the most part as much courtiers as churchmen, added to the gravity of the T. salon, whose seigniorial aspect was accentuated by five peers of France, the Marquis de Vib, the Marquis de Tal, the Marquis de Herb, the Vicomte Damb, and the Duc de Val. This Duc de Val, although Prince de Mon, that is to say a reigning prince abroad, had so high an idea of France and its peerage, that he viewed everything through their medium. It was he who said 'The Cardinals are the peers of France of Rome the lords are the peers of France of England. Moreover, as it is indispensable that the Revolution should be everywhere in this century, this feudal salon was, as we have said, dominated by a bourgeois. M. Gillenormand reigned there. There lay the essence and quintessence of the Parisian white society. There reputations, even Royalist reputations, were held in quarantine. There is always a trace of anarchy in renown. Chateaubriand, had he entered there, would have produced the effect of Pre Duchne. Some of the scoffedat did, nevertheless, penetrate thither on sufferance. Comte Beug was received there, subject to correction. The 'noble salons of the present day no longer resemble those salons. The Faubourg SaintGermain reeks of the fagot even now. The Royalists of today are demagogues, let us record it to their credit. At Madame de T.'s the society was superior, taste was exquisite and haughty, under the cover of a great show of politeness. Manners there admitted of all sorts of involuntary refinements which were the old rgime itself, buried but still alive. Some of these habits, especially in the matter of language, seem eccentric. Persons but superficially acquainted with them would have taken for provincial that which was only antique. A woman was called Madame la Gnrale. Madame la Colonelle was not entirely disused. The charming Madame de Lon, in memory, no doubt, of the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred this appellation to her title of Princesse. The Marquise de Crquy was also called Madame la Colonelle. It was this little high society which invented at the Tuileries the refinement of speaking to the King in private as the King, in the third person, and never as Your Majesty, the designation of Your Majesty having been 'soiled by the usurper. Men and deeds were brought to judgment there. They jeered at the age, which released them from the necessity of understanding it. They abetted each other in amazement. They communicated to each other that modicum of light which they possessed. Methuselah bestowed information on Epimenides. The deaf man made the blind man acquainted with the course of things. They declared that the time which had elapsed since Coblentz had not existed. In the same manner that Louis XVIII. was by the grace of God, in the five and twentieth year of his reign, the emigrants were, by rights, in the five and twentieth year of their adolescence. All was harmonious nothing was too much alive speech hardly amounted to a breath the newspapers, agreeing with the salons, seemed a papyrus. There were some young people, but they were rather dead. The liveries in the antechamber were antiquated. These utterly obsolete personages were served by domestics of the same stamp. They all had the air of having lived a long time ago, and of obstinately resisting the sepulchre. Nearly the whole dictionary consisted of Conserver, Conservation, Conservateur to be in good odor,that was the point. There are, in fact, aromatics in the opinions of these venerable groups, and their ideas smelled of it. It was a mummified society. The masters were embalmed, the servants were stuffed with straw. A worthy old marquise, an emigre and ruined, who had but a solitary maid, continued to say 'My people. What did they do in Madame de T.'s salon? They were ultra. To be ultra this word, although what it represents may not have disappeared, has no longer any meaning at the present day. Let us explain it. To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of the throne, and the mitre in the name of the altar it is to illtreat the thing which one is dragging, it is to kick over the traces it is to cavil at the fagot on the score of the amount of cooking received by heretics it is to reproach the idol with its small amount of idolatry it is to insult through excess of respect it is to discover that the Pope is not sufficiently papish, that the King is not sufficiently royal, and that the night has too much light it is to be discontented with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and the lily in the name of whiteness it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming their enemy it is to be so strongly for, as to be against. The ultra spirit especially characterizes the first phase of the Restoration. Nothing in history resembles that quarter of an hour which begins in  and terminates about , with the advent of M. de Villle, the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary moment at one and the same time brilliant and gloomy, smiling and sombre, illuminated as by the radiance of dawn and entirely covered, at the same time, with the shadows of the great catastrophes which still filled the horizon and were slowly sinking into the past. There existed in that light and that shadow, a complete little new and old world, comic and sad, juvenile and senile, which was rubbing its eyes nothing resembles an awakening like a return a group which regarded France with illtemper, and which France regarded with irony good old owls of marquises by the streetful, who had returned, and of ghosts, the 'former subjects of amazement at everything, brave and noble gentlemen who smiled at being in France but wept also, delighted to behold their country once more, in despair at not finding their monarchy the nobility of the Crusades treating the nobility of the Empire, that is to say, the nobility of the sword, with scorn historic races who had lost the sense of history the sons of the companions of Charlemagne disdaining the companions of Napoleon. The swords, as we have just remarked, returned the insult the sword of Fontenoy was laughable and nothing but a scrap of rusty iron the sword of Marengo was odious and was only a sabre. Former days did not recognize Yesterday. People no longer had the feeling for what was grand. There was some one who called Bonaparte Scapin. This Society no longer exists. Nothing of it, we repeat, exists today. When we select from it some one figure at random, and attempt to make it live again in thought, it seems as strange to us as the world before the Deluge. It is because it, too, as a matter of fact, has been engulfed in a deluge. It has disappeared beneath two Revolutions. What billows are ideas! How quickly they cover all that it is their mission to destroy and to bury, and how promptly they create frightful gulfs! Such was the physiognomy of the salons of those distant and candid times when M. Martainville had more wit than Voltaire. These salons had a literature and politics of their own. They believed in Five. M. Agier laid down the law in them. They commentated M. Colnet, the old bookseller and publicist of the Quay Malaquais. Napoleon was to them thoroughly the Corsican Ogre. Later on the introduction into history of M. le Marquis de Bonaparte, LieutenantGeneral of the King's armies, was a concession to the spirit of the age. These salons did not long preserve their purity. Beginning with , doctrinarians began to spring up in them, a disturbing shade. Their way was to be Royalists and to excuse themselves for being so. Where the ultras were very proud, the doctrinarians were rather ashamed. They had wit they had silence their political dogma was suitably impregnated with arrogance they should have succeeded. They indulged, and usefully too, in excesses in the matter of white neckties and tightly buttoned coats. The mistake or the misfortune of the doctrinarian party was to create aged youth. They assumed the poses of wise men. They dreamed of engrafting a temperate power on the absolute and excessive principle. They opposed, and sometimes with rare intelligence, conservative liberalism to the liberalism which demolishes. They were heard to say 'Thanks for Royalism! It has rendered more than one service. It has brought back tradition, worship, religion, respect. It is faithful, brave, chivalric, loving, devoted. It has mingled, though with regret, the secular grandeurs of the monarchy with the new grandeurs of the nation. Its mistake is not to understand the Revolution, the Empire, glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, the age. But this mistake which it makes with regard to us,have we not sometimes been guilty of it towards them? The Revolution, whose heirs we are, ought to be intelligent on all points. To attack Royalism is a misconstruction of liberalism. What an error! And what blindness! Revolutionary France is wanting in respect towards historic France, that is to say, towards its mother, that is to say, towards itself. After the th of September, the nobility of the monarchy is treated as the nobility of the Empire was treated after the th of July. They were unjust to the eagle, we are unjust to the fleurdelys. It seems that we must always have something to proscribe! Does it serve any purpose to ungild the crown of Louis XIV., to scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV.? We scoff at M. de Vaublanc for erasing the N's from the bridge of Jena! What was it that he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. The fleursdelys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To what purpose shall we diminish it? We must not deny our country in the past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? Why not love the whole of France? It is thus that doctrinarians criticised and protected Royalism, which was displeased at criticism and furious at protection. The ultras marked the first epoch of Royalism, congregation characterized the second. Skill follows ardor. Let us confine ourselves here to this sketch. In the course of this narrative, the author of this book has encountered in his path this curious moment of contemporary history he has been forced to cast a passing glance upon it, and to trace once more some of the singular features of this society which is unknown today. But he does it rapidly and without any bitter or derisive idea. Souvenirs both respectful and affectionate, for they touch his mother, attach him to this past. Moreover, let us remark, this same petty world had a grandeur of its own. One may smile at it, but one can neither despise nor hate it. It was the France of former days. Marius Pontmercy pursued some studies, as all children do. When he emerged from the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather confided him to a worthy professor of the most purely classic innocence. This young soul which was expanding passed from a prude to a vulgar pedant. Marius went through his years of college, then he entered the law school. He was a Royalist, fanatical and severe. He did not love his grandfather much, as the latter's gayety and cynicism repelled him, and his feelings towards his father were gloomy. He was, on the whole, a cold and ardent, noble, generous, proud, religious, enthusiastic lad dignified to harshness, pure to shyness. The conclusion of Marius' classical studies coincided with M. Gillenormand's departure from society. The old man bade farewell to the Faubourg SaintGermain and to Madame de T.'s salon, and established himself in the Marais, in his house of the Rue des FillesduCalvaire. There he had for servants, in addition to the porter, that chambermaid, Nicolette, who had succeeded to Magnon, and that shortbreathed and pursy Basque, who have been mentioned above. In , Marius had just attained his seventeenth year. One evening, on his return home, he saw his grandfather holding a letter in his hand. 'Marius, said M. Gillenormand, 'you will set out for Vernon tomorrow. 'Why? said Marius. 'To see your father. Marius was seized with a trembling fit. He had thought of everything except thisthat he should one day be called upon to see his father. Nothing could be more unexpected, more surprising, and, let us admit it, more disagreeable to him. It was forcing estrangement into reconciliation. It was not an affliction, but it was an unpleasant duty. Marius, in addition to his motives of political antipathy, was convinced that his father, the slasher, as M. Gillenormand called him on his amiable days, did not love him this was evident, since he had abandoned him to others. Feeling that he was not beloved, he did not love. 'Nothing is more simple, he said to himself. He was so astounded that he did not question M. Gillenormand. The grandfather resumed 'It appears that he is ill. He demands your presence. And after a pause, he added 'Set out tomorrow morning. I think there is a coach which leaves the Cour des Fontaines at six o'clock, and which arrives in the evening. Take it. He says that here is haste. Then he crushed the letter in his hand and thrust it into his pocket. Marius might have set out that very evening and have been with his father on the following morning. A diligence from the Rue du Bouloi took the trip to Rouen by night at that date, and passed through Vernon. Neither Marius nor M. Gillenormand thought of making inquiries about it. The next day, at twilight, Marius reached Vernon. People were just beginning to light their candles. He asked the first person whom he met for 'M. Pontmercy's house. For in his own mind, he agreed with the Restoration, and like it, did not recognize his father's claim to the title of either colonel or baron. The house was pointed out to him. He rang a woman with a little lamp in her hand opened the door. 'M. Pontmercy? said Marius. The woman remained motionless. 'Is this his house? demanded Marius. The woman nodded affirmatively. 'Can I speak with him? The woman shook her head. 'But I am his son! persisted Marius. 'He is expecting me. 'He no longer expects you, said the woman. Then he perceived that she was weeping. She pointed to the door of a room on the ground floor he entered. In that room, which was lighted by a tallow candle standing on the chimneypiece, there were three men, one standing erect, another kneeling, and one lying at full length, on the floor in his shirt. The one on the floor was the colonel. The other two were the doctor, and the priest, who was engaged in prayer. The colonel had been attacked by brain fever three days previously. As he had a foreboding of evil at the very beginning of his illness, he had written to M. Gillenormand to demand his son. The malady had grown worse. On the very evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon, the colonel had had an attack of delirium he had risen from his bed, in spite of the servant's efforts to prevent him, crying 'My son is not coming! I shall go to meet him! Then he ran out of his room and fell prostrate on the floor of the antechamber. He had just expired. The doctor had been summoned, and the cur. The doctor had arrived too late. The son had also arrived too late. By the dim light of the candle, a large tear could be distinguished on the pale and prostrate colonel's cheek, where it had trickled from his dead eye. The eye was extinguished, but the tear was not yet dry. That tear was his son's delay. Marius gazed upon that man whom he beheld for the first time, on that venerable and manly face, on those open eyes which saw not, on those white locks, those robust limbs, on which, here and there, brown lines, marking swordthrusts, and a sort of red stars, which indicated bulletholes, were visible. He contemplated that gigantic sear which stamped heroism on that countenance upon which God had imprinted goodness. He reflected that this man was his father, and that this man was dead, and a chill ran over him. The sorrow which he felt was the sorrow which he would have felt in the presence of any other man whom he had chanced to behold stretched out in death. Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servantwoman was lamenting in a corner, the cur was praying, and his sobs were audible, the doctor was wiping his eyes the corpse itself was weeping. The doctor, the priest, and the woman gazed at Marius in the midst of their affliction without uttering a word he was the stranger there. Marius, who was far too little affected, felt ashamed and embarrassed at his own attitude he held his hat in his hand and he dropped it on the floor, in order to produce the impression that grief had deprived him of the strength to hold it. At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he despised himself for behaving in this manner. But was it his fault? He did not love his father? Why should he! The colonel had left nothing. The sale of big furniture barely paid the expenses of his burial. The servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. It contained the following, in the colonel's handwriting 'For my son.The Emperor made me a Baron on the battlefield of Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will be worthy of it is a matter of course. Below, the colonel had added 'At that same battle of Waterloo, a sergeant saved my life. The man's name was Thnardier. I think that he has recently been keeping a little inn, in a village in the neighborhood of Paris, at Chelles or Montfermeil. If my son meets him, he will do all the good he can to Thnardier. Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father, but because of that vague respect for death which is always imperious in the heart of man. Nothing remained of the colonel. M. Gillenormand had his sword and uniform sold to an oldclothes dealer. The neighbors devastated the garden and pillaged the rare flowers. The other plants turned to nettles and weeds, and died. Marius remained only fortyeight hours at Vernon. After the interment he returned to Paris, and applied himself again to his law studies, with no more thought of his father than if the latter had never lived. In two days the colonel was buried, and in three forgotten. Marius wore crape on his hat. That was all. Marius had preserved the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, when he went to hear mass at SaintSulpice, at that same chapel of the Virgin whither his aunt had led him when a small lad, he placed himself behind a pillar, being more absentminded and thoughtful than usual on that occasion, and knelt down, without paying any special heed, upon a chair of Utrecht velvet, on the back of which was inscribed this name Monsieur Mabeuf, warden. Mass had hardly begun when an old man presented himself and said to Marius 'This is my place, sir. Marius stepped aside promptly, and the old man took possession of his chair. The mass concluded, Marius still stood thoughtfully a few paces distant the old man approached him again and said 'I beg your pardon, sir, for having disturbed you a while ago, and for again disturbing you at this moment you must have thought me intrusive, and I will explain myself. 'There is no need of that, Sir, said Marius. 'Yes! went on the old man, 'I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of me. You see, I am attached to this place. It seems to me that the mass is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that I have watched a poor, brave father come regularly, every two or three months, for the last ten years, since he had no other opportunity and no other way of seeing his child, because he was prevented by family arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be brought to mass. The little one never suspected that his father was there. Perhaps he did not even know that he had a father, poor innocent! The father kept behind a pillar, so that he might not be seen. He gazed at his child and he wept. He adored that little fellow, poor man! I could see that. This spot has become sanctified in my sight, and I have contracted a habit of coming hither to listen to the mass. I prefer it to the stall to which I have a right, in my capacity of warden. I knew that unhappy gentleman a little, too. He had a fatherinlaw, a wealthy aunt, relatives, I don't know exactly what all, who threatened to disinherit the child if he, the father, saw him. He sacrificed himself in order that his son might be rich and happy some day. He was separated from him because of political opinions. Certainly, I approve of political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop. Mon Dieu! a man is not a monster because he was at Waterloo a father is not separated from his child for such a reason as that. He was one of Bonaparte's colonels. He is dead, I believe. He lived at Vernon, where I have a brother who is a cur, and his name was something like Pontmarie or Montpercy. He had a fine swordcut, on my honor. 'Pontmercy, suggested Marius, turning pale. 'Precisely, Pontmercy. Did you know him? 'Sir, said Marius, 'he was my father. The old warden clasped his hands and exclaimed 'Ah! you are the child! Yes, that's true, he must be a man by this time. Well! poor child, you may say that you had a father who loved you dearly! Marius offered his arm to the old man and conducted him to his lodgings. On the following day, he said to M. Gillenormand 'I have arranged a huntingparty with some friends. Will you permit me to be absent for three days? 'Four! replied his grandfather. 'Go and amuse yourself. And he said to his daughter in a low tone, and with a wink, 'Some love affair! Where it was that Marius went will be disclosed a little further on. Marius was absent for three days, then he returned to Paris, went straight to the library of the lawschool and asked for the files of the Moniteur. He read the Moniteur, he read all the histories of the Republic and the Empire, the Memorial de SainteHlne, all the memoirs, all the newspapers, the bulletins, the proclamations he devoured everything. The first time that he came across his father's name in the bulletins of the grand army, he had a fever for a week. He went to see the generals under whom Georges Pontmercy had served, among others, Comte H. Churchwarden Mabeuf, whom he went to see again, told him about the life at Vernon, the colonel's retreat, his flowers, his solitude. Marius came to a full knowledge of that rare, sweet, and sublime man, that species of lionlamb who had been his father. In the meanwhile, occupied as he was with this study which absorbed all his moments as well as his thoughts, he hardly saw the Gillenormands at all. He made his appearance at meals then they searched for him, and he was not to be found. Father Gillenormand smiled. 'Bah! bah! He is just of the age for the girls! Sometimes the old man added 'The deuce! I thought it was only an affair of gallantry. It seems that it is an affair of passion! It was a passion, in fact. Marius was on the high road to adoring his father. At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to follow these phases step by step and to indicate them all. That history upon which he had just cast his eyes appalled him. The first effect was to dazzle him. Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight the Empire, a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where he had expected to find only a chaos of shadows, he had beheld, with a sort of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars sparkling, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, SaintJust, Robespierre, Camille, Desmoulins, Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. He did not know where he stood. He recoiled, blinded by the brilliant lights. Little by little, when his astonishment had passed off, he grew accustomed to this radiance, he contemplated these deeds without dizziness, he examined these personages without terror the Revolution and the Empire presented themselves luminously, in perspective, before his mind's eye he beheld each of these groups of events and of men summed up in two tremendous facts the Republic in the sovereignty of civil right restored to the masses, the Empire in the sovereignty of the French idea imposed on Europe he beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, and the grand figure of France spring forth from the Empire. He asserted in his conscience, that all this had been good. What his dazzled state neglected in this, his first far too synthetic estimation, we do not think it necessary to point out here. It is the state of a mind on the march that we are recording. Progress is not accomplished in one stage. That stated, once for all, in connection with what precedes as well as with what is to follow, we continue. He then perceived that, up to that moment, he had comprehended his country no more than he had comprehended his father. He had not known either the one or the other, and a sort of voluntary night had obscured his eyes. Now he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the other he adored. He was filled with regret and remorse, and he reflected in despair that all he had in his soul could now be said only to the tomb. Oh! if his father had still been in existence, if he had still had him, if God, in his compassion and his goodness, had permitted his father to be still among the living, how he would have run, how he would have precipitated himself, how he would have cried to his father 'Father! Here I am! It is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son! How he would have embraced that white head, bathed his hair in tears, gazed upon his scar, pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his father died so early, before his time, before the justice, the love of his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which said to him every moment 'Alas! At the same time, he became more truly serious, more truly grave, more sure of his thought and his faith. At each instant, gleams of the true came to complete his reason. An inward growth seemed to be in progress within him. He was conscious of a sort of natural enlargement, which gave him two things that were new to himhis father and his country. As everything opens when one has a key, so he explained to himself that which he had hated, he penetrated that which he had abhorred henceforth he plainly perceived the providential, divine and human sense of the great things which he had been taught to detest, and of the great men whom he had been instructed to curse. When he reflected on his former opinions, which were but those of yesterday, and which, nevertheless, seemed to him already so very ancient, he grew indignant, yet he smiled. From the rehabilitation of his father, he naturally passed to the rehabilitation of Napoleon. But the latter, we will confess, was not effected without labor. From his infancy, he had been imbued with the judgments of the party of , on Bonaparte. Now, all the prejudices of the Restoration, all its interests, all its instincts tended to disfigure Napoleon. It execrated him even more than it did Robespierre. It had very cleverly turned to sufficiently good account the fatigue of the nation, and the hatred of mothers. Bonaparte had become an almost fabulous monster, and in order to paint him to the imagination of the people, which, as we lately pointed out, resembles the imagination of children, the party of  made him appear under all sorts of terrifying masks in succession, from that which is terrible though it remains grandiose to that which is terrible and becomes grotesque, from Tiberius to the bugaboo. Thus, in speaking of Bonaparte, one was free to sob or to puff up with laughter, provided that hatred lay at the bottom. Marius had never entertainedabout that man, as he was calledany other ideas in his mind. They had combined with the tenacity which existed in his nature. There was in him a headstrong little man who hated Napoleon. On reading history, on studying him, especially in the documents and materials for history, the veil which concealed Napoleon from the eyes of Marius was gradually rent. He caught a glimpse of something immense, and he suspected that he had been deceived up to that moment, on the score of Bonaparte as about all the rest each day he saw more distinctly and he set about mounting, slowly, step by step, almost regretfully in the beginning, then with intoxication and as though attracted by an irresistible fascination, first the sombre steps, then the vaguely illuminated steps, at last the luminous and splendid steps of enthusiasm. One night, he was alone in his little chamber near the roof. His candle was burning he was reading, with his elbows resting on his table close to the open window. All sorts of reveries reached him from space, and mingled with his thoughts. What a spectacle is the night! One hears dull sounds, without knowing whence they proceed one beholds Jupiter, which is twelve hundred times larger than the earth, glowing like a firebrand, the azure is black, the stars shine it is formidable. He was perusing the bulletins of the grand army, those heroic strophes penned on the field of battle there, at intervals, he beheld his father's name, always the name of the Emperor the whole of that great Empire presented itself to him he felt a flood swelling and rising within him it seemed to him at moments that his father passed close to him like a breath, and whispered in his ear he gradually got into a singular state he thought that he heard drums, cannon, trumpets, the measured tread of battalions, the dull and distant gallop of the cavalry from time to time, his eyes were raised heavenward, and gazed upon the colossal constellations as they gleamed in the measureless depths of space, then they fell upon his book once more, and there they beheld other colossal things moving confusedly. His heart contracted within him. He was in a transport, trembling, panting. All at once, without himself knowing what was in him, and what impulse he was obeying, he sprang to his feet, stretched both arms out of the window, gazed intently into the gloom, the silence, the infinite darkness, the eternal immensity, and exclaimed 'Long live the Emperor! From that moment forth, all was over the Ogre of Corsica,the usurper,the tyrant,the monster who was the lover of his own sisters,the actor who took lessons of Talma,the poisoner of Jaffa,the tiger,Buonaparte,all this vanished, and gave place in his mind to a vague and brilliant radiance in which shone, at an inaccessible height, the pale marble phantom of Csar. The Emperor had been for his father only the wellbeloved captain whom one admires, for whom one sacrifices one's self he was something more to Marius. He was the predestined constructor of the French group, succeeding the Roman group in the domination of the universe. He was a prodigious architect, of a destruction, the continuer of Charlemagne, of Louis XI., of Henry IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, having his spots, no doubt, his faults, his crimes even, being a man, that is to say but august in his faults, brilliant in his spots, powerful in his crime. He was the predestined man, who had forced all nations to say 'The great nation! He was better than that, he was the very incarnation of France, conquering Europe by the sword which he grasped, and the world by the light which he shed. Marius saw in Bonaparte the dazzling spectre which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the future. Despot but dictator a despot resulting from a republic and summing up a revolution. Napoleon became for him the manpeople as Jesus Christ is the manGod. It will be perceived, that like all new converts to a religion, his conversion intoxicated him, he hurled himself headlong into adhesion and he went too far. His nature was so constructed once on the downward slope, it was almost impossible for him to put on the drag. Fanaticism for the sword took possession of him, and complicated in his mind his enthusiasm for the idea. He did not perceive that, along with genius, and pellmell, he was admitting force, that is to say, that he was installing in two compartments of his idolatry, on the one hand that which is divine, on the other that which is brutal. In many respects, he had set about deceiving himself otherwise. He admitted everything. There is a way of encountering error while on one's way to the truth. He had a violent sort of good faith which took everything in the lump. In the new path which he had entered on, in judging the mistakes of the old regime, as in measuring the glory of Napoleon, he neglected the attenuating circumstances. At all events, a tremendous step had been taken. Where he had formerly beheld the fall of the monarchy, he now saw the advent of France. His orientation had changed. What had been his East became the West. He had turned squarely round. All these revolutions were accomplished within him, without his family obtaining an inkling of the case. When, during this mysterious labor, he had entirely shed his old Bourbon and ultra skin, when he had cast off the aristocrat, the Jacobite and the Royalist, when he had become thoroughly a revolutionist, profoundly democratic and republican, he went to an engraver on the Quai des Orfvres and ordered a hundred cards bearing this name Le Baron Marius Pontmercy. This was only the strictly logical consequence of the change which had taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated round his father. Only, as he did not know any one and could not sow his cards with any porter, he put them in his pocket. By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew nearer to his father, to the latter's memory, and to the things for which the colonel had fought five and twenty years before, he receded from his grandfather. We have long ago said, that M. Gillenormand's temper did not please him. There already existed between them all the dissonances of the grave young man and the frivolous old man. The gayety of Gronte shocks and exasperates the melancholy of Werther. So long as the same political opinions and the same ideas had been common to them both, Marius had met M. Gillenormand there as on a bridge. When the bridge fell, an abyss was formed. And then, over and above all, Marius experienced unutterable impulses to revolt, when he reflected that it was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives, torn him ruthlessly from the colonel, thus depriving the father of the child, and the child of the father. By dint of pity for his father, Marius had nearly arrived at aversion for his grandfather. Nothing of this sort, however, was betrayed on the exterior, as we have already said. Only he grew colder and colder laconic at meals, and rare in the house. When his aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and alleged his studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext. His grandfather never departed from his infallible diagnosis 'In love! I know all about it. From time to time Marius absented himself. 'Where is it that he goes off like this? said his aunt. On one of these trips, which were always very brief, he went to Montfermeil, in order to obey the injunction which his father had left him, and he sought the old sergeant to Waterloo, the innkeeper Thnardier. Thnardier had failed, the inn was closed, and no one knew what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on this quest. 'He is getting decidedly wild, said his grandfather. They thought they had noticed that he wore something on his breast, under his shirt, which was attached to his neck by a black ribbon. We have mentioned a lancer. He was a greatgrandnephew of M. Gillenormand, on the paternal side, who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic hearth. Lieutenant Thodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions required to make what is called a fine officer. He had 'a lady's waist, a victorious manner of trailing his sword and of twirling his moustache in a hook. He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had never seen him. The cousins knew each other only by name. We think we have said that Thodule was the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she did not see him. Not seeing people permits one to attribute to them all possible perfections. One morning, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder returned to her apartment as much disturbed as her placidity was capable of allowing. Marius had just asked his grandfather's permission to take a little trip, adding that he meant to set out that very evening. 'Go! had been his grandfather's reply, and M. Gillenormand had added in an aside, as he raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead 'Here he is passing the night out again. Mademoiselle Gillenormand had ascended to her chamber greatly puzzled, and on the staircase had dropped this exclamation 'This is too much!and this interrogation 'But where is it that he goes? She espied some adventure of the heart, more or less illicit, a woman in the shadow, a rendezvous, a mystery, and she would not have been sorry to thrust her spectacles into the affair. Tasting a mystery resembles getting the first flavor of a scandal sainted souls do not detest this. There is some curiosity about scandal in the secret compartments of bigotry. So she was the prey of a vague appetite for learning a history. In order to get rid of this curiosity which agitated her a little beyond her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and set about scalloping, with one layer of cotton after another, one of those embroideries of the Empire and the Restoration, in which there are numerous cartwheels. The work was clumsy, the worker cross. She had been seated at this for several hours when the door opened. Mademoiselle Gillenormand raised her nose. Lieutenant Thodule stood before her, making the regulation salute. She uttered a cry of delight. One may be old, one may be a prude, one may be pious, one may be an aunt, but it is always agreeable to see a lancer enter one's chamber. 'You here, Thodule! she exclaimed. 'On my way through town, aunt. 'Embrace me. 'Here goes! said Thodule. And he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her writingdesk and opened it. 'You will remain with us a week at least? 'I leave this very evening, aunt. 'It is not possible! 'Mathematically! 'Remain, my little Thodule, I beseech you. 'My heart says 'yes,' but my orders say 'no.' The matter is simple. They are changing our garrison we have been at Melun, we are being transferred to Gaillon. It is necessary to pass through Paris in order to get from the old post to the new one. I said 'I am going to see my aunt.' 'Here is something for your trouble. And she put ten louis into his hand. 'For my pleasure, you mean to say, my dear aunt. Thodule kissed her again, and she experienced the joy of having some of the skin scratched from her neck by the braidings on his uniform. 'Are you making the journey on horseback, with your regiment? she asked him. 'No, aunt. I wanted to see you. I have special permission. My servant is taking my horse I am travelling by diligence. And, by the way, I want to ask you something. 'What is it? 'Is my cousin Marius Pontmercy travelling so, too? 'How do you know that? said his aunt, suddenly pricked to the quick with a lively curiosity. 'On my arrival, I went to the diligence to engage my seat in the coup. 'Well? 'A traveller had already come to engage a seat in the imperial. I saw his name on the card. 'What name? 'Marius Pontmercy. 'The wicked fellow! exclaimed his aunt. 'Ah! your cousin is not a steady lad like yourself. To think that he is to pass the night in a diligence! 'Just as I am going to do. 'But youit is your duty in his case, it is wildness. 'Bosh! said Thodule. Here an event occurred to Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder,an idea struck her. If she had been a man, she would have slapped her brow. She apostrophized Thodule 'Are you aware whether your cousin knows you? 'No. I have seen him but he has never deigned to notice me. 'So you are going to travel together? 'He in the imperial, I in the coup. 'Where does this diligence run? 'To Andelys. 'Then that is where Marius is going? 'Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. I get down at Vernon, in order to take the branch coach for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius' plan of travel. 'Marius! what an ugly name! what possessed them to name him Marius? While you, at least, are called Thodule. 'I would rather be called Alfred, said the officer. 'Listen, Thodule. 'I am listening, aunt. 'Pay attention. 'I am paying attention. 'You understand? 'Yes. 'Well, Marius absents himself! 'Eh! eh! 'He travels. 'Ah! ah! 'He spends the night out. 'Oh! oh! 'We should like to know what there is behind all this. Thodule replied with the composure of a man of bronze 'Some petticoat or other. And with that inward laugh which denotes certainty, he added 'A lass. 'That is evident, exclaimed his aunt, who thought she heard M. Gillenormand speaking, and who felt her conviction become irresistible at that word fillette, accentuated in almost the very same fashion by the granduncle and the grandnephew. She resumed 'Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little. He does not know you, it will be easy. Since a lass there is, try to get a sight of her. You must write us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather. Thodule had no excessive taste for this sort of spying but he was much touched by the ten louis, and he thought he saw a chance for a possible sequel. He accepted the commission and said 'As you please, aunt. And he added in an aside, to himself 'Here I am a duenna. Mademoiselle Gillenormand embraced him. 'You are not the man to play such pranks, Thodule. You obey discipline, you are the slave of orders, you are a man of scruples and duty, and you would not quit your family to go and see a creature. The lancer made the pleased grimace of Cartouche when praised for his probity. Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence without suspecting that he was watched. As for the watcher, the first thing he did was to fall asleep. His slumber was complete and conscientious. Argus snored all night long. At daybreak, the conductor of the diligence shouted 'Vernon! relay of Vernon! Travellers for Vernon! And Lieutenant Thodule woke. 'Good, he growled, still half asleep, 'this is where I get out. Then, as his memory cleared by degrees, the effect of waking, he recalled his aunt, the ten louis, and the account which he had undertaken to render of the deeds and proceedings of Marius. This set him to laughing. 'Perhaps he is no longer in the coach, he thought, as he rebuttoned the waistcoat of his undress uniform. 'He may have stopped at Poissy he may have stopped at Triel if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have got out at Mantes, unless he got out at Rolleboise, or if he did not go on as far as Pacy, with the choice of turning to the left at vreus, or to the right at LarocheGuyon. Run after him, aunty. What the devil am I to write to that good old soul? At that moment a pair of black trousers descending from the imperial, made its appearance at the window of the coup. 'Can that be Marius? said the lieutenant. It was Marius. A little peasant girl, all entangled with the horses and the postilions at the end of the vehicle, was offering flowers to the travellers. 'Give your ladies flowers! she cried. Marius approached her and purchased the finest flowers in her flat basket. 'Come now, said Thodule, leaping down from the coup, 'this piques my curiosity. Who the deuce is he going to carry those flowers to? She must be a splendidly handsome woman for so fine a bouquet. I want to see her. And no longer in pursuance of orders, but from personal curiosity, like dogs who hunt on their own account, he set out to follow Marius. Marius paid no attention to Thodule. Elegant women descended from the diligence he did not glance at them. He seemed to see nothing around him. 'He is pretty deeply in love! thought Thodule. Marius directed his steps towards the church. 'Capital, said Thodule to himself. 'Rendezvous seasoned with a bit of mass are the best sort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which passes over the good God's head. On arriving at the church, Marius did not enter it, but skirted the apse. He disappeared behind one of the angles of the apse. 'The rendezvous is appointed outside, said Thodule. 'Let's have a look at the lass. And he advanced on the tips of his boots towards the corner which Marius had turned. On arriving there, he halted in amazement. Marius, with his forehead clasped in his hands, was kneeling upon the grass on a grave. He had strewn his bouquet there. At the extremity of the grave, on a little swelling which marked the head, there stood a cross of black wood with this name in white letters COLONEL BARON PONTMERCY. Marius' sobs were audible. The 'lass was a grave. It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his absenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every time that M. Gillenormand had said 'He is sleeping out. Lieutenant Thodule was absolutely put out of countenance by this unexpected encounter with a sepulchre he experienced a singular and disagreeable sensation which he was incapable of analyzing, and which was composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for the colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and there was discipline in this retreat. Death appeared to him with large epaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowing what to write to his aunt, he decided not to write at all and it is probable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery made by Thodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those mysterious arrangements which are so frequent in chance, the scene at Vernon had not had an almost immediate countershock at Paris. Marius returned from Vernon on the third day, in the middle of the morning, descended at his grandfather's door, and, wearied by the two nights spent in the diligence, and feeling the need of repairing his loss of sleep by an hour at the swimmingschool, he mounted rapidly to his chamber, took merely time enough to throw off his travellingcoat, and the black ribbon which he wore round his neck, and went off to the bath. M. Gillenormand, who had risen betimes like all old men in good health, had heard his entrance, and had made haste to climb, as quickly as his old legs permitted, the stairs to the upper story where Marius lived, in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find out where he had been. But the youth had taken less time to descend than the old man had to ascend, and when Father Gillenormand entered the attic, Marius was no longer there. The bed had not been disturbed, and on the bed lay, outspread, but not defiantly the greatcoat and the black ribbon. 'I like this better, said M. Gillenormand. And a moment later, he made his entrance into the salon, where Mademoiselle Gillenormand was already seated, busily embroidering her cartwheels. The entrance was a triumphant one. M. Gillenormand held in one hand the greatcoat, and in the other the neckribbon, and exclaimed 'Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery! We are going to learn the most minute details we are going to lay our finger on the debaucheries of our sly friend! Here we have the romance itself. I have the portrait! In fact, a case of black shagreen, resembling a medallion portrait, was suspended from the ribbon. The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without opening it, with that air of enjoyment, rapture, and wrath, with which a poor hungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner which is not for him, pass under his very nose. 'For this evidently is a portrait. I know all about such things. That is worn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable fright that will make us shudder, probably! Young men have such bad taste nowadays! 'Let us see, father, said the old spinster. The case opened by the pressure of a spring. They found in it nothing but a carefully folded paper. 'From the same to the same, said M. Gillenormand, bursting with laughter. 'I know what it is. A billetdoux. 'Ah! let us read it! said the aunt. And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as follows 'For my son.The Emperor made me a Baron on the battlefield of Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will be worthy of it is a matter of course. The feelings of father and daughter cannot be described. They felt chilled as by the breath of a death'shead. They did not exchange a word. Only, M. Gillenormand said in a low voice and as though speaking to himself 'It is the slasher's handwriting. The aunt examined the paper, turned it about in all directions, then put it back in its case. At the same moment a little oblong packet, enveloped in blue paper, fell from one of the pockets of the greatcoat. Mademoiselle Gillenormand picked it up and unfolded the blue paper. It contained Marius' hundred cards. She handed one of them to M. Gillenormand, who read Le Baron Marius Pontmercy. The old man rang the bell. Nicolette came. M. Gillenormand took the ribbon, the case, and the coat, flung them all on the floor in the middle of the room, and said 'Carry those duds away. A full hour passed in the most profound silence. The old man and the old spinster had seated themselves with their backs to each other, and were thinking, each on his own account, the same things, in all probability. At the expiration of this hour, Aunt Gillenormand said'A pretty state of things! A few moments later, Marius made his appearance. He entered. Even before he had crossed the threshold, he saw his grandfather holding one of his own cards in his hand, and on catching sight of him, the latter exclaimed with his air of bourgeois and grinning superiority which was something crushing 'Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you my compliments. What is the meaning of this? Marius reddened slightly and replied 'It means that I am the son of my father. M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and said harshly 'I am your father. 'My father, retorted Marius, with downcast eyes and a severe air, 'was a humble and heroic man, who served the Republic and France gloriously, who was great in the greatest history that men have ever made, who lived in the bivouac for a quarter of a century, beneath grapeshot and bullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured two flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and who never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly two ingrates, his country and myself. This was more than M. Gillenormand could bear to hear. At the word republic, he rose, or, to speak more correctly, he sprang to his feet. Every word that Marius had just uttered produced on the visage of the old Royalist the effect of the puffs of air from a forge upon a blazing brand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and from purple, flamecolored. 'Marius! he cried. 'Abominable child! I do not know what your father was! I do not wish to know! I know nothing about that, and I do not know him! But what I do know is, that there never was anything but scoundrels among those men! They were all rascals, assassins, redcaps, thieves! I say all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius! See here, you are no more a baron than my slipper is! They were all bandits in the service of Robespierre! All who served Buonapart were brigands! They were all traitors who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed their legitimate king! All cowards who fled before the Prussians and the English at Waterloo! That is what I do know! Whether Monsieur your father comes in that category, I do not know! I am sorry for it, so much the worse, your humble servant! In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrand and M. Gillenormand who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what would happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholds all his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds a passerby spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had been uttered in his presence. What was he to do? His father had just been trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the other? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather and it was equally impossible for him to leave his father unavenged. On the one hand was a sacred grave, on the other hoary locks. He stood there for several moments, staggering as though intoxicated, with all this whirlwind dashing through his head then he raised his eyes, gazed fixedly at his grandfather, and cried in a voice of thunder 'Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog of a Louis XVIII.! Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years but it was all the same to him. The old man, who had been crimson, turned whiter than his hair. He wheeled round towards a bust of M. le Duc de Berry, which stood on the chimneypiece, and made a profound bow, with a sort of peculiar majesty. Then he paced twice, slowly and in silence, from the fireplace to the window and from the window to the fireplace, traversing the whole length of the room, and making the polished floor creak as though he had been a stone statue walking. On his second turn, he bent over his daughter, who was watching this encounter with the stupefied air of an antiquated lamb, and said to her with a smile that was almost calm 'A baron like this gentleman, and a bourgeois like myself cannot remain under the same roof. And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, with his brow rendered more lofty by the terrible radiance of wrath, he extended his arm towards Marius and shouted to him 'Be off! Marius left the house. On the following day, M. Gillenormand said to his daughter 'You will send sixty pistoles every six months to that blooddrinker, and you will never mention his name to me. Having an immense reserve fund of wrath to get rid of, and not knowing what to do with it, he continued to address his daughter as you instead of thou for the next three months. Marius, on his side, had gone forth in indignation. There was one circumstance which, it must be admitted, aggravated his exasperation. There are always petty fatalities of the sort which complicate domestic dramas. They augment the grievances in such cases, although, in reality, the wrongs are not increased by them. While carrying Marius' 'duds precipitately to his chamber, at his grandfather's command, Nicolette had, inadvertently, let fall, probably, on the attic staircase, which was dark, that medallion of black shagreen which contained the paper penned by the colonel. Neither paper nor case could afterwards be found. Marius was convinced that 'Monsieur Gillenormandfrom that day forth he never alluded to him otherwisehad flung 'his father's testament in the fire. He knew by heart the few lines which the colonel had written, and, consequently, nothing was lost. But the paper, the writing, that sacred relic,all that was his very heart. What had been done with it? Marius had taken his departure without saying whither he was going, and without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes in a handbag. He had entered a hackneycoach, had engaged it by the hour, and had directed his course at haphazard towards the Latin quarter. What was to become of Marius? At that epoch, which was, to all appearances indifferent, a certain revolutionary quiver was vaguely current. Breaths which had started forth from the depths of ' and ' were in the air. Youth was on the point, may the reader pardon us the word, of moulting. People were undergoing a transformation, almost without being conscious of it, through the movement of the age. The needle which moves round the compass also moves in souls. Each person was taking that step in advance which he was bound to take. The Royalists were becoming liberals, liberals were turning democrats. It was a flood tide complicated with a thousand ebb movements the peculiarity of ebbs is to create intermixtures hence the combination of very singular ideas people adored both Napoleon and liberty. We are making history here. These were the mirages of that period. Opinions traverse phases. Voltairian royalism, a quaint variety, had a no less singular sequel, Bonapartist liberalism. Other groups of minds were more serious. In that direction, they sounded principles, they attached themselves to the right. They grew enthusiastic for the absolute, they caught glimpses of infinite realizations the absolute, by its very rigidity, urges spirits towards the sky and causes them to float in illimitable space. There is nothing like dogma for bringing forth dreams. And there is nothing like dreams for engendering the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow. These advanced opinions had a double foundation. A beginning of mystery menaced 'the established order of things, which was suspicious and underhand. A sign which was revolutionary to the highest degree. The second thoughts of power meet the second thoughts of the populace in the mine. The incubation of insurrections gives the retort to the premeditation of coups d'tat. There did not, as yet, exist in France any of those vast underlying organizations, like the German tugendbund and Italian Carbonarism but here and there there were dark underminings, which were in process of throwing off shoots. The Cougourde was being outlined at Aix there existed at Paris, among other affiliations of that nature, the society of the Friends of the A B C. What were these Friends of the A B C? A society which had for its object apparently the education of children, in reality the elevation of man. They declared themselves the Friends of the A B C,the Abaiss,the debased,that is to say, the people. They wished to elevate the people. It was a pun which we should do wrong to smile at. Puns are sometimes serious factors in politics witness the Castratus ad castra, which made a general of the army of Narses witness Barbari et Barberini witness Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram, etc., etc. The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, it was a secret society in the state of embryo, we might almost say a coterie, if coteries ended in heroes. They assembled in Paris in two localities, near the fishmarket, in a wineshop called Corinthe, of which more will be heard later on, and near the Pantheon in a little caf in the Rue SaintMichel called the Caf Musain, now torn down the first of these meetingplaces was close to the workingman, the second to the students. The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back room of the Caf Musain. This hall, which was tolerably remote from the caf, with which it was connected by an extremely long corridor, had two windows and an exit with a private stairway on the little Rue des Grs. There they smoked and drank, and gambled and laughed. There they conversed in very loud tones about everything, and in whispers of other things. An old map of France under the Republic was nailed to the wall,a sign quite sufficient to excite the suspicion of a police agent. The greater part of the Friends of the A B C were students, who were on cordial terms with the working classes. Here are the names of the principal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, to history Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or Laigle, Joly, Grantaire. These young men formed a sort of family, through the bond of friendship. All, with the exception of Laigle, were from the South. This was a remarkable group. It vanished in the invisible depths which lie behind us. At the point of this drama which we have now reached, it will not perhaps be superfluous to throw a ray of light upon these youthful heads, before the reader beholds them plunging into the shadow of a tragic adventure. Enjolras, whose name we have mentioned first of all,the reader shall see why later on,was an only son and wealthy. Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous. One would have said, to see the pensive thoughtfulness of his glance, that he had already, in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary apocalypse. He possessed the tradition of it as though he had been a witness. He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great affair. A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth. He was an officiating priest and a man of war from the immediate point of view, a soldier of the democracy above the contemporary movement, the priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep, his lids a little red, his lower lip was thick and easily became disdainful, his brow was lofty. A great deal of brow in a face is like a great deal of horizon in a view. Like certain young men at the beginning of this century and the end of the last, who became illustrious at an early age, he was endowed with excessive youth, and was as rosy as a young girl, although subject to hours of pallor. Already a man, he still seemed a child. His two and twenty years appeared to be but seventeen he was serious, it did not seem as though he were aware there was on earth a thing called woman. He had but one passionthe right but one thoughtto overthrow the obstacle. On Mount Aventine, he would have been Gracchus in the Convention, he would have been SaintJust. He hardly saw the roses, he ignored spring, he did not hear the carolling of the birds the bare throat of Evadne would have moved him no more than it would have moved Aristogeiton he, like Harmodius, thought flowers good for nothing except to conceal the sword. He was severe in his enjoyments. He chastely dropped his eyes before everything which was not the Republic. He was the marble lover of liberty. His speech was harshly inspired, and had the thrill of a hymn. He was subject to unexpected outbursts of soul. Woe to the loveaffair which should have risked itself beside him! If any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue SaintJeandeBeauvais, seeing that face of a youth escaped from college, that page's mien, those long, golden lashes, those blue eyes, that hair billowing in the wind, those rosy cheeks, those fresh lips, those exquisite teeth, had conceived an appetite for that complete aurora, and had tried her beauty on Enjolras, an astounding and terrible glance would have promptly shown her the abyss, and would have taught her not to confound the mighty cherub of Ezekiel with the gallant Cherubino of Beaumarchais. By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of the Revolution, Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the Revolution and its philosophy there exists this differencethat its logic may end in war, whereas its philosophy can end only in peace. Combeferre complemented and rectified Enjolras. He was less lofty, but broader. He desired to pour into all minds the extensive principles of general ideas he said 'Revolution, but civilization and around the mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution was more adapted for breathing with Combeferre than with Enjolras. Enjolras expressed its divine right, and Combeferre its natural right. The first attached himself to Robespierre the second confined himself to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world more than did Enjolras. If it had been granted to these two young men to attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise man. Enjolras was the more virile, Combeferre the more humane. Homo and vir, that was the exact effect of their different shades. Combeferre was as gentle as Enjolras was severe, through natural whiteness. He loved the word citizen, but he preferred the word man. He would gladly have said Hombre, like the Spanish. He read everything, went to the theatres, attended the courses of public lecturers, learned the polarization of light from Arago, grew enthusiastic over a lesson in which Geoffroy SainteHilaire explained the double function of the external carotid artery, and the internal, the one which makes the face, and the one which makes the brain he kept up with what was going on, followed science step by step, compared SaintSimon with Fourier, deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebble which he found and reasoned on geology, drew from memory a silkworm moth, pointed out the faulty French in the Dictionary of the Academy, studied Puysgur and Deleuze, affirmed nothing, not even miracles denied nothing, not even ghosts turned over the files of the Moniteur, reflected. He declared that the future lies in the hand of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with educational questions. He desired that society should labor without relaxation at the elevation of the moral and intellectual level, at coining science, at putting ideas into circulation, at increasing the mind in youthful persons, and he feared lest the present poverty of method, the paltriness from a literary point of view confined to two or three centuries called classic, the tyrannical dogmatism of official pedants, scholastic prejudices and routines should end by converting our colleges into artificial oyster beds. He was learned, a purist, exact, a graduate of the Polytechnic, a close student, and at the same time, thoughtful 'even to chimras, so his friends said. He believed in all dreams, railroads, the suppression of suffering in chirurgical operations, the fixing of images in the dark chamber, the electric telegraph, the steering of balloons. Moreover, he was not much alarmed by the citadels erected against the human mind in every direction, by superstition, despotism, and prejudice. He was one of those who think that science will eventually turn the position. Enjolras was a chief, Combeferre was a guide. One would have liked to fight under the one and to march behind the other. It is not that Combeferre was not capable of fighting, he did not refuse a handtohand combat with the obstacle, and to attack it by main force and explosively but it suited him better to bring the human race into accord with its destiny gradually, by means of education, the inculcation of axioms, the promulgation of positive laws and, between two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than for conflagration. A conflagration can create an aurora, no doubt, but why not await the dawn? A volcano illuminates, but daybreak furnishes a still better illumination. Possibly, Combeferre preferred the whiteness of the beautiful to the blaze of the sublime. A light troubled by smoke, progress purchased at the expense of violence, only half satisfied this tender and serious spirit. The headlong precipitation of a people into the truth, a ', terrified him nevertheless, stagnation was still more repulsive to him, in it he detected putrefaction and death on the whole, he preferred scum to miasma, and he preferred the torrent to the cesspool, and the falls of Niagara to the lake of Montfaucon. In short, he desired neither halt nor haste. While his tumultuous friends, captivated by the absolute, adored and invoked splendid revolutionary adventures, Combeferre was inclined to let progress, good progress, take its own course he may have been cold, but he was pure methodical, but irreproachable phlegmatic, but imperturbable. Combeferre would have knelt and clasped his hands to enable the future to arrive in all its candor, and that nothing might disturb the immense and virtuous evolution of the races. The good must be innocent, he repeated incessantly. And in fact, if the grandeur of the Revolution consists in keeping the dazzling ideal fixedly in view, and of soaring thither athwart the lightnings, with fire and blood in its talons, the beauty of progress lies in being spotless and there exists between Washington, who represents the one, and Danton, who incarnates the other, that difference which separates the swan from the angel with the wings of an eagle. Jean Prouvaire was a still softer shade than Combeferre. His name was Jehan, owing to that petty momentary freak which mingled with the powerful and profound movement whence sprang the very essential study of the Middle Ages. Jean Prouvaire was in love he cultivated a pot of flowers, played on the flute, made verses, loved the people, pitied woman, wept over the child, confounded God and the future in the same confidence, and blamed the Revolution for having caused the fall of a royal head, that of Andr Chnier. His voice was ordinarily delicate, but suddenly grew manly. He was learned even to erudition, and almost an Orientalist. Above all, he was good and, a very simple thing to those who know how nearly goodness borders on grandeur, in the matter of poetry, he preferred the immense. He knew Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and these served him only for the perusal of four poets Dante, Juvenal, schylus, and Isaiah. In French, he preferred Corneille to Racine, and Agrippa d'Aubign to Corneille. He loved to saunter through fields of wild oats and cornflowers, and busied himself with clouds nearly as much as with events. His mind had two attitudes, one on the side towards man, the other on that towards God he studied or he contemplated. All day long, he buried himself in social questions, salary, capital, credit, marriage, religion, liberty of thought, education, penal servitude, poverty, association, property, production and sharing, the enigma of this lower world which covers the human anthill with darkness and at night, he gazed upon the planets, those enormous beings. Like Enjolras, he was wealthy and an only son. He spoke softly, bowed his head, lowered his eyes, smiled with embarrassment, dressed badly, had an awkward air, blushed at a mere nothing, and was very timid. Yet he was intrepid. Feuilly was a workingman, a fanmaker, orphaned both of father and mother, who earned with difficulty three francs a day, and had but one thought, to deliver the world. He had one other preoccupation, to educate himself he called this also, delivering himself. He had taught himself to read and write everything that he knew, he had learned by himself. Feuilly had a generous heart. The range of his embrace was immense. This orphan had adopted the peoples. As his mother had failed him, he meditated on his country. He brooded with the profound divination of the man of the people, over what we now call the idea of the nationality, had learned history with the express object of raging with full knowledge of the case. In this club of young Utopians, occupied chiefly with France, he represented the outside world. He had for his specialty Greece, Poland, Hungary, Roumania, Italy. He uttered these names incessantly, appropriately and inappropriately, with the tenacity of right. The violations of Turkey on Greece and Thessaly, of Russia on Warsaw, of Austria on Venice, enraged him. Above all things, the great violence of  aroused him. There is no more sovereign eloquence than the true in indignation he was eloquent with that eloquence. He was inexhaustible on that infamous date of , on the subject of that noble and valiant race suppressed by treason, and that threesided crime, on that monstrous ambush, the prototype and pattern of all those horrible suppressions of states, which, since that time, have struck many a noble nation, and have annulled their certificate of birth, so to speak. All contemporary social crimes have their origin in the partition of Poland. The partition of Poland is a theorem of which all present political outrages are the corollaries. There has not been a despot, nor a traitor for nearly a century back, who has not signed, approved, countersigned, and copied, ne variatur, the partition of Poland. When the record of modern treasons was examined, that was the first thing which made its appearance. The congress of Vienna consulted that crime before consummating its own.  sounded the onset  was the death of the game. Such was Feuilly's habitual text. This poor workingman had constituted himself the tutor of Justice, and she recompensed him by rendering him great. The fact is, that there is eternity in right. Warsaw can no more be Tartar than Venice can be Teuton. Kings lose their pains and their honor in the attempt to make them so. Sooner or later, the submerged part floats to the surface and reappears. Greece becomes Greece again, Italy is once more Italy. The protest of right against the deed persists forever. The theft of a nation cannot be allowed by prescription. These lofty deeds of rascality have no future. A nation cannot have its mark extracted like a pocket handkerchief. Courfeyrac had a father who was called M. de Courfeyrac. One of the false ideas of the bourgeoisie under the Restoration as regards aristocracy and the nobility was to believe in the particle. The particle, as every one knows, possesses no significance. But the bourgeois of the epoch of la Minerve estimated so highly that poor de, that they thought themselves bound to abdicate it. M. de Chauvelin had himself called M. Chauvelin M. de Caumartin, M. Caumartin M. de Constant de Robecque, Benjamin Constant M. de Lafayette, M. Lafayette. Courfeyrac had not wished to remain behind the rest, and called himself plain Courfeyrac. We might almost, so far as Courfeyrac is concerned, stop here, and confine ourselves to saying with regard to what remains 'For Courfeyrac, see Tholomys. Courfeyrac had, in fact, that animation of youth which may be called the beaut du diable of the mind. Later on, this disappears like the playfulness of the kitten, and all this grace ends, with the bourgeois, on two legs, and with the tomcat, on four paws. This sort of wit is transmitted from generation to generation of the successive levies of youth who traverse the schools, who pass it from hand to hand, quasi cursores, and is almost always exactly the same so that, as we have just pointed out, any one who had listened to Courfeyrac in  would have thought he heard Tholomys in . Only, Courfeyrac was an honorable fellow. Beneath the apparent similarities of the exterior mind, the difference between him and Tholomys was very great. The latent man which existed in the two was totally different in the first from what it was in the second. There was in Tholomys a district attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin. Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac was the centre. The others gave more light, he shed more warmth the truth is, that he possessed all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance. Bahorel had figured in the bloody tumult of June, , on the occasion of the burial of young Lallemand. Bahorel was a goodnatured mortal, who kept bad company, brave, a spendthrift, prodigal, and to the verge of generosity, talkative, and at times eloquent, bold to the verge of effrontery the best fellow possible he had daring waistcoats, and scarlet opinions a wholesale blusterer, that is to say, loving nothing so much as a quarrel, unless it were an uprising and nothing so much as an uprising, unless it were a revolution always ready to smash a windowpane, then to tear up the pavement, then to demolish a government, just to see the effect of it a student in his eleventh year. He had nosed about the law, but did not practise it. He had taken for his device 'Never a lawyer, and for his armorial bearings a nightstand in which was visible a square cap. Every time that he passed the lawschool, which rarely happened, he buttoned up his frockcoat,the paletot had not yet been invented,and took hygienic precautions. Of the school porter he said 'What a fine old man! and of the dean, M. Delvincourt 'What a monument! In his lectures he espied subjects for ballads, and in his professors occasions for caricature. He wasted a tolerably large allowance, something like three thousand francs a year, in doing nothing. He had peasant parents whom he had contrived to imbue with respect for their son. He said of them 'They are peasants and not bourgeois that is the reason they are intelligent. Bahorel, a man of caprice, was scattered over numerous cafs the others had habits, he had none. He sauntered. To stray is human. To saunter is Parisian. In reality, he had a penetrating mind and was more of a thinker than appeared to view. He served as a connecting link between the Friends of the A B C and other still unorganized groups, which were destined to take form later on. In this conclave of young heads, there was one bald member. The Marquis d'Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. made a duke for having assisted him to enter a hackneycoach on the day when he emigrated, was wont to relate, that in , on his return to France, as the King was disembarking at Calais, a man handed him a petition. 'What is your request? said the King. 'Sire, a postoffice. 'What is your name? 'L'Aigle. The King frowned, glanced at the signature of the petition and beheld the name written thus LESGLE. This nonBonaparte orthography touched the King and he began to smile. 'Sire, resumed the man with the petition, 'I had for ancestor a keeper of the hounds surnamed Lesgueules. This surname furnished my name. I am called Lesgueules, by contraction Lesgle, and by corruption l'Aigle. This caused the King to smile broadly. Later on he gave the man the posting office of Meaux, either intentionally or accidentally. The bald member of the group was the son of this Lesgle, or Lgle, and he signed himself, Lgle de Meaux. As an abbreviation, his companions called him Bossuet. Bossuet was a gay but unlucky fellow. His specialty was not to succeed in anything. As an offset, he laughed at everything. At five and twenty he was bald. His father had ended by owning a house and a field but he, the son, had made haste to lose that house and field in a bad speculation. He had nothing left. He possessed knowledge and wit, but all he did miscarried. Everything failed him and everybody deceived him what he was building tumbled down on top of him. If he were splitting wood, he cut off a finger. If he had a mistress, he speedily discovered that he had a friend also. Some misfortune happened to him every moment, hence his joviality. He said 'I live under falling tiles. He was not easily astonished, because, for him, an accident was what he had foreseen, he took his bad luck serenely, and smiled at the teasing of fate, like a person who is listening to pleasantries. He was poor, but his fund of good humor was inexhaustible. He soon reached his last sou, never his last burst of laughter. When adversity entered his doors, he saluted this old acquaintance cordially, he tapped all catastrophes on the stomach he was familiar with fatality to the point of calling it by its nickname 'Good day, Guignon, he said to it. These persecutions of fate had rendered him inventive. He was full of resources. He had no money, but he found means, when it seemed good to him, to indulge in 'unbridled extravagance. One night, he went so far as to eat a 'hundred francs in a supper with a wench, which inspired him to make this memorable remark in the midst of the orgy 'Pull off my boots, you fivelouis jade. Bossuet was slowly directing his steps towards the profession of a lawyer he was pursuing his law studies after the manner of Bahorel. Bossuet had not much domicile, sometimes none at all. He lodged now with one, now with another, most often with Joly. Joly was studying medicine. He was two years younger than Bossuet. Joly was the 'malade imaginaire junior. What he had won in medicine was to be more of an invalid than a doctor. At three and twenty he thought himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue in the mirror. He affirmed that man becomes magnetic like a needle, and in his chamber he placed his bed with its head to the south, and the foot to the north, so that, at night, the circulation of his blood might not be interfered with by the great electric current of the globe. During thunder storms, he felt his pulse. Otherwise, he was the gayest of them all. All these young, maniacal, puny, merry incoherences lived in harmony together, and the result was an eccentric and agreeable being whom his comrades, who were prodigal of winged consonants, called Jolllly. 'You may fly away on the four L's, Jean Prouvaire said to him. Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tip of his cane, which is an indication of a sagacious mind. All these young men who differed so greatly, and who, on the whole, can only be discussed seriously, held the same religion Progress. All were the direct sons of the French Revolution. The most giddy of them became solemn when they pronounced that date '. Their fathers in the flesh had been, either royalists, doctrinaires, it matters not what this confusion anterior to themselves, who were young, did not concern them at all the pure blood of principle ran in their veins. They attached themselves, without intermediate shades, to incorruptible right and absolute duty. Affiliated and initiated, they sketched out the ideal underground. Among all these glowing hearts and thoroughly convinced minds, there was one sceptic. How came he there? By juxtaposition. This sceptic's name was Grantaire, and he was in the habit of signing himself with this rebus R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in anything. Moreover, he was one of the students who had learned the most during their course at Paris he knew that the best coffee was to be had at the Caf Lemblin, and the best billiards at the Caf Voltaire, that good cakes and lasses were to be found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard du Maine, spatchcocked chickens at Mother Sauget's, excellent matelotes at the Barrire de la Cunette, and a certain thin white wine at the Barrire du Compat. He knew the best place for everything in addition, boxing and footfencing and some dances and he was a thorough singlestick player. He was a tremendous drinker to boot. He was inordinately homely the prettiest bootstitcher of that day, Irma Boissy, enraged with his homeliness, pronounced sentence on him as follows 'Grantaire is impossible but Grantaire's fatuity was not to be disconcerted. He stared tenderly and fixedly at all women, with the air of saying to them all 'If I only chose! and of trying to make his comrades believe that he was in general demand. All those words rights of the people, rights of man, the social contract, the French Revolution, the Republic, democracy, humanity, civilization, religion, progress, came very near to signifying nothing whatever to Grantaire. He smiled at them. Scepticism, that caries of the intelligence, had not left him a single whole idea. He lived with irony. This was his axiom 'There is but one certainty, my full glass. He sneered at all devotion in all parties, the father as well as the brother, Robespierre junior as well as Loizerolles. 'They are greatly in advance to be dead, he exclaimed. He said of the crucifix 'There is a gibbet which has been a success. A rover, a gambler, a libertine, often drunk, he displeased these young dreamers by humming incessantly 'J'aimons les filles, et j'aimons le bon vin. Air Vive Henri IV. However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science it was a man Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drummajor. The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him. He admired his opposite by instinct. His soft, yielding, dislocated, sickly, shapeless ideas attached themselves to Enjolras as to a spinal column. His moral backbone leaned on that firmness. Grantaire in the presence of Enjolras became some one once more. He was, himself, moreover, composed of two elements, which were, to all appearance, incompatible. He was ironical and cordial. His indifference loved. His mind could get along without belief, but his heart could not get along without friendship. A profound contradiction for an affection is a conviction. His nature was thus constituted. There are men who seem to be born to be the reverse, the obverse, the wrong side. They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja. They only exist on condition that they are backed up with another man their name is a sequel, and is only written preceded by the conjunction and and their existence is not their own it is the other side of an existence which is not theirs. Grantaire was one of these men. He was the obverse of Enjolras. One might almost say that affinities begin with the letters of the alphabet. In the series O and P are inseparable. You can, at will, pronounce O and P or Orestes and Pylades. Grantaire, Enjolras' true satellite, inhabited this circle of young men he lived there, he took no pleasure anywhere but there he followed them everywhere. His joy was to see these forms go and come through the fumes of wine. They tolerated him on account of his good humor. Enjolras, the believer, disdained this sceptic and, a sober man himself, scorned this drunkard. He accorded him a little lofty pity. Grantaire was an unaccepted Pylades. Always harshly treated by Enjolras, roughly repulsed, rejected yet ever returning to the charge, he said of Enjolras 'What fine marble! On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some coincidence with the events heretofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of the Caf Musain. He had the air of a caryatid on a vacation he carried nothing but his reverie, however. He was staring at the Place SaintMichel. To lean one's back against a thing is equivalent to lying down while standing erect, which attitude is not hated by thinkers. Laigle de Meaux was pondering without melancholy, over a little misadventure which had befallen him two days previously at the lawschool, and which had modified his personal plans for the future, plans which were rather indistinct in any case. Reverie does not prevent a cab from passing by, nor the dreamer from taking note of that cab. Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were straying about in a sort of diffuse lounging, perceived, athwart his somnambulism, a twowheeled vehicle proceeding through the place, at a foot pace and apparently in indecision. For whom was this cabriolet? Why was it driving at a walk? Laigle took a survey. In it, beside the coachman, sat a young man, and in front of the young man lay a rather bulky handbag. The bag displayed to passersby the following name inscribed in large black letters on a card which was sewn to the stuff MARIUS PONTMERCY. This name caused Laigle to change his attitude. He drew himself up and hurled this apostrophe at the young man in the cabriolet 'Monsieur Marius Pontmercy! The cabriolet thus addressed came to a halt. The young man, who also seemed deeply buried in thought, raised his eyes 'Hey? said he. 'You are M. Marius Pontmercy? 'Certainly. 'I was looking for you, resumed Laigle de Meaux. 'How so? demanded Marius for it was he in fact, he had just quitted his grandfather's, and had before him a face which he now beheld for the first time. 'I do not know you. 'Neither do I know you, responded Laigle. Marius thought he had encountered a wag, the beginning of a mystification in the open street. He was not in a very good humor at the moment. He frowned. Laigle de Meaux went on imperturbably 'You were not at the school day before yesterday. 'That is possible. 'That is certain. 'You are a student? demanded Marius. 'Yes, sir. Like yourself. Day before yesterday, I entered the school, by chance. You know, one does have such freaks sometimes. The professor was just calling the roll. You are not unaware that they are very ridiculous on such occasions. At the third call, unanswered, your name is erased from the list. Sixty francs in the gulf. Marius began to listen. 'It was Blondeau who was making the call. You know Blondeau, he has a very pointed and very malicious nose, and he delights to scent out the absent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was not listening, not being compromised by that letter. The call was not going badly. No erasures the universe was present. Blondeau was grieved. I said to myself 'Blondeau, my love, you will not get the very smallest sort of an execution today.' All at once Blondeau calls, 'Marius Pontmercy!' No one answers. Blondeau, filled with hope, repeats more loudly 'Marius Pontmercy!' And he takes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels of compassion. I said to myself hastily 'Here's a brave fellow who is going to get scratched out. Attention. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact. He's not a good student. Here is none of your heavysides, a student who studies, a greenhorn pedant, strong on letters, theology, science, and sapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square a pin by profession. He is an honorable idler who lounges, who practises country jaunts, who cultivates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex, who is at this very moment, perhaps, with my mistress. Let us save him. Death to Blondeau!' At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, all black with erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyes round the audience room, and repeated for the third time 'Marius Pontmercy!' I replied 'Present!' This is why you were not crossed off. 'Monsieur! said Marius. 'And why I was, added Laigle de Meaux. 'I do not understand you, said Marius. Laigle resumed 'Nothing is more simple. I was close to the desk to reply, and close to the door for the purpose of flight. The professor gazed at me with a certain intensity. All of a sudden, Blondeau, who must be the malicious nose alluded to by Boileau, skipped to the letter L. L is my letter. I am from Meaux, and my name is Lesgle. 'L'Aigle! interrupted Marius, 'what fine name! 'Monsieur, Blondeau came to this fine name, and called 'Laigle!' I reply 'Present!' Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a tiger, and says to me 'If you are Pontmercy, you are not Laigle.' A phrase which has a disobliging air for you, but which was lugubrious only for me. That said, he crossed me off. Marius exclaimed 'I am mortified, sir 'First of all, interposed Laigle, 'I demand permission to embalm Blondeau in a few phrases of deeply felt eulogium. I will assume that he is dead. There will be no great change required in his gauntness, in his pallor, in his coldness, and in his smell. And I say 'Erudimini qui judicatis terram. Here lies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose, Blondeau Nasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplin, the bloodhound of the password, the angel of the rollcall, who was upright, square, exact, rigid, honest, and hideous. God crossed him off as he crossed me off.' Marius resumed 'I am very sorry 'Young man, said Laigle de Meaux, 'let this serve you as a lesson. In future, be exact. 'I really beg you a thousand pardons. 'Do not expose your neighbor to the danger of having his name erased again. 'I am extremely sorry Laigle burst out laughing. 'And I am delighted. I was on the brink of becoming a lawyer. This erasure saves me. I renounce the triumphs of the bar. I shall not defend the widow, and I shall not attack the orphan. No more toga, no more stage. Here is my erasure all ready for me. It is to you that I am indebted for it, Monsieur Pontmercy. I intend to pay a solemn call of thanks upon you. Where do you live? 'In this cab, said Marius. 'A sign of opulence, retorted Laigle calmly. 'I congratulate you. You have there a rent of nine thousand francs per annum. At that moment, Courfeyrac emerged from the caf. Marius smiled sadly. 'I have paid this rent for the last two hours, and I aspire to get rid of it but there is a sort of history attached to it, and I don't know where to go. 'Come to my place, sir, said Courfeyrac. 'I have the priority, observed Laigle, 'but I have no home. 'Hold your tongue, Bossuet, said Courfeyrac. 'Bossuet, said Marius, 'but I thought that your name was Laigle. 'De Meaux, replied Laigle 'by metaphor, Bossuet. Courfeyrac entered the cab. 'Coachman, said he, 'hotel de la PorteSaintJacques. And that very evening, Marius found himself installed in a chamber of the hotel de la PorteSaintJacques side by side with Courfeyrac. In a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac's friend. Youth is the season for prompt welding and the rapid healing of scars. Marius breathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a decidedly new thing for him. Courfeyrac put no questions to him. He did not even think of such a thing. At that age, faces disclose everything on the spot. Words are superfluous. There are young men of whom it can be said that their countenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them. One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation to him 'By the way, have you any political opinions? 'The idea! said Marius, almost affronted by the question. 'What are you? 'A democratBonapartist. 'The gray hue of a reassured rat, said Courfeyrac. On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the Caf Musain. Then he whispered in his ear, with a smile 'I must give you your entry to the revolution. And he led him to the hall of the Friends of the A B C. He presented him to the other comrades, saying this simple word which Marius did not understand 'A pupil. Marius had fallen into a wasps'nest of wits. However, although he was silent and grave, he was, nonetheless, both winged and armed. Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to soliloquy, and to asides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered by this covey of young men around him. All these various initiatives solicited his attention at once, and pulled him about. The tumultuous movements of these minds at liberty and at work set his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes, in his trouble, they fled so far from him, that he had difficulty in recovering them. He heard them talk of philosophy, of literature, of art, of history, of religion, in unexpected fashion. He caught glimpses of strange aspects and, as he did not place them in proper perspective, he was not altogether sure that it was not chaos that he grasped. On abandoning his grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father, he had supposed himself fixed he now suspected, with uneasiness, and without daring to avow it to himself, that he was not. The angle at which he saw everything began to be displaced anew. A certain oscillation set all the horizons of his brains in motion. An odd internal upsetting. He almost suffered from it. It seemed as though there were no 'consecrated things for those young men. Marius heard singular propositions on every sort of subject, which embarrassed his still timid mind. A theatre poster presented itself, adorned with the title of a tragedy from the ancient repertory called classic 'Down with tragedy dear to the bourgeois! cried Bahorel. And Marius heard Combeferre reply 'You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy, and the bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score. Bewigged tragedy has a reason for its existence, and I am not one of those who, by order of schylus, contest its right to existence. There are rough outlines in nature there are, in creation, readymade parodies a beak which is not a beak, wings which are not wings, gills which are not gills, paws which are not paws, a cry of pain which arouses a desire to laugh, there is the duck. Now, since poultry exists by the side of the bird, I do not see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antique tragedy. Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue JeanJacques Rousseau between Enjolras and Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac took his arm 'Pay attention. This is the Rue Pltrire, now called Rue JeanJacques Rousseau, on account of a singular household which lived in it sixty years ago. This consisted of JeanJacques and Thrse. From time to time, little beings were born there. Thrse gave birth to them, JeanJacques represented them as foundlings. And Enjolras addressed Courfeyrac roughly 'Silence in the presence of JeanJacques! I admire that man. He denied his own children, that may be but he adopted the people. Not one of these young men articulated the word The Emperor. Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon all the others said 'Bonaparte. Enjolras pronounced it 'Buonaparte. Marius was vaguely surprised. Initium sapienti. One of the conversations among the young men, at which Marius was present and in which he sometimes joined, was a veritable shock to his mind. This took place in the back room of the Caf Musain. Nearly all the Friends of the A B C had convened that evening. The argand lamp was solemnly lighted. They talked of one thing and another, without passion and with noise. With the exception of Enjolras and Marius, who held their peace, all were haranguing rather at haphazard. Conversations between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults. It was a game and an uproar as much as a conversation. They tossed words to each other and caught them up in turn. They were chattering in all quarters. No woman was admitted to this back room, except Louison, the dishwasher of the caf, who passed through it from time to time, to go to her washing in the 'lavatory. Grantaire, thoroughly drunk, was deafening the corner of which he had taken possession, reasoning and contradicting at the top of his lungs, and shouting 'I am thirsty. Mortals, I am dreaming that the tun of Heidelberg has an attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of the dozen leeches which will be applied to it. I want a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is worth nothing. One breaks one's neck in living. Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says 'All is vanity.' I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. Zero not wishing to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The patching up of everything with big words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a dancer is a professor, an acrobat is a gymnast, a boxer is a pugilist, an apothecary is a chemist, a wigmaker is an artist, a hodman is an architect, a jockey is a sportsman, a woodlouse is a pterigybranche. Vanity has a right and a wrong side the right side is stupid, it is the negro with his glass beads the wrong side is foolish, it is the philosopher with his rags. I weep over the one and I laugh over the other. What are called honors and dignities, and even dignity and honor, are generally of pinchbeck. Kings make playthings of human pride. Caligula made a horse a consul Charles II. made a knight of a sirloin. Wrap yourself up now, then, between Consul Incitatus and Baronet Roastbeef. As for the intrinsic value of people, it is no longer respectable in the least. Listen to the panegyric which neighbor makes of neighbor. White on white is ferocious if the lily could speak, what a setting down it would give the dove! A bigoted woman prating of a devout woman is more venomous than the asp and the cobra. It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise I would quote to you a mass of things but I know nothing. For instance, I have always been witty when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples rapin is the masculine of rapine. So much for myself as for the rest of you, you are worth no more than I am. I scoff at your perfections, excellencies, and qualities. Every good quality tends towards a defect economy borders on avarice, the generous man is next door to the prodigal, the brave man rubs elbows with the braggart he who says very pious says a trifle bigoted there are just as many vices in virtue as there are holes in Diogenes' cloak. Whom do you admire, the slain or the slayer, Csar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the slayer. Long live Brutus, he has slain! There lies the virtue. Virtue, granted, but madness also. There are queer spots on those great men. The Brutus who killed Csar was in love with the statue of a little boy. This statue was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion, who also carved that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg, Eucnemos, which Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion left but two statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna the Tolbiac of Clovis and the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water. I don't attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to conquer true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys success, even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain the human race. Shall we descend to the party at all? Do you wish me to begin admiring the peoples? What people, if you please? Shall it be Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days gone by, slew Phocion, as we might say Coligny, and fawned upon tyrants to such an extent that Anacephorus said of Pisistratus 'His urine attracts the bees. The most prominent man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas, who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his shoes with lead in order not to be blown away by the wind. There stood on the great square in Corinth a statue carved by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny this statue represented Episthates. What did Episthates do? He invented a trip. That sums up Greece and glory. Let us pass on to others. Shall I admire England? Shall I admire France? France? Why? Because of Paris? I have just told you my opinion of Athens. England? Why? Because of London? I hate Carthage. And then, London, the metropolis of luxury, is the headquarters of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of hunger in the parish of CharingCross alone. Such is Albion. I add, as the climax, that I have seen an Englishwoman dancing in a wreath of roses and blue spectacles. A fig then for England! If I do not admire John Bull, shall I admire Brother Jonathan? I have but little taste for that slaveholding brother. Take away Time is money, what remains of England? Take away Cotton is king, what remains of America? Germany is the lymph, Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over Russia? Voltaire admired it. He also admired China. I admit that Russia has its beauties, among others, a stout despotism but I pity the despots. Their health is delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter, a strangled Paul, another Paul crushed flat with kicks, divers Ivans strangled, with their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils poisoned, all this indicates that the palace of the Emperors of Russia is in a condition of flagrant insalubrity. All civilized peoples offer this detail to the admiration of the thinker war now, war, civilized war, exhausts and sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the brigandage of the Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding of the Comanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass. 'Bah!' you will say to me, 'but Europe is certainly better than Asia?' I admit that Asia is a farce but I do not precisely see what you find to laugh at in the Grand Lama, you peoples of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and your elegances all the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty chemise of Queen Isabella to the chamberchair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen of the human race, I tell you, not a bit of it! It is at Brussels that the most beer is consumed, at Stockholm the most brandy, at Madrid the most chocolate, at Amsterdam the most gin, at London the most wine, at Constantinople the most coffee, at Paris the most absinthe there are all the useful notions. Paris carries the day, in short. In Paris, even the ragpickers are sybarites Diogenes would have loved to be a ragpicker of the Place Maubert better than to be a philosopher at the Pirus. Learn this in addition the wineshops of the ragpickers are called bibines the most celebrated are the Saucepan and The SlaughterHouse. Hence, teagardens, goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis, mastroquets, bastringues, manezingues, bibines of the ragpickers, caravanseries of the caliphs, I certify to you, I am a voluptuary, I eat at Richard's at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets to roll naked Cleopatra in! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! So it is you, Louison. Good day. Thus did Grantaire, more than intoxicated, launch into speech, catching at the dishwasher in her passage, from his corner in the back room of the Caf Musain. Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to impose silence on him, and Grantaire began again worse than ever 'Aigle de Meaux, down with your paws. You produce on me no effect with your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes' bricbrac. I excuse you from the task of soothing me. Moreover, I am sad. What do you wish me to say to you? Man is evil, man is deformed the butterfly is a success, man is a failure. God made a mistake with that animal. A crowd offers a choice of ugliness. The first comer is a wretch, Femmewomanrhymes with infme,infamous. Yes, I have the spleen, complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to death, and I am stupid! Let God go to the devil! 'Silence then, capital R! resumed Bossuet, who was discussing a point of law behind the scenes, and who was plunged more than waist high in a phrase of judicial slang, of which this is the conclusion 'And as for me, although I am hardly a legist, and at the most, an amateur attorney, I maintain this that, in accordance with the terms of the customs of Normandy, at SaintMichel, and for each year, an equivalent must be paid to the profit of the lord of the manor, saving the rights of others, and by all and several, the proprietors as well as those seized with inheritance, and that, for all emphyteuses, leases, freeholds, contracts of domain, mortgages 'Echo, plaintive nymph, hummed Grantaire. Near Grantaire, an almost silent table, a sheet of paper, an inkstand and a pen between two glasses of brandy, announced that a vaudeville was being sketched out. This great affair was being discussed in a low voice, and the two heads at work touched each other 'Let us begin by finding names. When one has the names, one finds the subject. 'That is true. Dictate. I will write. 'Monsieur Dorimon. 'An independent gentleman? 'Of course. 'His daughter, Clestine. 'tine. What next? 'Colonel Sainval. 'Sainval is stale. I should say Valsin. Beside the vaudeville aspirants, another group, which was also taking advantage of the uproar to talk low, was discussing a duel. An old fellow of thirty was counselling a young one of eighteen, and explaining to him what sort of an adversary he had to deal with. 'The deuce! Look out for yourself. He is a fine swordsman. His play is neat. He has the attack, no wasted feints, wrist, dash, lightning, a just parade, mathematical parries, bigre! and he is lefthanded. In the angle opposite Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel were playing dominoes, and talking of love. 'You are in luck, that you are, Joly was saying. 'You have a mistress who is always laughing. 'That is a fault of hers, returned Bahorel. 'One's mistress does wrong to laugh. That encourages one to deceive her. To see her gay removes your remorse if you see her sad, your conscience pricks you. 'Ingrate! a woman who laughs is such a good thing! And you never quarrel! 'That is because of the treaty which we have made. On forming our little Holy Alliance we assigned ourselves each our frontier, which we never cross. What is situated on the side of winter belongs to Vaud, on the side of the wind to Gex. Hence the peace. 'Peace is happiness digesting. 'And you, Jolllly, where do you stand in your entanglement with Mamselleyou know whom I mean? 'She sulks at me with cruel patience. 'Yet you are a lover to soften the heart with gauntness. 'Alas! 'In your place, I would let her alone. 'That is easy enough to say. 'And to do. Is not her name Musichetta? 'Yes. Ah! my poor Bahorel, she is a superb girl, very literary, with tiny feet, little hands, she dresses well, and is white and dimpled, with the eyes of a fortuneteller. I am wild over her. 'My dear fellow, then in order to please her, you must be elegant, and produce effects with your knees. Buy a good pair of trousers of doublemilled cloth at Staub's. That will assist. 'At what price? shouted Grantaire. The third corner was delivered up to a poetical discussion. Pagan mythology was giving battle to Christian mythology. The question was about Olympus, whose part was taken by Jean Prouvaire, out of pure romanticism. Jean Prouvaire was timid only in repose. Once excited, he burst forth, a sort of mirth accentuated his enthusiasm, and he was at once both laughing and lyric. 'Let us not insult the gods, said he. 'The gods may not have taken their departure. Jupiter does not impress me as dead. The gods are dreams, you say. Well, even in nature, such as it is today, after the flight of these dreams, we still find all the grand old pagan myths. Such and such a mountain with the profile of a citadel, like the Vignemale, for example, is still to me the headdress of Cybele it has not been proved to me that Pan does not come at night to breathe into the hollow trunks of the willows, stopping up the holes in turn with his fingers, and I have always believed that Io had something to do with the cascade of Pissevache. In the last corner, they were talking politics. The Charter which had been granted was getting roughly handled. Combeferre was upholding it weakly. Courfeyrac was energetically making a breach in it. On the table lay an unfortunate copy of the famous Touquet Charter. Courfeyrac had seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the rattling of this sheet of paper. 'In the first place, I won't have any kings if it were only from an economical point of view, I don't want any a king is a parasite. One does not have kings gratis. Listen to this the dearness of kings. At the death of Franois I., the national debt of France amounted to an income of thirty thousand livres at the death of Louis XIV. it was two milliards, six hundred millions, at twentyeight livres the mark, which was equivalent in , according to Desmarets, to four milliards, five hundred millions, which would today be equivalent to twelve milliards. In the second place, and no offence to Combeferre, a charter granted is but a poor expedient of civilization. To save the transition, to soften the passage, to deaden the shock, to cause the nation to pass insensibly from the monarchy to democracy by the practice of constitutional fictions,what detestable reasons all those are! No! no! let us never enlighten the people with false daylight. Principles dwindle and pale in your constitutional cellar. No illegitimacy, no compromise, no grant from the king to the people. In all such grants there is an Article . By the side of the hand which gives there is the claw which snatches back. I refuse your charter pointblank. A charter is a mask the lie lurks beneath it. A people which accepts a charter abdicates. The law is only the law when entire. No! no charter! It was winter a couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crumpled the poor Touquet Charter in his fist, and flung it in the fire. The paper flashed up. Combeferre watched the masterpiece of Louis XVIII. burn philosophically, and contented himself with saying 'The charter metamorphosed into flame. And sarcasms, sallies, jests, that French thing which is called entrain, and that English thing which is called humor, good and bad taste, good and bad reasons, all the wild pyrotechnics of dialogue, mounting together and crossing from all points of the room, produced a sort of merry bombardment over their heads. The shocks of youthful minds among themselves have this admirable property, that one can never foresee the spark, nor divine the lightning flash. What will dart out presently? No one knows. The burst of laughter starts from a tender feeling. At the moment of jest, the serious makes its entry. Impulses depend on the first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest suffices to open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations with abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the stagemanager of such conversations. A severe thought, starting oddly from a clash of words, suddenly traversed the conflict of quips in which Grantaire, Bahorel, Prouvaire, Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were confusedly fencing. How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that it suddenly impresses itself on the attention of those who hear it? We have just said, that no one knows anything about it. In the midst of the uproar, Bossuet all at once terminated some apostrophe to Combeferre, with this date 'June th, , Waterloo. At this name of Waterloo, Marius, who was leaning his elbows on a table, beside a glass of water, removed his wrist from beneath his chin, and began to gaze fixedly at the audience. 'Pardieu! exclaimed Courfeyrac ('Parbleu was falling into disuse at this period), 'that number  is strange and strikes me. It is Bonaparte's fatal number. Place Louis in front and Brumaire behind, you have the whole destiny of the man, with this significant peculiarity, that the end treads close on the heels of the commencement. Enjolras, who had remained mute up to that point, broke the silence and addressed this remark to Combeferre 'You mean to say, the crime and the expiation. This word crime overpassed the measure of what Marius, who was already greatly agitated by the abrupt evocation of Waterloo, could accept. He rose, walked slowly to the map of France spread out on the wall, and at whose base an island was visible in a separate compartment, laid his finger on this compartment and said 'Corsica, a little island which has rendered France very great. This was like a breath of icy air. All ceased talking. They felt that something was on the point of occurring. Bahorel, replying to Bossuet, was just assuming an attitude of the torso to which he was addicted. He gave it up to listen. Enjolras, whose blue eye was not fixed on any one, and who seemed to be gazing at space, replied, without glancing at Marius 'France needs no Corsica to be great. France is great because she is France. Quia nomina leo. Marius felt no desire to retreat he turned towards Enjolras, and his voice burst forth with a vibration which came from a quiver of his very being 'God forbid that I should diminish France! But amalgamating Napoleon with her is not diminishing her. Come! let us argue the question. I am a newcomer among you, but I will confess that you amaze me. Where do we stand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let us come to an explanation about the Emperor. I hear you say Buonaparte, accenting the u like the Royalists. I warn you that my grandfather does better still he says Buonapart'. I thought you were young men. Where, then, is your enthusiasm? And what are you doing with it? Whom do you admire, if you do not admire the Emperor? And what more do you want? If you will have none of that great man, what great men would you like? He had everything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of human faculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Csar, his conversation was mingled with the lightningflash of Pascal, with the thunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of Mahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids, at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences he replied to Laplace, in the Council of State he held his own against Merlin, he gave a soul to the geometry of the first, and to the chicanery of the last, he was a legist with the attorneys and sidereal with the astronomers like Cromwell blowing out one of two candles, he went to the Temple to bargain for a curtain tassel he saw everything he knew everything which did not prevent him from laughing goodnaturedly beside the cradle of his little child and all at once, frightened Europe lent an ear, armies put themselves in motion, parks of artillery rumbled, pontoons stretched over the rivers, clouds of cavalry galloped in the storm, cries, trumpets, a trembling of thrones in every direction, the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map, the sound of a superhuman sword was heard, as it was drawn from its sheath they beheld him, him, rise erect on the horizon with a blazing brand in his hand, and a glow in his eyes, unfolding amid the thunder, his two wings, the grand army and the old guard, and he was the archangel of war! All held their peace, and Enjolras bowed his head. Silence always produces somewhat the effect of acquiescence, of the enemy being driven to the wall. Marius continued with increased enthusiasm, and almost without pausing for breath 'Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign, to march and to triumph, to have for haltingplaces all capitals, to take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge to make you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the sword of God to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Csar, Charlemagne to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory, to sound athwart the centuries a trumpetblast of Titans, to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime and what greater thing is there? 'To be free, said Combeferre. Marius lowered his head in his turn that cold and simple word had traversed his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he felt it vanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longer there. Probably satisfied with his reply to the apotheosis, he had just taken his departure, and all, with the exception of Enjolras, had followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone with Marius, was gazing gravely at him. Marius, however, having rallied his ideas to some extent, did not consider himself beaten there lingered in him a trace of inward fermentation which was on the point, no doubt, of translating itself into syllogisms arrayed against Enjolras, when all of a sudden, they heard some one singing on the stairs as he went. It was Combeferre, and this is what he was singing 'Si Csar m'avait donn La gloire et la guerre, Et qu'il me fallait quitter L'amour de ma mre, Je dirais au grand Csar Reprends ton sceptre et ton char, J'aime mieux ma mre,  gu! J'aime mieux ma mre! The wild and tender accents with which Combeferre sang communicated to this couplet a sort of strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtfully, and with his eyes diked on the ceiling, repeated almost mechanically 'My mother? At that moment, he felt Enjolras' hand on his shoulder. 'Citizen, said Enjolras to him, 'my mother is the Republic. That evening left Marius profoundly shaken, and with a melancholy shadow in his soul. He felt what the earth may possibly feel, at the moment when it is torn open with the iron, in order that grain may be deposited within it it feels only the wound the quiver of the germ and the joy of the fruit only arrive later. Marius was gloomy. He had but just acquired a faith must he then reject it already? He affirmed to himself that he would not. He declared to himself that he would not doubt, and he began to doubt in spite of himself. To stand between two religions, from one of which you have not as yet emerged, and another into which you have not yet entered, is intolerable and twilight is pleasing only to batlike souls. Marius was cleareyed, and he required the true light. The halflights of doubt pained him. Whatever may have been his desire to remain where he was, he could not halt there, he was irresistibly constrained to continue, to advance, to examine, to think, to march further. Whither would this lead him? He feared, after having taken so many steps which had brought him nearer to his father, to now take a step which should estrange him from that father. His discomfort was augmented by all the reflections which occurred to him. An escarpment rose around him. He was in accord neither with his grandfather nor with his friends daring in the eyes of the one, he was behind the times in the eyes of the others, and he recognized the fact that he was doubly isolated, on the side of age and on the side of youth. He ceased to go to the Caf Musain. In the troubled state of his conscience, he no longer thought of certain serious sides of existence. The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten. They soon elbowed him abruptly. One morning, the proprietor of the hotel entered Marius' room and said to him 'Monsieur Courfeyrac answered for you. 'Yes. 'But I must have my money. 'Request Courfeyrac to come and talk with me, said Marius. Courfeyrac having made his appearance, the host left them. Marius then told him what it had not before occurred to him to relate, that he was the same as alone in the world, and had no relatives. 'What is to become of you? said Courfeyrac. 'I do not know in the least, replied Marius. 'What are you going to do? 'I do not know. 'Have you any money? 'Fifteen francs. 'Do you want me to lend you some? 'Never. 'Have you clothes? 'Here is what I have. 'Have you trinkets? 'A watch. 'Silver? 'Gold here it is. 'I know a clothesdealer who will take your frockcoat and a pair of trousers. 'That is good. 'You will then have only a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, a hat and a coat. 'And my boots. 'What! you will not go barefoot? What opulence! 'That will be enough. 'I know a watchmaker who will buy your watch. 'That is good. 'No it is not good. What will you do after that? 'Whatever is necessary. Anything honest, that is to say. 'Do you know English? 'No. 'Do you know German? 'No. 'So much the worse. 'Why? 'Because one of my friends, a publisher, is getting up a sort of an encyclopdia, for which you might have translated English or German articles. It is badly paid work, but one can live by it. 'I will learn English and German. 'And in the meanwhile? 'In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch. The clothesdealer was sent for. He paid twenty francs for the castoff garments. They went to the watchmaker's. He bought the watch for fortyfive francs. 'That is not bad, said Marius to Courfeyrac, on their return to the hotel, 'with my fifteen francs, that makes eighty. 'And the hotel bill? observed Courfeyrac. 'Hello, I had forgotten that, said Marius. The landlord presented his bill, which had to be paid on the spot. It amounted to seventy francs. 'I have ten francs left, said Marius. 'The deuce, exclaimed Courfeyrac, 'you will eat up five francs while you are learning English, and five while learning German. That will be swallowing a tongue very fast, or a hundred sous very slowly. In the meantime Aunt Gillenormand, a rather goodhearted person at bottom in difficulties, had finally hunted up Marius' abode. One morning, on his return from the lawschool, Marius found a letter from his aunt, and the sixty pistoles, that is to say, six hundred francs in gold, in a sealed box. Marius sent back the thirty louis to his aunt, with a respectful letter, in which he stated that he had sufficient means of subsistence and that he should be able thenceforth to supply all his needs. At that moment, he had three francs left. His aunt did not inform his grandfather of this refusal for fear of exasperating him. Besides, had he not said 'Let me never hear the name of that blooddrinker again! Marius left the hotel de la Porte SaintJacques, as he did not wish to run in debt there. Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called de la vache enrag that is to say, he endured great hardships and privations. A terrible thing it is, containing days without bread, nights without sleep, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a fire, weeks without work, a future without hope, a coat out at the elbows, an old hat which evokes the laughter of young girls, a door which one finds locked on one at night because one's rent is not paid, the insolence of the porter and the cookshop man, the sneers of neighbors, humiliations, dignity trampled on, work of whatever nature accepted, disgusts, bitterness, despondency. Marius learned how all this is eaten, and how such are often the only things which one has to devour. At that moment of his existence when a man needs his pride, because he needs love, he felt that he was jeered at because he was badly dressed, and ridiculous because he was poor. At the age when youth swells the heart with imperial pride, he dropped his eyes more than once on his dilapidated boots, and he knew the unjust shame and the poignant blushes of wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from which the feeble emerge base, from which the strong emerge sublime. A crucible into which destiny casts a man, whenever it desires a scoundrel or a demigod. For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are instances of bravery ignored and obstinate, which defend themselves step by step in that fatal onslaught of necessities and turpitudes. Noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye beholds, which are requited with no renown, which are saluted with no trumpet blast. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle which have their heroes obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander than the heroes who win renown. Firm and rare natures are thus created misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother destitution gives birth to might of soul and spirit distress is the nurse of pride unhappiness is a good milk for the magnanimous. There came a moment in Marius' life, when he swept his own landing, when he bought his sou's worth of Brie cheese at the fruiterer's, when he waited until twilight had fallen to slip into the baker's and purchase a loaf, which he carried off furtively to his attic as though he had stolen it. Sometimes there could be seen gliding into the butcher's shop on the corner, in the midst of the bantering cooks who elbowed him, an awkward young man, carrying big books under his arm, who had a timid yet angry air, who, on entering, removed his hat from a brow whereon stood drops of perspiration, made a profound bow to the butcher's astonished wife, asked for a mutton cutlet, paid six or seven sous for it, wrapped it up in a paper, put it under his arm, between two books, and went away. It was Marius. On this cutlet, which he cooked for himself, he lived for three days. On the first day he ate the meat, on the second he ate the fat, on the third he gnawed the bone. Aunt Gillenormand made repeated attempts, and sent him the sixty pistoles several times. Marius returned them on every occasion, saying that he needed nothing. He was still in mourning for his father when the revolution which we have just described was effected within him. From that time forth, he had not put off his black garments. But his garments were quitting him. The day came when he had no longer a coat. The trousers would go next. What was to be done? Courfeyrac, to whom he had, on his side, done some good turns, gave him an old coat. For thirty sous, Marius got it turned by some porter or other, and it was a new coat. But this coat was green. Then Marius ceased to go out until after nightfall. This made his coat black. As he wished always to appear in mourning, he clothed himself with the night. In spite of all this, he got admitted to practice as a lawyer. He was supposed to live in Courfeyrac's room, which was decent, and where a certain number of lawbooks backed up and completed by several dilapidated volumes of romance, passed as the library required by the regulations. He had his letters addressed to Courfeyrac's quarters. When Marius became a lawyer, he informed his grandfather of the fact in a letter which was cold but full of submission and respect. M. Gillenormand trembled as he took the letter, read it, tore it in four pieces, and threw it into the wastebasket. Two or three days later, Mademoiselle Gillenormand heard her father, who was alone in his room, talking aloud to himself. He always did this whenever he was greatly agitated. She listened, and the old man was saying 'If you were not a fool, you would know that one cannot be a baron and a lawyer at the same time. It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre fashion, which is, however, sufficient for life. This is the mode in which the existence of Marius Pontmercy was arranged He had passed the worst straits the narrow pass was opening out a little in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and will, he had managed to draw from his work about seven hundred francs a year. He had learned German and English thanks to Courfeyrac, who had put him in communication with his friend the publisher, Marius filled the modest post of utility man in the literature of the publishing house. He drew up prospectuses, translated newspapers, annotated editions, compiled biographies, etc. net product, year in and year out, seven hundred francs. He lived on it. How? Not so badly. We will explain. Marius occupied in the Gorbeau house, for an annual sum of thirty francs, a den minus a fireplace, called a cabinet, which contained only the most indispensable articles of furniture. This furniture belonged to him. He gave three francs a month to the old principal tenant to come and sweep his hole, and to bring him a little hot water every morning, a fresh egg, and a penny roll. He breakfasted on this egg and roll. His breakfast varied in cost from two to four sous, according as eggs were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the Rue SaintJacques to dine at Rousseau's, opposite Basset's, the stampdealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. He took a sixsou plate of meat, a halfportion of vegetables for three sous, and a threesou dessert. For three sous he got as much bread as he wished. As for wine, he drank water. When he paid at the desk where Madam Rousseau, at that period still plump and rosy majestically presided, he gave a sou to the waiter, and Madam Rousseau gave him a smile. Then he went away. For sixteen sous he had a smile and a dinner. This Restaurant Rousseau, where so few bottles and so many water carafes were emptied, was a calming potion rather than a restaurant. It no longer exists. The proprietor had a fine nickname he was called Rousseau the Aquatic. Thus, breakfast four sous, dinner sixteen sous his food cost him twenty sous a day which made three hundred and sixtyfive francs a year. Add the thirty francs for rent, and the thirtysix francs to the old woman, plus a few trifling expenses for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius was fed, lodged, and waited on. His clothing cost him a hundred francs, his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs the whole did not exceed six hundred and fifty francs. He was rich. He sometimes lent ten francs to a friend. Courfeyrac had once been able to borrow sixty francs of him. As far as fire was concerned, as Marius had no fireplace, he had 'simplified matters. Marius always had two complete suits of clothes, the one old, 'for every day the other, brand new for special occasions. Both were black. He had but three shirts, one on his person, the second in the commode, and the third in the washerwoman's hands. He renewed them as they wore out. They were always ragged, which caused him to button his coat to the chin. It had required years for Marius to attain to this flourishing condition. Hard years difficult, some of them, to traverse, others to climb. Marius had not failed for a single day. He had endured everything in the way of destitution he had done everything except contract debts. He did himself the justice to say that he had never owed any one a sou. A debt was, to him, the beginning of slavery. He even said to himself, that a creditor is worse than a master for the master possesses only your person, a creditor possesses your dignity and can administer to it a box on the ear. Rather than borrow, he went without food. He had passed many a day fasting. Feeling that all extremes meet, and that, if one is not on one's guard, lowered fortunes may lead to baseness of soul, he kept a jealous watch on his pride. Such and such a formality or action, which, in any other situation would have appeared merely a deference to him, now seemed insipidity, and he nerved himself against it. His face wore a sort of severe flush. He was timid even to rudeness. During all these trials he had felt himself encouraged and even uplifted, at times, by a secret force that he possessed within himself. The soul aids the body, and at certain moments, raises it. It is the only bird which bears up its own cage. Besides his father's name, another name was graven in Marius' heart, the name of Thnardier. Marius, with his grave and enthusiastic nature, surrounded with a sort of aureole the man to whom, in his thoughts, he owed his father's life,that intrepid sergeant who had saved the colonel amid the bullets and the cannonballs of Waterloo. He never separated the memory of this man from the memory of his father, and he associated them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship in two steps, with the grand altar for the colonel and the lesser one for Thnardier. What redoubled the tenderness of his gratitude towards Thnardier, was the idea of the distress into which he knew that Thnardier had fallen, and which had engulfed the latter. Marius had learned at Montfermeil of the ruin and bankruptcy of the unfortunate innkeeper. Since that time, he had made unheardof efforts to find traces of him and to reach him in that dark abyss of misery in which Thnardier had disappeared. Marius had beaten the whole country he had gone to Chelles, to Bondy, to Gourney, to Nogent, to Lagny. He had persisted for three years, expending in these explorations the little money which he had laid by. No one had been able to give him any news of Thnardier he was supposed to have gone abroad. His creditors had also sought him, with less love than Marius, but with as much assiduity, and had not been able to lay their hands on him. Marius blamed himself, and was almost angry with himself for his lack of success in his researches. It was the only debt left him by the colonel, and Marius made it a matter of honor to pay it. 'What, he thought, 'when my father lay dying on the field of battle, did Thnardier contrive to find him amid the smoke and the grapeshot, and bear him off on his shoulders, and yet he owed him nothing, and I, who owe so much to Thnardier, cannot join him in this shadow where he is lying in the pangs of death, and in my turn bring him back from death to life! Oh! I will find him! To find Thnardier, in fact, Marius would have given one of his arms, to rescue him from his misery, he would have sacrificed all his blood. To see Thnardier, to render Thnardier some service, to say to him 'You do not know me well, I do know you! Here I am. Dispose of me! This was Marius' sweetest and most magnificent dream. At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same terms, without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking to see each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Marius was the brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot. We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's heart. He had imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty, harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormed and brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only that affection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy. Marius was in error. There are fathers who do not love their children there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom, as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him after his own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the ear but, this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart he would allow no one to mention the child to him, and all the while secretly regretted that he was so well obeyed. At first, he hoped that this Buonapartist, this Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, would return. But the weeks passed by, years passed to M. Gillenormand's great despair, the 'blooddrinker did not make his appearance. 'I could not do otherwise than turn him out, said the grandfather to himself, and he asked himself 'If the thing were to do over again, would I do it? His pride instantly answered 'yes, but his aged head, which he shook in silence, replied sadly 'no. He had his hours of depression. He missed Marius. Old men need affection as they need the sun. It is warmth. Strong as his nature was, the absence of Marius had wrought some change in him. Nothing in the world could have induced him to take a step towards 'that rogue but he suffered. He never inquired about him, but he thought of him incessantly. He lived in the Marais in a more and more retired manner he was still merry and violent as of old, but his merriment had a convulsive harshness, and his violences always terminated in a sort of gentle and gloomy dejection. He sometimes said 'Oh! if he only would return, what a good box on the ear I would give him! As for his aunt, she thought too little to love much Marius was no longer for her much more than a vague black form and she eventually came to occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or the paroquet which she probably had. What augmented Father Gillenormand's secret suffering was, that he locked it all up within his breast, and did not allow its existence to be divined. His sorrow was like those recently invented furnaces which consume their own smoke. It sometimes happened that officious busybodies spoke to him of Marius, and asked him 'What is your grandson doing? 'What has become of him? The old bourgeois replied with a sigh, that he was a sad case, and giving a fillip to his cuff, if he wished to appear gay 'Monsieur le Baron de Pontmercy is practising pettifogging in some corner or other. While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case with all goodhearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness. He only thought of M. Gillenormand in an amiable light, but he had set his mind on not receiving anything more from the man who had been unkind to his father. This was the mitigated translation of his first indignation. Moreover, he was happy at having suffered, and at suffering still. It was for his father's sake. The hardness of his life satisfied and pleased him. He said to himself with a sort of joy that it was certainly the least he could do that it was an expiationthat, had it not been for that, he would have been punished in some other way and later on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such a father! that it would not have been just that his father should have all the suffering, and he none of it and that, in any case, what were his toils and his destitution compared with the colonel's heroic life? that, in short, the only way for him to approach his father and resemble him, was to be brave in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiant before the enemy and that that was, no doubt, what the colonel had meant to imply by the words 'He will be worthy of it. Words which Marius continued to wear, not on his breast, since the colonel's writing had disappeared, but in his heart. And then, on the day when his grandfather had turned him out of doors, he had been only a child, now he was a man. He felt it. Misery, we repeat, had been good for him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, has this magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towards effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly lays material life bare and renders it hideous hence inexpressible bounds towards the ideal life. The wealthy young man has a hundred coarse and brilliant distractions, horse races, hunting, dogs, tobacco, gaming, good repasts, and all the rest of it occupations for the baser side of the soul, at the expense of the loftier and more delicate sides. The poor young man wins his bread with difficulty he eats when he has eaten, he has nothing more but meditation. He goes to the spectacles which God furnishes gratis he gazes at the sky, space, the stars, flowers, children, the humanity among which he is suffering, the creation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he perceives its soul, he gazes upon creation to such an extent that he beholds God. He dreams, he feels himself great he dreams on, and feels himself tender. From the egotism of the man who suffers he passes to the compassion of the man who meditates. An admirable sentiment breaks forth in him, forgetfulness of self and pity for all. As he thinks of the innumerable enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and lavishes to souls which stand open, and refuses to souls that are closed, he comes to pity, he the millionnaire of the mind, the millionnaire of money. All hatred departs from his heart, in proportion as light penetrates his spirit. And is he unhappy? No. The misery of a young man is never miserable. The first young lad who comes to hand, however poor he may be, with his strength, his health, his rapid walk, his brilliant eyes, his warmly circulating blood, his black hair, his red lips, his white teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor. And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earning his bread and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal column gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns to ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys he beholds his feet set in afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles, sometimes in the mire his head in the light. He is firm, serene, gentle, peaceful, attentive, serious, content with little, kindly and he thanks God for having bestowed on him those two forms of riches which many a rich man lacks work, which makes him free and thought, which makes him dignified. This is what had happened with Marius. To tell the truth, he inclined a little too much to the side of contemplation. From the day when he had succeeded in earning his living with some approach to certainty, he had stopped, thinking it good to be poor, and retrenching time from his work to give to thought that is to say, he sometimes passed entire days in meditation, absorbed, engulfed, like a visionary, in the mute voluptuousness of ecstasy and inward radiance. He had thus propounded the problem of his life to toil as little as possible at material labor, in order to toil as much as possible at the labor which is impalpable in other words, to bestow a few hours on real life, and to cast the rest to the infinite. As he believed that he lacked nothing, he did not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming one of the forms of idleness that he was contenting himself with conquering the first necessities of life, and that he was resting from his labors too soon. It was evident that, for this energetic and enthusiastic nature, this could only be a transitory state, and that, at the first shock against the inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would awaken. In the meantime, although he was a lawyer, and whatever Father Gillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he was not even pettifogging. Meditation had turned him aside from pleading. To haunt attorneys, to follow the court, to hunt up caseswhat a bore! Why should he do it? He saw no reason for changing the manner of gaining his livelihood! The obscure and illpaid publishing establishment had come to mean for him a sure source of work which did not involve too much labor, as we have explained, and which sufficed for his wants. One of the publishers for whom he worked, M. Magimel, I think, offered to take him into his own house, to lodge him well, to furnish him with regular occupation, and to give him fifteen hundred francs a year. To be well lodged! Fifteen hundred francs! No doubt. But renounce his liberty! Be on fixed wages! A sort of hired man of letters! According to Marius' opinion, if he accepted, his position would become both better and worse at the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity it was a fine and complete unhappiness converted into a repulsive and ridiculous state of torture something like the case of a blind man who should recover the sight of one eye. He refused. Marius dwelt in solitude. Owing to his taste for remaining outside of everything, and through having been too much alarmed, he had not entered decidedly into the group presided over by Enjolras. They had remained good friends they were ready to assist each other on occasion in every possible way but nothing more. Marius had two friends one young, Courfeyrac and one old, M. Mabeuf. He inclined more to the old man. In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken place within him to him he was indebted for having known and loved his father. 'He operated on me for a cataract, he said. The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part. It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and impassive agent of Providence in this connection. He had enlightened Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle which some one brings he had been the candle and not the some one. As for Marius' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it. As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be superfluous. On the day when M. Mabeuf said to Marius 'Certainly I approve of political opinions, he expressed the real state of his mind. All political opinions were matters of indifference to him, and he approved them all, without distinction, provided they left him in peace, as the Greeks called the Furies 'the beautiful, the good, the charming, the Eumenides. M. Mabeuf's political opinion consisted in a passionate love for plants, and, above all, for books. Like all the rest of the world, he possessed the termination in ist, without which no one could exist at that time, but he was neither a Royalist, a Bonapartist, a Chartist, an Orleanist, nor an Anarchist he was a bouquinist, a collector of old books. He did not understand how men could busy themselves with hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc., when there were in the world all sorts of mosses, grasses, and shrubs which they might be looking at, and heaps of folios, and even of mos, which they might turn over. He took good care not to become useless having books did not prevent his reading, being a botanist did not prevent his being a gardener. When he made Pontmercy's acquaintance, this sympathy had existed between the colonel and himselfthat what the colonel did for flowers, he did for fruits. M. Mabeuf had succeeded in producing seedling pears as savory as the pears of St. Germain it is from one of his combinations, apparently, that the October Mirabelle, now celebrated and no less perfumed than the summer Mirabelle, owes its origin. He went to mass rather from gentleness than from piety, and because, as he loved the faces of men, but hated their noise, he found them assembled and silent only in church. Feeling that he must be something in the State, he had chosen the career of warden. However, he had never succeeded in loving any woman as much as a tulip bulb, nor any man as much as an Elzevir. He had long passed sixty, when, one day, some one asked him 'Have you never been married? 'I have forgotten, said he. When it sometimes happened to himand to whom does it not happen?to say 'Oh! if I were only rich! it was not when ogling a pretty girl, as was the case with Father Gillenormand, but when contemplating an old book. He lived alone with an old housekeeper. He was somewhat gouty, and when he was asleep, his aged fingers, stiffened with rheumatism, lay crooked up in the folds of his sheets. He had composed and published a Flora of the Environs of Cauteretz, with colored plates, a work which enjoyed a tolerable measure of esteem and which sold well. People rang his bell, in the Rue Msires, two or three times a day, to ask for it. He drew as much as two thousand francs a year from it this constituted nearly the whole of his fortune. Although poor, he had had the talent to form for himself, by dint of patience, privations, and time, a precious collection of rare copies of every sort. He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often returned with two. The sole decoration of the four rooms on the ground floor, which composed his lodgings, consisted of framed herbariums, and engravings of the old masters. The sight of a sword or a gun chilled his blood. He had never approached a cannon in his life, even at the Invalides. He had a passable stomach, a brother who was a cur, perfectly white hair, no teeth, either in his mouth or his mind, a trembling in every limb, a Picard accent, an infantile laugh, the air of an old sheep, and he was easily frightened. Add to this, that he had no other friendship, no other acquaintance among the living, than an old bookseller of the PorteSaintJacques, named Royal. His dream was to naturalize indigo in France. His servant was also a sort of innocent. The poor good old woman was a spinster. Sultan, her cat, which might have mewed Allegri's miserere in the Sixtine Chapel, had filled her heart and sufficed for the quantity of passion which existed in her. None of her dreams had ever proceeded as far as man. She had never been able to get further than her cat. Like him, she had a moustache. Her glory consisted in her caps, which were always white. She passed her time, on Sundays, after mass, in counting over the linen in her chest, and in spreading out on her bed the dresses in the piece which she bought and never had made up. She knew how to read. M. Mabeuf had nicknamed her Mother Plutarque. M. Mabeuf had taken a fancy to Marius, because Marius, being young and gentle, warmed his age without startling his timidity. Youth combined with gentleness produces on old people the effect of the sun without wind. When Marius was saturated with military glory, with gunpowder, with marches and countermarches, and with all those prodigious battles in which his father had given and received such tremendous blows of the sword, he went to see M. Mabeuf, and M. Mabeuf talked to him of his hero from the point of view of flowers. His brother the cur died about , and almost immediately, as when the night is drawing on, the whole horizon grew dark for M. Mabeuf. A notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which was all that he possessed in his brother's right and his own. The Revolution of July brought a crisis to publishing. In a period of embarrassment, the first thing which does not sell is a Flora. The Flora of the Environs of Cauteretz stopped short. Weeks passed by without a single purchaser. Sometimes M. Mabeuf started at the sound of the bell. 'Monsieur, said Mother Plutarque sadly, 'it is the watercarrier. In short, one day, M. Mabeuf quitted the Rue Msires, abdicated the functions of warden, gave up SaintSulpice, sold not a part of his books, but of his prints,that to which he was the least attached,and installed himself in a little house on the Rue Montparnasse, where, however, he remained but one quarter for two reasons in the first place, the ground floor and the garden cost three hundred francs, and he dared not spend more than two hundred francs on his rent in the second, being near Faton's shootinggallery, he could hear the pistolshots which was intolerable to him. He carried off his Flora, his copperplates, his herbariums, his portfolios, and his books, and established himself near the Salptrire, in a sort of thatched cottage of the village of Austerlitz, where, for fifty crowns a year, he got three rooms and a garden enclosed by a hedge, and containing a well. He took advantage of this removal to sell off nearly all his furniture. On the day of his entrance into his new quarters, he was very gay, and drove the nails on which his engravings and herbariums were to hang, with his own hands, dug in his garden the rest of the day, and at night, perceiving that Mother Plutarque had a melancholy air, and was very thoughtful, he tapped her on the shoulder and said to her with a smile 'We have the indigo! Only two visitors, the bookseller of the PorteSaintJacques and Marius, were admitted to view the thatched cottage at Austerlitz, a brawling name which was, to tell the truth, extremely disagreeable to him. However, as we have just pointed out, brains which are absorbed in some bit of wisdom, or folly, or, as it often happens, in both at once, are but slowly accessible to the things of actual life. Their own destiny is a faroff thing to them. There results from such concentration a passivity, which, if it were the outcome of reasoning, would resemble philosophy. One declines, descends, trickles away, even crumbles away, and yet is hardly conscious of it one's self. It always ends, it is true, in an awakening, but the awakening is tardy. In the meantime, it seems as though we held ourselves neutral in the game which is going on between our happiness and our unhappiness. We are the stake, and we look on at the game with indifference. It is thus that, athwart the cloud which formed about him, when all his hopes were extinguished one after the other, M. Mabeuf remained rather puerilely, but profoundly serene. His habits of mind had the regular swing of a pendulum. Once mounted on an illusion, he went for a very long time, even after the illusion had disappeared. A clock does not stop short at the precise moment when the key is lost. M. Mabeuf had his innocent pleasures. These pleasures were inexpensive and unexpected the merest chance furnished them. One day, Mother Plutarque was reading a romance in one corner of the room. She was reading aloud, finding that she understood better thus. To read aloud is to assure one's self of what one is reading. There are people who read very loud, and who have the appearance of giving themselves their word of honor as to what they are perusing. It was with this sort of energy that Mother Plutarque was reading the romance which she had in hand. M. Mabeuf heard her without listening to her. In the course of her reading, Mother Plutarque came to this phrase. It was a question of an officer of dragoons and a beauty 'The beauty pouted, and the dragoon Here she interrupted herself to wipe her glasses. 'Bouddha and the Dragon, struck in M. Mabeuf in a low voice. 'Yes, it is true that there was a dragon, which, from the depths of its cave, spouted flame through his maw and set the heavens on fire. Many stars had already been consumed by this monster, which, besides, had the claws of a tiger. Bouddha went into its den and succeeded in converting the dragon. That is a good book that you are reading, Mother Plutarque. There is no more beautiful legend in existence. And M. Mabeuf fell into a delicious reverie. Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling into the clutches of indigence, and who came to feel astonishment, little by little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. Marius met Courfeyrac and sought out M. Mabeuf. Very rarely, however twice a month at most. Marius' pleasure consisted in taking long walks alone on the outer boulevards, or in the ChampsdeMars, or in the least frequented alleys of the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day in gazing at a market garden, the beds of lettuce, the chickens on the dungheap, the horse turning the waterwheel. The passersby stared at him in surprise, and some of them thought his attire suspicious and his mien sinister. He was only a poor young man dreaming in an objectless way. It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house, and, tempted by its isolation and its cheapness, had taken up his abode there. He was known there only under the name of M. Marius. Some of his father's old generals or old comrades had invited him to go and see them, when they learned about him. Marius had not refused their invitations. They afforded opportunities of talking about his father. Thus he went from time to time, to Comte Pajol, to General Bellavesne, to General Fririon, to the Invalides. There was music and dancing there. On such evenings, Marius put on his new coat. But he never went to these evening parties or balls except on days when it was freezing cold, because he could not afford a carriage, and he did not wish to arrive with boots otherwise than like mirrors. He said sometimes, but without bitterness 'Men are so made that in a drawingroom you may be soiled everywhere except on your shoes. In order to insure a good reception there, only one irreproachable thing is asked of you your conscience? No, your boots. All passions except those of the heart are dissipated by reverie. Marius' political fevers vanished thus. The Revolution of  assisted in the process, by satisfying and calming him. He remained the same, setting aside his fits of wrath. He still held the same opinions. Only, they had been tempered. To speak accurately, he had no longer any opinions, he had sympathies. To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity. Out of humanity he chose France out of the Nation he chose the people out of the people he chose the woman. It was to that point above all, that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed, a poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event like Marengo. And then, when, after a day spent in meditation, he returned in the evening through the boulevards, and caught a glimpse through the branches of the trees of the fathomless space beyond, the nameless gleams, the abyss, the shadow, the mystery, all that which is only human seemed very pretty indeed to him. He thought that he had, and he really had, in fact, arrived at the truth of life and of human philosophy, and he had ended by gazing at nothing but heaven, the only thing which Truth can perceive from the bottom of her well. This did not prevent him from multiplying his plans, his combinations, his scaffoldings, his projects for the future. In this state of reverie, an eye which could have cast a glance into Marius' interior would have been dazzled with the purity of that soul. In fact, had it been given to our eyes of the flesh to gaze into the consciences of others, we should be able to judge a man much more surely according to what he dreams, than according to what he thinks. There is will in thought, there is none in dreams. Reverie, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps, even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing proceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of our soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards the splendors of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than in deliberate, rational coordinated ideas, is the real character of a man to be found. Our chimras are the things which the most resemble us. Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordance with his nature. Towards the middle of this year , the old woman who waited on Marius told him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, had been turned out of doors. Marius, who passed nearly the whole of his days out of the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors. 'Why are they turned out? he asked. 'Because they do not pay their rent they owe for two quarters. 'How much is it? 'Twenty francs, said the old woman. Marius had thirty francs saved up in a drawer. 'Here, he said to the old woman, 'take these twentyfive francs. Pay for the poor people and give them five francs, and do not tell them that it was I. It chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Thodule belonged came to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired Aunt Gillenormand with a second idea. She had, on the first occasion, hit upon the plan of having Marius spied upon by Thodule now she plotted to have Thodule take Marius' place. At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the vague need of a young face in the house,these rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to ruin,it was expedient to find another Marius. 'Take it as a simple erratum, she thought, 'such as one sees in books. For Marius, read Thodule. A grandnephew is almost the same as a grandson in default of a lawyer one takes a lancer. One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the Quotidienne, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest voice for the question concerned her favorite 'Father, Thodule is coming to present his respects to you this morning. 'Who's Thodule? 'Your grandnephew. 'Ah! said the grandfather. Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his grandnephew, who was merely some Thodule or other, and soon flew into a rage, which almost always happened when he read. The 'sheet which he held, although Royalist, of course, announced for the following day, without any softening phrases, one of these little events which were of daily occurrence at that date in Paris 'That the students of the schools of law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du Panthon, at midday,to deliberate. The discussion concerned one of the questions of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict between the Minister of War and 'the citizen's militia, on the subject of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were to 'deliberate over this. It did not take much more than this to swell M. Gillenormand's rage. He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with the rest, to 'deliberate, at midday, on the Place du Panthon. As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant Thodule entered clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which was clever of him, and was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The lancer had reasoned as follows 'The old druid has not sunk all his money in a life pension. It is well to disguise one's self as a civilian from time to time. Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father 'Thodule, your grandnephew. And in a low voice to the lieutenant 'Approve of everything. And she withdrew. The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable encounters, stammered with some timidity 'Good day, uncle,and made a salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute. 'Ah! so it's you that is well, sit down, said the old gentleman. That said, he totally forgot the lancer. Thodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose. M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets, talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two watches which he wore in his two fobs. 'That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du Panthon! by my life! urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to squeeze their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate tomorrow, at midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that we are making for the abyss. That is what the descamisados have brought us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery! To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the National Guard! And with whom are they to meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but returned convicts and released galleyslaves. The Republicans and the galleyslaves,they form but one nose and one handkerchief. Carnot used to say 'Where would you have me go, traitor?' Fouch replied 'Wherever you please, imbecile!' That's what the Republicans are like. 'That is true, said Thodule. M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Thodule, and went on 'When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn carbonaro! Why did you leave my house? To go and become a Republican! Pssst! In the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common sense, they know well that there always have been kings, and that there always will be they know well that the people are only the people, after all, they make sport of it, of your republicdo you understand, idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with Pre Duchesne, to make sheep'seyes at the guillotine, to sing romances, and play on the guitar under the balcony of 'it's enough to make one spit on all these young fellows, such fools are they! They are all alike. Not one escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air which blows through the street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The first scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's, thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his old relatives. He's a Republican, he's a romantic. What does that mean, romantic? Do me the favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies. A year ago, they ran to Hernani. Now, I just ask you, Hernani! antitheses! abominations which are not even written in French! And then, they have cannons in the courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age! 'You are right, uncle, said Thodule. M. Gillenormand resumed 'Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum! For what purpose? Do you want to fire grapeshot at the Apollo Belvedere? What have those cartridges to do with the Venus de Medici? Oh! the young men of the present day are all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they can to make themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women, in the presence of petticoats they have a mendicant air which sets the girls into fits of laughter on my word of honor, one would say the poor creatures were ashamed of love. They are deformed, and they complete themselves by being stupid they repeat the puns of Tiercelin and Potier, they have sack coats, stablemen's waistcoats, shirts of coarse linen, trousers of coarse cloth, boots of coarse leather, and their rigmarole resembles their plumage. One might make use of their jargon to put new soles on their old shoes. And all this awkward batch of brats has political opinions, if you please. Political opinions should be strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth, they put the attic in the cellar's place and my porter in the place of the King, they turn Europe topsyturvy, they reconstruct the world, and all their love affairs consist in staring slily at the ankles of the laundresses as these women climb into their carts. Ah! Marius! Ah! you blackguard! to go and vociferate on the public place! to discuss, to debate, to take measures! They call that measures, just God! Disorder humbles itself and becomes silly. I have seen chaos, I now see a mess. Students deliberating on the National Guard,such a thing could not be seen among the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked, with their noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in their paws, are less of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The fourpenny monkeys! And they set up for judges! Those creatures deliberate and ratiocinate! The end of the world is come! This is plainly the end of this miserable terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go and read the newspapers under the arcades of the Odon. That costs them a sou, and their good sense, and their intelligence, and their heart and their soul, and their wits. They emerge thence, and decamp from their families. All newspapers are pests all, even the Drapeau Blanc! At bottom, Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may boast of having driven your grandfather to despair, that you may! 'That is evident, said Thodule. And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking breath, the lancer added in a magisterial manner 'There should be no other newspaper than the Moniteur, and no other book than the Annuaire Militaire. M. Gillenormand continued 'It is like their Sieys! A regicide ending in a senator for that is the way they always end. They give themselves a scar with the address of thou as citizens, in order to get themselves called, eventually, Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of September. The philosopher Sieys! I will do myself the justice to say, that I have never had any better opinion of the philosophies of all those philosophers, than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli! One day I saw the Senators cross the Quai Malplaquet in mantles of violet velvet sown with bees, with hats  la Henri IV. They were hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger's court. Citizens, I declare to you, that your progress is madness, that your humanity is a dream, that your revolution is a crime, that your republic is a monster, that your young and virgin France comes from the brothel, and I maintain it against all, whoever you may be, whether journalists, economists, legists, or even were you better judges of liberty, of equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine! And that I announce to you, my fine fellows! 'Parbleu! cried the lieutenant, 'that is wonderfully true. M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun, wheeled round, stared Lancer Thodule intently in the eyes, and said to him 'You are a fool. Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, wellopened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and sincerity, and with something indescribably proud, thoughtful, and innocent over his whole countenance. His profile, all of whose lines were rounded, without thereby losing their firmness, had a certain Germanic sweetness, which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of Alsace and Lorraine, and that complete absence of angles which rendered the Sicambres so easily recognizable among the Romans, and which distinguishes the leonine from the aquiline race. He was at that period of life when the mind of men who think is composed, in nearly equal parts, of depth and ingenuousness. A grave situation being given, he had all that is required to be stupid one more turn of the key, and he might be sublime. His manners were reserved, cold, polished, not very genial. As his mouth was charming, his lips the reddest, and his teeth the whitest in the world, his smile corrected the severity of his face, as a whole. At certain moments, that pure brow and that voluptuous smile presented a singular contrast. His eyes were small, but his glance was large. At the period of his most abject misery, he had observed that young girls turned round when he passed by, and he fled or hid, with death in his soul. He thought that they were staring at him because of his old clothes, and that they were laughing at them the fact is, that they stared at him because of his grace, and that they dreamed of him. This mute misunderstanding between him and the pretty passersby had made him shy. He chose none of them for the excellent reason that he fled from all of them. He lived thus indefinitely,stupidly, as Courfeyrac said. Courfeyrac also said to him 'Do not aspire to be venerable they called each other thou it is the tendency of youthful friendships to slip into this mode of address. 'Let me give you a piece of advice, my dear fellow. Don't read so many books, and look a little more at the lasses. The jades have some good points about them, O Marius! By dint of fleeing and blushing, you will become brutalized. On other occasions, Courfeyrac encountered him and said'Good morning, Monsieur l'Abb! When Courfeyrac had addressed to him some remark of this nature, Marius avoided women, both young and old, more than ever for a week to come, and he avoided Courfeyrac to boot. Nevertheless, there existed in all the immensity of creation, two women whom Marius did not flee, and to whom he paid no attention whatever. In truth, he would have been very much amazed if he had been informed that they were women. One was the bearded old woman who swept out his chamber, and caused Courfeyrac to say 'Seeing that his servant woman wears his beard, Marius does not wear his own beard. The other was a sort of little girl whom he saw very often, and whom he never looked at. For more than a year, Marius had noticed in one of the walks of the Luxembourg, the one which skirts the parapet of the Ppinire, a man and a very young girl, who were almost always seated side by side on the same bench, at the most solitary end of the alley, on the Rue de l'Ouest side. Every time that that chance which meddles with the strolls of persons whose gaze is turned inwards, led Marius to that walk,and it was nearly every day,he found this couple there. The man appeared to be about sixty years of age he seemed sad and serious his whole person presented the robust and weary aspect peculiar to military men who have retired from the service. If he had worn a decoration, Marius would have said 'He is an exofficer. He had a kindly but unapproachable air, and he never let his glance linger on the eyes of any one. He wore blue trousers, a blue frock coat and a broadbrimmed hat, which always appeared to be new, a black cravat, a quaker shirt, that is to say, it was dazzlingly white, but of coarse linen. A grisette who passed near him one day, said 'Here's a very tidy widower. His hair was very white. The first time that the young girl who accompanied him came and seated herself on the bench which they seemed to have adopted, she was a sort of child thirteen or fourteen years of age, so thin as to be almost homely, awkward, insignificant, and with a possible promise of handsome eyes. Only, they were always raised with a sort of displeasing assurance. Her dress was both aged and childish, like the dress of the scholars in a convent it consisted of a badly cut gown of black merino. They had the air of being father and daughter. Marius scanned this old man, who was not yet aged, and this little girl, who was not yet a person, for a few days, and thereafter paid no attention to them. They, on their side, did not appear even to see him. They conversed together with a peaceful and indifferent air. The girl chattered incessantly and merrily. The old man talked but little, and, at times, he fixed on her eyes overflowing with an ineffable paternity. Marius had acquired the mechanical habit of strolling in that walk. He invariably found them there. This is the way things went Marius liked to arrive by the end of the alley which was furthest from their bench he walked the whole length of the alley, passed in front of them, then returned to the extremity whence he had come, and began again. This he did five or six times in the course of his promenade, and the promenade was taken five or six times a week, without its having occurred to him or to these people to exchange a greeting. That personage, and that young girl, although they appeared,and perhaps because they appeared,to shun all glances, had, naturally, caused some attention on the part of the five or six students who strolled along the Ppinire from time to time the studious after their lectures, the others after their game of billiards. Courfeyrac, who was among the last, had observed them several times, but, finding the girl homely, he had speedily and carefully kept out of the way. He had fled, discharging at them a sobriquet, like a Parthian dart. Impressed solely with the child's gown and the old man's hair, he had dubbed the daughter Mademoiselle Lanoire, and the father, Monsieur Leblanc, so that as no one knew them under any other title, this nickname became a law in the default of any other name. The students said 'Ah! Monsieur Leblanc is on his bench. And Marius, like the rest, had found it convenient to call this unknown gentleman Monsieur Leblanc. We shall follow their example, and we shall say M. Leblanc, in order to facilitate this tale. So Marius saw them nearly every day, at the same hour, during the first year. He found the man to his taste, but the girl insipid. During the second year, precisely at the point in this history which the reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of the Luxembourg was interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware why, and nearly six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in the alley. One day, at last, he returned thither once more it was a serene summer morning, and Marius was in joyous mood, as one is when the weather is fine. It seemed to him that he had in his heart all the songs of the birds that he was listening to, and all the bits of blue sky of which he caught glimpses through the leaves of the trees. He went straight to 'his alley, and when he reached the end of it he perceived, still on the same bench, that wellknown couple. Only, when he approached, it certainly was the same man but it seemed to him that it was no longer the same girl. The person whom he now beheld was a tall and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines of a woman at the precise moment when they are still combined with all the most ingenuous graces of the child a pure and fugitive moment, which can be expressed only by these two words,'fifteen years. She had wonderful brown hair, shaded with threads of gold, a brow that seemed made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of roseleaf, a pale flush, an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence smiles darted like sunbeams, and words like music, a head such as Raphael would have given to Mary, set upon a neck that Jean Goujon would have attributed to a Venus. And, in order that nothing might be lacking to this bewitching face, her nose was not handsomeit was pretty neither straight nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek it was the Parisian nose, that is to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,which drives painters to despair, and charms poets. When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which were constantly lowered. He saw only her long chestnut lashes, permeated with shadow and modesty. This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she listened to what the whitehaired old man was saying to her, and nothing could be more fascinating than that fresh smile, combined with those drooping eyes. For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the same man, a sister of the former, no doubt. But when the invariable habit of his stroll brought him, for the second time, near the bench, and he had examined her attentively, he recognized her as the same. In six months the little girl had become a young maiden that was all. Nothing is more frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment when girls blossom out in the twinkling of an eye, and become roses all at once. One left them children but yesterday today, one finds them disquieting to the feelings. This child had not only grown, she had become idealized. As three days in April suffice to cover certain trees with flowers, six months had sufficed to clothe her with beauty. Her April had arrived. One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem to wake up, pass suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge in expenditures of all sorts, and become dazzling, prodigal, magnificent, all of a sudden. That is the result of having pocketed an income a note fell due yesterday. The young girl had received her quarterly income. And then, she was no longer the schoolgirl with her felt hat, her merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands taste had come to her with beauty she was a welldressed person, clad with a sort of rich and simple elegance, and without affectation. She wore a dress of black damask, a cape of the same material, and a bonnet of white crape. Her white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed with the carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined the smallness of her foot. When one passed near her, her whole toilette exhaled a youthful and penetrating perfume. As for the man, he was the same as usual. The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl raised her eyelids her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but in that veiled azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance of a child. She looked at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat running beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow on the bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade, and thought about something else. He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times, but without even turning his eyes in her direction. On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg as usual, he found there 'the father and daughter but he paid no further attention to them. He thought no more about the girl now that she was beautiful than he had when she was homely. He passed very near the bench where she sat, because such was his habit. One day, the air was warm, the Luxembourg was inundated with light and shade, the sky was as pure as though the angels had washed it that morning, the sparrows were giving vent to little twitters in the depths of the chestnuttrees. Marius had thrown open his whole soul to nature, he was not thinking of anything, he simply lived and breathed, he passed near the bench, the young girl raised her eyes to him, the two glances met. What was there in the young girl's glance on this occasion? Marius could not have told. There was nothing and there was everything. It was a strange flash. She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way. What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of a child it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptly closed again. There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner. Woe to him who chances to be there! That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiant and strange. Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of that unexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely forth from adorable shadows, and which is composed of all the innocence of the present, and of all the passion of the future. It is a sort of undecided tenderness which reveals itself by chance, and which waits. It is a snare which the innocent maiden sets unknown to herself, and in which she captures hearts without either wishing or knowing it. It is a virgin looking like a woman. It is rare that a profound reverie does not spring from that glance, where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in that celestial and fatal gleam which, more than all the bestplanned tender glances of coquettes, possesses the magic power of causing the sudden blossoming, in the depths of the soul, of that sombre flower, impregnated with perfume and with poison, which is called love. That evening, on his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes over his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so slovenly, indecorous, and inconceivably stupid as to go for his walk in the Luxembourg with his 'everyday clothes, that is to say, with a hat battered near the band, coarse carter's boots, black trousers which showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at the elbows. On the following day, at the accustomed hour, Marius drew from his wardrobe his new coat, his new trousers, his new hat, and his new boots he clothed himself in this complete panoply, put on his gloves, a tremendous luxury, and set off for the Luxembourg. On the way thither, he encountered Courfeyrac, and pretended not to see him. Courfeyrac, on his return home, said to his friends 'I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them. He was going to pass an examination, no doubt. He looked utterly stupid. On arriving at the Luxembourg, Marius made the tour of the fountain basin, and stared at the swans then he remained for a long time in contemplation before a statue whose head was perfectly black with mould, and one of whose hips was missing. Near the basin there was a bourgeois forty years of age, with a prominent stomach, who was holding by the hand a little urchin of five, and saying to him 'Shun excess, my son, keep at an equal distance from despotism and from anarchy. Marius listened to this bourgeois. Then he made the circuit of the basin once more. At last he directed his course towards 'his alley, slowly, and as if with regret. One would have said that he was both forced to go there and withheld from doing so. He did not perceive it himself, and thought that he was doing as he always did. On turning into the walk, he saw M. Leblanc and the young girl at the other end, 'on their bench. He buttoned his coat up to the very top, pulled it down on his body so that there might be no wrinkles, examined, with a certain complaisance, the lustrous gleams of his trousers, and marched on the bench. This march savored of an attack, and certainly of a desire for conquest. So I say that he marched on the bench, as I should say 'Hannibal marched on Rome. However, all his movements were purely mechanical, and he had interrupted none of the habitual preoccupations of his mind and labors. At that moment, he was thinking that the Manuel du Baccalaurat was a stupid book, and that it must have been drawn up by rare idiots, to allow of three tragedies of Racine and only one comedy of Molire being analyzed therein as masterpieces of the human mind. There was a piercing whistling going on in his ears. As he approached the bench, he held fast to the folds in his coat, and fixed his eyes on the young girl. It seemed to him that she filled the entire extremity of the alley with a vague blue light. In proportion as he drew near, his pace slackened more and more. On arriving at some little distance from the bench, and long before he had reached the end of the walk, he halted, and could not explain to himself why he retraced his steps. He did not even say to himself that he would not go as far as the end. It was only with difficulty that the young girl could have perceived him in the distance and noted his fine appearance in his new clothes. Nevertheless, he held himself very erect, in case any one should be looking at him from behind. He attained the opposite end, then came back, and this time he approached a little nearer to the bench. He even got to within three intervals of trees, but there he felt an indescribable impossibility of proceeding further, and he hesitated. He thought he saw the young girl's face bending towards him. But he exerted a manly and violent effort, subdued his hesitation, and walked straight ahead. A few seconds later, he rushed in front of the bench, erect and firm, reddening to the very ears, without daring to cast a glance either to the right or to the left, with his hand thrust into his coat like a statesman. At the moment when he passed,under the cannon of the place,he felt his heart beat wildly. As on the preceding day, she wore her damask gown and her crape bonnet. He heard an ineffable voice, which must have been 'her voice. She was talking tranquilly. She was very pretty. He felt it, although he made no attempt to see her. 'She could not, however, he thought, 'help feeling esteem and consideration for me, if she only knew that I am the veritable author of the dissertation on Marcos Obrgon de la Ronde, which M. Franois de Neufchteau put, as though it were his own, at the head of his edition of Gil Blas. He went beyond the bench as far as the extremity of the walk, which was very near, then turned on his heel and passed once more in front of the lovely girl. This time, he was very pale. Moreover, all his emotions were disagreeable. As he went further from the bench and the young girl, and while his back was turned to her, he fancied that she was gazing after him, and that made him stumble. He did not attempt to approach the bench again he halted near the middle of the walk, and there, a thing which he never did, he sat down, and reflecting in the most profoundly indistinct depths of his spirit, that after all, it was hard that persons whose white bonnet and black gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid trousers and his new coat. At the expiration of a quarter of an hour, he rose, as though he were on the point of again beginning his march towards that bench which was surrounded by an aureole. But he remained standing there, motionless. For the first time in fifteen months, he said to himself that that gentleman who sat there every day with his daughter, had, on his side, noticed him, and probably considered his assiduity singular. For the first time, also, he was conscious of some irreverence in designating that stranger, even in his secret thoughts, by the sobriquet of M. Leblanc. He stood thus for several minutes, with drooping head, tracing figures in the sand, with the cane which he held in his hand. Then he turned abruptly in the direction opposite to the bench, to M. Leblanc and his daughter, and went home. That day he forgot to dine. At eight o'clock in the evening he perceived this fact, and as it was too late to go down to the Rue SaintJacques, he said 'Never mind! and ate a bit of bread. He did not go to bed until he had brushed his coat and folded it up with great care. On the following day, Ma'am Bougon, as Courfeyrac styled the old portressprincipaltenant, housekeeper of the Gorbeau hovel, Ma'am Bougon, whose name was, in reality, Madame Burgon, as we have found out, but this iconoclast, Courfeyrac, respected nothing,Ma'am Bougon observed, with stupefaction, that M. Marius was going out again in his new coat. He went to the Luxembourg again, but he did not proceed further than his bench midway of the alley. He seated himself there, as on the preceding day, surveying from a distance, and clearly making out, the white bonnet, the black dress, and above all, that blue light. He did not stir from it, and only went home when the gates of the Luxembourg closed. He did not see M. Leblanc and his daughter retire. He concluded that they had quitted the garden by the gate on the Rue de l'Ouest. Later on, several weeks afterwards, when he came to think it over, he could never recall where he had dined that evening. On the following day, which was the third, Ma'am Bougon was thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat. 'Three days in succession! she exclaimed. She tried to follow him, but Marius walked briskly, and with immense strides it was a hippopotamus undertaking the pursuit of a chamois. She lost sight of him in two minutes, and returned breathless, threequarters choked with asthma, and furious. 'If there is any sense, she growled, 'in putting on one's best clothes every day, and making people run like this! Marius betook himself to the Luxembourg. The young girl was there with M. Leblanc. Marius approached as near as he could, pretending to be busy reading a book, but he halted afar off, then returned and seated himself on his bench, where he spent four hours in watching the housesparrows who were skipping about the walk, and who produced on him the impression that they were making sport of him. A fortnight passed thus. Marius went to the Luxembourg no longer for the sake of strolling there, but to seat himself always in the same spot, and that without knowing why. Once arrived there, he did not stir. He put on his new coat every morning, for the purpose of not showing himself, and he began all over again on the morrow. She was decidedly a marvellous beauty. The only remark approaching a criticism, that could be made, was, that the contradiction between her gaze, which was melancholy, and her smile, which was merry, gave a rather wild effect to her face, which sometimes caused this sweet countenance to become strange without ceasing to be charming. On one of the last days of the second week, Marius was seated on his bench, as usual, holding in his hand an open book, of which he had not turned a page for the last two hours. All at once he started. An event was taking place at the other extremity of the walk. Leblanc and his daughter had just left their seat, and the daughter had taken her father's arm, and both were advancing slowly, towards the middle of the alley where Marius was. Marius closed his book, then opened it again, then forced himself to read he trembled the aureole was coming straight towards him. 'Ah! good Heavens! thought he, 'I shall not have time to strike an attitude. Still the whitehaired man and the girl advanced. It seemed to him that this lasted for a century, and that it was but a second. 'What are they coming in this direction for? he asked himself. 'What! She will pass here? Her feet will tread this sand, this walk, two paces from me? He was utterly upset, he would have liked to be very handsome, he would have liked to own the cross. He heard the soft and measured sound of their approaching footsteps. He imagined that M. Leblanc was darting angry glances at him. 'Is that gentleman going to address me? he thought to himself. He dropped his head when he raised it again, they were very near him. The young girl passed, and as she passed, she glanced at him. She gazed steadily at him, with a pensive sweetness which thrilled Marius from head to foot. It seemed to him that she was reproaching him for having allowed so long a time to elapse without coming as far as her, and that she was saying to him 'I am coming myself. Marius was dazzled by those eyes fraught with rays and abysses. He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy! And then, how she had looked at him! She appeared to him more beautiful than he had ever seen her yet. Beautiful with a beauty which was wholly feminine and angelic, with a complete beauty which would have made Petrarch sing and Dante kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the azure heavens. At the same time, he was horribly vexed because there was dust on his boots. He thought he felt sure that she had looked at his boots too. He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. Then he started up and walked about the Luxembourg garden like a madman. It is possible that, at times, he laughed to himself and talked aloud. He was so dreamy when he came near the children's nurses, that each one of them thought him in love with her. He quitted the Luxembourg, hoping to find her again in the street. He encountered Courfeyrac under the arcades of the Odon, and said to him 'Come and dine with me. They went off to Rousseau's and spent six francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At dessert, he said to Courfeyrac. 'Have you read the paper? What a fine discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered! He was desperately in love. After dinner, he said to Courfeyrac 'I will treat you to the play. They went to the PorteSainteMartin to see Frdrick in l'Auberge des Adrets. Marius was enormously amused. At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness. On emerging from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter of a modiste who was stepping across a gutter, and Courfeyrac, who said 'I should like to put that woman in my collection, almost horrified him. Courfeyrac invited him to breakfast at the Caf Voltaire on the following morning. Marius went thither, and ate even more than on the preceding evening. He was very thoughtful and very merry. One would have said that he was taking advantage of every occasion to laugh uproariously. He tenderly embraced some man or other from the provinces, who was presented to him. A circle of students formed round the table, and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State which was uttered from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation fell upon the faults and omissions in Guicherat's dictionaries and grammars. Marius interrupted the discussion to exclaim 'But it is very agreeable, all the same to have the cross! 'That's queer! whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire. 'No, responded Prouvaire, 'that's serious. It was serious in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and charming hour with which grand passions begin. A glance had wrought all this. When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is more simple. A glance is a spark. It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering the unknown. The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything. A moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there. You go and come, dream, speak, laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched all is over. The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your thought which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you. You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain no more human succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, your future, your soul and, according to whether you are in the power of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from this terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or transfigured by passion. Isolation, detachment, from everything, pride, independence, the taste of nature, the absence of daily and material activity, the life within himself, the secret conflicts of chastity, a benevolent ecstasy towards all creation, had prepared Marius for this possession which is called passion. His worship of his father had gradually become a religion, and, like all religions, it had retreated to the depths of his soul. Something was required in the foreground. Love came. A full month elapsed, during which Marius went every day to the Luxembourg. When the hour arrived, nothing could hold him back.'He is on duty, said Courfeyrac. Marius lived in a state of delight. It is certain that the young girl did look at him. He had finally grown bold, and approached the bench. Still, he did not pass in front of it any more, in obedience to the instinct of timidity and to the instinct of prudence common to lovers. He considered it better not to attract 'the attention of the father. He combined his stations behind the trees and the pedestals of the statues with a profound diplomacy, so that he might be seen as much as possible by the young girl and as little as possible by the old gentleman. Sometimes, he remained motionless by the halfhour together in the shade of a Leonidas or a Spartacus, holding in his hand a book, above which his eyes, gently raised, sought the beautiful girl, and she, on her side, turned her charming profile towards him with a vague smile. While conversing in the most natural and tranquil manner in the world with the whitehaired man, she bent upon Marius all the reveries of a virginal and passionate eye. Ancient and timehonored manuvre which Eve understood from the very first day of the world, and which every woman understands from the very first day of her life! her mouth replied to one, and her glance replied to another. It must be supposed, that M. Leblanc finally noticed something, for often, when Marius arrived, he rose and began to walk about. He had abandoned their accustomed place and had adopted the bench by the Gladiator, near the other end of the walk, as though with the object of seeing whether Marius would pursue them thither. Marius did not understand, and committed this error. 'The father began to grow inexact, and no longer brought 'his daughter every day. Sometimes, he came alone. Then Marius did not stay. Another blunder. Marius paid no heed to these symptoms. From the phase of timidity, he had passed, by a natural and fatal progress, to the phase of blindness. His love increased. He dreamed of it every night. And then, an unexpected bliss had happened to him, oil on the fire, a redoubling of the shadows over his eyes. One evening, at dusk, he had found, on the bench which 'M. Leblanc and his daughter had just quitted, a handkerchief, a very simple handkerchief, without embroidery, but white, and fine, and which seemed to him to exhale ineffable perfume. He seized it with rapture. This handkerchief was marked with the letters U. F. Marius knew nothing about this beautiful child,neither her family name, her Christian name nor her abode these two letters were the first thing of her that he had gained possession of, adorable initials, upon which he immediately began to construct his scaffolding. U was evidently the Christian name. 'Ursule! he thought, 'what a delicious name! He kissed the handkerchief, drank it in, placed it on his heart, on his flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath his lips that he might fall asleep on it. 'I feel that her whole soul lies within it! he exclaimed. This handkerchief belonged to the old gentleman, who had simply let it fall from his pocket. In the days which followed the finding of this treasure, he only displayed himself at the Luxembourg in the act of kissing the handkerchief and laying it on his heart. The beautiful child understood nothing of all this, and signified it to him by imperceptible signs. 'O modesty! said Marius. Since we have pronounced the word modesty, and since we conceal nothing, we ought to say that once, nevertheless, in spite of his ecstasies, 'his Ursule caused him very serious grief. It was on one of the days when she persuaded M. Leblanc to leave the bench and stroll along the walk. A brisk May breeze was blowing, which swayed the crests of the plaintaintrees. The father and daughter, arm in arm, had just passed Marius' bench. Marius had risen to his feet behind them, and was following them with his eyes, as was fitting in the desperate situation of his soul. All at once, a gust of wind, more merry than the rest, and probably charged with performing the affairs of Springtime, swept down from the nursery, flung itself on the alley, enveloped the young girl in a delicious shiver, worthy of Virgil's nymphs, and the fawns of Theocritus, and lifted her dress, the robe more sacred than that of Isis, almost to the height of her garter. A leg of exquisite shape appeared. Marius saw it. He was exasperated and furious. The young girl had hastily thrust down her dress, with a divinely troubled motion, but he was nonetheless angry for all that. He was alone in the alley, it is true. But there might have been some one there. And what if there had been some one there! Can any one comprehend such a thing? What she had just done is horrible!Alas, the poor child had done nothing there had been but one culprit, the wind but Marius, in whom quivered the Bartholo who exists in Cherubin, was determined to be vexed, and was jealous of his own shadow. It is thus, in fact, that the harsh and capricious jealousy of the flesh awakens in the human heart, and takes possession of it, even without any right. Moreover, setting aside even that jealousy, the sight of that charming leg had contained nothing agreeable for him the white stocking of the first woman he chanced to meet would have afforded him more pleasure. When 'his Ursule, after having reached the end of the walk, retraced her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front of the bench on which Marius had seated himself once more, Marius darted a sullen and ferocious glance at her. The young girl gave way to that slight straightening up with a backward movement, accompanied by a raising of the eyelids, which signifies 'Well, what is the matter? This was 'their first quarrel. Marius had hardly made this scene at her with his eyes, when some one crossed the walk. It was a veteran, very much bent, extremely wrinkled, and pale, in a uniform of the Louis XV. pattern, bearing on his breast the little oval plaque of red cloth, with the crossed swords, the soldier's cross of SaintLouis, and adorned, in addition, with a coatsleeve, which had no arm within it, with a silver chin and a wooden leg. Marius thought he perceived that this man had an extremely well satisfied air. It even struck him that the aged cynic, as he hobbled along past him, addressed to him a very fraternal and very merry wink, as though some chance had created an understanding between them, and as though they had shared some piece of good luck together. What did that relic of Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed between that wooden leg and the other? Marius reached a paroxysm of jealousy.'Perhaps he was there! he said to himself 'perhaps he saw!And he felt a desire to exterminate the veteran. With the aid of time, all points grow dull. Marius' wrath against 'Ursule, just and legitimate as it was, passed off. He finally pardoned her but this cost him a great effort he sulked for three days. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, and because of all this, his passion augmented and grew to madness. The reader has just seen how Marius discovered, or thought that he discovered, that She was named Ursule. Appetite grows with loving. To know that her name was Ursule was a great deal it was very little. In three or four weeks, Marius had devoured this bliss. He wanted another. He wanted to know where she lived. He had committed his first blunder, by falling into the ambush of the bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second, by not remaining at the Luxembourg when M. Leblanc came thither alone. He now committed a third, and an immense one. He followed 'Ursule. She lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, in the most unfrequented spot, in a new, threestory house, of modest appearance. From that moment forth, Marius added to his happiness of seeing her at the Luxembourg the happiness of following her home. His hunger was increasing. He knew her first name, at least, a charming name, a genuine woman's name he knew where she lived he wanted to know who she was. One evening, after he had followed them to their dwelling, and had seen them disappear through the carriage gate, he entered in their train and said boldly to the porter 'Is that the gentleman who lives on the first floor, who has just come in? 'No, replied the porter. 'He is the gentleman on the third floor. Another step gained. This success emboldened Marius. 'On the front? he asked. 'Parbleu! said the porter, 'the house is only built on the street. 'And what is that gentleman's business? began Marius again. 'He is a gentleman of property, sir. A very kind man who does good to the unfortunate, though not rich himself. 'What is his name? resumed Marius. The porter raised his head and said 'Are you a police spy, sir? Marius went off quite abashed, but delighted. He was getting on. 'Good, thought he, 'I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives there, on the third floor, in the Rue de l'Ouest. On the following day, M. Leblanc and his daughter made only a very brief stay in the Luxembourg they went away while it was still broad daylight. Marius followed them to the Rue de l'Ouest, as he had taken up the habit of doing. On arriving at the carriage entrance M. Leblanc made his daughter pass in first, then paused, before crossing the threshold, and stared intently at Marius. On the next day they did not come to the Luxembourg. Marius waited for them all day in vain. At nightfall, he went to the Rue de l'Ouest, and saw a light in the windows of the third story. He walked about beneath the windows until the light was extinguished. The next day, no one at the Luxembourg. Marius waited all day, then went and did sentinel duty under their windows. This carried him on to ten o'clock in the evening. His dinner took care of itself. Fever nourishes the sick man, and love the lover. He spent a week in this manner. M. Leblanc no longer appeared at the Luxembourg. Marius indulged in melancholy conjectures he dared not watch the portecochre during the day he contented himself with going at night to gaze upon the red light of the windows. At times he saw shadows flit across them, and his heart began to beat. On the eighth day, when he arrived under the windows, there was no light in them. 'Hello! he said, 'the lamp is not lighted yet. But it is dark. Can they have gone out? He waited until ten o'clock. Until midnight. Until one in the morning. Not a light appeared in the windows of the third story, and no one entered the house. He went away in a very gloomy frame of mind. On the morrow,for he only existed from morrow to morrow, there was, so to speak, no today for him,on the morrow, he found no one at the Luxembourg he had expected this. At dusk, he went to the house. No light in the windows the shades were drawn the third floor was totally dark. Marius rapped at the portecochre, entered, and said to the porter 'The gentleman on the third floor? 'Has moved away, replied the porter. Marius reeled and said feebly 'How long ago? 'Yesterday. 'Where is he living now? 'I don't know anything about it. 'So he has not left his new address? 'No. And the porter, raising his eyes, recognized Marius. 'Come! So it's you! said he 'but you are decidedly a spy then? Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, a third lower floor. The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one upon the other. There are superior mines and inferior mines. There is a top and a bottom in this obscure subsoil, which sometimes gives way beneath civilization, and which our indifference and heedlessness trample under foot. The Encyclopedia, in the last century, was a mine that was almost open to the sky. The shades, those sombre hatchers of primitive Christianity, only awaited an opportunity to bring about an explosion under the Csars and to inundate the human race with light. For in the sacred shadows there lies latent light. Volcanoes are full of a shadow that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night. The catacombs, in which the first mass was said, were not alone the cellar of Rome, they were the vaults of the world. Beneath the social construction, that complicated marvel of a structure, there are excavations of all sorts. There is the religious mine, the philosophical mine, the economic mine, the revolutionary mine. Such and such a pickaxe with the idea, such a pick with ciphers. Such another with wrath. People hail and answer each other from one catacomb to another. Utopias travel about underground, in the pipes. There they branch out in every direction. They sometimes meet, and fraternize there. JeanJacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends him his lantern. Sometimes they enter into combat there. Calvin seizes Socinius by the hair. But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of all these energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the bottom and the inside and the outside. Society hardly even suspects this digging which leaves its surface intact and changes its bowels. There are as many different subterranean stages as there are varying works, as there are extractions. What emerges from these deep excavations? The future. The deeper one goes, the more mysterious are the toilers. The work is good, up to a degree which the social philosophies are able to recognize beyond that degree it is doubtful and mixed lower down, it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations are no longer penetrable by the spirit of civilization, the limit breathable by man has been passed a beginning of monsters is possible. The descending scale is a strange one and each one of the rungs of this ladder corresponds to a stage where philosophy can find foothold, and where one encounters one of these workmen, sometimes divine, sometimes misshapen. Below John Huss, there is Luther below Luther, there is Descartes below Descartes, there is Voltaire below Voltaire, there is Condorcet below Condorcet, there is Robespierre below Robespierre, there is Marat below Marat there is Babeuf. And so it goes on. Lower down, confusedly, at the limit which separates the indistinct from the invisible, one perceives other gloomy men, who perhaps do not exist as yet. The men of yesterday are spectres those of tomorrow are forms. The eye of the spirit distinguishes them but obscurely. The embryonic work of the future is one of the visions of philosophy. A world in limbo, in the state of ftus, what an unheardof spectre! SaintSimon, Owen, Fourier, are there also, in lateral galleries. Surely, although a divine and invisible chain unknown to themselves, binds together all these subterranean pioneers who, almost always, think themselves isolated, and who are not so, their works vary greatly, and the light of some contrasts with the blaze of others. The first are paradisiacal, the last are tragic. Nevertheless, whatever may be the contrast, all these toilers, from the highest to the most nocturnal, from the wisest to the most foolish, possess one likeness, and this is it disinterestedness. Marat forgets himself like Jesus. They throw themselves on one side, they omit themselves, they think not of themselves. They have a glance, and that glance seeks the absolute. The first has the whole heavens in his eyes the last, enigmatical though he may be, has still, beneath his eyelids, the pale beam of the infinite. Venerate the man, whoever he may be, who has this signthe starry eye. The shadowy eye is the other sign. With it, evil commences. Reflect and tremble in the presence of any one who has no glance at all. The social order has its black miners. There is a point where depth is tantamount to burial, and where light becomes extinct. Below all these mines which we have just mentioned, below all these galleries, below this whole immense, subterranean, venous system of progress and utopia, much further on in the earth, much lower than Marat, lower than Babeuf, lower, much lower, and without any connection with the upper levels, there lies the last mine. A formidable spot. This is what we have designated as the le troisime dessous. It is the grave of shadows. It is the cellar of the blind. Inferi. This communicates with the abyss. There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined each one is for himself. The I in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and gnaws. The social Ugolino is in this gulf. The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost phantoms, are not occupied with universal progress they are ignorant both of the idea and of the word they take no thought for anything but the satisfaction of their individual desires. They are almost unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible obliteration. They have two mothers, both stepmothers, ignorance and misery. They have a guide, necessity and for all forms of satisfaction, appetite. They are brutally voracious, that is to say, ferocious, not after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. From suffering these spectres pass to crime fatal affiliation, dizzy creation, logic of darkness. That which crawls in the social third lower level is no longer complaint stifled by the absolute it is the protest of matter. Man there becomes a dragon. To be hungry, to be thirstythat is the point of departure to be Satanthat is the point reached. From that vault Lacenaire emerges. We have just seen, in Book Fourth, one of the compartments of the upper mine, of the great political, revolutionary, and philosophical excavation. There, as we have just said, all is pure, noble, dignified, honest. There, assuredly, one might be misled but error is worthy of veneration there, so thoroughly does it imply heroism. The work there effected, taken as a whole has a name Progress. The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths, hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this point, and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be dissipated, the great cavern of evil. This cavern is below all, and is the foe of all. It is hatred, without exception. This cavern knows no philosophers its dagger has never cut a pen. Its blackness has no connection with the sublime blackness of the inkstand. Never have the fingers of night which contract beneath this stifling ceiling, turned the leaves of a book nor unfolded a newspaper. Babeuf is a speculator to Cartouche Marat is an aristocrat to Schinderhannes. This cavern has for its object the destruction of everything. Of everything. Including the upper superior mines, which it execrates. It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social order it undermines philosophy, it undermines human thought, it undermines civilization, it undermines revolution, it undermines progress. Its name is simply theft, prostitution, murder, assassination. It is darkness, and it desires chaos. Its vault is formed of ignorance. All the others, those above it, have but one objectto suppress it. It is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their organs simultaneously, by their amelioration of the real, as well as by their contemplation of the absolute. Destroy the cavern Ignorance and you destroy the lair Crime. Let us condense, in a few words, a part of what we have just written. The only social peril is darkness. Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there converted into evil. A quartette of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, and Montparnasse governed the third lower floor of Paris, from  to . Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his lair he had the sewer of the ArcheMarion. He was six feet high, his pectoral muscles were of marble, his biceps of brass, his breath was that of a cavern, his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird. One thought one beheld the Farnese Hercules clad in duck trousers and a cotton velvet waistcoat. Gueulemer, built after this sculptural fashion, might have subdued monsters he had found it more expeditious to be one. A low brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow'sfeet, harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild boar the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter at Avignon in . After this stage, he had turned ruffian. The diaphaneity of Babet contrasted with the grossness of Gueulemer. Babet was thin and learned. He was transparent but impenetrable. Daylight was visible through his bones, but nothing through his eyes. He declared that he was a chemist. He had been a jack of all trades. He had played in vaudeville at SaintMihiel. He was a man of purpose, a fine talker, who underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures. His occupation consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and portraits of 'the head of the State. In addition to this, he extracted teeth. He had exhibited phenomena at fairs, and he had owned a booth with a trumpet and this poster 'Babet, Dental Artist, Member of the Academies, makes physical experiments on metals and metalloids, extracts teeth, undertakes stumps abandoned by his brother practitioners. Price one tooth, one franc, fifty centimes two teeth, two francs three teeth, two francs, fifty. Take advantage of this opportunity. This Take advantage of this opportunity meant Have as many teeth extracted as possible. He had been married and had had children. He did not know what had become of his wife and children. He had lost them as one loses his handkerchief. Babet read the papers, a striking exception in the world to which he belonged. One day, at the period when he had his family with him in his booth on wheels, he had read in the Messager, that a woman had just given birth to a child, who was doing well, and had a calf's muzzle, and he exclaimed 'There's a fortune! my wife has not the wit to present me with a child like that! Later on he had abandoned everything, in order to 'undertake Paris. This was his expression. Who was Claquesous? He was night. He waited until the sky was daubed with black, before he showed himself. At nightfall he emerged from the hole whither he returned before daylight. Where was this hole? No one knew. He only addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, and with his back turned to them. Was his name Claquesous? Certainly not. If a candle was brought, he put on a mask. He was a ventriloquist. Babet said 'Claquesous is a nocturne for two voices. Claquesous was vague, terrible, and a roamer. No one was sure whether he had a name, Claquesous being a sobriquet none was sure that he had a voice, as his stomach spoke more frequently than his voice no one was sure that he had a face, as he was never seen without his mask. He disappeared as though he had vanished into thin air when he appeared, it was as though he sprang from the earth. A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child less than twenty years of age, with a handsome face, lips like cherries, charming black hair, the brilliant light of springtime in his eyes he had all vices and aspired to all crimes. The digestion of evil aroused in him an appetite for worse. It was the street boy turned pickpocket, and a pickpocket turned garroter. He was genteel, effeminate, graceful, robust, sluggish, ferocious. The rim of his hat was curled up on the left side, in order to make room for a tuft of hair, after the style of . He lived by robbery with violence. His coat was of the best cut, but threadbare. Montparnasse was a fashionplate in misery and given to the commission of murders. The cause of all this youth's crimes was the desire to be welldressed. The first grisette who had said to him 'You are handsome! had cast the stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. Finding that he was handsome, he desired to be elegant now, the height of elegance is idleness idleness in a poor man means crime. Few prowlers were so dreaded as Montparnasse. At eighteen, he had already numerous corpses in his past. More than one passerby lay with outstretched arms in the presence of this wretch, with his face in a pool of blood. Curled, pomaded, with laced waist, the hips of a woman, the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole such was this dandy of the sepulchre. These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent among the police, and striving to escape Vidocq's indiscreet glances 'under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain, lending each other their names and their traps, hiding in their own shadows, boxes with secret compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off their personalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball, sometimes simplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one individual, sometimes multiplying themselves to such a point that CocoLatour himself took them for a whole throng. These four men were not four men they were a sort of mysterious robber with four heads, operating on a grand scale on Paris they were that monstrous polyp of evil, which inhabits the crypt of society. Thanks to their ramifications, and to the network underlying their relations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were charged with the general enterprise of the ambushes of the department of the Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnal imaginations, applied to them to have their ideas executed. They furnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook the preparation of the scenery. They labored at the stage setting. They were always in a condition to lend a force proportioned and suitable to all crimes which demanded a lift of the shoulder, and which were sufficiently lucrative. When a crime was in quest of arms, they underlet their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the shadows at the disposition of all underground tragedies. They were in the habit of assembling at nightfall, the hour when they woke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salptrire. There they held their conferences. They had twelve black hours before them they regulated their employment accordingly. PatronMinette,such was the name which was bestowed in the subterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In the fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day, PatronMinette signifies the morning, the same as entre chien et loupbetween dog and wolfsignifies the evening. This appellation, PatronMinette, was probably derived from the hour at which their work ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for the separation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title. When the President of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, and questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, 'Who did it? demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical so far as the magistrate was concerned, but clear to the police 'Perhaps it was PatronMinette. A piece can sometimes be divined on the enunciation of the personages in the same manner a band can almost be judged from the list of ruffians composing it. Here are the appellations to which the principal members of PatronMinette answered,for the names have survived in special memoirs. Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille. Brujon. There was a Brujon dynasty we cannot refrain from interpolating this word. Boulatruelle, the roadmender already introduced. Laveuve. Finistre. HomreHogu, a negro. Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.) Dpche. (Make haste.) Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetire (the Flower Girl). Glorieux, a discharged convict. Barrecarrosse (Stopcarriage), called Monsieur Dupont. L'EsplanadeduSud. Poussagrive. Carmagnolet. Kruideniers, called Bizarro. Mangedentelle. (Laceeater.) Lespiedsenl'Air. (Feet in the air.) DemiLiard, called DeuxMilliards. Etc., etc. We pass over some, and not the worst of them. These names have faces attached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one of these names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from the under side of civilization. Those beings, who were not very lavish with their countenances, were not among the men whom one sees passing along the streets. Fatigued by the wild nights which they passed, they went off by day to sleep, sometimes in the limekilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of Montmatre or Montrouge, sometimes in the sewers. They ran to earth. What became of these men? They still exist. They have always existed. Horace speaks of them Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopol, mendici, mim and so long as society remains what it is, they will remain what they are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are continually born again from the social ooze. They return, spectres, but always identical only, they no longer bear the same names and they are no longer in the same skins. The individuals extirpated, the tribe subsists. They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, the race is maintained in its purity. They divine purses in pockets, they scent out watches in fobs. Gold and silver possess an odor for them. There exist ingenuous bourgeois, of whom it might be said, that they have a 'stealable air. These men patiently pursue these bourgeois. They experience the quivers of a spider at the passage of a stranger or of a man from the country. These men are terrible, when one encounters them, or catches a glimpse of them, towards midnight, on a deserted boulevard. They do not seem to be men but forms composed of living mists one would say that they habitually constitute one mass with the shadows, that they are in no wise distinct from them, that they possess no other soul than the darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living for a few minutes a monstrous life, that they have separated from the night. What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light in floods. Not a single bat can resist the dawn. Light up society from below. Summer passed, then the autumn winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, Marius had but one thought,to gaze once more on that sweet and adorable face. He sought constantly, he sought everywhere he found nothing. He was no longer Marius, the enthusiastic dreamer, the firm, resolute, ardent man, the bold defier of fate, the brain which erected future on future, the young spirit encumbered with plans, with projects, with pride, with ideas and wishes he was a lost dog. He fell into a black melancholy. All was over. Work disgusted him, walking tired him. Vast nature, formerly so filled with forms, lights, voices, counsels, perspectives, horizons, teachings, now lay empty before him. It seemed to him that everything had disappeared. He thought incessantly, for he could not do otherwise but he no longer took pleasure in his thoughts. To everything that they proposed to him in a whisper, he replied in his darkness 'What is the use? He heaped a hundred reproaches on himself. 'Why did I follow her? I was so happy at the mere sight of her! She looked at me was not that immense? She had the air of loving me. Was not that everything? I wished to have, what? There was nothing after that. I have been absurd. It is my own fault, etc., etc. Courfeyrac, to whom he confided nothing,it was his nature,but who made some little guess at everything,that was his nature,had begun by congratulating him on being in love, though he was amazed at it then, seeing Marius fall into this melancholy state, he ended by saying to him 'I see that you have been simply an animal. Here, come to the Chaumire. Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowed himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and Grantaire, hoping, what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. Of course he did not see the one he sought.'But this is the place, all the same, where all lost women are found, grumbled Grantaire in an aside. Marius left his friends at the ball and returned home on foot, alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, stunned by the noise and dust of the merry wagons filled with singing creatures on their way home from the feast, which passed close to him, as he, in his discouragement, breathed in the acrid scent of the walnuttrees, along the road, in order to refresh his head. He took to living more and more alone, utterly overwhelmed, wholly given up to his inward anguish, going and coming in his pain like the wolf in the trap, seeking the absent one everywhere, stupefied by love. On another occasion, he had an encounter which produced on him a singular effect. He met, in the narrow streets in the vicinity of the Boulevard des Invalides, a man dressed like a workingman and wearing a cap with a long visor, which allowed a glimpse of locks of very white hair. Marius was struck with the beauty of this white hair, and scrutinized the man, who was walking slowly and as though absorbed in painful meditation. Strange to say, he thought that he recognized M. Leblanc. The hair was the same, also the profile, so far as the cap permitted a view of it, the mien identical, only more depressed. But why these workingman's clothes? What was the meaning of this? What signified that disguise? Marius was greatly astonished. When he recovered himself, his first impulse was to follow the man who knows whether he did not hold at last the clue which he was seeking? In any case, he must see the man near at hand, and clear up the mystery. But the idea occurred to him too late, the man was no longer there. He had turned into some little side street, and Marius could not find him. This encounter occupied his mind for three days and then was effaced. 'After all, he said to himself, 'it was probably only a resemblance. Marius had not left the Gorbeau house. He paid no attention to any one there. At that epoch, to tell the truth, there were no other inhabitants in the house, except himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid, without, moreover, ever having spoken to either father, mother, or daughters. The other lodgers had moved away or had died, or had been turned out in default of payment. One day during that winter, the sun had shown itself a little in the afternoon, but it was the d of February, that ancient Candlemas day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' cold spell, inspired Mathieu Laensberg with these two lines, which have with justice remained classic Qu'il luise ou qu'il luiserne, L'ours rentre dans en sa caverne. Marius had just emerged from his night was falling. It was the hour for his dinner for he had been obliged to take to dining again, alas! oh, infirmities of ideal passions! He had just crossed his threshold, where Ma'am Bougon was sweeping at the moment, as she uttered this memorable monologue 'What is there that is cheap now? Everything is dear. There is nothing in the world that is cheap except trouble you can get that for nothing, the trouble of the world! Marius slowly ascended the boulevard towards the barrier, in order to reach the Rue SaintJacques. He was walking along with drooping head. All at once, he felt some one elbow him in the dusk he wheeled round, and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other a little shorter, who were passing rapidly, all out of breath, in terror, and with the appearance of fleeing they had been coming to meet him, had not seen him, and had jostled him as they passed. Through the twilight, Marius could distinguish their livid faces, their wild heads, their dishevelled hair, their hideous bonnets, their ragged petticoats, and their bare feet. They were talking as they ran. The taller said in a very low voice 'The bobbies have come. They came near nabbing me at the halfcircle. The other answered 'I saw them. I bolted, bolted, bolted! Through this repulsive slang, Marius understood that gendarmes or the police had come near apprehending these two children, and that the latter had escaped. They plunged among the trees of the boulevard behind him, and there created, for a few minutes, in the gloom, a sort of vague white spot, then disappeared. Marius had halted for a moment. He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayish package lying on the ground at his feet. He stooped and picked it up. It was a sort of envelope which appeared to contain papers. 'Good, he said to himself, 'those unhappy girls dropped it. He retraced his steps, he called, he did not find them he reflected that they must already be far away, put the package in his pocket, and went off to dine. On the way, he saw in an alley of the Rue Mouffetard, a child's coffin, covered with a black cloth resting on three chairs, and illuminated by a candle. The two girls of the twilight recurred to his mind. 'Poor mothers! he thought. 'There is one thing sadder than to see one's children die it is to see them leading an evil life. Then those shadows which had varied his melancholy vanished from his thoughts, and he fell back once more into his habitual preoccupations. He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happiness in the open air and the broad daylight, beneath the beautiful trees of Luxembourg. 'How gloomy my life has become! he said to himself. 'Young girls are always appearing to me, only formerly they were angels and now they are ghouls. That evening, as he was undressing preparatory to going to bed, his hand came in contact, in the pocket of his coat, with the packet which he had picked up on the boulevard. He had forgotten it. He thought that it would be well to open it, and that this package might possibly contain the address of the young girls, if it really belonged to them, and, in any case, the information necessary to a restitution to the person who had lost it. He opened the envelope. It was not sealed and contained four letters, also unsealed. They bore addresses. All four exhaled a horrible odor of tobacco. The first was addressed 'To Madame, Madame la Marquise de Grucheray, the place opposite the Chamber of Deputies, No. Marius said to himself, that he should probably find in it the information which he sought, and that, moreover, the letter being open, it was probable that it could be read without impropriety. It was conceived as follows Madame la Marquise The virtue of clemency and piety is that which most closely unites sosiety. Turn your Christian spirit and cast a look of compassion on this unfortunate Spanish victim of loyalty and attachment to the sacred cause of legitimacy, who has given with his blood, consecrated his fortune, evverything, to defend that cause, and today finds himself in the greatest missery. He doubts not that your honorable person will grant succor to preserve an existence exteremely painful for a military man of education and honor full of wounds, counts in advance on the humanity which animates you and on the interest which Madame la Marquise bears to a nation so unfortunate. Their prayer will not be in vain, and their gratitude will preserve theirs charming souvenir. My respectful sentiments, with which I have the honor to be Madame, DON ALVARS, Spanish Captain of Cavalry, a royalist who has take refuge in France, who finds himself on travells for his country, and the resources are lacking him to continue his travells. No address was joined to the signature. Marius hoped to find the address in the second letter, whose superscription read  Madame, Madame la Comtesse de Montvernet, Rue Cassette, No. . This is what Marius read in it MADAME LA COMTESSE It is an unhappy mother of a family of six children the last of which is only eight months old. I sick since my last confinement, abandoned by my husband five months ago, haveing no resources in the world the most frightful indigance. In the hope of Madame la Comtesse, she has the honor to be, Madame, with profound respect, MISTRESS BALIZARD. Marius turned to the third letter, which was a petition like the preceding he read Monsieur PABOURGEOT, Elector, wholesale stocking merchant, Rue SaintDenis on the corner of the Rue aux Fers. I permit myself to address you this letter to beg you to grant me the pretious favor of your simpaties and to interest yourself in a man of letters who has just sent a drama to the ThtreFranais. The subject is historical, and the action takes place in Auvergne in the time of the Empire the style, I think, is natural, laconic, and may have some merit. There are couplets to be sung in four places. The comic, the serious, the unexpected, are mingled in a variety of characters, and a tinge of romanticism lightly spread through all the intrigue which proceeds misteriously, and ends, after striking altarations, in the midst of many beautiful strokes of brilliant scenes. My principal object is to satisfi the desire which progressively animates the man of our century, that is to say, the fashion, that capritious and bizarre weathervane which changes at almost every new wind. In spite of these qualities I have reason to fear that jealousy, the egotism of priviliged authors, may obtaine my exclusion from the theatre, for I am not ignorant of the mortifications with which newcomers are treated. Monsiuer Pabourgeot, your just reputation as an enlightened protector of men of litters emboldens me to send you my daughter who will explain our indigant situation to you, lacking bread and fire in this wynter season. When I say to you that I beg you to accept the dedication of my drama which I desire to make to you and of all those that I shall make, is to prove to you how great is my ambition to have the honor of sheltering myself under your protection, and of adorning my writings with your name. If you deign to honor me with the most modest offering, I shall immediately occupy myself in making a piesse of verse to pay you my tribute of gratitude. Which I shall endeavor to render this piesse as perfect as possible, will be sent to you before it is inserted at the beginning of the drama and delivered on the stage. To Monsieur and Madame Pabourgeot, My most respectful complements, GENFLOT, man of letters. P. S. Even if it is only forty sous. Excuse me for sending my daughter and not presenting myself, but sad motives connected with the toilet do not permit me, alas! to go out. Finally, Marius opened the fourth letter. The address ran To the benevolent Gentleman of the church of SaintJacquesduhautPas. It contained the following lines BENEVOLENT MAN If you deign to accompany my daughter, you will behold a misserable calamity, and I will show you my certificates. At the aspect of these writings your generous soul will be moved with a sentiment of obvious benevolence, for true philosophers always feel lively emotions. Admit, compassionate man, that it is necessary to suffer the most cruel need, and that it is very painful, for the sake of obtaining a little relief, to get oneself attested by the authorities as though one were not free to suffer and to die of inanition while waiting to have our misery relieved. Destinies are very fatal for several and too prodigal or too protecting for others. I await your presence or your offering, if you deign to make one, and I beseech you to accept the respectful sentiments with which I have the honor to be, truly magnanimous man, your very humble and very obedient servant, P. FABANTOU, dramatic artist. After perusing these four letters, Marius did not find himself much further advanced than before. In the first place, not one of the signers gave his address. Then, they seemed to come from four different individuals, Don Alvars, Mistress Balizard, the poet Genflot, and dramatic artist Fabantou but the singular thing about these letters was, that all four were written by the same hand. What conclusion was to be drawn from this, except that they all come from the same person? Moreover, and this rendered the conjecture all the more probable, the coarse and yellow paper was the same in all four, the odor of tobacco was the same, and, although an attempt had been made to vary the style, the same orthographical faults were reproduced with the greatest tranquillity, and the man of letters Genflot was no more exempt from them than the Spanish captain. It was waste of trouble to try to solve this petty mystery. Had it not been a chance find, it would have borne the air of a mystification. Marius was too melancholy to take even a chance pleasantry well, and to lend himself to a game which the pavement of the street seemed desirous of playing with him. It seemed to him that he was playing the part of the blind man in blind man's buff between the four letters, and that they were making sport of him. Nothing, however, indicated that these letters belonged to the two young girls whom Marius had met on the boulevard. After all, they were evidently papers of no value. Marius replaced them in their envelope, flung the whole into a corner and went to bed. About seven o'clock in the morning, he had just risen and breakfasted, and was trying to settle down to work, when there came a soft knock at his door. As he owned nothing, he never locked his door, unless occasionally, though very rarely, when he was engaged in some pressing work. Even when absent he left his key in the lock. 'You will be robbed, said Ma'am Bougon. 'Of what? said Marius. The truth is, however, that he had, one day, been robbed of an old pair of boots, to the great triumph of Ma'am Bougon. There came a second knock, as gentle as the first. 'Come in, said Marius. The door opened. 'What do you want, Ma'am Bougon? asked Marius, without raising his eyes from the books and manuscripts on his table. A voice which did not belong to Ma'am Bougon replied 'Excuse me, sir It was a dull, broken, hoarse, strangled voice, the voice of an old man, roughened with brandy and liquor. Marius turned round hastily, and beheld a young girl. A very young girl was standing in the halfopen door. The dormer window of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail, emaciated, slender creature there was nothing but a chemise and a petticoat upon that chilled and shivering nakedness. Her girdle was a string, her head ribbon a string, her pointed shoulders emerged from her chemise, a blond and lymphatic pallor, earthcolored collarbones, red hands, a halfopen and degraded mouth, missing teeth, dull, bold, base eyes she had the form of a young girl who has missed her youth, and the look of a corrupt old woman fifty years mingled with fifteen one of those beings which are both feeble and horrible, and which cause those to shudder whom they do not cause to weep. Marius had risen, and was staring in a sort of stupor at this being, who was almost like the forms of the shadows which traverse dreams. The most heartbreaking thing of all was, that this young girl had not come into the world to be homely. In her early childhood she must even have been pretty. The grace of her age was still struggling against the hideous, premature decrepitude of debauchery and poverty. The remains of beauty were dying away in that face of sixteen, like the pale sunlight which is extinguished under hideous clouds at dawn on a winter's day. That face was not wholly unknown to Marius. He thought he remembered having seen it somewhere. 'What do you wish, Mademoiselle? he asked. The young girl replied in her voice of a drunken convict 'Here is a letter for you, Monsieur Marius. She called Marius by his name he could not doubt that he was the person whom she wanted but who was this girl? How did she know his name? Without waiting for him to tell her to advance, she entered. She entered resolutely, staring, with a sort of assurance that made the heart bleed, at the whole room and the unmade bed. Her feet were bare. Large holes in her petticoat permitted glimpses of her long legs and her thin knees. She was shivering. She held a letter in her hand, which she presented to Marius. Marius, as he opened the letter, noticed that the enormous wafer which sealed it was still moist. The message could not have come from a distance. He read MY AMIABLE NEIGHBOR, YOUNG MAN I have learned of your goodness to me, that you paid my rent six months ago. I bless you, young man. My eldest daughter will tell you that we have been without a morsel of bread for two days, four persons and my spouse ill. If I am not deseaved in my opinion, I think I may hope that your generous heart will melt at this statement and the desire will subjugate you to be propitious to me by daigning to lavish on me a slight favor. I am with the distinguished consideration which is due to the benefactors of humanity, JONDRETTE. P.S. My eldest daughter will await your orders, dear Monsieur Marius. This letter, coming in the very midst of the mysterious adventure which had occupied Marius' thoughts ever since the preceding evening, was like a candle in a cellar. All was suddenly illuminated. This letter came from the same place as the other four. There was the same writing, the same style, the same orthography, the same paper, the same odor of tobacco. There were five missives, five histories, five signatures, and a single signer. The Spanish Captain Don Alvars, the unhappy Mistress Balizard, the dramatic poet Genflot, the old comedian Fabantou, were all four named Jondrette, if, indeed, Jondrette himself were named Jondrette. Marius had lived in the house for a tolerably long time, and he had had, as we have said, but very rare occasion to see, to even catch a glimpse of, his extremely mean neighbors. His mind was elsewhere, and where the mind is, there the eyes are also. He had been obliged more than once to pass the Jondrettes in the corridor or on the stairs but they were mere forms to him he had paid so little heed to them, that, on the preceding evening, he had jostled the Jondrette girls on the boulevard, without recognizing them, for it had evidently been they, and it was with great difficulty that the one who had just entered his room had awakened in him, in spite of disgust and pity, a vague recollection of having met her elsewhere. Now he saw everything clearly. He understood that his neighbor Jondrette, in his distress, exercised the industry of speculating on the charity of benevolent persons, that he procured addresses, and that he wrote under feigned names to people whom he judged to be wealthy and compassionate, letters which his daughters delivered at their risk and peril, for this father had come to such a pass, that he risked his daughters he was playing a game with fate, and he used them as the stake. Marius understood that probably, judging from their flight on the evening before, from their breathless condition, from their terror and from the words of slang which he had overheard, these unfortunate creatures were plying some inexplicably sad profession, and that the result of the whole was, in the midst of human society, as it is now constituted, two miserable beings who were neither girls nor women, a species of impure and innocent monsters produced by misery. Sad creatures, without name, or sex, or age, to whom neither good nor evil were any longer possible, and who, on emerging from childhood, have already nothing in this world, neither liberty, nor virtue, nor responsibility. Souls which blossomed out yesterday, and are faded today, like those flowers let fall in the streets, which are soiled with every sort of mire, while waiting for some wheel to crush them. Nevertheless, while Marius bent a pained and astonished gaze on her, the young girl was wandering back and forth in the garret with the audacity of a spectre. She kicked about, without troubling herself as to her nakedness. Occasionally her chemise, which was untied and torn, fell almost to her waist. She moved the chairs about, she disarranged the toilet articles which stood on the commode, she handled Marius' clothes, she rummaged about to see what there was in the corners. 'Hullo! said she, 'you have a mirror! And she hummed scraps of vaudevilles, as though she had been alone, frolicsome refrains which her hoarse and guttural voice rendered lugubrious. An indescribable constraint, weariness, and humiliation were perceptible beneath this hardihood. Effrontery is a disgrace. Nothing could be more melancholy than to see her sport about the room, and, so to speak, flit with the movements of a bird which is frightened by the daylight, or which has broken its wing. One felt that under other conditions of education and destiny, the gay and overfree mien of this young girl might have turned out sweet and charming. Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only to be seen among men. Marius reflected, and allowed her to have her way. She approached the table. 'Ah! said she, 'books! A flash pierced her glassy eye. She resumed, and her accent expressed the happiness which she felt in boasting of something, to which no human creature is insensible 'I know how to read, I do! She eagerly seized a book which lay open on the table, and read with tolerable fluency 'General Bauduin received orders to take the chteau of Hougomont which stands in the middle of the plain of Waterloo, with five battalions of his brigade. She paused. 'Ah! Waterloo! I know about that. It was a battle long ago. My father was there. My father has served in the armies. We are fine Bonapartists in our house, that we are! Waterloo was against the English. She laid down the book, caught up a pen, and exclaimed 'And I know how to write, too! She dipped her pen in the ink, and turning to Marius 'Do you want to see? Look here, I'm going to write a word to show you. And before he had time to answer, she wrote on a sheet of white paper, which lay in the middle of the table 'The bobbies are here. Then throwing down the pen 'There are no faults of orthography. You can look. We have received an education, my sister and I. We have not always been as we are now. We were not made Here she paused, fixed her dull eyes on Marius, and burst out laughing, saying, with an intonation which contained every form of anguish, stifled by every form of cynicism 'Bah! And she began to hum these words to a gay air 'J'ai faim, mon pre. Pas de fricot. J'ai froid, ma mre. Pas de tricot. Grelotte, Lolotte! Sanglote, Jacquot! I am hungry, father. I have no food. I am cold, mother. I have no clothes. Lolotte! Shiver, Sob, Jacquot! She had hardly finished this couplet, when she exclaimed 'Do you ever go to the play, Monsieur Marius? I do. I have a little brother who is a friend of the artists, and who gives me tickets sometimes. But I don't like the benches in the galleries. One is cramped and uncomfortable there. There are rough people there sometimes and people who smell bad. Then she scrutinized Marius, assumed a singular air and said 'Do you know, Mr. Marius, that you are a very handsome fellow? And at the same moment the same idea occurred to them both, and made her smile and him blush. She stepped up to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder 'You pay no heed to me, but I know you, Mr. Marius. I meet you here on the staircase, and then I often see you going to a person named Father Mabeuf who lives in the direction of Austerlitz, sometimes when I have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have your hair tumbled thus. She tried to render her voice soft, but only succeeded in making it very deep. A portion of her words was lost in the transit from her larynx to her lips, as though on a piano where some notes are missing. Marius had retreated gently. 'Mademoiselle, said he, with his cool gravity, 'I have here a package which belongs to you, I think. Permit me to return it to you. And he held out the envelope containing the four letters. She clapped her hands and exclaimed 'We have been looking everywhere for that! Then she eagerly seized the package and opened the envelope, saying as she did so 'Dieu de Dieu! how my sister and I have hunted! And it was you who found it! On the boulevard, was it not? It must have been on the boulevard? You see, we let it fall when we were running. It was that brat of a sister of mine who was so stupid. When we got home, we could not find it anywhere. As we did not wish to be beaten, as that is useless, as that is entirely useless, as that is absolutely useless, we said that we had carried the letters to the proper persons, and that they had said to us 'Nix.' So here they are, those poor letters! And how did you find out that they belonged to me? Ah! yes, the writing. So it was you that we jostled as we passed last night. We couldn't see. I said to my sister 'Is it a gentleman?' My sister said to me 'I think it is a gentleman.' In the meanwhile she had unfolded the petition addressed to 'the benevolent gentleman of the church of SaintJacquesduHautPas. 'Here! said she, 'this is for that old fellow who goes to mass. By the way, this is his hour. I'll go and carry it to him. Perhaps he will give us something to breakfast on. Then she began to laugh again, and added 'Do you know what it will mean if we get a breakfast today? It will mean that we shall have had our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of today, and all that at once, and this morning. Come! Parbleu! if you are not satisfied, dogs, burst! This reminded Marius of the wretched girl's errand to himself. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and found nothing there. The young girl went on, and seemed to have no consciousness of Marius' presence. 'I often go off in the evening. Sometimes I don't come home again. Last winter, before we came here, we lived under the arches of the bridges. We huddled together to keep from freezing. My little sister cried. How melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said to myself 'No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I sometimes sleep in the ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along the boulevard, I see the trees like forks, I see houses, all black and as big as Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, I say to myself 'Why, there's water there!' The stars are like the lamps in illuminations, one would say that they smoked and that the wind blew them out, I am bewildered, as though horses were breathing in my ears although it is night, I hear handorgans and spinningmachines, and I don't know what all. I think people are flinging stones at me, I flee without knowing whither, everything whirls and whirls. You feel very queer when you have had no food. And then she stared at him with a bewildered air. By dint of searching and ransacking his pockets, Marius had finally collected five francs sixteen sous. This was all he owned in the world for the moment. 'At all events, he thought, 'there is my dinner for today, and tomorrow we will see. He kept the sixteen sous, and handed the five francs to the young girl. She seized the coin. 'Good! said she, 'the sun is shining! And, as though the sun had possessed the property of melting the avalanches of slang in her brain, she went on 'Five francs! the shiner! a monarch! in this hole! Ain't this fine! You're a jolly thief! I'm your humble servant! Bravo for the good fellows! Two days' wine! and meat! and stew! we'll have a royal feast! and a good fill! She pulled her chemise up on her shoulders, made a low bow to Marius, then a familiar sign with her hand, and went towards the door, saying 'Good morning, sir. It's all right. I'll go and find my old man. As she passed, she caught sight of a dry crust of bread on the commode, which was moulding there amid the dust she flung herself upon it and bit into it, muttering 'That's good! it's hard! it breaks my teeth! Then she departed. Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitution, even in distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True misery he had but just had a view of. It was its spectre which had just passed before his eyes. In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of man has seen nothing the misery of woman is what he must see he who has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing he must see the misery of the child. When a man has reached his last extremity, he has reached his last resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, good will, all fail him simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral light within in these shadows man encounters the feebleness of the woman and the child, and bends them violently to ignominy. Then all horrors become possible. Despair is surrounded with fragile partitions which all open on either vice or crime. Health, youth, honor, all the shy delicacies of the young body, the heart, virginity, modesty, that epidermis of the soul, are manipulated in sinister wise by that fumbling which seeks resources, which encounters opprobrium, and which accommodates itself to it. Fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters, men, women, daughters, adhere and become incorporated, almost like a mineral formation, in that dusky promiscuousness of sexes, relationships, ages, infamies, and innocences. They crouch, back to back, in a sort of hut of fate. They exchange woebegone glances. Oh, the unfortunate wretches! How pale they are! How cold they are! It seems as though they dwelt in a planet much further from the sun than ours. This young girl was to Marius a sort of messenger from the realm of sad shadows. She revealed to him a hideous side of the night. Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of reverie and passion which had prevented his bestowing a glance on his neighbors up to that day. The payment of their rent had been a mechanical movement, which any one would have yielded to but he, Marius, should have done better than that. What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned beings who lived gropingly in the dark outside the pale of the rest of the world, he was elbow to elbow with them, he was, in some sort, the last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live, or rather, rattle in the death agony beside him, and he paid no heed to them! Every day, every instant, he heard them walking on the other side of the wall, he heard them go, and come, and speak, and he did not even lend an ear! And groans lay in those words, and he did not even listen to them, his thoughts were elsewhere, given up to dreams, to impossible radiances, to loves in the air, to follies and all the while, human creatures, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people, were agonizing in vain beside him! He even formed a part of their misfortune, and he aggravated it. For if they had had another neighbor who was less chimerical and more attentive, any ordinary and charitable man, evidently their indigence would have been noticed, their signals of distress would have been perceived, and they would have been taken hold of and rescued! They appeared very corrupt and very depraved, no doubt, very vile, very odious even but those who fall without becoming degraded are rare besides, there is a point where the unfortunate and the infamous unite and are confounded in a single word, a fatal word, the miserable whose fault is this? And then should not the charity be all the more profound, in proportion as the fall is great? While reading himself this moral lesson, for there were occasions on which Marius, like all truly honest hearts, was his own pedagogue and scolded himself more than he deserved, he stared at the wall which separated him from the Jondrettes, as though he were able to make his gaze, full of pity, penetrate that partition and warm these wretched people. The wall was a thin layer of plaster upheld by lathes and beams, and, as the reader had just learned, it allowed the sound of voices and words to be clearly distinguished. Only a man as dreamy as Marius could have failed to perceive this long before. There was no paper pasted on the wall, either on the side of the Jondrettes or on that of Marius the coarse construction was visible in its nakedness. Marius examined the partition, almost unconsciously sometimes reverie examines, observes, and scrutinizes as thought would. All at once he sprang up he had just perceived, near the top, close to the ceiling, a triangular hole, which resulted from the space between three lathes. The plaster which should have filled this cavity was missing, and by mounting on the commode, a view could be had through this aperture into the Jondrettes' attic. Commiseration has, and should have, its curiosity. This aperture formed a sort of peephole. It is permissible to gaze at misfortune like a traitor in order to succor it. 'Let us get some little idea of what these people are like, thought Marius, 'and in what condition they are. He climbed upon the commode, put his eye to the crevice, and looked. Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the most wicked and formidable creatures which they contain conceal themselves. Only, in cities, that which thus conceals itself is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly in forests, that which conceals itself is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair with another, the beast's is preferable to the man's. Caverns are better than hovels. What Marius now beheld was a hovel. Marius was poor, and his chamber was povertystricken, but as his poverty was noble, his garret was neat. The den upon which his eye now rested was abject, dirty, fetid, pestiferous, mean, sordid. The only furniture consisted of a straw chair, an infirm table, some old bits of crockery, and in two of the corners, two indescribable pallets all the light was furnished by a dormer window of four panes, draped with spiders' webs. Through this aperture there penetrated just enough light to make the face of a man appear like the face of a phantom. The walls had a leprous aspect, and were covered with seams and scars, like a visage disfigured by some horrible malady a repulsive moisture exuded from them. Obscene sketches roughly sketched with charcoal could be distinguished upon them. The chamber which Marius occupied had a dilapidated brick pavement this one was neither tiled nor planked its inhabitants stepped directly on the antique plaster of the hovel, which had grown black under the longcontinued pressure of feet. Upon this uneven floor, where the dirt seemed to be fairly incrusted, and which possessed but one virginity, that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old shoes, socks, and repulsive rags however, this room had a fireplace, so it was let for forty francs a year. There was every sort of thing in that fireplace, a brazier, a pot, broken boards, rags suspended from nails, a birdcage, ashes, and even a little fire. Two brands were smouldering there in a melancholy way. One thing which added still more to the horrors of this garret was, that it was large. It had projections and angles and black holes, the lower sides of roofs, bays, and promontories. Hence horrible, unfathomable nooks where it seemed as though spiders as big as one's fist, woodlice as large as one's foot, and perhaps evenwho knows?some monstrous human beings, must be hiding. One of the pallets was near the door, the other near the window. One end of each touched the fireplace and faced Marius. In a corner near the aperture through which Marius was gazing, a colored engraving in a black frame was suspended to a nail on the wall, and at its bottom, in large letters, was the inscription THE DREAM. This represented a sleeping woman, and a child, also asleep, the child on the woman's lap, an eagle in a cloud, with a crown in his beak, and the woman thrusting the crown away from the child's head, without awaking the latter in the background, Napoleon in a glory, leaning on a very blue column with a yellow capital ornamented with this inscription MARINGO AUSTERLITS IENA WAGRAMME ELOT Beneath this frame, a sort of wooden panel, which was no longer than it was broad, stood on the ground and rested in a sloping attitude against the wall. It had the appearance of a picture with its face turned to the wall, of a frame probably showing a daub on the other side, of some pierglass detached from a wall and lying forgotten there while waiting to be rehung. Near the table, upon which Marius descried a pen, ink, and paper, sat a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a cunning, cruel, and uneasy air a hideous scoundrel. If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture mingled with the attorney there, the bird of prey and the pettifogger rendering each other mutually hideous and complementing each other the pettifogger making the bird of prey ignoble, the bird of prey making the pettifogger horrible. This man had a long gray beard. He was clad in a woman's chemise, which allowed his hairy breast and his bare arms, bristling with gray hair, to be seen. Beneath this chemise, muddy trousers and boots through which his toes projected were visible. He had a pipe in his mouth and was smoking. There was no bread in the hovel, but there was still tobacco. He was writing probably some more letters like those which Marius had read. On the corner of the table lay an ancient, dilapidated, reddish volume, and the size, which was the antique mo of readingrooms, betrayed a romance. On the cover sprawled the following title, printed in large capitals GOD THE KING HONOR AND THE LADIES by DUCRAY DUMINIL, . As the man wrote, he talked aloud, and Marius heard his words 'The idea that there is no equality, even when you are dead! Just look at PreLachaise! The great, those who are rich, are up above, in the acacia alley, which is paved. They can reach it in a carriage. The little people, the poor, the unhappy, well, what of them? they are put down below, where the mud is up to your knees, in the damp places. They are put there so that they will decay the sooner! You cannot go to see them without sinking into the earth. He paused, smote the table with his fist, and added, as he ground his teeth 'Oh! I could eat the whole world! A big woman, who might be forty years of age, or a hundred, was crouching near the fireplace on her bare heels. She, too, was clad only in a chemise and a knitted petticoat patched with bits of old cloth. A coarse linen apron concealed the half of her petticoat. Although this woman was doubled up and bent together, it could be seen that she was of very lofty stature. She was a sort of giant, beside her husband. She had hideous hair, of a reddish blond which was turning gray, and which she thrust back from time to time, with her enormous shining hands, with their flat nails. Beside her, on the floor, wide open, lay a book of the same form as the other, and probably a volume of the same romance. On one of the pallets, Marius caught a glimpse of a sort of tall pale young girl, who sat there half naked and with pendant feet, and who did not seem to be listening or seeing or living. No doubt the younger sister of the one who had come to his room. She seemed to be eleven or twelve years of age. On closer scrutiny it was evident that she really was fourteen. She was the child who had said, on the boulevard the evening before 'I bolted, bolted, bolted! She was of that puny sort which remains backward for a long time, then suddenly starts up rapidly. It is indigence which produces these melancholy human plants. These creatures have neither childhood nor youth. At fifteen years of age they appear to be twelve, at sixteen they seem twenty. Today a little girl, tomorrow a woman. One might say that they stride through life, in order to get through with it the more speedily. At this moment, this being had the air of a child. Moreover, no trace of work was revealed in that dwelling no handicraft, no spinningwheel, not a tool. In one corner lay some ironmongery of dubious aspect. It was the dull listlessness which follows despair and precedes the death agony. Marius gazed for a while at this gloomy interior, more terrifying than the interior of a tomb, for the human soul could be felt fluttering there, and life was palpitating there. The garret, the cellar, the lowly ditch where certain indigent wretches crawl at the very bottom of the social edifice, is not exactly the sepulchre, but only its antechamber but, as the wealthy display their greatest magnificence at the entrance of their palaces, it seems that death, which stands directly side by side with them, places its greatest miseries in that vestibule. The man held his peace, the woman spoke no word, the young girl did not even seem to breathe. The scratching of the pen on the paper was audible. The man grumbled, without pausing in his writing. 'Canaille! canaille! everybody is canaille! This variation to Solomon's exclamation elicited a sigh from the woman. 'Calm yourself, my little friend, she said. 'Don't hurt yourself, my dear. You are too good to write to all those people, husband. Bodies press close to each other in misery, as in cold, but hearts draw apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance, judging from the amount of love within her but probably, in the daily and reciprocal reproaches of the horrible distress which weighed on the whole group, this had become extinct. There no longer existed in her anything more than the ashes of affection for her husband. Nevertheless, caressing appellations had survived, as is often the case. She called him My dear, my little friend, my good man, etc., with her mouth while her heart was silent. The man resumed his writing. Marius, with a load upon his breast, was on the point of descending from the species of observatory which he had improvised, when a sound attracted his attention and caused him to remain at his post. The door of the attic had just burst open abruptly. The eldest girl made her appearance on the threshold. On her feet, she had large, coarse, men's shoes, bespattered with mud, which had splashed even to her red ankles, and she was wrapped in an old mantle which hung in tatters. Marius had not seen it on her an hour previously, but she had probably deposited it at his door, in order that she might inspire the more pity, and had picked it up again on emerging. She entered, pushed the door to behind her, paused to take breath, for she was completely breathless, then exclaimed with an expression of triumph and joy 'He is coming! The father turned his eyes towards her, the woman turned her head, the little sister did not stir. 'Who? demanded her father. 'The gentleman! 'The philanthropist? 'Yes. 'From the church of SaintJacques? 'Yes. 'That old fellow? 'Yes. 'And he is coming? 'He is following me. 'You are sure? 'I am sure. 'There, truly, he is coming? 'He is coming in a fiacre. 'In a fiacre. He is Rothschild. The father rose. 'How are you sure? If he is coming in a fiacre, how is it that you arrive before him? You gave him our address at least? Did you tell him that it was the last door at the end of the corridor, on the right? If he only does not make a mistake! So you found him at the church? Did he read my letter? What did he say to you? 'Ta, ta, ta, said the girl, 'how you do gallop on, my good man! See here I entered the church, he was in his usual place, I made him a reverence, and I handed him the letter he read it and said to me 'Where do you live, my child?' I said 'Monsieur, I will show you.' He said to me 'No, give me your address, my daughter has some purchases to make, I will take a carriage and reach your house at the same time that you do.' I gave him the address. When I mentioned the house, he seemed surprised and hesitated for an instant, then he said 'Never mind, I will come.' When the mass was finished, I watched him leave the church with his daughter, and I saw them enter a carriage. I certainly did tell him the last door in the corridor, on the right. 'And what makes you think that he will come? 'I have just seen the fiacre turn into the Rue PetitBanquier. That is what made me run so. 'How do you know that it was the same fiacre? 'Because I took notice of the number, so there! 'What was the number? '. 'Good, you are a clever girl. The girl stared boldly at her father, and showing the shoes which she had on her feet 'A clever girl, possibly but I tell you I won't put these shoes on again, and that I won't, for the sake of my health, in the first place, and for the sake of cleanliness, in the next. I don't know anything more irritating than shoes that squelch, and go ghi, ghi, ghi, the whole time. I prefer to go barefoot. 'You are right, said her father, in a sweet tone which contrasted with the young girl's rudeness, 'but then, you will not be allowed to enter churches, for poor people must have shoes to do that. One cannot go barefoot to the good God, he added bitterly. Then, returning to the subject which absorbed him 'So you are sure that he will come? 'He is following on my heels, said she. The man started up. A sort of illumination appeared on his countenance. 'Wife! he exclaimed, 'you hear. Here is the philanthropist. Extinguish the fire. The stupefied mother did not stir. The father, with the agility of an acrobat, seized a brokennosed jug which stood on the chimney, and flung the water on the brands. Then, addressing his eldest daughter 'Here you! Pull the straw off that chair! His daughter did not understand. He seized the chair, and with one kick he rendered it seatless. His leg passed through it. As he withdrew his leg, he asked his daughter 'Is it cold? 'Very cold. It is snowing. The father turned towards the younger girl who sat on the bed near the window, and shouted to her in a thundering voice 'Quick! get off that bed, you lazy thing! will you never do anything? Break a pane of glass! The little girl jumped off the bed with a shiver. 'Break a pane! he repeated. The child stood still in bewilderment. 'Do you hear me? repeated her father, 'I tell you to break a pane! The child, with a sort of terrified obedience, rose on tiptoe, and struck a pane with her fist. The glass broke and fell with a loud clatter. 'Good, said the father. He was grave and abrupt. His glance swept rapidly over all the crannies of the garret. One would have said that he was a general making the final preparation at the moment when the battle is on the point of beginning. The mother, who had not said a word so far, now rose and demanded in a dull, slow, languid voice, whence her words seemed to emerge in a congealed state 'What do you mean to do, my dear? 'Get into bed, replied the man. His intonation admitted of no deliberation. The mother obeyed, and threw herself heavily on one of the pallets. In the meantime, a sob became audible in one corner. 'What's that? cried the father. The younger daughter exhibited her bleeding fist, without quitting the corner in which she was cowering. She had wounded herself while breaking the window she went off, near her mother's pallet and wept silently. It was now the mother's turn to start up and exclaim 'Just see there! What follies you commit! She has cut herself breaking that pane for you! 'So much the better! said the man. 'I foresaw that. 'What? So much the better? retorted his wife. 'Peace! replied the father, 'I suppress the liberty of the press. Then tearing the woman's chemise which he was wearing, he made a strip of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl's bleeding wrist. That done, his eye fell with a satisfied expression on his torn chemise. 'And the chemise too, said he, 'this has a good appearance. An icy breeze whistled through the window and entered the room. The outer mist penetrated thither and diffused itself like a whitish sheet of wadding vaguely spread by invisible fingers. Through the broken pane the snow could be seen falling. The snow promised by the Candlemas sun of the preceding day had actually come. The father cast a glance about him as though to make sure that he had forgotten nothing. He seized an old shovel and spread ashes over the wet brands in such a manner as to entirely conceal them. Then drawing himself up and leaning against the chimneypiece 'Now, said he, 'we can receive the philanthropist. The big girl approached and laid her hand in her father's. 'Feel how cold I am, said she. 'Bah! replied the father, 'I am much colder than that. The mother exclaimed impetuously 'You always have something better than any one else, so you do! even bad things. 'Down with you! said the man. The mother, being eyed after a certain fashion, held her tongue. Silence reigned for a moment in the hovel. The elder girl was removing the mud from the bottom of her mantle, with a careless air her younger sister continued to sob the mother had taken the latter's head between her hands, and was covering it with kisses, whispering to her the while 'My treasure, I entreat you, it is nothing of consequence, don't cry, you will anger your father. 'No! exclaimed the father, 'quite the contrary! sob! sob! that's right. Then turning to the elder 'There now! He is not coming! What if he were not to come! I shall have extinguished my fire, wrecked my chair, torn my shirt, and broken my pane all for nothing. 'And wounded the child! murmured the mother. 'Do you know, went on the father, 'that it's beastly cold in this devil's garret! What if that man should not come! Oh! See there, you! He makes us wait! He says to himself 'Well! they will wait for me! That's what they're there for.' Oh! how I hate them, and with what joy, jubilation, enthusiasm, and satisfaction I could strangle all those rich folks! all those rich folks! These men who pretend to be charitable, who put on airs, who go to mass, who make presents to the priesthood, preachy, preachy, in their skullcaps, and who think themselves above us, and who come for the purpose of humiliating us, and to bring us 'clothes,' as they say! old duds that are not worth four sous! And bread! That's not what I want, pack of rascals that they are, it's money! Ah! money! Never! Because they say that we would go off and drink it up, and that we are drunkards and idlers! And they! What are they, then, and what have they been in their time! Thieves! They never could have become rich otherwise! Oh! Society ought to be grasped by the four corners of the cloth and tossed into the air, all of it! It would all be smashed, very likely, but at least, no one would have anything, and there would be that much gained! But what is that blockhead of a benevolent gentleman doing? Will he come? Perhaps the animal has forgotten the address! I'll bet that that old beast At that moment there came a light tap at the door, the man rushed to it and opened it, exclaiming, amid profound bows and smiles of adoration 'Enter, sir! Deign to enter, most respected benefactor, and your charming young lady, also. A man of ripe age and a young girl made their appearance on the threshold of the attic. Marius had not quitted his post. His feelings for the moment surpassed the powers of the human tongue. It was She! Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meanings contained in those three letters of that word She. It was certainly she. Marius could hardly distinguish her through the luminous vapor which had suddenly spread before his eyes. It was that sweet, absent being, that star which had beamed upon him for six months it was those eyes, that brow, that mouth, that lovely vanished face which had created night by its departure. The vision had been eclipsed, now it reappeared. It reappeared in that gloom, in that garret, in that misshapen attic, in all that horror. Marius shuddered in dismay. What! It was she! The palpitations of his heart troubled his sight. He felt that he was on the brink of bursting into tears! What! He beheld her again at last, after having sought her so long! It seemed to him that he had lost his soul, and that he had just found it again. She was the same as ever, only a little pale her delicate face was framed in a bonnet of violet velvet, her figure was concealed beneath a pelisse of black satin. Beneath her long dress, a glimpse could be caught of her tiny foot shod in a silken boot. She was still accompanied by M. Leblanc. She had taken a few steps into the room, and had deposited a tolerably bulky parcel on the table. The eldest Jondrette girl had retired behind the door, and was staring with sombre eyes at that velvet bonnet, that silk mantle, and that charming, happy face. The hovel was so dark, that people coming from without felt on entering it the effect produced on entering a cellar. The two newcomers advanced, therefore, with a certain hesitation, being hardly able to distinguish the vague forms surrounding them, while they could be clearly seen and scrutinized by the eyes of the inhabitants of the garret, who were accustomed to this twilight. M. Leblanc approached, with his sad but kindly look, and said to Jondrette the father 'Monsieur, in this package you will find some new clothes and some woollen stockings and blankets. 'Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us, said Jondrette, bowing to the very earth. Then, bending down to the ear of his eldest daughter, while the two visitors were engaged in examining this lamentable interior, he added in a low and rapid voice 'Hey? What did I say? Duds! No money! They are all alike! By the way, how was the letter to that old blockhead signed? 'Fabantou, replied the girl. 'The dramatic artist, good! It was lucky for Jondrette, that this had occurred to him, for at the very moment, M. Leblanc turned to him, and said to him with the air of a person who is seeking to recall a name 'I see that you are greatly to be pitied, Monsieur 'Fabantou, replied Jondrette quickly. 'Monsieur Fabantou, yes, that is it. I remember. 'Dramatic artist, sir, and one who has had some success. Here Jondrette evidently judged the moment propitious for capturing the 'philanthropist. He exclaimed with an accent which smacked at the same time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of the mendicant on the highway 'A pupil of Talma! Sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune formerly smiled on meAlas! Now it is misfortune's turn. You see, my benefactor, no bread, no fire. My poor babes have no fire! My only chair has no seat! A broken pane! And in such weather! My spouse in bed! Ill! 'Poor woman! said M. Leblanc. 'My child wounded! added Jondrette. The child, diverted by the arrival of the strangers, had fallen to contemplating 'the young lady, and had ceased to sob. 'Cry! bawl! said Jondrette to her in a low voice. At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the talent of a juggler. The little girl gave vent to loud shrieks. The adorable young girl, whom Marius, in his heart, called 'his Ursule, approached her hastily. 'Poor, dear child! said she. 'You see, my beautiful young lady, pursued Jondrette 'her bleeding wrist! It came through an accident while working at a machine to earn six sous a day. It may be necessary to cut off her arm. 'Really? said the old gentleman, in alarm. The little girl, taking this seriously, fell to sobbing more violently than ever. 'Alas! yes, my benefactor! replied the father. For several minutes, Jondrette had been scrutinizing 'the benefactor in a singular fashion. As he spoke, he seemed to be examining the other attentively, as though seeking to summon up his recollections. All at once, profiting by a moment when the newcomers were questioning the child with interest as to her injured hand, he passed near his wife, who lay in her bed with a stupid and dejected air, and said to her in a rapid but very low tone 'Take a look at that man! Then, turning to M. Leblanc, and continuing his lamentations 'You see, sir! All the clothing that I have is my wife's chemise! And all torn at that! In the depths of winter! I can't go out for lack of a coat. If I had a coat of any sort, I would go and see Mademoiselle Mars, who knows me and is very fond of me. Does she not still reside in the Rue de la TourdesDames? Do you know, sir? We played together in the provinces. I shared her laurels. Climne would come to my succor, sir! Elmire would bestow alms on Blisaire! But no, nothing! And not a sou in the house! My wife ill, and not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, not a sou! My wife suffers from fits of suffocation. It comes from her age, and besides, her nervous system is affected. She ought to have assistance, and my daughter also! But the doctor! But the apothecary! How am I to pay them? I would kneel to a penny, sir! Such is the condition to which the arts are reduced. And do you know, my charming young lady, and you, my generous protector, do you know, you who breathe forth virtue and goodness, and who perfume that church where my daughter sees you every day when she says her prayers?For I have brought up my children religiously, sir. I did not want them to take to the theatre. Ah! the hussies! If I catch them tripping! I do not jest, that I don't! I read them lessons on honor, on morality, on virtue! Ask them! They have got to walk straight. They are none of your unhappy wretches who begin by having no family, and end by espousing the public. One is Mamselle Nobody, and one becomes Madame Everybody. Deuce take it! None of that in the Fabantou family! I mean to bring them up virtuously, and they shall be honest, and nice, and believe in God, by the sacred name! Well, sir, my worthy sir, do you know what is going to happen tomorrow? Tomorrow is the fourth day of February, the fatal day, the last day of grace allowed me by my landlord if by this evening I have not paid my rent, tomorrow my oldest daughter, my spouse with her fever, my child with her wound,we shall all four be turned out of here and thrown into the street, on the boulevard, without shelter, in the rain, in the snow. There, sir. I owe for four quartersa whole year! that is to say, sixty francs. Jondrette lied. Four quarters would have amounted to only forty francs, and he could not owe four, because six months had not elapsed since Marius had paid for two. M. Leblanc drew five francs from his pocket and threw them on the table. Jondrette found time to mutter in the ear of his eldest daughter 'The scoundrel! What does he think I can do with his five francs? That won't pay me for my chair and pane of glass! That's what comes of incurring expenses! In the meanwhile, M. Leblanc had removed the large brown greatcoat which he wore over his blue coat, and had thrown it over the back of the chair. 'Monsieur Fabantou, he said, 'these five francs are all that I have about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this evening,it is this evening that you must pay, is it not? Jondrette's face lighted up with a strange expression. He replied vivaciously 'Yes, respected sir. At eight o'clock, I must be at my landlord's. 'I will be here at six, and I will fetch you the sixty francs. 'My benefactor! exclaimed Jondrette, overwhelmed. And he added, in a low tone 'Take a good look at him, wife! M. Leblanc had taken the arm of the young girl, once more, and had turned towards the door. 'Farewell until this evening, my friends! said he. 'Six o'clock? said Jondrette. 'Six o'clock precisely. At that moment, the overcoat lying on the chair caught the eye of the elder Jondrette girl. 'You are forgetting your coat, sir, said she. Jondrette darted an annihilating look at his daughter, accompanied by a formidable shrug of the shoulders. M. Leblanc turned back and said, with a smile 'I have not forgotten it, I am leaving it. 'O my protector! said Jondrette, 'my august benefactor, I melt into tears! Permit me to accompany you to your carriage. 'If you come out, answered M. Leblanc, 'put on this coat. It really is very cold. Jondrette did not need to be told twice. He hastily donned the brown greatcoat. And all three went out, Jondrette preceding the two strangers. Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had seen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his heart had, so to speak, seized her and wholly enveloped her from the moment of her very first step in that garret. During her entire stay there, he had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and precipitates the whole soul on a single point. He contemplated, not that girl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. The star Sirius might have entered the room, and he would not have been any more dazzled. While the young girl was engaged in opening the package, unfolding the clothing and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the little injured girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, he sought to catch her words. He knew her eyes, her brow, her beauty, her form, her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fancied that he had caught a few words at the Luxembourg, but he was not absolutely sure of the fact. He would have given ten years of his life to hear it, in order that he might bear away in his soul a little of that music. But everything was drowned in the lamentable exclamations and trumpet bursts of Jondrette. This added a touch of genuine wrath to Marius' ecstasy. He devoured her with his eyes. He could not believe that it really was that divine creature whom he saw in the midst of those vile creatures in that monstrous lair. It seemed to him that he beheld a hummingbird in the midst of toads. When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, to cling to her trace, not to quit her until he learned where she lived, not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculously rediscovered her. He leaped down from the commode and seized his hat. As he laid his hand on the lock of the door, and was on the point of opening it, a sudden reflection caused him to pause. The corridor was long, the staircase steep, Jondrette was talkative, M. Leblanc had, no doubt, not yet regained his carriage if, on turning round in the corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius, in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means to escape from him again, and this time it would be final. What was he to do? Should he wait a little? But while he was waiting, the carriage might drive off. Marius was perplexed. At last he accepted the risk and quitted his room. There was no one in the corridor. He hastened to the stairs. There was no one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached the boulevard in time to see a fiacre turning the corner of the Rue du PetitBanquier, on its way back to Paris. Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of the boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descending the Rue Mouffetard the carriage was already a long way off, and there was no means of overtaking it what! run after it? Impossible and besides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an individual running at full speed in pursuit of a fiacre, and the father would recognize him. At that moment, wonderful and unprecedented good luck, Marius perceived an empty cab passing along the boulevard. There was but one thing to be done, to jump into this cab and follow the fiacre. That was sure, efficacious, and free from danger. Marius made the driver a sign to halt, and called to him 'By the hour? Marius wore no cravat, he had on his workingcoat, which was destitute of buttons, his shirt was torn along one of the plaits on the bosom. The driver halted, winked, and held out his left hand to Marius, rubbing his forefinger gently with his thumb. 'What is it? said Marius. 'Pay in advance, said the coachman. Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him. 'How much? he demanded. 'Forty sous. 'I will pay on my return. The driver's only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to whip up his horse. Marius stared at the retreating cabriolet with a bewildered air. For the lack of four and twenty sous, he was losing his joy, his happiness, his love! He had seen, and he was becoming blind again. He reflected bitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the five francs which he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable girl. If he had had those five francs, he would have been saved, he would have been born again, he would have emerged from the limbo and darkness, he would have made his escape from isolation and spleen, from his widowed state he might have reknotted the black thread of his destiny to that beautiful golden thread, which had just floated before his eyes and had broken at the same instant, once more! He returned to his hovel in despair. He might have told himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return in the evening, and that all he had to do was to set about the matter more skilfully, so that he might follow him on that occasion but, in his contemplation, it is doubtful whether he had heard this. As he was on the point of mounting the staircase, he perceived, on the other side of the boulevard, near the deserted wall skirting the Rue De la BarriredesGobelins, Jondrette, wrapped in the 'philanthropist's greatcoat, engaged in conversation with one of those men of disquieting aspect who have been dubbed by common consent, prowlers of the barriers people of equivocal face, of suspicious monologues, who present the air of having evil minds, and who generally sleep in the daytime, which suggests the supposition that they work by night. These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the snow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policeman would surely have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed. Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain from saying to himself that this prowler of the barriers with whom Jondrette was talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a very dangerous nocturnal roamer. This man's name the reader has learned in the preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, figured later on in many criminal trials, and became a notorious rascal. He was at that time only a famous rascal. Today he exists in the state of tradition among ruffians and assassins. He was at the head of a school towards the end of the last reign. And in the evening, at nightfall, at the hour when groups form and talk in whispers, he was discussed at La Force in the FosseauxLions. One might even, in that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which served the unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty prisoners, in , passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD, audaciously carved by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one of his attempts at flight. In , the police already had their eye on him, but he had not as yet made a serious beginning. Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps at the moment when he was about to reenter his cell, he caught sight of the elder Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of this girl was odious to him it was she who had his five francs, it was too late to demand them back, the cab was no longer there, the fiacre was far away. Moreover, she would not have given them back. As for questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been there, that was useless it was evident that she did not know, since the letter signed Fabantou had been addressed 'to the benevolent gentleman of the church of SaintJacquesduHautPas. Marius entered his room and pushed the door to after him. It did not close he turned round and beheld a hand which held the door half open. 'What is it? he asked, 'who is there? It was the Jondrette girl. 'Is it you? resumed Marius almost harshly, 'still you! What do you want with me? She appeared to be thoughtful and did not look at him. She no longer had the air of assurance which had characterized her that morning. She did not enter, but held back in the darkness of the corridor, where Marius could see her through the halfopen door. 'Come now, will you answer? cried Marius. 'What do you want with me? She raised her dull eyes, in which a sort of gleam seemed to flicker vaguely, and said 'Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you? 'With me! said Marius. 'Yes, you. 'There is nothing the matter with me. 'Yes, there is! 'No. 'I tell you there is! 'Let me alone! Marius gave the door another push, but she retained her hold on it. 'Stop, said she, 'you are in the wrong. Although you are not rich, you were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not want you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any service? Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, but I may be of use, nevertheless. I may be able to help you, since I help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to go to houses, to inquire from door to door, to find out an address, to follow any one, I am of service. Well, you may assuredly tell me what is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to the persons sometimes it is enough if some one speaks to the persons, that suffices to let them understand matters, and everything comes right. Make use of me. An idea flashed across Marius' mind. What branch does one disdain when one feels that one is falling? He drew near to the Jondrette girl. 'Listen he said to her. She interrupted him with a gleam of joy in her eyes. 'Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better. 'Well, he resumed, 'thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his daughter! 'Yes. 'Dost thou know their address? 'No. 'Find it for me. The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy. 'Is that what you want? she demanded. 'Yes. 'Do you know them? 'No. 'That is to say, she resumed quickly, 'you do not know her, but you wish to know her. This them which had turned into her had something indescribably significant and bitter about it. 'Well, can you do it? said Marius. 'You shall have the beautiful lady's address. There was still a shade in the words 'the beautiful lady which troubled Marius. He resumed 'Never mind, after all, the address of the father and daughter. Their address, indeed! She gazed fixedly at him. 'What will you give me? 'Anything you like. 'Anything I like? 'Yes. 'You shall have the address. She dropped her head then, with a brusque movement, she pulled to the door, which closed behind her. Marius found himself alone. He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on his bed, absorbed in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as though a prey to vertigo. All that had taken place since the morning, the appearance of the angel, her disappearance, what that creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an immense despair,this was what filled his brain confusedly. All at once he was violently aroused from his reverie. He heard the shrill, hard voice of Jondrette utter these words, which were fraught with a strange interest for him 'I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognized him. Of whom was Jondrette speaking? Whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc? The father of 'his Ursule? What! Did Jondrette know him? Was Marius about to obtain in this abrupt and unexpected fashion all the information without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at last who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father was? Was the dense shadow which enwrapped them on the point of being dispelled? Was the veil about to be rent? Ah! Heavens! He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post near the little peephole in the partition wall. Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel. Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings and jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds. Jondrette had evidently just returned. He still had the breathlessness of out of doors. His daughters were seated on the floor near the fireplace, the elder engaged in dressing the younger's wounded hand. His wife had sunk back on the bed near the fireplace, with a face indicative of astonishment. Jondrette was pacing up and down the garret with long strides. His eyes were extraordinary. The woman, who seemed timid and overwhelmed with stupor in the presence of her husband, turned to say 'What, really? You are sure? 'Sure! Eight years have passed! But I recognize him! Ah! I recognize him. I knew him at once! What! Didn't it force itself on you? 'No. 'But I told you 'Pay attention!' Why, it is his figure, it is his face, only older,there are people who do not grow old, I don't know how they manage it,it is the very sound of his voice. He is better dressed, that is all! Ah! you mysterious old devil, I've got you, that I have! He paused, and said to his daughters 'Get out of here, you!It's queer that it didn't strike you! They arose to obey. The mother stammered 'With her injured hand. 'The air will do it good, said Jondrette. 'Be off. It was plain that this man was of the sort to whom no one offers to reply. The two girls departed. At the moment when they were about to pass through the door, the father detained the elder by the arm, and said to her with a peculiar accent 'You will be here at five o'clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need you. Marius redoubled his attention. On being left alone with his wife, Jondrette began to pace the room again, and made the tour of it two or three times in silence. Then he spent several minutes in tucking the lower part of the woman's chemise which he wore into his trousers. All at once, he turned to the female Jondrette, folded his arms and exclaimed 'And would you like to have me tell you something? The young lady 'Well, what? retorted his wife, 'the young lady? Marius could not doubt that it was really she of whom they were speaking. He listened with ardent anxiety. His whole life was in his ears. But Jondrette had bent over and spoke to his wife in a whisper. Then he straightened himself up and concluded aloud 'It is she! 'That one? said his wife. 'That very one, said the husband. No expression can reproduce the significance of the mother's words. Surprise, rage, hate, wrath, were mingled and combined in one monstrous intonation. The pronunciation of a few words, the name, no doubt, which her husband had whispered in her ear, had sufficed to rouse this huge, somnolent woman, and from being repulsive she became terrible. 'It is not possible! she cried. 'When I think that my daughters are going barefoot, and have not a gown to their backs! What! A satin pelisse, a velvet bonnet, boots, and everything more than two hundred francs' worth of clothes! so that one would think she was a lady! No, you are mistaken! Why, in the first place, the other was hideous, and this one is not so badlooking! She really is not badlooking! It can't be she! 'I tell you that it is she. You will see. At this absolute assertion, the Jondrette woman raised her large, red, blonde face and stared at the ceiling with a horrible expression. At that moment, she seemed to Marius even more to be feared than her husband. She was a sow with the look of a tigress. 'What! she resumed, 'that horrible, beautiful young lady, who gazed at my daughters with an air of pity,she is that beggar brat! Oh! I should like to kick her stomach in for her! She sprang off of the bed, and remained standing for a moment, her hair in disorder, her nostrils dilating, her mouth half open, her fists clenched and drawn back. Then she fell back on the bed once more. The man paced to and fro and paid no attention to his female. After a silence lasting several minutes, he approached the female Jondrette, and halted in front of her, with folded arms, as he had done a moment before 'And shall I tell you another thing? 'What is it? she asked. He answered in a low, curt voice 'My fortune is made. The woman stared at him with the look that signifies 'Is the person who is addressing me on the point of going mad? He went on 'Thunder! It was not so very long ago that I was a parishioner of the parish of dieofhungerifyouhaveafire,dieofcoldifyouhavebread! I have had enough of misery! my share and other people's share! I am not joking any longer, I don't find it comic any more, I've had enough of puns, good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am full, I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of a millionnaire! He took a turn round the hovel, and added 'Like other people. 'What do you mean by that? asked the woman. He shook his head, winked, screwed up one eye, and raised his voice like a medical professor who is about to make a demonstration 'What do I mean by that? Listen! 'Hush! muttered the woman, 'not so loud! These are matters which must not be overheard. 'Bah! Who's here? Our neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago. Besides, he doesn't listen, the big booby. And I tell you that I saw him go out. Nevertheless, by a sort of instinct, Jondrette lowered his voice, although not sufficiently to prevent Marius hearing his words. One favorable circumstance, which enabled Marius not to lose a word of this conversation was the falling snow which deadened the sound of vehicles on the boulevard. This is what Marius heard 'Listen carefully. The Crsus is caught, or as good as caught! That's all settled already. Everything is arranged. I have seen some people. He will come here this evening at six o'clock. To bring sixty francs, the rascal! Did you notice how I played that game on him, my sixty francs, my landlord, my fourth of February? I don't even owe for one quarter! Isn't he a fool! So he will come at six o'clock! That's the hour when our neighbor goes to his dinner. Mother Bougon is off washing dishes in the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home until eleven o'clock. The children shall stand on watch. You shall help us. He will give in. 'And what if he does not give in? demanded his wife. Jondrette made a sinister gesture, and said 'We'll fix him. And he burst out laughing. This was the first time Marius had seen him laugh. The laugh was cold and sweet, and provoked a shudder. Jondrette opened a cupboard near the fireplace, and drew from it an old cap, which he placed on his head, after brushing it with his sleeve. 'Now, said he, 'I'm going out. I have some more people that I must see. Good ones. You'll see how well the whole thing will work. I shall be away as short a time as possible, it's a fine stroke of business, do you look after the house. And with both fists thrust into the pockets of his trousers, he stood for a moment in thought, then exclaimed 'Do you know, it's mighty lucky, by the way, that he didn't recognize me! If he had recognized me on his side, he would not have come back again. He would have slipped through our fingers! It was my beard that saved us! my romantic beard! my pretty little romantic beard! And again he broke into a laugh. He stepped to the window. The snow was still falling, and streaking the gray of the sky. 'What beastly weather! said he. Then lapping his overcoat across his breast 'This rind is too large for me. Never mind, he added, 'he did a devilish good thing in leaving it for me, the old scoundrel! If it hadn't been for that, I couldn't have gone out, and everything would have gone wrong! What small points things hang on, anyway! And pulling his cap down over his eyes, he quitted the room. He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from the door, when the door opened again, and his savage but intelligent face made its appearance once more in the opening. 'I came near forgetting, said he. 'You are to have a brazier of charcoal ready. And he flung into his wife's apron the fivefranc piece which the 'philanthropist had left with him. 'A brazier of charcoal? asked his wife. 'Yes. 'How many bushels? 'Two good ones. 'That will come to thirty sous. With the rest I will buy something for dinner. 'The devil, no. 'Why? 'Don't go and spend the hundredsou piece. 'Why? 'Because I shall have to buy something, too. 'What? 'Something. 'How much shall you need? 'Whereabouts in the neighborhood is there an ironmonger's shop? 'Rue Mouffetard. 'Ah! yes, at the corner of a street I can see the shop. 'But tell me how much you will need for what you have to purchase? 'Fifty sousthree francs. 'There won't be much left for dinner. 'Eating is not the point today. There's something better to be done. 'That's enough, my jewel. At this word from his wife, Jondrette closed the door again, and this time, Marius heard his step die away in the corridor of the hovel, and descend the staircase rapidly. At that moment, one o'clock struck from the church of SaintMdard. Marius, dreamer as he was, was, as we have said, firm and energetic by nature. His habits of solitary meditation, while they had developed in him sympathy and compassion, had, perhaps, diminished the faculty for irritation, but had left intact the power of waxing indignant he had the kindliness of a brahmin, and the severity of a judge he took pity upon a toad, but he crushed a viper. Now, it was into a hole of vipers that his glance had just been directed, it was a nest of monsters that he had beneath his eyes. 'These wretches must be stamped upon, said he. Not one of the enigmas which he had hoped to see solved had been elucidated on the contrary, all of them had been rendered more dense, if anything he knew nothing more about the beautiful maiden of the Luxembourg and the man whom he called M. Leblanc, except that Jondrette was acquainted with them. Athwart the mysterious words which had been uttered, the only thing of which he caught a distinct glimpse was the fact that an ambush was in course of preparation, a dark but terrible trap that both of them were incurring great danger, she probably, her father certainly that they must be saved that the hideous plots of the Jondrettes must be thwarted, and the web of these spiders broken. He scanned the female Jondrette for a moment. She had pulled an old sheetiron stove from a corner, and she was rummaging among the old heap of iron. He descended from the commode as softly as possible, taking care not to make the least noise. Amid his terror as to what was in preparation, and in the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he experienced a sort of joy at the idea that it might be granted to him perhaps to render a service to the one whom he loved. But how was it to be done? How warn the persons threatened? He did not know their address. They had reappeared for an instant before his eyes, and had then plunged back again into the immense depths of Paris. Should he wait for M. Leblanc at the door that evening at six o'clock, at the moment of his arrival, and warn him of the trap? But Jondrette and his men would see him on the watch, the spot was lonely, they were stronger than he, they would devise means to seize him or to get him away, and the man whom Marius was anxious to save would be lost. One o'clock had just struck, the trap was to be sprung at six. Marius had five hours before him. There was but one thing to be done. He put on his decent coat, knotted a silk handkerchief round his neck, took his hat, and went out, without making any more noise than if he had been treading on moss with bare feet. Moreover, the Jondrette woman continued to rummage among her old iron. Once outside of the house, he made for the Rue du PetitBanquier. He had almost reached the middle of this street, near a very low wall which a man can easily step over at certain points, and which abuts on a waste space, and was walking slowly, in consequence of his preoccupied condition, and the snow deadened the sound of his steps all at once he heard voices talking very close by. He turned his head, the street was deserted, there was not a soul in it, it was broad daylight, and yet he distinctly heard voices. It occurred to him to glance over the wall which he was skirting. There, in fact, sat two men, flat on the snow, with their backs against the wall, talking together in subdued tones. These two persons were strangers to him one was a bearded man in a blouse, and the other a longhaired individual in rags. The bearded man had on a fez, the other's head was bare, and the snow had lodged in his hair. By thrusting his head over the wall, Marius could hear their remarks. The hairy one jogged the other man's elbow and said 'With the assistance of PatronMinette, it can't fail. 'Do you think so? said the bearded man. And the longhaired one began again 'It's as good as a warrant for each one, of five hundred balls, and the worst that can happen is five years, six years, ten years at the most! The other replied with some hesitation, and shivering beneath his fez 'That's a real thing. You can't go against such things. 'I tell you that the affair can't go wrong, resumed the longhaired man. 'Father What'shisname's team will be already harnessed. Then they began to discuss a melodrama that they had seen on the preceding evening at the Gat Theatre. Marius went his way. It seemed to him that the mysterious words of these men, so strangely hidden behind that wall, and crouching in the snow, could not but bear some relation to Jondrette's abominable projects. That must be the affair. He directed his course towards the faubourg SaintMarceau and asked at the first shop he came to where he could find a commissary of police. He was directed to Rue de Pontoise, No. . Thither Marius betook himself. As he passed a baker's shop, he bought a twopenny roll, and ate it, foreseeing that he should not dine. On the way, he rendered justice to Providence. He reflected that had he not given his five francs to the Jondrette girl in the morning, he would have followed M. Leblanc's fiacre, and consequently have remained ignorant of everything, and that there would have been no obstacle to the trap of the Jondrettes and that M. Leblanc would have been lost, and his daughter with him, no doubt. On arriving at No. , Rue de Pontoise, he ascended to the first floor and inquired for the commissary of police. 'The commissary of police is not here, said a clerk 'but there is an inspector who takes his place. Would you like to speak to him? Are you in haste? 'Yes, said Marius. The clerk introduced him into the commissary's office. There stood a tall man behind a grating, leaning against a stove, and holding up with both hands the tails of a vast topcoat, with three collars. His face was square, with a thin, firm mouth, thick, gray, and very ferocious whiskers, and a look that was enough to turn your pockets inside out. Of that glance it might have been well said, not that it penetrated, but that it searched. This man's air was not much less ferocious nor less terrible than Jondrette's the dog is, at times, no less terrible to meet than the wolf. 'What do you want? he said to Marius, without adding 'monsieur. 'Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police? 'He is absent. I am here in his stead. 'The matter is very private. 'Then speak. 'And great haste is required. 'Then speak quick. This calm, abrupt man was both terrifying and reassuring at one and the same time. He inspired fear and confidence. Marius related the adventure to him That a person with whom he was not acquainted otherwise than by sight, was to be inveigled into a trap that very evening that, as he occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, had heard the whole plot through the partition that the wretch who had planned the trap was a certain Jondrette that there would be accomplices, probably some prowlers of the barriers, among others a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille that Jondrette's daughters were to lie in wait that there was no way of warning the threatened man, since he did not even know his name and that, finally, all this was to be carried out at six o'clock that evening, at the most deserted point of the Boulevard de l'Hpital, in house No. . At the sound of this number, the inspector raised his head, and said coldly 'So it is in the room at the end of the corridor? 'Precisely, answered Marius, and he added 'Are you acquainted with that house? The inspector remained silent for a moment, then replied, as he warmed the heel of his boot at the door of the stove 'Apparently. He went on, muttering between his teeth, and not addressing Marius so much as his cravat 'PatronMinette must have had a hand in this. This word struck Marius. 'PatronMinette, said he, 'I did hear that word pronounced, in fact. And he repeated to the inspector the dialogue between the longhaired man and the bearded man in the snow behind the wall of the Rue du PetitBanquier. The inspector muttered 'The longhaired man must be Brujon, and the bearded one DemiLiard, alias DeuxMilliards. He had dropped his eyelids again, and became absorbed in thought. 'As for Father What'shisname, I think I recognize him. Here, I've burned my coat. They always have too much fire in these cursed stoves. Number . Former property of Gorbeau. Then he glanced at Marius. 'You saw only that bearded and that longhaired man? 'And Panchaud. 'You didn't see a little imp of a dandy prowling about the premises? 'No. 'Nor a big lump of matter, resembling an elephant in the Jardin des Plantes? 'No. 'Nor a scamp with the air of an old red tail? 'No. 'As for the fourth, no one sees him, not even his adjutants, clerks, and employees. It is not surprising that you did not see him. 'No. Who are all those persons? asked Marius. The inspector answered 'Besides, this is not the time for them. He relapsed into silence, then resumed '. I know that barrack. Impossible to conceal ourselves inside it without the artists seeing us, and then they will get off simply by countermanding the vaudeville. They are so modest! An audience embarrasses them. None of that, none of that. I want to hear them sing and make them dance. This monologue concluded, he turned to Marius, and demanded, gazing at him intently the while 'Are you afraid? 'Of what? said Marius. 'Of these men? 'No more than yourself! retorted Marius rudely, who had begun to notice that this police agent had not yet said 'monsieur to him. The inspector stared still more intently at Marius, and continued with sententious solemnity 'There, you speak like a brave man, and like an honest man. Courage does not fear crime, and honesty does not fear authority. Marius interrupted him 'That is well, but what do you intend to do? The inspector contented himself with the remark 'The lodgers have passkeys with which to get in at night. You must have one. 'Yes, said Marius. 'Have you it about you? 'Yes. 'Give it to me, said the inspector. Marius took his key from his waistcoat pocket, handed it to the inspector and added 'If you will take my advice, you will come in force. The inspector cast on Marius such a glance as Voltaire might have bestowed on a provincial academician who had suggested a rhyme to him with one movement he plunged his hands, which were enormous, into the two immense pockets of his topcoat, and pulled out two small steel pistols, of the sort called 'knockmedowns. Then he presented them to Marius, saying rapidly, in a curt tone 'Take these. Go home. Hide in your chamber, so that you may be supposed to have gone out. They are loaded. Each one carries two balls. You will keep watch there is a hole in the wall, as you have informed me. These men will come. Leave them to their own devices for a time. When you think matters have reached a crisis, and that it is time to put a stop to them, fire a shot. Not too soon. The rest concerns me. A shot into the ceiling, the air, no matter where. Above all things, not too soon. Wait until they begin to put their project into execution you are a lawyer you know the proper point. Marius took the pistols and put them in the side pocket of his coat. 'That makes a lump that can be seen, said the inspector. 'Put them in your trousers pocket. Marius hid the pistols in his trousers pockets. 'Now, pursued the inspector, 'there is not a minute more to be lost by any one. What time is it? Halfpast two. Seven o'clock is the hour? 'Six o'clock, answered Marius. 'I have plenty of time, said the inspector, 'but no more than enough. Don't forget anything that I have said to you. Bang. A pistol shot. 'Rest easy, said Marius. And as Marius laid his hand on the handle of the door on his way out, the inspector called to him 'By the way, if you have occasion for my services between now and then, come or send here. You will ask for Inspector Javert. A few moments later, about three o'clock, Courfeyrac chanced to be passing along the Rue Mouffetard in company with Bossuet. The snow had redoubled in violence, and filled the air. Bossuet was just saying to Courfeyrac 'One would say, to see all these snowflakes fall, that there was a plague of white butterflies in heaven. All at once, Bossuet caught sight of Marius coming up the street towards the barrier with a peculiar air. 'Hold! said Bossuet. 'There's Marius. 'I saw him, said Courfeyrac. 'Don't let's speak to him. 'Why? 'He is busy. 'With what? 'Don't you see his air? 'What air? 'He has the air of a man who is following some one. 'That's true, said Bossuet. 'Just see the eyes he is making! said Courfeyrac. 'But who the deuce is he following? 'Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love. 'But, observed Bossuet, 'I don't see any wench nor any flowery bonnet in the street. There's not a woman round. Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed 'He's following a man! A man, in fact, wearing a gray cap, and whose gray beard could be distinguished, although they only saw his back, was walking along about twenty paces in advance of Marius. This man was dressed in a greatcoat which was perfectly new and too large for him, and in a frightful pair of trousers all hanging in rags and black with mud. Bossuet burst out laughing. 'Who is that man? 'He? retorted Courfeyrac, 'he's a poet. Poets are very fond of wearing the trousers of dealers in rabbit skins and the overcoats of peers of France. 'Let's see where Marius will go, said Bossuet 'let's see where the man is going, let's follow them, hey? 'Bossuet! exclaimed Courfeyrac, 'eagle of Meaux! You are a prodigious brute. Follow a man who is following another man, indeed! They retraced their steps. Marius had, in fact, seen Jondrette passing along the Rue Mouffetard, and was spying on his proceedings. Jondrette walked straight ahead, without a suspicion that he was already held by a glance. He quitted the Rue Mouffetard, and Marius saw him enter one of the most terrible hovels in the Rue Gracieuse he remained there about a quarter of an hour, then returned to the Rue Mouffetard. He halted at an ironmonger's shop, which then stood at the corner of the Rue PierreLombard, and a few minutes later Marius saw him emerge from the shop, holding in his hand a huge cold chisel with a white wood handle, which he concealed beneath his greatcoat. At the top of the Rue PetitGentilly he turned to the left and proceeded rapidly to the Rue du PetitBanquier. The day was declining the snow, which had ceased for a moment, had just begun again. Marius posted himself on the watch at the very corner of the Rue du PetitBanquier, which was deserted, as usual, and did not follow Jondrette into it. It was lucky that he did so, for, on arriving in the vicinity of the wall where Marius had heard the longhaired man and the bearded man conversing, Jondrette turned round, made sure that no one was following him, did not see him, then sprang across the wall and disappeared. The waste land bordered by this wall communicated with the back yard of an exlivery stablekeeper of bad repute, who had failed and who still kept a few old singleseated berlins under his sheds. Marius thought that it would be wise to profit by Jondrette's absence to return home moreover, it was growing late every evening, Ma'am Bougon when she set out for her dishwashing in town, had a habit of locking the door, which was always closed at dusk. Marius had given his key to the inspector of police it was important, therefore, that he should make haste. Evening had arrived, night had almost closed in on the horizon and in the immensity of space, there remained but one spot illuminated by the sun, and that was the moon. It was rising in a ruddy glow behind the low dome of Salptrire. Marius returned to No.  with great strides. The door was still open when he arrived. He mounted the stairs on tiptoe and glided along the wall of the corridor to his chamber. This corridor, as the reader will remember, was bordered on both sides by attics, all of which were, for the moment, empty and to let. Ma'am Bougon was in the habit of leaving all the doors open. As he passed one of these attics, Marius thought he perceived in the uninhabited cell the motionless heads of four men, vaguely lighted up by a remnant of daylight, falling through a dormer window. Marius made no attempt to see, not wishing to be seen himself. He succeeded in reaching his chamber without being seen and without making any noise. It was high time. A moment later he heard Ma'am Bougon take her departure, locking the door of the house behind her. Marius seated himself on his bed. It might have been halfpast five o'clock. Only half an hour separated him from what was about to happen. He heard the beating of his arteries as one hears the ticking of a watch in the dark. He thought of the double march which was going on at that moment in the dark,crime advancing on one side, justice coming up on the other. He was not afraid, but he could not think without a shudder of what was about to take place. As is the case with all those who are suddenly assailed by an unforeseen adventure, the entire day produced upon him the effect of a dream, and in order to persuade himself that he was not the prey of a nightmare, he had to feel the cold barrels of the steel pistols in his trousers pockets. It was no longer snowing the moon disengaged itself more and more clearly from the mist, and its light, mingled with the white reflection of the snow which had fallen, communicated to the chamber a sort of twilight aspect. There was a light in the Jondrette den. Marius saw the hole in the wall shining with a reddish glow which seemed bloody to him. It was true that the light could not be produced by a candle. However, there was not a sound in the Jondrette quarters, not a soul was moving there, not a soul speaking, not a breath the silence was glacial and profound, and had it not been for that light, he might have thought himself next door to a sepulchre. Marius softly removed his boots and pushed them under his bed. Several minutes elapsed. Marius heard the lower door turn on its hinges a heavy step mounted the staircase, and hastened along the corridor the latch of the hovel was noisily lifted it was Jondrette returning. Instantly, several voices arose. The whole family was in the garret. Only, it had been silent in the master's absence, like wolf whelps in the absence of the wolf. 'It's I, said he. 'Good evening, daddy, yelped the girls. 'Well? said the mother. 'All's going firstrate, responded Jondrette, 'but my feet are beastly cold. Good! You have dressed up. You have done well! You must inspire confidence. 'All ready to go out. 'Don't forget what I told you. You will do everything sure? 'Rest easy. 'Because said Jondrette. And he left the phrase unfinished. Marius heard him lay something heavy on the table, probably the chisel which he had purchased. 'By the way, said Jondrette, 'have you been eating here? 'Yes, said the mother. 'I got three large potatoes and some salt. I took advantage of the fire to cook them. 'Good, returned Jondrette. 'Tomorrow I will take you out to dine with me. We will have a duck and fixings. You shall dine like Charles the Tenth all is going well! Then he added 'The mousetrap is open. The cats are there. He lowered his voice still further, and said 'Put this in the fire. Marius heard a sound of charcoal being knocked with the tongs or some iron utensil, and Jondrette continued 'Have you greased the hinges of the door so that they will not squeak? 'Yes, replied the mother. 'What time is it? 'Nearly six. The halfhour struck from SaintMdard a while ago. 'The devil! ejaculated Jondrette 'the children must go and watch. Come you, do you listen here. A whispering ensued. Jondrette's voice became audible again 'Has old Bougon left? 'Yes, said the mother. 'Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor's room? 'He has not been in all day, and you know very well that this is his dinner hour. 'You are sure? 'Sure. 'All the same, said Jondrette, 'there's no harm in going to see whether he is there. Here, my girl, take the candle and go there. Marius fell on his hands and knees and crawled silently under his bed. Hardly had he concealed himself, when he perceived a light through the crack of his door. 'P'pa, cried a voice, 'he is not in here. He recognized the voice of the eldest daughter. 'Did you go in? demanded her father. 'No, replied the girl, 'but as his key is in the door, he must be out. The father exclaimed 'Go in, nevertheless. The door opened, and Marius saw the tall Jondrette come in with a candle in her hand. She was as she had been in the morning, only still more repulsive in this light. She walked straight up to the bed. Marius endured an indescribable moment of anxiety but near the bed there was a mirror nailed to the wall, and it was thither that she was directing her steps. She raised herself on tiptoe and looked at herself in it. In the neighboring room, the sound of iron articles being moved was audible. She smoothed her hair with the palm of her hand, and smiled into the mirror, humming with her cracked and sepulchral voice Nos amours ont dur toute une semaine, Mais que du bonheur les instants sont courts! S'adorer huit jours, c'tait bien la peine! Le temps des amours devrait durer toujours! Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours! In the meantime, Marius trembled. It seemed impossible to him that she should not hear his breathing. She stepped to the window and looked out with the halffoolish way she had. 'How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white chemise! said she. She returned to the mirror and began again to put on airs before it, scrutinizing herself fullface and threequarters face in turn. 'Well! cried her father, 'what are you about there? 'I am looking under the bed and the furniture, she replied, continuing to arrange her hair 'there's no one here. 'Booby! yelled her father. 'Come here this minute! And don't waste any time about it! 'Coming! Coming! said she. 'One has no time for anything in this hovel! She hummed Vous me quittez pour aller  la gloire Mon triste cur suivra partout. She cast a parting glance in the mirror and went out, shutting the door behind her. A moment more, and Marius heard the sound of the two young girls' bare feet in the corridor, and Jondrette's voice shouting to them 'Pay strict heed! One on the side of the barrier, the other at the corner of the Rue du PetitBanquier. Don't lose sight for a moment of the door of this house, and the moment you see anything, rush here on the instant! as hard as you can go! You have a key to get in. The eldest girl grumbled 'The idea of standing watch in the snow barefoot! 'Tomorrow you shall have some dainty little green silk boots! said the father. They ran downstairs, and a few seconds later the shock of the outer door as it banged to announced that they were outside. There now remained in the house only Marius, the Jondrettes and probably, also, the mysterious persons of whom Marius had caught a glimpse in the twilight, behind the door of the unused attic. Marius decided that the moment had now arrived when he must resume his post at his observatory. In a twinkling, and with the agility of his age, he had reached the hole in the partition. He looked. The interior of the Jondrette apartment presented a curious aspect, and Marius found an explanation of the singular light which he had noticed. A candle was burning in a candlestick covered with verdigris, but that was not what really lighted the chamber. The hovel was completely illuminated, as it were, by the reflection from a rather large sheetiron brazier standing in the fireplace, and filled with burning charcoal, the brazier prepared by the Jondrette woman that morning. The charcoal was glowing hot and the brazier was red a blue flame flickered over it, and helped him to make out the form of the chisel purchased by Jondrette in the Rue PierreLombard, where it had been thrust into the brazier to heat. In one corner, near the door, and as though prepared for some definite use, two heaps were visible, which appeared to be, the one a heap of old iron, the other a heap of ropes. All this would have caused the mind of a person who knew nothing of what was in preparation, to waver between a very sinister and a very simple idea. The lair thus lighted up more resembled a forge than a mouth of hell, but Jondrette, in this light, had rather the air of a demon than of a smith. The heat of the brazier was so great, that the candle on the table was melting on the side next the chafingdish, and was drooping over. An old darklantern of copper, worthy of Diogenes turned Cartouche, stood on the chimneypiece. The brazier, placed in the fireplace itself, beside the nearly extinct brands, sent its vapors up the chimney, and gave out no odor. The moon, entering through the four panes of the window, cast its whiteness into the crimson and flaming garret and to the poetic spirit of Marius, who was dreamy even in the moment of action, it was like a thought of heaven mingled with the misshapen reveries of earth. A breath of air which made its way in through the open pane, helped to dissipate the smell of the charcoal and to conceal the presence of the brazier. The Jondrette lair was, if the reader recalls what we have said of the Gorbeau building, admirably chosen to serve as the theatre of a violent and sombre deed, and as the envelope for a crime. It was the most retired chamber in the most isolated house on the most deserted boulevard in Paris. If the system of ambush and traps had not already existed, they would have been invented there. The whole thickness of a house and a multitude of uninhabited rooms separated this den from the boulevard, and the only window that existed opened on waste lands enclosed with walls and palisades. Jondrette had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the seatless chair, and was engaged in smoking. His wife was talking to him in a low tone. If Marius had been Courfeyrac, that is to say, one of those men who laugh on every occasion in life, he would have burst with laughter when his gaze fell on the Jondrette woman. She had on a black bonnet with plumes not unlike the hats of the heraldsatarms at the coronation of Charles X., an immense tartan shawl over her knitted petticoat, and the man's shoes which her daughter had scorned in the morning. It was this toilette which had extracted from Jondrette the exclamation 'Good! You have dressed up. You have done well. You must inspire confidence! As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new surtout, which was too large for him, and which M. Leblanc had given him, and his costume continued to present that contrast of coat and trousers which constituted the ideal of a poet in Courfeyrac's eyes. All at once, Jondrette lifted up his voice 'By the way! Now that I think of it. In this weather, he will come in a carriage. Light the lantern, take it and go downstairs. You will stand behind the lower door. The very moment that you hear the carriage stop, you will open the door, instantly, he will come up, you will light the staircase and the corridor, and when he enters here, you will go downstairs again as speedily as possible, you will pay the coachman, and dismiss the fiacre. 'And the money? inquired the woman. Jondrette fumbled in his trousers pocket and handed her five francs. 'What's this? she exclaimed. Jondrette replied with dignity 'That is the monarch which our neighbor gave us this morning. And he added 'Do you know what? Two chairs will be needed here. 'What for? 'To sit on. Marius felt a cold chill pass through his limbs at hearing this mild answer from Jondrette. 'Pardieu! I'll go and get one of our neighbor's. And with a rapid movement, she opened the door of the den, and went out into the corridor. Marius absolutely had not the time to descend from the commode, reach his bed, and conceal himself beneath it. 'Take the candle, cried Jondrette. 'No, said she, 'it would embarrass me, I have the two chairs to carry. There is moonlight. Marius heard Mother Jondrette's heavy hand fumbling at his lock in the dark. The door opened. He remained nailed to the spot with the shock and with horror. The Jondrette entered. The dormer window permitted the entrance of a ray of moonlight between two blocks of shadow. One of these blocks of shadow entirely covered the wall against which Marius was leaning, so that he disappeared within it. Mother Jondrette raised her eyes, did not see Marius, took the two chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed, and went away, letting the door fall heavily to behind her. She reentered the lair. 'Here are the two chairs. 'And here is the lantern. Go down as quick as you can. She hastily obeyed, and Jondrette was left alone. He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned the chisel in the brazier, set in front of the fireplace an old screen which masked the chafingdish, then went to the corner where lay the pile of rope, and bent down as though to examine something. Marius then recognized the fact, that what he had taken for a shapeless mass was a very wellmade ropeladder, with wooden rungs and two hooks with which to attach it. This ladder, and some large tools, veritable masses of iron, which were mingled with the old iron piled up behind the door, had not been in the Jondrette hovel in the morning, and had evidently been brought thither in the afternoon, during Marius' absence. 'Those are the utensils of an edgetool maker, thought Marius. Had Marius been a little more learned in this line, he would have recognized in what he took for the engines of an edgetool maker, certain instruments which will force a lock or pick a lock, and others which will cut or slice, the two families of tools which burglars call cadets and fauchants. The fireplace and the two chairs were exactly opposite Marius. The brazier being concealed, the only light in the room was now furnished by the candle the smallest bit of crockery on the table or on the chimneypiece cast a large shadow. There was something indescribably calm, threatening, and hideous about this chamber. One felt that there existed in it the anticipation of something terrible. Jondrette had allowed his pipe to go out, a serious sign of preoccupation, and had again seated himself. The candle brought out the fierce and the fine angles of his countenance. He indulged in scowls and in abrupt unfoldings of the right hand, as though he were responding to the last counsels of a sombre inward monologue. In the course of one of these dark replies which he was making to himself, he pulled the table drawer rapidly towards him, took out a long kitchen knife which was concealed there, and tried the edge of its blade on his nail. That done, he put the knife back in the drawer and shut it. Marius, on his side, grasped the pistol in his right pocket, drew it out and cocked it. The pistol emitted a sharp, clear click, as he cocked it. Jondrette started, half rose, listened a moment, then began to laugh and said 'What a fool I am! It's the partition cracking! Marius kept the pistol in his hand. Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the panes. Six o'clock was striking from SaintMdard. Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head. When the sixth had struck, he snuffed the candle with his fingers. Then he began to pace up and down the room, listened at the corridor, walked on again, then listened once more. 'Provided only that he comes! he muttered, then he returned to his chair. He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened. Mother Jondrette had opened it, and now remained in the corridor making a horrible, amiable grimace, which one of the holes of the darklantern illuminated from below. 'Enter, sir, she said. 'Enter, my benefactor, repeated Jondrette, rising hastily. M. Leblanc made his appearance. He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable. He laid four louis on the table. 'Monsieur Fabantou, said he, 'this is for your rent and your most pressing necessities. We will attend to the rest hereafter. 'May God requite it to you, my generous benefactor! said Jondrette. And rapidly approaching his wife 'Dismiss the carriage! She slipped out while her husband was lavishing salutes and offering M. Leblanc a chair. An instant later she returned and whispered in his ear ''Tis done. The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning, was so deep that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not now hear its departure. Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself. Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing M. Leblanc. Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to follow, let the reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes of the Salptrire covered with snow and white as windingsheets in the moonlight, the taperlike lights of the street lanterns which shone redly here and there along those tragic boulevards, and the long rows of black elms, not a passerby for perhaps a quarter of a league around, the Gorbeau hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of darkness in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in the midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M. Leblanc tranquil, Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette woman, the female wolf, in one corner, and, behind the partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not losing a word, not missing a single movement, his eye on the watch, and pistol in hand. However, Marius experienced only an emotion of horror, but no fear. He clasped the stock of the pistol firmly and felt reassured. 'I shall be able to stop that wretch whenever I please, he thought. He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade, waiting for the signal agreed upon and ready to stretch out their arm. Moreover, he was in hopes, that this violent encounter between Jondrette and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all the things which he was interested in learning. Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the pallets, which were empty. 'How is the poor little wounded girl? he inquired. 'Bad, replied Jondrette with a heartbroken and grateful smile, 'very bad, my worthy sir. Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to have her hurt dressed. You will see them presently they will be back immediately. 'Madame Fabantou seems to me to be better, went on M. Leblanc, casting his eyes on the eccentric costume of the Jondrette woman, as she stood between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed at him in an attitude of menace and almost of combat. 'She is dying, said Jondrette. 'But what do you expect, sir! She has so much courage, that woman has! She's not a woman, she's an ox. The Jondrette, touched by his compliment, deprecated it with the affected airs of a flattered monster. 'You are always too good to me, Monsieur Jondrette! 'Jondrette! said M. Leblanc, 'I thought your name was Fabantou? 'Fabantou, alias Jondrette! replied the husband hurriedly. 'An artistic sobriquet! And launching at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did not catch, he continued with an emphatic and caressing inflection of voice 'Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling and I! What would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my respectable sir! We have arms, but there is no work! We have the will, no work! I don't know how the government arranges that, but, on my word of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot. I don't wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, things would be different. Here, for instance, I wanted to have my girls taught the trade of paperbox makers. You will say to me 'What! a trade?' Yes! A trade! A simple trade! A breadwinner! What a fall, my benefactor! What a degradation, when one has been what we have been! Alas! There is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity! One thing only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing to part with, for I must live! Item, one must live! While Jondrette thus talked, with an apparent incoherence which detracted nothing from the thoughtful and sagacious expression of his physiognomy, Marius raised his eyes, and perceived at the other end of the room a person whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered, so softly that the door had not been heard to turn on its hinges. This man wore a violet knitted vest, which was old, worn, spotted, cut and gaping at every fold, wide trousers of cotton velvet, wooden shoes on his feet, no shirt, had his neck bare, his bare arms tattooed, and his face smeared with black. He had seated himself in silence on the nearest bed, and, as he was behind Jondrette, he could only be indistinctly seen. That sort of magnetic instinct which turns aside the gaze, caused M. Leblanc to turn round almost at the same moment as Marius. He could not refrain from a gesture of surprise which did not escape Jondrette. 'Ah! I see! exclaimed Jondrette, buttoning up his coat with an air of complaisance, 'you are looking at your overcoat? It fits me! My faith, but it fits me! 'Who is that man? said M. Leblanc. 'Him? ejaculated Jondrette, 'he's a neighbor of mine. Don't pay any attention to him. The neighbor was a singularlooking individual. However, manufactories of chemical products abound in the Faubourg SaintMarceau. Many of the workmen might have black faces. Besides this, M. Leblanc's whole person was expressive of candid and intrepid confidence. He went on 'Excuse me what were you saying, M. Fabantou? 'I was telling you, sir, and dear protector, replied Jondrette placing his elbows on the table and contemplating M. Leblanc with steady and tender eyes, not unlike the eyes of the boaconstrictor, 'I was telling you, that I have a picture to sell. A slight sound came from the door. A second man had just entered and seated himself on the bed, behind Jondrette. Like the first, his arms were bare, and he had a mask of ink or lampblack. Although this man had, literally, glided into the room, he had not been able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him. 'Don't mind them, said Jondrette, 'they are people who belong in the house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable picture. But stop, sir, take a look at it. He rose, went to the wall at the foot of which stood the panel which we have already mentioned, and turned it round, still leaving it supported against the wall. It really was something which resembled a picture, and which the candle illuminated, somewhat. Marius could make nothing out of it, as Jondrette stood between the picture and him he only saw a coarse daub, and a sort of principal personage colored with the harsh crudity of foreign canvasses and screen paintings. 'What is that? asked M. Leblanc. Jondrette exclaimed 'A painting by a master, a picture of great value, my benefactor! I am as much attached to it as I am to my two daughters it recalls souvenirs to me! But I have told you, and I will not take it back, that I am so wretched that I will part with it. Either by chance, or because he had begun to feel a dawning uneasiness, M. Leblanc's glance returned to the bottom of the room as he examined the picture. There were now four men, three seated on the bed, one standing near the doorpost, all four with bare arms and motionless, with faces smeared with black. One of those on the bed was leaning against the wall, with closed eyes, and it might have been supposed that he was asleep. He was old his white hair contrasting with his blackened face produced a horrible effect. The other two seemed to be young one wore a beard, the other wore his hair long. None of them had on shoes those who did not wear socks were barefooted. Jondrette noticed that M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on these men. 'They are friends. They are neighbors, said he. 'Their faces are black because they work in charcoal. They are chimneybuilders. Don't trouble yourself about them, my benefactor, but buy my picture. Have pity on my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is worth? 'Well, said M. Leblanc, looking Jondrette full in the eye, and with the manner of a man who is on his guard, 'it is some signboard for a tavern, and is worth about three francs. Jondrette replied sweetly 'Have you your pocketbook with you? I should be satisfied with a thousand crowns. M. Leblanc sprang up, placed his back against the wall, and cast a rapid glance around the room. He had Jondrette on his left, on the side next the window, and the Jondrette woman and the four men on his right, on the side next the door. The four men did not stir, and did not even seem to be looking on. Jondrette had again begun to speak in a plaintive tone, with so vague an eye, and so lamentable an intonation, that M. Leblanc might have supposed that what he had before him was a man who had simply gone mad with misery. 'If you do not buy my picture, my dear benefactor, said Jondrette, 'I shall be left without resources there will be nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river. When I think that I wanted to have my two girls taught the middleclass paperbox trade, the making of boxes for New Year's gifts! Well! A table with a board at the end to keep the glasses from falling off is required, then a special stove is needed, a pot with three compartments for the different degrees of strength of the paste, according as it is to be used for wood, paper, or stuff, a paringknife to cut the cardboard, a mould to adjust it, a hammer to nail the steels, pincers, how the devil do I know what all? And all that in order to earn four sous a day! And you have to work fourteen hours a day! And each box passes through the workwoman's hands thirteen times! And you can't wet the paper! And you mustn't spot anything! And you must keep the paste hot. The devil, I tell you! Four sous a day! How do you suppose a man is to live? As he spoke, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was observing him. M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on Jondrette, and Jondrette's eye was fixed on the door. Marius' eager attention was transferred from one to the other. M. Leblanc seemed to be asking himself 'Is this man an idiot? Jondrette repeated two or three distinct times, with all manner of varying inflections of the whining and supplicating order 'There is nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river! I went down three steps at the side of the bridge of Austerlitz the other day for that purpose. All at once his dull eyes lighted up with a hideous flash the little man drew himself up and became terrible, took a step toward M. Leblanc and cried in a voice of thunder 'That has nothing to do with the question! Do you know me? The door of the garret had just opened abruptly, and allowed a view of three men clad in blue linen blouses, and masked with masks of black paper. The first was thin, and had a long, irontipped cudgel the second, who was a sort of colossus, carried, by the middle of the handle, with the blade downward, a butcher's poleaxe for slaughtering cattle. The third, a man with thickset shoulders, not so slender as the first, held in his hand an enormous key stolen from the door of some prison. It appeared that the arrival of these men was what Jondrette had been waiting for. A rapid dialogue ensued between him and the man with the cudgel, the thin one. 'Is everything ready? said Jondrette. 'Yes, replied the thin man. 'Where is Montparnasse? 'The young principal actor stopped to chat with your girl. 'Which? 'The eldest. 'Is there a carriage at the door? 'Yes. 'Is the team harnessed? 'Yes. 'With two good horses? 'Excellent. 'Is it waiting where I ordered? 'Yes. 'Good, said Jondrette. M. Leblanc was very pale. He was scrutinizing everything around him in the den, like a man who understands what he has fallen into, and his head, directed in turn toward all the heads which surrounded him, moved on his neck with an astonished and attentive slowness, but there was nothing in his air which resembled fear. He had improvised an intrenchment out of the table and the man, who but an instant previously, had borne merely the appearance of a kindly old man, had suddenly become a sort of athlete, and placed his robust fist on the back of his chair, with a formidable and surprising gesture. This old man, who was so firm and so brave in the presence of such a danger, seemed to possess one of those natures which are as courageous as they are kind, both easily and simply. The father of a woman whom we love is never a stranger to us. Marius felt proud of that unknown man. Three of the men, of whom Jondrette had said 'They are chimneybuilders, had armed themselves from the pile of old iron, one with a heavy pair of shears, the second with weighingtongs, the third with a hammer, and had placed themselves across the entrance without uttering a syllable. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely opened his eyes. The Jondrette woman had seated herself beside him. Marius decided that in a few seconds more the moment for intervention would arrive, and he raised his right hand towards the ceiling, in the direction of the corridor, in readiness to discharge his pistol. Jondrette having terminated his colloquy with the man with the cudgel, turned once more to M. Leblanc, and repeated his question, accompanying it with that low, repressed, and terrible laugh which was peculiar to him 'So you do not recognize me? M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied 'No. Then Jondrette advanced to the table. He leaned across the candle, crossing his arms, putting his angular and ferocious jaw close to M. Leblanc's calm face, and advancing as far as possible without forcing M. Leblanc to retreat, and, in this posture of a wild beast who is about to bite, he exclaimed 'My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is Thnardier. I am the innkeeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand? Thnardier! Now do you know me? An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc's brow, and he replied with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, with his accustomed placidity 'No more than before. Marius did not hear this reply. Any one who had seen him at that moment through the darkness would have perceived that he was haggard, stupid, thunderstruck. At the moment when Jondrette said 'My name is Thnardier, Marius had trembled in every limb, and had leaned against the wall, as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart. Then his right arm, all ready to discharge the signal shot, dropped slowly, and at the moment when Jondrette repeated, 'Thnardier, do you understand? Marius's faltering fingers had come near letting the pistol fall. Jondrette, by revealing his identity, had not moved M. Leblanc, but he had quite upset Marius. That name of Thnardier, with which M. Leblanc did not seem to be acquainted, Marius knew well. Let the reader recall what that name meant to him! That name he had worn on his heart, inscribed in his father's testament! He bore it at the bottom of his mind, in the depths of his memory, in that sacred injunction 'A certain Thnardier saved my life. If my son encounters him, he will do him all the good that lies in his power. That name, it will be remembered, was one of the pieties of his soul he mingled it with the name of his father in his worship. What! This man was that Thnardier, that innkeeper of Montfermeil whom he had so long and so vainly sought! He had found him at last, and how? His father's saviour was a ruffian! That man, to whose service Marius was burning to devote himself, was a monster! That liberator of Colonel Pontmercy was on the point of committing a crime whose scope Marius did not, as yet, clearly comprehend, but which resembled an assassination! And against whom, great God! what a fatality! What a bitter mockery of fate! His father had commanded him from the depths of his coffin to do all the good in his power to this Thnardier, and for four years Marius had cherished no other thought than to acquit this debt of his father's, and at the moment when he was on the eve of having a brigand seized in the very act of crime by justice, destiny cried to him 'This is Thnardier! He could at last repay this man for his father's life, saved amid a hailstorm of grapeshot on the heroic field of Waterloo, and repay it with the scaffold! He had sworn to himself that if ever he found that Thnardier, he would address him only by throwing himself at his feet and now he actually had found him, but it was only to deliver him over to the executioner! His father said to him 'Succor Thnardier! And he replied to that adored and sainted voice by crushing Thnardier! He was about to offer to his father in his grave the spectacle of that man who had torn him from death at the peril of his own life, executed on the Place SaintJacques through the means of his son, of that Marius to whom he had entrusted that man by his will! And what a mockery to have so long worn on his breast his father's last commands, written in his own hand, only to act in so horribly contrary a sense! But, on the other hand, now look on that trap and not prevent it! Condemn the victim and to spare the assassin! Could one be held to any gratitude towards so miserable a wretch? All the ideas which Marius had cherished for the last four years were pierced through and through, as it were, by this unforeseen blow. He shuddered. Everything depended on him. Unknown to themselves, he held in his hand all those beings who were moving about there before his eyes. If he fired his pistol, M. Leblanc was saved, and Thnardier lost if he did not fire, M. Leblanc would be sacrificed, and, who knows? Thnardier would escape. Should he dash down the one or allow the other to fall? Remorse awaited him in either case. What was he to do? What should he choose? Be false to the most imperious souvenirs, to all those solemn vows to himself, to the most sacred duty, to the most venerated text! Should he ignore his father's testament, or allow the perpetration of a crime! On the one hand, it seemed to him that he heard 'his Ursule supplicating for her father and on the other, the colonel commending Thnardier to his care. He felt that he was going mad. His knees gave way beneath him. And he had not even the time for deliberation, so great was the fury with which the scene before his eyes was hastening to its catastrophe. It was like a whirlwind of which he had thought himself the master, and which was now sweeping him away. He was on the verge of swooning. In the meantime, Thnardier, whom we shall henceforth call by no other name, was pacing up and down in front of the table in a sort of frenzy and wild triumph. He seized the candle in his fist, and set it on the chimneypiece with so violent a bang that the wick came near being extinguished, and the tallow bespattered the wall. Then he turned to M. Leblanc with a horrible look, and spit out these words 'Done for! Smoked brown! Cooked! Spitchcocked! And again he began to march back and forth, in full eruption. 'Ah! he cried, 'so I've found you again at last, Mister philanthropist! Mister threadbare millionnaire! Mister giver of dolls! you old ninny! Ah! so you don't recognize me! No, it wasn't you who came to Montfermeil, to my inn, eight years ago, on Christmas eve, ! It wasn't you who carried off that Fantine's child from me! The Lark! It wasn't you who had a yellow greatcoat! No! Nor a package of duds in your hand, as you had this morning here! Say, wife, it seems to be his mania to carry packets of woollen stockings into houses! Old charity monger, get out with you! Are you a hosier, Mister millionnaire? You give away your stock in trade to the poor, holy man! What bosh! merry Andrew! Ah! and you don't recognize me? Well, I recognize you, that I do! I recognized you the very moment you poked your snout in here. Ah! you'll find out presently, that it isn't all roses to thrust yourself in that fashion into people's houses, under the pretext that they are taverns, in wretched clothes, with the air of a poor man, to whom one would give a sou, to deceive persons, to play the generous, to take away their means of livelihood, and to make threats in the woods, and you can't call things quits because afterwards, when people are ruined, you bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you old blackguard, you childstealer! He paused, and seemed to be talking to himself for a moment. One would have said that his wrath had fallen into some hole, like the Rhone then, as though he were concluding aloud the things which he had been saying to himself in a whisper, he smote the table with his fist, and shouted 'And with his goodygoody air! And, apostrophizing M. Leblanc 'Parbleu! You made game of me in the past! You are the cause of all my misfortunes! For fifteen hundred francs you got a girl whom I had, and who certainly belonged to rich people, and who had already brought in a great deal of money, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live on all my life! A girl who would have made up to me for everything that I lost in that vile cookshop, where there was nothing but one continual row, and where, like a fool, I ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all the wine folks drank in my house had been poison to those who drank it! Well, never mind! Say, now! You must have thought me ridiculous when you went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the stronger. Revenge. I'm the one to hold the trumps today! You're in a sorry case, my good fellow! Oh, but I can laugh! Really, I laugh! Didn't he fall into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle Muche, that my landlord insisted on being paid tomorrow, the th of February, and he didn't even notice that the th of January, and not the th of February is the time when the quarter runs out! Absurd idiot! And the four miserable Philippes which he has brought me! Scoundrel! He hadn't the heart even to go as high as a hundred francs! And how he swallowed my platitudes! That did amuse me. I said to myself 'Blockhead! Come, I've got you! I lick your paws this morning, but I'll gnaw your heart this evening!' Thnardier paused. He was out of breath. His little, narrow chest panted like a forge bellows. His eyes were full of the ignoble happiness of a feeble, cruel, and cowardly creature, which finds that it can, at last, harass what it has feared, and insult what it has flattered, the joy of a dwarf who should be able to set his heel on the head of Goliath, the joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead that he can no longer defend himself, but sufficiently alive to suffer still. M. Leblanc did not interrupt him, but said to him when he paused 'I do not know what you mean to say. You are mistaken in me. I am a very poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you. You are mistaking me for some other person. 'Ah! roared Thnardier hoarsely, 'a pretty lie! You stick to that pleasantry, do you! You're floundering, my old buck! Ah! You don't remember! You don't see who I am? 'Excuse me, sir, said M. Leblanc with a politeness of accent, which at that moment seemed peculiarly strange and powerful, 'I see that you are a villain! Who has not remarked the fact that odious creatures possess a susceptibility of their own, that monsters are ticklish! At this word 'villain, the female Thnardier sprang from the bed, Thnardier grasped his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. 'Don't you stir! he shouted to his wife and, turning to M. Leblanc 'Villain! Yes, I know that you call us that, you rich gentlemen! Stop! it's true that I became bankrupt, that I am in hiding, that I have no bread, that I have not a single sou, that I am a villain! It's three days since I have had anything to eat, so I'm a villain! Ah! you folks warm your feet, you have Sakoski boots, you have wadded greatcoats, like archbishops, you lodge on the first floor in houses that have porters, you eat truffles, you eat asparagus at forty francs the bunch in the month of January, and green peas, you gorge yourselves, and when you want to know whether it is cold, you look in the papers to see what the engineer Chevalier's thermometer says about it. We, it is we who are thermometers. We don't need to go out and look on the quay at the corner of the Tour de l'Horologe, to find out the number of degrees of cold we feel our blood congealing in our veins, and the ice forming round our hearts, and we say 'There is no God!' And you come to our caverns, yes our caverns, for the purpose of calling us villains! But we'll devour you! But we'll devour you, poor little things! Just see here, Mister millionnaire I have been a solid man, I have held a license, I have been an elector, I am a bourgeois, that I am! And it's quite possible that you are not! Here Thnardier took a step towards the men who stood near the door, and added with a shudder 'When I think that he has dared to come here and talk to me like a cobbler! Then addressing M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy 'And listen to this also, Mister philanthropist! I'm not a suspicious character, not a bit of it! I'm not a man whose name nobody knows, and who comes and abducts children from houses! I'm an old French soldier, I ought to have been decorated! I was at Waterloo, so I was! And in the battle I saved a general called the Comte of I don't know what. He told me his name, but his beastly voice was so weak that I didn't hear. All I caught was Merci thanks. I'd rather have had his name than his thanks. That would have helped me to find him again. The picture that you see here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,do you know what it represents? It represents me. David wished to immortalize that feat of prowess. I have that general on my back, and I am carrying him through the grapeshot. There's the history of it! That general never did a single thing for me he was no better than the rest! But nonetheless, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have the certificate of the fact in my pocket! I am a soldier of Waterloo, by all the furies! And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let's have an end of it. I want money, I want a deal of money, I must have an enormous lot of money, or I'll exterminate you, by the thunder of the good God! Marius had regained some measure of control over his anguish, and was listening. The last possibility of doubt had just vanished. It certainly was the Thnardier of the will. Marius shuddered at that reproach of ingratitude directed against his father, and which he was on the point of so fatally justifying. His perplexity was redoubled. Moreover, there was in all these words of Thnardier, in his accent, in his gesture, in his glance which darted flames at every word, there was, in this explosion of an evil nature disclosing everything, in that mixture of braggadocio and abjectness, of pride and pettiness, of rage and folly, in that chaos of real griefs and false sentiments, in that immodesty of a malicious man tasting the voluptuous delights of violence, in that shameless nudity of a repulsive soul, in that conflagration of all sufferings combined with all hatreds, something which was as hideous as evil, and as heartrending as the truth. The picture of the master, the painting by David which he had proposed that M. Leblanc should purchase, was nothing else, as the reader has divined, than the sign of his tavern painted, as it will be remembered, by himself, the only relic which he had preserved from his shipwreck at Montfermeil. As he had ceased to intercept Marius' visual ray, Marius could examine this thing, and in the daub, he actually did recognize a battle, a background of smoke, and a man carrying another man. It was the group composed of Pontmercy and Thnardier the sergeant the rescuer, the colonel rescued. Marius was like a drunken man this picture restored his father to life in some sort it was no longer the signboard of the wineshop at Montfermeil, it was a resurrection a tomb had yawned, a phantom had risen there. Marius heard his heart beating in his temples, he had the cannon of Waterloo in his ears, his bleeding father, vaguely depicted on that sinister panel terrified him, and it seemed to him that the misshapen spectre was gazing intently at him. When Thnardier had recovered his breath, he turned his bloodshot eyes on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, curt voice 'What have you to say before we put the handcuffs on you? M. Leblanc held his peace. In the midst of this silence, a cracked voice launched this lugubrious sarcasm from the corridor 'If there's any wood to be split, I'm there! It was the man with the axe, who was growing merry. At the same moment, an enormous, bristling, and clayey face made its appearance at the door, with a hideous laugh which exhibited not teeth, but fangs. It was the face of the man with the butcher's axe. 'Why have you taken off your mask? cried Thnardier in a rage. 'For fun, retorted the man. For the last few minutes M. Leblanc had appeared to be watching and following all the movements of Thnardier, who, blinded and dazzled by his own rage, was stalking to and fro in the den with full confidence that the door was guarded, and of holding an unarmed man fast, he being armed himself, of being nine against one, supposing that the female Thnardier counted for but one man. During his address to the man with the poleaxe, he had turned his back to M. Leblanc. M. Leblanc seized this moment, overturned the chair with his foot and the table with his fist, and with one bound, with prodigious agility, before Thnardier had time to turn round, he had reached the window. To open it, to scale the frame, to bestride it, was the work of a second only. He was half out when six robust fists seized him and dragged him back energetically into the hovel. These were the three 'chimneybuilders, who had flung themselves upon him. At the same time the Thnardier woman had wound her hands in his hair. At the trampling which ensued, the other ruffians rushed up from the corridor. The old man on the bed, who seemed under the influence of wine, descended from the pallet and came reeling up, with a stonebreaker's hammer in his hand. One of the 'chimneybuilders, whose smirched face was lighted up by the candle, and in whom Marius recognized, in spite of his daubing, Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, lifted above M. Leblanc's head a sort of bludgeon made of two balls of lead, at the two ends of a bar of iron. Marius could not resist this sight. 'My father, he thought, 'forgive me! And his finger sought the trigger of his pistol. The shot was on the point of being discharged when Thnardier's voice shouted 'Don't harm him! This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thnardier, had calmed him. There existed in him two men, the ferocious man and the adroit man. Up to that moment, in the excess of his triumph in the presence of the prey which had been brought down, and which did not stir, the ferocious man had prevailed when the victim struggled and tried to resist, the adroit man reappeared and took the upper hand. 'Don't hurt him! he repeated, and without suspecting it, his first success was to arrest the pistol in the act of being discharged, and to paralyze Marius, in whose opinion the urgency of the case disappeared, and who, in the face of this new phase, saw no inconvenience in waiting a while longer. Who knows whether some chance would not arise which would deliver him from the horrible alternative of allowing Ursule's father to perish, or of destroying the colonel's saviour? A herculean struggle had begun. With one blow full in the chest, M. Leblanc had sent the old man tumbling, rolling in the middle of the room, then with two backward sweeps of his hand he had overthrown two more assailants, and he held one under each of his knees the wretches were rattling in the throat beneath this pressure as under a granite millstone but the other four had seized the formidable old man by both arms and the back of his neck, and were holding him doubled up over the two 'chimneybuilders on the floor. Thus, the master of some and mastered by the rest, crushing those beneath him and stifling under those on top of him, endeavoring in vain to shake off all the efforts which were heaped upon him, M. Leblanc disappeared under the horrible group of ruffians like the wild boar beneath a howling pile of dogs and hounds. They succeeded in overthrowing him upon the bed nearest the window, and there they held him in awe. The Thnardier woman had not released her clutch on his hair. 'Don't you mix yourself up in this affair, said Thnardier. 'You'll tear your shawl. The Thnardier obeyed, as the female wolf obeys the male wolf, with a growl. 'Now, said Thnardier, 'search him, you other fellows! M. Leblanc seemed to have renounced the idea of resistance. They searched him. He had nothing on his person except a leather purse containing six francs, and his handkerchief. Thnardier put the handkerchief into his own pocket. 'What! No pocketbook? he demanded. 'No, nor watch, replied one of the 'chimneybuilders. 'Never mind, murmured the masked man who carried the big key, in the voice of a ventriloquist, 'he's a tough old fellow. Thnardier went to the corner near the door, picked up a bundle of ropes and threw them at the men. 'Tie him to the leg of the bed, said he. And, catching sight of the old man who had been stretched across the room by the blow from M. Leblanc's fist, and who made no movement, he added 'Is Boulatruelle dead? 'No, replied Bigrenaille, 'he's drunk. 'Sweep him into a corner, said Thnardier. Two of the 'chimneybuilders pushed the drunken man into the corner near the heap of old iron with their feet. 'Babet, said Thnardier in a low tone to the man with the cudgel, 'why did you bring so many they were not needed. 'What can you do? replied the man with the cudgel, 'they all wanted to be in it. This is a bad season. There's no business going on. The pallet on which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital bed, elevated on four coarse wooden legs, roughly hewn. M. Leblanc let them take their own course. The ruffians bound him securely, in an upright attitude, with his feet on the ground at the head of the bed, the end which was most remote from the window, and nearest to the fireplace. When the last knot had been tied, Thnardier took a chair and seated himself almost facing M. Leblanc. Thnardier no longer looked like himself in the course of a few moments his face had passed from unbridled violence to tranquil and cunning sweetness. Marius found it difficult to recognize in that polished smile of a man in official life the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming but a moment before he gazed with amazement on that fantastic and alarming metamorphosis, and he felt as a man might feel who should behold a tiger converted into a lawyer. 'Monsieur said Thnardier. And dismissing with a gesture the ruffians who still kept their hands on M. Leblanc 'Stand off a little, and let me have a talk with the gentleman. All retired towards the door. He went on 'Monsieur, you did wrong to try to jump out of the window. You might have broken your leg. Now, if you will permit me, we will converse quietly. In the first place, I must communicate to you an observation which I have made which is, that you have not uttered the faintest cry. Thnardier was right, this detail was correct, although it had escaped Marius in his agitation. M. Leblanc had barely pronounced a few words, without raising his voice, and even during his struggle with the six ruffians near the window he had preserved the most profound and singular silence. Thnardier continued 'Mon Dieu! You might have shouted 'stop thief' a bit, and I should not have thought it improper. 'Murder!' That, too, is said occasionally, and, so far as I am concerned, I should not have taken it in bad part. It is very natural that you should make a little row when you find yourself with persons who don't inspire you with sufficient confidence. You might have done that, and no one would have troubled you on that account. You would not even have been gagged. And I will tell you why. This room is very private. That's its only recommendation, but it has that in its favor. You might fire off a mortar and it would produce about as much noise at the nearest police station as the snores of a drunken man. Here a cannon would make a boum, and the thunder would make a pouf. It's a handy lodging. But, in short, you did not shout, and it is better so. I present you my compliments, and I will tell you the conclusion that I draw from that fact My dear sir, when a man shouts, who comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! You have not made an outcry that is because you don't care to have the police and the courts come in any more than we do. It is because,I have long suspected it,you have some interest in hiding something. On our side we have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding. As he spoke thus, it seemed as though Thnardier, who kept his eyes fixed on M. Leblanc, were trying to plunge the sharp points which darted from the pupils into the very conscience of his prisoner. Moreover, his language, which was stamped with a sort of moderated, subdued insolence and crafty insolence, was reserved and almost choice, and in that rascal, who had been nothing but a robber a short time previously, one now felt 'the man who had studied for the priesthood. The silence preserved by the prisoner, that precaution which had been carried to the point of forgetting all anxiety for his own life, that resistance opposed to the first impulse of nature, which is to utter a cry, all this, it must be confessed, now that his attention had been called to it, troubled Marius, and affected him with painful astonishment. Thnardier's wellgrounded observation still further obscured for Marius the dense mystery which enveloped that grave and singular person on whom Courfeyrac had bestowed the sobriquet of Monsieur Leblanc. But whoever he was, bound with ropes, surrounded with executioners, half plunged, so to speak, in a grave which was closing in upon him to the extent of a degree with every moment that passed, in the presence of Thnardier's wrath, as in the presence of his sweetness, this man remained impassive and Marius could not refrain from admiring at such a moment the superbly melancholy visage. Here, evidently, was a soul which was inaccessible to terror, and which did not know the meaning of despair. Here was one of those men who command amazement in desperate circumstances. Extreme as was the crisis, inevitable as was the catastrophe, there was nothing here of the agony of the drowning man, who opens his horrorfilled eyes under the water. Thnardier rose in an unpretending manner, went to the fireplace, shoved aside the screen, which he leaned against the neighboring pallet, and thus unmasked the brazier full of glowing coals, in which the prisoner could plainly see the chisel whitehot and spotted here and there with tiny scarlet stars. Then Thnardier returned to his seat beside M. Leblanc. 'I continue, said he. 'We can come to an understanding. Let us arrange this matter in an amicable way. I was wrong to lose my temper just now, I don't know what I was thinking of, I went a great deal too far, I said extravagant things. For example, because you are a millionnaire, I told you that I exacted money, a lot of money, a deal of money. That would not be reasonable. Mon Dieu, in spite of your riches, you have expenses of your ownwho has not? I don't want to ruin you, I am not a greedy fellow, after all. I am not one of those people who, because they have the advantage of the position, profit by the fact to make themselves ridiculous. Why, I'm taking things into consideration and making a sacrifice on my side. I only want two hundred thousand francs. M. Leblanc uttered not a word. Thnardier went on 'You see that I put not a little water in my wine I'm very moderate. I don't know the state of your fortune, but I do know that you don't stick at money, and a benevolent man like yourself can certainly give two hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. Certainly, you are reasonable, too you haven't imagined that I should take all the trouble I have today and organized this affair this evening, which has been labor well bestowed, in the opinion of these gentlemen, merely to wind up by asking you for enough to go and drink red wine at fifteen sous and eat veal at Desnoyer's. Two hundred thousand francsit's surely worth all that. This trifle once out of your pocket, I guarantee you that that's the end of the matter, and that you have no further demands to fear. You will say to me 'But I haven't two hundred thousand francs about me.' Oh! I'm not extortionate. I don't demand that. I only ask one thing of you. Have the goodness to write what I am about to dictate to you. Here Thnardier paused then he added, emphasizing his words, and casting a smile in the direction of the brazier 'I warn you that I shall not admit that you don't know how to write. A grand inquisitor might have envied that smile. Thnardier pushed the table close to M. Leblanc, and took an inkstand, a pen, and a sheet of paper from the drawer which he left half open, and in which gleamed the long blade of the knife. He placed the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc. 'Write, said he. The prisoner spoke at last. 'How do you expect me to write? I am bound. 'That's true, excuse me! ejaculated Thnardier, 'you are quite right. And turning to Bigrenaille 'Untie the gentleman's right arm. Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, executed Thnardier's order. When the prisoner's right arm was free, Thnardier dipped the pen in the ink and presented it to him. 'Understand thoroughly, sir, that you are in our power, at our discretion, that no human power can get you out of this, and that we shall be really grieved if we are forced to proceed to disagreeable extremities. I know neither your name, nor your address, but I warn you, that you will remain bound until the person charged with carrying the letter which you are about to write shall have returned. Now, be so good as to write. 'What? demanded the prisoner. 'I will dictate. M. Leblanc took the pen. Thnardier began to dictate 'My daughter The prisoner shuddered, and raised his eyes to Thnardier. 'Put down 'My dear daughter' said Thnardier. M. Leblanc obeyed. Thnardier continued 'Come instantly He paused 'You address her as thou, do you not? 'Who? asked M. Leblanc. 'Parbleu! cried Thnardier, 'the little one, the Lark. M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion 'I do not know what you mean. 'Go on, nevertheless, ejaculated Thnardier, and he continued to dictate 'Come immediately, I am in absolute need of thee. The person who will deliver this note to thee is instructed to conduct thee to me. I am waiting for thee. Come with confidence. M. Leblanc had written the whole of this. Thnardier resumed 'Ah! erase 'come with confidence' that might lead her to suppose that everything was not as it should be, and that distrust is possible. M. Leblanc erased the three words. 'Now, pursued Thnardier, 'sign it. What's your name? The prisoner laid down the pen and demanded 'For whom is this letter? 'You know well, retorted Thnardier, 'for the little one I just told you so. It was evident that Thnardier avoided naming the young girl in question. He said 'the Lark, he said 'the little one, but he did not pronounce her namethe precaution of a clever man guarding his secret from his accomplices. To mention the name was to deliver the whole 'affair into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there was any need of their knowing. He went on 'Sign. What is your name? 'Urbain Fabre, said the prisoner. Thnardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into his pocket and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized on M. Leblanc. He looked for the mark on it, and held it close to the candle. 'U. F. That's it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it U. F. The prisoner signed. 'As two hands are required to fold the letter, give it to me, I will fold it. That done, Thnardier resumed 'Address it, 'Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house. I know that you live a long distance from here, near SaintJacquesduHautPas, because you go to mass there every day, but I don't know in what street. I see that you understand your situation. As you have not lied about your name, you will not lie about your address. Write it yourself. The prisoner paused thoughtfully for a moment, then he took the pen and wrote 'Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, Rue SaintDominiqueD'Enfer, No. . Thnardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion. 'Wife! he cried. The Thnardier woman hastened to him. 'Here's the letter. You know what you have to do. There is a carriage at the door. Set out at once, and return ditto. And addressing the man with the meataxe 'Since you have taken off your nosescreen, accompany the mistress. You will get up behind the fiacre. You know where you left the team? 'Yes, said the man. And depositing his axe in a corner, he followed Madame Thnardier. As they set off, Thnardier thrust his head through the halfopen door, and shouted into the corridor 'Above all things, don't lose the letter! remember that you carry two hundred thousand francs with you! The Thnardier's hoarse voice replied 'Be easy. I have it in my bosom. A minute had not elapsed, when the sound of the cracking of a whip was heard, which rapidly retreated and died away. 'Good! growled Thnardier. 'They're going at a fine pace. At such a gallop, the bourgeoise will be back inside threequarters of an hour. He drew a chair close to the fireplace, folding his arms, and presenting his muddy boots to the brazier. 'My feet are cold! said he. Only five ruffians now remained in the den with Thnardier and the prisoner. These men, through the black masks or paste which covered their faces, and made of them, at fear's pleasure, charcoalburners, negroes, or demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could be felt that they perpetrated a crime like a bit of work, tranquilly, without either wrath or mercy, with a sort of ennui. They were crowded together in one corner like brutes, and remained silent. Thnardier warmed his feet. The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had succeeded to the wild uproar which had filled the garret but a few moments before. The candle, on which a large 'stranger had formed, cast but a dim light in the immense hovel, the brazier had grown dull, and all those monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows on the walls and ceiling. No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old drunken man, who was fast asleep. Marius waited in a state of anxiety that was augmented by every trifle. The enigma was more impenetrable than ever. Who was this 'little one whom Thnardier had called the Lark? Was she his 'Ursule? The prisoner had not seemed to be affected by that word, 'the Lark, and had replied in the most natural manner in the world 'I do not know what you mean. On the other hand, the two letters U. F. were explained they meant Urbain Fabre and Ursule was no longer named Ursule. This was what Marius perceived most clearly of all. A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post, from which he was observing and commanding this whole scene. There he stood, almost incapable of movement or reflection, as though annihilated by the abominable things viewed at such close quarters. He waited, in the hope of some incident, no matter of what nature, since he could not collect his thoughts and did not know upon what course to decide. 'In any case, he said, 'if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for the Thnardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then I will give my life and my blood if necessary, but I will deliver her! Nothing shall stop me. Nearly half an hour passed in this manner. Thnardier seemed to be absorbed in gloomy reflections, the prisoner did not stir. Still, Marius fancied that at intervals, and for the last few moments, he had heard a faint, dull noise in the direction of the prisoner. All at once, Thnardier addressed the prisoner 'By the way, Monsieur Fabre, I might as well say it to you at once. These few words appeared to be the beginning of an explanation. Marius strained his ears. 'My wife will be back shortly, don't get impatient. I think that the Lark really is your daughter, and it seems to me quite natural that you should keep her. Only, listen to me a bit. My wife will go and hunt her up with your letter. I told my wife to dress herself in the way she did, so that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. They will both enter the carriage with my comrade behind. Somewhere, outside the barrier, there is a trap harnessed to two very good horses. Your young lady will be taken to it. She will alight from the fiacre. My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my wife will come back here to tell us 'It's done.' As for the young lady, no harm will be done to her the trap will conduct her to a place where she will be quiet, and just as soon as you have handed over to me those little two hundred thousand francs, she will be returned to you. If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the Lark, that's all. The prisoner uttered not a syllable. After a pause, Thnardier continued 'It's very simple, as you see. There'll be no harm done unless you wish that there should be harm done. I'm telling you how things stand. I warn you so that you may be prepared. He paused the prisoner did not break the silence, and Thnardier resumed 'As soon as my wife returns and says to me 'The Lark is on the way,' we will release you, and you will be free to go and sleep at home. You see that our intentions are not evil. Terrible images passed through Marius' mind. What! That young girl whom they were abducting was not to be brought back? One of those monsters was to bear her off into the darkness? Whither? And what if it were she! It was clear that it was she. Marius felt his heart stop beating. What was he to do? Discharge the pistol? Place all those scoundrels in the hands of justice? But the horrible man with the meataxe would, nonetheless, be out of reach with the young girl, and Marius reflected on Thnardier's words, of which he perceived the bloody significance 'If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the Lark. Now, it was not alone by the colonel's testament, it was by his own love, it was by the peril of the one he loved, that he felt himself restrained. This frightful situation, which had already lasted above half an hour, was changing its aspect every moment. Marius had sufficient strength of mind to review in succession all the most heartbreaking conjectures, seeking hope and finding none. The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the funereal silence of the den. In the midst of this silence, the door at the bottom of the staircase was heard to open and shut again. The prisoner made a movement in his bonds. 'Here's the bourgeoise, said Thnardier. He had hardly uttered the words, when the Thnardier woman did in fact rush hastily into the room, red, panting, breathless, with flaming eyes, and cried, as she smote her huge hands on her thighs simultaneously 'False address! The ruffian who had gone with her made his appearance behind her and picked up his axe again. She resumed 'Nobody there! Rue SaintDominique, No. , no Monsieur Urbain Fabre! They know not what it means! She paused, choking, then went on 'Monsieur Thnardier! That old fellow has duped you! You are too good, you see! If it had been me, I'd have chopped the beast in four quarters to begin with! And if he had acted ugly, I'd have boiled him alive! He would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl is, and where he keeps his shiners! That's the way I should have managed matters! People are perfectly right when they say that men are a deal stupider than women! Nobody at No. . It's nothing but a big carriage gate! No Monsieur Fabre in the Rue SaintDominique! And after all that racing and fee to the coachman and all! I spoke to both the porter and the portress, a fine, stout woman, and they know nothing about him! Marius breathed freely once more. She, Ursule or the Lark, he no longer knew what to call her, was safe. While his exasperated wife vociferated, Thnardier had seated himself on the table. For several minutes he uttered not a word, but swung his right foot, which hung down, and stared at the brazier with an air of savage reverie. Finally, he said to the prisoner, with a slow and singularly ferocious tone 'A false address? What did you expect to gain by that? 'To gain time! cried the prisoner in a thundering voice, and at the same instant he shook off his bonds they were cut. The prisoner was only attached to the bed now by one leg. Before the seven men had time to collect their senses and dash forward, he had bent down into the fireplace, had stretched out his hand to the brazier, and had then straightened himself up again, and now Thnardier, the female Thnardier, and the ruffians, huddled in amazement at the extremity of the hovel, stared at him in stupefaction, as almost free and in a formidable attitude, he brandished above his head the redhot chisel, which emitted a threatening glow. The judicial examination to which the ambush in the Gorbeau house eventually gave rise, established the fact that a large sou piece, cut and worked in a peculiar fashion, was found in the garret, when the police made their descent on it. This sou piece was one of those marvels of industry, which are engendered by the patience of the galleys in the shadows and for the shadows, marvels which are nothing else than instruments of escape. These hideous and delicate products of wonderful art are to jewellers' work what the metaphors of slang are to poetry. There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the galleys, just as there are Villons in language. The unhappy wretch who aspires to deliverance finds means sometimes without tools, sometimes with a common woodenhandled knife, to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out these plates without affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a furrow on the edge of the sou in such a manner that the plates will adhere again. This can be screwed together and unscrewed at will it is a box. In this box he hides a watchspring, and this watchspring, properly handled, cuts goodsized chains and bars of iron. The unfortunate convict is supposed to possess merely a sou not at all, he possesses liberty. It was a large sou of this sort which, during the subsequent search of the police, was found under the bed near the window. They also found a tiny saw of blue steel which would fit the sou. It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his person at the moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived to conceal it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right hand free, he unscrewed it, and used it as a saw to cut the cords which fastened him, which would explain the faint noise and almost imperceptible movements which Marius had observed. As he had not been able to bend down, for fear of betraying himself, he had not cut the bonds of his left leg. The ruffians had recovered from their first surprise. 'Be easy, said Bigrenaille to Thnardier. 'He still holds by one leg, and he can't get away. I'll answer for that. I tied that paw for him. In the meanwhile, the prisoner had begun to speak 'You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble of defending it. When you think that you can make me speak, that you can make me write what I do not choose to write, that you can make me say what I do not choose to say He stripped up his left sleeve, and added 'See here. At the same moment he extended his arm, and laid the glowing chisel which he held in his left hand by its wooden handle on his bare flesh. The crackling of the burning flesh became audible, and the odor peculiar to chambers of torture filled the hovel. Marius reeled in utter horror, the very ruffians shuddered, hardly a muscle of the old man's face contracted, and while the redhot iron sank into the smoking wound, impassive and almost august, he fixed on Thnardier his beautiful glance, in which there was no hatred, and where suffering vanished in serene majesty. With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul to spring forth, and make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force the captain to show himself. 'Wretches! said he, 'have no more fear of me than I have for you! And, tearing the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through the window, which had been left open the horrible, glowing tool disappeared into the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far away on the snow. The prisoner resumed 'Do what you please with me. He was disarmed. 'Seize him! said Thnardier. Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and the masked man with the ventriloquist's voice took up his station in front of him, ready to smash his skull at the slightest movement. At the same time, Marius heard below him, at the base of the partition, but so near that he could not see who was speaking, this colloquy conducted in a low tone 'There is only one thing left to do. 'Cut his throat. 'That's it. It was the husband and wife taking counsel together. Thnardier walked slowly towards the table, opened the drawer, and took out the knife. Marius fretted with the handle of his pistol. Unprecedented perplexity! For the last hour he had had two voices in his conscience, the one enjoining him to respect his father's testament, the other crying to him to rescue the prisoner. These two voices continued uninterruptedly that struggle which tormented him to agony. Up to that moment he had cherished a vague hope that he should find some means of reconciling these two duties, but nothing within the limits of possibility had presented itself. However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had been reached Thnardier was standing thoughtfully a few paces distant from the prisoner. Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical resource of despair. All at once a shudder ran through him. At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the full moon illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this paper he read the following line written that very morning, in large letters, by the eldest of the Thnardier girls 'THE BOBBIES ARE HERE. An idea, a flash, crossed Marius' mind this was the expedient of which he was in search, the solution of that frightful problem which was torturing him, of sparing the assassin and saving the victim. He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm, seized the sheet of paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from the wall, wrapped the paper round it, and tossed the whole through the crevice into the middle of the den. It was high time. Thnardier had conquered his last fears or his last scruples, and was advancing on the prisoner. 'Something is falling! cried the Thnardier woman. 'What is it? asked her husband. The woman darted forward and picked up the bit of plaster. She handed it to her husband. 'Where did this come from? demanded Thnardier. 'Pardie! ejaculated his wife, 'where do you suppose it came from? Through the window, of course. 'I saw it pass, said Bigrenaille. Thnardier rapidly unfolded the paper and held it close to the candle. 'It's in ponine's handwriting. The devil! He made a sign to his wife, who hastily drew near, and showed her the line written on the sheet of paper, then he added in a subdued voice 'Quick! The ladder! Let's leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp! 'Without cutting that man's throat? asked, the Thnardier woman. 'We haven't the time. 'Through what? resumed Bigrenaille. 'Through the window, replied Thnardier. 'Since Ponine has thrown the stone through the window, it indicates that the house is not watched on that side. The mask with the ventriloquist's voice deposited his huge key on the floor, raised both arms in the air, and opened and clenched his fists, three times rapidly without uttering a word. This was the signal like the signal for clearing the decks for action on board ship. The ruffians who were holding the prisoner released him in the twinkling of an eye the rope ladder was unrolled outside the window, and solidly fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks. The prisoner paid no attention to what was going on around him. He seemed to be dreaming or praying. As soon as the ladder was arranged, Thnardier cried 'Come! the bourgeoise first! And he rushed headlong to the window. But just as he was about to throw his leg over, Bigrenaille seized him roughly by the collar. 'Not much, come now, you old dog, after us! 'After us! yelled the ruffians. 'You are children, said Thnardier, 'we are losing time. The police are on our heels. 'Well, said the ruffians, 'let's draw lots to see who shall go down first. Thnardier exclaimed 'Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of boobies! You want to waste time, do you? Draw lots, do you? By a wet finger, by a short straw! With written names! Thrown into a hat! 'Would you like my hat? cried a voice on the threshold. All wheeled round. It was Javert. He had his hat in his hand, and was holding it out to them with a smile. At nightfall, Javert had posted his men and had gone into ambush himself between the trees of the Rue de la BarriredesGobelins which faced the Gorbeau house, on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun operations by opening 'his pockets, and dropping into it the two young girls who were charged with keeping a watch on the approaches to the den. But he had only 'caged Azelma. As for ponine, she was not at her post, she had disappeared, and he had not been able to seize her. Then Javert had made a point and had bent his ear to waiting for the signal agreed upon. The comings and goings of the fiacres had greatly agitated him. At last, he had grown impatient, and, sure that there was a nest there, sure of being in 'luck, having recognized many of the ruffians who had entered, he had finally decided to go upstairs without waiting for the pistolshot. It will be remembered that he had Marius' passkey. He had arrived just in the nick of time. The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had abandoned in all the corners at the moment of flight. In less than a second, these seven men, horrible to behold, had grouped themselves in an attitude of defence, one with his meataxe, another with his key, another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers. Thnardier had his knife in his fist. The Thnardier woman snatched up an enormous pavingstone which lay in the angle of the window and served her daughters as an ottoman. Javert put on his hat again, and advanced a couple of paces into the room, with arms folded, his cane under one arm, his sword in its sheath. 'Halt there, said he. 'You shall not go out by the window, you shall go through the door. It's less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there are fifteen of us. Don't let's fall to collaring each other like men of Auvergne. Bigrenaille drew out a pistol which he had kept concealed under his blouse, and put it in Thnardier's hand, whispering in the latter's ear 'It's Javert. I don't dare fire at that man. Do you dare? 'Parbleu! replied Thnardier. 'Well, then, fire. Thnardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert. Javert, who was only three paces from him, stared intently at him and contented himself with saying 'Come now, don't fire. You'll miss fire. Thnardier pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire. 'Didn't I tell you so! ejaculated Javert. Bigrenaille flung his bludgeon at Javert's feet. 'You're the emperor of the fiends! I surrender. 'And you? Javert asked the rest of the ruffians. They replied 'So do we. Javert began again calmly 'That's right, that's good, I said so, you are nice fellows. 'I only ask one thing, said Bigrenaille, 'and that is, that I may not be denied tobacco while I am in confinement. 'Granted, said Javert. And turning round and calling behind him 'Come in now! A squad of policemen, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons and cudgels, rushed in at Javert's summons. They pinioned the ruffians. This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the den with shadows. 'Handcuff them all! shouted Javert. 'Come on! cried a voice which was not the voice of a man, but of which no one would ever have said 'It is a woman's voice. The Thnardier woman had entrenched herself in one of the angles of the window, and it was she who had just given vent to this roar. The policemen and agents recoiled. She had thrown off her shawl, but retained her bonnet her husband, who was crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded shawl, and she was shielding him with her body, as she elevated the pavingstone above her head with the gesture of a giantess on the point of hurling a rock. 'Beware! she shouted. All crowded back towards the corridor. A broad open space was cleared in the middle of the garret. The Thnardier woman cast a glance at the ruffians who had allowed themselves to be pinioned, and muttered in hoarse and guttural accents 'The cowards! Javert smiled, and advanced across the open space which the Thnardier was devouring with her eyes. 'Don't come near me, she cried, 'or I'll crush you. 'What a grenadier! ejaculated Javert 'you've got a beard like a man, mother, but I have claws like a woman. And he continued to advance. The Thnardier, dishevelled and terrible, set her feet far apart, threw herself backwards, and hurled the pavingstone at Javert's head. Javert ducked, the stone passed over him, struck the wall behind, knocked off a huge piece of plastering, and, rebounding from angle to angle across the hovel, now luckily almost empty, rested at Javert's feet. At the same moment, Javert reached the Thnardier couple. One of his big hands descended on the woman's shoulder the other on the husband's head. 'The handcuffs! he shouted. The policemen trooped in in force, and in a few seconds Javert's order had been executed. The Thnardier female, overwhelmed, stared at her pinioned hands, and at those of her husband, who had dropped to the floor, and exclaimed, weeping 'My daughters! 'They are in the jug, said Javert. In the meanwhile, the agents had caught sight of the drunken man asleep behind the door, and were shaking him He awoke, stammering 'Is it all over, Jondrette? 'Yes, replied Javert. The six pinioned ruffians were standing, and still preserved their spectral mien all three besmeared with black, all three masked. 'Keep on your masks, said Javert. And passing them in review with a glance of a Frederick II. at a Potsdam parade, he said to the three 'chimneybuilders 'Good day, Bigrenaille! good day, Brujon! good day, Deuxmilliards! Then turning to the three masked men, he said to the man with the meataxe 'Good day, Gueulemer! And to the man with the cudgel 'Good day, Babet! And to the ventriloquist 'Your health, Claquesous. At that moment, he caught sight of the ruffians' prisoner, who, ever since the entrance of the police, had not uttered a word, and had held his head down. 'Untie the gentleman! said Javert, 'and let no one go out! That said, he seated himself with sovereign dignity before the table, where the candle and the writingmaterials still remained, drew a stamped paper from his pocket, and began to prepare his report. When he had written the first lines, which are formulas that never vary, he raised his eyes 'Let the gentleman whom these gentlemen bound step forward. The policemen glanced round them. 'Well, said Javert, 'where is he? The prisoner of the ruffians, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father of Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. The door was guarded, but the window was not. As soon as he had found himself released from his bonds, and while Javert was drawing up his report, he had taken advantage of confusion, the crowd, the darkness, and of a moment when the general attention was diverted from him, to dash out of the window. An agent sprang to the opening and looked out. He saw no one outside. The rope ladder was still shaking. 'The devil! ejaculated Javert between his teeth, 'he must have been the most valuable of the lot. On the day following that on which these events took place in the house on the Boulevard de l'Hpital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the direction of the bridge of Austerlitz, was ascending the sidealley on the right in the direction of the Barrire de Fontainebleau. Night had fully come. This lad was pale, thin, clad in rags, with linen trousers in the month of February, and was singing at the top of his voice. At the corner of the Rue du PetitBanquier, a bent old woman was rummaging in a heap of refuse by the light of a street lantern the child jostled her as he passed, then recoiled, exclaiming 'Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog! He pronounced the word enormous the second time with a jeering swell of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals 'an enormous, ENORMOUS dog. The old woman straightened herself up in a fury. 'Nasty brat! she grumbled. 'If I hadn't been bending over, I know well where I would have planted my foot on you. The boy was already far away. 'Kisss! kisss! he cried. 'After that, I don't think I was mistaken! The old woman, choking with indignation, now rose completely upright, and the red gleam of the lantern fully lighted up her livid face, all hollowed into angles and wrinkles, with crow'sfeet meeting the corners of her mouth. Her body was lost in the darkness, and only her head was visible. One would have pronounced her a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light from the night. The boy surveyed her. 'Madame, said he, 'does not possess that style of beauty which pleases me. He then pursued his road, and resumed his song 'Le roi Coupdesabot S'en allait  la chasse,  la chasse aux corbeaux At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived in front of No. , and finding the door fastened, he began to assault it with resounding and heroic kicks, which betrayed rather the man's shoes that he was wearing than the child's feet which he owned. In the meanwhile, the very old woman whom he had encountered at the corner of the Rue du PetitBanquier hastened up behind him, uttering clamorous cries and indulging in lavish and exaggerated gestures. 'What's this? What's this? Lord God! He's battering the door down! He's knocking the house down. The kicks continued. The old woman strained her lungs. 'Is that the way buildings are treated nowadays? All at once she paused. She had recognized the gamin. 'What! so it's that imp! 'Why, it's the old lady, said the lad. 'Good day, Bougonmuche. I have come to see my ancestors. The old woman retorted with a composite grimace, and a wonderful improvisation of hatred taking advantage of feebleness and ugliness, which was, unfortunately, wasted in the dark 'There's no one here. 'Bah! retorted the boy, 'where's my father? 'At La Force. 'Come, now! And my mother? 'At SaintLazare. 'Well! And my sisters? 'At the Madelonettes. The lad scratched his head behind his ear, stared at Ma'am Bougon, and said 'Ah! Then he executed a pirouette on his heel a moment later, the old woman, who had remained on the doorstep, heard him singing in his clear, young voice, as he plunged under the black elmtrees, in the wintry wind 'Le roi Coupdesabot S'en allait  la chasse,  la chasse aux corbeaux, Mont sur deux chasses. Quand on passait dessous, On lui payait deux sous. THE END OF VOLUME III 'MARIUS THE IDYL IN THE RUE PLUMET AND THE EPIC IN THE RUE SAINTDENIS  and , the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway between those which precede and those which follow them. They have a revolutionary grandeur. Precipices are to be distinguished there. The social masses, the very assizes of civilization, the solid group of superposed and adhering interests, the centuryold profiles of the ancient French formation, appear and disappear in them every instant, athwart the storm clouds of systems, of passions, and of theories. These appearances and disappearances have been designated as movement and resistance. At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul, can be descried shining there. This remarkable epoch is decidedly circumscribed and is beginning to be sufficiently distant from us to allow of our grasping the principal lines even at the present day. We shall make the attempt. The Restoration had been one of those intermediate phases, hard to define, in which there is fatigue, buzzing, murmurs, sleep, tumult, and which are nothing else than the arrival of a great nation at a haltingplace. These epochs are peculiar and mislead the politicians who desire to convert them to profit. In the beginning, the nation asks nothing but repose it thirsts for but one thing, peace it has but one ambition, to be small. Which is the translation of remaining tranquil. Of great events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we have seen enough, we have them heaped higher than our heads. We would exchange Csar for Prusias, and Napoleon for the King of Yvetot. 'What a good little king was he! We have marched since daybreak, we have reached the evening of a long and toilsome day we have made our first change with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with Bonaparte we are worn out. Each one demands a bed. Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of tranquillity, of leisure behold, they are content. But, at the same time certain facts arise, compel recognition, and knock at the door in their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars, they are, they exist, they have the right to install themselves in society, and they do install themselves therein and most of the time, facts are the stewards of the household and fouriers who do nothing but prepare lodgings for principles. This, then, is what appears to philosophical politicians At the same time that weary men demand repose, accomplished facts demand guarantees. Guarantees are the same to facts that repose is to men. This is what England demanded of the Stuarts after the Protector this is what France demanded of the Bourbons after the Empire. These guarantees are a necessity of the times. They must be accorded. Princes 'grant them, but in reality, it is the force of things which gives them. A profound truth, and one useful to know, which the Stuarts did not suspect in  and which the Bourbons did not even obtain a glimpse of in . The predestined family, which returned to France when Napoleon fell, had the fatal simplicity to believe that it was itself which bestowed, and that what it had bestowed it could take back again that the House of Bourbon possessed the right divine, that France possessed nothing, and that the political right conceded in the charter of Louis XVIII. was merely a branch of the right divine, was detached by the House of Bourbon and graciously given to the people until such day as it should please the King to reassume it. Still, the House of Bourbon should have felt, from the displeasure created by the gift, that it did not come from it. This house was churlish to the nineteenth century. It put on an illtempered look at every development of the nation. To make use of a trivial word, that is to say, of a popular and a true word, it looked glum. The people saw this. It thought it possessed strength because the Empire had been carried away before it like a theatrical stagesetting. It did not perceive that it had, itself, been brought in in the same fashion. It did not perceive that it also lay in that hand which had removed Napoleon. It thought that it had roots, because it was the past. It was mistaken it formed a part of the past, but the whole past was France. The roots of French society were not fixed in the Bourbons, but in the nations. These obscure and lively roots constituted, not the right of a family, but the history of a people. They were everywhere, except under the throne. The House of Bourbon was to France the illustrious and bleeding knot in her history, but was no longer the principal element of her destiny, and the necessary base of her politics. She could get along without the Bourbons she had done without them for two and twenty years there had been a break of continuity they did not suspect the fact. And how should they have suspected it, they who fancied that Louis XVII. reigned on the th of Thermidor, and that Louis XVIII. was reigning at the battle of Marengo? Never, since the origin of history, had princes been so blind in the presence of facts and the portion of divine authority which facts contain and promulgate. Never had that pretension here below which is called the right of kings denied to such a point the right from on high. A capital error which led this family to lay its hand once more on the guarantees 'granted in , on the concessions, as it termed them. Sad. A sad thing! What it termed its concessions were our conquests what it termed our encroachments were our rights. When the hour seemed to it to have come, the Restoration, supposing itself victorious over Bonaparte and wellrooted in the country, that is to say, believing itself to be strong and deep, abruptly decided on its plan of action, and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a citizen. This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the ordinances of July. The Restoration fell. It fell justly. But, we admit, it had not been absolutely hostile to all forms of progress. Great things had been accomplished, with it alongside. Under the Restoration, the nation had grown accustomed to calm discussion, which had been lacking under the Republic, and to grandeur in peace, which had been wanting under the Empire. France free and strong had offered an encouraging spectacle to the other peoples of Europe. The Revolution had had the word under Robespierre the cannon had had the word under Bonaparte it was under Louis XVIII. and Charles X. that it was the turn of intelligence to have the word. The wind ceased, the torch was lighted once more. On the lofty heights, the pure light of mind could be seen flickering. A magnificent, useful, and charming spectacle. For a space of fifteen years, those great principles which are so old for the thinker, so new for the statesman, could be seen at work in perfect peace, on the public square equality before the law, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, the accessibility of all aptitudes to all functions. Thus it proceeded until . The Bourbons were an instrument of civilization which broke in the hands of Providence. The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur, not on their side, but on the side of the nation. They quitted the throne with gravity, but without authority their descent into the night was not one of those solemn disappearances which leave a sombre emotion in history it was neither the spectral calm of Charles I., nor the eagle scream of Napoleon. They departed, that is all. They laid down the crown, and retained no aureole. They were worthy, but they were not august. They lacked, in a certain measure, the majesty of their misfortune. Charles X. during the voyage from Cherbourg, causing a round table to be cut over into a square table, appeared to be more anxious about imperilled etiquette than about the crumbling monarchy. This diminution saddened devoted men who loved their persons, and serious men who honored their race. The populace was admirable. The nation, attacked one morning with weapons, by a sort of royal insurrection, felt itself in the possession of so much force that it did not go into a rage. It defended itself, restrained itself, restored things to their places, the government to law, the Bourbons to exile, alas! and then halted! It took the old king Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. and set him gently on the ground. It touched the royal personages only with sadness and precaution. It was not one man, it was not a few men, it was France, France entire, France victorious and intoxicated with her victory, who seemed to be coming to herself, and who put into practice, before the eyes of the whole world, these grave words of Guillaume du Vair after the day of the Barricades 'It is easy for those who are accustomed to skim the favors of the great, and to spring, like a bird from bough to bough, from an afflicted fortune to a flourishing one, to show themselves harsh towards their Prince in his adversity but as for me, the fortune of my Kings and especially of my afflicted Kings, will always be venerable to me. The Bourbons carried away with them respect, but not regret. As we have just stated, their misfortune was greater than they were. They faded out in the horizon. The Revolution of July instantly had friends and enemies throughout the entire world. The first rushed toward her with joy and enthusiasm, the others turned away, each according to his nature. At the first blush, the princes of Europe, the owls of this dawn, shut their eyes, wounded and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be comprehended, a wrath which can be pardoned. This strange revolution had hardly produced a shock it had not even paid to vanquished royalty the honor of treating it as an enemy, and of shedding its blood. In the eyes of despotic governments, who are always interested in having liberty calumniate itself, the Revolution of July committed the fault of being formidable and of remaining gentle. Nothing, however, was attempted or plotted against it. The most discontented, the most irritated, the most trembling, saluted it whatever our egotism and our rancor may be, a mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the collaboration of some one who is working above man. The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A thing which is full of splendor. Right overthrowing the fact. Hence the brilliancy of the Revolution of , hence, also, its mildness. Right triumphant has no need of being violent. Right is the just and the true. The property of right is to remain eternally beautiful and pure. The fact, even when most necessary to all appearances, even when most thoroughly accepted by contemporaries, if it exist only as a fact, and if it contain only too little of right, or none at all, is infallibly destined to become, in the course of time, deformed, impure, perhaps, even monstrous. If one desires to learn at one blow, to what degree of hideousness the fact can attain, viewed at the distance of centuries, let him look at Machiavelli. Machiavelli is not an evil genius, nor a demon, nor a miserable and cowardly writer he is nothing but the fact. And he is not only the Italian fact he is the European fact, the fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the presence of the moral idea of the nineteenth. This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin of society. To terminate this duel, to amalgamate the pure idea with the humane reality, to cause right to penetrate pacifically into the fact and the fact into right, that is the task of sages. But the task of sages is one thing, the task of clever men is another. The Revolution of  came to a sudden halt. As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to prepare the shipwreck. The skilful in our century have conferred on themselves the title of Statesmen so that this word, statesmen, has ended by becoming somewhat of a slang word. It must be borne in mind, in fact, that wherever there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. To say 'the skilful amounts to saying 'the mediocre. In the same way, to say 'statesmen is sometimes equivalent to saying 'traitors. If, then, we are to believe the skilful, revolutions like the Revolution of July are severed arteries a prompt ligature is indispensable. The right, too grandly proclaimed, is shaken. Also, right once firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened. Liberty once assured, attention must be directed to power. Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but they begin to be distrustful. Power, very good. But, in the first place, what is power? In the second, whence comes it? The skilful do not seem to hear the murmured objection, and they continue their manuvres. According to the politicians, who are ingenious in putting the mask of necessity on profitable fictions, the first requirement of a people after a revolution, when this people forms part of a monarchical continent, is to procure for itself a dynasty. In this way, say they, peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair the house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the scaffolding and covers the ambulance. Now, it is not always easy to procure a dynasty. If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or even the first man of fortune who comes to hand suffices for the manufacturing of a king. You have, in the first case, Napoleon in the second, Iturbide. But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make a dynasty. There is necessarily required a certain modicum of antiquity in a race, and the wrinkle of the centuries cannot be improvised. If we place ourselves at the point of view of the 'statesmen, after making all allowances, of course, after a revolution, what are the qualities of the king which result from it? He may be and it is useful for him to be a revolutionary that is to say, a participant in his own person in that revolution, that he should have lent a hand to it, that he should have either compromised or distinguished himself therein, that he should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it. What are the qualities of a dynasty? It should be national that is to say, revolutionary at a distance, not through acts committed, but by reason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic be composed of future and be sympathetic. All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with finding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon and why the second absolutely insisted on finding a family, the House of Brunswick or the House of Orleans. Royal houses resemble those Indian figtrees, each branch of which, bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a figtree itself. Each branch may become a dynasty. On the sole condition that it shall bend down to the people. Such is the theory of the skilful. Here, then, lies the great art to make a little render to success the sound of a catastrophe in order that those who profit by it may tremble from it also, to season with fear every step that is taken, to augment the curve of the transition to the point of retarding progress, to dull that aurora, to denounce and retrench the harshness of enthusiasm, to cut all angles and nails, to wad triumph, to muffle up right, to envelop the giantpeople in flannel, and to put it to bed very speedily, to impose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatment of a convalescent, to dilute the event with the expedient, to offer to spirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar thinned out with a potion, to take one's precautions against too much success, to garnish the revolution with a shade.  practised this theory, already applied to England by .  is a revolution arrested midway. Half of progress, quasiright. Now, logic knows not the 'almost, absolutely as the sun knows not the candle. Who arrests revolutions halfway? The bourgeoisie? Why? Because the bourgeoisie is interest which has reached satisfaction. Yesterday it was appetite, today it is plenitude, tomorrow it will be satiety. The phenomenon of  after Napoleon was reproduced in  after Charles X. The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair is not a caste. But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie. One is not a class because one has committed a fault. Selfishness is not one of the divisions of the social order. Moreover, we must be just to selfishness. The state to which that part of the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shock of  was not the inertia which is complicated with indifference and laziness, and which contains a little shame it was not the slumber which presupposes a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dreams it was the halt. The halt is a word formed of a singular double and almost contradictory sense a troop on the march, that is to say, movement a stand, that is to say, repose. The halt is the restoration of forces it is repose armed and on the alert it is the accomplished fact which posts sentinels and holds itself on its guard. The halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat of tomorrow. It is the partition between  and . What we here call combat may also be designated as progress. The bourgeoisie then, as well as the statesmen, required a man who should express this word Halt. An AlthoughBecause. A composite individuality, signifying revolution and signifying stability, in other terms, strengthening the present by the evident compatibility of the past with the future. This man was 'already found. His name was Louis Philippe d'Orleans. The  made Louis Philippe King. Lafayette undertook the coronation. He called it the best of republics. The townhall of Paris took the place of the Cathedral of Rheims. This substitution of a halfthrone for a whole throne was 'the work of . When the skilful had finished, the immense vice of their solution became apparent. All this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absolute right. Absolute right cried 'I protest! then, terrible to say, it retired into the darkness. Revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand, they strike firmly and choose well. Even incomplete, even debased and abused and reduced to the state of a junior revolution like the Revolution of , they nearly always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from falling amiss. Their eclipse is never an abdication. Nevertheless, let us not boast too loudly revolutions also may be deceived, and grave errors have been seen. Let us return to . , in its deviation, had good luck. In the establishment which entitled itself order after the revolution had been cut short, the King amounted to more than royalty. Louis Philippe was a rare man. The son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating circumstances, but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of blame possessing all private virtues and many public virtues careful of his health, of his fortune, of his person, of his affairs, knowing the value of a minute and not always the value of a year sober, serene, peaceable, patient a good man and a good prince sleeping with his wife, and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing the conjugal bed to the bourgeois, an ostentation of the regular sleepingapartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate displays of the elder branch knowing all the languages of Europe, and, what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking them an admirable representative of the 'middle class, but outstripping it, and in every way greater than it possessing excellent sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting most of all on his intrinsic worth, and, on the question of his race, very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon thoroughly the first Prince of the Blood Royal while he was still only a Serene Highness, but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king diffuse in public, concise in private reputed, but not proved to be a miser at bottom, one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own fancy or duty lettered, but not very sensitive to letters a gentleman, but not a chevalier simple, calm, and strong adored by his family and his household a fascinating talker, an undeceived statesman, inwardly cold, dominated by immediate interest, always governing at the shortest range, incapable of rancor and of gratitude, making use without mercy of superiority on mediocrity, clever in getting parliamentary majorities to put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under thrones unreserved, sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve, but with marvellous address in that imprudence fertile in expedients, in countenances, in masks making France fear Europe and Europe France! Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family assuming more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society from catastrophes minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, indefatigable contradicting himself at times and giving himself the lie bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard singing the Marseillaise with conviction, inaccessible to despondency, to lassitude, to the taste for the beautiful and the ideal, to daring generosity, to Utopia, to chimras, to wrath, to vanity, to fear possessing all the forms of personal intrepidity a general at Valmy a soldier at Jemappes attacked eight times by regicides and always smiling. Brave as a grenadier, courageous as a thinker uneasy only in the face of the chances of a European shaking up, and unfitted for great political adventures always ready to risk his life, never his work disguising his will in influence, in order that he might be obeyed as an intelligence rather than as a king endowed with observation and not with divination not very attentive to minds, but knowing men, that is to say requiring to see in order to judge prompt and penetrating good sense, practical wisdom, easy speech, prodigious memory drawing incessantly on this memory, his only point of resemblance with Csar, Alexander, and Napoleon knowing deeds, facts, details, dates, proper names, ignorant of tendencies, passions, the diverse geniuses of the crowd, the interior aspirations, the hidden and obscure uprisings of souls, in a word, all that can be designated as the invisible currents of consciences accepted by the surface, but little in accord with France lower down extricating himself by dint of tact governing too much and not enough his own first minister excellent at creating out of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization, of order and organization, an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery, the founder and lawyer of a dynasty having something of Charlemagne and something of an attorney in short, a lofty and original figure, a prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe. Louis Philippe will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little, and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful. Louis Philippe had been handsome, and in his old age he remained graceful not always approved by the nation, he always was so by the masses he pleased. He had that gift of charming. He lacked majesty he wore no crown, although a king, and no white hair, although an old man his manners belonged to the old regime and his habits to the new a mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited  Louis Philippe was transition reigning he had preserved the ancient pronunciation and the ancient orthography which he placed at the service of opinions modern he loved Poland and Hungary, but he wrote les Polonois, and he pronounced les Hongrais. He wore the uniform of the national guard, like Charles X., and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, like Napoleon. He went a little to chapel, not at all to the chase, never to the opera. Incorruptible by sacristans, by whippersin, by balletdancers this made a part of his bourgeois popularity. He had no heart. He went out with his umbrella under his arm, and this umbrella long formed a part of his aureole. He was a bit of a mason, a bit of a gardener, something of a doctor he bled a postilion who had tumbled from his horse Louis Philippe no more went about without his lancet, than did Henri IV. without his poniard. The Royalists jeered at this ridiculous king, the first who had ever shed blood with the object of healing. For the grievances against Louis Philippe, there is one deduction to be made there is that which accuses royalty, that which accuses the reign, that which accuses the King three columns which all give different totals. Democratic right confiscated, progress becomes a matter of secondary interest, the protests of the street violently repressed, military execution of insurrections, the rising passed over by arms, the Rue Transnonain, the counsels of war, the absorption of the real country by the legal country, on half shares with three hundred thousand privileged persons,these are the deeds of royalty Belgium refused, Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization, the breach of faith, to AbdelKader, Blaye, Deutz bought, Pritchard paid,these are the doings of the reign the policy which was more domestic than national was the doing of the King. As will be seen, the proper deduction having been made, the King's charge is decreased. This is his great fault he was modest in the name of France. Whence arises this fault? We will state it. Louis Philippe was rather too much of a paternal king that incubation of a family with the object of founding a dynasty is afraid of everything and does not like to be disturbed hence excessive timidity, which is displeasing to the people, who have the th of July in their civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition. Moreover, if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled first of all, that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe towards his family was deserved by the family. That domestic group was worthy of admiration. Virtues there dwelt side by side with talents. One of Louis Philippe's daughters, Marie d'Orleans, placed the name of her race among artists, as Charles d'Orleans had placed it among poets. She made of her soul a marble which she named Jeanne d'Arc. Two of Louis Philippe's daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium 'They are young people such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen. This, without any dissimulation, and also without any exaggeration, is the truth about Louis Philippe. To be Prince Equality, to bear in his own person the contradiction of the Restoration and the Revolution, to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power, therein lay the fortune of Louis Philippe in  never was there a more complete adaptation of a man to an event the one entered into the other, and the incarnation took place. Louis Philippe is  made man. Moreover, he had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne, exile. He had been proscribed, a wanderer, poor. He had lived by his own labor. In Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had sold an old horse in order to obtain bread. At Reichenau, he gave lessons in mathematics, while his sister Adelaide did wool work and sewed. These souvenirs connected with a king rendered the bourgeoisie enthusiastic. He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of MontSaintMichel, built by Louis XI., and used by Louis XV. He was the companion of Dumouriez, he was the friend of Lafayette he had belonged to the Jacobins' club Mirabeau had slapped him on the shoulder Danton had said to him 'Young man! At the age of four and twenty, in ', being then M. de Chartres, he had witnessed, from the depth of a box, the trial of Louis XVI., so well named that poor tyrant. The blind clairvoyance of the Revolution, breaking royalty in the King and the King with royalty, did so almost without noticing the man in the fierce crushing of the idea, the vast storm of the AssemblyTribunal, the public wrath interrogating, Capet not knowing what to reply, the alarming, stupefied vacillation by that royal head beneath that sombre breath, the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe, of those who condemned as well as of the man condemned,he had looked on those things, he had contemplated that giddiness he had seen the centuries appear before the bar of the AssemblyConvention he had beheld, behind Louis XVI., that unfortunate passerby who was made responsible, the terrible culprit, the monarchy, rise through the shadows and there had lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of the populace, which are almost as impersonal as the justice of God. The trace left in him by the Revolution was prodigious. Its memory was like a living imprint of those great years, minute by minute. One day, in the presence of a witness whom we are not permitted to doubt, he rectified from memory the whole of the letter A in the alphabetical list of the Constituent Assembly. Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight. While he reigned the press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free. The laws of September are open to sight. Although fully aware of the gnawing power of light on privileges, he left his throne exposed to the light. History will do justice to him for this loyalty. Louis Philippe, like all historical men who have passed from the scene, is today put on his trial by the human conscience. His case is, as yet, only in the lower court. The hour when history speaks with its free and venerable accent, has not yet sounded for him the moment has not come to pronounce a definite judgment on this king the austere and illustrious historian Louis Blanc has himself recently softened his first verdict Louis Philippe was elected by those two almosts which are called the  and , that is to say, by a halfParliament, and a halfrevolution and in any case, from the superior point of view where philosophy must place itself, we cannot judge him here, as the reader has seen above, except with certain reservations in the name of the absolute democratic principle in the eyes of the absolute, outside these two rights, the right of man in the first place, the right of the people in the second, all is usurpation but what we can say, even at the present day, that after making these reserves is, that to sum up the whole, and in whatever manner he is considered, Louis Philippe, taken in himself, and from the point of view of human goodness, will remain, to use the antique language of ancient history, one of the best princes who ever sat on a throne. What is there against him? That throne. Take away Louis Philippe the king, there remains the man. And the man is good. He is good at times even to the point of being admirable. Often, in the midst of his gravest souvenirs, after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the continent, he returned at night to his apartments, and there, exhausted with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit, considering it something to hold his own against Europe, but that it was a still greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner. He obstinately maintained his opinion against his keeper of the seals he disputed the ground with the guillotine foot by foot against the crown attorneys, those chatterers of the law, as he called them. Sometimes the pile of sentences covered his table he examined them all it was anguish to him to abandon these miserable, condemned heads. One day, he said to the same witness to whom we have recently referred 'I won seven last night. During the early years of his reign, the death penalty was as good as abolished, and the erection of a scaffold was a violence committed against the King. The Grve having disappeared with the elder branch, a bourgeois place of execution was instituted under the name of the BarrireSaintJacques 'practical men felt the necessity of a quasilegitimate guillotine and this was one of the victories of Casimir Prier, who represented the narrow sides of the bourgeoisie, over Louis Philippe, who represented its liberal sides. Louis Philippe annotated Beccaria with his own hand. After the Fieschi machine, he exclaimed 'What a pity that I was not wounded! Then I might have pardoned! On another occasion, alluding to the resistance offered by his ministry, he wrote in connection with a political criminal, who is one of the most generous figures of our day 'His pardon is granted it only remains for me to obtain it. Louis Philippe was as gentle as Louis IX. and as kindly as Henri IV. Now, to our mind, in history, where kindness is the rarest of pearls, the man who is kindly almost takes precedence of the man who is great. Louis Philippe having been severely judged by some, harshly, perhaps, by others, it is quite natural that a man, himself a phantom at the present day, who knew that king, should come and testify in his favor before history this deposition, whatever else it may be, is evidently and above all things, entirely disinterested an epitaph penned by a dead man is sincere one shade may console another shade the sharing of the same shadows confers the right to praise it it is not greatly to be feared that it will ever be said of two tombs in exile 'This one flattered the other. At the moment when the drama which we are narrating is on the point of penetrating into the depths of one of the tragic clouds which envelop the beginning of Louis Philippe's reign, it was necessary that there should be no equivoque, and it became requisite that this book should offer some explanation with regard to this king. Louis Philippe had entered into possession of his royal authority without violence, without any direct action on his part, by virtue of a revolutionary change, evidently quite distinct from the real aim of the Revolution, but in which he, the Duc d'Orlans, exercised no personal initiative. He had been born a Prince, and he believed himself to have been elected King. He had not served this mandate on himself he had not taken it it had been offered to him, and he had accepted it convinced, wrongly, to be sure, but convinced nevertheless, that the offer was in accordance with right and that the acceptance of it was in accordance with duty. Hence his possession was in good faith. Now, we say it in good conscience, Louis Philippe being in possession in perfect good faith, and the democracy being in good faith in its attack, the amount of terror discharged by the social conflicts weighs neither on the King nor on the democracy. A clash of principles resembles a clash of elements. The ocean defends the water, the hurricane defends the air, the King defends Royalty, the democracy defends the people the relative, which is the monarchy, resists the absolute, which is the republic society bleeds in this conflict, but that which constitutes its suffering today will constitute its safety later on and, in any case, those who combat are not to be blamed one of the two parties is evidently mistaken the right is not, like the Colossus of Rhodes, on two shores at once, with one foot on the republic, and one in Royalty it is indivisible, and all on one side but those who are in error are so sincerely a blind man is no more a criminal than a Vendean is a ruffian. Let us, then, impute to the fatality of things alone these formidable collisions. Whatever the nature of these tempests may be, human irresponsibility is mingled with them. Let us complete this exposition. The government of  led a hard life immediately. Born yesterday, it was obliged to fight today. Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements of traction on the apparatus of July so recently laid, and so lacking in solidity. Resistance was born on the morrow perhaps even, it was born on the preceding evening. From month to month the hostility increased, and from being concealed it became patent. The Revolution of July, which gained but little acceptance outside of France by kings, had been diversely interpreted in France, as we have said. God delivers over to men his visible will in events, an obscure text written in a mysterious tongue. Men immediately make translations of it translations hasty, incorrect, full of errors, of gaps, and of nonsense. Very few minds comprehend the divine language. The most sagacious, the calmest, the most profound, decipher slowly, and when they arrive with their text, the task has long been completed there are already twenty translations on the public place. From each remaining springs a party, and from each misinterpretation a faction and each party thinks that it alone has the true text, and each faction thinks that it possesses the light. Power itself is often a faction. There are, in revolutions, swimmers who go against the current they are the old parties. For the old parties who clung to heredity by the grace of God, think that revolutions, having sprung from the right to revolt, one has the right to revolt against them. Error. For in these revolutions, the one who revolts is not the people it is the king. Revolution is precisely the contrary of revolt. Every revolution, being a normal outcome, contains within itself its legitimacy, which false revolutionists sometimes dishonor, but which remains even when soiled, which survives even when stained with blood. Revolutions spring not from an accident, but from necessity. A revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real. It is because it must be that it is. Nonetheless did the old legitimist parties assail the Revolution of  with all the vehemence which arises from false reasoning. Errors make excellent projectiles. They strike it cleverly in its vulnerable spot, in default of a cuirass, in its lack of logic they attacked this revolution in its royalty. They shouted to it 'Revolution, why this king? Factions are blind men who aim correctly. This cry was uttered equally by the republicans. But coming from them, this cry was logical. What was blindness in the legitimists was clearness of vision in the democrats.  had bankrupted the people. The enraged democracy reproached it with this. Between the attack of the past and the attack of the future, the establishment of July struggled. It represented the minute at loggerheads on the one hand with the monarchical centuries, on the other hand with eternal right. In addition, and beside all this, as it was no longer revolution and had become a monarchy,  was obliged to take precedence of all Europe. To keep the peace, was an increase of complication. A harmony established contrary to sense is often more onerous than a war. From this secret conflict, always muzzled, but always growling, was born armed peace, that ruinous expedient of civilization which in the harness of the European cabinets is suspicious in itself. The Royalty of July reared up, in spite of the fact that it caught it in the harness of European cabinets. Metternich would gladly have put it in kickingstraps. Pushed on in France by progress, it pushed on the monarchies, those loiterers in Europe. After having been towed, it undertook to tow. Meanwhile, within her, pauperism, the proletariat, salary, education, penal servitude, prostitution, the fate of the woman, wealth, misery, production, consumption, division, exchange, coin, credit, the rights of capital, the rights of labor,all these questions were multiplied above society, a terrible slope. Outside of political parties properly so called, another movement became manifest. Philosophical fermentation replied to democratic fermentation. The elect felt troubled as well as the masses in another manner, but quite as much. Thinkers meditated, while the soil, that is to say, the people, traversed by revolutionary currents, trembled under them with indescribably vague epileptic shocks. These dreamers, some isolated, others united in families and almost in communion, turned over social questions in a pacific but profound manner impassive miners, who tranquilly pushed their galleries into the depths of a volcano, hardly disturbed by the dull commotion and the furnaces of which they caught glimpses. This tranquillity was not the least beautiful spectacle of this agitated epoch. These men left to political parties the question of rights, they occupied themselves with the question of happiness. The wellbeing of man, that was what they wanted to extract from society. They raised material questions, questions of agriculture, of industry, of commerce, almost to the dignity of a religion. In civilization, such as it has formed itself, a little by the command of God, a great deal by the agency of man, interests combine, unite, and amalgamate in a manner to form a veritable hard rock, in accordance with a dynamic law, patiently studied by economists, those geologists of politics. These men who grouped themselves under different appellations, but who may all be designated by the generic title of socialists, endeavored to pierce that rock and to cause it to spout forth the living waters of human felicity. From the question of the scaffold to the question of war, their works embraced everything. To the rights of man, as proclaimed by the French Revolution, they added the rights of woman and the rights of the child. The reader will not be surprised if, for various reasons, we do not here treat in a thorough manner, from the theoretical point of view, the questions raised by socialism. We confine ourselves to indicating them. All the problems that the socialists proposed to themselves, cosmogonic visions, reverie and mysticism being cast aside, can be reduced to two principal problems. First problem To produce wealth. Second problem To share it. The first problem contains the question of work. The second contains the question of salary. In the first problem the employment of forces is in question. In the second, the distribution of enjoyment. From the proper employment of forces results public power. From a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness. By a good distribution, not an equal but an equitable distribution must be understood. From these two things combined, the public power without, individual happiness within, results social prosperity. Social prosperity means the man happy, the citizen free, the nation great. England solves the first of these two problems. She creates wealth admirably, she divides it badly. This solution which is complete on one side only leads her fatally to two extremes monstrous opulence, monstrous wretchedness. All enjoyments for some, all privations for the rest, that is to say, for the people privilege, exception, monopoly, feudalism, born from toil itself. A false and dangerous situation, which sates public power or private misery, which sets the roots of the State in the sufferings of the individual. A badly constituted grandeur in which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral element enters. Communism and agrarian law think that they solve the second problem. They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition abolishes emulation and consequently labor. It is a partition made by the butcher, which kills that which it divides. It is therefore impossible to pause over these pretended solutions. Slaying wealth is not the same thing as dividing it. The two problems require to be solved together, to be well solved. The two problems must be combined and made but one. Solve only the first of the two problems you will be Venice, you will be England. You will have, like Venice, an artificial power, or, like England, a material power you will be the wicked rich man. You will die by an act of violence, as Venice died, or by bankruptcy, as England will fall. And the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a virtue or an idea. It is well understood here, that by the words Venice, England, we designate not the peoples, but social structures the oligarchies superposed on nations, and not the nations themselves. The nations always have our respect and our sympathy. Venice, as a people, will live again England, the aristocracy, will fall, but England, the nation, is immortal. That said, we continue. Solve the two problems, encourage the wealthy, and protect the poor, suppress misery, put an end to the unjust farming out of the feeble by the strong, put a bridle on the iniquitous jealousy of the man who is making his way against the man who has reached the goal, adjust, mathematically and fraternally, salary to labor, mingle gratuitous and compulsory education with the growth of childhood, and make of science the base of manliness, develop minds while keeping arms busy, be at one and the same time a powerful people and a family of happy men, render property democratic, not by abolishing it, but by making it universal, so that every citizen, without exception, may be a proprietor, an easier matter than is generally supposed in two words, learn how to produce wealth and how to distribute it, and you will have at once moral and material greatness and you will be worthy to call yourself France. This is what socialism said outside and above a few sects which have gone astray that is what it sought in facts, that is what it sketched out in minds. Efforts worthy of admiration! Sacred attempts! These doctrines, these theories, these resistances, the unforeseen necessity for the statesman to take philosophers into account, confused evidences of which we catch a glimpse, a new system of politics to be created, which shall be in accord with the old world without too much disaccord with the new revolutionary ideal, a situation in which it became necessary to use Lafayette to defend Polignac, the intuition of progress transparent beneath the revolt, the chambers and streets, the competitions to be brought into equilibrium around him, his faith in the Revolution, perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the vague acceptance of a superior definitive right, his desire to remain of his race, his domestic spirit, his sincere respect for the people, his own honesty, preoccupied Louis Philippe almost painfully, and there were moments when strong and courageous as he was, he was overwhelmed by the difficulties of being a king. He felt under his feet a formidable disaggregation, which was not, nevertheless, a reduction to dust, France being more France than ever. Piles of shadows covered the horizon. A strange shade, gradually drawing nearer, extended little by little over men, over things, over ideas a shade which came from wraths and systems. Everything which had been hastily stifled was moving and fermenting. At times the conscience of the honest man resumed its breathing, so great was the discomfort of that air in which sophisms were intermingled with truths. Spirits trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of a storm. The electric tension was such that at certain instants, the first comer, a stranger, brought light. Then the twilight obscurity closed in again. At intervals, deep and dull mutterings allowed a judgment to be formed as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud. Twenty months had barely elapsed since the Revolution of July, the year  had opened with an aspect of something impending and threatening. The distress of the people, the laborers without bread, the last Prince de Cond engulfed in the shadows, Brussels expelling the Nassaus as Paris did the Bourbons, Belgium offering herself to a French Prince and giving herself to an English Prince, the Russian hatred of Nicolas, behind us the demons of the South, Ferdinand in Spain, Miguel in Portugal, the earth quaking in Italy, Metternich extending his hand over Bologna, France treating Austria sharply at Ancona, at the North no one knew what sinister sound of the hammer nailing up Poland in her coffin, irritated glances watching France narrowly all over Europe, England, a suspected ally, ready to give a push to that which was tottering and to hurl herself on that which should fall, the peerage sheltering itself behind Beccaria to refuse four heads to the law, the fleursdelys erased from the King's carriage, the cross torn from Notre Dame, Lafayette lessened, Laffitte ruined, Benjamin Constant dead in indigence, Casimir Prier dead in the exhaustion of his power political and social malady breaking out simultaneously in the two capitals of the kingdom, the one in the city of thought, the other in the city of toil at Paris civil war, at Lyons servile war in the two cities, the same glare of the furnace a craterlike crimson on the brow of the people the South rendered fanatic, the West troubled, the Duchesse de Berry in la Vende, plots, conspiracies, risings, cholera, added the sombre roar of tumult of events to the sombre roar of ideas. Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. The fermentation entered the boiling state. Ever since , petty partial revolts had been going on here and there, which were quickly suppressed, but ever bursting forth afresh, the sign of a vast underlying conflagration. Something terrible was in preparation. Glimpses could be caught of the features still indistinct and imperfectly lighted, of a possible revolution. France kept an eye on Paris Paris kept an eye on the Faubourg SaintAntoine. The Faubourg SaintAntoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning its ebullition. The wineshops of the Rue de Charonne were, although the union of the two epithets seems singular when applied to wineshops, grave and stormy. The government was there purely and simply called in question. There people publicly discussed the question of fighting or of keeping quiet. There were back shops where workingmen were made to swear that they would hasten into the street at the first cry of alarm, and 'that they would fight without counting the number of the enemy. This engagement once entered into, a man seated in the corner of the wineshop 'assumed a sonorous tone, and said, 'You understand! You have sworn! Sometimes they went upstairs, to a private room on the first floor, and there scenes that were almost masonic were enacted. They made the initiated take oaths to render service to himself as well as to the fathers of families. That was the formula. In the taprooms, 'subversive pamphlets were read. They treated the government with contempt, says a secret report of that time. Words like the following could be heard there 'I don't know the names of the leaders. We folks shall not know the day until two hours beforehand. One workman said 'There are three hundred of us, let each contribute ten sous, that will make one hundred and fifty francs with which to procure powder and shot. Another said 'I don't ask for six months, I don't ask for even two. In less than a fortnight we shall be parallel with the government. With twentyfive thousand men we can face them. Another said 'I don't sleep at night, because I make cartridges all night. From time to time, men 'of bourgeois appearance, and in good coats came and 'caused embarrassment, and with the air of 'command, shook hands with the most important, and then went away. They never stayed more than ten minutes. Significant remarks were exchanged in a low tone 'The plot is ripe, the matter is arranged. 'It was murmured by all who were there, to borrow the very expression of one of those who were present. The exaltation was such that one day, a workingman exclaimed, before the whole wineshop 'We have no arms! One of his comrades replied 'The soldiers have! thus parodying without being aware of the fact, Bonaparte's proclamation to the army in Italy 'When they had anything of a more secret nature on hand, adds one report, 'they did not communicate it to each other. It is not easy to understand what they could conceal after what they said. These reunions were sometimes periodical. At certain ones of them, there were never more than eight or ten persons present, and they were always the same. In others, any one entered who wished, and the room was so full that they were forced to stand. Some went thither through enthusiasm and passion others because it was on their way to their work. As during the Revolution, there were patriotic women in some of these wineshops who embraced newcomers. Other expressive facts came to light. A man would enter a shop, drink, and go his way with the remark 'Winemerchant, the revolution will pay what is due to you. Revolutionary agents were appointed in a wineshop facing the Rue de Charonne. The balloting was carried on in their caps. Workingmen met at the house of a fencingmaster who gave lessons in the Rue de Cotte. There there was a trophy of arms formed of wooden broadswords, canes, clubs, and foils. One day, the buttons were removed from the foils. A workman said 'There are twentyfive of us, but they don't count on me, because I am looked upon as a machine. Later on, that machine became Quenisset. The indefinite things which were brewing gradually acquired a strange and indescribable notoriety. A woman sweeping off her doorsteps said to another woman 'For a long time, there has been a strong force busy making cartridges. In the open street, proclamation could be seen addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these proclamations was signed Burtot, winemerchant. One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italian accent mounted a stone post at the door of a liquorseller in the March Lenoir, and read aloud a singular document, which seemed to emanate from an occult power. Groups formed around him, and applauded. The passages which touched the crowd most deeply were collected and noted down. 'Our doctrines are trammelled, our proclamations torn, our billstickers are spied upon and thrown into prison.'The breakdown which has recently taken place in cottons has converted to us many mediums.'The future of nations is being worked out in our obscure ranks.'Here are the fixed terms action or reaction, revolution or counterrevolution. For, at our epoch, we no longer believe either in inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the question. There is no other.'On the day when we cease to suit you, break us, but up to that day, help us to march on. All this in broad daylight. Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the eyes of the people by reason of their very audacity. On the th of April, , a passerby mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of the Rue SainteMarguerite and shouted 'I am a Babouvist! But beneath Babeuf, the people scented Gisquet. Among other things, this man said 'Down with property! The opposition of the left is cowardly and treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preaches revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and royalist so that it may not have to fight. The republicans are beasts with feathers. Distrust the republicans, citizens of the laboring classes. 'Silence, citizen spy! cried an artisan. This shout put an end to the discourse. Mysterious incidents occurred. At nightfall, a workingman encountered near the canal a 'very well dressed man, who said to him 'Whither are you bound, citizen? 'Sir, replied the workingman, 'I have not the honor of your acquaintance. 'I know you very well, however. And the man added 'Don't be alarmed, I am an agent of the committee. You are suspected of not being quite faithful. You know that if you reveal anything, there is an eye fixed on you. Then he shook hands with the workingman and went away, saying 'We shall meet again soon. The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, not only in the wineshops, but in the street. 'Get yourself received very soon, said a weaver to a cabinetmaker. 'Why? 'There is going to be a shot to fire. Two ragged pedestrians exchanged these remarkable replies, fraught with evident Jacquerie 'Who governs us? 'M. Philippe. 'No, it is the bourgeoisie. The reader is mistaken if he thinks that we take the word Jacquerie in a bad sense. The Jacques were the poor. On another occasion two men were heard to say to each other as they passed by 'We have a good plan of attack. Only the following was caught of a private conversation between four men who were crouching in a ditch of the circle of the Barrire du Trne 'Everything possible will be done to prevent his walking about Paris any more. Who was the he? Menacing obscurity. 'The principal leaders, as they said in the faubourg, held themselves apart. It was supposed that they met for consultation in a wineshop near the point SaintEustache. A certain Aug, chief of the Society aid for tailors, Rue Mondtour, had the reputation of serving as intermediary central between the leaders and the Faubourg SaintAntoine. Nevertheless, there was always a great deal of mystery about these leaders, and no certain fact can invalidate the singular arrogance of this reply made later on by a man accused before the Court of Peers 'Who was your leader? 'I knew of none and I recognized none. There was nothing but words, transparent but vague sometimes idle reports, rumors, hearsay. Other indications cropped up. A carpenter, occupied in nailing boards to a fence around the ground on which a house was in process of construction, in the Rue de Reuilly found on that plot the torn fragment of a letter on which were still legible the following lines The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections for the different societies. And, as a postscript We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du FaubourgPoissonnire, No.  bis, to the number of five or six thousand, in the house of a gunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms. What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this thing to his neighbors was the fact, that a few paces further on he picked up another paper, torn like the first, and still more significant, of which we reproduce a facsimile, because of the historical interest attaching to these strange documents Q C D E Learn this list by heart. After so doing you will tear it up. The men admitted will do the same when you have transmitted their orders to them. Health and Fraternity, u og a' fe L. It was only later on that the persons who were in the secret of this find at the time, learned the significance of those four capital letters quinturions, centurions, decurions, claireurs scouts, and the sense of the letters u og a' fe, which was a date, and meant April th, . Under each capital letter were inscribed names followed by very characteristic notes. Thus Q. Bannerel.  guns,  cartridges. A safe man.C. Boubire.  pistol,  cartridges.D. Rollet.  foil,  pistol,  pound of powder.E. Tessier.  sword,  cartridgebox. Exact. Terreur.  guns. Brave, etc. Finally, this carpenter found, still in the same enclosure, a third paper on which was written in pencil, but very legibly, this sort of enigmatical list Unit Blanchard ArbreSec. . Barra. Soize. SalleauComte. Kosciusko. Aubry the Butcher? J. J. R. Caius Gracchus. Right of revision. Dufond. Four. Fall of the Girondists. Derbac. Maubue. Washington. Pinson.  pistol,  cartridges. Marseillaise. Sovereignty of the people. Michel. Quincampoix. Sword. Hoche. Marceau. Plato. ArbreSec. Warsaw. Tilly, crier of the Populaire. The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew its significance. It appears that this list was the complete nomenclature of the sections of the fourth arondissement of the Society of the Rights of Man, with the names and dwellings of the chiefs of sections. Today, when all these facts which were obscure are nothing more than history, we may publish them. It should be added, that the foundation of the Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to the date when this paper was found. Perhaps this was only a rough draft. Still, according to all the remarks and the words, according to written notes, material facts begin to make their appearance. In the Rue Popincourt, in the house of a dealer in bricbrac, there were seized seven sheets of gray paper, all folded alike lengthwise and in four these sheets enclosed twentysix squares of this same gray paper folded in the form of a cartridge, and a card, on which was written the following Saltpetre . . . . . . . . . . .  ounces. Sulphur . . . . . . . . . . .  ounces. Charcoal . . . . . . . . . . .  ounces and a half. Water . . . . . . . . . . .  ounces. The report of the seizure stated that the drawer exhaled a strong smell of powder. A mason returning from his day's work, left behind him a little package on a bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. This package was taken to the police station. It was opened, and in it were found two printed dialogues, signed Lahautire, a song entitled 'Workmen, band together, and a tin box full of cartridges. One artisan drinking with a comrade made the latter feel him to see how warm he was the other man felt a pistol under his waistcoat. In a ditch on the boulevard, between PreLachaise and the Barrire du Trne, at the most deserted spot, some children, while playing, discovered beneath a mass of shavings and refuse bits of wood, a bag containing a bulletmould, a wooden punch for the preparation of cartridges, a wooden bowl, in which there were grains of huntingpowder, and a little castiron pot whose interior presented evident traces of melted lead. Police agents, making their way suddenly and unexpectedly at five o'clock in the morning, into the dwelling of a certain Pardon, who was afterwards a member of the BarricadeMerry section and got himself killed in the insurrection of April, , found him standing near his bed, and holding in his hand some cartridges which he was in the act of preparing. Towards the hour when workingmen repose, two men were seen to meet between the Barrire Picpus and the Barrire Charenton in a little lane between two walls, near a wineshop, in front of which there was a 'Jeu de Siam. One drew a pistol from beneath his blouse and handed it to the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration of his chest had made the powder damp. He primed the pistol and added more powder to what was already in the pan. Then the two men parted. A certain Gallais, afterwards killed in the Rue Beaubourg in the affair of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and twentyfour flints. The government one day received a warning that arms and two hundred thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the faubourg. On the following week thirty thousand cartridges were distributed. The remarkable point about it was, that the police were not able to seize a single one. An intercepted letter read 'The day is not far distant when, within four hours by the clock, eighty thousand patriots will be under arms. All this fermentation was public, one might almost say tranquil. The approaching insurrection was preparing its storm calmly in the face of the government. No singularity was lacking to this still subterranean crisis, which was already perceptible. The bourgeois talked peaceably to the workingclasses of what was in preparation. They said 'How is the rising coming along? in the same tone in which they would have said 'How is your wife? A furnituredealer, of the Rue Moreau, inquired 'Well, when are you going to make the attack? Another shopkeeper said 'The attack will be made soon. 'I know it. A month ago, there were fifteen thousand of you, now there are twentyfive thousand. He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven francs. Moreover, the revolutionary fever was growing. Not a point in Paris nor in France was exempt from it. The artery was beating everywhere. Like those membranes which arise from certain inflammations and form in the human body, the network of secret societies began to spread all over the country. From the associations of the Friends of the People, which was at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of Man, which also dated from one of the orders of the day Pluvise, Year  of the republican era, which was destined to survive even the mandate of the Court of Assizes which pronounced its dissolution, and which did not hesitate to bestow on its sections significant names like the following Pikes. Tocsin. Signal cannon. Phrygian cap. January . The beggars. The vagabonds. Forward march. Robespierre. Level. a Ira. The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action. These were impatient individuals who broke away and hastened ahead. Other associations sought to recruit themselves from the great mother societies. The members of sections complained that they were torn asunder. Thus, the Gallic Society, and the committee of organization of the Municipalities. Thus the associations for the liberty of the press, for individual liberty, for the instruction of the people against indirect taxes. Then the Society of Equal Workingmen which was divided into three fractions, the levellers, the communists, the reformers. Then the Army of the Bastilles, a sort of cohort organized on a military footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by a sublieutenant, forty by a lieutenant there were never more than five men who knew each other. Creation where precaution is combined with audacity and which seemed stamped with the genius of Venice. The central committee, which was at the head, had two arms, the Society of Action, and the Army of the Bastilles. A legitimist association, the Chevaliers of Fidelity, stirred about among these the republican affiliations. It was denounced and repudiated there. The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal cities, Lyons, Nantes, Lille, Marseilles, and each had its Society of the Rights of Man, the Charbonnire, and The Free Men. All had a revolutionary society which was called the Cougourde. We have already mentioned this word. In Paris, the Faubourg SaintMarceau kept up an equal buzzing with the Faubourg SaintAntoine, and the schools were no less moved than the faubourgs. A caf in the Rue SaintHyacinthe and the wineshop of the Seven Billiards, Rue des MathurinsSaintJacques, served as rallying points for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A B C affiliated to the Mutualists of Angers, and to the Cougourde of Aix, met, as we have seen, in the Caf Musain. These same young men assembled also, as we have stated already, in a restaurant wineshop of the Rue Mondtour which was called Corinthe. These meetings were secret. Others were as public as possible, and the reader can judge of their boldness from these fragments of an interrogatory undergone in one of the ulterior prosecutions 'Where was this meeting held? 'In the Rue de la Paix. 'At whose house? 'In the street. 'What sections were there? 'Only one. 'Which? 'The Manuel section. 'Who was its leader? 'I. 'You are too young to have decided alone upon the bold course of attacking the government. Where did your instructions come from? 'From the central committee. The army was mined at the same time as the population, as was proved subsequently by the operations of Bford, Luneville, and pinard. They counted on the fiftysecond regiment, on the fifth, on the eighth, on the thirtyseventh, and on the twentieth light cavalry. In Burgundy and in the southern towns they planted the liberty tree that is to say, a pole surmounted by a red cap. Such was the situation. The Faubourg SaintAntoine, more than any other group of the population, as we stated in the beginning, accentuated this situation and made it felt. That was the sore point. This old faubourg, peopled like an anthill, laborious, courageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was quivering with expectation and with the desire for a tumult. Everything was in a state of agitation there, without any interruption, however, of the regular work. It is impossible to convey an idea of this lively yet sombre physiognomy. In this faubourg exists poignant distress hidden under attic roofs there also exist rare and ardent minds. It is particularly in the matter of distress and intelligence that it is dangerous to have extremes meet. The Faubourg SaintAntoine had also other causes to tremble for it received the countershock of commercial crises, of failures, strikes, slack seasons, all inherent to great political disturbances. In times of revolution misery is both cause and effect. The blow which it deals rebounds upon it. This population full of proud virtue, capable to the highest degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, prompt to explode, irritated, deep, undermined, seemed to be only awaiting the fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float on the horizon chased by the wind of events, it is impossible not to think of the Faubourg SaintAntoine and of the formidable chance which has placed at the very gates of Paris that powderhouse of suffering and ideas. The wineshops of the Faubourg Antoine, which have been more than once drawn in the sketches which the reader has just perused, possess historical notoriety. In troublous times people grow intoxicated there more on words than on wine. A sort of prophetic spirit and an afflatus of the future circulates there, swelling hearts and enlarging souls. The cabarets of the Faubourg SaintAntoine resemble those taverns of Mont Aventine erected on the cave of the Sibyl and communicating with the profound and sacred breath taverns where the tables were almost tripods, and where was drunk what Ennius calls the sibylline wine. The Faubourg SaintAntoine is a reservoir of people. Revolutionary agitations create fissures there, through which trickles the popular sovereignty. This sovereignty may do evil it can be mistaken like any other but, even when led astray, it remains great. We may say of it as of the blind cyclops, Ingens. In ', according as the idea which was floating about was good or evil, according as it was the day of fanaticism or of enthusiasm, there leaped forth from the Faubourg SaintAntoine now savage legions, now heroic bands. Savage. Let us explain this word. When these bristling men, who in the early days of the revolutionary chaos, tattered, howling, wild, with uplifted bludgeon, pike on high, hurled themselves upon ancient Paris in an uproar, what did they want? They wanted an end to oppression, an end to tyranny, an end to the sword, work for men, instruction for the child, social sweetness for the woman, liberty, equality, fraternity, bread for all, the idea for all, the Edenizing of the world. Progress and that holy, sweet, and good thing, progress, they claimed in terrible wise, driven to extremities as they were, half naked, club in fist, a roar in their mouths. They were savages, yes but the savages of civilization. They proclaimed right furiously they were desirous, if only with fear and trembling, to force the human race to paradise. They seemed barbarians, and they were saviours. They demanded light with the mask of night. Facing these men, who were ferocious, we admit, and terrifying, but ferocious and terrifying for good ends, there are other men, smiling, embroidered, gilded, beribboned, starred, in silk stockings, in white plumes, in yellow gloves, in varnished shoes, who, with their elbows on a velvet table, beside a marble chimneypiece, insist gently on demeanor and the preservation of the past, of the Middle Ages, of divine right, of fanaticism, of innocence, of slavery, of the death penalty, of war, glorifying in low tones and with politeness, the sword, the stake, and the scaffold. For our part, if we were forced to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we should choose the barbarians. But, thank Heaven, still another choice is possible. No perpendicular fall is necessary, in front any more than in the rear. Neither despotism nor terrorism. We desire progress with a gentle slope. God takes care of that. God's whole policy consists in rendering slopes less steep. It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possible catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census. All were present at a secret meeting at the Caf Musain. Enjolras said, mixing his words with a few halfenigmatical but significant metaphors 'It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may count. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do no harm to have something with which to strike. Passersby always have more chance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when there are none. Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd. How many of us are there? There is no question of postponing this task until tomorrow. Revolutionists should always be hurried progress has no time to lose. Let us mistrust the unexpected. Let us not be caught unprepared. We must go over all the seams that we have made and see whether they hold fast. This business ought to be concluded today. Courfeyrac, you will see the polytechnic students. It is their day to go out. Today is Wednesday. Feuilly, you will see those of the Glacire, will you not? Combeferre has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an excellent one there. Bahorel will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the masons are growing lukewarm you will bring us news from the lodge of the Rue de GrenelleSaintHonor. Joly will go to Dupuytren's clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school. Bossuet will take a little turn in the court and talk with the young law licentiates. I will take charge of the Cougourde myself. 'That arranges everything, said Courfeyrac. 'No. 'What else is there? 'A very important thing. 'What is that? asked Courfeyrac. 'The Barrire du Maine, replied Enjolras. Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then he resumed 'At the Barrire du Maine there are marbleworkers, painters, and journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but with firmness. They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found there between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow. For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one for the Barrire du Maine. I have no one. 'What about me? said Grantaire. 'Here am I. 'You? 'I. 'You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold in the name of principle! 'Why not? 'Are you good for anything? 'I have a vague ambition in that direction, said Grantaire. 'You do not believe in everything. 'I believe in you. 'Grantaire will you do me a service? 'Anything. I'll black your boots. 'Well, don't meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your absinthe. 'You are an ingrate, Enjolras. 'You the man to go to the Barrire du Maine! You capable of it! 'I am capable of descending the Rue de Grs, of crossing the Place SaintMichel, of sloping through the Rue MonsieurlePrince, of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du ChercheMidi, of leaving behind me the Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des VieillesTuileries, of striding across the boulevard, of following the Chausse du Maine, of passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu's. I am capable of that. My shoes are capable of that. 'Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's? 'Not much. We only address each other as thou. 'What will you say to them? 'I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles. 'You? 'I. But I don't receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. 'The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have an old bankbill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hbertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand. 'Be serious, said Enjolras. 'I am wild, replied Grantaire. Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who has taken a resolution. 'Grantaire, he said gravely, 'I consent to try you. You shall go to the Barrire du Maine. Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Caf Musain. He went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat. 'Red, said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras. Then, with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast. And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear 'Be easy. He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed. A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Caf Musain was deserted. All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his own direction, each to his own task. Enjolras, who had reserved the Cougourde of Aix for himself, was the last to leave. Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then met on the plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous in that side of Paris. As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situation in review in his own mind. The gravity of events was selfevident. When facts, the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily, the slightest complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon whence arises ruin and new births. Enjolras descried a luminous uplifting beneath the gloomy skirts of the future. Who knows? Perhaps the moment was at hand. The people were again taking possession of right, and what a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically taking possession of France and saying to the world 'The sequel tomorrow! Enjolras was content. The furnace was being heated. He had at that moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris. He composed, in his own mind, with Combeferre's philosophical and penetrating eloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac's dash, Bahorel's smile, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's science, Bossuet's sarcasms, a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly everywhere at once. All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer to the effort. This was well. This made him think of Grantaire. 'Hold, said he to himself, 'the Barrire du Maine will not take me far out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us have a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on. One o'clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras reached the Richefeu smokingroom. He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door fall to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, men, and smoke. A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary. Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble SaintAnne table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard 'Doublesix. 'Fours. 'The pig! I have no more. 'You are dead. A two. 'Six. 'Three. 'One. 'It's my move. 'Four points. 'Not much. 'It's your turn. 'I have made an enormous mistake. 'You are doing well. 'Fifteen. 'Seven more. 'That makes me twentytwo. Thoughtfully, 'Twentytwo! 'You weren't expecting that doublesix. If I had placed it at the beginning, the whole play would have been changed. 'A two again. 'One. 'One! Well, five. 'I haven't any. 'It was your play, I believe? 'Yes. 'Blank. 'What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! Long reverie. Two. 'One. 'Neither five nor one. That's bad for you. 'Domino. 'Plague take it! Marius had witnessed the unexpected termination of the ambush upon whose track he had set Javert but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, bearing off his prisoners in three hackneycoaches, than Marius also glided out of the house. It was only nine o'clock in the evening. Marius betook himself to Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac was no longer the imperturbable inhabitant of the Latin Quarter, he had gone to live in the Rue de la Verrerie 'for political reasons this quarter was one where, at that epoch, insurrection liked to install itself. Marius said to Courfeyrac 'I have come to sleep with you. Courfeyrac dragged a mattress off his bed, which was furnished with two, spread it out on the floor, and said 'There. At seven o'clock on the following morning, Marius returned to the hovel, paid the quarter's rent which he owed to Ma'am Bougon, had his books, his bed, his table, his commode, and his two chairs loaded on a handcart and went off without leaving his address, so that when Javert returned in the course of the morning, for the purpose of questioning Marius as to the events of the preceding evening, he found only Ma'am Bougon, who answered 'Moved away! Ma'am Bougon was convinced that Marius was to some extent an accomplice of the robbers who had been seized the night before. 'Who would ever have said it? she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter, 'a young man like that, who had the air of a girl! Marius had two reasons for this prompt change of residence. The first was, that he now had a horror of that house, where he had beheld, so close at hand, and in its most repulsive and most ferocious development, a social deformity which is, perhaps, even more terrible than the wicked rich man, the wicked poor man. The second was, that he did not wish to figure in the lawsuit which would insue in all probability, and be brought in to testify against Thnardier. Javert thought that the young man, whose name he had forgotten, was afraid, and had fled, or perhaps, had not even returned home at the time of the ambush he made some efforts to find him, however, but without success. A month passed, then another. Marius was still with Courfeyrac. He had learned from a young licentiate in law, an habitual frequenter of the courts, that Thnardier was in close confinement. Every Monday, Marius had five francs handed in to the clerk's office of La Force for Thnardier. As Marius had no longer any money, he borrowed the five francs from Courfeyrac. It was the first time in his life that he had ever borrowed money. These periodical five francs were a double riddle to Courfeyrac who lent and to Thnardier who received them. 'To whom can they go? thought Courfeyrac. 'Whence can this come to me? Thnardier asked himself. Moreover, Marius was heartbroken. Everything had plunged through a trapdoor once more. He no longer saw anything before him his life was again buried in mystery where he wandered fumblingly. He had for a moment beheld very close at hand, in that obscurity, the young girl whom he loved, the old man who seemed to be her father, those unknown beings, who were his only interest and his only hope in this world and, at the very moment when he thought himself on the point of grasping them, a gust had swept all these shadows away. Not a spark of certainty and truth had been emitted even in the most terrible of collisions. No conjecture was possible. He no longer knew even the name that he thought he knew. It certainly was not Ursule. And the Lark was a nickname. And what was he to think of the old man? Was he actually in hiding from the police? The whitehaired workman whom Marius had encountered in the vicinity of the Invalides recurred to his mind. It now seemed probable that that workingman and M. Leblanc were one and the same person. So he disguised himself? That man had his heroic and his equivocal sides. Why had he not called for help? Why had he fled? Was he, or was he not, the father of the young girl? Was he, in short, the man whom Thnardier thought that he recognized? Thnardier might have been mistaken. These formed so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, detracted nothing from the angelic charms of the young girl of the Luxembourg. Heartrending distress Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night over his eyes. He was thrust onward, he was drawn, and he could not stir. All had vanished, save love. Of love itself he had lost the instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which burns us lights us also a little, and casts some useful gleams without. But Marius no longer even heard these mute counsels of passion. He never said to himself 'What if I were to go to such a place? What if I were to try such and such a thing? The girl whom he could no longer call Ursule was evidently somewhere nothing warned Marius in what direction he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog. To see her once again he still aspired to this, but he no longer expected it. To crown all, his poverty had returned. He felt that icy breath close to him, on his heels. In the midst of his torments, and long before this, he had discontinued his work, and nothing is more dangerous than discontinued work it is a habit which vanishes. A habit which is easy to get rid of, and difficult to take up again. A certain amount of dreaming is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labor, which are sometimes severe, and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapor which corrects the overharsh contours of pure thought, fills in gaps here and there, binds together and rounds off the angles of the ideas. But too much dreaming sinks and drowns. Woe to the brainworker who allows himself to fall entirely from thought into reverie! He thinks that he can reascend with equal ease, and he tells himself that, after all, it is the same thing. Error! Thought is the toil of the intelligence, reverie its voluptuousness. To replace thought with reverie is to confound a poison with a food. Marius had begun in that way, as the reader will remember. Passion had supervened and had finished the work of precipitating him into chimras without object or bottom. One no longer emerges from one's self except for the purpose of going off to dream. Idle production. Tumultuous and stagnant gulf. And, in proportion as labor diminishes, needs increase. This is a law. Man, in a state of reverie, is generally prodigal and slack the unstrung mind cannot hold life within close bounds. There is, in that mode of life, good mingled with evil, for if enervation is baleful, generosity is good and healthful. But the poor man who is generous and noble, and who does not work, is lost. Resources are exhausted, needs crop up. Fatal declivity down which the most honest and the firmest as well as the most feeble and most vicious are drawn, and which ends in one of two holds, suicide or crime. By dint of going outdoors to think, the day comes when one goes out to throw one's self in the water. Excess of reverie breeds men like Escousse and Lebras. Marius was descending this declivity at a slow pace, with his eyes fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw. What we have just written seems strange, and yet it is true. The memory of an absent being kindles in the darkness of the heart the more it has disappeared, the more it beams the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light on its horizon the star of the inner night. Shethat was Marius' whole thought. He meditated of nothing else he was confusedly conscious that his old coat was becoming an impossible coat, and that his new coat was growing old, that his shirts were wearing out, that his hat was wearing out, that his boots were giving out, and he said to himself 'If I could but see her once again before I die! One sweet idea alone was left to him, that she had loved him, that her glance had told him so, that she did not know his name, but that she did know his soul, and that, wherever she was, however mysterious the place, she still loved him perhaps. Who knows whether she were not thinking of him as he was thinking of her? Sometimes, in those inexplicable hours such as are experienced by every heart that loves, though he had no reasons for anything but sadness and yet felt an obscure quiver of joy, he said to himself 'It is her thoughts that are coming to me! Then he added 'Perhaps my thoughts reach her also. This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment later, was sufficient, nevertheless, to throw beams, which at times resembled hope, into his soul. From time to time, especially at that evening hour which is the most depressing to even the dreamy, he allowed the purest, the most impersonal, the most ideal of the reveries which filled his brain, to fall upon a notebook which contained nothing else. He called this 'writing to her. It must not be supposed that his reason was deranged. Quite the contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly towards any fixed goal, but he was endowed with more clearsightedness and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent deeds and men he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, which was almost wholly disassociated from hope, held itself aloof and soared on high. In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing deceived him, and every moment he was discovering the foundation of life, of humanity, and of destiny. Happy, even in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed the things of this world and the heart of man under this double light has seen nothing and knows nothing of the true. The soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublimity. However, day followed day, and nothing new presented itself. It merely seemed to him, that the sombre space which still remained to be traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant. He thought that he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss. 'What! he repeated to himself, 'shall I not see her again before then! When you have ascended the Rue SaintJacques, left the barrier on one side and followed the old inner boulevard for some distance, you reach the Rue de la Sant, then the Glacire, and, a little while before arriving at the little river of the Gobelins, you come to a sort of field which is the only spot in the long and monotonous chain of the boulevards of Paris, where Ruysdael would be tempted to sit down. There is something indescribable there which exhales grace, a green meadow traversed by tightly stretched lines, from which flutter rags drying in the wind, and an old marketgardener's house, built in the time of Louis XIII., with its great roof oddly pierced with dormer windows, dilapidated palisades, a little water amid poplartrees, women, voices, laughter on the horizon the Panthon, the pole of the DeafMutes, the ValdeGrce, black, squat, fantastic, amusing, magnificent, and in the background, the severe square crests of the towers of Notre Dame. As the place is worth looking at, no one goes thither. Hardly one cart or wagoner passes in a quarter of an hour. It chanced that Marius' solitary strolls led him to this plot of ground, near the water. That day, there was a rarity on the boulevard, a passerby. Marius, vaguely impressed with the almost savage beauty of the place, asked this passerby'What is the name of this spot? The person replied 'It is the Lark's meadow. And he added 'It was here that Ulbach killed the shepherdess of Ivry. But after the word 'Lark Marius heard nothing more. These sudden congealments in the state of reverie, which a single word suffices to evoke, do occur. The entire thought is abruptly condensed around an idea, and it is no longer capable of perceiving anything else. The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths of Marius' melancholy.'Stop, said he with a sort of unreasoning stupor peculiar to these mysterious asides, 'this is her meadow. I shall know where she lives now. It was absurd, but irresistible. And every day he returned to that meadow of the Lark. Javert's triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been so. In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees is more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would be no less fine a prize for the authorities. And then, Montparnasse had escaped Javert. Another opportunity of laying hands on that 'devil's dandy must be waited for. Montparnasse had, in fact, encountered ponine as she stood on the watch under the trees of the boulevard, and had led her off, preferring to play Nemorin with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for ponine, Javert had caused her to be seized a mediocre consolation. ponine had joined Azelma at Les Madelonettes. And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost. It was not known how this had been effected, the police agents and the sergeants 'could not understand it at all. He had converted himself into vapor, he had slipped through the handcuffs, he had trickled through the crevices of the carriage, the fiacre was cracked, and he had fled all that they were able to say was, that on arriving at the prison, there was no Claquesous. Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it. Had Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snowflake in water? Had there been unavowed connivance of the police agents? Did this man belong to the double enigma of order and disorder? Was he concentric with infraction and repression? Had this sphinx his fore paws in crime and his hind paws in authority? Javert did not accept such comminations, and would have bristled up against such compromises but his squad included other inspectors besides himself, who were more initiated than he, perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make a very good agent. It is an excellent thing for ruffianism and an admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate juggling terms with the night. These doubleedged rascals do exist. However that may be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found again. Javert appeared to be more irritated than amazed at this. As for Marius, 'that booby of a lawyer, who had probably become frightened, and whose name Javert had forgotten, Javert attached very little importance to him. Moreover, a lawyer can be hunted up at any time. But was he a lawyer after all? The investigation had begun. The magistrate had thought it advisable not to put one of these men of the band of Patron Minette in close confinement, in the hope that he would chatter. This man was Brujon, the longhaired man of the Rue du PetitBanquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard, and the eyes of the watchers were fixed on him. This name of Brujon is one of the souvenirs of La Force. In that hideous courtyard, called the court of the BtimentNeuf (New Building), which the administration called the court SaintBernard, and which the robbers called the FosseauxLions (The Lion's Ditch), on that wall covered with scales and leprosy, which rose on the left to a level with the roofs, near an old door of rusty iron which led to the ancient chapel of the ducal residence of La Force, then turned in a dormitory for ruffians, there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a sort of fortress roughly carved in the stone with a nail, and beneath it this signature BRUJON, . The Brujon of  was the father of the Brujon of . The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a bewildered and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive air that the magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in the Charlemagne yard than in close confinement. Robbers do not interrupt their profession because they are in the hands of justice. They do not let themselves be put out by such a trifle as that. To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on another crime. They are artists, who have one picture in the salon, and who toil, nonetheless, on a new work in their studios. Brujon seemed to be stupefied by prison. He could sometimes be seen standing by the hour together in front of the sutler's window in the Charlemagne yard, staring like an idiot at the sordid list of prices which began with garlic,  centimes, and ended with cigar,  centimes. Or he passed his time in trembling, chattering his teeth, saying that he had a fever, and inquiring whether one of the eight and twenty beds in the fever ward was vacant. All at once, towards the end of February, , it was discovered that Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions executed by the errandmen of the establishment, not under his own name, but in the name of three of his comrades and they had cost him in all fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay which attracted the attention of the prison corporal. Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions posted in the convict's parlor, it was learned that the fifty sous could be analyzed as follows three commissions one to the Panthon, ten sous one to ValdeGrce, fifteen sous and one to the Barrire de Grenelle, twentyfive sous. This last was the dearest of the whole tariff. Now, at the Panthon, at the ValdeGrce, and at the Barrire de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarro, Glorieux, an exconvict, and BarreCarosse, upon whom the attention of the police was directed by this incident. It was thought that these men were members of Patron Minette two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been captured. It was supposed that the messages, which had been addressed, not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in the street, must have contained information with regard to some crime that had been plotted. They were in possession of other indications they laid hand on the three prowlers, and supposed that they had circumvented some one or other of Brujon's machinations. About a week after these measures had been taken, one night, as the superintendent of the watch, who had been inspecting the lower dormitory in the BtimentNeuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the boxthis was the means adopted to make sure that the watchmen performed their duties punctually every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all the boxes nailed to the doors of the dormitoriesa watchman looked through the peephole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his bed and writing something by the light of the halllamp. The guardian entered, Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were not able to seize what he had written. The police learned nothing further about it. What is certain is, that on the following morning, a 'postilion was flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions' Ditch, over the fivestory building which separated the two courtyards. What prisoners call a 'postilion is a pallet of bread artistically moulded, which is sent into Ireland, that is to say, over the roofs of a prison, from one courtyard to another. Etymology over England from one land to another into Ireland. This little pellet falls in the yard. The man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note addressed to some prisoner in that yard. If it is a prisoner who finds the treasure, he forwards the note to its destination if it is a keeper, or one of the prisoners secretly sold who are called sheep in prisons and foxes in the galleys, the note is taken to the office and handed over to the police. On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the person to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary confinement. This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads of Patron Minette. The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines were written 'Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden. This is what Brujon had written the night before. In spite of male and female searchers, Babet managed to pass the note on from La Force to the Salptrire, to a 'good friend whom he had and who was shut up there. This woman in turn transmitted the note to another woman of her acquaintance, a certain Magnon, who was strongly suspected by the police, though not yet arrested. This Magnon, whose name the reader has already seen, had relations with the Thnardier, which will be described in detail later on, and she could, by going to see ponine, serve as a bridge between the Salptrire and Les Madelonettes. It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting in the investigation directed against Thnardier in the matter of his daughters, ponine and Azelma were released. When ponine came out, Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her Brujon's note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter. ponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden, observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon transmitted to Babet's mistress in the Salptrire. A biscuit, in the shady symbolism of prisons, signifies Nothing to be done. So that in less than a week from that time, as Brujon and Babet met in the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the other on his way from it 'Well? asked Brujon, 'the Rue P.? 'Biscuit, replied Babet. Thus did the ftus of crime engendered by Brujon in La Force miscarry. This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly distinct from Brujon's programme. The reader will see what they were. Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another. Marius no longer went to see any one, but he sometimes encountered Father Mabeuf by chance. While Marius was slowly descending those melancholy steps which may be called the cellar stairs, and which lead to places without light, where the happy can be heard walking overhead, M. Mabeuf was descending on his side. The Flora of Cauteretz no longer sold at all. The experiments on indigo had not been successful in the little garden of Austerlitz, which had a bad exposure. M. Mabeuf could cultivate there only a few plants which love shade and dampness. Nevertheless, he did not become discouraged. He had obtained a corner in the Jardin des Plantes, with a good exposure, to make his trials with indigo 'at his own expense. For this purpose he had pawned his copperplates of the Flora. He had reduced his breakfast to two eggs, and he left one of these for his old servant, to whom he had paid no wages for the last fifteen months. And often his breakfast was his only meal. He no longer smiled with his infantile smile, he had grown morose and no longer received visitors. Marius did well not to dream of going thither. Sometimes, at the hour when M. Mabeuf was on his way to the Jardin des Plantes, the old man and the young man passed each other on the Boulevard de l'Hpital. They did not speak, and only exchanged a melancholy sign of the head. A heartbreaking thing it is that there comes a moment when misery looses bonds! Two men who have been friends become two chance passersby. Royol the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, his garden, or his indigo these were the three forms which happiness, pleasure, and hope had assumed for him. This sufficed him for his living. He said to himself 'When I shall have made my balls of blueing, I shall be rich, I will withdraw my copperplates from the pawnshop, I will put my Flora in vogue again with trickery, plenty of money and advertisements in the newspapers and I will buy, I know well where, a copy of Pierre de Mdine's Art de Naviguer, with woodcuts, edition of . In the meantime, he toiled all day over his plot of indigo, and at night he returned home to water his garden, and to read his books. At that epoch, M. Mabeuf was nearly eighty years of age. One evening he had a singular apparition. He had returned home while it was still broad daylight. Mother Plutarque, whose health was declining, was ill and in bed. He had dined on a bone, on which a little meat lingered, and a bit of bread that he had found on the kitchen table, and had seated himself on an overturned stone post, which took the place of a bench in his garden. Near this bench there rose, after the fashion in orchardgardens, a sort of large chest, of beams and planks, much dilapidated, a rabbithutch on the ground floor, a fruitcloset on the first. There was nothing in the hutch, but there were a few apples in the fruitcloset,the remains of the winter's provision. M. Mabeuf had set himself to turning over and reading, with the aid of his glasses, two books of which he was passionately fond and in which, a serious thing at his age, he was interested. His natural timidity rendered him accessible to the acceptance of superstitions in a certain degree. The first of these books was the famous treatise of President Delancre, De l'Inconstance des Dmons the other was a quarto by Mutor de la Rubaudire, Sur les Diables de Vauvert et les Gobelins de la Bivre. This lastmentioned old volume interested him all the more, because his garden had been one of the spots haunted by goblins in former times. The twilight had begun to whiten what was on high and to blacken all below. As he read, over the top of the book which he held in his hand, Father Mabeuf was surveying his plants, and among others a magnificent rhododendron which was one of his consolations four days of heat, wind, and sun without a drop of rain, had passed the stalks were bending, the buds drooping, the leaves falling all this needed water, the rhododendron was particularly sad. Father Mabeuf was one of those persons for whom plants have souls. The old man had toiled all day over his indigo plot, he was worn out with fatigue, but he rose, laid his books on the bench, and walked, all bent over and with tottering footsteps, to the well, but when he had grasped the chain, he could not even draw it sufficiently to unhook it. Then he turned round and cast a glance of anguish toward heaven which was becoming studded with stars. The evening had that serenity which overwhelms the troubles of man beneath an indescribably mournful and eternal joy. The night promised to be as arid as the day had been. 'Stars everywhere! thought the old man 'not the tiniest cloud! Not a drop of water! And his head, which had been upraised for a moment, fell back upon his breast. He raised it again, and once more looked at the sky, murmuring 'A tear of dew! A little pity! He tried again to unhook the chain of the well, and could not. At that moment, he heard a voice saying 'Father Mabeuf, would you like to have me water your garden for you? At the same time, a noise as of a wild animal passing became audible in the hedge, and he beheld emerging from the shrubbery a sort of tall, slender girl, who drew herself up in front of him and stared boldly at him. She had less the air of a human being than of a form which had just blossomed forth from the twilight. Before Father Mabeuf, who was easily terrified, and who was, as we have said, quick to take alarm, was able to reply by a single syllable, this being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had unhooked the chain, plunged in and withdrawn the bucket, and filled the wateringpot, and the goodman beheld this apparition, which had bare feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flowerbeds distributing life around her. The sound of the wateringpot on the leaves filled Father Mabeuf's soul with ecstasy. It seemed to him that the rhododendron was happy now. The first bucketful emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third. She watered the whole garden. There was something about her, as she thus ran about among paths, where her outline appeared perfectly black, waving her angular arms, and with her fichu all in rags, that resembled a bat. When she had finished, Father Mabeuf approached her with tears in his eyes, and laid his hand on her brow. 'God will bless you, said he, 'you are an angel since you take care of the flowers. 'No, she replied. 'I am the devil, but that's all the same to me. The old man exclaimed, without either waiting for or hearing her response 'What a pity that I am so unhappy and so poor, and that I can do nothing for you! 'You can do something, said she. 'What? 'Tell me where M. Marius lives. The old man did not understand. 'What Monsieur Marius? He raised his glassy eyes and seemed to be seeking something that had vanished. 'A young man who used to come here. In the meantime, M. Mabeuf had searched his memory. 'Ah! yes he exclaimed. 'I know what you mean. Wait! Monsieur Mariusthe Baron Marius Pontmercy, parbleu! He lives,or rather, he no longer lives,ah well, I don't know. As he spoke, he had bent over to train a branch of rhododendron, and he continued 'Hold, I know now. He very often passes along the boulevard, and goes in the direction of the Glacire, Rue Croulebarbe. The meadow of the Lark. Go there. It is not hard to meet him. When M. Mabeuf straightened himself up, there was no longer any one there the girl had disappeared. He was decidedly terrified. 'Really, he thought, 'if my garden had not been watered, I should think that she was a spirit. An hour later, when he was in bed, it came back to him, and as he fell asleep, at that confused moment when thought, like that fabulous bird which changes itself into a fish in order to cross the sea, little by little assumes the form of a dream in order to traverse slumber, he said to himself in a bewildered way 'In sooth, that greatly resembles what Rubaudire narrates of the goblins. Could it have been a goblin? Some days after this visit of a 'spirit to Farmer Mabeuf, one morning,it was on a Monday, the day when Marius borrowed the hundredsou piece from Courfeyrac for ThnardierMarius had put this coin in his pocket, and before carrying it to the clerk's office, he had gone 'to take a little stroll, in the hope that this would make him work on his return. It was always thus, however. As soon as he rose, he seated himself before a book and a sheet of paper in order to scribble some translation his task at that epoch consisted in turning into French a celebrated quarrel between Germans, the Gans and Savigny controversy he took Savigny, he took Gans, read four lines, tried to write one, could not, saw a star between him and his paper, and rose from his chair, saying 'I shall go out. That will put me in spirits. And off he went to the Lark's meadow. There he beheld more than ever the star, and less than ever Savigny and Gans. He returned home, tried to take up his work again, and did not succeed there was no means of reknotting a single one of the threads which were broken in his brain then he said to himself 'I will not go out tomorrow. It prevents my working. And he went out every day. He lived in the Lark's meadow more than in Courfeyrac's lodgings. That was his real address Boulevard de la Sant, at the seventh tree from the Rue Croulebarbe. That morning he had quitted the seventh tree and had seated himself on the parapet of the River des Gobelins. A cheerful sunlight penetrated the freshly unfolded and luminous leaves. He was dreaming of 'Her. And his meditation turning to a reproach, fell back upon himself he reflected dolefully on his idleness, his paralysis of soul, which was gaining on him, and of that night which was growing more dense every moment before him, to such a point that he no longer even saw the sun. Nevertheless, athwart this painful extrication of indistinct ideas which was not even a monologue, so feeble had action become in him, and he had no longer the force to care to despair, athwart this melancholy absorption, sensations from without did reach him. He heard behind him, beneath him, on both banks of the river, the laundresses of the Gobelins beating their linen, and above his head, the birds chattering and singing in the elmtrees. On the one hand, the sound of liberty, the careless happiness of the leisure which has wings on the other, the sound of toil. What caused him to meditate deeply, and almost reflect, were two cheerful sounds. All at once, in the midst of his dejected ecstasy, he heard a familiar voice saying 'Come! Here he is! He raised his eyes, and recognized that wretched child who had come to him one morning, the elder of the Thnardier daughters, ponine he knew her name now. Strange to say, she had grown poorer and prettier, two steps which it had not seemed within her power to take. She had accomplished a double progress, towards the light and towards distress. She was barefooted and in rags, as on the day when she had so resolutely entered his chamber, only her rags were two months older now, the holes were larger, the tatters more sordid. It was the same harsh voice, the same brow dimmed and wrinkled with tan, the same free, wild, and vacillating glance. She had besides, more than formerly, in her face that indescribably terrified and lamentable something which sojourn in a prison adds to wretchedness. She had bits of straw and hay in her hair, not like Ophelia through having gone mad from the contagion of Hamlet's madness, but because she had slept in the loft of some stable. And in spite of it all, she was beautiful. What a star art thou, O youth! In the meantime, she had halted in front of Marius with a trace of joy in her livid countenance, and something which resembled a smile. She stood for several moments as though incapable of speech. 'So I have met you at last! she said at length. 'Father Mabeuf was right, it was on this boulevard! How I have hunted for you! If you only knew! Do you know? I have been in the jug. A fortnight! They let me out! seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not reached years of discretion. I lack two months of it. Oh! how I have hunted for you! These six weeks! So you don't live down there any more? 'No, said Marius. 'Ah! I understand. Because of that affair. Those takedowns are disagreeable. You cleared out. Come now! Why do you wear old hats like this! A young man like you ought to have fine clothes. Do you know, Monsieur Marius, Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I don't know what. It isn't true that you are a baron? Barons are old fellows, they go to the Luxembourg, in front of the chteau, where there is the most sun, and they read the Quotidienne for a sou. I once carried a letter to a baron of that sort. He was over a hundred years old. Say, where do you live now? Marius made no reply. 'Ah! she went on, 'you have a hole in your shirt. I must sew it up for you. She resumed with an expression which gradually clouded over 'You don't seem glad to see me. Marius held his peace she remained silent for a moment, then exclaimed 'But if I choose, nevertheless, I could force you to look glad! 'What? demanded Marius. 'What do you mean? 'Ah! you used to call me thou, she retorted. 'Well, then, what dost thou mean? She bit her lips she seemed to hesitate, as though a prey to some sort of inward conflict. At last she appeared to come to a decision. 'So much the worse, I don't care. You have a melancholy air, I want you to be pleased. Only promise me that you will smile. I want to see you smile and hear you say 'Ah, well, that's good.' Poor Mr. Marius! you know? You promised me that you would give me anything I like 'Yes! Only speak! She looked Marius full in the eye, and said 'I have the address. Marius turned pale. All the blood flowed back to his heart. 'What address? 'The address that you asked me to get! She added, as though with an effort 'The addressyou know very well! 'Yes! stammered Marius. 'Of that young lady. This word uttered, she sighed deeply. Marius sprang from the parapet on which he had been sitting and seized her hand distractedly. 'Oh! Well! lead me thither! Tell me! Ask of me anything you wish! Where is it? 'Come with me, she responded. 'I don't know the street or number very well it is in quite the other direction from here, but I know the house well, I will take you to it. She withdrew her hand and went on, in a tone which could have rent the heart of an observer, but which did not even graze Marius in his intoxicated and ecstatic state 'Oh! how glad you are! A cloud swept across Marius' brow. He seized ponine by the arm 'Swear one thing to me! 'Swear! said she, 'what does that mean? Come! You want me to swear? And she laughed. 'Your father! promise me, ponine! Swear to me that you will not give this address to your father! She turned to him with a stupefied air. 'ponine! How do you know that my name is ponine? 'Promise what I tell you! But she did not seem to hear him. 'That's nice! You have called me ponine! Marius grasped both her arms at once. 'But answer me, in the name of Heaven! pay attention to what I am saying to you, swear to me that you will not tell your father this address that you know! 'My father! said she. 'Ah yes, my father! Be at ease. He's in close confinement. Besides, what do I care for my father! 'But you do not promise me! exclaimed Marius. 'Let go of me! she said, bursting into a laugh, 'how you do shake me! Yes! Yes! I promise that! I swear that to you! What is that to me? I will not tell my father the address. There! Is that right? Is that it? 'Nor to any one? said Marius. 'Nor to any one. 'Now, resumed Marius, 'take me there. 'Immediately? 'Immediately. 'Come along. Ah! how pleased he is! said she. After a few steps she halted. 'You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius. Let me go on ahead, and follow me so, without seeming to do it. A nice young man like you must not be seen with a woman like me. No tongue can express all that lay in that word, woman, thus pronounced by that child. She proceeded a dozen paces and then halted once more Marius joined her. She addressed him sideways, and without turning towards him 'By the way, you know that you promised me something? Marius fumbled in his pocket. All that he owned in the world was the five francs intended for Thnardier the father. He took them and laid them in ponine's hand. She opened her fingers and let the coin fall to the ground, and gazed at him with a gloomy air. 'I don't want your money, said she. About the middle of the last century, a chief justice in the Parliament of Paris having a mistress and concealing the fact, for at that period the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bourgeois concealed them, had 'a little house built in the Faubourg SaintGermain, in the deserted Rue Blomet, which is now called Rue Plumet, not far from the spot which was then designated as Combat des Animaux. This house was composed of a singlestoried pavilion two rooms on the ground floor, two chambers on the first floor, a kitchen downstairs, a boudoir upstairs, an attic under the roof, the whole preceded by a garden with a large gate opening on the street. This garden was about an acre and a half in extent. This was all that could be seen by passersby but behind the pavilion there was a narrow courtyard, and at the end of the courtyard a low building consisting of two rooms and a cellar, a sort of preparation destined to conceal a child and nurse in case of need. This building communicated in the rear by a masked door which opened by a secret spring, with a long, narrow, paved winding corridor, open to the sky, hemmed in with two lofty walls, which, hidden with wonderful art, and lost as it were between garden enclosures and cultivated land, all of whose angles and detours it followed, ended in another door, also with a secret lock which opened a quarter of a league away, almost in another quarter, at the solitary extremity of the Rue du Babylone. Through this the chief justice entered, so that even those who were spying on him and following him would merely have observed that the justice betook himself every day in a mysterious way somewhere, and would never have suspected that to go to the Rue de Babylone was to go to the Rue Blomet. Thanks to clever purchasers of land, the magistrate had been able to make a secret, sewerlike passage on his own property, and consequently, without interference. Later on, he had sold in little parcels, for gardens and market gardens, the lots of ground adjoining the corridor, and the proprietors of these lots on both sides thought they had a party wall before their eyes, and did not even suspect the long, paved ribbon winding between two walls amid their flowerbeds and their orchards. Only the birds beheld this curiosity. It is probable that the linnets and tomtits of the last century gossiped a great deal about the chief justice. The pavilion, built of stone in the taste of Mansard, wainscoted and furnished in the Watteau style, rocaille on the inside, oldfashioned on the outside, walled in with a triple hedge of flowers, had something discreet, coquettish, and solemn about it, as befits a caprice of love and magistracy. This house and corridor, which have now disappeared, were in existence fifteen years ago. In ' a coppersmith had purchased the house with the idea of demolishing it, but had not been able to pay the price the nation made him bankrupt. So that it was the house which demolished the coppersmith. After that, the house remained uninhabited, and fell slowly to ruin, as does every dwelling to which the presence of man does not communicate life. It had remained fitted with its old furniture, was always for sale or to let, and the ten or a dozen people who passed through the Rue Plumet were warned of the fact by a yellow and illegible bit of writing which had hung on the garden wall since . Towards the end of the Restoration, these same passersby might have noticed that the bill had disappeared, and even that the shutters on the first floor were open. The house was occupied, in fact. The windows had short curtains, a sign that there was a woman about. In the month of October, , a man of a certain age had presented himself and had hired the house just as it stood, including, of course, the back building and the lane which ended in the Rue de Babylone. He had had the secret openings of the two doors to this passage repaired. The house, as we have just mentioned, was still very nearly furnished with the justice's old fitting the new tenant had ordered some repairs, had added what was lacking here and there, had replaced the pavingstones in the yard, bricks in the floors, steps in the stairs, missing bits in the inlaid floors and the glass in the lattice windows, and had finally installed himself there with a young girl and an elderly maidservant, without commotion, rather like a person who is slipping in than like a man who is entering his own house. The neighbors did not gossip about him, for the reason that there were no neighbors. This unobtrusive tenant was Jean Valjean, the young girl was Cosette. The servant was a woman named Toussaint, whom Jean Valjean had saved from the hospital and from wretchedness, and who was elderly, a stammerer, and from the provinces, three qualities which had decided Jean Valjean to take her with him. He had hired the house under the name of M. Fauchelevent, independent gentleman. In all that has been related heretofore, the reader has, doubtless, been no less prompt than Thnardier to recognize Jean Valjean. Why had Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the PetitPicpus? What had happened? Nothing had happened. It will be remembered that Jean Valjean was happy in the convent, so happy that his conscience finally took the alarm. He saw Cosette every day, he felt paternity spring up and develop within him more and more, he brooded over the soul of that child, he said to himself that she was his, that nothing could take her from him, that this would last indefinitely, that she would certainly become a nun, being thereto gently incited every day, that thus the convent was henceforth the universe for her as it was for him, that he should grow old there, and that she would grow up there, that she would grow old there, and that he should die there that, in short, delightful hope, no separation was possible. On reflecting upon this, he fell into perplexity. He interrogated himself. He asked himself if all that happiness were really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, of the happiness of that child which he, an old man, was confiscating and stealing if that were not theft? He said to himself, that this child had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in advance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, under the pretext of saving her from all trials, to take advantage of her ignorance of her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocation germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie to God. And who knows if, when she came to be aware of all this some day, and found herself a nun to her sorrow, Cosette would not come to hate him? A last, almost selfish thought, and less heroic than the rest, but which was intolerable to him. He resolved to quit the convent. He resolved on this he recognized with anguish, the fact that it was necessary. As for objections, there were none. Five years' sojourn between these four walls and of disappearance had necessarily destroyed or dispersed the elements of fear. He could return tranquilly among men. He had grown old, and all had undergone a change. Who would recognize him now? And then, to face the worst, there was danger only for himself, and he had no right to condemn Cosette to the cloister for the reason that he had been condemned to the galleys. Besides, what is danger in comparison with the right? Finally, nothing prevented his being prudent and taking his precautions. As for Cosette's education, it was almost finished and complete. His determination once taken, he awaited an opportunity. It was not long in presenting itself. Old Fauchelevent died. Jean Valjean demanded an audience with the revered prioress and told her that, having come into a little inheritance at the death of his brother, which permitted him henceforth to live without working, he should leave the service of the convent and take his daughter with him but that, as it was not just that Cosette, since she had not taken the vows, should have received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the Reverend Prioress to see fit that he should offer to the community, as indemnity, for the five years which Cosette had spent there, the sum of five thousand francs. It was thus that Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Perpetual Adoration. On leaving the convent, he took in his own arms the little valise the key to which he still wore on his person, and would permit no porter to touch it. This puzzled Cosette, because of the odor of embalming which proceeded from it. Let us state at once, that this trunk never quitted him more. He always had it in his chamber. It was the first and only thing sometimes, that he carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it, and called this valise his inseparable, saying 'I am jealous of it. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without profound anxiety. He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself from sight there. Henceforth he was in the possession of the nameUltime Fauchelevent. At the same time he hired two other apartments in Paris, in order that he might attract less attention than if he were to remain always in the same quarter, and so that he could, at need, take himself off at the slightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so that he might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he had so miraculously escaped from Javert. These two apartments were very pitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remote from each other, the one in the Rue de l'Ouest, the other in the Rue de l'Homme Arm. He went from time to time, now to the Rue de l'Homme Arm, now to the Rue de l'Ouest, to pass a month or six weeks, without taking Toussaint. He had himself served by the porters, and gave himself out as a gentleman from the suburbs, living on his funds, and having a little temporary restingplace in town. This lofty virtue had three domiciles in Paris for the sake of escaping from the police. However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had arranged his existence there in the following fashion Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion she had the big sleepingroom with the painted pierglasses, the boudoir with the gilded fillets, the justice's drawingroom furnished with tapestries and vast armchairs she had the garden. Jean Valjean had a canopied bed of antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in the Rue du FiguierSaintPaul at Mother Gaucher's, put into Cosette's chamber, and, in order to redeem the severity of these magnificent old things, he had amalgamated with this bricbrac all the gay and graceful little pieces of furniture suitable to young girls, an tagre, a bookcase filled with giltedged books, an inkstand, a blottingbook, paper, a worktable incrusted with mother of pearl, a silvergilt dressingcase, a toilet service in Japanese porcelain. Long damask curtains with a red foundation and three colors, like those on the bed, hung at the windows of the first floor. On the ground floor, the curtains were of tapestry. All winter long, Cosette's little house was heated from top to bottom. Jean Valjean inhabited the sort of porter's lodge which was situated at the end of the back courtyard, with a mattress on a foldingbed, a white wood table, two straw chairs, an earthenware waterjug, a few old volumes on a shelf, his beloved valise in one corner, and never any fire. He dined with Cosette, and he had a loaf of black bread on the table for his own use. When Toussaint came, he had said to her 'It is the young lady who is the mistress of this house.'And you, monsieur? Toussaint replied in amazement.'I am a much better thing than the master, I am the father. Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she regulated their expenditure, which was very modest. Every day, Jean Valjean put his arm through Cosette's and took her for a walk. He led her to the Luxembourg, to the least frequented walk, and every Sunday he took her to mass at SaintJacquesduHautPas, because that was a long way off. As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the poor people surrounded him in church, which had drawn down upon him Thnardier's epistle 'To the benevolent gentleman of the church of SaintJacquesduHautPas. He was fond of taking Cosette to visit the poor and the sick. No stranger ever entered the house in the Rue Plumet. Toussaint brought their provisions, and Jean Valjean went himself for water to a fountain nearby on the boulevard. Their wood and wine were put into a halfsubterranean hollow lined with rockwork which lay near the Rue de Babylone and which had formerly served the chiefjustice as a grotto for at the epoch of follies and 'Little Houses no love was without a grotto. In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone, there was a box destined for the reception of letters and papers only, as the three inhabitants of the pavilion in the Rue Plumet received neither papers nor letters, the entire usefulness of that box, formerly the gobetween of a love affair, and the confidant of a lovelorn lawyer, was now limited to the taxcollector's notices, and the summons of the guard. For M. Fauchelevent, independent gentleman, belonged to the national guard he had not been able to escape through the fine meshes of the census of . The municipal information collected at that time had even reached the convent of the PetitPicpus, a sort of impenetrable and holy cloud, whence Jean Valjean had emerged in venerable guise, and, consequently, worthy of mounting guard in the eyes of the townhall. Three or four times a year, Jean Valjean donned his uniform and mounted guard he did this willingly, however it was a correct disguise which mixed him with every one, and yet left him solitary. Jean Valjean had just attained his sixtieth birthday, the age of legal exemption but he did not appear to be over fifty moreover, he had no desire to escape his sergeantmajor nor to quibble with Comte de Lobau he possessed no civil status, he was concealing his name, he was concealing his identity, so he concealed his age, he concealed everything and, as we have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national guard the sum of his ambition lay in resembling any other man who paid his taxes. This man had for his ideal, within, the angel, without, the bourgeois. Let us note one detail, however when Jean Valjean went out with Cosette, he dressed as the reader has already seen, and had the air of a retired officer. When he went out alone, which was generally at night, he was always dressed in a workingman's trousers and blouse, and wore a cap which concealed his face. Was this precaution or humility? Both. Cosette was accustomed to the enigmatical side of her destiny, and hardly noticed her father's peculiarities. As for Toussaint, she venerated Jean Valjean, and thought everything he did right. One day, her butcher, who had caught a glimpse of Jean Valjean, said to her 'That's a queer fish. She replied 'He's a saint. Neither Jean Valjean nor Cosette nor Toussaint ever entered or emerged except by the door on the Rue de Babylone. Unless seen through the garden gate it would have been difficult to guess that they lived in the Rue Plumet. That gate was always closed. Jean Valjean had left the garden uncultivated, in order not to attract attention. In this, possibly, he made a mistake. The garden thus left to itself for more than half a century had become extraordinary and charming. The passersby of forty years ago halted to gaze at it, without a suspicion of the secrets which it hid in its fresh and verdant depths. More than one dreamer of that epoch often allowed his thoughts and his eyes to penetrate indiscreetly between the bars of that ancient, padlocked gate, twisted, tottering, fastened to two green and mosscovered pillars, and oddly crowned with a pediment of undecipherable arabesque. There was a stone bench in one corner, one or two mouldy statues, several lattices which had lost their nails with time, were rotting on the wall, and there were no walks nor turf but there was enough grass everywhere. Gardening had taken its departure, and nature had returned. Weeds abounded, which was a great piece of luck for a poor corner of land. The festival of gilliflowers was something splendid. Nothing in this garden obstructed the sacred effort of things towards life venerable growth reigned there among them. The trees had bent over towards the nettles, the plant had sprung upward, the branch had inclined, that which crawls on the earth had gone in search of that which expands in the air, that which floats on the wind had bent over towards that which trails in the moss trunks, boughs, leaves, fibres, clusters, tendrils, shoots, spines, thorns, had mingled, crossed, married, confounded themselves in each other vegetation in a deep and close embrace, had celebrated and accomplished there, under the wellpleased eye of the Creator, in that enclosure three hundred feet square, the holy mystery of fraternity, symbol of the human fraternity. This garden was no longer a garden, it was a colossal thicket, that is to say, something as impenetrable as a forest, as peopled as a city, quivering like a nest, sombre like a cathedral, fragrant like a bouquet, solitary as a tomb, living as a throng. In Floral this enormous thicket, free behind its gate and within its four walls, entered upon the secret labor of germination, quivered in the rising sun, almost like an animal which drinks in the breaths of cosmic love, and which feels the sap of April rising and boiling in its veins, and shakes to the wind its enormous wonderful green locks, sprinkled on the damp earth, on the defaced statues, on the crumbling steps of the pavilion, and even on the pavement of the deserted street, flowers like stars, dew like pearls, fecundity, beauty, life, joy, perfumes. At midday, a thousand white butterflies took refuge there, and it was a divine spectacle to see that living summer snow whirling about there in flakes amid the shade. There, in those gay shadows of verdure, a throng of innocent voices spoke sweetly to the soul, and what the twittering forgot to say the humming completed. In the evening, a dreamy vapor exhaled from the garden and enveloped it a shroud of mist, a calm and celestial sadness covered it the intoxicating perfume of the honeysuckles and convolvulus poured out from every part of it, like an exquisite and subtle poison the last appeals of the woodpeckers and the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches one felt the sacred intimacy of the birds and the trees by day the wings rejoice the leaves, by night the leaves protect the wings. In winter the thicket was black, dripping, bristling, shivering, and allowed some glimpse of the house. Instead of flowers on the branches and dew in the flowers, the long silvery tracks of the snails were visible on the cold, thick carpet of yellow leaves but in any fashion, under any aspect, at all seasons, spring, winter, summer, autumn, this tiny enclosure breathed forth melancholy, contemplation, solitude, liberty, the absence of man, the presence of God and the rusty old gate had the air of saying 'This garden belongs to me. It was of no avail that the pavements of Paris were there on every side, the classic and splendid hotels of the Rue de Varennes a couple of paces away, the dome of the Invalides close at hand, the Chamber of Deputies not far off the carriages of the Rue de Bourgogne and of the Rue SaintDominique rumbled luxuriously, in vain, in the vicinity, in vain did the yellow, brown, white, and red omnibuses cross each other's course at the neighboring crossroads the Rue Plumet was the desert and the death of the former proprietors, the revolution which had passed over it, the crumbling away of ancient fortunes, absence, forgetfulness, forty years of abandonment and widowhood, had sufficed to restore to this privileged spot ferns, mulleins, hemlock, yarrow, tall weeds, great crimped plants, with large leaves of pale green cloth, lizards, beetles, uneasy and rapid insects to cause to spring forth from the depths of the earth and to reappear between those four walls a certain indescribable and savage grandeur and for nature, which disconcerts the petty arrangements of man, and which sheds herself always thoroughly where she diffuses herself at all, in the ant as well as in the eagle, to blossom out in a petty little Parisian garden with as much rude force and majesty as in a virgin forest of the New World. Nothing is small, in fact any one who is subject to the profound and penetrating influence of nature knows this. Although no absolute satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity. Everything toils at everything. Algebra is applied to the clouds the radiation of the star profits the rose no thinker would venture to affirm that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the course of a molecule? How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches of creation? The tiniest worm is of importance the great is little, the little is great everything is balanced in necessity alarming vision for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despises the other all have need of each other. The light does not bear away terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is doing the night distributes stellar essences to the sleeping flowers. All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. Germination is complicated with the bursting forth of a meteor and with the peck of a swallow cracking its egg, and it places on one level the birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers a nebula is an anthill of stars. The same promiscuousness, and yet more unprecedented, exists between the things of the intelligence and the facts of substance. Elements and principles mingle, combine, wed, multiply with each other, to such a point that the material and the moral world are brought eventually to the same clearness. The phenomenon is perpetually returning upon itself. In the vast cosmic exchanges the universal life goes and comes in unknown quantities, rolling entirely in the invisible mystery of effluvia, employing everything, not losing a single dream, not a single slumber, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling to bits a planet there, oscillating and winding, making of light a force and of thought an element, disseminated and invisible, dissolving all, except that geometrical point, the I bringing everything back to the soulatom expanding everything in God, entangling all activity, from summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating, who knows? Were it only by the identity of the law, the evolution of the comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, the prime motor of which is the gnat, and whose final wheel is the zodiac. It seemed that this garden, created in olden days to conceal wanton mysteries, had been transformed and become fitted to shelter chaste mysteries. There were no longer either arbors, or bowling greens, or tunnels, or grottos there was a magnificent, dishevelled obscurity falling like a veil over all. Paphos had been made over into Eden. It is impossible to say what element of repentance had rendered this retreat wholesome. This flowergirl now offered her blossom to the soul. This coquettish garden, formerly decidedly compromised, had returned to virginity and modesty. A justice assisted by a gardener, a goodman who thought that he was a continuation of Lamoignon, and another goodman who thought that he was a continuation of Lentre, had turned it about, cut, ruffled, decked, moulded it to gallantry nature had taken possession of it once more, had filled it with shade, and had arranged it for love. There was, also, in this solitude, a heart which was quite ready. Love had only to show himself he had here a temple composed of verdure, grass, moss, the sight of birds, tender shadows, agitated branches, and a soul made of sweetness, of faith, of candor, of hope, of aspiration, and of illusion. Cosette had left the convent when she was still almost a child she was a little more than fourteen, and she was at the 'ungrateful age we have already said, that with the exception of her eyes, she was homely rather than pretty she had no ungraceful feature, but she was awkward, thin, timid and bold at once, a grownup little girl, in short. Her education was finished, that is to say, she has been taught religion, and even and above all, devotion then 'history, that is to say the thing that bears that name in convents, geography, grammar, the participles, the kings of France, a little music, a little drawing, etc. but in all other respects she was utterly ignorant, which is a great charm and a great peril. The soul of a young girl should not be left in the dark later on, mirages that are too abrupt and too lively are formed there, as in a dark chamber. She should be gently and discreetly enlightened, rather with the reflection of realities than with their harsh and direct light. A useful and graciously austere halflight which dissipates puerile fears and obviates falls. There is nothing but the maternal instinct, that admirable intuition composed of the memories of the virgin and the experience of the woman, which knows how this halflight is to be created and of what it should consist. Nothing supplies the place of this instinct. All the nuns in the world are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's soul. Cosette had had no mother. She had only had many mothers, in the plural. As for Jean Valjean, he was, indeed, all tenderness, all solicitude but he was only an old man and he knew nothing at all. Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of preparing a woman for life, what science is required to combat that vast ignorance which is called innocence! Nothing prepares a young girl for passions like the convent. The convent turns the thoughts in the direction of the unknown. The heart, thus thrown back upon itself, works downward within itself, since it cannot overflow, and grows deep, since it cannot expand. Hence visions, suppositions, conjectures, outlines of romances, a desire for adventures, fantastic constructions, edifices built wholly in the inner obscurity of the mind, sombre and secret abodes where the passions immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open gate permits them to enter. The convent is a compression which, in order to triumph over the human heart, should last during the whole life. On quitting the convent, Cosette could have found nothing more sweet and more dangerous than the house in the Rue Plumet. It was the continuation of solitude with the beginning of liberty a garden that was closed, but a nature that was acrid, rich, voluptuous, and fragrant the same dreams as in the convent, but with glimpses of young men a grating, but one that opened on the street. Still, when she arrived there, we repeat, she was only a child. Jean Valjean gave this neglected garden over to her. 'Do what you like with it, he said to her. This amused Cosette she turned over all the clumps and all the stones, she hunted for 'beasts she played in it, while awaiting the time when she would dream in it she loved this garden for the insects that she found beneath her feet amid the grass, while awaiting the day when she would love it for the stars that she would see through the boughs above her head. And then, she loved her father, that is to say, Jean Valjean, with all her soul, with an innocent filial passion which made the goodman a beloved and charming companion to her. It will be remembered that M. Madeleine had been in the habit of reading a great deal. Jean Valjean had continued this practice he had come to converse well he possessed the secret riches and the eloquence of a true and humble mind which has spontaneously cultivated itself. He retained just enough sharpness to season his kindness his mind was rough and his heart was soft. During their conversations in the Luxembourg, he gave her explanations of everything, drawing on what he had read, and also on what he had suffered. As she listened to him, Cosette's eyes wandered vaguely about. This simple man sufficed for Cosette's thought, the same as the wild garden sufficed for her eyes. When she had had a good chase after the butterflies, she came panting up to him and said 'Ah! How I have run! He kissed her brow. Cosette adored the goodman. She was always at his heels. Where Jean Valjean was, there happiness was. Jean Valjean lived neither in the pavilion nor the garden she took greater pleasure in the paved back courtyard, than in the enclosure filled with flowers, and in his little lodge furnished with strawseated chairs than in the great drawingroom hung with tapestry, against which stood tufted easychairs. Jean Valjean sometimes said to her, smiling at his happiness in being importuned 'Do go to your own quarters! Leave me alone a little! She gave him those charming and tender scoldings which are so graceful when they come from a daughter to her father. 'Father, I am very cold in your rooms why don't you have a carpet here and a stove? 'Dear child, there are so many people who are better than I and who have not even a roof over their heads. 'Then why is there a fire in my rooms, and everything that is needed? 'Because you are a woman and a child. 'Bah! must men be cold and feel uncomfortable? 'Certain men. 'That is good, I shall come here so often that you will be obliged to have a fire. And again she said to him 'Father, why do you eat horrible bread like that? 'Because, my daughter. 'Well, if you eat it, I will eat it too. Then, in order to prevent Cosette eating black bread, Jean Valjean ate white bread. Cosette had but a confused recollection of her childhood. She prayed morning and evening for her mother whom she had never known. The Thnardiers had remained with her as two hideous figures in a dream. She remembered that she had gone 'one day, at night, to fetch water in a forest. She thought that it had been very far from Paris. It seemed to her that she had begun to live in an abyss, and that it was Jean Valjean who had rescued her from it. Her childhood produced upon her the effect of a time when there had been nothing around her but millepeds, spiders, and serpents. When she meditated in the evening, before falling asleep, as she had not a very clear idea that she was Jean Valjean's daughter, and that he was her father, she fancied that the soul of her mother had passed into that good man and had come to dwell near her. When he was seated, she leaned her cheek against his white hair, and dropped a silent tear, saying to herself 'Perhaps this man is my mother. Cosette, although this is a strange statement to make, in the profound ignorance of a girl brought up in a convent,maternity being also absolutely unintelligible to virginity,had ended by fancying that she had had as little mother as possible. She did not even know her mother's name. Whenever she asked Jean Valjean, Jean Valjean remained silent. If she repeated her question, he responded with a smile. Once she insisted the smile ended in a tear. This silence on the part of Jean Valjean covered Fantine with darkness. Was it prudence? Was it respect? Was it a fear that he should deliver this name to the hazards of another memory than his own? So long as Cosette had been small, Jean Valjean had been willing to talk to her of her mother when she became a young girl, it was impossible for him to do so. It seemed to him that he no longer dared. Was it because of Cosette? Was it because of Fantine? He felt a certain religious horror at letting that shadow enter Cosette's thought and of placing a third in their destiny. The more sacred this shade was to him, the more did it seem that it was to be feared. He thought of Fantine, and felt himself overwhelmed with silence. Through the darkness, he vaguely perceived something which appeared to have its finger on its lips. Had all the modesty which had been in Fantine, and which had violently quitted her during her lifetime, returned to rest upon her after her death, to watch in indignation over the peace of that dead woman, and in its shyness, to keep her in her grave? Was Jean Valjean unconsciously submitting to the pressure? We who believe in death, are not among the number who will reject this mysterious explanation. Hence the impossibility of uttering, even for Cosette, that name of Fantine. One day Cosette said to him 'Father, I saw my mother in a dream last night. She had two big wings. My mother must have been almost a saint during her life. 'Through martyrdom, replied Jean Valjean. However, Jean Valjean was happy. When Cosette went out with him, she leaned on his arm, proud and happy, in the plenitude of her heart. Jean Valjean felt his heart melt within him with delight, at all these sparks of a tenderness so exclusive, so wholly satisfied with himself alone. The poor man trembled, inundated with angelic joy he declared to himself ecstatically that this would last all their lives he told himself that he really had not suffered sufficiently to merit so radiant a bliss, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted him to be loved thus, he, a wretch, by that innocent being. One day, Cosette chanced to look at herself in her mirror, and she said to herself 'Really! It seemed to her almost that she was pretty. This threw her in a singularly troubled state of mind. Up to that moment she had never thought of her face. She saw herself in her mirror, but she did not look at herself. And then, she had so often been told that she was homely Jean Valjean alone said gently 'No indeed! no indeed! At all events, Cosette had always thought herself homely, and had grown up in that belief with the easy resignation of childhood. And here, all at once, was her mirror saying to her, as Jean Valjean had said 'No indeed! That night, she did not sleep. 'What if I were pretty! she thought. 'How odd it would be if I were pretty! And she recalled those of her companions whose beauty had produced a sensation in the convent, and she said to herself 'What! Am I to be like Mademoiselle SoandSo? The next morning she looked at herself again, not by accident this time, and she was assailed with doubts 'Where did I get such an idea? said she 'no, I am ugly. She had not slept well, that was all, her eyes were sunken and she was pale. She had not felt very joyous on the preceding evening in the belief that she was beautiful, but it made her very sad not to be able to believe in it any longer. She did not look at herself again, and for more than a fortnight she tried to dress her hair with her back turned to the mirror. In the evening, after dinner, she generally embroidered in wool or did some convent needlework in the drawingroom, and Jean Valjean read beside her. Once she raised her eyes from her work, and was rendered quite uneasy by the manner in which her father was gazing at her. On another occasion, she was passing along the street, and it seemed to her that some one behind her, whom she did not see, said 'A pretty woman! but badly dressed. 'Bah! she thought, 'he does not mean me. I am well dressed and ugly. She was then wearing a plush hat and her merino gown. At last, one day when she was in the garden, she heard poor old Toussaint saying 'Do you notice how pretty Cosette is growing, sir? Cosette did not hear her father's reply, but Toussaint's words caused a sort of commotion within her. She fled from the garden, ran up to her room, flew to the lookingglass,it was three months since she had looked at herself,and gave vent to a cry. She had just dazzled herself. She was beautiful and lovely she could not help agreeing with Toussaint and her mirror. Her figure was formed, her skin had grown white, her hair was lustrous, an unaccustomed splendor had been lighted in her blue eyes. The consciousness of her beauty burst upon her in an instant, like the sudden advent of daylight other people noticed it also, Toussaint had said so, it was evidently she of whom the passerby had spoken, there could no longer be any doubt of that she descended to the garden again, thinking herself a queen, imagining that she heard the birds singing, though it was winter, seeing the sky gilded, the sun among the trees, flowers in the thickets, distracted, wild, in inexpressible delight. Jean Valjean, on his side, experienced a deep and undefinable oppression at heart. In fact, he had, for some time past, been contemplating with terror that beauty which seemed to grow more radiant every day on Cosette's sweet face. The dawn that was smiling for all was gloomy for him. Cosette had been beautiful for a tolerably long time before she became aware of it herself. But, from the very first day, that unexpected light which was rising slowly and enveloping the whole of the young girl's person, wounded Jean Valjean's sombre eye. He felt that it was a change in a happy life, a life so happy that he did not dare to move for fear of disarranging something. This man, who had passed through all manner of distresses, who was still all bleeding from the bruises of fate, who had been almost wicked and who had become almost a saint, who, after having dragged the chain of the galleys, was now dragging the invisible but heavy chain of indefinite misery, this man whom the law had not released from its grasp and who could be seized at any moment and brought back from the obscurity of his virtue to the broad daylight of public opprobrium, this man accepted all, excused all, pardoned all, and merely asked of Providence, of man, of the law, of society, of nature, of the world, one thing, that Cosette might love him! That Cosette might continue to love him! That God would not prevent the heart of the child from coming to him, and from remaining with him! Beloved by Cosette, he felt that he was healed, rested, appeased, loaded with benefits, recompensed, crowned. Beloved by Cosette, it was well with him! He asked nothing more! Had any one said to him 'Do you want anything better? he would have answered 'No. God might have said to him 'Do you desire heaven? and he would have replied 'I should lose by it. Everything which could affect this situation, if only on the surface, made him shudder like the beginning of something new. He had never known very distinctly himself what the beauty of a woman means but he understood instinctively, that it was something terrible. He gazed with terror on this beauty, which was blossoming out ever more triumphant and superb beside him, beneath his very eyes, on the innocent and formidable brow of that child, from the depths of her homeliness, of his old age, of his misery, of his reprobation. He said to himself 'How beautiful she is! What is to become of me? There, moreover, lay the difference between his tenderness and the tenderness of a mother. What he beheld with anguish, a mother would have gazed upon with joy. The first symptoms were not long in making their appearance. On the very morrow of the day on which she had said to herself 'Decidedly I am beautiful! Cosette began to pay attention to her toilet. She recalled the remark of that passerby 'Pretty, but badly dressed, the breath of an oracle which had passed beside her and had vanished, after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which are destined, later on, to fill the whole life of woman, coquetry. Love is the other. With faith in her beauty, the whole feminine soul expanded within her. She conceived a horror for her merinos, and shame for her plush hat. Her father had never refused her anything. She at once acquired the whole science of the bonnet, the gown, the mantle, the boot, the cuff, the stuff which is in fashion, the color which is becoming, that science which makes of the Parisian woman something so charming, so deep, and so dangerous. The words heady woman were invented for the Parisienne. In less than a month, little Cosette, in that Thebaid of the Rue de Babylone, was not only one of the prettiest, but one of the 'best dressed women in Paris, which means a great deal more. She would have liked to encounter her 'passerby, to see what he would say, and to 'teach him a lesson! The truth is, that she was ravishing in every respect, and that she distinguished the difference between a bonnet from Grard and one from Herbaut in the most marvellous way. Jean Valjean watched these ravages with anxiety. He who felt that he could never do anything but crawl, walk at the most, beheld wings sprouting on Cosette. Moreover, from the mere inspection of Cosette's toilet, a woman would have recognized the fact that she had no mother. Certain little proprieties, certain special conventionalities, were not observed by Cosette. A mother, for instance, would have told her that a young girl does not dress in damask. The first day that Cosette went out in her black damask gown and mantle, and her white crape bonnet, she took Jean Valjean's arm, gay, radiant, rosy, proud, dazzling. 'Father, she said, 'how do you like me in this guise? Jean Valjean replied in a voice which resembled the bitter voice of an envious man 'Charming! He was the same as usual during their walk. On their return home, he asked Cosette 'Won't you put on that other gown and bonnet again,you know the ones I mean? This took place in Cosette's chamber. Cosette turned towards the wardrobe where her castoff schoolgirl's clothes were hanging. 'That disguise! said she. 'Father, what do you want me to do with it? Oh no, the idea! I shall never put on those horrors again. With that machine on my head, I have the air of Madame Maddog. Jean Valjean heaved a deep sigh. From that moment forth, he noticed that Cosette, who had always heretofore asked to remain at home, saying 'Father, I enjoy myself more here with you, now was always asking to go out. In fact, what is the use of having a handsome face and a delicious costume if one does not display them? He also noticed that Cosette had no longer the same taste for the back garden. Now she preferred the garden, and did not dislike to promenade back and forth in front of the railed fence. Jean Valjean, who was shy, never set foot in the garden. He kept to his back yard, like a dog. Cosette, in gaining the knowledge that she was beautiful, lost the grace of ignoring it. An exquisite grace, for beauty enhanced by ingenuousness is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent creature who walks along, holding in her hand the key to paradise without being conscious of it. But what she had lost in ingenuous grace, she gained in pensive and serious charm. Her whole person, permeated with the joy of youth, of innocence, and of beauty, breathed forth a splendid melancholy. It was at this epoch that Marius, after the lapse of six months, saw her once more at the Luxembourg. Cosette in her shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together these two beings, all charged and all languishing with the stormy electricity of passion, these two souls which were laden with love as two clouds are laden with lightning, and which were bound to overflow and mingle in a look like the clouds in a flash of fire. The glance has been so much abused in love romances that it has finally fallen into disrepute. One hardly dares to say, nowadays, that two beings fell in love because they looked at each other. That is the way people do fall in love, nevertheless, and the only way. The rest is nothing, but the rest comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls convey to each other by the exchange of that spark. At that particular hour when Cosette unconsciously darted that glance which troubled Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he had also launched a look which disturbed Cosette. He caused her the same good and the same evil. She had been in the habit of seeing him for a long time, and she had scrutinized him as girls scrutinize and see, while looking elsewhere. Marius still considered Cosette ugly, when she had already begun to think Marius handsome. But as he paid no attention to her, the young man was nothing to her. Still, she could not refrain from saying to herself that he had beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, handsome teeth, a charming tone of voice when she heard him conversing with his comrades, that he held himself badly when he walked, if you like, but with a grace that was all his own, that he did not appear to be at all stupid, that his whole person was noble, gentle, simple, proud, and that, in short, though he seemed to be poor, yet his air was fine. On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each other those first, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette did not immediately understand. She returned thoughtfully to the house in the Rue de l'Ouest, where Jean Valjean, according to his custom, had come to spend six weeks. The next morning, on waking, she thought of that strange young man, so long indifferent and icy, who now seemed to pay attention to her, and it did not appear to her that this attention was the least in the world agreeable to her. She was, on the contrary, somewhat incensed at this handsome and disdainful individual. A substratum of war stirred within her. It struck her, and the idea caused her a wholly childish joy, that she was going to take her revenge at last. Knowing that she was beautiful, she was thoroughly conscious, though in an indistinct fashion, that she possessed a weapon. Women play with their beauty as children do with a knife. They wound themselves. The reader will recall Marius' hesitations, his palpitations, his terrors. He remained on his bench and did not approach. This vexed Cosette. One day, she said to Jean Valjean 'Father, let us stroll about a little in that direction. Seeing that Marius did not come to her, she went to him. In such cases, all women resemble Mahomet. And then, strange to say, the first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity in a young girl it is boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming, each the other's qualities. That day, Cosette's glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius' glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette uneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other. The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profound melancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become black since the day before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in young girls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. It melts in love, which is its sun. Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard the word uttered in its terrestrial sense. On the books of profane music which entered the convent, amour (love) was replaced by tambour (drum) or pandour. This created enigmas which exercised the imaginations of the big girls, such as Ah, how delightful is the drum! or, Pity is not a pandour. But Cosette had left the convent too early to have occupied herself much with the 'drum. Therefore, she did not know what name to give to what she now felt. Is any one the less ill because one does not know the name of one's malady? She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly. She did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, useful or dangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable or prohibited she loved. She would have been greatly astonished, had any one said to her 'You do not sleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You blush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at the end of a certain green walk? But that is abominable! She would not have understood, and she would have replied 'What fault is there of mine in a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing? It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited to the state of her soul. It was a sort of admiration at a distance, a mute contemplation, the deification of a stranger. It was the apparition of youth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaining a dream, the longedfor phantom realized and made flesh at last, but having as yet, neither name, nor fault, nor spot, nor exigence, nor defect in a word, the distant lover who lingered in the ideal, a chimra with a form. Any nearer and more palpable meeting would have alarmed Cosette at this first stage, when she was still half immersed in the exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of children and all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, with which she had been permeated for the space of five years, was still in the process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everything tremble around her. In this situation he was not a lover, he was not even an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius as something charming, luminous, and impossible. As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him with all frankness. Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with impatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy, and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought when she said to Jean Valjean 'What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is! Marius and Cosette were in the dark as to one another. They did not address each other, they did not salute each other, they did not know each other they saw each other and like stars of heaven which are separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other. It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed, beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of her beauty, and in ignorance of her love. She was a coquette to boot through her ignorance. All situations have their instincts. Old and eternal Mother Nature warned Jean Valjean in a dim way of the presence of Marius. Jean Valjean shuddered to the very bottom of his soul. Jean Valjean saw nothing, knew nothing, and yet he scanned with obstinate attention, the darkness in which he walked, as though he felt on one side of him something in process of construction, and on the other, something which was crumbling away. Marius, also warned, and, in accordance with the deep law of God, by that same Mother Nature, did all he could to keep out of sight of 'the father. Nevertheless, it came to pass that Jean Valjean sometimes espied him. Marius' manners were no longer in the least natural. He exhibited ambiguous prudence and awkward daring. He no longer came quite close to them as formerly. He seated himself at a distance and pretended to be reading why did he pretend that? Formerly he had come in his old coat, now he wore his new one every day Jean Valjean was not sure that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore gloves in short, Jean Valjean cordially detested this young man. Cosette allowed nothing to be divined. Without knowing just what was the matter with her she was convinced that there was something in it, and that it must be concealed. There was a coincidence between the taste for the toilet which had recently come to Cosette, and the habit of new clothes developed by that stranger which was very repugnant to Jean Valjean. It might be accidental, no doubt, certainly, but it was a menacing accident. He never opened his mouth to Cosette about this stranger. One day, however, he could not refrain from so doing, and, with that vague despair which suddenly casts the lead into the depths of its despair, he said to her 'What a very pedantic air that young man has! Cosette, but a year before only an indifferent little girl, would have replied 'Why, no, he is charming. Ten years later, with the love of Marius in her heart, she would have answered 'A pedant, and insufferable to the sight! You are right!At the moment in life and the heart which she had then attained, she contented herself with replying, with supreme calmness 'That young man! As though she now beheld him for the first time in her life. 'How stupid I am! thought Jean Valjean. 'She had not noticed him. It is I who have pointed him out to her. Oh, simplicity of the old! oh, the depth of children! It is one of the laws of those fresh years of suffering and trouble, of those vivacious conflicts between a first love and the first obstacles, that the young girl does not allow herself to be caught in any trap whatever, and that the young man falls into every one. Jean Valjean had instituted an undeclared war against Marius, which Marius, with the sublime stupidity of his passion and his age, did not divine. Jean Valjean laid a host of ambushes for him he changed his hour, he changed his bench, he forgot his handkerchief, he came alone to the Luxembourg Marius dashed headlong into all these snares and to all the interrogation marks planted by Jean Valjean in his pathway, he ingenuously answered 'yes. But Cosette remained immured in her apparent unconcern and in her imperturbable tranquillity, so that Jean Valjean arrived at the following conclusion 'That ninny is madly in love with Cosette, but Cosette does not even know that he exists. Nonetheless did he bear in his heart a mournful tremor. The minute when Cosette would love might strike at any moment. Does not everything begin with indifference? Only once did Cosette make a mistake and alarm him. He rose from his seat to depart, after a stay of three hours, and she said 'What, already? Jean Valjean had not discontinued his trips to the Luxembourg, as he did not wish to do anything out of the way, and as, above all things, he feared to arouse Cosette but during the hours which were so sweet to the lovers, while Cosette was sending her smile to the intoxicated Marius, who perceived nothing else now, and who now saw nothing in all the world but an adored and radiant face, Jean Valjean was fixing on Marius flashing and terrible eyes. He, who had finally come to believe himself incapable of a malevolent feeling, experienced moments when Marius was present, in which he thought he was becoming savage and ferocious once more, and he felt the old depths of his soul, which had formerly contained so much wrath, opening once more and rising up against that young man. It almost seemed to him that unknown craters were forming in his bosom. What! he was there, that creature! What was he there for? He came creeping about, smelling out, examining, trying! He came, saying 'Hey! Why not? He came to prowl about his, Jean Valjean's, life! to prowl about his happiness, with the purpose of seizing it and bearing it away! Jean Valjean added 'Yes, that's it! What is he in search of? An adventure! What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every milepost, along every wall, I have been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg. Then his eyes were filled with a sad and extraordinary gleam. It was no longer a man gazing at a man it was no longer an enemy surveying an enemy. It was a dog scanning a thief. The reader knows the rest. Marius pursued his senseless course. One day he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to the porter. The porter, on his side, spoke, and said to Jean Valjean 'Monsieur, who is that curious young man who is asking for you? On the morrow Jean Valjean bestowed on Marius that glance which Marius at last perceived. A week later, Jean Valjean had taken his departure. He swore to himself that he would never again set foot either in the Luxembourg or in the Rue de l'Ouest. He returned to the Rue Plumet. Cosette did not complain, she said nothing, she asked no questions, she did not seek to learn his reasons she had already reached the point where she was afraid of being divined, and of betraying herself. Jean Valjean had no experience of these miseries, the only miseries which are charming and the only ones with which he was not acquainted the consequence was that he did not understand the grave significance of Cosette's silence. He merely noticed that she had grown sad, and he grew gloomy. On his side and on hers, inexperience had joined issue. Once he made a trial. He asked Cosette 'Would you like to come to the Luxembourg? A ray illuminated Cosette's pale face. 'Yes, said she. They went thither. Three months had elapsed. Marius no longer went there. Marius was not there. On the following day, Jean Valjean asked Cosette again 'Would you like to come to the Luxembourg? She replied, sadly and gently 'No. Jean Valjean was hurt by this sadness, and heartbroken at this gentleness. What was going on in that mind which was so young and yet already so impenetrable? What was on its way there within? What was taking place in Cosette's soul? Sometimes, instead of going to bed, Jean Valjean remained seated on his pallet, with his head in his hands, and he passed whole nights asking himself 'What has Cosette in her mind? and in thinking of the things that she might be thinking about. Oh! at such moments, what mournful glances did he cast towards that cloister, that chaste peak, that abode of angels, that inaccessible glacier of virtue! How he contemplated, with despairing ecstasy, that convent garden, full of ignored flowers and cloistered virgins, where all perfumes and all souls mount straight to heaven! How he adored that Eden forever closed against him, whence he had voluntarily and madly emerged! How he regretted his abnegation and his folly in having brought Cosette back into the world, poor hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled to the earth by his very selfdevotion! How he said to himself, 'What have I done? However, nothing of all this was perceptible to Cosette. No illtemper, no harshness. His face was always serene and kind. Jean Valjean's manners were more tender and more paternal than ever. If anything could have betrayed his lack of joy, it was his increased suavity. On her side, Cosette languished. She suffered from the absence of Marius as she had rejoiced in his presence, peculiarly, without exactly being conscious of it. When Jean Valjean ceased to take her on their customary strolls, a feminine instinct murmured confusedly, at the bottom of her heart, that she must not seem to set store on the Luxembourg garden, and that if this proved to be a matter of indifference to her, her father would take her thither once more. But days, weeks, months, elapsed. Jean Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette's tacit consent. She regretted it. It was too late. So Marius had disappeared all was over. The day on which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. What was to be done? Should she ever find him again? She felt an anguish at her heart, which nothing relieved, and which augmented every day she no longer knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was raining or shining, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the season for dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done 'her marketing well or ill and she remained dejected, absorbed, attentive to but a single thought, her eyes vague and staring as when one gazes by night at a black and fathomless spot where an apparition has vanished. However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this, except her pallor. She still wore her sweet face for him. This pallor sufficed but too thoroughly to trouble Jean Valjean. Sometimes he asked her 'What is the matter with you? She replied 'There is nothing the matter with me. And after a silence, when she divined that he was sad also, she would add 'And you, fatheris there anything wrong with you? 'With me? Nothing, said he. These two beings who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching an affection, and who had lived so long for each other now suffered side by side, each on the other's account without acknowledging it to each other, without anger towards each other, and with a smile. Jean Valjean was the more unhappy of the two. Youth, even in its sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance. At times, Jean Valjean suffered so greatly that he became puerile. It is the property of grief to cause the childish side of man to reappear. He had an unconquerable conviction that Cosette was escaping from him. He would have liked to resist, to retain her, to arouse her enthusiasm by some external and brilliant matter. These ideas, puerile, as we have just said, and at the same time senile, conveyed to him, by their very childishness, a tolerably just notion of the influence of gold lace on the imaginations of young girls. He once chanced to see a general on horseback, in full uniform, pass along the street, Comte Coutard, the commandant of Paris. He envied that gilded man what happiness it would be, he said to himself, if he could put on that suit which was an incontestable thing and if Cosette could behold him thus, she would be dazzled, and when he had Cosette on his arm and passed the gates of the Tuileries, the guard would present arms to him, and that would suffice for Cosette, and would dispel her idea of looking at young men. An unforeseen shock was added to these sad reflections. In the isolated life which they led, and since they had come to dwell in the Rue Plumet, they had contracted one habit. They sometimes took a pleasure trip to see the sun rise, a mild species of enjoyment which befits those who are entering life and those who are quitting it. For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent to a stroll by night, with the cheerfulness of nature added. The streets are deserted and the birds are singing. Cosette, a bird herself, liked to rise early. These matutinal excursions were planned on the preceding evening. He proposed, and she agreed. It was arranged like a plot, they set out before daybreak, and these trips were so many small delights for Cosette. These innocent eccentricities please young people. Jean Valjean's inclination led him, as we have seen, to the least frequented spots, to solitary nooks, to forgotten places. There then existed, in the vicinity of the barriers of Paris, a sort of poor meadows, which were almost confounded with the city, where grew in summer sickly grain, and which, in autumn, after the harvest had been gathered, presented the appearance, not of having been reaped, but peeled. Jean Valjean loved to haunt these fields. Cosette was not bored there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she became a little girl once more, she could run and almost play she took off her hat, laid it on Jean Valjean's knees, and gathered bunches of flowers. She gazed at the butterflies on the flowers, but did not catch them gentleness and tenderness are born with love, and the young girl who cherishes within her breast a trembling and fragile ideal has mercy on the wing of a butterfly. She wove garlands of poppies, which she placed on her head, and which, crossed and penetrated with sunlight, glowing until they flamed, formed for her rosy face a crown of burning embers. Even after their life had grown sad, they kept up their custom of early strolls. One morning in October, therefore, tempted by the serene perfection of the autumn of , they set out, and found themselves at break of day near the Barrire du Maine. It was not dawn, it was daybreak a delightful and stern moment. A few constellations here and there in the deep, pale azure, the earth all black, the heavens all white, a quiver amid the blades of grass, everywhere the mysterious chill of twilight. A lark, which seemed mingled with the stars, was carolling at a prodigious height, and one would have declared that that hymn of pettiness calmed immensity. In the East, the ValdeGrce projected its dark mass on the clear horizon with the sharpness of steel Venus dazzlingly brilliant was rising behind that dome and had the air of a soul making its escape from a gloomy edifice. All was peace and silence there was no one on the road a few stray laborers, of whom they caught barely a glimpse, were on their way to their work along the sidepaths. Jean Valjean was sitting in a crosswalk on some planks deposited at the gate of a timberyard. His face was turned towards the highway, his back towards the light he had forgotten the sun which was on the point of rising he had sunk into one of those profound absorptions in which the mind becomes concentrated, which imprison even the eye, and which are equivalent to four walls. There are meditations which may be called vertical when one is at the bottom of them, time is required to return to earth. Jean Valjean had plunged into one of these reveries. He was thinking of Cosette, of the happiness that was possible if nothing came between him and her, of the light with which she filled his life, a light which was but the emanation of her soul. He was almost happy in his reverie. Cosette, who was standing beside him, was gazing at the clouds as they turned rosy. All at once Cosette exclaimed 'Father, I should think some one was coming yonder. Jean Valjean raised his eyes. Cosette was right. The causeway which leads to the ancient Barrire du Maine is a prolongation, as the reader knows, of the Rue de Svres, and is cut at right angles by the inner boulevard. At the elbow of the causeway and the boulevard, at the spot where it branches, they heard a noise which it was difficult to account for at that hour, and a sort of confused pile made its appearance. Some shapeless thing which was coming from the boulevard was turning into the road. It grew larger, it seemed to move in an orderly manner, though it was bristling and quivering it seemed to be a vehicle, but its load could not be distinctly made out. There were horses, wheels, shouts whips were cracking. By degrees the outlines became fixed, although bathed in shadows. It was a vehicle, in fact, which had just turned from the boulevard into the highway, and which was directing its course towards the barrier near which sat Jean Valjean a second, of the same aspect, followed, then a third, then a fourth seven chariots made their appearance in succession, the heads of the horses touching the rear of the wagon in front. Figures were moving on these vehicles, flashes were visible through the dusk as though there were naked swords there, a clanking became audible which resembled the rattling of chains, and as this something advanced, the sound of voices waxed louder, and it turned into a terrible thing such as emerges from the cave of dreams. As it drew nearer, it assumed a form, and was outlined behind the trees with the pallid hue of an apparition the mass grew white the day, which was slowly dawning, cast a wan light on this swarming heap which was at once both sepulchral and living, the heads of the figures turned into the faces of corpses, and this is what it proved to be Seven wagons were driving in a file along the road. The first six were singularly constructed. They resembled coopers' drays they consisted of long ladders placed on two wheels and forming barrows at their rear extremities. Each dray, or rather let us say, each ladder, was attached to four horses harnessed tandem. On these ladders strange clusters of men were being drawn. In the faint light, these men were to be divined rather than seen. Twentyfour on each vehicle, twelve on a side, back to back, facing the passersby, their legs dangling in the air,this was the manner in which these men were travelling, and behind their backs they had something which clanked, and which was a chain, and on their necks something which shone, and which was an iron collar. Each man had his collar, but the chain was for all so that if these four and twenty men had occasion to alight from the dray and walk, they were seized with a sort of inexorable unity, and were obliged to wind over the ground with the chain for a backbone, somewhat after the fashion of millepeds. In the back and front of each vehicle, two men armed with muskets stood erect, each holding one end of the chain under his foot. The iron necklets were square. The seventh vehicle, a huge racksided baggage wagon, without a hood, had four wheels and six horses, and carried a sonorous pile of iron boilers, castiron pots, braziers, and chains, among which were mingled several men who were pinioned and stretched at full length, and who seemed to be ill. This wagon, all latticework, was garnished with dilapidated hurdles which appeared to have served for former punishments. These vehicles kept to the middle of the road. On each side marched a double hedge of guards of infamous aspect, wearing threecornered hats, like the soldiers under the Directory, shabby, covered with spots and holes, muffled in uniforms of veterans and the trousers of undertakers' men, half gray, half blue, which were almost hanging in rags, with red epaulets, yellow shoulder belts, short sabres, muskets, and cudgels they were a species of soldierblackguards. These myrmidons seemed composed of the abjectness of the beggar and the authority of the executioner. The one who appeared to be their chief held a postilion's whip in his hand. All these details, blurred by the dimness of dawn, became more and more clearly outlined as the light increased. At the head and in the rear of the convoy rode mounted gendarmes, serious and with sword in fist. This procession was so long that when the first vehicle reached the barrier, the last was barely debauching from the boulevard. A throng, sprung, it is impossible to say whence, and formed in a twinkling, as is frequently the case in Paris, pressed forward from both sides of the road and looked on. In the neighboring lanes the shouts of people calling to each other and the wooden shoes of marketgardeners hastening up to gaze were audible. The men massed upon the drays allowed themselves to be jolted along in silence. They were livid with the chill of morning. They all wore linen trousers, and their bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes. The rest of their costume was a fantasy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were horribly incongruous nothing is more funereal than the harlequin in rags. Battered felt hats, tarpaulin caps, hideous woollen nightcaps, and, side by side with a short blouse, a black coat broken at the elbow many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads hairy breasts were visible, and through the rent in their garments tattooed designs could be descried temples of Love, flaming hearts, Cupids eruptions and unhealthy red blotches could also be seen. Two or three had a straw rope attached to the crossbar of the dray, and suspended under them like a stirrup, which supported their feet. One of them held in his hand and raised to his mouth something which had the appearance of a black stone and which he seemed to be gnawing it was bread which he was eating. There were no eyes there which were not either dry, dulled, or flaming with an evil light. The escort troop cursed, the men in chains did not utter a syllable from time to time the sound of a blow became audible as the cudgels descended on shoulderblades or skulls some of these men were yawning their rags were terrible their feet hung down, their shoulders oscillated, their heads clashed together, their fetters clanked, their eyes glared ferociously, their fists clenched or fell open inertly like the hands of corpses in the rear of the convoy ran a band of children screaming with laughter. This file of vehicles, whatever its nature was, was mournful. It was evident that tomorrow, that an hour hence, a pouring rain might descend, that it might be followed by another and another, and that their dilapidated garments would be drenched, that once soaked, these men would not get dry again, that once chilled, they would not again get warm, that their linen trousers would be glued to their bones by the downpour, that the water would fill their shoes, that no lashes from the whips would be able to prevent their jaws from chattering, that the chain would continue to bind them by the neck, that their legs would continue to dangle, and it was impossible not to shudder at the sight of these human beings thus bound and passive beneath the cold clouds of autumn, and delivered over to the rain, to the blast, to all the furies of the air, like trees and stones. Blows from the cudgel were not omitted even in the case of the sick men, who lay there knotted with ropes and motionless on the seventh wagon, and who appeared to have been tossed there like sacks filled with misery. Suddenly, the sun made its appearance the immense light of the Orient burst forth, and one would have said that it had set fire to all those ferocious heads. Their tongues were unloosed a conflagration of grins, oaths, and songs exploded. The broad horizontal sheet of light severed the file in two parts, illuminating heads and bodies, leaving feet and wheels in the obscurity. Thoughts made their appearance on these faces it was a terrible moment visible demons with their masks removed, fierce souls laid bare. Though lighted up, this wild throng remained in gloom. Some, who were gay, had in their mouths quills through which they blew vermin over the crowd, picking out the women the dawn accentuated these lamentable profiles with the blackness of its shadows there was not one of these creatures who was not deformed by reason of wretchedness and the whole was so monstrous that one would have said that the sun's brilliancy had been changed into the glare of the lightning. The wagonload which headed the line had struck up a song, and were shouting at the top of their voices with a haggard joviality, a potpourri by Desaugiers, then famous, called The Vestal the trees shivered mournfully in the crosslanes, countenances of bourgeois listened in an idiotic delight to these coarse strains droned by spectres. All sorts of distress met in this procession as in chaos here were to be found the facial angles of every sort of beast, old men, youths, bald heads, gray beards, cynical monstrosities, sour resignation, savage grins, senseless attitudes, snouts surmounted by caps, heads like those of young girls with corkscrew curls on the temples, infantile visages, and by reason of that, horrible thin skeleton faces, to which death alone was lacking. On the first cart was a negro, who had been a slave, in all probability, and who could make a comparison of his chains. The frightful leveller from below, shame, had passed over these brows at that degree of abasement, the last transformations were suffered by all in their extremest depths, and ignorance, converted into dulness, was the equal of intelligence converted into despair. There was no choice possible between these men who appeared to the eye as the flower of the mud. It was evident that the person who had had the ordering of that unclean procession had not classified them. These beings had been fettered and coupled pellmell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and loaded haphazard on those carts. Nevertheless, horrors, when grouped together, always end by evolving a result all additions of wretched men give a sum total, each chain exhaled a common soul, and each drayload had its own physiognomy. By the side of the one where they were singing, there was one where they were howling a third where they were begging one could be seen in which they were gnashing their teeth another load menaced the spectators, another blasphemed God the last was as silent as the tomb. Dante would have thought that he beheld his seven circles of hell on the march. The march of the damned to their tortures, performed in sinister wise, not on the formidable and flaming chariot of the Apocalypse, but, what was more mournful than that, on the gibbet cart. One of the guards, who had a hook on the end of his cudgel, made a pretence from time to time, of stirring up this mass of human filth. An old woman in the crowd pointed them out to her little boy five years old, and said to him 'Rascal, let that be a warning to you! As the songs and blasphemies increased, the man who appeared to be the captain of the escort cracked his whip, and at that signal a fearful dull and blind flogging, which produced the sound of hail, fell upon the seven drayloads many roared and foamed at the mouth which redoubled the delight of the street urchins who had hastened up, a swarm of flies on these wounds. Jean Valjean's eyes had assumed a frightful expression. They were no longer eyes they were those deep and glassy objects which replace the glance in the case of certain wretched men, which seem unconscious of reality, and in which flames the reflection of terrors and of catastrophes. He was not looking at a spectacle, he was seeing a vision. He tried to rise, to flee, to make his escape he could not move his feet. Sometimes, the things that you see seize upon you and hold you fast. He remained nailed to the spot, petrified, stupid, asking himself, athwart confused and inexpressible anguish, what this sepulchral persecution signified, and whence had come that pandemonium which was pursuing him. All at once, he raised his hand to his brow, a gesture habitual to those whose memory suddenly returns he remembered that this was, in fact, the usual itinerary, that it was customary to make this detour in order to avoid all possibility of encountering royalty on the road to Fontainebleau, and that, five and thirty years before, he had himself passed through that barrier. Cosette was no less terrified, but in a different way. She did not understand what she beheld did not seem to her to be possible at length she cried 'Father! What are those men in those carts? Jean Valjean replied 'Convicts. 'Whither are they going? 'To the galleys. At that moment, the cudgelling, multiplied by a hundred hands, became zealous, blows with the flat of the sword were mingled with it, it was a perfect storm of whips and clubs the convicts bent before it, a hideous obedience was evoked by the torture, and all held their peace, darting glances like chained wolves. Cosette trembled in every limb she resumed 'Father, are they still men? 'Sometimes, answered the unhappy man. It was the chaingang, in fact, which had set out before daybreak from Bictre, and had taken the road to Mans in order to avoid Fontainebleau, where the King then was. This caused the horrible journey to last three or four days longer but torture may surely be prolonged with the object of sparing the royal personage a sight of it. Jean Valjean returned home utterly overwhelmed. Such encounters are shocks, and the memory that they leave behind them resembles a thorough shaking up. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not observe that, on his way back to the Rue de Babylone with Cosette, the latter was plying him with other questions on the subject of what they had just seen perhaps he was too much absorbed in his own dejection to notice her words and reply to them. But when Cosette was leaving him in the evening, to betake herself to bed, he heard her say in a low voice, and as though talking to herself 'It seems to me, that if I were to find one of those men in my pathway, oh, my God, I should die merely from the sight of him close at hand. Fortunately, chance ordained that on the morrow of that tragic day, there was some official solemnity apropos of I know not what,ftes in Paris, a review in the Champ de Mars, jousts on the Seine, theatrical performances in the Champslyses, fireworks at the Arc de l'toile, illuminations everywhere. Jean Valjean did violence to his habits, and took Cosette to see these rejoicings, for the purpose of diverting her from the memory of the day before, and of effacing, beneath the smiling tumult of all Paris, the abominable thing which had passed before her. The review with which the festival was spiced made the presence of uniforms perfectly natural Jean Valjean donned his uniform of a national guard with the vague inward feeling of a man who is betaking himself to shelter. However, this trip seemed to attain its object. Cosette, who made it her law to please her father, and to whom, moreover, all spectacles were a novelty, accepted this diversion with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too disdainfully at that flutter of enjoyment called a public fte so that Jean Valjean was able to believe that he had succeeded, and that no trace of that hideous vision remained. Some days later, one morning, when the sun was shining brightly, and they were both on the steps leading to the garden, another infraction of the rules which Jean Valjean seemed to have imposed upon himself, and to the custom of remaining in her chamber which melancholy had caused Cosette to adopt, Cosette, in a wrapper, was standing erect in that negligent attire of early morning which envelops young girls in an adorable way and which produces the effect of a cloud drawn over a star and, with her head bathed in light, rosy after a good sleep, submitting to the gentle glances of the tender old man, she was picking a daisy to pieces. Cosette did not know the delightful legend, I love a little, passionately, etc.who was there who could have taught her? She was handling the flower instinctively, innocently, without a suspicion that to pluck a daisy apart is to do the same by a heart. If there were a fourth, and smiling Grace called Melancholy, she would have worn the air of that Grace. Jean Valjean was fascinated by the contemplation of those tiny fingers on that flower, and forgetful of everything in the radiance emitted by that child. A redbreast was warbling in the thicket, on one side. White cloudlets floated across the sky, so gayly, that one would have said that they had just been set at liberty. Cosette went on attentively tearing the leaves from her flower she seemed to be thinking about something but whatever it was, it must be something charming all at once she turned her head over her shoulder with the delicate languor of a swan, and said to Jean Valjean 'Father, what are the galleys like? Thus their life clouded over by degrees. But one diversion, which had formerly been a happiness, remained to them, which was to carry bread to those who were hungry, and clothing to those who were cold. Cosette often accompanied Jean Valjean on these visits to the poor, on which they recovered some remnants of their former free intercourse and sometimes, when the day had been a good one, and they had assisted many in distress, and cheered and warmed many little children, Cosette was rather merry in the evening. It was at this epoch that they paid their visit to the Jondrette den. On the day following that visit, Jean Valjean made his appearance in the pavilion in the morning, calm as was his wont, but with a large wound on his left arm which was much inflamed, and very angry, which resembled a burn, and which he explained in some way or other. This wound resulted in his being detained in the house for a month with fever. He would not call in a doctor. When Cosette urged him, 'Call the dogdoctor, said he. Cosette dressed the wound morning and evening with so divine an air and such angelic happiness at being of use to him, that Jean Valjean felt all his former joy returning, his fears and anxieties dissipating, and he gazed at Cosette, saying 'Oh! what a kindly wound! Oh! what a good misfortune! Cosette on perceiving that her father was ill, had deserted the pavilion and again taken a fancy to the little lodging and the back courtyard. She passed nearly all her days beside Jean Valjean and read to him the books which he desired. Generally they were books of travel. Jean Valjean was undergoing a new birth his happiness was reviving in these ineffable rays the Luxembourg, the prowling young stranger, Cosette's coldness,all these clouds upon his soul were growing dim. He had reached the point where he said to himself 'I imagined all that. I am an old fool. His happiness was so great that the horrible discovery of the Thnardiers made in the Jondrette hovel, unexpected as it was, had, after a fashion, glided over him unnoticed. He had succeeded in making his escape all trace of him was lostwhat more did he care for! he only thought of those wretched beings to pity them. 'Here they are in prison, and henceforth they will be incapacitated for doing any harm, he thought, 'but what a lamentable family in distress! As for the hideous vision of the Barrire du Maine, Cosette had not referred to it again. Sister SainteMechtilde had taught Cosette music in the convent Cosette had the voice of a linnet with a soul, and sometimes, in the evening, in the wounded man's humble abode, she warbled melancholy songs which delighted Jean Valjean. Spring came the garden was so delightful at that season of the year, that Jean Valjean said to Cosette 'You never go there I want you to stroll in it. 'As you like, father, said Cosette. And for the sake of obeying her father, she resumed her walks in the garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who was probably afraid of being seen through the fence, hardly ever went there. Jean Valjean's wound had created a diversion. When Cosette saw that her father was suffering less, that he was convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally had it come. Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a portion of our sadness then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh as dawn always is, gay like every childhood a little inclined to weep at times like the newborn being that it is. In that month, nature has charming gleams which pass from the sky, from the trees, from the meadows and the flowers into the heart of man. Cosette was still too young to escape the penetrating influence of that April joy which bore so strong a resemblance to herself. Insensibly, and without her suspecting the fact, the blackness departed from her spirit. In spring, sad souls grow light, as light falls into cellars at midday. Cosette was no longer sad. However, though this was so, she did not account for it to herself. In the morning, about ten o'clock, after breakfast, when she had succeeded in enticing her father into the garden for a quarter of an hour, and when she was pacing up and down in the sunlight in front of the steps, supporting his left arm for him, she did not perceive that she laughed every moment and that she was happy. Jean Valjean, intoxicated, beheld her growing fresh and rosy once more. 'Oh! What a good wound! he repeated in a whisper. And he felt grateful to the Thnardiers. His wound once healed, he resumed his solitary twilight strolls. It is a mistake to suppose that a person can stroll alone in that fashion in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some adventure. One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing to eat he remembered that he had not dined on the preceding day either this was becoming tiresome. He resolved to make an effort to secure some supper. He strolled out beyond the Salptrire into deserted regions that is where windfalls are to be found where there is no one, one always finds something. He reached a settlement which appeared to him to be the village of Austerlitz. In one of his preceding lounges he had noticed there an old garden haunted by an old man and an old woman, and in that garden, a passable appletree. Beside the appletree stood a sort of fruithouse, which was not securely fastened, and where one might contrive to get an apple. One apple is a supper one apple is life. That which was Adam's ruin might prove Gavroche's salvation. The garden abutted on a solitary, unpaved lane, bordered with brushwood while awaiting the arrival of houses the garden was separated from it by a hedge. Gavroche directed his steps towards this garden he found the lane, he recognized the appletree, he verified the fruithouse, he examined the hedge a hedge means merely one stride. The day was declining, there was not even a cat in the lane, the hour was propitious. Gavroche began the operation of scaling the hedge, then suddenly paused. Some one was talking in the garden. Gavroche peeped through one of the breaks in the hedge. A couple of paces distant, at the foot of the hedge on the other side, exactly at the point where the gap which he was meditating would have been made, there was a sort of recumbent stone which formed a bench, and on this bench was seated the old man of the garden, while the old woman was standing in front of him. The old woman was grumbling. Gavroche, who was not very discreet, listened. 'Monsieur Mabeuf! said the old woman. 'Mabeuf! thought Gavroche, 'that name is a perfect farce. The old man who was thus addressed, did not stir. The old woman repeated 'Monsieur Mabeuf! The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up his mind to answer 'What is it, Mother Plutarque? 'Mother Plutarque! thought Gavroche, 'another farcical name. Mother Plutarque began again, and the old man was forced to accept the conversation 'The landlord is not pleased. 'Why? 'We owe three quarters rent. 'In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters. 'He says that he will turn you out to sleep. 'I will go. 'The greengrocer insists on being paid. She will no longer leave her fagots. What will you warm yourself with this winter? We shall have no wood. 'There is the sun. 'The butcher refuses to give credit he will not let us have any more meat. 'That is quite right. I do not digest meat well. It is too heavy. 'What shall we have for dinner? 'Bread. 'The baker demands a settlement, and says, 'no money, no bread.' 'That is well. 'What will you eat? 'We have apples in the appleroom. 'But, Monsieur, we can't live like that without money. 'I have none. The old woman went away, the old man remained alone. He fell into thought. Gavroche became thoughtful also. It was almost dark. The first result of Gavroche's meditation was, that instead of scaling the hedge, he crouched down under it. The branches stood apart a little at the foot of the thicket. 'Come, exclaimed Gavroche mentally, 'here's a nook! and he curled up in it. His back was almost in contact with Father Mabeuf's bench. He could hear the octogenarian breathe. Then, by way of dinner, he tried to sleep. It was a catnap, with one eye open. While he dozed, Gavroche kept on the watch. The twilight pallor of the sky blanched the earth, and the lane formed a livid line between two rows of dark bushes. All at once, in this whitish band, two figures made their appearance. One was in front, the other some distance in the rear. 'There come two creatures, muttered Gavroche. The first form seemed to be some elderly bourgeois, who was bent and thoughtful, dressed more than plainly, and who was walking slowly because of his age, and strolling about in the open evening air. The second was straight, firm, slender. It regulated its pace by that of the first but in the voluntary slowness of its gait, suppleness and agility were discernible. This figure had also something fierce and disquieting about it, the whole shape was that of what was then called an elegant the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, probably of fine cloth, and well fitted in at the waist. The head was held erect with a sort of robust grace, and beneath the hat the pale profile of a young man could be made out in the dim light. The profile had a rose in its mouth. This second form was well known to Gavroche it was Montparnasse. He could have told nothing about the other, except that he was a respectable old man. Gavroche immediately began to take observations. One of these two pedestrians evidently had a project connected with the other. Gavroche was well placed to watch the course of events. The bedroom had turned into a hidingplace at a very opportune moment. Montparnasse on the hunt at such an hour, in such a place, betokened something threatening. Gavroche felt his gamin's heart moved with compassion for the old man. What was he to do? Interfere? One weakness coming to the aid of another! It would be merely a laughing matter for Montparnasse. Gavroche did not shut his eyes to the fact that the old man, in the first place, and the child in the second, would make but two mouthfuls for that redoubtable ruffian eighteen years of age. While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, and Gavroche with difficulty restrained a scream. A moment later one of these men was underneath the other, groaning, struggling, with a knee of marble upon his breast. Only, it was not just what Gavroche had expected. The one who lay on the earth was Montparnasse the one who was on top was the old man. All this took place a few paces distant from Gavroche. The old man had received the shock, had returned it, and that in such a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed had exchanged rles. 'Here's a hearty veteran! thought Gavroche. He could not refrain from clapping his hands. But it was applause wasted. It did not reach the combatants, absorbed and deafened as they were, each by the other, as their breath mingled in the struggle. Silence ensued. Montparnasse ceased his struggles. Gavroche indulged in this aside 'Can he be dead! The goodman had not uttered a word, nor given vent to a cry. He rose to his feet, and Gavroche heard him say to Montparnasse 'Get up. Montparnasse rose, but the goodman held him fast. Montparnasse's attitude was the humiliated and furious attitude of the wolf who has been caught by a sheep. Gavroche looked on and listened, making an effort to reinforce his eyes with his ears. He was enjoying himself immensely. He was repaid for his conscientious anxiety in the character of a spectator. He was able to catch on the wing a dialogue which borrowed from the darkness an indescribably tragic accent. The goodman questioned, Montparnasse replied. 'How old are you? 'Nineteen. 'You are strong and healthy. Why do you not work? 'It bores me. 'What is your trade? 'An idler. 'Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to be? 'A thief. A pause ensued. The old man seemed absorbed in profound thought. He stood motionless, and did not relax his hold on Montparnasse. Every moment the vigorous and agile young ruffian indulged in the twitchings of a wild beast caught in a snare. He gave a jerk, tried a crook of the knee, twisted his limbs desperately, and made efforts to escape. The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one hand, with the sovereign indifference of absolute force. The old man's reverie lasted for some time, then, looking steadily at Montparnasse, he addressed to him in a gentle voice, in the midst of the darkness where they stood, a solemn harangue, of which Gavroche did not lose a single syllable 'My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most laborious of lives. Ah! You declare yourself to be an idler! prepare to toil. There is a certain formidable machine, have you seen it? It is the rollingmill. You must be on your guard against it, it is crafty and ferocious if it catches hold of the skirt of your coat, you will be drawn in bodily. That machine is laziness. Stop while there is yet time, and save yourself! Otherwise, it is all over with you in a short time you will be among the gearing. Once entangled, hope for nothing more. Toil, lazybones! there is no more repose for you! The iron hand of implacable toil has seized you. You do not wish to earn your living, to have a task, to fulfil a duty! It bores you to be like other men? Well! You will be different. Labor is the law he who rejects it will find ennui his torment. You do not wish to be a workingman, you will be a slave. Toil lets go of you on one side only to grasp you again on the other. You do not desire to be its friend, you shall be its negro slave. Ah! You would have none of the honest weariness of men, you shall have the sweat of the damned. Where others sing, you will rattle in your throat. You will see afar off, from below, other men at work it will seem to you that they are resting. The laborer, the harvester, the sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in glory like the blessed spirits in paradise. What radiance surrounds the forge! To guide the plough, to bind the sheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become steep acclivities. Life will become monstrous all about you. To go, to come, to breathe, will be just so many terrible labors. Your lungs will produce on you the effect of weighing a hundred pounds. Whether you shall walk here rather than there, will become a problem that must be solved. Any one who wants to go out simply gives his door a push, and there he is in the open air. If you wish to go out, you will be obliged to pierce your wall. What does every one who wants to step into the street do? He goes downstairs you will tear up your sheets, little by little you will make of them a rope, then you will climb out of your window, and you will suspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, and it will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurricane, and if the rope is too short, but one way of descending will remain to you, to fall. To drop haphazard into the gulf, from an unknown height, on what? On what is beneath, on the unknown. Or you will crawl up a chimneyflue, at the risk of burning or you will creep through a sewerpipe, at the risk of drowning I do not speak of the holes that you will be obliged to mask, of the stones which you will have to take up and replace twenty times a day, of the plaster that you will have to hide in your straw pallet. A lock presents itself the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a locksmith. If you wish to pass out, you will be condemned to execute a terrible work of art you will take a large sou, you will cut it in two plates with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your business. Then you will hollow out the interior of these plates, taking great care of the outside, and you will make on the edges a thread, so that they can be adjusted one upon the other like a box and its cover. The top and bottom thus screwed together, nothing will be suspected. To the overseers it will be only a sou to you it will be a box. What will you put in this box? A small bit of steel. A watchspring, in which you will have cut teeth, and which will form a saw. With this saw, as long as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock, you will sever bolts, the padlock of your chain, and the bar at your window, and the fetter on your leg. This masterpiece finished, this prodigy accomplished, all these miracles of art, address, skill, and patience executed, what will be your recompense if it becomes known that you are the author? The dungeon. There is your future. What precipices are idleness and pleasure! Do you know that to do nothing is a melancholy resolution? To live in idleness on the property of society! to be useless, that is to say, pernicious! This leads straight to the depth of wretchedness. Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite! He will become vermin! Ah! So it does not please you to work? Ah! You have but one thought, to drink well, to eat well, to sleep well. You will drink water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter whose cold touch you will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to your limbs. You will break those fetters, you will flee. That is well. You will crawl on your belly through the brushwood, and you will eat grass like the beasts of the forest. And you will be recaptured. And then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, groping for your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible loaf of darkness which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten before you. You will be a woodlouse in a cellar. Ah! Have pity on yourself, you miserable young child, who were sucking at nurse less than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you. You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweetsmelling oils on your locks, to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven clean, and you will wear a red blouse and wooden shoes. You want rings on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck. If you glance at a woman, you will receive a blow. And you will enter there at the age of twenty. And you will come out at fifty! You will enter young, rosy, fresh, with brilliant eyes, and all your white teeth, and your handsome, youthful hair you will come out broken, bent, wrinkled, toothless, horrible, with white locks! Ah! my poor child, you are on the wrong road idleness is counselling you badly the hardest of all work is thieving. Believe me, do not undertake that painful profession of an idle man. It is not comfortable to become a rascal. It is less disagreeable to be an honest man. Now go, and ponder on what I have said to you. By the way, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it is. And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put his purse in the latter's hand Montparnasse weighed it for a moment, after which he allowed it to slide gently into the back pocket of his coat, with the same mechanical precaution as though he had stolen it. All this having been said and done, the goodman turned his back and tranquilly resumed his stroll. 'The blockhead! muttered Montparnasse. Who was this goodman? The reader has, no doubt, already divined. Montparnasse watched him with amazement, as he disappeared in the dusk. This contemplation was fatal to him. While the old man was walking away, Gavroche drew near. Gavroche had assured himself, with a sidelong glance, that Father Mabeuf was still sitting on his bench, probably sound asleep. Then the gamin emerged from his thicket, and began to crawl after Montparnasse in the dark, as the latter stood there motionless. In this manner he came up to Montparnasse without being seen or heard, gently insinuated his hand into the back pocket of that frockcoat of fine black cloth, seized the purse, withdrew his hand, and having recourse once more to his crawling, he slipped away like an adder through the shadows. Montparnasse, who had no reason to be on his guard, and who was engaged in thought for the first time in his life, perceived nothing. When Gavroche had once more attained the point where Father Mabeuf was, he flung the purse over the hedge, and fled as fast as his legs would carry him. The purse fell on Father Mabeuf's foot. This commotion roused him. He bent over and picked up the purse. He did not understand in the least, and opened it. The purse had two compartments in one of them there was some small change in the other lay six napoleons. M. Mabeuf, in great alarm, referred the matter to his housekeeper. 'That has fallen from heaven, said Mother Plutarque. Cosette's grief, which had been so poignant and lively four or five months previously, had, without her being conscious of the fact, entered upon its convalescence. Nature, spring, youth, love for her father, the gayety of the birds and flowers, caused something almost resembling forgetfulness to filter gradually, drop by drop, into that soul, which was so virgin and so young. Was the fire wholly extinct there? Or was it merely that layers of ashes had formed? The truth is, that she hardly felt the painful and burning spot any longer. One day she suddenly thought of Marius 'Why! said she, 'I no longer think of him. That same week, she noticed a very handsome officer of lancers, with a wasplike waist, a delicious uniform, the cheeks of a young girl, a sword under his arm, waxed moustaches, and a glazed schapka, passing the gate. Moreover, he had light hair, prominent blue eyes, a round face, was vain, insolent and goodlooking quite the reverse of Marius. He had a cigar in his mouth. Cosette thought that this officer doubtless belonged to the regiment in barracks in the Rue de Babylone. On the following day, she saw him pass again. She took note of the hour. From that time forth, was it chance? she saw him pass nearly every day. The officer's comrades perceived that there was, in that 'badly kept garden, behind that malicious rococo fence, a very pretty creature, who was almost always there when the handsome lieutenant,who is not unknown to the reader, and whose name was Thodule Gillenormand,passed by. 'See here! they said to him, 'there's a little creature there who is making eyes at you, look. 'Have I the time, replied the lancer, 'to look at all the girls who look at me? This was at the precise moment when Marius was descending heavily towards agony, and was saying 'If I could but see her before I die!Had his wish been realized, had he beheld Cosette at that moment gazing at the lancer, he would not have been able to utter a word, and he would have expired with grief. Whose fault was it? No one's. Marius possessed one of those temperaments which bury themselves in sorrow and there abide Cosette was one of those persons who plunge into sorrow and emerge from it again. Cosette was, moreover, passing through that dangerous period, the fatal phase of feminine reverie abandoned to itself, in which the isolated heart of a young girl resembles the tendrils of the vine which cling, as chance directs, to the capital of a marble column or to the post of a wineshop A rapid and decisive moment, critical for every orphan, be she rich or poor, for wealth does not prevent a bad choice misalliances are made in very high circles, real misalliance is that of souls and as many an unknown young man, without name, without birth, without fortune, is a marble column which bears up a temple of grand sentiments and grand ideas, so such and such a man of the world satisfied and opulent, who has polished boots and varnished words, if looked at not outside, but inside, a thing which is reserved for his wife, is nothing more than a block obscurely haunted by violent, unclean, and vinous passions the post of a drinkingshop. What did Cosette's soul contain? Passion calmed or lulled to sleep something limpid, brilliant, troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy lower down. The image of the handsome officer was reflected in the surface. Did a souvenir linger in the depths?Quite at the bottom?Possibly. Cosette did not know. A singular incident supervened. During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This, as the reader knows, happened from time to time, at very long intervals. He remained absent a day or two days at the utmost. Where did he go? No one knew, not even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of these departures, she had accompanied him in a hackneycoach as far as a little blindalley at the corner of which she read Impasse de la Planchette. There he alighted, and the coach took Cosette back to the Rue de Babylone. It was usually when money was lacking in the house that Jean Valjean took these little trips. So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said 'I shall return in three days. That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawingroom. In order to get rid of her ennui, she had opened her pianoorgan, and had begun to sing, accompanying herself the while, the chorus from Euryanthe 'Hunters astray in the wood! which is probably the most beautiful thing in all the sphere of music. When she had finished, she remained wrapped in thought. All at once, it seemed to her that she heard the sound of footsteps in the garden. It could not be her father, he was absent it could not be Toussaint, she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night. She stepped to the shutter of the drawingroom, which was closed, and laid her ear against it. It seemed to her that it was the tread of a man, and that he was walking very softly. She mounted rapidly to the first floor, to her own chamber, opened a small wicket in her shutter, and peeped into the garden. The moon was at the full. Everything could be seen as plainly as by day. There was no one there. She opened the window. The garden was absolutely calm, and all that was visible was that the street was deserted as usual. Cosette thought that she had been mistaken. She thought that she had heard a noise. It was a hallucination produced by the melancholy and magnificent chorus of Weber, which lays open before the mind terrified depths, which trembles before the gaze like a dizzy forest, and in which one hears the crackling of dead branches beneath the uneasy tread of the huntsmen of whom one catches a glimpse through the twilight. She thought no more about it. Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature. There flowed in her veins some of the blood of the bohemian and the adventuress who runs barefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove. There was a foundation of wildness and bravery in her. On the following day, at an earlier hour, towards nightfall, she was strolling in the garden. In the midst of the confused thoughts which occupied her, she fancied that she caught for an instant a sound similar to that of the preceding evening, as though some one were walking beneath the trees in the dusk, and not very far from her but she told herself that nothing so closely resembles a step on the grass as the friction of two branches which have moved from side to side, and she paid no heed to it. Besides, she could see nothing. She emerged from 'the thicket she had still to cross a small lawn to regain the steps. The moon, which had just risen behind her, cast Cosette's shadow in front of her upon this lawn, as she came out from the shrubbery. Cosette halted in alarm. Beside her shadow, the moon outlined distinctly upon the turf another shadow, which was particularly startling and terrible, a shadow which had a round hat. It was the shadow of a man, who must have been standing on the border of the clump of shrubbery, a few paces in the rear of Cosette. She stood for a moment without the power to speak, or cry, or call, or stir, or turn her head. Then she summoned up all her courage, and turned round resolutely. There was no one there. She glanced on the ground. The figure had disappeared. She reentered the thicket, searched the corners boldly, went as far as the gate, and found nothing. She felt herself absolutely chilled with terror. Was this another hallucination? What! Two days in succession! One hallucination might pass, but two hallucinations? The disquieting point about it was, that the shadow had assuredly not been a phantom. Phantoms do not wear round hats. On the following day Jean Valjean returned. Cosette told him what she thought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to see her father shrug his shoulders and say to her 'You are a little goose. Jean Valjean grew anxious. 'It cannot be anything, said he. He left her under some pretext, and went into the garden, and she saw him examining the gate with great attention. During the night she woke up this time she was sure, and she distinctly heard some one walking close to the flight of steps beneath her window. She ran to her little wicket and opened it. In point of fact, there was a man in the garden, with a large club in his hand. Just as she was about to scream, the moon lighted up the man's profile. It was her father. She returned to her bed, saying to herself 'He is very uneasy! Jean Valjean passed that night and the two succeeding nights in the garden. Cosette saw him through the hole in her shutter. On the third night, the moon was on the wane, and had begun to rise later at one o'clock in the morning, possibly, she heard a loud burst of laughter and her father's voice calling her 'Cosette! She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressinggown, and opened her window. Her father was standing on the grassplot below. 'I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you, said he 'look, there is your shadow with the round hat. And he pointed out to her on the turf a shadow cast by the moon, and which did indeed, bear considerable resemblance to the spectre of a man wearing a round hat. It was the shadow produced by a chimneypipe of sheet iron, with a hood, which rose above a neighboring roof. Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions were allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father, she made merry over the sinister garden haunted by the shadows of iron chimneypots. Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more as for Cosette, she did not pay much attention to the question whether the chimneypot was really in the direction of the shadow which she had seen, or thought she had seen, and whether the moon had been in the same spot in the sky. She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimneypot which is afraid of being caught in the act, and which retires when some one looks at its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarm when Cosette had turned round, and Cosette had thought herself very sure of this. Cosette's serenity was fully restored. The proof appeared to her to be complete, and it quite vanished from her mind, whether there could possibly be any one walking in the garden during the evening or at night. A few days later, however, a fresh incident occurred. In the garden, near the railing on the street, there was a stone bench, screened from the eyes of the curious by a plantation of yokeelms, but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the outside, past the trees and the gate. One evening during that same month of April, Jean Valjean had gone out Cosette had seated herself on this bench after sundown. The breeze was blowing briskly in the trees, Cosette was meditating an objectless sadness was taking possession of her little by little, that invincible sadness evoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps, who knows, from the mystery of the tomb which is ajar at that hour. Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow. Cosette rose, slowly made the tour of the garden, walking on the grass drenched in dew, and saying to herself, through the species of melancholy somnambulism in which she was plunged 'Really, one needs wooden shoes for the garden at this hour. One takes cold. She returned to the bench. As she was about to resume her seat there, she observed on the spot which she had quitted, a tolerably large stone which had, evidently, not been there a moment before. Cosette gazed at the stone, asking herself what it meant. All at once the idea occurred to her that the stone had not reached the bench all by itself, that some one had placed it there, that an arm had been thrust through the railing, and this idea appeared to alarm her. This time, the fear was genuine the stone was there. No doubt was possible she did not touch it, fled without glancing behind her, took refuge in the house, and immediately closed with shutter, bolt, and bar the doorlike window opening on the flight of steps. She inquired of Toussaint 'Has my father returned yet? 'Not yet, Mademoiselle. We have already noted once for all the fact that Toussaint stuttered. May we be permitted to dispense with it for the future. The musical notation of an infirmity is repugnant to us. Jean Valjean, a thoughtful man, and given to nocturnal strolls, often returned quite late at night. 'Toussaint, went on Cosette, 'are you careful to thoroughly barricade the shutters opening on the garden, at least with bars, in the evening, and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them? 'Oh! be easy on that score, Miss. Toussaint did not fail in her duty, and Cosette was well aware of the fact, but she could not refrain from adding 'It is so solitary here. 'So far as that is concerned, said Toussaint, 'it is true. We might be assassinated before we had time to say ouf! And Monsieur does not sleep in the house, to boot. But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten the shutters up like prisons. Lone women! That is enough to make one shudder, I believe you! Just imagine, what if you were to see men enter your chamber at night and say 'Hold your tongue!' and begin to cut your throat. It's not the dying so much you die, for one must die, and that's all right it's the abomination of feeling those people touch you. And then, their knives they can't be able to cut well with them! Ah, good gracious! 'Be quiet, said Cosette. 'Fasten everything thoroughly. Cosette, terrified by the melodrama improvised by Toussaint, and possibly, also, by the recollection of the apparitions of the past week, which recurred to her memory, dared not even say to her 'Go and look at the stone which has been placed on the bench! for fear of opening the garden gate and allowing 'the men to enter. She saw that all the doors and windows were carefully fastened, made Toussaint go all over the house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, bolted her door, looked under her couch, went to bed and slept badly. All night long she saw that big stone, as large as a mountain and full of caverns. At sunrise,the property of the rising sun is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the past night, and our laughter is in direct proportion to our terror which they have caused,at sunrise Cosette, when she woke, viewed her fright as a nightmare, and said to herself 'What have I been thinking of? It is like the footsteps that I thought I heard a week or two ago in the garden at night! It is like the shadow of the chimneypot! Am I becoming a coward? The sun, which was glowing through the crevices in her shutters, and turning the damask curtains crimson, reassured her to such an extent that everything vanished from her thoughts, even the stone. 'There was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a round hat in the garden I dreamed about the stone, as I did all the rest. She dressed herself, descended to the garden, ran to the bench, and broke out in a cold perspiration. The stone was there. But this lasted only for a moment. That which is terror by night is curiosity by day. 'Bah! said she, 'come, let us see what it is. She lifted the stone, which was tolerably large. Beneath it was something which resembled a letter. It was a white envelope. Cosette seized it. There was no address on one side, no seal on the other. Yet the envelope, though unsealed, was not empty. Papers could be seen inside. Cosette examined it. It was no longer alarm, it was no longer curiosity it was a beginning of anxiety. Cosette drew from the envelope its contents, a little notebook of paper, each page of which was numbered and bore a few lines in a very fine and rather pretty handwriting, as Cosette thought. Cosette looked for a name there was none. To whom was this addressed? To her, probably, since a hand had deposited the packet on her bench. From whom did it come? An irresistible fascination took possession of her she tried to turn away her eyes from the leaflets which were trembling in her hand, she gazed at the sky, the street, the acacias all bathed in light, the pigeons fluttering over a neighboring roof, and then her glance suddenly fell upon the manuscript, and she said to herself that she must know what it contained. This is what she read. The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, that is love. Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars. How sad is the soul, when it is sad through love! What a void in the absence of the being who, by herself alone fills the world! Oh! how true it is that the beloved being becomes God. One could comprehend that God might be jealous of this had not God the Father of all evidently made creation for the soul, and the soul for love. The glimpse of a smile beneath a white crape bonnet with a lilac curtain is sufficient to cause the soul to enter into the palace of dreams. God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being transparent. Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the attitude of the body may be, the soul is on its knees. Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chimerical devices, which possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented from seeing each other, they cannot write to each other they discover a multitude of mysterious means to correspond. They send each other the song of the birds, the perfume of the flowers, the smiles of children, the light of the sun, the sighings of the breeze, the rays of stars, all creation. And why not? All the works of God are made to serve love. Love is sufficiently potent to charge all nature with its messages. Oh Spring! Thou art a letter that I write to her. The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite. Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven. Oh Love! Adorations! voluptuousness of two minds which understand each other, of two hearts which exchange with each other, of two glances which penetrate each other! You will come to me, will you not, bliss! strolls by twos in the solitudes! Blessed and radiant days! I have sometimes dreamed that from time to time hours detached themselves from the lives of the angels and came here below to traverse the destinies of men. God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except to give them endless duration. After a life of love, an eternity of love is, in fact, an augmentation but to increase in intensity even the ineffable felicity which love bestows on the soul even in this world, is impossible, even to God. God is the plenitude of heaven love is the plenitude of man. You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman. All of us, whoever we may be, have our respirable beings. We lack air and we stifle. Then we die. To die for lack of love is horrible. Suffocation of the soul. When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny they are no longer anything but the two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar. On the day when a woman as she passes before you emits light as she walks, you are lost, you love. But one thing remains for you to do to think of her so intently that she is constrained to think of you. What love commences can be finished by God alone. True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost or a handkerchief found, and eternity is required for its devotion and its hopes. It is composed both of the infinitely great and the infinitely little. If you are a stone, be adamant if you are a plant, be the sensitive plant if you are a man, be love. Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, we desire paradise we possess paradise, we desire heaven. Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained in love. Understand how to find it there. Love has contemplation as well as heaven, and more than heaven, it has voluptuousness. 'Does she still come to the Luxembourg? 'No, sir. 'This is the church where she attends mass, is it not? 'She no longer comes here. 'Does she still live in this house? 'She has moved away. 'Where has she gone to dwell? 'She did not say. What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one's soul! Love has its childishness, other passions have their pettinesses. Shame on the passions which belittle man! Honor to the one which makes a child of him! There is one strange thing, do you know it? I dwell in the night. There is a being who carried off my sky when she went away. Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a finger,that would suffice for my eternity! Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live in it. Love. A sombre and starry transfiguration is mingled with this torture. There is ecstasy in agony. Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they sing. Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise. Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God has made it it is a long trial, an incomprehensible preparation for an unknown destiny. This destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the tomb. Then something appears to him, and he begins to distinguish the definitive. The definitive, meditate upon that word. The living perceive the infinite the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the dead. In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! to him who shall have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again. I encountered in the street, a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows were in holes water trickled through his shoes, and the stars through his soul. What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure it no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake. If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct. As Cosette read, she gradually fell into thought. At the very moment when she raised her eyes from the last line of the notebook, the handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,it was his hour Cosette thought him hideous. She resumed her contemplation of the book. It was written in the most charming of chirography, thought Cosette in the same hand, but with divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish, as when ink has been added to the inkstand, and consequently on different days. It was, then, a mind which had unfolded itself there, sigh by sigh, irregularly, without order, without choice, without object, haphazard. Cosette had never read anything like it. This manuscript, in which she already perceived more light than obscurity, produced upon her the effect of a halfopen sanctuary. Each one of these mysterious lines shone before her eyes and inundated her heart with a strange radiance. The education which she had received had always talked to her of the soul, and never of love, very much as one might talk of the firebrand and not of the flame. This manuscript of fifteen pages suddenly and sweetly revealed to her all of love, sorrow, destiny, life, eternity, the beginning, the end. It was as if a hand had opened and suddenly flung upon her a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt a passionate, ardent, generous, honest nature, a sacred will, an immense sorrow, and an immense despair, a suffering heart, an ecstasy fully expanded. What was this manuscript? A letter. A letter without name, without address, without date, without signature, pressing and disinterested, an enigma composed of truths, a message of love made to be brought by an angel and read by a virgin, an appointment made beyond the bounds of earth, the loveletter of a phantom to a shade. It was an absent one, tranquil and dejected, who seemed ready to take refuge in death and who sent to the absent love, his lady, the secret of fate, the key of life, love. This had been written with one foot in the grave and one finger in heaven. These lines, which had fallen one by one on the paper, were what might be called drops of soul. Now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have penned them? Cosette did not hesitate a moment. One man only. He! Day had dawned once more in her spirit all had reappeared. She felt an unheardof joy, and a profound anguish. It was he! he who had written! he was there! it was he whose arm had been thrust through that railing! While she was forgetful of him, he had found her again! But had she forgotten him? No, never! She was foolish to have thought so for a single moment. She had always loved him, always adored him. The fire had been smothered, and had smouldered for a time, but she saw all plainly now it had but made headway, and now it had burst forth afresh, and had inflamed her whole being. This notebook was like a spark which had fallen from that other soul into hers. She felt the conflagration starting up once more. She imbued herself thoroughly with every word of the manuscript 'Oh yes! said she, 'how perfectly I recognize all that! That is what I had already read in his eyes. As she was finishing it for the third time, Lieutenant Thodule passed the gate once more, and rattled his spurs upon the pavement. Cosette was forced to raise her eyes. She thought him insipid, silly, stupid, useless, foppish, displeasing, impertinent, and extremely ugly. The officer thought it his duty to smile at her. She turned away as in shame and indignation. She would gladly have thrown something at his head. She fled, reentered the house, and shut herself up in her chamber to peruse the manuscript once more, to learn it by heart, and to dream. When she had thoroughly mastered it she kissed it and put it in her bosom. All was over, Cosette had fallen back into deep, seraphic love. The abyss of Eden had yawned once more. All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewilderment. She scarcely thought, her ideas were in the state of a tangled skein in her brain, she could not manage to conjecture anything, she hoped through a tremor, what? vague things. She dared make herself no promises, and she did not wish to refuse herself anything. Flashes of pallor passed over her countenance, and shivers ran through her frame. It seemed to her, at intervals, that she was entering the land of chimras she said to herself 'Is this reality? Then she felt of the dear paper within her bosom under her gown, she pressed it to her heart, she felt its angles against her flesh and if Jean Valjean had seen her at the moment, he would have shuddered in the presence of that luminous and unknown joy, which overflowed from beneath her eyelids.'Oh yes! she thought, 'it is certainly he! This comes from him, and is for me! And she told herself that an intervention of the angels, a celestial chance, had given him back to her. Oh transfiguration of love! Oh dreams! That celestial chance, that intervention of the angels, was a pellet of bread tossed by one thief to another thief, from the Charlemagne Courtyard to the Lion's Ditch, over the roofs of La Force. When evening came, Jean Valjean went out Cosette dressed herself. She arranged her hair in the most becoming manner, and she put on a dress whose bodice had received one snip of the scissors too much, and which, through this slope, permitted a view of the beginning of her throat, and was, as young girls say, 'a trifle indecent. It was not in the least indecent, but it was prettier than usual. She made her toilet thus without knowing why she did so. Did she mean to go out? No. Was she expecting a visitor? No. At dusk, she went down to the garden. Toussaint was busy in her kitchen, which opened on the back yard. She began to stroll about under the trees, thrusting aside the branches from time to time with her hand, because there were some which hung very low. In this manner she reached the bench. The stone was still there. She sat down, and gently laid her white hand on this stone as though she wished to caress and thank it. All at once, she experienced that indefinable impression which one undergoes when there is some one standing behind one, even when she does not see the person. She turned her head and rose to her feet. It was he. His head was bare. He appeared to have grown thin and pale. His black clothes were hardly discernible. The twilight threw a wan light on his fine brow, and covered his eyes in shadows. Beneath a veil of incomparable sweetness, he had something about him that suggested death and night. His face was illuminated by the light of the dying day, and by the thought of a soul that is taking flight. He seemed to be not yet a ghost, and he was no longer a man. He had flung away his hat in the thicket, a few paces distant. Cosette, though ready to swoon, uttered no cry. She retreated slowly, for she felt herself attracted. He did not stir. By virtue of something ineffable and melancholy which enveloped him, she felt the look in his eyes which she could not see. Cosette, in her retreat, encountered a tree and leaned against it. Had it not been for this tree, she would have fallen. Then she heard his voice, that voice which she had really never heard, barely rising above the rustle of the leaves, and murmuring 'Pardon me, here I am. My heart is full. I could not live on as I was living, and I have come. Have you read what I placed there on the bench? Do you recognize me at all? Have no fear of me. It is a long time, you remember the day, since you looked at me at the Luxembourg, near the Gladiator. And the day when you passed before me? It was on the th of June and the d of July. It is nearly a year ago. I have not seen you for a long time. I inquired of the woman who let the chairs, and she told me that she no longer saw you. You lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, on the third floor, in the front apartments of a new house,you see that I know! I followed you. What else was there for me to do? And then you disappeared. I thought I saw you pass once, while I was reading the newspapers under the arcade of the Odon. I ran after you. But no. It was a person who had a bonnet like yours. At night I came hither. Do not be afraid, no one sees me. I come to gaze upon your windows near at hand. I walk very softly, so that you may not hear, for you might be alarmed. The other evening I was behind you, you turned round, I fled. Once, I heard you singing. I was happy. Did it affect you because I heard you singing through the shutters? That could not hurt you. No, it is not so? You see, you are my angel! Let me come sometimes I think that I am going to die. If you only knew! I adore you. Forgive me, I speak to you, but I do not know what I am saying I may have displeased you have I displeased you? 'Oh! my mother! said she. And she sank down as though on the point of death. He grasped her, she fell, he took her in his arms, he pressed her close, without knowing what he was doing. He supported her, though he was tottering himself. It was as though his brain were full of smoke lightnings darted between his lips his ideas vanished it seemed to him that he was accomplishing some religious act, and that he was committing a profanation. Moreover, he had not the least passion for this lovely woman whose force he felt against his breast. He was beside himself with love. She took his hand and laid it on her heart. He felt the paper there, he stammered 'You love me, then? She replied in a voice so low that it was no longer anything more than a barely audible breath 'Hush! Thou knowest it! And she hid her blushing face on the breast of the superb and intoxicated young man. He fell upon the bench, and she beside him. They had no words more. The stars were beginning to gleam. How did it come to pass that their lips met? How comes it to pass that the birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that May expands, that the dawn grows white behind the black trees on the shivering crest of the hills? A kiss, and that was all. Both started, and gazed into the darkness with sparkling eyes. They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp earth, nor the wet grass they looked at each other, and their hearts were full of thoughts. They had clasped hands unconsciously. She did not ask him, she did not even wonder, how he had entered there, and how he had made his way into the garden. It seemed so simple to her that he should be there! From time to time, Marius' knee touched Cosette's knee, and both shivered. At intervals, Cosette stammered a word. Her soul fluttered on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower. Little by little they began to talk to each other. Effusion followed silence, which is fulness. The night was serene and splendid overhead. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their dreams, their intoxications, their ecstasies, their chimras, their weaknesses, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each other. They confided to each other in an ideal intimacy, which nothing could augment, their most secret and most mysterious thoughts. They related to each other, with candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth, and the remains of childhood which still lingered about them, suggested to their minds. Their two hearts poured themselves out into each other in such wise, that at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl's soul, and the young girl who had the young man's soul. Each became permeated with the other, they were enchanted with each other, they dazzled each other. When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head on his shoulder and asked him 'What is your name? 'My name is Marius, said he. 'And yours? 'My name is Cosette. Since , when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck and was being gradually engulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but in the cesspool of petty debts, the Thnardier pair had had two other children both males. That made five two girls and three boys. Madame Thnardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still young and very small, with remarkable luck. Got rid of is the word. There was but a mere fragment of nature in that woman. A phenomenon, by the way, of which there is more than one example extant. Like the Marchale de La MotheHoudancourt, the Thnardier was a mother to her daughters only. There her maternity ended. Her hatred of the human race began with her own sons. In the direction of her sons her evil disposition was uncompromising, and her heart had a lugubrious wall in that quarter. As the reader has seen, she detested the eldest she cursed the other two. Why? Because. The most terrible of motives, the most unanswerable of retortsBecause. 'I have no need of a litter of squalling brats, said this mother. Let us explain how the Thnardiers had succeeded in getting rid of their last two children and even in drawing profit from the operation. The woman Magnon, who was mentioned a few pages further back, was the same one who had succeeded in making old Gillenormand support the two children which she had had. She lived on the Quai des Clestins, at the corner of this ancient street of the PetitMusc which afforded her the opportunity of changing her evil repute into good odor. The reader will remember the great epidemic of croup which ravaged the river districts of the Seine in Paris thirtyfive years ago, and of which science took advantage to make experiments on a grand scale as to the efficacy of inhalations of alum, so beneficially replaced at the present day by the external tincture of iodine. During this epidemic, the Magnon lost both her boys, who were still very young, one in the morning, the other in the evening of the same day. This was a blow. These children were precious to their mother they represented eighty francs a month. These eighty francs were punctually paid in the name of M. Gillenormand, by collector of his rents, M. Barge, a retired tipstaff, in the Rue du RoideSicile. The children dead, the income was at an end. The Magnon sought an expedient. In that dark freemasonry of evil of which she formed a part, everything is known, all secrets are kept, and all lend mutual aid. Magnon needed two children the Thnardiers had two. The same sex, the same age. A good arrangement for the one, a good investment for the other. The little Thnardiers became little Magnons. Magnon quitted the Quai des Clestins and went to live in the Rue Clocheperce. In Paris, the identity which binds an individual to himself is broken between one street and another. The registry office being in no way warned, raised no objections, and the substitution was effected in the most simple manner in the world. Only, the Thnardier exacted for this loan of her children, ten francs a month, which Magnon promised to pay, and which she actually did pay. It is unnecessary to add that M. Gillenormand continued to perform his compact. He came to see the children every six months. He did not perceive the change. 'Monsieur, Magnon said to him, 'how much they resemble you! Thnardier, to whom avatars were easy, seized this occasion to become Jondrette. His two daughters and Gavroche had hardly had time to discover that they had two little brothers. When a certain degree of misery is reached, one is overpowered with a sort of spectral indifference, and one regards human beings as though they were spectres. Your nearest relations are often no more for you than vague shadowy forms, barely outlined against a nebulous background of life and easily confounded again with the invisible. On the evening of the day when she had handed over her two little ones to Magnon, with express intention of renouncing them forever, the Thnardier had felt, or had appeared to feel, a scruple. She said to her husband 'But this is abandoning our children! Thnardier, masterful and phlegmatic, cauterized the scruple with this saying 'Jean Jacques Rousseau did even better! From scruples, the mother proceeded to uneasiness 'But what if the police were to annoy us? Tell me, Monsieur Thnardier, is what we have done permissible? Thnardier replied 'Everything is permissible. No one will see anything but true blue in it. Besides, no one has any interest in looking closely after children who have not a sou. Magnon was a sort of fashionable woman in the sphere of crime. She was careful about her toilet. She shared her lodgings, which were furnished in an affected and wretched style, with a clever gallicized English thief. This English woman, who had become a naturalized Parisienne, recommended by very wealthy relations, intimately connected with the medals in the Library and Mademoiselle Mar's diamonds, became celebrated later on in judicial accounts. She was called Mamselle Miss. The two little creatures who had fallen to Magnon had no reason to complain of their lot. Recommended by the eighty francs, they were well cared for, as is everything from which profit is derived they were neither badly clothed, nor badly fed they were treated almost like 'little gentlemen,better by their false mother than by their real one. Magnon played the lady, and talked no thieves' slang in their presence. Thus passed several years. Thnardier augured well from the fact. One day, he chanced to say to Magnon as she handed him his monthly stipend of ten francs 'The father must give them some education. All at once, these two poor children, who had up to that time been protected tolerably well, even by their evil fate, were abruptly hurled into life and forced to begin it for themselves. A wholesale arrest of malefactors, like that in the Jondrette garret, necessarily complicated by investigations and subsequent incarcerations, is a veritable disaster for that hideous and occult countersociety which pursues its existence beneath public society an adventure of this description entails all sorts of catastrophes in that sombre world. The Thnardier catastrophe involved the catastrophe of Magnon. One day, a short time after Magnon had handed to ponine the note relating to the Rue Plumet, a sudden raid was made by the police in the Rue Clocheperce Magnon was seized, as was also Mamselle Miss and all the inhabitants of the house, which was of a suspicious character, were gathered into the net. While this was going on, the two little boys were playing in the back yard, and saw nothing of the raid. When they tried to enter the house again, they found the door fastened and the house empty. A cobbler opposite called them to him, and delivered to them a paper which 'their mother had left for them. On this paper there was an address M. Barge, collector of rents, Rue du RoideSicile, No. . The proprietor of the stall said to them 'You cannot live here any longer. Go there. It is nearby. The first street on the left. Ask your way from this paper. The children set out, the elder leading the younger, and holding in his hand the paper which was to guide them. It was cold, and his benumbed little fingers could not close very firmly, and they did not keep a very good hold on the paper. At the corner of the Rue Clocheperce, a gust of wind tore it from him, and as night was falling, the child was not able to find it again. They began to wander aimlessly through the streets. Spring in Paris is often traversed by harsh and piercing breezes which do not precisely chill but freeze one these north winds which sadden the most beautiful days produce exactly the effect of those puffs of cold air which enter a warm room through the cracks of a badly fitting door or window. It seems as though the gloomy door of winter had remained ajar, and as though the wind were pouring through it. In the spring of , the epoch when the first great epidemic of this century broke out in Europe, these north gales were more harsh and piercing than ever. It was a door even more glacial than that of winter which was ajar. It was the door of the sepulchre. In these winds one felt the breath of the cholera. From a meteorological point of view, these cold winds possessed this peculiarity, that they did not preclude a strong electric tension. Frequent storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, burst forth at this epoch. One evening, when these gales were blowing rudely, to such a degree that January seemed to have returned and that the bourgeois had resumed their cloaks, Little Gavroche, who was always shivering gayly under his rags, was standing as though in ecstasy before a wigmaker's shop in the vicinity of the OrmeSaintGervais. He was adorned with a woman's woollen shawl, picked up no one knows where, and which he had converted into a neck comforter. Little Gavroche appeared to be engaged in intent admiration of a wax bride, in a lownecked dress, and crowned with orangeflowers, who was revolving in the window, and displaying her smile to passersby, between two argand lamps but in reality, he was taking an observation of the shop, in order to discover whether he could not 'prig from the shopfront a cake of soap, which he would then proceed to sell for a sou to a 'hairdresser in the suburbs. He had often managed to breakfast off of such a roll. He called his species of work, for which he possessed special aptitude, 'shaving barbers. While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered between his teeth 'Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday. No one has ever discovered to what this monologue referred. Yes, perchance, this monologue had some connection with the last occasion on which he had dined, three days before, for it was now Friday. The barber in his shop, which was warmed by a good stove, was shaving a customer and casting a glance from time to time at the enemy, that freezing and impudent street urchin both of whose hands were in his pockets, but whose mind was evidently unsheathed. While Gavroche was scrutinizing the shopwindow and the cakes of windsor soap, two children of unequal stature, very neatly dressed, and still smaller than himself, one apparently about seven years of age, the other five, timidly turned the handle and entered the shop, with a request for something or other, alms possibly, in a plaintive murmur which resembled a groan rather than a prayer. They both spoke at once, and their words were unintelligible because sobs broke the voice of the younger, and the teeth of the elder were chattering with cold. The barber wheeled round with a furious look, and without abandoning his razor, thrust back the elder with his left hand and the younger with his knee, and slammed his door, saying 'The idea of coming in and freezing everybody for nothing! The two children resumed their march in tears. In the meantime, a cloud had risen it had begun to rain. Little Gavroche ran after them and accosted them 'What's the matter with you, brats? 'We don't know where we are to sleep, replied the elder. 'Is that all? said Gavroche. 'A great matter, truly. The idea of bawling about that. They must be greenies! And adopting, in addition to his superiority, which was rather bantering, an accent of tender authority and gentle patronage 'Come along with me, young 'uns! 'Yes, sir, said the elder. And the two children followed him as they would have followed an archbishop. They had stopped crying. Gavroche led them up the Rue SaintAntoine in the direction of the Bastille. As Gavroche walked along, he cast an indignant backward glance at the barber's shop. 'That fellow has no heart, the whiting, he muttered. 'He's an Englishman. A woman who caught sight of these three marching in a file, with Gavroche at their head, burst into noisy laughter. This laugh was wanting in respect towards the group. 'Good day, Mamselle Omnibus, said Gavroche to her. An instant later, the wigmaker occurred to his mind once more, and he added 'I am making a mistake in the beast he's not a whiting, he's a serpent. Barber, I'll go and fetch a locksmith, and I'll have a bell hung to your tail. This wigmaker had rendered him aggressive. As he strode over a gutter, he apostrophized a bearded portress who was worthy to meet Faust on the Brocken, and who had a broom in her hand. 'Madam, said he, 'so you are going out with your horse? And thereupon, he spattered the polished boots of a pedestrian. 'You scamp! shouted the furious pedestrian. Gavroche elevated his nose above his shawl. 'Is Monsieur complaining? 'Of you! ejaculated the man. 'The office is closed, said Gavroche, 'I do not receive any more complaints. In the meanwhile, as he went on up the street, he perceived a beggargirl, thirteen or fourteen years old, and clad in so short a gown that her knees were visible, lying thoroughly chilled under a portecochre. The little girl was getting to be too old for such a thing. Growth does play these tricks. The petticoat becomes short at the moment when nudity becomes indecent. 'Poor girl! said Gavroche. 'She hasn't even trousers. Hold on, take this. And unwinding all the comfortable woollen which he had around his neck, he flung it on the thin and purple shoulders of the beggargirl, where the scarf became a shawl once more. The child stared at him in astonishment, and received the shawl in silence. When a certain stage of distress has been reached in his misery, the poor man no longer groans over evil, no longer returns thanks for good. That done 'Brrr! said Gavroche, who was shivering more than Saint Martin, for the latter retained onehalf of his cloak. At this brrr! the downpour of rain, redoubled in its spite, became furious. The wicked skies punish good deeds. 'Ah, come now! exclaimed Gavroche, 'what's the meaning of this? It's reraining! Good Heavens, if it goes on like this, I shall stop my subscription. And he set out on the march once more. 'It's all right, he resumed, casting a glance at the beggargirl, as she coiled up under the shawl, 'she's got a famous peel. And looking up at the clouds he exclaimed 'Caught! The two children followed close on his heels. As they were passing one of these heavy grated lattices, which indicate a baker's shop, for bread is put behind bars like gold, Gavroche turned round 'Ah, by the way, brats, have we dined? 'Monsieur, replied the elder, 'we have had nothing to eat since this morning. 'So you have neither father nor mother? resumed Gavroche majestically. 'Excuse us, sir, we have a papa and a mamma, but we don't know where they are. 'Sometimes that's better than knowing where they are, said Gavroche, who was a thinker. 'We have been wandering about these two hours, continued the elder, 'we have hunted for things at the corners of the streets, but we have found nothing. 'I know, ejaculated Gavroche, 'it's the dogs who eat everything. He went on, after a pause 'Ah! we have lost our authors. We don't know what we have done with them. This should not be, gamins. It's stupid to let old people stray off like that. Come now! we must have a snooze all the same. However, he asked them no questions. What was more simple than that they should have no dwelling place! The elder of the two children, who had almost entirely recovered the prompt heedlessness of childhood, uttered this exclamation 'It's queer, all the same. Mamma told us that she would take us to get a blessed spray on Palm Sunday. 'Bosh, said Gavroche. 'Mamma, resumed the elder, 'is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss. 'Tanflte! retorted Gavroche. Meanwhile he had halted, and for the last two minutes he had been feeling and fumbling in all sorts of nooks which his rags contained. At last he tossed his head with an air intended to be merely satisfied, but which was triumphant, in reality. 'Let us be calm, young 'uns. Here's supper for three. And from one of his pockets he drew forth a sou. Without allowing the two urchins time for amazement, he pushed both of them before him into the baker's shop, and flung his sou on the counter, crying 'Boy! five centimes' worth of bread. The baker, who was the proprietor in person, took up a loaf and a knife. 'In three pieces, my boy! went on Gavroche. And he added with dignity 'There are three of us. And seeing that the baker, after scrutinizing the three customers, had taken down a black loaf, he thrust his finger far up his nose with an inhalation as imperious as though he had had a pinch of the great Frederick's snuff on the tip of his thumb, and hurled this indignant apostrophe full in the baker's face 'Kekseka? Those of our readers who might be tempted to espy in this interpellation of Gavroche's to the baker a Russian or a Polish word, or one of those savage cries which the Yoways and the Botocudos hurl at each other from bank to bank of a river, athwart the solitudes, are warned that it is a word which they our readers utter every day, and which takes the place of the phrase 'Qu'estce que c'est que cela? The baker understood perfectly, and replied 'Well! It's bread, and very good bread of the second quality. 'You mean larton brutal black bread! retorted Gavroche, calmly and coldly disdainful. 'White bread, boy! white bread larton savonn! I'm standing treat. The baker could not repress a smile, and as he cut the white bread he surveyed them in a compassionate way which shocked Gavroche. 'Come, now, baker's boy! said he, 'what are you taking our measure like that for? All three of them placed end to end would have hardly made a measure. When the bread was cut, the baker threw the sou into his drawer, and Gavroche said to the two children 'Grub away. The little boys stared at him in surprise. Gavroche began to laugh. 'Ah! hullo, that's so! they don't understand yet, they're too small. And he repeated 'Eat away. At the same time, he held out a piece of bread to each of them. And thinking that the elder, who seemed to him the more worthy of his conversation, deserved some special encouragement and ought to be relieved from all hesitation to satisfy his appetite, he added, as he handed him the largest share 'Ram that into your muzzle. One piece was smaller than the others he kept this for himself. The poor children, including Gavroche, were famished. As they tore their bread apart in big mouthfuls, they blocked up the shop of the baker, who, now that they had paid their money, looked angrily at them. 'Let's go into the street again, said Gavroche. They set off once more in the direction of the Bastille. From time to time, as they passed the lighted shopwindows, the smallest halted to look at the time on a leaden watch which was suspended from his neck by a cord. 'Well, he is a very green 'un, said Gavroche. Then, becoming thoughtful, he muttered between his teeth 'All the same, if I had charge of the babes I'd lock 'em up better than that. Just as they were finishing their morsel of bread, and had reached the angle of that gloomy Rue des Ballets, at the other end of which the low and threatening wicket of La Force was visible 'Hullo, is that you, Gavroche? said some one. 'Hullo, is that you, Montparnasse? said Gavroche. A man had just accosted the street urchin, and the man was no other than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to Gavroche. 'The bowwows! went on Gavroche, 'you've got a hide the color of a linseed plaster, and blue specs like a doctor. You're putting on style, 'pon my word! 'Hush! ejaculated Montparnasse, 'not so loud. And he drew Gavroche hastily out of range of the lighted shops. The two little ones followed mechanically, holding each other by the hand. When they were ensconced under the arch of a portecochre, sheltered from the rain and from all eyes 'Do you know where I'm going? demanded Montparnasse. 'To the Abbey of AscendwithRegret, replied Gavroche. 'Joker! And Montparnasse went on 'I'm going to find Babet. 'Ah! exclaimed Gavroche, 'so her name is Babet. Montparnasse lowered his voice 'Not she, he. 'Ah! Babet. 'Yes, Babet. 'I thought he was buckled. 'He has undone the buckle, replied Montparnasse. And he rapidly related to the gamin how, on the morning of that very day, Babet, having been transferred to La Conciergerie, had made his escape, by turning to the left instead of to the right in 'the police office. Gavroche expressed his admiration for this skill. 'What a dentist! he cried. Montparnasse added a few details as to Babet's flight, and ended with 'Oh! That's not all. Gavroche, as he listened, had seized a cane that Montparnasse held in his hand, and mechanically pulled at the upper part, and the blade of a dagger made its appearance. 'Ah! he exclaimed, pushing the dagger back in haste, 'you have brought along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois. Montparnasse winked. 'The deuce! resumed Gavroche, 'so you're going to have a bout with the bobbies? 'You can't tell, replied Montparnasse with an indifferent air. 'It's always a good thing to have a pin about one. Gavroche persisted 'What are you up to tonight? Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable 'Things. And abruptly changing the conversation 'By the way! 'What? 'Something happened t'other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes me a present of a sermon and his purse. I put it in my pocket. A minute later, I feel in my pocket. There's nothing there. 'Except the sermon, said Gavroche. 'But you, went on Montparnasse, 'where are you bound for now? Gavroche pointed to his two protgs, and said 'I'm going to put these infants to bed. 'Whereabouts is the bed? 'At my house. 'Where's your house? 'At my house. 'So you have a lodging? 'Yes, I have. 'And where is your lodging? 'In the elephant, said Gavroche. Montparnasse, though not naturally inclined to astonishment, could not restrain an exclamation. 'In the elephant! 'Well, yes, in the elephant! retorted Gavroche. 'Kekaa? This is another word of the language which no one writes, and which every one speaks. Kekaa signifies Qu'est que c'est que cela a? What's the matter with that? The urchin's profound remark recalled Montparnasse to calmness and good sense. He appeared to return to better sentiments with regard to Gavroche's lodging. 'Of course, said he, 'yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there? 'Very, said Gavroche. 'It's really bully there. There ain't any draughts, as there are under the bridges. 'How do you get in? 'Oh, I get in. 'So there is a hole? demanded Montparnasse. 'Parbleu! I should say so. But you mustn't tell. It's between the fore legs. The bobbies haven't seen it. 'And you climb up? Yes, I understand. 'A turn of the hand, cric, crac, and it's all over, no one there. After a pause, Gavroche added 'I shall have a ladder for these children. Montparnasse burst out laughing 'Where the devil did you pick up those young 'uns? Gavroche replied with great simplicity 'They are some brats that a wigmaker made me a present of. Meanwhile, Montparnasse had fallen to thinking 'You recognized me very readily, he muttered. He took from his pocket two small objects which were nothing more than two quills wrapped in cotton, and thrust one up each of his nostrils. This gave him a different nose. 'That changes you, remarked Gavroche, 'you are less homely so, you ought to keep them on all the time. Montparnasse was a handsome fellow, but Gavroche was a tease. 'Seriously, demanded Montparnasse, 'how do you like me so? The sound of his voice was different also. In a twinkling, Montparnasse had become unrecognizable. 'Oh! Do play Porrichinelle for us! exclaimed Gavroche. The two children, who had not been listening up to this point, being occupied themselves in thrusting their fingers up their noses, drew near at this name, and stared at Montparnasse with dawning joy and admiration. Unfortunately, Montparnasse was troubled. He laid his hand on Gavroche's shoulder, and said to him, emphasizing his words 'Listen to what I tell you, boy! if I were on the square with my dog, my knife, and my wife, and if you were to squander ten sous on me, I wouldn't refuse to work, but this isn't Shrove Tuesday. This odd phrase produced a singular effect on the gamin. He wheeled round hastily, darted his little sparkling eyes about him with profound attention, and perceived a police sergeant standing with his back to them a few paces off. Gavroche allowed an 'Ah! good! to escape him, but immediately suppressed it, and shaking Montparnasse's hand 'Well, good evening, said he, 'I'm going off to my elephant with my brats. Supposing that you should need me some night, you can come and hunt me up there. I lodge on the entresol. There is no porter. You will inquire for Monsieur Gavroche. 'Very good, said Montparnasse. And they parted, Montparnasse betaking himself in the direction of the Grve, and Gavroche towards the Bastille. The little one of five, dragged along by his brother who was dragged by Gavroche, turned his head back several times to watch 'Porrichinelle as he went. The ambiguous phrase by means of which Montparnasse had warned Gavroche of the presence of the policeman, contained no other talisman than the assonance dig repeated five or six times in different forms. This syllable, dig, uttered alone or artistically mingled with the words of a phrase, means 'Take care, we can no longer talk freely. There was besides, in Montparnasse's sentence, a literary beauty which was lost upon Gavroche, that is mon dogue, ma dague et ma digue, a slang expression of the Temple, which signifies my dog, my knife, and my wife, greatly in vogue among clowns and the redtails in the great century when Molire wrote and Callot drew. Twenty years ago, there was still to be seen in the southwest corner of the Place de la Bastille, near the basin of the canal, excavated in the ancient ditch of the fortressprison, a singular monument, which has already been effaced from the memories of Parisians, and which deserved to leave some trace, for it was the idea of a 'member of the Institute, the Generalinchief of the army of Egypt. We say monument, although it was only a rough model. But this model itself, a marvellous sketch, the grandiose skeleton of an idea of Napoleon's, which successive gusts of wind have carried away and thrown, on each occasion, still further from us, had become historical and had acquired a certain definiteness which contrasted with its provisional aspect. It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and masonry, bearing on its back a tower which resembled a house, formerly painted green by some dauber, and now painted black by heaven, the wind, and time. In this deserted and unprotected corner of the place, the broad brow of the colossus, his trunk, his tusks, his tower, his enormous crupper, his four feet, like columns produced, at night, under the starry heavens, a surprising and terrible form. It was a sort of symbol of popular force. It was sombre, mysterious, and immense. It was some mighty, visible phantom, one knew not what, standing erect beside the invisible spectre of the Bastille. Few strangers visited this edifice, no passerby looked at it. It was falling into ruins every season the plaster which detached itself from its sides formed hideous wounds upon it. 'The diles, as the expression ran in elegant dialect, had forgotten it ever since . There it stood in its corner, melancholy, sick, crumbling, surrounded by a rotten palisade, soiled continually by drunken coachmen cracks meandered athwart its belly, a lath projected from its tail, tall grass flourished between its legs and, as the level of the place had been rising all around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and continuous movement which insensibly elevates the soil of large towns, it stood in a hollow, and it looked as though the ground were giving way beneath it. It was unclean, despised, repulsive, and superb, ugly in the eyes of the bourgeois, melancholy in the eyes of the thinker. There was something about it of the dirt which is on the point of being swept out, and something of the majesty which is on the point of being decapitated. As we have said, at night, its aspect changed. Night is the real element of everything that is dark. As soon as twilight descended, the old elephant became transfigured he assumed a tranquil and redoubtable appearance in the formidable serenity of the shadows. Being of the past, he belonged to night and obscurity was in keeping with his grandeur. This rough, squat, heavy, hard, austere, almost misshapen, but assuredly majestic monument, stamped with a sort of magnificent and savage gravity, has disappeared, and left to reign in peace, a sort of gigantic stove, ornamented with its pipe, which has replaced the sombre fortress with its nine towers, very much as the bourgeoisie replaces the feudal classes. It is quite natural that a stove should be the symbol of an epoch in which a pot contains power. This epoch will pass away, people have already begun to understand that, if there can be force in a boiler, there can be no force except in the brain in other words, that which leads and drags on the world, is not locomotives, but ideas. Harness locomotives to ideas,that is well done but do not mistake the horse for the rider. At all events, to return to the Place de la Bastille, the architect of this elephant succeeded in making a grand thing out of plaster the architect of the stove has succeeded in making a pretty thing out of bronze. This stovepipe, which has been baptized by a sonorous name, and called the column of July, this monument of a revolution that miscarried, was still enveloped in , in an immense shirt of woodwork, which we regret, for our part, and by a vast plank enclosure, which completed the task of isolating the elephant. It was towards this corner of the place, dimly lighted by the reflection of a distant street lamp, that the gamin guided his two 'brats. The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him that we are dealing with simple reality, and that twenty years ago, the tribunals were called upon to judge, under the charge of vagabondage, and mutilation of a public monument, a child who had been caught asleep in this very elephant of the Bastille. This fact noted, we proceed. On arriving in the vicinity of the colossus, Gavroche comprehended the effect which the infinitely great might produce on the infinitely small, and said 'Don't be scared, infants. Then he entered through a gap in the fence into the elephant's enclosure and helped the young ones to clamber through the breach. The two children, somewhat frightened, followed Gavroche without uttering a word, and confided themselves to this little Providence in rags which had given them bread and had promised them a shelter. There, extended along the fence, lay a ladder which by day served the laborers in the neighboring timberyard. Gavroche raised it with remarkable vigor, and placed it against one of the elephant's forelegs. Near the point where the ladder ended, a sort of black hole in the belly of the colossus could be distinguished. Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole to his guests, and said to them 'Climb up and go in. The two little boys exchanged terrified glances. 'You're afraid, brats! exclaimed Gavroche. And he added 'You shall see! He clasped the rough leg of the elephant, and in a twinkling, without deigning to make use of the ladder, he had reached the aperture. He entered it as an adder slips through a crevice, and disappeared within, and an instant later, the two children saw his head, which looked pale, appear vaguely, on the edge of the shadowy hole, like a wan and whitish spectre. 'Well! he exclaimed, 'climb up, young 'uns! You'll see how snug it is here! Come up, you! he said to the elder, 'I'll lend you a hand. The little fellows nudged each other, the gamin frightened and inspired them with confidence at one and the same time, and then, it was raining very hard. The elder one undertook the risk. The younger, on seeing his brother climbing up, and himself left alone between the paws of this huge beast, felt greatly inclined to cry, but he did not dare. The elder lad climbed, with uncertain steps, up the rungs of the ladder Gavroche, in the meanwhile, encouraging him with exclamations like a fencingmaster to his pupils, or a muleteer to his mules. 'Don't be afraid!That's it!Come on!Put your feet there!Give us your hand here!Boldly! And when the child was within reach, he seized him suddenly and vigorously by the arm, and pulled him towards him. 'Nabbed! said he. The brat had passed through the crack. 'Now, said Gavroche, 'wait for me. Be so good as to take a seat, Monsieur. And making his way out of the hole as he had entered it, he slipped down the elephant's leg with the agility of a monkey, landed on his feet in the grass, grasped the child of five round the body, and planted him fairly in the middle of the ladder, then he began to climb up behind him, shouting to the elder 'I'm going to boost him, do you tug. And in another instant, the small lad was pushed, dragged, pulled, thrust, stuffed into the hole, before he had time to recover himself, and Gavroche, entering behind him, and repulsing the ladder with a kick which sent it flat on the grass, began to clap his hands and to cry 'Here we are! Long live General Lafayette! This explosion over, he added 'Now, young 'uns, you are in my house. Gavroche was at home, in fact. Oh, unforeseen utility of the useless! Charity of great things! Goodness of giants! This huge monument, which had embodied an idea of the Emperor's, had become the box of a street urchin. The brat had been accepted and sheltered by the colossus. The bourgeois decked out in their Sunday finery who passed the elephant of the Bastille, were fond of saying as they scanned it disdainfully with their prominent eyes 'What's the good of that? It served to save from the cold, the frost, the hail, and rain, to shelter from the winds of winter, to preserve from slumber in the mud which produces fever, and from slumber in the snow which produces death, a little being who had no father, no mother, no bread, no clothes, no refuge. It served to receive the innocent whom society repulsed. It served to diminish public crime. It was a lair open to one against whom all doors were shut. It seemed as though the miserable old mastodon, invaded by vermin and oblivion, covered with warts, with mould, and ulcers, tottering, wormeaten, abandoned, condemned, a sort of mendicant colossus, asking alms in vain with a benevolent look in the midst of the crossroads, had taken pity on that other mendicant, the poor pygmy, who roamed without shoes to his feet, without a roof over his head, blowing on his fingers, clad in rags, fed on rejected scraps. That was what the elephant of the Bastille was good for. This idea of Napoleon, disdained by men, had been taken back by God. That which had been merely illustrious, had become august. In order to realize his thought, the Emperor should have had porphyry, brass, iron, gold, marble the old collection of planks, beams and plaster sufficed for God. The Emperor had had the dream of a genius in that Titanic elephant, armed, prodigious, with trunk uplifted, bearing its tower and scattering on all sides its merry and vivifying waters, he wished to incarnate the people. God had done a grander thing with it, he had lodged a child there. The hole through which Gavroche had entered was a breach which was hardly visible from the outside, being concealed, as we have stated, beneath the elephant's belly, and so narrow that it was only cats and homeless children who could pass through it. 'Let's begin, said Gavroche, 'by telling the porter that we are not at home. And plunging into the darkness with the assurance of a person who is well acquainted with his apartments, he took a plank and stopped up the aperture. Again Gavroche plunged into the obscurity. The children heard the crackling of the match thrust into the phosphoric bottle. The chemical match was not yet in existence at that epoch the Fumade steel represented progress. A sudden light made them blink Gavroche had just managed to ignite one of those bits of cord dipped in resin which are called cellar rats. The cellar rat, which emitted more smoke than light, rendered the interior of the elephant confusedly visible. Gavroche's two guests glanced about them, and the sensation which they experienced was something like that which one would feel if shut up in the great tun of Heidelberg, or, better still, like what Jonah must have felt in the biblical belly of the whale. An entire and gigantic skeleton appeared enveloping them. Above, a long brown beam, whence started at regular distances, massive, arching ribs, represented the vertebral column with its sides, stalactites of plaster depended from them like entrails, and vast spiders' webs stretching from side to side, formed dirty diaphragms. Here and there, in the corners, were visible large blackish spots which had the appearance of being alive, and which changed places rapidly with an abrupt and frightened movement. Fragments which had fallen from the elephant's back into his belly had filled up the cavity, so that it was possible to walk upon it as on a floor. The smaller child nestled up against his brother, and whispered to him 'It's black. This remark drew an exclamation from Gavroche. The petrified air of the two brats rendered some shock necessary. 'What's that you are gabbling about there? he exclaimed. 'Are you scoffing at me? Are you turning up your noses? Do you want the Tuileries? Are you brutes? Come, say! I warn you that I don't belong to the regiment of simpletons. Ah, come now, are you brats from the Pope's establishment? A little roughness is good in cases of fear. It is reassuring. The two children drew close to Gavroche. Gavroche, paternally touched by this confidence, passed from grave to gentle, and addressing the smaller 'Stupid, said he, accenting the insulting word, with a caressing intonation, 'it's outside that it is black. Outside it's raining, here it does not rain outside it's cold, here there's not an atom of wind outside there are heaps of people, here there's no one outside there ain't even the moon, here there's my candle, confound it! The two children began to look upon the apartment with less terror but Gavroche allowed them no more time for contemplation. 'Quick, said he. And he pushed them towards what we are very glad to be able to call the end of the room. There stood his bed. Gavroche's bed was complete that is to say, it had a mattress, a blanket, and an alcove with curtains. The mattress was a straw mat, the blanket a rather large strip of gray woollen stuff, very warm and almost new. This is what the alcove consisted of Three rather long poles, thrust into and consolidated, with the rubbish which formed the floor, that is to say, the belly of the elephant, two in front and one behind, and united by a rope at their summits, so as to form a pyramidal bundle. This cluster supported a trelliswork of brass wire which was simply placed upon it, but artistically applied, and held by fastenings of iron wire, so that it enveloped all three holes. A row of very heavy stones kept this network down to the floor so that nothing could pass under it. This grating was nothing else than a piece of the brass screens with which aviaries are covered in menageries. Gavroche's bed stood as in a cage, behind this net. The whole resembled an Esquimaux tent. This trelliswork took the place of curtains. Gavroche moved aside the stones which fastened the net down in front, and the two folds of the net which lapped over each other fell apart. 'Down on all fours, brats! said Gavroche. He made his guests enter the cage with great precaution, then he crawled in after them, pulled the stones together, and closed the opening hermetically again. All three had stretched out on the mat. Gavroche still had the cellar rat in his hand. 'Now, said he, 'go to sleep! I'm going to suppress the candelabra. 'Monsieur, the elder of the brothers asked Gavroche, pointing to the netting, 'what's that for? 'That, answered Gavroche gravely, 'is for the rats. Go to sleep! Nevertheless, he felt obliged to add a few words of instruction for the benefit of these young creatures, and he continued 'It's a thing from the Jardin des Plantes. It's used for fierce animals. There's a whole shopful of them there. All you've got to do is to climb over a wall, crawl through a window, and pass through a door. You can get as much as you want. As he spoke, he wrapped the younger one up bodily in a fold of the blanket, and the little one murmured 'Oh! how good that is! It's warm! Gavroche cast a pleased eye on the blanket. 'That's from the Jardin des Plantes, too, said he. 'I took that from the monkeys. And, pointing out to the eldest the mat on which he was lying, a very thick and admirably made mat, he added 'That belonged to the giraffe. After a pause he went on 'The beasts had all these things. I took them away from them. It didn't trouble them. I told them 'It's for the elephant.' He paused, and then resumed 'You crawl over the walls and you don't care a straw for the government. So there now! The two children gazed with timid and stupefied respect on this intrepid and ingenious being, a vagabond like themselves, isolated like themselves, frail like themselves, who had something admirable and allpowerful about him, who seemed supernatural to them, and whose physiognomy was composed of all the grimaces of an old mountebank, mingled with the most ingenuous and charming smiles. 'Monsieur, ventured the elder timidly, 'you are not afraid of the police, then? Gavroche contented himself with replying 'Brat! Nobody says 'police,' they say 'bobbies.' The smaller had his eyes wide open, but he said nothing. As he was on the edge of the mat, the elder being in the middle, Gavroche tucked the blanket round him as a mother might have done, and heightened the mat under his head with old rags, in such a way as to form a pillow for the child. Then he turned to the elder 'Hey! We're jolly comfortable here, ain't we? 'Ah, yes! replied the elder, gazing at Gavroche with the expression of a saved angel. The two poor little children who had been soaked through, began to grow warm once more. 'Ah, by the way, continued Gavroche, 'what were you bawling about? And pointing out the little one to his brother 'A mite like that, I've nothing to say about, but the idea of a big fellow like you crying! It's idiotic you looked like a calf. 'Gracious, replied the child, 'we have no lodging. 'Bother! retorted Gavroche, 'you don't say 'lodgings,' you say 'crib.' 'And then, we were afraid of being alone like that at night. 'You don't say 'night,' you say 'darkmans.' 'Thank you, sir, said the child. 'Listen, went on Gavroche, 'you must never bawl again over anything. I'll take care of you. You shall see what fun we'll have. In summer, we'll go to the Glacire with Navet, one of my pals, we'll bathe in the Gare, we'll run stark naked in front of the rafts on the bridge at Austerlitz,that makes the laundresses raging. They scream, they get mad, and if you only knew how ridiculous they are! We'll go and see the manskeleton. And then I'll take you to the play. I'll take you to see Frdrick Lematre. I have tickets, I know some of the actors, I even played in a piece once. There were a lot of us fellers, and we ran under a cloth, and that made the sea. I'll get you an engagement at my theatre. We'll go to see the savages. They ain't real, those savages ain't. They wear pink tights that go all in wrinkles, and you can see where their elbows have been darned with white. Then, we'll go to the Opera. We'll get in with the hired applauders. The Opera claque is well managed. I wouldn't associate with the claque on the boulevard. At the Opera, just fancy! some of them pay twenty sous, but they're ninnies. They're called dishclouts. And then we'll go to see the guillotine work. I'll show you the executioner. He lives in the Rue des Marais. Monsieur Sanson. He has a letterbox at his door. Ah! we'll have famous fun! At that moment a drop of wax fell on Gavroche's finger, and recalled him to the realities of life. 'The deuce! said he, 'there's the wick giving out. Attention! I can't spend more than a sou a month on my lighting. When a body goes to bed, he must sleep. We haven't the time to read M. Paul de Kock's romances. And besides, the light might pass through the cracks of the portecochre, and all the bobbies need to do is to see it. 'And then, remarked the elder timidly,he alone dared talk to Gavroche, and reply to him, 'a spark might fall in the straw, and we must look out and not burn the house down. 'People don't say 'burn the house down,' remarked Gavroche, 'they say 'blaze the crib.' The storm increased in violence, and the heavy downpour beat upon the back of the colossus amid claps of thunder. 'You're taken in, rain! said Gavroche. 'It amuses me to hear the decanter run down the legs of the house. Winter is a stupid it wastes its merchandise, it loses its labor, it can't wet us, and that makes it kick up a row, old watercarrier that it is. This allusion to the thunder, all the consequences of which Gavroche, in his character of a philosopher of the nineteenth century, accepted, was followed by a broad flash of lightning, so dazzling that a hint of it entered the belly of the elephant through the crack. Almost at the same instant, the thunder rumbled with great fury. The two little creatures uttered a shriek, and started up so eagerly that the network came near being displaced, but Gavroche turned his bold face to them, and took advantage of the clap of thunder to burst into a laugh. 'Calm down, children. Don't topple over the edifice. That's fine, firstclass thunder all right. That's no slouch of a streak of lightning. Bravo for the good God! Deuce take it! It's almost as good as it is at the Ambigu. That said, he restored order in the netting, pushed the two children gently down on the bed, pressed their knees, in order to stretch them out at full length, and exclaimed 'Since the good God is lighting his candle, I can blow out mine. Now, babes, now, my young humans, you must shut your peepers. It's very bad not to sleep. It'll make you swallow the strainer, or, as they say, in fashionable society, stink in the gullet. Wrap yourself up well in the hide! I'm going to put out the light. Are you ready? 'Yes, murmured the elder, 'I'm all right. I seem to have feathers under my head. 'People don't say 'head,' cried Gavroche, 'they say 'nut'. The two children nestled close to each other, Gavroche finished arranging them on the mat, drew the blanket up to their very ears, then repeated, for the third time, his injunction in the hieratical tongue 'Shut your peepers! And he snuffed out his tiny light. Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling began to affect the netting under which the three children lay. It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallic sound, as if claws and teeth were gnawing at the copper wire. This was accompanied by all sorts of little piercing cries. The little fiveyearold boy, on hearing this hubbub overhead, and chilled with terror, jogged his brother's elbow but the elder brother had already shut his peepers, as Gavroche had ordered. Then the little one, who could no longer control his terror, questioned Gavroche, but in a very low tone, and with bated breath 'Sir? 'Hey? said Gavroche, who had just closed his eyes. 'What is that? 'It's the rats, replied Gavroche. And he laid his head down on the mat again. The rats, in fact, who swarmed by thousands in the carcass of the elephant, and who were the living black spots which we have already mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as it had been lighted but as soon as the cavern, which was the same as their city, had returned to darkness, scenting what the good storyteller Perrault calls 'fresh meat, they had hurled themselves in throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun to bite the meshes as though seeking to pierce this newfangled trap. Still the little one could not sleep. 'Sir? he began again. 'Hey? said Gavroche. 'What are rats? 'They are mice. This explanation reassured the child a little. He had seen white mice in the course of his life, and he was not afraid of them. Nevertheless, he lifted up his voice once more. 'Sir? 'Hey? said Gavroche again. 'Why don't you have a cat? 'I did have one, replied Gavroche, 'I brought one here, but they ate her. This second explanation undid the work of the first, and the little fellow began to tremble again. The dialogue between him and Gavroche began again for the fourth time 'Monsieur? 'Hey? 'Who was it that was eaten? 'The cat. 'And who ate the cat? 'The rats. 'The mice? 'Yes, the rats. The child, in consternation, dismayed at the thought of mice which ate cats, pursued 'Sir, would those mice eat us? 'Wouldn't they just! ejaculated Gavroche. The child's terror had reached its climax. But Gavroche added 'Don't be afraid. They can't get in. And besides, I'm here! Here, catch hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers! At the same time Gavroche grasped the little fellow's hand across his brother. The child pressed the hand close to him, and felt reassured. Courage and strength have these mysterious ways of communicating themselves. Silence reigned round them once more, the sound of their voices had frightened off the rats at the expiration of a few minutes, they came raging back, but in vain, the three little fellows were fast asleep and heard nothing more. The hours of the night fled away. Darkness covered the vast Place de la Bastille. A wintry gale, which mingled with the rain, blew in gusts, the patrol searched all the doorways, alleys, enclosures, and obscure nooks, and in their search for nocturnal vagabonds they passed in silence before the elephant the monster, erect, motionless, staring openeyed into the shadows, had the appearance of dreaming happily over his good deed and sheltered from heaven and from men the three poor sleeping children. In order to understand what is about to follow, the reader must remember, that, at that epoch, the Bastille guardhouse was situated at the other end of the square, and that what took place in the vicinity of the elephant could neither be seen nor heard by the sentinel. Towards the end of that hour which immediately precedes the dawn, a man turned from the Rue SaintAntoine at a run, made the circuit of the enclosure of the column of July, and glided between the palings until he was underneath the belly of the elephant. If any light had illuminated that man, it might have been divined from the thorough manner in which he was soaked that he had passed the night in the rain. Arrived beneath the elephant, he uttered a peculiar cry, which did not belong to any human tongue, and which a paroquet alone could have imitated. Twice he repeated this cry, of whose orthography the following barely conveys an idea 'Kirikikiou! At the second cry, a clear, young, merry voice responded from the belly of the elephant 'Yes! Almost immediately, the plank which closed the hole was drawn aside, and gave passage to a child who descended the elephant's leg, and fell briskly near the man. It was Gavroche. The man was Montparnasse. As for his cry of Kirikikiou,that was, doubtless, what the child had meant, when he said 'You will ask for Monsieur Gavroche. On hearing it, he had waked with a start, had crawled out of his 'alcove, pushing apart the netting a little, and carefully drawing it together again, then he had opened the trap, and descended. The man and the child recognized each other silently amid the gloom Montparnasse confined himself to the remark 'We need you. Come, lend us a hand. The lad asked for no further enlightenment. 'I'm with you, said he. And both took their way towards the Rue SaintAntoine, whence Montparnasse had emerged, winding rapidly through the long file of marketgardeners' carts which descend towards the markets at that hour. The marketgardeners, crouching, halfasleep, in their wagons, amid the salads and vegetables, enveloped to their very eyes in their mufflers on account of the beating rain, did not even glance at these strange pedestrians. This is what had taken place that same night at the La Force An escape had been planned between Babet, Brujon, Guelemer, and Thnardier, although Thnardier was in close confinement. Babet had arranged the matter for his own benefit, on the same day, as the reader has seen from Montparnasse's account to Gavroche. Montparnasse was to help them from outside. Brujon, after having passed a month in the punishment cell, had had time, in the first place, to weave a rope, in the second, to mature a plan. In former times, those severe places where the discipline of the prison delivers the convict into his own hands, were composed of four stone walls, a stone ceiling, a flagged pavement, a camp bed, a grated window, and a door lined with iron, and were called dungeons but the dungeon was judged to be too terrible nowadays they are composed of an iron door, a grated window, a camp bed, a flagged pavement, four stone walls, and a stone ceiling, and are called chambers of punishment. A little light penetrates towards midday. The inconvenient point about these chambers which, as the reader sees, are not dungeons, is that they allow the persons who should be at work to think. So Brujon meditated, and he emerged from the chamber of punishment with a rope. As he had the name of being very dangerous in the Charlemagne courtyard, he was placed in the New Building. The first thing he found in the New Building was Guelemer, the second was a nail Guelemer, that is to say, crime a nail, that is to say, liberty. Brujon, of whom it is high time that the reader should have a complete idea, was, with an appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a polished, intelligent sprig, and a thief, who had a caressing glance, and an atrocious smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed to roofs. He had made great progress in the industry of the men who tear off lead, who plunder the roofs and despoil the gutters by the process called double pickings. The circumstance which put the finishing touch on the moment peculiarly favorable for an attempt at escape, was that the roofers were relaying and rejointing, at that very moment, a portion of the slates on the prison. The SaintBernard courtyard was no longer absolutely isolated from the Charlemagne and the SaintLouis courts. Up above there were scaffoldings and ladders in other words, bridges and stairs in the direction of liberty. The New Building, which was the most cracked and decrepit thing to be seen anywhere in the world, was the weak point in the prison. The walls were eaten by saltpetre to such an extent that the authorities had been obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood, because stones were in the habit of becoming detached and falling on the prisoners in their beds. In spite of this antiquity, the authorities committed the error of confining in the New Building the most troublesome prisoners, of placing there 'the hard cases, as they say in prison parlance. The New Building contained four dormitories, one above the other, and a top story which was called the BelAir (FineAir). A large chimneyflue, probably from some ancient kitchen of the Dukes de la Force, started from the ground floor, traversed all four stories, cut the dormitories, where it figured as a flattened pillar, into two portions, and finally pierced the roof. Guelemer and Brujon were in the same dormitory. They had been placed, by way of precaution, on the lower story. Chance ordained that the heads of their beds should rest against the chimney. Thnardier was directly over their heads in the top story known as FineAir. The pedestrian who halts on the Rue CultureSainteCatherine, after passing the barracks of the firemen, in front of the portecochre of the bathing establishment, beholds a yard full of flowers and shrubs in wooden boxes, at the extremity of which spreads out a little white rotunda with two wings, brightened up with green shutters, the bucolic dream of Jean Jacques. Not more than ten years ago, there rose above that rotunda an enormous black, hideous, bare wall by which it was backed up. This was the outer wall of La Force. This wall, beside that rotunda, was Milton viewed through Berquin. Lofty as it was, this wall was overtopped by a still blacker roof, which could be seen beyond. This was the roof of the New Building. There one could descry four dormerwindows, guarded with bars they were the windows of the FineAir. A chimney pierced the roof this was the chimney which traversed the dormitories. The BelAir, that top story of the New Building, was a sort of large hall, with a Mansard roof, guarded with triple gratings and double doors of sheet iron, which were studded with enormous bolts. When one entered from the north end, one had on one's left the four dormerwindows, on one's right, facing the windows, at regular intervals, four square, tolerably vast cages, separated by narrow passages, built of masonry to about the height of the elbow, and the rest, up to the roof, of iron bars. Thnardier had been in solitary confinement in one of these cages since the night of the d of February. No one was ever able to discover how, and by what connivance, he succeeded in procuring, and secreting a bottle of wine, invented, so it is said, by Desrues, with which a narcotic is mixed, and which the band of the Endormeurs, or Sleepcompellers, rendered famous. There are, in many prisons, treacherous employees, halfjailers, halfthieves, who assist in escapes, who sell to the police an unfaithful service, and who turn a penny whenever they can. On that same night, then, when Little Gavroche picked up the two lost children, Brujon and Guelemer, who knew that Babet, who had escaped that morning, was waiting for them in the street as well as Montparnasse, rose softly, and with the nail which Brujon had found, began to pierce the chimney against which their beds stood. The rubbish fell on Brujon's bed, so that they were not heard. Showers mingled with thunder shook the doors on their hinges, and created in the prison a terrible and opportune uproar. Those of the prisoners who woke, pretended to fall asleep again, and left Guelemer and Brujon to their own devices. Brujon was adroit Guelemer was vigorous. Before any sound had reached the watcher, who was sleeping in the grated cell which opened into the dormitory, the wall had been pierced, the chimney scaled, the iron grating which barred the upper orifice of the flue forced, and the two redoubtable ruffians were on the roof. The wind and rain redoubled, the roof was slippery. 'What a good night to leg it! said Brujon. An abyss six feet broad and eighty feet deep separated them from the surrounding wall. At the bottom of this abyss, they could see the musket of a sentinel gleaming through the gloom. They fastened one end of the rope which Brujon had spun in his dungeon to the stumps of the iron bars which they had just wrenched off, flung the other over the outer wall, crossed the abyss at one bound, clung to the coping of the wall, got astride of it, let themselves slip, one after the other, along the rope, upon a little roof which touches the bathhouse, pulled their rope after them, jumped down into the courtyard of the bathhouse, traversed it, pushed open the porter's wicket, beside which hung his rope, pulled this, opened the portecochre, and found themselves in the street. Threequarters of an hour had not elapsed since they had risen in bed in the dark, nail in hand, and their project in their heads. A few moments later they had joined Babet and Montparnasse, who were prowling about the neighborhood. They had broken their rope in pulling it after them, and a bit of it remained attached to the chimney on the roof. They had sustained no other damage, however, than that of scratching nearly all the skin off their hands. That night, Thnardier was warned, without any one being able to explain how, and was not asleep. Towards one o'clock in the morning, the night being very dark, he saw two shadows pass along the roof, in the rain and squalls, in front of the dormerwindow which was opposite his cage. One halted at the window, long enough to dart in a glance. This was Brujon. Thnardier recognized him, and understood. This was enough. Thnardier, rated as a burglar, and detained as a measure of precaution under the charge of organizing a nocturnal ambush, with armed force, was kept in sight. The sentry, who was relieved every two hours, marched up and down in front of his cage with loaded musket. The FineAir was lighted by a skylight. The prisoner had on his feet fetters weighing fifty pounds. Every day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a jailer, escorted by two dogs,this was still in vogue at that time,entered his cage, deposited beside his bed a loaf of black bread weighing two pounds, a jug of water, a bowl filled with rather thin bouillon, in which swam a few Mayagan beans, inspected his irons and tapped the bars. This man and his dogs made two visits during the night. Thnardier had obtained permission to keep a sort of iron bolt which he used to spike his bread into a crack in the wall, 'in order to preserve it from the rats, as he said. As Thnardier was kept in sight, no objection had been made to this spike. Still, it was remembered afterwards, that one of the jailers had said 'It would be better to let him have only a wooden spike. At two o'clock in the morning, the sentinel, who was an old soldier, was relieved, and replaced by a conscript. A few moments later, the man with the dogs paid his visit, and went off without noticing anything, except, possibly, the excessive youth and 'the rustic air of the 'raw recruit. Two hours afterwards, at four o'clock, when they came to relieve the conscript, he was found asleep on the floor, lying like a log near Thnardier's cage. As for Thnardier, he was no longer there. There was a hole in the ceiling of his cage, and, above it, another hole in the roof. One of the planks of his bed had been wrenched off, and probably carried away with him, as it was not found. They also seized in his cell a halfempty bottle which contained the remains of the stupefying wine with which the soldier had been drugged. The soldier's bayonet had disappeared. At the moment when this discovery was made, it was assumed that Thnardier was out of reach. The truth is, that he was no longer in the New Building, but that he was still in great danger. Thnardier, on reaching the roof of the New Building, had found the remains of Brujon's rope hanging to the bars of the upper trap of the chimney, but, as this broken fragment was much too short, he had not been able to escape by the outer wall, as Brujon and Guelemer had done. When one turns from the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du RoideSicile, one almost immediately encounters a repulsive ruin. There stood on that spot, in the last century, a house of which only the back wall now remains, a regular wall of masonry, which rises to the height of the third story between the adjoining buildings. This ruin can be recognized by two large square windows which are still to be seen there the middle one, that nearest the right gable, is barred with a wormeaten beam adjusted like a prop. Through these windows there was formerly visible a lofty and lugubrious wall, which was a fragment of the outer wall of La Force. The empty space on the street left by the demolished house is halffilled by a fence of rotten boards, shored up by five stone posts. In this recess lies concealed a little shanty which leans against the portion of the ruin which has remained standing. The fence has a gate, which, a few years ago, was fastened only by a latch. It was the crest of this ruin that Thnardier had succeeded in reaching, a little after one o'clock in the morning. How had he got there? That is what no one has ever been able to explain or understand. The lightning must, at the same time, have hindered and helped him. Had he made use of the ladders and scaffoldings of the slaters to get from roof to roof, from enclosure to enclosure, from compartment to compartment, to the buildings of the Charlemagne court, then to the buildings of the SaintLouis court, to the outer wall, and thence to the hut on the Rue du RoideSicile? But in that itinerary there existed breaks which seemed to render it an impossibility. Had he placed the plank from his bed like a bridge from the roof of the FineAir to the outer wall, and crawled flat, on his belly on the coping of the outer wall the whole distance round the prison as far as the hut? But the outer wall of La Force formed a crenellated and unequal line it mounted and descended, it dropped at the firemen's barracks, it rose towards the bathhouse, it was cut in twain by buildings, it was not even of the same height on the Hotel Lamoignon as on the Rue Pave everywhere occurred falls and right angles and then, the sentinels must have espied the dark form of the fugitive hence, the route taken by Thnardier still remains rather inexplicable. In two manners, flight was impossible. Had Thnardier, spurred on by that thirst for liberty which changes precipices into ditches, iron bars into wattles of osier, a legless man into an athlete, a gouty man into a bird, stupidity into instinct, instinct into intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had Thnardier invented a third mode? No one has ever found out. The marvels of escape cannot always be accounted for. The man who makes his escape, we repeat, is inspired there is something of the star and of the lightning in the mysterious gleam of flight the effort towards deliverance is no less surprising than the flight towards the sublime, and one says of the escaped thief 'How did he contrive to scale that wall? in the same way that one says of Corneille 'Where did he find the means of dying? At all events, dripping with perspiration, drenched with rain, with his clothes hanging in ribbons, his hands flayed, his elbows bleeding, his knees torn, Thnardier had reached what children, in their figurative language, call the edge of the wall of the ruin, there he had stretched himself out at full length, and there his strength had failed him. A steep escarpment three stories high separated him from the pavement of the street. The rope which he had was too short. There he waited, pale, exhausted, desperate with all the despair which he had undergone, still hidden by the night, but telling himself that the day was on the point of dawning, alarmed at the idea of hearing the neighboring clock of SaintPaul strike four within a few minutes, an hour when the sentinel was relieved and when the latter would be found asleep under the pierced roof, staring in horror at a terrible depth, at the light of the street lanterns, the wet, black pavement, that pavement longed for yet frightful, which meant death, and which meant liberty. He asked himself whether his three accomplices in flight had succeeded, if they had heard him, and if they would come to his assistance. He listened. With the exception of the patrol, no one had passed through the street since he had been there. Nearly the whole of the descent of the marketgardeners from Montreuil, from Charonne, from Vincennes, and from Bercy to the markets was accomplished through the Rue SaintAntoine. Four o'clock struck. Thnardier shuddered. A few moments later, that terrified and confused uproar which follows the discovery of an escape broke forth in the prison. The sound of doors opening and shutting, the creaking of gratings on their hinges, a tumult in the guardhouse, the hoarse shouts of the turnkeys, the shock of musketbutts on the pavement of the courts, reached his ears. Lights ascended and descended past the grated windows of the dormitories, a torch ran along the ridgepole of the top story of the New Building, the firemen belonging in the barracks on the right had been summoned. Their helmets, which the torch lighted up in the rain, went and came along the roofs. At the same time, Thnardier perceived in the direction of the Bastille a wan whiteness lighting up the edge of the sky in doleful wise. He was on top of a wall ten inches wide, stretched out under the heavy rains, with two gulfs to right and left, unable to stir, subject to the giddiness of a possible fall, and to the horror of a certain arrest, and his thoughts, like the pendulum of a clock, swung from one of these ideas to the other 'Dead if I fall, caught if I stay. In the midst of this anguish, he suddenly saw, the street being still dark, a man who was gliding along the walls and coming from the Rue Pave, halt in the recess above which Thnardier was, as it were, suspended. Here this man was joined by a second, who walked with the same caution, then by a third, then by a fourth. When these men were reunited, one of them lifted the latch of the gate in the fence, and all four entered the enclosure in which the shanty stood. They halted directly under Thnardier. These men had evidently chosen this vacant space in order that they might consult without being seen by the passersby or by the sentinel who guards the wicket of La Force a few paces distant. It must be added, that the rain kept this sentinel blocked in his box. Thnardier, not being able to distinguish their visages, lent an ear to their words with the desperate attention of a wretch who feels himself lost. Thnardier saw something resembling a gleam of hope flash before his eyes,these men conversed in slang. The first said in a low but distinct voice 'Let's cut. What are we up to here? The second replied 'It's raining hard enough to put out the very devil's fire. And the bobbies will be along instanter. There's a soldier on guard yonder. We shall get nabbed here. These two words, icigo and icicaille, both of which mean ici, and which belong, the first to the slang of the barriers, the second to the slang of the Temple, were flashes of light for Thnardier. By the icigo he recognized Brujon, who was a prowler of the barriers, by the icicaille he knew Babet, who, among his other trades, had been an oldclothes broker at the Temple. The antique slang of the great century is no longer spoken except in the Temple, and Babet was really the only person who spoke it in all its purity. Had it not been for the icicaille, Thnardier would not have recognized him, for he had entirely changed his voice. In the meanwhile, the third man had intervened. 'There's no hurry yet, let's wait a bit. How do we know that he doesn't stand in need of us? By this, which was nothing but French, Thnardier recognized Montparnasse, who made it a point in his elegance to understand all slangs and to speak none of them. As for the fourth, he held his peace, but his huge shoulders betrayed him. Thnardier did not hesitate. It was Guelemer. Brujon replied almost impetuously but still in a low tone 'What are you jabbering about? The tavernkeeper hasn't managed to cut his stick. He don't tumble to the racket, that he don't! You have to be a pretty knowing cove to tear up your shirt, cut up your sheet to make a rope, punch holes in doors, get up false papers, make false keys, file your irons, hang out your cord, hide yourself, and disguise yourself! The old fellow hasn't managed to play it, he doesn't understand how to work the business. Babet added, still in that classical slang which was spoken by Poulailler and Cartouche, and which is to the bold, new, highly colored and risky argot used by Brujon what the language of Racine is to the language of Andr Chenier 'Your tavernkeeper must have been nabbed in the act. You have to be knowing. He's only a greenhorn. He must have let himself be taken in by a bobby, perhaps even by a sheep who played it on him as his pal. Listen, Montparnasse, do you hear those shouts in the prison? You have seen all those lights. He's recaptured, there! He'll get off with twenty years. I ain't afraid, I ain't a coward, but there ain't anything more to do, or otherwise they'd lead us a dance. Don't get mad, come with us, let's go drink a bottle of old wine together. 'One doesn't desert one's friends in a scrape, grumbled Montparnasse. 'I tell you he's nabbed! retorted Brujon. 'At the present moment, the innkeeper ain't worth a ha'penny. We can't do nothing for him. Let's be off. Every minute I think a bobby has got me in his fist. Montparnasse no longer offered more than a feeble resistance the fact is, that these four men, with the fidelity of ruffians who never abandon each other, had prowled all night long about La Force, great as was their peril, in the hope of seeing Thnardier make his appearance on the top of some wall. But the night, which was really growing too fine,for the downpour was such as to render all the streets deserted,the cold which was overpowering them, their soaked garments, their holeridden shoes, the alarming noise which had just burst forth in the prison, the hours which had elapsed, the patrol which they had encountered, the hope which was vanishing, all urged them to beat a retreat. Montparnasse himself, who was, perhaps, almost Thnardier's soninlaw, yielded. A moment more, and they would be gone. Thnardier was panting on his wall like the shipwrecked sufferers of the Mduse on their raft when they beheld the vessel which had appeared in sight vanish on the horizon. He dared not call to them a cry might be heard and ruin everything. An idea occurred to him, a last idea, a flash of inspiration he drew from his pocket the end of Brujon's rope, which he had detached from the chimney of the New Building, and flung it into the space enclosed by the fence. This rope fell at their feet. 'A widow, said Babet. 'My tortouse! said Brujon. 'The tavernkeeper is there, said Montparnasse. They raised their eyes. Thnardier thrust out his head a very little. 'Quick! said Montparnasse, 'have you the other end of the rope, Brujon? 'Yes. 'Knot the two pieces together, we'll fling him the rope, he can fasten it to the wall, and he'll have enough of it to get down with. Thnardier ran the risk, and spoke 'I am paralyzed with cold. 'We'll warm you up. 'I can't budge. 'Let yourself slide, we'll catch you. 'My hands are benumbed. 'Only fasten the rope to the wall. 'I can't. 'Then one of us must climb up, said Montparnasse. 'Three stories! ejaculated Brujon. An ancient plaster flue, which had served for a stove that had been used in the shanty in former times, ran along the wall and mounted almost to the very spot where they could see Thnardier. This flue, then much damaged and full of cracks, has since fallen, but the marks of it are still visible. It was very narrow. 'One might get up by the help of that, said Montparnasse. 'By that flue? exclaimed Babet, 'a grownup cove, never! it would take a brat. 'A brat must be got, resumed Brujon. 'Where are we to find a young 'un? said Guelemer. 'Wait, said Montparnasse. 'I've got the very article. He opened the gate of the fence very softly, made sure that no one was passing along the street, stepped out cautiously, shut the gate behind him, and set off at a run in the direction of the Bastille. Seven or eight minutes elapsed, eight thousand centuries to Thnardier Babet, Brujon, and Guelemer did not open their lips at last the gate opened once more, and Montparnasse appeared, breathless, and followed by Gavroche. The rain still rendered the street completely deserted. Little Gavroche entered the enclosure and gazed at the forms of these ruffians with a tranquil air. The water was dripping from his hair. Guelemer addressed him 'Are you a man, young 'un? Gavroche shrugged his shoulders, and replied 'A young 'un like me's a man, and men like you are babes. 'The brat's tongue's well hung! exclaimed Babet. 'The Paris brat ain't made of straw, added Brujon. 'What do you want? asked Gavroche. Montparnasse answered 'Climb up that flue. 'With this rope, said Babet. 'And fasten it, continued Brujon. 'To the top of the wall, went on Babet. 'To the crossbar of the window, added Brujon. 'And then? said Gavroche. 'There! said Guelemer. The gamin examined the rope, the flue, the wall, the windows, and made that indescribable and disdainful noise with his lips which signifies 'Is that all! 'There's a man up there whom you are to save, resumed Montparnasse. 'Will you? began Brujon again. 'Greenhorn! replied the lad, as though the question appeared a most unprecedented one to him. And he took off his shoes. Guelemer seized Gavroche by one arm, set him on the roof of the shanty, whose wormeaten planks bent beneath the urchin's weight, and handed him the rope which Brujon had knotted together during Montparnasse's absence. The gamin directed his steps towards the flue, which it was easy to enter, thanks to a large crack which touched the roof. At the moment when he was on the point of ascending, Thnardier, who saw life and safety approaching, bent over the edge of the wall the first light of dawn struck white upon his brow dripping with sweat, upon his livid cheekbones, his sharp and savage nose, his bristling gray beard, and Gavroche recognized him. 'Hullo! it's my father! Oh, that won't hinder. And taking the rope in his teeth, he resolutely began the ascent. He reached the summit of the hut, bestrode the old wall as though it had been a horse, and knotted the rope firmly to the upper crossbar of the window. A moment later, Thnardier was in the street. As soon as he touched the pavement, as soon as he found himself out of danger, he was no longer either weary, or chilled or trembling the terrible things from which he had escaped vanished like smoke, all that strange and ferocious mind awoke once more, and stood erect and free, ready to march onward. These were this man's first words 'Now, whom are we to eat? It is useless to explain the sense of this frightfully transparent remark, which signifies both to kill, to assassinate, and to plunder. To eat, true sense to devour. 'Let's get well into a corner, said Brujon. 'Let's settle it in three words, and part at once. There was an affair that promised well in the Rue Plumet, a deserted street, an isolated house, an old rotten gate on a garden, and lone women. 'Well! why not? demanded Thnardier. 'Your girl, ponine, went to see about the matter, replied Babet. 'And she brought a biscuit to Magnon, added Guelemer. 'Nothing to be made there. 'The girl's no fool, said Thnardier. 'Still, it must be seen to. 'Yes, yes, said Brujon, 'it must be looked up. In the meanwhile, none of the men seemed to see Gavroche, who, during this colloquy, had seated himself on one of the fenceposts he waited a few moments, thinking that perhaps his father would turn towards him, then he put on his shoes again, and said 'Is that all? You don't want any more, my men? Now you're out of your scrape. I'm off. I must go and get my brats out of bed. And off he went. The five men emerged, one after another, from the enclosure. When Gavroche had disappeared at the corner of the Rue des Ballets, Babet took Thnardier aside. 'Did you take a good look at that young 'un? he asked. 'What young 'un? 'The one who climbed the wall and carried you the rope. 'Not particularly. 'Well, I don't know, but it strikes me that it was your son. 'Bah! said Thnardier, 'do you think so? Pigritia is a terrible word. It engenders a whole world, la pgre, for which read theft, and a hell, la pgrenne, for which read hunger. Thus, idleness is the mother. She has a son, theft, and a daughter, hunger. Where are we at this moment? In the land of slang. What is slang? It is at one and the same time, a nation and a dialect it is theft in its two kinds people and language. When, four and thirty years ago, the narrator of this grave and sombre history introduced into a work written with the same aim as this a thief who talked argot, there arose amazement and clamor.'What! How! Argot! Why, argot is horrible! It is the language of prisons, galleys, convicts, of everything that is most abominable in society! etc., etc. We have never understood this sort of objections. Since that time, two powerful romancers, one of whom is a profound observer of the human heart, the other an intrepid friend of the people, Balzac and Eugne Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking their natural language, as the author of The Last Day of a Condemned Man did in , the same objections have been raised. People repeated 'What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious! Slang makes one shudder! Who denies that? Of course it does. When it is a question of probing a wound, a gulf, a society, since when has it been considered wrong to go too far? to go to the bottom? We have always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a simple and useful deed, worthy of the sympathetic attention which duty accepted and fulfilled merits. Why should one not explore everything, and study everything? Why should one halt on the way? The halt is a matter depending on the soundingline, and not on the leadsman. Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to undertake an investigation into the lowest depths of the social order, where terra firma comes to an end and where mud begins, to rummage in those vague, murky waves, to follow up, to seize and to fling, still quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with filth when thus brought to the light, that pustulous vocabulary each word of which seems an unclean ring from a monster of the mire and the shadows. Nothing is more lugubrious than the contemplation thus in its nudity, in the broad light of thought, of the horrible swarming of slang. It seems, in fact, to be a sort of horrible beast made for the night which has just been torn from its cesspool. One thinks one beholds a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, wavers, returns to shadow, threatens and glares. One word resembles a claw, another an extinguished and bleeding eye, such and such a phrase seems to move like the claw of a crab. All this is alive with the hideous vitality of things which have been organized out of disorganization. Now, when has horror ever excluded study? Since when has malady banished medicine? Can one imagine a naturalist refusing to study the viper, the bat, the scorpion, the centipede, the tarantula, and one who would cast them back into their darkness, saying 'Oh! how ugly that is! The thinker who should turn aside from slang would resemble a surgeon who should avert his face from an ulcer or a wart. He would be like a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity. For, it must be stated to those who are ignorant of the case, that argot is both a literary phenomenon and a social result. What is slang, properly speaking? It is the language of wretchedness. We may be stopped the fact may be put to us in general terms, which is one way of attenuating it we may be told, that all trades, professions, it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says 'Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality, the broker on 'change who says 'Assets at end of current month, the gambler who says 'Tiers et tout, refait de pique, the sheriff of the Norman Isles who says 'The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot claim the fruits of that estate during the hereditary seizure of the real estate by the mortgagor, the playwright who says 'The piece was hissed, the comedian who says 'I've made a hit, the philosopher who says 'Phenomenal triplicity, the huntsman who says 'Voileci allais, Voileci fuyant, the phrenologist who says 'Amativeness, combativeness, secretiveness, the infantry soldier who says 'My shootingiron, the cavalryman who says 'My turkeycock, the fencingmaster who says 'Tierce, quarte, break, the printer who says 'My shootingstick and galley,all, printer, fencingmaster, cavalry dragoon, infantryman, phrenologist, huntsman, philosopher, comedian, playwright, sheriff, gambler, stockbroker, and merchant, speak slang. The painter who says 'My grinder, the notary who says 'My SkiptheGutter, the hairdresser who says 'My mealyback, the cobbler who says 'My cub, talks slang. Strictly speaking, if one absolutely insists on the point, all the different fashions of saying the right and the left, the sailor's port and starboard, the sceneshifter's courtside, and gardenside, the beadle's Gospelside and Epistleside, are slang. There is the slang of the affected lady as well as of the prcieuses. The Hotel Rambouillet nearly adjoins the Cour des Miracles. There is a slang of duchesses, witness this phrase contained in a loveletter from a very great lady and a very pretty woman of the Restoration 'You will find in this gossip a fultitude of reasons why I should libertize. Diplomatic ciphers are slang the pontifical chancellery by using  for Rome, grkztntgzyal for despatch, and abfxustgrnogrkzu tu XI. for the Duc de Modena, speaks slang. The physicians of the Middle Ages who, for carrot, radish, and turnip, said Opoponach, perfroschinum, reptitalmus, dracatholicum, angelorum, postmegorum, talked slang. The sugarmanufacturer who says 'Loaf, clarified, lumps, bastard, common, burnt,this honest manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of criticism twenty years ago, which used to say 'Half of the works of Shakespeare consists of plays upon words and puns,talked slang. The poet, and the artist who, with profound understanding, would designate M. de Montmorency as 'a bourgeois, if he were not a judge of verses and statues, speak slang. The classic Academician who calls flowers 'Flora, fruits, 'Pomona, the sea, 'Neptune, love, 'fires, beauty, 'charms, a horse, 'a courser, the white or tricolored cockade, 'the rose of Bellona, the threecornered hat, 'Mars' triangle,that classical Academician talks slang. Algebra, medicine, botany, have each their slang. The tongue which is employed on board ship, that wonderful language of the sea, which is so complete and so picturesque, which was spoken by Jean Bart, Duquesne, Suffren, and Duperr, which mingles with the whistling of the rigging, the sound of the speakingtrumpets, the shock of the boardingirons, the roll of the sea, the wind, the gale, the cannon, is wholly a heroic and dazzling slang, which is to the fierce slang of the thieves what the lion is to the jackal. No doubt. But say what we will, this manner of understanding the word slang is an extension which every one will not admit. For our part, we reserve to the word its ancient and precise, circumscribed and determined significance, and we restrict slang to slang. The veritable slang and the slang that is preeminently slang, if the two words can be coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom, is nothing else, we repeat, than the homely, uneasy, crafty, treacherous, venomous, cruel, equivocal, vile, profound, fatal tongue of wretchedness. There exists, at the extremity of all abasement and all misfortunes, a last misery which revolts and makes up its mind to enter into conflict with the whole mass of fortunate facts and reigning rights a fearful conflict, where, now cunning, now violent, unhealthy and ferocious at one and the same time, it attacks the social order with pinpricks through vice, and with clubblows through crime. To meet the needs of this conflict, wretchedness has invented a language of combat, which is slang. To keep afloat and to rescue from oblivion, to hold above the gulf, were it but a fragment of some language which man has spoken and which would, otherwise, be lost, that is to say, one of the elements, good or bad, of which civilization is composed, or by which it is complicated, to extend the records of social observation is to serve civilization itself. This service Plautus rendered, consciously or unconsciously, by making two Carthaginian soldiers talk Phnician that service Molire rendered, by making so many of his characters talk Levantine and all sorts of dialects. Here objections spring up afresh. Phnician, very good! Levantine, quite right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues which have belonged to nations or provinces but slang! What is the use of preserving slang? What is the good of assisting slang 'to survive? To this we reply in one word, only. Assuredly, if the tongue which a nation or a province has spoken is worthy of interest, the language which has been spoken by a misery is still more worthy of attention and study. It is the language which has been spoken, in France, for example, for more than four centuries, not only by a misery, but by every possible human misery. And then, we insist upon it, the study of social deformities and infirmities, and the task of pointing them out with a view to remedy, is not a business in which choice is permitted. The historian of manners and ideas has no less austere a mission than the historian of events. The latter has the surface of civilization, the conflicts of crowns, the births of princes, the marriages of kings, battles, assemblages, great public men, revolutions in the daylight, everything on the exterior the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, suffer, wait, the oppressed woman, the agonizing child, the secret war between man and man, obscure ferocities, prejudices, plotted iniquities, the subterranean, the indistinct tremors of multitudes, the dieofhunger, the counterblows of the law, the secret evolution of souls, the gobarefoot, the barearmed, the disinherited, the orphans, the unhappy, and the infamous, all the forms which roam through the darkness. He must descend with his heart full of charity, and severity at the same time, as a brother and as a judge, to those impenetrable casemates where crawl, pellmell, those who bleed and those who deal the blow, those who weep and those who curse, those who fast and those who devour, those who endure evil and those who inflict it. Have these historians of hearts and souls duties at all inferior to the historians of external facts? Does any one think that Alighieri has any fewer things to say than Machiavelli? Is the under side of civilization any less important than the upper side merely because it is deeper and more sombre? Do we really know the mountain well when we are not acquainted with the cavern? Let us say, moreover, parenthetically, that from a few words of what precedes a marked separation might be inferred between the two classes of historians which does not exist in our mind. No one is a good historian of the patent, visible, striking, and public life of peoples, if he is not, at the same time, in a certain measure, the historian of their deep and hidden life and no one is a good historian of the interior unless he understands how, at need, to be the historian of the exterior also. The history of manners and ideas permeates the history of events, and this is true reciprocally. They constitute two different orders of facts which correspond to each other, which are always interlaced, and which often bring forth results. All the lineaments which providence traces on the surface of a nation have their parallels, sombre but distinct, in their depths, and all convulsions of the depths produce ebullitions on the surface. True history being a mixture of all things, the true historian mingles in everything. Man is not a circle with a single centre he is an ellipse with a double focus. Facts form one of these, and ideas the other. Slang is nothing but a dressingroom where the tongue having some bad action to perform, disguises itself. There it clothes itself in wordmasks, in metaphorrags. In this guise it becomes horrible. One finds it difficult to recognize. Is it really the French tongue, the great human tongue? Behold it ready to step upon the stage and to retort upon crime, and prepared for all the employments of the repertory of evil. It no longer walks, it hobbles it limps on the crutch of the Court of Miracles, a crutch metamorphosable into a club it is called vagrancy every sort of spectre, its dressers, have painted its face, it crawls and rears, the double gait of the reptile. Henceforth, it is apt at all rles, it is made suspicious by the counterfeiter, covered with verdigris by the forger, blacked by the soot of the incendiary and the murderer applies its rouge. When one listens, by the side of honest men, at the portals of society, one overhears the dialogues of those who are on the outside. One distinguishes questions and replies. One perceives, without understanding it, a hideous murmur, sounding almost like human accents, but more nearly resembling a howl than an articulate word. It is slang. The words are misshapen and stamped with an indescribable and fantastic bestiality. One thinks one hears hydras talking. It is unintelligible in the dark. It gnashes and whispers, completing the gloom with mystery. It is black in misfortune, it is blacker still in crime these two blacknesses amalgamated, compose slang. Obscurity in the atmosphere, obscurity in acts, obscurity in voices. Terrible, toadlike tongue which goes and comes, leaps, crawls, slobbers, and stirs about in monstrous wise in that immense gray fog composed of rain and night, of hunger, of vice, of falsehood, of injustice, of nudity, of suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. Let us have compassion on the chastised. Alas! Who are we ourselves? Who am I who now address you? Who are you who are listening to me? And are you very sure that we have done nothing before we were born? The earth is not devoid of resemblance to a jail. Who knows whether man is not a recaptured offender against divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so made, that everywhere we feel the sense of punishment. Are you what is called a happy man? Well! you are sad every day. Each day has its own great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were trembling for a health that is dear to you, today you fear for your own tomorrow it will be anxiety about money, the day after tomorrow the diatribe of a slanderer, the day after that, the misfortune of some friend then the prevailing weather, then something that has been broken or lost, then a pleasure with which your conscience and your vertebral column reproach you again, the course of public affairs. This without reckoning in the pains of the heart. And so it goes on. One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day out of a hundred which is wholly joyous and sunny. And you belong to that small class who are happy! As for the rest of mankind, stagnating night rests upon them. Thoughtful minds make but little use of the phrase the fortunate and the unfortunate. In this world, evidently the vestibule of another, there are no fortunate. The real human division is this the luminous and the shady. To diminish the number of the shady, to augment the number of the luminous,that is the object. That is why we cry Education! science! To teach reading, means to light the fire every syllable spelled out sparkles. However, he who says light does not, necessarily, say joy. People suffer in the light excess burns. The flame is the enemy of the wing. To burn without ceasing to fly,therein lies the marvel of genius. When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness. Slang is the tongue of those who sit in darkness. Thought is moved in its most sombre depths, social philosophy is bidden to its most poignant meditations, in the presence of that enigmatic dialect at once so blighted and rebellious. Therein lies chastisement made visible. Every syllable has an air of being marked. The words of the vulgar tongue appear therein wrinkled and shrivelled, as it were, beneath the hot iron of the executioner. Some seem to be still smoking. Such and such a phrase produces upon you the effect of the shoulder of a thief branded with the fleurdelys, which has suddenly been laid bare. Ideas almost refuse to be expressed in these substantives which are fugitives from justice. Metaphor is sometimes so shameless, that one feels that it has worn the iron neckfetter. Moreover, in spite of all this, and because of all this, this strange dialect has by rights, its own compartment in that great impartial case of pigeonholes where there is room for the rusty farthing as well as for the gold medal, and which is called literature. Slang, whether the public admit the fact or not has its syntax and its poetry. It is a language. Yes, by the deformity of certain terms, we recognize the fact that it was chewed by Mandrin, and by the splendor of certain metonymies, we feel that Villon spoke it. That exquisite and celebrated verse Mais o sont les neiges d'antan? But where are the snows of years gone by? is a verse of slang. Antanante annumis a word of Thunes slang, which signified the past year, and by extension, formerly. Thirtyfive years ago, at the epoch of the departure of the great chaingang, there could be read in one of the cells at Bictre, this maxim engraved with a nail on the wall by a king of Thunes condemned to the galleys Les dabs d'antan trimaient siempre pour la pierre du Cosre. This means Kings in days gone by always went and had themselves anointed. In the opinion of that king, anointment meant the galleys. The word dcarade, which expresses the departure of heavy vehicles at a gallop, is attributed to Villon, and it is worthy of him. This word, which strikes fire with all four of its feet, sums up in a masterly onomatopia the whole of La Fontaine's admirable verse Six forts chevaux tiraient un coche. Six stout horses drew a coach. From a purely literary point of view, few studies would prove more curious and fruitful than the study of slang. It is a whole language within a language, a sort of sickly excrescence, an unhealthy graft which has produced a vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the old Gallic trunk, and whose sinister foliage crawls all over one side of the language. This is what may be called the first, the vulgar aspect of slang. But, for those who study the tongue as it should be studied, that is to say, as geologists study the earth, slang appears like a veritable alluvial deposit. According as one digs a longer or shorter distance into it, one finds in slang, below the old popular French, Provenal, Spanish, Italian, Levantine, that language of the Mediterranean ports, English and German, the Romance language in its three varieties, French, Italian, and Romance Romance, Latin, and finally Basque and Celtic. A profound and unique formation. A subterranean edifice erected in common by all the miserable. Each accursed race has deposited its layer, each suffering has dropped its stone there, each heart has contributed its pebble. A throng of evil, base, or irritated souls, who have traversed life and have vanished into eternity, linger there almost entirely visible still beneath the form of some monstrous word. Do you want Spanish? The old Gothic slang abounded in it. Here is boffete, a box on the ear, which is derived from bofeton vantane, window (later on vanterne), which comes from vantana gat, cat, which comes from gato acite, oil, which comes from aceyte. Do you want Italian? Here is spade, sword, which comes from spada carvel, boat, which comes from caravella. Do you want English? Here is bichot, which comes from bishop raille, spy, which comes from rascal, rascalion pilche, a case, which comes from pilcher, a sheath. Do you want German? Here is the caleur, the waiter, kellner the hers, the master, herzog (duke). Do you want Latin? Here is frangir, to break, frangere affurer, to steal, fur cadene, chain, catena. There is one word which crops up in every language of the continent, with a sort of mysterious power and authority. It is the word magnus the Scotchman makes of it his mac, which designates the chief of the clan MacFarlane, MacCallumore, the great Farlane, the great Callumore slang turns it into meck and later le meg, that is to say, God. Would you like Basque? Here is gahisto, the devil, which comes from gaztoa, evil sorgabon, good night, which comes from gabon, good evening. Do you want Celtic? Here is blavin, a handkerchief, which comes from blavet, gushing water mnesse, a woman (in a bad sense), which comes from meinec, full of stones barant, brook, from baranton, fountain goffeur, locksmith, from goff, blacksmith guedouze, death, which comes from guenndu, blackwhite. Finally, would you like history? Slang calls crowns les maltses, a souvenir of the coin in circulation on the galleys of Malta. In addition to the philological origins just indicated, slang possesses other and still more natural roots, which spring, so to speak, from the mind of man itself. In the first place, the direct creation of words. Therein lies the mystery of tongues. To paint with words, which contains figures one knows not how or why, is the primitive foundation of all human languages, what may be called their granite. Slang abounds in words of this description, immediate words, words created instantaneously no one knows either where or by whom, without etymology, without analogies, without derivatives, solitary, barbarous, sometimes hideous words, which at times possess a singular power of expression and which live. The executioner, le taule the forest, le sabri fear, flight, taf the lackey, le larbin the mineral, the prefect, the minister, pharos the devil, le rabouin. Nothing is stranger than these words which both mask and reveal. Some, le rabouin, for example, are at the same time grotesque and terrible, and produce on you the effect of a cyclopean grimace. In the second place, metaphor. The peculiarity of a language which is desirous of saying all yet concealing all is that it is rich in figures. Metaphor is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang dvisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist the neck tortiller (to wriggle), to eat tre gerb, to be tried a rat, a bread thief il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes of the lancers, and which compresses into a single word the popular expression it rains halberds. Sometimes, in proportion as slang progresses from the first epoch to the second, words pass from the primitive and savage sense to the metaphorical sense. The devil ceases to be le rabouin, and becomes le boulanger (the baker), who puts the bread into the oven. This is more witty, but less grand, something like Racine after Corneille, like Euripides after schylus. Certain slang phrases which participate in the two epochs and have at once the barbaric character and the metaphorical character resemble phantasmagories. Les sorgueuers vont solliciter des gails  la lunethe prowlers are going to steal horses by night,this passes before the mind like a group of spectres. One knows not what one sees. In the third place, the expedient. Slang lives on the language. It uses it in accordance with its fancy, it dips into it haphazard, and it often confines itself, when occasion arises, to alter it in a gross and summary fashion. Occasionally, with the ordinary words thus deformed and complicated with words of pure slang, picturesque phrases are formed, in which there can be felt the mixture of the two preceding elements, the direct creation and the metaphor le cab jaspine, je marronne que la roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, the dog is barking, I suspect that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dab est sinve, la dabuge est merloussire, la fe est bative, the bourgeois is stupid, the bourgeoise is cunning, the daughter is pretty. Generally, to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding to all the words of the language without distinction, an ignoble tail, a termination in aille, in orgue, in iergue, or in uche. Thus Vousiergue trouvaille bonorgue ce gigotmuche? Do you think that leg of mutton good? A phrase addressed by Cartouche to a turnkey in order to find out whether the sum offered for his escape suited him. The termination in mar has been added recently. Slang, being the dialect of corruption, quickly becomes corrupted itself. Besides this, as it is always seeking concealment, as soon as it feels that it is understood, it changes its form. Contrary to what happens with every other vegetation, every ray of light which falls upon it kills whatever it touches. Thus slang is in constant process of decomposition and recomposition an obscure and rapid work which never pauses. It passes over more ground in ten years than a language in ten centuries. Thus le larton (bread) becomes le lartif le gail (horse) becomes le gaye la fertanche (straw) becomes la fertille le momignard (brat), le momacque les fiques (duds), frusques la chique (the church), l'grugeoir le colabre (neck), le colas. The devil is at first, gahisto, then le rabouin, then the baker the priest is a ratichon, then the boar (le sanglier) the dagger is le vingtdeux (twentytwo), then le surin, then le lingre the police are railles, then roussins, then rousses, then marchands de lacets (dealers in staylaces), then coquers, then cognes the executioner is le taule, then Charlot, l'atigeur, then le becquillard. In the seventeenth century, to fight was 'to give each other snuff in the nineteenth it is 'to chew each other's throats. There have been twenty different phrases between these two extremes. Cartouche's talk would have been Hebrew to Lacenaire. All the words of this language are perpetually engaged in flight like the men who utter them. Still, from time to time, and in consequence of this very movement, the ancient slang crops up again and becomes new once more. It has its headquarters where it maintains its sway. The Temple preserved the slang of the seventeenth century Bictre, when it was a prison, preserved the slang of Thunes. There one could hear the termination in anche of the old Thuneurs. Boyanchestu (boistu), do you drink? But perpetual movement remains its law, nevertheless. If the philosopher succeeds in fixing, for a moment, for purposes of observation, this language which is incessantly evaporating, he falls into doleful and useful meditation. No study is more efficacious and more fecund in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy, in slang, which does not contain a lesson. Among these men, to beat means to feign one beats a malady ruse is their strength. For them, the idea of the man is not separated from the idea of darkness. The night is called la sorgue man, l'orgue. Man is a derivative of the night. They have taken up the practice of considering society in the light of an atmosphere which kills them, of a fatal force, and they speak of their liberty as one would speak of his health. A man under arrest is a sick man one who is condemned is a dead man. The most terrible thing for the prisoner within the four walls in which he is buried, is a sort of glacial chastity, and he calls the dungeon the castus. In that funereal place, life outside always presents itself under its most smiling aspect. The prisoner has irons on his feet you think, perhaps, that his thought is that it is with the feet that one walks? No he is thinking that it is with the feet that one dances so, when he has succeeded in severing his fetters, his first idea is that now he can dance, and he calls the saw the bastringue (publichouse ball).A name is a centre profound assimilation.The ruffian has two heads, one of which reasons out his actions and leads him all his life long, and the other which he has upon his shoulders on the day of his death he calls the head which counsels him in crime la sorbonne, and the head which expiates it la tronche.When a man has no longer anything but rags upon his body and vices in his heart, when he has arrived at that double moral and material degradation which the word blackguard characterizes in its two acceptations, he is ripe for crime he is like a wellwhetted knife he has two cutting edges, his distress and his malice so slang does not say a blackguard, it says un rguis.What are the galleys? A brazier of damnation, a hell. The convict calls himself a fagot.And finally, what name do malefactors give to their prison? The college. A whole penitentiary system can be evolved from that word. Does the reader wish to know where the majority of the songs of the galleys, those refrains called in the special vocabulary lirlonfa, have had their birth? Let him listen to what follows There existed at the Chtelet in Paris a large and long cellar. This cellar was eight feet below the level of the Seine. It had neither windows nor airholes, its only aperture was the door men could enter there, air could not. This vault had for ceiling a vault of stone, and for floor ten inches of mud. It was flagged but the pavement had rotted and cracked under the oozing of the water. Eight feet above the floor, a long and massive beam traversed this subterranean excavation from side to side from this beam hung, at short distances apart, chains three feet long, and at the end of these chains there were rings for the neck. In this vault, men who had been condemned to the galleys were incarcerated until the day of their departure for Toulon. They were thrust under this beam, where each one found his fetters swinging in the darkness and waiting for him. The chains, those pendant arms, and the necklets, those open hands, caught the unhappy wretches by the throat. They were rivetted and left there. As the chain was too short, they could not lie down. They remained motionless in that cavern, in that night, beneath that beam, almost hanging, forced to unheardof efforts to reach their bread, jug, or their vault overhead, mud even to midleg, filth flowing to their very calves, broken asunder with fatigue, with thighs and knees giving way, clinging fast to the chain with their hands in order to obtain some rest, unable to sleep except when standing erect, and awakened every moment by the strangling of the collar some woke no more. In order to eat, they pushed the bread, which was flung to them in the mud, along their leg with their heel until it reached their hand. How long did they remain thus? One month, two months, six months sometimes one stayed a year. It was the antechamber of the galleys. Men were put there for stealing a hare from the king. In this sepulchrehell, what did they do? What man can do in a sepulchre, they went through the agonies of death, and what can man do in hell, they sang for song lingers where there is no longer any hope. In the waters of Malta, when a galley was approaching, the song could be heard before the sound of the oars. Poor Survincent, the poacher, who had gone through the prisoncellar of the Chtelet, said 'It was the rhymes that kept me up. Uselessness of poetry. What is the good of rhyme? It is in this cellar that nearly all the slang songs had their birth. It is from the dungeon of the GrandChtelet of Paris that comes the melancholy refrain of the Montgomery galley 'Timaloumisaine, timaloumison. The majority of these songs are melancholy some are gay one is tender Icicaille est la theatre Du petit dardant. Here is the theatre Of the little archer (Cupid). Do what you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic in the heart of man, love. In this world of dismal deeds, people keep their secrets. The secret is the thing above all others. The secret, in the eyes of these wretches, is unity which serves as a base of union. To betray a secret is to tear from each member of this fierce community something of his own personality. To inform against, in the energetic slang dialect, is called 'to eat the bit. As though the informer drew to himself a little of the substance of all and nourished himself on a bit of each one's flesh. What does it signify to receive a box on the ear? Commonplace metaphor replies 'It is to see thirtysix candles. Here slang intervenes and takes it up Candle, camoufle. Thereupon, the ordinary tongue gives camouflet as the synonym for soufflet. Thus, by a sort of infiltration from below upwards, with the aid of metaphor, that incalculable, trajectory slang mounts from the cavern to the Academy and Poulailler saying 'I light my camoufle, causes Voltaire to write 'Langleviel La Beaumelle deserves a hundred camouflets. Researches in slang mean discoveries at every step. Study and investigation of this strange idiom lead to the mysterious point of intersection of regular society with society which is accursed. The thief also has his food for cannon, stealable matter, you, I, whoever passes by le pantre. (Pan, everybody.) Slang is language turned convict. That the thinking principle of man be thrust down ever so low, that it can be dragged and pinioned there by obscure tyrannies of fatality, that it can be bound by no one knows what fetters in that abyss, is sufficient to create consternation. Oh, poor thought of miserable wretches! Alas! will no one come to the succor of the human soul in that darkness? Is it her destiny there to await forever the mind, the liberator, the immense rider of Pegasi and hippogriffs, the combatant of heroes of the dawn who shall descend from the azure between two wings, the radiant knight of the future? Will she forever summon in vain to her assistance the lance of light of the ideal? Is she condemned to hear the fearful approach of Evil through the density of the gulf, and to catch glimpses, nearer and nearer at hand, beneath the hideous water of that dragon's head, that maw streaked with foam, and that writhing undulation of claws, swellings, and rings? Must it remain there, without a gleam of light, without hope, given over to that terrible approach, vaguely scented out by the monster, shuddering, dishevelled, wringing its arms, forever chained to the rock of night, a sombre Andromeda white and naked amid the shadows! As the reader perceives, slang in its entirety, slang of four hundred years ago, like the slang of today, is permeated with that sombre, symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now mournful, now menacing. One feels in it the wild and ancient sadness of those vagrants of the Court of Miracles who played at cards with packs of their own, some of which have come down to us. The eight of clubs, for instance, represented a huge tree bearing eight enormous trefoil leaves, a sort of fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this tree a fire was burning, over which three hares were roasting a huntsman on a spit, and behind him, on another fire, hung a steaming pot, whence emerged the head of a dog. Nothing can be more melancholy than these reprisals in painting, by a pack of cards, in the presence of stakes for the roasting of smugglers and of the cauldron for the boiling of counterfeiters. The diverse forms assumed by thought in the realm of slang, even song, even raillery, even menace, all partook of this powerless and dejected character. All the songs, the melodies of some of which have been collected, were humble and lamentable to the point of evoking tears. The pgre is always the poor pgre, and he is always the hare in hiding, the fugitive mouse, the flying bird. He hardly complains, he contents himself with sighing one of his moans has come down to us 'I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture his children and his grandchildren and hear them cry, without himself suffering torture. The wretch, whenever he has time to think, makes himself small before the low, and frail in the presence of society he lies down flat on his face, he entreats, he appeals to the side of compassion we feel that he is conscious of his guilt. Towards the middle of the last century a change took place, prison songs and thieves' ritournelles assumed, so to speak, an insolent and jovial mien. The plaintive malur was replaced by the larifla. We find in the eighteenth century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons, a diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear this strident and lilting refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent gleam, and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a willo'thewisp playing the fife Miralabi suslababo Mirliton ribonribette Surlababi mirlababo Mirliton ribonribo. This was sung in a cellar or in a nook of the forest while cutting a man's throat. A serious symptom. In the eighteenth century, the ancient melancholy of the dejected classes vanishes. They began to laugh. They rally the grand meg and the grand dab. Given Louis XV. they call the King of France 'le Marquis de Pantin. And behold, they are almost gay. A sort of gleam proceeds from these miserable wretches, as though their consciences were not heavy within them any more. These lamentable tribes of darkness have no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions, they possess the heedless audacity of mind. A sign that they are losing the sense of their criminality, and that they feel, even among thinkers and dreamers, some indefinable support which the latter themselves know not of. A sign that theft and pillage are beginning to filter into doctrines and sophisms, in such a way as to lose somewhat of their ugliness, while communicating much of it to sophisms and doctrines. A sign, in short, of some outbreak which is prodigious and near unless some diversion shall arise. Let us pause a moment. Whom are we accusing here? Is it the eighteenth century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not. The work of the eighteenth century is healthy and good and wholesome. The encyclopedists, Diderot at their head the physiocrates, Turgot at their head the philosophers, Voltaire at their head the Utopians, Rousseau at their head,these are four sacred legions. Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due to them. They are the four vanguards of the human race, marching towards the four cardinal points of progress. Diderot towards the beautiful, Turgot towards the useful, Voltaire towards the true, Rousseau towards the just. But by the side of and above the philosophers, there were the sophists, a venomous vegetation mingled with a healthy growth, hemlock in the virgin forest. While the executioner was burning the great books of the liberators of the century on the grand staircase of the courthouse, writers now forgotten were publishing, with the King's sanction, no one knows what strangely disorganizing writings, which were eagerly read by the unfortunate. Some of these publications, odd to say, which were patronized by a prince, are to be found in the Secret Library. These facts, significant but unknown, were imperceptible on the surface. Sometimes, in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger. It is obscure because it is underhand. Of all these writers, the one who probably then excavated in the masses the most unhealthy gallery was Restif de La Bretonne. This work, peculiar to the whole of Europe, effected more ravages in Germany than anywhere else. In Germany, during a given period, summed up by Schiller in his famous drama The Robbers, theft and pillage rose up in protest against property and labor, assimilated certain specious and false elementary ideas, which, though just in appearance, were absurd in reality, enveloped themselves in these ideas, disappeared within them, after a fashion, assumed an abstract name, passed into the state of theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and honest masses, unknown even to the imprudent chemists who had prepared the mixture, unknown even to the masses who accepted it. Whenever a fact of this sort presents itself, the case is grave. Suffering engenders wrath and while the prosperous classes blind themselves or fall asleep, which is the same thing as shutting one's eyes, the hatred of the unfortunate classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or illmade spirit which dreams in a corner, and sets itself to the scrutiny of society. The scrutiny of hatred is a terrible thing. Hence, if the illfortune of the times so wills it, those fearful commotions which were formerly called jacqueries, beside which purely political agitations are the merest child's play, which are no longer the conflict of the oppressed and the oppressor, but the revolt of discomfort against comfort. Then everything crumbles. Jacqueries are earthquakes of the people. It is this peril, possibly imminent towards the close of the eighteenth century, which the French Revolution, that immense act of probity, cut short. The French Revolution, which is nothing else than the idea armed with the sword, rose erect, and, with the same abrupt movement, closed the door of ill and opened the door of good. It put a stop to torture, promulgated the truth, expelled miasma, rendered the century healthy, crowned the populace. It may be said of it that it created man a second time, by giving him a second soul, the right. The nineteenth century has inherited and profited by its work, and today, the social catastrophe to which we lately alluded is simply impossible. Blind is he who announces it! Foolish is he who fears it! Revolution is the vaccine of Jacquerie. Thanks to the Revolution, social conditions have changed. Feudal and monarchical maladies no longer run in our blood. There is no more of the Middle Ages in our constitution. We no longer live in the days when terrible swarms within made irruptions, when one heard beneath his feet the obscure course of a dull rumble, when indescribable elevations from molelike tunnels appeared on the surface of civilization, where the soil cracked open, where the roofs of caverns yawned, and where one suddenly beheld monstrous heads emerging from the earth. The revolutionary sense is a moral sense. The sentiment of right, once developed, develops the sentiment of duty. The law of all is liberty, which ends where the liberty of others begins, according to Robespierre's admirable definition. Since ', the whole people has been dilating into a sublime individual there is not a poor man, who, possessing his right, has not his ray of sun the dieofhunger feels within him the honesty of France the dignity of the citizen is an internal armor he who is free is scrupulous he who votes reigns. Hence incorruptibility hence the miscarriage of unhealthy lusts hence eyes heroically lowered before temptations. The revolutionary wholesomeness is such, that on a day of deliverance, a th of July, a th of August, there is no longer any populace. The first cry of the enlightened and increasing throngs is death to thieves! Progress is an honest man the ideal and the absolute do not filch pockethandkerchiefs. By whom were the wagons containing the wealth of the Tuileries escorted in ? By the ragpickers of the Faubourg SaintAntoine. Rags mounted guard over the treasure. Virtue rendered these tatterdemalions resplendent. In those wagons in chests, hardly closed, and some, even, halfopen, amid a hundred dazzling caskets, was that ancient crown of France, studded with diamonds, surmounted by the carbuncle of royalty, by the Regent diamond, which was worth thirty millions. Barefooted, they guarded that crown. Hence, no more Jacquerie. I regret it for the sake of the skilful. The old fear has produced its last effects in that quarter and henceforth it can no longer be employed in politics. The principal spring of the red spectre is broken. Every one knows it now. The scarecrow scares no longer. The birds take liberties with the mannikin, foul creatures alight upon it, the bourgeois laugh at it. This being the case, is all social danger dispelled? Certainly not. There is no Jacquerie society may rest assured on that point blood will no longer rush to its head. But let society take heed to the manner in which it breathes. Apoplexy is no longer to be feared, but phthisis is there. Social phthisis is called misery. One can perish from being undermined as well as from being struck by lightning. Let us not weary of repeating, and sympathetic souls must not forget that this is the first of fraternal obligations, and selfish hearts must understand that the first of political necessities consists in thinking first of all of the disinherited and sorrowing throngs, in solacing, airing, enlightening, loving them, in enlarging their horizon to a magnificent extent, in lavishing upon them education in every form, in offering them the example of labor, never the example of idleness, in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the universal aim, in setting a limit to poverty without setting a limit to wealth, in creating vast fields of public and popular activity, in having, like Briareus, a hundred hands to extend in all directions to the oppressed and the feeble, in employing the collective power for that grand duty of opening workshops for all arms, schools for all aptitudes, and laboratories for all degrees of intelligence, in augmenting salaries, diminishing trouble, balancing what should be and what is, that is to say, in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need in a word, in evolving from the social apparatus more light and more comfort for the benefit of those who suffer and those who are ignorant. And, let us say it, all this is but the beginning. The true question is this labor cannot be a law without being a right. We will not insist upon this point this is not the proper place for that. If nature calls itself Providence, society should call itself foresight. Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material improvement. To know is a sacrament, to think is the prime necessity, truth is nourishment as well as grain. A reason which fasts from science and wisdom grows thin. Let us enter equal complaint against stomachs and minds which do not eat. If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light. The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by a simple elevation of level. We should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed consummation. The past is very strong, it is true, at the present moment. It censures. This rejuvenation of a corpse is surprising. Behold, it is walking and advancing. It seems a victor this dead body is a conqueror. He arrives with his legions, superstitions, with his sword, despotism, with his banner, ignorance a while ago, he won ten battles. He advances, he threatens, he laughs, he is at our doors. Let us not despair, on our side. Let us sell the field on which Hannibal is encamped. What have we to fear, we who believe? No such thing as a backflow of ideas exists any more than there exists a return of a river on its course. But let those who do not desire a future reflect on this matter. When they say 'no to progress, it is not the future but themselves that they are condemning. They are giving themselves a sad malady they are inoculating themselves with the past. There is but one way of rejecting Tomorrow, and that is to die. Now, no death, that of the body as late as possible, that of the soul never,this is what we desire. Yes, the enigma will utter its word, the sphinx will speak, the problem will be solved. Yes, the people, sketched out by the eighteenth century, will be finished by the nineteenth. He who doubts this is an idiot! The future blossoming, the near blossoming forth of universal wellbeing, is a divinely fatal phenomenon. Immense combined propulsions direct human affairs and conduct them within a given time to a logical state, that is to say, to a state of equilibrium that is to say, to equity. A force composed of earth and heaven results from humanity and governs it this force is a worker of miracles marvellous issues are no more difficult to it than extraordinary vicissitudes. Aided by science, which comes from one man, and by the event, which comes from another, it is not greatly alarmed by these contradictions in the attitude of problems, which seem impossibilities to the vulgar herd. It is no less skilful at causing a solution to spring forth from the reconciliation of ideas, than a lesson from the reconciliation of facts, and we may expect anything from that mysterious power of progress, which brought the Orient and the Occident face to face one fine day, in the depths of a sepulchre, and made the imaums converse with Bonaparte in the interior of the Great Pyramid. In the meantime, let there be no halt, no hesitation, no pause in the grandiose onward march of minds. Social philosophy consists essentially in science and peace. Its object is, and its result must be, to dissolve wrath by the study of antagonisms. It examines, it scrutinizes, it analyzes then it puts together once more, it proceeds by means of reduction, discarding all hatred. More than once, a society has been seen to give way before the wind which is let loose upon mankind history is full of the shipwrecks of nations and empires manners, customs, laws, religions,and some fine day that unknown force, the hurricane, passes by and bears them all away. The civilizations of India, of Chaldea, of Persia, of Syria, of Egypt, have disappeared one after the other. Why? We know not. What are the causes of these disasters? We do not know. Could these societies have been saved? Was it their fault? Did they persist in the fatal vice which destroyed them? What is the amount of suicide in these terrible deaths of a nation and a race? Questions to which there exists no reply. Darkness enwraps condemned civilizations. They sprung a leak, then they sank. We have nothing more to say and it is with a sort of terror that we look on, at the bottom of that sea which is called the past, behind those colossal waves, at the shipwreck of those immense vessels, Babylon, Nineveh, Tarsus, Thebes, Rome, beneath the fearful gusts which emerge from all the mouths of the shadows. But shadows are there, and light is here. We are not acquainted with the maladies of these ancient civilizations, we do not know the infirmities of our own. Everywhere upon it we have the right of light, we contemplate its beauties, we lay bare its defects. Where it is ill, we probe and the sickness once diagnosed, the study of the cause leads to the discovery of the remedy. Our civilization, the work of twenty centuries, is its law and its prodigy it is worth the trouble of saving. It will be saved. It is already much to have solaced it its enlightenment is yet another point. All the labors of modern social philosophies must converge towards this point. The thinker of today has a great dutyto auscultate civilization. We repeat, that this auscultation brings encouragement it is by this persistence in encouragement that we wish to conclude these pages, an austere interlude in a mournful drama. Beneath the social mortality, we feel human imperishableness. The globe does not perish, because it has these wounds, craters, eruptions, sulphur pits, here and there, nor because of a volcano which ejects its pus. The maladies of the people do not kill man. And yet, any one who follows the course of social clinics shakes his head at times. The strongest, the tenderest, the most logical have their hours of weakness. Will the future arrive? It seems as though we might almost put this question, when we behold so much terrible darkness. Melancholy facetoface encounter of selfish and wretched. On the part of the selfish, the prejudices, shadows of costly education, appetite increasing through intoxication, a giddiness of prosperity which dulls, a fear of suffering which, in some, goes as far as an aversion for the suffering, an implacable satisfaction, the I so swollen that it bars the soul on the side of the wretched covetousness, envy, hatred of seeing others enjoy, the profound impulses of the human beast towards assuaging its desires, hearts full of mist, sadness, need, fatality, impure and simple ignorance. Shall we continue to raise our eyes to heaven? is the luminous point which we distinguish there one of those which vanish? The ideal is frightful to behold, thus lost in the depths, small, isolated, imperceptible, brilliant, but surrounded by those great, black menaces, monstrously heaped around it yet no more in danger than a star in the maw of the clouds. The reader has probably understood that ponine, having recognized through the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon had sent her, had begun by keeping the ruffians away from the Rue Plumet, and had then conducted Marius thither, and that, after many days spent in ecstasy before that gate, Marius, drawn on by that force which draws the iron to the magnet and a lover towards the stones of which is built the house of her whom he loves, had finally entered Cosette's garden as Romeo entered the garden of Juliet. This had even proved easier for him than for Romeo Romeo was obliged to scale a wall, Marius had only to use a little force on one of the bars of the decrepit gate which vacillated in its rusty recess, after the fashion of old people's teeth. Marius was slender and readily passed through. As there was never any one in the street, and as Marius never entered the garden except at night, he ran no risk of being seen. Beginning with that blessed and holy hour when a kiss betrothed these two souls, Marius was there every evening. If, at that period of her existence, Cosette had fallen in love with a man in the least unscrupulous or debauched, she would have been lost for there are generous natures which yield themselves, and Cosette was one of them. One of woman's magnanimities is to yield. Love, at the height where it is absolute, is complicated with some indescribably celestial blindness of modesty. But what dangers you run, O noble souls! Often you give the heart, and we take the body. Your heart remains with you, you gaze upon it in the gloom with a shudder. Love has no middle course it either ruins or it saves. All human destiny lies in this dilemma. This dilemma, ruin, or safety, is set forth no more inexorably by any fatality than by love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle also coffin. The same sentiment says 'yes and 'no in the human heart. Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness. God willed that Cosette's love should encounter one of the loves which save. Throughout the whole of the month of May of that year , there were there, in every night, in that poor, neglected garden, beneath that thicket which grew thicker and more fragrant day by day, two beings composed of all chastity, all innocence, overflowing with all the felicity of heaven, nearer to the archangels than to mankind, pure, honest, intoxicated, radiant, who shone for each other amid the shadows. It seemed to Cosette that Marius had a crown, and to Marius that Cosette had a nimbus. They touched each other, they gazed at each other, they clasped each other's hands, they pressed close to each other but there was a distance which they did not pass. Not that they respected it they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, Cosette's innocence and Cosette of a support, Marius' loyalty. The first kiss had also been the last. Marius, since that time, had not gone further than to touch Cosette's hand, or her kerchief, or a lock of her hair, with his lips. For him, Cosette was a perfume and not a woman. He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was happy, and Marius was satisfied. They lived in this ecstatic state which can be described as the dazzling of one soul by another soul. It was the ineffable first embrace of two maiden souls in the ideal. Two swans meeting on the Jungfrau. At that hour of love, an hour when voluptuousness is absolutely mute, beneath the omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, the pure and seraphic Marius, would rather have gone to a woman of the town than have raised Cosette's robe to the height of her ankle. Once, in the moonlight, Cosette stooped to pick up something on the ground, her bodice fell apart and permitted a glimpse of the beginning of her throat. Marius turned away his eyes. What took place between these two beings? Nothing. They adored each other. At night, when they were there, that garden seemed a living and a sacred spot. All flowers unfolded around them and sent them incense and they opened their souls and scattered them over the flowers. The wanton and vigorous vegetation quivered, full of strength and intoxication, around these two innocents, and they uttered words of love which set the trees to trembling. What words were these? Breaths. Nothing more. These breaths sufficed to trouble and to touch all nature round about. Magic power which we should find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book these conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies them like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade you say 'What! is that all! eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and most sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of saying and hearing! The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these absurdities, these paltry remarks, is an imbecile and a malicious fellow. Cosette said to Marius 'Dost thou know? In all this and athwart this celestial maidenliness, and without either of them being able to say how it had come about, they had begun to call each other thou. 'Dost thou know? My name is Euphrasie. 'Euphrasie? Why, no, thy name is Cosette. 'Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was a little thing. But my real name is Euphrasie. Dost thou like that nameEuphrasie? 'Yes. But Cosette is not ugly. 'Do you like it better than Euphrasie? 'Why, yes. 'Then I like it better too. Truly, it is pretty, Cosette. Call me Cosette. And the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idyl worthy of a grove situated in heaven. On another occasion she gazed intently at him and exclaimed 'Monsieur, you are handsome, you are goodlooking, you are witty, you are not at all stupid, you are much more learned than I am, but I bid you defiance with this word I love you! And Marius, in the very heavens, thought he heard a strain sung by a star. Or she bestowed on him a gentle tap because he coughed, and she said to him 'Don't cough, sir I will not have people cough on my domain without my permission. It's very naughty to cough and to disturb me. I want you to be well, because, in the first place, if you were not well, I should be very unhappy. What should I do then? And this was simply divine. Once Marius said to Cosette 'Just imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursule. This made both of them laugh the whole evening. In the middle of another conversation, he chanced to exclaim 'Oh! One day, at the Luxembourg, I had a good mind to finish breaking up a veteran! But he stopped short, and went no further. He would have been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible. This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immense and innocent love recoiled with a sort of sacred fright. Marius pictured life with Cosette to himself like this, without anything else to come every evening to the Rue Plumet, to displace the old and accommodating bar of the chiefjustice's gate, to sit elbow to elbow on that bench, to gaze through the trees at the scintillation of the oncoming night, to fit a fold of the knee of his trousers into the ample fall of Cosette's gown, to caress her thumbnail, to call her thou, to smell of the same flower, one after the other, forever, indefinitely. During this time, clouds passed above their heads. Every time that the wind blows it bears with it more of the dreams of men than of the clouds of heaven. This chaste, almost shy love was not devoid of gallantry, by any means. To pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method of bestowing caresses, and he is half audacious who tries it. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. Voluptuousness mingles there with its sweet tiny point, while it hides itself. The heart draws back before voluptuousness only to love the more. Marius' blandishments, all saturated with fancy, were, so to speak, of azure hue. The birds when they fly up yonder, in the direction of the angels, must hear such words. There were mingled with them, nevertheless, life, humanity, all the positiveness of which Marius was capable. It was what is said in the bower, a prelude to what will be said in the chamber a lyrical effusion, strophe and sonnet intermingled, pleasing hyperboles of cooing, all the refinements of adoration arranged in a bouquet and exhaling a celestial perfume, an ineffable twitter of heart to heart. 'Oh! murmured Marius, 'how beautiful you are! I dare not look at you. It is all over with me when I contemplate you. You are a grace. I know not what is the matter with me. The hem of your gown, when the tip of your shoe peeps from beneath, upsets me. And then, what an enchanted gleam when you open your thought even but a little! You talk astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are a dream. Speak, I listen, I admire. Oh Cosette! how strange it is and how charming! I am really beside myself. You are adorable, Mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope. And Cosette answered 'I have been loving a little more all the time that has passed since this morning. Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, which always turned with mutual consent upon love, as the little pith figures always turn on their peg. Cosette's whole person was ingenuousness, ingenuity, transparency, whiteness, candor, radiance. It might have been said of Cosette that she was clear. She produced on those who saw her the sensation of April and dawn. There was dew in her eyes. Cosette was a condensation of the auroral light in the form of a woman. It was quite simple that Marius should admire her, since he adored her. But the truth is, that this little schoolgirl, fresh from the convent, talked with exquisite penetration and uttered, at times, all sorts of true and delicate sayings. Her prattle was conversation. She never made a mistake about anything, and she saw things justly. The woman feels and speaks with the tender instinct of the heart, which is infallible. No one understands so well as a woman, how to say things that are, at once, both sweet and deep. Sweetness and depth, they are the whole of woman in them lies the whole of heaven. In this full felicity, tears welled up to their eyes every instant. A crushed ladybug, a feather fallen from a nest, a branch of hawthorn broken, aroused their pity, and their ecstasy, sweetly mingled with melancholy, seemed to ask nothing better than to weep. The most sovereign symptom of love is a tenderness that is, at times, almost unbearable. And, in addition to this,all these contradictions are the lightning play of love,they were fond of laughing, they laughed readily and with a delicious freedom, and so familiarly that they sometimes presented the air of two boys. Still, though unknown to hearts intoxicated with purity, nature is always present and will not be forgotten. She is there with her brutal and sublime object and however great may be the innocence of souls, one feels in the most modest private interview, the adorable and mysterious shade which separates a couple of lovers from a pair of friends. They idolized each other. The permanent and the immutable are persistent. People live, they smile, they laugh, they make little grimaces with the tips of their lips, they interlace their fingers, they call each other thou, and that does not prevent eternity. Two lovers hide themselves in the evening, in the twilight, in the invisible, with the birds, with the roses they fascinate each other in the darkness with their hearts which they throw into their eyes, they murmur, they whisper, and in the meantime, immense librations of the planets fill the infinite universe. They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. They had confided in each other as far as possible, but this had not extended much further than their names. Marius had told Cosette that he was an orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, that he lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been a colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was on bad terms with his grandfather who was rich. He had also hinted at being a baron, but this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did not know the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius. On her side, she had confided to him that she had been brought up at the PetitPicpus convent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that her father's name was M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he gave a great deal to the poor, but that he was poor himself, and that he denied himself everything though he denied her nothing. Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since he had been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past, even the most recent past, had become so confused and distant to him, that what Cosette told him satisfied him completely. It did not even occur to him to tell her about the nocturnal adventure in the hovel, about Thnardier, about the burn, and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father. Marius had momentarily forgotten all this in the evening he did not even know that there had been a morning, what he had done, where he had breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him he had songs in his ears which rendered him deaf to every other thought he only existed at the hours when he saw Cosette. Then, as he was in heaven, it was quite natural that he should forget earth. Both bore languidly the indefinable burden of immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are called lovers. Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does there come an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does life go on afterwards? Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent forgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will. There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than there is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For Cosette and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The universe around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden minute. There was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Marius that Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and obliterated. Of what did these lovers talk then? We have seen, of the flowers, and the swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all sorts of important things. They had told each other everything except everything. The everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the realities, that lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very sure that this nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and they adored each other, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing else existed. It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is inherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there any? Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy cloud hangs over it. So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that improbability which is in nature neither at the nadir nor at the zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in the clouds hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are waiting to be precipitated apparently beyond the bounds of destiny ignorant of that rut yesterday, today, tomorrow amazed, rapturous, floating, soaring at times so light that they could take their flight out into the infinite almost prepared to soar away to all eternity. They slept wideawake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the real overwhelmed by the ideal. Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in her presence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes. Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them. They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange claim on man's part to wish that love should lead to something. Jean Valjean suspected nothing. Cosette, who was rather less dreamy than Marius, was gay, and that sufficed for Jean Valjean's happiness. The thoughts which Cosette cherished, her tender preoccupations, Marius' image which filled her heart, took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful, chaste, and smiling brow. She was at the age when the virgin bears her love as the angel his lily. So Jean Valjean was at ease. And then, when two lovers have come to an understanding, things always go well the third party who might disturb their love is kept in a state of perfect blindness by a restricted number of precautions which are always the same in the case of all lovers. Thus, Cosette never objected to any of Jean Valjean's proposals. Did she want to take a walk? 'Yes, dear little father. Did she want to stay at home? Very good. Did he wish to pass the evening with Cosette? She was delighted. As he always went to bed at ten o'clock, Marius did not come to the garden on such occasions until after that hour, when, from the street, he heard Cosette open the long glass door on the veranda. Of course, no one ever met Marius in the daytime. Jean Valjean never even dreamed any longer that Marius was in existence. Only once, one morning, he chanced to say to Cosette 'Why, you have whitewash on your back! On the previous evening, Marius, in a transport, had pushed Cosette against the wall. Old Toussaint, who retired early, thought of nothing but her sleep, and was as ignorant of the whole matter as Jean Valjean. Marius never set foot in the house. When he was with Cosette, they hid themselves in a recess near the steps, in order that they might neither be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently contenting themselves, by way of conversation, with pressing each other's hands twenty times a minute as they gazed at the branches of the trees. At such times, a thunderbolt might have fallen thirty paces from them, and they would not have noticed it, so deeply was the reverie of the one absorbed and sunk in the reverie of the other. Limpid purity. Hours wholly white almost all alike. This sort of love is a recollection of lily petals and the plumage of the dove. The whole extent of the garden lay between them and the street. Every time that Marius entered and left, he carefully adjusted the bar of the gate in such a manner that no displacement was visible. He usually went away about midnight, and returned to Courfeyrac's lodgings. Courfeyrac said to Bahorel 'Would you believe it? Marius comes home nowadays at one o'clock in the morning. Bahorel replied 'What do you expect? There's always a petard in a seminary fellow. At times, Courfeyrac folded his arms, assumed a serious air, and said to Marius 'You are getting irregular in your habits, young man. Courfeyrac, being a practical man, did not take in good part this reflection of an invisible paradise upon Marius he was not much in the habit of concealed passions it made him impatient, and now and then he called upon Marius to come back to reality. One morning, he threw him this admonition 'My dear fellow, you produce upon me the effect of being located in the moon, the realm of dreams, the province of illusions, capital, soapbubble. Come, be a good boy, what's her name? But nothing could induce Marius 'to talk. They might have torn out his nails before one of the two sacred syllables of which that ineffable name, Cosette, was composed. True love is as luminous as the dawn and as silent as the tomb. Only, Courfeyrac saw this change in Marius, that his taciturnity was of the beaming order. During this sweet month of May, Marius and Cosette learned to know these immense delights. To dispute and to say you for thou, simply that they might say thou the better afterwards. To talk at great length with very minute details, of persons in whom they took not the slightest interest in the world another proof that in that ravishing opera called love, the libretto counts for almost nothing For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery For Cosette, to listen to Marius talk in politics To listen, knee pressed to knee, to the carriages rolling along the Rue de Babylone To gaze upon the same planet in space, or at the same glowworm gleaming in the grass To hold their peace together a still greater delight than conversation Etc., etc. In the meantime, divers complications were approaching. One evening, Marius was on his way to the rendezvous, by way of the Boulevard des Invalides. He habitually walked with drooping head. As he was on the point of turning the corner of the Rue Plumet, he heard some one quite close to him say 'Good evening, Monsieur Marius. He raised his head and recognized ponine. This produced a singular effect upon him. He had not thought of that girl a single time since the day when she had conducted him to the Rue Plumet, he had not seen her again, and she had gone completely out of his mind. He had no reasons for anything but gratitude towards her, he owed her his happiness, and yet, it was embarrassing to him to meet her. It is an error to think that passion, when it is pure and happy, leads man to a state of perfection it simply leads him, as we have noted, to a state of oblivion. In this situation, man forgets to be bad, but he also forgets to be good. Gratitude, duty, matters essential and important to be remembered, vanish. At any other time, Marius would have behaved quite differently to ponine. Absorbed in Cosette, he had not even clearly put it to himself that this ponine was named ponine Thnardier, and that she bore the name inscribed in his father's will, that name, for which, but a few months before, he would have so ardently sacrificed himself. We show Marius as he was. His father himself was fading out of his soul to some extent, under the splendor of his love. He replied with some embarrassment 'Ah! so it's you, ponine? 'Why do you call me you? Have I done anything to you? 'No, he answered. Certainly, he had nothing against her. Far from it. Only, he felt that he could not do otherwise, now that he used thou to Cosette, than say you to ponine. As he remained silent, she exclaimed 'Say Then she paused. It seemed as though words failed that creature formerly so heedless and so bold. She tried to smile and could not. Then she resumed 'Well? Then she paused again, and remained with downcast eyes. 'Good evening, Mr. Marius, said she suddenly and abruptly and away she went. The following day was the d of June, , a date which it is necessary to indicate on account of the grave events which at that epoch hung on the horizon of Paris in the state of lightningcharged clouds. Marius, at nightfall, was pursuing the same road as on the preceding evening, with the same thoughts of delight in his heart, when he caught sight of ponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days in successionthis was too much. He turned hastily aside, quitted the boulevard, changed his course and went to the Rue Plumet through the Rue Monsieur. This caused ponine to follow him to the Rue Plumet, a thing which she had not yet done. Up to that time, she had contented herself with watching him on his passage along the boulevard without ever seeking to encounter him. It was only on the evening before that she had attempted to address him. So ponine followed him, without his suspecting the fact. She saw him displace the bar and slip into the garden. She approached the railing, felt of the bars one after the other, and readily recognized the one which Marius had moved. She murmured in a low voice and in gloomy accents 'None of that, Lisette! She seated herself on the underpinning of the railing, close beside the bar, as though she were guarding it. It was precisely at the point where the railing touched the neighboring wall. There was a dim nook there, in which ponine was entirely concealed. She remained thus for more than an hour, without stirring and without breathing, a prey to her thoughts. Towards ten o'clock in the evening, one of the two or three persons who passed through the Rue Plumet, an old, belated bourgeois who was making haste to escape from this deserted spot of evil repute, as he skirted the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, heard a dull and threatening voice saying 'I'm no longer surprised that he comes here every evening. The passerby cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into the black niche, and was greatly alarmed. He redoubled his pace. This passerby had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, six men, who were marching separately and at some distance from each other, along the wall, and who might have been taken for a gray patrol, entered the Rue Plumet. The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the others a second later, all six were reunited. These men began to talk in a low voice. 'This is the place, said one of them. 'Is there a cab dog in the garden? asked another. 'I don't know. In any case, I have fetched a ball that we'll make him eat. 'Have you some putty to break the pane with? 'Yes. 'The railing is old, interpolated a fifth, who had the voice of a ventriloquist. 'So much the better, said the second who had spoken. 'It won't screech under the saw, and it won't be hard to cut. The sixth, who had not yet opened his lips, now began to inspect the gate, as ponine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in succession, and shaking them cautiously. Thus he came to the bar which Marius had loosened. As he was on the point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, fell upon his arm he felt himself vigorously thrust aside by a push in the middle of his breast, and a hoarse voice said to him, but not loudly 'There's a dog. At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him. The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He bristled up in hideous wise nothing is so formidable to behold as ferocious beasts who are uneasy their terrified air evokes terror. He recoiled and stammered 'What jade is this? 'Your daughter. It was, in fact, ponine, who had addressed Thnardier. At the apparition of ponine, the other five, that is to say, Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparnasse had noiselessly drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night. Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. Guelemer held one of those pairs of curved pincers which prowlers call fanchons. 'Ah, see here, what are you about there? What do you want with us? Are you crazy? exclaimed Thnardier, as loudly as one can exclaim and still speak low 'what have you come here to hinder our work for? ponine burst out laughing, and threw herself on his neck. 'I am here, little father, because I am here. Isn't a person allowed to sit on the stones nowadays? It's you who ought not to be here. What have you come here for, since it's a biscuit? I told Magnon so. There's nothing to be done here. But embrace me, my good little father! It's a long time since I've seen you! So you're out? Thnardier tried to disentangle himself from ponine's arms, and grumbled 'That's good. You've embraced me. Yes, I'm out. I'm not in. Now, get away with you. But ponine did not release her hold, and redoubled her caresses. 'But how did you manage it, little pa? You must have been very clever to get out of that. Tell me about it! And my mother? Where is mother? Tell me about mamma. Thnardier replied 'She's well. I don't know, let me alone, and be off, I tell you. 'I won't go, so there now, pouted ponine like a spoiled child 'you send me off, and it's four months since I saw you, and I've hardly had time to kiss you. And she caught her father round the neck again. 'Come, now, this is stupid! said Babet. 'Make haste! said Guelemer, 'the cops may pass. The ventriloquist's voice repeated his distich 'Nous n' sommes pas le jour de l'an, A bcoter papa, maman. 'This isn't New Year's day To peck at pa and ma. ponine turned to the five ruffians. 'Why, it's Monsieur Brujon. Good day, Monsieur Babet. Good day, Monsieur Claquesous. Don't you know me, Monsieur Guelemer? How goes it, Montparnasse? 'Yes, they know you! ejaculated Thnardier. 'But good day, good evening, sheer off! leave us alone! 'It's the hour for foxes, not for chickens, said Montparnasse. 'You see the job we have on hand here, added Babet. ponine caught Montparnasse's hand. 'Take care, said he, 'you'll cut yourself, I've a knife open. 'My little Montparnasse, responded ponine very gently, 'you must have confidence in people. I am the daughter of my father, perhaps. Monsieur Babet, Monsieur Guelemer, I'm the person who was charged to investigate this matter. It is remarkable that ponine did not talk slang. That frightful tongue had become impossible to her since she had known Marius. She pressed in her hand, small, bony, and feeble as that of a skeleton, Guelemer's huge, coarse fingers, and continued 'You know well that I'm no fool. Ordinarily, I am believed. I have rendered you service on various occasions. Well, I have made inquiries you will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that there is nothing in this house. 'There are lone women, said Guelemer. 'No, the persons have moved away. 'The candles haven't, anyway! ejaculated Babet. And he pointed out to ponine, across the tops of the trees, a light which was wandering about in the mansard roof of the pavilion. It was Toussaint, who had stayed up to spread out some linen to dry. ponine made a final effort. 'Well, said she, 'they're very poor folks, and it's a hovel where there isn't a sou. 'Go to the devil! cried Thnardier. 'When we've turned the house upside down and put the cellar at the top and the attic below, we'll tell you what there is inside, and whether it's francs or sous or halffarthings. And he pushed her aside with the intention of entering. 'My good friend, Mr. Montparnasse, said ponine, 'I entreat you, you are a good fellow, don't enter. 'Take care, you'll cut yourself, replied Montparnasse. Thnardier resumed in his decided tone 'Decamp, my girl, and leave men to their own affairs! ponine released Montparnasse's hand, which she had grasped again, and said 'So you mean to enter this house? 'Rather! grinned the ventriloquist. Then she set her back against the gate, faced the six ruffians who were armed to the teeth, and to whom the night lent the visages of demons, and said in a firm, low voice 'Well, I don't mean that you shall. They halted in amazement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. She went on 'Friends! Listen well. This is not what you want. Now I'm talking. In the first place, if you enter this garden, if you lay a hand on this gate, I'll scream, I'll beat on the door, I'll rouse everybody, I'll have the whole six of you seized, I'll call the police. 'She'd do it, too, said Thnardier in a low tone to Brujon and the ventriloquist. She shook her head and added 'Beginning with my father! Thnardier stepped nearer. 'Not so close, my good man! said she. He retreated, growling between his teeth 'Why, what's the matter with her? And he added 'Bitch! She began to laugh in a terrible way 'As you like, but you shall not enter here. I'm not the daughter of a dog, since I'm the daughter of a wolf. There are six of you, what matters that to me? You are men. Well, I'm a woman. You don't frighten me. I tell you that you shan't enter this house, because it doesn't suit me. If you approach, I'll bark. I told you, I'm the dog, and I don't care a straw for you. Go your way, you bore me! Go where you please, but don't come here, I forbid it! You can use your knives. I'll use kicks it's all the same to me, come on! She advanced a pace nearer the ruffians, she was terrible, she burst out laughing 'Pardine! I'm not afraid. I shall be hungry this summer, and I shall be cold this winter. Aren't they ridiculous, these ninnies of men, to think they can scare a girl! What! Scare? Oh, yes, much! Because you have finical poppets of mistresses who hide under the bed when you put on a big voice, forsooth! I ain't afraid of anything, that I ain't! She fastened her intent gaze upon Thnardier and said 'Not even of you, father! Then she continued, as she cast her bloodshot, spectrelike eyes upon the ruffians in turn 'What do I care if I'm picked up tomorrow morning on the pavement of the Rue Plumet, killed by the blows of my father's club, or whether I'm found a year from now in the nets at SaintCloud or the Isle of Swans in the midst of rotten old corks and drowned dogs? She was forced to pause she was seized by a dry cough, her breath came from her weak and narrow chest like the deathrattle. She resumed 'I have only to cry out, and people will come, and then slap, bang! There are six of you I represent the whole world. Thnardier made a movement towards her. 'Don't approach! she cried. He halted, and said gently 'Well, no I won't approach, but don't speak so loud. So you intend to hinder us in our work, my daughter? But we must earn our living all the same. Have you no longer any kind feeling for your father? 'You bother me, said ponine. 'But we must live, we must eat 'Burst! So saying, she seated herself on the underpinning of the fence and hummed 'Mon bras si dodu, Ma jambe bien faite Et le temps perdu. 'My arm so plump, My leg well formed, And time wasted. She had set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she swung her foot with an air of indifference. Her tattered gown permitted a view of her thin shoulderblades. The neighboring street lantern illuminated her profile and her attitude. Nothing more resolute and more surprising could be seen. The six rascals, speechless and gloomy at being held in check by a girl, retreated beneath the shadow cast by the lantern, and held counsel with furious and humiliated shrugs. In the meantime she stared at them with a stern but peaceful air. 'There's something the matter with her, said Babet. 'A reason. Is she in love with the dog? It's a shame to miss this, anyway. Two women, an old fellow who lodges in the backyard, and curtains that ain't so bad at the windows. The old cove must be a Jew. I think the job's a good one. 'Well, go in, then, the rest of you, exclaimed Montparnasse. 'Do the job. I'll stay here with the girl, and if she fails us He flashed the knife, which he held open in his hand, in the light of the lantern. Thnardier said not a word, and seemed ready for whatever the rest pleased. Brujon, who was somewhat of an oracle, and who had, as the reader knows, 'put up the job, had not as yet spoken. He seemed thoughtful. He had the reputation of not sticking at anything, and it was known that he had plundered a police post simply out of bravado. Besides this he made verses and songs, which gave him great authority. Babet interrogated him 'You say nothing, Brujon? Brujon remained silent an instant longer, then he shook his head in various ways, and finally concluded to speak 'See here this morning I came across two sparrows fighting, this evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's quit. They went away. As they went, Montparnasse muttered 'Never mind! if they had wanted, I'd have cut her throat. Babet responded 'I wouldn't. I don't hit a lady. At the corner of the street they halted and exchanged the following enigmatical dialogue in a low tone 'Where shall we go to sleep tonight? 'Under Pantin Paris. 'Have you the key to the gate, Thnardier? 'Pardi. ponine, who never took her eyes off of them, saw them retreat by the road by which they had come. She rose and began to creep after them along the walls and the houses. She followed them thus as far as the boulevard. There they parted, and she saw these six men plunge into the gloom, where they appeared to melt away. After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses, the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in a sombre manner the savage swarming there catches glimpses of sudden apparitions of the invisible that which is below man distinguishes, through the mists, that which is beyond man and the things of which we living beings are ignorant there meet face to face in the night. Nature, bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which she fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws fear what they cannot grasp. Blooddrinking bestiality, voracious appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with a dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave the ferocious fear the sinister wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul. While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by Cosette's side. Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic. But he had found Cosette sad Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were red. This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. Marius' first word had been 'What is the matter? And she had replied 'This. Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he tremblingly took his place beside her, she had continued 'My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he has business, and we may go away from here. Marius shivered from head to foot. When one is at the end of one's life, to die means to go away when one is at the beginning of it, to go away means to die. For the last six weeks, Marius had little by little, slowly, by degrees, taken possession of Cosette each day. As we have already explained, in the case of first love, the soul is taken long before the body later on, one takes the body long before the soul sometimes one does not take the soul at all the Faublas and the Prudhommes add 'Because there is none but the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy. So Marius possessed Cosette, as spirits possess, but he enveloped her with all his soul, and seized her jealously with incredible conviction. He possessed her smile, her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance of her blue eyes, the sweetness of her skin when he touched her hand, the charming mark which she had on her neck, all her thoughts. Therefore, he possessed all Cosette's dreams. He incessantly gazed at, and he sometimes touched lightly with his breath, the short locks on the nape of her neck, and he declared to himself that there was not one of those short hairs which did not belong to him, Marius. He gazed upon and adored the things that she wore, her knot of ribbon, her gloves, her sleeves, her shoes, her cuffs, as sacred objects of which he was the master. He dreamed that he was the lord of those pretty shell combs which she wore in her hair, and he even said to himself, in confused and suppressed stammerings of voluptuousness which did not make their way to the light, that there was not a ribbon of her gown, not a mesh in her stockings, not a fold in her bodice, which was not his. Beside Cosette he felt himself beside his own property, his own thing, his own despot and his slave. It seemed as though they had so intermingled their souls, that it would have been impossible to tell them apart had they wished to take them back again.'This is mine. 'No, it is mine. 'I assure you that you are mistaken. This is my property. 'What you are taking as your own is myself.Marius was something that made a part of Cosette, and Cosette was something which made a part of Marius. Marius felt Cosette within him. To have Cosette, to possess Cosette, this, to him, was not to be distinguished from breathing. It was in the midst of this faith, of this intoxication, of this virgin possession, unprecedented and absolute, of this sovereignty, that these words 'We are going away, fell suddenly, at a blow, and that the harsh voice of reality cried to him 'Cosette is not yours! Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said, outside of life those words, going away! caused him to reenter it harshly. He found not a word to say. Cosette merely felt that his hand was very cold. She said to him in her turn 'What is the matter? He replied in so low a tone that Cosette hardly heard him 'I did not understand what you said. She began again 'This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to hold myself in readiness, that he would give me his linen to put in a trunk, that he was obliged to go on a journey, that we were to go away, that it is necessary to have a large trunk for me and a small one for him, and that all is to be ready in a week from now, and that we might go to England. 'But this is outrageous! exclaimed Marius. It is certain, that, at that moment, no abuse of power, no violence, not one of the abominations of the worst tyrants, no action of Busiris, of Tiberius, or of Henry VIII., could have equalled this in atrocity, in the opinion of Marius M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter off to England because he had business there. He demanded in a weak voice 'And when do you start? 'He did not say when. 'And when shall you return? 'He did not say when. Marius rose and said coldly 'Cosette, shall you go? Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish, and replied in a sort of bewilderment 'Where? 'To England. Shall you go? 'Why do you say you to me? 'I ask you whether you will go? 'What do you expect me to do? she said, clasping her hands. 'So, you will go? 'If my father goes. 'So, you will go? Cosette took Marius' hand, and pressed it without replying. 'Very well, said Marius, 'then I will go elsewhere. Cosette felt rather than understood the meaning of these words. She turned so pale that her face shone white through the gloom. She stammered 'What do you mean? Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven, and answered 'Nothing. When his eyes fell again, he saw Cosette smiling at him. The smile of a woman whom one loves possesses a visible radiance, even at night. 'How silly we are! Marius, I have an idea. 'What is it? 'If we go away, do you go too! I will tell you where! Come and join me wherever I am. Marius was now a thoroughly roused man. He had fallen back into reality. He cried to Cosette 'Go away with you! Are you mad? Why, I should have to have money, and I have none! Go to England? But I am in debt now, I owe, I don't know how much, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends with whom you are not acquainted! I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water for the last six weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only see me at night, and you give me your love if you were to see me in the daytime, you would give me a sou! Go to England! Eh! I haven't enough to pay for a passport! He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his brow pressed close to the bark, feeling neither the wood which flayed his skin, nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there he stood motionless, on the point of falling, like the statue of despair. He remained a long time thus. One could remain for eternity in such abysses. At last he turned round. He heard behind him a faint stifled noise, which was sweet yet sad. It was Cosette sobbing. She had been weeping for more than two hours beside Marius as he meditated. He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself, he took the tip of her foot which peeped out from beneath her robe, and kissed it. She let him have his way in silence. There are moments when a woman accepts, like a sombre and resigned goddess, the religion of love. 'Do not weep, he said. She murmured 'Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come! He went on 'Do you love me? She replied, sobbing, by that word from paradise which is never more charming than amid tears 'I adore you! He continued in a tone which was an indescribable caress 'Do not weep. Tell me, will you do this for me, and cease to weep? 'Do you love me? said she. He took her hand. 'Cosette, I have never given my word of honor to any one, because my word of honor terrifies me. I feel that my father is by my side. Well, I give you my most sacred word of honor, that if you go away I shall die. In the tone with which he uttered these words there lay a melancholy so solemn and so tranquil, that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill which is produced by a true and gloomy thing as it passes by. The shock made her cease weeping. 'Now, listen, said he, 'do not expect me tomorrow. 'Why? 'Do not expect me until the day after tomorrow. 'Oh! Why? 'You will see. 'A day without seeing you! But that is impossible! 'Let us sacrifice one day in order to gain our whole lives, perhaps. And Marius added in a low tone and in an aside 'He is a man who never changes his habits, and he has never received any one except in the evening. 'Of what man are you speaking? asked Cosette. 'I? I said nothing. 'What do you hope, then? 'Wait until the day after tomorrow. 'You wish it? 'Yes, Cosette. She took his head in both her hands, raising herself on tiptoe in order to be on a level with him, and tried to read his hope in his eyes. Marius resumed 'Now that I think of it, you ought to know my address something might happen, one never knows I live with that friend named Courfeyrac, Rue de la Verrerie, No. . He searched in his pocket, pulled out his penknife, and with the blade he wrote on the plaster of the wall ' Rue de la Verrerie. In the meantime, Cosette had begun to gaze into his eyes once more. 'Tell me your thought, Marius you have some idea. Tell it to me. Oh! tell me, so that I may pass a pleasant night. 'This is my idea that it is impossible that God should mean to part us. Wait expect me the day after tomorrow. 'What shall I do until then? said Cosette. 'You are outside, you go, and come! How happy men are! I shall remain entirely alone! Oh! How sad I shall be! What is it that you are going to do tomorrow evening? tell me. 'I am going to try something. 'Then I will pray to God and I will think of you here, so that you may be successful. I will question you no further, since you do not wish it. You are my master. I shall pass the evening tomorrow in singing that music from Euryanthe that you love, and that you came one evening to listen to, outside my shutters. But day after tomorrow you will come early. I shall expect you at dusk, at nine o'clock precisely, I warn you. Mon Dieu! how sad it is that the days are so long! On the stroke of nine, do you understand, I shall be in the garden. 'And I also. And without having uttered it, moved by the same thought, impelled by those electric currents which place lovers in continual communication, both being intoxicated with delight even in their sorrow, they fell into each other's arms, without perceiving that their lips met while their uplifted eyes, overflowing with rapture and full of tears, gazed upon the stars. When Marius went forth, the street was deserted. This was the moment when ponine was following the ruffians to the boulevard. While Marius had been dreaming with his head pressed to the tree, an idea had crossed his mind an idea, alas! that he himself judged to be senseless and impossible. He had come to a desperate decision. At that epoch, Father Gillenormand was well past his ninetyfirst birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand in the Rue des FillesduCalvaire, No. , in the old house which he owned. He was, as the reader will remember, one of those antique old men who await death perfectly erect, whom age bears down without bending, and whom even sorrow cannot curve. Still, his daughter had been saying for some time 'My father is sinking. He no longer boxed the maids' ears he no longer thumped the landingplace so vigorously with his cane when Basque was slow in opening the door. The Revolution of July had exasperated him for the space of barely six months. He had viewed, almost tranquilly, that coupling of words, in the Moniteur M. HumblotCont, peer of France. The fact is, that the old man was deeply dejected. He did not bend, he did not yield this was no more a characteristic of his physical than of his moral nature, but he felt himself giving way internally. For four years he had been waiting for Marius, with his foot firmly planted, that is the exact word, in the conviction that that goodfornothing young scamp would ring at his door some day or other now he had reached the point, where, at certain gloomy hours, he said to himself, that if Marius made him wait much longerIt was not death that was insupportable to him it was the idea that perhaps he should never see Marius again. The idea of never seeing Marius again had never entered his brain until that day now the thought began to recur to him, and it chilled him. Absence, as is always the case in genuine and natural sentiments, had only served to augment the grandfather's love for the ungrateful child, who had gone off like a flash. It is during December nights, when the cold stands at ten degrees, that one thinks oftenest of the son. M. Gillenormand was, or thought himself, above all things, incapable of taking a single step, hethe grandfather, towards his grandson 'I would die rather, he said to himself. He did not consider himself as the least to blame but he thought of Marius only with profound tenderness, and the mute despair of an elderly, kindly old man who is about to vanish in the dark. He began to lose his teeth, which added to his sadness. M. Gillenormand, without however acknowledging it to himself, for it would have rendered him furious and ashamed, had never loved a mistress as he loved Marius. He had had placed in his chamber, opposite the head of his bed, so that it should be the first thing on which his eyes fell on waking, an old portrait of his other daughter, who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, a portrait which had been taken when she was eighteen. He gazed incessantly at that portrait. One day, he happened to say, as he gazed upon it 'I think the likeness is strong. 'To my sister? inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. 'Yes, certainly. The old man added 'And to him also. Once as he sat with his knees pressed together, and his eyes almost closed, in a despondent attitude, his daughter ventured to say to him 'Father, are you as angry with him as ever? She paused, not daring to proceed further. 'With whom? he demanded. 'With that poor Marius. He raised his aged head, laid his withered and emaciated fist on the table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrating tone 'Poor Marius, do you say! That gentleman is a knave, a wretched scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soulless, haughty, and wicked man! And he turned away so that his daughter might not see the tear that stood in his eye. Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four hours, to say to his daughter pointblank 'I had the honor to ask Mademoiselle Gillenormand never to mention him to me. Aunt Gillenormand renounced every effort, and pronounced this acute diagnosis 'My father never cared very much for my sister after her folly. It is clear that he detests Marius. 'After her folly meant 'after she had married the colonel. However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle Gillenormand had failed in her attempt to substitute her favorite, the officer of lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Thodule, had not been a success. M. Gillenormand had not accepted the quid pro quo. A vacancy in the heart does not accommodate itself to a stopgap. Thodule, on his side, though he scented the inheritance, was disgusted at the task of pleasing. The goodman bored the lancer and the lancer shocked the goodman. Lieutenant Thodule was gay, no doubt, but a chatterbox, frivolous, but vulgar a high liver, but a frequenter of bad company he had mistresses, it is true, and he had a great deal to say about them, it is true also but he talked badly. All his good qualities had a defect. M. Gillenormand was worn out with hearing him tell about the love affairs that he had in the vicinity of the barracks in the Rue de Babylone. And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes came in his uniform, with the tricolored cockade. This rendered him downright intolerable. Finally, Father Gillenormand had said to his daughter 'I've had enough of that Thodule. I haven't much taste for warriors in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don't know but I prefer slashers to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of blades in battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on the pavement. And then, throwing out your chest like a bully and lacing yourself like a girl, with stays under your cuirass, is doubly ridiculous. When one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a finnickyhearted man. Keep your Thodule for yourself. It was in vain that his daughter said to him 'But he is your grandnephew, nevertheless,it turned out that M. Gillenormand, who was a grandfather to the very fingertips, was not in the least a granduncle. In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the two, Thodule had only served to make him regret Marius all the more. One evening,it was the th of June, which did not prevent Father Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the hearth,he had dismissed his daughter, who was sewing in a neighboring apartment. He was alone in his chamber, amid its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the andirons, half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer, with its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two candles under a green shade, engulfed in his tapestry armchair, and in his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed, according to his wont, like an incroyable, and resembled an antique portrait by Garat. This would have made people run after him in the street, had not his daughter covered him up, whenever he went out, in a vast bishop's wadded cloak, which concealed his attire. At home, he never wore a dressing gown, except when he rose and retired. 'It gives one a look of age, said he. Father Gillenormand was thinking of Marius lovingly and bitterly and, as usual, bitterness predominated. His tenderness once soured always ended by boiling and turning to indignation. He had reached the point where a man tries to make up his mind and to accept that which rends his heart. He was explaining to himself that there was no longer any reason why Marius should return, that if he intended to return, he should have done it long ago, that he must renounce the idea. He was trying to accustom himself to the thought that all was over, and that he should die without having beheld 'that gentleman again. But his whole nature revolted his aged paternity would not consent to this. 'Well! said he,this was his doleful refrain,'he will not return! His bald head had fallen upon his breast, and he fixed a melancholy and irritated gaze upon the ashes on his hearth. In the very midst of his reverie, his old servant Basque entered, and inquired 'Can Monsieur receive M. Marius? The old man sat up erect, pallid, and like a corpse which rises under the influence of a galvanic shock. All his blood had retreated to his heart. He stammered 'M. Marius what? 'I don't know, replied Basque, intimidated and put out of countenance by his master's air 'I have not seen him. Nicolette came in and said to me 'There's a young man here say that it is M. Marius.' Father Gillenormand stammered in a low voice 'Show him in. And he remained in the same attitude, with shaking head, and his eyes fixed on the door. It opened once more. A young man entered. It was Marius. Marius halted at the door, as though waiting to be bidden to enter. His almost squalid attire was not perceptible in the obscurity caused by the shade. Nothing could be seen but his calm, grave, but strangely sad face. It was several minutes before Father Gillenormand, dulled with amazement and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one is in the presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning he saw Marius through a dazzling light. It certainly was he, it certainly was Marius. At last! After the lapse of four years! He grasped him entire, so to speak, in a single glance. He found him noble, handsome, distinguished, wellgrown, a complete man, with a suitable mien and a charming air. He felt a desire to open his arms, to call him, to fling himself forward his heart melted with rapture, affectionate words swelled and overflowed his breast at length all his tenderness came to the light and reached his lips, and, by a contrast which constituted the very foundation of his nature, what came forth was harshness. He said abruptly 'What have you come here for? Marius replied with embarrassment 'Monsieur M. Gillenormand would have liked to have Marius throw himself into his arms. He was displeased with Marius and with himself. He was conscious that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the goodman unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He interrupted Marius in a peevish tone 'Then why did you come? That 'then signified If you do not come to embrace me. Marius looked at his grandfather, whose pallor gave him a face of marble. 'Monsieur 'Have you come to beg my pardon? Do you acknowledge your faults? He thought he was putting Marius on the right road, and that 'the child would yield. Marius shivered it was the denial of his father that was required of him he dropped his eyes and replied 'No, sir. 'Then, exclaimed the old man impetuously, with a grief that was poignant and full of wrath, 'what do you want of me? Marius clasped his hands, advanced a step, and said in a feeble and trembling voice 'Sir, have pity on me. These words touched M. Gillenormand uttered a little sooner, they would have rendered him tender, but they came too late. The grandfather rose he supported himself with both hands on his cane his lips were white, his brow wavered, but his lofty form towered above Marius as he bowed. 'Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of ninetyone! You are entering into life, I am leaving it you go to the play, to balls, to the caf, to the billiardhall you have wit, you please the women, you are a handsome fellow as for me, I spit on my brands in the heart of summer you are rich with the only riches that are really such, I possess all the poverty of age infirmity, isolation! You have your thirtytwo teeth, a good digestion, bright eyes, strength, appetite, health, gayety, a forest of black hair I have no longer even white hair, I have lost my teeth, I am losing my legs, I am losing my memory there are three names of streets that I confound incessantly, the Rue Charlot, the Rue du Chaume, and the Rue SaintClaude, that is what I have come to you have before you the whole future, full of sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight, so far am I advancing into the night you are in love, that is a matter of course, I am beloved by no one in all the world and you ask pity of me! Parbleu! Molire forgot that. If that is the way you jest at the courthouse, Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are droll. And the octogenarian went on in a grave and angry voice 'Come, now, what do you want of me? 'Sir, said Marius, 'I know that my presence is displeasing to you, but I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away immediately. 'You are a fool! said the old man. 'Who said that you were to go away? This was the translation of the tender words which lay at the bottom of his heart 'Ask my pardon! Throw yourself on my neck! M. Gillenormand felt that Marius would leave him in a few moments, that his harsh reception had repelled the lad, that his hardness was driving him away he said all this to himself, and it augmented his grief and as his grief was straightway converted into wrath, it increased his harshness. He would have liked to have Marius understand, and Marius did not understand, which made the goodman furious. He began again 'What! you deserted me, your grandfather, you left my house to go no one knows whither, you drove your aunt to despair, you went off, it is easily guessed, to lead a bachelor life it's more convenient, to play the dandy, to come in at all hours, to amuse yourself you have given me no signs of life, you have contracted debts without even telling me to pay them, you have become a smasher of windows and a blusterer, and, at the end of four years, you come to me, and that is all you have to say to me! This violent fashion of driving a grandson to tenderness was productive only of silence on the part of Marius. M. Gillenormand folded his arms a gesture which with him was peculiarly imperious, and apostrophized Marius bitterly 'Let us make an end of this. You have come to ask something of me, you say? Well, what? What is it? Speak! 'Sir, said Marius, with the look of a man who feels that he is falling over a precipice, 'I have come to ask your permission to marry. M. Gillenormand rang the bell. Basque opened the door halfway. 'Call my daughter. A second later, the door was opened once more, Mademoiselle Gillenormand did not enter, but showed herself Marius was standing, mute, with pendant arms and the face of a criminal M. Gillenormand was pacing back and forth in the room. He turned to his daughter and said to her 'Nothing. It is Monsieur Marius. Say good day to him. Monsieur wishes to marry. That's all. Go away. The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree of excitement. The aunt gazed at Marius with a frightened air, hardly appeared to recognize him, did not allow a gesture or a syllable to escape her, and disappeared at her father's breath more swiftly than a straw before the hurricane. In the meantime, Father Gillenormand had returned and placed his back against the chimneypiece once more. 'You marry! At one and twenty! You have arranged that! You have only a permission to ask! a formality. Sit down, sir. Well, you have had a revolution since I had the honor to see you last. The Jacobins got the upper hand. You must have been delighted. Are you not a Republican since you are a Baron? You can make that agree. The Republic makes a good sauce for the barony. Are you one of those decorated by July? Have you taken the Louvre at all, sir? Quite near here, in the Rue SaintAntoine, opposite the Rue des Nonamdires, there is a cannonball incrusted in the wall of the third story of a house with this inscription 'July th, .' Go take a look at that. It produces a good effect. Ah! those friends of yours do pretty things. By the way, aren't they erecting a fountain in the place of the monument of M. le Duc de Berry? So you want to marry? Whom? Can one inquire without indiscretion? He paused, and, before Marius had time to answer, he added violently 'Come now, you have a profession? A fortune made? How much do you earn at your trade of lawyer? 'Nothing, said Marius, with a sort of firmness and resolution that was almost fierce. 'Nothing? Then all that you have to live upon is the twelve hundred livres that I allow you? Marius did not reply. M. Gillenormand continued 'Then I understand the girl is rich? 'As rich as I am. 'What! No dowry? 'No. 'Expectations? 'I think not. 'Utterly naked! What's the father? 'I don't know. 'And what's her name? 'Mademoiselle Fauchelevent. 'Fauchewhat? 'Fauchelevent. 'Pttt! ejaculated the old gentleman. 'Sir! exclaimed Marius. M. Gillenormand interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking to himself 'That's right, one and twenty years of age, no profession, twelve hundred livres a year, Madame la Baronne de Pontmercy will go and purchase a couple of sous' worth of parsley from the fruiterer. 'Sir, repeated Marius, in the despair at the last hope, which was vanishing, 'I entreat you! I conjure you in the name of Heaven, with clasped hands, sir, I throw myself at your feet, permit me to marry her! The old man burst into a shout of strident and mournful laughter, coughing and laughing at the same time. 'Ah! ah! ah! You said to yourself 'Pardine! I'll go hunt up that old blockhead, that absurd numskull! What a shame that I'm not twentyfive! How I'd treat him to a nice respectful summons! How nicely I'd get along without him! It's nothing to me, I'd say to him 'You're only too happy to see me, you old idiot, I want to marry, I desire to wed Mamselle Nomatterwhom, daughter of Monsieur Nomatterwhat, I have no shoes, she has no chemise, that just suits I want to throw my career, my future, my youth, my life to the dogs I wish to take a plunge into wretchedness with a woman around my neck, that's an idea, and you must consent to it! and the old fossil will consent.' Go, my lad, do as you like, attach your pavingstone, marry your Pousselevent, your CoupeleventNever, sir, never! 'Father 'Never! At the tone in which that 'never was uttered, Marius lost all hope. He traversed the chamber with slow steps, with bowed head, tottering and more like a dying man than like one merely taking his departure. M. Gillenormand followed him with his eyes, and at the moment when the door opened, and Marius was on the point of going out, he advanced four paces, with the senile vivacity of impetuous and spoiled old gentlemen, seized Marius by the collar, brought him back energetically into the room, flung him into an armchair and said to him 'Tell me all about it! 'It was that single word 'father which had effected this revolution. Marius stared at him in bewilderment. M. Gillenormand's mobile face was no longer expressive of anything but rough and ineffable goodnature. The grandsire had given way before the grandfather. 'Come, see here, speak, tell me about your love affairs, jabber, tell me everything! Sapristi! how stupid young folks are! 'Father repeated Marius. The old man's entire countenance lighted up with indescribable radiance. 'Yes, that's right, call me father, and you'll see! There was now something so kind, so gentle, so openhearted, and so paternal in this brusqueness, that Marius, in the sudden transition from discouragement to hope, was stunned and intoxicated by it, as it were. He was seated near the table, the light from the candles brought out the dilapidation of his costume, which Father Gillenormand regarded with amazement. 'Well, father said Marius. 'Ah, by the way, interrupted M. Gillenormand, 'you really have not a penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket. He rummaged in a drawer, drew forth a purse, which he laid on the table 'Here are a hundred louis, buy yourself a hat. 'Father, pursued Marius, 'my good father, if you only knew! I love her. You cannot imagine it the first time I saw her was at the Luxembourg, she came there in the beginning, I did not pay much heed to her, and then, I don't know how it came about, I fell in love with her. Oh! how unhappy that made me! Now, at last, I see her every day, at her own home, her father does not know it, just fancy, they are going away, it is in the garden that we meet, in the evening, her father means to take her to England, then I said to myself 'I'll go and see my grandfather and tell him all about the affair. I should go mad first, I should die, I should fall ill, I should throw myself into the water. I absolutely must marry her, since I should go mad otherwise.' This is the whole truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a garden with an iron fence, in the Rue Plumet. It is in the neighborhood of the Invalides. Father Gillenormand had seated himself, with a beaming countenance, beside Marius. As he listened to him and drank in the sound of his voice, he enjoyed at the same time a protracted pinch of snuff. At the words 'Rue Plumet he interrupted his inhalation and allowed the remainder of his snuff to fall upon his knees. 'The Rue Plumet, the Rue Plumet, did you say?Let us see!Are there not barracks in that vicinity?Why, yes, that's it. Your cousin Thodule has spoken to me about it. The lancer, the officer. A gay girl, my good friend, a gay girl!Pardieu, yes, the Rue Plumet. It is what used to be called the Rue Blomet.It all comes back to me now. I have heard of that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumet. In a garden, a Pamela. Your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy creature. Between ourselves, I think that simpleton of a lancer has been courting her a bit. I don't know where he did it. However, that's not to the purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He brags, Marius! I think it quite proper that a young man like you should be in love. It's the right thing at your age. I like you better as a lover than as a Jacobin. I like you better in love with a petticoat, sapristi! with twenty petticoats, than with M. de Robespierre. For my part, I will do myself the justice to say, that in the line of sansculottes, I have never loved any one but women. Pretty girls are pretty girls, the deuce! There's no objection to that. As for the little one, she receives you without her father's knowledge. That's in the established order of things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself. More than one. Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter ferociously one does not precipitate himself into the tragic one does not make one's mind to marriage and M. le Maire with his scarf. One simply behaves like a fellow of spirit. One shows good sense. Slip along, mortals don't marry. You come and look up your grandfather, who is a goodnatured fellow at bottom, and who always has a few rolls of louis in an old drawer you say to him 'See here, grandfather.' And the grandfather says 'That's a simple matter. Youth must amuse itself, and old age must wear out. I have been young, you will be old. Come, my boy, you shall pass it on to your grandson. Here are two hundred pistoles. Amuse yourself, deuce take it!' Nothing better! That's the way the affair should be treated. You don't marry, but that does no harm. You understand me? Marius, petrified and incapable of uttering a syllable, made a sign with his head that he did not. The old man burst out laughing, winked his aged eye, gave him a slap on the knee, stared him full in the face with a mysterious and beaming air, and said to him, with the tenderest of shrugs of the shoulder 'Booby! make her your mistress. Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather had just said. This twaddle about the Rue Blomet, Pamela, the barracks, the lancer, had passed before Marius like a dissolving view. Nothing of all that could bear any reference to Cosette, who was a lily. The good man was wandering in his mind. But this wandering terminated in words which Marius did understand, and which were a mortal insult to Cosette. Those words, 'make her your mistress, entered the heart of the strict young man like a sword. He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor, and walked to the door with a firm, assured step. There he turned round, bowed deeply to his grandfather, raised his head erect again, and said 'Five years ago you insulted my father today you have insulted my wife. I ask nothing more of you, sir. Farewell. Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his arms, tried to rise, and before he could utter a word, the door closed once more, and Marius had disappeared. The old man remained for several minutes motionless and as though struck by lightning, without the power to speak or breathe, as though a clenched fist grasped his throat. At last he tore himself from his armchair, ran, so far as a man can run at ninetyone, to the door, opened it, and cried 'Help! Help! His daughter made her appearance, then the domestics. He began again, with a pitiful rattle 'Run after him! Bring him back! What have I done to him? He is mad! He is going away! Ah! my God! Ah! my God! This time he will not come back! He went to the window which looked out on the street, threw it open with his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than halfway, while Basque and Nicolette held him behind, and shouted 'Marius! Marius! Marius! Marius! But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning the corner of the Rue SaintLouis. The octogenarian raised his hands to his temples two or three times with an expression of anguish, recoiled tottering, and fell back into an armchair, pulseless, voiceless, tearless, with quivering head and lips which moved with a stupid air, with nothing in his eyes and nothing any longer in his heart except a gloomy and profound something which resembled night. That same day, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, Jean Valjean was sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the ChampdeMars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to meditate, or simply in consequence of one of those insensible changes of habit which gradually introduce themselves into the existence of every one, he now rarely went out with Cosette. He had on his workman's waistcoat, and trousers of gray linen and his longvisored cap concealed his countenance. He was calm and happy now beside Cosette that which had, for a time, alarmed and troubled him had been dissipated but for the last week or two, anxieties of another nature had come up. One day, while walking on the boulevard, he had caught sight of Thnardier thanks to his disguise, Thnardier had not recognized him but since that day, Jean Valjean had seen him repeatedly, and he was now certain that Thnardier was prowling about in their neighborhood. This had been sufficient to make him come to a decision. Moreover, Paris was not tranquil political troubles presented this inconvenient feature, for any one who had anything to conceal in his life, that the police had grown very uneasy and very suspicious, and that while seeking to ferret out a man like Ppin or Morey, they might very readily discover a man like Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had made up his mind to quit Paris, and even France, and go over to England. He had warned Cosette. He wished to set out before the end of the week. He had seated himself on the slope in the ChampdeMars, turning over all sorts of thoughts in his mind,Thnardier, the police, the journey, and the difficulty of procuring a passport. He was troubled from all these points of view. Last of all, an inexplicable circumstance which had just attracted his attention, and from which he had not yet recovered, had added to his state of alarm. On the morning of that very day, when he alone of the household was stirring, while strolling in the garden before Cosette's shutters were open, he had suddenly perceived on the wall, the following line, engraved, probably with a nail  Rue de la Verrerie. This was perfectly fresh, the grooves in the ancient black mortar were white, a tuft of nettles at the foot of the wall was powdered with the fine, fresh plaster. This had probably been written on the preceding night. What was this? A signal for others? A warning for himself? In any case, it was evident that the garden had been violated, and that strangers had made their way into it. He recalled the odd incidents which had already alarmed the household. His mind was now filling in this canvas. He took good care not to speak to Cosette of the line written on the wall, for fear of alarming her. In the midst of his preoccupations, he perceived, from a shadow cast by the sun, that some one had halted on the crest of the slope immediately behind him. He was on the point of turning round, when a paper folded in four fell upon his knees as though a hand had dropped it over his head. He took the paper, unfolded it, and read these words written in large characters, with a pencil 'MOVE AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE. Jean Valjean sprang hastily to his feet there was no one on the slope he gazed all around him and perceived a creature larger than a child, not so large as a man, clad in a gray blouse and trousers of dustcolored cotton velvet, who was jumping over the parapet and who slipped into the moat of the ChampdeMars. Jean Valjean returned home at once, in a very thoughtful mood. Marius had left M. Gillenormand in despair. He had entered the house with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. However, and those who have observed the depths of the human heart will understand this, the officer, the lancer, the ninny, Cousin Thodule, had left no trace in his mind. Not the slightest. The dramatic poet might, apparently, expect some complications from this revelation made pointblank by the grandfather to the grandson. But what the drama would gain thereby, truth would lose. Marius was at an age when one believes nothing in the line of evil later on comes the age when one believes everything. Suspicions are nothing else than wrinkles. Early youth has none of them. That which overwhelmed Othello glides innocuous over Candide. Suspect Cosette! There are hosts of crimes which Marius could sooner have committed. He began to wander about the streets, the resource of those who suffer. He thought of nothing, so far as he could afterwards remember. At two o'clock in the morning he returned to Courfeyrac's quarters and flung himself, without undressing, on his mattress. The sun was shining brightly when he sank into that frightful leaden slumber which permits ideas to go and come in the brain. When he awoke, he saw Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Feuilly, and Combeferre standing in the room with their hats on and all ready to go out. Courfeyrac said to him 'Are you coming to General Lamarque's funeral? It seemed to him that Courfeyrac was speaking Chinese. He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket the pistols which Javert had given him at the time of the adventure on the d of February, and which had remained in his hands. These pistols were still loaded. It would be difficult to say what vague thought he had in his mind when he took them with him. All day long he prowled about, without knowing where he was going it rained at times, he did not perceive it for his dinner, he purchased a penny roll at a baker's, put it in his pocket and forgot it. It appears that he took a bath in the Seine without being aware of it. There are moments when a man has a furnace within his skull. Marius was passing through one of those moments. He no longer hoped for anything this step he had taken since the preceding evening. He waited for night with feverish impatience, he had but one idea clearly before his mindthis was, that at nine o'clock he should see Cosette. This last happiness now constituted his whole future after that, gloom. At intervals, as he roamed through the most deserted boulevards, it seemed to him that he heard strange noises in Paris. He thrust his head out of his reverie and said 'Is there fighting on hand? At nightfall, at nine o'clock precisely, as he had promised Cosette, he was in the Rue Plumet. When he approached the grating he forgot everything. It was fortyeight hours since he had seen Cosette he was about to behold her once more every other thought was effaced, and he felt only a profound and unheardof joy. Those minutes in which one lives centuries always have this sovereign and wonderful property, that at the moment when they are passing they fill the heart completely. Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette was not at the spot where she ordinarily waited for him. He traversed the thicket, and approached the recess near the flight of steps 'She is waiting for me there, said he. Cosette was not there. He raised his eyes, and saw that the shutters of the house were closed. He made the tour of the garden, the garden was deserted. Then he returned to the house, and, rendered senseless by love, intoxicated, terrified, exasperated with grief and uneasiness, like a master who returns home at an evil hour, he tapped on the shutters. He knocked and knocked again, at the risk of seeing the window open, and her father's gloomy face make its appearance, and demand 'What do you want? This was nothing in comparison with what he dimly caught a glimpse of. When he had rapped, he lifted up his voice and called Cosette.'Cosette! he cried 'Cosette! he repeated imperiously. There was no reply. All was over. No one in the garden no one in the house. Marius fixed his despairing eyes on that dismal house, which was as black and as silent as a tomb and far more empty. He gazed at the stone seat on which he had passed so many adorable hours with Cosette. Then he seated himself on the flight of steps, his heart filled with sweetness and resolution, he blessed his love in the depths of his thought, and he said to himself that, since Cosette was gone, all that there was left for him was to die. All at once he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the street, and which was calling to him through the trees 'Mr. Marius! He started to his feet. 'Hey? said he. 'Mr. Marius, are you there? 'Yes. 'Mr. Marius, went on the voice, 'your friends are waiting for you at the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie. This voice was not wholly unfamiliar to him. It resembled the hoarse, rough voice of ponine. Marius hastened to the gate, thrust aside the movable bar, passed his head through the aperture, and saw some one who appeared to him to be a young man, disappearing at a run into the gloom. Jean Valjean's purse was of no use to M. Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf, in his venerable, infantile austerity, had not accepted the gift of the stars he had not admitted that a star could coin itself into louis d'or. He had not divined that what had fallen from heaven had come from Gavroche. He had taken the purse to the police commissioner of the quarter, as a lost article placed by the finder at the disposal of claimants. The purse was actually lost. It is unnecessary to say that no one claimed it, and that it did not succor M. Mabeuf. Moreover, M. Mabeuf had continued his downward course. His experiments on indigo had been no more successful in the Jardin des Plantes than in his garden at Austerlitz. The year before he had owed his housekeeper's wages now, as we have seen, he owed three quarters of his rent. The pawnshop had sold the plates of his Flora after the expiration of thirteen months. Some coppersmith had made stewpans of them. His copper plates gone, and being unable to complete even the incomplete copies of his Flora which were in his possession, he had disposed of the text, at a miserable price, as waste paper, to a secondhand bookseller. Nothing now remained to him of his life's work. He set to work to eat up the money for these copies. When he saw that this wretched resource was becoming exhausted, he gave up his garden and allowed it to run to waste. Before this, a long time before, he had given up his two eggs and the morsel of beef which he ate from time to time. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold the last of his furniture, then all duplicates of his bedding, his clothing and his blankets, then his herbariums and prints but he still retained his most precious books, many of which were of the greatest rarity, among others, Les Quadrins Historiques de la Bible, edition of  La Concordance des Bibles, by Pierre de Besse Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, of Jean de La Haye, with a dedication to the Queen of Navarre the book de la Charge et Dignit de l'Ambassadeur, by the Sieur de Villiers Hotman a Florilegium Rabbinicum of  a Tibullus of , with this magnificent inscription Venetiis, in dibus Manutianis and lastly, a Diogenes Laertius, printed at Lyons in , which contained the famous variant of the manuscript , thirteenth century, of the Vatican, and those of the two manuscripts of Venice,  and , consulted with such fruitful results by Henri Estienne, and all the passages in Doric dialect which are only found in the celebrated manuscript of the twelfth century belonging to the Naples Library. M. Mabeuf never had any fire in his chamber, and went to bed at sundown, in order not to consume any candles. It seemed as though he had no longer any neighbors people avoided him when he went out he perceived the fact. The wretchedness of a child interests a mother, the wretchedness of a young man interests a young girl, the wretchedness of an old man interests no one. It is, of all distresses, the coldest. Still, Father Mabeuf had not entirely lost his childlike serenity. His eyes acquired some vivacity when they rested on his books, and he smiled when he gazed at the Diogenes Laertius, which was a unique copy. His bookcase with glass doors was the only piece of furniture which he had kept beyond what was strictly indispensable. One day, Mother Plutarque said to him 'I have no money to buy any dinner. What she called dinner was a loaf of bread and four or five potatoes. 'On credit? suggested M. Mabeuf. 'You know well that people refuse me. M. Mabeuf opened his bookcase, took a long look at all his books, one after another, as a father obliged to decimate his children would gaze upon them before making a choice, then seized one hastily, put it in under his arm and went out. He returned two hours later, without anything under his arm, laid thirty sous on the table, and said 'You will get something for dinner. From that moment forth, Mother Plutarque saw a sombre veil, which was never more lifted, descend over the old man's candid face. On the following day, on the day after, and on the day after that, it had to be done again. M. Mabeuf went out with a book and returned with a coin. As the secondhand dealers perceived that he was forced to sell, they purchased of him for twenty sous that for which he had paid twenty francs, sometimes at those very shops. Volume by volume, the whole library went the same road. He said at times 'But I am eighty as though he cherished some secret hope that he should arrive at the end of his days before reaching the end of his books. His melancholy increased. Once, however, he had a pleasure. He had gone out with a Robert Estienne, which he had sold for thirtyfive sous under the Quai Malaquais, and he returned with an Aldus which he had bought for forty sous in the Rue des Grs.'I owe five sous, he said, beaming on Mother Plutarque. That day he had no dinner. He belonged to the Horticultural Society. His destitution became known there. The president of the society came to see him, promised to speak to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce about him, and did so.'Why, what! exclaimed the Minister, 'I should think so! An old savant! a botanist! an inoffensive man! Something must be done for him! On the following day, M. Mabeuf received an invitation to dine with the Minister. Trembling with joy, he showed the letter to Mother Plutarque. 'We are saved! said he. On the day appointed, he went to the Minister's house. He perceived that his ragged cravat, his long, square coat, and his waxed shoes astonished the ushers. No one spoke to him, not even the Minister. About ten o'clock in the evening, while he was still waiting for a word, he heard the Minister's wife, a beautiful woman in a lownecked gown whom he had not ventured to approach, inquire 'Who is that old gentleman? He returned home on foot at midnight, in a driving rainstorm. He had sold an Elzevir to pay for a carriage in which to go thither. He had acquired the habit of reading a few pages in his Diogenes Laertius every night, before he went to bed. He knew enough Greek to enjoy the peculiarities of the text which he owned. He had now no other enjoyment. Several weeks passed. All at once, Mother Plutarque fell ill. There is one thing sadder than having no money with which to buy bread at the baker's and that is having no money to purchase drugs at the apothecary's. One evening, the doctor had ordered a very expensive potion. And the malady was growing worse a nurse was required. M. Mabeuf opened his bookcase there was nothing there. The last volume had taken its departure. All that was left to him was Diogenes Laertius. He put this unique copy under his arm, and went out. It was the th of June,  he went to the Porte SaintJacques, to Royal's successor, and returned with one hundred francs. He laid the pile of fivefranc pieces on the old servingwoman's nightstand, and returned to his chamber without saying a word. On the following morning, at dawn, he seated himself on the overturned post in his garden, and he could be seen over the top of the hedge, sitting the whole morning motionless, with drooping head, his eyes vaguely fixed on the withered flowerbeds. It rained at intervals the old man did not seem to perceive the fact. In the afternoon, extraordinary noises broke out in Paris. They resembled shots and the clamors of a multitude. Father Mabeuf raised his head. He saw a gardener passing, and inquired 'What is it? The gardener, spade on back, replied in the most unconcerned tone 'It is the riots. 'What riots? 'Yes, they are fighting. 'Why are they fighting? 'Ah, good Heavens! ejaculated the gardener. 'In what direction? went on M. Mabeuf. 'In the neighborhood of the Arsenal. Father Mabeuf went to his room, took his hat, mechanically sought for a book to place under his arm, found none, said 'Ah! truly! and went off with a bewildered air. Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly darting forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath encounters heads which speak, brains which dream, souls which suffer, passions which burn, wretchedness which howls, and bears them away. Whither? At random. Athwart the state, the laws, athwart prosperity and the insolence of others. Irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasms, agitated indignations, instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has been exalted, generous blindness curiosity, the taste for change, the thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to take pleasure in reading the posters for the new play, and love, the prompter's whistle, at the theatre the vague hatreds, rancors, disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted it discomfort, empty dreams, ambitions that are hedged about, whoever hopes for a downfall, some outcome, in short, at the very bottom, the rabble, that mud which catches fire,such are the elements of revolt. That which is grandest and that which is basest the beings who prowl outside of all bounds, awaiting an occasion, bohemians, vagrants, vagabonds of the crossroads, those who sleep at night in a desert of houses with no other roof than the cold clouds of heaven, those who, each day, demand their bread from chance and not from toil, the unknown of poverty and nothingness, the barearmed, the barefooted, belong to revolt. Whoever cherishes in his soul a secret revolt against any deed whatever on the part of the state, of life or of fate, is ripe for riot, and, as soon as it makes its appearance, he begins to quiver, and to feel himself borne away with the whirlwind. Revolt is a sort of waterspout in the social atmosphere which forms suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which, as it eddies about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes, crushes, demolishes, uproots, bearing with it great natures and small, the strong man and the feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw. Woe to him whom it bears away as well as to him whom it strikes! It breaks the one against the other. It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable and extraordinary power. It fills the firstcomer with the force of events it converts everything into projectiles. It makes a cannonball of a rough stone, and a general of a porter. If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views, a little revolt is desirable from the point of view of power. System revolt strengthens those governments which it does not overthrow. It puts the army to the test it consecrates the bourgeoisie, it draws out the muscles of the police it demonstrates the force of the social framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics it is almost hygiene. Power is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing down. Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points of view. There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself 'good sense Philintus against Alcestis mediation offered between the false and the true explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation which, because it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom, and is often only pedantry. A whole political school called 'the golden mean has been the outcome of this. As between cold water and hot water, it is the lukewarm water party. This school with its false depth, all on the surface, which dissects effects without going back to first causes, chides from its height of a demiscience, the agitation of the public square. If we listen to this school, 'The riots which complicated the affair of  deprived that great event of a portion of its purity. The Revolution of July had been a fine popular gale, abruptly followed by blue sky. They made the cloudy sky reappear. They caused that revolution, at first so remarkable for its unanimity, to degenerate into a quarrel. In the Revolution of July, as in all progress accomplished by fits and starts, there had been secret fractures these riots rendered them perceptible. It might have been said 'Ah! this is broken.' After the Revolution of July, one was sensible only of deliverance after the riots, one was conscious of a catastrophe. 'All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the Exchange into consternation, suspends commerce, clogs business, precipitates failures no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy, public credit shaken, industry disconcerted, capital withdrawing, work at a discount, fear everywhere countershocks in every town. Hence gulfs. It has been calculated that the first day of a riot costs France twenty millions, the second day forty, the third sixty, a three days' uprising costs one hundred and twenty millions, that is to say, if only the financial result be taken into consideration, it is equivalent to a disaster, a shipwreck or a lost battle, which should annihilate a fleet of sixty ships of the line. 'No doubt, historically, uprisings have their beauty the war of the pavements is no less grandiose, and no less pathetic, than the war of thickets in the one there is the soul of forests, in the other the heart of cities the one has Jean Chouan, the other has a Jeanne. Revolts have illuminated with a red glare all the most original points of the Parisian character, generosity, devotion, stormy gayety, students proving that bravery forms part of intelligence, the National Guard invincible, bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of street urchins, contempt of death on the part of passersby. Schools and legions clashed together. After all, between the combatants, there was only a difference of age the race is the same it is the same stoical men who died at the age of twenty for their ideas, at forty for their families. The army, always a sad thing in civil wars, opposed prudence to audacity. Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also educated the courage of the bourgeois. 'This is well. But is all this worth the bloodshed? And to the bloodshed add the future darkness, progress compromised, uneasiness among the best men, honest liberals in despair, foreign absolutism happy in these wounds dealt to revolution by its own hand, the vanquished of  triumphing and saying 'We told you so!' Add Paris enlarged, possibly, but France most assuredly diminished. Add, for all must needs be told, the massacres which have too often dishonored the victory of order grown ferocious over liberty gone mad. To sum up all, uprisings have been disastrous. Thus speaks that approximation to wisdom with which the bourgeoisie, that approximation to the people, so willingly contents itself. For our parts, we reject this word uprisings as too large, and consequently as too convenient. We make a distinction between one popular movement and another popular movement. We do not inquire whether an uprising costs as much as a battle. Why a battle, in the first place? Here the question of war comes up. Is war less of a scourge than an uprising is of a calamity? And then, are all uprisings calamities? And what if the revolt of July did cost a hundred and twenty millions? The establishment of Philip V. in Spain cost France two milliards. Even at the same price, we should prefer the th of July. However, we reject these figures, which appear to be reasons and which are only words. An uprising being given, we examine it by itself. In all that is said by the doctrinarian objection above presented, there is no question of anything but effect, we seek the cause. We will be explicit. There is such a thing as an uprising, and there is such a thing as insurrection these are two separate phases of wrath one is in the wrong, the other is in the right. In democratic states, the only ones which are founded on justice, it sometimes happens that the fraction usurps then the whole rises and the necessary claim of its rights may proceed as far as resort to arms. In all questions which result from collective sovereignty, the war of the whole against the fraction is insurrection the attack of the fraction against the whole is revolt according as the Tuileries contain a king or the Convention, they are justly or unjustly attacked. The same cannon, pointed against the populace, is wrong on the th of August, and right on the th of Vendmiaire. Alike in appearance, fundamentally different in reality the Swiss defend the false, Bonaparte defends the true. That which universal suffrage has effected in its liberty and in its sovereignty cannot be undone by the street. It is the same in things pertaining purely to civilization the instinct of the masses, clearsighted today, may be troubled tomorrow. The same fury legitimate when directed against Terray and absurd when directed against Turgot. The destruction of machines, the pillage of warehouses, the breaking of rails, the demolition of docks, the false routes of multitudes, the refusal by the people of justice to progress, Ramus assassinated by students, Rousseau driven out of Switzerland and stoned,that is revolt. Israel against Moses, Athens against Phocian, Rome against Cicero,that is an uprising Paris against the Bastille,that is insurrection. The soldiers against Alexander, the sailors against Christopher Columbus,this is the same revolt impious revolt why? Because Alexander is doing for Asia with the sword that which Christopher Columbus is doing for America with the compass Alexander like Columbus, is finding a world. These gifts of a world to civilization are such augmentations of light, that all resistance in that case is culpable. Sometimes the populace counterfeits fidelity to itself. The masses are traitors to the people. Is there, for example, anything stranger than that long and bloody protest of dealers in contraband salt, a legitimate chronic revolt, which, at the decisive moment, on the day of salvation, at the very hour of popular victory, espouses the throne, turns into chouannerie, and, from having been an insurrection against, becomes an uprising for, sombre masterpieces of ignorance! The contraband salt dealer escapes the royal gibbets, and with a rope's end round his neck, mounts the white cockade. 'Death to the salt duties, brings forth, 'Long live the King! The assassins of SaintBarthlemy, the cutthroats of September, the manslaughterers of Avignon, the assassins of Coligny, the assassins of Madam Lamballe, the assassins of Brune, Miquelets, Verdets, Cadenettes, the companions of Jhu, the chevaliers of Brassard,behold an uprising. La Vende is a grand, catholic uprising. The sound of right in movement is recognizable, it does not always proceed from the trembling of excited masses there are mad rages, there are cracked bells, all tocsins do not give out the sound of bronze. The brawl of passions and ignorances is quite another thing from the shock of progress. Show me in what direction you are going. Rise, if you will, but let it be that you may grow great. There is no insurrection except in a forward direction. Any other sort of rising is bad every violent step towards the rear is a revolt to retreat is to commit a deed of violence against the human race. Insurrection is a fit of rage on the part of truth the pavements which the uprising disturbs give forth the spark of right. These pavements bequeath to the uprising only their mud. Danton against Louis XIV. is insurrection Hbert against Danton is revolt. Hence it results that if insurrection in given cases may be, as Lafayette says, the most holy of duties, an uprising may be the most fatal of crimes. There is also a difference in the intensity of heat insurrection is often a volcano, revolt is often only a fire of straw. Revolt, as we have said, is sometimes found among those in power. Polignac is a rioter Camille Desmoulins is one of the governing powers. Insurrection is sometimes resurrection. The solution of everything by universal suffrage being an absolutely modern fact, and all history anterior to this fact being, for the space of four thousand years, filled with violated right, and the suffering of peoples, each epoch of history brings with it that protest of which it is capable. Under the Csars, there was no insurrection, but there was Juvenal. The facit indignatio replaces the Gracchi. Under the Csars, there is the exile to Syene there is also the man of the Annales. We do not speak of the immense exile of Patmos who, on his part also, overwhelms the real world with a protest in the name of the ideal world, who makes of his vision an enormous satire and casts on RomeNineveh, on RomeBabylon, on RomeSodom, the flaming reflection of the Apocalypse. John on his rock is the sphinx on its pedestal we may understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew but the man who writes the Annales is of the Latin race, let us rather say he is a Roman. As the Neros reign in a black way, they should be painted to match. The work of the gravingtool alone would be too pale there must be poured into the channel a concentrated prose which bites. Despots count for something in the question of philosophers. A word that is chained is a terrible word. The writer doubles and trebles his style when silence is imposed on a nation by its master. From this silence there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces conciseness in the historian. The granite solidity of such and such a celebrated prose is nothing but the accumulation effected by the tyrant. Tyranny constrains the writer to conditions of diameter which are augmentations of force. The Ciceronian period, which hardly sufficed for Verres, would be blunted on Caligula. The less spread of sail in the phrase, the more intensity in the blow. Tacitus thinks with all his might. The honesty of a great heart, condensed in justice and truth, overwhelms as with lightning. Be it remarked, in passing, that Tacitus is not historically superposed upon Csar. The Tiberii were reserved for him. Csar and Tacitus are two successive phenomena, a meeting between whom seems to be mysteriously avoided, by the One who, when He sets the centuries on the stage, regulates the entrances and the exits. Csar is great, Tacitus is great God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash with one another. The guardian of justice, in striking Csar, might strike too hard and be unjust. God does not will it. The great wars of Africa and Spain, the pirates of Sicily destroyed, civilization introduced into Gaul, into Britanny, into Germany,all this glory covers the Rubicon. There is here a sort of delicacy of the divine justice, hesitating to let loose upon the illustrious usurper the formidable historian, sparing Csar Tacitus, and according extenuating circumstances to genius. Certainly, despotism remains despotism, even under the despot of genius. There is corruption under all illustrious tyrants, but the moral pest is still more hideous under infamous tyrants. In such reigns, nothing veils the shame and those who make examples, Tacitus as well as Juvenal, slap this ignominy which cannot reply, in the face, more usefully in the presence of all humanity. Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Sylla. Under Claudius and under Domitian, there is a deformity of baseness corresponding to the repulsiveness of the tyrant. The villainy of slaves is a direct product of the despot a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein the master is reflected public powers are unclean hearts are small consciences are dull, souls are like vermin thus it is under Caracalla, thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from the Roman Senate, under Csar, there comes nothing but the odor of the dung which is peculiar to the eyries of the eagles. Hence the advent, apparently tardy, of the Tacituses and the Juvenals it is in the hour for evidence, that the demonstrator makes his appearance. But Juvenal and Tacitus, like Isaiah in Biblical times, like Dante in the Middle Ages, is man riot and insurrection are the multitude, which is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material fact insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the stomach Gaster grows irritated but Gaster, assuredly, is not always in the wrong. In questions of famine, riot, Buzanais, for example, holds a true, pathetic, and just point of departure. Nevertheless, it remains a riot. Why? It is because, right at bottom, it was wrong in form. Shy although in the right, violent although strong, it struck at random it walked like a blind elephant it left behind it the corpses of old men, of women, and of children it wished the blood of inoffensive and innocent persons without knowing why. The nourishment of the people is a good object to massacre them is a bad means. All armed protests, even the most legitimate, even that of the th of August, even that of July th, begin with the same troubles. Before the right gets set free, there is foam and tumult. In the beginning, the insurrection is a riot, just as a river is a torrent. Ordinarily it ends in that ocean revolution. Sometimes, however, coming from those lofty mountains which dominate the moral horizon, justice, wisdom, reason, right, formed of the pure snow of the ideal, after a long fall from rock to rock, after having reflected the sky in its transparency and increased by a hundred affluents in the majestic mien of triumph, insurrection is suddenly lost in some quagmire, as the Rhine is in a swamp. All this is of the past, the future is another thing. Universal suffrage has this admirable property, that it dissolves riot in its inception, and, by giving the vote to insurrection, it deprives it of its arms. The disappearance of wars, of street wars as well as of wars on the frontiers, such is the inevitable progression. Whatever Today may be, Tomorrow will be peace. However, insurrection, riot, and points of difference between the former and the latter,the bourgeois, properly speaking, knows nothing of such shades. In his mind, all is sedition, rebellion pure and simple, the revolt of the dog against his master, an attempt to bite whom must be punished by the chain and the kennel, barking, snapping, until such day as the head of the dog, suddenly enlarged, is outlined vaguely in the gloom face to face with the lion. Then the bourgeois shouts 'Long live the people! This explanation given, what does the movement of June, , signify, so far as history is concerned? Is it a revolt? Is it an insurrection? It may happen to us, in placing this formidable event on the stage, to say revolt now and then, but merely to distinguish superficial facts, and always preserving the distinction between revolt, the form, and insurrection, the foundation. This movement of  had, in its rapid outbreak and in its melancholy extinction, so much grandeur, that even those who see in it only an uprising, never refer to it otherwise than with respect. For them, it is like a relic of . Excited imaginations, say they, are not to be calmed in a day. A revolution cannot be cut off short. It must needs undergo some undulations before it returns to a state of rest, like a mountain sinking into the plain. There are no Alps without their Jura, nor Pyrenees without the Asturias. This pathetic crisis of contemporary history which the memory of Parisians calls 'the epoch of the riots, is certainly a characteristic hour amid the stormy hours of this century. A last word, before we enter on the recital. The facts which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and living reality, which the historian sometimes neglects for lack of time and space. There, nevertheless, we insist upon it, is life, palpitation, human tremor. Petty details, as we think we have already said, are, so to speak, the foliage of great events, and are lost in the distance of history. The epoch, surnamed 'of the riots, abounds in details of this nature. Judicial inquiries have not revealed, and perhaps have not sounded the depths, for another reason than history. We shall therefore bring to light, among the known and published peculiarities, things which have not heretofore been known, about facts over which have passed the forgetfulness of some, and the death of others. The majority of the actors in these gigantic scenes have disappeared beginning with the very next day they held their peace but of what we shall relate, we shall be able to say 'We have seen this. We alter a few names, for history relates and does not inform against, but the deed which we shall paint will be genuine. In accordance with the conditions of the book which we are now writing, we shall show only one side and one episode, and certainly, the least known at that, of the two days, the th and the th of June, , but we shall do it in such wise that the reader may catch a glimpse, beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of the real form of this frightful public adventure. In the spring of , although the cholera had been chilling all minds for the last three months and had cast over their agitation an indescribable and gloomy pacification, Paris had already long been ripe for commotion. As we have said, the great city resembles a piece of artillery when it is loaded, it suffices for a spark to fall, and the shot is discharged. In June, , the spark was the death of General Lamarque. Lamarque was a man of renown and of action. He had had in succession, under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery requisite for the two epochs, the bravery of the battlefield and the bravery of the tribune. He was as eloquent as he had been valiant a sword was discernible in his speech. Like Foy, his predecessor, after upholding the command, he upheld liberty he sat between the left and the extreme left, beloved of the people because he accepted the chances of the future, beloved of the populace because he had served the Emperor well he was, in company with Comtes Grard and Drouet, one of Napoleon's marshals in petto. The treaties of  removed him as a personal offence. He hated Wellington with a downright hatred which pleased the multitude and, for seventeen years, he majestically preserved the sadness of Waterloo, paying hardly any attention to intervening events. In his death agony, at his last hour, he clasped to his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of the Hundred Days. Napoleon had died uttering the word army, Lamarque uttering the word country. His death, which was expected, was dreaded by the people as a loss, and by the government as an occasion. This death was an affliction. Like everything that is bitter, affliction may turn to revolt. This is what took place. On the preceding evening, and on the morning of the th of June, the day appointed for Lamarque's burial, the Faubourg SaintAntoine, which the procession was to touch at, assumed a formidable aspect. This tumultuous network of streets was filled with rumors. They armed themselves as best they might. Joiners carried off doorweights of their establishment 'to break down doors. One of them had made himself a dagger of a stockingweaver's hook by breaking off the hook and sharpening the stump. Another, who was in a fever 'to attack, slept wholly dressed for three days. A carpenter named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him 'Whither are you going? 'Eh! well, I have no weapons. 'What then? 'I'm going to my timberyard to get my compasses. 'What for? 'I don't know, said Lombier. A certain Jacqueline, an expeditious man, accosted some passing artisans 'Come here, you! He treated them to ten sous' worth of wine and said 'Have you work? 'No. 'Go to Filspierre, between the Barrire Charonne and the Barrire Montreuil, and you will find work. At Filspierre's they found cartridges and arms. Certain wellknown leaders were going the rounds, that is to say, running from one house to another, to collect their men. At Barthlemy's, near the Barrire du Trne, at Capel's, near the PetitChapeau, the drinkers accosted each other with a grave air. They were heard to say 'Have you your pistol? 'Under my blouse. 'And you? 'Under my shirt. In the Rue Traversire, in front of the Bland workshop, and in the yard of the MaisonBrule, in front of toolmaker Bernier's, groups whispered together. Among them was observed a certain Mavot, who never remained more than a week in one shop, as the masters always discharged him 'because they were obliged to dispute with him every day. Mavot was killed on the following day at the barricade of the Rue Mnilmontant. Pretot, who was destined to perish also in the struggle, seconded Mavot, and to the question 'What is your object? he replied 'Insurrection. Workmen assembled at the corner of the Rue de Bercy, waited for a certain Lemarin, the revolutionary agent for the Faubourg SaintMarceau. Watchwords were exchanged almost publicly. On the th of June, accordingly, a day of mingled rain and sun, General Lamarque's funeral procession traversed Paris with official military pomp, somewhat augmented through precaution. Two battalions, with draped drums and reversed arms, ten thousand National Guards, with their swords at their sides, escorted the coffin. The hearse was drawn by young men. The officers of the Invalides came immediately behind it, bearing laurel branches. Then came an innumerable, strange, agitated multitude, the sectionaries of the Friends of the People, the Law School, the Medical School, refugees of all nationalities, and Spanish, Italian, German, and Polish flags, tricolored horizontal banners, every possible sort of banner, children waving green boughs, stonecutters and carpenters who were on strike at the moment, printers who were recognizable by their paper caps, marching two by two, three by three, uttering cries, nearly all of them brandishing sticks, some brandishing sabres, without order and yet with a single soul, now a tumultuous rout, again a column. Squads chose themselves leaders a man armed with a pair of pistols in full view, seemed to pass the host in review, and the files separated before him. On the side alleys of the boulevards, in the branches of the trees, on balconies, in windows, on the roofs, swarmed the heads of men, women, and children all eyes were filled with anxiety. An armed throng was passing, and a terrified throng looked on. The Government, on its side, was taking observations. It observed with its hand on its sword. Four squadrons of carabineers could be seen in the Place Louis XV. in their saddles, with their trumpets at their head, cartridgeboxes filled and muskets loaded, all in readiness to march in the Latin country and at the Jardin des Plantes, the Municipal Guard echelonned from street to street at the HalleauxVins, a squadron of dragoons at the Grve half of the th Light Infantry, the other half being at the Bastille the th Dragoons at the Clestins and the courtyard of the Louvre full of artillery. The remainder of the troops were confined to their barracks, without reckoning the regiments of the environs of Paris. Power being uneasy, held suspended over the menacing multitude twentyfour thousand soldiers in the city and thirty thousand in the banlieue. Divers reports were in circulation in the cortge. Legitimist tricks were hinted at they spoke of the Duc de Reichstadt, whom God had marked out for death at that very moment when the populace were designating him for the Empire. One personage, whose name has remained unknown, announced that at a given hour two overseers who had been won over, would throw open the doors of a factory of arms to the people. That which predominated on the uncovered brows of the majority of those present was enthusiasm mingled with dejection. Here and there, also, in that multitude given over to such violent but noble emotions, there were visible genuine visages of criminals and ignoble mouths which said 'Let us plunder! There are certain agitations which stir up the bottoms of marshes and make clouds of mud rise through the water. A phenomenon to which 'well drilled policemen are no strangers. The procession proceeded, with feverish slowness, from the house of the deceased, by way of the boulevards as far as the Bastille. It rained from time to time the rain mattered nothing to that throng. Many incidents, the coffin borne round the Vendome column, stones thrown at the Duc de FitzJames, who was seen on a balcony with his hat on his head, the Gallic cock torn from a popular flag and dragged in the mire, a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Porte SaintMartin, an officer of the th Light Infantry saying aloud 'I am a Republican, the Polytechnic School coming up unexpectedly against orders to remain at home, the shouts of 'Long live the Polytechnique! Long live the Republic! marked the passage of the funeral train. At the Bastille, long files of curious and formidable people who descended from the Faubourg SaintAntoine, effected a junction with the procession, and a certain terrible seething began to agitate the throng. One man was heard to say to another 'Do you see that fellow with a red beard, he's the one who will give the word when we are to fire. It appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the Qunisset affair, entrusted with this same function. The hearse passed the Bastille, traversed the small bridge, and reached the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz. There it halted. The crowd, surveyed at that moment with a bird'seye view, would have presented the aspect of a comet whose head was on the esplanade and whose tail spread out over the Quai Bourdon, covered the Bastille, and was prolonged on the boulevard as far as the Porte SaintMartin. A circle was traced around the hearse. The vast rout held their peace. Lafayette spoke and bade Lamarque farewell. This was a touching and august instant, all heads uncovered, all hearts beat high. All at once, a man on horseback, clad in black, made his appearance in the middle of the group with a red flag, others say, with a pike surmounted with a red libertycap. Lafayette turned aside his head. Exelmans quitted the procession. This red flag raised a storm, and disappeared in the midst of it. From the Boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors which resemble billows stirred the multitude. Two prodigious shouts went up 'Lamarque to the Pantheon!Lafayette to the Townhall! Some young men, amid the declamations of the throng, harnessed themselves and began to drag Lamarque in the hearse across the bridge of Austerlitz and Lafayette in a hackneycoach along the Quai Morland. In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed that a German showed himself named Ludwig Snyder, who died a centenarian afterwards, who had also been in the war of , and who had fought at Trenton under Washington, and at Brandywine under Lafayette. In the meantime, the municipal cavalry on the left bank had been set in motion, and came to bar the bridge, on the right bank the dragoons emerged from the Clestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The men who were dragging Lafayette suddenly caught sight of them at the corner of the quay and shouted 'The dragoons! The dragoons advanced at a walk, in silence, with their pistols in their holsters, their swords in their scabbards, their guns slung in their leather sockets, with an air of gloomy expectation. They halted two hundred paces from the little bridge. The carriage in which sat Lafayette advanced to them, their ranks opened and allowed it to pass, and then closed behind it. At that moment the dragoons and the crowd touched. The women fled in terror. What took place during that fatal minute? No one can say. It is the dark moment when two clouds come together. Some declare that a blast of trumpets sounding the charge was heard in the direction of the Arsenal, others that a blow from a dagger was given by a child to a dragoon. The fact is, that three shots were suddenly discharged the first killed Cholet, chief of the squadron, the second killed an old deaf woman who was in the act of closing her window, the third singed the shoulder of an officer a woman screamed 'They are beginning too soon! and all at once, a squadron of dragoons which had remained in the barracks up to this time, was seen to debouch at a gallop with bared swords, through the Rue Bassompierre and the Boulevard Bourdon, sweeping all before them. Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank, and pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timberyards of the Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants, stakes are torn up, pistolshots fired, a barricade begun, the young men who are thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run, and the municipal guard, the carabineers rush up, the dragoons ply their swords, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to all four quarters of Paris, men shout 'To arms! they run, tumble down, flee, resist. Wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire. Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. Everything bursts forth everywhere at once. Was it foreseen? Yes. Was it prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence falls it? From the clouds. Here insurrection assumes the character of a plot there of an improvisation. The first comer seizes a current of the throng and leads it whither he wills. A beginning full of terror, in which is mingled a sort of formidable gayety. First come clamors, the shops are closed, the displays of the merchants disappear then come isolated shots people flee blows from gunstocks beat against portescochres, servants can be heard laughing in the courtyards of houses and saying 'There's going to be a row! A quarter of an hour had not elapsed when this is what was taking place at twenty different spots in Paris at once. In the Rue SainteCroixdelaBretonnerie, twenty young men, bearded and with long hair, entered a dramshop and emerged a moment later, carrying a horizontal tricolored flag covered with crape, and having at their head three men armed, one with a sword, one with a gun, and the third with a pike. In the Rue des Nonaindires, a very welldressed bourgeois, who had a prominent belly, a sonorous voice, a bald head, a lofty brow, a black beard, and one of these stiff moustaches which will not lie flat, offered cartridges publicly to passersby. In the Rue SaintPierreMontmartre, men with bare arms carried about a black flag, on which could be read in white letters this inscription 'Republic or Death! In the Rue des Jeneurs, Rue du Cadran, Rue Montorgueil, Rue Mandar, groups appeared waving flags on which could be distinguished in gold letters, the word section with a number. One of these flags was red and blue with an almost imperceptible stripe of white between. They pillaged a factory of smallarms on the Boulevard SaintMartin, and three armorers' shops, the first in the Rue Beaubourg, the second in the Rue MichelleComte, the other in the Rue du Temple. In a few minutes, the thousand hands of the crowd had seized and carried off two hundred and thirty guns, nearly all doublebarrelled, sixtyfour swords, and eightythree pistols. In order to provide more arms, one man took the gun, the other the bayonet. Opposite the Quai de la Grve, young men armed with muskets installed themselves in the houses of some women for the purpose of firing. One of them had a flintlock. They rang, entered, and set about making cartridges. One of these women relates 'I did not know what cartridges were it was my husband who told me. One cluster broke into a curiosity shop in the Rue des VieillesHaudriettes, and seized yataghans and Turkish arms. The body of a mason who had been killed by a gunshot lay in the Rue de la Perle. And then on the right bank, the left bank, on the quays, on the boulevards, in the Latin country, in the quarter of the Halles, panting men, artisans, students, members of sections read proclamations and shouted 'To arms! broke street lanterns, unharnessed carriages, unpaved the streets, broke in the doors of houses, uprooted trees, rummaged cellars, rolled out hogsheads, heaped up pavingstones, rough slabs, furniture and planks, and made barricades. They forced the bourgeois to assist them in this. They entered the dwellings of women, they forced them to hand over the swords and guns of their absent husbands, and they wrote on the door, with whiting 'The arms have been delivered some signed 'their names to receipts for the guns and swords and said 'Send for them tomorrow at the Mayor's office. They disarmed isolated sentinels and National Guardsmen in the streets on their way to the Townhall. They tore the epaulets from officers. In the Rue du CimitireSaintNicholas, an officer of the National Guard, on being pursued by a crowd armed with clubs and foils, took refuge with difficulty in a house, whence he was only able to emerge at nightfall and in disguise. In the Quartier SaintJacques, the students swarmed out of their hotels and ascended the Rue SaintHyacinthe to the Caf du Progrss, or descended to the Caf des SeptBillards, in the Rue des Mathurins. There, in front of the door, young men mounted on the stone cornerposts, distributed arms. They plundered the timberyard in the Rue Transnonain in order to obtain material for barricades. On a single point the inhabitants resisted, at the corner of the Rue SainteAvoye and the Rue SimonLeFranc, where they destroyed the barricade with their own hands. At a single point the insurgents yielded they abandoned a barricade begun in the Rue de Temple after having fired on a detachment of the National Guard, and fled through the Rue de la Corderie. The detachment picked up in the barricade a red flag, a package of cartridges, and three hundred pistolballs. The National Guardsmen tore up the flag, and carried off its tattered remains on the points of their bayonets. All that we are here relating slowly and successively took place simultaneously at all points of the city in the midst of a vast tumult, like a mass of tongues of lightning in one clap of thunder. In less than an hour, twentyseven barricades sprang out of the earth in the quarter of the Halles alone. In the centre was that famous house No. , which was the fortress of Jeanne and her six hundred companions, and which, flanked on the one hand by a barricade at SaintMerry, and on the other by a barricade of the Rue Maubue, commanded three streets, the Rue des Arcis, the Rue SaintMartin, and the Rue AubryleBoucher, which it faced. The barricades at right angles fell back, the one of the Rue Montorgueil on the GrandeTruanderie, the other of the Rue GeoffroyLangevin on the Rue SainteAvoye. Without reckoning innumerable barricades in twenty other quarters of Paris, in the Marais, at MontSainteGenevive one in the Rue Mnilmontant, where was visible a portecochre torn from its hinges another near the little bridge of the HtelDieu made with an 'cossais, which had been unharnessed and overthrown, three hundred paces from the Prefecture of Police. At the barricade of the Rue des Mntriers, a welldressed man distributed money to the workmen. At the barricade of the Rue Grenetat, a horseman made his appearance and handed to the one who seemed to be the commander of the barricade what had the appearance of a roll of silver. 'Here, said he, 'this is to pay expenses, wine, et ctera. A lighthaired young man, without a cravat, went from barricade to barricade, carrying passwords. Another, with a naked sword, a blue police cap on his head, placed sentinels. In the interior, beyond the barricades, the wineshops and porters' lodges were converted into guardhouses. Otherwise the riot was conducted after the most scientific military tactics. The narrow, uneven, sinuous streets, full of angles and turns, were admirably chosen the neighborhood of the Halles, in particular, a network of streets more intricate than a forest. The Society of the Friends of the People had, it was said, undertaken to direct the insurrection in the Quartier SainteAvoye. A man killed in the Rue du Ponceau who was searched had on his person a plan of Paris. That which had really undertaken the direction of the uprising was a sort of strange impetuosity which was in the air. The insurrection had abruptly built barricades with one hand, and with the other seized nearly all the posts of the garrison. In less than three hours, like a train of powder catching fire, the insurgents had invaded and occupied, on the right bank, the Arsenal, the Mayoralty of the Place Royale, the whole of the Marais, the Popincourt arms manufactory, la Galiote, the Chteaud'Eau, and all the streets near the Halles on the left bank, the barracks of the Veterans, SaintePlagie, the Place Maubert, the powder magazine of the DeuxMoulins, and all the barriers. At five o'clock in the evening, they were masters of the Bastille, of the Lingerie, of the BlancsManteaux their scouts had reached the Place des Victoires, and menaced the Bank, the PetitsPres barracks, and the PostOffice. A third of Paris was in the hands of the rioters. The conflict had been begun on a gigantic scale at all points and, as a result of the disarming domiciliary visits, and armorers' shops hastily invaded, was, that the combat which had begun with the throwing of stones was continued with gunshots. About six o'clock in the evening, the Passage du Saumon became the field of battle. The uprising was at one end, the troops were at the other. They fired from one gate to the other. An observer, a dreamer, the author of this book, who had gone to get a near view of this volcano, found himself in the passage between the two fires. All that he had to protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two halfcolumns which separate the shops he remained in this delicate situation for nearly half an hour. Meanwhile the call to arms was beaten, the National Guard armed in haste, the legions emerged from the Mayoralities, the regiments from their barracks. Opposite the passage de l'Ancre a drummer received a blow from a dagger. Another, in the Rue du Cygne, was assailed by thirty young men who broke his instrument, and took away his sword. Another was killed in the Rue GrenierSaintLazare. In the Rue MichelleComte, three officers fell dead one after the other. Many of the Municipal Guards, on being wounded, in the Rue des Lombards, retreated. In front of the CourBatave, a detachment of National Guards found a red flag bearing the following inscription Republican revolution, No. . Was this a revolution, in fact? The insurrection had made of the centre of Paris a sort of inextricable, tortuous, colossal citadel. There was the hearth there, evidently, was the question. All the rest was nothing but skirmishes. The proof that all would be decided there lay in the fact that there was no fighting going on there as yet. In some regiments, the soldiers were uncertain, which added to the fearful uncertainty of the crisis. They recalled the popular ovation which had greeted the neutrality of the d of the Line in July, . Two intrepid men, tried in great wars, the Marshal Lobau and General Bugeaud, were in command, Bugeaud under Lobau. Enormous patrols, composed of battalions of the Line, enclosed in entire companies of the National Guard, and preceded by a commissary of police wearing his scarf of office, went to reconnoitre the streets in rebellion. The insurgents, on their side, placed videttes at the corners of all open spaces, and audaciously sent their patrols outside the barricades. Each side was watching the other. The Government, with an army in its hand, hesitated the night was almost upon them, and the SaintMerry tocsin began to make itself heard. The Minister of War at that time, Marshal Soult, who had seen Austerlitz, regarded this with a gloomy air. These old sailors, accustomed to correct manuvres and having as resource and guide only tactics, that compass of battles, are utterly disconcerted in the presence of that immense foam which is called public wrath. The National Guards of the suburbs rushed up in haste and disorder. A battalion of the th Light came at a run from SaintDenis, the th of the Line arrived from Courbevoie, the batteries of the Military School had taken up their position on the Carrousel cannons were descending from Vincennes. Solitude was formed around the Tuileries. Louis Philippe was perfectly serene. During the last two years, as we have said, Paris had witnessed more than one insurrection. Nothing is, generally, more singularly calm than the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the bounds of the rebellious quarters. Paris very speedily accustoms herself to anything,it is only a riot,and Paris has so many affairs on hand, that she does not put herself out for so small a matter. These colossal cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone can contain at the same time civil war and an odd and indescribable tranquillity. Ordinarily, when an insurrection commences, when the shopkeeper hears the drum, the call to arms, the general alarm, he contents himself with the remark 'There appears to be a squabble in the Rue SaintMartin. Or 'In the Faubourg SaintAntoine. Often he adds carelessly 'Or somewhere in that direction. Later on, when the heartrending and mournful hubbub of musketry and firing by platoons becomes audible, the shopkeeper says 'It's getting hot! Hullo, it's getting hot! A moment later, the riot approaches and gains in force, he shuts up his shop precipitately, hastily dons his uniform, that is to say, he places his merchandise in safety and risks his own person. Men fire in a square, in a passage, in a blind alley they take and retake the barricade blood flows, the grapeshot riddles the fronts of the houses, the balls kill people in their beds, corpses encumber the streets. A few streets away, the shock of billiardballs can be heard in the cafs. The theatres open their doors and present vaudevilles the curious laugh and chat a couple of paces distant from these streets filled with war. Hackneycarriages go their way passersby are going to a dinner somewhere in town. Sometimes in the very quarter where the fighting is going on. In , a fusillade was stopped to allow a wedding party to pass. At the time of the insurrection of , in the Rue SaintMartin a little, infirm old man, pushing a handcart surmounted by a tricolored rag, in which he had carafes filled with some sort of liquid, went and came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade, offering his glasses of cocoa impartially,now to the Government, now to anarchy. Nothing can be stranger and this is the peculiar character of uprisings in Paris, which cannot be found in any other capital. To this end, two things are requisite, the size of Paris and its gayety. The city of Voltaire and Napoleon is necessary. On this occasion, however, in the resort to arms of June th, , the great city felt something which was, perhaps, stronger than itself. It was afraid. Closed doors, windows, and shutters were to be seen everywhere, in the most distant and most 'disinterested quarters. The courageous took to arms, the poltroons hid. The busy and heedless passerby disappeared. Many streets were empty at four o'clock in the morning. Alarming details were hawked about, fatal news was disseminated,that they were masters of the Bankthat there were six hundred of them in the Cloister of SaintMerry alone, entrenched and embattled in the church that the line was not to be depended on that Armand Carrel had been to see Marshal Clausel and that the Marshal had said 'Get a regiment first that Lafayette was ill, but that he had said to them, nevertheless 'I am with you. I will follow you wherever there is room for a chair that one must be on one's guard that at night there would be people pillaging isolated dwellings in the deserted corners of Paris (there the imagination of the police, that Anne Radcliffe mixed up with the Government was recognizable) that a battery had been established in the Rue Aubry le Boucher that Lobau and Bugeaud were putting their heads together, and that, at midnight, or at daybreak at latest, four columns would march simultaneously on the centre of the uprising, the first coming from the Bastille, the second from the Porte SaintMartin, the third from the Grve, the fourth from the Halles that perhaps, also, the troops would evacuate Paris and withdraw to the ChampdeMars that no one knew what would happen, but that this time, it certainly was serious. People busied themselves over Marshal Soult's hesitations. Why did not he attack at once? It is certain that he was profoundly absorbed. The old lion seemed to scent an unknown monster in that gloom. Evening came, the theatres did not open the patrols circulated with an air of irritation passersby were searched suspicious persons were arrested. By nine o'clock, more than eight hundred persons had been arrested, the Prefecture of Police was encumbered with them, so was the Conciergerie, so was La Force. At the Conciergerie in particular, the long vault which is called the Rue de Paris was littered with trusses of straw upon which lay a heap of prisoners, whom the man of Lyons, Lagrange, harangued valiantly. All that straw rustled by all these men, produced the sound of a heavy shower. Elsewhere prisoners slept in the open air in the meadows, piled on top of each other. Anxiety reigned everywhere, and a certain tremor which was not habitual with Paris. People barricaded themselves in their houses wives and mothers were uneasy nothing was to be heard but this 'Ah! my God! He has not come home! There was hardly even the distant rumble of a vehicle to be heard. People listened on their thresholds, to the rumors, the shouts, the tumult, the dull and indistinct sounds, to the things that were said 'It is cavalry, or 'Those are the caissons galloping, to the trumpets, the drums, the firing, and, above all, to that lamentable alarm peal from SaintMerry. They waited for the first cannonshot. Men sprang up at the corners of the streets and disappeared, shouting 'Go home! And people made haste to bolt their doors. They said 'How will all this end? From moment to moment, in proportion as the darkness descended, Paris seemed to take on a more mournful hue from the formidable flaming of the revolt. At the instant when the insurrection, arising from the shock of the populace and the military in front of the Arsenal, started a movement in advance and towards the rear in the multitude which was following the hearse and which, through the whole length of the boulevards, weighed, so to speak, on the head of the procession, there arose a frightful ebb. The rout was shaken, their ranks were broken, all ran, fled, made their escape, some with shouts of attack, others with the pallor of flight. The great river which covered the boulevards divided in a twinkling, overflowed to right and left, and spread in torrents over two hundred streets at once with the roar of a sewer that has broken loose. At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue Mnilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which he had just plucked on the heights of Belleville, caught sight of an old holsterpistol in the showwindow of a bricbrac merchant's shop. 'Mother What'syourname, I'm going to borrow your machine. And off he ran with the pistol. Two minutes later, a flood of frightened bourgeois who were fleeing through the Rue Amelot and the Rue Basse, encountered the lad brandishing his pistol and singing La nuit on ne voit rien, Le jour on voit trs bien, D'un crit apocryphe Le bourgeois s'bouriffe, Pratiquez la vertu, Tutu, chapeau pointu! It was little Gavroche on his way to the wars. On the boulevard he noticed that the pistol had no trigger. Who was the author of that couplet which served to punctuate his march, and of all the other songs which he was fond of singing on occasion? We know not. Who does know? Himself, perhaps. However, Gavroche was well up in all the popular tunes in circulation, and he mingled with them his own chirpings. An observing urchin and a rogue, he made a potpourri of the voices of nature and the voices of Paris. He combined the repertory of the birds with the repertory of the workshops. He was acquainted with thieves, a tribe contiguous to his own. He had, it appears, been for three months apprenticed to a printer. He had one day executed a commission for M. BaourLormian, one of the Forty. Gavroche was a gamin of letters. Moreover, Gavroche had no suspicion of the fact that when he had offered the hospitality of his elephant to two brats on that villainously rainy night, it was to his own brothers that he had played the part of Providence. His brothers in the evening, his father in the morning that is what his night had been like. On quitting the Rue des Ballets at daybreak, he had returned in haste to the elephant, had artistically extracted from it the two brats, had shared with them some sort of breakfast which he had invented, and had then gone away, confiding them to that good mother, the street, who had brought him up, almost entirely. On leaving them, he had appointed to meet them at the same spot in the evening, and had left them this discourse by way of a farewell 'I break a cane, otherwise expressed, I cut my stick, or, as they say at the court, I file off. If you don't find papa and mamma, young 'uns, come back here this evening. I'll scramble you up some supper, and I'll give you a shakedown. The two children, picked up by some policeman and placed in the refuge, or stolen by some mountebank, or having simply strayed off in that immense Chinese puzzle of a Paris, did not return. The lowest depths of the actual social world are full of these lost traces. Gavroche did not see them again. Ten or twelve weeks had elapsed since that night. More than once he had scratched the back of his head and said 'Where the devil are my two children? In the meantime, he had arrived, pistol in hand, in the Rue du PontauxChoux. He noticed that there was but one shop open in that street, and, a matter worthy of reflection, that was a pastrycook's shop. This presented a providential occasion to eat another appleturnover before entering the unknown. Gavroche halted, fumbled in his fob, turned his pocket inside out, found nothing, not even a sou, and began to shout 'Help! It is hard to miss the last cake. Nevertheless, Gavroche pursued his way. Two minutes later he was in the Rue SaintLouis. While traversing the Rue du ParcRoyal, he felt called upon to make good the loss of the appleturnover which had been impossible, and he indulged himself in the immense delight of tearing down the theatre posters in broad daylight. A little further on, on catching sight of a group of comfortablelooking persons, who seemed to be landed proprietors, he shrugged his shoulders and spit out at random before him this mouthful of philosophical bile as they passed 'How fat those moneyed men are! They're drunk! They just wallow in good dinners. Ask 'em what they do with their money. They don't know. They eat it, that's what they do! As much as their bellies will hold. The brandishing of a triggerless pistol, grasped in one's hand in the open street, is so much of a public function that Gavroche felt his fervor increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the Marseillaise which he was singing, he shouted 'All goes well. I suffer a great deal in my left paw, I'm all broken up with rheumatism, but I'm satisfied, citizens. All that the bourgeois have to do is to bear themselves well, I'll sneeze them out subversive couplets. What are the police spies? Dogs. And I'd just like to have one of them at the end of my pistol. I'm just from the boulevard, my friends. It's getting hot there, it's getting into a little boil, it's simmering. It's time to skim the pot. Forward march, men! Let an impure blood inundate the furrows! I give my days to my country, I shall never see my concubine more, Nini, finished, yes, Nini? But never mind! Long live joy! Let's fight, crebleu! I've had enough of despotism. At that moment, the horse of a lancer of the National Guard having fallen, Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, and picked up the man, then he assisted in raising the horse. After which he picked up his pistol and resumed his way. In the Rue de Thorigny, all was peace and silence. This apathy, peculiar to the Marais, presented a contrast with the vast surrounding uproar. Four gossips were chatting in a doorway. Scotland has trios of witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping hags and the 'Thou shalt be King could be quite as mournfully hurled at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of Armuyr. The croak would be almost identical. The gossips of the Rue de Thorigny busied themselves only with their own concerns. Three of them were portresses, and the fourth was a ragpicker with her basket on her back. All four of them seemed to be standing at the four corners of old age, which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, and sadness. The ragpicker was humble. In this openair society, it is the ragpicker who salutes and the portress who patronizes. This is caused by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will of the portresses, and after the fancy of the one who makes the heap. There may be kindness in the broom. This ragpicker was a grateful creature, and she smiled, with what a smile! on the three portresses. Things of this nature were said 'Ah, by the way, is your cat still cross? 'Good gracious, cats are naturally the enemies of dogs, you know. It's the dogs who complain. 'And people also. 'But the fleas from a cat don't go after people. 'That's not the trouble, dogs are dangerous. I remember one year when there were so many dogs that it was necessary to put it in the newspapers. That was at the time when there were at the Tuileries great sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember the King of Rome? 'I liked the Duc de Bordeau better. 'I knew Louis XVIII. I prefer Louis XVIII. 'Meat is awfully dear, isn't it, Mother Patagon? 'Ah! don't mention it, the butcher's shop is a horror. A horrible horrorone can't afford anything but the poor cuts nowadays. Here the ragpicker interposed 'Ladies, business is dull. The refuse heaps are miserable. No one throws anything away any more. They eat everything. 'There are poorer people than you, la Vargoulme. 'Ah, that's true, replied the ragpicker, with deference, 'I have a profession. A pause succeeded, and the ragpicker, yielding to that necessity for boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added 'In the morning, on my return home, I pick over my basket, I sort my things. This makes heaps in my room. I put the rags in a basket, the cores and stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woollen stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, the things that are good to eat in my bowl, the bits of glass in my fireplace, the old shoes behind my door, and the bones under my bed. Gavroche had stopped behind her and was listening. 'Old ladies, said he, 'what do you mean by talking politics? He was assailed by a broadside, composed of a quadruple howl. 'Here's another rascal. 'What's that he's got in his paddle? A pistol? 'Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar's brat this is? 'That sort of animal is never easy unless he's overturning the authorities. Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with elevating the tip of his nose with his thumb and opening his hand wide. The ragpicker cried 'You malicious, barepawed little wretch! The one who answered to the name of Patagon clapped her hands together in horror. 'There's going to be evil doings, that's certain. The errandboy next door has a little pointed beard, I have seen him pass every day with a young person in a pink bonnet on his arm today I saw him pass, and he had a gun on his arm. Mame Bacheux says, that last week there was a revolution atatatwhere's the calf!at Pontoise. And then, there you see him, that horrid scamp, with his pistol! It seems that the Clestins are full of pistols. What do you suppose the Government can do with goodfornothings who don't know how to do anything but contrive ways of upsetting the world, when we had just begun to get a little quiet after all the misfortunes that have happened, good Lord! to that poor queen whom I saw pass in the tumbril! And all this is going to make tobacco dearer. It's infamous! And I shall certainly go to see him beheaded on the guillotine, the wretch! 'You've got the sniffles, old lady, said Gavroche. 'Blow your promontory. And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pave, the ragpicker occurred to his mind, and he indulged in this soliloquy 'You're in the wrong to insult the revolutionists, Mother DustHeapCorner. This pistol is in your interests. It's so that you may have more good things to eat in your basket. All at once, he heard a shout behind him it was the portress Patagon who had followed him, and who was shaking her fist at him in the distance and crying 'You're nothing but a bastard. 'Oh! Come now, said Gavroche, 'I don't care a brass farthing for that! Shortly afterwards, he passed the Hotel Lamoignon. There he uttered this appeal 'Forward march to the battle! And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with an air of reproach which seemed an attempt to appease it 'I'm going off, said he, 'but you won't go off! One dog may distract the attention from another dog. A very gaunt poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion for him. 'My poor doggy, said he, 'you must have gone and swallowed a cask, for all the hoops are visible. Then he directed his course towards l'OrmeSaintGervais. The worthy hairdresser who had chased from his shop the two little fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were talking. The hairdresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the riot, then of General Lamarque, and from Lamarque they had passed to the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and soldier which Prudhomme, had he been present, would have enriched with arabesques, and which he would have entitled 'Dialogue between the razor and the sword. 'How did the Emperor ride, sir? said the barber. 'Badly. He did not know how to fallso he never fell. 'Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses! 'On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. It was a racing mare, perfectly white. Her ears were very wide apart, her saddle deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly articulated knees, prominent ribs, oblique shoulders and a powerful crupper. A little more than fifteen hands in height. 'A pretty horse, remarked the hairdresser. 'It was His Majesty's beast. The hairdresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on 'The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir? The old soldier replied with the calm and sovereign tone of a man who had been there 'In the heel. At Ratisbon. I never saw him so well dressed as on that day. He was as neat as a new sou. 'And you, Mr. Veteran, you must have been often wounded? 'I? said the soldier, 'ah! not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I received two sabreblows on the back of my neck, a bullet in the right arm at Austerlitz, another in the left hip at Jena. At Friedland, a thrust from a bayonet, there,at the Moskowa seven or eight lancethrusts, no matter where, at Lutzen a splinter of a shell crushed one of my fingers. Ah! and then at Waterloo, a ball from a biscaen in the thigh, that's all. 'How fine that is! exclaimed the hairdresser, in Pindaric accents, 'to die on the field of battle! On my word of honor, rather than die in bed, of an illness, slowly, a bit by bit each day, with drugs, cataplasms, syringes, medicines, I should prefer to receive a cannonball in my belly! 'You're not over fastidious, said the soldier. He had hardly spoken when a fearful crash shook the shop. The showwindow had suddenly been fractured. The wigmaker turned pale. 'Ah, good God! he exclaimed, 'it's one of them! 'What? 'A cannonball. 'Here it is, said the soldier. And he picked up something that was rolling about the floor. It was a pebble. The hairdresser ran to the broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing at the full speed, towards the March SaintJean. As he passed the hairdresser's shop Gavroche, who had the two brats still in his mind, had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had flung a stone through his panes. 'You see! shrieked the hairdresser, who from white had turned blue, 'that fellow returns and does mischief for the pure pleasure of it. What has any one done to that gamin? In the meantime, in the March SaintJean, where the post had already been disarmed, Gavroche had just 'effected a junction with a band led by Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Feuilly. They were armed after a fashion. Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire had found them and swelled the group. Enjolras had a doublebarrelled huntinggun, Combeferre the gun of a National Guard bearing the number of his legion, and in his belt, two pistols which his unbuttoned coat allowed to be seen, Jean Prouvaire an old cavalry musket, Bahorel a rifle Courfeyrac was brandishing an unsheathed swordcane. Feuilly, with a naked sword in his hand, marched at their head shouting 'Long live Poland! They reached the Quai Morland. Cravatless, hatless, breathless, soaked by the rain, with lightning in their eyes. Gavroche accosted them calmly 'Where are we going? 'Come along, said Courfeyrac. Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a passerby, who cried in bewilderment 'Here are the reds! 'The reds, the reds! retorted Bahorel. 'A queer kind of fear, bourgeois. For my part I don't tremble before a poppy, the little red hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let's leave fear of the red to horned cattle. He caught sight of a corner of the wall on which was placarded the most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his 'flock. Bahorel exclaimed ''Flock' a polite way of saying geese. And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavroche. From that instant Gavroche set himself to study Bahorel. 'Bahorel, observed Enjolras, 'you are wrong. You should have let that charge alone, he is not the person with whom we have to deal, you are wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not fire out of the ranks with the soul any more than with a gun. 'Each one in his own fashion, Enjolras, retorted Bahorel. 'This bishop's prose shocks me I want to eat eggs without being permitted. Your style is the hot and cold I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not wasting myself, I'm getting a start and if I tore down that charge, Hercle! 'twas only to whet my appetite. This word, Hercle, struck Gavroche. He sought all occasions for learning, and that tearerdown of posters possessed his esteem. He inquired of him 'What does Hercle mean? Bahorel answered 'It means cursed name of a dog, in Latin. Here Bahorel recognized at a window a pale young man with a black beard who was watching them as they passed, probably a Friend of the A B C. He shouted to him 'Quick, cartridges, para bellum. 'A fine man! that's true, said Gavroche, who now understood Latin. A tumultuous retinue accompanied them,students, artists, young men affiliated to the Cougourde of Aix, artisans, longshoremen, armed with clubs and bayonets some, like Combeferre, with pistols thrust into their trousers. An old man, who appeared to be extremely aged, was walking in the band. He had no arms, and he made great haste, so that he might not be left behind, although he had a thoughtful air. Gavroche caught sight of him 'Kekseka? said he to Courfeyrac. 'He's an old duffer. It was M. Mabeuf. Let us recount what had taken place. Enjolras and his friends had been on the Boulevard Bourdon, near the public storehouses, at the moment when the dragoons had made their charge. Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were among those who had taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting 'To the barricades! In the Rue Lesdiguires they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zigzag, as though he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was acquainted with the peaceful and more than timid habits of the old beadlebookcollector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst of that uproar, a couple of paces from the cavalry charges, almost in the midst of a fusillade, hatless in the rain, and strolling about among the bullets, he had accosted him, and the following dialogue had been exchanged between the rioter of fire and the octogenarian 'M. Mabeuf, go to your home. 'Why? 'There's going to be a row. 'That's well. 'Thrusts with the sword and firing, M. Mabeuf. 'That is well. 'Firing from cannon. 'That is good. Where are the rest of you going? 'We are going to fling the government to the earth. 'That is good. And he had set out to follow them. From that moment forth he had not uttered a word. His step had suddenly become firm artisans had offered him their arms he had refused with a sign of the head. He advanced nearly to the front rank of the column, with the movement of a man who is marching and the countenance of a man who is sleeping. 'What a fierce old fellow! muttered the students. The rumor spread through the troop that he was a former member of the Convention,an old regicide. The mob had turned in through the Rue de la Verrerie. Little Gavroche marched in front with that deafening song which made of him a sort of trumpet. He sang 'Voici la lune qui parat, Quand ironsnous dans la fort? Demandait Charlot  Charlotte. Tou tou tou Pour Chatou. Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. 'Pour avoir bu de grand matin La rose  mme le thym, Deux moineaux taient en ribotte. Zi zi zi Pour Passy. Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. 'Et ces deux pauvres petits loups, Comme deux grives taient sols Un tigre en riait dans sa grotte. Don don don Pour Meudon. Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. 'L'un jurait et l'autre sacrait. Quand irons nous dans la fort? Demandait Charlot  Charlotte. Tin tin tin Pour Pantin. Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. They directed their course towards SaintMerry. The band augmented every moment. Near the Rue des Billettes, a man of lofty stature, whose hair was turning gray, and whose bold and daring mien was remarked by Courfeyrac, Enjolras, and Combeferre, but whom none of them knew, joined them. Gavroche, who was occupied in singing, whistling, humming, running on ahead and pounding on the shutters of the shops with the butt of his triggerless pistol paid no attention to this man. It chanced that in the Rue de la Verrerie, they passed in front of Courfeyrac's door. 'This happens just right, said Courfeyrac, 'I have forgotten my purse, and I have lost my hat. He quitted the mob and ran up to his quarters at full speed. He seized an old hat and his purse. He also seized a large square coffer, of the dimensions of a large valise, which was concealed under his soiled linen. As he descended again at a run, the portress hailed him 'Monsieur de Courfeyrac! 'What's your name, portress? The portress stood bewildered. 'Why, you know perfectly well, I'm the concierge my name is Mother Veuvain. 'Well, if you call me Monsieur de Courfeyrac again, I shall call you Mother de Veuvain. Now speak, what's the matter? What do you want? 'There is some one who wants to speak with you. 'Who is it? 'I don't know. 'Where is he? 'In my lodge. 'The devil! ejaculated Courfeyrac. 'But the person has been waiting your return for over an hour, said the portress. At the same time, a sort of pale, thin, small, freckled, and youthful artisan, clad in a tattered blouse and patched trousers of ribbed velvet, and who had rather the air of a girl accoutred as a man than of a man, emerged from the lodge and said to Courfeyrac in a voice which was not the least in the world like a woman's voice 'Monsieur Marius, if you please. 'He is not here. 'Will he return this evening? 'I know nothing about it. And Courfeyrac added 'For my part, I shall not return. The young man gazed steadily at him and said 'Why not? 'Because. 'Where are you going, then? 'What business is that of yours? 'Would you like to have me carry your coffer for you? 'I am going to the barricades. 'Would you like to have me go with you? 'If you like! replied Courfeyrac. 'The street is free, the pavements belong to every one. And he made his escape at a run to join his friends. When he had rejoined them, he gave the coffer to one of them to carry. It was only a quarter of an hour after this that he saw the young man, who had actually followed them. A mob does not go precisely where it intends. We have explained that a gust of wind carries it away. They overshot SaintMerry and found themselves, without precisely knowing how, in the Rue SaintDenis. The Parisians who nowadays on entering on the Rue Rambuteau at the end near the Halles, notice on their right, opposite the Rue Mondtour, a basketmaker's shop having for its sign a basket in the form of Napoleon the Great with this inscription NAPOLEON IS MADE WHOLLY OF WILLOW, have no suspicion of the terrible scenes which this very spot witnessed hardly thirty years ago. It was there that lay the Rue de la Chanvrerie, which ancient deeds spell Chanverrerie, and the celebrated publichouse called Corinthe. The reader will remember all that has been said about the barricade effected at this point, and eclipsed, by the way, by the barricade SaintMerry. It was on this famous barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, now fallen into profound obscurity, that we are about to shed a little light. May we be permitted to recur, for the sake of clearness in the recital, to the simple means which we have already employed in the case of Waterloo. Persons who wish to picture to themselves in a tolerably exact manner the constitution of the houses which stood at that epoch near the Pointe SaintEustache, at the northeast angle of the Halles of Paris, where today lies the embouchure of the Rue Rambuteau, have only to imagine an N touching the Rue SaintDenis with its summit and the Halles with its base, and whose two vertical bars should form the Rue de la GrandeTruanderie, and the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and whose transverse bar should be formed by the Rue de la PetiteTruanderie. The old Rue Mondtour cut the three strokes of the N at the most crooked angles. So that the labyrinthine confusion of these four streets sufficed to form, on a space three fathoms square, between the Halles and the Rue SaintDenis on the one hand, and between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue des Prcheurs on the other, seven islands of houses, oddly cut up, of varying sizes, placed crosswise and haphazard, and barely separated, like the blocks of stone in a dock, by narrow crannies. We say narrow crannies, and we can give no more just idea of those dark, contracted, manyangled alleys, lined with eightstory buildings. These buildings were so decrepit that, in the Rue de la Chanvrerie and the Rue de la PetiteTruanderie, the fronts were shored up with beams running from one house to another. The street was narrow and the gutter broad, the pedestrian there walked on a pavement that was always wet, skirting little stalls resembling cellars, big posts encircled with iron hoops, excessive heaps of refuse, and gates armed with enormous, centuryold gratings. The Rue Rambuteau has devastated all that. The name of Mondtour paints marvellously well the sinuosities of that whole set of streets. A little further on, they are found still better expressed by the Rue Pirouette, which ran into the Rue Mondtour. The passerby who got entangled from the Rue SaintDenis in the Rue de la Chanvrerie beheld it gradually close in before him as though he had entered an elongated funnel. At the end of this street, which was very short, he found further passage barred in the direction of the Halles by a tall row of houses, and he would have thought himself in a blind alley, had he not perceived on the right and left two dark cuts through which he could make his escape. This was the Rue Mondtour, which on one side ran into the Rue de Prcheurs, and on the other into the Rue du Cygne and the PetiteTruanderie. At the bottom of this sort of culdesac, at the angle of the cutting on the right, there was to be seen a house which was not so tall as the rest, and which formed a sort of cape in the street. It is in this house, of two stories only, that an illustrious wineshop had been merrily installed three hundred years before. This tavern created a joyous noise in the very spot which old Theophilus described in the following couplet L branle le squelette horrible D'un pauvre amant qui se pendit. The situation was good, and tavernkeepers succeeded each other there, from father to son. In the time of Mathurin Regnier, this cabaret was called the PotauxRoses, and as the rebus was then in fashion, it had for its signboard, a post (poteau) painted rosecolor. In the last century, the worthy Natoire, one of the fantastic masters nowadays despised by the stiff school, having got drunk many times in this wineshop at the very table where Regnier had drunk his fill, had painted, by way of gratitude, a bunch of Corinth grapes on the pink post. The keeper of the cabaret, in his joy, had changed his device and had caused to be placed in gilt letters beneath the bunch these words 'At the Bunch of Corinth Grapes ('Au Raisin de Corinthe). Hence the name of Corinthe. Nothing is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis is the zigzag of the phrase. Corinthe gradually dethroned the PotauxRoses. The last proprietor of the dynasty, Father Hucheloup, no longer acquainted even with the tradition, had the post painted blue. A room on the ground floor, where the bar was situated, one on the first floor containing a billiardtable, a wooden spiral staircase piercing the ceiling, wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, candles in broad daylight,this was the style of this cabaret. A staircase with a trapdoor in the lower room led to the cellar. On the second floor were the lodgings of the Hucheloup family. They were reached by a staircase which was a ladder rather than a staircase, and had for their entrance only a private door in the large room on the first floor. Under the roof, in two mansard attics, were the nests for the servants. The kitchen shared the ground floor with the taproom. Father Hucheloup had, possibly, been born a chemist, but the fact is that he was a cook people did not confine themselves to drinking alone in his wineshop, they also ate there. Hucheloup had invented a capital thing which could be eaten nowhere but in his house, stuffed carps, which he called carpes au gras. These were eaten by the light of a tallow candle or of a lamp of the time of Louis XVI., on tables to which were nailed waxed cloths in lieu of tablecloths. People came thither from a distance. Hucheloup, one fine morning, had seen fit to notify passersby of this 'specialty he had dipped a brush in a pot of black paint, and as he was an orthographer on his own account, as well as a cook after his own fashion, he had improvised on his wall this remarkable inscription CARPES HO GRAS. One winter, the rainstorms and the showers had taken a fancy to obliterate the S which terminated the first word, and the G which began the third this is what remained CARPE HO RAS. Time and rain assisting, a humble gastronomical announcement had become a profound piece of advice. In this way it came about, that though he knew no French, Father Hucheloup understood Latin, that he had evoked philosophy from his kitchen, and that, desirous simply of effacing Lent, he had equalled Horace. And the striking thing about it was, that that also meant 'Enter my wineshop. Nothing of all this is in existence now. The Mondtour labyrinth was disembowelled and widely opened in , and probably no longer exists at the present moment. The Rue de la Chanvrerie and Corinthe have disappeared beneath the pavement of the Rue Rambuteau. As we have already said, Corinthe was the meetingplace if not the rallyingpoint, of Courfeyrac and his friends. It was Grantaire who had discovered Corinthe. He had entered it on account of the Carpe horas, and had returned thither on account of the Carpes au gras. There they drank, there they ate, there they shouted they did not pay much, they paid badly, they did not pay at all, but they were always welcome. Father Hucheloup was a jovial host. Hucheloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wineshopkeeper with a moustache an amusing variety. He always had an illtempered air, seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, grumbled at the people who entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel with them than of serving them with soup. And yet, we insist upon the word, people were always welcome there. This oddity had attracted customers to his shop, and brought him young men, who said to each other 'Come hear Father Hucheloup growl. He had been a fencingmaster. All of a sudden, he would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuffboxes which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. Mother Hucheloup, his wife, was a bearded and a very homely creature. About , Father Hucheloup died. With him disappeared the secret of stuffed carps. His inconsolable widow continued to keep the wineshop. But the cooking deteriorated, and became execrable the wine, which had always been bad, became fearfully bad. Nevertheless, Courfeyrac and his friends continued to go to Corinthe,out of pity, as Bossuet said. The Widow Hucheloup was breathless and misshapen and given to rustic recollections. She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation. She had a way of her own of saying things, which spiced her reminiscences of the village and of her springtime. It had formerly been her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the loupsdegorge (rougesgorges) chanter dans les ogrepines (aubpines)to hear the redbreasts sing in the hawthorntrees. The hall on the first floor, where 'the restaurant was situated, was a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and tables, and with a crippled, lame, old billiardtable. It was reached by a spiral staircase which terminated in the corner of the room at a square hole like the hatchway of a ship. This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was always burning, had the air of a garret. All the fourfooted furniture comported itself as though it had but three legsthe whitewashed walls had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame Hucheloup Elle tonne  dix pas, elle pouvente  deux, Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux On tremble  chaque instant qu'elle ne vous la mouche Et qu'un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche. This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall. Mame Hucheloup, a good likeness, went and came from morning till night before this quatrain with the most perfect tranquillity. Two servingmaids, named Matelote and Gibelotte, and who had never been known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the hungry patrons in earthenware bowls. Matelote, large, plump, redhaired, and noisy, the favorite exsultana of the defunct Hucheloup, was homelier than any mythological monster, be it what it may still, as it becomes the servant to always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was less homely than Mame Hucheloup. Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on every one, even the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a vague and sleepy smile. Before entering the restaurant room, the visitor read on the door the following line written there in chalk by Courfeyrac Rgale si tu peux et mange si tu l'oses. Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini. On the morning of the th of June, they went to Corinthe to breakfast. Joly, who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to share. Laigle's coat was threadbare, but Joly was well dressed. It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door of Corinthe. They ascended to the first floor. Matelote and Gibelotte received them. 'Oysters, cheese, and ham, said Laigle. And they seated themselves at a table. The wineshop was empty there was no one there but themselves. Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table. While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said 'I am passing by. I smell from the street a delicious odor of Brie cheese. I enter. It was Grantaire. Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table. At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the table. That made three. 'Are you going to drink those two bottles? Laigle inquired of Grantaire. Grantaire replied 'All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous. Two bottles never yet astonished a man. The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking. Half a bottle was rapidly gulped down. 'So you have a hole in your stomach? began Laigle again. 'You have one in your elbow, said Grantaire. And after having emptied his glass, he added 'Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old. 'I should hope so, retorted Laigle. 'That's why we get on well together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds, it does not bind me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my movements, I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm. Old coats are just like old friends. 'That's true, ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, 'an old goat is an old abi (ami, friend). 'Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up, said Grantaire. 'Grantaire, demanded Laigle, 'have you just come from the boulevard? 'No. 'We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I. 'It's a marvellous sight, said Joly. 'How quiet this street is! exclaimed Laigle. 'Who would suspect that Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen that in former days there were nothing but convents here! In this neighborhood! Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them, and so does the Abb Lebeuf. They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, old Augustinesthere was no end of them. 'Don't let's talk of monks, interrupted Grantaire, 'it makes one want to scratch one's self. Then he exclaimed 'Bouh! I've just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking possession of me again. The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly. I hate the human race. I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front of the big public library. That pile of oystershells which is called a library is disgusting even to think of. What paper! What ink! What scrawling! And all that has been written! What rascal was it who said that man was a featherless biped? And then, I met a pretty girl of my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called Floral, and who is delighted, enraptured, as happy as the angels, because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with smallpox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the watch for a protector as much as for a lover cats chase mice as well as birds. Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she adjusted little brass rings in the eyeletholes of corsets, what do you call it? She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot of flowers, she was contented. Now here she is a bankeress. This transformation took place last night. I met the victim this morning in high spirits. The hideous point about it is, that the jade is as pretty today as she was yesterday. Her financier did not show in her face. Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces left upon them by caterpillars are visible. Ah! there is no morality on earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the appletree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the figtree, the grandfather of petticoats. As for right, do you know what right is? The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers 'The wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fiden did to you, the wrong that the Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as you do. You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.' Rome said 'You shall not take Clusium.' Brennus took Rome. Then he cried 'V victis!' That is what right is. Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world! What eagles! It makes my flesh creep. He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and went on, having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, not even himself, had taken any notice 'Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle the banker who takes the grisette is an eagle. There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other. So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality drink. Whatever your opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or in favor of the fat cock, like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, drink. You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, et ctera, et ctera. Come now, is there going to be another revolution? This poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep greasing the groove of events every moment. There is a hitch, it won't work. Quick, a revolution! The good God has his hands perpetually black with that cartgrease. If I were in his place, I'd be perfectly simple about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I'd lead the human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, I would have no extraordinary repertory. What the rest of you call progress advances by means of two motors, men and events. But, sad to say, from time to time, the exceptional becomes necessary. The ordinary troupe suffices neither for event nor for men among men geniuses are required, among events revolutions. Great accidents are the law the order of things cannot do without them and, judging from the apparition of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven itself finds actors needed for its performance. At the moment when one expects it the least, God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star turns up, underlined by an enormous tail. And that causes the death of Csar. Brutus deals him a blow with a knife, and God a blow with a comet. Crac, and behold an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold a great man ' in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of  at the head of the poster. Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all studded with unexpected flashes! Boum! Boum! extraordinary show! Raise your eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama. Good God, it is too much and not enough. These resources, gathered from exception, seem magnificence and poverty. My friends, Providence has come down to expedients. What does a revolution prove? That God is in a quandry. He effects a coup d'tat because he, God, has not been able to make both ends meet. In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as to Jehovah's fortune and when I see so much distress in heaven and on earth, from the bird who has not a grain of millet to myself without a hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is very badly worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness the Prince de Cond hung, when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent in the zenith through which the wind blows, when I see so many rags even in the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills, when I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost, that paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up. He gives a revolution as a tradesman whose moneybox is empty gives a ball. God must not be judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive a povertystricken universe. Creation is bankrupt. That is why I am discontented. Here it is the th of June, it is almost night ever since this morning I have been waiting for daylight to come it has not come, and I bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness of an illpaid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, everything goes awry the universe is a tease. It's like children, those who want them have none, and those who don't want them have them. Total I'm vexed. Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that baldhead, offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe is what it is. I speak here without evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, Eternal Father, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Ah! by all the saints of Olympus and by all the gods of paradise, I was not intended to be a Parisian, that is to say, to rebound forever, like a shuttlecock between two battledores, from the group of the loungers to the group of the roysterers. I was made to be a Turk, watching oriental houris all day long, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Beauceron peasant, or a Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewoman, or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a footsoldier to the Germanic confederation, and occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to say, his frontier. Those are the positions for which I was born! Yes, I have said a Turk, and I will not retract. I do not understand how people can habitually take Turks in bad part Mohammed had his good points respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is ornamented with a henroost! Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other's profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their arm, to breathe the immense heaps of newmown hay in the meadows! Really, people do commit altogether too many follies. An old broken lantern which I have just seen at a bricbrac merchant's suggests a reflection to my mind it is time to enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That's what comes of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it! And Grantaire, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing, which was well earned. ' propos of revolution, said Joly, 'it is decidedly abberent that Barius is in lub. 'Does any one know with whom? demanded Laigle. 'Do. 'No? 'Do! I tell you. 'Marius' love affairs! exclaimed Grantaire. 'I can imagine it. Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbrus Apollo. Marius and his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven. They are souls possessed of senses. They lie among the stars. Grantaire was attacking his second bottle and, possibly, his second harangue, when a new personage emerged from the square aperture of the stairs. It was a boy less than ten years of age, ragged, very small, yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair drenched with rain, and wearing a contented air. The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed himself to Laigle de Meaux. 'Are you Monsieur Bossuet? 'That is my nickname, replied Laigle. 'What do you want with me? 'This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me 'Do you know Mother Hucheloup?' I said 'Yes, Rue Chanvrerie, the old man's widow' he said to me 'Go there. There you will find M. Bossuet. Tell him from me 'A B C.' It's a joke that they're playing on you, isn't it. He gave me ten sous. 'Joly, lend me ten sous, said Laigle and, turning to Grantaire 'Grantaire, lend me ten sous. This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad. 'Thank you, sir, said the urchin. 'What is your name? inquired Laigle. 'Navet, Gavroche's friend. 'Stay with us, said Laigle. 'Breakfast with us, said Grantaire. The child replied 'I can't, I belong in the procession, I'm the one to shout 'Down with Polignac!' And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the most respectful of all possible salutes, he took his departure. The child gone, Grantaire took the word 'That is the purebred gamin. There are a great many varieties of the gamin species. The notary's gamin is called SkiptheGutter, the cook's gamin is called a scullion, the baker's gamin is called a mitron, the lackey's gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is called the cabinboy, the soldier's gamin is called the drummerboy, the painter's gamin is called paintgrinder, the tradesman's gamin is called an errandboy, the courtesan gamin is called the minion, the kingly gamin is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called the bambino. In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection he said half aloud 'A B C, that is to say the burial of Lamarque. 'The tall blonde, remarked Grantaire, 'is Enjolras, who is sending you a warning. 'Shall we go? ejaculated Bossuet. 'It's raiding, said Joly. 'I have sworn to go through fire, but not through water. I don't wand to ged a gold. 'I shall stay here, said Grantaire. 'I prefer a breakfast to a hearse. 'Conclusion we remain, said Laigle. 'Well, then, let us drink. Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot. 'Ah! the riot, I am with you! cried Joly. Laigle rubbed his hands. 'Now we're going to touch up the revolution of . As a matter of fact, it does hurt the people along the seams. 'I don't think much of your revolution, said Grantaire. 'I don't execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton nightcap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think that today, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize his royalty in two directions, he might extend the tip of the sceptre end against the people, and open the umbrella end against heaven. The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction of daylight. There was no one in the wineshop, or in the street, every one having gone off 'to watch events. 'Is it midday or midnight? cried Bossuet. 'You can't see your hand before your face. Gibelotte, fetch a light. Grantaire was drinking in a melancholy way. 'Enjolras disdains me, he muttered. 'Enjolras said 'Joly is ill, Grantaire is drunk.' It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet. If he had come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enjolras! I won't go to his funeral. This resolution once arrived at, Bossuet, Joly, and Grantaire did not stir from the wineshop. By two o'clock in the afternoon, the table at which they sat was covered with empty bottles. Two candles were burning on it, one in a flat copper candlestick which was perfectly green, the other in the neck of a cracked carafe. Grantaire had seduced Joly and Bossuet to wine Bossuet and Joly had conducted Grantaire back towards cheerfulness. As for Grantaire, he had got beyond wine, that merely moderate inspirer of dreams, ever since midday. Wine enjoys only a conventional popularity with serious drinkers. There is, in fact, in the matter of inebriety, white magic and black magic wine is only white magic. Grantaire was a daring drinker of dreams. The blackness of a terrible fit of drunkenness yawning before him, far from arresting him, attracted him. He had abandoned the bottle and taken to the beerglass. The beerglass is the abyss. Having neither opium nor hashish on hand, and being desirous of filling his brain with twilight, he had had recourse to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe, which produces the most terrible of lethargies. It is of these three vapors, beer, brandy, and absinthe, that the lead of the soul is composed. They are three grooms the celestial butterfly is drowned in them and there are formed there in a membranous smoke, vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat, three mute furies, Nightmare, Night, and Death, which hover about the slumbering Psyche. Grantaire had not yet reached that lamentable phase far from it. He was tremendously gay, and Bossuet and Joly retorted. They clinked glasses. Grantaire added to the eccentric accentuation of words and ideas, a peculiarity of gesture he rested his left fist on his knee with dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and, with cravat untied, seated astride a stool, his full glass in his right hand, he hurled solemn words at the big maidservant Matelote 'Let the doors of the palace be thrown open! Let every one be a member of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hucheloup. Let us drink. And turning to Madame Hucheloup, he added 'Woman ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may contemplate thee! And Joly exclaimed 'Matelote and Gibelotte, dod't gib Grantaire anything more to drink. He has already devoured, since this bording, in wild prodigality, two francs and ninetyfive centibes. And Grantaire began again 'Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles? Bossuet, though very drunk, preserved his equanimity. He was seated on the sill of the open window, wetting his back in the falling rain, and gazing at his two friends. All at once, he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps, cries of 'To arms! He turned round and saw in the Rue SaintDenis, at the end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, Enjolras passing, gun in hand, and Gavroche with his pistol, Feuilly with his sword, Courfeyrac with his sword, and Jean Prouvaire with his blunderbuss, Combeferre with his gun, Bahorel with his gun, and the whole armed and stormy rabble which was following them. The Rue de la Chanvrerie was not more than a gunshot long. Bossuet improvised a speakingtrumpet from his two hands placed around his mouth, and shouted 'Courfeyrac! Courfeyrac! Hohe! Courfeyrac heard the shout, caught sight of Bossuet, and advanced a few paces into the Rue de la Chanvrerie, shouting 'What do you want? which crossed a 'Where are you going? 'To make a barricade, replied Courfeyrac. 'Well, here! This is a good place! Make it here! 'That's true, Aigle, said Courfeyrac. And at a signal from Courfeyrac, the mob flung themselves into the Rue de la Chanvrerie. The spot was, in fact, admirably adapted, the entrance to the street widened out, the other extremity narrowed together into a pocket without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondtour was easily barricaded on the right and the left, no attack was possible except from the Rue SaintDenis, that is to say, in front, and in full sight. Bossuet had the comprehensive glance of a fasting Hannibal. Terror had seized on the whole street at the irruption of the mob. There was not a passerby who did not get out of sight. In the space of a flash of lightning, in the rear, to right and left, shops, stables, areadoors, windows, blinds, attic skylights, shutters of every description were closed, from the ground floor to the roof. A terrified old woman fixed a mattress in front of her window on two clothespoles for drying linen, in order to deaden the effect of musketry. The wineshop alone remained open and that for a very good reason, that the mob had rushed into it.'Ah my God! Ah my God! sighed Mame Hucheloup. Bossuet had gone down to meet Courfeyrac. Joly, who had placed himself at the window, exclaimed 'Courfeyrac, you ought to have brought an umbrella. You will gatch gold. In the meantime, in the space of a few minutes, twenty iron bars had been wrenched from the grated front of the wineshop, ten fathoms of street had been unpaved Gavroche and Bahorel had seized in its passage, and overturned, the dray of a limedealer named Anceau this dray contained three barrels of lime, which they placed beneath the piles of pavingstones Enjolras raised the cellar trap, and all the widow Hucheloup's empty casks were used to flank the barrels of lime Feuilly, with his fingers skilled in painting the delicate sticks of fans, had backed up the barrels and the dray with two massive heaps of blocks of rough stone. Blocks which were improvised like the rest and procured no one knows where. The beams which served as props were torn from the neighboring housefronts and laid on the casks. When Bossuet and Courfeyrac turned round, half the street was already barred with a rampart higher than a man. There is nothing like the hand of the populace for building everything that is built by demolishing. Matelote and Gibelotte had mingled with the workers. Gibelotte went and came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade. She served the barricade as she would have served wine, with a sleepy air. An omnibus with two white horses passed the end of the street. Bossuet strode over the pavingstones, ran to it, stopped the driver, made the passengers alight, offered his hand to 'the ladies, dismissed the conductor, and returned, leading the vehicle and the horses by the bridle. 'Omnibuses, said he, 'do not pass the Corinthe. Non licet omnibus adire Corinthum. An instant later, the horses were unharnessed and went off at their will, through the Rue Mondtour, and the omnibus lying on its side completed the bar across the street. Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story. Her eyes were vague, and stared without seeing anything, and she cried in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge from her throat. 'The end of the world has come, she muttered. Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck, and said to Grantaire 'My dear fellow, I have always regarded a woman's neck as an infinitely delicate thing. But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb. Matelote had mounted to the first floor once more, Grantaire seized her round her waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window. 'Matelote is homely! he cried 'Matelote is of a dream of ugliness! Matelote is a chimra. This is the secret of her birth a Gothic Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to give it life, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She has chromateofleadcolored hair, like Titian's mistress, and she is a good girl. I guarantee that she will fight well. Every good girl contains a hero. As for Mother Hucheloup, she's an old warrior. Look at her moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the banlieue. Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid and formic acid however, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me. Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty. I am Grantaire, the good fellow. Having never had any money, I never acquired the habit of it, and the result is that I have never lacked it but, if I had been rich, there would have been no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild's fortune! How much good he would do! Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid! You have cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim the kiss of a lover. 'Hold your tongue, you cask! said Courfeyrac. Grantaire retorted 'I am the capitoul and the master of the floral games! Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would have perished at Thermopyl with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with Cromwell. 'Grantaire, he shouted, 'go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. Don't disgrace the barricade! This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He seemed to be rendered suddenly sober. He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him 'Let me sleep here. 'Go and sleep somewhere else, cried Enjolras. But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, replied 'Let me sleep here,until I die. Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes 'Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying. Grantaire replied in a grave tone 'You will see. He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell heavily on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second period of inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him, an instant later he had fallen asleep. Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted 'Here's the street in its lownecked dress! How well it looks! Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wineshop to some extent, sought to console the widowed proprietress. 'Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because you had had a notice served on you for infringing the law, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of your window? 'Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going to put that table of mine in your horror, too? And it was for the counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from the attic window into the street, that the government collected a fine of a hundred francs. If that isn't an abomination, what is! 'Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you. Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit which she was to derive from these reprisals made on her account. She was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who, having received a box on the ear from her husband, went to complain to her father, and cried for vengeance, saying 'Father, you owe my husband affront for affront. The father asked 'On which cheek did you receive the blow? 'On the left cheek. The father slapped her right cheek and said 'Now you are satisfied. Go tell your husband that he boxed my daughter's ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his wife's. The rain had ceased. Recruits had arrived. Workmen had brought under their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing bottles of vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket filled with firepots, 'left over from the King's festival. This festival was very recent, having taken place on the st of May. It was said that these munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg SaintAntoine named Ppin. They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue SaintDenis, and all the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondtour, du Cygne, des Prcheurs, and de la Grande and de la PetiteTruanderie. Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two barricades were now in process of construction at once, both of them resting on the Corinthe house and forming a right angle the larger shut off the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondtour, on the side of the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was constructed only of casks and pavingstones. There were about fifty workers on it thirty were armed with guns for, on their way, they had effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop. Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than this troop. One had a roundjacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holsterpistols, another was in his shirtsleeves, with a round hat, and a powderhorn slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper and was armed with a saddler's awl. There was one who was shouting 'Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at the point of our bayonet. This man had no bayonet. Another spread out over his coat the crossbelt and cartridgebox of a National Guardsman, the cover of the cartridgebox being ornamented with this inscription in red worsted Public Order. There were a great many guns bearing the numbers of the legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes. Add to this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men, and bronzed longshoremen. All were in haste and as they helped each other, they discussed the possible chances. That they would receive succor about three o'clock in the morningthat they were sure of one regiment, that Paris would rise. Terrible sayings with which was mingled a sort of cordial joviality. One would have pronounced them brothers, but they did not know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. A fire had been lighted in the kitchen, and there they were engaged in moulding into bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass tableware of the establishment. In the midst of it all, they drank. Caps and buckshot were mixed pellmell on the tables with glasses of wine. In the billiardhall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered another breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old dishcloths and making lint three insurgents were assisting them, three bushyhaired, jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble. The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras had observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making himself useful there. Gavroche was working on the larger one. As for the young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and who had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when the omnibus had been overturned. Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended, remounted, whistled, and sparkled. He seemed to be there for the encouragement of all. Had he any incentive? Yes, certainly, his poverty had he wings? yes, certainly, his joy. Gavroche was a whirlwind. He was constantly visible, he was incessantly audible. He filled the air, as he was everywhere at once. He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity no halt was possible with him. The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches. He troubled the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated the weary, he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired gayety in some, and breath in others, wrath in others, movement in all, now pricking a student, now biting an artisan he alighted, paused, flew off again, hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one party to another, murmuring and humming, and harassed the whole company a fly on the immense revolutionary coach. Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor in his little lungs. 'Courage! more pavingstones! more casks! more machines! Where are you now? A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with! Your barricade is very small. It must be carried up. Put everything on it, fling everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house. A barricade is Mother Gibou's tea. Hullo, here's a glass door. This elicited an exclamation from the workers. 'A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass door, tubercle? 'Hercules yourselves! retorted Gavroche. 'A glass door is an excellent thing in a barricade. It does not prevent an attack, but it prevents the enemy taking it. So you've never prigged apples over a wall where there were broken bottles? A glass door cuts the corns of the National Guard when they try to mount on the barricade. Pardi! glass is a treacherous thing. Well, you haven't a very wildly lively imagination, comrades. However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol. He went from one to another, demanding 'A gun, I want a gun! Why don't you give me a gun? 'Give you a gun! said Combeferre. 'Come now! said Gavroche, 'why not? I had one in  when we had a dispute with Charles X. Enjolras shrugged his shoulders. 'When there are enough for the men, we will give some to the children. Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered 'If you are killed before me, I shall take yours. 'Gamin! said Enjolras. 'Greenhorn! said Gavroche. A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end of the street created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him 'Come with us, young fellow! well now, don't we do anything for this old country of ours? The dandy fled. The journals of the day which said that that nearly impregnable structure, of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call it, reached to the level of the first floor, were mistaken. The fact is, that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was built in such a manner that the combatants could, at their will, either disappear behind it or dominate the barrier and even scale its crest by means of a quadruple row of pavingstones placed on top of each other and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the barricade, composed of piles of pavingstones and casks bound together by beams and planks, which were entangled in the wheels of Anceau's dray and of the overturned omnibus, had a bristling and inextricable aspect. An aperture large enough to allow a man to pass through had been made between the wall of the houses and the extremity of the barricade which was furthest from the wineshop, so that an exit was possible at this point. The pole of the omnibus was placed upright and held up with ropes, and a red flag, fastened to this pole, floated over the barricade. The little Mondtour barricade, hidden behind the wineshop building, was not visible. The two barricades united formed a veritable redoubt. Enjolras and Courfeyrac had not thought fit to barricade the other fragment of the Rue Mondtour which opens through the Rue des Prcheurs an issue into the Halles, wishing, no doubt, to preserve a possible communication with the outside, and not entertaining much fear of an attack through the dangerous and difficult street of the Rue des Prcheurs. With the exception of this issue which was left free, and which constituted what Folard in his strategical style would have termed a branch and taking into account, also, the narrow cutting arranged on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the interior of the barricade, where the wineshop formed a salient angle, presented an irregular square, closed on all sides. There existed an interval of twenty paces between the grand barrier and the lofty houses which formed the background of the street, so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses, all inhabited, but closed from top to bottom. All this work was performed without any hindrance, in less than an hour, and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bearskin cap or a single bayonet make their appearance. The very bourgeois who still ventured at this hour of riot to enter the Rue SaintDenis cast a glance at the Rue de la Chanvrerie, caught sight of the barricade, and redoubled their pace. The two barricades being finished, and the flag run up, a table was dragged out of the wineshop and Courfeyrac mounted on the table. Enjolras brought the square coffer, and Courfeyrac opened it. This coffer was filled with cartridges. When the mob saw the cartridges, a tremor ran through the bravest, and a momentary silence ensued. Courfeyrac distributed them with a smile. Each one received thirty cartridges. Many had powder, and set about making others with the bullets which they had run. As for the barrel of powder, it stood on a table on one side, near the door, and was held in reserve. The alarm beat which ran through all Paris, did not cease, but it had finally come to be nothing more than a monotonous noise to which they no longer paid any attention. This noise retreated at times, and again drew near, with melancholy undulations. They loaded the guns and carbines, all together, without haste, with solemn gravity. Enjolras went and stationed three sentinels outside the barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des Prcheurs, the third at the corner of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. Then, the barricades having been built, the posts assigned, the guns loaded, the sentinels stationed, they waited, alone in those redoubtable streets through which no one passed any longer, surrounded by those dumb houses which seemed dead and in which no human movement palpitated, enveloped in the deepening shades of twilight which was drawing on, in the midst of that silence through which something could be felt advancing, and which had about it something tragic and terrifying, isolated, armed, determined, and tranquil. During those hours of waiting, what did they do? We must needs tell, since this is a matter of history. While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan of melted brass and lead, destined to the bulletmould smoked over a glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their student life, and, in one corner of this wineshop which had been converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt which they had built, with their carbines loaded and primed resting against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to a supreme hour, began to recite love verses. What verses? These Vous rappelezvous notre douce vie, Lorsque nous tions si jeunes tous deux, Et que nous n'avions au cur d'autre envie Que d'tre bien mis et d'tre amoureux, Lorsqu'en ajoutant votre ge  mon ge, Nous ne comptions pas  deux quarante ans, Et que, dans notre humble et petit mnage, Tout, mme l'hiver, nous tait printemps? Beaux jours! Manuel tait fier et sage, Paris s'asseyait  de saints banquets, Foy lanait la foudre, et votre corsage Avait une pingle o je me piquais. Tout vous contemplait. Avocat sans causes, Quand je vous menais au Prado dner, Vous tiez jolie au point que les roses Me faisaient l'effet de se retourner. Je les entendais dire Est elle belle! Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux  flots! Sous son mantelet elle cache une aile, Son bonnet charmant est  peine clos. J'errais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple. Les passants croyaient que l'amour charm Avait mari, dans notre heureux couple, Le doux mois d'avril au beau mois de mai. Nous vivions cachs, contents, porte close, Dvorant l'amour, bon fruit dfendu, Ma bouche n'avait pas dit une chose Que dj ton cur avait rpondu. La Sorbonne tait l'endroit bucolique O je t'adorais du soir au matin. C'est ainsi qu'une me amoureuse applique La carte du Tendre au pays Latin. O place Maubert! O place Dauphine! Quand, dans le taudis frais et printanier, Tu tirais ton bas sur ta jambe fine, Je voyais un astre au fond du grenier. J'ai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne m'en reste Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais, Tu me dmontrais la bont cleste Avec une fleur que tu me donnais. Je t'obissais, tu m'tais soumise O grenier dor! te lacer! te voir Aller et venir ds l'aube en chemise, Mirant ton jeune front  ton vieux miroir. Et qui donc pourrait perdre la mmoire De ces temps d'aurore et de firmament, De rubans, de fleurs, de gaze et de moire, O l'amour bgaye un argot charmant? Nos jardins taient un pot de tulipe Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon Je prenais le bol de terre de pipe, Et je te donnais le tasse en japon. Et ces grands malheurs qui nous faisaient rire! Ton manchon brl, ton boa perdu! Et ce cher portrait du divin Shakespeare Qu'un soir pour souper nons avons vendu! J'tais mendiant et toi charitable. Je baisais au vol tes bras frais et ronds. Dante in folio nous servait de table Pour manger gament un cent de marrons. La premire fois qu'en mon joyeux bouge Je pris un baiser  ta lvre en feu, Quand tu t'en allais dcoiffe et rouge, Je restai tout ple et je crus en Dieu! Te rappellestu nos bonheurs sans nombre, Et tous ces fichus changs en chiffons? Oh que de soupirs, de nos curs pleins d'ombre, Se sont envols dans les cieux profonds! The hour, the spot, these souvenirs of youth recalled, a few stars which began to twinkle in the sky, the funeral repose of those deserted streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in preparation, gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low tone in the dusk by Jean Prouvaire, who, as we have said, was a gentle poet. In the meantime, a lamp had been lighted in the small barricade, and in the large one, one of those wax torches such as are to be met with on ShroveTuesday in front of vehicles loaded with masks, on their way to la Courtille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from the Faubourg SaintAntoine. The torch had been placed in a sort of cage of pavingstones closed on three sides to shelter it from the wind, and disposed in such a fashion that all the light fell on the flag. The street and the barricade remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag formidably illuminated as by an enormous darklantern. This light enhanced the scarlet of the flag, with an indescribable and terrible purple. Night was fully come, nothing made its appearance. All that they heard was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades but these were rare, badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus prolonged, was a sign that the Government was taking its time, and collecting its forces. These fifty men were waiting for sixty thousand. Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls on the threshold of redoubtable events. He went in search of Gavroche, who had set to making cartridges in the taproom, by the dubious light of two candles placed on the counter by way of precaution, on account of the powder which was scattered on the tables. These two candles cast no gleam outside. The insurgents had, moreover, taken pains not to have any light in the upper stories. Gavroche was deeply preoccupied at that moment, but not precisely with his cartridges. The man of the Rue des Billettes had just entered the taproom and had seated himself at the table which was the least lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it between his legs. Gavroche, who had been, up to that moment, distracted by a hundred 'amusing things, had not even seen this man. When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically with his eyes, admiring his gun then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street urchin sprang to his feet. Any one who had spied upon that man up to that moment, would have seen that he was observing everything in the barricade and in the band of insurgents, with singular attention but, from the moment when he had entered this room, he had fallen into a sort of brown study, and no longer seemed to see anything that was going on. The gamin approached this pensive personage, and began to step around him on tiptoe, as one walks in the vicinity of a person whom one is afraid of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance which was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and so profound, so gay and so heartbreaking, passed all those grimaces of an old man which signify Ah bah! impossible! My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this be? no, it is not! but yes! why, no! etc. Gavroche balanced on his heels, clenched both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a bird, expended in a gigantic pout all the sagacity of his lower lip. He was astounded, uncertain, incredulous, convinced, dazzled. He had the mien of the chief of the eunuchs in the slave mart, discovering a Venus among the blowsy females, and the air of an amateur recognizing a Raphael in a heap of daubs. His whole being was at work, the instinct which scents out, and the intelligence which combines. It was evident that a great event had happened in Gavroche's life. It was at the most intense point of this preoccupation that Enjolras accosted him. 'You are small, said Enjolras, 'you will not be seen. Go out of the barricade, slip along close to the houses, skirmish about a bit in the streets, and come back and tell me what is going on. Gavroche raised himself on his haunches. 'So the little chaps are good for something! that's very lucky! I'll go! In the meanwhile, trust to the little fellows, and distrust the big ones. And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, as he indicated the man of the Rue des Billettes 'Do you see that big fellow there? 'Well? 'He's a police spy. 'Are you sure of it? 'It isn't two weeks since he pulled me off the cornice of the Port Royal, where I was taking the air, by my ear. Enjolras hastily quitted the urchin and murmured a few words in a very low tone to a longshoreman from the winedocks who chanced to be at hand. The man left the room, and returned almost immediately, accompanied by three others. The four men, four porters with broad shoulders, went and placed themselves without doing anything to attract his attention, behind the table on which the man of the Rue des Billettes was leaning with his elbows. They were evidently ready to hurl themselves upon him. Then Enjolras approached the man and demanded of him 'Who are you? At this abrupt query, the man started. He plunged his gaze deep into Enjolras' clear eyes and appeared to grasp the latter's meaning. He smiled with a smile than which nothing more disdainful, more energetic, and more resolute could be seen in the world, and replied with haughty gravity 'I see what it is. Well, yes! 'You are a police spy? 'I am an agent of the authorities. 'And your name? 'Javert. Enjolras made a sign to the four men. In the twinkling of an eye, before Javert had time to turn round, he was collared, thrown down, pinioned and searched. They found on him a little round card pasted between two pieces of glass, and bearing on one side the arms of France, engraved, and with this motto Supervision and vigilance, and on the other this note 'JAVERT, inspector of police, aged fiftytwo, and the signature of the Prefect of Police of that day, M. Gisquet. Besides this, he had his watch and his purse, which contained several gold pieces. They left him his purse and his watch. Under the watch, at the bottom of his fob, they felt and seized a paper in an envelope, which Enjolras unfolded, and on which he read these five lines, written in the very hand of the Prefect of Police 'As soon as his political mission is accomplished, Inspector Javert will make sure, by special supervision, whether it is true that the malefactors have instituted intrigues on the right bank of the Seine, near the Jena bridge. The search ended, they lifted Javert to his feet, bound his arms behind his back, and fastened him to that celebrated post in the middle of the room which had formerly given the wineshop its name. Gavroche, who had looked on at the whole of this scene and had approved of everything with a silent toss of his head, stepped up to Javert and said to him 'It's the mouse who has caught the cat. All this was so rapidly executed, that it was all over when those about the wineshop noticed it. Javert had not uttered a single cry. At the sight of Javert bound to the post, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, Combeferre, and the men scattered over the two barricades came running up. Javert, with his back to the post, and so surrounded with ropes that he could not make a movement, raised his head with the intrepid serenity of the man who has never lied. 'He is a police spy, said Enjolras. And turning to Javert 'You will be shot ten minutes before the barricade is taken. Javert replied in his most imperious tone 'Why not at once? 'We are saving our powder. 'Then finish the business with a blow from a knife. 'Spy, said the handsome Enjolras, 'we are judges and not assassins. Then he called Gavroche 'Here you! go about your business! Do what I told you! 'I'm going! cried Gavroche. And halting as he was on the point of setting out 'By the way, you will give me his gun! and he added 'I leave you the musician, but I want the clarinet. The gamin made the military salute and passed gayly through the opening in the large barricade. The tragic picture which we have undertaken would not be complete, the reader would not see those grand moments of social birthpangs in a revolutionary birth, which contain convulsion mingled with effort, in their exact and real relief, were we to omit, in the sketch here outlined, an incident full of epic and savage horror which occurred almost immediately after Gavroche's departure. Mobs, as the reader knows, are like a snowball, and collect as they roll along, a throng of tumultuous men. These men do not ask each other whence they come. Among the passersby who had joined the rabble led by Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, there had been a person wearing the jacket of a street porter, which was very threadbare on the shoulders, who gesticulated and vociferated, and who had the look of a drunken savage. This man, whose name or nickname was Le Cabuc, and who was, moreover, an utter stranger to those who pretended to know him, was very drunk, or assumed the appearance of being so, and had seated himself with several others at a table which they had dragged outside of the wineshop. This Cabuc, while making those who vied with him drunk seemed to be examining with a thoughtful air the large house at the extremity of the barricade, whose five stories commanded the whole street and faced the Rue SaintDenis. All at once he exclaimed 'Do you know, comrades, it is from that house yonder that we must fire. When we are at the windows, the deuce is in it if any one can advance into the street! 'Yes, but the house is closed, said one of the drinkers. 'Let us knock! 'They will not open. 'Let us break in the door! Le Cabuc runs to the door, which had a very massive knocker, and knocks. The door opens not. He strikes a second blow. No one answers. A third stroke. The same silence. 'Is there any one here? shouts Cabuc. Nothing stirs. Then he seizes a gun and begins to batter the door with the butt end. It was an ancient alley door, low, vaulted, narrow, solid, entirely of oak, lined on the inside with a sheet of iron and iron stays, a genuine prison postern. The blows from the butt end of the gun made the house tremble, but did not shake the door. Nevertheless, it is probable that the inhabitants were disturbed, for a tiny, square window was finally seen to open on the third story, and at this aperture appeared the reverend and terrified face of a grayhaired old man, who was the porter, and who held a candle. The man who was knocking paused. 'Gentlemen, said the porter, 'what do you want? 'Open! said Cabuc. 'That cannot be, gentlemen. 'Open, nevertheless. 'Impossible, gentlemen. Le Cabuc took his gun and aimed at the porter but as he was below, and as it was very dark, the porter did not see him. 'Will you open, yes or no? 'No, gentlemen. 'Do you say no? 'I say no, my goo The porter did not finish. The shot was fired the ball entered under his chin and came out at the nape of his neck, after traversing the jugular vein. The old man fell back without a sigh. The candle fell and was extinguished, and nothing more was to be seen except a motionless head lying on the sill of the small window, and a little whitish smoke which floated off towards the roof. 'There! said Le Cabuc, dropping the butt end of his gun to the pavement. He had hardly uttered this word, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder with the weight of an eagle's talon, and he heard a voice saying to him 'On your knees. The murderer turned round and saw before him Enjolras' cold, white face. Enjolras held a pistol in his hand. He had hastened up at the sound of the discharge. He had seized Cabuc's collar, blouse, shirt, and suspender with his left hand. 'On your knees! he repeated. And, with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty years bent the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his knees in the mire. Le Cabuc attempted to resist, but he seemed to have been seized by a superhuman hand. Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman's face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis. His dilated nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek profile that expression of wrath and that expression of Chastity which, as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice. The whole barricade hastened up, then all ranged themselves in a circle at a distance, feeling that it was impossible to utter a word in the presence of the thing which they were about to behold. Le Cabuc, vanquished, no longer tried to struggle, and trembled in every limb. Enjolras released him and drew out his watch. 'Collect yourself, said he. 'Think or pray. You have one minute. 'Mercy! murmured the murderer then he dropped his head and stammered a few inarticulate oaths. Enjolras never took his eyes off of him he allowed a minute to pass, then he replaced his watch in his fob. That done, he grasped Le Cabuc by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees and shrieked, and placed the muzzle of the pistol to his ear. Many of those intrepid men, who had so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of adventures, turned aside their heads. An explosion was heard, the assassin fell to the pavement face downwards. Enjolras straightened himself up, and cast a convinced and severe glance around him. Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said 'Throw that outside. Three men raised the body of the unhappy wretch, which was still agitated by the last mechanical convulsions of the life that had fled, and flung it over the little barricade into the Rue Mondtour. Enjolras was thoughtful. It is impossible to say what grandiose shadows slowly spread over his redoubtable serenity. All at once he raised his voice. A silence fell upon them. 'Citizens, said Enjolras, 'what that man did is frightful, what I have done is horrible. He killed, therefore I killed him. I had to do it, because insurrection must have its discipline. Assassination is even more of a crime here than elsewhere we are under the eyes of the Revolution, we are the priests of the Republic, we are the victims of duty, and must not be possible to slander our combat. I have, therefore, tried that man, and condemned him to death. As for myself, constrained as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself. Those who listened to him shuddered. 'We will share thy fate, cried Combeferre. 'So be it, replied Enjolras. 'One word more. In executing this man, I have obeyed necessity but necessity is a monster of the old world, necessity's name is Fatality. Now, the law of progress is, that monsters shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before Fraternity. It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I do pronounce it. And I glorify it. Love, the future is thine. Death, I make use of thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, in the future there will be neither darkness nor thunderbolts neither ferocious ignorance, nor bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no more Michael. In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth will beam with radiance, the human race will love. The day will come, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life it will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to die. Enjolras ceased. His virgin lips closed and he remained for some time standing on the spot where he had shed blood, in marble immobility. His staring eye caused those about him to speak in low tones. Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre pressed each other's hands silently, and, leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched with an admiration in which there was some compassion, that grave young man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also of rock. Let us say at once that later on, after the action, when the bodies were taken to the morgue and searched, a police agent's card was found on Le Cabuc. The author of this book had in his hands, in , the special report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in . We will add, that if we are to believe a tradition of the police, which is strange but probably well founded, Le Cabuc was Claquesous. The fact is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any question of Claquesous. Claquesous had nowhere left any trace of his disappearance he would seem to have amalgamated himself with the invisible. His life had been all shadows, his end was night. The whole insurgent group was still under the influence of the emotion of that tragic case which had been so quickly tried and so quickly terminated, when Courfeyrac again beheld on the barricade, the small young man who had inquired of him that morning for Marius. This lad, who had a bold and reckless air, had come by night to join the insurgents. The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect of the voice of destiny. He wished to die the opportunity presented itself he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand in the darkness offered him the key. These melancholy openings which take place in the gloom before despair, are tempting. Marius thrust aside the bar which had so often allowed him to pass, emerged from the garden, and said 'I will go. Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed or solid in his brain, incapable of accepting anything thenceforth of fate after those two months passed in the intoxication of youth and love, overwhelmed at once by all the reveries of despair, he had but one desire remaining, to make a speedy end of all. He set out at rapid pace. He found himself most opportunely armed, as he had Javert's pistols with him. The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse, had vanished from his sight in the street. Marius, who had emerged from the Rue Plumet by the boulevard, traversed the Esplanade and the bridge of the Invalides, the Champslyses, the Place Louis XV., and reached the Rue de Rivoli. The shops were open there, the gas was burning under the arcades, women were making their purchases in the stalls, people were eating ices in the Caf Laiter, and nibbling small cakes at the English pastrycook's shop. Only a few postingchaises were setting out at a gallop from the Htel des Princes and the Htel Meurice. Marius entered the Rue SaintHonor through the Passage Delorme. There the shops were closed, the merchants were chatting in front of their halfopen doors, people were walking about, the street lanterns were lighted, beginning with the first floor, all the windows were lighted as usual. There was cavalry on the Place du PalaisRoyal. Marius followed the Rue SaintHonor. In proportion as he left the PalaisRoyal behind him, there were fewer lighted windows, the shops were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds, the street grew sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased in density. For the passersby now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in this throng, and yet there arose from it a dull, deep murmur. Near the fountain of the ArbreSec, there were 'assemblages, motionless and gloomy groups which were to those who went and came as stones in the midst of running water. At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires, the crowd no longer walked. It formed a resisting, massive, solid, compact, almost impenetrable block of people who were huddled together, and conversing in low tones. There were hardly any black coats or round hats now, but smock frocks, blouses, caps, and bristling and cadaverous heads. This multitude undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom. Its whisperings had the hoarse accent of a vibration. Although not one of them was walking, a dull trampling was audible in the mire. Beyond this dense portion of the throng, in the Rue du Roule, in the Rue des Prouvaires, and in the extension of the Rue SaintHonor, there was no longer a single window in which a candle was burning. Only the solitary and diminishing rows of lanterns could be seen vanishing into the street in the distance. The lanterns of that date resembled large red stars, hanging to ropes, and shed upon the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge spider. These streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles of guns, moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. No curious observer passed that limit. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and the army began. Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been summoned, he must go. He found a means to traverse the throng and to pass the bivouac of the troops, he shunned the patrols, he avoided the sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue de Bthisy, and directed his course towards the Halles. At the corner of the Rue des Bourdonnais, there were no longer any lanterns. After having passed the zone of the crowd, he had passed the limits of the troops he found himself in something startling. There was no longer a passerby, no longer a soldier, no longer a light, there was no one solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill which seized hold upon one. Entering a street was like entering a cellar. He continued to advance. He took a few steps. Some one passed close to him at a run. Was it a man? Or a woman? Were there many of them? he could not have told. It had passed and vanished. Proceeding from circuit to circuit, he reached a lane which he judged to be the Rue de la Poterie near the middle of this street, he came in contact with an obstacle. He extended his hands. It was an overturned wagon his foot recognized pools of water, gullies, and pavingstones scattered and piled up. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. He climbed over the stones and found himself on the other side of the barrier. He walked very near the streetposts, and guided himself along the walls of the houses. A little beyond the barricade, it seemed to him that he could make out something white in front of him. He approached, it took on a form. It was two white horses the horses of the omnibus harnessed by Bossuet in the morning, who had been straying at random all day from street to street, and had finally halted there, with the weary patience of brutes who no more understand the actions of men, than man understands the actions of Providence. Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching a street which seemed to him to be the Rue du ContratSocial, a shot coming no one knows whence, and traversing the darkness at random, whistled close by him, and the bullet pierced a brass shavingdish suspended above his head over a hairdresser's shop. This pierced shavingdish was still to be seen in , in the Rue du ContratSocial, at the corner of the pillars of the market. This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he encountered nothing more. The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps. Nevertheless, Marius pressed forward. A being who could have hovered over Paris that night with the wing of the bat or the owl would have had beneath his eyes a gloomy spectacle. All that old quarter of the Halles, which is like a city within a city, through which run the Rues SaintDenis and SaintMartin, where a thousand lanes cross, and of which the insurgents had made their redoubt and their stronghold, would have appeared to him like a dark and enormous cavity hollowed out in the centre of Paris. There the glance fell into an abyss. Thanks to the broken lanterns, thanks to the closed windows, there all radiance, all life, all sound, all movement ceased. The invisible police of the insurrection were on the watch everywhere, and maintained order, that is to say, night. The necessary tactics of insurrection are to drown small numbers in a vast obscurity, to multiply every combatant by the possibilities which that obscurity contains. At dusk, every window where a candle was burning received a shot. The light was extinguished, sometimes the inhabitant was killed. Hence nothing was stirring. There was nothing but fright, mourning, stupor in the houses and in the streets, a sort of sacred horror. Not even the long rows of windows and stores, the indentations of the chimneys, and the roofs, and the vague reflections which are cast back by the wet and muddy pavements, were visible. An eye cast upward at that mass of shadows might, perhaps, have caught a glimpse here and there, at intervals, of indistinct gleams which brought out broken and eccentric lines, and profiles of singular buildings, something like the lights which go and come in ruins it was at such points that the barricades were situated. The rest was a lake of obscurity, foggy, heavy, and funereal, above which, in motionless and melancholy outlines, rose the tower of SaintJacques, the church of SaintMerry, and two or three more of those grand edifices of which man makes giants and the night makes phantoms. All around this deserted and disquieting labyrinth, in the quarters where the Parisian circulation had not been annihilated, and where a few street lanterns still burned, the aerial observer might have distinguished the metallic gleam of swords and bayonets, the dull rumble of artillery, and the swarming of silent battalions whose ranks were swelling from minute to minute a formidable girdle which was slowly drawing in and around the insurrection. The invested quarter was no longer anything more than a monstrous cavern everything there appeared to be asleep or motionless, and, as we have just seen, any street which one might come to offered nothing but darkness. A wild darkness, full of traps, full of unseen and formidable shocks, into which it was alarming to penetrate, and in which it was terrible to remain, where those who entered shivered before those whom they awaited, where those who waited shuddered before those who were coming. Invisible combatants were entrenched at every corner of the street snares of the sepulchre concealed in the density of night. All was over. No more light was to be hoped for, henceforth, except the lightning of guns, no further encounter except the abrupt and rapid apparition of death. Where? How? When? No one knew, but it was certain and inevitable. In this place which had been marked out for the struggle, the Government and the insurrection, the National Guard, and popular societies, the bourgeois and the uprising, groping their way, were about to come into contact. The necessity was the same for both. The only possible issue thenceforth was to emerge thence killed or conquerors. A situation so extreme, an obscurity so powerful, that the most timid felt themselves seized with resolution, and the most daring with terror. Moreover, on both sides, the fury, the rage, and the determination were equal. For the one party, to advance meant death, and no one dreamed of retreating for the other, to remain meant death, and no one dreamed of flight. It was indispensable that all should be ended on the following day, that triumph should rest either here or there, that the insurrection should prove itself a revolution or a skirmish. The Government understood this as well as the parties the most insignificant bourgeois felt it. Hence a thought of anguish which mingled with the impenetrable gloom of this quarter where all was at the point of being decided hence a redoubled anxiety around that silence whence a catastrophe was on the point of emerging. Here only one sound was audible, a sound as heartrending as the death rattle, as menacing as a malediction, the tocsin of SaintMerry. Nothing could be more bloodcurdling than the clamor of that wild and desperate bell, wailing amid the shadows. As it often happens, nature seemed to have fallen into accord with what men were about to do. Nothing disturbed the harmony of the whole effect. The stars had disappeared, heavy clouds filled the horizon with their melancholy folds. A black sky rested on these dead streets, as though an immense windingsheet were being outspread over this immense tomb. While a battle that was still wholly political was in preparation in the same locality which had already witnessed so many revolutionary events, while youth, the secret associations, the schools, in the name of principles, and the middle classes, in the name of interests, were approaching preparatory to dashing themselves together, clasping and throwing each other, while each one hastened and invited the last and decisive hour of the crisis, far away and quite outside of this fatal quarter, in the most profound depths of the unfathomable cavities of that wretched old Paris which disappears under the splendor of happy and opulent Paris, the sombre voice of the people could be heard giving utterance to a dull roar. A fearful and sacred voice which is composed of the roar of the brute and of the word of God, which terrifies the weak and which warns the wise, which comes both from below like the voice of the lion, and from on high like the voice of the thunder. Marius had reached the Halles. There everything was still calmer, more obscure and more motionless than in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial peace of the sepulchre had sprung forth from the earth and had spread over the heavens. Nevertheless, a red glow brought out against this black background the lofty roofs of the houses which barred the Rue de la Chanvrerie on the SaintEustache side. It was the reflection of the torch which was burning in the Corinthe barricade. Marius directed his steps towards that red light. It had drawn him to the MarchauxPoires, and he caught a glimpse of the dark mouth of the Rue des Prcheurs. He entered it. The insurgents' sentinel, who was guarding the other end, did not see him. He felt that he was very close to that which he had come in search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow of that short section of the Rue Mondtour which was, as the reader will remember, the only communication which Enjolras had preserved with the outside world. At the corner of the last house, on his left, he thrust his head forward, and looked into the fragment of the Rue Mondtour. A little beyond the angle of the lane and the Rue de la Chanvrerie which cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed, he perceived some light on the pavement, a bit of the wineshop, and beyond, a flickering lamp within a sort of shapeless wall, and men crouching down with guns on their knees. All this was ten fathoms distant from him. It was the interior of the barricade. The houses which bordered the lane on the right concealed the rest of the wineshop, the large barricade, and the flag from him. Marius had but a step more to take. Then the unhappy young man seated himself on a post, folded his arms, and fell to thinking about his father. He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy, who had been so proud a soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and had touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had beheld Genoa, Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, who had left on all the victorious battlefields of Europe drops of that same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray before his time in discipline and command, who had lived with his swordbelt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade blackened with powder, his brow furrowed with his helmet, in barracks, in camp, in the bivouac, in ambulances, and who, at the expiration of twenty years, had returned from the great wars with a scarred cheek, a smiling countenance, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done everything for France and nothing against her. He said to himself that his day had also come now, that his hour had struck, that following his father, he too was about to show himself brave, intrepid, bold, to run to meet the bullets, to offer his breast to bayonets, to shed his blood, to seek the enemy, to seek death, that he was about to wage war in his turn and descend to the field of battle, and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the street, and that the war in which he was about to engage was civil war! He beheld civil war laid open like a gulf before him, and into this he was about to fall. Then he shuddered. He thought of his father's sword, which his grandfather had sold to a secondhand dealer, and which he had so mournfully regretted. He said to himself that that chaste and valiant sword had done well to escape from him, and to depart in wrath into the gloom that if it had thus fled, it was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the future that it had had a presentiment of this rebellion, the war of the gutters, the war of the pavements, fusillades through cellarwindows, blows given and received in the rear it was because, coming from Marengo and Friedland, it did not wish to go to the Rue de la Chanvrerie it was because, after what it had done with the father, it did not wish to do this for the son! He told himself that if that sword were there, if after taking possession of it at his father's pillow, he had dared to take it and carry it off for this combat of darkness between Frenchmen in the streets, it would assuredly have scorched his hands and burst out aflame before his eyes, like the sword of the angel! He told himself that it was fortunate that it was not there and that it had disappeared, that that was well, that that was just, that his grandfather had been the true guardian of his father's glory, and that it was far better that the colonel's sword should be sold at auction, sold to the oldclothes man, thrown among the old junk, than that it should, today, wound the side of his country. And then he fell to weeping bitterly. This was horrible. But what was he to do? Live without Cosette he could not. Since she was gone, he must needs die. Had he not given her his word of honor that he would die? She had gone knowing that this meant that it pleased her that Marius should die. And then, it was clear that she no longer loved him, since she had departed thus without warning, without a word, without a letter, although she knew his address! What was the good of living, and why should he live now? And then, what! should he retreat after going so far? should he flee from danger after having approached it? should he slip away after having come and peeped into the barricade? slip away, all in a tremble, saying 'After all, I have had enough of it as it is. I have seen it, that suffices, this is civil war, and I shall take my leave! Should he abandon his friends who were expecting him? Who were in need of him possibly! who were a mere handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love, to country, to his word? Should he give to his cowardice the pretext of patriotism? But this was impossible, and if the phantom of his father was there in the gloom, and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on the loins with the flat of his sword, and shout to him 'March on, you poltroon! Thus a prey to the conflicting movements of his thoughts, he dropped his head. All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just been effected in his mind. There is a widening of the sphere of thought which is peculiar to the vicinity of the grave it makes one see clearly to be near death. The vision of the action into which he felt that he was, perhaps, on the point of entering, appeared to him no more as lamentable, but as superb. The war of the street was suddenly transfigured by some unfathomable inward working of his soul, before the eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of reverie recurred to him in throngs, but without troubling him. He left none of them unanswered. Let us see, why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases where insurrection rises to the dignity of duty? What was there that was degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy in the combat which was about to begin? It is no longer Montmirail nor Champaubert it is something quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory,but of a holy idea. The country wails, that may be, but humanity applauds. But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty smiles and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her wound. And then if we look at things from a still more lofty point of view, why do we speak of civil war? Civil warwhat does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war between men, war between brothers? War is qualified only by its object. There is no such thing as foreign or civil war there is only just and unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, war, that at least which is the effort of the future, which is hastening on against the past, which is lagging in the rear, may be necessary. What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become a disgrace, the sword does not become a disgrace, except when it is used for assassinating the right, progress, reason, civilization, truth. Then war, whether foreign or civil, is iniquitous it is called crime. Outside the pale of that holy thing, justice, by what right does one form of man despise another? By what right should the sword of Washington disown the pike of Camille Desmoulins? Leonidas against the stranger, Timoleon against the tyrant, which is the greater? the one is the defender, the other the liberator. Shall we brand every appeal to arms within a city's limits without taking the object into a consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von Blankenheim, Coligny, Hedgerow war? War of the streets? Why not? That was the war of Ambiorix, of Artevelde, of Marnix, of Pelagius. But Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against Spain, Pelagius against the Moors all against the foreigner. Well, the monarchy is a foreigner oppression is a stranger the right divine is a stranger. Despotism violates the moral frontier, an invasion violates the geographical frontier. Driving out the tyrant or driving out the English, in both cases, regaining possession of one's own territory. There comes an hour when protestation no longer suffices after philosophy, action is required live force finishes what the idea has sketched out Prometheus chained begins, Arostogeiton ends the encyclopedia enlightens souls, the th of August electrifies them. After schylus, Thrasybulus after Diderot, Danton. Multitudes have a tendency to accept the master. Their mass bears witness to apathy. A crowd is easily led as a whole to obedience. Men must be stirred up, pushed on, treated roughly by the very benefit of their deliverance, their eyes must be wounded by the true, light must be hurled at them in terrible handfuls. They must be a little thunderstruck themselves at their own wellbeing this dazzling awakens them. Hence the necessity of tocsins and wars. Great combatants must rise, must enlighten nations with audacity, and shake up that sad humanity which is covered with gloom by the right divine, Csarian glory, force, fanaticism, irresponsible power, and absolute majesty a rabble stupidly occupied in the contemplation, in their twilight splendor, of these sombre triumphs of the night. Down with the tyrant! Of whom are you speaking? Do you call Louis Philippe the tyrant? No no more than Louis XVI. Both of them are what history is in the habit of calling good kings but principles are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is rectilinear, the peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance no concessions, then all encroachments on man should be repressed. There is a divine right in Louis XVI., there is because a Bourbon in Louis Philippe both represent in a certain measure the confiscation of right, and, in order to clear away universal insurrection, they must be combated it must be done, France being always the one to begin. When the master falls in France, he falls everywhere. In short, what cause is more just, and consequently, what war is greater, than that which reestablishes social truth, restores her throne to liberty, restores the people to the people, restores sovereignty to man, replaces the purple on the head of France, restores equity and reason in their plenitude, suppresses every germ of antagonism by restoring each one to himself, annihilates the obstacle which royalty presents to the whole immense universal concord, and places the human race once more on a level with the right? These wars build up peace. An enormous fortress of prejudices, privileges, superstitions, lies, exactions, abuses, violences, iniquities, and darkness still stands erect in this world, with its towers of hatred. It must be cast down. This monstrous mass must be made to crumble. To conquer at Austerlitz is grand to take the Bastille is immense. There is no one who has not noticed it in his own casethe soul,and therein lies the marvel of its unity complicated with ubiquity, has a strange aptitude for reasoning almost coldly in the most violent extremities, and it often happens that heartbroken passion and profound despair in the very agony of their blackest monologues, treat subjects and discuss theses. Logic is mingled with convulsion, and the thread of the syllogism floats, without breaking, in the mournful storm of thought. This was the situation of Marius' mind. As he meditated thus, dejected but resolute, hesitating in every direction, and, in short, shuddering at what he was about to do, his glance strayed to the interior of the barricade. The insurgents were here conversing in a low voice, without moving, and there was perceptible that quasisilence which marks the last stage of expectation. Overhead, at the small window in the third story Marius descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly attentive. This was the porter who had been killed by Le Cabuc. Below, by the lights of the torch, which was thrust between the pavingstones, this head could be vaguely distinguished. Nothing could be stranger, in that sombre and uncertain gleam, than that livid, motionless, astonished face, with its bristling hair, its eyes fixed and staring, and its yawning mouth, bent over the street in an attitude of curiosity. One would have said that the man who was dead was surveying those who were about to die. A long trail of blood which had flowed from that head, descended in reddish threads from the window to the height of the first floor, where it stopped. As yet, nothing had come. Ten o'clock had sounded from SaintMerry. Enjolras and Combeferre had gone and seated themselves, carbines in hand, near the outlet of the grand barricade. They no longer addressed each other, they listened, seeking to catch even the faintest and most distant sound of marching. Suddenly, in the midst of the dismal calm, a clear, gay, young voice, which seemed to come from the Rue SaintDenis, rose and began to sing distinctly, to the old popular air of 'By the Light of the Moon, this bit of poetry, terminated by a cry like the crow of a cock Mon nez est en larmes, Mon ami Bugeaud, Prte moi tes gendarmes Pour leur dire un mot. En capote bleue, La poule au shako, Voici la banlieue! Cococorico! They pressed each other's hands. 'That is Gavroche, said Enjolras. 'He is warning us, said Combeferre. A hasty rush troubled the deserted street they beheld a being more agile than a clown climb over the omnibus, and Gavroche bounded into the barricade, all breathless, saying 'My gun! Here they are! An electric quiver shot through the whole barricade, and the sound of hands seeking their guns became audible. 'Would you like my carbine? said Enjolras to the lad. 'I want a big gun, replied Gavroche. And he seized Javert's gun. Two sentinels had fallen back, and had come in almost at the same moment as Gavroche. They were the sentinels from the end of the street, and the vidette of the Rue de la PetiteTruanderie. The vidette of the Lane des Prcheurs had remained at his post, which indicated that nothing was approaching from the direction of the bridges and Halles. The Rue de la Chanvrerie, of which a few pavingstones alone were dimly visible in the reflection of the light projected on the flag, offered to the insurgents the aspect of a vast black door vaguely opened into a smoke. Each man had taken up his position for the conflict. Fortythree insurgents, among whom were Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and Gavroche, were kneeling inside the large barricade, with their heads on a level with the crest of the barrier, the barrels of their guns and carbines aimed on the stones as though at loopholes, attentive, mute, ready to fire. Six, commanded by Feuilly, had installed themselves, with their guns levelled at their shoulders, at the windows of the two stories of Corinthe. Several minutes passed thus, then a sound of footsteps, measured, heavy, and numerous, became distinctly audible in the direction of SaintLeu. This sound, faint at first, then precise, then heavy and sonorous, approached slowly, without halt, without intermission, with a tranquil and terrible continuity. Nothing was to be heard but this. It was that combined silence and sound, of the statue of the commander, but this stony step had something indescribably enormous and multiple about it which awakened the idea of a throng, and, at the same time, the idea of a spectre. One thought one heard the terrible statue Legion marching onward. This tread drew near it drew still nearer, and stopped. It seemed as though the breathing of many men could be heard at the end of the street. Nothing was to be seen, however, but at the bottom of that dense obscurity there could be distinguished a multitude of metallic threads, as fine as needles and almost imperceptible, which moved about like those indescribable phosphoric networks which one sees beneath one's closed eyelids, in the first mists of slumber at the moment when one is dropping off to sleep. These were bayonets and gunbarrels confusedly illuminated by the distant reflection of the torch. A pause ensued, as though both sides were waiting. All at once, from the depths of this darkness, a voice, which was all the more sinister, since no one was visible, and which appeared to be the gloom itself speaking, shouted 'Who goes there? At the same time, the click of guns, as they were lowered into position, was heard. Enjolras replied in a haughty and vibrating tone 'The French Revolution! 'Fire! shouted the voice. A flash empurpled all the faades in the street as though the door of a furnace had been flung open, and hastily closed again. A fearful detonation burst forth on the barricade. The red flag fell. The discharge had been so violent and so dense that it had cut the staff, that is to say, the very tip of the omnibus pole. Bullets which had rebounded from the cornices of the houses penetrated the barricade and wounded several men. The impression produced by this first discharge was freezing. The attack had been rough, and of a nature to inspire reflection in the boldest. It was evident that they had to deal with an entire regiment at the very least. 'Comrades! shouted Courfeyrac, 'let us not waste our powder. Let us wait until they are in the street before replying. 'And, above all, said Enjolras, 'let us raise the flag again. He picked up the flag, which had fallen precisely at his feet. Outside, the clatter of the ramrods in the guns could be heard the troops were reloading their arms. Enjolras went on 'Who is there here with a bold heart? Who will plant the flag on the barricade again? Not a man responded. To mount on the barricade at the very moment when, without any doubt, it was again the object of their aim, was simply death. The bravest hesitated to pronounce his own condemnation. Enjolras himself felt a thrill. He repeated 'Does no one volunteer? Since they had arrived at Corinthe, and had begun the construction of the barricade, no attention had been paid to Father Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf had not quitted the mob, however he had entered the ground floor of the wineshop and had seated himself behind the counter. There he had, so to speak, retreated into himself. He no longer seemed to look or to think. Courfeyrac and others had accosted him two or three times, warning him of his peril, beseeching him to withdraw, but he did not hear them. When they were not speaking to him, his mouth moved as though he were replying to some one, and as soon as he was addressed, his lips became motionless and his eyes no longer had the appearance of being alive. Several hours before the barricade was attacked, he had assumed an attitude which he did not afterwards abandon, with both fists planted on his knees and his head thrust forward as though he were gazing over a precipice. Nothing had been able to move him from this attitude it did not seem as though his mind were in the barricade. When each had gone to take up his position for the combat, there remained in the taproom where Javert was bound to the post, only a single insurgent with a naked sword, watching over Javert, and himself, Mabeuf. At the moment of the attack, at the detonation, the physical shock had reached him and had, as it were, awakened him he started up abruptly, crossed the room, and at the instant when Enjolras repeated his appeal 'Does no one volunteer? the old man was seen to make his appearance on the threshold of the wineshop. His presence produced a sort of commotion in the different groups. A shout went up 'It is the voter! It is the member of the Convention! It is the representative of the people! It is probable that he did not hear them. He strode straight up to Enjolras, the insurgents withdrawing before him with a religious fear he tore the flag from Enjolras, who recoiled in amazement and then, since no one dared to stop or to assist him, this old man of eighty, with shaking head but firm foot, began slowly to ascend the staircase of pavingstones arranged in the barricade. This was so melancholy and so grand that all around him cried 'Off with your hats! At every step that he mounted, it was a frightful spectacle his white locks, his decrepit face, his lofty, bald, and wrinkled brow, his amazed and open mouth, his aged arm upholding the red banner, rose through the gloom and were enlarged in the bloody light of the torch, and the bystanders thought that they beheld the spectre of ' emerging from the earth, with the flag of terror in his hand. When he had reached the last step, when this trembling and terrible phantom, erect on that pile of rubbish in the presence of twelve hundred invisible guns, drew himself up in the face of death and as though he were more powerful than it, the whole barricade assumed amid the darkness, a supernatural and colossal form. There ensued one of those silences which occur only in the presence of prodigies. In the midst of this silence, the old man waved the red flag and shouted 'Long live the Revolution! Long live the Republic! Fraternity! Equality! and Death! Those in the barricade heard a low and rapid whisper, like the murmur of a priest who is despatching a prayer in haste. It was probably the commissary of police who was making the legal summons at the other end of the street. Then the same piercing voice which had shouted 'Who goes there? shouted 'Retire! M. Mabeuf, pale, haggard, his eyes lighted up with the mournful flame of aberration, raised the flag above his head and repeated 'Long live the Republic! 'Fire! said the voice. A second discharge, similar to the first, rained down upon the barricade. The old man fell on his knees, then rose again, dropped the flag and fell backwards on the pavement, like a log, at full length, with outstretched arms. Rivulets of blood flowed beneath him. His aged head, pale and sad, seemed to be gazing at the sky. One of those emotions which are superior to man, which make him forget even to defend himself, seized upon the insurgents, and they approached the body with respectful awe. 'What men these regicides were! said Enjolras. Courfeyrac bent down to Enjolras' ear 'This is for yourself alone, I do not wish to dampen the enthusiasm. But this man was anything rather than a regicide. I knew him. His name was Father Mabeuf. I do not know what was the matter with him today. But he was a brave blockhead. Just look at his head. 'The head of a blockhead and the heart of a Brutus, replied Enjolras. Then he raised his voice 'Citizens! This is the example which the old give to the young. We hesitated, he came! We were drawing back, he advanced! This is what those who are trembling with age teach to those who tremble with fear! This aged man is august in the eyes of his country. He has had a long life and a magnificent death! Now, let us place the body under cover, that each one of us may defend this old man dead as he would his father living, and may his presence in our midst render the barricade impregnable! A murmur of gloomy and energetic assent followed these words. Enjolras bent down, raised the old man's head, and fierce as he was, he kissed him on the brow, then, throwing wide his arms, and handling this dead man with tender precaution, as though he feared to hurt it, he removed his coat, showed the bloody holes in it to all, and said 'This is our flag now. They threw a long black shawl of Widow Hucheloup's over Father Mabeuf. Six men made a litter of their guns on this they laid the body, and bore it, with bared heads, with solemn slowness, to the large table in the taproom. These men, wholly absorbed in the grave and sacred task in which they were engaged, thought no more of the perilous situation in which they stood. When the corpse passed near Javert, who was still impassive, Enjolras said to the spy 'It will be your turn presently! During all this time, Little Gavroche, who alone had not quitted his post, but had remained on guard, thought he espied some men stealthily approaching the barricade. All at once he shouted 'Look out! Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, Joly, Bahorel, Bossuet, and all the rest ran tumultuously from the wineshop. It was almost too late. They saw a glistening density of bayonets undulating above the barricade. Municipal guards of lofty stature were making their way in, some striding over the omnibus, others through the cut, thrusting before them the urchin, who retreated, but did not flee. The moment was critical. It was that first, redoubtable moment of inundation, when the stream rises to the level of the levee and when the water begins to filter through the fissures of dike. A second more and the barricade would have been taken. Bahorel dashed upon the first municipal guard who was entering, and killed him on the spot with a blow from his gun the second killed Bahorel with a blow from his bayonet. Another had already overthrown Courfeyrac, who was shouting 'Follow me! The largest of all, a sort of colossus, marched on Gavroche with his bayonet fixed. The urchin took in his arms Javert's immense gun, levelled it resolutely at the giant, and fired. No discharge followed. Javert's gun was not loaded. The municipal guard burst into a laugh and raised his bayonet at the child. Before the bayonet had touched Gavroche, the gun slipped from the soldier's grasp, a bullet had struck the municipal guardsman in the centre of the forehead, and he fell over on his back. A second bullet struck the other guard, who had assaulted Courfeyrac in the breast, and laid him low on the pavement. This was the work of Marius, who had just entered the barricade. Marius, still concealed in the turn of the Rue Mondtour, had witnessed, shuddering and irresolute, the first phase of the combat. But he had not long been able to resist that mysterious and sovereign vertigo which may be designated as the call of the abyss. In the presence of the imminence of the peril, in the presence of the death of M. Mabeuf, that melancholy enigma, in the presence of Bahorel killed, and Courfeyrac shouting 'Follow me! of that child threatened, of his friends to succor or to avenge, all hesitation had vanished, and he had flung himself into the conflict, his two pistols in hand. With his first shot he had saved Gavroche, and with the second delivered Courfeyrac. Amid the sound of the shots, amid the cries of the assaulted guards, the assailants had climbed the entrenchment, on whose summit Municipal Guards, soldiers of the line and National Guards from the suburbs could now be seen, gun in hand, rearing themselves to more than half the height of their bodies. They already covered more than twothirds of the barrier, but they did not leap into the enclosure, as though wavering in the fear of some trap. They gazed into the dark barricade as one would gaze into a lion's den. The light of the torch illuminated only their bayonets, their bearskin caps, and the upper part of their uneasy and angry faces. Marius had no longer any weapons he had flung away his discharged pistols after firing them but he had caught sight of the barrel of powder in the taproom, near the door. As he turned half round, gazing in that direction, a soldier took aim at him. At the moment when the soldier was sighting Marius, a hand was laid on the muzzle of the gun and obstructed it. This was done by some one who had darted forward,the young workman in velvet trousers. The shot sped, traversed the hand and possibly, also, the workman, since he fell, but the ball did not strike Marius. All this, which was rather to be apprehended than seen through the smoke, Marius, who was entering the taproom, hardly noticed. Still, he had, in a confused way, perceived that gunbarrel aimed at him, and the hand which had blocked it, and he had heard the discharge. But in moments like this, the things which one sees vacillate and are precipitated, and one pauses for nothing. One feels obscurely impelled towards more darkness still, and all is cloud. The insurgents, surprised but not terrified, had rallied. Enjolras had shouted 'Wait! Don't fire at random! In the first confusion, they might, in fact, wound each other. The majority of them had ascended to the window on the first story and to the attic windows, whence they commanded the assailants. The most determined, with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, and Combeferre, had proudly placed themselves with their backs against the houses at the rear, unsheltered and facing the ranks of soldiers and guards who crowned the barricade. All this was accomplished without haste, with that strange and threatening gravity which precedes engagements. They took aim, point blank, on both sides they were so close that they could talk together without raising their voices. When they had reached this point where the spark is on the brink of darting forth, an officer in a gorget extended his sword and said 'Lay down your arms! 'Fire! replied Enjolras. The two discharges took place at the same moment, and all disappeared in smoke. An acrid and stifling smoke in which dying and wounded lay with weak, dull groans. When the smoke cleared away, the combatants on both sides could be seen to be thinned out, but still in the same positions, reloading in silence. All at once, a thundering voice was heard, shouting 'Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade! All turned in the direction whence the voice proceeded. Marius had entered the taproom, and had seized the barrel of powder, then he had taken advantage of the smoke, and the sort of obscure mist which filled the entrenched enclosure, to glide along the barricade as far as that cage of pavingstones where the torch was fixed. To tear it from the torch, to replace it by the barrel of powder, to thrust the pile of stones under the barrel, which was instantly staved in, with a sort of horrible obedience,all this had cost Marius but the time necessary to stoop and rise again and now all, National Guards, Municipal Guards, officers, soldiers, huddled at the other extremity of the barricade, gazed stupidly at him, as he stood with his foot on the stones, his torch in his hand, his haughty face illuminated by a fatal resolution, drooping the flame of the torch towards that redoubtable pile where they could make out the broken barrel of powder, and giving vent to that startling cry 'Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade! Marius on that barricade after the octogenarian was the vision of the young revolution after the apparition of the old. 'Blow up the barricade! said a sergeant, 'and yourself with it! Marius retorted 'And myself also. And he dropped the torch towards the barrel of powder. But there was no longer any one on the barrier. The assailants, abandoning their dead and wounded, flowed back pellmell and in disorder towards the extremity of the street, and there were again lost in the night. It was a headlong flight. The barricade was free. All flocked around Marius. Courfeyrac flung himself on his neck. 'Here you are! 'What luck! said Combeferre. 'You came in opportunely! ejaculated Bossuet. 'If it had not been for you, I should have been dead! began Courfeyrac again. 'If it had not been for you, I should have been gobbled up! added Gavroche. Marius asked 'Where is the chief? 'You are he! said Enjolras. Marius had had a furnace in his brain all day long now it was a whirlwind. This whirlwind which was within him, produced on him the effect of being outside of him and of bearing him away. It seemed to him that he was already at an immense distance from life. His two luminous months of joy and love, ending abruptly at that frightful precipice, Cosette lost to him, that barricade, M. Mabeuf getting himself killed for the Republic, himself the leader of the insurgents,all these things appeared to him like a tremendous nightmare. He was obliged to make a mental effort to recall the fact that all that surrounded him was real. Marius had already seen too much of life not to know that nothing is more imminent than the impossible, and that what it is always necessary to foresee is the unforeseen. He had looked on at his own drama as a piece which one does not understand. In the mists which enveloped his thoughts, he did not recognize Javert, who, bound to his post, had not so much as moved his head during the whole of the attack on the barricade, and who had gazed on the revolt seething around him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of a judge. Marius had not even seen him. In the meanwhile, the assailants did not stir, they could be heard marching and swarming through at the end of the street but they did not venture into it, either because they were awaiting orders or because they were awaiting reinforcements before hurling themselves afresh on this impregnable redoubt. The insurgents had posted sentinels, and some of them, who were medical students, set about caring for the wounded. They had thrown the tables out of the wineshop, with the exception of the two tables reserved for lint and cartridges, and of the one on which lay Father Mabeuf they had added them to the barricade, and had replaced them in the taproom with mattresses from the bed of the widow Hucheloup and her servants. On these mattresses they had laid the wounded. As for the three poor creatures who inhabited Corinthe, no one knew what had become of them. They were finally found, however, hidden in the cellar. A poignant emotion clouded the joy of the disencumbered barricade. The roll was called. One of the insurgents was missing. And who was it? One of the dearest. One of the most valiant. Jean Prouvaire. He was sought among the wounded, he was not there. He was sought among the dead, he was not there. He was evidently a prisoner. Combeferre said to Enjolras 'They have our friend we have their agent. Are you set on the death of that spy? 'Yes, replied Enjolras 'but less so than on the life of Jean Prouvaire. This took place in the taproom near Javert's post. 'Well, resumed Combeferre, 'I am going to fasten my handkerchief to my cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for theirs. 'Listen, said Enjolras, laying his hand on Combeferre's arm. At the end of the street there was a significant clash of arms. They heard a manly voice shout 'Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future! They recognized the voice of Prouvaire. A flash passed, a report rang out. Silence fell again. 'They have killed him, exclaimed Combeferre. Enjolras glanced at Javert, and said to him 'Your friends have just shot you. A peculiarity of this species of war is, that the attack of the barricades is almost always made from the front, and that the assailants generally abstain from turning the position, either because they fear ambushes, or because they are afraid of getting entangled in the tortuous streets. The insurgents' whole attention had been directed, therefore, to the grand barricade, which was, evidently, the spot always menaced, and there the struggle would infallibly recommence. But Marius thought of the little barricade, and went thither. It was deserted and guarded only by the firepot which trembled between the pavingstones. Moreover, the Mondtour alley, and the branches of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie and the Rue du Cygne were profoundly calm. As Marius was withdrawing, after concluding his inspection, he heard his name pronounced feebly in the darkness. 'Monsieur Marius! He started, for he recognized the voice which had called to him two hours before through the gate in the Rue Plumet. Only, the voice now seemed to be nothing more than a breath. He looked about him, but saw no one. Marius thought he had been mistaken, that it was an illusion added by his mind to the extraordinary realities which were clashing around him. He advanced a step, in order to quit the distant recess where the barricade lay. 'Monsieur Marius! repeated the voice. This time he could not doubt that he had heard it distinctly he looked and saw nothing. 'At your feet, said the voice. He bent down, and saw in the darkness a form which was dragging itself towards him. It was crawling along the pavement. It was this that had spoken to him. The firepot allowed him to distinguish a blouse, torn trousers of coarse velvet, bare feet, and something which resembled a pool of blood. Marius indistinctly made out a pale head which was lifted towards him and which was saying to him 'You do not recognize me? 'No. 'ponine. Marius bent hastily down. It was, in fact, that unhappy child. She was dressed in men's clothes. 'How come you here? What are you doing here? 'I am dying, said she. There are words and incidents which arouse dejected beings. Marius cried out with a start 'You are wounded! Wait, I will carry you into the room! They will attend to you there. Is it serious? How must I take hold of you in order not to hurt you? Where do you suffer? Help! My God! But why did you come hither? And he tried to pass his arm under her, in order to raise her. She uttered a feeble cry. 'Have I hurt you? asked Marius. 'A little. 'But I only touched your hand. She raised her hand to Marius, and in the middle of that hand Marius saw a black hole. 'What is the matter with your hand? said he. 'It is pierced. 'Pierced? 'Yes. 'What with? 'A bullet. 'How? 'Did you see a gun aimed at you? 'Yes, and a hand stopping it. 'It was mine. Marius was seized with a shudder. 'What madness! Poor child! But so much the better, if that is all, it is nothing, let me carry you to a bed. They will dress your wound one does not die of a pierced hand. She murmured 'The bullet traversed my hand, but it came out through my back. It is useless to remove me from this spot. I will tell you how you can care for me better than any surgeon. Sit down near me on this stone. He obeyed she laid her head on Marius' knees, and, without looking at him, she said 'Oh! How good this is! How comfortable this is! There I no longer suffer. She remained silent for a moment, then she turned her face with an effort, and looked at Marius. 'Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered that garden it was stupid, because it was I who showed you that house and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you She paused, and overstepping the sombre transitions that undoubtedly existed in her mind, she resumed with a heartrending smile 'You thought me ugly, didn't you? She continued 'You see, you are lost! Now, no one can get out of the barricade. It was I who led you here, by the way! You are going to die, I count upon that. And yet, when I saw them taking aim at you, I put my hand on the muzzle of the gun. How queer it is! But it was because I wanted to die before you. When I received that bullet, I dragged myself here, no one saw me, no one picked me up, I was waiting for you, I said 'So he is not coming!' Oh, if you only knew. I bit my blouse, I suffered so! Now I am well. Do you remember the day I entered your chamber and when I looked at myself in your mirror, and the day when I came to you on the boulevard near the washerwomen? How the birds sang! That was a long time ago. You gave me a hundred sous, and I said to you 'I don't want your money.' I hope you picked up your coin? You are not rich. I did not think to tell you to pick it up. The sun was shining bright, and it was not cold. Do you remember, Monsieur Marius? Oh! How happy I am! Every one is going to die. She had a mad, grave, and heartbreaking air. Her torn blouse disclosed her bare throat. As she talked, she pressed her pierced hand to her breast, where there was another hole, and whence there spurted from moment to moment a stream of blood, like a jet of wine from an open bunghole. Marius gazed at this unfortunate creature with profound compassion. 'Oh! she resumed, 'it is coming again, I am stifling! She caught up her blouse and bit it, and her limbs stiffened on the pavement. At that moment the young cock's crow executed by little Gavroche resounded through the barricade. The child had mounted a table to load his gun, and was singing gayly the song then so popular 'En voyant Lafayette, Le gendarme rpte Sauvons nous! sauvons nous! sauvons nous! 'On beholding Lafayette, The gendarme repeats Let us flee! let us flee! let us flee! ponine raised herself and listened then she murmured 'It is he. And turning to Marius 'My brother is here. He must not see me. He would scold me. 'Your brother? inquired Marius, who was meditating in the most bitter and sorrowful depths of his heart on the duties to the Thnardiers which his father had bequeathed to him 'who is your brother? 'That little fellow. 'The one who is singing? 'Yes. Marius made a movement. 'Oh! don't go away, said she, 'it will not be long now. She was sitting almost upright, but her voice was very low and broken by hiccoughs. At intervals, the death rattle interrupted her. She put her face as near that of Marius as possible. She added with a strange expression 'Listen, I do not wish to play you a trick. I have a letter in my pocket for you. I was told to put it in the post. I kept it. I did not want to have it reach you. But perhaps you will be angry with me for it when we meet again presently? Take your letter. She grasped Marius' hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no longer seemed to feel her sufferings. She put Marius' hand in the pocket of her blouse. There, in fact, Marius felt a paper. 'Take it, said she. Marius took the letter. She made a sign of satisfaction and contentment. 'Now, for my trouble, promise me And she stopped. 'What? asked Marius. 'Promise me! 'I promise. 'Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.I shall feel it. She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. ponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world 'And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you. She tried to smile once more and expired. Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the icy perspiration stood in beads. This was no infidelity to Cosette it was a gentle and pensive farewell to an unhappy soul. It was not without a tremor that he had taken the letter which ponine had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight. He was impatient to read it. The heart of man is so constituted that the unhappy child had hardly closed her eyes when Marius began to think of unfolding this paper. He laid her gently on the ground, and went away. Something told him that he could not peruse that letter in the presence of that body. He drew near to a candle in the taproom. It was a small note, folded and sealed with a woman's elegant care. The address was in a woman's hand and ran 'To Monsieur, Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, at M. Courfeyrac's, Rue de la Verrerie, No. . He broke the seal and read 'My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . In a week we shall be in England. COSETTE. June th. Such was the innocence of their love that Marius was not even acquainted with Cosette's handwriting. What had taken place may be related in a few words. ponine had been the cause of everything. After the evening of the d of June she had cherished a double idea, to defeat the projects of her father and the ruffians on the house of the Rue Plumet, and to separate Marius and Cosette. She had exchanged rags with the first young scamp she came across who had thought it amusing to dress like a woman, while ponine disguised herself like a man. It was she who had conveyed to Jean Valjean in the Champ de Mars the expressive warning 'Leave your house. Jean Valjean had, in fact, returned home, and had said to Cosette 'We set out this evening and we go to the Rue de l'Homme Arm with Toussaint. Next week, we shall be in London. Cosette, utterly overwhelmed by this unexpected blow, had hastily penned a couple of lines to Marius. But how was she to get the letter to the post? She never went out alone, and Toussaint, surprised at such a commission, would certainly show the letter to M. Fauchelevent. In this dilemma, Cosette had caught sight through the fence of ponine in man's clothes, who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to 'this young workman and had handed him five francs and the letter, saying 'Carry this letter immediately to its address. ponine had put the letter in her pocket. The next day, on the th of June, she went to Courfeyrac's quarters to inquire for Marius, not for the purpose of delivering the letter, but,a thing which every jealous and loving soul will comprehend,'to see. There she had waited for Marius, or at least for Courfeyrac, still for the purpose of seeing. When Courfeyrac had told her 'We are going to the barricades, an idea flashed through her mind, to fling herself into that death, as she would have done into any other, and to thrust Marius into it also. She had followed Courfeyrac, had made sure of the locality where the barricade was in process of construction and, quite certain, since Marius had received no warning, and since she had intercepted the letter, that he would go at dusk to his trysting place for every evening, she had betaken herself to the Rue Plumet, had there awaited Marius, and had sent him, in the name of his friends, the appeal which would, she thought, lead him to the barricade. She reckoned on Marius' despair when he should fail to find Cosette she was not mistaken. She had returned to the Rue de la Chanvrerie herself. What she did there the reader has just seen. She died with the tragic joy of jealous hearts who drag the beloved being into their own death, and who say 'No one shall have him! Marius covered Cosette's letter with kisses. So she loved him! For one moment the idea occurred to him that he ought not to die now. Then he said to himself 'She is going away. Her father is taking her to England, and my grandfather refuses his consent to the marriage. Nothing is changed in our fates. Dreamers like Marius are subject to supreme attacks of dejection, and desperate resolves are the result. The fatigue of living is insupportable death is sooner over with. Then he reflected that he had still two duties to fulfil to inform Cosette of his death and send her a final farewell, and to save from the impending catastrophe which was in preparation, that poor child, ponine's brother and Thnardier's son. He had a pocketbook about him the same one which had contained the notebook in which he had inscribed so many thoughts of love for Cosette. He tore out a leaf and wrote on it a few lines in pencil 'Our marriage was impossible. I asked my grandfather, he refused I have no fortune, neither hast thou. I hastened to thee, thou wert no longer there. Thou knowest the promise that I gave thee, I shall keep it. I die. I love thee. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee, and thou wilt smile. Having nothing wherewith to seal this letter, he contented himself with folding the paper in four, and added the address 'To Mademoiselle Cosette Fauchelevent, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . Having folded the letter, he stood in thought for a moment, drew out his pocketbook again, opened it, and wrote, with the same pencil, these four lines on the first page 'My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. Gillenormand, Rue des FillesduCalvaire, No. , in the Marais. He put his pocketbook back in his pocket, then he called Gavroche. The gamin, at the sound of Marius' voice, ran up to him with his merry and devoted air. 'Will you do something for me? 'Anything, said Gavroche. 'Good God! if it had not been for you, I should have been done for. 'Do you see this letter? 'Yes. 'Take it. Leave the barricade instantly (Gavroche began to scratch his ear uneasily) 'and tomorrow morning, you will deliver it at its address to Mademoiselle Cosette, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . The heroic child replied 'Well, but! in the meanwhile the barricade will be taken, and I shall not be there. 'The barricade will not be attacked until daybreak, according to all appearances, and will not be taken before tomorrow noon. The fresh respite which the assailants were granting to the barricade had, in fact, been prolonged. It was one of those intermissions which frequently occur in nocturnal combats, which are always followed by an increase of rage. 'Well, said Gavroche, 'what if I were to go and carry your letter tomorrow? 'It will be too late. The barricade will probably be blockaded, all the streets will be guarded, and you will not be able to get out. Go at once. Gavroche could think of no reply to this, and stood there in indecision, scratching his ear sadly. All at once, he took the letter with one of those birdlike movements which were common with him. 'All right, said he. And he started off at a run through Mondtour lane. An idea had occurred to Gavroche which had brought him to a decision, but he had not mentioned it for fear that Marius might offer some objection to it. This was the idea 'It is barely midnight, the Rue de l'Homme Arm is not far off I will go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time. What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval. Every sort of gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, on the brink of an obscure and formidable revolution. A few hours had sufficed to bring this about. His destiny and his conscience had suddenly been covered with gloom. Of him also, as well as of Paris, it might have been said 'Two principles are face to face. The white angel and the black angel are about to seize each other on the bridge of the abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the day? On the evening preceding this same th of June, Jean Valjean, accompanied by Cosette and Toussaint had installed himself in the Rue de l'Homme Arm. A change awaited him there. Cosette had not quitted the Rue Plumet without making an effort at resistance. For the first time since they had lived side by side, Cosette's will and the will of Jean Valjean had proved to be distinct, and had been in opposition, at least, if they had not clashed. There had been objections on one side and inflexibility on the other. The abrupt advice 'Leave your house, hurled at Jean Valjean by a stranger, had alarmed him to the extent of rendering him peremptory. He thought that he had been traced and followed. Cosette had been obliged to give way. Both had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arm without opening their lips, and without uttering a word, each being absorbed in his own personal preoccupation Jean Valjean so uneasy that he did not notice Cosette's sadness, Cosette so sad that she did not notice Jean Valjean's uneasiness. Jean Valjean had taken Toussaint with him, a thing which he had never done in his previous absences. He perceived the possibility of not returning to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind nor confide his secret to her. Besides, he felt that she was devoted and trustworthy. Treachery between master and servant begins in curiosity. Now Toussaint, as though she had been destined to be Jean Valjean's servant, was not curious. She stammered in her peasant dialect of Barneville 'I am made so I do my work the rest is no affair of mine. In this departure from the Rue Plumet, which had been almost a flight, Jean Valjean had carried away nothing but the little embalmed valise, baptized by Cosette 'the inseparable. Full trunks would have required porters, and porters are witnesses. A fiacre had been summoned to the door on the Rue de Babylone, and they had taken their departure. It was with difficulty that Toussaint had obtained permission to pack up a little linen and clothes and a few toilet articles. Cosette had taken only her portfolio and her blottingbook. Jean Valjean, with a view to augmenting the solitude and the mystery of this departure, had arranged to quit the pavilion of the Rue Plumet only at dusk, which had allowed Cosette time to write her note to Marius. They had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arm after night had fully fallen. They had gone to bed in silence. The lodgings in the Rue de l'Homme Arm were situated on a back court, on the second floor, and were composed of two sleepingrooms, a diningroom and a kitchen adjoining the diningroom, with a garret where there was a foldingbed, and which fell to Toussaint's share. The diningroom was an antechamber as well, and separated the two bedrooms. The apartment was provided with all necessary utensils. People reacquire confidence as foolishly as they lose it human nature is so constituted. Hardly had Jean Valjean reached the Rue de l'Homme Arm when his anxiety was lightened and by degrees dissipated. There are soothing spots which act in some sort mechanically on the mind. An obscure street, peaceable inhabitants. Jean Valjean experienced an indescribable contagion of tranquillity in that alley of ancient Paris, which is so narrow that it is barred against carriages by a transverse beam placed on two posts, which is deaf and dumb in the midst of the clamorous city, dimly lighted at midday, and is, so to speak, incapable of emotions between two rows of lofty houses centuries old, which hold their peace like ancients as they are. There was a touch of stagnant oblivion in that street. Jean Valjean drew his breath once more there. How could he be found there? His first care was to place the inseparable beside him. He slept well. Night brings wisdom we may add, night soothes. On the following morning he awoke in a mood that was almost gay. He thought the diningroom charming, though it was hideous, furnished with an old round table, a long sideboard surmounted by a slanting mirror, a dilapidated armchair, and several plain chairs which were encumbered with Toussaint's packages. In one of these packages Jean Valjean's uniform of a National Guard was visible through a rent. As for Cosette, she had had Toussaint take some broth to her room, and did not make her appearance until evening. About five o'clock, Toussaint, who was going and coming and busying herself with the tiny establishment, set on the table a cold chicken, which Cosette, out of deference to her father, consented to glance at. That done, Cosette, under the pretext of an obstinate sick headache, had bade Jean Valjean good night and had shut herself up in her chamber. Jean Valjean had eaten a wing of the chicken with a good appetite, and with his elbows on the table, having gradually recovered his serenity, had regained possession of his sense of security. While he was discussing this modest dinner, he had, twice or thrice, noticed in a confused way, Toussaint's stammering words as she said to him 'Monsieur, there is something going on, they are fighting in Paris. But absorbed in a throng of inward calculations, he had paid no heed to it. To tell the truth, he had not heard her. He rose and began to pace from the door to the window and from the window to the door, growing ever more serene. With this calm, Cosette, his sole anxiety, recurred to his thoughts. Not that he was troubled by this headache, a little nervous crisis, a young girl's fit of sulks, the cloud of a moment, there would be nothing left of it in a day or two but he meditated on the future, and, as was his habit, he thought of it with pleasure. After all, he saw no obstacle to their happy life resuming its course. At certain hours, everything seems impossible, at others everything appears easy Jean Valjean was in the midst of one of these good hours. They generally succeed the bad ones, as day follows night, by virtue of that law of succession and of contrast which lies at the very foundation of nature, and which superficial minds call antithesis. In this peaceful street where he had taken refuge, Jean Valjean got rid of all that had been troubling him for some time past. This very fact, that he had seen many shadows, made him begin to perceive a little azure. To have quitted the Rue Plumet without complications or incidents was one good step already accomplished. Perhaps it would be wise to go abroad, if only for a few months, and to set out for London. Well, they would go. What difference did it make to him whether he was in France or in England, provided he had Cosette beside him? Cosette was his nation. Cosette sufficed for his happiness the idea that he, perhaps, did not suffice for Cosette's happiness, that idea which had formerly been the cause of his fever and sleeplessness, did not even present itself to his mind. He was in a state of collapse from all his past sufferings, and he was fully entered on optimism. Cosette was by his side, she seemed to be his an optical illusion which every one has experienced. He arranged in his own mind, with all sorts of felicitous devices, his departure for England with Cosette, and he beheld his felicity reconstituted wherever he pleased, in the perspective of his reverie. As he paced to and fro with long strides, his glance suddenly encountered something strange. In the inclined mirror facing him which surmounted the sideboard, he saw the four lines which follow 'My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . In a week we shall be in England. COSETTE. June th. Jean Valjean halted, perfectly haggard. Cosette on her arrival had placed her blottingbook on the sideboard in front of the mirror, and, utterly absorbed in her agony of grief, had forgotten it and left it there, without even observing that she had left it wide open, and open at precisely the page on which she had laid to dry the four lines which she had penned, and which she had given in charge of the young workman in the Rue Plumet. The writing had been printed off on the blotter. The mirror reflected the writing. The result was, what is called in geometry, the symmetrical image so that the writing, reversed on the blotter, was righted in the mirror and presented its natural appearance and Jean Valjean had beneath his eyes the letter written by Cosette to Marius on the preceding evening. It was simple and withering. Jean Valjean stepped up to the mirror. He read the four lines again, but he did not believe them. They produced on him the effect of appearing in a flash of lightning. It was a hallucination, it was impossible. It was not so. Little by little, his perceptions became more precise he looked at Cosette's blottingbook, and the consciousness of the reality returned to him. He caught up the blotter and said 'It comes from there. He feverishly examined the four lines imprinted on the blotter, the reversal of the letters converted into an odd scrawl, and he saw no sense in it. Then he said to himself 'But this signifies nothing there is nothing written here. And he drew a long breath with inexpressible relief. Who has not experienced those foolish joys in horrible instants? The soul does not surrender to despair until it has exhausted all illusions. He held the blotter in his hand and contemplated it in stupid delight, almost ready to laugh at the hallucination of which he had been the dupe. All at once his eyes fell upon the mirror again, and again he beheld the vision. There were the four lines outlined with inexorable clearness. This time it was no mirage. The recurrence of a vision is a reality it was palpable, it was the writing restored in the mirror. He understood. Jean Valjean tottered, dropped the blotter, and fell into the old armchair beside the buffet, with drooping head, and glassy eyes, in utter bewilderment. He told himself that it was plain, that the light of the world had been eclipsed forever, and that Cosette had written that to some one. Then he heard his soul, which had become terrible once more, give vent to a dull roar in the gloom. Try then the effect of taking from the lion the dog which he has in his cage! Strange and sad to say, at that very moment, Marius had not yet received Cosette's letter chance had treacherously carried it to Jean Valjean before delivering it to Marius. Up to that day, Jean Valjean had not been vanquished by trial. He had been subjected to fearful proofs no violence of bad fortune had been spared him the ferocity of fate, armed with all vindictiveness and all social scorn, had taken him for her prey and had raged against him. He had accepted every extremity when it had been necessary he had sacrificed his inviolability as a reformed man, had yielded up his liberty, risked his head, lost everything, suffered everything, and he had remained disinterested and stoical to such a point that he might have been thought to be absent from himself like a martyr. His conscience inured to every assault of destiny, might have appeared to be forever impregnable. Well, any one who had beheld his spiritual self would have been obliged to concede that it weakened at that moment. It was because, of all the tortures which he had undergone in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, this was the most terrible. Never had such pincers seized him hitherto. He felt the mysterious stirring of all his latent sensibilities. He felt the plucking at the strange chord. Alas! the supreme trial, let us say rather, the only trial, is the loss of the beloved being. Poor old Jean Valjean certainly did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father but we have already remarked, above, that into this paternity the widowhood of his life had introduced all the shades of love he loved Cosette as his daughter, and he loved her as his mother, and he loved her as his sister and, as he had never had either a woman to love or a wife, as nature is a creditor who accepts no protest, that sentiment also, the most impossible to lose, was mingled with the rest, vague, ignorant, pure with the purity of blindness, unconscious, celestial, angelic, divine less like a sentiment than like an instinct, less like an instinct than like an imperceptible and invisible but real attraction and love, properly speaking, was, in his immense tenderness for Cosette, like the thread of gold in the mountain, concealed and virgin. Let the reader recall the situation of heart which we have already indicated. No marriage was possible between them not even that of souls and yet, it is certain that their destinies were wedded. With the exception of Cosette, that is to say, with the exception of a childhood, Jean Valjean had never, in the whole of his long life, known anything of that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other had not produced in him those successive green growths, tender green or dark green, which can be seen in foliage which passes through the winter and in men who pass fifty. In short, and we have insisted on it more than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean a father in whom there was included even a mother a father who loved Cosette and adored her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his country, his paradise. Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this crushing proof 'another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish of her life there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her father, I no longer exist when he could no longer doubt, when he said to himself 'She is going away from me! the grief which he felt surpassed the bounds of possibility. To have done all that he had done for the purpose of ending like this! And the very idea of being nothing! Then, as we have just said, a quiver of revolt ran through him from head to foot. He felt, even in the very roots of his hair, the immense reawakening of egotism, and the I in this man's abyss howled. There is such a thing as the sudden giving way of the inward subsoil. A despairing certainty does not make its way into a man without thrusting aside and breaking certain profound elements which, in some cases, are the very man himself. Grief, when it attains this shape, is a headlong flight of all the forces of the conscience. These are fatal crises. Few among us emerge from them still like ourselves and firm in duty. When the limit of endurance is overstepped, the most imperturbable virtue is disconcerted. Jean Valjean took the blotter again, and convinced himself afresh he remained bowed and as though petrified and with staring eyes, over those four unobjectionable lines and there arose within him such a cloud that one might have thought that everything in this soul was crumbling away. He examined this revelation, athwart the exaggerations of reverie, with an apparent and terrifying calmness, for it is a fearful thing when a man's calmness reaches the coldness of the statue. He measured the terrible step which his destiny had taken without his having a suspicion of the fact he recalled his fears of the preceding summer, so foolishly dissipated he recognized the precipice, it was still the same only, Jean Valjean was no longer on the brink, he was at the bottom of it. The unprecedented and heartrending thing about it was that he had fallen without perceiving it. All the light of his life had departed, while he still fancied that he beheld the sun. His instinct did not hesitate. He put together certain circumstances, certain dates, certain blushes and certain pallors on Cosette's part, and he said to himself 'It is he. The divination of despair is a sort of mysterious bow which never misses its aim. He struck Marius with his first conjecture. He did not know the name, but he found the man instantly. He distinctly perceived, in the background of the implacable conjuration of his memories, the unknown prowler of the Luxembourg, that wretched seeker of love adventures, that idler of romance, that idiot, that coward, for it is cowardly to come and make eyes at young girls who have beside them a father who loves them. After he had thoroughly verified the fact that this young man was at the bottom of this situation, and that everything proceeded from that quarter, he, Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had so labored over his soul, the man who had made so many efforts to resolve all life, all misery, and all unhappiness into love, looked into his own breast and there beheld a spectre, Hate. Great griefs contain something of dejection. They discourage one with existence. The man into whom they enter feels something within him withdraw from him. In his youth, their visits are lugubrious later on they are sinister. Alas, if despair is a fearful thing when the blood is hot, when the hair is black, when the head is erect on the body like the flame on the torch, when the roll of destiny still retains its full thickness, when the heart, full of desirable love, still possesses beats which can be returned to it, when one has time for redress, when all women and all smiles and all the future and all the horizon are before one, when the force of life is complete, what is it in old age, when the years hasten on, growing ever paler, to that twilight hour when one begins to behold the stars of the tomb? While he was meditating, Toussaint entered. Jean Valjean rose and asked her 'In what quarter is it? Do you know? Toussaint was struck dumb, and could only answer him 'What is it, sir? Jean Valjean began again 'Did you not tell me that just now that there is fighting going on? 'Ah! yes, sir, replied Toussaint. 'It is in the direction of SaintMerry. There is a mechanical movement which comes to us, unconsciously, from the most profound depths of our thought. It was, no doubt, under the impulse of a movement of this sort, and of which he was hardly conscious, that Jean Valjean, five minutes later, found himself in the street. Bareheaded, he sat upon the stone post at the door of his house. He seemed to be listening. Night had come. How long did he remain thus? What was the ebb and flow of this tragic meditation? Did he straighten up? Did he remain bowed? Had he been bent to breaking? Could he still rise and regain his footing in his conscience upon something solid? He probably would not have been able to tell himself. The street was deserted. A few uneasy bourgeois, who were rapidly returning home, hardly saw him. Each one for himself in times of peril. The lamplighter came as usual to light the lantern which was situated precisely opposite the door of No. , and then went away. Jean Valjean would not have appeared like a living man to any one who had examined him in that shadow. He sat there on the post of his door, motionless as a form of ice. There is congealment in despair. The alarm bells and a vague and stormy uproar were audible. In the midst of all these convulsions of the bell mingled with the revolt, the clock of SaintPaul struck eleven, gravely and without haste for the tocsin is man the hour is God. The passage of the hour produced no effect on Jean Valjean Jean Valjean did not stir. Still, at about that moment, a brusque report burst forth in the direction of the Halles, a second yet more violent followed it was probably that attack on the barricade in the Rue de la Chanvrerie which we have just seen repulsed by Marius. At this double discharge, whose fury seemed augmented by the stupor of the night, Jean Valjean started he rose, turning towards the quarter whence the noise proceeded then he fell back upon the post again, folded his arms, and his head slowly sank on his bosom again. He resumed his gloomy dialogue with himself. All at once, he raised his eyes some one was walking in the street, he heard steps near him. He looked, and by the light of the lanterns, in the direction of the street which ran into the RueauxArchives, he perceived a young, livid, and beaming face. Gavroche had just arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arm. Gavroche was staring into the air, apparently in search of something. He saw Jean Valjean perfectly well but he took no notice of him. Gavroche after staring into the air, stared below he raised himself on tiptoe, and felt of the doors and windows of the ground floor they were all shut, bolted, and padlocked. After having authenticated the fronts of five or six barricaded houses in this manner, the urchin shrugged his shoulders, and took himself to task in these terms 'Pardi! Then he began to stare into the air again. Jean Valjean, who, an instant previously, in his then state of mind, would not have spoken to or even answered any one, felt irresistibly impelled to accost that child. 'What is the matter with you, my little fellow? he said. 'The matter with me is that I am hungry, replied Gavroche frankly. And he added 'Little fellow yourself. Jean Valjean fumbled in his fob and pulled out a fivefranc piece. But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who skipped vivaciously from one gesture to another, had just picked up a stone. He had caught sight of the lantern. 'See here, said he, 'you still have your lanterns here. You are disobeying the regulations, my friend. This is disorderly. Smash that for me. And he flung the stone at the lantern, whose broken glass fell with such a clatter that the bourgeois in hiding behind their curtains in the opposite house cried 'There is 'Ninetythree' come again. The lantern oscillated violently, and went out. The street had suddenly become black. 'That's right, old street, ejaculated Gavroche, 'put on your nightcap. And turning to Jean Valjean 'What do you call that gigantic monument that you have there at the end of the street? It's the Archives, isn't it? I must crumble up those big stupids of pillars a bit and make a nice barricade out of them. Jean Valjean stepped up to Gavroche. 'Poor creature, he said in a low tone, and speaking to himself, 'he is hungry. And he laid the hundredsou piece in his hand. Gavroche raised his face, astonished at the size of this sou he stared at it in the darkness, and the whiteness of the big sou dazzled him. He knew fivefranc pieces by hearsay their reputation was agreeable to him he was delighted to see one close to. He said 'Let us contemplate the tiger. He gazed at it for several minutes in ecstasy then, turning to Jean Valjean, he held out the coin to him, and said majestically to him 'Bourgeois, I prefer to smash lanterns. Take back your ferocious beast. You can't bribe me. That has got five claws but it doesn't scratch me. 'Have you a mother? asked Jean Valjean. Gavroche replied 'More than you have, perhaps. 'Well, returned Jean Valjean, 'keep the money for your mother! Gavroche was touched. Moreover, he had just noticed that the man who was addressing him had no hat, and this inspired him with confidence. 'Truly, said he, 'so it wasn't to keep me from breaking the lanterns? 'Break whatever you please. 'You're a fine man, said Gavroche. And he put the fivefranc piece into one of his pockets. His confidence having increased, he added 'Do you belong in this street? 'Yes, why? 'Can you tell me where No.  is? 'What do you want with No. ? Here the child paused, he feared that he had said too much he thrust his nails energetically into his hair and contented himself with replying 'Ah! Here it is. An idea flashed through Jean Valjean's mind. Anguish does have these gleams. He said to the lad 'Are you the person who is bringing a letter that I am expecting? 'You? said Gavroche. 'You are not a woman. 'The letter is for Mademoiselle Cosette, is it not? 'Cosette, muttered Gavroche. 'Yes, I believe that is the queer name. 'Well, resumed Jean Valjean, 'I am the person to whom you are to deliver the letter. Give it here. 'In that case, you must know that I was sent from the barricade. 'Of course, said Jean Valjean. Gavroche engulfed his hand in another of his pockets and drew out a paper folded in four. Then he made the military salute. 'Respect for despatches, said he. 'It comes from the Provisional Government. 'Give it to me, said Jean Valjean. Gavroche held the paper elevated above his head. 'Don't go and fancy it's a love letter. It is for a woman, but it's for the people. We men fight and we respect the fair sex. We are not as they are in fine society, where there are lions who send chickens to camels. 'Give it to me. 'After all, continued Gavroche, 'you have the air of an honest man. 'Give it to me quick. 'Catch hold of it. And he handed the paper to Jean Valjean. 'And make haste, Monsieur What'syourname, for Mamselle Cosette is waiting. Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. Jean Valjean began again 'Is it to SaintMerry that the answer is to be sent? 'There you are making some of those bits of pastry vulgarly called brioches blunders. This letter comes from the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and I'm going back there. Good evening, citizen. That said, Gavroche took himself off, or, to describe it more exactly, fluttered away in the direction whence he had come with a flight like that of an escaped bird. He plunged back into the gloom as though he made a hole in it, with the rigid rapidity of a projectile the alley of l'Homme Arm became silent and solitary once more in a twinkling, that strange child, who had about him something of the shadow and of the dream, had buried himself in the mists of the rows of black houses, and was lost there, like smoke in the dark and one might have thought that he had dissipated and vanished, had there not taken place, a few minutes after his disappearance, a startling shiver of glass, and had not the magnificent crash of a lantern rattling down on the pavement once more abruptly awakened the indignant bourgeois. It was Gavroche upon his way through the Rue du Chaume. Jean Valjean went into the house with Marius' letter. He groped his way up the stairs, as pleased with the darkness as an owl who grips his prey, opened and shut his door softly, listened to see whether he could hear any noise,made sure that, to all appearances, Cosette and Toussaint were asleep, and plunged three or four matches into the bottle of the Fumade lighter before he could evoke a spark, so greatly did his hand tremble. What he had just done smacked of theft. At last the candle was lighted he leaned his elbows on the table, unfolded the paper, and read. In violent emotions, one does not read, one flings to the earth, so to speak, the paper which one holds, one clutches it like a victim, one crushes it, one digs into it the nails of one's wrath, or of one's joy one hastens to the end, one leaps to the beginning attention is at fever heat it takes up in the gross, as it were, the essential points it seizes on one point, and the rest disappears. In Marius' note to Cosette, Jean Valjean saw only these words 'I die. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee. In the presence of these two lines, he was horribly dazzled he remained for a moment, crushed, as it were, by the change of emotion which was taking place within him, he stared at Marius' note with a sort of intoxicated amazement, he had before his eyes that splendor, the death of a hated individual. He uttered a frightful cry of inward joy. So it was all over. The catastrophe had arrived sooner than he had dared to hope. The being who obstructed his destiny was disappearing. That man had taken himself off of his own accord, freely, willingly. This man was going to his death, and he, Jean Valjean, had had no hand in the matter, and it was through no fault of his. Perhaps, even, he is already dead. Here his fever entered into calculations. No, he is not dead yet. The letter had evidently been intended for Cosette to read on the following morning after the two discharges that were heard between eleven o'clock and midnight, nothing more has taken place the barricade will not be attacked seriously until daybreak but that makes no difference, from the moment when 'that man is concerned in this war, he is lost he is caught in the gearing. Jean Valjean felt himself delivered. So he was about to find himself alone with Cosette once more. The rivalry would cease the future was beginning again. He had but to keep this note in his pocket. Cosette would never know what had become of that man. All that there requires to be done is to let things take their own course. This man cannot escape. If he is not already dead, it is certain that he is about to die. What good fortune! Having said all this to himself, he became gloomy. Then he went downstairs and woke up the porter. About an hour later, Jean Valjean went out in the complete costume of a National Guard, and with his arms. The porter had easily found in the neighborhood the wherewithal to complete his equipment. He had a loaded gun and a cartridgebox filled with cartridges. He strode off in the direction of the markets. In the meantime, Gavroche had had an adventure. Gavroche, after having conscientiously stoned the lantern in the Rue du Chaume, entered the Rue des VieillesHaudriettes, and not seeing 'even a cat there, he thought the opportunity a good one to strike up all the song of which he was capable. His march, far from being retarded by his singing, was accelerated by it. He began to sow along the sleeping or terrified houses these incendiary couplets 'L'oiseau mdit dans les charmilles, Et prtend qu'hier Atala Avec un Russe s'en alla. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Mon ami Pierrot, tu babilles, Parce que l'autre jour Mila Cogna sa vitre et m'appela, O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Les drlesses sont fort gentilles, Leur poison qui m'ensorcela Griserait Monsieur Orfila. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'J'aime l'amour et les bisbilles, J'aime Agns, j'aime Pamla, Lise en m'allumant se brla. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Jadis, quand je vis les mantilles De Suzette et de Zila, Mon me  leurs plis se mla, O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Amour, quand dans l'ombre o tu brilles, Tu coiffes de roses Lola, Je me damnerais pour cela. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Jeanne  ton miroir tu t'habilles! Mon cur un beau jour s'envola. Je crois que c'est Jeanne qui l'a. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Le soir, en sortant des quadrilles, Je montre aux toiles Stella, Et je leur dis 'Regardezla.' O vont les belles filles, Lon la. Gavroche, as he sang, was lavish of his pantomime. Gesture is the strong point of the refrain. His face, an inexhaustible repertory of masks, produced grimaces more convulsing and more fantastic than the rents of a cloth torn in a high gale. Unfortunately, as he was alone, and as it was night, this was neither seen nor even visible. Such wastes of riches do occur. All at once, he stopped short. 'Let us interrupt the romance, said he. His feline eye had just descried, in the recess of a carriage door, what is called in painting, an ensemble, that is to say, a person and a thing the thing was a handcart, the person was a man from Auvergene who was sleeping therein. The shafts of the cart rested on the pavement, and the Auvergnat's head was supported against the front of the cart. His body was coiled up on this inclined plane and his feet touched the ground. Gavroche, with his experience of the things of this world, recognized a drunken man. He was some corner errandman who had drunk too much and was sleeping too much. 'There now, thought Gavroche, 'that's what the summer nights are good for. We'll take the cart for the Republic, and leave the Auvergnat for the Monarchy. His mind had just been illuminated by this flash of light 'How bully that cart would look on our barricade! The Auvergnat was snoring. Gavroche gently tugged at the cart from behind, and at the Auvergnat from the front, that is to say, by the feet, and at the expiration of another minute the imperturbable Auvergnat was reposing flat on the pavement. The cart was free. Gavroche, habituated to facing the unexpected in all quarters, had everything about him. He fumbled in one of his pockets, and pulled from it a scrap of paper and a bit of red pencil filched from some carpenter. He wrote 'French Republic. 'Received thy cart. And he signed it 'GAVROCHE. That done, he put the paper in the pocket of the still snoring Auvergnat's velvet vest, seized the cart shafts in both hands, and set off in the direction of the Halles, pushing the cart before him at a hard gallop with a glorious and triumphant uproar. This was perilous. There was a post at the Royal Printing Establishment. Gavroche did not think of this. This post was occupied by the National Guards of the suburbs. The squad began to wake up, and heads were raised from camp beds. Two street lanterns broken in succession, that ditty sung at the top of the lungs. This was a great deal for those cowardly streets, which desire to go to sleep at sunset, and which put the extinguisher on their candles at such an early hour. For the last hour, that boy had been creating an uproar in that peaceable arrondissement, the uproar of a fly in a bottle. The sergeant of the banlieue lent an ear. He waited. He was a prudent man. The mad rattle of the cart, filled to overflowing the possible measure of waiting, and decided the sergeant to make a reconnaisance. 'There's a whole band of them there! said he, 'let us proceed gently. It was clear that the hydra of anarchy had emerged from its box and that it was stalking abroad through the quarter. And the sergeant ventured out of the post with cautious tread. All at once, Gavroche, pushing his cart in front of him, and at the very moment when he was about to turn into the Rue des VieillesHaudriettes, found himself face to face with a uniform, a shako, a plume, and a gun. For the second time, he stopped short. 'Hullo, said he, 'it's him. Good day, public order. Gavroche's amazement was always brief and speedily thawed. 'Where are you going, you rascal? shouted the sergeant. 'Citizen, retorted Gavroche, 'I haven't called you 'bourgeois' yet. Why do you insult me? 'Where are you going, you rogue? 'Monsieur, retorted Gavroche, 'perhaps you were a man of wit yesterday, but you have degenerated this morning. 'I ask you where are you going, you villain? Gavroche replied 'You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. You ought to sell all your hair at a hundred francs apiece. That would yield you five hundred francs. 'Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going, bandit? Gavroche retorted again 'What villainous words! You must wipe your mouth better the first time that they give you suck. The sergeant lowered his bayonet. 'Will you tell me where you are going, you wretch? 'General, said Gavroche 'I'm on my way to look for a doctor for my wife who is in labor. 'To arms! shouted the sergeant. The masterstroke of strong men consists in saving themselves by the very means that have ruined them Gavroche took in the whole situation at a glance. It was the cart which had told against him, it was the cart's place to protect him. At the moment when the sergeant was on the point of making his descent on Gavroche, the cart, converted into a projectile and launched with all the latter's might, rolled down upon him furiously, and the sergeant, struck full in the stomach, tumbled over backwards into the gutter while his gun went off in the air. The men of the post had rushed out pellmell at the sergeant's shout the shot brought on a general random discharge, after which they reloaded their weapons and began again. This blindman'sbuff musketry lasted for a quarter of an hour and killed several panes of glass. In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, halted five or six streets distant and seated himself, panting, on the stone post which forms the corner of the EnfantsRouges. He listened. After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and thrust it forward three times, as he slapped the back of his head with his right hand an imperious gesture in which Parisian streeturchindom has condensed French irony, and which is evidently efficacious, since it has already lasted half a century. This gayety was troubled by one bitter reflection. 'Yes, said he, 'I'm splitting with laughter, I'm twisting with delight, I abound in joy, but I'm losing my way, I shall have to take a roundabout way. If I only reach the barricade in season! Thereupon he set out again on a run. And as he ran 'Ah, by the way, where was I? said he. And he resumed his ditty, as he plunged rapidly through the streets, and this is what died away in the gloom 'Mais il reste encore des bastilles, Et je vais mettre le hol Dans l'ordre public que voil. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Quelqu'un veutil jouer aux quilles? Tout l'ancien monde s'croula Quand la grosse boule roula. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Vieux bon peuple,  coups de bquilles, Cassons ce Louvre o s'tala La monarchie en falbala. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. 'Nous en avons forc les grilles, Le roi CharlesDix ce jourl, Tenait mal et se dcolla. O vont les belles filles, Lon la. The post's recourse to arms was not without result. The cart was conquered, the drunken man was taken prisoner. The first was put in the pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils of war as an accomplice. The public ministry of the day proved its indefatigable zeal in the defence of society, in this instance. Gavroche's adventure, which has lingered as a tradition in the quarters of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memories 'The nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment. THE END OF VOLUME IV 'SAINT DENIS The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different aspects, of a redoubtable situation, sprang from the earth at the time of the fatal insurrection of June, , the greatest war of the streets that history has ever beheld. It sometimes happens that, even contrary to principles, even contrary to liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its anguish, of its discouragements and its destitutions, of its fevers, of its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that great and despairing body, the rabble, protests against, and that the populace wages battle against, the people. Beggars attack the common right the ochlocracy rises against demos. These are melancholy days for there is always a certain amount of night even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words which are intended to be insultsbeggars, canaille, ochlocracy, populaceexhibit, alas! rather the fault of those who reign than the fault of those who suffer rather the fault of the privileged than the fault of the disinherited. For our own part, we never pronounce those words without pain and without respect, for when philosophy fathoms the facts to which they correspond, it often finds many a grandeur beside these miseries. Athens was an ochlocracy the beggars were the making of Holland the populace saved Rome more than once and the rabble followed Jesus Christ. There is no thinker who has not at times contemplated the magnificences of the lower classes. It was of this rabble that Saint Jerome was thinking, no doubt, and of all these poor people and all these vagabonds and all these miserable people whence sprang the apostles and the martyrs, when he uttered this mysterious saying 'Fex urbis, lex orbis,the dregs of the city, the law of the earth. The exasperations of this crowd which suffers and bleeds, its violences contrary to all sense, directed against the principles which are its life, its masterful deeds against the right, are its popular coups d'tat and should be repressed. The man of probity sacrifices himself, and out of his very love for this crowd, he combats it. But how excusable he feels it even while holding out against it! How he venerates it even while resisting it! This is one of those rare moments when, while doing that which it is one's duty to do, one feels something which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding further one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a pain at the heart. June, , let us hasten to say, was an exceptional fact, and almost impossible of classification, in the philosophy of history. All the words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes a question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy anxiety of toil claiming its rights. It was necessary to combat it, and this was a duty, for it attacked the republic. But what was June, , at bottom? A revolt of the people against itself. Where the subject is not lost sight of, there is no digression may we, then, be permitted to arrest the reader's attention for a moment on the two absolutely unique barricades of which we have just spoken and which characterized this insurrection. One blocked the entrance to the Faubourg Saint Antoine the other defended the approach to the Faubourg du Temple those before whom these two fearful masterpieces of civil war reared themselves beneath the brilliant blue sky of June, will never forget them. The SaintAntoine barricade was tremendous it was three stories high, and seven hundred feet wide. It barred the vast opening of the faubourg, that is to say, three streets, from angle to angle ravined, jagged, cut up, divided, crenelated, with an immense rent, buttressed with piles that were bastions in themselves throwing out capes here and there, powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the faubourg, it reared itself like a cyclopean dike at the end of the formidable place which had seen the th of July. Nineteen barricades were ranged, one behind the other, in the depths of the streets behind this principal barricade. At the very sight of it, one felt the agonizing suffering in the immense faubourg, which had reached that point of extremity when a distress may become a catastrophe. Of what was that barricade made? Of the ruins of three sixstory houses demolished expressly, said some. Of the prodigy of all wraths, said others. It wore the lamentable aspect of all constructions of hatred, ruin. It might be asked Who built this? It might also be said Who destroyed this? It was the improvisation of the ebullition. Hold! take this door! this grating! this penthouse! this chimneypiece! this broken brazier! this cracked pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, ruin everything! It was the collaboration of the pavement, the block of stone, the beam, the bar of iron, the rag, the scrap, the broken pane, the unseated chair, the cabbagestalk, the tatter, the rag, and the malediction. It was grand and it was petty. It was the abyss parodied on the public place by hubbub. The mass beside the atom the strip of ruined wall and the broken bowl,threatening fraternization of every sort of rubbish. Sisyphus had thrown his rock there and Job his potsherd. Terrible, in short. It was the acropolis of the barefooted. Overturned carts broke the uniformity of the slope an immense dray was spread out there crossways, its axle pointing heavenward, and seemed a scar on that tumultuous faade an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, to the very summit of the heap, as though the architects of this bit of savagery had wished to add a touch of the street urchin humor to their terror, presented its horseless, unharnessed pole to no one knows what horses of the air. This gigantic heap, the alluvium of the revolt, figured to the mind an Ossa on Pelion of all revolutions ' on ', the th of Thermidor on the th of August, the th of Brumaire on the th of January, Vendemiaire on Prairial,  on . The situation deserved the trouble and this barricade was worthy to figure on the very spot whence the Bastille had disappeared. If the ocean made dikes, it is thus that it would build. The fury of the flood was stamped upon this shapeless mass. What flood? The crowd. One thought one beheld hubbub petrified. One thought one heard humming above this barricade as though there had been over their hive, enormous, dark bees of violent progress. Was it a thicket? Was it a bacchanalia? Was it a fortress? Vertigo seemed to have constructed it with blows of its wings. There was something of the cesspool in that redoubt and something Olympian in that confusion. One there beheld in a pellmell full of despair, the rafters of roofs, bits of garret windows with their figured paper, window sashes with their glass planted there in the ruins awaiting the cannon, wrecks of chimneys, cupboards, tables, benches, howling topsyturveydom, and those thousand povertystricken things, the very refuse of the mendicant, which contain at the same time fury and nothingness. One would have said that it was the tatters of a people, rags of wood, of iron, of bronze, of stone, and that the Faubourg Saint Antoine had thrust it there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the broom making of its misery its barricade. Blocks resembling headsman's blocks, dislocated chains, pieces of woodwork with brackets having the form of gibbets, horizontal wheels projecting from the rubbish, amalgamated with this edifice of anarchy the sombre figure of the old tortures endured by the people. The barricade Saint Antoine converted everything into a weapon everything that civil war could throw at the head of society proceeded thence it was not combat, it was a paroxysm the carbines which defended this redoubt, among which there were some blunderbusses, sent bits of earthenware bones, coatbuttons, even the casters from nightstands, dangerous projectiles on account of the brass. This barricade was furious it hurled to the clouds an inexpressible clamor at certain moments, when provoking the army, it was covered with throngs and tempest a tumultuous crowd of flaming heads crowned it a swarm filled it it had a thorny crest of guns, of sabres, of cudgels, of axes, of pikes and of bayonets a vast red flag flapped in the wind shouts of command, songs of attack, the roll of drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving were to be heard there. It was huge and living, and, like the back of an electric beast, there proceeded from it little flashes of lightning. The spirit of revolution covered with its cloud this summit where rumbled that voice of the people which resembles the voice of God a strange majesty was emitted by this titanic basket of rubbish. It was a heap of filth and it was Sinai. As we have said previously, it attacked in the name of the revolutionwhat? The revolution. Itthat barricade, chance, hazard, disorder, terror, misunderstanding, the unknownhad facing it the Constituent Assembly, the sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, the nation, the republic and it was the Carmagnole bidding defiance to the Marseillaise. Immense but heroic defiance, for the old faubourg is a hero. The faubourg and its redoubt lent each other assistance. The faubourg shouldered the redoubt, the redoubt took its stand under cover of the faubourg. The vast barricade spread out like a cliff against which the strategy of the African generals dashed itself. Its caverns, its excrescences, its warts, its gibbosities, grimaced, so to speak, and grinned beneath the smoke. The mitraille vanished in shapelessness the bombs plunged into it bullets only succeeded in making holes in it what was the use of cannonading chaos? and the regiments, accustomed to the fiercest visions of war, gazed with uneasy eyes on that species of redoubt, a wild beast in its boarlike bristling and a mountain by its enormous size. A quarter of a league away, from the corner of the Rue du Temple which debouches on the boulevard near the Chteaud'Eau, if one thrust one's head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, one perceived in the distance, beyond the canal, in the street which mounts the slopes of Belleville at the culminating point of the rise, a strange wall reaching to the second story of the house fronts, a sort of hyphen between the houses on the right and the houses on the left, as though the street had folded back on itself its loftiest wall in order to close itself abruptly. This wall was built of pavingstones. It was straight, correct, cold, perpendicular, levelled with the square, laid out by rule and line. Cement was lacking, of course, but, as in the case of certain Roman walls, without interfering with its rigid architecture. The entablature was mathematically parallel with the base. From distance to distance, one could distinguish on the gray surface, almost invisible loopholes which resembled black threads. These loopholes were separated from each other by equal spaces. The street was deserted as far as the eye could reach. All windows and doors were closed. In the background rose this barrier, which made a blind thoroughfare of the street, a motionless and tranquil wall no one was visible, nothing was audible not a cry, not a sound, not a breath. A sepulchre. The dazzling sun of June inundated this terrible thing with light. It was the barricade of the Faubourg of the Temple. As soon as one arrived on the spot, and caught sight of it, it was impossible, even for the boldest, not to become thoughtful before this mysterious apparition. It was adjusted, jointed, imbricated, rectilinear, symmetrical and funereal. Science and gloom met there. One felt that the chief of this barricade was a geometrician or a spectre. One looked at it and spoke low. From time to time, if some soldier, an officer or representative of the people, chanced to traverse the deserted highway, a faint, sharp whistle was heard, and the passerby fell dead or wounded, or, if he escaped the bullet, sometimes a biscaen was seen to ensconce itself in some closed shutter, in the interstice between two blocks of stone, or in the plaster of a wall. For the men in the barricade had made themselves two small cannons out of two castiron lengths of gaspipe, plugged up at one end with tow and fireclay. There was no waste of useless powder. Nearly every shot told. There were corpses here and there, and pools of blood on the pavement. I remember a white butterfly which went and came in the street. Summer does not abdicate. In the neighborhood, the spaces beneath the portescochres were encumbered with wounded. One felt oneself aimed at by some person whom one did not see, and one understood that guns were levelled at the whole length of the street. Massed behind the sort of sloping ridge which the vaulted canal forms at the entrance to the Faubourg du Temple, the soldiers of the attacking column, gravely and thoughtfully, watched this dismal redoubt, this immobility, this passivity, whence sprang death. Some crawled flat on their faces as far as the crest of the curve of the bridge, taking care that their shakos did not project beyond it. The valiant Colonel Monteynard admired this barricade with a shudder.'How that is built! he said to a Representative. 'Not one pavingstone projects beyond its neighbor. It is made of porcelain.At that moment, a bullet broke the cross on his breast, and he fell. 'The cowards! people said. 'Let them show themselves. Let us see them! They dare not! They are hiding! The barricade of the Faubourg du Temple, defended by eighty men, attacked by ten thousand, held out for three days. On the fourth, they did as at Zaatcha, as at Constantine, they pierced the houses, they came over the roofs, the barricade was taken. Not one of the eighty cowards thought of flight, all were killed there with the exception of the leader, Barthlemy, of whom we shall speak presently. The SaintAntoine barricade was the tumult of thunders the barricade of the Temple was silence. The difference between these two redoubts was the difference between the formidable and the sinister. One seemed a maw the other a mask. Admitting that the gigantic and gloomy insurrection of June was composed of a wrath and of an enigma, one divined in the first barricade the dragon, and behind the second the sphinx. These two fortresses had been erected by two men named, the one, Cournet, the other, Barthlemy. Cournet made the SaintAntoine barricade Barthlemy the barricade of the Temple. Each was the image of the man who had built it. Cournet was a man of lofty stature he had broad shoulders, a red face, a crushing fist, a bold heart, a loyal soul, a sincere and terrible eye. Intrepid, energetic, irascible, stormy the most cordial of men, the most formidable of combatants. War, strife, conflict, were the very air he breathed and put him in a good humor. He had been an officer in the navy, and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he sprang from the ocean, and that he came from the tempest he carried the hurricane on into battle. With the exception of the genius, there was in Cournet something of Danton, as, with the exception of the divinity, there was in Danton something of Hercules. Barthlemy, thin, feeble, pale, taciturn, was a sort of tragic street urchin, who, having had his ears boxed by a policeman, lay in wait for him, and killed him, and at seventeen was sent to the galleys. He came out and made this barricade. Later on, fatal circumstance, in London, proscribed by all, Barthlemy slew Cournet. It was a funereal duel. Some time afterwards, caught in the gearing of one of those mysterious adventures in which passion plays a part, a catastrophe in which French justice sees extenuating circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthlemy was hanged. The sombre social construction is so made that, thanks to material destitution, thanks to moral obscurity, that unhappy being who possessed an intelligence, certainly firm, possibly great, began in France with the galleys, and ended in England with the gallows. Barthlemy, on occasion, flew but one flag, the black flag. Sixteen years count in the subterranean education of insurrection, and June, , knew a great deal more about it than June, . So the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was only an outline, and an embryo compared to the two colossal barricades which we have just sketched but it was formidable for that epoch. The insurgents under the eye of Enjolras, for Marius no longer looked after anything, had made good use of the night. The barricade had been not only repaired, but augmented. They had raised it two feet. Bars of iron planted in the pavement resembled lances in rest. All sorts of rubbish brought and added from all directions complicated the external confusion. The redoubt had been cleverly made over, into a wall on the inside and a thicket on the outside. The staircase of pavingstones which permitted one to mount it like the wall of a citadel had been reconstructed. The barricade had been put in order, the taproom disencumbered, the kitchen appropriated for the ambulance, the dressing of the wounded completed, the powder scattered on the ground and on the tables had been gathered up, bullets run, cartridges manufactured, lint scraped, the fallen weapons redistributed, the interior of the redoubt cleaned, the rubbish swept up, corpses removed. They laid the dead in a heap in the Mondtour lane, of which they were still the masters. The pavement was red for a long time at that spot. Among the dead there were four National Guardsmen of the suburbs. Enjolras had their uniforms laid aside. Enjolras had advised two hours of sleep. Advice from Enjolras was a command. Still, only three or four took advantage of it. Feuilly employed these two hours in engraving this inscription on the wall which faced the tavern LONG LIVE THE PEOPLES! These four words, hollowed out in the rough stone with a nail, could be still read on the wall in . The three women had profited by the respite of the night to vanish definitely which allowed the insurgents to breathe more freely. They had found means of taking refuge in some neighboring house. The greater part of the wounded were able, and wished, to fight still. On a litter of mattresses and trusses of straw in the kitchen, which had been converted into an ambulance, there were five men gravely wounded, two of whom were municipal guardsmen. The municipal guardsmen were attended to first. In the taproom there remained only Mabeuf under his black cloth and Javert bound to his post. 'This is the hall of the dead, said Enjolras. In the interior of this hall, barely lighted by a candle at one end, the mortuary table being behind the post like a horizontal bar, a sort of vast, vague cross resulted from Javert erect and Mabeuf lying prone. The pole of the omnibus, although snapped off by the fusillade, was still sufficiently upright to admit of their fastening the flag to it. Enjolras, who possessed that quality of a leader, of always doing what he said, attached to this staff the bulletridden and bloody coat of the old man's. No repast had been possible. There was neither bread nor meat. The fifty men in the barricade had speedily exhausted the scanty provisions of the wineshop during the sixteen hours which they had passed there. At a given moment, every barricade inevitably becomes the raft of la Mduse. They were obliged to resign themselves to hunger. They had then reached the first hours of that Spartan day of the th of June when, in the barricade SaintMerry, Jeanne, surrounded by the insurgents who demanded bread, replied to all combatants crying 'Something to eat! with 'Why? It is three o'clock at four we shall be dead. As they could no longer eat, Enjolras forbade them to drink. He interdicted wine, and portioned out the brandy. They had found in the cellar fifteen full bottles hermetically sealed. Enjolras and Combeferre examined them. Combeferre when he came up again said'It's the old stock of Father Hucheloup, who began business as a grocer.'It must be real wine, observed Bossuet. 'It's lucky that Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of difficulty in saving those bottles.Enjolras, in spite of all murmurs, placed his veto on the fifteen bottles, and, in order that no one might touch them, he had them placed under the table on which Father Mabeuf was lying. About two o'clock in the morning, they reckoned up their strength. There were still thirtyseven of them. The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its cavity in the pavement, had just been extinguished. The interior of the barricade, that species of tiny courtyard appropriated from the street, was bathed in shadows, and resembled, athwart the vague, twilight horror, the deck of a disabled ship. The combatants, as they went and came, moved about there like black forms. Above that terrible nestingplace of gloom the stories of the mute houses were lividly outlined at the very top, the chimneys stood palely out. The sky was of that charming, undecided hue, which may be white and may be blue. Birds flew about in it with cries of joy. The lofty house which formed the back of the barricade, being turned to the East, had upon its roof a rosy reflection. The morning breeze ruffled the gray hair on the head of the dead man at the thirdstory window. 'I am delighted that the torch has been extinguished, said Courfeyrac to Feuilly. 'That torch flickering in the wind annoyed me. It had the appearance of being afraid. The light of torches resembles the wisdom of cowards it gives a bad light because it trembles. Dawn awakens minds as it does the birds all began to talk. Joly, perceiving a cat prowling on a gutter, extracted philosophy from it. 'What is the cat? he exclaimed. 'It is a corrective. The good God, having made the mouse, said 'Hullo! I have committed a blunder.' And so he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus the cat, is the proof of creation revised and corrected. Combeferre, surrounded by students and artisans, was speaking of the dead, of Jean Prouvaire, of Bahorel, of Mabeuf, and even of Cabuc, and of Enjolras' sad severity. He said 'Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus, Chereas, Stephanus, Cromwell, Charlotte Corday, Sand, have all had their moment of agony when it was too late. Our hearts quiver so, and human life is such a mystery that, even in the case of a civic murder, even in a murder for liberation, if there be such a thing, the remorse for having struck a man surpasses the joy of having served the human race. And, such are the windings of the exchange of speech, that, a moment later, by a transition brought about through Jean Prouvaire's verses, Combeferre was comparing the translators of the Georgics, Raux with Cournand, Cournand with Delille, pointing out the passages translated by Malfiltre, particularly the prodigies of Csar's death and at that word, Csar, the conversation reverted to Brutus. 'Csar, said Combeferre, 'fell justly. Cicero was severe towards Csar, and he was right. That severity is not diatribe. When Zolus insults Homer, when Mvius insults Virgil, when Vis insults Molire, when Pope insults Shakspeare, when Frederic insults Voltaire, it is an old law of envy and hatred which is being carried out genius attracts insult, great men are always more or less barked at. But Zolus and Cicero are two different persons. Cicero is an arbiter in thought, just as Brutus is an arbiter by the sword. For my own part, I blame that last justice, the blade but, antiquity admitted it. Csar, the violator of the Rubicon, conferring, as though they came from him, the dignities which emanated from the people, not rising at the entrance of the senate, committed the acts of a king and almost of a tyrant, regia ac pene tyrannica. He was a great man so much the worse, or so much the better the lesson is but the more exalted. His twentythree wounds touch me less than the spitting in the face of Jesus Christ. Csar is stabbed by the senators Christ is cuffed by lackeys. One feels the God through the greater outrage. Bossuet, who towered above the interlocutors from the summit of a heap of pavingstones, exclaimed, rifle in hand 'Oh Cydathenum, Oh Myrrhinus, Oh Probalinthus, Oh graces of the antides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a Greek of Laurium or of Edapteon? Enjolras had been to make a reconnaissance. He had made his way out through Mondtour lane, gliding along close to the houses. The insurgents, we will remark, were full of hope. The manner in which they had repulsed the attack of the preceding night had caused them to almost disdain in advance the attack at dawn. They waited for it with a smile. They had no more doubt as to their success than as to their cause. Moreover, succor was, evidently, on the way to them. They reckoned on it. With that facility of triumphant prophecy which is one of the sources of strength in the French combatant, they divided the day which was at hand into three distinct phases. At six o'clock in the morning a regiment 'which had been labored with, would turn at noon, the insurrection of all Paris at sunset, revolution. They heard the alarm bell of SaintMerry, which had not been silent for an instant since the night before a proof that the other barricade, the great one, Jeanne's, still held out. All these hopes were exchanged between the different groups in a sort of gay and formidable whisper which resembled the warlike hum of a hive of bees. Enjolras reappeared. He returned from his sombre eagle flight into outer darkness. He listened for a moment to all this joy with folded arms, and one hand on his mouth. Then, fresh and rosy in the growing whiteness of the dawn, he said 'The whole army of Paris is to strike. A third of the army is bearing down upon the barricades in which you now are. There is the National Guard in addition. I have picked out the shakos of the fifth of the line, and the standardbearers of the sixth legion. In one hour you will be attacked. As for the populace, it was seething yesterday, today it is not stirring. There is nothing to expect nothing to hope for. Neither from a faubourg nor from a regiment. You are abandoned. These words fell upon the buzzing of the groups, and produced on them the effect caused on a swarm of bees by the first drops of a storm. A moment of indescribable silence ensued, in which death might have been heard flitting by. This moment was brief. A voice from the obscurest depths of the groups shouted to Enjolras 'So be it. Let us raise the barricade to a height of twenty feet, and let us all remain in it. Citizens, let us offer the protests of corpses. Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people. These words freed the thought of all from the painful cloud of individual anxieties. It was hailed with an enthusiastic acclamation. No one ever has known the name of the man who spoke thus he was some unknown blousewearer, a stranger, a man forgotten, a passing hero, that great anonymous, always mingled in human crises and in social geneses who, at a given moment, utters in a supreme fashion the decisive word, and who vanishes into the shadows after having represented for a minute, in a lightning flash, the people and God. This inexorable resolution so thoroughly impregnated the air of the th of June, , that, almost at the very same hour, on the barricade SaintMerry, the insurgents were raising that clamor which has become a matter of history and which has been consigned to the documents in the case'What matters it whether they come to our assistance or not? Let us get ourselves killed here, to the very last man. As the reader sees, the two barricades, though materially isolated, were in communication with each other. After the man who decreed the 'protest of corpses had spoken, and had given this formula of their common soul, there issued from all mouths a strangely satisfied and terrible cry, funereal in sense and triumphant in tone 'Long live death! Let us all remain here! 'Why all? said Enjolras. 'All! All! Enjolras resumed 'The position is good the barricade is fine. Thirty men are enough. Why sacrifice forty? They replied 'Because not one will go away. 'Citizens, cried Enjolras, and there was an almost irritated vibration in his voice, 'this republic is not rich enough in men to indulge in useless expenditure of them. Vainglory is waste. If the duty of some is to depart, that duty should be fulfilled like any other. Enjolras, the manprinciple, had over his coreligionists that sort of omnipotent power which emanates from the absolute. Still, great as was this omnipotence, a murmur arose. A leader to the very fingertips, Enjolras, seeing that they murmured, insisted. He resumed haughtily 'Let those who are afraid of not numbering more than thirty say so. The murmurs redoubled. 'Besides, observed a voice in one group, 'it is easy enough to talk about leaving. The barricade is hemmed in. 'Not on the side of the Halles, said Enjolras. 'The Rue Mondtour is free, and through the Rue des Prcheurs one can reach the March des Innocents. 'And there, went on another voice, 'you would be captured. You would fall in with some grand guard of the line or the suburbs they will spy a man passing in blouse and cap. 'Whence come you?' 'Don't you belong to the barricade?' And they will look at your hands. You smell of powder. Shot. Enjolras, without making any reply, touched Combeferre's shoulder, and the two entered the taproom. They emerged thence a moment later. Enjolras held in his outstretched hands the four uniforms which he had laid aside. Combeferre followed, carrying the shoulderbelts and the shakos. 'With this uniform, said Enjolras, 'you can mingle with the ranks and escape here is enough for four. And he flung on the ground, deprived of its pavement, the four uniforms. No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the word. 'Come, said he, 'you must have a little pity. Do you know what the question is here? It is a question of women. See here. Are there women or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there mothers, yes or no, who rock cradles with their foot and who have a lot of little ones around them? Let that man of you who has never beheld a nurse's breast raise his hand. Ah! you want to get yourselves killed, so do II, who am speaking to you but I do not want to feel the phantoms of women wreathing their arms around me. Die, if you will, but don't make others die. Suicides like that which is on the brink of accomplishment here are sublime but suicide is narrow, and does not admit of extension and as soon as it touches your neighbors, suicide is murder. Think of the little blond heads think of the white locks. Listen, Enjolras has just told me that he saw at the corner of the Rue du Cygne a lighted casement, a candle in a poor window, on the fifth floor, and on the pane the quivering shadow of the head of an old woman, who had the air of having spent the night in watching. Perhaps she is the mother of some one of you. Well, let that man go, and make haste, to say to his mother 'Here I am, mother!' Let him feel at ease, the task here will be performed all the same. When one supports one's relatives by one's toil, one has not the right to sacrifice one's self. That is deserting one's family. And those who have daughters! what are you thinking of? You get yourselves killed, you are dead, that is well. And tomorrow? Young girls without breadthat is a terrible thing. Man begs, woman sells. Ah! those charming and gracious beings, so gracious and so sweet, who have bonnets of flowers, who fill the house with purity, who sing and prattle, who are like a living perfume, who prove the existence of angels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth, that Jeanne, that Lise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures who are your blessings and your pride, ah! good God, they will suffer hunger! What do you want me to say to you? There is a market for human flesh and it is not with your shadowy hands, shuddering around them, that you will prevent them from entering it! Think of the street, think of the pavement covered with passersby, think of the shops past which women go and come with necks all bare, and through the mire. These women, too, were pure once. Think of your sisters, those of you who have them. Misery, prostitution, the police, SaintLazarethat is what those beautiful, delicate girls, those fragile marvels of modesty, gentleness and loveliness, fresher than lilacs in the month of May, will come to. Ah! you have got yourselves killed! You are no longer on hand! That is well you have wished to release the people from Royalty, and you deliver over your daughters to the police. Friends, have a care, have mercy. Women, unhappy women, we are not in the habit of bestowing much thought on them. We trust to the women not having received a man's education, we prevent their reading, we prevent their thinking, we prevent their occupying themselves with politics will you prevent them from going to the deadhouse this evening, and recognizing your bodies? Let us see, those who have families must be tractable, and shake hands with us and take themselves off, and leave us here alone to attend to this affair. I know well that courage is required to leave, that it is hard but the harder it is, the more meritorious. You say 'I have a gun, I am at the barricade so much the worse, I shall remain there.' So much the worse is easily said. My friends, there is a morrow you will not be here tomorrow, but your families will and what sufferings! See, here is a pretty, healthy child, with cheeks like an apple, who babbles, prattles, chatters, who laughs, who smells sweet beneath your kiss,and do you know what becomes of him when he is abandoned? I have seen one, a very small creature, no taller than that. His father was dead. Poor people had taken him in out of charity, but they had bread only for themselves. The child was always hungry. It was winter. He did not cry. You could see him approach the stove, in which there was never any fire, and whose pipe, you know, was of mastic and yellow clay. His breathing was hoarse, his face livid, his limbs flaccid, his belly prominent. He said nothing. If you spoke to him, he did not answer. He is dead. He was taken to the Necker Hospital, where I saw him. I was housesurgeon in that hospital. Now, if there are any fathers among you, fathers whose happiness it is to stroll on Sundays holding their child's tiny hand in their robust hand, let each one of those fathers imagine that this child is his own. That poor brat, I remember, and I seem to see him now, when he lay nude on the dissecting table, how his ribs stood out on his skin like the graves beneath the grass in a cemetery. A sort of mud was found in his stomach. There were ashes in his teeth. Come, let us examine ourselves conscientiously and take counsel with our heart. Statistics show that the mortality among abandoned children is fiftyfive per cent. I repeat, it is a question of women, it concerns mothers, it concerns young girls, it concerns little children. Who is talking to you of yourselves? We know well what you are we know well that you are all brave, parbleu! we know well that you all have in your souls the joy and the glory of giving your life for the great cause we know well that you feel yourselves elected to die usefully and magnificently, and that each one of you clings to his share in the triumph. Very well. But you are not alone in this world. There are other beings of whom you must think. You must not be egoists. All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. Strange contradictions of the human heart at its most sublime moments. Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He recalled the mothers of other men, and forgot his own. He was about to get himself killed. He was 'an egoist. Marius, fasting, fevered, having emerged in succession from all hope, and having been stranded in grief, the most sombre of shipwrecks, and saturated with violent emotions and conscious that the end was near, had plunged deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always precedes the fatal hour voluntarily accepted. A physiologist might have studied in him the growing symptoms of that febrile absorption known to, and classified by, science, and which is to suffering what voluptuousness is to pleasure. Despair, also, has its ecstasy. Marius had reached this point. He looked on at everything as from without as we have said, things which passed before him seemed far away he made out the whole, but did not perceive the details. He beheld men going and coming as through a flame. He heard voices speaking as at the bottom of an abyss. But this moved him. There was in this scene a point which pierced and roused even him. He had but one idea now, to die and he did not wish to be turned aside from it, but he reflected, in his gloomy somnambulism, that while destroying himself, he was not prohibited from saving some one else. He raised his voice. 'Enjolras and Combeferre are right, said he 'no unnecessary sacrifice. I join them, and you must make haste. Combeferre has said convincing things to you. There are some among you who have families, mothers, sisters, wives, children. Let such leave the ranks. No one stirred. 'Married men and the supporters of families, step out of the ranks! repeated Marius. His authority was great. Enjolras was certainly the head of the barricade, but Marius was its savior. 'I order it, cried Enjolras. 'I entreat you, said Marius. Then, touched by Combeferre's words, shaken by Enjolras' order, touched by Marius' entreaty, these heroic men began to denounce each other.'It is true, said one young man to a full grown man, 'you are the father of a family. Go.'It is your duty rather, retorted the man, 'you have two sisters whom you maintain.And an unprecedented controversy broke forth. Each struggled to determine which should not allow himself to be placed at the door of the tomb. 'Make haste, said Courfeyrac, 'in another quarter of an hour it will be too late. 'Citizens, pursued Enjolras, 'this is the Republic, and universal suffrage reigns. Do you yourselves designate those who are to go. They obeyed. After the expiration of a few minutes, five were unanimously selected and stepped out of the ranks. 'There are five of them! exclaimed Marius. There were only four uniforms. 'Well, began the five, 'one must stay behind. And then a struggle arose as to who should remain, and who should find reasons for the others not remaining. The generous quarrel began afresh. 'You have a wife who loves you.'You have your aged mother. You have neither father nor mother, and what is to become of your three little brothers?'You are the father of five children.'You have a right to live, you are only seventeen, it is too early for you to die. These great revolutionary barricades were assembling points for heroism. The improbable was simple there. These men did not astonish each other. 'Be quick, repeated Courfeyrac. Men shouted to Marius from the groups 'Do you designate who is to remain. 'Yes, said the five, 'choose. We will obey you. Marius did not believe that he was capable of another emotion. Still, at this idea, that of choosing a man for death, his blood rushed back to his heart. He would have turned pale, had it been possible for him to become any paler. He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his eyes full of that grand flame which one beholds in the depths of history hovering over Thermopyl, cried to him 'Me! me! me! And Marius stupidly counted them there were still five of them! Then his glance dropped to the four uniforms. At that moment, a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven, upon the other four. The fifth man was saved. Marius raised his eyes and recognized M. Fauchelevent. Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade. He had arrived by way of Mondtour lane, whither by dint of inquiries made, or by instinct, or chance. Thanks to his dress of a National Guardsman, he had made his way without difficulty. The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondtour had no occasion to give the alarm for a single National Guardsman, and he had allowed the latter to entangle himself in the street, saying to himself 'Probably it is a reinforcement, in any case it is a prisoner. The moment was too grave to admit of the sentinel abandoning his duty and his post of observation. At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, no one had noticed him, all eyes being fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms. Jean Valjean also had seen and heard, and he had silently removed his coat and flung it on the pile with the rest. The emotion aroused was indescribable. 'Who is this man? demanded Bossuet. 'He is a man who saves others, replied Combeferre. Marius added in a grave voice 'I know him. This guarantee satisfied every one. Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean. 'Welcome, citizen. And he added 'You know that we are about to die. Jean Valjean, without replying, helped the insurgent whom he was saving to don his uniform. The situation of all in that fatal hour and that pitiless place, had as result and culminating point Enjolras' supreme melancholy. Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution he was incomplete, however, so far as the absolute can be so he had too much of SaintJust about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots still, his mind, in the society of the Friends of the A B C, had ended by undergoing a certain polarization from Combeferre's ideas for some time past, he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of dogma, and had allowed himself to incline to the broadening influence of progress, and he had come to accept, as a definitive and magnificent evolution, the transformation of the great French Republic, into the immense human republic. As far as the immediate means were concerned, a violent situation being given, he wished to be violent on that point, he never varied and he remained of that epic and redoubtable school which is summed up in the words 'Eightythree. Enjolras was standing erect on the staircase of pavingstones, one elbow resting on the stock of his gun. He was engaged in thought he quivered, as at the passage of prophetic breaths places where death is have these effects of tripods. A sort of stifled fire darted from his eyes, which were filled with an inward look. All at once he threw back his head, his blond locks fell back like those of an angel on the sombre quadriga made of stars, they were like the mane of a startled lion in the flaming of an halo, and Enjolras cried 'Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on terms of full equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest, human conscience become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity of the workshop and the school, for sole penalty and recompense fame, work for all, right for all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy mothers! To conquer matter is the first step to realize the ideal is the second. Reflect on what progress has already accomplished. Formerly, the first human races beheld with terror the hydra pass before their eyes, breathing on the waters, the dragon which vomited flame, the griffin who was the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle and the talons of a tiger fearful beasts which were above man. Man, nevertheless, spread his snares, consecrated by intelligence, and finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished the hydra, and it is called the locomotive we are on the point of vanquishing the griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon. On the day when this Promethean task shall be accomplished, and when man shall have definitely harnessed to his will the triple Chimra of antiquity, the hydra, the dragon and the griffin, he will be the master of water, fire, and of air, and he will be for the rest of animated creation that which the ancient gods formerly were to him. Courage, and onward! Citizens, whither are we going? To science made government, to the force of things become the sole public force, to the natural law, having in itself its sanction and its penalty and promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn of truth corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing to the union of peoples we are advancing to the unity of man. No more fictions no more parasites. The real governed by the true, that is the goal. Civilization will hold its assizes at the summit of Europe, and, later on, at the centre of continents, in a grand parliament of the intelligence. Something similar has already been seen. The amphictyons had two sittings a year, one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other at Thermopyl, the place of heroes. Europe will have her amphictyons the globe will have its amphictyons. France bears this sublime future in her breast. This is the gestation of the nineteenth century. That which Greece sketched out is worthy of being finished by France. Listen to me, you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly you adopted humanity for your mother and right for your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here. Citizens, whatever happens today, through our defeat as well as through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create. As conflagrations light up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the whole human race. And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I have just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point of view, there is but a single principle the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. This quantity is the same for all of us. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is called Equality. Common right is nothing else than the protection of all beaming on the right of each. This protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is called society. This intersection being a junction, this point is a knot. Hence what is called the social bond. Some say social contract which is the same thing, the word contract being etymologically formed with the idea of a bond. Let us come to an understanding about equality for, if liberty is the summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not wholly a surface vegetation, a society of great blades of grass and tiny oaks a proximity of jealousies which render each other null and void legally speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity politically, it is all votes possessed of the same weight religiously, it is all consciences possessed of the same right. Equality has an organ gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, that is where the beginning must be made. The primary school imposed on all, the secondary school offered to all, that is the law. From an identical school, an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! light! light! everything comes from light, and to it everything returns. Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, we shall no longer, as today, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interruption of civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a dismemberment because of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite we shall no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising from distress, misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the sword, and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events. One might almost say There will be no more events. We shall be happy. The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe accomplishes its law harmony will be reestablished between the soul and the star the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the planet around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing you, is a gloomy hour but these are terrible purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer this barricade is not made of pavingstones, nor of joists, nor of bits of iron it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it 'I am about to die, and thou shalt be born again with me.' From the embrace of all desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn. Enjolras paused rather than became silent his lips continued to move silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused them all to gaze attentively at him, in the endeavor to hear more. There was no applause but they whispered together for a long time. Speech being a breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves. Let us narrate what was passing in Marius' thoughts. Let the reader recall the state of his soul. We have just recalled it, everything was a vision to him now. His judgment was disturbed. Marius, let us insist on this point, was under the shadow of the great, dark wings which are spread over those in the death agony. He felt that he had entered the tomb, it seemed to him that he was already on the other side of the wall, and he no longer beheld the faces of the living except with the eyes of one dead. How did M. Fauchelevent come there? Why was he there? What had he come there to do? Marius did not address all these questions to himself. Besides, since our despair has this peculiarity, that it envelops others as well as ourselves, it seemed logical to him that all the world should come thither to die. Only, he thought of Cosette with a pang at his heart. However, M. Fauchelevent did not speak to him, did not look at him, and had not even the air of hearing him, when Marius raised his voice to say 'I know him. As far as Marius was concerned, this attitude of M. Fauchelevent was comforting, and, if such a word can be used for such impressions, we should say that it pleased him. He had always felt the absolute impossibility of addressing that enigmatical man, who was, in his eyes, both equivocal and imposing. Moreover, it had been a long time since he had seen him and this still further augmented the impossibility for Marius' timid and reserved nature. The five chosen men left the barricade by way of Mondtour lane they bore a perfect resemblance to members of the National Guard. One of them wept as he took his leave. Before setting out, they embraced those who remained. When the five men sent back to life had taken their departure, Enjolras thought of the man who had been condemned to death. He entered the taproom. Javert, still bound to the post, was engaged in meditation. 'Do you want anything? Enjolras asked him. Javert replied 'When are you going to kill me? 'Wait. We need all our cartridges just at present. 'Then give me a drink, said Javert. Enjolras himself offered him a glass of water, and, as Javert was pinioned, he helped him to drink. 'Is that all? inquired Enjolras. 'I am uncomfortable against this post, replied Javert. 'You are not tender to have left me to pass the night here. Bind me as you please, but you surely might lay me out on a table like that other man. And with a motion of the head, he indicated the body of M. Mabeuf. There was, as the reader will remember, a long, broad table at the end of the room, on which they had been running bullets and making cartridges. All the cartridges having been made, and all the powder used, this table was free. At Enjolras' command, four insurgents unbound Javert from the post. While they were loosing him, a fifth held a bayonet against his breast. Leaving his arms tied behind his back, they placed about his feet a slender but stout whipcord, as is done to men on the point of mounting the scaffold, which allowed him to take steps about fifteen inches in length, and made him walk to the table at the end of the room, where they laid him down, closely bound about the middle of the body. By way of further security, and by means of a rope fastened to his neck, they added to the system of ligatures which rendered every attempt at escape impossible, that sort of bond which is called in prisons a martingale, which, starting at the neck, forks on the stomach, and meets the hands, after passing between the legs. While they were binding Javert, a man standing on the threshold was surveying him with singular attention. The shadow cast by this man made Javert turn his head. He raised his eyes, and recognized Jean Valjean. He did not even start, but dropped his lids proudly and confined himself to the remark 'It is perfectly simple. The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened, not a door stood ajar it was the dawn but not the awaking. The end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, opposite the barricade, had been evacuated by the troops, as we have stated, it seemed to be free, and presented itself to passersby with a sinister tranquillity. The Rue SaintDenis was as dumb as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being in the crossroads, which gleamed white in the light of the sun. Nothing is so mournful as this light in deserted streets. Nothing was to be seen, but there was something to be heard. A mysterious movement was going on at a certain distance. It was evident that the critical moment was approaching. As on the previous evening, the sentinels had come in but this time all had come. The barricade was stronger than on the occasion of the first attack. Since the departure of the five, they had increased its height still further. On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of the Halles, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came to a serious decision. He had the small gut of the Mondtour lane, which had been left open up to that time, barricaded. For this purpose, they tore up the pavement for the length of several houses more. In this manner, the barricade, walled on three streets, in front on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, to the left on the Rues du Cygne and de la Petite Truanderie, to the right on the Rue Mondtour, was really almost impregnable it is true that they were fatally hemmed in there. It had three fronts, but no exit.'A fortress but a rat hole too, said Courfeyrac with a laugh. Enjolras had about thirty pavingstones 'torn up in excess, said Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wineshop. The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his post of battle. An allowance of brandy was doled out to each. Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault. Each man selects his place as though at the theatre. They jostle, and elbow and crowd each other. There are some who make stalls of pavingstones. Here is a corner of the wall which is in the way, it is removed here is a redan which may afford protection, they take shelter behind it. Lefthanded men are precious they take the places that are inconvenient to the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, , an insurgent who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the top of a terrace upon a roof, had a recliningchair brought there for his use a charge of grapeshot found him out there. As soon as the leader has given the order to clear the decks for action, all disorderly movements cease there is no more pulling from one another there are no more coteries no more asides, there is no more holding aloof everything in their spirits converges in, and changes into, a waiting for the assailants. A barricade before the arrival of danger is chaos in danger, it is discipline itself. Peril produces order. As soon as Enjolras had seized his doublebarrelled rifle, and had placed himself in a sort of embrasure which he had reserved for himself, all the rest held their peace. A series of faint, sharp noises resounded confusedly along the wall of pavingstones. It was the men cocking their guns. Moreover, their attitudes were prouder, more confident than ever the excess of sacrifice strengthens they no longer cherished any hope, but they had despair, despair,the last weapon, which sometimes gives victory Virgil has said so. Supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions. To embark in death is sometimes the means of escaping a shipwreck and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank of safety. As on the preceding evening, the attention of all was directed, we might almost say leaned upon, the end of the street, now lighted up and visible. They had not long to wait. A stir began distinctly in the SaintLeu quarter, but it did not resemble the movement of the first attack. A clashing of chains, the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click of brass skipping along the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar, announced that some sinister construction of iron was approaching. There arose a tremor in the bosoms of these peaceful old streets, pierced and built for the fertile circulation of interests and ideas, and which are not made for the horrible rumble of the wheels of war. The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity of the street became ferocious. A cannon made its appearance. Artillerymen were pushing the piece it was in firing trim the forecarriage had been detached two upheld the guncarriage, four were at the wheels others followed with the caisson. They could see the smoke of the burning lintstock. 'Fire! shouted Enjolras. The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible an avalanche of smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men after a few seconds, the cloud dispersed, and the cannon and men reappeared the guncrew had just finished rolling it slowly, correctly, without haste, into position facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling a telescope. 'Bravo for the cannoneers! cried Bossuet. And the whole barricade clapped their hands. A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action. A formidable pair of jaws yawned on the barricade. 'Come, merrily now! ejaculated Courfeyrac. 'That's the brutal part of it. After the fillip on the nose, the blow from the fist. The army is reaching out its big paw to us. The barricade is going to be severely shaken up. The fusillade tries, the cannon takes. 'It is a piece of eight, new model, brass, added Combeferre. 'Those pieces are liable to burst as soon as the proportion of ten parts of tin to one hundred of brass is exceeded. The excess of tin renders them too tender. Then it comes to pass that they have caves and chambers when looked at from the vent hole. In order to obviate this danger, and to render it possible to force the charge, it may become necessary to return to the process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and to encircle the piece on the outside with a series of unwelded steel bands, from the breech to the trunnions. In the meantime, they remedy this defect as best they may they manage to discover where the holes are located in the vent of a cannon, by means of a searcher. But there is a better method, with Gribeauval's movable star. 'In the sixteenth century, remarked Bossuet, 'they used to rifle cannon. 'Yes, replied Combeferre, 'that augments the projectile force, but diminishes the accuracy of the firing. In firing at short range, the trajectory is not as rigid as could be desired, the parabola is exaggerated, the line of the projectile is no longer sufficiently rectilinear to allow of its striking intervening objects, which is, nevertheless, a necessity of battle, the importance of which increases with the proximity of the enemy and the precipitation of the discharge. This defect of the tension of the curve of the projectile in the rifled cannon of the sixteenth century arose from the smallness of the charge small charges for that sort of engine are imposed by the ballistic necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation of the guncarriage. In short, that despot, the cannon, cannot do all that it desires force is a great weakness. A cannonball only travels six hundred leagues an hour light travels seventy thousand leagues a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon. 'Reload your guns, said Enjolras. How was the casing of the barricade going to behave under the cannonballs? Would they effect a breach? That was the question. While the insurgents were reloading their guns, the artillerymen were loading the cannon. The anxiety in the redoubt was profound. The shot sped the report burst forth. 'Present! shouted a joyous voice. And Gavroche flung himself into the barricade just as the ball dashed against it. He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne, and he had nimbly climbed over the auxiliary barricade which fronted on the labyrinth of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. Gavroche produced a greater sensation in the barricade than the cannonball. The ball buried itself in the mass of rubbish. At the most there was an omnibus wheel broken, and the old Anceau cart was demolished. On seeing this, the barricade burst into a laugh. 'Go on! shouted Bossuet to the artillerists. They flocked round Gavroche. But he had no time to tell anything. Marius drew him aside with a shudder. 'What are you doing here? 'Hullo! said the child, 'what are you doing here yourself? And he stared at Marius intently with his epic effrontery. His eyes grew larger with the proud light within them. It was with an accent of severity that Marius continued 'Who told you to come back? Did you deliver my letter at the address? Gavroche was not without some compunctions in the matter of that letter. In his haste to return to the barricade, he had got rid of it rather than delivered it. He was forced to acknowledge to himself that he had confided it rather lightly to that stranger whose face he had not been able to make out. It is true that the man was bareheaded, but that was not sufficient. In short, he had been administering to himself little inward remonstrances and he feared Marius' reproaches. In order to extricate himself from the predicament, he took the simplest course he lied abominably. 'Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep. She will have the letter when she wakes up. Marius had had two objects in sending that letter to bid farewell to Cosette and to save Gavroche. He was obliged to content himself with the half of his desire. The despatch of his letter and the presence of M. Fauchelevent in the barricade, was a coincidence which occurred to him. He pointed out M. Fauchelevent to Gavroche. 'Do you know that man? 'No, said Gavroche. Gavroche had, in fact, as we have just mentioned, seen Jean Valjean only at night. The troubled and unhealthy conjectures which had outlined themselves in Marius' mind were dissipated. Did he know M. Fauchelevent's opinions? Perhaps M. Fauchelevent was a republican. Hence his very natural presence in this combat. In the meanwhile, Gavroche was shouting, at the other end of the barricade 'My gun! Courfeyrac had it returned to him. Gavroche warned 'his comrades as he called them, that the barricade was blocked. He had had great difficulty in reaching it. A battalion of the line whose arms were piled in the Rue de la Petite Truanderie was on the watch on the side of the Rue du Cygne on the opposite side, the municipal guard occupied the Rue des Prcheurs. The bulk of the army was facing them in front. This information given, Gavroche added 'I authorize you to hit 'em a tremendous whack. Meanwhile, Enjolras was straining his ears and watching at his embrasure. The assailants, dissatisfied, no doubt, with their shot, had not repeated it. A company of infantry of the line had come up and occupied the end of the street behind the piece of ordnance. The soldiers were tearing up the pavement and constructing with the stones a small, low wall, a sort of sidework not more than eighteen inches high, and facing the barricade. In the angle at the left of this epaulement, there was visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed in the Rue SaintDenis. Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound which is produced when the shells of grapeshot are drawn from the caissons, and he saw the commander of the piece change the elevation and incline the mouth of the cannon slightly to the left. Then the cannoneers began to load the piece. The chief seized the lintstock himself and lowered it to the vent. 'Down with your heads, hug the wall! shouted Enjolras, 'and all on your knees along the barricade! The insurgents who were straggling in front of the wineshop, and who had quitted their posts of combat on Gavroche's arrival, rushed pellmell towards the barricade but before Enjolras' order could be executed, the discharge took place with the terrifying rattle of a round of grapeshot. This is what it was, in fact. The charge had been aimed at the cut in the redoubt, and had there rebounded from the wall and this terrible rebound had produced two dead and three wounded. If this were continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. The grapeshot made its way in. A murmur of consternation arose. 'Let us prevent the second discharge, said Enjolras. And, lowering his rifle, he took aim at the captain of the gun, who, at that moment, was bearing down on the breach of his gun and rectifying and definitely fixing its pointing. The captain of the piece was a handsome sergeant of artillery, very young, blond, with a very gentle face, and the intelligent air peculiar to that predestined and redoubtable weapon which, by dint of perfecting itself in horror, must end in killing war. Combeferre, who was standing beside Enjolras, scrutinized this young man. 'What a pity! said Combeferre. 'What hideous things these butcheries are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war. Enjolras, you are taking aim at that sergeant, you are not looking at him. Fancy, he is a charming young man he is intrepid it is evident that he is thoughtful those young artillerymen are very well educated he has a father, a mother, a family he is probably in love he is not more than five and twenty at the most he might be your brother. 'He is, said Enjolras. 'Yes, replied Combeferre, 'he is mine too. Well, let us not kill him. 'Let me alone. It must be done. And a tear trickled slowly down Enjolras' marble cheek. At the same moment, he pressed the trigger of his rifle. The flame leaped forth. The artilleryman turned round twice, his arms extended in front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell with his side on the gun, and lay there motionless. They could see his back, from the centre of which there flowed directly a stream of blood. The ball had traversed his breast from side to side. He was dead. He had to be carried away and replaced by another. Several minutes were thus gained, in fact. Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was about to begin again. Against that grapeshot, they could not hold out a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the blows. Enjolras issued this command 'We must place a mattress there. 'We have none, said Combeferre, 'the wounded are lying on them. Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post, at the corner of the tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to that moment, taken no part in anything that was going on. He did not appear to hear the combatants saying around him 'Here is a gun that is doing nothing. At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose. It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the bullets, had placed her mattress in front of her window. This window, an attic window, was on the roof of a sixstory house situated a little beyond the barricade. The mattress, placed crosswise, supported at the bottom on two poles for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that distance, looked like two threads, and which were attached to two nails planted in the window frames. These ropes were distinctly visible, like hairs, against the sky. 'Can some one lend me a doublebarrelled rifle? said Jean Valjean. Enjolras, who had just reloaded his, handed it to him. Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired. One of the mattress ropes was cut. The mattress now hung by one thread only. Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and fell into the street. The barricade applauded. All voices cried 'Here is a mattress! 'Yes, said Combeferre, 'but who will go and fetch it? The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeant of artillery having exasperated the troop, the soldiers had, for several minutes, been lying flat on their stomachs behind the line of pavingstones which they had erected, and, in order to supply the forced silence of the piece, which was quiet while its service was in course of reorganization, they had opened fire on the barricade. The insurgents did not reply to this musketry, in order to spare their ammunition. The fusillade broke against the barricade but the street, which it filled, was terrible. Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress, hoisted it upon his back, and returned to the barricade. He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixed it there against the wall in such a manner that the artillerymen should not see it. That done, they awaited the next discharge of grapeshot. It was not long in coming. The cannon vomited forth its package of buckshot with a roar. But there was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen had been attained. The barricade was saved. 'Citizen, said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, 'the Republic thanks you. Bossuet admired and laughed. He exclaimed 'It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power. Triumph of that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon! At that moment, Cosette awoke. Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sashwindow, facing the East on the back courtyard of the house. Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had not been there on the preceding evening, and she had already retired to her chamber when Toussaint had said 'It appears that there is a row. Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to her in the light. She awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at first, produced on her the effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself thoroughly reassured. Like Jean Valjean, she had, a few hours previously, passed through that reaction of the soul which absolutely will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish hope, with all her might, without knowing why. Then she felt a pang at her heart. It was three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that he was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.And that certainly today, and perhaps that very morning.It was broad daylight, but the rays of light were very horizontal she thought that it was very early, but that she must rise, nevertheless, in order to receive Marius. She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that, consequently, that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was valid. All this was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days, this was horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from on high had been gone through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he would bring good news. Youth is made thus it quickly dries its eyes it finds sorrow useless and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of the future in the presence of an unknown quantity, which is itself. It is natural to it to be happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope. Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to her on the subject of this absence which was to last only one day, and what explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticed with what nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away and hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are thoughts which play us the same trick they nestle away in a corner of our brain that is the end of them they are lost it is impossible to lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat vexed at the useless little effort made by her memory. She told herself, that it was very naughty and very wicked of her, to have forgotten the words uttered by Marius. She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of soul and body, her prayers and her toilet. One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader into a nuptial chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse would hardly venture it, prose must not. It is the interior of a flower that is not yet unfolded, it is whiteness in the dark, it is the private cell of a closed lily, which must not be gazed upon by man so long as the sun has not gazed upon it. Woman in the bud is sacred. That innocent bud which opens, that adorable halfnudity which is afraid of itself, that white foot which takes refuge in a slipper, that throat which veils itself before a mirror as though a mirror were an eye, that chemise which makes haste to rise up and conceal the shoulder for a creaking bit of furniture or a passing vehicle, those cords tied, those clasps fastened, those laces drawn, those tremors, those shivers of cold and modesty, that exquisite affright in every movement, that almost winged uneasiness where there is no cause for alarm, the successive phases of dressing, as charming as the clouds of dawn,it is not fitting that all this should be narrated, and it is too much to have even called attention to it. The eye of man must be more religious in the presence of the rising of a young girl than in the presence of the rising of a star. The possibility of hurting should inspire an augmentation of respect. The down on the peach, the bloom on the plum, the radiated crystal of the snow, the wing of the butterfly powdered with feathers, are coarse compared to that chastity which does not even know that it is chaste. The young girl is only the flash of a dream, and is not yet a statue. Her bedchamber is hidden in the sombre part of the ideal. The indiscreet touch of a glance brutalizes this vague penumbra. Here, contemplation is profanation. We shall, therefore, show nothing of that sweet little flutter of Cosette's rising. An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God, but that Adam looked upon her when she was unfolding, and she was ashamed and turned crimson. We are of the number who fall speechless in the presence of young girls and flowers, since we think them worthy of veneration. Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed her hair, which was a very simple matter in those days, when women did not swell out their curls and bands with cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline in their locks. Then she opened the window and cast her eyes around her in every direction, hoping to descry some bit of the street, an angle of the house, an edge of pavement, so that she might be able to watch for Marius there. But no view of the outside was to be had. The back court was surrounded by tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on several gardens. Cosette pronounced these gardens hideous for the first time in her life, she found flowers ugly. The smallest scrap of the gutter of the street would have met her wishes better. She decided to gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might come from that quarter. All at once, she burst into tears. Not that this was fickleness of soul but hopes cut in twain by dejectionthat was her case. She had a confused consciousness of something horrible. Thoughts were rife in the air, in fact. She told herself that she was not sure of anything, that to withdraw herself from sight was to be lost and the idea that Marius could return to her from heaven appeared to her no longer charming but mournful. Then, as is the nature of these clouds, calm returned to her, and hope and a sort of unconscious smile, which yet indicated trust in God. Every one in the house was still asleep. A countrylike silence reigned. Not a shutter had been opened. The porter's lodge was closed. Toussaint had not risen, and Cosette, naturally, thought that her father was asleep. She must have suffered much, and she must have still been suffering greatly, for she said to herself, that her father had been unkind but she counted on Marius. The eclipse of such a light was decidedly impossible. Now and then, she heard sharp shocks in the distance, and she said 'It is odd that people should be opening and shutting their carriage gates so early. They were the reports of the cannon battering the barricade. A few feet below Cosette's window, in the ancient and perfectly black cornice of the wall, there was a martin's nest the curve of this nest formed a little projection beyond the cornice, so that from above it was possible to look into this little paradise. The mother was there, spreading her wings like a fan over her brood the father fluttered about, flew away, then came back, bearing in his beak food and kisses. The dawning day gilded this happy thing, the great law, 'Multiply, lay there smiling and august, and that sweet mystery unfolded in the glory of the morning. Cosette, with her hair in the sunlight, her soul absorbed in chimras, illuminated by love within and by the dawn without, bent over mechanically, and almost without daring to avow to herself that she was thinking at the same time of Marius, began to gaze at these birds, at this family, at that male and female, that mother and her little ones, with the profound trouble which a nest produces on a virgin. The assailants' fire continued. Musketry and grapeshot alternated, but without committing great ravages, to tell the truth. The top alone of the Corinthe faade suffered the window on the first floor, and the attic window in the roof, riddled with buckshot and biscaens, were slowly losing their shape. The combatants who had been posted there had been obliged to withdraw. However, this is according to the tactics of barricades to fire for a long while, in order to exhaust the insurgents' ammunition, if they commit the mistake of replying. When it is perceived, from the slackening of their fire, that they have no more powder and ball, the assault is made. Enjolras had not fallen into this trap the barricade did not reply. At every discharge by platoons, Gavroche puffed out his cheek with his tongue, a sign of supreme disdain. 'Good for you, said he, 'rip up the cloth. We want some lint. Courfeyrac called the grapeshot to order for the little effect which it produced, and said to the cannon 'You are growing diffuse, my good fellow. One gets puzzled in battle, as at a ball. It is probable that this silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy, and to make them fear some unexpected incident, and that they felt the necessity of getting a clear view behind that heap of pavingstones, and of knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall which received blows without retorting. The insurgents suddenly perceived a helmet glittering in the sun on a neighboring roof. A fireman had placed his back against a tall chimney, and seemed to be acting as sentinel. His glance fell directly down into the barricade. 'There's an embarrassing watcher, said Enjolras. Jean Valjean had returned Enjolras' rifle, but he had his own gun. Without saying a word, he took aim at the fireman, and, a second later, the helmet, smashed by a bullet, rattled noisily into the street. The terrified soldier made haste to disappear. A second observer took his place. This one was an officer. Jean Valjean, who had reloaded his gun, took aim at the newcomer and sent the officer's casque to join the soldier's. The officer did not persist, and retired speedily. This time the warning was understood. No one made his appearance thereafter on that roof and the idea of spying on the barricade was abandoned. 'Why did you not kill the man? Bossuet asked Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean made no reply. Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear 'He did not answer my question. 'He is a man who does good by gunshots, said Combeferre. Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch know that the National Guard from the suburbs was valiant against insurrections. It was particularly zealous and intrepid in the days of June, . A certain good dramshop keeper of Pantin des Vertus or la Cunette, whose 'establishment had been closed by the riots, became leonine at the sight of his deserted dancehall, and got himself killed to preserve the order represented by a teagarden. In that bourgeois and heroic time, in the presence of ideas which had their knights, interests had their paladins. The prosiness of the originators detracted nothing from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns made bankers sing the Marseillaise. They shed their blood lyrically for the countinghouse and they defended the shop, that immense diminutive of the fatherland, with Lacedmonian enthusiasm. At bottom, we will observe, there was nothing in all this that was not extremely serious. It was social elements entering into strife, while awaiting the day when they should enter into equilibrium. Another sign of the times was the anarchy mingled with governmentalism the barbarous name of the correct party. People were for order in combination with lack of discipline. The drum suddenly beat capricious calls, at the command of such or such a Colonel of the National Guard such and such a captain went into action through inspiration such and such National Guardsmen fought, 'for an idea, and on their own account. At critical moments, on 'days they took counsel less of their leaders than of their instincts. There existed in the army of order, veritable guerilleros, some of the sword, like Fannicot, others of the pen, like Henri Fonfrde. Civilization, unfortunately, represented at this epoch rather by an aggregation of interests than by a group of principles, was or thought itself, in peril it set up the cry of alarm each, constituting himself a centre, defended it, succored it, and protected it with his own head and the first comer took it upon himself to save society. Zeal sometimes proceeded to extermination. A platoon of the National Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council of war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes. It was an improvisation of this sort that had slain Jean Prouvaire. Fierce Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach the rest, for it has been applied by the Republic in America, as well as by the monarchy in Europe. This Lynch law was complicated with mistakes. On one day of rioting, a young poet, named Paul Aim Garnier, was pursued in the Place Royale, with a bayonet at his loins, and only escaped by taking refuge under the portecochre of No. . They shouted'There's another of those SaintSimonians! and they wanted to kill him. Now, he had under his arm a volume of the memoirs of the Duc de SaintSimon. A National Guard had read the words SaintSimon on the book, and had shouted 'Death! On the th of June, , a company of the National Guards from the suburbs, commanded by the Captain Fannicot, above mentioned, had itself decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice and its own good pleasure. This fact, singular though it may seem, was proved at the judicial investigation opened in consequence of the insurrection of . Captain Fannicot, a bold and impatient bourgeois, a sort of condottiere of the order of those whom we have just characterized, a fanatical and intractable governmentalist, could not resist the temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition of capturing the barricade alone and unaided, that is to say, with his company. Exasperated by the successive apparition of the red flag and the old coat which he took for the black flag, he loudly blamed the generals and chiefs of the corps, who were holding council and did not think that the moment for the decisive assault had arrived, and who were allowing 'the insurrection to fry in its own fat, to use the celebrated expression of one of them. For his part, he thought the barricade ripe, and as that which is ripe ought to fall, he made the attempt. He commanded men as resolute as himself, 'raging fellows, as a witness said. His company, the same which had shot Jean Prouvaire the poet, was the first of the battalion posted at the angle of the street. At the moment when they were least expecting it, the captain launched his men against the barricade. This movement, executed with more good will than strategy, cost the Fannicot company dear. Before it had traversed two thirds of the street it was received by a general discharge from the barricade. Four, the most audacious, who were running on in front, were mown down pointblank at the very foot of the redoubt, and this courageous throng of National Guards, very brave men but lacking in military tenacity, were forced to fall back, after some hesitation, leaving fifteen corpses on the pavement. This momentary hesitation gave the insurgents time to reload their weapons, and a second and very destructive discharge struck the company before it could regain the corner of the street, its shelter. A moment more, and it was caught between two fires, and it received the volley from the battery piece which, not having received the order, had not discontinued its firing. The intrepid and imprudent Fannicot was one of the dead from this grapeshot. He was killed by the cannon, that is to say, by order. This attack, which was more furious than serious, irritated Enjolras.'The fools! said he. 'They are getting their own men killed and they are using up our ammunition for nothing. Enjolras spoke like the real general of insurrection which he was. Insurrection and repression do not fight with equal weapons. Insurrection, which is speedily exhausted, has only a certain number of shots to fire and a certain number of combatants to expend. An empty cartridgebox, a man killed, cannot be replaced. As repression has the army, it does not count its men, and, as it has Vincennes, it does not count its shots. Repression has as many regiments as the barricade has men, and as many arsenals as the barricade has cartridgeboxes. Thus they are struggles of one against a hundred, which always end in crushing the barricade unless the revolution, uprising suddenly, flings into the balance its flaming archangel's sword. This does happen sometimes. Then everything rises, the pavements begin to seethe, popular redoubts abound. Paris quivers supremely, the quid divinum is given forth, a th of August is in the air, a th of July is in the air, a wonderful light appears, the yawning maw of force draws back, and the army, that lion, sees before it, erect and tranquil, that prophet, France. In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is a little of everything there is bravery, there is youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the rage of the gambler, and, above all, intermittences of hope. One of these intermittences, one of these vague quivers of hope suddenly traversed the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie at the moment when it was least expected. 'Listen, suddenly cried Enjolras, who was still on the watch, 'it seems to me that Paris is waking up. It is certain that, on the morning of the th of June, the insurrection broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy of the alarm peal of SaintMerry reanimated some fancies. Barricades were begun in the Rue du Poirier and the Rue des Gravilliers. In front of the Porte SaintMartin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked alone a squadron of cavalry. In plain sight, on the open boulevard, he placed one knee on the ground, shouldered his weapon, fired, killed the commander of the squadron, and turned away, saying 'There's another who will do us no more harm. He was put to the sword. In the Rue SaintDenis, a woman fired on the National Guard from behind a lowered blind. The slats of the blind could be seen to tremble at every shot. A child fourteen years of age was arrested in the Rue de la Cossonerie, with his pockets full of cartridges. Many posts were attacked. At the entrance to the Rue BertinPoire, a very lively and utterly unexpected fusillade welcomed a regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal General Cavaignac de Barague. In the Rue PlancheMibray, they threw old pieces of pottery and household utensils down on the soldiers from the roofs a bad sign and when this matter was reported to Marshal Soult, Napoleon's old lieutenant grew thoughtful, as he recalled Suchet's saying at Saragossa 'We are lost when the old women empty their pots de chambre on our heads. These general symptoms which presented themselves at the moment when it was thought that the uprising had been rendered local, this fever of wrath, these sparks which flew hither and thither above those deep masses of combustibles which are called the faubourgs of Paris,all this, taken together, disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to stamp out these beginnings of conflagration. They delayed the attack on the barricades Maubue, de la Chanvrerie and SaintMerry until these sparks had been extinguished, in order that they might have to deal with the barricades only and be able to finish them at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets where there was fermentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left, now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge. The troops broke in the doors of houses whence shots had been fired at the same time, manuvres by the cavalry dispersed the groups on the boulevards. This repression was not effected without some commotion, and without that tumultuous uproar peculiar to collisions between the army and the people. This was what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the cannonade and the musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men passing the end of the street in litters, and he said to Courfeyrac'Those wounded do not come from us. Their hope did not last long the gleam was quickly eclipsed. In less than half an hour, what was in the air vanished, it was a flash of lightning unaccompanied by thunder, and the insurgents felt that sort of leaden cope, which the indifference of the people casts over obstinate and deserted men, fall over them once more. The general movement, which seemed to have assumed a vague outline, had miscarried and the attention of the minister of war and the strategy of the generals could now be concentrated on the three or four barricades which still remained standing. The sun was mounting above the horizon. An insurgent hailed Enjolras. 'We are hungry here. Are we really going to die like this, without anything to eat? Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his embrasure, made an affirmative sign with his head, but without taking his eyes from the end of the street. Courfeyrac, seated on a pavingstone beside Enjolras, continued to insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles which is called grapeshot passed overhead with its terrible sound he assailed it with a burst of irony. 'You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me, you are wasting your row. That's not thunder, it's a cough. And the bystanders laughed. Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the peril, like Madame Scarron, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and, as wine was lacking, they poured out gayety to all. 'I admire Enjolras, said Bossuet. 'His impassive temerity astounds me. He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps Enjolras complains of his greatness, which binds him to widowhood. The rest of us have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say, brave. When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to fight like a lion. That is one way of taking our revenge for the capers that mesdames our grisettes play on us. Roland gets himself killed for Anglique all our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman is a pistol without a trigger it is the woman that sets the man off. Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and yet he manages to be intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man should be as cold as ice and as bold as fire. Enjolras did not appear to be listening, but had any one been near him, that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice 'Patria. Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed 'News! And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added 'My name is EightPounder. In fact, a new personage had entered on the scene. This was a second piece of ordnance. The artillerymen rapidly performed their manuvres in force and placed this second piece in line with the first. This outlined the catastrophe. A few minutes later, the two pieces, rapidly served, were firing pointblank at the redoubt the platoon firing of the line and of the soldiers from the suburbs sustained the artillery. Another cannonade was audible at some distance. At the same time that the two guns were furiously attacking the redoubt from the Rue de la Chanvrerie, two other cannons, trained one from the Rue SaintDenis, the other from the Rue AubryleBoucher, were riddling the SaintMerry barricade. The four cannons echoed each other mournfully. The barking of these sombre dogs of war replied to each other. One of the two pieces which was now battering the barricade on the Rue de la Chanvrerie was firing grapeshot, the other balls. The piece which was firing balls was pointed a little high, and the aim was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper crest of the barricade, and crumbled the stone down upon the insurgents, mingled with bursts of grapeshot. The object of this mode of firing was to drive the insurgents from the summit of the redoubt, and to compel them to gather close in the interior, that is to say, this announced the assault. The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls, and from the windows of the cabaret by grapeshot, the attacking columns could venture into the street without being picked off, perhaps, even, without being seen, could briskly and suddenly scale the redoubt, as on the preceding evening, and, who knows? take it by surprise. 'It is absolutely necessary that the inconvenience of those guns should be diminished, said Enjolras, and he shouted 'Fire on the artillerymen! All were ready. The barricade, which had long been silent, poured forth a desperate fire seven or eight discharges followed, with a sort of rage and joy the street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the end of a few minutes, athwart this mist all streaked with flame, two thirds of the gunners could be distinguished lying beneath the wheels of the cannons. Those who were left standing continued to serve the pieces with severe tranquillity, but the fire had slackened. 'Things are going well now, said Bossuet to Enjolras. 'Success. Enjolras shook his head and replied 'Another quarter of an hour of this success, and there will not be any cartridges left in the barricade. It appears that Gavroche overheard this remark. Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets. Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wineshop, had made his way out through the cut, and was quietly engaged in emptying the full cartridgeboxes of the National Guardsmen who had been killed on the slope of the redoubt, into his basket. 'What are you doing there? asked Courfeyrac. Gavroche raised his face 'I'm filling my basket, citizen. 'Don't you see the grapeshot? Gavroche replied 'Well, it is raining. What then? Courfeyrac shouted'Come in! 'Instanter, said Gavroche. And with a single bound he plunged into the street. It will be remembered that Fannicot's company had left behind it a trail of bodies. Twenty corpses lay scattered here and there on the pavement, through the whole length of the street. Twenty cartouches for Gavroche meant a provision of cartridges for the barricade. The smoke in the street was like a fog. Whoever has beheld a cloud which has fallen into a mountain gorge between two peaked escarpments can imagine this smoke rendered denser and thicker by two gloomy rows of lofty houses. It rose gradually and was incessantly renewed hence a twilight which made even the broad daylight turn pale. The combatants could hardly see each other from one end of the street to the other, short as it was. This obscurity, which had probably been desired and calculated on by the commanders who were to direct the assault on the barricade, was useful to Gavroche. Beneath the folds of this veil of smoke, and thanks to his small size, he could advance tolerably far into the street without being seen. He rifled the first seven or eight cartridgeboxes without much danger. He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took his basket in his teeth, twisted, glided, undulated, wound from one dead body to another, and emptied the cartridgebox or cartouche as a monkey opens a nut. They did not dare to shout to him to return from the barricade, which was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to him. On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powderflask. 'For thirst, said he, putting it in his pocket. By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of the fusillade became transparent. So that the sharpshooters of the line ranged on the outlook behind their pavingstone dike and the sharpshooters of the banlieue massed at the corner of the street suddenly pointed out to each other something moving through the smoke. At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant, who was lying near a stone doorpost, of his cartridges, a bullet struck the body. 'Fichtre! ejaculated Gavroche. 'They are killing my dead men for me. A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement beside him.A third overturned his basket. Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of the banlieue. He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National Guardsmen who were firing, and sang 'On est laid  Nanterre, C'est la faute  Voltaire Et bte  Palaiseau, C'est la faute  Rousseau. 'Men are ugly at Nanterre, 'Tis the fault of Voltaire And dull at Palaiseau, 'Tis the fault of Rousseau. Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the fusillade, set about plundering another cartridgebox. There a fourth bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang 'Je ne suis pas notaire, C'est la faute  Voltaire Je suis un petit oiseau, C'est la faute  Rousseau. 'I am not a notary, 'Tis the fault of Voltaire I'm a little bird, 'Tis the fault of Rousseau. A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third couplet. 'Joie est mon caractre, C'est la faute  Voltaire Misre est mon trousseau, C'est la faute  Rousseau. 'Joy is my character, 'Tis the fault of Voltaire Misery is my trousseau, 'Tis the fault of Rousseau. Thus it went on for some time. It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though shot at, was teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being greatly diverted. It was the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen. To each discharge he retorted with a couplet. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim at him. He lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of a doorway, then made a bound, disappeared, reappeared, scampered away, returned, replied to the grapeshot with his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on pillaging the cartouches, emptying the cartridgeboxes, and filling his basket. The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed him with their eyes. The barricade trembled he sang. He was not a child, he was not a man he was a strange gaminfairy. He might have been called the invulnerable dwarf of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more nimble than they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death every time that the flatnosed face of the spectre approached, the urchin administered to it a fillip. One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, finally struck the willo'thewisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to stagger, then he sank to the earth. The whole barricade gave vent to a cry but there was something of Antus in that pygmy for the gamin to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth Gavroche had fallen only to rise again he remained in a sitting posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began to sing 'Je suis tomb par terre, C'est la faute  Voltaire Le nez dans le ruisseau, C'est la faute  . . . ' 'I have fallen to the earth, 'Tis the fault of Voltaire With my nose in the gutter, 'Tis the fault of . . .  He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken its flight. At that same moment, in the garden of the Luxembourg,for the gaze of the drama must be everywhere present,two children were holding each other by the hand. One might have been seven years old, the other five. The rain having soaked them, they were walking along the paths on the sunny side the elder was leading the younger they were pale and ragged they had the air of wild birds. The smaller of them said 'I am very hungry. The elder, who was already somewhat of a protector, was leading his brother with his left hand and in his right he carried a small stick. They were alone in the garden. The garden was deserted, the gates had been closed by order of the police, on account of the insurrection. The troops who had been bivouacking there had departed for the exigencies of combat. How did those children come there? Perhaps they had escaped from some guardhouse which stood ajar perhaps there was in the vicinity, at the Barrire d'Enfer or on the Esplanade de l'Observatoire, or in the neighboring carrefour, dominated by the pediment on which could be read Invenerunt parvulum pannis involutum, some mountebank's booth from which they had fled perhaps they had, on the preceding evening, escaped the eye of the inspectors of the garden at the hour of closing, and had passed the night in some one of those sentryboxes where people read the papers? The fact is, they were stray lambs and they seemed free. To be astray and to seem free is to be lost. These poor little creatures were, in fact, lost. These two children were the same over whom Gavroche had been put to some trouble, as the reader will recollect. Children of the Thnardiers, leased out to Magnon, attributed to M. Gillenormand, and now leaves fallen from all these rootless branches, and swept over the ground by the wind. Their clothing, which had been clean in Magnon's day, and which had served her as a prospectus with M. Gillenormand, had been converted into rags. Henceforth these beings belonged to the statistics as 'Abandoned children, whom the police take note of, collect, mislay and find again on the pavements of Paris. It required the disturbance of a day like that to account for these miserable little creatures being in that garden. If the superintendents had caught sight of them, they would have driven such rags forth. Poor little things do not enter public gardens still, people should reflect that, as children, they have a right to flowers. These children were there, thanks to the locked gates. They were there contrary to the regulations. They had slipped into the garden and there they remained. Closed gates do not dismiss the inspectors, oversight is supposed to continue, but it grows slack and reposes and the inspectors, moved by the public anxiety and more occupied with the outside than the inside, no longer glanced into the garden, and had not seen the two delinquents. It had rained the night before, and even a little in the morning. But in June, showers do not count for much. An hour after a storm, it can hardly be seen that the beautiful blonde day has wept. The earth, in summer, is as quickly dried as the cheek of a child. At that period of the solstice, the light of full noonday is, so to speak, poignant. It takes everything. It applies itself to the earth, and superposes itself with a sort of suction. One would say that the sun was thirsty. A shower is but a glass of water a rainstorm is instantly drunk up. In the morning everything was dripping, in the afternoon everything is powdered over. Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and wiped by the rays of sunlight it is warm freshness. The gardens and meadows, having water at their roots, and sun in their flowers, become perfumingpans of incense, and smoke with all their odors at once. Everything smiles, sings and offers itself. One feels gently intoxicated. The springtime is a provisional paradise, the sun helps man to have patience. There are beings who demand nothing further mortals, who, having the azure of heaven, say 'It is enough! dreamers absorbed in the wonderful, dipping into the idolatry of nature, indifferent to good and evil, contemplators of cosmos and radiantly forgetful of man, who do not understand how people can occupy themselves with the hunger of these, and the thirst of those, with the nudity of the poor in winter, with the lymphatic curvature of the little spinal column, with the pallet, the attic, the dungeon, and the rags of shivering young girls, when they can dream beneath the trees peaceful and terrible spirits they, and pitilessly satisfied. Strange to say, the infinite suffices them. That great need of man, the finite, which admits of embrace, they ignore. The finite which admits of progress and sublime toil, they do not think about. The indefinite, which is born from the human and divine combination of the infinite and the finite, escapes them. Provided that they are face to face with immensity, they smile. Joy never, ecstasy forever. Their life lies in surrendering their personality in contemplation. The history of humanity is for them only a detailed plan. All is not there the true All remains without what is the use of busying oneself over that detail, man? Man suffers, that is quite possible but look at Aldebaran rising! The mother has no more milk, the newborn babe is dying. I know nothing about that, but just look at this wonderful rosette which a slice of woodcells of the pine presents under the microscope! Compare the most beautiful Mechlin lace to that if you can! These thinkers forget to love. The zodiac thrives with them to such a point that it prevents their seeing the weeping child. God eclipses their souls. This is a family of minds which are, at once, great and petty. Horace was one of them so was Goethe. La Fontaine perhaps magnificent egoists of the infinite, tranquil spectators of sorrow, who do not behold Nero if the weather be fair, for whom the sun conceals the funeral pile, who would look on at an execution by the guillotine in the search for an effect of light, who hear neither the cry nor the sob, nor the death rattle, nor the alarm peal, for whom everything is well, since there is a month of May, who, so long as there are clouds of purple and gold above their heads, declare themselves content, and who are determined to be happy until the radiance of the stars and the songs of the birds are exhausted. These are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and admire a being at once night and day, without eyes beneath his lashes but with a star on his brow. The indifference of these thinkers, is, according to some, a superior philosophy. That may be but in this superiority there is some infirmity. One may be immortal and yet limp witness Vulcan. One may be more than man and less than man. There is incomplete immensity in nature. Who knows whether the sun is not a blind man? But then, what? In whom can we trust? Solem quis dicere falsum audeat? Who shall dare to say that the sun is false? Thus certain geniuses, themselves, certain VeryLofty mortals, manstars, may be mistaken? That which is on high at the summit, at the crest, at the zenith, that which sends down so much light on the earth, sees but little, sees badly, sees not at all? Is not this a desperate state of things? No. But what is there, then, above the sun? The god. On the th of June, , about eleven o'clock in the morning, the Luxembourg, solitary and depopulated, was charming. The quincunxes and flowerbeds shed forth balm and dazzling beauty into the sunlight. The branches, wild with the brilliant glow of midday, seemed endeavoring to embrace. In the sycamores there was an uproar of linnets, sparrows triumphed, woodpeckers climbed along the chestnut trees, administering little pecks on the bark. The flowerbeds accepted the legitimate royalty of the lilies the most august of perfumes is that which emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was perceptible. The old crows of Marie de Medici were amorous in the tall trees. The sun gilded, empurpled, set fire to and lighted up the tulips, which are nothing but all the varieties of flame made into flowers. All around the banks of tulips the bees, the sparks of these flameflowers, hummed. All was grace and gayety, even the impending rain this relapse, by which the lilies of the valley and the honeysuckles were destined to profit, had nothing disturbing about it the swallows indulged in the charming threat of flying low. He who was there aspired to happiness life smelled good all nature exhaled candor, help, assistance, paternity, caress, dawn. The thoughts which fell from heaven were as sweet as the tiny hand of a baby when one kisses it. The statues under the trees, white and nude, had robes of shadow pierced with light these goddesses were all tattered with sunlight rays hung from them on all sides. Around the great fountain, the earth was already dried up to the point of being burnt. There was sufficient breeze to raise little insurrections of dust here and there. A few yellow leaves, left over from the autumn, chased each other merrily, and seemed to be playing tricks on each other. This abundance of light had something indescribably reassuring about it. Life, sap, heat, odors overflowed one was conscious, beneath creation, of the enormous size of the source in all these breaths permeated with love, in this interchange of reverberations and reflections, in this marvellous expenditure of rays, in this infinite outpouring of liquid gold, one felt the prodigality of the inexhaustible and, behind this splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that millionaire of stars. Thanks to the sand, there was not a speck of mud thanks to the rain, there was not a grain of ashes. The clumps of blossoms had just been bathed every sort of velvet, satin, gold and varnish, which springs from the earth in the form of flowers, was irreproachable. This magnificence was cleanly. The grand silence of happy nature filled the garden. A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of music, the cooing of nests, the buzzing of swarms, the flutterings of the breeze. All the harmony of the season was complete in one gracious whole the entrances and exits of spring took place in proper order the lilacs ended the jasmines began some flowers were tardy, some insects in advance of their time the vanguard of the red June butterflies fraternized with the rearguard of the white butterflies of May. The plantain trees were getting their new skins. The breeze hollowed out undulations in the magnificent enormity of the chestnuttrees. It was splendid. A veteran from the neighboring barracks, who was gazing through the fence, said 'Here is the Spring presenting arms and in full uniform. All nature was breakfasting creation was at table this was its hour the great blue cloth was spread in the sky, and the great green cloth on earth the sun lighted it all up brilliantly. God was serving the universal repast. Each creature had his pasture or his mess. The ringdove found his hempseed, the chaffinch found his millet, the goldfinch found chickweed, the redbreast found worms, the green finch found flies, the fly found infusori, the bee found flowers. They ate each other somewhat, it is true, which is the misery of evil mixed with good but not a beast of them all had an empty stomach. The two little abandoned creatures had arrived in the vicinity of the grand fountain, and, rather bewildered by all this light, they tried to hide themselves, the instinct of the poor and the weak in the presence of even impersonal magnificence and they kept behind the swans' hutch. Here and there, at intervals, when the wind blew, shouts, clamor, a sort of tumultuous death rattle, which was the firing, and dull blows, which were discharges of cannon, struck the ear confusedly. Smoke hung over the roofs in the direction of the Halles. A bell, which had the air of an appeal, was ringing in the distance. These children did not appear to notice these noises. The little one repeated from time to time 'I am hungry. Almost at the same instant with the children, another couple approached the great basin. They consisted of a goodman, about fifty years of age, who was leading by the hand a little fellow of six. No doubt, a father and his son. The little man of six had a big brioche. At that epoch, certain houses abutting on the river, in the Rues Madame and d'Enfer, had keys to the Luxembourg garden, of which the lodgers enjoyed the use when the gates were shut, a privilege which was suppressed later on. This father and son came from one of these houses, no doubt. The two poor little creatures watched 'that gentleman approaching, and hid themselves a little more thoroughly. He was a bourgeois. The same person, perhaps, whom Marius had one day heard, through his love fever, near the same grand basin, counselling his son 'to avoid excesses. He had an affable and haughty air, and a mouth which was always smiling, since it did not shut. This mechanical smile, produced by too much jaw and too little skin, shows the teeth rather than the soul. The child, with his brioche, which he had bitten into but had not finished eating, seemed satiated. The child was dressed as a National Guardsman, owing to the insurrection, and the father had remained clad as a bourgeois out of prudence. Father and son halted near the fountain where two swans were sporting. This bourgeois appeared to cherish a special admiration for the swans. He resembled them in this sense, that he walked like them. For the moment, the swans were swimming, which is their principal talent, and they were superb. If the two poor little beings had listened and if they had been of an age to understand, they might have gathered the words of this grave man. The father was saying to his son 'The sage lives content with little. Look at me, my son. I do not love pomp. I am never seen in clothes decked with gold lace and stones I leave that false splendor to badly organized souls. Here the deep shouts which proceeded from the direction of the Halles burst out with fresh force of bell and uproar. 'What is that? inquired the child. The father replied 'It is the Saturnalia. All at once, he caught sight of the two little ragged boys behind the green swanhutch. 'There is the beginning, said he. And, after a pause, he added 'Anarchy is entering this garden. In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and, suddenly burst out crying. 'What are you crying about? demanded his father. 'I am not hungry any more, said the child. The father's smile became more accentuated. 'One does not need to be hungry in order to eat a cake. 'My cake tires me. It is stale. 'Don't you want any more of it? 'No. The father pointed to the swans. 'Throw it to those palmipeds. The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake but that is no reason for giving it away. The father went on 'Be humane. You must have compassion on animals. And, taking the cake from his son, he flung it into the basin. The cake fell very near the edge. The swans were far away, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some prey. They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche. The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being wasted, and moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation, which finally attracted the attention of the swans. They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as they are, and slowly directed their course toward the brioche, with the stupid majesty which befits white creatures. 'The swans cygnes understand signs signes, said the bourgeois, delighted to make a jest. At that moment, the distant tumult of the city underwent another sudden increase. This time it was sinister. There are some gusts of wind which speak more distinctly than others. The one which was blowing at that moment brought clearly defined drumbeats, clamors, platoon firing, and the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon. This coincided with a black cloud which suddenly veiled the sun. The swans had not yet reached the brioche. 'Let us return home, said the father, 'they are attacking the Tuileries. He grasped his son's hand again. Then he continued 'From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is but the distance which separates Royalty from the peerage that is not far. Shots will soon rain down. He glanced at the cloud. 'Perhaps it is rain itself that is about to shower down the sky is joining in the younger branch is condemned. Let us return home quickly. 'I should like to see the swans eat the brioche, said the child. The father replied 'That would be imprudent. And he led his little bourgeois away. The son, regretting the swans, turned his head back toward the basin until a corner of the quincunxes concealed it from him. In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at the same time as the swans. It was floating on the water. The smaller of them stared at the cake, the elder gazed after the retreating bourgeois. Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand flight of steps near the clump of trees on the side of the Rue Madame. As soon as they had disappeared from view, the elder child hastily flung himself flat on his stomach on the rounding curb of the basin, and clinging to it with his left hand, and leaning over the water, on the verge of falling in, he stretched out his right hand with his stick towards the cake. The swans, perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so doing, they produced an effect of their breasts which was of service to the little fisher the water flowed back before the swans, and one of these gentle concentric undulations softly floated the brioche towards the child's wand. Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. The child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet. The cake was wet but they were hungry and thirsty. The elder broke the cake into two portions, a large one and a small one, took the small one for himself, gave the large one to his brother, and said to him 'Ram that into your muzzle. Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of cartridges Marius bore the child. 'Alas! he thought, 'that which the father had done for his father, he was requiting to the son only, Thnardier had brought back his father alive he was bringing back the child dead. When Marius reentered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face, like the child, was inundated with blood. At the moment when he had stooped to lift Gavroche, a bullet had grazed his head he had not noticed it. Courfeyrac untied his cravat and with it bandaged Marius' brow. They laid Gavroche on the same table with Mabeuf, and spread over the two corpses the black shawl. There was enough of it for both the old man and the child. Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had brought in. This gave each man fifteen rounds to fire. Jean Valjean was still in the same place, motionless on his stone post. When Combeferre offered him his fifteen cartridges, he shook his head. 'Here's a rare eccentric, said Combeferre in a low voice to Enjolras. 'He finds a way of not fighting in this barricade. 'Which does not prevent him from defending it, responded Enjolras. 'Heroism has its originals, resumed Combeferre. And Courfeyrac, who had overheard, added 'He is another sort from Father Mabeuf. One thing which must be noted is, that the fire which was battering the barricade hardly disturbed the interior. Those who have never traversed the whirlwind of this sort of war can form no idea of the singular moments of tranquillity mingled with these convulsions. Men go and come, they talk, they jest, they lounge. Some one whom we know heard a combatant say to him in the midst of the grapeshot 'We are here as at a bachelor breakfast. The redoubt of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, we repeat, seemed very calm within. All mutations and all phases had been, or were about to be, exhausted. The position, from critical, had become menacing, and, from menacing, was probably about to become desperate. In proportion as the situation grew gloomy, the glow of heroism empurpled the barricade more and more. Enjolras, who was grave, dominated it, in the attitude of a young Spartan sacrificing his naked sword to the sombre genius, Epidotas. Combeferre, wearing an apron, was dressing the wounds Bossuet and Feuilly were making cartridges with the powderflask picked up by Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly 'We are soon to take the diligence for another planet Courfeyrac was disposing and arranging on some pavingstones which he had reserved for himself near Enjolras, a complete arsenal, his swordcane, his gun, two holster pistols, and a cudgel, with the care of a young girl setting a small dunkerque in order. Jean Valjean stared silently at the wall opposite him. An artisan was fastening Mother Hucheloup's big straw hat on his head with a string, 'for fear of sunstroke, as he said. The young men from the Cougourde d'Aix were chatting merrily among themselves, as though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken Widow Hucheloup's mirror from the wall, was examining his tongue in it. Some combatants, having discovered a few crusts of rather mouldy bread, in a drawer, were eagerly devouring them. Marius was disturbed with regard to what his father was about to say to him. We must insist upon one psychological fact peculiar to barricades. Nothing which is characteristic of that surprising war of the streets should be omitted. Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have just mentioned, the barricade, for those who are inside it, remains, nonetheless, a vision. There is something of the apocalypse in civil war, all the mists of the unknown are commingled with fierce flashes, revolutions are sphinxes, and any one who has passed through a barricade thinks he has traversed a dream. The feelings to which one is subject in these places we have pointed out in the case of Marius, and we shall see the consequences they are both more and less than life. On emerging from a barricade, one no longer knows what one has seen there. One has been terrible, but one knows it not. One has been surrounded with conflicting ideas which had human faces one's head has been in the light of the future. There were corpses lying prone there, and phantoms standing erect. The hours were colossal and seemed hours of eternity. One has lived in death. Shadows have passed by. What were they? One has beheld hands on which there was blood there was a deafening horror there was also a frightful silence there were open mouths which shouted, and other open mouths which held their peace one was in the midst of smoke, of night, perhaps. One fancied that one had touched the sinister ooze of unknown depths one stares at something red on one's finger nails. One no longer remembers anything. Let us return to the Rue de la Chanvrerie. All at once, between two discharges, the distant sound of a clock striking the hour became audible. 'It is midday, said Combeferre. The twelve strokes had not finished striking when Enjolras sprang to his feet, and from the summit of the barricade hurled this thundering shout 'Carry stones up into the houses line the windowsills and the roofs with them. Half the men to their guns, the other half to the pavingstones. There is not a minute to be lost. A squad of sappers and miners, axe on shoulder, had just made their appearance in battle array at the end of the street. This could only be the head of a column and of what column? The attacking column, evidently the sappers charged with the demolition of the barricade must always precede the soldiers who are to scale it. They were, evidently, on the brink of that moment which M. ClermontTonnerre, in , called 'the tug of war. Enjolras' order was executed with the correct haste which is peculiar to ships and barricades, the only two scenes of combat where escape is impossible. In less than a minute, two thirds of the stones which Enjolras had had piled up at the door of Corinthe had been carried up to the first floor and the attic, and before a second minute had elapsed, these stones, artistically set one upon the other, walled up the sashwindow on the first floor and the windows in the roof to half their height. A few loopholes carefully planned by Feuilly, the principal architect, allowed of the passage of the gunbarrels. This armament of the windows could be effected all the more easily since the firing of grapeshot had ceased. The two cannons were now discharging ball against the centre of the barrier in order to make a hole there, and, if possible, a breach for the assault. When the stones destined to the final defence were in place, Enjolras had the bottles which he had set under the table where Mabeuf lay, carried to the first floor. 'Who is to drink that? Bossuet asked him. 'They, replied Enjolras. Then they barricaded the window below, and held in readiness the iron crossbars which served to secure the door of the wineshop at night. The fortress was complete. The barricade was the rampart, the wineshop was the dungeon. With the stones which remained they stopped up the outlet. As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to be sparing of their ammunition, and as the assailants know this, the assailants combine their arrangements with a sort of irritating leisure, expose themselves to fire prematurely, though in appearance more than in reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always made with a certain methodical deliberation after which, the lightning strikes. This deliberation permitted Enjolras to take a review of everything and to perfect everything. He felt that, since such men were to die, their death ought to be a masterpiece. He said to Marius 'We are the two leaders. I will give the last orders inside. Do you remain outside and observe. Marius posted himself on the lookout upon the crest of the barricade. Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which was the ambulance, as the reader will remember, nailed up. 'No splashing of the wounded, he said. He issued his final orders in the taproom in a curt, but profoundly tranquil tone Feuilly listened and replied in the name of all. 'On the first floor, hold your axes in readiness to cut the staircase. Have you them? 'Yes, said Feuilly. 'How many? 'Two axes and a poleaxe. 'That is good. There are now twentysix combatants of us on foot. How many guns are there? 'Thirtyfour. 'Eight too many. Keep those eight guns loaded like the rest and at hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six ambushed in the attic windows, and at the window on the first floor to fire on the assailants through the loopholes in the stones. Let not a single worker remain inactive here. Presently, when the drum beats the assault, let the twenty below stairs rush to the barricade. The first to arrive will have the best places. These arrangements made, he turned to Javert and said 'I am not forgetting you. And, laying a pistol on the table, he added 'The last man to leave this room will smash the skull of this spy. 'Here? inquired a voice. 'No, let us not mix their corpses with our own. The little barricade of the Mondtour lane can be scaled. It is only four feet high. The man is well pinioned. He shall be taken thither and put to death. There was some one who was more impassive at that moment than Enjolras, it was Javert. Here Jean Valjean made his appearance. He had been lost among the group of insurgents. He stepped forth and said to Enjolras 'You are the commander? 'Yes. 'You thanked me a while ago. 'In the name of the Republic. The barricade has two saviors, Marius Pontmercy and yourself. 'Do you think that I deserve a recompense? 'Certainly. 'Well, I request one. 'What is it? 'That I may blow that man's brains out. Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, made an almost imperceptible movement, and said 'That is just. As for Enjolras, he had begun to reload his rifle he cut his eyes about him 'No objections. And he turned to Jean Valjean 'Take the spy. Jean Valjean did, in fact, take possession of Javert, by seating himself on the end of the table. He seized the pistol, and a faint click announced that he had cocked it. Almost at the same moment, a blast of trumpets became audible. 'Take care! shouted Marius from the top of the barricade. Javert began to laugh with that noiseless laugh which was peculiar to him, and gazing intently at the insurgents, he said to them 'You are in no better case than I am. 'All out! shouted Enjolras. The insurgents poured out tumultuously, and, as they went, received in the back,may we be permitted the expression,this sally of Javert's 'We shall meet again shortly! When Jean Valjean was left alone with Javert, he untied the rope which fastened the prisoner across the middle of the body, and the knot of which was under the table. After this he made him a sign to rise. Javert obeyed with that indefinable smile in which the supremacy of enchained authority is condensed. Jean Valjean took Javert by the martingale, as one would take a beast of burden by the breastband, and, dragging the latter after him, emerged from the wineshop slowly, because Javert, with his impeded limbs, could take only very short steps. Jean Valjean had the pistol in his hand. In this manner they crossed the inner trapezium of the barricade. The insurgents, all intent on the attack, which was imminent, had their backs turned to these two. Marius alone, stationed on one side, at the extreme left of the barricade, saw them pass. This group of victim and executioner was illuminated by the sepulchral light which he bore in his own soul. Jean Valjean with some difficulty, but without relaxing his hold for a single instant, made Javert, pinioned as he was, scale the little entrenchment in the Mondtour lane. When they had crossed this barrier, they found themselves alone in the lane. No one saw them. Among the heap they could distinguish a livid face, streaming hair, a pierced hand and the half nude breast of a woman. It was ponine. The corner of the houses hid them from the insurgents. The corpses carried away from the barricade formed a terrible pile a few paces distant. Javert gazed askance at this body, and, profoundly calm, said in a low tone 'It strikes me that I know that girl. Then he turned to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean thrust the pistol under his arm and fixed on Javert a look which it required no words to interpret 'Javert, it is I. Javert replied 'Take your revenge. Jean Valjean drew from his pocket a knife, and opened it. 'A claspknife! exclaimed Javert, 'you are right. That suits you better. Jean Valjean cut the martingale which Javert had about his neck, then he cut the cords on his wrists, then, stooping down, he cut the cord on his feet and, straightening himself up, he said to him 'You are free. Javert was not easily astonished. Still, master of himself though he was, he could not repress a start. He remained openmouthed and motionless. Jean Valjean continued 'I do not think that I shall escape from this place. But if, by chance, I do, I live, under the name of Fauchelevent, in the Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . Javert snarled like a tiger, which made him half open one corner of his mouth, and he muttered between his teeth 'Have a care. 'Go, said Jean Valjean. Javert began again 'Thou saidst Fauchelevent, Rue de l'Homme Arm? 'Number . Javert repeated in a low voice'Number . He buttoned up his coat once more, resumed the military stiffness between his shoulders, made a half turn, folded his arms and, supporting his chin on one of his hands, he set out in the direction of the Halles. Jean Valjean followed him with his eyes A few minutes later, Javert turned round and shouted to Jean Valjean 'You annoy me. Kill me, rather. Javert himself did not notice that he no longer addressed Jean Valjean as 'thou. 'Be off with you, said Jean Valjean. Javert retreated slowly. A moment later he turned the corner of the Rue des Prcheurs. When Javert had disappeared, Jean Valjean fired his pistol in the air. Then he returned to the barricade and said 'It is done. In the meanwhile, this is what had taken place. Marius, more intent on the outside than on the interior, had not, up to that time, taken a good look at the pinioned spy in the dark background of the taproom. When he beheld him in broad daylight, striding over the barricade in order to proceed to his death, he recognized him. Something suddenly recurred to his mind. He recalled the inspector of the Rue de Pontoise, and the two pistols which the latter had handed to him and which he, Marius, had used in this very barricade, and not only did he recall his face, but his name as well. This recollection was misty and troubled, however, like all his ideas. It was not an affirmation that he made, but a question which he put to himself 'Is not that the inspector of police who told me that his name was Javert? Perhaps there was still time to intervene in behalf of that man. But, in the first place, he must know whether this was Javert. Marius called to Enjolras, who had just stationed himself at the other extremity of the barricade 'Enjolras! 'What? 'What is the name of yonder man? 'What man? 'The police agent. Do you know his name? 'Of course. He told us. 'What is it? 'Javert. Marius sprang to his feet. At that moment, they heard the report of the pistol. Jean Valjean reappeared and cried 'It is done. A gloomy chill traversed Marius' heart. The death agony of the barricade was about to begin. Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment a thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set in movement in the streets which were not visible, the intermittent gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing by squads, and the cannonades crossing each other in the labyrinth of Paris, the smokes of battle mounting all gilded above the roofs, indescribable and vaguely terrible cries, lightnings of menace everywhere, the tocsin of SaintMerry, which now had the accents of a sob, the mildness of the weather, the splendor of the sky filled with sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the houses. For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed. In those days, so different from those in which we live, when the hour was come, when the people wished to put an end to a situation, which had lasted too long, with a charter granted or with a legal country, when universal wrath was diffused in the atmosphere, when the city consented to the tearing up of the pavements, when insurrection made the bourgeoisie smile by whispering its password in its ear, then the inhabitant, thoroughly penetrated with the revolt, so to speak, was the auxiliary of the combatant, and the house fraternized with the improvised fortress which rested on it. When the situation was not ripe, when the insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to take the barricade. A people cannot be forced, through surprise, to walk more quickly than it chooses. Woe to whomsoever tries to force its hand! A people does not let itself go at random. Then it abandons the insurrection to itself. The insurgents become noxious, infected with the plague. A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a faade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses. They seem dead, they are living. Life which is, as it were, suspended there, persists there. No one has gone out of them for four and twenty hours, but no one is missing from them. In the interior of that rock, people go and come, go to bed and rise again they are a family party there there they eat and drink they are afraid, a terrible thing! Fear excuses this fearful lack of hospitality terror is mixed with it, an extenuating circumstance. Sometimes, even, and this has been actually seen, fear turns to passion fright may change into fury, as prudence does into rage hence this wise saying 'The enraged moderates. There are outbursts of supreme terror, whence springs wrath like a mournful smoke.'What do these people want? What have they come there to do? Let them get out of the scrape. So much the worse for them. It is their fault. They are only getting what they deserve. It does not concern us. Here is our poor street all riddled with balls. They are a pack of rascals. Above all things, don't open the door.And the house assumes the air of a tomb. The insurgent is in the deaththroes in front of that house he sees the grapeshot and naked swords drawing near if he cries, he knows that they are listening to him, and that no one will come there stand walls which might protect him, there are men who might save him and these walls have ears of flesh, and these men have bowels of stone. Whom shall he reproach? No one and every one. The incomplete times in which we live. It is always at its own risk and peril that Utopia is converted into revolution, and from philosophical protest becomes an armed protest, and from Minerva turns to Pallas. The Utopia which grows impatient and becomes revolt knows what awaits it it almost always comes too soon. Then it becomes resigned, and stoically accepts catastrophe in lieu of triumph. It serves those who deny it without complaint, even excusing them, and even disculpates them, and its magnanimity consists in consenting to abandonment. It is indomitable in the face of obstacles and gentle towards ingratitude. Is this ingratitude, however? Yes, from the point of view of the human race. No, from the point of view of the individual. Progress is man's mode of existence. The general life of the human race is called Progress, the collective stride of the human race is called Progress. Progress advances it makes the great human and terrestrial journey towards the celestial and the divine it has its halting places where it rallies the laggard troop, it has its stations where it meditates, in the presence of some splendid Canaan suddenly unveiled on its horizon, it has its nights when it sleeps and it is one of the poignant anxieties of the thinker that he sees the shadow resting on the human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awaken that slumbering Progress. 'God is dead, perhaps, said Gerard de Nerval one day to the writer of these lines, confounding progress with God, and taking the interruption of movement for the death of Being. He who despairs is in the wrong. Progress infallibly awakes, and, in short, we may say that it marches on, even when it is asleep, for it has increased in size. When we behold it erect once more, we find it taller. To be always peaceful does not depend on progress any more than it does on the stream erect no barriers, cast in no boulders obstacles make water froth and humanity boil. Hence arise troubles but after these troubles, we recognize the fact that ground has been gained. Until order, which is nothing else than universal peace, has been established, until harmony and unity reign, progress will have revolutions as its haltingplaces. What, then, is progress? We have just enunciated it the permanent life of the peoples. Now, it sometimes happens, that the momentary life of individuals offers resistance to the eternal life of the human race. Let us admit without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests, and can, without forfeiture, stipulate for his interest, and defend it the present has its pardonable dose of egotism momentary life has its rights, and is not bound to sacrifice itself constantly to the future. The generation which is passing in its turn over the earth, is not forced to abridge it for the sake of the generations, its equal, after all, who will have their turn later on.'I exist, murmurs that some one whose name is All. 'I am young and in love, I am old and I wish to repose, I am the father of a family, I toil, I prosper, I am successful in business, I have houses to lease, I have money in the government funds, I am happy, I have a wife and children, I have all this, I desire to live, leave me in peace.Hence, at certain hours, a profound cold broods over the magnanimous vanguard of the human race. Utopia, moreover, we must admit, quits its radiant sphere when it makes war. It, the truth of tomorrow, borrows its mode of procedure, battle, from the lie of yesterday. It, the future, behaves like the past. It, pure idea, becomes a deed of violence. It complicates its heroism with a violence for which it is just that it should be held to answer a violence of occasion and expedient, contrary to principle, and for which it is fatally punished. The Utopia, insurrection, fights with the old military code in its fist it shoots spies, it executes traitors it suppresses living beings and flings them into unknown darkness. It makes use of death, a serious matter. It seems as though Utopia had no longer any faith in radiance, its irresistible and incorruptible force. It strikes with the sword. Now, no sword is simple. Every blade has two edges he who wounds with the one is wounded with the other. Having made this reservation, and made it with all severity, it is impossible for us not to admire, whether they succeed or not, those the glorious combatants of the future, the confessors of Utopia. Even when they miscarry, they are worthy of veneration and it is, perhaps, in failure, that they possess the most majesty. Victory, when it is in accord with progress, merits the applause of the people but a heroic defeat merits their tender compassion. The one is magnificent, the other sublime. For our own part, we prefer martyrdom to success. John Brown is greater than Washington, and Pisacane is greater than Garibaldi. It certainly is necessary that some one should take the part of the vanquished. We are unjust towards these great men who attempt the future, when they fail. Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them 'You are tearing up the pavements of hell! They might reply 'That is because our barricade is made of good intentions. The best thing, assuredly, is the pacific solution. In short, let us agree that when we behold the pavement, we think of the bear, and it is a good will which renders society uneasy. But it depends on society to save itself, it is to its own good will that we make our appeal. No violent remedy is necessary. To study evil amiably, to prove its existence, then to cure it. It is to this that we invite it. However that may be, even when fallen, above all when fallen, these men, who at every point of the universe, with their eyes fixed on France, are striving for the grand work with the inflexible logic of the ideal, are august they give their life a free offering to progress they accomplish the will of Providence they perform a religious act. At the appointed hour, with as much disinterestedness as an actor who answers to his cue, in obedience to the divine stagemanager, they enter the tomb. And this hopeless combat, this stoical disappearance they accept in order to bring about the supreme and universal consequences, the magnificent and irresistibly human movement begun on the th of July,  these soldiers are priests. The French revolution is an act of God. Moreover, there are, and it is proper to add this distinction to the distinctions already pointed out in another chapter,there are accepted revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions there are refused revolutions, which are called riots. An insurrection which breaks out, is an idea which is passing its examination before the people. If the people lets fall a black ball, the idea is dried fruit the insurrection is a mere skirmish. Waging war at every summons and every time that Utopia desires it, is not the thing for the peoples. Nations have not always and at every hour the temperament of heroes and martyrs. They are positive. A priori, insurrection is repugnant to them, in the first place, because it often results in a catastrophe, in the second place, because it always has an abstraction as its point of departure. Because, and this is a noble thing, it is always for the ideal, and for the ideal alone, that those who sacrifice themselves do thus sacrifice themselves. An insurrection is an enthusiasm. Enthusiasm may wax wroth hence the appeal to arms. But every insurrection, which aims at a government or a rgime, aims higher. Thus, for instance, and we insist upon it, what the chiefs of the insurrection of , and, in particular, the young enthusiasts of the Rue de la Chanvrerie were combating, was not precisely Louis Philippe. The majority of them, when talking freely, did justice to this king who stood midway between monarchy and revolution no one hated him. But they attacked the younger branch of the divine right in Louis Philippe as they had attacked its elder branch in Charles X. and that which they wished to overturn in overturning royalty in France, was, as we have explained, the usurpation of man over man, and of privilege over right in the entire universe. Paris without a king has as result the world without despots. This is the manner in which they reasoned. Their aim was distant no doubt, vague perhaps, and it retreated in the face of their efforts but it was great. Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are almost always illusions for the sacrificed, but illusions with which, after all, the whole of human certainty is mingled. We throw ourselves into these tragic affairs and become intoxicated with that which we are about to do. Who knows? We may succeed. We are few in number, we have a whole army arrayed against us but we are defending right, the natural law, the sovereignty of each one over himself from which no abdication is possible, justice and truth, and in case of need, we die like the three hundred Spartans. We do not think of Don Quixote but of Leonidas. And we march straight before us, and once pledged, we do not draw back, and we rush onwards with head held low, cherishing as our hope an unprecedented victory, revolution completed, progress set free again, the aggrandizement of the human race, universal deliverance and in the event of the worst, Thermopyl. These passages of arms for the sake of progress often suffer shipwreck, and we have just explained why. The crowd is restive in the presence of the impulses of paladins. Heavy masses, the multitudes which are fragile because of their very weight, fear adventures and there is a touch of adventure in the ideal. Moreover, and we must not forget this, interests which are not very friendly to the ideal and the sentimental are in the way. Sometimes the stomach paralyzes the heart. The grandeur and beauty of France lies in this, that she takes less from the stomach than other nations she more easily knots the rope about her loins. She is the first awake, the last asleep. She marches forwards. She is a seeker. This arises from the fact that she is an artist. The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the beautiful is nothing but the summit of the true. Artistic peoples are also consistent peoples. To love beauty is to see the light. That is why the torch of Europe, that is to say of civilization, was first borne by Greece, who passed it on to Italy, who handed it on to France. Divine, illuminating nations of scouts! Vitlampada tradunt. It is an admirable thing that the poetry of a people is the element of its progress. The amount of civilization is measured by the quantity of imagination. Only, a civilizing people should remain a manly people. Corinth, yes Sybaris, no. Whoever becomes effeminate makes himself a bastard. He must be neither a dilettante nor a virtuoso but he must be artistic. In the matter of civilization, he must not refine, but he must sublime. On this condition, one gives to the human race the pattern of the ideal. The modern ideal has its type in art, and its means is science. It is through science that it will realize that august vision of the poets, the socially beautiful. Eden will be reconstructed by AB. At the point which civilization has now reached, the exact is a necessary element of the splendid, and the artistic sentiment is not only served, but completed by the scientific organ dreams must be calculated. Art, which is the conqueror, should have for support science, which is the walker the solidity of the creature which is ridden is of importance. The modern spirit is the genius of Greece with the genius of India as its vehicle Alexander on the elephant. Races which are petrified in dogma or demoralized by lucre are unfit to guide civilization. Genuflection before the idol or before money wastes away the muscles which walk and the will which advances. Hieratic or mercantile absorption lessens a people's power of radiance, lowers its horizon by lowering its level, and deprives it of that intelligence, at once both human and divine of the universal goal, which makes missionaries of nations. Babylon has no ideal Carthage has no ideal. Athens and Rome have and keep, throughout all the nocturnal darkness of the centuries, halos of civilization. France is in the same quality of race as Greece and Italy. She is Athenian in the matter of beauty, and Roman in her greatness. Moreover, she is good. She gives herself. Oftener than is the case with other races, is she in the humor for selfdevotion and sacrifice. Only, this humor seizes upon her, and again abandons her. And therein lies the great peril for those who run when she desires only to walk, or who walk on when she desires to halt. France has her relapses into materialism, and, at certain instants, the ideas which obstruct that sublime brain have no longer anything which recalls French greatness and are of the dimensions of a Missouri or a South Carolina. What is to be done in such a case? The giantess plays at being a dwarf immense France has her freaks of pettiness. That is all. To this there is nothing to say. Peoples, like planets, possess the right to an eclipse. And all is well, provided that the light returns and that the eclipse does not degenerate into night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is identical with the persistence of the I. Let us state these facts calmly. Death on the barricade or the tomb in exile, is an acceptable occasion for devotion. The real name of devotion is disinterestedness. Let the abandoned allow themselves to be abandoned, let the exiled allow themselves to be exiled, and let us confine ourselves to entreating great nations not to retreat too far, when they do retreat. One must not push too far in descent under pretext of a return to reason. Matter exists, the minute exists, interest exists, the stomach exists but the stomach must not be the sole wisdom. The life of the moment has its rights, we admit, but permanent life has its rights also. Alas! the fact that one is mounted does not preclude a fall. This can be seen in history more frequently than is desirable A nation is great, it tastes the ideal, then it bites the mire, and finds it good and if it be asked how it happens that it has abandoned Socrates for Falstaff, it replies 'Because I love statesmen. One word more before returning to our subject, the conflict. A battle like the one which we are engaged in describing is nothing else than a convulsion towards the ideal. Progress trammelled is sickly, and is subject to these tragic epilepsies. With that malady of progress, civil war, we have been obliged to come in contact in our passage. This is one of the fatal phases, at once act and entr'acte of that drama whose pivot is a social condemnation, and whose veritable title is Progress. Progress! The cry to which we frequently give utterance is our whole thought and, at the point of this drama which we have now reached, the idea which it contains having still more than one trial to undergo, it is, perhaps, permitted to us, if not to lift the veil from it, to at least allow its light to shine through. The book which the reader has under his eye at this moment is, from one end to the other, as a whole and in detail, whatever may be its intermittences, exceptions and faults, the march from evil to good, from the unjust to the just, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. Point of departure matter point of arrival the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end. All at once, the drum beat the charge. The attack was a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, the barricade had been approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad daylight, in that widening street, surprise was decidedly impossible, rude force had, moreover, been unmasked, the cannon had begun the roar, the army hurled itself on the barricade. Fury now became skill. A powerful detachment of infantry of the line, broken at regular intervals, by the National Guard and the Municipal Guard on foot, and supported by serried masses which could be heard though not seen, debauched into the street at a run, with drums beating, trumpets braying, bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, imperturbable under the projectiles, charged straight for the barricade with the weight of a brazen beam against a wall. The wall held firm. The insurgents fired impetuously. The barricade once scaled had a mane of lightning flashes. The assault was so furious, that for one moment, it was inundated with assailants but it shook off the soldiers as the lion shakes off the dogs, and it was only covered with besiegers as the cliff is covered with foam, to reappear, a moment later, beetling, black and formidable. The column, forced to retreat, remained massed in the street, unprotected but terrible, and replied to the redoubt with a terrible discharge of musketry. Any one who has seen fireworks will recall the sheaf formed of interlacing lightnings which is called a bouquet. Let the reader picture to himself this bouquet, no longer vertical but horizontal, bearing a bullet, buckshot or a biscaen at the tip of each one of its jets of flame, and picking off dead men one after another from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was underneath it. On both sides, the resolution was equal. The bravery exhibited there was almost barbarous and was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity which began by the sacrifice of self. This was the epoch when a National Guardsman fought like a Zouave. The troop wished to make an end of it, insurrection was desirous of fighting. The acceptance of the death agony in the flower of youth and in the flush of health turns intrepidity into frenzy. In this fray, each one underwent the broadening growth of the death hour. The street was strewn with corpses. The barricade had Enjolras at one of its extremities and Marius at the other. Enjolras, who carried the whole barricade in his head, reserved and sheltered himself three soldiers fell, one after the other, under his embrasure, without having even seen him Marius fought unprotected. He made himself a target. He stood with more than half his body above the breastworks. There is no more violent prodigal than the avaricious man who takes the bit in his teeth there is no man more terrible in action than a dreamer. Marius was formidable and pensive. In battle he was as in a dream. One would have pronounced him a phantom engaged in firing a gun. The insurgents' cartridges were giving out but not their sarcasms. In this whirlwind of the sepulchre in which they stood, they laughed. Courfeyrac was bareheaded. 'What have you done with your hat? Bossuet asked him. Courfeyrac replied 'They have finally taken it away from me with cannonballs. Or they uttered haughty comments. 'Can any one understand, exclaimed Feuilly bitterly, 'those men,and he cited names, wellknown names, even celebrated names, some belonging to the old armywho had promised to join us, and taken an oath to aid us, and who had pledged their honor to it, and who are our generals, and who abandon us! And Combeferre restricted himself to replying with a grave smile. 'There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance. The interior of the barricade was so strewn with torn cartridges that one would have said that there had been a snowstorm. The assailants had numbers in their favor the insurgents had position. They were at the top of a wall, and they thundered pointblank upon the soldiers tripping over the dead and wounded and entangled in the escarpment. This barricade, constructed as it was and admirably buttressed, was really one of those situations where a handful of men hold a legion in check. Nevertheless, the attacking column, constantly recruited and enlarged under the shower of bullets, drew inexorably nearer, and now, little by little, step by step, but surely, the army closed in around the barricade as the vice grasps the winepress. One assault followed another. The horror of the situation kept increasing. Then there burst forth on that heap of pavingstones, in that Rue de la Chanvrerie, a battle worthy of a wall of Troy. These haggard, ragged, exhausted men, who had had nothing to eat for four and twenty hours, who had not slept, who had but a few more rounds to fire, who were fumbling in their pockets which had been emptied of cartridges, nearly all of whom were wounded, with head or arm bandaged with black and bloodstained linen, with holes in their clothes from which the blood trickled, and who were hardly armed with poor guns and notched swords, became Titans. The barricade was ten times attacked, approached, assailed, scaled, and never captured. In order to form an idea of this struggle, it is necessary to imagine fire set to a throng of terrible courages, and then to gaze at the conflagration. It was not a combat, it was the interior of a furnace there mouths breathed the flame there countenances were extraordinary. The human form seemed impossible there, the combatants flamed forth there, and it was formidable to behold the going and coming in that red glow of those salamanders of the fray. The successive and simultaneous scenes of this grand slaughter we renounce all attempts at depicting. The epic alone has the right to fill twelve thousand verses with a battle. One would have pronounced this that hell of Brahmanism, the most redoubtable of the seventeen abysses, which the Veda calls the Forest of Swords. They fought hand to hand, foot to foot, with pistol shots, with blows of the sword, with their fists, at a distance, close at hand, from above, from below, from everywhere, from the roofs of the houses, from the windows of the wineshop, from the cellar windows, whither some had crawled. They were one against sixty. The faade of Corinthe, half demolished, was hideous. The window, tattooed with grapeshot, had lost glass and frame and was nothing now but a shapeless hole, tumultuously blocked with pavingstones. Bossuet was killed Feuilly was killed Courfeyrac was killed Combeferre, transfixed by three blows from a bayonet in the breast at the moment when he was lifting up a wounded soldier, had only time to cast a glance to heaven when he expired. Marius, still fighting, was so riddled with wounds, particularly in the head, that his countenance disappeared beneath the blood, and one would have said that his face was covered with a red kerchief. Enjolras alone was not struck. When he had no longer any weapon, he reached out his hands to right and left and an insurgent thrust some arm or other into his fist. All he had left was the stumps of four swords one more than Franois I. at Marignan. Homer says 'Diomedes cuts the throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba Euryalus, son of Mecistus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless Bucolion Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius Antilochus, Ablerus Polyptes, Astyalus Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene and Teucer, Aretaon. Meganthios dies under the blows of Euripylus' pike. Agamemnon, king of the heroes, flings to earth Elatos, born in the rocky city which is laved by the sounding river Satnos. In our old poems of exploits, Esplandian attacks the giant marquis Swantibore with a cobbler's shoulderstick of fire, and the latter defends himself by stoning the hero with towers which he plucks up by the roots. Our ancient mural frescoes show us the two Dukes of Bretagne and Bourbon, armed, emblazoned and crested in warlike guise, on horseback and approaching each other, their battleaxes in hand, masked with iron, gloved with iron, booted with iron, the one caparisoned in ermine, the other draped in azure Bretagne with his lion between the two horns of his crown, Bourbon helmeted with a monster fleur de lys on his visor. But, in order to be superb, it is not necessary to wear, like Yvon, the ducal morion, to have in the fist, like Esplandian, a living flame, or, like Phyles, father of Polydamas, to have brought back from Ephyra a good suit of mail, a present from the king of men, Euphetes it suffices to give one's life for a conviction or a loyalty. This ingenuous little soldier, yesterday a peasant of Bauce or Limousin, who prowls with his claspknife by his side, around the children's nurses in the Luxembourg garden, this pale young student bent over a piece of anatomy or a book, a blond youth who shaves his beard with scissors,take both of them, breathe upon them with a breath of duty, place them face to face in the Carrefour Boucherat or in the blind alley PlancheMibray, and let the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let both of them imagine that they are fighting for their country the struggle will be colossal and the shadow which this raw recruit and this sawbones in conflict will produce in that grand epic field where humanity is striving, will equal the shadow cast by Megaryon, King of Lycia, tigerfilled, crushing in his embrace the immense body of Ajax, equal to the gods. When there were no longer any of the leaders left alive, except Enjolras and Marius at the two extremities of the barricade, the centre, which had so long sustained Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly and Combeferre, gave way. The cannon, though it had not effected a practicable breach, had made a rather large hollow in the middle of the redoubt there, the summit of the wall had disappeared before the balls, and had crumbled away and the rubbish which had fallen, now inside, now outside, had, as it accumulated, formed two piles in the nature of slopes on the two sides of the barrier, one on the inside, the other on the outside. The exterior slope presented an inclined plane to the attack. A final assault was there attempted, and this assault succeeded. The mass bristling with bayonets and hurled forward at a run, came up with irresistible force, and the serried front of battle of the attacking column made its appearance through the smoke on the crest of the battlements. This time, it was decisive. The group of insurgents who were defending the centre retreated in confusion. Then the gloomy love of life awoke once more in some of them. Many, finding themselves under the muzzles of this forest of guns, did not wish to die. This is a moment when the instinct of selfpreservation emits howls, when the beast reappears in men. They were hemmed in by the lofty, sixstory house which formed the background of their redoubt. This house might prove their salvation. The building was barricaded, and walled, as it were, from top to bottom. Before the troops of the line had reached the interior of the redoubt, there was time for a door to open and shut, the space of a flash of lightning was sufficient for that, and the door of that house, suddenly opened a crack and closed again instantly, was life for these despairing men. Behind this house, there were streets, possible flight, space. They set to knocking at that door with the butts of their guns, and with kicks, shouting, calling, entreating, wringing their hands. No one opened. From the little window on the third floor, the head of the dead man gazed down upon them. But Enjolras and Marius, and the seven or eight rallied about them, sprang forward and protected them. Enjolras had shouted to the soldiers 'Don't advance! and as an officer had not obeyed, Enjolras had killed the officer. He was now in the little inner court of the redoubt, with his back planted against the Corinthe building, a sword in one hand, a rifle in the other, holding open the door of the wineshop which he barred against assailants. He shouted to the desperate men'There is but one door open this one.And shielding them with his body, and facing an entire battalion alone, he made them pass in behind him. All precipitated themselves thither. Enjolras, executing with his rifle, which he now used like a cane, what singlestick players call a 'covered rose round his head, levelled the bayonets around and in front of him, and was the last to enter and then ensued a horrible moment, when the soldiers tried to make their way in, and the insurgents strove to bar them out. The door was slammed with such violence, that, as it fell back into its frame, it showed the five fingers of a soldier who had been clinging to it, cut off and glued to the post. Marius remained outside. A shot had just broken his collar bone, he felt that he was fainting and falling. At that moment, with eyes already shut, he felt the shock of a vigorous hand seizing him, and the swoon in which his senses vanished, hardly allowed him time for the thought, mingled with a last memory of Cosette'I am taken prisoner. I shall be shot. Enjolras, not seeing Marius among those who had taken refuge in the wineshop, had the same idea. But they had reached a moment when each man has not the time to meditate on his own death. Enjolras fixed the bar across the door, and bolted it, and doublelocked it with key and chain, while those outside were battering furiously at it, the soldiers with the butts of their muskets, the sappers with their axes. The assailants were grouped about that door. The siege of the wineshop was now beginning. The soldiers, we will observe, were full of wrath. The death of the artillerysergeant had enraged them, and then, a still more melancholy circumstance. During the few hours which had preceded the attack, it had been reported among them that the insurgents were mutilating their prisoners, and that there was the headless body of a soldier in the wineshop. This sort of fatal rumor is the usual accompaniment of civil wars, and it was a false report of this kind which, later on, produced the catastrophe of the Rue Transnonain. When the door was barricaded, Enjolras said to the others 'Let us sell our lives dearly. Then he approached the table on which lay Mabeuf and Gavroche. Beneath the black cloth two straight and rigid forms were visible, one large, the other small, and the two faces were vaguely outlined beneath the cold folds of the shroud. A hand projected from beneath the winding sheet and hung near the floor. It was that of the old man. Enjolras bent down and kissed that venerable hand, just as he had kissed his brow on the preceding evening. These were the only two kisses which he had bestowed in the course of his life. Let us abridge the tale. The barricade had fought like a gate of Thebes the wineshop fought like a house of Saragossa. These resistances are dogged. No quarter. No flag of truce possible. Men are willing to die, provided their opponent will kill them. When Suchet says'Capitulate,Palafox replies 'After the war with cannon, the war with knives. Nothing was lacking in the capture by assault of the Hucheloup wineshop neither pavingstones raining from the windows and the roof on the besiegers and exasperating the soldiers by crushing them horribly, nor shots fired from the atticwindows and the cellar, nor the fury of attack, nor, finally, when the door yielded, the frenzied madness of extermination. The assailants, rushing into the wineshop, their feet entangled in the panels of the door which had been beaten in and flung on the ground, found not a single combatant there. The spiral staircase, hewn asunder with the axe, lay in the middle of the taproom, a few wounded men were just breathing their last, every one who was not killed was on the first floor, and from there, through the hole in the ceiling, which had formed the entrance of the stairs, a terrific fire burst forth. It was the last of their cartridges. When they were exhausted, when these formidable men on the point of death had no longer either powder or ball, each grasped in his hands two of the bottles which Enjolras had reserved, and of which we have spoken, and held the scaling party in check with these frightfully fragile clubs. They were bottles of aquafortis. We relate these gloomy incidents of carnage as they occurred. The besieged man, alas! converts everything into a weapon. Greek fire did not disgrace Archimedes, boiling pitch did not disgrace Bayard. All war is a thing of terror, and there is no choice in it. The musketry of the besiegers, though confined and embarrassed by being directed from below upwards, was deadly. The rim of the hole in the ceiling was speedily surrounded by heads of the slain, whence dripped long, red and smoking streams, the uproar was indescribable a close and burning smoke almost produced night over this combat. Words are lacking to express horror when it has reached this pitch. There were no longer men in this conflict, which was now infernal. They were no longer giants matched with colossi. It resembled Milton and Dante rather than Homer. Demons attacked, spectres resisted. It was heroism become monstrous. At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trapdoor, the last one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National Guardsmen, municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable ascent, blinded by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an irruption into the apartment on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, Enjolras. Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand now but the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the head of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between his assailants and himself he had retreated into the corner of the room, and there, with haughty eye, and head borne high, with this stump of a weapon in his hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an empty space around him. A cry arose 'He is the leader! It was he who slew the artilleryman. It is well that he has placed himself there. Let him remain there. Let us shoot him down on the spot. 'Shoot me, said Enjolras. And flinging away his bit of gunbarrel, and folding his arms, he offered his breast. The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of war 'There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo. A National Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying 'It seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower. Twelve men formed into a squad in the corner opposite Enjolras, and silently made ready their guns. Then a sergeant shouted 'Take aim! An officer intervened. 'Wait. And addressing Enjolras 'Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged? 'No. 'Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant? 'Yes. Grantaire had waked up a few moments before. Grantaire, it will be remembered, had been asleep ever since the preceding evening in the upper room of the wineshop, seated on a chair and leaning on the table. He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of 'dead drunk. The hideous potion of absintheporter and alcohol had thrown him into a lethargy. His table being small, and not suitable for the barricade, he had been left in possession of it. He was still in the same posture, with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, surrounded by glasses, beerjugs and bottles. His was the overwhelming slumber of the torpid bear and the satiated leech. Nothing had had any effect upon it, neither the fusillade, nor the cannonballs, nor the grapeshot which had made its way through the window into the room where he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. He seemed to be waiting there for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking. Many corpses were strewn around him and, at the first glance, there was nothing to distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death. Noise does not rouse a drunken man silence awakens him. The fall of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration the crumbling of all things was his lullaby. The sort of halt which the tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood. A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory and the drunkard who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last twentyfour hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity the obliteration of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity of realities. Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the billiardtable, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order 'Take aim! when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout beside them 'Long live the Republic! I'm one of them. Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man. He repeated 'Long live the Republic! crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. 'Finish both of us at one blow, said he. And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him 'Do you permit it? Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile. This smile was not ended when the report resounded. Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt. A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired into the attic through a wooden lattice. They fought under the very roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the windows. Two lightinfantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. The barricade was captured. The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the fugitives. Marius was, in fact, a prisoner. The hand which had seized him from behind and whose grasp he had felt at the moment of his fall and his loss of consciousness was that of Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had taken no other part in the combat than to expose himself in it. Had it not been for him, no one, in that supreme phase of agony, would have thought of the wounded. Thanks to him, everywhere present in the carnage, like a providence, those who fell were picked up, transported to the taproom, and cared for. In the intervals, he reappeared on the barricade. But nothing which could resemble a blow, an attack or even personal defence proceeded from his hands. He held his peace and lent succor. Moreover, he had received only a few scratches. The bullets would have none of him. If suicide formed part of what he had meditated on coming to this sepulchre, to that spot, he had not succeeded. But we doubt whether he had thought of suicide, an irreligious act. Jean Valjean, in the thick cloud of the combat, did not appear to see Marius the truth is, that he never took his eyes from the latter. When a shot laid Marius low, Jean Valjean leaped forward with the agility of a tiger, fell upon him as on his prey, and bore him off. The whirlwind of the attack was, at that moment, so violently concentrated upon Enjolras and upon the door of the wineshop, that no one saw Jean Valjean sustaining the fainting Marius in his arms, traverse the unpaved field of the barricade and disappear behind the angle of the Corinthe building. The reader will recall this angle which formed a sort of cape on the street it afforded shelter from the bullets, the grapeshot, and all eyes, and a few square feet of space. There is sometimes a chamber which does not burn in the midst of a conflagration, and in the midst of raging seas, beyond a promontory or at the extremity of a blind alley of shoals, a tranquil nook. It was in this sort of fold in the interior trapezium of the barricade, that ponine had breathed her last. There Jean Valjean halted, let Marius slide to the ground, placed his back against the wall, and cast his eyes about him. The situation was alarming. For an instant, for two or three perhaps, this bit of wall was a shelter, but how was he to escape from this massacre? He recalled the anguish which he had suffered in the Rue Polonceau eight years before, and in what manner he had contrived to make his escape it was difficult then, today it was impossible. He had before him that deaf and implacable house, six stories in height, which appeared to be inhabited only by a dead man leaning out of his window he had on his right the rather low barricade, which shut off the Rue de la Petite Truanderie to pass this obstacle seemed easy, but beyond the crest of the barrier a line of bayonets was visible. The troops of the line were posted on the watch behind that barricade. It was evident, that to pass the barricade was to go in quest of the fire of the platoon, and that any head which should run the risk of lifting itself above the top of that wall of stones would serve as a target for sixty shots. On his left he had the field of battle. Death lurked round the corner of that wall. What was to be done? Only a bird could have extricated itself from this predicament. And it was necessary to decide on the instant, to devise some expedient, to come to some decision. Fighting was going on a few paces away fortunately, all were raging around a single point, the door of the wineshop but if it should occur to one soldier, to one single soldier, to turn the corner of the house, or to attack him on the flank, all was over. Jean Valjean gazed at the house facing him, he gazed at the barricade at one side of him, then he looked at the ground, with the violence of the last extremity, bewildered, and as though he would have liked to pierce a hole there with his eyes. By dint of staring, something vaguely striking in such an agony began to assume form and outline at his feet, as though it had been a power of glance which made the thing desired unfold. A few paces distant he perceived, at the base of the small barrier so pitilessly guarded and watched on the exterior, beneath a disordered mass of pavingstones which partly concealed it, an iron grating, placed flat and on a level with the soil. This grating, made of stout, transverse bars, was about two feet square. The frame of pavingstones which supported it had been torn up, and it was, as it were, unfastened. Through the bars a view could be had of a dark aperture, something like the flue of a chimney, or the pipe of a cistern. Jean Valjean darted forward. His old art of escape rose to his brain like an illumination. To thrust aside the stones, to raise the grating, to lift Marius, who was as inert as a dead body, upon his shoulders, to descend, with this burden on his loins, and with the aid of his elbows and knees into that sort of well, fortunately not very deep, to let the heavy trap, upon which the loosened stones rolled down afresh, fall into its place behind him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below the surface,all this was executed like that which one does in dreams, with the strength of a giant and the rapidity of an eagle this took only a few minutes. Jean Valjean found himself with Marius, who was still unconscious, in a sort of long, subterranean corridor. There reigned profound peace, absolute silence, night. The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the wall into the convent recurred to him. Only, what he was carrying today was not Cosette it was Marius. He could barely hear the formidable tumult in the wineshop, taken by assault, like a vague murmur overhead. Paris casts twentyfive millions yearly into the water. And this without metaphor. How, and in what manner? Day and night. With what object? With no object. With what intention? With no intention. Why? For no reason. By means of what organ? By means of its intestine. What is its intestine? The sewer. Twentyfive millions is the most moderate approximative figure which the valuations of special science have set upon it. Science, after having long groped about, now knows that the most fecundating and the most efficacious of fertilizers is human manure. The Chinese, let us confess it to our shame, knew it before us. Not a Chinese peasantit is Eckberg who says this,goes to town without bringing back with him, at the two extremities of his bamboo pole, two full buckets of what we designate as filth. Thanks to human dung, the earth in China is still as young as in the days of Abraham. Chinese wheat yields a hundred fold of the seed. There is no guano comparable in fertility with the detritus of a capital. A great city is the most mighty of dungmakers. Certain success would attend the experiment of employing the city to manure the plain. If our gold is manure, our manure, on the other hand, is gold. What is done with this golden manure? It is swept into the abyss. Fleets of vessels are despatched, at great expense, to collect the dung of petrels and penguins at the South Pole, and the incalculable element of opulence which we have on hand, we send to the sea. All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, restored to the land instead of being cast into the water, would suffice to nourish the world. Those heaps of filth at the gateposts, those tumbrils of mud which jolt through the street by night, those terrible casks of the street department, those fetid drippings of subterranean mire, which the pavements hide from you,do you know what they are? They are the meadow in flower, the green grass, wild thyme, thyme and sage, they are game, they are cattle, they are the satisfied bellows of great oxen in the evening, they are perfumed hay, they are golden wheat, they are the bread on your table, they are the warm blood in your veins, they are health, they are joy, they are life. This is the will of that mysterious creation which is transformation on earth and transfiguration in heaven. Restore this to the great crucible your abundance will flow forth from it. The nutrition of the plains furnishes the nourishment of men. You have it in your power to lose this wealth, and to consider me ridiculous to boot. This will form the masterpiece of your ignorance. Statisticians have calculated that France alone makes a deposit of half a milliard every year, in the Atlantic, through the mouths of her rivers. Note this with five hundred millions we could pay one quarter of the expenses of our budget. The cleverness of man is such that he prefers to get rid of these five hundred millions in the gutter. It is the very substance of the people that is carried off, here drop by drop, there wave after wave, the wretched outpour of our sewers into the rivers, and the gigantic collection of our rivers into the ocean. Every hiccough of our sewers costs us a thousand francs. From this spring two results, the land impoverished, and the water tainted. Hunger arising from the furrow, and disease from the stream. It is notorious, for example, that at the present hour, the Thames is poisoning London. So far as Paris is concerned, it has become indispensable of late, to transport the mouths of the sewers downstream, below the last bridge. A double tubular apparatus, provided with valves and sluices, sucking up and driving back, a system of elementary drainage, simple as the lungs of a man, and which is already in full working order in many communities in England, would suffice to conduct the pure water of the fields into our cities, and to send back to the fields the rich water of the cities, and this easy exchange, the simplest in the world, would retain among us the five hundred millions now thrown away. People are thinking of other things. The process actually in use does evil, with the intention of doing good. The intention is good, the result is melancholy. Thinking to purge the city, the population is blanched like plants raised in cellars. A sewer is a mistake. When drainage, everywhere, with its double function, restoring what it takes, shall have replaced the sewer, which is a simple impoverishing washing, then, this being combined with the data of a now social economy, the product of the earth will be increased tenfold, and the problem of misery will be singularly lightened. Add the suppression of parasitism, and it will be solved. In the meanwhile, the public wealth flows away to the river, and leakage takes place. Leakage is the word. Europe is being ruined in this manner by exhaustion. As for France, we have just cited its figures. Now, Paris contains one twentyfifth of the total population of France, and Parisian guano being the richest of all, we understate the truth when we value the loss on the part of Paris at twentyfive millions in the half milliard which France annually rejects. These twentyfive millions, employed in assistance and enjoyment, would double the splendor of Paris. The city spends them in sewers. So that we may say that Paris's great prodigality, its wonderful festival, its Beaujon folly, its orgy, its stream of gold from full hands, its pomp, its luxury, its magnificence, is its sewer system. It is in this manner that, in the blindness of a poor political economy, we drown and allow to float downstream and to be lost in the gulfs the wellbeing of all. There should be nets at SaintCloud for the public fortune. Economically considered, the matter can be summed up thus Paris is a spendthrift. Paris, that model city, that patron of wellarranged capitals, of which every nation strives to possess a copy, that metropolis of the ideal, that august country of the initiative, of impulse and of effort, that centre and that dwelling of minds, that nationcity, that hive of the future, that marvellous combination of Babylon and Corinth, would make a peasant of the FoKian shrug his shoulders, from the point of view which we have just indicated. Imitate Paris and you will ruin yourselves. Moreover, and particularly in this immemorial and senseless waste, Paris is itself an imitator. These surprising exhibitions of stupidity are not novel this is no young folly. The ancients did like the moderns. 'The sewers of Rome, says Liebig, 'have absorbed all the wellbeing of the Roman peasant. When the Campagna of Rome was ruined by the Roman sewer, Rome exhausted Italy, and when she had put Italy in her sewer, she poured in Sicily, then Sardinia, then Africa. The sewer of Rome has engulfed the world. This cesspool offered its engulfment to the city and the universe. Urbi et orbi. Eternal city, unfathomable sewer. Rome sets the example for these things as well as for others. Paris follows this example with all the stupidity peculiar to intelligent towns. For the requirements of the operation upon the subject of which we have just explained our views, Paris has beneath it another Paris a Paris of sewers which has its streets, its crossroads, its squares, its blindalleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of mire and minus the human form. For nothing must be flattered, not even a great people where there is everything there is also ignominy by the side of sublimity and, if Paris contains Athens, the city of light, Tyre, the city of might, Sparta, the city of virtue, Nineveh, the city of marvels, it also contains Lutetia, the city of mud. However, the stamp of its power is there also, and the Titanic sink of Paris realizes, among monuments, that strange ideal realized in humanity by some men like Macchiavelli, Bacon and Mirabeau, grandiose vileness. The subsoil of Paris, if the eye could penetrate its surface, would present the aspect of a colossal madrepore. A sponge has no more partitions and ducts than the mound of earth for a circuit of six leagues round about, on which rests the great and ancient city. Not to mention its catacombs, which are a separate cellar, not to mention the inextricable trelliswork of gas pipes, without reckoning the vast tubular system for the distribution of fresh water which ends in the pillar fountains, the sewers alone form a tremendous, shadowy network under the two banks a labyrinth which has its slope for its guiding thread. There appears, in the humid mist, the rat which seems the product to which Paris has given birth. Let the reader imagine Paris lifted off like a cover, the subterranean network of sewers, from a bird'seye view, will outline on the banks a species of large branch grafted on the river. On the right bank, the belt sewer will form the trunk of this branch, the secondary ducts will form the branches, and those without exit the twigs. This figure is but a summary one and half exact, the right angle, which is the customary angle of this species of subterranean ramifications, being very rare in vegetation. A more accurate image of this strange geometrical plan can be formed by supposing that one is viewing some eccentric oriental alphabet, as intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the misshapen letters should be welded one to another in apparent confusion, and as at haphazard, now by their angles, again by their extremities. Sinks and sewers played a great part in the Middle Ages, in the Lower Empire and in the Orient of old. The masses regarded these beds of decomposition, these monstrous cradles of death, with a fear that was almost religious. The vermin ditch of Benares is no less conducive to giddiness than the lions' ditch of Babylon. TeglathPhalasar, according to the rabbinical books, swore by the sink of Nineveh. It was from the sewer of Mnster that John of Leyden produced his false moon, and it was from the cesspool of Kekscheb that oriental menalchme, Mokanna, the veiled prophet of Khorassan, caused his false sun to emerge. The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers. The Germoni narrated Rome. The sewer of Paris has been an ancient and formidable thing. It has been a sepulchre, it has served as an asylum. Crime, intelligence, social protest, liberty of conscience, thought, theft, all that human laws persecute or have persecuted, is hidden in that hole the maillotins in the fourteenth century, the tirelaine of the fifteenth, the Huguenots in the sixteenth, Morin's illuminated in the seventeenth, the chauffeurs brigands in the eighteenth. A hundred years ago, the nocturnal blow of the dagger emerged thence, the pickpocket in danger slipped thither the forest had its cave, Paris had its sewer. Vagrancy, that Gallic picareria, accepted the sewer as the adjunct of the Cour des Miracles, and at evening, it returned thither, fierce and sly, through the Maubue outlet, as into a bedchamber. It was quite natural, that those who had the blindalley VideGousset, EmptyPocket or the Rue CoupeGorge CutThroat, for the scene of their daily labor, should have for their domicile by night the culvert of the CheminVert, or the catch basin of Hurepoix. Hence a throng of souvenirs. All sorts of phantoms haunt these long, solitary corridors everywhere is putrescence and miasma here and there are breathingholes, where Villon within converses with Rabelais without. The sewer in ancient Paris is the rendezvous of all exhaustions and of all attempts. Political economy therein spies a detritus, social philosophy there beholds a residuum. The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges and confronts everything else. In that livid spot there are shades, but there are no longer any secrets. Each thing bears its true form, or at least, its definitive form. The mass of filth has this in its favor, that it is not a liar. Ingenuousness has taken refuge there. The mask of Basil is to be found there, but one beholds its cardboard and its strings and the inside as well as the outside, and it is accentuated by honest mud. Scapin's false nose is its nextdoor neighbor. All the uncleannesses of civilization, once past their use, fall into this trench of truth, where the immense social sliding ends. They are there engulfed, but they display themselves there. This mixture is a confession. There, no more false appearances, no plastering over is possible, filth removes its shirt, absolute denudation puts to the rout all illusions and mirages, there is nothing more except what really exists, presenting the sinister form of that which is coming to an end. There, the bottom of a bottle indicates drunkenness, a baskethandle tells a tale of domesticity there the core of an apple which has entertained literary opinions becomes an applecore once more the effigy on the big sou becomes frankly covered with verdigris, Caiphas' spittle meets Falstaff's puking, the louisd'or which comes from the gaminghouse jostles the nail whence hangs the rope's end of the suicide. A livid ftus rolls along, enveloped in the spangles which danced at the Opera last ShroveTuesday, a cap which has pronounced judgment on men wallows beside a mass of rottenness which was formerly Margoton's petticoat it is more than fraternization, it is equivalent to addressing each other as thou. All which was formerly rouged, is washed free. The last veil is torn away. A sewer is a cynic. It tells everything. The sincerity of foulness pleases us, and rests the soul. When one has passed one's time in enduring upon earth the spectacle of the great airs which reasons of state, the oath, political sagacity, human justice, professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes all assume, it solaces one to enter a sewer and to behold the mire which befits it. This is instructive at the same time. We have just said that history passes through the sewer. The SaintBarthlemys filter through there, drop by drop, between the pavingstones. Great public assassinations, political and religious butcheries, traverse this underground passage of civilization, and thrust their corpses there. For the eye of the thinker, all historic murderers are to be found there, in that hideous penumbra, on their knees, with a scrap of their windingsheet for an apron, dismally sponging out their work. Louis XI. is there with Tristan, Franois I. with Duprat, Charles IX. is there with his mother, Richelieu is there with Louis XIII., Louvois is there, Letellier is there, Hbert and Maillard are there, scratching the stones, and trying to make the traces of their actions disappear. Beneath these vaults one hears the brooms of spectres. One there breathes the enormous fetidness of social catastrophes. One beholds reddish reflections in the corners. There flows a terrible stream, in which bloody hands have been washed. The social observer should enter these shadows. They form a part of his laboratory. Philosophy is the microscope of the thought. Everything desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it. Tergiversation is useless. What side of oneself does one display in evasions? the shameful side. Philosophy pursues with its glance, probes the evil, and does not permit it to escape into nothingness. In the obliteration of things which disappear, in the watching of things which vanish, it recognizes all. It reconstructs the purple from the rag, and the woman from the scrap of her dress. From the cesspool, it reconstitutes the city from mud, it reconstructs manners from the potsherd it infers the amphora or the jug. By the imprint of a fingernail on a piece of parchment, it recognizes the difference which separates the Jewry of the Judengasse from the Jewry of the Ghetto. It rediscovers in what remains that which has been, good, evil, the true, the bloodstain of the palace, the inkblot of the cavern, the drop of sweat from the brothel, trials undergone, temptations welcomed, orgies cast forth, the turn which characters have taken as they became abased, the trace of prostitution in souls of which their grossness rendered them capable, and on the vesture of the porters of Rome the mark of Messalina's elbowing. The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth century, Henri II. attempted a bore, which failed. Not a hundred years ago, the cesspool, Mercier attests the fact, was abandoned to itself, and fared as best it might. Such was this ancient Paris, delivered over to quarrels, to indecision, and to gropings. It was tolerably stupid for a long time. Later on, ' showed how understanding comes to cities. But in the good, old times, the capital had not much head. It did not know how to manage its own affairs either morally or materially, and could not sweep out filth any better than it could abuses. Everything presented an obstacle, everything raised a question. The sewer, for example, was refractory to every itinerary. One could no more find one's bearings in the sewer than one could understand one's position in the city above the unintelligible, below the inextricable beneath the confusion of tongues there reigned the confusion of caverns Ddalus backed up Babel. Sometimes the Paris sewer took a notion to overflow, as though this misunderstood Nile were suddenly seized with a fit of rage. There occurred, infamous to relate, inundations of the sewer. At times, that stomach of civilization digested badly, the cesspool flowed back into the throat of the city, and Paris got an aftertaste of her own filth. These resemblances of the sewer to remorse had their good points they were warnings very badly accepted, however the city waxed indignant at the audacity of its mire, and did not admit that the filth should return. Drive it out better. The inundation of  is one of the actual memories of Parisians of the age of eighty. The mud spread in crossform over the Place des Victoires, where stands the statue of Louis XIV. it entered the Rue SaintHonor by the two mouths to the sewer in the Champslyses, the Rue SaintFlorentin through the SaintFlorentin sewer, the Rue PierrePoisson through the sewer de la Sonnerie, the Rue Popincourt, through the sewer of the CheminVert, the Rue de la Roquette, through the sewer of the Rue de Lappe it covered the drain of the Rue des Champslyses to the height of thirtyfive centimetres and, to the South, through the vent of the Seine, performing its functions in inverse sense, it penetrated the Rue Mazarine, the Rue de l'chaud, and the Rue des Marais, where it stopped at a distance of one hundred and nine metres, a few paces distant from the house in which Racine had lived, respecting, in the seventeenth century, the poet more than the King. It attained its maximum depth in the Rue SaintPierre, where it rose to the height of three feet above the flagstones of the waterspout, and its maximum length in the Rue SaintSabin, where it spread out over a stretch two hundred and thirtyeight metres in length. At the beginning of this century, the sewer of Paris was still a mysterious place. Mud can never enjoy a good fame but in this case its evil renown reached the verge of the terrible. Paris knew, in a confused way, that she had under her a terrible cavern. People talked of it as of that monstrous bed of Thebes in which swarmed centipedes fifteen long feet in length, and which might have served Behemoth for a bathtub. The great boots of the sewermen never ventured further than certain wellknown points. We were then very near the epoch when the scavenger's carts, from the summit of which SainteFoix fraternized with the Marquis de Crqui, discharged their loads directly into the sewer. As for cleaning out,that function was entrusted to the pouring rains which encumbered rather than swept away. Rome left some poetry to her sewer, and called it the Gemoni Paris insulted hers, and entitled it the PolypusHole. Science and superstition were in accord, in horror. The Polypus hole was no less repugnant to hygiene than to legend. The goblin was developed under the fetid covering of the Mouffetard sewer the corpses of the Marmousets had been cast into the sewer de la Barillerie Fagon attributed the redoubtable malignant fever of  to the great hiatus of the sewer of the Marais, which remained yawning until  in the Rue SaintLouis, almost opposite the sign of the Gallant Messenger. The mouth of the sewer of the Rue de la Mortellerie was celebrated for the pestilences which had their source there with its grating of iron, with points simulating a row of teeth, it was like a dragon's maw in that fatal street, breathing forth hell upon men. The popular imagination seasoned the sombre Parisian sink with some indescribably hideous intermixture of the infinite. The sewer had no bottom. The sewer was the lower world. The idea of exploring these leprous regions did not even occur to the police. To try that unknown thing, to cast the plummet into that shadow, to set out on a voyage of discovery in that abysswho would have dared? It was alarming. Nevertheless, some one did present himself. The cesspool had its Christopher Columbus. One day, in , during one of the rare apparitions which the Emperor made in Paris, the Minister of the Interior, some Decrs or Crtet or other, came to the master's intimate levee. In the Carrousel there was audible the clanking of swords of all those extraordinary soldiers of the great Republic, and of the great Empire then Napoleon's door was blocked with heroes men from the Rhine, from the Escaut, from the Adige, and from the Nile companions of Joubert, of Desaix, of Marceau, of Hoche, of Klber the arostiers of Fleurus, the grenadiers of Mayence, the pontoonbuilders of Genoa, hussars whom the Pyramids had looked down upon, artillerists whom Junot's cannonball had spattered with mud, cuirassiers who had taken by assault the fleet lying at anchor in the Zuyderzee some had followed Bonaparte upon the bridge of Lodi, others had accompanied Murat in the trenches of Mantua, others had preceded Lannes in the hollow road of Montebello. The whole army of that day was present there, in the courtyard of the Tuileries, represented by a squadron or a platoon, and guarding Napoleon in repose and that was the splendid epoch when the grand army had Marengo behind it and Austerlitz before it.'Sire, said the Minister of the Interior to Napoleon, 'yesterday I saw the most intrepid man in your Empire.'What man is that? said the Emperor brusquely, 'and what has he done?'He wants to do something, Sire.'What is it?'To visit the sewers of Paris. This man existed and his name was Bruneseau. The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation. It was, at the same time, a voyage of discovery. One of the survivors of this expedition, an intelligent workingman, who was very young at the time, related curious details with regard to it, several years ago, which Bruneseau thought himself obliged to omit in his report to the prefect of police, as unworthy of official style. The processes of disinfection were, at that epoch, extremely rudimentary. Hardly had Bruneseau crossed the first articulations of that subterranean network, when eight laborers out of the twenty refused to go any further. The operation was complicated the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed to note the entrances of water, to count the gratings and the vents, to lay out in detail the branches, to indicate the currents at the point where they parted, to define the respective bounds of the divers basins, to sound the small sewers grafted on the principal sewer, to measure the height under the keystone of each drain, and the width, at the spring of the vaults as well as at the bottom, in order to determine the arrangements with regard to the level of each waterentrance, either of the bottom of the arch, or on the soil of the street. They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out. At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well they found nothing solid a man disappeared suddenly they had great difficulty in getting him out again. On the advice of Fourcroy, they lighted large cages filled with tow steeped in resin, from time to time, in spots which had been sufficiently disinfected. In some places, the wall was covered with misshapen fungi,one would have said tumors the very stone seemed diseased within this unbreathable atmosphere. Bruneseau, in his exploration, proceeded down hill. At the point of separation of the two waterconduits of the GrandHurleur, he deciphered upon a projecting stone the date of  this stone indicated the limits where Philibert Delorme, charged by Henri II. with visiting the subterranean drains of Paris, had halted. This stone was the mark of the sixteenth century on the sewer Bruneseau found the handiwork of the seventeenth century once more in the Ponceau drain of the old Rue VieilleduTemple, vaulted between  and  and the handiwork of the eighteenth in the western section of the collecting canal, walled and vaulted in . These two vaults, especially the less ancient, that of , were more cracked and decrepit than the masonry of the belt sewer, which dated from , an epoch when the brook of fresh water of Mnilmontant was elevated to the dignity of the Grand Sewer of Paris, an advancement analogous to that of a peasant who should become first valet de chambre to the King something like GrosJean transformed into Lebel. Here and there, particularly beneath the CourtHouse, they thought they recognized the hollows of ancient dungeons, excavated in the very sewer itself. Hideous inpace. An iron neckcollar was hanging in one of these cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular among others, the skeleton of an ourangoutan, who had disappeared from the Jardin des Plantes in , a disappearance probably connected with the famous and indisputable apparition of the devil in the Rue des Bernardins, in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil had ended by drowning himself in the sewer. Beneath this long, arched drain which terminated at the ArcheMarion, a perfectly preserved ragpicker's basket excited the admiration of all connoisseurs. Everywhere, the mire, which the sewermen came to handle with intrepidity, abounded in precious objects, jewels of gold and silver, precious stones, coins. If a giant had filtered this cesspool, he would have had the riches of centuries in his lair. At the point where the two branches of the Rue du Temple and of the Rue SainteAvoye separate, they picked up a singular Huguenot medal in copper, bearing on one side the pig hooded with a cardinal's hat, and on the other, a wolf with a tiara on his head. The most surprising rencounter was at the entrance to the Grand Sewer. This entrance had formerly been closed by a grating of which nothing but the hinges remained. From one of these hinges hung a dirty and shapeless rag which, arrested there in its passage, no doubt, had floated there in the darkness and finished its process of being torn apart. Bruneseau held his lantern close to this rag and examined it. It was of very fine batiste, and in one of the corners, less frayed than the rest, they made out a heraldic coronet and embroidered above these seven letters LAVBESP. The crown was the coronet of a Marquis, and the seven letters signified Laubespine. They recognized the fact, that what they had before their eyes was a morsel of the shroud of Marat. Marat in his youth had had amorous intrigues. This was when he was a member of the household of the Comte d'Artois, in the capacity of physician to the Stables. From these love affairs, historically proved, with a great lady, he had retained this sheet. As a waif or a souvenir. At his death, as this was the only linen of any fineness which he had in his house, they buried him in it. Some old women had shrouded him for the tomb in that swaddlingband in which the tragic Friend of the people had enjoyed voluptuousness. Bruneseau passed on. They left that rag where it hung they did not put the finishing touch to it. Did this arise from scorn or from respect? Marat deserved both. And then, destiny was there sufficiently stamped to make them hesitate to touch it. Besides, the things of the sepulchre must be left in the spot which they select. In short, the relic was a strange one. A Marquise had slept in it Marat had rotted in it it had traversed the Pantheon to end with the rats of the sewer. This chamber rag, of which Watteau would formerly have joyfully sketched every fold, had ended in becoming worthy of the fixed gaze of Dante. The whole visit to the subterranean stream of filth of Paris lasted seven years, from  to . As he proceeded, Bruneseau drew, directed, and completed considerable works in  he lowered the arch of the Ponceau, and, everywhere creating new lines, he pushed the sewer, in , under the Rue SaintDenis as far as the fountain of the Innocents in , under the Rue Froidmanteau and under the Salptrire in  under the Rue NeuvedesPetitsPres, under the Rue du Mail, under the Rue de l'charpe, under the Place Royale in , under the Rue de la Paix, and under the Chausse d'Antin. At the same time, he had the whole network disinfected and rendered healthful. In the second year of his work, Bruneseau engaged the assistance of his soninlaw Nargaud. It was thus that, at the beginning of the century, ancient society cleansed its double bottom, and performed the toilet of its sewer. There was that much clean, at all events. Tortuous, cracked, unpaved, full of fissures, intersected by gullies, jolted by eccentric elbows, mounting and descending illogically, fetid, wild, fierce, submerged in obscurity, with cicatrices on its pavements and scars on its walls, terrible,such was, retrospectively viewed, the antique sewer of Paris. Ramifications in every direction, crossings, of trenches, branches, goosefeet, stars, as in military mines, ccum, blind alleys, vaults lined with saltpetre, pestiferous pools, scabby sweats, on the walls, drops dripping from the ceilings, darkness nothing could equal the horror of this old, waste crypt, the digestive apparatus of Babylon, a cavern, ditch, gulf pierced with streets, a titanic moleburrow, where the mind seems to behold that enormous blind mole, the past, prowling through the shadows, in the filth which has been splendor. This, we repeat, was the sewer of the past. Today the sewer is clean, cold, straight, correct. It almost realizes the ideal of what is understood in England by the word 'respectable. It is proper and grayish laid out by rule and line one might almost say as though it came out of a bandbox. It resembles a tradesman who has become a councillor of state. One can almost see distinctly there. The mire there comports itself with decency. At first, one might readily mistake it for one of those subterranean corridors, which were so common in former days, and so useful in flights of monarchs and princes, in those good old times, 'when the people loved their kings. The present sewer is a beautiful sewer the pure style reigns there the classical rectilinear alexandrine which, driven out of poetry, appears to have taken refuge in architecture, seems mingled with all the stones of that long, dark and whitish vault each outlet is an arcade the Rue de Rivoli serves as pattern even in the sewer. However, if the geometrical line is in place anywhere, it is certainly in the drainage trench of a great city. There, everything should be subordinated to the shortest road. The sewer has, nowadays, assumed a certain official aspect. The very police reports, of which it sometimes forms the subject, no longer are wanting in respect towards it. The words which characterize it in administrative language are sonorous and dignified. What used to be called a gut is now called a gallery what used to be called a hole is now called a surveying orifice. Villon would no longer meet with his ancient temporary provisional lodging. This network of cellars has its immemorial population of prowlers, rodents, swarming in greater numbers than ever from time to time, an aged and veteran rat risks his head at the window of the sewer and surveys the Parisians but even these vermin grow tame, so satisfied are they with their subterranean palace. The cesspool no longer retains anything of its primitive ferocity. The rain, which in former days soiled the sewer, now washes it. Nevertheless, do not trust yourself too much to it. Miasmas still inhabit it. It is more hypocritical than irreproachable. The prefecture of police and the commission of health have done their best. But, in spite of all the processes of disinfection, it exhales, a vague, suspicious odor like Tartuffe after confession. Let us confess, that, taking it all in all, this sweeping is a homage which the sewer pays to civilization, and as, from this point of view, Tartuffe's conscience is a progress over the Augean stables, it is certain that the sewers of Paris have been improved. It is more than progress it is transmutation. Between the ancient and the present sewer there is a revolution. What has effected this revolution? The man whom all the world forgets, and whom we have mentioned, Bruneseau. The excavation of the sewer of Paris has been no slight task. The last ten centuries have toiled at it without being able to bring it to a termination, any more than they have been able to finish Paris. The sewer, in fact, receives all the countershocks of the growth of Paris. Within the bosom of the earth, it is a sort of mysterious polyp with a thousand antenn, which expands below as the city expands above. Every time that the city cuts a street, the sewer stretches out an arm. The old monarchy had constructed only twentythree thousand three hundred metres of sewers that was where Paris stood in this respect on the first of January, . Beginning with this epoch, of which we shall shortly speak, the work was usefully and energetically resumed and prosecuted Napoleon builtthe figures are curiousfour thousand eight hundred and four metres Louis XVIII., five thousand seven hundred and nine Charles X., ten thousand eight hundred and thirtysix LouisPhilippe, eightynine thousand and twenty the Republic of , twentythree thousand three hundred and eightyone the present government, seventy thousand five hundred in all, at the present time, two hundred and twentysix thousand six hundred and ten metres sixty leagues of sewers the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure ramification ever at work a construction which is immense and ignored. As the reader sees, the subterranean labyrinth of Paris is today more than ten times what it was at the beginning of the century. It is difficult to form any idea of all the perseverance and the efforts which have been required to bring this cesspool to the point of relative perfection in which it now is. It was with great difficulty that the ancient monarchical provostship and, during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, the revolutionary mayoralty, had succeeded in perforating the five leagues of sewer which existed previous to . All sorts of obstacles hindered this operation, some peculiar to the soil, others inherent in the very prejudices of the laborious population of Paris. Paris is built upon a soil which is singularly rebellious to the pick, the hoe, the bore, and to human manipulation. There is nothing more difficult to pierce and to penetrate than the geological formation upon which is superposed the marvellous historical formation called Paris as soon as work in any form whatsoever is begun and adventures upon this stretch of alluvium, subterranean resistances abound. There are liquid clays, springs, hard rocks, and those soft and deep quagmires which special science calls moutardes. The pick advances laboriously through the calcareous layers alternating with very slender threads of clay, and schistose beds in plates incrusted with oystershells, the contemporaries of the preAdamite oceans. Sometimes a rivulet suddenly bursts through a vault that has been begun, and inundates the laborers or a layer of marl is laid bare, and rolls down with the fury of a cataract, breaking the stoutest supporting beams like glass. Quite recently, at Villette, when it became necessary to pass the collecting sewer under the SaintMartin canal without interrupting navigation or emptying the canal, a fissure appeared in the basin of the canal, water suddenly became abundant in the subterranean tunnel, which was beyond the power of the pumping engines it was necessary to send a diver to explore the fissure which had been made in the narrow entrance of the grand basin, and it was not without great difficulty that it was stopped up. Elsewhere near the Seine, and even at a considerable distance from the river, as for instance, at Belleville, GrandRue and Lumire Passage, quicksands are encountered in which one sticks fast, and in which a man sinks visibly. Add suffocation by miasmas, burial by slides, and sudden crumbling of the earth. Add the typhus, with which the workmen become slowly impregnated. In our own day, after having excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the principal waterconduit of Ourcq, a piece of work which was executed in a trench ten metres deep after having, in the midst of landslides, and with the aid of excavations often putrid, and of shoring up, vaulted the Bivre from the Boulevard de l'Hpital, as far as the Seine after having, in order to deliver Paris from the floods of Montmartre and in order to provide an outlet for that riverlike pool nine hectares in extent, which crouched near the Barrire des Martyrs, after having, let us state, constructed the line of sewers from the Barrire Blanche to the road of Aubervilliers, in four months, working day and night, at a depth of eleven metres after havinga thing heretofore unseenmade a subterranean sewer in the Rue BarreduBec, without a trench, six metres below the surface, the superintendent, Monnot, died. After having vaulted three thousand metres of sewer in all quarters of the city, from the Rue TraversireSaintAntoine to the Rue de l'Ourcine, after having freed the Carrefour CensierMouffetard from inundations of rain by means of the branch of the Arbalte, after having built the SaintGeorges sewer, on rock and concrete in the fluid sands, after having directed the formidable lowering of the flooring of the vault timber in the NotreDamedeNazareth branch, Duleau the engineer died. There are no bulletins for such acts of bravery as these, which are more useful, nevertheless, than the brutal slaughter of the field of battle. The sewers of Paris in  were far from being what they are today. Bruneseau had given the impulse, but the cholera was required to bring about the vast reconstruction which took place later on. It is surprising to say, for example, that in , a part of the belt sewer, called the Grand Canal, as in Venice, still stood stagnating uncovered to the sky, in the Rue des Gourdes. It was only in  that the city of Paris found in its pocket the two hundred and sixtythousand eighty francs and six centimes required for covering this mass of filth. The three absorbing wells, of the Combat, the Cunette, and SaintMand, with their discharging mouths, their apparatus, their cesspools, and their depuratory branches, only date from . The intestinal sewer of Paris has been made over anew, and, as we have said, it has been extended more than tenfold within the last quarter of a century. Thirty years ago, at the epoch of the insurrection of the th and th of June, it was still, in many localities, nearly the same ancient sewer. A very great number of streets which are now convex were then sunken causeways. At the end of a slope, where the tributaries of a street or crossroads ended, there were often to be seen large, square gratings with heavy bars, whose iron, polished by the footsteps of the throng, gleamed dangerous and slippery for vehicles, and caused horses to fall. The official language of the Roads and Bridges gave to these gratings the expressive name of Cassis. In , in a number of streets, in the Rue de l'toile, the Rue SaintLouis, the Rue du Temple, the Rue VieilleduTemple, the Rue NotreDame de Nazareth, the Rue FolieMricourt, the Quai aux Fleurs, the Rue du PetitMusc, the Rue du Normandie, the Rue PontAuxBiches, the Rue des Marais, the Faubourg SaintMartin, the Rue Notre Dame desVictoires, the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue GrangeBatelire, in the Champslyses, the Rue Jacob, the Rue de Tournon, the ancient gothic sewer still cynically displayed its maw. It consisted of enormous voids of stone catchbasins sometimes surrounded by stone posts, with monumental effrontery. Paris in  still had nearly the same sewers numerically as stated in  five thousand three hundred fathoms. After Bruneseau, on the st of January, , it had forty thousand three hundred metres. Between  and , there had been built, on an average, seven hundred and fifty metres annually, afterwards eight and even ten thousand metres of galleries were constructed every year, in masonry, of small stones, with hydraulic mortar which hardens under water, on a cement foundation. At two hundred francs the metre, the sixty leagues of Paris' sewers of the present day represent fortyeight millions. In addition to the economic progress which we have indicated at the beginning, grave problems of public hygiene are connected with that immense question the sewers of Paris. Paris is the centre of two sheets, a sheet of water and a sheet of air. The sheet of water, lying at a tolerably great depth underground, but already sounded by two bores, is furnished by the layer of green clay situated between the chalk and the Jurassic limestone this layer may be represented by a disk five and twenty leagues in circumference a multitude of rivers and brooks ooze there one drinks the Seine, the Marne, the Yonne, the Oise, the Aisne, the Cher, the Vienne and the Loire in a glass of water from the well of Grenelle. The sheet of water is healthy, it comes from heaven in the first place and next from the earth the sheet of air is unhealthy, it comes from the sewer. All the miasms of the cesspool are mingled with the breath of the city hence this bad breath. The air taken from above a dungheap, as has been scientifically proved, is purer than the air taken from above Paris. In a given time, with the aid of progress, mechanisms become perfected, and as light increases, the sheet of water will be employed to purify the sheet of air that is to say, to wash the sewer. The reader knows, that by 'washing the sewer we mean the restitution of the filth to the earth the return to the soil of dung and of manure to the fields. Through this simple act, the entire social community will experience a diminution of misery and an augmentation of health. At the present hour, the radiation of diseases from Paris extends to fifty leagues around the Louvre, taken as the hub of this pestilential wheel. We might say that, for ten centuries, the cesspool has been the disease of Paris. The sewer is the blemish which Paris has in her blood. The popular instinct has never been deceived in it. The occupation of sewermen was formerly almost as perilous, and almost as repugnant to the people, as the occupation of knacker, which was so long held in horror and handed over to the executioner. High wages were necessary to induce a mason to disappear in that fetid mine the ladder of the cesspool cleaner hesitated to plunge into it it was said, in proverbial form 'to descend into the sewer is to enter the grave and all sorts of hideous legends, as we have said, covered this colossal sink with terror a dread sinkhole which bears the traces of the revolutions of the globe as of the revolutions of man, and where are to be found vestiges of all cataclysms from the shells of the Deluge to the rag of Marat. It was in the sewers of Paris that Jean Valjean found himself. Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, the diver may disappear there. The transition was an unheardof one. In the very heart of the city, Jean Valjean had escaped from the city, and, in the twinkling of an eye, in the time required to lift the cover and to replace it, he had passed from broad daylight to complete obscurity, from midday to midnight, from tumult to silence, from the whirlwind of thunders to the stagnation of the tomb, and, by a vicissitude far more tremendous even than that of the Rue Polonceau, from the most extreme peril to the most absolute obscurity. An abrupt fall into a cavern a disappearance into the secret trapdoor of Paris to quit that street where death was on every side, for that sort of sepulchre where there was life, was a strange instant. He remained for several seconds as though bewildered listening, stupefied. The wastetrap of safety had suddenly yawned beneath him. Celestial goodness had, in a manner, captured him by treachery. Adorable ambuscades of providence! Only, the wounded man did not stir, and Jean Valjean did not know whether that which he was carrying in that grave was a living being or a dead corpse. His first sensation was one of blindness. All of a sudden, he could see nothing. It seemed to him too, that, in one instant, he had become deaf. He no longer heard anything. The frantic storm of murder which had been let loose a few feet above his head did not reach him, thanks to the thickness of the earth which separated him from it, as we have said, otherwise than faintly and indistinctly, and like a rumbling, in the depths. He felt that the ground was solid under his feet that was all but that was enough. He extended one arm and then the other, touched the walls on both sides, and perceived that the passage was narrow he slipped, and thus perceived that the pavement was wet. He cautiously put forward one foot, fearing a hole, a sink, some gulf he discovered that the paving continued. A gust of fetidness informed him of the place in which he stood. After the lapse of a few minutes, he was no longer blind. A little light fell through the manhole through which he had descended, and his eyes became accustomed to this cavern. He began to distinguish something. The passage in which he had burrowedno other word can better express the situationwas walled in behind him. It was one of those blind alleys, which the special jargon terms branches. In front of him there was another wall, a wall like night. The light of the airhole died out ten or twelve paces from the point where Jean Valjean stood, and barely cast a wan pallor on a few metres of the damp walls of the sewer. Beyond, the opaqueness was massive to penetrate thither seemed horrible, an entrance into it appeared like an engulfment. A man could, however, plunge into that wall of fog and it was necessary so to do. Haste was even requisite. It occurred to Jean Valjean that the grating which he had caught sight of under the flagstones might also catch the eye of the soldiery, and that everything hung upon this chance. They also might descend into that well and search it. There was not a minute to be lost. He had deposited Marius on the ground, he picked him up again,that is the real word for it,placed him on his shoulders once more, and set out. He plunged resolutely into the gloom. The truth is, that they were less safe than Jean Valjean fancied. Perils of another sort and no less serious were awaiting them, perchance. After the lightningcharged whirlwind of the combat, the cavern of miasmas and traps after chaos, the sewer. Jean Valjean had fallen from one circle of hell into another. When he had advanced fifty paces, he was obliged to halt. A problem presented itself. The passage terminated in another gut which he encountered across his path. There two ways presented themselves. Which should he take? Ought he to turn to the left or to the right? How was he to find his bearings in that black labyrinth? This labyrinth, to which we have already called the reader's attention, has a clue, which is its slope. To follow to the slope is to arrive at the river. This Jean Valjean instantly comprehended. He said to himself that he was probably in the sewer des Halles that if he were to choose the path to the left and follow the slope, he would arrive, in less than a quarter of an hour, at some mouth on the Seine between the Pont au Change and the PontNeuf, that is to say, he would make his appearance in broad daylight on the most densely peopled spot in Paris. Perhaps he would come out on some manhole at the intersection of streets. Amazement of the passersby at beholding two bleeding men emerge from the earth at their feet. Arrival of the police, a call to arms of the neighboring post of guards. Thus they would be seized before they had even got out. It would be better to plunge into that labyrinth, to confide themselves to that black gloom, and to trust to Providence for the outcome. He ascended the incline, and turned to the right. When he had turned the angle of the gallery, the distant glimmer of an airhole disappeared, the curtain of obscurity fell upon him once more, and he became blind again. Nevertheless, he advanced as rapidly as possible. Marius' two arms were passed round his neck, and the former's feet dragged behind him. He held both these arms with one hand, and groped along the wall with the other. Marius' cheek touched his, and clung there, bleeding. He felt a warm stream which came from Marius trickling down upon him and making its way under his clothes. But a humid warmth near his ear, which the mouth of the wounded man touched, indicated respiration, and consequently, life. The passage along which Jean Valjean was now proceeding was not so narrow as the first. Jean Valjean walked through it with considerable difficulty. The rain of the preceding day had not, as yet, entirely run off, and it created a little torrent in the centre of the bottom, and he was forced to hug the wall in order not to have his feet in the water. Thus he proceeded in the gloom. He resembled the beings of the night groping in the invisible and lost beneath the earth in veins of shadow. Still, little by little, whether it was that the distant airholes emitted a little wavering light in this opaque gloom, or whether his eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity, some vague vision returned to him, and he began once more to gain a confused idea, now of the wall which he touched, now of the vault beneath which he was passing. The pupil dilates in the dark, and the soul dilates in misfortune and ends by finding God there. It was not easy to direct his course. The line of the sewer reechoes, so to speak, the line of the streets which lie above it. There were then in Paris two thousand two hundred streets. Let the reader imagine himself beneath that forest of gloomy branches which is called the sewer. The system of sewers existing at that epoch, placed end to end, would have given a length of eleven leagues. We have said above, that the actual network, thanks to the special activity of the last thirty years, was no less than sixty leagues in extent. Jean Valjean began by committing a blunder. He thought that he was beneath the Rue SaintDenis, and it was a pity that it was not so. Under the Rue SaintDenis there is an old stone sewer which dates from Louis XIII. and which runs straight to the collecting sewer, called the Grand Sewer, with but a single elbow, on the right, on the elevation of the ancient Cour des Miracles, and a single branch, the SaintMartin sewer, whose four arms describe a cross. But the gut of the PetiteTruanderie the entrance to which was in the vicinity of the Corinthe wineshop has never communicated with the sewer of the Rue SaintDenis it ended at the Montmartre sewer, and it was in this that Jean Valjean was entangled. There opportunities of losing oneself abound. The Montmartre sewer is one of the most labyrinthine of the ancient network. Fortunately, Jean Valjean had left behind him the sewer of the markets whose geometrical plan presents the appearance of a multitude of parrots' roosts piled on top of each other but he had before him more than one embarrassing encounter and more than one street cornerfor they are streetspresenting itself in the gloom like an interrogation point first, on his left, the vast sewer of the Pltrire, a sort of Chinese puzzle, thrusting out and entangling its chaos of Ts and Zs under the PostOffice and under the rotunda of the Wheat Market, as far as the Seine, where it terminates in a Y secondly, on his right, the curving corridor of the Rue du Cadran with its three teeth, which are also blind courts thirdly, on his left, the branch of the Mail, complicated, almost at its inception, with a sort of fork, and proceeding from zigzag to zigzag until it ends in the grand crypt of the outlet of the Louvre, truncated and ramified in every direction and lastly, the blind alley of a passage of the Rue des Jeneurs, without counting little ducts here and there, before reaching the belt sewer, which alone could conduct him to some issue sufficiently distant to be safe. Had Jean Valjean had any idea of all that we have here pointed out, he would speedily have perceived, merely by feeling the wall, that he was not in the subterranean gallery of the Rue SaintDenis. Instead of the ancient stone, instead of the antique architecture, haughty and royal even in the sewer, with pavement and string courses of granite and mortar costing eight hundred livres the fathom, he would have felt under his hand contemporary cheapness, economical expedients, porous stone filled with mortar on a concrete foundation, which costs two hundred francs the metre, and the bourgeoise masonry known as  petits matriauxsmall stuff but of all this he knew nothing. He advanced with anxiety, but with calmness, seeing nothing, knowing nothing, buried in chance, that is to say, engulfed in providence. By degrees, we will admit, a certain horror seized upon him. The gloom which enveloped him penetrated his spirit. He walked in an enigma. This aqueduct of the sewer is formidable it interlaces in a dizzy fashion. It is a melancholy thing to be caught in this Paris of shadows. Jean Valjean was obliged to find and even to invent his route without seeing it. In this unknown, every step that he risked might be his last. How was he to get out? should he find an issue? should he find it in time? would that colossal subterranean sponge with its stone cavities, allow itself to be penetrated and pierced? should he there encounter some unexpected knot in the darkness? should he arrive at the inextricable and the impassable? would Marius die there of hemorrhage and he of hunger? should they end by both getting lost, and by furnishing two skeletons in a nook of that night? He did not know. He put all these questions to himself without replying to them. The intestines of Paris form a precipice. Like the prophet, he was in the belly of the monster. All at once, he had a surprise. At the most unforeseen moment, and without having ceased to walk in a straight line, he perceived that he was no longer ascending the water of the rivulet was beating against his heels, instead of meeting him at his toes. The sewer was now descending. Why? Was he about to arrive suddenly at the Seine? This danger was a great one, but the peril of retreating was still greater. He continued to advance. It was not towards the Seine that he was proceeding. The ridge which the soil of Paris forms on its right bank empties one of its watersheds into the Seine and the other into the Grand Sewer. The crest of this ridge which determines the division of the waters describes a very capricious line. The culminating point, which is the point of separation of the currents, is in the SainteAvoye sewer, beyond the Rue MichelleComte, in the sewer of the Louvre, near the boulevards, and in the Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was this culminating point that Jean Valjean had reached. He was directing his course towards the belt sewer he was on the right path. But he did not know it. Every time that he encountered a branch, he felt of its angles, and if he found that the opening which presented itself was smaller than the passage in which he was, he did not enter but continued his route, rightly judging that every narrower way must needs terminate in a blind alley, and could only lead him further from his goal, that is to say, the outlet. Thus he avoided the quadruple trap which was set for him in the darkness by the four labyrinths which we have just enumerated. At a certain moment, he perceived that he was emerging from beneath the Paris which was petrified by the uprising, where the barricades had suppressed circulation, and that he was entering beneath the living and normal Paris. Overhead he suddenly heard a noise as of thunder, distant but continuous. It was the rumbling of vehicles. He had been walking for about half an hour, at least according to the calculation which he made in his own mind, and he had not yet thought of rest he had merely changed the hand with which he was holding Marius. The darkness was more profound than ever, but its very depth reassured him. All at once, he saw his shadow in front of him. It was outlined on a faint, almost indistinct reddish glow, which vaguely empurpled the flooring vault underfoot, and the vault overhead, and gilded to his right and to his left the two viscous walls of the passage. Stupefied, he turned round. Behind him, in the portion of the passage which he had just passed through, at a distance which appeared to him immense, piercing the dense obscurity, flamed a sort of horrible star which had the air of surveying him. It was the gloomy star of the police which was rising in the sewer. In the rear of that star eight or ten forms were moving about in a confused way, black, upright, indistinct, horrible. On the day of the sixth of June, a battue of the sewers had been ordered. It was feared that the vanquished might have taken to them for refuge, and Prefect Gisquet was to search occult Paris while General Bugeaud swept public Paris a double and connected operation which exacted a double strategy on the part of the public force, represented above by the army and below by the police. Three squads of agents and sewermen explored the subterranean drain of Paris, the first on the right bank, the second on the left bank, the third in the city. The agents of police were armed with carabines, with bludgeons, swords and poignards. That which was directed at Jean Valjean at that moment, was the lantern of the patrol of the right bank. This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the three blind alleys which lie beneath the Rue du Cadran. While they were passing their lantern through the depths of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean had encountered on his path the entrance to the gallery, had perceived that it was narrower than the principal passage and had not penetrated thither. He had passed on. The police, on emerging from the gallery du Cadran, had fancied that they heard the sound of footsteps in the direction of the belt sewer. They were, in fact, the steps of Jean Valjean. The sergeant in command of the patrol had raised his lantern, and the squad had begun to gaze into the mist in the direction whence the sound proceeded. This was an indescribable moment for Jean Valjean. Happily, if he saw the lantern well, the lantern saw him but ill. It was light and he was shadow. He was very far off, and mingled with the darkness of the place. He hugged the wall and halted. Moreover, he did not understand what it was that was moving behind him. The lack of sleep and food, and his emotions had caused him also to pass into the state of a visionary. He beheld a gleam, and around that gleam, forms. What was it? He did not comprehend. Jean Valjean having paused, the sound ceased. The men of the patrol listened, and heard nothing, they looked and saw nothing. They held a consultation. There existed at that epoch at this point of the Montmartre sewer a sort of crossroads called de service, which was afterwards suppressed, on account of the little interior lake which formed there, swallowing up the torrent of rain in heavy storms. The patrol could form a cluster in this open space. Jean Valjean saw these spectres form a sort of circle. These bulldogs' heads approached each other closely and whispered together. The result of this council held by the watch dogs was, that they had been mistaken, that there had been no noise, that it was useless to get entangled in the belt sewer, that it would only be a waste of time, but that they ought to hasten towards SaintMerry that if there was anything to do, and any 'bousingot to track out, it was in that quarter. From time to time, parties resole their old insults. In , the word bousingot formed the interim between the word jacobin, which had become obsolete, and the word demagogue which has since rendered such excellent service. The sergeant gave orders to turn to the left, towards the watershed of the Seine. If it had occurred to them to separate into two squads, and to go in both directions, Jean Valjean would have been captured. All hung on that thread. It is probable that the instructions of the prefecture, foreseeing a possibility of combat and insurgents in force, had forbidden the patrol to part company. The patrol resumed its march, leaving Jean Valjean behind it. Of all this movement, Jean Valjean perceived nothing, except the eclipse of the lantern which suddenly wheeled round. Before taking his departure, the sergeant, in order to acquit his policeman's conscience, discharged his gun in the direction of Jean Valjean. The detonation rolled from echo to echo in the crypt, like the rumbling of that titanic entrail. A bit of plaster which fell into the stream and splashed up the water a few paces away from Jean Valjean, warned him that the ball had struck the arch over his head. Slow and measured steps resounded for some time on the timber work, gradually dying away as they retreated to a greater distance the group of black forms vanished, a glimmer of light oscillated and floated, communicating to the vault a reddish glow which grew fainter, then disappeared the silence became profound once more, the obscurity became complete, blindness and deafness resumed possession of the shadows and Jean Valjean, not daring to stir as yet, remained for a long time leaning with his back against the wall, with straining ears, and dilated pupils, watching the disappearance of that phantom patrol. This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even in the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably fulfilled its duties connected with the sewers and surveillance. A revolt was, in its eyes, no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own mouths, and for neglecting society for the reason that the government was in peril. The ordinary service was performed correctly in company with the extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter. In the midst of an incalculable political event already begun, under the pressure of a possible revolution, a police agent, 'spun a thief without allowing himself to be distracted by insurrection and barricades. It was something precisely parallel which took place on the afternoon of the th of June on the banks of the Seine, on the slope of the right shore, a little beyond the Pont des Invalides. There is no longer any bank there now. The aspect of the locality has changed. On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed to be watching each other while mutually avoiding each other. The one who was in advance was trying to get away, the one in the rear was trying to overtake the other. It was like a game of checkers played at a distance and in silence. Neither seemed to be in any hurry, and both walked slowly, as though each of them feared by too much haste to make his partner redouble his pace. One would have said that it was an appetite following its prey, and purposely without wearing the air of doing so. The prey was crafty and on its guard. The proper relations between the hunted polecat and the hunting dog were observed. The one who was seeking to escape had an insignificant mien and not an impressive appearance the one who was seeking to seize him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter. The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second but he avoided him in a manner which was deeply furious any one who could have observed him would have discerned in his eyes the sombre hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear contains. The shore was deserted there were no passersby not even a boatman nor a lighterman was in the skiffs which were moored here and there. It was not easy to see these two men, except from the quay opposite, and to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance, the man who was in advance would have appeared like a bristling, tattered, and equivocal being, who was uneasy and trembling beneath a ragged blouse, and the other like a classic and official personage, wearing the frockcoat of authority buttoned to the chin. Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he were to see them closer at hand. What was the object of the second man? Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly. When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state. Only, the whole question lies in the color. To be dressed in blue is glorious to be dressed in red is disagreeable. There is a purple from below. It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of this sort which the first man is desirous of shirking. If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized him as yet, it was, judging from all appearances, in the hope of seeing him lead up to some significant meetingplace and to some group worth catching. This delicate operation is called 'spinning. What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that the buttonedup man, on catching sight from the shore of a hackneycoach on the quay as it was passing along empty, made a sign to the driver the driver understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal, turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, at a footpace. This was not observed by the slouching and tattered personage who was in advance. The hackneycoach rolled along the trees of the Champslyses. The bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along above the parapet. One of the secret instructions of the police authorities to their agents contains this article 'Always have on hand a hackneycoach, in case of emergency. While these two men were manuvring, each on his own side, with irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay which descended to the shore, and which permitted cabdrivers arriving from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry horses may die of thirst, but the eye is gratified. It is probable that the man in the blouse had intended to ascend this inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into the Champslyses, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return, much infested with policemen, and where the other could easily exercise violence. This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house brought to Paris from Moret in , by Colonel Brack, and designated as 'the house of Franois I. A guard house is situated close at hand. To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being tracked did not mount by the inclined plane for watering. He continued to advance along the quay on the shore. His position was visibly becoming critical. What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into the Seine? Henceforth, there existed no means of ascending to the quay there was no other inclined plane, no staircase and they were near the spot, marked by the bend in the Seine towards the Pont de Jna, where the bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in a slender tongue, and was lost in the water. There he would inevitably find himself blocked between the perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and in front of him, and the authorities on his heels. It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from sight by a heap of rubbish six or seven feet in height, produced by some demolition or other. But did this man hope to conceal himself effectually behind that heap of rubbish, which one need but skirt? The expedient would have been puerile. He certainly was not dreaming of such a thing. The innocence of thieves does not extend to that point. The pile of rubbish formed a sort of projection at the water's edge, which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of the quay. The man who was being followed arrived at this little mound and went round it, so that he ceased to be seen by the other. The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen he took advantage of this fact to abandon all dissimulation and to walk very rapidly. In a few moments, he had reached the rubbish heap and passed round it. There he halted in sheer amazement. The man whom he had been pursuing was no longer there. Total eclipse of the man in the blouse. The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces long, then it plunged into the water which beat against the wall of the quay. The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine without being seen by the man who was following him. What had become of him? The man in the buttonedup coat walked to the extremity of the shore, and remained there in thought for a moment, his fists clenched, his eyes searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived, at the point where the land came to an end and the water began, a large iron grating, low, arched, garnished with a heavy lock and with three massive hinges. This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the quay, opened on the river as well as on the shore. A blackish stream passed under it. This stream discharged into the Seine. Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted corridor could be descried. The man folded his arms and stared at the grating with an air of reproach. As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside he shook it, it resisted solidly. It is probable that it had just been opened, although no sound had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a grating but it is certain that it had been closed again. This indicated that the man before whom that door had just opened had not a hook but a key. This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who was trying to move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation 'That is too much! A government key! Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a whole world of interior ideas by this outburst of monosyllables accented almost ironically 'Come! Come! Come! Come! That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that he should see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of a pointer. The hackneycoach, which regulated all its movements on his, had, in its turn, halted on the quay above him, close to the parapet. The coachman, foreseeing a prolonged wait, encased his horses' muzzles in the bag of oats which is damp at the bottom, and which is so familiar to Parisians, to whom, be it said in parenthesis, the Government sometimes applies it. The rare passersby on the Pont de Jna turned their heads, before they pursued their way, to take a momentary glance at these two motionless items in the landscape, the man on the shore, the carriage on the quay. Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. This march became more and more laborious. The level of these vaults varies the average height is about five feet, six inches, and has been calculated for the stature of a man Jean Valjean was forced to bend over, in order not to strike Marius against the vault at every step he had to bend, then to rise, and to feel incessantly of the wall. The moisture of the stones, and the viscous nature of the timber framework furnished but poor supports to which to cling, either for hand or foot. He stumbled along in the hideous dungheap of the city. The intermittent gleams from the airholes only appeared at very long intervals, and were so wan that the full sunlight seemed like the light of the moon all the rest was mist, miasma, opaqueness, blackness. Jean Valjean was both hungry and thirsty especially thirsty and this, like the sea, was a place full of water where a man cannot drink. His strength, which was prodigious, as the reader knows, and which had been but little decreased by age, thanks to his chaste and sober life, began to give way, nevertheless. Fatigue began to gain on him and as his strength decreased, it made the weight of his burden increase. Marius, who was, perhaps, dead, weighed him down as inert bodies weigh. Jean Valjean held him in such a manner that his chest was not oppressed, and so that respiration could proceed as well as possible. Between his legs he felt the rapid gliding of the rats. One of them was frightened to such a degree that he bit him. From time to time, a breath of fresh air reached him through the ventholes of the mouths of the sewer, and reanimated him. It might have been three hours past midday when he reached the beltsewer. He was, at first, astonished at this sudden widening. He found himself, all at once, in a gallery where his outstretched hands could not reach the two walls, and beneath a vault which his head did not touch. The Grand Sewer is, in fact, eight feet wide and seven feet high. At the point where the Montmartre sewer joins the Grand Sewer, two other subterranean galleries, that of the Rue de Provence, and that of the Abattoir, form a square. Between these four ways, a less sagacious man would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest, that is to say, the beltsewer. But here the question again came upshould he descend or ascend? He thought that the situation required haste, and that he must now gain the Seine at any risk. In other terms, he must descend. He turned to the left. It was well that he did so, for it is an error to suppose that the beltsewer has two outlets, the one in the direction of Bercy, the other towards Passy, and that it is, as its name indicates, the subterranean girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it must be remembered, nothing else than the old brook of Mnilmontant, terminates, if one ascends it, in a blind sack, that is to say, at its ancient point of departure which was its source, at the foot of the knoll of Mnilmontant. There is no direct communication with the branch which collects the waters of Paris beginning with the Quartier Popincourt, and which falls into the Seine through the Amelot sewer above the ancient Isle Louviers. This branch, which completes the collecting sewer, is separated from it, under the Rue Mnilmontant itself, by a pile which marks the dividing point of the waters, between upstream and downstream. If Jean Valjean had ascended the gallery he would have arrived, after a thousand efforts, and broken down with fatigue, and in an expiring condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would have been lost. In case of necessity, by retracing his steps a little way, and entering the passage of the FillesduCalvaire, on condition that he did not hesitate at the subterranean crossing of the Carrefour Boucherat, and by taking the corridor SaintLouis, then the SaintGilles gut on the left, then turning to the right and avoiding the SaintSebastian gallery, he might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided that he did not go astray in the sort of F which lies under the Bastille, he might have attained the outlet on the Seine near the Arsenal. But in order to do this, he must have been thoroughly familiar with the enormous madrepore of the sewer in all its ramifications and in all its openings. Now, we must again insist that he knew nothing of that frightful drain which he was traversing and had any one asked him in what he was, he would have answered 'In the night. His instinct served him well. To descend was, in fact, possible safety. He left on his right the two narrow passages which branch out in the form of a claw under the Rue Laffitte and the Rue SaintGeorges and the long, bifurcated corridor of the Chausse d'Antin. A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large airhole, probably the manhole in the Rue d'Anjou, furnished a light that was almost vivid. Jean Valjean, with the gentleness of movement which a brother would exercise towards his wounded brother, deposited Marius on the banquette of the sewer. Marius' bloodstained face appeared under the wan light of the airhole like the ashes at the bottom of a tomb. His eyes were closed, his hair was plastered down on his temples like a painter's brushes dried in red wash his hands hung limp and dead. A clot of blood had collected in the knot of his cravat his limbs were cold, and blood was clotted at the corners of his mouth his shirt had thrust itself into his wounds, the cloth of his coat was chafing the yawning gashes in the living flesh. Jean Valjean, pushing aside the garments with the tips of his fingers, laid his hand upon Marius' breast his heart was still beating. Jean Valjean tore up his shirt, bandaged the young man's wounds as well as he was able and stopped the flowing blood then bending over Marius, who still lay unconscious and almost without breathing, in that half light, he gazed at him with inexpressible hatred. On disarranging Marius' garments, he had found two things in his pockets, the roll which had been forgotten there on the preceding evening, and Marius' pocketbook. He ate the roll and opened the pocketbook. On the first page he found the four lines written by Marius. The reader will recall them 'My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. Gillenormand, Rue des FillesduCalvaire, No. , in the Marais. Jean Valjean read these four lines by the light of the airhole, and remained for a moment as though absorbed in thought, repeating in a low tone 'Rue des FillesduCalvaire, number , Monsieur Gillenormand. He replaced the pocketbook in Marius' pocket. He had eaten, his strength had returned to him he took Marius up once more upon his back, placed the latter's head carefully on his right shoulder, and resumed his descent of the sewer. The Grand Sewer, directed according to the course of the valley of Mnilmontant, is about two leagues long. It is paved throughout a notable portion of its extent. This torch of the names of the streets of Paris, with which we are illuminating for the reader Jean Valjean's subterranean march, Jean Valjean himself did not possess. Nothing told him what zone of the city he was traversing, nor what way he had made. Only the growing pallor of the pools of light which he encountered from time to time indicated to him that the sun was withdrawing from the pavement, and that the day would soon be over and the rolling of vehicles overhead, having become intermittent instead of continuous, then having almost ceased, he concluded that he was no longer under central Paris, and that he was approaching some solitary region, in the vicinity of the outer boulevards, or the extreme outer quays. Where there are fewer houses and streets, the sewer has fewer airholes. The gloom deepened around Jean Valjean. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, groping his way in the dark. Suddenly this darkness became terrible. He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a pavement under his feet, but only mud. It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a man, either a traveller or a fisherman, while walking at low tide on the beach far from shore, suddenly notices that for several minutes past, he has been walking with some difficulty. The beach under foot is like pitch his soles stick fast to it it is no longer sand, it is birdlime. The strand is perfectly dry, but at every step that he takes, as soon as the foot is raised, the print is filled with water. The eye, however, has perceived no change the immense beach is smooth and tranquil, all the sand has the same aspect, nothing distinguishes the soil that is solid from that which is not solid the joyous little cloud of sandlice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of the passerby. The man pursues his way, he walks on, turns towards the land, endeavors to approach the shore. He is not uneasy. Uneasy about what? Only he is conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every step that he takes. All at once he sinks in. He sinks in two or three inches. Decidedly, he is not on the right road he halts to get his bearings. Suddenly he glances at his feet his feet have disappeared. The sand has covered them. He draws his feet out of the sand, he tries to retrace his steps, he turns back, he sinks in more deeply than before. The sand is up to his ankles, he tears himself free from it and flings himself to the left, the sand reaches to midleg, he flings himself to the right, the sand comes up to his knees. Then, with indescribable terror, he recognizes the fact that he is caught in a quicksand, and that he has beneath him that frightful medium in which neither man can walk nor fish can swim. He flings away his burden, if he have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress it is too late, the sand is above his knees. He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually gains on him if the beach is deserted, if the land is too far away, if the bank of sand is too illfamed, there is no hero in the neighborhood, all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that terrible interment, long, infallible, implacable, which it is impossible to either retard or hasten, which lasts for hours, which will not come to an end, which seizes you erect, free, in the flush of health, which drags you down by the feet, which, at every effort that you attempt, at every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces a man to return slowly to earth, while leaving him time to survey the horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on the plain, the sails of the ships on the sea, the birds which fly and sing, the sun and the sky. This engulfment is the sepulchre which assumes a tide, and which mounts from the depths of the earth towards a living man. Each minute is an inexorable layerout of the dead. The wretched man tries to sit down, to lie down, to climb every movement that he makes buries him deeper he straightens himself up, he sinks he feels that he is being swallowed up he shrieks, implores, cries to the clouds, wrings his hands, grows desperate. Behold him in the sand up to his belly, the sand reaches to his breast, he is only a bust now. He uplifts his hands, utters furious groans, clenches his nails on the beach, tries to cling fast to that ashes, supports himself on his elbows in order to raise himself from that soft sheath, and sobs frantically the sand mounts higher. The sand has reached his shoulders, the sand reaches to his throat only his face is visible now. His mouth cries aloud, the sand fills it silence. His eyes still gaze forth, the sand closes them, night. Then his brow decreases, a little hair quivers above the sand a hand projects, pierces the surface of the beach, waves and disappears. Sinister obliteration of a man. Sometimes a rider is engulfed with his horse sometimes the carter is swallowed up with his cart all founders in that strand. It is shipwreck elsewhere than in the water. It is the earth drowning a man. The earth, permeated with the ocean, becomes a pitfall. It presents itself in the guise of a plain, and it yawns like a wave. The abyss is subject to these treacheries. This melancholy fate, always possible on certain sea beaches, was also possible, thirty years ago, in the sewers of Paris. Before the important works, undertaken in , the subterranean drain of Paris was subject to these sudden slides. The water filtered into certain subjacent strata, which were particularly friable the footway, which was of flagstones, as in the ancient sewers, or of cement on concrete, as in the new galleries, having no longer an underpinning, gave way. A fold in a flooring of this sort means a crack, means crumbling. The framework crumbled away for a certain length. This crevice, the hiatus of a gulf of mire, was called a fontis, in the special tongue. What is a fontis? It is the quicksands of the seashore suddenly encountered under the surface of the earth it is the beach of Mont SaintMichel in a sewer. The soaked soil is in a state of fusion, as it were all its molecules are in suspension in soft medium it is not earth and it is not water. The depth is sometimes very great. Nothing can be more formidable than such an encounter. If the water predominates, death is prompt, the man is swallowed up if earth predominates, death is slow. Can any one picture to himself such a death? If being swallowed by the earth is terrible on the seashore, what is it in a cesspool? Instead of the open air, the broad daylight, the clear horizon, those vast sounds, those free clouds whence rains life, instead of those barks descried in the distance, of that hope under all sorts of forms, of probable passersby, of succor possible up to the very last moment,instead of all this, deafness, blindness, a black vault, the inside of a tomb already prepared, death in the mire beneath a cover! slow suffocation by filth, a stone box where asphyxia opens its claw in the mire and clutches you by the throat fetidness mingled with the deathrattle slime instead of the strand, sulfuretted hydrogen in place of the hurricane, dung in place of the ocean! And to shout, to gnash one's teeth, and to writhe, and to struggle, and to agonize, with that enormous city which knows nothing of it all, over one's head! Inexpressible is the horror of dying thus! Death sometimes redeems his atrocity by a certain terrible dignity. On the funeral pile, in shipwreck, one can be great in the flames as in the foam, a superb attitude is possible one there becomes transfigured as one perishes. But not here. Death is filthy. It is humiliating to expire. The supreme floating visions are abject. Mud is synonymous with shame. It is petty, ugly, infamous. To die in a butt of Malvoisie, like Clarence, is permissible in the ditch of a scavenger, like Escoubleau, is horrible. To struggle therein is hideous at the same time that one is going through the death agony, one is floundering about. There are shadows enough for hell, and mire enough to render it nothing but a slough, and the dying man knows not whether he is on the point of becoming a spectre or a frog. Everywhere else the sepulchre is sinister here it is deformed. The depth of the fontis varied, as well as their length and their density, according to the more or less bad quality of the subsoil. Sometimes a fontis was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or ten sometimes the bottom was unfathomable. Here the mire was almost solid, there almost liquid. In the Lunire fontis, it would have taken a man a day to disappear, while he would have been devoured in five minutes by the Philippeaux slough. The mire bears up more or less, according to its density. A child can escape where a man will perish. The first law of safety is to get rid of every sort of load. Every sewerman who felt the ground giving way beneath him began by flinging away his sack of tools, or his backbasket, or his hod. The fontis were due to different causes the friability of the soil some landslip at a depth beyond the reach of man the violent summer rains the incessant flooding of winter long, drizzling showers. Sometimes the weight of the surrounding houses on a marly or sandy soil forced out the vaults of the subterranean galleries and caused them to bend aside, or it chanced that a flooring vault burst and split under this crushing thrust. In this manner, the heaping up of the Parthnon, obliterated, a century ago, a portion of the vaults of SaintGenevive hill. When a sewer was broken in under the pressure of the houses, the mischief was sometimes betrayed in the street above by a sort of space, like the teeth of a saw, between the pavingstones this crevice was developed in an undulating line throughout the entire length of the cracked vault, and then, the evil being visible, the remedy could be promptly applied. It also frequently happened, that the interior ravages were not revealed by any external scar, and in that case, woe to the sewermen. When they entered without precaution into the sewer, they were liable to be lost. Ancient registers make mention of several scavengers who were buried in fontis in this manner. They give many names among others, that of the sewerman who was swallowed up in a quagmire under the manhole of the Rue CarmePrenant, a certain Blaise Poutrain this Blaise Poutrain was the brother of Nicholas Poutrain, who was the last gravedigger of the cemetery called the Charnier des Innocents, in , the epoch when that cemetery expired. There was also that young and charming Vicomte d'Escoubleau, of whom we have just spoken, one of the heroes of the siege of Lrida, where they delivered the assault in silk stockings, with violins at their head. D'Escoubleau, surprised one night at his cousin's, the Duchesse de Sourdis', was drowned in a quagmire of the Beautreillis sewer, in which he had taken refuge in order to escape from the Duke. Madame de Sourdis, when informed of his death, demanded her smellingbottle, and forgot to weep, through sniffling at her salts. In such cases, there is no love which holds fast the sewer extinguishes it. Hero refuses to wash the body of Leander. Thisbe stops her nose in the presence of Pyramus and says 'Phew! Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. This sort of quagmire was common at that period in the subsoil of the Champslyses, difficult to handle in the hydraulic works and a bad preservative of the subterranean constructions, on account of its excessive fluidity. This fluidity exceeds even the inconsistency of the sands of the Quartier SaintGeorges, which could only be conquered by a stone construction on a concrete foundation, and the clayey strata, infected with gas, of the Quartier des Martyrs, which are so liquid that the only way in which a passage was effected under the gallery des Martyrs was by means of a castiron pipe. When, in , the old stone sewer beneath the Faubourg SaintHonor, in which we now see Jean Valjean, was demolished for the purpose of reconstructing it, the quicksand, which forms the subsoil of the Champslyses as far as the Seine, presented such an obstacle, that the operation lasted nearly six months, to the great clamor of the dwellers on the riverside, particularly those who had hotels and carriages. The work was more than unhealthy it was dangerous. It is true that they had four months and a half of rain, and three floods of the Seine. The fontis which Jean Valjean had encountered was caused by the downpour of the preceding day. The pavement, badly sustained by the subjacent sand, had given way and had produced a stoppage of the water. Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed. The dislocated bottom had sunk into the ooze. To what extent? Impossible to say. The obscurity was more dense there than elsewhere. It was a pit of mire in a cavern of night. Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered this slime. There was water on the surface, slime at the bottom. He must pass it. To retrace his steps was impossible. Marius was dying, and Jean Valjean exhausted. Besides, where was he to go? Jean Valjean advanced. Moreover, the pit seemed, for the first few steps, not to be very deep. But in proportion as he advanced, his feet plunged deeper. Soon he had the slime up to his calves and water above his knees. He walked on, raising Marius in his arms, as far above the water as he could. The mire now reached to his knees, and the water to his waist. He could no longer retreat. This mud, dense enough for one man, could not, obviously, uphold two. Marius and Jean Valjean would have stood a chance of extricating themselves singly. Jean Valjean continued to advance, supporting the dying man, who was, perhaps, a corpse. The water came up to his armpits he felt that he was sinking it was only with difficulty that he could move in the depth of ooze which he had now reached. The density, which was his support, was also an obstacle. He still held Marius on high, and with an unheardof expenditure of force, he advanced still but he was sinking. He had only his head above the water now and his two arms holding up Marius. In the old paintings of the deluge there is a mother holding her child thus. He sank still deeper, he turned his face to the rear, to escape the water, and in order that he might be able to breathe anyone who had seen him in that gloom would have thought that what he beheld was a mask floating on the shadows he caught a faint glimpse above him of the drooping head and livid face of Marius he made a desperate effort and launched his foot forward his foot struck something solid a point of support. It was high time. He straightened himself up, and rooted himself upon that point of support with a sort of fury. This produced upon him the effect of the first step in a staircase leading back to life. The point of support, thus encountered in the mire at the supreme moment, was the beginning of the other watershed of the pavement, which had bent but had not given way, and which had curved under the water like a plank and in a single piece. Well built pavements form a vault and possess this sort of firmness. This fragment of the vaulting, partly submerged, but solid, was a veritable inclined plane, and, once on this plane, he was safe. Jean Valjean mounted this inclined plane and reached the other side of the quagmire. As he emerged from the water, he came in contact with a stone and fell upon his knees. He reflected that this was but just, and he remained there for some time, with his soul absorbed in words addressed to God. He rose to his feet, shivering, chilled, foulsmelling, bowed beneath the dying man whom he was dragging after him, all dripping with slime, and his soul filled with a strange light. He set out on his way once more. However, although he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed to have left his strength behind him there. That supreme effort had exhausted him. His lassitude was now such that he was obliged to pause for breath every three or four steps, and lean against the wall. Once he was forced to seat himself on the banquette in order to alter Marius' position, and he thought that he should have to remain there. But if his vigor was dead, his energy was not. He rose again. He walked on desperately, almost fast, proceeded thus for a hundred paces, almost without drawing breath, and suddenly came in contact with the wall. He had reached an elbow of the sewer, and, arriving at the turn with head bent down, he had struck the wall. He raised his eyes, and at the extremity of the vault, far, very far away in front of him, he perceived a light. This time it was not that terrible light it was good, white light. It was daylight. Jean Valjean saw the outlet. A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should suddenly perceive the outlet of Gehenna, would experience what Jean Valjean felt. It would fly wildly with the stumps of its burned wings towards that radiant portal. Jean Valjean was no longer conscious of fatigue, he no longer felt Marius' weight, he found his legs once more of steel, he ran rather than walked. As he approached, the outlet became more and more distinctly defined. It was a pointed arch, lower than the vault, which gradually narrowed, and narrower than the gallery, which closed in as the vault grew lower. The tunnel ended like the interior of a funnel a faulty construction, imitated from the wickets of penitentiaries, logical in a prison, illogical in a sewer, and which has since been corrected. Jean Valjean reached the outlet. There he halted. It certainly was the outlet, but he could not get out. The arch was closed by a heavy grating, and the grating, which, to all appearance, rarely swung on its rusty hinges, was clamped to its stone jamb by a thick lock, which, red with rust, seemed like an enormous brick. The keyhole could be seen, and the robust latch, deeply sunk in the iron staple. The door was plainly doublelocked. It was one of those prison locks which old Paris was so fond of lavishing. Beyond the grating was the open air, the river, the daylight, the shore, very narrow but sufficient for escape. The distant quays, Paris, that gulf in which one so easily hides oneself, the broad horizon, liberty. On the right, downstream, the bridge of Jna was discernible, on the left, upstream, the bridge of the Invalides the place would have been a propitious one in which to await the night and to escape. It was one of the most solitary points in Paris the shore which faces the GrandCaillou. Flies were entering and emerging through the bars of the grating. It might have been halfpast eight o'clock in the evening. The day was declining. Jean Valjean laid Marius down along the wall, on the dry portion of the vaulting, then he went to the grating and clenched both fists round the bars the shock which he gave it was frenzied, but it did not move. The grating did not stir. Jean Valjean seized the bars one after the other, in the hope that he might be able to tear away the least solid, and to make of it a lever wherewith to raise the door or to break the lock. Not a bar stirred. The teeth of a tiger are not more firmly fixed in their sockets. No lever no prying possible. The obstacle was invincible. There was no means of opening the gate. Must he then stop there? What was he to do? What was to become of him? He had not the strength to retrace his steps, to recommence the journey which he had already taken. Besides, how was he to again traverse that quagmire whence he had only extricated himself as by a miracle? And after the quagmire, was there not the police patrol, which assuredly could not be twice avoided? And then, whither was he to go? What direction should he pursue? To follow the incline would not conduct him to his goal. If he were to reach another outlet, he would find it obstructed by a plug or a grating. Every outlet was, undoubtedly, closed in that manner. Chance had unsealed the grating through which he had entered, but it was evident that all the other sewer mouths were barred. He had only succeeded in escaping into a prison. All was over. Everything that Jean Valjean had done was useless. Exhaustion had ended in failure. They were both caught in the immense and gloomy web of death, and Jean Valjean felt the terrible spider running along those black strands and quivering in the shadows. He turned his back to the grating, and fell upon the pavement, hurled to earth rather than seated, close to Marius, who still made no movement, and with his head bent between his knees. This was the last drop of anguish. Of what was he thinking during this profound depression? Neither of himself nor of Marius. He was thinking of Cosette. In the midst of this prostration, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a low voice said to him 'Half shares. Some person in that gloom? Nothing so closely resembles a dream as despair. Jean Valjean thought that he was dreaming. He had heard no footsteps. Was it possible? He raised his eyes. A man stood before him. This man was clad in a blouse his feet were bare he held his shoes in his left hand he had evidently removed them in order to reach Jean Valjean, without allowing his steps to be heard. Jean Valjean did not hesitate for an instant. Unexpected as was this encounter, this man was known to him. The man was Thnardier. Although awakened, so to speak, with a start, Jean Valjean, accustomed to alarms, and steeled to unforeseen shocks that must be promptly parried, instantly regained possession of his presence of mind. Moreover, the situation could not be made worse, a certain degree of distress is no longer capable of a crescendo, and Thnardier himself could add nothing to this blackness of this night. A momentary pause ensued. Thnardier, raising his right hand to a level with his forehead, formed with it a shade, then he brought his eyelashes together, by screwing up his eyes, a motion which, in connection with a slight contraction of the mouth, characterizes the sagacious attention of a man who is endeavoring to recognize another man. He did not succeed. Jean Valjean, as we have just stated, had his back turned to the light, and he was, moreover, so disfigured, so bemired, so bleeding that he would have been unrecognizable in full noonday. On the contrary, illuminated by the light from the grating, a cellar light, it is true, livid, yet precise in its lividness, Thnardier, as the energetic popular metaphor expresses it, immediately 'leaped into Jean Valjean's eyes. This inequality of conditions sufficed to assure some advantage to Jean Valjean in that mysterious duel which was on the point of beginning between the two situations and the two men. The encounter took place between Jean Valjean veiled and Thnardier unmasked. Jean Valjean immediately perceived that Thnardier did not recognize him. They surveyed each other for a moment in that halfgloom, as though taking each other's measure. Thnardier was the first to break the silence. 'How are you going to manage to get out? Jean Valjean made no reply. Thnardier continued 'It's impossible to pick the lock of that gate. But still you must get out of this. 'That is true, said Jean Valjean. 'Well, half shares then. 'What do you mean by that? 'You have killed that man that's all right. I have the key. Thnardier pointed to Marius. He went on 'I don't know you, but I want to help you. You must be a friend. Jean Valjean began to comprehend. Thnardier took him for an assassin. Thnardier resumed 'Listen, comrade. You didn't kill that man without looking to see what he had in his pockets. Give me my half. I'll open the door for you. And half drawing from beneath his tattered blouse a huge key, he added 'Do you want to see how a key to liberty is made? Look here. Jean Valjean 'remained stupidthe expression belongs to the elder Corneilleto such a degree that he doubted whether what he beheld was real. It was Providence appearing in horrible guise, and his good angel springing from the earth in the form of Thnardier. Thnardier thrust his fist into a large pocket concealed under his blouse, drew out a rope and offered it to Jean Valjean. 'Hold on, said he, 'I'll give you the rope to boot. 'What is the rope for? 'You will need a stone also, but you can find one outside. There's a heap of rubbish. 'What am I to do with a stone? 'Idiot, you'll want to sling that stiff into the river, you'll need a stone and a rope, otherwise it would float on the water. Jean Valjean took the rope. There is no one who does not occasionally accept in this mechanical way. Thnardier snapped his fingers as though an idea had suddenly occurred to him. 'Ah, see here, comrade, how did you contrive to get out of that slough yonder? I haven't dared to risk myself in it. Phew! you don't smell good. After a pause he added 'I'm asking you questions, but you're perfectly right not to answer. It's an apprenticeship against that cursed quarter of an hour before the examining magistrate. And then, when you don't talk at all, you run no risk of talking too loud. That's no matter, as I can't see your face and as I don't know your name, you are wrong in supposing that I don't know who you are and what you want. I twig. You've broken up that gentleman a bit now you want to tuck him away somewhere. The river, that great hider of folly, is what you want. I'll get you out of your scrape. Helping a good fellow in a pinch is what suits me to a hair. While expressing his approval of Jean Valjean's silence, he endeavored to force him to talk. He jostled his shoulder in an attempt to catch a sight of his profile, and he exclaimed, without, however, raising his tone 'Apropos of that quagmire, you're a hearty animal. Why didn't you toss the man in there? Jean Valjean preserved silence. Thnardier resumed, pushing the rag which served him as a cravat to the level of his Adam's apple, a gesture which completes the capable air of a serious man 'After all, you acted wisely. The workmen, when they come tomorrow to stop up that hole, would certainly have found the stiff abandoned there, and it might have been possible, thread by thread, straw by straw, to pick up the scent and reach you. Some one has passed through the sewer. Who? Where did he get out? Was he seen to come out? The police are full of cleverness. The sewer is treacherous and tells tales of you. Such a find is a rarity, it attracts attention, very few people make use of the sewers for their affairs, while the river belongs to everybody. The river is the true grave. At the end of a month they fish up your man in the nets at SaintCloud. Well, what does one care for that? It's carrion! Who killed that man? Paris. And justice makes no inquiries. You have done well. The more loquacious Thnardier became, the more mute was Jean Valjean. Again Thnardier shook him by the shoulder. 'Now let's settle this business. Let's go shares. You have seen my key, show me your money. Thnardier was haggard, fierce, suspicious, rather menacing, yet amicable. There was one singular circumstance Thnardier's manners were not simple he had not the air of being wholly at his ease while affecting an air of mystery, he spoke low from time to time he laid his finger on his mouth, and muttered, 'hush! It was difficult to divine why. There was no one there except themselves. Jean Valjean thought that other ruffians might possibly be concealed in some nook, not very far off, and that Thnardier did not care to share with them. Thnardier resumed 'Let's settle up. How much did the stiff have in his bags? Jean Valjean searched his pockets. It was his habit, as the reader will remember, to always have some money about him. The mournful life of expedients to which he had been condemned imposed this as a law upon him. On this occasion, however, he had been caught unprepared. When donning his uniform of a National Guardsman on the preceding evening, he had forgotten, dolefully absorbed as he was, to take his pocketbook. He had only some small change in his fob. He turned out his pocket, all soaked with ooze, and spread out on the banquette of the vault one louis d'or, two fivefranc pieces, and five or six large sous. Thnardier thrust out his lower lip with a significant twist of the neck. 'You knocked him over cheap, said he. He set to feeling the pockets of Jean Valjean and Marius, with the greatest familiarity. Jean Valjean, who was chiefly concerned in keeping his back to the light, let him have his way. While handling Marius' coat, Thnardier, with the skill of a pickpocket, and without being noticed by Jean Valjean, tore off a strip which he concealed under his blouse, probably thinking that this morsel of stuff might serve, later on, to identify the assassinated man and the assassin. However, he found no more than the thirty francs. 'That's true, said he, 'both of you together have no more than that. And, forgetting his motto 'half shares, he took all. He hesitated a little over the large sous. After due reflection, he took them also, muttering 'Never mind! You cut folks' throats too cheap altogether. That done, he once more drew the big key from under his blouse. 'Now, my friend, you must leave. It's like the fair here, you pay when you go out. You have paid, now clear out. And he began to laugh. Had he, in lending to this stranger the aid of his key, and in making some other man than himself emerge from that portal, the pure and disinterested intention of rescuing an assassin? We may be permitted to doubt this. Thnardier helped Jean Valjean to replace Marius on his shoulders, then he betook himself to the grating on tiptoe, and barefooted, making Jean Valjean a sign to follow him, looked out, laid his finger on his mouth, and remained for several seconds, as though in suspense his inspection finished, he placed the key in the lock. The bolt slipped back and the gate swung open. It neither grated nor squeaked. It moved very softly. It was obvious that this gate and those hinges, carefully oiled, were in the habit of opening more frequently than was supposed. This softness was suspicious it hinted at furtive goings and comings, silent entrances and exits of nocturnal men, and the wolflike tread of crime. The sewer was evidently an accomplice of some mysterious band. This taciturn grating was a receiver of stolen goods. Thnardier opened the gate a little way, allowing just sufficient space for Jean Valjean to pass out, closed the grating again, gave the key a double turn in the lock and plunged back into the darkness, without making any more noise than a breath. He seemed to walk with the velvet paws of a tiger. A moment later, that hideous providence had retreated into the invisibility. Jean Valjean found himself in the open air. He allowed Marius to slide down upon the shore. They were in the open air! The miasmas, darkness, horror lay behind him. The pure, healthful, living, joyous air that was easy to breathe inundated him. Everywhere around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has set in an unclouded azure sky. Twilight had descended night was drawing on, the great deliverer, the friend of all those who need a mantle of darkness that they may escape from an anguish. The sky presented itself in all directions like an enormous calm. The river flowed to his feet with the sound of a kiss. The aerial dialogue of the nests bidding each other good night in the elms of the Champslyses was audible. A few stars, daintily piercing the pale blue of the zenith, and visible to reverie alone, formed imperceptible little splendors amid the immensity. Evening was unfolding over the head of Jean Valjean all the sweetness of the infinite. It was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no. Night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to permit of recognition at close quarters. For several seconds, Jean Valjean was irresistibly overcome by that august and caressing serenity such moments of oblivion do come to men suffering refrains from harassing the unhappy wretch everything is eclipsed in the thoughts peace broods over the dreamer like night and, beneath the twilight which beams and in imitation of the sky which is illuminated, the soul becomes studded with stars. Jean Valjean could not refrain from contemplating that vast, clear shadow which rested over him thoughtfully he bathed in the sea of ecstasy and prayer in the majestic silence of the eternal heavens. Then he bent down swiftly to Marius, as though the sentiment of duty had returned to him, and, dipping up water in the hollow of his hand, he gently sprinkled a few drops on the latter's face. Marius' eyelids did not open but his halfopen mouth still breathed. Jean Valjean was on the point of dipping his hand in the river once more, when, all at once, he experienced an indescribable embarrassment, such as a person feels when there is some one behind him whom he does not see. We have already alluded to this impression, with which everyone is familiar. He turned round. Some one was, in fact, behind him, as there had been a short while before. A man of lofty stature, enveloped in a long coat, with folded arms, and bearing in his right fist a bludgeon of which the leaden head was visible, stood a few paces in the rear of the spot where Jean Valjean was crouching over Marius. With the aid of the darkness, it seemed a sort of apparition. An ordinary man would have been alarmed because of the twilight, a thoughtful man on account of the bludgeon. Jean Valjean recognized Javert. The reader has divined, no doubt, that Thnardier's pursuer was no other than Javert. Javert, after his unlookedfor escape from the barricade, had betaken himself to the prefecture of police, had rendered a verbal account to the Prefect in person in a brief audience, had then immediately gone on duty again, which impliedthe note, the reader will recollect, which had been captured on his persona certain surveillance of the shore on the right bank of the Seine near the Champslyses, which had, for some time past, aroused the attention of the police. There he had caught sight of Thnardier and had followed him. The reader knows the rest. Thus it will be easily understood that that grating, so obligingly opened to Jean Valjean, was a bit of cleverness on Thnardier's part. Thnardier intuitively felt that Javert was still there the man spied upon has a scent which never deceives him it was necessary to fling a bone to that sleuthhound. An assassin, what a godsend! Such an opportunity must never be allowed to slip. Thnardier, by putting Jean Valjean outside in his stead, provided a prey for the police, forced them to relinquish his scent, made them forget him in a bigger adventure, repaid Javert for his waiting, which always flatters a spy, earned thirty francs, and counted with certainty, so far as he himself was concerned, on escaping with the aid of this diversion. Jean Valjean had fallen from one danger upon another. These two encounters, this falling one after the other, from Thnardier upon Javert, was a rude shock. Javert did not recognize Jean Valjean, who, as we have stated, no longer looked like himself. He did not unfold his arms, he made sure of his bludgeon in his fist, by an imperceptible movement, and said in a curt, calm voice 'Who are you? 'I. 'Who is 'I'? 'Jean Valjean. Javert thrust his bludgeon between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined his body, laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized him, and recognized him. Their faces almost touched. Javert's look was terrible. Jean Valjean remained inert beneath Javert's grasp, like a lion submitting to the claws of a lynx. 'Inspector Javert, said he, 'you have me in your power. Moreover, I have regarded myself as your prisoner ever since this morning. I did not give you my address with any intention of escaping from you. Take me. Only grant me one favor. Javert did not appear to hear him. He kept his eyes riveted on Jean Valjean. His chin being contracted, thrust his lips upwards towards his nose, a sign of savage reverie. At length he released Jean Valjean, straightened himself stiffly up without bending, grasped his bludgeon again firmly, and, as though in a dream, he murmured rather than uttered this question 'What are you doing here? And who is this man? He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou. Jean Valjean replied, and the sound of his voice appeared to rouse Javert 'It is with regard to him that I desire to speak to you. Dispose of me as you see fit but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I ask of you. Javert's face contracted as was always the case when any one seemed to think him capable of making a concession. Nevertheless, he did not say 'no. Again he bent over, drew from his pocket a handkerchief which he moistened in the water and with which he then wiped Marius' bloodstained brow. 'This man was at the barricade, said he in a low voice and as though speaking to himself. 'He is the one they called Marius. A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to die who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes. He seized Marius' hand and felt his pulse. 'He is wounded, said Jean Valjean. 'He is a dead man, said Javert. Jean Valjean replied 'No. Not yet. 'So you have brought him thither from the barricade? remarked Javert. His preoccupation must indeed have been very profound for him not to insist on this alarming rescue through the sewer, and for him not to even notice Jean Valjean's silence after his question. Jean Valjean, on his side, seemed to have but one thought. He resumed 'He lives in the Marais, Rue des FillesduCalvaire, with his grandfather. I do not recollect his name. Jean Valjean fumbled in Marius' coat, pulled out his pocketbook, opened it at the page which Marius had pencilled, and held it out to Javert. There was still sufficient light to admit of reading. Besides this, Javert possessed in his eye the feline phosphorescence of night birds. He deciphered the few lines written by Marius, and muttered 'Gillenormand, Rue des Fillesdu Calvaire, No. . Then he exclaimed 'Coachman! The reader will remember that the hackneycoach was waiting in case of need. Javert kept Marius' pocketbook. A moment later, the carriage, which had descended by the inclined plane of the wateringplace, was on the shore. Marius was laid upon the back seat, and Javert seated himself on the front seat beside Jean Valjean. The door slammed, and the carriage drove rapidly away, ascending the quays in the direction of the Bastille. They quitted the quays and entered the streets. The coachman, a black form on his box, whipped up his thin horses. A glacial silence reigned in the carriage. Marius, motionless, with his body resting in the corner, and his head drooping on his breast, his arms hanging, his legs stiff, seemed to be awaiting only a coffin Jean Valjean seemed made of shadow, and Javert of stone, and in that vehicle full of night, whose interior, every time that it passed in front of a street lantern, appeared to be turned lividly wan, as by an intermittent flash of lightning, chance had united and seemed to be bringing face to face the three forms of tragic immobility, the corpse, the spectre, and the statue. At every jolt over the pavement, a drop of blood trickled from Marius' hair. Night had fully closed in when the carriage arrived at No. , Rue des FillesduCalvaire. Javert was the first to alight he made sure with one glance of the number on the carriage gate, and, raising the heavy knocker of beaten iron, embellished in the old style, with a male goat and a satyr confronting each other, he gave a violent peal. The gate opened a little way and Javert gave it a push. The porter half made his appearance yawning, vaguely awake, and with a candle in his hand. Everyone in the house was asleep. People go to bed betimes in the Marais, especially on days when there is a revolt. This good, old quarter, terrified at the Revolution, takes refuge in slumber, as children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily under their coverlet. In the meantime Jean Valjean and the coachman had taken Marius out of the carriage, Jean Valjean supporting him under the armpits, and the coachman under the knees. As they thus bore Marius, Jean Valjean slipped his hand under the latter's clothes, which were broadly rent, felt his breast, and assured himself that his heart was still beating. It was even beating a little less feebly, as though the movement of the carriage had brought about a certain fresh access of life. Javert addressed the porter in a tone befitting the government, and the presence of the porter of a factious person. 'Some person whose name is Gillenormand? 'Here. What do you want with him? 'His son is brought back. 'His son? said the porter stupidly. 'He is dead. Jean Valjean, who, soiled and tattered, stood behind Javert, and whom the porter was surveying with some horror, made a sign to him with his head that this was not so. The porter did not appear to understand either Javert's words or Jean Valjean's sign. Javert continued 'He went to the barricade, and here he is. 'To the barricade? ejaculated the porter. 'He has got himself killed. Go waken his father. The porter did not stir. 'Go along with you! repeated Javert. And he added 'There will be a funeral here tomorrow. For Javert, the usual incidents of the public highway were categorically classed, which is the beginning of foresight and surveillance, and each contingency had its own compartment all possible facts were arranged in drawers, as it were, whence they emerged on occasion, in variable quantities in the street, uproar, revolt, carnival, and funeral. The porter contented himself with waking Basque. Basque woke Nicolette Nicolette roused greataunt Gillenormand. As for the grandfather, they let him sleep on, thinking that he would hear about the matter early enough in any case. Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old sofa in M. Gillenormand's antechamber and while Basque went in search of a physician, and while Nicolette opened the linenpresses, Jean Valjean felt Javert touch him on the shoulder. He understood and descended the stairs, having behind him the step of Javert who was following him. The porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their arrival, in terrified somnolence. They entered the carriage once more, and the coachman mounted his box. 'Inspector Javert, said Jean, 'grant me yet another favor. 'What is it? demanded Javert roughly. 'Let me go home for one instant. Then you shall do whatever you like with me. Javert remained silent for a few moments, with his chin drawn back into the collar of his greatcoat, then he lowered the glass and front 'Driver, said he, 'Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . They did not open their lips again during the whole space of their ride. What did Jean Valjean want? To finish what he had begun to warn Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, some other useful information, to take, if he could, certain final measures. As for himself, so far as he was personally concerned, all was over he had been seized by Javert and had not resisted any other man than himself in like situation would, perhaps, have had some vague thoughts connected with the rope which Thnardier had given him, and of the bars of the first cell that he should enter but, let us impress it upon the reader, after the Bishop, there had existed in Jean Valjean a profound hesitation in the presence of any violence, even when directed against himself. Suicide, that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may contain, in a measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean Valjean. At the entrance to the Rue de l'Homme Arm, the carriage halted, the way being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles. Javert and Jean Valjean alighted. The coachman humbly represented to 'monsieur l'Inspecteur, that the Utrecht velvet of his carriage was all spotted with the blood of the assassinated man, and with mire from the assassin. That is the way he understood it. He added that an indemnity was due him. At the same time, drawing his certificate book from his pocket, he begged the inspector to have the goodness to write him 'a bit of an attestation. Javert thrust aside the book which the coachman held out to him, and said 'How much do you want, including your time of waiting and the drive? 'It comes to seven hours and a quarter, replied the man, 'and my velvet was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector. Javert drew four napoleons from his pocket and dismissed the carriage. Jean Valjean fancied that it was Javert's intention to conduct him on foot to the post of the BlancsManteaux or to the post of the Archives, both of which are close at hand. They entered the street. It was deserted as usual. Javert followed Jean Valjean. They reached No. . Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened. 'It is well, said Javert. 'Go upstairs. He added with a strange expression, and as though he were exerting an effort in speaking in this manner 'I will wait for you here. Jean Valjean looked at Javert. This mode of procedure was but little in accord with Javert's habits. However, he could not be greatly surprised that Javert should now have a sort of haughty confidence in him, the confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of its claws, seeing that Jean Valjean had made up his mind to surrender himself and to make an end of it. He pushed open the door, entered the house, called to the porter who was in bed and who had pulled the cord from his couch 'It is I! and ascended the stairs. On arriving at the first floor, he paused. All sorrowful roads have their stations. The window on the landingplace, which was a sashwindow, was open. As in many ancient houses, the staircase got its light from without and had a view on the street. The streetlantern, situated directly opposite, cast some light on the stairs, and thus effected some economy in illumination. Jean Valjean, either for the sake of getting the air, or mechanically, thrust his head out of this window. He leaned out over the street. It is short, and the lantern lighted it from end to end. Jean Valjean was overwhelmed with amazement there was no longer any one there. Javert had taken his departure. Basque and the porter had carried Marius into the drawingroom, as he still lay stretched out, motionless, on the sofa upon which he had been placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for had hastened thither. Aunt Gillenormand had risen. Aunt Gillenormand went and came, in affright, wringing her hands and incapable of doing anything but saying 'Heavens! is it possible? At times she added 'Everything will be covered with blood. When her first horror had passed off, a certain philosophy of the situation penetrated her mind, and took form in the exclamation 'It was bound to end in this way! She did not go so far as 'I told you so! which is customary on this sort of occasion. At the physician's orders, a camp bed had been prepared beside the sofa. The doctor examined Marius, and after having found that his pulse was still beating, that the wounded man had no very deep wound on his breast, and that the blood on the corners of his lips proceeded from his nostrils, he had him placed flat on the bed, without a pillow, with his head on the same level as his body, and even a trifle lower, and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration. Mademoiselle Gillenormand, on perceiving that they were undressing Marius, withdrew. She set herself to telling her beads in her own chamber. The trunk had not suffered any internal injury a bullet, deadened by the pocketbook, had turned aside and made the tour of his ribs with a hideous laceration, which was of no great depth, and consequently, not dangerous. The long, underground journey had completed the dislocation of the broken collarbone, and the disorder there was serious. The arms had been slashed with sabre cuts. Not a single scar disfigured his face but his head was fairly covered with cuts what would be the result of these wounds on the head? Would they stop short at the hairy cuticle, or would they attack the brain? As yet, this could not be decided. A grave symptom was that they had caused a swoon, and that people do not always recover from such swoons. Moreover, the wounded man had been exhausted by hemorrhage. From the waist down, the barricade had protected the lower part of the body from injury. Basque and Nicolette tore up linen and prepared bandages Nicolette sewed them, Basque rolled them. As lint was lacking, the doctor, for the time being, arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding. Beside the bed, three candles burned on a table where the case of surgical instruments lay spread out. The doctor bathed Marius' face and hair with cold water. A full pail was reddened in an instant. The porter, candle in hand, lighted them. The doctor seemed to be pondering sadly. From time to time, he made a negative sign with his head, as though replying to some question which he had inwardly addressed to himself. A bad sign for the sick man are these mysterious dialogues of the doctor with himself. At the moment when the doctor was wiping Marius' face, and lightly touching his still closed eyes with his finger, a door opened at the end of the drawingroom, and a long, pallid figure made its appearance. This was the grandfather. The revolt had, for the past two days, deeply agitated, enraged and engrossed the mind of M. Gillenormand. He had not been able to sleep on the previous night, and he had been in a fever all day long. In the evening, he had gone to bed very early, recommending that everything in the house should be well barred, and he had fallen into a doze through sheer fatigue. Old men sleep lightly M. Gillenormand's chamber adjoined the drawingroom, and in spite of all the precautions that had been taken, the noise had awakened him. Surprised at the rift of light which he saw under his door, he had risen from his bed, and had groped his way thither. He stood astonished on the threshold, one hand on the handle of the halfopen door, with his head bent a little forward and quivering, his body wrapped in a white dressinggown, which was straight and as destitute of folds as a windingsheet and he had the air of a phantom who is gazing into a tomb. He saw the bed, and on the mattress that young man, bleeding, white with a waxen whiteness, with closed eyes and gaping mouth, and pallid lips, stripped to the waist, slashed all over with crimson wounds, motionless and brilliantly lighted up. The grandfather trembled from head to foot as powerfully as ossified limbs can tremble, his eyes, whose corne were yellow on account of his great age, were veiled in a sort of vitreous glitter, his whole face assumed in an instant the earthy angles of a skull, his arms fell pendent, as though a spring had broken, and his amazement was betrayed by the outspreading of the fingers of his two aged hands, which quivered all over, his knees formed an angle in front, allowing, through the opening in his dressinggown, a view of his poor bare legs, all bristling with white hairs, and he murmured 'Marius! 'Sir, said Basque, 'Monsieur has just been brought back. He went to the barricade, and.... 'He is dead! cried the old man in a terrible voice. 'Ah! The rascal! Then a sort of sepulchral transformation straightened up this centenarian as erect as a young man. 'Sir, said he, 'you are the doctor. Begin by telling me one thing. He is dead, is he not? The doctor, who was at the highest pitch of anxiety, remained silent. M. Gillenormand wrung his hands with an outburst of terrible laughter. 'He is dead! He is dead! He is dead! He has got himself killed on the barricades! Out of hatred to me! He did that to spite me! Ah! You blooddrinker! This is the way he returns to me! Misery of my life, he is dead! He went to the window, threw it wide open as though he were stifling, and, erect before the darkness, he began to talk into the street, to the night 'Pierced, sabred, exterminated, slashed, hacked in pieces! Just look at that, the villain! He knew well that I was waiting for him, and that I had had his room arranged, and that I had placed at the head of my bed his portrait taken when he was a little child! He knew well that he had only to come back, and that I had been recalling him for years, and that I remained by my fireside, with my hands on my knees, not knowing what to do, and that I was mad over it! You knew well, that you had but to return and to say 'It is I,' and you would have been the master of the house, and that I should have obeyed you, and that you could have done whatever you pleased with your old numskull of a grandfather! you knew that well, and you said 'No, he is a Royalist, I will not go! And you went to the barricades, and you got yourself killed out of malice! To revenge yourself for what I said to you about Monsieur le Duc de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed then and sleep tranquilly! he is dead, and this is my awakening. The doctor, who was beginning to be uneasy in both quarters, quitted Marius for a moment, went to M. Gillenormand, and took his arm. The grandfather turned round, gazed at him with eyes which seemed exaggerated in size and bloodshot, and said to him calmly 'I thank you, sir. I am composed, I am a man, I witnessed the death of Louis XVI., I know how to bear events. One thing is terrible and that is to think that it is your newspapers which do all the mischief. You will have scribblers, chatterers, lawyers, orators, tribunes, discussions, progress, enlightenment, the rights of man, the liberty of the press, and this is the way that your children will be brought home to you. Ah! Marius! It is abominable! Killed! Dead before me! A barricade! Ah, the scamp! Doctor, you live in this quarter, I believe? Oh! I know you well. I see your cabriolet pass my window. I am going to tell you. You are wrong to think that I am angry. One does not fly into a rage against a dead man. That would be stupid. This is a child whom I have reared. I was already old while he was very young. He played in the Tuileries garden with his little shovel and his little chair, and in order that the inspectors might not grumble, I stopped up the holes that he made in the earth with his shovel, with my cane. One day he exclaimed Down with Louis XVIII.! and off he went. It was no fault of mine. He was all rosy and blond. His mother is dead. Have you ever noticed that all little children are blond? Why is it so? He is the son of one of those brigands of the Loire, but children are innocent of their fathers' crimes. I remember when he was no higher than that. He could not manage to pronounce his Ds. He had a way of talking that was so sweet and indistinct that you would have thought it was a bird chirping. I remember that once, in front of the Hercules Farnese, people formed a circle to admire him and marvel at him, he was so handsome, was that child! He had a head such as you see in pictures. I talked in a deep voice, and I frightened him with my cane, but he knew very well that it was only to make him laugh. In the morning, when he entered my room, I grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a cupid like that child. Now, what can you say for your Lafayettes, your Benjamin Constants, and your Tirecuir de Corcelles who have killed him? This cannot be allowed to pass in this fashion. He approached Marius, who still lay livid and motionless, and to whom the physician had returned, and began once more to wring his hands. The old man's pallid lips moved as though mechanically, and permitted the passage of words that were barely audible, like breaths in the death agony 'Ah! heartless lad! Ah! clubbist! Ah! wretch! Ah! Septembrist! Reproaches in the low voice of an agonizing man, addressed to a corpse. Little by little, as it is always indispensable that internal eruptions should come to the light, the sequence of words returned, but the grandfather appeared no longer to have the strength to utter them, his voice was so weak, and extinct, that it seemed to come from the other side of an abyss 'It is all the same to me, I am going to die too, that I am. And to think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been delighted to make this wretch happy! A scamp who, instead of amusing himself and enjoying life, went off to fight and get himself shot down like a brute! And for whom? Why? For the Republic! Instead of going to dance at the Chaumire, as it is the duty of young folks to do! What's the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do! Come, he is dead. That will make two funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged like this for the sake of General Lamarque's handsome eyes! What had that General Lamarque done to you? A slasher! A chatterbox! To get oneself killed for a dead man! If that isn't enough to drive any one mad! Just think of it! At twenty! And without so much as turning his head to see whether he was not leaving something behind him! That's the way poor, good old fellows are forced to die alone, nowadays. Perish in your corner, owl! Well, after all, so much the better, that is what I was hoping for, this will kill me on the spot. I am too old, I am a hundred years old, I am a hundred thousand years old, I ought, by rights, to have been dead long ago. This blow puts an end to it. So all is over, what happiness! What is the good of making him inhale ammonia and all that parcel of drugs? You are wasting your trouble, you fool of a doctor! Come, he's dead, completely dead. I know all about it, I am dead myself too. He hasn't done things by half. Yes, this age is infamous, infamous and that's what I think of you, of your ideas, of your systems, of your masters, of your oracles, of your doctors, of your scapegraces of writers, of your rascally philosophers, and of all the revolutions which, for the last sixty years, have been frightening the flocks of crows in the Tuileries! But you were pitiless in getting yourself killed like this, I shall not even grieve over your death, do you understand, you assassin? At that moment, Marius slowly opened his eyes, and his glance, still dimmed by lethargic wonder, rested on M. Gillenormand. 'Marius! cried the old man. 'Marius! My little Marius! my child! my wellbeloved son! You open your eyes, you gaze upon me, you are alive, thanks! And he fell fainting. Javert passed slowly down the Rue de l'Homme Arm. He walked with drooping head for the first time in his life, and likewise, for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his back. Up to that day, Javert had borrowed from Napoleon's attitudes, only that which is expressive of resolution, with arms folded across the chest that which is expressive of uncertaintywith the hands behind the backhad been unknown to him. Now, a change had taken place his whole person, slow and sombre, was stamped with anxiety. He plunged into the silent streets. Nevertheless, he followed one given direction. He took the shortest cut to the Seine, reached the Quai des Ormes, skirted the quay, passed the Grve, and halted at some distance from the post of the Place du Chtelet, at the angle of the Pont NotreDame. There, between the NotreDame and the Pont au Change on the one hand, and the Quai de la Mgisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs on the other, the Seine forms a sort of square lake, traversed by a rapid. This point of the Seine is dreaded by mariners. Nothing is more dangerous than this rapid, hemmed in, at that epoch, and irritated by the piles of the mill on the bridge, now demolished. The two bridges, situated thus close together, augment the peril the water hurries in formidable wise through the arches. It rolls in vast and terrible waves it accumulates and piles up there the flood attacks the piles of the bridges as though in an effort to pluck them up with great liquid ropes. Men who fall in there never reappear the best of swimmers are drowned there. Javert leaned both elbows on the parapet, his chin resting in both hands, and, while his nails were mechanically twined in the abundance of his whiskers, he meditated. A novelty, a revolution, a catastrophe had just taken place in the depths of his being and he had something upon which to examine himself. Javert was undergoing horrible suffering. For several hours, Javert had ceased to be simple. He was troubled that brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency that crystal was clouded. Javert felt duty divided within his conscience, and he could not conceal the fact from himself. When he had so unexpectedly encountered Jean Valjean on the banks of the Seine, there had been in him something of the wolf which regains his grip on his prey, and of the dog who finds his master again. He beheld before him two paths, both equally straight, but he beheld two and that terrified him him, who had never in all his life known more than one straight line. And, the poignant anguish lay in this, that the two paths were contrary to each other. One of these straight lines excluded the other. Which of the two was the true one? His situation was indescribable. To owe his life to a malefactor, to accept that debt and to repay it to be, in spite of himself, on a level with a fugitive from justice, and to repay his service with another service to allow it to be said to him, 'Go, and to say to the latter in his turn 'Be free to sacrifice to personal motives duty, that general obligation, and to be conscious, in those personal motives, of something that was also general, and, perchance, superior, to betray society in order to remain true to his conscience that all these absurdities should be realized and should accumulate upon him,this was what overwhelmed him. One thing had amazed him,this was that Jean Valjean should have done him a favor, and one thing petrified him,that he, Javert, should have done Jean Valjean a favor. Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no longer find his bearings. What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad to leave Jean Valjean at liberty was bad. In the first case, the man of authority fell lower than the man of the galleys, in the second, a convict rose above the law, and set his foot upon it. In both cases, dishonor for him, Javert. There was disgrace in any resolution at which he might arrive. Destiny has some extremities which rise perpendicularly from the impossible, and beyond which life is no longer anything but a precipice. Javert had reached one of those extremities. One of his anxieties consisted in being constrained to think. The very violence of all these conflicting emotions forced him to it. Thought was something to which he was unused, and which was peculiarly painful. In thought there always exists a certain amount of internal rebellion and it irritated him to have that within him. Thought on any subject whatever, outside of the restricted circle of his functions, would have been for him in any case useless and a fatigue thought on the day which had just passed was a torture. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that he should take a look into his conscience, after such shocks, and render to himself an account of himself. What he had just done made him shudder. He, Javert, had seen fit to decide, contrary to all the regulations of the police, contrary to the whole social and judicial organization, contrary to the entire code, upon a release this had suited him he had substituted his own affairs for the affairs of the public was not this unjustifiable? Every time that he brought himself face to face with this deed without a name which he had committed, he trembled from head to foot. Upon what should he decide? One sole resource remained to him to return in all haste to the Rue de l'Homme Arm, and commit Jean Valjean to prison. It was clear that that was what he ought to do. He could not. Something barred his way in that direction. Something? What? Is there in the world, anything outside of the tribunals, executory sentences, the police and the authorities? Javert was overwhelmed. A galleyslave sacred! A convict who could not be touched by the law! And that the deed of Javert! Was it not a fearful thing that Javert and Jean Valjean, the man made to proceed with vigor, the man made to submit,that these two men who were both the things of the law, should have come to such a pass, that both of them had set themselves above the law? What then! such enormities were to happen and no one was to be punished! Jean Valjean, stronger than the whole social order, was to remain at liberty, and he, Javert, was to go on eating the government's bread! His reverie gradually became terrible. He might, athwart this reverie, have also reproached himself on the subject of that insurgent who had been taken to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire but he never even thought of that. The lesser fault was lost in the greater. Besides, that insurgent was, obviously, a dead man, and, legally, death puts an end to pursuit. Jean Valjean was the load which weighed upon his spirit. Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him. Other facts which he now recalled, and which he had formerly treated as lies and folly, now recurred to him as realities. M. Madeleine reappeared behind Jean Valjean, and the two figures were superposed in such fashion that they now formed but one, which was venerable. Javert felt that something terrible was penetrating his souladmiration for a convict. Respect for a galleyslaveis that a possible thing? He shuddered at it, yet could not escape from it. In vain did he struggle, he was reduced to confess, in his inmost heart, the sublimity of that wretch. This was odious. A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed. Things could not go on in this manner. Certainly, and we insist upon this point, he had not yielded without resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him. Twenty times, as he sat in that carriage face to face with Jean Valjean, the legal tiger had roared within him. A score of times he had been tempted to fling himself upon Jean Valjean, to seize him and devour him, that is to say, to arrest him. What more simple, in fact? To cry out at the first post that they passed'Here is a fugitive from justice, who has broken his ban! to summon the gendarmes and say to them 'This man is yours! then to go off, leaving that condemned man there, to ignore the rest and not to meddle further in the matter. This man is forever a prisoner of the law the law may do with him what it will. What could be more just? Javert had said all this to himself he had wished to pass beyond, to act, to apprehend the man, and then, as at present, he had not been able to do it and every time that his arm had been raised convulsively towards Jean Valjean's collar, his hand had fallen back again, as beneath an enormous weight, and in the depths of his thought he had heard a voice, a strange voice crying to him'It is well. Deliver up your savior. Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws. Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. A convict was his benefactor! But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force. His supreme anguish was the loss of certainty. He felt that he had been uprooted. The code was no longer anything more than a stump in his hand. He had to deal with scruples of an unknown species. There had taken place within him a sentimental revelation entirely distinct from legal affirmation, his only standard of measurement hitherto. To remain in his former uprightness did not suffice. A whole order of unexpected facts had cropped up and subjugated him. A whole new world was dawning on his soul kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, violences committed by pity on austerity, respect for persons, no more definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear in the eye of the law, no one knows what justice according to God, running in inverse sense to justice according to men. He perceived amid the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun it horrified and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle. He said to himself that it was true that there were exceptional cases, that authority might be put out of countenance, that the rule might be inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not be framed within the text of the code, that the unforeseen compelled obedience, that the virtue of a convict might set a snare for the virtue of the functionary, that destiny did indulge in such ambushes, and he reflected with despair that he himself had not even been fortified against a surprise. He was forced to acknowledge that goodness did exist. This convict had been good. And he himself, unprecedented circumstance, had just been good also. So he was becoming depraved. He found that he was a coward. He conceived a horror of himself. Javert's ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime it was to be irreproachable. Now, he had just failed in this. How had he come to such a pass? How had all this happened? He could not have told himself. He clasped his head in both hands, but in spite of all that he could do, he could not contrive to explain it to himself. He had certainly always entertained the intention of restoring Jean Valjean to the law of which Jean Valjean was the captive, and of which he, Javert, was the slave. Not for a single instant while he held him in his grasp had he confessed to himself that he entertained the idea of releasing him. It was, in some sort, without his consciousness, that his hand had relaxed and had let him go free. All sorts of interrogation points flashed before his eyes. He put questions to himself, and made replies to himself, and his replies frightened him. He asked himself 'What has that convict done, that desperate fellow, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who has had me under his foot, and who could have avenged himself, and who owed it both to his rancor and to his safety, in leaving me my life, in showing mercy upon me? His duty? No. Something more. And I in showing mercy upon him in my turnwhat have I done? My duty? No. Something more. So there is something beyond duty? Here he took fright his balance became disjointed one of the scales fell into the abyss, the other rose heavenward, and Javert was no less terrified by the one which was on high than by the one which was below. Without being in the least in the world what is called Voltairian or a philosopher, or incredulous, being, on the contrary, respectful by instinct, towards the established church, he knew it only as an august fragment of the social whole order was his dogma, and sufficed for him ever since he had attained to man's estate and the rank of a functionary, he had centred nearly all his religion in the police. Being,and here we employ words without the least irony and in their most serious acceptation, being, as we have said, a spy as other men are priests. He had a superior, M. Gisquet up to that day he had never dreamed of that other superior, God. This new chief, God, he became unexpectedly conscious of, and he felt embarrassed by him. This unforeseen presence threw him off his bearings he did not know what to do with this superior, he, who was not ignorant of the fact that the subordinate is bound always to bow, that he must not disobey, nor find fault, nor discuss, and that, in the presence of a superior who amazes him too greatly, the inferior has no other resource than that of handing in his resignation. But how was he to set about handing in his resignation to God? However things might stand,and it was to this point that he reverted constantly,one fact dominated everything else for him, and that was, that he had just committed a terrible infraction of the law. He had just shut his eyes on an escaped convict who had broken his ban. He had just set a galleyslave at large. He had just robbed the laws of a man who belonged to them. That was what he had done. He no longer understood himself. The very reasons for his action escaped him only their vertigo was left with him. Up to that moment he had lived with that blind faith which gloomy probity engenders. This faith had quitted him, this probity had deserted him. All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, he must be a different man. He was suffering from the strange pains of a conscience abruptly operated on for the cataract. He saw that which it was repugnant to him to behold. He felt himself emptied, useless, put out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing. A terrible situation! to be touched. To be granite and to doubt! to be the statue of Chastisement cast in one piece in the mould of the law, and suddenly to become aware of the fact that one cherishes beneath one's breast of bronze something absurd and disobedient which almost resembles a heart! To come to the pass of returning good for good, although one has said to oneself up to that day that that good is evil! to be the watchdog, and to lick the intruder's hand! to be ice and melt! to be the pincers and to turn into a hand! to suddenly feel one's fingers opening! to relax one's grip,what a terrible thing! The manprojectile no longer acquainted with his route and retreating! To be obliged to confess this to oneself infallibility is not infallible, there may exist error in the dogma, all has not been said when a code speaks, society is not perfect, authority is complicated with vacillation, a crack is possible in the immutable, judges are but men, the law may err, tribunals may make a mistake! to behold a rift in the immense blue pane of the firmament! That which was passing in Javert was the Fampoux of a rectilinear conscience, the derailment of a soul, the crushing of a probity which had been irresistibly launched in a straight line and was breaking against God. It certainly was singular that the stoker of order, that the engineer of authority, mounted on the blind iron horse with its rigid road, could be unseated by a flash of light! that the immovable, the direct, the correct, the geometrical, the passive, the perfect, could bend! that there should exist for the locomotive a road to Damascus! God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the false a prohibition to the spark to die out an order to the ray to remember the sun an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity which cannot be lost the human heart indestructible that splendid phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting. He was less the man transfigured than the victim of this prodigy. In all this he perceived only the tremendous difficulty of existence. It seemed to him that, henceforth, his respiration was repressed forever. He was not accustomed to having something unknown hanging over his head. Up to this point, everything above him had been, to his gaze, merely a smooth, limpid and simple surface there was nothing incomprehensible, nothing obscure nothing that was not defined, regularly disposed, linked, precise, circumscribed, exact, limited, closed, fully provided for authority was a plane surface there was no fall in it, no dizziness in its presence. Javert had never beheld the unknown except from below. The irregular, the unforeseen, the disordered opening of chaos, the possible slip over a precipicethis was the work of the lower regions, of rebels, of the wicked, of wretches. Now Javert threw himself back, and he was suddenly terrified by this unprecedented apparition a gulf on high. What! one was dismantled from top to bottom! one was disconcerted, absolutely! In what could one trust! That which had been agreed upon was giving way! What! the defect in society's armor could be discovered by a magnanimous wretch! What! an honest servitor of the law could suddenly find himself caught between two crimesthe crime of allowing a man to escape and the crime of arresting him! everything was not settled in the orders given by the State to the functionary! There might be blind alleys in duty! What,all this was real! was it true that an exruffian, weighed down with convictions, could rise erect and end by being in the right? Was this credible? were there cases in which the law should retire before transfigured crime, and stammer its excuses?Yes, that was the state of the case! and Javert saw it! and Javert had touched it! and not only could he not deny it, but he had taken part in it. These were realities. It was abominable that actual facts could reach such deformity. If facts did their duty, they would confine themselves to being proofs of the law factsit is God who sends them. Was anarchy, then, on the point of now descending from on high? Thus,and in the exaggeration of anguish, and the optical illusion of consternation, all that might have corrected and restrained this impression was effaced, and society, and the human race, and the universe were, henceforth, summed up in his eyes, in one simple and terrible feature,thus the penal laws, the thing judged, the force due to legislation, the decrees of the sovereign courts, the magistracy, the government, prevention, repression, official cruelty, wisdom, legal infallibility, the principle of authority, all the dogmas on which rest political and civil security, sovereignty, justice, public truth, all this was rubbish, a shapeless mass, chaos he himself, Javert, the spy of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bulldog providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth and, erect, at the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a halo round his brow this was the astounding confusion to which he had come this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul. Was this to be endured? No. A violent state, if ever such existed. There were only two ways of escaping from it. One was to go resolutely to Jean Valjean, and restore to his cell the convict from the galleys. The other.... Javert quitted the parapet, and, with head erect this time, betook himself, with a firm tread, towards the stationhouse indicated by a lantern at one of the corners of the Place du Chtelet. On arriving there, he saw through the window a sergeant of police, and he entered. Policemen recognize each other by the very way in which they open the door of a stationhouse. Javert mentioned his name, showed his card to the sergeant, and seated himself at the table of the post on which a candle was burning. On a table lay a pen, a leaden inkstand and paper, provided in the event of possible reports and the orders of the night patrols. This table, still completed by its strawseated chair, is an institution it exists in all police stations it is invariably ornamented with a boxwood saucer filled with sawdust and a wafer box of cardboard filled with red wafers, and it forms the lowest stage of official style. It is there that the literature of the State has its beginning. Javert took a pen and a sheet of paper, and began to write. This is what he wrote A FEW OBSERVATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE. 'In the first place I beg Monsieur le Prfet to cast his eyes on this. 'Secondly prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. This entails hospital expenses. 'Thirdly the mode of keeping track of a man with relays of police agents from distance to distance, is good, but, on important occasions, it is requisite that at least two agents should never lose sight of each other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause, grow weak in his service, the other may supervise him and take his place. 'Fourthly it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison of the Madelonettes interdicts the prisoner from having a chair, even by paying for it. 'Fifthly in the Madelonettes there are only two bars to the canteen, so that the canteen woman can touch the prisoners with her hand. 'Sixthly the prisoners called barkers, who summon the other prisoners to the parlor, force the prisoner to pay them two sous to call his name distinctly. This is a theft. 'Seventhly for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the weaving shop this is an abuse of the contractor, since the cloth is none the worse for it. 'Eighthly it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be obliged to traverse the boys' court in order to reach the parlor of SainteMariel'gyptienne. 'Ninthly it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard relating in the courtyard of the prefecture the interrogations put by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination room is a grave disorder. 'Tenthly Mme. Henry is an honest woman her canteen is very neat but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mousetrap of the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a great civilization. Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct chirography, not omitting a single comma, and making the paper screech under his pen. Below the last line he signed 'JAVERT, 'Inspector of the st class. 'The Post of the Place du Chtelet. 'June th, , about one o'clock in the morning. Javert dried the fresh ink on the paper, folded it like a letter, sealed it, wrote on the back Note for the administration, left it on the table, and quitted the post. The glazed and grated door fell to behind him. Again he traversed the Place du Chtelet diagonally, regained the quay, and returned with automatic precision to the very point which he had abandoned a quarter of an hour previously, leaned on his elbows and found himself again in the same attitude on the same pavingstone of the parapet. He did not appear to have stirred. The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment which follows midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light burned in the houses of the city no one was passing all of the streets and quays which could be seen were deserted NotreDame and the towers of the CourtHouse seemed features of the night. A street lantern reddened the margin of the quay. The outlines of the bridges lay shapeless in the mist one behind the other. Recent rains had swollen the river. The spot where Javert was leaning was, it will be remembered, situated precisely over the rapids of the Seine, perpendicularly above that formidable spiral of whirlpools which loose and knot themselves again like an endless screw. Javert bent his head and gazed. All was black. Nothing was to be distinguished. A sound of foam was audible but the river could not be seen. At moments, in that dizzy depth, a gleam of light appeared, and undulated vaguely, water possessing the power of taking light, no one knows whence, and converting it into a snake. The light vanished, and all became indistinct once more. Immensity seemed thrown open there. What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. The wall of the quay, abrupt, confused, mingled with the vapors, instantly concealed from sight, produced the effect of an escarpment of the infinite. Nothing was to be seen, but the hostile chill of the water and the stale odor of the wet stones could be felt. A fierce breath rose from this abyss. The flood in the river, divined rather than perceived, the tragic whispering of the waves, the melancholy vastness of the arches of the bridge, the imaginable fall into that gloomy void, into all that shadow was full of horror. Javert remained motionless for several minutes, gazing at this opening of shadow he considered the invisible with a fixity that resembled attention. The water roared. All at once he took off his hat and placed it on the edge of the quay. A moment later, a tall black figure, which a belated passerby in the distance might have taken for a phantom, appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the Seine, then drew itself up again, and fell straight down into the shadows a dull splash followed and the shadow alone was in the secret of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath the water. Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sieur Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. Sieur Boulatruelle was that roadmender of Montfermeil whom the reader has already seen in the gloomy parts of this book. Boulatruelle, as the reader may, perchance, recall, was a man who was occupied with divers and troublesome matters. He broke stones and damaged travellers on the highway. Roadmender and thief as he was, he cherished one dream he believed in the treasures buried in the forest of Montfermeil. He hoped some day to find the money in the earth at the foot of a tree in the meanwhile, he lived to search the pockets of passersby. Nevertheless, for an instant, he was prudent. He had just escaped neatly. He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jondrette's garret in company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice his drunkenness had been his salvation. The authorities had never been able to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a man who had been robbed. An order of nolle prosequi, founded on his well authenticated state of intoxication on the evening of the ambush, had set him at liberty. He had taken to his heels. He had returned to his road from Gagny to Lagny, to make, under administrative supervision, broken stone for the good of the state, with downcast mien, in a very pensive mood, his ardor for theft somewhat cooled but he was addicted nonetheless tenderly to the wine which had recently saved him. As for the lively emotion which he had experienced a short time after his return to his roadmender's turfthatched cot, here it is One morning, Boulatruelle, while on his way as was his wont, to his work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak caught sight, through the branches of the trees, of a man, whose back alone he saw, but the shape of whose shoulders, as it seemed to him at that distance and in the early dusk, was not entirely unfamiliar to him. Boulatruelle, although intoxicated, had a correct and lucid memory, a defensive arm that is indispensable to any one who is at all in conflict with legal order. 'Where the deuce have I seen something like that man yonder? he said to himself. But he could make himself no answer, except that the man resembled some one of whom his memory preserved a confused trace. However, apart from the identity which he could not manage to catch, Boulatruelle put things together and made calculations. This man did not belong in the countryside. He had just arrived there. On foot, evidently. No public conveyance passes through Montfermeil at that hour. He had walked all night. Whence came he? Not from a very great distance for he had neither haversack, nor bundle. From Paris, no doubt. Why was he in these woods? why was he there at such an hour? what had he come there for? Boulatruelle thought of the treasure. By dint of ransacking his memory, he recalled in a vague way that he had already, many years before, had a similar alarm in connection with a man who produced on him the effect that he might well be this very individual. 'By the deuce, said Boulatruelle, 'I'll find him again. I'll discover the parish of that parishioner. This prowler of PatronMinette has a reason, and I'll know it. People can't have secrets in my forest if I don't have a finger in the pie. He took his pickaxe which was very sharply pointed. 'There now, he grumbled, 'is something that will search the earth and a man. And, as one knots one thread to another thread, he took up the line of march at his best pace in the direction which the man must follow, and set out across the thickets. When he had compassed a hundred strides, the day, which was already beginning to break, came to his assistance. Footprints stamped in the sand, weeds trodden down here and there, heather crushed, young branches in the brushwood bent and in the act of straightening themselves up again with the graceful deliberation of the arms of a pretty woman who stretches herself when she wakes, pointed out to him a sort of track. He followed it, then lost it. Time was flying. He plunged deeper into the woods and came to a sort of eminence. An early huntsman who was passing in the distance along a path, whistling the air of Guillery, suggested to him the idea of climbing a tree. Old as he was, he was agile. There stood close at hand a beechtree of great size, worthy of Tityrus and of Boulatruelle. Boulatruelle ascended the beech as high as he was able. The idea was a good one. On scrutinizing the solitary waste on the side where the forest is thoroughly entangled and wild, Boulatruelle suddenly caught sight of his man. Hardly had he got his eye upon him when he lost sight of him. The man entered, or rather, glided into, an open glade, at a considerable distance, masked by large trees, but with which Boulatruelle was perfectly familiar, on account of having noticed, near a large pile of porous stones, an ailing chestnuttree bandaged with a sheet of zinc nailed directly upon the bark. This glade was the one which was formerly called the Blarubottom. The heap of stones, destined for no one knows what employment, which was visible there thirty years ago, is doubtless still there. Nothing equals a heap of stones in longevity, unless it is a board fence. They are temporary expedients. What a reason for lasting! Boulatruelle, with the rapidity of joy, dropped rather than descended from the tree. The lair was unearthed, the question now was to seize the beast. That famous treasure of his dreams was probably there. It was no small matter to reach that glade. By the beaten paths, which indulge in a thousand teasing zigzags, it required a good quarter of an hour. In a beeline, through the underbrush, which is peculiarly dense, very thorny, and very aggressive in that locality, a full half hour was necessary. Boulatruelle committed the error of not comprehending this. He believed in the straight line a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man. The thicket, bristling as it was, struck him as the best road. 'Let's take to the wolves' Rue de Rivoli, said he. Boulatruelle, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was on this occasion guilty of the fault of going straight. He flung himself resolutely into the tangle of undergrowth. He had to deal with holly bushes, nettles, hawthorns, eglantines, thistles, and very irascible brambles. He was much lacerated. At the bottom of the ravine he found water which he was obliged to traverse. At last he reached the Blarubottom, after the lapse of forty minutes, sweating, soaked, breathless, scratched, and ferocious. There was no one in the glade. Boulatruelle rushed to the heap of stones. It was in its place. It had not been carried off. As for the man, he had vanished in the forest. He had made his escape. Where? in what direction? into what thicket? Impossible to guess. And, heartrending to say, there, behind the pile of stones, in front of the tree with the sheet of zinc, was freshly turned earth, a pickaxe, abandoned or forgotten, and a hole. The hole was empty. 'Thief! shrieked Boulatruelle, shaking his fist at the horizon. For a long time, Marius was neither dead nor alive. For many weeks he lay in a fever accompanied by delirium, and by tolerably grave cerebral symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by the wounds themselves. He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights in the melancholy loquacity of fever, and with the sombre obstinacy of agony. The extent of some of the lesions presented a serious danger, the suppuration of large wounds being always liable to become reabsorbed, and consequently, to kill the sick man, under certain atmospheric conditions at every change of weather, at the slightest storm, the physician was uneasy. 'Above all things, he repeated, 'let the wounded man be subjected to no emotion. The dressing of the wounds was complicated and difficult, the fixation of apparatus and bandages by cerecloths not having been invented as yet, at that epoch. Nicolette used up a sheet 'as big as the ceiling, as she put it, for lint. It was not without difficulty that the chloruretted lotions and the nitrate of silver overcame the gangrene. As long as there was any danger, M. Gillenormand, seated in despair at his grandson's pillow, was, like Marius, neither alive nor dead. Every day, sometimes twice a day, a very well dressed gentleman with white hair,such was the description given by the porter,came to inquire about the wounded man, and left a large package of lint for the dressings. Finally, on the th of September, four months to a day, after the sorrowful night when he had been brought back to his grandfather in a dying condition, the doctor declared that he would answer for Marius. Convalescence began. But Marius was forced to remain for two months more stretched out on a long chair, on account of the results called up by the fracture of his collarbone. There always is a last wound like that which will not close, and which prolongs the dressings indefinitely, to the great annoyance of the sick person. However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him from all pursuit. In France, there is no wrath, not even of a public character, which six months will not extinguish. Revolts, in the present state of society, are so much the fault of every one, that they are followed by a certain necessity of shutting the eyes. Let us add, that the inexcusable Gisquet order, which enjoined doctors to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public opinion, and not opinion alone, but the King first of all, the wounded were covered and protected by this indignation and, with the exception of those who had been made prisoners in the very act of combat, the councils of war did not dare to trouble any one. So Marius was left in peace. M. Gillenormand first passed through all manner of anguish, and then through every form of ecstasy. It was found difficult to prevent his passing every night beside the wounded man he had his big armchair carried to Marius' bedside he required his daughter to take the finest linen in the house for compresses and bandages. Mademoiselle Gillenormand, like a sage and elderly person, contrived to spare the fine linen, while allowing the grandfather to think that he was obeyed. M. Gillenormand would not permit any one to explain to him, that for the preparation of lint batiste is not nearly so good as coarse linen, nor new linen as old linen. He was present at all the dressings of the wounds from which Mademoiselle Gillenormand modestly absented herself. When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said 'Ae! ae! Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle, senile palsy, offer the wounded man a cup of his coolingdraught. He overwhelmed the doctor with questions. He did not observe that he asked the same ones over and over again. On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of danger, the good man was in a delirium. He made his porter a present of three louis. That evening, on his return to his own chamber, he danced a gavotte, using his thumb and forefinger as castanets, and he sang the following song 'Jeanne est ne  Fougre Vrai nid d'une bergre J'adore son jupon, Fripon. 'Amour, tu vis en elle Car c'est dans sa prunelle Que tu mets ton carquois. Narquois! 'Moi, je la chante, et j'aime, Plus que Diane mme, Jeanne et ses durs tetons Bretons. Then he knelt upon a chair, and Basque, who was watching him through the halfopen door, made sure that he was praying. Up to that time, he had not believed in God. At each succeeding phase of improvement, which became more and more pronounced, the grandfather raved. He executed a multitude of mechanical actions full of joy he ascended and descended the stairs, without knowing why. A pretty female neighbor was amazed one morning at receiving a big bouquet it was M. Gillenormand who had sent it to her. The husband made a jealous scene. M. Gillenormand tried to draw Nicolette upon his knees. He called Marius, 'M. le Baron. He shouted 'Long live the Republic! Every moment, he kept asking the doctor 'Is he no longer in danger? He gazed upon Marius with the eyes of a grandmother. He brooded over him while he ate. He no longer knew himself, he no longer rendered himself an account of himself. Marius was the master of the house, there was abdication in his joy, he was the grandson of his grandson. In the state of joy in which he then was, he was the most venerable of children. In his fear lest he might fatigue or annoy the convalescent, he stepped behind him to smile. He was content, joyous, delighted, charming, young. His white locks added a gentle majesty to the gay radiance of his visage. When grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an indescribable aurora in beaming old age. As for Marius, as he allowed them to dress his wounds and care for him, he had but one fixed idea Cosette. After the fever and delirium had left him, he did not again pronounce her name, and it might have been supposed that he no longer thought of her. He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there. He did not know what had become of Cosette the whole affair of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory shadows that were almost indistinct, floated through his mind, ponine, Gavroche, Mabeuf, the Thnardiers, all his friends gloomily intermingled with the smoke of the barricade the strange passage of M. Fauchelevent through that adventure produced on him the effect of a puzzle in a tempest he understood nothing connected with his own life, he did not know how nor by whom he had been saved, and no one of those around him knew this all that they had been able to tell him was, that he had been brought home at night in a hackneycoach, to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire past, present, future were nothing more to him than the mist of a vague idea but in that fog there was one immovable point, one clear and precise outline, something made of granite, a resolution, a will to find Cosette once more. For him, the idea of life was not distinct from the idea of Cosette. He had decreed in his heart that he would not accept the one without the other, and he was immovably resolved to exact of any person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,from his grandfather, from fate, from hell,the restitution of his vanished Eden. He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed. Let us here emphasize one detail, he was not won over and was but little softened by all the solicitude and tenderness of his grandfather. In the first place, he was not in the secret then, in his reveries of an invalid, which were still feverish, possibly, he distrusted this tenderness as a strange and novel thing, which had for its object his conquest. He remained cold. The grandfather absolutely wasted his poor old smile. Marius said to himself that it was all right so long as he, Marius, did not speak, and let things take their course but that when it became a question of Cosette, he would find another face, and that his grandfather's true attitude would be unmasked. Then there would be an unpleasant scene a recrudescence of family questions, a confrontation of positions, every sort of sarcasm and all manner of objections at one and the same time, Fauchelevent, Coupelevent, fortune, poverty, a stone about his neck, the future. Violent resistance conclusion a refusal. Marius stiffened himself in advance. And then, in proportion as he regained life, the old ulcers of his memory opened once more, he reflected again on the past, Colonel Pontmercy placed himself once more between M. Gillenormand and him, Marius, he told himself that he had no true kindness to expect from a person who had been so unjust and so hard to his father. And with health, there returned to him a sort of harshness towards his grandfather. The old man was gently pained by this. M. Gillenormand, without however allowing it to appear, observed that Marius, ever since the latter had been brought back to him and had regained consciousness, had not once called him father. It is true that he did not say 'monsieur to him but he contrived not to say either the one or the other, by means of a certain way of turning his phrases. Obviously, a crisis was approaching. As almost always happens in such cases, Marius skirmished before giving battle, by way of proving himself. This is called 'feeling the ground. One morning it came to pass that M. Gillenormand spoke slightingly of the Convention, apropos of a newspaper which had fallen into his hands, and gave vent to a Royalist harangue on Danton, SaintJuste and Robespierre.'The men of ' were giants, said Marius with severity. The old man held his peace, and uttered not a sound during the remainder of that day. Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflexible grandfather of his early years, interpreted this silence as a profound concentration of wrath, augured from it a hot conflict, and augmented his preparations for the fray in the inmost recesses of his mind. He decided that, in case of a refusal, he would tear off his bandages, dislocate his collarbone, that he would lay bare all the wounds which he had left, and would reject all food. His wounds were his munitions of war. He would have Cosette or die. He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty patience of the sick. That moment arrived. One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the phials and cups on the marble of the commode, bent over Marius and said to him in his tenderest accents 'Look here, my little Marius, if I were in your place, I would eat meat now in preference to fish. A fried sole is excellent to begin a convalescence with, but a good cutlet is needed to put a sick man on his feet. Marius, who had almost entirely recovered his strength, collected the whole of it, drew himself up into a sitting posture, laid his two clenched fists on the sheets of his bed, looked his grandfather in the face, assumed a terrible air, and said 'This leads me to say something to you. 'What is it? 'That I wish to marry. 'Agreed, said his grandfather.And he burst out laughing. 'How agreed? 'Yes, agreed. You shall have your little girl. Marius, stunned and overwhelmed with the dazzling shock, trembled in every limb. M. Gillenormand went on 'Yes, you shall have her, that pretty little girl of yours. She comes every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Ever since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the Rue de l'Homme Arm, No. . Ah! There we have it! Ah! so you want her! Well, you shall have her. You're caught. You had arranged your little plot, you had said to yourself'I'm going to signify this squarely to my grandfather, to that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that ancient beau, to that Dorante turned Gronte he has indulged in his frivolities also, that he has, and he has had his love affairs, and his grisettes and his Cosettes he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of the bread of spring he certainly must remember it.' Ah! you take the cockchafer by the horns. That's good. I offer you a cutlet and you answer me 'By the way, I want to marry.' There's a transition for you! Ah! you reckoned on a bickering! You do not know that I am an old coward. What do you say to that? You are vexed? You did not expect to find your grandfather still more foolish than yourself, you are wasting the discourse which you meant to bestow upon me, Mr. Lawyer, and that's vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I'll do whatever you wish, and that cuts you short, imbecile! Listen. I have made my inquiries, I'm cunning too she is charming, she is discreet, it is not true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she's a jewel, she adores you, if you had died, there would have been three of us, her coffin would have accompanied mine. I have had an idea, ever since you have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside, but it is only in romances that young girls are brought to the bedsides of handsome young wounded men who interest them. It is not done. What would your aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good fellow. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you for a moment, if there was any possibility of having a woman here. And then, what would the doctor have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever. In short, it's all right, let us say no more about it, all's said, all's done, it's all settled, take her. Such is my ferocity. You see, I perceived that you did not love me. I said to myself 'Here now, I have my little Cosette right under my hand, I'm going to give her to him, he will be obliged to love me a little then, or he must tell the reason why.' Ah! so you thought that the old man was going to storm, to put on a big voice, to shout no, and to lift his cane at all that aurora. Not a bit of it. Cosette, so be it love, so be it I ask nothing better. Pray take the trouble of getting married, sir. Be happy, my wellbeloved child. That said, the old man burst forth into sobs. And he seized Marius' head, and pressed it with both arms against his breast, and both fell to weeping. This is one of the forms of supreme happiness. 'Father! cried Marius. 'Ah, so you love me! said the old man. An ineffable moment ensued. They were choking and could not speak. At length the old man stammered 'Come! his mouth is unstopped at last. He has said 'Father' to me. Marius disengaged his head from his grandfather's arms, and said gently 'But, father, now that I am quite well, it seems to me that I might see her. 'Agreed again, you shall see her tomorrow. 'Father! 'What? 'Why not today? 'Well, today then. Let it be today. You have called me 'father' three times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought hither. Agreed, I tell you. It has already been put into verse. This is the ending of the elegy of the 'Jeune Malade' by Andr Chnier, by Andr Chnier whose throat was cut by the ras . . . by the giants of '. M. Gillenormand fancied that he detected a faint frown on the part of Marius, who, in truth, as we must admit, was no longer listening to him, and who was thinking far more of Cosette than of . The grandfather, trembling at having so inopportunely introduced Andr Chnier, resumed precipitately 'Cut his throat is not the word. The fact is that the great revolutionary geniuses, who were not malicious, that is incontestable, who were heroes, pardi! found that Andr Chnier embarrassed them somewhat, and they had him guillot . . . that is to say, those great men on the th of Thermidor, besought Andr Chnier, in the interests of public safety, to be so good as to go.... M. Gillenormand, clutched by the throat by his own phrase, could not proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his daughter arranged the pillow behind Marius, who was overwhelmed with so many emotions, the old man rushed headlong, with as much rapidity as his age permitted, from the bedchamber, shut the door behind him, and, purple, choking and foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting from his head, he found himself nose to nose with honest Basque, who was blacking boots in the anteroom. He seized Basque by the collar, and shouted full in his face in fury'By the hundred thousand Javottes of the devil, those ruffians did assassinate him! 'Who, sir? 'Andr Chnier! 'Yes, sir, said Basque in alarm. Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more. What that interview was like we decline to say. There are things which one must not attempt to depict the sun is one of them. The entire family, including Basque and Nicolette, were assembled in Marius' chamber at the moment when Cosette entered it. Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing his nose he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and gazing over it at Cosette. She appeared on the threshold it seemed to him that she was surrounded by a glory. 'Adorable! he exclaimed. Then he blew his nose noisily. Cosette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as thoroughly alarmed as any one can be by happiness. She stammered all pale, yet flushed, she wanted to fling herself into Marius' arms, and dared not. Ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people. People are pitiless towards happy lovers they remain when the latter most desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people whatever. With Cosette, and behind her, there had entered a man with white hair who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile. It was 'Monsieur Fauchelevent it was Jean Valjean. He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, entirely in black, in perfectly new garments, and with a white cravat. The porter was a thousand leagues from recognizing in this correct bourgeois, in this probable notary, the fearinspiring bearer of the corpse, who had sprung up at his door on the night of the th of June, tattered, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked in blood and mire, supporting in his arms the fainting Marius still, his porter's scent was aroused. When M. Fauchelevent arrived with Cosette, the porter had not been able to refrain from communicating to his wife this aside 'I don't know why it is, but I can't help fancying that I've seen that face before. M. Fauchelevent in Marius' chamber, remained apart near the door. He had under his arm, a package which bore considerable resemblance to an octavo volume enveloped in paper. The enveloping paper was of a greenish hue, and appeared to be mouldy. 'Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm? Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, demanded in a low tone of Nicolette. 'Well, retorted M. Gillenormand, who had overheard her, in the same tone, 'he's a learned man. What then? Is that his fault? Monsieur Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart like that. And, with a bow, he said aloud 'Monsieur Tranchelevent.... Father Gillenormand did not do it intentionally, but inattention to proper names was an aristocratic habit of his. 'Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honor of asking you, on behalf of my grandson, Baron Marius Pontmercy, for the hand of Mademoiselle. Monsieur Tranchelevent bowed. 'That's settled, said the grandfather. And, turning to Marius and Cosette, with both arms extended in blessing, he cried 'Permission to adore each other! They did not require him to repeat it twice. So much the worse! the chirping began. They talked low. Marius, resting on his elbow on his reclining chair, Cosette standing beside him. 'Oh, heavens! murmured Cosette, 'I see you once again! it is thou! it is you! The idea of going and fighting like that! But why? It is horrible. I have been dead for four months. Oh! how wicked it was of you to go to that battle! What had I done to you? I pardon you, but you will never do it again. A little while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad! I have not taken the time to dress myself, I must frighten people with my looks! What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak! You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l'Homme Arm. It seems that your shoulder was terrible. They told me that you could put your fist in it. And then, it seems that they cut your flesh with the scissors. That is frightful. I have cried till I have no eyes left. It is queer that a person can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a very kindly air. Don't disturb yourself, don't rise on your elbow, you will injure yourself. Oh! how happy I am! So our unhappiness is over! I am quite foolish. I had things to say to you, and I no longer know in the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the Rue de l'Homme Arm. There is no garden. I made lint all the time stay, sir, look, it is your fault, I have a callous on my fingers. 'Angel! said Marius. Angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out. No other word could resist the merciless use which lovers make of it. Then as there were spectators, they paused and said not a word more, contenting themselves with softly touching each other's hands. M. Gillenormand turned towards those who were in the room and cried 'Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. Come, a little uproar, the deuce! so that the children can chatter at their ease. And, approaching Marius and Cosette, he said to them in a very low voice 'Call each other thou. Don't stand on ceremony. Aunt Gillenormand looked on in amazement at this irruption of light in her elderly household. There was nothing aggressive about this amazement it was not the least in the world like the scandalized and envious glance of an owl at two turtledoves, it was the stupid eye of a poor innocent seven and fifty years of age it was a life which had been a failure gazing at that triumph, love. 'Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior, said her father to her, 'I told you that this is what would happen to you. He remained silent for a moment, and then added 'Look at the happiness of others. Then he turned to Cosette. 'How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She's a Greuze. So you are going to have that all to yourself, you scamp! Ah! my rogue, you are getting off nicely with me, you are happy if I were not fifteen years too old, we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her. Come now! I am in love with you, mademoiselle. It's perfectly simple. It is your right. You are in the right. Ah! what a sweet, charming little wedding this will make! Our parish is SaintDenis du Saint Sacrament, but I will get a dispensation so that you can be married at SaintPaul. The church is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coquettish. It is opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit architecture is at Namur. It is called SaintLoup. You must go there after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite of your mind, I think girls ought to marry that is what they are made for. There is a certain SainteCatherine whom I should always like to see uncoiffed. It's a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is chilly. The Bible says Multiply. In order to save the people, Jeanne d'Arc is needed but in order to make people, what is needed is Mother Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining a spinster! I know that they have their chapel apart in the church, and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin but, sapristi, a handsome husband, a fine fellow, and at the expiration of a year, a big, blond brat who nurses lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy paws, laughing the while like the dawn,that's better than holding a candle at vespers, and chanting Turris Eburnea! The grandfather executed a pirouette on his eightyyearold heels, and began to talk again like a spring that has broken loose once more 'Ainsi, bornant les cours de tes rvasseries, Alcippe, il est donc vrai, dans peu tu te maries. 'By the way! 'What is it, father? 'Have not you an intimate friend? 'Yes, Courfeyrac. 'What has become of him? 'He is dead. 'That is good. He seated himself near them, made Cosette sit down, and took their four hands in his aged and wrinkled hands 'She is exquisite, this darling. She's a masterpiece, this Cosette! She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will only be a Baroness, which is a come down for her she was born a Marquise. What eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that you are in the true road. Love each other. Be foolish about it. Love is the folly of men and the wit of God. Adore each other. Only, he added, suddenly becoming gloomy, 'what a misfortune! It has just occurred to me! More than half of what I possess is swallowed up in an annuity so long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years hence, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou! Your beautiful white hands, Madame la Baronne, will do the devil the honor of pulling him by the tail. At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say 'Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent possesses six hundred thousand francs. It was the voice of Jean Valjean. So far he had not uttered a single word, no one seemed to be aware that he was there, and he had remained standing erect and motionless, behind all these happy people. 'What has Mademoiselle Euphrasie to do with the question? inquired the startled grandfather. 'I am she, replied Cosette. 'Six hundred thousand francs? resumed M. Gillenormand. 'Minus fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, possibly, said Jean Valjean. And he laid on the table the package which Mademoiselle Gillenormand had mistaken for a book. Jean Valjean himself opened the package it was a bundle of banknotes. They were turned over and counted. There were five hundred notes for a thousand francs each, and one hundred and sixtyeight of five hundred. In all, five hundred and eightyfour thousand francs. 'This is a fine book, said M. Gillenormand. 'Five hundred and eightyfour thousand francs! murmured the aunt. 'This arranges things well, does it not, Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior? said the grandfather. 'That devil of a Marius has ferreted out the nest of a millionaire grisette in his tree of dreams! Just trust to the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find studentesses with six hundred thousand francs. Cherubino works better than Rothschild. 'Five hundred and eightyfour thousand francs! repeated Mademoiselle Gillenormand, in a low tone. 'Five hundred and eightyfour! one might as well say six hundred thousand! As for Marius and Cosette, they were gazing at each other while this was going on they hardly heeded this detail. The reader has, no doubt, understood, without necessitating a lengthy explanation, that Jean Valjean, after the Champmathieu affair, had been able, thanks to his first escape of a few days' duration, to come to Paris and to withdraw in season, from the hands of Laffitte, the sum earned by him, under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, at MontreuilsurMer and that fearing that he might be recaptured,which eventually happenedhe had buried and hidden that sum in the forest of Montfermeil, in the locality known as the Blarubottom. The sum, six hundred and thirty thousand francs, all in bankbills, was not very bulky, and was contained in a box only, in order to preserve the box from dampness, he had placed it in a coffer filled with chestnut shavings. In the same coffer he had placed his other treasures, the Bishop's candlesticks. It will be remembered that he had carried off the candlesticks when he made his escape from MontreuilsurMer. The man seen one evening for the first time by Boulatruelle, was Jean Valjean. Later on, every time that Jean Valjean needed money, he went to get it in the Blarubottom. Hence the absences which we have mentioned. He had a pickaxe somewhere in the heather, in a hidingplace known to himself alone. When he beheld Marius convalescent, feeling that the hour was at hand, when that money might prove of service, he had gone to get it it was he again, whom Boulatruelle had seen in the woods, but on this occasion, in the morning instead of in the evening. Boulatreulle inherited his pickaxe. The actual sum was five hundred and eightyfour thousand, five hundred francs. Jean Valjean withdrew the five hundred francs for himself.'We shall see hereafter, he thought. The difference between that sum and the six hundred and thirty thousand francs withdrawn from Laffitte represented his expenditure in ten years, from  to . The five years of his stay in the convent had cost only five thousand francs. Jean Valjean set the two candlesticks on the chimneypiece, where they glittered to the great admiration of Toussaint. Moreover, Jean Valjean knew that he was delivered from Javert. The story had been told in his presence, and he had verified the fact in the Moniteur, how a police inspector named Javert had been found drowned under a boat belonging to some laundresses, between the Pont au Change and the PontNeuf, and that a writing left by this man, otherwise irreproachable and highly esteemed by his superiors, pointed to a fit of mental aberration and a suicide.'In fact, thought Jean Valjean, 'since he left me at liberty, once having got me in his power, he must have been already mad. Everything was made ready for the wedding. The doctor, on being consulted, declared that it might take place in February. It was then December. A few ravishing weeks of perfect happiness passed. The grandfather was not the least happy of them all. He remained for a quarter of an hour at a time gazing at Cosette. 'The wonderful, beautiful girl! he exclaimed. 'And she has so sweet and good an air! she is, without exception, the most charming girl that I have ever seen in my life. Later on, she'll have virtues with an odor of violets. How graceful! one cannot live otherwise than nobly with such a creature. Marius, my boy, you are a Baron, you are rich, don't go to pettifogging, I beg of you. Cosette and Marius had passed abruptly from the sepulchre to paradise. The transition had not been softened, and they would have been stunned, had they not been dazzled by it. 'Do you understand anything about it? said Marius to Cosette. 'No, replied Cosette, 'but it seems to me that the good God is caring for us. Jean Valjean did everything, smoothed away every difficulty, arranged everything, made everything easy. He hastened towards Cosette's happiness with as much ardor, and, apparently with as much joy, as Cosette herself. As he had been a mayor, he understood how to solve that delicate problem, with the secret of which he alone was acquainted, Cosette's civil status. If he were to announce her origin bluntly, it might prevent the marriage, who knows? He extricated Cosette from all difficulties. He concocted for her a family of dead people, a sure means of not encountering any objections. Cosette was the only scion of an extinct family Cosette was not his own daughter, but the daughter of the other Fauchelevent. Two brothers Fauchelevent had been gardeners to the convent of the PetitPicpus. Inquiry was made at that convent the very best information and the most respectable references abounded the good nuns, not very apt and but little inclined to fathom questions of paternity, and not attaching any importance to the matter, had never understood exactly of which of the two Fauchelevents Cosette was the daughter. They said what was wanted and they said it with zeal. An acte de notorit was drawn up. Cosette became in the eyes of the law, Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent. She was declared an orphan, both father and mother being dead. Jean Valjean so arranged it that he was appointed, under the name of Fauchelevent, as Cosette's guardian, with M. Gillenormand as supervising guardian over him. As for the five hundred and eighty thousand francs, they constituted a legacy bequeathed to Cosette by a dead person, who desired to remain unknown. The original legacy had consisted of five hundred and ninetyfour thousand francs but ten thousand francs had been expended on the education of Mademoiselle Euphrasie, five thousand francs of that amount having been paid to the convent. This legacy, deposited in the hands of a third party, was to be turned over to Cosette at her majority, or at the date of her marriage. This, taken as a whole, was very acceptable, as the reader will perceive, especially when the sum due was half a million. There were some peculiarities here and there, it is true, but they were not noticed one of the interested parties had his eyes blindfolded by love, the others by the six hundred thousand francs. Cosette learned that she was not the daughter of that old man whom she had so long called father. He was merely a kinsman another Fauchelevent was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart. But at the ineffable moment which she was then passing through, it cast but a slight shadow, a faint cloud, and she was so full of joy that the cloud did not last long. She had Marius. The young man arrived, the old man was effaced such is life. And then, Cosette had, for long years, been habituated to seeing enigmas around her every being who has had a mysterious childhood is always prepared for certain renunciations. Nevertheless, she continued to call Jean Valjean Father. Cosette, happy as the angels, was enthusiastic over Father Gillenormand. It is true that he overwhelmed her with gallant compliments and presents. While Jean Valjean was building up for Cosette a normal situation in society and an unassailable status, M. Gillenormand was superintending the basket of wedding gifts. Nothing so amused him as being magnificent. He had given to Cosette a robe of Binche guipure which had descended to him from his own grandmother. 'These fashions come up again, said he, 'ancient things are the rage, and the young women of my old age dress like the old women of my childhood. He rifled his respectable chests of drawers in Coromandel lacquer, with swelling fronts, which had not been opened for years.'Let us hear the confession of these dowagers, he said, 'let us see what they have in their paunches. He noisily violated the potbellied drawers of all his wives, of all his mistresses and of all his grandmothers. Pekins, damasks, lampas, painted moires, robes of shot gros de Tours, India kerchiefs embroidered in gold that could be washed, dauphines without a right or wrong side, in the piece, Genoa and Alenon point lace, parures in antique goldsmith's work, ivory bonbon boxes ornamented with microscopic battles, gewgaws and ribbonshe lavished everything on Cosette. Cosette, amazed, desperately in love with Marius, and wild with gratitude towards M. Gillenormand, dreamed of a happiness without limit clothed in satin and velvet. Her wedding basket seemed to her to be upheld by seraphim. Her soul flew out into the azure depths, with wings of Mechlin lace. The intoxication of the lovers was only equalled, as we have already said, by the ecstasy of the grandfather. A sort of flourish of trumpets went on in the Rue des FillesduCalvaire. Every morning, a fresh offering of bricbrac from the grandfather to Cosette. All possible knickknacks glittered around her. One day Marius, who was fond of talking gravely in the midst of his bliss, said, apropos of I know not what incident 'The men of the revolution are so great, that they have the prestige of the ages, like Cato and like Phocion, and each one of them seems to me an antique memory. 'Moire antique! exclaimed the old gentleman. 'Thanks, Marius. That is precisely the idea of which I was in search. And on the following day, a magnificent dress of tearose colored moire antique was added to Cosette's wedding presents. From these fripperies, the grandfather extracted a bit of wisdom. 'Love is all very well but there must be something else to go with it. The useless must be mingled with happiness. Happiness is only the necessary. Season that enormously with the superfluous for me. A palace and her heart. Her heart and the Louvre. Her heart and the grand waterworks of Versailles. Give me my shepherdess and try to make her a duchess. Fetch me Phyllis crowned with cornflowers, and add a hundred thousand francs income. Open for me a bucolic perspective as far as you can see, beneath a marble colonnade. I consent to the bucolic and also to the fairy spectacle of marble and gold. Dry happiness resembles dry bread. One eats, but one does not dine. I want the superfluous, the useless, the extravagant, excess, that which serves no purpose. I remember to have seen, in the Cathedral of Strasburg, a clock, as tall as a threestory house which marked the hours, which had the kindness to indicate the hour, but which had not the air of being made for that and which, after having struck midday, or midnight,midday, the hour of the sun, or midnight, the hour of love,or any other hour that you like, gave you the moon and the stars, the earth and the sea, birds and fishes, Phbus and Phbe, and a host of things which emerged from a niche, and the twelve apostles, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and ponine, and Sabinus, and a throng of little gilded goodmen, who played on the trumpet to boot. Without reckoning delicious chimes which it sprinkled through the air, on every occasion, without any one's knowing why. Is a petty bald clockface which merely tells the hour equal to that? For my part, I am of the opinion of the big clock of Strasburg, and I prefer it to the cuckoo clock from the Black Forest. M. Gillenormand talked nonsense in connection with the wedding, and all the fripperies of the eighteenth century passed pellmell through his dithyrambs. 'You are ignorant of the art of festivals. You do not know how to organize a day of enjoyment in this age, he exclaimed. 'Your nineteenth century is weak. It lacks excess. It ignores the rich, it ignores the noble. In everything it is cleanshaven. Your third estate is insipid, colorless, odorless, and shapeless. The dreams of your bourgeois who set up, as they express it a pretty boudoir freshly decorated, violet, ebony and calico. Make way! Make way! the Sieur Curmudgeon is marrying Mademoiselle Clutchpenny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d'or has been stuck to a candle. There's the epoch for you. My demand is that I may flee from it beyond the Sarmatians. Ah! in , I predict that all was lost, from the day when I beheld the Duc de Rohan, Prince de Lon, Duc de Chabot, Duc de Montbazon, Marquis de Soubise, Vicomte de Thouars, peer of France, go to Longchamps in a tapecu! That has borne its fruits. In this century, men attend to business, they gamble on 'Change, they win money, they are stingy. People take care of their surfaces and varnish them every one is dressed as though just out of a bandbox, washed, soaped, scraped, shaved, combed, waked, smoothed, rubbed, brushed, cleaned on the outside, irreproachable, polished as a pebble, discreet, neat, and at the same time, death of my life, in the depths of their consciences they have dungheaps and cesspools that are enough to make a cowherd who blows his nose in his fingers, recoil. I grant to this age the device 'Dirty Cleanliness.' Don't be vexed, Marius, give me permission to speak I say no evil of the people as you see, I am always harping on your people, but do look favorably on my dealing a bit of a slap to the bourgeoisie. I belong to it. He who loves well lashes well. Thereupon, I say plainly, that nowadays people marry, but that they no longer know how to marry. Ah! it is true, I regret the grace of the ancient manners. I regret everything about them, their elegance, their chivalry, those courteous and delicate ways, that joyous luxury which every one possessed, music forming part of the wedding, a symphony above stairs, a beating of drums below stairs, the dances, the joyous faces round the table, the finespun gallant compliments, the songs, the fireworks, the frank laughter, the devil's own row, the huge knots of ribbon. I regret the bride's garter. The bride's garter is cousin to the girdle of Venus. On what does the war of Troy turn? On Helen's garter, parbleu! Why did they fight, why did Diomed the divine break over the head of Meriones that great brazen helmet of ten points? why did Achilles and Hector hew each other up with vast blows of their lances? Because Helen allowed Paris to take her garter. With Cosette's garter, Homer would construct the Iliad. He would put in his poem, a loquacious old fellow, like me, and he would call him Nestor. My friends, in bygone days, in those amiable days of yore, people married wisely they had a good contract, and then they had a good carouse. As soon as Cujas had taken his departure, Gamacho entered. But, in sooth! the stomach is an agreeable beast which demands its due, and which wants to have its wedding also. People supped well, and had at table a beautiful neighbor without a guimpe so that her throat was only moderately concealed. Oh! the large laughing mouths, and how gay we were in those days! youth was a bouquet every young man terminated in a branch of lilacs or a tuft of roses whether he was a shepherd or a warrior and if, by chance, one was a captain of dragoons, one found means to call oneself Florian. People thought much of looking well. They embroidered and tinted themselves. A bourgeois had the air of a flower, a Marquis had the air of a precious stone. People had no straps to their boots, they had no boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, fluttering, dainty, coquettish, which did not at all prevent their wearing swords by their sides. The hummingbird has beak and claws. That was the day of the Galland Indies. One of the sides of that century was delicate, the other was magnificent and by the green cabbages! people amused themselves. Today, people are serious. The bourgeois is avaricious, the bourgeoise is a prude your century is unfortunate. People would drive away the Graces as being too low in the neck. Alas! beauty is concealed as though it were ugliness. Since the revolution, everything, including the balletdancers, has had its trousers a mountebank dancer must be grave your rigadoons are doctrinarian. It is necessary to be majestic. People would be greatly annoyed if they did not carry their chins in their cravats. The ideal of an urchin of twenty when he marries, is to resemble M. RoyerCollard. And do you know what one arrives at with that majesty? at being petty. Learn this joy is not only joyous it is great. But be in love gayly then, what the deuce! marry, when you marry, with fever and giddiness, and tumult, and the uproar of happiness! Be grave in church, well and good. But, as soon as the mass is finished, sarpejou! you must make a dream whirl around the bride. A marriage should be royal and chimerical it should promenade its ceremony from the cathedral of Rheims to the pagoda of Chanteloup. I have a horror of a paltry wedding. Ventregoulette! be in Olympus for that one day, at least. Be one of the gods. Ah! people might be sylphs. Games and Laughter, argiraspides they are stupids. My friends, every recently made bridegroom ought to be Prince Aldobrandini. Profit by that unique minute in life to soar away to the empyrean with the swans and the eagles, even if you do have to fall back on the morrow into the bourgeoisie of the frogs. Don't economize on the nuptials, do not prune them of their splendors don't scrimp on the day when you beam. The wedding is not the housekeeping. Oh! if I were to carry out my fancy, it would be gallant, violins would be heard under the trees. Here is my programme skyblue and silver. I would mingle with the festival the rural divinities, I would convoke the Dryads and the Nereids. The nuptials of Amphitrite, a rosy cloud, nymphs with well dressed locks and entirely naked, an Academician offering quatrains to the goddess, a chariot drawn by marine monsters. 'Triton trottait devant, et tirait de sa conque Des sons si ravissants qu'il ravissait quiconque! there's a festive programme, there's a good one, or else I know nothing of such matters, deuce take it! While the grandfather, in full lyrical effusion, was listening to himself, Cosette and Marius grew intoxicated as they gazed freely at each other. Aunt Gillenormand surveyed all this with her imperturbable placidity. Within the last five or six months she had experienced a certain amount of emotions. Marius returned, Marius brought back bleeding, Marius brought back from a barricade, Marius dead, then living, Marius reconciled, Marius betrothed, Marius wedding a poor girl, Marius wedding a millionairess. The six hundred thousand francs had been her last surprise. Then, her indifference of a girl taking her first communion returned to her. She went regularly to service, told her beads, read her euchology, mumbled Aves in one corner of the house, while I love you was being whispered in the other, and she beheld Marius and Cosette in a vague way, like two shadows. The shadow was herself. There is a certain state of inert asceticism in which the soul, neutralized by torpor, a stranger to that which may be designated as the business of living, receives no impressions, either human, or pleasant or painful, with the exception of earthquakes and catastrophes. This devotion, as Father Gillenormand said to his daughter, corresponds to a cold in the head. You smell nothing of life. Neither any bad, nor any good odor. Moreover, the six hundred thousand francs had settled the elderly spinster's indecision. Her father had acquired the habit of taking her so little into account, that he had not consulted her in the matter of consent to Marius' marriage. He had acted impetuously, according to his wont, having, a despotturned slave, but a single thought,to satisfy Marius. As for the aunt,it had not even occurred to him that the aunt existed, and that she could have an opinion of her own, and, sheep as she was, this had vexed her. Somewhat resentful in her inmost soul, but impassible externally, she had said to herself 'My father has settled the question of the marriage without reference to me I shall settle the question of the inheritance without consulting him. She was rich, in fact, and her father was not. She had reserved her decision on this point. It is probable that, had the match been a poor one, she would have left him poor. 'So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a beggar, let him be a beggar himself! But Cosette's halfmillion pleased the aunt, and altered her inward situation so far as this pair of lovers were concerned. One owes some consideration to six hundred thousand francs, and it was evident that she could not do otherwise than leave her fortune to these young people, since they did not need it. It was arranged that the couple should live with the grandfatherM. Gillenormand insisted on resigning to them his chamber, the finest in the house. 'That will make me young again, he said. 'It's an old plan of mine. I have always entertained the idea of having a wedding in my chamber. He furnished this chamber with a multitude of elegant trifles. He had the ceiling and walls hung with an extraordinary stuff, which he had by him in the piece, and which he believed to have emanated from Utrecht with a buttercupcolored satin ground, covered with velvet auricula blossoms.'It was with that stuff, said he, 'that the bed of the Duchesse d'Anville at la RocheGuyon was draped.On the chimneypiece, he set a little figure in Saxe porcelain, carrying a muff against her nude stomach. M. Gillenormand's library became the lawyer's study, which Marius needed a study, it will be remembered, being required by the council of the order. The lovers saw each other every day. Cosette came with M. Fauchelevent.'This is reversing things, said Mademoiselle Gillenormand, 'to have the bride come to the house to do the courting like this. But Marius' convalescence had caused the habit to become established, and the armchairs of the Rue des FillesduCalvaire, better adapted to interviews than the straw chairs of the Rue de l'Homme Arm, had rooted it. Marius and M. Fauchelevent saw each other, but did not address each other. It seemed as though this had been agreed upon. Every girl needs a chaperon. Cosette could not have come without M. Fauchelevent. In Marius' eyes, M. Fauchelevent was the condition attached to Cosette. He accepted it. By dint of discussing political matters, vaguely and without precision, from the point of view of the general amelioration of the fate of all men, they came to say a little more than 'yes and 'no. Once, on the subject of education, which Marius wished to have free and obligatory, multiplied under all forms lavished on every one, like the air and the sun in a word, respirable for the entire population, they were in unison, and they almost conversed. M. Fauchelevent talked well, and even with a certain loftiness of languagestill he lacked something indescribable. M. Fauchelevent possessed something less and also something more, than a man of the world. Marius, inwardly, and in the depths of his thought, surrounded with all sorts of mute questions this M. Fauchelevent, who was to him simply benevolent and cold. There were moments when doubts as to his own recollections occurred to him. There was a void in his memory, a black spot, an abyss excavated by four months of agony.Many things had been lost therein. He had come to the point of asking himself whether it were really a fact that he had seen M. Fauchelevent, so serious and so calm a man, in the barricade. This was not, however, the only stupor which the apparitions and the disappearances of the past had left in his mind. It must not be supposed that he was delivered from all those obsessions of the memory which force us, even when happy, even when satisfied, to glance sadly behind us. The head which does not turn backwards towards horizons that have vanished contains neither thought nor love. At times, Marius clasped his face between his hands, and the vague and tumultuous past traversed the twilight which reigned in his brain. Again he beheld Mabeuf fall, he heard Gavroche singing amid the grapeshot, he felt beneath his lips the cold brow of ponine Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, Bossuet, Grantaire, all his friends rose erect before him, then dispersed into thin air. Were all those dear, sorrowful, valiant, charming or tragic beings merely dreams? had they actually existed? The revolt had enveloped everything in its smoke. These great fevers create great dreams. He questioned himself he felt himself all these vanished realities made him dizzy. Where were they all then? was it really true that all were dead? A fall into the shadows had carried off all except himself. It all seemed to him to have disappeared as though behind the curtain of a theatre. There are curtains like this which drop in life. God passes on to the following act. And he himselfwas he actually the same man? He, the poor man, was rich he, the abandoned, had a family he, the despairing, was to marry Cosette. It seemed to him that he had traversed a tomb, and that he had entered into it black and had emerged from it white, and in that tomb the others had remained. At certain moments, all these beings of the past, returned and present, formed a circle around him, and overshadowed him then he thought of Cosette, and recovered his serenity but nothing less than this felicity could have sufficed to efface that catastrophe. M. Fauchelevent almost occupied a place among these vanished beings. Marius hesitated to believe that the Fauchelevent of the barricade was the same as this Fauchelevent in flesh and blood, sitting so gravely beside Cosette. The first was, probably, one of those nightmares occasioned and brought back by his hours of delirium. However, the natures of both men were rigid, no question from Marius to M. Fauchelevent was possible. Such an idea had not even occurred to him. We have already indicated this characteristic detail. Two men who have a secret in common, and who, by a sort of tacit agreement, exchange not a word on the subject, are less rare than is commonly supposed. Once only, did Marius make the attempt. He introduced into the conversation the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and, turning to M. Fauchelevent, he said to him 'Of course, you are acquainted with that street? 'What street? 'The Rue de la Chanvrerie. 'I have no idea of the name of that street, replied M. Fauchelevent, in the most natural manner in the world. The response which bore upon the name of the street and not upon the street itself, appeared to Marius to be more conclusive than it really was. 'Decidedly, thought he, 'I have been dreaming. I have been subject to a hallucination. It was some one who resembled him. M. Fauchelevent was not there.' Marius' enchantment, great as it was, could not efface from his mind other preoccupations. While the wedding was in preparation, and while awaiting the date fixed upon, he caused difficult and scrupulous retrospective researches to be made. He owed gratitude in various quarters he owed it on his father's account, he owed it on his own. There was Thnardier there was the unknown man who had brought him, Marius, back to M. Gillenormand. Marius endeavored to find these two men, not intending to marry, to be happy, and to forget them, and fearing that, were these debts of gratitude not discharged, they would leave a shadow on his life, which promised so brightly for the future. It was impossible for him to leave all these arrears of suffering behind him, and he wished, before entering joyously into the future, to obtain a quittance from the past. That Thnardier was a villain detracted nothing from the fact that he had saved Colonel Pontmercy. Thnardier was a ruffian in the eyes of all the world except Marius. And Marius, ignorant of the real scene in the battle field of Waterloo, was not aware of the peculiar detail, that his father, so far as Thnardier was concerned was in the strange position of being indebted to the latter for his life, without being indebted to him for any gratitude. None of the various agents whom Marius employed succeeded in discovering any trace of Thnardier. Obliteration appeared to be complete in that quarter. Madame Thnardier had died in prison pending the trial. Thnardier and his daughter Azelma, the only two remaining of that lamentable group, had plunged back into the gloom. The gulf of the social unknown had silently closed above those beings. On the surface there was not visible so much as that quiver, that trembling, those obscure concentric circles which announce that something has fallen in, and that the plummet may be dropped. Madame Thnardier being dead, Boulatruelle being eliminated from the case, Claquesous having disappeared, the principal persons accused having escaped from prison, the trial connected with the ambush in the Gorbeau house had come to nothing. That affair had remained rather obscure. The bench of Assizes had been obliged to content themselves with two subordinates. Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, and DemiLiard, alias DeuxMilliards, who had been inconsistently condemned, after a hearing of both sides of the case, to ten years in the galleys. Hard labor for life had been the sentence pronounced against the escaped and contumacious accomplices. Thnardier, the head and leader, had been, through contumacy, likewise condemned to death. This sentence was the only information remaining about Thnardier, casting upon that buried name its sinister light like a candle beside a bier. Moreover, by thrusting Thnardier back into the very remotest depths, through a fear of being recaptured, this sentence added to the density of the shadows which enveloped this man. As for the other person, as for the unknown man who had saved Marius, the researches were at first to some extent successful, then came to an abrupt conclusion. They succeeded in finding the carriage which had brought Marius to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire on the evening of the th of June. The coachman declared that, on the th of June, in obedience to the commands of a policeagent, he had stood from three o'clock in the afternoon until nightfall on the Quai des Champslyses, above the outlet of the Grand Sewer that, towards nine o'clock in the evening, the grating of the sewer, which abuts on the bank of the river, had opened that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoulders another man, who seemed to be dead that the agent, who was on the watch at that point, had arrested the living man and had seized the dead man that, at the order of the policeagent, he, the coachman, had taken 'all those folks into his carriage that they had first driven to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire that they had there deposited the dead man that the dead man was Monsieur Marius, and that he, the coachman, recognized him perfectly, although he was alive 'this time that afterwards, they had entered the vehicle again, that he had whipped up his horses a few paces from the gate of the Archives, they had called to him to halt that there, in the street, they had paid him and left him, and that the policeagent had led the other man away that he knew nothing more that the night had been very dark. Marius, as we have said, recalled nothing. He only remembered that he had been seized from behind by an energetic hand at the moment when he was falling backwards into the barricade then, everything vanished so far as he was concerned. He had only regained consciousness at M. Gillenormand's. He was lost in conjectures. He could not doubt his own identity. Still, how had it come to pass that, having fallen in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, he had been picked up by the policeagent on the banks of the Seine, near the Pont des Invalides? Some one had carried him from the Quartier des Halles to the Champslyses. And how? Through the sewer. Unheardof devotion! Some one? Who? This was the man for whom Marius was searching. Of this man, who was his savior, nothing not a trace not the faintest indication. Marius, although forced to preserve great reserve, in that direction, pushed his inquiries as far as the prefecture of police. There, no more than elsewhere, did the information obtained lead to any enlightenment. The prefecture knew less about the matter than did the hackneycoachman. They had no knowledge of any arrest having been made on the th of June at the mouth of the Grand Sewer. No report of any agent had been received there upon this matter, which was regarded at the prefecture as a fable. The invention of this fable was attributed to the coachman. A coachman who wants a gratuity is capable of anything, even of imagination. The fact was assured, nevertheless, and Marius could not doubt it, unless he doubted his own identity, as we have just said. Everything about this singular enigma was inexplicable. What had become of that man, that mysterious man, whom the coachman had seen emerge from the grating of the Grand Sewer bearing upon his back the unconscious Marius, and whom the policeagent on the watch had arrested in the very act of rescuing an insurgent? What had become of the agent himself? Why had this agent preserved silence? Had the man succeeded in making his escape? Had he bribed the agent? Why did this man give no sign of life to Marius, who owed everything to him? His disinterestedness was no less tremendous than his devotion. Why had not that man appeared again? Perhaps he was above compensation, but no one is above gratitude. Was he dead? Who was the man? What sort of a face had he? No one could tell him this. The coachman answered 'The night was very dark. Basque and Nicolette, all in a flutter, had looked only at their young master all covered with blood. The porter, whose candle had lighted the tragic arrival of Marius, had been the only one to take note of the man in question, and this is the description that he gave 'That man was terrible. Marius had the bloodstained clothing which he had worn when he had been brought back to his grandfather preserved, in the hope that it would prove of service in his researches. On examining the coat, it was found that one skirt had been torn in a singular way. A piece was missing. One evening, Marius was speaking in the presence of Cosette and Jean Valjean of the whole of that singular adventure, of the innumerable inquiries which he had made, and of the fruitlessness of his efforts. The cold countenance of 'Monsieur Fauchelevent angered him. He exclaimed, with a vivacity which had something of wrath in it 'Yes, that man, whoever he may have been, was sublime. Do you know what he did, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He must have flung himself into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He must have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the dark, in the cesspool,more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his back! And with what object? With the sole object of saving the corpse. And that corpse I was. He said to himself 'There may still be a glimpse of life there, perchance I will risk my own existence for that miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times! And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from the sewer, he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that that man did all this? And he had no recompense to expect. What was I? An insurgent. What was I? One of the conquered. Oh! if Cosette's six hundred thousand francs were mine. 'They are yours, interrupted Jean Valjean. 'Well, resumed Marius, 'I would give them all to find that man once more. Jean Valjean remained silent. The night of the th to the th of February, , was a blessed night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was the wedding night of Marius and Cosette. The day had been adorable. It had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grandfather, a fairy spectacle, with a confusion of cherubim and Cupids over the heads of the bridal pair, a marriage worthy to form the subject of a painting to be placed over a door but it had been sweet and smiling. The manner of marriage in  was not the same as it is today. France had not yet borrowed from England that supreme delicacy of carrying off one's wife, of fleeing, on coming out of church, of hiding oneself with shame from one's happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt with the delights of the Song of Songs. People had not yet grasped to the full the chastity, exquisiteness, and decency of jolting their paradise in a postingchaise, of breaking up their mystery with clicclacs, of taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, in a commonplace chamber, at so much a night, the most sacred of the souvenirs of life mingled pellmell with the ttette of the conductor of the diligence and the maidservant of the inn. In this second half of the nineteenth century in which we are now living, the mayor and his scarf, the priest and his chasuble, the law and God no longer suffice they must be eked out by the Postilion de Lonjumeau a blue waistcoat turned up with red, and with bell buttons, a plaque like a vantbrace, kneebreeches of green leather, oaths to the Norman horses with their tails knotted up, false galloons, varnished hat, long powdered locks, an enormous whip and tall boots. France does not yet carry elegance to the length of doing like the English nobility, and raining down on the postchaise of the bridal pair a hail storm of slippers trodden down at heel and of wornout shoes, in memory of Churchill, afterwards Marlborough, or Malbrouck, who was assailed on his weddingday by the wrath of an aunt which brought him good luck. Old shoes and slippers do not, as yet, form a part of our nuptial celebrations but patience, as good taste continues to spread, we shall come to that. In , a hundred years ago, marriage was not conducted at a full trot. Strange to say, at that epoch, people still imagined that a wedding was a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not spoil a domestic solemnity, that gayety, even in excess, provided it be honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these two destinies whence a family is destined to spring, should begin at home, and that the household should thenceforth have its nuptial chamber as its witness. And people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes. The marriage took place, therefore, in accordance with this now superannuated fashion, at M. Gillenormand's house. Natural and commonplace as this matter of marrying is, the banns to publish, the papers to be drawn up, the mayoralty, and the church produce some complication. They could not get ready before the th of February. Now, we note this detail, for the pure satisfaction of being exact, it chanced that the th fell on Shrove Tuesday. Hesitations, scruples, particularly on the part of Aunt Gillenormand. 'Shrove Tuesday! exclaimed the grandfather, 'so much the better. There is a proverb ''Mariage un Mardi gras N'aura point enfants ingrats.' Let us proceed. Here goes for the th! Do you want to delay, Marius? 'No, certainly not! replied the lover. 'Let us marry, then, cried the grandfather. Accordingly, the marriage took place on the th, notwithstanding the public merrymaking. It rained that day, but there is always in the sky a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even when the rest of creation is under an umbrella. On the preceding evening, Jean Valjean handed to Marius, in the presence of M. Gillenormand, the five hundred and eightyfour thousand francs. As the marriage was taking place under the rgime of community of property, the papers had been simple. Henceforth, Toussaint was of no use to Jean Valjean Cosette inherited her and promoted her to the rank of lady's maid. As for Jean Valjean, a beautiful chamber in the Gillenormand house had been furnished expressly for him, and Cosette had said to him in such an irresistible manner 'Father, I entreat you, that she had almost persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. A few days before that fixed on for the marriage, an accident happened to Jean Valjean he crushed the thumb of his right hand. This was not a serious matter and he had not allowed any one to trouble himself about it, nor to dress it, nor even to see his hurt, not even Cosette. Nevertheless, this had forced him to swathe his hand in a linen bandage, and to carry his arm in a sling, and had prevented his signing. M. Gillenormand, in his capacity of Cosette's supervisingguardian, had supplied his place. We will not conduct the reader either to the mayor's office or to the church. One does not follow a pair of lovers to that extent, and one is accustomed to turn one's back on the drama as soon as it puts a wedding nosegay in its buttonhole. We will confine ourselves to noting an incident which, though unnoticed by the wedding party, marked the transit from the Rue des FillesduCalvaire to the church of SaintPaul. At that epoch, the northern extremity of the Rue SaintLouis was in process of repaving. It was barred off, beginning with the Rue du ParcRoyal. It was impossible for the wedding carriages to go directly to SaintPaul. They were obliged to alter their course, and the simplest way was to turn through the boulevard. One of the invited guests observed that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that there would be a jam of vehicles.'Why? asked M. Gillenormand'Because of the maskers.'Capital, said the grandfather, 'let us go that way. These young folks are on the way to be married they are about to enter the serious part of life. This will prepare them for seeing a bit of the masquerade. They went by way of the boulevard. The first wedding coach held Cosette and Aunt Gillenormand, M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean. Marius, still separated from his betrothed according to usage, did not come until the second. The nuptial train, on emerging from the Rue des FillesduCalvaire, became entangled in a long procession of vehicles which formed an endless chain from the Madeleine to the Bastille, and from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Maskers abounded on the boulevard. In spite of the fact that it was raining at intervals, MerryAndrew, Pantaloon and Clown persisted. In the good humor of that winter of , Paris had disguised itself as Venice. Such Shrove Tuesdays are no longer to be seen nowadays. Everything which exists being a scattered Carnival, there is no longer any Carnival. The sidewalks were overflowing with pedestrians and the windows with curious spectators. The terraces which crown the peristyles of the theatres were bordered with spectators. Besides the maskers, they stared at that processionpeculiar to Shrove Tuesday as to Longchamps,of vehicles of every description, citadines, tapissires, carioles, cabriolets marching in order, rigorously riveted to each other by the police regulations, and locked into rails, as it were. Any one in these vehicles is at once a spectator and a spectacle. Police sergeants maintained, on the sides of the boulevard, these two interminable parallel files, moving in contrary directions, and saw to it that nothing interfered with that double current, those two brooks of carriages, flowing, the one downstream, the other upstream, the one towards the Chausse d'Antin, the other towards the Faubourg SaintAntoine. The carriages of the peers of France and of the Ambassadors, emblazoned with coats of arms, held the middle of the way, going and coming freely. Certain joyous and magnificent trains, notably that of the Buf Gras, had the same privilege. In this gayety of Paris, England cracked her whip Lord Seymour's postchaise, harassed by a nickname from the populace, passed with great noise. In the double file, along which the municipal guards galloped like sheepdogs, honest family coaches, loaded down with greataunts and grandmothers, displayed at their doors fresh groups of children in disguise, Clowns of seven years of age, Columbines of six, ravishing little creatures, who felt that they formed an official part of the public mirth, who were imbued with the dignity of their harlequinade, and who possessed the gravity of functionaries. From time to time, a hitch arose somewhere in the procession of vehicles one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot was disentangled one carriage delayed sufficed to paralyze the whole line. Then they set out again on the march. The wedding carriages were in the file proceeding towards the Bastille, and skirting the right side of the Boulevard. At the top of the PontauxChoux, there was a stoppage. Nearly at the same moment, the other file, which was proceeding towards the Madeleine, halted also. At that point of the file there was a carriageload of maskers. These carriages, or to speak more correctly, these wagonloads of maskers are very familiar to Parisians. If they were missing on a Shrove Tuesday, or at the MidLent, it would be taken in bad part, and people would say 'There's something behind that. Probably the ministry is about to undergo a change. A pile of Cassandras, Harlequins and Columbines, jolted along high above the passersby, all possible grotesquenesses, from the Turk to the savage, Hercules supporting Marquises, fishwives who would have made Rabelais stop up his ears just as the Mnads made Aristophanes drop his eyes, tow wigs, pink tights, dandified hats, spectacles of a grimacer, threecornered hats of Janot tormented with a butterfly, shouts directed at pedestrians, fists on hips, bold attitudes, bare shoulders, immodesty unchained a chaos of shamelessness driven by a coachman crowned with flowers this is what that institution was like. Greece stood in need of the chariot of Thespis, France stands in need of the hackneycoach of Vad. Everything can be parodied, even parody. The Saturnalia, that grimace of antique beauty, ends, through exaggeration after exaggeration, in Shrove Tuesday and the Bacchanal, formerly crowned with sprays of vine leaves and grapes, inundated with sunshine, displaying her marble breast in a divine seminudity, having at the present day lost her shape under the soaked rags of the North, has finally come to be called the Jackpudding. The tradition of carriageloads of maskers runs back to the most ancient days of the monarchy. The accounts of Louis XI. allot to the bailiff of the palace 'twenty sous, Tournois, for three coaches of mascarades in the crossroads. In our day, these noisy heaps of creatures are accustomed to have themselves driven in some ancient cuckoo carriage, whose imperial they load down, or they overwhelm a hired landau, with its top thrown back, with their tumultuous groups. Twenty of them ride in a carriage intended for six. They cling to the seats, to the rumble, on the cheeks of the hood, on the shafts. They even bestride the carriage lamps. They stand, sit, lie, with their knees drawn up in a knot, and their legs hanging. The women sit on the men's laps. Far away, above the throng of heads, their wild pyramid is visible. These carriageloads form mountains of mirth in the midst of the rout. Coll, Panard and Piron flow from it, enriched with slang. This carriage which has become colossal through its freight, has an air of conquest. Uproar reigns in front, tumult behind. People vociferate, shout, howl, there they break forth and writhe with enjoyment gayety roars sarcasm flames forth, joviality is flaunted like a red flag two jades there drag farce blossomed forth into an apotheosis it is the triumphal car of laughter. A laughter that is too cynical to be frank. In truth, this laughter is suspicious. This laughter has a mission. It is charged with proving the Carnival to the Parisians. These fishwife vehicles, in which one feels one knows not what shadows, set the philosopher to thinking. There is government therein. There one lays one's finger on a mysterious affinity between public men and public women. It certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a sum total of gayety, that by piling ignominy upon opprobrium the people should be enticed, that the system of spying, and serving as caryatids to prostitution should amuse the rabble when it confronts them, that the crowd loves to behold that monstrous living pile of tinsel rags, half dung, half light, roll by on four wheels howling and laughing, that they should clap their hands at this glory composed of all shames, that there would be no festival for the populace, did not the police promenade in their midst these sorts of twentyheaded hydras of joy. But what can be done about it? These beribboned and beflowered tumbrils of mire are insulted and pardoned by the laughter of the public. The laughter of all is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals disaggregate the people and convert them into the populace. And populaces, like tyrants, require buffoons. The King has Roquelaure, the populace has the MerryAndrew. Paris is a great, mad city on every occasion that it is a great sublime city. There the Carnival forms part of politics. Paris,let us confess itwillingly allows infamy to furnish it with comedy. She only demands of her masterswhen she has mastersone thing 'Paint me the mud. Rome was of the same mind. She loved Nero. Nero was a titanic lighterman. Chance ordained, as we have just said, that one of these shapeless clusters of masked men and women, dragged about on a vast calash, should halt on the left of the boulevard, while the wedding train halted on the right. The carriageload of masks caught sight of the wedding carriage containing the bridal party opposite them on the other side of the boulevard. 'Hullo! said a masker, 'here's a wedding. 'A sham wedding, retorted another. 'We are the genuine article. And, being too far off to accost the wedding party, and fearing also, the rebuke of the police, the two maskers turned their eyes elsewhere. At the end of another minute, the carriageload of maskers had their hands full, the multitude set to yelling, which is the crowd's caress to masquerades and the two maskers who had just spoken had to face the throng with their comrades, and did not find the entire repertory of projectiles of the fishmarkets too extensive to retort to the enormous verbal attacks of the populace. A frightful exchange of metaphors took place between the maskers and the crowd. In the meanwhile, two other maskers in the same carriage, a Spaniard with an enormous nose, an elderly air, and huge black moustache, and a gaunt fishwife, who was quite a young girl, masked with a loup, had also noticed the wedding, and while their companions and the passersby were exchanging insults, they had held a dialogue in a low voice. Their aside was covered by the tumult and was lost in it. The gusts of rain had drenched the front of the vehicle, which was wide open the breezes of February are not warm as the fishwife, clad in a lownecked gown, replied to the Spaniard, she shivered, laughed and coughed. Here is their dialogue 'Say, now. 'What, daddy? 'Do you see that old cove? 'What old cove? 'Yonder, in the first weddingcart, on our side. 'The one with his arm hung up in a black cravat? 'Yes. 'Well? 'I'm sure that I know him. 'Ah! 'I'm willing that they should cut my throat, and I'm ready to swear that I never said either you, thou, or I, in my life, if I don't know that Parisian. pantinois. 'Paris in Pantin today. 'Can you see the bride if you stoop down? 'No. 'And the bridegroom? 'There's no bridegroom in that trap. 'Bah! 'Unless it's the old fellow. 'Try to get a sight of the bride by stooping very low. 'I can't. 'Never mind, that old cove who has something the matter with his paw I know, and that I'm positive. 'And what good does it do to know him? 'No one can tell. Sometimes it does! 'I don't care a hang for old fellows, that I don't! 'I know him. 'Know him, if you want to. 'How the devil does he come to be one of the wedding party? 'We are in it, too. 'Where does that wedding come from? 'How should I know? 'Listen. 'Well, what? 'There's one thing you ought to do. 'What's that? 'Get off of our trap and spin that wedding. 'What for? 'To find out where it goes, and what it is. Hurry up and jump down, trot, my girl, your legs are young. 'I can't quit the vehicle. 'Why not? 'I'm hired. 'Ah, the devil! 'I owe my fishwife day to the prefecture. 'That's true. 'If I leave the cart, the first inspector who gets his eye on me will arrest me. You know that well enough. 'Yes, I do. 'I'm bought by the government for today. 'All the same, that old fellow bothers me. 'Do the old fellows bother you? But you're not a young girl. 'He's in the first carriage. 'Well? 'In the bride's trap. 'What then? 'So he is the father. 'What concern is that of mine? 'I tell you that he's the father. 'As if he were the only father. 'Listen. 'What? 'I can't go out otherwise than masked. Here I'm concealed, no one knows that I'm here. But tomorrow, there will be no more maskers. It's Ash Wednesday. I run the risk of being nabbed. I must sneak back into my hole. But you are free. 'Not particularly. 'More than I am, at any rate. 'Well, what of that? 'You must try to find out where that wedding party went to. 'Where it went? 'Yes. 'I know. 'Where is it going then? 'To the CadranBleu. 'In the first place, it's not in that direction. 'Well! to la Rape. 'Or elsewhere. 'It's free. Wedding parties are at liberty. 'That's not the point at all. I tell you that you must try to learn for me what that wedding is, who that old cove belongs to, and where that wedding pair lives. 'I like that! that would be queer. It's so easy to find out a wedding party that passed through the street on a Shrove Tuesday, a week afterwards. A pin in a haymow! It ain't possible! 'That don't matter. You must try. You understand me, Azelma. The two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard, in opposite directions, and the carriage of the maskers lost sight of the 'trap of the bride. To realize one's dream. To whom is this accorded? There must be elections for this in heaven we are all candidates, unknown to ourselves the angels vote. Cosette and Marius had been elected. Cosette, both at the mayor's office and at church, was dazzling and touching. Toussaint, assisted by Nicolette, had dressed her. Cosette wore over a petticoat of white taffeta, her robe of Binche guipure, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine pearls, a wreath of orange flowers all this was white, and, from the midst of that whiteness she beamed forth. It was an exquisite candor expanding and becoming transfigured in the light. One would have pronounced her a virgin on the point of turning into a goddess. Marius' handsome hair was lustrous and perfumed here and there, beneath the thick curls, pale linesthe scars of the barricadewere visible. The grandfather, haughty, with head held high, amalgamating more than ever in his toilet and his manners all the elegances of the epoch of Barras, escorted Cosette. He took the place of Jean Valjean, who, on account of his arm being still in a sling, could not give his hand to the bride. Jean Valjean, dressed in black, followed them with a smile. 'Monsieur Fauchelevent, said the grandfather to him, 'this is a fine day. I vote for the end of afflictions and sorrows. Henceforth, there must be no sadness anywhere. Pardieu, I decree joy! Evil has no right to exist. That there should be any unhappy men is, in sooth, a disgrace to the azure of the sky. Evil does not come from man, who is good at bottom. All human miseries have for their capital and central government hell, otherwise, known as the Devil's Tuileries. Good, here I am uttering demagogical words! As far as I am concerned, I have no longer any political opinions let all men be rich, that is to say, mirthful, and I confine myself to that. When, at the conclusion of all the ceremonies, after having pronounced before the mayor and before the priest all possible 'yesses, after having signed the registers at the municipality and at the sacristy, after having exchanged their rings, after having knelt side by side under the pall of white moire in the smoke of the censer, they arrived, hand in hand, admired and envied by all, Marius in black, she in white, preceded by the suisse, with the epaulets of a colonel, tapping the pavement with his halberd, between two rows of astonished spectators, at the portals of the church, both leaves of which were thrown wide open, ready to enter their carriage again, and all being finished, Cosette still could not believe that it was real. She looked at Marius, she looked at the crowd, she looked at the sky it seemed as though she feared that she should wake up from her dream. Her amazed and uneasy air added something indescribably enchanting to her beauty. They entered the same carriage to return home, Marius beside Cosette M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean sat opposite them Aunt Gillenormand had withdrawn one degree, and was in the second vehicle. 'My children, said the grandfather, 'here you are, Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne, with an income of thirty thousand livres. And Cosette, nestling close to Marius, caressed his ear with an angelic whisper 'So it is true. My name is Marius. I am Madame Thou. These two creatures were resplendent. They had reached that irrevocable and irrecoverable moment, at the dazzling intersection of all youth and all joy. They realized the verses of Jean Prouvaire they were forty years old taken together. It was marriage sublimated these two children were two lilies. They did not see each other, they did not contemplate each other. Cosette perceived Marius in the midst of a glory Marius perceived Cosette on an altar. And on that altar, and in that glory, the two apotheoses mingling, in the background, one knows not how, behind a cloud for Cosette, in a flash for Marius, there was the ideal thing, the real thing, the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nuptial pillow. All the torments through which they had passed came back to them in intoxication. It seemed to them that their sorrows, their sleepless nights, their tears, their anguish, their terrors, their despair, converted into caresses and rays of light, rendered still more charming the charming hour which was approaching and that their griefs were but so many handmaidens who were preparing the toilet of joy. How good it is to have suffered! Their unhappiness formed a halo round their happiness. The long agony of their love was terminating in an ascension. It was the same enchantment in two souls, tinged with voluptuousness in Marius, and with modesty in Cosette. They said to each other in low tones 'We will go back to take a look at our little garden in the Rue Plumet. The folds of Cosette's gown lay across Marius. Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One possesses and one supposes. One still has time before one to divine. The emotion on that day, of being at midday and of dreaming of midnight is indescribable. The delights of these two hearts overflowed upon the crowd, and inspired the passersby with cheerfulness. People halted in the Rue SaintAntoine, in front of SaintPaul, to gaze through the windows of the carriage at the orangeflowers quivering on Cosette's head. Then they returned home to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire. Marius, triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with Cosette the staircase up which he had been borne in a dying condition. The poor, who had trooped to the door, and who shared their purses, blessed them. There were flowers everywhere. The house was no less fragrant than the church after the incense, roses. They thought they heard voices carolling in the infinite they had God in their hearts destiny appeared to them like a ceiling of stars above their heads they beheld the light of a rising sun. All at once, the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible through the lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius' glance, blushed to her very hair. Quite a number of old family friends of the Gillenormand family had been invited they pressed about Cosette. Each one vied with the rest in saluting her as Madame la Baronne. The officer, Thodule Gillenormand, now a captain, had come from Chartres, where he was stationed in garrison, to be present at the wedding of his cousin Pontmercy. Cosette did not recognize him. He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette than of any other woman. 'How right I was not to believe in that story about the lancer! said Father Gillenormand, to himself. Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean. She was in unison with Father Gillenormand while he erected joy into aphorisms and maxims, she exhaled goodness like a perfume. Happiness desires that all the world should be happy. She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean Valjean, inflections of voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him with her smile. A banquet had been spread in the diningroom. Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of a great joy. Mist and obscurity are not accepted by the happy. They do not consent to be black. The night, yes the shadows, no. If there is no sun, one must be made. The diningroom was full of gay things. In the centre, above the white and glittering table, was a Venetian lustre with flat plates, with all sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the candles around the chandelier, girandoles, on the walls, sconces with triple and quintuple branches mirrors, silverware, glassware, plate, porcelain, faence, pottery, gold and silversmith's work, all was sparkling and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light, there was a flower. In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly played quartettes by Haydn. Jean Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawingroom, behind the door, the leaf of which folded back upon him in such a manner as to nearly conceal him. A few moments before they sat down to table, Cosette came, as though inspired by a sudden whim, and made him a deep courtesy, spreading out her bridal toilet with both hands, and with a tenderly roguish glance, she asked him 'Father, are you satisfied? 'Yes, said Jean Valjean, 'I am content! 'Well, then, laugh. Jean Valjean began to laugh. A few moments later, Basque announced that dinner was served. The guests, preceded by M. Gillenormand with Cosette on his arm, entered the diningroom, and arranged themselves in the proper order around the table. Two large armchairs figured on the right and left of the bride, the first for M. Gillenormand, the other for Jean Valjean. M. Gillenormand took his seat. The other armchair remained empty. They looked about for M. Fauchelevent. He was no longer there. M. Gillenormand questioned Basque. 'Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is? 'Sir, replied Basque, 'I do, precisely. M. Fauchelevent told me to say to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured hand was paining him somewhat, and that he could not dine with Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne. That he begged to be excused, that he would come tomorrow. He has just taken his departure. That empty armchair chilled the effusion of the wedding feast for a moment. But, if M. Fauchelevent was absent, M. Gillenormand was present, and the grandfather beamed for two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevent had done well to retire early, if he were suffering, but that it was only a slight ailment. This declaration sufficed. Moreover, what is an obscure corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and Marius were passing through one of those egotistical and blessed moments when no other faculty is left to a person than that of receiving happiness. And then, an idea occurred to M. Gillenormand.'Pardieu, this armchair is empty. Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal and delightful. Fortunatus beside Fortunata.Applause from the whole table. Marius took Jean Valjean's place beside Cosette, and things fell out so that Cosette, who had, at first, been saddened by Jean Valjean's absence, ended by being satisfied with it. From the moment when Marius took his place, and was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God himself. She set her sweet little foot, shod in white satin, on Marius' foot. The armchair being occupied, M. Fauchelevent was obliterated and nothing was lacking. And, five minutes afterward, the whole table from one end to the other, was laughing with all the animation of forgetfulness. At dessert, M. Gillenormand, rising to his feet, with a glass of champagne in his handonly half full so that the palsy of his eighty years might not cause an overflow,proposed the health of the married pair. 'You shall not escape two sermons, he exclaimed. 'This morning you had one from the cur, this evening you shall have one from your grandfather. Listen to me I will give you a bit of advice Adore each other. I do not make a pack of gyrations, I go straight to the mark, be happy. In all creation, only the turtledoves are wise. Philosophers say 'Moderate your joys.' I say 'Give rein to your joys.' Be as much smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage about it. The philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should like to stuff their philosophy down their gullets again. Can there be too many perfumes, too many open rosebuds, too many nightingales singing, too many green leaves, too much aurora in life? can people love each other too much? can people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou art too pretty! Have a care, Nemorin, thou art too handsome! Fine stupidity, in sooth! Can people enchant each other too much, cajole each other too much, charm each other too much? Can one be too much alive, too happy? Moderate your joys. Ah, indeed! Down with the philosophers! Wisdom consists in jubilation. Make merry, let us make merry. Are we happy because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the Sancy diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to Harley de Sancy, or because it weighs six hundred carats? I know nothing about it, life is full of such problems the important point is to possess the Sancy and happiness. Let us be happy without quibbling and quirking. Let us obey the sun blindly. What is the sun? It is love. He who says love, says woman. Ah! ah! behold omnipotencewomen. Ask that demagogue of a Marius if he is not the slave of that little tyrant of a Cosette. And of his own free will, too, the coward! Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps his place but woman reigns. I am no longer Royalist except towards that royalty. What is Adam? The kingdom of Eve. No ' for Eve. There has been the royal sceptre surmounted by a fleurdelys, there has been the imperial sceptre surmounted by a globe, there has been the sceptre of Charlemagne, which was of iron, there has been the sceptre of Louis the Great, which was of gold,the revolution twisted them between its thumb and forefinger, ha'penny straws it is done with, it is broken, it lies on the earth, there is no longer any sceptre, but make me a revolution against that little embroidered handkerchief, which smells of patchouli! I should like to see you do it. Try. Why is it so solid? Because it is a gewgaw. Ah! you are the nineteenth century? Well, what then? And we have been as foolish as you. Do not imagine that you have effected much change in the universe, because your tripgallant is called the choleramorbus, and because your pourre is called the cachuca. In fact, the women must always be loved. I defy you to escape from that. These friends are our angels. Yes, love, woman, the kiss forms a circle from which I defy you to escape and, for my own part, I should be only too happy to reenter it. Which of you has seen the planet Venus, the coquette of the abyss, the Climne of the ocean, rise in the infinite, calming all here below? The ocean is a rough Alcestis. Well, grumble as he will, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute beast submits. We are all made so. Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder, foam to the very ceiling. A woman enters on the scene, a planet rises flat on your face! Marius was fighting six months ago today he is married. That is well. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right. Exist boldly for each other, make us burst with rage that we cannot do the same, idealize each other, catch in your beaks all the tiny blades of felicity that exist on earth, and arrange yourselves a nest for life. Pardi, to love, to be loved, what a fine miracle when one is young! Don't imagine that you have invented that. I, too, have had my dream, I, too, have meditated, I, too, have sighed I, too, have had a moonlight soul. Love is a child six thousand years old. Love has the right to a long white beard. Methusalem is a street arab beside Cupid. For sixty centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The devil, who is cunning, took to hating man man, who is still more cunning, took to loving woman. In this way he does more good than the devil does him harm. This craft was discovered in the days of the terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is perfectly new. Profit by it. Be Daphnis and Chloe, while waiting to become Philemon and Baucis. Manage so that, when you are with each other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette may be the sun for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe to Cosette. Cosette, let your fine weather be the smile of your husband Marius, let your rain be your wife's tears. And let it never rain in your household. You have filched the winning number in the lottery you have gained the great prize, guard it well, keep it under lock and key, do not squander it, adore each other and snap your fingers at all the rest. Believe what I say to you. It is good sense. And good sense cannot lie. Be a religion to each other. Each man has his own fashion of adoring God. Saperlotte! the best way to adore God is to love one's wife. I love thee! that's my catechism. He who loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness. Ventresaintgris! I don't belong to the religion of that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women! I am old, they say it's astonishing how much I feel in the mood to be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,that intoxicates me. I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me. It is impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this to idolize, to coo, to preen ourselves, to be dovelike, to be dainty, to bill and coo our loves from morn to night, to gaze at one's image in one's little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to plume oneself that is the aim of life. There, let not that displease you which we used to think in our day, when we were young folks. Ah! vertubamboche! what charming women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces and what lovely lasses! I committed my ravages among them. Then love each other. If people did not love each other, I really do not see what use there would be in having any springtime and for my own part, I should pray the good God to shut up all the beautiful things that he shows us, and to take away from us and put back in his box, the flowers, the birds, and the pretty maidens. My children, receive an old man's blessing. The evening was gay, lively and agreeable. The grandfather's sovereign good humor gave the keynote to the whole feast, and each person regulated his conduct on that almost centenarian cordiality. They danced a little, they laughed a great deal it was an amiable wedding. Goodman Days of Yore might have been invited to it. However, he was present in the person of Father Gillenormand. There was a tumult, then silence. The married pair disappeared. A little after midnight, the Gillenormand house became a temple. Here we pause. On the threshold of wedding nights stands a smiling angel with his finger on his lips. The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the celebration of love takes place. There should be flashes of light athwart such houses. The joy which they contain ought to make its escape through the stones of the walls in brilliancy, and vaguely illuminate the gloom. It is impossible that this sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to the infinite. Love is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man and the woman takes place the being one, the being triple, the being final, the human trinity proceeds from it. This birth of two souls into one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The lover is the priest the ravished virgin is terrified. Something of that joy ascends to God. Where true marriage is, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. If it were given to the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold the forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of the invisible, bend down, a throng of sombre heads, around the luminous house, satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin wife gently alarmed, sweetly terrified, and bearing the reflection of human bliss upon their divine countenances. If at that supreme hour, the wedded pair, dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves alone, were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of wings. Perfect happiness implies a mutual understanding with the angels. That dark little chamber has all heaven for its ceiling. When two mouths, rendered sacred by love, approach to create, it is impossible that there should not be, above that ineffable kiss, a quivering throughout the immense mystery of stars. These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy outside of these joys. Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps. To love, or to have loved,this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment. What had become of Jean Valjean? Immediately after having laughed, at Cosette's graceful command, when no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained the antechamber unperceived. This was the very room which, eight months before, he had entered black with mud, with blood and powder, bringing back the grandson to the grandfather. The old wainscoting was garlanded with foliage and flowers the musicians were seated on the sofa on which they had laid Marius down. Basque, in a black coat, kneebreeches, white stockings and white gloves, was arranging roses round all of the dishes that were to be served. Jean Valjean pointed to his arm in its sling, charged Basque to explain his absence, and went away. The long windows of the diningroom opened on the street. Jean Valjean stood for several minutes, erect and motionless in the darkness, beneath those radiant windows. He listened. The confused sounds of the banquet reached his ear. He heard the loud, commanding tones of the grandfather, the violins, the clatter of the plates, the bursts of laughter, and through all that merry uproar, he distinguished Cosette's sweet and joyous voice. He quitted the Rue des FillesduCalvaire, and returned to the Rue de l'Homme Arm. In order to return thither, he took the Rue SaintLouis, the Rue CultureSainteCatherine, and the BlancsManteaux it was a little longer, but it was the road through which, for the last three months, he had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the Rue de l'Homme Arm to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire, in order to avoid the obstructions and the mud in the Rue VieilleduTemple. This road, through which Cosette had passed, excluded for him all possibility of any other itinerary. Jean Valjean entered his lodgings. He lighted his candle and mounted the stairs. The apartment was empty. Even Toussaint was no longer there. Jean Valjean's step made more noise than usual in the chambers. All the cupboards stood open. He penetrated to Cosette's bedroom. There were no sheets on the bed. The pillow, covered with ticking, and without a case or lace, was laid on the blankets folded up on the foot of the mattress, whose covering was visible, and on which no one was ever to sleep again. All the little feminine objects which Cosette was attached to had been carried away nothing remained except the heavy furniture and the four walls. Toussaint's bed was despoiled in like manner. One bed only was made up, and seemed to be waiting some one, and this was Jean Valjean's bed. Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the cupboard doors, and went and came from one room to another. Then he sought his own chamber once more, and set his candle on a table. He had disengaged his arm from the sling, and he used his right hand as though it did not hurt him. He approached his bed, and his eyes rested, was it by chance? was it intentionally? on the inseparable of which Cosette had been jealous, on the little portmanteau which never left him. On his arrival in the Rue de l'Homme Arm, on the th of June, he had deposited it on a round table near the head of his bed. He went to this table with a sort of vivacity, took a key from his pocket, and opened the valise. From it he slowly drew forth the garments in which, ten years before, Cosette had quitted Montfermeil first the little gown, then the black fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette might almost have worn still, so tiny were her feet, then the fustian bodice, which was very thick, then the knitted petticoat, next the apron with pockets, then the woollen stockings. These stockings, which still preserved the graceful form of a tiny leg, were no longer than Jean Valjean's hand. All this was black of hue. It was he who had brought those garments to Montfermeil for her. As he removed them from the valise, he laid them on the bed. He fell to thinking. He called up memories. It was in winter, in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, halfnaked, in rags, her poor little feet were all red in their wooden shoes. He, Jean Valjean, had made her abandon those rags to clothe herself in these mourning habiliments. The mother must have felt pleased in her grave, to see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and, above all, to see that she was properly clothed, and that she was warm. He thought of that forest of Montfermeil they had traversed it together, Cosette and he he thought of what the weather had been, of the leafless trees, of the wood destitute of birds, of the sunless sky it mattered not, it was charming. He arranged the tiny garments on the bed, the fichu next to the petticoat, the stockings beside the shoes, and he looked at them, one after the other. She was no taller than that, she had her big doll in her arms, she had put her louis d'or in the pocket of that apron, she had laughed, they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but him. Then his venerable, white head fell forward on the bed, that stoical old heart broke, his face was engulfed, so to speak, in Cosette's garments, and if any one had passed up the stairs at that moment, he would have heard frightful sobs. The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so many phases, began once more. Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness, and struggling desperately against it! Unheardof conflict! At certain moments the foot slips at other moments the ground crumbles away underfoot. How many times had that conscience, mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him! How many times had the truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast! How many times, hurled to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy! How many times had that implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind! How many times had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his conscience, again overthrown by it! How many times, after an equivoque, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear 'A trip! you wretch! How many times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, under the evidence of duty! Resistance to God. Funereal sweats. What secret wounds which he alone felt bleed! What excoriations in his lamentable existence! How many times he had risen bleeding, bruised, broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul! and, vanquished, he had felt himself the conqueror. And, after having dislocated, broken, and rent his conscience with redhot pincers, it had said to him, as it stood over him, formidable, luminous, and tranquil 'Now, go in peace! But on emerging from so melancholy a conflict, what a lugubrious peace, alas! Nevertheless, that night Jean Valjean felt that he was passing through his final combat. A heartrending question presented itself. Predestinations are not all direct they do not open out in a straight avenue before the predestined man they have blind courts, impassable alleys, obscure turns, disturbing crossroads offering the choice of many ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of these crossroads. He had come to the supreme crossing of good and evil. He had that gloomy intersection beneath his eyes. On this occasion once more, as had happened to him already in other sad vicissitudes, two roads opened out before him, the one tempting, the other alarming. Which was he to take? He was counselled to the one which alarmed him by that mysterious index finger which we all perceive whenever we fix our eyes on the darkness. Once more, Jean Valjean had the choice between the terrible port and the smiling ambush. Is it then true? the soul may recover but not fate. Frightful thing! an incurable destiny! This is the problem which presented itself to him In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness of Cosette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness, it was he who had brought it about he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, and at that moment, when he reflected on it, he was able to enjoy the sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it, all smoking, from his own breast. Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette. They had everything, even riches. And this was his doing. But what was he, Jean Valjean, to do with this happiness, now that it existed, now that it was there? Should he force himself on this happiness? Should he treat it as belonging to him? No doubt, Cosette did belong to another but should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cosette all that he could retain? Should he remain the sort of father, half seen but respected, which he had hitherto been? Should he, without saying a word, bring his past to that future? Should he present himself there, as though he had a right, and should he seat himself, veiled, at that luminous fireside? Should he take those innocent hands into his tragic hands, with a smile? Should he place upon the peaceful fender of the Gillenormand drawingroom those feet of his, which dragged behind them the disgraceful shadow of the law? Should he enter into participation in the fair fortunes of Cosette and Marius? Should he render the obscurity on his brow and the cloud upon theirs still more dense? Should he place his catastrophe as a third associate in their felicity? Should he continue to hold his peace? In a word, should he be the sinister mute of destiny beside these two happy beings? We must have become habituated to fatality and to encounters with it, in order to have the daring to raise our eyes when certain questions appear to us in all their horrible nakedness. Good or evil stands behind this severe interrogation point. What are you going to do? demands the sphinx. This habit of trial Jean Valjean possessed. He gazed intently at the sphinx. He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. Cosette, that charming existence, was the raft of this shipwreck. What was he to do? To cling fast to it, or to let go his hold? If he clung to it, he should emerge from disaster, he should ascend again into the sunlight, he should let the bitter water drip from his garments and his hair, he was saved, he should live. And if he let go his hold? Then the abyss. Thus he took sad council with his thoughts. Or, to speak more correctly, he fought he kicked furiously internally, now against his will, now against his conviction. Happily for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep. That relieved him, possibly. But the beginning was savage. A tempest, more furious than the one which had formerly driven him to Arras, broke loose within him. The past surged up before him facing the present he compared them and sobbed. The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man writhed. He felt that he had been stopped short. Alas! in this fight to the death between our egotism and our duty, when we thus retreat step by step before our immutable ideal, bewildered, furious, exasperated at having to yield, disputing the ground, hoping for a possible flight, seeking an escape, what an abrupt and sinister resistance does the foot of the wall offer in our rear! To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle! The invisible inexorable, what an obsession! Then, one is never done with conscience. Make your choice, Brutus make your choice, Cato. It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into that well the labor of one's whole life, one flings in one's fortune, one flings in one's riches, one flings in one's success, one flings in one's liberty or fatherland, one flings in one's wellbeing, one flings in one's repose, one flings in one's joy! More! more! more! Empty the vase! tip the urn! One must finish by flinging in one's heart. Somewhere in the fog of the ancient hells, there is a tun like that. Is not one pardonable, if one at last refuses! Can the inexhaustible have any right? Are not chains which are endless above human strength? Who would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying 'It is enough! The obedience of matter is limited by friction is there no limit to the obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion is impossible, can perpetual selfsacrifice be exacted? The first step is nothing, it is the last which is difficult. What was the Champmathieu affair in comparison with Cosette's marriage and of that which it entailed? What is a reentrance into the galleys, compared to entrance into the void? Oh, first step that must be descended, how sombre art thou! Oh, second step, how black art thou! How could he refrain from turning aside his head this time? Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation. It is a torture which consecrates. One can consent to it for the first hour one seats oneself on the throne of glowing iron, one places on one's head the crown of hot iron, one accepts the globe of red hot iron, one takes the sceptre of red hot iron, but the mantle of flame still remains to be donned, and comes there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and when one abdicates from suffering? At length, Jean Valjean entered into the peace of exhaustion. He weighed, he reflected, he considered the alternatives, the mysterious balance of light and darkness. Should he impose his galleys on those two dazzling children, or should he consummate his irremediable engulfment by himself? On one side lay the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other that of himself. At what solution should he arrive? What decision did he come to? What resolution did he take? What was his own inward definitive response to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality? What door did he decide to open? Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning? Among all the unfathomable precipices which surrounded him, which was his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of the gulfs did he nod his head? His dizzy reverie lasted all night long. He remained there until daylight, in the same attitude, bent double over that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, alas! with clenched fists, with arms outspread at right angles, like a man crucified who has been unnailed, and flung face down on the earth. There he remained for twelve hours, the twelve long hours of a long winter's night, icecold, without once raising his head, and without uttering a word. He was as motionless as a corpse, while his thoughts wallowed on the earth and soared, now like the hydra, now like the eagle. Any one to behold him thus motionless would have pronounced him dead all at once he shuddered convulsively, and his mouth, glued to Cosette's garments, kissed them then it could be seen that he was alive. Who could see? Since Jean Valjean was alone, and there was no one there. The One who is in the shadows. The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on. On the morning of the th of February, it was a little past midday when Basque, with napkin and featherduster under his arm, busy in setting his antechamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door. There had been no ring, which was discreet on such a day. Basque opened the door, and beheld M. Fauchelevent. He introduced him into the drawingroom, still encumbered and topsyturvy, and which bore the air of a field of battle after the joys of the preceding evening. 'Dame, sir, remarked Basque, 'we all woke up late. 'Is your master up? asked Jean Valjean. 'How is Monsieur's arm? replied Basque. 'Better. Is your master up? 'Which one? the old one or the new one? 'Monsieur Pontmercy. 'Monsieur le Baron, said Basque, drawing himself up. A man is a Baron most of all to his servants. He counts for something with them they are what a philosopher would call, bespattered with the title, and that flatters them. Marius, be it said in passing, a militant republican as he had proved, was now a Baron in spite of himself. A small revolution had taken place in the family in connection with this title. It was now M. Gillenormand who clung to it, and Marius who detached himself from it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written 'My son will bear my title. Marius obeyed. And then, Cosette, in whom the woman was beginning to dawn, was delighted to be a Baroness. 'Monsieur le Baron? repeated Basque. 'I will go and see. I will tell him that M. Fauchelevent is here. 'No. Do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that some one wishes to speak to him in private, and mention no name. 'Ah! ejaculated Basque. 'I wish to surprise him. 'Ah! ejaculated Basque once more, emitting his second 'ah! as an explanation of the first. And he left the room. Jean Valjean remained alone. The drawingroom, as we have just said, was in great disorder. It seemed as though, by lending an ear, one might still hear the vague noise of the wedding. On the polished floor lay all sorts of flowers which had fallen from garlands and headdresses. The wax candles, burned to stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the chandeliers. Not a single piece of furniture was in its place. In the corners, three or four armchairs, drawn close together in a circle, had the appearance of continuing a conversation. The whole effect was cheerful. A certain grace still lingers round a dead feast. It has been a happy thing. On the chairs in disarray, among those fading flowers, beneath those extinct lights, people have thought of joy. The sun had succeeded to the chandelier, and made its way gayly into the drawingroom. Several minutes elapsed. Jean Valjean stood motionless on the spot where Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and so sunken in his head by sleeplessness that they nearly disappeared in their orbits. His black coat bore the weary folds of a garment that has been up all night. The elbows were whitened with the down which the friction of cloth against linen leaves behind it. Jean Valjean stared at the window outlined on the polished floor at his feet by the sun. There came a sound at the door, and he raised his eyes. Marius entered, his head well up, his mouth smiling, an indescribable light on his countenance, his brow expanded, his eyes triumphant. He had not slept either. 'It is you, father! he exclaimed, on catching sight of Jean Valjean 'that idiot of a Basque had such a mysterious air! But you have come too early. It is only half past twelve. Cosette is asleep. That word 'Father, said to M. Fauchelevent by Marius, signified supreme felicity. There had always existed, as the reader knows, a lofty wall, a coldness and a constraint between them ice which must be broken or melted. Marius had reached that point of intoxication when the wall was lowered, when the ice dissolved, and when M. Fauchelevent was to him, as to Cosette, a father. He continued his words poured forth, as is the peculiarity of divine paroxysms of joy. 'How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday! Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not? And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had made to himself, he pursued 'We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you so dearly! You must not forget that you have a chamber here, We want nothing more to do with the Rue de l'Homme Arm. We will have no more of it at all. How could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is disagreeable, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where one is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install yourself here. And this very day. Or you will have to deal with Cosette. She means to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have your own chamber here, it is close to ours, it opens on the garden the trouble with the clock has been attended to, the bed is made, it is all ready, you have only to take possession of it. Near your bed Cosette has placed a huge, old, easychair covered with Utrecht velvet and she has said to it 'Stretch out your arms to him.' A nightingale comes to the clump of acacias opposite your windows, every spring. In two months more you will have it. You will have its nest on your left and ours on your right. By night it will sing, and by day Cosette will prattle. Your chamber faces due South. Cosette will arrange your books for you, your Voyages of Captain Cook and the other,Vancouver's and all your affairs. I believe that there is a little valise to which you are attached, I have fixed upon a corner of honor for that. You have conquered my grandfather, you suit him. We will live together. Do you play whist? you will overwhelm my grandfather with delight if you play whist. It is you who shall take Cosette to walk on the days when I am at the courts, you shall give her your arm, you know, as you used to, in the Luxembourg. We are absolutely resolved to be happy. And you shall be included in it, in our happiness, do you hear, father? Come, will you breakfast with us today? 'Sir, said Jean Valjean, 'I have something to say to you. I am an exconvict. The limit of shrill sounds perceptible can be overleaped, as well in the case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words 'I am an exconvict, proceeding from the mouth of M. Fauchelevent and entering the ear of Marius overshot the possible. It seemed to him that something had just been said to him but he did not know what. He stood with his mouth wide open. Then he perceived that the man who was addressing him was frightful. Wholly absorbed in his own dazzled state, he had not, up to that moment, observed the other man's terrible pallor. Jean Valjean untied the black cravat which supported his right arm, unrolled the linen from around his hand, bared his thumb and showed it to Marius. 'There is nothing the matter with my hand, said he. Marius looked at the thumb. 'There has not been anything the matter with it, went on Jean Valjean. There was, in fact, no trace of any injury. Jean Valjean continued 'It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing. Marius stammered. 'What is the meaning of this? 'The meaning of it is, replied Jean Valjean, 'that I have been in the galleys. 'You are driving me mad! exclaimed Marius in terror. 'Monsieur Pontmercy, said Jean Valjean, 'I was nineteen years in the galleys. For theft. Then, I was condemned for life for theft, for a second offence. At the present moment, I have broken my ban. In vain did Marius recoil before the reality, refuse the fact, resist the evidence, he was forced to give way. He began to understand, and, as always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward shudder of hideous enlightenment flashed through him an idea which made him quiver traversed his mind. He caught a glimpse of a wretched destiny for himself in the future. 'Say all, say all! he cried. 'You are Cosette's father! And he retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable horror. Jean Valjean elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he seemed to grow even to the ceiling. 'It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir although our oath to others may not be received in law . . . Here he paused, then, with a sort of sovereign and sepulchral authority, he added, articulating slowly, and emphasizing the syllables '. . . You will believe me. I the father of Cosette! before God, no. Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy, I am a peasant of Faverolles. I earned my living by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean. I am not related to Cosette. Reassure yourself. Marius stammered 'Who will prove that to me? 'I. Since I tell you so. Marius looked at the man. He was melancholy yet tranquil. No lie could proceed from such a calm. That which is icy is sincere. The truth could be felt in that chill of the tomb. 'I believe you, said Marius. Jean Valjean bent his head, as though taking note of this, and continued 'What am I to Cosette? A passerby. Ten years ago, I did not know that she was in existence. I love her, it is true. One loves a child whom one has seen when very young, being old oneself. When one is old, one feels oneself a grandfather towards all little children. You may, it seems to me, suppose that I have something which resembles a heart. She was an orphan. Without either father or mother. She needed me. That is why I began to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer, even a man like me, can become their protector. I have fulfilled this duty towards Cosette. I do not think that so slight a thing can be called a good action but if it be a good action, well, say that I have done it. Register this attenuating circumstance. Today, Cosette passes out of my life our two roads part. Henceforth, I can do nothing for her. She is Madame Pontmercy. Her providence has changed. And Cosette gains by the change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you do not mention them to me, but I forestall your thought, they are a deposit. How did that deposit come into my hands? What does that matter? I restore the deposit. Nothing more can be demanded of me. I complete the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a reason for desiring that you should know who I am. And Jean Valjean looked Marius full in the face. All that Marius experienced was tumultuous and incoherent. Certain gusts of destiny produce these billows in our souls. We have all undergone moments of trouble in which everything within us is dispersed we say the first things that occur to us, which are not always precisely those which should be said. There are sudden revelations which one cannot bear, and which intoxicate like baleful wine. Marius was stupefied by the novel situation which presented itself to him, to the point of addressing that man almost like a person who was angry with him for this avowal. 'But why, he exclaimed, 'do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither denounced, nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantonly making such a revelation. Conclude. There is something more. In what connection do you make this confession? What is your motive? 'My motive? replied Jean Valjean in a voice so low and dull that one would have said that he was talking to himself rather than to Marius. 'From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said 'I am a convict'? Well, yes! the motive is strange. It is out of honesty. Stay, the unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly solid. All life falls in ruin around one one resists. Had I been able to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away there are diligences in the Rue Bouloy you are happy I am going. I have tried to break that thread, I have jerked at it, it would not break, I tore my heart with it. Then I said 'I cannot live anywhere else than here.' I must stay. Well, yes, you are right, I am a fool, why not simply remain here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is sincerely attached to me, she said to the armchair 'Stretch out your arms to him,' your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me, I suit him, we shall live together, and take our meals in common, I shall give Cosette my arm . . . Madame Pontmercy, excuse me, it is a habit, we shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimneycorner in winter, the same promenade in summer, that is joy, that is happiness, that is everything. We shall live as one family. One family! At that word, Jean Valjean became wild. He folded his arms, glared at the floor beneath his feet as though he would have excavated an abyss therein, and his voice suddenly rose in thundering tones 'As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch I am left outside. Did I have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it was well, I said to myself 'Enter thou not.' I could have lied, it is true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. So long as it was for her, I could lie but now it would be for myself, and I must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing my conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however. I passed the night in trying to persuade myself to it you questioned me, and what I have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do it well, yes, I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself, and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there are two things in which I have not succeeded in breaking the thread that holds me fixed, riveted and sealed here by the heart, or in silencing some one who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only myself I keep that to myself. You know the essential points. So I have taken my mystery and have brought it to you. And I have disembowelled my secret before your eyes. It was not a resolution that was easy to take. I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one's way, that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must be content. Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus I should have concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your expansion, I should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full noonday, I should have had shadows, thus, without crying ''ware,' I should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who I was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said 'How horrible!' I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable white locks and tainted white locks at your most intimate hours, when all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed of men I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have committed that crime every day! And I should have had that face of night upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved, my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is it nothing to hold one's peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple. There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at midday, and my 'good morning' would have lied, and my 'good night' would have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why should I do it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the right to be happy? I stand outside of life, sir. Jean Valjean paused. Marius listened. Such chains of ideas and of anguishes cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice once more, but it was no longer a dull voiceit was a sinister voice. 'You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds oneself, one is firmly held. And, seizing a handful of his own coat by the nape of the neck and extending it towards Marius 'Do you see that fist? he continued. 'Don't you think that it holds that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well! conscience is another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never understand duty for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is implacable. One would say that it punished you for comprehending it but no, it rewards you for it places you in a hell, where you feel God beside you. One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at peace with himself. And, with a poignant accent, he added 'Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man. It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own. This has happened to me once before, but it was less painful then it was a mere nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be so if, through my fault, you had continued to esteem me now that you despise me, I am so. I have that fatality hanging over me that, not being able to ever have anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, and crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself, it is necessary that I should be despised. Then I straighten up again. I am a galleyslave who obeys his conscience. I know well that that is most improbable. But what would you have me do about it? it is the fact. I have entered into engagements with myself I keep them. There are encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in duties. You see, Monsieur Pontmercy, various things have happened to me in the course of my life. Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as though his words had a bitter aftertaste, and then he went on 'When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to make them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it, one has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them, one has no right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. It is hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark with one's ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his name, I have no right to use it he could give it to me, but I could not take it. A name is an I. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I have read a little, although I am a peasant and you see that I express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous within the I, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have just told you all this. Wantonly, as you say. He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word 'In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live today, in order to live, I will not steal a name. 'To live! interrupted Marius. 'You do not need that name in order to live? 'Ah! I understand the matter, said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering his head several times in succession. A silence ensued. Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was pacing to and fro. He paused before a mirror, and remained motionless. Then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said, as he gazed at the mirror, which he did not see 'While, at present, I am relieved. He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the drawingroom. At the moment when he turned round, he perceived that Marius was watching his walk. Then he said, with an inexpressible intonation 'I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why! Then he turned fully round towards Marius 'And now, sir, imagine this I have said nothing, I have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have taken my place in your house, I am one of you, I am in my chamber, I come to breakfast in the morning in slippers, in the evening all three of us go to the play, I accompany Madame Pontmercy to the Tuileries, and to the Place Royale, we are together, you think me your equal one fine day you are there, and I am there, we are conversing, we are laughing all at once, you hear a voice shouting this name 'Jean Valjean!' and behold, that terrible hand, the police, darts from the darkness, and abruptly tears off my mask! Again he paused Marius had sprung to his feet with a shudder. Jean Valjean resumed 'What do you say to that? Marius' silence answered for him. Jean Valjean continued 'You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be in heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth you have before you, sir, a wretched man. Marius slowly crossed the room, and, when he was quite close to Jean Valjean, he offered the latter his hand. But Marius was obliged to step up and take that hand which was not offered, Jean Valjean let him have his own way, and it seemed to Marius that he pressed a hand of marble. 'My grandfather has friends, said Marius 'I will procure your pardon. 'It is useless, replied Jean Valjean. 'I am believed to be dead, and that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon. And, disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added, with a sort of inexorable dignity 'Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience. At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawingroom opened gently half way, and in the opening Cosette's head appeared. They saw only her sweet face, her hair was in charming disorder, her eyelids were still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at Jean Valjean, and cried to them with a smile, so that they seemed to behold a smile at the heart of a rose 'I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me! Jean Valjean shuddered. 'Cosette! . . . stammered Marius. And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals. Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them. There was something in her eyes like gleams of paradise. 'I have caught you in the very act, said Cosette. 'Just now, I heard my father Fauchelevent through the door saying 'Conscience . . . doing my duty . . .' That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right. 'You are mistaken. Cosette, said Marius, 'we are talking business. We are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs . . . 'That is not it at all, interrupted Cosette. 'I am coming. Does anybody want me here? And, passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawingroom. She was dressed in a voluminous white dressinggown, with a thousand folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet. In the golden heavens of some ancient gothic pictures, there are these charming sacks fit to clothe the angels. She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror, then exclaimed, in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy 'There was once a King and a Queen. Oh! how happy I am! That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean. 'There, said she, 'I am going to install myself near you in an easychair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good. Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her 'We are talking business. 'By the way, said Cosette, 'I have opened my window, a flock of pierrots has arrived in the garden,Birds, not maskers. Today is AshWednesday but not for the birds. 'I tell you that we are talking business, go, my little Cosette, leave us alone for a moment. We are talking figures. That will bore you. 'You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius. You are very dandified, monseigneur. No, it will not bore me. 'I assure you that it will bore you. 'No. Since it is you. I shall not understand you, but I shall listen to you. When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not need to understand the words that they utter. That we should be here togetherthat is all that I desire. I shall remain with you, bah! 'You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible. 'Impossible! 'Yes. 'Very good, said Cosette. 'I was going to tell you some news. I could have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is at mass, that the chimney in my father Fauchelevent's room smokes, that Nicolette has sent for the chimneysweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint's stammer. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible? you shall see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say It is impossible. Then who will be caught? I beseech you, my little Marius, let me stay here with you two. 'I swear to you, that it is indispensable that we should be alone. 'Well, am I anybody? Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. Cosette turned to him 'In the first place, father, I want you to come and embrace me. What do you mean by not saying anything instead of taking my part? who gave me such a father as that? You must perceive that my family life is very unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly. Jean Valjean approached. Cosette turned toward Marius. 'As for you, I shall make a face at you. Then she presented her brow to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean advanced a step toward her. Cosette recoiled. 'Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you? 'It is well, said Jean Valjean. 'Did you sleep badly? 'No. 'Are you sad? 'No. 'Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content, I will not scold you. And again she offered him her brow. Jean Valjean dropped a kiss upon that brow whereon rested a celestial gleam. 'Smile. Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre. 'Now, defend me against my husband. 'Cosette! . . . ejaculated Marius. 'Get angry, father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before me. So you think me very silly. What you say is astonishing! business, placing money in a bank a great matter truly. Men make mysteries out of nothing. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius. And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders, and an indescribably exquisite pout, she glanced at Marius. 'I love you! said Marius. 'I adore you! said Cosette. And they fell irresistibly into each other's arms. 'Now, said Cosette, adjusting a fold of her dressinggown, with a triumphant little grimace, 'I shall stay. 'No, not that, said Marius, in a supplicating tone. 'We have to finish something. 'Still no? Marius assumed a grave tone 'I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible. 'Ah! you put on your man's voice, sir. That is well, I go. You, father, have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to be bored without me. I am going, it is well. And she left the room. Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them 'I am very angry indeed. The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more. It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the night, without itself being conscious of it. Marius made sure that the door was securely closed. 'Poor Cosette! he murmured, 'when she finds out . . . At that word Jean Valjean trembled in every limb. He fixed on Marius a bewildered eye. 'Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this. That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength for one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir, give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell her. Is it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the whole world,it was all one to me. But she, she does not know what it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should be obliged to explain matters to her, to say to her 'He is a man who has been in the galleys.' She saw the chaingang pass by one day. Oh! My God! . . . He dropped into an armchair and hid his face in his hands. His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders it was evident that he was weeping. Silent tears, terrible tears. There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths 'Oh! would that I could die! 'Be at your ease, said Marius, 'I will keep your secret for myself alone. And, less touched, perhaps, than he ought to have been, but forced, for the last hour, to familiarize himself with something as unexpected as it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict superposed before his very eyes, upon M. Fauchelevent, overcome, little by little, by that lugubrious reality, and led, by the natural inclination of the situation, to recognize the space which had just been placed between that man and himself, Marius added 'It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted. That is an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on you. Fix the sum yourself, it shall be counted out to you. Do not fear to set it very high. 'I thank you, sir, replied Jean Valjean, gently. He remained in thought for a moment, mechanically passing the tip of his forefinger across his thumbnail, then he lifted up his voice 'All is nearly over. But one last thing remains for me . . . 'What is it? Jean Valjean struggled with what seemed a last hesitation, and, without voice, without breath, he stammered rather than said 'Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I ought not to see Cosette any more? 'I think that would be better, replied Marius coldly. 'I shall never see her more, murmured Jean Valjean. And he directed his steps towards the door. He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for a second, then closed the door again and turned to Marius. He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer any tears in his eyes, but only a sort of tragic flame. His voice had regained a strange composure. 'Stay, sir, he said. 'If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette, I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should have gone away but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly. You follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood. You see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived first in that hut on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the Luxembourg. That was where you saw her for the first time. You remember her blue plush hat. Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where there was a railing on a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back courtyard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, but to go away now, never to see her again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything, would be hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see Cosette from time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain long. You shall give orders that I am to be received in the little waitingroom. On the ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that might create surprise perhaps, and it would be better, I think, for me to enter by the usual door. Truly, sir, I should like to see a little more of Cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, I have nothing left but that. And then, we must be cautious. If I no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect, it would be considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is to come in the afternoon, when night is beginning to fall. 'You shall come every evening, said Marius, 'and Cosette will be waiting for you. 'You are kind, sir, said Jean Valjean. Marius saluted Jean Valjean, happiness escorted despair to the door, and these two men parted. Marius was quite upset. The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man beside whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something enigmatic about that person, of which his instinct had warned him. This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This M. Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean. To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette thenceforth condemned to such a neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of that man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be done? Had Marius wedded the convict as well? In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste the grand purple hour of life, happy love, such shocks would force even the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory, to shudder. As is always the case in changes of view of this nature, Marius asked himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Had he been wanting in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he entered upon this love affair, which had ended in his marriage to Cosette, without taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He admitted,it is thus, by a series of successive admissions of ourselves in regard to ourselves, that life amends us, little by little,he admitted the chimerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which, in paroxysms of passion and sorrow, dilates as the temperature of the soul changes, and invades the entire man, to such a degree as to render him nothing more than a conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once indicated this characteristic element of Marius' individuality. He recalled that, in the intoxication of his love, in the Rue Plumet, during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoken to Cosette of that drama in the Gorbeau hovel, where the victim had taken up such a singular line of silence during the struggle and the ensuing flight. How had it happened that he had not mentioned this to Cosette? Yet it was so near and so terrible! How had it come to pass that he had not even named the Thnardiers, and, particularly, on the day when he had encountered ponine? He now found it almost difficult to explain his silence of that time. Nevertheless, he could account for it. He recalled his benumbed state, his intoxication with Cosette, love absorbing everything, that catching away of each other into the ideal, and perhaps also, like the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled with this violent and charming state of the soul, a vague, dull instinct impelling him to conceal and abolish in his memory that redoubtable adventure, contact with which he dreaded, in which he did not wish to play any part, his agency in which he had kept secret, and in which he could be neither narrator nor witness without being an accuser. Moreover, these few weeks had been a flash of lightning there had been no time for anything except love. In short, having weighed everything, turned everything over in his mind, examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he had told Cosette about the Gorbeau ambush, even if he had discovered that Jean Valjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius? Would that have changed her, Cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would he have adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying her? No. Then there was nothing to regret, nothing with which he need reproach himself. All was well. There is a deity for those drunken men who are called lovers. Marius blind, had followed the path which he would have chosen had he been in full possession of his sight. Love had bandaged his eyes, in order to lead him whither? To paradise. But this paradise was henceforth complicated with an infernal accompaniment. Marius' ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this Fauchelevent who had turned into Jean Valjean, was at present mingled with horror. In this horror, let us state, there was some pity, and even a certain surprise. This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored that deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs. He alone was in the secret of that deposit. He might have kept it all, he had restored it all. Moreover, he had himself revealed his situation. Nothing forced him to this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself. In this avowal there was something more than acceptance of humiliation, there was acceptance of peril. For a condemned man, a mask is not a mask, it is a shelter. A false name is security, and he had rejected that false name. He, the galleyslave, might have hidden himself forever in an honest family he had withstood this temptation. And with what motive? Through a conscientious scruple. He himself explained this with the irresistible accents of truth. In short, whatever this Jean Valjean might be, he was, undoubtedly, a conscience which was awakening. There existed some mysterious rehabilitation which had begun and, to all appearances, scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. Such fits of justice and goodness are not characteristic of vulgar natures. An awakening of conscience is grandeur of soul. Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable, irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it caused him, rendered inquiries useless, and conferred authority on all that that man had said. Here, for Marius, there was a strange reversal of situations. What breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire? confidence. In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive Marius struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive principle, and he tried to reach a balance. But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, in the depths of his thought, lost him and found him again in a fatal mist. The deposit honestly restored, the probity of the confessionthese were good. This produced a lightening of the cloud, then the cloud became black once more. Troubled as were Marius' memories, a shadow of them returned to him. After all, what was that adventure in the Jondrette attic? Why had that man taken to flight on the arrival of the police, instead of entering a complaint? Here Marius found the answer. Because that man was a fugitive from justice, who had broken his ban. Another question Why had that man come to the barricade? For Marius now once more distinctly beheld that recollection which had reappeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink at the application of heat. This man had been in the barricade. He had not fought there. What had he come there for? In the presence of this question a spectre sprang up and replied 'Javert. Marius recalled perfectly now that funereal sight of Jean Valjean dragging the pinioned Javert out of the barricade, and he still heard behind the corner of the little Rue Mondtour that frightful pistol shot. Obviously, there was hatred between that police spy and the galleyslave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean had gone to the barricade for the purpose of revenging himself. He had arrived late. He probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there. The Corsican vendetta has penetrated to certain lower strata and has become the law there it is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are but half turned towards good and those hearts are so constituted that a criminal, who is in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in the matter of theft and unscrupulous in the matter of vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed Javert. At least, that seemed to be evident. This was the final question, to be sure but to this there was no reply. This question Marius felt like pincers. How had it come to pass that Jean Valjean's existence had elbowed that of Cosette for so long a period? What melancholy sport of Providence was that which had placed that child in contact with that man? Are there then chains for two which are forged on high? and does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with the demon? So a crime and an innocence can be roommates in the mysterious galleys of wretchedness? In that defiling of condemned persons which is called human destiny, can two brows pass side by side, the one ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the divine whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemished by the flash of an eternal lightning? Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any community of life been established between this celestial little creature and that old criminal? Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what was still more incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved the lamb, for the fierce creature adored the feeble one, for, during the space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her point of support. Cosette's childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight, her virginal growth towards life and light, had been sheltered by that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottoms of abysses, and Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. What was this manprecipice? The old symbols of Genesis are eternal in human society, such as it now exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there will always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean the one which is according to good is Abel the other which is according to evil is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this ruffian religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, rearing her, guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping her, impure as he was himself, with purity? What was that cesspool which had venerated that innocence to such a point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean Valjean educating Cosette? What was this figure of the shadows which had for its only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every shadow and from every cloud? That was Jean Valjean's secret that was also God's secret. In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one, in some sort, reassured him as to the other. God was as visible in this affair as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He makes use of the tool which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how God sets about the work? Jean Valjean had labored over Cosette. He had, to some extent, made that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what then? The workman was horrible but the work was admirable. God produces his miracles as seems good to him. He had constructed that charming Cosette, and he had employed Jean Valjean. It had pleased him to choose this strange collaborator for himself. What account have we to demand of him? Is this the first time that the dungheap has aided the spring to create the rose? Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he did not dare to do it. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette, Cosette was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He had everything what more could he desire? All,is not that enough? Jean Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him. And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast, convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch 'I am nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in existence. Jean Valjean was a passerby. He had said so himself. Well, he had passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished. Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence to Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her lover, her husband, her celestial male. Cosette, as she took her flight, winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her hideous and empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean. In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we have just pointed out, he felt a quid divinum in that man. But do what he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly forced to fall back upon this the man was a convict that is to say, a being who has not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower than the very lowest rung. After the very last of men comes the convict. The convict is no longer, so to speak, in the semblance of the living. The law has deprived him of the entire quantity of humanity of which it can deprive a man. Marius, on penal questions, still held to the inexorable system, though he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the law on the subject of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet accomplished all progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that which is written by man and that which is written by God, between law and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man takes to dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He was not shocked by the word vindicte. He found it quite simple that certain breaches of the written law should be followed by eternal suffering, and he accepted, as the process of civilization, social damnation. He still stood at this point, though safe to advance infallibly later on, since his nature was good, and, at bottom, wholly formed of latent progress. In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and repulsive. He was a man reproved, he was the convict. That word was for him like the sound of the trump on the Day of Judgment and, after having reflected upon Jean Valjean for a long time, his final gesture had been to turn away his head. Vade retro. Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fact, while interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean had said 'You are confessing me, had not, nevertheless, put to him two or three decisive questions. It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that he had been afraid of them. The Jondrette attic? The barricade? Javert? Who knows where these revelations would have stopped? Jean Valjean did not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius, after having urged him on, would not have himself desired to hold him back? Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to stop our ears in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way to these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side of our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light might have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean, and who knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as far as Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal glow would not have lingered behind it on the brow of that angel? The spattering of a lightningflash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture where innocence itself is stamped with crime by the gloomy law of the reflections which give color. The purest figures may forever preserve the reflection of a horrible association. Rightly or wrongly, Marius had been afraid. He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses rather than to gain further light. In dismay he bore off Cosette in his arms and shut his eyes to Jean Valjean. That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing to interrogate the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened forever by it. In this state of mind the thought that that man would, henceforth, come into any contact whatever with Cosette was a heartrending perplexity to Marius. He now almost reproached himself for not having put those formidable questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable and definitive decision might have sprung. He felt that he was too good, too gentle, too weak, if we must say the word. This weakness had led him to an imprudent concession. He had allowed himself to be touched. He had been in the wrong. He ought to have simply and purely rejected Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean played the part of fire, and that is what he should have done, and have freed his house from that man. He was vexed with himself, he was angry with that whirlwind of emotions which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away. He was displeased with himself. What was he to do now? Jean Valjean's visits were profoundly repugnant to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did the man want? Here, he became dismayed, he did not wish to dig down, he did not wish to penetrate deeply he did not wish to sound himself. He had promised, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a promise Jean Valjean held his promise one must keep one's word even to a convict, above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to Cosette. In short, he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him. Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind, passing from one to the other, and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound trouble. It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from Cosette, but love is a talent, and Marius succeeded in doing it. However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as candid as a dove is white and who suspected nothing he talked of her childhood and her youth, and he became more and more convinced that that convict had been everything good, paternal and respectable that a man can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and protected that lily. On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he had received his orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a servant 'You will watch for Mr. So and So, when he arrives. Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to approach him 'Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires to go upstairs or to remain below? 'I will remain below, replied Jean Valjean. Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the waitingroom and said 'I will go and inform Madame. The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the ground floor, which served as a cellar on occasion, which opened on the street, was paved with red squares and was badly lighted by a grated window. This chamber was not one of those which are harassed by the featherduster, the pope's head brush, and the broom. The dust rested tranquilly there. Persecution of the spiders was not organized there. A fine web, which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented with dead flies, formed a wheel on one of the windowpanes. The room, which was small and lowceiled, was furnished with a heap of empty bottles piled up in one corner. The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off in large flakes. At one end there was a chimneypiece painted in black with a narrow shelf. A fire was burning there which indicated that Jean Valjean's reply 'I will remain below, had been foreseen. Two armchairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between the chairs an old bedside rug, which displayed more foundation thread than wool, had been spread by way of a carpet. The chamber was lighted by the fire on the hearth and the twilight falling through the window. Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He threw himself into one of the armchairs. Basque returned, set a lighted candle on the chimneypiece and retired. Jean Valjean, his head drooping and his chin resting on his breast, perceived neither Basque nor the candle. All at once, he drew himself up with a start. Cosette was standing beside him. He had not seen her enter, but he had felt that she was there. He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her soul. 'Well, exclaimed Cosette, 'father, I knew that you were peculiar, but I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that you wish me to receive you here. 'Yes, it is my wish. 'I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a scene for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father. And she offered him her cheek. Jean Valjean remained motionless. 'You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind, I pardon you. Jesus Christ said Offer the other cheek. Here it is. And she presented her other cheek. Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to the pavement. 'This is becoming serious, said Cosette. 'What have I done to you? I declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with us. 'I have dined. 'That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you. Grandfathers are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me to the drawingroom. Immediately. 'Impossible. Here Cosette lost ground a little. She ceased to command and passed to questioning. 'But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to see me. It's horrible here. 'Thou knowest . . . Jean Valjean caught himself up. 'You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks. Cosette struck her tiny hands together. 'Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of this? Jean Valjean directed upon her that heartrending smile to which he occasionally had recourse 'You wished to be Madame. You are so. 'Not for you, father. 'Do not call me father. 'What? 'Call me 'Monsieur Jean.' 'Jean,' if you like. 'You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? 'Monsieur Jean'? What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren't they? what has taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won't live with us! And you won't have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything happened? 'Nothing. 'Well then? 'Everything is as usual. 'Why do you change your name? 'You have changed yours, surely. He smiled again with the same smile as before and added 'Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean. 'I don't understand anything about it. All this is idiotic. I shall ask permission of my husband for you to be 'Monsieur Jean.' I hope that he will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does have freaks, but one does not cause one's little Cosette grief. That is wrong. You have no right to be wicked, you who are so good. He made no reply. She seized his hands with vivacity, and raising them to her face with an irresistible movement, she pressed them against her neck beneath her chin, which is a gesture of profound tenderness. 'Oh! she said to him, 'be good! And she went on 'This is what I call being good being nice and coming and living here,there are birds here as there are in the Rue Plumet,living with us, quitting that hole of a Rue de l'Homme Arm, not giving us riddles to guess, being like all the rest of the world, dining with us, breakfasting with us, being my father. He loosed her hands. 'You no longer need a father, you have a husband. Cosette became angry. 'I no longer need a father! One really does not know what to say to things like that, which are not common sense! 'If Toussaint were here, resumed Jean Valjean, like a person who is driven to seek authorities, and who clutches at every branch, 'she would be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my own. There is nothing new in this. I always have loved my black corner. 'But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say 'you' to me. 'Just now, as I was coming hither, replied Jean Valjean, 'I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinetmaker's. If I were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There are drawers. It is pretty. 'Hou! the villainous bear! replied Cosette. And with supreme grace, setting her teeth and drawing back her lips, she blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat. 'I am furious, she resumed. 'Ever since yesterday, you have made me rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don't understand. You do not defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my father Fauchelevent wants me to call him 'Monsieur Jean,' and to receive him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have beards, and where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the curtains are of spiders' webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to have begun being singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in your abominable Rue de l'Homme Arm. I was very desperate indeed there, that I was. What have you against me? You cause me a great deal of grief. Fi! And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and added 'Are you angry with me because I am happy? Ingenuousness sometimes unconsciously penetrates deep. This question, which was simple for Cosette, was profound for Jean Valjean. Cosette had meant to scratch, and she lacerated. Jean Valjean turned pale. He remained for a moment without replying, then, with an inexpressible intonation, and speaking to himself, he murmured 'Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my dismissal. Cosette, thou art happy my day is over. 'Ah, you have said thou to me! exclaimed Cosette. And she sprang to his neck. Jean Valjean, in bewilderment, strained her wildly to his breast. It almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back. 'Thanks, father! said Cosette. This enthusiastic impulse was on the point of becoming poignant for Jean Valjean. He gently removed Cosette's arms, and took his hat. 'Well? said Cosette. 'I leave you, Madame, they are waiting for you. And, from the threshold, he added 'I have said thou to you. Tell your husband that this shall not happen again. Pardon me. Jean Valjean quitted the room, leaving Cosette stupefied at this enigmatical farewell. On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came. Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawingroom, she avoided saying either 'father or 'Monsieur Jean. She allowed herself to be addressed as you. She allowed herself to be called Madame. Only, her joy had undergone a certain diminution. She would have been sad, if sadness had been possible to her. It is probable that she had had with Marius one of those conversations in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not extend very far beyond their own love. The lower room had made a little toilet. Basque had suppressed the bottles, and Nicolette the spiders. All the days which followed brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He came every day, because he had not the strength to take Marius' words otherwise than literally. Marius arranged matters so as to be absent at the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house grew accustomed to the novel ways of M. Fauchelevent. Toussaint helped in this direction 'Monsieur has always been like that, she repeated. The grandfather issued this decree'He's an original. And all was said. Moreover, at the age of ninetysix, no bond is any longer possible, all is merely juxtaposition a newcomer is in the way. There is no longer any room all habits are acquired. M. Fauchelevent, M. Tranchelevent, Father Gillenormand asked nothing better than to be relieved from 'that gentleman. He added'Nothing is more common than those originals. They do all sorts of queer things. They have no reason. The Marquis de Canaples was still worse. He bought a palace that he might lodge in the garret. These are fantastic appearances that people affect. No one caught a glimpse of the sinister foundation. And moreover, who could have guessed such a thing? There are marshes of this description in India. The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though there is no wind, and agitated where it should be calm. One gazes at the surface of these causeless ebullitions one does not perceive the hydra which crawls on the bottom. Many men have a secret monster in this same manner, a dragon which gnaws them, a despair which inhabits their night. Such a man resembles other men, he goes and comes. No one knows that he bears within him a frightful parasitic pain with a thousand teeth, which lives within the unhappy man, and of which he is dying. No one knows that this man is a gulf. He is stagnant but deep. From time to time, a trouble of which the onlooker understands nothing appears on his surface. A mysterious wrinkle is formed, then vanishes, then reappears an airbubble rises and bursts. It is the breathing of the unknown beast. Certain strange habits arriving at the hour when other people are taking their leave, keeping in the background when other people are displaying themselves, preserving on all occasions what may be designated as the wallcolored mantle, seeking the solitary walk, preferring the deserted street, avoiding any share in conversation, avoiding crowds and festivals, seeming at one's ease and living poorly, having one's key in one's pocket, and one's candle at the porter's lodge, however rich one may be, entering by the side door, ascending the private staircase,all these insignificant singularities, fugitive folds on the surface, often proceed from a formidable foundation. Many weeks passed in this manner. A new life gradually took possession of Cosette the relations which marriage creates, visits, the care of the house, pleasures, great matters. Cosette's pleasures were not costly, they consisted in one thing being with Marius. The great occupation of her life was to go out with him, to remain with him. It was for them a joy that was always fresh, to go out arm in arm, in the face of the sun, in the open street, without hiding themselves, before the whole world, both of them completely alone. Cosette had one vexation. Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette, the soldering of two elderly maids being impossible, and she went away. The grandfather was well Marius argued a case here and there Aunt Gillenormand peacefully led that life aside which sufficed for her, beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day. The address as thou disappeared, the you, the 'Madame, the 'Monsieur Jean, rendered him another person to Cosette. The care which he had himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became more and more gay and less and less tender. Yet she still loved him sincerely, and he felt it. One day she said to him suddenly 'You used to be my father, you are no longer my father, you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you were Monsieur Fauchelevent, you are Jean. Who are you then? I don't like all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of you. He still lived in the Rue de l'Homme Arm, because he could not make up his mind to remove to a distance from the quarter where Cosette dwelt. At first, he only remained a few minutes with Cosette, and then went away. Little by little he acquired the habit of making his visits less brief. One would have said that he was taking advantage of the authorization of the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed later. One day Cosette chanced to say 'father to him. A flash of joy illuminated Jean Valjean's melancholy old countenance. He caught her up 'Say Jean.'Ah! truly, she replied with a burst of laughter, 'Monsieur Jean.'That is right, said he. And he turned aside so that she might not see him wipe his eyes. This was the last time. After that last flash of light, complete extinction ensued. No more familiarity, no more goodmorning with a kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet 'My father! He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail. The eye eventually becomes accustomed to the light of a cellar. In short, it sufficed for him to have an apparition of Cosette every day. His whole life was concentrated in that one hour. He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he talked to her of years gone by, of her childhood, of the convent, of her little friends of those bygone days. One afternoon,it was on one of those early days in April, already warm and fresh, the moment of the sun's great gayety, the gardens which surrounded the windows of Marius and Cosette felt the emotion of waking, the hawthorn was on the point of budding, a jewelled garniture of gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned through the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the year were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand, auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,Marius said to Cosette'We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither. We must not be ungrateful.And away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring. This garden of the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn. They already had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of their love. The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still belonged to Cosette. They went to that garden and that house. There they found themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des FillesduCalvaire.'Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet returned, Basque said to him. He seated himself in silence, and waited an hour. Cosette did not return. He departed with drooping head. Cosette was so intoxicated with her walk to 'their garden, and so joyous at having 'lived a whole day in her past, that she talked of nothing else on the morrow. She did not notice that she had not seen Jean Valjean. 'In what way did you go thither? Jean Valjean asked her. 'On foot. 'And how did you return? 'In a hackney carriage. For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the young people. He was troubled by it. Marius' economy was severe, and that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean. He hazarded a query 'Why do you not have a carriage of your own? A pretty coup would only cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich. 'I don't know, replied Cosette. 'It is like Toussaint, resumed Jean Valjean. 'She is gone. You have not replaced her. Why? 'Nicolette suffices. 'But you ought to have a maid. 'Have I not Marius? 'You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage, a box at the theatre. There is nothing too fine for you. Why not profit by your riches? Wealth adds to happiness. Cosette made no reply. Jean Valjean's visits were not abridged. Far from it. When it is the heart which is slipping, one does not halt on the downward slope. When Jean Valjean wished to prolong his visit and to induce forgetfulness of the hour, he sang the praises of Marius he pronounced him handsome, noble, courageous, witty, eloquent, good. Cosette outdid him. Jean Valjean began again. They were never weary. Mariusthat word was inexhaustible those six letters contained volumes. In this manner, Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time. It was so sweet to see Cosette, to forget by her side! It alleviated his wounds. It frequently happened that Basque came twice to announce 'M. Gillenormand sends me to remind Madame la Baronne that dinner is served. On those days, Jean Valjean was very thoughtful on his return home. Was there, then, any truth in that comparison of the chrysalis which had presented itself to the mind of Marius? Was Jean Valjean really a chrysalis who would persist, and who would come to visit his butterfly? One day he remained still longer than usual. On the following day he observed that there was no fire on the hearth.'Hello! he thought. 'No fire.And he furnished the explanation for himself.'It is perfectly simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased. 'Heavens! how cold it is here! exclaimed Cosette when she entered. 'Why, no, said Jean Valjean. 'Was it you who told Basque not to make a fire then? 'Yes, since we are now in the month of May. 'But we have a fire until June. One is needed all the year in this cellar. 'I thought that a fire was unnecessary. 'That is exactly like one of your ideas! retorted Cosette. On the following day there was a fire. But the two armchairs were arranged at the other end of the room near the door. 'What is the meaning of this? thought Jean Valjean. He went for the armchairs and restored them to their ordinary place near the hearth. This fire lighted once more encouraged him, however. He prolonged the conversation even beyond its customary limits. As he rose to take his leave, Cosette said to him 'My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday. 'What was it? 'He said to me 'Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres. Twentyseven that you own, and three that my grandfather gives me.' I replied 'That makes thirty.' He went on 'Would you have the courage to live on the three thousand?' I answered 'Yes, on nothing. Provided that it was with you.' And then I asked 'Why do you say that to me?' He replied 'I wanted to know.' Jean Valjean found not a word to answer. Cosette probably expected some explanation from him he listened in gloomy silence. He went back to the Rue de l'Homme Arm he was so deeply absorbed that he mistook the door and instead of entering his own house, he entered the adjoining dwelling. It was only after having ascended nearly two stories that he perceived his error and went down again. His mind was swarming with conjectures. It was evident that Marius had his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that he feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even, perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he hesitated before this suspicious fortune, and was disinclined to take it as his own,preferring that both he and Cosette should remain poor, rather than that they should be rich with wealth that was not clean. Moreover, Jean Valjean began vaguely to surmise that he was being shown the door. On the following day, he underwent something like a shock on entering the groundfloor room. The armchairs had disappeared. There was not a single chair of any sort. 'Ah, what's this! exclaimed Cosette as she entered, 'no chairs! Where are the armchairs? 'They are no longer here, replied Jean Valjean. 'This is too much! Jean Valjean stammered 'It was I who told Basque to remove them. 'And your reason? 'I have only a few minutes to stay today. 'A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing. 'I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawingroom. 'Why? 'You have company this evening, no doubt. 'We expect no one. Jean Valjean had not another word to say. Cosette shrugged her shoulders. 'To have the chairs carried off! The other day you had the fire put out. How odd you are! 'Adieu! murmured Jean Valjean. He did not say 'Adieu, Cosette. But he had not the strength to say 'Adieu, Madame. He went away utterly overwhelmed. This time he had understood. On the following day he did not come. Cosette only observed the fact in the evening. 'Why, said she, 'Monsieur Jean has not been here today. And she felt a slight twinge at her heart, but she hardly perceived it, being immediately diverted by a kiss from Marius. On the following day he did not come. Cosette paid no heed to this, passed her evening and slept well that night, as usual, and thought of it only when she woke. She was so happy! She speedily despatched Nicolette to M. Jean's house to inquire whether he were ill, and why he had not come on the previous evening. Nicolette brought back the reply of M. Jean that he was not ill. He was busy. He would come soon. As soon as he was able. Moreover, he was on the point of taking a little journey. Madame must remember that it was his custom to take trips from time to time. They were not to worry about him. They were not to think of him. Nicolette on entering M. Jean's had repeated to him her mistress' very words. That Madame had sent her to inquire why M. Jean had not come on the preceding evening. It is two days since I have been there, said Jean Valjean gently. But the remark passed unnoticed by Nicolette, who did not report it to Cosette. During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in , the rare passersby in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who emerged every day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de l'Homme Arm, on the side of the Rue SainteCroixdelaBretonnerie, passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue CultureSainteCatherine, and, on arriving at the Rue de l'charpe, turned to the left, and entered the Rue SaintLouis. There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no other than the corner of the Rue des FillesduCalvaire. The nearer he approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up a sort of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fascinated and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure movements, as though he were talking to some one whom he did not see, he smiled vaguely and advanced as slowly as possible. One would have said that, while desirous of reaching his destination, he feared the moment when he should be close at hand. When only a few houses remained between him and that street which appeared to attract him his pace slackened, to such a degree that, at times, one might have thought that he was no longer advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle seeking the pole. Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to arrive at last he reached the Rue des FillesduCalvaire then he halted, he trembled, he thrust his head with a sort of melancholy timidity round the corner of the last house, and gazed into that street, and there was in that tragic look something which resembled the dazzling light of the impossible, and the reflection from a paradise that was closed to him. Then a tear, which had slowly gathered in the corner of his lids, and had become large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at his mouth. The old man tasted its bitter flavor. Thus he remained for several minutes as though made of stone, then he returned by the same road and with the same step, and, in proportion as he retreated, his glance died out. Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the Rue des FillesduCalvaire he halted half way in the Rue SaintLouis sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little nearer. One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue CultureSainteCatherine and looked at the Rue des FillesduCalvaire from a distance. Then he shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself something, and retraced his steps. Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue SaintLouis. He got as far as the Rue Pave, shook his head and turned back then he went no further than the Rue des TroisPavillons then he did not overstep the BlancsManteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before ceasing altogether. Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without himself being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole countenance expressed this single idea What is the use?His eye was dim no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted they no longer collected in the corner of his eyelid that thoughtful eye was dry. The old man's head was still craned forward his chin moved at times the folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened it. The good women of the quarter said 'He is an innocent. The children followed him and laughed. It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How allsufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty! Let us say, however, that the reader would do wrong were he to blame Marius. Marius, as we have explained, before his marriage, had put no questions to M. Fauchelevent, and, since that time, he had feared to put any to Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise into which he had allowed himself to be drawn. He had often said to himself that he had done wrong in making that concession to despair. He had confined himself to gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him, as much as possible, from Cosette's mind. He had, in a manner, always placed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, sure that, in this way, she would not perceive nor think of the latter. It was more than effacement, it was an eclipse. Marius did what he considered necessary and just. He thought that he had serious reasons which the reader has already seen, and others which will be seen later on, for getting rid of Jean Valjean without harshness, but without weakness. Chance having ordained that he should encounter, in a case which he had argued, a former employee of the Laffitte establishment, he had acquired mysterious information, without seeking it, which he had not been able, it is true, to probe, out of respect for the secret which he had promised to guard, and out of consideration for Jean Valjean's perilous position. He believed at that moment that he had a grave duty to perform the restitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some one whom he sought with all possible discretion. In the meanwhile, he abstained from touching that money. As for Cosette, she had not been initiated into any of these secrets but it would be harsh to condemn her also. There existed between Marius and her an allpowerful magnetism, which caused her to do, instinctively and almost mechanically, what Marius wished. She was conscious of Marius' will in the direction of 'Monsieur Jean, she conformed to it. Her husband had not been obliged to say anything to her she yielded to the vague but clear pressure of his tacit intentions, and obeyed blindly. Her obedience in this instance consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot. She was not obliged to make any effort to accomplish this. Without her knowing why herself, and without his having any cause to accuse her of it, her soul had become so wholly her husband's that that which was shrouded in gloom in Marius' mind became overcast in hers. Let us not go too far, however in what concerns Jean Valjean, this forgetfulness and obliteration were merely superficial. She was rather heedless than forgetful. At bottom, she was sincerely attached to the man whom she had so long called her father but she loved her husband still more dearly. This was what had somewhat disturbed the balance of her heart, which leaned to one side only. It sometimes happened that Cosette spoke of Jean Valjean and expressed her surprise. Then Marius calmed her 'He is absent, I think. Did not he say that he was setting out on a journey?'That is true, thought Cosette. 'He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for so long. Two or three times she despatched Nicolette to inquire in the Rue de l'Homme Arm whether M. Jean had returned from his journey. Jean Valjean caused the answer 'no to be given. Cosette asked nothing more, since she had but one need on earth, Marius. Let us also say that, on their side, Cosette and Marius had also been absent. They had been to Vernon. Marius had taken Cosette to his father's grave. Marius gradually won Cosette away from Jean Valjean. Cosette allowed it. Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have elsewhere said, 'looks before her. Nature divides living beings into those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving towards the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It is no fault of theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of each other, but there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling off of life old people, that of the tomb. Let us not blame these poor children. One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where Gavroche had found him meditating on the night between the th and the th of June he remained there a few moments, then went upstairs again. This was the last oscillation of the pendulum. On the following day he did not leave his apartment. On the day after that, he did not leave his bed. His portress, who prepared his scanty repasts, a few cabbages or potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and exclaimed 'But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man! 'Certainly I did, replied Jean Valjean. 'The plate is quite full. 'Look at the water jug. It is empty. 'That proves that you have drunk it does not prove that you have eaten. 'Well, said Jean Valjean, 'what if I felt hungry only for water? 'That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it is called fever. 'I will eat tomorrow. 'Or at Trinity day. Why not today? Is it the thing to say 'I will eat tomorrow'? The idea of leaving my platter without even touching it! My ladyfinger potatoes were so good! Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand 'I promise you that I will eat them, he said, in his benevolent voice. 'I am not pleased with you, replied the portress. Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this good woman. There are streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to which no one ever comes. He was in one of those streets and one of those houses. While he still went out, he had purchased of a coppersmith, for a few sous, a little copper crucifix which he had hung up on a nail opposite his bed. That gibbet is always good to look at. A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He still remained in bed. The portress said to her husband'The good man upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last long. That man has his sorrows, that he has. You won't get it out of my head that his daughter has made a bad marriage. The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty 'If he's rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him go without. If he has no doctor he will die. 'And if he has one? 'He will die, said the porter. The portress set to scraping away the grass from what she called her pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she grumbled 'It's a shame. Such a neat old man! He's as white as a chicken. She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of the street she took it upon herself to request him to come upstairs. 'It's on the second floor, said she. 'You have only to enter. As the good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked. The doctor saw Jean Valjean and spoke with him. When he came down again the portress interrogated him 'Well, doctor? 'Your sick man is very ill indeed. 'What is the matter with him? 'Everything and nothing. He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost some person who is dear to him. People die of that. 'What did he say to you? 'He told me that he was in good health. 'Shall you come again, doctor? 'Yes, replied the doctor. 'But some one else besides must come. One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his elbow he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse his breath was short and halted at times he recognized the fact that he was weaker than he had ever been before. Then, no doubt under the pressure of some supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, drew himself up into a sitting posture and dressed himself. He put on his old workingman's clothes. As he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them. He was obliged to pause many times while dressing himself merely putting his arms through his waistcoat made the perspiration trickle from his forehead. Since he had been alone, he had placed his bed in the antechamber, in order to inhabit that deserted apartment as little as possible. He opened the valise and drew from it Cosette's outfit. He spread it out on his bed. The Bishop's candlesticks were in their place on the chimneypiece. He took from a drawer two wax candles and put them in the candlesticks. Then, although it was still broad daylight,it was summer,he lighted them. In the same way candles are to be seen lighted in broad daylight in chambers where there is a corpse. Every step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary fatigue which expends the strength only to renew it it was the remnant of all movement possible to him, it was life drained which flows away drop by drop in overwhelming efforts and which will never be renewed. The chair into which he allowed himself to fall was placed in front of that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting book. He caught sight of himself in this mirror, and did not recognize himself. He was eighty years old before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been taken for fifty that year had counted for thirty. What he bore on his brow was no longer the wrinkles of age, it was the mysterious mark of death. The hollowing of that pitiless nail could be felt there. His cheeks were pendulous the skin of his face had the color which would lead one to think that it already had earth upon it the corners of his mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs. He gazed into space with an air of reproach one would have said that he was one of those grand tragic beings who have cause to complain of some one. He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow no longer flows it is coagulated, so to speak there is something on the soul like a clot of despair. Night had come. He laboriously dragged a table and the old armchair to the fireside, and placed upon the table a pen, some ink and some paper. That done, he had a fainting fit. When he recovered consciousness, he was thirsty. As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully towards his mouth, and swallowed a draught. As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the point of the pen had curled up, the ink had dried away, he was forced to rise and put a few drops of water in the ink, which he did not accomplish without pausing and sitting down two or three times, and he was compelled to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his brow from time to time. Then he turned towards the bed, and, still seated, for he could not stand, he gazed at the little black gown and all those beloved objects. These contemplations lasted for hours which seemed minutes. All at once he shivered, he felt that a child was taking possession of him he rested his elbows on the table, which was illuminated by the Bishop's candles and took up the pen. His hand trembled. He wrote slowly the few following lines 'Cosette, I bless thee. I am going to explain to thee. Thy husband was right in giving me to understand that I ought to go away but there is a little error in what he believed, though he was in the right. He is excellent. Love him well even after I am dead. Monsieur Pontmercy, love my darling child well. Cosette, this paper will be found this is what I wish to say to thee, thou wilt see the figures, if I have the strength to recall them, listen well, this money is really thine. Here is the whole matter White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, black glass jewellery comes from Germany. Jet is the lightest, the most precious, the most costly. Imitations can be made in France as well as in Germany. What is needed is a little anvil two inches square, and a lamp burning spirits of wine to soften the wax. The wax was formerly made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound. I invented a way of making it with gum shellac and turpentine. It does not cost more than thirty sous, and is much better. Buckles are made with a violet glass which is stuck fast, by means of this wax, to a little framework of black iron. The glass must be violet for iron jewellery, and black for gold jewellery. Spain buys a great deal of it. It is the country of jet . . . Here he paused, the pen fell from his fingers, he was seized by one of those sobs which at times welled up from the very depths of his being the poor man clasped his head in both hands, and meditated. 'Oh! he exclaimed within himself lamentable cries, heard by God alone, 'all is over. I shall never see her more. She is a smile which passed over me. I am about to plunge into the night without even seeing her again. Oh! one minute, one instant, to hear her voice, to touch her dress, to gaze upon her, upon her, the angel! and then to die! It is nothing to die, what is frightful is to die without seeing her. She would smile on me, she would say a word to me, would that do any harm to any one? No, all is over, and forever. Here I am all alone. My God! My God! I shall never see her again! At that moment there came a knock at the door. That same day, or to speak more accurately, that same evening, as Marius left the table, and was on the point of withdrawing to his study, having a case to look over, Basque handed him a letter saying 'The person who wrote the letter is in the antechamber. Cosette had taken the grandfather's arm and was strolling in the garden. A letter, like a man, may have an unprepossessing exterior. Coarse paper, coarsely foldedthe very sight of certain missives is displeasing. The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort. Marius took it. It smelled of tobacco. Nothing evokes a memory like an odor. Marius recognized that tobacco. He looked at the superscription 'To Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron Pommerci. At his hotel. The recognition of the tobacco caused him to recognize the writing as well. It may be said that amazement has its lightning flashes. Marius was, as it were, illuminated by one of these flashes. The sense of smell, that mysterious aid to memory, had just revived a whole world within him. This was certainly the paper, the fashion of folding, the dull tint of ink it was certainly the wellknown handwriting, especially was it the same tobacco. The Jondrette garret rose before his mind. Thus, strange freak of chance! one of the two scents which he had so diligently sought, the one in connection with which he had lately again exerted so many efforts and which he supposed to be forever lost, had come and presented itself to him of its own accord. He eagerly broke the seal, and read 'Monsieur le BaronIf the Supreme Being had given me the talents, I might have been baron Thnard, member of the Institute acadenmy of ciences, but I am not. I only bear the same as him, happy if this memory recommends me to the eccellence of your kindnesses. The benefit with which you will honor me will be reciprocle. I am in possession of a secret concerning an individual. This individual concerns you. I hold the secret at your disposal desiring to have the honor to be huseful to you. I will furnish you with the simple means of driving from your honorabel family that individual who has no right there, madame la baronne being of lofty birth. The sanctuary of virtue cannot cohabit longer with crime without abdicating. 'I awate in the entichamber the orders of monsieur le baron. 'With respect. The letter was signed 'Thnard. This signature was not false. It was merely a trifle abridged. Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation. The certificate of origin was complete. Marius' emotion was profound. After a start of surprise, he underwent a feeling of happiness. If he could now but find that other man of whom he was in search, the man who had saved him, Marius, there would be nothing left for him to desire. He opened the drawer of his secretary, took out several banknotes, put them in his pocket, closed the secretary again, and rang the bell. Basque half opened the door. 'Show the man in, said Marius. Basque announced 'Monsieur Thnard. A man entered. A fresh surprise for Marius. The man who entered was an utter stranger to him. This man, who was old, moreover, had a thick nose, his chin swathed in a cravat, green spectacles with a double screen of green taffeta over his eyes, and his hair was plastered and flattened down on his brow on a level with his eyebrows like the wigs of English coachmen in 'high life. His hair was gray. He was dressed in black from head to foot, in garments that were very threadbare but clean a bunch of seals depending from his fob suggested the idea of a watch. He held in his hand an old hat! He walked in a bent attitude, and the curve in his spine augmented the profundity of his bow. The first thing that struck the observer was, that this personage's coat, which was too ample although carefully buttoned, had not been made for him. Here a short digression becomes necessary. There was in Paris at that epoch, in a lowlived old lodging in the Rue Beautreillis, near the Arsenal, an ingenious Jew whose profession was to change villains into honest men. Not for too long, which might have proved embarrassing for the villain. The change was on sight, for a day or two, at the rate of thirty sous a day, by means of a costume which resembled the honesty of the world in general as nearly as possible. This costumer was called 'the Changer the pickpockets of Paris had given him this name and knew him by no other. He had a tolerably complete wardrobe. The rags with which he tricked out people were almost probable. He had specialties and categories on each nail of his shop hung a social status, threadbare and worn here the suit of a magistrate, there the outfit of a Cur, beyond the outfit of a banker, in one corner the costume of a retired military man, elsewhere the habiliments of a man of letters, and further on the dress of a statesman. This creature was the costumer of the immense drama which knavery plays in Paris. His lair was the greenroom whence theft emerged, and into which roguery retreated. A tattered knave arrived at this dressingroom, deposited his thirty sous and selected, according to the part which he wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the stairs once more, the knave was a somebody. On the following day, the clothes were faithfully returned, and the Changer, who trusted the thieves with everything, was never robbed. There was one inconvenience about these clothes, they 'did not fit not having been made for those who wore them, they were too tight for one, too loose for another and did not adjust themselves to any one. Every pickpocket who exceeded or fell short of the human average was ill at his ease in the Changer's costumes. It was necessary that one should not be either too fat or too lean. The Changer had foreseen only ordinary men. He had taken the measure of the species from the first rascal who came to hand, who is neither stout nor thin, neither tall nor short. Hence adaptations which were sometimes difficult and from which the Changer's clients extricated themselves as best they might. So much the worse for the exceptions! The suit of the statesman, for instance, black from head to foot, and consequently proper, would have been too large for Pitt and too small for Castelcicala. The costume of a statesman was designated as follows in the Changer's catalogue we copy 'A coat of black cloth, trowsers of black wool, a silk waistcoat, boots and linen. On the margin there stood exambassador, and a note which we also copy 'In a separate box, a neatly frizzed peruke, green glasses, seals, and two small quills an inch long, wrapped in cotton. All this belonged to the statesman, the exambassador. This whole costume was, if we may so express ourselves, debilitated the seams were white, a vague buttonhole yawned at one of the elbows moreover, one of the coat buttons was missing on the breast but this was only detail as the hand of the statesman should always be thrust into his coat and laid upon his heart, its function was to conceal the absent button. If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris, he would instantly have recognized upon the back of the visitor whom Basque had just shown in, the statesman's suit borrowed from the pickmedownthat shop of the Changer. Marius' disappointment on beholding another man than the one whom he expected to see turned to the newcomer's disadvantage. He surveyed him from head to foot, while that personage made exaggerated bows, and demanded in a curt tone 'What do you want? The man replied with an amiable grin of which the caressing smile of a crocodile will furnish some idea 'It seems to me impossible that I should not have already had the honor of seeing Monsieur le Baron in society. I think I actually did meet monsieur personally, several years ago, at the house of Madame la Princesse Bagration and in the drawingrooms of his Lordship the Vicomte Dambray, peer of France. It is always a good bit of tactics in knavery to pretend to recognize some one whom one does not know. Marius paid attention to the manner of this man's speech. He spied on his accent and gesture, but his disappointment increased the pronunciation was nasal and absolutely unlike the dry, shrill tone which he had expected. He was utterly routed. 'I know neither Madame Bagration nor M. Dambray, said he. 'I have never set foot in the house of either of them in my life. The reply was ungracious. The personage, determined to be gracious at any cost, insisted. 'Then it must have been at Chateaubriand's that I have seen Monsieur! I know Chateaubriand very well. He is very affable. He sometimes says to me 'Thnard, my friend . . . won't you drink a glass of wine with me?' Marius' brow grew more and more severe 'I have never had the honor of being received by M. de Chateaubriand. Let us cut it short. What do you want? The man bowed lower at that harsh voice. 'Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a district near Panama, a village called la Joya. That village is composed of a single house, a large, square house of three stories, built of bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the circuit of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and munitions are kept no windows, loopholes, no doors, ladders, ladders to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the inner court, no doors to the chambers, trapdoors, no staircases to the chambers, ladders in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders are withdrawn, carbines and blunderbusses trained from the loopholes no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred inhabitants,that is the village. Why so many precautions? because the country is dangerous it is full of cannibals. Then why do people go there? because the country is marvellous gold is found there. 'What are you driving at? interrupted Marius, who had passed from disappointment to impatience. 'At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages. 'Well? 'Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian peasant woman, who toils by the day, turns round when the diligence passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog of the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself. Selfinterestthat's the object of men. Gold, that's the loadstone. 'What then? Finish. 'I should like to go and establish myself at la Joya. There are three of us. I have my spouse and my young lady a very beautiful girl. The journey is long and costly. I need a little money. 'What concern is that of mine? demanded Marius. The stranger stretched his neck out of his cravat, a gesture characteristic of the vulture, and replied with an augmented smile. 'Has not Monsieur le Baron perused my letter? There was some truth in this. The fact is, that the contents of the epistle had slipped Marius' mind. He had seen the writing rather than read the letter. He could hardly recall it. But a moment ago a fresh start had been given him. He had noted that detail 'my spouse and my young lady. He fixed a penetrating glance on the stranger. An examining judge could not have done the look better. He almost lay in wait for him. He confined himself to replying 'State the case precisely. The stranger inserted his two hands in both his fobs, drew himself up without straightening his dorsal column, but scrutinizing Marius in his turn, with the green gaze of his spectacles. 'So be it, Monsieur le Baron. I will be precise. I have a secret to sell to you. 'A secret? 'A secret. 'Which concerns me? 'Somewhat. 'What is the secret? Marius scrutinized the man more and more as he listened to him. 'I commence gratis, said the stranger. 'You will see that I am interesting. 'Speak. 'Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a thief and an assassin. Marius shuddered. 'In my house? no, said he. The imperturbable stranger brushed his hat with his elbow and went on 'An assassin and a thief. Remark, Monsieur le Baron, that I do not here speak of ancient deeds, deeds of the past which have lapsed, which can be effaced by limitation before the law and by repentance before God. I speak of recent deeds, of actual facts as still unknown to justice at this hour. I continue. This man has insinuated himself into your confidence, and almost into your family under a false name. I am about to tell you his real name. And to tell it to you for nothing. 'I am listening. 'His name is Jean Valjean. 'I know it. 'I am going to tell you, equally for nothing, who he is. 'Say on. 'He is an exconvict. 'I know it. 'You know it since I have had the honor of telling you. 'No. I knew it before. Marius' cold tone, that double reply of 'I know it, his laconicism, which was not favorable to dialogue, stirred up some smouldering wrath in the stranger. He launched a furious glance on the sly at Marius, which was instantly extinguished. Rapid as it was, this glance was of the kind which a man recognizes when he has once beheld it it did not escape Marius. Certain flashes can only proceed from certain souls the eye, that venthole of the thought, glows with it spectacles hide nothing try putting a pane of glass over hell! The stranger resumed with a smile 'I will not permit myself to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case, you ought to perceive that I am well informed. Now what I have to tell you is known to myself alone. This concerns the fortune of Madame la Baronne. It is an extraordinary secret. It is for saleI make you the first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs. 'I know that secret as well as the others, said Marius. The personage felt the necessity of lowering his price a trifle. 'Monsieur le Baron, say ten thousand francs and I will speak. 'I repeat to you that there is nothing which you can tell me. I know what you wish to say to me. A fresh flash gleamed in the man's eye. He exclaimed 'But I must dine today, nevertheless. It is an extraordinary secret, I tell you. Monsieur le Baron, I will speak. I speak. Give me twenty francs. Marius gazed intently at him 'I know your extraordinary secret, just as I knew Jean Valjean's name, just as I know your name. 'My name? 'Yes. 'That is not difficult, Monsieur le Baron. I had the honor to write to you and to tell it to you. Thnard. 'Dier. 'Hey? 'Thnardier. 'Who's that? In danger the porcupine bristles up, the beetle feigns death, the old guard forms in a square this man burst into laughter. Then he flicked a grain of dust from the sleeve of his coat with a fillip. Marius continued 'You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the poet, Don Alvars the Spaniard, and Mistress Balizard. 'Mistress what? 'And you kept a pothouse at Montfermeil. 'A pothouse! Never. 'And I tell you that your name is Thnardier. 'I deny it. 'And that you are a rascal. Here. And Marius drew a banknote from his pocket and flung it in his face. 'Thanks! Pardon me! five hundred francs! Monsieur le Baron! And the man, overcome, bowed, seized the note and examined it. 'Five hundred francs! he began again, taken aback. And he stammered in a low voice 'An honest rustler. Then brusquely 'Well, so be it! he exclaimed. 'Let us put ourselves at our ease. And with the agility of a monkey, flinging back his hair, tearing off his spectacles, and withdrawing from his nose by sleight of hand the two quills of which mention was recently made, and which the reader has also met with on another page of this book, he took off his face as the man takes off his hat. His eye lighted up his uneven brow, with hollows in some places and bumps in others, hideously wrinkled at the top, was laid bare, his nose had become as sharp as a beak the fierce and sagacious profile of the man of prey reappeared. 'Monsieur le Baron is infallible, he said in a clear voice whence all nasal twang had disappeared, 'I am Thnardier. And he straightened up his crooked back. Thnardier, for it was really he, was strangely surprised he would have been troubled, had he been capable of such a thing. He had come to bring astonishment, and it was he who had received it. This humiliation had been worth five hundred francs to him, and, taking it all in all, he accepted it but he was nonetheless bewildered. He beheld this Baron Pontmercy for the first time, and, in spite of his disguise, this Baron Pontmercy recognized him, and recognized him thoroughly. And not only was this Baron perfectly informed as to Thnardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this almost beardless young man, who was so glacial and so generous, who knew people's names, who knew all their names, and who opened his purse to them, who bullied rascals like a judge, and who paid them like a dupe? Thnardier, the reader will remember, although he had been Marius' neighbor, had never seen him, which is not unusual in Paris he had formerly, in a vague way, heard his daughters talk of a very poor young man named Marius who lived in the house. He had written to him, without knowing him, the letter with which the reader is acquainted. No connection between that Marius and M. le Baron Pontmercy was possible in his mind. As for the name Pontmercy, it will be recalled that, on the battlefield of Waterloo, he had only heard the last two syllables, for which he always entertained the legitimate scorn which one owes to what is merely an expression of thanks. However, through his daughter Azelma, who had started on the scent of the married pair on the th of February, and through his own personal researches, he had succeeded in learning many things, and, from the depths of his own gloom, he had contrived to grasp more than one mysterious clew. He had discovered, by dint of industry, or, at least, by dint of induction, he had guessed who the man was whom he had encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had easily reached the name. He knew that Madame la Baronne Pontmercy was Cosette. But he meant to be discreet in that quarter. Who was Cosette? He did not know exactly himself. He did, indeed, catch an inkling of illegitimacy, the history of Fantine had always seemed to him equivocal but what was the use of talking about that? in order to cause himself to be paid for his silence? He had, or thought he had, better wares than that for sale. And, according to all appearances, if he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelationand without proof 'Your wife is a bastard, the only result would be to attract the boot of the husband towards the loins of the revealer. From Thnardier's point of view, the conversation with Marius had not yet begun. He ought to have drawn back, to have modified his strategy, to have abandoned his position, to have changed his front but nothing essential had been compromised as yet, and he had five hundred francs in his pocket. Moreover, he had something decisive to say, and, even against this very wellinformed and wellarmed Baron Pontmercy, he felt himself strong. For men of Thnardier's nature, every dialogue is a combat. In the one in which he was about to engage, what was his situation? He did not know to whom he was speaking, but he did know of what he was speaking, he made this rapid review of his inner forces, and after having said 'I am Thnardier, he waited. Marius had become thoughtful. So he had hold of Thnardier at last. That man whom he had so greatly desired to find was before him. He could honor Colonel Pontmercy's recommendation. He felt humiliated that that hero should have owned anything to this villain, and that the letter of change drawn from the depths of the tomb by his father upon him, Marius, had been protested up to that day. It also seemed to him, in the complex state of his mind towards Thnardier, that there was occasion to avenge the Colonel for the misfortune of having been saved by such a rascal. In any case, he was content. He was about to deliver the Colonel's shade from this unworthy creditor at last, and it seemed to him that he was on the point of rescuing his father's memory from the debtors' prison. By the side of this duty there was anotherto elucidate, if possible, the source of Cosette's fortune. The opportunity appeared to present itself. Perhaps Thnardier knew something. It might prove useful to see the bottom of this man. He commenced with this. Thnardier had caused the 'honest rustler to disappear in his fob, and was gazing at Marius with a gentleness that was almost tender. Marius broke the silence. 'Thnardier, I have told you your name. Now, would you like to have me tell you your secretthe one that you came here to reveal to me? I have information of my own, also. You shall see that I know more about it than you do. Jean Valjean, as you have said, is an assassin and a thief. A thief, because he robbed a wealthy manufacturer, whose ruin he brought about. An assassin, because he assassinated policeagent Javert. 'I don't understand, sir, ejaculated Thnardier. 'I will make myself intelligible. In a certain arrondissement of the Pas de Calais, there was, in , a man who had fallen out with justice, and who, under the name of M. Madeleine, had regained his status and rehabilitated himself. This man had become a just man in the full force of the term. In a trade, the manufacture of black glass goods, he made the fortune of an entire city. As far as his personal fortune was concerned he made that also, but as a secondary matter, and in some sort, by accident. He was the fosterfather of the poor. He founded hospitals, opened schools, visited the sick, dowered young girls, supported widows, and adopted orphans he was like the guardian angel of the country. He refused the cross, he was appointed Mayor. A liberated convict knew the secret of a penalty incurred by this man in former days he denounced him, and had him arrested, and profited by the arrest to come to Paris and cause the banker Laffitte,I have the fact from the cashier himself,by means of a false signature, to hand over to him the sum of over half a million which belonged to M. Madeleine. This convict who robbed M. Madeleine was Jean Valjean. As for the other fact, you have nothing to tell me about it either. Jean Valjean killed the agent Javert he shot him with a pistol. I, the person who is speaking to you, was present. Thnardier cast upon Marius the sovereign glance of a conquered man who lays his hand once more upon the victory, and who has just regained, in one instant, all the ground which he has lost. But the smile returned instantly. The inferior's triumph in the presence of his superior must be wheedling. Thnardier contented himself with saying to Marius 'Monsieur le Baron, we are on the wrong track. And he emphasized this phrase by making his bunch of seals execute an expressive whirl. 'What! broke forth Marius, 'do you dispute that? These are facts. 'They are chimras. The confidence with which Monsieur le Baron honors me renders it my duty to tell him so. Truth and justice before all things. I do not like to see folks accused unjustly. Monsieur le Baron, Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean did not kill Javert. 'This is too much! How is this? 'For two reasons. 'What are they? Speak. 'This is the first he did not rob M. Madeleine, because it is Jean Valjean himself who was M. Madeleine. 'What tale are you telling me? 'And this is the second he did not assassinate Javert, because the person who killed Javert was Javert. 'What do you mean to say? 'That Javert committed suicide. 'Prove it! prove it! cried Marius beside himself. Thnardier resumed, scanning his phrase after the manner of the ancient Alexandrine measure 'PoliceagentJavertwasfounddrownedunderaboatofthePontauChange. 'But prove it! Thnardier drew from his pocket a large envelope of gray paper, which seemed to contain sheets folded in different sizes. 'I have my papers, he said calmly. And he added 'Monsieur le Baron, in your interests I desired to know Jean Valjean thoroughly. I say that Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine are one and the same man, and I say that Javert had no other assassin than Javert. If I speak, it is because I have proofs. Not manuscript proofswriting is suspicious, handwriting is complaisant,but printed proofs. As he spoke, Thnardier extracted from the envelope two copies of newspapers, yellow, faded, and strongly saturated with tobacco. One of these two newspapers, broken at every fold and falling into rags, seemed much older than the other. 'Two facts, two proofs, remarked Thnardier. And he offered the two newspapers, unfolded, to Marius. The reader is acquainted with these two papers. One, the most ancient, a number of the Drapeau Blanc of the th of July, , the text of which can be seen in the first volume, established the identity of M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean. The other, a Moniteur of the th of June, , announced the suicide of Javert, adding that it appeared from a verbal report of Javert to the prefect that, having been taken prisoner in the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, he had owed his life to the magnanimity of an insurgent who, holding him under his pistol, had fired into the air, instead of blowing out his brains. Marius read. He had evidence, a certain date, irrefragable proof, these two newspapers had not been printed expressly for the purpose of backing up Thnardier's statements the note printed in the Moniteur had been an administrative communication from the Prefecture of Police. Marius could not doubt. The information of the cashierclerk had been false, and he himself had been deceived. Jean Valjean, who had suddenly grown grand, emerged from his cloud. Marius could not repress a cry of joy. 'Well, then this unhappy wretch is an admirable man! the whole of that fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a whole countryside! he is Jean Valjean, Javert's savior! he is a hero! he is a saint! 'He's not a saint, and he's not a hero! said Thnardier. 'He's an assassin and a robber. And he added, in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he possesses some authority 'Let us be calm. Robber, assassinthose words which Marius thought had disappeared and which returned, fell upon him like an icecold showerbath. 'Again! said he. 'Always, ejaculated Thnardier. 'Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, but he is a thief. He did not kill Javert, but he is a murderer. 'Will you speak, retorted Marius, 'of that miserable theft, committed forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole life of repentance, of selfabnegation and of virtue? 'I say assassination and theft, Monsieur le Baron, and I repeat that I am speaking of actual facts. What I have to reveal to you is absolutely unknown. It belongs to unpublished matter. And perhaps you will find in it the source of the fortune so skilfully presented to Madame la Baronne by Jean Valjean. I say skilfully, because, by a gift of that nature it would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one's crime, and to enjoy one's theft, to bury one's name and to create for oneself a family. 'I might interrupt you at this point, said Marius, 'but go on. 'Monsieur le Baron, I will tell you all, leaving the recompense to your generosity. This secret is worth massive gold. You will say to me 'Why do not you apply to Jean Valjean?' For a very simple reason I know that he has stripped himself, and stripped himself in your favor, and I consider the combination ingenious but he has no longer a son, he would show me his empty hands, and, since I am in need of some money for my trip to la Joya, I prefer you, you who have it all, to him who has nothing. I am a little fatigued, permit me to take a chair. Marius seated himself and motioned to him to do the same. Thnardier installed himself on a tufted chair, picked up his two newspapers, thrust them back into their envelope, and murmured as he pecked at the Drapeau Blanc with his nail 'It cost me a good deal of trouble to get this one. That done he crossed his legs and stretched himself out on the back of the chair, an attitude characteristic of people who are sure of what they are saying, then he entered upon his subject gravely, emphasizing his words 'Monsieur le Baron, on the th of June, , about a year ago, on the day of the insurrection, a man was in the Grand Sewer of Paris, at the point where the sewer enters the Seine, between the Pont des Invalides and the Pont de Jna. Marius abruptly drew his chair closer to that of Thnardier. Thnardier noticed this movement and continued with the deliberation of an orator who holds his interlocutor and who feels his adversary palpitating under his words 'This man, forced to conceal himself, and for reasons, moreover, which are foreign to politics, had adopted the sewer as his domicile and had a key to it. It was, I repeat, on the th of June it might have been eight o'clock in the evening. The man hears a noise in the sewer. Greatly surprised, he hides himself and lies in wait. It was the sound of footsteps, some one was walking in the dark, and coming in his direction. Strange to say, there was another man in the sewer besides himself. The grating of the outlet from the sewer was not far off. A little light which fell through it permitted him to recognize the newcomer, and to see that the man was carrying something on his back. He was walking in a bent attitude. The man who was walking in a bent attitude was an exconvict, and what he was dragging on his shoulders was a corpse. Assassination caught in the very act, if ever there was such a thing. As for the theft, that is understood one does not kill a man gratis. This convict was on his way to fling the body into the river. One fact is to be noticed, that before reaching the exit grating, this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, necessarily, have encountered a frightful quagmire where it seems as though he might have left the body, but the sewermen would have found the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, and that did not suit the assassin's plans. He had preferred to traverse that quagmire with his burden, and his exertions must have been terrible, for it is impossible to risk one's life more completely I don't understand how he could have come out of that alive. Marius' chair approached still nearer. Thnardier took advantage of this to draw a long breath. He went on 'Monsieur le Baron, a sewer is not the Champ de Mars. One lacks everything there, even room. When two men are there, they must meet. That is what happened. The man domiciled there and the passerby were forced to bid each other goodday, greatly to the regret of both. The passerby said to the inhabitant'You see what I have on my back, I must get out, you have the key, give it to me. That convict was a man of terrible strength. There was no way of refusing. Nevertheless, the man who had the key parleyed, simply to gain time. He examined the dead man, but he could see nothing, except that the latter was young, well dressed, with the air of being rich, and all disfigured with blood. While talking, the man contrived to tear and pull off behind, without the assassin perceiving it, a bit of the assassinated man's coat. A document for conviction, you understand a means of recovering the trace of things and of bringing home the crime to the criminal. He put this document for conviction in his pocket. After which he opened the grating, made the man go out with his embarrassment on his back, closed the grating again, and ran off, not caring to be mixed up with the remainder of the adventure and above all, not wishing to be present when the assassin threw the assassinated man into the river. Now you comprehend. The man who was carrying the corpse was Jean Valjean the one who had the key is speaking to you at this moment and the piece of the coat . . . Thnardier completed his phrase by drawing from his pocket, and holding, on a level with his eyes, nipped between his two thumbs and his two forefingers, a strip of torn black cloth, all covered with dark spots. Marius had sprung to his feet, pale, hardly able to draw his breath, with his eyes riveted on the fragment of black cloth, and, without uttering a word, without taking his eyes from that fragment, he retreated to the wall and fumbled with his right hand along the wall for a key which was in the lock of a cupboard near the chimney. He found the key, opened the cupboard, plunged his arm into it without looking, and without his frightened gaze quitting the rag which Thnardier still held outspread. But Thnardier continued 'Monsieur le Baron, I have the strongest of reasons for believing that the assassinated young man was an opulent stranger lured into a trap by Jean Valjean, and the bearer of an enormous sum of money. 'The young man was myself, and here is the coat! cried Marius, and he flung upon the floor an old black coat all covered with blood. Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thnardier, he crouched down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered skirt. The rent fitted exactly, and the strip completed the coat. Thnardier was petrified. This is what he thought 'I'm struck all of a heap. Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant. He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thnardier, presenting to him and almost thrusting in his face his fist filled with banknotes for five hundred and a thousand francs. 'You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain. You came to accuse that man, you have only justified him you wanted to ruin him, you have only succeeded in glorifying him. And it is you who are the thief! And it is you who are the assassin! I saw you, Thnardier Jondrette, in that lair on the Rue de l'Hpital. I know enough about you to send you to the galleys and even further if I choose. Here are a thousand francs, bully that you are! And he flung a thousand franc note at Thnardier. 'Ah! Jondrette Thnardier, vile rascal! Let this serve you as a lesson, you dealer in secondhand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of the shadows, wretch! Take these five hundred francs and get out of here! Waterloo protects you. 'Waterloo! growled Thnardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along with the thousand. 'Yes, assassin! You there saved the life of a Colonel. . . 'Of a General, said Thnardier, elevating his head. 'Of a Colonel! repeated Marius in a rage. 'I wouldn't give a ha'penny for a general. And you come here to commit infamies! I tell you that you have committed all crimes. Go! disappear! Only be happy, that is all that I desire. Ah! monster! here are three thousand francs more. Take them. You will depart tomorrow, for America, with your daughter for your wife is dead, you abominable liar. I shall watch over your departure, you ruffian, and at that moment I will count out to you twenty thousand francs. Go get yourself hung elsewhere! 'Monsieur le Baron! replied Thnardier, bowing to the very earth, 'eternal gratitude. And Thnardier left the room, understanding nothing, stupefied and delighted with this sweet crushing beneath sacks of gold, and with that thunder which had burst forth over his head in bankbills. Struck by lightning he was, but he was also content and he would have been greatly angered had he had a lightning rod to ward off such lightning as that. Let us finish with this man at once. Two days after the events which we are at this moment narrating, he set out, thanks to Marius' care, for America under a false name, with his daughter Azelma, furnished with a draft on New York for twenty thousand francs. The moral wretchedness of Thnardier, the bourgeois who had missed his vocation, was irremediable. He was in America what he had been in Europe. Contact with an evil man sometimes suffices to corrupt a good action and to cause evil things to spring from it. With Marius' money, Thnardier set up as a slavedealer. As soon as Thnardier had left the house, Marius rushed to the garden, where Cosette was still walking. 'Cosette! Cosette! he cried. 'Come! come quick! Let us go. Basque, a carriage! Cosette, come. Ah! My God! It was he who saved my life! Let us not lose a minute! Put on your shawl. Cosette thought him mad and obeyed. He could not breathe, he laid his hand on his heart to restrain its throbbing. He paced back and forth with huge strides, he embraced Cosette 'Ah! Cosette! I am an unhappy wretch! said he. Marius was bewildered. He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure. An unheardof virtue, supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him. The convict was transfigured into Christ. Marius was dazzled by this prodigy. He did not know precisely what he beheld, but it was grand. In an instant, a hackneycarriage stood in front of the door. Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself. 'Driver, said he, 'Rue de l'Homme Arm, Number . The carriage drove off. 'Ah! what happiness! ejaculated Cosette. 'Rue de l'Homme Arm, I did not dare to speak to you of that. We are going to see M. Jean. 'Thy father! Cosette, thy father more than ever. Cosette, I guess it. You told me that you had never received the letter that I sent you by Gavroche. It must have fallen into his hands. Cosette, he went to the barricade to save me. As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he saved others also he saved Javert. He rescued me from that gulf to give me to you. He carried me on his back through that frightful sewer. Ah! I am a monster of ingratitude. Cosette, after having been your providence, he became mine. Just imagine, there was a terrible quagmire enough to drown one a hundred times over, to drown one in mire. Cosette! he made me traverse it. I was unconscious I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I could know nothing of my own adventure. We are going to bring him back, to take him with us, whether he is willing or not, he shall never leave us again. If only he is at home! Provided only that we can find him, I will pass the rest of my life in venerating him. Yes, that is how it should be, do you see, Cosette? Gavroche must have delivered my letter to him. All is explained. You understand. Cosette did not understand a word. 'You are right, she said to him. Meanwhile the carriage rolled on. Jean Valjean turned round at the knock which he heard on his door. 'Come in, he said feebly. The door opened. Cosette and Marius made their appearance. Cosette rushed into the room. Marius remained on the threshold, leaning against the jamb of the door. 'Cosette! said Jean Valjean. And he sat erect in his chair, his arms outstretched and trembling, haggard, livid, gloomy, an immense joy in his eyes. Cosette, stifling with emotion, fell upon Jean Valjean's breast. 'Father! said she. Jean Valjean, overcome, stammered 'Cosette! she! you! Madame! it is thou! Ah! my God! And, pressed close in Cosette's arms, he exclaimed 'It is thou! thou art here! Thou dost pardon me then! Marius, lowering his eyelids, in order to keep his tears from flowing, took a step forward and murmured between lips convulsively contracted to repress his sobs 'My father! 'And you also, you pardon me! Jean Valjean said to him. Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added 'Thanks. Cosette tore off her shawl and tossed her hat on the bed. 'It embarrasses me, said she. And, seating herself on the old man's knees, she put aside his white locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his brow. Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way. Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius' debt. Jean Valjean stammered 'How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again. Imagine, Monsieur Pontmercy, at the very moment when you entered, I was saying to myself 'All is over. Here is her little gown, I am a miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,' and I was saying that at the very moment when you were mounting the stairs. Was not I an idiot? Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good God. The good God says ''You fancy that you are about to be abandoned, stupid! No. No, things will not go so. Come, there is a good man yonder who is in need of an angel.' And the angel comes, and one sees one's Cosette again! and one sees one's little Cosette once more! Ah! I was very unhappy. For a moment he could not speak, then he went on 'I really needed to see Cosette a little bit now and then. A heart needs a bone to gnaw. But I was perfectly conscious that I was in the way. I gave myself reasons 'They do not want you, keep in your own course, one has not the right to cling eternally.' Ah! God be praised, I see her once more! Dost thou know, Cosette, thy husband is very handsome? Ah! what a pretty embroidered collar thou hast on, luckily. I am fond of that pattern. It was thy husband who chose it, was it not? And then, thou shouldst have some cashmere shawls. Let me call her thou, Monsieur Pontmercy. It will not be for long. And Cosette began again 'How wicked of you to have left us like that! Where did you go? Why have you stayed away so long? Formerly your journeys only lasted three or four days. I sent Nicolette, the answer always was 'He is absent.' How long have you been back? Why did you not let us know? Do you know that you are very much changed? Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, and we have not known it! Stay, Marius, feel how cold his hand is! 'So you are here! Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me! repeated Jean Valjean. At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was swelling Marius' heart found vent. He burst forth 'Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He has done morehe has given you to me. And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one Thanks! Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself. Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses! Cosette, that man is an angel! 'Hush! hush! said Jean Valjean in a low voice. 'Why tell all that? 'But you! cried Marius with a wrath in which there was veneration, 'why did you not tell it to me? It is your own fault, too. You save people's lives, and you conceal it from them! You do more, under the pretext of unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself. It is frightful. 'I told the truth, replied Jean Valjean. 'No, retorted Marius, 'the truth is the whole truth and that you did not tell. You were Monsieur Madeleine, why not have said so? You saved Javert, why not have said so? I owed my life to you, why not have said so? 'Because I thought as you do. I thought that you were in the right. It was necessary that I should go away. If you had known about that affair, of the sewer, you would have made me remain near you. I was therefore forced to hold my peace. If I had spoken, it would have caused embarrassment in every way. 'It would have embarrassed what? embarrassed whom? retorted Marius. 'Do you think that you are going to stay here? We shall carry you off. Ah! good heavens! when I reflect that it was by an accident that I have learned all this. You form a part of ourselves. You are her father, and mine. You shall not pass another day in this dreadful house. Do not imagine that you will be here tomorrow. 'Tomorrow, said Jean Valjean, 'I shall not be here, but I shall not be with you. 'What do you mean? replied Marius. 'Ah! come now, we are not going to permit any more journeys. You shall never leave us again. You belong to us. We shall not loose our hold of you. 'This time it is for good, added Cosette. 'We have a carriage at the door. I shall run away with you. If necessary, I shall employ force. And she laughingly made a movement to lift the old man in her arms. 'Your chamber still stands ready in our house, she went on. 'If you only knew how pretty the garden is now! The azaleas are doing very well there. The walks are sanded with river sand there are tiny violet shells. You shall eat my strawberries. I water them myself. And no more 'madame,' no more 'Monsieur Jean,' we are living under a Republic, everybody says thou, don't they, Marius? The programme is changed. If you only knew, father, I have had a sorrow, there was a robin redbreast which had made her nest in a hole in the wall, and a horrible cat ate her. My poor, pretty, little robin redbreast which used to put her head out of her window and look at me! I cried over it. I should have liked to kill the cat. But now nobody cries any more. Everybody laughs, everybody is happy. You are going to come with us. How delighted grandfather will be! You shall have your plot in the garden, you shall cultivate it, and we shall see whether your strawberries are as fine as mine. And, then, I shall do everything that you wish, and then, you will obey me prettily. Jean Valjean listened to her without hearing her. He heard the music of her voice rather than the sense of her words one of those large tears which are the sombre pearls of the soul welled up slowly in his eyes. He murmured 'The proof that God is good is that she is here. 'Father! said Cosette. Jean Valjean continued 'It is quite true that it would be charming for us to live together. Their trees are full of birds. I would walk with Cosette. It is sweet to be among living people who bid each other 'goodday,' who call to each other in the garden. People see each other from early morning. We should each cultivate our own little corner. She would make me eat her strawberries. I would make her gather my roses. That would be charming. Only . . . He paused and said gently 'It is a pity. The tear did not fall, it retreated, and Jean Valjean replaced it with a smile. Cosette took both the old man's hands in hers. 'My God! said she, 'your hands are still colder than before. Are you ill? Do you suffer? 'I? No, replied Jean Valjean. 'I am very well. Only . . . He paused. 'Only what? 'I am going to die presently. Cosette and Marius shuddered. 'To die! exclaimed Marius. 'Yes, but that is nothing, said Jean Valjean. He took breath, smiled and resumed 'Cosette, thou wert talking to me, go on, so thy little robin redbreast is dead? Speak, so that I may hear thy voice. Marius gazed at the old man in amazement. Cosette uttered a heartrending cry. 'Father! my father! you will live. You are going to live. I insist upon your living, do you hear? Jean Valjean raised his head towards her with adoration. 'Oh! yes, forbid me to die. Who knows? Perhaps I shall obey. I was on the verge of dying when you came. That stopped me, it seemed to me that I was born again. 'You are full of strength and life, cried Marius. 'Do you imagine that a person can die like this? You have had sorrow, you shall have no more. It is I who ask your forgiveness, and on my knees! You are going to live, and to live with us, and to live a long time. We take possession of you once more. There are two of us here who will henceforth have no other thought than your happiness. 'You see, resumed Cosette, all bathed in tears, 'that Marius says that you shall not die. Jean Valjean continued to smile. 'Even if you were to take possession of me, Monsieur Pontmercy, would that make me other than I am? No, God has thought like you and myself, and he does not change his mind it is useful for me to go. Death is a good arrangement. God knows better than we what we need. May you be happy, may Monsieur Pontmercy have Cosette, may youth wed the morning, may there be around you, my children, lilacs and nightingales may your life be a beautiful, sunny lawn, may all the enchantments of heaven fill your souls, and now let me, who am good for nothing, die it is certain that all this is right. Come, be reasonable, nothing is possible now, I am fully conscious that all is over. And then, last night, I drank that whole jug of water. How good thy husband is, Cosette! Thou art much better off with him than with me. A noise became audible at the door. It was the doctor entering. 'Goodday, and farewell, doctor, said Jean Valjean. 'Here are my poor children. Marius stepped up to the doctor. He addressed to him only this single word 'Monsieur? . . . But his manner of pronouncing it contained a complete question. The doctor replied to the question by an expressive glance. 'Because things are not agreeable, said Jean Valjean, 'that is no reason for being unjust towards God. A silence ensued. All breasts were oppressed. Jean Valjean turned to Cosette. He began to gaze at her as though he wished to retain her features for eternity. In the depths of the shadow into which he had already descended, ecstasy was still possible to him when gazing at Cosette. The reflection of that sweet face lighted up his pale visage. The doctor felt of his pulse. 'Ah! it was you that he wanted! he murmured, looking at Cosette and Marius. And bending down to Marius' ear, he added in a very low voice 'Too late. Jean Valjean surveyed the doctor and Marius serenely, almost without ceasing to gaze at Cosette. These barely articulate words were heard to issue from his mouth 'It is nothing to die it is dreadful not to live. All at once he rose to his feet. These accesses of strength are sometimes the sign of the death agony. He walked with a firm step to the wall, thrusting aside Marius and the doctor who tried to help him, detached from the wall a little copper crucifix which was suspended there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of perfect health, and said in a loud voice, as he laid the crucifix on the table 'Behold the great martyr. Then his chest sank in, his head wavered, as though the intoxication of the tomb were seizing hold upon him. His hands, which rested on his knees, began to press their nails into the stuff of his trousers. Cosette supported his shoulders, and sobbed, and tried to speak to him, but could not. Among the words mingled with that mournful saliva which accompanies tears, they distinguished words like the following 'Father, do not leave us. Is it possible that we have found you only to lose you again? It might be said that agony writhes. It goes, comes, advances towards the sepulchre, and returns towards life. There is groping in the action of dying. Jean Valjean rallied after this semiswoon, shook his brow as though to make the shadows fall away from it and became almost perfectly lucid once more. He took a fold of Cosette's sleeve and kissed it. 'He is coming back! doctor, he is coming back, cried Marius. 'You are good, both of you, said Jean Valjean. 'I am going to tell you what has caused me pain. What has pained me, Monsieur Pontmercy, is that you have not been willing to touch that money. That money really belongs to your wife. I will explain to you, my children, and for that reason, also, I am glad to see you. Black jet comes from England, white jet comes from Norway. All this is in this paper, which you will read. For bracelets, I invented a way of substituting for slides of soldered sheet iron, slides of iron laid together. It is prettier, better and less costly. You will understand how much money can be made in that way. So Cosette's fortune is really hers. I give you these details, in order that your mind may be set at rest. The portress had come upstairs and was gazing in at the halfopen door. The doctor dismissed her. But he could not prevent this zealous woman from exclaiming to the dying man before she disappeared 'Would you like a priest? 'I have had one, replied Jean Valjean. And with his finger he seemed to indicate a point above his head where one would have said that he saw some one. It is probable, in fact, that the Bishop was present at this death agony. Cosette gently slipped a pillow under his loins. Jean Valjean resumed 'Have no fear, Monsieur Pontmercy, I adjure you. The six hundred thousand francs really belong to Cosette. My life will have been wasted if you do not enjoy them! We managed to do very well with those glass goods. We rivalled what is called Berlin jewellery. However, we could not equal the black glass of England. A gross, which contains twelve hundred very well cut grains, only costs three francs. When a being who is dear to us is on the point of death, we gaze upon him with a look which clings convulsively to him and which would fain hold him back. Cosette gave her hand to Marius, and both, mute with anguish, not knowing what to say to the dying man, stood trembling and despairing before him. Jean Valjean sank moment by moment. He was failing he was drawing near to the gloomy horizon. His breath had become intermittent a little rattling interrupted it. He found some difficulty in moving his forearm, his feet had lost all movement, and in proportion as the wretchedness of limb and feebleness of body increased, all the majesty of his soul was displayed and spread over his brow. The light of the unknown world was already visible in his eyes. His face paled and smiled. Life was no longer there, it was something else. His breath sank, his glance grew grander. He was a corpse on which the wings could be felt. He made a sign to Cosette to draw near, then to Marius the last minute of the last hour had, evidently, arrived. He began to speak to them in a voice so feeble that it seemed to come from a distance, and one would have said that a wall now rose between them and him. 'Draw near, draw near, both of you. I love you dearly. Oh! how good it is to die like this! And thou lovest me also, my Cosette. I knew well that thou still felt friendly towards thy poor old man. How kind it was of thee to place that pillow under my loins! Thou wilt weep for me a little, wilt thou not? Not too much. I do not wish thee to have any real griefs. You must enjoy yourselves a great deal, my children. I forgot to tell you that the profit was greater still on the buckles without tongues than on all the rest. A gross of a dozen dozens cost ten francs and sold for sixty. It really was a good business. So there is no occasion for surprise at the six hundred thousand francs, Monsieur Pontmercy. It is honest money. You may be rich with a tranquil mind. Thou must have a carriage, a box at the theatres now and then, and handsome ball dresses, my Cosette, and then, thou must give good dinners to thy friends, and be very happy. I was writing to Cosette a while ago. She will find my letter. I bequeath to her the two candlesticks which stand on the chimneypiece. They are of silver, but to me they are gold, they are diamonds they change candles which are placed in them into waxtapers. I do not know whether the person who gave them to me is pleased with me yonder on high. I have done what I could. My children, you will not forget that I am a poor man, you will have me buried in the first plot of earth that you find, under a stone to mark the spot. This is my wish. No name on the stone. If Cosette cares to come for a little while now and then, it will give me pleasure. And you too, Monsieur Pontmercy. I must admit that I have not always loved you. I ask your pardon for that. Now she and you form but one for me. I feel very grateful to you. I am sure that you make Cosette happy. If you only knew, Monsieur Pontmercy, her pretty rosy cheeks were my delight when I saw her in the least pale, I was sad. In the chest of drawers, there is a bankbill for five hundred francs. I have not touched it. It is for the poor. Cosette, dost thou see thy little gown yonder on the bed? dost thou recognize it? That was ten years ago, however. How time flies! We have been very happy. All is over. Do not weep, my children, I am not going very far, I shall see you from there, you will only have to look at night, and you will see me smile. Cosette, dost thou remember Montfermeil? Thou wert in the forest, thou wert greatly terrified dost thou remember how I took hold of the handle of the waterbucket? That was the first time that I touched thy poor, little hand. It was so cold! Ah! your hands were red then, mademoiselle, they are very white now. And the big doll! dost thou remember? Thou didst call her Catherine. Thou regrettedest not having taken her to the convent! How thou didst make me laugh sometimes, my sweet angel! When it had been raining, thou didst float bits of straw on the gutters, and watch them pass away. One day I gave thee a willow battledore and a shuttlecock with yellow, blue and green feathers. Thou hast forgotten it. Thou wert roguish so young! Thou didst play. Thou didst put cherries in thy ears. Those are things of the past. The forests through which one has passed with one's child, the trees under which one has strolled, the convents where one has concealed oneself, the games, the hearty laughs of childhood, are shadows. I imagined that all that belonged to me. In that lay my stupidity. Those Thnardiers were wicked. Thou must forgive them. Cosette, the moment has come to tell thee the name of thy mother. She was called Fantine. Remember that nameFantine. Kneel whenever thou utterest it. She suffered much. She loved thee dearly. She had as much unhappiness as thou hast had happiness. That is the way God apportions things. He is there on high, he sees us all, and he knows what he does in the midst of his great stars. I am on the verge of departure, my children. Love each other well and always. There is nothing else but that in the world love for each other. You will think sometimes of the poor old man who died here. Oh my Cosette, it is not my fault, indeed, that I have not seen thee all this time, it cut me to the heart I went as far as the corner of the street, I must have produced a queer effect on the people who saw me pass, I was like a madman, I once went out without my hat. I no longer see clearly, my children, I had still other things to say, but never mind. Think a little of me. Come still nearer. I die happy. Give me your dear and wellbeloved heads, so that I may lay my hands upon them. Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, in despair, suffocating with tears, each beneath one of Jean Valjean's hands. Those august hands no longer moved. He had fallen backwards, the light of the candles illuminated him. His white face looked up to heaven, he allowed Cosette and Marius to cover his hands with kisses. He was dead. The night was starless and extremely dark. No doubt, in the gloom, some immense angel stood erect with wings outspread, awaiting that soul. In the cemetery of PreLachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and from the defilement of the birds. The water turns it green, the air blackens it. It is not near any path, and people are not fond of walking in that direction, because the grass is high and their feet are immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards come thither. All around there is a quivering of weeds. In the spring, linnets warble in the trees. This stone is perfectly plain. In cutting it the only thought was the requirements of the tomb, and no other care was taken than to make the stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man. No name is to be read there. Only, many years ago, a hand wrote upon it in pencil these four lines, which have become gradually illegible beneath the rain and the dust, and which are, today, probably effaced Il dort. Quoique le sort ft pour lui bien trange, Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange. La chose simplement d'ellemme arriva, Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va. Publisher of the Italian translation of Les Misrables in Milan. HAUTEVILLEHOUSE, October , . You are right, sir, when you tell me that Les Misrables is written for all nations. I do not know whether it will be read by all, but I wrote it for all. It is addressed to England as well as to Spain, to Italy as well as to France, to Germany as well as to Ireland, to Republics which have slaves as well as to Empires which have serfs. Social problems overstep frontiers. The sores of the human race, those great sores which cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines traced upon the map. In every place where man is ignorant and despairing, in every place where woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack of the book which should instruct him and of the hearth which should warm him, the book of Les Misrables knocks at the door and says 'Open to me, I come for you. At the hour of civilization through which we are now passing, and which is still so sombre, the miserable's name is Man he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages. Your Italy is no more exempt from the evil than is our France. Your admirable Italy has all miseries on the face of it. Does not banditism, that raging form of pauperism, inhabit your mountains? Few nations are more deeply eaten by that ulcer of convents which I have endeavored to fathom. In spite of your possessing Rome, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin, Florence, Sienna, Pisa, Mantua, Bologna, Ferrara, Genoa, Venice, a heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, you are, like ourselves, poor. You are covered with marvels and vermin. Assuredly, the sun of Italy is splendid, but, alas, azure in the sky does not prevent rags on man. Like us, you have prejudices, superstitions, tyrannies, fanaticisms, blind laws lending assistance to ignorant customs. You taste nothing of the present nor of the future without a flavor of the past being mingled with it. You have a barbarian, the monk, and a savage, the lazzarone. The social question is the same for you as for us. There are a few less deaths from hunger with you, and a few more from fever your social hygiene is not much better than ours shadows, which are Protestant in England, are Catholic in Italy but, under different names, the vescovo is identical with the bishop, and it always means night, and of pretty nearly the same quality. To explain the Bible badly amounts to the same thing as to understand the Gospel badly. Is it necessary to emphasize this? Must this melancholy parallelism be yet more completely verified? Have you not indigent persons? Glance below. Have you not parasites? Glance up. Does not that hideous balance, whose two scales, pauperism and parasitism, so mournfully preserve their mutual equilibrium, oscillate before you as it does before us? Where is your army of schoolmasters, the only army which civilization acknowledges? Where are your free and compulsory schools? Does every one know how to read in the land of Dante and of Michael Angelo? Have you made public schools of your barracks? Have you not, like ourselves, an opulent warbudget and a paltry budget of education? Have not you also that passive obedience which is so easily converted into soldierly obedience? military establishment which pushes the regulations to the extreme of firing upon Garibaldi that is to say, upon the living honor of Italy? Let us subject your social order to examination, let us take it where it stands and as it stands, let us view its flagrant offences, show me the woman and the child. It is by the amount of protection with which these two feeble creatures are surrounded that the degree of civilization is to be measured. Is prostitution less heartrending in Naples than in Paris? What is the amount of truth that springs from your laws, and what amount of justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be so fortunate as to be ignorant of the meaning of those gloomy words public prosecution, legal infamy, prison, the scaffold, the executioner, the death penalty? Italians, with you as with us, Beccaria is dead and Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons. Have you a government which comprehends the identity of morality and politics? You have reached the point where you grant amnesty to heroes! Something very similar has been done in France. Stay, let us pass miseries in review, let each one contribute his pile, you are as rich as we. Have you not, like ourselves, two condemnations, religious condemnation pronounced by the priest, and social condemnation decreed by the judge? Oh, great nation of Italy, thou resemblest the great nation of France! Alas! our brothers, you are, like ourselves, Miserables. From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do not see much more distinctly than we the radiant and distant portals of Eden. Only, the priests are mistaken. These holy portals are before and not behind us. I resume. This book, Les Misrables, is no less your mirror than ours. Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt against this book,I understand that. Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated that does not prevent them from being of use. As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity. This is, moreover, the tendency of our age, and the law of radiance of the French Revolution books must cease to be exclusively French, Italian, German, Spanish, or English, and become European, I say more, human, if they are to correspond to the enlargement of civilization. Hence a new logic of art, and of certain requirements of composition which modify everything, even the conditions, formerly narrow, of taste and language, which must grow broader like all the rest. In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight, with having transgressed the bounds of what they call 'French taste I should be glad if this eulogium were merited. In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a man, and I cry to all 'Help me! This, sir, is what your letter prompts me to say I say it for you and for your country. If I have insisted so strongly, it is because of one phrase in your letter. You write 'There are Italians, and they are numerous, who say 'This book, Les Misrables, is a French book. It does not concern us. Let the French read it as a history, we read it as a romance.'Alas! I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race the moment has at length arrived for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the ManPeople, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe of the dawn. If this letter seems to you of service in enlightening some minds and in dissipating some prejudices, you are at liberty to publish it, sir. Accept, I pray you, a renewed assurance of my very distinguished sentiments. VICTOR HUGO.  (return) Patois of the French Alps chat de maraude, rascally marauder.  (return) Lige a corktree. Pau a jest on peau, skin.  (return) She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages share the same fate and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, for the space of a morning (or jade).  (return) An exconvict.  (return) This parenthesis is due to Jean Valjean.  (return) A bullet as large as an egg.  (return) Walter Scott, Lamartine, Vaulabelle, Charras, Quinet, Thiers.  (return) This is the inscriptionD. O. M. CY A ETE CRAS PAR MALHEUR SOUS UN CHARIOT, MONSIEUR BERNARD DE BRYE MARCHAND A BRUXELLE LE illegible FEVRIER .  (return) A heavy rifled gun.  (return) 'A battle terminated, a day finished, false measures repaired, greater successes assured for the morrow,all was lost by a moment of panic, terror.Napoleon, Dictes de Sainte Hlne.  (return) Five winning numbers in a lottery  (return) Literally 'made cuirs i. e., pronounced a t or an s at the end of words where the opposite letter should occur, or used either one of them where neither exists.  (return) Lawyer Corbeau, perched on a docket, held in his beak a writ of execution Lawyer Renard, attracted by the smell, addressed him nearly as follows, etc.  (return) This is the factory of Goblet Junior Come choose your jugs and crocks, Flowerpots, pipes, bricks. The Heart sells Diamonds to every comer.  (return) On the boughs hang three bodies of unequal merits Dismas and Gesmas, between is the divine power. Dismas seeks the heights, Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions the highest power will preserve us and our effects. If you repeat this verse, you will not lose your things by theft.  (return) Instead of porte cochre and porte btarde.  (return) JesusmyGodbandylegdown with the moon!  (return) Chicken slang allusion to the noise made in calling poultry.  (return) Louis XVIII. is represented in comic pictures of that day as having a pearshaped head.  (return) Tuck into your trousers the shirttail that is hanging out. Let it not be said that patriots have hoisted the white flag.  (return) In order to reestablish the shaken throne firmly on its base, soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be changed.  (return) Suspendu, suspended pendu, hung.  (return) L'Aile, wing.  (return) The slang term for a painter's assistant.  (return) If Csar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged to quit my mother's love, I would say to great Csar, 'Take back thy sceptre and thy chariot I prefer the love of my mother.  (return) Whether the sun shines brightly or dim, the bear returns to his cave.  (return) The peephole is a Judas in French. Hence the halfpunning allusion.  (return) Our love has lasted a whole week, but how short are the instants of happiness! To adore each other for eight days was hardly worth the while! The time of love should last forever.  (return) You leave me to go to glory my sad heart will follow you everywhere.  (return) A democrat.  (return) King Bootkick went ahunting after crows, mounted on two stilts. When one passed beneath them, one paid him two sous.  (return) In olden times, fouriers were the officials who preceded the Court and allotted the lodgings.  (return) A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is smaller than the other, so that it does not roll straight, but describes a curve on the ground.  (return) From April  to May .  (return) Merlan a sobriquet given to hairdressers because they are white with powder.  (return) The scaffold.  (return) Argot of the Temple.  (return) Argot of the barriers.  (return) The Last Day of a Condemned Man.  (return) 'Vous trouverez dans ces potainsl, une foultitude de raisons pour que je me libertise.  (return) It must be observed, however, that mac in Celtic means son.  (return) Smoke puffed in the face of a person asleep.  (return) Je n'entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron des orgues, peut atiger ses mmes et ses momignards et les locher criblant sans tre agit luimeme.  (return) At night one sees nothing, by day one sees very well the bourgeois gets flurried over an apocryphal scrawl, practice virtue, tutu, pointed hat!  (return) Chien, dog, trigger.  (return) Here is the morn appearing. When shall we go to the forest, Charlot asked Charlotte. Tou, tou, tou, for Chatou, I have but one God, one King, one halffarthing, and one boot. And these two poor little wolves were as tipsy as sparrows from having drunk dew and thyme very early in the morning. And these two poor little things were as drunk as thrushes in a vineyard a tiger laughed at them in his cave. The one cursed, the other swore. When shall we go to the forest? Charlot asked Charlotte.  (return) There swings the horrible skeleton of a poor lover who hung himself.  (return) She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart inhabits her hazardous nose you tremble every instant lest she should blow it at you, and lest, some fine day, her nose should tumble into her mouth.  (return) Matelote a culinary preparation of various fishes. Gibelotte stewed rabbits.  (return) Treat if you can, and eat if you dare.  (return) Bipde sans plume biped without featherspen.  (return) Municipal officer of Toulouse.  (return) Do you remember our sweet life, when we were both so young, and when we had no other desire in our hearts than to be well dressed and in love? When, by adding your age to my age, we could not count forty years between us, and when, in our humble and tiny household, everything was spring to us even in winter. Fair days! Manuel was proud and wise, Paris sat at sacred banquets, Foy launched thunderbolts, and your corsage had a pin on which I pricked myself. Everything gazed upon you. A briefless lawyer, when I took you to the Prado to dine, you were so beautiful that the roses seemed to me to turn round, and I heard them say Is she not beautiful! How good she smells! What billowing hair! Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charming bonnet is hardly unfolded. I wandered with thee, pressing thy supple arm. The passersby thought that love bewitched had wedded, in our happy couple, the gentle month of April to the fair month of May. We lived concealed, content, with closed doors, devouring love, that sweet forbidden fruit. My mouth had not uttered a thing when thy heart had already responded. The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot where I adored thee from eve till morn. 'Tis thus that an amorous soul applies the chart of the Tender to the Latin country. O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine! When in the fresh springlike hut thou didst draw thy stocking on thy delicate leg, I saw a star in the depths of the garret. I have read a great deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me better than Malebranche and then Lamennais thou didst demonstrate to me celestial goodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thou didst submit to me oh gilded garret! to lace thee! to behold thee going and coming from dawn in thy chemise, gazing at thy young brow in thine ancient mirror! And who, then, would forego the memory of those days of aurora and the firmament, of flowers, of gauze and of moire, when love stammers a charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat I took the earthenware bowl and I gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes which made us laugh! Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost! And that dear portrait of the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening that we might sup! I was a beggar and thou wert charitable. I kissed thy fresh round arms in haste. A folio Dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily a centime's worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, I snatched a kiss from thy fiery lip, when thou wentest forth, dishevelled and blushing, I turned deathly pale and I believed in God. Dost thou recall our innumerable joys, and all those fichus changed to rags? Oh! what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenly depths!  (return) My nose is in tears, my friend Bugeaud, lend me thy gendarmes that I may say a word to them. With a blue capote and a chicken in his shako, here's the banlieue, cococorico.  (return) Love letters.  (return)  'The bird slanders in the elms, And pretends that yesterday, Atala Went off with a Russian, Where fair maids go. Lon la. My friend Pierrot, thou pratest, because Mila knocked at her pane the other day and called me. The jades are very charming, their poison which bewitched me would intoxicate Monsieur Orfila. I'm fond of love and its bickerings, I love Agnes, I love Pamela, Lise burned herself in setting me aflame. In former days when I saw the mantillas of Suzette and of Zila, my soul mingled with their folds. Love, when thou gleamest in the dark thou crownest Lola with roses, I would lose my soul for that. Jeanne, at thy mirror thou deckest thyself! One fine day, my heart flew forth. I think that it is Jeanne who has it. At night, when I come from the quadrilles, I show Stella to the stars, and I say to them 'Behold her. Where fair maids go, lon la.  (return) But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put a stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at skittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ball rolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre where the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. On that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.  (return) Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which the bodies of executed criminals were dragged by hooks to be thrown into the Tiber.  (return) Mustards.  (return) From casser, to break breaknecks.  (return) 'Jeanne was born at Fougre, a true shepherd's nest I adore her petticoat, the rogue. 'Love, thou dwellest in her For 'tis in her eyes that thou placest thy quiver, sly scamp! 'As for me, I sing her, and I love, more than Diana herself, Jeanne and her firm Breton breasts.  (return) In allusion to the expression, coiffer SainteCatherine, 'to remain unmarried.  (return) 'Thus, hemming in the course of thy musings, Alcippus, it is true that thou wilt wed ere long.  (return) Tirer le diable par la queue, 'to live from hand to mouth.  (return) 'Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conchshell sounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!  (return) 'A ShroveTuesday marriage will have no ungrateful children.  (return) A short mask.  (return) In allusion to the story of Prometheus.  (return) Un fafiot srieux. Fafiot is the slang term for a bankbill, derived from its rustling noise.  (return) He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.
By Alice M. Bacon IN THE LAND OF THE GODS. mo, .. JAPANESE GIRLS AND WOMEN. mo, .. In Riverside Library for Young People. mo,  cents. Holiday Edition. With  fullpage Illustrations in color and  outline drawings by Japanese artists. Crown vo, gilt top, .. A JAPANESE INTERIOR. mo, .. In Riverside School Library. mo,  cents, net. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and New York BY ALICE MABEL BACON REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge Copyright, , , By ALICE MABEL BACON. All rights reserved. To STEMATZ, THE MARCHIONESS OYAMA, IN THE NAME OF OUR GIRLHOOD'S FRIENDSHIP, UNCHANGED AND UNSHAKEN BY THE CHANGES AND SEPARATIONS OF OUR MATURER YEARS, This Volume IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. v In offering a revised edition of a book which has been before the public for more than ten years, there is little to say that has not been said in the original Preface. The work as published before, however, was always, to its author's mind, unfinished, for the reason that a chapter on household customs, which was necessary for the completion of the plan, had to be omitted because it could not be written in America. This defect has now been remedied, and the chapter 'Within the Home' contains the supplementary matter necessary to complete the picture of a Japanese woman's life. In addition to this a thorough revision has been made of the whole book, and the subjects discussed in each chapter have been brought up to date by means of notes in an Appendix. The reader will find these notes referred to by asterisks in the text. vi Finally, a second supplementary chapter has been added, in which an effort has been made to analyze present conditions. From its nature, this chapter is only a rapid survey of the progress of ten years. It is not easy to write with judgment of conditions actually present. A little perspective is necessary to make sure that one sees things in their proper proportions. It is therefore with some hesitation that I offer to the public the result of two years' experience of the present state of affairs. If subsequent events show that my observation has been incorrect, I can only say that what I have written has been the 'ThingasIseeIt,' and does not lay claim to being the 'ThingasItis.' In closing, I would thank once more the friends whose names appear in the previous Preface, and would add to their number the names of Mr. H. Sakurai and Mr. and Mrs. Seijiro Saito, who have rendered me valuable aid in gathering material. A. M. B. New Haven, Connecticut, November, . vii It seems necessary for a new author to give some excuse for her boldness in offering to the public another volume upon a subject already so well written up as Japan. In a field occupied by Griffis, Morse, Greey, Lowell, and Rein, what unexplored corner can a woman hope to enter? This is the question that will be asked, and that accordingly the author must answer. While Japan as a whole has been closely studied, and while much and varied information has been gathered about the country and its people, one half of the population has been left entirely unnoticed, passed over with brief mention, or altogether misunderstood. It is of this neglected half that I have written, in the hope that the whole fabric of Japanese socialviii life will be better comprehended when the women of the country, and so the homes that they make, are better known and understood. The reason why Japanese homelife is so little understood by foreigners, even by those who have lived long in Japan, is that the Japanese, under an appearance of frankness and candor, hides an impenetrable reserve in regard to all those personal concerns which he believes are not in the remotest degree the concerns of his foreign guest. Only life in the home itself can show what a Japanese home may be and only by intimate associationsuch as no foreign man can ever hope to gainwith the Japanese ladies themselves can much be learned of the thoughts and daily lives of the best Japanese women. I have been peculiarly fortunate in having enjoyed the privilege of long and intimate friendship with a number of Japanese ladies, who have spoken with me as freely, and shown the details of their lives to meix as openly, as if bound by closest ties of kindred. Through them, and only through them, I have been enabled to study life from the point of view of the refined and intelligent Japanese women, and have found the study so interesting and instructive that I have felt impelled to offer to others some part of what I have received through the aid of these friends. I have, moreover, been encouraged in my work by reading, when it was already more than half completed, the following words from Griffis's 'Mikado's Empire' 'The whole question of the position of Japanese womenin history, social life, education, employments, authorship, art, marriage, concubinage, prostitution, benevolent labor, the ideals of literature, popular superstitions, etc.discloses such a wide and fascinating field of inquiry that I wonder no one has as yet entered it.' In closing, I should say that this work is by no means entirely my own. It is, in the first place, largely the result of the interchange xof thought through many and long conversations with Japanese ladies upon the topics herein treated. It has also been carefully revised and criticised and many valuable additions have been made to it by Miss Um Tsuda, teacher of English in the Peeresses' School in Tky, and an old and intimate friend. Miss Tsuda is at present in this country, on a two years' leave, for purposes of further study. She has, amid her many duties as a student at Bryn Mawr College, given much time and thought to this work and a large part of whatever value it may possess is due to her. I would say, too, that in the verification of dates, names, and historical incidents, I have relied altogether upon Griffis's 'Mikado's Empire' and Rein's 'Japan,' knowing that those two authors represent the best that has been done by foreigners in the field of Japanese history. This work also owes much, not only to the suggestions and historical aids contained xiin the 'Mikado's Empire,' but to Mr. Griffis himself, for his careful reading of my manuscript, and for his criticisms and suggestions. No greater encouragement can be given to an inexperienced author than the helpful criticism of one who has already distinguished himself in the same field of labor and for just such friendly aid my warmest thanks are due to Mr. Griffis. A. M. B. Hampton, Va., February, .  To the Japanese baby the beginning of life is not very different from its beginning to babies in the Western world. Its birth, whether it be girl or boy, is the cause of much rejoicing. As boys alone can carry on the family name and inherit titles and estates, they are considered of more importance, but many parents' hearts are made glad by the addition of a daughter to the family circle. As soon as the event takes place, a special messenger is dispatched to notify relatives and intimate friends, while formal letters of announcement are sent to those less closely related. All persons thus notified must make an early visit to the newcomer, in order to welcome it into the world, and must either take with them or send before them some present. Toys, pieces of cotton, silk, or crpe for the baby's dress are regarded as suitable and everything must be accompanied by fish or eggs, for good luck. Where eggs are sent, they are neatly arranged in a covered box, which may contain thirty, forty, or even one hundred eggs. The baby, especially if it be the first one in a family, receives many presents in the first few weeks of its life, and at a certain time proper acknowledgment must be made and return presents sent. This is done when the baby is about thirty days old. Both baby and mother have a hard time of it for the first few weeks of its life. The baby is passed from hand to hand, fussed over, and talked to so much by the visitors that come in, that it must think this world a trying place. The mother, too, is denied the rest and quiet she needs, and wears herself out in the excitement of seeing her friends, and the physical exercise of going through, so far as possible, the ceremonious bows and salutations that etiquette prescribes. Before the seventh day the baby receives its name. There is no especial ceremony connected with this, but the child's birth must be formally registered, together with its name, at the district office of registration, and the household keep holiday in honor of the event. A certain kind of rice, cooked with red beans, a festival dish denoting good fortune, is usually partaken of by the family on the seventh day. The next important event in the baby's life is the miya mairi, a ceremony which corresponds roughly with our christening. On the thirtieth day after birth, the baby is taken for its first visit to the temple. For this visit great preparations are made, and the baby is dressed in finest silk or crpe, gayly figured,garments made especially for the occasion. Upon the dress appears in various places the crest of the family, as on all ceremonial dresses, whether for young or old, for every Japanese family has its crest. Thus arrayed, and accompanied by members of the family, the young baby is carried to one of the Shinto temples, and there placed under the protection of the patron deity of the temple. This god, chosen from a great number of Shinto deities, is supposed to become the special guardian of the child through life. Offerings are made to the god and to the priest, and a blessing is obtained and the baby is thus formally placed under the care of a special deity. This ceremony over, there is usually an entertainment of some kind at the home of the parents, especially if the family be one of high rank. Friends are invited, and if there are any who have not as yet sent in presents, they may give them at this time.  It is usually on this day that the family send to their friends some acknowledgment of the presents received. This sometimes consists of the red bean rice, such as is prepared for the seventh day celebration, and sometimes of cakes of mochi, or rice paste. A letter of thanks usually accompanies the return present. If rice is sent, it is put in a handsome lacquered box, the box placed on a lacquered tray, and the whole covered with a square of crpe or silk, richly decorated. The box, the tray, and the cover are of course returned, and, curious to say, the box must be returned unwashed, as it would be very unlucky to send it back clean. A piece of Japanese paper must be slipped into the box after its contents have been removed, and box and tray must be given back, just as they are, to the messenger. Sometimes a box of eggs, or a peculiar kind of dried fish, called katsuobushi, is sent with this present, when it is desired to make an especially handsome return. When as many as fifty or one hundred return presents of this kind are to be sent, it is no slight tax on the mistress of the house to see that no one is forgotten, and that all is properly done. As special messengers are sent, a number of men are sometimes kept busy for two or three days. After all these festivities, a quiet, undisturbed life begins for the baby,a life which is neither unpleasant nor unhealthful. It is not jolted, rocked, or trotted to sleep it is allowed to cry if it chooses, without anybody's supposing that the world will come to an end because of its crying and its dress is loose and easily put on, so that very little time is spent in the tiresome process of dressing and undressing. Under these conditions the baby thrives and grows strong and fat learns to take life with some philosophy, even at a very early age and is not subject to fits of hysterical or passionate crying, brought on by much jolting or trotting, or by the wearisome process of pinning, buttoning, tying of strings, and thrusting of arms into tight sleeves. The Japanese baby's dress, though not as pretty as that of our babies, is in many ways much more sensible. It consists of as many widesleeved, straight, silk, cotton, or flannel garments as the season of the year may require,all cut after nearly the same pattern, and that pattern the same in shape as the grownup kimono. These garments are fitted, one inside of the other, before they are put on then they are laid down on the floor and the baby is laid into them a soft belt, attached to the outer garment or dress, is tied around the waist, and the baby is dressed without a shriek or a wail, as simply and easily as possible. The baby's dresses, like those of our babies, are made long enough to cover the little bare feet and the sleeves cover the hands as well, so preventing the unmerciful scratching that most babies give to their faces, as well as keeping the hands warm and dry. Babies of the lower classes, within a few weeks after birth, are carried about tied upon the back of some member of the family, frequently an older sister or brother, who is sometimes not more than five or six years old. The poorer the family, the earlier is the young baby thus put on some one's back, and one frequently sees babies not more than a month old, with bobbing heads and blinking eyes, tied by long bands of cloth to the backs of older brothers or sisters, and living in the streets in all weathers. When it is cold, the sister's haori, or coat, serves as an extra covering for the baby as well and when the sun is hot, the sister's parasol keeps off its rays from the bobbing bald head. Living in public, as the Japanese babies do, they soon acquire an intelligent, interested look, and seem to enjoy the games of the elder children, upon whose backs they are carried, as much as the players themselves. Babies of the middle classes do not live in public in this way, but ride about upon the backs of their nurses until they are old enough to toddle by themselves, and they are not so often seen in the streets as few but the poorest Japanese, even in the large cities, are unable to have a pleasant bit of garden in which the children can play and take the air. The children of the richest families, the nobility, and the imperial family, are never carried about in this way. The young child is borne in the arms of an attendant, within doors and without but as this requires the care of some one constantly, and prevents the nurse from doing anything but care for the child, only the richest can afford this luxury. With the baby tied to her back, a woman is able to care for a child, and yet go on with her household labors, and baby watches over mother's or nurse's shoulder, between naps taken at all hours, the processes of drawing water, washing and cooking rice, and all the varied work of the house. Imperial babies are held in the arms of some one night and day, from the moment of birth until they have learned to walk, a custom which seems to render the lot of the highborn infant less comfortable in some ways than that of the plebeian child. The flexibility of the knees, which is required for comfort in the Japanese method of sitting, is gained in very early youth by the habit of setting a baby down with its knees bent under it, instead of with its legs out straight before it, as seems to us the natural way. To the Japanese, the normal way for a baby to sit is with its knees bent under it, and so, at a very early age, the muscles and tendons of the knees are accustomed to what seems to us a most unnatural and uncomfortable posture.  Among the lower classes, where there are few bathing facilities in the houses, babies of a few weeks old are often taken to the public bath house and put into the hot bath. These Japanese baths are usually heated to a temperature of a hundred to a hundred and twenty Fahrenheit,a temperature that most foreigners visiting Japan find almost unbearable. To a baby's delicate skin, the first bath or two is usually a severe trial, but it soon becomes accustomed to the high temperature, and takes its bath, as it does everything else, placidly and in public. Born into a country where cow's milk is never used, the Japanese baby is wholly dependent upon its mother for milk, and is not weaned entirely until it reaches the age of three or four years, and is able to live upon the ordinary food of the class to which it belongs. There is no intermediate stage of bread and milk, oatmeal and milk, gruel, or pap of some kind for the allimportant factormilkis absent from the bill of fare, in a land where there is neither 'milk for babes' nor 'strong meat for them that are full of age.' In consequence, partly, of the lack of proper nourishment after the child is too old to live wholly upon its mother's milk, and partly, perhaps, because of the poor food that the mothers, even of the higher classes, live upon, many babies in Japan are afflicted with disagreeable skin troubles, especially of the scalp and face,troubles which usually disappear as soon as the child becomes accustomed to the regular food of the adult. Another consequence, as I imagine, of the lack of proper food at the teething period, is the early loss of the child's first teeth, which usually turn black and decay some time before the second teeth begin to show themselves. With the exception of these two troubles, Japanese babies seem healthy, hearty, and happy to an extraordinary degree, and show that most of the conditions of their lives are wholesome. The constant outofdoor life and the healthful dress serve to make up in considerable measure for the poor food, and the Japanese baby, though small after the manner of the race, is usually plump, and of firm, hard flesh. One striking characteristic of the Japanese baby is, that at a very early age it learns to cling like a kitten to the back of whoever carries it, so that it is really difficult to drop it through carelessness, for the baby looks out for its own safety like a young monkey. The straps that tie it to the back are sufficient for safety but the baby, from the age of one month, is dependent upon its own exertions to secure a comfortable position, and it soon learns to ride its bearer with considerable skill, instead of being merely a bundle tied to the shoulders. Any one who has ever handled a Japanese baby can testify to the amount of intelligence shown in this direction at a very early age and this clinging with arms and legs is, perhaps, a valuable part of the training which gives to the whole nation the peculiar quickness of motion and hardness of muscle that characterize them from childhood. It is the agility and muscular quality that belong to wild animals, that we see something of in the Indian, but to a more marked degree in the Japanese, especially of the lower classes. The Japanese baby's first lessons in walking are taken under favorable circumstances. With feet comfortably shod in the soft tabi, or mittenlike sock, babies can tumble about as they like, with no bump nor bruise, upon the soft matted floors of the dwelling houses. There is no furniture to fall against, and nothing about the room to render falling a thing to be feared. After learning the art of walking in the house, the baby's first attempts out of doors are hampered by the zori or gta,a light straw sandal or small wooden clog attached to the foot by a strap passing between the toes. At the very beginning the sandal or clog is tied to the baby's foot by bits of string fastened around the ankle, but this provision for security is soon discarded, and the baby patters along like the grown people, holding on the gta by the strap passing between the toes. This somewhat cumbersome and inconvenient foot gear must cause many falls at first, but baby's experience in the art of balancing upon people's backs now aids in this new art of balancing upon the little wooden clogs. Babies of two or three trot about quite comfortably in gta that seem to give most insecure footing, and older children run, jump, hop on one foot, and play all manner of active games upon heavy clogs that would wrench our ankles and toes out of all possibility of usefulness. This foot gear, while producing an awkward, shuffling gait, has certain advantages over our own, especially for children whose feet are growing rapidly. The gta, even if outgrown, can never cramp the toes nor compress the ankles. If the foot is too long for the clog the heel laps over behind, but the toes do not suffer, and the use of the gta strengthens the ankles by affording no artificial aid or support, and giving to all the muscles of foot and leg free play, with the foot in a natural position. The toes of the Japanese retain their prehensile qualities to a surprising degree, and are used, not only for grasping the foot gear, but among mechanics almost like two supplementary hands, to aid in holding the thing worked upon. Each toe knows its work and does it, and they are not reduced to the dull uniformity of motion that characterizes the toes of a leathershod nation. The distinction between the dress of the boy and the girl, that one notices from childhood, begins in babyhood. A very young baby wears red and yellow, but soon the boy is dressed in sober colors,blues, grays, greens, and browns while the little girl still wears the most gorgeous of colors and the largest of patterns in her garments, red being the predominant hue. The sex, even of a young baby, may be distinguished by the color of its clothing. White, the garb of mourning in Japan, is never used for children, but the minutest babies are dressed in brightcolored garments, and of the same materialswadded cotton, silk, or crpeas those worn by adults of their social grade. As these dresses are not as easily washed as our own cambric and flannel baby clothes, there is a loss among the poorer classes in the matter of cleanliness and the gorgeous soiled gowns are not as attractive as the more washable white garments in which our babies are dressed. For model clothing for a baby, I would suggest a combination of the Japanese style with the foreign, easily washed materials,a combination that I have seen used in their own families by Japanese ladies educated abroad, and one in which the objections to the Japanese style of dress are entirely obviated. The Japanese baby begins to practice the accomplishment of talking at a very early age, for its native language is singularly happy in easy expressions for children and little babies will be heard chattering away in soft, easily spoken words long before they are able to venture alone from their perches on their mothers' or nurses' backs. A few simple words express much, and cover all wants. Iya expresses discontent or dislike of any kind, and is also used for 'no' mam ma means food b b is the dress ta ta is the sock, or house shoe, etc. We find many of the same sounds as in the baby language of English, with meanings totally different. The baby is not troubled with difficult grammatical changes, for the Japanese language has few inflections and it is too young to be puzzled with the intricacies of the various expressions denoting different degrees of politeness, which are the snare and the despair of the foreigner studying Japanese. As our little girl emerges from babyhood she finds the life opening before her a bright and happy one, but one hedged about closely by the proprieties, and one in which, from babyhood to old age, she must expect to be always under the control of one of the stronger sex. Her position will be an honorable and respected one only as she learns in her youth the lesson of cheerful obedience, of pleasing manners, and of personal cleanliness and neatness. Her duties must be always either within the house, or, if she belongs to the peasant class, on the farm. There is no career or vocation open to her she must be dependent always upon either father, husband, or son, and her greatest happiness is to be gained, not by cultivation of the intellect, but by the early acquisition of the selfcontrol which is expected of all Japanese women to an even greater degree than of the men. This selfcontrol must consist, not simply in the concealment of all the outward signs of any disagreeable emotion,whether of grief, anger, or pain,but in the assumption of a cheerful smile and agreeable manner under even the most distressing of circumstances. The duty of selfrestraint is taught to the little girls of the family from the tenderest years it is their great moral lesson, and is expatiated upon at all times by their elders. The little girl must sink herself entirely, must give up always to others, must never show emotions except such as will be pleasing to those about her this is the secret of true politeness, and must be mastered if the woman wishes to be well thought of and to lead a happy life. The effect of this teaching is seen in the attractive but dignified manners of the Japanese women, and even of the very little girls. They are not forward nor pushing, neither are they awkwardly bashful there is no selfconsciousness, neither is there any lack of savoir faire a childlike simplicity is united with a womanly consideration for the comfort of those around them. A Japanese child seems to be the product of a more perfect civilization than our own, for it comes into the world with little of the savagery and barbarian bad manners that distinguish children in this country, and the first ten or fifteen years of its life do not seem to be passed in one long struggle to acquire a coating of good manners that will help to render it less obnoxious in polite society. How much of the politeness of the Japanese is the result of training, and how much is inherited from generations of civilized ancestors, it is difficult to tell but my impression is, that babies are born into the world with a good start in the matter of manners, and that the uniformly gentle and courteous treatment that they receive from those about them, together with the continual verbal teaching of the principle of selfrestraint and thoughtfulness of others, produce with very little difficulty the universally attractive manners of the people. One curious thing in a Japanese household is to see the formalities that pass between brothers and sisters, and the respect paid to age by every member of the family. The grandfather and grandmother come first of all in everything,no one at table must be helped before them in any case after them come the father and mother and lastly, the children according to their ages. A younger sister must always wait for the elder and pay her due respect, even in the matter of walking into the room before her. The wishes and convenience of the elder, rather than of the younger, are to be consulted in everything, and this lesson must be learned early by children. The difference in years may be slight, but the elderborn has the first right in all cases. Our little girl's place in the family is a pleasant one she is the pet and plaything of father and elder brothers, and she is never saluted by any one in the family, except her parents, without the title of respect due to her position. If she is the eldest daughter, to the servants she is O J Sama, literally, young lady to her own brothers and sisters, N San, elder sister. Should she be one of the younger ones, her given name, preceded by the honorific O and followed by San, meaning Miss, will be the name by which she will be called by younger brothers and sisters, and by the servants. As she passes from babyhood to girlhood, and from girlhood to womanhood, she is the object of much love and care and solicitude but she does not grow up irresponsible or untrained to meet the duties which womanhood will surely bring to her. She must learn all the duties that fall upon the wife and mother of a Japanese household, as well as obtain the instruction in books and mathematics that is coming to be more and more a necessity for the women of Japan. She must take a certain responsibility in the household must see that tea is made for the guests who may be received by her parents,in all but the families of highest rank, must serve it herself. Indeed, it is quite the custom in families of the higher classes, should a guest, whom it is desired to receive with especial honor, dine at the house, to serve the meal, not with the family, but separately for the father and his visitor and it is the duty of the wife or daughter, oftener the latter, to wait on them. This is in honor of the guest, not on account of the lack of servants, for there may be any number of them within call, or even in the back part of the room, ready to receive from the hands of the young girl what she has removed. She must, therefore, know the proper etiquette of the table, how to serve carefully and neatly, and, above all, have the skill to ply the sak bottle, so that the house may keep up its reputation for hospitality. Should guests arrive in the absence of her parents, she must receive and entertain them until the master or mistress of the house returns. She also feels a certain care about the behavior of the younger members of the family, especially in the absence of the parents. In these various ways she is trained for taking upon herself the cares of a household when the time comes. In all but the very wealthiest and most aristocratic families, the daughters of the house do a large part of the simple housework. In a house with no furniture, no carpets, no bricbrac, no mirrors, picture frames or glasses to be cared for, no stoves or furnaces, no windows to wash, a large part of the cooking to be done outside, and no latest styles to be imitated in clothing, the amount of work to be done by women is considerably diminished, but still there remains enough to take a good deal of time. Every morning there are the beds to be rolled up and stored away in the closet, the mosquito nets to be taken down, the rooms to be swept, dusted, and aired before breakfast. Besides this, there is the washing and polishing of the engawa, or piazza, which runs around the outside of a Japanese house between the shoji, or paper screens that serve as windows, and the amado, or sliding shutters, that are closed only at night, or during heavy, driving rains. Breakfast is to be cooked and served, dishes to be washed (in cold water) and then perhaps there is marketing to be done, either at shops outside or from the vendors of fish and vegetables who bring their huge baskets of provisions to the door but after these duties are performed, it is possible to sit down quietly to the day's work of sewing, studying, or whatever else may suit the taste or necessities of the housewife. Of sewing there is always a good deal to be done, for many Japanese dresses must be taken to pieces whenever they are washed, and are turned, dyed, and made over again and again, so long as there is a shred of the original material left to work upon. There is washing, too, to be done, although neither with hot water nor soap and in the place of ironing, the cotton garments, which are usually washed without ripping, must be hung up on a bamboo pole passed through the armholes, and pulled smooth and straight before they dry and the silk, always ripped into breadths before washing, must be smoothed while wet upon a board which is set in the sun until the silk is dry. Then there are the every day dishes which our Japanese maiden must learn to prepare. The proper boiling of rice is in itself a study. The construction of the various soups which form the staple in the Japanese bill of fare the preparation of mochi, a kind of rice dough, which is prepared at the New Year, or to send to friends on various festival occasions these and many other branches of the culinary art must be mastered before the young girl is prepared to assume the cares of married life. But though the little girl's life is not without its duties and responsibilities, it is also not at all lacking in simple and innocent pleasures. First among the annual festivals, and bringing with it much mirth and frolic, comes the Feast of the New Year. At this time father, mother, and all older members of the family lay aside their work and their dignity, and join in the fun and sports that are characteristic of this season. Worries and anxieties are set aside with the close of the year, and the first beams of the New Year's sun bring in a season of unlimited joy for the children. For about one week the festival lasts, and the festal spirit remains through the whole month, prompting to fun and amusements of all kinds. From early morning until bedtime the children wear their prettiest clothes, in which they play without rebuke. Guests come and go, bringing congratulations to the family, and often gifts for all. The children's stock of toys is thus greatly increased, and the house overflows with the good things of the season, of which mochi, or cake made from rice dough, prepared always especially for this time, is one of the most important articles. The children are taken with their parents to make New Year's visits to their friends and to offer them congratulations, and much they enjoy this, as, dressed in their best, they ride from house to house in jinrikishas. And then, during the long, happy evenings, the whole family, including even the old grandfather and grandmother, join in merry games the servants, too, are invited to join the family party, and, without seeming forward or out of place, enter into the games with zest. One of the favorite games is 'Hyaku nin isshu,' literally 'The poems of a hundred poets.' It consists of two hundred cards, on each of which is printed either the first or last half of one of the hundred famous Japanese poems which give the name to the game. The poems are well known to all Japanese, of whatever sort or condition. All Japanese poems are short, containing only thirtyone syllables, and have a natural division into two parts. The one hundred cards containing the latter halves of the poems are dealt and laid out in rows, face upward, before the players. One person is appointed reader. To him are given the remaining hundred cards, and he reads the beginnings of the poems in whatever order they come from the shuffled pack. Skill in the game consists in remembering quickly the line following the one read, and rapidly finding the card on which it is written. Especially does the player watch his own cards, and if he finds there the end of the poem, the beginning of which has just been read, he must pick it up before any one sees it and lay it aside. If some one else spies the card first, he seizes it and gives to the careless player several cards from his own hand. Whoever first disposes of all his cards is the winner. The players usually arrange themselves in two lines down the middle of the room, and the two sides play against each other, the game not being ended until either one side or the other has disposed of all its cards. The game requires great quickness of thought and of motion, and is invaluable in giving to all young people an education in the classical poetry of their own nation, as well as being a source of great merriment and jollity among young and old. Scattered throughout the year are various flower festivals, when, often with her whole family, our little girl visits the famous gardens where the plum, the cherry, the chrysanthemum, the iris, or the azalea attain their greatest loveliness, and spends the day out of doors in sthetic enjoyment of the beauties of nature supplemented by art. And then there is the feast most loved in the whole year, the Feast of Dolls, when on the third day of the third month the great fireproof storehouse gives forth its treasures of dolls,in an old family, many of them hundreds of years old,and for three days, with all their belongings of tiny furnishings in silver, lacquer, and porcelain, they reign supreme, arranged on redcovered shelves in the finest room of the house. Most prominent among the dolls are the effigies of the Emperor and Empress in antique court costume, seated in dignified calm, each on a lacquered dais. Near them are the figures of the five court musicians in their robes of office, each with his instrument. Beside these dolls, which are always present and form the central figures at the feast, numerous others, more plebeian, but more lovable, find places on the lower shelves, and the array of dolls' furnishings which is brought out on these occasions is something marvelous. It was my privilege to be present at the Feast of Dolls in the house of one of the Tokugawa daimis, a house in which the old forms and ceremonies were strictly observed, and over which the wave of foreign innovation had passed so slightly that even the calendar still remained unchanged, and the feast took place upon the third day of the third month of the old Japanese year, instead of on the third day of March, which is the usual time for it now. At this house, where the dolls had been accumulating for hundreds of years, five or six broad, redcovered shelves, perhaps twenty feet long or more, were completely filled with them and with their belongings. The Emperor and Empress appeared again and again, as well as the five court musicians, and the tiny furnishings and utensils were wonderfully costly and beautiful. Before each Emperor and Empress was set an elegant lacquered table service,tray, bowls, cups, sak pots, rice buckets, etc., all complete and in each utensil was placed the appropriate variety of food. The sak used on this occasion is a sweet, white liquor, brewed especially for this feast, as different from the ordinary sak as sweet cider is from the hard cider upon which a man may drink himself into a state of intoxication. Besides the table service, everything that an imperial doll can be expected to need or desire is placed upon the shelves. Lacquered norimono, or palanquins lacquered bullock carts, drawn by bowlegged black bulls,these were the conveyances of the great in Old Japan, and these, in minute reproductions, are placed upon the redcovered shelves. Tiny silver and brass hibachi, or fire boxes, are there, with their accompanying tongs and charcoal baskets,whole kitchens, with everything required for cooking the finest of Japanese feasts, as finely made as if for actual use all the necessary toilet apparatus,combs, mirrors, utensils for blackening the teeth, for shaving the eyebrows, for reddening the lips and whitening the face,all these things are there to delight the souls of all the little girls who may have the opportunity to behold them. For three days the imperial effigies are served sumptuously at each meal, and the little girls of the family take pleasure in serving their imperial majesties but when the feast ends, the dolls and their belongings are packed away in their boxes, and lodged in the fireproof warehouse for another year. The Tokugawa collection, of which I have spoken, is remarkably full and costly, for it has been making for hundreds of years in one of the younger branches of a family which for two and a half centuries was possessed of almost imperial power, and lived in more than imperial luxury but there are few households so poor that they do not from year to year accumulate a little store of toys wherewith to celebrate the feast, and, whether the toys are many or few, the feast is the event of the year in the lives of the little girls of Japan. Beside the regular feasts at stated seasons, our little girl has a great variety of toys and games, some belonging to particular seasons, some played at any time during the year. At the New Year the popular outofdoor games are battledoor and shuttlecock, and ball. There is no prettier sight, to my mind, than a group of little girls in their manycolored widesleeved dresses playing with battledoor or ball. The graceful, rhythmic motion of their bodies, the bright upturned eyes, the laughing faces, are set off to perfection by the coloring of their flowing drapery and their agility on their high, lacquered clogs is a constant source of wonder and admiration to any one who has ever made an effort to walk upon the clumsy things. There are dolls, too, that are not relegated to the storehouse when the Feast of Dolls is ended, but who are the joy and comfort of their little mothers during the whole year and at every kwankoba, or bazaar, an endless variety of games, puzzles, pictures to be cut out and glued together, and amusements of all kinds, may be purchased at extremely low rates. There is no dearth of games for our little girl, and many pleasant hours are spent in the household sitting room with games, or conundrums, or stories, or the simple girlish chatter that elicits constant laughter from sheer youthful merriment. As for fairy tales, so dear to the hearts of children in every country, the Japanese child has her full share. Often she listens, half asleep, while cuddling under the warm quilted cover of the kotatsu, in the cold winter evenings, to the drowsy voice of the old grandmother or nurse, who carries her away on the wings of imagination to the wonderful palace of the sea gods, or to the haunts of the terrible oni, monsters with red, distorted faces and fearful horns. Momotaro, the Peach Boy, with his wonderful feats in the conquest of the oni, is her hero, until he is supplanted by the more real ones of Japanese history. There are occasional allday visits to the theatre, too, where, seated on the floor in a box, railed off from those adjoining, our little girl, in company with her mother and sisters, enjoys, though with paroxysms of horror and fear, the heroic historical plays which are now almost all that is left of the heroic old Japan. Here she catches the spirit of passionate loyalty that belonged to those days, forms her ideals of what a noble Japanese woman should be willing to do for parents or husband, and comes away taught, as she could be by no other teaching, what the spirit was that animated her ancestors,what spirit must animate her, should she wish to be a worthy descendant of the women of old. Among these surroundings, with these duties and amusements, our little girl grows to womanhood. The unconscious and beautiful spirit of her childhood is not driven away at the dawn of womanhood by thoughts of beaux, of coming out in society, of a brief career of flirtation and conquest, and at the end as fine a marriage, either for love or money, as her imagination can picture. She takes no thought for these things herself, and her intercourse with young men, though free and unconstrained, has about it no grain of flirtation or romantic interest. When the time comes for her to marry, her father will have her meet some eligible young man, and both she and the young man will know, when they are brought together, what is the end in view, and will make up their minds about the matter. But until that time comes, the modest Japanese maiden carries on no flirtations, thinks little of men except as higher beings to be deferred to and waited on, and preserves the childlike innocence of manner, combined with a serene dignity under all circumstances, that is so noticeable a trait in the Japanese woman from childhood to old age. The Japanese woman is, under this discipline, a finished product at the age of sixteen or eighteen. She is pure, sweet, and amiable, with great power of selfcontrol, and a knowledge of what to do upon all occasions. The higher part of her nature is little developed no great religious truths have lifted her soul above the world into a clearer and higher atmosphere but as far as she goes, in regard to all the little things of daily life, she is bright, industrious, sweettempered, and attractive, and prepared to do well her duty, when that duty comes to her, as wife and mother and mistress of a household. The highest principle upon which she is taught to act is obedience, even to the point of violating all her finest feminine instincts, at the command of father or husband and acting under that principle, she is capable of an entire selfabnegation such as few women of any race can achieve. With the close of her childhood, the happiest period in the life of a Japanese woman closes. The discipline that she has received so far, repressive and constant as it has often been, has been from kind and loving parents. She has freedom, to a certain degree, such as is unknown to any other country in Asia. In the home she is truly loved, often the pet and plaything of the household, though not receiving the caresses and words of endearment that children in America expect as a right, for love in Japan is undemonstrative. But just at the time when her mind broadens, and the desire for knowledge and selfimprovement develops, the restraints and checks upon her become more severe. Her sphere seems to grow narrower, difficulties one by one increase, and the young girl, who sees life before her as something broad and expansive, who looks to the future with expectant joy, may become, in a few years, the weary, disheartened woman.  All presents in Japan must be wrapped in white paper, although, except for funerals, this paper must have some writing on it, and must be tied with a peculiar red and white paper string, in which is inserted the noshi, or bit of dried fish, daintily folded in a piece of colored paper, which is an indispensable accompaniment of every present.  A child is rarely given the name of a living member of the family, or of any friend. The father's name, slightly modified, is frequently given to a son, and those of ancestors long ago dead are sometimes used. One reason for this is probably the inconvenience of similar names in the same family, and middle names, as a way of avoiding this difficulty, are unknown. The father usually names the child, but some friend or patron of the family may be asked to do it. Names of beautiful objects in nature, such as Plum, Snow, Sunshine, Lotos, Gold, are commonly used for girls, while boys of the lower classes often rejoice in such appellations as Stone, Bear, Tiger, etc. To call a child after a person would not be considered any especial compliment.  That the position of the Japanese in sitting is really unnatural and unhygienic, is shown by recent measurements taken by the surgeons of the Japanese army. These measurements prove that the small stature of the Japanese is due largely to the shortness of the lower limbs, which are out of proportion to the rest of the body. The sitting from early childhood upon the legs bent at the knee, arrests the development of that part of the body, and produces an actual deformity in the whole nation. This deformity is less noticeable among the peasants, who stand and walk so much as to secure proper development of the legs but among merchants, literary men, and others of sedentary habits, it is most plainly to be seen. The introduction of chairs and tables, as a necessary adjunct of Japanese home life, would doubtless in time alter the physique of the Japanese as a people.  Sometimes, in the old days, rice water was given to babies instead of milk, but it was nearly impossible to bring up a baby on this alone. Now both fresh and condensed milk are used, where the mother's milk is insufficient, but only in those parts of Japan where the foreign influence is felt.  Jinrikisha, or kuruma, a small, light carriage, usually with a broad top, which is drawn by a man. The jinrikisha is the commonest of all vehicles now in use in Japan. Jinrikishaman and kurumaya are terms commonly used for the runner who draws the carriage.  Kotatsu, a charcoal fire in a brazier or a small fireplace in the floor, over which a wooden frame is set and the whole covered by a quilt. The family sit about it in cold weather with the quilt drawn up over the feet and knees.  Kisses are unknown, and regarded by conservative Japanese as an animal and disgusting way of expressing affection.  So far we have spoken only of the domestic training of a Japanese girl. That part of her education that she gains through teachers and schools must be the subject of a separate chapter. Japan differs from most Oriental countries in the fact that her women are considered worthy of a certain amount of the culture that comes from the study of books and although, until recently, schools for girls were unknown in the empire, nevertheless every woman, except those of the lower classes, received instruction in the ordinary written language, while some were well versed in the Chinese classics and the poetic art. These, with some musical accomplishment, an acquaintance with etiquette and the arts of arranging flowers, of making the ceremonial tea, and in many cases not only of writing a beautiful hand, but of flowerpainting as well, in the old days made up the whole of an ordinary woman's education. Among the lower classes, especially the merchant class, instruction was sometimes given in the various pantomimic dances which one sees most frequently presented by professional dancing girls. The art of dancing is not usually practiced by women of the higher classes, but among the daughters of the merchants special dances were learned for exhibition at home, or even at the matsuri or religious festival, and their performance was for the amusement of spectators, and not especially for the pleasure of the dancers themselves. These dances are modest and graceful, but from the fact that they are always learned for entertaining an audience, however small and select, and are most frequently performed by professional dancers of questionable character, the more refined and higher class Japanese do not care especially to have their daughters learn them. In the old days, little girls were not sent to school, but, going to the house of a private teacher, received the necessary instruction in reading, and writing. The writing and reading at the beginning, are taught simultaneously, the teacher writing a letter upon a sheet of paper and telling the scholar its name, and the scholar writing it over and over until, by the time she has acquired the necessary skill in writing it, both name and form are indelibly imprinted upon her memory. To write, with a brush dipped in India ink, upon soft paper, the hand entirely without support, is an art that seldom can be acquired by a grown person, but when learned in childhood it gives great deftness in whatever other art may be subsequently studied. This is perhaps the reason why the Japanese value a good handwriting more highly than any other accomplishment, for it denotes a manual dexterity that is the secret of success in all the arts, and one who writes the Chinese characters well and rapidly can quickly learn to do anything else with the fingers. The fault that one finds with the Japanese systema fault that lies deeper than the mere methods of teaching, and has its root in the ideographic character of the written languageis that, while it cultivates the memory and powers of observation to a remarkable extent, and while it gives great skill in the use of the fingers, it affords little opportunity for the development of the reasoning powers. The years of study that are required for mastering the written language, so as to be able to grasp the thoughts already given to the world, leave comparatively little time for the conducting of any continuous thought on one's own account, and so we find in Japanese scholarswhether boys or girlsquickness of apprehension, retentive memories, industry and method in their study of their lessons, but not much originality of thought. This result comes, I believe, from the nature of the written language and the difficulties that attend the mastery of it as a consequence of which, an educated man or woman becomes simply a student of other men's thoughts and sayings about things instead of being a student of the things themselves. Music in Japan is an accomplishment reserved almost entirely for women, for priests, and for blind men. It seems to me quite fortunate that the musical art is not more generally practiced, as Japanese music, as a rule, is far from agreeable to the untrained ear of the outside barbarian. The koto is the pleasantest of the Japanese instruments, but probably on account of its large size, which makes it inconvenient to keep in a small Japanese house, it is used most among the higher classes, from the samurai upwards. The koto is an embryo piano, a horizontal soundingboard, some six feet long, upon which are stretched strings supported by ivory bridges. It is played by means of ivory fingertips fitted to the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of the right hand, and gives forth agreeable sounds, not unlike those of the harp. The player sits before the koto on knees and heels, in the ordinary Japanese attitude, and her motions are very graceful and pretty as she touches the strings, often supplementing the strains of the instrument with her voice. The teaching of this instrument and of the samisen, or Japanese guitar, is almost entirely in the hands of blind men, who in Japan support themselves by the two professions of music and massage,all the blind, who cannot learn the former, becoming adepts in the latter profession. The arrangement of flowers is taught as a fine art, and much time may be spent in learning how, by clipping, bending, and fixing in its place in the vase, each spray and twig may be made to look as if actually growing, for flower arranging is not merely to show the flower itself, but includes the proper arrangement of the branches, twigs, and leaves of plants. The flower plays only a small part, and is not used in decoration, except on the branch and stem as it is in nature, and the art consists in the preservation of the natural bend and growth when fixed in the vase. In every case, each branch has certain curves, which must be in harmony with the whole. Branches of pine, bamboo, and the flowering plum are much used. Teachers spend much time in showing proper and improper combinations of different flowers, as well as the arrangement of them. Many different styles have come up, originated by the famous teachers who have founded various schools of the art,an art which is unique and exceedingly popular, requiring artistic talent and a cultivated eye. One often sees, on going into the guest room of a Japanese house, a vase containing gracefully arranged flowers set in the tokonoma, or raised alcove of the room, under the solitary kakmono that forms the chief ornament of the apartment. As these two things, the vase of flowers and the hanging scroll, are the only adornments, it is more necessary that the flowers should be carefully arranged, than in our crowded rooms, where a vase of flowers may easily escape the eye, perplexed by the multitude of objects which surround it. The ceremonial tea must not be confounded with the ordinary serving of tea for refreshment. The proper making, and serving, and drinking of the ceremonial tea is the most formal of social observances, each step in which is prescribed by a rigid code of etiquette. The tea, instead of being the whole leaf, such as is used for ordinary occasions, is a fine, green powder. The infusion is made, not in a small pot, from which it is poured out into cups, but in a bowl, into which the hot water is poured from a dipper on to the powdered tea. The mixture is stirred with a bamboo whisk until it foams, then handed with much ceremony to the guest, who takes it with equal ceremony and drinks it from the bowl, emptying the receptacle at three gulps. Should there be a number of guests, tea is made for each in turn, in the order of their rank, in the same bowl. For this ceremonial tea, a special set of utensils is used, all of antique and severely simple style. The charcoal used for heating the water is of a peculiar variety and the room in which the tea is made and served is built for that special purpose, and kept sacred for that use. This art, which is often part of the education of women of the higher classes, is taught by regular teachers, often by gentlewomen who have fallen into distressed circumstances. I remember with great vividness a visit paid to an old lady living near a provincial city of Japan, who had for years supported herself by giving lessons in this politest of arts. Her little house, of the daintiest and neatest type, seemed filled to overflowing by three foreigners, whom she received with the courtliest of welcomes. At the request of my friend, an American lady engaged in missionary work in that part of the country, she gave us a lesson in the etiquette of the tea ceremony. Every motion, from the bringing in and arranging of the utensils to the final rinsing and wiping of the tea bowl, was according to rules strictly laid down, and the whole ceremony had more the solemnity of a religious ritual than the lightness and gayety of a social occasion. Etiquette of all kinds is not left in Japan to chance, to be learned by observation and imitation of any model that may present itself, but is taught regularly by teachers who make a specialty of it. Everything in the daily life has its rules, and the etiquette teacher has them all at her fingers' ends. There have been several famous teachers of etiquette, and they have formed systems which differ in minor points, while agreeing in the principal rules. The etiquette of bowing, the position of the body, the arms, and the head while saluting, the methods of shutting and opening the door, rising and sitting down on the floor, the manner of serving a meal, or tea, are all, with the minutest details, taught to the young girls, who, I imagine, find it rather irksome. I know two young girls of new Japan who find nothing so wearisome as their etiquette lesson, and would gladly be excused from it. I have heard them, after their teacher had left, slyly make fun of her stiff and formal manners. Such people as she will, I fear, soon belong only to the past, though it still remains to be seen how much of European manners will be engrafted on the old formalities of Japanese life. It is, perhaps, because of this regular teaching in the ways of polite society, that the Japanese girl seems never at a loss, even under unusual circumstances, but bears herself with selfpossession in places where young girls in America would be embarrassed and awkward. But the Japanese are rapidly finding out that this busy nineteenth century gives little time for learning how to shut and open doors in the politest manner, and indeed such things under the newly established school system are now relegated entirely to the girls' schools, the boys having no lessons in etiquette. The method of teaching flowerpainting is so interesting that I must speak of it before I leave the subject of accomplishments. I have said that the acquisition of skill in writing the Chinese characters was the best possible preparation for skill in all other arts. This is especially true of the art of painting, which is simply the next step, after writing has been learned. The painting master, when he comes to the house, brings no design as a model, but sits down on the floor before the little desk, and on a sheet of paper paints with great rapidity the design that he wishes the pupil to copy. It may be simply two or three blades of grass upon which the pupil makes a beginning, but she is expected to make her picture with exactly the same number of bold strokes that the master puts into his. Again and again she blunders her strokes on to a sheet of paper, until at last, when sheet after sheet has been spoiled, she begins to see some semblance of the master's copy in her own daub. She perseveres, making copy after copy, until she is able from memory to put upon the paper at a moment's notice the three blades of grass to her master's satisfaction. Only then can she go on to a new copy, and only after many such designs have been committed to memory, and the free, dashing stroke necessary for Japanese painting has been acquired, is she allowed to undertake any copying from nature, or original designing. I have dwelt thus far only upon the entirely Japanese education that was permitted to women under the old rgime. That it was an effective and refining system, all can testify who have made the acquaintance of any of the charming Japanese ladies whose schooling was finished before Commodore Perry disturbed the repose of old Japan. As I write, the image comes before me of a sweetfaced, brighteyed little gentlewoman with whom it was my good fortune to become intimately acquainted during my stay in Tky. A widow, left penniless, with one child to support, she earned the merest pittance by teaching sewing at one of the government schools in Tky but in all the circumstances of her life, narrow and busy as it needs must be, she proved herself a lady through and through. Polite, cheerful, an intelligent and cultivated reader, a thrifty housekeeper, a loving and careful mother, a true and helpful friend, her memory is associated with many of my pleasantest hours in Japan, and she is but one of the many who bear witness to the culture that might be acquired by women in the old days. But the Japan of old is not the Japan of today, and in the school system now prevalent throughout the empire girls and boys are equally provided for. First the schools established by the various missionary societies, and then the government schools, offered to girls a broader education than the old instruction in Chinese, in etiquette, and in accomplishments. Now, every morning, the streets of the cities and villages are alive with boys and girls clattering along, with their books and lunch boxes in their hands, to the kindergarten, primary, grammar, high, or normal school. Every rank in life, every grade in learning, may find its proper place in the new school system, and the girls eagerly grasp their opportunities, and show themselves apt and willing students of the new learning offered to them. By the new system, at its present stage of development, too much is expected of the Japanese boy or girl. The work required would be a burden to the quickest mind. The whole of the old education in Japanese and Chinese literature and compositionan education requiring the best years of a boy's lifeis given, and grafted upon this, our commonschool and highschool studies of mathematics, geography, history, and natural science. In addition to these, at all higher schools, one foreign language is required, and often two, English ranking first in the popular estimation. Many a headache do the poor, hardworking students have over the puzzling English language, in which they have to begin at the wrong end of the book and read across the page from left to right, instead of from top to bottom, and from right to left, as is natural to them. But in spite of its hard work, the new school life is cheerful and healthful, and the children enjoy it. It helps them to be really children, and, while they are young, to be merry and playful, not dignified and formal little ladies at all times. Upon the young girls, the influence of the schools is to make them more independent, selfreliant, and stronger women. In the houses of the higher classes, even now, much of the oldtime system of repression is still in force. Children are indeed 'seen but not heard,' and from the time when they learn to walk they must learn to be polite and dignified. At school, the more progressive feeling of the times predominates among the authorities, and the children are encouraged to unbend and enjoy themselves in games and frolics, as true children should do. Much is done for the pleasure of the little ones, who often enjoy school better than home, and declare that they do not like holidays. But the young girl, who has finished this pleasant school life, with all its advantages, is not as well fitted as under the old system for the duties and trials of married life, unless under exceptional circumstances, where the husband chosen has advanced ideas. To those teaching the young girls of Japan today, the problem of how to educate them aright is a deep one, and with each newly trained girl sent out go many hopes, mingled with anxieties, in regard to the training she has had as a preparation for the new life she is about to enter. The few, the pioneers, will have to suffer for the happiness and good of the many, for the problem of grafting the new on to the old is indeed a difficult one, to be solved only after many experiments.  There are many difficulties which lie in the way of the new schools that must be met, studied, and overcome. One of them is the one already referred to, the problem of how best to combine the new and the old in the school curriculum. That the old learning and literature, the old politeness and sweetness of manner, must not be given up or made little of, is evident to every rightminded student of the matter. That the newer and broader culture, with its higher morality, its greater development of the best powers of the mind, must play a large part in the Japan of the future, there is not a shadow of doubt, and the women must not be left behind in the onward movement of the nation. But how to give to the young minds the best products of the thought of two such distinct civilizations is a question that is as yet unanswered, and cannot be satisfactorily settled until the effect of the new education has begun to show itself in a generation or so of graduates from the new schools. Another difficulty is in the matter of health. Most of the new schoolhouses are fitted with seats and desks, such as are found in American schools. Many of them are heated by stoves or furnaces. The scholars in most cases wear the Japanese dress, which in winter is made warm enough to be worn in rooms having no artificial heat. Put this warm costume into an artificially heated room and the result is an overheating of the body, and a subsequent chill when the pupil goes, with no extra covering, into the keen outofdoor air. From this cause alone, arise many colds and lung troubles, which can be prevented when more experience has shown how the costumes of the East and West can be combined to suit the new conditions. Another part of the health problem lies in the fact that in many cases the parents do not understand the proper care of a growing girl, ambitious to excel in her studies. Instead of the regular hours, healthful food, and gentle restraint that a girl needs under those circumstances, our little Japanese maiden is allowed to sit up to any hour of the night, or arise at any hour in the morning, to prepare her lessons, is given food of most indigestible quality at all hours of the day between her regular meals, and is frequently urged to greater mental exertion than her delicate body can endure.  Another difficulty, in fitting the new school system into the customs of the people, lies in the early age at which marriages are contracted. Before the girl has finished her school course, her parents begin to wonder whether there is not danger of her being left on their hands altogether, if they do not hand her over to the first eligible young man who presents himself. Sometimes the girl makes a brave fight, and remains in school until her course is finished more often she succumbs and is married off, bids a weeping farewell to her teachers and schoolmates, and leaves the school, to become a wife at sixteen, a mother at eighteen, and an old woman at thirty. In some cases, the breaking down of a girl's health may be traced to threats on the part of her parents that, if she does not take a certain rank in her studies, she will be taken from school and married off. These are difficulties that may be overcome when a generation has been educated who can, as parents, avoid the mistakes that now endanger the health of a Japanese schoolgirl. In the mean time, boarding schools, that can attend to matters of health and hygiene among the girls, would, if they could be conducted with the proper admixture of Eastern and Western learning and manners, do a great deal toward educating that generation. The missionary schools do much in this direction, but the criticism of the Japanese upon the manners of the girls educated in missionary schools is universally severe. To a foreigner who has lived almost entirely among Japanese ladies of pure Japanese education, the manners of the girls in these schools seem brusque and awkward and though they are many of them noble women and doing noble work, there is room for hope that in the future of Japan the charm of manner which is the distinguishing feature of the Japanese woman will not be lost by contact with our Western shortness and roughness. A happy mean undoubtedly can be reached and when it is, the women of new Japan will be able to bear a not unfavorable comparison with the women of the old rgime.  The Japanese written language is a strange combination of Chinese and Japanese, to read which a knowledge of the Chinese characters is necessary. Chinese literature written in the Chinese ideographs, which of course give no clue to the sound, are read by Japanese with the Japanese rendering of the words, and the Japanese order of words in the sentence. When there have not been exact equivalent Japanese words, a Chinese term has come into use, so that much corrupt Chinese is now well engrafted into the Japanese language, both written and spoken. In the forming of new words and technical terms Chinese words are used, as the Greek and Latin are here. There is probably no similarity in the origin of the two languages, but the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese about the sixth century A. D. their cleverly planned but most complex method of expressing thought in writing. The introduction of the Chinese literature has done much for Japan, and to master this language is one of the essentials in the education of every boy. At least seven or eight thousand characters must be learned for daily use, and there are several different styles of writing each of them. For a scholar, twice as many, or even more, must be mastered in order to read the various works in that rich literature. The Japanese language contains a syllabary of fortyeight letters, and in books and newspapers for the common people is printed, by the side of the Chinese character, the rendering of it, in the letters of the kana, or Japanese alphabet. A Japanese woman is not expected to do much in the study of Chinese. She will, of course, learn a few of the most common characters, such as are used in letterwriting, and for the rest she will read by the help of the kana.  The samurai in the feudal times were the hereditary retainers of a daimi, or feudal lord. They formed the military and literary class. For further information, see chap. viii., on Samurai Women.  Kakmono, a hanging scroll, upon which a picture is painted, or some poem or sentiment written.  When the Japanese maiden arrives at the age of sixteen, or thereabouts, she is expected as a matter of course to marry. She is usually allowed her choice in regard to whether she will or will not marry a certain man, but she is expected to marry some one, and not to take too much time in making up her mind. The alternative of perpetual spinsterhood is never considered, either by herself or her parents. Marriage is as much a matter of course in a woman's life as death, and is no more to be avoided. This being the case, our young woman has only as much liberty of choice accorded to her as is likely to provide against a great amount of unhappiness in her married life. If she positively objects to the man who is proposed to her, she is seldom forced to marry him, but no more cordial feeling than simple toleration is expected of her before marriage.  The courtship is somewhat after the following manner. A young man, who finds himself in a position to marry, speaks to some married friend, and asks him to be on the lookout for a beautiful and accomplished maiden, who would be willing to become his wife. The friend, acting rather as advance agent, makes a canvass of all the young maidens of his acquaintance, inquiring among his friends and finally decides that soandso (Miss Flower, let us say) will be a very good match for his friend. Having arrived at this decision, he goes to Miss Flower's parents and lays the case of his friend before them. Should they approve of the suitor, a party is arranged at the house of some common friend, where the young people may have a chance to meet each other and decide each upon the other's merits. Should the young folks find no fault with the match, presents are exchanged, a formal betrothal is entered into, and the marriage is hastened forward. All arrangements between the contracting parties are made by gobetweens, or seconds, who hold themselves responsible for the success of the marriage, and must be concerned in the divorce proceedings, should divorce become desirable or necessary. The marriage ceremony, which seems to be neither religious nor legal in its nature, takes place at the house of the groom, to which the bride is carried, accompanied by her gobetweens, and, if she be of the higher classes, by her own confidential maid, who will serve her as her personal attendant in the new life in her husband's house. The trousseau and household goods, which the bride is expected to bring with her, are sent before. The household goods required by custom as a part of the outfit of every bride are as follows A bureau a low desk or table for writing a workbox two of the lacquer trays or tables on which meals are served, together with everything required for furnishing them, even to the chopsticks and two or more complete sets of handsome bed furnishings. The trousseau will contain, if the bride be of a welltodo family, dresses for all seasons, and handsome sashes without number for the unchanging fashions of Japan, together with the durable quality of the dress material, make it possible for a woman, at the time of her marriage, to enter her husband's house with a supply of clothing that may last her through her lifetime. The parents of the bride, in giving up their daughter, as they do when she marries, show the estimation in which they have held her by the beauty and completeness of the trousseau with which they provide her. This is her very own and in the event of a divorce, she brings back with her to her father's house the clothing and household goods that she carried away as a bride. With the bride and her trousseau are sent a great number of presents from the family of the bride to the members of the groom's household. Each member of the family, from the aged grandfather to the youngest grandchild, receives some remembrance of the occasion and even the servants and retainers, down to the jinrikisha men, and the bett in the stables, are not forgotten by the bride's relatives. Beside this presentgiving, the friends and relatives of the bride and groom, as in this country, send gifts to the young couple, often some article for use in the household, or crpe or silk for dresses.  In old times, the wedding took place in the afternoon, but it is now usually celebrated in the evening. The ceremony consists merely in a formal drinking of the native wine (sak) from a twospouted cup, which is presented to the mouths of the bride and groom alternately. This drinking from one cup is a symbol of the equal sharing of the joys and sorrows of married life. At the ceremony no one is present but the bride and bridegroom, their gobetweens, and a young girl, whose duty it is to present the cup to the lips of the contracting parties. When this is over, the wedding guests, who have been assembled in the next room during the ceremony, join the wedding party, a grand feast is spread, and much merriment ensues. On the third day after the wedding, the newly married couple are expected to make a visit to the bride's family, and for this great preparations are made. A large party is usually given by the bride's parents, either in the afternoon or evening, in honor of this occasion, to which the friends of the bride's family are invited. The young couple bring with them presents from the groom's family to the bride's, in return for the presents sent on the wedding day. The festivities often begin early in the afternoon and keep up until late at night. A fine dinner is served, and music and dancing, by professional performers, or some other entertainment, serve to make the time pass pleasantly. The bride appears as hostess with her mother, entertaining the company, and receiving their congratulations, and must remain to speed the last departing guest, before leaving the paternal roof. Within the course of two or three months, the newly married couple are expected to give an entertainment, or series of entertainments, to their friends, as an announcement of the marriage. As the wedding ceremony is private, and no notice is given, nor are cards sent out, this is sometimes the first intimation that is received of the marriage by many of the acquaintances, though the news of a wedding usually travels quickly. The entertainment may be a dinner party, given at home, or at some teahouse, similar in many ways to the one given at the bride's home by her parents. Sometimes it is a garden party, and very lately it has become the fashion for officials and people of high rank to give a ball in foreign style. Besides the entertainment, presents of red rice, or mochi, are sent as a token of thanks to all who have remembered the young couple. These are arranged even more elaborately than the ones sent after the birth of an heir. The young people are not, as in this country, expected to set up housekeeping by themselves, and establish a new home. Marriages often take place early in life, even before the husband has any means of supporting a family and as a matter of course, a son with his wife makes his abode with his parents, and forms simply a new branch of the household. The only act required to make the marriage legal is the withdrawal of the bride's name from the list of her father's family as registered by the government, and its entry upon the register of her husband's family. From that time forward she severs all ties with her father's house, save those of affection, and is more closely related by law and custom to her husband's relatives than to her own. Even this legal recognition of her marriage is a comparatively new thing in Japan, as is any limitation of the right of divorce on the part of the husband, or extension of that right to the wife. At present in Japan the marriage relation is by no means a permanent one, as it is virtually dissoluble at the will of either party, and the condition of public opinion is such among the lower classes that it is not an unknown occurrence for a man to marry and divorce several wives in succession and for a woman, who has been divorced once or twice, to be willing and able to marry well a second or even a third time. Among the higher classes, the dread of the scandal and gossip, that must attach themselves to troubles between man and wife, serves as a restraint upon too free use of the power of divorce but still, divorces among the higher classes are so common now that one meets numerous respectable and respected persons who have at some time in their lives gone through such an experience. One provision of the law, which serves to make most mothers endure any evil of married life rather than sue for a divorce, is the fact that the children belong to the father and no matter how unfit a person he may be to have the care of them, the disposal of them in case of a divorce rests absolutely with him. A divorced woman returns childless to her father's house and many women, in consequence of this law or custom, will do their best to keep the family together, working the more strenuously in this direction, the more brutal and worthless the husband proves himself to be. The ancestor worship, as found in Japan, the tracing of relationship in the male line only, and the generally accepted belief that children inherit their qualities from their father rather than from the mother, make them his children and not hers. Thus we often see children of noble rank on the father's side, but ignoble on the mother's, inherit the rank of their father, and not permitted even to recognize their mother as in any way their equal. If she is plebeian, the children are not regarded as tainted by it. In the case of divorce, even if the law allowed the mother to keep her children, it would be almost an impossibility for her to do so. She has no means of earning her bread and theirs, for few occupations are open to women, and she is forced to become a dependent on her father, or some male relative. Whatever they may be willing to do for her, it is quite likely that they would begrudge aid to the children of another family, with whom custom hardly recognizes any tie. The children are the children of the man whose name they bear. If the woman is a favorite daughter, it may happen that her father will take her and her children under his roof, and support them all but this is a rare exception, and only possible when the husband first gives up all claim to the children. There comes to my mind now a case illustrating this point, which I think I may cite without betraying confidence. It is that of a most attractive young woman who was married to a worthless husband, but lived faithfully with him for several years, and became the mother of three children. The husband, who seemed at first merely goodfornothing, became worse as the years went by, drank himself out of situation after situation procured for him by powerful relatives, and at last became so violent that he even beat his wife and threatened his children, a proceeding most unusual on the part of a Japanese husband and father. The poor wife was at last obliged to flee from her husband's house to her mother's, taking her children with her. She sued for a divorce and obtained it, and is now married again her youth, good looks, and high connections procuring her a very good catch for her second venture in matrimony but her children are lost to her, and belong wholly to their worthless, drunken father. Of the lack of permanence in the marriage relation among the lower classes, the domestic changes of one of my servants in Tky afford an amusing illustration. The man, whom I had hired in the double capacity of jinrikisha man and bett or groom, was a strong, faithful, pleasantfaced fellow, recently come to Tky from the country. I inquired, when I engaged him, whether he had a wife, as I wanted some one who could remain in his room in the stable in care of the horse when he was pulling me about in the jinrikisha. He replied that he had a wife, but she was now at Utsunomiya, the country town from which he had come, but he would send for her at once, and she would be in Tky in the course of a week or two. Two or three weeks passed and no wife appeared, so I inquired of my cook and head servant what had become of Yasaku's wife. He replied, with a twinkle in his eye, that she had found work in Utsunomiya and did not wish to come. A week more passed, and still no wife, and further inquiries elicited from the cook the information that Yasaku had divorced her for disobedience, and was on the lookout for a new and more docile helpmate. His first thought was of the maidservant of the Japanese family who lived in the same house with me, a broadfaced, redcheeked country girl, of a very low grade of intelligence. He gave this up, however, because he thought it would not be polite to put my friends to inconvenience by taking away their servant. His next effort was by negotiation through a Tky friend but apparently Yasaku's country manners were not to the taste of the Tky damsels, for he met with no success, and was at last driven to write to his father in Utsunomiya asking him to select him a wife and bring her down to Tky. The selection took a week or two, and at last my maid told me that Yasaku's wife was coming by the next morning's train. A look into the bett's quarters in the stable showed great preparations for the bride. The mats, newcovered with nice straw matting, were white and clean the shoji were mended with new paper the walls covered with brightcolored pictures and various new domestic conveniences had nearly bankrupted Yasaku, in spite of his large salary of ten dollars a month. He had ordered a fine feast at a neighboring tea house, had had cards printed with his own name in English and Japanese, and had altogether been to such great expense that he had had to put his winter clothes in pawn to secure the necessary money.  The day chosen for the marriage was rainy, and, though Yasaku spent all his time in going to trains, no bridal party appeared and he came home at night disconsolate, to smoke his goodnight pipe over his solitary hibachi. He was, no doubt, angry as well as disconsolate, for he sat down and penned a severe letter to his father, in which he said that, if the bride did not appear on the next day counted lucky for a wedding (no Japanese would be married on an unlucky day), they could send her back to her father's house, for he would none of her. This letter did its work, for on the next lucky day, about ten days later, the bride appeared, and Yasaku was given two days of holiday on the agreement that he should not be married again while he remained in my service. On the evening of the second day, the bride came in to pay me her respects, and, crouching on her hands and knees before me, literally trembled under the excitement of her first introduction to a foreigner. She was a girl of rather unattractive exterior, fat and heavy, and rather older than Yasaku had bargained for, I imagine at any rate, from the first, he seemed dissatisfied with his 'pig in a poke,' and after a couple of months sent her home to her parents, and was all ready to start out again in the hope of better luck next time. Here is another instance, from the woman's side. Upon one occasion, when I was visiting a Japanese lady of high rank who kept a retinue of servants, the woman who came in with the tea bowed and smiled upon me as if greeting me after a long absence. As I was in and out of the house nearly every day, I was a little surprised at this demonstration, which was quite different from the formal bow that is given by the servant to her mistress's guest upon ordinary occasions. When she went out my friend said, 'You see O Kiku has come back.' As I did not know that the woman had been away, the news of her return did not affect me greatly until I learned the history of her departure. It seemed that about a month before, she had left her mistress's house to be married and the day before my visit she had quietly presented herself, and announced that she had come back, if they would take her in. My friend had asked her what had happened,whether she had found her husband unkind. No, her husband was very nice, very kind and good, but his mother was simply unbearable she made her work so hard that she actually had no time to rest at all. She had known before her marriage that her proposed motherinlaw was a hard taskmistress, but her husband had promised that his mother should live with his older brother, and they should have their housekeeping quite independent and separate. As the mother was then living with her older son, it seemed unlikely that she would care to move, and O Kiku San had married on that supposition. But it seemed that the wife of the older brother was both lazy and badtempered, and the new wife of the younger brother soon proved herself industrious and goodnatured. As the mother's main thought was to go where she would get the most comfort and waiting upon, she moved from the elder son's house to that of her younger son, and began leading her new daughterinlaw such a life that she soon gave up the effort to live with her husband, sued for a divorce, obtained it, and was back in her old place, all in a month's time from the date of her marriage.  But our readers must not suppose, from the various incidents given, that few happy marriages take place in Japan, or that, in every rank of life, divorce is of everyday occurrence. On the contrary, there seems cause for wonder, not that there are so many divorces, but that there are so many happy marriages, with wives and husbands devoted and faithful. For a nobleman in the olden times to divorce his wife would have caused such a scandal and talk that it rarely occurred. If the wife were disliked, he need have little or nothing to do with her, their rooms, their meals, and their attendance being entirely separate, but he rarely took away from her the name of wife, empty as it might be. She usually would be from some other noble house, and great trouble would arise between the families if he attempted to divorce her. The samurai also, with the same loyalty which they displayed for their lords, were loyal to their wives, and many a novel has been written, or play acted, showing the devotion of husband and wife. The quiet, undemonstrative love, though very different from the ravings of a lover in the nineteenth century novel, is perhaps truer to life.  Among the merchants and lower classes there has been, and is, a much lower standard of morality, but the few years which have passed since the Revolution of  are not a fair sample of what Japan has been. Noblemen, samurai, and merchants have had much to undergo in the great changes, and, as is the case in all such transition periods, old customs and restraints, and old standards of morality, have been broken down and have not been replaced. There is no doubt that men have run to excesses of all sorts, and divorces have been much more frequent of late years. Our little Japanese maiden knows, when she blackens her teeth, dons her wedding dress, and starts on her bridal journey to her husband's house, that upon her good behavior alone depend her chances of a happy life. She is to be henceforth the property of a man of whom she probably knows little, and who has the power, at any whim, to send her back to her father's house in disgrace, deprived of her children, with nothing to live for or hope for, except that some man will overlook the disgrace of her divorce, and by marrying her give her the only opportunity that a Japanese woman can have of a home other than that of a servant or dependent. That these evils will be remedied in time, there seems little reason to doubt, but just now the various cooks who are engaged in brewing the broth of the new civilization are disagreed in regard to the condiments required for its proper flavoring. The conservatives wish to flavor strongly with the subjection and dependence of women, believing that only by that means can feminine virtue be preserved. The younger men, of foreign education, would drop into the boiling pot the flavor of culture and broader outlook for by this means they hope to secure happier homes for all, and better mothers for their children. The missionaries and native Christians believe that, when the whole mixture is well impregnated with practical Christianity, the desired result will be achieved. All are agreed on this point, that a strong public opinion is necessary before improved legislation can produce much effect and so, for the present, legislation remains in the background, until the time shall come when it can be used in the right way.  Let us examine the two remedies suggested by the reformers, and see what effect has been produced by each so far, and what may be expected of them in the future. Taking education first, what are the effects produced so far by educating women to a point above the old Japanese standard? In many happy homes today, we find husbands educated abroad, and knowing something of the home life of foreign lands, who have sought out wives of broad intellectual culture, and who make them friends and confidants, not simply housekeepers and headservants. In such homes the wife has freedom, not such as is enjoyed by American women, perhaps, but equal to that of most European women. In such homes love and equality rule, and the power of the motherinlaw grows weak. To her is paid due respect, but she seldom has the despotic control which often makes the beginning of married life hard to the Japanese wife. These homes are sending out healthy influences that are daily having their effect, and raising the position of women in Japan. But for the young girl whose mind has been broadened by the new education, and who marries, as the majority of Japanese girls must, not in accordance with her own wishes, but in obedience to the will of her parents, a hard life is in store. A woman's education, under the old rgime, was one that fitted her well for the position that she was to occupy. The higher courses of study only serve to make her kick against the pricks, and render herself miserable where she might before have been happy. With mind and character developed by education, she may be obliged to enter the home of her husband's family, to be perhaps one among many members under the same roof. In the training of her own children, in the care of her own health and theirs, her wishes and judgment must often yield to the prejudices of those above her, under whose authority she is, and it may not be until many years have passed that she will be in a position to influence in any measure the lives of those nearest and dearest to her. Then, too, her life must be passed entirely within the home, with no opportunities to meet or to mingle with the great world of which she has read and studied. Surely her lot is harder than that of the woman of the olden time, whose plain duty always lay in the path of implicit obedience to her superiors, and who never for one moment considered obedience to the dictates of her own reason and conscience as an obligation higher than deference to the wishes of husband and parents. Education, without further amelioration of their lot as wives and mothers, can but result in making the women discontented and unhappy,in many cases injuring their health by worry over the constant petty disappointments and baffled desires of their lives. This to superficial observers would seem a step backward rather than forward, and it is to this cause that the present reaction against female education may be traced. The first generation or two of educated women must endure much for the sake of those who come after, and by many this vicarious suffering is misunderstood, and distaste on the part of educated girls for marriage, as it now exists in Japan, is regarded as one of the sure signs that education is a failure. Without some change in the position of wife and mother, this feeling will grow into absolute repugnance, if women continue to be educated after the Western fashion.  The second remedy that is suggested is Christianity, a remedy which is even now at work. Wherever one finds in Japan a Christian home, there one finds the wife and mother occupying the position that she occupies all over Christendom. The Christian man, in choosing his wife, feels that it is not an ordinary contract, which may be dissolved at any time at the will of the contracting parties, but that it is a union for life. Consequently, in making his choice he is more careful, takes more time, and thinks more of the personal qualities of the woman he is about to marry. Thus the chances are better at the beginning for the establishment of a happy home, and such homes form centres of influence throughout the length and breadth of the land today. Christianity in the future will do much to mould public sentiment in the right way, and can be trusted as a force that is sure to grow in time to be a mighty power in the councils of the nation. One more remedy might be suggested, as a preliminary to proper legislation, or a necessary accompaniment of it, and that is, the opening of new avenues of employment for women, and especially for women of the cultivated classes. Today marriage, no matter how distasteful, is the only opening for a woman for she can do nothing for her own support, and cannot require her father to support her after she has reached a marriageable age. As new ways of selfsupport present themselves, and a woman may look forward to making a single life tolerable by her own labor, the intelligent girls of the middle class will no longer accept marriage as inevitable, but will only marry when the suitor can offer a good home, kindness, affection, and security in the tenure of these blessings. So far, there is little employment for women, except as teachers but even this change in the condition of things is forming a class, as yet small, but increasing yearly, of women who enjoy a life of independence, though accompanied by much hard work, more than the present life of a Japanese married woman. In this class we find some of the most intelligent and respected of the women of new Japan and the growth of this class is one of the surest signs that the present state of the laws and customs concerning marriage and divorce is so unsatisfactory to the women that it must eventually be remedied, if the educated and intelligent of the men care to take for their wives, and for the mothers of their children, any but the less educated and less intelligent of the women of their own nation.  The Japanese standard of female beauty differs in many respects from our own, so that it is almost impossible for a foreigner visiting Japan to comprehend the judgments of the Japanese in regard to the beauty of their own women, and even more impossible for the untraveled Japanese to discover the reasons for a foreigner's judgments upon either Japanese or foreign beauties. To the Japanese, the ideal female face must be long and narrow the forehead high and narrow in the middle, but widening and lowering at the sides, conforming to the outline of the beloved Fuji, the mountain that Japanese art loves to picture. The hair should be straight and glossy black, and absolutely smooth. Japanese ladies who have the misfortune to have any wave or ripple in their hair, as many of them do, are at as much pains to straighten it in the dressing as American ladies are to simulate a natural curl, when Nature has denied them that charm. The eyes should be long and narrow, slanting upward at the outer corners and the eyebrows should be delicate lines, high above the eye itself. The distinctly aquiline nose should be low at the bridge, the curve outward beginning much lower down than upon the Caucasian face and the eyesocket should not be outlined at all, either by the brow, the cheek, or by the nose. It is this flatness of the face about the eyes that gives the mildness of expression to all young people of Mongolian type that is so noticeable a trait always in their physiognomy. The mouth of an aristocratic Japanese lady must be small, and the lips full and red the neck, a conspicuous feature always when the Japanese dress is worn, should be long and slender, and gracefully curved. The complexion should be light,a clear ivorywhite, with little color in the cheeks. The blooming country girl style of beauty is not admired, and everything, even to color in the cheeks, must be sacrificed to gain the delicacy that is the sine qua non of the Japanese beauty. The figure should be slender, the waist long, but not especially small, and the hips narrow, to secure the best effect with the Japanese dress. The head and shoulders should be carried slightly forward, and the body should also be bent forward slightly at the waist, to secure the most womanly and aristocratic carriage. In walking, the step should be short and quick, with the toes turned in, and the foot lifted so slightly that either clog or sandal will scuff with every step. This is necessary for modesty, with the narrow skirt of the Japanese dress. Contrast with this type the fair, curling hair, the round blue eyes, the rosy cheeks, the erect, slimwaisted, largehipped figures of many foreign beauties,the rapid, long, cleanstepping walk, and the air of almost masculine strength and independence, which belongs especially to English and American women,and one can see how the Japanese find little that they recognize as beauty among them. Blue eyes, set into deep sockets, and with the bridge of the nose rising as a barrier between them, impart a fierce grotesqueness to the face, that the untraveled Japanese seldom admire. The very babies will scream with horror at first sight of a blueeyed, lighthaired foreigner, and it is only after considerable familiarity with such persons that they can be induced to show anything but the wildest fright in their presence. Foreigners who have lived a great deal among the Japanese find their standards unconsciously changing, and see, to their own surprise, that their countrywomen look ungainly, fierce, aggressive, and awkward among the small, mild, shrinking, and graceful Japanese ladies.  The present from the groom is usually a piece of handsome silk, used for the obi or girdle. This takes the place of the conventional engagement ring of Europe and America. From the family of the bride, silk, such as is made up into men's dresses, is sent.  Many women still blacken their teeth after marriage, after the manner universal in the past but this custom is, fortunately, rapidly going out of fashion.  'As early as  an edict was published by which official notice and approbation were made necessary preliminaries to every matrimonial contract. In the following year the classlimitations upon freedom of marriage were abolished, and two years later the right of suing for a divorce was conceded to the wife.'Rein's Japan, p. .  The young wife, when she enters her husband's home, is not, as in our own country, entering upon a new life as mistress of a house, with absolute control over all of her little domain. Should her husband's parents be living, she becomes almost as their servant, and even her husband is unable to defend her from the exactions of her motherinlaw, should this new relative be inclined to make full use of the power given her by custom. Happy is the girl whose husband has no parents. Her comfort in life is materially increased by her husband's loss, for, instead of having to serve two masters, she will then have to serve only one, and that one more kind and thoughtful of her strength and comfort than the motherinlaw. In Japan the idea of a wife's duty to her husband includes no thought of companionship on terms of equality. The wife is simply the housekeeper, the head of the establishment, to be honored by the servants because she is the one who is nearest to the master, but not for one moment to be regarded as the master's equal. She governs and directs the household, if it be a large one, and her position is one of much care and responsibility but she is not the intimate friend of her husband, is in no sense his confidante or adviser, except in trivial affairs of the household. She appears rarely with him in public, is expected always to wait upon him and save him steps, and must bear all things from him with smiling face and agreeable manners, even to the receiving with open arms into the household some other woman, whom she knows to bear the relation of concubine to her own husband. In return for this, she has, if she be of the higher classes, much respect and honor from those beneath her. She has, in many cases the real though often inconsiderate affection of her husband. If she be the mother of children, she is doubly honored, and if she be endowed with a good temper, good manners, and tact, she can render her position not only agreeable to herself, but one of great usefulness to those about her. It lies with her alone to make the home a pleasant one, or to make it unpleasant. Nothing is expected of the husband in this direction he may do as he likes with his own, and no one will blame him but if his home is not happy, even through his own folly or bad temper, the blame will fall upon his wife, who should by management do whatever is necessary to supply the deficiencies caused by her husband's shortcomings. In all things the husband goes first, the wife second. If the husband drops his fan or his handkerchief the wife picks it up. The husband is served first, the wife afterwards, and so on through the countless minuti of daily life. It is not the idea of the strong man considering the weak woman, saving her exertion, guarding and deferring to her but it is the less important waiting upon the more important, the servant deferring to her master. But though the present position of a Japanese wife is that of a dependent who owes all she has to her protector, and for whom she is bound to do all she can in return, the dependence is in many cases a happy one. The wife's position, especially if she be the mother of children, is often pleasant, and her chief joy and pride lies in the proper conduct of her house and the training of her children. The service of her parentsinlaw, however, must remain her first duty during their lifetime. She must make it her care to see that they are waited upon and served with what they like at meals, that their clothes are carefully and nicely made, and that countless little attentions are heaped upon them. As long as her motherinlaw lives, the latter is the real ruler of the house and though in many cases the elder lady prefers freedom from responsibility to the personal superintendence of the details of housekeeping, she will not hesitate to require of her daughterinlaw that the house be kept to her satisfaction. If the maiden's lot is to be the first daughterinlaw in a large family, she becomes simply the one of the family from whom the most drudgery is expected, who obtains the fewest favors, and who is expected to have always the pleasantest of tempers under circumstances not altogether conducive to repose of spirit. The wife of the oldest son has, however, the advantage that, when her motherinlaw dies or retires, she becomes the mistress of the house and the head lady of the family, a position for which her apprenticeship to the old lady has probably exceptionally well fitted her. Next to her parentsinlaw, her duty is to her husband. She must herself render to him the little services that a European expects of his valet. She must not only take care of his clothing, but must bring it to him and help him put it on, and must put away with care whatever he has taken off and she often takes pride in doing with her own hands many acts of service which might be left to servants, and which are not actually demanded of her, unless she has no one under her to do them. In the poorer families all the washing, sewing, and mending that is required is always done by the wife and even the Empress herself is not exempt from these duties of personal service, but must wait upon her husband in various ways. When the earliest beams of the sun shine in at the cracks of the dark wooden shutters which surround the house at night, the young wife in the family softly arises, puts out the feeble light of the andon, which has burned all night, and, quietly opening one of the sliding doors, admits enough light to make her own toilet. She dresses hastily, only putting a few touches here and there to her elaborate coiffure, which she has not taken down for her night's rest. Next she goes to arouse the servants, if they are not already up, and with them prepares the modest breakfast. When the little lacquer tables, with rice bowls, plates, and chopsticks are arranged in place, she goes softly to see whether her parents and husband are awake, and if they have hot water, charcoal fire, and whatever else they may need for their toilet. Then with her own hands, or with the help of the servants, she slides back the wooden shutters, opening the whole house to the fresh morning air and sunlight. It is she, also, who directs the washing and wiping of the polished floors, and the folding and putting away of the bedding, so that all is in readiness before the morning meal. When breakfast is over, the husband starts for his place of business, and the little wife is in waiting to send him off with her sweetest smile and her lowest bow, after having seen that his footgearwhether sandal, clog, or shoeis at the door ready for him to put on, his umbrella, book, or bundle at hand, and his kuruma waiting for him. Certainly a Japanese man is lucky in having all the little things in his life attended to by his thoughtful wife,a good, considerate, careful bodyservant, always on hand to bear for him the trifling worries and cares. There is no wonder that there are no bachelors in Japan. To some degree, I am sure, the men appreciate these attentions for they often become much in love with their sweet, helpful wives, though they do not share with them the greater things of life, the ambitions and the hopes of men. The husband started on his daily rounds, the wife settles down to the work of the house. Her sphere is within her home, and though, unlike other Asiatic women, she goes without restraint alone through the streets, she does not concern herself with the great world, nor is she occupied with such a round of social duties as fill the lives of society women in this country. Yet she is not barred out from all intercourse with the outer world, for there are sometimes great dinner parties, given perhaps at home, when she must appear as hostess, side by side with her husband, and share with him the duty of entertaining the guests. There are, besides, smaller gatherings of friends of her husband, when she must see that the proper refreshments are served, if they be only the omnipresent tea and cake. She may, perhaps, join in the number and listen to the conversation but if there are no ladies, she will probably not appear, except to attend to the wants of her guests. There are also lady visitorsfriends and relativeswho come to make calls, oftentimes from a distance, and nearly always unexpectedly, whose entertainment devolves on the wife. Owing to the great distances in many of the cities, and the difficulties that used to attend going from place to place, it has become a custom not to make frequent visits, but long ones at long intervals. A guest often stays several hours, remaining to lunch or dinner, as the case may be, and, should the distance be great, may spend the night. So rigid are the requirements of Japanese hospitality that no guest is ever allowed to leave a house without having been pressed to partake of food, if it be only tea and cake. Even tradesmen or messengers who come to the house must be offered tea, and if carpenters, gardeners, or workmen of any kind are employed about the house, tea must be served in the middle of the afternoon with a light lunch, and tea sent out to them often during their day's work. If a guest arrives in jinrikisha, not only the guest, but the jinrikisha men must be supplied with refreshments. All these things involve much thought and care on the part of the lady of the house. In the homes of rich and influential men of wide acquaintance, there is a great deal going on to make a pleasant variety for the ladies of the household, even although the variety involves extra work and responsibility. The mistress of such a household sees and hears a great deal of life and her position requires no little wisdom and tact, even where the housewife has the assistance of good servants, capable, as many are, of sharing not only the work, but the responsibility as well. Clever wives in such homes see and learn much, in an indirect way, of the outside world in which the men live and may become, if they possess the natural capabilities for the work, wise advisers and sympathizers with their husbands in many things far beyond their ordinary field of action. An intelligent woman, with a strong will, has often been, unseen and unknown, a mighty influence in Japan. That her power for good or bad, outside of her influence as wife and mother, is a recognized fact, is seen in the circumstance that in novels and plays women are frequently brought in as factors in political plots and organized rebellions, as well as in acts of private revenge. Still the life of the average woman is a quiet one, with little to interrupt the monotony of her days with their neverending round of duties and to the most secluded homes only an occasional guest comes to enliven the dull hours. The principal occupation of the wife, outside of her housekeeping and the little duties of personal service to husband and parents, is needlework. Every Japanese woman (excepting those of the highest rank) knows how to sew, and makes not only her own garments and those of her children, but her husband's as well. Sewing is one of the essentials in the education of a Japanese girl, and from childhood the cutting and putting together of crpe, silk, and cotton is a familiar occupation to her. Though Japanese garments seem very simple, custom requires that each stitch and seam be placed in just such a way and this way is something of a task to learn. To the uninitiated foreigner, the general effect of the loosely worn kimono is the same, whether the garment be well or ill made but the skillful seamstress can easily discover that this seam is not turned just as it should be, or that those stitches are too long or too short, or carelessly or unevenly set.  Fancy work or embroidery is not done in the house, the gorgeous embroidered Japanese robes being the product of professional workmen. Instead of the endless fancy work with silks, crewels, or worsteds, over which so many American ladies spend their leisure hours, many of the Japanese ladies, even of the highest rank, devote much time to the cultivation of the silkworm. In country homes, and in the great cities as well, wherever spacious grounds afford room for the growth of mulberry trees, silkworms are raised and watched with care an employment giving much pleasure to those engaged in it. It is difficult for any one who has not experimented in this direction to realize how tender these little spinners are. If a strong breeze blow upon them, they are likely to suffer for it, and the least change in the atmosphere must be guarded against. For forty days they must be carefully watched, and the great, shallow, bamboo basket trays containing them changed almost daily. New leaves for their food must be given frequently, and as the least dampness might be fatal, each leaf, in case of rainy weather, is carefully wiped. Then, too, the different ages of the worms must be considered in preparing their food as, for the young worms, the leaves should be cut up, while for the older ones it is better to serve them whole. When, finally, the buzzing noise of the crunching leaves has ceased, and the last worm has put himself to sleep in his precious white cocoon, the work of the ladies is ended for the cocoons are sent to women especially skilled in the work, by them to be spun off, and the thread afterwards woven into the desired fabric. When at last the silk, woven and dyed, is returned to the ladies by whose care the worms were nourished until their work was done, it is shown with great pride as the product of the year's labor, and if given as a present will be highly prized by the recipient. Among the daily tasks of the housewife, one, and by no means the least of her duties, is to receive, duly acknowledge, and return in suitable manner, the presents received in the family. Presents are not confined to special seasons, although upon certain occasions etiquette is rigid in its requirements in this matter, but they may be given and received at all times, for the Japanese are preminently a presentgiving nation. For every present received, sooner or later, a proper return must be sent, appropriate to the season and to the rank of the receiver, and neatly arranged in the manner that etiquette prescribes. Presents are not necessarily elaborate callers bring fruit of the season, cake, or any delicacy, and a visit to a sick person must be accompanied by something appropriate. Children visiting in the family are always given toys, and for this purpose a stock is kept on hand. The presentgiving culminates at the close of the year, when all friends and acquaintances exchange gifts of more or less value, according to their feelings and means. Should there be any one who has been especially kind, and to whom return should be made, this is the time to do so. Tradesmen send presents to their patrons, scholars to teachers, patients to their physicians, and, in short, it is the time when all obligations and debts are paid off, in one way or another. On the seventh day of the seventh month, there is another general interchange of presents, although not so universal as at the New Year. It can easily be imagined that all this presentgiving entails much care, especially in families of influence and it must be attended to personally by the wife, who, in the secret recesses of her storeroom, skillfully manages to rearrange the gifts received, so that those not needed in the house may be sent, not back to their givers, but to some place where a present is due. The passingon of the presents is an economy not of course acknowledged, but frequently practiced even in the best families, as it saves much of the otherwise ruinous expense of this custom. As time passes by, occasional visits are paid by the young wife to her own parents or to other relatives. At stated times, too, she, and others of the family, will visit the tombs of her husband's ancestors, or of her own parents, if they are no longer living, to make offerings and prayers at the graves, to place fresh branches of the sakaki before the tombs, and to see that the priests in charge of the cemetery have attended to all the little things which the Japanese believe to be required by the spirits of the dead. Even these visits are often looked forward to as enlivening the monotony of the humdrum home life. Sometimes all the members of the family go together on a pleasure excursion, spending the day out of doors, in beautiful gardens, when some one of the muchloved flowers of the nation is in its glory and the little wife may join in this pleasure with the rest, but more often she is the one who remains at home to keep the house in the absence of others. The theatre, too, a source of great amusement to Japanese ladies, is often a pleasure reserved for a time later in life. The Japanese mother takes great delight and comfort in her children, and her constant thought and care is the right direction of their habits and manners. She seems to govern them entirely by gentle admonition, and the severest chiding that is given them is always in a pleasant voice, and accompanied by a smiling face. No matter how many servants there may be, the mother's influence is always direct and personal. No thick walls and long passageways separate the nursery from the grown people's apartments, but the thin paper partitions make it possible for the mother to know always what her children are doing, and whether they are good and gentle with their nurses, or irritable and passionate. The children never leave the house, nor return to it, without going to their mother's room, and there making the little bows and repeating the customary phrases used upon such occasions. In the same way, when the mother goes out, all the servants and the children escort her to the door and when her attendant shouts 'O kaeri,' which is the signal of her return, children and servants hasten to the gate to greet her, and do what they can to help her from her conveyance and make her homecoming pleasant and restful. The father has little to do with the training of his children, which is left almost entirely to the mother, and, except for the interference of the motherinlaw, she has her own way in their training, until they are long past childhood. The children are taught to look to the father as the head, and to respect and obey him as the one to whom all must defer but the mother comes next, almost as high in their estimation, and, if not so much feared and respected, certainly enjoys a larger share of their love. The Japanese mother's life is one of perfect devotion to her children she is their willing slave. Her days are spent in caring for them, her evenings in watching over them and she spares neither time nor trouble in doing anything for their comfort and pleasure. In sickness, in health, day and night, the little ones are her one thought and from the home of the noble to the humble cot of the peasant, this tender motherlove may be seen in all its different phases. The Japanese woman has so few on whom to lavish her affection, so little to live for beside her children, and no hopes in the future except through them, that it is no wonder that she devotes her life to their care and service, deeming the drudgery that custom requires of her for them the easiest of all her duties. Even with plenty of servants, the mother performs for her children nearly all the duties often delegated to nurses in this country. Mother and babe are rarely separated, night or day, during the first few years of the baby's life, and the mother denies herself any entertainment or journey from home when the baby cannot accompany her. To give the husband any share in the babywork would be an unheardof thing, and a disgrace to the wife for in public and in private the baby is the mother's sole charge, and the husband is never asked to sit up all night with a sick baby, or to mind it in any way at all. Nothing in all one's study of Japanese life seems more beautiful and admirable than the influence of the mother over her children,an influence that is gentle and allpervading, bringing out all that is sweetest and noblest in the feminine character, and affording the one almost unlimited opportunity of a Japanese woman's life. The lot of a childless wife in Japan is a sad one. Not only is she denied the hopes and the pleasures of a mother in her children, but she is an object of pity to her friends, and well does she know that Confucius has laid down the law that a man is justified in divorcing a childless wife. All feel that through her, innocent though she is, the line has ceased that her duty is unfulfilled and that, though the name be given to adopted sons, there is no heir of the blood. A man rarely sends away his wife solely with this excuse, but children are the strongest of the ties which bind together husband and wife, and the childless wife is far less sure of pleasing her husband. In many cases she tries to make good her deficiencies by her care of adopted children in them she often finds the love which fills the void in her heart and home, and she receives from them in afterlife the respect and care which is the crown of old age. We have hitherto spoken of married life when the wife is received into her husband's home. Another interesting side of Japanese marriage is when a man enters the wife's family, taking her name and becoming entirely one of her family, as usually the wife becomes of the husband's. When there are daughters but no sons in a family to inherit the name, one of three things may happen a son may be adopted early in life and grow up as heir or he may be adopted with the idea of marrying one of the daughters or, again, no one may have been formally adopted, but on the eldest daughter's coming to a marriageable age, her family and friends seek for her a yshi, that is to say, some man (usually a younger son) who is willing and able to give up his family name, and, by marrying the daughter, become a member of her family and heir to the name. He cuts off all ties from his own family, and becomes a member of hers, and the young couple are expected to live with her parents. In this case the tables are turned, and it is he who has to dread the motherinlaw it is his turn to have to please his new relatives and to do all he can to be agreeable. He, too, may be sent away and divorced by the allpowerful parents, if he does not please and such divorces are not uncommon. Of course, in such marriages, the woman has the greater power, and the man has to remember what he owes her and though the woman yields to him obediently in all respects, it is an obedience not demanded by the husband, as under other circumstances. In such marriages the children belong to the family whose name they bear, so that in case of divorce they remain in the wife's family, unless some special arrangement is made about them. It may be wondered why young men ever care to enter a family as yshi. There is only one answer,it is the attraction of wealth and rank, very rarely that of the daughter herself. In the houses of rich daimis without sons, yshi are very common, and there are many younger sons of the nobility, themselves of high birth, but without prospects, who are glad enough to become great lords. In feudal times, the number of samurai families was limited. Several sons of one family could not establish different samurai families, but all but the eldest son, if they formed separate houses, must enroll themselves among the ranks of the common people. Hence the younger sons were often adopted into other samurai families as yshi, where it was desired to secure a succession to a name that must otherwise die out. Since the Restoration, and the breaking down of the old class distinctions, young men care more for independence than for their rank as samurai and it is now quite difficult to find yshi to enter samurai families, unless it be because of the attractiveness and beauty of the young lady herself. Many a young girl who could easily make a good marriage with some suitable husband, could she enter his family, is now obliged to take some inferior man as yshi, because few men in these days are willing to change their names, give up their independence, and take upon themselves the support of aged parentsinlaw for this also is expected of the yshi, unless the family that he enters is a wealthy one. From this custom of yshi, and its effect upon the wife's position, we see that, in certain cases, Japanese women are treated as equal with men. It is not because of their sex that they are looked down upon and held in subjection, but it is because of their almost universal dependence of position. The men have the right of inheritance, the education, habits of selfreliance, and are the breadwinners. Wherever the tables are turned, and the men are dependents of the women, and even where the women are independent of the men,there we find the relations of men to women vastly changed. The women of Japan must know how to do some definite work in the world beyond the work of the home, so that their position will not be one of entire dependence upon father, husband, or son. If fathers divided their estates between sons and daughters alike, and women were given, before the law, right to hold property in their own names, much would be accomplished towards securing them in their positions as wives and mothers and divorce, the great evil of Japanese home life today, would become simply a last resort to preserve the purity of the home, as it is in most civilized countries now. The difference between the women of the lower and those of the higher classes, in the matter of equality with their husbands, is quite noticeable. The wife of the peasant or merchant is much nearer to her husband's level than is the wife of the Emperor. Apparently, each step in the social scale is a little higher for the man than it is for the woman, and lifts him a little farther above his wife. The peasant and his wife work side by side in the field, put their shoulders to the same wheel, eat together in the same room, at the same time, and whichever of them happens to be the stronger in character governs the house, without regard to sex. There is no great gulf fixed between them, and there is frequently a consideration for the wife shown by husbands of the lower class, that is not unlike what we see in our own country. I remember the case of a jinrikisha man employed by a friend of mine in Tky, who was much laughed at by his friends because he actually used to spend some of his leisure moments in drawing the water required for his household from a well some distance away, and carrying the heavy buckets to the house, in order to save the strength of his little, delicate wife. That cases of such devotion are rare is no doubt true, but that they occur shows that there is here and there a recognition of the claims that feminine weakness has upon masculine strength. A frequent sight in the morning, in Tky, is a cart heavily laden with wood, charcoal, or some other country produce, creaking slowly along the streets, propelled by a farmer and his family. Sometimes one will see an old man, his son, and his son's wife with a baby on her back, all pushing or pulling with might and main the woman with tuckedup skirts and tightfitting blue trousers, a blue towel enveloping her head,only to be distinguished from the men by her smaller size and the baby tied to her back. But when evening comes, and the load of produce has been disposed of, the woman and baby are seen seated upon the cart, while the two men pull it back to their home in some neighboring village. Here, again, is the recognition of the law that governs the position of woman in this country,the theory, not of inferior position, but of inferior strength and the sight of the women riding back in the empty carts at night, drawn by their husbands, is the thing that strikes a student of Japanese domestic life as nearest to the customs of our own civilization in regard to the relations of husbands and wives. Throughout the country districts, where the women have a large share in the labor that is directly productive of wealth, where they not only work in the rice fields, pick the tea crops, gather the harvests, and help draw them to market, but where they have their own productive industries, such as caring for the silkworms, and spinning, and weaving both silk and cotton, we find the conventional distance between the sexes much diminished by the important character of feminine labor but in the cities, and among the classes who are largely either indirect producers or nonproducers, the only labor of the women is that personal service which we account as menial. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the gap widens as we go upward in society, and between the same social levels as we go cityward. The wife of the countryman, though she may work harder and grow old earlier, is more free and independent than her city sister and the wife of the peasant, pushing her produce to market, is in some ways happier and more considered than the wife of the noble, who must spend her life among her ladiesinwaiting, in the seclusion of her great house with its beautiful garden, the plaything of her husband in his leisure hours, but never his equal, or the sharer of his cares or of his thoughts.  One of the causes which must be mentioned as contributing to the lowering of the wife's position, among the higher and more wealthy classes, lies in the system of concubinage which custom allows, and the law until quite recently has not discouraged. From the Emperor, who was, by the old Chinese code of morals, allowed twelve supplementary wives, to the samurai, who are permitted two, the men of the higher classes are allowed to introduce into their families these mkak, who, while beneath the wife in position, are frequently more beloved by the husband than the wife herself. It must be said, however, to the credit of many husbands, that in spite of this privilege, which custom allows, there are many men of the old school who are faithful to one wife, and never introduce this discordant element into the household. Even should he keep mkak, it is often unknown to the wife, and she is placed in a separate establishment of her own. And in spite of the code of morals requiring submission in any case on the part of the woman, there are many wives of the samurai and lower classes who have enough spirit and wit to prevent their husbands from ever introducing a rival under the same roof. In this way the practice is made better than the theory. Not so with the more helpless wife of the nobleman, for wealth and leisure make temptation greater for the husband. She submits unquestioningly to the custom requiring that the wife treat these women with all civility. Their children she may even have to adopt as her own. The lot of the mkak herself is rendered the less endurable, from the American point of view, by the fact that, should the father of her child decide to make it his heir, the mother is thenceforth no more to it than any other of the servants of the household. For instance, suppose a hitherto childless noble is presented with a son by one of his concubines, and he decides by legal adoption to make that son his heir the child at its birth, or as soon afterwards as is practicable, is taken from its mother and placed in other hands, and the mother never sees her own child until, on the thirtieth day after its birth, she goes with the other servants of the household to pay her respects to her young master. If it were not for the habit of abject obedience to parents which Japanese custom has exalted into the one feminine virtue, few women could be found of respectable families who would take a position so devoid of either honor or satisfaction of any kind as that of mkak. That these positions are not sought after must be said, to the honor of Japanese womanhood. A nobleman may obtain samurai women for his 'O mkak' (literally, honorable concubines), but they are never respected by their own class for taking such positions. In the same way the mkak of samurai are usually from the himin. No woman who has any chance of a better lot will ever take the unenviable position of mkak. A law which has recently been promulgated strikes at the root of this evil, and, if enforced, will in course of time go far toward extirpating it. Henceforth in Japan, no child of a concubine, or of adoption from any source, can inherit a noble title. The heir to the throne must hereafter be the son, not only of the Emperor, but of the Empress, or the succession passes to some collateral branch of the family. This law does not apply to Prince Haru, the present heir to the throne, as, although he is not the son of the Empress, he was legally adopted before the promulgation of the law but should he die, it will apply to all future heirs. That public opinion is moving in the right direction is shown by the fact that the young men of the higher classes do not care to marry the daughters of mkak, be they ever so legally adopted by their own fathers. When the girls born of such unions become a drug in the matrimonial market, and the boys are unable to keep up the succession, the mkak will go out of fashion, and the real wife will once more assume her proper importance. Upon the th day of February, , the day on which the Emperor, by his own act in giving a constitution to the people, limited his own power for the sake of putting his nation upon a level with the most civilized nations of the earth, he at the same time, and for the first time, publicly placed his wife upon his own level. In an imperial progress made through the streets of Tky, the Emperor and Empress, for the first time in the history of Japan, rode together in the imperial coach. Until then, the Emperor, attended by his chief gentlemeninwaiting and his guards, had always headed the procession, while the Empress must follow at a distance with her own attendants. That this act on the part of the Emperor signifies the beginning of a new and better era for the women of Japan, we cannot but hope for until the position of the wife and mother in Japan is improved and made secure, little permanence can be expected in the progress of the nation toward what is best and highest in the Western civilization. Better laws, broader education for the women, a change in public opinion on the subject, caused by the study, by the men educated abroad, of the homes of Europe and America,these are the forces which alone can bring the women of Japan up to that place in the home which their intellectual and moral qualities fit them to fill. That Japan is infinitely ahead of other Oriental countries in her practices in this matter is greatly to her credit but that she is far behind the civilized nations of Europe and America, not only in practice but in theory, is a fact that is incontestable, and a fact that, unless changed, must sooner or later be a stumblingblock in the path of her progress toward the highest civilization of which she is capable. The European practice cannot be grafted upon the Asiatic theory, but the change in the home must be a radical one, to secure permanent good results. As long as the wife has no rights which the husband is bound to respect, no great advance can be made, for human nature is too mean and selfish to give in all cases to those who are entirely unprotected by law, and entirely unable to protect themselves, those things which the moral nature declares to be their due. In the old slave times in the South, many of the negroes were better fed, better cared for, and happier than they are today but they were nevertheless at the mercy of men who too often thought only of themselves, and not of the human bodies and souls over which they had unlimited power. It was a condition of things that could not be prevented by educating the masters so as to induce them to be kind to their slaves it was a condition that was wrong in theory, and so could not be righted in practice. In the same way the position of the Japanese wife is wrong in theory, and can never be righted until legislation has given to her rights which it still denies. Education will but aggravate the trouble to a point beyond endurance. The giving to the wife power to obtain a divorce will not help much, but simply tend to weaken still further the marriage tie. Nothing can help surely and permanently but the growth of a sound public opinion, in regard to the position of the wife, that will, sooner or later, have its effect upon the laws of the country. Legislation once effected, all the rest will come, and the wife, secure in her home and her children, will be at the point where her new education can be of use to her in the administration of her domestic affairs and the training of her children and where she will finally become the friend and companion of her husband, instead of his mere waitress, seamstress, and housekeeper,the plaything of his leisure moments, too often the victim of his caprices.  The andon is the standing lamp, inclosed in a paper case, used as a night lamp in all Japanese houses. Until the introduction of kerosene lamps, the andon was the only light used in Japanese houses. The light is produced by a pith wick floating in a saucer of vegetable oil.  The pillow used by ladies is merely a wooden rest for the head, that supports the neck, leaving the elaborate headdress undisturbed. The hair is dressed by a professional hairdresser, who comes to the house once in two or three days. In some parts of Japan, as in Kito, where the hair is even more elaborately dressed than in Tky, it is much less frequently arranged. The process takes two hours at least.  The one exception to this statement, so far as I know, is the species of silk mosaic made by the ladies in the daimis' houses. (See chap. vii.)  Sakaki, the Cleyera Japonica, a sacred plant emblematic of purity, and much used at funerals and in the decoration of graves.  Since the introduction of the foreign system of medicine and nursing, the Japanese realize so acutely the lack of conveniences and appliances for nursing the sick in their own homes, that cases of severe or even serious illness are usually sent to hospitals, where the invalids can have the comforts that even the wealthy Japanese homes cannot furnish.  It is worth while to mention in this connection the noteworthy efforts made by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Japan in calling the attention of the public to this custom, and in arousing public sentiment in favor of legislation against not only this system, but against the licensed houses of prostitution. Though there has not yet been any practical result, much discussion has ensued in the newspapers and magazines, lectures have been given, and much strong feeling aroused, which may, before long, produce radical change.  Many of the thinking men of Japan, though fully recognizing the injustice of the present position of woman in society, and the necessity of reform in the marriage and divorce laws, refuse to see the importance of any movement to change them. Their excuse is, that such power in the hands of the husband over his wife might be abused, but that in fact it is not. Wrongs and injustice are rare, they argue, and kind treatment, affection, and even respect for the wife is the general rule and that the keeping of the power in the hands of the husband is better than giving too much freedom to women who are without education. These men wish to wait until every woman is educated, before acting in a reform movement, while many conservatives oppose the new system of education for girls as making them unwomanly. Between these two parties, the few who really wish for a change are utterly unable to act.  No Japanese woman is ashamed to show that she is getting along in years, but all take pains that every detail of the dress and coiffure shall show the full age of the wearer. The baby girl is dressed in the brightest of colors and the largest of patterns, and looks like a gay butterfly or tropical bird. As she grows older, colors become quieter, figures smaller, stripes narrower, until in old age she becomes a little gray moth or plaincolored sparrow. By the sophisticated eye, a woman's age can be told with considerable accuracy by the various little things about her costume, and no woman cares to appear younger than her real age, or hesitates to tell with entire frankness the number of years that have passed over her head. The reason for this lies, at least in part, in the fact that every woman looks forward to the period of old age as the time when she will attain freedom from her lifelong service to those about her,will be in the position of adviser of her sons, and director of her daughtersinlaw will be a person of much consideration in the family, privileged to amuse herself in various ways, to speak her own mind on most subjects, and to be waited upon and cared for by children and grandchildren, in return for her long years of faithful service in the household. Should her sight and other bodily powers remain good, she will doubtless perform many light tasks for the general good, will seldom sit idle by herself, but will help about the sewing and mending, the marketing, shopping, housework, and care of the babies, tell stories to her grandchildren after their lessons are learned, give the benefit of her years of experience to the young people who are still bearing the heat and burden of the day, and, by her prayers and visits to the temple at stated seasons, will secure the favor of the gods for the whole family, as well as make her own preparations for entry into the great unknown toward which she is rapidly drifting. Is there wonder that the young wife, steering her course with difficulty among the many shoals and whirlpools of early married life, looks forward with anticipation to the period of comparative rest and security that comes at the end of the voyage? As she bears all things, endures all things, suffers long, and is kind, as she serves her motherinlaw, manages her husband's household, cares for her babies, the thought that cheers and encourages her in her busy and not too happy life is the thought of the sunny calm of old age, when she can lay her burdens and cares on younger shoulders, and bask in the warmth and sunshine which this Indian Summer of her life will bring to her. In the code of morals of the Japanese, obedience to father, husband, or son is exalted into the chief womanly virtue, but the obedience and respect of children, both male and female, to their parents, also occupies a prominent position in their ethical system. Hence, in this latter stage of a woman's career, the obedience expected of her is often only nominal, and in any case is not so absolute and unquestioning as that of the early period and the consideration and respect that a son is bound to show to his mother necessitates a care of her comfort, and a consultation of her wishes, that renders her position one of much greater freedom than can be obtained by any woman earlier in life. She has, besides, reached an age when she is not expected to remain at home, and she may go out into the streets, to the theatre, or other shows, without the least restraint or fear of losing her dignity. A Japanese woman loses her beauty early. At thirtyfive her fresh color is usually entirely gone, her eyes have begun to sink a little in their sockets, her youthful roundness and symmetry of figure have given place to an absolute leanness, her abundant black hair has grown thin, and much care and anxiety have given her face a pathetic expression of quiet endurance. One seldom sees a face that indicates a soured temper or a cross disposition, but the lines that show themselves as the years go by are lines that indicate suffering and disappointment, patiently and sweetly borne. The lips never forget to smile the voice remains always cheerful and sympathetic, never grows peevish and worried, as is too often the case with overworked or disappointed women in this country. But youth with its hopeful outlook, its plans and its ambitions, gives way to age with its peaceful waiting for the end, with only a brief struggle for its place and the woman of thirtyfive is just at the point when she has bid goodby to her youth, and, having little to hope for in her middle life, is doing her work faithfully, and looking forward to an old age of privilege and authority, the mistress of her son's house, and the ruler of the little domain of home. But I have spoken so far only of those happy women whose sons grow to maturity, and who manage to evade the dangerous reefs of divorce upon which so many lives are shipwrecked. What becomes of the hundreds who have no children to rise up and call them blessed, but who have in old age to live as dependents upon their brothers or nephews? Even these, who in this country often lead hard and unrewarded lives of toil among their happier relatives, find in old age a pleasanter lot than that of youth. Many such old ladies I have met, whose short hair or shaven heads proclaim to all who see them that the sorrow of widowhood has taken from them the joy that falls to other women, but whose cheerful, wrinkled faces and happy, childlike ways have given one a feeling of pleasure that the sorrow is past, and peace and rest have come to their declining years. Fulfilling what little household tasks they can, respected and selfrespecting members of the household, the O B San, or Aunty, is not far removed in the honor and affection of the children from the O B San, or Grandma, but both alike find a peaceful shelter in the homes of those nearest and dearest to them. One of the happiest old ladies I have ever seen was one who had had a rough and stormy life. The mother of many children, most of whom had died in infancy, she was at last left childless and a widow. In her children's death the last tie that bound her to her husband's family was broken, and, rather than be a burden to them, she made her home for many years with her own younger brother, taking up again the many cares and duties of a mother's life in sharing with the mother the bringing up of a large family of children. One by one, from the oldest to the youngest, each has learned to love the old aunty, to be lulled asleep on her back, and to go to her in trouble when mother's hands were too full of work. Many the caress received, the drives and walks enjoyed in her company, the toys and candies that came out unexpectedly from the depths of mysterious drawers, to comfort many an hour of childish grief. That was years ago, and the old aunty's hard times are nearly over. Hale and hearty at threescore years and ten, she has seen these children grow up one by one, until now some have gone to new homes of their own. Her bent form and wrinkled face are ever welcome to her children,hers by the right of years of patient care and toil for them. They now, in their turn, enjoy giving her pleasure, and return to her all the love she has lavished upon them. It is a joy to see her childlike pride and confidence in them all, and to know that they have filled the place left vacant by the dead with whom had died all her hopes of earthly happiness.  The old women of Japan,how their withered faces, bent frames, and shrunken, yellow hands abide in one's memory! One seldom sees among them what we would call beauty, for the almost universal shrinking with age that takes place among the Japanese covers the face with multitudinous wrinkles, and produces the effect of a withered russet apple for the skin, which in youth is usually brightened by red cheeks and glossy black hair, in old age, when color leaves cheek and hair, has a curiously yellow and parchmentlike look. But with all their wrinkles and ugliness, there is a peculiar charm about the old women of Japan. In Tky, when the grass grows long upon your lawn, and you send to the gardener to come and cut it, no boy with patent lawnmower, nor stalwart countryman with scythe and sickle, answers your summons, but some morning you awake to find your lawn covered with old women. The muchwashed cotton garments are faded to a light blue, the exact match of the light blue cotton towels in which their heads are swathed, and on hands and knees, each armed with an enormous pair of shears, the old ladies clip and chatter cheerfully all day long, until the lawn is as smooth as velvet under their careful cutting. An occasional rest under a tree, for pipes and tea, is the time for much cheerful talk and gossip but the work, though done slowly and with due attention to the comfort of the worker, is well done, and certainly accomplished as rapidly as any one could expect of laborers who earn only from eight to twelve cents a day. Another employment for this same class of laborers is the picking of moss and grass from the crevices of the great walls that inclose the moats and embankments of the capital. Mounted on little ladders, they pick and scrape with knives until the wall is clear and fresh, with no insidious growth to push the great uncemented stones out of their places. In contrast with these humble but cheerful toilers may be mentioned another class of women, often met with in the great cities. Dressed in rags and with covered heads and faces, they wander about the streets playing the samisen outside the latticed windows, and singing with cracked voices some wailing melody. As they go from house to house, gaining a miserable pittance by their weird music, they seem the embodiment of all that is hopeless and brokenhearted. What they are or whence they come, I know not, but they always remind me of the grasshopper in the fable, who danced and sang through the brief summer, to come, wailing and wretched, seeking aid from her thriftier neighbor when at last the winter closed in upon her. As one rides about the streets, one often sees a little, whitehaired old woman trotting about with a yoke over her shoulders from which are suspended two swinging baskets, filled with fresh vegetables. The fact that her hair is still growing to its natural length shows that she is still a wife and not a widow her worn and patched blue cotton clothes, bleached light from much washing, show that extreme poverty is her lot in life and as she hobbles along with the gait peculiar to those who carry a yoke, my thoughts are busy with her home, which, though poor and small, is doubtless clean and comfortable, but my eye follows her through the city's crowd, where laborer, soldier, student, and high official jostle each other by the way. Suddenly I see her pause before the gateway of a temple. She sets her burden down, and there in the midst of the bustling throng, with bowed head, folded hands, and moving lips, she invokes her god, snatching this moment from her busy life to seek a blessing for herself and her dear ones. The throng moves busily on, making a little eddy around the burden she has laid down, but paying no heed to the devout little figure standing there then in a moment the prayer is finished she stoops, picks up her yoke, balances it on her shoulders, and moves on with the crowd, to do her share while her strength lasts, and to be cared for tenderly, I doubt not, by children and children's children when her work is done. Another picture comes to me, too, a picture of one whose memory is an inspiring thought to the many who have the honor to call her 'mother.' A stately old lady, left a widow many years ago, before the recent changes had wrought havoc preparatory to further progress, she seemed always to me the model of a mother of the old school. Herself a woman of thorough classical education, her example and teaching were to both sons and daughters a constant inspiration and in her old age she found herself the honored head of a family well known in the arts of war and peace, a goodly company of sons and daughters, every one of them heirs of her spirit and of her intellect. Though conservative herself, and always clinging to the old customs, she put no block in the path of her children's progress, and her fine character, heroic spirit, and stanch loyalty to what she believed were worth more to her children than anything else could have been. Tried by war, by siege, by banishment, by danger and sufferings of all kinds, to her was given at last an old age of prosperity among children of whom she might well be proud. Keeping her physical vigor to the end, and dying at last, after an illness of only two days, her spirit passed out into the great unknown, ready to meet its dangers as bravely as she had met those of earth, or to enjoy its rest as sweetly and appreciatively as she had enjoyed that of her old age in the house of her oldest son. My acquaintance with her was limited by our lack of common language, but was a most admiring and appreciative one on my side and I esteem it one of the chief honors of my stay in Japan, that upon my last meeting with her, two weeks before her death, she gave me her wrinkled but still beautiful and delicately shaped hand at parting,a deference to foreign customs that she only paid upon special occasions. Two weeks later, amid such rain as Japanese skies know all too well how to let fall, I attended her funeral at the cemetery of Aoyama. The cemetery chapel was crowded, but a place was reserved for me, on account of special ties that bound me to the family, just behind the long line of whiterobed mourners. In the Buddhist faith she had lived, and by the Buddhist ceremonial she was buried,the chanted ritual, the gorgeously robed priests, and the heavy smell of incense in the air reminding one of a Roman Catholic ceremony. The white wooden coffin was placed upon a bier at the entrance to the chapel, and when the priests had done their work, and the ecclesiastical ceremony was over, the relatives arose, one by one, walked over to the coffin, bowed low before it, and placed a grain of incense upon the little censer that stood on a table before the bier, then, bowing again, retired to their places. Slowly and solemnly, from the tall soldier son, his hair already streaked with gray, to the twoyearold grandchild, all paid this last token of respect to a noble spirit and after the relatives the guests, each in the order of rank or nearness to the deceased, stepped forward and performed the same ceremony before leaving the room. What the meaning of the rite was, I did not know, whether a worship of strange gods or no but to me, as I performed the act, it only signified the honor in which I held the memory of a heroic woman who had done well her part in the world according to the light that God had given her. Japanese art loves to picture the old woman with her kindly, wrinkled face, leaving out no wrinkle of them all, but giving with equal truthfulness the charm of expression that one finds in them. Long life is desired by all as passionately as by ancient Hebrew poet and psalmist, and with good reason, for only by long life can a woman attain the greatest honor and happiness. We often exclaim in impatience at the thought of the weakness and dependence of old age, and pray that we may die in the fullness of our powers, before the decay of advancing years has made us a burden upon our friends. But in Japan, dependence is the lot of woman, and the dependence of old age is that which is most respected and considered. An aged parent is never a burden, is treated by all with the greatest love and tenderness and if times are hard, and food and other comforts are scarce, the children, as a matter of course, deprive themselves and their children to give ungrudgingly to their old father and mother. Faults there are many in the Japanese social system, but ingratitude to parents, or disrespect to the aged, must not be named among them and Young America may learn a salutary lesson by the study of the place that old people occupy in the home. It is not only for the women of Japan, but for the men as well, that old age is a time of peace and happiness. When a man reaches the age of fifty or thereabouts, often while apparently in the height of his vigor, he gives up his work or business and retires, leaving all the property and income to the care of his eldest son, upon whom he becomes entirely dependent for his support. This support is never begrudged him, for the care of parents by their children is as much a matter of course in Japan as the care of children by those who give them birth. A man thus rarely makes provision for the future, and looks with scorn on foreign customs which seem to betoken a fear lest, in old age, ungrateful children may neglect their parents and cast them aside. The feeling, so strong in America, that dependence is of itself irksome and a thing to be dreaded, is altogether strange to the Japanese mind. The married son does not care to take his wife to a new and independent home of his own, and to support her and her children by his own labor or on his own income, but he takes her to his father's house, and thinks it no shame that his family live upon his parents. But in return, when the parents wish to retire from active life, the son takes upon himself ungrudgingly the burden of their support, and the bread of dependence is never bitter to the parents' lips, for it is given freely. To the timehonored European belief, that a young man must be independent and enterprising in early life in order to lay by for old age, the Japanese will answer that children in Japan are taught to love their parents rather than ease and luxury, and that care for the future is not the necessity that it is in Europe and America, where money is above everything else,even filial love. This habit of thought may account for the utter want of provision for the future, and the disregard for things pertaining to the accumulation of wealth, which often strikes curiously the foreigner in Japan. A Japanese considers his provision for the future made when he has brought up and educated for usefulness a large family of children. He invests his capital in their support and education, secure of bountiful returns in their gratitude and care for his old age. It is hard for the men of old Japan to understand the rush and struggle for riches in America,a struggle that too often leaves not a pause for rest or quiet pleasure until sickness or death overtakes the indefatigable worker. The go inkyo of Japan is glad enough to lay down early in life the cares of the world, to have a few years of calm and peace, undisturbed by responsibilities or cares for outside matters. If he be an artist or a poet, he may, uninterrupted, spend his days with his beloved art. If he is fond of the ceremonial tea, he has whole afternoons that he may devote to this sthetic repast and even if he has none of these higher tastes, he will always have congenial friends who are ready to share the sak bottle, to join in a quiet smoke over the hibachi, or to play the deepengrossing game of go, or shogi, the Japanese chess. To the Japanese mind, to be in the company of a few kindred souls, to spend the long hours of a summer's afternoon at the ceremonial tea party, sipping tea and conversing in a leisurely manner on various subjects, is an enjoyment second to none. A cultivated Japanese of the old times must receive an education fitting him especially for such pursuits. At these meetings of friends, artistically or poetically inclined, the time is spent in making poems and exchanging wittily turned sentiments, to be read, commented on, and responded to or in the making of drawings, with a few bold strokes of the brush, in illustration of some subject given out. Such enjoyments as these, the Japanese believe, cannot be appreciated or even understood by the practical, rushahead American, the product of the wonderful but material civilization of the West. Thus, amid enjoyments and easy labors suited to their closing years, the elder couple spend their days with the young people, cared for and protected by them. Sometimes there will be a separate suite of rooms provided for them sometimes a little house away from the noises of the household, and separated from the main building by a wellkept little garden. In any case, as long as they live they will spend their days in quiet and peace and it is to this haven, the inkyo, that all Japanese look forward, as to the time when they may carry out their own inclinations and tastes with an income provided for the rest of their days.  Children wear their hair on top of their heads while very young, and the manner of arranging it is one of the distinctive marks of the age of the child. The marumag, the style of headdress of married ladies, consisting of a large puff of hair on the top of the head, diminishes in size with the age of the wearer until, at sixty or seventy, it is not more than a few inches in width. The number, size, and variety of ornamental hairpins, and the tortoiseshell comb worn in front, all vary with the age.  It is this custom of going into early retirement that made it possible for the nobles in old times to keep the Emperor always a child. The ruling Emperor would be induced to retire from the throne at the age of sixteen or twenty thus making room for some baby, who would be in his turn the puppet of his ambitious courtiers.  Go Inkyo Sama is the title belonging to a retired old gentleman or old lady. Inkyo is the name of the house or suite of rooms set apart for such a person, and the title itself is made up of this word with the Chinese honorific go and the title Sama, the same as San, used in addressing all persons except inferiors.  The court of the Emperor was, in the early ages of Japan, the centre of whatever culture and refinement the country could boast, and the emperors themselves took an active part in the promotion of civilization. The earliest history of Japan is so wrapped in the mists of legend and tradition that only here and there do we get glimpses of heroic figures,leaders in those early days. Demigods they seem, children of Heaven, receiving from Heaven by special revelation the wisdom or strength by means of which they conquered their enemies, or gave to their subjects new arts and better laws. The traditional emperors, the early descendants of the great Jimmu Tenno, seem to have been merely conquering chieftains, who by virtue of their descent were regarded as divine, but who lived the simple, hardy life of the savage king, surrounded by wives and concubines, done homage to by armed retainers and subject chiefs, but living in rude huts, and moving in and out among the soldiers, not in the least retired into the mysterious solitude which in later days enveloped the Son of the Gods. The first emperors ruled not only by divine right, but by personal force and valor and the stories of the valiant deeds of these early rulers kept strong the faith of the people in the divine qualities of the imperial house during the hundreds of years when the Emperor was a mere puppet in the hands of ambitious and powerful nobles. Towards the end of this legendary period, a figure comes into view that for heroic qualities cannot be excelled in the annals of any nation,Jingo Kg, the conqueror of Corea, who alone, among the nine female rulers of Japan, has made an era in the national history. She seems to have been from the beginning, like Jeanne D'Arc, a hearer of divine voices and through her was conveyed to her unbelieving husband a divine command, to take ship and sail westward to the conquest of an unknown land. Her husband questioned the authenticity of the message, took the earthly and practical view that, as there was no land to be seen in the westward, there could be no land there, and refused to organize any expedition in fulfillment of the command but for his unbelief was sternly told that he should never see the land, but that his wife should conquer it for the son whom she should bear after the father's death. This message from the gods was fulfilled. The Emperor died in battle shortly after, and the Empress, after suppressing the rebellion in which her husband had been killed, proceeded to organize an expedition for the conquest of the unknown land beyond the western sea. By as many signs as those required by Gideon to assure himself of his divine mission, the Empress tested the call that had come to her, but at last, satisfied that the voices were from Heaven, she gave her orders for the collection of troops and the building of a navy. I quote from Griffis the inspiring words with which she addressed her generals 'The safety or destruction of our country depends upon this enterprise. I intrust the details to you. It will be your fault if they are not carried out. I am a woman and young. I shall disguise myself as a man, and undertake this gallant expedition, trusting to the gods and to my troops and captains. We shall acquire a wealthy country. The glory is yours, if we succeed if we fail, the guilt and disgrace shall be mine.' What wonder that her captains responded to such an appeal, and that the work of recruiting and shipbuilding began with a will! It was a long preparation that was requiredsometimes, to the impatient woman, it seemed unnecessarily slowbut by continual prayer and offerings she appealed to the gods for aid and at last all was ready, and the brave array of ships set sail for the unknown shore, the Empress feeling within her the new inspiration of hope for her babe as yet unborn. Heaven smiled upon them from the start. The clearest of skies, the most favoring of breezes, the smoothest of seas, favored the godsent expedition and tradition says that even the fishes swarmed in shoals about their keels, and carried them on to their desired haven. The fleet ran safely across to southern Corea, but instead of finding battles and struggles awaiting them, the king of the country met them on the beach to receive and tender allegiance to the invaders, whose unexpected appearance from the unexplored East had led the natives to believe that their gods had forsaken them. The expedition returned laden with vast wealth, not the spoil of battle, but the peaceful tribute of a bloodless victory and from that time forward Japan, through Corea, and later by direct contact with China itself, began to receive and assimilate the civilization, arts, and religions of China. Thus through a woman Japan received the start along the line of progress which made her what she is today, for the sequel of Jingo Kg's Corean expedition was the introduction of almost everything which we regard as peculiar to civilized countries. With characteristic belittling of the woman and exalting of the man, the whole martial career of the Empress is ascribed to the influence of her son as yet unborn,a son who by his valor and prowess has secured for his deified spirit the position of God of War in the Japanese pantheon. We should say that prenatal influences and heredity produced the heroic son the Japanese reason from the other end, and show that all the noble qualities of the mother were produced by the influence of the unborn babe. With the introduction of literature, art, and Buddhism, a change took place in the relations of the court to the people. About the Emperor's throne there gathered not only soldiers and governors, but the learned, the accomplished, the witty, the artistic, who found in the Emperor and the court nobles munificent patrons by whom they were supported, and before whom they laid whatever pearls they were able to produce. The new culture sought not the clash of arms and the shout of soldiers, but the quiet and refinement of palaces and gardens far removed from the noise and clamor of the world. And while emperors sought to encourage the new learning and civilization, and to soften the warlike qualities of the people about them, there was a frontier along which the savages still made raids into the territory which the Japanese had wrested from them, and which it required a strong arm and a quick hand to guard for the defense of the people. But the Emperor gradually gave up the personal leadership in war, and passed the duty of defending the nation into the hands of one or another of the great noble families. The nobles were not by any means slow to see the advantage to be gained for themselves by the possession of the military power in an age when might made right, even more than it does today, and when force, used judiciously and with proper deference to the prejudices of the people, could be made to give to its possessor power even over the Emperor himself. And so gradually, in the pursuit of the new culture and the new religion, the emperors withdrew themselves more and more into seclusion, and the court became a little world in itself,a centre of culture and refinement into which few excitements of war or politics ever came. While the great nobles wrangled for the possession of the power, schemed and fought and turned the nation upside down while the heroes of the country rose, lived, fought, and died,the Emperor, amid his ladies and his courtiers, his priests and his literary men, spent his life in a world of his own thinking more of this pair of bright eyes, that new and charming poem, the other witty saying of those about him, than of the kingdom that he ruled by divine right and retiring, after ten years or so of puppet kinghood, from the seclusion of his court to the deeper seclusion of some Buddhist monastery. Within the sacred precincts of the court, much time was given to such games and pastimes as were not too rude or noisy for the refinement that the new culture brought with it. Polo, football, hunting with falcons, archery, etc., were exercises not unworthy of even the most refined of gentlemen, and certain noble families were trained hereditarily in the execution of certain stately, antique dances, many of them of Chinese or Corean origin. The ladies, in trailing garments and with flowing hair, reaching often below the knees, played a not inconspicuous part, not only because of their beauty and grace, but for their quickness of wit, their learning in the classics, their skill in repartee, and their quaint fancies, which they embodied in poetic form. Much attention was given to that harmony of art with nature that the Japanese taste makes the sine qua non of all true artistic effort. The gorgeously embroidered gowns must change with the changing season, so that the cherry succeeds the plum, the wistaria the cherry, and so on through the whole calendar of flowers, upon the silken robes of the court, as regularly as in the garden that graces the palace grounds. And so with the confectionery, which in Japan is made in dainty imitation of flowers and fruits. The chrysanthemum blooms in sugar no earlier than on its own stalk the little golden orange, with its dark green leaves, is on the confectioner's list in winter, when the real orange is yellow on its tree. The very decorations of the palace must be changed with the changing of the months and kakmono and vase are alternately stored in the kura and brought out to decorate the room, according as their designs seem in harmony with the mood of Nature. This effort to harmonize Nature and Art is seen today, not only in the splendid furnishings of the court, but all through the decorative art of Japan. In every house the decorations are changed to suit the changing seasons. Through the years when Japan was adopting the civilization of China, a danger threatened the nation,the same danger that threatens it today it was the danger lest the adoption of so much that was foreign should result in a servile copying of all that was not Japanese, and lest the introduction of literature, art, and numerous hitherto unknown luxuries should take from the people their independence, patriotism, and manliness. But this result was happily avoided and at a time when the language was in danger of being swept almost out of existence by the introduction of Chinese learning through Chinese letters, the women of Japan, not only in their homes and conversation, but in the poetry and lighter literature of the country, preserved a strain of pure and graceful Japanese, and produced some of the standard works of a distinctly national literature. Favor at court today, as in the olden times, is the reward, not of mere rank, beauty, and grace of person, but must be obtained through the same intellectual endowments, polished by years of education, that made so many women famous in the medival history of Japan. Many court ladies have read much of their national literature, so that they are able to appreciate the bonmots which contain allusions in many cases to old poems, or plays on words and are able to write and present to others, at fitting times, those graceful but untranslatable turns of phrase which form the bulk of Japanese poetry. Even in this busy era of Miji, the Emperor and his court keep up the oldtime customs, and strive to promote a love of the beautiful poetry of Japan. At each New Year some subject appropriate to the time is chosen and publicly announced. Poems may be written upon this subject by any one in the whole realm, and may be sent to the palace before a certain date fixed as the time for closing the list of competitors. All the poems thus sent are examined by competent judges, who select the best five and send them to the Emperor, an honor more desired by the writers than the most favorable of reviews or the largest of emoluments are desired by American poets. Many of the other poems are published in the newspapers. It is interesting to note that many of the prominent men and women of the country are known as competitors, and that many of the court ladies join in the contest. There are also, at the palace, frequent meetings of the poets and lovers of poetry connected with the court. At these meetings poems are composed for the entertainment of the Emperor and Empress, as well as for the amusement of the poets themselves. In the school recently established for the daughters of the nobles, under the charge of the imperial household, much attention is given to the work of thoroughly grounding the scholars in the Japanese language and literature, and also to making them skillful in the art of composing poetry. At the head of the school, in the highest position held by any woman in the employ of the government, is a former court lady, who is second to none in the kingdom, not only in her knowledge of all that belongs to court etiquette, but in her study of the history and literature of her own people, and in her skill in the composition of these dainty poems. A year or two ago, when one of the scholars in the school died after a brief decline, her schoolmates, teachers, and school friends wrote poems upon her death, which they sent to the bereaved parents. It is difficult for any Japanese, much more so for a foreigner, to penetrate into the seclusion of the palace and see anything of the life there, except what is shown to the public in the occasional entertainments given at court, such as formal receptions and dinner parties. In , the new palace, built on the site of the old Tokugawa Castle, burnt seventeen years ago, was finally completed and it was my privilege to see, before the removal of the court, not only the grand reception rooms, throneroom, and diningroom, but also the private apartments of the Emperor and Empress. The palace is built in Japanese style, surrounded by the old castle moats, but there are many foreign additions to the palace and grounds. It is heated and lighted in foreign style, and the larger rooms are all furnished after the magnificent manner of European palaces while the lacquer work, carvings, and gorgeous paneled ceilings remind one of the finest of Japanese temples. The private apartments of the Emperor and Empress are, on the other hand, most simple, and in thorough Japanese style and though the woodwork and polished floors of the corridors are very beautiful, the paintings and lacquer work most exquisite, there is little in this simplicity to denote the abode of royalty. It seems that their majesties, though outwardly conforming to many European customs, and to the European manner of dress, prefer to live in Japanese ways, on matted, not carpeted floors, reposing on them rather than on chairs and bedsteads. Their apartments are not large each suite consisting of three rooms opening out of each other, the Empress's rooms being slightly smaller than the Emperor's, and those of the young Prince Haru, the heir apparent, again a little smaller. The young prince has a residence of his own, and it is only on his visits that he occupies his apartments in his father's palace. There are also rooms for the Empress dowager to occupy on her occasional visits. All of these apartments are quite close together in one part of the palace, and are connected by halls but the private rooms of the court ladies are in an entirely separate place, quite removed, and only connected with the main building by a long, narrow passageway, running through the garden. There, in the rooms assigned to them, each one has her own private establishment, where she stays when she is not on duty in attendance on the Emperor and Empress. Each lady has her own servants, and sometimes a younger sister or a dependent may be living there with her, though they are entirely separate from the court and the life there, and must never be seen in any of the other parts of the building. In these rooms, which are like little homes in themselves, cooking and housekeeping are done, entirely independent of the other parts of the great palace and the tradesmen find their way through some back gate to these little establishments, supplying them with all the necessaries of life, as well as the luxuries. A court lady is a personage of distinction, and lives in comparative ease and luxury, with plenty of servants to do all the necessary work. Besides her salary, which of course varies with the rank and the duties performed, but is always liberal enough to cover the necessary expenses of dress, the court lady receives many presents from the Emperor and Empress, which make her position one of much luxury. The etiquette of the imperial household is very complicated and very strict, though many of the formalities of the olden times have been given up. The court ladies are models of conservatism. In order to be trained for the life there and its duties, they usually enter the court while mere children of ten or eleven, and serve apprenticeship to the older members. In the rigid seclusion of the palace they are strictly, almost severely, brought up, and trained in all the details of court etiquette. Cut off from all outside influences while young, the little court maidens are taught to go through an endless round of formalities which they are made to think indispensable. These details of etiquette extend not only to all that concerns the imperial household, but to curious customs among themselves, and in regard to their own habits. Many of these ideas have come down from one generation to another, within the narrow limits of the court, so that the life there is a curious world in itself, and very unlike that in ordinary Japanese homes. But among all the ladies of Japan today,charming, intellectual, refined, and lovely as many of them are,there is no one nobler, more accomplished, more beautiful in life and character, than the Empress herself. The Emperor of Japan, though he may have many concubines, may have but one wife, and she must be chosen out of one of the five highest noble families. Haru Ko, of the noble family of Ichij, became Empress in the year , one year after her husband, then a boy of seventeen, had ascended the throne, and the very year of the overthrow of the Shgunate, and the restoration of the Emperor to actual power and the leading part in the government. Reared amid the deep and scholarly seclusion of the old court at Kyto, the young Empress found herself occupying a position very different from that for which she had been educated,a position the duties and responsibilities of which grow more multifarious as the years go by. Instead of a life of rigid seclusion, unseeing and unseen, the Empress has had to go forth into the world, finding there the pleasures as well as the duties of actual leadership. With the removal of the court to Tky, and the reappearance of the Emperor, in bodily form, before his people, there came new opportunities for the Empress, and nobly has she used them. From the time when, in , she gave audience to the five little girls of the samurai class who were just setting forth on a journey to America, there to study and fit themselves to play a part in the Japan of the future, on through twenty years of change and progress, the Empress Haru Ko has done all that lay within her power to advance the women of her country. Many stories are afloat which show the lovable character of the woman, and which have given her an abiding place in the affections of the people. Some years ago, when the castle in Tky was burned, and the Emperor and Empress were obliged to take refuge in an old daimi's house, a place entirely lacking in luxuries and considerably out of repair, some one expressed to her the grief that all her people felt, that she should have to put up with so many inconveniences. Her response was a graceful little poem, in which she said that the narrowness of her abode would not limit her love for her people, and that for them she would endeavor to explore wisely the unlimited fields of knowledge. Upon another occasion, when Prince Iwakura, one of the leaders of Japan in the early days of the crisis through which the country is still passing, lay dying at his home, the Empress sent him word that she was coming to visit him. The prince, afraid that he could not do honor to such a guest, sent her word back that he was very ill, and unable to make proper preparation to entertain an Empress. To this the Empress replied that he need make no preparations for her, for she was coming, not as an Empress, but as the daughter of Ichij, his old friend and colleague, and as such he could receive her. And then, setting aside imperial state and etiquette, she visited the dying statesman, and brightened his last hours with the thought of how lovely a woman stood as an example before the women of his beloved country. Many of the charities and schools of new Japan are under the Empress's special patronage and this does not mean simply that she allows her name to be used in connection with them, but it means that she thinks of them, studies them, asks questions about them, and even practices little economies that she may have the more money to give to them. There is a charity hospital in Tky, having in connection with it a training school for nurses, that is one of the special objects of her care. Last year she gave to it, at the end of the year, the savings from her own private allowance, and concerning this act an editorial from the 'Japan Mail' speaks as follows 'The life of the Empress of Japan is an unvarying routine of faithful dutydoing and earnest charity. The public, indeed, hears with a certain listless indifference, engendered by habit, that her Majesty has visited this school, or gone round the wards at that hospital. Such incidents all seem to fall naturally into the routine of the imperial day's work. Yet to the Empress the weariness of long hours spent in classrooms or in laboratories, or by the beds of the sick, must soon become quite intolerable did she not contrive, out of the goodness of her heart, to retain a keen and kindly interest in everything that concerns the welfare of her subjects. That her Majesty does feel this interest, and that it grows rather than diminishes as the years go by, every one knows who has been present on any of the innumerable occasions when the promoters of some charity or the directors of some educational institution have presented, with merciless precision, all the petty details of their projects or organizations for the examination of the imperial lady. The latest evidence of her Majesty's benevolence is, however, more than usually striking. Since the founding of the Tky Charity Hospital, where so many poor women and children are treated, the Empress has watched the institution closely, has bestowed on it patronage of the most active and helpful character, and has contributed handsomely to its funds. Little by little the hospital grew, extending its sphere of action and enlarging its ministrations, until the need of more capacious premisesa need familiar to such undertakingsbegan to be strongly felt. The Empress, knowing this, cast about for some means of assisting this project. To practice strict economy in her own personal expenses, and to devote whatever money might thus be saved from her yearly income to the aid of the hospital, appears to have suggested itself to her Majesty as the most feasible method of procedure. The result is, that a sum of , yen,  sen, and  rin has just been handed over to Dr. Takagi, the chief promoter and mainstay of the hospital, by Viscount Kagawa, one of her Majesty's chamberlains. There is something picturesque about these sen and rin. They represent an account minutely and faithfully kept between her Majesty's unavoidable expenses and the benevolent impulse that constantly urged her to curtail them. Such gracious acts of sterling effort command admiration and love.' Not very long ago, on one of her visits to the hospital, the Empress visited the children's ward, and took with her toys, which she gave with her own hand to each child there. When we consider that this hospital is free to the poorest and lowest person in Tky, and that twenty years ago the persons of the Emperor and Empress were so sacred in the eyes of the people that no one but the highest nobles and the near officials of the court could come into their presence,that even these high nobles were received at court by the Emperor at a distance of many feet, and his face even then could not be seen,when we think of all this, we can begin to appreciate what the Empress Haru has done in bridging the distance between herself and her people so that the poorest child of a beggar may receive a gift from her hand. In the country places to this day, there are peasants who yet believe that no one can look on the sacred face of the Emperor and live. The school for the daughters of the nobles, to which I have before referred, is an institution whose welfare the Empress has very closely at heart, for she sees the need of rightly combining the new and the old in the education of the young girls who will so soon be filling places in the court. At the opening of the school the Empress was present, and herself made a speech to the scholars and her visits, at intervals of one or two months, show her continued interest in the work that she has begun. Upon all state occasions, the scholars, standing with bowed heads as if in prayer, sing a little song written for them by the Empress herself and at the graduating exercises, the speeches and addresses are listened to by her with the profoundest interest. The best specimens of poetry, painting, and composition done by the scholars are sent to the palace for her inspection, and some of these are kept by her in her own private rooms. When she visits the classrooms, she does not simply pass in and pass out again, as if doing a formal duty, but sits for half an hour or so listening intently, and watching the faces of the scholars as they recite. In sewing and cooking classes (for the daughters of the nobles are taught to sew and cook), she sometimes speaks to the scholars, asking them questions. Upon one occasion she observed a young princess, a newcomer in the school, working somewhat awkwardly with needle and thimble. 'The first time, Princess, is it not?' said the Empress, smiling, and the embarrassed Princess was obliged to confess that this was her first experience with those domestic implements. Sometimes in her leisure hoursand they are rare in her busy lifethe Empress amuses herself by receiving the little daughters of some imperial prince or nobleman, or even the children of some of the high officials. In the kindness of her heart, she takes great pleasure in seeing and talking to these little ones, some of whom are intensely awed by being in the presence of the Empress, while others, in their innocence, ignorant of all etiquette, prattle away unrestrainedly, to the great entertainment of the court ladies as well as of the Empress herself. These visits always end with some choice toy or gift, which the child takes home and keeps among her most valued treasures in remembrance of her imperial hostess. In this way the Empress relieves the loneliness of the great palace, where the sound of childish voices is seldom heard, for the Emperor's children are brought up in separate establishments, and only pay occasional visits to the palace, until they have passed early childhood. The present life of the Empress is not very different from that of European royalty. Her carriage and escort are frequently met with in the streets of Tky as she goes or returns on one of her numerous visits of ceremony or beneficence. Policemen keep back the crowds of people who always gather to see the imperial carriage, and stand respectfully, but without demonstration, while the horsemen carrying the imperial insignia, followed closely by the carriages of the Empress and her attendants, pass by. The official Gazette announces almost daily visits by the Emperor, Empress, or other members of the imperial family, to different places of interest,sometimes to various palaces in different parts of Tky, at other times to schools, charitable institutions or exhibitions, as well as occasional visits to the homes of high officials or nobles, for which great preparations are made by those who have the honor of entertaining their Majesties. Among the amusements within the palace grounds, one lately introduced, and at present in high favor, is that of horsebackriding, an exercise hitherto unknown to the ladies of Japan. The Empress and her ladies are said to be very fond of this active exercise,an amusement forming a striking contrast to the quiet of former years. The grounds about the palaces in Tky are most beautifully laid out and cultivated, but not in that artificial manner, with regular flower beds and trees at certain equal distances, which is seen so often in the highly cultivated grounds of the rich in this country. The landscape gardening of Japan keeps unchanged the wildness and beauty of nature, and imitates it closely. The famous flowers, however, are, in the imperial gardens, changed by art and cultivated to their highest perfection, blooming each season for the enjoyment of the members of the court. Especially is attention given to the cultivation of the imperial flower of Japan, the chrysanthemum and some day in November, when this flower is in its perfection, the gates of the Akasaka palace are thrown open to invited guests, who are received in person by the Emperor and Empress. Here the rarest species of this favorite flower, and the oddest colors and shapes, the results of much care and cultivation, are exhibited in spacious beds, shaded by temporary roofs of bamboo twigs and decorated with the imperial flags. This is the great chrysanthemum party of the Emperor, and another of similar character is given in the spring under the flowerladen boughs of the cherry trees. In these various ways the Empress shows herself to her people,a gracious and lovely figure, though distant, as she needs must be, from common, everyday life. Only by glimpses do the people know her, but those glimpses reveal enough to excite the warmest admiration, the most tender love. Childless herself, destined to see a child not her own, although her husband's, heir to the throne, the Empress devotes her lonely and not too happy life to the actual, personal study of the wants of daughters of her people, and side by side with Jingo, the majestic but shadowy Empress of the past, should be enshrined in the hearts of the women of Japan the memory of Haru Ko, the leader of her countrywomen into that freer and happier life that is opening to them.  Each marks the beginning of a new era,the first, of the era of civilization and morality founded upon the teachings of Buddha and Confucius the second, of the civilization and morality that have sprung from the teachings of Christ. Buddhism and Confucianism were elevating and civilizing, but failed to place the women of Japan upon even as high a plane as they had occupied in the old barbaric times. To Christianity they must look for the security and happiness which it has never failed to give to the wives and mothers of all Christian nations.  The Japanese claim for their present Emperor direct descent from Jimmu Tenno, the Son of the Gods and it is for this reason that the Emperor is supposed to be divine, and the representative of the gods on the earth. The dynasty, for about twentyfive hundred years since Jimmu Tenno, has never been broken. It must, however, be said in connection with this statement, that the Japanese family is a much looser organization than that known to our Western civilization, on account of the customs of concubinage and adoption, and that descent through family lines is not necessarily actual descent by blood.  In ancient times, before the long civil wars of the Middle Ages, much attention was given by both men and women to poetry, and many of the classics of Japanese literature are the works of women. Among these distinguished writers can be mentioned Murasaki Shikibu, Seish Nagon, and Isno Taiyu, all court ladies in the time of the Emperor Ichij (about  A. D.). The court at that time was the centre of learning, and much encouragement was given by the Emperor to literary pursuits, the cultivation of poetry, and music. The Emperor gathered around him talented men and women, but the great works that remain are, strange to say, mostly those of women.  The court ladies in immediate contact with the Emperor and Empress are selected from the daughters of the nobles. Only in the present reign have a few samurai women risen to high positions at court on account of special talents.  Miji (Enlightened Rule) is the name of the era that began with the present Emperor's accession to the throne. The year A. D.  is the twentythird year of Miji, and would be so designated in all Japanese dates.  The Empresses of Japan are not chosen from any branch of the imperial family, but from among the daughters of the five of the great kug, or court nobles, who are next in rank to the imperial princes. The choice usually rests with the Emperor or his advisers, and would be naturally given to the most worthy, whether in beauty or accomplishments. No doubt one reason why the Empress is regarded as far below the Emperor is, that she is not of royal blood, but one of the subjects of the Empire. In the old times, the daughters of the Emperor could never marry, as all men were far beneath them in rank. These usually devoted their lives to religion, and as Shint priestesses or Buddhist nuns dwelt in the retirement of temple courts or the seclusion of cloisters.  Tokugawa Shguns were the military rulers of the Tokugawa family, who held the power in Japan for a period of two hundred and fifty years. They are better known to Americans, perhaps, under the title of Tycoon (Great Prince), a name assumed, or rather revived, to impress the foreigners when Commodore Perry was negotiating in regard to treaties. The Shgun held the daimis in forced subjection,a subjection that was shaken in , and broken at last in the year , when, by the fall of the Shgunate, the Emperor was restored to direct power over his people.  The Emperor's children are placed, from birth, in the care of some noble or high official, who becomes the guardian of the child. Certain persons are appointed as attendants, and the child with its retinue lives in the establishment of the guardian, who is supposed to exercise his judgment and experience in the physical and mental training of the child.  Jingo Kg, like many of the heroic, half mythical figures of other nations, has suffered somewhat under the assaults of the modern historical criticism. Many of the best Japanese historians deny that she conquered Corea some go so far as to doubt whether she had right to the title of Empress all are sure that much of romance has gathered about the figure of this brave woman but to the mass of the Japanese today, she is still an actual historic reality, and she represents to them in feminine form the Spirit of Japan. Whether she conquered Corea or no, she remains the prominent female figure upon the border line where the old barbaric life merges into the newer civilization, just as the present Empress, Haru Ko, stands upon the border line between the Eastern and the Western modes of thought and life.  The seclusion of the Emperors and the gathering of the reins of government into the hands of Shguns was a gradual process, beginning not long after the introduction of Chinese civilization, and continuing to grow until Iyyas, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, through his code of laws, took from the Emperor the last vestige of real power, and perfected the feudal system which maintained the sway of his house for two hundred and fifty years of peace. The Emperor's court, with its literary and sthetic quiet, its simplicity of life and complexity of etiquette, was the centre of the culture and art of Japan, but never the centre of luxury. After the growth of the Tokugawa power had secured for that house and its retainers great hereditary possessions, the Emperor's court was a mere shadow in the presence of the magnificence in which the Tokugawas and the daimis chose to live. The wealth of the country was in the hands of those who held the real power, and the Emperor was dependent for his support upon his great vassal, who held the land, collected the taxes, made the laws, and gave to his master whatever seemed necessary for his maintenance in the simple style of the old days, keeping for himself and for his retainers enough to make Yedo, the Tokugawa capital, the centre of a luxury far surpassing anything ever seen at the Emperor's own court. While the kug, the old imperial nobility, formerly the governors of the provinces under the Emperors, lived in respectable but often extreme poverty at Kyto, the landed nobility, or daimis, brought, after many struggles, under the sway of the Tokugawas, built for themselves palaces and pleasure gardens in the moated city of Yedo. At Yedo with its castle, its gardens, its yashikis, and its fortifications, was established a new court, more luxurious, but less artistic and cultivated, than the old court of Kyto. In the various provinces, too, at every castle town, a little court arose about the castle, and the daimi became not only the feudal chief, but the patron of literature and art among his people, as the years went by filling his kura with choice works of art, in lacquer, bronze, silver, and pottery, to be brought out on special occasions. These nobles, under a law of Iymits, the third of the Tokugawa line, were compelled to spend half of each year at the city of the Shguns and each had his yashiki, or large house and garden, in the city. At this house, his family must reside permanently, as hostages for the loyalty of their lord while away. The annual journeys to and from Yedo were events not only in the lives of the daimis and their trains of retainers, but in the lives of the country people who lived along the roads by which they must travel. The time and style of each journey for each daimi were rigidly prescribed in the laws of Iymits, as well as the behavior of the country people who might meet the procession moving towards Yedo, or returning therefrom. When some noble, or any member of his family, was to pass through a certain section of the country, great preparations were made beforehand. Not only was traffic stopped along the route, but every door and window had to be closed. By no means was any one to show himself, or to look in any way upon the passing procession. To do so was to commit a profane deed, punishable by a fine. Among other things, no cooking was allowed on that day. All the food must be prepared the day before, as the air was supposed to become polluted by the smoke from the fires. Thus through crowded cities, full and busy with life, the daimi in his curtained palanquin, with numerous retinue, would pass by but wherever he approached, the place would be as deserted and silent as if plaguestricken. It is hardly necessary to add that these journeys, attended with so much ceremony and inconvenience to the people, were not as frequent as the trips now taken, at a moment's notice, from one city to another, by these very same men. One story current in Tky shows the narrowing effect of such seclusion. A noble who had traveled into Yedo, across one of the large bridges built over the Sumida River, remarked one day to his companions that he was greatly disappointed on seeing that bridge. 'From the pictures,' he said, 'which I have seen, the bridge seemed alive with people, the centre of life and activity, but the artists must exaggerate, for not a soul was on the bridge when I passed by.' The castle of the Shgun in Yedo, with its moats and fortifications, and its fine house and great kura, was reproduced on a small scale in the castles scattered through the country and as in Yedo the yashikis of the daimis stood next to the inner moat of the castle, that the retainers might be ready to defend their lord at his earliest call, so in the provinces the yashikis of the samurai occupied a similar position about the daimi's castle. It is curious to see that, as the Shgun took away the military and temporal power of the Emperor, making of him only a figurehead without real power, so, to a certain degree, the daimi gave up, little by little, the personal control of his own province, the power falling into the hands of ambitious samurai, who became the councilors of their lord. The samurai were the learned class and the military class they were and are the life of Japan and it is no wonder that the nobles, protected and shielded from the world, and growing up without much education, should have changed in the course of centuries from strong, brave warriors into the delicate, effeminate, luxuryloving nobles of the present day. Upon the loyalty and wisdom of the samurai, often upon some one man of undoubted ability, rested the greatness of the province and the prosperity of the master's house. The life of the ladies in these daimis' houses is still a living memory to many of the older women of Japan but it is a memory only, and has given place to a different state of things. The Emperor occupies the castle of the Shgun today, and every daimi's castle throughout the country is in the hands of the imperial government. The old pleasure gardens of the nobles are turned into arsenals, schools, public parks, and other improvements of the new era. But here and there one finds some conservative family of nobles still keeping up in some measure the customs of former times and daimis' houses there are still in Tky, though stripped of power and of retainers, where life goes on in many ways much as it did in the old days. In such a house as this, one finds ladiesinwaiting, of the samurai rank, who serve her ladyshipthe daimi's wifein all personal service. In the old days, the daughters of the samurai were eager for the training in etiquette, and in all that belongs to nice housekeeping, that might be obtained by a few years of apprenticeship in a daimi's house, and gladly assumed the most menial positions for the sake of the education and reputation to be gained by such training. The wife and daughters of a daimi led the quietest of lives, rarely passing beyond the four great walls that inclose the palace with its grounds. They saw the changes of the seasons in the flowers that bloomed in their lovely gardens, when, followed by numerous attendants, they slowly walked through the bamboo groves or under the bloomladen boughs of the plum or cherry trees, forming their views of life, its pleasures, its responsibilities, and its meaning, within the narrow limits of the daimi's yashiki. Their mornings were passed in the adorning of their own persons, and in the elaborate dressing of their luxuriant hair the afternoons were spent in the tea ceremony, in writing poetry, or the execution of a sort of silk mosaic that is a favorite variety of fancy work still among the ladies of Japan. A story is told of one of the Tokugawa princesses that illustrates the amusements of the Shgun's daughters, and the pains that were taken to gratify their wishes, however unreasonable. The cherrytrees of the castle gardens of Tky are noted for their beauty when in bloom during the month of April. It is said that once a daughter of the Tokugawa house expressed a wish to give a garden party amid the blossoming cherrytrees in the month of December, and nothing would do but that her wishes must be carried out. Her retainers accordingly summoned to their aid skillful artificers, who from pink and white tissue paper produced myriads of cherry blossoms, so natural that they could hardly be distinguished from the real ones. These they fastened upon the trees in just such places as the real flowers would have chosen to occupy, and the happy princess gave her garden party in December under the pink mist of cherry blooms. The children of a daimi's wife occupied her attention but little. They were placed in the charge of careful attendants, and the mother, though allowed to see them when she wished, was deprived of the pleasure of constant intercourse with them, and had none of the mother's cares which form so large a part of life to an ordinary Japanese woman. When we know that the average Japanese girl is brought up strictly by her own mother, and thoroughly drilled in obedience and in all that is proper as regards etiquette and the duties of woman, we can imagine the narrowness of the education of the daimi's poor little daughter, surrounded, from early childhood, with numerous attendants of the strictest sort, to teach her all that is proper according to the highest and severest standards. Sometimes, by the whim or the indulgence of parents, or through exceptional circumstances in her surroundings, a samurai's daughter became more independent, more selfreliant, or better educated, than others of her rank but such opportunities never came to the more carefully reared noble's daughter. From her earliest childhood, she was addressed in the politest and most formal way, so that she could not help acquiring polite manners and speech. She was taught etiquette above all things, so that no rude action or speech would disgrace her rank and that she should give due reverence to her superiors, courtesy to equals, and polite condescension to inferiors. She was taught especially to show kindness to the families under the rule of her father, and was early told of the noble's duty to protect and love his retainers, as a father loves and protects his children. From childhood, presents were made in her name to those around her, often without her previous knowledge or permission, and from them she would receive profuse thanks,lessons in the delights of beneficence which could not fail to make their impression on the child princess. Even to inferiors she used the polite language, and never the rude, brusque speech of men, or the careless phrases and expressions of the lower classes. The education of the daimi's daughter was conducted entirely at home. Instead of going out to masters for instruction, she was taught by some one in the household,one of her father's retainers, or perhaps a member of her own private retinue. Teachers for certain branches came from outside, and these were not expected to give the lesson within a certain time and hurry away, but they would remain, conversing, sipping tea, and partaking of sweetmeats, until their noble pupil was ready to receive them. Hospitality required that the teacher be offered a meal after the lesson, and this meal etiquette would not permit him to refuse, so that both teacher and pupil must spend much time waiting for each other and for the lesson. Pursued in this leisurely way, the education of the noble's daughter could not advance very rapidly, and it usually ended with an extremely early marriage and the girl wife would sometimes play with her doll in the new home until the living baby took its place to the young mother. The samurai women, who in one position or another were close attendants on these noble ladies, performing for them every act of service, were often women of more than average intelligence and education. From childhood to old age, the noble ladies were never without one or more of these maids of honor, close at hand to help or advise. Some entered the service in the lower positions for only a short period, leaving sooner or later to be married for continued service in a daimi's household meant a single life. Many of them remained in the palace all their days, leading lives of devotion to their mistress the comfort and ease of which hardly compensated for the endless formalities and the monotonous seclusion. Even the less responsible and more menial positions were not looked down upon, and the higher offices in the household were exceedingly honorable. When, once in a long while, a day's leave of absence was granted to one of these gentlewomen, and, loaded with presents sent by the daimi's lady, she went on her visit to her home, she was received as a greatly honored member of her own family. The respect which was paid to her knowledge of etiquette and dress was never lessened because of the menial services she might have performed for those of noble blood. The lady who was the head attendant, and those in the higher positions, had a great deal of power and influence in matters that concerned their mistress and the household just as the male retainers decided for the prince, and in their own way, many of the affairs of the province. The few conservative old ladies, the last relics of the numerous retainers that once filled the castle, who still remain faithful in attendance in the homes now deprived of the grandeur of the olden times, look with horror upon the innovations of the present day, and sigh for the glory of old Japan. It is only upon compulsion that they give up many of the now useless formalities, and resign themselves to seeing their once so honored lords jostle elbow to elbow with the common citizen. I shall never forget the horror of one old lady, attendant on a noble's daughter of high rank, just entering the peeress' school, when it was told her that each student must carry in her own bundle of books and arrange them herself, and that the attendants were not allowed in the classroom. The poor old lady was doubtless indignant at the thought that her nobleborn mistress should have to perform even so slight a task as the arranging of her own desk unaided. In the daimis' houses there was little of the culture or wit that graced the more aristocratic seclusion of Kyto, and none of the duties and responsibilities that belonged to the samurai women, so that the life of the daimi's lady was perhaps more purposeless, and less stimulating to the noble qualities, than the lives of any other of the women of Japan. Surrounded by endless restrictions of etiquette, lacking both the stimulus that comes from physical toil and that to be derived from intellectual exertion, the ladies of this class of the nobility simply vegetated. There is little wonder that the nobles degenerated both mentally and physically during the years when the Tokugawas held sway for there was absolutely nothing in the lives of the women to fit them to be the wives and mothers of strong men. Delicate, dainty, refined, dexterous in all manner of little things but helpless to act for themselves,ladies to the inmost core of their beings, with instincts of honor and of noblesse oblige appearing in them from earliest childhood,the years of seclusion, of deference from hundreds of retainers, of constant instruction in the duties as well as the dignities of their position, have produced an abiding effect upon the minds of the women of this aristocracy, and today even the youngest and smallest of them have the virtues as well as the failings produced by nearly three centuries of training. They are lacking in force, in ambition, in clearness of thought, among a nation abounding in those qualities but the national characteristics of dignity, charming manners, a quick sense of honor, and indomitable pride of race and nation, combined with a personal modesty almost deprecating in its humility,these are found among the daughters of the nobles developed to their highest extent. With the qualities of gentleness and delicacy possessed by these ladies, which make them shrink from rough contact with the outer world, there are mingled the stronger qualities of moral and physical courage. A daimi's wife, as befitted the wife of a warrior and the daughter of long generations of brave men, never shrank from facing danger and death when necessary and considered the taking of her own life an honorable and easy escape from being captured by her enemy. Two or three little ripples from the past broke into my life in Tky, giving a little insight into those old feudal times, and the customs that were common then, but that are now gone forever. A story was told me in Japan by a lady who had herself, as a child, witnessed the events narrated. It illustrates the responsibility felt by the retainers for their lord and his house. A daimi fell into disgrace with the Shgun, and was banished to his own capital,a castle town several days' journey from Yedo,as a punishment for some offense. The castle gates were closed, and no communication with the outer world allowed. During this period of disgrace, it happened that the noble fell ill, and died quite suddenly before his punishment was ended. His death under such circumstances was the most terrible thing that could befall either himself or his family, as his funeral must be without the ordinary tokens of respect and his tombstone, instead of bearing tribute to his virtues, and the favor in which he had been held by his lord, must be simply the monument of his disgrace. This being the case, the retainers felt that these evils must be averted at any cost. Knowing that the Shgun's anger was probably not so great as to make him wish to bring eternal disgrace to their dead lord, they at once decided to send a messenger to the Shgun, begging for pardon on the plea of desperate illness, and asking the restoration of his favor before the approach of death. The death was not announced, but the floor of the room in which the man had died was lifted up, and the body let down to the ground beneath and through all the town it was announced that the daimi was hopelessly ill. Forty days passed before the Shgun sent to the retainers the token that the disgrace was removed, and during all those forty days, in castle and barrack and village, the fiction of the daimi's illness was kept up. As soon as the messengers returned, the body was drawn up again through the floor and placed on the bed and all the retainers, from the least unto the greatest, were summoned into the room to congratulate their master upon his restoration to favor. One by one they entered the darkened room, prostrated themselves before the corpse, and uttered the formal words of congratulation. Then when all, even to the little girl who, grown to womanhood, told me the story, had been through the horrible ceremony, it was announced that the master was dead,that he had died immediately after the return of the messenger with the good tidings of pardon. All obstacles being thus removed, the funeral was celebrated with due pomp and circumstance and the tombstone of the daimi today gives no hint of the disgrace from which he so narrowly escaped. Another instance very similar, throwing some light on the custom of adoption or yshi, referred to in a previous chapter, was the case of a nobleman who died without children, and without an heir appointed to inherit his title. It would never have done, in sending in the official notice of death, to be unable to name the legal head of the house and the successor to the title. There was also no male relative to perform the office of chief mourner at the funeral and so the death of the nobleman was kept secret, and his house showed no signs of mourning during a long period, until a son satisfactory to all the members of the household had been adopted. When the legal notice of the adoption had been sent in, and the son received into the family as heir, then, and only then, was the death of the lord announced, the period of mourning begun, and the funeral ceremony performed. Upon one occasion I was visiting a Japanese lady, who knew the interest that I took in seeing and procuring the oldfashioned embroidered kimonos, which are now entirely out of style in Japan, and which can only be obtained at secondhand clothing stores, or at private sale. My friend said that she had just been shown an assortment of old garments which were offered at private sale by the heirs of a lady, recently deceased, who had once been a maid of honor in a daimi's house. The clothes were still in the house, and were brought in, in a great basket, for my inspection. Very beautiful garments they were, of silk, crpe, and linen, embroidered elaborately, and in extremely good order. Many of them seemed not to have been worn at all, but had been kept folded away for years, and only brought out when a fitting occasion came round at the proper season of the year. As we turned over the beautiful fabrics, a black broadcloth garment at the bottom of the basket aroused my curiosity, and I pulled it out and held it up for closer inspection. A curious garment it was, bound with white, and with a great white crest appliqu on the middle of the back. Curious white stripes gave the coat a military look, and it seemed appropriate rather to the wardrobe of some twosworded warrior than to that of a gentlewoman of the old type. To the question, How did such a coat come to be in such a place? the older lady of the companyone to whom the old days were still the natural order and the new customs an exotic growthexplained that the garment rightfully belonged in the wardrobe of any ladyinwaiting in a daimi's house, for it was made to wear in case of fire or attack when the men were away, and the women were expected to guard the premises. Further search among the relics of the past brought to light the rest of the costume silk hakama, or full kilted trousers a stiff, manlike black silk cap bound with a white band and a spear cover of broadcloth, with a great white crest upon it, like the one on the broadcloth coat. These made up the uniform which must be donned in time of need by the ladies of the palace or the castle, for the defense of their lord's property. They had been folded away for twenty years among the embroidered robes, to come to light at last for the purpose of showing to a foreigner a phase of the old life that was so much a matter of course to the older Japanese that it never occurred to them even to mention it to a stranger. The elder lady of the house was wonderfully amused at my interest in these mute memorials of the past, and could never comprehend why I was willing to expend the sum of one dollar for the sake of gaining possession of a set of garments for which I could have no possible use. The uniform had probably never been worn in actual warfare, but its owner had been trained in the use of the longhandled spear, the cover of which she had kept stored away all these years and had regarded herself as liable to be called into action at any time as one of the home guard, when the male retainers of her lord were in the field. There are in the shops of Tky today hundreds of colored prints illustrating the splendor of the Shgunate for the fine clothes, the pageants, the show and display that ended with the fall of the house of Tokugawa, are still dear to the popular mind. In these one sees reproduced, in more than their original brilliancy of coloring, the daimis, with their trains of uniformed retainers, proceeding in stately pageant to the palace of the Shgun the games, the dances, the reviews held before the Shgun himself the princess, with her train of ladies and attendants, visiting the cherry blossoms at Uyno, or crossing some swift but shallow river on her journey to Yedo. There one sees the fleet of redlacquered pleasure barges in which the Shgun with his court sailed up the river to Mukjima, in the spring, to view the cherrytrees which bloom along the banks for miles. One sees, too, the interiors of the daimis' houses, the intimate domestic scenes into which no outsider could ever penetrate. One picture shows the excitements consequent upon the advent of an heir to a noble house,the happy mother on her couch, surrounded by brightly dressed ladiesinwaiting the baby in the room adjoining another group of brilliant beings preparing his bath while down the long piazza, which opens upon the little courtyard in the centre of the house, one sees still other groups of servants, bringing the gifts with which the great mansion is flooded at such a time. Still further away, across the courtyard, are the doctors, holding learned consultation around a little table, and mixing medicines to secure the health and strength of both mother and baby. The fall of the Shgunate, and the abolition of castle and yashiki, have made a radical change in the fashions of dress in Japan. One sees no longer the beautiful embroidered robes, except upon the stage, for the abolition of the great leisure class has put the flowered kimono out of fashion. There are no courts, small and great, scattered all through the country, where the ladies must be dressed in changing styles for the changing seasons, and where the embroideries that imitate most closely the natural flowers are sure of a market. When one asks, as every foreigner is likely to ask, the Japanese ladies of one's acquaintance, 'Why have you given up the beautiful embroideries and gorgeous colors that you used to wear?' the answer always is, 'There are no daimis' houses now.' And this is regarded as a sufficient explanation of the change. I have in my possession today two dainty bits of the silk mosaic work before mentioned, the work of the sixteenyearold wife of one of the proudest and most conservative of the present generation of nobles. A dainty little creature she was, with a face upon which her two years of wifehood and one year of motherhood had left no trace of care. Living amid her host of ladies and women servants, most of them older and wiser than herself having no care and no amusements save the easy task of keeping herself pretty and welldressed, and the amusement of watching her baby grow, and hearing the chance rumors that might come to her from the great new world into which her husband daily went, but with which she herself never mingled,her days were one pleasant, monotonous round, unawakening alike either to soul or intellect. Into this life of remoteness from all that belongs to the new era, imagine the excitement produced by the advent of a foreign lady, with an educated dog, whose wonderful intelligence had been already related to her by one of her own ladiesinwaiting. I shall always believe that my invitation into that exclusive house was due largely to the reports of my dog, carried to its proprietors by one of the lady servitors who had seen him perform upon one occasion. Certain it is that the first words of the little lady of the house to me were a question about the dog and her last act of politeness to our party was a warm embrace of the handsome collie, who had given unimpeachable evidence that he understood a great deal of English,a tongue which the daimi himself was painfully learning. The dainty childwife with both arms buried in the heavy ruff of the astonished dog is a picture that comes to me often, and that brings up most pathetically the monotony of an existence into which so small a thing can bring so much. The lifelike black and white silk puppy, the creeping baby doll from Kyto, the silk mosaic box and chopstick case,the work of my lady's delicate fingers,are most agreeable reminders of the kindness and sweetness of the little wife, whose sixteen summers have been spent among the surroundings of thirty years ago, and who lives, like the enchanted princess of the fairy tales, wrapped about by a spell which separates her from the bustling world of today. The product of the past,the daughter of the last of the Shguns,she dwells in her enchanted house, among the relics of a past which is still the present to her and to her household. So lovely, so sthetic, so dainty and charming seems the world into which one enters there, that one would not care to break the spell that holds it as it is, and let the girlwife, with her gentlewomen and her kneeling servants, hurry forward into the busy, perplexing life of today. May time deal gently with her and hers, nor rudely break the enchantment that surrounds her!  Yashiki, or spreadout house, was the name given to the palace and grounds of a daimi's city residence, and also to the barracks occupied by his retainers, both in city and country. In the city the barracks of the samurai were built as a hollow square, in the centre of which stood the palace and grounds of their lord, and this whole place was the daimi's yashiki. In the castle towns the daimi's palace and gardens stood within the castle inclosure, surrounded by a moat, while the yashikis of the samurai were placed without the moat. They in turn were separated from the business part of the village sometimes by a second or third moat. By life in castle and yashiki we mean the life of the daimi, whether in city or country.  The Japanese language is full of expressions showing different shades of meaning in the politeness or respect implied. There are words and expressions which superiors in rank use to inferiors, or vice versa, and others used among equals. Some phrases belong especially to the language of the highborn, just as there are common expressions of the people. Some verbs in this extremely complex language must be altered in their termination according to the degree of honor in which the subject of the action is held in the speaker's mind.  The establishment of the peeress' school, mentioned in the last chapter, is a great innovation upon the oldtime ways of many of the aristocratic families.  Samurai was the name given to the military class among the Japanese,a class intermediate between the Emperor and his nobles and the great mass of the common people who were engaged in agriculture, mechanical arts, or trade. Upon the samurai rested the defense of the country from enemies at home or abroad, as well as the preservation of literature and learning, and the conduct of all official business. At the time of the fall of feudalism, there were, among the thirtyfour millions of Japanese, about two million samurai and in this class, in the broadest sense of the word, must be included the daimis, as well as their twosworded retainers. But as the greater among the samurai were distinguished by special class names, the word as commonly used, and as used throughout this work, applies to the military class, who served the Shgun and the daimis, and who were supported by yearly allowances from the treasuries of their lords. These form a distinct class, actuated by motives quite different from those of the lower classes, and filling a great place in the history of the country. As the nobility, through long inheritance of power and wealth, became weak in body and mind, the samurai grew to be, more and more, not only the sword, but the brain of Japan and today the great work of bringing the country out of the middle ages into the nineteenth century is being performed by the samurai more than by any other class. What, it may be asked, are the traits of the samurai which distinguish them, and make them such honored types of the perfect Japanese gentleman, so that to live and die worthy the name of samurai was the highest ambition of the soldier? The samurai's duty may be expressed in one word, loyalty,loyalty to his lord and master, and loyalty to his country,loyalty so true and deep that for it all human ties, hopes, and affections, wife, children, and home, must be sacrificed if necessary. Those who have read the tale of 'The Loyal Rnins'a story which has been so well told by Mitford, Dickins, and Greey that many readers must be already familiar with itwill remember that the head councilor and retainer, Oishi, in his deep desire for revenge for his lord's unjust death, divorces his wife and sends off his children, that they may not distract his thoughts from his plans and performs his famous act of revenge without once seeing his wife, only letting her know at his death his faithfulness to her and the true cause of his seeming cruelty. And the wife, far from feeling wronged by such an act, only glories in the loyalty of her husband, who threw aside everything to fulfill his one great duty, even though she herself was his unhappy victim. The true samurai is always brave, never fearing death or suffering in any form. Life and death are alike to him, if no disgrace is attached to his name. An incident comes into my mind which may serve as an example of the samurai spirit,a spirit which has filled the history of Japan with heroic deeds. It is the story of a long siege, at the end of which the little garrison in the besieged castle was reduced to the last stages of endurance, though hourly expecting reinforcement. In this state of affairs, the great question is, whether to wait for the expected aid, or to surrender immediately, and the answer to the question can only be obtained through a knowledge of the enemy's strength. At this juncture, one of the samurai volunteers to steal into the camp of the besiegers, inspect their forces, and report their strength before the final decision is made. He disguises himself, and through various chances is able to penetrate, unsuspected, into the midst of the enemy's camp. He discovers that the besiegers are so weak that they cannot maintain the siege much longer, but while returning to the castle he is recognized and taken by the enemy. His captors give him one chance for escape from the horrible death of crucifixion. He is to go to the edge of the moat, and, standing on an elevated place, shout out to the soldiers that they must surrender, for the forces are too strong for them. He seemingly consents to this, and, led down to the water's edge, he sees across the moat his wife and child, who greet him with demonstrations of joy. To her he waves his hand then, bravely and loudly, so that it may be heard by friend and foe, he shouts out the true tidings, 'Wait for reinforcement at any cost, for the besiegers are weak and will soon have to give up.' At these words his enraged enemies seize him and put him to a death of horrible torture, but he smiles in their faces as he tells them the sweetness of such a sacrifice for his master. Japanese history abounds with heroic deeds of blood displaying the indomitable courage of the samurai. In the reading of them, we are often reminded of the Spartan spirit of warfare, and samurai women are in some ways very like those Spartan mothers who would rather die than see their sons branded as cowards. The implicit obedience which samurai gave their lords, when conflicting with feelings of loyalty to their country, often produced two opposing forces which had to be overcome. When the daimi gave orders that the keenersighted retainer felt would not be for the good of the house, he had either to disobey his lord, or act against his feeling of loyalty. Divided between the two duties, the samurai would usually do as he thought right for his country or his lord, disobeying his master's orders write a confession of his real motives and save his name from disgrace by committing suicide. By this act he would atone for his disobedience, and his loyalty would never be questioned. The now abolished custom of harakiri, or the voluntary taking of one's life to avoid disgrace, and blot out entirely or partially the stain on an honorable name, is a curious custom which has come down from old times. The ancient heroes stabbed themselves as calmly as they did their enemies, and women as well as men knew how to use the short sword worn always at the side of the samurai, his last and easy escape from shame. The young men of this class, as well as their masters, the daimis, were early instructed in the method of this selfstabbing, so that it might be cleanly and easily done, for a bloody and unseemly death would not redound to the honor of the suicide. The fatal cut was not instantaneous in its effect, and there was always opportunity for that display of couragethat show of disregard for death or painwhich was expected of the brave man. The harakiri was of course a last resort, but it was an honorable death. The vulgar criminal must be put to death by the hands of others, but the nobler samurai, who never cares to survive disgrace, was condemned to harakiri if found guilty of actions worthy of death. Not to be allowed to do this, but to be executed in the common way, was a double disgrace to a samurai. Even to this day, when crimes such as the assassination of a minister of state are committed, in the mistaken belief that the act is for the good of the country, the idea on the part of the assassin is never to escape detection. He calmly gives himself up to justice or takes his own life, stating his motive for the deed and, believing himself justified in the act, is willing that his life should be the cost. The old samurai was proud of his rank, his honorable vocation, his responsibility proud of his ignorance of trade and barter and of his disregard for the sordid cares of the world, regarding as far beneath him all occupations but those of arms. Wealth, as artisan or farmer, rarely tempted him to sink into the lower ranks and his support from the daimi, often a mere pittance, insured to him more respect and greater privileges than wealth as a himin. To this day even, this feeling exists. Preference for rank or position, rather than for mere salary, remains strongly among the present generation, so that official positions are more sought after than the more lucrative occupations of trade. Japan is flooded with small officials, and yet the samurai now is obliged to lay down his sword and devote his time to the once despised trades, and to learn how important are the arts of peace compared with those of war. The dislike of anything suggestive of trade or barterof services and actions springing, not from duty and from the heart, but from the desire of gainhas strongly tinted many little customs of the day, often misunderstood and misconstrued by foreigners. In old Japan, experience and knowledge could not be bought and sold. Physicians did not charge for their services, but on the contrary would decline to name or even receive a compensation from those in their own clan. Patients, on their side, were too proud to accept services free, and would send to the physicians, not as pay exactly, but more as a gift or a token of gratitude, a sum of money which varied according to the means of the giver, as well as to the amount of service received. Daimis did not send to ask a teacher how much an hour his time was worth, and then arrange the lessons accordingly the teacher was not insulted by being expected to barter his knowledge for so much filthy lucre, but was merely asked whether his time and convenience would allow of his taking extra teaching. The request was made, not as a matter of give and take, but a favor to be granted. Due compensation, however, would never fail to be made,of this the teacher could be sure,but no agreement was ever considered necessary. With this feeling yet remaining in Japan,this dislike of contracts, and exact charges for professional services,we can imagine the inward disgust of the samurai at the businesslike habits of the foreigners with whom he has to deal. On the other hand, his feelings are not appreciated by the foreigner, and his actions clash with the European and American ideas of independence and selfrespect. In Japan a present of money is more honorable than pay, whereas in America pay is much more honorable than a present. The samurai of today is rapidly imbibing new ideas, and is learning to see the world from a Western point of view but his thoughts and actions are still moulded on the ideas of old Japan, and it will be a long time before the loyal, faithful, but proud spirit of the samurai will die out. The pride of clan is now changed to pride of race loyalty to feudal chief has become loyalty to the Emperor as sovereign and the old traits of character exist under the European costumes of today, as under the flowing robes of the twosworded retainer. It is this same spirit of loyalty that has made it hard for Christianity to get a foothold in Japan. The Emperor was the representative of the gods of Japan. To embrace a new religion seemed a desertion of him, and the following of the strange gods of the foreigner. The work of the Catholic missionaries which ended so disastrously in  has left the impression that a Christian is bound to offer allegiance to the Pope in much the same way as the Emperor now receives it from his people and the bitterness of such a thought has made many refuse to hear what Christianity really is. Such words as 'King' and 'Lord' they have understood as referring to temporal things, and it has taken years to undo this prejudice a feeling in no way surprising when we consider how the Jesuit missionaries once interfered with political movements in Japan. So bitter was this feeling, when Japan was first opened, that a native Christian was at once branded as a traitor to his country, and very severe was the persecution against all Christians. Missionaries at one time dared not acknowledge themselves as such, and lived in danger of their lives and the Japanese Christian who remained faithful did so knowing that he was despised and hated. I know of one mother who, finding command and entreaty alike unavailing to move her son, a convert to the new religion, threatened to commit suicide, feeling that the disgrace which had fallen on the family could only be wiped out with her death. Happily, all this is of the past, and today the samurai has found that he can reconcile the new religion with his loyalty to Japan, and that in receiving the one he is not led to betray the other. The women of the samurai have shared with the men the responsibilities of their rank, and the pride that comes from hereditary positions of responsibility. A woman's first duty in all ranks of society is obedience but sacrifice of self, in however horrible a way, was a duty most cheerfully and willingly performed, when by such sacrifice father, husband, or son might be the better able to fulfill his duty towards his feudal superior. The women in the daimis' castles who were taught fencing, drilled and uniformed, and relied upon to defend the castle in case of need, were women of this class,women whose husbands and fathers were soldiers, and in whose veins ran the blood of generations of fighting ancestors. Gentle, feminine, delicate as they were, there was a possibility of martial prowess about them when the need for it came and the long education in obedience and loyalty did not fail to produce the desired results. Death, and ignominy worse than death, could be met bravely, but disgrace involving loss of honor to husband or feudal lord was the one thing that must be avoided at all hazards. It was my good fortune, many years ago, to make the acquaintance of a little Japanese girl who had lived in the midst of the siege of Wakamatsu, the city in which the Shgun's forces made their last stand for their lord and the system that he represented. As the Emperor's forces marched upon the castle town, moat after moat was taken, until at last men, women, and children took refuge within the citadel itself to defend it until the last gasp. The bombs of the besiegers fell crashing into the castle precincts, killing the women as they worked at whatever they could do in aid of the defenders and even the little girls ran back and forth, amid the rain of bullets and balls, carrying cartridges, which the women were making within the castle, to the men who were defending the walls. 'Weren't you afraid?' we asked the delicate child, when she told us of her own share in the defense. 'No,' was the answer. A small but dangerous sword, of the finest Japanese steel, was shown us as the sword that she wore in her belt during all those days of war and tumult. 'Why did you wear the sword?' we asked. 'So that I would have it if I was taken prisoner.' 'What would you have done with it?' was the next question, for we could not believe that a child of eight would undertake to defend herself against armed soldiers with that little sword. 'I would have killed myself,' was the answer, with a flash of the eye that showed her quite capable of committing the act in case of need. In the olden times, when the spirit of warfare was strong and justice but scantily administered, revenge for personal insult, or for the death of father or lord, fell upon the children, or the retainers. Sometimes the bloody deed has fallen to the lot of a woman, to some weak and feeble girl, who, in many a tale, has braved all the difficulties that beset a woman's path, devoted her life to an act of vengeance, and, with the courage of a man, has often successfully consummated her revenge. One of the tales of old Japan, and a favorite subject of theatrical representation, is the death and revenge of a lady in a daimi's palace. Onoy, a daughter of the people, child of a merchant, has by chance risen to the position of ladyinwaiting to a daimi's wife,a thing so uncommon that it has roused the jealousy of the other ladies, who are of the samurai class. Iwafuji, one of the highest and proudest ladies at the court, takes pains on every occasion to insult and torment the poor, unoffending Onoy, whom she cannot bear to have as an associate. She constantly reminds her of her inferior birth, and at last challenges her to a trial in fencing, in which accomplishment Onoy is not proficient, having lacked the proper training in her early life. At last the hatred and anger of Iwafuji culminate in a frenzy of rage she forgets herself, and strikes the meek and gentle Onoy with her sandal,the worst insult that could be offered to any one. Onoy, overcome by this deep disgrace offered her in public, returns from the main palace to her own apartments, and ponders long and deeply, in the bitterness of her soul, how to wipe out the disgrace of an insult by such an enemy. Her own faithful maid, seeing her disordered hair and anxious looks, perceives some secret trouble, which her mistress will not disclose, and tries, while performing her acts of service, to dispel the gloom by telling gayly all the gossip of the day. This maid, O Haru, is a type of the clever faithful servant. She is really of higher birth than her mistress, for, though she has been obliged to go out to service, she was born of a samurai family. Onoy, while listening to the talk of her servant, has made up her mind that only one thing can blot out her disgrace, and that is to commit suicide. She hastily pens a farewell to her family, for the deed must not be delayed, and sends with the letter the token of her disgrace,Iwafuji's sandal, which she has kept. O Haru is sent on this errand, and, unconscious of the illnews she is bearing, she starts out. On the way, the ominous croak of the ravens, who are making a dismal noise,a presage of illluck,frightens the observant O Haru. A little further on, the strap of her clog breaks,a still more alarming sign. Thoroughly frightened, O Haru turns back, and reaches her mistress' room in time to find that the fatal deed is done, and her mistress is dying. O Haru is heartbroken, learns the whole truth, and vows vengeance on the enemy of her loved mistress. O Haru, unlike Onoy, is thoroughly trained in fencing. An occasion arises when she returns to Iwafuji in public the malicious blow, and with the same sandal, which she has kept as a sign of her revenge. She then challenges Iwafuji, in behalf of the dead, to a trial in fencing. The haughty Iwafuji is forced to accept, and is thoroughly defeated and shamed before the spectators. The whole truth is now made known, and the daimi, who admires and appreciates the spirit of O Haru, sends for her, and raises her from her low position to fill the post of her dead mistress. These stories show the spirit of the samurai women they can suffer death bravely, even joyfully, at their own hands or the hands of husband or father, to avoid or wipe out any disgrace which they regard as a loss of honor but they will as bravely and patiently subject themselves to a life of shame and ignominy, worse than death, for the sake of gaining for husband or father the means of carrying out a feudal obligation. There is a pathetic scene, in one of the most famous of the Japanese historical dramas, in which one seems to get the moral perspective of the ideal Japanese woman, as one cannot get it in any other way. The play is founded on the story of 'The Loyal Rnins,' referred to in the beginning of this chapter. The loyal rnins are plotting to avenge the death of their master upon the daimi whose cupidity and injustice have brought it about. As there is danger of disloyalty even in their own ranks, Oishi, the leader of the dead daimi's retainers, displays great caution in the selection of his fellowconspirators, and practices every artifice to secure absolute secrecy for his plans. One young man, who was in disgrace with his lord at the time of his death, applies to be admitted within the circle of conspirators but as it is suspected that he may not be true to the cause, a payment in money is exacted from him as a pledge of his honorable intentions. It is thus made his first duty to redeem his honor from all suspicion by the payment of the money, in order that he may perform his feudal obligation of avenging the death of his lord. But the young man is poor he has married a poor girl, and has agreed to support not only his wife, but her old parents as well, and the payment is impossible for him. In this emergency, his wife, at the suggestion of her parents, proposes, as the only way, to sell herself, for a term of two years, to the proprietor of a house of pleasure, that she may by this vile servitude enable her husband to escape the dishonor that must come to him if he fails to fulfill his feudal duty. Negotiations are entered into, the contract is made, and an advance payment is given which will furnish money enough for the pledge required by the conspirators. All this is done without the knowledge of the husband, lest his love for his wife and his grief for the sacrifice prevent him from accepting the only means left to prove his loyalty. The noble wife even plans to leave her home while he is away on a hunting expedition, and so spare him the pain of parting. His emotion upon learning of this venture in business is not of wrath at the disgrace that has overtaken his family, but simply of grief that his wife and her parents must make so great a sacrifice to save his honor. It is a terrible affliction, but it is not a disgrace in any way parallel to the disgrace of disloyalty to his lord. And the heroic wife, when the men come to carry her away, is upheld through all the trying farewells by the consciousness that she is making as noble a sacrifice of herself as did the wife of Yamato Dak when she leaped into the sea to avert the wrath of the seagod from her husband. The Japanese, both men and women, knowing this story and many others similar in character, can see, as we cannot from our point of view, that, even if the body be defiled, there is no defilement of the soul, for the woman is fulfilling her highest duty in sacrificing all, even her dearest possession, for the honor of her husband. It is a climax of selfabnegation that brings nothing but honor to the soul of her who reaches it. Japanese women who read this story feel profound pity for the poor wife, and a horror of a sacrifice that binds her to a life which outwardly, to the Japanese mind even, is the lowest depth a woman ever reaches. But they do not despise her for the act nor would they refuse to receive her even were she to appear in living form today in any Japanese home, where, thanks to happier fortunes, such sacrifices are not demanded. Just at this point is the difference of moral perspective that foreigners visiting Japan find so hard to understand, and that leads many, who have lived in the country the longest, to believe that there is no modesty and purity among Japanese women. It is this that makes it possible for the vilest of stories, and those that have the least foundation in fact, to find easy belief among foreigners, even if they be told about the purest, most highminded, and most honorable of Japanese women. Our maidens, as they grow to womanhood, are taught that anything is better than personal dishonor, and their maidenly instincts side with the teaching. With us, a virtuous woman does not mean a brave, a heroic, an unselfish, or selfsacrificing woman, but means simply one who keeps herself from personal dishonor. Chastity is the supreme virtue for a woman all other virtues are secondary compared with it. This is our point of view, and the whole perspective is arranged with that virtue in the foreground. Dismiss this for a moment, and consider the moral training of the Japanese maiden. From earliest youth until she reaches maturity, she is constantly taught that obedience and loyalty are the supreme virtues, which must be preserved even at the sacrifice of all other and lesser virtues. She is told that for the good of father or husband she must be willing to meet any danger, endure any dishonor, perpetrate any crime, give up any treasure. She must consider that nothing belonging solely to herself is of any importance compared with the good of her master, her family, or her country. Place this thought of obedience and loyalty, to the point of absolute selfabnegation, in the foreground, and your perspective is altered, the other virtues occupying places of varying importance. Because a Japanese woman will sometimes sacrifice her personal virtue for the sake of father or husband, does it follow that all Japanese women are unchaste and impure? In many cases this sacrifice is the noblest that she believes possible, and she goes to it, as she would go to death in any dreadful form, for those whom she loves, and to whom she owes the duty of obedience. The Japanese maiden grows to womanhood no less pure and modest than our own girls, but our girls are never called upon to sacrifice their modesty for the sake of those whom they love best nor is it expected of any woman in this country that she exist solely for the good of some one else, in whatever way he chooses to use her, during all the years of her life. Let us take this difference into our thought in forming our judgment, and let us rather seek the causes that underlie the actions than pass judgment upon the actions themselves. From a close study of the characters of many Japanese women and girls, I am quite convinced that few women in any country do their duty, as they see it, more nobly, more singlemindedly, and more satisfactorily to those about them, than the women of Japan. Many argue that the purity of Japanese women, as compared with the men, the ready obedience which they yield, their sweet characters and unselfish devotion as wives and mothers, are merely the results of the restraint under which they live, and that they are too weak to be allowed to enjoy freedom of thought and action. Whether this be true or no is a point which we leave for others to take up, as time shall have provided new data for reasoning on the subject. To me, the sense of duty seems to be strongly developed in the Japanese women, especially in those of the samurai class. Conscience seems as active, though often in a different manner, as the oldfashioned New England conscience, transmitted through the bluest of Puritan blood. And when a duty has once been recognized as such, no timidity, or mortification, or fear of ridicule will prevent the performance of it. A case comes to my mind now of a young girl of sixteen, who made public confession before her schoolmates of shortcomings of which none of them knew, for the sake of easing her troubled conscience and warning her schoolmates against similar errors. The circumstances were as follows The young girl had recently lost her grandmother, a most loving and affectionate old lady, who had taken the place of a mother to the child from her earliest infancy. In a somewhat unhappy home, the love of the old grandmother was the one bright spot and when she was taken away, the poor, lonely child's memory recalled all of her own shortcomings to this beloved friend and, too late to make amendment to the old lady herself, she dwelt on her own undutifulness, and decided that she must by some means do penance, or make atonement for her fault. She might, if she made a confession before her schoolmates, warn them against similar mistakes and accordingly she prepared, for the literary society in which the girls took what part they chose, a long confession, written in poetical style, and read it before her schoolmates and teachers. It was a terrible ordeal, as one could see by the blushing face and breaking voice, often choked with sobs and when at the conclusion she urged her friends to behave in such a way to their dear ones that they need never suffer what she had had to endure since her grandmother's death, there was not a dry eye in the room, and many of the girls were sobbing aloud. It was a curious expiation and a touching one, but one not in the least exceptional or uncharacteristic of the spirit of duty that actuates the best women of the samurai class. Here is another instance which illustrates this sense of duty, and desire of atoning for past mistakes or sins. At the time of the overthrow of the feudal system, the samurai, bred to loyalty to their own feudal superiors as their highest duty, found themselves ranged on different sides in the struggle, according to the positions in which their lords placed themselves. At the end of the struggle, those who had followed their daimis to the field, in defense of the Shgunate, found that they had been fighting against the Emperor, the Son of Heaven himself, who had at last emerged from the seclusion of centuries to govern his own empire. Thus the supporters of the Shgunate, while absolutely loyal to their daimis, had been disloyal to the higher power of the Emperor and had put themselves in the position of traitors to their country. There was a conflict of principles there somewhat similar to that which took place in our Civil War, when, in the South, he who was true to his State became a traitor to his country, and he who was true to his country became a traitor to his State. Two ladies of the finest samurai type had, with absolute loyalty to a lost cause, aided by every means in their power in the defense of the city of Wakamatsu against the victorious forces of the Emperor. They had held on to the bitter end, and had been banished, with others of their family and clan, to a remote province, for some years after the end of the war. In , eleven years after the close of the War of the Restoration, a rebellion broke out in the south which required a considerable expenditure of blood and money for its suppression. When the new war began, these two ladies presented a petition to the government, in which they begged that they might be allowed to make amends for their former position of opposition to the Emperor, by going with the army to the field as hospital nurses. At that time, no lady in Japan had ever gone to the front to nurse the wounded soldiers but to those two brave women was granted the privilege of making atonement for past disloyalty, by the exercise of the skill and nerve that they had gained in their experience of war against the Emperor, in the nursing of soldiers wounded in his defense. In the old days, the women of the samurai class fulfilled most nobly the duties that fell to their lot. As wives and mothers in time of peace, they performed their work faithfully in the quiet of their homes and, their time filled with household cares, they busied themselves with the smaller duties of life. As the wives and mothers of soldiers, they cultivated the heroic spirit befitting their position, fearing no danger save such as involved disgrace. As the homeguard in time of need, they stood ready to defend their master's possessions with their own lives as gentlewomen and ladiesinwaiting at the court of the daimi or the Shgun, they cultivated the arts and accomplishments required for their position, and veiled the martial spirit that dwelt within them under an exterior as feminine, as gracious, as cultivated and charming, as that of any ladies of Europe or America. Today in the new Japan, where the samurai have no longer their yearly allowance from their lords and their feudal duties, but, scattered through the whole nation, are engaged in all the arts and trades, and are infusing the old spirit into the new life, what are the women doing? As the government of the land today lies in the hands of the samurai men under the Emperor, so the progress of the women, the new ideas of work for women, are in the hands of the samurai women, led by the Empress. Wherever there is progress among the women, wherever they are looking about for new opportunities, entering new occupations, elevating the home, opening hospitals, industrial schools, asylums, there you will find the leading spirits always of the samurai class. In the recent changes, some of this class have risen above their former state and joined the ranks of the nobility and there the presence of the samurai spirit infuses new life into the aristocracy. So, too, the changes that have raised some have lowered others, and the samurai is now to be found in the formerly despised occupations of trade and industry, among the merchants, the farmers, the fishermen, the artisans, and the domestic servants. But wherever his lot is cast, the old training, the old ideals, the old pride of family, still keep him separate from his present rank, and, instead of pulling him down to the level of those about him, tend to raise that level by the example of honor and intelligence that he sets. The changed fortunes were not met without a murmur. Most of the outrages, the reactionary movements, the riots and inflammatory speeches and writings, that characterized the long period of disquiet following the Restoration, came from men of this class, who saw their support taken from them, leaving them unable to dig and ashamed to beg. But the greater part of them went sturdily to work, in government positions if they could get them, in the army, on the police force, on the farm, in the shop, at trades, at service,even to the humble work of wheeling a jinrikisha, if other honest occupation could not be found and the women shared patiently and bravely the changed fortunes of the men, doing whatever they could toward bettering them. The samurai women today are eagerly working into the positions of teachers, interpreters, trained nurses, and whatever other places there are which may be honorably occupied by women. The girls' schools, both government and private, find many of their pupils among the samurai class and their deference and obedience to their teachers and superiors, their ambition and keen sense of honor in the schoolroom, show the influence of the samurai feeling over new Japan. To the samurai women belongs the taskand they have already begun to perform itof establishing upon a broader and surer foundation the position of women in their own country. They, as the most intelligent, will be the first to perceive the remedy for present evils, and will, if I mistake not, move heaven and earth, at some time in the near future, to have that remedy applied to their own case. Most of them read the literature of the day, some of them in at least one language beside their own a few have had the benefit of travel abroad, and have seen what the home and the family are in Christian lands. There is as much of the unconquerable spirit of the samurai today in the women as in the men and it will not be very long before that spirit will begin to show itself in working for the establishment of their homes and families upon some stronger basis than the will of the husband and father.  Rnin was the term applied to a samurai who had lost his master, and owed no feudal allegiance to any daimi. The exact meaning of the word is waveman, signifying one who wanders to and fro without purpose, like a wave driven by the wind.  The samurai always wore two swords, a long one for fighting only, and a short one for defense when possible, but, as a last resort, for harakiri. The sword is the emblem of the samurai spirit, and as such is respected and honored. A samurai took pride in keeping his swords as sharp and shining as was possible. He was never seen without the two swords, but the longer one he removed and left at the front door when he entered the house of a friend. To use a sword badly, to harm or injure it, or to step over it, was considered an insult to the owner.  Kurushima, who attempted to take the life of Okuma, the late Minister of Foreign Affairs, as recently as , committed suicide immediately after throwing the dynamite bomb which caused the minister the loss of his leg. This was the more remarkable in that, at the time of his death, the assassin supposed that his victim had escaped all injury.  The great himin class includes not only the peasants of Japan, but also the artisans and merchants artisans ranking below farmers, and merchants below artisans, in the social structure. It includes the whole of the common people, except such as were in former times altogether below the level of respectability, the ta and hinin,outcasts who lived by begging, slaughtering animals, caring for dead bodies, tanning skins, and other employments which rendered them unclean according to the old notions. From very early times the agricultural class has been sharply divided from the samurai or military. Here and there one from the peasantry mounts by force of his personal qualities into the higher ranks, for there is no caste system that prevents the passing from one class into another,only a class prejudice that serves very nearly the same purpose, in keeping samurai and himin in their places, that the race prejudice in this country serves in confining the negroes, North and South, to certain positions and occupations. The first division of the military from the peasantry occurred in the eighth century, and since then the peculiar circumstances of each class have tended to produce quite different characteristics in persons originally of the same stock. To the soldier class have fallen learning, skill in arms and horsemanship, opportunities to rise to places of honor and power, lives free from sordid care in regard to the daily rice, and in which noble ideas of duty and loyalty can spring up and bear fruit in heroic deeds. To the peasant, tilling his little ricefield year after year, have come the heavy burdens of taxation the grinding toil for a mere pittance of food for himself and his family the patient bearing of all things imposed by his superiors, with little hope of gain for himself, whatever change the fortunes of war may bring to those above him in the social scale. Is there wonder that, as the years have gone by, his wits have grown heavy under his daily drudgery that he knows little and understands less of the changes that are taking place in his native land that he is easily moved by only one thing, and that the failure of his crops, or the shortening of his returns from his land by heavier taxation? This is true of the himin as a class they are conservative, fearing that change will but tend to make harder a lot that is none too easy and though peaceable and gentle usually, they may be moved to blind acts of riot and bloodshed by any political change that seems likely to produce heavier taxation, or even by a failure of their crops, when they see themselves and their families starving while the military and official classes have enough and to spare. But though, as a class, the farmers are ignorant and heavy, they are seldom entirely illiterate and everywhere, throughout the country, one finds men belonging to this class who are well educated and have risen to positions of much responsibility and power, and are able to hold their own, and think for themselves and for their brethren. From an article in the 'Tky Mail,' entitled 'A Memorialist of the Latter Days of the Tokugawa Government,' I quote passages which show the thoughts of one of the himin upon the condition of his own class about the year . It is from a petition sent to the Shgun by the headman of the village of Ogushi. The first point in the petition is, that there is a growing tendency to luxury among the military and official classes. 'It is useless to issue orders commanding peasants and others to be frugal and industrious, when those in power, whose duty it is to show a good example to the people, are themselves steeped in luxury and idleness.' He ventures to reproach the Shguns themselves by pointing to the extravagance with which they have decorated the mausoleums at Nikk and elsewhere. 'Is this,' he asks, 'in keeping with the intentions of the glorious founder of your dynasty? Look at the shrines in Is and elsewhere, and at the sepulchres of the Emperors of successive ages. Is gold or silver used in decorating them?' He then turns to the vassals of the Shgun, and charges them with being tyrannical, rapacious, and lowminded. 'Samurai,' he continues,'samurai are finely attired, but how contemptible they look in the eyes of those peasants who know how to be contented with what they have!' Further on in the same memorial, he points out what he regards as a grave mistake in the policy of the Shgun. A decree had just been issued prohibiting the peasantry from exercising themselves with swordplay, and from wearing swords. Of this he says 'Perhaps this decree may have been issued on the supposition that Japan is naturally impregnable and defended on all sides. But when she receives insult from a foreign country, it may become necessary to call on the militia. And who knows that men of extraordinary military genius, like Toyotomi, will not again appear among the lower classes?'  He ends his memorial with this warning 'Should the Shgun's court, and the military class in general, persist in the present oppressive way of government, Heaven will visit this land with still greater calamities. If this circumstance is not clearly kept in view, the consequence may be civil disturbance. I, therefore, beseech that the instructions of the glorious founder of the dynasty be acted upon that simplicity and frugality be made the guiding principle of administration and that a general amnesty be proclaimed, thereby complying with the will of Heaven and placating the people. Should these humble suggestions of mine be acted upon, prospective calamities will fly before the light of virtue. Whether the country is to be safe or not depends upon whether the administration is carried on with mercy or not. What I pray for is, that the country may enjoy peace and tranquillity, that the harvest may be plentiful, and that the people may be happy and prosperous.' One is able to see, by this rather remarkable document, that the peasants of Japan, though frequently almost crushed by the heavy burdens of taxation, do not, even in the most grinding poverty, lose entirely that independence of thought and of action which is characteristic of their nation. They do not consider themselves as a servile class, nor their military rulers as beyond criticism or reproach, but are ready to speak boldly for their rights whenever an opportunity occurs. There is a pathetic story, told in Mitford's 'Tales of Old Japan,' of a peasant, the headman of his village, who goes to Yedo to present to the Shgun a complaint, on behalf of his fellowvillagers, of the extortions and exactions of his daimi. He is unable to get any one to present his memorial to the Shgun, so at last he stops the great lord's palanquin in the street,an act in itself punishable with death,and thrusts the paper forcibly into his hand. The petition is read, and his fellowvillagers saved from further oppression, but the headman, for his daring, is condemned by his own daimi to suffer death by crucifixion,a fate which he meets with the same heroism with which he dared everything to save his fellows from suffering. The peasant, though ignorant and oppressed, has not lost his manhood has not become a slave or a serf, but clings to his rights, so far as he knows what they are and is ready to hold his own against all comers, when the question in debate is one that appeals to his mind. The rulers of Japan have always the peasantry to reckon with when their ruling becomes unjust or oppressive. They cannot be cowed, though they may be misled for a time, and they form a conservative element that serves to hold in check too hasty rulers who would introduce new measures too quickly, and would be likely to find the new wine bursting the old bottles, as well as to prevent any rash extravagance in the way of personal expenditure on the part of government officials. The influence of this great class will be more and more felt as the new parliamentary institutions gain in power, and a more close connection is established between the throne and public opinion. In considering this great himin class, it is well to remember that the artisans, who form so large a part of it, are also the artists who have made the reputation of Japan, in Europe and America, as one of the countries where art and the love of beauty in form and color are still instinct with life. The Japanese artisan works with patient toil, and with the skill and originality of the artist, to produce something that shall be individual and his own not simply to make, after a pattern, some utensil or ornament for which he cares nothing, so long as a purchaser can be found for it, or an employer can be induced to pay him money for making it. It seems as easy for the Japanese to make things pretty and in good taste, even when they are cheap and only used by the poorer people, as it is for American mills and workers to turn out endless varieties of attempts at decoration,all so hideous that a poor person must be content, either to be surrounded by the worst possible taste, or to purchase only such furnishings and utensils as are entirely without decoration of any kind. 'Cheap' and 'nasty' have come to be almost synonymous words with us, for the reason that taste in decoration is so rare that it commands a monopoly price, and can only be procured by the wealthy. In Japan this is not the case, for the cheapest of things may be found in graceful and artistic designs,indeed can hardly be found in any designs that are not graceful and artistic and the poorest and commonest of the people may have about them the little things that go to cultivate the sthetic part of human nature. It was not the costly art of Japan that interested me the most, although that is, of course, the most wonderful proof of the capacity and patience of individuals among this himin class but it was the common, cheap, everyday art that meets one at every turn the love for the beautiful, in both nature and art, that belongs to the common coolie as well as to the nobleman. The cheap prints, the blue and white towels, the common teacups and pots, the great iron kettles in use over the fire in the farmhouse kitchen,all these are things as pretty and tasteful in their way as the rich crpes, the silver incense burners, the delicate porcelain, and the elegant lacquer that fill the storehouse of the daimi and they show, much more conclusively than these costlier things, the universal sense of beauty among the people. The artisan works at his home, helped less often by hired laborers than by his own children, who learn the trade of their father and his house, though small, is clean and tasteful, with its soft mats, its dainty tea service, its little hanging scroll upon the walls, and its vase of gracefully arranged flowers in the corner for flowers, even in winter and in the great city of Tky, are so cheap that they are never beyond the reach of the poorest. In homes that seem to the foreign mind utterly lacking in the comforts and even the necessities of life, one finds the few furnishings and utensils beautiful in shape and decoration and the money that in this country must be spent in beds, tables, and chairs can be used for the purchase of kakmonos, flowers, and vases, and for various gratifications of the sthetic taste. Hence it is that the Japanese laborer, who lives on a daily wage which would reduce an American or European to the verge of starvation, finds both time and money for the cultivation of that sense of beauty which is too often crushed completely out of the lower classes by the burdens of this nineteenth century civilization which they bear upon their shoulders. To the Japanese, the 'life is more than meat,' it is beauty as well and this love of beauty has upon him a civilizing and refining effect, and makes him in many ways the superior of the American daylaborer. The peasants and farmers of Japan, thrifty and hardworking as they are, are not by any means a prosperous class. As one passes into the country districts from the large cities, there seems to be a conspicuous dearth of neat, pleasant homes,a lack of the comforts and necessities of life such as are enjoyed by city people. The rich farmers are scarce, and the laborers in the ricefields hardly earn, from days of hardest toil with the rudest implements, the little that will provide for their families. In the face of heavy taxes, the incessant toil, the frequent floods of late years, and the threatening famine, one would expect the poor peasants to be a most discouraged and unhappy class. That all this toil and anxiety does wear on them is no doubt true, but the laborers are always ready to bear submissively whatever comes, and are always hopeful and prepared to enjoy life again in happier times. The charms of the city tempt them sometimes to exchange their daily labor for the excitement of life as jinrikisha men but in any case they will be perfectly independent, and ask no man for their daily rations. Although there is much poverty, there are few or no beggars in Japan, for both strong and weak find each some occupation that brings the little pittance required to keep soul and body together, and gives to all enough to make them lighthearted, cheerful, and even happy. From the rich farmer, whose many acres yield enough to provide for a home of luxury quite as fine as the city homes, to the poor little vender of sticks of candy, around whose store the children flock like bees with their rin and sen, all seem independent, contented, and satisfied with their lot in life. The religious beliefs of old Japan are stronger today among the country people than among the dwellers in cities. And they are still willing to give of their substance for the aid of the dying faiths to which they cling, and to undertake toilsome pilgrimages to obtain some longedfor blessing from the gods whom they serve. A great Buddhist temple is being built in Kyt today, from the lofty ceiling of which hangs a striking proof of the devotion of some of the peasant women to the Buddhist faith. The whole temple, with its immense curved roof, its vast proportions, and its marvelous wood carvings, has been built by offerings of labor, money, and materials made by the faithful. The great timbers were given and brought to the spot by the countrymen and the women, wishing to have some part in the sacred work, cut off their abundant hair, a beauty perhaps more prized by the Japanese women than by those of other countries, and from the material thus obtained they twisted immense cables, to be used in drawing the timbers from the mountains to the site of the temple. The great black cables hang in the unfinished temple today, a sign of the devotion of the women who spared not their chief ornament in the service of the gods in whom they still believe. And a close scrutiny of these touching offerings shows that the glossy black locks of the young women are mingled with the white hairs of those who, by this sacrifice, hope to make sure of a quick and easy departure from a life already near its close. All along the Tkaid, the great road from Tky to Kyto, in the neighborhood of some holy place, or in the district around the great and sacred Fuji, the mountain so much beloved and honored in Japanese art, will be seen bands of pilgrims slowly walking along the road, their worn and soiled white garments telling of many days' weary march. Their large hats shield them from the sun and the rain, and the pieces of matting slung over their backs serve them for beds to sleep on, when they take shelter for the night in rude huts. The way up the great mountain of Fuji is lined with these pilgrims for to attain its summit, and worship there the rising sun, is believed to be the means of obtaining some special blessing. Among these religious devotees, in costumes not unlike those of the men, under the same large hat and coarse matting, old women often are seen, their aged faces belying their apparent vigor of body, as they walk along through miles and miles of country, jingling their bells and holding their rosaries until they reach the shrine, where they may ask some special blessing for their homes, or fulfill some vow already made. Journeying through rural Japan, one is impressed by the important part played by women in the various breadwinning industries. In the village homes, under the heavily thatched roofs, the constant struggle against poverty and famine will not permit the women to hold back, but they enter bravely into all the work of the men. In the ricefield the woman works side by side with the man, standing all day up to her knees in mud, her dress tucked up and her lower limbs encased in tightfitting, blue cotton trousers, planting, transplanting, weeding, and turning over the evilsmelling mire, only to be distinguished from her husband by her broader belt tied in a bow behind. In mountain regions we meet the women climbing the steep mountain roads, pruninghook in hand, after wood for winter fires or descending, towards night, carrying a load that a donkey need not be ashamed of, packed on a frame attached to the shoulders, or poised lightly upon a straw mat upon the head. There is one village near Kyto, Yas by name, at the base of Hiyi Zan, the historic Buddhist stronghold, where the women attain a stature and muscular development quite unique among the pigmy population of the island empire. Strong, jolly, redcheeked women they are, showing no evidence of the shrinking away with the advance of old age that is characteristic of most of their countrywomen. With their tuckedup kimonos and blue cotton trousers, they stride up and down the mountain, carrying the heaviest and most unwieldy of burdens as lightly and easily as the ordinary woman carries her baby. My first acquaintance with them was during a camping expedition upon the sacred mountain. I myself was carried up the ascent by two small, nearly naked, finely tattooed and moxascarred men but my baggage, consisting of two closely packed hampers as large as ordinary steamer trunks, was lifted lightly to the heads of these feminine porters, and, poised on little straw pads, carried easily up the narrow trail, made doubly difficult by lowhanging branches, to the camp, a distance of three or four miles. From among these women of Yas, on account of their remarkable physical development, have been chosen frequently the nurses for the imperial infants an honor which the Yas villagers duly appreciate, and which makes them bear themselves proudly among their less favored neighbors.  In other parts of the country, in the neighborhood of Nikk, for instance, the care of the horses, mild little packmares that do much of the burdenbearing in those mountains, is mainly in the hands of the women. At Nikk, when we would hire ponies for a two days' expedition to Yumoto, a little, elderly woman was the person with whom our bargains were made and a close bargainer she proved to be, taking every advantage that lay in her power. When the caravan was ready to start, we found that, though each saddlehorse had a male groom in attendance, the packponies on which our baggage was carried were led by pretty little country girls of twelve or fourteen, their bright black eyes and red cheeks contrasting pleasantly with the blue handkerchiefs that adorned their heads their slender limbs encased in blue cotton, and only their red sashes giving any hint of the fact that they belonged to the weaker sex. As we journeyed up the rough mountain roads, the little girls kept along easily with the rest of the party leading their meek, shockheaded beasts up the slippery log steps, and passing an occasional greeting with some returning packtrain, in which the soft black eyes and bits of red about the costume of the little grooms showed that they, too, were mountain maidens, returning fresh and happy after a two days' tramp through the rocky passes. In the districts where the silkworm is raised, and the silk spun and woven, the women play a most important part in this productive industry. The care of the worms and of the cocoons falls entirely upon the women, as well as the spinning of the silk and the weaving of the cloth. It is almost safe to say that this largest and most productive industry of Japan is in the hands of the women and it is to their care and skill that the silk product of the islands is due. In the silk districts one finds the woman on terms of equality with the man, for she is an important factor in the wealthproducing power of the family, and is thus able to make herself felt as she cannot when her work is inferior to that of the men. As a farmer, as a groom, or as a porter, a woman is and must remain an inferior, but in the care of the silkworms, and all the tasks that belong to silk culture, she is the equal of the stronger sex.  Then, again, in the tea districts, the tea plantations are filled with young girls and old women, their long sleeves held back by a band over the shoulder, and a blue towel gracefully fastened over their heads to keep off the sun and the dust. They pick busily away at the green, tender leaves, which will soon be heated and rolled by strong men over the charcoal fire. The occupation is an easy one, only requiring care in the selection of leaves to be picked, and can be performed by young girls and old women, who gather the glossy leaves in their big baskets, while chatting to each other over the gossip and news of the day. In the hotels, both in the country and the city, women play an important part. The attendants are usually sweetfaced, prettily dressed girls, and frequently the proprietor of the hotel is a woman. My first experience of a Japanese hotel was at Nara, anciently the capital of Japan, and now a place of resort because of its fine old temples, its Dai Butsu, and its beautiful deer park. The day's ride in jinrikisha from saka had brought our party in very tired, only to find that the hotel to which we had telegraphed for rooms was already filled to overflowing by a daimi and his suite. Not a room could be obtained, and we were at last obliged to walk some distance, for we had dismissed our tired jinrikisha men, to a hotel in the village, of which we knew nothing. What with fatigue and disappointment, we were not prepared to view the unknown hotel in a very rosy light and when our guide pointed to a small gate leading into a minute, damp courtyard, we were quite convinced that the hardships of travel in Japan were now about to begin but disappointment gave way to hope, when we were met at the door by a buxom landlady, whose smile was in itself a refreshment. Although we had little in the way of language in common, she made us feel at home at once, took us to her best room, sent her blooming and prettily dressed daughters to bring us tea and whatever other refreshments the mysterious appetite of a foreigner might require, and altogether behaved toward us in such motherly fashion that fatigue and gloom departed forthwith, leaving us refreshed and cheerful. Soon we began to feel rested, and our kind friend, seeing this, took us upon a tour around the house, in which room after room, spotless, empty, with shining woodwork and softest of mats, showed the good housekeeping of our hostess. A little garden in the centre of the house, with dwarf trees, mosscovered stones, and running water, gave it an air of coolness on the hot July day that was almost deceptive and the spotless washroom, with its great stone sink, its polished brass basins, its stone wellcurb, half in and half out of the house, was cool and clean and refreshing merely to look at. A two days' stay in this hotel showed that the landlady was the master of the house. Her husband was about the house constantly, as were one or two other men, but they all worked under the direction of the energetic head of affairs. She it was who managed everything, from the cooking of the meals in the kitchen to the filling and heating of the great bathtub into which the guests were invited to enter every afternoon, one after the other, in the order of their rank. On the second night of my stay, at a late hour, when I supposed that the whole house had retired to rest, I crept softly out of my room to try to soothe the plaintive wails of my dog, who was complaining bitterly that he was made to sleep in the woodcellar instead of in his mistress's room, as his habit had always been. As I stole quietly along, fearing lest I should arouse the sleeping house, I heard the inquiring voice of my landlady sound from the bathroom, the door of which stood wide open. Afraid that she would think me in mischief if I did not show myself, I went to the door, to find her, after her family was safely stowed away for the night, taking her ease in the great tub of hot water, and so preparing herself for a sound, if short, night's sleep. She accepted my murmured Inu (dog) as an excuse, and graciously dismissed me with a smile, and I returned to my room feeling safe under the vigilant care that seemed to guard the house by night as well as by day. I have seen many Japanese hotels and many careful landladies since, but no one among them all has made such an impression as my pleasant hostess at Nara. Not only hotels, but little teahouses all through Japan, form openings for the business abilities of women, both in country and city. Wherever you go, no matter how remote the district or how rough the road, at every halting point you find a teahouse. Sometimes it is quite an extensive restaurant, with several rooms for the entertainment of guests, and a regular kitchen where fairly elaborate cooking can be done sometimes it is only a rough shelter, at one end of which water is kept boiling over a charcoal brazier, while at the other end a couple of seats, covered with mats or a scarlet blanket or two, serve as restingplaces for the patrons of the establishment. But whatever the place is, there will be one woman or more in attendance and if you sit down upon the mats, you will be served at once with tea, and later, should you require more, with whatever the establishment can afford,it may be only a slice of watermelon, or a hard pear it may be eels on rice, vermicelli, egg soup, or a regular dinner, should the teahouse be one of the larger and more elaborately appointed ones. When the feast is over, the refreshments you have especially ordered are paid for in the regular way but for the tea and sweetmeats offered, for which no especial charge is made, you are expected to leave a small sum as a present. In the less aristocratic restingplaces, a few cents for each person is sufficient to leave on the waiter with the empty cups of tea, for which loud and grateful thanks will be shouted out to the retiring party. In the regular inn, the chadai amounts to several dollars, for a party remaining any time, and it is supposed to pay for all the extra services and attention bestowed on guests by the polite host and hostess and the servants in attendance. The chadai, done up neatly in paper, with the words On chadai written on it, is given with as much formality as any present in Japan. The guest claps his hands to summon the maid. When it is heard, for the thin paper walls of a Japanese house let through every noise, voices from all sides will shout out Hh, or Hai, which means that you have been heard, and understood. Presently a maid will softly open your door, and with head low down will ask what you wish. You tell her to summon the landlord. In a few moments he appears, and you push the chadai to him, making some conventional selfdepreciating speech, as, 'You have done a great deal for our comfort, and we wish to give you this chadai, though it is only a trifle.' The landlord, with every expression of surprise, will bow down to the ground with thanks, raising the small package to his head in token of acceptance and gratitude, and will murmur in low tones how little he has done for the comfort of his guests and then, the selfdepreciation and formal words of thanks on his side being ended, he will finally go down stairs to see how much he has gotten. But, whether more or less than he had expected, nothing but extreme gratitude and politeness appears on his face as he presents a fan, confectionery, or some trifle, as a return for the chadai, and speeds the parting guests with his lowest bow and kindliest smile, after having seen to every want that could be attended to. Once, at Nikk, I started with a friend for a morning walk to a place described in the guidebook. The day was hot and the guidebook hazy, and we lost the road to the place for which we had set out, but found ourselves at last in a beautiful garden, with a pretty lake in its centre, a little redlacquered shrine reflected in the lake, and a teahouse hospitably open at one side. The teakettle was boiling over the little charcoal fire melons, eggs, and various unknown comestibles were on the little counter but no voice bade us welcome as we approached, and when we sat down on the edge of the piazza, we could see no one within the house. We waited, however, for the day was hot, and time is not worth much in rural Japan. Pretty soon a small, wizened figure made its appearance in the distance, hurrying and talking excitedly as it came near enough to see two foreign ladies seated upon the piazza. Many bows and profuse apologies were made by the little old woman, who seemed to be the solitary occupant of the pretty garden, and who had for the moment deserted her post to do the day's marketing in the neighboring village. The apologies having been smilingly received, the old lady set herself to the task of making her guests comfortable. First she brought two tumblers of water, cold as ice, from the spring that gushed out of a great rock in the middle of the little lake. Then she retired behind a screen and changed her dress, returning speedily to bring us tea. Then she retreated to her diminutive kitchen, and presently came back smiling, bearing eight large raw potatoes on a tray. These she presented to us with a deep bow, apparently satisfied that she had at last brought us something we would be sure to like. We left the potatoes behind us when we went away, and undoubtedly the old lady is wondering still over the mysterious ways of the foreigners, as we are over those of the Japanese teahouse keepers. One summer, when I was spending a week at a Japanese hotel at quite a fashionable seaside resort, I became interested in a little old woman who visited the hotel daily, carrying, suspended by a yoke from her shoulders, two baskets of fruit, which she sold to the guests of the hotel. As I was on the ground floor, and my room was, in the daytime, absolutely without walls on two sides, she was my frequent visitor, and, for the sake of her pleasant ways and cheerful smiles, I bought enough hard pears of her to have given the colic to an elephant. One day, after her visit to me, as I was sitting upon the matted and roofed square that served me for a room, my eye wandered idly toward the bathing beach, and, under the slight shelter where the bathers were in the habit of depositing their sandals and towels, I spied the wellknown yoke and fruit baskets, as well as a small heap of blue cotton garments that I knew to be the clothing of the little fruitvender. She had evidently taken a moment when trade was slack to enjoy a dip in the soft, blue, summer sea. Hardly had I made up my mind as to the meaning of the fruit baskets and the clothing, when our little friend herself emerged from the sea and, sitting down on a bench, proceeded to rub herself off with the small but artistically decorated blue towel that every peasant in Japan has always with him, however lacking he may be in all other appurtenances of the toilet. As she sat there, placidly rubbing away, a friend of the opposite sex made his appearance on the scene. I watched to see what she would do, for the Japanese code of etiquette is quite different from ours in such a predicament. She continued her employment until he was quite close, showing no unseemly haste, but continuing her polishing off in the same leisurely manner in which she had begun it then at the proper moment she rose from her seat, bowed profoundly, and smilingly exchanged the greetings proper for the occasion, both parties apparently unconscious of any lack in the toilet of the lady. The male friend then passed on about his business the little woman completed her toilet without further interruptions, shouldered her yoke, and jogged cheerfully on to her home in the little village, a couple of miles away. As one travels through rural Japan in summer and sees the halfnaked men, women, and children that pour out from every village on one's route and surround the kuruma at every stopping place, one sometimes wonders whether there is in the country any real civilization, whether these halfnaked people are not more savage than civilized but when one finds everywhere good hotels, scrupulous cleanliness in all the appointments of toilet and table, polite and careful service, honest and willing performance of labor bargained for, together with the gentlest and pleasantest of manners, even on the part of the gaping crowd that shut out light and air from the traveling foreigner who rests for a moment at the village inn, one is forced to reconsider a judgment formed only upon one peculiarity of the national life, and to conclude that there is certainly a high type of civilization in Japan, though differing in many important particulars from our own. A careful study of the Japanese ideas of decency, and frequent conversation with refined and intelligent Japanese ladies upon this subject, has led me to the following conclusion. According to the Japanese standard, any exposure of the person that is merely incidental to health, cleanliness, or convenience in doing necessary work, is perfectly modest and allowable but an exposure, no matter how slight, that is simply for show, is in the highest degree indelicate. In illustration of the first part of this conclusion, I would refer to the open bathhouses, the naked laborers, the exposure of the lower limbs in wet weather by the turning up of the kimono, the entirely nude condition of the country children in summer, and the very slight clothing that even adults regard as necessary about the house or in the country during the hot season. In illustration of the last part, I would mention the horror with which many Japanese ladies regard that style of foreign dress which, while covering the figure completely, reveals every detail of the form above the waist, and, as we say, shows off to advantage a pretty figure. To the Japanese mind it is immodest to want to show off a pretty figure. As for the ballroom costumes, where neck and arms are freely exposed to the gaze of multitudes, the Japanese woman, who would with entire composure take her bath in the presence of others, would be in an agony of shame at the thought of appearing in public in a costume so indecent as that worn by many respectable American and European women. Our judgment would indeed be a hasty one, should we conclude that the sense of decency is wanting in the Japanese as a race, or that the women are at all lacking in the womanly instinct of modesty. When the point of view from which they regard these matters is once obtained, the apparent inconsistencies and incongruities are fully explained, and we can do justice to our Japanese sister in a matter in regard to which she is too often cruelly misjudged. There seems no doubt at all that among the peasantry of Japan one finds the women who have the most freedom and independence. Among this class, all through the country, the women, though hardworked and possessing few comforts, lead lives of intelligent, independent labor, and have in the family positions as respected and honored as those held by women in America. Their lives are fuller and happier than those of the women of the higher classes, for they are themselves breadwinners, contributing an important part of the family revenue, and they are obeyed and respected accordingly. The Japanese lady, at her marriage, lays aside her independent existence to become the subordinate and servant of her husband and parentsinlaw, and her face, as the years go by, shows how much she has given up, how completely she has sacrificed herself to those about her. The Japanese peasant woman, when she marries, works side by side with her husband, finds life full of interest outside of the simple household work, and, as the years go by, her face shows more individuality, more pleasure in life, less suffering and disappointment, than that of her wealthier and less hardworking sister.  The laws against the ta and hinin, making of them a distinct, unclean class, and forbidding their intermarriage with any of the higher classes, have recently been abolished. There is now no rank distinction of any practical value, except that between noble and common people. Himin and samurai are now indiscriminately mingled.  Toyotomi Hidyoshi, a peasant boy, rose from the position of a groom to be the actual ruler of Japan during the Middle Ages. He it was who in  issued a decree of banishment against the Christian missionaries in Japan. He is called Faxiba in the writings of these missionaries, and in Japan he is frequently spoken of as Taiko Sama, a title, not a name but a title that, used alone, refers always to him. For further account of his life, see Griffis, Mikado's Empire, book i., chap. xxiv.  Chadai is, literally, 'money for tea,' and is equivalent to our tips to the waiters and porters at hotels. The chadai varies with the wealth and rank of the guests, the duration of the stay, and the attention which has been bestowed. On is the honorific placed before the word in writing.  The great cities of Japan afford remarkable opportunities for seeing the life of the common people, for the little houses and shops, with their open fronts, reveal the penetralia in a way not known in our more secluded homes. The employment of the merchant being formerly the lowest of respectable callings, one does not find even yet in Japan many great stores or a very high standard of business morality, for the business of the country was left in the hands of those who were too stupid or too unambitious to raise themselves above that social class. Hence English and American merchants, who only see Japan from the business side, continually speak of the Japanese as dishonest, tricky, and altogether unreliable, and greatly prefer to deal with the Chinese, who have much of the business virtue that is characteristic of the English as a nation. Only within a few years have the samurai, or indeed any one who was capable of figuring in any higher occupation in life, been willing to adopt the calling of the merchant but many of the abler Japanese of today have begun to see that trade is one of the most important factors of a nation's wellbeing, and that the business of buying and selling, if wisely and honestly done, is an employment that nobody need be ashamed to enter. There are in Japan a few great merchants whose word may be trusted, and whose obligations will be fulfilled with absolute honesty but a large part of the buying and selling is still in the hands of mercantile freebooters, who will take an advantage wherever it is possible to get one, in whose morality honesty has no place, and who have not yet discovered the efficacy of that virtue simply as a matter of policy. Their trade, conducted in a small way upon small means, is more of the nature of a game, in which one person is the winner and the other the loser, than a fair exchange, in which both parties obtain what they want. It is the medival, not the modern idea of business, that is still held among Japanese merchants. With them, trade is a warfare between buyer and seller, in which every man must take all possible advantage for himself, and it is the lookout of the other party if he is cheated. In Tky, the greatest and most modernized of the cities of the empire, the shops are not the large city stores that one sees in European and American cities, but little openfronted rooms, on the edge of which one sits to make one's purchases, while the proprietor smiles and bows and dickers setting his price by the style of his customer's dress, or her apparent ignorance of the value of the desired article. Some few large drygoods stores there are, where prices are set and dickering is unnecessary and in the kwankoba, or bazaars, one may buy almost anything needed by Japanese of all classes, from house furnishings to foreign hats, at prices plainly marked upon them, and from which there is no variation. But one's impression of the state of trade in Japan is, that it is still in a very primitive and undeveloped condition, and is surprisingly behind the other parts of Japanese civilization. The shopping of the ladies of the large yashikis and of wealthy families is done mostly in the home for all the stores are willing at any time, on receiving an order, to send up a clerk with a bale of crpes, silks, and cottons tied to his back, and frequently towering high above his head as he walks, making him look like the proverbial ant with a grain of wheat. He sets his great bundle carefully down on the floor, opens the enormous furushiki, or bundle handkerchief, in which it is enveloped, and takes out roll after roll of silk or chintz, neatly done up in paper or yellow cotton. With infinite patience, he waits while the merits of each piece are examined and discussed, and if none of his stock proves satisfactory, he is willing to come again with a new set of wares, knowing that in the end purchases will be made sufficient to cover all his trouble. The less aristocratic people are content to go to the stores themselves and the business streets of a Japanese city, such as the Ginza in Tky, are full of women, young and old, as well as merry children, who enjoy the life and bustle of the stores. Like all things else in Japan, shopping takes plenty of time. At Mitsui's, the largest silk store in Tky, one will see crowds of clerks sitting upon the matted floors, each with his soroban, or adding machine, by his side and innumerable small boys, who rush to and fro, carrying armfuls of fabrics to the different clerks, or picking up the same fabrics after the customer who has called for them has departed. The store appears, to the foreign eye, to be simply a roofed and matted platform upon which both clerks and customers sit. This platform is screened from the street by dark blue cotton curtains or awnings hung from the low projecting eaves of the heavy roof. As the customers take their seats, either on the edge of the platform, or, if they have come on an extended shopping bout, upon the straw mat of the platform itself, a small boy appears with tea for the party an obsequious clerk greets them with the customary salutations of welcome, pushes the charcoal brazier toward them, that they may smoke, or warm their hands, before proceeding to business, and then waits expectantly for the name of the goods that his customers desire to see. When this is given, the work begins the little boys are summoned, and are soon sent off to the great fireproof warehouse, which stands with heavy doors thrown open, on the other side of the platform, away from the street. Through the doorway one can see endless piles of costly stuffs stored safely away, and from these piles the boys select the required fabric, loading themselves down with them so that they can barely stagger under the weights that they carry. As the right goods are not always brought the first time, and as, moreover, there is an endless variety in the colors and patterns in even one kind of silk, there is always plenty of time for watching the busy scene,for sipping tea, or smoking a few whiffs from the tiny pipes that so many Japanese, both men and women, carry always with them. When the purchase is at last made, there is still some time to be spent by the customer in waiting until the clerk has made an abstruse calculation upon his soroban, the transaction has been entered in the books of the firm, and a long bill has been written and stamped, and handed to her with the bundle. During her stay in the store, the foreign customer, making her first visit to the place, is frequently startled by loud shouts from the whole staff of clerks and small boys,outcries so sudden, so simultaneous, and so stentorian, that she cannot rid herself of the idea that something terrible is happening every time that they occur. She soon learns, however, that these manifestations of energy are but the way in which the Japanese merchant speeds the departing purchaser, and that the apparently inarticulate shouts are but the formal phrase, 'Thanks for your continued favors,' which is repeated in a loud tone by every employee in the store whenever a customer departs. When she herself is at last ready to leave, a chorus of yells arises, this time for her benefit and as she skips into the jinrikisha and is whirled away, she hears continued the busy hum of voices, the clattering of sorobans, the thumping of the bare feet of the heavily laden boys, and the loud shouts of thanks with which departing guests are honored. There is less pomp and circumstance about the smaller stores, for all the goods are within easy reach, and the shops for household utensils and chinaware seem to have nearly the whole stock in trade piled up in front, or even in the street itself. Many such little places are the homes of the people who keep them. And at the back are rooms, which serve for dwelling rooms, opening upon wellkept gardens. The whole work of the store is often attended to by the proprietor, assisted by his wife and family, and perhaps one or two apprentices. Each of the workers, in turn, takes an occasional holiday, for there is no day in the Japanese calendar when the shops are all closed and even New Year's Day, the great festival of the year, finds most of the stores open. Yet the dwellers in these little homes, living almost in the street, and in the midst of the bustle and crowd and dust of Tky, have still time to enjoy their holidays and their little gardens, and have more pleasure and less hard work than those under similar circumstances in our own country. The stranger visiting any of the great Japanese cities is surprised by the lack of large stores and manufactories, and often wonders where the beautiful lacquer work and porcelains are made, and where the gay silks and crpes are woven. There are no large establishments where such things are turned out by wholesale. The delicate vases, the bronzes, and the silks are often made in humblest homes, the work of one or two laborers with rudest tools. There are no great manufactories to be seen, and the bane of so many cities, the polluting factory smoke, never rises over the cities of Japan. The hard, confining factory life, with its neverceasing roar of machinery, bewildering the minds and intellects of the men who come under its deadening influences, until they become scarcely more than machines themselves, is a thing as yet almost unknown in Japan. The life of the jinrikisha man even, hard and comfortless as it may seem to run all day like a horse through the crowded city streets, is one that keeps him in the fresh air, under the open sky, and quickens his powers both of body and mind. To the poor in Japanese cities is never denied the fresh air and sunshine, green trees and grass and the beautiful parks and gardens are found everywhere, for the enjoyment of even the meanest and lowest. On certain days in the month, in different sections of the city, are held night festivals near temples, and many shopkeepers take the opportunity to erect temporary booths, in which they so arrange their wares as to tempt the passersby as they go to and fro. Very often there is a magnificent display of young trees, potted plants, and flowers, brought in from the country and ranged on both sides of the street. Here the gardeners make lively sales, as the displays are often fine in themselves, and show to a special advantage in the flaring torchlight. The eager venders, who do all they can to call the attention of the crowd to their wares, make many good bargains. The purchase requires skill on both sides, for flower men are proverbial in their high charges, asking often five and ten times the real value of a plant, but coming down in price almost immediately on remonstrance. You ask the price of a dwarf wistaria growing in a pot. The man answers at once, 'Two dollars.' 'Two dollars!' you answer in surprise, 'it is not worth more than thirty or forty cents.' 'Seventyfive, then,' he will respond and thus the buyer and seller approach nearer in price, until the bargain is struck somewhere near the first price offered. Price another plant and there would be the same process to go over again but as the evening passes, prices go lower and lower, for the distances that the plants have been brought are great, and the labor of loading up and carrying back the heavy pots is a weary one, and when the last customer has departed the merchants must work late into the night to get their wares safely home again. But beside the flower shows, there are long rows of booths, which, with the many visitors who throng the streets, make a gay and lively scene. So dense is the crowd that it is with difficulty one can push through on foot or in jinrikisha. The darkness is illuminated by torches, whose weird flames flare and smoke in the wind, and shine down upon the little sheds which line both sides of the road, and contain so tempting a display of cheap toys and trinkets that not only the children, but their elders, are attracted by them. Some of the booths are devoted to dolls others to toys of various kinds still others to birds in cages, goldfish in globes, queer chirping insects in wicker baskets, pretty ornaments for the hair, fans, candies, and cakes of all sorts, roasted beans and peanuts, and other things too numerous to mention. The long line of stalls ends with booths, or tents, in which shows of dancing, jugglery, educated animals, and monstrosities, natural or artificial, may be seen for the moderate admission fee of two sen. Each of these shows is well advertised by the beating of drums, by the shouting of doorkeepers, by wonderful pictures on the outside to entice the passerby, or even by an occasional brief lifting of the curtains which veil the scene from the crowd without, just long enough to afford a tantalizing glimpse of the wonders within. Great is the fascination to the children in all these things, and the little feet are never weary until the last booth is passed, and the quiet of neighboring streets, lighted only by wandering lanterns, strikes the homereturning party by its contrast with the light and noise of the festival. The supposed object of the expedition, the visit to the temple, has occupied but a small share of time and attention, and the little hands are filled with the amusing toys and trifles bought, and the little minds with the merry sights seen. Nor are those who remain at home forgotten, but the pleasureseekers who visit the fair carry away with them little gifts for each member of the family, and the O miag, or present given on the return, is a regular institution of Japanese home life. By ten o'clock, when the crowds have dispersed and the purchasers have all gone home and gone to bed, the busy boothkeepers take down their stalls, pack up their wares, and disappear, leaving no trace of the night's gayeties to greet the morning sun. Beside these evening shows, which occur monthly or oftener, there are also great festivals of the various gods, some celebrated annually, others at intervals of some years. These matsuri last for several days, and during that time the quarter of the city in which they occur seems entirely given over to festivity. The streets are gayly decorated with flags, and bright lanternsall alike in design and colorare hung in rows from the low eaves of the houses. Young bambootrees set along the street, and decorated with bits of brightcolored tissue paper, are a frequent and effective accompaniment of these festivals, and here and there throughout the district are set up high stands, on the tops of which musicians with squeaky flutes, and drums of varying calibre, keep up a din more festive than harmonious. It takes a day or two for the rejoicings to get fully under way, but by the second or third day the fun is at its height, and the streets are thronged with merrymakers. A great deal of labor and strength, as well as ingenuity, is spent in the construction of enormous floats, or dashi, lofty platforms of two stories, either set on wheels and drawn by black bullocks or crowds of shouting men, or carried by poles on men's shoulders. Upon the first floor of these great floats is usually a company of dancers, or mummers, who dance, attitudinize, or make faces for the amusement of the crowds that gather along their route while up above, an effigy of some hero in Japanese history, or the figure of some animal or monster, looks down unmoved upon the absurdities below. Each dashi is attended, not only by the men who draw it, but by companies of others in some uniform costume and sometimes graceful professional dancinggirls are hired to march in the matsuri procession, or to dance upon the lofty dashi. At the time of the festivities which accompanied the promulgation of the Constitution, three days of jollification were held in Tky, days of such universal fun and frolic that it will be known among the common people, to all succeeding generations, as the 'Emperor's big matsuri.' Every quarter of the city vied with every other in the production of gorgeous dashi, and the streets were gay with every conceivable variety of decoration, from the little redandwhite paper lanterns, that even the poorest hung before their houses, to the great evergreen arches, set with electric lights, with which the great business streets were spanned thickly from end to end. An evening walk through one of these thoroughfares was a sight to be remembered for a lifetime. The magnificent dashi represented all manner of quaint conceits. A great bivalve drawn by yelling crowdswhich halted occasionallyopened and displayed between its shells a group of beautifully dressed girls, who danced one of the pantomimic dances of the country, accompanied by the twanging melodies of the samisen. Then slowly the great shell closed, once more the shouting crowds seized hold of the straining ropes, and the great bivalve with its fair freight was drawn slowly along through the gayly illuminated streets. Jimmu Tenno and other heroes of Japanese legend or history, each upon its lofty platform, a white elephant, and countless other subjects were represented in the festival cars sent forth by all the districts of the city to celebrate the great event. Upon such festival occasions the shopkeeper does not put up his shutters and leave his place of business, but the open shopfronts add much to the gay appearance of the street. There are no signs of business about, but the floor of the shop is covered with brightred blankets magnificent gilded screens form an imposing background to the little room and seated on the floor are the shopkeeper, his family, and guests, eating, drinking tea, and smoking, as cosily as if all the world and his wife were not gazing upon the gay and homelike interior. Sometimes companies of dancers, or other entertainments furnished by the wealthier shopkeepers, will attract gaping crowds, who watch and block the street until the advance guard of some approaching dashi scatters them for a moment. In Japan, as in other parts of the world, the country people are rather looked down upon by the dwellers in the city for their slowness of intellect, dowdiness of dress, and boorishness of manners while the country people make fun of the fads and fashions of the city, and rejoice that they are not themselves the slaves of novelty, and especially of the foreign innovations that play so prominent a part in Japanese city life today. 'The frog in the well knows not the great ocean,' is the snub with which the Japanese cockney sets down Farmer RiceField's expressions of opinion while the conservative countryman laughs at the foreign affectations of the Tky man, and returns to his village with tales of the cookery of the capital so extravagant is it that sugar is used in everything it is even rumored that the Tkyites put sugar in their tea. But while the country laughs and wonders at the city, nevertheless, in Japan as elsewhere, there is a constant crowding of the young life of the country into the livelier and more entertaining city. Tky especially is the goal of every young countryman's ambition, and thither he goes to seek his fortune, finding, alas! too often, only the hard lot of the jinrikisha man, instead of the wealth and power that his country dreams had shown him. The lower class women of the cities are in many respects like their sisters of the rural districts, except that they have less freedom than the country women in what the economists call 'direct production.' The wells and water tanks that stand at convenient distances along the streets of Tky are frequently surrounded by crowds of women, drawing water, washing rice, and chattering merrily over their occupations. They meet and exchange ideas freely with each other and with the men, but they have not the diversity of labor that country life affords, confining themselves more closely to indoor and domestic work, and leaving the breadwinning more entirely to the men. There are, however, occupations in the city for women, by which they may support themselves or their families. A good hairdresser may make a handsome living indeed, she does so well that it is proverbial among the Japanese that a hairdresser's husband has nothing to do. Though professional tailors are mostly men, many women earn a small pittance in taking in sewing and in giving sewing lessons and as instructors in the ceremonial tea, etiquette, music, painting, and flower arrangement, many women of the old school are able to earn an independence, though none of these occupations are confined to the women alone. The business of hotelkeeping we have referred to in a previous chapter, and it is a wellknown fact that unless a hotelkeeper has a capable wife, his business will not succeed. At present, all over Tky, small restaurants, where food is served in the foreign style, are springing up, and these are usually conducted by a man and his wife who have at some time served as cook and waitress in a foreign family, and who conduct the business coperatively and on terms of goodfellowship and equality. In these little eatinghouses, where a wellcooked foreign dinner of from three to six courses is served for the moderate sum of thirty or forty cents, the man usually does the cooking, the woman the serving and handling of the money, until the time arrives when the profits of the business are sufficient to justify the hiring of more help. When this time comes, the labor is redistributed, the woman frequently taking upon herself the reception of the guests and the keeping of the accounts, while the hired help waits on the tables. One important calling, in the eyes of many persons, especially those of the lower classes, is that of fortunetelling and these guides in all matters of life, both great and small, are to be found in every section of the city. They are consulted on every important step by believing ones of all classes. An impending marriage, an illness, the loss of any valuable article, a journey about to be taken,these are all subjects for the fortuneteller. He tells the right day of marriage, and says whether the fates of the two parties will combine well gives clues to the causes of sudden illness, and information as to what has become of lost articles, and whether they will be recovered or not. Warned thus by the fortuneteller against evils that may happen, many ingenious expedients are resorted to, to avoid the ill foretold. A man and his family were about to move from their residence to another part of the city. They sent to know if the fates were propitious to the change for all the family. The day and year of birth of each was told, and then the fortuneteller hunted up the various signs, and sent word that the direction of the new home was excellent for the good luck of the family as a whole, and the move a good one for each member of it except one of the sons the next year the same move would be bad for the father. As the family could not wait two years before moving, it was decided that the change of residence should be made at once, but that the son should live with his uncle until the next year. The uncle's home was, however, inconveniently remote, and so the young man stayed as a visitor at his father's house for the remaining months of the year, after which he became once more a member of the household. Thus the inconvenience and the evil were both avoided. Another story comes to my mind now of a dear old lady, the Go Inkyo Sama of a house of high rank, who late in life came to Tky to live with her brother and his young and somewhat foreignized wife. The brother himself, while not a Christian, had little belief in the old superstitions of his people his wife was a professing Christian. Soon after the old lady's arrival in Tky, her sisterinlaw fell ill, and before she had recovered her strength the children, one after another, came down with various diseases, which, though in no case fatal, kept the family in a state of anxiety for more than a year. The old lady was quite sure that there was some witchcraft or artmagic at work among her dear ones, and, after consulting the servants (for she knew that she could expect no sympathy in her plans from either her brother or his wife), she betook herself to a fortuneteller to discover through his means the causes of the illness in the family. The fortuneteller revealed to her the fact that two occult forces were at work bringing evil upon the house. One was the evil spirit of a spring or well that had been choked with stones, or otherwise obstructed in its flow, and that chose this way of bringing its afflictions to the attention of mortals. The other was the spirit of a horse that had once belonged in the family, and that after death revenged itself upon its former masters for the hard service wherewith it had been made to serve. The only way in which these two powers could be appeased would be by finding the well, and removing the obstructions that choked it, and by erecting an image of the horse and offering to it cakes and other meatofferings. The fortuneteller hinted, moreover, that for a consideration he might be able to afford material aid in the search for the well. At this information Go Inkyo Sama was much perturbed, for further aid for her afflicted family seemed to require the use of money, and of that commodity she had very little, being mainly dependent upon her brother for support. She returned to her home and consulted the servants upon the matter but though they quite agreed with her that something should be done, they had little capital to invest in the enterprises suggested by the fortuneteller. At last, the old lady went to her brother, but he only laughed at her wellmeant attempts to help his family, and refused to give her money for such a purpose. She retired discouraged, but, urged by the servants, she decided to make a last appeal, this time to her sisterinlaw, who must surely be moved by the evil that was threatening herself and her children. Taking some of the head servants with her, she went to her sister and presented the case. This was her last resort, and she clung to her forlorn hope longer than many would have done, the servants adding their arguments to her impassioned appeals, only to find out after all that the steadfast sister could not be moved, and that she would not propitiate the horse's spirit, or allow money to be used for such a purpose. She gave it up then, and sat down to await the fate of her doomed house, doubtless wondering much and sighing often over the foolish skepticism of her near relatives, and wishing that the rationalistic tendencies of the time would take a less dangerous form than the neglecting of the plainest precautions for life and health. The fate has not yet come, and now at last Go Inkyo Sama seems to have resigned herself to the belief that it has been averted from the heads of the dear ones by a power unknown to the fortuneteller.  Beside these callings, there are other employments which are not regarded as wholly respectable by either Japanese or foreigners. The gisha ya, or establishments where dancinggirls are trained, and let out by the day or evening to teahouses or private parties, are usually managed by women. At these establishments little girls are taken, sometimes by contract with their parents, sometimes adopted by the proprietors of the house, and from very early youth are trained not only in the art of dancing, but are taught singing and samisenplaying, all the etiquette of serving and entertaining guests, and whatever else goes to make a girl charming to the opposite sex. When thoroughly taught, they form a valuable investment, and well repay the labor spent upon them, for a popular gisha commands a good price everywhere, and has her time overcrowded with engagements. A Japanese entertainment is hardly regarded as complete without gishas in attendance, and their dancing, music, and graceful service at supper form a charming addition to an evening of enjoyment at a teahouse. It is these gishas, too, who at matsuri are hired to march in quaint uniforms in the procession, or, borne aloft on great dashi, dance for the benefit of the admiring crowds. The Japanese dances are charmingly graceful and modest the swaying of the body and limbs, the artistic management of the flowing draperies, the variety of themes and costumes of the different dances, all go to make an entertainment by gishas one of the pleasantest of Japanese enjoyments. Sometimes, in scarlet and yellow robes, the dainty maidens imitate, with their supple bodies, the dance of the maple leaves as they are driven hither and thither in the autumn wind sometimes, with tuckedup kimonos and jaunty red petticoats, they play the part of little country girls carrying their eggs to market in the neighboring village. Again, clad in armor, they simulate the warlike gestures and martial stamp of some of the oldtime heroes or, with whitened faces and hoary locks, they perform with rake and broom the dance of the good old man and old woman who play so prominent a part in Japanese pictures. And then, when the dance is over, and all are bewitched with their grace and beauty, they descend to the supperroom and ply their temporary employers with the sak bottle, laughing and jesting the while, until there is little wonder if the young men at the entertainment drink more than is good for them, and leave the teahouse at last thoroughly tipsy, and enslaved by the bright eyes and merry wits of some of the Hebes who have beguiled them through the evening. The gishas unfortunately, though fair, are frail. In their system of education, manners stand higher than morals, and many a gisha gladly leaves the dancing in the teahouses to become the concubine of some wealthy Japanese or foreigner, thinking none the worse of herself for such a business arrangement, and going cheerfully back to her regular work, should her contract be unexpectedly ended. The gisha is not necessarily bad, but there is in her life much temptation to evil, and little stimulus to do right, so that, where one lives blameless, many go wrong, and drop below the margin of respectability altogether. Yet so fascinating, bright, and lively are these gishas that many of them have been taken by men of good position as wives, and are now the heads of the most respectable homes. Without true education or morals, but trained thoroughly in all the arts and accomplishments that please,witty, quick at repartee, pretty, and always well dressed,the gisha has proved a formidable rival for the demure, quiet maiden of good family, who can only give her husband an unsullied name, silent obedience, and faithful service all her life. The freedom of the present age, as shown in the chapter on 'Marriage and Divorce,' and as seen in the choice of such wives, has presented this great problem to the thinking women of Japan. If the wives of the leaders in Japan are to come from among such a class of women, something must be done, and done quickly, for the sake of the future of Japan either to raise the standards of the men in regard to women, or to change the old system of education for girls. A liberal education, and more freedom in early life for women, has been suggested, and is now being tried, but the problem of the gisha and her fascination is a deep one in Japan. Below the gisha in respectability stands the jr, or licensed prostitute. Every city in Japan has its disreputable quarter, where the various jrya, or licensed houses of prostitution, are situated. The supervision that the government exercises over these places is extremely rigid the effort is made, by licensing and regulating them, to minimize the evils that must flow from them. The proprietors of the jrya do everything in their power to make their houses, grounds, and employees attractive, and, to the unsuspecting foreigner, this portion of the city seems often the pleasantest and most respectable. A jr need never be taken for a respectable woman, for her dress is distinctive, and a stay of a short time in Japan is long enough to teach even the most obtuse that the obi, or sash, tied in front instead of behind, is one of the badges of shame. But though the occupation of the jr is altogether disreputable,though the prostitute quarter is the spot to which the police turn for information in regard to criminals and lawbreakers, a sort of a trap into which, sooner or later, the offender against the law is sure to fall,Japanese public opinion, though recognizing the evil as a great one, does not look upon the professional prostitute with the loathing which she inspires in Christian countries. The reason for this lies, not solely in the lower moral standards although it is true that sins of this character are regarded much more leniently in Japan than in England or America. The reason lies very largely in the fact that these women are seldom free agents. Many of them are virtually slaves, sold in childhood to the keepers of the houses in which they work, and trained, amid the surroundings of the jrya, for the life which is the only life they have ever known. A few may have sacrificed themselves freely but reluctantly for those whom they love, and by their revolting slavery may be earning the means to keep their dear ones from starvation or disgrace. Many are the Japanese romances that are woven about the virtuous jr, who is eventually rewarded by finding, even in the jrya, a lover who is willing to raise her again to a life of respectability, and make her a happy wife and the mother of children. Such stories must necessarily lower the standard of morals in regard to chastity, but in a country in which innocent romance has little room for development, the imagination must find its materials where it can. These jrya give employment to thousands of women throughout the country, but in few cases do the women seek that employment, and more openings in respectable directions, together with a change in public opinion securing to every woman the right to her own person, would tend to diminish the number of victims that these institutions yearly draw into their devouring current. Innocent and reputable amusements are many and varied in the cities. We have already mentioned incidentally the theatre as one of the favorite diversions of the people and though it has never been regarded as a very refined amusement, it has done and is doing much for the education of the lower classes in the history and spirit of former times. Regular plays were never performed in the presence of the Emperor and his court, or the Shgun and his nobles, but the No dance was the only dramatic amusement of the nobility. This No is an ancient Japanese theatrical performance, more, perhaps, like the Greek drama than anything in our modern life. All the movements of the actors are measured and conventionalized, speech is a poetical recitative, the costumes are stiff and antique, masks are much used, and a chorus seated upon the stage chants audible comments upon the various situations. This alone, the most ancient and classical of Japanese theatrical performances, is considered worthy of the attention of the Emperor and the nobility, and takes the place with them of the more vulgar and realistic plays which delight common people. The regular theatre preserves in many ways the life and costumes of old Japan, and the details of dress and scenery are most carefully studied. The actors are usually men, though there are 'women theatres' in which all the parts are performed by women. In no case are the rles taken by both sexes upon one stage. As the performances last all day, from ten or eleven in the forenoon until eight or nine in the evening, going to the theatre means much more than a few hours of entertainment after the day's work is over. A lunch and dinner, with innumerable light edibles between, go to make up the usual bill of fare for a day at the play, and teahouses in the neighborhood of the theatre provide the necessary meals, a room to take them in, a restingplace between the acts, and whatever tea, cakes, and other refreshments may be ordered. These latter eatables are served by the attendants of the teahouse in the theatre boxes while the play is in progress, and the playgoers eat and smoke all day long through roaring farce or goriest tragedy. Similar to the theatre in many ways are the public halls, where professional storytellers, the hanashika, night after night, relate long stories to crowded audiences, as powerfully and vividly as the best trained elocutionist. Each gesture, and each modulation of the voice, is studied as carefully as are those of the actors. Many charming tales are told of old Japan, and even Western stories have found their way to these assemblies. A long story is often continued from night to night until finished. Unfortunately, the class of people who patronize these places is low, and the moral tone of some of the stories is pitched accordingly but the best of the storytellersthose who have talent and reputationare often invited to come to entertainments given at private houses, to amuse a large company by their eloquence or mimicry. This is a very favorite entertainment, and the hanashika has so perfected the art of imitation that he can change in a moment from the tones of a child to those of an old woman. Solemn and sad subjects are touched upon, as well as merry and bright things, and he never fails to make his audience weep or laugh, according to his theme, and well merits the applause he always receives at the end. The hanami, or picnic to famous places to view certain flowers as they bloom in their season, though not belonging strictly to city life, forms one of the greatest of the pleasures of city people. The river Sumida, on which Tky is situated, has lining its eastern shore for some miles the famous cherrytrees of Japan, with their large, double pink blossoms, and when, in April and May, these flowers are in their perfection, great crowds of sightseers flock to Mukjima to enjoy the blossoms under the trees. The river is crowded with picnic parties in boats. Every teahouse along the banks is full of guests, and the little stalls and restingplaces on the way find a quick sale for fruit, confectionery, and light lunches. Sak is often too freely imbibed by the merrymakers, whose flushed faces show, when returning homeward, how their day was spent. There is much quiet enjoyment, too, of the lovely blossoms, the broad, calm river, and the gayly dressed crowds. Hundreds and thousands of visitors crowd to the suburban places about Tky,to Uyno Park for its cherry and peach blossoms, Kamido for the plum and wistaria, Oji for its famous mapletrees, and many others, each noted for some special beauty. Dango Zaka has its own peculiar attraction, the famous chrysanthemum dolls. These ingenious figures are arranged so as to form tableaux,scenes from history or fiction well known to all the people. They are of life size, and the faces, hands, and feet are made of some composition, and closely resemble life in every detail. But the curious thing in these tableaux is that the scenery, whether it be the representation of a waterfall, rocks, or bushes, the animals, and the dresses of the figures are made entirely of chrysanthemum twigs, leaves, and flowers, not cut and woven in, as at the first glance they seem to be,so closely are the leaves and flowers bound together to make the flat surface of different objects,but alive and growing on the plants. It is impossible to tell where the roots and stems are hidden, for nothing is visible but (for example) the white spray and greenish shadows of a waterfall, or the particolored figures in a young girl's dress. But, should it be the visitor's good fortune to watch the repairing of one of these lifelike images, he will find that the entire body is a frame woven of split bamboo, within which the plants are placed, their roots packed in damp earth and bound about with straw, while their leaves and flowers are pulled through the basket frame and woven into whatsoever pattern the artistic eye and skillful fingers of the gardener may select. A roof of matting shields each group from the sun by day, and a slight sprinkling every night serves to keep the plants fresh for nearly a month, and the flowers continue their blooming during that time, as calmly as if in perfectly natural positions. Each of the gardeners of the neighborhood has his own little show, containing several tableaux, the entrance to which is guarded by an officious gatekeeper, who shouts out the merits of his particular groups of figures, and forces his showbills upon the passerby, in the hope of securing the two sen admission fee which is required for each exhibit. And so, amid the shopping, the festivals, the amusements of the great cities, the women find their lives varied in many ways. Their holidays from home duties are spent amid these enjoyments and if they have not the outofdoor employments, the long walks up the mountains, the days spent in teapicking, in harvesting, in all the varied work that comes to the country woman, the dwellers in the city have no lack of sights and sounds to amuse and interest them, and would not often care to exchange their lot for the freer and hardier life of the rustic.  O miag must be given, not only on the return from an evening of pleasure, but also on the return from a journey or pleasure trip of any kind. As a rule, the longer the absence, the finer and more costly must be the presents given on returning.  To the foreigner, upon his arrival in Japan, the status of household servants is at first a source of much perplexity. There is a freedom in their relations with the families that they serve, that in this country would be regarded as impudence, and an independence of action that, in many cases, seems to take the form of direct disobedience to orders. From the steward of your household, who keeps your accounts, makes your purchases, and manages your affairs, to your jinrikisha man or groom, every servant in your establishment does what is right in his own eyes, and after the manner that he thinks best. Mere blind obedience to orders is not regarded as a virtue in a Japanese servant he must do his own thinking, and, if he cannot grasp the reason for your order, that order will not be carried out. Housekeeping in Japan is frequently the despair of the thrifty American housewife, who has been accustomed in her own country to be the head of every detail of household work, leaving to her servants only the mechanical labor of the hands. She begins by showing her Oriental help the work to be done, and just the way in which she is accustomed to having it done at home, and the chances are about one in a hundred that her servant will carry out her instructions. In the ninetynine other cases, he will accomplish the desired result, but by means totally different from those to which the American housekeeper is accustomed. If the housewife is one of the worrying kind, who cares as much about the way in which the thing is done as about the accomplished result, the chances are that she will wear herself out in a fruitless endeavor to make her servants do things in her own way, and will, when she returns to America, assure you that Japanese servants are the most idle, stupid, and altogether worthless lot that it was ever her bad fortune to have to do with. But on the other hand, if the lady of the house is one who is willing to give general orders, and then sit down and wait until the work is done before criticising it, she will find that by some means or other the work will be accomplished and her desire will be carried out, provided only that her servants see a reason for getting the thing done. And as she finds that her domestics will take responsibility upon themselves, and will work, not only with their hands, but with the will and intellect in her service, she soon yields to their protecting and thoughtful care for herself and her interests, and, when she returns to America, is loud in her praises of the competence and devotion of her Japanese servants. Even in the treaty ports, where contact with foreigners has given to the Japanese attendants the silent and repressed air that we regard as the standard manner for a servant, they have not resigned their right of private judgment, but, if faithful and honest, seek the best good of their employer, even if his best good involves disobedience of his orders. This characteristic of the Japanese servant is aggravated when he is in the employment of foreigners, for the simple reason that he is apt to regard the foreigner as a species of imbecile, who must be cared for tenderly because he is quite incompetent to care for himself, but whose fancies must not be too much regarded. Of the relations of foreign employers and Japanese servants much might be said, but our business is with the position of the servants in a Japanese household. Under the old feudal system, the servants of every family were its hereditary retainers, and from generation to generation desired no higher lot than personal service in the family to which they belonged. The principle of loyalty to the family interests was the leading principle in the lives of the servants, just as loyalty to the daimi was the highest duty of the samurai. Long and intimate knowledge of the family history and traits of character rendered it possible for the retainer to work intelligently for his master, and do independently for him many things without orders. The servant in many cases knew his master and his master's interests as well as the master himself, or even better, and must act by the light of his own knowledge in cases where his master was ignorant or misinformed. One can easily see how ties of goodfellowship and sympathy would arise between masters and servants, how a community of interest would exist, so that the good of the master and his family would be the condition for the good of the servant and his family. In America, where the relation between servant and employer is usually a simple business arrangement, each giving certain specified considerations and nothing more, the relation of servant to master is shorn of all sentiment and affection the servant's interests are quite apart from those of his employer, and his main object is to get the specified work done and obtain more time for himself, and sooner or later to leave the despised occupation of domestic service for some higher and more independent calling. In Japan, where faithful service of a master was regarded as a calling worthy of absorbing any one's highest abilities through a lifetime, the position of a servant was not menial or degrading, but might be higher than that of the farmer, merchant, or artisan. Whether the position was a high or a low one depended, not so much on the work done, as the person for whom it was done, and the servant of a daimi or high rank samurai was worthy of more honor, and might be of far better birth, than the independent merchant or artisan. As the former feudal system is yet within the memory of many of the present generation, and its feelings still alive in Japan, much of the old sentiment remains, even with the merely hired domestics in a household of the present day. The servant, by his own master, is addressed by name, with no title of respect, is treated as an inferior, and spoken to in the language used toward inferiors but to all others he is a person to be treated with respect,to be bowed to profoundly, addressed by the title San, and spoken to in the politest of language. You make a call upon a Japanese household, and the servant who admits you will expect to exchange the formal salutations with you. When you are ushered into the receptionroom, should the lady of the house be absent, the head servants will not only serve you with tea and refreshments and offer you hospitalities in their mistress's name, but may, if no one else be there, sit with you in the parlor, entertaining you with conversation until the return of the hostess. The servants of the household are by no means ignored socially, as they are with us, but are always recognized and saluted by visitors as they pass into and out of the room, and are free to join in the conversation of their betters, should they see any place where it is possible that they may shed light on the subject discussed. But though given this liberty of speech, treated with much consideration, and having sometimes much responsibility, servants do not forget their places in the household, and do not seem to be bold or out of place. Indeed, the manners of some of them would seem, to any one but a Japanese, to denote a lack of proper selfrespect,an excess of humility, or an affectation of it. In explaining to my scholars, who were reading 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' in English, a passage where a footman is spoken of as having nearly disgraced himself by laughing at some quaint saying of the young lord, my little peeresses were amazed beyond measure to learn that in Europe and America a servant is expected never to show any interest in, or knowledge of, the conversation of his betters, never to speak unless addressed, and never to smile under any circumstances. Doubtless, in their shrewd little brains, they formed their opinion of a civilization imposing such barbarous restraints upon one class of persons.  The women servants in a family are in position more like the selfrespecting, oldfashioned New England 'help' than they are like the modern 'girl.' They do not work all day while the mistress sits in the parlor doing nothing, and then, when their day's work is done, go out, anxious to forget, in the society of their friends, the drudgery which only the necessity for selfsupport and the high wages to be earned render tolerable. As has been explained in a previous chapter, the mistress of the housebe she princess or peasantis herself the head servant, and only gives up to her helpers the part of the labor which she has not the time or strength to perform. Certain menial duties toward her husband and children, every Japanese wife and mother must do herself, and would scorn to delegate to any other woman except in case of absolute necessity. Thus there is not that gap between mistress and maid that exists in our days among the women of this country. The servants work with their mistress, helping her in every possible way, and are treated as responsible members of the household, if not of the family itself.  At evening, when the wooden shutters are slid into their places around the porch and the lamps are lighted, the family gather together in the sittingroom around the hibachi to talk, free from interruption, for no visitor comes at such an hour to disturb the family circle. The mother will have her sewing or work, the children will study their lessons, and the others will talk or amuse themselves in various ways. Then, perhaps, the maidservants, having finished their tasks about the house, will join the circle,always at a respectful distance,will do their sewing and listen to the talk, and often join in the conversation, but in the most humble manner. Perhaps, at times, some one more ambitious than the others will bring in a book, and ask the meaning of a word or a phrase she has met in studying, and little helps of this kind are given most willingly. We have seen that the ladiesinwaiting in the houses of the nobles are daughters of samurai, who gladly serve in these positions for the sake of the honor of such service, and the training they receive in noble houses. In a somewhat similar way, places in the homes of those of distinction or skill in any art or profession are held in great demand among the Japanese and a prominent poet, scholar, physician, or professional man of any kind is often asked by anxious parents to take their sons under his own roof, so that they may be under his influence, and receive the benefits of stay in such an honorable house. The parents who thus send their children may not be of low rank at all, but are usually not sufficiently welltodo to spend much money in the education of their children. The position that such boys occupy in the household is a curious one. They are called Shosi, meaning students, and students they usually are, spending all their leisure moments and their evenings in study. They are never treated as inferiors, except in age and experience they may or may not eat with the family, and are always addressed with respect. On the other hand, they always feel themselves to be dependents, and must be willing without wages to work in any capacity about the house, for the sake of picking up what crumbs of knowledge may fall to them from their master's table. Service is not absolutely demanded of them, but they are expected to do what will pay for their board, and do not regard menial work as below them, performing cheerfully all that the master may require of them. In this way, a man of moderate means can help along many poor young men in whom he may feel interested, and in return be saved expense about his household work and the students, while always considerately treated, are able without great expense to study,often even to prepare for college, or get a start in one of the professions, for they have many leisure moments to devote to their books. Many prominent men of the present day have been students of this class, and are now in their turn helping the younger generation. The boys that one sees in shops, or, with workmen of all kinds, helping in many little ways, are not hirelings, but apprentices, who hope some day to hold just as good positions as their masters, and expect to know as much, if not a great deal more. At the shop or in the home, they not only help in the trades or occupations they are learning, but are willing to do any kind of menial work for their master or his family in return for what they receive from him for they do not pay for their board nor for what they are taught. Even when the age of education is already past, grown men and women are willing to leave quite independent positions to shine with reflected glory as servants of persons of high rank or distinction. 'The servant is not greater than his master' in Japan but if the master is great, the servant is considerably greater than the man without a master. In a country like Japan, where one finds but few wealthy people, there may be cause for wonder at the large households, where there are so many servants. There will be often as many as ten or more servants in a home where, in other ways, luxury and wealth are not displayed. In the oku, or the part of the house where the lady of the house stays, are found her own maid, and women who help in the work about the house, sew in their leisure moments, and are the higher servants of the family there are also the children's attendants, often one for each child, as well as the waiting women for the Go Inkyo Sama. In the kitchen are the cooks and their assistants, the lower servants, and usually one or more jinrikisha men, who belong to the house, and, if this be the home of an official who keeps horses, a bett for each animal. There are also gardeners, errandboys, and gatekeepers to guard the large yashikis. Such a retinue would seem a great deal to maintain but servants' wages are so low, and the cost of living is so small, that in this matter Japanese can afford to be luxurious. Three or four dollars will cover the cost of food for a month for one person, and women servants expect only a few dollars in wages for that time. The men receive much higher pay, but at the most it is less than what a good cook receives in many homes here. The wages do not include occasional presents, especially those given semiannually,a small sum of money, or dress material of some kind,which servants expect, and which, of course, are no small item in the family expense. Homes which maintain a great deal of style need many servants, for they expect to work less than the American servant, and are less able to hurry and rush through their work and they do not desire, if they could, to take life so hard, even to earn greater pay. The family, too, in many cases are used to having plenty of hands to do the work the ladies are much less independent, and life has more formalities and red tape in Japan than in America. A great deal of the shopping is done by servants, who are sent out on errands and often do important business. Maids accompany their mistresses to make visits servants go with parties to the theatre, to picnics, or on journeys, and these expeditions are as heartily enjoyed by them as by their masters. It is expected, especially of ladies and persons of high rank, that the details of the journey, the bargaining with coolies, the hiring of vehicles, and paying of bills, be left in charge of some manservant, who is entirely responsible, and who makes all the bargains, arranges the journey for his employer, and takes charge of everything,even to the amount of fees given along the way. Perhaps the highest positions of service nowpositions honorable anywhere in Japanare held by those who remain of the old retainers of daimis, and who regulate the households of the nobles. Such men must have good education, and good judgment for much is left in their hands, and they are usually gentlemen, who would be known as such anywhere. They are the stewards of the household, the secretaries of their masters keep all accounts, for which they are responsible, and attend to the minor affairs of etiquette,the latter no trifling duty in a noble's home. It is they who accompany the nobles on their journeys,regulate, advise, and attend to the little affairs of life, of which the master may be ignorant and cares not to learn. They are the last of the crowds of feudal retainers, who once filled castle and yashiki, and are now scattered throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. The higher servants in the household must be always more or less trained in etiquette, and are expected to look neat and tidy to serve guests with tea and refreshments, without any orders to that effect and to use their judgment in little household affairs, and thus help the lady of the house. They are usually clever with their fingers, and can sew neatly. When their mistress goes out they assist her to dress, and only a few words from her will be necessary for them to have everything in readiness, from her sash and dress to all the little belongings of a lady's costume. Many a bright, quick servant is found who will understand and guess her mistress's wants without being told each detail, and these not only serve with their hands, but think for their employers. Much less is expected of the lower servants, who belong to the kitchen, and have less to do with the family in general, and little or no personal contact with their masters. They perform their round of duties with little responsibility, and are regarded as much lower in the social scale of servants, of which we have seen there are many degrees. The little gozentaki, or ricecook, who works all day in the kitchen, may be a fat, redcheeked, frowsyhaired country girl,patient, hardworking, and humbleminded,willing to pother about all day with her kettles and pans, and sit up half the night over her own sewing, or the study of the often unfamiliar art of reading and writing but entirely unacquainted with the details of etiquette, a knowledge of which is a necessity to the higher servants,sometimes even thrown into an agony of diffidence should it become necessary to appear before master or mistress. Some of the customs of the household, in regard to servants, are quite striking to a foreigner. When the master of the house starts out each morning, besides the wife and children who see him off, all the servants who are not especially occupieda goodly number, sometimescome to the front door and bow down to bid him goodby. On his return, also, when the noise of the kuruma is heard, and the shout of the men, who call out 'O kaeri!' when near the house, the servants go out to greet him, and bowing low speak the customary words of salutation. To a greater or less degree, the same is done to every member of the family, the younger members, however, receiving a smaller share of the attention than their elders. When, as very often happens, a guest staying for any length of time in a family, or a frequent visitor, gives a servant a present of money or any trifle, the servant, after thanking the donor, takes the white paper bundle to the mistress of the house, and shows it to her, expressing his gratitude to her for the gift, and also asking her to thank the giver. This, of course, is always done, for a gift to a servant is as much of a favor to the mistress as a present to a child is to its mother. When a servant wishes to leave a family, she rarely goes to her mistress and states that she is dissatisfied with her position, and that some better chance has been offered her. Such a natural excuse never occurs to the Japanese servant, unless he be a jinrikisha man or bett, who may not know how to do better for it is a very rude way of leaving service. The highminded maid will proceed very differently. A few days' leave of absence to visit home will be asked and usually granted, for Japanese servants never have any settled time to take holiday. At the end of the given time the mistress will begin to wonder what has become of the girl, who has failed to return and the lady will make up her mind she will not let her go again so readily. Just when she has a sharp reproof ready, a messenger or letter will arrive, with some good excuse, couched in most polite and humble terms. Sometimes it will be that she has found herself too weak for service, or that work at home, or the illness of some member of the family, detains her, so that she is not able to come back at present. The excuse is understood and accepted as final, and another servant is sought for and obtained. After several weeks have passed, very likely after entering a new place, the old servant will turn up some day, express her thanks for all past kindnesses and regrets at not returning in time, will take her pay and her bundles, and disappear forever. Even when servants come on trial for a few days, they often go away nominally to fetch their belongings, or make arrangements to return, but the lady of the house does not know whether the woman is satisfied or not. If she is not, her refusal is always brought by a third person. If the mistress, on her side, does not wish to hire the girl, she will not tell her so to her face, but will send word at this time to prevent her coming. Such is the etiquette in these matters of mistress and maid. Only by a multiplicity of details is it possible to give much idea of the position of servants in a Japanese house, and even then the result arrived at is that the positions of what we would call domestic servants vary so greatly in honor and responsibility that it is almost impossible to draw any general conclusions upon this subject. We have seen that there is no distinct servile class in Japan, and that a person's social status is not altered by the fact that he serves in a menial capacity, provided that service be of one above him in rank and not below him. This is largely the result of the grading of society upon other lines than those on which our social distinctions are founded, and partly the result of the fact that women, of whatever class, are servants so far as persons of the opposite sex in their own class are concerned. The women of Japan today form the great servile class, and, as they are also the wives and mothers of those whom they serve, they are treated, of course, with a certain consideration and respect never given to a mere servant and through them, all domestic service is elevated. There are two employments which I have mentioned among those of domestic servants because they would be so classed by us, but which in Japan rank among the trades. The jinrikisha man and the groom belong, as a rule, to a certain class at the bottom of the social ladder, and no samurai would think of entering either of these occupations, except under stress of severest poverty. The betts, or grooms, are a hereditary class and a regular guild, and have a reputation, among both Japanese and foreigners, as a betting, gambling, cheating, goodfornothing lot. An honest bett is a rare phenomenon. The jinrikisha men are, many of them, sons of peasants, who come to the cities for the sake of earning more money, or leading a livelier life than can be found in the little thatched cottage among the ricefields. Few of them are married, or have homes of their own. Many of them drink and gamble, and sow their wild oats in all possible ways but they are a wellmeaning, fairly honest, happygolucky set, who lead hard lives of exhausting labor, and endure long hours of exposure to heat and cold, rain, snow, and blinding sunshine, not only with little complaint or grumbling, but with absolute cheerfulness and hilarity. A strong, fast jinrikisha man takes great pride in his strength and speed. It is a point of honor with him to pull his passenger up the steepest and most slippery of hills, and never to heed him if he expresses a desire to walk in order to save his man. I have had my kurumaya stoutly refuse, again and again, my offers to walk up a steep hill, even when the snow was so soft and slippery under his bare feet that he fell three times in making the ascent. 'Dai jobu' (safe) would be his smiling response to all my protestations and, once in a jinrikisha, the passenger is entirely at the mercy of his man in all matters of getting into and out of the vehicle. But though the jinrikisha man is, for the time being, the autocrat and controlling power over his passenger, and though he will not obey the behests of his employer, except so far as they seem reasonable and in accordance with the best interests of all concerned, he constitutes himself the protector and assistant, the adviser and counselor, of him whom he serves, and gives his best thought and intelligence, as well as his speed and strength, to the service in which he is engaged. If he thinks it safe, he will tear like an unbroken colt through the business portions of the city, knocking bundles out of the hands of foot passengers, or even hitting the wayfarers themselves in a fierce dash through their midst, laughing gayly at their protests, and at threats of wrath to come from his helpless passenger but should hint of insult or injury against kuruma, passenger, or passenger's dog fall upon his ears, he will drop the jinrikisha shafts, and administer condign punishment to the offender, unchecked by thoughts of the everpresent police, or by any terrors that his employer may hold over his head. In no other country in the world, perhaps, can a lady place more entire confidence in the honor and loyalty of her servant than she can in Japan in her kurumaya, whether he be her private servant, or one from a respectable stand. He may not do what she bids him, but that is quite a secondary matter. He will study her interests will remember her likes and dislikes will take a mental inventory of the various accessories or bundles that she carries with her, and will never permit her to lose or forget one of them will run his legs off in her service, and defend her and her property valiantly in case of need. Of course, as in all classes there are different grades, so there are jinrikisha men who seem to have sunk so low in their calling that they have lost all feeling of loyalty to their employer, and only care selfishly for the pittance they gain. Such men are often found in the treaty ports, eagerly seeking for the rich foreigner, from whom they can get an extra fee, and whom they regard as outside of their code of morals, and hence as their natural prey. Travelers, and even residents of Japan, have often complained of such treatment and it is only after long stay in Japan, among the Japanese themselves, that one can tell what a jinrikisha man is capable of. If you employ one kurumaya for any length of time, you come to have a real affection for him on account of his loyal, faithful, cheerful service, such as we seldom find in this country except when inspired by personal feeling. When you have ridden miles and miles, by night and by day, through rain and sleet and hottest sunshine, behind a man who has used every power of body and mind in your service, you cannot but have a strong feeling of affection toward him, and of pride in him as well. It is something the feeling that one has for a good saddlehorse, but more developed. You rejoice, not only in his strength and speed, put forth so willingly in your service in his picturesque, dark blue costume with your monogram embroidered on the back in his handsomely turned ankles in his black, wavy hair in his delicate hands and trim waist,though these are often a source of pride to you,but his skill in divining your wants his use of his tongue in your service his helping out of your faltering Japanese with explanations which, if not elegant, have the merit of being easily understood his combats with extortionate shopkeepers in your behalf his interest in all your doings and concerns,remain as a pleasant memory, upon your return to a land where no man would so far forget his manhood as to give himself so completely and without reserve to the service of any master save Mammon. As old Japan, with its quaintness, its medival flavor, its feudalism, its loyalty, its sense of honor, and its transcendental contempt for money and luxury, recedes into the past, and as the memories of my life there grow dim, two figures stand out more and more boldly from the fading background,both, the figures of faithful servants. One, Yasaku, the kurumaya, a very Hercules, who could keep close to a pair of coach horses through miles of city streets, and who never suffered mortal jinrikisha man to pass him. My champion in all times of danger and alarm, but a very autocrat in all minor matters,his cheery face, his broad shoulders with their blue draperies, his jolly, boyish voice, and his dainty, delicate hands come before me as I write, and I wonder to what fortunate person he is now giving the intelligent service that he once gave so wholeheartedly to me. The other, O Kaio, my maid, her plain little face, with its upturned eyes, growing, as the days went by, absolutely beautiful in the light of pure goodness that beamed from it. A Japanese Christian, with all the Christian virtues well developed, she became to me not only a good servant, doing her work with conscientious fidelity, but a sympathetic friend, to whom I turned for help in time of need and whom I left, when I returned to America, with a sincere sorrow in my heart at parting with one who had grown to fill so large a place in my thoughts. Her little, halfshy, halfmotherly ways toward her big foreign mistress had a charm all their own. Her pride and delight over my progress in the language her patient efforts to make me understand new words, or to understand my uncouth foreign idioms her joy, when at last I reached the point where a story told by her lips could be comprehended and enjoyed,gave a continual encouragement in a task too often completely disheartening. During the last summer of my stay in Japan, cutting loose from all foreigners and foreign associations, I traveled alone with her through the heart of the country, stopping only at Japanese hotels, and carrying with me no supplies to eke out the simple Japanese fare. Through floods and typhoons we journeyed. Long days of scorching heat or driving rain in no way abated her cheerfulness, or lessened her desire to do all that she could for my aid and comfort. Not one sad look nor impatient word showed a flaw in her perfect temper and if she privately made up her mind that I was crazy, she never by word or look gave a hint of her thought. Jinrikisha men grumbled and gave out hotelkeepers resented the presence of my dog, or presented extortionate bills but O Kaio's good temper and tact never failed her. Difficulties were smoothed away bills were compromised and reduced the dog slept securely by my side on a red blanket in the best rooms of the best hotels and O Kaio smiled, told her quaint stories, amused me and ministered to me, as if I were her one object in life, though husband and children were far away in distant Tky, and her mother's heart yearned for her little ones.  Into the life of a Japanese home enter many customs and observances that have not been dwelt upon in the preceding pages, but without some understanding of which our knowledge of the life of Japanese women is by no means complete. In Japan the woman's place is so entirely in the home that all the ceremonies and superstitions that gather about the conduct of everyday affairs are more to her than they are to the freer and broaderminded man. The household worship, the yearly round of festivals, each with its special food to be prepared, the observances connected with birth and marriage and death what is to be done in time of illness, of earthquake, of fire, or of the frequent flittings that render life in Japan one succession of packings and unpackings,all these are matters of high importance to the wife and mother, and their proper observance is left largely in her hands. Every wellordered Japanese home of the oldfashioned kind has its little shrine, which is the centre of the religious life of the house. If the household is of the Shint faith, this shrine is called the kamidana, or god shelf, and contains the symbols of the gods, gohei in vases, receptacles for food and drink, and a primitive lamp,only a saucer of oil in which a bit of pith serves for a wick. Daily offerings must be made before this shrine, and reverence paid by the clapping of hands while on feast days special offerings and invocations are required. In Buddhist families, the Butsudan, or Buddha shelf, takes the place of the kamidana, and the worship is slightly more complicated. Greater variety of food is offered, and the simple clapping of the hands and bowing of the head that is the form of prayer in the Shint religion is replaced by the burning of incense and by actual verbal invocation of Buddha. These religious ceremonies must be attended to by the mother or wife. She it is who sets the rice and wine before the ancestral tablets, who lights the little lamp each night, and who sees that at each feast day and anniversary season the proper food is prepared and set out for the household gods. Upon the wife, and her attention to minute and apparently trifling details, depends much of the wellbeing of the family. Each child, as it grows toward maturity, gathers from various sources a collection of amulets, which, while worn always when the child is in full dress, are frequently too precious for ordinary play times and the risks and perils of everyday life. These must be kept carefully by the mother as a safeguard against the many evils that beset childlife. I have spoken of the amulets given at the times of the miya mairi,both the first, when the name is given to the baby, and the subsequent visits made to the temple by the children as they pass certain stated points in their progress toward maturity. These amulets are simply written papers or slips of wood with the seal of the temple from which they are issued stamped upon them. Visits to noted temples by relatives and friends often result in additions to the child's collection. One kind of charm is good to keep the eyes strong another will help its possessor to that muchprized accomplishment, a good handwriting another acts as an assurance against accident and saves the child from harm in case of a fall. All these are put together by the careful mother and preserved as jealously as Queen Althea kept the charred stick that governed the destiny of her son. As the children arrive at years of discretion, these treasures pass out of the mother's faithful keeping into the hands of their actual owners, and they are usually kept stored away in some littleused drawer or cabinet until death removes the necessity for any further safeguards over life. Perhaps of all the curious things that go to make up these intimate personal belongings of a Japanese man or woman, there is none more curious than the small white parcel containing a portion of the umbilical cord,saved at birth and preserved until death that it may be buried with its possessor and furnish him the means of a new birth. These little paper packages, each marked with the name of the child to whom it belongs, are kept by the mother. Upon the mother of the family rests very largely the determining of lucky and unlucky days for the beginning or transaction of different kinds of business. A fortuneteller is consulted for important things, such as removals or marriages, but in everyday life one cannot be running to a fortuneteller about everything and yet there is bad luck lurking in the background that may baffle all our plans if we do not observe the proper times and seasons for our undertakings. Just as the Japanese calendar divides time into cycles of twelve years, each year named for a different animal, so also the days and hours are divided into twelves and bear the names of the same twelve animals,the Chinese signs of the zodiac. These animals are as follows the rat, the bull, the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the cock, the dog, and the boar. Each animal brings its own kind of good or bad luck into the hour, day, or year over which it presides, and only a skillful balancer of pros and cons can read aright the combinations, and understand what the luck of any particular hour in any particular day of any particular year will be. For instance, the rat, which is the companion of Daikoku, the money god, is a lucky animal so far as money is concerned. A person born in the year of the rat will never need money, and will be economical, possibly miserly and in one born on the day of the rat in the year of the rat these chances and qualities will be doubled. But the luck of the rat may be very seriously interfered with by the bad luck of the monkey or of the proverbially unlucky dog, when their days and hours occur in the rat year. On the other hand, their bad luck may be counteracted by the good luck of the tiger or hare, for as a rule three animals of different portent are presiding over human prospects every hour. This makes prophecy a ticklish business, requiring a wise head, but it also leaves much room for the subsequent explanation of failures by the superior and unusual influence of one or another of the animals, as the case may require. Momentous questions of this kind have frequently to be settled by the Japanese wife and mother, and she gains dignity and value in her home and neighborhood according to her skill in interpreting the portents of the day and hour. For the greater events of family life the home prophecies are felt to be too uncertain, and the services of the fortuneteller must be called in. No wellmanaged family would think of building a new house without finding in what direction to face the front door. In an American city this necessity would cause considerable inconvenience, as the position of the front door is usually determined by the relation of the buildinglot to the street but in a Japanese city, where, in all but the business quarters, every house is concealed by a high board fence, and where the gate that admits one within the fence is the only sign by which any one in the street can judge of the worldly condition of the dwellers within, the houses are faced about any and every way, and the position of each is determined by the good luck that it will bring its owner. After this matter has been settled and the house is fairly begun, there are occasional crises in its construction upon which much depends. Of these the most important is the day when the roof is raised. The roof timbers, which are unsquared logs, often rather crooked, after being carefully fitted and framed in some convenient vacant lot, are brought on carts to the site of the new building, and when all is ready, the head carpenter sends word to the houseowner that he is about to set the roof in place. The houseowner then decides whether the day set by the builder is a lucky one for himself and his family. If it is not, a delay in the building is always preferable to any danger of incurring the displeasure of the luck gods. This crisis safely passed, and the last of the roof beams secured in its place, the men take a holiday, and are feasted on sak and spaghetti by the houseowner. A present of money to each workman is also in order, and will conduce to the rapid and faithful execution of the job in hand. When, at last, the house is finished, and carpenters and plasterers are ready to leave it, the local firemen, who have assisted all along in the building as unskilled laborers, often ascend to the roof, and from the ridgepole cast down cakes, for which the children of the neighborhood scramble joyfully. When the builders have left, and the house is ready for occupation, even to the soft, thick mats on the floor and the white paper windows, the family will move in on the first day thereafter that is both lucky and pleasant. So far as possible, everything in the old house will be packed and ready the day before, and very early in the morning the relatives and friends of the mover will begin to rally around him. All come who can, and those who cannot come send servants or provisions. Every tradesman or kurumaya who has had or who hopes to have the patronage of the moving household sends a representative to help along the work, so that there is always a sufficient force to carry the household belongings into the new home and settle them in place before the day is over. All these visiting helpers must be fed and provided with tea and cakes at proper intervals, and the presents of cooked food that pour in at such times are highly acceptable and of great practical usefulness. When the long day is ended and the visitors return one by one to their homes, it is the mistress of the house who must see that every servant and representative of a business firm receives, neatly done up in white paper, a present of money properly proportioned to his services, and the style and circumstances of the family he has been aiding. And when all are gone, the shutters closed, and the family left alone in their new home, the little wife must make a list of all who have helped in any way during the day, and to all, within a short time, make some acknowledgment of their kindness by either a call or a present. It is upon the wife, too, that the duty falls of sending to each of the near neighbors soba, a kind of macaroni, as an announcement of the family's arrival. The number of neighbors to whom this gift is sent is determined differently according to circumstances. If the house is one of several in a compound, soba will be sent to all within the gate but if the compound is very large, so that the sending to all would be too great an expense, the five nearest houses will be selected to receive the gift, or all who draw water from the same well. A very late fashion in Tky, but one that is gaining ground because of its convenience, is to send, not the macaroni itself, but an order on the nearest restaurant at which that delicacy is sold. As I have already said, much of a woman's time and thought must be given to the proper distribution of presents among friends and dependents. The subject of what to give, when to give, to whom to give, and how to do up the gift acceptably, is one the thorough understanding of which requires the study of years. No foreigner can hope to do more than dabble in the shallows of it. Presents seem to be used more for the purpose of keeping those persons whose services you may need, or whose enmity you dread, under a sense of obligation, than they are as expressions of sentiment. Every housekeeper, for instance, must need the occasional services of a carpenter or a gardener, and in a large city like Tky the chances are that she will some day need, and need very badly, the services of a fireman. A wise womanone who is not penny wise and pound foolishwill by timely presents keep herself constantly in the minds of such persons, so that when she sends for them, they may feel under sufficient obligation to her to come at once. So will her house be quickly put in repair after earthquake or other accident her garden show for only the briefest interval the ravages of the typhoon which has gullied out her lawn and leveled her choicest trees and when some night 'the flower of Yedo' blooms suddenly by her side, she will have the speedy assistance of the firemen, who will seal her storehouse securely with clay, wet her roof and walls thoroughly with water, and light at her gates the great alarm lanterns to tell her friends that her house is in danger and summon them to her assistance. No friend can disregard such a signal, but all will rally round her once more to help in this less orderly and cheerful moving,will pack and cord and carry out her goods, and if at last the fire consumes her dwelling, will gather her household and belongings into their hospitable homes. But the foolish woman, who neglects or forgets her dependents when she does not need them, finds some day that her roof is leaking, but all the carpenters are too busy to mend it, her garden is destroyed because the gardener had an important engagement elsewhere just when she needed him, and her property is burned up or ruined by water and smoke because the firemen attended to her house last when the fire swept over her compound. When death enters a house in Japan, there are no undertakers to relieve the family of the painful duty of caring for the dead body and placing it in the coffin. There are coffinmakers and funeral managers who supply the great white bier and lanterns and the bunches of paper flowers that adorn every funeral procession, but within the house the preparations are all made by the family and friends, and the heaviest and most painful part of the work falls, as usual, on the women of the family. As soon as the breath finally leaves the body, it is wrapped in a quilt, laid with its head to the north, and an inverted screen placed around it. On one corner of the screen is hung a sword or knife to keep off any evil spirit that may wander into the room in the shape of a cat and disturb the dead. Etiquette requires that relatives and intimate friends of the family call immediately on learning of the death. To receive these calls the mourners, in full ceremonial dress, must sit in the death chamber and remove for each guest the covering from the face of the dead. The visitors then offer the ceremonial bows to the corpse, as if it were alive. During this time, too, presents to the spirit of the dead are pouring in. The proper offerings are flowers, cake, vegetables, candles, incense, or small gifts of money for the purchase of incense. If the deceased is a person of rank or distinction, the house is flooded with cumbersome and useless offerings. This custom has become so great an addition to the trials necessarily incident to a bereavement that one occasionally sees in the newspaper announcements of deaths a request that no offerings to the dead be sent. On the day after the death, often in the evening, the body must be placed in the caskshaped coffin that until recently was the style commonly in use in Japan. Now, among the wealthier classes, the long coffin has superseded the small square or round one, but the smaller expense connected with burial in the old way makes the survival of the old type a necessity for the majority of Japanese. At an appointed time all the relatives assemble in the death chamber, and preparations are made for the bathing of the corpse. Two of the tatami, or floor mats, are turned over, and upon them are placed a new tub, a new pail, and a new dipper. These utensils must have no metal of any kind about them. In the washing of the body none but members of the family must assist, and respect for the dead absolutely requires that all the relatives of the deceased who are below him in rank must have a hand in these final ablutions. In Japan, the mourning for the dead is the duty of inferiors, never of superiors. There is no official, ceremonial mourning of parents for their children, nor does custom require them to perform any of the last rites, or attend the funeral. Upon the younger brothers and sisters falls the duty of attending to all the last sad ministrations. If the wife dies, her husband does not mourn for her, though her children do but if the husband dies, the wife must mourn the rest of her life, cutting off her hair and placing it in the coffin as a sign of her perpetual faithfulness. When the body has been washed, it is dressed in white, in silk habutai whenever the family can afford it. The dress, which must be appropriate to the season, in the making of which all the women of the family must assist, is the plain, straight kimono, but must be folded from right to left, instead of from left to right as in life. The body, to be placed in the coffin, must be folded into a sitting posture, the chin resting upon the knees,the position of the mummies found in many aboriginal American tombs. This difficult, to us apparently impossible feat, safely accomplished, there are placed in the coffin a number of small things that the dead takes with him to the next world. Some of these have been already mentioned, the others are little keepsakes, or perhaps tokens of the tastes and employments of the dead,dice, cards, sak bottles, the image of a horse, toy weapons,anything, provided only that it be not of metal, may be used for this purpose. The single exception to this rule about metal is that small copper coins may be put in, to fee the old hag who guards the bank of the river of death. Last of all, the vacant spaces in the coffin are filled in with bags of tea. Then the coffin is closed and nailed up, wrapped with a white silk cloth fastened with a white silk or cotton cord, and placed on a high stand, and food and incense are placed before it. So long as the coffin is in the house, it must be watched over continually. To aid in this protracted vigil, which must be kept up day and night until the burial, the relatives, friends, and retainers of the dead assemble at the house in large numbers. In the case of a person of wealth and influence, there will often be a hundred or more of these watchers, who must be fed and cared for and who take turns in watching, eating, and sleeping. It is their duty to see that the incense burning before the coffin is never allowed to go out, while the food for the dead is renewed at regular intervals by the mourners themselves. This somewhat detailed description of the duties to be performed by the members of a bereaved family in the house of mourning is sufficient to show that the presence of death in the home is made as terrible as possible by the painful ceremonies, the continual bustle and excitement, and the strain upon the resources and executive ability of the housekeeper and her assistants. There are few enlightened Japanese who will defend the present system of cruelty to the afflicted, or who do not long for some change, but so great is the force of conservatism in this regard, so haunting the fear that any change may indicate a lack of respect for the dead, that reform advances slowly. Individual instances occur in which some of the worst features of these customs are modified. A case in point is that of the late Mr. Fukuzawa, a man whose life was devoted to the advancement of his countrymen in modern ways, and who in his death continued his teaching. In his will he provided that his body was to be buried, without washing, in the clothing in which he died. This provision would seem in most countries to be mere eccentricity, but when one has seen or heard of the gruesome ceremony that follows immediately after death, and the burden of which falls, not on the old and hardened, but on the young and tender, suffering, in many cases, under the weight of a first and crushing affliction, one can see that only through such means as this can the burden ever be lifted from the shoulders of those who mourn. There are young and enlightened mothers in Japan today who have felt, in minds awakened to thought and action, the horrors of the system, and who will not allow their children to suffer for them what they have suffered in paying respect to their dead parents. Through this growing feeling and the unselfishness of maternal affection may come in time the release from these mournful ceremonies. While the body remains in the house, a priest comes from time to time to offer prayers, longer or shorter according to the wealth of the family employing him and when the funeral cortge sets out on its way to the cemetery, the priests in their professional robes form an imposing part of the spectacle. The day of the burial is selected with due respect to the calendar, for, though there may be little good luck about a funeral, there is a chance of extremely bad luck growing out of it unless every precaution is taken. Just before the procession starts, a religious ceremony is held at the house, which is attended by the friends of the deceased, and which is substantially the same as that performed at the cemetery. On the day of the burial, great bunches of natural flowers are sent to the dead, each bunch so large as to require the services of one man to carry it. Sometimes with the gift a man is sent to take part in the procession, but if the giver feels too poor to hire a man, this burden, too, falls upon the bereaved household, for etiquette requires that all flowers sent be borne to the grave by uniformed coolies, who march in the funeral train. Another favorite present at this time, among Buddhists, is a cage of living birds, to be borne to the grave and released thereon. This act of mercy is counted to the deceased for righteousness, and is believed to aid in rendering his next incarnation a happy one. A funeral procession is an imposing spectacle, and, to the uninstructed foreigner, a cheerful one for there is nothing sad or sombre in the white, or brightcolored, robes of the priests, the white, tinseldecorated bier, the red and white flags borne aloft, the enormous bunches of gaycolored flowersthe very mourners in white silk, and with faces apparently unmoved by grief, bring no thought of the object of the procession to the Western mind. It seems more like a bridal than a burial. But if you follow the cortge to the cemetery and there listen to the wailing of the wind instruments, and the droning of the priests as they perform the last rites, and watch the silent company that one by one go forward to bow before the coffin and place upon it a branch of sakaki or burn a bit of incense, the trappings of woe in Japan will impress themselves strongly upon your mind, and the gayly appareled funeral processions will seem to you ever afterward as mournful and hopeless a spectacle as you can find in any country. The house of death remains a place of mourning for fortynine days after the funeral. During this period the spirit of the deceased is supposed to be still inhabiting the house, and a tablet or shrine is set up in the death chamber before which food and flowers are renewed daily. Visitors are expected to make obeisance to the dead. At the end of this time, some acknowledgment must be sent to every friend who has sent anything to the house at the funeral. For a time after death has come into the family the relatives of the dead are regarded as ceremonially unclean. The period of defilement varies with the nearness of relationship. In the old days, no one thus defiled was allowed to go about his regular business or to mingle with other men but busy modern Japan does not find it convenient to pause long in its work, so that government officials and schoolchildren are now sent written papers excusing them for coming back to their tasks even while ceremonially unclean. Thus the old custom is passing away. In the first year after death, certain days are observed with special honors before the memorial tablet, and later, certain anniversaries of the death must be kept, until, at last, at the end of fifty or one hundred years, the personality of the spirit seems to become merged with that of the other ancestral spirits, and no offerings are made to it except at the general feasts of the dead. With the coming in of the last month of the year begin the preparations for the great New Year's festival, and the housekeeper finds herself occupied through every moment of the brief days. A woman who is at the head of a large household has upon her hands in the month of December spring housecleaning and preparations for Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, and Easter, all at once. The work of getting the family wardrobe ready for the festival must begin very early in the month, for every man, woman, and child in the household must be provided with new clothes, and the thrifty housewife sends no sewing out. In the old days, it was ordained that the eighth day of the twelfth month should be a needle festival,a day on which all women rest from their sewing and amuse themselves by indulging their own fancies instead of their husbands', as is their duty on other days. This day was supposed to mark the dividing line between the old year's and the new year's sewing, but, as a matter of fact, the forehanded woman will finish up the old and begin the new even earlier in the month, so as to have this part of her work well out of the way before the housecleaning, which should be begun not later than the fifteenth. This housecleaning, even with the small amount of furniture found in a Japanese house, is an elaborate affair. Every box and closet and rubbishhole in the house is turned out and put in order, the tatami are taken up and brushed and beaten, the woodwork from ceiling to floor is carefully washed, the plaster and paper walls flicked with the paper flapper that takes the place in Japan of our feather duster. All the quilts and clothing must be sunned and aired, the kakmonos and curios belonging to the family unpacked, carefully dusted, and put back into their wrappings and boxes, and the house and garden put into perfect repair. This work, if thoroughly done, takes about a week. When all is finished, even to the final purification by beating everything in the house with a fresh bamboo, games and festivities and soba are in order. In the old daimi houses, where great numbers of men and women were employed, and where the women's quarters were in a distinct part of the house, it was considered a great joke to catch a man on the women's side any time between the close of the cleaning and the beginning of the new year. The intruder was promptly seized and shouldered by the women, who carried him about the house in triumph, finally returning him to his own quarters. If, by any chance, they could catch the chief steward, they sang as they carried him about The week following the housecleaning is devoted to the preparation of food for the festival. Of this, the most characteristic is mochi, a sort of dumpling made of rice steamed and pounded, the preparation of which is so difficult and protracted a process that it is not lightly undertaken. It is so distinctively the festival food of Japan that if you find mochi in a friend's house at any time except the new year, you immediately ask what has happened, and are pretty sure to be told that it is a present received in celebration of a birth or a marriage, or some other domestic festival. It is, to Japanese children, what turkey and cranberry sauce are to American children, not only a delight to the palate, but a dish the very smell of which brings back the most cheerful occasions in the year. When the mochi is made and set away to await the festal day, the matter of decoration must be attended to. At every gate is erected some token of the season, if it be only a bit of pine stuck into the ground, or a wisp of straw rope decorated with white paper gohei. The great black gates that indicate the homes of the wealthier classes are almost concealed by structures of pine and bamboo, on which oranges, lobsters, straw rope, straw fringe, white paper, and images of the good luck gods are used as decorations. All these things are either efficacious in keeping off evil spirits, or are symbols of good luck. Within the house, in the tokonoma, or place of honor, in the best room, great cakes of mochi, two, three, five, or seven in number, are set one upon another in a dish covered with fern leaves, and the structure surrounded by seaweed. Before the new year comes in the capable housewife will have sent out presents to every one who has during the year been of service to her husband, her children, or herself in any way. Her own servants will be remembered with gifts of clothing, something will be sent to the servants of friends at whose houses any of the family have visited often, and every dependent, poor relation, employee, and employee's child must be given a present, large or small, according to the amount of obligation felt by the giver. To persons of greater wealth and importance, to whom the family are grateful for past favors or from whom they are hoping for something in the future, gifts, often quite out of proportion to the resources of the givers, are sent,a method of investing capital that is a little risky, though it sometimes yields prompt and bountiful returns. On the other hand, all the merchants and marketmen who supply the house send presents to the mistress and frequently to the head servants as well, and furushiki (bundle handkerchiefs), cooking utensils, packages of sugar, boxes of eggs, dried fish, etc., flow in at the kitchen while crpe, silk, cotton cloth, money, toys, curios, and other valuables flow out of the parlor. All this presentgiving is a severe tax upon the strength and resources of the housekeeper, and adds heavily to the burden that the last month of the year imposes upon her. By the twentyfifth or twentysixth of the month the tradespeople begin to send in their bills, for every man expects to square up all his accounts by the last night of the old year, and early payments are expected and made, so that all may begin the new year out of debt. So universal is this custom that the man who finds at the eleventh hour that he cannot clear off all his debts is likely to offer his property at a heavy sacrifice in order to secure the necessary cash. For any one with ready money extraordinary bargains are to be met with in Japanese shops during the last week of the year. In case this resource fails, suicide is still a short and honorable way out of a world that has become too difficult to live in. The Japanese housewife must feel, when December has been successfully passed, like the Yankee who had noticed that if he lived through the month of March he generally lived through the rest of the year. The observances of January, for which December has been one long preparation, begin with the rising of the New Year's sun, and continue in one form or another for about two weeks. Almost every day has its special food and its special festival duty. For the first three days the very best clothes in the wardrobe are worn by everybody, then till the seventh the second best, and from the seventh to the end of the month new clothes, though not the very best, must be worn. Within the first seven days every man in Japan is expected to call on all his friends and acquaintances, but the women, probably out of consideration for the many duties that the festival season puts upon them, are given until March to finish up their New Year's calls. The streets of the cities, and even of the small villages, are full of life and interest for a week or two. Kurumayas in their new winter liveries trundle around fathers and mothers and happy children. All manner of mummers, musicians, and dancers go from house to house in search of custom. The manzai, who, with dances and songs and strange grimaces, undertake to drive out from your house for the new year all the devils who may have been residing there hitherto, are a special feature of this season. In every garden and in the public streets little girls, their faces freshly covered with white paint, their shining black hair newly dressed, their wingsleeved kimonos gorgeous with many colors, play battledore and shuttlecock, toss small bags half filled with rice, or pat balls wound with shining silk to the accompaniment of a weird little chant. For the boys there are kites of many shapes and colors, or tops that they spin under every one's feet, well knowing that no one in Japan is too busy to turn aside for a child's pleasure. The very horsessmall, shockheaded, eviltempered beasts, who drag tremendous loads with many snorts and snaps at their mastersare decked out with gay streamers that reach nearly to the ground, at the ends of which are tinkling bells. The festival season closes on the fifteenth and sixteenth with a visit to the temple of Yemma, the god of hell, and with a holiday for all the apprentices. Next to the New Year's holiday, perhaps the most important festival of the Japanese year is O Bon, the Feast of the Dead. This is, in its present form, a Buddhist institution, but in spirit it fitted so exactly into the ancient Japanese ideas of the tastes and habits of departed spirits that it merely supplanted the old Shint feasts of the dead, and it is a little difficult today to determine whether its observance is more Buddhist or Shint in its character. To find the O Bon ceremonies in their most perfect form, it is necessary now to go into the more remote country villages, for though, even in Tky, this feast is still one of the most important in the whole year, it seems to be more distinctly itself in a small village, where all the old forms are still kept up. In Tky, the three days' festival is kept by the new calendar, and occurs on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of July. At O Bon, as at New Year's time, it is customary to square off all obligations by a general giving of presents. This, while not quite as important a matter as at the beginning of the year, is still a severe tax upon the time, purse, and memory of the wife and mother in any large family. At this time, too, as at New Year's, mochi or some other festival dish must be provided, but at this point the resemblance between the two occasions ceases. In accordance with its character as a feast of departed spirits, the observance of O Bon is distinctively religious. On the twelfth, the family go to the graveyard and clean and put in order the graves and tombstones, so that the returning spirits may find all properly cared for. Fresh water and flowers are placed before each stone, and sometimes rice and fresh vegetables. At home, the ancestral tablets in the Butsudan form the centre of the ceremonies. Before the shrine are placed, on the thirteenth, offerings of food of any kind that can be made without fish or meat. Great balls of mochi, sak, flowers, and choice new varieties of vegetables are appropriate offerings. All are tastefully arranged, the lamps are carefully lighted every night, and special services are held before the shrine. For the three days of the feast, the souls of the dead are believed to be visiting their old haunts, and to need light and food and all the conveniences that their descendants can spare them. Each house is decorated with lanterns, that the spirits may be able to find their way. It is from this custom that the feast is often called by foreigners the Feast of Lanterns. As I have already said, in Tky and other modernized places, this feast is not seen at its best. Only the soft glow of the lanterns swinging from every house, and the decorations in the graveyards and at the household shrines, indicate to the traveler that anything unusual is going on. But in the country regions it is quite another matter, and the welcoming, entertainment, and proper dismissal of the visiting spirits form the entire business of the community for three days. Usually the middle of August is the time for the country celebration. On the twelfth, bands of children carrying red lanterns march singing through the village on their way to the graveyard, where the annual cleaning is taking place. That night bonfires in the cemetery and before the houses light the pathway of the wanderers. Then for three nights all the young people of the village gather in the temple court in grotesque disguises and with towels over their faces, and dance all night long in the moonlight, to primitive music produced by a drum and the monotonous chant of the dancers themselves. These three dancenights are the great occasion of the year to the young peasants, for this is the only time when persons of both sexes meet together in a social way, and it is long looked forward to and enjoyed intensely. Of late years, the government, fearing the abuses that grow out of this exceptional social event, has endeavored to suppress the dancing, but it continues in full vigor throughout most of rural Japan, though conducted with more decorum than formerly on account of the standing dread of police interference. The object of the dance is to amuse the spirits of the ancestors, who must be imagined as hovering in the background, viewing with approval the antics of their descendants.  Other amusements are going on in the village on the O Bon evenings. At a summer resort every hotelkeeper will have a professional storyteller, a company of musicians, or some other entertainment to which the guests of the hotel are invited, and at which as many of the villagers as can crowd to the open house fronts stare until the dance drum in the temple court draws their feet in that direction. And then, on the last night of the feast, bonfires are once more kindled at every house, so that the spirits may find their way safely back to the land whence they came, and not stay to haunt their descendants at improper seasons. No account of life in a Japanese home would be complete without a little space devoted to the special delights of the small boy. Although this book deals mainly with feminine concerns, the small boy in Japan, as in America, is the life and fun of the home, and one cannot fail to notice his times of surpassing enjoyment. He rules the house and his mother and his grandmother and his sisters, at all times, and his activity and enterprise secure for him a good share in any fun that is going on but there are certain seasons that appeal to the boyish heart with a special message and of which he is the central figure. As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of Flags to the boys,their own special day, set apart for them out of the whole year. It comes on the fifth day of the fifth month (now May fifth), and for long before its arrival the shops are gay with all manner of tempting toys, while in every yard rises a great bamboo pole, from which, when the time comes, will float an enormous carp, its body inflated by the strong spring wind, its great mouth wide open, and its eyes glaring hideously, as it fights its way against the air currents. Sometimes there will be half a dozen such poles in one yard,signs either that the household is blessed with many boys, or that the way to its heart is through gifts of toys to its son and heir. When the great day at last arrives, the feast within the home is conducted in much the same way as the Feast of Dolls. There are the same redcovered shelves, the same offerings of food and drink but instead of the placid images of the Emperor and Empress and the five court musicians, the household furnishings and toilet articles, there are effigies of the heroes of history and folklore Jingo, the warrior Empress Takenouchi, her whitehaired prime minister, holding in his arms her son, the infant wargod Benkei, the giant retainer of Yoshitsune Yoshitsune himself, the marvelous fencer and general Kintaro, the fat, hairy, red boy, who was born and grew up in the mountains, and even in his babyhood fought with bears Shoki Sama, the strong man who could conquer onithese are some of the characters to be found on the shelves at the boys' feast. Behind each figure stands a flag with the crest of the hero that it represents, and before them are set all manner of weapons in miniature. The food offered is mochi wrapped in oak leaves, because the oak is among trees what the carp is among fishes, the emblem of strength and endurance. The flower of this day is the iris or flag, because of its swordshaped leaves,hence the name, Shobu Matsuri, feast of iris or flag.  Another feast, which, while not founded for the boys, seems to have been adopted by them as a great occasion, is what is known as Buddha's birthday, celebrated on April eighth. On this day in every Buddhist temple a temporary platform is erected, the roof of which is covered with flowers. Upon this platform, in a great tub filled with licorice tea, is set a small image of the infant Buddha. Hither flock the small boys with bamboo dippers, and spend the day ladling up the tea and pouring it over the image, and then ladling it out into small bamboo buckets. This licorice tea, through contact with the image, acquires miraculous healing properties, and the devout, after making offerings of money twisted up in white paper, carry away the little buckets. The tea is good for the eyes and the throat, and if some of it be used in mixing ink, and then, with the ink thus mixed, a charm be written and placed about the house, it will keep away all vermin. It is not easy to see exactly what the fascination of this feast is to the boys, but I am told that many of them like it even better than their own specially appointed day. But of all the delights that come into the year, there is nothing to compare for joyous excitement with the great matsuri of the parish temple. For at least a week beforehand there are enough interesting things going on in every house and shop along the street to keep every small boy in the parish agog from morning till night. Here are lanterns being made with the mon of the gods on one side and the rising sun of the Japanese flag on the other. There a dancing platform is being erected, and at every stage of its development it is swarming with active youngsters, who shin up its poles, turn somersaults on the platform, and sit in rows on its edge, with bare legs swinging high over the heads of the passersby and when it is done, and the drums installed, they take turns all day and far into the night in keeping them going. Then, too, there are the dashi, or floats, on one of which each street in the parish spends its money and its ingenuity. How the boys haunt the shops in which they are being made! How they watch the wondrous changes of paper into flowers, and of bamboo and cotton cloth into sea waves, or castle walls, or monsters of earth or sea or air! How they chatter and wriggle and push and squirm for front places, when at last the great cars are built up in the open street, the marvelous edifices erected upon them, and at the top of all the heroic figures of wellknown mythological or historical characters rise majestic in flowing robes! Then, when the black bullocks, resplendent in collars and halters of red rope, are yoked to the triumphal car, and the structure moves slowly down the shouting street, how the boys crawl into every joint and cranny of the dashi, how they hang from every beam, how they yell from before and behind in sheer abandon of joy! And at last, when the procession forms, and with fantastically garbed men marching in front and wildeyed singers yelling just behind them, with dancinggirls on moving platforms and jugglers and tumblers on the dashi themselves, the twenty or more festal cars move, with frequent stops, down to the temple, to escort the sacred symbols on their annual pilgrimage through the parish, who so noisy or so ubiquitous as these same bulletheaded, bluegowned boys? They bob up at every turn, ooze out at every pore of the procession, and enjoy, as only boys can enjoy, the noise and confusion, the barbaric splendor, the dancing and tumbling, the mumming and drumming, the excruciating howls of the singers, the jingling of the marshals' ironringed staves, the clapping of the great wooden clappers that time the movement and the stops of the pageant. Better than all, perhaps, is the evening, when the streets, lighted by many lanterns, are filled with throngs of holidaymakers,now stopping to stare in at some shop where the devout worshiper has established a beautiful shrine, has set out mochi and other offerings before some image, or has arranged a landscape garden in a box, or constructed a matsuri procession just entering the court of a miniature temple now haggling with the everpresent boothkeepers for lanterns or cakes or hairpins to take back to the friends left at home. Suddenly there is a joyous, rhythmic shout of many excited boyish voices, there is a gleaming of square red lanterns, a whirl and a rush through the crowd. Now is the time to get out of the way, for the boys move quickly and are too excited to turn aside for anything. On they come at a sharp trot, each little round head bound about with a fillet of blue and white toweling, each lithe, active body more or less covered by a blue and white gown, all shouting in unison and bearing on their shoulders a miniature dashi, made most often of a sak tub mounted on a frame, and decorated with lanterns and white paper. They charge through the crowd, which makes way quickly at their approach, until the pace, the weight of their burden, and the frantic shouting exhaust their breath. Then they plunge down a side street, rest for a few moments, gather themselves together, and charge once more into the crowd. There must be some pretty tired little boys in the parish when the fun is all over, for these performances are kept up far into the night but for absolute and perfect enjoyment there is nothing I have yet seen that seems to me to compare with the enjoyment that a Japanese boy gets out of a matsuri. It is worth being tired for! There is no space in this work for a more detailed picture of life in a Japanese home. Enough has been said in this chapter to show that it is made up of many little things,of cares and sorrows and pleasures,just as is life in any American home, and it is the little things we care about that make the oneness of the family, and the nation, and the oneness, too, of humanity, if we can only understand one another.  The woman question in Japan is at the present moment a matter of much consideration. There seems to be an uneasy feeling in the minds of even the more conservative men that some change in the status of woman is inevitable, if the nation wishes to keep the pace it has set for itself. The Japanese women of the past and of the present are exactly suited to the position accorded them in society, and any attempt to alter them without changing their status only results in making square pegs for round holes. If the pegs hereafter are to be cut square, the holes must be enlarged and squared to fit them. The Japanese woman stands in no need of alteration unless her place in life is somehow enlarged, nor, on the other hand, can she fill a larger place without additional training. The men of New Japan, to whom the opinions and customs of the Western world are becoming daily more familiar, while they shrink aghast, in many cases, at the thought that their women may ever become like the forward, selfassertive, halfmasculine women of the West, show a growing tendency to dissatisfaction with the smallness and narrowness of the lives of their wives and daughters,a growing belief that better educated women would make better homes, and that the ideal home of Europe and America is the product of a more advanced civilization than that of Japan. Reluctantly in many cases, but still almost universally, it is admitted that in the interest of the homes and for the sake of future generations, something must be done to carry the women forward into a position more in harmony with what the nation is reaching for in other directions. This desire shows itself in individual efforts to improve by more advanced education daughters of exceptional promise, and in general efforts for the improvement of the condition of women. Welltodo fathers are willing to spend more money on the education of their daughters, to send them abroad, if possible, to complete their studies, or to postpone the time of marriage so that plans for higher education may be carried through. Where, ten years ago, the number of women who had been abroad for study might be counted on the fingers of one hand, there are now three or four times that number in Tky alone. Another sign of the times is the fact that husbands going abroad on business or for pleasure are more inclined to take their wives with them, even if it be only for a few months. There are now to be found, in all the larger cities, women who have spent a longer or shorter time in some foreign country, whose minds have been opened and whose horizons have been enlarged by contact with new ideas. All this cannot fail to have its effect, sooner or later, upon the country at large. The efforts for the improvement of women in general may be grouped into four classes by legislation, by education, through the press, and by means of societies for mutual improvement.  Of the recent legislation concerning marriage and divorce and its effect on the family, I have spoken in a preceding chapter. The latest statistics show that, while before the new laws were enacted divorces were one to every three marriages, they have now been reduced to one in five. It must be said, however, that the law is still somewhat in advance of public opinion. While the chance of permanence in marriage is better now than it was before the new code came into force, custom is still stronger than the law, and marriage is too often a temporary arrangement. In many cases the wife knows little or nothing of her new rights, and even when she does know, she has seldom the selfassertion to make a stand for them, but meekly submits to the dictates of those whom she is bound by custom, if not by law, to respect and obey without question. But the fact that the laws have actually been improved means, in a country like Japan, in which the government is the moulder of public opinion, that the custom will some day conform to the law. In the matter of property owning, women, under the new code, are fairly independent. As I have already stated, every woman in Japan is expected to become a wife, and as a matter of fact, the number of unmarried women is so small that it is hardly necessary to mention them. Wives, under Japanese law, are divided into two classes the wife who enters her husband's family, and the wife whose husband becomes a member of her family. In the latter case the wife is the head of the family, is responsible for the debts of the family, and has the right to use and profit by the husband's property. In the former case (and as I have already stated, the great majority of wives enter their husband's families), the husband is responsible, and has, consequently, the right to use and profit by his wife's property. In all cases, unless the husband is physically or mentally unfit, he has the management of his wife's wealth. In case of the husband's disability the woman takes care of her own. A wife may, by application to a court, cause the husband to furnish security for the property that she has intrusted to him and she may, with her husband's consent, engage in independent business. The property that she thus acquires is her own and not the husband's. Any property in the family, the ownership of which is not perfectly established, belongs to the head of the family, whether male or female. We thus see that the law of Japan fully recognizes the right of married women to hold property, although only in exceptional cases are they allowed the management of their own holdings. The law also regards the wife, in household matters, as her husband's agent. In actual practice, it is not uncommon for the wife to manage the entire income of the family, receiving it from her husband and acting as his treasurer. The wife's own earnings are seldom given to the husband, and her position is one of entire independence in the disposal of whatever she adds to the family revenue. But should the wife bring into the family at marriage property which passes into the husband's management, the chances are that, unless a divorce should occur, she will never lay any claim to the principal, or think of it again as her own. While her husband cannot actually dispose of it without her consent, she is pretty certain to give her consent should he ask it, and he may do very nearly anything that he chooses with it. We thus see that the tendency is to give the management of the income, as a part of the management of the household, to the woman, and leave the disposal of the principal, as a part of the outside business, to the care of the man. This system of domestic finance seems not unlike the common practice in thrifty and wellmanaged homes in America, and shows that a spirit of mutual confidence between husband and wife belongs to Japan as to Western nations. As the result of my own observation in a number of homes, I should say that the judgment of the wife in money matters is quite as much trusted in Japan as in America, and that, in this one respect at least, her place in the home is as responsible a one as that of the Western housekeeper. One instance may be cited of a woman whose business ability is so well known as to have a national reputation. By birth a member of a family which is remarkable for its success in all financial undertakings, she has inherited a large share of the family characteristic, and is credited with the personal management of a large bank, as well as other successful business undertakings. Her husband's name and not her own appears on the prospectuses and in the newspapers, but unless report is very far astray, she is the business man of the family, and her sound sense and good judgment have built up the fortune which is their common possession. In the educational system of Japan, schools for girls are provided by the government, but no provision for studies more advanced than those of the middle schools for boys is included in the scheme, with the single exception of the Higher Normal School in Tky, in which a limited number of young women are trained to take positions as teachers in the ordinary normal schools for girls. To quote from the Annual Report of the Minister of Education for the year , the latest to which I have access, 'Higher female schools are institutions designed to give instruction in such higher subjects of general education as are necessary for females.' This shows with considerable completeness the idea that dominates all government and much private effort for the education of women in Japan. The schools are to teach simply such subjects as are necessary for females anything more would be superfluous, possibly dangerous. The thought of women as individuals, with minds and souls to be trained and developed to their highest possibilities, is still somewhat foreign to the mind of the average Japanese man. In its stead is the idea that females must be instructed in such subjects as are necessary for a proper understanding of their duties as wives and mothers. But if Japan today is where England and America were in the first half of the nineteenth century, the country is certainly moving forward, as the statistics in regard to education for the three successive years , , and  show. Great efforts are being made to increase the attendance of girls at the common schools, and with gratifying results. As we advance into the higher schools, the discrepancy in numbers between the two sexes grows greater. In the kindergartens the attendance of girls is nearly equal to that of boys in the elementary schools there are three boys to two girls in the higher elementary schools, seven boys to two girls. The boys' middle schools, which are equivalent in grade to the girls' high schools, have fourteen boys taking their courses to every two girls in the high schools. In the apprentice and technical schools, there are fifteen men to every two women. Even the normal schools, which in our own country are almost given over to women, in Japan have six male students to every female. The 'special schools,' mainly professional, have, to , men,  women, all enrolled in private schools, and presumably taking medical courses. Beyond this point women have no opportunities offered to them. In the higher schools, equivalent to the college and graduate courses given by universities in America, , young men are given opportunities that women must go abroad to obtain. These figures are, as I have said, for the year . The year  sees two hopeful movements well begun. One of these is the opening of an institution bearing the title of 'Female University,' endowed and supported by Japanese, through the strenuous efforts of Mr. Jinzo Naruse, a prominent Christian who has spent some time in America. At its opening, five hundred girls were glad to enter, but of these very few are ready for college work. Mr. Naruse, however, believes that in time he will be able to enlarge his college department and diminish the preparatory, which is now almost the whole of the school. He has the support and encouragement of many wealthy and influential Japanese, among them Count Okuma, the wellknown progressive statesman. On the day of the opening of the school, Count Okuma, in a speech from the platform, said that the nation would be twice as strong if its women were well educated. This he called 'setting up a double standard.' He pointed out that Turkey, Egypt, Persia, and China were countries which had tried to get along with a 'single standard,' and which had fallen conspicuously behind. He called attention to the fact that Japan's primitive religion had for its central figure the Goddess of Light, but that, unfortunately for the wellbeing of the state, woman had been gradually dethroned and thrust down into a low place. After speaking of the debt that Japan owed to China for the civilization and the ethical system that had stood her so long in good stead, the veteran statesman went on to say that society in Japan was disfigured by abuses which were beyond any simple remedy. The only effective medicine was to be found in a radical reform of the ideals of family life, and this could only be effected by an improvement in the status of woman,an improvement which such institutions as the one that day opened would greatly aid in bringing about. These words from one of the most honored leaders of Japanese thought voice the feeling that is prevalent throughout Japan in this thirtyfourth year of Miji. That it is actually moving both government and people is shown by the words of Mr. Kikuchi, Minister of Education, to the Council of Provincial Governors held in Tky in June, . In speaking of the progress of education throughout the country, he stated his intention to push forward the work of secondary education for girls, saying that a prefecture which refused to make provision for such education by  might be compelled to do so by the government. The other hopeful educational effort to which I have alluded is a school started on a small scale, but with a high standard, by a Japanese woman whose name is almost as well known in America as in Japan, as an educator of great ability and earnestness of purpose. After many years of work as a teacher in the Peeresses' School, a place of great honor from the Japanese standpoint, she has resigned her position to carry out a longcherished plan. With the pecuniary aid of friends in America, she has founded a school for the preparation of young women who have finished the courses heretofore open to them, and who wish to become teachers of English in the Government schools. The examinations for such positions have always been open to women, but, because of the difficulty in securing proper preparation, there are few who pass them. Since its opening in September, , the school has been crowded with promising pupils, and the small accommodations with which it began, although already once enlarged, are stretched to the uttermost. The girls come from the government high schools and from the mission schools, and the course offered to them of three years of study in English literature, composition, translation, and methods of teaching has proved a strong attraction. In recognition, perhaps, of this effort on behalf of her countrywomen, certainly, of her position at the head of her profession, this same woman has this year been appointed on the examining committee for the government English examinations, an honor never before given to one of her sex,in itself a sign of the change in thought that the last few years have wrought. There can be no doubt that the education of women is moving forward, pushed by the leading men of the country and aided by the earnest work of the women themselves. It is still far behind the education offered to men, and the ideal of most of its promoters is limited to the purely utilitarian but as long as it moves forward and not backward, and as long as the years of work show an increased number of women fitted to meet the changing conditions of the time, we do well to approve rather than criticise, remembering that the problem is an exceedingly intricate one, and one of which even the bestinstructed foreigner can see only a small part of the difficulty. The year  sees the printingpress almost as much of a power in Japan as in the Western world, and it is interesting to notice that among the innumerable newspapers and magazines now published in the country there are some twenty or more devoted exclusively to the interests of women. To be sure, these women's magazines do not undertake to furnish the loftiest intellectual pabulum, the best of them covering, perhaps, the same range of subjects that is included in 'Woman's Journals' in the United States. They devote themselves largely to lectures on morals and manners, and instruction as to how best to perform the duties of the home. These magazines are for the most part written and edited by men, many of them very young men, and serve to show rather what men desire that women should think and do, than to give any insight into the minds of the women themselves. With a combined circulation of perhaps ,, they enter many homes, and do something, at least, toward the general enlightening and quickening of the feminine mind that is so noticeable in the Japan of today. In regard to the general reading of Japanese women who have had the new education, my own observation leads me to believe that they keep themselves well informed of what is going on in their own country, and of the outside world so far as it affects their own country but that their interest in the world at large is less than that of American women, and only in exceptional cases do they care much for the sayings or doings of foreigners. In this respect they differ widely from the men, whose minds are reaching continually for new things to graft upon the old civilization. In the whole list of publications on the woman question, nothing has ever come out in Japan that compares for outspokenness and radical sentiments with a book published within a year or two by Mr. Fukuzawa, the most influential teacher that Japan has seen in this era of enlightenment. It is in two parts, the first an attack, conducted with much skill and humor, upon Kaibara's 'Great Learning of Woman,' a book which for nearly four hundred years has been supposed to contain all that a woman should know. The last part of Mr. Fukuzawa's work is a constructive essay upon the 'New Great Learning of Woman.' So revolutionary are the sentiments expressed in the book that many Japanese men hesitate about allowing their wives and daughters to read it, and in at least one modern Christian school it has been ruled out from the school library as too advanced for the reading of the girls. A brief survey of the sentiments and ideas thus boldly set forth will show how far is the attitude of the Japanese from that of the American public on the woman question. We find in Mr. Fukuzawa's book the lofty ideal that belongs to the most advanced modern thought, but its promulgation as a practical working ideal in Japan was of the nature of a thunderclap. Among less tolerant races, men have been lynched, or burned at the stake, for slighter departures from the average code of thought and morals. Mr. Fukuzawa starts out with the proposition that women are quite equal to men, and should hold equal position and influence. Although he allows that woman's work in the world is quite distinct from that of man, he holds that it is as important, and that she should have the same propertyholding privileges and rights. The greatest stress is laid on the point that the same moral obligation for purity of life rests on the husband as on the wife. He goes into the details of the unhappiness resulting from concubinage, putting the duty of the husband in this respect as equal to that of the wife to preserve her chastity, and as this is, next to obedience, the virtue of virtues for a Japanese wife, his argument is as strong as it could well be made. He insists that women should demand as a right from their husbands and families the same privileges and opportunities that men have in society. Such sentiments are a matter of course in America, and they have been held by a few advanced thinkers in Japan, but no one hitherto has dared in so vigorous and positive a way, and with arguments that come so near home, to try to break the chain of custom that holds women down as inferior beings. Kaibara says that if a woman finds her husband doing wrong, she should gently plead with him, choosing a time when he is most inclined to listen. If he refuses, she should not insist on his hearing her, but wait until he is willing to listen, and though she may try two or three times, she should never anger or irritate him. Fukuzawa says that if this applies to the woman, it should also to the man,that is to say, if a man finds his wife unfaithful, he is to wait for an opportunity when she is in good humor before he remonstrates with her. Fukuzawa also throws new light on the duty of husbands and fathers to their wives and children in another respect. He says that no man should let the sole responsibility for the happiness of the home fall upon his wife that a man is responsible for the peace of the home as well as the woman. This view of the matter is entirely new in Japan, as the responsibility for an unhappy home is laid as a matter of course upon the wife. The duty of a wife to her parentsinlaw is also treated after the same revolutionary manner. Is it to be wondered at that many men fear the influence of such a book upon their gentle, submissive wives? In this connection it is interesting, however, to note that at a recent Shint wedding, after the religious ceremony, which in itself marks a great step forward in the Japanese ideal of marriage, the priest who united the couple presented to the bride a copy each of the Kaibara and Fukuzawa books, perhaps with a view to letting her take her choice between the old style and the new, perhaps that she might instruct her husband out of the Fukuzawa book while she put in practice herself the timehonored precepts of Kaibara. One feature of the times in Tky, that is perhaps worthy of passing notice, is the tendency of women to form themselves into societies and clubs for the attainment of some common object. Of these women's clubs, the greater proportion are perhaps educational, the members meeting once a month or once a fortnight to listen to a lecture upon some subject that helps to keep them up with the times. There is also a patriotic society, that concerns itself with raising money for sending supplies to soldiers in the field, or for widows and orphans of soldiers, or to help along some other patriotic enterprise. There are societies, too, for general benevolence, or to help in carrying on the work of some one institution. A glance at the membership lists of these associations shows that the motive power is, in almost all cases, the same group of earnest, educated women, who are, in this way and in countless others, doing their utmost to broaden the horizons of their countrywomen, and lead them out into a larger life. This is probably true in the other cities in which a movement of women into clubs and societies is noticeable. It is when the active women of the new way of thinking, whose lives and thoughts are devoted to work and endeavor rather than to the passive submission and selfabnegation of the old days, find themselves suddenly placed among the surroundings of thirty years ago, that the change of conditions becomes most evident. I cannot think of a better way to illustrate this than to tell the story of one of my Japanese friends and her visit to her husband's relatives in a distant provincial city. The lady who told me the story is a stirring, capable young matron, educated after the modern ways, who has spent most of her happy married life of some fifteen or sixteen years entirely in Tky, except for a visit of a year to America. She bears a closer resemblance to many kindhearted, strong, energetic young American women than to the oldtime Japanese lady portrayed in these pages. She rises every morning at five, attends to every detail of her housekeeping, watches carefully and with educated common sense over her family of young children, believes in good food, fresh air, and exercise, for boys and girls alike, and is a helpful friend and good neighbor, filling to the full the position of work and influence in which she is placed. Her husband is a successful business man, whom frequent journeys across the Pacific have made thoroughly cosmopolitan, and their children are accustomed to a freedom from conventional restraints and a healthful diet and regimen such as old Japan never knew. Last year the plan of spending the summer with the husband's relatives, which had been long projected, was actually carried out, and the whole family migrated to the provincial city from which the husband had sprung. The aged mother, a gentlewoman of the old type, was delighted to meet and entertain her daughterinlaw and grandchildren, and did her best, with all oldfashioned courtesy, to make the visit a pleasant one. The house was clean and spacious, the mats soft and white, the bows of the lowest, the voices and speech the politest that Japan could furnish, but the healthy, restless children found the conventional restraints irksome, and the oldfashioned diet of rice and pickles, with hardly a variation from morning till night and from week to week, was quite different from the bountiful table to which they had been accustomed. The younger woman could not criticise her motherinlaw's arrangements, neither could she bear to see her children growing thin and pale before her eyes. She consulted her husband, who, in accordance with the antique ideas of propriety, was served his meals at a different time and in a different room from his wife and family. To his food his mother had always added various delicacies which her oldtime Spartan spirit would not allow her to set before her daughterinlaw and grandchildren. It would have been quite contrary to her ideas of rank and etiquette for her to make any modification of her ordinary fare for them. As the son was already supplying the funds for carrying on his mother's establishment, it occurred to him that he might increase her allowance on the plea that her summer expenses must be heavy with so large an addition to her household. But the old lady was sure that nothing more was necessary, and would not think of burdening her son with any larger expenses, and could not be induced to accept the offered increase. Another effort was made to get along upon the meagre fare, but the youngest boy fell ill and had to be taken to a hospital, and the mother decided that something must be done if all the family did not wish to follow him. The happy thought occurred to her of buying something that would be an addition to their scanty menu, and giving it as a present to her motherinlaw. Now a present in Japan can never be refused, so it seemed to the younger woman that she must have found a way of escape from her difficulties. Of course, the present was accepted with many thanks and expressions of unworthiness, and when the mealhour arrived, each member of the family found an infinitesimal quantity of the delicacy in a small plate at his side. But as soon as the meal was over, the dear old lady, who had by strict economy managed to leave the greater part of the gift untouched, sent out to all the neighbors presents from what had been intended to feed the hungry children at home. The experiment was tried again and again, but always with the same result. No present could be kept for family use alone. Of everything but the barest necessaries, the greater part must be sent out in gifts to others. At last the husband and wife put their heads together to decide on some course of action that, without hurting the feelings of the older lady, would secure sufficient nourishment for the children, and forthwith began a series of allday picnics to the noted places in the vicinity,picnics that included always a good meal at some wellkept restaurant before the return to the oldfashioned fare of the grandmother's house. In this way the summer was passed without further illness, though the poor mother on her return to Tky spent several weeks in bed,what with starvation and worry and the effort to bear heroically, and with a smiling face, the hard life and scanty fare that were the life and fare of most of Japan only a few years ago. In the changes that the past few years have wrought, perhaps nothing is more striking than the new openings for work that Japan now offers to women. The growth of the public school system has made a demand for women as teachers that is steadily increasing. Although in the normal schools the proportion of women to men is still only one to six, and while teaching, even in the primary schools, is not yet mainly in feminine hands as it is with us, there is still a good showing of women employed as teachers. From the figures of the school report of , we find over , women as teachers and assistants in the public and private schools. The profession of nursing, too, which ten years ago was just opening, has already drawn many women into its ranks. In the Red Cross hospitals alone there are this year nearly a thousand nurses taking the course, and a thousand graduates scattered throughout the country hold themselves ready to answer the call of the society in the time of need, in the mean time practicing their profession wherever they may chance to be. The quality of the Red Cross graduates has been tested now in two wars, and they show the soldierly virtues of their nation, as well as the more womanly qualities of tenderness and gentleness and a selfrespect that has kept them pure and free from stain in the midst of severe temptation. It is impossible for me to gather statistics of the work done by other institutions for the training of nurses, but the figures given above may, I think, be doubled with absolute safety in making an estimate of the total number of nurses trained and in training throughout the empire.  The growth of commerce and industry has greatly increased the demand for feminine labor outside the home. In the old days the two most important industries of the country, tea and silk, were mainly carried on by women in their homes, but the use of modern machinery is rapidly taking the weaving industries out of the homes and making factory hands of the women and children. One of the most noticeable effects of this new demand for female labor is the extreme scarcity of servants. Although wages are nearly double what they were ten years ago, it is extremely difficult for Japanese housekeepers now to find servants to replace the old ones as they drop out of the ranks, and the women who apply for positions are apt to be far inferior to those who came to the same families to do the same work ten years ago. In other ways, too, women are learning to fill new places in the world. The telephone, which now connects towns and cities and villages in Japan, employs girls in large numbers. In the printingoffices we find women at work, not as compositors, but as compositors' assistants, darting from case to case about the room and selecting for the compositor the ideographs that he needs in his work. Inasmuch as a small printingoffice cannot get along with less than four thousand characters, and as larger ones may have several times that number, the need of quickwitted and quickfooted assistants to each compositor may be easily recognized. As the schools turn out each year more girls fitted by education to do this kind of work, and as the number of newspapers and other printed matter is continually on the increase, the demand for and supply of this special variety of labor are likely to increase proportionately for some time to come. A few women are now making their way as reporters on the daily papers, a few more are engaged in literary work. One of the best of modern Japanese novelists was a woman, but she died several years ago at so early an age that her work was a promise rather than a fulfillment. Artists, too, there are, who are making names for themselves, as well as a living, in a country where art is so common that success in that line means hard work and special talent. A few young women support themselves by stenography, a few more as clerks and secretaries in business offices. Until a writingmachine has been invented that will write four thousand characters, there will not be much demand for typewriter girls in Japan outside of the treaty ports, where a few are now employed. The Japanese government has found, as Uncle Sam discovered some time ago, that for the counting of paper money women's fingers are more deft than those of men, and it consequently gives employment to a few women in that work. One railroad has recently begun to employ women as ticketsellers, and three medical schools have already graduated some women physicians, though it is still doubtful whether there is any great opening for them in the country. These are some of the ways in which women now find themselves able to gain a little more independence of life. The whole matter is so new that no statistics are available that will show the exact extent of the demand for labor in these directions, but from my own observation I am inclined to think that there is little change in the employments of women except in the neighborhood of the larger cities, and that the new occupations as yet have a very slight effect upon the conditions in this country at large. It is not possible to understand the actual progress made in Japan in improving the condition of women, without some consideration of the effect that Christian thought and Christian lives have had on the thought and lives of the modern Japanese. If Japanese women are ever to be raised to the measure of opportunity accorded to women in Christian countries, it can only be through the growth of Christianity in their own country, and for that reason a study of that growth is pertinent to a study of their condition. The past ten years in Japan have been discouraging to the missionaries in many ways, and it is not unusual to hear from the less hopeful of them the statement that their work has been at a standstill, or even going backward, during that time. The statistics of missionary effort show a steady, though slight, increase in the number of professing Christians, but if the sum total of the results of missionary effort were the number of converts made, it might, perhaps, be doubtful whether the money spent on missions in Japan might not be better turned to other purposes. There are now in Japan, of Christians of all sects, Protestant, and Roman and Greek Catholic, ,, or about one half of one per cent. of the total population of the country but the influence of these Christians as leaders of thought is out of all proportion to their number. Christian men are found in the Diet, in the army and navy, in the universities and colleges, and in the newspaper offices, in a proportion far beyond their ratio to the total population, exerting their influence in many ways for the uplifting of the nation to loftier moral ideals. The proportion of Christian men and women in the government schools with which I have been connected is rather surprising. In the Higher Normal School, training young women to go out into the whole country as teachers, the proportion of professing Christians upon the teaching staff is striking and in the Peeresses' School, which is as conservative and antiforeign as any educational institution in Japan, there are five professing Christians among the thirtyfive teachers. While, on the one hand, the Japanese Christians are not all models of all the virtues, while there is with many of them a tendency to modify their Christianity so as to accommodate a considerable amount of worldly wisdom, it is true, on the other hand, that the most active workers in the cause of philanthropy are men who have accepted the Christian faith, and who are striving in all earnestness to model their lives after the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian Church in Japan today has its heroes and its backsliders, and has between these two extremes a rank and file of everyday, commonplace men and women, who amidst frequent failures and in the midst of many temptations are making the name of Christian stand for a certain kind of life and a certain standard of virtue quite above and beyond the lives and standards of their countrymen. It is largely because of them that a Christian public opinion is growing up among nonChristian Japanese. Men today who have no special leanings toward Christianity shake their heads over vices and sins which a few years ago were not even thought of as wrong. There is a great deal of talk about the growth of moral depravity in the country, but as a matter of fact, the standards of virtue have never been so high since Japan was opened as they are today it is only that Christian thought has held up a mirror to an unChristian society, in which it views all too clearly its own defects. There is, to my mind, no more hopeful sign of the times than the growing discouragement over the present condition of morals. When there is added to this a steadily increasing respect for the honesty and strength of character of Christian men and women, it must mean that a great and lasting impression has been made. Today banks, business offices, and other places requiring trustworthy clerks and employees, prefer, other things being equal, Christian young men, for it is generally known that they are more worthy of confidence than the majority of applicants for such places. One instance of this increased moral sensitiveness may be cited in the recent successful efforts to limit the power of the brothelkeepers over their victims and virtual slaves, the jr or licensed prostitutes. As I have stated in a previous chapter, the women who carry on this business in Japan are, many of them, unwilling victims of a system which allows parents to sell their children to a life of shame and they enter upon that life so young that they can hardly be regarded as morally responsible for their condition. Even after the actual sale of girls was forbidden by an imperial ordinance in , the purchase price was called a loan to the parents of the girl, and subsequent loans for clothing entered upon the books of the establishment kept the unfortunates so continually in debt to their masters that they could never escape from the bondage in which they were held except through death, or by purchase by some infatuated admirer. Public opinion, while it indulged in some sentimental pity for the hard lot of the jr, did little or nothing to aid any one who desired to help them, regarding the profession as a necessary one, and caring not at all for the injustice to which the girls were subjected. Ten or twelve years ago, a movement started by some prominent Japanese Christians against the jroya fell flat for want of a public opinion behind it. Speeches on the subject were hissed down by audiences of young men, and nothing could be done to help even the most innocent and unhappy of the girls to a better life. In the new code, perhaps as an effect of this movement, a new law provided that the jr might leave her calling by giving notice to the police. A police regulation, however, forbade any girl to cease her employment, or to leave the house in which she was kept, unless her official notice of cessation was countersigned by the keeper of the jroya, so that by her own effort she could not free herself. In the year , one of these girls in a provincial city appealed to an American missionary for help in getting her liberty. Through his aid, and that of his Japanese helpers, her case came before the court, which decided that the contract under which she was held was opposed to the public welfare and good morals, and that the keeper must affix his seal to her notice without regard to her debt. Although the local police refused to act in the matter, and although the missionary and his helpers were subjected to personal violence by the employees of the jroya, an appeal to the authorities at Tky resulted in an enforcement of the court's decision, and the girl was freed. At this juncture the Salvation Army, which has a valiant contingent in Tky, and which was actually spoiling for a good fight with the world, the flesh, and the Devil, in any form, took up the cause of the oppressed jr. A special edition of the 'War Cry' containing appeals to the girls to leave their lives of shame, and offering aid to any one who might apply to the Army, was published and hawked through the Yoshiwara. When the keepers and their employees found out what the strangely costumed newsvenders were about, they charged down upon them, and after a street fight, drove them out of the quarter. Thus the war began, but the Tky police took up the matter, the Tky press joined hands with the Salvationists, and in the end the whole country was stirred to aid in the attack. In return, the brothelkeepers and their employees, feeling that the profits of their business were at stake, made it extremely warm for any Salvationists or newspaper reporters who dared set foot in the disreputable quarters, and in their zeal sometimes made mistakes and drove out their wouldbe patrons. The office of one newspaper was wrecked by sympathetic roughs, and it took a squad of fifty or sixty police to escort Army officers when they had occasion to visit any of the houses to secure the release of a girl. No lives were lost, though some hard knocks were received, and the work was kept up with unabated noise on both sides, until every girl held in unwilling bondage knew how she might escape and to whom she could go for aid. During the month of September, , as a direct result of the attacks of and upon the Army, the number of visitors to these houses in Tky was decreased by about , a night. On October , a government ordinance was issued that at one stroke removed all obstacles in the way of a girl's securing her freedom at any moment when she wanted to leave the business. The new regulations made the descent to Avernus as difficult as possible, and the return to the upper world a mere step. In Tky alone, in the first four months after the promulgation of this order, , out of the , girls who were licensed as prostitutes left the houses in which they were employed, most of them returning to their homes and families, and as many as applied being cared for in the Rescue Home of the Salvation Army. The places thus vacated are not easy to fill, because the keepers will not advance money to the parents of a girl, now that they can no longer hold her as security for the debt. In consequence, too, of the revelations of the evils of the system, the business has fallen off alarmingly. Thus many of the houses have been obliged to close, owing to lack of custom and to inability to pay the heavy taxes. We have here the story of a successful attack on a system which has existed in Japan for three hundred years, by a Christian agency acting with the support of so strong a public opinion that police and government have felt bound to obey its behests. There has been no more striking example of the effect of Christian thought upon public sentiment in any country than this crusade against the brothels in Japan. When we remember that ten years ago it was not possible for a speaker to attack the institution before an audience of students without being silenced by hisses, it is interesting to note that this year, the students of that same school greeted with applause and respectful attention an address on this very subject.  It seems to me rather striking that in the year  fifty thousand copies of the Bible were sold in Japanmore than of any other book. Although the present translation is regarded as far from perfect, and much of it is unintelligible to the average Japanese without instruction, whether directly or indirectly, by mission workers, it is still sought after and read for the sake of its literature, and because of the reputation that has been gained for it throughout the country. There are few missionaries of any experience in Japan who cannot tell stories of men coming to them from country villages, who, through the reading of a copy of the Bible in some way fallen into their hands, have been brought by the beauty and nobility of the parts that they could understand to seek additional explanation from some teacher or preacher. One case that is amusing, but at the same time striking, I have heard vouched for from a number of sources Two thieves, one night, broke into the dormitory of a girls' school in search of booty, and by chance awakened two of the girls. As they sat up in their beds, wondering what was best to do under the circumstances, one zealous damsel reached for the Bible in which she had been reading before she went to sleep, and handed it to one of the thieves, saying, 'If you read this book, you will not want to steal any more.' The other girl followed her companion's example and gave her Bible to the other thief. That was all, so far as the girls knew, and it was some years before the sequel came to light. There is one place in Japan to which released convicts who are trying to get back to respectability again drift from all parts of the empire. It is a prisoners' home in Tky, where one man, aided by his capable and devoted wife, receives into his own family and gives aid and succor to hundreds of society's outcasts. To this place came one day an exconvict who told a remarkable story of his conversion, and of his desire to lead a new life. He had received a Bible from a little girl one night in a house that he was robbing, but was too full of professional engagements at the time to follow her advice and read it. Later, however, as he was resting from his labors in the enforced seclusion of a prison, he began to read, and spelled out enough to make up his mind that he did not want to steal any more. Accordingly, as soon as his term was ended, he made his way to the prisoners' refuge, and by the aid of its founder and head, and his good wife, settled down to steady habits of industry. Later, when the prison look had worn off from his face and the prison gait from his walk, he returned to his family and friends, where he is now a respectable member of the society upon which he formerly preyed. There are other stories showing as deep impressions made on men of culture and respectability, not so striking and amusing as this one, but meaning as much, or even more, for the future of Japan. Such things are hardly possible in Christian countries today, for there is little or no novelty in the message that the old book brings to us but to the Japanese mind the thoughts are absolutely new in many ways, and the reading alone will often change the whole life, because it lifts up the nature to a higher set of ideals.  As a direct effect of Christian thought upon the thought of the Japanese nation, it is interesting to notice the change in meaning of one word. In the teachings of Confucius the highest virtue is benevolence, rendered into Japanese by the word jin in the teachings of Buddhism the highest virtue is mercy, or jishi. When the Christian missionaries first came to Japan, there was no term in the language that covered the thought of love as it is taught by Christ. For lack of anything better, the word ai, which indicated the love of a superior for an inferior, was made to do duty for the greater thought and now the old word ai, throughout the length and breadth of Japan, is accepted and understood in its new meaning, a continual witness to the effect of Christianity upon the national mind. Is this a little thing in the education of a race that has shown in the past so great a capacity for living up to its ideals? One more direct effect of Christian teaching upon Japanese society is the great quickening of philanthropic and benevolent effort. Scattered throughout the country are benevolent or educational societies, orphanages, hospitals, free kindergartens, reform schools, and other evidences of a desire on the part of the more fortunate to help the unfortunate by some means or other and if you study into the history of any of these efforts, you will usually find that some Japanese Christian, or some man who has come home impressed with the philanthropies of Christian countries, has started the scheme, and has created a society, and a public opinion behind the society, which carries on the work. Even in the government institutions there is no difficulty in tracing the influence of Christians and Christianity. The Red Cross Society, with its seven thousand members, and its hospitals in every prefecture of the empire, bears the sign of Christendom upon all its property and employees. It seems to me quite safe to say that but for the Christian influences of the past forty years, there would be very little altruistic work done in Japan today but by means of the Christians and their teachings, the latest and best thought of the world is working its way out in practical service for humanity in Japan, and this service is ascribed by enlightened Buddhist and Shint believers alike to the spirit of Christianity, which will not let the fortunate rest while their less fortunate brothers are in want or sin. No one who studies the religious question in Japan at all can fail to notice the extraordinary revivifying of Buddhism for what it feels to be a life and death struggle with an alien faith. The disestablishment of the Buddhist church by the government at the time of the restoration must be credited with its share of the awakening process for the priests, finding their own support and that of the temples dependent upon the voluntary contributions of worshipers, were forced to bestir themselves as they had not done since the old missionary days, when they were working for a foothold in the country. But without the competition of Christianity, it is extremely doubtful whether their efforts would have been turned so largely along educational and philanthropic lines, whether the standard of intelligence among the priesthood would have been so quickly raised, whether they would have sent young men abroad to study Sanskrit and history with a view to a better understanding of their own scriptures, or whether they would not rather have relied on less radical methods of quickening the religious life within their body. Certain it is that Buddhism, which upon its introduction into Japan actually lowered the status of women, is now making a bid for public favor by holding meetings and founding societies especially for women, and is doing its best to increase their selfrespect and the respect in which they are held by society. An interesting story which throws some light upon the new influence that is at work among the Buddhists came to me not long ago through a Japanese friend. There were two brothers living in a poor little village on the northern coast of Japan, who were joint heirs to a small piece of property. As the land was not enough for the support of two families, the elder brother, a gentle, thoughtful youth, gave up all title to his share of the inheritance and entered a Buddhist monastery. In the quiet of this retreat, amid the beautiful surroundings, the daily services, the chanting of priests, and the mellow booming of the great monastery bell, his thoughts went out to the poor and the sinful among his own people. He began to feel that a life which seeks merely spiritual uplift for itself is not the highest life, and that only as spiritual gain is shared with others is it real and lasting. Forthwith he began a life of helpfulness to the poor about him,of teaching and preaching and good deeds that won him many humble friends. Within the monastery, however, his work was not approved. His ideas and actions were not in harmony with the teachings of the sect. He was first disciplined and then expelled, and found his way back at last, penniless, to his native village. Now, in northern Japan the winters are long and hard, and the most industrious of farmers and fisherfolk can wring only a bare subsistence from the conditions of their toil. It is from these villages, perhaps, more than from any other sources, that the girls are obtained to supply the jroya of the great cities. At any rate, in this particular village, the only hope that any girl possessed of escaping from the hard home toil was by the sale of her person, and the thought of seeing the great cities, of wearing beautiful dresses, of being admired and petted, and perhaps at last of marrying some rich lover and becoming a great lady, was a tempting bait to these poor peasant girls. To this young man, whose soul had been awakened to a new sensitiveness during his absence, the full horror of the conditions that could so warp and dwarf the souls of women appealed as it had never done before. He must do something to help them, but what to do his previous experience did not help him to know. He sought for aid and sympathy in his native place, among his friends and coreligionists but the state of affairs was too old and too familiar to excite interest, and at last he worked his way to the capital, feeling that somewhere in that great city he would find light on the question that perplexed him. It was a mere question of ways and meanshow to begin a work which he felt driven from within to do. In Tky, as he inquired among his friends, he was told that Christians knew all about the kind of work that he wished to begin, that he must go to them and study their methods, if he would help the people of his native village. So the devout young Buddhist, who had found in his own faith the divine impulse, turned to the study of what Christians had done and were doing for the unfortunate. The story is not finished yet. We cannot tell whether in the end it will result in another addition to the ranks of the Japanese Christians, or whether it will aid in the quickening that has come to Buddhism, but, whatever way it ends, it shows in a concrete example what Christianity is now doing for Japan, and especially for the women of the country.  The following in the report for  may be of interest Percentage of pupils of school age receiving instruction The total number of girls of school age not receiving instruction is ,, of boys, , while the total number of girls of school age is ,,, and of boys, ,,.  In the Japan Mail of July , , the following statistics of women employees in factories in Japan were given   The following Notes refer to passages marked by asterisks in the foregoing pages. The father, or the head of the family, usually names the children, but some friend or patron may be asked to do it. As, until recently, the name given a child in infancy was not the one that he was expected to bear through life, the choice of a name was not a matter of as much importance as it is with us. In some families the boys are called by names indicating their position in the family, the words Taro, 'Big one,' Jiro, 'Second one,' Saburo, 'Third one,' Shiro, 'Fourth one,' Goro, 'Fifth one,' etc., being used alone, or placed after adjectives indicating some quality that it is hoped the child may possess. Such combinations are, Eitaro, 'Glorious big one,' Seijiro, 'Pure second one,' Tomisaburo, 'Rich third one,' and so on. To speak with greater exactness, the miya mairi of a boy is on the thirtyfirst day of his life,of a girl, on the thirtythird.  Tky just now shows a tendency to change this national custom. Gayly painted wicker baby carriages with cotton awnings are seen in large quantities in the shops, and one meets mothers and little sisters of the lower classes, propelling the baby in a little fourwheeled wagon instead of wearing it on the back, as formerly. These carriages are, of course, the exception, and may prove to be but a passing Tky fashion, but they seem to me to mark another step in the modernizing of Japan, and may prove of value in the physical development of the common people. In the Tky of  butchers and milkmen were very little in evidence, as the demand for their wares came mainly from the few foreigners and foreign restaurants in the city. In  a walk of half a mile or so in the neighborhood of Kojimachi, one of the principal business streets in a purely Japanese section of the city, shows five meat shops and milkmen, in westernized shirts and knickerbockers, with golfstockings and straw sandals, draw their gaycolored carts everywhere through the city, and call at a large proportion of the houses. Condensed milk, too, is to be found on the shelves of every provision store, together with canned and dried meats, and the restaurants where foreign food is served are distributed throughout the entire city, and do a thriving business on Japanese patronage. The less extravagant country people declare that Tky is 'eating itself up,' but so far no terrible increase of indebtedness seems to follow the change in the standard of living. It is interesting to note that the scalp troubles referred to on page  seem to have greatly lessened in the last ten years, whether because of the change in the food or for other reasons, I cannot determine. Twice, after the miya mairi of her babyhood, does our little maid repair to the temple to seek the blessing of her patron god upon a step forward in her short life once, when at the age of three, the hair on her small head, which until then has been shaved in fancy patterns, is allowed to begin its growth toward the coiffure of womanhood and once, when she has attained her seventh year, and exchanges the soft, narrow sash of infancy for the stiff, wide obi which is the pride of every welldressed Japanese woman. Her little brother, too, though now no longer destined to wear the hammershaped queue of the oldtime Japanese warrior, and whose fuzzy black head is now usually left unshaven in his babyhood, still goes to the temple at the age of three to give thanks, and when he comes to be five years old, the little boy again goes up to the temple, this time wearing for the first time the manly hakama, or kiltpleated trousers, and makes offerings to the god who has protected him thus far. The day set for these ceremonies is the th of November, and there is no prettier sight in all Japan than a popular temple on that day. All the streets that converge on the shrine are crowded with gayly dressed children hurrying along to make their offerings, accompanied by parents brimming with pride and pleasure. threeyearold tots of both sexes trudging sturdily along on their clogs square little redcheeked boys, their black eyes shining with pride in their rustling new silk hakama, feeling that they are big boys and no longer to be confused with the babies that they were yesterday here, too, are the graceful sevenyearold maidens, their manycolored garments and their gorgeous new obi setting off to advantage their shining black hair and sparkling eyes. The children are so many, so happy, and so impressed with the fun that it is to be older than they were, that the grown folks who accompany them seem like shadows the only real thing is the children. Within the temple precincts all the candysellers and toymerchants who can find standingroom for a stall are doing a brisk trade. Flags are flying, drums are beating, a kagura dance is going on in the pavilion, about which stands a crowd of youngsters twittering like sparrows, and the steps that lead to the temple itself are as thronged as Jacob's ladder with little ones ascending and descending. Within the shrine the whiterobed priests are hard at work from morning to night. A little company forms in the vestibule, goes to the priest in the first room, where they bow and make their offerings, and wait until there is space for them in the inner sanctuary. From within comes the sound of a droning chant, which ends at last, and then a party that has finished its worship issues forth, and those who have been waiting without go in and when the few minutes of worship are over, and the amulet that rewards the due observance of the day has been received, there are the dances to be seen, and the o miyag to be purchased, and at last the happy party returns, feeling that one more milestone on the journey of life has been passed propitiously.  The shirzak (white sak) used for this occasion is a curious drink, thick and white, made from pounded rice, and brewed especially for this feast. Some antiquarians believe that it is simply the earliest form of sak, the national beverage, which has been preserved in this ancient observance as the fly is preserved in amber. The keeping of a feast on the third day of the third month is a custom that has come down from very ancient times. At first the day was set apart for the purification of the people, and a part of the ceremony was the rubbing of the body with bits of white paper, roughly cut into the semblance of a whiterobed priest. These paper dolls were believed to take away the sins of the year. When they had been used for purification, they were inscribed with the sex and birthyear of the user and thrown into the river. The third month was also, in early times, the season for cockfighting among the men, and for dollplaying among the women. The special name by which the dolls of the Doll Feast are called is O Hina Sama. Now hina in modern Japanese means a chicken or other young bird, and is never used to mean anything else except the dolls thus the dolls are shown to be associated with the ancient cockfighting, an amusement which has now almost gone out, except in the province of Tosa on the island of Shikoku. The oldest dolls did not represent the Emperor and Empress, but simply a man and a woman, and were modeled closely after the old white paper dolls of the religious ceremony. When the Tokugawa Shguns had firmly established their splendid court at Yedo, a decree was issued designating the five feast days upon which the daimis were to present themselves at the Shgun's palace and offer their congratulations. One of the days thus appointed was the third day of the third month. It is believed that the giving of the chief place at the feast to effigies of the Emperor and Empress was a part of the policy of the Shgunate,a policy which aimed to keep alive the spirit of loyalty to the throne, while at the same time the occupant of the throne remained a puppet in the hands of his vicegerent. Each girl born into a family has a pair of O Hina Sama placed for her upon the redcovered shelf, on the first Feast of Dolls that comes after her birth. When, as a bride, she goes to her husband's house, she carries the dolls with her, and the first feast after her marriage she observes with special ceremonies. Until she has a daughter old enough to carry out the observance, she must keep up the ceremony. The feast, as it exists today, is said by the Japanese to serve three purposes it makes the children of both sexes loyal to the imperial family, it interests the girls in housekeeping, and it trains them in ceremonial etiquette. Because of the complexity of the Chinese language and the time needed for its mastery, there has been a movement to lessen the study of pure Chinese in the government schools, or abolish it altogether, and with this to simplify the use of the ideographs in the SinicoJapanese. The educational department is requiring that textbooks be limited in their use of ideographs that those used be written in only one way and that the simplest, and that the kana (the Japanese syllabary) be substituted wherever possible. Several plans for reform in this matter are being agitated, one of which is to limit the use of ideographs to nouns and verbs only. No one who has been in Japan can have failed to notice the peculiarly strident quality of the Japanese voice in singing, a quality that is gained by professional singers through much labor and actual physical suffering. That this is not a natural characteristic of the Japanese voice is shown by the fact that in speaking, the voices, both of children and adults, are low and sweet. It seems to me to be brought about by the pursuit of a wrong musical ideal, or at least, of a musical ideal quite distinct from that of the Western world. In Japan one seldom finds singing birds kept in cages, but instead crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, and other noisy members of the insect family may be seen exposed for sale in the daintiest of cages any summer night in the Tky streets. These insects delight the ears of the Japanese with their melody, and it seems to me that the voices of singers throughout the empire are modeled after the shrill, rattling chirp of the insect, rather than after the fuller notes of the bird's song. The introduction of European music by the schools and churches has already begun to show in the songs of the children in the streets, and where ten years ago one might live in Tky for a year, and never hear a note of music except the semimusical cries of the workmen, when they are pulling or striking in concert, now there are few days when some strain of song from some passing schoolchild does not come in at the window of one's house in any quarter of the city. The progress made in catching foreign ideas of time and tune is quite surprising, but the singing will never be acceptable to the foreign ear until the voice is modulated according to the foreign standards. It is said by Japanese versed in the most refined ways that a woman who has learned the tea ceremony thoroughly is easily known by her superior bearing and manner on all occasions. Whatever plant she begins with is taken up in a series of studies,leaves, flowers, roots, and stalks being shown in every possible position and combination,until not only the stroke is mastered, but the plant is thoroughly known. In the book that lies before me as I write, a book used as a copybook by a young lady beginning the practice of the art, the teacher has devoted six large pages to studies of one small and simple flower and the pupil has covered hundreds of sheets of paper with efforts to imitate the designs. She has now finished that part of the course, and can, at a moment's notice, reproduce with just the right strokes any of the designs or any part of the plant. The next step forward will be a similar series of bamboo.  In the government schools for girls, much attention is paid just now to physical culture. The gymnastic exercises rank with the Chinese and English and mathematics as important parts of the course, and the girls are encouraged to spend their recesses outofdoors, engaging in all kinds of athletic sports. Races, ball games, tugsofwar, marches, and quadrilles are entered into with zest and enjoyment, and the girls in their dark red hakama are as well able to move quickly and freely as girls of the same age in America. If it were not for the queer pigeontoed gait, acquired by years of walking in narrow kimono and on high clogs, the Japanese girls would be fully abreast of the American in all these sports. So strongly has the idea of the necessity for physical strength seized upon the nation, that a girl of delicate physique has less chance of marriage than one who is robust and strong. It is in the mistakes and failures made in adapting the education given in the schools to the exact conditions that present themselves in the constantly changing Japan of today, that the opponents of all alteration in the education of women find their strongest arguments. The conservatives point with scorn to this girl whose new ideas have led her into folly or trouble, or to that one whose health has been broken down by the adverse conditions surrounding her student life, and say, 'This will be the case with all our women if we continue this insane practice of educating them along new lines.' Advance in female education, as in all other lines of progress in Japan, is a series of violent actions and reactions. In , partly through illadvised conduct on the part of supporters of the cause, one of the most serious reverses that has come in the progress of Western education for women began to show itself. The reaction was helped along by a paper read before some of the most influential men of Japan, and subsequently reported and discussed in the newspapers, by a German professor in the medical department of the imperial University in Tky. The paper was a serious warning to the men of the country that no women could be good wives, mothers, and housekeepers and at the same time have undergone a thorough literary education. The arguments were reinforced by statistics showing that American college women either did not marry, or that if they married they had very few children. All Japan took fright at this alarming showing, and for several years the education of girls in anything more than the primary studies was not encouraged by the government. The lowest depth of this reaction was reached during or soon after the JapanChina war, when the growth of national vanity resulted in a temporary disdain for all foreign ideas. The tide has turned again now, girls' schools that have been closed for years are being reopened, young men who are thinking of marrying are looking for educated wives, and among the women themselves there is a strong desire for selfimprovement. Under this impulse a new generation of educated women will be added to those already exerting an influence in the country, and it is to be hoped that the forward movement will be more difficult to set back when the next reactionary wave strikes the Japanese coast. The obi is supposed to express by its length the hope that the marriage may be an enduring one. Among the more modernized Japanese a ring is now often given in place of, or, in the wealthier classes, in addition to the obi. It is interesting, however, as a sign of the times, to notice that for the wedding of the Crown Prince, in May, , the Shinto high priest, who is master of ceremonies at the Imperial Court, instituted a solemn religious ceremony within the sanctuary of the palace. Following the example set in so high a quarter, a number of couples, during the winter of , have repaired to Shinto temples in various parts of the empire, to secure the sanction of the ancient national faith upon their union. But still, for the great majority of the Japanese, the wedding ceremony is what it has always been. Although new methods of transportation have come into use now in most of the Japanese cities, and wheeled carts drawn by men or horses are used for carrying all other kinds of luggage, the wedding outfit, wrapped in great cloths on which the crest of the bride's family is conspicuous, is borne on men's shoulders to the bridegroom's home, the length of the baggage train and the number and size of the burdens showing the wealth and importance of the bride's family. The bride who goes to her husband's house well provided by her own family, will carry, not only a full wardrobe and the housefurnishings already mentioned, but will be supplied, so far as foresight can manage it, with all the little things that she can need for months in advance. Paper, pens, ink, postage stamps, needles, thread, and sewing materials of all kinds, a store of dress materials and other things to be given as presents to any and all who may do her favors, and pocket money with which she may make good any deficiencies, or meet any unforeseen emergency. When she goes from her father's house, she should be so thoroughly fitted out that she will not have to ask her husband for the smallest thing for a number of months. The parents of the bride, in giving up their daughter, as they do when she marries, show the estimation in which they have held her by the beauty and completeness of the trousseau with which they provide her. The expense of this wedding outfit is often very great, persons even in the most moderate circumstances spending as much as one thousand yen upon the necessary purchases, and among the wealthy, four thousand to five thousand yen is not extravagant. As material wealth increases in Japan, there is a marked tendency to increase the style and cost of the trousseau, and the marriage of a daughter has come to be, in many cases, a severe strain on the family finances. But this outfit is of the nature of a dowry, for it is her very own and in the event of a divorce, she brings back with her to her father's house the clothing and household goods that she carried away as a bride. For this visit the bride wears for the first time a dress made for her by her husband's family and bearing its crest, as a sign that she is now a member of that family and only a guest in her father's house. Since the adoption of the new code, the conditions of marriage and of divorce have been altered for the better. At present no divorce is possible except through the courts or through mutual consent the simple change of registration by one party or the other does not constitute a legal divorce. Even a divorce by mutual consent cannot be arranged without the consent of the parents or head of the family of a married person who is under twentyfive years of age. The grounds upon which judicial divorce may be granted seem very trivial measured by European standards, but, on the other hand, they are a distinct gain over the former practice. The wife is no longer dependent for her position simply upon the whim of her husband, but, unless he can secure her consent to the separation, he must formulate charges of immorality or conviction of crime, or of cruel treatment or grave insult on the part of the wife or of her relatives, or of desertion, or of disappearance for a period of three years or more. Only when some such charge has been made and proved before a court can a husband send away his wife. In the case of a separation by mutual consent, though the law still gives the care of the children to the father in case no previous agreement has been made, if a woman sees her way clear to supporting them, she may stipulate for the custody of one or more of them as a condition of her consent to the divorce. In a judicial divorce, the judge may, in the interests of the children, take them away from their father and assign them to the care of some other person. In these changes we can see a distinct advance toward permanence of the family tie and we can see, too, that the wife has gained a new power to hold her own against injustice and wrong. That when the people have become used to these changes, other and more binding laws will be enacted, we can feel pretty sure, for the drift of enlightened public opinion seems to be in favor of securing better and more firmly established homes just as fast as 'the hardness of their hearts' will permit. It is difficult for us in America, who live under customs and laws in which the individual is the social unit and the family a union of individuals, to understand a system of society in which the individual is little or nothing and the family the social unit recognized both by law and custom. In Japan, a man is simply a member of some family, and his daily affairs, his marrying and giving in marriage, are more or less under the control of the head of his family, or of the family council. Only in case he is the head of the family is he able to marry without securing some one's consent, and then his responsibilities in regard to the headship may in themselves hamper him. If this is the case with the more independent man, it may be imagined how completely the woman is submerged under family influence. She may, under exceptional circumstances, become the head of a family, but this is usually only a temporary expedient, and even then she must subordinate herself more completely to the family and its interests than when she occupies a lowlier place. The headship of an unmarried woman lasts only until a husband has been selected for her, and the headship of a widow lasts during her guardianship of the rightful heir to the position. By Japanese law a widow is always the guardian of her minor children. The only way in which individuality before the law can be obtained by man or woman in Japan is through cutting the tie that binds to the family, and starting out in life afresh as the head of a new family. This new family must always be himin, or plebeian, no matter how high in rank may have been the family from which the founder has gone out, but there is a continually increasing number of young men and women who prefer the freedom that comes from the headship of a small and new family, even if of low rank, to the state of tutelage or of hampering responsibility which must accompany connection with a larger and older social group. It seems likely that through this means an evolution from the family to the individual system will be effected, as the nation grows more and more modernized in its way of looking at things. For the Japanese woman, as I have already said, marriage is in most cases the entrance into a new family. She is cut off from the old ways and interests, in which she has until now had her part, and she has begun life anew as the latest addition to and therefore the lowest and most ignorant member of another social group. It is her duty simply to learn the ways and obey the will of those above her, and it is the duty of those above her, and especially of her husband's mother, to fit her by training and discipline for her new surroundings. The physical strength of the young wife, her sweetness of temper, her manners, her morals, her way of looking at life, are all put to the test by this sharpeyed guardian of the family interests, and woe to the younger woman if she fail to come up to the standard set. She may be a good woman and a faithful wife, but if, under the training given her, she does not adapt herself readily to the traditions and customs of the family she enters, it is more than likely, even under the new laws, that she may be sent back to her father's house as persona non grata, and even her husband's love cannot save her. It is because of this predominance of the family over the individual that the young wife, when she enters her husband's home, is not, as in our own country, entering upon a new life as mistress of a house, with absolute control over all of her little domain. At the time of the celebration of his silver wedding, in , the Emperor came into the Audience Room with the Empress on his arm, an example which was followed by the Imperial Princes. With the engagement and marriage of the Crown Prince, in May, , an entirely new precedent was established in the relations of the Imperial couple. The Western idea of marriage between equals has never existed in the Japanese mind in its thought of the union between their Emperor and Empress. The Empress, though of noble family, was chosen from among the subjects of the Emperor, and the marriage was of the nature of an appointment by the Emperor to the position of Imperial Consort, just as any other appointment might have been made of a subject to fill an important position in the government. In the marriage of the Crown Prince a very different course was pursued. While no departure was made from the old precedents in the selection of a Princess from one of the five families that trace their descent from Jimmu Tenno, the whole manner of obtaining the bride was different from anything that Japan had before known. The Prince asked the father of the young lady to give her to him just as a common man might have done, and everything in the preliminary arrangements was carried out with the idea that by the marriage she was to be raised to his rank and position. Reference has already been made to the religious ceremony that was devised for the occasion, an act that in itself altered the meaning of marriage for the whole nation. Since the wedding, rumors have floated to the world outside of the palace gates, of the kindness and consideration with which the young wife is treated by her husband. To the scandal of some of the more oldfashioned of the Prince's attendants, the heir to the throne insists on observing toward his wife, in private as well as in public, all the minuti of Western etiquette. She enters the carriage ahead of him when they drive together, they habitually take their meals together, and he finds in her a cheerful companion and friend, and not simply a devoted and humble servant. In this way, by the highest example that can be set to them, the Japanese people are learning a new lesson. All these things have a deep significance in showing that the sacredness of the marriage tie is gradually being recognized. Something, indeed, may be said on the other side in regard to this system, which I seem to have painted as ideal. If in America we find the burden of expensive grownup sons and daughters sometimes too heavy upon parents whose powers are on the wane, we must remember that in Japan a young man is often seriously handicapped at the beginning of his active life by the early retirement of his father from selfsupporting labor, and that the young wife entering the home of her parentsinlaw often finds a happy married life rendered impossible by the fact that she must please an elderly couple thoroughly fixed in their ways,the rulers of the household and with little to do but rule. With this custom, as with all human customs, everything in the long run depends upon how it is used, and without deep affection between parents and children there seems to be as much danger from the serious handicapping of the rising generation by selfish and inconsiderate parents in Japan, as there is in America of the wearing out of the older people's lives and strength in the service of ungrateful and lazy children. The bed on which the Empress sleeps is made of heavy futons, or quilts, of white habutai wadded with silk wadding. The bedclothing consists of as many similar futons as the state of the weather may require. Every month new futons are provided for Her Majesty, and the discarded ones are given to one of her attendants. The happy recipient is thus provided with wadding enough for all her winter dresses for the rest of her life, as well as with a good supply of dress material. Only those who have seen the inner life of the court can realize the difficulties which have attended every step of the Empress Haru's way, for the court has been the scene of great struggles between the conservative and radical elements. Mean and petty jealousies have moved those surrounding the throne. The slightest word or token from the Empress would be used as a weapon for private ends. To move among these varied and discordant factions, and to move for progress, without causing undue friction, has been a task more difficult than the conquest of armies, and to do so successfully has required almost infinite patience, sympathy, and love. And now, after thirtythree years of the enlightened rule of the present Emperor, and of the beneficent life and example of the Empress Haru, is there any assurance that the progress made during their occupation of the throne will be continued in the lives of Japan's future rulers? Prince Haru, or Yoshihito, is now a man twentytwo years of age, with character sufficiently developed to be used as the basis for a guess at what his qualities as a sovereign may prove to be. 'As far as the East is from the West' have his life and education been from the life and education of his illustrious father. Instead of the curtained seclusion, the quiet and calm of the old palace in the old capital, the present Crown Prince has known from babyhood the sights and sounds of the stirring city of Tky. He has driven in an open carriage or walked through its streets he has been to school with boys of his own age, taking the school work and the drill and the games with the other boys, learning to know men and things and himself too, in a way in which none of his ancestors, since the days when they were simply savage chiefs, have had opportunity of knowing. As he grew toward manhood, his delicate health required that he leave the school and pursue his studies as his strength permitted, under masters but he has retained his love for all athletic exercises, for dogs and horses and guns and bicycles, and he is as expert in outdoor sports as any youth of Western training. His mind is quick and eager, interested especially in foreign ways and thoughts, and seeking most of all to understand how other people think and feel and live. Though he has been emancipated to a wonderful degree from the state and ceremony that surrounded his ancestors, he is nevertheless impatient of what remains, and would gladly dispense with many forms that his conservative guardians regard as necessary and these same guardians at times find their young eaglet difficult to manage. He has views and ideas of his own, and acts occasionally upon his own initiative in a way that fairly scandalizes his advisers. He wishes to visit his future subjects upon something like equal terms. The rle of Son of Heaven seems to him less interesting at times than some smaller and more human part. When he walks, he wants to lead his own dog, not have him led by some one else to stop in the street and watch the common people at their work to drop in on his friends in a neighborly way and see how they live when they are not expecting a visit from royalty. Provided he does not go too fast or too far, when his turn comes to ascend the throne, he cannot but make a better emperor for the intimate personal knowledge that he is seeking and gaining of the lives and feelings of his people. The Crown Princess Sada, who has now been for one year in the line of succession to the present beloved Empress, shows in her training and character the influence of the new impulse that is driving Japan forward. The circumstances that led to her selection as the bride of the Prince are in themselves curious enough to be worth recording. The Kujo family is one of the five families from which alone can the wife of the Crown Prince be chosen, and the present Prince Kujo is blessed with many daughters. Of these, the oldest is about the age of Prince Haru, and at one time it was hoped that she might be selected as his consort, but at last that hope was given up, and she was married to another prince. The second daughter was as bright and charming as the first, but she was just enough younger than the Prince to make her marriage with him so dangerous a matter according to all the rules that govern good and bad luck in Japan, that no hope was entertained for her, and she was married, when her time came, with no reference to the greatest match that any Japanese princess can make. The third daughter was six years younger than the Prince, so much younger that it was thought that he would be married long before she grew up, so no special care or attention was given to her. In her babyhood, like most Japanese babies of high rank, she was sent out into the country to be nursed. Her foster parents were plain farmer folk, who loved her and cared for her as their own child. She played bareheaded and barefooted in the sun and wind, tumbled about, jolly and happy, with the village children, and lived and grew like a kitten or a puppy rather than like a future empress until she was old enough for the kindergarten. Then she came back to Tky, to her father's house, and from there she attended the Peeresses' School, going backward and forward every day with her bundle of books, and taking her share of the work and play with the other children. In her schooldays she was noticeable for her great physical activity and her hearty enjoyment of the outdoor sports which form so important a part of the training in Japanese schools for girls at present and for her strength of will and character among a class of students upon whom selfrepression amounting almost to selfabnegation has been inculcated from earliest childhood. When this little princess reached the age of fifteen, the Crown Prince's marriage, which had been somewhat deferred on account of his illhealth, was pressed forward, and to the extreme surprise of her own family, and of many others as well, the Princess Sada was chosen, largely on account of her great physical vigor. Then began a great change in her life. From being one of the lowest and least considered in her family, she was suddenly raised high above all the rest, even her father addressing her as a superior. The merry, romping schoolgirl was transformed in a few days into the great lady, too grand to associate on equal terms with any but the imperial family. Small cause was there for wonder if she shrank from the change and begged that the honor might be bestowed on some one else. The old free life was gone forever, and she dreaded the heavy responsibility that was to fall upon her slender shoulders. The choice was made in August, , and from the moment that the engagement was entered into, the Princess Sada became an honored guest in her father's house. She could no longer play with her brothers and sisters, or take a meal with any member of her own family. A new and handsome suite of rooms was built for her, her old wardrobe was discarded and an entirely new one provided for her, all her table service was new and distinct from that of the rest of the family, and she was addressed by all as if she were already Empress. Her studies were not given up, but masters were chosen for her who came to her and instructed her, with due deference to her high station, in the subjects that she had been studying at school. So passed the nine months of her engagement, and on May , , she became one of the principals in a state wedding such as Japan had never before seen. Through all the show and ceremony she acquitted herself decorously and bravely, and since her marriage no word save of approval of the young wife has come out from the palace gates. Her little sistersinlaw, the four small daughters of the Emperor, enjoy nothing so much as to go and spend the day with her, for she is so amusing, and her life has been such a busy and happy one, that she comes like a breath of fresh air into the seclusion of the Court. Her young husband, too, finds in her congenial society, and his frail health seems to be daily strengthening with the brightness that has come into his home. Great was the joy in the empire when, on April , , this happy union was rendered still happier by the birth of a strong little prince to carry on the ancient line. By an auspicious coincidence, his birth came just at the time of the annual boys' feast, or Feast of Flags, and his naming day was appointed for May , the great day of the feast, when all Japan is decorated with giant carp swinging from tall poles outside of every house, and swimming vigorously at the ends of their tethers in the strong spring wind. The carp is to the Japanese mind the emblem of courage and perseverance, for he swims up the strongest current, leaping the waterfalls that oppose his progress. The baby was named by his grandfather, and will have the personal name of Hirohito, and the title Prince Michi. With this new little prince there are no polite fictions to maintain, nor conventional relationships to be established. He is the son of his father's lawful wife, as well as of his father. There is to be no breaking off of natural ties, and his own mother will nurse and care for him, a fortune that never falls to the lot of the imperial son of a mkak. If he lives, he will be a standing argument in favor of monogamy, even in noble families, and his birth bodes well for family life throughout the country. A pretty, but most shocking sight, if seen through the eyes of some of these oldfashioned attendants, is the semiannual undo kai, or exercise day of the Peeresses' School. The large playground is, for this occasion, surrounded by seats divided off to accommodate invited guests of various ranks, who spend the day watching the entertainment. In the most honorable place, surrounded by her ladiesinwaiting, sits the Empress herself, for the education of the daughters of the nobles is a matter of the liveliest interest to her and the parents and friends and teachers of the girls fill up all available seats after the school itself has been accommodated. The programme is usually a long one, occupying the greater part of the morning and afternoon, with an interval for lunch. Most of the ordinary English field gamestennis, basketball, etc.are played with skill and vigor, and in addition to these there are races of various kinds, devised to show, not simply fleetness of foot, but quickness of hand and wit as well. These races vary from year to year, as the ingenuity of the directors of the sports may be able to devise new forms of exercise. One extremely pretty contest is as follows On the playground between the startingpoint and the goal are set at equal distances four upright sticks for each runner. Four branches of cherry blossoms and four brightcolored ribbons for each contestant are laid on the ground at the startingpoint. At the signal, each girl picks up a cherry branch and a ribbon, and runs to one of the upright sticks, tying the flowers firmly thereto then she runs back for a second branch, and so on until all four have been fastened in place. The race is won by the child who first reaches the goal leaving behind her four blooming trees where before there were bare poles. This seems to be the sthetic Japanese equivalent for our prosaic potato race. Another contest is after this manner Along the course of each runner are laid at certain intervals brightcolored balls,a different color for each contestant. The object of the race is, within a certain time, to pick up all the balls and throw them into the nearly closed mouth of a great net at the far end of the grounds. The contest is not decided until the balls have been counted, when the girl who has succeeded in getting the greatest number of balls of her color into the net is declared the winner. Another and extremely pretty race, calling for great steadiness of hand and body, is the running from one end of the ground to the other with a ball balanced on a battledore. The Japanese battledore is made of light but hard wood, and is long and narrow in shape. If one had not seen it done, it would be wellnigh impossible to believe that any child could carry a ball upon it for more than a few slow steps but these children run at a smart trot, keeping the ball immovable upon its small and smooth surface. Beside the games and races, there are calisthenic exhibitions, in which great precision of motion and flexibility of body are manifested. One of the most graceful and attractive of these is the fan drill shown on this occasion, when some twenty or thirty girls, with their brightcolored dresses, long, waving sleeves, and red hakama, posture in perfect rhythm, with fans opened or closed, waving above the head, held before the face, changed from position to position, with the performers' changes of attitude, each new figure seemingly more graceful than the last. In these and many other ways the nobility of new Japan are being fitted for the new part that they have to play in the world. No wonder that the education now given, awakening the mind, toughening the body, arousing ambition and individuality, is regarded by many of the ultraconservatives as a dangerous innovation, and one likely to bring the nobility down to the level of the common people. Whether this new education is better or worse than the old, we can hardly tell as yet, but there are no signs of the immediate breakdown of the old spirit of the nobility, and the better health and stronger characters of the young women who have received the modern training promise much for the next generation.  While this was entirely true in , it is interesting to observe that after ten years of commercial and industrial progress there are signs that the embroidered kimono is coming back into fashion. With the growth of large fortunes and of luxury that has marked the past decade, has come the custom of providing wedding garments as magnificently embroidered as were the robes of the daimis' ladies, and even the montsuki or ceremonial dress, which was severely plain in , now has little delicate embroidery about the bottom. It will not be surprising if some day, when the present growing commercial and industrial enterprise has reaped a more abundant harvest, Japan blooms forth again in the beautiful garments that went out of fashion when the great political upheaval cut off the revenues of the old nobility. At each encroachment of the enemy those of the population who could not find refuge at once within the inner defenses were driven to choose between surrender and selfinflicted death. The unconquerable samurai spirit flamed out in the choice of hundreds of women and children as well as men, and whole families were wiped out of existence at once, the little ones, who were too young to understand the proper method of harakiri, kneeling calmly with bowed heads for the deathstroke from father or brother which should free them from the disgrace of defeat. That the spirit of the samurai women is still a living force in Japan, no one can doubt who listens to the stories of what the women did and bore in the JapanChina war of . The old selfsacrifice and devotion showed itself throughout the country in deeds of real, if sometimes mistaken, heroism. Husbands, sons, and brothers were sent out to danger and death with smiles and cheerful words, by women dependent upon them for everything in a way that can hardly be understood by Americans. Even tears of grief for the dear ones offered in the country's cause were suppressed as disloyal, and women learned with unmoved countenances of the death of those they loved best, and found the courage to express, in the first shock of bereavement, their sense of the honor conferred on the family by the death of one of its members in the cause of his country. A few incidents quoted from an article by Miss Um Tsuda that appeared in the New York 'Independent' in  will give my readers an idea of the forms that this devotion assumed  'One instance comes into my mind of an old lady who sent out cheerfully and with a smiling face her young and only son, the sole stay of her old age. Left a widow while young, she had lived a life of much sorrow and trouble, and had with almost superhuman efforts managed to give her son an education that would start him in life. It was only a few years ago that the son had begun to help in the family support, and to be able to repay to the mother her tender care of him. Her pride in her son and his young wife was a pleasure to see, and the little home they had together seemed a safe haven for the coming years of old age. Now, in a moment all this was changed,the son must start off for the wars. Yet not for one instant was a cloud seen on the mother's face, as, smilingly and cheerfully, she assisted in the preparations for his departure. Not in public or in secret did one sigh or regret escape her not even to the son did a word of anxiety pass her lips. Her face, beaming with joy, looked with pride on the manly strength of the young soldier as he started to fight for his country and win honor for himself,honor which would surely come to him whether he lived or died. 'Another woman who is well on in years, and whose eldest son is a naval officer, furnishes an interesting example of mother love. Though never showing her anxiety on his account, or grief at his danger, she has taken upon herself, in spite of her old age and by no means vigorous health, to go on foot every morning to one of the temples and worship there before daylight, in order to propitiate the gods, that they may protect her son. She arises at four o'clock in the morning on the coldest of cold days, washes and purifies herself with icecold water, and then starts out before daylight for her threemile walk to the temple. Thus through wind and storm and cold have the faith and love of this old woman upheld her, and one is happy to add that so far her prayers have been heard and no harm has come to the one she has called on her gods to protect. 'A touching story is told of the aged mother of Sakamoto, commander of the warship Akagi, who was killed in the thickest of the fight during the great naval battle of the Yellow Sea. Commander Sakamoto left an aged mother, a wife, and three children. As soon as his death was officially ascertained, a messenger was dispatched from the naval department to convey the sad tidings to his family. The communication was made duly to his wife, and before the messenger had left the house it reached the ears of the old mother, who, tottering into the room where the officer was, saluted and greeted him duly, and then, with dry eyes and a clear voice, said, 'So it seems by your tidings that my son has been of some service this time.' 'One reads pathetic stories in the newspapers daily in connection with the war. Not long ago a sad account was given of a young woman, just past her twentieth year, and only recently married to an army officer. She had belonged by birth to a military family, and, as befitted the wife and daughter of a soldier, she resolved, on hearing of the death of her husband, that she would not survive him, but would follow him to the great unknown. Sending away her servant on some excuse, she remained alone in her home, which she put into perfect order. Then she arranged all her papers, wrote a number of letters, and made her last preparations for death. She dressed herself in full ceremonial dress as she had been dressed for her bridal, and seated herself before a large portrait of her husband. Then, with a short dirk, such as is owned by every samurai woman, she stabbed herself. In her last letters she gives as the reason for her death that, having no ties in the world, she would not survive her husband, but wished to remain faithful to him in death as she had been in life. 'Many such stories might be cited, but enough has been given to show the spirit that exists in Japan. With such women and such teachings in their homes, can it be wondered at that Japan is a brave nation, and that her soldiers are winning battles? Certainly some of the honor and credit must be given to these wives and mothers scattered throughout Japan, who are surely, in some cases, the inspirers of that courage and spirit which is just now surprising the world.' Much surprise is evinced by foreigners visiting Japan at the lack of taste shown by the Japanese in the imitation of foreign styles. And yet, for these same foreigners, who condemn so patronizingly the Japanese lack of taste in foreign things, the Japanese manufacture pottery, fans, scrolls, screens, etc., that are most excruciating to their sense of beauty, and export them to markets in which they find a ready sale, their manufacturers wondering, the while, why foreigners want such ugly things. The fact is that neither civilization has as yet come into any understanding of the other's sthetic side, and the sense of beauty of the one is a sealed book to the other. The Japanese nation, in its efforts to adopt foreign ways, has been, up to the present time, blindly imitating, with little or no comprehension of underlying principles. As a result there is an absolute crudeness in foreign things as attempted in Japan that grates on the nerves of travelers fresh from the best to be found in Europe or America.  There are signs, however, that the stage of imitation is past and that adaptation has begun. Here and there in Tky may be seen buildings in which the solidity of foreign architecture has been grafted upon the Japanese type. Ten years ago, Japanese men who adopted foreign dress went about in misfitting garments, soiled linen, untidy shoes, and hats that had been discarded by the civilization for which they were made many seasons before they reached Japan. They wore Turkish towels about their necks and red blankets over their shoulders at the desire of unscrupulous importers, who persuaded them that towels for neckcloths and blankets for overcoats were the latest styles of London and Paris. Today one sees no such eccentricities of costume in the purely Japanese city of Tky. Men who wear foreign dress wear it made correctly in every particular by Japanese tailors, shoemakers, and hatters. The standard has been attained, for men at least, and in foreign dress as well as in Japanese, the natural good taste of the people has begun to assert itself. So it will be in time with other new things adopted. As no single element of the Chinese civilization secured a permanent footing in Japan except such as could be adapted, not only to the national life, but to the national taste as well, so it will be with European things. All things that are adopted will be adapted, and whatever is adapted is likely in time to be improved and made more beautiful by the national instinct for beauty. During the transition, enormities are omitted and monstrosities are constructed, but when the standard is at last attained, we may expect that the genius of the race will triumph over the difficulties that it is now encountering. Individual Japanese who have lived long in Europe or America show the same nice discrimination in regard to foreign things that they do in their Japanese surroundings, and are rarely at fault in their taste. What is true of the individual now will be true of the nation when European standards have become common property. In the remote mountain regions, where the majesty and uncertainty of the great natural forces impress themselves constantly upon the minds of the peasantry, one finds a simple nature worship, and a desire to propitiate all the unseen powers, that is not so evident in the daily life of the dwellers in more populous and progressive parts of the country. As the mountains close in about the road that runs up from the plains below, a great stone, on which is deeply carved 'To the God of the Mountains,' calls the attention of the traveler to the fact that the supernatural is a recognized power among the mountaineers. In such regions one finds the stated offerings at the shrines which stand near the wayside kept constantly renewed. Nearly every house is protected by some slip of paper pasted above the door, a charm obtained by toilsome pilgrimage to some noted temple. Behind or near the village temple one may see rude wigwams of straw, each sheltering a gohei,witnesses to the vows of devotees who hope, sooner or later, to erect small wooden shrines and so win favor from the unknown rulers of human destinies. In places where packhorses form a large part of the wealth of the people, stones to the horses' spirits are erected, and the halters of all the horses that die are left upon these stones. Prayers, too, are offered to the guardian spirits of the living horses, before stones on which are carved sometimes the image of a horse bearing a gohei on his back, sometimes a rough figure of the horseheaded Kwannon. To such stones or shrines are brought horses suffering from sickness of any kind, and the hand is rubbed first on the stone and then on the part of the animal supposed to be affected. In one district, when a horse epidemic broke out, its rapid spread was attributed by the authorities to this custom, and all persons were warned of the danger, with what effect in breaking up the ancient habit the newspaper reports failed to say. It is in such regions as this that the oni and the tengu still live in the everyday thought of the people it is here, too, that the old custom of offering flowers and fruit to the spirits of the dead at the midsummer festival is most conscientiously kept up. All possible spirits are included in these offerings, so that even by the roadside one finds bunches of flowers set up in the clefts of the rock, to the spirits of travelers who have died on the way. In one little mountain resort, far from the railroad but in touch with the outside world through the hundreds of visitors that seek its hot baths during the summer, it was my good fortune to spend a few weeks recently. Our walks were rather limited in variety, as the village lay in an almost inaccessible mountain valley through which a carefully engineered road ran along the edge of the river gorge. About half a mile out of the village, close to the road and overhanging the waters of the river at a spot where the rocks were so worn and carved by the rushing torrent as to have gained the appropriate title of the 'Screen Rocks,' was a little shop and a teahouse. It was a pleasant restingplace after a warm and dusty walk, and almost daily we would halt there for a cup of tea and a slice of yokan, or bean marmalade, before returning to our rooms in the hotel. The managers of the place were an old man and his wife, who divided their labor between the shop and the teahouse. The old man was an artist in roots. His life was devoted to searching out grotesquely shaped roots on the forestcovered hills, and whittling, turning, and trimming them into the semblance of animal or human forms. Tengu and goblins, longlegged birds and shortlegged beasts, all manner of weird products of his imagination and his handiwork, peopled the interior of the little shop, and he was always ready to welcome us and show us his latest work, with the pride of an artist in his masterpiece. His wife, a cheery old woman, attended to the teahouse, and as soon as we had seated ourselves, bustled about to bring us cool water from the spring that bubbled out of the rocks across the road, and to set before us the tiny cups of strawcolored tea and the delicious slices of yokan which we soon learned was the specialty of the place. She was glad to have a little gossip as we sipped and nibbled, telling us many interesting bits of folklore about the immediate locality. It was from her that we learned that the pinnacle of rock that dominated the village was built by tengu long ago, though now they were all gone from the woods, for she had looked for them often at night when she went out to shut the house, but she had never seen one,and even the monkeys were becoming scarce. She it was, too, who sent us to look for the mysterious draught of cold air that crossed the road near the base of the great rock, colder on hot days than on cool ones, and at all times astonishing,the 'Tengu's Wind Hole.' We learned through her about the snakes to be found in the woods, and of the wonderful tonic virtues of the mamushi (the one poisonous snake of Japan), if caught and bottled with a sufficient quantity of sak. The sak may be renewed again and again, and the longer the snake has been bottled the more medicinal does it become, so that one mamushi may, if used perseveringly, medicate several casks of sak. We had opportunity later to verify her statements, for we found at a small grocery store, where we stopped to add a few delicacies to our somewhat scanty bill of fare, two snakes, neatly coiled in quart bottles and pickled in sak, one of which could be obtained for the sum of seventyfive sen, though the other, who in his rage at being bottled had buried his fangs in his own body, commanded a higher price because of his courage. We did not feel in need of a tonic that day, so left the mamushi on the grocery shelves, but it is probable that their disintegrating remains are being industriously quaffed today by some elderly Japanese whose failing strength demands an unfailing remedy. When our little friend had learned of our interest in snakes, she was on the lookout for snake stories of all kinds. One day she stopped us as we came by rather later than usual, hurrying home before a threatening shower, to tell us that we ought to have come a little sooner, for the great black snake who was the messenger of the god that lived on the mountain had just been by, and we might have been interested to see him. She had seen him before, herself, so he was no novelty to her, but she was sure that the matter would interest us. Poor little old lady, with her kindly face and pleasant ways, and her friendly cracked voice. Her firm belief in all the uncanny and supernatural things that wiser people have outgrown brought us face to face with the childhood of our race, and drew us into sympathy with a phase of culture in which all nature is wrapped in inscrutable mystery. Each year that passes sees a few more stores adopting the habit of fixed prices, not to be altered by haggling.  On another occasion the good offices of the fortuneteller were sought concerning a marriage, and the powerful arranger of human destinies discovered that though everything else was favorable, the bride contracted for was to come from a quarter quite opposed to the luck of the bridegroom. This was no laughing matter, as the bride was of a noble family and the breaking of the engagement would be attended with much talk and trouble on both sides but, on the other hand, the family of the bridegroom dared not face the danger so mysteriously prophesied by the fortuneteller. In this predicament, there was nothing to do but to pull the wool over the eyes of the gods as best they might. For this purpose the bride with all her belongings was sent the day before the wedding from her father's house to that of an uncle living in another part of the city, and on the morning of the weddingday she came to her husband from a quarter quite favorable to his fortunes. It seems quite probable that the gods were taken in by this somewhat transparent subterfuge, for no serious evil has befallen the young couple in three years of married life.  To the American mind this method of terminating relations is always irritating and frequently embarrassing, but in Japan any discomfort is to be endured rather than the slightest suspicion of bad manners. If the foreign visitor is trying to learn to be a good Japanese, she must submit patiently when the servant solemnly engaged fails to appear at the appointed hour, sending a letter instead to say that she is ill or when the woman upon whom she is depending to travel with her the next day to the country receives a telegram calling her to the bedside of a mythical son, and departs, bag and baggage, at a moment's notice, leaving her quondam mistress to shift for herself as best she may. Among the many changes that have come over Japan in the transition from feudalism to the conditions of modern life, there is none that Japanese ladies regard with greater regret than the change in the servant question. As the years go by and new employments open to women, it becomes increasingly difficult to engage and keep servants of the oldtime, faithful, intelligent sort. Notwithstanding increased pay, and the still existing conditions of considerate treatment, comfortable homes, and light work, it is hard to fill places vacated, even in noble households and there is almost as much shaking of heads and despondent talk over the servant question in Japan today as there is in America. It is interesting to note that it is to the quickness and courage of a jinrikisha man who interposed between him and his wouldbe assassin that the present Czar of Russia owes his escape from death at Otsu, near Kyt, in .  Gohei, a piece of white paper, cut and folded in a peculiar manner, one of the sacred symbols of the Shint faith.  Tengu, a winged, longnosed or beakmouthed monster, supposed to inhabit the mountain regions of Japan. It was from a tengu that Yoshitsune, one of the greatest of Japanese heroes, learned to fence, and so became a swordsman of almost miraculous expertness. Oni, a demon or goblin.  My task is ended. One half of Japan, with its virtues and its frailties, its privileges and its wrongs, has been brought, so far as my pen can bring it, within the knowledge of the American public. If, through this work, one person setting forth for the Land of the Rising Sun goes better prepared to comprehend the thoughts, the needs, and the virtues of the noble, gentle, selfsacrificing women who make up one half the population of the Island Empire, my labor will not have been in vain.  Except where index entries and the body of the text did not match, irregularities in hyphenation (e.g. kwankoba and kwankoba), italics, and spellings (e.g. vendors and venders) have not been changed. Except where noted below, inconsistent accents (e.g. jroya vs. jrya) have been retained. The following corrections and changes were made
 Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction since, from the very gradual character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire. And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in which progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are subjected to very different handling from that which the indulgence or credulity of former ages could allow. Mere statements are jealously watched, and the motives of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis of his history, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and troublesome test and it is by this troublesome standard that a large portion of historical evidence is sifted. Consistency is no less pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In brief, to write a history, we must know more than mere facts. Human nature, viewed under an induction of extended experience, is the best help to the criticism of human history. Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard which human experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished. To form correct views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a great wholewe must measure them by their relation to the mass of beings by whom they are surrounded, and, in contemplating the incidents in their lives or condition which tradition has handed down to us, we must rather consider the general bearing of the whole narrative, than the respective probability of its details. It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere have, perhaps, contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the dramatis person in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He appears as the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the writers who have handed them down. When we have read Plato or Xenophon, we think we know something of Socrates when we have fairly read and examined both, we feel convinced that we are something worse than ignorant. It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were too much for our belief. This systemwhich has often comforted the religious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of Strauss for those of the New Testamenthas been of incalculable value to the historical theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in that of Romulus. To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two scholars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in the goodnatured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian has idealizedNuma Pompilius. Scepticism has attained its culminating point with respect to Homer, and the state of our Homeric knowledge may be described as a free permission to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all written tradition, concerning the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey. What few authorities exist on the subject, are summarily dismissed, although the arguments appear to run in a circle. 'This cannot be true, because it is not true and, that is not true, because it cannot be true. Such seems to be the style, in which testimony upon testimony, statement upon statement, is consigned to denial and oblivion. It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of Homer are partly forgeries, partly freaks of ingenuity and imagination, in which truth is the requisite most wanting. Before taking a brief review of the Homeric theory in its present conditions, some notice must be taken of the treatise on the Life of Homer which has been attributed to Herodotus. According to this document, the city of Cum in olia, was, at an early period, the seat of frequent immigrations from various parts of Greece. Among the immigrants was Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes. Although poor, he married, and the result of the union was a girl named Crithes. The girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this maiden that we 'are indebted for so much happiness. Homer was the first fruit of her juvenile frailty, and received the name of Melesigenes, from having been born near the river Meles, in Botia, whither Crithes had been transported in order to save her reputation. 'At this time, continues our narrative, 'there lived at Smyrna a man named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married, engaged Crithes to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully brought up. They were married careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed. Melesigenes carried on his adopted father's school with great success, exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna, but also of the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these visitors, one Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and intelligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes to close his school, and accompany him on his travels. He promised not only to pay his expenses, but to furnish him with a further stipend, urging, that, 'While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own eyes the countries and cities which might hereafter be the subjects of his discourses. Melesigenes consented, and set out with his patron, 'examining all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and informing himself of everything by interrogating those whom he met. We may also suppose, that he wrote memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of preservation. Having set sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached Ithaca. Here Melesigenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, became much worse, and Mentes, who was about to leave for Leucadia, left him to the medical superintendence of a friend of his, named Mentor, the son of Alcinor. Under his hospitable and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly became acquainted with the legends respecting Ulysses, which afterwards formed the subject of the Odyssey. The inhabitants of Ithaca assert, that it was here that Melesigenes became blind, but the Colophomans make their city the seat of that misfortune. He then returned to Smyrna, where he applied himself to the study of poetry. But poverty soon drove him to Cum. Having passed over the Herman plain, he arrived at Neon Teichos, the New Wall, a colony of Cum. Here his misfortunes and poetical talent gained him the friendship of one Tychias, an armourer. 'And up to my time, continued the author, 'the inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a recitation of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot. Here also a poplar grew, which they said had sprung up ever since Melesigenes arrived. But poverty still drove him on, and he went by way of Larissa, as being the most convenient road. Here, the Cumans say, he composed an epitaph on Gordius, king of Phrygia, which has however, and with greater probability, been attributed to Cleobulus of Lindus. Arrived at Cum, he frequented the converzationes of the old men, and delighted all by the charms of his poetry. Encouraged by this favourable reception, he declared that, if they would allow him a public maintenance, he would render their city most gloriously renowned. They avowed their willingness to support him in the measure he proposed, and procured him an audience in the council. Having made the speech, with the purport of which our author has forgotten to acquaint us, he retired, and left them to debate respecting the answer to be given to his proposal. The greater part of the assembly seemed favourable to the poet's demand, but one man observed that 'if they were to feed Homers, they would be encumbered with a multitude of useless people. 'From this circumstance, says the writer, 'Melesigenes acquired the name of Homer, for the Cumans call blind men Homers. With a love of economy, which shows how similar the world has always been in its treatment of literary men, the pension was denied, and the poet vented his disappointment in a wish that Cuma might never produce a poet capable of giving it renown and glory. At Phoca, Homer was destined to experience another literary distress. One Thestorides, who aimed at the reputation of poetical genius, kept Homer in his own house, and allowed him a pittance, on condition of the verses of the poet passing in his name. Having collected sufficient poetry to be profitable, Thestorides, like some wouldbeliterary publishers, neglected the man whose brains he had sucked, and left him. At his departure, Homer is said to have observed 'O Thestorides, of the many things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more unintelligible than the human heart. Homer continued his career of difficulty and distress, until some Chian merchants, struck by the similarity of the verses they heard him recite, acquainted him with the fact that Thestorides was pursuing a profitable livelihood by the recital of the very same poems. This at once determined him to set out for Chios. No vessel happened then to be setting sail thither, but he found one ready to start for Erythr, a town of Ionia, which faces that island, and he prevailed upon the seamen to allow him to accompany them. Having embarked, he invoked a favourable wind, and prayed that he might be able to expose the imposture of Thestorides, who, by his breach of hospitality, had drawn down the wrath of Jove the Hospitable. At Erythr, Homer fortunately met with a person who had known him in Phoca, by whose assistance he at length, after some difficulty, reached the little hamlet of Pithys. Here he met with an adventure, which we will continue in the words of our author. 'Having set out from Pithys, Homer went on, attracted by the cries of some goats that were pasturing. The dogs barked on his approach, and he cried out. Glaucus (for that was the name of the goatherd) heard his voice, ran up quickly, called off his dogs, and drove them away from Homer. For some time he stood wondering how a blind man should have reached such a place alone, and what could be his design in coming. He then went up to him, and inquired who he was, and how he had come to desolate places and untrodden spots, and of what he stood in need. Homer, by recounting to him the whole history of his misfortunes, moved him with compassion and he took him, and led him to his cot, and having lit a fire, bade him sup. 'The dogs, instead of eating, kept barking at the stranger, according to their usual habit. Whereupon Homer addressed Glaucus thus O Glaucus, my friend, prythee attend to my behest. First give the dogs their supper at the doors of the hut for so it is better, since, whilst they watch, nor thief nor wild beast will approach the fold. Glaucus was pleased with the advice, and marvelled at its author. Having finished supper, they banqueted afresh on conversation, Homer narrating his wanderings, and telling of the cities he had visited. At length they retired to rest but on the following morning, Glaucus resolved to go to his master, and acquaint him with his meeting with Homer. Having left the goats in charge of a fellowservant, he left Homer at home, promising to return quickly. Having arrived at Bolissus, a place near the farm, and finding his mate, he told him the whole story respecting Homer and his journey. He paid little attention to what he said, and blamed Glaucus for his stupidity in taking in and feeding maimed and enfeebled persons. However, he bade him bring the stranger to him. Glaucus told Homer what had taken place, and bade him follow him, assuring him that good fortune would be the result. Conversation soon showed that the stranger was a man of much cleverness and general knowledge, and the Chian persuaded him to remain, and to undertake the charge of his children. Besides the satisfaction of driving the impostor Thestorides from the island, Homer enjoyed considerable success as a teacher. In the town of Chios he established a school where he taught the precepts of poetry. 'To this day, says Chandler, 'the most curious remaining is that which has been named, without reason, the School of Homer. It is on the coast, at some distance from the city, northward, and appears to have been an open temple of Cybele, formed on the top of a rock. The shape is oval, and in the centre is the image of the goddess, the head and an arm wanting. She is represented, as usual, sitting. The chair has a lion carved on each side, and on the back. The area is bounded by a low rim, or seat, and about five yards over. The whole is hewn out of the mountain, is rude, indistinct, and probably of the most remote antiquity. So successful was this school, that Homer realised a considerable fortune. He married, and had two daughters, one of whom died single, the other married a Chian. The following passage betrays the same tendency to connect the personages of the poems with the history of the poet, which has already been mentioned 'In his poetical compositions Homer displays great gratitude towards Mentor of Ithaca, in the Odyssey, whose name he has inserted in his poem as the companion of Ulysses, in return for the care taken of him when afflicted with blindness. He also testifies his gratitude to Phemius, who had given him both sustenance and instruction. His celebrity continued to increase, and many persons advised him to visit Greece, whither his reputation had now extended. Having, it is said, made some additions to his poems calculated to please the vanity of the Athenians, of whose city he had hitherto made no mention, he sent out for Samos. Here being recognized by a Samian, who had met with him in Chios, he was handsomely received, and invited to join in celebrating the Apaturian festival. He recited some verses, which gave great satisfaction, and by singing the Eiresione at the New Moon festivals, he earned a subsistence, visiting the houses of the rich, with whose children he was very popular. In the spring he sailed for Athens, and arrived at the island of Ios, now Ino, where he fell extremely ill, and died. It is said that his death arose from vexation, at not having been able to unravel an enigma proposed by some fishermen's children. Such is, in brief, the substance of the earliest life of Homer we possess, and so broad are the evidences of its historical worthlessness, that it is scarcely necessary to point them out in detail. Let us now consider some of the opinions to which a persevering, patient, and learnedbut by no means consistentseries of investigations has led. In doing so, I profess to bring forward statements, not to vouch for their reasonableness or probability. 'Homer appeared. The history of this poet and his works is lost in doubtful obscurity, as is the history of many of the first minds who have done honour to humanity, because they rose amidst darkness. The majestic stream of his song, blessing and fertilizing, flows like the Nile, through many lands and nations and, like the sources of the Nile, its fountains will ever remain concealed. Such are the words in which one of the most judicious German critics has eloquently described the uncertainty in which the whole of the Homeric question is involved. With no less truth and feeling he proceeds 'It seems here of chief importance to expect no more than the nature of things makes possible. If the period of tradition in history is the region of twilight, we should not expect in it perfect light. The creations of genius always seem like miracles, because they are, for the most part, created far out of the reach of observation. If we were in possession of all the historical testimonies, we never could wholly explain the origin of the Iliad and the Odyssey for their origin, in all essential points, must have remained the secret of the poet. From this criticism, which shows as much insight into the depths of human nature as into the minute wiredrawings of scholastic investigation, let us pass on to the main question at issue. Was Homer an individual? or were the Iliad and Odyssey the result of an ingenious arrangement of fragments by earlier poets? Well has Landor remarked 'Some tell us there were twenty Homers some deny that there was ever one. It were idle and foolish to shake the contents of a vase, in order to let them settle at last. We are perpetually labouring to destroy our delights, our composure, our devotion to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know what is good for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our admiration of good. No man living venerates Homer more than I do. But, greatly as we admire the generous enthusiasm which rests contented with the poetry on which its best impulses had been nurtured and fostered, without seeking to destroy the vividness of first impressions by minute analysisour editorial office compels us to give some attention to the doubts and difficulties with which the Homeric question is beset, and to entreat our reader, for a brief period, to prefer his judgment to his imagination, and to condescend to dry details. Before, however, entering into particulars respecting the question of this unity of the Homeric poems, (at least of the Iliad,) I must express my sympathy with the sentiments expressed in the following remarks 'We cannot but think the universal admiration of its unity by the better, the poetic age of Greece, almost conclusive testimony to its original composition. It was not till the age of the grammarians that its primitive integrity was called in question nor is it injustice to assert, that the minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not the best qualification for the profound feeling, the comprehensive conception of an harmonious whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be no judge of the symmetry of the human frame and we would take the opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on the proportions and general beauty of a form, rather than that of Mr. Brodie or Sir Astley Cooper. 'There is some truth, though some malicious exaggeration, in the lines of Pope. ''The critic eyethat microscope of wit Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit, How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, The body's harmony, the beaming soul, Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse, shall see, When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.' Long was the time which elapsed before any one dreamt of questioning the unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. The grave and cautious Thucydides quoted without hesitation the Hymn to Apollo, the authenticity of which has been already disclaimed by modern critics. Longinus, in an oft quoted passage, merely expressed an opinion touching the comparative inferiority of the Odyssey to the Iliad, and, among a mass of ancient authors, whose very names it would be tedious to detail, no suspicion of the personal nonexistence of Homer ever arose. So far, the voice of antiquity seems to be in favour of our early ideas on the subject let us now see what are the discoveries to which more modern investigations lay claim. At the end of the seventeenth century, doubts had begun to awaken on the subject, and we find Bentley remarking that 'Homer wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself, for small comings and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment. These loose songs were not collected together, in the form of an epic poem, till about Peisistratus' time, about five hundred years after. Two French writersHedelin and Perraultavowed a similar scepticism on the subject but it is in the 'Scienza Nuova of Battista Vico, that we first meet with the germ of the theory, subsequently defended by Wolf with so much learning and acuteness. Indeed, it is with the Wolfian theory that we have chiefly to deal, and with the following bold hypothesis, which we will detail in the words of Grote 'Half a century ago, the acute and valuable Prolegomena of F. A. Wolf, turning to account the Venetian Scholia, which had then been recently published, first opened philosophical discussion as to the history of the Homeric text. A considerable part of that dissertation (though by no means the whole) is employed in vindicating the position, previously announced by Bentley, amongst others, that the separate constituent portions of the Iliad and Odyssey had not been cemented together into any compact body and unchangeable order, until the days of Peisistratus, in the sixth century before Christ. As a step towards that conclusion, Wolf maintained that no written copies of either poem could be shown to have existed during the earlier times, to which their composition is referred and that without writing, neither the perfect symmetry of so complicated a work could have been originally conceived by any poet, nor, if realized by him, transmitted with assurance to posterity. The absence of easy and convenient writing, such as must be indispensably supposed for long manuscripts, among the early Greeks, was thus one of the points in Wolf's case against the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey. By Nitzsch, and other leading opponents of Wolf, the connection of the one with the other seems to have been accepted as he originally put it and it has been considered incumbent on those who defended the ancient aggregate character of the Iliad and Odyssey, to maintain that they were written poems from the beginning. 'To me it appears, that the architectonic functions ascribed by Wolf to Peisistratus and his associates, in reference to the Homeric poems, are nowise admissible. But much would undoubtedly be gained towards that view of the question, if it could be shown, that, in order to controvert it, we were driven to the necessity of admitting long written poems, in the ninth century before the Christian ra. Few things, in my opinion, can be more improbable and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian hypothesis, admits this no less than Wolf himself. The traces of writing in Greece, even in the seventh century before the Christian ra, are exceedingly trifling. We have no remaining inscription earlier than the fortieth Olympiad, and the early inscriptions are rude and unskilfully executed nor can we even assure ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonids of Amorgus, Kallinus, Tyrtus, Xanthus, and the other early elegiac and lyric poets, committed their compositions to writing, or at what time the practice of doing so became familiar. The first positive ground which authorizes us to presume the existence of a manuscript of Homer, is in the famous ordinance of Soln, with regard to the rhapsodies at the Panathena but for what length of time previously manuscripts had existed, we are unable to say. 'Those who maintain the Homeric poems to have been written from the beginning, rest their case, not upon positive proofs, nor yet upon the existing habits of society with regard to poetryfor they admit generally that the Iliad and Odyssey were not read, but recited and heard,but upon the supposed necessity that there must have been manuscripts to ensure the preservation of the poemsthe unassisted memory of reciters being neither sufficient nor trustworthy. But here we only escape a smaller difficulty by running into a greater for the existence of trained bards, gifted with extraordinary memory, is far less astonishing than that of long manuscripts, in an age essentially nonreading and nonwriting, and when even suitable instruments and materials for the process are not obvious. Moreover, there is a strong positive reason for believing that the bard was under no necessity of refreshing his memory by consulting a manuscript for if such had been the fact, blindness would have been a disqualification for the profession, which we know that it was not, as well from the example of Demodokus, in the Odyssey, as from that of the blind bard of Chios, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as well as the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer himself. The author of that hymn, be he who he may, could never have described a blind man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he had been conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by constant reference to the manuscript in his chest. The loss of the digamma, that crux of critics, that quicksand upon which even the acumen of Bentley was shipwrecked, seems to prove beyond a doubt, that the pronunciation of the Greek language had undergone a considerable change. Now it is certainly difficult to suppose that the Homeric poems could have suffered by this change, had written copies been preserved. If Chaucer's poetry, for instance, had not been written, it could only have come down to us in a softened form, more like the effeminate version of Dryden, than the rough, quaint, noble original. 'At what period, continues Grote, 'these poems, or indeed any other Greek poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture, though there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of Soln. If, in the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any more determinate period, the question at once suggests itself, What were the purposes which, in that state of society, a manuscript at its first commencement must have been intended to answer? For whom was a written Iliad necessary? Not for the rhapsodes for with them it was not only planted in the memory, but also interwoven with the feelings, and conceived in conjunction with all those flexions and intonations of voice, pauses, and other oral artifices which were required for emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript could never reproduce. Not for the general publicthey were accustomed to receive it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a solemn and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad would be suitable would be a select few studious and curious men a class of readers capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the written words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the impression communicated by the reciter. Incredible as the statement may seem in an age like the present, there is in all early societies, and there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed. If we could discover at what time such a class first began to be formed, we should be able to make a guess at the time when the old epic poems were first committed to writing. Now the period which may with the greatest probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the formation even of the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle of the seventh century before the Christian ra (B.C.  to B.C. ), the age of Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonids of Amorgus, c. I ground this supposition on the change then operated in the character and tendencies of Grecian poetry and musicthe elegiac and the iambic measures having been introduced as rivals to the primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions having been transferred from the epical past to the affairs of present and real life. Such a change was important at a time when poetry was the only known mode of publication (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable, yet the nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking at the old epical treasures of the people as well as a thirst for new poetical effect and the men who stood forward in it, may well be considered as desirous to study, and competent to criticize, from their own individual point of view, the written words of the Homeric rhapsodies, just as we are told that Kallinus both noticed and eulogized the Thebas as the production of Homer. There seems, therefore, ground for conjecturing that (for the use of this newlyformed and important, but very narrow class), manuscripts of the Homeric poems and other old epics,the Thebas and the Cypria, as well as the Iliad and the Odyssey,began to be compiled towards the middle of the seventh century (B.C. ) and the opening of Egypt to Grecian commerce, which took place about the same period, would furnish increased facilities for obtaining the requisite papyrus to write upon. A reading class, when once formed, would doubtless slowly increase, and the number of manuscripts along with it so that before the time of Soln, fifty years afterwards, both readers and manuscripts, though still comparatively few, might have attained a certain recognized authority, and formed a tribunal of reference against the carelessness of individual rhapsodes. But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of the credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following observations 'There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion, throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast into its present stately and harmonious form by the directions of the Athenian ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the bright period of Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited little more than the fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus, Anacreon, and Simonids were employed in the noble task of compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much must have been done to arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is almost incredible, that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should not remain. Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies which no doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among the heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in reducing the Homeric language to its primitive form however, finally, the Attic dialect may not have assumed all its more marked and distinguishing characteristicsstill it is difficult to suppose that the language, particularly in the joinings and transitions, and connecting parts, should not more clearly betray the incongruity between the more ancient and modern forms of expression. It is not quite in character with such a period to imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an imperfect poem in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott has done in his continuation of Sir Tristram. 'If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of Athenian compilation are discoverable in the language of the poems, the total absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps no less worthy of observation. In later, and it may fairly be suspected in earlier times, the Athenians were more than ordinarily jealous of the fame of their ancestors. But, amid all the traditions of the glories of early Greece embodied in the Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and insignificant part. Even the few passages which relate to their ancestors, Mr. Knight suspects to be interpolations. It is possible, indeed, that in its leading outline, the Iliad may be true to historic fact, that in the great maritime expedition of western Greece against the rival and halfkindred empire of the Laomedontiad, the chieftain of Thessaly, from his valour and the number of his forces, may have been the most important ally of the Peloponnesian sovereign the preeminent value of the ancient poetry on the Trojan war may thus have forced the national feeling of the Athenians to yield to their taste. The songs which spoke of their own great ancestor were, no doubt, of far inferior sublimity and popularity, or, at first sight, a Theseid would have been much more likely to have emanated from an Athenian synod of compilers of ancient song, than an Achilleid or an Olysseid. Could France have given birth to a Tasso, Tancred would have been the hero of the Jerusalem. If, however, the Homeric ballads, as they are sometimes called, which related the wrath of Achilles, with all its direful consequences, were so far superior to the rest of the poetic cycle, as to admit no rivalry,it is still surprising, that throughout the whole poem the callida junctura should never betray the workmanship of an Athenian hand, and that the national spirit of a race, who have at a later period not inaptly been compared to our self admiring neighbours, the French, should submit with lofty self denial to the almost total exclusion of their own ancestorsor, at least, to the questionable dignity of only having produced a leader tolerably skilled in the military tactics of his age. To return to the Wolfian theory. While it is to be confessed, that Wolf's objections to the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey have never been wholly got over, we cannot help discovering that they have failed to enlighten us as to any substantial point, and that the difficulties with which the whole subject is beset, are rather augmented than otherwise, if we admit his hypothesis. Nor is Lachmann's modification of his theory any better. He divides the first twentytwo books of the Iliad into sixteen different songs, and treats as ridiculous the belief that their amalgamation into one regular poem belongs to a period earlier than the age of Peisistratus. This, as Grote observes, 'explains the gaps and contradictions in the narrative, but it explains nothing else. Moreover, we find no contradictions warranting this belief, and the socalled sixteen poets concur in getting rid of the following leading men in the first battle after the secession of Achilles Elphenor, chief of the Eubans Tlepolemus, of the Rhodians Pandarus, of the Lycians Odius, of the Halizonians Pirous and Acamas, of the Thracians. None of these heroes again make their appearance, and we can but agree with Colonel Mure, that 'it seems strange that any number of independent poets should have so harmoniously dispensed with the services of all six in the sequel. The discrepancy, by which Pylmenes, who is represented as dead in the fifth book, weeps at his son's funeral in the thirteenth, can only be regarded as the result of an interpolation. Grote, although not very distinct in stating his own opinions on the subject, has done much to clearly show the incongruity of the Wolfian theory, and of Lachmann's modifications with the character of Peisistratus. But he has also shown, and we think with equal success, that the two questions relative to the primitive unity of these poems, or, supposing that impossible, the unison of these parts by Peisistratus, and not before his time, are essentially distinct. In short, 'a man may believe the Iliad to have been put together out of preexisting songs, without recognising the age of Peisistratus as the period of its first compilation. The friends or literary employs of Peisistratus must have found an Iliad that was already ancient, and the silence of the Alexandrine critics respecting the Peisistratic 'recension, goes far to prove, that, among the numerous manuscripts they examined, this was either wanting, or thought unworthy of attention. 'Moreover, he continues, 'the whole tenor of the poems themselves confirms what is here remarked. There is nothing, either in the Iliad or Odyssey, which savours of modernism, applying that term to the age of Peisistratusnothing which brings to our view the alterations brought about by two centuries, in the Greek language, the coined money, the habits of writing and reading, the despotisms and republican governments, the close military array, the improved construction of ships, the Amphiktyonic convocations, the mutual frequentation of religious festivals, the Oriental and Egyptian veins of religion, c., familiar to the latter epoch. These alterations Onomakritus, and the other literary friends of Peisistratus, could hardly have failed to notice, even without design, had they then, for the first time, undertaken the task of piecing together many self existent epics into one large aggregate. Everything in the two great Homeric poems, both in substance and in language, belongs to an age two or three centuries earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the interpolations (or those passages which, on the best grounds, are pronounced to be such) betray no trace of the sixth century before Christ, and may well have been heard by Archilochus and Kallinusin some cases even by Arktinus and Hesiodas genuine Homeric matter. As far as the evidences on the case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge, we seem warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited substantially as they now stand (always allowing for partial divergences of text and interpolations) in  B.C., our first trustworthy mark of Grecian time and this ancient date, let it be added, as it is the bestauthenticated fact, so it is also the most important attribute of the Homeric poems, considered in reference to Grecian history for they thus afford us an insight into the antihistorical character of the Greeks, enabling us to trace the subsequent forward march of the nation, and to seize instructive contrasts between their former and their later condition. On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of Peisistratus were wholly of an editorial character, although, I must confess, that I can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his labours. At the same time, so far from believing that the composition or primary arrangement of these poems, in their present form, was the work of Peisistratus, I am rather persuaded that the fine taste and elegant mind of that Athenian would lead him to preserve an ancient and traditional order of the poems, rather than to patch and reconstruct them according to a fanciful hypothesis. I will not repeat the many discussions respecting whether the poems were written or not, or whether the art of writing was known in the time of their reputed author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read, the less satisfied we are upon either subject. I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version of the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical probability must be measured by that of many others relating to the Spartan Confucius. I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories, with an attempt, made by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like consistency. It is as follows 'No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common sailors of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to 'discourse in excellent music' among them. Many of these, like those of the negroes in the United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to events passing around them. But what was passing around them? The grand events of a spiritstirring war occurrences likely to impress themselves, as the mystical legends of former times had done, upon their memory besides which, a retentive memory was deemed a virtue of the first water, and was cultivated accordingly in those ancient times. Ballads at first, and down to the beginning of the war with Troy, were merely recitations, with an intonation. Then followed a species of recitative, probably with an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the memory considerably. 'It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war, that a poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Monides, but most probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be made of great utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the social position of Hellas, and, as a collection, he published these lays, connecting them by a tale of his own. This poem now exists, under the title of the 'Odyssea.' The author, however, did not affix his own name to the poem, which, in fact, was, great part of it, remodelled from the archaic dialect of Crete, in which tongue the ballads were found by him. He therefore called it the poem of Homeros, or the Collector but this is rather a proof of his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging arrangement of other people's ideas for, as Grote has finely observed, arguing for the unity of authorship, 'a great poet might have recast preexisting separate songs into one comprehensive whole but no mere arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.' 'While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a ballad, recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble mind seized the hint that there presented itself, and the Achilles grew under his hand. Unity of design, however, caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as his former work and the disjointed lays of the ancient bards were joined together, like those relating to the Cid, into a chronicle history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that the poem was destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved but, first, the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the streets, assemblies, and agoras. However, Soln first, and then Peisistratus, and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the poems, and restored the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their original integrity in a great measure. Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which have developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I must still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations disfigure them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here and there have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of the copyist, would be an absurd and captious assumption, but it is to a higher criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or enjoy these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of their one author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, quocunque nomine vocari eum jus fasque sit, I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of historical evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these great works to a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal evidence, and that which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of the soul, also speaks eloquently to the contrary. The minuti of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed, considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a philological view, I am inclined to set little store on its sthetic value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the emendations made upon poets are mere alterations, some of which, had they been suggested to the author by his Mcenas or Africanus, he would probably have adopted. Moreover, those who are most exact in laying down rules of verbal criticism and interpretation, are often least competent to carry out their own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by profession, but may be so per accidens. I do not at this moment remember two emendations on Homer, calculated to substantially improve the poetry of a passage, although a mass of remarks, from Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history of a thousand minute points, without which our Greek knowledge would be gloomy and jejune. But it is not on words only that grammarians, mere grammarians, will exercise their elaborate and often tiresome ingenuity. Binding down an heroic or dramatic poet to the block upon which they have previously dissected his words and sentences, they proceed to use the axe and the pruning knife by wholesale, and inconsistent in everything but their wish to make out a case of unlawful affiliation, they cut out book after book, passage after passage, till the author is reduced to a collection of fragments, or till those, who fancied they possessed the works of some great man, find that they have been put off with a vile counterfeit got up at second hand. If we compare the theories of Knight, Wolf, Lachmann, and others, we shall feel better satisfied of the utter uncertainty of criticism than of the apocryphal position of Homer. One rejects what another considers the turningpoint of his theory. One cuts a supposed knot by expunging what another would explain by omitting something else. Nor is this morbid species of sagacity by any means to be looked upon as a literary novelty. Justus Lipsius, a scholar of no ordinary skill, seems to revel in the imaginary discovery, that the tragedies attributed to Seneca are by four different authors. Now, I will venture to assert, that these tragedies are so uniform, not only in their borrowed phraseologya phraseology with which writers like Boethius and Saxo Grammaticus were more charmed than ourselvesin their freedom from real poetry, and last, but not least, in an ultrarefined and consistent abandonment of good taste, that few writers of the present day would question the capabilities of the same gentleman, be he Seneca or not, to produce not only these, but a great many more equally bad. With equal sagacity, Father Hardouin astonished the world with the startling announcement that the neid of Virgil, and the satires of Horace, were literary deceptions. Now, without wishing to say one word of disrespect against the industry and learningnay, the refined acutenesswhich scholars, like Wolf, have bestowed upon this subject, I must express my fears, that many of our modern Homeric theories will become matter for the surprise and entertainment, rather than the instruction, of posterity. Nor can I help thinking, that the literary history of more recent times will account for many points of difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to a period so remote from that of their first creation. I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus were of a purely editorial character and there seems no more reason why corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in his day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should have given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after all, the main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand too great a sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully appeals, and which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has sought to rob us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much violence to that inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with love and admiration for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author of the Iliad a mere compiler, is to degrade the powers of human invention to elevate analytical judgment at the expense of the most ennobling impulses of the soul and to forget the ocean in the contemplation of a polypus. There is a catholicity, so to speak, in the very name of Homer. Our faith in the author of the Iliad may be a mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us a better. While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature herself for its mainspring while I can join with old Ennius in believing in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers round the bed of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth of imagination which a host of imitators could not exhaust,still I am far from wishing to deny that the author of these great poems found a rich fund of tradition, a wellstocked mythical storehouse from whence he might derive both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to use existing romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to patch up the poem itself from such materials. What consistency of style and execution can be hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what bad taste and tedium will not be the infallible result? A blending of popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other bards, are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In fact, the most original writer is still drawing upon outward impressionsnay, even his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents which support and feed the impulses of imagination. But unless there be some grand pervading principlesome invisible, yet most distinctly stamped archetypus of the great whole, a poem like the Iliad can never come to the birth. Traditions the most picturesque, episodes the most pathetic, local associations teeming with the thoughts of gods and great men, may crowd in one mighty vision, or reveal themselves in more substantial forms to the mind of the poet but, except the power to create a grand whole, to which these shall be but as details and embellishments, be present, we shall have nought but a scrapbook, a parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each other in their wild redundancy we shall have a cento of rags and tatters, which will require little acuteness to detect. Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware as I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief, it still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved for a higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature intended to know all things still less, to compass the powers by which the greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were faith no virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our ignorance on any matter. But we are too well taught the contrary lesson and it seems as though our faith should be especially tried touching the men and the events which have wrought most influence upon the condition of humanity. And there is a kind of sacredness attached to the memory of the great and the good, which seems to bid us repulse the scepticism which would allegorize their existence into a pleasing apologue, and measure the giants of intellect by an homeopathic dynameter. Long and habitual reading of Homer appears to familiarize our thoughts even to his incongruities or rather, if we read in a right spirit and with a heartfelt appreciation, we are too much dazzled, too deeply wrapped in admiration of the whole, to dwell upon the minute spots which mere analysis can discover. In reading an heroic poem we must transform ourselves into heroes of the time being, we in imagination must fight over the same battles, woo the same loves, burn with the same sense of injury, as an Achilles or a Hector. And if we can but attain this degree of enthusiasm (and less enthusiasm will scarcely suffice for the reading of Homer), we shall feel that the poems of Homer are not only the work of one writer, but of the greatest writer that ever touched the hearts of men by the power of song. And it was this supposed unity of authorship which gave these poems their powerful influence over the minds of the men of old. Heeren, who is evidently little disposed in favour of modern theories, finely observes 'It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other nations it was reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks. This is a feature in their character which was not wholly erased even in the period of their degeneracy. When lawgivers and sages appeared in Greece, the work of the poet had already been accomplished and they paid homage to his superior genius. He held up before his nation the mirror, in which they were to behold the world of gods and heroes no less than of feeble mortals, and to behold them reflected with purity and truth. His poems are founded on the first feeling of human nature on the love of children, wife, and country on that passion which outweighs all others, the love of glory. His songs were poured forth from a breast which sympathized with all the feelings of man and therefore they enter, and will continue to enter, every breast which cherishes the same sympathies. If it is granted to his immortal spirit, from another heaven than any of which he dreamed on earth, to look down on his race, to see the nations from the fields of Asia to the forests of Hercynia, performing pilgrimages to the fountain which his magic wand caused to flow if it is permitted to him to view the vast assemblage of grand, of elevated, of glorious productions, which had been called into being by means of his songs wherever his immortal spirit may reside, this alone would suffice to complete his happiness. Can we contemplate that ancient monument, on which the 'Apotheosis of Homer is depictured, and not feel how much of pleasing association, how much that appeals most forcibly and most distinctly to our minds, is lost by the admittance of any theory but our old tradition? The more we read, and the more we thinkthink as becomes the readers of Homer,the more rooted becomes the conviction that the Father of Poetry gave us this rich inheritance, whole and entire. Whatever were the means of its preservation, let us rather be thankful for the treasury of taste and eloquence thus laid open to our use, than seek to make it a mere centre around which to drive a series of theories, whose wildness is only equalled by their inconsistency with each other. As the hymns, and some other poems usually ascribed to Homer, are not included in Pope's translation, I will content myself with a brief account of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, from the pen of a writer who has done it full justice 'This poem, says Coleridge, 'is a short mockheroic of ancient date. The text varies in different editions, and is obviously disturbed and corrupt to a great degree it is commonly said to have been a juvenile essay of Homer's genius others have attributed it to the same Pigrees, mentioned above, and whose reputation for humour seems to have invited the appropriation of any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was uncertain so little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies, know or care about that department of criticism employed in determining the genuineness of ancient writings. As to this little poem being a youthful profusion of Homer, it seems sufficient to say that from the beginning to the end it is a plain and palpable parody, not only of the general spirit, but of the numerous passages of the Iliad itself and even, if no such intention to parody were discernible in it, the objection would still remain, that to suppose a work of mere burlesque to be the primary effort of poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse that order in the development of national taste, which the history of every other people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost ascertained to be a law of the human mind it is in a state of society much more refined and permanent than that described in the Iliad, that any popularity would attend such a ridicule of war and the gods as is contained in this poem and the fact of there having existed three other poems of the same kind attributed, for aught we can see, with as much reason to Homer, is a strong inducement to believe that none of them were of the Homeric age. Knight infers from the usage of the word deltos, 'writing tablet, instead of , 'skin, which, according to Herod. , , was the material employed by the Asiatic Greeks for that purpose, that this poem was another offspring of Attic ingenuity and generally that the familiar mention of the cock (v. ) is a strong argument against so ancient a date for its composition. Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope's design, I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation, and on my own purpose in the present edition. Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby. It is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his whole work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes, which prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical attainments were sounder than his own, during the undertaking but it is probable that these examinations were the result rather of the contradictory versions already existing, than of a desire to make a perfect transcript of the original. And in those days, what is called literal translation was less cultivated than at present. If something like the general sense could be decorated with the easy gracefulness of a practised poet if the charms of metrical cadence and a pleasing fluency could be made consistent with a fair interpretation of the poet's meaning, his words were less jealously sought for, and those who could read so good a poem as Pope's Iliad had fair reason to be satisfied. It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope's translation by our own advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at it as a most delightful work in itself,a work which is as much a part of English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn from our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most cherished companion, or our most lookedfor prize, merely because Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to  being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from us to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman's fine, bold, rough old Englishfar be it from us to hold up his translation as what a translation of Homer might be. But we can still dismiss Pope's Iliad to the hands of our readers, with the consciousness that they must have read a very great number of books before they have read its fellow. As to the Notes accompanying the present volume, they are drawn up without pretension, and mainly with the view of helping the general reader. Having some little time since translated all the works of Homer for another publisher, I might have brought a large amount of accumulated matter, sometimes of a critical character, to bear upon the text. But Pope's version was no field for such a display and my purpose was to touch briefly on antiquarian or mythological allusions, to notice occasionally some departures from the original, and to give a few parallel passages from our English Homer, Milton. In the latter task I cannot pretend to novelty, but I trust that my other annotations, while utterly disclaiming high scholastic views, will be found to convey as much as is wanted at least, as far as the necessary limits of these volumes could be expected to admit. To write a commentary on Homer is not my present aim but if I have made Pope's translation a little more entertaining and instructive to a mass of miscellaneous readers, I shall consider my wishes satisfactorily accomplished. THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY. Christ Church. Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellences but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the invention that, in different degrees, distinguishes all great geniuses the utmost stretch of human study, learning, and industry, which masters everything besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes art with all her materials, and without it judgment itself can at best but 'steal wisely for art is only like a prudent steward that lives on managing the riches of nature. Whatever praises may be given to works of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them to which the invention must not contribute as in the most regular gardens, art can only reduce beauties of nature to more regularity, and such a figure, which the common eye may better take in, and is, therefore, more entertained with. And, perhaps, the reason why common critics are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their observations through a uniform and bounded walk of art, than to comprehend the vast and various extent of nature. Our author's work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery, which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature. It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute that unequalled fire and rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him. What he writes is of the most animated nature imaginable every thing moves, every thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called, or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or done as from a third person the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles that of the army he describes, '  ,      . 'They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it. It is, however, remarkable, that his fancy, which is everywhere vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest splendour it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire, like a chariotwheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thousand but this poetic fire, this 'vivida vis animi, in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with absurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but everywhere equal and constant in Lucan and Statius it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted flashes In Milton it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force of art in Shakspeare it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from heaven but in Homer, and in him only, it burns everywhere clearly and everywhere irresistibly. I shall here endeavour to show how this vast invention exerts itself in a manner superior to that of any poet through all the main constituent parts of his work as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which distinguishes him from all other authors. This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star, which, in the violence of its course, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflections all the inward passions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters and all the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions but wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in the invention of fable. That which Aristotle calls 'the soul of poetry, was first breathed into it by Homer. I shall begin with considering him in his part, as it is naturally the first and I speak of it both as it means the design of a poem, and as it is taken for fiction. Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of such actions as, though they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of nature or of such as, though they did, became fables by the additional episodes and manner of telling them. Of this sort is the main story of an epic poem, 'The return of Ulysses, the settlement of the Trojans in Italy, or the like. That of the Iliad is the 'anger of Achilles, the most short and single subject that ever was chosen by any poet. Yet this he has supplied with a vaster variety of incidents and events, and crowded with a greater number of councils, speeches, battles, and episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in those poems whose schemes are of the utmost latitude and irregularity. The action is hurried on with the most vehement spirit, and its whole duration employs not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want of so warm a genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive subject, as well as a greater length of time, and contracting the design of both Homer's poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. The other epic poets have used the same practice, but generally carried it so far as to superinduce a multiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor is it only in the main design that they have been unable to add to his invention, but they have followed him in every episode and part of story. If he has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all draw up their forces in the same order. If he has funeral games for Patroclus, Virgil has the same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them) destroys the unity of his actions for those of Archemorus. If Ulysses visit the shades, the neas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are sent after him. If he be detained from his return by the allurements of Calypso, so is neas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be absent from the army on the score of a quarrel through half the poem, Rinaldo must absent himself just as long on the like account. If he gives his hero a suit of celestial armour, Virgil and Tasso make the same present to theirs. Virgil has not only observed this close imitation of Homer, but, where he had not led the way, supplied the want from other Greek authors. Thus the story of Sinon, and the taking of Troy, was copied (says Macrobius) almost word for word from Pisander, as the loves of Dido and neas are taken from those of Medea and Jason in Apollonius, and several others in the same manner. To proceed to the allegorical fableIf we reflect upon those innumerable knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy which Homer is generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories, what a new and ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us! How fertile will that imagination appear, which was able to clothe all the properties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues and vices, in forms and persons, and to introduce them into actions agreeable to the nature of the things they shadowed! This is a field in which no succeeding poets could dispute with Homer, and whatever commendations have been allowed them on this head, are by no means for their invention in having enlarged his circle, but for their judgment in having contracted it. For when the mode of learning changed in the following ages, and science was delivered in a plainer manner, it then became as reasonable in the more modern poets to lay it aside, as it was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no unhappy circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his time that demand upon him of so great an invention as might be capable of furnishing all those allegorical parts of a poem. The marvellous fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially the machines of the gods. If Homer was not the first who introduced the deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the religion of Greece, he seems the first who brought them into a system of machinery for poetry, and such a one as makes its greatest importance and dignity for we find those authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the gods, constantly laying their accusation against Homer as the chief support of it. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic, that mankind have been ever since contented to follow them none have been able to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has set every attempt of this nature has proved unsuccessful and after all the various changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day the gods of poetry. We come now to the characters of his persons and here we shall find no author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a variety, or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them. Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features, than the poet has by their manners. Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has observed in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The single quality of courage is wonderfully diversified in the several characters of the Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and intractable that of Diomede forward, yet listening to advice, and subject to command that of Ajax is heavy and selfconfiding of Hector, active and vigilant the courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by love of empire and ambition that of Menelaus mixed with softness and tenderness for his people we find in Idomeneus a plain direct soldier in Sarpedon a gallant and generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing diversity to be found only in the principal quality which constitutes the main of each character, but even in the under parts of it, to which he takes care to give a tincture of that principal one. For example the main characters of Ulysses and Nestor consist in wisdom and they are distinct in this, that the wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other natural, open, and regular. But they have, besides, characters of courage and this quality also takes a different turn in each from the difference of his prudence for one in the war depends still upon caution, the other upon experience. It would be endless to produce instances of these kinds. The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open manner they lie, in a great degree, hidden and undistinguished and, where they are marked most evidently affect us not in proportion to those of Homer. His characters of valour are much alike even that of Turnus seems no way peculiar, but, as it is, in a superior degree and we see nothing that differences the courage of Mnestheus from that of Sergestus, Cloanthus, or the rest. In like manner it may be remarked of Statius's heroes, that an air of impetuosity runs through them all the same horrid and savage courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus, Hippomedon, c. They have a parity of character, which makes them seem brothers of one family. I believe when the reader is led into this tract of reflection, if he will pursue it through the epic and tragic writers, he will be convinced how infinitely superior, in this point, the invention of Homer was to that of all others. The speeches are to be considered as they flow from the characters being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners, of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the Iliad, so there is of speeches, than in any other poem. 'Everything in it has manner (as Aristotle expresses it), that is, everything is acted or spoken. It is hardly credible, in a work of such length, how small a number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the dramatic part is less in proportion to the narrative, and the speeches often consist of general reflections or thoughts, which might be equally just in any person's mouth upon the same occasion. As many of his persons have no apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftener think of the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in Homer, all which are the effects of a colder invention, that interests us less in the action described. Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers. If, in the next place, we take a view of the sentiments, the same presiding faculty is eminent in the sublimity and spirit of his thoughts. Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part Homer principally excelled. What were alone sufficient to prove the grandeur and excellence of his sentiments in general, is, that they have so remarkable a parity with those of the Scripture. Duport, in his Gnomologia Homerica, has collected innumerable instances of this sort. And it is with justice an excellent modern writer allows, that if Virgil has not so many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not so many that are sublime and noble and that the Roman author seldom rises into very astonishing sentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad. If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast comprehension of images of every sort, where we see each circumstance of art, and individual of nature, summoned together by the extent and fecundity of his imagination to which all things, in their various views presented themselves in an instant, and had their impressions taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full prospects of things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side views, unobserved by any painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as the descriptions of his battles, which take up no less than half the Iliad, and are supplied with so vast a variety of incidents, that no one bears a likeness to another such different kinds of deaths, that no two heroes are wounded in the same manner, and such a profusion of noble ideas, that every battle rises above the last in greatness, horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not near that number of images and descriptions in any epic poet, though every one has assisted himself with a great quantity out of him and it is evident of Virgil especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are not drawn from his master. If we descend from hence to the expression, we see the bright imagination of Homer shining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We acknowledge him the father of poetical diction the first who taught that 'language of the gods to men. His expression is like the colouring of some great masters, which discovers itself to be laid on boldly, and executed with rapidity. It is, indeed, the strongest and most glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit. Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who had found out 'living words there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than in any good author whatever. An arrow is 'impatient to be on the wing, a weapon 'thirsts to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like, yet his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great in proportion to it. It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it, for in the same degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter, as that is more strong, this will become more perspicuous like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a greater clearness, only as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more intense. To throw his language more out of prose, Homer seems to have affected the compound epithets. This was a sort of composition peculiarly proper to poetry, not only as it heightened the diction, but as it assisted and filled the numbers with greater sound and pomp, and likewise conduced in some measure to thicken the images. On this last consideration I cannot but attribute these also to the fruitfulness of his invention, since (as he has managed them) they are a sort of supernumerary pictures of the persons or things to which they were joined. We see the motion of Hector's plumes in the epithet , the landscape of Mount Neritus in that of , and so of others, which particular images could not have been insisted upon so long as to express them in a description (though but of a single line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal action or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of these epithets is a short description. Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be sensible what a share of praise is due to his invention in that also. He was not satisfied with his language as he found it settled in any one part of Greece, but searched through its different dialects with this particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers he considered these as they had a greater mixture of vowels or consonants, and accordingly employed them as the verse required either a greater smoothness or strength. What he most affected was the Ionic, which has a peculiar sweetness, from its never using contractions, and from its custom of resolving the diphthongs into two syllables, so as to make the words open themselves with a more spreading and sonorous fluency. With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler olic, which often rejects its aspirate, or takes off its accent, and completed this variety by altering some letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures, instead of being fetters to his sense, were always in readiness to run along with the warmth of his rapture, and even to give a further representation of his notions, in the correspondence of their sounds to what they signified. Out of all these he has derived that harmony which makes us confess he had not only the richest head, but the finest ear in the world. This is so great a truth, that whoever will but consult the tune of his verses, even without understanding them (with the same sort of diligence as we daily see practised in the case of Italian operas), will find more sweetness, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other language of poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the critics to be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just as to ascribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue indeed the Greek has some advantages both from the natural sound of its words, and the turn and cadence of its verse, which agree with the genius of no other language. Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost diligence in working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was capable of, and, in particular, never failed to bring the sound of his line to a beautiful agreement with its sense. If the Grecian poet has not been so frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the only reason is, that fewer critics have understood one language than the other. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our author's beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the Composition of Words. It suffices at present to observe of his numbers, that they flow with so much ease, as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than to transcribe as fast as the Muses dictated, and, at the same time, with so much force and inspiriting vigour, that they awaken and raise us like the sound of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river, always in motion, and always full while we are borne away by a tide of verse, the most rapid, and yet the most smooth imaginable. Thus on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us is his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his work and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more extensive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and transported, his sentiments more warm and sublime, his images and descriptions more full and animated, his expression more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with regard to any of these heads, I have no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more absurd or endless, than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each it is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. Not that we are to think that Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a more eminent degree or that Virgil wanted invention, because Homer possessed a larger share of it each of these great authors had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty Homer scatters with a generous profusion Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate. Homer, boundless and resistless as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases Virgil, calmly daring, like neas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation. But after all, it is with great parts, as with great virtues, they naturally border on some imperfection and it is often hard to distinguish exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As prudence may sometimes sink to suspicion, so may a great judgment decline to coldness and as magnanimity may run up to profusion or extravagance, so may a great invention to redundancy or wildness. If we look upon Homer in this view, we shall perceive the chief objections against him to proceed from so noble a cause as the excess of this faculty. Among these we may reckon some of his marvellous fictions, upon which so much criticism has been spent, as surpassing all the bounds of probability. Perhaps it may be with great and superior souls, as with gigantic bodies, which, exerting themselves with unusual strength, exceed what is commonly thought the due proportion of parts, to become miracles in the whole and, like the old heroes of that make, commit something near extravagance, amidst a series of glorious and inimitable performances. Thus Homer has his 'speaking horses and Virgil his 'myrtles distilling blood where the latter has not so much as contrived the easy intervention of a deity to save the probability. It is owing to the same vast invention, that his similes have been thought too exuberant and full of circumstances. The force of this faculty is seen in nothing more, than in its inability to confine itself to that single circumstance upon which the comparison is grounded it runs out into embellishments of additional images, which, however, are so managed as not to overpower the main one. His similes are like pictures, where the principal figure has not only its proportion given agreeable to the original, but is also set off with occasional ornaments and prospects. The same will account for his manner of heaping a number of comparisons together in one breath, when his fancy suggested to him at once so many various and correspondent images. The reader will easily extend this observation to more objections of the same kind. If there are others which seem rather to charge him with a defect or narrowness of genius, than an excess of it, those seeming defects will be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he lived in. Such are his grosser representations of the gods and the vicious and imperfect manners of his heroes but I must here speak a word of the latter, as it is a point generally carried into extremes, both by the censurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a strange partiality to antiquity, to think with Madame Dacier, 'that those times and manners are so much the more excellent, as they are more contrary to ours. Who can be so prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those ages, when a spirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of rapine and robbery, reigned through the world when no mercy was shown but for the sake of lucre when the greatest princes were put to the sword, and their wives and daughters made slaves and concubines? On the other side, I would not be so delicate as those modern critics, who are shocked at the servile offices and mean employments in which we sometimes see the heroes of Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that simplicity, in opposition to the luxury of succeeding ages in beholding monarchs without their guards princes tending their flocks, and princesses drawing water from the springs. When we read Homer, we ought to reflect that we are reading the most ancient author in the heathen world and those who consider him in this light, will double their pleasure in the perusal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with nations and people that are now no more that they are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and surprising vision of things nowhere else to be found, the only true mirror of that ancient world. By this means alone their greatest obstacles will vanish and what usually creates their dislike, will become a satisfaction. This consideration may further serve to answer for the constant use of the same epithets to his gods and heroes such as the 'fardarting Phbus, the 'blueeyed Pallas, the 'swiftfooted Achilles, c., which some have censured as impertinent, and tediously repeated. Those of the gods depended upon the powers and offices then believed to belong to them and had contracted a weight and veneration from the rites and solemn devotions in which they were used they were a sort of attributes with which it was a matter of religion to salute them on all occasions, and which it was an irreverence to omit. As for the epithets of great men, Mons. Boileau is of opinion, that they were in the nature of surnames, and repeated as such for the Greeks having no names derived from their fathers, were obliged to add some other distinction of each person either naming his parents expressly, or his place of birth, profession, or the like as Alexander the son of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Diogenes the Cynic, c. Homer, therefore, complying with the custom of his country, used such distinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And, indeed, we have something parallel to these in modern times, such as the names of Harold Harefoot, Edmund Ironside, Edward Longshanks, Edward the Black Prince, c. If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for the repetition, I shall add a further conjecture. Hesiod, dividing the world into its different ages, has placed a fourth age, between the brazen and the iron one, of 'heroes distinct from other men a divine race who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called demigods, and live by the care of Jupiter in the islands of the blessed. Now among the divine honours which were paid them, they might have this also in common with the gods, not to be mentioned without the solemnity of an epithet, and such as might be acceptable to them by celebrating their families, actions or qualities. What other cavils have been raised against Homer, are such as hardly deserve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the course of the work. Many have been occasioned by an injudicious endeavour to exalt Virgil which is much the same, as if one should think to raise the superstructure by undermining the foundation one would imagine, by the whole course of their parallels, that these critics never so much as heard of Homer's having written first a consideration which whoever compares these two poets ought to have always in his eye. Some accuse him for the same things which they overlook or praise in the other as when they prefer the fable and moral of the neis to those of the Iliad, for the same reasons which might set the Odyssey above the neis as that the hero is a wiser man, and the action of the one more beneficial to his country than that of the other or else they blame him for not doing what he never designed as because Achilles is not as good and perfect a prince as neas, when the very moral of his poem required a contrary character it is thus that Rapin judges in his comparison of Homer and Virgil. Others select those particular passages of Homer which are not so laboured as some that Virgil drew out of them this is the whole management of Scaliger in his Poetics. Others quarrel with what they take for low and mean expressions, sometimes through a false delicacy and refinement, oftener from an ignorance of the graces of the original, and then triumph in the awkwardness of their own translations this is the conduct of Perrault in his Parallels. Lastly, there are others, who, pretending to a fairer proceeding, distinguish between the personal merit of Homer, and that of his work but when they come to assign the causes of the great reputation of the Iliad, they found it upon the ignorance of his times, and the prejudice of those that followed and in pursuance of this principle, they make those accidents (such as the contention of the cities, c.) to be the causes of his fame, which were in reality the consequences of his merit. The same might as well be said of Virgil, or any great author whose general character will infallibly raise many casual additions to their reputation. This is the method of Mons. de la Mott who yet confesses upon the whole that in whatever age Homer had lived, he must have been the greatest poet of his nation, and that he may be said in his sense to be the master even of those who surpassed him. In all these objections we see nothing that contradicts his title to the honour of the chief invention and as long as this (which is indeed the characteristic of poetry itself) remains unequalled by his followers, he still continues superior to them. A cooler judgment may commit fewer faults, and be more approved in the eyes of one sort of critics but that warmth of fancy will carry the loudest and most universal applauses which holds the heart of a reader under the strongest enchantment. Homer not only appears the inventor of poetry, but excels all the inventors of other arts, in this, that he has swallowed up the honour of those who succeeded him. What he has done admitted no increase, it only left room for contraction or regulation. He showed all the stretch of fancy at once and if he has failed in some of his flights, it was but because he attempted everything. A work of this kind seems like a mighty tree, which rises from the most vigorous seed, is improved with industry, flourishes, and produces the finest fruit nature and art conspire to raise it pleasure and profit join to make it valuable and they who find the justest faults, have only said that a few branches which run luxuriant through a richness of nature, might be lopped into form to give it a more regular appearance. Having now spoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it remains to treat of the translation, with the same view to the chief characteristic. As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem, such as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice it but by wilful omissions or contractions. As it also breaks out in every particular image, description, and simile, whoever lessens or too much softens those, takes off from this chief character. It is the first grand duty of an interpreter to give his author entire and unmaimed and for the rest, the diction and versification only are his proper province, since these must be his own, but the others he is to take as he finds them. It should then be considered what methods may afford some equivalent in our language for the graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a superior language but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect which is no less in danger to lose the spirit of an ancient, by deviating into the modern manners of expression. If there be sometimes a darkness, there is often a light in antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a version almost literal. I know no liberties one ought to take, but those which are necessary to transfusing the spirit of the original, and supporting the poetical style of the translation and I will venture to say, there have not been more men misled in former times by a servile, dull adherence to the letter, than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical, insolent hope of raising and improving their author. It is not to be doubted, that the fire of the poem is what a translator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing however, it is his safest way to be content with preserving this to his utmost in the whole, without endeavouring to be more than he finds his author is, in any particular place. It is a great secret in writing, to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will but follow modestly in his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the censure of a mere English critic. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been more commonly mistaken than the just pitch of his style some of his translators having swelled into fustian in a proud confidence of the sublime others sunk into flatness, in a cold and timorous notion of simplicity. Methinks I see these different followers of Homer, some sweating and straining after him by violent leaps and bounds (the certain signs of false mettle), others slowly and servilely creeping in his train, while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an unaffected and equal majesty before them. However, of the two extremes one could sooner pardon frenzy than frigidity no author is to be envied for such commendations, as he may gain by that character of style, which his friends must agree together to call simplicity, and the rest of the world will call dulness. There is a graceful and dignified simplicity, as well as a bold and sordid one which differ as much from each other as the air of a plain man from that of a sloven it is one thing to be tricked up, and another not to be dressed at all. Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity. This pure and noble simplicity is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scripture and our author. One may affirm, with all respect to the inspired writings, that the Divine Spirit made use of no other words but what were intelligible and common to men at that time, and in that part of the world and, as Homer is the author nearest to those, his style must of course bear a greater resemblance to the sacred books than that of any other writer. This consideration (together with what has been observed of the parity of some of his thoughts) may, methinks, induce a translator, on the one hand, to give in to several of those general phrases and manners of expression, which have attained a veneration even in our language from being used in the Old Testament as, on the other, to avoid those which have been appropriated to the Divinity, and in a manner consigned to mystery and religion. For a further preservation of this air of simplicity, a particular care should be taken to express with all plainness those moral sentences and proverbial speeches which are so numerous in this poet. They have something venerable, and as I may say, oracular, in that unadorned gravity and shortness with which they are delivered a grace which would be utterly lost by endeavouring to give them what we call a more ingenious (that is, a more modern) turn in the paraphrase. Perhaps the mixture of some Grcisms and old words after the manner of Milton, if done without too much affectation, might not have an ill effect in a version of this particular work, which most of any other seems to require a venerable, antique cast. But certainly the use of modern terms of war and government, such as 'platoon, campaign, junto, or the like, (into which some of his translators have fallen) cannot be allowable those only excepted without which it is impossible to treat the subjects in any living language. There are two peculiarities in Homer's diction, which are a sort of marks or moles by which every common eye distinguishes him at first sight those who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as defects, and those who are, seemed pleased with them as beauties. I speak of his compound epithets, and of his repetitions. Many of the former cannot be done literally into English without destroying the purity of our language. I believe such should be retained as slide easily of themselves into an English compound, without violence to the ear or to the received rules of composition, as well as those which have received a sanction from the authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their use of them such as 'the cloudcompelling Jove, c. As for the rest, whenever any can be as fully and significantly expressed in a single word as in a compounded one, the course to be taken is obvious. Some that cannot be so turned, as to preserve their full image by one or two words, may have justice done them by circumlocution as the epithet  to a mountain, would appear little or ridiculous translated literally 'leafshaking, but affords a majestic idea in the periphrasis 'the lofty mountain shakes his waving woods. Others that admit of different significations, may receive an advantage from a judicious variation, according to the occasions on which they are introduced. For example, the epithet of Apollo,  or 'farshooting, is capable of two explications one literal, in respect of the darts and bow, the ensigns of that god the other allegorical, with regard to the rays of the sun therefore, in such places where Apollo is represented as a god in person, I would use the former interpretation and where the effects of the sun are described, I would make choice of the latter. Upon the whole, it will be necessary to avoid that perpetual repetition of the same epithets which we find in Homer, and which, though it might be accommodated (as has been already shown) to the ear of those times, is by no means so to ours but one may wait for opportunities of placing them, where they derive an additional beauty from the occasions on which they are employed and in doing this properly, a translator may at once show his fancy and his judgment. As for Homer's repetitions, we may divide them into three sorts of whole narrations and speeches, of single sentences, and of one verse or hemistitch. I hope it is not impossible to have such a regard to these, as neither to lose so known a mark of the author on the one hand, nor to offend the reader too much on the other. The repetition is not ungraceful in those speeches, where the dignity of the speaker renders it a sort of insolence to alter his words as in the messages from gods to men, or from higher powers to inferiors in concerns of state, or where the ceremonial of religion seems to require it, in the solemn forms of prayers, oaths, or the like. In other cases, I believe the best rule is, to be guided by the nearness, or distance, at which the repetitions are placed in the original when they follow too close, one may vary the expression but it is a question, whether a professed translator be authorized to omit any if they be tedious, the author is to answer for it. It only remains to speak of the versification. Homer (as has been said) is perpetually applying the sound to the sense, and varying it on every new subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of poetry, and attainable by very few I only know of Homer eminent for it in the Greek, and Virgil in the Latin. I am sensible it is what may sometimes happen by chance, when a writer is warm, and fully possessed of his image however, it may reasonably be believed they designed this, in whose verse it so manifestly appears in a superior degree to all others. Few readers have the ear to be judges of it but those who have, will see I have endeavoured at this beauty. Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing justice to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may entertain without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him than any entire translation in verse has yet done. We have only those of Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an immeasurable length of verse, notwithstanding which, there is scarce any paraphrase more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent interpolations of four or six lines and I remember one in the thirteenth book of the Odyssey, ver. , where he has spun twenty verses out of two. He is often mistaken in so bold a manner, that one might think he deviated on purpose, if he did not in other places of his notes insist so much upon verbal trifles. He appears to have had a strong affectation of extracting new meanings out of his author insomuch as to promise, in his rhyming preface, a poem of the mysteries he had revealed in Homer and perhaps he endeavoured to strain the obvious sense to this end. His expression is involved in fustian a fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as in the tragedy of Bussy d'Amboise, c. In a word, the nature of the man may account for his whole performance for he appears, from his preface and remarks, to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in poetry. His own boast, of having finished half the Iliad in less than fifteen weeks, shows with what negligence his version was performed. But that which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation, which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ before he arrived at years of discretion. Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the sense in general but for particulars and circumstances he continually lops them, and often omits the most beautiful. As for its being esteemed a close translation, I doubt not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it, which proceeds not from his following the original line by line, but from the contractions above mentioned. He sometimes omits whole similes and sentences and is now and then guilty of mistakes, into which no writer of his learning could have fallen, but through carelessness. His poetry, as well as Ogilby's, is too mean for criticism. It is a great loss to the poetical world that Mr. Dryden did not live to translate the Iliad. He has left us only the first book, and a small part of the sixth in which if he has in some places not truly interpreted the sense, or preserved the antiquities, it ought to be excused on account of the haste he was obliged to write in. He seems to have had too much regard to Chapman, whose words he sometimes copies, and has unhappily followed him in passages where he wanders from the original. However, had he translated the whole work, I would no more have attempted Homer after him than Virgil his version of whom (notwithstanding some human errors) is the most noble and spirited translation I know in any language. But the fate of great geniuses is like that of great ministers though they are confessedly the first in the commonwealth of letters, they must be envied and calumniated only for being at the head of it. That which, in my opinion, ought to be the endeavour of any one who translates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that spirit and fire which makes his chief character in particular places, where the sense can bear any doubt, to follow the strongest and most poetical, as most agreeing with that character to copy him in all the variations of his style, and the different modulations of his numbers to preserve, in the more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation in the more sedate or narrative, a plainness and solemnity in the speeches, a fulness and perspicuity in the sentences, a shortness and gravity not to neglect even the little figures and turns on the words, nor sometimes the very cast of the periods neither to omit nor confound any rites or customs of antiquity perhaps too he ought to include the whole in a shorter compass than has hitherto been done by any translator who has tolerably preserved either the sense or poetry. What I would further recommend to him is, to study his author rather from his own text, than from any commentaries, how learned soever, or whatever figure they may make in the estimation of the world to consider him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns. Next these, the Archbishop of Cambray's Telemachus may give him the truest idea of the spirit and turn of our author and Bossu's admirable Treatise of the Epic Poem the justest notion of his design and conduct. But after all, with whatever judgment and study a man may proceed, or with whatever happiness he may perform such a work, he must hope to please but a few those only who have at once a taste of poetry, and competent learning. For to satisfy such a want either, is not in the nature of this undertaking since a mere modern wit can like nothing that is not modern, and a pedant nothing that is not Greek. What I have done is submitted to the public from whose opinions I am prepared to learn though I fear no judges so little as our best poets, who are most sensible of the weight of this task. As for the worst, whatever they shall please to say, they may give me some concern as they are unhappy men, but none as they are malignant writers. I was guided in this translation by judgments very different from theirs, and by persons for whom they can have no kindness, if an old observation be true, that the strongest antipathy in the world is that of fools to men of wit. Mr. Addison was the first whose advice determined me to undertake this task who was pleased to write to me upon that occasion in such terms as I cannot repeat without vanity. I was obliged to Sir Richard Steele for a very early recommendation of my undertaking to the public. Dr. Swift promoted my interest with that warmth with which he always serves his friend. The humanity and frankness of Sir Samuel Garth are what I never knew wanting on any occasion. I must also acknowledge, with infinite pleasure, the many friendly offices, as well as sincere criticisms, of Mr. Congreve, who had led me the way in translating some parts of Homer. I must add the names of Mr. Rowe, and Dr. Parnell, though I shall take a further opportunity of doing justice to the last, whose good nature (to give it a great panegyric), is no less extensive than his learning. The favour of these gentlemen is not entirely undeserved by one who bears them so true an affection. But what can I say of the honour so many of the great have done me while the first names of the age appear as my subscribers, and the most distinguished patrons and ornaments of learning as my chief encouragers? Among these it is a particular pleasure to me to find, that my highest obligations are to such who have done most honour to the name of poet that his grace the Duke of Buckingham was not displeased I should undertake the author to whom he has given (in his excellent Essay), so complete a praise 'Read Homer once, and you can read no more For all books else appear so mean, so poor, Verse will seem prose but still persist to read, And Homer will be all the books you need. That the Earl of Halifax was one of the first to favour me of whom it is hard to say whether the advancement of the polite arts is more owing to his generosity or his example that such a genius as my Lord Bolingbroke, not more distinguished in the great scenes of business, than in all the useful and entertaining parts of learning, has not refused to be the critic of these sheets, and the patron of their writer and that the noble author of the tragedy of 'Heroic Love has continued his partiality to me, from my writing pastorals to my attempting the Iliad. I cannot deny myself the pride of confessing, that I have had the advantage not only of their advice for the conduct in general, but their correction of several particulars of this translation. I could say a great deal of the pleasure of being distinguished by the Earl of Carnarvon but it is almost absurd to particularize any one generous action in a person whose whole life is a continued series of them. Mr. Stanhope, the present secretary of state, will pardon my desire of having it known that he was pleased to promote this affair. The particular zeal of Mr. Harcourt (the son of the late Lord Chancellor) gave me a proof how much I am honoured in a share of his friendship. I must attribute to the same motive that of several others of my friends to whom all acknowledgments are rendered unnecessary by the privileges of a familiar correspondence and I am satisfied I can no way better oblige men of their turn than by my silence. In short, I have found more patrons than ever Homer wanted. He would have thought himself happy to have met the same favour at Athens that has been shown me by its learned rival, the University of Oxford. And I can hardly envy him those pompous honours he received after death, when I reflect on the enjoyment of so many agreeable obligations, and easy friendships, which make the satisfaction of life. This distinction is the more to be acknowledged, as it is shown to one whose pen has never gratified the prejudices of particular parties, or the vanities of particular men. Whatever the success may prove, I shall never repent of an undertaking in which I have experienced the candour and friendship of so many persons of merit and in which I hope to pass some of those years of youth that are generally lost in a circle of follies, after a manner neither wholly unuseful to others, nor disagreeable to myself. ARGUMENT. THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryses and Brises, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the father of Chryses, and priest of Apollo, comes to the Grecian camp to ransom her with which the action of the poem opens, in the tenth year of the siege. The priest being refused, and insolently dismissed by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god who inflicts a pestilence on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council, and encourages Chalcas to declare the cause of it who attributes it to the refusal of Chryses. The king, being obliged to send back his captive, enters into a furious contest with Achilles, which Nestor pacifies however, as he had the absolute command of the army, he seizes on Brises in revenge. Achilles in discontent withdraws himself and his forces from the rest of the Greeks and complaining to Thetis, she supplicates Jupiter to render them sensible of the wrong done to her son, by giving victory to the Trojans. Jupiter, granting her suit, incenses Juno between whom the debate runs high, till they are reconciled by the address of Vulcan. The time of twoandtwenty days is taken up in this book nine during the plague, one in the council and quarrel of the princes, and twelve for Jupiter's stay with the thiopians, at whose return Thetis prefers her petition. The scene lies in the Grecian camp, then changes to Chrysa, and lastly to Olympus. Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing! That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore, Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore. Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove! Declare, O Muse! in what illfated hour Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power Latona's son a dire contagion spread, And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead The king of men his reverent priest defied, And for the king's offence the people died. For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain His captive daughter from the victor's chain. Suppliant the venerable father stands Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands By these he begs and lowly bending down, Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown. He sued to all, but chief implored for grace The brotherkings, of Atreus' royal race 'Ye kings and warriors! may your vows be crown'd, And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground. May Jove restore you when your toils are o'er Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. But, oh! relieve a wretched parent's pain, And give Chryses to these arms again If mercy fail, yet let my presents move, And dread avenging Phbus, son of Jove. The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare, The priest to reverence, and release the fair. Not so Atrides he, with kingly pride, Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied 'Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains, Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod, Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god. Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, And age dismiss her from my cold embrace, In daily labours of the loom employ'd, Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy'd. Hence then to Argos shall the maid retire, Far from her native soil and weeping sire. HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE The trembling priest along the shore return'd, And in the anguish of a father mourn'd. Disconsolate, not daring to complain, Silent he wander'd by the sounding main Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, The god who darts around the world his rays. 'O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona's line, Thou guardian power of Cilla the divine, Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores, And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores. If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane, Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ, Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy. Thus Chryses pray'dthe favouring power attends, And from Olympus' lofty tops descends. Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound. Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, And gloomy darkness roll'd about his head. The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow, And hissing fly the feather'd fates below. On mules and dogs the infection first began And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man. For nine long nights, through all the dusky air, The pyres, thickflaming, shot a dismal glare. But ere the tenth revolving day was run, Inspired by Juno, Thetis' godlike son Convened to council all the Grecian train For much the goddess mourn'd her heroes slain. The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest, Achilles thus the king of men address'd 'Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore, And measure back the seas we cross'd before? The plague destroying whom the sword would spare, 'Tis time to save the few remains of war. But let some prophet, or some sacred sage, Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove. If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid. So Heaven, atoned, shall dying Greece restore, And Phbus dart his burning shafts no more. He said, and sat when Chalcas thus replied Chalcas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide, That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view, The past, the present, and the future knew Uprising slow, the venerable sage Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age 'Beloved of Jove, Achilles! would'st thou know Why angry Phbus bends his fatal bow? First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word Of sure protection, by thy power and sword For I must speak what wisdom would conceal, And truths, invidious to the great, reveal, Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise, Instruct a monarch where his error lies For though we deem the shortlived fury past, 'Tis sure the mighty will revenge at last. To whom Pelides'From thy inmost soul Speak what thou know'st, and speak without control. E'en by that god I swear who rules the day, To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey. And whose bless'd oracles thy lips declare Long as Achilles breathes this vital air, No daring Greek, of all the numerous band, Against his priest shall lift an impious hand Not e'en the chief by whom our hosts are led, The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head. Encouraged thus, the blameless man replies 'Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice, But he, our chief, provoked the raging pest, Apollo's vengeance for his injured priest. Nor will the god's awaken'd fury cease, But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase, Till the great king, without a ransom paid, To her own Chrysa send the blackeyed maid. Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer, The priest may pardon, and the god may spare. The prophet spoke when with a gloomy frown The monarch started from his shining throne Black choler fill'd his breast that boil'd with ire, And from his eyeballs flash'd the living fire 'Augur accursed! denouncing mischief still, Prophet of plagues, for ever boding ill! Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king? For this are Phbus' oracles explored, To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord? For this with falsehood is my honour stain'd, Is heaven offended, and a priest profaned Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold, And heavenly charms prefer to proffer'd gold? A maid, unmatch'd in manners as in face, Skill'd in each art, and crown'd with every grace Not half so dear were Clytmnestra's charms, When first her blooming beauties bless'd my arms. Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail Our cares are only for the public weal Let me be deem'd the hateful cause of all, And suffer, rather than my people fall. The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign, So dearly valued, and so justly mine. But since for common good I yield the fair, My private loss let grateful Greece repair Nor unrewarded let your prince complain, That he alone has fought and bled in vain. 'Insatiate king (Achilles thus replies), Fond of the power, but fonder of the prize! Would'st thou the Greeks their lawful prey should yield, The due reward of many a wellfought field? The spoils of cities razed and warriors slain, We share with justice, as with toil we gain But to resume whate'er thy avarice craves (That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves. Yet if our chief for plunder only fight, The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite, Whene'er, by Jove's decree, our conquering powers Shall humble to the dust her lofty towers. Then thus the king 'Shall I my prize resign With tame content, and thou possess'd of thine? Great as thou art, and like a god in fight, Think not to rob me of a soldier's right. At thy demand shall I restore the maid? First let the just equivalent be paid Such as a king might ask and let it be A treasure worthy her, and worthy me. Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim This hand shall seize some other captive dame. The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign Ulysses' spoils, or even thy own, be mine. The man who suffers, loudly may complain And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. But this when time requires.It now remains We launch a bark to plough the watery plains, And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores, With chosen pilots, and with labouring oars. Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, And some deputed prince the charge attend This Creta's king, or Ajax shall fulfil, Or wise Ulysses see perform'd our will Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain, Achilles' self conduct her o'er the main Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, The god propitiate, and the pest assuage. MARS At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied 'O tyrant, arm'd with insolence and pride! Inglorious slave to interest, ever join'd With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind! What generous Greek, obedient to thy word, Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword? What cause have I to war at thy decree? The distant Trojans never injured me To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed Far hence removed, the hoarseresounding main, And walls of rocks, secure my native reign, Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace, Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race. Hither we sail'd, a voluntary throng, To avenge a private, not a public wrong What else to Troy the assembled nations draws, But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause? Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve Disgraced and injured by the man we serve? And darest thou threat to snatch my prize away, Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day? A prize as small, O tyrant! match'd with thine, As thy own actions if compared to mine. Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey, Though mine the sweat and danger of the day. Some trivial present to my ships I bear Or barren praises pay the wounds of war. But know, proud monarch, I'm thy slave no more My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia's shore Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain, What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain? To this the king 'Fly, mighty warrior! fly Thy aid we need not, and thy threats defy. There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight, And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right. Of all the kings (the god's distinguish'd care) To power superior none such hatred bear Strife and debate thy restless soul employ, And wars and horrors are thy savage joy, If thou hast strength, 'twas Heaven that strength bestow'd For know, vain man! thy valour is from God. Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate Thy shortlived friendship, and thy groundless hate. Go, threat thy earthborn Myrmidonsbut here 'Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear. Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand, My bark shall waft her to her native land But then prepare, imperious prince! prepare, Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair Even in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize, Thy loved Brises with the radiant eyes. Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour Thou stood'st a rival of imperial power And hence, to all our hosts it shall be known, That kings are subject to the gods alone. Achilles heard, with grief and rage oppress'd, His heart swell'd high, and labour'd in his breast Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled Now fired by wrath, and now by reason cool'd That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord This whispers soft his vengeance to control, And calm the rising tempest of his soul. Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd, While half unsheathed appear'd the glittering blade, Minerva swift descended from above, Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove (For both the princes claim'd her equal care) Behind she stood, and by the golden hair Achilles seized to him alone confess'd A sable cloud conceal'd her from the rest. He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries, Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes MINERVA REPRESSING THE FURY OF ACHILLES 'Descends Minerva, in her guardian care, A heavenly witness of the wrongs I bear From Atreus' son?Then let those eyes that view The daring crime, behold the vengeance too. 'Forbear (the progeny of Jove replies) To calm thy fury I forsake the skies Let great Achilles, to the gods resign'd, To reason yield the empire o'er his mind. By awful Juno this command is given The king and you are both the care of heaven. The force of keen reproaches let him feel But sheathe, obedient, thy revenging steel. For I pronounce (and trust a heavenly power) Thy injured honour has its fated hour, When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore, And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store. Then let revenge no longer bear the sway Command thy passions, and the gods obey. To her Pelides'With regardful ear, 'Tis just, O goddess! I thy dictates hear. Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress Those who revere the gods the gods will bless. He said, observant of the blueeyed maid Then in the sheath return'd the shining blade. The goddess swift to high Olympus flies, And joins the sacred senate of the skies. Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke 'O monster! mix'd of insolence and fear, Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer! When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare, Or nobly face the horrid front of war? 'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die So much 'tis safer through the camp to go, And rob a subject, than despoil a foe. Scourge of thy people, violent and base! Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past, Are tamed to wrongsor this had been thy last. Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, Which sever'd from the trunk (as I from thee) On the bare mountains left its parent tree This sceptre, form'd by temper'd steel to prove An ensign of the delegates of Jove, From whom the power of laws and justice springs (Tremendous oath! inviolate to kings) By this I swearwhen bleeding Greece again Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain. When, flush'd with slaughter, Hector comes to spread The purpled shore with mountains of the dead, Then shalt thou mourn the affront thy madness gave, Forced to deplore when impotent to save Then rage in bitterness of soul to know This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe. He spoke and furious hurl'd against the ground His sceptre starr'd with golden studs around Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain The raging king return'd his frowns again. To calm their passion with the words of age, Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage, Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill'd Words, sweet as honey, from his lips distill'd Two generations now had pass'd away, Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd, And now the example of the third remain'd. All view'd with awe the venerable man Who thus with mild benevolence began 'What shame, what woe is this to Greece! what joy To Troy's proud monarch, and the friends of Troy! That adverse gods commit to stern debate The best, the bravest, of the Grecian state. Young as ye are, this youthful heat restrain, Nor think your Nestor's years and wisdom vain. A godlike race of heroes once I knew, Such as no more these aged eyes shall view! Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight? With these of old, to toils of battle bred, In early youth my hardy days I led Fired with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, And smit with love of honourable deeds, Strongest of men, they pierced the mountain boar, Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters' gore, And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway'd When Nestor spoke, they listen'd and obey'd. If in my youth, even these esteem'd me wise Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise. Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride Let kings be just, and sovereign power preside. Thee, the first honours of the war adorn, Like gods in strength, and of a goddess born Him, awful majesty exalts above The powers of earth, and sceptred sons of Jove. Let both unite with wellconsenting mind, So shall authority with strength be join'd. Leave me, O king! to calm Achilles' rage Rule thou thyself, as more advanced in age. Forbid it, gods! Achilles should be lost, The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host. This said, he ceased. The king of men replies 'Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. But that imperious, that unconquer'd soul, No laws can limit, no respect control. Before his pride must his superiors fall His word the law, and he the lord of all? Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey? What king can bear a rival in his sway? Grant that the gods his matchless force have given Has foul reproach a privilege from heaven? Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke, And furious, thus, and interrupting spoke 'Tyrant, I well deserved thy galling chain, To live thy slave, and still to serve in vain, Should I submit to each unjust decree Command thy vassals, but command not me. Seize on Brises, whom the Grecians doom'd My prize of war, yet tamely see resumed And seize secure no more Achilles draws His conquering sword in any woman's cause. The gods command me to forgive the past But let this first invasion be the last For know, thy blood, when next thou darest invade, Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade. At this they ceased the stern debate expired The chiefs in sullen majesty retired. Achilles with Patroclus took his way Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay. Meantime Atrides launch'd with numerous oars A wellrigg'd ship for Chrysa's sacred shores High on the deck was fair Chryses placed, And sage Ulysses with the conduct graced Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd, Then swiftly sailing, cut the liquid road. The host to expiate next the king prepares, With pure lustrations, and with solemn prayers. Wash'd by the briny wave, the pious train Are cleansed and cast the ablutions in the main. Along the shore whole hecatombs were laid, And bulls and goats to Phbus' altars paid The sable fumes in curling spires arise, And waft their grateful odours to the skies. The army thus in sacred rites engaged, Atrides still with deep resentment raged. To wait his will two sacred heralds stood, Talthybius and Eurybates the good. 'Haste to the fierce Achilles' tent (he cries), Thence bear Brises as our royal prize Submit he must or if they will not part, Ourself in arms shall tear her from his heart. The unwilling heralds act their lord's commands Pensive they walk along the barren sands Arrived, the hero in his tent they find, With gloomy aspect on his arm reclined. At awful distance long they silent stand, Loth to advance, and speak their hard command Decent confusion! This the godlike man Perceived, and thus with accent mild began 'With leave and honour enter our abodes, Ye sacred ministers of men and gods! I know your message by constraint you came Not you, but your imperious lord I blame. Patroclus, haste, the fair Brises bring Conduct my captive to the haughty king. But witness, heralds, and proclaim my vow, Witness to gods above, and men below! But first, and loudest, to your prince declare (That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear), Unmoved as death Achilles shall remain, Though prostrate Greece shall bleed at every vein The raging chief in frantic passion lost, Blind to himself, and useless to his host, Unskill'd to judge the future by the past, In blood and slaughter shall repent at last. THE DEPARTURE OF BRISEIS FROM THE TENT OF ACHILLES Patroclus now the unwilling beauty brought She, in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought, Pass'd silent, as the heralds held her hand, And oft look'd back, slowmoving o'er the strand. Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore But sad, retiring to the sounding shore, O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung, That kindred deep from whence his mother sprung There bathed in tears of anger and disdain, Thus loud lamented to the stormy main 'O parent goddess! since in early bloom Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom Sure to so short a race of glory born, Great Jove in justice should this span adorn Honour and fame at least the thunderer owed And ill he pays the promise of a god, If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize. Far from the deep recesses of the main, Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign, The goddessmother heard. The waves divide And like a mist she rose above the tide Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, And thus the sorrows of his soul explores. 'Why grieves my son? Thy anguish let me share Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care. He deeply sighing said 'To tell my woe Is but to mention what too well you know. From Theb, sacred to Apollo's name (Ation's realm), our conquering army came, With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils, Whose just division crown'd the soldier's toils But bright Chryses, heavenly prize! was led, By vote selected, to the general's bed. The priest of Phbus sought by gifts to gain His beauteous daughter from the victor's chain The fleet he reach'd, and, lowly bending down, Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown, Intreating all but chief implored for grace The brotherkings of Atreus' royal race The generous Greeks their joint consent declare, The priest to reverence, and release the fair Not so Atrides he, with wonted pride, The sire insulted, and his gifts denied The insulted sire (his god's peculiar care) To Phbus pray'd, and Phbus heard the prayer A dreadful plague ensues the avenging darts Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts. A prophet then, inspired by heaven, arose, And points the crime, and thence derives the woes Myself the first the assembled chiefs incline To avert the vengeance of the power divine Then rising in his wrath, the monarch storm'd Incensed he threaten'd, and his threats perform'd The fair Chryses to her sire was sent, With offer'd gifts to make the god relent But now he seized Brises' heavenly charms, And of my valour's prize defrauds my arms, Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train And service, faith, and justice, plead in vain. But, goddess! thou thy suppliant son attend. To high Olympus' shining court ascend, Urge all the ties to former service owed, And sue for vengeance to the thundering god. Oft hast thou triumph'd in the glorious boast, That thou stood'st forth of all the ethereal host, When bold rebellion shook the realms above, The undaunted guard of cloudcompelling Jove When the bright partner of his awful reign, The warlike maid, and monarch of the main, The traitorgods, by mad ambition driven, Durst threat with chains the omnipotence of Heaven. Then, call'd by thee, the monster Titan came (Whom gods Briareus, men geon name), Through wondering skies enormous stalk'd along Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong With giantpride at Jove's high throne he stands, And brandish'd round him all his hundred hands The affrighted gods confess'd their awful lord, They dropp'd the fetters, trembled, and adored. This, goddess, this to his remembrance call, Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train, To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main, To heap the shores with copious death, and bring The Greeks to know the curse of such a king. Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head O'er all his wide dominion of the dead, And mourn in blood that e'er he durst disgrace The boldest warrior of the Grecian race. THETIS CALLING BRIAREUS TO THE ASSISTANCE OF JUPITER 'Unhappy son! (fair Thetis thus replies, While tears celestial trickle from her eyes) Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes, To Fates averse, and nursed for future woes? So short a space the light of heaven to view! So short a space! and fill'd with sorrow too! O might a parent's careful wish prevail, Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun Which now, alas! too nearly threats my son. Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I'll go To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy snow. Meantime, secure within thy ships, from far Behold the field, not mingle in the war. The sire of gods and all the ethereal train, On the warm limits of the farthest main, Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace The feasts of thiopia's blameless race, Twelve days the powers indulge the genial rite, Returning with the twelfth revolving light. Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move The high tribunal of immortal Jove. The goddess spoke the rolling waves unclose Then down the steep she plunged from whence she rose, And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast, In wild resentment for the fair he lost. In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode Beneath the deck the destined victims stow'd The sails they furl'd, they lash the mast aside, And dropp'd their anchors, and the pinnace tied. Next on the shore their hecatomb they land Chryses last descending on the strand. Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, Ulysses led to Phbus' sacred fane Where at his solemn altar, as the maid He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said 'Hail, reverend priest! to Phbus' awful dome A suppliant I from great Atrides come Unransom'd, here receive the spotless fair Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare And may thy god who scatters darts around, Atoned by sacrifice, desist to wound. At this, the sire embraced the maid again, So sadly lost, so lately sought in vain. Then near the altar of the darting king, Disposed in rank their hecatomb they bring With water purify their hands, and take The sacred offering of the salted cake While thus with arms devoutly raised in air, And solemn voice, the priest directs his prayer 'God of the silver bow, thy ear incline, Whose power incircles Cilla the divine Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys, And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguish'd rays! If, fired to vengeance at thy priest's request, Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest Once more attend! avert the wasteful woe, And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow. So Chryses pray'd. Apollo heard his prayer And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare Between their horns the salted barley threw, And, with their heads to heaven, the victims slew The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide The thighs, selected to the gods, divide On these, in double cauls involved with art, The choicest morsels lay from every part. The priest himself before his altar stands, And burns the offering with his holy hands. Pours the black wine, and sees the flames aspire The youth with instruments surround the fire The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress'd, The assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest Then spread the tables, the repast prepare Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. When now the rage of hunger was repress'd, With pure libations they conclude the feast The youths with wine the copious goblets crown'd, And, pleased, dispense the flowing bowls around With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, The pans lengthen'd till the sun descends The Greeks, restored, the grateful notes prolong Apollo listens, and approves the song. 'Twas night the chiefs beside their vessel lie, Till rosy morn had purpled o'er the sky Then launch, and hoist the mast indulgent gales, Supplied by Phbus, fill the swelling sails The milkwhite canvas bellying as they blow, The parted ocean foams and roars below Above the bounding billows swift they flew, Till now the Grecian camp appear'd in view. Far on the beach they haul their bark to land, (The crooked keel divides the yellow sand,) Then part, where stretch'd along the winding bay, The ships and tents in mingled prospect lay. But raging still, amidst his navy sat The stern Achilles, stedfast in his hate Nor mix'd in combat, nor in council join'd But wasting cares lay heavy on his mind In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll, And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul. Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light The gods had summon'd to the Olympian height Jove, first ascending from the watery bowers, Leads the long order of ethereal powers. When, like the morningmist in early day, Rose from the flood the daughter of the sea And to the seats divine her flight address'd. There, far apart, and high above the rest, The thunderer sat where old Olympus shrouds His hundred heads in heaven, and props the clouds. Suppliant the goddess stood one hand she placed Beneath his beard, and one his knees embraced. 'If e'er, O father of the gods! (she said) My words could please thee, or my actions aid, Some marks of honour on my son bestow, And pay in glory what in life you owe. Fame is at least by heavenly promise due To life so short, and now dishonour'd too. Avenge this wrong, O ever just and wise! Let Greece be humbled, and the Trojans rise Till the proud king and all the Achaian race Shall heap with honours him they now disgrace. THETIS ENTREATING JUPITER TO HONOUR ACHILLES Thus Thetis spoke but Jove in silence held The sacred counsels of his breast conceal'd. Not so repulsed, the goddess closer press'd, Still grasp'd his knees, and urged the dear request. 'O sire of gods and men! thy suppliant hear Refuse, or grant for what has Jove to fear? Or oh! declare, of all the powers above, Is wretched Thetis least the care of Jove? She said and, sighing, thus the god replies, Who rolls the thunder o'er the vaulted skies 'What hast thou ask'd? ah, why should Jove engage In foreign contests and domestic rage, The gods' complaints, and Juno's fierce alarms, While I, too partial, aid the Trojan arms? Go, lest the haughty partner of my sway With jealous eyes thy close access survey But part in peace, secure thy prayer is sped Witness the sacred honours of our head, The nod that ratifies the will divine, The faithful, fix'd, irrevocable sign This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vows He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows, Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, The stamp of fate and sanction of the god High heaven with trembling the dread signal took, And all Olympus to the centre shook. Swift to the seas profound the goddess flies, Jove to his starry mansions in the skies. The shining synod of the immortals wait The coming god, and from their thrones of state Arising silent, wrapp'd in holy fear, Before the majesty of heaven appear. Trembling they stand, while Jove assumes the throne, All, but the god's imperious queen alone Late had she view'd the silverfooted dame, And all her passions kindled into flame. 'Say, artful manager of heaven (she cries), Who now partakes the secrets of the skies? Thy Juno knows not the decrees of fate, In vain the partner of imperial state. What favourite goddess then those cares divides, Which Jove in prudence from his consort hides? To this the thunderer 'Seek not thou to find The sacred counsels of almighty mind Involved in darkness lies the great decree, Nor can the depths of fate be pierced by thee. What fits thy knowledge, thou the first shalt know The first of gods above, and men below But thou, nor they, shall search the thoughts that roll Deep in the close recesses of my soul. Full on the sire the goddess of the skies Roll'd the large orbs of her majestic eyes, And thus return'd'Austere Saturnius, say, From whence this wrath, or who controls thy sway? Thy boundless will, for me, remains in force, And all thy counsels take the destined course. But 'tis for Greece I fear for late was seen, In close consult, the silverfooted queen. Jove to his Thetis nothing could deny, Nor was the signal vain that shook the sky. What fatal favour has the goddess won, To grace her fierce, inexorable son? Perhaps in Grecian blood to drench the plain, And glut his vengeance with my people slain. Then thus the god 'O restless fate of pride, That strives to learn what heaven resolves to hide Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr'd, Anxious to thee, and odious to thy lord. Let this suffice the immutable decree No force can shake what is, that ought to be. Goddess, submit nor dare our will withstand, But dread the power of this avenging hand The united strength of all the gods above In vain resists the omnipotence of Jove. VULCAN The thunderer spoke, nor durst the queen reply A reverent horror silenced all the sky. The feast disturb'd, with sorrow Vulcan saw His mother menaced, and the gods in awe Peace at his heart, and pleasure his design, Thus interposed the architect divine 'The wretched quarrels of the mortal state Are far unworthy, gods! of your debate Let men their days in senseless strife employ, We, in eternal peace and constant joy. Thou, goddessmother, with our sire comply, Nor break the sacred union of the sky Lest, roused to rage, he shake the bless'd abodes, Launch the red lightning, and dethrone the gods. If you submit, the thunderer stands appeased The gracious power is willing to be pleased. Thus Vulcan spoke and rising with a bound, The double bowl with sparkling nectar crown'd, Which held to Juno in a cheerful way, 'Goddess (he cried), be patient and obey. Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend, I can but grieve, unable to defend. What god so daring in your aid to move, Or lift his hand against the force of Jove? Once in your cause I felt his matchless might, Hurl'd headlong down from the ethereal height Toss'd all the day in rapid circles round, Nor till the sun descended touch'd the ground. Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast He said, and to her hands the goblet heaved, Which, with a smile, the whitearm'd queen received Then, to the rest he fill'd and in his turn, Each to his lips applied the nectar'd urn, Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies, And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies. Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong, In feasts ambrosial, and celestial song. Apollo tuned the lyre the Muses round With voice alternate aid the silver sound. Meantime the radiant sun to mortal sight Descending swift, roll'd down the rapid light Then to their starry domes the gods depart, The shining monuments of Vulcan's art Jove on his couch reclined his awful head, And Juno slumber'd on the golden bed. JUPITER THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER ARGUMENT. THE TRIAL OF THE ARMY, AND CATALOGUE OF THE FORCES. Jupiter, in pursuance of the request of Thetis, sends a deceitful vision to Agamemnon, persuading him to lead the army to battle, in order to make the Greeks sensible of their want of Achilles. The general, who is deluded with the hopes of taking Troy without his assistance, but fears the army was discouraged by his absence, and the late plague, as well as by the length of time, contrives to make trial of their disposition by a stratagem. He first communicates his design to the princes in council, that he would propose a return to the soldiers, and that they should put a stop to them if the proposal was embraced. Then he assembles the whole host, and upon moving for a return to Greece, they unanimously agree to it, and run to prepare the ships. They are detained by the management of Ulysses, who chastises the insolence of Thersites. The assembly is recalled, several speeches made on the occasion, and at length the advice of Nestor followed, which was to make a general muster of the troops, and to divide them into their several nations, before they proceeded to battle. This gives occasion to the poet to enumerate all the forces of the Greeks and Trojans, and in a large catalogue. The time employed in this book consists not entirely of one day. The scene lies in the Grecian camp, and upon the seashore towards the end it removes to Troy. Now pleasing sleep had seal'd each mortal eye, Stretch'd in the tents the Grecian leaders lie The immortals slumber'd on their thrones above All, but the everwakeful eyes of Jove. To honour Thetis' son he bends his care, And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war Then bids an empty phantom rise to sight, And thus commands the vision of the night. 'Fly hence, deluding Dream! and light as air, To Agamemnon's ample tent repair. Bid him in arms draw forth the embattled train, Lead all his Grecians to the dusty plain. Declare, e'en now 'tis given him to destroy The lofty towers of wideextended Troy. For now no more the gods with fate contend, At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. Destruction hangs o'er yon devoted wall, And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall. Swift as the word the vain illusion fled, Descends, and hovers o'er Atrides' head Clothed in the figure of the Pylian sage, Renown'd for wisdom, and revered for age Around his temples spreads his golden wing, And thus the flattering dream deceives the king. JUPITER SENDING THE EVIL DREAM TO AGAMEMNON 'Canst thou, with all a monarch's cares oppress'd, O Atreus' son! canst thou indulge thy rest? Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides, Directs in council, and in war presides, To whom its safety a whole people owes, To waste long nights in indolent repose. Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear Thou, and thy glory, claim his heavenly care. In just array draw forth the embattled train, Lead all thy Grecians to the dusty plain E'en now, O king! 'tis given thee to destroy The lofty towers of wideextended Troy. For now no more the gods with fate contend, At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. Destruction hangs o'er yon devoted wall, And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall. Awake, but waking this advice approve, And trust the vision that descends from Jove. The phantom said then vanish'd from his sight, Resolves to air, and mixes with the night. A thousand schemes the monarch's mind employ Elate in thought he sacks untaken Troy Vain as he was, and to the future blind, Nor saw what Jove and secret fate design'd, What mighty toils to either host remain, What scenes of grief, and numbers of the slain! Eager he rises, and in fancy hears The voice celestial murmuring in his ears. First on his limbs a slender vest he drew, Around him next the regal mantle threw, The embroider'd sandals on his feet were tied The starry falchion glitter'd at his side And last, his arm the massy sceptre loads, Unstain'd, immortal, and the gift of gods. Now rosy Morn ascends the court of Jove, Lifts up her light, and opens day above. The king despatch'd his heralds with commands To range the camp and summon all the bands The gathering hosts the monarch's word obey While to the fleet Atrides bends his way. In his black ship the Pylian prince he found There calls a senate of the peers around The assembly placed, the king of men express'd The counsels labouring in his artful breast. 'Friends and confederates! with attentive ear Receive my words, and credit what you hear. Late as I slumber'd in the shades of night, A dream divine appear'd before my sight Whose visionary form like Nestor came, The same in habit, and in mien the same. The heavenly phantom hover'd o'er my head, 'And, dost thou sleep, O Atreus' son? (he said) Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides, Directs in council, and in war presides To whom its safety a whole people owes, To waste long nights in indolent repose. Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear, Thou and thy glory claim his heavenly care. In just array draw forth the embattled train, And lead the Grecians to the dusty plain E'en now, O king! 'tis given thee to destroy The lofty towers of wideextended Troy. For now no more the gods with fate contend, At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. Destruction hangs o'er yon devoted wall, And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall. This hear observant, and the gods obey!' The vision spoke, and pass'd in air away. Now, valiant chiefs! since heaven itself alarms, Unite, and rouse the sons of Greece to arms. But first, with caution, try what yet they dare, Worn with nine years of unsuccessful war. To move the troops to measure back the main, Be mine and yours the province to detain. He spoke, and sat when Nestor, rising said, (Nestor, whom Pylos' sandy realms obey'd,) 'Princes of Greece, your faithful ears incline, Nor doubt the vision of the powers divine Sent by great Jove to him who rules the host, Forbid it, heaven! this warning should be lost! Then let us haste, obey the god's alarms, And join to rouse the sons of Greece to arms. Thus spoke the sage the kings without delay Dissolve the council, and their chief obey The sceptred rulers lead the following host, Pour'd forth by thousands, darkens all the coast. As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees, Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms, With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd, And o'er the vale descends the living cloud. So, from the tents and ships, a lengthen'd train Spreads all the beach, and wide o'ershades the plain Along the region runs a deafening sound Beneath their footsteps groans the trembling ground. Fame flies before the messenger of Jove, And shining soars, and claps her wings above. Nine sacred heralds now, proclaiming loud The monarch's will, suspend the listening crowd. Soon as the throngs in order ranged appear, And fainter murmurs died upon the ear, The king of kings his awful figure raised High in his hand the golden sceptre blazed The golden sceptre, of celestial flame, By Vulcan form'd, from Jove to Hermes came. To Pelops he the immortal gift resign'd The immortal gift great Pelops left behind, In Atreus' hand, which not with Atreus ends, To rich Thyestes next the prize descends And now the mark of Agamemnon's reign, Subjects all Argos, and controls the main. On this bright sceptre now the king reclined, And artful thus pronounced the speech design'd 'Ye sons of Mars, partake your leader's care, Heroes of Greece, and brothers of the war! Of partial Jove with justice I complain, And heavenly oracles believed in vain A safe return was promised to our toils, Renown'd, triumphant, and enrich'd with spoils. Now shameful flight alone can save the host, Our blood, our treasure, and our glory lost. So Jove decrees, resistless lord of all! At whose command whole empires rise or fall He shakes the feeble props of human trust, And towns and armies humbles to the dust. What shame to Greece a fruitful war to wage, Oh, lasting shame in every future age! Once great in arms, the common scorn we grow, Repulsed and baffled by a feeble foe. So small their number, that if wars were ceased, And Greece triumphant held a general feast, All rank'd by tens, whole decades when they dine Must want a Trojan slave to pour the wine. But other forces have our hopes o'erthrown, And Troy prevails by armies not her own. Now nine long years of mighty Jove are run, Since first the labours of this war begun Our cordage torn, decay'd our vessels lie, And scarce insure the wretched power to fly. Haste, then, for ever leave the Trojan wall! Our weeping wives, our tender children call Love, duty, safety, summon us away, 'Tis nature's voice, and nature we obey. Our shatter'd barks may yet transport us o'er, Safe and inglorious, to our native shore. Fly, Grecians, fly, your sails and oars employ, And dream no more of heavendefended Troy. His deep design unknown, the hosts approve Atrides' speech. The mighty numbers move. So roll the billows to the Icarian shore, From east and south when winds begin to roar, Burst their dark mansions in the clouds, and sweep The whitening surface of the ruffled deep. And as on corn when western gusts descend, Before the blast the lofty harvests bend Thus o'er the field the moving host appears, With nodding plumes and groves of waving spears. The gathering murmur spreads, their trampling feet Beat the loose sands, and thicken to the fleet With longresounding cries they urge the train To fit the ships, and launch into the main. They toil, they sweat, thick clouds of dust arise, The doubling clamours echo to the skies. E'en then the Greeks had left the hostile plain, And fate decreed the fall of Troy in vain But Jove's imperial queen their flight survey'd, And sighing thus bespoke the blueeyed maid 'Shall then the Grecians fly! O dire disgrace! And leave unpunish'd this perfidious race? Shall Troy, shall Priam, and the adulterous spouse, In peace enjoy the fruits of broken vows? And bravest chiefs, in Helen's quarrel slain, Lie unrevenged on yon detested plain? No let my Greeks, unmoved by vain alarms, Once more refulgent shine in brazen arms. Haste, goddess, haste! the flying host detain, Nor let one sail be hoisted on the main. Pallas obeys, and from Olympus' height Swift to the ships precipitates her flight. Ulysses, first in public cares, she found, For prudent counsel like the gods renown'd Oppress'd with generous grief the hero stood, Nor drew his sable vessels to the flood. 'And is it thus, divine Laertes' son, Thus fly the Greeks (the martial maid begun), Thus to their country bear their own disgrace, And fame eternal leave to Priam's race? Shall beauteous Helen still remain unfreed, Still unrevenged, a thousand heroes bleed! Haste, generous Ithacus! prevent the shame, Recall your armies, and your chiefs reclaim. Your own resistless eloquence employ, And to the immortals trust the fall of Troy. The voice divine confess'd the warlike maid, Ulysses heard, nor uninspired obey'd Then meeting first Atrides, from his hand Received the imperial sceptre of command. Thus graced, attention and respect to gain, He runs, he flies through all the Grecian train Each prince of name, or chief in arms approved, He fired with praise, or with persuasion moved. 'Warriors like you, with strength and wisdom bless'd, By brave examples should confirm the rest. The monarch's will not yet reveal'd appears He tries our courage, but resents our fears. The unwary Greeks his fury may provoke Not thus the king in secret council spoke. Jove loves our chief, from Jove his honour springs, Beware! for dreadful is the wrath of kings. But if a clamorous vile plebeian rose, Him with reproof he check'd or tamed with blows. 'Be still, thou slave, and to thy betters yield Unknown alike in council and in field! Ye gods, what dastards would our host command! Swept to the war, the lumber of a land. Be silent, wretch, and think not here allow'd That worst of tyrants, an usurping crowd. To one sole monarch Jove commits the sway His are the laws, and him let all obey. With words like these the troops Ulysses ruled, The loudest silenced, and the fiercest cool'd. Back to the assembly roll the thronging train, Desert the ships, and pour upon the plain. Murmuring they move, as when old ocean roars, And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores The groaning banks are burst with bellowing sound, The rocks remurmur and the deeps rebound. At length the tumult sinks, the noises cease, And a still silence lulls the camp to peace. Thersites only clamour'd in the throng, Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue Awed by no shame, by no respect controll'd, In scandal busy, in reproaches bold With witty malice studious to defame, Scorn all his joy, and laughter all his aim But chief he gloried with licentious style To lash the great, and monarchs to revile. His figure such as might his soul proclaim One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame His mountain shoulders half his breast o'erspread, Thin hairs bestrew'd his long misshapen head. Spleen to mankind his envious heart possess'd, And much he hated all, but most the best Ulysses or Achilles still his theme But royal scandal his delight supreme, Long had he lived the scorn of every Greek, Vex'd when he spoke, yet still they heard him speak. Sharp was his voice which in the shrillest tone, Thus with injurious taunts attack'd the throne. 'Amidst the glories of so bright a reign, What moves the great Atrides to complain? 'Tis thine whate'er the warrior's breast inflames, The golden spoil, and thine the lovely dames. With all the wealth our wars and blood bestow, Thy tents are crowded and thy chests o'erflow. Thus at full ease in heaps of riches roll'd, What grieves the monarch? Is it thirst of gold? Say, shall we march with our unconquer'd powers (The Greeks and I) to Ilion's hostile towers, And bring the race of royal bastards here, For Troy to ransom at a price too dear? But safer plunder thy own host supplies Say, wouldst thou seize some valiant leader's prize? Or, if thy heart to generous love be led, Some captive fair, to bless thy kingly bed? Whate'er our master craves submit we must, Plagued with his pride, or punish'd for his lust. Oh women of Achaia men no more! Hence let us fly, and let him waste his store In loves and pleasures on the Phrygian shore. We may be wanted on some busy day, When Hector comes so great Achilles may From him he forced the prize we jointly gave, From him, the fierce, the fearless, and the brave And durst he, as he ought, resent that wrong, This mighty tyrant were no tyrant long. Fierce from his seat at this Ulysses springs, In generous vengeance of the king of kings. With indignation sparkling in his eyes, He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies 'Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state, With wrangling talents form'd for foul debate Curb that impetuous tongue, nor rashly vain, And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign. Have we not known thee, slave! of all our host, The man who acts the least, upbraids the most? Think not the Greeks to shameful flight to bring, Nor let those lips profane the name of king. For our return we trust the heavenly powers Be that their care to fight like men be ours. But grant the host with wealth the general load, Except detraction, what hast thou bestow'd? Suppose some hero should his spoils resign, Art thou that hero, could those spoils be thine? Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore, And let these eyes behold my son no more If, on thy next offence, this hand forbear To strip those arms thou ill deserv'st to wear, Expel the council where our princes meet, And send thee scourged and howling through the fleet. He said, and cowering as the dastard bends, The weighty sceptre on his back descends. On the round bunch the bloody tumours rise The tears spring starting from his haggard eyes Trembling he sat, and shrunk in abject fears, From his vile visage wiped the scalding tears While to his neighbour each express'd his thought 'Ye gods! what wonders has Ulysses wrought! What fruits his conduct and his courage yield! Great in the council, glorious in the field. Generous he rises in the crown's defence, To curb the factious tongue of insolence, Such just examples on offenders shown, Sedition silence, and assert the throne. 'Twas thus the general voice the hero praised, Who, rising, high the imperial sceptre raised The blueeyed Pallas, his celestial friend, (In form a herald,) bade the crowds attend. The expecting crowds in still attention hung, To hear the wisdom of his heavenly tongue. Then deeply thoughtful, pausing ere he spoke, His silence thus the prudent hero broke 'Unhappy monarch! whom the Grecian race With shame deserting, heap with vile disgrace. Not such at Argos was their generous vow Once all their voice, but ah! forgotten now Ne'er to return, was then the common cry, Till Troy's proud structures should in ashes lie. Behold them weeping for their native shore What could their wives or helpless children more? What heart but melts to leave the tender train, And, one short month, endure the wintry main? Few leagues removed, we wish our peaceful seat, When the ship tosses, and the tempests beat Then well may this long stay provoke their tears, The tedious length of nine revolving years. Not for their grief the Grecian host I blame But vanquish'd! baffled! oh, eternal shame! Expect the time to Troy's destruction given. And try the faith of Chalcas and of heaven. What pass'd at Aulis, Greece can witness bear, And all who live to breathe this Phrygian air. Beside a fountain's sacred brink we raised Our verdant altars, and the victims blazed 'Twas where the planetree spread its shades around, The altars heaved and from the crumbling ground A mighty dragon shot, of dire portent From Jove himself the dreadful sign was sent. Straight to the tree his sanguine spires he roll'd, And curl'd around in many a winding fold The topmost branch a motherbird possess'd Eight callow infants fill'd the mossy nest Herself the ninth the serpent, as he hung, Stretch'd his black jaws and crush'd the crying young While hovering near, with miserable moan, The drooping mother wail'd her children gone. The mother last, as round the nest she flew, Seized by the beating wing, the monster slew Nor long survived to marble turn'd, he stands A lasting prodigy on Aulis' sands. Such was the will of Jove and hence we dare Trust in his omen, and support the war. For while around we gazed with wondering eyes, And trembling sought the powers with sacrifice, Full of his god, the reverend Chalcas cried, 'Ye Grecian warriors! lay your fears aside. This wondrous signal Jove himself displays, Of long, long labours, but eternal praise. As many birds as by the snake were slain, So many years the toils of Greece remain But wait the tenth, for Ilion's fall decreed' Thus spoke the prophet, thus the Fates succeed. Obey, ye Grecians! with submission wait, Nor let your flight avert the Trojan fate. He said the shores with loud applauses sound, The hollow ships each deafening shout rebound. Then Nestor thus'These vain debates forbear, Ye talk like children, not like heroes dare. Where now are all your high resolves at last? Your leagues concluded, your engagements past? Vow'd with libations and with victims then, Now vanish'd like their smoke the faith of men! While useless words consume the unactive hours, No wonder Troy so long resists our powers. Rise, great Atrides! and with courage sway We march to war, if thou direct the way. But leave the few that dare resist thy laws, The mean deserters of the Grecian cause, To grudge the conquests mighty Jove prepares, And view with envy our successful wars. On that great day, when first the martial train, Big with the fate of Ilion, plough'd the main, Jove, on the right, a prosperous signal sent, And thunder rolling shook the firmament. Encouraged hence, maintain the glorious strife, Till every soldier grasp a Phrygian wife, Till Helen's woes at full revenged appear, And Troy's proud matrons render tear for tear. Before that day, if any Greek invite His country's troops to base, inglorious flight, Stand forth that Greek! and hoist his sail to fly, And die the dastard first, who dreads to die. But now, O monarch! all thy chiefs advise Nor what they offer, thou thyself despise. Among those counsels, let not mine be vain In tribes and nations to divide thy train His separate troops let every leader call, Each strengthen each, and all encourage all. What chief, or soldier, of the numerous band, Or bravely fights, or ill obeys command, When thus distinct they war, shall soon be known And what the cause of Ilion not o'erthrown If fate resists, or if our arms are slow, If gods above prevent, or men below. To him the king 'How much thy years excel In arts of counsel, and in speaking well! O would the gods, in love to Greece, decree But ten such sages as they grant in thee Such wisdom soon should Priam's force destroy, And soon should fall the haughty towers of Troy! But Jove forbids, who plunges those he hates In fierce contention and in vain debates Now great Achilles from our aid withdraws, By me provoked a captive maid the cause If e'er as friends we join, the Trojan wall Must shake, and heavy will the vengeance fall! But now, ye warriors, take a short repast And, well refresh'd, to bloody conflict haste. His sharpen'd spear let every Grecian wield, And every Grecian fix his brazen shield, Let all excite the fiery steeds of war, And all for combat fit the rattling car. This day, this dreadful day, let each contend No rest, no respite, till the shades descend Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall Till bathed in sweat be every manly breast, With the huge shield each brawny arm depress'd, Each aching nerve refuse the lance to throw, And each spent courser at the chariot blow. Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay, Who dares to tremble on this signal day That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power, The birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour. The monarch spoke and straight a murmur rose, Loud as the surges when the tempest blows, That dash'd on broken rocks tumultuous roar, And foam and thunder on the stony shore. Straight to the tents the troops dispersing bend, The fires are kindled, and the smokes ascend With hasty feasts they sacrifice, and pray, To avert the dangers of the doubtful day. A steer of five years' age, large limb'd, and fed, To Jove's high altars Agamemnon led There bade the noblest of the Grecian peers And Nestor first, as most advanced in years. Next came Idomeneus, and Tydeus' son, Ajax the less, and Ajax Telamon Then wise Ulysses in his rank was placed And Menelaus came, unbid, the last. The chiefs surround the destined beast, and take The sacred offering of the salted cake When thus the king prefers his solemn prayer 'O thou! whose thunder rends the clouded air, Who in the heaven of heavens hast fixed thy throne, Supreme of gods! unbounded, and alone! Hear! and before the burning sun descends, Before the night her gloomy veil extends, Low in the dust be laid yon hostile spires, Be Priam's palace sunk in Grecian fires. In Hector's breast be plunged this shining sword, And slaughter'd heroes groan around their lord! Thus prayed the chief his unavailing prayer Great Jove refused, and toss'd in empty air The God averse, while yet the fumes arose, Prepared new toils, and doubled woes on woes. Their prayers perform'd the chiefs the rite pursue, The barley sprinkled, and the victim slew. The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide, The thighs, selected to the gods, divide. On these, in double cauls involved with art, The choicest morsels lie from every part, From the cleft wood the crackling flames aspire While the fat victims feed the sacred fire. The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress'd The assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. Soon as the rage of hunger was suppress'd, The generous Nestor thus the prince address'd. 'Now bid thy heralds sound the loud alarms, And call the squadrons sheathed in brazen arms Now seize the occasion, now the troops survey, And lead to war when heaven directs the way. He said the monarch issued his commands Straight the loud heralds call the gathering bands The chiefs inclose their king the hosts divide, In tribes and nations rank'd on either side. High in the midst the blueeyed virgin flies From rank to rank she darts her ardent eyes The dreadful gis, Jove's immortal shield, Blazed on her arm, and lighten'd all the field Round the vast orb a hundred serpents roll'd, Form'd the bright fringe, and seem'd to burn in gold, With this each Grecian's manly breast she warms, Swells their bold hearts, and strings their nervous arms, No more they sigh, inglorious, to return, But breathe revenge, and for the combat burn. As on some mountain, through the lofty grove, The crackling flames ascend, and blaze above The fires expanding, as the winds arise, Shoot their long beams, and kindle half the skies So from the polish'd arms, and brazen shields, A gleamy splendour flash'd along the fields. Not less their number than the embodied cranes, Or milkwhite swans in Asius' watery plains. That, o'er the windings of Cayster's springs, Stretch their long necks, and clap their rustling wings, Now tower aloft, and course in airy rounds, Now light with noise with noise the field resounds. Thus numerous and confused, extending wide, The legions crowd Scamander's flowery side With rushing troops the plains are cover'd o'er, And thundering footsteps shake the sounding shore. Along the river's level meads they stand, Thick as in spring the flowers adorn the land, Or leaves the trees or thick as insects play, The wandering nation of a summer's day That, drawn by milky steams, at evening hours, In gather'd swarms surround the rural bowers From pail to pail with busy murmur run The gilded legions, glittering in the sun. So throng'd, so close, the Grecian squadrons stood In radiant arms, and thirst for Trojan blood. Each leader now his scatter'd force conjoins In close array, and forms the deepening lines. Not with more ease the skilful shepherdswain Collects his flocks from thousands on the plain. The king of kings, majestically tall, Towers o'er his armies, and outshines them all Like some proud bull, that round the pastures leads His subject herds, the monarch of the meads, Great as the gods, the exalted chief was seen, His strength like Neptune, and like Mars his mien Jove o'er his eyes celestial glories spread, And dawning conquest played around his head. Say, virgins, seated round the throne divine, Allknowing goddesses! immortal nine! Since earth's wide regions, heaven's umneasur'd height, And hell's abyss, hide nothing from your sight, (We, wretched mortals! lost in doubts below, But guess by rumour, and but boast we know,) O say what heroes, fired by thirst of fame, Or urged by wrongs, to Troy's destruction came. To count them all, demands a thousand tongues, A throat of brass, and adamantine lungs. Daughters of Jove, assist! inspired by you The mighty labour dauntless I pursue What crowded armies, from what climes they bring, Their names, their numbers, and their chiefs I sing. THE CATALOGUE OF THE SHIPS. NEPTUNE The hardy warriors whom Botia bred, Penelius, Leitus, Prothonor, led With these Arcesilaus and Clonius stand, Equal in arms, and equal in command. These head the troops that rocky Aulis yields, And Eteon's hills, and Hyrie's watery fields, And Schoenos, Scholos, Gra near the main, And Mycalessia's ample piny plain Those who in Peteon or Ilesion dwell, Or Harma where Apollo's prophet fell Heleon and Hyl, which the springs o'erflow And Medeon lofty, and Ocalea low Or in the meads of Haliartus stray, Or Thespia sacred to the god of day Onchestus, Neptune's celebrated groves Cop, and Thisb, famed for silver doves For flocks Erythr, Glissa for the vine Platea green, and Nysa the divine And they whom Theb's wellbuilt walls inclose, Where Myd, Eutresis, Coron, rose And Arn rich, with purple harvests crown'd And Anthedon, Botia's utmost bound. Full fifty ships they send, and each conveys Twice sixty warriors through the foaming seas. To these succeed Aspledon's martial train, Who plough the spacious Orchomenian plain. Two valiant brothers rule the undaunted throng, Ilmen and Ascalaphus the strong Sons of Astyoch, the heavenly fair, Whose virgin charms subdued the god of war (In Actor's court as she retired to rest, The strength of Mars the blushing maid compress'd) Their troops in thirty sable vessels sweep, With equal oars, the hoarseresounding deep. The Phocians next in forty barks repair Epistrophus and Schedius head the war From those rich regions where Cephisus leads His silver current through the flowery meads From Panopa, Chrysa the divine, Where Anemoria's stately turrets shine, Where Pytho, Daulis, Cyparissus stood, And fair Lil views the rising flood. These, ranged in order on the floating tide, Close, on the left, the bold Botians' side. Fierce Ajax led the Locrian squadrons on, Ajax the less, Oleus' valiant son Skill'd to direct the flying dart aright Swift in pursuit, and active in the fight. Him, as their chief, the chosen troops attend, Which Bessa, Thronus, and rich Cynos send Opus, Calliarus, and Scarphe's bands And those who dwell where pleasing Augia stands, And where Bogrius floats the lowly lands, Or in fair Tarphe's sylvan seats reside In forty vessels cut the yielding tide. Euba next her martial sons prepares, And sends the brave Abantes to the wars Breathing revenge, in arms they take their way From Chalcis' walls, and strong Eretria The Isteian fields for generous vines renown'd, The fair Caristos, and the Styrian ground Where Dios from her towers o'erlooks the plain, And high Cerinthus views the neighbouring main. Down their broad shoulders falls a length of hair Their hands dismiss not the long lance in air But with protended spears in fighting fields Pierce the tough corslets and the brazen shields. Twice twenty ships transport the warlike bands, Which bold Elphenor, fierce in arms, commands. Full fifty more from Athens stem the main, Led by Menestheus through the liquid plain. (Athens the fair, where great Erectheus sway'd, That owed his nurture to the blueeyed maid, But from the teeming furrow took his birth, The mighty offspring of the foodful earth. Him Pallas placed amidst her wealthy fane, Adored with sacrifice and oxen slain Where, as the years revolve, her altars blaze, And all the tribes resound the goddess' praise.) No chief like thee, Menestheus! Greece could yield, To marshal armies in the dusty field, The extended wings of battle to display, Or close the embodied host in firm array. Nestor alone, improved by length of days, For martial conduct bore an equal praise. With these appear the Salaminian bands, Whom the gigantic Telamon commands In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course, And with the great Athenians join their force. Next move to war the generous Argive train, From high Trzen, and Maseta's plain, And fair gina circled by the main Whom strong Tyrinthe's lofty walls surround, And Epidaure with viny harvests crown'd And where fair Asinen and Hermoin show Their cliffs above, and ample bay below. These by the brave Euryalus were led, Great Sthenelus, and greater Diomed But chief Tydides bore the sovereign sway In fourscore barks they plough the watery way. The proud Mycen arms her martial powers, Cleon, Corinth, with imperial towers, Fair Arthyrea, Ornia's fruitful plain, And gion, and Adrastus' ancient reign And those who dwell along the sandy shore, And where Pellen yields her fleecy store, Where Helic and Hyperesia lie, And Gonossa's spires salute the sky. Great Agamemnon rules the numerous band, A hundred vessels in long order stand, And crowded nations wait his dread command. High on the deck the king of men appears, And his refulgent arms in triumph wears Proud of his host, unrivall'd in his reign, In silent pomp he moves along the main. His brother follows, and to vengeance warms The hardy Spartans, exercised in arms Phares and Brysia's valiant troops, and those Whom Lacedmon's lofty hills inclose Or Mess's towers for silver doves renown'd, Amycl, Las, Augia's happy ground, And those whom tylos' low walls contain, And Helos, on the margin of the main. These, o'er the bending ocean, Helen's cause, In sixty ships with Menelaus draws Eager and loud from man to man he flies, Revenge and fury flaming in his eyes While vainly fond, in fancy oft he hears The fair one's grief, and sees her falling tears. In ninety sail, from Pylos' sandy coast, Nestor the sage conducts his chosen host From Amphigenia's everfruitful land, Where py high, and little Pteleon stand Where beauteous Arene her structures shows, And Thryon's walls Alpheus' streams inclose And Dorion, famed for Thamyris' disgrace, Superior once of all the tuneful race, Till, vain of mortals' empty praise, he strove To match the seed of cloudcompelling Jove! Too daring bard! whose unsuccessful pride The immortal Muses in their art defied. The avenging Muses of the light of day Deprived his eyes, and snatch'd his voice away No more his heavenly voice was heard to sing, His hand no more awaked the silver string. Where under high Cyllen, crown'd with wood, The shaded tomb of old pytus stood From Rip, Stratie, Tegea's bordering towns, The Phenean fields, and Orchomenian downs, Where the fat herds in plenteous pasture rove And Stymphelus with her surrounding grove Parrhasia, on her snowy cliffs reclined, And high Enisp shook by wintry wind, And fair Mantinea's everpleasing site In sixty sail the Arcadian bands unite. Bold Agapenor, glorious at their head, (Ancus' son) the mighty squadron led. Their ships, supplied by Agamemnon's care, Through roaring seas the wondering warriors bear The first to battle on the appointed plain, But new to all the dangers of the main. Those, where fair Elis and Buprasium join Whom Hyrmin, here, and Myrsinus confine, And bounded there, where o'er the valleys rose The Olenian rock and where Alisium flows Beneath four chiefs (a numerous army) came The strength and glory of the Epean name. In separate squadrons these their train divide, Each leads ten vessels through the yielding tide. One was Amphimachus, and Thalpius one (Eurytus' this, and that Tetus' son) Diores sprung from Amarynceus' line And great Polyxenus, of force divine. But those who view fair Elis o'er the seas From the blest islands of the Echinades, In forty vessels under Meges move, Begot by Phyleus, the beloved of Jove To strong Dulichium from his sire he fled, And thence to Troy his hardy warriors led. Ulysses follow'd through the watery road, A chief, in wisdom equal to a god. With those whom Cephalenia's line inclosed, Or till their fields along the coast opposed Or where fair Ithaca o'erlooks the floods, Where high Neritos shakes his waving woods, Where gilipa's rugged sides are seen, Crocylia rocky, and Zacynthus green. These in twelve galleys with vermilion prores, Beneath his conduct sought the Phrygian shores. Thoas came next, Andrmon's valiant son, From Pleuron's walls, and chalky Calydon, And rough Pylene, and the Olenian steep, And Chalcis, beaten by the rolling deep. He led the warriors from the tolian shore, For now the sons of neus were no more! The glories of the mighty race were fled! neus himself, and Meleager dead! To Thoas' care now trust the martial train, His forty vessels follow through the main. Next, eighty barks the Cretan king commands, Of Gnossus, Lyctus, and Gortyna's bands And those who dwell where Rhytion's domes arise, Or white Lycastus glitters to the skies, Or where by Phstus silver Jardan runs Crete's hundred cities pour forth all her sons. These march'd, Idomeneus, beneath thy care, And Merion, dreadful as the god of war. Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules, Led nine swift vessels through the foamy seas, From Rhodes, with everlasting sunshine bright, Jalyssus, Lindus, and Camirus white. His captive mother fierce Alcides bore From Ephyr's walls and Sell's winding shore, Where mighty towns in ruins spread the plain, And saw their blooming warriors early slain. The hero, when to manly years he grew, Alcides' uncle, old Licymnius, slew For this, constrain'd to quit his native place, And shun the vengeance of the Herculean race, A fleet he built, and with a numerous train Of willing exiles wander'd o'er the main Where, many seas and many sufferings past, On happy Rhodes the chief arrived at last There in three tribes divides his native band, And rules them peaceful in a foreign land Increased and prosper'd in their new abodes By mighty Jove, the sire of men and gods With joy they saw the growing empire rise, And showers of wealth descending from the skies. Three ships with Nireus sought the Trojan shore, Nireus, whom Agle to Charopus bore, Nireus, in faultless shape and blooming grace, The loveliest youth of all the Grecian race Pelides only match'd his early charms But few his troops, and small his strength in arms. Next thirty galleys cleave the liquid plain, Of those Calydn's seagirt isles contain With them the youth of Nisyrus repair, Casus the strong, and Crapathus the fair Cos, where Eurypylus possess'd the sway, Till great Alcides made the realms obey These Antiphus and bold Phidippus bring, Sprung from the god by Thessalus the king. Now, Muse, recount Pelasgic Argos' powers, From Alos, Alop, and Trechin's towers From Phthia's spacious vales and Hella, bless'd With female beauty far beyond the rest. Full fifty ships beneath Achilles' care, The Achaians, Myrmidons, Hellenians bear Thessalians all, though various in their name The same their nation, and their chief the same. But now inglorious, stretch'd along the shore, They hear the brazen voice of war no more No more the foe they face in dire array Close in his fleet the angry leader lay Since fair Brises from his arms was torn, The noblest spoil from sack'd Lyrnessus borne, Then, when the chief the Theban walls o'erthrew, And the bold sons of great Evenus slew. There mourn'd Achilles, plunged in depth of care, But soon to rise in slaughter, blood, and war. To these the youth of Phylac succeed, Itona, famous for her fleecy breed, And grassy Pteleon deck'd with cheerful greens, The bowers of Ceres, and the sylvan scenes. Sweet Pyrrhasus, with blooming flowerets crown'd, And Antron's watery dens, and cavern'd ground. These own'd, as chief, Protesilas the brave, Who now lay silent in the gloomy grave The first who boldly touch'd the Trojan shore, And dyed a Phrygian lance with Grecian gore There lies, far distant from his native plain Unfinish'd his proud palaces remain, And his sad consort beats her breast in vain. His troops in forty ships Podarces led, Iphiclus' son, and brother to the dead Nor he unworthy to command the host Yet still they mourn'd their ancient leader lost. The men who Glaphyra's fair soil partake, Where hills incircle Bbe's lowly lake, Where Phre hears the neighbouring waters fall, Or proud Ilcus lifts her airy wall, In ten black ships embark'd for Ilion's shore, With bold Eumelus, whom Alcest bore All Pelias' race Alcest far outshined, The grace and glory of the beauteous kind, The troops Methon or Thaumacia yields, Olizon's rocks, or Meliba's fields, With Philoctetes sail'd whose matchless art From the tough bow directs the feather'd dart. Seven were his ships each vessel fifty row, Skill'd in his science of the dart and bow. But he lay raging on the Lemnian ground, A poisonous hydra gave the burning wound There groan'd the chief in agonizing pain, Whom Greece at length shall wish, nor wish in vain. His forces Medon led from Lemnos' shore, Oleus' son, whom beauteous Rhena bore. The chalian race, in those high towers contain'd Where once Eurytus in proud triumph reign'd, Or where her humbler turrets Tricca rears, Or where Ithome, rough with rocks, appears, In thirty sail the sparkling waves divide, Which Podalirius and Machaon guide. To these his skill their parentgod imparts, Divine professors of the healing arts. The bold Ormenian and Asterian bands In forty barks Eurypylus commands. Where Titan hides his hoary head in snow, And where Hyperia's silver fountains flow. Thy troops, Argissa, Polyptes leads, And Eleon, shelter'd by Olympus' shades, Gyrton's warriors and where Orth lies, And Olosson's chalky cliffs arise. Sprung from Pirithous of immortal race, The fruit of fair Hippodame's embrace, (That day, when hurl'd from Pelion's cloudy head, To distant dens the shaggy Centaurs fled) With Polyptes join'd in equal sway Leonteus leads, and forty ships obey. In twenty sail the bold Perrhbians came From Cyphus, Guneus was their leader's name. With these the Enians join'd, and those who freeze Where cold Dodona lifts her holy trees Or where the pleasing Titaresius glides, And into Peneus rolls his easy tides Yet o'er the silvery surface pure they flow, The sacred stream unmix'd with streams below, Sacred and awful! from the dark abodes Styx pours them forth, the dreadful oath of gods! Last, under Prothous the Magnesians stood, (Prothous the swift, of old Tenthredon's blood) Who dwell where Pelion, crown'd with piny boughs, Obscures the glade, and nods his shaggy brows Or where through flowery Tempe Peneus stray'd (The region stretch'd beneath his mighty shade) In forty sable barks they stemm'd the main Such were the chiefs, and such the Grecian train. Say next, O Muse! of all Achaia breeds, Who bravest fought, or rein'd the noblest steeds? Eumelus' mares were foremost in the chase, As eagles fleet, and of Pheretian race Bred where Pieria's fruitful fountains flow, And train'd by him who bears the silver bow. Fierce in the fight their nostrils breathed a flame, Their height, their colour, and their age the same O'er fields of death they whirl the rapid car, And break the ranks, and thunder through the war. Ajax in arms the first renown acquired, While stern Achilles in his wrath retired (His was the strength that mortal might exceeds, And his the unrivall'd race of heavenly steeds) But Thetis' son now shines in arms no more His troops, neglected on the sandy shore. In empty air their sportive javelins throw, Or whirl the disk, or bend an idle bow Unstain'd with blood his cover'd chariots stand The immortal coursers graze along the strand But the brave chiefs the inglorious life deplored, And, wandering o'er the camp, required their lord. Now, like a deluge, covering all around, The shining armies sweep along the ground Swift as a flood of fire, when storms arise, Floats the wild field, and blazes to the skies. Earth groan'd beneath them as when angry Jove Hurls down the forky lightning from above, On Arim when he the thunder throws, And fires Typhus with redoubled blows, Where Typhon, press'd beneath the burning load, Still feels the fury of the avenging god. But various Iris, Jove's commands to bear, Speeds on the wings of winds through liquid air In Priam's porch the Trojan chiefs she found, The old consulting, and the youths around. Polites' shape, the monarch's son, she chose, Who from setes' tomb observed the foes, High on the mound from whence in prospect lay The fields, the tents, the navy, and the bay. In this dissembled form, she hastes to bring The unwelcome message to the Phrygian king. 'Cease to consult, the time for action calls War, horrid war, approaches to your walls! Assembled armies oft have I beheld But ne'er till now such numbers charged a field Thick as autumnal leaves or driving sand, The moving squadrons blacken all the strand. Thou, godlike Hector! all thy force employ, Assemble all the united bands of Troy In just array let every leader call The foreign troops this day demands them all! The voice divine the mighty chief alarms The council breaks, the warriors rush to arms. The gates unfolding pour forth all their train, Nations on nations fill the dusky plain, Men, steeds, and chariots, shake the trembling ground The tumult thickens, and the skies resound. Amidst the plain, in sight of Ilion, stands A rising mount, the work of human hands (This for Myrinne's tomb the immortals know, Though call'd Batea in the world below) Beneath their chiefs in martial order here, The auxiliar troops and Trojan hosts appear. The godlike Hector, high above the rest, Shakes his huge spear, and nods his plumy crest In throngs around his native bands repair, And groves of lances glitter in the air. Divine neas brings the Dardan race, Anchises' son, by Venus' stolen embrace, Born in the shades of Ida's secret grove (A mortal mixing with the queen of love) Archilochus and Acamas divide The warrior's toils, and combat by his side. Who fair Zeleia's wealthy valleys till, Fast by the foot of Ida's sacred hill, Or drink, sepus, of thy sable flood, Were led by Pandarus, of royal blood To whom his art Apollo deign'd to show, Graced with the presents of his shafts and bow. From rich Apsus and Adrestia's towers, High Teree's summits, and Pityea's bowers From these the congregated troops obey Young Amphius and Adrastus' equal sway Old Merops' sons whom, skill'd in fates to come, The sire forewarn'd, and prophesied their doom Fate urged them on! the sire forewarn'd in vain, They rush'd to war, and perish'd on the plain. From Practius' stream, Percot's pasture lands, And Sestos and Abydos' neighbouring strands, From great Arisba's walls and Sell's coast, Asius Hyrtacides conducts his host High on his car he shakes the flowing reins, His fiery coursers thunder o'er the plains. The fierce Pelasgi next, in war renown'd, March from Larissa's everfertile ground In equal arms their brother leaders shine, Hippothous bold, and Pyleus the divine. Next Acamas and Pyrous lead their hosts, In dread array, from Thracia's wintry coasts Round the bleak realms where Hellespontus roars, And Boreas beats the hoarseresounding shores. With great Euphemus the Ciconians move, Sprung from Trzenian Ces, loved by Jove. Pyrchmes the Ponian troops attend, Skill'd in the fight their crooked bows to bend From Axius' ample bed he leads them on, Axius, that laves the distant Amydon, Axius, that swells with all his neighbouring rills, And wide around the floating region fills. The Paphlagonians Pylmenes rules, Where rich Henetia breeds her savage mules, Where Erythinus' rising cliffs are seen, Thy groves of box, Cytorus! ever green, And where gialus and Cromna lie, And lofty Sesamus invades the sky, And where Parthenius, roll'd through banks of flowers, Reflects her bordering palaces and bowers. Here march'd in arms the Halizonian band, Whom Odius and Epistrophus command, From those far regions where the sun refines The ripening silver in Alybean mines. There mighty Chromis led the Mysian train, And augur Ennomus, inspired in vain For stern Achilles lopp'd his sacred head, Roll'd down Scamander with the vulgar dead. Phorcys and brave Ascanius here unite The Ascanian Phrygians, eager for the fight. Of those who round Monia's realms reside, Or whom the vales in shades of Tmolus hide, Mestles and Antiphus the charge partake, Born on the banks of Gyges' silent lake. There, from the fields where wild Mander flows, High Mycale, and Latmos' shady brows, And proud Miletus, came the Carian throngs, With mingled clamours and with barbarous tongues. Amphimachus and Naustes guide the train, Naustes the bold, Amphimachus the vain, Who, trick'd with gold, and glittering on his car, Rode like a woman to the field of war. Fool that he was! by fierce Achilles slain, The river swept him to the briny main There whelm'd with waves the gaudy warrior lies The valiant victor seized the golden prize. The forces last in fair array succeed, Which blameless Glaucus and Sarpedon lead The warlike bands that distant Lycia yields, Where gulfy Xanthus foams along the fields. ARGUMENT. THE DUEL OF MENELAUS AND PARIS. The armies being ready to engage, a single combat is agreed upon between Menelaus and Paris (by the intervention of Hector) for the determination of the war. Iris is sent to call Helen to behold the fight. She leads her to the walls of Troy, where Priam sat with his counsellers observing the Grecian leaders on the plain below, to whom Helen gives an account of the chief of them. The kings on either part take the solemn oath for the conditions of the combat. The duel ensues wherein Paris being overcome, he is snatched away in a cloud by Venus, and transported to his apartment. She then calls Helen from the walls, and brings the lovers together. Agamemnon, on the part of the Grecians, demands the restoration of Helen, and the performance of the articles. The threeandtwentieth day still continues throughout this book. The scene is sometimes in the fields before Troy, and sometimes in Troy itself. Thus by their leaders' care each martial band Moves into ranks, and stretches o'er the land. With shouts the Trojans, rushing from afar, Proclaim their motions, and provoke the war. So when inclement winters vex the plain With piercing frosts, or thickdescending rain, To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly, With noise, and order, through the midway sky To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring, And all the war descends upon the wing, But silent, breathing rage, resolved and skill'd By mutual aids to fix a doubtful field, Swift march the Greeks the rapid dust around Darkening arises from the labour'd ground. Thus from his flaggy wings when Notus sheds A night of vapours round the mountain heads, Swiftgliding mists the dusky fields invade, To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey, Lost and confused amidst the thicken'd day So wrapp'd in gathering dust, the Grecian train, A moving cloud, swept on, and hid the plain. Now front to front the hostile armies stand, Eager of fight, and only wait command When, to the van, before the sons of fame Whom Troy sent forth, the beauteous Paris came In form a god! the panther's speckled hide Flow'd o'er his armour with an easy pride His bended bow across his shoulders flung, His sword beside him negligently hung Two pointed spears he shook with gallant grace, And dared the bravest of the Grecian race. As thus, with glorious air and proud disdain, He boldly stalk'd, the foremost on the plain, Him Menelaus, loved of Mars, espies, With heart elated, and with joyful eyes So joys a lion, if the branching deer, Or mountain goat, his bulky prize, appear Eager he seizes and devours the slain, Press'd by bold youths and baying dogs in vain. Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound, In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground From his high chariot him, approaching near, The beauteous champion views with marks of fear, Smit with a conscious sense, retires behind, And shuns the fate he well deserved to find. As when some shepherd, from the rustling trees Shot forth to view, a scaly serpent sees, Trembling and pale, he starts with wild affright And all confused precipitates his flight So from the king the shining warrior flies, And plunged amid the thickest Trojans lies. As godlike Hector sees the prince retreat, He thus upbraids him with a generous heat 'Unhappy Paris! but to women brave! So fairly form'd, and only to deceive! Oh, hadst thou died when first thou saw'st the light, Or died at least before thy nuptial rite! A better fate than vainly thus to boast, And fly, the scandal of thy Trojan host. Gods! how the scornful Greeks exult to see Their fears of danger undeceived in thee! Thy figure promised with a martial air, But ill thy soul supplies a form so fair. In former days, in all thy gallant pride, When thy tall ships triumphant stemm'd the tide, When Greece beheld thy painted canvas flow, And crowds stood wondering at the passing show, Say, was it thus, with such a baffled mien, You met the approaches of the Spartan queen, Thus from her realm convey'd the beauteous prize, And both her warlike lords outshined in Helen's eyes? This deed, thy foes' delight, thy own disgrace, Thy father's grief, and ruin of thy race This deed recalls thee to the proffer'd fight Or hast thou injured whom thou dar'st not right? Soon to thy cost the field would make thee know Thou keep'st the consort of a braver foe. Thy graceful form instilling soft desire, Thy curling tresses, and thy silver lyre, Beauty and youth in vain to these you trust, When youth and beauty shall be laid in dust Troy yet may wake, and one avenging blow Crush the dire author of his country's woe. His silence here, with blushes, Paris breaks ''Tis just, my brother, what your anger speaks But who like thee can boast a soul sedate, So firmly proof to all the shocks of fate? Thy force, like steel, a temper'd hardness shows, Still edged to wound, and still untired with blows, Like steel, uplifted by some strenuous swain, With falling woods to strew the wasted plain. Thy gifts I praise nor thou despise the charms With which a lover golden Venus arms Soft moving speech, and pleasing outward show, No wish can gain them, but the gods bestow. Yet, would'st thou have the proffer'd combat stand, The Greeks and Trojans seat on either hand Then let a midway space our hosts divide, And, on that stage of war, the cause be tried By Paris there the Spartan king be fought, For beauteous Helen and the wealth she brought And who his rival can in arms subdue, His be the fair, and his the treasure too. Thus with a lasting league your toils may cease, And Troy possess her fertile fields in peace Thus may the Greeks review their native shore, Much famed for generous steeds, for beauty more. He said. The challenge Hector heard with joy, Then with his spear restrain'd the youth of Troy, Held by the midst, athwart and near the foe Advanced with steps majestically slow While round his dauntless head the Grecians pour Their stones and arrows in a mingled shower. Then thus the monarch, great Atrides, cried 'Forbear, ye warriors! lay the darts aside A parley Hector asks, a message bears We know him by the various plume he wears. Awed by his high command the Greeks attend, The tumult silence, and the fight suspend. While from the centre Hector rolls his eyes On either host, and thus to both applies 'Hear, all ye Trojan, all ye Grecian bands, What Paris, author of the war, demands. Your shining swords within the sheath restrain, And pitch your lances in the yielding plain. Here in the midst, in either army's sight, He dares the Spartan king to single fight And wills that Helen and the ravish'd spoil, That caused the contest, shall reward the toil. Let these the brave triumphant victor grace, And different nations part in leagues of peace. He spoke in still suspense on either side Each army stood the Spartan chief replied 'Me too, ye warriors, hear, whose fatal right A world engages in the toils of fight. To me the labour of the field resign Me Paris injured all the war be mine. Fall he that must, beneath his rival's arms And live the rest, secure of future harms. Two lambs, devoted by your country's rite, To earth a sable, to the sun a white, Prepare, ye Trojans! while a third we bring Select to Jove, the inviolable king. Let reverend Priam in the truce engage, And add the sanction of considerate age His sons are faithless, headlong in debate, And youth itself an empty wavering state Cool age advances, venerably wise, Turns on all hands its deepdiscerning eyes Sees what befell, and what may yet befall, Concludes from both, and best provides for all. The nations hear with rising hopes possess'd, And peaceful prospects dawn in every breast. Within the lines they drew their steeds around, And from their chariots issued on the ground Next, all unbuckling the rich mail they wore, Laid their bright arms along the sable shore. On either side the meeting hosts are seen With lances fix'd, and close the space between. Two heralds now, despatch'd to Troy, invite The Phrygian monarch to the peaceful rite. Talthybius hastens to the fleet, to bring The lamb for Jove, the inviolable king. Meantime to beauteous Helen, from the skies The various goddess of the rainbow flies (Like fair Laodice in form and face, The loveliest nymph of Priam's royal race) Her in the palace, at her loom she found The golden web her own sad story crown'd, The Trojan wars she weaved (herself the prize) And the dire triumphs of her fatal eyes. To whom the goddess of the painted bow 'Approach, and view the wondrous scene below! Each hardy Greek, and valiant Trojan knight, So dreadful late, and furious for the fight, Now rest their spears, or lean upon their shields Ceased is the war, and silent all the fields. Paris alone and Sparta's king advance, In single fight to toss the beamy lance Each met in arms, the fate of combat tries, Thy love the motive, and thy charms the prize. This said, the manycoloured maid inspires Her husband's love, and wakes her former fires Her country, parents, all that once were dear, Rush to her thought, and force a tender tear, O'er her fair face a snowy veil she threw, And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew. Her handmaids, Clymene and thra, wait Her silent footsteps to the Scan gate. There sat the seniors of the Trojan race (Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace,) The king the first Thymtes at his side Lampus and Clytius, long in council tried Panthus, and Hicetaon, once the strong And next, the wisest of the reverend throng, Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon, Lean'd on the walls and bask'd before the sun Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer days, like grasshoppers rejoice, A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice. These, when the Spartan queen approach'd the tower, In secret own'd resistless beauty's power They cried, 'No wonder such celestial charms For nine long years have set the world in arms What winning graces! what majestic mien! She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen! Yet hence, O Heaven, convey that fatal face, And from destruction save the Trojan race. The good old Priam welcomed her, and cried, 'Approach, my child, and grace thy father's side. See on the plain thy Grecian spouse appears, The friends and kindred of thy former years. No crime of thine our present sufferings draws, Not thou, but Heaven's disposing will, the cause The gods these armies and this force employ, The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy. But lift thy eyes, and say, what Greek is he (Far as from hence these aged orbs can see) Around whose brow such martial graces shine, So tall, so awful, and almost divine! Though some of larger stature tread the green, None match his grandeur and exalted mien He seems a monarch, and his country's pride. Thus ceased the king, and thus the fair replied 'Before thy presence, father, I appear, With conscious shame and reverential fear. Ah! had I died, ere to these walls I fled, False to my country, and my nuptial bed My brothers, friends, and daughter left behind, False to them all, to Paris only kind! For this I mourn, till grief or dire disease Shall waste the form whose fault it was to please! The king of kings, Atrides, you survey, Great in the war, and great in arts of sway My brother once, before my days of shame! And oh! that still he bore a brother's name! With wonder Priam view'd the godlike man, Extoll'd the happy prince, and thus began 'O bless'd Atrides! born to prosperous fate, Successful monarch of a mighty state! How vast thy empire! Of your matchless train What numbers lost, what numbers yet remain! In Phrygia once were gallant armies known, In ancient time, when Otreus fill'd the throne, When godlike Mygdon led their troops of horse, And I, to join them, raised the Trojan force Against the manlike Amazons we stood, And Sangar's stream ran purple with their blood. But far inferior those, in martial grace, And strength of numbers, to this Grecian race. This said, once more he view'd the warrior train 'What's he, whose arms lie scatter'd on the plain? Broad is his breast, his shoulders larger spread, Though great Atrides overtops his head. Nor yet appear his care and conduct small From rank to rank he moves, and orders all. The stately ram thus measures o'er the ground, And, master of the flock, surveys them round. Then Helen thus 'Whom your discerning eyes Have singled out, is Ithacus the wise A barren island boasts his glorious birth His fame for wisdom fills the spacious earth. Antenor took the word, and thus began 'Myself, O king! have seen that wondrous man When, trusting Jove and hospitable laws, To Troy he came, to plead the Grecian cause (Great Menelaus urged the same request) My house was honour'd with each royal guest I knew their persons, and admired their parts, Both brave in arms, and both approved in arts. Erect, the Spartan most engaged our view Ulysses seated, greater reverence drew. When Atreus' son harangued the listening train, Just was his sense, and his expression plain, His words succinct, yet full, without a fault He spoke no more than just the thing he ought. But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound, His modest eyes he fix'd upon the ground As one unskill'd or dumb, he seem'd to stand, Nor raised his head, nor stretch'd his sceptred hand But, when he speaks, what elocution flows! Soft as the fleeces of descending snows, The copious accents fall, with easy art Melting they fall, and sink into the heart! Wondering we hear, and fix'd in deep surprise, Our ears refute the censure of our eyes. The king then ask'd (as yet the camp he view'd) 'What chief is that, with giant strength endued, Whose brawny shoulders, and whose swelling chest, And lofty stature, far exceed the rest? 'Ajax the great, (the beauteous queen replied,) Himself a host the Grecian strength and pride. See! bold Idomeneus superior towers Amid yon circle of his Cretan powers, Great as a god! I saw him once before, With Menelaus on the Spartan shore. The rest I know, and could in order name All valiant chiefs, and men of mighty fame. Yet two are wanting of the numerous train, Whom long my eyes have sought, but sought in vain Castor and Pollux, first in martial force, One bold on foot, and one renown'd for horse. My brothers these the same our native shore, One house contain'd us, as one mother bore. Perhaps the chiefs, from warlike toils at ease, For distant Troy refused to sail the seas Perhaps their swords some nobler quarrel draws, Ashamed to combat in their sister's cause. So spoke the fair, nor knew her brothers' doom Wrapt in the cold embraces of the tomb Adorn'd with honours in their native shore, Silent they slept, and heard of wars no more. Meantime the heralds, through the crowded town, Bring the rich wine and destined victims down. Idus' arms the golden goblets press'd, Who thus the venerable king address'd 'Arise, O father of the Trojan state! The nations call, thy joyful people wait To seal the truce, and end the dire debate. Paris, thy son, and Sparta's king advance, In measured lists to toss the weighty lance And who his rival shall in arms subdue, His be the dame, and his the treasure too. Thus with a lasting league our toils may cease, And Troy possess her fertile fields in peace So shall the Greeks review their native shore, Much famed for generous steeds, for beauty more. With grief he heard, and bade the chiefs prepare To join his milkwhite coursers to the car He mounts the seat, Antenor at his side The gentle steeds through Sca's gates they guide Next from the car descending on the plain, Amid the Grecian host and Trojan train, Slow they proceed the sage Ulysses then Arose, and with him rose the king of men. On either side a sacred herald stands, The wine they mix, and on each monarch's hands Pour the full urn then draws the Grecian lord His cutlass sheathed beside his ponderous sword From the sign'd victims crops the curling hair The heralds part it, and the princes share Then loudly thus before the attentive bands He calls the gods, and spreads his lifted hands 'O first and greatest power! whom all obey, Who high on Ida's holy mountain sway, Eternal Jove! and you bright orb that roll From east to west, and view from pole to pole! Thou mother Earth! and all ye living floods! Infernal furies, and Tartarean gods, Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear! Hear, and be witness. If, by Paris slain, Great Menelaus press the fatal plain The dame and treasures let the Trojan keep, And Greece returning plough the watery deep. If by my brother's lance the Trojan bleed, Be his the wealth and beauteous dame decreed The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay, And every age record the signal day. This if the Phrygians shall refuse to yield, Arms must revenge, and Mars decide the field. With that the chief the tender victims slew, And in the dust their bleeding bodies threw The vital spirit issued at the wound, And left the members quivering on the ground. From the same urn they drink the mingled wine, And add libations to the powers divine. While thus their prayers united mount the sky, 'Hear, mighty Jove! and hear, ye gods on high! And may their blood, who first the league confound, Shed like this wine, disdain the thirsty ground May all their consorts serve promiscuous lust, And all their lust be scatter'd as the dust! Thus either host their imprecations join'd, Which Jove refused, and mingled with the wind. The rites now finish'd, reverend Priam rose, And thus express'd a heart o'ercharged with woes 'Ye Greeks and Trojans, let the chiefs engage, But spare the weakness of my feeble age In yonder walls that object let me shun, Nor view the danger of so dear a son. Whose arms shall conquer and what prince shall fall, Heaven only knows for heaven disposes all. This said, the hoary king no longer stay'd, But on his car the slaughter'd victims laid Then seized the reins his gentle steeds to guide, And drove to Troy, Antenor at his side. Bold Hector and Ulysses now dispose The lists of combat, and the ground inclose Next to decide, by sacred lots prepare, Who first shall launch his pointed spear in air. The people pray with elevated hands, And words like these are heard through all the bands 'Immortal Jove, high Heaven's superior lord, On lofty Ida's holy mount adored! Whoe'er involved us in this dire debate, O give that author of the war to fate And shades eternal! let division cease, And joyful nations join in leagues of peace. With eyes averted Hector hastes to turn The lots of fight and shakes the brazen urn. Then, Paris, thine leap'd forth by fatal chance Ordain'd the first to whirl the weighty lance. Both armies sat the combat to survey. Beside each chief his azure armour lay, And round the lists the generous coursers neigh. The beauteous warrior now arrays for fight, In gilded arms magnificently bright The purple cuishes clasp his thighs around, With flowers adorn'd, with silver buckles bound Lycaon's corslet his fair body dress'd, Braced in and fitted to his softer breast A radiant baldric, o'er his shoulder tied, Sustain'd the sword that glitter'd at his side His youthful face a polish'd helm o'erspread The waving horsehair nodded on his head His figured shield, a shining orb, he takes, And in his hand a pointed javelin shakes. With equal speed and fired by equal charms, The Spartan hero sheathes his limbs in arms. Now round the lists the admiring armies stand, With javelins fix'd, the Greek and Trojan band. Amidst the dreadful vale, the chiefs advance, All pale with rage, and shake the threatening lance. The Trojan first his shining javelin threw Full on Atrides' ringing shield it flew, Nor pierced the brazen orb, but with a bound Leap'd from the buckler, blunted, on the ground. Atrides then his massy lance prepares, In act to throw, but first prefers his prayers 'Give me, great Jove! to punish lawless lust, And lay the Trojan gasping in the dust Destroy the aggressor, aid my righteous cause, Avenge the breach of hospitable laws! Let this example future times reclaim, And guard from wrong fair friendship's holy name, He said, and poised in air the javelin sent, Through Paris' shield the forceful weapon went, His corslet pierces, and his garment rends, And glancing downward, near his flank descends. The wary Trojan, bending from the blow, Eludes the death, and disappoints his foe But fierce Atrides waved his sword, and strook Full on his casque the crested helmet shook The brittle steel, unfaithful to his hand, Broke short the fragments glitter'd on the sand. The raging warrior to the spacious skies Raised his upbraiding voice and angry eyes 'Then is it vain in Jove himself to trust? And is it thus the gods assist the just? When crimes provoke us, Heaven success denies The dart falls harmless, and the falchion flies. Furious he said, and towards the Grecian crew (Seized by the crest) the unhappy warrior drew Struggling he followed, while the embroider'd thong That tied his helmet, dragg'd the chief along. Then had his ruin crown'd Atrides' joy, But Venus trembled for the prince of Troy Unseen she came, and burst the golden band And left an empty helmet in his hand. The casque, enraged, amidst the Greeks he threw The Greeks with smiles the polish'd trophy view. Then, as once more he lifts the deadly dart, In thirst of vengeance, at his rival's heart The queen of love her favour'd champion shrouds (For gods can all things) in a veil of clouds. Raised from the field the panting youth she led, And gently laid him on the bridal bed, With pleasing sweets his fainting sense renews, And all the dome perfumes with heavenly dews. Meantime the brightest of the female kind, The matchless Helen, o'er the walls reclined To her, beset with Trojan beauties, came, In borrow'd form, the laughterloving dame. (She seem'd an ancient maid, wellskill'd to cull The snowy fleece, and wind the twisted wool.) The goddess softly shook her silken vest, That shed perfumes, and whispering thus address'd VENUS, DISGUISED, INVITING HELEN TO THE CHAMBER OF PARIS 'Haste, happy nymph! for thee thy Paris calls, Safe from the fight, in yonder lofty walls, Fair as a god with odours round him spread, He lies, and waits thee on the wellknown bed Not like a warrior parted from the foe, But some gay dancer in the public show. She spoke, and Helen's secret soul was moved She scorn'd the champion, but the man she loved. Fair Venus' neck, her eyes that sparkled fire, And breast, reveal'd the queen of soft desire. Struck with her presence, straight the lively red Forsook her cheek and trembling, thus she said 'Then is it still thy pleasure to deceive? And woman's frailty always to believe! Say, to new nations must I cross the main, Or carry wars to some soft Asian plain? For whom must Helen break her second vow? What other Paris is thy darling now? Left to Atrides, (victor in the strife,) An odious conquest and a captive wife, Hence let me sail and if thy Paris bear My absence ill, let Venus ease his care. A handmaid goddess at his side to wait, Renounce the glories of thy heavenly state, Be fix'd for ever to the Trojan shore, His spouse, or slave and mount the skies no more. For me, to lawless love no longer led, I scorn the coward, and detest his bed Else should I merit everlasting shame, And keen reproach, from every Phrygian dame Ill suits it now the joys of love to know, Too deep my anguish, and too wild my woe. VENUS PRESENTING HELEN TO PARIS Then thus incensed, the Paphian queen replies 'Obey the power from whom thy glories rise Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly, Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye. Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more The world's aversion, than their love before Now the bright prize for which mankind engage, Than, the sad victim, of the public rage. At this, the fairest of her sex obey'd, And veil'd her blushes in a silken shade Unseen, and silent, from the train she moves, Led by the goddess of the Smiles and Loves. Arrived, and enter'd at the palace gate, The maids officious round their mistress wait Then, all dispersing, various tasks attend The queen and goddess to the prince ascend. Full in her Paris' sight, the queen of love Had placed the beauteous progeny of Jove Where, as he view'd her charms, she turn'd away Her glowing eyes, and thus began to say 'Is this the chief, who, lost to sense of shame, Late fled the field, and yet survives his fame? O hadst thou died beneath the righteous sword Of that brave man whom once I call'd my lord! The boaster Paris oft desired the day With Sparta's king to meet in single fray Go now, once more thy rival's rage excite, Provoke Atrides, and renew the fight Yet Helen bids thee stay, lest thou unskill'd Shouldst fall an easy conquest on the field. The prince replies 'Ah cease, divinely fair, Nor add reproaches to the wounds I bear This day the foe prevail'd by Pallas' power We yet may vanquish in a happier hour There want not gods to favour us above But let the business of our life be love These softer moments let delights employ, And kind embraces snatch the hasty joy. Not thus I loved thee, when from Sparta's shore My forced, my willing heavenly prize I bore, When first entranced in Cranae's isle I lay, Mix'd with thy soul, and all dissolved away! Thus having spoke, the enamour'd Phrygian boy Rush'd to the bed, impatient for the joy. Him Helen follow'd slow with bashful charms, And clasp'd the blooming hero in her arms. While these to love's delicious rapture yield, The stern Atrides rages round the field So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, 'Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the just success have found Be therefore now the Spartan wealth restor'd, Let Argive Helen own her lawful lord The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay, And age to age record this signal day. He ceased his army's loud applauses rise, And the long shout runs echoing through the skies. VENUS Map, titled 'GRCI ANTIQU ARGUMENT. THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE. The gods deliberate in council concerning the Trojan war they agree upon the continuation of it, and Jupiter sends down Minerva to break the truce. She persuades Pandarus to aim an arrow at Menelaus, who is wounded, but cured by Machaon. In the meantime some of the Trojan troops attack the Greeks. Agamemnon is distinguished in all the parts of a good general he reviews the troops, and exhorts the leaders, some by praises and others by reproof. Nestor is particularly celebrated for his military discipline. The battle joins, and great numbers are slain on both sides. The same day continues through this as through the last book (as it does also through the two following, and almost to the end of the seventh book). The scene is wholly in the field before Troy. And now Olympus' shining gates unfold The gods, with Jove, assume their thrones of gold Immortal Hebe, fresh with bloom divine, The golden goblet crowns with purple wine While the full bowls flow round, the powers employ Their careful eyes on longcontended Troy. When Jove, disposed to tempt Saturnia's spleen, Thus waked the fury of his partial queen, 'Two powers divine the son of Atreus aid, Imperial Juno, and the martial maid But high in heaven they sit, and gaze from far, The tame spectators of his deeds of war. Not thus fair Venus helps her favour'd knight, The queen of pleasures shares the toils of fight, Each danger wards, and constant in her care, Saves in the moment of the last despair. Her act has rescued Paris' forfeit life, Though great Atrides gain'd the glorious strife. Then say, ye powers! what signal issue waits To crown this deed, and finish all the fates! Shall Heaven by peace the bleeding kingdoms spare, Or rouse the furies, and awake the war? Yet, would the gods for human good provide, Atrides soon might gain his beauteous bride, Still Priam's walls in peaceful honours grow, And through his gates the crowding nations flow. Thus while he spoke, the queen of heaven, enraged, And queen of war, in close consult engaged Apart they sit, their deep designs employ, And meditate the future woes of Troy. Though secret anger swell'd Minerva's breast, The prudent goddess yet her wrath suppress'd But Juno, impotent of passion, broke Her sullen silence, and with fury spoke THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS 'Shall then, O tyrant of the ethereal reign! My schemes, my labours, and my hopes be vain? Have I, for this, shook Ilion with alarms, Assembled nations, set two worlds in arms? To spread the war, I flew from shore to shore The immortal coursers scarce the labour bore. At length ripe vengeance o'er their heads impends, But Jove himself the faithless race defends. Loth as thou art to punish lawless lust, Not all the gods are partial and unjust. The sire whose thunder shakes the cloudy skies, Sighs from his inmost soul, and thus replies 'Oh lasting rancour! oh insatiate hate To Phrygia's monarch, and the Phrygian state! What high offence has fired the wife of Jove? Can wretched mortals harm the powers above, That Troy, and Troy's whole race thou wouldst confound, And yon fair structures level with the ground! Haste, leave the skies, fulfil thy stern desire, Burst all her gates, and wrap her walls in fire! Let Priam bleed! if yet you thirst for more, Bleed all his sons, and Ilion float with gore To boundless vengeance the wide realm be given, Till vast destruction glut the queen of heaven! So let it be, and Jove his peace enjoy, When heaven no longer hears the name of Troy. But should this arm prepare to wreak our hate On thy loved realms, whose guilt demands their fate Presume not thou the lifted bolt to stay, Remember Troy, and give the vengeance way. For know, of all the numerous towns that rise Beneath the rolling sun and starry skies, Which gods have raised, or earthborn men enjoy, None stands so dear to Jove as sacred Troy. No mortals merit more distinguish'd grace Than godlike Priam, or than Priam's race. Still to our name their hecatombs expire, And altars blaze with unextinguish'd fire. At this the goddess rolled her radiant eyes, Then on the Thunderer fix'd them, and replies 'Three towns are Juno's on the Grecian plains, More dear than all the extended earth contains, Mycen, Argos, and the Spartan wall These thou mayst raze, nor I forbid their fall 'Tis not in me the vengeance to remove The crime's sufficient that they share my love. Of power superior why should I complain? Resent I may, but must resent in vain. Yet some distinction Juno might require, Sprung with thyself from one celestial sire, A goddess born, to share the realms above, And styled the consort of the thundering Jove Nor thou a wife and sister's right deny Let both consent, and both by terms comply So shall the gods our joint decrees obey, And heaven shall act as we direct the way. See ready Pallas waits thy high commands To raise in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands Their sudden friendship by her arts may cease, And the proud Trojans first infringe the peace. The sire of men and monarch of the sky The advice approved, and bade Minerva fly, Dissolve the league, and all her arts employ To make the breach the faithless act of Troy. Fired with the charge, she headlong urged her flight, And shot like lightning from Olympus' height. As the red comet, from Saturnius sent To fright the nations with a dire portent, (A fatal sign to armies on the plain, Or trembling sailors on the wintry main,) With sweeping glories glides along in air, And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair Between both armies thus, in open sight Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light, With eyes erect the gazing hosts admire The power descending, and the heavens on fire! 'The gods (they cried), the gods this signal sent, And fate now labours with some vast event Jove seals the league, or bloodier scenes prepares Jove, the great arbiter of peace and wars. They said, while Pallas through the Trojan throng, (In shape a mortal,) pass'd disguised along. Like bold Laodocus, her course she bent, Who from Antenor traced his high descent. Amidst the ranks Lycaon's son she found, The warlike Pandarus, for strength renown'd Whose squadrons, led from black sepus' flood, With flaming shields in martial circle stood. To him the goddess 'Phrygian! canst thou hear A welltimed counsel with a willing ear? What praise were thine, couldst thou direct thy dart, Amidst his triumph, to the Spartan's heart? What gifts from Troy, from Paris wouldst thou gain, Thy country's foe, the Grecian glory slain? Then seize the occasion, dare the mighty deed, Aim at his breast, and may that aim succeed! But first, to speed the shaft, address thy vow To Lycian Phbus with the silver bow, And swear the firstlings of thy flock to pay, On Zelia's altars, to the god of day. He heard, and madly at the motion pleased, His polish'd bow with hasty rashness seized. 'Twas form'd of horn, and smooth'd with artful toil A mountain goat resign'd the shining spoil. Who pierced long since beneath his arrows bled The stately quarry on the cliffs lay dead, And sixteen palms his brow's large honours spread The workmen join'd, and shaped the bended horns, And beaten gold each taper point adorns. This, by the Greeks unseen, the warrior bends, Screen'd by the shields of his surrounding friends There meditates the mark and couching low, Fits the sharp arrow to the wellstrung bow. One from a hundred feather'd deaths he chose, Fated to wound, and cause of future woes Then offers vows with hecatombs to crown Apollo's altars in his native town. Now with full force the yielding horn he bends, Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends Close to his breast he strains the nerve below, Till the barb'd points approach the circling bow The impatient weapon whizzes on the wing Sounds the tough horn, and twangs the quivering string. But thee, Atrides! in that dangerous hour The gods forget not, nor thy guardian power, Pallas assists, and (weakened in its force) Diverts the weapon from its destined course So from her babe, when slumber seals his eye, The watchful mother wafts the envenom'd fly. Just where his belt with golden buckles join'd, Where linen folds the double corslet lined, She turn'd the shaft, which, hissing from above, Pass'd the broad belt, and through the corslet drove The folds it pierced, the plaited linen tore, And razed the skin, and drew the purple gore. As when some stately trappings are decreed To grace a monarch on his bounding steed, A nymph in Caria or Monia bred, Stains the pure ivory with a lively red With equal lustre various colours vie, The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye So great Atrides! show'd thy sacred blood, As down thy snowy thigh distill'd the streaming flood. With horror seized, the king of men descried The shaft infix'd, and saw the gushing tide Nor less the Spartan fear'd, before he found The shining barb appear above the wound, Then, with a sigh, that heaved his manly breast, The royal brother thus his grief express'd, And grasp'd his hand while all the Greeks around With answering sighs return'd the plaintive sound. 'Oh, dear as life! did I for this agree The solemn truce, a fatal truce to thee! Wert thou exposed to all the hostile train, To fight for Greece, and conquer, to be slain! The race of Trojans in thy ruin join, And faith is scorn'd by all the perjured line. Not thus our vows, confirm'd with wine and gore, Those hands we plighted, and those oaths we swore, Shall all be vain when Heaven's revenge is slow, Jove but prepares to strike the fiercer blow. The day shall come, that great avenging day, When Troy's proud glories in the dust shall lay, When Priam's powers and Priam's self shall fall, And one prodigious ruin swallow all. I see the god, already, from the pole Bare his red arm, and bid the thunder roll I see the Eternal all his fury shed, And shake his gis o'er their guilty head. Such mighty woes on perjured princes wait But thou, alas! deserv'st a happier fate. Still must I mourn the period of thy days, And only mourn, without my share of praise? Deprived of thee, the heartless Greeks no more Shall dream of conquests on the hostile shore Troy seized of Helen, and our glory lost, Thy bones shall moulder on a foreign coast While some proud Trojan thus insulting cries, (And spurns the dust where Menelaus lies,) 'Such are the trophies Greece from Ilion brings, And such the conquest of her king of kings! Lo his proud vessels scatter'd o'er the main, And unrevenged, his mighty brother slain.' Oh! ere that dire disgrace shall blast my fame, O'erwhelm me, earth! and hide a monarch's shame. He said a leader's and a brother's fears Possess his soul, which thus the Spartan cheers 'Let not thy words the warmth of Greece abate The feeble dart is guiltless of my fate Stiff with the rich embroider'd work around, My varied belt repell'd the flying wound. To whom the king 'My brother and my friend, Thus, always thus, may Heaven thy life defend! Now seek some skilful hand, whose powerful art May stanch the effusion, and extract the dart. Herald, be swift, and bid Machaon bring His speedy succour to the Spartan king Pierced with a winged shaft (the deed of Troy), The Grecian's sorrow, and the Dardan's joy. With hasty zeal the swift Talthybius flies Through the thick files he darts his searching eyes, And finds Machaon, where sublime he stands In arms incircled with his native bands. Then thus 'Machaon, to the king repair, His wounded brother claims thy timely care Pierced by some Lycian or Dardanian bow, A grief to us, a triumph to the foe. The heavy tidings grieved the godlike man Swift to his succour through the ranks he ran. The dauntless king yet standing firm he found, And all the chiefs in deep concern around. Where to the steely point the reed was join'd, The shaft he drew, but left the head behind. Straight the broad belt with gay embroidery graced, He loosed the corslet from his breast unbraced Then suck'd the blood, and sovereign balm infused, Which Chiron gave, and sculapius used. While round the prince the Greeks employ their care, The Trojans rush tumultuous to the war Once more they glitter in refulgent arms, Once more the fields are fill'd with dire alarms. Nor had you seen the king of men appear Confused, unactive, or surprised with fear But fond of glory, with severe delight, His beating bosom claim'd the rising fight. No longer with his warlike steeds he stay'd, Or press'd the car with polish'd brass inlaid But left Eurymedon the reins to guide The fiery coursers snorted at his side. On foot through all the martial ranks he moves And these encourages, and those reproves. 'Brave men! he cries, (to such who boldly dare Urge their swift steeds to face the coming war), 'Your ancient valour on the foes approve Jove is with Greece, and let us trust in Jove. 'Tis not for us, but guilty Troy, to dread, Whose crimes sit heavy on her perjured head Her sons and matrons Greece shall lead in chains, And her dead warriors strew the mournful plains. Thus with new ardour he the brave inspires Or thus the fearful with reproaches fires 'Shame to your country, scandal of your kind Born to the fate ye well deserve to find! Why stand ye gazing round the dreadful plain, Prepared for flight, but doom'd to fly in vain? Confused and panting thus, the hunted deer Falls as he flies, a victim to his fear. Still must ye wait the foes, and still retire, Till yon tall vessels blaze with Trojan fire? Or trust ye, Jove a valiant foe shall chase, To save a trembling, heartless, dastard race? This said, he stalk'd with ample strides along, To Crete's brave monarch and his martial throng High at their head he saw the chief appear, And bold Meriones excite the rear. At this the king his generous joy express'd, And clasp'd the warrior to his armed breast. 'Divine Idomeneus! what thanks we owe To worth like thine! what praise shall we bestow? To thee the foremost honours are decreed, First in the fight and every graceful deed. For this, in banquets, when the generous bowls Restore our blood, and raise the warriors' souls, Though all the rest with stated rules we bound, Unmix'd, unmeasured, are thy goblets crown'd. Be still thyself, in arms a mighty name Maintain thy honours, and enlarge thy fame. To whom the Cretan thus his speech address'd 'Secure of me, O king! exhort the rest. Fix'd to thy side, in every toil I share, Thy firm associate in the day of war. But let the signal be this moment given To mix in fight is all I ask of Heaven. The field shall prove how perjuries succeed, And chains or death avenge the impious deed. Charm'd with this heat, the king his course pursues, And next the troops of either Ajax views In one firm orb the bands were ranged around, A cloud of heroes blacken'd all the ground. Thus from the lofty promontory's brow A swain surveys the gathering storm below Slow from the main the heavy vapours rise, Spread in dim streams, and sail along the skies, Till black as night the swelling tempest shows, The cloud condensing as the westwind blows He dreads the impending storm, and drives his flock To the close covert of an arching rock. Such, and so thick, the embattled squadrons stood, With spears erect, a moving iron wood A shady light was shot from glimmering shields, And their brown arms obscured the dusky fields. 'O heroes! worthy such a dauntless train, Whose godlike virtue we but urge in vain, (Exclaim'd the king), who raise your eager bands With great examples, more than loud commands. Ah! would the gods but breathe in all the rest Such souls as burn in your exalted breast, Soon should our arms with just success be crown'd, And Troy's proud walls lie smoking on the ground. Then to the next the general bends his course (His heart exults, and glories in his force) There reverend Nestor ranks his Pylian bands, And with inspiring eloquence commands With strictest order sets his train in arms, The chiefs advises, and the soldiers warms. Alastor, Chromius, Haemon, round him wait, Bias the good, and Pelagon the great. The horse and chariots to the front assign'd, The foot (the strength of war) he ranged behind The middle space suspected troops supply, Inclosed by both, nor left the power to fly He gives command to 'curb the fiery steed, Nor cause confusion, nor the ranks exceed Before the rest let none too rashly ride No strength nor skill, but just in time, be tried The charge once made, no warrior turn the rein, But fight, or fall a firm embodied train. He whom the fortune of the field shall cast From forth his chariot, mount the next in haste Nor seek unpractised to direct the car, Content with javelins to provoke the war. Our great forefathers held this prudent course, Thus ruled their ardour, thus preserved their force By laws like these immortal conquests made, And earth's proud tyrants low in ashes laid. So spoke the master of the martial art, And touch'd with transport great Atrides' heart. 'Oh! hadst thou strength to match thy brave desires, And nerves to second what thy soul inspires! But wasting years, that wither human race, Exhaust thy spirits, and thy arms unbrace. What once thou wert, oh ever mightst thou be! And age the lot of any chief but thee. Thus to the experienced prince Atrides cried He shook his hoary locks, and thus replied 'Well might I wish, could mortal wish renew That strength which once in boiling youth I knew Such as I was, when Ereuthalion, slain Beneath this arm, fell prostrate on the plain. But heaven its gifts not all at once bestows, These years with wisdom crowns, with action those The field of combat fits the young and bold, The solemn council best becomes the old To you the glorious conflict I resign, Let sage advice, the palm of age, be mine. He said. With joy the monarch march'd before, And found Menestheus on the dusty shore, With whom the firm Athenian phalanx stands And next Ulysses, with his subject bands. Remote their forces lay, nor knew so far The peace infringed, nor heard the sounds of war The tumult late begun, they stood intent To watch the motion, dubious of the event. The king, who saw their squadrons yet unmoved, With hasty ardour thus the chiefs reproved 'Can Peleus' son forget a warrior's part. And fears Ulysses, skill'd in every art? Why stand you distant, and the rest expect To mix in combat which yourselves neglect? From you 'twas hoped among the first to dare The shock of armies, and commence the war For this your names are call'd before the rest, To share the pleasures of the genial feast And can you, chiefs! without a blush survey Whole troops before you labouring in the fray? Say, is it thus those honours you requite? The first in banquets, but the last in fight. Ulysses heard the hero's warmth o'erspread His cheek with blushes and severe, he said 'Take back the unjust reproach! Behold we stand Sheathed in bright arms, and but expect command. If glorious deeds afford thy soul delight, Behold me plunging in the thickest fight. Then give thy warriorchief a warrior's due, Who dares to act whate'er thou dar'st to view. Struck with his generous wrath, the king replies 'O great in action, and in council wise! With ours, thy care and ardour are the same, Nor need I to commend, nor aught to blame. Sage as thou art, and learn'd in human kind, Forgive the transport of a martial mind. Haste to the fight, secure of just amends The gods that make, shall keep the worthy, friends. He said, and pass'd where great Tydides lay, His steeds and chariots wedged in firm array (The warlike Sthenelus attends his side) To whom with stern reproach the monarch cried 'O son of Tydeus! (he, whose strength could tame The bounding steed, in arms a mighty name) Canst thou, remote, the mingling hosts descry, With hands unactive, and a careless eye? Not thus thy sire the fierce encounter fear'd Still first in front the matchless prince appear'd What glorious toils, what wonders they recite, Who view'd him labouring through the ranks of fight? I saw him once, when gathering martial powers, A peaceful guest, he sought Mycen's towers Armies he ask'd, and armies had been given, Not we denied, but Jove forbade from heaven While dreadful comets glaring from afar, Forewarn'd the horrors of the Theban war. Next, sent by Greece from where Asopus flows, A fearless envoy, he approach'd the foes Thebes' hostile walls unguarded and alone, Dauntless he enters, and demands the throne. The tyrant feasting with his chiefs he found, And dared to combat all those chiefs around Dared, and subdued before their haughty lord For Pallas strung his arm and edged his sword. Stung with the shame, within the winding way, To bar his passage fifty warriors lay Two heroes led the secret squadron on, Mason the fierce, and hardy Lycophon Those fifty slaughter'd in the gloomy vale. He spared but one to bear the dreadful tale, Such Tydeus was, and such his martial fire Gods! how the son degenerates from the sire! No words the godlike Diomed return'd, But heard respectful, and in secret burn'd Not so fierce Capaneus' undaunted son Stern as his sire, the boaster thus begun 'What needs, O monarch! this invidious praise, Ourselves to lessen, while our sire you raise? Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess Our value equal, though our fury less. With fewer troops we storm'd the Theban wall, And happier saw the sevenfold city fall, In impious acts the guilty father died The sons subdued, for Heaven was on their side. Far more than heirs of all our parents' fame, Our glories darken their diminish'd name. To him Tydides thus 'My friend, forbear Suppress thy passion, and the king revere His high concern may well excuse this rage, Whose cause we follow, and whose war we wage His the first praise, were Ilion's towers o'erthrown, And, if we fail, the chief disgrace his own. Let him the Greeks to hardy toils excite, 'Tis ours to labour in the glorious fight. He spoke, and ardent, on the trembling ground Sprung from his car his ringing arms resound. Dire was the clang, and dreadful from afar, Of arm'd Tydides rushing to the war. As when the winds, ascending by degrees, First move the whitening surface of the seas, The billows float in order to the shore, The wave behind rolls on the wave before Till, with the growing storm, the deeps arise, Foam o'er the rocks, and thunder to the skies. So to the fight the thick battalions throng, Shields urged on shields, and men drove men along Sedate and silent move the numerous bands No sound, no whisper, but the chief's commands, Those only heard with awe the rest obey, As if some god had snatch'd their voice away. Not so the Trojans from their host ascends A general shout that all the region rends. As when the fleecy flocks unnumber'd stand In wealthy folds, and wait the milker's hand, The hollow vales incessant bleating fills, The lambs reply from all the neighbouring hills Such clamours rose from various nations round, Mix'd was the murmur, and confused the sound. Each host now joins, and each a god inspires, These Mars incites, and those Minerva fires, Pale flight around, and dreadful terror reign And discord raging bathes the purple plain Discord! dire sister of the slaughtering power, Small at her birth, but rising every hour, While scarce the skies her horrid head can bound, She stalks on earth, and shakes the world around The nations bleed, where'er her steps she turns, The groan still deepens, and the combat burns. Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed, To armour armour, lance to lance opposed, Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew, The sounding darts in iron tempests flew, Victors and vanquish'd join'd promiscuous cries, And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed, And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide. As torrents roll, increased by numerous rills, With rage impetuous, down their echoing hills Rush to the vales, and pour'd along the plain, Roar through a thousand channels to the main The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound. The bold Antilochus the slaughter led, The first who struck a valiant Trojan dead At great Echepolus the lance arrives, Razed his high crest, and through his helmet drives Warm'd in the brain the brazen weapon lies, And shades eternal settle o'er his eyes. So sinks a tower, that long assaults had stood Of force and fire, its walls besmear'd with blood. Him, the bold leader of the Abantian throng, Seized to despoil, and dragg'd the corpse along But while he strove to tug the inserted dart, Agenor's javelin reach'd the hero's heart. His flank, unguarded by his ample shield, Admits the lance he falls, and spurns the field The nerves, unbraced, support his limbs no more The soul comes floating in a tide of gore. Trojans and Greeks now gather round the slain The war renews, the warriors bleed again As o'er their prey rapacious wolves engage, Man dies on man, and all is blood and rage. In blooming youth fair Simoisius fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell Fair Simoisius, whom his mother bore Amid the flocks on silver Simois' shore The nymph descending from the hills of Ide, To seek her parents on his flowery side, Brought forth the babe, their common care and joy, And thence from Simois named the lovely boy. Short was his date! by dreadful Ajax slain, He falls, and renders all their cares in vain! So falls a poplar, that in watery ground Raised high the head, with stately branches crown'd, (Fell'd by some artist with his shining steel, To shape the circle of the bending wheel,) Cut down it lies, tall, smooth, and largely spread, With all its beauteous honours on its head There, left a subject to the wind and rain, And scorch'd by suns, it withers on the plain Thus pierced by Ajax, Simoisius lies Stretch'd on the shore, and thus neglected dies. At Ajax, Antiphus his javelin threw The pointed lance with erring fury flew, And Leucus, loved by wise Ulysses, slew. He drops the corpse of Simoisius slain, And sinks a breathless carcase on the plain. This saw Ulysses, and with grief enraged, Strode where the foremost of the foes engaged Arm'd with his spear, he meditates the wound, In act to throw but cautious look'd around, Struck at his sight the Trojans backward drew, And trembling heard the javelin as it flew. A chief stood nigh, who from Abydos came, Old Priam's son, Democoon was his name. The weapon entered close above his ear, Cold through his temples glides the whizzing spear With piercing shrieks the youth resigns his breath, His eyeballs darken with the shades of death Ponderous he falls his clanging arms resound, And his broad buckler rings against the ground. Seized with affright the boldest foes appear E'en godlike Hector seems himself to fear Slow he gave way, the rest tumultuous fled The Greeks with shouts press on, and spoil the dead But Phbus now from Ilion's towering height Shines forth reveal'd, and animates the fight. 'Trojans, be bold, and force with force oppose Your foaming steeds urge headlong on the foes! Nor are their bodies rocks, nor ribb'd with steel Your weapons enter, and your strokes they feel. Have ye forgot what seem'd your dread before? The great, the fierce Achilles fights no more. Apollo thus from Ilion's lofty towers, Array'd in terrors, roused the Trojan powers While war's fierce goddess fires the Grecian foe, And shouts and thunders in the fields below. Then great Diores fell, by doom divine, In vain his valour and illustrious line. A broken rock the force of Pyrus threw, (Who from cold nus led the Thracian crew,) Full on his ankle dropp'd the ponderous stone, Burst the strong nerves, and crash'd the solid bone. Supine he tumbles on the crimson sands, Before his helpless friends, and native bands, And spreads for aid his unavailing hands. The foe rush'd furious as he pants for breath, And through his navel drove the pointed death His gushing entrails smoked upon the ground, And the warm life came issuing from the wound. His lance bold Thoas at the conqueror sent, Deep in his breast above the pap it went, Amid the lungs was fix'd the winged wood, And quivering in his heaving bosom stood Till from the dying chief, approaching near, The tolian warrior tugg'd his weighty spear Then sudden waved his flaming falchion round, And gash'd his belly with a ghastly wound The corpse now breathless on the bloody plain, To spoil his arms the victor strove in vain The Thracian bands against the victor press'd, A grove of lances glitter'd at his breast. Stern Thoas, glaring with revengeful eyes, In sullen fury slowly quits the prize. Thus fell two heroes one the pride of Thrace, And one the leader of the Epeian race Death's sable shade at once o'ercast their eyes, In dust the vanquish'd and the victor lies. With copious slaughter all the fields are red, And heap'd with growing mountains of the dead. Had some brave chief this martial scene beheld, By Pallas guarded through the dreadful field Might darts be bid to turn their points away, And swords around him innocently play The war's whole art with wonder had he seen, And counted heroes where he counted men. So fought each host, with thirst of glory fired, And crowds on crowds triumphantly expired. Map of the Plain of Troy ARGUMENT. THE ACTS OF DIOMED. Diomed, assisted by Pallas, performs wonders in this day's battle. Pandarus wounds him with an arrow, but the goddess cures him, enables him to discern gods from mortals, and prohibits him from contending with any of the former, excepting Venus. neas joins Pandarus to oppose him Pandarus is killed, and neas in great danger but for the assistance of Venus who, as she is removing her son from the fight, is wounded on the hand by Diomed. Apollo seconds her in his rescue, and at length carries off neas to Troy, where he is healed in the temple of Pergamus. Mars rallies the Trojans, and assists Hector to make a stand. In the meantime neas is restored to the field, and they overthrow several of the Greeks among the rest Tlepolemus is slain by Sarpedon. Juno and Minerva descend to resist Mars the latter incites Diomed to go against that god he wounds him, and sends him groaning to heaven. The first battle continues through this book. The scene is the same as in the former. But Pallas now Tydides' soul inspires, Fills with her force, and warms with all her fires, Above the Greeks his deathless fame to raise, And crown her hero with distinguish'd praise. High on his helm celestial lightnings play, His beamy shield emits a living ray The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies, Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies, When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight, And, bathed in ocean, shoots a keener light. Such glories Pallas on the chief bestow'd, Such, from his arms, the fierce effulgence flow'd Onward she drives him, furious to engage, Where the fight burns, and where the thickest rage. The sons of Dares first the combat sought, A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault In Vulcan's fane the father's days were led, The sons to toils of glorious battle bred These singled from their troops the fight maintain, These, from their steeds, Tydides on the plain. Fierce for renown the brotherchiefs draw near, And first bold Phegeus cast his sounding spear, Which o'er the warrior's shoulder took its course, And spent in empty air its erring force. Not so, Tydides, flew thy lance in vain, But pierced his breast, and stretch'd him on the plain. Seized with unusual fear, Idus fled, Left the rich chariot, and his brother dead. And had not Vulcan lent celestial aid, He too had sunk to death's eternal shade But in a smoky cloud the god of fire Preserved the son, in pity to the sire. The steeds and chariot, to the navy led, Increased the spoils of gallant Diomed. Struck with amaze and shame, the Trojan crew, Or slain, or fled, the sons of Dares view When by the bloodstain'd hand Minerva press'd The god of battles, and this speech address'd 'Stern power of war! by whom the mighty fall, Who bathe in blood, and shake the lofty wall! Let the brave chiefs their glorious toils divide And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide While we from interdicted fields retire, Nor tempt the wrath of heaven's avenging sire. Her words allay the impetuous warrior's heat, The god of arms and martial maid retreat Removed from fight, on Xanthus' flowery bounds They sat, and listen'd to the dying sounds. Meantime, the Greeks the Trojan race pursue, And some bold chieftain every leader slew First Odius falls, and bites the bloody sand, His death ennobled by Atrides' hand As he to flight his wheeling car address'd, The speedy javelin drove from back to breast. In dust the mighty Halizonian lay, His arms resound, the spirit wings its way. Thy fate was next, O Phstus! doom'd to feel The great Idomeneus' protended steel Whom Borus sent (his son and only joy) From fruitful Tarne to the fields of Troy. The Cretan javelin reach'd him from afar, And pierced his shoulder as he mounts his car Back from the car he tumbles to the ground, And everlasting shades his eyes surround. Then died Scamandrius, expert in the chase, In woods and wilds to wound the savage race Diana taught him all her sylvan arts, To bend the bow, and aim unerring darts But vainly here Diana's arts he tries, The fatal lance arrests him as he flies From Menelaus' arm the weapon sent, Through his broad back and heaving bosom went Down sinks the warrior with a thundering sound, His brazen armour rings against the ground. Next artful Phereclus untimely fell Bold Merion sent him to the realms of hell. Thy father's skill, O Phereclus! was thine, The graceful fabric and the fair design For loved by Pallas, Pallas did impart To him the shipwright's and the builder's art. Beneath his hand the fleet of Paris rose, The fatal cause of all his country's woes But he, the mystic will of heaven unknown, Nor saw his country's peril, nor his own. The hapless artist, while confused he fled, The spear of Merion mingled with the dead. Through his right hip, with forceful fury cast, Between the bladder and the bone it pass'd Prone on his knees he falls with fruitless cries, And death in lasting slumber seals his eyes. From Meges' force the swift Pedaeus fled, Antenor's offspring from a foreign bed, Whose generous spouse, Theanor, heavenly fair, Nursed the young stranger with a mother's care. How vain those cares! when Meges in the rear Full in his nape infix'd the fatal spear Swift through his crackling jaws the weapon glides, And the cold tongue and grinning teeth divides. Then died Hypsenor, generous and divine, Sprung from the brave Dolopion's mighty line, Who near adored Scamander made abode, Priest of the stream, and honoured as a god. On him, amidst the flying numbers found, Eurypylus inflicts a deadly wound On his broad shoulders fell the forceful brand, Thence glancing downwards, lopp'd his holy hand, Which stain'd with sacred blood the blushing sand. Down sunk the priest the purple hand of death Closed his dim eye, and fate suppress'd his breath. Thus toil'd the chiefs, in different parts engaged. In every quarter fierce Tydides raged Amid the Greek, amid the Trojan train, Rapt through the ranks he thunders o'er the plain Now here, now there, he darts from place to place, Pours on the rear, or lightens in their face. Thus from high hills the torrents swift and strong Deluge whole fields, and sweep the trees along, Through ruin'd moles the rushing wave resounds, O'erwhelm's the bridge, and bursts the lofty bounds The yellow harvests of the ripen'd year, And flatted vineyards, one sad waste appear! While Jove descends in sluicy sheets of rain, And all the labours of mankind are vain. So raged Tydides, boundless in his ire, Drove armies back, and made all Troy retire. With grief the leader of the Lycian band Saw the wide waste of his destructive hand His bended bow against the chief he drew Swift to the mark the thirsty arrow flew, Whose forky point the hollow breastplate tore, Deep in his shoulder pierced, and drank the gore The rushing stream his brazen armour dyed, While the proud archer thus exulting cried 'Hither, ye Trojans, hither drive your steeds! Lo! by our hand the bravest Grecian bleeds, Not long the deathful dart he can sustain Or Phbus urged me to these fields in vain. So spoke he, boastful but the winged dart Stopp'd short of life, and mock'd the shooter's art. The wounded chief, behind his car retired, The helping hand of Sthenelus required Swift from his seat he leap'd upon the ground, And tugg'd the weapon from the gushing wound When thus the king his guardian power address'd, The purple current wandering o'er his vest 'O progeny of Jove! unconquer'd maid! If e'er my godlike sire deserved thy aid, If e'er I felt thee in the fighting field Now, goddess, now, thy sacred succour yield. O give my lance to reach the Trojan knight, Whose arrow wounds the chief thou guard'st in fight And lay the boaster grovelling on the shore, That vaunts these eyes shall view the light no more. Thus pray'd Tydides, and Minerva heard, His nerves confirm'd, his languid spirits cheer'd He feels each limb with wonted vigour light His beating bosom claim'd the promised fight. 'Be bold, (she cried), in every combat shine, War be thy province, thy protection mine Rush to the fight, and every foe control Wake each paternal virtue in thy soul Strength swells thy boiling breast, infused by me, And all thy godlike father breathes in thee Yet more, from mortal mists I purge thy eyes, And set to view the warring deities. These see thou shun, through all the embattled plain Nor rashly strive where human force is vain. If Venus mingle in the martial band, Her shalt thou wound so Pallas gives command. With that, the blueeyed virgin wing'd her flight The hero rush'd impetuous to the fight With tenfold ardour now invades the plain, Wild with delay, and more enraged by pain. As on the fleecy flocks when hunger calls, Amidst the field a brindled lion falls If chance some shepherd with a distant dart The savage wound, he rouses at the smart, He foams, he roars the shepherd dares not stay, But trembling leaves the scattering flocks a prey Heaps fall on heaps he bathes with blood the ground, Then leaps victorious o'er the lofty mound. Not with less fury stern Tydides flew And two brave leaders at an instant slew Astynous breathless fell, and by his side, His people's pastor, good Hypenor, died Astynous' breast the deadly lance receives, Hypenor's shoulder his broad falchion cleaves. Those slain he left, and sprung with noble rage Abas and Polyidus to engage Sons of Eurydamus, who, wise and old, Could fate foresee, and mystic dreams unfold The youths return'd not from the doubtful plain, And the sad father tried his arts in vain No mystic dream could make their fates appear, Though now determined by Tydides' spear. Young Xanthus next, and Thoon felt his rage The joy and hope of Phaenops' feeble age Vast was his wealth, and these the only heirs Of all his labours and a life of cares. Cold death o'ertakes them in their blooming years, And leaves the father unavailing tears To strangers now descends his heapy store, The race forgotten, and the name no more. Two sons of Priam in one chariot ride, Glittering in arms, and combat side by side. As when the lordly lion seeks his food Where grazing heifers range the lonely wood, He leaps amidst them with a furious bound, Bends their strong necks, and tears them to the ground So from their seats the brother chiefs are torn, Their steeds and chariot to the navy borne. With deep concern divine neas view'd The foe prevailing, and his friends pursued Through the thick storm of singing spears he flies, Exploring Pandarus with careful eyes. At length he found Lycaon's mighty son To whom the chief of Venus' race begun 'Where, Pandarus, are all thy honours now, Thy winged arrows and unerring bow, Thy matchless skill, thy yet unrivall'd fame, And boasted glory of the Lycian name? O pierce that mortal! if we mortal call That wondrous force by which whole armies fall Or god incensed, who quits the distant skies To punish Troy for slighted sacrifice (Which, oh avert from our unhappy state! For what so dreadful as celestial hate)? Whoe'er he be, propitiate Jove with prayer If man, destroy if god, entreat to spare. To him the Lycian 'Whom your eyes behold, If right I judge, is Diomed the bold Such coursers whirl him o'er the dusty field, So towers his helmet, and so flames his shield. If 'tis a god, he wears that chief's disguise Or if that chief, some guardian of the skies, Involved in clouds, protects him in the fray, And turns unseen the frustrate dart away. I wing'd an arrow, which not idly fell, The stroke had fix'd him to the gates of hell And, but some god, some angry god withstands, His fate was due to these unerring hands. Skill'd in the bow, on foot I sought the war, Nor join'd swift horses to the rapid car. Ten polish'd chariots I possess'd at home, And still they grace Lycaon's princely dome There veil'd in spacious coverlets they stand And twice ten coursers wait their lord's command. The good old warrior bade me trust to these, When first for Troy I sail'd the sacred seas In fields, aloft, the whirling car to guide, And through the ranks of death triumphant ride. But vain with youth, and yet to thrift inclined, I heard his counsels with unheedful mind, And thought the steeds (your large supplies unknown) Might fail of forage in the straiten'd town So took my bow and pointed darts in hand And left the chariots in my native land. 'Too late, O friend! my rashness I deplore These shafts, once fatal, carry death no more. Tydeus' and Atreus' sons their points have found, And undissembled gore pursued the wound. In vain they bleed this unavailing bow Serves, not to slaughter, but provoke the foe. In evil hour these bended horns I strung, And seized the quiver where it idly hung. Cursed be the fate that sent me to the field Without a warrior's arms, the spear and shield! If e'er with life I quit the Trojan plain, If e'er I see my spouse and sire again, This bow, unfaithful to my glorious aims, Broke by my hand, shall feed the blazing flames. To whom the leader of the Dardan race 'Be calm, nor Phbus' honour'd gift disgrace. The distant dart be praised, though here we need The rushing chariot and the bounding steed. Against yon hero let us bend our course, And, hand to hand, encounter force with force. Now mount my seat, and from the chariot's height Observe my father's steeds, renown'd in fight Practised alike to turn, to stop, to chase, To dare the shock, or urge the rapid race Secure with these, through fighting fields we go Or safe to Troy, if Jove assist the foe. Haste, seize the whip, and snatch the guiding rein The warrior's fury let this arm sustain Or, if to combat thy bold heart incline, Take thou the spear, the chariot's care be mine. 'O prince! (Lycaon's valiant son replied) As thine the steeds, be thine the task to guide. The horses, practised to their lord's command, Shall bear the rein, and answer to thy hand But, if, unhappy, we desert the fight, Thy voice alone can animate their flight Else shall our fates be number'd with the dead, And these, the victor's prize, in triumph led. Thine be the guidance, then with spear and shield Myself will charge this terror of the field. And now both heroes mount the glittering car The bounding coursers rush amidst the war Their fierce approach bold Sthenelus espied, Who thus, alarm'd, to great Tydides cried 'O friend! two chiefs of force immense I see, Dreadful they come, and bend their rage on thee Lo the brave heir of old Lycaon's line, And great neas, sprung from race divine! Enough is given to fame. Ascend thy car! And save a life, the bulwark of our war. At this the hero cast a gloomy look, Fix'd on the chief with scorn and thus he spoke 'Me dost thou bid to shun the coming fight? Me wouldst thou move to base, inglorious flight? Know, 'tis not honest in my soul to fear, Nor was Tydides born to tremble here. I hate the cumbrous chariot's slow advance, And the long distance of the flying lance But while my nerves are strong, my force entire, Thus front the foe, and emulate my sire. Nor shall yon steeds, that fierce to fight convey Those threatening heroes, bear them both away One chief at least beneath this arm shall die So Pallas tells me, and forbids to fly. But if she dooms, and if no god withstand, That both shall fall by one victorious hand, Then heed my words my horses here detain, Fix'd to the chariot by the straiten'd rein Swift to neas' empty seat proceed, And seize the coursers of ethereal breed The race of those, which once the thundering god For ravish'd Ganymede on Tros bestow'd, The best that e'er on earth's broad surface run, Beneath the rising or the setting sun. Hence great Anchises stole a breed unknown, By mortal mares, from fierce Laomedon Four of this race his ample stalls contain, And two transport neas o'er the plain. These, were the rich immortal prize our own, Through the wide world should make our glory known. Thus while they spoke, the foe came furious on, And stern Lycaon's warlike race begun 'Prince, thou art met. Though late in vain assail'd, The spear may enter where the arrow fail'd. He said, then shook the ponderous lance, and flung On his broad shield the sounding weapon rung, Pierced the tough orb, and in his cuirass hung, 'He bleeds! the pride of Greece! (the boaster cries,) Our triumph now, the mighty warrior lies! 'Mistaken vaunter! (Diomed replied) Thy dart has erred, and now my spear be tried Ye 'scape not both one, headlong from his car, With hostile blood shall glut the god of war. He spoke, and rising hurl'd his forceful dart, Which, driven by Pallas, pierced a vital part Full in his face it enter'd, and betwixt The nose and eyeball the proud Lycian fix'd Crash'd all his jaws, and cleft the tongue within, Till the bright point look'd out beneath the chin. Headlong he falls, his helmet knocks the ground Earth groans beneath him, and his arms resound The starting coursers tremble with affright The soul indignant seeks the realms of night. To guard his slaughter'd friend, neas flies, His spear extending where the carcase lies Watchful he wheels, protects it every way, As the grim lion stalks around his prey. O'er the fall'n trunk his ample shield display'd, He hides the hero with his mighty shade, And threats aloud! the Greeks with longing eyes Behold at distance, but forbear the prize. Then fierce Tydides stoops and from the fields Heaved with vast force, a rocky fragment wields. Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise, Such men as live in these degenerate days He swung it round and, gathering strength to throw, Discharged the ponderous ruin at the foe. Where to the hip the inserted thigh unites, Full on the bone the pointed marble lights Through both the tendons broke the rugged stone, And stripp'd the skin, and crack'd the solid bone. Sunk on his knees, and staggering with his pains, His falling bulk his bended arm sustains Lost in a dizzy mist the warrior lies A sudden cloud comes swimming o'er his eyes. There the brave chief, who mighty numbers sway'd, Oppress'd had sunk to death's eternal shade, But heavenly Venus, mindful of the love She bore Anchises in the Idaean grove, His danger views with anguish and despair, And guards her offspring with a mother's care. About her muchloved son her arms she throws, Her arms whose whiteness match the falling snows. Screen'd from the foe behind her shining veil, The swords wave harmless, and the javelins fail Safe through the rushing horse, and feather'd flight Of sounding shafts, she bears him from the fight. Nor Sthenelus, with unassisting hands, Remain'd unheedful of his lord's commands His panting steeds, removed from out the war, He fix'd with straiten'd traces to the car, Next, rushing to the Dardan spoil, detains The heavenly coursers with the flowing manes These in proud triumph to the fleet convey'd, No longer now a Trojan lord obey'd. That charge to bold Deipylus he gave, (Whom most he loved, as brave men love the brave,) Then mounting on his car, resumed the rein, And follow'd where Tydides swept the plain. Meanwhile (his conquest ravished from his eyes) The raging chief in chase of Venus flies No goddess she, commission'd to the field, Like Pallas dreadful with her sable shield, Or fierce Bellona thundering at the wall, While flames ascend, and mighty ruins fall He knew soft combats suit the tender dame, New to the field, and still a foe to fame. Through breaking ranks his furious course he bends, And at the goddess his broad lance extends Through her bright veil the daring weapon drove, The ambrosial veil which all the Graces wove Her snowy hand the razing steel profaned, And the transparent skin with crimson stain'd, From the clear vein a stream immortal flow'd, Such stream as issues from a wounded god Pure emanation! uncorrupted flood! Unlike our gross, diseased, terrestrial blood (For not the bread of man their life sustains, Nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins) With tender shrieks the goddess fill'd the place, And dropp'd her offspring from her weak embrace. Him Phbus took he casts a cloud around The fainting chief, and wards the mortal wound. Then with a voice that shook the vaulted skies, The king insults the goddess as she flies 'Ill with Jove's daughter bloody fights agree, The field of combat is no scene for thee Go, let thy own soft sex employ thy care, Go, lull the coward, or delude the fair. Taught by this stroke renounce the war's alarms, And learn to tremble at the name of arms. Tydides thus. The goddess, seized with dread, Confused, distracted, from the conflict fled. To aid her, swift the winged Iris flew, Wrapt in a mist above the warring crew. The queen of love with faded charms she found. Pale was her cheek, and livid look'd the wound. To Mars, who sat remote, they bent their way Far, on the left, with clouds involved he lay Beside him stood his lance, distain'd with gore, And, rein'd with gold, his foaming steeds before. Low at his knee, she begg'd with streaming eyes Her brother's car, to mount the distant skies, And show'd the wound by fierce Tydides given, A mortal man, who dares encounter heaven. Stern Mars attentive hears the queen complain, And to her hand commits the golden rein She mounts the seat, oppress'd with silent woe, Driven by the goddess of the painted bow. The lash resounds, the rapid chariot flies, And in a moment scales the lofty skies They stopp'd the car, and there the coursers stood, Fed by fair Iris with ambrosial food Before her mother, love's bright queen appears, O'erwhelmed with anguish, and dissolved in tears She raised her in her arms, beheld her bleed, And ask'd what god had wrought this guilty deed? VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS Then she 'This insult from no god I found, An impious mortal gave the daring wound! Behold the deed of haughty Diomed! 'Twas in the son's defence the mother bled. The war with Troy no more the Grecians wage But with the gods (the immortal gods) engage. Dione then 'Thy wrongs with patience bear, And share those griefs inferior powers must share Unnumber'd woes mankind from us sustain, And men with woes afflict the gods again. The mighty Mars in mortal fetters bound, And lodged in brazen dungeons underground, Full thirteen moons imprison'd roar'd in vain Otus and Ephialtes held the chain Perhaps had perish'd had not Hermes' care Restored the groaning god to upper air. Great Juno's self has borne her weight of pain, The imperial partner of the heavenly reign Amphitryon's son infix'd the deadly dart, And fill'd with anguish her immortal heart. E'en hell's grim king Alcides' power confess'd, The shaft found entrance in his iron breast To Jove's high palace for a cure he fled, Pierced in his own dominions of the dead Where Paeon, sprinkling heavenly balm around, Assuaged the glowing pangs, and closed the wound. Rash, impious man! to stain the bless'd abodes, And drench his arrows in the blood of gods! OTUS AND EPHIALTES HOLDING MARS CAPTIVE 'But thou (though Pallas urged thy frantic deed), Whose spear illfated makes a goddess bleed, Know thou, whoe'er with heavenly power contends, Short is his date, and soon his glory ends From fields of death when late he shall retire, No infant on his knees shall call him sire. Strong as thou art, some god may yet be found, To stretch thee pale and gasping on the ground Thy distant wife, gial the fair, Starting from sleep with a distracted air, Shall rouse thy slaves, and her lost lord deplore, The brave, the great, the glorious now no more! This said, she wiped from Venus' wounded palm The sacred ichor, and infused the balm. Juno and Pallas with a smile survey'd, And thus to Jove began the blueeyed maid 'Permit thy daughter, gracious Jove! to tell How this mischance the Cyprian queen befell, As late she tried with passion to inflame The tender bosom of a Grecian dame Allured the fair, with moving thoughts of joy, To quit her country for some youth of Troy The clasping zone, with golden buckles bound, Razed her soft hand with this lamented wound. The sire of gods and men superior smiled, And, calling Venus, thus address'd his child 'Not these, O daughter are thy proper cares, Thee milder arts befit, and softer wars Sweet smiles are thine, and kind endearing charms To Mars and Pallas leave the deeds of arms. Thus they in heaven while on the plain below The fierce Tydides charged his Dardan foe, Flush'd with celestial blood pursued his way, And fearless dared the threatening god of day Already in his hopes he saw him kill'd, Though screen'd behind Apollo's mighty shield. Thrice rushing furious, at the chief he strook His blazing buckler thrice Apollo shook He tried the fourth when, breaking from the cloud, A more than mortal voice was heard aloud. 'O son of Tydeus, cease! be wise and see How vast the difference of the gods and thee Distance immense! between the powers that shine Above, eternal, deathless, and divine, And mortal man! a wretch of humble birth, A shortlived reptile in the dust of earth. So spoke the god who darts celestial fires He dreads his fury, and some steps retires. Then Phbus bore the chief of Venus' race To Troy's high fane, and to his holy place Latona there and Phoebe heal'd the wound, With vigour arm'd him, and with glory crown'd. This done, the patron of the silver bow A phantom raised, the same in shape and show With great neas such the form he bore, And such in fight the radiant arms he wore. Around the spectre bloody wars are waged, And Greece and Troy with clashing shields engaged. Meantime on Ilion's tower Apollo stood, And calling Mars, thus urged the raging god 'Stern power of arms, by whom the mighty fall Who bathest in blood, and shakest the embattled wall, Rise in thy wrath! to hell's abhorr'd abodes Despatch yon Greek, and vindicate the gods. First rosy Venus felt his brutal rage Me next he charged, and dares all heaven engage The wretch would brave high heaven's immortal sire, His triple thunder, and his bolts of fire. The god of battle issues on the plain, Stirs all the ranks, and fires the Trojan train In form like Acamas, the Thracian guide, Enraged to Troy's retiring chiefs he cried 'How long, ye sons of Priam! will ye fly, And unrevenged see Priam's people die? Still unresisted shall the foe destroy, And stretch the slaughter to the gates of Troy? Lo, brave neas sinks beneath his wound, Not godlike Hector more in arms renown'd Haste all, and take the generous warrior's part. He saidnew courage swell'd each hero's heart. Sarpedon first his ardent soul express'd, And, turn'd to Hector, these bold words address'd 'Say, chief, is all thy ancient valour lost? Where are thy threats, and where thy glorious boast, That propp'd alone by Priam's race should stand Troy's sacred walls, nor need a foreign hand? Now, now thy country calls her wonted friends, And the proud vaunt in just derision ends. Remote they stand while alien troops engage, Like trembling hounds before the lion's rage. Far distant hence I held my wide command, Where foaming Xanthus laves the Lycian land With ample wealth (the wish of mortals) bless'd, A beauteous wife, and infant at her breast With those I left whatever dear could be Greece, if she conquers, nothing wins from me Yet first in fight my Lycian bands I cheer, And long to meet this mighty man ye fear While Hector idle stands, nor bids the brave Their wives, their infants, and their altars save. Haste, warrior, haste! preserve thy threaten'd state, Or one vast burst of allinvolving fate Full o'er your towers shall fall, and sweep away Sons, sires, and wives, an undistinguish'd prey. Rouse all thy Trojans, urge thy aids to fight These claim thy thoughts by day, thy watch by night With force incessant the brave Greeks oppose Such cares thy friends deserve, and such thy foes. Stung to the heart the generous Hector hears, But just reproof with decent silence bears. From his proud car the prince impetuous springs, On earth he leaps, his brazen armour rings. Two shining spears are brandish'd in his hands Thus arm'd, he animates his drooping bands, Revives their ardour, turns their steps from flight, And wakes anew the dying flames of fight. They turn, they stand the Greeks their fury dare, Condense their powers, and wait the growing war. As when, on Ceres' sacred floor, the swain Spreads the wide fan to clear the golden grain, And the light chaff, before the breezes borne, Ascends in clouds from off the heapy corn The grey dust, rising with collected winds, Drives o'er the barn, and whitens all the hinds So white with dust the Grecian host appears, From trampling steeds, and thundering charioteers. The dusky clouds from labour'd earth arise, And roll in smoking volumes to the skies. Mars hovers o'er them with his sable shield, And adds new horrors to the darken'd field Pleased with his charge, and ardent to fulfil, In Troy's defence, Apollo's heavenly will Soon as from fight the blueeyed maid retires, Each Trojan bosom with new warmth he fires. And now the god, from forth his sacred fane, Produced neas to the shouting train Alive, unharm'd, with all his peers around, Erect he stood, and vigorous from his wound Inquiries none they made the dreadful day No pause of words admits, no dull delay Fierce Discord storms, Apollo loud exclaims, Fame calls, Mars thunders, and the field's in flames. Stern Diomed with either Ajax stood, And great Ulysses, bathed in hostile blood. Embodied close, the labouring Grecian train The fiercest shock of charging hosts sustain. Unmoved and silent, the whole war they wait Serenely dreadful, and as fix'd as fate. So when the embattled clouds in dark array, Along the skies their gloomy lines display When now the North his boisterous rage has spent, And peaceful sleeps the liquid element The lowhung vapours, motionless and still, Rest on the summits of the shaded hill Till the mass scatters as the winds arise, Dispersed and broken through the ruffled skies. Nor was the general wanting to his train From troop to troop he toils through all the plain, 'Ye Greeks, be men! the charge of battle bear Your brave associates and yourselves revere! Let glorious acts more glorious acts inspire, And catch from breast to breast the noble fire! On valour's side the odds of combat lie, The brave live glorious, or lamented die The wretch who trembles in the field of fame, Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame! These words he seconds with his flying lance, To meet whose point was strong Deicoon's chance neas' friend, and in his native place Honour'd and loved like Priam's royal race Long had he fought the foremost in the field, But now the monarch's lance transpierced his shield His shield too weak the furious dart to stay, Through his broad belt the weapon forced its way The grisly wound dismiss'd his soul to hell, His arms around him rattled as he fell. Then fierce neas, brandishing his blade, In dust Orsilochus and Crethon laid, Whose sire Diocleus, wealthy, brave and great, In wellbuilt Pher held his lofty seat Sprung from Alpheus' plenteous stream, that yields Increase of harvests to the Pylian fields. He got Orsilochus, Diocleus he, And these descended in the third degree. Too early expert in the martial toil, In sable ships they left their native soil, To avenge Atrides now, untimely slain, They fell with glory on the Phrygian plain. So two young mountain lions, nursed with blood In deep recesses of the gloomy wood, Rush fearless to the plains, and uncontroll'd Depopulate the stalls and waste the fold Till pierced at distance from their native den, O'erpowered they fall beneath the force of men. Prostrate on earth their beauteous bodies lay, Like mountain firs, as tall and straight as they. Great Menelaus views with pitying eyes, Lifts his bright lance, and at the victor flies Mars urged him on yet, ruthless in his hate, The god but urged him to provoke his fate. He thus advancing, Nestor's valiant son Shakes for his danger, and neglects his own Struck with the thought, should Helen's lord be slain, And all his country's glorious labours vain. Already met, the threatening heroes stand The spears already tremble in their hand In rush'd Antilochus, his aid to bring, And fall or conquer by the Spartan king. These seen, the Dardan backward turn'd his course, Brave as he was, and shunn'd unequal force. The breathless bodies to the Greeks they drew, Then mix in combat, and their toils renew. First, Pylmenes, great in battle, bled, Who sheathed in brass the Paphlagonians led. Atrides mark'd him where sublime he stood Fix'd in his throat the javelin drank his blood. The faithful Mydon, as he turn'd from fight His flying coursers, sunk to endless night A broken rock by Nestor's son was thrown His bended arm received the falling stone From his numb'd hand the ivorystudded reins, Dropp'd in the dust, are trail'd along the plains Meanwhile his temples feel a deadly wound He groans in death, and ponderous sinks to ground Deep drove his helmet in the sands, and there The head stood fix'd, the quivering legs in air, Till trampled flat beneath the coursers' feet The youthful victor mounts his empty seat, And bears the prize in triumph to the fleet. Great Hector saw, and, raging at the view, Pours on the Greeks the Trojan troops pursue He fires his host with animating cries, And brings along the furies of the skies, Mars, stern destroyer! and Bellona dread, Flame in the front, and thunder at their head This swells the tumult and the rage of fight That shakes a spear that casts a dreadful light. Where Hector march'd, the god of battles shined, Now storm'd before him, and now raged behind. Tydides paused amidst his full career Then first the hero's manly breast knew fear. As when some simple swain his cot forsakes, And wide through fens an unknown journey takes If chance a swelling brook his passage stay, And foam impervious 'cross the wanderer's way, Confused he stops, a length of country pass'd, Eyes the rough waves, and tired, returns at last. Amazed no less the great Tydides stands He stay'd, and turning thus address'd his bands 'No wonder, Greeks! that all to Hector yield Secure of favouring gods, he takes the field His strokes they second, and avert our spears. Behold where Mars in mortal arms appears! Retire then, warriors, but sedate and slow Retire, but with your faces to the foe. Trust not too much your unavailing might 'Tis not with Troy, but with the gods ye fight. Now near the Greeks the black battalions drew And first two leaders valiant Hector slew His force Anchialus and Mnesthes found, In every art of glorious war renown'd In the same car the chiefs to combat ride, And fought united, and united died. Struck at the sight, the mighty Ajax glows With thirst of vengeance, and assaults the foes. His massy spear with matchless fury sent, Through Amphius' belt and heaving belly went Amphius Apsus' happy soil possess'd, With herds abounding, and with treasure bless'd But fate resistless from his country led The chief, to perish at his people's head. Shook with his fall his brazen armour rung, And fierce, to seize it, conquering Ajax sprung Around his head an iron tempest rain'd A wood of spears his ample shield sustain'd Beneath one foot the yet warm corpse he press'd, And drew his javelin from the bleeding breast He could no more the showering darts denied To spoil his glittering arms, and plumy pride. Now foes on foes came pouring on the fields, With bristling lances, and compacted shields Till in the steely circle straiten'd round, Forced he gives way, and sternly quits the ground. While thus they strive, Tlepolemus the great, Urged by the force of unresisted fate, Burns with desire Sarpedon's strength to prove Alcides' offspring meets the son of Jove. Sheathed in bright arms each adverse chief came on. Jove's great descendant, and his greater son. Prepared for combat, ere the lance he toss'd, The daring Rhodian vents his haughty boast 'What brings this Lycian counsellor so far, To tremble at our arms, not mix in war! Know thy vain self, nor let their flattery move, Who style thee son of cloudcompelling Jove. How far unlike those chiefs of race divine, How vast the difference of their deeds and thine! Jove got such heroes as my sire, whose soul No fear could daunt, nor earth nor hell control. Troy felt his arm, and yon proud ramparts stand Raised on the ruins of his vengeful hand With six small ships, and but a slender train, He left the town a widedeserted plain. But what art thou, who deedless look'st around, While unrevenged thy Lycians bite the ground! Small aid to Troy thy feeble force can be But wert thou greater, thou must yield to me. Pierced by my spear, to endless darkness go! I make this present to the shades below. The son of Hercules, the Rhodian guide, Thus haughty spoke. The Lycian king replied 'Thy sire, O prince! o'erturn'd the Trojan state, Whose perjured monarch well deserved his fate Those heavenly steeds the hero sought so far, False he detain'd, the just reward of war. Nor so content, the generous chief defied, With base reproaches and unmanly pride. But you, unworthy the high race you boast, Shall raise my glory when thy own is lost Now meet thy fate, and by Sarpedon slain, Add one more ghost to Pluto's gloomy reign. He said both javelins at an instant flew Both struck, both wounded, but Sarpedon's slew Full in the boaster's neck the weapon stood, Transfix'd his throat, and drank the vital blood The soul disdainful seeks the caves of night, And his seal'd eyes for ever lose the light. Yet not in vain, Tlepolemus, was thrown Thy angry lance which piercing to the bone Sarpedon's thigh, had robb'd the chief of breath But Jove was present, and forbade the death. Borne from the conflict by his Lycian throng, The wounded hero dragg'd the lance along. (His friends, each busied in his several part, Through haste, or danger, had not drawn the dart.) The Greeks with slain Tlepolemus retired Whose fall Ulysses view'd, with fury fired Doubtful if Jove's great son he should pursue, Or pour his vengeance on the Lycian crew. But heaven and fate the first design withstand, Nor this great death must grace Ulysses' hand. Minerva drives him on the Lycian train Alastor, Cronius, Halius, strew'd the plain, Alcander, Prytanis, Nomon fell And numbers more his sword had sent to hell, But Hector saw and, furious at the sight, Rush'd terrible amidst the ranks of fight. With joy Sarpedon view'd the wish'd relief, And, faint, lamenting, thus implored the chief 'O suffer not the foe to bear away My helpless corpse, an unassisted prey If I, unbless'd, must see my son no more, My muchloved consort, and my native shore, Yet let me die in Ilion's sacred wall Troy, in whose cause I fell, shall mourn my fall. He said, nor Hector to the chief replies, But shakes his plume, and fierce to combat flies Swift as a whirlwind, drives the scattering foes And dyes the ground with purple as he goes. Beneath a beech, Jove's consecrated shade, His mournful friends divine Sarpedon laid Brave Pelagon, his favourite chief, was nigh, Who wrench'd the javelin from his sinewy thigh. The fainting soul stood ready wing'd for flight, And o'er his eyeballs swam the shades of night But Boreas rising fresh, with gentle breath, Recall'd his spirit from the gates of death. The generous Greeks recede with tardy pace, Though Mars and Hector thunder in their face None turn their backs to mean ignoble flight, Slow they retreat, and even retreating fight. Who first, who last, by Mars' and Hector's hand, Stretch'd in their blood, lay gasping on the sand? Tenthras the great, Orestes the renown'd For managed steeds, and Trechus press'd the ground Next nomaus and OEnops' offspring died Oresbius last fell groaning at their side Oresbius, in his painted mitre gay, In fat Botia held his wealthy sway, Where lakes surround low Hyl's watery plain A prince and people studious of their gain. The carnage Juno from the skies survey'd, And touch'd with grief bespoke the blueeyed maid 'Oh, sight accursed! Shall faithless Troy prevail, And shall our promise to our people fail? How vain the word to Menelaus given By Jove's great daughter and the queen of heaven, Beneath his arms that Priam's towers should fall, If warring gods for ever guard the wall! Mars, red with slaughter, aids our hated foes Haste, let us arm, and force with force oppose! She spoke Minerva burns to meet the war And now heaven's empress calls her blazing car. At her command rush forth the steeds divine Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine. Bright Hebe waits by Hebe, ever young, The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung. On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel Of sounding brass the polished axle steel. Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame, Such as the heavens produce and round the gold Two brazen rings of work divine were roll'd. The bossy naves of sold silver shone Braces of gold suspend the moving throne The car, behind, an arching figure bore The bending concave form'd an arch before. Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold, And golden reins the immortal coursers hold. Herself, impatient, to the ready car, The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war. Pallas disrobes her radiant veil untied, With flowers adorn'd, with art diversified, (The laboured veil her heavenly fingers wove,) Flows on the pavement of the court of Jove. Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest, Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast Deck'd in sad triumph for the mournful field, O'er her broad shoulders hangs his horrid shield, Dire, black, tremendous! Round the margin roll'd, A fringe of serpents hissing guards the gold Here all the terrors of grim War appear, Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear, Here storm'd Contention, and here Fury frown'd, And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crown'd. The massy golden helm she next assumes, That dreadful nods with four o'ershading plumes So vast, the broad circumference contains A hundred armies on a hundred plains. The goddess thus the imperial car ascends Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends, Ponderous and huge that when her fury burns, Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns. Swift at the scourge the ethereal coursers fly, While the smooth chariot cuts the liquid sky. Heaven's gates spontaneous open to the powers, Heaven's golden gates, kept by the winged Hours Commission'd in alternate watch they stand, The sun's bright portals and the skies command, Involve in clouds the eternal gates of day, Or the dark barrier roll with ease away. The sounding hinges ring, on either side The gloomy volumes, pierced with light, divide. The chariot mounts, where deep in ambient skies, Confused, Olympus' hundred heads arise Where far apart the Thunderer fills his throne, O'er all the gods superior and alone. There with her snowy hand the queen restrains The fiery steeds, and thus to Jove complains 'O sire! can no resentment touch thy soul? Can Mars rebel, and does no thunder roll? What lawless rage on yon forbidden plain, What rash destruction! and what heroes slain! Venus, and Phbus with the dreadful bow, Smile on the slaughter, and enjoy my woe. Mad, furious power! whose unrelenting mind No god can govern, and no justice bind. Say, mighty father! shall we scourge this pride, And drive from fight the impetuous homicide? To whom assenting, thus the Thunderer said 'Go! and the great Minerva be thy aid. To tame the monstergod Minerva knows, And oft afflicts his brutal breast with woes. He said Saturnia, ardent to obey, Lash'd her white steeds along the aerial way. Swift down the steep of heaven the chariot rolls, Between the expanded earth and starry poles. Far as a shepherd, from some point on high, O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye, Through such a space of air, with thundering sound, At every leap the immortal coursers bound Troy now they reach'd and touch'd those banks divine, Where silver Simois and Scamander join. There Juno stopp'd, and (her fair steeds unloosed) Of air condensed a vapour circumfused For these, impregnate with celestial dew, On Simois' brink ambrosial herbage grew. Thence to relieve the fainting Argive throng, Smooth as the sailing doves they glide along. The best and bravest of the Grecian band (A warlike circle) round Tydides stand. Such was their look as lions bathed in blood, Or foaming boars, the terror of the wood. Heaven's empress mingles with the mortal crowd, And shouts, in Stentor's sounding voice, aloud Stentor the strong, endued with brazen lungs, Whose throats surpass'd the force of fifty tongues. 'Inglorious Argives! to your race a shame, And only men in figure and in name! Once from the walls your timorous foes engaged, While fierce in war divine Achilles raged Now issuing fearless they possess the plain, Now win the shores, and scarce the seas remain. Her speech new fury to their hearts convey'd While near Tydides stood the Athenian maid The king beside his panting steeds she found, O'erspent with toil reposing on the ground To cool his glowing wound he sat apart, (The wound inflicted by the Lycian dart.) Large drops of sweat from all his limbs descend, Beneath his ponderous shield his sinews bend, Whose ample belt, that o'er his shoulder lay, He eased and wash'd the clotted gore away. The goddess leaning o'er the bending yoke, Beside his coursers, thus her silence broke 'Degenerate prince! and not of Tydeus' kind, Whose little body lodged a mighty mind Foremost he press'd in glorious toils to share, And scarce refrain'd when I forbade the war. Alone, unguarded, once he dared to go, And feast, incircled by the Theban foe There braved, and vanquish'd, many a hardy knight Such nerves I gave him, and such force in fight. Thou too no less hast been my constant care Thy hands I arm'd, and sent thee forth to war But thee or fear deters, or sloth detains No drop of all thy father warms thy veins. The chief thus answered mild 'Immortal maid! I own thy presence, and confess thy aid. Not fear, thou know'st, withholds me from the plains, Nor sloth hath seized me, but thy word restrains From warring gods thou bad'st me turn my spear, And Venus only found resistance here. Hence, goddess! heedful of thy high commands, Loth I gave way, and warn'd our Argive bands For Mars, the homicide, these eyes beheld, With slaughter red, and raging round the field. Then thus Minerva'Brave Tydides, hear! Not Mars himself, nor aught immortal, fear. Full on the god impel thy foaming horse Pallas commands, and Pallas lends thee force. Rash, furious, blind, from these to those he flies, And every side of wavering combat tries Large promise makes, and breaks the promise made Now gives the Grecians, now the Trojans aid. She said, and to the steeds approaching near, Drew from his seat the martial charioteer. The vigorous power the trembling car ascends, Fierce for revenge and Diomed attends The groaning axle bent beneath the load So great a hero, and so great a god. She snatch'd the reins, she lash'd with all her force, And full on Mars impelled the foaming horse But first, to hide her heavenly visage, spread Black Orcus' helmet o'er her radiant head. DIOMED CASTING HIS SPEAR AT MARS Just then gigantic Periphas lay slain, The strongest warrior of the tolian train The god, who slew him, leaves his prostrate prize Stretch'd where he fell, and at Tydides flies. Now rushing fierce, in equal arms appear The daring Greek, the dreadful god of war! Full at the chief, above his courser's head, From Mars's arm the enormous weapon fled Pallas opposed her hand, and caused to glance Far from the car the strong immortal lance. Then threw the force of Tydeus' warlike son The javelin hiss'd the goddess urged it on Where the broad cincture girt his armour round, It pierced the god his groin received the wound. From the rent skin the warrior tugs again The smoking steel. Mars bellows with the pain Loud as the roar encountering armies yield, When shouting millions shake the thundering field. Both armies start, and trembling gaze around And earth and heaven rebellow to the sound. As vapours blown by Auster's sultry breath, Pregnant with plagues, and shedding seeds of death, Beneath the rage of burning Sirius rise, Choke the parch'd earth, and blacken all the skies In such a cloud the god from combat driven, High o'er the dusky whirlwind scales the heaven. Wild with his pain, he sought the bright abodes, There sullen sat beneath the sire of gods, Show'd the celestial blood, and with a groan Thus pour'd his plaints before the immortal throne 'Can Jove, supine, flagitious facts survey, And brook the furies of this daring day? For mortal men celestial powers engage, And gods on gods exert eternal rage From thee, O father! all these ills we bear, And thy fell daughter with the shield and spear Thou gavest that fury to the realms of light, Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right. All heaven beside reveres thy sovereign sway, Thy voice we hear, and thy behests obey 'Tis hers to offend, and even offending share Thy breast, thy counsels, thy distinguish'd care So boundless she, and thou so partial grown, Well may we deem the wondrous birth thy own. Now frantic Diomed, at her command, Against the immortals lifts his raging hand The heavenly Venus first his fury found, Me next encountering, me he dared to wound Vanquish'd I fled even I, the god of fight, From mortal madness scarce was saved by flight. Else hadst thou seen me sink on yonder plain, Heap'd round, and heaving under loads of slain! Or pierced with Grecian darts, for ages lie, Condemn'd to pain, though fated not to die. Him thus upbraiding, with a wrathful look The lord of thunders view'd, and stern bespoke 'To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain? Of lawless force shall lawless Mars complain? Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies, Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes! Inhuman discord is thy dire delight, The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight. No bounds, no law, thy fiery temper quells, And all thy mother in thy soul rebels. In vain our threats, in vain our power we use She gives the example, and her son pursues. Yet long the inflicted pangs thou shall not mourn, Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenlyborn. Else, singed with lightning, hadst thou hence been thrown, Where chain'd on burning rocks the Titans groan. Thus he who shakes Olympus with his nod Then gave to Pon's care the bleeding god. With gentle hand the balm he pour'd around, And heal'd the immortal flesh, and closed the wound. As when the fig's press'd juice, infused in cream, To curds coagulates the liquid stream, Sudden the fluids fix the parts combined Such, and so soon, the ethereal texture join'd. Cleansed from the dust and gore, fair Hebe dress'd His mighty limbs in an immortal vest. Glorious he sat, in majesty restored, Fast by the throne of heaven's superior lord. Juno and Pallas mount the bless'd abodes, Their task perform'd, and mix among the gods. JUNO ARGUMENT. THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. The gods having left the field, the Grecians prevail. Helenus, the chief augur of Troy, commands Hector to return to the city, in order to appoint a solemn procession of the queen and the Trojan matrons to the temple of Minerva, to entreat her to remove Diomed from the fight. The battle relaxing during the absence of Hector, Glaucus and Diomed have an interview between the two armies where, coming to the knowledge, of the friendship and hospitality passed between their ancestors, they make exchange of their arms. Hector, having performed the orders of Helenus, prevails upon Paris to return to the battle, and, taking a tender leave of his wife Andromache, hastens again to the field. The scene is first in the field of battle, between the rivers Simois and Scamander, and then changes to Troy. Now heaven forsakes the fight the immortals yield To human force and human skill the field Dark showers of javelins fly from foes to foes Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows While Troy's famed streams, that bound the deathful plain On either side, run purple to the main. Great Ajax first to conquest led the way, Broke the thick ranks, and turn'd the doubtful day. The Thracian Acamas his falchion found, And hew'd the enormous giant to the ground His thundering arm a deadly stroke impress'd Where the black horsehair nodded o'er his crest Fix'd in his front the brazen weapon lies, And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes. Next Teuthras' son distain'd the sands with blood, Axylus, hospitable, rich, and good In fair Arisbe's walls (his native place) He held his seat! a friend to human race. Fast by the road, his everopen door Obliged the wealthy, and relieved the poor. To stern Tydides now he falls a prey, No friend to guard him in the dreadful day! Breathless the good man fell, and by his side His faithful servant, old Calesius died. By great Euryalus was Dresus slain, And next he laid Opheltius on the plain. Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young, From a fair naiad and Bucolion sprung (Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed, That monarch's firstborn by a foreign bed In secret woods he won the naiad's grace, And two fair infants crown'd his strong embrace) Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms The ruthless victor stripp'd their shining arms. Astyalus by Polyptes fell Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell By Teucer's shaft brave Aretaon bled, And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave, The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave, Who held in Pedasus his proud abode, And till'd the banks where silver Satnio flow'd. Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain. Unbless'd Adrastus next at mercy lies Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize. Scared with the din and tumult of the fight, His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight, Rush'd on a tamarisk's strong trunk, and broke The shatter'd chariot from the crooked yoke Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind, For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind. Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel The fallen chief in suppliant posture press'd The victor's knees, and thus his prayer address'd 'O spare my youth, and for the life I owe Large gifts of price my father shall bestow. When fame shall tell, that, not in battle slain, Thy hollow ships his captive son detain Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told, And steel welltemper'd, and persuasive gold. He said compassion touch'd the hero's heart He stood, suspended with the lifted dart As pity pleaded for his vanquish'd prize, Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies, And, furious, thus 'Oh impotent of mind! Shall these, shall these Atrides' mercy find? Well hast thou known proud Troy's perfidious land, And well her natives merit at thy hand! Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age, Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall A dreadful lesson of exampled fate, To warn the nations, and to curb the great! The monarch spoke the words, with warmth address'd, To rigid justice steel'd his brother's breast. Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust The monarch's javelin stretch'd him in the dust, Then pressing with his foot his panting heart, Forth from the slain he tugg'd the reeking dart. Old Nestor saw, and roused the warrior's rage 'Thus, heroes! thus the vigorous combat wage No son of Mars descend, for servile gains, To touch the booty, while a foe remains. Behold yon glittering host, your future spoil! First gain the conquest, then reward the toil. And now had Greece eternal fame acquired, And frighted Troy within her walls, retired, Had not sage Helenus her state redress'd, Taught by the gods that moved his sacred breast. Where Hector stood, with great neas join'd, The seer reveal'd the counsels of his mind 'Ye generous chiefs! on whom the immortals lay The cares and glories of this doubtful day On whom your aids, your country's hopes depend Wise to consult, and active to defend! Here, at our gates, your brave efforts unite, Turn back the routed, and forbid the flight, Ere yet their wives' soft arms the cowards gain, The sport and insult of the hostile train. When your commands have hearten'd every band, Ourselves, here fix'd, will make the dangerous stand Press'd as we are, and sore of former fight, These straits demand our last remains of might. Meanwhile thou, Hector, to the town retire, And teach our mother what the gods require Direct the queen to lead the assembled train Of Troy's chief matrons to Minerva's fane Unbar the sacred gates, and seek the power, With offer'd vows, in Ilion's topmost tower. The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold, Most prized for art, and labour'd o'er with gold, Before the goddess' honour'd knees be spread, And twelve young heifers to her altars led If so the power, atoned by fervent prayer, Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, That mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire Not thus Achilles taught our hosts to dread, Sprung though he was from more than mortal bed Not thus resistless ruled the stream of fight, In rage unbounded, and unmatch'd in might. Hector obedient heard and, with a bound, Leap'd from his trembling chariot to the ground Through all his host inspiring force he flies, And bids the thunder of the battle rise. With rage recruited the bold Trojans glow, And turn the tide of conflict on the foe Fierce in the front he shakes two dazzling spears All Greece recedes, and 'midst her triumphs fears Some god, they thought, who ruled the fate of wars, Shot down avenging from the vault of stars. Then thus aloud 'Ye dauntless Dardans, hear! And you whom distant nations send to war! Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore Be still yourselves, and Hector asks no more. One hour demands me in the Trojan wall, To bid our altars flame, and victims fall Nor shall, I trust, the matrons' holy train, And reverend elders, seek the gods in vain. This said, with ample strides the hero pass'd The shield's large orb behind his shoulder cast, His neck o'ershading, to his ankle hung And as he march'd the brazen buckler rung. Now paused the battle (godlike Hector gone), Where daring Glaucus and great Tydeus' son Between both armies met the chiefs from far Observed each other, and had mark'd for war. Near as they drew, Tydides thus began 'What art thou, boldest of the race of man? Our eyes till now that aspect ne'er beheld, Where fame is reap'd amid the embattled field Yet far before the troops thou dar'st appear, And meet a lance the fiercest heroes fear. Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires, Who tempt our fury when Minerva fires! But if from heaven, celestial, thou descend, Know with immortals we no more contend. Not long Lycurgus view'd the golden light, That daring man who mix'd with gods in fight. Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries, he drove, With brandish'd steel, from Nyssa's sacred grove Their consecrated spears lay scatter'd round, With curling vines and twisted ivy bound While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood, And Thetis' arms received the trembling god. Nor fail'd the crime the immortals' wrath to move (The immortals bless'd with endless ease above) Deprived of sight by their avenging doom, Cheerless he breathed, and wander'd in the gloom, Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes, A wretch accursed, and hated by the gods! I brave not heaven but if the fruits of earth Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth, Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath, Approach, and enter the dark gates of death. 'What, or from whence I am, or who my sire, (Replied the chief,) can Tydeus' son inquire? Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground Another race the following spring supplies They fall successive, and successive rise So generations in their course decay So flourish these, when those are pass'd away. But if thou still persist to search my birth, Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth. 'A city stands on Argos' utmost bound, (Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renown'd,) olian Sisyphus, with wisdom bless'd, In ancient time the happy wall possess'd, Then call'd Ephyre Glaucus was his son Great Glaucus, father of Bellerophon, Who o'er the sons of men in beauty shined, Loved for that valour which preserves mankind. Then mighty Praetus Argos' sceptre sway'd, Whose hard commands Bellerophon obey'd. With direful jealousy the monarch raged, And the brave prince in numerous toils engaged. For him Antaea burn'd with lawless flame, And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame In vain she tempted the relentless youth, Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth. Fired at his scorn the queen to Praetus fled, And begg'd revenge for her insulted bed Incensed he heard, resolving on his fate But hospitable laws restrain'd his hate To Lycia the devoted youth he sent, With tablets seal'd, that told his dire intent. Now bless'd by every power who guards the good, The chief arrived at Xanthus' silver flood There Lycia's monarch paid him honours due, Nine days he feasted, and nine bulls he slew. But when the tenth bright morning orient glow'd, The faithful youth his monarch's mandate show'd The fatal tablets, till that instant seal'd, The deathful secret to the king reveal'd. First, dire Chimaera's conquest was enjoin'd A mingled monster of no mortal kind! Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread A goat's rough body bore a lion's head Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. 'This pest he slaughter'd, (for he read the skies, And trusted heaven's informing prodigies,) Then met in arms the Solyman crew, (Fiercest of men,) and those the warrior slew Next the bold Amazons' whole force defied And conquer'd still, for heaven was on his side. 'Nor ended here his toils his Lycian foes, At his return, a treacherous ambush rose, With levell'd spears along the winding shore There fell they breathless, and return'd no more. 'At length the monarch, with repentant grief, Confess'd the gods, and goddescended chief His daughter gave, the stranger to detain, With half the honours of his ample reign The Lycians grant a chosen space of ground, With woods, with vineyards, and with harvests crown'd. There long the chief his happy lot possess'd, With two brave sons and one fair daughter bless'd (Fair e'en in heavenly eyes her fruitful love Crown'd with Sarpedon's birth the embrace of Jove) But when at last, distracted in his mind, Forsook by heaven, forsaking humankind, Wide o'er the Aleian field he chose to stray, A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way! Woes heap'd on woes consumed his wasted heart His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe's dart His eldest born by raging Mars was slain, In combat on the Solymaean plain. Hippolochus survived from him I came, The honour'd author of my birth and name By his decree I sought the Trojan town By his instructions learn to win renown, To stand the first in worth as in command, To add new honours to my native land, Before my eyes my mighty sires to place, And emulate the glories of our race. He spoke, and transport fill'd Tydides' heart In earth the generous warrior fix'd his dart, Then friendly, thus the Lycian prince address'd 'Welcome, my brave hereditary guest! Thus ever let us meet, with kind embrace, Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race. Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old neus the strong, Bellerophon the bold Our ancient seat his honour'd presence graced, Where twenty days in genial rites he pass'd. The parting heroes mutual presents left A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift neus a belt of matchless work bestowed, That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow'd. (This from his pledge I learn'd, which, safely stored Among my treasures, still adorns my board For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe's wall Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall.) Mindful of this, in friendship let us join If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline, My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine. Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, In the full harvest of yon ample field Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore But thou and Diomed be foes no more. Now change we arms, and prove to either host We guard the friendship of the line we boast. Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight, Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resign'd, (Jove warm'd his bosom, and enlarged his mind,) For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device, For which nine oxen paid, (a vulgar price,) He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought, A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought. Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state, Great Hector, enter'd at the Scan gate. Beneath the beechtree's consecrated shades, The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids Around him flock'd, all press'd with pious care For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war. He bids the train in long procession go, And seek the gods, to avert the impending woe. And now to Priam's stately courts he came, Rais'd on arch'd columns of stupendous frame O'er these a range of marble structure runs, The rich pavilions of his fifty sons, In fifty chambers lodged and rooms of state, Opposed to those, where Priam's daughters sate. Twelve domes for them and their loved spouses shone, Of equal beauty, and of polish'd stone. Hither great Hector pass'd, nor pass'd unseen Of royal Hecuba, his motherqueen. (With her Laodice, whose beauteous face Surpass'd the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race.) Long in a strict embrace she held her son, And press'd his hand, and tender thus begun 'O Hector! say, what great occasion calls My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls Com'st thou to supplicate the almighty power With lifted hands, from Ilion's lofty tower? Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crown'd, In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground, And pay due vows to all the gods around. Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul, And draw new spirits from the generous bowl Spent as thou art with long laborious fight, The brave defender of thy country's right. 'Far hence be Bacchus' gifts (the chief rejoin'd) Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind. Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice To sprinkle to the gods, its better use. By me that holy office were profaned Ill fits it me, with human gore distain'd, To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise, Or offer heaven's great Sire polluted praise. You, with your matrons, go! a spotless train, And burn rich odours in Minerva's fane. The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold, Most prized for art, and labour'd o'er with gold, Before the goddess' honour'd knees be spread, And twelve young heifers to her altar led. So may the power, atoned by fervent prayer, Our wives, our infants, and our city spare And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. Be this, O mother, your religious care I go to rouse soft Paris to the war If yet not lost to all the sense of shame, The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame. Oh, would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace, That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race! Deep to the dark abyss might he descend, Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end. This heard, she gave command and summon'd came Each noble matron and illustrious dame. The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went, Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent. There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, Sidonian maids embroider'd every part, Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore, With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. Here, as the queen revolved with careful eyes The various textures and the various dyes, She chose a veil that shone superior far, And glow'd refulgent as the morning star. Herself with this the long procession leads The train majestically slow proceeds. Soon as to Ilion's topmost tower they come, And awful reach the high Palladian dome, Antenor's consort, fair Theano, waits As Pallas' priestess, and unbars the gates. With hands uplifted and imploring eyes, They fill the dome with supplicating cries. The priestess then the shining veil displays, Placed on Minerva's knees, and thus she prays 'Oh awful goddess! everdreadful maid, Troy's strong defence, unconquer'd Pallas, aid! Break thou Tydides' spear, and let him fall Prone on the dust before the Trojan wall! So twelve young heifers, guiltless of the yoke, Shall fill thy temple with a grateful smoke. But thou, atoned by penitence and prayer, Ourselves, our infants, and our city spare! So pray'd the priestess in her holy fane So vow'd the matrons, but they vow'd in vain. While these appear before the power with prayers, Hector to Paris' lofty dome repairs. Himself the mansion raised, from every part Assembling architects of matchless art. Near Priam's court and Hector's palace stands The pompous structure, and the town commands. A spear the hero bore of wondrous strength, Of full ten cubits was the lance's length, The steely point with golden ringlets join'd, Before him brandish'd, at each motion shined Thus entering, in the glittering rooms he found His brotherchief, whose useless arms lay round, His eyes delighting with their splendid show, Brightening the shield, and polishing the bow. Beside him Helen with her virgins stands, Guides their rich labours, and instructs their hands. Him thus inactive, with an ardent look The prince beheld, and highresenting spoke. 'Thy hate to Troy, is this the time to show? (O wretch illfated, and thy country's foe!) Paris and Greece against us both conspire, Thy close resentment, and their vengeful ire. For thee great Ilion's guardian heroes fall, Till heaps of dead alone defend her wall, For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, And wasteful war in all its fury burns. Ungrateful man! deserves not this thy care, Our troops to hearten, and our toils to share? Rise, or behold the conquering flames ascend, And all the Phrygian glories at an end. 'Brother, 'tis just, (replied the beauteous youth,) Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth Yet charge my absence less, O generous chief! On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sate, And mourn'd, in secret, his and Ilion's fate. 'Tis now enough now glory spreads her charms, And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms. Conquest today my happier sword may bless, 'Tis man's to fight, but heaven's to give success. But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind. HECTOR CHIDING PARIS He said, nor answer'd Priam's warlike son When Helen thus with lowly grace begun 'Oh, generous brother! (if the guilty dame That caused these woes deserve a sister's name!) Would heaven, ere all these dreadful deeds were done, The day that show'd me to the golden sun Had seen my death! why did not whirlwinds bear The fatal infant to the fowls of air? Why sunk I not beneath the whelming tide, And midst the roarings of the waters died? Heaven fill'd up all my ills, and I accursed Bore all, and Paris of those ills the worst. Helen at least a braver spouse might claim, Warm'd with some virtue, some regard of fame! Now tired with toils, thy fainting limbs recline, With toils, sustain'd for Paris' sake and mine The gods have link'd our miserable doom, Our present woe, and infamy to come Wide shall it spread, and last through ages long, Example sad! and theme of future song. The chief replied 'This time forbids to rest The Trojan bands, by hostile fury press'd, Demand their Hector, and his arm require The combat urges, and my soul's on fire. Urge thou thy knight to march where glory calls, And timely join me, ere I leave the walls. Ere yet I mingle in the direful fray, My wife, my infant, claim a moment's stay This day (perhaps the last that sees me here) Demands a parting word, a tender tear This day, some god who hates our Trojan land May vanquish Hector by a Grecian hand. He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part At home he sought her, but he sought in vain She, with one maid of all her menial train, Had hence retired and with her second joy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height, Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. But he who found not whom his soul desired, Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fired, Stood in the gates, and ask'd 'what way she bent Her parting step? If to the fane she went, Where late the mourning matrons made resort Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court? 'Not to the court, (replied the attendant train,) Nor mix'd with matrons to Minerva's fane To Ilion's steepy tower she bent her way, To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword She heard, and trembled for her absent lord Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly, Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. The nurse attended with her infant boy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy. Hector this heard, return'd without delay Swift through the town he trod his former way, Through streets of palaces, and walks of state And met the mourner at the Scan gate. With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair. His blameless wife, Ation's wealthy heir (Cilician Thebe great Ation sway'd, And Hippoplacus' wide extended shade) The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd, His only hope hung smiling at her breast, Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn, Fair as the newborn star that gilds the morn. To this loved infant Hector gave the name Scamandrius, from Scamander's honour'd stream Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy, From his great father, the defence of Troy. Silent the warrior smiled, and pleased resign'd To tender passions all his mighty mind His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke Her bosom laboured with a boding sigh, And the big tear stood trembling in her eye. THE MEETING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE 'Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run? Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son! And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be, A widow I, a helpless orphan he? For sure such courage length of life denies, And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice. Greece in her single heroes strove in vain Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain. O grant me, gods, ere Hector meets his doom, All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb! So shall my days in one sad tenor run, And end with sorrows as they first begun. No parent now remains my griefs to share, No father's aid, no mother's tender care. The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire, Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire! His fate compassion in the victor bred Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead, His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil, And laid him decent on the funeral pile Then raised a mountain where his bones were burn'd, The mountainnymphs the rural tomb adorn'd, Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow A barren shade, and in his honour grow. 'By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell In one sad day beheld the gates of hell While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed, Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled! My mother lived to wear the victor's bands, The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands Redeem'd too late, she scarce beheld again Her pleasing empire and her native plain, When ah! oppress'd by lifeconsuming woe, She fell a victim to Diana's bow. 'Yet while my Hector still survives, I see My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all Once more will perish, if my Hector fall, Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care! That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy, Where yon wild figtrees join the wall of Troy Thou, from this tower defend the important post There Agamemnon points his dreadful host, That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain, And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train. Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given, Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven. Let others in the field their arms employ, But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy. The chief replied 'That post shall be my care, Not that alone, but all the works of war. How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd, And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground Attaint the lustre of my former name, Should Hector basely quit the field of fame? My early youth was bred to martial pains, My soul impels me to the embattled plains! Let me be foremost to defend the throne, And guard my father's glories, and my own. 'Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates! (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore, Not all my brothers gasping on the shore As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led! In Argive looms our battles to design, And woes, of which so large a part was thine! To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring. There while you groan beneath the load of life, They cry, 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!' Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, Imbitters all thy woes, by naming me. The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, A thousand griefs shall waken at the name! May I lie cold before that dreadful day, Press'd with a load of monumental clay! Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep, Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep. Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest. With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled, And Hector hasted to relieve his child, The glittering terrors from his brows unbound, And placed the beaming helmet on the ground Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air, Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's prayer 'O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne, And all ye deathless powers! protect my son! Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown, To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown, Against his country's foes the war to wage, And rise the Hector of the future age! So when triumphant from successful toils Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim, And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame' While pleased amidst the general shouts of Troy, His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy. He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms, Restored the pleasing burden to her arms Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid, Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd. The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear, She mingled with a smile a tender tear. The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd, And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued 'Andromache! my soul's far better part, Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart? No hostile hand can antedate my doom, Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth And such the hard condition of our birth No force can then resist, no flight can save, All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. No morebut hasten to thy tasks at home, There guide the spindle, and direct the loom Me glory summons to the martial scene, The field of combat is the sphere for men. Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, The first in danger as the first in fame. Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes His towery helmet, black with shading plumes. His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye That stream'd at every look then, moving slow, Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe. There, while her tears deplored the godlike man, Through all her train the soft infection ran The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, And mourn the living Hector, as the dead. But now, no longer deaf to honour's call, Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, Swift through the town the warrior bends his way. The wanton courser thus with reins unbound Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground Pamper'd and proud, he seeks the wonted tides, And laves, in height of blood his shining sides His head now freed, he tosses to the skies His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders flies He snuffs the females in the distant plain, And springs, exulting, to his fields again. With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay, In arms refulgent as the god of day, The son of Priam, glorying in his might, Rush'd forth with Hector to the fields of fight. And now, the warriors passing on the way, The graceful Paris first excused his stay. To whom the noble Hector thus replied 'O chief! in blood, and now in arms, allied! Thy power in war with justice none contest Known is thy courage, and thy strength confess'd. What pity sloth should seize a soul so brave, Or godlike Paris live a woman's slave! My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say, And hopes thy deeds shall wipe the stain away. Haste then, in all their glorious labours share, For much they suffer, for thy sake, in war. These ills shall cease, whene'er by Jove's decree We crown the bowl to heaven and liberty While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns, And Greece indignant through her seas returns. BOWS AND BOW CASE IRIS ARGUMENT THE SINGLE COMBAT OF HECTOR AND AJAX. The battle renewing with double ardour upon the return of Hector, Minerva is under apprehensions for the Greeks. Apollo, seeing her descend from Olympus, joins her near the Scan gate. They agree to put off the general engagement for that day, and incite Hector to challenge the Greeks to a single combat. Nine of the princes accepting the challenge, the lot is cast and falls upon Ajax. These heroes, after several attacks, are parted by the night. The Trojans calling a council, Antenor purposes the delivery of Helen to the Greeks, to which Paris will not consent, but offers to restore them her riches. Priam sends a herald to make this offer, and to demand a truce for burning the dead, the last of which only is agreed to by Agamemnon. When the funerals are performed, the Greeks, pursuant to the advice of Nestor, erect a fortification to protect their fleet and camp, flanked with towers, and defended by a ditch and palisades. Neptune testifies his jealousy at this work, but is pacified by a promise from Jupiter. Both armies pass the night in feasting but Jupiter disheartens the Trojans with thunder, and other signs of his wrath. The three and twentieth day ends with the duel of Hector and Ajax, the next day the truce is agreed another is taken up in the funeral rites of the slain and one more in building the fortification before the ships. So that somewhat about three days is employed in this book. The scene lies wholly in the field. So spoke the guardian of the Trojan state, Then rush'd impetuous through the Scan gate. Him Paris follow'd to the dire alarms Both breathing slaughter, both resolved in arms. As when to sailors labouring through the main, That long have heaved the weary oar in vain, Jove bids at length the expected gales arise The gales blow grateful, and the vessel flies. So welcome these to Troy's desiring train, The bands are cheer'd, the war awakes again. Bold Paris first the work of death begun On great Menestheus, Areithous' son, Sprung from the fair Philomeda's embrace, The pleasing Arn was his native place. Then sunk Eioneus to the shades below, Beneath his steely casque he felt the blow Full on his neck, from Hector's weighty hand And roll'd, with limbs relax'd, along the land. By Glaucus' spear the bold Iphinous bleeds, Fix'd in the shoulder as he mounts his steeds Headlong he tumbles his slack nerves unbound, Drop the cold useless members on the ground. When now Minerva saw her Argives slain, From vast Olympus to the gleaming plain Fierce she descends Apollo marked her flight, Nor shot less swift from Ilion's towery height. Radiant they met, beneath the beechen shade When thus Apollo to the blueeyed maid 'What cause, O daughter of Almighty Jove! Thus wings thy progress from the realms above? Once more impetuous dost thou bend thy way, To give to Greece the long divided day? Too much has Troy already felt thy hate, Now breathe thy rage, and hush the stern debate This day, the business of the field suspend War soon shall kindle, and great Ilion bend Since vengeful goddesses confederate join To raze her walls, though built by hands divine. To whom the progeny of Jove replies 'I left, for this, the council of the skies But who shall bid conflicting hosts forbear, What art shall calm the furious sons of war? To her the god 'Great Hector's soul incite To dare the boldest Greek to single fight, Till Greece, provoked, from all her numbers show A warrior worthy to be Hector's foe. At this agreed, the heavenly powers withdrew Sage Helenus their secret counsels knew Hector, inspired, he sought to him address'd, Thus told the dictates of his sacred breast 'O son of Priam! let thy faithful ear Receive my words thy friend and brother hear! Go forth persuasive, and a while engage The warring nations to suspend their rage Then dare the boldest of the hostile train To mortal combat on the listed plain. For not this day shall end thy glorious date The gods have spoke it, and their voice is fate. He said the warrior heard the word with joy Then with his spear restrain'd the youth of Troy, Held by the midst athwart. On either hand The squadrons part the expecting Trojans stand Great Agamemnon bids the Greeks forbear They breathe, and hush the tumult of the war. The Athenian maid, and glorious god of day, With silent joy the settling hosts survey In form of vultures, on the beech's height They sit conceal'd, and wait the future fight. The thronging troops obscure the dusky fields, Horrid with bristling spears, and gleaming shields. As when a general darkness veils the main, (Soft Zephyr curling the wide wat'ry plain,) The waves scarce heave, the face of ocean sleeps, And a still horror saddens all the deeps Thus in thick orders settling wide around, At length composed they sit, and shade the ground. Great Hector first amidst both armies broke The solemn silence, and their powers bespoke 'Hear, all ye Trojan, all ye Grecian bands, What my soul prompts, and what some god commands. Great Jove, averse our warfare to compose, O'erwhelms the nations with new toils and woes War with a fiercer tide once more returns, Till Ilion falls, or till yon navy burns. You then, O princes of the Greeks! appear 'Tis Hector speaks, and calls the gods to hear From all your troops select the boldest knight, And him, the boldest, Hector dares to fight. Here if I fall, by chance of battle slain, Be his my spoil, and his these arms remain But let my body, to my friends return'd, By Trojan hands and Trojan flames be burn'd. And if Apollo, in whose aid I trust, Shall stretch your daring champion in the dust If mine the glory to despoil the foe On Phbus' temple I'll his arms bestow The breathless carcase to your navy sent, Greece on the shore shall raise a monument Which when some future mariner surveys, Wash'd by broad Hellespont's resounding seas, Thus shall he say, 'A valiant Greek lies there, By Hector slain, the mighty man of war,' The stone shall tell your vanquish'd hero's name And distant ages learn the victor's fame. This fierce defiance Greece astonish'd heard, Blush'd to refuse, and to accept it fear'd. Stern Menelaus first the silence broke, And, inly groaning, thus opprobrious spoke 'Women of Greece! O scandal of your race, Whose coward souls your manly form disgrace, How great the shame, when every age shall know That not a Grecian met this noble foe! Go then! resolve to earth, from whence ye grew, A heartless, spiritless, inglorious crew! Be what ye seem, unanimated clay, Myself will dare the danger of the day 'Tis man's bold task the generous strife to try, But in the hands of God is victory. These words scarce spoke, with generous ardour press'd, His manly limbs in azure arms he dress'd. That day, Atrides! a superior hand Had stretch'd thee breathless on the hostile strand But all at once, thy fury to compose, The kings of Greece, an awful band, arose Even he their chief, great Agamemnon, press'd Thy daring hand, and this advice address'd 'Whither, O Menelaus! wouldst thou run, And tempt a fate which prudence bids thee shun? Grieved though thou art, forbear the rash design Great Hector's arm is mightier far than thine Even fierce Achilles learn'd its force to fear, And trembling met this dreadful son of war. Sit thou secure, amidst thy social band Greece in our cause shall arm some powerful hand. The mightiest warrior of the Achaian name, Though bold and burning with desire of fame, Content the doubtful honour might forego, So great the danger, and so brave the foe. He said, and turn'd his brother's vengeful mind He stoop'd to reason, and his rage resign'd, No longer bent to rush on certain harms His joyful friends unbrace his azure arms. He from whose lips divine persuasion flows, Grave Nestor, then, in graceful act arose Thus to the kings he spoke 'What grief, what shame Attend on Greece, and all the Grecian name! How shall, alas! her hoary heroes mourn Their sons degenerate, and their race a scorn! What tears shall down thy silvery beard be roll'd, O Peleus, old in arms, in wisdom old! Once with what joy the generous prince would hear Of every chief who fought this glorious war, Participate their fame, and pleased inquire Each name, each action, and each hero's sire! Gods! should he see our warriors trembling stand, And trembling all before one hostile hand How would he lift his aged arms on high, Lament inglorious Greece, and beg to die! Oh! would to all the immortal powers above, Minerva, Phbus, and almighty Jove! Years might again roll back, my youth renew, And give this arm the spring which once it knew When fierce in war, where Jardan's waters fall, I led my troops to Phea's trembling wall, And with the Arcadian spears my prowess tried, Where Celadon rolls down his rapid tide. There Ereuthalion braved us in the field, Proud Areithous' dreadful arms to wield Great Areithous, known from shore to shore By the huge, knotted, iron mace he bore No lance he shook, nor bent the twanging bow, But broke, with this, the battle of the foe. Him not by manly force Lycurgus slew, Whose guileful javelin from the thicket flew, Deep in a winding way his breast assailed, Nor aught the warrior's thundering mace avail'd. Supine he fell those arms which Mars before Had given the vanquish'd, now the victor bore But when old age had dimm'd Lycurgus' eyes, To Ereuthalion he consign'd the prize. Furious with this he crush'd our levell'd bands, And dared the trial of the strongest hands Nor could the strongest hands his fury stay All saw, and fear'd, his huge tempestuous sway Till I, the youngest of the host, appear'd, And, youngest, met whom all our army fear'd. I fought the chief my arms Minerva crown'd Prone fell the giant o'er a length of ground. What then I was, O were your Nestor now! Not Hector's self should want an equal foe. But, warriors, you that youthful vigour boast, The flower of Greece, the examples of our host, Sprung from such fathers, who such numbers sway, Can you stand trembling, and desert the day? His warm reproofs the listening kings inflame And nine, the noblest of the Grecian name, Upstarted fierce but far before the rest The king of men advanced his dauntless breast Then bold Tydides, great in arms, appear'd And next his bulk gigantic Ajax rear'd Oleus follow'd Idomen was there, And Merion, dreadful as the god of war With these Eurypylus and Thoas stand, And wise Ulysses closed the daring band. All these, alike inspired with noble rage, Demand the fight. To whom the Pylian sage 'Lest thirst of glory your brave souls divide, What chief shall combat, let the gods decide. Whom heaven shall choose, be his the chance to raise His country's fame, his own immortal praise. The lots produced, each hero signs his own Then in the general's helm the fates are thrown, The people pray, with lifted eyes and hands, And vows like these ascend from all the bands 'Grant, thou Almighty! in whose hand is fate, A worthy champion for the Grecian state This task let Ajax or Tydides prove, Or he, the king of kings, beloved by Jove. Old Nestor shook the casque. By heaven inspired, Leap'd forth the lot, of every Greek desired. This from the right to left the herald bears, Held out in order to the Grecian peers Each to his rival yields the mark unknown, Till godlike Ajax finds the lot his own Surveys the inscription with rejoicing eyes, Then casts before him, and with transport cries 'Warriors! I claim the lot, and arm with joy Be mine the conquest of this chief of Troy. Now while my brightest arms my limbs invest, To Saturn's son be all your vows address'd But pray in secret, lest the foes should hear, And deem your prayers the mean effect of fear. Said I in secret? No, your vows declare In such a voice as fills the earth and air, Lives there a chief whom Ajax ought to dread? Ajax, in all the toils of battle bred! From warlike Salamis I drew my birth, And, born to combats, fear no force on earth. He said. The troops with elevated eyes, Implore the god whose thunder rends the skies 'O father of mankind, superior lord! On lofty Ida's holy hill adored Who in the highest heaven hast fix'd thy throne, Supreme of gods! unbounded and alone Grant thou, that Telamon may bear away The praise and conquest of this doubtful day Or, if illustrious Hector be thy care, That both may claim it, and that both may share. Now Ajax braced his dazzling armour on Sheathed in bright steel the giantwarrior shone He moves to combat with majestic pace So stalks in arms the grisly god of Thrace, When Jove to punish faithless men prepares, And gives whole nations to the waste of wars, Thus march'd the chief, tremendous as a god Grimly he smiled earth trembled as he strode His massy javelin quivering in his hand, He stood, the bulwark of the Grecian band. Through every Argive heart new transport ran All Troy stood trembling at the mighty man Even Hector paused and with new doubt oppress'd, Felt his great heart suspended in his breast 'Twas vain to seek retreat, and vain to fear Himself had challenged, and the foe drew near. Stern Telamon behind his ample shield, As from a brazen tower, o'erlook'd the field. Huge was its orb, with seven thick folds o'ercast, Of tough bullhides of solid brass the last, (The work of Tychius, who in Hyl dwell'd And in all arts of armoury excell'd,) This Ajax bore before his manly breast, And, threatening, thus his adverse chief address'd 'Hector! approach my arm, and singly know What strength thou hast, and what the Grecian foe. Achilles shuns the fight yet some there are, Not void of soul, and not unskill'd in war Let him, unactive on the seabeat shore, Indulge his wrath, and aid our arms no more Whole troops of heroes Greece has yet to boast, And sends thee one, a sample of her host, Such as I am, I come to prove thy might No morebe sudden, and begin the fight. 'O son of Telamon, thy country's pride! (To Ajax thus the Trojan prince replied) Me, as a boy, or woman, wouldst thou fright, New to the field, and trembling at the fight? Thou meet'st a chief deserving of thy arms, To combat born, and bred amidst alarms I know to shift my ground, remount the car, Turn, charge, and answer every call of war To right, to left, the dexterous lance I wield, And bear thick battle on my sounding shield But open be our fight, and bold each blow I steal no conquest from a noble foe. He said, and rising, high above the field Whirl'd the long lance against the sevenfold shield. Full on the brass descending from above Through six bullhides the furious weapon drove, Till in the seventh it fix'd. Then Ajax threw Through Hector's shield the forceful javelin flew, His corslet enters, and his garment rends, And glancing downwards, near his flank descends. The wary Trojan shrinks, and bending low Beneath his buckler, disappoints the blow. From their bored shields the chiefs their javelins drew, Then close impetuous, and the charge renew Fierce as the mountainlions bathed in blood, Or foaming boars, the terror of the wood. At Ajax, Hector his long lance extends The blunted point against the buckler bends But Ajax, watchful as his foe drew near, Drove through the Trojan targe the knotty spear It reach'd his neck, with matchless strength impell'd! Spouts the black gore, and dims his shining shield. Yet ceased not Hector thus but stooping down, In his strong hand upheaved a flinty stone, Black, craggy, vast to this his force he bends Full on the brazen boss the stone descends The hollow brass resounded with the shock Then Ajax seized the fragment of a rock, Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high, With force tempestuous, let the ruin fly The huge stone thundering through his buckler broke His slacken'd knees received the numbing stroke Great Hector falls extended on the field, His bulk supporting on the shatter'd shield Nor wanted heavenly aid Apollo's might Confirm'd his sinews, and restored to fight. And now both heroes their broad falchions drew In flaming circles round their heads they flew But then by heralds' voice the word was given. The sacred ministers of earth and heaven Divine Talthybius, whom the Greeks employ, And sage Idus on the part of Troy, Between the swords their peaceful sceptres rear'd And first Idus' awful voice was heard HECTOR AND AJAX SEPARATED BY THE HERALDS 'Forbear, my sons! your further force to prove, Both dear to men, and both beloved of Jove. To either host your matchless worth is known, Each sounds your praise, and war is all your own. But now the Night extends her awful shade The goddess parts you be the night obey'd. To whom great Ajax his high soul express'd 'O sage! to Hector be these words address'd. Let him, who first provoked our chiefs to fight, Let him demand the sanction of the night If first he ask'd it, I content obey, And cease the strife when Hector shows the way. 'O first of Greeks! (his noble foe rejoin'd) Whom heaven adorns, superior to thy kind, With strength of body, and with worth of mind! Now martial law commands us to forbear Hereafter we shall meet in glorious war, Some future day shall lengthen out the strife, And let the gods decide of death or life! Since, then, the night extends her gloomy shade, And heaven enjoins it, be the night obey'd. Return, brave Ajax, to thy Grecian friends, And joy the nations whom thy arm defends As I shall glad each chief, and Trojan wife, Who wearies heaven with vows for Hector's life. But let us, on this memorable day, Exchange some gift that Greece and Troy may say, 'Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.' With that, a sword with stars of silver graced, The baldric studded, and the sheath enchased, He gave the Greek. The generous Greek bestow'd A radiant belt that rich with purple glow'd. Then with majestic grace they quit the plain This seeks the Grecian, that the Phrygian train. The Trojan bands returning Hector wait, And hail with joy the Champion of their state Escaped great Ajax, they survey him round, Alive, unarm'd, and vigorous from his wound To Troy's high gates the godlike man they bear Their present triumph, as their late despair. But Ajax, glorying in his hardy deed, The wellarm'd Greeks to Agamemnon lead. A steer for sacrifice the king design'd, Of full five years, and of the nobler kind. The victim falls they strip the smoking hide, The beast they quarter, and the joints divide Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. The king himself (an honorary sign) Before great Ajax placed the mighty chine. When now the rage of hunger was removed, Nestor, in each persuasive art approved, The sage whose counsels long had sway'd the rest, In words like these his prudent thought express'd 'How dear, O kings! this fatal day has cost, What Greeks are perish'd! what a people lost! What tides of blood have drench'd Scamander's shore! What crowds of heroes sunk to rise no more! Then hear me, chief! nor let the morrow's light Awake thy squadrons to new toils of fight Some space at least permit the war to breathe, While we to flames our slaughter'd friends bequeath, From the red field their scatter'd bodies bear, And nigh the fleet a funeral structure rear So decent urns their snowy bones may keep, And pious children o'er their ashes weep. Here, where on one promiscuous pile they blazed, High o'er them all a general tomb be raised Next, to secure our camp and naval powers, Raise an embattled wall, with lofty towers From space to space be ample gates around, For passing chariots and a trench profound. So Greece to combat shall in safety go, Nor fear the fierce incursions of the foe. 'Twas thus the sage his wholesome counsel moved The sceptred kings of Greece his words approved. Meanwhile, convened at Priam's palacegate, The Trojan peers in nightly council sate A senate void of order, as of choice Their hearts were fearful, and confused their voice. Antenor, rising, thus demands their ear 'Ye Trojans, Dardans, and auxiliars, hear! 'Tis heaven the counsel of my breast inspires, And I but move what every god requires Let Sparta's treasures be this hour restored, And Argive Helen own her ancient lord. The ties of faith, the sworn alliance, broke, Our impious battles the just gods provoke. As this advice ye practise, or reject, So hope success, or dread the dire effect. The senior spoke and sate. To whom replied The graceful husband of the Spartan bride 'Cold counsels, Trojan, may become thy years But sound ungrateful in a warrior's ears Old man, if void of fallacy or art, Thy words express the purpose of thy heart, Thou, in thy time, more sound advice hast given But wisdom has its date, assign'd by heaven. Then hear me, princes of the Trojan name! Their treasures I'll restore, but not the dame My treasures too, for peace, I will resign But be this bright possession ever mine. 'Twas then, the growing discord to compose, Slow from his seat the reverend Priam rose His godlike aspect deep attention drew He paused, and these pacific words ensue 'Ye Trojans, Dardans, and auxiliar bands! Now take refreshment as the hour demands Guard well the walls, relieve the watch of night. Till the new sun restores the cheerful light. Then shall our herald, to the Atrides sent, Before their ships proclaim my son's intent. Next let a truce be ask'd, that Troy may burn Her slaughter'd heroes, and their bones inurn That done, once more the fate of war be tried, And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide! The monarch spoke the warriors snatch'd with haste (Each at his post in arms) a short repast. Soon as the rosy morn had waked the day, To the black ships Idus bent his way There, to the sons of Mars, in council found, He raised his voice the host stood listening round. 'Ye sons of Atreus, and ye Greeks, give ear! The words of Troy, and Troy's great monarch, hear. Pleased may ye hear (so heaven succeed my prayers) What Paris, author of the war, declares. The spoils and treasures he to Ilion bore (Oh had he perish'd ere they touch'd our shore!) He proffers injured Greece with large increase Of added Trojan wealth to buy the peace. But to restore the beauteous bride again, This Greece demands, and Troy requests in vain. Next, O ye chiefs! we ask a truce to burn Our slaughter'd heroes, and their bones inurn. That done, once more the fate of war be tried, And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide! The Greeks gave ear, but none the silence broke At length Tydides rose, and rising spoke 'Oh, take not, friends! defrauded of your fame, Their proffer'd wealth, nor even the Spartan dame. Let conquest make them ours fate shakes their wall, And Troy already totters to her fall. The admiring chiefs, and all the Grecian name, With general shouts return'd him loud acclaim. Then thus the king of kings rejects the peace 'Herald! in him thou hear'st the voice of Greece For what remains let funeral flames be fed With heroes' corps I war not with the dead Go search your slaughtered chiefs on yonder plain, And gratify the manes of the slain. Be witness, Jove, whose thunder rolls on high! He said, and rear'd his sceptre to the sky. To sacred Troy, where all her princes lay To wait the event, the herald bent his way. He came, and standing in the midst, explain'd The peace rejected, but the truce obtain'd. Straight to their several cares the Trojans move, Some search the plains, some fell the sounding grove Nor less the Greeks, descending on the shore, Hew'd the green forests, and the bodies bore. And now from forth the chambers of the main, To shed his sacred light on earth again, Arose the golden chariot of the day, And tipp'd the mountains with a purple ray. In mingled throngs the Greek and Trojan train Through heaps of carnage search'd the mournful plain. Scarce could the friend his slaughter'd friend explore, With dust dishonour'd, and deformed with gore. The wounds they wash'd, their pious tears they shed, And, laid along their cars, deplored the dead. Sage Priam check'd their grief with silent haste The bodies decent on the piles were placed With melting hearts the cold remains they burn'd, And, sadly slow, to sacred Troy return'd. Nor less the Greeks their pious sorrows shed, And decent on the pile dispose the dead The cold remains consume with equal care And slowly, sadly, to their fleet repair. Now, ere the morn had streak'd with reddening light The doubtful confines of the day and night, About the dying flames the Greeks appear'd, And round the pile a general tomb they rear'd. Then, to secure the camp and naval powers, They raised embattled walls with lofty towers From space to space were ample gates around, For passing chariots, and a trench profound Of large extent and deep in earth below, Strong piles infix'd stood adverse to the foe. So toil'd the Greeks meanwhile the gods above, In shining circle round their father Jove, Amazed beheld the wondrous works of man Then he, whose trident shakes the earth, began 'What mortals henceforth shall our power adore, Our fanes frequent, our oracles implore, If the proud Grecians thus successful boast Their rising bulwarks on the seabeat coast? See the long walls extending to the main, No god consulted, and no victim slain! Their fame shall fill the world's remotest ends, Wide as the morn her golden beam extends While old Laomedon's divine abodes, Those radiant structures raised by labouring gods, Shall, razed and lost, in long oblivion sleep. Thus spoke the hoary monarch of the deep. The almighty Thunderer with a frown replies, That clouds the world, and blackens half the skies 'Strong god of ocean! thou, whose rage can make The solid earth's eternal basis shake! What cause of fear from mortal works could move The meanest subject of our realms above? Where'er the sun's refulgent rays are cast, Thy power is honour'd, and thy fame shall last. But yon proud work no future age shall view, No trace remain where once the glory grew. The sapp'd foundations by thy force shall fall, And, whelm'd beneath the waves, drop the huge wall Vast drifts of sand shall change the former shore The ruin vanish'd, and the name no more. Thus they in heaven while, o'er the Grecian train, The rolling sun descending to the main Beheld the finish'd work. Their bulls they slew Back from the tents the savoury vapour flew. And now the fleet, arrived from Lemnos' strands, With Bacchus' blessings cheered the generous bands. Of fragrant wines the rich Eunaeus sent A thousant measures to the royal tent. (Eunaeus, whom Hypsipyle of yore To Jason, shepherd of his people, bore,) The rest they purchased at their proper cost, And well the plenteous freight supplied the host Each, in exchange, proportion'd treasures gave Some, brass or iron some, an ox, or slave. All night they feast, the Greek and Trojan powers Those on the fields, and these within their towers. But Jove averse the signs of wrath display'd, And shot red lightnings through the gloomy shade Humbled they stood pale horror seized on all, While the deep thunder shook the aerial hall. Each pour'd to Jove before the bowl was crown'd And large libations drench'd the thirsty ground Then late, refresh'd with sleep from toils of fight, Enjoy'd the balmy blessings of the night. GREEK AMPHORAWINE VESSELS ARGUMENT. THE SECOND BATTLE, AND THE DISTRESS OF THE GREEKS. Jupiter assembles a council of the deities, and threatens them with the pains of Tartarus if they assist either side Minerva only obtains of him that she may direct the Greeks by her counsels. The armies join battle Jupiter on Mount Ida weighs in his balances the fates of both, and affrights the Greeks with his thunders and lightnings. Nestor alone continues in the field in great danger Diomed relieves him whose exploits, and those of Hector, are excellently described. Juno endeavours to animate Neptune to the assistance of the Greeks, but in vain. The acts of Teucer, who is at length wounded by Hector, and carried off. Juno and Minerva prepare to aid the Grecians, but are restrained by Iris, sent from Jupiter. The night puts an end to the battle. Hector continues in the field, (the Greeks being driven to their fortifications before the ships,) and gives orders to keep the watch all night in the camp, to prevent the enemy from reembarking and escaping by flight. They kindle fires through all the fields, and pass the night under arms. The time of seven and twenty days is employed from the opening of the poem to the end of this book. The scene here (except of the celestial machines) lies in the field towards the seashore. Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn When Jove convened the senate of the skies, Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise, The sire of gods his awful silence broke The heavens attentive trembled as he spoke 'Celestial states! immortal gods! give ear, Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear The fix'd decree which not all heaven can move Thou, fate! fulfil it! and, ye powers, approve! What god but enters yon forbidden field, Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield, Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven, Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven Or far, oh far, from steep Olympus thrown, Low in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan, With burning chains fix'd to the brazen floors, And lock'd by hell's inexorable doors As deep beneath the infernal centre hurl'd, As from that centre to the ethereal world. Let him who tempts me, dread those dire abodes And know, the Almighty is the god of gods. League all your forces, then, ye powers above, Join all, and try the omnipotence of Jove. Let down our golden everlasting chain Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth, To drag, by this, the Thunderer down to earth Ye strive in vain! if I but stretch this hand, I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land I fix the chain to great Olympus' height, And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight! For such I reign, unbounded and above And such are men, and gods, compared to Jove. The allmighty spoke, nor durst the powers reply A reverend horror silenced all the sky Trembling they stood before their sovereign's look At length his bestbeloved, the power of wisdom, spoke 'O first and greatest! God, by gods adored We own thy might, our father and our lord! But, ah! permit to pity human state If not to help, at least lament their fate. From fields forbidden we submiss refrain, With arms unaiding mourn our Argives slain Yet grant my counsels still their breasts may move, Or all must perish in the wrath of Jove. The cloudcompelling god her suit approved, And smiled superior on his best beloved Then call'd his coursers, and his chariot took The stedfast firmament beneath them shook Rapt by the ethereal steeds the chariot roll'd Brass were their hoofs, their curling manes of gold Of heaven's undrossy gold the gods array, Refulgent, flash'd intolerable day. High on the throne he shines his coursers fly Between the extended earth and starry sky. But when to Ida's topmost height he came, (Fair nurse of fountains, and of savage game,) Where o'er her pointed summits proudly raised, His fane breathed odours, and his altar blazed There, from his radiant car, the sacred sire Of gods and men released the steeds of fire Blue ambient mists the immortal steeds embraced High on the cloudy point his seat he placed Thence his broad eye the subject world surveys, The town, and tents, and navigable seas. Now had the Grecians snatch'd a short repast, And buckled on their shining arms with haste. Troy roused as soon for on this dreadful day The fate of fathers, wives, and infants lay. The gates unfolding pour forth all their train Squadrons on squadrons cloud the dusky plain Men, steeds, and chariots shake the trembling ground, The tumult thickens, and the skies resound And now with shouts the shocking armies closed, To lances lances, shields to shields opposed, Host against host with shadowy legends drew, The sounding darts in iron tempests flew Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries, Triumphant shouts and dying groans arise With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed, And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide. Long as the morning beams, increasing bright, O'er heaven's clear azure spread the sacred light, Commutual death the fate of war confounds, Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds. But when the sun the height of heaven ascends, The sire of gods his golden scales suspends, With equal hand in these explored the fate Of Greece and Troy, and poised the mighty weight Press'd with its load, the Grecian balance lies Low sunk on earth, the Trojan strikes the skies. Then Jove from Ida's top his horrors spreads The clouds burst dreadful o'er the Grecian heads Thick lightnings flash the muttering thunder rolls Their strength he withers, and unmans their souls. Before his wrath the trembling hosts retire The gods in terrors, and the skies on fire. Nor great Idomeneus that sight could bear, Nor each stern Ajax, thunderbolts of war Nor he, the king of war, the alarm sustain'd Nestor alone, amidst the storm remain'd. Unwilling he remain'd, for Paris' dart Had pierced his courser in a mortal part Fix'd in the forehead, where the springing mane Curl'd o'er the brow, it stung him to the brain Mad with his anguish, he begins to rear, Paw with his hoofs aloft, and lash the air. Scarce had his falchion cut the reins, and freed The encumber'd chariot from the dying steed, When dreadful Hector, thundering through the war, Pour'd to the tumult on his whirling car. That day had stretch'd beneath his matchless hand The hoary monarch of the Pylian band, But Diomed beheld from forth the crowd He rush'd, and on Ulysses call'd aloud 'Whither, oh whither does Ulysses run? Oh, flight unworthy great Laertes' son! Mix'd with the vulgar shall thy fate be found, Pierced in the back, a vile, dishonest wound? Oh turn and save from Hector's direful rage The glory of the Greeks, the Pylian sage. His fruitless words are lost unheard in air, Ulysses seeks the ships, and shelters there. But bold Tydides to the rescue goes, A single warrior midst a host of foes Before the coursers with a sudden spring He leap'd, and anxious thus bespoke the king 'Great perils, father! wait the unequal fight These younger champions will oppress thy might. Thy veins no more with ancient vigour glow, Weak is thy servant, and thy coursers slow. Then haste, ascend my seat, and from the car Observe the steeds of Tros, renown'd in war. Practised alike to turn, to stop, to chase, To dare the fight, or urge the rapid race These late obey'd neas' guiding rein Leave thou thy chariot to our faithful train With these against yon Trojans will we go, Nor shall great Hector want an equal foe Fierce as he is, even he may learn to fear The thirsty fury of my flying spear. Thus said the chief and Nestor, skill'd in war, Approves his counsel, and ascends the car The steeds he left, their trusty servants hold Eurymedon, and Sthenelus the bold The reverend charioteer directs the course, And strains his aged arm to lash the horse. Hector they face unknowing how to fear, Fierce he drove on Tydides whirl'd his spear. The spear with erring haste mistook its way, But plunged in Eniopeus' bosom lay. His opening hand in death forsakes the rein The steeds fly back he falls, and spurns the plain. Great Hector sorrows for his servant kill'd, Yet unrevenged permits to press the field Till, to supply his place and rule the car, Rose Archeptolemus, the fierce in war. And now had death and horror cover'd all Like timorous flocks the Trojans in their wall Inclosed had bled but Jove with awful sound Roll'd the big thunder o'er the vast profound Full in Tydides' face the lightning flew The ground before him flamed with sulphur blue The quivering steeds fell prostrate at the sight And Nestor's trembling hand confess'd his fright He dropp'd the reins and, shook with sacred dread, Thus, turning, warn'd the intrepid Diomed 'O chief! too daring in thy friend's defence Retire advised, and urge the chariot hence. This day, averse, the sovereign of the skies Assists great Hector, and our palm denies. Some other sun may see the happier hour, When Greece shall conquer by his heavenly power. 'Tis not in man his fix'd decree to move The great will glory to submit to Jove. 'O reverend prince! (Tydides thus replies) Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. But ah, what grief! should haughty Hector boast I fled inglorious to the guarded coast. Before that dire disgrace shall blast my fame, O'erwhelm me, earth and hide a warrior's shame! To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied 'Gods! can thy courage fear the Phrygian's pride? Hector may vaunt, but who shall heed the boast? Not those who felt thy arm, the Dardan host, Nor Troy, yet bleeding in her heroes lost Not even a Phrygian dame, who dreads the sword That laid in dust her loved, lamented lord. He said, and, hasty, o'er the gasping throng Drives the swift steeds the chariot smokes along The shouts of Trojans thicken in the wind The storm of hissing javelins pours behind. Then with a voice that shakes the solid skies, Pleased, Hector braves the warrior as he flies. 'Go, mighty hero! graced above the rest In seats of council and the sumptuous feast Now hope no more those honours from thy train Go less than woman, in the form of man! To scale our walls, to wrap our towers in flames, To lead in exile the fair Phrygian dames, Thy once proud hopes, presumptuous prince! are fled This arm shall reach thy heart, and stretch thee dead. Now fears dissuade him, and now hopes invite. To stop his coursers, and to stand the fight Thrice turn'd the chief, and thrice imperial Jove On Ida's summits thunder'd from above. Great Hector heard he saw the flashing light, (The sign of conquest,) and thus urged the fight 'Hear, every Trojan, Lycian, Dardan band, All famed in war, and dreadful hand to hand. Be mindful of the wreaths your arms have won, Your great forefathers' glories, and your own. Heard ye the voice of Jove? Success and fame Await on Troy, on Greece eternal shame. In vain they skulk behind their boasted wall, Weak bulwarks destined by this arm to fall. High o'er their slighted trench our steeds shall bound, And pass victorious o'er the levell'd mound. Soon as before yon hollow ships we stand, Fight each with flames, and toss the blazing brand Till, their proud navy wrapt in smoke and fires, All Greece, encompass'd, in one blaze expires. Furious he said then bending o'er the yoke, Encouraged his proud steeds, while thus he spoke 'Now, Xanthus, thon, Lampus, urge the chase, And thou, Podargus! prove thy generous race Be fleet, be fearless, this important day, And all your master's wellspent care repay. For this, highfed, in plenteous stalls ye stand, Served with pure wheat, and by a princess' hand For this my spouse, of great Ation's line, So oft has steep'd the strengthening grain in wine. Now swift pursue, now thunder uncontroll'd Give me to seize rich Nestor's shield of gold From Tydeus' shoulders strip the costly load, Vulcanian arms, the labour of a god These if we gain, then victory, ye powers! This night, this glorious night, the fleet is ours! That heard, deep anguish stung Saturnia's soul She shook her throne, that shook the starry pole And thus to Neptune 'Thou, whose force can make The stedfast earth from her foundations shake, Seest thou the Greeks by fates unjust oppress'd, Nor swells thy heart in that immortal breast? Yet gae, Helic, thy power obey, And gifts unceasing on thine altars lay. Would all the deities of Greece combine, In vain the gloomy Thunderer might repine Sole should he sit, with scarce a god to friend, And see his Trojans to the shades descend Such be the scene from his Idaean bower Ungrateful prospect to the sullen power! Neptune with wrath rejects the rash design 'What rage, what madness, furious queen! is thine? I war not with the highest. All above Submit and tremble at the hand of Jove. Now godlike Hector, to whose matchless might Jove gave the glory of the destined fight, Squadrons on squadrons drives, and fills the fields With closeranged chariots, and with thicken'd shields. Where the deep trench in length extended lay, Compacted troops stand wedged in firm array, A dreadful front! they shake the brands, and threat With longdestroying flames the hostile fleet. The king of men, by Juno's self inspired, Toil'd through the tents, and all his army fired. Swift as he moved, he lifted in his hand His purple robe, bright ensign of command. High on the midmost bark the king appear'd There, from Ulysses' deck, his voice was heard To Ajax and Achilles reach'd the sound, Whose distant ships the guarded navy bound. 'O Argives! shame of human race! (he cried The hollow vessels to his voice replied,) Where now are all your glorious boasts of yore, Your hasty triumphs on the Lemnian shore? Each fearless hero dares a hundred foes, While the feast lasts, and while the goblet flows But who to meet one martial man is found, When the fight rages, and the flames surround? O mighty Jove! O sire of the distress'd! Was ever king like me, like me oppress'd? With power immense, with justice arm'd in vain My glory ravish'd, and my people slain! To thee my vows were breathed from every shore What altar smoked not with our victims' gore? With fat of bulls I fed the constant flame, And ask'd destruction to the Trojan name. Now, gracious god! far humbler our demand Give these at least to 'scape from Hector's hand, And save the relics of the Grecian land! Thus pray'd the king, and heaven's great father heard His vows, in bitterness of soul preferr'd The wrath appeased, by happy signs declares, And gives the people to their monarch's prayers. His eagle, sacred bird of heaven! he sent, A fawn his talons truss'd, (divine portent!) High o'er the wondering hosts he soar'd above, Who paid their vows to Panomphaean Jove Then let the prey before his altar fall The Greeks beheld, and transport seized on all Encouraged by the sign, the troops revive, And fierce on Troy with doubled fury drive. Tydides first, of all the Grecian force, O'er the broad ditch impell'd his foaming horse, Pierced the deep ranks, their strongest battle tore, And dyed his javelin red with Trojan gore. Young Agelaus (Phradmon was his sire) With flying coursers shunn'd his dreadful ire Struck through the back, the Phrygian fell oppress'd The dart drove on, and issued at his breast Headlong he quits the car his arms resound His ponderous buckler thunders on the ground. Forth rush a tide of Greeks, the passage freed The Atridae first, the Ajaces next succeed Meriones, like Mars in arms renown'd, And godlike Idomen, now passed the mound Evaemon's son next issues to the foe, And last young Teucer with his bended bow. Secure behind the Telamonian shield The skilful archer wide survey'd the field, With every shaft some hostile victim slew, Then close beneath the sevenfold orb withdrew The conscious infant so, when fear alarms, Retires for safety to the mother's arms. Thus Ajax guards his brother in the field, Moves as he moves, and turns the shining shield. Who first by Teucer's mortal arrows bled? Orsilochus then fell Ormenus dead The godlike Lycophon next press'd the plain, With Chromius, Daetor, Ophelestes slain Bold Hamopaon breathless sunk to ground The bloody pile great Melanippus crown'd. Heaps fell on heaps, sad trophies of his art, A Trojan ghost attending every dart. Great Agamemnon views with joyful eye The ranks grow thinner as his arrows fly 'O youth forever dear! (the monarch cried) Thus, always thus, thy early worth be tried Thy brave example shall retrieve our host, Thy country's saviour, and thy father's boast! Sprung from an alien's bed thy sire to grace, The vigorous offspring of a stolen embrace Proud of his boy, he own'd the generous flame, And the brave son repays his cares with fame. Now hear a monarch's vow If heaven's high powers Give me to raze Troy's longdefended towers Whatever treasures Greece for me design, The next rich honorary gift be thine Some golden tripod, or distinguished car, With coursers dreadful in the ranks of war Or some fair captive, whom thy eyes approve, Shall recompense the warrior's toils with love. To this the chief 'With praise the rest inspire, Nor urge a soul already fill'd with fire. What strength I have, be now in battle tried, Till every shaft in Phrygian blood be dyed. Since rallying from our wall we forced the foe, Still aim'd at Hector have I bent my bow Eight forky arrows from this hand have fled, And eight bold heroes by their points lie dead But sure some god denies me to destroy This fury of the field, this dog of Troy. He said, and twang'd the string. The weapon flies At Hector's breast, and sings along the skies He miss'd the mark but pierced Gorgythio's heart, And drench'd in royal blood the thirsty dart. (Fair Castianira, nymph of form divine, This offspring added to king Priam's line.) As fullblown poppies, overcharged with rain, Decline the head, and drooping kiss the plain So sinks the youth his beauteous head, depress'd Beneath his helmet, drops upon his breast. Another shaft the raging archer drew, That other shaft with erring fury flew, (From Hector, Phbus turn'd the flying wound,) Yet fell not dry or guiltless to the ground Thy breast, brave Archeptolemus! it tore, And dipp'd its feathers in no vulgar gore. Headlong he falls his sudden fall alarms The steeds, that startle at his sounding arms. Hector with grief his charioteer beheld All pale and breathless on the sanguine field Then bids Cebriones direct the rein, Quits his bright car, and issues on the plain. Dreadful he shouts from earth a stone he took, And rush'd on Teucer with the lifted rock. The youth already strain'd the forceful yew The shaft already to his shoulder drew The feather in his hand, just wing'd for flight, Touch'd where the neck and hollow chest unite There, where the juncture knits the channel bone, The furious chief discharged the craggy stone The bowstring burst beneath the ponderous blow, And his numb'd hand dismiss'd his useless bow. He fell but Ajax his broad shield display'd, And screen'd his brother with the mighty shade Till great Alaster, and Mecistheus, bore The batter'd archer groaning to the shore. Troy yet found grace before the Olympian sire, He arm'd their hands, and fill'd their breasts with fire. The Greeks repulsed, retreat behind their wall, Or in the trench on heaps confusedly fall. First of the foe, great Hector march'd along, With terror clothed, and more than mortal strong. As the bold hound, that gives the lion chase, With beating bosom, and with eager pace, Hangs on his haunch, or fastens on his heels, Guards as he turns, and circles as he wheels Thus oft the Grecians turn'd, but still they flew Thus following, Hector still the hindmost slew. When flying they had pass'd the trench profound, And many a chief lay gasping on the ground Before the ships a desperate stand they made, And fired the troops, and called the gods to aid. Fierce on his rattling chariot Hector came His eyes like Gorgon shot a sanguine flame That wither'd all their host like Mars he stood Dire as the monster, dreadful as the god! Their strong distress the wife of Jove survey'd Then pensive thus, to war's triumphant maid 'O daughter of that god, whose arm can wield The avenging bolt, and shake the sable shield! Now, in this moment of her last despair, Shall wretched Greece no more confess our care, Condemn'd to suffer the full force of fate, And drain the dregs of heaven's relentless hate? Gods! shall one raging hand thus level all? What numbers fell! what numbers yet shall fall! What power divine shall Hector's wrath assuage? Still swells the slaughter, and still grows the rage! So spake the imperial regent of the skies To whom the goddess with the azure eyes 'Long since had Hector stain'd these fields with gore, Stretch'd by some Argive on his native shore But he above, the sire of heaven, withstands, Mocks our attempts, and slights our just demands The stubborn god, inflexible and hard, Forgets my service and deserved reward Saved I, for this, his favourite son distress'd, By stern Eurystheus with long labours press'd? He begg'd, with tears he begg'd, in deep dismay I shot from heaven, and gave his arm the day. Oh had my wisdom known this dire event, When to grim Pluto's gloomy gates he went The triple dog had never felt his chain, Nor Styx been cross'd, nor hell explored in vain. Averse to me of all his heaven of gods, At Thetis' suit the partial Thunderer nods To grace her gloomy, fierce, resenting son, My hopes are frustrate, and my Greeks undone. Some future day, perhaps, he may be moved To call his blueeyed maid his best beloved. Haste, launch thy chariot, through yon ranks to ride Myself will arm, and thunder at thy side. Then, goddess! say, shall Hector glory then? (That terror of the Greeks, that man of men) When Juno's self, and Pallas shall appear, All dreadful in the crimson walks of war! What mighty Trojan then, on yonder shore, Expiring, pale, and terrible no more, Shall feast the fowls, and glut the dogs with gore? She ceased, and Juno rein'd the steeds with care (Heaven's awful empress, Saturn's other heir) Pallas, meanwhile, her various veil unbound, With flowers adorn'd, with art immortal crown'd The radiant robe her sacred fingers wove Floats in rich waves, and spreads the court of Jove. Her father's arms her mighty limbs invest, His cuirass blazes on her ample breast. The vigorous power the trembling car ascends Shook by her arm, the massy javelin bends Huge, ponderous, strong! that when her fury burns Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns. Saturnia lends the lash the coursers fly Smooth glides the chariot through the liquid sky. Heaven's gates spontaneous open to the powers, Heaven's golden gates, kept by the winged Hours. Commission'd in alternate watch they stand, The sun's bright portals and the skies command Close, or unfold, the eternal gates of day Bar heaven with clouds, or roll those clouds away. The sounding hinges ring, the clouds divide. Prone down the steep of heaven their course they guide. But Jove, incensed, from Ida's top survey'd, And thus enjoin'd the manycolour'd maid. JUNO AND MINERVA GOING TO ASSIST THE GREEKS 'Thaumantia! mount the winds, and stop their car Against the highest who shall wage the war? If furious yet they dare the vain debate, Thus have I spoke, and what I speak is fate Their coursers crush'd beneath the wheels shall lie, Their car in fragments, scatter'd o'er the sky My lightning these rebellious shall confound, And hurl them flaming, headlong, to the ground, Condemn'd for ten revolving years to weep The wounds impress'd by burning thunder deep. So shall Minerva learn to fear our ire, Nor dare to combat hers and nature's sire. For Juno, headstrong and imperious still, She claims some title to transgress our will. Swift as the wind, the variouscolour'd maid From Ida's top her golden wings display'd To great Olympus' shining gate she flies, There meets the chariot rushing down the skies, Restrains their progress from the bright abodes, And speaks the mandate of the sire of gods. 'What frenzy goddesses! what rage can move Celestial minds to tempt the wrath of Jove? Desist, obedient to his high command This is his word and know his word shall stand His lightning your rebellion shall confound, And hurl ye headlong, flaming, to the ground Your horses crush'd beneath the wheels shall lie, Your car in fragments scatter'd o'er the sky Yourselves condemn'd ten rolling years to weep The wounds impress'd by burning thunder deep. So shall Minerva learn to fear his ire, Nor dare to combat hers and nature's sire. For Juno, headstrong and imperious still, She claims some title to transgress his will But thee, what desperate insolence has driven To lift thy lance against the king of heaven? Then, mounting on the pinions of the wind, She flew and Juno thus her rage resign'd 'O daughter of that god, whose arm can wield The avenging bolt, and shake the saber shield! No more let beings of superior birth Contend with Jove for this low race of earth Triumphant now, now miserably slain, They breathe or perish as the fates ordain But Jove's high counsels full effect shall find And, ever constant, ever rule mankind. She spoke, and backward turn'd her steeds of light, Adorn'd with manes of gold, and heavenly bright. The Hours unloosed them, panting as they stood, And heap'd their mangers with ambrosial food. There tied, they rest in high celestial stalls The chariot propp'd against the crystal walls, The pensive goddesses, abash'd, controll'd, Mix with the gods, and fill their seats of gold. THE HOURS TAKING THE HORSES FROM JUNO'S CAR And now the Thunderer meditates his flight From Ida's summits to the Olympian height. Swifter than thought, the wheels instinctive fly, Flame through the vast of air, and reach the sky. 'Twas Neptune's charge his coursers to unbrace, And fix the car on its immortal base There stood the chariot, beaming forth its rays, Till with a snowy veil he screen'd the blaze. He, whose allconscious eyes the world behold, The eternal Thunderer sat, enthroned in gold. High heaven the footstool of his feet he makes, And wide beneath him all Olympus shakes. Trembling afar the offending powers appear'd, Confused and silent, for his frown they fear'd. He saw their soul, and thus his word imparts 'Pallas and Juno! say, why heave your hearts? Soon was your battle o'er proud Troy retired Before your face, and in your wrath expired. But know, whoe'er almighty power withstand! Unmatch'd our force, unconquer'd is our hand Who shall the sovereign of the skies control? Not all the gods that crown the starry pole. Your hearts shall tremble, if our arms we take, And each immortal nerve with horror shake. For thus I speak, and what I speak shall stand What power soe'er provokes our lifted hand, On this our hill no more shall hold his place Cut off, and exiled from the ethereal race. Juno and Pallas grieving hear the doom, But feast their souls on Ilion's woes to come. Though secret anger swell'd Minerva's breast, The prudent goddess yet her wrath repress'd But Juno, impotent of rage, replies 'What hast thou said, O tyrant of the skies! Strength and omnipotence invest thy throne 'Tis thine to punish ours to grieve alone. For Greece we grieve, abandon'd by her fate To drink the dregs of thy unmeasured hate. From fields forbidden we submiss refrain, With arms unaiding see our Argives slain Yet grant our counsels still their breasts may move, Lest all should perish in the rage of Jove. The goddess thus and thus the god replies, Who swells the clouds, and blackens all the skies 'The morning sun, awaked by loud alarms, Shall see the almighty Thunderer in arms. What heaps of Argives then shall load the plain, Those radiant eyes shall view, and view in vain. Nor shall great Hector cease the rage of fight, The navy flaming, and thy Greeks in flight, Even till the day when certain fates ordain That stern Achilles (his Patroclus slain) Shall rise in vengeance, and lay waste the plain. For such is fate, nor canst thou turn its course With all thy rage, with all thy rebel force. Fly, if thy wilt, to earth's remotest bound, Where on her utmost verge the seas resound Where cursed Iapetus and Saturn dwell, Fast by the brink, within the streams of hell No sun e'er gilds the gloomy horrors there No cheerful gales refresh the lazy air There arm once more the bold Titanian band And arm in vain for what I will, shall stand. Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light, And drew behind the cloudy veil of night The conquering Trojans mourn his beams decay'd The Greeks rejoicing bless the friendly shade. The victors keep the field and Hector calls A martial council near the navy walls These to Scamander's bank apart he led, Where thinly scatter'd lay the heaps of dead. The assembled chiefs, descending on the ground, Attend his order, and their prince surround. A massy spear he bore of mighty strength, Of full ten cubits was the lance's length The point was brass, refulgent to behold, Fix'd to the wood with circling rings of gold The noble Hector on his lance reclined, And, bending forward, thus reveal'd his mind 'Ye valiant Trojans, with attention hear! Ye Dardan bands, and generous aids, give ear! This day, we hoped, would wrap in conquering flame Greece with her ships, and crown our toils with fame. But darkness now, to save the cowards, falls, And guards them trembling in their wooden walls. Obey the night, and use her peaceful hours Our steeds to forage, and refresh our powers. Straight from the town be sheep and oxen sought, And strengthening bread and generous wine be brought. Wide o'er the field, high blazing to the sky, Let numerous fires the absent sun supply, The flaming piles with plenteous fuel raise, Till the bright morn her purple beam displays Lest, in the silence and the shades of night, Greece on her sable ships attempt her flight. Not unmolested let the wretches gain Their lofty decks, or safely cleave the main Some hostile wound let every dart bestow, Some lasting token of the Phrygian foe, Wounds, that long hence may ask their spouses' care. And warn their children from a Trojan war. Now through the circuit of our Ilion wall, Let sacred heralds sound the solemn call To bid the sires with hoary honours crown'd, And beardless youths, our battlements surround. Firm be the guard, while distant lie our powers, And let the matrons hang with lights the towers Lest, under covert of the midnight shade, The insidious foe the naked town invade. Suffice, tonight, these orders to obey A nobler charge shall rouse the dawning day. The gods, I trust, shall give to Hector's hand From these detested foes to free the land, Who plough'd, with fates averse, the watery way For Trojan vultures a predestined prey. Our common safety must be now the care But soon as morning paints the fields of air, Sheathed in bright arms let every troop engage, And the fired fleet behold the battle rage. Then, then shall Hector and Tydides prove Whose fates are heaviest in the scales of Jove. Tomorrow's light (O haste the glorious morn!) Shall see his bloody spoils in triumph borne, With this keen javelin shall his breast be gored, And prostrate heroes bleed around their lord. Certain as this, oh! might my days endure, From age inglorious, and black death secure So might my life and glory know no bound, Like Pallas worshipp'd, like the sun renown'd! As the next dawn, the last they shall enjoy, Shall crush the Greeks, and end the woes of Troy. The leader spoke. From all his host around Shouts of applause along the shores resound. Each from the yoke the smoking steeds untied, And fix'd their headstalls to his chariotside. Fat sheep and oxen from the town are led, With generous wine, and allsustaining bread, Full hecatombs lay burning on the shore The winds to heaven the curling vapours bore. Ungrateful offering to the immortal powers! Whose wrath hung heavy o'er the Trojan towers Nor Priam nor his sons obtain'd their grace Proud Troy they hated, and her guilty race. The troops exulting sat in order round, And beaming fires illumined all the ground. As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heaven's pure azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene, Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays. The long reflections of the distant fires Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires. A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field. Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, Whose umber'd arms, by fits, thick flashes send, Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, And ardent warriors wait the rising morn. THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES ARGUMENT. THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES. Agamemnon, after the last day's defeat, proposes to the Greeks to quit the siege, and return to their country. Diomed opposes this, and Nestor seconds him, praising his wisdom and resolution. He orders the guard to be strengthened, and a council summoned to deliberate what measures are to be followed in this emergency. Agamemnon pursues this advice, and Nestor further prevails upon him to send ambassadors to Achilles, in order to move him to a reconciliation. Ulysses and Ajax are made choice of, who are accompanied by old Phnix. They make, each of them, very moving and pressing speeches, but are rejected with roughness by Achilles, who notwithstanding retains Phnix in his tent. The ambassadors return unsuccessfully to the camp, and the troops betake themselves to sleep. This book, and the next following, take up the space of one night, which is the twentyseventh from the beginning of the poem. The scene lies on the seashore, the station of the Grecian ships. Thus joyful Troy maintain'd the watch of night While fear, pale comrade of inglorious flight, And heavenbred horror, on the Grecian part, Sat on each face, and sadden'd every heart. As from its cloudy dungeon issuing forth, A double tempest of the west and north Swells o'er the sea, from Thracia's frozen shore, Heaps waves on waves, and bids the gean roar This way and that the boiling deeps are toss'd Such various passions urged the troubled host, Great Agamemnon grieved above the rest Superior sorrows swell'd his royal breast Himself his orders to the heralds bears, To bid to council all the Grecian peers, But bid in whispers these surround their chief, In solemn sadness and majestic grief. The king amidst the mournful circle rose Down his wan cheek a briny torrent flows. So silent fountains, from a rock's tall head, In sable streams softtrickling waters shed. With more than vulgar grief he stood oppress'd Words, mix'd with sighs, thus bursting from his breast 'Ye sons of Greece! partake your leader's care Fellows in arms and princes of the war! Of partial Jove too justly we complain, And heavenly oracles believed in vain. A safe return was promised to our toils, With conquest honour'd and enrich'd with spoils Now shameful flight alone can save the host Our wealth, our people, and our glory lost. So Jove decrees, almighty lord of all! Jove, at whose nod whole empires rise or fall, Who shakes the feeble props of human trust, And towers and armies humbles to the dust. Haste then, for ever quit these fatal fields, Haste to the joys our native country yields Spread all your canvas, all your oars employ, Nor hope the fall of heavendefended Troy. He said deep silence held the Grecian band Silent, unmov'd in dire dismay they stand A pensive scene! till Tydeus' warlike son Roll'd on the king his eyes, and thus begun 'When kings advise us to renounce our fame, First let him speak who first has suffer'd shame. If I oppose thee, prince! thy wrath withhold, The laws of council bid my tongue be bold. Thou first, and thou alone, in fields of fight, Durst brand my courage, and defame my might Nor from a friend the unkind reproach appear'd, The Greeks stood witness, all our army heard. The gods, O chief! from whom our honours spring, The gods have made thee but by halves a king They gave thee sceptres, and a wide command They gave dominion o'er the seas and land The noblest power that might the world control They gave thee nota brave and virtuous soul. Is this a general's voice, that would suggest Fears like his own to every Grecian breast? Confiding in our want of worth, he stands And if we fly, 'tis what our king commands. Go thou, inglorious! from the embattled plain Ships thou hast store, and nearest to the main A noble care the Grecians shall employ, To combat, conquer, and extirpate Troy. Here Greece shall stay or, if all Greece retire, Myself shall stay, till Troy or I expire Myself, and Sthenelus, will fight for fame God bade us fight, and 'twas with God we came. He ceased the Greeks loud acclamations raise, And voice to voice resounds Tydides' praise. Wise Nestor then his reverend figure rear'd He spoke the host in still attention heard 'O truly great! in whom the gods have join'd Such strength of body with such force of mind In conduct, as in courage, you excel, Still first to act what you advise so well. These wholesome counsels which thy wisdom moves, Applauding Greece with common voice approves. Kings thou canst blame a bold but prudent youth And blame even kings with praise, because with truth. And yet those years that since thy birth have run Would hardly style thee Nestor's youngest son. Then let me add what yet remains behind, A thought unfinish'd in that generous mind Age bids me speak! nor shall the advice I bring Distaste the people, or offend the king 'Cursed is the man, and void of law and right, Unworthy property, unworthy light, Unfit for public rule, or private care, That wretch, that monster, who delights in war Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy, To tear his country, and his kind destroy! This night, refresh and fortify thy train Between the trench and wall let guards remain Be that the duty of the young and bold But thou, O king, to council call the old Great is thy sway, and weighty are thy cares Thy high commands must spirit all our wars. With Thracian wines recruit thy honour'd guests, For happy counsels flow from sober feasts. Wise, weighty counsels aid a state distress'd, And such a monarch as can choose the best. See what a blaze from hostile tents aspires, How near our fleet approach the Trojan fires! Who can, unmoved, behold the dreadful light? What eye beholds them, and can close tonight? This dreadful interval determines all Tomorrow, Troy must flame, or Greece must fall. Thus spoke the hoary sage the rest obey Swift through the gates the guards direct their way. His son was first to pass the lofty mound, The generous Thrasymed, in arms renown'd Next him, Ascalaphus, Ilmen, stood, The double offspring of the warriorgod Deipyrus, Aphareus, Merion join, And Lycomed of Creon's noble line. Seven were the leaders of the nightly bands, And each bold chief a hundred spears commands. The fires they light, to short repasts they fall, Some line the trench, and others man the wall. The king of men, on public counsels bent, Convened the princes in his ample tent, Each seized a portion of the kingly feast, But stay'd his hand when thirst and hunger ceased. Then Nestor spoke, for wisdom long approved, And slowly rising, thus the council moved. 'Monarch of nations! whose superior sway Assembled states, and lords of earth obey, The laws and sceptres to thy hand are given, And millions own the care of thee and Heaven. O king! the counsels of my age attend With thee my cares begin, with thee must end. Thee, prince! it fits alike to speak and hear, Pronounce with judgment, with regard give ear, To see no wholesome motion be withstood, And ratify the best for public good. Nor, though a meaner give advice, repine, But follow it, and make the wisdom thine. Hear then a thought, not now conceived in haste, At once my present judgment and my past. When from Pelides' tent you forced the maid, I first opposed, and faithful, durst dissuade But bold of soul, when headlong fury fired, You wronged the man, by men and gods admired Now seek some means his fatal wrath to end, With prayers to move him, or with gifts to bend. To whom the king. 'With justice hast thou shown A prince's faults, and I with reason own. That happy man, whom Jove still honours most, Is more than armies, and himself a host. Bless'd in his love, this wondrous hero stands Heaven fights his war, and humbles all our bands. Fain would my heart, which err'd through frantic rage, The wrathful chief and angry gods assuage. If gifts immense his mighty soul can bow, Hear, all ye Greeks, and witness what I vow. Ten weighty talents of the purest gold, And twice ten vases of refulgent mould Seven sacred tripods, whose unsullied frame Yet knows no office, nor has felt the flame Twelve steeds unmatch'd in fleetness and in force, And still victorious in the dusty course (Rich were the man whose ample stores exceed The prizes purchased by their winged speed) Seven lovely captives of the Lesbian line, Skill'd in each art, unmatch'd in form divine, The same I chose for more than vulgar charms, When Lesbos sank beneath the hero's arms All these, to buy his friendship, shall be paid, And join'd with these the longcontested maid With all her charms, Brises I resign, And solemn swear those charms were never mine Untouch'd she stay'd, uninjured she removes, Pure from my arms, and guiltless of my loves, These instant shall be his and if the powers Give to our arms proud Ilion's hostile towers, Then shall he store (when Greece the spoil divides) With gold and brass his loaded navy's sides Besides, full twenty nymphs of Trojan race With copious love shall crown his warm embrace, Such as himself will choose who yield to none, Or yield to Helen's heavenly charms alone. Yet hear me further when our wars are o'er, If safe we land on Argos' fruitful shore, There shall he live my son, our honours share, And with Orestes' self divide my care. Yet morethree daughters in my court are bred, And each well worthy of a royal bed Laodice and Iphigenia fair, And bright Chrysothemis with golden hair Her let him choose whom most his eyes approve, I ask no presents, no reward for love Myself will give the dower so vast a store As never father gave a child before. Seven ample cities shall confess his sway, Him Enope, and Pher him obey, Cardamyle with ample turrets crown'd, And sacred Pedasus for vines renown'd pea fair, the pastures Hira yields, And rich Antheia with her flowery fields The whole extent to Pylos' sandy plain, Along the verdant margin of the main. There heifers graze, and labouring oxen toil Bold are the men, and generous is the soil There shall he reign, with power and justice crown'd, And rule the tributary realms around. All this I give, his vengeance to control, And sure all this may move his mighty soul. Pluto, the grisly god, who never spares, Who feels no mercy, and who hears no prayers, Lives dark and dreadful in deep hell's abodes, And mortals hate him, as the worst of gods. Great though he be, it fits him to obey, Since more than his my years, and more my sway. PLUTO The monarch thus. The reverend Nestor then 'Great Agamemnon! glorious king of men! Such are thy offers as a prince may take, And such as fits a generous king to make. Let chosen delegates this hour be sent (Myself will name them) to Pelides' tent. Let Phnix lead, revered for hoary age, Great Ajax next, and Ithacus the sage. Yet more to sanctify the word you send, Let Hodius and Eurybates attend. Now pray to Jove to grant what Greece demands Pray in deep silence, and with purest hands. THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES He said and all approved. The heralds bring The cleansing water from the living spring. The youth with wine the sacred goblets crown'd, And large libations drench'd the sands around. The rite perform'd, the chiefs their thirst allay, Then from the royal tent they take their way Wise Nestor turns on each his careful eye, Forbids to offend, instructs them to apply Much he advised them all, Ulysses most, To deprecate the chief, and save the host. Through the still night they march, and hear the roar Of murmuring billows on the sounding shore. To Neptune, ruler of the seas profound, Whose liquid arms the mighty globe surround, They pour forth vows, their embassy to bless, And calm the rage of stern acides. And now, arrived, where on the sandy bay The Myrmidonian tents and vessels lay Amused at ease, the godlike man they found, Pleased with the solemn harp's harmonious sound. (The well wrought harp from conquered Thebae came Of polish'd silver was its costly frame.) With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings The immortal deeds of heroes and of kings. Patroclus only of the royal train, Placed in his tent, attends the lofty strain Full opposite he sat, and listen'd long, In silence waiting till he ceased the song. Unseen the Grecian embassy proceeds To his high tent the great Ulysses leads. Achilles starting, as the chiefs he spied, Leap'd from his seat, and laid the harp aside. With like surprise arose Menoetius' son Pelides grasp'd their hands, and thus begun 'Princes, all hail! whatever brought you here. Or strong necessity, or urgent fear Welcome, though Greeks! for not as foes ye came To me more dear than all that bear the name. With that, the chiefs beneath his roof he led, And placed in seats with purple carpets spread. Then thus'Patroclus, crown a larger bowl, Mix purer wine, and open every soul. Of all the warriors yonder host can send, Thy friend most honours these, and these thy friend. He said Patroclus o'er the blazing fire Heaps in a brazen vase three chines entire The brazen vase Automedon sustains, Which flesh of porker, sheep, and goat contains. Achilles at the genial feast presides, The parts transfixes, and with skill divides. Meanwhile Patroclus sweats, the fire to raise The tent is brighten'd with the rising blaze Then, when the languid flames at length subside, He strows a bed of glowing embers wide, Above the coals the smoking fragments turns And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns With bread the glittering canisters they load, Which round the board Menoetius' son bestow'd Himself, opposed to Ulysses full in sight, Each portion parts, and orders every rite. The first fat offering to the immortals due, Amidst the greedy flames Patroclus threw Then each, indulging in the social feast, His thirst and hunger soberly repress'd. That done, to Phnix Ajax gave the sign Not unperceived Ulysses crown'd with wine The foaming bowl, and instant thus began, His speech addressing to the godlike man. 'Health to Achilles! happy are thy guests! Not those more honour'd whom Atrides feasts Though generous plenty crown thy loaded boards, That, Agamemnon's regal tent affords But greater cares sit heavy on our souls, Nor eased by banquets or by flowing bowls. What scenes of slaughter in yon fields appear! The dead we mourn, and for the living fear Greece on the brink of fate all doubtful stands, And owns no help but from thy saving hands Troy and her aids for ready vengeance call Their threatening tents already shade our wall Hear how with shouts their conquest they proclaim, And point at every ship their vengeful flame! For them the father of the gods declares, Theirs are his omens, and his thunder theirs. See, full of Jove, avenging Hector rise! See! heaven and earth the raging chief defies What fury in his breast, what lightning in his eyes! He waits but for the morn, to sink in flame The ships, the Greeks, and all the Grecian name. Heavens! how my country's woes distract my mind, Lest Fate accomplish all his rage design'd! And must we, gods! our heads inglorious lay In Trojan dust, and this the fatal day? Return, Achilles oh return, though late, To save thy Greeks, and stop the course of Fate If in that heart or grief or courage lies, Rise to redeem ah, yet to conquer, rise! The day may come, when, all our warriors slain, That heart shall melt, that courage rise in vain Regard in time, O prince divinely brave! Those wholesome counsels which thy father gave. When Peleus in his aged arms embraced His parting son, these accents were his last ''My child! with strength, with glory, and success, Thy arms may Juno and Minerva bless! Trust that to Heaven but thou, thy cares engage To calm thy passions, and subdue thy rage From gentler manners let thy glory grow, And shun contention, the sure source of woe That young and old may in thy praise combine, The virtues of humanity be thine' This nowdespised advice thy father gave Ah! check thy anger and be truly brave. If thou wilt yield to great Atrides' prayers, Gifts worthy thee his royal hand prepares If notbut hear me, while I number o'er The proffer'd presents, an exhaustless store. Ten weighty talents of the purest gold, And twice ten vases of refulgent mould Seven sacred tripods, whose unsullied frame Yet knows no office, nor has felt the flame Twelve steeds unmatched in fleetness and in force, And still victorious in the dusty course (Rich were the man, whose ample stores exceed The prizes purchased by their winged speed) Seven lovely captives of the Lesbian line, Skill'd in each art, unmatch'd in form divine, The same he chose for more than vulgar charms, When Lesbos sank beneath thy conquering arms. All these, to buy thy friendship shall be paid, And, join'd with these, the longcontested maid With all her charms, Brises he'll resign, And solemn swear those charms were only thine Untouch'd she stay'd, uninjured she removes, Pure from his arms, and guiltless of his loves. These instant shall be thine and if the powers Give to our arms proud Ilion's hostile towers, Then shalt thou store (when Greece the spoil divides) With gold and brass thy loaded navy's sides. Besides, full twenty nymphs of Trojan race With copious love shall crown thy warm embrace Such as thyself shall chose who yield to none, Or yield to Helen's heavenly charms alone. Yet hear me further when our wars are o'er, If safe we land on Argos' fruitful shore, There shalt thou live his son, his honour share, And with Orestes' self divide his care. Yet morethree daughters in his court are bred, And each well worthy of a royal bed Laodice and Iphigenia fair, And bright Chrysothemis with golden hair Her shalt thou wed whom most thy eyes approve He asks no presents, no reward for love Himself will give the dower so vast a store As never father gave a child before. Seven ample cities shall confess thy sway, The Enope and Pher thee obey, Cardamyle with ample turrets crown'd, And sacred Pedasus, for vines renown'd pea fair, the pastures Hira yields, And rich Antheia with her flowery fields The whole extent to Pylos' sandy plain, Along the verdant margin of the main. There heifers graze, and labouring oxen toil Bold are the men, and generous is the soil. There shalt thou reign, with power and justice crown'd, And rule the tributary realms around. Such are the proffers which this day we bring, Such the repentance of a suppliant king. But if all this, relentless, thou disdain, If honour and if interest plead in vain, Yet some redress to suppliant Greece afford, And be, amongst her guardian gods, adored. If no regard thy suffering country claim, Hear thy own glory, and the voice of fame For now that chief, whose unresisted ire Made nations tremble, and whole hosts retire, Proud Hector, now, the unequal fight demands, And only triumphs to deserve thy hands. Then thus the goddessborn 'Ulysses, hear A faithful speech, that knows nor art nor fear What in my secret soul is understood, My tongue shall utter, and my deeds make good. Let Greece then know, my purpose I retain Nor with new treaties vex my peace in vain. Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell. 'Then thus in short my fix'd resolves attend, Which nor Atrides nor his Greeks can bend Long toils, long perils in their cause I bore, But now the unfruitful glories charm no more. Fight or not fight, a like reward we claim, The wretch and hero find their prize the same. Alike regretted in the dust he lies, Who yields ignobly, or who bravely dies. Of all my dangers, all my glorious pains, A life of labours, lo! what fruit remains? As the bold bird her helpless young attends, From danger guards them, and from want defends In search of prey she wings the spacious air, And with the untasted food supplies her care For thankless Greece such hardships have I braved, Her wives, her infants, by my labours saved Long sleepless nights in heavy arms I stood, And sweat laborious days in dust and blood. I sack'd twelve ample cities on the main, And twelve lay smoking on the Trojan plain Then at Atrides' haughty feet were laid The wealth I gathered, and the spoils I made. Your mighty monarch these in peace possess'd Some few my soldiers had, himself the rest. Some present, too, to every prince was paid And every prince enjoys the gift he made I only must refund, of all his train See what preeminence our merits gain! My spoil alone his greedy soul delights My spouse alone must bless his lustful nights The woman, let him (as he may) enjoy But what's the quarrel, then, of Greece to Troy? What to these shores the assembled nations draws, What calls for vengeance but a woman's cause? Are fair endowments and a beauteous face Beloved by none but those of Atreus' race? The wife whom choice and passion doth approve, Sure every wise and worthy man will love. Nor did my fair one less distinction claim Slave as she was, my soul adored the dame. Wrong'd in my love, all proffers I disdain Deceived for once, I trust not kings again. Ye have my answerwhat remains to do, Your king, Ulysses, may consult with you. What needs he the defence this arm can make? Has he not walls no human force can shake? Has he not fenced his guarded navy round With piles, with ramparts, and a trench profound? And will not these (the wonders he has done) Repel the rage of Priam's single son? There was a time ('twas when for Greece I fought) When Hector's prowess no such wonders wrought He kept the verge of Troy, nor dared to wait Achilles' fury at the Scan gate He tried it once, and scarce was saved by fate. But now those ancient enmities are o'er Tomorrow we the favouring gods implore Then shall you see our parting vessels crown'd, And hear with oars the Hellespont resound. The third day hence shall Pythia greet our sails, If mighty Neptune send propitious gales Pythia to her Achilles shall restore The wealth he left for this detested shore Thither the spoils of this long war shall pass, The ruddy gold, the steel, and shining brass My beauteous captives thither I'll convey, And all that rests of my unravish'd prey. One only valued gift your tyrant gave, And that resumedthe fair Lyrnessian slave. Then tell him loud, that all the Greeks may hear, And learn to scorn the wretch they basely fear (For arm'd in impudence, mankind he braves, And meditates new cheats on all his slaves Though shameless as he is, to face these eyes Is what he dares not if he dares he dies) Tell him, all terms, all commerce I decline, Nor share his council, nor his battle join For once deceiv'd, was his but twice were mine, Nolet the stupid prince, whom Jove deprives Of sense and justice, run where frenzy drives His gifts are hateful kings of such a kind Stand but as slaves before a noble mind, Not though he proffer'd all himself possess'd, And all his rapine could from others wrest Not all the golden tides of wealth that crown The manypeopled Orchomenian town Not all proud Thebes' unrivall'd walls contain, The world's great empress on the Egyptian plain (That spreads her conquests o'er a thousand states, And pours her heroes through a hundred gates, Two hundred horsemen and two hundred cars From each wide portal issuing to the wars) Though bribes were heap'd on bribes, in number more Than dust in fields, or sands along the shore Should all these offers for my friendship call, 'Tis he that offers, and I scorn them all. Atrides' daughter never shall be led (An illmatch'd consort) to Achilles' bed Like golden Venus though she charm'd the heart, And vied with Pallas in the works of art Some greater Greek let those high nuptials grace, I hate alliance with a tyrant's race. If heaven restore me to my realms with life, The reverend Peleus shall elect my wife Thessalian nymphs there are of form divine, And kings that sue to mix their blood with mine. Bless'd in kind love, my years shall glide away, Content with just hereditary sway There, deaf for ever to the martial strife, Enjoy the dear prerogative of life. Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold. Not all Apollo's Pythian treasures hold, Or Troy once held, in peace and pride of sway, Can bribe the poor possession of a day! Lost herds and treasures we by arms regain, And steeds unrivall'd on the dusty plain But from our lips the vital spirit fled, Returns no more to wake the silent dead. My fates long since by Thetis were disclosed, And each alternate, life or fame, proposed Here, if I stay, before the Trojan town, Short is my date, but deathless my renown If I return, I quit immortal praise For years on years, and longextended days. Convinced, though late, I find my fond mistake, And warn the Greeks the wiser choice to make To quit these shores, their native seats enjoy, Nor hope the fall of heavendefended Troy. Jove's arm display'd asserts her from the skies! Her hearts are strengthen'd, and her glories rise. Go then to Greece, report our fix'd design Bid all your counsels, all your armies join, Let all your forces, all your arts conspire, To save the ships, the troops, the chiefs, from fire. One stratagem has fail'd, and others will Ye find, Achilles is unconquer'd still. Go thendigest my message as ye may But here this night let reverend Phnix stay His tedious toils and hoary hairs demand A peaceful death in Pythia's friendly land. But whether he remain or sail with me, His age be sacred, and his will be free. GREEK GALLEY The son of Peleus ceased the chiefs around In silence wrapt, in consternation drown'd, Attend the stern reply. Then Phnix rose (Down his white beard a stream of sorrow flows) And while the fate of suffering Greece he mourn'd, With accent weak these tender words return'd. PROSERPINE 'Divine Achilles! wilt thou then retire, And leave our hosts in blood, our fleets on fire? If wrath so dreadful fill thy ruthless mind, How shall thy friend, thy Phnix, stay behind? The royal Peleus, when from Pythia's coast He sent thee early to the Achaian host Thy youth as then in sage debates unskill'd, And new to perils of the direful field He bade me teach thee all the ways of war, To shine in councils, and in camps to dare. Never, ah, never let me leave thy side! No time shall part us, and no fate divide, Not though the god, that breathed my life, restore The bloom I boasted, and the port I bore, When Greece of old beheld my youthful flames (Delightful Greece, the land of lovely dames), My father faithless to my mother's arms, Old as he was, adored a stranger's charms. I tried what youth could do (at her desire) To win the damsel, and prevent my sire. My sire with curses loads my hated head, And cries, 'Ye furies! barren be his bed.' Infernal Jove, the vengeful fiends below, And ruthless Proserpine, confirm'd his vow. Despair and grief distract my labouring mind! Gods! what a crime my impious heart design'd! I thought (but some kind god that thought suppress'd) To plunge the poniard in my father's breast Then meditate my flight my friends in vain With prayers entreat me, and with force detain. On fat of rams, black bulls, and brawny swine, They daily feast, with draughts of fragrant wine Strong guards they placed, and watch'd nine nights entire The roofs and porches flamed with constant fire. The tenth, I forced the gates, unseen of all And, favour'd by the night, o'erleap'd the wall, My travels thence through spacious Greece extend In Phthia's court at last my labours end. Your sire received me, as his son caress'd, With gifts enrich'd, and with possessions bless'd. The strong Dolopians thenceforth own'd my reign, And all the coast that runs along the main. By love to thee his bounties I repaid, And early wisdom to thy soul convey'd Great as thou art, my lessons made thee brave A child I took thee, but a hero gave. Thy infant breast a like affection show'd Still in my arms (an everpleasing load) Or at my knee, by Phnix wouldst thou stand No food was grateful but from Phnix' hand. I pass my watchings o'er thy helpless years, The tender labours, the compliant cares, The gods (I thought) reversed their hard decree, And Phnix felt a father's joys in thee Thy growing virtues justified my cares, And promised comfort to my silver hairs. Now be thy rage, thy fatal rage, resign'd A cruel heart ill suits a manly mind The gods (the only great, and only wise) Are moved by offerings, vows, and sacrifice Offending man their high compassion wins, And daily prayers atone for daily sins. Prayers are Jove's daughters, of celestial race, Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face With humble mien, and with dejected eyes, Constant they follow, where injustice flies. Injustice swift, erect, and unconfined, Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind, While Prayers, to heal her wrongs, move slow behind. Who hears these daughters of almighty Jove, For him they mediate to the throne above When man rejects the humble suit they make, The sire revenges for the daughters' sake From Jove commission'd, fierce injustice then Descends to punish unrelenting men. O let not headlong passion bear the sway These reconciling goddesses obey Due honours to the seed of Jove belong, Due honours calm the fierce, and bend the strong. Were these not paid thee by the terms we bring, Were rage still harbour'd in the haughty king Nor Greece nor all her fortunes should engage Thy friend to plead against so just a rage. But since what honour asks the general sends, And sends by those whom most thy heart commends The best and noblest of the Grecian train Permit not these to sue, and sue in vain! Let me (my son) an ancient fact unfold, A great example drawn from times of old Hear what our fathers were, and what their praise, Who conquer'd their revenge in former days. 'Where Calydon on rocky mountains stands Once fought the tolian and Curetian bands To guard it those to conquer, these advance And mutual deaths were dealt with mutual chance. The silver Cynthia bade contention rise, In vengeance of neglected sacrifice On neus fields she sent a monstrous boar, That levell'd harvests, and whole forests tore This beast (when many a chief his tusks had slain) Great Meleager stretch'd along the plain, Then, for his spoils, a new debate arose, The neighbour nations thence commencing foes. Strong as they were, the bold Curetes fail'd, While Meleager's thundering arm prevail'd Till rage at length inflamed his lofty breast (For rage invades the wisest and the best). 'Cursed by Althaea, to his wrath he yields, And in his wife's embrace forgets the fields. (She from Marpessa sprung, divinely fair, And matchless Idas, more than man in war The god of day adored the mother's charms Against the god the father bent his arms The afflicted pair, their sorrows to proclaim, From Cleopatra changed their daughter's name, And call'd Alcyone a name to show The father's grief, the mourning mother's woe.) To her the chief retired from stern debate, But found no peace from fierce Althaea's hate Althaea's hate the unhappy warrior drew, Whose luckless hand his royal uncle slew She beat the ground, and call'd the powers beneath On her own son to wreak her brother's death Hell heard her curses from the realms profound, And the red fiends that walk the nightly round. In vain tolia her deliverer waits, War shakes her walls, and thunders at her gates. She sent ambassadors, a chosen band, Priests of the gods, and elders of the land Besought the chief to save the sinking state Their prayers were urgent, and their proffers great (Full fifty acres of the richest ground, Half pasture green, and half with vineyards crown'd) His suppliant father, aged neus, came His sisters follow'd even the vengeful dame, Althaea, sues his friends before him fall He stands relentless, and rejects them all. Meanwhile the victor's shouts ascend the skies The walls are scaled the rolling flames arise At length his wife (a form divine) appears, With piercing cries, and supplicating tears She paints the horrors of a conquer'd town, The heroes slain, the palaces o'erthrown, The matrons ravish'd, the whole race enslaved The warrior heard, he vanquish'd, and he saved. The tolians, long disdain'd, now took their turn, And left the chief their broken faith to mourn. Learn hence, betimes to curb pernicious ire, Nor stay till yonder fleets ascend in fire Accept the presents draw thy conquering sword And be amongst our guardian gods adored. Thus he the stern Achilles thus replied 'My second father, and my reverend guide Thy friend, believe me, no such gifts demands, And asks no honours from a mortal's hands Jove honours me, and favours my designs His pleasure guides me, and his will confines And here I stay (if such his high behest) While life's warm spirit beats within my breast. Yet hear one word, and lodge it in thy heart No more molest me on Atrides' part Is it for him these tears are taught to flow, For him these sorrows? for my mortal foe? A generous friendship no cold medium knows, Burns with one love, with one resentment glows One should our interests and our passions be My friend must hate the man that injures me. Do this, my Phnix, 'tis a generous part And share my realms, my honours, and my heart. Let these return our voyage, or our stay, Rest undetermined till the dawning day. He ceased then order'd for the sage's bed A warmer couch with numerous carpets spread. With that, stern Ajax his long silence broke, And thus, impatient, to Ulysses spoke 'Hence let us gowhy waste we time in vain? See what effect our low submissions gain! Liked or not liked, his words we must relate, The Greeks expect them, and our heroes wait. Proud as he is, that iron heart retains Its stubborn purpose, and his friends disdains. Stern and unpitying! if a brother bleed, On just atonement, we remit the deed A sire the slaughter of his son forgives The price of blood discharged, the murderer lives The haughtiest hearts at length their rage resign, And gifts can conquer every soul but thine. The gods that unrelenting breast have steel'd, And cursed thee with a mind that cannot yield. One womanslave was ravish'd from thy arms Lo, seven are offer'd, and of equal charms. Then hear, Achilles! be of better mind Revere thy roof, and to thy guests be kind And know the men of all the Grecian host, Who honour worth, and prize thy valour most. 'O soul of battles, and thy people's guide! (To Ajax thus the first of Greeks replied) Well hast thou spoke but at the tyrant's name My rage rekindles, and my soul's on flame 'Tis just resentment, and becomes the brave Disgraced, dishonour'd, like the vilest slave! Return, then, heroes! and our answer bear, The glorious combat is no more my care Not till, amidst yon sinking navy slain, The blood of Greeks shall dye the sable main Not till the flames, by Hector's fury thrown, Consume your vessels, and approach my own Just there, the impetuous homicide shall stand, There cease his battle, and there feel our hand. This said, each prince a double goblet crown'd, And cast a large libation on the ground Then to their vessels, through the gloomy shades, The chiefs return divine Ulysses leads. Meantime Achilles' slaves prepared a bed, With fleeces, carpets, and soft linen spread There, till the sacred morn restored the day, In slumber sweet the reverend Phnix lay. But in his inner tent, an ampler space, Achilles slept and in his warm embrace Fair Diomede of the Lesbian race. Last, for Patroclus was the couch prepared, Whose nightly joys the beauteous Iphis shared Achilles to his friend consign'd her charms When Scyros fell before his conquering arms. And now the elected chiefs whom Greece had sent, Pass'd through the hosts, and reach'd the royal tent. Then rising all, with goblets in their hands, The peers and leaders of the Achaian bands Hail'd their return Atrides first begun 'Say what success? divine Laertes' son! Achilles' high resolves declare to all Returns the chief, or must our navy fall? 'Great king of nations! (Ithacus replied) Fix'd is his wrath, unconquer'd is his pride He slights thy friendship, thy proposals scorns, And, thus implored, with fiercer fury burns. To save our army, and our fleets to free, Is not his care but left to Greece and thee. Your eyes shall view, when morning paints the sky, Beneath his oars the whitening billows fly Us too he bids our oars and sails employ, Nor hope the fall of heavenprotected Troy For Jove o'ershades her with his arm divine, Inspires her war, and bids her glory shine. Such was his word what further he declared, These sacred heralds and great Ajax heard. But Phnix in his tent the chief retains, Safe to transport him to his native plains When morning dawns if other he decree, His age is sacred, and his choice is free. Ulysses ceased the great Achaian host, With sorrow seized, in consternation lost, Attend the stern reply. Tydides broke The general silence, and undaunted spoke. 'Why should we gifts to proud Achilles send, Or strive with prayers his haughty soul to bend? His country's woes he glories to deride, And prayers will burst that swelling heart with pride. Be the fierce impulse of his rage obey'd, Our battles let him or desert or aid Then let him arm when Jove or he think fit That, to his madness, or to Heaven commit What for ourselves we can, is always ours This night, let due repast refresh our powers (For strength consists in spirits and in blood, And those are owed to generous wine and food) But when the rosy messenger of day Strikes the blue mountains with her golden ray, Ranged at the ships, let all our squadrons shine In flaming arms, a longextended line In the dread front let great Atrides stand, The first in danger, as in high command. Shouts of acclaim the listening heroes raise, Then each to Heaven the due libations pays Till sleep, descending o'er the tents, bestows The grateful blessings of desired repose. ACHILLES ARGUMENT. THE NIGHTADVENTURE OF DIOMED AND ULYSSES. Upon the refusal of Achilles to return to the army, the distress of Agamemnon is described in the most lively manner. He takes no rest that night, but passes through the camp, awaking the leaders, and contriving all possible methods for the public safety. Menelaus, Nestor, Ulysses, and Diomed are employed in raising the rest of the captains. They call a council of war, and determine to send scouts into the enemies' camp, to learn their posture, and discover their intentions. Diomed undertakes this hazardous enterprise, and makes choice of Ulysses for his companion. In their passage they surprise Dolon, whom Hector had sent on a like design to the camp of the Grecians. From him they are informed of the situation of the Trojan and auxiliary forces, and particularly of Rhesus, and the Thracians who were lately arrived. They pass on with success kill Rhesus, with several of his officers, and seize the famous horses of that prince, with which they return in triumph to the camp. The same night continues the scene lies in the two camps. All night the chiefs before their vessels lay, And lost in sleep the labours of the day All but the king with various thoughts oppress'd, His country's cares lay rolling in his breast. As when by lightnings Jove's ethereal power Foretels the rattling hail, or weighty shower, Or sends soft snows to whiten all the shore, Or bids the brazen throat of war to roar By fits one flash succeeds as one expires, And heaven flames thick with momentary fires So bursting frequent from Atrides' breast, Sighs following sighs his inward fears confess'd. Now o'er the fields, dejected, he surveys From thousand Trojan fires the mounting blaze Hears in the passing wind their music blow, And marks distinct the voices of the foe. Now looking backwards to the fleet and coast, Anxious he sorrows for the endangered host. He rends his hair, in sacrifice to Jove, And sues to him that ever lives above Inly he groans while glory and despair Divide his heart, and wage a double war. A thousand cares his labouring breast revolves To seek sage Nestor now the chief resolves, With him, in wholesome counsels, to debate What yet remains to save the afflicted state. He rose, and first he cast his mantle round, Next on his feet the shining sandals bound A lion's yellow spoils his back conceal'd His warlike hand a pointed javelin held. Meanwhile his brother, press'd with equal woes, Alike denied the gifts of soft repose, Laments for Greece, that in his cause before So much had suffer'd and must suffer more. A leopard's spotted hide his shoulders spread A brazen helmet glitter'd on his head Thus (with a javelin in his hand) he went To wake Atrides in the royal tent. Already waked, Atrides he descried, His armour buckling at his vessel's side. Joyful they met the Spartan thus begun 'Why puts my brother his bright armour on? Sends he some spy, amidst these silent hours, To try yon camp, and watch the Trojan powers? But say, what hero shall sustain that task? Such bold exploits uncommon courage ask Guideless, alone, through night's dark shade to go, And midst a hostile camp explore the foe. To whom the king 'In such distress we stand, No vulgar counsel our affairs demand Greece to preserve, is now no easy part, But asks high wisdom, deep design, and art. For Jove, averse, our humble prayer denies, And bows his head to Hector's sacrifice. What eye has witness'd, or what ear believed, In one great day, by one great arm achieved, Such wondrous deeds as Hector's hand has done, And we beheld, the last revolving sun? What honours the beloved of Jove adorn! Sprung from no god, and of no goddess born Yet such his acts, as Greeks unborn shall tell, And curse the battle where their fathers fell. 'Now speed thy hasty course along the fleet, There call great Ajax, and the prince of Crete Ourself to hoary Nestor will repair To keep the guards on duty be his care, (For Nestor's influence best that quarter guides, Whose son with Merion, o'er the watch presides.) To whom the Spartan 'These thy orders borne, Say, shall I stay, or with despatch return? 'There shall thou stay, (the king of men replied,) Else may we miss to meet, without a guide, The paths so many, and the camp so wide. Still, with your voice the slothful soldiers raise, Urge by their fathers' fame their future praise. Forget we now our state and lofty birth Not titles here, but works, must prove our worth. To labour is the lot of man below And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe. This said, each parted to his several cares The king to Nestor's sable ship repairs The sage protector of the Greeks he found Stretch'd in his bed with all his arms around The variouscolour'd scarf, the shield he rears, The shining helmet, and the pointed spears The dreadful weapons of the warrior's rage, That, old in arms, disdain'd the peace of age. Then, leaning on his hand his watchful head, The hoary monarch raised his eyes and said 'What art thou, speak, that on designs unknown, While others sleep, thus range the camp alone Seek'st thou some friend or nightly sentinel? Stand off, approach not, but thy purpose tell. 'O son of Neleus, (thus the king rejoin'd,) Pride of the Greeks, and glory of thy kind! Lo, here the wretched Agamemnon stands, The unhappy general of the Grecian bands, Whom Jove decrees with daily cares to bend, And woes, that only with his life shall end! Scarce can my knees these trembling limbs sustain, And scarce my heart support its load of pain. No taste of sleep these heavy eyes have known, Confused, and sad, I wander thus alone, With fears distracted, with no fix'd design And all my people's miseries are mine. If aught of use thy waking thoughts suggest, (Since cares, like mine, deprive thy soul of rest,) Impart thy counsel, and assist thy friend Now let us jointly to the trench descend, At every gate the fainting guard excite, Tired with the toils of day and watch of night Else may the sudden foe our works invade, So near, and favour'd by the gloomy shade. To him thus Nestor 'Trust the powers above, Nor think proud Hector's hopes confirm'd by Jove How ill agree the views of vain mankind, And the wise counsels of the eternal mind! Audacious Hector, if the gods ordain That great Achilles rise and rage again, What toils attend thee, and what woes remain! Lo, faithful Nestor thy command obeys The care is next our other chiefs to raise Ulysses, Diomed, we chiefly need Meges for strength, Oleus famed for speed. Some other be despatch'd of nimbler feet, To those tall ships, remotest of the fleet, Where lie great Ajax and the king of Crete. To rouse the Spartan I myself decree Dear as he is to us, and dear to thee, Yet must I tax his sloth, that claims no share With his great brother in his martial care Him it behoved to every chief to sue, Preventing every part perform'd by you For strong necessity our toils demands, Claims all our hearts, and urges all our hands. To whom the king 'With reverence we allow Thy just rebukes, yet learn to spare them now My generous brother is of gentle kind, He seems remiss, but bears a valiant mind Through too much deference to our sovereign sway, Content to follow when we lead the way But now, our ills industrious to prevent, Long ere the rest he rose, and sought my tent. The chiefs you named, already at his call, Prepare to meet us near the navywall Assembling there, between the trench and gates, Near the nightguards, our chosen council waits. 'Then none (said Nestor) shall his rule withstand, For great examples justify command. With that, the venerable warrior rose The shining greaves his manly legs enclose His purple mantle golden buckles join'd, Warm with the softest wool, and doubly lined. Then rushing from his tent, he snatch'd in haste His steely lance, that lighten'd as he pass'd. The camp he traversed through the sleeping crowd, Stopp'd at Ulysses' tent, and call'd aloud. Ulysses, sudden as the voice was sent, Awakes, starts up, and issues from his tent. 'What new distress, what sudden cause of fright, Thus leads you wandering in the silent night? 'O prudent chief! (the Pylian sage replied) Wise as thou art, be now thy wisdom tried Whatever means of safety can be sought, Whatever counsels can inspire our thought, Whatever methods, or to fly or fight All, all depend on this important night! He heard, return'd, and took his painted shield Then join'd the chiefs, and follow'd through the field. Without his tent, bold Diomed they found, All sheathed in arms, his brave companions round Each sunk in sleep, extended on the field, His head reclining on his bossy shield. A wood of spears stood by, that, fix'd upright, Shot from their flashing points a quivering light. A bull's black hide composed the hero's bed A splendid carpet roll'd beneath his head. Then, with his foot, old Nestor gently shakes The slumbering chief, and in these words awakes 'Rise, son of Tydeus! to the brave and strong Rest seems inglorious, and the night too long. But sleep'st thou now, when from yon hill the foe Hangs o'er the fleet, and shades our walls below? At this, soft slumber from his eyelids fled The warrior saw the hoary chief, and said 'Wondrous old man! whose soul no respite knows, Though years and honours bid thee seek repose, Let younger Greeks our sleeping warriors wake Ill fits thy age these toils to undertake. 'My friend, (he answered,) generous is thy care These toils, my subjects and my sons might bear Their loyal thoughts and pious love conspire To ease a sovereign and relieve a sire But now the last despair surrounds our host No hour must pass, no moment must be lost Each single Greek, in this conclusive strife, Stands on the sharpest edge of death or life Yet, if my years thy kind regard engage, Employ thy youth as I employ my age Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest He serves me most, who serves his country best. This said, the hero o'er his shoulders flung A lion's spoils, that to his ankles hung Then seized his ponderous lance, and strode along. Meges the bold, with Ajax famed for speed, The warrior roused, and to the entrenchments lead. And now the chiefs approach the nightly guard A wakeful squadron, each in arms prepared The unwearied watch their listening leaders keep, And, couching close, repel invading sleep. So faithful dogs their fleecy charge maintain, With toil protected from the prowling train When the gaunt lioness, with hunger bold, Springs from the mountains toward the guarded fold Through breaking woods her rustling course they hear Loud, and more loud, the clamours strike their ear Of hounds and men they start, they gaze around, Watch every side, and turn to every sound. Thus watch'd the Grecians, cautious of surprise, Each voice, each motion, drew their ears and eyes Each step of passing feet increased the affright And hostile Troy was ever full in sight. Nestor with joy the wakeful band survey'd, And thus accosted through the gloomy shade. ''Tis well, my sons! your nightly cares employ Else must our host become the scorn of Troy. Watch thus, and Greece shall live. The hero said Then o'er the trench the following chieftains led. His son, and godlike Merion, march'd behind (For these the princes to their council join'd). The trenches pass'd, the assembled kings around In silent state the consistory crown'd. A place there was, yet undefiled with gore, The spot where Hector stopp'd his rage before When night descending, from his vengeful hand Reprieved the relics of the Grecian band (The plain beside with mangled corps was spread, And all his progress mark'd by heaps of dead) There sat the mournful kings when Neleus' son, The council opening, in these words begun 'Is there (said he) a chief so greatly brave, His life to hazard, and his country save? Lives there a man, who singly dares to go To yonder camp, or seize some straggling foe? Or favour'd by the night approach so near, Their speech, their counsels, and designs to hear? If to besiege our navies they prepare, Or Troy once more must be the seat of war? This could he learn, and to our peers recite, And pass unharm'd the dangers of the night What fame were his through all succeeding days, While Phbus shines, or men have tongues to praise! What gifts his grateful country would bestow! What must not Greece to her deliverer owe? A sable ewe each leader should provide, With each a sable lambkin by her side At every rite his share should be increased, And his the foremost honours of the feast. Fear held them mute alone, untaught to fear, Tydides spoke'The man you seek is here. Through yon black camps to bend my dangerous way, Some god within commands, and I obey. But let some other chosen warrior join, To raise my hopes, and second my design. By mutual confidence and mutual aid, Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made The wise new prudence from the wise acquire, And one brave hero fans another's fire. Contending leaders at the word arose Each generous breast with emulation glows So brave a task each Ajax strove to share, Bold Merion strove, and Nestor's valiant heir The Spartan wish'd the second place to gain, And great Ulysses wish'd, nor wish'd in vain. Then thus the king of men the contest ends 'Thou first of warriors, and thou best of friends, Undaunted Diomed! what chief to join In this great enterprise, is only thine. Just be thy choice, without affection made To birth, or office, no respect be paid Let worth determine here. The monarch spake, And inly trembled for his brother's sake. 'Then thus (the godlike Diomed rejoin'd) My choice declares the impulse of my mind. How can I doubt, while great Ulysses stands To lend his counsels and assist our hands? A chief, whose safety is Minerva's care So famed, so dreadful, in the works of war Bless'd in his conduct, I no aid require Wisdom like his might pass through flames of fire. 'It fits thee not, before these chiefs of fame, (Replied the sage,) to praise me, or to blame Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know. But let us hasteNight rolls the hours away, The reddening orient shows the coming day, The stars shine fainter on the ethereal plains, And of night's empire but a third remains. Thus having spoke, with generous ardour press'd, In arms terrific their huge limbs they dress'd. A twoedged falchion Thrasymed the brave, And ample buckler, to Tydides gave Then in a leathern helm he cased his head, Short of its crest, and with no plume o'erspread (Such as by youths unused to arms are worn) No spoils enrich it, and no studs adorn. Next him Ulysses took a shining sword, A bow and quiver, with bright arrows stored A wellproved casque, with leather braces bound, (Thy gift, Meriones,) his temples crown'd Soft wool within without, in order spread, A boar's white teeth grinn'd horrid o'er his head. This from Amyntor, rich Ormenus' son, Autolycus by fraudful rapine won, And gave Amphidamas from him the prize Molus received, the pledge of social ties The helmet next by Merion was possess'd, And now Ulysses' thoughtful temples press'd. Thus sheathed in arms, the council they forsake, And dark through paths oblique their progress take. Just then, in sign she favour'd their intent, A longwing'd heron great Minerva sent This, though surrounding shades obscured their view, By the shrill clang and whistling wings they knew. As from the right she soar'd, Ulysses pray'd, Hail'd the glad omen, and address'd the maid 'O daughter of that god whose arm can wield The avenging bolt, and shake the saber shield! O thou! for ever present in my way, Who all my motions, all my toils survey! Safe may we pass beneath the gloomy shade, Safe by thy succour to our ships convey'd, And let some deed this signal night adorn, To claim the tears of Trojans yet unborn. Then godlike Diomed preferr'd his prayer 'Daughter of Jove, unconquer'd Pallas! hear. Great queen of arms, whose favour Tydeus won, As thou defend'st the sire, defend the son. When on sopus' banks the banded powers Of Greece he left, and sought the Theban towers, Peace was his charge received with peaceful show, He went a legate, but return'd a foe Then help'd by thee, and cover'd by thy shield, He fought with numbers, and made numbers yield. So now be present, O celestial maid! So still continue to the race thine aid! A youthful steer shall fall beneath the stroke, Untamed, unconscious of the galling yoke, With ample forehead, and with spreading horns, Whose taper tops refulgent gold adorns. The heroes pray'd, and Pallas from the skies Accords their vow, succeeds their enterprise. Now, like two lions panting for the prey, With dreadful thoughts they trace the dreary way, Through the black horrors of the ensanguined plain, Through dust, through blood, o'er arms, and hills of slain. Nor less bold Hector, and the sons of Troy, On high designs the wakeful hours employ The assembled peers their lofty chief enclosed Who thus the counsels of his breast proposed 'What glorious man, for high attempts prepared, Dares greatly venture for a rich reward? Of yonder fleet a bold discovery make, What watch they keep, and what resolves they take? If now subdued they meditate their flight, And, spent with toil, neglect the watch of night? His be the chariot that shall please him most, Of all the plunder of the vanquish'd host His the fair steeds that all the rest excel, And his the glory to have served so well. A youth there was among the tribes of Troy, Dolon his name, Eumedes' only boy, (Five girls beside the reverend herald told.) Rich was the son in brass, and rich in gold Not bless'd by nature with the charms of face, But swift of foot, and matchless in the race. 'Hector! (he said) my courage bids me meet This high achievement, and explore the fleet But first exalt thy sceptre to the skies, And swear to grant me the demanded prize The immortal coursers, and the glittering car, That bear Pelides through the ranks of war. Encouraged thus, no idle scout I go, Fulfil thy wish, their whole intention know, Even to the royal tent pursue my way, And all their counsels, all their aims betray. The chief then heaved the golden sceptre high, Attesting thus the monarch of the sky 'Be witness thou! immortal lord of all! Whose thunder shakes the dark aerial hall By none but Dolon shall this prize be borne, And him alone the immortal steeds adorn. Thus Hector swore the gods were call'd in vain, But the rash youth prepares to scour the plain Across his back the bended bow he flung, A wolf's grey hide around his shoulders hung, A ferret's downy fur his helmet lined, And in his hand a pointed javelin shined. Then (never to return) he sought the shore, And trod the path his feet must tread no more. Scarce had he pass'd the steeds and Trojan throng, (Still bending forward as he coursed along,) When, on the hollow way, the approaching tread Ulysses mark'd, and thus to Diomed 'O friend! I hear some step of hostile feet, Moving this way, or hastening to the fleet Some spy, perhaps, to lurk beside the main Or nightly pillager that strips the slain. Yet let him pass, and win a little space Then rush behind him, and prevent his pace. But if too swift of foot he flies before, Confine his course along the fleet and shore, Betwixt the camp and him our spears employ, And intercept his hoped return to Troy. With that they stepp'd aside, and stoop'd their head, (As Dolon pass'd,) behind a heap of dead Along the path the spy unwary flew Soft, at just distance, both the chiefs pursue. So distant they, and such the space between, As when two teams of mules divide the green, (To whom the hind like shares of land allows,) When now new furrows part the approaching ploughs. Now Dolon, listening, heard them as they pass'd Hector (he thought) had sent, and check'd his haste, Till scarce at distance of a javelin's throw, No voice succeeding, he perceived the foe. As when two skilful hounds the leveret wind Or chase through woods obscure the trembling hind Now lost, now seen, they intercept his way, And from the herd still turn the flying prey So fast, and with such fears, the Trojan flew So close, so constant, the bold Greeks pursue. Now almost on the fleet the dastard falls, And mingles with the guards that watch the walls When brave Tydides stopp'd a gen'rous thought (Inspired by Pallas) in his bosom wrought, Lest on the foe some forward Greek advance, And snatch the glory from his lifted lance. Then thus aloud 'Whoe'er thou art, remain This javelin else shall fix thee to the plain. He said, and high in air the weapon cast, Which wilful err'd, and o'er his shoulder pass'd Then fix'd in earth. Against the trembling wood The wretch stood propp'd, and quiver'd as he stood A sudden palsy seized his turning head His loose teeth chatter'd, and his colour fled The panting warriors seize him as he stands, And with unmanly tears his life demands. 'O spare my youth, and for the breath I owe, Large gifts of price my father shall bestow Vast heaps of brass shall in your ships be told, And steel welltemper'd and refulgent gold. To whom Ulysses made this wise reply 'Whoe'er thou art, be bold, nor fear to die. What moves thee, say, when sleep has closed the sight, To roam the silent fields in dead of night? Cam'st thou the secrets of our camp to find, By Hector prompted, or thy daring mind? Or art some wretch by hopes of plunder led, Through heaps of carnage, to despoil the dead? Then thus pale Dolon, with a fearful look (Still, as he spoke, his limbs with horror shook) 'Hither I came, by Hector's words deceived Much did he promise, rashly I believed No less a bribe than great Achilles' car, And those swift steeds that sweep the ranks of war, Urged me, unwilling, this attempt to make To learn what counsels, what resolves you take If now subdued, you fix your hopes on flight, And, tired with toils, neglect the watch of night. 'Bold was thy aim, and glorious was the prize, (Ulysses, with a scornful smile, replies,) Far other rulers those proud steeds demand, And scorn the guidance of a vulgar hand Even great Achilles scarce their rage can tame, Achilles sprung from an immortal dame. But say, be faithful, and the truth recite! Where lies encamp'd the Trojan chief tonight? Where stand his coursers? in what quarter sleep Their other princes? tell what watch they keep Say, since this conquest, what their counsels are Or here to combat, from their city far, Or back to Ilion's walls transfer the war? Ulysses thus, and thus Eumedes' son 'What Dolon knows, his faithful tongue shall own. Hector, the peers assembling in his tent, A council holds at Ilus' monument. No certain guards the nightly watch partake Where'er yon fires ascend, the Trojans wake Anxious for Troy, the guard the natives keep Safe in their cares, the auxiliar forces sleep, Whose wives and infants, from the danger far, Discharge their souls of half the fears of war. 'Then sleep those aids among the Trojan train, (Inquired the chief,) or scattered o'er the plain? To whom the spy 'Their powers they thus dispose The Paeons, dreadful with their bended bows, The Carians, Caucons, the Pelasgian host, And Leleges, encamp along the coast. Not distant far, lie higher on the land The Lycian, Mysian, and Monian band, And Phrygia's horse, by Thymbras' ancient wall The Thracians utmost, and apart from all. These Troy but lately to her succour won, Led on by Rhesus, great Eioneus' son I saw his coursers in proud triumph go, Swift as the wind, and white as wintersnow Rich silver plates his shining car infold His solid arms, refulgent, flame with gold No mortal shoulders suit the glorious load, Celestial panoply, to grace a god! Let me, unhappy, to your fleet be borne, Or leave me here, a captive's fate to mourn, In cruel chains, till your return reveal The truth or falsehood of the news I tell. To this Tydides, with a gloomy frown 'Think not to live, though all the truth be shown Shall we dismiss thee, in some future strife To risk more bravely thy now forfeit life? Or that again our camps thou may'st explore? Noonce a traitor, thou betray'st no more. Sternly he spoke, and as the wretch prepared With humble blandishment to stroke his beard, Like lightning swift the wrathful falchion flew, Divides the neck, and cuts the nerves in two One instant snatch'd his trembling soul to hell, The head, yet speaking, mutter'd as it fell. The furry helmet from his brow they tear, The wolf's grey hide, the unbended bow and spear These great Ulysses lifting to the skies, To favouring Pallas dedicates the prize 'Great queen of arms, receive this hostile spoil, And let the Thracian steeds reward our toil Thee, first of all the heavenly host, we praise O speed our labours, and direct our ways! This said, the spoils, with dropping gore defaced, High on a spreading tamarisk he placed Then heap'd with reeds and gathered boughs the plain, To guide their footsteps to the place again. Through the still night they cross the devious fields, Slippery with blood, o'er arms and heaps of shields, Arriving where the Thracian squadrons lay, And eased in sleep the labours of the day. Ranged in three lines they view the prostrate band The horses yoked beside each warrior stand. Their arms in order on the ground reclined, Through the brown shade the fulgid weapons shined Amidst lay Rhesus, stretch'd in sleep profound, And the white steeds behind his chariot bound. The welcome sight Ulysses first descries, And points to Diomed the tempting prize. 'The man, the coursers, and the car behold! Described by Dolon, with the arms of gold. Now, brave Tydides! now thy courage try, Approach the chariot, and the steeds untie Or if thy soul aspire to fiercer deeds, Urge thou the slaughter, while I seize the steeds. Pallas (this said) her hero's bosom warms, Breathed in his heart, and strung his nervous arms Where'er he pass'd, a purple stream pursued His thirsty falchion, fat with hostile blood, Bathed all his footsteps, dyed the fields with gore, And a low groan remurmur'd through the shore. So the grim lion, from his nightly den, O'erleaps the fences, and invades the pen, On sheep or goats, resistless in his way, He falls, and foaming rends the guardless prey Nor stopp'd the fury of his vengeful hand, Till twelve lay breathless of the Thracian band. Ulysses following, as his partner slew, Back by the foot each slaughter'd warrior drew The milkwhite coursers studious to convey Safe to the ships, he wisely cleared the way Lest the fierce steeds, not yet to battles bred, Should start, and tremble at the heaps of dead. Now twelve despatch'd, the monarch last they found Tydides' falchion fix'd him to the ground. Just then a deathful dream Minerva sent, A warlike form appear'd before his tent, Whose visionary steel his bosom tore So dream'd the monarch, and awaked no more. Ulysses now the snowy steeds detains, And leads them, fasten'd by the silver reins These, with his bow unbent, he lash'd along (The scourge forgot, on Rhesus' chariot hung) Then gave his friend the signal to retire But him, new dangers, new achievements fire Doubtful he stood, or with his reeking blade To send more heroes to the infernal shade, Drag off the car where Rhesus' armour lay, Or heave with manly force, and lift away. While unresolved the son of Tydeus stands, Pallas appears, and thus her chief commands 'Enough, my son from further slaughter cease, Regard thy safety, and depart in peace Haste to the ships, the gotten spoils enjoy, Nor tempt too far the hostile gods of Troy. The voice divine confess'd the martial maid In haste he mounted, and her word obey'd The coursers fly before Ulysses' bow, Swift as the wind, and white as wintersnow. Not unobserved they pass'd the god of light Had watch'd his Troy, and mark'd Minerva's flight, Saw Tydeus' son with heavenly succour bless'd, And vengeful anger fill'd his sacred breast. Swift to the Trojan camp descends the power, And wakes Hippocoon in the morninghour (On Rhesus' side accustom'd to attend, A faithful kinsman, and instructive friend) He rose, and saw the field deform'd with blood, An empty space where late the coursers stood, The yetwarm Thracians panting on the coast For each he wept, but for his Rhesus most Now while on Rhesus' name he calls in vain, The gathering tumult spreads o'er all the plain On heaps the Trojans rush, with wild affright, And wondering view the slaughters of the night. Meanwhile the chiefs, arriving at the shade Where late the spoils of Hector's spy were laid, Ulysses stopp'd to him Tydides bore The trophy, dropping yet with Dolon's gore Then mounts again again their nimbler feet The coursers ply, and thunder towards the fleet. DIOMED AND ULYSSES RETURNING WITH THE SPOILS OF RHESUS Old Nestor first perceived the approaching sound, Bespeaking thus the Grecian peers around 'Methinks the noise of trampling steeds I hear, Thickening this way, and gathering on my ear Perhaps some horses of the Trojan breed (So may, ye gods! my pious hopes succeed) The great Tydides and Ulysses bear, Return'd triumphant with this prize of war. Yet much I fear (ah, may that fear be vain!) The chiefs outnumber'd by the Trojan train Perhaps, even now pursued, they seek the shore Or, oh! perhaps those heroes are no more. Scarce had he spoke, when, lo! the chiefs appear, And spring to earth the Greeks dismiss their fear With words of friendship and extended hands They greet the kings and Nestor first demands 'Say thou, whose praises all our host proclaim, Thou living glory of the Grecian name! Say whence these coursers? by what chance bestow'd, The spoil of foes, or present of a god? Not those fair steeds, so radiant and so gay, That draw the burning chariot of the day. Old as I am, to age I scorn to yield, And daily mingle in the martial field But sure till now no coursers struck my sight Like these, conspicuous through the ranks of fight. Some god, I deem, conferred the glorious prize, Bless'd as ye are, and favourites of the skies The care of him who bids the thunder roar, And her, whose fury bathes the world with gore. 'Father! not so, (sage Ithacus rejoin'd,) The gifts of heaven are of a nobler kind. Of Thracian lineage are the steeds ye view, Whose hostile king the brave Tydides slew Sleeping he died, with all his guards around, And twelve beside lay gasping on the ground. These other spoils from conquer'd Dolon came, A wretch, whose swiftness was his only fame By Hector sent our forces to explore, He now lies headless on the sandy shore. Then o'er the trench the bounding coursers flew The joyful Greeks with loud acclaim pursue. Straight to Tydides' high pavilion borne, The matchless steeds his ample stalls adorn The neighing coursers their new fellows greet, And the full racks are heap'd with generous wheat. But Dolon's armour, to his ships convey'd, High on the painted stern Ulysses laid, A trophy destin'd to the blueeyed maid. Now from nocturnal sweat and sanguine stain They cleanse their bodies in the neighb'ring main Then in the polished bath, refresh'd from toil, Their joints they supple with dissolving oil, In due repast indulge the genial hour, And first to Pallas the libations pour They sit, rejoicing in her aid divine, And the crown'd goblet foams with floods of wine. ARGUMENT THE THIRD BATTLE, AND THE ACTS OF AGAMEMNON. Agamemnon, having armed himself, leads the Grecians to battle Hector prepares the Trojans to receive them, while Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva give the signals of war. Agamemnon bears all before him and Hector is commanded by Jupiter (who sends Iris for that purpose) to decline the engagement, till the king shall be wounded and retire from the field. He then makes a great slaughter of the enemy. Ulysses and Diomed put a stop to him for a time but the latter, being wounded by Paris, is obliged to desert his companion, who is encompassed by the Trojans, wounded, and in the utmost danger, till Menelaus and Ajax rescue him. Hector comes against Ajax, but that hero alone opposes multitudes, and rallies the Greeks. In the meantime Machaon, in the other wing of the army, is pierced with an arrow by Paris, and carried from the fight in Nestor's chariot. Achilles (who overlooked the action from his ship) sent Patroclus to inquire which of the Greeks was wounded in that manner Nestor entertains him in his tent with an account of the accidents of the day, and a long recital of some former wars which he remembered, tending to put Patroclus upon persuading Achilles to fight for his countrymen, or at least to permit him to do it, clad in Achilles' armour. Patroclus, on his return, meets Eurypylus also wounded, and assists him in that distress. This book opens with the eightandtwentieth day of the poem, and the same day, with its various actions and adventures is extended through the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth books. The scene lies in the field near the monument of Ilus. The saffron morn, with early blushes spread, Now rose refulgent from Tithonus' bed With newborn day to gladden mortal sight, And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light When baleful Eris, sent by Jove's command, The torch of discord blazing in her hand, Through the red skies her bloody sign extends, And, wrapt in tempests, o'er the fleet descends. High on Ulysses' bark her horrid stand She took, and thunder'd through the seas and land. Even Ajax and Achilles heard the sound, Whose ships, remote, the guarded navy bound, Thence the black fury through the Grecian throng With horror sounds the loud Orthian song The navy shakes, and at the dire alarms Each bosom boils, each warrior starts to arms. No more they sigh, inglorious to return, But breathe revenge, and for the combat burn. THE DESCENT OF DISCORD The king of men his hardy host inspires With loud command, with great example fires! Himself first rose, himself before the rest His mighty limbs in radiant armour dress'd, And first he cased his manly legs around In shining greaves with silver buckles bound The beaming cuirass next adorn'd his breast, The same which once king Cinyras possess'd (The fame of Greece and her assembled host Had reach'd that monarch on the Cyprian coast 'Twas then, the friendship of the chief to gain, This glorious gift he sent, nor sent in vain) Ten rows of azure steel the work infold, Twice ten of tin, and twelve of ductile gold Three glittering dragons to the gorget rise, Whose imitated scales against the skies Reflected various light, and arching bow'd, Like colour'd rainbows o'er a showery cloud (Jove's wondrous bow, of three celestial dies, Placed as a sign to man amidst the skies). A radiant baldric, o'er his shoulder tied, Sustain'd the sword that glitter'd at his side Gold was the hilt, a silver sheath encased The shining blade, and golden hangers graced. His buckler's mighty orb was next display'd, That round the warrior cast a dreadful shade Ten zones of brass its ample brim surround, And twice ten bosses the bright convex crown'd Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field, And circling terrors fill'd the expressive shield Within its concave hung a silver thong, On which a mimic serpent creeps along, His azure length in easy waves extends, Till in three heads the embroider'd monster ends. Last o'er his brows his fourfold helm he placed, With nodding horsehair formidably graced And in his hands two steely javelins wields, That blaze to heaven, and lighten all the fields. That instant Juno, and the martial maid, In happy thunders promised Greece their aid High o'er the chief they clash'd their arms in air, And, leaning from the clouds, expect the war. Close to the limits of the trench and mound, The fiery coursers to their chariots bound The squires restrain'd the foot, with those who wield The lighter arms, rush forward to the field. To second these, in close array combined, The squadrons spread their sable wings behind. Now shouts and tumults wake the tardy sun, As with the light the warriors' toils begun. Even Jove, whose thunder spoke his wrath, distill'd Red drops of blood o'er all the fatal field The woes of men unwilling to survey, And all the slaughters that must stain the day. Near Ilus' tomb, in order ranged around, The Trojan lines possess'd the rising ground There wise Polydamas and Hector stood neas, honour'd as a guardian god Bold Polybus, Agenor the divine The brotherwarriors of Antenor's line With youthful Acamas, whose beauteous face And fair proportion match'd the ethereal race. Great Hector, cover'd with his spacious shield, Plies all the troops, and orders all the field. As the red star now shows his sanguine fires Through the dark clouds, and now in night retires, Thus through the ranks appear'd the godlike man, Plunged in the rear, or blazing in the van While streamy sparkles, restless as he flies, Flash from his arms, as lightning from the skies. As sweating reapers in some wealthy field, Ranged in two bands, their crooked weapons wield, Bear down the furrows, till their labours meet Thick fall the heapy harvests at their feet So Greece and Troy the field of war divide, And falling ranks are strow'd on every side. None stoop'd a thought to base inglorious flight But horse to horse, and man to man they fight, Not rabid wolves more fierce contest their prey Each wounds, each bleeds, but none resign the day. Discord with joy the scene of death descries, And drinks large slaughter at her sanguine eyes Discord alone, of all the immortal train, Swells the red horrors of this direful plain The gods in peace their golden mansions fill, Ranged in bright order on the Olympian hill But general murmurs told their griefs above, And each accused the partial will of Jove. Meanwhile apart, superior, and alone, The eternal Monarch, on his awful throne, Wrapt in the blaze of boundless glory sate And fix'd, fulfill'd the just decrees of fate. On earth he turn'd his allconsidering eyes, And mark'd the spot where Ilion's towers arise The sea with ships, the fields with armies spread, The victor's rage, the dying, and the dead. Thus while the morningbeams, increasing bright, O'er heaven's pure azure spread the glowing light, Commutual death the fate of war confounds, Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds. But now (what time in some sequester'd vale The weary woodman spreads his sparing meal, When his tired arms refuse the axe to rear, And claim a respite from the sylvan war But not till half the prostrate forests lay Stretch'd in long ruin, and exposed to day) Then, nor till then, the Greeks' impulsive might Pierced the black phalanx, and let in the light. Great Agamemnon then the slaughter led, And slew Bienor at his people's head Whose squire Oleus, with a sudden spring, Leap'd from the chariot to revenge his king But in his front he felt the fatal wound, Which pierced his brain, and stretch'd him on the ground. Atrides spoil'd, and left them on the plain Vain was their youth, their glittering armour vain Now soil'd with dust, and naked to the sky, Their snowy limbs and beauteous bodies lie. Two sons of Priam next to battle move, The product, one of marriage, one of love In the same car the brotherwarriors ride This took the charge to combat, that to guide Far other task, than when they wont to keep, On Ida's tops, their father's fleecy sheep. These on the mountains once Achilles found, And captive led, with pliant osiers bound Then to their sire for ample sums restored But now to perish by Atrides' sword Pierced in the breast the baseborn Isus bleeds Cleft through the head his brother's fate succeeds, Swift to the spoil the hasty victor falls, And, stript, their features to his mind recalls. The Trojans see the youths untimely die, But helpless tremble for themselves, and fly. So when a lion ranging o'er the lawns, Finds, on some grassy lair, the couching fawns, Their bones he cracks, their reeking vitals draws, And grinds the quivering flesh with bloody jaws The frighted hind beholds, and dares not stay, But swift through rustling thickets bursts her way All drown'd in sweat, the panting mother flies, And the big tears roll trickling from her eyes. Amidst the tumult of the routed train, The sons of false Antimachus were slain He who for bribes his faithless counsels sold, And voted Helen's stay for Paris' gold. Atrides mark'd, as these their safety sought, And slew the children for the father's fault Their headstrong horse unable to restrain, They shook with fear, and dropp'd the silken rein Then in the chariot on their knees they fall, And thus with lifted hands for mercy call 'O spare our youth, and for the life we owe, Antimachus shall copious gifts bestow Soon as he hears, that, not in battle slain, The Grecian ships his captive sons detain, Large heaps of brass in ransom shall be told, And steel welltempered, and persuasive gold. These words, attended with the flood of tears, The youths address'd to unrelenting ears The vengeful monarch gave this stern reply 'If from Antimachus ye spring, ye die The daring wretch who once in council stood To shed Ulysses' and my brother's blood, For proffer'd peace! and sues his seed for grace? No, die, and pay the forfeit of your race. This said, Pisander from the car he cast, And pierced his breast supine he breathed his last. His brother leap'd to earth but, as he lay, The trenchant falchion lopp'd his hands away His sever'd head was toss'd among the throng, And, rolling, drew a bloody train along. Then, where the thickest fought, the victor flew The king's example all his Greeks pursue. Now by the foot the flying foot were slain, Horse trod by horse, lay foaming on the plain. From the dry fields thick clouds of dust arise, Shade the black host, and intercept the skies. The brasshoof'd steeds tumultuous plunge and bound, And the thick thunder beats the labouring ground, Still slaughtering on, the king of men proceeds The distanced army wonders at his deeds, As when the winds with raging flames conspire, And o'er the forests roll the flood of fire, In blazing heaps the grove's old honours fall, And one refulgent ruin levels all Before Atrides' rage so sinks the foe, Whole squadrons vanish, and proud heads lie low. The steeds fly trembling from his waving sword, And many a car, now lighted of its lord, Wide o'er the field with guideless fury rolls, Breaking their ranks, and crushing out their souls While his keen falchion drinks the warriors' lives More grateful, now, to vultures than their wives! Perhaps great Hector then had found his fate, But Jove and destiny prolong'd his date. Safe from the darts, the care of heaven he stood, Amidst alarms, and death, and dust, and blood. Now past the tomb where ancient Ilus lay, Through the mid field the routed urge their way Where the wild figs the adjoining summit crown, The path they take, and speed to reach the town. As swift, Atrides with loud shouts pursued, Hot with his toil, and bathed in hostile blood. Now near the beechtree, and the Scan gates, The hero halts, and his associates waits. Meanwhile on every side around the plain, Dispersed, disorder'd, fly the Trojan train. So flies a herd of beeves, that hear dismay'd The lion's roaring through the midnight shade On heaps they tumble with successless haste The savage seizes, draws, and rends the last. Not with less fury stern Atrides flew, Still press'd the rout, and still the hindmost slew Hurl'd from their cars the bravest chiefs are kill'd, And rage, and death, and carnage load the field. Now storms the victor at the Trojan wall Surveys the towers, and meditates their fall. But Jove descending shook the Idaean hills, And down their summits pour'd a hundred rills The unkindled lightning in his hand he took, And thus the manycoloured maid bespoke 'Iris, with haste thy golden wings display, To godlike Hector this our word convey While Agamemnon wastes the ranks around, Fights in the front, and bathes with blood the ground, Bid him give way but issue forth commands, And trust the war to less important hands But when, or wounded by the spear or dart, That chief shall mount his chariot, and depart, Then Jove shall string his arm, and fire his breast, Then to her ships shall flying Greece be press'd, Till to the main the burning sun descend, And sacred night her awful shade extend. He spoke, and Iris at his word obey'd On wings of winds descends the various maid. The chief she found amidst the ranks of war, Close to the bulwarks, on his glittering car. The goddess then 'O son of Priam, hear! From Jove I come, and his high mandate bear. While Agamemnon wastes the ranks around, Fights in the front, and bathes with blood the ground, Abstain from fight yet issue forth commands, And trust the war to less important hands But when, or wounded by the spear or dart, The chief shall mount his chariot, and depart, Then Jove shall string thy arm, and fire thy breast, Then to her ships shall flying Greece be press'd, Till to the main the burning sun descend, And sacred night her awful shade extend. She said, and vanish'd. Hector, with a bound, Springs from his chariot on the trembling ground, In clanging arms he grasps in either hand A pointed lance, and speeds from band to band Revives their ardour, turns their steps from flight, And wakes anew the dying flames of fight. They stand to arms the Greeks their onset dare, Condense their powers, and wait the coming war. New force, new spirit, to each breast returns The fight renew'd with fiercer fury burns The king leads on all fix on him their eye, And learn from him to conquer, or to die. Ye sacred nine! celestial Muses! tell, Who faced him first, and by his prowess fell? The great Iphidamas, the bold and young, From sage Antenor and Theano sprung Whom from his youth his grandsire Cisseus bred, And nursed in Thrace where snowy flocks are fed. Scarce did the down his rosy cheeks invest, And early honour warm his generous breast, When the kind sire consign'd his daughter's charms (Theano's sister) to his youthful arms. But call'd by glory to the wars of Troy, He leaves untasted the first fruits of joy From his loved bride departs with melting eyes, And swift to aid his dearer country flies. With twelve black ships he reach'd Percope's strand, Thence took the long laborious march by land. Now fierce for fame, before the ranks he springs, Towering in arms, and braves the king of kings. Atrides first discharged the missive spear The Trojan stoop'd, the javelin pass'd in air. Then near the corslet, at the monarch's heart, With all his strength, the youth directs his dart But the broad belt, with plates of silver bound, The point rebated, and repell'd the wound. Encumber'd with the dart, Atrides stands, Till, grasp'd with force, he wrench'd it from his hands At once his weighty sword discharged a wound Full on his neck, that fell'd him to the ground. Stretch'd in the dust the unhappy warrior lies, And sleep eternal seals his swimming eyes. Oh worthy better fate! oh early slain! Thy country's friend and virtuous, though in vain! No more the youth shall join his consort's side, At once a virgin, and at once a bride! No more with presents her embraces meet, Or lay the spoils of conquest at her feet, On whom his passion, lavish of his store, Bestow'd so much, and vainly promised more! Unwept, uncover'd, on the plain he lay, While the proud victor bore his arms away. Coon, Antenor's eldest hope, was nigh Tears, at the sight, came starting from his eye, While pierced with grief the muchloved youth he view'd, And the pale features now deform'd with blood. Then, with his spear, unseen, his time he took, Aim'd at the king, and near his elbow strook. The thrilling steel transpierced the brawny part, And through his arm stood forth the barbed dart. Surprised the monarch feels, yet void of fear On Coon rushes with his lifted spear His brother's corpse the pious Trojan draws, And calls his country to assert his cause Defends him breathless on the sanguine field, And o'er the body spreads his ample shield. Atrides, marking an unguarded part, Transfix'd the warrior with his brazen dart Prone on his brother's bleeding breast he lay, The monarch's falchion lopp'd his head away The social shades the same dark journey go, And join each other in the realms below. The vengeful victor rages round the fields, With every weapon art or fury yields By the long lance, the sword, or ponderous stone, Whole ranks are broken, and whole troops o'erthrown. This, while yet warm distill'd the purple flood But when the wound grew stiff with clotted blood, Then grinding tortures his strong bosom rend, Less keen those darts the fierce Ilythiae send (The powers that cause the teeming matron's throes, Sad mothers of unutterable woes!) Stung with the smart, allpanting with the pain, He mounts the car, and gives his squire the rein Then with a voice which fury made more strong, And pain augmented, thus exhorts the throng 'O friends! O Greeks! assert your honours won Proceed, and finish what this arm begun Lo! angry Jove forbids your chief to stay, And envies half the glories of the day. He said the driver whirls his lengthful thong The horses fly the chariot smokes along. Clouds from their nostrils the fierce coursers blow, And from their sides the foam descends in snow Shot through the battle in a moment's space, The wounded monarch at his tent they place. No sooner Hector saw the king retired, But thus his Trojans and his aids he fired 'Hear, all ye Dardan, all ye Lycian race! Famed in close fight, and dreadful face to face Now call to mind your ancient trophies won, Your great forefathers' virtues, and your own. Behold, the general flies! deserts his powers! Lo, Jove himself declares the conquest ours! Now on yon ranks impel your foaming steeds And, sure of glory, dare immortal deeds. With words like these the fiery chief alarms His fainting host, and every bosom warms. As the bold hunter cheers his hounds to tear The brindled lion, or the tusky bear With voice and hand provokes their doubting heart, And springs the foremost with his lifted dart So godlike Hector prompts his troops to dare Nor prompts alone, but leads himself the war. On the black body of the foe he pours As from the cloud's deep bosom, swell'd with showers, A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps, Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps. Say, Muse! when Jove the Trojan's glory crown'd, Beneath his arm what heroes bit the ground? Assaeus, Dolops, and Autonous died, Opites next was added to their side Then brave Hipponous, famed in many a fight, Opheltius, Orus, sunk to endless night symnus, Agelaus all chiefs of name The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame. As when a western whirlwind, charged with storms, Dispels the gather'd clouds that Notus forms The gust continued, violent and strong, Rolls sable clouds in heaps on heaps along Now to the skies the foaming billows rears, Now breaks the surge, and wide the bottom bares Thus, raging Hector, with resistless hands, O'erturns, confounds, and scatters all their bands. Now the last ruin the whole host appals Now Greece had trembled in her wooden walls But wise Ulysses call'd Tydides forth, His soul rekindled, and awaked his worth. 'And stand we deedless, O eternal shame! Till Hector's arm involve the ships in flame? Haste, let us join, and combat side by side. The warrior thus, and thus the friend replied 'No martial toil I shun, no danger fear Let Hector come I wait his fury here. But Jove with conquest crowns the Trojan train And, Jove our foe, all human force is vain. He sigh'd but, sighing, raised his vengeful steel, And from his car the proud Thymbraeus fell Molion, the charioteer, pursued his lord, His death ennobled by Ulysses' sword. There slain, they left them in eternal night, Then plunged amidst the thickest ranks of fight. So two wild boars outstrip the following hounds, Then swift revert, and wounds return for wounds. Stern Hector's conquests in the middle plain Stood check'd awhile, and Greece respired again. The sons of Merops shone amidst the war Towering they rode in one refulgent car In deep prophetic arts their father skill'd, Had warn'd his children from the Trojan field. Fate urged them on the father warn'd in vain They rush'd to fight, and perish'd on the plain Their breasts no more the vital spirit warms The stern Tydides strips their shining arms. Hypirochus by great Ulysses dies, And rich Hippodamus becomes his prize. Great Jove from Ide with slaughter fills his sight, And level hangs the doubtful scale of fight. By Tydeus' lance Agastrophus was slain, The farfamed hero of Ponian strain Wing'd with his fears, on foot he strove to fly, His steeds too distant, and the foe too nigh Through broken orders, swifter than the wind, He fled, but flying left his life behind. This Hector sees, as his experienced eyes Traverse the files, and to the rescue flies Shouts, as he pass'd, the crystal regions rend, And moving armies on his march attend. Great Diomed himself was seized with fear, And thus bespoke his brother of the war 'Mark how this way yon bending squadrons yield! The storm rolls on, and Hector rules the field Here stand his utmost force.The warrior said Swift at the word his ponderous javelin fled Nor miss'd its aim, but where the plumage danced Razed the smooth cone, and thence obliquely glanced. Safe in his helm (the gift of Phbus' hands) Without a wound the Trojan hero stands But yet so stunn'd, that, staggering on the plain. His arm and knee his sinking bulk sustain O'er his dim sight the misty vapours rise, And a short darkness shades his swimming eyes. Tydides followed to regain his lance While Hector rose, recover'd from the trance, Remounts his car, and herds amidst the crowd The Greek pursues him, and exults aloud 'Once more thank Phbus for thy forfeit breath, Or thank that swiftness which outstrips the death. Well by Apollo are thy prayers repaid, And oft that partial power has lent his aid. Thou shall not long the death deserved withstand, If any god assist Tydides' hand. Fly then, inglorious! but thy flight, this day, Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay, Him, while he triumph'd, Paris eyed from far, (The spouse of Helen, the fair cause of war) Around the fields his feather'd shafts he sent, From ancient Ilus' ruin'd monument Behind the column placed, he bent his bow, And wing'd an arrow at the unwary foe Just as he stoop'd, Agastrophus's crest To seize, and drew the corslet from his breast, The bowstring twang'd nor flew the shaft in vain, But pierced his foot, and nail'd it to the plain. The laughing Trojan, with a joyful spring. Leaps from his ambush, and insults the king. 'He bleeds! (he cries) some god has sped my dart! Would the same god had fix'd it in his heart! So Troy, relieved from that widewasting hand, Should breathe from slaughter and in combat stand Whose sons now tremble at his darted spear, As scatter'd lambs the rushing lion fear. He dauntless thus 'Thou conqueror of the fair, Thou womanwarrior with the curling hair Vain archer! trusting to the distant dart, Unskill'd in arms to act a manly part! Thou hast but done what boys or women can Such hands may wound, but not incense a man. Nor boast the scratch thy feeble arrow gave, A coward's weapon never hurts the brave. Not so this dart, which thou may'st one day feel Fate wings its flight, and death is on the steel Where this but lights, some noble life expires Its touch makes orphans, bathes the cheeks of sires, Steeps earth in purple, gluts the birds of air, And leaves such objects as distract the fair. Ulysses hastens with a trembling heart, Before him steps, and bending draws the dart Forth flows the blood an eager pang succeeds Tydides mounts, and to the navy speeds. Now on the field Ulysses stands alone, The Greeks all fled, the Trojans pouring on But stands collected in himself, and whole, And questions thus his own unconquer'd soul 'What further subterfuge, what hopes remain? What shame, inglorious if I quit the plain? What danger, singly if I stand the ground, My friends all scatter'd, all the foes around? Yet wherefore doubtful? let this truth suffice, The brave meets danger, and the coward flies. To die or conquer, proves a hero's heart And, knowing this, I know a soldier's part. Such thoughts revolving in his careful breast, Near, and more near, the shady cohorts press'd These, in the warrior, their own fate enclose And round him deep the steely circle grows. So fares a boar whom all the troop surrounds Of shouting huntsmen and of clamorous hounds He grinds his ivory tusks he foams with ire His sanguine eyeballs glare with living fire By these, by those, on every part is plied And the red slaughter spreads on every side. Pierced through the shoulder, first Deiopis fell Next Ennomus and Thoon sank to hell Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust, Falls prone to earth, and grasps the bloody dust. Charops, the son of Hippasus, was near Ulysses reach'd him with the fatal spear But to his aid his brother Socus flies, Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise. Near as he drew, the warrior thus began 'O great Ulysses! muchenduring man! Not deeper skill'd in every martial sleight, Than worn to toils, and active in the fight! This day two brothers shall thy conquest grace, And end at once the great Hippasian race, Or thou beneath this lance must press the field. He said, and forceful pierced his spacious shield Through the strong brass the ringing javelin thrown, Plough'd half his side, and bared it to the bone. By Pallas' care, the spear, though deep infix'd, Stopp'd short of life, nor with his entrails mix'd. The wound not mortal wise Ulysses knew, Then furious thus (but first some steps withdrew) 'Unhappy man! whose death our hands shall grace, Fate calls thee hence and finish'd is thy race. Nor longer check my conquests on the foe But, pierced by this, to endless darkness go, And add one spectre to the realms below! He spoke, while Socus, seized with sudden fright, Trembling gave way, and turn'd his back to flight Between his shoulders pierced the following dart, And held its passage through the panting heart Wide in his breast appear'd the grisly wound He falls his armour rings against the ground. Then thus Ulysses, gazing on the slain 'Famed son of Hippasus! there press the plain There ends thy narrow span assign'd by fate, Heaven owes Ulysses yet a longer date. Ah, wretch! no father shall thy corpse compose Thy dying eyes no tender mother close But hungry birds shall tear those balls away, And hovering vultures scream around their prey. Me Greece shall honour, when I meet my doom, With solemn funerals and a lasting tomb. Then raging with intolerable smart, He writhes his body, and extracts the dart. The dart a tide of spouting gore pursued, And gladden'd Troy with sight of hostile blood. Now troops on troops the fainting chief invade, Forced he recedes, and loudly calls for aid. Thrice to its pitch his lofty voice he rears The wellknown voice thrice Menelaus hears Alarm'd, to Ajax Telamon he cried, Who shares his labours, and defends his side 'O friend! Ulysses' shouts invade my ear Distressed he seems, and no assistance near Strong as he is, yet one opposed to all, Oppress'd by multitudes, the best may fall. Greece robb'd of him must bid her host despair, And feel a loss not ages can repair. Then, where the cry directs, his course he bends Great Ajax, like the god of war, attends, The prudent chief in sore distress they found, With bands of furious Trojans compass'd round. As when some huntsman, with a flying spear, From the blind thicket wounds a stately deer Down his cleft side, while fresh the blood distils, He bounds aloft, and scuds from hills to hills, Till life's warm vapour issuing through the wound, Wild mountainwolves the fainting beast surround Just as their jaws his prostrate limbs invade, The lion rushes through the woodland shade, The wolves, though hungry, scour dispersed away The lordly savage vindicates his prey. Ulysses thus, unconquer'd by his pains, A single warrior half a host sustains But soon as Ajax leaves his towerlike shield, The scattered crowds fly frighted o'er the field Atrides' arm the sinking hero stays, And, saved from numbers, to his car conveys. Victorious Ajax plies the routed crew And first Doryclus, Priam's son, he slew, On strong Pandocus next inflicts a wound, And lays Lysander bleeding on the ground. As when a torrent, swell'd with wintry rains, Pours from the mountains o'er the deluged plains, And pines and oaks, from their foundations torn, A country's ruins! to the seas are borne Fierce Ajax thus o'erwhelms the yielding throng Men, steeds, and chariots, roll in heaps along. But Hector, from this scene of slaughter far, Raged on the left, and ruled the tide of war Loud groans proclaim his progress through the plain, And deep Scamander swells with heaps of slain. There Nestor and Idomeneus oppose The warrior's fury there the battle glows There fierce on foot, or from the chariot's height, His sword deforms the beauteous ranks of fight. The spouse of Helen, dealing darts around, Had pierced Machaon with a distant wound In his right shoulder the broad shaft appear'd, And trembling Greece for her physician fear'd. To Nestor then Idomeneus begun 'Glory of Greece, old Neleus' valiant son! Ascend thy chariot, haste with speed away, And great Machaon to the ships convey A wise physician skill'd our wounds to heal, Is more than armies to the public weal. Old Nestor mounts the seat beside him rode The wounded offspring of the healing god. He lends the lash the steeds with sounding feet Shake the dry field, and thunder toward the fleet. But now Cebriones, from Hector's car, Survey'd the various fortune of the war 'While here (he cried) the flying Greeks are slain, Trojans on Trojans yonder load the plain. Before great Ajax see the mingled throng Of men and chariots driven in heaps along! I know him well, distinguish'd o'er the field By the broad glittering of the sevenfold shield. Thither, O Hector, thither urge thy steeds, There danger calls, and there the combat bleeds There horse and foot in mingled deaths unite, And groans of slaughter mix with shouts of fight. Thus having spoke, the driver's lash resounds Swift through the ranks the rapid chariot bounds Stung by the stroke, the coursers scour the fields, O'er heaps of carcases, and hills of shields. The horses' hoofs are bathed in heroes' gore, And, dashing, purple all the car before The groaning axle sable drops distils, And mangled carnage clogs the rapid wheels. Here Hector, plunging through the thickest fight, Broke the dark phalanx, and let in the light (By the long lance, the sword, or ponderous stone, The ranks he scatter'd and the troops o'erthrown) Ajax he shuns, through all the dire debate, And fears that arm whose force he felt so late. But partial Jove, espousing Hector's part, Shot heavenbred horror through the Grecian's heart Confused, unnerved in Hector's presence grown, Amazed he stood, with terrors not his own. O'er his broad back his moony shield he threw, And, glaring round, by tardy steps withdrew. Thus the grim lion his retreat maintains, Beset with watchful dogs, and shouting swains Repulsed by numbers from the nightly stalls, Though rage impels him, and though hunger calls, Long stands the showering darts, and missile fires Then sourly slow the indignant beast retires So turn'd stern Ajax, by whole hosts repell'd, While his swoln heart at every step rebell'd. As the slow beast, with heavy strength endued, In some wide field by troops of boys pursued, Though round his sides a wooden tempest rain, Crops the tall harvest, and lays waste the plain Thick on his hide the hollow blows resound, The patient animal maintains his ground, Scarce from the field with all their efforts chased, And stirs but slowly when he stirs at last On Ajax thus a weight of Trojans hung, The strokes redoubled on his buckler rung Confiding now in bulky strength he stands, Now turns, and backward bears the yielding bands Now stiff recedes, yet hardly seems to fly, And threats his followers with retorted eye. Fix'd as the bar between two warring powers, While hissing darts descend in iron showers In his broad buckler many a weapon stood, Its surface bristled with a quivering wood And many a javelin, guiltless on the plain, Marks the dry dust, and thirsts for blood in vain. But bold Eurypylus his aid imparts, And dauntless springs beneath a cloud of darts Whose eager javelin launch'd against the foe, Great Apisaon felt the fatal blow From his torn liver the red current flow'd, And his slack knees desert their dying load. The victor rushing to despoil the dead, From Paris' bow a vengeful arrow fled Fix'd in his nervous thigh the weapon stood, Fix'd was the point, but broken was the wood. Back to the lines the wounded Greek retired, Yet thus retreating, his associates fired 'What god, O Grecians! has your hearts dismay'd? Oh, turn to arms 'tis Ajax claims your aid. This hour he stands the mark of hostile rage, And this the last brave battle he shall wage Haste, join your forces from the gloomy grave The warrior rescue, and your country save. Thus urged the chief a generous troop appears, Who spread their bucklers, and advance their spears, To guard their wounded friend while thus they stand With pious care, great Ajax joins the band Each takes new courage at the hero's sight The hero rallies, and renews the fight. Thus raged both armies like conflicting fires, While Nestor's chariot far from fight retires His coursers steep'd in sweat, and stain'd with gore, The Greeks' preserver, great Machaon, bore. That hour Achilles, from the topmost height Of his proud fleet, o'erlook'd the fields of fight His feasted eyes beheld around the plain The Grecian rout, the slaying, and the slain. His friend Machaon singled from the rest, A transient pity touch'd his vengeful breast. Straight to Menoetius' muchloved son he sent Graceful as Mars, Patroclus quits his tent In evil hour! Then fate decreed his doom, And fix'd the date of all his woes to come. 'Why calls my friend? thy loved injunctions lay Whate'er thy will, Patroclus shall obey. 'O first of friends! (Pelides thus replied) Still at my heart, and ever at my side! The time is come, when yon despairing host Shall learn the value of the man they lost Now at my knees the Greeks shall pour their moan, And proud Atrides tremble on his throne. Go now to Nestor, and from him be taught What wounded warrior late his chariot brought For, seen at distance, and but seen behind, His form recall'd Machaon to my mind Nor could I, through yon cloud, discern his face, The coursers pass'd me with so swift a pace. The hero said. His friend obey'd with haste, Through intermingled ships and tents he pass'd The chiefs descending from their car he found The panting steeds Eurymedon unbound. The warriors standing on the breezy shore, To dry their sweat, and wash away the gore, Here paused a moment, while the gentle gale Convey'd that freshness the cool seas exhale Then to consult on farther methods went, And took their seats beneath the shady tent. The draught prescribed, fair Hecamede prepares, Arsinous' daughter, graced with golden hairs (Whom to his aged arms, a royal slave, Greece, as the prize of Nestor's wisdom gave) A table first with azure feet she placed Whose ample orb a brazen charger graced Honey newpress'd, the sacred flour of wheat, And wholesome garlic, crown'd the savoury treat, Next her white hand an antique goblet brings, A goblet sacred to the Pylian kings From eldest times emboss'd with studs of gold, Two feet support it, and four handles hold On each bright handle, bending o'er the brink, In sculptured gold, two turtles seem to drink A massy weight, yet heaved with ease by him, When the brisk nectar overlook'd the brim. Temper'd in this, the nymph of form divine Pours a large portion of the Pramnian wine With goat'smilk cheese a flavourous taste bestows, And last with flour the smiling surface strows This for the wounded prince the dame prepares The cordial beverage reverend Nestor shares Salubrious draughts the warriors' thirst allay, And pleasing conference beguiles the day. Meantime Patroclus, by Achilles sent, Unheard approached, and stood before the tent. Old Nestor, rising then, the hero led To his high seat the chief refused and said ''Tis now no season for these kind delays The great Achilles with impatience stays. To great Achilles this respect I owe Who asks, what hero, wounded by the foe, Was borne from combat by thy foaming steeds? With grief I see the great Machaon bleeds. This to report, my hasty course I bend Thou know'st the fiery temper of my friend. 'Can then the sons of Greece (the sage rejoin'd) Excite compassion in Achilles' mind? Seeks he the sorrows of our host to know? This is not half the story of our woe. Tell him, not great Machaon bleeds alone, Our bravest heroes in the navy groan, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Diomed, And stern Eurypylus, already bleed. But, ah! what flattering hopes I entertain! Achilles heeds not, but derides our pain Even till the flames consume our fleet he stays, And waits the rising of the fatal blaze. Chief after chief the raging foe destroys Calm he looks on, and every death enjoys. Now the slow course of allimpairing time Unstrings my nerves, and ends my manly prime Oh! had I still that strength my youth possess'd, When this bold arm the Epeian powers oppress'd, The bulls of Elis in glad triumph led, And stretch'd the great Itymonaeus dead! Then from my fury fled the trembling swains, And ours was all the plunder of the plains Fifty white flocks, full fifty herds of swine, As many goats, as many lowing kine And thrice the number of unrivall'd steeds, All teeming females, and of generous breeds. These, as my first essay of arms, I won Old Neleus gloried in his conquering son. Thus Elis forced, her long arrears restored, And shares were parted to each Pylian lord. The state of Pyle was sunk to last despair, When the proud Elians first commenced the war For Neleus' sons Alcides' rage had slain Of twelve bold brothers, I alone remain! Oppress'd, we arm'd and now this conquest gain'd, My sire three hundred chosen sheep obtain'd. (That large reprisal he might justly claim, For prize defrauded, and insulted fame, When Elis' monarch, at the public course, Detain'd his chariot, and victorious horse.) The rest the people shared myself survey'd The just partition, and due victims paid. Three days were past, when Elis rose to war, With many a courser, and with many a car The sons of Actor at their army's head (Young as they were) the vengeful squadrons led. High on the rock fair Thryoessa stands, Our utmost frontier on the Pylian lands Not far the streams of famed Alphaeus flow The stream they pass'd, and pitch'd their tents below. Pallas, descending in the shades of night, Alarms the Pylians and commands the fight. Each burns for fame, and swells with martial pride, Myself the foremost but my sire denied Fear'd for my youth, exposed to stern alarms And stopp'd my chariot, and detain'd my arms. My sire denied in vain on foot I fled Amidst our chariots for the goddess led. 'Along fair Arene's delightful plain Soft Minyas rolls his waters to the main There, horse and foot, the Pylian troops unite, And sheathed in arms, expect the dawning light. Thence, ere the sun advanced his noonday flame, To great Alphaeus' sacred source we came. There first to Jove our solemn rites were paid An untamed heifer pleased the blueeyed maid A bull, Alphaeus and a bull was slain To the blue monarch of the watery main. In arms we slept, beside the winding flood, While round the town the fierce Epeians stood. Soon as the sun, with allrevealing ray, Flamed in the front of Heaven, and gave the day. Bright scenes of arms, and works of war appear The nations meet there Pylos, Elis here. The first who fell, beneath my javelin bled King Augias' son, and spouse of Agamede (She that all simples' healing virtues knew, And every herb that drinks the morning dew) I seized his car, the van of battle led The Epeians saw, they trembled, and they fled. The foe dispersed, their bravest warrior kill'd, Fierce as the whirlwind now I swept the field Full fifty captive chariots graced my train Two chiefs from each fell breathless to the plain. Then Actor's sons had died, but Neptune shrouds The youthful heroes in a veil of clouds. O'er heapy shields, and o'er the prostrate throng, Collecting spoils, and slaughtering all along, Through wide Buprasian fields we forced the foes, Where o'er the vales the Olenian rocks arose Till Pallas stopp'd us where Alisium flows. Even there the hindmost of the rear I slay, And the same arm that led concludes the day Then back to Pyle triumphant take my way. There to high Jove were public thanks assign'd, As first of gods to Nestor, of mankind. Such then I was, impell'd by youthful blood So proved my valour for my country's good. 'Achilles with unactive fury glows, And gives to passion what to Greece he owes. How shall he grieve, when to the eternal shade Her hosts shall sink, nor his the power to aid! O friend! my memory recalls the day, When, gathering aids along the Grecian sea, I, and Ulysses, touch'd at Phthia's port, And entered Peleus' hospitable court. A bull to Jove he slew in sacrifice, And pour'd libations on the flaming thighs. Thyself, Achilles, and thy reverend sire Menoetius, turn'd the fragments on the fire. Achilles sees us, to the feast invites Social we sit, and share the genial rites. We then explained the cause on which we came, Urged you to arms, and found you fierce for fame. Your ancient fathers generous precepts gave Peleus said only this'My son! be brave.' Menoetius thus 'Though great Achilles shine In strength superior, and of race divine, Yet cooler thoughts thy elder years attend Let thy just counsels aid, and rule thy friend.' Thus spoke your father at Thessalia's court Words now forgot, though now of vast import. Ah! try the utmost that a friend can say Such gentle force the fiercest minds obey Some favouring god Achilles' heart may move Though deaf to glory, he may yield to love. If some dire oracle his breast alarm, If aught from Heaven withhold his saving arm, Some beam of comfort yet on Greece may shine, If thou but lead the Myrmidonian line Clad in Achilles' arms, if thou appear, Proud Troy may tremble, and desist from war Press'd by fresh forces, her o'erlabour'd train Shall seek their walls, and Greece respire again. This touch'd his generous heart, and from the tent Along the shore with hasty strides he went Soon as he came, where, on the crowded strand, The public mart and courts of justice stand, Where the tall fleet of great Ulysses lies, And altars to the guardian gods arise There, sad, he met the brave Euaemon's son, Large painful drops from all his members run An arrow's head yet rooted in his wound, The sable blood in circles mark'd the ground. As faintly reeling he confess'd the smart, Weak was his pace, but dauntless was his heart. Divine compassion touch'd Patroclus' breast, Who, sighing, thus his bleeding friend address'd 'Ah, hapless leaders of the Grecian host! Thus must ye perish on a barbarous coast? Is this your fate, to glut the dogs with gore, Far from your friends, and from your native shore? Say, great Eurypylus! shall Greece yet stand? Resists she yet the raging Hector's hand? Or are her heroes doom'd to die with shame, And this the period of our wars and fame? Eurypylus replies 'No more, my friend Greece is no more! this day her glories end Even to the ships victorious Troy pursues, Her force increasing as her toil renews. Those chiefs, that used her utmost rage to meet, Lie pierced with wounds, and bleeding in the fleet. But, thou, Patroclus! act a friendly part, Lead to my ships, and draw this deadly dart With lukewarm water wash the gore away With healing balms the raging smart allay, Such as sage Chiron, sire of pharmacy, Once taught Achilles, and Achilles thee. Of two famed surgeons, Podalirius stands This hour surrounded by the Trojan bands And great Machaon, wounded in his tent, Now wants that succour which so oft he lent. To him the chief 'What then remains to do? The event of things the gods alone can view. Charged by Achilles' great command I fly, And bear with haste the Pylian king's reply But thy distress this instant claims relief. He said, and in his arms upheld the chief. The slaves their master's slow approach survey'd, And hides of oxen on the floor display'd There stretch'd at length the wounded hero lay Patroclus cut the forky steel away Then in his hands a bitter root he bruised The wound he wash'd, the styptic juice infused. The closing flesh that instant ceased to glow, The wound to torture, and the blood to flow. HERCULES ARGUMENT. THE BATTLE AT THE GRECIAN WALL. The Greeks having retired into their intrenchments, Hector attempts to force them but it proving impossible to pass the ditch, Polydamas advises to quit their chariots, and manage the attack on foot. The Trojans follow his counsel and having divided their army into five bodies of foot, begin the assault. But upon the signal of an eagle with a serpent in his talons, which appeared on the left hand of the Trojans, Polydamas endeavours to withdraw them again. This Hector opposes, and continues the attack in which, after many actions, Sarpedon makes the first breach in the wall. Hector also, casting a stone of vast size, forces open one of the gates, and enters at the head of his troops, who victoriously pursue the Grecians even to their ships. While thus the hero's pious cares attend The cure and safety of his wounded friend, Trojans and Greeks with clashing shields engage, And mutual deaths are dealt with mutual rage. Nor long the trench or lofty walls oppose With gods averse the illfated works arose Their powers neglected, and no victim slain, The walls were raised, the trenches sunk in vain. Without the gods, how short a period stands The proudest monument of mortal hands! This stood while Hector and Achilles raged, While sacred Troy the warring hosts engaged But when her sons were slain, her city burn'd, And what survived of Greece to Greece return'd Then Neptune and Apollo shook the shore, Then Ida's summits pour'd their watery store Rhesus and Rhodius then unite their rills, Caresus roaring down the stony hills, sepus, Granicus, with mingled force, And Xanthus foaming from his fruitful source And gulfy Simois, rolling to the main Helmets, and shields, and godlike heroes slain These, turn'd by Phbus from their wonted ways, Deluged the rampire nine continual days The weight of waters saps the yielding wall, And to the sea the floating bulwarks fall. Incessant cataracts the Thunderer pours, And half the skies descend in sluicy showers. The god of ocean, marching stern before, With his huge trident wounds the trembling shore, Vast stones and piles from their foundation heaves, And whelms the smoky ruin in the waves. Now smooth'd with sand, and levell'd by the flood, No fragment tells where once the wonder stood In their old bounds the rivers roll again, Shine 'twixt the hills, or wander o'er the plain. But this the gods in later times perform As yet the bulwark stood, and braved the storm The strokes yet echoed of contending powers War thunder'd at the gates, and blood distain'd the towers. Smote by the arm of Jove with dire dismay, Close by their hollow ships the Grecians lay Hector's approach in every wind they hear, And Hector's fury every moment fear. He, like a whirlwind, toss'd the scattering throng, Mingled the troops, and drove the field along. So 'midst the dogs and hunters' daring bands, Fierce of his might, a boar or lion stands Arm'd foes around a dreadful circle form, And hissing javelins rain an iron storm His powers untamed, their bold assault defy, And where he turns the rout disperse or die He foams, he glares, he bounds against them all, And if he falls, his courage makes him fall. With equal rage encompass'd Hector glows Exhorts his armies, and the trenches shows. The panting steeds impatient fury breathe, And snort and tremble at the gulf beneath Just at the brink they neigh, and paw the ground, And the turf trembles, and the skies resound. Eager they view'd the prospect dark and deep, Vast was the leap, and headlong hung the steep The bottom bare, (a formidable show!) And bristled thick with sharpen'd stakes below. The foot alone this strong defence could force, And try the pass impervious to the horse. This saw Polydamas who, wisely brave, Restrain'd great Hector, and this counsel gave 'O thou, bold leader of the Trojan bands! And you, confederate chiefs from foreign lands! What entrance here can cumbrous chariots find, The stakes beneath, the Grecian walls behind? No pass through those, without a thousand wounds, No space for combat in yon narrow bounds. Proud of the favours mighty Jove has shown, On certain dangers we too rashly run If 'tis his will our haughty foes to tame, Oh may this instant end the Grecian name! Here, far from Argos, let their heroes fall, And one great day destroy and bury all! But should they turn, and here oppress our train, What hopes, what methods of retreat remain? Wedged in the trench, by our own troops confused, In one promiscuous carnage crush'd and bruised, All Troy must perish, if their arms prevail, Nor shall a Trojan live to tell the tale. Hear then, ye warriors! and obey with speed Back from the trenches let your steeds be led Then all alighting, wedged in firm array, Proceed on foot, and Hector lead the way. So Greece shall stoop before our conquering power, And this (if Jove consent) her fatal hour. POLYDAMAS ADVISING HECTOR This counsel pleased the godlike Hector sprung Swift from his seat his clanging armour rung. The chief's example follow'd by his train, Each quits his car, and issues on the plain, By orders strict the charioteers enjoin'd Compel the coursers to their ranks behind. The forces part in five distinguish'd bands, And all obey their several chiefs' commands. The best and bravest in the first conspire, Pant for the fight, and threat the fleet with fire Great Hector glorious in the van of these, Polydamas, and brave Cebriones. Before the next the graceful Paris shines, And bold Alcathous, and Agenor joins. The sons of Priam with the third appear, Deiphobus, and Helenas the seer In arms with these the mighty Asius stood, Who drew from Hyrtacus his noble blood, And whom Arisba's yellow coursers bore, The coursers fed on Sell's winding shore. Antenor's sons the fourth battalion guide, And great neas, born on fountful Ide. Divine Sarpedon the last band obey'd, Whom Glaucus and Asteropaeus aid. Next him, the bravest, at their army's head, But he more brave than all the hosts he led. Now with compacted shields in close array, The moving legions speed their headlong way Already in their hopes they fire the fleet, And see the Grecians gasping at their feet. While every Trojan thus, and every aid, The advice of wise Polydamas obey'd, Asius alone, confiding in his car, His vaunted coursers urged to meet the war. Unhappy hero! and advised in vain Those wheels returning ne'er shall mark the plain No more those coursers with triumphant joy Restore their master to the gates of Troy! Black death attends behind the Grecian wall, And great Idomeneus shall boast thy fall! Fierce to the left he drives, where from the plain The flying Grecians strove their ships to gain Swift through the wall their horse and chariots pass'd, The gates halfopen'd to receive the last. Thither, exulting in his force, he flies His following host with clamours rend the skies To plunge the Grecians headlong in the main, Such their proud hopes but all their hopes were vain! To guard the gates, two mighty chiefs attend, Who from the Lapiths' warlike race descend This Polyptes, great Perithous' heir, And that Leonteus, like the god of war. As two tall oaks, before the wall they rise Their roots in earth, their heads amidst the skies Whose spreading arms with leafy honours crown'd, Forbid the tempest, and protect the ground High on the hills appears their stately form, And their deep roots for ever brave the storm. So graceful these, and so the shock they stand Of raging Asius, and his furious band. Orestes, Acamas, in front appear, And nomaus and Thoon close the rear In vain their clamours shake the ambient fields, In vain around them beat their hollow shields The fearless brothers on the Grecians call, To guard their navies, and defend the wall. Even when they saw Troy's sable troops impend, And Greece tumultuous from her towers descend, Forth from the portals rush'd the intrepid pair, Opposed their breasts, and stood themselves the war. So two wild boars spring furious from their den, Roused with the cries of dogs and voice of men On every side the crackling trees they tear, And root the shrubs, and lay the forest bare They gnash their tusks, with fire their eyeballs roll, Till some wide wound lets out their mighty soul. Around their heads the whistling javelins sung, With sounding strokes their brazen targets rung Fierce was the fight, while yet the Grecian powers Maintain'd the walls, and mann'd the lofty towers To save their fleet their last efforts they try, And stones and darts in mingled tempests fly. As when sharp Boreas blows abroad, and brings The dreary winter on his frozen wings Beneath the lowhung clouds the sheets of snow Descend, and whiten all the fields below So fast the darts on either army pour, So down the rampires rolls the rocky shower Heavy, and thick, resound the batter'd shields, And the deaf echo rattles round the fields. With shame repulsed, with grief and fury driven, The frantic Asius thus accuses Heaven 'In powers immortal who shall now believe? Can those too flatter, and can Jove deceive? What man could doubt but Troy's victorious power Should humble Greece, and this her fatal hour? But like when wasps from hollow crannies drive, To guard the entrance of their common hive, Darkening the rock, while with unwearied wings They strike the assailants, and infix their stings A race determined, that to death contend So fierce these Greeks their last retreats defend. Gods! shall two warriors only guard their gates, Repel an army, and defraud the fates? These empty accents mingled with the wind, Nor moved great Jove's unalterable mind To godlike Hector and his matchless might Was owed the glory of the destined fight. Like deeds of arms through all the forts were tried, And all the gates sustain'd an equal tide Through the long walls the stony showers were heard, The blaze of flames, the flash of arms appear'd. The spirit of a god my breast inspire, To raise each act to life, and sing with fire! While Greece unconquer'd kept alive the war, Secure of death, confiding in despair And all her guardian gods, in deep dismay, With unassisting arms deplored the day. Even yet the dauntless Lapithae maintain The dreadful pass, and round them heap the slain. First Damasus, by Polyptes' steel, Pierced through his helmet's brazen visor, fell The weapon drank the mingled brains and gore! The warrior sinks, tremendous now no more! Next Ormenus and Pylon yield their breath Nor less Leonteus strews the field with death First through the belt Hippomachus he gored, Then sudden waved his unresisted sword Antiphates, as through the ranks he broke, The falchion struck, and fate pursued the stroke Iamenus, Orestes, Menon, bled And round him rose a monument of dead. Meantime, the bravest of the Trojan crew, Bold Hector and Polydamas, pursue Fierce with impatience on the works to fall, And wrap in rolling flames the fleet and wall. These on the farther bank now stood and gazed, By Heaven alarm'd, by prodigies amazed A signal omen stopp'd the passing host, Their martial fury in their wonder lost. Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies A bleeding serpent of enormous size, His talons truss'd alive, and curling round, He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey, In airy circles wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, and rends the heaven with cries Amidst the host the fallen serpent lies. They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd, And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold. Then first Polydamas the silence broke, Long weigh'd the signal, and to Hector spoke 'How oft, my brother, thy reproach I bear, For words well meant, and sentiments sincere? True to those counsels which I judge the best, I tell the faithful dictates of my breast. To speak his thoughts is every freeman's right, In peace, in war, in council, and in fight And all I move, deferring to thy sway, But tends to raise that power which I obey. Then hear my words, nor may my words be vain! Seek not this day the Grecian ships to gain For sure, to warn us, Jove his omen sent, And thus my mind explains its clear event The victor eagle, whose sinister flight Retards our host, and fills our hearts with fright, Dismiss'd his conquest in the middle skies, Allow'd to seize, but not possess the prize Thus, though we gird with fires the Grecian fleet, Though these proud bulwalks tumble at our feet, Toils unforeseen, and fiercer, are decreed More woes shall follow, and more heroes bleed. So bodes my soul, and bids me thus advise For thus a skilful seer would read the skies. To him then Hector with disdain return'd (Fierce as he spoke, his eyes with fury burn'd) 'Are these the faithful counsels of thy tongue? Thy will is partial, not thy reason wrong Or if the purpose of thy heart thou vent, Sure heaven resumes the little sense it lent. What coward counsels would thy madness move Against the word, the will reveal'd of Jove? The leading sign, the irrevocable nod, And happy thunders of the favouring god, These shall I slight, and guide my wavering mind By wandering birds that flit with every wind? Ye vagrants of the sky! your wings extend, Or where the suns arise, or where descend To right, to left, unheeded take your way, While I the dictates of high heaven obey. Without a sign his sword the brave man draws, And asks no omen but his country's cause. But why should'st thou suspect the war's success? None fears it more, as none promotes it less Though all our chiefs amidst yon ships expire, Trust thy own cowardice to escape their fire. Troy and her sons may find a general grave, But thou canst live, for thou canst be a slave. Yet should the fears that wary mind suggests Spread their cold poison through our soldiers' breasts, My javelin can revenge so base a part, And free the soul that quivers in thy heart. Furious he spoke, and, rushing to the wall, Calls on his host his host obey the call With ardour follow where their leader flies Redoubling clamours thunder in the skies. Jove breathes a whirlwind from the hills of Ide, And drifts of dust the clouded navy hide He fills the Greeks with terror and dismay, And gives great Hector the predestined day. Strong in themselves, but stronger in his aid, Close to the works their rigid siege they laid. In vain the mounds and massy beams defend, While these they undermine, and those they rend Upheaved the piles that prop the solid wall And heaps on heaps the smoky ruins fall. Greece on her ramparts stands the fierce alarms The crowded bulwarks blaze with waving arms, Shield touching shield, a long refulgent row Whence hissing darts, incessant, rain below. The bold Ajaces fly from tower to tower, And rouse, with flame divine, the Grecian power. The generous impulse every Greek obeys Threats urge the fearful and the valiant, praise. 'Fellows in arms! whose deeds are known to fame, And you, whose ardour hopes an equal name! Since not alike endued with force or art Behold a day when each may act his part! A day to fire the brave, and warm the cold, To gain new glories, or augment the old. Urge those who stand, and those who faint, excite Drown Hector's vaunts in loud exhorts of fight Conquest, not safety, fill the thoughts of all Seek not your fleet, but sally from the wall So Jove once more may drive their routed train, And Troy lie trembling in her walls again. Their ardour kindles all the Grecian powers And now the stones descend in heavier showers. As when high Jove his sharp artillery forms, And opes his cloudy magazine of storms In winter's bleak uncomfortable reign, A snowy inundation hides the plain He stills the winds, and bids the skies to sleep Then pours the silent tempest thick and deep And first the mountaintops are cover'd o'er, Then the green fields, and then the sandy shore Bent with the weight, the nodding woods are seen, And one bright waste hides all the works of men The circling seas, alone absorbing all, Drink the dissolving fleeces as they fall So from each side increased the stony rain, And the white ruin rises o'er the plain. Thus godlike Hector and his troops contend To force the ramparts, and the gates to rend Nor Troy could conquer, nor the Greeks would yield, Till great Sarpedon tower'd amid the field For mighty Jove inspired with martial flame His matchless son, and urged him on to fame. In arms he shines, conspicuous from afar, And bears aloft his ample shield in air Within whose orb the thick bullhides were roll'd, Ponderous with brass, and bound with ductile gold And while two pointed javelins arm his hands, Majestic moves along, and leads his Lycian bands. So press'd with hunger, from the mountain's brow Descends a lion on the flocks below So stalks the lordly savage o'er the plain, In sullen majesty, and stern disdain In vain loud mastiffs bay him from afar, And shepherds gall him with an iron war Regardless, furious, he pursues his way He foams, he roars, he rends the panting prey. Resolved alike, divine Sarpedon glows With generous rage that drives him on the foes. He views the towers, and meditates their fall, To sure destruction dooms the aspiring wall Then casting on his friend an ardent look, Fired with the thirst of glory, thus he spoke 'Why boast we, Glaucus! our extended reign, Where Xanthus' streams enrich the Lycian plain, Our numerous herds that range the fruitful field, And hills where vines their purple harvest yield, Our foaming bowls with purer nectar crown'd, Our feasts enhanced with music's sprightly sound? Why on those shores are we with joy survey'd, Admired as heroes, and as gods obey'd, Unless great acts superior merit prove, And vindicate the bounteous powers above? 'Tis ours, the dignity they give to grace The first in valour, as the first in place That when with wondering eyes our martial bands Behold our deeds transcending our commands, Such, they may cry, deserve the sovereign state, Whom those that envy dare not imitate! Could all our care elude the gloomy grave, Which claims no less the fearful and the brave, For lust of fame I should not vainly dare In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war. But since, alas! ignoble age must come, Disease, and death's inexorable doom, The life, which others pay, let us bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe Brave though we fall, and honour'd if we live, Or let us glory gain, or glory give! He said his words the listening chief inspire With equal warmth, and rouse the warrior's fire The troops pursue their leaders with delight, Rush to the foe, and claim the promised fight. Menestheus from on high the storm beheld Threatening the fort, and blackening in the field Around the walls he gazed, to view from far What aid appear'd to avert the approaching war, And saw where Teucer with the Ajaces stood, Of fight insatiate, prodigal of blood. In vain he calls the din of helms and shields Rings to the skies, and echoes through the fields, The brazen hinges fly, the walls resound, Heaven trembles, roar the mountains, thunders all the ground. Then thus to Thoos 'Hence with speed (he said), And urge the bold Ajaces to our aid Their strength, united, best may help to bear The bloody labours of the doubtful war Hither the Lycian princes bend their course, The best and bravest of the hostile force. But if too fiercely there the foes contend, Let Telamon, at least, our towers defend, And Teucer haste with his unerring bow To share the danger, and repel the foe. Swift, at the word, the herald speeds along The lofty ramparts, through the martial throng, And finds the heroes bathed in sweat and gore, Opposed in combat on the dusty shore. 'Ye valiant leaders of our warlike bands! Your aid (said Thoos) Peteus' son demands Your strength, united, best may help to bear The bloody labours of the doubtful war Thither the Lycian princes bend their course, The best and bravest of the hostile force. But if too fiercely, here, the foes contend, At least, let Telamon those towers defend, And Teucer haste with his unerring bow To share the danger, and repel the foe. Straight to the fort great Ajax turn'd his care, And thus bespoke his brothers of the war 'Now, valiant Lycomede! exert your might, And, brave Oleus, prove your force in fight To you I trust the fortune of the field, Till by this arm the foe shall be repell'd That done, expect me to complete the day. Then with his sevenfold shield he strode away. With equal steps bold Teucer press'd the shore, Whose fatal bow the strong Pandion bore. High on the walls appear'd the Lycian powers, Like some black tempest gathering round the towers The Greeks, oppress'd, their utmost force unite, Prepared to labour in the unequal fight The war renews, mix'd shouts and groans arise Tumultuous clamour mounts, and thickens in the skies. Fierce Ajax first the advancing host invades, And sends the brave Epicles to the shades, Sarpedon's friend. Across the warrior's way, Rent from the walls, a rocky fragment lay In modern ages not the strongest swain Could heave the unwieldy burden from the plain He poised, and swung it round then toss'd on high, It flew with force, and labour'd up the sky Full on the Lycian's helmet thundering down, The ponderous ruin crush'd his batter'd crown. As skilful divers from some airy steep Headlong descend, and shoot into the deep, So falls Epicles then in groans expires, And murmuring to the shades the soul retires. While to the ramparts daring Glaucus drew, From Teucer's hand a winged arrow flew The bearded shaft the destined passage found, And on his naked arm inflicts a wound. The chief, who fear'd some foe's insulting boast Might stop the progress of his warlike host, Conceal'd the wound, and, leaping from his height Retired reluctant from the unfinish'd fight. Divine Sarpedon with regret beheld Disabled Glaucus slowly quit the field His beating breast with generous ardour glows, He springs to fight, and flies upon the foes. Alcmaon first was doom'd his force to feel Deep in his breast he plunged the pointed steel Then from the yawning wound with fury tore The spear, pursued by gushing streams of gore Down sinks the warrior with a thundering sound, His brazen armour rings against the ground. Swift to the battlement the victor flies, Tugs with full force, and every nerve applies It shakes the ponderous stones disjointed yield The rolling ruins smoke along the field. A mighty breach appears the walls lie bare And, like a deluge, rushes in the war. At once bold Teucer draws the twanging bow, And Ajax sends his javelin at the foe Fix'd in his belt the feather'd weapon stood, And through his buckler drove the trembling wood But Jove was present in the dire debate, To shield his offspring, and avert his fate. The prince gave back, not meditating flight, But urging vengeance, and severer fight Then raised with hope, and fired with glory's charms, His fainting squadrons to new fury warms. 'O where, ye Lycians, is the strength you boast? Your former fame and ancient virtue lost! The breach lies open, but your chief in vain Attempts alone the guarded pass to gain Unite, and soon that hostile fleet shall fall The force of powerful union conquers all. This just rebuke inflamed the Lycian crew They join, they thicken, and the assault renew Unmoved the embodied Greeks their fury dare, And fix'd support the weight of all the war Nor could the Greeks repel the Lycian powers, Nor the bold Lycians force the Grecian towers. As on the confines of adjoining grounds, Two stubborn swains with blows dispute their bounds They tug, they sweat but neither gain, nor yield, One foot, one inch, of the contended field Thus obstinate to death, they fight, they fall Nor these can keep, nor those can win the wall. Their manly breasts are pierced with many a wound, Loud strokes are heard, and rattling arms resound The copious slaughter covers all the shore, And the high ramparts drip with human gore. As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads, From side to side the trembling balance nods, (While some laborious matron, just and poor, With nice exactness weighs her woolly store,) Till poised aloft, the resting beam suspends Each equal weight nor this, nor that, descends So stood the war, till Hector's matchless might, With fates prevailing, turn'd the scale of fight. Fierce as a whirlwind up the walls he flies, And fires his host with loud repeated cries. 'Advance, ye Trojans! lend your valiant hands, Haste to the fleet, and toss the blazing brands! They hear, they run and, gathering at his call, Raise scaling engines, and ascend the wall Around the works a wood of glittering spears Shoots up, and all the rising host appears. A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw, Pointed above, and rough and gross below Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise, Such men as live in these degenerate days Yet this, as easy as a swain could bear The snowy fleece, he toss'd, and shook in air For Jove upheld, and lighten'd of its load The unwieldy rock, the labour of a god. Thus arm'd, before the folded gates he came, Of massy substance, and stupendous frame With iron bars and brazen hinges strong, On lofty beams of solid timber hung Then thundering through the planks with forceful sway, Drives the sharp rock the solid beams give way, The folds are shatter'd from the crackling door Leap the resounding bars, the flying hinges roar. Now rushing in, the furious chief appears, Gloomy as night! and shakes two shining spears A dreadful gleam from his bright armour came, And from his eyeballs flash'd the living flame. He moves a god, resistless in his course, And seems a match for more than mortal force. Then pouring after, through the gaping space, A tide of Trojans flows, and fills the place The Greeks behold, they tremble, and they fly The shore is heap'd with death, and tumult rends the sky. GREEK ALTAR ARGUMENT. THE FOURTH BATTLE CONTINUED, IN WHICH NEPTUNE ASSISTS THE GREEKS THE ACTS OF IDOMENEUS. Neptune, concerned for the loss of the Grecians, upon seeing the fortification forced by Hector, (who had entered the gate near the station of the Ajaces,) assumes the shape of Calchas, and inspires those heroes to oppose him then, in the form of one of the generals, encourages the other Greeks who had retired to their vessels. The Ajaces form their troops in a close phalanx, and put a stop to Hector and the Trojans. Several deeds of valour are performed Meriones, losing his spear in the encounter, repairs to seek another at the tent of Idomeneus this occasions a conversation between those two warriors, who return together to the battle. Idomeneus signalizes his courage above the rest he kills Othryoneus, Asius, and Alcathous Deiphobus and neas march against him, and at length Idomeneus retires. Menelaus wounds Helenus, and kills Pisander. The Trojans are repulsed on the left wing Hector still keeps his ground against the Ajaces, till, being galled by the Locrian slingers and archers, Polydamas advises to call a council of war Hector approves of his advice, but goes first to rally the Trojans upbraids Paris, rejoins Polydamas, meets Ajax again, and renews the attack. The eightandtwentieth day still continues. The scene is between the Grecian wall and the seashore. When now the Thunderer on the seabeat coast Had fix'd great Hector and his conquering host, He left them to the fates, in bloody fray To toil and struggle through the wellfought day. Then turn'd to Thracia from the field of fight Those eyes that shed insufferable light, To where the Mysians prove their martial force, And hardy Thracians tame the savage horse And where the farfamed Hippomolgian strays, Renown'd for justice and for length of days Thrice happy race! that, innocent of blood, From milk, innoxious, seek their simple food Jove sees delighted and avoids the scene Of guilty Troy, of arms, and dying men No aid, he deems, to either host is given, While his high law suspends the powers of Heaven. Meantime the monarch of the watery main Observed the Thunderer, nor observed in vain. In Samothracia, on a mountain's brow, Whose waving woods o'erhung the deeps below, He sat and round him cast his azure eyes Where Ida's misty tops confusedly rise Below, fair Ilion's glittering spires were seen The crowded ships and sable seas between. There, from the crystal chambers of the main Emerged, he sat, and mourn'd his Argives slain. At Jove incensed, with grief and fury stung, Prone down the rocky steep he rush'd along Fierce as he pass'd, the lofty mountains nod, The forest shakes earth trembled as he trod, And felt the footsteps of the immortal god. From realm to realm three ample strides he took, And, at the fourth, the distant gae shook. Far in the bay his shining palace stands, Eternal frame! not raised by mortal hands This having reach'd, his brasshoof'd steeds he reins, Fleet as the winds, and deck'd with golden manes. Refulgent arms his mighty limbs infold, Immortal arms of adamant and gold. He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies, He sits superior, and the chariot flies His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep The enormous monsters rolling o'er the deep Gambol around him on the watery way, And heavy whales in awkward measures play The sea subsiding spreads a level plain, Exults, and owns the monarch of the main The parting waves before his coursers fly The wondering waters leave his axle dry. Deep in the liquid regions lies a cave, Between where Tenedos the surges lave, And rocky Imbrus breaks the rolling wave There the great ruler of the azure round Stopp'd his swift chariot, and his steeds unbound, Fed with ambrosial herbage from his hand, And link'd their fetlocks with a golden band, Infrangible, immortal there they stay The father of the floods pursues his way Where, like a tempest, darkening heaven around, Or fiery deluge that devours the ground, The impatient Trojans, in a gloomy throng, Embattled roll'd, as Hector rush'd along To the loud tumult and the barbarous cry The heavens reecho, and the shores reply They vow destruction to the Grecian name, And in their hopes the fleets already flame. But Neptune, rising from the seas profound, The god whose earthquakes rock the solid ground, Now wears a mortal form like Calchas seen, Such his loud voice, and such his manly mien His shouts incessant every Greek inspire, But most the Ajaces, adding fire to fire. NEPTUNE RISING FROM THE SEA ''Tis yours, O warriors, all our hopes to raise Oh recollect your ancient worth and praise! 'Tis yours to save us, if you cease to fear Flight, more than shameful, is destructive here. On other works though Troy with fury fall, And pour her armies o'er our batter'd wall There Greece has strength but this, this part o'erthrown, Her strength were vain I dread for you alone Here Hector rages like the force of fire, Vaunts of his gods, and calls high Jove his sire If yet some heavenly power your breast excite, Breathe in your hearts, and string your arms to fight, Greece yet may live, her threaten'd fleet maintain And Hector's force, and Jove's own aid, be vain. Then with his sceptre, that the deep controls, He touch'd the chiefs, and steel'd their manly souls Strength, not their own, the touch divine imparts, Prompts their light limbs, and swells their daring hearts. Then, as a falcon from the rocky height, Her quarry seen, impetuous at the sight, Forthspringing instant, darts herself from high, Shoots on the wing, and skims along the sky Such, and so swift, the power of ocean flew The wide horizon shut him from their view. The inspiring god Oleus' active son Perceived the first, and thus to Telamon 'Some god, my friend, some god in human form Favouring descends, and wills to stand the storm. Not Calchas this, the venerable seer Short as he turned, I saw the power appear I mark'd his parting, and the steps he trod His own bright evidence reveals a god. Even now some energy divine I share, And seem to walk on wings, and tread in air! 'With equal ardour (Telamon returns) My soul is kindled, and my bosom burns New rising spirits all my force alarm, Lift each impatient limb, and brace my arm. This ready arm, unthinking, shakes the dart The blood pours back, and fortifies my heart Singly, methinks, yon towering chief I meet, And stretch the dreadful Hector at my feet. Full of the god that urged their burning breast, The heroes thus their mutual warmth express'd. Neptune meanwhile the routed Greeks inspired Who, breathless, pale, with length of labours tired, Pant in the ships while Troy to conquest calls, And swarms victorious o'er their yielding walls Trembling before the impending storm they lie, While tears of rage stand burning in their eye. Greece sunk they thought, and this their fatal hour But breathe new courage as they feel the power. Teucer and Leitus first his words excite Then stern Peneleus rises to the fight Thoas, Deipyrus, in arms renown'd, And Merion next, the impulsive fury found Last Nestor's son the same bold ardour takes, While thus the god the martial fire awakes 'Oh lasting infamy, oh dire disgrace To chiefs of vigorous youth, and manly race! I trusted in the gods, and you, to see Brave Greece victorious, and her navy free Ah, nothe glorious combat you disclaim, And one black day clouds all her former fame. Heavens! what a prodigy these eyes survey, Unseen, unthought, till this amazing day! Fly we at length from Troy's oftconquer'd bands? And falls our fleet by such inglorious hands? A rout undisciplined, a straggling train, Not born to glories of the dusty plain Like frighted fawns from hill to hill pursued, A prey to every savage of the wood Shall these, so late who trembled at your name, Invade your camps, involve your ships in flame? A change so shameful, say, what cause has wrought? The soldiers' baseness, or the general's fault? Fools! will ye perish for your leader's vice The purchase infamy, and life the price? 'Tis not your cause, Achilles' injured fame Another's is the crime, but yours the shame. Grant that our chief offend through rage or lust, Must you be cowards, if your king's unjust? Prevent this evil, and your country save Small thought retrieves the spirits of the brave. Think, and subdue! on dastards dead to fame I waste no anger, for they feel no shame But you, the pride, the flower of all our host, My heart weeps blood to see your glory lost! Nor deem this day, this battle, all you lose A day more black, a fate more vile, ensues. Let each reflect, who prizes fame or breath, On endless infamy, on instant death For, lo! the fated time, the appointed shore Hark! the gates burst, the brazen barriers roar! Impetuous Hector thunders at the wall The hour, the spot, to conquer, or to fall. These words the Grecians' fainting hearts inspire, And listening armies catch the godlike fire. Fix'd at his post was each bold Ajax found, With wellranged squadrons strongly circled round So close their order, so disposed their fight, As Pallas' self might view with fix'd delight Or had the god of war inclined his eyes, The god of war had own'd a just surprise. A chosen phalanx, firm, resolved as fate, Descending Hector and his battle wait. An iron scene gleams dreadful o'er the fields, Armour in armour lock'd, and shields in shields, Spears lean on spears, on targets targets throng, Helms stuck to helms, and man drove man along. The floating plumes unnumber'd wave above, As when an earthquake stirs the nodding grove And levell'd at the skies with pointing rays, Their brandish'd lances at each motion blaze. Thus breathing death, in terrible array, The close compacted legions urged their way Fierce they drove on, impatient to destroy Troy charged the first, and Hector first of Troy. As from some mountain's craggy forehead torn, A rock's round fragment flies, with fury borne, (Which from the stubborn stone a torrent rends,) Precipitate the ponderous mass descends From steep to steep the rolling ruin bounds At every shock the crackling wood resounds Still gathering force, it smokes and urged amain, Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plain There stopsso Hector. Their whole force he proved, Resistless when he raged, and, when he stopp'd, unmoved. On him the war is bent, the darts are shed, And all their falchions wave around his head Repulsed he stands, nor from his stand retires But with repeated shouts his army fires. 'Trojans! be firm this arm shall make your way Through yon square body, and that black array Stand, and my spear shall rout their scattering power, Strong as they seem, embattled like a tower For he that Juno's heavenly bosom warms, The first of gods, this day inspires our arms. He said and roused the soul in every breast Urged with desire of fame, beyond the rest, Forth march'd Deiphobus but, marching, held Before his wary steps his ample shield. Bold Merion aim'd a stroke (nor aim'd it wide) The glittering javelin pierced the tough bullhide But pierced not through unfaithful to his hand, The point broke short, and sparkled in the sand. The Trojan warrior, touch'd with timely fear, On the raised orb to distance bore the spear. The Greek, retreating, mourn'd his frustrate blow, And cursed the treacherous lance that spared a foe Then to the ships with surly speed he went, To seek a surer javelin in his tent. Meanwhile with rising rage the battle glows, The tumult thickens, and the clamour grows. By Teucer's arm the warlike Imbrius bleeds, The son of Mentor, rich in generous steeds. Ere yet to Troy the sons of Greece were led, In fair Pedaeus' verdant pastures bred, The youth had dwelt, remote from war's alarms, And blest in bright Medesicaste's arms (This nymph, the fruit of Priam's ravish'd joy, Allied the warrior to the house of Troy) To Troy, when glory call'd his arms, he came, And match'd the bravest of her chiefs in fame With Priam's sons, a guardian of the throne, He lived, beloved and honour'd as his own. Him Teucer pierced between the throat and ear He groans beneath the Telamonian spear. As from some farseen mountain's airy crown, Subdued by steel, a tall ash tumbles down, And soils its verdant tresses on the ground So falls the youth his arms the fall resound. Then Teucer rushing to despoil the dead, From Hector's hand a shining javelin fled He saw, and shunn'd the death the forceful dart Sung on, and pierced Amphimachus's heart, Cteatus' son, of Neptune's forceful line Vain was his courage, and his race divine! Prostrate he falls his clanging arms resound, And his broad buckler thunders on the ground. To seize his beamy helm the victor flies, And just had fastened on the dazzling prize, When Ajax' manly arm a javelin flung Full on the shield's round boss the weapon rung He felt the shock, nor more was doom'd to feel, Secure in mail, and sheath'd in shining steel. Repulsed he yields the victor Greeks obtain The spoils contested, and bear off the slain. Between the leaders of the Athenian line, (Stichius the brave, Menestheus the divine,) Deplored Amphimachus, sad object! lies Imbrius remains the fierce Ajaces' prize. As two grim lions bear across the lawn, Snatch'd from devouring hounds, a slaughter'd fawn. In their fell jaws highlifting through the wood, And sprinkling all the shrubs with drops of blood So these, the chief great Ajax from the dead Strips his bright arms Oleus lops his head Toss'd like a ball, and whirl'd in air away, At Hector's feet the gory visage lay. The god of ocean, fired with stern disdain, And pierced with sorrow for his grandson slain, Inspires the Grecian hearts, confirms their hands, And breathes destruction on the Trojan bands. Swift as a whirlwind rushing to the fleet, He finds the lancefamed Idomen of Crete, His pensive brow the generous care express'd With which a wounded soldier touch'd his breast, Whom in the chance of war a javelin tore, And his sad comrades from the battle bore Him to the surgeons of the camp he sent That office paid, he issued from his tent Fierce for the fight to whom the god begun, In Thoas' voice, Andrmon's valiant son, Who ruled where Calydon's white rocks arise, And Pleuron's chalky cliffs emblaze the skies 'Where's now the imperious vaunt, the daring boast, Of Greece victorious, and proud Ilion lost? To whom the king 'On Greece no blame be thrown Arms are her trade, and war is all her own. Her hardy heroes from the wellfought plains Nor fear withholds, nor shameful sloth detains 'Tis heaven, alas! and Jove's allpowerful doom, That far, far distant from our native home Wills us to fall inglorious! Oh, my friend! Once foremost in the fight, still prone to lend Or arms or counsels, now perform thy best, And what thou canst not singly, urge the rest. Thus he and thus the god whose force can make The solid globe's eternal basis shake 'Ah! never may he see his native land, But feed the vultures on this hateful strand, Who seeks ignobly in his ships to stay, Nor dares to combat on this signal day! For this, behold! in horrid arms I shine, And urge thy soul to rival acts with mine. Together let us battle on the plain Two, not the worst nor even this succour vain Not vain the weakest, if their force unite But ours, the bravest have confess'd in fight. This said, he rushes where the combat burns Swift to his tent the Cretan king returns From thence, two javelins glittering in his hand, And clad in arms that lighten'd all the strand, Fierce on the foe the impetuous hero drove, Like lightning bursting from the arm of Jove, Which to pale man the wrath of heaven declares, Or terrifies the offending world with wars In streamy sparkles, kindling all the skies, From pole to pole the trail of glory flies Thus his bright armour o'er the dazzled throng Gleam'd dreadful, as the monarch flash'd along. Him, near his tent, Meriones attends Whom thus he questions 'Ever best of friends! O say, in every art of battle skill'd, What holds thy courage from so brave a field? On some important message art thou bound, Or bleeds my friend by some unhappy wound? Inglorious here, my soul abhors to stay, And glows with prospects of th' approaching day. 'O prince! (Meriones replies) whose care Leads forth the embattled sons of Crete to war This speaks my grief this headless lance I wield The rest lies rooted in a Trojan shield. To whom the Cretan 'Enter, and receive The wonted weapons those my tent can give Spears I have store, (and Trojan lances all,) That shed a lustre round the illumined wall, Though I, disdainful of the distant war, Nor trust the dart, nor aim the uncertain spear, Yet hand to hand I fight, and spoil the slain And thence these trophies, and these arms I gain. Enter, and see on heaps the helmets roll'd, And highhung spears, and shields that flame with gold. 'Nor vain (said Merion) are our martial toils We too can boast of no ignoble spoils But those my ship contains whence distant far, I fight conspicuous in the van of war, What need I more? If any Greek there be Who knows not Merion, I appeal to thee. To this, Idomeneus 'The fields of fight Have proved thy valour, and unconquer'd might And were some ambush for the foes design'd, Even there thy courage would not lag behind In that sharp service, singled from the rest, The fear of each, or valour, stands confess'd. No force, no firmness, the pale coward shows He shifts his place his colour comes and goes A dropping sweat creeps cold on every part Against his bosom beats his quivering heart Terror and death in his wild eyeballs stare With chattering teeth he stands, and stiffening hair, And looks a bloodless image of despair! Not so the bravestill dauntless, still the same, Unchanged his colour, and unmoved his frame Composed his thought, determined is his eye, And fix'd his soul, to conquer or to die If aught disturb the tenour of his breast, 'Tis but the wish to strike before the rest. 'In such assays thy blameless worth is known, And every art of dangerous war thy own. By chance of fight whatever wounds you bore, Those wounds were glorious all, and all before Such as may teach, 'twas still thy brave delight T'oppose thy bosom where thy foremost fight. But why, like infants, cold to honour's charms, Stand we to talk, when glory calls to arms? Gofrom my conquer'd spears the choicest take, And to their owners send them nobly back. Swift at the word bold Merion snatch'd a spear And, breathing slaughter, follow'd to the war. So Mars armipotent invades the plain, (The wide destroyer of the race of man,) Terror, his bestbeloved son, attends his course, Arm'd with stern boldness, and enormous force The pride of haughty warriors to confound, And lay the strength of tyrants on the ground From Thrace they fly, call'd to the dire alarms Of warring Phlegyans, and Ephyrian arms Invoked by both, relentless they dispose, To these glad conquest, murderous rout to those. So march'd the leaders of the Cretan train, And their bright arms shot horror o'er the plain. Then first spake Merion 'Shall we join the right, Or combat in the centre of the fight? Or to the left our wonted succour lend? Hazard and fame all parts alike attend. 'Not in the centre (Idomen replied) Our ablest chieftains the main battle guide Each godlike Ajax makes that post his care, And gallant Teucer deals destruction there, Skill'd or with shafts to gall the distant field, Or bear close battle on the sounding shield. These can the rage of haughty Hector tame Safe in their arms, the navy fears no flame, Till Jove himself descends, his bolts to shed, And hurl the blazing ruin at our head. Great must he be, of more than human birth, Nor feed like mortals on the fruits of earth. Him neither rocks can crush, nor steel can wound, Whom Ajax fells not on the ensanguined ground. In standing fight he mates Achilles' force, Excell'd alone in swiftness in the course. Then to the left our ready arms apply, And live with glory, or with glory die. He said and Merion to th' appointed place, Fierce as the god of battles, urged his pace. Soon as the foe the shining chiefs beheld Rush like a fiery torrent o'er the field, Their force embodied in a tide they pour The rising combat sounds along the shore. As warring winds, in Sirius' sultry reign, From different quarters sweep the sandy plain On every side the dusty whirlwinds rise, And the dry fields are lifted to the skies Thus by despair, hope, rage, together driven, Met the black hosts, and, meeting, darken'd heaven. All dreadful glared the iron face of war, Bristled with upright spears, that flash'd afar Dire was the gleam of breastplates, helms, and shields, And polish'd arms emblazed the flaming fields Tremendous scene! that general horror gave, But touch'd with joy the bosoms of the brave. Saturn's great sons in fierce contention vied, And crowds of heroes in their anger died. The sire of earth and heaven, by Thetis won To crown with glory Peleus' godlike son, Will'd not destruction to the Grecian powers, But spared awhile the destined Trojan towers While Neptune, rising from his azure main, Warr'd on the king of heaven with stern disdain, And breathed revenge, and fired the Grecian train. Gods of one source, of one ethereal race, Alike divine, and heaven their native place But Jove the greater firstborn of the skies, And more than men, or gods, supremely wise. For this, of Jove's superior might afraid, Neptune in human form conceal'd his aid. These powers enfold the Greek and Trojan train In war and discord's adamantine chain, Indissolubly strong the fatal tie Is stretch'd on both, and close compell'd they die. Dreadful in arms, and grown in combats grey, The bold Idomeneus controls the day. First by his hand Othryoneus was slain, Swell'd with false hopes, with mad ambition vain Call'd by the voice of war to martial fame, From high Cabesus' distant walls he came Cassandra's love he sought, with boasts of power, And promised conquest was the proffer'd dower. The king consented, by his vaunts abused The king consented, but the fates refused. Proud of himself, and of the imagined bride, The field he measured with a larger stride. Him as he stalk'd, the Cretan javelin found Vain was his breastplate to repel the wound His dream of glory lost, he plunged to hell His arms resounded as the boaster fell. The great Idomeneus bestrides the dead 'And thus (he cries) behold thy promise sped! Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring, And such the contract of the Phrygian king! Our offers now, illustrious prince! receive For such an aid what will not Argos give? To conquer Troy, with ours thy forces join, And count Atrides' fairest daughter thine. Meantime, on further methods to advise, Come, follow to the fleet thy new allies There hear what Greece has on her part to say. He spoke, and dragg'd the gory corse away. This Asius view'd, unable to contain, Before his chariot warring on the plain (His crowded coursers, to his squire consign'd, Impatient panted on his neck behind) To vengeance rising with a sudden spring, He hoped the conquest of the Cretan king. The wary Cretan, as his foe drew near, Full on his throat discharged the forceful spear Beneath the chin the point was seen to glide, And glitter'd, extant at the further side. As when the mountainoak, or poplar tall, Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral, Groans to the oftheaved axe, with many a wound, Then spreads a length of ruin o'er the ground So sunk proud Asius in that dreadful day, And stretch'd before his muchloved coursers lay. He grinds the dust distain'd with streaming gore, And, fierce in death, lies foaming on the shore. Deprived of motion, stiff with stupid fear, Stands all aghast his trembling charioteer, Nor shuns the foe, nor turns the steeds away, But falls transfix'd, an unresisting prey Pierced by Antilochus, he pants beneath The stately car, and labours out his breath. Thus Asius' steeds (their mighty master gone) Remain the prize of Nestor's youthful son. Stabb'd at the sight, Deiphobus drew nigh, And made, with force, the vengeful weapon fly. The Cretan saw and, stooping, caused to glance From his slope shield the disappointed lance. Beneath the spacious targe, (a blazing round, Thick with bullhides and brazen orbits bound, On his raised arm by two strong braces stay'd,) He lay collected in defensive shade. O'er his safe head the javelin idly sung, And on the tinkling verge more faintly rung. Even then the spear the vigorous arm confess'd, And pierced, obliquely, king Hypsenor's breast Warm'd in his liver, to the ground it bore The chief, his people's guardian now no more! 'Not unattended (the proud Trojan cries) Nor unrevenged, lamented Asius lies For thee, through hell's black portals stand display'd, This mate shall joy thy melancholy shade. Heartpiercing anguish, at the haughty boast, Touch'd every Greek, but Nestor's son the most. Grieved as he was, his pious arms attend, And his broad buckler shields his slaughter'd friend Till sad Mecistheus and Alastor bore His honour'd body to the tented shore. Nor yet from fight Idomeneus withdraws Resolved to perish in his country's cause, Or find some foe, whom heaven and he shall doom To wail his fate in death's eternal gloom. He sees Alcathous in the front aspire Great syetes was the hero's sire His spouse Hippodame, divinely fair, Anchises' eldest hope, and darling care Who charm'd her parents' and her husband's heart With beauty, sense, and every work of art He once of Ilion's youth the loveliest boy, The fairest she of all the fair of Troy. By Neptune now the hapless hero dies, Who covers with a cloud those beauteous eyes, And fetters every limb yet bent to meet His fate he stands nor shuns the lance of Crete. Fix'd as some column, or deeprooted oak, While the winds sleep his breast received the stroke. Before the ponderous stroke his corslet yields, Long used to ward the death in fighting fields. The riven armour sends a jarring sound His labouring heart heaves with so strong a bound, The long lance shakes, and vibrates in the wound Fast flowing from its source, as prone he lay, Life's purple tide impetuous gush'd away. Then Idomen, insulting o'er the slain 'Behold, Deiphobus! nor vaunt in vain See! on one Greek three Trojan ghosts attend This, my third victim, to the shades I send. Approaching now thy boasted might approve, And try the prowess of the seed of Jove. From Jove, enamour'd of a mortal dame, Great Minos, guardian of his country, came Deucalion, blameless prince, was Minos' heir His firstborn I, the third from Jupiter O'er spacious Crete, and her bold sons, I reign, And thence my ships transport me through the main Lord of a host, o'er all my host I shine, A scourge to thee, thy father, and thy line. The Trojan heard uncertain or to meet, Alone, with venturous arms the king of Crete, Or seek auxiliar force at length decreed To call some hero to partake the deed, Forthwith neas rises to his thought For him in Troy's remotest lines he sought, Where he, incensed at partial Priam, stands, And sees superior posts in meaner hands. To him, ambitious of so great an aid, The bold Deiphobus approach'd, and said 'Now, Trojan prince, employ thy pious arms, If e'er thy bosom felt fair honour's charms. Alcathous dies, thy brother and thy friend Come, and the warrior's loved remains defend. Beneath his cares thy early youth was train'd, One table fed you, and one roof contain'd. This deed to fierce Idomeneus we owe Haste, and revenge it on th' insulting foe. neas heard, and for a space resign'd To tender pity all his manly mind Then rising in his rage, he burns to fight The Greek awaits him with collected might. As the fell boar, on some rough mountain's head, Arm'd with wild terrors, and to slaughter bred, When the loud rustics rise, and shout from far, Attends the tumult, and expects the war O'er his bent back the bristly horrors rise Fires stream in lightning from his sanguine eyes, His foaming tusks both dogs and men engage But most his hunters rouse his mighty rage So stood Idomeneus, his javelin shook, And met the Trojan with a lowering look. Antilochus, Deipyrus, were near, The youthful offspring of the god of war, Merion, and Aphareus, in field renown'd To these the warrior sent his voice around. 'Fellows in arms! your timely aid unite Lo, great neas rushes to the fight Sprung from a god, and more than mortal bold He fresh in youth, and I in arms grown old. Else should this hand, this hour decide the strife, The great dispute, of glory, or of life. He spoke, and all, as with one soul, obey'd Their lifted bucklers cast a dreadful shade Around the chief. neas too demands Th' assisting forces of his native bands Paris, Deiphobus, Agenor, join (Coaids and captains of the Trojan line) In order follow all th' embodied train, Like Ida's flocks proceeding o'er the plain Before his fleecy care, erect and bold, Stalks the proud ram, the father of the bold. With joy the swain surveys them, as he leads To the cool fountains, through the wellknown meads So joys neas, as his native band Moves on in rank, and stretches o'er the land. Round dread Alcathous now the battle rose On every side the steely circle grows Now batter'd breastplates and hack'd helmets ring, And o'er their heads unheeded javelins sing. Above the rest, two towering chiefs appear, There great Idomeneus, neas here. Like gods of war, dispensing fate, they stood, And burn'd to drench the ground with mutual blood. The Trojan weapon whizz'd along in air The Cretan saw, and shunn'd the brazen spear Sent from an arm so strong, the missive wood Stuck deep in earth, and quiver'd where it stood. But OEnomas received the Cretan's stroke The forceful spear his hollow corslet broke, It ripp'd his belly with a ghastly wound, And roll'd the smoking entrails on the ground. Stretch'd on the plain, he sobs away his breath, And, furious, grasps the bloody dust in death. The victor from his breast the weapon tears His spoils he could not, for the shower of spears. Though now unfit an active war to wage, Heavy with cumbrous arms, stiff with cold age, His listless limbs unable for the course, In standing fight he yet maintains his force Till faint with labour, and by foes repell'd, His tired slow steps he drags from off the field. Deiphobus beheld him as he pass'd, And, fired with hate, a parting javelin cast The javelin err'd, but held its course along, And pierced Ascalaphus, the brave and young The son of Mars fell gasping on the ground, And gnash'd the dust, all bloody with his wound. Nor knew the furious father of his fall Highthroned amidst the great Olympian hall, On golden clouds th' immortal synod sate Detain'd from bloody war by Jove and Fate. Now, where in dust the breathless hero lay, For slain Ascalaphus commenced the fray, Deiphobus to seize his helmet flies, And from his temples rends the glittering prize Valiant as Mars, Meriones drew near, And on his loaded arm discharged his spear He drops the weight, disabled with the pain The hollow helmet rings against the plain. Swift as a vulture leaping on his prey, From his torn arm the Grecian rent away The reeking javelin, and rejoin'd his friends. His wounded brother good Polites tends Around his waist his pious arms he threw, And from the rage of battle gently drew Him his swift coursers, on his splendid car, Rapt from the lessening thunder of the war To Troy they drove him, groaning from the shore, And sprinkling, as he pass'd, the sands with gore. Meanwhile fresh slaughter bathes the sanguine ground, Heaps fall on heaps, and heaven and earth resound. Bold Aphareus by great neas bled As toward the chief he turn'd his daring head, He pierced his throat the bending head, depress'd Beneath his helmet, nods upon his breast His shield reversed o'er the fallen warrior lies, And everlasting slumber seals his eyes. Antilochus, as Thoon turn'd him round, Transpierced his back with a dishonest wound The hollow vein, that to the neck extends Along the chine, his eager javelin rends Supine he falls, and to his social train Spreads his imploring arms, but spreads in vain. Thv exulting victor, leaping where he lay, From his broad shoulders tore the spoils away His time observed for closed by foes around, On all sides thick the peals of arms resound. His shield emboss'd the ringing storm sustains, But he impervious and untouch'd remains. (Great Neptune's care preserved from hostile rage This youth, the joy of Nestor's glorious age.) In arms intrepid, with the first he fought, Faced every foe, and every danger sought His winged lance, resistless as the wind, Obeys each motion of the master's mind! Restless it flies, impatient to be free, And meditates the distant enemy. The son of Asius, Adamas, drew near, And struck his target with the brazen spear Fierce in his front but Neptune wards the blow, And blunts the javelin of th' eluded foe In the broad buckler half the weapon stood, Splinter'd on earth flew half the broken wood. Disarm'd, he mingled in the Trojan crew But Merion's spear o'ertook him as he flew, Deep in the belly's rim an entrance found, Where sharp the pang, and mortal is the wound. Bending he fell, and doubled to the ground, Lay panting. Thus an ox in fetters tied, While death's strong pangs distend his labouring side, His bulk enormous on the field displays His heaving heart beats thick as ebbing life decays. The spear the conqueror from his body drew, And death's dim shadows swarm before his view. Next brave Deipyrus in dust was laid King Helenus waved high the Thracian blade, And smote his temples with an arm so strong, The helm fell off, and roll'd amid the throng There for some luckier Greek it rests a prize For dark in death the godlike owner lies! Raging with grief, great Menelaus burns, And fraught with vengeance, to the victor turns That shook the ponderous lance, in act to throw And this stood adverse with the bended bow Full on his breast the Trojan arrow fell, But harmless bounded from the plated steel. As on some ample barn's well harden'd floor, (The winds collected at each open door,) While the broad fan with force is whirl'd around, Light leaps the golden grain, resulting from the ground So from the steel that guards Atrides' heart, Repell'd to distance flies the bounding dart. Atrides, watchful of the unwary foe, Pierced with his lance the hand that grasp'd the bow. And nailed it to the yew the wounded hand Trail'd the long lance that mark'd with blood the sand But good Agenor gently from the wound The spear solicits, and the bandage bound A sling's soft wool, snatch'd from a soldier's side, At once the tent and ligature supplied. Behold! Pisander, urged by fate's decree, Springs through the ranks to fall, and fall by thee, Great Menelaus! to enchance thy fame Hightowering in the front, the warrior came. First the sharp lance was by Atrides thrown The lance far distant by the winds was blown. Nor pierced Pisander through Atrides' shield Pisander's spear fell shiver'd on the field. Not so discouraged, to the future blind, Vain dreams of conquest swell his haughty mind Dauntless he rushes where the Spartan lord Like lightning brandish'd his far beaming sword. His left arm high opposed the shining shield His right beneath, the cover'd poleaxe held (An olive's cloudy grain the handle made, Distinct with studs, and brazen was the blade) This on the helm discharged a noble blow The plume dropp'd nodding to the plain below, Shorn from the crest. Atrides waved his steel Deep through his front the weighty falchion fell The crashing bones before its force gave way In dust and blood the groaning hero lay Forced from their ghastly orbs, and spouting gore, The clotted eyeballs tumble on the shore. And fierce Atrides spurn'd him as he bled, Tore off his arms, and, loudexulting, said 'Thus, Trojans, thus, at length be taught to fear O race perfidious, who delight in war! Already noble deeds ye have perform'd A princess raped transcends a navy storm'd In such bold feats your impious might approve, Without th' assistance, or the fear of Jove. The violated rites, the ravish'd dame Our heroes slaughter'd and our ships on flame, Crimes heap'd on crimes, shall bend your glory down, And whelm in ruins yon flagitious town. O thou, great father! lord of earth and skies, Above the thought of man, supremely wise! If from thy hand the fates of mortals flow, From whence this favour to an impious foe? A godless crew, abandon'd and unjust, Still breathing rapine, violence, and lust? The best of things, beyond their measure, cloy Sleep's balmy blessing, love's endearing joy The feast, the dance whate'er mankind desire, Even the sweet charms of sacred numbers tire. But Troy for ever reaps a dire delight In thirst of slaughter, and in lust of fight. This said, he seized (while yet the carcase heaved) The bloody armour, which his train received Then sudden mix'd among the warring crew, And the bold son of Pylmenes slew. Harpalion had through Asia travell'd far, Following his martial father to the war Through filial love he left his native shore, Never, ah, never to behold it more! His unsuccessful spear he chanced to fling Against the target of the Spartan king Thus of his lance disarm'd, from death he flies, And turns around his apprehensive eyes. Him, through the hip transpiercing as he fled, The shaft of Merion mingled with the dead. Beneath the bone the glancing point descends, And, driving down, the swelling bladder rends Sunk in his sad companions' arms he lay, And in short pantings sobb'd his soul away (Like some vile worm extended on the ground) While life's red torrent gush'd from out the wound. Him on his car the Paphlagonian train In slow procession bore from off the plain. The pensive father, father now no more! Attends the mournful pomp along the shore And unavailing tears profusely shed And, unrevenged, deplored his offspring dead. Paris from far the moving sight beheld, With pity soften'd and with fury swell'd His honour'd host, a youth of matchless grace, And loved of all the Paphlagonian race! With his full strength he bent his angry bow, And wing'd the feather'd vengeance at the foe. A chief there was, the brave Euchenor named, For riches much, and more for virtue famed. Who held his seat in Corinth's stately town Polydus' son, a seer of old renown. Oft had the father told his early doom, By arms abroad, or slow disease at home He climb'd his vessel, prodigal of breath, And chose the certain glorious path to death. Beneath his ear the pointed arrow went The soul came issuing at the narrow vent His limbs, unnerved, drop useless on the ground, And everlasting darkness shades him round. Nor knew great Hector how his legions yield, (Wrapp'd in the cloud and tumult of the field) Wide on the left the force of Greece commands, And conquest hovers o'er th' Achaian bands With such a tide superior virtue sway'd, And he that shakes the solid earth gave aid. But in the centre Hector fix'd remain'd, Where first the gates were forced, and bulwarks gain'd There, on the margin of the hoary deep, (Their naval station where the Ajaces keep. And where low walls confine the beating tides, Whose humble barrier scarce the foe divides Where late in fight both foot and horse engaged, And all the thunder of the battle raged,) There join'd, the whole Botian strength remains, The proud Iaonians with their sweeping trains, Locrians and Phthians, and th' Epaean force But join'd, repel not Hector's fiery course. The flower of Athens, Stichius, Phidas, led Bias and great Menestheus at their head Meges the strong the Epaean bands controll'd, And Dracius prudent, and Amphion bold The Phthians, Medon, famed for martial might, And brave Podarces, active in the fight. This drew from Phylacus his noble line Iphiclus' son and that (Oleus) thine (Young Ajax' brother, by a stolen embrace He dwelt far distant from his native place, By his fierce stepdame from his father's reign Expell'd and exiled for her brother slain) These rule the Phthians, and their arms employ, Mix'd with Botians, on the shores of Troy. Now side by side, with like unwearied care, Each Ajax laboured through the field of war So when two lordly bulls, with equal toil, Force the bright ploughshare through the fallow soil, Join'd to one yoke, the stubborn earth they tear, And trace large furrows with the shining share O'er their huge limbs the foam descends in snow, And streams of sweat down their sour foreheads flow. A train of heroes followed through the field, Who bore by turns great Ajax' sevenfold shield Whene'er he breathed, remissive of his might, Tired with the incessant slaughters of the fight. No following troops his brave associate grace In close engagement an unpractised race, The Locrian squadrons nor the javelin wield, Nor bear the helm, nor lift the moony shield But skill'd from far the flying shaft to wing, Or whirl the sounding pebble from the sling, Dexterous with these they aim a certain wound, Or fell the distant warrior to the ground. Thus in the van the Telamonian train, Throng'd in bright arms, a pressing fight maintain Far in the rear the Locrian archers lie, Whose stones and arrows intercept the sky, The mingled tempest on the foes they pour Troy's scattering orders open to the shower. Now had the Greeks eternal fame acquired, And the gall'd Ilians to their walls retired But sage Polydamas, discreetly brave, Address'd great Hector, and this counsel gave 'Though great in all, thou seem'st averse to lend Impartial audience to a faithful friend To gods and men thy matchless worth is known, And every art of glorious war thy own But in cool thought and counsel to excel, How widely differs this from warring well! Content with what the bounteous gods have given, Seek not alone to engross the gifts of Heaven. To some the powers of bloody war belong, To some sweet music and the charm of song To few, and wondrous few, has Jove assign'd A wise, extensive, allconsidering mind Their guardians these, the nations round confess, And towns and empires for their safety bless. If Heaven have lodged this virtue in my breast, Attend, O Hector! what I judge the best, See, as thou mov'st, on dangers dangers spread, And war's whole fury burns around thy head. Behold! distress'd within yon hostile wall, How many Trojans yield, disperse, or fall! What troops, outnumber'd, scarce the war maintain! And what brave heroes at the ships lie slain! Here cease thy fury and, the chiefs and kings Convoked to council, weigh the sum of things. Whether (the gods succeeding our desires) To yon tall ships to bear the Trojan fires Or quit the fleet, and pass unhurt away, Contented with the conquest of the day. I fear, I fear, lest Greece, not yet undone, Pay the large debt of last revolving sun Achilles, great Achilles, yet remains On yonder decks, and yet o'erlooks the plains! The counsel pleased and Hector, with a bound, Leap'd from his chariot on the trembling ground Swift as he leap'd his clanging arms resound. 'To guard this post (he cried) thy art employ, And here detain the scatter'd youth of Troy Where yonder heroes faint, I bend my way, And hasten back to end the doubtful day. This said, the towering chief prepares to go, Shakes his white plumes that to the breezes flow, And seems a moving mountain topp'd with snow. Through all his host, inspiring force, he flies, And bids anew the martial thunder rise. To Panthus' son, at Hector's high command Haste the bold leaders of the Trojan band But round the battlements, and round the plain, For many a chief he look'd, but look'd in vain Deiphobus, nor Helenus the seer, Nor Asius' son, nor Asius' self appear For these were pierced with many a ghastly wound, Some cold in death, some groaning on the ground Some low in dust, (a mournful object) lay High on the wall some breathed their souls away. Far on the left, amid the throng he found (Cheering the troops, and dealing deaths around) The graceful Paris whom, with fury moved, Opprobrious thus, th' impatient chief reproved 'Illfated Paris! slave to womankind, As smooth of face as fraudulent of mind! Where is Deiphobus, where Asius gone? The godlike father, and th' intrepid son? The force of Helenus, dispensing fate And great Othryoneus, so fear'd of late? Black fate hang's o'er thee from th' avenging gods, Imperial Troy from her foundations nods Whelm'd in thy country's ruin shalt thou fall, And one devouring vengeance swallow all. When Paris thus 'My brother and my friend, Thy warm impatience makes thy tongue offend, In other battles I deserved thy blame, Though then not deedless, nor unknown to fame But since yon rampart by thy arms lay low, I scatter'd slaughter from my fatal bow. The chiefs you seek on yonder shore lie slain Of all those heroes, two alone remain Deiphobus, and Helenus the seer, Each now disabled by a hostile spear. Go then, successful, where thy soul inspires This heart and hand shall second all thy fires What with this arm I can, prepare to know, Till death for death be paid, and blow for blow. But 'tis not ours, with forces not our own To combat strength is of the gods alone. These words the hero's angry mind assuage Then fierce they mingle where the thickest rage. Around Polydamas, distain'd with blood, Cebrion, Phalces, stern Orthaeus stood, Palmus, with Polyptes the divine, And two bold brothers of Hippotion's line (Who reach'd fair Ilion, from Ascania far, The former day the next engaged in war). As when from gloomy clouds a whirlwind springs, That bears Jove's thunder on its dreadful wings, Wide o'er the blasted fields the tempest sweeps Then, gather'd, settles on the hoary deeps The afflicted deeps tumultuous mix and roar The waves behind impel the waves before, Wide rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore Thus rank on rank, the thick battalions throng, Chief urged on chief, and man drove man along. Far o'er the plains, in dreadful order bright, The brazen arms reflect a beamy light Full in the blazing van great Hector shined, Like Mars commission'd to confound mankind. Before him flaming his enormous shield, Like the broad sun, illumined all the field His nodding helm emits a streamy ray His piercing eyes through all the battle stray, And, while beneath his targe he flash'd along, Shot terrors round, that wither'd e'en the strong. Thus stalk'd he, dreadful death was in his look Whole nations fear'd but not an Argive shook. The towering Ajax, with an ample stride, Advanced the first, and thus the chief defied 'Hector! come on thy empty threats forbear 'Tis not thy arm, 'tis thundering Jove we fear The skill of war to us not idly given, Lo! Greece is humbled, not by Troy, but Heaven. Vain are the hopes that haughty mind imparts, To force our fleet the Greeks have hands and hearts. Long ere in flames our lofty navy fall, Your boasted city, and your godbuilt wall, Shall sink beneath us, smoking on the ground And spread a long unmeasured ruin round. The time shall come, when, chased along the plain, Even thou shalt call on Jove, and call in vain Even thou shalt wish, to aid thy desperate course, The wings of falcons for thy flying horse Shalt run, forgetful of a warrior's fame, While clouds of friendly dust conceal thy shame. As thus he spoke, behold, in open view, On sounding wings a dexter eagle flew. To Jove's glad omen all the Grecians rise, And hail, with shouts, his progress through the skies Farechoing clamours bound from side to side They ceased and thus the chief of Troy replied 'From whence this menace, this insulting strain? Enormous boaster! doom'd to vaunt in vain. So may the gods on Hector life bestow, (Not that short life which mortals lead below, But such as those of Jove's high lineage born, The blueeyed maid, or he that gilds the morn,) As this decisive day shall end the fame Of Greece, and Argos be no more a name. And thou, imperious! if thy madness wait The lance of Hector, thou shalt meet thy fate That giantcorse, extended on the shore, Shall largely feast the fowls with fat and gore. He said and like a lion stalk'd along With shouts incessant earth and ocean rung, Sent from his following host the Grecian train With answering thunders fill'd the echoing plain A shout that tore heaven's concave, and, above, Shook the fix'd splendours of the throne of Jove. GREEK EARRINGS ARGUMENT. JUNO DECEIVES JUPITER BY THE GIRDLE OF VENUS. Nestor, sitting at the table with Machaon, is alarmed with the increasing clamour of war, and hastens to Agamemnon on his way he meets that prince with Diomed and Ulysses, whom he informs of the extremity of the danger. Agamemnon proposes to make their escape by night, which Ulysses withstands to which Diomed adds his advice, that, wounded as they were, they should go forth and encourage the army with their presence, which advice is pursued. Juno, seeing the partiality of Jupiter to the Trojans, forms a design to overreach him she sets off her charms with the utmost care, and (the more surely to enchant him) obtains the magic girdle of Venus. She then applies herself to the god of sleep, and, with some difficulty, persuades him to seal the eyes of Jupiter this done, she goes to mount Ida, where the god, at first sight, is ravished with her beauty, sinks in her embraces, and is laid asleep. Neptune takes advantage of his slumber, and succours the Greeks Hector is struck to the ground with a prodigious stone by Ajax, and carried off from the battle several actions succeed, till the Trojans, much distressed, are obliged to give way the lesser Ajax signalizes himself in a particular manner. But not the genial feast, nor flowing bowl, Could charm the cares of Nestor's watchful soul His startled ears the increasing cries attend Then thus, impatient, to his wounded friend 'What new alarm, divine Machaon, say, What mix'd events attend this mighty day? Hark! how the shouts divide, and how they meet, And now come full, and thicken to the fleet! Here with the cordial draught dispel thy care, Let Hecamede the strengthening bath prepare, Refresh thy wound, and cleanse the clotted gore While I the adventures of the day explore. He said and, seizing Thrasymedes' shield, (His valiant offspring,) hasten'd to the field (That day the son his father's buckler bore) Then snatch'd a lance, and issued from the door. Soon as the prospect open'd to his view, His wounded eyes the scene of sorrow knew Dire disarray! the tumult of the fight, The wall in ruins, and the Greeks in flight. As when old ocean's silent surface sleeps, The waves just heaving on the purple deeps While yet the expected tempest hangs on high, Weighs down the cloud, and blackens in the sky, The mass of waters will no wind obey Jove sends one gust, and bids them roll away. While wavering counsels thus his mind engage, Fluctuates in doubtful thought the Pylian sage, To join the host, or to the general haste Debating long, he fixes on the last Yet, as he moves, the sight his bosom warms, The field rings dreadful with the clang of arms, The gleaming falchions flash, the javelins fly Blows echo blows, and all or kill or die. Him, in his march, the wounded princes meet, By tardy steps ascending from the fleet The king of men, Ulysses the divine, And who to Tydeus owes his noble line (Their ships at distance from the battle stand, In lines advanced along the shelving strand Whose bay, the fleet unable to contain At length beside the margin of the main, Rank above rank, the crowded ships they moor Who landed first, lay highest on the shore.) Supported on the spears, they took their way, Unfit to fight, but anxious for the day. Nestor's approach alarm'd each Grecian breast, Whom thus the general of the host address'd 'O grace and glory of the Achaian name What drives thee, Nestor, from the field of fame? Shall then proud Hector see his boast fulfill'd, Our fleets in ashes, and our heroes kill'd? Such was his threat, ah! now too soon made good, On many a Grecian bosom writ in blood. Is every heart inflamed with equal rage Against your king, nor will one chief engage? And have I lived to see with mournful eyes In every Greek a new Achilles rise? Gerenian Nestor then 'So fate has will'd And allconfirming time has fate fulfill'd. Not he that thunders from the aerial bower, Not Jove himself, upon the past has power. The wall, our late inviolable bound, And best defence, lies smoking on the ground Even to the ships their conquering arms extend, And groans of slaughter'd Greeks to heaven ascend. On speedy measures then employ your thought In such distress! if counsel profit aught Arms cannot much though Mars our souls incite, These gaping wounds withhold us from the fight. To him the monarch 'That our army bends, That Troy triumphant our high fleet ascends, And that the rampart, late our surest trust And best defence, lies smoking in the dust All this from Jove's afflictive hand we bear, Who, far from Argos, wills our ruin here. Past are the days when happier Greece was blest, And all his favour, all his aid confess'd Now heaven averse, our hands from battle ties, And lifts the Trojan glory to the skies. Cease we at length to waste our blood in vain, And launch what ships lie nearest to the main Leave these at anchor, till the coming night Then, if impetuous Troy forbear the fight, Bring all to sea, and hoist each sail for flight. Better from evils, well foreseen, to run, Than perish in the danger we may shun. Thus he. The sage Ulysses thus replies, While anger flash'd from his disdainful eyes 'What shameful words (unkingly as thou art) Fall from that trembling tongue and timorous heart? Oh were thy sway the curse of meaner powers, And thou the shame of any host but ours! A host, by Jove endued with martial might, And taught to conquer, or to fall in fight Adventurous combats and bold wars to wage, Employ'd our youth, and yet employs our age. And wilt thou thus desert the Trojan plain? And have whole streams of blood been spilt in vain? In such base sentence if thou couch thy fear, Speak it in whispers, lest a Greek should hear. Lives there a man so dead to fame, who dares To think such meanness, or the thought declares? And comes it even from him whose sovereign sway The banded legions of all Greece obey? Is this a general's voice that calls to flight, While war hangs doubtful, while his soldiers fight? What more could Troy? What yet their fate denies Thou givest the foe all Greece becomes their prize. No more the troops (our hoisted sails in view, Themselves abandon'd) shall the fight pursue But thy ships flying, with despair shall see And owe destruction to a prince like thee. 'Thy just reproofs (Atrides calm replies) Like arrows pierce me, for thy words are wise. Unwilling as I am to lose the host, I force not Greece to quit this hateful coast Glad I submit, whoe'er, or young, or old, Aught, more conducive to our weal, unfold. Tydides cut him short, and thus began 'Such counsel if you seek, behold the man Who boldly gives it, and what he shall say, Young though he be, disdain not to obey A youth, who from the mighty Tydeus springs, May speak to councils and assembled kings. Hear then in me the great OEnides' son, Whose honoured dust (his race of glory run) Lies whelm'd in ruins of the Theban wall Brave in his life, and glorious in his fall. With three bold sons was generous Prothous bless'd, Who Pleuron's walls and Calydon possess'd Melas and Agrius, but (who far surpass'd The rest in courage) neus was the last. From him, my sire. From Calydon expell'd, He pass'd to Argos, and in exile dwell'd The monarch's daughter there (so Jove ordain'd) He won, and flourish'd where Adrastus reign'd There, rich in fortune's gifts, his acres till'd, Beheld his vines their liquid harvest yield, And numerous flocks that whiten'd all the field. Such Tydeus was, the foremost once in fame! Nor lives in Greece a stranger to his name. Then, what for common good my thoughts inspire, Attend, and in the son respect the sire. Though sore of battle, though with wounds oppress'd, Let each go forth, and animate the rest, Advance the glory which he cannot share, Though not partaker, witness of the war. But lest new wounds on wounds o'erpower us quite, Beyond the missile javelin's sounding flight, Safe let us stand and, from the tumult far, Inspire the ranks, and rule the distant war. He added not the listening kings obey, Slow moving on Atrides leads the way. The god of ocean (to inflame their rage) Appears a warrior furrowed o'er with age Press'd in his own, the general's hand he took, And thus the venerable hero spoke 'Atrides! lo! with what disdainful eye Achilles sees his country's forces fly Blind, impious man! whose anger is his guide, Who glories in unutterable pride. So may he perish, so may Jove disclaim The wretch relentless, and o'erwhelm with shame! But Heaven forsakes not thee o'er yonder sands Soon shall thou view the scattered Trojan bands Fly diverse while proud kings, and chiefs renown'd, Driven heaps on heaps, with clouds involved around Of rolling dust, their winged wheels employ To hide their ignominious heads in Troy. He spoke, then rush'd amid the warrior crew, And sent his voice before him as he flew, Loud, as the shout encountering armies yield When twice ten thousand shake the labouring field Such was the voice, and such the thundering sound Of him whose trident rends the solid ground. Each Argive bosom beats to meet the fight, And grisly war appears a pleasing sight. Meantime Saturnia from Olympus' brow, Highthroned in gold, beheld the fields below With joy the glorious conflict she survey'd, Where her great brother gave the Grecians aid. But placed aloft, on Ida's shady height She sees her Jove, and trembles at the sight. Jove to deceive, what methods shall she try, What arts, to blind his allbeholding eye? At length she trusts her power resolved to prove The old, yet still successful, cheat of love Against his wisdom to oppose her charms, And lull the lord of thunders in her arms. Swift to her bright apartment she repairs, Sacred to dress and beauty's pleasing cares With skill divine had Vulcan form'd the bower, Safe from access of each intruding power. Touch'd with her secret key, the doors unfold Selfclosed, behind her shut the valves of gold. Here first she bathes and round her body pours Soft oils of fragrance, and ambrosial showers The winds, perfumed, the balmy gale convey Through heaven, through earth, and all the aerial way Spirit divine! whose exhalation greets The sense of gods with more than mortal sweets. Thus while she breathed of heaven, with decent pride Her artful hands the radiant tresses tied Part on her head in shining ringlets roll'd, Part o'er her shoulders waved like melted gold. Around her next a heavenly mantle flow'd, That rich with Pallas' labour'd colours glow'd Large clasps of gold the foldings gather'd round, A golden zone her swelling bosom bound. Farbeaming pendants tremble in her ear, Each gem illumined with a triple star. Then o'er her head she cast a veil more white Than newfallen snow, and dazzling as the light. Last her fair feet celestial sandals grace. Thus issuing radiant with majestic pace, Forth from the dome the imperial goddess moves, And calls the mother of the smiles and loves. 'How long (to Venus thus apart she cried) Shall human strife celestial minds divide? Ah yet, will Venus aid Saturnia's joy, And set aside the cause of Greece and Troy? 'Let heaven's dread empress (Cytheraea said) Speak her request, and deem her will obey'd. 'Then grant me (said the queen) those conquering charms, That power, which mortals and immortals warms, That love, which melts mankind in fierce desires, And burns the sons of heaven with sacred fires! 'For lo! I haste to those remote abodes, Where the great parents, (sacred source of gods!) Ocean and Tethys their old empire keep, On the last limits of the land and deep. In their kind arms my tender years were past What time old Saturn, from Olympus cast, Of upper heaven to Jove resign'd the reign, Whelm'd under the huge mass of earth and main. For strife, I hear, has made the union cease, Which held so long that ancient pair in peace. What honour, and what love, shall I obtain, If I compose those fatal feuds again Once more their minds in mutual ties engage, And, what my youth has owed, repay their age! She said. With awe divine, the queen of love Obey'd the sister and the wife of Jove And from her fragrant breast the zone embraced, With various skill and high embroidery graced. In this was every art, and every charm, To win the wisest, and the coldest warm Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire, The kind deceit, the stillreviving fire, Persuasive speech, and the more persuasive sighs, Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes. This on her hand the Cyprian Goddess laid 'Take this, and with it all thy wish she said. With smiles she took the charm and smiling press'd The powerful cestus to her snowy breast. Then Venus to the courts of Jove withdrew Whilst from Olympus pleased Saturnia flew. O'er high Pieria thence her course she bore, O'er fair Emathia's everpleasing shore, O'er Hemus' hills with snows eternal crown'd Nor once her flying foot approach'd the ground. Then taking wing from Athos' lofty steep, She speeds to Lemnos o'er the rolling deep, And seeks the cave of Death's halfbrother, Sleep. 'Sweet pleasing Sleep! (Saturnia thus began) Who spread'st thy empire o'er each god and man If e'er obsequious to thy Juno's will, O power of slumbers! hear, and favour still. Shed thy soft dews on Jove's immortal eyes, While sunk in love's entrancing joys he lies. A splendid footstool, and a throne, that shine With gold unfading, Somnus, shall be thine The work of Vulcan to indulge thy ease, When wine and feasts thy golden humours please. 'Imperial dame (the balmy power replies), Great Saturn's heir, and empress of the skies! O'er other gods I spread my easy chain The sire of all, old Ocean, owns my reign. And his hush'd waves lie silent on the main. But how, unbidden, shall I dare to steep Jove's awful temples in the dew of sleep? Long since, too venturous, at thy bold command, On those eternal lids I laid my hand What time, deserting Ilion's wasted plain, His conquering son, Alcides, plough'd the main. When lo! the deeps arise, the tempests roar, And drive the hero to the Coan shore Great Jove, awaking, shook the blest abodes With rising wrath, and tumbled gods on gods Me chief he sought, and from the realms on high Had hurl'd indignant to the nether sky, But gentle Night, to whom I fled for aid, (The friend of earth and heaven,) her wings display'd Impower'd the wrath of gods and men to tame, Even Jove revered the venerable dame. 'Vain are thy fears (the queen of heaven replies, And, speaking, rolls her large majestic eyes) Think'st thou that Troy has Jove's high favour won, Like great Alcides, his allconquering son? Hear, and obey the mistress of the skies, Nor for the deed expect a vulgar prize For know, thy lovedone shall be ever thine, The youngest Grace, Pasitha the divine. 'Swear then (he said) by those tremendous floods That roar through hell, and bind the invoking gods Let the great parent earth one hand sustain, And stretch the other o'er the sacred main Call the black Titans, that with Chronos dwell, To hear and witness from the depths of hell That she, my lovedone, shall be ever mine, The youngest Grace, Pasitha the divine. The queen assents, and from the infernal bowers Invokes the sable subtartarean powers, And those who rule the inviolable floods, Whom mortals name the dread Titanian gods. SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER Then swift as wind, o'er Lemnos' smoky isle They wing their way, and Imbrus' seabeat soil Through air, unseen, involved in darkness glide, And light on Lectos, on the point of Ide (Mother of savages, whose echoing hills Are heard resounding with a hundred rills) Fair Ida trembles underneath the god Hush'd are her mountains, and her forests nod. There on a fir, whose spiry branches rise To join its summit to the neighbouring skies Dark in embowering shade, conceal'd from sight, Sat Sleep, in likeness of the bird of night. (Chalcis his name by those of heavenly birth, But call'd Cymindis by the race of earth.) To Ida's top successful Juno flies Great Jove surveys her with desiring eyes The god, whose lightning sets the heavens on fire, Through all his bosom feels the fierce desire Fierce as when first by stealth he seized her charms, Mix'd with her soul, and melted in her arms Fix'd on her eyes he fed his eager look, Then press'd her hand, and thus with transport spoke 'Why comes my goddess from the ethereal sky, And not her steeds and flaming chariot nigh? Then she'I haste to those remote abodes Where the great parents of the deathless gods, The reverend Ocean and gray Tethys, reign, On the last limits of the land and main. I visit these, to whose indulgent cares I owe the nursing of my tender years For strife, I hear, has made that union cease Which held so long that ancient pair in peace. The steeds, prepared my chariot to convey O'er earth and seas, and through the aerial way, Wait under Ide of thy superior power To ask consent, I leave the Olympian bower Nor seek, unknown to thee, the sacred cells Deep under seas, where hoary Ocean dwells. 'For that (said Jove) suffice another day! But eager love denies the least delay. Let softer cares the present hour employ, And be these moments sacred all to joy. Ne'er did my soul so strong a passion prove, Or for an earthly, or a heavenly love Not when I press'd Ixion's matchless dame, Whence rose Pirithous like the gods in fame Not when fair Danae felt the shower of gold Stream into life, whence Perseus brave and bold. Not thus I burn'd for either Theban dame (Bacchus from this, from that Alcides came) Nor Phnix' daughter, beautiful and young, Whence godlike Rhadamanth and Minos sprung. Not thus I burn'd for fair Latona's face, Nor comelier Ceres' more majestic grace. Not thus even for thyself I felt desire, As now my veins receive the pleasing fire. He spoke the goddess with the charming eyes Glows with celestial red, and thus replies 'Is this a scene for love? On Ida's height, Exposed to mortal and immortal sight! Our joys profaned by each familiar eye The sport of heaven, and fable of the sky How shall I e'er review the blest abodes, Or mix among the senate of the gods? Shall I not think, that, with disorder'd charms, All heaven beholds me recent from thy arms? With skill divine has Vulcan form'd thy bower, Sacred to love and to the genial hour If such thy will, to that recess retire, In secret there indulge thy soft desire. She ceased and, smiling with superior love, Thus answer'd mild the cloudcompelling Jove 'Nor god nor mortal shall our joys behold, Shaded with clouds, and circumfused in gold Not even the sun, who darts through heaven his rays, And whose broad eye the extended earth surveys. Gazing he spoke, and, kindling at the view, His eager arms around the goddess threw. Glad Earth perceives, and from her bosom pours Unbidden herbs and voluntary flowers Thick newborn violets a soft carpet spread, And clustering lotos swell'd the rising bed, And sudden hyacinths the turf bestrow, And flamy crocus made the mountain glow There golden clouds conceal the heavenly pair, Steep'd in soft joys and circumfused with air Celestial dews, descending o'er the ground, Perfume the mount, and breathe ambrosia round At length, with love and sleep's soft power oppress'd, The panting thunderer nods, and sinks to rest. Now to the navy borne on silent wings, To Neptune's ear soft Sleep his message brings Beside him sudden, unperceived, he stood, And thus with gentle words address'd the god 'Now, Neptune! now, the important hour employ, To check a while the haughty hopes of Troy While Jove yet rests, while yet my vapours shed The golden vision round his sacred head For Juno's love, and Somnus' pleasing ties, Have closed those awful and eternal eyes. Thus having said, the power of slumber flew, On human lids to drop the balmy dew. Neptune, with zeal increased, renews his care, And towering in the foremost ranks of war, Indignant thus'Oh once of martial fame! O Greeks! if yet ye can deserve the name! This halfrecover'd day shall Troy obtain? Shall Hector thunder at your ships again? Lo! still he vaunts, and threats the fleet with fires, While stern Achilles in his wrath retires. One hero's loss too tamely you deplore, Be still yourselves, and ye shall need no more. Oh yet, if glory any bosom warms, Brace on your firmest helms, and stand to arms His strongest spear each valiant Grecian wield, Each valiant Grecian seize his broadest shield Let to the weak the lighter arms belong, The ponderous targe be wielded by the strong. Thus arm'd, not Hector shall our presence stay Myself, ye Greeks! myself will lead the way. GREEK SHIELD The troops assent their martial arms they change The busy chiefs their banded legions range. The kings, though wounded, and oppress'd with pain, With helpful hands themselves assist the train. The strong and cumbrous arms the valiant wield, The weaker warrior takes a lighter shield. Thus sheath'd in shining brass, in bright array The legions march, and Neptune leads the way His brandish'd falchion flames before their eyes, Like lightning flashing through the frighted skies. Clad in his might, the earthshaking power appears Pale mortals tremble, and confess their fears. Troy's great defender stands alone unawed, Arms his proud host, and dares oppose a god And lo! the god, and wondrous man, appear The sea's stern ruler there, and Hector here. The roaring main, at her great master's call, Rose in huge ranks, and form'd a watery wall Around the ships seas hanging o'er the shores, Both armies join earth thunders, ocean roars. Not half so loud the bellowing deeps resound, When stormy winds disclose the dark profound Less loud the winds that from the olian hall Roar through the woods, and make whole forests fall Less loud the woods, when flames in torrents pour, Catch the dry mountain, and its shades devour With such a rage the meeting hosts are driven, And such a clamour shakes the sounding heaven. The first bold javelin, urged by Hector's force, Direct at Ajax' bosom winged its course But there no pass the crossing belts afford, (One braced his shield, and one sustain'd his sword.) Then back the disappointed Trojan drew, And cursed the lance that unavailing flew But 'scaped not Ajax his tempestuous hand A ponderous stone upheaving from the sand, (Where heaps laid loose beneath the warrior's feet, Or served to ballast, or to prop the fleet,) Toss'd round and round, the missive marble flings On the razed shield the fallen ruin rings, Full on his breast and throat with force descends Nor deaden'd there its giddy fury spends, But whirling on, with many a fiery round, Smokes in the dust, and ploughs into the ground. As when the bolt, redhissing from above, Darts on the consecrated plant of Jove, The mountainoak in flaming ruin lies, Black from the blow, and smokes of sulphur rise Stiff with amaze the pale beholders stand, And own the terrors of the almighty hand! So lies great Hector prostrate on the shore His slacken'd hand deserts the lance it bore His following shield the fallen chief o'erspread Beneath his helmet dropp'd his fainting head His load of armour, sinking to the ground, Clanks on the field, a dead and hollow sound. Loud shouts of triumph fill the crowded plain Greece sees, in hope, Troy's great defender slain All spring to seize him storms of arrows fly, And thicker javelins intercept the sky. In vain an iron tempest hisses round He lies protected, and without a wound. Polydamas, Agenor the divine, The pious warrior of Anchises' line, And each bold leader of the Lycian band, With covering shields (a friendly circle) stand, His mournful followers, with assistant care, The groaning hero to his chariot bear His foaming coursers, swifter than the wind, Speed to the town, and leave the war behind. When now they touch'd the mead's enamell'd side, Where gentle Xanthus rolls his easy tide, With watery drops the chief they sprinkle round, Placed on the margin of the flowery ground. Raised on his knees, he now ejects the gore Now faints anew, lowsinking on the shore By fits he breathes, half views the fleeting skies, And seals again, by fits, his swimming eyes. Soon as the Greeks the chief's retreat beheld, With double fury each invades the field. Oilean Ajax first his javelin sped, Pierced by whose point the son of Enops bled (Satnius the brave, whom beauteous Neis bore Amidst her flocks on Satnio's silver shore) Struck through the belly's rim, the warrior lies Supine, and shades eternal veil his eyes. An arduous battle rose around the dead By turns the Greeks, by turns the Trojans bled. Fired with revenge, Polydamas drew near, And at Prothonor shook the trembling spear The driving javelin through his shoulder thrust, He sinks to earth, and grasps the bloody dust. 'Lo thus (the victor cries) we rule the field, And thus their arms the race of Panthus wield From this unerring hand there flies no dart But bathes its point within a Grecian heart. Propp'd on that spear to which thou owest thy fall, Go, guide thy darksome steps to Pluto's dreary hall. He said, and sorrow touch'd each Argive breast The soul of Ajax burn'd above the rest. As by his side the groaning warrior fell, At the fierce foe he launch'd his piercing steel The foe, reclining, shunn'd the flying death But fate, Archilochus, demands thy breath Thy lofty birth no succour could impart, The wings of death o'ertook thee on the dart Swift to perform heaven's fatal will, it fled Full on the juncture of the neck and head, And took the joint, and cut the nerves in twain The dropping head first tumbled on the plain. So just the stroke, that yet the body stood Erect, then roll'd along the sands in blood. 'Here, proud Polydamas, here turn thy eyes! (The towering Ajax loudinsulting cries) Say, is this chief extended on the plain A worthy vengeance for Prothonor slain? Mark well his port! his figure and his face Nor speak him vulgar, nor of vulgar race Some lines, methinks, may make his lineage known, Antenor's brother, or perhaps his son. He spake, and smiled severe, for well he knew The bleeding youth Troy sadden'd at the view. But furious Acamas avenged his cause As Promachus his slaughtered brother draws, He pierced his heart'Such fate attends you all, Proud Argives! destined by our arms to fall. Not Troy alone, but haughty Greece, shall share The toils, the sorrows, and the wounds of war. Behold your Promachus deprived of breath, A victim owed to my brave brother's death. Not unappeased he enters Pluto's gate, Who leaves a brother to revenge his fate. Heartpiercing anguish struck the Grecian host, But touch'd the breast of bold Peneleus most At the proud boaster he directs his course The boaster flies, and shuns superior force. But young Ilioneus received the spear Ilioneus, his father's only care (Phorbas the rich, of all the Trojan train Whom Hermes loved, and taught the arts of gain) Full in his eye the weapon chanced to fall, And from the fibres scoop'd the rooted ball, Drove through the neck, and hurl'd him to the plain He lifts his miserable arms in vain! Swift his broad falchion fierce Peneleus spread, And from the spouting shoulders struck his head To earth at once the head and helmet fly The lance, yet sticking through the bleeding eye, The victor seized and, as aloft he shook The gory visage, thus insulting spoke 'Trojans! your great Ilioneus behold! Haste, to his father let the tale be told Let his high roofs resound with frantic woe, Such as the house of Promachus must know Let doleful tidings greet his mother's ear, Such as to Promachus' sad spouse we bear, When we victorious shall to Greece return, And the pale matron in our triumphs mourn. Dreadful he spoke, then toss'd the head on high The Trojans hear, they tremble, and they fly Aghast they gaze around the fleet and wall, And dread the ruin that impends on all. Daughters of Jove! that on Olympus shine, Ye allbeholding, allrecording nine! O say, when Neptune made proud Ilion yield, What chief, what hero first embrued the field? Of all the Grecians what immortal name, And whose bless'd trophies, will ye raise to fame? Thou first, great Ajax! on the unsanguined plain Laid Hyrtius, leader of the Mysian train. Phalces and Mermer, Nestor's son o'erthrew, Bold Merion, Morys and Hippotion slew. Strong Periphaetes and Prothoon bled, By Teucer's arrows mingled with the dead, Pierced in the flank by Menelaus' steel, His people's pastor, Hyperenor fell Eternal darkness wrapp'd the warrior round, And the fierce soul came rushing through the wound. But stretch'd in heaps before Oleus' son, Fall mighty numbers, mighty numbers run Ajax the less, of all the Grecian race Skill'd in pursuit, and swiftest in the chase. BACCHUS ARGUMENT. THE FIFTH BATTLE AT THE SHIPS AND THE ACTS OF AJAX. Jupiter, awaking, sees the Trojans repulsed from the trenches, Hector in a swoon, and Neptune at the head of the Greeks he is highly incensed at the artifice of Juno, who appeases him by her submissions she is then sent to Iris and Apollo. Juno, repairing to the assembly of the gods, attempts, with extraordinary address, to incense them against Jupiter in particular she touches Mars with a violent resentment he is ready to take arms, but is prevented by Minerva. Iris and Apollo obey the orders of Jupiter Iris commands Neptune to leave the battle, to which, after much reluctance and passion, he consents. Apollo reinspires Hector with vigour, brings him back to the battle, marches before him with his gis, and turns the fortune of the fight. He breaks down great part of the Grecian wall the Trojans rush in, and attempt to fire the first line of the fleet, but are, as yet, repelled by the greater Ajax with a prodigious slaughter. Now in swift flight they pass the trench profound, And many a chief lay gasping on the ground Then stopp'd and panted, where the chariots lie Fear on their cheek, and horror in their eye. Meanwhile, awaken'd from his dream of love, On Ida's summit sat imperial Jove Round the wide fields he cast a careful view, There saw the Trojans fly, the Greeks pursue These proud in arms, those scatter'd o'er the plain And, 'midst the war, the monarch of the main. Not far, great Hector on the dust he spies, (His sad associates round with weeping eyes,) Ejecting blood, and panting yet for breath, His senses wandering to the verge of death. The god beheld him with a pitying look, And thus, incensed, to fraudful Juno spoke 'O thou, still adverse to the eternal will, For ever studious in promoting ill! Thy arts have made the godlike Hector yield, And driven his conquering squadrons from the field. Canst thou, unhappy in thy wiles, withstand Our power immense, and brave the almighty hand? Hast thou forgot, when, bound and fix'd on high, From the vast concave of the spangled sky, I hung thee trembling in a golden chain, And all the raging gods opposed in vain? Headlong I hurl'd them from the Olympian hall, Stunn'd in the whirl, and breathless with the fall. For godlike Hercules these deeds were done, Nor seem'd the vengeance worthy such a son When, by thy wiles induced, fierce Boreas toss'd The shipwreck'd hero on the Coan coast, Him through a thousand forms of death I bore, And sent to Argos, and his native shore. Hear this, remember, and our fury dread, Nor pull the unwilling vengeance on thy head Lest arts and blandishments successless prove, Thy soft deceits, and welldissembled love. The Thunderer spoke imperial Juno mourn'd, And, trembling, these submissive words return'd 'By every oath that powers immortal ties, The foodful earth and allinfolding skies By thy black waves, tremendous Styx! that flow Through the drear realms of gliding ghosts below By the dread honours of thy sacred head, And that unbroken vow, our virgin bed! Not by my arts the ruler of the main Steeps Troy in blood, and ranges round the plain By his own ardour, his own pity sway'd, To help his Greeks, he fought and disobey'd Else had thy Juno better counsels given, And taught submission to the sire of heaven. 'Think'st thou with me? fair empress of the skies! (The immortal father with a smile replies) Then soon the haughty seagod shall obey, Nor dare to act but when we point the way. If truth inspires thy tongue, proclaim our will To yon bright synod on the Olympian hill Our high decree let various Iris know, And call the god that bears the silver bow. Let her descend, and from the embattled plain Command the seagod to his watery reign While Phbus hastes great Hector to prepare To rise afresh, and once more wake the war His labouring bosom reinspires with breath, And calls his senses from the verge of death. Greece chased by Troy, even to Achilles' fleet, Shall fall by thousands at the hero's feet. He, not untouch'd with pity, to the plain Shall send Patroclus, but shall send in vain. What youths he slaughters under Ilion's walls! Even my loved son, divine Sarpedon, falls! Vanquish'd at last by Hector's lance he lies. Then, nor till then, shall great Achilles rise And lo! that instant, godlike Hector dies. From that great hour the war's whole fortune turns, Pallas assists, and lofty Ilion burns. Not till that day shall Jove relax his rage, Nor one of all the heavenly host engage In aid of Greece. The promise of a god I gave, and seal'd it with the almighty nod, Achilles' glory to the stars to raise Such was our word, and fate the word obeys. The trembling queen (the almighty order given) Swift from the Idaean summit shot to heaven. As some wayfaring man, who wanders o'er In thought a length of lands he trod before, Sends forth his active mind from place to place, Joins hill to dale, and measures space with space So swift flew Juno to the bless'd abodes, If thought of man can match the speed of gods. There sat the powers in awful synod placed They bow'd, and made obeisance as she pass'd Through all the brazen dome with goblets crown'd They hail her queen the nectar streams around. Fair Themis first presents the golden bowl, And anxious asks what cares disturb her soul? To whom the whitearm'd goddess thus replies 'Enough thou know'st the tyrant of the skies, Severely bent his purpose to fulfil, Unmoved his mind, and unrestrain'd his will. Go thou, the feasts of heaven attend thy call Bid the crown'd nectar circle round the hall But Jove shall thunder through the ethereal dome Such stern decrees, such threaten'd woes to come, As soon shall freeze mankind with dire surprise, And damp the eternal banquets of the skies. The goddess said, and sullen took her place Black horror sadden'd each celestial face. To see the gathering grudge in every breast, Smiles on her lips a spleenful joy express'd While on her wrinkled front, and eyebrow bent, Sat stedfast care, and lowering discontent. Thus she proceeds'Attend, ye powers above! But know, 'tis madness to contest with Jove Supreme he sits and sees, in pride of sway. Your vassal godheads grudgingly obey Fierce in the majesty of power controls Shakes all the thrones of heaven, and bends the poles. Submiss, immortals! all he wills, obey And thou, great Mars, begin and show the way. Behold Ascalaphus! behold him die, But dare not murmur, dare not vent a sigh Thy own loved boasted offspring lies o'erthrown, If that loved boasted offspring be thy own. Stern Mars, with anguish for his slaughter'd son, Smote his rebelling breast, and fierce begun 'Thus then, immortals! thus shall Mars obey Forgive me, gods, and yield my vengeance way Descending first to yon forbidden plain, The god of battles dares avenge the slain Dares, though the thunder bursting o'er my head Should hurl me blazing on those heaps of dead. With that he gives command to Fear and Flight To join his rapid coursers for the fight Then grim in arms, with hasty vengeance flies Arms that reflect a radiance through the skies. And now had Jove, by bold rebellion driven, Discharged his wrath on half the host of heaven But Pallas, springing through the bright abode, Starts from her azure throne to calm the god. Struck for the immortal race with timely fear, From frantic Mars she snatch'd the shield and spear Then the huge helmet lifting from his head, Thus to the impetuous homicide she said 'By what wild passion, furious! art thou toss'd? Striv'st thou with Jove? thou art already lost. Shall not the Thunderer's dread command restrain, And was imperial Juno heard in vain? Back to the skies wouldst thou with shame be driven, And in thy guilt involve the host of heaven? Ilion and Greece no more should Jove engage, The skies would yield an ampler scene of rage Guilty and guiltless find an equal fate And one vast ruin whelm the Olympian state. Cease then thy offspring's death unjust to call Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall. Why should heaven's law with foolish man comply Exempted from the race ordain'd to die? This menace fix'd the warrior to his throne Sullen he sat, and curb'd the rising groan. Then Juno call'd (Jove's orders to obey) The winged Iris, and the god of day. 'Go wait the Thunderer's will (Saturnia cried) On yon tall summit of the fountful Ide There in the father's awful presence stand, Receive, and execute his dread command. She said, and sat the god that gilds the day, And various Iris, wing their airy way. Swift as the wind, to Ida's hills they came, (Fair nurse of fountains, and of savage game) There sat the eternal he whose nod controls The trembling world, and shakes the steady poles. Veil'd in a mist of fragrance him they found, With clouds of gold and purple circled round. Wellpleased the Thunderer saw their earnest care, And prompt obedience to the queen of air Then (while a smile serenes his awful brow) Commands the goddess of the showery bow 'Iris! descend, and what we here ordain, Report to yon mad tyrant of the main. Bid him from fight to his own deeps repair, Or breathe from slaughter in the fields of air. If he refuse, then let him timely weigh Our elder birthright, and superior sway. How shall his rashness stand the dire alarms, If heaven's omnipotence descend in arms? Strives he with me, by whom his power was given, And is there equal to the lord of heaven? The allmighty spoke the goddess wing'd her flight To sacred Ilion from the Idaean height. Swift as the rattling hail, or fleecy snows, Drive through the skies, when Boreas fiercely blows So from the clouds descending Iris falls, And to blue Neptune thus the goddess calls 'Attend the mandate of the sire above! In me behold the messenger of Jove He bids thee from forbidden wars repair To thine own deeps, or to the fields of air. This if refused, he bids thee timely weigh His elder birthright, and superior sway. How shall thy rashness stand the dire alarms If heaven's omnipotence descend in arms? Striv'st thou with him by whom all power is given? And art thou equal to the lord of heaven? 'What means the haughty sovereign of the skies? (The king of ocean thus, incensed, replies) Rule as he will his portion'd realms on high No vassal god, nor of his train, am I. Three brother deities from Saturn came, And ancient Rhea, earth's immortal dame Assign'd by lot, our triple rule we know Infernal Pluto sways the shades below O'er the wide clouds, and o'er the starry plain, Ethereal Jove extends his high domain My court beneath the hoary waves I keep, And hush the roarings of the sacred deep Olympus, and this earth, in common lie What claim has here the tyrant of the sky? Far in the distant clouds let him control, And awe the younger brothers of the pole There to his children his commands be given, The trembling, servile, second race of heaven. 'And must I then (said she), O sire of floods! Bear this fierce answer to the king of gods? Correct it yet, and change thy rash intent A noble mind disdains not to repent. To elder brothers guardian fiends are given, To scourge the wretch insulting them and heaven. 'Great is the profit (thus the god rejoin'd) When ministers are blest with prudent mind Warn'd by thy words, to powerful Jove I yield, And quit, though angry, the contended field Not but his threats with justice I disclaim, The same our honours, and our birth the same. If yet, forgetful of his promise given To Hermes, Pallas, and the queen of heaven, To favour Ilion, that perfidious place, He breaks his faith with half the ethereal race Give him to know, unless the Grecian train Lay yon proud structures level with the plain, Howe'er the offence by other gods be pass'd, The wrath of Neptune shall for ever last. Thus speaking, furious from the field he strode, And plunged into the bosom of the flood. The lord of thunders, from his lofty height Beheld, and thus bespoke the source of light 'Behold! the god whose liquid arms are hurl'd Around the globe, whose earthquakes rock the world, Desists at length his rebelwar to wage, Seeks his own seas, and trembles at our rage Else had my wrath, heaven's thrones all shaking round, Burn'd to the bottom of his seas profound And all the gods that round old Saturn dwell Had heard the thunders to the deeps of hell. Well was the crime, and well the vengeance spared Even power immense had found such battle hard. Go thou, my son! the trembling Greeks alarm, Shake my broad gis on thy active arm, Be godlike Hector thy peculiar care, Swell his bold heart, and urge his strength to war Let Ilion conquer, till the Achaian train Fly to their ships and Hellespont again Then Greece shall breathe from toils. The godhead said His will divine the son of Jove obey'd. Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies, That drives a turtle through the liquid skies, As Phbus, shooting from the Idaean brow, Glides down the mountain to the plain below. There Hector seated by the stream he sees, His sense returning with the coming breeze Again his pulses beat, his spirits rise Again his loved companions meet his eyes Jove thinking of his pains, they pass'd away, To whom the god who gives the golden day 'Why sits great Hector from the field so far? What grief, what wound, withholds thee from the war? The fainting hero, as the vision bright Stood shining o'er him, half unseal'd his sight 'What blest immortal, with commanding breath, Thus wakens Hector from the sleep of death? Has fame not told, how, while my trusty sword Bathed Greece in slaughter, and her battle gored, The mighty Ajax with a deadly blow Had almost sunk me to the shades below? Even yet, methinks, the gliding ghosts I spy, And hell's black horrors swim before my eye. To him Apollo 'Be no more dismay'd See, and be strong! the Thunderer sends thee aid. Behold! thy Phbus shall his arms employ, Phbus, propitious still to thee and Troy. Inspire thy warriors then with manly force, And to the ships impel thy rapid horse Even I will make thy fiery coursers way, And drive the Grecians headlong to the sea. Thus to bold Hector spoke the son of Jove, And breathed immortal ardour from above. As when the pamper'd steed, with reins unbound, Breaks from his stall, and pours along the ground With ample strokes he rushes to the flood, To bathe his sides, and cool his fiery blood His head, now freed, he tosses to the skies His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders flies He snuffs the females in the wellknown plain, And springs, exulting, to his fields again Urged by the voice divine, thus Hector flew, Full of the god and all his hosts pursue. As when the force of men and dogs combined Invade the mountain goat, or branching hind Far from the hunter's rage secure they lie Close in the rock, (not fated yet to die) When lo! a lion shoots across the way! They fly at once the chasers and the prey. So Greece, that late in conquering troops pursued, And mark'd their progress through the ranks in blood, Soon as they see the furious chief appear, Forget to vanquish, and consent to fear. Thoas with grief observed his dreadful course, Thoas, the bravest of the tolian force Skill'd to direct the javelin's distant flight, And bold to combat in the standing fight, Not more in councils famed for solid sense, Than winning words and heavenly eloquence. 'Gods! what portent (he cried) these eyes invades? Lo! Hector rises from the Stygian shades! We saw him, late, by thundering Ajax kill'd What god restores him to the frighted field And not content that half of Greece lie slain, Pours new destruction on her sons again? He comes not, Jove! without thy powerful will Lo! still he lives, pursues, and conquers still! Yet hear my counsel, and his worst withstand The Greeks' main body to the fleet command But let the few whom brisker spirits warm, Stand the first onset, and provoke the storm. Thus point your arms and when such foes appear, Fierce as he is, let Hector learn to fear. The warrior spoke the listening Greeks obey, Thickening their ranks, and form a deep array. Each Ajax, Teucer, Merion gave command, The valiant leader of the Cretan band And Marslike Meges these the chiefs excite, Approach the foe, and meet the coming fight. Behind, unnumber'd multitudes attend, To flank the navy, and the shores defend. Full on the front the pressing Trojans bear, And Hector first came towering to the war. Phbus himself the rushing battle led A veil of clouds involved his radiant head High held before him, Jove's enormous shield Portentous shone, and shaded all the field Vulcan to Jove the immortal gift consign'd, To scatter hosts and terrify mankind, The Greeks expect the shock, the clamours rise From different parts, and mingle in the skies. Dire was the hiss of darts, by heroes flung, And arrows leaping from the bowstring sung These drink the life of generous warriors slain Those guiltless fall, and thirst for blood in vain. As long as Phbus bore unmoved the shield, Sat doubtful conquest hovering o'er the field But when aloft he shakes it in the skies, Shouts in their ears, and lightens in their eyes, Deep horror seizes every Grecian breast, Their force is humbled, and their fear confess'd. So flies a herd of oxen, scatter'd wide, No swain to guard them, and no day to guide, When two fell lions from the mountain come, And spread the carnage through the shady gloom. Impending Phbus pours around them fear, And Troy and Hector thunder in the rear. Heaps fall on heaps the slaughter Hector leads, First great Arcesilas, then Stichius bleeds One to the bold Botians ever dear, And one Menestheus' friend and famed compeer. Medon and Iasus, neas sped This sprang from Phelus, and the Athenians led But hapless Medon from Oleus came Him Ajax honour'd with a brother's name, Though born of lawless love from home expell'd, A banish'd man, in Phylac he dwell'd, Press'd by the vengeance of an angry wife Troy ends at last his labours and his life. Mecystes next Polydamas o'erthrew And thee, brave Clonius, great Agenor slew. By Paris, Deiochus inglorious dies, Pierced through the shoulder as he basely flies. Polites' arm laid Echius on the plain Stretch'd on one heap, the victors spoil the slain. The Greeks dismay'd, confused, disperse or fall, Some seek the trench, some skulk behind the wall. While these fly trembling, others pant for breath, And o'er the slaughter stalks gigantic death. On rush'd bold Hector, gloomy as the night Forbids to plunder, animates the fight, Points to the fleet 'For, by the gods! who flies, Who dares but linger, by this hand he dies No weeping sister his cold eye shall close, No friendly hand his funeral pyre compose. Who stops to plunder at this signal hour, The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour. Furious he said the smarting scourge resounds The coursers fly the smoking chariot bounds The hosts rush on loud clamours shake the shore The horses thunder, earth and ocean roar! Apollo, planted at the trench's bound, Push'd at the bank down sank the enormous mound Roll'd in the ditch the heapy ruin lay A sudden road! a long and ample way. O'er the dread fosse (a late impervious space) Now steeds, and men, and cars tumultuous pass. The wondering crowds the downward level trod Before them flamed the shield, and march'd the god. Then with his hand he shook the mighty wall And lo! the turrets nod, the bulwarks fall Easy as when ashore an infant stands, And draws imagined houses in the sands The sportive wanton, pleased with some new play, Sweeps the slight works and fashion'd domes away Thus vanish'd at thy touch, the towers and walls The toil of thousands in a moment falls. The Grecians gaze around with wild despair, Confused, and weary all the powers with prayer Exhort their men, with praises, threats, commands And urge the gods, with voices, eyes, and hands. Experienced Nestor chief obtests the skies, And weeps his country with a father's eyes. 'O Jove! if ever, on his native shore, One Greek enrich'd thy shrine with offer'd gore If e'er, in hope our country to behold, We paid the fattest firstlings of the fold If e'er thou sign'st our wishes with thy nod Perform the promise of a gracious god! This day preserve our navies from the flame, And save the relics of the Grecian name. Thus prayed the sage the eternal gave consent, And peals of thunder shook the firmament. Presumptuous Troy mistook the accepting sign, And catch'd new fury at the voice divine. As, when black tempests mix the seas and skies, The roaring deeps in watery mountains rise, Above the sides of some tall ship ascend, Its womb they deluge, and its ribs they rend Thus loudly roaring, and o'erpowering all, Mount the thick Trojans up the Grecian wall Legions on legions from each side arise Thick sound the keels the storm of arrows flies. Fierce on the ships above, the cars below, These wield the mace, and those the javelin throw. While thus the thunder of the battle raged, And labouring armies round the works engaged, Still in the tent Patroclus sat to tend The good Eurypylus, his wounded friend. He sprinkles healing balms, to anguish kind, And adds discourse, the medicine of the mind. But when he saw, ascending up the fleet, Victorious Troy then, starting from his seat, With bitter groans his sorrows he express'd, He wrings his hands, he beats his manly breast. 'Though yet thy state require redress (he cries) Depart I must what horrors strike my eyes! Charged with Achilles' high command I go, A mournful witness of this scene of woe I haste to urge him by his country's care To rise in arms, and shine again in war. Perhaps some favouring god his soul may bend The voice is powerful of a faithful friend. He spoke and, speaking, swifter than the wind Sprung from the tent, and left the war behind. The embodied Greeks the fierce attack sustain, But strive, though numerous, to repulse in vain Nor could the Trojans, through that firm array, Force to the fleet and tents the impervious way. As when a shipwright, with Palladian art, Smooths the rough wood, and levels every part With equal hand he guides his whole design, By the just rule, and the directing line The martial leaders, with like skill and care, Preserved their line, and equal kept the war. Brave deeds of arms through all the ranks were tried, And every ship sustained an equal tide. At one proud bark, hightowering o'er the fleet, Ajax the great, and godlike Hector meet For one bright prize the matchless chiefs contend, Nor this the ships can fire, nor that defend One kept the shore, and one the vessel trod That fix'd as fate, this acted by a god. The son of Clytius in his daring hand, The deck approaching, shakes a flaming brand But, pierced by Telamon's huge lance, expires Thundering he falls, and drops the extinguish'd fires. Great Hector view'd him with a sad survey, As stretch'd in dust before the stern he lay. 'Oh! all of Trojan, all of Lycian race! Stand to your arms, maintain this arduous space Lo! where the son of royal Clytius lies Ah, save his arms, secure his obsequies! This said, his eager javelin sought the foe But Ajax shunn'd the meditated blow. Not vainly yet the forceful lance was thrown It stretch'd in dust unhappy Lycophron An exile long, sustain'd at Ajax' board, A faithful servant to a foreign lord In peace, and war, for ever at his side, Near his loved master, as he lived, he died. From the high poop he tumbles on the sand, And lies a lifeless load along the land. With anguish Ajax views the piercing sight, And thus inflames his brother to the fight 'Teucer, behold! extended on the shore Our friend, our loved companion! now no more! Dear as a parent, with a parent's care To fight our wars he left his native air. This death deplored, to Hector's rage we owe Revenge, revenge it on the cruel foe. Where are those darts on which the fates attend? And where the bow which Phbus taught to bend? Impatient Teucer, hastening to his aid, Before the chief his ample bow display'd The wellstored quiver on his shoulders hung Then hiss'd his arrow, and the bowstring sung. Clytus, Pisenor's son, renown'd in fame, (To thee, Polydamas! an honour'd name) Drove through the thickest of the embattled plains The startling steeds, and shook his eager reins. As all on glory ran his ardent mind, The pointed death arrests him from behind Through his fair neck the thrilling arrow flies In youth's first bloom reluctantly he dies. Hurl'd from the lofty seat, at distance far, The headlong coursers spurn his empty car Till sad Polydamas the steeds restrain'd, And gave, Astynous, to thy careful hand Then, fired to vengeance, rush'd amidst the foe Rage edged his sword, and strengthen'd every blow. Once more bold Teucer, in his country's cause, At Hector's breast a chosen arrow draws And had the weapon found the destined way, Thy fall, great Trojan! had renown'd that day. But Hector was not doom'd to perish then The allwise disposer of the fates of men (Imperial Jove) his present death withstands Nor was such glory due to Teucer's hands. At its full stretch as the tough string he drew, Struck by an arm unseen, it burst in two Down dropp'd the bow the shaft with brazen head Fell innocent, and on the dust lay dead. The astonish'd archer to great Ajax cries 'Some god prevents our destined enterprise Some god, propitious to the Trojan foe, Has, from my arm unfailing, struck the bow, And broke the nerve my hands had twined with art, Strong to impel the flight of many a dart. 'Since heaven commands it (Ajax made reply) Dismiss the bow, and lay thy arrows by Thy arms no less suffice the lance to wield, And quit the quiver for the ponderous shield. In the first ranks indulge thy thirst of fame, Thy brave example shall the rest inflame. Fierce as they are, by long successes vain To force our fleet, or even a ship to gain, Asks toil, and sweat, and blood their utmost might Shall find its matchNo more 'tis ours to fight. Then Teucer laid his faithless bow aside The fourfold buckler o'er his shoulder tied On his brave head a crested helm he placed, With nodding horsehair formidably graced A dart, whose point with brass refulgent shines, The warrior wields and his great brother joins. This Hector saw, and thus express'd his joy 'Ye troops of Lycia, Dardanus, and Troy! Be mindful of yourselves, your ancient fame, And spread your glory with the navy's flame. Jove is with us I saw his hand, but now, From the proud archer strike his vaunted bow Indulgent Jove! how plain thy favours shine, When happy nations bear the marks divine! How easy then, to see the sinking state Of realms accursed, deserted, reprobate! Such is the fate of Greece, and such is ours Behold, ye warriors, and exert your powers. Death is the worst a fate which all must try And for our country, 'tis a bliss to die. The gallant man, though slain in fight he be, Yet leaves his nation safe, his children free Entails a debt on all the grateful state His own brave friends shall glory in his fate His wife live honour'd, all his race succeed, And late posterity enjoy the deed! This roused the soul in every Trojan breast The godlike Ajax next his Greeks address'd 'How long, ye warriors of the Argive race, (To generous Argos what a dire disgrace!) How long on these cursed confines will ye lie, Yet undetermined, or to live or die? What hopes remain, what methods to retire, If once your vessels catch the Trojan fire? Mark how the flames approach, how near they fall, How Hector calls, and Troy obeys his call! Not to the dance that dreadful voice invites, It calls to death, and all the rage of fights. 'Tis now no time for wisdom or debates To your own hands are trusted all your fates And better far in one decisive strife, One day should end our labour or our life, Than keep this hardgot inch of barren sands, Still press'd, and press'd by such inglorious hands. The listening Grecians feel their leader's flame, And every kindling bosom pants for fame. Then mutual slaughters spread on either side By Hector here the Phocian Schedius died There, pierced by Ajax, sunk Laodamas, Chief of the foot, of old Antenor's race. Polydamas laid Otus on the sand, The fierce commander of the Epeian band. His lance bold Meges at the victor threw The victor, stooping, from the death withdrew (That valued life, O Phbus! was thy care) But Croesmus' bosom took the flying spear His corpse fell bleeding on the slippery shore His radiant arms triumphant Meges bore. Dolops, the son of Lampus, rushes on, Sprung from the race of old Laomedon, And famed for prowess in a wellfought field, He pierced the centre of his sounding shield But Meges, Phyleus' ample breastplate wore, (Wellknown in fight on Sell's winding shore For king Euphetes gave the golden mail, Compact, and firm with many a jointed scale) Which oft, in cities storm'd, and battles won, Had saved the father, and now saves the son. Full at the Trojan's head he urged his lance, Where the high plumes above the helmet dance, New ting'd with Tyrian dye in dust below, Shorn from the crest, the purple honours glow. Meantime their fight the Spartan king survey'd, And stood by Meges' side a sudden aid. Through Dolops' shoulder urged his forceful dart, Which held its passage through the panting heart, And issued at his breast. With thundering sound The warrior falls, extended on the ground. In rush the conquering Greeks to spoil the slain But Hector's voice excites his kindred train The hero most, from Hicetaon sprung, Fierce Melanippus, gallant, brave, and young. He (ere to Troy the Grecians cross'd the main) Fed his large oxen on Percot's plain But when oppress'd, his country claim'd his care, Return'd to Ilion, and excell'd in war For this, in Priam's court, he held his place, Beloved no less than Priam's royal race. Him Hector singled, as his troops he led, And thus inflamed him, pointing to the dead. 'Lo, Melanippus! lo, where Dolops lies And is it thus our royal kinsman dies? O'ermatch'd he falls to two at once a prey, And lo! they bear the bloody arms away! Come ona distant war no longer wage, But hand to hand thy country's foes engage Till Greece at once, and all her glory end Or Ilion from her towery height descend, Heaved from the lowest stone and bury all In one sad sepulchre, one common fall. Hector (this said) rush'd forward on the foes With equal ardour Melanippus glows Then Ajax thus'O Greeks! respect your fame, Respect yourselves, and learn an honest shame Let mutual reverence mutual warmth inspire, And catch from breast to breast the noble fire, On valour's side the odds of combat lie The brave live glorious, or lamented die The wretch that trembles in the field of fame, Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame. His generous sense he not in vain imparts It sunk, and rooted in the Grecian hearts They join, they throng, they thicken at his call, And flank the navy with a brazen wall Shields touching shields, in order blaze above, And stop the Trojans, though impell'd by Jove. The fiery Spartan first, with loud applause. Warms the bold son of Nestor in his cause. 'Is there (he said) in arms a youth like you, So strong to fight, so active to pursue? Why stand you distant, nor attempt a deed? Lift the bold lance, and make some Trojan bleed. He said and backward to the lines retired Forth rush'd the youth with martial fury fired, Beyond the foremost ranks his lance he threw, And round the black battalions cast his view. The troops of Troy recede with sudden fear, While the swift javelin hiss'd along in air. Advancing Melanippus met the dart With his bold breast, and felt it in his heart Thundering he falls his falling arms resound, And his broad buckler rings against the ground. The victor leaps upon his prostrate prize Thus on a roe the wellbreath'd beagle flies, And rends his side, freshbleeding with the dart The distant hunter sent into his heart. Observing Hector to the rescue flew Bold as he was, Antilochus withdrew. So when a savage, ranging o'er the plain, Has torn the shepherd's dog, or shepherd's swain, While conscious of the deed, he glares around, And hears the gathering multitude resound, Timely he flies the yetuntasted food, And gains the friendly shelter of the wood So fears the youth all Troy with shouts pursue, While stones and darts in mingled tempest flew But enter'd in the Grecian ranks, he turns His manly breast, and with new fury burns. Now on the fleet the tides of Trojans drove, Fierce to fulfil the stern decrees of Jove The sire of gods, confirming Thetis' prayer, The Grecian ardour quench'd in deep despair But lifts to glory Troy's prevailing bands, Swells all their hearts, and strengthens all their hands. On Ida's top he waits with longing eyes, To view the navy blazing to the skies Then, nor till then, the scale of war shall turn, The Trojans fly, and conquer'd Ilion burn. These fates revolved in his almighty mind, He raises Hector to the work design'd, Bids him with more than mortal fury glow, And drives him, like a lightning, on the foe. So Mars, when human crimes for vengeance call, Shakes his huge javelin, and whole armies fall. Not with more rage a conflagration rolls, Wraps the vast mountains, and involves the poles. He foams with wrath beneath his gloomy brow Like fiery meteors his red eyeballs glow The radiant helmet on his temple burns, Waves when he nods, and lightens as he turns For Jove his splendour round the chief had thrown, And cast the blaze of both the hosts on one. Unhappy glories! for his fate was near, Due to stern Pallas, and Pelides' spear Yet Jove deferr'd the death he was to pay, And gave what fate allow'd, the honours of a day! Now all on fire for fame, his breast, his eyes Burn at each foe, and single every prize Still at the closest ranks, the thickest fight, He points his ardour, and exerts his might. The Grecian phalanx, moveless as a tower, On all sides batter'd, yet resists his power So some tall rock o'erhangs the hoary main, By winds assail'd, by billows beat in vain, Unmoved it hears, above, the tempest blow, And sees the watery mountains break below. Girt in surrounding flames, he seems to fall Like fire from Jove, and bursts upon them all Bursts as a wave that from the cloud impends, And, swell'd with tempests, on the ship descends White are the decks with foam the winds aloud Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud Pale, trembling, tired, the sailors freeze with fears And instant death on every wave appears. So pale the Greeks the eyes of Hector meet, The chief so thunders, and so shakes the fleet. As when a lion, rushing from his den, Amidst the plain of some widewater'd fen, (Where numerous oxen, as at ease they feed, At large expatiate o'er the ranker mead) Leaps on the herds before the herdsman's eyes The trembling herdsman far to distance flies Some lordly bull (the rest dispersed and fled) He singles out arrests, and lays him dead. Thus from the rage of Jovelike Hector flew All Greece in heaps but one he seized, and slew Mycenian Periphes, a mighty name, In wisdom great, in arms well known to fame The minister of stern Eurystheus' ire Against Alcides, Copreus was his sire The son redeem'd the honours of the race, A son as generous as the sire was base O'er all his country's youth conspicuous far In every virtue, or of peace or war But doom'd to Hector's stronger force to yield! Against the margin of his ample shield He struck his hasty foot his heels upsprung Supine he fell his brazen helmet rung. On the fallen chief the invading Trojan press'd, And plunged the pointed javelin in his breast. His circling friends, who strove to guard too late The unhappy hero, fled, or shared his fate. Chased from the foremost line, the Grecian train Now man the next, receding toward the main Wedged in one body at the tents they stand, Wall'd round with sterns, a gloomy, desperate band. Now manly shame forbids the inglorious flight Now fear itself confines them to the fight Man courage breathes in man but Nestor most (The sage preserver of the Grecian host) Exhorts, adjures, to guard these utmost shores And by their parents, by themselves implores. 'Oh friends! be men your generous breasts inflame With mutual honour, and with mutual shame! Think of your hopes, your fortunes all the care Your wives, your infants, and your parents share Think of each living father's reverend head Think of each ancestor with glory dead Absent, by me they speak, by me they sue, They ask their safety, and their fame, from you The gods their fates on this one action lay, And all are lost, if you desert the day. He spoke, and round him breathed heroic fires Minerva seconds what the sage inspires. The mist of darkness Jove around them threw She clear'd, restoring all the war to view A sudden ray shot beaming o'er the plain, And show'd the shores, the navy, and the main Hector they saw, and all who fly, or fight, The scene wideopening to the blaze of light, First of the field great Ajax strikes their eyes, His port majestic, and his ample size A ponderous mace with studs of iron crown'd, Full twenty cubits long, he swings around Nor fights, like others, fix'd to certain stands But looks a moving tower above the bands High on the decks with vast gigantic stride, The godlike hero stalks from side to side. So when a horseman from the watery mead (Skill'd in the manage of the bounding steed) Drives four fair coursers, practised to obey, To some great city through the public way Safe in his art, as side by side they run, He shifts his seat, and vaults from one to one And now to this, and now to that he flies Admiring numbers follow with their eyes. From ship to ship thus Ajax swiftly flew, No less the wonder of the warring crew. As furious, Hector thunder'd threats aloud, And rush'd enraged before the Trojan crowd Then swift invades the ships, whose beaky prores Lay rank'd contiguous on the bending shores So the strong eagle from his airy height, Who marks the swans' or cranes' embodied flight, Stoops down impetuous, while they light for food, And, stooping, darkens with his wings the flood. Jove leads him on with his almighty hand, And breathes fierce spirits in his following band. The warring nations meet, the battle roars, Thick beats the combat on the sounding prores. Thou wouldst have thought, so furious was their fire, No force could tame them, and no toil could tire As if new vigour from new fights they won, And the long battle was but then begun. Greece, yet unconquer'd, kept alive the war, Secure of death, confiding in despair Troy in proud hopes already view'd the main Bright with the blaze, and red with heroes slain Like strength is felt from hope, and from despair, And each contends, as his were all the war. 'Twas thou, bold Hector! whose resistless hand First seized a ship on that contested strand The same which dead Protesilas bore, The first that touch'd the unhappy Trojan shore For this in arms the warring nations stood, And bathed their generous breasts with mutual blood. No room to poise the lance or bend the bow But hand to hand, and man to man, they grow Wounded, they wound and seek each other's hearts With falchions, axes, swords, and shorten'd darts. The falchions ring, shields rattle, axes sound, Swords flash in air, or glitter on the ground With streaming blood the slippery shores are dyed, And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide. Still raging, Hector with his ample hand Grasps the high stern, and gives this loud command AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS 'Haste, bring the flames! that toil of ten long years Is finished and the day desired appears! This happy day with acclamations greet, Bright with destruction of yon hostile fleet. The cowardcounsels of a timorous throng Of reverend dotards check'd our glory long Too long Jove lull'd us with lethargic charms, But now in peals of thunder calls to arms In this great day he crowns our full desires, Wakes all our force, and seconds all our fires. He spokethe warriors at his fierce command Pour a new deluge on the Grecian band. Even Ajax paused, (so thick the javelins fly,) Stepp'd back, and doubted or to live or die. Yet, where the oars are placed, he stands to wait What chief approaching dares attempt his fate Even to the last his naval charge defends, Now shakes his spear, now lifts, and now protends Even yet, the Greeks with piercing shouts inspires, Amidst attacks, and deaths, and darts, and fires. 'O friends! O heroes! names for ever dear, Once sons of Mars, and thunderbolts of war! Ah! yet be mindful of your old renown, Your great forefathers' virtues and your own. What aids expect you in this utmost strait? What bulwarks rising between you and fate? No aids, no bulwarks your retreat attend, No friends to help, no city to defend. This spot is all you have, to lose or keep There stand the Trojans, and here rolls the deep. 'Tis hostile ground you tread your native lands Far, far from hence your fates are in your hands. Raging he spoke nor further wastes his breath, But turns his javelin to the work of death. Whate'er bold Trojan arm'd his daring hands, Against the sable ships, with flaming brands, So well the chief his naval weapon sped, The luckless warrior at his stern lay dead Full twelve, the boldest, in a moment fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell. CASTOR AND POLLUX ARGUMENT THE SIXTH BATTLE, THE ACTS AND DEATH OF PATROCLUS Patroclus (in pursuance of the request of Nestor in the eleventh book) entreats Achilles to suffer him to go to the assistance of the Greeks with Achilles' troops and armour. He agrees to it, but at the same time charges him to content himself with rescuing the fleet, without further pursuit of the enemy. The armour, horses, soldiers, and officers are described. Achilles offers a libation for the success of his friend, after which Patroclus leads the Myrmidons to battle. The Trojans, at the sight of Patroclus in Achilles' armour, taking him for that hero, are cast into the uttermost consternation he beats them off from the vessels, Hector himself flies, Sarpedon is killed, though Jupiter was averse to his fate. Several other particulars of the battle are described in the heat of which, Patroclus, neglecting the orders of Achilles, pursues the foe to the walls of Troy, where Apollo repulses and disarms him, Euphorbus wounds him, and Hector kills him, which concludes the book. So warr'd both armies on the ensanguined shore, While the black vessels smoked with human gore. Meantime Patroclus to Achilles flies The streaming tears fall copious from his eyes. Not faster, trickling to the plains below, From the tall rock the sable waters flow. Divine Pelides, with compassion moved. Thus spoke, indulgent, to his best beloved 'Patroclus, say, what grief thy bosom bears, That flows so fast in these unmanly tears? No girl, no infant whom the mother keeps From her loved breast, with fonder passion weeps Not more the mother's soul, that infant warms, Clung to her knees, and reaching at her arms, Than thou hast mine! Oh tell me, to what end Thy melting sorrows thus pursue thy friend? 'Griev'st thou for me, or for my martial band? Or come sad tidings from our native land? Our fathers live (our first, most tender care), Thy good Menoetius breathes the vital air, And hoary Peleus yet extends his days Pleased in their age to hear their children's praise. Or may some meaner cause thy pity claim? Perhaps yon relics of the Grecian name, Doom'd in their ships to sink by fire and sword, And pay the forfeit of their haughty lord? Whate'er the cause, reveal thy secret care, And speak those sorrows which a friend would share. A sigh that instant from his bosom broke, Another follow'd, and Patroclus spoke 'Let Greece at length with pity touch thy breast, Thyself a Greek and, once, of Greeks the best! Lo! every chief that might her fate prevent, Lies pierced with wounds, and bleeding in his tent Eurypylus, Tydides, Atreus' son, And wise Ulysses, at the navy groan, More for their country's wounds than for their own. Their pain soft arts of pharmacy can ease, Thy breast alone no lenitives appease. May never rage like thine my soul enslave, O great in vain! unprofitably brave! Thy country slighted in her last distress, What friend, what man, from thee shall hope redress? Nomen unborn, and ages yet behind, Shall curse that fierce, that unforgiving mind. 'O man unpitying! if of man thy race But sure thou spring'st not from a soft embrace, Nor ever amorous hero caused thy birth, Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form, And raging seas produced thee in a storm, A soul well suiting that tempestuous kind, So rough thy manners, so untamed thy mind. 'If some dire oracle thy breast alarm, If aught from Jove, or Thetis, stop thy arm, Some beam of comfort yet on Greece may shine, If I but lead the Myrmidonian line Clad in thy dreadful arms if I appear, Proud Troy shall tremble, and desert the war Without thy person Greece shall win the day, And thy mere image chase her foes away. Press'd by fresh forces, her o'erlabour'd train Shall quit the ships, and Greece respire again. Thus, blind to fate! with supplicating breath, Thou begg'st his arms, and in his arms thy death. Unfortunately good! a boding sigh Thy friend return'd and with it, this reply 'Patroclus! thy Achilles knows no fears Nor words from Jove nor oracles he hears Nor aught a mother's caution can suggest The tyrant's pride lies rooted in my breast. My wrongs, my wrongs, my constant thought engage, Those, my sole oracles, inspire my rage I made him tyrant gave him power to wrong Even me I felt it and shall feel it long. The maid, my blackeyed maid, he forced away, Due to the toils of many a wellfought day Due to my conquest of her father's reign Due to the votes of all the Grecian train. From me he forced her me, the bold and brave, Disgraced, dishonour'd, like the meanest slave. But bear we thisthe wrongs I grieve are past 'Tis time our fury should relent at last I fix'd its date the day I wish'd appears How Hector to my ships his battle bears, The flames my eyes, the shouts invade my ears. Go then, Patroclus! court fair honour's charms In Troy's famed fields, and in Achilles' arms Lead forth my martial Myrmidons to fight, Go save the fleets, and conquer in my right. See the thin relics of their baffled band At the last edge of yon deserted land! Behold all Ilion on their ships descends How the cloud blackens, how the storm impends! It was not thus, when, at my sight amazed, Troy saw and trembled, as this helmet blazed Had not the injurious king our friendship lost, Yon ample trench had buried half her host. No camps, no bulwarks now the Trojans fear, Those are not dreadful, no Achilles there No longer flames the lance of Tydeus' son No more your general calls his heroes on Hector, alone, I hear his dreadful breath Commands your slaughter, or proclaims your death. Yet now, Patroclus, issue to the plain Now save the ships, the rising fires restrain, And give the Greeks to visit Greece again. But heed my words, and mark a friend's command, Who trusts his fame and honours in thy hand, And from thy deeds expects the Achaian host Shall render back the beauteous maid he lost Rage uncontroll'd through all the hostile crew, But touch not Hector, Hector is my due. Though Jove in thunder should command the war, Be just, consult my glory, and forbear. The fleet once saved, desist from further chase, Nor lead to Ilion's walls the Grecian race Some adverse god thy rashness may destroy Some god, like Phbus, ever kind to Troy. Let Greece, redeem'd from this destructive strait, Do her own work and leave the rest to fate. O! would to all the immortal powers above, Apollo, Pallas, and almighty Jove! That not one Trojan might be left alive, And not a Greek of all the race survive Might only we the vast destruction shun, And only we destroy the accursed town! Such conference held the chiefs while on the strand Great Jove with conquest crown'd the Trojan band. Ajax no more the sounding storm sustain'd, So thick the darts an iron tempest rain'd On his tired arm the weighty buckler hung His hollow helm with falling javelins rung His breath, in quick short pantings, comes and goes And painful sweat from all his members flows. Spent and o'erpower'd, he barely breathes at most Yet scarce an army stirs him from his post Dangers on dangers all around him glow, And toil to toil, and woe succeeds to woe. Say, Muses, throned above the starry frame, How first the navy blazed with Trojan flame? Stern Hector waved his sword, and standing near, Where furious Ajax plied his ashen spear, Full on the lance a stroke so justly sped, That the broad falchion lopp'd its brazen head His pointless spear the warrior shakes in vain The brazen head falls sounding on the plain. Great Ajax saw, and own'd the hand divine Confessing Jove, and trembling at the sign, Warn'd he retreats. Then swift from all sides pour The hissing brands thick streams the fiery shower O'er the high stern the curling volumes rise, And sheets of rolling smoke involve the skies. Divine Achilles view'd the rising flames, And smote his thigh, and thus aloud exclaims 'Arm, arm, Patroclus! Lo, the blaze aspires! The glowing ocean reddens with the fires. Arm, ere our vessels catch the spreading flame Arm, ere the Grecians be no more a name I haste to bring the troops.The hero said The friend with ardour and with joy obey'd. He cased his limbs in brass and first around His manly legs, with silver buckles bound The clasping greaves then to his breast applies The flaming cuirass of a thousand dyes Emblazed with studs of gold his falchion shone In the rich belt, as in a starry zone Achilles' shield his ample shoulders spread, Achilles' helmet nodded o'er his head Adorn'd in all his terrible array, He flash'd around intolerable day. Alone untouch'd, Pelides' javelin stands, Not to be poised but by Pelides' hands From Pelion's shady brow the plant entire Old Chiron rent, and shaped it for his sire Whose son's great arm alone the weapon wields, The death of heroes, and the dread of fields. Buckles The brave Automedon (an honour'd name, The second to his lord in love and fame, In peace his friend, and partner of the war) The winged coursers harness'd to the car Xanthus and Balius, of immortal breed, Sprung from the wind, and like the wind in speed. Whom the wing'd harpy, swift Podarge, bore, By Zephyr pregnant on the breezy shore Swift Pedasus was added to their side, (Once great Ation's, now Achilles' pride) Who, like in strength, in swiftness, and in grace, A mortal courser match'd the immortal race. Achilles speeds from tent to tent, and warms His hardy Myrmidons to blood and arms. All breathing death, around the chief they stand, A grim, terrific, formidable band Grim as voracious wolves, that seek the springs When scalding thirst their burning bowels wrings When some tall stag, freshslaughtered in the wood, Has drench'd their wide insatiate throats with blood, To the black fount they rush, a hideous throng, With paunch distended, and with lolling tongue, Fire fills their eye, their black jaws belch the gore, And gorged with slaughter still they thirst for more. Like furious, rush'd the Myrmidonian crew, Such their dread strength, and such their deathful view. High in the midst the great Achilles stands, Directs their order, and the war commands. He, loved of Jove, had launch'd for Ilion's shores Full fifty vessels, mann'd with fifty oars Five chosen leaders the fierce bands obey, Himself supreme in valour, as in sway. First march'd Menestheus, of celestial birth, Derived from thee, whose waters wash the earth, Divine Sperchius! Jovedescended flood! A mortal mother mixing with a god. Such was Menestheus, but miscall'd by fame The son of Borus, that espoused the dame. Eudorus next whom Polymele the gay, Famed in the graceful dance, produced today. Her, sly Cellenius loved on her would gaze, As with swift step she form'd the running maze To her high chamber from Diana's quire, The god pursued her, urged, and crown'd his fire. The son confess'd his father's heavenly race, And heir'd his mother's swiftness in the chase. Strong Echecleus, bless'd in all those charms That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms Not conscious of those loves, long hid from fame, With gifts of price he sought and won the dame Her secret offspring to her sire she bare Her sire caress'd him with a parent's care. Pisander follow'd matchless in his art To wing the spear, or aim the distant dart No hand so sure of all the Emathian line, Or if a surer, great Patroclus! thine. The fourth by Phnix' grave command was graced, Laerces' valiant offspring led the last. Soon as Achilles with superior care Had call'd the chiefs, and order'd all the war, This stern remembrance to his troops he gave 'Ye farfamed Myrmidons, ye fierce and brave! Think with what threats you dared the Trojan throng, Think what reproach these ears endured so long 'Stern son of Peleus, (thus ye used to say, While restless, raging, in your ships you lay) Oh nursed with gall, unknowing how to yield Whose rage defrauds us of so famed a field If that dire fury must for ever burn, What make we here? Return, ye chiefs, return!' Such were your wordsNow, warriors! grieve no more, Lo there the Trojans bathe your swords in gore! This day shall give you all your soul demands, Glut all your hearts, and weary all your hands! DIANA Thus while he roused the fire in every breast, Close and more close the listening cohorts press'd Ranks wedged in ranks of arms a steely ring Still grows, and spreads, and thickens round the king. As when a circling wall the builder forms, Of strength defensive against wind and storms, Compacted stones the thickening work compose, And round him wide the rising structure grows So helm to helm, and crest to crest they throng, Shield urged on shield, and man drove man along Thick, undistinguish'd plumes, together join'd, Float in one sea, and wave before the wind. Far o'er the rest in glittering pomp appear, There bold Automedon, Patroclus here Brothers in arms, with equal fury fired Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspired. But mindful of the gods, Achilles went To the rich coffer in his shady tent There lay on heaps his various garments roll'd, And costly furs, and carpets stiff with gold, (The presents of the silverfooted dame) From thence he took a bowl, of antique frame, Which never man had stained with ruddy wine, Nor raised in offerings to the power divine, But Peleus' son and Peleus' son to none Had raised in offerings, but to Jove alone. This tinged with sulphur, sacred first to flame, He purged and wash'd it in the running stream. Then cleansed his hands and fixing for a space His eyes on heaven, his feet upon the place Of sacrifice, the purple draught he pour'd Forth in the midst and thus the god implored 'O thou supreme! highthroned all height above! O great Pelasgic, Dodonaean Jove! Who 'midst surrounding frosts, and vapours chill, Presid'st on bleak Dodona's vocal hill (Whose groves the Selli, race austere! surround, Their feet unwash'd, their slumbers on the ground Who hear, from rustling oaks, thy dark decrees And catch the fates, lowwhispered in the breeze) Hear, as of old! Thou gav'st, at Thetis' prayer, Glory to me, and to the Greeks despair. Lo, to the dangers of the fighting field The best, the dearest of my friends, I yield, Though still determined, to my ships confined Patroclus gone, I stay but half behind. Oh! be his guard thy providential care, Confirm his heart, and string his arm to war Press'd by his single force let Hector see His fame in arms not owing all to me. But when the fleets are saved from foes and fire, Let him with conquest and renown retire Preserve his arms, preserve his social train, And safe return him to these eyes again! Great Jove consents to half the chief's request, But heaven's eternal doom denies the rest To free the fleet was granted to his prayer His safe return, the winds dispersed in air. Back to his tent the stern Achilles flies, And waits the combat with impatient eyes. Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroclus' care, Invade the Trojans, and commence the war. As wasps, provoked by children in their play, Pour from their mansions by the broad highway, In swarms the guiltless traveller engage, Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage All rise in arms, and, with a general cry, Assert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny. Thus from the tents the fervent legion swarms, So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms Their rising rage Patroclus' breath inspires, Who thus inflames them with heroic fires 'O warriors, partners of Achilles' praise! Be mindful of your deeds in ancient days Your godlike master let your acts proclaim, And add new glories to his mighty name. Think your Achilles sees you fight be brave, And humble the proud monarch whom you save. Joyful they heard, and kindling as he spoke, Flew to the fleet, involved in fire and smoke. From shore to shore the doubling shouts resound, The hollow ships return a deeper sound. The war stood still, and all around them gazed, When great Achilles' shining armour blazed Troy saw, and thought the dread Achilles nigh, At once they see, they tremble, and they fly. Then first thy spear, divine Patroclus! flew, Where the war raged, and where the tumult grew. Close to the stern of that famed ship which bore Unbless'd Protesilaus to Ilion's shore, The great Ponian, bold Pyrechmes stood (Who led his bands from Axius' winding flood) His shoulderblade receives the fatal wound The groaning warrior pants upon the ground. His troops, that see their country's glory slain, Fly diverse, scatter'd o'er the distant plain. Patroclus' arm forbids the spreading fires, And from the halfburn'd ship proud Troy retires Clear'd from the smoke the joyful navy lies In heaps on heaps the foe tumultuous flies Triumphant Greece her rescued decks ascends, And loud acclaim the starry region rends. So when thick clouds enwrap the mountain's head, O'er heaven's expanse like one black ceiling spread Sudden the Thunderer, with a flashing ray, Bursts through the darkness, and lets down the day The hills shine out, the rocks in prospect rise, And streams, and vales, and forests, strike the eyes The smiling scene wide opens to the sight, And all the unmeasured ether flames with light. But Troy repulsed, and scatter'd o'er the plains, Forced from the navy, yet the fight maintains. Now every Greek some hostile hero slew, But still the foremost, bold Patroclus flew As Areilycus had turn'd him round, Sharp in his thigh he felt the piercing wound The brazenpointed spear, with vigour thrown, The thigh transfix'd, and broke the brittle bone Headlong he fell. Next, Thoas was thy chance Thy breast, unarm'd, received the Spartan lance. Phylides' dart (as Amphidus drew nigh) His blow prevented, and transpierced his thigh, Tore all the brawn, and rent the nerves away In darkness, and in death, the warrior lay. In equal arms two sons of Nestor stand, And two bold brothers of the Lycian band By great Antilochus, Atymnius dies, Pierced in the flank, lamented youth! he lies, Kind Maris, bleeding in his brother's wound, Defends the breathless carcase on the ground Furious he flies, his murderer to engage But godlike Thrasimed prevents his rage, Between his arm and shoulder aims a blow His arm falls spouting on the dust below He sinks, with endless darkness cover'd o'er And vents his soul, effused with gushing gore. Slain by two brothers, thus two brothers bleed, Sarpedon's friends, Amisodarus' seed Amisodarus, who, by Furies led, The bane of men, abhorr'd Chimaera bred Skill'd in the dart in vain, his sons expire, And pay the forfeit of their guilty sire. Stopp'd in the tumult Cleobulus lies, Beneath Oleus' arm, a living prize A living prize not long the Trojan stood The thirsty falchion drank his reeking blood Plunged in his throat the smoking weapon lies Black death, and fate unpitying, seal his eyes. Amid the ranks, with mutual thirst of fame, Lycon the brave, and fierce Peneleus came In vain their javelins at each other flew, Now, met in arms, their eager swords they drew. On the plumed crest of his Botian foe The daring Lycon aim'd a noble blow The sword broke short but his, Peneleus sped Full on the juncture of the neck and head The head, divided by a stroke so just, Hung by the skin the body sunk to dust. O'ertaken Neamas by Merion bleeds, Pierced through the shoulder as he mounts his steeds Back from the car he tumbles to the ground His swimming eyes eternal shades surround. Next Erymas was doom'd his fate to feel, His open'd mouth received the Cretan steel Beneath the brain the point a passage tore, Crash'd the thin bones, and drown'd the teeth in gore His mouth, his eyes, his nostrils, pour a flood He sobs his soul out in the gush of blood. As when the flocks neglected by the swain, Or kids, or lambs, lie scatter'd o'er the plain, A troop of wolves the unguarded charge survey, And rend the trembling, unresisting prey Thus on the foe the Greeks impetuous came Troy fled, unmindful of her former fame. But still at Hector godlike Ajax aim'd, Still, pointed at his breast, his javelin flamed. The Trojan chief, experienced in the field, O'er his broad shoulders spread the massy shield, Observed the storm of darts the Grecians pour, And on his buckler caught the ringing shower He sees for Greece the scale of conquest rise, Yet stops, and turns, and saves his loved allies. As when the hand of Jove a tempest forms, And rolls the cloud to blacken heaven with storms, Dark o'er the fields the ascending vapour flies, And shades the sun, and blots the golden skies So from the ships, along the dusky plain, Dire Flight and Terror drove the Trojan train. Even Hector fled through heads of disarray The fiery coursers forced their lord away While far behind his Trojans fall confused Wedged in the trench, in one vast carnage bruised Chariots on chariots roll the clashing spokes Shock while the madding steeds break short their yokes. In vain they labour up the steepy mound Their charioteers lie foaming on the ground. Fierce on the rear, with shouts Patroclus flies Tumultuous clamour fills the fields and skies Thick drifts of dust involve their rapid flight Clouds rise on clouds, and heaven is snatch'd from sight. The affrighted steeds their dying lords cast down, Scour o'er the fields, and stretch to reach the town. Loud o'er the rout was heard the victor's cry, Where the war bleeds, and where the thickest die, Where horse and arms, and chariots lie o'erthrown, And bleeding heroes under axles groan. No stop, no check, the steeds of Peleus knew From bank to bank the immortal coursers flew. Highbounding o'er the fosse, the whirling car Smokes through the ranks, o'ertakes the flying war, And thunders after Hector Hector flies, Patroclus shakes his lance but fate denies. Not with less noise, with less impetuous force, The tide of Trojans urge their desperate course, Than when in autumn Jove his fury pours, And earth is loaden with incessant showers (When guilty mortals break the eternal laws, Or judges, bribed, betray the righteous cause) From their deep beds he bids the rivers rise, And opens all the floodgates of the skies The impetuous torrents from their hills obey, Whole fields are drown'd, and mountains swept away Loud roars the deluge till it meets the main And trembling man sees all his labours vain! And now the chief (the foremost troops repell'd) Back to the ships his destined progress held, Bore down half Troy in his resistless way, And forced the routed ranks to stand the day. Between the space where silver Simois flows, Where lay the fleets, and where the rampires rose, All grim in dust and blood Patroclus stands, And turns the slaughter on the conquering bands. First Pronous died beneath his fiery dart, Which pierced below the shield his valiant heart. Thestor was next, who saw the chief appear, And fell the victim of his coward fear Shrunk up he sat, with wild and haggard eye, Nor stood to combat, nor had force to fly Patroclus mark'd him as he shunn'd the war, And with unmanly tremblings shook the car, And dropp'd the flowing reins. Him 'twixt the jaws, The javelin sticks, and from the chariot draws. As on a rock that overhangs the main, An angler, studious of the line and cane, Some mighty fish draws panting to the shore Not with less ease the barbed javelin bore The gaping dastard as the spear was shook, He fell, and life his heartless breast forsook. Next on Eryalus he flies a stone, Large as a rock, was by his fury thrown Full on his crown the ponderous fragment flew, And burst the helm, and cleft the head in two Prone to the ground the breathless warrior fell, And death involved him with the shades of hell. Then low in dust Epaltes, Echius, lie Ipheas, Evippus, Polymelus, die Amphoterus and Erymas succeed And last Tlepolemus and Pyres bleed. Where'er he moves, the growing slaughters spread In heaps on heaps a monument of dead. When now Sarpedon his brave friends beheld Grovelling in dust, and gasping on the field, With this reproach his flying host he warms 'Oh stain to honour! oh disgrace to arms! Forsake, inglorious, the contended plain This hand unaided shall the war sustain The task be mine this hero's strength to try, Who mows whole troops, and makes an army fly. He spake and, speaking, leaps from off the car Patroclus lights, and sternly waits the war. As when two vultures on the mountain's height Stoop with resounding pinions to the fight They cuff, they tear, they raise a screaming cry The desert echoes, and the rocks reply The warriors thus opposed in arms, engage With equal clamours, and with equal rage. Jove view'd the combat whose event foreseen, He thus bespoke his sister and his queen 'The hour draws on the destinies ordain, My godlike son shall press the Phrygian plain Already on the verge of death he stands, His life is owed to fierce Patroclus' hands, What passions in a parent's breast debate! Say, shall I snatch him from impending fate, And send him safe to Lycia, distant far From all the dangers and the toils of war Or to his doom my bravest offspring yield, And fatten, with celestial blood, the field? Then thus the goddess with the radiant eyes 'What words are these, O sovereign of the skies! Short is the date prescribed to mortal man Shall Jove for one extend the narrow span, Whose bounds were fix'd before his race began? How many sons of gods, foredoom'd to death, Before proud Ilion must resign their breath! Were thine exempt, debate would rise above, And murmuring powers condemn their partial Jove. Give the bold chief a glorious fate in fight And when the ascending soul has wing'd her flight, Let Sleep and Death convey, by thy command, The breathless body to his native land. His friends and people, to his future praise, A marble tomb and pyramid shall raise, And lasting honours to his ashes give His fame ('tis all the dead can have) shall live. She said the cloudcompeller, overcome, Assents to fate, and ratifies the doom. Then touch'd with grief, the weeping heavens distill'd A shower of blood o'er all the fatal field The god, his eyes averting from the plain, Laments his son, predestined to be slain, Far from the Lycian shores, his happy native reign. Now met in arms, the combatants appear Each heaved the shield, and poised the lifted spear From strong Patroclus' hand the javelin fled, And pass'd the groin of valiant Thrasymed The nerves unbraced no more his bulk sustain, He falls, and falling bites the bloody plain. Two sounding darts the Lycian leader threw The first aloof with erring fury flew, The next transpierced Achilles' mortal steed, The generous Pedasus of Theban breed Fix'd in the shoulder's joint, he reel'd around, Roll'd in the bloody dust, and paw'd the slippery ground. His sudden fall the entangled harness broke Each axle crackled, and the chariot shook When bold Automedon, to disengage The starting coursers, and restrain their rage, Divides the traces with his sword, and freed The encumbered chariot from the dying steed The rest move on, obedient to the rein The car rolls slowly o'er the dusty plain. The towering chiefs to fiercer fight advance And first Sarpedon whirl'd his weighty lance, Which o'er the warrior's shoulder took its course, And spent in empty air its dying force. Not so Patroclus' nevererring dart Aim'd at his breast it pierced a mortal part, Where the strong fibres bind the solid heart. Then as the mountain oak, or poplar tall, Or pine (fit mast for some great admiral) Nods to the axe, till with a groaning sound It sinks, and spreads its honours on the ground, Thus fell the king and laid on earth supine, Before his chariot stretch'd his form divine He grasp'd the dust distain'd with streaming gore, And, pale in death, lay groaning on the shore. So lies a bull beneath the lion's paws, While the grim savage grinds with foamy jaws The trembling limbs, and sucks the smoking blood Deep groans, and hollow roars, rebellow through the wood. Then to the leader of the Lycian band The dying chief address'd his last command 'Glaucus, be bold thy task be first to dare The glorious dangers of destructive war, To lead my troops, to combat at their head, Incite the living, and supply the dead. Tell them, I charged them with my latest breath Not unrevenged to bear Sarpedon's death. What grief, what shame, must Glaucus undergo, If these spoil'd arms adorn a Grecian foe! Then as a friend, and as a warrior fight Defend my body, conquer in my right That, taught by great examples, all may try Like thee to vanquish, or like me to die. He ceased the Fates suppress'd his labouring breath, And his eyes darken'd with the shades of death. The insulting victor with disdain bestrode The prostrate prince, and on his bosom trod Then drew the weapon from his panting heart, The reeking fibres clinging to the dart From the wide wound gush'd out a stream of blood, And the soul issued in the purple flood. His flying steeds the Myrmidons detain, Unguided now, their mighty master slain. Allimpotent of aid, transfix'd with grief, Unhappy Glaucus heard the dying chief His painful arm, yet useless with the smart Inflicted late by Teucer's deadly dart, Supported on his better hand he stay'd To Phbus then ('twas all he could) he pray'd 'Allseeing monarch! whether Lycia's coast, Or sacred Ilion, thy bright presence boast, Powerful alike to ease the wretch's smart O hear me! god of every healing art! Lo! stiff with clotted blood, and pierced with pain, That thrills my arm, and shoots through every vein, I stand unable to sustain the spear, And sigh, at distance from the glorious war. Low in the dust is great Sarpedon laid, Nor Jove vouchsafed his hapless offspring aid But thou, O god of health! thy succour lend, To guard the relics of my slaughter'd friend For thou, though distant, canst restore my might, To head my Lycians, and support the fight. Apollo heard and, suppliant as he stood, His heavenly hand restrain'd the flux of blood He drew the dolours from the wounded part, And breathed a spirit in his rising heart. Renew'd by art divine, the hero stands, And owns the assistance of immortal hands. First to the fight his native troops he warms, Then loudly calls on Troy's vindictive arms With ample strides he stalks from place to place Now fires Agenor, now Polydamas neas next, and Hector he accosts Inflaming thus the rage of all their hosts. 'What thoughts, regardless chief! thy breast employ? Oh too forgetful of the friends of Troy! Those generous friends, who, from their country far, Breathe their brave souls out in another's war. See! where in dust the great Sarpedon lies, In action valiant, and in council wise, Who guarded right, and kept his people free To all his Lycians lost, and lost to thee! Stretch'd by Patroclus' arm on yonder plains, O save from hostile rage his loved remains! Ah let not Greece his conquer'd trophies boast, Nor on his corse revenge her heroes lost! He spoke each leader in his grief partook Troy, at the loss, through all her legions shook. Transfix'd with deep regret, they view o'erthrown At once his country's pillar, and their own A chief, who led to Troy's beleaguer'd wall A host of heroes, and outshined them all. Fired, they rush on first Hector seeks the foes, And with superior vengeance greatly glows. But o'er the dead the fierce Patroclus stands, And rousing Ajax, roused the listening bands 'Heroes, be men be what you were before Or weigh the great occasion, and be more. The chief who taught our lofty walls to yield, Lies pale in death, extended on the field. To guard his body Troy in numbers flies 'Tis half the glory to maintain our prize. Haste, strip his arms, the slaughter round him spread, And send the living Lycians to the dead. The heroes kindle at his fierce command The martial squadrons close on either hand Here Troy and Lycia charge with loud alarms, Thessalia there, and Greece, oppose their arms. With horrid shouts they circle round the slain The clash of armour rings o'er all the plain. Great Jove, to swell the horrors of the fight, O'er the fierce armies pours pernicious night, And round his son confounds the warring hosts, His fate ennobling with a crowd of ghosts. Now Greece gives way, and great Epigeus falls Agacleus' son, from Budium's lofty walls Who chased for murder thence a suppliant came To Peleus, and the silverfooted dame Now sent to Troy, Achilles' arms to aid, He pays due vengeance to his kinsman's shade. Soon as his luckless hand had touch'd the dead, A rock's large fragment thunder'd on his head Hurl'd by Hectorean force it cleft in twain His shatter'd helm, and stretch'd him o'er the slain. Fierce to the van of fight Patroclus came, And, like an eagle darting at his game, Sprung on the Trojan and the Lycian band. What grief thy heart, what fury urged thy hand, O generous Greek! when with full vigour thrown, At Sthenelaus flew the weighty stone, Which sunk him to the dead when Troy, too near That arm, drew back and Hector learn'd to fear. Far as an able hand a lance can throw, Or at the lists, or at the fighting foe So far the Trojans from their lines retired Till Glaucus, turning, all the rest inspired. Then Bathyclaeus fell beneath his rage, The only hope of Chalcon's trembling age Wide o'er the land was stretch'd his large domain, With stately seats, and riches blest in vain Him, bold with youth, and eager to pursue The flying Lycians, Glaucus met and slew Pierced through the bosom with a sudden wound, He fell, and falling made the fields resound. The Achaians sorrow for their heroes slain With conquering shouts the Trojans shake the plain, And crowd to spoil the dead the Greeks oppose An iron circle round the carcase grows. Then brave Laogonus resign'd his breath, Despatch'd by Merion to the shades of death On Ida's holy hill he made abode, The priest of Jove, and honour'd like his god. Between the jaw and ear the javelin went The soul, exhaling, issued at the vent. His spear neas at the victor threw, Who stooping forward from the death withdrew The lance hiss'd harmless o'er his covering shield, And trembling struck, and rooted in the field There yet scarce spent, it quivers on the plain, Sent by the great neas' arm in vain. 'Swift as thou art (the raging hero cries) And skill'd in dancing to dispute the prize, My spear, the destined passage had it found, Had fix'd thy active vigour to the ground. 'O valiant leader of the Dardan host! (Insulted Merion thus retorts the boast) Strong as you are, 'tis mortal force you trust, An arm as strong may stretch thee in the dust. And if to this my lance thy fate be given, Vain are thy vaunts success is still from heaven This, instant, sends thee down to Pluto's coast Mine is the glory, his thy parting ghost. 'O friend (Menoetius' son this answer gave) With words to combat, ill befits the brave Not empty boasts the sons of Troy repel, Your swords must plunge them to the shades of hell. To speak, beseems the council but to dare In glorious action, is the task of war. This said, Patroclus to the battle flies Great Merion follows, and new shouts arise Shields, helmets rattle, as the warriors close And thick and heavy sounds the storm of blows. As through the shrilling vale, or mountain ground, The labours of the woodman's axe resound Blows following blows are heard reechoing wide, While crackling forests fall on every side Thus echoed all the fields with loud alarms, So fell the warriors, and so rung their arms. Now great Sarpedon on the sandy shore, His heavenly form defaced with dust and gore, And stuck with darts by warring heroes shed, Lies undistinguish'd from the vulgar dead. His longdisputed corse the chiefs enclose, On every side the busy combat grows Thick as beneath some shepherd's thatch'd abode (The pails high foaming with a milky flood) The buzzing flies, a persevering train, Incessant swarm, and chased return again. Jove view'd the combat with a stern survey, And eyes that flash'd intolerable day. Fix'd on the field his sight, his breast debates The vengeance due, and meditates the fates Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call The force of Hector to Patroclus' fall, This instant see his shortlived trophies won, And stretch him breathless on his slaughter'd son Or yet, with many a soul's untimely flight, Augment the fame and horror of the fight. To crown Achilles' valiant friend with praise At length he dooms and, that his last of days Shall set in glory, bids him drive the foe Nor unattended see the shades below. Then Hector's mind he fills with dire dismay He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away Sunk with Troy's heavy fates, he sees decline The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine. Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled, And left their monarch with the common dead Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall. (So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain The prize contested, and despoil the slain. The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne Patroclus' ships the glorious spoils adorn. Then thus to Phbus, in the realms above, Spoke from his throne the cloudcompelling Jove 'Descend, my Phbus! on the Phrygian plain, And from the fight convey Sarpedon slain Then bathe his body in the crystal flood, With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with blood O'er all his limbs ambrosial odours shed, And with celestial robes adorn the dead. Those rites discharged, his sacred corse bequeath To the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death. They to his friends the immortal charge shall bear His friends a tomb and pyramid shall rear What honour mortals after death receive, Those unavailing honours we may give! SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO LYCIA Apollo bows, and from mount Ida's height, Swift to the field precipitates his flight Thence from the war the breathless hero bore, Veil'd in a cloud, to silver Simois' shore There bathed his honourable wounds, and dress'd His manly members in the immortal vest And with perfumes of sweet ambrosial dews Restores his freshness, and his form renews. Then Sleep and Death, two twins of winged race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace, Received Sarpedon, at the god's command, And in a moment reach'd the Lycian land The corse amidst his weeping friends they laid, Where endless honours wait the sacred shade. Meanwhile Patroclus pours along the plains, With foaming coursers, and with loosen'd reins. Fierce on the Trojan and the Lycian crew, Ah blind to fate! thy headlong fury flew Against what fate and powerful Jove ordain, Vain was thy friend's command, thy courage vain. For he, the god, whose counsels uncontroll'd Dismay the mighty, and confound the bold The god who gives, resumes, and orders all, He urged thee on, and urged thee on to fall. Who first, brave hero! by that arm was slain, Who last beneath thy vengeance press'd the plain When heaven itself thy fatal fury led, And call'd to fill the number of the dead? Adrestus first Autonous then succeeds Echeclus follows next young Megas bleeds, Epistor, Melanippus, bite the ground The slaughter, Elasus and Mulius crown'd Then sunk Pylartes to eternal night The rest, dispersing, trust their fates to flight. Now Troy had stoop'd beneath his matchless power, But flaming Phbus kept the sacred tower. Thrice at the battlements Patroclus strook His blazing gis thrice Apollo shook He tried the fourth when, bursting from the cloud, A more than mortal voice was heard aloud. 'Patroclus! cease this heavendefended wall Defies thy lance not fated yet to fall Thy friend, thy greater far, it shall withstand, Troy shall not stoop even to Achilles' hand. So spoke the god who darts celestial fires The Greek obeys him, and with awe retires. While Hector, checking at the Scan gates His panting coursers, in his breast debates, Or in the field his forces to employ, Or draw the troops within the walls of Troy. Thus while he thought, beside him Phbus stood, In Asius' shape, who reigned by Sangar's flood (Thy brother, Hecuba! from Dymas sprung, A valiant warrior, haughty, bold, and young) Thus he accosts him. 'What a shameful sight! God! is it Hector that forbears the fight? Were thine my vigour this successful spear Should soon convince thee of so false a fear. Turn thee, ah turn thee to the field of fame, And in Patroclus' blood efface thy shame. Perhaps Apollo shall thy arms succeed, And heaven ordains him by thy lance to bleed. So spoke the inspiring god then took his flight, And plunged amidst the tumult of the fight. He bids Cebrion drive the rapid car The lash resounds, the coursers rush to war. The god the Grecians' sinking souls depress'd, And pour'd swift spirits through each Trojan breast. Patroclus lights, impatient for the fight A spear his left, a stone employs his right With all his nerves he drives it at the foe. Pointed above, and rough and gross below The falling ruin crush'd Cebrion's head, The lawless offspring of king Priam's bed His front, brows, eyes, one undistinguish'd wound The bursting balls drop sightless to the ground. The charioteer, while yet he held the rein, Struck from the car, falls headlong on the plain. To the dark shades the soul unwilling glides, While the proud victor thus his fall derides. 'Good heaven! what active feats yon artist shows! What skilful divers are our Phrygian foes! Mark with what ease they sink into the sand! Pity that all their practice is by land! Then rushing sudden on his prostrate prize, To spoil the carcase fierce Patroclus flies Swift as a lion, terrible and bold, That sweeps the field, depopulates the fold Pierced through the dauntless heart, then tumbles slain, And from his fatal courage finds his bane. At once bold Hector leaping from his car, Defends the body, and provokes the war. Thus for some slaughter'd hind, with equal rage, Two lordly rulers of the wood engage Stung with fierce hunger, each the prey invades, And echoing roars rebellow through the shades. Stern Hector fastens on the warrior's head, And by the foot Patroclus drags the dead While all around, confusion, rage, and fright, Mix the contending hosts in mortal fight. So pent by hills, the wild winds roar aloud In the deep bosom of some gloomy wood Leaves, arms, and trees, aloft in air are blown, The broad oaks crackle, and the Sylvans groan This way and that, the rattling thicket bends, And the whole forest in one crash descends. Not with less noise, with less tumultuous rage, In dreadful shock the mingled hosts engage. Darts shower'd on darts, now round the carcase ring Now flights of arrows bounding from the string Stones follow stones some clatter on the fields, Some hard, and heavy, shake the sounding shields. But where the rising whirlwind clouds the plains, Sunk in soft dust the mighty chief remains, And, stretch'd in death, forgets the guiding reins! Now flaming from the zenith, Sol had driven His fervid orb through half the vault of heaven While on each host with equal tempests fell The showering darts, and numbers sank to hell. But when his evening wheels o'erhung the main, Glad conquest rested on the Grecian train. Then from amidst the tumult and alarms, They draw the conquer'd corse and radiant arms. Then rash Patroclus with new fury glows, And breathing slaughter, pours amid the foes. Thrice on the press like Mars himself he flew, And thrice three heroes at each onset slew. There ends thy glory! there the Fates untwine The last, black remnant of so bright a line Apollo dreadful stops thy middle way Death calls, and heaven allows no longer day! For lo! the god in dusky clouds enshrined, Approaching dealt a staggering blow behind. The weighty shock his neck and shoulders feel His eyes flash sparkles, his stunn'd senses reel In giddy darkness far to distance flung, His bounding helmet on the champaign rung. Achilles' plume is stain'd with dust and gore That plume which never stoop'd to earth before Long used, untouch'd, in fighting fields to shine, And shade the temples of the mad divine. Jove dooms it now on Hector's helm to nod Not longfor fate pursues him, and the god. His spear in shivers falls his ample shield Drops from his arm his baldric strows the field The corslet his astonish'd breast forsakes Loose is each joint each nerve with horror shakes Stupid he stares, and allassistless stands Such is the force of more than mortal hands! A Dardan youth there was, well known to fame, From Panthus sprung, Euphorbus was his name Famed for the manage of the foaming horse, Skill'd in the dart, and matchless in the course Full twenty knights he tumbled from the car, While yet he learn'd his rudiments of war. His venturous spear first drew the hero's gore He struck, he wounded, but he durst no more. Nor, though disarm'd, Patroclus' fury stood But swift withdrew the longprotended wood. And turn'd him short, and herded in the crowd. Thus, by an arm divine, and mortal spear, Wounded, at once, Patroclus yields to fear, Retires for succour to his social train, And flies the fate, which heaven decreed, in vain. Stern Hector, as the bleeding chief he views, Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues The lance arrests him with a mortal wound He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound. With him all Greece was sunk that moment all Her yetsurviving heroes seem'd to fall. So, scorch'd with heat, along the desert score, The roaming lion meets a bristly boar, Fast by the spring they both dispute the flood, With flaming eyes, and jaws besmear'd with blood At length the sovereign savage wins the strife And the torn boar resigns his thirst and life. Patroclus thus, so many chiefs o'erthrown, So many lives effused, expires his own. As dying now at Hector's feet he lies, He sternly views him, and triumphant cries 'Lie there, Patroclus! and with thee, the joy Thy pride once promised, of subverting Troy The fancied scenes of Ilion wrapt in flames, And thy soft pleasures served with captive dames. Unthinking man! I fought those towers to free, And guard that beauteous race from lords like thee But thou a prey to vultures shalt be made Thy own Achilles cannot lend thee aid Though much at parting that great chief might say, And much enjoin thee, this important day. 'Return not, my brave friend (perhaps he said), Without the bloody arms of Hector dead.' He spoke, Patroclus march'd, and thus he sped. Supine, and wildly gazing on the skies, With faint, expiring breath, the chief replies 'Vain boaster! cease, and know the powers divine! Jove's and Apollo's is this deed, not thine To heaven is owed whate'er your own you call, And heaven itself disarm'd me ere my fall. Had twenty mortals, each thy match in might, Opposed me fairly, they had sunk in fight By fate and Phbus was I first o'erthrown, Euphorbus next the third mean part thy own. But thou, imperious! hear my latest breath The gods inspire it, and it sounds thy death Insulting man, thou shalt be soon as I Black fate o'erhangs thee, and thy hour draws nigh Even now on life's last verge I see thee stand, I see thee fall, and by Achilles' hand. He faints the soul unwilling wings her way, (The beauteous body left a load of clay) Flits to the lone, uncomfortable coast A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost! Then Hector pausing, as his eyes he fed On the pale carcase, thus address'd the dead 'From whence this boding speech, the stern decree Of death denounced, or why denounced to me? Why not as well Achilles' fate be given To Hector's lance? Who knows the will of heaven? Pensive he said then pressing as he lay His breathless bosom, tore the lance away And upwards cast the corse the reeking spear He shakes, and charges the bold charioteer. But swift Automedon with loosen'd reins Rapt in the chariot o'er the distant plains, Far from his rage the immortal coursers drove The immortal coursers were the gift of Jove. SCULAPIUS ARGUMENT. THE SEVENTH BATTLE, FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.THE ACTS OF MENELAUS. Menelaus, upon the death of Patroclus, defends his body from the enemy Euphorbus, who attempts it, is slain. Hector advancing, Menelaus retires but soon returns with Ajax, and drives him off. This, Glaucus objects to Hector as a flight, who thereupon puts on the armour he had won from Patroclus, and renews the battle. The Greeks give way, till Ajax rallies them neas sustains the Trojans. neas and Hector attempt the chariot of Achilles, which is borne off by Automedon. The horses of Achilles deplore the loss of Patroclus Jupiter covers his body with a thick darkness the noble prayer of Ajax on that occasion. Menelaus sends Antilochus to Achilles, with the news of Patroclus' death then returns to the fight, where, though attacked with the utmost fury, he and Meriones, assisted by the Ajaces, bear off the body to the ships. The time is the evening of the eightandtwentieth day. The scene lies in the fields before Troy. On the cold earth divine Patroclus spread, Lies pierced with wounds among the vulgar dead. Great Menelaus, touch'd with generous woe, Springs to the front, and guards him from the foe. Thus round her newfallen young the heifer moves, Fruit of her throes, and firstborn of her loves And anxious (helpless as he lies, and bare) Turns, and returns her, with a mother's care, Opposed to each that near the carcase came, His broad shield glimmers, and his lances flame. The son of Panthus, skill'd the dart to send, Eyes the dead hero, and insults the friend. 'This hand, Atrides, laid Patroclus low Warrior! desist, nor tempt an equal blow To me the spoils my prowess won, resign Depart with life, and leave the glory mine. The Trojan thus the Spartan monarch burn'd With generous anguish, and in scorn return'd 'Laugh'st thou not, Jove! from thy superior throne, When mortals boast of prowess not their own? Not thus the lion glories in his might, Nor panther braves his spotted foe in fight, Nor thus the boar (those terrors of the plain) Man only vaunts his force, and vaunts in vain. But far the vainest of the boastful kind, These sons of Panthus vent their haughty mind. Yet 'twas but late, beneath my conquering steel This boaster's brother, Hyperenor, fell Against our arm which rashly he defied, Vain was his vigour, and as vain his pride. These eyes beheld him on the dust expire, No more to cheer his spouse, or glad his sire. Presumptuous youth! like his shall be thy doom, Go, wait thy brother to the Stygian gloom Or, while thou may'st, avoid the threaten'd fate Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late. Unmoved, Euphorbus thus 'That action known, Come, for my brother's blood repay thy own. His weeping father claims thy destined head, And spouse, a widow in her bridal bed. On these thy conquer'd spoils I shall bestow, To soothe a consort's and a parent's woe. No longer then defer the glorious strife, Let heaven decide our fortune, fame, and life. Swift as the word the missile lance he flings The wellaim'd weapon on the buckler rings, But blunted by the brass, innoxious falls. On Jove the father great Atrides calls, Nor flies the javelin from his arm in vain, It pierced his throat, and bent him to the plain Wide through the neck appears the grisly wound, Prone sinks the warrior, and his arms resound. The shining circlets of his golden hair, Which even the Graces might be proud to wear, Instarr'd with gems and gold, bestrow the shore, With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with gore. As the young olive, in some sylvan scene, Crown'd by fresh fountains with eternal green, Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair, And plays and dances to the gentle air When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades The tender plant, and withers all its shades It lies uprooted from its genial bed, A lovely ruin now defaced and dead Thus young, thus beautiful, Euphorbus lay, While the fierce Spartan tore his arms away. Proud of his deed, and glorious in the prize, Affrighted Troy the towering victor flies Flies, as before some mountain lion's ire The village curs and trembling swains retire, When o'er the slaughter'd bull they hear him roar, And see his jaws distil with smoking gore All pale with fear, at distance scatter'd round, They shout incessant, and the vales resound. Meanwhile Apollo view'd with envious eyes, And urged great Hector to dispute the prize (In Mentes' shape, beneath whose martial care The rough Ciconians learn'd the trade of war) 'Forbear (he cried) with fruitless speed to chase Achilles' coursers, of ethereal race They stoop not, these, to mortal man's command, Or stoop to none but great Achilles' hand. Too long amused with a pursuit so vain, Turn, and behold the brave Euphorbus slain By Sparta slain! for ever now suppress'd The fire which burn'd in that undaunted breast! Thus having spoke, Apollo wing'd his flight, And mix'd with mortals in the toils of fight His words infix'd unutterable care Deep in great Hector's soul through all the war He darts his anxious eye and, instant, view'd The breathless hero in his blood imbued, (Forth welling from the wound, as prone he lay) And in the victor's hands the shining prey. Sheath'd in bright arms, through cleaving ranks he flies, And sends his voice in thunder to the skies Fierce as a flood of flame by Vulcan sent, It flew, and fired the nations as it went. Atrides from the voice the storm divined, And thus explored his own unconquer'd mind 'Then shall I quit Patroclus on the plain, Slain in my cause, and for my honour slain! Desert the arms, the relics, of my friend? Or singly, Hector and his troops attend? Sure where such partial favour heaven bestow'd, To brave the hero were to brave the god Forgive me, Greece, if once I quit the field 'Tis not to Hector, but to heaven I yield. Yet, nor the god, nor heaven, should give me fear, Did but the voice of Ajax reach my ear Still would we turn, still battle on the plains, And give Achilles all that yet remains Of his and our Patroclus This, no more The time allow'd Troy thicken'd on the shore. A sable scene! The terrors Hector led. Slow he recedes, and sighing quits the dead. So from the fold the unwilling lion parts, Forced by loud clamours, and a storm of darts He flies indeed, but threatens as he flies, With heart indignant and retorted eyes. Now enter'd in the Spartan ranks, he turn'd His manly breast, and with new fury burn'd O'er all the black battalions sent his view, And through the cloud the godlike Ajax knew Where labouring on the left the warrior stood, All grim in arms, and cover'd o'er with blood There breathing courage, where the god of day Had sunk each heart with terror and dismay. To him the king 'Oh Ajax, oh my friend! Haste, and Patroclus' loved remains defend The body to Achilles to restore Demands our care alas, we can no more! For naked now, despoiled of arms, he lies And Hector glories in the dazzling prize. He said, and touch'd his heart. The raging pair Pierced the thick battle, and provoke the war. Already had stern Hector seized his head, And doom'd to Trojan gods the unhappy dead But soon as Ajax rear'd his towerlike shield, Sprung to his car, and measured back the field, His train to Troy the radiant armour bear, To stand a trophy of his fame in war. Meanwhile great Ajax (his broad shield display'd) Guards the dead hero with the dreadful shade And now before, and now behind he stood Thus in the centre of some gloomy wood, With many a step, the lioness surrounds Her tawny young, beset by men and hounds Elate her heart, and rousing all her powers, Dark o'er the fiery balls each hanging eyebrow lours. Fast by his side the generous Spartan glows With great revenge, and feeds his inward woes. But Glaucus, leader of the Lycian aids, On Hector frowning, thus his flight upbraids 'Where now in Hector shall we Hector find? A manly form, without a manly mind. Is this, O chief! a hero's boasted fame? How vain, without the merit, is the name! Since battle is renounced, thy thoughts employ What other methods may preserve thy Troy 'Tis time to try if Ilion's state can stand By thee alone, nor ask a foreign hand Mean, empty boast! but shall the Lycians stake Their lives for you? those Lycians you forsake? What from thy thankless arms can we expect? Thy friend Sarpedon proves thy base neglect Say, shall our slaughter'd bodies guard your walls, While unreveng'd the great Sarpedon falls? Even where he died for Troy, you left him there, A feast for dogs, and all the fowls of air. On my command if any Lycian wait, Hence let him march, and give up Troy to fate. Did such a spirit as the gods impart Impel one Trojan hand or Trojan heart, (Such as should burn in every soul that draws The sword for glory, and his country's cause) Even yet our mutual arms we might employ, And drag yon carcase to the walls of Troy. Oh! were Patroclus ours, we might obtain Sarpedon's arms and honour'd corse again! Greece with Achilles' friend should be repaid, And thus due honours purchased to his shade. But words are vainLet Ajax once appear, And Hector trembles and recedes with fear Thou dar'st not meet the terrors of his eye And lo! already thou prepar'st to fly. The Trojan chief with fix'd resentment eyed The Lycian leader, and sedate replied 'Say, is it just, my friend, that Hector's ear From such a warrior such a speech should hear? I deem'd thee once the wisest of thy kind, But ill this insult suits a prudent mind. I shun great Ajax? I desert my train? 'Tis mine to prove the rash assertion vain I joy to mingle where the battle bleeds, And hear the thunder of the sounding steeds. But Jove's high will is ever uncontroll'd, The strong he withers, and confounds the bold Now crowns with fame the mighty man, and now Strikes the fresh garland from the victor's brow! Come, through yon squadrons let us hew the way, And thou be witness, if I fear today If yet a Greek the sight of Hector dread, Or yet their hero dare defend the dead. Then turning to the martial hosts, he cries 'Ye Trojans, Dardans, Lycians, and allies! Be men, my friends, in action as in name, And yet be mindful of your ancient fame. Hector in proud Achilles' arms shall shine, Torn from his friend, by right of conquest mine. He strode along the field, as thus he said (The sable plumage nodded o'er his head) Swift through the spacious plain he sent a look One instant saw, one instant overtook The distant band, that on the sandy shore The radiant spoils to sacred Ilion bore. There his own mail unbraced the field bestrow'd His train to Troy convey'd the massy load. Now blazing in the immortal arms he stands The work and present of celestial hands By aged Peleus to Achilles given, As first to Peleus by the court of heaven His father's arms not long Achilles wears, Forbid by fate to reach his father's years. Him, proud in triumph, glittering from afar, The god whose thunder rends the troubled air Beheld with pity as apart he sat, And, conscious, look'd through all the scene of fate. He shook the sacred honours of his head Olympus trembled, and the godhead said 'Ah, wretched man! unmindful of thy end! A moment's glory and what fates attend! In heavenly panoply divinely bright Thou stand'st, and armies tremble at thy sight, As at Achilles' self! beneath thy dart Lies slain the great Achilles' dearer part. Thou from the mighty dead those arms hast torn, Which once the greatest of mankind had worn. Yet live! I give thee one illustrious day, A blaze of glory ere thou fad'st away. For ah! no more Andromache shall come With joyful tears to welcome Hector home No more officious, with endearing charms, From thy tired limbs unbrace Pelides' arms! Then with his sable brow he gave the nod That seals his word the sanction of the god. The stubborn arms (by Jove's command disposed) Conform'd spontaneous, and around him closed Fill'd with the god, enlarged his members grew, Through all his veins a sudden vigour flew, The blood in brisker tides began to roll, And Mars himself came rushing on his soul. Exhorting loud through all the field he strode, And look'd, and moved, Achilles, or a god. Now Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, he inspires, Now Phorcys, Chromius, and Hippothous fires The great Thersilochus like fury found, Asteropaeus kindled at the sound, And Ennomus, in augury renown'd. 'Hear, all ye hosts, and hear, unnumber'd bands Of neighbouring nations, or of distant lands! 'Twas not for state we summon'd you so far, To boast our numbers, and the pomp of war Ye came to fight a valiant foe to chase, To save our present, and our future race. For this, our wealth, our products, you enjoy, And glean the relics of exhausted Troy. Now then, to conquer or to die prepare To die or conquer are the terms of war. Whatever hand shall win Patroclus slain, Whoe'er shall drag him to the Trojan train, With Hector's self shall equal honours claim With Hector part the spoil, and share the fame. Fired by his words, the troops dismiss their fears, They join, they thicken, they protend their spears Full on the Greeks they drive in firm array, And each from Ajax hopes the glorious prey Vain hope! what numbers shall the field o'erspread, What victims perish round the mighty dead! Great Ajax mark'd the growing storm from far, And thus bespoke his brother of the war 'Our fatal day, alas! is come, my friend And all our wars and glories at an end! 'Tis not this corse alone we guard in vain, Condemn'd to vultures on the Trojan plain We too must yield the same sad fate must fall On thee, on me, perhaps, my friend, on all. See what a tempest direful Hector spreads, And lo! it bursts, it thunders on our heads! Call on our Greeks, if any hear the call, The bravest Greeks this hour demands them all. The warrior raised his voice, and wide around The field reechoed the distressful sound. 'O chiefs! O princes, to whose hand is given The rule of men whose glory is from heaven! Whom with due honours both Atrides grace Ye guides and guardians of our Argive race! All, whom this wellknown voice shall reach from far, All, whom I see not through this cloud of war Come all! let generous rage your arms employ, And save Patroclus from the dogs of Troy. Oilean Ajax first the voice obey'd, Swift was his pace, and ready was his aid Next him Idomeneus, more slow with age, And Merion, burning with a hero's rage. The longsucceeding numbers who can name? But all were Greeks, and eager all for fame. Fierce to the charge great Hector led the throng Whole Troy embodied rush'd with shouts along. Thus, when a mountain billow foams and raves, Where some swoln river disembogues his waves, Full in the mouth is stopp'd the rushing tide, The boiling ocean works from side to side, The river trembles to his utmost shore, And distant rocks rebellow to the roar. Nor less resolved, the firm Achaian band With brazen shields in horrid circle stand. Jove, pouring darkness o'er the mingled fight, Conceals the warriors' shining helms in night To him, the chief for whom the hosts contend Had lived not hateful, for he lived a friend Dead he protects him with superior care. Nor dooms his carcase to the birds of air. FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS The first attack the Grecians scarce sustain, Repulsed, they yield the Trojans seize the slain. Then fierce they rally, to revenge led on By the swift rage of Ajax Telamon. (Ajax to Peleus' son the second name, In graceful stature next, and next in fame.) With headlong force the foremost ranks he tore So through the thicket bursts the mountain boar, And rudely scatters, for a distance round, The frighted hunter and the baying hound. The son of Lethus, brave Pelasgus' heir, Hippothous, dragg'd the carcase through the war The sinewy ankles bored, the feet he bound With thongs inserted through the double wound Inevitable fate o'ertakes the deed Doom'd by great Ajax' vengeful lance to bleed It cleft the helmet's brazen cheeks in twain The shatter'd crest and horsehair strow the plain With nerves relax'd he tumbles to the ground The brain comes gushing through the ghastly wound He drops Patroclus' foot, and o'er him spread, Now lies a sad companion of the dead Far from Larissa lies, his native air, And ill requites his parents' tender care. Lamented youth! in life's first bloom he fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell. Once more at Ajax Hector's javelin flies The Grecian marking, as it cut the skies, Shunn'd the descending death which hissing on, Stretch'd in the dust the great Iphytus' son, Schedius the brave, of all the Phocian kind The boldest warrior and the noblest mind In little Panope, for strength renown'd, He held his seat, and ruled the realms around. Plunged in his throat, the weapon drank his blood, And deep transpiercing through the shoulder stood In clanging arms the hero fell and all The fields resounded with his weighty fall. Phorcys, as slain Hippothous he defends, The Telamonian lance his belly rends The hollow armour burst before the stroke, And through the wound the rushing entrails broke In strong convulsions panting on the sands He lies, and grasps the dust with dying hands. Struck at the sight, recede the Trojan train The shouting Argives strip the heroes slain. And now had Troy, by Greece compell'd to yield, Fled to her ramparts, and resign'd the field Greece, in her native fortitude elate, With Jove averse, had turn'd the scale of fate But Phbus urged neas to the fight He seem'd like aged Periphas to sight (A herald in Anchises' love grown old, Revered for prudence, and with prudence bold.) Thus he'What methods yet, O chief! remain, To save your Troy, though heaven its fall ordain? There have been heroes, who, by virtuous care, By valour, numbers, and by arts of war, Have forced the powers to spare a sinking state, And gain'd at length the glorious odds of fate But you, when fortune smiles, when Jove declares His partial favour, and assists your wars, Your shameful efforts 'gainst yourselves employ, And force the unwilling god to ruin Troy. neas through the form assumed descries The power conceal'd, and thus to Hector cries 'Oh lasting shame! to our own fears a prey, We seek our ramparts, and desert the day. A god, nor is he less, my bosom warms, And tells me, Jove asserts the Trojan arms. He spoke, and foremost to the combat flew The bold example all his hosts pursue. Then, first, Leocritus beneath him bled, In vain beloved by valiant Lycomede Who view'd his fall, and, grieving at the chance, Swift to revenge it sent his angry lance The whirling lance, with vigorous force address'd, Descends, and pants in Apisaon's breast From rich Paeonia's vales the warrior came, Next thee, Asteropeus! in place and fame. Asteropeus with grief beheld the slain, And rush'd to combat, but he rush'd in vain Indissolubly firm, around the dead, Rank within rank, on buckler buckler spread, And hemm'd with bristled spears, the Grecians stood, A brazen bulwark, and an iron wood. Great Ajax eyes them with incessant care, And in an orb contracts the crowded war, Close in their ranks commands to fight or fall, And stands the centre and the soul of all Fix'd on the spot they war, and wounded, wound A sanguine torrent steeps the reeking ground On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled, And, thickening round them, rise the hills of dead. Greece, in close order, and collected might, Yet suffers least, and sways the wavering fight Fierce as conflicting fires the combat burns, And now it rises, now it sinks by turns. In one thick darkness all the fight was lost The sun, the moon, and all the ethereal host Seem'd as extinct day ravish'd from their eyes, And all heaven's splendours blotted from the skies. Such o'er Patroclus' body hung the night, The rest in sunshine fought, and open light Unclouded there, the aerial azure spread, No vapour rested on the mountain's head, The golden sun pour'd forth a stronger ray, And all the broad expansion flamed with day. Dispersed around the plain, by fits they fight, And here and there their scatter'd arrows light But death and darkness o'er the carcase spread, There burn'd the war, and there the mighty bled. Meanwhile the sons of Nestor, in the rear, (Their fellows routed,) toss the distant spear, And skirmish wide so Nestor gave command, When from the ships he sent the Pylian band. The youthful brothers thus for fame contend, Nor knew the fortune of Achilles' friend In thought they view'd him still, with martial joy, Glorious in arms, and dealing death to Troy. But round the corse the heroes pant for breath, And thick and heavy grows the work of death O'erlabour'd now, with dust, and sweat, and gore, Their knees, their legs, their feet, are covered o'er Drops follow drops, the clouds on clouds arise, And carnage clogs their hands, and darkness fills their eyes. As when a slaughter'd bull's yet reeking hide, Strain'd with full force, and tugg'd from side to side, The brawny curriers stretch and labour o'er The extended surface, drunk with fat and gore So tugging round the corse both armies stood The mangled body bathed in sweat and blood While Greeks and Ilians equal strength employ, Now to the ships to force it, now to Troy. Not Pallas' self, her breast when fury warms, Nor he whose anger sets the world in arms, Could blame this scene such rage, such horror reign'd Such, Jove to honour the great dead ordain'd. Achilles in his ships at distance lay, Nor knew the fatal fortune of the day He, yet unconscious of Patroclus' fall, In dust extended under Ilion's wall, Expects him glorious from the conquered plain, And for his wish'd return prepares in vain Though well he knew, to make proud Ilion bend Was more than heaven had destined to his friend. Perhaps to him this Thetis had reveal'd The rest, in pity to her son, conceal'd. Still raged the conflict round the hero dead, And heaps on heaps by mutual wounds they bled. 'Cursed be the man (even private Greeks would say) Who dares desert this welldisputed day! First may the cleaving earth before our eyes Gape wide, and drink our blood for sacrifice First perish all, ere haughty Troy shall boast We lost Patroclus, and our glory lost! Thus they while with one voice the Trojans said, 'Grant this day, Jove! or heap us on the dead! Then clash their sounding arms the clangours rise, And shake the brazen concave of the skies. Meantime, at distance from the scene of blood, The pensive steeds of great Achilles stood Their godlike master slain before their eyes, They wept, and shared in human miseries. In vain Automedon now shakes the rein, Now plies the lash, and soothes and threats in vain Nor to the fight nor Hellespont they go, Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe Still as a tombstone, never to be moved, On some good man or woman unreproved Lays its eternal weight or fix'd, as stands A marble courser by the sculptor's hands, Placed on the hero's grave. Along their face The big round drops coursed down with silent pace, Conglobing on the dust. Their manes, that late Circled their arched necks, and waved in state, Trail'd on the dust beneath the yoke were spread, And prone to earth was hung their languid head Nor Jove disdain'd to cast a pitying look, While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke 'Unhappy coursers of immortal strain, Exempt from age, and deathless, now in vain Did we your race on mortal man bestow, Only, alas! to share in mortal woe? For ah! what is there of inferior birth, That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth What wretched creature of what wretched kind, Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind? A miserable race! but cease to mourn For not by you shall Priam's son be borne High on the splendid car one glorious prize He rashly boasts the rest our will denies. Ourself will swiftness to your nerves impart, Ourself with rising spirits swell your heart. Automedon your rapid flight shall bear Safe to the navy through the storm of war. For yet 'tis given to Troy to ravage o'er The field, and spread her slaughters to the shore The sun shall see her conquer, till his fall With sacred darkness shades the face of all. He said and breathing in the immortal horse Excessive spirit, urged them to the course From their high manes they shake the dust, and bear The kindling chariot through the parted war So flies a vulture through the clamorous train Of geese, that scream, and scatter round the plain. From danger now with swiftest speed they flew, And now to conquest with like speed pursue Sole in the seat the charioteer remains, Now plies the javelin, now directs the reins Him brave Alcimedon beheld distress'd, Approach'd the chariot, and the chief address'd 'What god provokes thee rashly thus to dare, Alone, unaided, in the thickest war? Alas! thy friend is slain, and Hector wields Achilles' arms triumphant in the fields. 'In happy time (the charioteer replies) The bold Alcimedon now greets my eyes No Greek like him the heavenly steeds restrains, Or holds their fury in suspended reins Patroclus, while he lived, their rage could tame, But now Patroclus is an empty name! To thee I yield the seat, to thee resign The ruling charge the task of fight be mine. He said. Alcimedon, with active heat, Snatches the reins, and vaults into the seat. His friend descends. The chief of Troy descried, And call'd neas fighting near his side. 'Lo, to my sight, beyond our hope restored, Achilles' car, deserted of its lord! The glorious steeds our ready arms invite, Scarce their weak drivers guide them through the fight. Can such opponents stand when we assail? Unite thy force, my friend, and we prevail. The son of Venus to the counsel yields Then o'er their backs they spread their solid shields With brass refulgent the broad surface shined, And thick bullhides the spacious concave lined. Them Chromius follows, Aretus succeeds Each hopes the conquest of the lofty steeds In vain, brave youths, with glorious hopes ye burn, In vain advance! not fated to return. Unmov'd, Automedon attends the fight, Implores the Eternal, and collects his might. Then turning to his friend, with dauntless mind 'Oh keep the foaming coursers close behind! Full on my shoulders let their nostrils blow, For hard the fight, determined is the foe 'Tis Hector comes and when he seeks the prize, War knows no mean he wins it or he dies. Then through the field he sends his voice aloud, And calls the Ajaces from the warring crowd, With great Atrides. 'Hither turn, (he said,) Turn where distress demands immediate aid The dead, encircled by his friends, forego, And save the living from a fiercer foe. Unhelp'd we stand, unequal to engage The force of Hector, and neas' rage Yet mighty as they are, my force to prove Is only mine the event belongs to Jove. He spoke, and high the sounding javelin flung, Which pass'd the shield of Aretus the young It pierced his belt, emboss'd with curious art, Then in the lower belly struck the dart. As when a ponderous axe, descending full, Cleaves the broad forehead of some brawny bull Struck 'twixt the horns, he springs with many a bound, Then tumbling rolls enormous on the ground Thus fell the youth the air his soul received, And the spear trembled as his entrails heaved. Now at Automedon the Trojan foe Discharged his lance the meditated blow, Stooping, he shunn'd the javelin idly fled, And hiss'd innoxious o'er the hero's head Deep rooted in the ground, the forceful spear In long vibrations spent its fury there. With clashing falchions now the chiefs had closed, But each brave Ajax heard, and interposed Nor longer Hector with his Trojans stood, But left their slain companion in his blood His arms Automedon divests, and cries, 'Accept, Patroclus, this mean sacrifice Thus have I soothed my griefs, and thus have paid, Poor as it is, some offering to thy shade. So looks the lion o'er a mangled boar, All grim with rage, and horrible with gore High on the chariot at one bound he sprung, And o'er his seat the bloody trophies hung. And now Minerva from the realms of air Descends impetuous, and renews the war For, pleased at length the Grecian arms to aid, The lord of thunders sent the blueeyed maid. As when high Jove denouncing future woe, O'er the dark clouds extends his purple bow, (In sign of tempests from the troubled air, Or from the rage of man, destructive war,) The drooping cattle dread the impending skies, And from his halftill'd field the labourer flies In such a form the goddess round her drew A livid cloud, and to the battle flew. Assuming Phnix' shape on earth she falls, And in his wellknown voice to Sparta calls 'And lies Achilles' friend, beloved by all, A prey to dogs beneath the Trojan wall? What shame 'o Greece for future times to tell, To thee the greatest in whose cause he fell! 'O chief, O father! (Atreus' son replies) O full of days! by long experience wise! What more desires my soul, than here unmoved To guard the body of the man I loved? Ah, would Minerva send me strength to rear This wearied arm, and ward the storm of war! But Hector, like the rage of fire, we dread, And Jove's own glories blaze around his head! Pleased to be first of all the powers address'd, She breathes new vigour in her hero's breast, And fills with keen revenge, with fell despite, Desire of blood, and rage, and lust of fight. So burns the vengeful hornet (soul all o'er), Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still of gore (Bold son of air and heat) on angry wings Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings. Fired with like ardour fierce Atrides flew, And sent his soul with every lance he threw. There stood a Trojan, not unknown to fame, Ation's son, and Podes was his name With riches honour'd, and with courage bless'd, By Hector loved, his comrade, and his guest Through his broad belt the spear a passage found, And, ponderous as he falls, his arms resound. Sudden at Hector's side Apollo stood, Like Phaenops, Asius' son, appear'd the god (Asius the great, who held his wealthy reign In fair Abydos, by the rolling main.) 'Oh prince! (he cried) Oh foremost once in fame! What Grecian now shall tremble at thy name? Dost thou at length to Menelaus yield, A chief once thought no terror of the field? Yet singly, now, the longdisputed prize He bears victorious, while our army flies By the same arm illustrious Podes bled The friend of Hector, unrevenged, is dead! This heard, o'er Hector spreads a cloud of woe, Rage lifts his lance, and drives him on the foe. But now the Eternal shook his sable shield, That shaded Ide and all the subject field Beneath its ample verge. A rolling cloud Involved the mount the thunder roar'd aloud The affrighted hills from their foundations nod, And blaze beneath the lightnings of the god At one regard of his allseeing eye The vanquish'd triumph, and the victors fly. Then trembled Greece the flight Peneleus led For as the brave Botian turn'd his head To face the foe, Polydamas drew near, And razed his shoulder with a shorten'd spear By Hector wounded, Leitus quits the plain, Pierced through the wrist and raging with the pain, Grasps his once formidable lance in vain. As Hector follow'd, Idomen address'd The flaming javelin to his manly breast The brittle point before his corslet yields Exulting Troy with clamour fills the fields High on his chariots the Cretan stood, The son of Priam whirl'd the massive wood. But erring from its aim, the impetuous spear Struck to the dust the squire and charioteer Of martial Merion Coeranus his name, Who left fair Lyctus for the fields of fame. On foot bold Merion fought and now laid low, Had graced the triumphs of his Trojan foe, But the brave squire the ready coursers brought, And with his life his master's safety bought. Between his cheek and ear the weapon went, The teeth it shatter'd, and the tongue it rent. Prone from the seat he tumbles to the plain His dying hand forgets the falling rein This Merion reaches, bending from the car, And urges to desert the hopeless war Idomeneus consents the lash applies And the swift chariot to the navy flies. Not Ajax less the will of heaven descried, And conquest shifting to the Trojan side, Turn'd by the hand of Jove. Then thus begun, To Atreus's seed, the godlike Telamon 'Alas! who sees not Jove's almighty hand Transfers the glory to the Trojan band? Whether the weak or strong discharge the dart, He guides each arrow to a Grecian heart Not so our spears incessant though they rain, He suffers every lance to fall in vain. Deserted of the god, yet let us try What human strength and prudence can supply If yet this honour'd corse, in triumph borne, May glad the fleets that hope not our return, Who tremble yet, scarce rescued from their fates, And still hear Hector thundering at their gates. Some hero too must be despatch'd to bear The mournful message to Pelides' ear For sure he knows not, distant on the shore, His friend, his loved Patroclus, is no more. But such a chief I spy not through the host The men, the steeds, the armies, all are lost In general darknessLord of earth and air! Oh king! Oh father! hear my humble prayer Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the face of day! With tears the hero spoke, and at his prayer The god relenting clear'd the clouded air Forth burst the sun with allenlightening ray The blaze of armour flash'd against the day. 'Now, now, Atrides! cast around thy sight If yet Antilochus survives the fight, Let him to great Achilles' ear convey The fatal newsAtrides hastes away. So turns the lion from the nightly fold, Though high in courage, and with hunger bold, Long gall'd by herdsmen, and long vex'd by hounds, Stiff with fatigue, and fretted sore with wounds The darts fly round him from a hundred hands, And the red terrors of the blazing brands Till late, reluctant, at the dawn of day Sour he departs, and quits the untasted prey, So moved Atrides from his dangerous place With weary limbs, but with unwilling pace The foe, he fear'd, might yet Patroclus gain, And much admonish'd, much adjured his train 'O guard these relics to your charge consign'd, And bear the merits of the dead in mind How skill'd he was in each obliging art The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart He was, alas! but fate decreed his end, In death a hero, as in life a friend! So parts the chief from rank to rank he flew, And round on all sides sent his piercing view. As the bold bird, endued with sharpest eye Of all that wings the mid arial sky, The sacred eagle, from his walks above Looks down, and sees the distant thicket move Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare, Snatches his life amid the clouds of air. Not with less quickness, his exerted sight Pass'd this and that way, through the ranks of fight Till on the left the chief he sought, he found, Cheering his men, and spreading deaths around To him the king 'Beloved of Jove! draw near, For sadder tidings never touch'd thy ear Thy eyes have witness'd what a fatal turn! How Ilion triumphs, and the Achaians mourn. This is not all Patroclus, on the shore Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more. Fly to the fleet, this instant fly, and tell The sad Achilles, how his lovedone fell He too may haste the naked corse to gain The arms are Hector's, who despoil'd the slain. The youthful warrior heard with silent woe, From his fair eyes the tears began to flow Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say What sorrow dictates, but no word found way. To brave Laodocus his arms he flung, Who, near him wheeling, drove his steeds along Then ran the mournful message to impart, With tearful eyes, and with dejected heart. Swift fled the youth nor Menelaus stands (Though sore distress'd) to aid the Pylian bands But bids bold Thrasymede those troops sustain Himself returns to his Patroclus slain. 'Gone is Antilochus (the hero said) But hope not, warriors, for Achilles' aid Though fierce his rage, unbounded be his woe, Unarm'd, he fights not with the Trojan foe. 'Tis in our hands alone our hopes remain, 'Tis our own vigour must the dead regain, And save ourselves, while with impetuous hate Troy pours along, and this way rolls our fate. ''Tis well (said Ajax), be it then thy care, With Merion's aid, the weighty corse to rear Myself, and my bold brother will sustain The shock of Hector and his charging train Nor fear we armies, fighting side by side What Troy can dare, we have already tried, Have tried it, and have stood. The hero said. High from the ground the warriors heave the dead. A general clamour rises at the sight Loud shout the Trojans, and renew the fight. Not fiercer rush along the gloomy wood, With rage insatiate, and with thirst of blood, Voracious hounds, that many a length before Their furious hunters, drive the wounded boar But if the savage turns his glaring eye, They howl aloof, and round the forest fly. Thus on retreating Greece the Trojans pour, Wave their thick falchions, and their javelins shower But Ajax turning, to their fears they yield, All pale they tremble and forsake the field. While thus aloft the hero's corse they bear, Behind them rages all the storm of war Confusion, tumult, horror, o'er the throng Of men, steeds, chariots, urged the rout along Less fierce the winds with rising flames conspire To whelm some city under waves of fire Now sink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes, Now crack the blazing temples of the gods The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls, And sheets of smoke mount heavy to the poles. The heroes sweat beneath their honour'd load As when two mules, along the rugged road, From the steep mountain with exerted strength Drag some vast beam, or mast's unwieldy length Inly they groan, big drops of sweat distil, The enormous timber lumbering down the hill So theseBehind, the bulk of Ajax stands, And breaks the torrent of the rushing bands. Thus when a river swell'd with sudden rains Spreads his broad waters o'er the level plains, Some interposing hill the stream divides, And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides. Still close they follow, close the rear engage neas storms, and Hector foams with rage While Greece a heavy, thick retreat maintains, Wedged in one body, like a flight of cranes, That shriek incessant, while the falcon, hung High on poised pinions, threats their callow young. So from the Trojan chiefs the Grecians fly, Such the wild terror, and the mingled cry Within, without the trench, and all the way, Strow'd in bright heaps, their arms and armour lay Such horror Jove impress'd! yet still proceeds The work of death, and still the battle bleeds. VULCAN FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM ARGUMENT. THE GRIEF OF ACHILLES, AND NEW ARMOUR MADE HIM BY VULCAN. The news of the death of Patroclus is brought to Achilles by Antilochus. Thetis, hearing his lamentations, comes with all her sea nymphs to comfort him. The speeches of the mother and son on this occasion. Iris appears to Achilles by the command of Juno, and orders him to show himself at the head of the intrenchments. The sight of him turns the fortunes of the day, and the body of Patroclus is carried off by the Greeks. The Trojans call a council, where Hector and Polydamas disagree in their opinions but the advice of the former prevails, to remain encamped in the field. The grief of Achilles over the body of Patroclus. Thetis goes to the palace of Vulcan to obtain new arms for her son. The description of the wonderful works of Vulcan and, lastly, that noble one of the shield of Achilles. The latter part of the nineandtwentieth day, and the night ensuing, take up this book the scene is at Achilles' tent on the seashore, from whence it changes to the palace of Vulcan. Thus like the rage of fire the combat burns, And now it rises, now it sinks by turns. Meanwhile, where Hellespont's broad waters flow, Stood Nestor's son, the messenger of woe There sat Achilles, shaded by his sails, On hoisted yards extended to the gales Pensive he sat for all that fate design'd Rose in sad prospect to his boding mind. Thus to his soul he said 'Ah! what constrains The Greeks, late victors, now to quit the plains? Is this the day, which heaven so long ago Ordain'd, to sink me with the weight of woe? (So Thetis warn'd) when by a Trojan hand The bravest of the Myrmidonian band Should lose the light! Fulfilled is that decree Fallen is the warrior, and Patroclus he! In vain I charged him soon to quit the plain, And warn'd to shun Hectorean force in vain! Thus while he thinks, Antilochus appears, And tells the melancholy tale with tears. 'Sad tidings, son of Peleus! thou must hear And wretched I, the unwilling messenger! Dead is Patroclus! For his corse they fight His naked corse his arms are Hector's right. A sudden horror shot through all the chief, And wrapp'd his senses in the cloud of grief Cast on the ground, with furious hands he spread The scorching ashes o'er his graceful head His purple garments, and his golden hairs, Those he deforms with dust, and these he tears On the hard soil his groaning breast he threw, And roll'd and grovell'd, as to earth he grew. The virgin captives, with disorder'd charms, (Won by his own, or by Patroclus' arms,) Rush'd from their tents with cries and gathering round, Beat their white breasts, and fainted on the ground While Nestor's son sustains a manlier part, And mourns the warrior with a warrior's heart Hangs on his arms, amidst his frantic woe, And oft prevents the meditated blow. Far in the deep abysses of the main, With hoary Nereus, and the watery train, The mothergoddess from her crystal throne Heard his loud cries, and answer'd groan for groan. The circling Nereids with their mistress weep, And all the seagreen sisters of the deep. Thalia, Glauce (every watery name), Nesaea mild, and silver Spio came Cymothoe and Cymodoce were nigh, And the blue languish of soft Alia's eye. Their locks Actaea and Limnoria rear, Then Proto, Doris, Panope appear, Thoa, Pherusa, Doto, Melita Agave gentle, and Amphithoe gay Next Callianira, Callianassa show Their sister looks Dexamene the slow, And swift Dynamene, now cut the tides Iaera now the verdant wave divides Nemertes with Apseudes lifts the head, Bright Galatea quits her pearly bed These Orythia, Clymene, attend, Maera, Amphinome, the train extend And black Janira, and Janassa fair, And Amatheia with her amber hair. All these, and all that deep in ocean held Their sacred seats, the glimmering grotto fill'd Each beat her ivory breast with silent woe, Till Thetis' sorrows thus began to flow 'Hear me, and judge, ye sisters of the main! How just a cause has Thetis to complain! How wretched, were I mortal, were my fate! How more than wretched in the immortal state! Sprung from my bed a godlike hero came, The bravest far that ever bore the name Like some fair olive, by my careful hand He grew, he flourish'd and adorn'd the land! To Troy I sent him but the fates ordain He never, never must return again. So short a space the light of heaven to view, So short, alas! and fill'd with anguish too! Hear how his sorrows echo through the shore! I cannot ease them, but I must deplore I go at least to bear a tender part, And mourn my lovedone with a mother's heart. She said, and left the caverns of the main, All bathed in tears the melancholy train Attend her way. Wideopening part the tides, While the long pomp the silver wave divides. Approaching now, they touch'd the Trojan land Then, two by two, ascended up the strand. The immortal mother, standing close beside Her mournful offspring, to his sighs replied Along the coast their mingled clamours ran, And thus the silverfooted dame began 'Why mourns my son? thy late preferr'd request The god has granted, and the Greeks distress'd Why mourns my son? thy anguish let me share, Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care. He, deeply groaning'To this cureless grief, Not even the Thunderer's favour brings relief. PatroclusAh!say, goddess, can I boast A pleasure now? revenge itself is lost Patroclus, loved of all my martial train, Beyond mankind, beyond myself is slain! Lost are those arms the gods themselves bestow'd On Peleus Hector bears the glorious load. Cursed be that day, when all the powers above Thy charms submitted to a mortal love O hadst thou still, a sister of the main, Pursued the pleasures of the watery reign And happier Peleus, less ambitious, led A mortal beauty to his equal bed! Ere the sad fruit of thy unhappy womb Had caused such sorrows past, and woes to come. For soon, alas! that wretched offspring slain, New woes, new sorrows, shall create again. 'Tis not in fate the alternate now to give Patroclus dead, Achilles hates to live. Let me revenge it on proud Hector's heart, Let his last spirit smoke upon my dart On these conditions will I breathe till then, I blush to walk among the race of men. A flood of tears, at this, the goddess shed 'Ah then, I see thee dying, see thee dead! When Hector falls, thou diest.'Let Hector die, And let me fall! (Achilles made reply) Far lies Patroclus from his native plain! He fell, and falling, wish'd my aid in vain. Ah then, since from this miserable day I cast all hope of my return away Since, unrevenged, a hundred ghosts demand The fate of Hector from Achilles' hand Since here, for brutal courage far renown'd, I live an idle burden to the ground, (Others in council famed for nobler skill, More useful to preserve, than I to kill,) Let meBut oh! ye gracious powers above! Wrath and revenge from men and gods remove Far, far too dear to every mortal breast, Sweet to the soul, as honey to the taste Gathering like vapours of a noxious kind From fiery blood, and darkening all the mind. Me Agamemnon urged to deadly hate 'Tis pastI quell it I resign to fate. YesI will meet the murderer of my friend Or (if the gods ordain it) meet my end. The stroke of fate the strongest cannot shun The great Alcides, Jove's unequall'd son, To Juno's hate, at length resign'd his breath, And sunk the victim of allconquering death. So shall Achilles fall! stretch'd pale and dead, No more the Grecian hope, or Trojan dread! Let me, this instant, rush into the fields, And reap what glory life's short harvest yields. Shall I not force some widow'd dame to tear With frantic hands her long dishevell'd hair? Shall I not force her breast to heave with sighs, And the soft tears to trickle from her eyes? Yes, I shall give the fair those mournful charms In vain you hold meHence! my arms! my arms! Soon shall the sanguine torrent spread so wide, That all shall know Achilles swells the tide. 'My son (coerulean Thetis made reply, To fate submitting with a secret sigh,) The host to succour, and thy friends to save, Is worthy thee the duty of the brave. But canst thou, naked, issue to the plains? Thy radiant arms the Trojan foe detains. Insulting Hector bears the spoils on high, But vainly glories, for his fate is nigh. Yet, yet awhile thy generous ardour stay Assured, I meet thee at the dawn of day, Charged with refulgent arms (a glorious load), Vulcanian arms, the labour of a god. Then turning to the daughters of the main, The goddess thus dismiss'd her azure train 'Ye sister Nereids! to your deeps descend Haste, and our father's sacred seat attend I go to find the architect divine, Where vast Olympus' starry summits shine So tell our hoary sireThis charge she gave The seagreen sisters plunge beneath the wave Thetis once more ascends the bless'd abodes, And treads the brazen threshold of the gods. THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA And now the Greeks from furious Hector's force, Urge to broad Hellespont their headlong course Nor yet their chiefs Patroclus' body bore Safe through the tempest to the tented shore. The horse, the foot, with equal fury join'd, Pour'd on the rear, and thunder'd close behind And like a flame through fields of ripen'd corn, The rage of Hector o'er the ranks was borne. Thrice the slain hero by the foot he drew Thrice to the skies the Trojan clamours flew As oft the Ajaces his assault sustain But check'd, he turns repuls'd, attacks again. With fiercer shouts his lingering troops he fires, Nor yields a step, nor from his post retires So watchful shepherds strive to force, in vain, The hungry lion from a carcase slain. Even yet Patroclus had he borne away, And all the glories of the extended day, Had not high Juno from the realms of air, Secret, despatch'd her trusty messenger. The various goddess of the showery bow, Shot in a whirlwind to the shore below To great Achilles at his ships she came, And thus began the manycolour'd dame 'Rise, son of Peleus! rise, divinely brave! Assist the combat, and Patroclus save For him the slaughter to the fleet they spread, And fall by mutual wounds around the dead. To drag him back to Troy the foe contends Nor with his death the rage of Hector ends A prey to dogs he dooms the corse to lie, And marks the place to fix his head on high. Rise, and prevent (if yet you think of fame) Thy friend's disgrace, thy own eternal shame! 'Who sends thee, goddess, from the ethereal skies? Achilles thus. And Iris thus replies 'I come, Pelides! from the queen of Jove, The immortal empress of the realms above Unknown to him who sits remote on high, Unknown to all the synod of the sky. 'Thou comest in vain (he cries, with fury warm'd) Arms I have none, and can I fight unarm'd? Unwilling as I am, of force I stay, Till Thetis bring me at the dawn of day Vulcanian arms what other can I wield, Except the mighty Telamonian shield? That, in my friend's defence, has Ajax spread, While his strong lance around him heaps the dead The gallant chief defends Menoetius' son, And does what his Achilles should have done. 'Thy want of arms (said Iris) well we know But though unarm'd, yet clad in terrors, go! Let but Achilles o'er yon trench appear, Proud Troy shall tremble, and consent to fear Greece from one glance of that tremendous eye Shall take new courage, and disdain to fly. She spoke, and pass'd in air. The hero rose Her gis Pallas o'er his shoulder throws Around his brows a golden cloud she spread A stream of glory flamed above his head. As when from some beleaguer'd town arise The smokes, high curling to the shaded skies (Seen from some island, o'er the main afar, When men distress'd hang out the sign of war) Soon as the sun in ocean hides his rays, Thick on the hills the flaming beacons blaze With longprojected beams the seas are bright, And heaven's high arch reflects the ruddy light So from Achilles' head the splendours rise, Reflecting blaze on blaze against the skies. Forth march'd the chief, and distant from the crowd, High on the rampart raised his voice aloud With her own shout Minerva swells the sound Troy starts astonish'd, and the shores rebound. As the loud trumpet's brazen mouth from far With shrilling clangour sounds the alarm of war, Struck from the walls, the echoes float on high, And the round bulwarks and thick towers reply So high his brazen voice the hero rear'd Hosts dropp'd their arms, and trembled as they heard And back the chariots roll, and coursers bound, And steeds and men lie mingled on the ground. Aghast they see the living lightnings play, And turn their eyeballs from the flashing ray. Thrice from the trench his dreadful voice he raised, And thrice they fled, confounded and amazed. Twelve in the tumult wedged, untimely rush'd On their own spears, by their own chariots crush'd While, shielded from the darts, the Greeks obtain The longcontended carcase of the slain. A lofty bier the breathless warrior bears Around, his sad companions melt in tears. But chief Achilles, bending down his head, Pours unavailing sorrows o'er the dead, Whom late triumphant, with his steeds and car, He sent refulgent to the field of war (Unhappy change!) now senseless, pale, he found, Stretch'd forth, and gash'd with many a gaping wound. Meantime, unwearied with his heavenly way, In ocean's waves the unwilling light of day Quench'd his red orb, at Juno's high command, And from their labours eased the Achaian band. The frighted Trojans (panting from the war, Their steeds unharness'd from the weary car) A sudden council call'd each chief appear'd In haste, and standing for to sit they fear'd. 'Twas now no season for prolong'd debate They saw Achilles, and in him their fate. Silent they stood Polydamas at last, Skill'd to discern the future by the past, The son of Panthus, thus express'd his fears (The friend of Hector, and of equal years The selfsame night to both a being gave, One wise in council, one in action brave) JUNO COMMANDING THE SUN TO SET 'In free debate, my friends, your sentence speak For me, I move, before the morning break, To raise our camp too dangerous here our post, Far from Troy walls, and on a naked coast. I deem'd not Greece so dreadful, while engaged In mutual feuds her king and hero raged Then, while we hoped our armies might prevail We boldly camp'd beside a thousand sail. I dread Pelides now his rage of mind Not long continues to the shores confined, Nor to the fields, where long in equal fray Contending nations won and lost the day For Troy, for Troy, shall henceforth be the strife, And the hard contest not for fame, but life. Haste then to Ilion, while the favouring night Detains these terrors, keeps that arm from fight. If but the morrow's sun behold us here, That arm, those terrors, we shall feel, not fear And hearts that now disdain, shall leap with joy, If heaven permit them then to enter Troy. Let not my fatal prophecy be true, Nor what I tremble but to think, ensue. Whatever be our fate, yet let us try What force of thought and reason can supply Let us on counsel for our guard depend The town her gates and bulwarks shall defend. When morning dawns, our wellappointed powers, Array'd in arms, shall line the lofty towers. Let the fierce hero, then, when fury calls, Vent his mad vengeance on our rocky walls, Or fetch a thousand circles round the plain, Till his spent coursers seek the fleet again So may his rage be tired, and labour'd down! And dogs shall tear him ere he sack the town. 'Return! (said Hector, fired with stern disdain) What! coop whole armies in our walls again? Was't not enough, ye valiant warriors, say, Nine years imprison'd in those towers ye lay? Wide o'er the world was Ilion famed of old For brass exhaustless, and for mines of gold But while inglorious in her walls we stay'd, Sunk were her treasures, and her stores decay'd The Phrygians now her scatter'd spoils enjoy, And proud Monia wastes the fruits of Troy. Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls, And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls, Darest thou dispirit whom the gods incite? Flies any Trojan? I shall stop his flight. To better counsel then attention lend Take due refreshment, and the watch attend. If there be one whose riches cost him care, Forth let him bring them for the troops to share 'Tis better generously bestow'd on those, Than left the plunder of our country's foes. Soon as the morn the purple orient warms, Fierce on yon navy will we pour our arms. If great Achilles rise in all his might, His be the danger I shall stand the fight. Honour, ye gods! or let me gain or give And live he glorious, whosoe'er shall live! Mars is our common lord, alike to all And oft the victor triumphs, but to fall. The shouting host in loud applauses join'd So Pallas robb'd the many of their mind To their own sense condemn'd, and left to choose The worst advice, the better to refuse. While the long night extends her sable reign, Around Patroclus mourn'd the Grecian train. Stern in superior grief Pelides stood Those slaughtering arms, so used to bathe in blood, Now clasp his claycold limbs then gushing start The tears, and sighs burst from his swelling heart. The lion thus, with dreadful anguish stung, Roars through the desert, and demands his young When the grim savage, to his rifled den Too late returning, snuffs the track of men, And o'er the vales and o'er the forest bounds His clamorous grief the bellowing wood resounds. So grieves Achilles and, impetuous, vents To all his Myrmidons his loud laments. 'In what vain promise, gods! did I engage, When to console Menoetius' feeble age, I vowed his muchloved offspring to restore, Charged with rich spoils, to fair Opuntia's shore? But mighty Jove cuts short, with just disdain, The long, long views of poor designing man! One fate the warrior and the friend shall strike, And Troy's black sands must drink our blood alike Me too a wretched mother shall deplore, An aged father never see me more! Yet, my Patroclus! yet a space I stay, Then swift pursue thee on the darksome way. Ere thy dear relics in the grave are laid, Shall Hector's head be offer'd to thy shade That, with his arms, shall hang before thy shrine And twelve, the noblest of the Trojan line, Sacred to vengeance, by this hand expire Their lives effused around thy flaming pyre. Thus let me lie till then! thus, closely press'd, Bathe thy cold face, and sob upon thy breast! While Trojan captives here thy mourners stay, Weep all the night and murmur all the day Spoils of my arms, and thine when, wasting wide, Our swords kept time, and conquer'd side by side. He spoke, and bade the sad attendants round Cleanse the pale corse, and wash each honour'd wound. A massy caldron of stupendous frame They brought, and placed it o'er the rising flame Then heap'd the lighted wood the flame divides Beneath the vase, and climbs around the sides In its wide womb they pour the rushing stream The boiling water bubbles to the brim. The body then they bathe with pious toil, Embalm the wounds, anoint the limbs with oil, High on a bed of state extended laid, And decent cover'd with a linen shade Last o'er the dead the milkwhite veil they threw That done, their sorrows and their sighs renew. Meanwhile to Juno, in the realms above, (His wife and sister,) spoke almighty Jove. 'At last thy will prevails great Peleus' son Rises in arms such grace thy Greeks have won. Say (for I know not), is their race divine, And thou the mother of that martial line? 'What words are these? (the imperial dame replies, While anger flash'd from her majestic eyes) Succour like this a mortal arm might lend, And such success mere human wit attend And shall not I, the second power above, Heaven's queen, and consort of the thundering Jove, Say, shall not I one nation's fate command, Not wreak my vengeance on one guilty land? TRIPOD So they. Meanwhile the silverfooted dame Reach'd the Vulcanian dome, eternal frame! Higheminent amid the works divine, Where heaven's farbeaming brazen mansions shine. There the lame architect the goddess found, Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round, While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew And puffing loud, the roaring billows blew. That day no common task his labour claim'd Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed, That placed on living wheels of massy gold, (Wondrous to tell,) instinct with spirit roll'd From place to place, around the bless'd abodes Selfmoved, obedient to the beck of gods For their fair handles now, o'erwrought with flowers, In moulds prepared, the glowing ore he pours. Just as responsive to his thought the frame Stood prompt to move, the azure goddess came Charis, his spouse, a grace divinely fair, (With purple fillets round her braided hair,) Observed her entering her soft hand she press'd, And, smiling, thus the watery queen address'd 'What, goddess! this unusual favour draws? All hail, and welcome! whatsoe'er the cause Till now a stranger, in a happy hour Approach, and taste the dainties of the bower. THETIS AND EURYNOME RECEIVING THE INFANT VULCAN High on a throne, with stars of silver graced, And various artifice, the queen she placed A footstool at her feet then calling, said, 'Vulcan, draw near, 'tis Thetis asks your aid. 'Thetis (replied the god) our powers may claim, An everdear, an everhonour'd name! When my proud mother hurl'd me from the sky, (My awkward form, it seems, displeased her eye,) She, and Eurynome, my griefs redress'd, And soft received me on their silver breast. Even then these arts employ'd my infant thought Chains, bracelets, pendants, all their toys, I wrought. Nine years kept secret in the dark abode, Secure I lay, conceal'd from man and god Deep in a cavern'd rock my days were led The rushing ocean murmur'd o'er my head. Now, since her presence glads our mansion, say, For such desert what service can I pay? Vouchsafe, O Thetis! at our board to share The genial rites, and hospitable fare While I the labours of the forge forego, And bid the roaring bellows cease to blow. Then from his anvil the lame artist rose Wide with distorted legs oblique he goes, And stills the bellows, and (in order laid) Locks in their chests his instruments of trade. Then with a sponge the sooty workman dress'd His brawny arms embrown'd, and hairy breast. With his huge sceptre graced, and red attire, Came halting forth the sovereign of the fire The monarch's steps two female forms uphold, That moved and breathed in animated gold To whom was voice, and sense, and science given Of works divine (such wonders are in heaven!) On these supported, with unequal gait, He reach'd the throne where pensive Thetis sate There placed beside her on the shining frame, He thus address'd the silverfooted dame 'Thee, welcome, goddess! what occasion calls (So long a stranger) to these honour'd walls? 'Tis thine, fair Thetis, the command to lay, And Vulcan's joy and duty to obey. VULCAN AND CHARIS RECEIVING THETIS To whom the mournful mother thus replies (The crystal drops stood trembling in her eyes) 'O Vulcan! say, was ever breast divine So pierced with sorrows, so o'erwhelm'd as mine? Of all the goddesses, did Jove prepare For Thetis only such a weight of care? I, only I, of all the watery race By force subjected to a man's embrace, Who, sinking now with age and sorrow, pays The mighty fine imposed on length of days. Sprung from my bed, a godlike hero came, The bravest sure that ever bore the name Like some fair plant beneath my careful hand He grew, he flourish'd, and adorn'd the land! To Troy I sent him! but his native shore Never, ah never, shall receive him more (Even while he lives, he wastes with secret woe) Nor I, a goddess, can retard the blow! Robb'd of the prize the Grecian suffrage gave, The king of nations forced his royal slave For this he grieved and, till the Greeks oppress'd Required his arm, he sorrow'd unredress'd. Large gifts they promise, and their elders send In vainhe arms not, but permits his friend His arms, his steeds, his forces to employ He marches, combats, almost conquers Troy Then slain by Phbus (Hector had the name) At once resigns his armour, life, and fame. But thou, in pity, by my prayer be won Grace with immortal arms this shortlived son, And to the field in martial pomp restore, To shine with glory, till he shines no more! To her the artistgod 'Thy griefs resign, Secure, what Vulcan can, is ever thine. O could I hide him from the Fates, as well, Or with these hands the cruel stroke repel, As I shall forge most envied arms, the gaze Of wondering ages, and the world's amaze! Thus having said, the father of the fires To the black labours of his forge retires. Soon as he bade them blow, the bellows turn'd Their iron mouths and where the furnace burn'd, Resounding breathed at once the blast expires, And twenty forges catch at once the fires Just as the god directs, now loud, now low, They raise a tempest, or they gently blow In hissing flames huge silver bars are roll'd, And stubborn brass, and tin, and solid gold Before, deep fix'd, the eternal anvils stand The ponderous hammer loads his better hand, His left with tongs turns the vex'd metal round, And thick, strong strokes, the doubling vaults rebound. Then first he form'd the immense and solid shield Rich various artifice emblazed the field Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound A silver chain suspends the massy round Five ample plates the broad expanse compose, And godlike labours on the surface rose. There shone the image of the mastermind There earth, there heaven, there ocean he design'd The unwearied sun, the moon completely round The starry lights that heaven's high convex crown'd The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team And great Orion's more refulgent beam To which, around the axle of the sky, The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye, Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain, Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main. Two cities radiant on the shield appear, The image one of peace, and one of war. Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight, And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite Along the street the newmade brides are led, With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed The youthful dancers in a circle bound To the soft flute, and cithern's silver sound Through the fair streets the matrons in a row Stand in their porches, and enjoy the show. There in the forum swarm a numerous train The subject of debate, a townsman slain One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied, And bade the public and the laws decide The witness is produced on either hand For this, or that, the partial people stand The appointed heralds still the noisy bands, And form a ring, with sceptres in their hands On seats of stone, within the sacred place, The reverend elders nodded o'er the case Alternate, each the attesting sceptre took, And rising solemn, each his sentence spoke. Two golden talents lay amidst, in sight, The prize of him who best adjudged the right. Another part (a prospect differing far) Glow'd with refulgent arms, and horrid war. Two mighty hosts a leaguer'd town embrace, And one would pillage, one would burn the place. Meantime the townsmen, arm'd with silent care, A secret ambush on the foe prepare Their wives, their children, and the watchful band Of trembling parents, on the turrets stand. They march by Pallas and by Mars made bold Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold, And gold their armour these the squadron led, August, divine, superior by the head! A place for ambush fit they found, and stood, Cover'd with shields, beside a silver flood. Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful seem If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream. Soon the white flocks proceeded o'er the plains, And steers slowmoving, and two shepherd swains Behind them piping on their reeds they go, Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe. In arms the glittering squadron rising round Rush sudden hills of slaughter heap the ground Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains, And, all amidst them, dead, the shepherd swains! The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear They rise, take horse, approach, and meet the war, They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood The waving silver seem'd to blush with blood. There Tumult, there Contention stood confess'd One rear'd a dagger at a captive's breast One held a living foe, that freshly bled With newmade wounds another dragg'd a dead Now here, now there, the carcases they tore Fate stalk'd amidst them, grim with human gore. And the whole war came out, and met the eye And each bold figure seem'd to live or die. A field deep furrow'd next the god design'd, The third time labour'd by the sweating hind The shining shares full many ploughmen guide, And turn their crooked yokes on every side. Still as at either end they wheel around, The master meets them with his goblet crown'd The hearty draught rewards, renews their toil, Then back the turning ploughshares cleave the soil Behind, the rising earth in ridges roll'd And sable look'd, though form'd of molten gold. Another field rose high with waving grain With bended sickles stand the reaper train Here stretched in ranks the levell'd swarths are found, Sheaves heap'd on sheaves here thicken up the ground. With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands The gatherers follow, and collect in bands And last the children, in whose arms are borne (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn. The rustic monarch of the field descries, With silent glee, the heaps around him rise. A ready banquet on the turf is laid, Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade. The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare The reaper's due repast, the woman's care. Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines, Bent with the ponderous harvest of its vines A deeper dye the dangling clusters show, And curl'd on silver props, in order glow A darker metal mix'd intrench'd the place And pales of glittering tin the inclosure grace. To this, one pathway gently winding leads, Where march a train with baskets on their heads, (Fair maids and blooming youths,) that smiling bear The purple product of the autumnal year. To these a youth awakes the warbling strings, Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings In measured dance behind him move the train, Tune soft the voice, and answer to the strain. Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold, Rear high their horns, and seem to low in gold, And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores A rapid torrent through the rushes roars Four golden herdsmen as their guardians stand, And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band. Two lions rushing from the wood appear'd And seized a bull, the master of the herd He roar'd in vain the dogs, the men withstood They tore his flesh, and drank his sable blood. The dogs (oft cheer'd in vain) desert the prey, Dread the grim terrors, and at distance bay. Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads Deep through fair forests, and a length of meads, And stalls, and folds, and scatter'd cots between And fleecy flocks, that whiten all the scene. A figured dance succeeds such once was seen In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen, Form'd by Daedalean art a comely band Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand. The maids in soft simars of linen dress'd The youths all graceful in the glossy vest Of those the locks with flowery wreath inroll'd Of these the sides adorn'd with swords of gold, That glittering gay, from silver belts depend. Now all at once they rise, at once descend, With welltaught feet now shape in oblique ways, Confusedly regular, the moving maze Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring, And undistinguish'd blend the flying ring So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle toss'd, And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost. The gazing multitudes admire around Two active tumblers in the centre bound Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend And general songs the sprightly revel end. Thus the broad shield complete the artist crown'd With his last hand, and pour'd the ocean round In living silver seem'd the waves to roll, And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole. This done, whate'er a warrior's use requires He forged the cuirass that outshone the fires, The greaves of ductile tin, the helm impress'd With various sculpture, and the golden crest. At Thetis' feet the finished labour lay She, as a falcon cuts the aerial way, Swift from Olympus' snowy summit flies, And bears the blazing present through the skies. ARGUMENT. THE RECONCILIATION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. Thetis brings to her son the armour made by Vulcan. She preserves the body of his friend from corruption, and commands him to assemble the army, to declare his resentment at an end. Agamemnon and Achilles are solemnly reconciled the speeches, presents, and ceremonies on that occasion. Achilles is with great difficulty persuaded to refrain from the battle till the troops have refreshed themselves by the advice of Ulysses. The presents are conveyed to the tent of Achilles, where Brises laments over the body of Patroclus. The hero obstinately refuses all repast, and gives himself up to lamentations for his friend. Minerva descends to strengthen him, by the order of Jupiter. He arms for the fight his appearance described. He addresses himself to his horses, and reproaches them with the death of Patroclus. One of them is miraculously endued with voice, and inspired to prophesy his fate but the hero, not astonished by that prodigy, rushes with fury to the combat. The thirtieth day. The scene is on the seashore. Soon as Aurora heaved her Orient head Above the waves, that blush'd with early red, (With newborn day to gladden mortal sight, And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light,) The immortal arms the goddessmother bears Swift to her son her son she finds in tears Stretch'd o'er Patroclus' corse while all the rest Their sovereign's sorrows in their own express'd. A ray divine her heavenly presence shed, And thus, his hand soft touching, Thetis said 'Suppress, my son, this rage of grief, and know It was not man, but heaven, that gave the blow Behold what arms by Vulcan are bestow'd, Arms worthy thee, or fit to grace a god. Then drops the radiant burden on the ground Clang the strong arms, and ring the shores around Back shrink the Myrmidons with dread surprise, And from the broad effulgence turn their eyes. Unmoved the hero kindles at the show, And feels with rage divine his bosom glow From his fierce eyeballs living flames expire, And flash incessant like a stream of fire He turns the radiant gift and feeds his mind On all the immortal artist had design'd. 'Goddess! (he cried,) these glorious arms, that shine With matchless art, confess the hand divine. Now to the bloody battle let me bend But ah! the relics of my slaughter'd friend! In those wide wounds through which his spirit fled, Shall flies, and worms obscene, pollute the dead? 'That unavailing care be laid aside, (The azure goddess to her son replied,) Whole years untouch'd, uninjured shall remain, Fresh as in life, the carcase of the slain. But go, Achilles, as affairs require, Before the Grecian peers renounce thine ire Then uncontroll'd in boundless war engage, And heaven with strength supply the mighty rage! THETIS BRINGING THE ARMOUR TO ACHILLES Then in the nostrils of the slain she pour'd Nectareous drops, and rich ambrosia shower'd O'er all the corse. The flies forbid their prey, Untouch'd it rests, and sacred from decay. Achilles to the strand obedient went The shores resounded with the voice he sent. The heroes heard, and all the naval train That tend the ships, or guide them o'er the main, Alarm'd, transported, at the wellknown sound, Frequent and full, the great assembly crown'd Studious to see the terror of the plain, Long lost to battle, shine in arms again. Tydides and Ulysses first appear, Lame with their wounds, and leaning on the spear These on the sacred seats of council placed, The king of men, Atrides, came the last He too sore wounded by Agenor's son. Achilles (rising in the midst) begun 'O monarch! better far had been the fate Of thee, of me, of all the Grecian state, If (ere the day when by mad passion sway'd, Rash we contended for the blackeyed maid) Preventing Dian had despatch'd her dart, And shot the shining mischief to the heart! Then many a hero had not press'd the shore, Nor Troy's glad fields been fatten'd with our gore. Long, long shall Greece the woes we caused bewail, And sad posterity repeat the tale. But this, no more the subject of debate, Is past, forgotten, and resign'd to fate. Why should, alas, a mortal man, as I, Burn with a fury that can never die? Here then my anger ends let war succeed, And even as Greece has bled, let Ilion bleed. Now call the hosts, and try if in our sight Troy yet shall dare to camp a second night! I deem, their mightiest, when this arm he knows, Shall 'scape with transport, and with joy repose. He said his finish'd wrath with loud acclaim The Greeks accept, and shout Pelides' name. When thus, not rising from his lofty throne, In state unmoved, the king of men begun 'Hear me, ye sons of Greece! with silence hear! And grant your monarch an impartial ear Awhile your loud, untimely joy suspend, And let your rash, injurious clamours end Unruly murmurs, or illtimed applause, Wrong the best speaker, and the justest cause. Nor charge on me, ye Greeks, the dire debate Know, angry Jove, and allcompelling Fate, With fell Erinnys, urged my wrath that day When from Achilles' arms I forced the prey. What then could I against the will of heaven? Not by myself, but vengeful Ate driven She, Jove's dread daughter, fated to infest The race of mortals, enter'd in my breast. Not on the ground that haughty fury treads, But prints her lofty footsteps on the heads Of mighty men inflicting as she goes Longfestering wounds, inextricable woes! Of old, she stalk'd amid the bright abodes And Jove himself, the sire of men and gods, The world's great ruler, felt her venom'd dart Deceived by Juno's wiles, and female art For when Alcmena's nine long months were run, And Jove expected his immortal son, To gods and goddesses the unruly joy He show'd, and vaunted of his matchless boy 'From us, (he said) this day an infant springs, Fated to rule, and born a king of kings.' Saturnia ask'd an oath, to vouch the truth, And fix dominion on the favour'd youth. The Thunderer, unsuspicious of the fraud, Pronounced those solemn words that bind a god. The joyful goddess, from Olympus' height, Swift to Achaian Argos bent her flight Scarce seven moons gone, lay Sthenelus's wife She push'd her lingering infant into life Her charms Alcmena's coming labours stay, And stop the babe, just issuing to the day. Then bids Saturnius bear his oath in mind 'A youth (said she) of Jove's immortal kind Is this day born from Sthenelus he springs, And claims thy promise to be king of kings.' Grief seized the Thunderer, by his oath engaged Stung to the soul, he sorrow'd, and he raged. From his ambrosial head, where perch'd she sate, He snatch'd the furygoddess of debate, The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore, The immortal seats should ne'er behold her more And whirl'd her headlong down, for ever driven From bright Olympus and the starry heaven Thence on the nether world the fury fell Ordain'd with man's contentious race to dwell. Full oft the god his son's hard toils bemoan'd, Cursed the dire fury, and in secret groan'd. Even thus, like Jove himself, was I misled, While raging Hector heap'd our camps with dead. What can the errors of my rage atone? My martial troops, my treasures are thy own This instant from the navy shall be sent Whate'er Ulysses promised at thy tent But thou! appeased, propitious to our prayer, Resume thy arms, and shine again in war. 'O king of nations! whose superior sway (Returns Achilles) all our hosts obey! To keep or send the presents, be thy care To us, 'tis equal all we ask is war. While yet we talk, or but an instant shun The fight, our glorious work remains undone. Let every Greek, who sees my spear confound The Trojan ranks, and deal destruction round, With emulation, what I act survey, And learn from thence the business of the day. The son of Peleus thus and thus replies The great in councils, Ithacus the wise 'Though, godlike, thou art by no toils oppress'd, At least our armies claim repast and rest Long and laborious must the combat be, When by the gods inspired, and led by thee. Strength is derived from spirits and from blood, And those augment by generous wine and food What boastful son of war, without that stay, Can last a hero through a single day? Courage may prompt but, ebbing out his strength, Mere unsupported man must yield at length Shrunk with dry famine, and with toils declined, The drooping body will desert the mind But built anew with strengthconferring fare, With limbs and soul untamed, he tires a war. Dismiss the people, then, and give command, With strong repast to hearten every band But let the presents to Achilles made, In full assembly of all Greece be laid. The king of men shall rise in public sight, And solemn swear (observant of the rite) That, spotless, as she came, the maid removes, Pure from his arms, and guiltless of his loves. That done, a sumptuous banquet shall be made, And the full price of injured honour paid. Stretch not henceforth, O prince! thy sovereign might Beyond the bounds of reason and of right 'Tis the chief praise that e'er to kings belong'd, To right with justice whom with power they wrong'd. To him the monarch 'Just is thy decree, Thy words give joy, and wisdom breathes in thee. Each due atonement gladly I prepare And heaven regard me as I justly swear! Here then awhile let Greece assembled stay, Nor great Achilles grudge this short delay. Till from the fleet our presents be convey'd, And Jove attesting, the firm compact made. A train of noble youths the charge shall bear These to select, Ulysses, be thy care In order rank'd let all our gifts appear, And the fair train of captives close the rear Talthybius shall the victim boar convey, Sacred to Jove, and yon bright orb of day. 'For this (the stern acides replies) Some less important season may suffice, When the stern fury of the war is o'er, And wrath, extinguish'd, burns my breast no more. By Hector slain, their faces to the sky, All grim with gaping wounds, our heroes lie Those call to war! and might my voice incite, Now, now, this instant, shall commence the fight Then, when the day's complete, let generous bowls, And copious banquets, glad your weary souls. Let not my palate know the taste of food, Till my insatiate rage be cloy'd with blood Pale lies my friend, with wounds disfigured o'er, And his cold feet are pointed to the door. Revenge is all my soul! no meaner care, Interest, or thought, has room to harbour there Destruction be my feast, and mortal wounds, And scenes of blood, and agonizing sounds. 'O first of Greeks, (Ulysses thus rejoin'd,) The best and bravest of the warrior kind! Thy praise it is in dreadful camps to shine, But old experience and calm wisdom mine. Then hear my counsel, and to reason yield, The bravest soon are satiate of the field Though vast the heaps that strow the crimson plain, The bloody harvest brings but little gain The scale of conquest ever wavering lies, Great Jove but turns it, and the victor dies! The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall, And endless were the grief, to weep for all. Eternal sorrows what avails to shed? Greece honours not with solemn fasts the dead Enough, when death demands the brave, to pay The tribute of a melancholy day. One chief with patience to the grave resign'd, Our care devolves on others left behind. Let generous food supplies of strength produce, Let rising spirits flow from sprightly juice, Let their warm heads with scenes of battle glow, And pour new furies on the feebler foe. Yet a short interval, and none shall dare Expect a second summons to the war Who waits for that, the dire effects shall find, If trembling in the ships he lags behind. Embodied, to the battle let us bend, And all at once on haughty Troy descend. And now the delegates Ulysses sent, To bear the presents from the royal tent The sons of Nestor, Phyleus' valiant heir, Thias and Merion, thunderbolts of war, With Lycomedes of Creiontian strain, And Melanippus, form'd the chosen train. Swift as the word was given, the youths obey'd Twice ten bright vases in the midst they laid A row of six fair tripods then succeeds And twice the number of highbounding steeds Seven captives next a lovely line compose The eighth Brises, like the blooming rose, Closed the bright band great Ithacus, before, First of the train, the golden talents bore The rest in public view the chiefs dispose, A splendid scene! then Agamemnon rose The boar Talthybius held the Grecian lord Drew the broad cutlass sheath'd beside his sword The stubborn bristles from the victim's brow He crops, and offering meditates his vow. His hands uplifted to the attesting skies, On heaven's broad marble roof were fixed his eyes. The solemn words a deep attention draw, And Greece around sat thrill'd with sacred awe. 'Witness thou first! thou greatest power above, Allgood, allwise, and allsurveying Jove! And motherearth, and heaven's revolving light, And ye, fell furies of the realms of night, Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear! The blackeyed maid inviolate removes, Pure and unconscious of my manly loves. If this be false, heaven all its vengeance shed, And levell'd thunder strike my guilty head! With that, his weapon deep inflicts the wound The bleeding savage tumbles to the ground The sacred herald rolls the victim slain (A feast for fish) into the foaming main. Then thus Achilles 'Hear, ye Greeks! and know Whate'er we feel, 'tis Jove inflicts the woe Not else Atrides could our rage inflame, Nor from my arms, unwilling, force the dame. 'Twas Jove's high will alone, o'erruling all, That doom'd our strife, and doom'd the Greeks to fall. Go then, ye chiefs! indulge the genial rite Achilles waits ye, and expects the fight. The speedy council at his word adjourn'd To their black vessels all the Greeks return'd. Achilles sought his tent. His train before March'd onward, bending with the gifts they bore. Those in the tents the squires industrious spread The foaming coursers to the stalls they led To their new seats the female captives move. Brises, radiant as the queen of love, Slow as she pass'd, beheld with sad survey Where, gash'd with cruel wounds, Patroclus lay. Prone on the body fell the heavenly fair, Beat her sad breast, and tore her golden hair All beautiful in grief, her humid eyes Shining with tears she lifts, and thus she cries 'Ah, youth for ever dear, for ever kind, Once tender friend of my distracted mind! I left thee fresh in life, in beauty gay Now find thee cold, inanimated clay! What woes my wretched race of life attend! Sorrows on sorrows, never doom'd to end! The first loved consort of my virgin bed Before these eyes in fatal battle bled My three brave brothers in one mournful day All trod the dark, irremeable way Thy friendly hand uprear'd me from the plain, And dried my sorrows for a husband slain Achilles' care you promised I should prove, The first, the dearest partner of his love That rites divine should ratify the band, And make me empress in his native land. Accept these grateful tears! for thee they flow, For thee, that ever felt another's woe! Her sister captives echoed groan for groan, Nor mourn'd Patroclus' fortunes, but their own. The leaders press'd the chief on every side Unmoved he heard them, and with sighs denied. 'If yet Achilles have a friend, whose care Is bent to please him, this request forbear Till yonder sun descend, ah, let me pay To grief and anguish one abstemious day. He spoke, and from the warriors turn'd his face Yet still the brotherkings of Atreus' race. Nestor, Idomeneus, Ulysses sage, And Phnix, strive to calm his grief and rage His rage they calm not, nor his grief control He groans, he raves, he sorrows from his soul. 'Thou too, Patroclus! (thus his heart he vents) Once spread the inviting banquet in our tents Thy sweet society, thy winning care, Once stay'd Achilles, rushing to the war. But now, alas! to death's cold arms resign'd, What banquet but revenge can glad my mind? What greater sorrow could afflict my breast, What more if hoary Peleus were deceased? Who now, perhaps, in Phthia dreads to hear His son's sad fate, and drops a tender tear. What more, should Neoptolemus the brave, My only offspring, sink into the grave? If yet that offspring lives (I distant far, Of all neglectful, wage a hateful war.) I could not this, this cruel stroke attend Fate claim'd Achilles, but might spare his friend. I hoped Patroclus might survive, to rear My tender orphan with a parent's care, From Scyros' isle conduct him o'er the main, And glad his eyes with his paternal reign, The lofty palace, and the large domain. For Peleus breathes no more the vital air Or drags a wretched life of age and care, But till the news of my sad fate invades His hastening soul, and sinks him to the shades. Sighing he said his grief the heroes join'd, Each stole a tear for what he left behind. Their mingled grief the sire of heaven survey'd, And thus with pity to his blueeyed maid 'Is then Achilles now no more thy care, And dost thou thus desert the great in war? Lo, where yon sails their canvas wings extend, All comfortless he sits, and wails his friend Ere thirst and want his forces have oppress'd, Haste and infuse ambrosia in his breast. He spoke and sudden, at the word of Jove, Shot the descending goddess from above. So swift through ether the shrill harpy springs, The wide air floating to her ample wings, To great Achilles she her flight address'd, And pour'd divine ambrosia in his breast, With nectar sweet, (refection of the gods!) Then, swift ascending, sought the bright abodes. Now issued from the ships the warriortrain, And like a deluge pour'd upon the plain. As when the piercing blasts of Boreas blow, And scatter o'er the fields the driving snow From dusky clouds the fleecy winter flies, Whose dazzling lustre whitens all the skies So helms succeeding helms, so shields from shields, Catch the quick beams, and brighten all the fields Broad glittering breastplates, spears with pointed rays, Mix in one stream, reflecting blaze on blaze Thick beats the centre as the coursers bound With splendour flame the skies, and laugh the fields around, Full in the midst, hightowering o'er the rest, His limbs in arms divine Achilles dress'd Arms which the father of the fire bestow'd, Forged on the eternal anvils of the god. Grief and revenge his furious heart inspire, His glowing eyeballs roll with living fire He grinds his teeth, and furious with delay O'erlooks the embattled host, and hopes the bloody day. The silver cuishes first his thighs infold Then o'er his breast was braced the hollow gold The brazen sword a various baldric tied, That, starr'd with gems, hung glittering at his side And, like the moon, the broad refulgent shield Blazed with long rays, and gleam'd athwart the field. So to nightwandering sailors, pale with fears, Wide o'er the watery waste, a light appears, Which on the farseen mountain blazing high, Streams from some lonely watchtower to the sky With mournful eyes they gaze, and gaze again Loud howls the storm, and drives them o'er the main. Next, his high head the helmet graced behind The sweepy crest hung floating in the wind Like the red star, that from his flaming hair Shakes down diseases, pestilence, and war So stream'd the golden honours from his head, Trembled the sparkling plumes, and the loose glories shed. The chief beholds himself with wondering eyes His arms he poises, and his motions tries Buoy'd by some inward force, he seems to swim, And feels a pinion lifting every limb. And now he shakes his great paternal spear, Ponderous and huge, which not a Greek could rear, From Pelion's cloudy top an ash entire Old Chiron fell'd, and shaped it for his sire A spear which stern Achilles only wields, The death of heroes, and the dread of fields. Automedon and Alcimus prepare The immortal coursers, and the radiant car (The silver traces sweeping at their side) Their fiery mouths resplendent bridles tied The ivorystudded reins, return'd behind, Waved o'er their backs, and to the chariot join'd. The charioteer then whirl'd the lash around, And swift ascended at one active bound. All bright in heavenly arms, above his squire Achilles mounts, and sets the field on fire Not brighter Phbus in the ethereal way Flames from his chariot, and restores the day. High o'er the host, all terrible he stands, And thunders to his steeds these dread commands 'Xanthus and Balius! of Podarges' strain, (Unless ye boast that heavenly race in vain,) Be swift, be mindful of the load ye bear, And learn to make your master more your care Through falling squadrons bear my slaughtering sword, Nor, as ye left Patroclus, leave your lord. The generous Xanthus, as the words he said, Seem'd sensible of woe, and droop'd his head Trembling he stood before the golden wain, And bow'd to dust the honours of his mane. When, strange to tell! (so Juno will'd) he broke Eternal silence, and portentous spoke. 'Achilles! yes! this day at least we bear Thy rage in safety through the files of war But come it will, the fatal time must come, Not ours the fault, but God decrees thy doom. Not through our crime, or slowness in the course, Fell thy Patroclus, but by heavenly force The bright farshooting god who gilds the day (Confess'd we saw him) tore his arms away. Nocould our swiftness o'er the winds prevail, Or beat the pinions of the western gale, All were in vainthe Fates thy death demand, Due to a mortal and immortal hand. Then ceased for ever, by the Furies tied, His fateful voice. The intrepid chief replied With unabated rage'So let it be! Portents and prodigies are lost on me. I know my fate to die, to see no more My muchloved parents, and my native shore Enoughwhen heaven ordains, I sink in night Now perish Troy! He said, and rush'd to fight. HERCULES ARGUMENT. THE BATTLE OF THE GODS, AND THE ACTS OF ACHILLES. Jupiter, upon Achilles' return to the battle, calls a council of the gods, and permits them to assist either party. The terrors of the combat described, when the deities are engaged. Apollo encourages neas to meet Achilles. After a long conversation, these two heroes encounter but neas is preserved by the assistance of Neptune. Achilles falls upon the rest of the Trojans, and is upon the point of killing Hector, but Apollo conveys him away in a cloud. Achilles pursues the Trojans with a great slaughter. The same day continues. The scene is in the field before Troy. Thus round Pelides breathing war and blood Greece, sheathed in arms, beside her vessels stood While near impending from a neighbouring height, Troy's black battalions wait the shock of fight. Then Jove to Themis gives command, to call The gods to council in the starry hall Swift o'er Olympus' hundred hills she flies, And summons all the senate of the skies. These shining on, in long procession come To Jove's eternal adamantine dome. Not one was absent, not a rural power That haunts the verdant gloom, or rosy bower Each fairhair'd dryad of the shady wood, Each azure sister of the silver flood All but old Ocean, hoary sire! who keeps His ancient seat beneath the sacred deeps. On marble thrones, with lucid columns crown'd, (The work of Vulcan,) sat the powers around. Even he whose trident sways the watery reign Heard the loud summons, and forsook the main, Assumed his throne amid the bright abodes, And question'd thus the sire of men and gods 'What moves the god who heaven and earth commands, And grasps the thunder in his awful hands, Thus to convene the whole ethereal state? Is Greece and Troy the subject in debate? Already met, the louring hosts appear, And death stands ardent on the edge of war. ''Tis true (the cloudcompelling power replies) This day we call the council of the skies In care of human race even Jove's own eye Sees with regret unhappy mortals die. Far on Olympus' top in secret state Ourself will sit, and see the hand of fate Work out our will. Celestial powers! descend, And as your minds direct, your succour lend To either host. Troy soon must lie o'erthrown, If uncontroll'd Achilles fights alone Their troops but lately durst not meet his eyes What can they now, if in his rage he rise? Assist them, gods! or Ilion's sacred wall May fall this day, though fate forbids the fall. He said, and fired their heavenly breasts with rage. On adverse parts the warring gods engage Heaven's awful queen and he whose azure round Girds the vast globe the maid in arms renown'd Hermes, of profitable arts the sire And Vulcan, the black sovereign of the fire These to the fleet repair with instant flight The vessels tremble as the gods alight. In aid of Troy, Latona, Phbus came, Mars fieryhelm'd, the laughterloving dame, Xanthus, whose streams in golden currents flow, And the chaste huntress of the silver bow. Ere yet the gods their various aid employ, Each Argive bosom swell'd with manly joy, While great Achilles (terror of the plain), Long lost to battle, shone in arms again. Dreadful he stood in front of all his host Pale Troy beheld, and seem'd already lost Her bravest heroes pant with inward fear, And trembling see another god of war. But when the powers descending swell'd the fight, Then tumult rose fierce rage and pale affright Varied each face then Discord sounds alarms, Earth echoes, and the nations rush to arms. Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls, And now she thunders from the Grecian walls. Mars hovering o'er his Troy, his terror shrouds In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds Now through each Trojan heart he fury pours With voice divine, from Ilion's topmost towers Now shouts to Simois, from her beauteous hill The mountain shook, the rapid stream stood still. Above, the sire of gods his thunder rolls, And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles. Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground The forests wave, the mountains nod around Through all their summits tremble Ida's woods, And from their sources boil her hundred floods. Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain, And the toss'd navies beat the heaving main. Deep in the dismal regions of the dead, The infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head, Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay His dark dominions open to the day, And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes, Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful even to gods. THE GODS DESCENDING TO BATTLE Such war the immortals wage such horrors rend The world's vast concave, when the gods contend. First silvershafted Phbus took the plain Against blue Neptune, monarch of the main. The god of arms his giant bulk display'd, Opposed to Pallas, war's triumphant maid. Against Latona march'd the son of May. The quiver'd Dian, sister of the day, (Her golden arrows sounding at her side,) Saturnia, majesty of heaven, defied. With fiery Vulcan last in battle stands The sacred flood that rolls on golden sands Xanthus his name with those of heavenly birth, But called Scamander by the sons of earth. While thus the gods in various league engage, Achilles glow'd with more than mortal rage Hector he sought in search of Hector turn'd His eyes around, for Hector only burn'd And burst like lightning through the ranks, and vow'd To glut the god of battles with his blood. neas was the first who dared to stay Apollo wedged him in the warrior's way, But swell'd his bosom with undaunted might, Halfforced and halfpersuaded to the fight. Like young Lycaon, of the royal line, In voice and aspect, seem'd the power divine And bade the chief reflect, how late with scorn In distant threats he braved the goddessborn. Then thus the hero of Anchises' strain 'To meet Pelides you persuade in vain Already have I met, nor void of fear Observed the fury of his flying spear From Ida's woods he chased us to the field, Our force he scattered, and our herds he kill'd Lyrnessus, Pedasus in ashes lay But (Jove assisting) I survived the day Else had I sunk oppress'd in fatal fight By fierce Achilles and Minerva's might. Where'er he moved, the goddess shone before, And bathed his brazen lance in hostile gore. What mortal man Achilles can sustain? The immortals guard him through the dreadful plain, And suffer not his dart to fall in vain. Were God my aid, this arm should check his power, Though strong in battle as a brazen tower. To whom the son of Jove 'That god implore, And be what great Achilles was before. From heavenly Venus thou deriv'st thy strain, And he but from a sister of the main An aged seagod father of his line But Jove himself the sacred source of thine. Then lift thy weapon for a noble blow, Nor fear the vaunting of a mortal foe. This said, and spirit breathed into his breast, Through the thick troops the embolden'd hero press'd His venturous act the whitearm'd queen survey'd, And thus, assembling all the powers, she said 'Behold an action, gods! that claims your care, Lo great neas rushing to the war! Against Pelides he directs his course, Phbus impels, and Phbus gives him force. Restrain his bold career at least, to attend Our favour'd hero, let some power descend. To guard his life, and add to his renown, We, the great armament of heaven, came down. Hereafter let him fall, as Fates design, That spun so short his life's illustrious line But lest some adverse god now cross his way, Give him to know what powers assist this day For how shall mortal stand the dire alarms, When heaven's refulgent host appear in arms? Thus she and thus the god whose force can make The solid globe's eternal basis shake 'Against the might of man, so feeble known, Why should celestial powers exert their own? Suffice from yonder mount to view the scene, And leave to war the fates of mortal men. But if the armipotent, or god of light, Obstruct Achilles, or commence the fight, Thence on the gods of Troy we swift descend Full soon, I doubt not, shall the conflict end And these, in ruin and confusion hurl'd, Yield to our conquering arms the lower world. Thus having said, the tyrant of the sea, Coerulean Neptune, rose, and led the way. Advanced upon the field there stood a mound Of earth congested, wall'd, and trench'd around In elder times to guard Alcides made, (The work of Trojans, with Minerva's aid,) What time a vengeful monster of the main Swept the wide shore, and drove him to the plain. Here Neptune and the gods of Greece repair, With clouds encompass'd, and a veil of air The adverse powers, around Apollo laid, Crown the fair hills that silver Simois shade. In circle close each heavenly party sat, Intent to form the future scheme of fate But mix not yet in fight, though Jove on high Gives the loud signal, and the heavens reply. Meanwhile the rushing armies hide the ground The trampled centre yields a hollow sound Steeds cased in mail, and chiefs in armour bright, The gleaming champaign glows with brazen light. Amid both hosts (a dreadful space) appear, There great Achilles bold neas, here. With towering strides neas first advanced The nodding plumage on his helmet danced Spread o'er his breast the fencing shield he bore, And, so he moved, his javelin flamed before. Not so Pelides furious to engage, He rush'd impetuous. Such the lion's rage, Who viewing first his foes with scornful eyes, Though all in arms the peopled city rise, Stalks careless on, with unregarding pride Till at the length, by some brave youth defied, To his bold spear the savage turns alone, He murmurs fury with a hollow groan He grins, he foams, he rolls his eyes around, Lash'd by his tail his heaving sides resound He calls up all his rage he grinds his teeth, Resolved on vengeance, or resolved on death. So fierce Achilles on neas flies So stands neas, and his force defies. Ere yet the stern encounter join'd, begun The seed of Thetis thus to Venus' son 'Why comes neas through the ranks so far? Seeks he to meet Achilles' arm in war, In hope the realms of Priam to enjoy, And prove his merits to the throne of Troy? Grant that beneath thy lance Achilles dies, The partial monarch may refuse the prize Sons he has many those thy pride may quell And 'tis his fault to love those sons too well, Or, in reward of thy victorious hand, Has Troy proposed some spacious tract of land, An ample forest, or a fair domain, Of hills for vines, and arable for grain? Even this, perhaps, will hardly prove thy lot. But can Achilles be so soon forgot? Once (as I think) you saw this brandish'd spear, And then the great neas seem'd to fear With hearty haste from Ida's mount he fled, Nor, till he reach'd Lyrnessus, turn'd his head. Her lofty walls not long our progress stay'd Those, Pallas, Jove, and we, in ruins laid In Grecian chains her captive race were cast 'Tis true, the great neas fled too fast. Defrauded of my conquest once before, What then I lost, the gods this day restore. Go while thou may'st, avoid the threaten'd fate Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late. To this Anchises' son 'Such words employ To one that fears thee, some unwarlike boy Such we disdain the best may be defied With mean reproaches, and unmanly pride Unworthy the high race from which we came Proclaim'd so loudly by the voice of fame Each from illustrious fathers draws his line Each goddessborn half human, half divine. Thetis' this day, or Venus' offspring dies, And tears shall trickle from celestial eyes For when two heroes, thus derived, contend, 'Tis not in words the glorious strife can end. If yet thou further seek to learn my birth (A tale resounded through the spacious earth) Hear how the glorious origin we prove From ancient Dardanus, the first from Jove Dardania's walls he raised for Ilion, then, (The city since of manylanguaged men,) Was not. The natives were content to till The shady foot of Ida's fountful hill. From Dardanus great Erichthonius springs, The richest, once, of Asia's wealthy kings Three thousand mares his spacious pastures bred, Three thousand foals beside their mothers fed. Boreas, enamour'd of the sprightly train, Conceal'd his godhead in a flowing mane, With voice dissembled to his loves he neigh'd, And coursed the dappled beauties o'er the mead Hence sprung twelve others of unrivall'd kind, Swift as their mother mares, and father wind. These lightly skimming, when they swept the plain, Nor plied the grass, nor bent the tender grain And when along the level seas they flew, Scarce on the surface curl'd the briny dew. Such Erichthonius was from him there came The sacred Tros, of whom the Trojan name. Three sons renown'd adorn'd his nuptial bed, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymed The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair, Whom heaven, enamour'd, snatch'd to upper air, To bear the cup of Jove (ethereal guest, The grace and glory of the ambrosial feast). The two remaining sons the line divide First rose Laomedon from Ilus' side From him Tithonus, now in cares grown old, And Priam, bless'd with Hector, brave and bold Clytius and Lampus, everhonour'd pair And Hicetaon, thunderbolt of war. From great Assaracus sprang Capys, he Begat Anchises, and Anchises me. Such is our race 'tis fortune gives us birth, But Jove alone endues the soul with worth He, source of power and might! with boundless sway, All human courage gives, or takes away. Long in the field of words we may contend, Reproach is infinite, and knows no end, Arm'd or with truth or falsehood, right or wrong So voluble a weapon is the tongue Wounded, we wound and neither side can fail, For every man has equal strength to rail Women alone, when in the streets they jar, Perhaps excel us in this wordy war Like us they stand, encompass'd with the crowd, And vent their anger impotent and loud. Cease thenOur business in the field of fight Is not to question, but to prove our might. To all those insults thou hast offer'd here, Receive this answer 'tis my flying spear. He spoke. With all his force the javelin flung, Fix'd deep, and loudly in the buckler rung. Far on his outstretch'd arm, Pelides held (To meet the thundering lance) his dreadful shield, That trembled as it stuck nor void of fear Saw, ere it fell, the immeasurable spear. His fears were vain impenetrable charms Secured the temper of the ethereal arms. Through two strong plates the point its passage held, But stopp'd, and rested, by the third repell'd. Five plates of various metal, various mould, Composed the shield of brass each outward fold, Of tin each inward, and the middle gold There stuck the lance. Then rising ere he threw, The forceful spear of great Achilles flew, And pierced the Dardan shield's extremest bound, Where the shrill brass return'd a sharper sound Through the thin verge the Pelean weapon glides, And the slight covering of expanded hides. neas his contracted body bends, And o'er him high the riven targe extends, Sees, through its parting plates, the upper air, And at his back perceives the quivering spear A fate so near him, chills his soul with fright And swims before his eyes the manycolour'd light. Achilles, rushing in with dreadful cries, Draws his broad blade, and at neas flies neas rousing as the foe came on, With force collected, heaves a mighty stone A mass enormous! which in modern days No two of earth's degenerate sons could raise. But ocean's god, whose earthquakes rock the ground Saw the distress, and moved the powers around 'Lo! on the brink of fate neas stands, An instant victim to Achilles' hands By Phbus urged but Phbus has bestow'd His aid in vain the man o'erpowers the god. And can ye see this righteous chief atone With guiltless blood for vices not his own? To all the gods his constant vows were paid Sure, though he wars for Troy, he claims our aid. Fate wills not this nor thus can Jove resign The future father of the Dardan line The first great ancestor obtain'd his grace, And still his love descends on all the race For Priam now, and Priam's faithless kind, At length are odious to the allseeing mind On great neas shall devolve the reign, And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain. The great earthshaker thus to whom replies The imperial goddess with the radiant eyes 'Good as he is, to immolate or spare The Dardan prince, O Neptune! be thy care Pallas and I, by all that gods can bind, Have sworn destruction to the Trojan kind Not even an instant to protract their fate, Or save one member of the sinking state Till her last flame be quench'd with her last gore, And even her crumbling ruins are no more. The king of ocean to the fight descends, Through all the whistling darts his course he bends, Swift interposed between the warrior flies, And casts thick darkness o'er Achilles' eyes. From great neas' shield the spear he drew, And at his master's feet the weapon threw. That done, with force divine he snatch'd on high The Dardan prince, and bore him through the sky, Smoothgliding without step, above the heads Of warring heroes, and of bounding steeds Till at the battle's utmost verge they light, Where the slow Caucans close the rear of fight. The godhead there (his heavenly form confess'd) With words like these the panting chief address'd 'What power, O prince! with force inferior far, Urged thee to meet Achilles' arm in war? Henceforth beware, nor antedate thy doom, Defrauding fate of all thy fame to come. But when the day decreed (for come it must) Shall lay this dreadful hero in the dust, Let then the furies of that arm be known, Secure no Grecian force transcends thy own. With that, he left him wondering as he lay, Then from Achilles chased the mist away Sudden, returning with a stream of light, The scene of war came rushing on his sight. Then thus, amazed 'What wonders strike my mind! My spear, that parted on the wings of wind, Laid here before me! and the Dardan lord, That fell this instant, vanish'd from my sword! I thought alone with mortals to contend, But powers celestial sure this foe defend. Great as he is, our arms he scarce will try, Content for once, with all his gods, to fly. Now then let others bleed. This said, aloud He vents his fury and inflames the crowd 'O Greeks! (he cries, and every rank alarms) Join battle, man to man, and arms to arms! 'Tis not in me, though favour'd by the sky, To mow whole troops, and make whole armies fly No god can singly such a host engage, Not Mars himself, nor great Minerva's rage. But whatsoe'er Achilles can inspire, Whate'er of active force, or acting fire Whate'er this heart can prompt, or hand obey All, all Achilles, Greeks! is yours today. Through yon wide host this arm shall scatter fear, And thin the squadrons with my single spear. He said nor less elate with martial joy, The godlike Hector warm'd the troops of Troy 'Trojans, to war! Think, Hector leads you on Nor dread the vaunts of Peleus' haughty son. Deeds must decide our fate. E'en these with words Insult the brave, who tremble at their swords The weakest atheistwretch all heaven defies, But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies. Nor from yon boaster shall your chief retire, Not though his heart were steel, his hands were fire That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand, And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand. Thus (breathing rage through all) the hero said A wood of lances rises round his head, Clamours on clamours tempest all the air, They join, they throng, they thicken to the war. But Phbus warns him from high heaven to shun The single fight with Thetis' godlike son More safe to combat in the mingled band, Nor tempt too near the terrors of his hand. He hears, obedient to the god of light, And, plunged within the ranks, awaits the fight. Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies, On Troy's whole force with boundless fury flies. First falls Iphytion, at his army's head Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led From great Otrynteus he derived his blood, His mother was a Nais, of the flood Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown'd with snow, From Hyde's walls he ruled the lands below. Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides The parted visage falls on equal sides With loudresounding arms he strikes the plain While thus Achilles glories o'er the slain 'Lie there, Otryntides! the Trojan earth Receives thee dead, though Gygae boast thy birth Those beauteous fields where Hyllus' waves are roll'd, And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold, Are thine no more.The insulting hero said, And left him sleeping in eternal shade. The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore, And dash'd their axles with no vulgar gore. Demoleon next, Antenor's offspring, laid Breathless in dust, the price of rashness paid. The impatient steel with fulldescending sway Forced through his brazen helm its furious way, Resistless drove the batter'd skull before, And dash'd and mingled all the brains with gore. This sees Hippodamas, and seized with fright, Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight The lance arrests him an ignoble wound The panting Trojan rivets to the ground. He groans away his soul not louder roars, At Neptune's shrine on Helic's high shores, The victim bull the rocks rebellow round, And ocean listens to the grateful sound. Then fell on Polydore his vengeful rage, The youngest hope of Priam's stooping age (Whose feet for swiftness in the race surpass'd) Of all his sons, the dearest, and the last. To the forbidden field he takes his flight, In the first folly of a youthful knight, To vaunt his swiftness wheels around the plain, But vaunts not long, with all his swiftness slain Struck where the crossing belts unite behind, And golden rings the double backplate join'd Forth through the navel burst the thrilling steel And on his knees with piercing shrieks he fell The rushing entrails pour'd upon the ground His hands collect and darkness wraps him round. When Hector view'd, all ghastly in his gore, Thus sadly slain the unhappy Polydore, A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight, His soul no longer brook'd the distant fight Full in Achilles' dreadful front he came, And shook his javelin like a waving flame. The son of Peleus sees, with joy possess'd, His heart highbounding in his rising breast. 'And, lo! the man on whom black fates attend The man, that slew Achilles, is his friend! No more shall Hector's and Pelides' spear Turn from each other in the walks of war. Then with revengeful eyes he scann'd him o'er 'Come, and receive thy fate! He spake no more. Hector, undaunted, thus 'Such words employ To one that dreads thee, some unwarlike boy Such we could give, defying and defied, Mean intercourse of obloquy and pride! I know thy force to mine superior far But heaven alone confers success in war Mean as I am, the gods may guide my dart, And give it entrance in a braver heart. Then parts the lance but Pallas' heavenly breath Far from Achilles wafts the winged death The bidden dart again to Hector flies, And at the feet of its great master lies. Achilles closes with his hated foe, His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow But present to his aid, Apollo shrouds The favour'd hero in a veil of clouds. Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart, Thrice in impassive air he plunged the dart The spear a fourth time buried in the cloud. He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud 'Wretch! thou hast 'scaped again once more thy flight Has saved thee, and the partial god of light. But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand, If any power assist Achilles' hand. Fly then inglorious! but thy flight this day Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay. With that, he gluts his rage on numbers slain Then Dryops tumbled to the ensanguined plain, Pierced through the neck he left him panting there, And stopp'd Demuchus, great Philetor's heir. Gigantic chief! deep gash'd the enormous blade, And for the soul an ample passage made. Laoganus and Dardanus expire, The valiant sons of an unhappy sire Both in one instant from the chariot hurl'd, Sunk in one instant to the nether world This difference only their sad fates afford That one the spear destroy'd, and one the sword. Nor less unpitied, young Alastor bleeds In vain his youth, in vain his beauty pleads In vain he begs thee, with a suppliant's moan, To spare a form, an age so like thy own! Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art, E'er bent that fierce, inexorable heart! While yet he trembled at his knees, and cried, The ruthless falchion oped his tender side The panting liver pours a flood of gore That drowns his bosom till he pants no more. Through Mulius' head then drove the impetuous spear The warrior falls, transfix'd from ear to ear. Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves, Deep though the front the ponderous falchion cleaves Warm'd in the brain the smoking weapon lies, The purple death comes floating o'er his eyes. Then brave Deucalion died the dart was flung Where the knit nerves the pliant elbow strung He dropp'd his arm, an unassisting weight, And stood all impotent, expecting fate Full on his neck the falling falchion sped, From his broad shoulders hew'd his crested head Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies, And, sunk in dust, the corpse extended lies. Rhigmas, whose race from fruitful Thracia came, (The son of Pierus, an illustrious name,) Succeeds to fate the spear his belly rends Prone from his car the thundering chief descends. The squire, who saw expiring on the ground His prostrate master, rein'd the steeds around His back, scarce turn'd, the Pelian javelin gored, And stretch'd the servant o'er his dying lord. As when a flame the winding valley fills, And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills Then o'er the stubble up the mountain flies, Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies, This way and that, the spreading torrent roars So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores Around him wide, immense destruction pours And earth is deluged with the sanguine showers, As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er, And thick bestrewn, lies Ceres' sacred floor When round and round, with neverwearied pain, The trampling steers beat out the unnumber'd grain So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls, Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls, Dash'd from their hoofs while o'er the dead they fly, Black, bloody drops the smoking chariot dye The spiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore And thick the groaning axles dropp'd with gore. High o'er the scene of death Achilles stood, All grim with dust, all horrible in blood Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame Such is the lust of neverdying fame! CENTAUR ARGUMENT. THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER SCAMANDER. The Trojans fly before Achilles, some towards the town, others to the river Scamander he falls upon the latter with great slaughter takes twelve captives alive, to sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus and kills Lycaon and Asteropeus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves Neptune and Pallas assist the hero Simois joins Scamander at length Vulcan, by the instigation of Juno, almost dries up the river. This combat ended, the other gods engage each other. Meanwhile Achilles continues the slaughter, drives the rest into Troy Agenor only makes a stand, and is conveyed away in a cloud by Apollo who (to delude Achilles) takes upon him Agenor's shape, and while he pursues him in that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their city. The same day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the stream of Scamander. And now to Xanthus' gliding stream they drove, Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove. The river here divides the flying train, Part to the town fly diverse o'er the plain, Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight, Now chased, and trembling in ignoble flight (These with a gathered mist Saturnia shrouds, And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds) Part plunge into the stream old Xanthus roars, The flashing billows beat the whiten'd shores With cries promiscuous all the banks resound, And here, and there, in eddies whirling round, The flouncing steeds and shrieking warriors drown'd. As the scorch'd locusts from their fields retire, While fast behind them runs the blaze of fire Driven from the land before the smoky cloud, The clustering legions rush into the flood So, plunged in Xanthus by Achilles' force, Roars the resounding surge with men and horse. His bloody lance the hero casts aside, (Which spreading tamarisks on the margin hide,) Then, like a god, the rapid billows braves, Arm'd with his sword, high brandish'd o'er the waves Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round, Deep groan'd the waters with the dying sound Repeated wounds the reddening river dyed, And the warm purple circled on the tide. Swift through the foamy flood the Trojans fly, And close in rocks or winding caverns lie So the huge dolphin tempesting the main, In shoals before him fly the scaly train, Confusedly heap'd they seek their inmost caves, Or pant and heave beneath the floating waves. Now, tired with slaughter, from the Trojan band Twelve chosen youths he drags alive to land With their rich belts their captive arms restrains (Late their proud ornaments, but now their chains). These his attendants to the ships convey'd, Sad victims destined to Patroclus' shade Then, as once more he plunged amid the flood, The young Lycaon in his passage stood The son of Priam whom the hero's hand But late made captive in his father's land (As from a sycamore, his sounding steel Lopp'd the green arms to spoke a chariot wheel) To Lemnos' isle he sold the royal slave, Where Jason's son the price demanded gave But kind Eetion, touching on the shore, The ransom'd prince to fair Arisbe bore. Ten days were past, since in his father's reign He felt the sweets of liberty again The next, that god whom men in vain withstand Gives the same youth to the same conquering hand Now never to return! and doom'd to go A sadder journey to the shades below. His wellknown face when great Achilles eyed, (The helm and visor he had cast aside With wild affright, and dropp'd upon the field His useless lance and unavailing shield,) As trembling, panting, from the stream he fled, And knock'd his faltering knees, the hero said 'Ye mighty gods! what wonders strike my view! Is it in vain our conquering arms subdue? Sure I shall see yon heaps of Trojans kill'd Rise from the shades, and brave me on the field As now the captive, whom so late I bound And sold to Lemnos, stalks on Trojan ground! Not him the sea's unmeasured deeps detain, That bar such numbers from their native plain Lo! he returns. Try, then, my flying spear! Try, if the grave can hold the wanderer If earth, at length this active prince can seize, Earth, whose strong grasp has held down Hercules. Thus while he spoke, the Trojan pale with fears Approach'd, and sought his knees with suppliant tears Loth as he was to yield his youthful breath, And his soul shivering at the approach of death. Achilles raised the spear, prepared to wound He kiss'd his feet, extended on the ground And while, above, the spear suspended stood, Longing to dip its thirsty point in blood, One hand embraced them close, one stopp'd the dart, While thus these melting words attempt his heart 'Thy wellknown captive, great Achilles! see, Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee. Some pity to a suppliant's name afford, Who shared the gifts of Ceres at thy board Whom late thy conquering arm to Lemnos bore, Far from his father, friends, and native shore A hundred oxen were his price that day, Now sums immense thy mercy shall repay. Scarce respited from woes I yet appear, And scarce twelve morning suns have seen me here Lo! Jove again submits me to thy hands, Again, her victim cruel Fate demands! I sprang from Priam, and Laothoe fair, (Old Altes' daughter, and Lelegia's heir Who held in Pedasus his famed abode, And ruled the fields where silver Satnio flow'd,) Two sons (alas! unhappy sons) she bore For ah! one spear shall drink each brother's gore, And I succeed to slaughter'd Polydore. How from that arm of terror shall I fly? Some demon urges! 'tis my doom to die! If ever yet soft pity touch'd thy mind, Ah! think not me too much of Hector's kind! Not the same mother gave thy suppliant breath, With his, who wrought thy loved Patroclus' death. These words, attended with a shower of tears, The youth address'd to unrelenting ears 'Talk not of life, or ransom (he replies) Patroclus dead, whoever meets me, dies In vain a single Trojan sues for grace But least, the sons of Priam's hateful race. Die then, my friend! what boots it to deplore? The great, the good Patroclus is no more! He, far thy better, was foredoom'd to die, And thou, dost thou bewail mortality? Seest thou not me, whom nature's gifts adorn, Sprung from a hero, from a goddess born? The day shall come (which nothing can avert) When by the spear, the arrow, or the dart, By night, or day, by force, or by design, Impending death and certain fate are mine! Die then,He said and as the word he spoke, The fainting stripling sank before the stroke His hand forgot its grasp, and left the spear, While all his trembling frame confess'd his fear Sudden, Achilles his broad sword display'd, And buried in his neck the reeking blade. Prone fell the youth and panting on the land, The gushing purple dyed the thirsty sand. The victor to the stream the carcase gave, And thus insults him, floating on the wave 'Lie there, Lycaon! let the fish surround Thy bloated corpse, and suck thy gory wound There no sad mother shall thy funerals weep, But swift Scamander roll thee to the deep, Whose every wave some watery monster brings, To feast unpunish'd on the fat of kings. So perish Troy, and all the Trojan line! Such ruin theirs, and such compassion mine. What boots ye now Scamander's worshipp'd stream, His earthly honours, and immortal name? In vain your immolated bulls are slain, Your living coursers glut his gulfs in vain! Thus he rewards you, with this bitter fate Thus, till the Grecian vengeance is complete Thus is atoned Patroclus' honour'd shade, And the short absence of Achilles paid. These boastful words provoked the raging god With fury swells the violated flood. What means divine may yet the power employ To check Achilles, and to rescue Troy? Meanwhile the hero springs in arms, to dare The great Asteropeus to mortal war The son of Pelagon, whose lofty line Flows from the source of Axius, stream divine! (Fair Peribaea's love the god had crown'd, With all his refluent waters circled round) On him Achilles rush'd he fearless stood, And shook two spears, advancing from the flood The flood impell'd him, on Pelides' head To avenge his waters choked with heaps of dead. Near as they drew, Achilles thus began 'What art thou, boldest of the race of man? Who, or from whence? Unhappy is the sire Whose son encounters our resistless ire. 'O son of Peleus! what avails to trace (Replied the warrior) our illustrious race? From rich Paeonia's valleys I command, Arm'd with protended spears, my native band Now shines the tenth bright morning since I came In aid of Ilion to the fields of fame Axius, who swells with all the neighbouring rills, And wide around the floated region fills, Begot my sire, whose spear much glory won Now lift thy arm, and try that hero's son! Threatening he said the hostile chiefs advance At once Asteropeus discharged each lance, (For both his dexterous hands the lance could wield,) One struck, but pierced not, the Vulcanian shield One razed Achilles' hand the spouting blood Spun forth in earth the fasten'd weapon stood. Like lightning next the Pelean javelin flies Its erring fury hiss'd along the skies Deep in the swelling bank was driven the spear, Even to the middle earth and quiver'd there. Then from his side the sword Pelides drew, And on his foe with double fury flew. The foe thrice tugg'd, and shook the rooted wood Repulsive of his might the weapon stood The fourth, he tries to break the spear in vain Bent as he stands, he tumbles to the plain His belly open'd with a ghastly wound, The reeking entrails pour upon the ground. Beneath the hero's feet he panting lies, And his eye darkens, and his spirit flies While the proud victor thus triumphing said, His radiant armour tearing from the dead 'So ends thy glory! Such the fate they prove, Who strive presumptuous with the sons of Jove! Sprung from a river, didst thou boast thy line? But great Saturnius is the source of mine. How durst thou vaunt thy watery progeny? Of Peleus, acus, and Jove, am I. The race of these superior far to those, As he that thunders to the stream that flows. What rivers can, Scamander might have shown But Jove he dreads, nor wars against his son. Even Achelous might contend in vain, And all the roaring billows of the main. The eternal ocean, from whose fountains flow The seas, the rivers, and the springs below, The thundering voice of Jove abhors to hear, And in his deep abysses shakes with fear. He said then from the bank his javelin tore, And left the breathless warrior in his gore. The floating tides the bloody carcase lave, And beat against it, wave succeeding wave Till, roll'd between the banks, it lies the food Of curling eels, and fishes of the flood. All scatter'd round the stream (their mightiest slain) The amazed Ponians scour along the plain He vents his fury on the flying crew, Thrasius, Astyplus, and Mnesus slew Mydon, Thersilochus, with nius, fell And numbers more his lance had plunged to hell, But from the bottom of his gulfs profound Scamander spoke the shores return'd the sound. 'O first of mortals! (for the gods are thine) In valour matchless, and in force divine! If Jove have given thee every Trojan head, 'Tis not on me thy rage should heap the dead. See! my choked streams no more their course can keep, Nor roll their wonted tribute to the deep. Turn then, impetuous! from our injured flood Content, thy slaughters could amaze a god. In human form, confess'd before his eyes, The river thus and thus the chief replies 'O sacred stream! thy word we shall obey But not till Troy the destined vengeance pay, Not till within her towers the perjured train Shall pant, and tremble at our arms again Not till proud Hector, guardian of her wall, Or stain this lance, or see Achilles fall. He said and drove with fury on the foe. Then to the godhead of the silver bow The yellow flood began 'O son of Jove! Was not the mandate of the sire above Full and express, that Phbus should employ His sacred arrows in defence of Troy, And make her conquer, till Hyperion's fall In awful darkness hide the face of all? He spoke in vainThe chief without dismay Ploughs through the boiling surge his desperate way. Then rising in his rage above the shores, From all his deep the bellowing river roars, Huge heaps of slain disgorges on the coast, And round the banks the ghastly dead are toss'd. While all before, the billows ranged on high, (A watery bulwark,) screen the bands who fly. Now bursting on his head with thundering sound, The falling deluge whelms the hero round His loaded shield bends to the rushing tide His feet, upborne, scarce the strong flood divide, Sliddering, and staggering. On the border stood A spreading elm, that overhung the flood He seized a bending bough, his steps to stay The plant uprooted to his weight gave way. Heaving the bank, and undermining all Loud flash the waters to the rushing fall Of the thick foliage. The large trunk display'd Bridged the rough flood across the hero stay'd On this his weight, and raised upon his hand, Leap'd from the channel, and regain'd the land. Then blacken'd the wild waves the murmur rose The god pursues, a huger billow throws, And bursts the bank, ambitious to destroy The man whose fury is the fate of Troy. He like the warlike eagle speeds his pace (Swiftest and strongest of the aerial race) Far as a spear can fly, Achilles springs At every bound his clanging armour rings Now here, now there, he turns on every side, And winds his course before the following tide The waves flow after, wheresoe'er he wheels, And gather fast, and murmur at his heels. So when a peasant to his garden brings Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs, And calls the floods from high, to bless his bowers, And feed with pregnant streams the plants and flowers Soon as he clears whate'er their passage stay'd, And marks the future current with his spade, Swift o'er the rolling pebbles, down the hills, Louder and louder purl the falling rills Before him scattering, they prevent his pains, And shine in mazy wanderings o'er the plains. Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes Still swift Scamander rolls where'er he flies Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods The first of men, but not a match for gods. Oft as he turn'd the torrent to oppose, And bravely try if all the powers were foes So oft the surge, in watery mountains spread, Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head. Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves, And still indignant bounds above the waves. Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil Wash'd from beneath him slides the slimy soil When thus (his eyes on heaven's expansion thrown) Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan 'Is there no god Achilles to befriend, No power to avert his miserable end? Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date, And make my future life the sport of fate. Of all heaven's oracles believed in vain, But most of Thetis must her son complain By Phbus' darts she prophesied my fall, In glorious arms before the Trojan wall. Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm, Stretch'd like a hero, by a hero's arm! Might Hector's spear this dauntless bosom rend, And my swift soul o'ertake my slaughter'd friend. Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate, Oh how unworthy of the brave and great! Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day, Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away, An unregarded carcase to the sea. Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief, And thus in human form address'd the chief The power of ocean first 'Forbear thy fear, O son of Peleus! Lo, thy gods appear! Behold! from Jove descending to thy aid, Propitious Neptune, and the blueeyed maid. Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave 'Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave. But thou, the counsel heaven suggests, attend! Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend, Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance, And Hector's blood shall smoke upon thy lance. Thine is the glory doom'd. Thus spake the gods Then swift ascended to the bright abodes. Stung with new ardour, thus by heaven impell'd, He springs impetuous, and invades the field O'er all the expanded plain the waters spread Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead, Floating 'midst scatter'd arms while casques of gold And turn'dup bucklers glitter'd as they roll'd. High o'er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds, He wades, and mounts the parted wave resounds. Not a whole river stops the hero's course, While Pallas fills him with immortal force. With equal rage, indignant Xanthus roars, And lifts his billows, and o'erwhelms his shores. Then thus to Simois! 'Haste, my brother flood And check this mortal that controls a god Our bravest heroes else shall quit the fight, And Ilion tumble from her towery height. Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar, From all thy fountains swell thy watery store, With broken rocks, and with a load of dead, Charge the black surge, and pour it on his head. Mark how resistless through the floods he goes, And boldly bids the warring gods be foes! But nor that force, nor form divine to sight, Shall aught avail him, if our rage unite Whelm'd under our dark gulfs those arms shall lie, That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye And deep beneath a sandy mountain hurl'd, Immersed remain this terror of the world. Such ponderous ruin shall confound the place, No Greeks shall e'er his perish'd relics grace, No hand his bones shall gather, or inhume These his cold rites, and this his watery tomb. ACHILLES CONTENDING WITH THE RIVERS He said and on the chief descends amain, Increased with gore, and swelling with the slain. Then, murmuring from his beds, he boils, he raves, And a foam whitens on the purple waves At every step, before Achilles stood The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood. Fear touch'd the queen of heaven she saw dismay'd, She call'd aloud, and summon'd Vulcan's aid. 'Rise to the war! the insulting flood requires Thy wasteful arm! assemble all thy fires! While to their aid, by our command enjoin'd, Rush the swift eastern and the western wind These from old ocean at my word shall blow, Pour the red torrent on the watery foe, Corses and arms to one bright ruin turn, And hissing rivers to their bottoms burn. Go, mighty in thy rage! display thy power, Drink the whole flood, the crackling trees devour. Scorch all the banks! and (till our voice reclaim) Exert the unwearied furies of the flame! The power ignipotent her word obeys Wide o'er the plain he pours the boundless blaze At once consumes the dead, and dries the soil And the shrunk waters in their channel boil. As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky, And instant blows the water'd gardens dry So look'd the field, so whiten'd was the ground, While Vulcan breathed the fiery blast around. Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys Along the margin winds the running blaze The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn, The flowering lotos and the tamarisk burn, Broad elm, and cypress rising in a spire The watery willows hiss before the fire. Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath, The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry, Or, gasping, turn their bellies to the sky. At length the river rear'd his languid head, And thus, shortpanting, to the god he said 'Oh Vulcan! oh! what power resists thy might? I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight I yieldLet Ilion fall if fate decree Ahbend no more thy fiery arms on me! He ceased wide conflagration blazing round The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound. As when the flames beneath a cauldron rise, To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice, Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires So boils the imprison'd flood, forbid to flow, And choked with vapours feels his bottom glow. To Juno then, imperial queen of air, The burning river sends his earnest prayer 'Ah why, Saturnia must thy son engage Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage? On other gods his dreadful arm employ, For mightier gods assert the cause of Troy. Submissive I desist, if thou command But ah! withdraw this alldestroying hand. Hear then my solemn oath, to yield to fate Unaided Ilion, and her destined state, Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame, And in one ruin sink the Trojan name. His warm entreaty touch'd Saturnia's ear She bade the ignipotent his rage forbear, Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause Infest a god the obedient flame withdraws Again the branching streams begin to spread, And soft remurmur in their wonted bed. While these by Juno's will the strife resign, The warring gods in fierce contention join Rekindling rage each heavenly breast alarms With horrid clangour shock the ethereal arms Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound And wide beneath them groans the rending ground. Jove, as his sport, the dreadful scene descries, And views contending gods with careless eyes. The power of battles lifts his brazen spear, And first assaults the radiant queen of war 'What moved thy madness, thus to disunite Ethereal minds, and mix all heaven in fight? What wonder this, when in thy frantic mood Thou drovest a mortal to insult a god? Thy impious hand Tydides' javelin bore, And madly bathed it in celestial gore. He spoke, and smote the longresounding shield, Which bears Jove's thunder on its dreadful field The adamantine gis of her sire, That turns the glancing bolt and forked fire. Then heaved the goddess in her mighty hand A stone, the limit of the neighbouring land, There fix'd from eldest times black, craggy, vast This at the heavenly homicide she cast. Thundering he falls, a mass of monstrous size And seven broad acres covers as he lies. The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound Loud o'er the fields his ringing arms resound The scornful dame her conquest views with smiles, And, glorying, thus the prostrate god reviles 'Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury! known How far Minerva's force transcends thy own? Juno, whom thou rebellious darest withstand, Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas' hand Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace, And partial aid to Troy's perfidious race. The goddess spoke, and turn'd her eyes away, That, beaming round, diffused celestial day. Jove's Cyprian daughter, stooping on the land, Lent to the wounded god her tender hand Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain, And, propp'd on her fair arm, forsakes the plain. This the bright empress of the heavens survey'd, And, scoffing, thus to war's victorious maid 'Lo! what an aid on Mars's side is seen! The smiles' and loves' unconquerable queen! Mark with what insolence, in open view, She moves let Pallas, if she dares, pursue. Minerva smiling heard, the pair o'ertook, And slightly on her breast the wanton strook She, unresisting, fell (her spirits fled) On earth together lay the lovers spread. 'And like these heroes be the fate of all (Minerva cries) who guard the Trojan wall! To Grecian gods such let the Phrygian be, So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be moved. Thus she, and Juno with a smile approved. Meantime, to mix in more than mortal fight, The god of ocean dares the god of light. 'What sloth has seized us, when the fields around Ring with conflicting powers, and heaven returns the sound Shall, ignominious, we with shame retire, No deed perform'd, to our Olympian sire? Come, prove thy arm! for first the war to wage, Suits not my greatness, or superior age Rash as thou art to prop the Trojan throne, (Forgetful of my wrongs, and of thy own,) And guard the race of proud Laomedon! Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch's prayer, We shared the lengthen'd labours of a year? Troy walls I raised (for such were Jove's commands), And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves Along fair Ida's vales and pendant groves. But when the circling seasons in their train Brought back the grateful day that crown'd our pain, With menace stern the fraudful king defied Our latent godhead, and the prize denied Mad as he was, he threaten'd servile bands, And doom'd us exiles far in barbarous lands. Incensed, we heavenward fled with swiftest wing, And destined vengeance on the perjured king. Dost thou, for this, afford proud Ilion grace, And not, like us, infest the faithless race Like us, their present, future sons destroy, And from its deep foundations heave their Troy? Apollo thus 'To combat for mankind Ill suits the wisdom of celestial mind For what is man? Calamitous by birth, They owe their life and nourishment to earth Like yearly leaves, that now, with beauty crown'd, Smile on the sun now, wither on the ground. To their own hands commit the frantic scene, Nor mix immortals in a cause so mean. Then turns his face, farbeaming heavenly fires, And from the senior power submiss retires Him thus retreating, Artemis upbraids, The quiver'd huntress of the sylvan shades 'And is it thus the youthful Phbus flies, And yields to ocean's hoary sire the prize? How vain that martial pomp, and dreadful show Of pointed arrows and the silver bow! Now boast no more in yon celestial bower, Thy force can match the great earthshaking power. Silent he heard the queen of woods upbraid Not so Saturnia bore the vaunting maid But furious thus 'What insolence has driven Thy pride to face the majesty of heaven? What though by Jove the female plague design'd, Fierce to the feeble race of womankind, The wretched matron feels thy piercing dart Thy sex's tyrant, with a tiger's heart? What though tremendous in the woodland chase Thy certain arrows pierce the savage race? How dares thy rashness on the powers divine Employ those arms, or match thy force with mine? Learn hence, no more unequal war to wage She said, and seized her wrists with eager rage These in her left hand lock'd, her right untied The bow, the quiver, and its plumy pride. About her temples flies the busy bow Now here, now there, she winds her from the blow The scattering arrows, rattling from the case, Drop round, and idly mark the dusty place. Swift from the field the baffled huntress flies, And scarce restrains the torrent in her eyes So, when the falcon wings her way above, To the cleft cavern speeds the gentle dove (Not fated yet to die) there safe retreats, Yet still her heart against the marble beats. To her Latona hastes with tender care Whom Hermes viewing, thus declines the war 'How shall I face the dame, who gives delight To him whose thunders blacken heaven with night? Go, matchless goddess! triumph in the skies, And boast my conquest, while I yield the prize. He spoke and pass'd Latona, stooping low, Collects the scatter'd shafts and fallen bow, That, glittering on the dust, lay here and there Dishonour'd relics of Diana's war Then swift pursued her to her blest abode, Where, all confused, she sought the sovereign god Weeping, she grasp'd his knees the ambrosial vest Shook with her sighs, and panted on her breast. The sire superior smiled, and bade her show What heavenly hand had caused his daughter's woe? Abash'd, she names his own imperial spouse And the pale crescent fades upon her brows. Thus they above while, swiftly gliding down, Apollo enters Ilion's sacred town The guardiangod now trembled for her wall, And fear'd the Greeks, though fate forbade her fall. Back to Olympus, from the war's alarms, Return the shining bands of gods in arms Some proud in triumph, some with rage on fire And take their thrones around the ethereal sire. Through blood, through death, Achilles still proceeds, O'er slaughter'd heroes, and o'er rolling steeds. As when avenging flames with fury driven On guilty towns exert the wrath of heaven The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly And the red vapours purple all the sky So raged Achilles death and dire dismay, And toils, and terrors, fill'd the dreadful day. High on a turret hoary Priam stands, And marks the waste of his destructive hands Views, from his arm, the Trojans' scatter'd flight, And the near hero rising on his sight! No stop, no check, no aid! With feeble pace, And settled sorrow on his aged face, Fast as he could, he sighing quits the walls And thus descending, on the guards he calls 'You to whose care our citygates belong, Set wide your portals to the flying throng For lo! he comes, with unresisted sway He comes, and desolation marks his way! But when within the walls our troops take breath, Lock fast the brazen bars, and shut out death. Thus charged the reverend monarch wide were flung The opening folds the sounding hinges rung. Phbus rush'd forth, the flying bands to meet Struck slaughter back, and cover'd the retreat, On heaps the Trojans crowd to gain the gate, And gladsome see their last escape from fate. Thither, all parch'd with thirst, a heartless train, Hoary with dust, they beat the hollow plain And gasping, panting, fainting, labour on With heavier strides, that lengthen toward the town. Enraged Achilles follows with his spear Wild with revenge, insatiable of war. Then had the Greeks eternal praise acquired, And Troy inglorious to her walls retired But he, the god who darts ethereal flame, Shot down to save her, and redeem her fame To young Agenor force divine he gave (Antenor's offspring, haughty, bold, and brave) In aid of him, beside the beech he sate, And wrapt in clouds, restrain'd the hand of fate. When now the generous youth Achilles spies, Thick beats his heart, the troubled motions rise. (So, ere a storm, the waters heave and roll.) He stops, and questions thus his mighty soul 'What, shall I fly this terror of the plain! Like others fly, and be like others slain? Vain hope! to shun him by the selfsame road Yon line of slaughter'd Trojans lately trod. No with the common heap I scorn to fall What if they pass'd me to the Trojan wall, While I decline to yonder path, that leads To Ida's forests and surrounding shades? So may I reach, conceal'd, the cooling flood, From my tired body wash the dirt and blood, As soon as night her dusky veil extends, Return in safety to my Trojan friends. What if?But wherefore all this vain debate? Stand I to doubt, within the reach of fate? Even now perhaps, ere yet I turn the wall, The fierce Achilles sees me, and I fall Such is his swiftness, 'tis in vain to fly, And such his valour, that who stands must die. Howe'er 'tis better, fighting for the state, Here, and in public view, to meet my fate. Yet sure he too is mortal he may feel (Like all the sons of earth) the force of steel. One only soul informs that dreadful frame And Jove's sole favour gives him all his fame. He said, and stood, collected, in his might And all his beating bosom claim'd the fight. So from some deepgrown wood a panther starts, Roused from his thicket by a storm of darts Untaught to fear or fly, he hears the sounds Of shouting hunters, and of clamorous hounds Though struck, though wounded, scarce perceives the pain And the barb'd javelin stings his breast in vain On their whole war, untamed, the savage flies And tears his hunter, or beneath him dies. Not less resolved, Antenor's valiant heir Confronts Achilles, and awaits the war, Disdainful of retreat high held before, His shield (a broad circumference) he bore Then graceful as he stood, in act to throw The lifted javelin, thus bespoke the foe 'How proud Achilles glories in his fame! And hopes this day to sink the Trojan name Beneath her ruins! Know, that hope is vain A thousand woes, a thousand toils remain. Parents and children our just arms employ, And strong and many are the sons of Troy. Great as thou art, even thou may'st stain with gore These Phrygian fields, and press a foreign shore. He said with matchless force the javelin flung Smote on his knee the hollow cuishes rung Beneath the pointed steel but safe from harms He stands impassive in the ethereal arms. Then fiercely rushing on the daring foe, His lifted arm prepares the fatal blow But, jealous of his fame, Apollo shrouds The godlike Trojan in a veil of clouds. Safe from pursuit, and shut from mortal view, Dismiss'd with fame, the favoured youth withdrew. Meanwhile the god, to cover their escape, Assumes Agenor's habit, voice and shape, Flies from the furious chief in this disguise The furious chief still follows where he flies. Now o'er the fields they stretch with lengthen'd strides, Now urge the course where swift Scamander glides The god, now distant scarce a stride before, Tempts his pursuit, and wheels about the shore While all the flying troops their speed employ, And pour on heaps into the walls of Troy No stop, no stay no thought to ask, or tell, Who 'scaped by flight, or who by battle fell. 'Twas tumult all, and violence of flight And sudden joy confused, and mix'd affright. Pale Troy against Achilles shuts her gate And nations breathe, deliver'd from their fate. ARGUMENT. THE DEATH OF HECTOR. The Trojans being safe within the walls, Hector only stays to oppose Achilles. Priam is struck at his approach, and tries to persuade his son to reenter the town. Hecuba joins her entreaties, but in vain. Hector consults within himself what measures to take but at the advance of Achilles, his resolution fails him, and he flies. Achilles pursues him thrice round the walls of Troy. The gods debate concerning the fate of Hector at length Minerva descends to the aid of Achilles. She deludes Hector in the shape of Deiphobus he stands the combat, and is slain. Achilles drags the dead body at his chariot in the sight of Priam and Hecuba. Their lamentations, tears, and despair. Their cries reach the ears of Andromache, who, ignorant of this, was retired into the inner part of the palace she mounts up to the walls, and beholds her dead husband. She swoons at the spectacle. Her excess of grief and lamentation. The thirtieth day still continues. The scene lies under the walls, and on the battlements of Troy. Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear, The herded Ilians rush like driven deer There safe they wipe the briny drops away, And drown in bowls the labours of the day. Close to the walls, advancing o'er the fields Beneath one roof of wellcompacted shields, March, bending on, the Greeks' embodied powers, Far stretching in the shade of Trojan towers. Great Hector singly stay'd chain'd down by fate There fix'd he stood before the Scan gate Still his bold arms determined to employ, The guardian still of longdefended Troy. Apollo now to tired Achilles turns (The power confess'd in all his glory burns) 'And what (he cries) has Peleus' son in view, With mortal speed a godhead to pursue? For not to thee to know the gods is given, Unskill'd to trace the latent marks of heaven. What boots thee now, that Troy forsook the plain? Vain thy past labour, and thy present vain Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow'd, While here thy frantic rage attacks a god. The chief incensed'Too partial god of day! To check my conquests in the middle way How few in Ilion else had refuge found! What gasping numbers now had bit the ground! Thou robb'st me of a glory justly mine, Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine Mean fame, alas! for one of heavenly strain, To cheat a mortal who repines in vain. Then to the city, terrible and strong, With high and haughty steps he tower'd along, So the proud courser, victor of the prize, To the near goal with double ardour flies. Him, as he blazing shot across the field, The careful eyes of Priam first beheld. Not half so dreadful rises to the sight, Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night, Orion's dog (the year when autumn weighs), And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays Terrific glory! for his burning breath Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death. So flamed his fiery mail. Then wept the sage He strikes his reverend head, now white with age He lifts his wither'd arms obtests the skies He calls his muchloved son with feeble cries The son, resolved Achilles' force to dare, Full at the Scan gates expects the war While the sad father on the rampart stands, And thus adjures him with extended hands 'Ah stay not, stay not! guardless and alone Hector! my loved, my dearest, bravest son! Methinks already I behold thee slain, And stretch'd beneath that fury of the plain. Implacable Achilles! might'st thou be To all the gods no dearer than to me! Thee, vultures wild should scatter round the shore, And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore. How many valiant sons I late enjoy'd, Valiant in vain! by thy cursed arm destroy'd Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles To shameful bondage, and unworthy toils. Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore, Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore, And loved Lycaon now perhaps no more! Oh! if in yonder hostile camp they live, What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give! (Their grandsire's wealth, by right of birth their own, Consign'd his daughter with Lelegia's throne) But if (which Heaven forbid) already lost, All pale they wander on the Stygian coast What sorrows then must their sad mother know, What anguish I? unutterable woe! Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me, Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee. Yet shun Achilles! enter yet the wall And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all! Save thy dear life or, if a soul so brave Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save. Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs While yet thy father feels the woes he bears, Yet cursed with sense! a wretch, whom in his rage (All trembling on the verge of helpless age) Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain! The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes, And number all his days by miseries! My heroes slain, my bridal bed o'erturn'd, My daughters ravish'd, and my city burn'd, My bleeding infants dash'd against the floor These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more! Perhaps even I, reserved by angry fate, The last sad relic of my ruin'd state, (Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness!) must fall, And stain the pavement of my regal hall Where famish'd dogs, late guardians of my door, Shall lick their mangled master's spatter'd gore. Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods! 'tis well Well have they perish'd, for in fight they fell. Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best, Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast. But when the fates, in fulness of their rage, Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, In dust the reverend lineaments deform, And pour to dogs the lifeblood scarcely warm This, this is misery! the last, the worse, That man can feel! man, fated to be cursed! He said, and acting what no words could say, Rent from his head the silver locks away. With him the mournful mother bears a part Yet all her sorrows turn not Hector's heart. The zone unbraced, her bosom she display'd And thus, fastfalling the salt tears, she said 'Have mercy on me, O my son! revere The words of age attend a parent's prayer! If ever thee in these fond arms I press'd, Or still'd thy infant clamours at this breast Ah do not thus our helpless years forego, But, by our walls secured, repel the foe. Against his rage if singly thou proceed, Should'st thou, (but Heaven avert it!) should'st thou bleed, Nor must thy corse lie honour'd on the bier, Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear! Far from our pious rites those dear remains Must feast the vultures on the naked plains. So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll But fix'd remains the purpose of his soul Resolved he stands, and with a fiery glance Expects the hero's terrible advance. So, roll'd up in his den, the swelling snake Beholds the traveller approach the brake When fed with noxious herbs his turgid veins Have gather'd half the poisons of the plains He burns, he stiffens with collected ire, And his red eyeballs glare with living fire. Beneath a turret, on his shield reclined, He stood, and question'd thus his mighty mind 'Where lies my way? to enter in the wall? Honour and shame the ungenerous thought recall Shall proud Polydamas before the gate Proclaim, his counsels are obey'd too late, Which timely follow'd but the former night, What numbers had been saved by Hector's flight? That wise advice rejected with disdain, I feel my folly in my people slain. Methinks my suffering country's voice I hear, But most her worthless sons insult my ear, On my rash courage charge the chance of war, And blame those virtues which they cannot share. Noif I e'er return, return I must Glorious, my country's terror laid in dust Or if I perish, let her see me fall In field at least, and fighting for her wall. And yet suppose these measures I forego, Approach unarm'd, and parley with the foe, The warriorshield, the helm, and lance, lay down, And treat on terms of peace to save the town The wife withheld, the treasure illdetain'd (Cause of the war, and grievance of the land) With honourable justice to restore And add half Ilion's yet remaining store, Which Troy shall, sworn, produce that injured Greece May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace. But why this thought? Unarm'd if I should go, What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe, But womanlike to fall, and fall without a blow? We greet not here, as man conversing man, Met at an oak, or journeying o'er a plain No season now for calm familiar talk, Like youths and maidens in an evening walk War is our business, but to whom is given To die, or triumph, that, determine Heaven! Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh His dreadful plumage nodded from on high The Pelian javelin, in his better hand, Shot trembling rays that glitter'd o'er the land And on his breast the beamy splendour shone, Like Jove's own lightning, or the rising sun. As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise, Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies. He leaves the gates, he leaves the wall behind Achilles follows like the winged wind. Thus at the panting dove a falcon flies (The swiftest racer of the liquid skies), Just when he holds, or thinks he holds his prey, Obliquely wheeling through the aerial way, With open beak and shrilling cries he springs, And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings No less foreright the rapid chase they held, One urged by fury, one by fear impell'd Now circling round the walls their course maintain, Where the high watchtower overlooks the plain Now where the figtrees spread their umbrage broad, (A wider compass,) smoke along the road. Next by Scamander's double source they bound, Where two famed fountains burst the parted ground This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise, With exhalations steaming to the skies That the green banks in summer's heat o'erflows, Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills, Whose polish'd bed receives the falling rills Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm'd by Greece) Wash'd their fair garments in the days of peace. By these they pass'd, one chasing, one in flight (The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might) Swift was the course no vulgar prize they play, No vulgar victim must reward the day (Such as in races crown the speedy strife) The prize contended was great Hector's life. As when some hero's funerals are decreed In grateful honour of the mighty dead Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame (Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame) The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal, And with them turns the raised spectator's soul Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly. The gazing gods lean forward from the sky To whom, while eager on the chase they look, The sire of mortals and immortals spoke 'Unworthy sight! the man beloved of heaven, Behold, inglorious round yon city driven! My heart partakes the generous Hector's pain Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain, Whose grateful fumes the gods received with joy, From Ida's summits, and the towers of Troy Now see him flying to his fears resign'd, And fate, and fierce Achilles, close behind. Consult, ye powers! ('tis worthy your debate) Whether to snatch him from impending fate, Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain, (Good as he is) the lot imposed on man. Then Pallas thus 'Shall he whose vengeance forms The forky bolt, and blackens heaven with storms, Shall he prolong one Trojan's forfeit breath? A man, a mortal, preordain'd to death! And will no murmurs fill the courts above? No gods indignant blame their partial Jove? 'Go then (return'd the sire) without delay, Exert thy will I give the Fates their way. Swift at the mandate pleased Tritonia flies, And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies. As through the forest, o'er the vale and lawn, The wellbreath'd beagle drives the flying fawn, In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes Sure of the vapour in the tainted dews, The certain hound his various maze pursues. Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel'd, There swift Achilles compass'd round the field. Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends, And hopes the assistance of his pitying friends, (Whose showering arrows, as he coursed below, From the high turrets might oppress the foe,) So oft Achilles turns him to the plain He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain. As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace, One to pursue, and one to lead the chase, Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake, Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake No less the labouring heroes pant and strain While that but flies, and this pursues in vain. What god, O muse, assisted Hector's force With fate itself so long to hold the course? Phbus it was who, in his latest hour, Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power And great Achilles, lest some Greek's advance Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, Sign'd to the troops to yield his foe the way, And leave untouch'd the honours of the day. Jove lifts the golden balances, that show The fates of mortal men, and things below Here each contending hero's lot he tries, And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies. Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector's fate Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight. Then Phbus left him. Fierce Minerva flies To stern Pelides, and triumphing, cries 'O loved of Jove! this day our labours cease, And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece. Great Hector falls that Hector famed so far, Drunk with renown, insatiable of war, Falls by thy hand, and mine! nor force, nor flight, Shall more avail him, nor his god of light. See, where in vain he supplicates above, Roll'd at the feet of unrelenting Jove Rest here myself will lead the Trojan on, And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun. Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind Obey'd and rested, on his lance reclined While like Deiphobus the martial dame (Her face, her gesture, and her arms the same), In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side Approach'd, and greets him thus with voice belied 'Too long, O Hector! have I borne the sight Of this distress, and sorrow'd in thy flight It fits us now a noble stand to make, And here, as brothers, equal fates partake. Then he 'O prince! allied in blood and fame, Dearer than all that own a brother's name Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore, Long tried, long loved much loved, but honoured more! Since you, of all our numerous race alone Defend my life, regardless of your own. Again the goddess 'Much my father's prayer, And much my mother's, press'd me to forbear My friends embraced my knees, adjured my stay, But stronger love impell'd, and I obey. Come then, the glorious conflict let us try, Let the steel sparkle, and the javelin fly Or let us stretch Achilles on the field, Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield. Fraudful she said then swiftly march'd before The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more. Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke 'Enough, O son of Peleus! Troy has view'd Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursued. But now some god within me bids me try Thine, or my fate I kill thee, or I die. Yet on the verge of battle let us stay, And for a moment's space suspend the day Let Heaven's high powers be call'd to arbitrate The just conditions of this stern debate, (Eternal witnesses of all below, And faithful guardians of the treasured vow!) To them I swear if, victor in the strife, Jove by these hands shall shed thy noble life, No vile dishonour shall thy corse pursue Stripp'd of its arms alone (the conqueror's due) The rest to Greece uninjured I'll restore Now plight thy mutual oath, I ask no more. 'Talk not of oaths (the dreadful chief replies, While anger flash'd from his disdainful eyes), Detested as thou art, and ought to be, Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee Such pacts as lambs and rabid wolves combine, Such leagues as men and furious lions join, To such I call the gods! one constant state Of lasting rancour and eternal hate No thought but rage, and neverceasing strife, Till death extinguish rage, and thought, and life. Rouse then thy forces this important hour, Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy power. No further subterfuge, no further chance 'Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance. Each Grecian ghost, by thee deprived of breath, Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death. He spoke, and launch'd his javelin at the foe But Hector shunn'd the meditated blow He stoop'd, while o'er his head the flying spear Sang innocent, and spent its force in air. Minerva watch'd it falling on the land, Then drew, and gave to great Achilles' hand, Unseen of Hector, who, elate with joy, Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy. 'The life you boasted to that javelin given, Prince! you have miss'd. My fate depends on Heaven, To thee, presumptuous as thou art, unknown, Or what must prove my fortune, or thy own. Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind, And with false terrors sink another's mind. But know, whatever fate I am to try, By no dishonest wound shall Hector die. I shall not fall a fugitive at least, My soul shall bravely issue from my breast. But first, try thou my arm and may this dart End all my country's woes, deep buried in thy heart. The weapon flew, its course unerring held, Unerring, but the heavenly shield repell'd The mortal dart resulting with a bound From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground. Hector beheld his javelin fall in vain, Nor other lance, nor other hope remain He calls Deiphobus, demands a spear In vain, for no Deiphobus was there. All comfortless he stands then, with a sigh ''Tis soHeaven wills it, and my hour is nigh! I deem'd Deiphobus had heard my call, But he secure lies guarded in the wall. A god deceived me Pallas, 'twas thy deed, Death and black fate approach! 'tis I must bleed. No refuge now, no succour from above, Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove, Propitious once, and kind! Then welcome fate! 'Tis true I perish, yet I perish great Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire, Let future ages hear it, and admire! Fierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew, And, all collected, on Achilles flew. So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air, Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare. Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares Before his breast the flaming shield he bears, Refulgent orb! above his fourfold cone The gilded horsehair sparkled in the sun. Nodding at every step (Vulcanian frame!) And as he moved, his figure seem'd on flame. As radiant Hesper shines with keener light, Farbeaming o'er the silver host of night, When all the starry train emblaze the sphere So shone the point of great Achilles' spear. In his right hand he waves the weapon round, Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore Securely cased the warrior's body o'er. One space at length he spies, to let in fate, Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate Gave entrance through that penetrable part Furious he drove the welldirected dart Nor pierced the windpipe yet, nor took the power Of speech, unhappy! from thy dying hour. Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies, While, thus triumphing, stern Achilles cries 'At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain, Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain Then, prince! you should have fear'd, what now you feel Achilles absent was Achilles still Yet a short space the great avenger stayed, Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn'd, For ever honour'd, and for ever mourn'd While cast to all the rage of hostile power, Thee birds shall mangle, and the gods devour. Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death 'By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath! By all the sacred prevalence of prayer Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear! The common rites of sepulture bestow, To soothe a father's and a mother's woe Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, And Hector's ashes in his country rest. 'No, wretch accursed! relentless he replies (Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes) Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer. Could I myself the bloody banquet join! Noto the dogs that carcase I resign. Should Troy, to bribe me, bring forth all her store, And giving thousands, offer thousands more Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame Their Hector on the pile they should not see, Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee. Then thus the chief his dying accents drew 'Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew The Furies that relentless breast have steel'd, And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield. Yet think, a day will come, when fate's decree And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee Phbus and Paris shall avenge my fate, And stretch thee here before the Scan gate. He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his labouring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death To the dark realm the spirit wings its way, (The manly body left a load of clay,) And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost! Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes O'er the dead hero, thus unheard, replies 'Die thou the first! When Jove and heaven ordain, I follow theeHe said, and stripp'd the slain. Then forcing backward from the gaping wound The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground. The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes His manly beauty and superior size While some, ignobler, the great dead deface With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace 'How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter'd fate! High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands And thus aloud, while all the host attends 'Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends! Since now at length the powerful will of heaven The dire destroyer to our arm has given, Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye powers! See, if already their deserted towers Are left unmann'd or if they yet retain The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain. But what is Troy, or glory what to me? Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, Divine Patroclus! Death hath seal'd his eyes Unwept, unhonour'd, uninterr'd he lies! Can his dear image from my soul depart, Long as the vital spirit moves my heart? If in the melancholy shades below, The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow, Yet mine shall sacred last mine, undecay'd, Burn on through death, and animate my shade. Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring The corpse of Hector, and your pans sing. Be this the song, slowmoving toward the shore, 'Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more. Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred (Unworthy of himself, and of the dead) The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound With thongs inserted through the double wound These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, His graceful head was trail'd along the plain. Proud on his car the insulting victor stood, And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood. He smites the steeds the rapid chariot flies The sudden clouds of circling dust arise. Now lost is all that formidable air The face divine, and longdescending hair, Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand Deform'd, dishonour'd, in his native land, Given to the rage of an insulting throng, And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along! The mother first beheld with sad survey She rent her tresses, venerable grey, And cast, far off, the regal veils away. With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, While the sad father answers groans with groans, Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow, And the whole city wears one face of woe No less than if the rage of hostile fires, From her foundations curling to her spires, O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies. The wretched monarch of the falling state, Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate. Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course, While strong affliction gives the feeble force Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, In all the raging impotence of woe. At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun, Imploring all, and naming one by one 'Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls I, only I, will issue from your walls (Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none), And bow before the murderer of my son. My grief perhaps his pity may engage Perhaps at least he may respect my age. He has a father too a man like me One, not exempt from age and misery (Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace Begot this pest of me, and all my race). How many valiant sons, in early bloom, Has that cursed hand sent headlong to the tomb! Thee, Hector! last thy loss (divinely brave) Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave. O had thy gentle spirit pass'd in peace, The son expiring in the sire's embrace, While both thy parents wept the fatal hour, And, bending o'er thee, mix'd the tender shower! Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, To melt in full satiety of grief! Thus wail'd the father, grovelling on the ground, And all the eyes of Ilion stream'd around. Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears (A mourning princess, and a train in tears) 'Ah why has Heaven prolong'd this hated breath, Patient of horrors, to behold thy death? O Hector! late thy parents' pride and joy, The boast of nations! the defence of Troy! To whom her safety and her fame she owed Her chief, her hero, and almost her god! O fatal change! become in one sad day A senseless corse! inanimated clay! But not as yet the fatal news had spread To fair Andromache, of Hector dead As yet no messenger had told his fate, Not e'en his stay without the Scan gate. Far in the close recesses of the dome, Pensive she plied the melancholy loom A growing work employ'd her secret hours, Confusedly gay with intermingled flowers. Her fairhaired handmaids heat the brazen urn, The bath preparing for her lord's return In vain alas! her lord returns no more Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore! Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear, And all her members shake with sudden fear Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls, And thus, astonish'd, to her maids she calls THE BATH 'Ah follow me! (she cried) what plaintive noise Invades my ear? 'Tis sure my mother's voice. My faltering knees their trembling frame desert, A pulse unusual flutters at my heart Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate (Ye gods avert it!) threats the Trojan state. Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest! But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast Confronts Achilles chased along the plain, Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain! Safe in the crowd he ever scorn'd to wait, And sought for glory in the jaws of fate Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death. She spoke and furious, with distracted pace, Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, Flies through the dome (the maids her steps pursue), And mounts the walls, and sends around her view. Too soon her eyes the killing object found, The godlike Hector dragg'd along the ground. A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes She faints, she falls her breath, her colour flies. Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, The net that held them, and the wreath that crown'd, The veil and diadem flew far away (The gift of Venus on her bridal day). Around a train of weeping sisters stands, To raise her sinking with assistant hands. Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again She faints, or but recovers to complain. ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL 'O wretched husband of a wretched wife! Born with one fate, to one unhappy life! For sure one star its baneful beam display'd On Priam's roof, and Hippoplacia's shade. From different parents, different climes we came. At different periods, yet our fate the same! Why was my birth to great Ation owed, And why was all that tender care bestow'd? Would I had never been!O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon'd, desolate, alone! An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! No more to smile upon his sire no friend To help him now! no father to defend! For should he 'scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come! Even from his own paternal roof expell'd, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father's friends He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears Amongst the happy, unregarded, he Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father's former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day. Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, 'Begone! thy father feasts not here' The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears! Forced by repeated insults to return, And to his widow'd mother vainly mourn He, who, with tender delicacy bred, With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse's breast, Mustah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her wellguarded walls, Is now that name no more, unhappy boy! Since now no more thy father guards his Troy. But thou, my Hector, liest exposed in air, Far from thy parents' and thy consort's care Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove. Now to devouring flames be these a prey, Useless to thee, from this accursed day! Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, An honour to the living, not the dead! So spake the mournful dame her matrons hear, Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear. ARGUMENT. FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOUR OF PATROCLUS. Achilles and the Myrmidons do honours to the body of Patroclus. After the funeral feast he retires to the seashore, where, falling asleep, the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites of burial the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and waggons to fetch wood for the pyre. The funeral procession, and the offering their hair to the dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals, and lastly twelve Trojan captives, at the pile then sets fire to it. He pays libations to the Winds, which (at the instance of Iris) rise, and raise the flames. When the pile has burned all night, they gather the bones, place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. Achilles institutes the funeral games the chariotrace, the fight of the caestus, the wrestling, the footrace, the single combat, the discus, the shooting with arrows, the darting the javelin the various descriptions of which, and the various success of the several antagonists, make the greatest part of the book. In this book ends the thirtieth day. The night following, the ghost of Patroclus appears to Achilles the oneandthirtieth day is employed in felling the timber for the pile the twoandthirtieth in burning it and the threeandthirtieth in the games. The scene is generally on the seashore. Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train Through the sad city mourn'd her hero slain. The body soil'd with dust, and black with gore, Lies on broad Hellespont's resounding shore. The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand, All, but the martial Myrmidonian band These yet assembled great Achilles holds, And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds 'Not yet, my brave companions of the war, Release your smoking coursers from the car But, with his chariot each in order led, Perform due honours to Patroclus dead. Ere yet from rest or food we seek relief, Some rites remain, to glut our rage of grief. The troops obey'd and thrice in order led (Achilles first) their coursers round the dead And thrice their sorrows and laments renew Tears bathe their arms, and tears the sands bedew. For such a warrior Thetis aids their woe, Melts their strong hearts, and bids their eyes to flow. But chief, Pelides thicksucceeding sighs Burst from his heart, and torrents from his eyes His slaughtering hands, yet red with blood, he laid On his dead friend's cold breast, and thus he said 'All hail, Patroclus! let thy honour'd ghost Hear, and rejoice on Pluto's dreary coast Behold! Achilles' promise is complete The bloody Hector stretch'd before thy feet. Lo! to the dogs his carcase I resign And twelve sad victims, of the Trojan line, Sacred to vengeance, instant shall expire Their lives effused around thy funeral pyre. Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view) Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw, Prone on the dust. The Myrmidons around Unbraced their armour, and the steeds unbound. All to Achilles' sable ship repair, Frequent and full, the genial feast to share. Now from the wellfed swine black smokes aspire, The bristly victims hissing o'er the fire The huge ox bellowing falls with feebler cries Expires the goat the sheep in silence dies. Around the hero's prostrate body flow'd, In one promiscuous stream, the reeking blood. And now a band of Argive monarchs brings The glorious victor to the king of kings. From his dead friend the pensive warrior went, With steps unwilling, to the regal tent. The attending heralds, as by office bound, With kindled flames the tripodvase surround To cleanse his conquering hands from hostile gore, They urged in vain the chief refused, and swore 'No drop shall touch me, by almighty Jove! The first and greatest of the gods above! Till on the pyre I place thee till I rear The grassy mound, and clip thy sacred hair. Some ease at least those pious rites may give, And soothe my sorrows, while I bear to live. Howe'er, reluctant as I am, I stay And share your feast but with the dawn of day, (O king of men!) it claims thy royal care, That Greece the warrior's funeral pile prepare, And bid the forests fall (such rites are paid To heroes slumbering in eternal shade) Then, when his earthly part shall mount in fire, Let the leagued squadrons to their posts retire. He spoke they hear him, and the word obey The rage of hunger and of thirst allay, Then ease in sleep the labours of the day. But great Pelides, stretch'd along the shore, Where, dash'd on rocks, the broken billows roar, Lies inly groaning while on either hand The martial Myrmidons confusedly stand. Along the grass his languid members fall, Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall Hush'd by the murmurs of the rolling deep, At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep. When lo! the shade, before his closing eyes, Of sad Patroclus rose, or seem'd to rise In the same robe he living wore, he came In stature, voice, and pleasing look, the same. The form familiar hover'd o'er his head, 'And sleeps Achilles? (thus the phantom said) Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead? Living, I seem'd his dearest, tenderest care, But now forgot, I wander in the air. Let my pale corse the rites of burial know, And give me entrance in the realms below Till then the spirit finds no restingplace, But here and there the unbodied spectres chase The vagrant dead around the dark abode, Forbid to cross the irremeable flood. Now give thy hand for to the farther shore When once we pass, the soul returns no more When once the last funereal flames ascend, No more shall meet Achilles and his friend No more our thoughts to those we loved make known Or quit the dearest, to converse alone. Me fate has sever'd from the sons of earth, The fate foredoom'd that waited from my birth Thee too it waits before the Trojan wall Even great and godlike thou art doom'd to fall. Hear then and as in fate and love we join, Ah suffer that my bones may rest with thine! Together have we lived together bred, One house received us, and one table fed That golden urn, thy goddessmother gave, May mix our ashes in one common grave. 'And is it thou? (he answers) To my sight Once more return'st thou from the realms of night? O more than brother! Think each office paid, Whate'er can rest a discontented shade But grant one last embrace, unhappy boy! Afford at least that melancholy joy. He said, and with his longing arms essay'd In vain to grasp the visionary shade! Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly, And hears a feeble, lamentable cry. Confused he wakes amazement breaks the bands Of golden sleep, and starting from the sands, Pensive he muses with uplifted hands ''Tis true, 'tis certain man, though dead, retains Part of himself the immortal mind remains The form subsists without the body's aid, Aerial semblance, and an empty shade! This night my friend, so late in battle lost, Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost Even now familiar, as in life, he came Alas! how different! yet how like the same! Thus while he spoke, each eye grew big with tears And now the rosyfinger'd morn appears, Shows every mournful face with tears o'erspread, And glares on the pale visage of the dead. But Agamemnon, as the rites demand, With mules and waggons sends a chosen band To load the timber, and the pile to rear A charge consign'd to Merion's faithful care. With proper instruments they take the road, Axes to cut, and ropes to sling the load. First march the heavy mules, securely slow, O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go Jumping, high o'er the shrubs of the rough ground, Rattle the clattering cars, and the shock'd axles bound. But when arrived at Ida's spreading woods, (Fair Ida, water'd with descending floods,) Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down. The wood the Grecians cleave, prepared to burn And the slow mules the same rough road return. The sturdy woodmen equal burdens bore (Such charge was given them) to the sandy shore There on the spot which great Achilles show'd, They eased their shoulders, and disposed the load Circling around the place, where times to come Shall view Patroclus' and Achilles' tomb. The hero bids his martial troops appear High on their cars in all the pomp of war Each in refulgent arms his limbs attires, All mount their chariots, combatants and squires. The chariots first proceed, a shining train Then clouds of foot that smoke along the plain Next these the melancholy band appear Amidst, lay dead Patroclus on the bier O'er all the corse their scattered locks they throw Achilles next, oppress'd with mighty woe, Supporting with his hands the hero's head, Bends o'er the extended body of the dead. Patroclus decent on the appointed ground They place, and heap the sylvan pile around. But great Achilles stands apart in prayer, And from his head divides the yellow hair Those curling locks which from his youth he vow'd, And sacred grew, to Sperchius' honour'd flood Then sighing, to the deep his locks he cast, And roll'd his eyes around the watery waste 'Sperchius! whose waves in mazy errors lost Delightful roll along my native coast! To whom we vainly vow'd, at our return, These locks to fall, and hecatombs to burn Full fifty rams to bleed in sacrifice, Where to the day thy silver fountains rise, And where in shade of consecrated bowers Thy altars stand, perfumed with native flowers! So vow'd my father, but he vow'd in vain No more Achilles sees his native plain In that vain hope these hairs no longer grow, Patroclus bears them to the shades below. Thus o'er Patroclus while the hero pray'd, On his cold hand the sacred lock he laid. Once more afresh the Grecian sorrows flow And now the sun had set upon their woe But to the king of men thus spoke the chief 'Enough, Atrides! give the troops relief Permit the mourning legions to retire, And let the chiefs alone attend the pyre The pious care be ours, the dead to burn He said the people to their ships return While those deputed to inter the slain Heap with a rising pyramid the plain. A hundred foot in length, a hundred wide, The growing structure spreads on every side High on the top the manly corse they lay, And wellfed sheep and sable oxen slay Achilles covered with their fat the dead, And the piled victims round the body spread Then jars of honey, and of fragrant oil, Suspends around, lowbending o'er the pile. Four sprightly coursers, with a deadly groan Pour forth their lives, and on the pyre are thrown. Of nine large dogs, domestic at his board, Fall two, selected to attend their lord, Then last of all, and horrible to tell, Sad sacrifice! twelve Trojan captives fell. On these the rage of fire victorious preys, Involves and joins them in one common blaze. Smear'd with the bloody rites, he stands on high, And calls the spirit with a dreadful cry 'All hail, Patroclus! let thy vengeful ghost Hear, and exult, on Pluto's dreary coast. Behold Achilles' promise fully paid, Twelve Trojan heroes offer'd to thy shade But heavier fates on Hector's corse attend, Saved from the flames, for hungry dogs to rend. So spake he, threatening but the gods made vain His threat, and guard inviolate the slain Celestial Venus hover'd o'er his head, And roseate unguents, heavenly fragrance! shed She watch'd him all the night and all the day, And drove the bloodhounds from their destined prey. Nor sacred Phbus less employ'd his care He pour'd around a veil of gather'd air, And kept the nerves undried, the flesh entire, Against the solar beam and Sirian fire. THE FUNERAL PILE OF PATROCLUS Nor yet the pile, where dead Patroclus lies, Smokes, nor as yet the sullen flames arise But, fast beside, Achilles stood in prayer, Invoked the gods whose spirit moves the air, And victims promised, and libations cast, To gentle Zephyr and the Boreal blast He call'd the aerial powers, along the skies To breathe, and whisper to the fires to rise. The winged Iris heard the hero's call, And instant hasten'd to their airy hall, Where in old Zephyr's open courts on high, Sat all the blustering brethren of the sky. She shone amidst them, on her painted bow The rocky pavement glitter'd with the show. All from the banquet rise, and each invites The various goddess to partake the rites. 'Not so (the dame replied), I haste to go To sacred Ocean, and the floods below Even now our solemn hecatombs attend, And heaven is feasting on the world's green end With righteous Ethiops (uncorrupted train!) Far on the extremest limits of the main. But Peleus' son entreats, with sacrifice, The western spirit, and the north, to rise! Let on Patroclus' pile your blast be driven, And bear the blazing honours high to heaven. Swift as the word she vanish'd from their view Swift as the word the winds tumultuous flew Forth burst the stormy band with thundering roar, And heaps on heaps the clouds are toss'd before. To the wide main then stooping from the skies, The heaving deeps in watery mountains rise Troy feels the blast along her shaking walls, Till on the pile the gather'd tempest falls. The structure crackles in the roaring fires, And all the night the plenteous flame aspires. All night Achilles hails Patroclus' soul, With large libations from the golden bowl. As a poor father, helpless and undone, Mourns o'er the ashes of an only son, Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn, And pours in tears, ere yet they close the urn So stay'd Achilles, circling round the shore, So watch'd the flames, till now they flame no more. 'Twas when, emerging through the shades of night, The morning planet told the approach of light And, fast behind, Aurora's warmer ray O'er the broad ocean pour'd the golden day Then sank the blaze, the pile no longer burn'd, And to their caves the whistling winds return'd Across the Thracian seas their course they bore The ruffled seas beneath their passage roar. Then parting from the pile he ceased to weep, And sank to quiet in the embrace of sleep, Exhausted with his grief meanwhile the crowd Of thronging Grecians round Achilles stood The tumult waked him from his eyes he shook Unwilling slumber, and the chiefs bespoke 'Ye kings and princes of the Achaian name! First let us quench the yet remaining flame With sable wine then, as the rites direct, The hero's bones with careful view select (Apart, and easy to be known they lie Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye The rest around the margin will be seen Promiscuous, steeds and immolated men) These wrapp'd in double cauls of fat, prepare And in the golden vase dispose with care There let them rest with decent honour laid, Till I shall follow to the infernal shade. Meantime erect the tomb with pious hands, A common structure on the humble sands Hereafter Greece some nobler work may raise, And late posterity record our praise! The Greeks obey where yet the embers glow, Wide o'er the pile the sable wine they throw, And deep subsides the ashy heap below. Next the white bones his sad companions place, With tears collected, in the golden vase. The sacred relics to the tent they bore The urn a veil of linen covered o'er. That done, they bid the sepulchre aspire, And cast the deep foundations round the pyre High in the midst they heap the swelling bed Of rising earth, memorial of the dead. The swarming populace the chief detains, And leads amidst a wide extent of plains There placed them round then from the ships proceeds A train of oxen, mules, and stately steeds, Vases and tripods (for the funeral games), Resplendent brass, and more resplendent dames. First stood the prizes to reward the force Of rapid racers in the dusty course A woman for the first, in beauty's bloom, Skill'd in the needle, and the labouring loom And a large vase, where two bright handles rise, Of twenty measures its capacious size. The second victor claims a mare unbroke, Big with a mule, unknowing of the yoke The third, a charger yet untouch'd by flame Four ample measures held the shining frame Two golden talents for the fourth were placed An ample double bowl contents the last. These in fair order ranged upon the plain, The hero, rising, thus address'd the train 'Behold the prizes, valiant Greeks! decreed To the brave rulers of the racing steed Prizes which none beside ourself could gain, Should our immortal coursers take the plain (A race unrivall'd, which from ocean's god Peleus received, and on his son bestow'd.) But this no time our vigour to display Nor suit, with them, the games of this sad day Lost is Patroclus now, that wont to deck Their flowing manes, and sleek their glossy neck. Sad, as they shared in human grief, they stand, And trail those graceful honours on the sand! Let others for the noble task prepare, Who trust the courser and the flying car. Fired at his word the rival racers rise But far the first Eumelus hopes the prize, Famed though Pieria for the fleetest breed, And skill'd to manage the highbounding steed. With equal ardour bold Tydides swell'd, The steeds of Tros beneath his yoke compell'd (Which late obey'd the Dardan chief's command, When scarce a god redeem'd him from his hand). Then Menelaus his Podargus brings, And the famed courser of the king of kings Whom rich Echepolus (more rich than brave), To 'scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave, (the her name) at home to end his days Base wealth preferring to eternal praise. Next him Antilochus demands the course With beating heart, and cheers his Pylian horse. Experienced Nestor gives his son the reins, Directs his judgment, and his heat restrains Nor idly warns the hoary sire, nor hears The prudent son with unattending ears. 'My son! though youthful ardour fire thy breast, The gods have loved thee, and with arts have bless'd Neptune and Jove on thee conferr'd the skill Swift round the goal to turn the flying wheel. To guide thy conduct little precept needs But slow, and past their vigour, are my steeds. Fear not thy rivals, though for swiftness known Compare those rivals' judgment and thy own It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise. 'Tis more by art than force of numerous strokes The dexterous woodman shapes the stubborn oaks By art the pilot, through the boiling deep And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship And 'tis the artist wins the glorious course Not those who trust in chariots and in horse. In vain, unskilful to the goal they strive, And short, or wide, the ungovern'd courser drive While with sure skill, though with inferior steeds, The knowing racer to his end proceeds Fix'd on the goal his eye foreruns the course, His hand unerring steers the steady horse, And now contracts, or now extends the rein, Observing still the foremost on the plain. Mark then the goal, 'tis easy to be found Yon aged trunk, a cubit from the ground Of some once stately oak the last remains, Or hardy fir, unperish'd with the rains Inclosed with stones, conspicuous from afar And round, a circle for the wheeling car. (Some tomb perhaps of old, the dead to grace Or then, as now, the limit of a race.) Bear close to this, and warily proceed, A little bending to the lefthand steed But urge the right, and give him all the reins While thy strict hand his fellow's head restrains, And turns him short till, doubling as they roll, The wheel's round naves appear to brush the goal. Yet (not to break the car, or lame the horse) Clear of the stony heap direct the course Lest through incaution failing, thou mayst be A joy to others, a reproach to me. So shalt thou pass the goal, secure of mind, And leave unskilful swiftness far behind Though thy fierce rival drove the matchless steed Which bore Adrastus, of celestial breed Or the famed race, through all the regions known, That whirl'd the car of proud Laomedon. Thus (nought unsaid) the muchadvising sage Concludes then sat, stiff with unwieldy age. Next bold Meriones was seen to rise, The last, but not least ardent for the prize. They mount their seats the lots their place dispose (Roll'd in his helmet, these Achilles throws). Young Nestor leads the race Eumelus then And next the brother of the king of men Thy lot, Meriones, the fourth was cast And, far the bravest, Diomed, was last. They stand in order, an impatient train Pelides points the barrier on the plain, And sends before old Phnix to the place, To mark the racers, and to judge the race. At once the coursers from the barrier bound The lifted scourges all at once resound Their heart, their eyes, their voice, they send before And up the champaign thunder from the shore Thick, where they drive, the dusty clouds arise, And the lost courser in the whirlwind flies Loose on their shoulders the long manes reclined, Float in their speed, and dance upon the wind The smoking chariots, rapid as they bound, Now seem to touch the sky, and now the ground. While hot for fame, and conquest all their care, (Each o'er his flying courser hung in air,) Erect with ardour, poised upon the rein, They pant, they stretch, they shout along the plain. Now (the last compass fetch'd around the goal) At the near prize each gathers all his soul, Each burns with double hope, with double pain, Tears up the shore, and thunders toward the main. First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds Close on Eumelus' back they puff the wind, And seem just mounting on his car behind Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze, And, hovering o'er, their stretching shadows sees. Then had he lost, or left a doubtful prize But angry Phbus to Tydides flies, Strikes from his hand the scourge, and renders vain His matchless horses' labour on the plain. Rage fills his eye with anguish, to survey Snatch'd from his hope the glories of the day. The fraud celestial Pallas sees with pain, Springs to her knight, and gives the scourge again, And fills his steeds with vigour. At a stroke She breaks his rival's chariot from the yoke No more their way the startled horses held The car reversed came rattling on the field Shot headlong from his seat, beside the wheel, Prone on the dust the unhappy master fell His batter'd face and elbows strike the ground Nose, mouth, and front, one undistinguish'd wound Grief stops his voice, a torrent drowns his eyes Before him far the glad Tydides flies Minerva's spirit drives his matchless pace, And crowns him victor of the labour'd race. The next, though distant, Menelaus succeeds While thus young Nestor animates his steeds 'Now, now, my generous pair, exert your force Not that we hope to match Tydides' horse, Since great Minerva wings their rapid way, And gives their lord the honours of the day But reach Atrides! shall his mare outgo Your swiftness? vanquish'd by a female foe? Through your neglect, if lagging on the plain The last ignoble gift be all we gain, No more shall Nestor's hand your food supply, The old man's fury rises, and ye die. Haste then yon narrow road, before our sight, Presents the occasion, could we use it right. Thus he. The coursers at their master's threat With quicker steps the sounding champaign beat. And now Antilochus with nice survey Observes the compass of the hollow way. 'Twas where, by force of wintry torrents torn, Fast by the road a precipice was worn Here, where but one could pass, to shun the throng The Spartan hero's chariot smoked along. Close up the venturous youth resolves to keep, Still edging near, and bears him toward the steep. Atrides, trembling, casts his eye below, And wonders at the rashness of his foe. 'Hold, stay your steedsWhat madness thus to ride This narrow way! take larger field (he cried), Or both must fall.Atrides cried in vain He flies more fast, and throws up all the rein. Far as an able arm the disk can send, When youthful rivals their full force extend, So far, Antilochus! thy chariot flew Before the king he, cautious, backward drew His horse compell'd foreboding in his fears The rattling ruin of the clashing cars, The floundering coursers rolling on the plain, And conquest lost through frantic haste to gain. But thus upbraids his rival as he flies 'Go, furious youth! ungenerous and unwise! Go, but expect not I'll the prize resign Add perjury to fraud, and make it thine Then to his steeds with all his force he cries, 'Be swift, be vigorous, and regain the prize! Your rivals, destitute of youthful force, With fainting knees shall labour in the course, And yield the glory yours.The steeds obey Already at their heels they wing their way, And seem already to retrieve the day. Meantime the Grecians in a ring beheld The coursers bounding o'er the dusty field. The first who mark'd them was the Cretan king High on a rising ground, above the ring, The monarch sat from whence with sure survey He well observed the chief who led the way, And heard from far his animating cries, And saw the foremost steed with sharpen'd eyes On whose broad front a blaze of shining white, Like the full moon, stood obvious to the sight. He saw and rising, to the Greeks begun 'Are yonder horse discern'd by me alone? Or can ye, all, another chief survey, And other steeds than lately led the way? Those, though the swiftest, by some god withheld, Lie sure disabled in the middle field For, since the goal they doubled, round the plain I search to find them, but I search in vain. Perchance the reins forsook the driver's hand, And, turn'd too short, he tumbled on the strand, Shot from the chariot while his coursers stray With frantic fury from the destined way. Rise then some other, and inform my sight, For these dim eyes, perhaps, discern not right Yet sure he seems, to judge by shape and air, The great tolian chief, renown'd in war. 'Old man! (Oleus rashly thus replies) Thy tongue too hastily confers the prize Of those who view the course, nor sharpest eyed, Nor youngest, yet the readiest to decide. Eumelus' steeds, high bounding in the chase, Still, as at first, unrivall'd lead the race I well discern him, as he shakes the rein, And hear his shouts victorious o'er the plain. Thus he. Idomeneus, incensed, rejoin'd 'Barbarous of words! and arrogant of mind! Contentious prince, of all the Greeks beside The last in merit, as the first in pride! To vile reproach what answer can we make? A goblet or a tripod let us stake, And be the king the judge. The most unwise Will learn their rashness, when they pay the price. He said and Ajax, by mad passion borne, Stern had replied fierce scorn enhancing scorn To fell extremes. But Thetis' godlike son Awful amidst them rose, and thus begun 'Forbear, ye chiefs! reproachful to contend Much would ye blame, should others thus offend And lo! the approaching steeds your contest end. No sooner had he spoke, but thundering near, Drives, through a stream of dust, the charioteer. High o'er his head the circling lash he wields His bounding horses scarcely touch the fields His car amidst the dusty whirlwind roll'd, Bright with the mingled blaze of tin and gold, Refulgent through the cloud no eye could find The track his flying wheels had left behind And the fierce coursers urged their rapid pace So swift, it seem'd a flight, and not a race. Now victor at the goal Tydides stands, Quits his bright car, and springs upon the sands From the hot steeds the sweaty torrents stream The wellplied whip is hung athwart the beam With joy brave Sthenelus receives the prize, The tripodvase, and dame with radiant eyes These to the ships his train triumphant leads, The chief himself unyokes the panting steeds. Young Nestor follows (who by art, not force, O'erpass'd Atrides) second in the course. Behind, Atrides urged the race, more near Than to the courser in his swift career The following car, just touching with his heel And brushing with his tail the whirling wheel Such, and so narrow now the space between The rivals, late so distant on the green So soon swift the her lost ground regain'd, One length, one moment, had the race obtain'd. Merion pursued, at greater distance still, With tardier coursers, and inferior skill. Last came, Admetus! thy unhappy son Slow dragged the steeds his batter'd chariot on Achilles saw, and pitying thus begun 'Behold! the man whose matchless art surpass'd The sons of Greece! the ablest, yet the last! Fortune denies, but justice bids us pay (Since great Tydides bears the first away) To him the second honours of the day. The Greeks consent with loudapplauding cries, And then Eumelus had received the prize, But youthful Nestor, jealous of his fame, The award opposes, and asserts his claim. 'Think not (he cries) I tamely will resign, O Peleus' son! the mare so justly mine. What if the gods, the skilful to confound, Have thrown the horse and horseman to the ground? Perhaps he sought not heaven by sacrifice, And vows omitted forfeited the prize. If yet (distinction to thy friend to show, And please a soul desirous to bestow) Some gift must grace Eumelus, view thy store Of beauteous handmaids, steeds, and shining ore An ample present let him thence receive, And Greece shall praise thy generous thirst to give. But this my prize I never shall forego This, who but touches, warriors! is my foe. Thus spake the youth nor did his words offend Pleased with the wellturn'd flattery of a friend, Achilles smiled 'The gift proposed (he cried), Antilochus! we shall ourself provide. With plates of brass the corslet cover'd o'er, (The same renown'd Asteropaeus wore,) Whose glittering margins raised with silver shine, (No vulgar gift,) Eumelus! shall be thine. He said Automedon at his command The corslet brought, and gave it to his hand. Distinguish'd by his friend, his bosom glows With generous joy then Menelaus rose The herald placed the sceptre in his hands, And still'd the clamour of the shouting bands. Not without cause incensed at Nestor's son, And inly grieving, thus the king begun 'The praise of wisdom, in thy youth obtain'd, An act so rash, Antilochus! has stain'd. Robb'd of my glory and my just reward, To you, O Grecians! be my wrong declared So not a leader shall our conduct blame, Or judge me envious of a rival's fame. But shall not we, ourselves, the truth maintain? What needs appealing in a fact so plain? What Greek shall blame me, if I bid thee rise, And vindicate by oath th' illgotten prize? Rise if thou darest, before thy chariot stand, The driving scourge highlifted in thy hand And touch thy steeds, and swear thy whole intent Was but to conquer, not to circumvent. Swear by that god whose liquid arms surround The globe, and whose dread earthquakes heave the ground! The prudent chief with calm attention heard Then mildly thus 'Excuse, if youth have err'd Superior as thou art, forgive the offence, Nor I thy equal, or in years, or sense. Thou know'st the errors of unripen'd age, Weak are its counsels, headlong is its rage. The prize I quit, if thou thy wrath resign The mare, or aught thou ask'st, be freely thine Ere I become (from thy dear friendship torn) Hateful to thee, and to the gods forsworn. So spoke Antilochus and at the word The mare contested to the king restored. Joy swells his soul as when the vernal grain Lifts the green ear above the springing plain, The fields their vegetable life renew, And laugh and glitter with the morning dew Such joy the Spartan's shining face o'erspread, And lifted his gay heart, while thus he said 'Still may our souls, O generous youth! agree 'Tis now Atrides' turn to yield to thee. Rash heat perhaps a moment might control, Not break, the settled temper of thy soul. Not but (my friend) 'tis still the wiser way To waive contention with superior sway For ah! how few, who should like thee offend, Like thee, have talents to regain the friend! To plead indulgence, and thy fault atone, Suffice thy father's merit and thy own Generous alike, for me, the sire and son Have greatly suffer'd, and have greatly done. I yield that all may know, my soul can bend, Nor is my pride preferr'd before my friend. He said and pleased his passion to command, Resign'd the courser to Noemon's hand, Friend of the youthful chief himself content, The shining charger to his vessel sent. The golden talents Merion next obtain'd The fifth reward, the double bowl, remain'd. Achilles this to reverend Nestor bears. And thus the purpose of his gift declares 'Accept thou this, O sacred sire! (he said) In dear memorial of Patroclus dead Dead and for ever lost Patroclus lies, For ever snatch'd from our desiring eyes! Take thou this token of a grateful heart, Though 'tis not thine to hurl the distant dart, The quoit to toss, the ponderous mace to wield, Or urge the race, or wrestle on the field Thy pristine vigour age has overthrown, But left the glory of the past thy own. He said, and placed the goblet at his side With joy the venerable king replied 'Wisely and well, my son, thy words have proved A senior honour'd, and a friend beloved! Too true it is, deserted of my strength, These wither'd arms and limbs have fail'd at length. Oh! had I now that force I felt of yore, Known through Buprasium and the Pylian shore! Victorious then in every solemn game, Ordain'd to Amarynces' mighty name The brave Epeians gave my glory way, tolians, Pylians, all resign'd the day. I quell'd Clytomedes in fights of hand, And backward hurl'd Ancus on the sand, Surpass'd Iphyclus in the swift career, Phyleus and Polydorus with the spear. The sons of Actor won the prize of horse, But won by numbers, not by art or force For the famed twins, impatient to survey Prize after prize by Nestor borne away, Sprung to their car and with united pains One lash'd the coursers, while one ruled the reins. Such once I was! Now to these tasks succeeds A younger race, that emulate our deeds I yield, alas! (to age who must not yield?) Though once the foremost hero of the field. Go thou, my son! by generous friendship led, With martial honours decorate the dead While pleased I take the gift thy hands present, (Pledge of benevolence, and kind intent,) Rejoiced, of all the numerous Greeks, to see Not one but honours sacred age and me Those due distinctions thou so well canst pay, May the just gods return another day! Proud of the gift, thus spake the full of days Achilles heard him, prouder of the praise. The prizes next are order'd to the field, For the bold champions who the caestus wield. A stately mule, as yet by toils unbroke, Of six years' age, unconscious of the yoke, Is to the circus led, and firmly bound Next stands a goblet, massy, large, and round. Achilles rising, thus 'Let Greece excite Two heroes equal to this hardy fight Who dare the foe with lifted arms provoke, And rush beneath the longdescending stroke. On whom Apollo shall the palm bestow, And whom the Greeks supreme by conquest know, This mule his dauntless labours shall repay, The vanquish'd bear the massy bowl away. This dreadful combat great Epes chose High o'er the crowd, enormous bulk! he rose, And seized the beast, and thus began to say 'Stand forth some man, to bear the bowl away! (Price of his ruin for who dares deny This mule my right the undoubted victor I) Others, 'tis own'd, in fields of battle shine, But the first honours of this fight are mine For who excels in all? Then let my foe Draw near, but first his certain fortune know Secure this hand shall his whole frame confound, Mash all his bones, and all his body pound So let his friends be nigh, a needful train, To heave the batter'd carcase off the plain. The giant spoke and in a stupid gaze The host beheld him, silent with amaze! 'Twas thou, Euryalus! who durst aspire To meet his might, and emulate thy sire, The great Mecistheus who in days of yore In Theban games the noblest trophy bore, (The games ordain'd dead OEdipus to grace,) And singly vanquish the Cadmean race. Him great Tydides urges to contend, Warm with the hopes of conquest for his friend Officious with the cincture girds him round And to his wrist the gloves of death are bound. Amid the circle now each champion stands, And poises high in air his iron hands With clashing gauntlets now they fiercely close, Their crackling jaws reecho to the blows, And painful sweat from all their members flows. At length Epeus dealt a weighty blow Full on the cheek of his unwary foe Beneath that ponderous arm's resistless sway Down dropp'd he, nerveless, and extended lay. As a large fish, when winds and waters roar, By some huge billow dash'd against the shore, Lies panting not less batter'd with his wound, The bleeding hero pants upon the ground. To rear his fallen foe, the victor lends, Scornful, his hand and gives him to his friends Whose arms support him, reeling through the throng, And dragging his disabled legs along Nodding, his head hangs down his shoulder o'er His mouth and nostrils pour the clotted gore Wrapp'd round in mists he lies, and lost to thought His friends receive the bowl, too dearly bought. The third bold game Achilles next demands, And calls the wrestlers to the level sands A massy tripod for the victor lies, Of twice six oxen its reputed price And next, the loser's spirits to restore, A female captive, valued but at four. Scarce did the chief the vigorous strife propose When towerlike Ajax and Ulysses rose. Amid the ring each nervous rival stands, Embracing rigid with implicit hands. Close lock'd above, their heads and arms are mix'd Below, their planted feet at distance fix'd Like two strong rafters which the builder forms, Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms, Their tops connected, but at wider space Fix'd on the centre stands their solid base. Now to the grasp each manly body bends The humid sweat from every pore descends Their bones resound with blows sides, shoulders, thighs Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise. Nor could Ulysses, for his art renown'd, O'erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow The watchful caution of his artful foe. While the long strife even tired the lookers on, Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon 'Or let me lift thee, chief, or lift thou me Prove we our force, and Jove the rest decree. He said and, straining, heaved him off the ground With matchless strength that time Ulysses found The strength to evade, and where the nerves combine His ankle struck the giant fell supine Ulysses, following, on his bosom lies Shouts of applause run rattling through the skies. Ajax to lift Ulysses next essays He barely stirr'd him, but he could not raise His knee lock'd fast, the foe's attempt denied And grappling close, they tumbled side by side. Defiled with honourable dust they roll, Still breathing strife, and unsubdued of soul Again they rage, again to combat rise When great Achilles thus divides the prize 'Your noble vigour, O my friends, restrain Nor weary out your generous strength in vain. Ye both have won let others who excel, Now prove that prowess you have proved so well. The hero's words the willing chiefs obey, From their tired bodies wipe the dust away, And, clothed anew, the following games survey. And now succeed the gifts ordain'd to grace The youths contending in the rapid race A silver urn that full six measures held, By none in weight or workmanship excell'd Sidonian artists taught the frame to shine, Elaborate, with artifice divine Whence Tyrian sailors did the prize transport, And gave to Thoas at the Lemnian port From him descended, good Eunaeus heir'd The glorious gift and, for Lycaon spared, To brave Patroclus gave the rich reward Now, the same hero's funeral rites to grace, It stands the prize of swiftness in the race. A wellfed ox was for the second placed And half a talent must content the last. Achilles rising then bespoke the train 'Who hope the palm of swiftness to obtain, Stand forth, and bear these prizes from the plain. The hero said, and starting from his place, Oilean Ajax rises to the race Ulysses next and he whose speed surpass'd His youthful equals, Nestor's son, the last. Ranged in a line the ready racers stand Pelides points the barrier with his hand All start at once Oleus led the race The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace Behind him, diligently close, he sped, As closely following as the running thread The spindle follows, and displays the charms Of the fair spinster's breast and moving arms Graceful in motion thus, his foe he plies, And treads each footstep ere the dust can rise His glowing breath upon his shoulders plays The admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise To him they give their wishes, hearts, and eyes, And send their souls before him as he flies. Now three times turn'd in prospect of the goal, The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul 'Assist, O goddess! thus in thought he pray'd! And present at his thought descends the maid. Buoy'd by her heavenly force, he seems to swim, And feels a pinion lifting every limb. All fierce, and ready now the prize to gain, Unhappy Ajax stumbles on the plain (O'erturn'd by Pallas), where the slippery shore Was clogg'd with slimy dung and mingled gore. (The selfsame place beside Patroclus' pyre, Where late the slaughter'd victims fed the fire.) Besmear'd with filth, and blotted o'er with clay, Obscene to sight, the rueful racer lay The wellfed bull (the second prize) he shared, And left the urn Ulysses' rich reward. Then, grasping by the horn the mighty beast, The baffled hero thus the Greeks address'd 'Accursed fate! the conquest I forego A mortal I, a goddess was my foe She urged her favourite on the rapid way, And Pallas, not Ulysses, won the day. Thus sourly wail'd he, sputtering dirt and gore A burst of laughter echoed through the shore. Antilochus, more humorous than the rest, Takes the last prize, and takes it with a jest 'Why with our wiser elders should we strive? The gods still love them, and they always thrive. Ye see, to Ajax I must yield the prize He to Ulysses, still more aged and wise (A green old age unconscious of decays, That proves the hero born in better days!) Behold his vigour in this active race! Achilles only boasts a swifter pace For who can match Achilles? He who can, Must yet be more than hero, more than man. The effect succeeds the speech. Pelides cries, 'Thy artful praise deserves a better prize. Nor Greece in vain shall hear thy friend extoll'd Receive a talent of the purest gold. The youth departs content. The host admire The son of Nestor, worthy of his sire. Next these a buckler, spear, and helm, he brings Cast on the plain, the brazen burden rings Arms which of late divine Sarpedon wore, And great Patroclus in short triumph bore. 'Stand forth the bravest of our host! (he cries) Whoever dares deserve so rich a prize, Now grace the lists before our army's sight, And sheathed in steel, provoke his foe to fight. Who first the jointed armour shall explore, And stain his rival's mail with issuing gore, The sword Asteropaeus possess'd of old, (A Thracian blade, distinct with studs of gold,) Shall pay the stroke, and grace the striker's side These arms in common let the chiefs divide For each brave champion, when the combat ends, A sumptuous banquet at our tents attends. Fierce at the word uprose great Tydeus' son, And the huge bulk of Ajax Telamon. Clad in refulgent steel, on either hand, The dreadful chiefs amid the circle stand Louring they meet, tremendous to the sight Each Argive bosom beats with fierce delight. Opposed in arms not long they idly stood, But thrice they closed, and thrice the charge renew'd. A furious pass the spear of Ajax made Through the broad shield, but at the corslet stay'd. Not thus the foe his javelin aim'd above The buckler's margin, at the neck he drove. But Greece, now trembling for her hero's life, Bade share the honours, and surcease the strife. Yet still the victor's due Tydides gains, With him the sword and studded belt remains. Then hurl'd the hero, thundering on the ground, A mass of iron (an enormous round), Whose weight and size the circling Greeks admire, Rude from the furnace, and but shaped by fire. This mighty quoit Ation wont to rear, And from his whirling arm dismiss in air The giant by Achilles slain, he stow'd Among his spoils this memorable load. For this, he bids those nervous artists vie, That teach the disk to sound along the sky. 'Let him, whose might can hurl this bowl, arise Who farthest hurls it, take it as his prize If he be one enrich'd with large domain Of downs for flocks, and arable for grain, Small stock of iron needs that man provide His hinds and swains whole years shall be supplied From hence nor ask the neighbouring city's aid For ploughshares, wheels, and all the rural trade. Stern Polyptes stepp'd before the throng, And great Leonteus, more than mortal strong Whose force with rival forces to oppose, Uprose great Ajax up Epeus rose. Each stood in order first Epeus threw High o'er the wondering crowds the whirling circle flew. Leonteus next a little space surpass'd And third, the strength of godlike Ajax cast. O'er both their marks it flew till fiercely flung From Polyptes' arm the discus sung Far as a swain his whirling sheephook throws, That distant falls among the grazing cows, So past them all the rapid circle flies His friends, while loud applauses shake the skies, With force conjoin'd heave off the weighty prize. Those, who in skilful archery contend, He next invites the twanging bow to bend And twice ten axes casts amidst the round, Ten doubleedged, and ten that singly wound The mast, which late a firstrate galley bore, The hero fixes in the sandy shore To the tall top a milkwhite dove they tie, The trembling mark at which their arrows fly. 'Whose weapon strikes yon fluttering bird, shall bear These twoedged axes, terrible in war The single, he whose shaft divides the cord. He said experienced Merion took the word And skilful Teucer in the helm they threw Their lots inscribed, and forth the latter flew. Swift from the string the sounding arrow flies But flies unbless'd! No grateful sacrifice, No firstling lambs, unheedful! didst thou vow To Phbus, patron of the shaft and bow. For this, thy wellaim'd arrow turn'd aside, Err'd from the dove, yet cut the cord that tied Adown the mainmast fell the parted string, And the free bird to heaven displays her wing Sea, shores, and skies, with loud applause resound, And Merion eager meditates the wound He takes the bow, directs the shaft above, And following with his eye the soaring dove, Implores the god to speed it through the skies, With vows of firstling lambs, and grateful sacrifice, The dove, in airy circles as she wheels, Amid the clouds the piercing arrow feels Quite through and through the point its passage found, And at his feet fell bloody to the ground. The wounded bird, ere yet she breathed her last, With flagging wings alighted on the mast, A moment hung, and spread her pinions there, Then sudden dropp'd, and left her life in air. From the pleased crowd new peals of thunder rise, And to the ships brave Merion bears the prize. To close the funeral games, Achilles last A massy spear amid the circle placed, And ample charger of unsullied frame, With flowers highwrought, not blacken'd yet by flame. For these he bids the heroes prove their art, Whose dexterous skill directs the flying dart. Here too great Merion hopes the noble prize Nor here disdain'd the king of men to rise. With joy Pelides saw the honour paid, Rose to the monarch, and respectful said 'Thee first in virtue, as in power supreme, O king of nations! all thy Greeks proclaim In every martial game thy worth attest, And know thee both their greatest and their best. Take then the prize, but let brave Merion bear This beamy javelin in thy brother's war. Pleased from the hero's lips his praise to hear, The king to Merion gives the brazen spear But, set apart for sacred use, commands The glittering charger to Talthybius' hands. CERES ARGUMENT. THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR. The gods deliberate about the redemption of Hector's body. Jupiter sends Thetis to Achilles, to dispose him for the restoring it, and Iris to Priam, to encourage him to go in person and treat for it. The old king, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his queen, makes ready for the journey, to which he is encouraged by an omen from Jupiter. He sets forth in his chariot, with a waggon loaded with presents, under the charge of Idus the herald. Mercury descends in the shape of a young man, and conducts him to the pavilion of Achilles. Their conversation on the way. Priam finds Achilles at his table, casts himself at his feet, and begs for the body of his son Achilles, moved with compassion, grants his request, detains him one night in his tent, and the next morning sends him home with the body the Trojans run out to meet him. The lamentations of Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen, with the solemnities of the funeral. The time of twelve days is employed in this book, while the body of Hector lies in the tent of Achilles and as many more are spent in the truce allowed for his interment. The scene is partly in Achilles' camp, and partly in Troy. Now from the finish'd games the Grecian band Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand, All stretch'd at ease the genial banquet share, And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care. Not so Achilles he, to grief resign'd, His friend's dear image present to his mind, Takes his sad couch, more unobserved to weep Nor tastes the gifts of allcomposing sleep. Restless he roll'd around his weary bed, And all his soul on his Patroclus fed The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind, That youthful vigour, and that manly mind, What toils they shared, what martial works they wrought, What seas they measured, and what fields they fought All pass'd before him in remembrance dear, Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear. And now supine, now prone, the hero lay, Now shifts his side, impatient for the day Then starting up, disconsolate he goes Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes. There as the solitary mourner raves, The ruddy morning rises o'er the waves Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join'd! The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind. And thrice, Patroclus! round thy monument Was Hector dragg'd, then hurried to the tent. There sleep at last o'ercomes the hero's eyes While foul in dust the unhonour'd carcase lies, But not deserted by the pitying skies For Phbus watch'd it with superior care, Preserved from gaping wounds and tainting air And, ignominious as it swept the field, Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield. All heaven was moved, and Hermes will'd to go By stealth to snatch him from the insulting foe But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies, And th' unrelenting empress of the skies, E'er since that day implacable to Troy, What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy, Won by destructive lust (reward obscene), Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen. But when the tenth celestial morning broke, To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke HECTOR'S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES 'Unpitying powers! how oft each holy fane Has Hector tinged with blood of victims slain? And can ye still his cold remains pursue? Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view? Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire, The last sad honours of a funeral fire? Is then the dire Achilles all your care? That iron heart, inflexibly severe A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide, In strength of rage, and impotence of pride Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, Invades around, and breathes but to destroy! Shame is not of his soul nor understood, The greatest evil and the greatest good. Still for one loss he rages unresign'd, Repugnant to the lot of all mankind To lose a friend, a brother, or a son, Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear. But this insatiate, the commission given By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heaven Lo, how his rage dishonest drags along Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong! Brave though he be, yet by no reason awed, He violates the laws of man and god. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS 'If equal honours by the partial skies Are doom'd both heroes, (Juno thus replies,) If Thetis' son must no distinction know, Then hear, ye gods! the patron of the bow. But Hector only boasts a mortal claim, His birth deriving from a mortal dame Achilles, of your own ethereal race, Springs from a goddess by a man's embrace (A goddess by ourself to Peleus given, A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven) To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode Yourselves were present where this minstrelgod, Well pleased to share the feast, amid the quire Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre. Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame 'Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame Their merits, nor their honours, are the same. But mine, and every god's peculiar grace Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay, (The only honours men to gods can pay,) Nor ever from our smoking altar ceased The pure libation, and the holy feast Howe'er by stealth to snatch the corse away, We will not Thetis guards it night and day. But haste, and summon to our courts above The azure queen let her persuasion move Her furious son from Priam to receive The proffer'd ransom, and the corse to leave. He added not and Iris from the skies, Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies, Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps, Refulgent gliding o'er the sable deeps. Between where Samos wide his forests spreads, And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads, Down plunged the maid (the parted waves resound) She plunged and instant shot the dark profound. As bearing death in the fallacious bait, From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight So pass'd the goddess through the closing wave, Where Thetis sorrow'd in her secret cave There placed amidst her melancholy train (The bluehair'd sisters of the sacred main) Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, And wept her godlike son's approaching doom. Then thus the goddess of the painted bow 'Arise, O Thetis! from thy seats below, 'Tis Jove that calls.'And why (the dame replies) Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies? Sad object as I am for heavenly sight! Ah may my sorrows ever shun the light! Howe'er, be heaven's almighty sire obey'd She spake, and veil'd her head in sable shade, Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad And forth she paced, majestically sad. Then through the world of waters they repair (The way fair Iris led) to upper air. The deeps dividing, o'er the coast they rise, And touch with momentary flight the skies. There in the lightning's blaze the sire they found, And all the gods in shining synod round. Thetis approach'd with anguish in her face, (Minerva rising, gave the mourner place,) Even Juno sought her sorrows to console, And offer'd from her hand the nectarbowl She tasted, and resign'd it then began The sacred sire of gods and mortal man 'Thou comest, fair Thetis, but with grief o'ercast Maternal sorrows long, ah, long to last! Suffice, we know and we partake thy cares But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares. Nine days are past since all the court above In Hector's cause have moved the ear of Jove 'Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe By stealth should bear him, but we will'd not so We will, thy son himself the corse restore, And to his conquest add this glory more. Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear Tell him he tempts the wrath of heaven too far Nor let him more (our anger if he dread) Vent his mad vengeance on the sacred dead But yield to ransom and the father's prayer The mournful father, Iris shall prepare With gifts to sue and offer to his hands Whate'er his honour asks, or heart demands. His word the silverfooted queen attends, And from Olympus' snowy tops descends. Arrived, she heard the voice of loud lament, And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent His friends prepare the victim, and dispose Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes The goddess seats her by her pensive son, She press'd his hand, and tender thus begun 'How long, unhappy! shall thy sorrows flow, And thy heart waste with lifeconsuming woe Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign Soothes weary life, and softens human pain? O snatch the moments yet within thy power Not long to live, indulge the amorous hour! Lo! Jove himself (for Jove's command I bear) Forbids to tempt the wrath of heaven too far. No longer then (his fury if thou dread) Detain the relics of great Hector dead Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain, But yield to ransom, and restore the slain. To whom Achilles 'Be the ransom given, And we submit, since such the will of heaven. While thus they communed, from the Olympian bowers Jove orders Iris to the Trojan towers 'Haste, winged goddess! to the sacred town, And urge her monarch to redeem his son. Alone the Ilian ramparts let him leave, And bear what stern Achilles may receive Alone, for so we will no Trojan near Except, to place the dead with decent care, Some aged herald, who with gentle hand May the slow mules and funeral car command. Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread, Safe through the foe by our protection led Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey, Guard of his life, and partner of his way. Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare His age, nor touch one venerable hair Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, Some sense of duty, some desire to save. IRIS ADVISES PRIAM TO OBTAIN THE BODY OF HECTOR Then down her bow the winged Iris drives, And swift at Priam's mournful court arrives Where the sad sons beside their father's throne Sat bathed in tears, and answer'd groan with groan. And all amidst them lay the hoary sire, (Sad scene of woe!) his face his wrapp'd attire Conceal'd from sight with frantic hands he spread A shower of ashes o'er his neck and head. From room to room his pensive daughters roam Whose shrieks and clamours fill the vaulted dome Mindful of those, who late their pride and joy, Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy! Before the king Jove's messenger appears, And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears 'Fear not, O father! no ill news I bear From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care For Hector's sake these walls he bids thee leave, And bear what stern Achilles may receive Alone, for so he wills no Trojan near, Except, to place the dead with decent care, Some aged herald, who with gentle hand May the slow mules and funeral car command. Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread Safe through the foe by his protection led Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey, Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way. Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, Some sense of duty, some desire to save. She spoke, and vanish'd. Priam bids prepare His gentle mules and harness to the car There, for the gifts, a polish'd casket lay His pious sons the king's command obey. Then pass'd the monarch to his bridalroom, Where cedarbeams the lofty roofs perfume, And where the treasures of his empire lay Then call'd his queen, and thus began to say 'Unhappy consort of a king distress'd! Partake the troubles of thy husband's breast I saw descend the messenger of Jove, Who bids me try Achilles' mind to move Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain. Tell me thy thought my heart impels to go Through hostile camps, and bears me to the foe. The hoary monarch thus. Her piercing cries Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies 'Ah! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind? And where the prudence now that awed mankind? Through Phrygia once and foreign regions known Now all confused, distracted, overthrown! Singly to pass through hosts of foes! to face (O heart of steel!) the murderer of thy race! To view that deathful eye, and wander o'er Those hands yet red with Hector's noble gore! Alas! my lord! he knows not how to spare, And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare So brave! so many fallen! To claim his rage Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age. Nopent in this sad palace, let us give To grief the wretched days we have to live. Still, still for Hector let our sorrows flow, Born to his own, and to his parents' woe! Doom'd from the hour his luckless life begun, To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus' son! Oh! in his dearest blood might I allay My rage, and these barbarities repay! For ah! could Hector merit thus, whose breath Expired not meanly, in unactive death? He poured his latest blood in manly fight, And fell a hero in his country's right. 'Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright With words of omen, like a bird of night, (Replied unmoved the venerable man) 'Tis heaven commands me, and you urge in vain. Had any mortal voice the injunction laid, Nor augur, priest, nor seer, had been obey'd. A present goddess brought the high command, I saw, I heard her, and the word shall stand. I go, ye gods! obedient to your call If in yon camp your powers have doom'd my fall, ContentBy the same hand let me expire! Add to the slaughter'd son the wretched sire! One cold embrace at least may be allow'd, And my last tears flow mingled with his blood! From forth his open'd stores, this said, he drew Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue, As many vests, as many mantles told, And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold, Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine, With ten pure talents from the richest mine And last a large welllabour'd bowl had place, (The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace) Seem'd all too mean the stores he could employ, For one last look to buy him back to Troy! Lo! the sad father, frantic with his pain, Around him furious drives his menial train In vain each slave with duteous care attends, Each office hurts him, and each face offends. 'What make ye here, officious crowds! (he cries) Hence! nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes. Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there Am I the only object of despair? Am I become my people's common show, Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe? No, you must feel him too yourselves must fall The same stern god to ruin gives you all Nor is great Hector lost by me alone Your sole defence, your guardian power is gone! I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown, I see the ruins of your smoking town! O send me, gods! ere that sad day shall come, A willing ghost to Pluto's dreary dome! He said, and feebly drives his friends away The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey. Next on his sons his erring fury falls, Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls His threats Deiphobus and Dius hear, Hippothous, Pammon, Helenes the seer, And generous Antiphon for yet these nine Survived, sad relics of his numerous line. 'Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire! Why did not all in Hector's cause expire? Wretch that I am! my bravest offspring slain. You, the disgrace of Priam's house, remain! Mestor the brave, renown'd in ranks of war, With Troilus, dreadful on his rushing car, And last great Hector, more than man divine, For sure he seem'd not of terrestrial line! All those relentless Mars untimely slew, And left me these, a soft and servile crew, Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ, Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy! Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run, And speed my journey to redeem my son? The sons their father's wretched age revere, Forgive his anger, and produce the car. High on the seat the cabinet they bind The newmade car with solid beauty shined Box was the yoke, emboss'd with costly pains, And hung with ringlets to receive the reins Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground These to the chariot's polish'd pole they bound. Then fix'd a ring the running reins to guide, And close beneath the gather'd ends were tied. Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain) The sad attendants load the groaning wain Last to the yoke the wellmatched mules they bring, (The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king.) But the fair horses, long his darling care, Himself received, and harness'd to his car Grieved as he was, he not this task denied The hoary herald help'd him, at his side. While careful these the gentle coursers join'd, Sad Hecuba approach'd with anxious mind A golden bowl that foam'd with fragrant wine, (Libation destined to the power divine,) Held in her right, before the steed she stands, And thus consigns it to the monarch's hands 'Take this, and pour to Jove that safe from harms His grace restore thee to our roof and arms. Since victor of thy fears, and slighting mine, Heaven, or thy soul, inspires this bold design Pray to that god, who high on Ida's brow Surveys thy desolated realms below, His winged messenger to send from high, And lead thy way with heavenly augury Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race Tower on the right of yon ethereal space. That sign beheld, and strengthen'd from above, Boldly pursue the journey mark'd by Jove But if the god his augury denies, Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice. ''Tis just (said Priam) to the sire above To raise our hands for who so good as Jove? He spoke, and bade the attendant handmaid bring The purest water of the living spring (Her ready hands the ewer and bason held) Then took the golden cup his queen had fill'd On the mid pavement pours the rosy wine, Uplifts his eyes, and calls the power divine 'O first and greatest! heaven's imperial lord! On lofty Ida's holy hill adored! To stern Achilles now direct my ways, And teach him mercy when a father prays. If such thy will, despatch from yonder sky Thy sacred bird, celestial augury! Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race Tower on the right of yon ethereal space So shall thy suppliant, strengthen'd from above, Fearless pursue the journey mark'd by Jove. Jove heard his prayer, and from the throne on high, Despatch'd his bird, celestial augury! The swiftwing'd chaser of the feather'd game, And known to gods by Percnos' lofty name. Wide as appears some palacegate display'd, So broad, his pinions stretch'd their ample shade, As stooping dexter with resounding wings The imperial bird descends in airy rings. A dawn of joy in every face appears The mourning matron dries her timorous tears Swift on his car the impatient monarch sprung The brazen portal in his passage rung The mules preceding draw the loaded wain, Charged with the gifts Idus holds the rein The king himself his gentle steeds controls, And through surrounding friends the chariot rolls. On his slow wheels the following people wait, Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate With hands uplifted eye him as he pass'd, And gaze upon him as they gazed their last. Now forward fares the father on his way, Through the lone fields, and back to Ilion they. Great Jove beheld him as he cross'd the plain, And felt the woes of miserable man. Then thus to Hermes 'Thou whose constant cares Still succour mortals, and attend their prayers Behold an object to thy charge consign'd If ever pity touch'd thee for mankind, Go, guard the sire the observing foe prevent, And safe conduct him to Achilles' tent. The god obeys, his golden pinions binds, And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds, That high, through fields of air, his flight sustain, O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly, Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye Thus arm'd, swift Hermes steers his airy way, And stoops on Hellespont's resounding sea. A beauteous youth, majestic and divine, He seem'd fair offspring of some princely line! Now twilight veil'd the glaring face of day, And clad the dusky fields in sober grey What time the herald and the hoary king (Their chariots stopping at the silver spring, That circling Ilus' ancient marble flows) Allow'd their mules and steeds a short repose, Through the dim shade the herald first espies A man's approach, and thus to Priam cries 'I mark some foe's advance O king! beware This hard adventure claims thy utmost care! For much I fear destruction hovers nigh Our state asks counsel is it best to fly? Or old and helpless, at his feet to fall, Two wretched suppliants, and for mercy call? The afflicted monarch shiver'd with despair Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair Sunk was his heart his colour went and came A sudden trembling shook his aged frame When Hermes, greeting, touch'd his royal hand, And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand 'Say whither, father! when each mortal sight Is seal'd in sleep, thou wanderest through the night? Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along, Through Grecian foes, so numerous and so strong? What couldst thou hope, should these thy treasures view These, who with endless hate thy race pursue? For what defence, alas! could'st thou provide Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide? Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread From me no harm shall touch thy reverend head From Greece I'll guard thee too for in those lines The living image of my father shines. 'Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind, Are true, my son! (the godlike sire rejoin'd) Great are my hazards but the gods survey My steps, and send thee, guardian of my way. Hail, and be bless'd! For scarce of mortal kind Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind. 'Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide (The sacred messenger of heaven replied) But say, convey'st thou through the lonely plains What yet most precious of thy store remains, To lodge in safety with some friendly hand Prepared, perchance, to leave thy native land? Or fliest thou now?What hopes can Troy retain, Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain? The king, alarm'd 'Say what, and whence thou art Who search the sorrows of a parent's heart, And know so well how godlike Hector died? Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied 'You tempt me, father, and with pity touch On this sad subject you inquire too much. Oft have these eyes that godlike Hector view'd In glorious fight, with Grecian blood embrued I saw him when, like Jove, his flames he toss'd On thousand ships, and wither'd half a host I saw, but help'd not stern Achilles' ire Forbade assistance, and enjoy'd the fire. For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race One ship convey'd us from our native place Polyctor is my sire, an honour'd name, Old like thyself, and not unknown to fame Of seven his sons, by whom the lot was cast To serve our prince, it fell on me, the last. To watch this quarter, my adventure falls For with the morn the Greeks attack your walls Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage, And scarce their rulers check their martial rage. 'If then thou art of stern Pelides' train, (The mournful monarch thus rejoin'd again,) Ah tell me truly, where, oh! where are laid My son's dear relics? what befalls him dead? Have dogs dismember'd (on the naked plains), Or yet unmangled rest, his cold remains? 'O favour'd of the skies! (thus answered then The power that mediates between god and men) Nor dogs nor vultures have thy Hector rent, But whole he lies, neglected in the tent This the twelfth evening since he rested there, Untouch'd by worms, untainted by the air. Still as Aurora's ruddy beam is spread, Round his friend's tomb Achilles drags the dead Yet undisfigured, or in limb or face, All fresh he lies, with every living grace, Majestical in death! No stains are found O'er all the corse, and closed is every wound, Though many a wound they gave. Some heavenly care, Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair Or all the host of heaven, to whom he led A life so grateful, still regard him dead. Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide, And joyful thus the royal sire replied 'Blest is the man who pays the gods above The constant tribute of respect and love! Those who inhabit the Olympian bower My son forgot not, in exalted power And heaven, that every virtue bears in mind, Even to the ashes of the just is kind. But thou, O generous youth! this goblet take, A pledge of gratitude for Hector's sake And while the favouring gods our steps survey, Safe to Pelides' tent conduct my way. To whom the latent god 'O king, forbear To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err. But can I, absent from my prince's sight, Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light? What from our master's interest thus we draw, Is but a licensed theft that 'scapes the law. Respecting him, my soul abjures the offence And as the crime, I dread the consequence. Thee, far as Argos, pleased I could convey Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way On thee attend, thy safety to maintain, O'er pathless forests, or the roaring main. He said, then took the chariot at a bound, And snatch'd the reins, and whirl'd the lash around Before the inspiring god that urged them on, The coursers fly with spirit not their own. And now they reach'd the naval walls, and found The guards repasting, while the bowls go round On these the virtue of his wand he tries, And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes Then heaved the massy gates, removed the bars, And o'er the trenches led the rolling cars. Unseen, through all the hostile camp they went, And now approach'd Pelides' lofty tent. On firs the roof was raised, and cover'd o'er With reeds collected from the marshy shore And, fenced with palisades, a hall of state, (The work of soldiers,) where the hero sat Large was the door, whose wellcompacted strength A solid pinetree barr'd of wondrous length Scarce three strong Greeks could lift its mighty weight, But great Achilles singly closed the gate. This Hermes (such the power of gods) set wide Then swift alighted the celestial guide, And thus reveal'dHear, prince! and understand Thou ow'st thy guidance to no mortal hand Hermes I am, descended from above, The king of arts, the messenger of Jove, Farewell to shun Achilles' sight I fly Uncommon are such favours of the sky, Nor stand confess'd to frail mortality. Now fearless enter, and prefer thy prayers Adjure him by his father's silver hairs, His son, his mother! urge him to bestow Whatever pity that stern heart can know. Thus having said, he vanish'd from his eyes, And in a moment shot into the skies The king, confirm'd from heaven, alighted there, And left his aged herald on the car, With solemn pace through various rooms he went, And found Achilles in his inner tent There sat the hero Alcimus the brave, And great Automedon, attendance gave These served his person at the royal feast Around, at awful distance, stood the rest. Unseen by these, the king his entry made And, prostrate now before Achilles laid, Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears Embraced his knees, and bathed his hands in tears Those direful hands his kisses press'd, embrued Even with the best, the dearest of his blood! As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime, Pursued for murder, flies his native clime) Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amazed, All gaze, all wonder thus Achilles gazed Thus stood the attendants stupid with surprise All mute, yet seem'd to question with their eyes Each look'd on other, none the silence broke, Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke 'Ah think, thou favour'd of the powers divine! Think of thy father's age, and pity mine! In me that father's reverend image trace, Those silver hairs, that venerable face His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see! In all my equal, but in misery! Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate Expels him helpless from his peaceful state Think, from some powerful foe thou seest him fly, And beg protection with a feeble cry. Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes, And, hearing, still may hope a better day May send him thee, to chase that foe away. No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain, The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain! Yet what a race! ere Greece to Ilion came, The pledge of many a loved and loving dame Nineteen one mother boreDead, all are dead! How oft, alas! has wretched Priam bled! Still one was left their loss to recompense His father's hope, his country's last defence. Him too thy rage has slain! beneath thy steel, Unhappy in his country's cause he fell! 'For him through hostile camps I bent my way, For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay Large gifts proportion'd to thy wrath I bear O hear the wretched, and the gods revere! 'Think of thy father, and this face behold! See him in me, as helpless and as old! Though not so wretched there he yields to me, The first of men in sovereign misery! Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace The scourge and ruin of my realm and race Suppliant my children's murderer to implore, And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore! These words soft pity in the chief inspire, Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire. Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe And now the mingled tides together flow This low on earth, that gently bending o'er A father one, and one a son deplore But great Achilles different passions rend, And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. The infectious softness through the heroes ran One universal solemn shower began They bore as heroes, but they felt as man. Satiate at length with unavailing woes, From the high throne divine Achilles rose The reverend monarch by the hand he raised On his white beard and form majestic gazed, Not unrelenting then serene began With words to soothe the miserable man 'Alas, what weight of anguish hast thou known, Unhappy prince! thus guardless and alone To pass through foes, and thus undaunted face The man whose fury has destroy'd thy race! Heaven sure has arm'd thee with a heart of steel, A strength proportion'd to the woes you feel. Rise, then let reason mitigate your care To mourn avails not man is born to bear. Such is, alas! the gods' severe decree They, only they are blest, and only free. Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, The source of evil one, and one of good From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, Blessings to these, to those distributes ill To most he mingles both the wretch decreed To taste the bad unmix'd, is cursed indeed Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven. The happiest taste not happiness sincere But find the cordial draught is dash'd with care. Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and power What stars concurring bless'd his natal hour! A realm, a goddess, to his wishes given Graced by the gods with all the gifts of heaven. One evil yet o'ertakes his latest day No race succeeding to imperial sway An only son and he, alas! ordain'd To fall untimely in a foreign land. See him, in Troy, the pious care decline Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine! Thou too, old man, hast happier days beheld In riches once, in children once excell'd Extended Phrygia own'd thy ample reign, And all fair Lesbos' blissful seats contain, And all wide Hellespont's unmeasured main. But since the god his hand has pleased to turn, And fill thy measure from his bitter urn, What sees the sun, but hapless heroes' falls? War, and the blood of men, surround thy walls! What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed These unavailing sorrows o'er the dead Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore, But thou, alas! may'st live to suffer more! To whom the king 'O favour'd of the skies! Here let me grow to earth! since Hector lies On the bare beach deprived of obsequies. O give me Hector! to my eyes restore His corse, and take the gifts I ask no more. Thou, as thou may'st, these boundless stores enjoy Safe may'st thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy So shall thy pity and forbearance give A weak old man to see the light and live! 'Move me no more, (Achilles thus replies, While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes,) Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend To yield thy Hector I myself intend For know, from Jove my goddessmother came, (Old Ocean's daughter, silverfooted dame,) Nor comest thou but by heaven nor comest alone, Some god impels with courage not thy own No human hand the weighty gates unbarr'd, Nor could the boldest of our youth have dared To pass our outworks, or elude the guard. Cease lest, neglectful of high Jove's command, I show thee, king! thou tread'st on hostile land Release my knees, thy suppliant arts give o'er, And shake the purpose of my soul no more. The sire obey'd him, trembling and o'eraw'd. Achilles, like a lion, rush'd abroad Automedon and Alcimus attend, (Whom most he honour'd, since he lost his friend,) These to unyoke the mules and horses went, And led the hoary herald to the tent Next, heap'd on high, the numerous presents bear, (Great Hector's ransom,) from the polish'd car. Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread, They leave to cover and enwrap the dead. Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil To wash the body and anoint with oil, Apart from Priam lest the unhappy sire, Provoked to passion, once more rouse to ire The stern Pelides and nor sacred age, Nor Jove's command, should check the rising rage. This done, the garments o'er the corse they spread Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed Then, while the body on the car they laid, He groans, and calls on loved Patroclus' shade 'If, in that gloom which never light must know, The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below, O friend! forgive me, that I thus fulfil (Restoring Hector) heaven's unquestion'd will. The gifts the father gave, be ever thine, To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine. He said, and, entering, took his seat of state Where full before him reverend Priam sate To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun 'Lo! to thy prayer restored, thy breathless son Extended on the funeral couch he lies And soon as morning paints the eastern skies, The sight is granted to thy longing eyes But now the peaceful hours of sacred night Demand reflection, and to rest invite Nor thou, O father! thus consumed with woe, The common cares that nourish life forego. Not thus did Niobe, of form divine, A parent once, whose sorrows equall'd thine Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids, In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades Those by Apollo's silver bow were slain, These, Cynthia's arrows stretch'd upon the plain So was her pride chastised by wrath divine, Who match'd her own with bright Latona's line But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy'd Those boasted twelve, the avenging two destroy'd. Steep'd in their blood, and in the dust outspread, Nine days, neglected, lay exposed the dead None by to weep them, to inhume them none (For Jove had turn'd the nation all to stone.) The gods themselves, at length relenting gave The unhappy race the honours of a grave. Herself a rock (for such was heaven's high will) Through deserts wild now pours a weeping rill Where round the bed whence Achelous springs, The watery fairies dance in mazy rings There high on Sipylus's shaggy brow, She stands, her own sad monument of woe The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow. 'Such griefs, O king! have other parents known Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own. The care of heaven thy Hector has appear'd, Nor shall he lie unwept, and uninterr'd Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown'd, And all the eyes of Ilion stream around. He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe With silver fleece, which his attendants slew. The limbs they sever from the reeking hide, With skill prepare them, and in parts divide Each on the coals the separate morsels lays, And, hasty, snatches from the rising blaze. With bread the glittering canisters they load, Which round the board Automedon bestow'd. The chief himself to each his portion placed, And each indulging shared in sweet repast. When now the rage of hunger was repress'd, The wondering hero eyes his royal guest No less the royal guest the hero eyes, His godlike aspect and majestic size Here, youthful grace and noble fire engage And there, the mild benevolence of age. Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke, (A solemn scene!) at length the father spoke 'Permit me now, beloved of Jove! to steep My careful temples in the dew of sleep For, since the day that number'd with the dead My hapless son, the dust has been my bed Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes My only food, my sorrows and my sighs! Till now, encouraged by the grace you give, I share thy banquet, and consent to live. With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed, With purple soft and shaggy carpets spread Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way, And place the couches, and the coverings lay. Then he 'Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear, Lest any Argive, at this hour awake, To ask our counsel, or our orders take, Approaching sudden to our open'd tent, Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent. Should such report thy honour'd person here, The king of men the ransom might defer But say with speed, if aught of thy desire Remains unask'd what time the rites require To inter thy Hector? For, so long we stay Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey. 'If then thy will permit (the monarch said) To finish all due honours to the dead, This of thy grace accord to thee are known The fears of Ilion, closed within her town And at what distance from our walls aspire The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire. Nine days to vent our sorrows I request, The tenth shall see the funeral and the feast The next, to raise his monument be given The twelfth we war, if war be doom'd by heaven! 'This thy request (replied the chief) enjoy Till then our arms suspend the fall of Troy. Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent The old man's fears, and turn'd within the tent Where fair Brises, bright in blooming charms, Expects her hero with desiring arms. But in the porch the king and herald rest Sad dreams of care yet wandering in their breast. Now gods and men the gifts of sleep partake Industrious Hermes only was awake, The king's return revolving in his mind, To pass the ramparts, and the watch to blind. The power descending hover'd o'er his head 'And sleep'st thou, father! (thus the vision said) Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restored? Nor fear the Grecian foes, or Grecian lord? Thy presence here should stern Atrides see, Thy still surviving sons may sue for thee May offer all thy treasures yet contain, To spare thy age and offer all in vain. Waked with the word the trembling sire arose, And raised his friend the god before him goes He joins the mules, directs them with his hand, And moves in silence through the hostile land. When now to Xanthus' yellow stream they drove, (Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove,) The winged deity forsook their view, And in a moment to Olympus flew. Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray, Sprang through the gates of light, and gave the day Charged with the mournful load, to Ilion go The sage and king, majestically slow. Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion's spire, The sad procession of her hoary sire Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near, (Her breathless brother stretched upon the bier,) A shower of tears o'erflows her beauteous eyes, Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries 'Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ, Ye wretched daughters, and ye sons of Troy! If e'er ye rush'd in crowds, with vast delight, To hail your hero glorious from the fight, Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow Your common triumph, and your common woe. In thronging crowds they issue to the plains Nor man nor woman in the walls remains In every face the selfsame grief is shown And Troy sends forth one universal groan. At Sca's gates they meet the mourning wain, Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. The wife and mother, frantic with despair, Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter'd hair Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay And there had sigh'd and sorrow'd out the day But godlike Priam from the chariot rose 'Forbear (he cried) this violence of woes First to the palace let the car proceed, Then pour your boundless sorrows o'er the dead. The waves of people at his word divide, Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait They weep, and place him on the bed of state. A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and music's solemn sound Alternately they sing, alternate flow The obedient tears, melodious in their woe. While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, And nature speaks at every pause of art. First to the corse the weeping consort flew Around his neck her milkwhite arms she threw, 'And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries) Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon'd, desolate, alone! An only son, once comfort of our pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! Never to manly age that son shall rise, Or with increasing graces glad my eyes For Ilion now (her great defender slain) Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain. Who now protects her wives with guardian care? Who saves her infants from the rage of war? Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er (Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go, The sad companion of thy mother's woe Driven hence a slave before the victor's sword Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord Or else some Greek whose father press'd the plain, Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain, In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy, And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy. For thy stern father never spared a foe Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe! Thence many evils his sad parents bore, His parents many, but his consort more. Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand? And why received not I thy last command? Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear, My soul might keep, or utter with a tear Which never, never could be lost in air, Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there! Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan, Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan. The mournful mother next sustains her part 'O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart! Of all my race thou most by heaven approved, And by the immortals even in death beloved! While all my other sons in barbarous bands Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands, This felt no chains, but went a glorious ghost, Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast. Sentenced, 'tis true, by his inhuman doom, Thy noble corse was dragg'd around the tomb (The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain) Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain! Yet glow'st thou fresh with every living grace No mark of pain, or violence of face Rosy and fair! as Phbus' silver bow Dismiss'd thee gently to the shades below. Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries. 'Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had join'd The mildest manners with the bravest mind, Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore, (O had I perish'd, ere that form divine Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!) Yet was it ne'er my fate, from thee to find A deed ungentle, or a word unkind. When others cursed the authoress of their woe, Thy pity check'd my sorrows in their flow. If some proud brother eyed me with disdain, Or scornful sister with her sweeping train, Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain. For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee, The wretched source of all this misery. The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone! Through Troy's wide streets abandon'd shall I roam! In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home! So spoke the fair, with sorrowstreaming eye. Distressful beauty melts each standerby. On all around the infectious sorrow grows But Priam check'd the torrent as it rose 'Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require, And fell the forests for a funeral pyre Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread Achilles grants these honours to the dead. FUNERAL OF HECTOR He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, Pour through the gates, and fell'd from Ida's crown, Roll back the gather'd forests to the town. These toils continue nine succeeding days, And high in air a sylvan structure raise. But when the tenth fair morn began to shine, Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, And placed aloft while all, with streaming eyes, Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn, Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, And quench with wine the yet remaining fire. The snowy bones his friends and brothers place (With tears collected) in a golden vase The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd, Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold. Last o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread, And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead. (Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done, Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun.) All Troy then moves to Priam's court again, A solemn, silent, melancholy train Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast. Such honours Ilion to her hero paid, And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles, and the terrible effects of it, at an end as that only was the subject of the poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not permit our author to proceed to the event of the war, it perhaps may be acceptable to the common reader to give a short account of what happened to Troy and the chief actors in this poem after the conclusion of it. I need not mention that Troy was taken soon after the death of Hector by the stratagem of the wooden horse, the particulars of which are described by Virgil in the second book of the neid. Achilles fell before Troy, by the hand of Paris, by the shot of an arrow in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death, lib. xxii. The unfortunate Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles. Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the armour of Vulcan, but being defeated in his aim, he slew himself through indignation. Helen, after the death of Paris, married Deiphobus his brother, and at the taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to Menelaus her first husband, who received her again into favour. Agamemnon at his return was barbarously murdered by gysthus, at the instigation of Clytemnestra his wife, who in his absence had dishonoured his bed with gysthus. Diomed, after the fall of Troy, was expelled his own country, and scarce escaped with his life from his adulterous wife gial but at last was received by Daunus in Apulia, and shared his kingdom it is uncertain how he died. Nestor lived in peace with his children, in Pylos, his native country. Ulysses also, after innumerable troubles by sea and land, at last returned in safety to Ithaca, which is the subject of Homer's Odyssey. For what remains, I beg to be excused from the ceremonies of taking leave at the end of my work, and from embarrassing myself, or others, with any defences or apologies about it. But instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, of the merits or difficulties of it (which must be left to the world, to truth, and to posterity), let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valuable of men, as well as finest writers, of my age and country, one who has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer, and one whom (I am sure) sincerely rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing together, in this manner, the names of Mr. CONGREVE, and of March ,  A. POPE Ton theon de eupoiiato mae epi pleon me procophai en poiaetiki kai allois epitaeoeimasi en ois isos a kateschethaen, ei aesthomaen emautan euodos proionta. M. AUREL ANTON de Seipso, lib. i.  . END OF THE ILIAD  'What, says Archdeacon Wilberforce, 'is the natural root of loyalty as distinguished from such mere selfish desire of personal security as is apt to take its place in civilized times, but that consciousness of a natural bond among the families of men which gives a fellowfeeling to whole clans and nations, and thus enlists their affections in behalf of those timehonoured representatives of their ancient blood, in whose success they feel a personal interest? Hence the delight when we recognize an act of nobility or justice in our hereditary princes ''Tuque prior, tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo, Projice tela manu sanguis meus' 'So strong is this feeling, that it regains an engrafted influence even when history witnesses that vast convulsions have rent and weakened it and the Celtic feeling towards the Stuarts has been rekindled in our own days towards the granddaughter of George the Third of Hanover. 'Somewhat similar may be seen in the disposition to idolize those great lawgivers of man's race, who have given expression, in the immortal language of song, to the deeper inspirations of our nature. The thoughts of Homer or of Shakespere are the universal inheritance of the human race. In this mutual ground every man meets his brother, they have been set forth by the providence of God to vindicate for all of us what nature could effect, and that, in these representatives of our race, we might recognize our common benefactors.'Doctrine of the Incarnation, pp. , .         . Vit. Hom. in Schweigh. Herodot. t. iv. p. , sq.  . I may observe that this Life has been paraphrased in English by my learned young friend Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, and appended to my prose translation of the Odyssey. The present abridgement however, will contain all that is of use to the reader, for the biographical value of the treatise is most insignificant.  I.e. both of composing and reciting verses for as Blair observes, 'The first poets sang their own verses. Sextus Empir. adv. Mus. p.  ed. Fabric.         ,         . 'The voice, observes Heeren, 'was always accompanied by some instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a medium between singing and recitation the words, and not the melody were regarded by the listeners, hence it was necessary for him to remain intelligible to all. In countries where nothing similar is found, it is difficult to represent such scenes to the mind but whoever has had an opportunity of listening to the improvisation of Italy, can easily form an idea of Demodocus and Phemius.Ancient Greece, p. .  'Should it not be, since my arrival? asks Mackenzie, observing that 'poplars can hardly live so long. But setting aside the fact that we must not expect consistency in a mere romance, the ancients had a superstitious belief in the great age of trees which grew near places consecrated by the presence of gods and great men. See Cicero de Legg II I, sub init., where he speaks of the plane tree under which Socrates used to walk and of the tree at Delos, where Latona gave birth to Apollo. This passage is referred to by Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. N. T. p. , ed. de Pinedo. I omit quoting any of the dull epigrams ascribed to Homer for, as Mr. Justice Talfourd rightly observes, 'The authenticity of these fragments depends upon that of the pseudo Herodotean Life of Homer, from which they are taken. Lit of Greece, pp.  in Encycl. Metrop. Cf. Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. .  It is quoted as the work of Cleobulus, by Diogenes Laert. Vit. Cleob. p. , ed. Casaub.  I trust I am justified in employing this as an equivalent for the Greek .        ,      .            .       . Vit. Hom. l. c. p. . The etymology has been condemned by recent scholars. See Welcker, Epische Cyclus, p. , and Mackenzie's note, p. xiv.  ,    ,     . Ibid. p. . During his stay at Phoca, Homer is said to have composed the Little Iliad, and the Phocid. See Muller's Hist. of Lit., vi.  . Welcker, l. c. pp. , , , sqq., and Mure, Gr. Lit. vol. ii. p. , sq.  This is so pretty a picture of early manners and hospitality, that it is almost a pity to find that it is obviously a copy from the Odyssey. See the fourteenth book. In fact, whoever was the author of this fictitious biography, he showed some tact in identifying Homer with certain events described in his poems, and in eliciting from them the germs of something like a personal narrative.    . A common metaphor. So Plato calls the parties conversing , or , Tim. i. p.  A. Cf. Themist. Orat. vi. p. , and xvi. p. , ed. Petav. So           , Choricius in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. T. viii. P. .   , Athenus vii p , A.  It was at Bolissus, and in the house of this Chian citizen, that Homer is said to have written the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice, the Epicichlidia, and some other minor works.  Chandler, Travels, vol. i. p. , referred to in the Voyage Pittoresque dans la Grce, vol. i. P. , where a view of the spot is given of which the author candidly says, 'Je ne puis rpondre d'une exactitude scrupuleuse dans la vue gnrale que j'en donne, car tant all seul pour l'examiner je perdis mon crayon, et je fus oblig de m'en fier  ma mmoire. Je ne crois cependant pas avoir trop  me plaindre d'elle en cette occasion.  A more probable reason for this companionship, and for the character of Mentor itself, is given by the allegorists, viz. the assumption of Mentor's form by the guardian deity of the wise Ulysses, Minerva. The classical reader may compare Plutarch, Opp. t. ii. p.  Xyland. Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Hom. p. , of Gale's Opusc. Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c.  Apul. de Deo Socrat. s. f.  Vit. Hom.  .  The riddle is given in Section . Compare Mackenzie's note, p. xxx.  Heeren's Ancient Greece, p. .  Compare Sir E. L. Bulwer's Caxtons v. i. p. .  Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv., Works, vol ii. p. .  Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., p. .  Viz., the following beautiful passage, for the translation of which I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. . 'Origias, farewell! and oh! remember me Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea, A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore, And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast, Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most Oh! answer all,'A blind old man and poor Sweetest he singsand dwells on Chios' rocky shore.' See Thucyd. iii, .  Longin., de Sublim., ix.  .           ,       .  See Tatian, quoted in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. II t. ii. Mr. Mackenzie has given three brief but elaborate papers on the different writers on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and Queries, vol. v. pp. , , and . His own views are moderate, and perhaps as satisfactory, on the whole, as any of the hypotheses hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt to blend those hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in advocating any individual theory.  Letters to Phileleuth Lips.  Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. , sqq.  It is, indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the memory may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to that of any first rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short warning, to 'rhapsodize,' night after night, parts which when laid together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this is nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining a man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole Gierusalemme of Tasso, not only to recite it consecutively, but also to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first, alternately the odd and even linesin short, whatever the passage required the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the same manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to which we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty years ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person can have forgotten the poor, uneducated man Blind Jamie who could actually repeat, after a few minutes consideration any verse required from any part of the Bibleeven the obscurest and most unimportant enumeration of mere proper names not excepted. We do not mention these facts as touching the more difficult part of the question before us, but facts they are and if we find so much difficulty in calculating the extent to which the mere memory may be cultivated, are we, in these days of multifarious reading, and of countless distracting affairs, fair judges of the perfection to which the invention and the memory combined may attain in a simpler age, and among a more single minded people?Quarterly Review, l. c., p. , sqq. Heeren steers between the two opinions, observing that, 'The Dschungariade of the Calmucks is said to surpass the poems of Homer in length, as much as it stands beneath them in merit, and yet it exists only in the memory of a people which is not unacquainted with writing. But the songs of a nation are probably the last things which are committed to writing, for the very reason that they are remembered. Ancient Greece. p. .  Vol. II p. , sqq.  Quarterly Review, l. c., p.  sq.  Betrachtungen ber die Ilias. Berol. . See Grote, p. . Notes and Queries, vol. v. p. .  Prolegg. pp. xxxii., xxxvi., c.  Vol. ii. p.  sqq.  'Who, says Cicero, de Orat. iii. , 'was more learned in that age, or whose eloquence is reported to have been more perfected by literature than that of Peisistratus, who is said first to have disposed the books of Homer in the order in which we now have them? Compare Wolf's Prolegomena , .  'The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the eleventh to the twentysecond inclusive, seems to form the primary organization of the poem, then properly an Achilles.Grote, vol. ii. p.   K. R. H. Mackenzie, Notes and Queries, p.  sqq.  See his Epistle to Raphelingius, in Schroeder's edition, to., Delphis, .  Ancient Greece, p. .  The best description of this monument will be found in Vaux's 'Antiquities of the British Museum, p.  sq. The monument itself (Towneley Sculptures, No. ) is well known.  Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. .  Preface to her Homer.  Hesiod. Opp. et Dier. Lib. I. vers. , c.  The following argument of the Iliad, corrected in a few particulars, is translated from Bitaub, and is, perhaps, the neatest summary that has ever been drawn up'A hero, injured by his general, and animated with a noble resentment, retires to his tent and for a season withdraws himself and his troops from the war. During this interval, victory abandons the army, which for nine years has been occupied in a great enterprise, upon the successful termination of which the honour of their country depends. The general, at length opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, deputes the principal officers of his army to the incensed hero, with commission to make compensation for the injury, and to tender magnificent presents. The hero, according to the proud obstinacy of his character, persists in his animosity the army is again defeated, and is on the verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man has a friend this friend weeps before him, and asks for the hero's arms, and for permission to go to the war in his stead. The eloquence of friendship prevails more than the intercession of the ambassadors or the gifts of the general. He lends his armour to his friend, but commands him not to engage with the chief of the enemy's army, because he reserves to himself the honour of that combat, and because he also fears for his friend's life. The prohibition is forgotten the friend listens to nothing but his courage his corpse is brought back to the hero, and the hero's arms become the prize of the conqueror. Then the hero, given up to the most lively despair, prepares to fight he receives from a divinity new armour, is reconciled with his general and, thirsting for glory and revenge, enacts prodigies of valour, recovers the victory, slays the enemy's chief, honours his friend with superb funeral rites, and exercises a cruel vengeance on the body of his destroyer but finally appeased by the tears and prayers of the father of the slain warrior, restores to the old man the corpse of his son, which he buries with due solemnities.'Coleridge, p. , sqq.  Vultures Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for Homer writes 'a prey to dogs and to all kinds of birds. But all kinds of birds are not carnivorous.  i.e. during the whole time of their striving the will of Jove was being gradually accomplished.  Compare Milton's 'Paradise Lost i.  'Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd.  Latona's son i.e. Apollo.  King of men Agamemnon.  Brother kings Menelaus and Agamemnon.  Smintheus an epithet taken from sminthos, the Phrygian name for a mouse, was applied to Apollo for having put an end to a plague of mice which had harassed that territory. Strabo, however, says, that when the Teucri were migrating from Crete, they were told by an oracle to settle in that place, where they should not be attacked by the original inhabitants of the land, and that, having halted for the night, a number of fieldmice came and gnawed away the leathern straps of their baggage, and thongs of their armour. In fulfilment of the oracle, they settled on the spot, and raised a temple to Sminthean Apollo. Grote, 'History of Greece, i. p. , remarks that the 'worship of Sminthean Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and its neighboring territory, dates before the earliest period of olian colonization.  Cilla, a town of Troas near Thebe, so called from Cillus, a sister of Hippodamia, slain by nomaus.  A mistake. It should be, 'If e'er I roofed thy graceful fane, for the custom of decorating temples with garlands was of later date.  Bent was his bow 'The Apollo of Homer, it must be borne in mind, is a different character from the deity of the same name in the later classical pantheon. Throughout both poems, all deaths from unforeseen or invisible causes, the ravages of pestilence, the fate of the young child or promising adult, cut off in the germ of infancy or flower of youth, of the old man dropping peacefully into the grave, or of the reckless sinner suddenly checked in his career of crime, are ascribed to the arrows of Apollo or Diana. The oracular functions of the god rose naturally out of the above fundamental attributes, for who could more appropriately impart to mortals what little foreknowledge Fate permitted of her decrees than the agent of her most awful dispensations? The close union of the arts of prophecy and song explains his additional office of god of music, while the arrows with which he and his sister were armed, symbols of sudden death in every age, no less naturally procured him that of god of archery. Of any connection between Apollo and the Sun, whatever may have existed in the more esoteric doctrine of the Greek sanctuaries, there is no trace in either Iliad or Odyssey.Mure, 'History of Greek Literature, vol. i. p. , sq.  It has frequently been observed, that most pestilences begin with animals, and that Homer had this fact in mind.  Convened to council. The public assembly in the heroic times is well characterized by Grote, vol. ii. p . 'It is an assembly for talk. Communication and discussion to a certain extent by the chiefs in person, of the people as listeners and sympathizersoften for eloquence, and sometimes for quarrelbut here its ostensible purposes end.  Old Jacob Duport, whose 'Gnomologia Homerica is full of curious and useful things, quotes several passages of the ancients, in which reference is made to these words of Homer, in maintenance of the belief that dreams had a divine origin and an import in which men were interested.  Rather, 'brighteyed. See the German critics quoted by Arnold.  The prize given to Ajax was Tecmessa, while Ulysses received Laodice, the daughter of Cycnus.  The Myrmidons dwelt on the southern borders of Thessaly, and took their origin from Myrmido, son of Jupiter and Eurymedusa. It is fancifully supposed that the name was derived from myrmaex, an ant, 'because they imitated the diligence of the ants, and like them were indefatigable, continually employed in cultivating the earth the change from ants to men is founded merely on the equivocation of their name, which resembles that of the ant they bore a further resemblance to these little animals, in that instead of inhabiting towns or villages, at first they commonly resided in the open fields, having no other retreats but dens and the cavities of trees, until Ithacus brought them together, and settled them in more secure and comfortable habitations.Anthon's 'Lempriere.  Eustathius, after Heraclides Ponticus and others, allegorizes this apparition, as if the appearance of Minerva to Achilles, unseen by the rest, was intended to point out the sudden recollection that he would gain nothing by intemperate wrath, and that it were best to restrain his anger, and only gratify it by withdrawing his services. The same idea is rather cleverly worked out by Apuleius, 'De Deo Socratis.  Compare Milton, 'Paradise Lost, bk. ii 'Though his tongue Dropp'd manna. So Proverbs v. , 'For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb.  Salt water was chiefly used in lustrations, from its being supposed to possess certain fiery particles. Hence, if seawater could not be obtained, salt was thrown into the fresh water to be used for the lustration. Menander, in Clem. Alex. vii. p., hydati perriranai, embalon alas, phakois.  The persons of heralds were held inviolable, and they were at liberty to travel whither they would without fear of molestation. Pollux, Onom. viii. p. . The office was generally given to old men, and they were believed to be under the especial protection of Jove and Mercury.  His mother, Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, who was courted by Neptune and Jupiter. When, however, it was known that the son to whom she would give birth must prove greater than his father, it was determined to wed her to a mortal, and Peleus, with great difficulty, succeeded in obtaining her hand, as she eluded him by assuming various forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which she held him. Hygin. Fab.   Theb was a city of Mysia, north of Adramyttium.  That is, defrauds me of the prize allotted me by their votes.  Quintus Calaber goes still further in his account of the service rendered to Jove by Thetis 'Nay more, the fetters of Almighty Jove She loosedDyce's 'Calaber, s. .  To Fates averse. Of the gloomy destiny reigning throughout the Homeric poems, and from which even the gods are not exempt, Schlegel well observes, 'This power extends also to the world of gods for the Grecian gods are mere powers of natureand although immeasurably higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on an equal footing with himself.'Lectures on the Drama' v. p. .  It has been observed that the annual procession of the sacred ship so often represented on Egyptian monuments, and the return of the deity from Ethiopia after some days' absence, serves to show the Ethiopian origin of Thebes, and of the worship of Jupiter Ammon. 'I think, says Heeren, after quoting a passage from Diodorus about the holy ship, 'that this procession is represented in one of the great sculptured reliefs on the temple of Karnak. The sacred ship of Ammon is on the shore with its whole equipment, and is towed along by another boat. It is therefore on its voyage. This must have been one of the most celebrated festivals, since, even according to the interpretation of antiquity, Homer alludes to it when he speaks of Jupiter's visit to the Ethiopians, and his twelve days' absence.Long, 'Egyptian Antiquities vol.  p. . Eustathius, vol.  p. , sq. (ed. Basil) gives this interpretation, and likewise an allegorical one, which we will spare the reader.  Atoned, i.e. reconciled. This is the proper and most natural meaning of the word, as may be seen from Taylor's remarks in Calmet's Dictionary, p., of my edition.  That is, drawing back their necks while they cut their throats. 'If the sacrifice was in honour of the celestial gods, the throat was bent upwards towards heaven but if made to the heroes, or infernal deities, it was killed with its throat toward the ground. 'Elgin Marbles, vol i. p.. 'The jolly crew, unmindful of the past, The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste, Some strip the skin some portion out the spoil The limbs yet trembling, in the caldrons boil Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil. Stretch'd on the grassy turf, at ease they dine, Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine. Dryden's 'Virgil, i. .  Crown'd, i.e. filled to the brim. The custom of adorning goblets with flowers was of later date.  He spoke, c. 'When a friend inquired of Phidias what pattern he had formed his Olympian Jupiter, he is said to have answered by repeating the lines of the first Iliad in which the poet represents the majesty of the god in the most sublime terms thereby signifying that the genius of Homer had inspired him with it. Those who beheld this statue are said to have been so struck with it as to have asked whether Jupiter had descended from heaven to show himself to Phidias, or whether Phidias had been carried thither to contemplate the god. 'Elgin Marbles, vol. xii p..  'So was his will Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath, That shook heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd. 'Paradise Lost ii. .  A double bowl, i.e. a vessel with a cup at both ends, something like the measures by which a halfpenny or pennyworth of nuts is sold. See Buttmann, Lexic. p.  sq.  'Paradise Lost, i. . 'Him th' Almighty power Hurl'd headlong flaming from th ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion  The occasion on which Vulcan incurred Jove's displeasure was thisAfter Hercules, had taken and pillaged Troy, Juno raised a storm, which drove him to the island of Cos, having previously cast Jove into a sleep, to prevent him aiding his son. Jove, in revenge, fastened iron anvils to her feet, and hung her from the sky, and Vulcan, attempting to relieve her, was kicked down from Olympus in the manner described. The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep explanations for this amusing fiction. See Heraclides, 'Ponticus, p.  sq., ed Gale. The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv. The Sinthians were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of Lemnos which island was ever after sacred to Vulcan. 'Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land Men call'd him Mulciber, and how he fell From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day and with the setting sun Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos, th' Aegean isle thus they relate. 'Paradise Lost, i.   It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p. , that 'The gods formed a sort of political community of their own which had its hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals.  Plato, Rep. iii. p. , was so scandalized at this deception of Jupiter's, and at his other attacks on the character of the gods, that he would fain sentence him to an honourable banishment. (See Minucius Felix, Section .) Coleridge, Introd. p. , well observes, that the supreme father of gods and men had a full right to employ a lying spirit to work out his ultimate will. Compare 'Paradise Lost, v.  'And roseate dews disposed All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest.  Dream ought to be spelt with a capital letter, being, I think, evidently personified as the god of dreams. See Anthon and others. 'When, by Minerva sent, a fraudful Dream Rush'd from the skies, the bane of her and Troy. Dyce's 'Select Translations from Quintus Calaber, p..  'Sleep'st thou, companion dear, what sleep can close Thy eyelids?'Paradise Lost, v. .  This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving voice of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny's Panegyric on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it, 'Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem.  The same in habit, c. 'To whom once more the winged god appears His former youthful mien and shape he wears. Dryden's Virgil, iv. .  'As bees in springtime, when The sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of this strawbuilt citadel, Newnibb'd with balm, expatiate and confer Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd Swarm'd and were straiten'd.'Paradise Lost i. .  It was the herald's duty to make the people sit down. 'A standing agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. ) an evening agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of mischief ('Odyssey,' iii. ).Grote, ii. p. , note.  This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. ), is a type of the supreme and farspread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See Thucydides i. . 'It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in furthering the process of acquisition.Grote, i. p. . Compare Quintus Calaber (Dyce's Selections, p. ). 'Thus the monarch spoke, Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup, Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow'd The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next To Ericthonius Tros received it then, And left it, with his wealth, to be possess'd By Ilus he to great Laomedon Gave it, and last to Priam's lot it fell.  Grote, i, p. , states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards of , men. Nichols makes a total of ,.  'As thick as when a field Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind Sways them.Paradise Lost, iv. , sqq.  This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, 'Ancient Greece, ch. vi. p. .  It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent. Of the gradual and individual development of Homer's heroes, Schlegel well observes, 'In basrelief the figures are usually in profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest manner in relief they are not grouped together, but follow one another so Homer's heroes advance, one by one, in succession before us. It has been remarked that the Iliad is not definitively closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede and to follow it. The basrelief is equally without limit, and may be continued ad infinitum, either from before or behind, on which account the ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants, and hence they also exhibit basreliefs on curved surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like such a circuit the present object alone arresting our attention, we lose sight of what precedes, and do not concern ourselves about what is to follow.'Dramatic Literature, p. .  'There cannot be a clearer indication than this description so graphic in the original poemof the true character of the Homeric agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are substantially wellfounded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of Thersites while the unpopularity of such a character is attested even more by the excessive pains which Homer takes to heap upon him repulsive personal deformities, than by the chastisement of Odysseus he is lame, bald, crookbacked, of misshapen head, and squinting vision.Grote, vol. i. p. .  According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the tree were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others, adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form the subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden's 'neid, vol. iii. sqq.  Full of his god, i.e., Apollo, filled with the prophetic spirit. 'The god would be more simple and emphatic.  Those critics who have maintained that the 'Catalogue of Ships is an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines, which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.  The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers 'Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was considered especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or a boar pig, were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for Minerva. To Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The goat to Bacchus, because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with a stag and to Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil deities were to be appeased with black victims. The most acceptable of all sacrifices was the heifer of a year old, which had never borne the yoke. It was to be perfect in every limb, healthy, and without blemish.'Elgin Marbles, vol. i. p. .  Idomeneus, son of Deucalion, was king of Crete. Having vowed, during a tempest, on his return from Troy, to sacrifice to Neptune the first creature that should present itself to his eye on the Cretan shore, his son fell a victim to his rash vow.  Tydeus' son, i.e. Diomed.  That is, Ajax, the son of Oleus, a Locrian. He must be distinguished from the other, who was king of Salamis.  A great deal of nonsense has been written to account for the word unbid, in this line. Even Plato, 'Sympos. p. , has found some curious meaning in what, to us, appears to need no explanation. Was there any heroic rule of etiquette which prevented one brotherking visiting another without a formal invitation?  Fresh water fowl, especially swans, were found in great numbers about the Asian Marsh, a fenny tract of country in Lydia, formed by the river Cayster, near its mouth. See Virgil, 'Georgics, vol. i. , sq.  Scamander, or Scamandros, was a river of Troas, rising, according to Strabo, on the highest part of Mount Ida, in the same hill with the Granicus and the OEdipus, and falling into the sea at Sigaeum everything tends to identify it with Mendere, as Wood, Rennell, and others maintain the Mendere is  miles long,  feet broad, deep in the time of flood, nearly dry in the summer. Dr. Clarke successfully combats the opinion of those who make the Scamander to have arisen from the springs of Bounabarshy, and traces the source of the river to the highest mountain in the chain of Ida, now Kusdaghy receives the Simois in its course towards its mouth it is very muddy, and flows through marshes. Between the Scamander and Simois, Homer's Troy is supposed to have stood this river, according to Homer, was called Xanthus by the gods, Scamander by men. The waters of the Scamander had the singular property of giving a beautiful colour to the hair or wool of such animals as bathed in them hence the three goddesses, Minerva, Juno, and Venus, bathed there before they appeared before Paris to obtain the golden apple the name Xanthus, 'yellow, was given to the Scamander, from the peculiar colour of its waters, still applicable to the Mendere, the yellow colour of whose waters attracts the attention of travellers.  It should be 'his chest like Neptune. The torso of Neptune, in the 'Elgin Marbles, No. , (vol. ii. p. ,) is remarkable for its breadth and massiveness of development.  'Say first, for heav'n hides nothing from thy view.'Paradise Lost, i. . 'Ma di' tu, Musa, come i primi danni Mandassero  Cristiani, e di quai parti Tu 'l sai ma di tant' opra a noi si lunge Debil aura di fama appena giunge.'Gier. Lib. iv. .  'The Catalogue is, perhaps, the portion of the poem in favour of which a claim to separate authorship has been most plausibly urged. Although the example of Homer has since rendered some such formal enumeration of the forces engaged, a common practice in epic poems descriptive of great warlike adventures, still so minute a statistical detail can neither be considered as imperatively required, nor perhaps such as would, in ordinary cases, suggest itself to the mind of a poet. Yet there is scarcely any portion of the Iliad where both historical and internal evidence are more clearly in favour of a connection from the remotest period, with the remainder of the work. The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place, necessarily presumes its author's acquaintance with a previously existing Iliad. It were impossible otherwise to account for the harmony observable in the recurrence of so vast a number of proper names, most of them historically unimportant, and not a few altogether fictitious or of so many geographical and genealogical details as are condensed in these few hundred lines, and incidentally scattered over the thousands which follow equally inexplicable were the pointed allusions occurring in this episode to events narrated in the previous and subsequent text, several of which could hardly be of traditional notoriety, but through the medium of the Iliad.Mure, 'Language and Literature of Greece, vol. i. p. .  Twice Sixty 'Thucydides observes that the Botian vessels, which carried one hundred and twenty men each, were probably meant to be the largest in the fleet, and those of Philoctetes, carrying fifty each, the smallest. The average would be eightyfive, and Thucydides supposes the troops to have rowed and navigated themselves and that very few, besides the chiefs, went as mere passengers or landsmen. In short, we have in the Homeric descriptions the complete picture of an Indian or African war canoe, many of which are considerably larger than the largest scale assigned to those of the Greeks. If the total number of the Greek ships be taken at twelve hundred, according to Thucydides, although in point of fact there are only eleven hundred and eightysix in the Catalogue, the amount of the army, upon the foregoing average, will be about a hundred and two thousand men. The historian considers this a small force as representing all Greece. Bryant, comparing it with the allied army at Platae, thinks it so large as to prove the entire falsehood of the whole story and his reasonings and calculations are, for their curiosity, well worth a careful perusal.Coleridge, p. , sq.  The mention of Corinth is an anachronism, as that city was called Ephyre before its capture by the Dorians. But Velleius, vol. i. p. , well observes, that the poet would naturally speak of various towns and cities by the names by which they were known in his own time.  'Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.''Paradise Lost, iv. .  setes' tomb. Monuments were often built on the seacoast, and of a considerable height, so as to serve as watchtowers or land marks. See my notes to my prose translations of the 'Odyssey, ii. p. , or on Eur. 'Alcest. vol. i. p. .  Zeleia, another name for Lycia. The inhabitants were greatly devoted to the worship of Apollo. See Muller, 'Dorians, vol. i. p. .  Barbarous tongues. 'Various as were the dialects of the Greeksand these differences existed not only between the several tribes, but even between neighbouring citiesthey yet acknowledged in their language that they formed but one nation were but branches of the same family. Homer has 'men of other tongues' and yet Homer had no general name for the Greek nation.Heeren, 'Ancient Greece, Section vii. p. , sq.  The cranes. 'Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried And each with outstretch'd neck his rank maintains, In marshall'd order through th' ethereal void. Lorenzo de Medici, in Roscoe's Life, Appendix. See Cary's Dante 'Hell, canto v.  Silent, breathing rage. 'Thus they, Breathing united force with fixed thought, Moved on in silence. 'Paradise Lost, book i. .  'As when some peasant in a bushy brake Has with unwary footing press'd a snake He starts aside, astonish'd, when he spies His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes Dryden's Virgil, ii. .  Dysparis, i.e. unlucky, ill fated, Paris. This alludes to the evils which resulted from his having been brought up, despite the omens which attended his birth.  The following scene, in which Homer has contrived to introduce so brilliant a sketch of the Grecian warriors, has been imitated by Euripides, who in his 'Phoenissae represents Antigone surveying the opposing champions from a high tower, while the paedagogus describes their insignia and details their histories.  No wonder, c. Zeuxis, the celebrated artist, is said to have appended these lines to his picture of Helen, as a motto. Valer Max. iii. .  The early epic was largely occupied with the exploits and sufferings of women, or heroines, the wives and daughters of the Grecian heroes. A nation of courageous, hardy, indefatigable women, dwelling apart from men, permitting only a short temporary intercourse, for the purpose of renovating their numbers, burning out their right breast with a view of enabling themselves to draw the bow freely this was at once a general type, stimulating to the fancy of the poet, and a theme eminently popular with his hearers. We find these warlike females constantly reappearing in the ancient poems, and universally accepted as past realities in the Iliad. When Priam wishes to illustrate emphatically the most numerous host in which he ever found himself included, he tells us that it was assembled in Phrygia, on the banks of the Sangarius, for the purpose of resisting the formidable Amazons. When Bellerophon is to be employed in a deadly and perilous undertaking, by those who prudently wished to procure his death, he is despatched against the Amazons.Grote, vol. i p. .  Antenor, like neas, had always been favourable to the restoration of Helen. Liv . .  'His lab'ring heart with sudden rapture seized He paus'd, and on the ground in silence gazed. Unskill'd and uninspired he seems to stand, Nor lifts the eye, nor graceful moves the hand Then, while the chiefs in still attention hung, Pours the full tide of eloquence along While from his lips the melting torrent flows, Soft as the fleeces of descending snows. Now stronger notes engage the listening crowd, Louder the accents rise, and yet more loud, Like thunders rolling from a distant cloud. Merrick's 'Tryphiodorus, , .  Duport, 'Gnomol. Homer, p. , well observes that this comparison may also be sarcastically applied to the frigid style of oratory. It, of course, here merely denotes the ready fluency of Ulysses.  Her brothers' doom. They perished in combat with Lynceus and Idas, whilst besieging Sparta. See Hygin. Poet Astr. , . Virgil and others, however, make them share immortality by turns.  Idreus was the armbearer and charioteer of king Priam, slain during this war. Cf. n, vi. .  Sca's gates, rather Scan gates, i.e. the lefthand gates.  This was customary in all sacrifices. Hence we find Iras descending to cut off the hair of Dido, before which she could not expire.  Nor pierced. 'This said, his feeble hand a jav'lin threw, Which, flutt'ring, seemed to loiter as it flew, Just, and but barely, to the mark it held, And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield. Dryden's Virgil, ii. .  Reveal'd the queen. 'Thus having said, she turn'd and made appear Her neck refulgent and dishevell'd hair, Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach'd the ground, And widely spread ambrosial scents around. In length of train descends her sweeping gown And, by her graceful walk, the queen of love is known. Dryden's Virgil, i. .  Cranae's isle, i.e. Athens. See the 'Schol. and Alberti's 'Hesychius, vol. ii. p. . This name was derived from one of its early kings, Cranaus.  The martial maid. In the original, 'Minerva Alalcomeneis, i.e. the defender, so called from her temple at Alalcomene in Botia.  'Anything for a quiet life!  Argos. The worship of Juno at Argos was very celebrated in ancient times, and she was regarded as the patron deity of that city. Apul. Met., vi. p.  Servius on Virg. n., i. .  A wife and sister. 'But I, who walk in awful state above The majesty of heav'n, the sisterwife of Jove. Dryden's 'Virgil, i. . So Apuleius, l. c. speaks of her as 'Jovis germana et conjux, and so Horace, Od. iii. , , 'conjuge me Jovis et sorore.  'Thither came Uriel, gleaming through the even On a sunbeam, swift as a shooting star In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired Impress the air, and shows the mariner From what point of his compass to beware Impetuous winds. 'Paradise Lost, iv. .  sepus' flood. A river of Mysia, rising from Mount Cotyius, in the southern part of the chain of Ida.  Zelia, a town of Troas, at the foot of Ida.  Podaleirius and Machon are the leeches of the Grecian army, highly prized and consulted by all the wounded chiefs. Their medical renown was further prolonged in the subsequent poem of Arktinus, the Iliou Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in surgical operations, the other as sagacious in detecting and appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podaleirius who first noticed the glaring eyes and disturbed deportment which preceded the suicide of Ajax. 'Galen appears uncertain whether Asklepius (as well as Dionysus) was originally a god, or whether he was first a man and then became afterwards a god but Apollodorus professed to fix the exact date of his apotheosis. Throughout all the historical ages the descendants of Asklepius were numerous and widely diffused. The many families or gentes, called Asklepiads, who devoted themselves to the study and practice of medicine, and who principally dwelt near the temples of Asklepius, whither sick and suffering men came to obtain reliefall recognized the god not merely as the object of their common worship, but also as their actual progenitor.Grote vol. i. p. .  'The plant she bruises with a stone, and stands Tempering the juice between her ivory hands This o'er her breast she sheds with sovereign art And bathes with gentle touch the wounded part The wound such virtue from the juice derives, At once the blood is stanch'd, the youth revives. 'Orlando Furioso, book .  Well might I wish. 'Would heav'n (said he) my strength and youth recall, Such as I was beneath Praeneste's wall Then when I made the foremost foes retire, And set whole heaps of conquer'd shields on fire When Herilus in single fight I slew, Whom with three lives Feronia did endue. Dryden's Virgil, viii. .  Sthenelus, a son of Capaneus, one of the Epigoni. He was one of the suitors of Helen, and is said to have been one of those who entered Troy inside the wooden horse.  Forwarn'd the horrors. The same portent has already been mentioned. To this day, modern nations are not wholly free from this superstition.  Sevenfold city, Botian Thebes, which had seven gates.  As when the winds. 'Thus, when a blackbrow'd gust begins to rise, White foam at first on the curl'd ocean fries Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies, Till, by the fury of the storm full blown, The muddy billow o'er the clouds is thrown. Dryden's Virgil, vii. .  'Stood Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved His stature reach'd the sky. 'Paradise Lost, iv. .  The Abantes seem to have been of Thracian origin.  I may, once for all, remark that Homer is most anatomically correct as to the parts of the body in which a wound would be immediately mortal.  nus, a fountain almost proverbial for its coldness.  Compare Tasso, Gier. Lib., xx.  'Nuovo favor del cielo in lui niluce E 'l fa grande, et angusto oltre il costume. Gl' empie d' honor la faccia, e vi riduce Di giovinezza il bel purpureo lume.  'Or deluges, descending on the plains, Sweep o'er the yellow year, destroy the pains Of lab'ring oxen, and the peasant's gains Uproot the forest oaks, and bear away Flocks, folds, and trees, an undistinguish'd prey. Dryden's Virgil ii. .  From mortal mists. 'But to nobler sights Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed. 'Paradise Lost, xi. .  The race of those. 'A pair of coursers, born of heav'nly breed, Who from their nostrils breathed ethereal fire Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire, By substituting mares produced on earth, Whose wombs conceived a more than mortal birth. Dryden's Virgil, vii. , sqq.  The belief in the existence of men of larger stature in earlier times, is by no means confined to Homer.  Such stream, i.e. the ichor, or blood of the gods. 'A stream of nect'rous humour issuing flow'd, Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed. 'Paradise Lost, vi. .  This was during the wars with the Titans.  Amphitryon's son, Hercules, born to Jove by Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon.  gial daughter of Adrastus. The Cyclic poets (See Anthon's Lempriere, s. v.) assert Venus incited her to infidelity, in revenge for the wound she had received from her husband.  Pher, a town of Pelasgiotis, in Thessaly.  Tlepolemus, son of Hercules and Astyochia. Having left his native country, Argos, in consequence of the accidental murder of Liscymnius, he was commanded by an oracle to retire to Rhodes. Here he was chosen king, and accompanied the Trojan expedition. After his death, certain games were instituted at Rhodes in his honour, the victors being rewarded with crowns of poplar.  These heroes' names have since passed into a kind of proverb, designating the oi polloi or mob.  Spontaneous open. 'Veil'd with his gorgeous wings, upspringing light Flew through the midst of heaven th' angelic quires, On each hand parting, to his speed gave way Through all th' empyreal road till at the gate Of heaven arrived, the gate selfopen'd wide, On golden hinges turning. 'Paradise Lost, v. .  'Till Morn, Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand Unbarr'd the gates of light. 'Paradise Lost, vi, .  Far as a shepherd. 'With what majesty and pomp does Homer exalt his deities! He here measures the leap of the horses by the extent of the world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding greatness of the space would not with reason cry out that 'If the steeds of the deity were to take a second leap, the world would want room for it'?Longinus, Section .  'No trumpets, or any other instruments of sound, are used in the Homeric action itself but the trumpet was known, and is introduced for the purpose of illustration as employed in war. Hence arose the value of a loud voice in a commander Stentor was an indispensable officer... In the early Saracen campaigns frequent mention is made of the service rendered by men of uncommonly strong voices the battle of Honain was restored by the shouts and menaces of Abbas, the uncle of Mohammed, c.Coleridge, p. .  'Long had the wav'ring god the war delay'd, While Greece and Troy alternate own'd his aid. Merrick's 'Tryphiodorus, vi. , sq.  Pon seems to have been to the gods, what Podaleirius and Machaon were to the Grecian heroes.  Arisbe, a colony of the Mitylenaeans in Troas.  Pedasus, a town near Pylos.  Rich heaps of brass. 'The halls of Alkinous and Menelaus glitter with gold, copper, and electrum while large stocks of yet unemployed metalgold, copper, and iron are stored up in the treasurechamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. Coined money is unknown in the Homeric agethe trade carried on being one of barter. In reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked, that the Homeric descriptions universally suppose copper, and not iron, to be employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what process the copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the purpose of the warrior, we do not know but the use of iron for these objects belongs to a later age.Grote, vol. ii. p. .  Oh impotent, c. 'In battle, quarter seems never to have been given, except with a view to the ransom of the prisoner. Agamemnon reproaches Menelaus with unmanly softness, when he is on the point of sparing a fallen enemy, and himself puts the suppliant to the sword.Thirlwall, vol. i. p.   'The ruthless steel, impatient of delay, Forbade the sire to linger out the day. It struck the bending father to the earth, And cropt the wailing infant at the birth. Can innocents the rage of parties know, And they who ne'er offended find a foe? Rowe's Lucan, bk. ii.  'Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress'd with woe, To Pallas' fane in long procession go, In hopes to reconcile their heav'nly foe They weep they beat their breasts they rend their hair, And rich embroider'd vests for presents bear. Dryden's Virgil, i.   The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p. 'The poet's method of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where, for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of this task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action, which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further account of the mission is resumed.  With tablets sealed. These probably were only devices of a hieroglyphical character. Whether writing was known in the Homeric times is utterly uncertain. See Grote, vol ii. p. , sqq.  Solyman crew, a people of Lycia.  From this 'melancholy madness of Bellerophon, hypochondria received the name of 'Morbus Bellerophonteus. See my notes in my prose translation, p. . The 'Aleian field, i.e. 'the plain of wandering, was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in Cilicia.  His own, of gold. This bad bargain has passed into a common proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, .  Scan, i e. left hand.  In fifty chambers. 'The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he, So large a promise of a progeny,) The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils. Dryden's Virgil, ii.  O would kind earth, c. 'It is apparently a sudden, irregular burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he regrets that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a mantle of stones. This, however, was also one of the ordinary formal modes of punishment for great public offences. It may have been originally connected with the same feelingthe desire of avoiding the pollution of bloodshedwhich seems to have suggested the practice of burying prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by their side. Though Homer makes no mention of this horrible usage, the example of the Roman Vestals affords reasons for believing that, in ascribing it to the heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic tradition.Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. , sq.  Paris' lofty dome. 'With respect to the private dwellings, which are oftenest described, the poet's language barely enables us to form a general notion of their ordinary plan, and affords no conception of the style which prevailed in them or of their effect on the eye. It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he dwells on their metallic ornaments that the higher beauty of proportion was but little required or understood, and it is, perhaps, strength and convenience, rather than elegance, that he means to commend, in speaking of the fair house which Paris had built for himself with the aid of the most skilful masons of Troy.Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. .  The wanton courser. 'Come destrier, che da le regie stalle Ove a l'usa de l'arme si riserba, Fugge, e libero al fiu per largo calle Va tragl' armenti, o al fiume usato, o a l'herba. Gier, Lib. ix. .  Casque. The original word is stephanae, about the meaning of which there is some little doubt. Some take it for a different kind of cap or helmet, others for the rim, others for the cone, of the helmet.  Athenian maid Minerva.  Celadon, a river of Elis.  Oleus, i.e. Ajax, the son of Oleus, in contradistinction to Ajax, son of Telamon.  In the general's helm. It was customary to put the lots into a helmet, in which they were well shaken up each man then took his choice.  God of Thrace. Mars, or Mavors, according to his Thracian epithet. Hence 'Mavortia Mnia.  Grimly he smiled. 'And death Grinn'd horribly a ghastly smile. 'Paradise Lost, ii. . 'There Mavors stands Grinning with ghastly feature. Carey's Dante Hell, v.  'Sete  guerrieri, incomincio Pindoro, Con pari honor di pari ambo possenti, Dunque cessi la pugna, e non sian rotte Le ragioni, e 'l riposo, e de la notte. Gier. Lib. vi. .  It was an ancient style of compliment to give a larger portion of food to the conqueror, or person to whom respect was to be shown. See Virg. n. viii. . Thus Benjamin was honoured with a 'double portion. Gen. xliii. .  Embattled walls. 'Another essential basis of mechanical unity in the poem is the construction of the rampart. This takes place in the seventh book. The reason ascribed for the glaring improbability that the Greeks should have left their camp and fleet unfortified during nine years, in the midst of a hostile country, is a purely poetical one 'So long as Achilles fought, the terror of his name sufficed to keep every foe at a distance.' The disasters consequent on his secession first led to the necessity of other means of protection. Accordingly, in the battles previous to the eighth book, no allusion occurs to a rampart in all those which follow it forms a prominent feature. Here, then, in the anomaly as in the propriety of the Iliad, the destiny of Achilles, or rather this peculiar crisis of it, forms the pervading bond of connexion to the whole poem.Mure, vol. i., p. .  What cause of fear, c. 'Seest thou not this? Or do we fear in vain Thy boasted thunders, and thy thoughtless reign? Dryden's Virgil, iv. .  In exchange. These lines are referred to by Theophilus, the Roman lawyer, iii. tit. xxiii.  , as exhibiting the most ancient mention of barter.  'A similar bond of connexion, in the military details of the narrative, is the decree issued by Jupiter, at the commencement of the eighth book, against any further interference of the gods in the battles. In the opening of the twentieth book this interdict is withdrawn. During the twelve intermediate books it is kept steadily in view. No interposition takes place but on the part of the specially authorised agents of Jove, or on that of one or two contumacious deities, described as boldly setting his commands at defiance, but checked and reprimanded for their disobedience while the other divine warriors, who in the previous and subsequent cantos are so active in support of their favourite heroes, repeatedly allude to the supreme edict as the cause of their present inactivity.Mure, vol. i. p . See however, Muller, 'Greek Literature, ch. v. Section , and Grote, vol. ii. p. .  'As far removed from God and light of heaven, As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole. 'Paradise Lost. 'E quanto  da le stelle al basso inferno, Tanto  pi in s de la stellata spera Gier. Lib. i. . 'Some of the epithets which Homer applies to the heavens seem to imply that he considered it as a solid vault of metal. But it is not necessary to construe these epithets so literally, nor to draw any such inference from his description of Atlas, who holds the lofty pillars which keep earth and heaven asunder. Yet it would seem, from the manner in which the height of heaven is compared with the depth of Tartarus, that the region of light was thought to have certain bounds. The summit of the Thessalian Olympus was regarded as the highest point on the earth, and it is not always carefully distinguished from the aerian regions above The idea of a seat of the godsperhaps derived from a more ancient tradition, in which it was not attached to any geographical siteseems to be indistinctly blended in the poet's mind with that of the real mountain.Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. , sq.  'Now lately heav'n, earth, another world Hung e'er my realm, link'd in a golden chain To that side heav'n. 'Paradise Lost, ii. .  His golden scales. 'Jove now, sole arbiter of peace and war, Held forth the fatal balance from afar Each host he weighs by turns they both prevail, Till Troy descending fix'd the doubtful scale. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v , sqq. 'Oh' Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray, Hung forth in heav'n his golden scales, Wherein all things created first he weighed The pendulous round earth, with balanced air In counterpoise now ponders all events, Battles and realms. In these he puts two weights, The sequel each of parting and of fight The latter quick up flew, and kick'd the beam. 'Paradise Lost, iv. .  And now, c. 'And now all heaven Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread Had not th' Almighty Father, where he sits ... foreseen. 'Paradise Lost, vi. .  Gerenian Nestor. The epithet Gerenian either refers to the name of a place in which Nestor was educated, or merely signifies honoured, revered. See Schol. Venet. in II. B.  Strabo, viii. p. .  gae, Helic. Both these towns were conspicuous for their worship of Neptune.  As full blown, c. 'Il suo Lesbia quasi bel fior succiso, E in atto si gentil languir tremanti Gl' occhi, e cader siu 'l tergo il collo mira. Gier. Lib. ix. .  Ungrateful, because the cause in which they were engaged was unjust. 'Struck by the lab'ring priests' uplifted hands The victims fall to heav'n they make their pray'r, The curling vapours load the ambient air. But vain their toil the pow'rs who rule the skies Averse beheld the ungrateful sacrifice. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, vi. , sqq.  'As when about the silver moon, when aire is free from winde, And stars shine cleare, to whose sweet beams high prospects on the brows Of all steepe hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows, And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, And all the signs in heaven are seene, that glad the shepherd's heart. Chapman.  This flight of the Greeks, according to Buttmann, Lexil. p. , was not a supernatural flight caused by the gods, but 'a great and general one, caused by Hector and the Trojans, but with the approval of Jove.  Grote, vol. ii. p. , after noticing the modest calmness and respect with which Nestor addresses Agamemnon, observes, 'The Homeric Council is a purely consultative body, assembled not with any power of peremptorily arresting mischievous resolves of the king, but solely for his information and guidance.  In the heroic times, it is not unfrequent for the king to receive presents to purchase freedom from his wrath, or immunity from his exactions. Such gifts gradually became regular, and formed the income of the German, (Tacit. Germ. Section ) Persian, (Herodot. iii.), and other kings. So, too, in the middle ages, 'The feudal aids are the beginning of taxation, of which they for a long time answered the purpose.' (Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. x. pt. , p. ) This fact frees Achilles from the apparent charge of sordidness. Plato, however, (De Rep. vi. ), says, 'We cannot commend Phnix, the tutor of Achilles, as if he spoke correctly, when counselling him to accept of presents and assist the Greeks, but, without presents, not to desist from his wrath, nor again, should we commend Achilles himself, or approve of his being so covetous as to receive presents from Agamemnon, c.  It may be observed, that, brief as is the mention of Brises in the Iliad, and small the part she playswhat little is said is preeminently calculated to enhance her fitness to be the bride of Achilles. Purity, and retiring delicacy, are features well contrasted with the rough, but tender disposition of the hero.  Laodice. Iphianassa, or Iphigenia, is not mentioned by Homer, among the daughters of Agamemnon.  'Agamemnon, when he offers to transfer to Achilles seven towns inhabited by wealthy husbandmen, who would enrich their lord by presents and tribute, seems likewise to assume rather a property in them, than an authority over them. And the same thing may be intimated when it is said that Peleus bestowed a great people, the Dolopes of Phthia, on Phnix.Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i Section , p. , note.  Pray in deep silence. Rather 'use wellomened words or, as Kennedy has explained it, 'Abstain from expressions unsuitable to the solemnity of the occasion, which, by offending the god, might defeat the object of their supplications.  Purest hands. This is one of the most ancient superstitions respecting prayer, and one founded as much in nature as in tradition.  It must be recollected, that the war at Troy was not a settled siege, and that many of the chieftains busied themselves in piratical expeditions about its neighborhood. Such a one was that of which Achilles now speaks. From the following verses, it is evident that fruits of these maraudings went to the common support of the expedition, and not to the successful plunderer.  Pythia, the capital of Achilles' Thessalian domains.  Orchomenian town. The topography of Orchomenus, in Botia, 'situated, as it was, 'on the northern bank of the lake pais, which receives not only the river Cephisus from the valleys of Phocis, but also other rivers from Parnassus and Helicon (Grote, vol. p. ), was a sufficient reason for its prosperity and decay. 'As long as the channels of these waters were diligently watched and kept clear, a large portion of the lake was in the condition of alluvial land, preeminently rich and fertile. But when the channels came to be either neglected, or designedly choked up by an enemy, the water accumulated in such a degree as to occupy the soil of more than one ancient islet, and to occasion the change of the site of Orchomenus itself from the plain to the declivity of Mount Hyphanteion. (Ibid.)  The phrase 'hundred gates, c., seems to be merely expressive of a great number. See notes to my prose translation, p. .  Compare the following pretty lines of Quintus Calaber (Dyce's Select Translations, p ). 'Many gifts he gave, and o'er Dolopia bade me rule thee in his arms He brought an infant, on my bosom laid The precious charge, and anxiously enjoin'd That I should rear thee as my own with all A parent's love. I fail'd not in my trust And oft, while round my neck thy hands were lock'd, From thy sweet lips the half articulate sound Of Father came and oft, as children use, Mewling and puking didst thou drench my tunic. 'This description, observes my learned friend (notes, p. ) 'is taken from the passage of Homer, II ix, in translating which, Pope, with that squeamish, artificial taste, which distinguished the age of Anne, omits the natural (and, let me add, affecting) circumstance. 'And the wine Held to thy lips, and many a time in fits Of infant frowardness the purple juice Rejecting thou hast deluged all my vest, And fill'd my bosom. Cowper.  Where Calydon. For a good sketch of the story of Meleager, too long to be inserted here, see Grote, vol. i. p. , sqq. and for the authorities, see my notes to the prose translation, p. .  'Gifts can conquerIt is well observed by Bishop Thirlwall, 'Greece, vol. i. p, , that the law of honour among the Greeks did not compel them to treasure up in their memory the offensive language which might be addressed to them by a passionate adversary, nor to conceive that it left a stain which could only be washed away by blood. Even for real and deep injuries they were commonly willing to accept a pecuniary compensation.  'The boon of sleep.Milton  'All else of nature's common gift partake Unhappy Dido was alone awake. Dryden's Virgil, iv. .  The king of Crete Idomeneus.  Soft wool within, i e. a kind of woollen stuffing, pressed in between the straps, to protect the head, and make the helmet fit close.  'All the circumstances of this actionthe night, Rhesus buried in a profound sleep, and Diomede with the sword in his hand hanging over the head of that princefurnished Homer with the idea of this fiction, which represents Rhesus lying fast asleep, and, as it were, beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging the sword into his bosom. This image is very natural for a man in his condition awakes no farther than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality but a dream.Pope. 'There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cry'd murder They wak'd each other. Macbeth.  'Aurora now had left her saffron bed, And beams of early light the heavens o'erspread. Dryden's Virgil, iv.   Red drops of blood. 'This phenomenon, if a mere fruit of the poet's imagination, might seem arbitrary or farfetched. It is one, however, of ascertained reality, and of no uncommon occurrence in the climate of Greece.Mure, i p. . Cf. Tasso, Gier. Lib. ix.  'La terra in vece del notturno gelo Bagnan rugiade tepide, e sanguigne.  'No thought of flight, None of retreat, no unbecoming deed That argued fear. 'Paradise Lost, vi. .  One of love. Although a bastard brother received only a small portion of the inheritance, he was commonly very well treated. Priam appears to be the only one of whom polygamy is directly asserted in the Iliad. Grote, vol. ii. p. , note.  'Circled with foes as when a packe of bloodie jackals cling About a goodly palmed hart, hurt with a hunter's bow Whose escape his nimble feet insure, whilst his warm blood doth flow, And his light knees have power to move but (maistred by his wound) Embost within a shady hill, the jackals charge him round, And teare his fleshwhen instantly fortune sends in the powers Of some sterne lion, with whose sighte they flie and he devours. So they around Ulysses prest. Chapman.  Simois, railing, c. 'In those bloody fields Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields Of heroes. Dryden's Virgil, i. .  'Where yon disorder'd heap of ruin lies, Stones rent from stones,where clouds of dust arise, Amid that smother, Neptune holds his place, Below the wall's foundation drives his mace, And heaves the building from the solid base. Dryden's Virgil, ii. .  Why boast we. 'Wherefore do I assume These royalties and not refuse to reign, Refusing to accept as great a share Of hazard as of honour, due alike to him Who reigns, and so much to him due Of hazard more, as he above the rest High honour'd sits. 'Paradise Lost, ii. .  Each equal weight. 'Long time in even scale The battle hung. 'Paradise Lost, vi. .  'He on his impious foes right onward drove, Gloomy as night. 'Paradise Lost, vi.   Renown'd for justice and for length of days, Arrian. de Exp. Alex. iv. p. , also speaks of the independence of these people, which he regards as the result of their poverty and uprightness. Some authors have regarded the phrase 'Hippomolgian, i.e. 'milking their mares, as an epithet applicable to numerous tribes, since the oldest of the Samatian nomads made their mares' milk one of their chief articles of diet. The epithet abion or abion, in this passage, has occasioned much discussion. It may mean, according as we read it, either 'longlived, or 'bowless, the latter epithet indicating that they did not depend upon archery for subsistence.  Compare Chapman's quaint, bold verses 'And as a round piece of a rocke, which with a winter's flood Is from his top torn, when a shoure poured from a bursten cloud, Hath broke the naturall band it had within the roughftey rock, Flies jumping all adourne the woods, resounding everie shocke, And on, uncheckt, it headlong leaps till in a plaine it stay, And then (tho' never so impelled), it stirs not any way So Hector,  This book forms a most agreeable interruption to the continuous round of battles, which occupy the latter part of the Iliad. It is as well to observe, that the sameness of these scenes renders many notes unnecessary.  Who to Tydeus owes, i.e. Diomed.  Compare Tasso Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci, Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci. Gier. Lib. xvi.   Compare the description of the dwelling of Sleep in Orlando Furioso, bk. vi.  'Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main Around my person wait, and bear my train Succeed my wish, and second my design, The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine. Dryden's Virgil, n. i. , seq.  And Minos. 'By Homer, Minos is described as the son of Jupiter, and of the daughter of Phnix, whom all succeeding authors name Europa and he is thus carried back into the remotest period of Cretan antiquity known to the poet, apparently as a native hero, Illustrious enough for a divine parentage, and too ancient to allow his descent to be traced to any other source. But in a genealogy recorded by later writers, he is likewise the adopted son of Asterius, as descendant of Dorus, the son of Helen, and is thus connected with a colony said to have been led into Creta by Tentamus, or Tectamus, son of Dorus, who is related either to have crossed over from Thessaly, or to have embarked at Malea after having led his followers by land into Laconia.Thirlwall, p. , seq.  Milton has emulated this passage, in describing the couch of our first parents 'Underneath the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay, 'Broider'd the ground. 'Paradise Lost, iv. .  He lies protected. 'Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run By angels many and strong, who interpos'd Defence, while others bore him on their shields Back to his chariot, where it stood retir'd From off the files of war there they him laid, Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame. 'Paradise Lost, vi. , seq.  The brazen dome. See the note on Bk. viii. Page .  For, by the gods! who flies. Observe the bold ellipsis of 'he cries, and the transition from the direct to the oblique construction. So in Milton 'Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood, Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, And starry pole.Thou also mad'st the night, Maker omnipotent, and thou the day. Milton, 'Paradise Lost, Book iv.  So some tall rock. 'But like a rock unmov'd, a rock that braves The raging tempest, and the rising waves Propp'd on himself he stands his solid sides Wash off the seaweeds, and the sounding tides. Dryden's Virgil, vii. .  Protesilaus was the first Greek who fell, slain by Hector, as he leaped from the vessel to the Trojan shore. He was buried on the Chersonese, near the city of Plagusa. Hygin Fab. ciii. Tzetz. on Lycophr. , . There is a most elegant tribute to his memory in the Preface to the Heroica of Philostratus.  His best beloved. The following elegant remarks of Thirlwall (Greece, vol. i, p.  seq.) well illustrate the character of the friendship subsisting between these two heroes 'One of the noblest and most amiable sides of the Greek character, is the readiness with which it lent itself to construct intimate and durable friendships, and this is a feature no less prominent in the earliest than in later times. It was indeed connected with the comparatively low estimation in which female society was held but the devotedness and constancy with which these attachments were maintained, was not the less admirable and engaging. The heroic companions whom we find celebrated partly by Homer and partly in traditions which, if not of equal antiquity, were grounded on the same feeling, seem to have but one heart and soul, with scarcely a wish or object apart, and only to live as they are always ready to die for one another. It is true that the relation between them is not always one of perfect equality but this is a circumstance which, while it often adds a peculiar charm to the poetical description, detracts little from the dignity of the idea which it presents. Such were the friendships of Hercules and Iolaus, of Theseus and Pirithous, of Orestes and Pylades and though These may owe the greater part of their fame to the later epic or even dramatic poetry, the moral groundwork undoubtedly subsisted in the period to which the traditions are referred. The argument of the Iliad mainly turns on the affection of Achilles for Patroclus, whose love for the greater hero is only tempered by reverence for his higher birth and his unequalled prowess. But the mutual regard which united Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomedes and Sthenelus, though, as the persons themselves are less important, it is kept more in the background, is manifestly viewed by the poet in the same light. The idea of a Greek hero seems not to have been thought complete, without such a brother in arms by his side.Thirlwall, Greece, vol. i. p. , seq.  'As hungry wolves with raging appetite, Scour through the fields, ne'er fear the stormy night Their whelps at home expect the promised food, And long to temper their dry chaps in blood So rush'd we forth at once. Dryden's Virgil, ii. .  The destinies ordain.'In the mythology, also, of the Iliad, purely Pagan as it is, we discover one important truth unconsciously involved, which was almost entirely lost from view amidst the nearly equal scepticism and credulity of subsequent ages. Zeus or Jupiter is popularly to be taken as omnipotent. No distinct empire is assigned to fate or fortune the will of the father of gods and men is absolute and uncontrollable. This seems to be the true character of the Homeric deity, and it is very necessary that the student of Greek literature should bear it constantly in mind. A strong instance in the Iliad itself to illustrate this position, is the passage where Jupiter laments to Juno the approaching death of Sarpedon. 'Alas me!' says he 'since it is fated (moira) that Sarpedon, dearest to me of men, should be slain by Patroclus, the son of Menoetius! Indeed, my heart is divided within me while I ruminate it in my mind, whether having snatched him up from out of the lamentable battle, I should not at once place him alive in the fertile land of his own Lycia, or whether I should now destroy him by the hands of the son of Menoetius!' To which Juno answers'Dost thou mean to rescue from death a mortal man, long since destined by fate (palai pepromenon)? You may do itbut we, the rest of the gods, do not sanction it.' Here it is clear from both speakers, that although Sarpedon is said to be fated to die, Jupiter might still, if he pleased, save him, and place him entirely out of the reach of any such event, and further, in the alternative, that Jupiter himself would destroy him by the hands of another.Coleridge, p. . seq.  Thrice at the battlements. 'The art military of the Homeric age is upon a level with the state of navigation just described, personal prowess decided every thing the night attack and the ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale. The chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights of romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a ditch or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself was accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of earth with a declivity outwards. Patroclus thrice mounts it in armour. The Trojans are in no respects blockaded, and receive assistance from their allies to the very end.Coleridge, p. .  Ciconians.A people of Thrace, near the Hebrus.  They wept. 'Fast by the manger stands the inactive steed, And, sunk in sorrow, hangs his languid head He stands, and careless of his golden grain, Weeps his associates and his master slain. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v. . 'Nothing is heard upon the mountains now, But pensive herds that for their master low, Straggling and comfortless about they rove, Unmindful of their pasture and their love. Moschus, id. , parodied, ibid. 'To close the pomp, thon, the steed of state, Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait. Stripp'd of his trappings, with a sullen pace He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face. Dryden's Virgil, bk. ii  Some brawny bull. 'Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow Hath struck him, but unable to proceed Plunges on either side. Carey's Dante Hell, c. xii.  This is connected with the earlier part of last book, the regular narrative being interrupted by the message of Antilochus and the lamentations of Achilles.  Far in the deep. So Oceanus hears the lamentations of Prometheus, in the play of schylus, and comes from the depths of the sea to comfort him.  Opuntia, a city of Locris.  Quintus Calaber, lib. v., has attempted to rival Homer in his description of the shield of the same hero. A few extracts from Mr. Dyce's version (Select Translations, p. , seq.) may here be introduced. 'In the wide circle of the shield were seen Refulgent images of various forms, The work of Vulcan who had there described The heaven, the ether, and the earth and sea, The winds, the clouds, the moon, the sun, apart In different stations and you there might view The stars that gem the stillrevolving heaven, And, under them, the vast expanse of air, In which, with outstretch'd wings, the longbeak'd bird Winnow'd the gale, as if instinct with life. Around the shield the waves of ocean flow'd, The realms of Tethys, which unnumber'd streams, In azure mazes rolling o'er the earth, Seem'd to augment.  On seats of stone. 'Several of the old northern Sagas represent the old men assembled for the purpose of judging as sitting on great stones, in a circle called the Urtheilsring or gerichtsring Grote, ii. p. , note. On the independence of the judicial office in The heroic times, see Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. .  Another part, c. 'And here Were horrid wars depicted grimly pale Were heroes lying with their slaughter'd steeds Upon the ground incarnadin'd with blood. Stern stalked Bellona, smear'd with reeking gore, Through charging ranks beside her Rout was seen, And Terror, Discord to the fatal strife Inciting men, and Furies breathing flames Nor absent were the Fates, and the tall shape Of ghastly Death, round whom did Battles throng, Their limbs distilling plenteous blood and sweat And Gorgons, whose long locks were twisting snakes. That shot their forky tongues incessant forth. Such were the horrors of dire war. Dyce's Calaber.  A field deep furrowed. 'Here was a corn field reapers in a row, Each with a sharptooth'd sickle in his hand, Work'd busily, and, as the harvest fell, Others were ready still to bind the sheaves Yoked to a wain that bore the corn away The steers were moving sturdy bullocks here The plough were drawing, and the furrow'd glebe Was black behind them, while with goading wand The active youths impell'd them. Here a feast Was graved to the shrill pipe and ringing lyre A band of blooming virgins led the dance. As if endued with life. Dyce's Calaber.  Coleridge (Greek Classic Poets, p. , seq.) has diligently compared this with the description of the shield of Hercules by Hesiod. He remarks that, 'with two or three exceptions, the imagery differs in little more than the names and arrangements and the difference of arrangement in the Shield of Hercules is altogether for the worse. The natural consecution of the Homeric images needs no exposition it constitutes in itself one of the beauties of the work. The Hesiodic images are huddled together without connection or congruity Mars and Pallas are awkwardly introduced among the Centaurs and Lapithae but the gap is wide indeed between them and Apollo with the Muses, waking the echoes of Olympus to celestial harmonies whence however, we are hurried back to Perseus, the Gorgons, and other images of war, over an arm of the sea, in which the sporting dolphins, the fugitive fishes, and the fisherman on the shore with his casting net, are minutely represented. As to the Hesiodic images themselves, the leading remark is, that they catch at beauty by ornament, and at sublimity by exaggeration and upon the untenable supposition of the genuineness of this poem, there is this curious peculiarity, that, in the description of scenes of rustic peace, the superiority of Homer is decisivewhile in those of war and tumult it may be thought, perhaps, that the Hesiodic poet has more than once the advantage.  'This legend is one of the most pregnant and characteristic in the Grecian Mythology it explains, according to the religious ideas familiar to the old epic poets, both the distinguishing attributes and the endless toil and endurances of Heracles, the most renowned subjugator of all the semidivine personages worshipped by the Hellenes,a being of irresistible force, and especially beloved by Zeus, yet condemned constantly to labour for others and to obey the commands of a worthless and cowardly persecutor. His recompense is reserved to the close of his career, when his afflicting trials are brought to a close he is then admitted to the godhead, and receives in marriage Hebe.Grote, vol. i. p. .  Ambrosia. 'The blueeyed maid, In ev'ry breast new vigour to infuse. Brings nectar temper'd with ambrosial dews. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, vi. .  'Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds and the cloud is not rent under them. Job xxvi. .  'Swift from his throne the infernal monarch ran, All pale and trembling, lest the race of man,v Slain by Jove's wrath, and led by Hermes' rod, Should fill (a countless throng!) his dark abode. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, vi. , sqq.  These words seem to imply the old belief, that the Fates might be delayed, but never wholly set aside.  It was anciently believed that it was dangerous, if not fatal, to behold a deity. See Exod. xxxiii.  Judg. xiii. .  'Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow'rs arose, In humble vales they built their soft abodes. Dryden's Virgil, iii. .  Along the level seas. Compare Virgil's description of Camilla, who 'Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain, Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain She swept the seas, and, as she skimm'd along, Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung. Dryden, vii. .  The future father. 'neas and Antenor stand distinguished from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam, and a sympathy with the Greeks, which is by Sophocles and others construed as treacherous collusion,a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though emphatically repelled, in the neas of Virgil.Grote, i. p. .  Neptune thus recounts his services to neas 'When your neas fought, but fought with odds Of force unequal, and unequal gods I spread a cloud before the victor's sight, Sustain'd the vanquish'd, and secured his flight Even then secured him, when I sought with joy The vow'd destruction of ungrateful Troy. Dryden's Virgil, v. .  On Polydore. Euripides, Virgil, and others, relate that Polydore was sent into Thrace, to the house of Polymestor, for protection, being the youngest of Priam's sons, and that he was treacherously murdered by his host for the sake of the treasure sent with him.  'Perhaps the boldest excursion of Homer into this region of poetical fancy is the collision into which, in the twentyfirst of the Iliad, he has brought the river god Scamander, first with Achilles, and afterwards with Vulcan, when summoned by Juno to the hero's aid. The overwhelming fury of the stream finds the natural interpretation in the character of the mountain torrents of Greece and Asia Minor. Their wide, shingly beds are in summer comparatively dry, so as to be easily forded by the foot passenger. But a thundershower in the mountains, unobserved perhaps by the traveller on the plain, may suddenly immerse him in the flood of a mighty river. The rescue of Achilles by the fiery arms of Vulcan scarcely admits of the same ready explanation from physical causes. Yet the subsiding of the flood at the critical moment when the hero's destruction appeared imminent, might, by a slight extension of the figurative parallel, be ascribed to a god symbolic of the influences opposed to all atmospheric moisture.Mure, vol. i. p. , sq.  Wood has observed, that 'the circumstance of a falling tree, which is described as reaching from one of its banks to the other, affords a very just idea of the breadth of the Scamander.  Ignominious. Drowning, as compared with a death in the field of battle, was considered utterly disgraceful.  Beneath a caldron. 'So, when with crackling flames a caldron fries, The bubbling waters from the bottom rise. Above the brims they force their fiery way Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day. Dryden's Virgil, vii. .  'This tale of the temporary servitude of particular gods, by order of Jove, as a punishment for misbehaviour, recurs not unfrequently among the incidents of the Mythical world.Grote, vol. i. p. .  Not half so dreadful. 'On the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war. 'Paradise Lost, xi. .  'And thus his own undaunted mind explores.'Paradise Lost, vi. .  The example of Nausicaa, in the Odyssey, proves that the duties of the laundry were not thought derogatory, even from the dignity of a princess, in the heroic times.  Hesper shines with keener light. 'Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn. 'Paradise Lost, v. .  Such was his fate. After chasing the Trojans into the town, he was slain by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the unerring auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were made by the Trojans to possess themselves of the body, which was however rescued and borne off to the Grecian camp by the valour of Ajax and Ulysses. Thetis stole away the body, just as the Greeks were about to burn it with funeral honours, and conveyed it away to a renewed life of immortality in the isle of Leuke in the Euxine.  Astyanax, i.e. the cityking or guardian. It is amusing that Plato, who often finds fault with Homer without reason, should have copied this twaddling etymology into his Cratylus.  This book has been closely imitated by Virgil in his fifth book, but it is almost useless to attempt a selection of passages for comparison.  Thrice in order led. This was a frequent rite at funerals. The Romans had the same custom, which they called decursio. Plutarch states that Alexander, in after times, renewed these same honours to the memory of Achilles himself.  And swore. Literally, and called Orcus, the god of oaths, to witness. See Buttmann, Lexilog, p. .  'O, long expected by thy friends! from whence Art thou so late return'd for our defence? Do we behold thee, wearied as we are With length of labours, and with, toils of war? After so many funerals of thy own, Art thou restored to thy declining town? But say, what wounds are these? what new disgrace Deforms the manly features of thy face? Dryden, xi. .  Like a thin smoke. Virgil, Georg. iv. . 'In vain I reach my feeble hands to join In sweet embracesah! no longer thine! She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air. Dryden.  So Milton 'So eagerly the fiend O'er bog, o'er steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. 'Paradise Lost, ii. .  'An ancient forest, for the work design'd (The shady covert of the savage kind). The Trojans found the sounding axe is placed Firs, pines, and pitchtrees, and the tow'ring pride Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke, And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak. High trunks of trees, fell'd from the steepy crown Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down. Dryden's Virgil, vi. .  He vowed. This was a very ancient custom.  The height of the tomb or pile was a great proof of the dignity of the deceased, and the honour in which he was held.  On the prevalence of this cruel custom amongst the northern nations, see Mallet, p. .  And calls the spirit. Such was the custom anciently, even at the Roman funerals. 'Hail, O ye holy manes! hail again, Paternal ashes, now revived in vain. Dryden's Virgil, v. .  Virgil, by making the boaster vanquished, has drawn a better moral from this episode than Homer. The following lines deserve comparison 'The haughty Dares in the lists appears Walking he strides, his head erected bears His nervous arms the weighty gauntlet wield, And loud applauses echo through the field.     Such Dares was, and such he strode along, And drew the wonder of the gazing throng His brawny breast and ample chest he shows His lifted arms around his head he throws, And deals in whistling air his empty blows. His match is sought, but, through the trembling band, No one dares answer to the proud demand. Presuming of his force, with sparkling eyes, Already he devours the promised prize.     If none my matchless valour dares oppose, How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes? Dryden's Virgil, v. , seq.  'The gauntletfight thus ended, from the shore His faithful friends unhappy Dares bore His mouth and nostrils pour'd a purple flood, And pounded teeth came rushing with his blood. Dryden's Virgil, v. .  'Troilus is only once named in the Iliad he was mentioned also in the Cypriad but his youth, beauty, and untimely end made him an object of great interest with the subsequent poets.Grote, i, p. .  Milton has rivalled this passage describing the descent of Gabriel, 'Paradise Lost, bk. v. , seq. 'Down thither prone in flight He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing, Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan Winnows the buxom air.         At once on th' eastern cliff of Paradise He lights, and to his proper shape returns A seraph wing'd.     Like Maia's son he stood, And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd The circuit wide. Virgil, n. iv.  'Hermes obeys with golden pinions binds His flying feet, and mounts the western winds And whether o'er the seas or earth he flies, With rapid force they bear him down the skies But first he grasps within his awful hand The mark of sovereign power, his magic wand With this he draws the ghost from hollow graves With this he drives them from the Stygian waves     Thus arm'd, the god begins his airy race,v And drives the racking clouds along the liquid space. Dryden.  In reference to the whole scene that follows, the remarks of Coleridge are well worth reading 'By a close study of life, and by a true and natural mode of expressing everything, Homer was enabled to venture upon the most peculiar and difficult situations, and to extricate himself from them with the completest success. The whole scene between Achilles and Priam, when the latter comes to the Greek camp for the purpose of redeeming the body of Hector, is at once the most profoundly skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting passage in the Iliad. Quinctilian has taken notice of the following speech of Priam, the rhetorical artifice of which is so transcendent, that if genius did not often, especially in oratory, unconsciously fulfil the most subtle precepts of criticism, we might be induced, on this account alone, to consider the last book of the Iliad as what is called spurious, in other words, of later date than the rest of the poem. Observe the exquisite taste of Priam in occupying the mind of Achilles, from the outset, with the image of his father in gradually introducing the parallel of his own situation and, lastly, mentioning Hector's name when he perceives that the hero is softened, and then only in such a manner as to flatter the pride of the conqueror. The ego d'eleeinoteros per, and the apusato aecha geronta, are not exactly like the tone of the earlier parts of the Iliad. They are almost too fine and pathetic. The whole passage defies translation, for there is that about the Greek which has no name, but which is of so fine and ethereal a subtlety that it can only be felt in the original, and is lost in an attempt to transfuse it into another language.Coleridge, p. .  'Achilles' ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector cannot but offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. The heroic age, however, must be judged by its own moral laws. Retributive vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was a duty inculcated by the religion of those barbarous times which not only taught that evil inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the injured man but made the welfare of the soul after death dependent on the fate of the body from which it had separated. Hence a denial of the rites essential to the soul's admission into the more favoured regions of the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on the dreary shores of the infernal river. The complaint of the ghost of Patroclus to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own obsequies, shows how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his destroyer must have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which, even after death, was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades. Hence before yielding up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks pardon of Patroclus for even this partial cession of his just rights of retribution.Mure, vol. i. .  Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken. 'Here, from the tow'r by stern Ulysses thrown, Andromache bewail'd her infant son. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v. .  The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant and interesting view of Helen's character 'Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is through the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those with whom that fault had committed her. I have always thought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest.Classic Poets, p. , seq.  'And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of his great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a few short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself to be suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise. The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero's course, and the moral on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among the finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the whole framework of the poem is united.Mure, vol. i. p .  Cowper says,'I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it. It is like the exit of a great man out of company, whom he has entertained magnificently neither pompous nor familiar not contemptuous, yet without much ceremony. Coleridge, p. , considers the termination of 'Paradise Lost somewhat similar.
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide. The seareach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth. The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom. Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarnsand even convictions. The Lawyerthe best of old fellowshad, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat crosslegged right aft, leaning against the mizzenmast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun. And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men. Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, 'followed the sea with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitledthe great knightserrant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquestsand that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Eriththe adventurers and the settlers kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change captains, admirals, the dark 'interlopers of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned 'generals of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!... The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires. The sun set the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a threelegged thing erect on a mudflat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairwaya great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars. 'And this also, said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth. He was the only man of us who still 'followed the sea. The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stayathome order, and their home is always with themthe ship and so is their countrythe sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine. His remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even and presently he said, very slow'I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years agothe other day .... Light came out of this river sinceyou say Knights? Yes but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flickermay it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a finewhat d'ye call 'em?trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north run overland across the Gauls in a hurry put in charge of one of these craft the legionariesa wonderful lot of handy men they must have been, tooused to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him herethe very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertinaand going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages,precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of haycold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and deathdeath skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh, yeshe did it. Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by and by, if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in a togaperhaps too much dice, you knowcoming out here in the train of some prefect, or taxgatherer, or trader even, to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round himall that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abominationyou know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. He paused. 'Mind, he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotusflower'Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiencythe devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute forcenothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blindas is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it not a sentimental pretence but an idea and an unselfish belief in the ideasomething you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.... He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each otherthen separating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great city went on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river. We looked on, waiting patientlythere was nothing else to do till the end of the flood but it was only after a long silence, when he said, in a hesitating voice, 'I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn freshwater sailor for a bit, that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences. 'I don't want to bother you much with what happened to me personally, he began, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would like best to hear 'yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river to the place where I first met the poor chap. It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about meand into my thoughts. It was sombre enough, tooand pitifulnot extraordinary in any waynot very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light. 'I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seasa regular dose of the Eastsix years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you. It was very fine for a time, but after a bit I did get tired of resting. Then I began to look for a shipI should think the hardest work on earth. But the ships wouldn't even look at me. And I got tired of that game, too. 'Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and... well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yetthe biggest, the most blank, so to speakthat I had a hankering after. 'True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mysterya white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map of it in a shopwindow, it fascinated me as a snake would a birda silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they can't trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh watersteamboats! Why shouldn't I try to get charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me. 'You understand it was a Continental concern, that Trading society but I have a lot of relations living on the Continent, because it's cheap and not so nasty as it looks, they say. 'I am sorry to own I began to worry them. This was already a fresh departure for me. I was not used to get things that way, you know. I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn't have believed it of myself but, thenyou seeI felt somehow I must get there by hook or by crook. So I worried them. The men said 'My dear fellow,' and did nothing. Thenwould you believe it?I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to workto get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul. She wrote 'It will be delightful. I am ready to do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea. I know the wife of a very high personage in the Administration, and also a man who has lots of influence with,' etc. She was determined to make no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river steamboat, if such was my fancy. 'I got my appointmentof course and I got it very quick. It appears the Company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens. Fresleventhat was the fellow's name, a Danethought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his selfrespect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some manI was told the chief's sonin desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white manand of course it went quite easy between the shoulderblades. Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much about Fresleven's remains, till I got out and stepped into his shoes. I couldn't let it rest, though but when an opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had vanished. Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned. What became of the hens I don't know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow. However, through this glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairly begun to hope for it. 'I flew around like mad to get ready, and before fortyeight hours I was crossing the Channel to show myself to my employers, and sign the contract. In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt. I had no difficulty in finding the Company's offices. It was the biggest thing in the town, and everybody I met was full of it. They were going to run an oversea empire, and make no end of coin by trade. 'A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, innumerable windows with venetian blinds, a dead silence, grass sprouting between the stones, imposing carriage archways right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar. I slipped through one of these cracks, went up a swept and ungarnished staircase, as arid as a desert, and opened the first door I came to. Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on strawbottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at mestill knitting with downcast eyesand only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrellacover, and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waitingroom. I gave my name, and looked about. Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end a large shining map, marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of redgood to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lagerbeer. However, I wasn't going into any of these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river was therefascinatingdeadlylike a snake. Ough! A door opened, a whitehaired secretarial head, but wearing a compassionate expression, appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light was dim, and a heavy writingdesk squatted in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frockcoat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had his grip on the handleend of ever so many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely, was satisfied with my French. Bon Voyage. 'In about fortyfive seconds I found myself again in the waitingroom with the compassionate secretary, who, full of desolation and sympathy, made me sign some document. I believe I undertook amongst other things not to disclose any trade secrets. Well, I am not going to. 'I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not used to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere. It was just as though I had been let into some conspiracyI don't knowsomething not quite right and I was glad to get out. In the outer room the two women knitted black wool feverishly. People were arriving, and the younger one was walking back and forth introducing them. The old one sat on her chair. Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a footwarmer, and a cat reposed on her lap. She wore a starched white affair on her head, had a wart on one cheek, and silverrimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her nose. She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, and she threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them and about me, too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of those she looked at ever saw her againnot half, by a long way. 'There was yet a visit to the doctor. 'A simple formality,' assured me the secretary, with an air of taking an immense part in all my sorrows. Accordingly a young chap wearing his hat over the left eyebrow, some clerk I supposethere must have been clerks in the business, though the house was as still as a house in a city of the deadcame from somewhere upstairs, and led me forth. He was shabby and careless, with inkstains on the sleeves of his jacket, and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe of an old boot. It was a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality. As we sat over our vermouths he glorified the Company's business, and by and by I expressed casually my surprise at him not going out there. He became very cool and collected all at once. 'I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples,' he said sententiously, emptied his glass with great resolution, and we rose. 'The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. 'Good, good for there,' he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions back and front and every way, taking notes carefully. He was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, with his feet in slippers, and I thought him a harmless fool. 'I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,' he said. 'And when they come back, too?' I asked. 'Oh, I never see them,' he remarked 'and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.' He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. 'So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting, too.' He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. 'Ever any madness in your family?' he asked, in a matteroffact tone. I felt very annoyed. 'Is that question in the interests of science, too?' 'It would be,' he said, without taking notice of my irritation, 'interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but...' 'Are you an alienist?' I interrupted. 'Every doctor should bea little,' answered that original, imperturbably. 'I have a little theory which you messieurs who go out there must help me to prove. This is my share in the advantages my country shall reap from the possession of such a magnificent dependency. The mere wealth I leave to others. Pardon my questions, but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation...' I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical. 'If I were,' said I, 'I wouldn't be talking like this with you.' 'What you say is rather profound, and probably erroneous,' he said, with a laugh. 'Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun. Adieu. How do you English say, eh? Goodbye. Ah! Goodbye. Adieu. In the tropics one must before everything keep calm.'... He lifted a warning forefinger.... 'Du calme, du calme.' 'One thing more remained to dosay goodbye to my excellent aunt. I found her triumphant. I had a cup of teathe last decent cup of tea for many daysand in a room that most soothingly looked just as you would expect a lady's drawingroom to look, we had a long quiet chat by the fireside. In the course of these confidences it became quite plain to me I had been represented to the wife of the high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many more people besides, as an exceptional and gifted creaturea piece of good fortune for the Companya man you don't get hold of every day. Good heavens! and I was going to take charge of a twopennyhalfpenny riversteamboat with a penny whistle attached! It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capitalyou know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit. ''You forget, dear Charlie, that the labourer is worthy of his hire,' she said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over. 'After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often, and so onand I left. In the streetI don't know whya queer feeling came to me that I was an imposter. Odd thing that I, who used to clear out for any part of the world at twentyfour hours' notice, with less thought than most men give to the crossing of a street, had a momentI won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth. 'I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and customhouse officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before yousmiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so darkgreen as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and there greyishwhitish specks showed up clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them perhaps. Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background. We pounded along, stopped, landed soldiers went on, landed customhouse clerks to levy toll in what looked like a Godforsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a flagpole lost in it landed more soldiersto take care of the customhouse clerks, presumably. Some, I heard, got drowned in the surf but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to care. They were just flung out there, and on we went. Every day the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved but we passed various placestrading placeswith names like Gran' Bassam, Little Popo names that seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted in front of a sinister backcloth. The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother. It was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning. Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang their bodies streamed with perspiration they had faces like grotesque masksthese chaps but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at. For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, we came upon a manofwar anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag the muzzles of the long sixinch guns stuck out all over the low hull the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the sixinch guns a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screechand nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of nativeshe called them enemies!hidden out of sight somewhere. 'We gave her her letters (I heard the men in that lonely ship were dying of fever at the rate of three a day) and went on. We called at some more places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularized impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares. 'It was upward of thirty days before I saw the mouth of the big river. We anchored off the seat of the government. But my work would not begin till some two hundred miles farther on. So as soon as I could I made a start for a place thirty miles higher up. 'I had my passage on a little seagoing steamer. Her captain was a Swede, and knowing me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He was a young man, lean, fair, and morose, with lanky hair and a shuffling gait. As we left the miserable little wharf, he tossed his head contemptuously at the shore. 'Been living there?' he asked. I said, 'Yes.' 'Fine lot these government chapsare they not?' he went on, speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness. 'It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a month. I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes upcountry?' I said to him I expected to see that soon. 'Sooo!' he exclaimed. He shuffled athwart, keeping one eye ahead vigilantly. 'Don't be too sure,' he continued. 'The other day I took up a man who hanged himself on the road. He was a Swede, too.' 'Hanged himself! Why, in God's name?' I cried. He kept on looking out watchfully. 'Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps.' 'At last we opened a reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turnedup earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence of glare. 'There's your Company's station,' said the Swede, pointing to three wooden barracklike structures on the rocky slope. 'I will send your things up. Four boxes did you say? So. Farewell.' 'I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leading up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders, and also for an undersized railwaytruck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. One was off. The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails. To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything but this objectless blasting was all the work going on. 'A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings. 'Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. My idea was to let that chaingang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. You know I am not particularly tender I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist and to attack sometimesthat's only one way of resistingwithout counting the exact cost, according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, redeyed devils, that swayed and drove menmen, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weakeyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning. Finally I descended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees I had seen. 'I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. It wasn't a quarry or a sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do. I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot of imported drainagepipes for the settlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not broken. It was a wanton smashup. At last I got under the trees. My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved, with a mysterious soundas though the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible. 'Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die. 'They were dying slowlyit was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly nownothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as airand nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed youngalmost a boybut you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and heldthere was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neckWhy? Where did he get it? Was it a badgean ornamenta charma propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas. 'Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner his brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness and all about others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence. While I stood horrorstruck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on allfours towards the river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone. 'I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards the station. When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of getup that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a greenlined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear. 'I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the Company's chief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done at this station. He had come out for a moment, he said, 'to get a breath of fresh air. The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentary desklife. I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all, only it was from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is so indissolubly connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow. Yes I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's dummy but in the great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That's backbone. His starched collars and gotup shirtfronts were achievements of character. He had been out nearly three years and, later, I could not help asking him how he managed to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, and said modestly, 'I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.' Thus this man had verily accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books, which were in applepie order. 'Everything else in the station was in a muddleheads, things, buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brasswire sent into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory. 'I had to wait in the station for ten daysan eternity. I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant's office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need to open the big shutter to see. It was hot there, too big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly scented), perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for exercise. When a trucklebed with a sick man (some invalid agent from upcountry) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. 'The groans of this sick person,' he said, 'distract my attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in this climate.' 'One day he remarked, without lifting his head, 'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a firstclass agent and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very remarkable person.' Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at present in charge of a tradingpost, a very important one, in the true ivorycountry, at 'the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together...' He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace. 'Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a great tramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the other side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together, and in the midst of the uproar the lamentable voice of the chief agent was heard 'giving it up' tearfully for the twentieth time that day.... He rose slowly. 'What a frightful row,' he said. He crossed the room gently to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me, 'He does not hear.' 'What! Dead?' I asked, startled. 'No, not yet,' he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss of the head to the tumult in the stationyard, 'When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savageshate them to the death.' He remained thoughtful for a moment. 'When you see Mr. Kurtz' he went on, 'tell him from me that everything here'he glanced at the deck' is very satisfactory. I don't like to write to himwith those messengers of ours you never know who may get hold of your letterat that Central Station.' He stared at me for a moment with his mild, bulging eyes. 'Oh, he will go far, very far,' he began again. 'He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, abovethe Council in Europe, you knowmean him to be.' 'He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased, and presently in going out I stopped at the door. In the steady buzz of flies the homewardbound agent was lying finished and insensible the other, bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still treetops of the grove of death. 'Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men, for a twohundredmile tramp. 'No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths, everywhere a stampedin network of paths spreading over the empty land, through the long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, not a hut. The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons suddenly took to travelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone, too. Still I passed through several abandoned villages. There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a lb. load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness, at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty watergourd and his long staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above. Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of faroff drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wildand perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festivenot to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middleaged negro, with a bullethole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement. I had a white companion, too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides, miles away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know, to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man's head while he is coming to. I couldn't help asking him once what he meant by coming there at all. 'To make money, of course. What do you think?' he said, scornfully. Then he got fever, and had to be carried in a hammock slung under a pole. As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in the nightquite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in English with gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyes before me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bushman, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near. I remembered the old doctor'It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot.' I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting. However, all that is to no purpose. On the fifteenth day I came in sight of the big river again, and hobbled into the Central Station. It was on a back water surrounded by scrub and forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side, and on the three others enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes. A neglected gap was all the gate it had, and the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show. White men with long staves in their hands appeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me, and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them, a stout, excitable chap with black moustaches, informed me with great volubility and many digressions, as soon as I told him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. I was thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was 'all right.' The 'manager himself' was there. All quite correct. 'Everybody had behaved splendidly! splendidly!''you must,' he said in agitation, 'go and see the general manager at once. He is waiting!' 'I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. I fancy I see it now, but I am not surenot at all. Certainly the affair was too stupidwhen I think of itto be altogether natural. Still... But at the moment it presented itself simply as a confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk. They had started two days before in a sudden hurry up the river with the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer skipper, and before they had been out three hours they tore the bottom out of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank. I asked myself what I was to do there, now my boat was lost. As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my command out of the river. I had to set about it the very next day. That, and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station, took some months. 'My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me to sit down after my twentymile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthya smilenot a smileI remember it, but I can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these partsnothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrustjust uneasinessnothing more. You have no idea how effective such a... a... faculty can be. He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to himwhy? Perhaps because he was never ill... He had served three terms of three years out there... Because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scalepompously. Jack ashorewith a differencein externals only. This one could gather from his casual talk. He originated nothing, he could keep the routine goingthat's all. But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pausefor out there there were no external checks. Once when various tropical diseases had laid low almost every 'agent' in the station, he was heard to say, 'Men who come out here should have no entrails.' He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. You fancied you had seen thingsbut the seal was on. When annoyed at mealtimes by the constant quarrels of the white men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table to be made, for which a special house had to be built. This was the station's messroom. Where he sat was the first placethe rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his 'boy'an overfed young negro from the coastto treat the white men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence. 'He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very long on the road. He could not wait. Had to start without me. The upriver stations had to be relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did not know who was dead and who was alive, and how they got onand so on, and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and, playing with a stick of sealingwax, repeated several times that the situation was 'very grave, very grave.' There were rumours that a very important station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was not true. Mr. Kurtz was... I felt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz, I thought. I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast. 'Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself. Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company therefore I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said, 'very, very uneasy.' Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a good deal, exclaimed, 'Ah, Mr. Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealingwax and seemed dumfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to'... I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too. I was getting savage. 'How can I tell?' I said. 'I haven't even seen the wreck yetsome months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me so futile. 'Some months,' he said. 'Well, let us say three months before we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of verandah) muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite for the 'affair.' 'I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that station. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes and then I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion. 'Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened. One evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don't know what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thought the earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high, when the stout man with moustaches came tearing down to the river, a tin pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was 'behaving splendidly, splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again. I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail. 'I strolled up. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone off like a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first. The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everythingand collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in some way be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly. I saw him, later, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself afterwards he arose and went outand the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again. As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the back of two men, talking. I heard the name of Kurtz pronounced, then the words, 'take advantage of this unfortunate accident.' One of the men was the manager. I wished him a good evening. 'Did you ever see anything like iteh? it is incredible,' he said, and walked off. The other man remained. He was a firstclass agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He was standoffish with the other agents, and they on their side said he was the manager's spy upon them. As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before. We got into talk, and by and by we strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station. He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silvermounted dressingcase but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls a collection of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies. The business intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricksso I had been informed but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station, and he had been there more than a yearwaiting. It seems he could not make bricks without something, I don't know whatstraw maybe. Anyway, it could not be found there and as it was not likely to be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for. An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waitingall the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of themfor something and upon my word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they took it, though the only thing that ever came to them was diseaseas far as I could see. They beguiled the time by backbiting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as unreal as everything elseas the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a tradingpost where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that accountbut as to effectually lifting a little fingeroh, no. By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick. 'I had no idea why he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in there it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to get at somethingin fact, pumping me. He alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know thereputting leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city, and so on. His little eyes glittered like mica discswith curiositythough he tried to keep up a bit of superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon I became awfully curious to see what he would find out from me. I couldn't possibly imagine what I had in me to make it worth his while. It was very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth my body was full only of chills, and my head had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. It was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator. At last he got angry, and, to conceal a movement of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombrealmost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister. 'It arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding an empty halfpint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted thisin this very station more than a year agowhile waiting for means to go to his trading post. 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz?' ''The chief of the Inner Station,' he answered in a short tone, looking away. 'Much obliged,' I said, laughing. 'And you are the brickmaker of the Central Station. Every one knows that.' He was silent for a while. 'He is a prodigy,' he said at last. 'He is an emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows what else. We want,' he began to declaim suddenly, 'for the guidance of the cause intrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.' 'Who says that?' I asked. 'Lots of them,' he replied. 'Some even write that and so he comes here, a special being, as you ought to know.' 'Why ought I to know?' I interrupted, really surprised. He paid no attention. 'Yes. Today he is chief of the best station, next year he will be assistantmanager, two years more and... but I daresay you know what he will be in two years' time. You are of the new gangthe gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh, don't say no. I've my own eyes to trust.' Light dawned upon me. My dear aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. 'Do you read the Company's confidential correspondence?' I asked. He hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. 'When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued, severely, 'is General Manager, you won't have the opportunity.' 'He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon had risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on the glow, whence proceeded a sound of hissing steam ascended in the moonlight, the beaten nigger groaned somewhere. 'What a row the brute makes!' said the indefatigable man with the moustaches, appearing near us. 'Serve him right. Transgressionpunishmentbang! Pitiless, pitiless. That's the only way. This will prevent all conflagrations for the future. I was just telling the manager...' He noticed my companion, and became crestfallen all at once. 'Not in bed yet,' he said, with a kind of servile heartiness 'it's so natural. Ha! Dangeragitation.' He vanished. I went on to the riverside, and the other followed me. I heard a scathing murmur at my ear, 'Heap of muffsgo to.' The pilgrims could be seen in knots gesticulating, discussing. Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily believe they took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through that dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heartits mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there. I felt a hand introducing itself under my arm. 'My dear sir,' said the fellow, 'I don't want to be misunderstood, and especially by you, who will see Mr. Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to get a false idea of my disposition....' 'I let him run on, this papiermache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe. He, don't you see, had been planning to be assistantmanager by and by under the present man, and I could see that the coming of that Kurtz had upset them both not a little. He talked precipitately, and I did not try to stop him. I had my shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up on the slope like a carcass of some big river animal. The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove! was in my nostrils, the high stillness of primeval forest was before my eyes there were shiny patches on the black creek. The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silverover the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace. What were we who had strayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? I felt how big, how confoundedly big, was that thing that couldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf as well. What was in there? I could see a little ivory coming out from there, and I had heard Mr. Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about it, tooGod knows! Yet somehow it didn't bring any image with itno more than if I had been told an angel or a fiend was in there. I believed it in the same way one of you might believe there are inhabitants in the planet Mars. I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars. If you asked him for some idea how they looked and behaved, he would get shy and mutter something about 'walking on allfours.' If you as much as smiled, he wouldthough a man of sixtyoffer to fight you. I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lieswhich is exactly what I hate and detest in the worldwhat I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose. Well, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not seeyou understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dreammaking a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dreamsensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams.... He was silent for a while. '... No, it is impossible it is impossible to convey the lifesensation of any given epoch of one's existencethat which makes its truth, its meaningits subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dreamalone.... He paused again as if reflecting, then added 'Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me, whom you know.... It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy nightair of the river. '... YesI let him run on, Marlow began again, 'and think what he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! And there was nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangled steamboat I was leaning against, while he talked fluently about 'the necessity for every man to get on.' 'And when one comes out here, you conceive, it is not to gaze at the moon.' Mr. Kurtz was a 'universal genius,' but even a genius would find it easier to work with 'adequate toolsintelligent men.' He did not make brickswhy, there was a physical impossibility in the wayas I was well aware and if he did secretarial work for the manager, it was because 'no sensible man rejects wantonly the confidence of his superiors.' Did I see it? I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! Rivets. To get on with the workto stop the hole. Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coastcasespiled upburstsplit! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that stationyard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death. You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping downand there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was wanted. We had plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with. And every week the messenger, a long negro, letterbag on shoulder and staff in hand, left our station for the coast. And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goodsghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it, glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton handkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat. 'He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivetsand rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week.... 'My dear sir,' he cried, 'I write from dictation.' I demanded rivets. There was a wayfor an intelligent man. He changed his manner became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer (I stuck to my salvage night and day) I wasn't disturbed. There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o' nights for him. All this energy was wasted, though. 'That animal has a charmed life,' he said 'but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No manyou apprehend me?no man here bears a charmed life.' He stood there for a moment in the moonlight with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and his mica eyes glittering without a wink, then, with a curt Goodnight, he strode off. I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days. It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tinpot steamboat. I clambered on board. She rang under my feet like an empty Huntley  Palmer biscuittin kicked along a gutter she was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty in shape, but I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out a bitto find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like workno man doesbut I like what is in the workthe chance to find yourself. Your own realityfor yourself, not for otherswhat no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means. 'I was not surprised to see somebody sitting aft, on the deck, with his legs dangling over the mud. You see I rather chummed with the few mechanics there were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despisedon account of their imperfect manners, I suppose. This was the foremana boilermaker by tradea good worker. He was a lank, bony, yellowfaced man, with big intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as the palm of my hand but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist. He was a widower with six young children (he had left them in charge of a sister of his to come out there), and the passion of his life was pigeonflying. He was an enthusiast and a connoisseur. He would rave about pigeons. After work hours he used sometimes to come over from his hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons at work, when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviette he brought for the purpose. It had loops to go over his ears. In the evening he could be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush to dry. 'I slapped him on the back and shouted, 'We shall have rivets!' He scrambled to his feet exclaiming, 'No! Rivets!' as though he couldn't believe his ears. Then in a low voice, 'You... eh?' I don't know why we behaved like lunatics. I put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. 'Good for you!' he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot. I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager's hut, vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorway itself vanished, too. We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stamping of our feet flowed back again from the recesses of the land. The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an icthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. 'After all,' said the boilermaker in a reasonable tone, 'why shouldn't we get the rivets?' Why not, indeed! I did not know of any reason why we shouldn't. 'They'll come in three weeks,' I said confidently. 'But they didn't. Instead of rivets there came an invasion, an infliction, a visitation. It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkey a lot of tents, campstools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shot down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station. Five such instalments came, with their absurd air of disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves but that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving. 'This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot. 'In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighbourhood, and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and during the time his gang infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with their heads close together in an everlasting confab. 'I had given up worrying myself about the rivets. One's capacity for that kind of folly is more limited than you would suppose. I said Hang!and let things slide. I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn't very interested in him. No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all and how he would set about his work when there. 'One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approachingand there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I laid my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were 'I am as harmless as a little child, but I don't like to be dictated to. Am I the manageror am I not? I was ordered to send him there. It's incredible.' ... I became aware that the two were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head. I did not move it did not occur to me to move I was sleepy. 'It is unpleasant,' grunted the uncle. 'He has asked the Administration to be sent there,' said the other, 'with the idea of showing what he could do and I was instructed accordingly. Look at the influence that man must have. Is it not frightful?' They both agreed it was frightful, then made several bizarre remarks 'Make rain and fine weatherone manthe Councilby the nose'bits of absurd sentences that got the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the whole of my wits about me when the uncle said, 'The climate may do away with this difficulty for you. Is he alone there?' 'Yes,' answered the manager 'he sent his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms 'Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of that sort. I had rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me. It was more than a year ago. Can you imagine such impudence!' 'Anything since then?' asked the other hoarsely. 'Ivory,' jerked the nephew 'lots of itprime sortlotsmost annoying, from him.' 'And with that?' questioned the heavy rumble. 'Invoice,' was the reply fired out, so to speak. Then silence. They had been talking about Kurtz. 'I was broad awake by this time, but, lying perfectly at ease, remained still, having no inducement to change my position. 'How did that ivory come all this way?' growled the elder man, who seemed very vexed. The other explained that it had come with a fleet of canoes in charge of an English halfcaste clerk Kurtz had with him that Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but after coming three hundred miles, had suddenly decided to go back, which he started to do alone in a small dugout with four paddlers, leaving the halfcaste to continue down the river with the ivory. The two fellows there seemed astounded at anybody attempting such a thing. They were at a loss for an adequate motive. As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct glimpse the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of homeperhaps setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station. I did not know the motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake. His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once. He was 'that man.' The halfcaste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as 'that scoundrel.' The 'scoundrel' had reported that the 'man' had been very illhad recovered imperfectly.... The two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance. I heard 'Military postdoctortwo hundred milesquite alone nowunavoidable delaysnine monthsno newsstrange rumours.' They approached again, just as the manager was saying, 'No one, as far as I know, unless a species of wandering tradera pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.' Who was it they were talking about now? I gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed to be in Kurtz's district, and of whom the manager did not approve. 'We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example,' he said. 'Certainly,' grunted the other 'get him hanged! Why not? Anythinganything can be done in this country. That's what I say nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climateyou outlast them all. The danger is in Europe but there before I left I took care to' They moved off and whispered, then their voices rose again. 'The extraordinary series of delays is not my fault. I did my best.' The fat man sighed. 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other 'he bothered me enough when he was here. 'Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing. Conceive youthat ass! And he wants to be manager! No, it's' Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit. I was surprised to see how near they wereright under me. I could have spat upon their hats. They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought. The manager was switching his leg with a slender twig his sagacious relative lifted his head. 'You have been well since you came out this time?' he asked. The other gave a start. 'Who? I? Oh! Like a charmlike a charm. But the restoh, my goodness! All sick. They die so quick, too, that I haven't the time to send them out of the countryit's incredible!' 'Hm'm. Just so,' grunted the uncle. 'Ah! my boy, trust to thisI say, trust to this.' I saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a gesture that took in the forest, the creek, the mud, the riverseemed to beckon with a dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart. It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected an answer of some sort to that black display of confidence. You know the foolish notions that come to one sometimes. The high stillness confronted these two figures with its ominous patience, waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion. 'They swore aloud togetherout of sheer fright, I believethen pretending not to know anything of my existence, turned back to the station. The sun was low and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade. 'In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals. They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved. I did not inquire. I was then rather excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz very soon. When I say very soon I mean it comparatively. It was just two months from the day we left the creek when we came to the bank below Kurtz's station. 'Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known oncesomewherefar awayin another existence perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare for yourself but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it afterwards I did not see it any more I had no time. I had to keep guessing at the channel I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks I watched for sunken stones I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tinpot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims I had to keep a lookout for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the realitythe reality, I tell youfades. The inner truth is hiddenluckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tightropes forwhat is it? halfacrown a tumble 'Try to be civil, Marlow, growled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides myself. 'I beg your pardon. I forgot the heartache which makes up the rest of the price. And indeed what does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well. And I didn't do badly either, since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip. It's a wonder to me yet. Imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad road. I sweated and shivered over that business considerably, I can tell you. After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that's supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, but you never forget the thumpeh? A blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night and think of ityears afterand go hot and cold all over. I don't pretend to say that steamboat floated all the time. More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine fellowscannibalsin their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face they had brought along a provision of hippomeat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils. Phoo! I can sniff it now. I had the manager on board and three or four pilgrims with their stavesall complete. Sometimes we came upon a station close by the bank, clinging to the skirts of the unknown, and the white men rushing out of a tumbledown hovel, with great gestures of joy and surprise and welcome, seemed very strangehad the appearance of being held there captive by a spell. The word ivory would ring in the air for a whileand on we went again into the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps the ponderous beat of the sternwheel. Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled onwhich was just what you wanted it to do. Where the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I don't know. To some place where they expected to get something. I bet! For me it crawled towards Kurtzexclusively but when the steampipes started leaking we crawled very slow. The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness the woodcutters slept, their fires burned low the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grassroofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming uswho could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a signand no memories. 'The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but therethere you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men wereNo, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of itthis suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanitylike yoursthe thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which youyou so remote from the night of first agescould comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anythingbecause everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, ragewho can tell?but truthtruth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudderthe man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuffwith his own inborn strength. Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty ragsrags that would fly off at the first good shake. No you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish rowis there? Very well I hear I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, noI didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with whitelead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steampipesI tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tinpot along by hook or by crook. There was surfacetruth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hindlegs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steamgauge and at the watergauge with an evident effort of intrepidityand he had filed teeth, too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been instructed and what he knew was thisthat should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silenceand we crept on, towards Kurtz. But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts. 'Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon a hut of reeds, an inclined and melancholy pole, with the unrecognizable tatters of what had been a flag of some sort flying from it, and a neatly stacked woodpile. This was unexpected. We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board with some faded pencilwriting on it. When deciphered it said 'Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.' There was a signature, but it was illegiblenot Kurtza much longer word. 'Hurry up.' Where? Up the river? 'Approach cautiously.' We had not done so. But the warning could not have been meant for the place where it could be only found after approach. Something was wrong above. But whatand how much? That was the question. We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that telegraphic style. The bush around said nothing, and would not let us look very far, either. A torn curtain of red twill hung in the doorway of the hut, and flapped sadly in our faces. The dwelling was dismantled but we could see a white man had lived there not very long ago. There remained a rude tablea plank on two posts a heap of rubbish reposed in a dark corner, and by the door I picked up a book. It had lost its covers, and the pages had been thumbed into a state of extremely dirty softness but the back had been lovingly stitched afresh with white cotton thread, which looked clean yet. It was an extraordinary find. Its title was, An Inquiry into some Points of Seamanship, by a man Towser, Towsonsome such nameMaster in his Majesty's Navy. The matter looked dreary reading enough, with illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of figures, and the copy was sixty years old. I handled this amazing antiquity with the greatest possible tenderness, lest it should dissolve in my hands. Within, Towson or Towser was inquiring earnestly into the breaking strain of ships' chains and tackle, and other such matters. Not a very enthralling book but at the first glance you could see there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work, which made these humble pages, thought out so many years ago, luminous with another than a professional light. The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being there was wonderful enough but still more astounding were the notes pencilled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it looked like cipher. Fancy a man lugging with him a book of that description into this nowhere and studying itand making notesin cipher at that! It was an extravagant mystery. 'I had been dimly aware for some time of a worrying noise, and when I lifted my eyes I saw the woodpile was gone, and the manager, aided by all the pilgrims, was shouting at me from the riverside. I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship. 'I started the lame engine ahead. 'It must be this miserable traderthis intruder,' exclaimed the manager, looking back malevolently at the place we had left. 'He must be English,' I said. 'It will not save him from getting into trouble if he is not careful,' muttered the manager darkly. I observed with assumed innocence that no man was safe from trouble in this world. 'The current was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the sternwheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast. To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience. The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and took to arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what any one knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling. 'Towards the evening of the second day we judged ourselves about eight miles from Kurtz's station. I wanted to push on but the manager looked grave, and told me the navigation up there was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun being very low already, to wait where we were till next morning. Moreover, he pointed out that if the warning to approach cautiously were to be followed, we must approach in daylightnot at dusk or in the dark. This was sensible enough. Eight miles meant nearly three hours' steaming for us, and I could also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach. Nevertheless, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay, and most unreasonably, too, since one night more could not matter much after so many months. As we had plenty of wood, and caution was the word, I brought up in the middle of the stream. The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting. The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set. The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. It was not sleepit seemed unnatural, like a state of trance. Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard. You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deafthen the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well. About three in the morning some large fish leaped, and the loud splash made me jump as though a gun had been fired. When the sun rose there was a white fog, very warm and clammy, and more blinding than the night. It did not shift or drive it was just there, standing all round you like something solid. At eight or nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts. We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immense matted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun hanging over itall perfectly stilland then the white shutter came down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I ordered the chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again. Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuous and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short, leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinately listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence. 'Good God! What is the meaning' stammered at my elbow one of the pilgrimsa little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore sidespring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks. Two others remained openmouthed a while minute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand darting scared glances, with Winchesters at 'ready' in their hands. What we could see was just the steamer we were on, her outlines blurred as though she had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet broad, around herand that was all. The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared swept off without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind. 'I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at once if necessary. 'Will they attack?' whispered an awed voice. 'We will be all butchered in this fog,' murmured another. The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. The others had an alert, naturally interested expression but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or two who grinned as they hauled at the chain. Several exchanged short, grunting phrases, which seemed to settle the matter to their satisfaction. Their headman, a young, broadchested black, severely draped in darkblue fringed cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me. 'Aha!' I said, just for good fellowship's sake. 'Catch 'im,' he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth'catch 'im. Give 'im to us.' 'To you, eh?' I asked 'what would you do with them?' 'Eat 'im!' he said curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. I would no doubt have been properly horrified, had it not occurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for at least this month past. They had been engaged for six months (I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of timehad no inherited experience to teach them as it were), and of course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's head to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippomeat, which couldn't have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn't, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard. It looked like a highhanded proceeding but it was really a case of legitimate selfdefence. You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence. Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long and the theory was they were to buy their provisions with that currency in riverside villages. You can see how that worked. There were either no villages, or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest of us fed out of tins, with an occasional old hegoat thrown in, didn't want to stop the steamer for some more or less recondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don't see what good their extravagant salary could be to them. I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and honourable trading company. For the rest, the only thing to eatthough it didn't look eatable in the leastI saw in their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like halfcooked dough, of a dirty lavender colour, they kept wrapped in leaves, and now and then swallowed a piece of, but so small that it seemed done more for the looks of the thing than for any serious purpose of sustenance. Why in the name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn't go for usthey were thirty to fiveand have a good tuckin for once, amazes me now when I think of it. They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard. And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into play there. I looked at them with a swift quickening of interestnot because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before very long, though I own to you that just then I perceivedin a new light, as it werehow unwholesome the pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not sowhat shall I say?sounappetizing a touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the dreamsensation that pervaded all my days at that time. Perhaps I had a little fever, too. One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse. I had often 'a little fever,' or a little touch of other thingsthe playful pawstrokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifling before the more serious onslaught which came in due course. Yes I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fearor some kind of primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soulthan this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. But there was the fact facing methe fact dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery greaterwhen I thought of itthan the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour that had swept by us on the riverbank, behind the blind whiteness of the fog. 'Two pilgrims were quarrelling in hurried whispers as to which bank. 'Left.' 'no, no how can you? Right, right, of course.' 'It is very serious,' said the manager's voice behind me 'I would be desolated if anything should happen to Mr. Kurtz before we came up.' I looked at him, and had not the slightest doubt he was sincere. He was just the kind of man who would wish to preserve appearances. That was his restraint. But when he muttered something about going on at once, I did not even take the trouble to answer him. I knew, and he knew, that it was impossible. Were we to let go our hold of the bottom, we would be absolutely in the airin space. We wouldn't be able to tell where we were going towhether up or down stream, or acrosstill we fetched against one bank or the otherand then we wouldn't know at first which it was. Of course I made no move. I had no mind for a smashup. You couldn't imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck. Whether we drowned at once or not, we were sure to perish speedily in one way or another. 'I authorize you to take all the risks,' he said, after a short silence. 'I refuse to take any,' I said shortly which was just the answer he expected, though its tone might have surprised him. 'Well, I must defer to your judgment. You are captain,' he said with marked civility. I turned my shoulder to him in sign of my appreciation, and looked into the fog. How long would it last? It was the most hopeless lookout. The approach to this Kurtz grubbing for ivory in the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as though he had been an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle. 'Will they attack, do you think?' asked the manager, in a confidential tone. 'I did not think they would attack, for several obvious reasons. The thick fog was one. If they left the bank in their canoes they would get lost in it, as we would be if we attempted to move. Still, I had also judged the jungle of both banks quite impenetrableand yet eyes were in it, eyes that had seen us. The riverside bushes were certainly very thick but the undergrowth behind was evidently penetrable. However, during the short lift I had seen no canoes anywhere in the reachcertainly not abreast of the steamer. But what made the idea of attack inconceivable to me was the nature of the noiseof the cries we had heard. They had not the fierce character boding immediate hostile intention. Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given me an irresistible impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboat had for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief. The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a great human passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violencebut more generally takes the form of apathy.... 'You should have seen the pilgrims stare! They had no heart to grin, or even to revile me but I believe they thought me gone madwith fright, maybe. I delivered a regular lecture. My dear boys, it was no good bothering. Keep a lookout? Well, you may guess I watched the fog for the signs of lifting as a cat watches a mouse but for anything else our eyes were of no more use to us than if we had been buried miles deep in a heap of cottonwool. It felt like it, toochoking, warm, stifling. Besides, all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact. What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse. The action was very far from being aggressiveit was not even defensive, in the usual sense it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, and in its essence was purely protective. 'It developed itself, I should say, two hours after the fog lifted, and its commencement was at a spot, roughly speaking, about a mile and a half below Kurtz's station. We had just floundered and flopped round a bend, when I saw an islet, a mere grassy hummock of bright green, in the middle of the stream. It was the only thing of the kind but as we opened the reach more, I perceived it was the head of a long sandbank, or rather of a chain of shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river. They were discoloured, just awash, and the whole lot was seen just under the water, exactly as a man's backbone is seen running down the middle of his back under the skin. Now, as far as I did see, I could go to the right or to the left of this. I didn't know either channel, of course. The banks looked pretty well alike, the depth appeared the same but as I had been informed the station was on the west side, I naturally headed for the western passage. 'No sooner had we fairly entered it than I became aware it was much narrower than I had supposed. To the left of us there was the long uninterrupted shoal, and to the right a high, steep bank heavily overgrown with bushes. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks. The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to distance a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over the stream. It was then well on in the afternoon, the face of the forest was gloomy, and a broad strip of shadow had already fallen on the water. In this shadow we steamed upvery slowly, as you may imagine. I sheered her well inshorethe water being deepest near the bank, as the soundingpole informed me. 'One of my hungry and forbearing friends was sounding in the bows just below me. This steamboat was exactly like a decked scow. On the deck, there were two little teakwood houses, with doors and windows. The boiler was in the foreend, and the machinery right astern. Over the whole there was a light roof, supported on stanchions. The funnel projected through that roof, and in front of the funnel a small cabin built of light planks served for a pilothouse. It contained a couch, two campstools, a loaded MartiniHenry leaning in one corner, a tiny table, and the steeringwheel. It had a wide door in front and a broad shutter at each side. All these were always thrown open, of course. I spent my days perched up there on the extreme foreend of that roof, before the door. At night I slept, or tried to, on the couch. An athletic black belonging to some coast tribe and educated by my poor predecessor, was the helmsman. He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all the world of himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen. He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of him in a minute. 'I was looking down at the soundingpole, and feeling much annoyed to see at each try a little more of it stick out of that river, when I saw my poleman give up on the business suddenly, and stretch himself flat on the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his pole in. He kept hold on it though, and it trailed in the water. At the same time the fireman, whom I could also see below me, sat down abruptly before his furnace and ducked his head. I was amazed. Then I had to look at the river mighty quick, because there was a snag in the fairway. Sticks, little sticks, were flying aboutthick they were whizzing before my nose, dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilothouse. All this time the river, the shore, the woods, were very quietperfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy splashing thump of the sternwheel and the patter of these things. We cleared the snag clumsily. Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at! I stepped in quickly to close the shutter on the landside. That foolhelmsman, his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high, stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reinedin horse. Confound him! And we were staggering within ten feet of the bank. I had to lean right out to swing the heavy shutter, and I saw a face amongst the leaves on the level with my own, looking at me very fierce and steady and then suddenly, as though a veil had been removed from my eyes, I made out, deep in the tangled gloom, naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyesthe bush was swarming with human limbs in movement, glistening of bronze colour. The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled, the arrows flew out of them, and then the shutter came to. 'Steer her straight,' I said to the helmsman. He held his head rigid, face forward but his eyes rolled, he kept on lifting and setting down his feet gently, his mouth foamed a little. 'Keep quiet!' I said in a fury. I might just as well have ordered a tree not to sway in the wind. I darted out. Below me there was a great scuffle of feet on the iron deck confused exclamations a voice screamed, 'Can you turn back?' I caught sight of a Vshaped ripple on the water ahead. What? Another snag! A fusillade burst out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened with their Winchesters, and were simply squirting lead into that bush. A deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove slowly forward. I swore at it. Now I couldn't see the ripple or the snag either. I stood in the doorway, peering, and the arrows came in swarms. They might have been poisoned, but they looked as though they wouldn't kill a cat. The bush began to howl. Our woodcutters raised a warlike whoop the report of a rifle just at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder, and the pilothouse was yet full of noise and smoke when I made a dash at the wheel. The foolnigger had dropped everything, to throw the shutter open and let off that MartiniHenry. He stood before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back, while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat. There was no room to turn even if I had wanted to, the snag was somewhere very near ahead in that confounded smoke, there was no time to lose, so I just crowded her into the bankright into the bank, where I knew the water was deep. 'We tore slowly along the overhanging bushes in a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves. The fusillade below stopped short, as I had foreseen it would when the squirts got empty. I threw my head back to a glinting whizz that traversed the pilothouse, in at one shutterhole and out at the other. Looking past that mad helmsman, who was shaking the empty rifle and yelling at the shore, I saw vague forms of men running bent double, leaping, gliding, distinct, incomplete, evanescent. Something big appeared in the air before the shutter, the rifle went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly, looked at me over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner, and fell upon my feet. The side of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared a long cane clattered round and knocked over a little campstool. It looked as though after wrenching that thing from somebody ashore he had lost his balance in the effort. The thin smoke had blown away, we were clear of the snag, and looking ahead I could see that in another hundred yards or so I would be free to sheer off, away from the bank but my feet felt so very warm and wet that I had to look down. The man had rolled on his back and stared straight up at me both his hands clutched that cane. It was the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lunged through the opening, had caught him in the side, just below the ribs the blade had gone in out of sight, after making a frightful gash my shoes were full a pool of blood lay very still, gleaming darkred under the wheel his eyes shone with an amazing lustre. The fusillade burst out again. He looked at me anxiously, gripping the spear like something precious, with an air of being afraid I would try to take it away from him. I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze and attend to the steering. With one hand I felt above my head for the line of the steam whistle, and jerked out screech after screech hurriedly. The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly, and then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter despair as may be imagined to follow the flight of the last hope from the earth. There was a great commotion in the bush the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharplythen silence, in which the languid beat of the sternwheel came plainly to my ears. I put the helm hard astarboard at the moment when the pilgrim in pink pyjamas, very hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway. 'The manager sends me' he began in an official tone, and stopped short. 'Good God!' he said, glaring at the wounded man. 'We two whites stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring glance enveloped us both. I declare it looked as though he would presently put to us some questions in an understandable language but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a muscle. Only in the very last moment, as though in response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black deathmask an inconceivably sombre, brooding, and menacing expression. The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness. 'Can you steer?' I asked the agent eagerly. He looked very dubious but I made a grab at his arm, and he understood at once I meant him to steer whether or no. To tell you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and socks. 'He is dead,' murmured the fellow, immensely impressed. 'No doubt about it,' said I, tugging like mad at the shoelaces. 'And by the way, I suppose Mr. Kurtz is dead as well by this time.' 'For the moment that was the dominant thought. There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as though I had found out I had been striving after something altogether without a substance. I couldn't have been more disgusted if I had travelled all this way for the sole purpose of talking with Mr. Kurtz. Talking with... I flung one shoe overboard, and became aware that that was exactly what I had been looking forward toa talk with Kurtz. I made the strange discovery that I had never imagined him as doing, you know, but as discoursing. I didn't say to myself, 'Now I will never see him,' or 'Now I will never shake him by the hand,' but, 'Now I will never hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice. Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action. Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together? That was not the point. The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his wordsthe gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness. 'The other shoe went flying unto the devilgod of that river. I thought, 'By Jove! it's all over. We are too late he has vanishedthe gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club. I will never hear that chap speak after all'and my sorrow had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I had noticed in the howling sorrow of these savages in the bush. I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life.... Why do you sigh in this beastly way, somebody? Absurd? Well, absurd. Good Lord! mustn't a man everHere, give me some tobacco.... There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and Marlow's lean face appeared, worn, hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention and as he took vigorous draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of the night in the regular flicker of tiny flame. The match went out. 'Absurd! he cried. 'This is the worst of trying to tell.... Here you all are, each moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with two anchors, a butcher round one corner, a policeman round another, excellent appetites, and temperature normalyou hearnormal from year's end to year's end. And you say, Absurd! Absurd beexploded! Absurd! My dear boys, what can you expect from a man who out of sheer nervousness had just flung overboard a pair of new shoes! Now I think of it, it is amazing I did not shed tears. I am, upon the whole, proud of my fortitude. I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz. Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh, yes, I heard more than enough. And I was right, too. A voice. He was very little more than a voice. And I heardhimitthis voiceother voicesall of them were so little more than voicesand the memory of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of sense. Voices, voiceseven the girl herselfnow He was silent for a long time. 'I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie, he began, suddenly. 'Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of itcompletely. Theythe women, I meanare out of itshould be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse. Oh, she had to be out of it. You should have heard the disinterred body of Mr. Kurtz saying, 'My Intended.' You would have perceived directly then how completely she was out of it. And the lofty frontal bone of Mr. Kurtz! They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, but thisahspecimen, was impressively bald. The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ballan ivory ball it had caressed him, andlo!he had withered it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered favourite. Ivory? I should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting with it. You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or below the ground in the whole country. 'Mostly fossil,' the manager had remarked, disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am but they call it fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimesbut evidently they couldn't bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr. Kurtz from his fate. We filled the steamboat with it, and had to pile a lot on the deck. Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the appreciation of this favour had remained with him to the last. You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my' everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to himbut that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossibleit was not good for one eithertrying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the landI mean literally. You can't understand. How could you?with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylumshow can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitudeutter solitude without a policemanby the way of silenceutter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrongtoo dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devilI don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing placeand whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove!breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? Your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff inyour power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, backbreaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explainI am trying to account to myself forforMr. Kurtzfor the shade of Mr. Kurtz. This initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with its amazing confidence before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak English to me. The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, andas he was good enough to say himselfhis sympathies were in the right place. His mother was halfEnglish, his father was halfFrench. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz and by and by I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it, too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too highstrung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before hislet us saynerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, whichas far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various timeswere offered up to himdo you understand?to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them savages in the nature of supernatural beingswe approach them with the might of a deity,' and so on, and so on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' etc., etc. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquenceof wordsof burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky 'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career. I had full information about all these things, and, besides, as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. I've done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dustbin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the dead cats of civilization. But then, you see, I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witchdance in his honour he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter misgivings he had one devoted friend at least, and he had conquered one soul in the world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with selfseeking. No I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfullyI missed him even while his body was still lying in the pilothouse. Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well, don't you see, he had done something, he had steered for months I had him at my backa helpan instrument. It was a kind of partnership. He steered for meI had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memorylike a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment. 'Poor fool! If he had only left that shutter alone. He had no restraint, no restraintjust like Kurtza tree swayed by the wind. As soon as I had put on a dry pair of slippers, I dragged him out, after first jerking the spear out of his side, which operation I confess I performed with my eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together over the little doorstep his shoulders were pressed to my breast I hugged him from behind desperately. Oh! he was heavy, heavy heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him overboard. The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever. All the pilgrims and the manager were then congregated on the awningdeck about the pilothouse, chattering at each other like a flock of excited magpies, and there was a scandalized murmur at my heartless promptitude. What they wanted to keep that body hanging about for I can't guess. Embalm it, maybe. But I had also heard another, and a very ominous, murmur on the deck below. My friends the woodcutters were likewise scandalized, and with a better show of reasonthough I admit that the reason itself was quite inadmissible. Oh, quite! I had made up my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fishes alone should have him. He had been a very secondrate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a firstclass temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business. 'This I did directly the simple funeral was over. We were going halfspeed, keeping right in the middle of the stream, and I listened to the talk about me. They had given up Kurtz, they had given up the station Kurtz was dead, and the station had been burntand so onand so on. The redhaired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly avenged. 'Say! We must have made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush. Eh? What do you think? Say?' He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar. And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man! I could not help saying, 'You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.' I had seen, from the way the tops of the bushes rustled and flew, that almost all the shots had gone too high. You can't hit anything unless you take aim and fire from the shoulder but these chaps fired from the hip with their eyes shut. The retreat, I maintainedand I was rightwas caused by the screeching of the steam whistle. Upon this they forgot Kurtz, and began to howl at me with indignant protests. 'The manager stood by the wheel murmuring confidentially about the necessity of getting well away down the river before dark at all events, when I saw in the distance a clearing on the riverside and the outlines of some sort of building. 'What's this?' I asked. He clapped his hands in wonder. 'The station!' he cried. I edged in at once, still going halfspeed. 'Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free from undergrowth. A long decaying building on the summit was half buried in the high grass the large holes in the peaked roof gaped black from afar the jungle and the woods made a background. There was no enclosure or fence of any kind but there had been one apparently, for near the house halfadozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, and with their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls. The rails, or whatever there had been between, had disappeared. Of course the forest surrounded all that. The riverbank was clear, and on the waterside I saw a white man under a hat like a cartwheel beckoning persistently with his whole arm. Examining the edge of the forest above and below, I was almost certain I could see movementshuman forms gliding here and there. I steamed past prudently, then stopped the engines and let her drift down. The man on the shore began to shout, urging us to land. 'We have been attacked,' screamed the manager. 'I knowI know. It's all right,' yelled back the other, as cheerful as you please. 'Come along. It's all right. I am glad.' 'His aspect reminded me of something I had seensomething funny I had seen somewhere. As I manoeuvred to get alongside, I was asking myself, 'What does this fellow look like?' Suddenly I got it. He looked like a harlequin. His clothes had been made of some stuff that was brown holland probably, but it was covered with patches all over, with bright patches, blue, red, and yellowpatches on the back, patches on the front, patches on elbows, on knees coloured binding around his jacket, scarlet edging at the bottom of his trousers and the sunshine made him look extremely gay and wonderfully neat withal, because you could see how beautifully all this patching had been done. A beardless, boyish face, very fair, no features to speak of, nose peeling, little blue eyes, smiles and frowns chasing each other over that open countenance like sunshine and shadow on a windswept plain. 'Look out, captain!' he cried 'there's a snag lodged in here last night.' What! Another snag? I confess I swore shamefully. I had nearly holed my cripple, to finish off that charming trip. The harlequin on the bank turned his little pugnose up to me. 'You English?' he asked, all smiles. 'Are you?' I shouted from the wheel. The smiles vanished, and he shook his head as if sorry for my disappointment. Then he brightened up. 'Never mind!' he cried encouragingly. 'Are we in time?' I asked. 'He is up there,' he replied, with a toss of the head up the hill, and becoming gloomy all of a sudden. His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next. 'When the manager, escorted by the pilgrims, all of them armed to the teeth, had gone to the house this chap came on board. 'I say, I don't like this. These natives are in the bush,' I said. He assured me earnestly it was all right. 'They are simple people,' he added 'well, I am glad you came. It took me all my time to keep them off.' 'But you said it was all right,' I cried. 'Oh, they meant no harm,' he said and as I stared he corrected himself, 'Not exactly.' Then vivaciously, 'My faith, your pilothouse wants a cleanup!' In the next breath he advised me to keep enough steam on the boiler to blow the whistle in case of any trouble. 'One good screech will do more for you than all your rifles. They are simple people,' he repeated. He rattled away at such a rate he quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such was the case. 'Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?' I said. 'You don't talk with that manyou listen to him,' he exclaimed with severe exaltation. 'But now' He waved his arm, and in the twinkling of an eye was in the uttermost depths of despondency. In a moment he came up again with a jump, possessed himself of both my hands, shook them continuously, while he gabbled 'Brother sailor... honour... pleasure... delight... introduce myself... Russian... son of an archpriest... Government of Tambov... What? Tobacco! English tobacco the excellent English tobacco! Now, that's brotherly. Smoke? Where's a sailor that does not smoke? 'The pipe soothed him, and gradually I made out he had run away from school, had gone to sea in a Russian ship ran away again served some time in English ships was now reconciled with the archpriest. He made a point of that. 'But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, ideas enlarge the mind.' 'Here!' I interrupted. 'You can never tell! Here I met Mr. Kurtz,' he said, youthfully solemn and reproachful. I held my tongue after that. It appears he had persuaded a Dutch tradinghouse on the coast to fit him out with stores and goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart and no more idea of what would happen to him than a baby. He had been wandering about that river for nearly two years alone, cut off from everybody and everything. 'I am not so young as I look. I am twentyfive,' he said. 'At first old Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,' he narrated with keen enjoyment 'but I stuck to him, and talked and talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the hindleg off his favourite dog, so he gave me some cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would never see my face again. Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten. I've sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago, so that he can't call me a little thief when I get back. I hope he got it. And for the rest I don't care. I had some wood stacked for you. That was my old house. Did you see?' 'I gave him Towson's book. He made as though he would kiss me, but restrained himself. 'The only book I had left, and I thought I had lost it,' he said, looking at it ecstatically. 'So many accidents happen to a man going about alone, you know. Canoes get upset sometimesand sometimes you've got to clear out so quick when the people get angry.' He thumbed the pages. 'You made notes in Russian?' I asked. He nodded. 'I thought they were written in cipher,' I said. He laughed, then became serious. 'I had lots of trouble to keep these people off,' he said. 'Did they want to kill you?' I asked. 'Oh, no!' he cried, and checked himself. 'Why did they attack us?' I pursued. He hesitated, then said shamefacedly, 'They don't want him to go.' 'Don't they?' I said curiously. He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom. 'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.' He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes that were perfectly round. 'I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remainwhy he did not instantly disappear. 'I went a little farther,' he said, 'then still a little farthertill I had gone so far that I don't know how I'll ever get back. Never mind. Plenty time. I can manage. You take Kurtz away quickquickI tell you.' The glamour of youth enveloped his particoloured rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings. For monthsfor yearshis life hadn't been worth a day's purchase and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearances indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admirationlike envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through. His need was to exist, and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation. If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, unpractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this bepatched youth. I almost envied him the possession of this modest and clear flame. It seemed to have consumed all thought of self so completely, that even while he was talking to you, you forgot that it was hethe man before your eyeswho had gone through these things. I did not envy him his devotion to Kurtz, though. He had not meditated over it. It came to him, and he accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism. I must say that to me it appeared about the most dangerous thing in every way he had come upon so far. 'They had come together unavoidably, like two ships becalmed near each other, and lay rubbing sides at last. I suppose Kurtz wanted an audience, because on a certain occasion, when encamped in the forest, they had talked all night, or more probably Kurtz had talked. 'We talked of everything,' he said, quite transported at the recollection. 'I forgot there was such a thing as sleep. The night did not seem to last an hour. Everything! Everything!... Of love, too.' 'Ah, he talked to you of love!' I said, much amused. 'It isn't what you think,' he cried, almost passionately. 'It was in general. He made me see thingsthings.' 'He threw his arms up. We were on deck at the time, and the headman of my woodcutters, lounging near by, turned upon him his heavy and glittering eyes. I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness. 'And, ever since, you have been with him, of course?' I said. 'On the contrary. It appears their intercourse had been very much broken by various causes. He had, as he informed me proudly, managed to nurse Kurtz through two illnesses (he alluded to it as you would to some risky feat), but as a rule Kurtz wandered alone, far in the depths of the forest. 'Very often coming to this station, I had to wait days and days before he would turn up,' he said. 'Ah, it was worth waiting for!sometimes.' 'What was he doing? exploring or what?' I asked. 'Oh, yes, of course' he had discovered lots of villages, a lake, toohe did not know exactly in what direction it was dangerous to inquire too muchbut mostly his expeditions had been for ivory. 'But he had no goods to trade with by that time,' I objected. 'There's a good lot of cartridges left even yet,' he answered, looking away. 'To speak plainly, he raided the country,' I said. He nodded. 'Not alone, surely!' He muttered something about the villages round that lake. 'Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?' I suggested. He fidgeted a little. 'They adored him,' he said. The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at him searchingly. It was curious to see his mingled eagerness and reluctance to speak of Kurtz. The man filled his life, occupied his thoughts, swayed his emotions. 'What can you expect?' he burst out 'he came to them with thunder and lightning, you knowand they had never seen anything like itand very terrible. He could be very terrible. You can't judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man. No, no, no! Nowjust to give you an ideaI don't mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me, too, one daybut I don't judge him.' 'Shoot you!' I cried 'What for?' 'Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village near my house gave me. You see I used to shoot game for them. Well, he wanted it, and wouldn't hear reason. He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased. And it was true, too. I gave him the ivory. What did I care! But I didn't clear out. No, no. I couldn't leave him. I had to be careful, of course, till we got friendly again for a time. He had his second illness then. Afterwards I had to keep out of the way but I didn't mind. He was living for the most part in those villages on the lake. When he came down to the river, sometimes he would take to me, and sometimes it was better for me to be careful. This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain go off on another ivory hunt disappear for weeks forget himself amongst these peopleforget himselfyou know.' 'Why! he's mad,' I said. He protested indignantly. Mr. Kurtz couldn't be mad. If I had heard him talk, only two days ago, I wouldn't dare hint at such a thing.... I had taken up my binoculars while we talked, and was looking at the shore, sweeping the limit of the forest at each side and at the back of the house. The consciousness of there being people in that bush, so silent, so quietas silent and quiet as the ruined house on the hillmade me uneasy. There was no sign on the face of nature of this amazing tale that was not so much told as suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs. The woods were unmoved, like a maskheavy, like the closed door of a prisonthey looked with their air of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence. The Russian was explaining to me that it was only lately that Mr. Kurtz had come down to the river, bringing along with him all the fighting men of that lake tribe. He had been absent for several monthsgetting himself adored, I supposeand had come down unexpectedly, with the intention to all appearance of making a raid either across the river or down stream. Evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of thewhat shall I say?less material aspirations. However he had got much worse suddenly. 'I heard he was lying helpless, and so I came uptook my chance,' said the Russian. 'Oh, he is bad, very bad.' I directed my glass to the house. There were no signs of life, but there was the ruined roof, the long mud wall peeping above the grass, with three little square windowholes, no two of the same size all this brought within reach of my hand, as it were. And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass. You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbingfood for thought and also for vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way. I was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know. I returned deliberately to the first I had seenand there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelidsa head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber. 'I am not disclosing any trade secrets. In fact, the manager said afterwards that Mr. Kurtz's methods had ruined the district. I have no opinion on that point, but I want you clearly to understand that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in himsome small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at lastonly at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitudeand the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.... I put down the glass, and the head that had appeared near enough to be spoken to seemed at once to have leaped away from me into inaccessible distance. 'The admirer of Mr. Kurtz was a bit crestfallen. In a hurried, indistinct voice he began to assure me he had not dared to take thesesay, symbolsdown. He was not afraid of the natives they would not stir till Mr. Kurtz gave the word. His ascendancy was extraordinary. The camps of these people surrounded the place, and the chiefs came every day to see him. They would crawl.... 'I don't want to know anything of the ceremonies used when approaching Mr. Kurtz,' I shouted. Curious, this feeling that came over me that such details would be more intolerable than those heads drying on the stakes under Mr. Kurtz's windows. After all, that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, being something that had a right to existobviouslyin the sunshine. The young man looked at me with surprise. I suppose it did not occur to him that Mr. Kurtz was no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't heard any of these splendid monologues on, what was it? on love, justice, conduct of lifeor what not. If it had come to crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the conditions, he said these heads were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively by laughing. Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals, workersand these were rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks. 'You don't know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz,' cried Kurtz's last disciple. 'Well, and you?' I said. 'I! I! I am a simple man. I have no great thoughts. I want nothing from anybody. How can you compare me to...?' His feelings were too much for speech, and suddenly he broke down. 'I don't understand,' he groaned. 'I've been doing my best to keep him alive, and that's enough. I had no hand in all this. I have no abilities. There hasn't been a drop of medicine or a mouthful of invalid food for months here. He was shamefully abandoned. A man like this, with such ideas. Shamefully! Shamefully! IIhaven't slept for the last ten nights...' 'His voice lost itself in the calm of the evening. The long shadows of the forest had slipped downhill while we talked, had gone far beyond the ruined hovel, beyond the symbolic row of stakes. All this was in the gloom, while we down there were yet in the sunshine, and the stretch of the river abreast of the clearing glittered in a still and dazzling splendour, with a murky and overshadowed bend above and below. Not a living soul was seen on the shore. The bushes did not rustle. 'Suddenly round the corner of the house a group of men appeared, as though they had come up from the ground. They waded waistdeep in the grass, in a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the land and, as if by enchantment, streams of human beingsof naked human beingswith spears in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the darkfaced and pensive forest. The bushes shook, the grass swayed for a time, and then everything stood still in attentive immobility. ''Now, if he does not say the right thing to them we are all done for,' said the Russian at my elbow. The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped, too, halfway to the steamer, as if petrified. I saw the man on the stretcher sit up, lank and with an uplifted arm, above the shoulders of the bearers. 'Let us hope that the man who can talk so well of love in general will find some particular reason to spare us this time,' I said. I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situation, as if to be at the mercy of that atrocious phantom had been a dishonouring necessity. I could not hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin arm extended commandingly, the lower jaw moving, the eyes of that apparition shining darkly far in its bony head that nodded with grotesque jerks. KurtzKurtzthat means short in Germandon't it? Well, the name was as true as everything else in his lifeand death. He looked at least seven feet long. His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a windingsheet. I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him open his mouth wideit gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. He must have been shouting. He fell back suddenly. The stretcher shook as the bearers staggered forward again, and almost at the same time I noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat, as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration. 'Some of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried his armstwo shotguns, a heavy rifle, and a light revolvercarbinethe thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter. The manager bent over him murmuring as he walked beside his head. They laid him down in one of the little cabinsjust a room for a bed place and a campstool or two, you know. We had brought his belated correspondence, and a lot of torn envelopes and open letters littered his bed. His hand roamed feebly amongst these papers. I was struck by the fire of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression. It was not so much the exhaustion of disease. He did not seem in pain. This shadow looked satiated and calm, as though for the moment it had had its fill of all the emotions. 'He rustled one of the letters, and looking straight in my face said, 'I am glad.' Somebody had been writing to him about me. These special recommendations were turning up again. The volume of tone he emitted without effort, almost without the trouble of moving his lips, amazed me. A voice! a voice! It was grave, profound, vibrating, while the man did not seem capable of a whisper. However, he had enough strength in himfactitious no doubtto very nearly make an end of us, as you shall hear directly. 'The manager appeared silently in the doorway I stepped out at once and he drew the curtain after me. The Russian, eyed curiously by the pilgrims, was staring at the shore. I followed the direction of his glance. 'Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest, and near the river two bronze figures, leaning on tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fantastic headdresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in statuesque repose. And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman. 'She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high her hair was done in the shape of a helmet she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck bizarre things, charms, gifts of witchmen, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wildeyed and magnificent there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul. 'She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us. Her long shadow fell to the water's edge. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, halfshaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. The young fellow by my side growled. The pilgrims murmured at my back. She looked at us all as if her life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance. Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable silence hung over the scene. 'She turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed into the bushes to the left. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of the thickets before she disappeared. ''If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to shoot her,' said the man of patches, nervously. 'I have been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. She got in one day and kicked up a row about those miserable rags I picked up in the storeroom to mend my clothes with. I wasn't decent. At least it must have been that, for she talked like a fury to Kurtz for an hour, pointing at me now and then. I don't understand the dialect of this tribe. Luckily for me, I fancy Kurtz felt too ill that day to care, or there would have been mischief. I don't understand.... Noit's too much for me. Ah, well, it's all over now.' 'At this moment I heard Kurtz's deep voice behind the curtain 'Save me!save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me. Save me! Why, I've had to save you. You are interrupting my plans now. Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe. Never mind. I'll carry my ideas out yetI will return. I'll show you what can be done. You with your little peddling notionsyou are interfering with me. I will return. I....' 'The manager came out. He did me the honour to take me under the arm and lead me aside. 'He is very low, very low,' he said. He considered it necessary to sigh, but neglected to be consistently sorrowful. 'We have done all we could for himhaven't we? But there is no disguising the fact, Mr. Kurtz has done more harm than good to the Company. He did not see the time was not ripe for vigorous action. Cautiously, cautiouslythat's my principle. We must be cautious yet. The district is closed to us for a time. Deplorable! Upon the whole, the trade will suffer. I don't deny there is a remarkable quantity of ivorymostly fossil. We must save it, at all eventsbut look how precarious the position isand why? Because the method is unsound.' 'Do you,' said I, looking at the shore, 'call it 'unsound method?' 'Without doubt,' he exclaimed hotly. 'Don't you?'... 'No method at all,' I murmured after a while. 'Exactly,' he exulted. 'I anticipated this. Shows a complete want of judgment. It is my duty to point it out in the proper quarter.' 'Oh,' said I, 'that fellowwhat's his name?the brickmaker, will make a readable report for you.' He appeared confounded for a moment. It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I turned mentally to Kurtz for reliefpositively for relief. 'Nevertheless I think Mr. Kurtz is a remarkable man,' I said with emphasis. He started, dropped on me a heavy glance, said very quietly, 'he was,' and turned his back on me. My hour of favour was over I found myself lumped along with Kurtz as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe I was unsound! Ah! but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares. 'I had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz, who, I was ready to admit, was as good as buried. And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night.... The Russian tapped me on the shoulder. I heard him mumbling and stammering something about 'brother seamancouldn't concealknowledge of matters that would affect Mr. Kurtz's reputation.' I waited. For him evidently Mr. Kurtz was not in his grave I suspect that for him Mr. Kurtz was one of the immortals. 'Well!' said I at last, 'speak out. As it happens, I am Mr. Kurtz's friendin a way.' 'He stated with a good deal of formality that had we not been 'of the same profession,' he would have kept the matter to himself without regard to consequences. 'He suspected there was an active illwill towards him on the part of these white men that' 'You are right,' I said, remembering a certain conversation I had overheard. 'The manager thinks you ought to be hanged.' He showed a concern at this intelligence which amused me at first. 'I had better get out of the way quietly,' he said earnestly. 'I can do no more for Kurtz now, and they would soon find some excuse. What's to stop them? There's a military post three hundred miles from here.' 'Well, upon my word,' said I, 'perhaps you had better go if you have any friends amongst the savages near by.' 'Plenty,' he said. 'They are simple peopleand I want nothing, you know.' He stood biting his lip, then 'I don't want any harm to happen to these whites here, but of course I was thinking of Mr. Kurtz's reputationbut you are a brother seaman and' 'All right,' said I, after a time. 'Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.' I did not know how truly I spoke. 'He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer. 'He hated sometimes the idea of being taken awayand then again.... But I don't understand these matters. I am a simple man. He thought it would scare you awaythat you would give it up, thinking him dead. I could not stop him. Oh, I had an awful time of it this last month.' 'Very well,' I said. 'He is all right now.' 'Yeees,' he muttered, not very convinced apparently. 'Thanks,' said I 'I shall keep my eyes open.' 'But quieteh?' he urged anxiously. 'It would be awful for his reputation if anybody here' I promised a complete discretion with great gravity. 'I have a canoe and three black fellows waiting not very far. I am off. Could you give me a few MartiniHenry cartridges?' I could, and did, with proper secrecy. He helped himself, with a wink at me, to a handful of my tobacco. 'Between sailorsyou knowgood English tobacco.' At the door of the pilothouse he turned round'I say, haven't you a pair of shoes you could spare?' He raised one leg. 'Look.' The soles were tied with knotted strings sandalwise under his bare feet. I rooted out an old pair, at which he looked with admiration before tucking it under his left arm. One of his pockets (bright red) was bulging with cartridges, from the other (dark blue) peeped 'Towson's Inquiry,' etc., etc. He seemed to think himself excellently well equipped for a renewed encounter with the wilderness. 'Ah! I'll never, never meet such a man again. You ought to have heard him recite poetryhis own, too, it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at the recollection of these delights. 'Oh, he enlarged my mind!' 'Goodbye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night. Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever really seen himwhether it was possible to meet such a phenomenon!... 'When I woke up shortly after midnight his warning came to my mind with its hint of danger that seemed, in the starred darkness, real enough to make me get up for the purpose of having a look round. On the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a crooked corner of the stationhouse. One of the agents with a picket of a few of our blacks, armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory but deep within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that seemed to sink and rise from the ground amongst confused columnar shapes of intense blackness, showed the exact position of the camp where Mr. Kurtz's adorers were keeping their uneasy vigil. The monotonous beating of a big drum filled the air with muffled shocks and a lingering vibration. A steady droning sound of many men chanting each to himself some weird incantation came out from the black, flat wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my halfawake senses. I believe I dozed off leaning over the rail, till an abrupt burst of yells, an overwhelming outbreak of a pentup and mysterious frenzy, woke me up in a bewildered wonder. It was cut short all at once, and the low droning went on with an effect of audible and soothing silence. I glanced casually into the little cabin. A light was burning within, but Mr. Kurtz was not there. 'I think I would have raised an outcry if I had believed my eyes. But I didn't believe them at firstthe thing seemed so impossible. The fact is I was completely unnerved by a sheer blank fright, pure abstract terror, unconnected with any distinct shape of physical danger. What made this emotion so overpowering washow shall I define it?the moral shock I received, as if something altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought and odious to the soul, had been thrust upon me unexpectedly. This lasted of course the merest fraction of a second, and then the usual sense of commonplace, deadly danger, the possibility of a sudden onslaught and massacre, or something of the kind, which I saw impending, was positively welcome and composing. It pacified me, in fact, so much that I did not raise an alarm. 'There was an agent buttoned up inside an ulster and sleeping on a chair on deck within three feet of me. The yells had not awakened him he snored very slightly I left him to his slumbers and leaped ashore. I did not betray Mr. Kurtzit was ordered I should never betray himit was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice. I was anxious to deal with this shadow by myself aloneand to this day I don't know why I was so jealous of sharing with any one the peculiar blackness of that experience. 'As soon as I got on the bank I saw a traila broad trail through the grass. I remember the exultation with which I said to myself, 'He can't walkhe is crawling on allfoursI've got him.' The grass was wet with dew. I strode rapidly with clenched fists. I fancy I had some vague notion of falling upon him and giving him a drubbing. I don't know. I had some imbecile thoughts. The knitting old woman with the cat obtruded herself upon my memory as a most improper person to be sitting at the other end of such an affair. I saw a row of pilgrims squirting lead in the air out of Winchesters held to the hip. I thought I would never get back to the steamer, and imagined myself living alone and unarmed in the woods to an advanced age. Such silly thingsyou know. And I remember I confounded the beat of the drum with the beating of my heart, and was pleased at its calm regularity. 'I kept to the track thoughthen stopped to listen. The night was very clear a dark blue space, sparkling with dew and starlight, in which black things stood very still. I thought I could see a kind of motion ahead of me. I was strangely cocksure of everything that night. I actually left the track and ran in a wide semicircle (I verily believe chuckling to myself) so as to get in front of that stir, of that motion I had seenif indeed I had seen anything. I was circumventing Kurtz as though it had been a boyish game. 'I came upon him, and, if he had not heard me coming, I would have fallen over him, too, but he got up in time. He rose, unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapour exhaled by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me while at my back the fires loomed between the trees, and the murmur of many voices issued from the forest. I had cut him off cleverly but when actually confronting him I seemed to come to my senses, I saw the danger in its right proportion. It was by no means over yet. Suppose he began to shout? Though he could hardly stand, there was still plenty of vigour in his voice. 'Go awayhide yourself,' he said, in that profound tone. It was very awful. I glanced back. We were within thirty yards from the nearest fire. A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms, across the glow. It had hornsantelope horns, I thinkon its head. Some sorcerer, some witchman, no doubt it looked fiendlike enough. 'Do you know what you are doing?' I whispered. 'Perfectly,' he answered, raising his voice for that single word it sounded to me far off and yet loud, like a hail through a speakingtrumpet. 'If he makes a row we are lost,' I thought to myself. This clearly was not a case for fisticuffs, even apart from the very natural aversion I had to beat that Shadowthis wandering and tormented thing. 'You will be lost,' I said'utterly lost.' One gets sometimes such a flash of inspiration, you know. I did say the right thing, though indeed he could not have been more irretrievably lost than he was at this very moment, when the foundations of our intimacy were being laidto endureto endureeven to the endeven beyond. ''I had immense plans,' he muttered irresolutely. 'Yes,' said I 'but if you try to shout I'll smash your head with' There was not a stick or a stone near. 'I will throttle you for good,' I corrected myself. 'I was on the threshold of great things,' he pleaded, in a voice of longing, with a wistfulness of tone that made my blood run cold. 'And now for this stupid scoundrel' 'Your success in Europe is assured in any case,' I affirmed steadily. I did not want to have the throttling of him, you understandand indeed it would have been very little use for any practical purpose. I tried to break the spellthe heavy, mute spell of the wildernessthat seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations. And, don't you see, the terror of the position was not in being knocked on the headthough I had a very lively sense of that danger, toobut in this, that I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in the name of anything high or low. I had, even like the niggers, to invoke himhimselfhis own exalted and incredible degradation. There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! he had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in the air. I've been telling you what we saidrepeating the phrases we pronouncedbut what's the good? They were common everyday wordsthe familiar, vague sounds exchanged on every waking day of life. But what of that? They had behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul! If anybody ever struggled with a soul, I am the man. And I wasn't arguing with a lunatic either. Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clearconcentrated, it is true, upon himself with horrible intensity, yet clear and therein was my only chancebarring, of course, the killing him there and then, which wasn't so good, on account of unavoidable noise. But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. I hadfor my sins, I supposeto go through the ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could have been so withering to one's belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity. He struggled with himself, too. I saw itI heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself. I kept my head pretty well but when I had him at last stretched on the couch, I wiped my forehead, while my legs shook under me as though I had carried half a ton on my back down that hill. And yet I had only supported him, his bony arm clasped round my neckand he was not much heavier than a child. 'When next day we left at noon, the crowd, of whose presence behind the curtain of trees I had been acutely conscious all the time, flowed out of the woods again, filled the clearing, covered the slope with a mass of naked, breathing, quivering, bronze bodies. I steamed up a bit, then swung down stream, and two thousand eyes followed the evolutions of the splashing, thumping, fierce riverdemon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air. In front of the first rank, along the river, three men, plastered with bright red earth from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly. When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies they shook towards the fierce riverdemon a bunch of black feathers, a mangy skin with a pendent tailsomething that looked a dried gourd they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language and the deep murmurs of the crowd, interrupted suddenly, were like the responses of some satanic litany. 'We had carried Kurtz into the pilothouse there was more air there. Lying on the couch, he stared through the open shutter. There was an eddy in the mass of human bodies, and the woman with helmeted head and tawny cheeks rushed out to the very brink of the stream. She put out her hands, shouted something, and all that wild mob took up the shout in a roaring chorus of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance. ''Do you understand this?' I asked. 'He kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with a mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer, but I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear on his colourless lips that a moment after twitched convulsively. 'Do I not?' he said slowly, gasping, as if the words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power. 'I pulled the string of the whistle, and I did this because I saw the pilgrims on deck getting out their rifles with an air of anticipating a jolly lark. At the sudden screech there was a movement of abject terror through that wedged mass of bodies. 'Don't! don't you frighten them away,' cried some one on deck disconsolately. I pulled the string time after time. They broke and ran, they leaped, they crouched, they swerved, they dodged the flying terror of the sound. The three red chaps had fallen flat, face down on the shore, as though they had been shot dead. Only the barbarous and superb woman did not so much as flinch, and stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the sombre and glittering river. 'And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke. 'The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress and Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. The manager was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, he took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance the 'affair' had come off as well as could be wished. I saw the time approaching when I would be left alone of the party of 'unsound method.' The pilgrims looked upon me with disfavour. I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead. It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me in the tenebrous land invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms. 'Kurtz discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to the very last. It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled! he struggled! The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images nowimages of wealth and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression. My Intended, my station, my career, my ideasthese were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mould of primeval earth. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries it had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power. 'Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet him at railwaystations on his return from some ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things. 'You show them you have in you something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,' he would say. 'Of course you must take care of the motivesright motivesalways.' The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings. I looked aheadpiloting. 'Close the shutter,' said Kurtz suddenly one day 'I can't bear to look at this.' I did so. There was a silence. 'Oh, but I will wring your heart yet!' he cried at the invisible wilderness. 'We broke downas I had expectedand had to lie up for repairs at the head of an island. This delay was the first thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a photographthe lot tied together with a shoestring. 'Keep this for me,' he said. 'This noxious fool' (meaning the manager) 'is capable of prying into my boxes when I am not looking.' In the afternoon I saw him. He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, but I heard him mutter, 'Live rightly, die, die...' I listened. There was nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, or was it a fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article? He had been writing for the papers and meant to do so again, 'for the furthering of my ideas. It's a duty.' 'His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. But I had not much time to give him, because I was helping the enginedriver to take to pieces the leaky cylinders, to straighten a bent connectingrod, and in other such matters. I lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers, ratchetdrillsthings I abominate, because I don't get on with them. I tended the little forge we fortunately had aboard I toiled wearily in a wretched scrapheapunless I had the shakes too bad to stand. 'One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.' The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, 'Oh, nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed. 'Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terrorof an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some visionhe cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath ''The horror! The horror!' 'I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the messroom, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt ''Mistah Kurtzhe dead.' 'All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner. I believe I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat much. There was a lamp in therelight, don't you knowand outside it was so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there? But I am of course aware that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy hole. 'And then they very nearly buried me. 'However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then. I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life isthat mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourselfthat comes too latea crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed uphe had judged. 'The horror!' He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief it had candour, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truththe strange commingling of desire and hate. And it is not my own extremity I remember besta vision of greyness without form filled with physical pain, and a careless contempt for the evanescence of all thingseven of this pain itself. No! It is his extremity that I seem to have lived through. True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summingup would not have been a word of careless contempt. Better his crymuch better. It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory! That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond, when a long time after I heard once more, not his own voice, but the echo of his magnificent eloquence thrown to me from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal. 'No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire. I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance. I daresay I was not very well at that time. I tottered about the streetsthere were various affairs to settlegrinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behaviour was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days. My dear aunt's endeavours to 'nurse up my strength' seemed altogether beside the mark. It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing. I kept the bundle of papers given me by Kurtz, not knowing exactly what to do with it. His mother had died lately, watched over, as I was told, by his Intended. A cleanshaved man, with an official manner and wearing goldrimmed spectacles, called on me one day and made inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing, about what he was pleased to denominate certain 'documents.' I was not surprised, because I had had two rows with the manager on the subject out there. I had refused to give up the smallest scrap out of that package, and I took the same attitude with the spectacled man. He became darkly menacing at last, and with much heat argued that the Company had the right to every bit of information about its 'territories.' And said he, 'Mr. Kurtz's knowledge of unexplored regions must have been necessarily extensive and peculiarowing to his great abilities and to the deplorable circumstances in which he had been placed therefore' I assured him Mr. Kurtz's knowledge, however extensive, did not bear upon the problems of commerce or administration. He invoked then the name of science. 'It would be an incalculable loss if,' etc., etc. I offered him the report on the 'Suppression of Savage Customs,' with the postscriptum torn off. He took it up eagerly, but ended by sniffing at it with an air of contempt. 'This is not what we had a right to expect,' he remarked. 'Expect nothing else,' I said. 'There are only private letters.' He withdrew upon some threat of legal proceedings, and I saw him no more but another fellow, calling himself Kurtz's cousin, appeared two days later, and was anxious to hear all the details about his dear relative's last moments. Incidentally he gave me to understand that Kurtz had been essentially a great musician. 'There was the making of an immense success,' said the man, who was an organist, I believe, with lank grey hair flowing over a greasy coatcollar. I had no reason to doubt his statement and to this day I am unable to say what was Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had anywhich was the greatest of his talents. I had taken him for a painter who wrote for the papers, or else for a journalist who could paintbut even the cousin (who took snuff during the interview) could not tell me what he had beenexactly. He was a universal geniuson that point I agreed with the old chap, who thereupon blew his nose noisily into a large cotton handkerchief and withdrew in senile agitation, bearing off some family letters and memoranda without importance. Ultimately a journalist anxious to know something of the fate of his 'dear colleague' turned up. This visitor informed me Kurtz's proper sphere ought to have been politics 'on the popular side.' He had furry straight eyebrows, bristly hair cropped short, an eyeglass on a broad ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed his opinion that Kurtz really couldn't write a bit'but heavens! how that man could talk. He electrified large meetings. He had faithdon't you see?he had the faith. He could get himself to believe anythinganything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.' 'What party?' I asked. 'Any party,' answered the other. 'He was ananextremist.' Did I not think so? I assented. Did I know, he asked, with a sudden flash of curiosity, 'what it was that had induced him to go out there?' 'Yes,' said I, and forthwith handed him the famous Report for publication, if he thought fit. He glanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged 'it would do,' and took himself off with this plunder. 'Thus I was left at last with a slim packet of letters and the girl's portrait. She struck me as beautifulI mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made to lie, too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features. She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation, without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I concluded I would go and give her back her portrait and those letters myself. Curiosity? Yes and also some other feeling perhaps. All that had been Kurtz's had passed out of my hands his soul, his body, his station, his plans, his ivory, his career. There remained only his memory and his Intendedand I wanted to give that up, too, to the past, in a wayto surrender personally all that remained of him with me to that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. I don't defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it was I really wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty, or the fulfilment of one of those ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence. I don't know. I can't tell. But I went. 'I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that accumulate in every man's lifea vague impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and final passage but before the high and ponderous door, between the tall houses of a street as still and decorous as a wellkept alley in a cemetery, I had a vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. He lived then before me he lived as much as he had ever liveda shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house with methe stretcher, the phantombearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heartthe heart of a conquering darkness. It was a moment of triumph for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush which, it seemed to me, I would have to keep back alone for the salvation of another soul. And the memory of what I had heard him say afar there, with the horned shapes stirring at my back, in the glow of fires, within the patient woods, those broken phrases came back to me, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying simplicity. I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on I seemed to see his collected languid manner, when he said one day, 'This lot of ivory now is really mine. The Company did not pay for it. I collected it myself at a very great personal risk. I am afraid they will try to claim it as theirs though. H'm. It is a difficult case. What do you think I ought to doresist? Eh? I want no more than justice.'... He wanted no more than justiceno more than justice. I rang the bell before a mahogany door on the first floor, and while I waited he seemed to stare at me out of the glassy panelstare with that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all the universe. I seemed to hear the whispered cry, 'The horror! The horror! 'The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawingroom with three long windows from floor to ceiling that were like three luminous and bedraped columns. The bent gilt legs and backs of the furniture shone in indistinct curves. The tall marble fireplace had a cold and monumental whiteness. A grand piano stood massively in a corner with dark gleams on the flat surfaces like a sombre and polished sarcophagus. A high door openedclosed. I rose. 'She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning. It was more than a year since his death, more than a year since the news came she seemed as though she would remember and mourn forever. She took both my hands in hers and murmured, 'I had heard you were coming.' I noticed she was not very youngI mean not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. She carried her sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow, as though she would say, 'II alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterdaynay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of timehis death and her sorrowI saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them togetherI heard them together. She had said, with a deep catch of the breath, 'I have survived' while my strained ears seemed to hear distinctly, mingled with her tone of despairing regret, the summing up whisper of his eternal condemnation. I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold. She motioned me to a chair. We sat down. I laid the packet gently on the little table, and she put her hand over it.... 'You knew him well,' she murmured, after a moment of mourning silence. ''Intimacy grows quickly out there,' I said. 'I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another.' ''And you admired him,' she said. 'It was impossible to know him and not to admire him. Was it?' ''He was a remarkable man,' I said, unsteadily. Then before the appealing fixity of her gaze, that seemed to watch for more words on my lips, I went on, 'It was impossible not to' ''Love him,' she finished eagerly, silencing me into an appalled dumbness. 'How true! how true! But when you think that no one knew him so well as I! I had all his noble confidence. I knew him best.' ''You knew him best,' I repeated. And perhaps she did. But with every word spoken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illumined by the inextinguishable light of belief and love. ''You were his friend,' she went on. 'His friend,' she repeated, a little louder. 'You must have been, if he had given you this, and sent you to me. I feel I can speak to youand oh! I must speak. I want youyou who have heard his last wordsto know I have been worthy of him.... It is not pride.... Yes! I am proud to know I understood him better than any one on earthhe told me so himself. And since his mother died I have had no oneno onetoto' 'I listened. The darkness deepened. I was not even sure whether he had given me the right bundle. I rather suspect he wanted me to take care of another batch of his papers which, after his death, I saw the manager examining under the lamp. And the girl talked, easing her pain in the certitude of my sympathy she talked as thirsty men drink. I had heard that her engagement with Kurtz had been disapproved by her people. He wasn't rich enough or something. And indeed I don't know whether he had not been a pauper all his life. He had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there. ''... Who was not his friend who had heard him speak once?' she was saying. 'He drew men towards him by what was best in them.' She looked at me with intensity. 'It is the gift of the great,' she went on, and the sound of her low voice seemed to have the accompaniment of all the other sounds, full of mystery, desolation, and sorrow, I had ever heardthe ripple of the river, the soughing of the trees swayed by the wind, the murmurs of the crowds, the faint ring of incomprehensible words cried from afar, the whisper of a voice speaking from beyond the threshold of an eternal darkness. 'But you have heard him! You know!' she cried. ''Yes, I know,' I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended herfrom which I could not even defend myself. ''What a loss to meto us!'she corrected herself with beautiful generosity then added in a murmur, 'To the world.' By the last gleams of twilight I could see the glitter of her eyes, full of tearsof tears that would not fall. ''I have been very happyvery fortunatevery proud,' she went on. 'Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy forfor life.' 'She stood up her fair hair seemed to catch all the remaining light in a glimmer of gold. I rose, too. ''And of all this,' she went on mournfully, 'of all his promise, and of all his greatness, of his generous mind, of his noble heart, nothing remainsnothing but a memory. You and I' ''We shall always remember him,' I said hastily. ''No!' she cried. 'It is impossible that all this should be lostthat such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothingbut sorrow. You know what vast plans he had. I knew of them, tooI could not perhaps understandbut others knew of them. Something must remain. His words, at least, have not died.' ''His words will remain,' I said. ''And his example,' she whispered to herself. 'Men looked up to himhis goodness shone in every act. His example' ''True,' I said 'his example, too. Yes, his example. I forgot that.' ''But I do not. I cannotI cannot believenot yet. I cannot believe that I shall never see him again, that nobody will see him again, never, never, never.' 'She put out her arms as if after a retreating figure, stretching them back and with clasped pale hands across the fading and narrow sheen of the window. Never see him! I saw him clearly enough then. I shall see this eloquent phantom as long as I live, and I shall see her, too, a tragic and familiar Shade, resembling in this gesture another one, tragic also, and bedecked with powerless charms, stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream, the stream of darkness. She said suddenly very low, 'He died as he lived.' ''His end,' said I, with dull anger stirring in me, 'was in every way worthy of his life.' ''And I was not with him,' she murmured. My anger subsided before a feeling of infinite pity. ''Everything that could be done' I mumbled. ''Ah, but I believed in him more than any one on earthmore than his own mother, more thanhimself. He needed me! Me! I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance.' 'I felt like a chill grip on my chest. 'Don't,' I said, in a muffled voice. ''Forgive me. II have mourned so long in silencein silence.... You were with himto the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear....' ''To the very end,' I said, shakily. 'I heard his very last words....' I stopped in a fright. ''Repeat them,' she murmured in a heartbroken tone. 'I wantI wantsomethingsomethingtoto live with.' 'I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. 'The horror! The horror!' ''His last wordto live with,' she insisted. 'Don't you understand I loved himI loved himI loved him!' 'I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. ''The last word he pronounced wasyour name.' 'I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. 'I knew itI was sure!'... She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping she had hidden her face in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too darktoo dark altogether.... Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. 'We have lost the first of the ebb, said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast skyseemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his eldest son to watch but about twelve o'clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was ordered to watch and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch but the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come to him however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener's son jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than all the wealth of the kingdom but the king said, 'One feather is of no use to me, I must have the whole bird.' Then the gardener's eldest son set out and thought to find the golden bird very easily and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting so he took his bow and made ready to shoot at it. Then the fox said, 'Do not shoot me, for I will give you good counsel I know what your business is, and that you want to find the golden bird. You will reach a village in the evening and when you get there, you will see two inns opposite to each other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at go not in there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you to be very poor and mean.' But the son thought to himself, 'What can such a beast as this know about the matter?' So he shot his arrow at the fox but he missed it, and it set up its tail above its back and ran into the wood. Then he went his way, and in the evening came to the village where the two inns were and in one of these were people singing, and dancing, and feasting but the other looked very dirty, and poor. 'I should be very silly,' said he, 'if I went to that shabby house, and left this charming place' so he went into the smart house, and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird, and his country too. Time passed on and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice but when he came to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in and he could not withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and his country in the same manner. Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into the wide world to seek for the golden bird but his father would not listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent his coming back. However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would not rest at home and as he came to the wood, he met the fox, and heard the same good counsel. But he was thankful to the fox, and did not attempt his life as his brothers had done so the fox said, 'Sit upon my tail, and you will travel faster.' So he sat down, and the fox began to run, and away they went over stock and stone so quick that their hair whistled in the wind. When they came to the village, the son followed the fox's counsel, and without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all night at his ease. In the morning came the fox again and met him as he was beginning his journey, and said, 'Go straight forward, till you come to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and snoring take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage close by it stands a beautiful golden cage but do not try to take the bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise you will repent it.' Then the fox stretched out his tail again, and the young man sat himself down, and away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled in the wind. Before the castle gate all was as the fox had said so the son went in and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, 'It will be a very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage' so he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and they took him prisoner and carried him before the king. The next morning the court sat to judge him and when all was heard, it sentenced him to die, unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as swiftly as the wind and if he did this, he was to have the golden bird given him for his own. So he set out once more on his journey, sighing, and in great despair, when on a sudden his friend the fox met him, and said, 'You see now what has happened on account of your not listening to my counsel. I will still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse, if you will do as I bid you. You must go straight on till you come to the castle where the horse stands in his stall by his side will lie the groom fast asleep and snoring take away the horse quietly, but be sure to put the old leathern saddle upon him, and not the golden one that is close by it.' Then the son sat down on the fox's tail, and away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled in the wind. All went right, and the groom lay snoring with his hand upon the golden saddle. But when the son looked at the horse, he thought it a great pity to put the leathern saddle upon it. 'I will give him the good one,' said he 'I am sure he deserves it.' As he took up the golden saddle the groom awoke and cried out so loud, that all the guards ran in and took him prisoner, and in the morning he was again brought before the court to be judged, and was sentenced to die. But it was agreed, that, if he could bring thither the beautiful princess, he should live, and have the bird and the horse given him for his own. Then he went his way very sorrowful but the old fox came and said, 'Why did not you listen to me? If you had, you would have carried away both the bird and the horse yet will I once more give you counsel. Go straight on, and in the evening you will arrive at a castle. At twelve o'clock at night the princess goes to the bathinghouse go up to her and give her a kiss, and she will let you lead her away but take care you do not suffer her to go and take leave of her father and mother.' Then the fox stretched out his tail, and so away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled again. As they came to the castle, all was as the fox had said, and at twelve o'clock the young man met the princess going to the bath and gave her the kiss, and she agreed to run away with him, but begged with many tears that he would let her take leave of her father. At first he refused, but she wept still more and more, and fell at his feet, till at last he consented but the moment she came to her father's house the guards awoke and he was taken prisoner again. Then he was brought before the king, and the king said, 'You shall never have my daughter unless in eight days you dig away the hill that stops the view from my window.' Now this hill was so big that the whole world could not take it away and when he had worked for seven days, and had done very little, the fox came and said. 'Lie down and go to sleep I will work for you.' And in the morning he awoke and the hill was gone so he went merrily to the king, and told him that now that it was removed he must give him the princess. Then the king was obliged to keep his word, and away went the young man and the princess and the fox came and said to him, 'We will have all three, the princess, the horse, and the bird.' 'Ah!' said the young man, 'that would be a great thing, but how can you contrive it?' 'If you will only listen,' said the fox, 'it can be done. When you come to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, 'Here she is! Then he will be very joyful and you will mount the golden horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to take leave of them but shake hands with the princess last. Then lift her quickly on to the horse behind you clap your spurs to his side, and gallop away as fast as you can.' All went right then the fox said, 'When you come to the castle where the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door, and you will ride in and speak to the king and when he sees that it is the right horse, he will bring out the bird but you must sit still, and say that you want to look at it, to see whether it is the true golden bird and when you get it into your hand, ride away.' This, too, happened as the fox said they carried off the bird, the princess mounted again, and they rode on to a great wood. Then the fox came, and said, 'Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.' But the young man refused to do it so the fox said, 'I will at any rate give you good counsel beware of two things ransom no one from the gallows, and sit down by the side of no river.' Then away he went. 'Well,' thought the young man, 'it is no hard matter to keep that advice.' He rode on with the princess, till at last he came to the village where he had left his two brothers. And there he heard a great noise and uproar and when he asked what was the matter, the people said, 'Two men are going to be hanged.' As he came nearer, he saw that the two men were his brothers, who had turned robbers so he said, 'Cannot they in any way be saved?' But the people said 'No,' unless he would bestow all his money upon the rascals and buy their liberty. Then he did not stay to think about the matter, but paid what was asked, and his brothers were given up, and went on with him towards their home. And as they came to the wood where the fox first met them, it was so cool and pleasant that the two brothers said, 'Let us sit down by the side of the river, and rest a while, to eat and drink.' So he said, 'Yes,' and forgot the fox's counsel, and sat down on the side of the river and while he suspected nothing, they came behind, and threw him down the bank, and took the princess, the horse, and the bird, and went home to the king their master, and said. 'All this have we won by our labour.' Then there was great rejoicing made but the horse would not eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess wept. The youngest son fell to the bottom of the river's bed luckily it was nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken, and the bank was so steep that he could find no way to get out. Then the old fox came once more, and scolded him for not following his advice otherwise no evil would have befallen him 'Yet,' said he, 'I cannot leave you here, so lay hold of my tail and hold fast.' Then he pulled him out of the river, and said to him, as he got upon the bank, 'Your brothers have set watch to kill you, if they find you in the kingdom.' So he dressed himself as a poor man, and came secretly to the king's court, and was scarcely within the doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess left off weeping. Then he went to the king, and told him all his brothers' roguery and they were seized and punished, and he had the princess given to him again and after the king's death he was heir to his kingdom. A long while after, he went to walk one day in the wood, and the old fox met him, and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him, and cut off his head and feet. And at last he did so, and in a moment the fox was changed into a man, and turned out to be the brother of the princess, who had been lost a great many many years. Some men are born to good luck all they do or try to do comes rightall that falls to them is so much gainall their geese are swansall their cards are trumpstoss them which way you will, they will always, like poor puss, alight upon their legs, and only move on so much the faster. The world may very likely not always think of them as they think of themselves, but what care they for the world? what can it know about the matter? One of these lucky beings was neighbour Hans. Seven long years he had worked hard for his master. At last he said, 'Master, my time is up I must go home and see my poor mother once more so pray pay me my wages and let me go.' And the master said, 'You have been a faithful and good servant, Hans, so your pay shall be handsome.' Then he gave him a lump of silver as big as his head. Hans took out his pockethandkerchief, put the piece of silver into it, threw it over his shoulder, and jogged off on his road homewards. As he went lazily on, dragging one foot after another, a man came in sight, trotting gaily along on a capital horse. 'Ah!' said Hans aloud, 'what a fine thing it is to ride on horseback! There he sits as easy and happy as if he was at home, in the chair by his fireside he trips against no stones, saves shoeleather, and gets on he hardly knows how.' Hans did not speak so softly but the horseman heard it all, and said, 'Well, friend, why do you go on foot then?' 'Ah!' said he, 'I have this load to carry to be sure it is silver, but it is so heavy that I can't hold up my head, and you must know it hurts my shoulder sadly.' 'What do you say of making an exchange?' said the horseman. 'I will give you my horse, and you shall give me the silver which will save you a great deal of trouble in carrying such a heavy load about with you.' 'With all my heart,' said Hans 'but as you are so kind to me, I must tell you one thingyou will have a weary task to draw that silver about with you.' However, the horseman got off, took the silver, helped Hans up, gave him the bridle into one hand and the whip into the other, and said, 'When you want to go very fast, smack your lips loudly together, and cry 'Jip!' Hans was delighted as he sat on the horse, drew himself up, squared his elbows, turned out his toes, cracked his whip, and rode merrily off, one minute whistling a merry tune, and another singing, 'No care and no sorrow, A fig for the morrow! We'll laugh and be merry, Sing neigh down derry!' After a time he thought he should like to go a little faster, so he smacked his lips and cried 'Jip!' Away went the horse full gallop and before Hans knew what he was about, he was thrown off, and lay on his back by the roadside. His horse would have ran off, if a shepherd who was coming by, driving a cow, had not stopped it. Hans soon came to himself, and got upon his legs again, sadly vexed, and said to the shepherd, 'This riding is no joke, when a man has the luck to get upon a beast like this that stumbles and flings him off as if it would break his neck. However, I'm off now once for all I like your cow now a great deal better than this smart beast that played me this trick, and has spoiled my best coat, you see, in this puddle which, by the by, smells not very like a nosegay. One can walk along at one's leisure behind that cowkeep good company, and have milk, butter, and cheese, every day, into the bargain. What would I give to have such a prize!' 'Well,' said the shepherd, 'if you are so fond of her, I will change my cow for your horse I like to do good to my neighbours, even though I lose by it myself.' 'Done!' said Hans, merrily. 'What a noble heart that good man has!' thought he. Then the shepherd jumped upon the horse, wished Hans and the cow good morning, and away he rode. Hans brushed his coat, wiped his face and hands, rested a while, and then drove off his cow quietly, and thought his bargain a very lucky one. 'If I have only a piece of bread (and I certainly shall always be able to get that), I can, whenever I like, eat my butter and cheese with it and when I am thirsty I can milk my cow and drink the milk and what can I wish for more?' When he came to an inn, he halted, ate up all his bread, and gave away his last penny for a glass of beer. When he had rested himself he set off again, driving his cow towards his mother's village. But the heat grew greater as soon as noon came on, till at last, as he found himself on a wide heath that would take him more than an hour to cross, he began to be so hot and parched that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. 'I can find a cure for this,' thought he 'now I will milk my cow and quench my thirst' so he tied her to the stump of a tree, and held his leathern cap to milk into but not a drop was to be had. Who would have thought that this cow, which was to bring him milk and butter and cheese, was all that time utterly dry? Hans had not thought of looking to that. While he was trying his luck in milking, and managing the matter very clumsily, the uneasy beast began to think him very troublesome and at last gave him such a kick on the head as knocked him down and there he lay a long while senseless. Luckily a butcher soon came by, driving a pig in a wheelbarrow. 'What is the matter with you, my man?' said the butcher, as he helped him up. Hans told him what had happened, how he was dry, and wanted to milk his cow, but found the cow was dry too. Then the butcher gave him a flask of ale, saying, 'There, drink and refresh yourself your cow will give you no milk don't you see she is an old beast, good for nothing but the slaughterhouse?' 'Alas, alas!' said Hans, 'who would have thought it? What a shame to take my horse, and give me only a dry cow! If I kill her, what will she be good for? I hate cowbeef it is not tender enough for me. If it were a pig nowlike that fat gentleman you are driving along at his easeone could do something with it it would at any rate make sausages.' 'Well,' said the butcher, 'I don't like to say no, when one is asked to do a kind, neighbourly thing. To please you I will change, and give you my fine fat pig for the cow.' 'Heaven reward you for your kindness and selfdenial!' said Hans, as he gave the butcher the cow and taking the pig off the wheelbarrow, drove it away, holding it by the string that was tied to its leg. So on he jogged, and all seemed now to go right with him he had met with some misfortunes, to be sure but he was now well repaid for all. How could it be otherwise with such a travelling companion as he had at last got? The next man he met was a countryman carrying a fine white goose. The countryman stopped to ask what was o'clock this led to further chat and Hans told him all his luck, how he had so many good bargains, and how all the world went gay and smiling with him. The countryman then began to tell his tale, and said he was going to take the goose to a christening. 'Feel,' said he, 'how heavy it is, and yet it is only eight weeks old. Whoever roasts and eats it will find plenty of fat upon it, it has lived so well!' 'You're right,' said Hans, as he weighed it in his hand 'but if you talk of fat, my pig is no trifle.' Meantime the countryman began to look grave, and shook his head. 'Hark ye!' said he, 'my worthy friend, you seem a good sort of fellow, so I can't help doing you a kind turn. Your pig may get you into a scrape. In the village I just came from, the squire has had a pig stolen out of his sty. I was dreadfully afraid when I saw you that you had got the squire's pig. If you have, and they catch you, it will be a bad job for you. The least they will do will be to throw you into the horsepond. Can you swim?' Poor Hans was sadly frightened. 'Good man,' cried he, 'pray get me out of this scrape. I know nothing of where the pig was either bred or born but he may have been the squire's for aught I can tell you know this country better than I do, take my pig and give me the goose.' 'I ought to have something into the bargain,' said the countryman 'give a fat goose for a pig, indeed! 'Tis not everyone would do so much for you as that. However, I will not be hard upon you, as you are in trouble.' Then he took the string in his hand, and drove off the pig by a side path while Hans went on the way homewards free from care. 'After all,' thought he, 'that chap is pretty well taken in. I don't care whose pig it is, but wherever it came from it has been a very good friend to me. I have much the best of the bargain. First there will be a capital roast then the fat will find me in goosegrease for six months and then there are all the beautiful white feathers. I will put them into my pillow, and then I am sure I shall sleep soundly without rocking. How happy my mother will be! Talk of a pig, indeed! Give me a fine fat goose.' As he came to the next village, he saw a scissorgrinder with his wheel, working and singing, 'O'er hill and o'er dale So happy I roam, Work light and live well, All the world is my home Then who so blythe, so merry as I?' Hans stood looking on for a while, and at last said, 'You must be well off, master grinder! you seem so happy at your work.' 'Yes,' said the other, 'mine is a golden trade a good grinder never puts his hand into his pocket without finding money in itbut where did you get that beautiful goose?' 'I did not buy it, I gave a pig for it.' 'And where did you get the pig?' 'I gave a cow for it.' 'And the cow?' 'I gave a horse for it.' 'And the horse?' 'I gave a lump of silver as big as my head for it.' 'And the silver?' 'Oh! I worked hard for that seven long years.' 'You have thriven well in the world hitherto,' said the grinder, 'now if you could find money in your pocket whenever you put your hand in it, your fortune would be made.' 'Very true but how is that to be managed?' 'How? Why, you must turn grinder like myself,' said the other 'you only want a grindstone the rest will come of itself. Here is one that is but little the worse for wear I would not ask more than the value of your goose for itwill you buy?' 'How can you ask?' said Hans 'I should be the happiest man in the world, if I could have money whenever I put my hand in my pocket what could I want more? there's the goose.' 'Now,' said the grinder, as he gave him a common rough stone that lay by his side, 'this is a most capital stone do but work it well enough, and you can make an old nail cut with it.' Hans took the stone, and went his way with a light heart his eyes sparkled for joy, and he said to himself, 'Surely I must have been born in a lucky hour everything I could want or wish for comes of itself. People are so kind they seem really to think I do them a favour in letting them make me rich, and giving me good bargains.' Meantime he began to be tired, and hungry too, for he had given away his last penny in his joy at getting the cow. At last he could go no farther, for the stone tired him sadly and he dragged himself to the side of a river, that he might take a drink of water, and rest a while. So he laid the stone carefully by his side on the bank but, as he stooped down to drink, he forgot it, pushed it a little, and down it rolled, plump into the stream. For a while he watched it sinking in the deep clear water then sprang up and danced for joy, and again fell upon his knees and thanked Heaven, with tears in his eyes, for its kindness in taking away his only plague, the ugly heavy stone. 'How happy am I!' cried he 'nobody was ever so lucky as I.' Then up he got with a light heart, free from all his troubles, and walked on till he reached his mother's house, and told her how very easy the road to good luck was. There was once an old castle, that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. Now this fairy could take any shape she pleased. All the day long she flew about in the form of an owl, or crept about the country like a cat but at night she always became an old woman again. When any young man came within a hundred paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step till she came and set him free which she would not do till he had given her his word never to come there again but when any pretty maiden came within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with beautiful birds in them. Now there was once a maiden whose name was Jorinda. She was prettier than all the pretty girls that ever were seen before, and a shepherd lad, whose name was Jorindel, was very fond of her, and they were soon to be married. One day they went to walk in the wood, that they might be alone and Jorindel said, 'We must take care that we don't go too near to the fairy's castle.' It was a beautiful evening the last rays of the setting sun shone bright through the long stems of the trees upon the green underwood beneath, and the turtledoves sang from the tall birches. Jorinda sat down to gaze upon the sun Jorindel sat by her side and both felt sad, they knew not why but it seemed as if they were to be parted from one another for ever. They had wandered a long way and when they looked to see which way they should go home, they found themselves at a loss to know what path to take. The sun was setting fast, and already half of its circle had sunk behind the hill Jorindel on a sudden looked behind him, and saw through the bushes that they had, without knowing it, sat down close under the old walls of the castle. Then he shrank for fear, turned pale, and trembled. Jorinda was just singing, when her song stopped suddenly. Jorindel turned to see the reason, and beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended with a mournful jug, jug. An owl with fiery eyes flew three times round them, and three times screamed Jorindel could not move he stood fixed as a stone, and could neither weep, nor speak, nor stir hand or foot. And now the sun went quite down the gloomy night came the owl flew into a bush and a moment after the old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and chin that almost met one another. She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away with it in her hand. Poor Jorindel saw the nightingale was gonebut what could he do? He could not speak, he could not move from the spot where he stood. At last the fairy came back and sang with a hoarse voice On a sudden Jorindel found himself free. Then he fell on his knees before the fairy, and prayed her to give him back his dear Jorinda but she laughed at him, and said he should never see her again then she went her way. He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. 'Alas!' he said, 'what will become of me?' He could not go back to his own home, so he went to a strange village, and employed himself in keeping sheep. Many a time did he walk round and round as near to the hated castle as he dared go, but all in vain he heard or saw nothing of Jorinda. At last he dreamt one night that he found a beautiful purple flower, and that in the middle of it lay a costly pearl and he dreamt that he plucked the flower, and went with it in his hand into the castle, and that everything he touched with it was disenchanted, and that there he found his Jorinda again. In the morning when he awoke, he began to search over hill and dale for this pretty flower and eight long days he sought for it in vain but on the ninth day, early in the morning, he found the beautiful purple flower and in the middle of it was a large dewdrop, as big as a costly pearl. Then he plucked the flower, and set out and travelled day and night, till he came again to the castle. He walked nearer than a hundred paces to it, and yet he did not become fixed as before, but found that he could go quite close up to the door. Jorindel was very glad indeed to see this. Then he touched the door with the flower, and it sprang open so that he went in through the court, and listened when he heard so many birds singing. At last he came to the chamber where the fairy sat, with the seven hundred birds singing in the seven hundred cages. When she saw Jorindel she was very angry, and screamed with rage but she could not come within two yards of him, for the flower he held in his hand was his safeguard. He looked around at the birds, but alas! there were many, many nightingales, and how then should he find out which was his Jorinda? While he was thinking what to do, he saw the fairy had taken down one of the cages, and was making the best of her way off through the door. He ran or flew after her, touched the cage with the flower, and Jorinda stood before him, and threw her arms round his neck looking as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as when they walked together in the wood. Then he touched all the other birds with the flower, so that they all took their old forms again and he took Jorinda home, where they were married, and lived happily together many years and so did a good many other lads, whose maidens had been forced to sing in the old fairy's cages by themselves, much longer than they liked. An honest farmer had once an ass that had been a faithful servant to him a great many years, but was now growing old and every day more and more unfit for work. His master therefore was tired of keeping him and began to think of putting an end to him but the ass, who saw that some mischief was in the wind, took himself slyly off, and began his journey towards the great city, 'For there,' thought he, 'I may turn musician.' After he had travelled a little way, he spied a dog lying by the roadside and panting as if he were tired. 'What makes you pant so, my friend?' said the ass. 'Alas!' said the dog, 'my master was going to knock me on the head, because I am old and weak, and can no longer make myself useful to him in hunting so I ran away but what can I do to earn my livelihood?' 'Hark ye!' said the ass, 'I am going to the great city to turn musician suppose you go with me, and try what you can do in the same way?' The dog said he was willing, and they jogged on together. They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face. 'Pray, my good lady,' said the ass, 'what's the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!' 'Ah, me!' said the cat, 'how can one be in good spirits when one's life is in danger? Because I am beginning to grow old, and had rather lie at my ease by the fire than run about the house after the mice, my mistress laid hold of me, and was going to drown me and though I have been lucky enough to get away from her, I do not know what I am to live upon.' 'Oh,' said the ass, 'by all means go with us to the great city you are a good night singer, and may make your fortune as a musician.' The cat was pleased with the thought, and joined the party. Soon afterwards, as they were passing by a farmyard, they saw a cock perched upon a gate, and screaming out with all his might and main. 'Bravo!' said the ass 'upon my word, you make a famous noise pray what is all this about?' 'Why,' said the cock, 'I was just now saying that we should have fine weather for our washingday, and yet my mistress and the cook don't thank me for my pains, but threaten to cut off my head tomorrow, and make broth of me for the guests that are coming on Sunday!' 'Heaven forbid!' said the ass, 'come with us Master Chanticleer it will be better, at any rate, than staying here to have your head cut off! Besides, who knows? If we care to sing in tune, we may get up some kind of a concert so come along with us.' 'With all my heart,' said the cock so they all four went on jollily together. They could not, however, reach the great city the first day so when night came on, they went into a wood to sleep. The ass and the dog laid themselves down under a great tree, and the cat climbed up into the branches while the cock, thinking that the higher he sat the safer he should be, flew up to the very top of the tree, and then, according to his custom, before he went to sleep, looked out on all sides of him to see that everything was well. In doing this, he saw afar off something bright and shining and calling to his companions said, 'There must be a house no great way off, for I see a light.' 'If that be the case,' said the ass, 'we had better change our quarters, for our lodging is not the best in the world!' 'Besides,' added the dog, 'I should not be the worse for a bone or two, or a bit of meat.' So they walked off together towards the spot where Chanticleer had seen the light, and as they drew near it became larger and brighter, till they at last came close to a house in which a gang of robbers lived. The ass, being the tallest of the company, marched up to the window and peeped in. 'Well, Donkey,' said Chanticleer, 'what do you see?' 'What do I see?' replied the ass. 'Why, I see a table spread with all kinds of good things, and robbers sitting round it making merry.' 'That would be a noble lodging for us,' said the cock. 'Yes,' said the ass, 'if we could only get in' so they consulted together how they should contrive to get the robbers out and at last they hit upon a plan. The ass placed himself upright on his hind legs, with his forefeet resting against the window the dog got upon his back the cat scrambled up to the dog's shoulders, and the cock flew up and sat upon the cat's head. When all was ready a signal was given, and they began their music. The ass brayed, the dog barked, the cat mewed, and the cock screamed and then they all broke through the window at once, and came tumbling into the room, amongst the broken glass, with a most hideous clatter! The robbers, who had been not a little frightened by the opening concert, had now no doubt that some frightful hobgoblin had broken in upon them, and scampered away as fast as they could. The coast once clear, our travellers soon sat down and dispatched what the robbers had left, with as much eagerness as if they had not expected to eat again for a month. As soon as they had satisfied themselves, they put out the lights, and each once more sought out a restingplace to his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house and, as they were all rather tired with their journey, they soon fell asleep. But about midnight, when the robbers saw from afar that the lights were out and that all seemed quiet, they began to think that they had been in too great a hurry to run away and one of them, who was bolder than the rest, went to see what was going on. Finding everything still, he marched into the kitchen, and groped about till he found a match in order to light a candle and then, espying the glittering fiery eyes of the cat, he mistook them for live coals, and held the match to them to light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprang at his face, and spat, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away he ran to the back door but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the leg and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him and the cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades, and told the captain how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spat at him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers how a man with a knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door, and stabbed him in the leg how a black monster stood in the yard and struck him with a club, and how the devil had sat upon the top of the house and cried out, 'Throw the rascal up here!' After this the robbers never dared to go back to the house but the musicians were so pleased with their quarters that they took up their abode there and there they are, I dare say, at this very day. A shepherd had a faithful dog, called Sultan, who was grown very old, and had lost all his teeth. And one day when the shepherd and his wife were standing together before the house the shepherd said, 'I will shoot old Sultan tomorrow morning, for he is of no use now.' But his wife said, 'Pray let the poor faithful creature live he has served us well a great many years, and we ought to give him a livelihood for the rest of his days.' 'But what can we do with him?' said the shepherd, 'he has not a tooth in his head, and the thieves don't care for him at all to be sure he has served us, but then he did it to earn his livelihood tomorrow shall be his last day, depend upon it.' Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think tomorrow would be his last day so in the evening he went to his good friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows, and how his master meant to kill him in the morning. 'Make yourself easy,' said the wolf, 'I will give you some good advice. Your master, you know, goes out every morning very early with his wife into the field and they take their little child with them, and lay it down behind the hedge in the shade while they are at work. Now do you lie down close by the child, and pretend to be watching it, and I will come out of the wood and run away with it you must run after me as fast as you can, and I will let it drop then you may carry it back, and they will think you have saved their child, and will be so thankful to you that they will take care of you as long as you live.' The dog liked this plan very well and accordingly so it was managed. The wolf ran with the child a little way the shepherd and his wife screamed out but Sultan soon overtook him, and carried the poor little thing back to his master and mistress. Then the shepherd patted him on the head, and said, 'Old Sultan has saved our child from the wolf, and therefore he shall live and be well taken care of, and have plenty to eat. Wife, go home, and give him a good dinner, and let him have my old cushion to sleep on as long as he lives.' So from this time forward Sultan had all that he could wish for. Soon afterwards the wolf came and wished him joy, and said, 'Now, my good fellow, you must tell no tales, but turn your head the other way when I want to taste one of the old shepherd's fine fat sheep.' 'No,' said the Sultan 'I will be true to my master.' However, the wolf thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do so he laid wait for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed his locks for him finely. Then the wolf was very angry, and called Sultan 'an old rogue,' and swore he would have his revenge. So the next morning the wolf sent the boar to challenge Sultan to come into the wood to fight the matter. Now Sultan had nobody he could ask to be his second but the shepherd's old threelegged cat so he took her with him, and as the poor thing limped along with some trouble, she stuck up her tail straight in the air. The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground and when they espied their enemies coming, and saw the cat's long tail standing straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword for Sultan to fight with and every time she limped, they thought she was picking up a stone to throw at them so they said they should not like this way of fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf jumped up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up, and looked about and wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not quite hidden himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush and when he shook one of them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, 'Look up in the tree, there sits the one who is to blame.' So they looked up, and espied the wolf sitting amongst the branches and they called him a cowardly rascal, and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan. In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw began and said 'Dear friends, from whence do you come here?' The coal replied 'I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped by sheer force, my death would have been certain,I should have been burnt to ashes.' The bean said 'I too have escaped with a whole skin, but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.' 'And would a better fate have fallen to my lot?' said the straw. 'The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers.' 'But what are we to do now?' said the coal. 'I think,' answered the bean, 'that as we have so fortunately escaped death, we should keep together like good companions, and lest a new mischance should overtake us here, we should go away together, and repair to a foreign country.' The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out on their way together. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was no bridge or footplank, they did not know how they were to get over it. The straw hit on a good idea, and said 'I will lay myself straight across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.' The straw therefore stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal, who was of an impetuous disposition, tripped quite boldly on to the newlybuilt bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and heard the water rushing beneath her, she was after all, afraid, and stood still, and ventured no farther. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in two pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed when she got into the water, and breathed her last. The bean, who had prudently stayed behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event, was unable to stop, and laughed so heartily that she burst. It would have been all over with her, likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who was travelling in search of work, had not sat down to rest by the brook. As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out his needle and thread, and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam. A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, where there were in those days fairies. Now this king and queen had plenty of money, and plenty of fine clothes to wear, and plenty of good things to eat and drink, and a coach to ride out in every day but though they had been married many years they had no children, and this grieved them very much indeed. But one day as the queen was walking by the side of the river, at the bottom of the garden, she saw a poor little fish, that had thrown itself out of the water, and lay gasping and nearly dead on the bank. Then the queen took pity on the little fish, and threw it back again into the river and before it swam away it lifted its head out of the water and said, 'I know what your wish is, and it shall be fulfilled, in return for your kindness to meyou will soon have a daughter.' What the little fish had foretold soon came to pass and the queen had a little girl, so very beautiful that the king could not cease looking on it for joy, and said he would hold a great feast and make merry, and show the child to all the land. So he asked his kinsmen, and nobles, and friends, and neighbours. But the queen said, 'I will have the fairies also, that they might be kind and good to our little daughter.' Now there were thirteen fairies in the kingdom but as the king and queen had only twelve golden dishes for them to eat out of, they were forced to leave one of the fairies without asking her. So twelve fairies came, each with a high red cap on her head, and red shoes with high heels on her feet, and a long white wand in her hand and after the feast was over they gathered round in a ring and gave all their best gifts to the little princess. One gave her goodness, another beauty, another riches, and so on till she had all that was good in the world. Just as eleven of them had done blessing her, a great noise was heard in the courtyard, and word was brought that the thirteenth fairy was come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a broomstick in her hand and presently up she came into the dininghall. Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her revenge. So she cried out, 'The king's daughter shall, in her fifteenth year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.' Then the twelfth of the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its mischief so her gift was, that the king's daughter, when the spindle wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a hundred years. However, the king hoped still to save his dear child altogether from the threatened evil so he ordered that all the spindles in the kingdom should be bought up and burnt. But all the gifts of the first eleven fairies were in the meantime fulfilled for the princess was so beautiful, and well behaved, and good, and wise, that everyone who knew her loved her. It happened that, on the very day she was fifteen years old, the king and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So she roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning away very busily. 'Why, how now, good mother,' said the princess 'what are you doing there?' 'Spinning,' said the old lady, and nodded her head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. 'How prettily that little thing turns round!' said the princess, and took the spindle and began to try and spin. But scarcely had she touched it, before the fairy's prophecy was fulfilled the spindle wounded her, and she fell down lifeless on the ground. However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep and the king and the queen, who had just come home, and all their court, fell asleep too and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in the court, the pigeons on the housetop, and the very flies slept upon the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left off blazing, and went to sleep the jack stopped, and the spit that was turning about with a goose upon it for the king's dinner stood still and the cook, who was at that moment pulling the kitchenboy by the hair to give him a box on the ear for something he had done amiss, let him go, and both fell asleep the butler, who was slyly tasting the ale, fell asleep with the jug at his lips and thus everything stood still, and slept soundly. A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it became higher and thicker till at last the old palace was surrounded and hidden, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Briar Rose (for so the king's daughter was called) so that, from time to time, several kings' sons came, and tried to break through the thicket into the palace. This, however, none of them could ever do for the thorns and bushes laid hold of them, as it were with hands and there they stuck fast, and died wretchedly. After many, many years there came a king's son into that land and an old man told him the story of the thicket of thorns and how a beautiful palace stood behind it, and how a wonderful princess, called Briar Rose, lay in it asleep, with all her court. He told, too, how he had heard from his grandfather that many, many princes had come, and had tried to break through the thicket, but that they had all stuck fast in it, and died. Then the young prince said, 'All this shall not frighten me I will go and see this Briar Rose.' The old man tried to hinder him, but he was bent upon going. Now that very day the hundred years were ended and as the prince came to the thicket he saw nothing but beautiful flowering shrubs, through which he went with ease, and they shut in after him as thick as ever. Then he came at last to the palace, and there in the court lay the dogs asleep and the horses were standing in the stables and on the roof sat the pigeons fast asleep, with their heads under their wings. And when he came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls the spit was standing still the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going to drink a draught the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be plucked and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as if she was going to beat the boy. Then he went on still farther, and all was so still that he could hear every breath he drew till at last he came to the old tower, and opened the door of the little room in which Briar Rose was and there she lay, fast asleep on a couch by the window. She looked so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her, so he stooped down and gave her a kiss. But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled upon him and they went out together and soon the king and queen also awoke, and all the court, and gazed on each other with great wonder. And the horses shook themselves, and the dogs jumped up and barked the pigeons took their heads from under their wings, and looked about and flew into the fields the flies on the walls buzzed again the fire in the kitchen blazed up round went the jack, and round went the spit, with the goose for the king's dinner upon it the butler finished his draught of ale the maid went on plucking the fowl and the cook gave the boy the box on his ear. And then the prince and Briar Rose were married, and the wedding feast was given and they lived happily together all their lives long. A shepherd's dog had a master who took no care of him, but often let him suffer the greatest hunger. At last he could bear it no longer so he took to his heels, and off he ran in a very sad and sorrowful mood. On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, 'Why are you so sad, my friend?' 'Because,' said the dog, 'I am very very hungry, and have nothing to eat.' 'If that be all,' answered the sparrow, 'come with me into the next town, and I will soon find you plenty of food.' So on they went together into the town and as they passed by a butcher's shop, the sparrow said to the dog, 'Stand there a little while till I peck you down a piece of meat.' So the sparrow perched upon the shelf and having first looked carefully about her to see if anyone was watching her, she pecked and scratched at a steak that lay upon the edge of the shelf, till at last down it fell. Then the dog snapped it up, and scrambled away with it into a corner, where he soon ate it all up. 'Well,' said the sparrow, 'you shall have some more if you will so come with me to the next shop, and I will peck you down another steak.' When the dog had eaten this too, the sparrow said to him, 'Well, my good friend, have you had enough now?' 'I have had plenty of meat,' answered he, 'but I should like to have a piece of bread to eat after it.' 'Come with me then,' said the sparrow, 'and you shall soon have that too.' So she took him to a baker's shop, and pecked at two rolls that lay in the window, till they fell down and as the dog still wished for more, she took him to another shop and pecked down some more for him. When that was eaten, the sparrow asked him whether he had had enough now. 'Yes,' said he 'and now let us take a walk a little way out of the town.' So they both went out upon the high road but as the weather was warm, they had not gone far before the dog said, 'I am very much tiredI should like to take a nap.' 'Very well,' answered the sparrow, 'do so, and in the meantime I will perch upon that bush.' So the dog stretched himself out on the road, and fell fast asleep. Whilst he slept, there came by a carter with a cart drawn by three horses, and loaded with two casks of wine. The sparrow, seeing that the carter did not turn out of the way, but would go on in the track in which the dog lay, so as to drive over him, called out, 'Stop! stop! Mr Carter, or it shall be the worse for you.' But the carter, grumbling to himself, 'You make it the worse for me, indeed! what can you do?' cracked his whip, and drove his cart over the poor dog, so that the wheels crushed him to death. 'There,' cried the sparrow, 'thou cruel villain, thou hast killed my friend the dog. Now mind what I say. This deed of thine shall cost thee all thou art worth.' 'Do your worst, and welcome,' said the brute, 'what harm can you do me?' and passed on. But the sparrow crept under the tilt of the cart, and pecked at the bung of one of the casks till she loosened it and then all the wine ran out, without the carter seeing it. At last he looked round, and saw that the cart was dripping, and the cask quite empty. 'What an unlucky wretch I am!' cried he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said the sparrow, as she alighted upon the head of one of the horses, and pecked at him till he reared up and kicked. When the carter saw this, he drew out his hatchet and aimed a blow at the sparrow, meaning to kill her but she flew away, and the blow fell upon the poor horse's head with such force, that he fell down dead. 'Unlucky wretch that I am!' cried he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said the sparrow. And as the carter went on with the other two horses, she again crept under the tilt of the cart, and pecked out the bung of the second cask, so that all the wine ran out. When the carter saw this, he again cried out, 'Miserable wretch that I am!' But the sparrow answered, 'Not wretch enough yet!' and perched on the head of the second horse, and pecked at him too. The carter ran up and struck at her again with his hatchet but away she flew, and the blow fell upon the second horse and killed him on the spot. 'Unlucky wretch that I am!' said he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said the sparrow and perching upon the third horse, she began to peck him too. The carter was mad with fury and without looking about him, or caring what he was about, struck again at the sparrow but killed his third horse as he done the other two. 'Alas! miserable wretch that I am!' cried he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' answered the sparrow as she flew away 'now will I plague and punish thee at thy own house.' The carter was forced at last to leave his cart behind him, and to go home overflowing with rage and vexation. 'Alas!' said he to his wife, 'what ill luck has befallen me!my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three dead.' 'Alas! husband,' replied she, 'and a wicked bird has come into the house, and has brought with her all the birds in the world, I am sure, and they have fallen upon our corn in the loft, and are eating it up at such a rate!' Away ran the husband upstairs, and saw thousands of birds sitting upon the floor eating up his corn, with the sparrow in the midst of them. 'Unlucky wretch that I am!' cried the carter for he saw that the corn was almost all gone. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said the sparrow 'thy cruelty shall cost thee thy life yet!' and away she flew. The carter seeing that he had thus lost all that he had, went down into his kitchen and was still not sorry for what he had done, but sat himself angrily and sulkily in the chimney corner. But the sparrow sat on the outside of the window, and cried 'Carter! thy cruelty shall cost thee thy life!' With that he jumped up in a rage, seized his hatchet, and threw it at the sparrow but it missed her, and only broke the window. The sparrow now hopped in, perched upon the windowseat, and cried, 'Carter! it shall cost thee thy life!' Then he became mad and blind with rage, and struck the windowseat with such force that he cleft it in two and as the sparrow flew from place to place, the carter and his wife were so furious, that they broke all their furniture, glasses, chairs, benches, the table, and at last the walls, without touching the bird at all. In the end, however, they caught her and the wife said, 'Shall I kill her at once?' 'No,' cried he, 'that is letting her off too easily she shall die a much more cruel death I will eat her.' But the sparrow began to flutter about, and stretch out her neck and cried, 'Carter! it shall cost thee thy life yet!' With that he could wait no longer so he gave his wife the hatchet, and cried, 'Wife, strike at the bird and kill her in my hand.' And the wife struck but she missed her aim, and hit her husband on the head so that he fell down dead, and the sparrow flew quietly home to her nest. There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in twelve beds all in one room and when they went to bed, the doors were shut and locked up but every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night and yet nobody could find out how it happened, or where they had been. Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his wife, and should be king after his death but whoever tried and did not succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death. A king's son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance and, in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it, the door of his chamber was left open. But the king's son soon fell asleep and when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes. The same thing happened the second and third night so the king ordered his head to be cut off. After him came several others but they had all the same luck, and all lost their lives in the same manner. Now it chanced that an old soldier, who had been wounded in battle and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king reigned and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman, who asked him where he was going. 'I hardly know where I am going, or what I had better do,' said the soldier 'but I think I should like very well to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time I might be a king.' 'Well,' said the old dame, 'that is no very hard task only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the princesses will bring to you in the evening and as soon as she leaves you pretend to be fast asleep.' Then she gave him a cloak, and said, 'As soon as you put that on you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the princesses wherever they go.' When the soldier heard all this good counsel, he determined to try his luck so he went to the king, and said he was willing to undertake the task. He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered fine royal robes to be given him and when the evening came he was led to the outer chamber. Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of the princesses brought him a cup of wine but the soldier threw it all away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loud as if he was fast asleep. When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed heartily and the eldest said, 'This fellow too might have done a wiser thing than lose his life in this way!' Then they rose up and opened their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing. But the youngest said, 'I don't know how it is, while you are so happy I feel very uneasy I am sure some mischance will befall us.' 'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he would have slept soundly enough.' When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier but he snored on, and did not stir hand or foot so they thought they were quite safe and the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands, and the bed sank into the floor and a trapdoor flew open. The soldier saw them going down through the trapdoor one after another, the eldest leading the way and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them but in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest princess, and she cried out to her sisters, 'All is not right someone took hold of my gown.' 'You silly creature!' said the eldest, 'it is nothing but a nail in the wall.' Then down they all went, and at the bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees and the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully. The soldier wished to take away some token of the place so he broke off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the youngest daughter said again, 'I am sure all is not rightdid not you hear that noise? That never happened before.' But the eldest said, 'It is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.' Then they came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of gold and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each and every time there was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear but the eldest still said, it was only the princes, who were crying for joy. So they went on till they came to a great lake and at the side of the lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses. One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into the same boat with the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier said, 'I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired the boat seems very heavy today.' 'It is only the heat of the weather,' said the princess 'I feel it very warm too.' On the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle, from which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed, and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess and the soldier, who was all the time invisible, danced with them too and when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always silenced her. They danced on till three o'clock in the morning, and then all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave off. The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess) and on the opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising to come again the next night. When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses, and laid himself down and as the twelve sisters slowly came up very much tired, they heard him snoring in his bed so they said, 'Now all is quite safe' then they undressed themselves, put away their fine clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed. In the morning the soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more of this strange adventure, and went again the second and third night and every thing happened just as before the princesses danced each time till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. However, on the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a token of where he had been. As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken before the king with the three branches and the golden cup and the twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would say. And when the king asked him. 'Where do my twelve daughters dance at night?' he answered, 'With twelve princes in a castle under ground.' And then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him. Then the king called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said was true and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all. And the king asked the soldier which of them he would choose for his wife and he answered, 'I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.'And they were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king's heir. There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long afishing and one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away deep into the water and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. But the fish said, 'Pray let me live! I am not a real fish I am an enchanted prince put me in the water again, and let me go!' 'Oh, ho!' said the man, 'you need not make so many words about the matter I will have nothing to do with a fish that can talk so swim away, sir, as soon as you please!' Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him on the wave. When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. 'Did not you ask it for anything?' said the wife, 'we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.' The fisherman did not much like the business however, he went to the seashore and when he came back there the water looked all yellow and green. And he stood at the water's edge, and said Then the fish came swimming to him, and said, 'Well, what is her will? What does your wife want?' 'Ah!' said the fisherman, 'she says that when I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let you go she does not like living any longer in the pigsty, and wants a snug little cottage.' 'Go home, then,' said the fish 'she is in the cottage already!' So the man went home, and saw his wife standing at the door of a nice trim little cottage. 'Come in, come in!' said she 'is not this much better than the filthy pigsty we had?' And there was a parlour, and a bedchamber, and a kitchen and behind the cottage there was a little garden, planted with all sorts of flowers and fruits and there was a courtyard behind, full of ducks and chickens. 'Ah!' said the fisherman, 'how happily we shall live now!' 'We will try to do so, at least,' said his wife. Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Ilsabill said, 'Husband, there is not near room enough for us in this cottage the courtyard and the garden are a great deal too small I should like to have a large stone castle to live in go to the fish again and tell him to give us a castle.' 'Wife,' said the fisherman, 'I don't like to go to him again, for perhaps he will be angry we ought to be easy with this pretty cottage to live in.' 'Nonsense!' said the wife 'he will do it very willingly, I know go along and try!' The fisherman went, but his heart was very heavy and when he came to the sea, it looked blue and gloomy, though it was very calm and he went close to the edge of the waves, and said 'Well, what does she want now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said the man, dolefully, 'my wife wants to live in a stone castle.' 'Go home, then,' said the fish 'she is standing at the gate of it already.' So away went the fisherman, and found his wife standing before the gate of a great castle. 'See,' said she, 'is not this grand?' With that they went into the castle together, and found a great many servants there, and the rooms all richly furnished, and full of golden chairs and tables and behind the castle was a garden, and around it was a park half a mile long, full of sheep, and goats, and hares, and deer and in the courtyard were stables and cowhouses. 'Well,' said the man, 'now we will live cheerful and happy in this beautiful castle for the rest of our lives.' 'Perhaps we may,' said the wife 'but let us sleep upon it, before we make up our minds to that.' So they went to bed. The next morning when Dame Ilsabill awoke it was broad daylight, and she jogged the fisherman with her elbow, and said, 'Get up, husband, and bestir yourself, for we must be king of all the land.' 'Wife, wife,' said the man, 'why should we wish to be the king? I will not be king.' 'Then I will,' said she. 'But, wife,' said the fisherman, 'how can you be kingthe fish cannot make you a king?' 'Husband,' said she, 'say no more about it, but go and try! I will be king.' So the man went away quite sorrowful to think that his wife should want to be king. This time the sea looked a dark grey colour, and was overspread with curling waves and the ridges of foam as he cried out 'Well, what would she have now?' said the fish. 'Alas!' said the poor man, 'my wife wants to be king.' 'Go home,' said the fish 'she is king already.' Then the fisherman went home and as he came close to the palace he saw a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets. And when he went in he saw his wife sitting on a throne of gold and diamonds, with a golden crown upon her head and on each side of her stood six fair maidens, each a head taller than the other. 'Well, wife,' said the fisherman, 'are you king?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am king.' And when he had looked at her for a long time, he said, 'Ah, wife! what a fine thing it is to be king! Now we shall never have anything more to wish for as long as we live.' 'I don't know how that may be,' said she 'never is a long time. I am king, it is true but I begin to be tired of that, and I think I should like to be emperor.' 'Alas, wife! why should you wish to be emperor?' said the fisherman. 'Husband,' said she, 'go to the fish! I say I will be emperor.' 'Ah, wife!' replied the fisherman, 'the fish cannot make an emperor, I am sure, and I should not like to ask him for such a thing.' 'I am king,' said Ilsabill, 'and you are my slave so go at once!' So the fisherman was forced to go and he muttered as he went along, 'This will come to no good, it is too much to ask the fish will be tired at last, and then we shall be sorry for what we have done.' He soon came to the seashore and the water was quite black and muddy, and a mighty whirlwind blew over the waves and rolled them about, but he went as near as he could to the water's brink, and said 'What would she have now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said the fisherman, 'she wants to be emperor.' 'Go home,' said the fish 'she is emperor already.' So he went home again and as he came near he saw his wife Ilsabill sitting on a very lofty throne made of solid gold, with a great crown on her head full two yards high and on each side of her stood her guards and attendants in a row, each one smaller than the other, from the tallest giant down to a little dwarf no bigger than my finger. And before her stood princes, and dukes, and earls and the fisherman went up to her and said, 'Wife, are you emperor?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am emperor.' 'Ah!' said the man, as he gazed upon her, 'what a fine thing it is to be emperor!' 'Husband,' said she, 'why should we stop at being emperor? I will be pope next.' 'O wife, wife!' said he, 'how can you be pope? there is but one pope at a time in Christendom.' 'Husband,' said she, 'I will be pope this very day.' 'But,' replied the husband, 'the fish cannot make you pope.' 'What nonsense!' said she 'if he can make an emperor, he can make a pope go and try him.' So the fisherman went. But when he came to the shore the wind was raging and the sea was tossed up and down in boiling waves, and the ships were in trouble, and rolled fearfully upon the tops of the billows. In the middle of the heavens there was a little piece of blue sky, but towards the south all was red, as if a dreadful storm was rising. At this sight the fisherman was dreadfully frightened, and he trembled so that his knees knocked together but still he went down near to the shore, and said 'What does she want now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said the fisherman, 'my wife wants to be pope.' 'Go home,' said the fish 'she is pope already.' Then the fisherman went home, and found Ilsabill sitting on a throne that was two miles high. And she had three great crowns on her head, and around her stood all the pomp and power of the Church. And on each side of her were two rows of burning lights, of all sizes, the greatest as large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no larger than a small rushlight. 'Wife,' said the fisherman, as he looked at all this greatness, 'are you pope?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am pope.' 'Well, wife,' replied he, 'it is a grand thing to be pope and now you must be easy, for you can be nothing greater.' 'I will think about that,' said the wife. Then they went to bed but Dame Ilsabill could not sleep all night for thinking what she should be next. At last, as she was dropping asleep, morning broke, and the sun rose. 'Ha!' thought she, as she woke up and looked at it through the window, 'after all I cannot prevent the sun rising.' At this thought she was very angry, and wakened her husband, and said, 'Husband, go to the fish and tell him I must be lord of the sun and moon.' The fisherman was half asleep, but the thought frightened him so much that he started and fell out of bed. 'Alas, wife!' said he, 'cannot you be easy with being pope?' 'No,' said she, 'I am very uneasy as long as the sun and moon rise without my leave. Go to the fish at once!' Then the man went shivering with fear and as he was going down to the shore a dreadful storm arose, so that the trees and the very rocks shook. And all the heavens became black with stormy clouds, and the lightnings played, and the thunders rolled and you might have seen in the sea great black waves, swelling up like mountains with crowns of white foam upon their heads. And the fisherman crept towards the sea, and cried out, as well as he could 'What does she want now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said he, 'she wants to be lord of the sun and moon.' 'Go home,' said the fish, 'to your pigsty again.' And there they live to this very day. Once in summertime the bear and the wolf were walking in the forest, and the bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said 'Brother wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?' 'That is the King of birds,' said the wolf, 'before whom we must bow down.' In reality the bird was the willowwren. 'IF that's the case,' said the bear, 'I should very much like to see his royal palace come, take me thither.' 'That is not done quite as you seem to think,' said the wolf 'you must wait until the Queen comes,' Soon afterwards, the Queen arrived with some food in her beak, and the lord King came too, and they began to feed their young ones. The bear would have liked to go at once, but the wolf held him back by the sleeve, and said 'No, you must wait until the lord and lady Queen have gone away again.' So they took stock of the hole where the nest lay, and trotted away. The bear, however, could not rest until he had seen the royal palace, and when a short time had passed, went to it again. The King and Queen had just flown out, so he peeped in and saw five or six young ones lying there. 'Is that the royal palace?' cried the bear 'it is a wretched palace, and you are not King's children, you are disreputable children!' When the young wrens heard that, they were frightfully angry, and screamed 'No, that we are not! Our parents are honest people! Bear, you will have to pay for that!' The bear and the wolf grew uneasy, and turned back and went into their holes. The young willowwrens, however, continued to cry and scream, and when their parents again brought food they said 'We will not so much as touch one fly's leg, no, not if we were dying of hunger, until you have settled whether we are respectable children or not the bear has been here and has insulted us!' Then the old King said 'Be easy, he shall be punished,' and he at once flew with the Queen to the bear's cave, and called in 'Old Growler, why have you insulted my children? You shall suffer for itwe will punish you by a bloody war.' Thus war was announced to the Bear, and all fourfooted animals were summoned to take part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth contained. And the willowwren summoned everything which flew in the air, not only birds, large and small, but midges, and hornets, bees and flies had to come. When the time came for the war to begin, the willowwren sent out spies to discover who was the enemy's commanderinchief. The gnat, who was the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was assembled, and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the password was to be announced. There stood the bear, and he called the fox before him and said 'Fox, you are the most cunning of all animals, you shall be general and lead us.' 'Good,' said the fox, 'but what signal shall we agree upon?' No one knew that, so the fox said 'I have a fine long bushy tail, which almost looks like a plume of red feathers. When I lift my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge but if I let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.' When the gnat had heard that, she flew away again, and revealed everything, down to the minutest detail, to the willowwren. When day broke, and the battle was to begin, all the fourfooted animals came running up with such a noise that the earth trembled. The willowwren with his army also came flying through the air with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each other. But the willowwren sent down the hornet, with orders to settle beneath the fox's tail, and sting with all his might. When the fox felt the first string, he started so that he lifted one leg, from pain, but he bore it, and still kept his tail high in the air at the second sting, he was forced to put it down for a moment at the third, he could hold out no longer, screamed, and put his tail between his legs. When the animals saw that, they thought all was lost, and began to flee, each into his hole, and the birds had won the battle. Then the King and Queen flew home to their children and cried 'Children, rejoice, eat and drink to your heart's content, we have won the battle!' But the young wrens said 'We will not eat yet, the bear must come to the nest, and beg for pardon and say that we are honourable children, before we will do that.' Then the willowwren flew to the bear's hole and cried 'Growler, you are to come to the nest to my children, and beg their pardon, or else every rib of your body shall be broken.' So the bear crept thither in the greatest fear, and begged their pardon. And now at last the young wrens were satisfied, and sat down together and ate and drank, and made merry till quite late into the night. One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went out to take a walk by herself in a wood and when she came to a cool spring of water, that rose in the midst of it, she sat herself down to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her favourite plaything and she was always tossing it up into the air, and catching it again as it fell. After a time she threw it up so high that she missed catching it as it fell and the ball bounded away, and rolled along upon the ground, till at last it fell down into the spring. The princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so deep that she could not see the bottom of it. Then she began to bewail her loss, and said, 'Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the world.' Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, 'Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?' 'Alas!' said she, 'what can you do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.' The frog said, 'I want not your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off your golden plate, and sleep upon your bed, I will bring you your ball again.' 'What nonsense,' thought the princess, 'this silly frog is talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he shall have what he asks.' So she said to the frog, 'Well, if you will bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.' Then the frog put his head down, and dived deep under the water and after a little while he came up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the spring. As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick it up and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could. The frog called after her, 'Stay, princess, and take me with you as you said,' But she did not stop to hear a word. The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a strange noisetap, tapplash, plashas if something was coming up the marble staircase and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the door, and a little voice cried out and said Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her seat. The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her, asked her what was the matter. 'There is a nasty frog,' said she, 'at the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning I told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never get out of the spring but there he is at the door, and he wants to come in.' While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said Then the king said to the young princess, 'As you have given your word you must keep it so go and let him in.' She did so, and the frog hopped into the room, and then straight ontap, tapplash, plashfrom the bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where the princess sat. 'Pray lift me upon chair,' said he to the princess, 'and let me sit next to you.' As soon as she had done this, the frog said, 'Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.' This she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, 'Now I am tired carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.' And the princess, though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. As soon as it was light he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house. 'Now, then,' thought the princess, 'at last he is gone, and I shall be troubled with him no more.' But she was mistaken for when night came again she heard the same tapping at the door and the frog came once more, and said And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head of her bed. He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had changed him into a frog and that he had been fated so to abide till some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. 'You,' said the prince, 'have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for but that you should go with me into my father's kingdom, where I will marry you, and love you as long as you live.' The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying 'Yes' to all this and as they spoke a gay coach drove up, with eight beautiful horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness and behind the coach rode the prince's servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so bitterly, that his heart had wellnigh burst. They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince's kingdom, which they reached safely and there they lived happily a great many years. A certain cat had made the acquaintance of a mouse, and had said so much to her about the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at length the mouse agreed that they should live and keep house together. 'But we must make a provision for winter, or else we shall suffer from hunger,' said the cat 'and you, little mouse, cannot venture everywhere, or you will be caught in a trap some day.' The good advice was followed, and a pot of fat was bought, but they did not know where to put it. At length, after much consideration, the cat said 'I know no place where it will be better stored up than in the church, for no one dares take anything away from there. We will set it beneath the altar, and not touch it until we are really in need of it.' So the pot was placed in safety, but it was not long before the cat had a great yearning for it, and said to the mouse 'I want to tell you something, little mouse my cousin has brought a little son into the world, and has asked me to be godmother he is white with brown spots, and I am to hold him over the font at the christening. Let me go out today, and you look after the house by yourself.' 'Yes, yes,' answered the mouse, 'by all means go, and if you get anything very good to eat, think of me. I should like a drop of sweet red christening wine myself.' All this, however, was untrue the cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to be godmother. She went straight to the church, stole to the pot of fat, began to lick at it, and licked the top of the fat off. Then she took a walk upon the roofs of the town, looked out for opportunities, and then stretched herself in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought of the pot of fat, and not until it was evening did she return home. 'Well, here you are again,' said the mouse, 'no doubt you have had a merry day.' 'All went off well,' answered the cat. 'What name did they give the child?' 'Top off!' said the cat quite coolly. 'Top off!' cried the mouse, 'that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in your family?' 'What does that matter,' said the cat, 'it is no worse than Crumbstealer, as your godchildren are called.' Before long the cat was seized by another fit of yearning. She said to the mouse 'You must do me a favour, and once more manage the house for a day alone. I am again asked to be godmother, and, as the child has a white ring round its neck, I cannot refuse.' The good mouse consented, but the cat crept behind the town walls to the church, and devoured half the pot of fat. 'Nothing ever seems so good as what one keeps to oneself,' said she, and was quite satisfied with her day's work. When she went home the mouse inquired 'And what was the child christened?' 'Halfdone,' answered the cat. 'Halfdone! What are you saying? I never heard the name in my life, I'll wager anything it is not in the calendar!' The cat's mouth soon began to water for some more licking. 'All good things go in threes,' said she, 'I am asked to stand godmother again. The child is quite black, only it has white paws, but with that exception, it has not a single white hair on its whole body this only happens once every few years, you will let me go, won't you?' 'Topoff! Halfdone!' answered the mouse, 'they are such odd names, they make me very thoughtful.' 'You sit at home,' said the cat, 'in your darkgrey fur coat and long tail, and are filled with fancies, that's because you do not go out in the daytime.' During the cat's absence the mouse cleaned the house, and put it in order, but the greedy cat entirely emptied the pot of fat. 'When everything is eaten up one has some peace,' said she to herself, and well filled and fat she did not return home till night. The mouse at once asked what name had been given to the third child. 'It will not please you more than the others,' said the cat. 'He is called Allgone.' 'Allgone,' cried the mouse 'that is the most suspicious name of all! I have never seen it in print. Allgone what can that mean?' and she shook her head, curled herself up, and lay down to sleep. From this time forth no one invited the cat to be godmother, but when the winter had come and there was no longer anything to be found outside, the mouse thought of their provision, and said 'Come, cat, we will go to our pot of fat which we have stored up for ourselveswe shall enjoy that.' 'Yes,' answered the cat, 'you will enjoy it as much as you would enjoy sticking that dainty tongue of yours out of the window.' They set out on their way, but when they arrived, the pot of fat certainly was still in its place, but it was empty. 'Alas!' said the mouse, 'now I see what has happened, now it comes to light! You are a true friend! You have devoured all when you were standing godmother. First top off, then halfdone, then' 'Will you hold your tongue,' cried the cat, 'one word more, and I will eat you too.' 'Allgone' was already on the poor mouse's lips scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of the world. The king of a great land died, and left his queen to take care of their only child. This child was a daughter, who was very beautiful and her mother loved her dearly, and was very kind to her. And there was a good fairy too, who was fond of the princess, and helped her mother to watch over her. When she grew up, she was betrothed to a prince who lived a great way off and as the time drew near for her to be married, she got ready to set off on her journey to his country. Then the queen her mother, packed up a great many costly things jewels, and gold, and silver trinkets, fine dresses, and in short everything that became a royal bride. And she gave her a waitingmaid to ride with her, and give her into the bridegroom's hands and each had a horse for the journey. Now the princess's horse was the fairy's gift, and it was called Falada, and could speak. When the time came for them to set out, the fairy went into her bedchamber, and took a little knife, and cut off a lock of her hair, and gave it to the princess, and said, 'Take care of it, dear child for it is a charm that may be of use to you on the road.' Then they all took a sorrowful leave of the princess and she put the lock of hair into her bosom, got upon her horse, and set off on her journey to her bridegroom's kingdom. One day, as they were riding along by a brook, the princess began to feel very thirsty and she said to her maid, 'Pray get down, and fetch me some water in my golden cup out of yonder brook, for I want to drink.' 'Nay,' said the maid, 'if you are thirsty, get off yourself, and stoop down by the water and drink I shall not be your waitingmaid any longer.' Then she was so thirsty that she got down, and knelt over the little brook, and drank for she was frightened, and dared not bring out her golden cup and she wept and said, 'Alas! what will become of me?' And the lock answered her, and said But the princess was very gentle and meek, so she said nothing to her maid's ill behaviour, but got upon her horse again. Then all rode farther on their journey, till the day grew so warm, and the sun so scorching, that the bride began to feel very thirsty again and at last, when they came to a river, she forgot her maid's rude speech, and said, 'Pray get down, and fetch me some water to drink in my golden cup.' But the maid answered her, and even spoke more haughtily than before 'Drink if you will, but I shall not be your waitingmaid.' Then the princess was so thirsty that she got off her horse, and lay down, and held her head over the running stream, and cried and said, 'What will become of me?' And the lock of hair answered her again And as she leaned down to drink, the lock of hair fell from her bosom, and floated away with the water. Now she was so frightened that she did not see it but her maid saw it, and was very glad, for she knew the charm and she saw that the poor bride would be in her power, now that she had lost the hair. So when the bride had done drinking, and would have got upon Falada again, the maid said, 'I shall ride upon Falada, and you may have my horse instead' so she was forced to give up her horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes and put on her maid's shabby ones. At last, as they drew near the end of their journey, this treacherous servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well. Then the waitingmaid got upon Falada, and the real bride rode upon the other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince flew to meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one who was to be his wife and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber but the true princess was told to stay in the court below. Now the old king happened just then to have nothing else to do so he amused himself by sitting at his kitchen window, looking at what was going on and he saw her in the courtyard. As she looked very pretty, and too delicate for a waitingmaid, he went up into the royal chamber to ask the bride who it was she had brought with her, that was thus left standing in the court below. 'I brought her with me for the sake of her company on the road,' said she 'pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle.' The old king could not for some time think of any work for her to do but at last he said, 'I have a lad who takes care of my geese she may go and help him.' Now the name of this lad, that the real bride was to help in watching the king's geese, was Curdken. But the false bride said to the prince, 'Dear husband, pray do me one piece of kindness.' 'That I will,' said the prince. 'Then tell one of your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road' but the truth was, she was very much afraid lest Falada should some day or other speak, and tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the faithful Falada was killed but when the true princess heard of it, she wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada's head against a large dark gate of the city, through which she had to pass every morning and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the slaughterer said he would do as she wished and cut off the head, and nailed it up under the dark gate. Early the next morning, as she and Curdken went out through the gate, she said sorrowfully and the head answered Then they went out of the city, and drove the geese on. And when she came to the meadow, she sat down upon a bank there, and let down her waving locks of hair, which were all of pure silver and when Curdken saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the locks out, but she cried Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken's hat and away it flew over the hills and he was forced to turn and run after it till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her hair, and had put it up again safe. Then he was very angry and sulky, and would not speak to her at all but they watched the geese until it grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards. The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor girl looked up at Falada's head, and cried and the head answered Then she drove on the geese, and sat down again in the meadow, and began to comb out her hair as before and Curdken ran up to her, and wanted to take hold of it but she cried out quickly Then the wind came and blew away his hat and off it flew a great way, over the hills and far away, so that he had to run after it and when he came back she had bound up her hair again, and all was safe. So they watched the geese till it grew dark. In the evening, after they came home, Curdken went to the old king, and said, 'I cannot have that strange girl to help me to keep the geese any longer.' 'Why?' said the king. 'Because, instead of doing any good, she does nothing but tease me all day long.' Then the king made him tell him what had happened. And Curdken said, 'When we go in the morning through the dark gate with our flock of geese, she cries and talks with the head of a horse that hangs upon the wall, and says and the head answers And Curdken went on telling the king what had happened upon the meadow where the geese fed how his hat was blown away and how he was forced to run after it, and to leave his flock of geese to themselves. But the old king told the boy to go out again the next day and when morning came, he placed himself behind the dark gate, and heard how she spoke to Falada, and how Falada answered. Then he went into the field, and hid himself in a bush by the meadow's side and he soon saw with his own eyes how they drove the flock of geese and how, after a little time, she let down her hair that glittered in the sun. And then he heard her say And soon came a gale of wind, and carried away Curdken's hat, and away went Curdken after it, while the girl went on combing and curling her hair. All this the old king saw so he went home without being seen and when the little goosegirl came back in the evening he called her aside, and asked her why she did so but she burst into tears, and said, 'That I must not tell you or any man, or I shall lose my life.' But the old king begged so hard, that she had no peace till she had told him all the tale, from beginning to end, word for word. And it was very lucky for her that she did so, for when she had done the king ordered royal clothes to be put upon her, and gazed on her with wonder, she was so beautiful. Then he called his son and told him that he had only a false bride for that she was merely a waitingmaid, while the true bride stood by. And the young king rejoiced when he saw her beauty, and heard how meek and patient she had been and without saying anything to the false bride, the king ordered a great feast to be got ready for all his court. The bridegroom sat at the top, with the false princess on one side, and the true one on the other but nobody knew her again, for her beauty was quite dazzling to their eyes and she did not seem at all like the little goosegirl, now that she had her brilliant dress on. When they had eaten and drank, and were very merry, the old king said he would tell them a tale. So he began, and told all the story of the princess, as if it was one that he had once heard and he asked the true waitingmaid what she thought ought to be done to anyone who would behave thus. 'Nothing better,' said this false bride, 'than that she should be thrown into a cask stuck round with sharp nails, and that two white horses should be put to it, and should drag it from street to street till she was dead.' 'Thou art she!' said the old king 'and as thou has judged thyself, so shall it be done to thee.' And the young king was then married to his true wife, and they reigned over the kingdom in peace and happiness all their lives and the good fairy came to see them, and restored the faithful Falada to life again. . HOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTS 'The nuts are quite ripe now,' said Chanticleer to his wife Partlet, 'suppose we go together to the mountains, and eat as many as we can, before the squirrel takes them all away.' 'With all my heart,' said Partlet, 'let us go and make a holiday of it together.' So they went to the mountains and as it was a lovely day, they stayed there till the evening. Now, whether it was that they had eaten so many nuts that they could not walk, or whether they were lazy and would not, I do not know however, they took it into their heads that it did not become them to go home on foot. So Chanticleer began to build a little carriage of nutshells and when it was finished, Partlet jumped into it and sat down, and bid Chanticleer harness himself to it and draw her home. 'That's a good joke!' said Chanticleer 'no, that will never do I had rather by half walk home I'll sit on the box and be coachman, if you like, but I'll not draw.' While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, 'You thieving vagabonds, what business have you in my grounds? I'll give it you well for your insolence!' and upon that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no coward, and returned the duck's blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely that she soon began to cry out for mercy which was only granted her upon condition that she would draw the carriage home for them. This she agreed to do and Chanticleer got upon the box, and drove, crying, 'Now, duck, get on as fast as you can.' And away they went at a pretty good pace. After they had travelled along a little way, they met a needle and a pin walking together along the road and the needle cried out, 'Stop, stop!' and said it was so dark that they could hardly find their way, and such dirty walking they could not get on at all he told them that he and his friend, the pin, had been at a publichouse a few miles off, and had sat drinking till they had forgotten how late it was he begged therefore that the travellers would be so kind as to give them a lift in their carriage. Chanticleer observing that they were but thin fellows, and not likely to take up much room, told them they might ride, but made them promise not to dirty the wheels of the carriage in getting in, nor to tread on Partlet's toes. Late at night they arrived at an inn and as it was bad travelling in the dark, and the duck seemed much tired, and waddled about a good deal from one side to the other, they made up their minds to fix their quarters there but the landlord at first was unwilling, and said his house was full, thinking they might not be very respectable company however, they spoke civilly to him, and gave him the egg which Partlet had laid by the way, and said they would give him the duck, who was in the habit of laying one every day so at last he let them come in, and they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily. Early in the morning, before it was quite light, and when nobody was stirring in the inn, Chanticleer awakened his wife, and, fetching the egg, they pecked a hole in it, ate it up, and threw the shells into the fireplace they then went to the pin and needle, who were fast asleep, and seizing them by the heads, stuck one into the landlord's easy chair and the other into his handkerchief and, having done this, they crept away as softly as possible. However, the duck, who slept in the open air in the yard, heard them coming, and jumping into the brook which ran close by the inn, soon swam out of their reach. An hour or two afterwards the landlord got up, and took his handkerchief to wipe his face, but the pin ran into him and pricked him then he walked into the kitchen to light his pipe at the fire, but when he stirred it up the eggshells flew into his eyes, and almost blinded him. 'Bless me!' said he, 'all the world seems to have a design against my head this morning' and so saying, he threw himself sulkily into his easy chair but, oh dear! the needle ran into him and this time the pain was not in his head. He now flew into a very great passion, and, suspecting the company who had come in the night before, he went to look after them, but they were all off so he swore that he never again would take in such a troop of vagabonds, who ate a great deal, paid no reckoning, and gave him nothing for his trouble but their apish tricks. . HOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VISIT MR KORBES Another day, Chanticleer and Partlet wished to ride out together so Chanticleer built a handsome carriage with four red wheels, and harnessed six mice to it and then he and Partlet got into the carriage, and away they drove. Soon afterwards a cat met them, and said, 'Where are you going?' And Chanticleer replied, Then the cat said, 'Take me with you,' Chanticleer said, 'With all my heart get up behind, and be sure you do not fall off.' Soon after came up a millstone, an egg, a duck, and a pin and Chanticleer gave them all leave to get into the carriage and go with them. When they arrived at Mr Korbes's house, he was not at home so the mice drew the carriage into the coachhouse, Chanticleer and Partlet flew upon a beam, the cat sat down in the fireplace, the duck got into the washing cistern, the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow, the millstone laid himself over the house door, and the egg rolled himself up in the towel. When Mr Korbes came home, he went to the fireplace to make a fire but the cat threw all the ashes in his eyes so he ran to the kitchen to wash himself but there the duck splashed all the water in his face and when he tried to wipe himself, the egg broke to pieces in the towel all over his face and eyes. Then he was very angry, and went without his supper to bed but when he laid his head on the pillow, the pin ran into his cheek at this he became quite furious, and, jumping up, would have run out of the house but when he came to the door, the millstone fell down on his head, and killed him on the spot. . HOW PARTLET DIED AND WAS BURIED, AND HOW CHANTICLEER DIED OF GRIEF Another day Chanticleer and Partlet agreed to go again to the mountains to eat nuts and it was settled that all the nuts which they found should be shared equally between them. Now Partlet found a very large nut but she said nothing about it to Chanticleer, and kept it all to herself however, it was so big that she could not swallow it, and it stuck in her throat. Then she was in a great fright, and cried out to Chanticleer, 'Pray run as fast as you can, and fetch me some water, or I shall be choked.' Chanticleer ran as fast as he could to the river, and said, 'River, give me some water, for Partlet lies in the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.' The river said, 'Run first to the bride, and ask her for a silken cord to draw up the water.' Chanticleer ran to the bride, and said, 'Bride, you must give me a silken cord, for then the river will give me water, and the water I will carry to Partlet, who lies on the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.' But the bride said, 'Run first, and bring me my garland that is hanging on a willow in the garden.' Then Chanticleer ran to the garden, and took the garland from the bough where it hung, and brought it to the bride and then the bride gave him the silken cord, and he took the silken cord to the river, and the river gave him water, and he carried the water to Partlet but in the meantime she was choked by the great nut, and lay quite dead, and never moved any more. Then Chanticleer was very sorry, and cried bitterly and all the beasts came and wept with him over poor Partlet. And six mice built a little hearse to carry her to her grave and when it was ready they harnessed themselves before it, and Chanticleer drove them. On the way they met the fox. 'Where are you going, Chanticleer?' said he. 'To bury my Partlet,' said the other. 'May I go with you?' said the fox. 'Yes but you must get up behind, or my horses will not be able to draw you.' Then the fox got up behind and presently the wolf, the bear, the goat, and all the beasts of the wood, came and climbed upon the hearse. So on they went till they came to a rapid stream. 'How shall we get over?' said Chanticleer. Then said a straw, 'I will lay myself across, and you may pass over upon me.' But as the mice were going over, the straw slipped away and fell into the water, and the six mice all fell in and were drowned. What was to be done? Then a large log of wood came and said, 'I am big enough I will lay myself across the stream, and you shall pass over upon me.' So he laid himself down but they managed so clumsily, that the log of wood fell in and was carried away by the stream. Then a stone, who saw what had happened, came up and kindly offered to help poor Chanticleer by laying himself across the stream and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse, and managed to get Partlet out of it but the fox and the other mourners, who were sitting behind, were too heavy, and fell back into the water and were all carried away by the stream and drowned. Thus Chanticleer was left alone with his dead Partlet and having dug a grave for her, he laid her in it, and made a little hillock over her. Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last he died too and so all were dead. There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and asked 'What ails you, dear wife?' 'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die.' The man, who loved her, thought 'Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.' At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to herso very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening therefore, he let himself down again but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him. 'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!' 'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.' Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.' The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her. Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it. After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her. 'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up. At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her but the king's son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does' and she said yes, and laid her hand in his. She said 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.' They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's sonhe is with me in a moment.' 'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!' In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery. On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the king's son came and cried she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you you will never see her again.' The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented. There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree. The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself 'You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your Lina.' He took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up together. And the one, which he had found on a tree was called Fundevogel, because a bird had carried it away. Fundevogel and Lina loved each other so dearly that when they did not see each other they were sad. Now the forester had an old cook, who one evening took two pails and began to fetch water, and did not go once only, but many times, out to the spring. Lina saw this and said, 'Listen, old Sanna, why are you fetching so much water?' 'If you will never repeat it to anyone, I will tell you why.' So Lina said, no, she would never repeat it to anyone, and then the cook said 'Early tomorrow morning, when the forester is out hunting, I will heat the water, and when it is boiling in the kettle, I will throw in Fundevogel, and will boil him in it.' Early next morning the forester got up and went out hunting, and when he was gone the children were still in bed. Then Lina said to Fundevogel 'If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you.' Fundevogel said 'Neither now, nor ever will I leave you.' Then said Lina 'Then will I tell you. Last night, old Sanna carried so many buckets of water into the house that I asked her why she was doing that, and she said that if I would promise not to tell anyone, and she said that early tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she would set the kettle full of water, throw you into it and boil you but we will get up quickly, dress ourselves, and go away together.' The two children therefore got up, dressed themselves quickly, and went away. When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went into the bedroom to fetch Fundevogel and throw him into it. But when she came in, and went to the beds, both the children were gone. Then she was terribly alarmed, and she said to herself 'What shall I say now when the forester comes home and sees that the children are gone? They must be followed instantly to get them back again.' Then the cook sent three servants after them, who were to run and overtake the children. The children, however, were sitting outside the forest, and when they saw from afar the three servants running, Lina said to Fundevogel 'Never leave me, and I will never leave you.' Fundevogel said 'Neither now, nor ever.' Then said Lina 'Do you become a rosetree, and I the rose upon it.' When the three servants came to the forest, nothing was there but a rosetree and one rose on it, but the children were nowhere. Then said they 'There is nothing to be done here,' and they went home and told the cook that they had seen nothing in the forest but a little rosebush with one rose on it. Then the old cook scolded and said 'You simpletons, you should have cut the rosebush in two, and have broken off the rose and brought it home with you go, and do it at once.' They had therefore to go out and look for the second time. The children, however, saw them coming from a distance. Then Lina said 'Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave you.' Fundevogel said 'Neither now nor ever.' Said Lina 'Then do you become a church, and I'll be the chandelier in it.' So when the three servants came, nothing was there but a church, with a chandelier in it. They said therefore to each other 'What can we do here, let us go home.' When they got home, the cook asked if they had not found them so they said no, they had found nothing but a church, and there was a chandelier in it. And the cook scolded them and said 'You fools! why did you not pull the church to pieces, and bring the chandelier home with you?' And now the old cook herself got on her legs, and went with the three servants in pursuit of the children. The children, however, saw from afar that the three servants were coming, and the cook waddling after them. Then said Lina 'Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave you.' Then said Fundevogel 'Neither now, nor ever.' Said Lina 'Be a fishpond, and I will be the duck upon it.' The cook, however, came up to them, and when she saw the pond she lay down by it, and was about to drink it up. But the duck swam quickly to her, seized her head in its beak and drew her into the water, and there the old witch had to drown. Then the children went home together, and were heartily delighted, and if they have not died, they are living still. One summer's morning a little tailor was sitting on his table by the window he was in good spirits, and sewed with all his might. Then came a peasant woman down the street crying 'Good jams, cheap! Good jams, cheap!' This rang pleasantly in the tailor's ears he stretched his delicate head out of the window, and called 'Come up here, dear woman here you will get rid of your goods.' The woman came up the three steps to the tailor with her heavy basket, and he made her unpack all the pots for him. He inspected each one, lifted it up, put his nose to it, and at length said 'The jam seems to me to be good, so weigh me out four ounces, dear woman, and if it is a quarter of a pound that is of no consequence.' The woman who had hoped to find a good sale, gave him what he desired, but went away quite angry and grumbling. 'Now, this jam shall be blessed by God,' cried the little tailor, 'and give me health and strength' so he brought the bread out of the cupboard, cut himself a piece right across the loaf and spread the jam over it. 'This won't taste bitter,' said he, 'but I will just finish the jacket before I take a bite.' He laid the bread near him, sewed on, and in his joy, made bigger and bigger stitches. In the meantime the smell of the sweet jam rose to where the flies were sitting in great numbers, and they were attracted and descended on it in hosts. 'Hi! who invited you?' said the little tailor, and drove the unbidden guests away. The flies, however, who understood no German, would not be turned away, but came back again in everincreasing companies. The little tailor at last lost all patience, and drew a piece of cloth from the hole under his worktable, and saying 'Wait, and I will give it to you,' struck it mercilessly on them. When he drew it away and counted, there lay before him no fewer than seven, dead and with legs stretched out. 'Are you a fellow of that sort?' said he, and could not help admiring his own bravery. 'The whole town shall know of this!' And the little tailor hastened to cut himself a girdle, stitched it, and embroidered on it in large letters 'Seven at one stroke!' 'What, the town!' he continued, 'the whole world shall hear of it!' and his heart wagged with joy like a lamb's tail. The tailor put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he thought his workshop was too small for his valour. Before he went away, he sought about in the house to see if there was anything which he could take with him however, he found nothing but an old cheese, and that he put in his pocket. In front of the door he observed a bird which had caught itself in the thicket. It had to go into his pocket with the cheese. Now he took to the road boldly, and as he was light and nimble, he felt no fatigue. The road led him up a mountain, and when he had reached the highest point of it, there sat a powerful giant looking peacefully about him. The little tailor went bravely up, spoke to him, and said 'Good day, comrade, so you are sitting there overlooking the widespread world! I am just on my way thither, and want to try my luck. Have you any inclination to go with me?' The giant looked contemptuously at the tailor, and said 'You ragamuffin! You miserable creature!' 'Oh, indeed?' answered the little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat, and showed the giant the girdle, 'there may you read what kind of a man I am!' The giant read 'Seven at one stroke,' and thought that they had been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel a little respect for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless, he wished to try him first, and took a stone in his hand and squeezed it together so that water dropped out of it. 'Do that likewise,' said the giant, 'if you have strength.' 'Is that all?' said the tailor, 'that is child's play with us!' and put his hand into his pocket, brought out the soft cheese, and pressed it until the liquid ran out of it. 'Faith,' said he, 'that was a little better, wasn't it?' The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it of the little man. Then the giant picked up a stone and threw it so high that the eye could scarcely follow it. 'Now, little mite of a man, do that likewise,' 'Well thrown,' said the tailor, 'but after all the stone came down to earth again I will throw you one which shall never come back at all,' and he put his hand into his pocket, took out the bird, and threw it into the air. The bird, delighted with its liberty, rose, flew away and did not come back. 'How does that shot please you, comrade?' asked the tailor. 'You can certainly throw,' said the giant, 'but now we will see if you are able to carry anything properly.' He took the little tailor to a mighty oak tree which lay there felled on the ground, and said 'If you are strong enough, help me to carry the tree out of the forest.' 'Readily,' answered the little man 'take you the trunk on your shoulders, and I will raise up the branches and twigs after all, they are the heaviest.' The giant took the trunk on his shoulder, but the tailor seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who could not look round, had to carry away the whole tree, and the little tailor into the bargain he behind, was quite merry and happy, and whistled the song 'Three tailors rode forth from the gate,' as if carrying the tree were child's play. The giant, after he had dragged the heavy burden part of the way, could go no further, and cried 'Hark you, I shall have to let the tree fall!' The tailor sprang nimbly down, seized the tree with both arms as if he had been carrying it, and said to the giant 'You are such a great fellow, and yet cannot even carry the tree!' They went on together, and as they passed a cherrytree, the giant laid hold of the top of the tree where the ripest fruit was hanging, bent it down, gave it into the tailor's hand, and bade him eat. But the little tailor was much too weak to hold the tree, and when the giant let it go, it sprang back again, and the tailor was tossed into the air with it. When he had fallen down again without injury, the giant said 'What is this? Have you not strength enough to hold the weak twig?' 'There is no lack of strength,' answered the little tailor. 'Do you think that could be anything to a man who has struck down seven at one blow? I leapt over the tree because the huntsmen are shooting down there in the thicket. Jump as I did, if you can do it.' The giant made the attempt but he could not get over the tree, and remained hanging in the branches, so that in this also the tailor kept the upper hand. The giant said 'If you are such a valiant fellow, come with me into our cavern and spend the night with us.' The little tailor was willing, and followed him. When they went into the cave, other giants were sitting there by the fire, and each of them had a roasted sheep in his hand and was eating it. The little tailor looked round and thought 'It is much more spacious here than in my workshop.' The giant showed him a bed, and said he was to lie down in it and sleep. The bed, however, was too big for the little tailor he did not lie down in it, but crept into a corner. When it was midnight, and the giant thought that the little tailor was lying in a sound sleep, he got up, took a great iron bar, cut through the bed with one blow, and thought he had finished off the grasshopper for good. With the earliest dawn the giants went into the forest, and had quite forgotten the little tailor, when all at once he walked up to them quite merrily and boldly. The giants were terrified, they were afraid that he would strike them all dead, and ran away in a great hurry. The little tailor went onwards, always following his own pointed nose. After he had walked for a long time, he came to the courtyard of a royal palace, and as he felt weary, he lay down on the grass and fell asleep. Whilst he lay there, the people came and inspected him on all sides, and read on his girdle 'Seven at one stroke.' 'Ah!' said they, 'what does the great warrior want here in the midst of peace? He must be a mighty lord.' They went and announced him to the king, and gave it as their opinion that if war should break out, this would be a weighty and useful man who ought on no account to be allowed to depart. The counsel pleased the king, and he sent one of his courtiers to the little tailor to offer him military service when he awoke. The ambassador remained standing by the sleeper, waited until he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes, and then conveyed to him this proposal. 'For this very reason have I come here,' the tailor replied, 'I am ready to enter the king's service.' He was therefore honourably received, and a special dwelling was assigned him. The soldiers, however, were set against the little tailor, and wished him a thousand miles away. 'What is to be the end of this?' they said among themselves. 'If we quarrel with him, and he strikes about him, seven of us will fall at every blow not one of us can stand against him.' They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to the king, and begged for their dismissal. 'We are not prepared,' said they, 'to stay with a man who kills seven at one stroke.' The king was sorry that for the sake of one he should lose all his faithful servants, wished that he had never set eyes on the tailor, and would willingly have been rid of him again. But he did not venture to give him his dismissal, for he dreaded lest he should strike him and all his people dead, and place himself on the royal throne. He thought about it for a long time, and at last found good counsel. He sent to the little tailor and caused him to be informed that as he was a great warrior, he had one request to make to him. In a forest of his country lived two giants, who caused great mischief with their robbing, murdering, ravaging, and burning, and no one could approach them without putting himself in danger of death. If the tailor conquered and killed these two giants, he would give him his only daughter to wife, and half of his kingdom as a dowry, likewise one hundred horsemen should go with him to assist him. 'That would indeed be a fine thing for a man like me!' thought the little tailor. 'One is not offered a beautiful princess and half a kingdom every day of one's life!' 'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'I will soon subdue the giants, and do not require the help of the hundred horsemen to do it he who can hit seven with one blow has no need to be afraid of two.' The little tailor went forth, and the hundred horsemen followed him. When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers 'Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.' Then he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left. After a while he perceived both giants. They lay sleeping under a tree, and snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the tree. When he was halfway up, he slipped down by a branch, until he sat just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall on the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt nothing, but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said 'Why are you knocking me?' 'You must be dreaming,' said the other, 'I am not knocking you.' They laid themselves down to sleep again, and then the tailor threw a stone down on the second. 'What is the meaning of this?' cried the other 'Why are you pelting me?' 'I am not pelting you,' answered the first, growling. They disputed about it for a time, but as they were weary they let the matter rest, and their eyes closed once more. The little tailor began his game again, picked out the biggest stone, and threw it with all his might on the breast of the first giant. 'That is too bad!' cried he, and sprang up like a madman, and pushed his companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid him back in the same coin, and they got into such a rage that they tore up trees and belaboured each other so long, that at last they both fell down dead on the ground at the same time. Then the little tailor leapt down. 'It is a lucky thing,' said he, 'that they did not tear up the tree on which I was sitting, or I should have had to sprint on to another like a squirrel but we tailors are nimble.' He drew out his sword and gave each of them a couple of thrusts in the breast, and then went out to the horsemen and said 'The work is done I have finished both of them off, but it was hard work! They tore up trees in their sore need, and defended themselves with them, but all that is to no purpose when a man like myself comes, who can kill seven at one blow.' 'But are you not wounded?' asked the horsemen. 'You need not concern yourself about that,' answered the tailor, 'they have not bent one hair of mine.' The horsemen would not believe him, and rode into the forest there they found the giants swimming in their blood, and all round about lay the tornup trees. The little tailor demanded of the king the promised reward he, however, repented of his promise, and again bethought himself how he could get rid of the hero. 'Before you receive my daughter, and the half of my kingdom,' said he to him, 'you must perform one more heroic deed. In the forest roams a unicorn which does great harm, and you must catch it first.' 'I fear one unicorn still less than two giants. Seven at one blow, is my kind of affair.' He took a rope and an axe with him, went forth into the forest, and again bade those who were sent with him to wait outside. He had not long to seek. The unicorn soon came towards him, and rushed directly on the tailor, as if it would gore him with its horn without more ado. 'Softly, softly it can't be done as quickly as that,' said he, and stood still and waited until the animal was quite close, and then sprang nimbly behind the tree. The unicorn ran against the tree with all its strength, and stuck its horn so fast in the trunk that it had not the strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it was caught. 'Now, I have got the bird,' said the tailor, and came out from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the beast away and took it to the king. The king still would not give him the promised reward, and made a third demand. Before the wedding the tailor was to catch him a wild boar that made great havoc in the forest, and the huntsmen should give him their help. 'Willingly,' said the tailor, 'that is child's play!' He did not take the huntsmen with him into the forest, and they were well pleased that he did not, for the wild boar had several times received them in such a manner that they had no inclination to lie in wait for him. When the boar perceived the tailor, it ran on him with foaming mouth and whetted tusks, and was about to throw him to the ground, but the hero fled and sprang into a chapel which was near and up to the window at once, and in one bound out again. The boar ran after him, but the tailor ran round outside and shut the door behind it, and then the raging beast, which was much too heavy and awkward to leap out of the window, was caught. The little tailor called the huntsmen thither that they might see the prisoner with their own eyes. The hero, however, went to the king, who was now, whether he liked it or not, obliged to keep his promise, and gave his daughter and the half of his kingdom. Had he known that it was no warlike hero, but a little tailor who was standing before him, it would have gone to his heart still more than it did. The wedding was held with great magnificence and small joy, and out of a tailor a king was made. After some time the young queen heard her husband say in his dreams at night 'Boy, make me the doublet, and patch the pantaloons, or else I will rap the yardmeasure over your ears.' Then she discovered in what state of life the young lord had been born, and next morning complained of her wrongs to her father, and begged him to help her to get rid of her husband, who was nothing else but a tailor. The king comforted her and said 'Leave your bedroom door open this night, and my servants shall stand outside, and when he has fallen asleep shall go in, bind him, and take him on board a ship which shall carry him into the wide world.' The woman was satisfied with this but the king's armourbearer, who had heard all, was friendly with the young lord, and informed him of the whole plot. 'I'll put a screw into that business,' said the little tailor. At night he went to bed with his wife at the usual time, and when she thought that he had fallen asleep, she got up, opened the door, and then lay down again. The little tailor, who was only pretending to be asleep, began to cry out in a clear voice 'Boy, make me the doublet and patch me the pantaloons, or I will rap the yardmeasure over your ears. I smote seven at one blow. I killed two giants, I brought away one unicorn, and caught a wild boar, and am I to fear those who are standing outside the room.' When these men heard the tailor speaking thus, they were overcome by a great dread, and ran as if the wild huntsman were behind them, and none of them would venture anything further against him. So the little tailor was and remained a king to the end of his life. Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor woodcutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he groaned and said to his wife 'What is to become of us? How are we to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for ourselves?' 'I'll tell you what, husband,' answered the woman, 'early tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest there we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them.' 'No, wife,' said the man, 'I will not do that how can I bear to leave my children alone in the forest?the wild animals would soon come and tear them to pieces.' 'O, you fool!' said she, 'then we must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our coffins,' and she left him no peace until he consented. 'But I feel very sorry for the poor children, all the same,' said the man. The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had heard what their stepmother had said to their father. Gretel wept bitter tears, and said to Hansel 'Now all is over with us.' 'Be quiet, Gretel,' said Hansel, 'do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way to help us.' And when the old folks had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his little coat, opened the door below, and crept outside. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house glittered like real silver pennies. Hansel stooped and stuffed the little pocket of his coat with as many as he could get in. Then he went back and said to Gretel 'Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in peace, God will not forsake us,' and he lay down again in his bed. When day dawned, but before the sun had risen, the woman came and awoke the two children, saying 'Get up, you sluggards! we are going into the forest to fetch wood.' She gave each a little piece of bread, and said 'There is something for your dinner, but do not eat it up before then, for you will get nothing else.' Gretel took the bread under her apron, as Hansel had the pebbles in his pocket. Then they all set out together on the way to the forest. When they had walked a short time, Hansel stood still and peeped back at the house, and did so again and again. His father said 'Hansel, what are you looking at there and staying behind for? Pay attention, and do not forget how to use your legs.' 'Ah, father,' said Hansel, 'I am looking at my little white cat, which is sitting up on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me.' The wife said 'Fool, that is not your little cat, that is the morning sun which is shining on the chimneys.' Hansel, however, had not been looking back at the cat, but had been constantly throwing one of the white pebblestones out of his pocket on the road. When they had reached the middle of the forest, the father said 'Now, children, pile up some wood, and I will light a fire that you may not be cold.' Hansel and Gretel gathered brushwood together, as high as a little hill. The brushwood was lighted, and when the flames were burning very high, the woman said 'Now, children, lay yourselves down by the fire and rest, we will go into the forest and cut some wood. When we have done, we will come back and fetch you away.' Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire, and when noon came, each ate a little piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the woodaxe they believed that their father was near. It was not the axe, however, but a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was blowing backwards and forwards. And as they had been sitting such a long time, their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell fast asleep. When at last they awoke, it was already dark night. Gretel began to cry and said 'How are we to get out of the forest now?' But Hansel comforted her and said 'Just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we will soon find the way.' And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like newlycoined silver pieces, and showed them the way. They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more to their father's house. They knocked at the door, and when the woman opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said 'You naughty children, why have you slept so long in the forest?we thought you were never coming back at all!' The father, however, rejoiced, for it had cut him to the heart to leave them behind alone. Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their father 'Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again there is no other means of saving ourselves!' The man's heart was heavy, and he thought 'It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your children.' The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says A must say B, likewise, and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time also. The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation. When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his little sister, and said 'Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the good God will help us.' Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. 'Hansel, why do you stop and look round?' said the father, 'go on.' 'I am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me,' answered Hansel. 'Fool!' said the woman, 'that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining on the chimney.' Hansel, however little by little, threw all the crumbs on the path. The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had never in their lives been before. Then a great fire was again made, and the mother said 'Just sit there, you children, and when you are tired you may sleep a little we are going into the forest to cut wood, and in the evening when we are done, we will come and fetch you away.' When it was noon, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel, who had scattered his by the way. Then they fell asleep and evening passed, but no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark night, and Hansel comforted his little sister and said 'Just wait, Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread which I have strewn about, they will show us our way home again.' When the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked them all up. Hansel said to Gretel 'We shall soon find the way,' but they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest, and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three berries, which grew on the ground. And as they were so weary that their legs would carry them no longer, they lay down beneath a tree and fell asleep. It was now three mornings since they had left their father's house. They began to walk again, but they always came deeper into the forest, and if help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it was midday, they saw a beautiful snowwhite bird sitting on a bough, which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And when its song was over, it spread its wings and flew away before them, and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of which it alighted and when they approached the little house they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows were of clear sugar. 'We will set to work on that,' said Hansel, 'and have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and you Gretel, can eat some of the window, it will taste sweet.' Hansel reached up above, and broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted, and Gretel leant against the window and nibbled at the panes. Then a soft voice cried from the parlour The children answered and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out the whole of one round windowpane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said 'Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here? do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall happen to you.' She took them both by the hand, and led them into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down in them, and thought they were in heaven. The old woman had only pretended to be so kind she was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed with malice, and said mockingly 'I have them, they shall not escape me again!' Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself 'That will be a dainty mouthful!' Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried 'Get up, lazy thing, fetch some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.' Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded. And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing but crabshells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried 'Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon be fat.' Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. 'Now, then, Gretel,' she cried to the girl, 'stir yourself, and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.' Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! 'Dear God, do help us,' she cried. 'If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together.' 'Just keep your noise to yourself,' said the old woman, 'it won't help you at all.' Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with the water, and light the fire. 'We will bake first,' said the old woman, 'I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.' She pushed poor Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. 'Creep in,' said the witch, 'and see if it is properly heated, so that we can put the bread in.' And once Gretel was inside, she intended to shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said 'I do not know how I am to do it how do I get in?' 'Silly goose,' said the old woman. 'The door is big enough just look, I can get in myself!' and she crept up and thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death. Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, and cried 'Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!' Then Hansel sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other! And as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch's house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels. 'These are far better than pebbles!' said Hansel, and thrust into his pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said 'I, too, will take something home with me,' and filled her pinafore full. 'But now we must be off,' said Hansel, 'that we may get out of the witch's forest.' When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of water. 'We cannot cross,' said Hansel, 'I see no footplank, and no bridge.' 'And there is also no ferry,' answered Gretel, 'but a white duck is swimming there if I ask her, she will help us over.' Then she cried The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told his sister to sit by him. 'No,' replied Gretel, 'that will be too heavy for the little duck she shall take us across, one after the other.' The good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and had walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar to them, and at length they saw from afar their father's house. Then they began to run, rushed into the parlour, and threw themselves round their father's neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had left the children in the forest the woman, however, was dead. Gretel emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness. My tale is done, there runs a mouse whosoever catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it. Once upon a time, a mouse, a bird, and a sausage, entered into partnership and set up house together. For a long time all went well they lived in great comfort, and prospered so far as to be able to add considerably to their stores. The bird's duty was to fly daily into the wood and bring in fuel the mouse fetched the water, and the sausage saw to the cooking. When people are too well off they always begin to long for something new. And so it came to pass, that the bird, while out one day, met a fellow bird, to whom he boastfully expatiated on the excellence of his household arrangements. But the other bird sneered at him for being a poor simpleton, who did all the hard work, while the other two stayed at home and had a good time of it. For, when the mouse had made the fire and fetched in the water, she could retire into her little room and rest until it was time to set the table. The sausage had only to watch the pot to see that the food was properly cooked, and when it was near dinnertime, he just threw himself into the broth, or rolled in and out among the vegetables three or four times, and there they were, buttered, and salted, and ready to be served. Then, when the bird came home and had laid aside his burden, they sat down to table, and when they had finished their meal, they could sleep their fill till the following morning and that was really a very delightful life. Influenced by those remarks, the bird next morning refused to bring in the wood, telling the others that he had been their servant long enough, and had been a fool into the bargain, and that it was now time to make a change, and to try some other way of arranging the work. Beg and pray as the mouse and the sausage might, it was of no use the bird remained master of the situation, and the venture had to be made. They therefore drew lots, and it fell to the sausage to bring in the wood, to the mouse to cook, and to the bird to fetch the water. And now what happened? The sausage started in search of wood, the bird made the fire, and the mouse put on the pot, and then these two waited till the sausage returned with the fuel for the following day. But the sausage remained so long away, that they became uneasy, and the bird flew out to meet him. He had not flown far, however, when he came across a dog who, having met the sausage, had regarded him as his legitimate booty, and so seized and swallowed him. The bird complained to the dog of this barefaced robbery, but nothing he said was of any avail, for the dog answered that he found false credentials on the sausage, and that was the reason his life had been forfeited. He picked up the wood, and flew sadly home, and told the mouse all he had seen and heard. They were both very unhappy, but agreed to make the best of things and to remain with one another. So now the bird set the table, and the mouse looked after the food and, wishing to prepare it in the same way as the sausage, by rolling in and out among the vegetables to salt and butter them, she jumped into the pot but she stopped short long before she reached the bottom, having already parted not only with her skin and hair, but also with life. Presently the bird came in and wanted to serve up the dinner, but he could nowhere see the cook. In his alarm and flurry, he threw the wood here and there about the floor, called and searched, but no cook was to be found. Then some of the wood that had been carelessly thrown down, caught fire and began to blaze. The bird hastened to fetch some water, but his pail fell into the well, and he after it, and as he was unable to recover himself, he was drowned. Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters one of them was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. The mother, however, loved the ugly and lazy one best, because she was her own daughter, and so the other, who was only her stepdaughter, was made to do all the work of the house, and was quite the Cinderella of the family. Her stepmother sent her out every day to sit by the well in the high road, there to spin until she made her fingers bleed. Now it chanced one day that some blood fell on to the spindle, and as the girl stopped over the well to wash it off, the spindle suddenly sprang out of her hand and fell into the well. She ran home crying to tell of her misfortune, but her stepmother spoke harshly to her, and after giving her a violent scolding, said unkindly, 'As you have let the spindle fall into the well you may go yourself and fetch it out.' The girl went back to the well not knowing what to do, and at last in her distress she jumped into the water after the spindle. She remembered nothing more until she awoke and found herself in a beautiful meadow, full of sunshine, and with countless flowers blooming in every direction. She walked over the meadow, and presently she came upon a baker's oven full of bread, and the loaves cried out to her, 'Take us out, take us out, or alas! we shall be burnt to a cinder we were baked through long ago.' So she took the breadshovel and drew them all out. She went on a little farther, till she came to a tree full of apples. 'Shake me, shake me, I pray,' cried the tree 'my apples, one and all, are ripe.' So she shook the tree, and the apples came falling down upon her like rain but she continued shaking until there was not a single apple left upon it. Then she carefully gathered the apples together in a heap and walked on again. The next thing she came to was a little house, and there she saw an old woman looking out, with such large teeth, that she was terrified, and turned to run away. But the old woman called after her, 'What are you afraid of, dear child? Stay with me if you will do the work of my house properly for me, I will make you very happy. You must be very careful, however, to make my bed in the right way, for I wish you always to shake it thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about then they say, down there in the world, that it is snowing for I am Mother Holle.' The old woman spoke so kindly, that the girl summoned up courage and agreed to enter into her service. She took care to do everything according to the old woman's bidding and every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so that the feathers flew about like so many snowflakes. The old woman was as good as her word she never spoke angrily to her, and gave her roast and boiled meats every day. So she stayed on with Mother Holle for some time, and then she began to grow unhappy. She could not at first tell why she felt sad, but she became conscious at last of great longing to go home then she knew she was homesick, although she was a thousand times better off with Mother Holle than with her mother and sister. After waiting awhile, she went to Mother Holle and said, 'I am so homesick, that I cannot stay with you any longer, for although I am so happy here, I must return to my own people.' Then Mother Holle said, 'I am pleased that you should want to go back to your own people, and as you have served me so well and faithfully, I will take you home myself.' Thereupon she led the girl by the hand up to a broad gateway. The gate was opened, and as the girl passed through, a shower of gold fell upon her, and the gold clung to her, so that she was covered with it from head to foot. 'That is a reward for your industry,' said Mother Holle, and as she spoke she handed her the spindle which she had dropped into the well. The gate was then closed, and the girl found herself back in the old world close to her mother's house. As she entered the courtyard, the cock who was perched on the well, called out Then she went in to her mother and sister, and as she was so richly covered with gold, they gave her a warm welcome. She related to them all that had happened, and when the mother heard how she had come by her great riches, she thought she should like her ugly, lazy daughter to go and try her fortune. So she made the sister go and sit by the well and spin, and the girl pricked her finger and thrust her hand into a thornbush, so that she might drop some blood on to the spindle then she threw it into the well, and jumped in herself. Like her sister she awoke in the beautiful meadow, and walked over it till she came to the oven. 'Take us out, take us out, or alas! we shall be burnt to a cinder we were baked through long ago,' cried the loaves as before. But the lazy girl answered, 'Do you think I am going to dirty my hands for you?' and walked on. Presently she came to the appletree. 'Shake me, shake me, I pray my apples, one and all, are ripe,' it cried. But she only answered, 'A nice thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,' and passed on. At last she came to Mother Holle's house, and as she had heard all about the large teeth from her sister, she was not afraid of them, and engaged herself without delay to the old woman. The first day she was very obedient and industrious, and exerted herself to please Mother Holle, for she thought of the gold she should get in return. The next day, however, she began to dawdle over her work, and the third day she was more idle still then she began to lie in bed in the mornings and refused to get up. Worse still, she neglected to make the old woman's bed properly, and forgot to shake it so that the feathers might fly about. So Mother Holle very soon got tired of her, and told her she might go. The lazy girl was delighted at this, and thought to herself, 'The gold will soon be mine.' Mother Holle led her, as she had led her sister, to the broad gateway but as she was passing through, instead of the shower of gold, a great bucketful of pitch came pouring over her. 'That is in return for your services,' said the old woman, and she shut the gate. So the lazy girl had to go home covered with pitch, and the cock on the well called out as she saw her But, try what she would, she could not get the pitch off and it stuck to her as long as she lived. Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else so she was always called 'Little RedCap.' One day her mother said to her 'Come, Little RedCap, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing and when you go into her room, don't forget to say, 'Good morning, and don't peep into every corner before you do it.' 'I will take great care,' said Little RedCap to her mother, and gave her hand on it. The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, and just as Little RedCap entered the wood, a wolf met her. RedCap did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him. 'Good day, Little RedCap,' said he. 'Thank you kindly, wolf.' 'Whither away so early, Little RedCap?' 'To my grandmother's.' 'What have you got in your apron?' 'Cake and wine yesterday was bakingday, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger.' 'Where does your grandmother live, Little RedCap?' 'A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood her house stands under the three large oaktrees, the nuttrees are just below you surely must know it,' replied Little RedCap. The wolf thought to himself 'What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthfulshe will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.' So he walked for a short time by the side of Little RedCap, and then he said 'See, Little RedCap, how pretty the flowers are about herewhy do you not look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing you walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.' Little RedCap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought 'Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay that would please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time' and so she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood. Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door. 'Who is there?' 'Little RedCap,' replied the wolf. 'She is bringing cake and wine open the door.' 'Lift the latch,' called out the grandmother, 'I am too weak, and cannot get up.' The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap laid himself in bed and drew the curtains. Little RedCap, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her. She was surprised to find the cottagedoor standing open, and when she went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself 'Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like being with grandmother so much.' She called out 'Good morning,' but received no answer so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange. 'Oh! grandmother,' she said, 'what big ears you have!' 'The better to hear you with, my child,' was the reply. 'But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!' she said. 'The better to see you with, my dear.' 'But, grandmother, what large hands you have!' 'The better to hug you with.' 'Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!' 'The better to eat you with!' And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up RedCap. When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing the house, and thought to himself 'How the old woman is snoring! I must just see if she wants anything.' So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. 'Do I find you here, you old sinner!' said he. 'I have long sought you!' Then just as he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf. When he had made two snips, he saw the little RedCap shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl sprang out, crying 'Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was inside the wolf' and after that the aged grandmother came out alive also, but scarcely able to breathe. RedCap, however, quickly fetched great stones with which they filled the wolf's belly, and when he awoke, he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at once, and fell dead. Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf's skin and went home with it the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which RedCap had brought, and revived, but RedCap thought to herself 'As long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.' It also related that once when RedCap was again taking cakes to the old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the path. RedCap, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he had said 'good morning' to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would have eaten her up. 'Well,' said the grandmother, 'we will shut the door, that he may not come in.' Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried 'Open the door, grandmother, I am Little RedCap, and am bringing you some cakes.' But they did not speak, or open the door, so the greybeard stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until RedCap went home in the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone trough, so she said to the child 'Take the pail, RedCap I made some sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the trough.' RedCap carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight into the great trough, and was drowned. But RedCap went joyously home, and no one ever did anything to harm her again. There was once a miller who had one beautiful daughter, and as she was grown up, he was anxious that she should be well married and provided for. He said to himself, 'I will give her to the first suitable man who comes and asks for her hand.' Not long after a suitor appeared, and as he appeared to be very rich and the miller could see nothing in him with which to find fault, he betrothed his daughter to him. But the girl did not care for the man as a girl ought to care for her betrothed husband. She did not feel that she could trust him, and she could not look at him nor think of him without an inward shudder. One day he said to her, 'You have not yet paid me a visit, although we have been betrothed for some time.' 'I do not know where your house is,' she answered. 'My house is out there in the dark forest,' he said. She tried to excuse herself by saying that she would not be able to find the way thither. Her betrothed only replied, 'You must come and see me next Sunday I have already invited guests for that day, and that you may not mistake the way, I will strew ashes along the path.' When Sunday came, and it was time for the girl to start, a feeling of dread came over her which she could not explain, and that she might be able to find her path again, she filled her pockets with peas and lentils to sprinkle on the ground as she went along. On reaching the entrance to the forest she found the path strewed with ashes, and these she followed, throwing down some peas on either side of her at every step she took. She walked the whole day until she came to the deepest, darkest part of the forest. There she saw a lonely house, looking so grim and mysterious, that it did not please her at all. She stepped inside, but not a soul was to be seen, and a great silence reigned throughout. Suddenly a voice cried The girl looked up and saw that the voice came from a bird hanging in a cage on the wall. Again it cried The girl passed on, going from room to room of the house, but they were all empty, and still she saw no one. At last she came to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from shaking. 'Can you tell me,' asked the girl, 'if my betrothed husband lives here?' 'Ah, you poor child,' answered the old woman, 'what a place for you to come to! This is a murderers' den. You think yourself a promised bride, and that your marriage will soon take place, but it is with death that you will keep your marriage feast. Look, do you see that large cauldron of water which I am obliged to keep on the fire! As soon as they have you in their power they will kill you without mercy, and cook and eat you, for they are eaters of men. If I did not take pity on you and save you, you would be lost.' Thereupon the old woman led her behind a large cask, which quite hid her from view. 'Keep as still as a mouse,' she said 'do not move or speak, or it will be all over with you. Tonight, when the robbers are all asleep, we will flee together. I have long been waiting for an opportunity to escape.' The words were hardly out of her mouth when the godless crew returned, dragging another young girl along with them. They were all drunk, and paid no heed to her cries and lamentations. They gave her wine to drink, three glasses full, one of white wine, one of red, and one of yellow, and with that her heart gave way and she died. Then they tore off her dainty clothing, laid her on a table, and cut her beautiful body into pieces, and sprinkled salt upon it. The poor betrothed girl crouched trembling and shuddering behind the cask, for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by the robbers. One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on the little finger of the murdered girl, and as he could not draw it off easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger but the finger sprang into the air, and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was hiding there. The robber took a light and began looking for it, but he could not find it. 'Have you looked behind the large cask?' said one of the others. But the old woman called out, 'Come and eat your suppers, and let the thing be till tomorrow the finger won't run away.' 'The old woman is right,' said the robbers, and they ceased looking for the finger and sat down. The old woman then mixed a sleeping draught with their wine, and before long they were all lying on the floor of the cellar, fast asleep and snoring. As soon as the girl was assured of this, she came from behind the cask. She was obliged to step over the bodies of the sleepers, who were lying close together, and every moment she was filled with renewed dread lest she should awaken them. But God helped her, so that she passed safely over them, and then she and the old woman went upstairs, opened the door, and hastened as fast as they could from the murderers' den. They found the ashes scattered by the wind, but the peas and lentils had sprouted, and grown sufficiently above the ground, to guide them in the moonlight along the path. All night long they walked, and it was morning before they reached the mill. Then the girl told her father all that had happened. The day came that had been fixed for the marriage. The bridegroom arrived and also a large company of guests, for the miller had taken care to invite all his friends and relations. As they sat at the feast, each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale the bride sat still and did not say a word. 'And you, my love,' said the bridegroom, turning to her, 'is there no tale you know? Tell us something.' 'I will tell you a dream, then,' said the bride. 'I went alone through a forest and came at last to a house not a soul could I find within, but a bird that was hanging in a cage on the wall cried And again a second time it said these words.' 'My darling, this is only a dream.' 'I went on through the house from room to room, but they were all empty, and everything was so grim and mysterious. At last I went down to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head still. I asked her if my betrothed lived here, and she answered, 'Ah, you poor child, you are come to a murderers' den your betrothed does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterwards cook and eat you.' 'My darling, this is only a dream.' 'The old woman hid me behind a large cask, and scarcely had she done this when the robbers returned home, dragging a young girl along with them. They gave her three kinds of wine to drink, white, red, and yellow, and with that she died.' 'My darling, this is only a dream.' 'Then they tore off her dainty clothing, and cut her beautiful body into pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.' 'My darling, this is only a dream.' 'And one of the robbers saw that there was a gold ring still left on her finger, and as it was difficult to draw off, he took a hatchet and cut off her finger but the finger sprang into the air and fell behind the great cask into my lap. And here is the finger with the ring.' And with these words the bride drew forth the finger and shewed it to the assembled guests. The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him fast. They delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were condemned to death for their wicked deeds. A poor woodman sat in his cottage one night, smoking his pipe by the fireside, while his wife sat by his side spinning. 'How lonely it is, wife,' said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, 'for you and me to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse us while other people seem so happy and merry with their children!' 'What you say is very true,' said the wife, sighing, and turning round her wheel 'how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were ever so smallnay, if it were no bigger than my thumbI should be very happy, and love it dearly.' Nowodd as you may think itit came to pass that this good woman's wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she had wished it for, not long afterwards, she had a little boy, who was quite healthy and strong, but was not much bigger than my thumb. So they said, 'Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and, little as he is, we will love him dearly.' And they called him Thomas Thumb. They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born. Still, his eyes were sharp and sparkling, and he soon showed himself to be a clever little fellow, who always knew well what he was about. One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut fuel, he said, 'I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I want to make haste.' 'Oh, father,' cried Tom, 'I will take care of that the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.' Then the woodman laughed, and said, 'How can that be? you cannot reach up to the horse's bridle.' 'Never mind that, father,' said Tom 'if my mother will only harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to go.' 'Well,' said the father, 'we will try for once.' When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put Tom into his ear and as he sat there the little man told the beast how to go, crying out, 'Go on!' and 'Stop!' as he wanted and thus the horse went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the wood. It happened that as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom was calling out, 'Gently! gently!' two strangers came up. 'What an odd thing that is!' said one 'there is a cart going along, and I hear a carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.' 'That is queer, indeed,' said the other 'let us follow the cart, and see where it goes.' So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried out, 'See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! now take me down!' So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with the other took his son out of the horse's ear, and put him down upon a straw, where he sat as merry as you please. The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what to say for wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, 'That little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him about from town to town as a show we must buy him.' So they went up to the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. 'He will be better off,' said they, 'with us than with you.' 'I won't sell him at all,' said the father 'my own flesh and blood is dearer to me than all the silver and gold in the world.' But Tom, hearing of the bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father's coat to his shoulder and whispered in his ear, 'Take the money, father, and let them have me I'll soon come back to you.' So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a large piece of gold, and they paid the price. 'Where would you like to sit?' said one of them. 'Oh, put me on the rim of your hat that will be a nice gallery for me I can walk about there and see the country as we go along.' So they did as he wished and when Tom had taken leave of his father they took him away with them. They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man said, 'Let me get down, I'm tired.' So the man took off his hat, and put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into an old mousehole. 'Good night, my masters!' said he, 'I'm off! mind and look sharp after me the next time.' Then they ran at once to the place, and poked the ends of their sticks into the mousehole, but all in vain Tom only crawled farther and farther in and at last it became quite dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as sulky as could be. When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hidingplace. 'What dangerous walking it is,' said he, 'in this ploughed field! If I were to fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.' At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snailshell. 'This is lucky,' said he, 'I can sleep here very well' and in he crept. Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting together and one said to the other, 'How can we rob that rich parson's house of his silver and gold?' 'I'll tell you!' cried Tom. 'What noise was that?' said the thief, frightened 'I'm sure I heard someone speak.' They stood still listening, and Tom said, 'Take me with you, and I'll soon show you how to get the parson's money.' 'But where are you?' said they. 'Look about on the ground,' answered he, 'and listen where the sound comes from.' At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him up in their hands. 'You little urchin!' they said, 'what can you do for us?' 'Why, I can get between the iron windowbars of the parson's house, and throw you out whatever you want.' 'That's a good thought,' said the thieves 'come along, we shall see what you can do.' When they came to the parson's house, Tom slipped through the windowbars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl, 'Will you have all that is here?' At this the thieves were frightened, and said, 'Softly, softly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.' But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again, 'How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?' Now the cook lay in the next room and hearing a noise she raised herself up in her bed and listened. Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little way but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, 'The little urchin is only trying to make fools of us.' So they came back and whispered softly to him, saying, 'Now let us have no more of your roguish jokes but throw us out some of the money.' Then Tom called out as loud as he could, 'Very well! hold your hands! here it comes.' The cook heard this quite plain, so she sprang out of bed, and ran to open the door. The thieves ran off as if a wolf was at their tails and the maid, having groped about and found nothing, went away for a light. By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn and when she had looked about and searched every hole and corner, and found nobody, she went to bed, thinking she must have been dreaming with her eyes open. The little man crawled about in the hayloft, and at last found a snug place to finish his night's rest in so he laid himself down, meaning to sleep till daylight, and then find his way home to his father and mother. But alas! how woefully he was undone! what crosses and sorrows happen to us all in this world! The cook got up early, before daybreak, to feed the cows and going straight to the hayloft, carried away a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it, fast asleep. He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found himself in the mouth of the cow for the cook had put the hay into the cow's rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. 'Good lackaday!' said he, 'how came I to tumble into the mill?' But he soon found out where he really was and was forced to have all his wits about him, that he might not get between the cow's teeth, and so be crushed to death. At last down he went into her stomach. 'It is rather dark,' said he 'they forgot to build windows in this room to let the sun in a candle would be no bad thing.' Though he made the best of his bad luck, he did not like his quarters at all and the worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he cried out as loud as he could, 'Don't bring me any more hay! Don't bring me any more hay!' The maid happened to be just then milking the cow and hearing someone speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off her stool, and overset the milkpail. As soon as she could pick herself up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the parson, and said, 'Sir, sir, the cow is talking!' But the parson said, 'Woman, thou art surely mad!' However, he went with her into the cowhouse, to try and see what was the matter. Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, 'Don't bring me any more hay!' Then the parson himself was frightened and thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up and the stomach, in which Tom lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill. Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy task but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh illluck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away. Tom, however, was still not disheartened and thinking the wolf would not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called out, 'My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.' 'Where's that?' said the wolf. 'In such and such a house,' said Tom, describing his own father's house. 'You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold chicken, roast pig, appledumplings, and everything that your heart can wish.' The wolf did not want to be asked twice so that very night he went to the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart's content. As soon as he had had enough he wanted to get away but he had eaten so much that he could not go out by the same way he came in. This was just what Tom had reckoned upon and now he began to set up a great shout, making all the noise he could. 'Will you be easy?' said the wolf 'you'll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.' 'What's that to me?' said the little man 'you have had your frolic, now I've a mind to be merry myself' and he began, singing and shouting as loud as he could. The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through a crack in the door but when they saw a wolf was there, you may well suppose that they were sadly frightened and the woodman ran for his axe, and gave his wife a scythe. 'Do you stay behind,' said the woodman, 'and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the scythe.' Tom heard all this, and cried out, 'Father, father! I am here, the wolf has swallowed me.' And his father said, 'Heaven be praised! we have found our dear child again' and he told his wife not to use the scythe for fear she should hurt him. Then he aimed a great blow, and struck the wolf on the head, and killed him on the spot! and when he was dead they cut open his body, and set Tommy free. 'Ah!' said the father, 'what fears we have had for you!' 'Yes, father,' answered he 'I have travelled all over the world, I think, in one way or other, since we parted and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.' 'Why, where have you been?' said his father. 'I have been in a mouseholeand in a snailshelland down a cow's throatand in the wolf's belly and yet here I am again, safe and sound.' 'Well,' said they, 'you are come back, and we will not sell you again for all the riches in the world.' Then they hugged and kissed their dear little son, and gave him plenty to eat and drink, for he was very hungry and then they fetched new clothes for him, for his old ones had been quite spoiled on his journey. So Master Thumb stayed at home with his father and mother, in peace for though he had been so great a traveller, and had done and seen so many fine things, and was fond enough of telling the whole story, he always agreed that, after all, there's no place like HOME! By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream of water and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller's house was close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever and the miller was so proud of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Now this king was very fond of money and when he heard the miller's boast his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great heap of straw, and gave her a spinningwheel, and said, 'All this must be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.' It was in vain that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father, for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold the chamber door was locked, and she was left alone. She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard fate when on a sudden the door opened, and a drolllooking little man hobbled in, and said, 'Good morrow to you, my good lass what are you weeping for?' 'Alas!' said she, 'I must spin this straw into gold, and I know not how.' 'What will you give me,' said the hobgoblin, 'to do it for you?' 'My necklace,' replied the maiden. He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang And round about the wheel went merrily the work was quickly done, and the straw was all spun into gold. When the king came and saw this, he was greatly astonished and pleased but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor miller's daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, and sat down once more to weep but the dwarf soon opened the door, and said, 'What will you give me to do your task?' 'The ring on my finger,' said she. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the wheel again, and whistled and sang till, long before morning, all was done again. The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure but still he had not enough so he took the miller's daughter to a yet larger heap, and said, 'All this must be spun tonight and if it is, you shall be my queen.' As soon as she was alone that dwarf came in, and said, 'What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?' 'I have nothing left,' said she. 'Then say you will give me,' said the little man, 'the first little child that you may have when you are queen.' 'That may never be,' thought the miller's daughter and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the manikin once more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding all he wanted, was forced to keep his word so he married the miller's daughter, and she really became queen. At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the dwarf, and what she had said. But one day he came into her room, where she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Then she grieved sorely at her misfortune, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain till at last her tears softened him, and he said, 'I will give you three days' grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child.' Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could remember but to all and each of them he said, 'Madam, that is not my name.' The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, BANDYLEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOKSHANKS, and so on but the little gentleman still said to every one of them, 'Madam, that is not my name.' The third day one of the messengers came back, and said, 'I have travelled two days without hearing of any other names but yesterday, as I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, I saw a little hut and before the hut burnt a fire and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was dancing upon one leg, and singing When the queen heard this she jumped for joy, and as soon as her little friend came she sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round to enjoy the fun and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child, to take home with him to his hut in the woods and he cried out, 'Now, lady, what is my name?' 'Is it JOHN?' asked she. 'No, madam!' 'Is it TOM?' 'No, madam!' 'Is it JEMMY?' 'It is not.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the lady slyly. 'Some witch told you that!some witch told you that!' cried the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, 'We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!' There was once a cook named Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and that, was quite happy and thought 'You certainly are a pretty girl!' And when she came home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she was cooking until she was satisfied, and said 'The cook must know what the food is like.' It came to pass that the master one day said to her 'Gretel, there is a guest coming this evening prepare me two fowls very daintily.' 'I will see to it, master,' answered Gretel. She killed two fowls, scalded them, plucked them, put them on the spit, and towards evening set them before the fire, that they might roast. The fowls began to turn brown, and were nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived. Then Gretel called out to her master 'If the guest does not come, I must take the fowls away from the fire, but it will be a sin and a shame if they are not eaten the moment they are at their juiciest.' The master said 'I will run myself, and fetch the guest.' When the master had turned his back, Gretel laid the spit with the fowls on one side, and thought 'Standing so long by the fire there, makes one sweat and thirsty who knows when they will come? Meanwhile, I will run into the cellar, and take a drink.' She ran down, set a jug, said 'God bless it for you, Gretel,' and took a good drink, and thought that wine should flow on, and should not be interrupted, and took yet another hearty draught. Then she went and put the fowls down again to the fire, basted them, and drove the spit merrily round. But as the roast meat smelt so good, Gretel thought 'Something might be wrong, it ought to be tasted!' She touched it with her finger, and said 'Ah! how good fowls are! It certainly is a sin and a shame that they are not eaten at the right time!' She ran to the window, to see if the master was not coming with his guest, but she saw no one, and went back to the fowls and thought 'One of the wings is burning! I had better take it off and eat it.' So she cut it off, ate it, and enjoyed it, and when she had done, she thought 'The other must go down too, or else master will observe that something is missing.' When the two wings were eaten, she went and looked for her master, and did not see him. It suddenly occurred to her 'Who knows? They are perhaps not coming at all, and have turned in somewhere.' Then she said 'Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely when it is eaten you will have some peace, why should God's good gifts be spoilt?' So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down, and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said 'What one is, the other should be likewise, the two go together what's right for the one is right for the other I think if I were to take another draught it would do me no harm.' So she took another hearty drink, and let the second chicken follow the first. While she was making the most of it, her master came and cried 'Hurry up, Gretel, the guest is coming directly after me!' 'Yes, sir, I will soon serve up,' answered Gretel. Meantime the master looked to see that the table was properly laid, and took the great knife, wherewith he was going to carve the chickens, and sharpened it on the steps. Presently the guest came, and knocked politely and courteously at the housedoor. Gretel ran, and looked to see who was there, and when she saw the guest, she put her finger to her lips and said 'Hush! hush! go away as quickly as you can, if my master catches you it will be the worse for you he certainly did ask you to supper, but his intention is to cut off your two ears. Just listen how he is sharpening the knife for it!' The guest heard the sharpening, and hurried down the steps again as fast as he could. Gretel was not idle she ran screaming to her master, and cried 'You have invited a fine guest!' 'Why, Gretel? What do you mean by that?' 'Yes,' said she, 'he has taken the chickens which I was just going to serve up, off the dish, and has run away with them!' 'That's a nice trick!' said her master, and lamented the fine chickens. 'If he had but left me one, so that something remained for me to eat.' He called to him to stop, but the guest pretended not to hear. Then he ran after him with the knife still in his hand, crying 'Just one, just one,' meaning that the guest should leave him just one chicken, and not take both. The guest, however, thought no otherwise than that he was to give up one of his ears, and ran as if fire were burning under him, in order to take them both with him. There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the tablecloth or let it run out of his mouth. His son and his son's wife were disgusted at this, so the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said nothing and only sighed. Then they brought him a wooden bowl for a few halfpence, out of which he had to eat. They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. 'What are you doing there?' asked the father. 'I am making a little trough,' answered the child, 'for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.' The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he did spill a little of anything. There was a certain village wherein no one lived but really rich peasants, and just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant. He had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and yet he and his wife did so wish to have one. One day he said to her 'Listen, I have a good idea, there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall make us a wooden calf, and paint it brown, so that it looks like any other, and in time it will certainly get big and be a cow.' the woman also liked the idea, and their gossip the carpenter cut and planed the calf, and painted it as it ought to be, and made it with its head hanging down as if it were eating. Next morning when the cows were being driven out, the little peasant called the cowherd in and said 'Look, I have a little calf there, but it is still small and has to be carried.' The cowherd said 'All right,' and took it in his arms and carried it to the pasture, and set it among the grass. The little calf always remained standing like one which was eating, and the cowherd said 'It will soon run by itself, just look how it eats already!' At night when he was going to drive the herd home again, he said to the calf 'If you can stand there and eat your fill, you can also go on your four legs I don't care to drag you home again in my arms.' But the little peasant stood at his door, and waited for his little calf, and when the cowherd drove the cows through the village, and the calf was missing, he inquired where it was. The cowherd answered 'It is still standing out there eating. It would not stop and come with us.' But the little peasant said 'Oh, but I must have my beast back again.' Then they went back to the meadow together, but someone had stolen the calf, and it was gone. The cowherd said 'It must have run away.' The peasant, however, said 'Don't tell me that,' and led the cowherd before the mayor, who for his carelessness condemned him to give the peasant a cow for the calf which had run away. And now the little peasant and his wife had the cow for which they had so long wished, and they were heartily glad, but they had no food for it, and could give it nothing to eat, so it soon had to be killed. They salted the flesh, and the peasant went into the town and wanted to sell the skin there, so that he might buy a new calf with the proceeds. On the way he passed by a mill, and there sat a raven with broken wings, and out of pity he took him and wrapped him in the skin. But as the weather grew so bad and there was a storm of rain and wind, he could go no farther, and turned back to the mill and begged for shelter. The miller's wife was alone in the house, and said to the peasant 'Lay yourself on the straw there,' and gave him a slice of bread and cheese. The peasant ate it, and lay down with his skin beside him, and the woman thought 'He is tired and has gone to sleep.' In the meantime came the parson the miller's wife received him well, and said 'My husband is out, so we will have a feast.' The peasant listened, and when he heard them talk about feasting he was vexed that he had been forced to make shift with a slice of bread and cheese. Then the woman served up four different things, roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine. Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking outside. The woman said 'Oh, heavens! It is my husband!' she quickly hid the roast meat inside the tiled stove, the wine under the pillow, the salad on the bed, the cakes under it, and the parson in the closet on the porch. Then she opened the door for her husband, and said 'Thank heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the world were coming to an end.' The miller saw the peasant lying on the straw, and asked, 'What is that fellow doing there?' 'Ah,' said the wife, 'the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where the straw was.' The man said 'I have no objection, but be quick and get me something to eat.' The woman said 'But I have nothing but bread and cheese.' 'I am contented with anything,' replied the husband, 'so far as I am concerned, bread and cheese will do,' and looked at the peasant and said 'Come and eat some more with me.' The peasant did not require to be invited twice, but got up and ate. After this the miller saw the skin in which the raven was, lying on the ground, and asked 'What have you there?' The peasant answered 'I have a soothsayer inside it.' 'Can he foretell anything to me?' said the miller. 'Why not?' answered the peasant 'but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to himself.' The miller was curious, and said 'Let him foretell something for once.' Then the peasant pinched the raven's head, so that he croaked and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said 'What did he say?' The peasant answered 'In the first place, he says that there is some wine hidden under the pillow.' 'Bless me!' cried the miller, and went there and found the wine. 'Now go on,' said he. The peasant made the raven croak again, and said 'In the second place, he says that there is some roast meat in the tiled stove.' 'Upon my word!' cried the miller, and went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven prophesy still more, and said 'Thirdly, he says that there is some salad on the bed.' 'That would be a fine thing!' cried the miller, and went there and found the salad. At last the peasant pinched the raven once more till he croaked, and said 'Fourthly, he says that there are some cakes under the bed.' 'That would be a fine thing!' cried the miller, and looked there, and found the cakes. And now the two sat down to the table together, but the miller's wife was frightened to death, and went to bed and took all the keys with her. The miller would have liked much to know the fifth, but the little peasant said 'First, we will quickly eat the four things, for the fifth is something bad.' So they ate, and after that they bargained how much the miller was to give for the fifth prophecy, until they agreed on three hundred talers. Then the peasant once more pinched the raven's head till he croaked loudly. The miller asked 'What did he say?' The peasant replied 'He says that the Devil is hiding outside there in the closet on the porch.' The miller said 'The Devil must go out,' and opened the housedoor then the woman was forced to give up the keys, and the peasant unlocked the closet. The parson ran out as fast as he could, and the miller said 'It was true I saw the black rascal with my own eyes.' The peasant, however, made off next morning by daybreak with the three hundred talers. At home the small peasant gradually launched out he built a beautiful house, and the peasants said 'The small peasant has certainly been to the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in shovels.' Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and bidden to say from whence his wealth came. He answered 'I sold my cow's skin in the town, for three hundred talers.' When the peasants heard that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home, killed all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell them in the town to the greatest advantage. The mayor, however, said 'But my servant must go first.' When she came to the merchant in the town, he did not give her more than two talers for a skin, and when the others came, he did not give them so much, and said 'What can I do with all these skins?' Then the peasants were vexed that the small peasant should have thus outwitted them, wanted to take vengeance on him, and accused him of this treachery before the mayor. The innocent little peasant was unanimously sentenced to death, and was to be rolled into the water, in a barrel pierced full of holes. He was led forth, and a priest was brought who was to say a mass for his soul. The others were all obliged to retire to a distance, and when the peasant looked at the priest, he recognized the man who had been with the miller's wife. He said to him 'I set you free from the closet, set me free from the barrel.' At this same moment up came, with a flock of sheep, the very shepherd whom the peasant knew had long been wishing to be mayor, so he cried with all his might 'No, I will not do it if the whole world insists on it, I will not do it!' The shepherd hearing that, came up to him, and asked 'What are you about? What is it that you will not do?' The peasant said 'They want to make me mayor, if I will but put myself in the barrel, but I will not do it.' The shepherd said 'If nothing more than that is needful in order to be mayor, I would get into the barrel at once.' The peasant said 'If you will get in, you will be mayor.' The shepherd was willing, and got in, and the peasant shut the top down on him then he took the shepherd's flock for himself, and drove it away. The parson went to the crowd, and declared that the mass had been said. Then they came and rolled the barrel towards the water. When the barrel began to roll, the shepherd cried 'I am quite willing to be mayor.' They believed no otherwise than that it was the peasant who was saying this, and answered 'That is what we intend, but first you shall look about you a little down below there,' and they rolled the barrel down into the water. After that the peasants went home, and as they were entering the village, the small peasant also came quietly in, driving a flock of sheep and looking quite contented. Then the peasants were astonished, and said 'Peasant, from whence do you come? Have you come out of the water?' 'Yes, truly,' replied the peasant, 'I sank deep, deep down, until at last I got to the bottom I pushed the bottom out of the barrel, and crept out, and there were pretty meadows on which a number of lambs were feeding, and from thence I brought this flock away with me.' Said the peasants 'Are there any more there?' 'Oh, yes,' said he, 'more than I could want.' Then the peasants made up their minds that they too would fetch some sheep for themselves, a flock apiece, but the mayor said 'I come first.' So they went to the water together, and just then there were some of the small fleecy clouds in the blue sky, which are called little lambs, and they were reflected in the water, whereupon the peasants cried 'We already see the sheep down below!' The mayor pressed forward and said 'I will go down first, and look about me, and if things promise well I'll call you.' So he jumped in splash! went the water it sounded as if he were calling them, and the whole crowd plunged in after him as one man. Then the entire village was dead, and the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man. There was once a man called Frederick he had a wife whose name was Catherine, and they had not long been married. One day Frederick said. 'Kate! I am going to work in the fields when I come back I shall be hungry so let me have something nice cooked, and a good draught of ale.' 'Very well,' said she, 'it shall all be ready.' When dinnertime drew nigh, Catherine took a nice steak, which was all the meat she had, and put it on the fire to fry. The steak soon began to look brown, and to crackle in the pan and Catherine stood by with a fork and turned it then she said to herself, 'The steak is almost ready, I may as well go to the cellar for the ale.' So she left the pan on the fire and took a large jug and went into the cellar and tapped the ale cask. The beer ran into the jug and Catherine stood looking on. At last it popped into her head, 'The dog is not shut uphe may be running away with the steak that's well thought of.' So up she ran from the cellar and sure enough the rascally cur had got the steak in his mouth, and was making off with it. Away ran Catherine, and away ran the dog across the field but he ran faster than she, and stuck close to the steak. 'It's all gone, and 'what can't be cured must be endured,' said Catherine. So she turned round and as she had run a good way and was tired, she walked home leisurely to cool herself. Now all this time the ale was running too, for Catherine had not turned the cock and when the jug was full the liquor ran upon the floor till the cask was empty. When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had happened. 'My stars!' said she, 'what shall I do to keep Frederick from seeing all this slopping about?' So she thought a while and at last remembered that there was a sack of fine meal bought at the last fair, and that if she sprinkled this over the floor it would suck up the ale nicely. 'What a lucky thing,' said she, 'that we kept that meal! we have now a good use for it.' So away she went for it but she managed to set it down just upon the great jug full of beer, and upset it and thus all the ale that had been saved was set swimming on the floor also. 'Ah! well,' said she, 'when one goes another may as well follow.' Then she strewed the meal all about the cellar, and was quite pleased with her cleverness, and said, 'How very neat and clean it looks!' At noon Frederick came home. 'Now, wife,' cried he, 'what have you for dinner?' 'O Frederick!' answered she, 'I was cooking you a steak but while I went down to draw the ale, the dog ran away with it and while I ran after him, the ale ran out and when I went to dry up the ale with the sack of meal that we got at the fair, I upset the jug but the cellar is now quite dry, and looks so clean!' 'Kate, Kate,' said he, 'how could you do all this?' Why did you leave the steak to fry, and the ale to run, and then spoil all the meal?' 'Why, Frederick,' said she, 'I did not know I was doing wrong you should have told me before.' The husband thought to himself, 'If my wife manages matters thus, I must look sharp myself.' Now he had a good deal of gold in the house so he said to Catherine, 'What pretty yellow buttons these are! I shall put them into a box and bury them in the garden but take care that you never go near or meddle with them.' 'No, Frederick,' said she, 'that I never will.' As soon as he was gone, there came by some pedlars with earthenware plates and dishes, and they asked her whether she would buy. 'Oh dear me, I should like to buy very much, but I have no money if you had any use for yellow buttons, I might deal with you.' 'Yellow buttons!' said they 'let us have a look at them.' 'Go into the garden and dig where I tell you, and you will find the yellow buttons I dare not go myself.' So the rogues went and when they found what these yellow buttons were, they took them all away, and left her plenty of plates and dishes. Then she set them all about the house for a show and when Frederick came back, he cried out, 'Kate, what have you been doing?' 'See,' said she, 'I have bought all these with your yellow buttons but I did not touch them myself the pedlars went themselves and dug them up.' 'Wife, wife,' said Frederick, 'what a pretty piece of work you have made! those yellow buttons were all my money how came you to do such a thing?' 'Why,' answered she, 'I did not know there was any harm in it you should have told me.' Catherine stood musing for a while, and at last said to her husband, 'Hark ye, Frederick, we will soon get the gold back let us run after the thieves.' 'Well, we will try,' answered he 'but take some butter and cheese with you, that we may have something to eat by the way.' 'Very well,' said she and they set out and as Frederick walked the fastest, he left his wife some way behind. 'It does not matter,' thought she 'when we turn back, I shall be so much nearer home than he.' Presently she came to the top of a hill, down the side of which there was a road so narrow that the cart wheels always chafed the trees on each side as they passed. 'Ah, see now,' said she, 'how they have bruised and wounded those poor trees they will never get well.' So she took pity on them, and made use of the butter to grease them all, so that the wheels might not hurt them so much. While she was doing this kind office one of her cheeses fell out of the basket, and rolled down the hill. Catherine looked, but could not see where it had gone so she said, 'Well, I suppose the other will go the same way and find you he has younger legs than I have.' Then she rolled the other cheese after it and away it went, nobody knows where, down the hill. But she said she supposed that they knew the road, and would follow her, and she could not stay there all day waiting for them. At last she overtook Frederick, who desired her to give him something to eat. Then she gave him the dry bread. 'Where are the butter and cheese?' said he. 'Oh!' answered she, 'I used the butter to grease those poor trees that the wheels chafed so and one of the cheeses ran away so I sent the other after it to find it, and I suppose they are both on the road together somewhere.' 'What a goose you are to do such silly things!' said the husband. 'How can you say so?' said she 'I am sure you never told me not.' They ate the dry bread together and Frederick said, 'Kate, I hope you locked the door safe when you came away.' 'No,' answered she, 'you did not tell me.' 'Then go home, and do it now before we go any farther,' said Frederick, 'and bring with you something to eat.' Catherine did as he told her, and thought to herself by the way, 'Frederick wants something to eat but I don't think he is very fond of butter and cheese I'll bring him a bag of fine nuts, and the vinegar, for I have often seen him take some.' When she reached home, she bolted the back door, but the front door she took off the hinges, and said, 'Frederick told me to lock the door, but surely it can nowhere be so safe if I take it with me.' So she took her time by the way and when she overtook her husband she cried out, 'There, Frederick, there is the door itself, you may watch it as carefully as you please.' 'Alas! alas!' said he, 'what a clever wife I have! I sent you to make the house fast, and you take the door away, so that everybody may go in and out as they pleasehowever, as you have brought the door, you shall carry it about with you for your pains.' 'Very well,' answered she, 'I'll carry the door but I'll not carry the nuts and vinegar bottle alsothat would be too much of a load so if you please, I'll fasten them to the door.' Frederick of course made no objection to that plan, and they set off into the wood to look for the thieves but they could not find them and when it grew dark, they climbed up into a tree to spend the night there. Scarcely were they up, than who should come by but the very rogues they were looking for. They were in truth great rascals, and belonged to that class of people who find things before they are lost they were tired so they sat down and made a fire under the very tree where Frederick and Catherine were. Frederick slipped down on the other side, and picked up some stones. Then he climbed up again, and tried to hit the thieves on the head with them but they only said, 'It must be near morning, for the wind shakes the firapples down.' Catherine, who had the door on her shoulder, began to be very tired but she thought it was the nuts upon it that were so heavy so she said softly, 'Frederick, I must let the nuts go.' 'No,' answered he, 'not now, they will discover us.' 'I can't help that they must go.' 'Well, then, make haste and throw them down, if you will.' Then away rattled the nuts down among the boughs and one of the thieves cried, 'Bless me, it is hailing.' A little while after, Catherine thought the door was still very heavy so she whispered to Frederick, 'I must throw the vinegar down.' 'Pray don't,' answered he, 'it will discover us.' 'I can't help that,' said she, 'go it must.' So she poured all the vinegar down and the thieves said, 'What a heavy dew there is!' At last it popped into Catherine's head that it was the door itself that was so heavy all the time so she whispered, 'Frederick, I must throw the door down soon.' But he begged and prayed her not to do so, for he was sure it would betray them. 'Here goes, however,' said she and down went the door with such a clatter upon the thieves, that they cried out 'Murder!' and not knowing what was coming, ran away as fast as they could, and left all the gold. So when Frederick and Catherine came down, there they found all their money safe and sound. There was once upon a time a woman who was a real witch and had two daughters, one ugly and wicked, and this one she loved because she was her own daughter, and one beautiful and good, and this one she hated, because she was her stepdaughter. The stepdaughter once had a pretty apron, which the other fancied so much that she became envious, and told her mother that she must and would have that apron. 'Be quiet, my child,' said the old woman, 'and you shall have it. Your stepsister has long deserved death tonight when she is asleep I will come and cut her head off. Only be careful that you are at the far side of the bed, and push her well to the front.' It would have been all over with the poor girl if she had not just then been standing in a corner, and heard everything. All day long she dared not go out of doors, and when bedtime had come, the witch's daughter got into bed first, so as to lie at the far side, but when she was asleep, the other pushed her gently to the front, and took for herself the place at the back, close by the wall. In the night, the old woman came creeping in, she held an axe in her right hand, and felt with her left to see if anyone were lying at the outside, and then she grasped the axe with both hands, and cut her own child's head off. When she had gone away, the girl got up and went to her sweetheart, who was called Roland, and knocked at his door. When he came out, she said to him 'Listen, dearest Roland, we must fly in all haste my stepmother wanted to kill me, but has struck her own child. When daylight comes, and she sees what she has done, we shall be lost.' 'But,' said Roland, 'I counsel you first to take away her magic wand, or we cannot escape if she pursues us.' The maiden fetched the magic wand, and she took the dead girl's head and dropped three drops of blood on the ground, one in front of the bed, one in the kitchen, and one on the stairs. Then she hurried away with her lover. When the old witch got up next morning, she called her daughter, and wanted to give her the apron, but she did not come. Then the witch cried 'Where are you?' 'Here, on the stairs, I am sweeping,' answered the first drop of blood. The old woman went out, but saw no one on the stairs, and cried again 'Where are you?' 'Here in the kitchen, I am warming myself,' cried the second drop of blood. She went into the kitchen, but found no one. Then she cried again 'Where are you?' 'Ah, here in the bed, I am sleeping,' cried the third drop of blood. She went into the room to the bed. What did she see there? Her own child, whose head she had cut off, bathed in her blood. The witch fell into a passion, sprang to the window, and as she could look forth quite far into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her sweetheart Roland. 'That shall not help you,' cried she, 'even if you have got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.' She put on her manyleague boots, in which she covered an hour's walk at every step, and it was not long before she overtook them. The girl, however, when she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed, with her magic wand, her sweetheart Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck swimming in the middle of it. The witch placed herself on the shore, threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck but the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to go home at night as she had come. At this the girl and her sweetheart Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole night until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful flower which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up towards them, and said to the musician 'Dear musician, may I pluck that beautiful flower for myself?' 'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'I will play to you while you do it.' As she was hastily creeping into the hedge and was just going to pluck the flower, knowing perfectly well who the flower was, he began to play, and whether she would or not, she was forced to dance, for it was a magical dance. The faster he played, the more violent springs was she forced to make, and the thorns tore her clothes from her body, and pricked her and wounded her till she bled, and as he did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground. As they were now set free, Roland said 'Now I will go to my father and arrange for the wedding.' 'Then in the meantime I will stay here and wait for you,' said the girl, 'and that no one may recognize me, I will change myself into a red stone landmark.' Then Roland went away, and the girl stood like a red landmark in the field and waited for her beloved. But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another, who so fascinated him that he forgot the maiden. The poor girl remained there a long time, but at length, as he did not return at all, she was sad, and changed herself into a flower, and thought 'Someone will surely come this way, and trample me down.' It befell, however, that a shepherd kept his sheep in the field and saw the flower, and as it was so pretty, plucked it, took it with him, and laid it away in his chest. From that time forth, strange things happened in the shepherd's house. When he arose in the morning, all the work was already done, the room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the fire in the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched, and at noon, when he came home, the table was laid, and a good dinner served. He could not conceive how this came to pass, for he never saw a human being in his house, and no one could have concealed himself in it. He was certainly pleased with this good attendance, but still at last he was so afraid that he went to a wise woman and asked for her advice. The wise woman said 'There is some enchantment behind it, listen very early some morning if anything is moving in the room, and if you see anything, no matter what it is, throw a white cloth over it, and then the magic will be stopped.' The shepherd did as she bade him, and next morning just as day dawned, he saw the chest open, and the flower come out. Swiftly he sprang towards it, and threw a white cloth over it. Instantly the transformation came to an end, and a beautiful girl stood before him, who admitted to him that she had been the flower, and that up to this time she had attended to his housekeeping. She told him her story, and as she pleased him he asked her if she would marry him, but she answered 'No,' for she wanted to remain faithful to her sweetheart Roland, although he had deserted her. Nevertheless, she promised not to go away, but to continue keeping house for the shepherd. And now the time drew near when Roland's wedding was to be celebrated, and then, according to an old custom in the country, it was announced that all the girls were to be present at it, and sing in honour of the bridal pair. When the faithful maiden heard of this, she grew so sad that she thought her heart would break, and she would not go thither, but the other girls came and took her. When it came to her turn to sing, she stepped back, until at last she was the only one left, and then she could not refuse. But when she began her song, and it reached Roland's ears, he sprang up and cried 'I know the voice, that is the true bride, I will have no other!' Everything he had forgotten, and which had vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart. Then the faithful maiden held her wedding with her sweetheart Roland, and grief came to an end and joy began. It was the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow were falling around, that the queen of a country many thousand miles off sat working at her window. The frame of the window was made of fine black ebony, and as she sat looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully upon the red drops that sprinkled the white snow, and said, 'Would that my little daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as black as this ebony windowframe!' And so the little girl really did grow up her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and her hair as black as ebony and she was called Snowdrop. But this queen died and the king soon married another wife, who became queen, and was very beautiful, but so vain that she could not bear to think that anyone could be handsomer than she was. She had a fairy lookingglass, to which she used to go, and then she would gaze upon herself in it, and say And the glass had always answered But Snowdrop grew more and more beautiful and when she was seven years old she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself. Then the glass one day answered the queen, when she went to look in it as usual When she heard this she turned pale with rage and envy, and called to one of her servants, and said, 'Take Snowdrop away into the wide wood, that I may never see her any more.' Then the servant led her away but his heart melted when Snowdrop begged him to spare her life, and he said, 'I will not hurt you, thou pretty child.' So he left her by herself and though he thought it most likely that the wild beasts would tear her in pieces, he felt as if a great weight were taken off his heart when he had made up his mind not to kill her but to leave her to her fate, with the chance of someone finding and saving her. Then poor Snowdrop wandered along through the wood in great fear and the wild beasts roared about her, but none did her any harm. In the evening she came to a cottage among the hills, and went in to rest, for her little feet would carry her no further. Everything was spruce and neat in the cottage on the table was spread a white cloth, and there were seven little plates, seven little loaves, and seven little glasses with wine in them and seven knives and forks laid in order and by the wall stood seven little beds. As she was very hungry, she picked a little piece of each loaf and drank a very little wine out of each glass and after that she thought she would lie down and rest. So she tried all the little beds but one was too long, and another was too short, till at last the seventh suited her and there she laid herself down and went to sleep. By and by in came the masters of the cottage. Now they were seven little dwarfs, that lived among the mountains, and dug and searched for gold. They lighted up their seven lamps, and saw at once that all was not right. The first said, 'Who has been sitting on my stool?' The second, 'Who has been eating off my plate?' The third, 'Who has been picking my bread?' The fourth, 'Who has been meddling with my spoon?' The fifth, 'Who has been handling my fork?' The sixth, 'Who has been cutting with my knife?' The seventh, 'Who has been drinking my wine?' Then the first looked round and said, 'Who has been lying on my bed?' And the rest came running to him, and everyone cried out that somebody had been upon his bed. But the seventh saw Snowdrop, and called all his brethren to come and see her and they cried out with wonder and astonishment and brought their lamps to look at her, and said, 'Good heavens! what a lovely child she is!' And they were very glad to see her, and took care not to wake her and the seventh dwarf slept an hour with each of the other dwarfs in turn, till the night was gone. In the morning Snowdrop told them all her story and they pitied her, and said if she would keep all things in order, and cook and wash and knit and spin for them, she might stay where she was, and they would take good care of her. Then they went out all day long to their work, seeking for gold and silver in the mountains but Snowdrop was left at home and they warned her, and said, 'The queen will soon find out where you are, so take care and let no one in.' But the queen, now that she thought Snowdrop was dead, believed that she must be the handsomest lady in the land and she went to her glass and said And the glass answered Then the queen was very much frightened for she knew that the glass always spoke the truth, and was sure that the servant had betrayed her. And she could not bear to think that anyone lived who was more beautiful than she was so she dressed herself up as an old pedlar, and went her way over the hills, to the place where the dwarfs dwelt. Then she knocked at the door, and cried, 'Fine wares to sell!' Snowdrop looked out at the window, and said, 'Good day, good woman! what have you to sell?' 'Good wares, fine wares,' said she 'laces and bobbins of all colours.' 'I will let the old lady in she seems to be a very good sort of body,' thought Snowdrop, as she ran down and unbolted the door. 'Bless me!' said the old woman, 'how badly your stays are laced! Let me lace them up with one of my nice new laces.' Snowdrop did not dream of any mischief so she stood before the old woman but she set to work so nimbly, and pulled the lace so tight, that Snowdrop's breath was stopped, and she fell down as if she were dead. 'There's an end to all thy beauty,' said the spiteful queen, and went away home. In the evening the seven dwarfs came home and I need not say how grieved they were to see their faithful Snowdrop stretched out upon the ground, as if she was quite dead. However, they lifted her up, and when they found what ailed her, they cut the lace and in a little time she began to breathe, and very soon came to life again. Then they said, 'The old woman was the queen herself take care another time, and let no one in when we are away.' When the queen got home, she went straight to her glass, and spoke to it as before but to her great grief it still said Then the blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice, to see that Snowdrop still lived and she dressed herself up again, but in quite another dress from the one she wore before, and took with her a poisoned comb. When she reached the dwarfs' cottage, she knocked at the door, and cried, 'Fine wares to sell!' But Snowdrop said, 'I dare not let anyone in.' Then the queen said, 'Only look at my beautiful combs!' and gave her the poisoned one. And it looked so pretty, that she took it up and put it into her hair to try it but the moment it touched her head, the poison was so powerful that she fell down senseless. 'There you may lie,' said the queen, and went her way. But by good luck the dwarfs came in very early that evening and when they saw Snowdrop lying on the ground, they thought what had happened, and soon found the poisoned comb. And when they took it away she got well, and told them all that had passed and they warned her once more not to open the door to anyone. Meantime the queen went home to her glass, and shook with rage when she read the very same answer as before and she said, 'Snowdrop shall die, if it cost me my life.' So she went by herself into her chamber, and got ready a poisoned apple the outside looked very rosy and tempting, but whoever tasted it was sure to die. Then she dressed herself up as a peasant's wife, and travelled over the hills to the dwarfs' cottage, and knocked at the door but Snowdrop put her head out of the window and said, 'I dare not let anyone in, for the dwarfs have told me not.' 'Do as you please,' said the old woman, 'but at any rate take this pretty apple I will give it you.' 'No,' said Snowdrop, 'I dare not take it.' 'You silly girl!' answered the other, 'what are you afraid of? Do you think it is poisoned? Come! do you eat one part, and I will eat the other.' Now the apple was so made up that one side was good, though the other side was poisoned. Then Snowdrop was much tempted to taste, for the apple looked so very nice and when she saw the old woman eat, she could wait no longer. But she had scarcely put the piece into her mouth, when she fell down dead upon the ground. 'This time nothing will save thee,' said the queen and she went home to her glass, and at last it said And then her wicked heart was glad, and as happy as such a heart could be. When evening came, and the dwarfs had gone home, they found Snowdrop lying on the ground no breath came from her lips, and they were afraid that she was quite dead. They lifted her up, and combed her hair, and washed her face with wine and water but all was in vain, for the little girl seemed quite dead. So they laid her down upon a bier, and all seven watched and bewailed her three whole days and then they thought they would bury her but her cheeks were still rosy and her face looked just as it did while she was alive so they said, 'We will never bury her in the cold ground.' And they made a coffin of glass, so that they might still look at her, and wrote upon it in golden letters what her name was, and that she was a king's daughter. And the coffin was set among the hills, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it and watched. And the birds of the air came too, and bemoaned Snowdrop and first of all came an owl, and then a raven, and at last a dove, and sat by her side. And thus Snowdrop lay for a long, long time, and still only looked as though she was asleep for she was even now as white as snow, and as red as blood, and as black as ebony. At last a prince came and called at the dwarfs' house and he saw Snowdrop, and read what was written in golden letters. Then he offered the dwarfs money, and prayed and besought them to let him take her away but they said, 'We will not part with her for all the gold in the world.' At last, however, they had pity on him, and gave him the coffin but the moment he lifted it up to carry it home with him, the piece of apple fell from between her lips, and Snowdrop awoke, and said, 'Where am I?' And the prince said, 'Thou art quite safe with me.' Then he told her all that had happened, and said, 'I love you far better than all the world so come with me to my father's palace, and you shall be my wife.' And Snowdrop consented, and went home with the prince and everything was got ready with great pomp and splendour for their wedding. To the feast was asked, among the rest, Snowdrop's old enemy the queen and as she was dressing herself in fine rich clothes, she looked in the glass and said And the glass answered When she heard this she started with rage but her envy and curiosity were so great, that she could not help setting out to see the bride. And when she got there, and saw that it was no other than Snowdrop, who, as she thought, had been dead a long while, she choked with rage, and fell down and died but Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily over that land many, many years and sometimes they went up into the mountains, and paid a visit to the little dwarfs, who had been so kind to Snowdrop in her time of need. There was once upon a time a queen to whom God had given no children. Every morning she went into the garden and prayed to God in heaven to bestow on her a son or a daughter. Then an angel from heaven came to her and said 'Be at rest, you shall have a son with the power of wishing, so that whatsoever in the world he wishes for, that shall he have.' Then she went to the king, and told him the joyful tidings, and when the time was come she gave birth to a son, and the king was filled with gladness. Every morning she went with the child to the garden where the wild beasts were kept, and washed herself there in a clear stream. It happened once when the child was a little older, that it was lying in her arms and she fell asleep. Then came the old cook, who knew that the child had the power of wishing, and stole it away, and he took a hen, and cut it in pieces, and dropped some of its blood on the queen's apron and on her dress. Then he carried the child away to a secret place, where a nurse was obliged to suckle it, and he ran to the king and accused the queen of having allowed her child to be taken from her by the wild beasts. When the king saw the blood on her apron, he believed this, fell into such a passion that he ordered a high tower to be built, in which neither sun nor moon could be seen and had his wife put into it, and walled up. Here she was to stay for seven years without meat or drink, and die of hunger. But God sent two angels from heaven in the shape of white doves, which flew to her twice a day, and carried her food until the seven years were over. The cook, however, thought to himself 'If the child has the power of wishing, and I am here, he might very easily get me into trouble.' So he left the palace and went to the boy, who was already big enough to speak, and said to him 'Wish for a beautiful palace for yourself with a garden, and all else that pertains to it.' Scarcely were the words out of the boy's mouth, when everything was there that he had wished for. After a while the cook said to him 'It is not well for you to be so alone, wish for a pretty girl as a companion.' Then the king's son wished for one, and she immediately stood before him, and was more beautiful than any painter could have painted her. The two played together, and loved each other with all their hearts, and the old cook went out hunting like a nobleman. The thought occurred to him, however, that the king's son might some day wish to be with his father, and thus bring him into great peril. So he went out and took the maiden aside, and said 'Tonight when the boy is asleep, go to his bed and plunge this knife into his heart, and bring me his heart and tongue, and if you do not do it, you shall lose your life.' Thereupon he went away, and when he returned next day she had not done it, and said 'Why should I shed the blood of an innocent boy who has never harmed anyone?' The cook once more said 'If you do not do it, it shall cost you your own life.' When he had gone away, she had a little hind brought to her, and ordered her to be killed, and took her heart and tongue, and laid them on a plate, and when she saw the old man coming, she said to the boy 'Lie down in your bed, and draw the clothes over you.' Then the wicked wretch came in and said 'Where are the boy's heart and tongue?' The girl reached the plate to him, but the king's son threw off the quilt, and said 'You old sinner, why did you want to kill me? Now will I pronounce thy sentence. You shall become a black poodle and have a gold collar round your neck, and shall eat burning coals, till the flames burst forth from your throat.' And when he had spoken these words, the old man was changed into a poodle dog, and had a gold collar round his neck, and the cooks were ordered to bring up some live coals, and these he ate, until the flames broke forth from his throat. The king's son remained there a short while longer, and he thought of his mother, and wondered if she were still alive. At length he said to the maiden 'I will go home to my own country if you will go with me, I will provide for you.' 'Ah,' she replied, 'the way is so long, and what shall I do in a strange land where I am unknown?' As she did not seem quite willing, and as they could not be parted from each other, he wished that she might be changed into a beautiful pink, and took her with him. Then he went away to his own country, and the poodle had to run after him. He went to the tower in which his mother was confined, and as it was so high, he wished for a ladder which would reach up to the very top. Then he mounted up and looked inside, and cried 'Beloved mother, Lady Queen, are you still alive, or are you dead?' She answered 'I have just eaten, and am still satisfied,' for she thought the angels were there. Said he 'I am your dear son, whom the wild beasts were said to have torn from your arms but I am alive still, and will soon set you free.' Then he descended again, and went to his father, and caused himself to be announced as a strange huntsman, and asked if he could offer him service. The king said yes, if he was skilful and could get game for him, he should come to him, but that deer had never taken up their quarters in any part of the district or country. Then the huntsman promised to procure as much game for him as he could possibly use at the royal table. So he summoned all the huntsmen together, and bade them go out into the forest with him. And he went with them and made them form a great circle, open at one end where he stationed himself, and began to wish. Two hundred deer and more came running inside the circle at once, and the huntsmen shot them. Then they were all placed on sixty country carts, and driven home to the king, and for once he was able to deck his table with game, after having had none at all for years. Now the king felt great joy at this, and commanded that his entire household should eat with him next day, and made a great feast. When they were all assembled together, he said to the huntsman 'As you are so clever, you shall sit by me.' He replied 'Lord King, your majesty must excuse me, I am a poor huntsman.' But the king insisted on it, and said 'You shall sit by me,' until he did it. Whilst he was sitting there, he thought of his dearest mother, and wished that one of the king's principal servants would begin to speak of her, and would ask how it was faring with the queen in the tower, and if she were alive still, or had perished. Hardly had he formed the wish than the marshal began, and said 'Your majesty, we live joyously here, but how is the queen living in the tower? Is she still alive, or has she died?' But the king replied 'She let my dear son be torn to pieces by wild beasts I will not have her named.' Then the huntsman arose and said 'Gracious lord father she is alive still, and I am her son, and I was not carried away by wild beasts, but by that wretch the old cook, who tore me from her arms when she was asleep, and sprinkled her apron with the blood of a chicken.' Thereupon he took the dog with the golden collar, and said 'That is the wretch!' and caused live coals to be brought, and these the dog was compelled to devour before the sight of all, until flames burst forth from its throat. On this the huntsman asked the king if he would like to see the dog in his true shape, and wished him back into the form of the cook, in which he stood immediately, with his white apron, and his knife by his side. When the king saw him he fell into a passion, and ordered him to be cast into the deepest dungeon. Then the huntsman spoke further and said 'Father, will you see the maiden who brought me up so tenderly and who was afterwards to murder me, but did not do it, though her own life depended on it?' The king replied 'Yes, I would like to see her.' The son said 'Most gracious father, I will show her to you in the form of a beautiful flower,' and he thrust his hand into his pocket and brought forth the pink, and placed it on the royal table, and it was so beautiful that the king had never seen one to equal it. Then the son said 'Now will I show her to you in her own form,' and wished that she might become a maiden, and she stood there looking so beautiful that no painter could have made her look more so. And the king sent two waitingmaids and two attendants into the tower, to fetch the queen and bring her to the royal table. But when she was led in she ate nothing, and said 'The gracious and merciful God who has supported me in the tower, will soon set me free.' She lived three days more, and then died happily, and when she was buried, the two white doves which had brought her food to the tower, and were angels of heaven, followed her body and seated themselves on her grave. The aged king ordered the cook to be torn in four pieces, but grief consumed the king's own heart, and he soon died. His son married the beautiful maiden whom he had brought with him as a flower in his pocket, and whether they are still alive or not, is known to God. There was once a man who had a daughter who was called Clever Elsie. And when she had grown up her father said 'We will get her married.' 'Yes,' said the mother, 'if only someone would come who would have her.' At length a man came from a distance and wooed her, who was called Hans but he stipulated that Clever Elsie should be really smart. 'Oh,' said the father, 'she has plenty of good sense' and the mother said 'Oh, she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.' 'Well,' said Hans, 'if she is not really smart, I won't have her.' When they were sitting at dinner and had eaten, the mother said 'Elsie, go into the cellar and fetch some beer.' Then Clever Elsie took the pitcher from the wall, went into the cellar, and tapped the lid briskly as she went, so that the time might not appear long. When she was below she fetched herself a chair, and set it before the barrel so that she had no need to stoop, and did not hurt her back or do herself any unexpected injury. Then she placed the can before her, and turned the tap, and while the beer was running she would not let her eyes be idle, but looked up at the wall, and after much peering here and there, saw a pickaxe exactly above her, which the masons had accidentally left there. Then Clever Elsie began to weep and said 'If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and we send him into the cellar here to draw beer, then the pickaxe will fall on his head and kill him.' Then she sat and wept and screamed with all the strength of her body, over the misfortune which lay before her. Those upstairs waited for the drink, but Clever Elsie still did not come. Then the woman said to the servant 'Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie is.' The maid went and found her sitting in front of the barrel, screaming loudly. 'Elsie why do you weep?' asked the maid. 'Ah,' she answered, 'have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the pickaxe will perhaps fall on his head, and kill him.' Then said the maid 'What a clever Elsie we have!' and sat down beside her and began loudly to weep over the misfortune. After a while, as the maid did not come back, and those upstairs were thirsty for the beer, the man said to the boy 'Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie and the girl are.' The boy went down, and there sat Clever Elsie and the girl both weeping together. Then he asked 'Why are you weeping?' 'Ah,' said Elsie, 'have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the pickaxe will fall on his head and kill him.' Then said the boy 'What a clever Elsie we have!' and sat down by her, and likewise began to howl loudly. Upstairs they waited for the boy, but as he still did not return, the man said to the woman 'Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie is!' The woman went down, and found all three in the midst of their lamentations, and inquired what was the cause then Elsie told her also that her future child was to be killed by the pickaxe, when it grew big and had to draw beer, and the pickaxe fell down. Then said the mother likewise 'What a clever Elsie we have!' and sat down and wept with them. The man upstairs waited a short time, but as his wife did not come back and his thirst grew ever greater, he said 'I must go into the cellar myself and see where Elsie is.' But when he got into the cellar, and they were all sitting together crying, and he heard the reason, and that Elsie's child was the cause, and the Elsie might perhaps bring one into the world some day, and that he might be killed by the pickaxe, if he should happen to be sitting beneath it, drawing beer just at the very time when it fell down, he cried 'Oh, what a clever Elsie!' and sat down, and likewise wept with them. The bridegroom stayed upstairs alone for a long time then as no one would come back he thought 'They must be waiting for me below I too must go there and see what they are about.' When he got down, the five of them were sitting screaming and lamenting quite piteously, each outdoing the other. 'What misfortune has happened then?' asked he. 'Ah, dear Hans,' said Elsie, 'if we marry each other and have a child, and he is big, and we perhaps send him here to draw something to drink, then the pickaxe which has been left up there might dash his brains out if it were to fall down, so have we not reason to weep?' 'Come,' said Hans, 'more understanding than that is not needed for my household, as you are such a clever Elsie, I will have you,' and seized her hand, took her upstairs with him, and married her. After Hans had had her some time, he said 'Wife, I am going out to work and earn some money for us go into the field and cut the corn that we may have some bread.' 'Yes, dear Hans, I will do that.' After Hans had gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field with her. When she came to the field she said to herself 'What shall I do shall I cut first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first.' Then she drank her cup of broth and when she was fully satisfied, she once more said 'What shall I do? Shall I cut first, or shall I sleep first? I will sleep first.' Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. Hans had been at home for a long time, but Elsie did not come then said he 'What a clever Elsie I have she is so industrious that she does not even come home to eat.' But when evening came and she still stayed away, Hans went out to see what she had cut, but nothing was cut, and she was lying among the corn asleep. Then Hans hastened home and brought a fowler's net with little bells and hung it round about her, and she still went on sleeping. Then he ran home, shut the housedoor, and sat down in his chair and worked. At length, when it was quite dark, Clever Elsie awoke and when she got up there was a jingling all round about her, and the bells rang at each step which she took. Then she was alarmed, and became uncertain whether she really was Clever Elsie or not, and said 'Is it I, or is it not I?' But she knew not what answer to make to this, and stood for a time in doubt at length she thought 'I will go home and ask if it be I, or if it be not I, they will be sure to know.' She ran to the door of her own house, but it was shut then she knocked at the window and cried 'Hans, is Elsie within?' 'Yes,' answered Hans, 'she is within.' Hereupon she was terrified, and said 'Ah, heavens! Then it is not I,' and went to another door but when the people heard the jingling of the bells they would not open it, and she could get in nowhere. Then she ran out of the village, and no one has seen her since. A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for him three years, without having been paid any wages. At last it came into the man's head that he would not go on thus without pay any longer so he went to his master, and said, 'I have worked hard for you a long time, I will trust to you to give me what I deserve to have for my trouble.' The farmer was a sad miser, and knew that his man was very simplehearted so he took out threepence, and gave him for every year's service a penny. The poor fellow thought it was a great deal of money to have, and said to himself, 'Why should I work hard, and live here on bad fare any longer? I can now travel into the wide world, and make myself merry.' With that he put his money into his purse, and set out, roaming over hill and valley. As he jogged along over the fields, singing and dancing, a little dwarf met him, and asked him what made him so merry. 'Why, what should make me downhearted?' said he 'I am sound in health and rich in purse, what should I care for? I have saved up my three years' earnings and have it all safe in my pocket.' 'How much may it come to?' said the little man. 'Full threepence,' replied the countryman. 'I wish you would give them to me,' said the other 'I am very poor.' Then the man pitied him, and gave him all he had and the little dwarf said in return, 'As you have such a kind honest heart, I will grant you three wishesone for every penny so choose whatever you like.' Then the countryman rejoiced at his good luck, and said, 'I like many things better than money first, I will have a bow that will bring down everything I shoot at secondly, a fiddle that will set everyone dancing that hears me play upon it and thirdly, I should like that everyone should grant what I ask.' The dwarf said he should have his three wishes so he gave him the bow and fiddle, and went his way. Our honest friend journeyed on his way too and if he was merry before, he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old miser close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush singing away most joyfully. 'Oh, what a pretty bird!' said the miser 'I would give a great deal of money to have such a one.' 'If that's all,' said the countryman, 'I will soon bring it down.' Then he took up his bow, and down fell the thrush into the bushes at the foot of the tree. The miser crept into the bush to find it but directly he had got into the middle, his companion took up his fiddle and played away, and the miser began to dance and spring about, capering higher and higher in the air. The thorns soon began to tear his clothes till they all hung in rags about him, and he himself was all scratched and wounded, so that the blood ran down. 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' cried the miser, 'Master! master! pray let the fiddle alone. What have I done to deserve this?' 'Thou hast shaved many a poor soul close enough,' said the other 'thou art only meeting thy reward' so he played up another tune. Then the miser began to beg and promise, and offered money for his liberty but he did not come up to the musician's price for some time, and he danced him along brisker and brisker, and the miser bid higher and higher, till at last he offered a round hundred of florins that he had in his purse, and had just gained by cheating some poor fellow. When the countryman saw so much money, he said, 'I will agree to your proposal.' So he took the purse, put up his fiddle, and travelled on very pleased with his bargain. Meanwhile the miser crept out of the bush halfnaked and in a piteous plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge, and serve his late companion some trick. At last he went to the judge, and complained that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him into the bargain and that the fellow who did it carried a bow at his back and a fiddle hung round his neck. Then the judge sent out his officers to bring up the accused wherever they should find him and he was soon caught and brought up to be tried. The miser began to tell his tale, and said he had been robbed of his money. 'No, you gave it me for playing a tune to you.' said the countryman but the judge told him that was not likely, and cut the matter short by ordering him off to the gallows. So away he was taken but as he stood on the steps he said, 'My Lord Judge, grant me one last request.' 'Anything but thy life,' replied the other. 'No,' said he, 'I do not ask my life only to let me play upon my fiddle for the last time.' The miser cried out, 'Oh, no! no! for heaven's sake don't listen to him! don't listen to him!' But the judge said, 'It is only this once, he will soon have done.' The fact was, he could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf's third gift. Then the miser said, 'Bind me fast, bind me fast, for pity's sake.' But the countryman seized his fiddle, and struck up a tune, and at the first note judge, clerks, and jailer were in motion all began capering, and no one could hold the miser. At the second note the hangman let his prisoner go, and danced also, and by the time he had played the first bar of the tune, all were dancing togetherjudge, court, and miser, and all the people who had followed to look on. At first the thing was merry and pleasant enough but when it had gone on a while, and there seemed to be no end of playing or dancing, they began to cry out, and beg him to leave off but he stopped not a whit the more for their entreaties, till the judge not only gave him his life, but promised to return him the hundred florins. Then he called to the miser, and said, 'Tell us now, you vagabond, where you got that gold, or I shall play on for your amusement only,' 'I stole it,' said the miser in the presence of all the people 'I acknowledge that I stole it, and that you earned it fairly.' Then the countryman stopped his fiddle, and left the miser to take his place at the gallows. The wife of a rich man fell sick and when she felt that her end drew nigh, she called her only daughter to her bedside, and said, 'Always be a good girl, and I will look down from heaven and watch over you.' Soon afterwards she shut her eyes and died, and was buried in the garden and the little girl went every day to her grave and wept, and was always good and kind to all about her. And the snow fell and spread a beautiful white covering over the grave but by the time the spring came, and the sun had melted it away again, her father had married another wife. This new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time for the poor little girl. 'What does the goodfornothing want in the parlour?' said they 'they who would eat bread should first earn it away with the kitchenmaid!' Then they took away her fine clothes, and gave her an old grey frock to put on, and laughed at her, and turned her into the kitchen. There she was forced to do hard work to rise early before daylight, to bring the water, to make the fire, to cook and to wash. Besides that, the sisters plagued her in all sorts of ways, and laughed at her. In the evening when she was tired, she had no bed to lie down on, but was made to lie by the hearth among the ashes and as this, of course, made her always dusty and dirty, they called her Ashputtel. It happened once that the father was going to the fair, and asked his wife's daughters what he should bring them. 'Fine clothes,' said the first 'Pearls and diamonds,' cried the second. 'Now, child,' said he to his own daughter, 'what will you have?' 'The first twig, dear father, that brushes against your hat when you turn your face to come homewards,' said she. Then he bought for the first two the fine clothes and pearls and diamonds they had asked for and on his way home, as he rode through a green copse, a hazel twig brushed against him, and almost pushed off his hat so he broke it off and brought it away and when he got home he gave it to his daughter. Then she took it, and went to her mother's grave and planted it there and cried so much that it was watered with her tears and there it grew and became a fine tree. Three times every day she went to it and cried and soon a little bird came and built its nest upon the tree, and talked with her, and watched over her, and brought her whatever she wished for. Now it happened that the king of that land held a feast, which was to last three days and out of those who came to it his son was to choose a bride for himself. Ashputtel's two sisters were asked to come so they called her up, and said, 'Now, comb our hair, brush our shoes, and tie our sashes for us, for we are going to dance at the king's feast.' Then she did as she was told but when all was done she could not help crying, for she thought to herself, she should so have liked to have gone with them to the ball and at last she begged her mother very hard to let her go. 'You, Ashputtel!' said she 'you who have nothing to wear, no clothes at all, and who cannot even danceyou want to go to the ball? And when she kept on begging, she said at last, to get rid of her, 'I will throw this dishful of peas into the ashheap, and if in two hours' time you have picked them all out, you shall go to the feast too.' Then she threw the peas down among the ashes, but the little maiden ran out at the back door into the garden, and cried out Then first came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window next came two turtledoves and after them came all the little birds under heaven, chirping and fluttering in and they flew down into the ashes. And the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick and then the others began to pick, pick, pick and among them all they soon picked out all the good grain, and put it into a dish but left the ashes. Long before the end of the hour the work was quite done, and all flew out again at the windows. Then Ashputtel brought the dish to her mother, overjoyed at the thought that now she should go to the ball. But the mother said, 'No, no! you slut, you have no clothes, and cannot dance you shall not go.' And when Ashputtel begged very hard to go, she said, 'If you can in one hour's time pick two of those dishes of peas out of the ashes, you shall go too.' And thus she thought she should at least get rid of her. So she shook two dishes of peas into the ashes. But the little maiden went out into the garden at the back of the house, and cried out as before Then first came two white doves in at the kitchen window next came two turtledoves and after them came all the little birds under heaven, chirping and hopping about. And they flew down into the ashes and the little doves put their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick and then the others began pick, pick, pick and they put all the good grain into the dishes, and left all the ashes. Before half an hour's time all was done, and out they flew again. And then Ashputtel took the dishes to her mother, rejoicing to think that she should now go to the ball. But her mother said, 'It is all of no use, you cannot go you have no clothes, and cannot dance, and you would only put us to shame' and off she went with her two daughters to the ball. Now when all were gone, and nobody left at home, Ashputtel went sorrowfully and sat down under the hazeltree, and cried out Then her friend the bird flew out of the tree, and brought a gold and silver dress for her, and slippers of spangled silk and she put them on, and followed her sisters to the feast. But they did not know her, and thought it must be some strange princess, she looked so fine and beautiful in her rich clothes and they never once thought of Ashputtel, taking it for granted that she was safe at home in the dirt. The king's son soon came up to her, and took her by the hand and danced with her, and no one else and he never left her hand but when anyone else came to ask her to dance, he said, 'This lady is dancing with me.' Thus they danced till a late hour of the night and then she wanted to go home and the king's son said, 'I shall go and take care of you to your home' for he wanted to see where the beautiful maiden lived. But she slipped away from him, unawares, and ran off towards home and as the prince followed her, she jumped up into the pigeonhouse and shut the door. Then he waited till her father came home, and told him that the unknown maiden, who had been at the feast, had hid herself in the pigeonhouse. But when they had broken open the door they found no one within and as they came back into the house, Ashputtel was lying, as she always did, in her dirty frock by the ashes, and her dim little lamp was burning in the chimney. For she had run as quickly as she could through the pigeonhouse and on to the hazeltree, and had there taken off her beautiful clothes, and put them beneath the tree, that the bird might carry them away, and had lain down again amid the ashes in her little grey frock. The next day when the feast was again held, and her father, mother, and sisters were gone, Ashputtel went to the hazeltree, and said And the bird came and brought a still finer dress than the one she had worn the day before. And when she came in it to the ball, everyone wondered at her beauty but the king's son, who was waiting for her, took her by the hand, and danced with her and when anyone asked her to dance, he said as before, 'This lady is dancing with me.' When night came she wanted to go home and the king's son followed here as before, that he might see into what house she went but she sprang away from him all at once into the garden behind her father's house. In this garden stood a fine large peartree full of ripe fruit and Ashputtel, not knowing where to hide herself, jumped up into it without being seen. Then the king's son lost sight of her, and could not find out where she was gone, but waited till her father came home, and said to him, 'The unknown lady who danced with me has slipped away, and I think she must have sprung into the peartree.' The father thought to himself, 'Can it be Ashputtel?' So he had an axe brought and they cut down the tree, but found no one upon it. And when they came back into the kitchen, there lay Ashputtel among the ashes for she had slipped down on the other side of the tree, and carried her beautiful clothes back to the bird at the hazeltree, and then put on her little grey frock. The third day, when her father and mother and sisters were gone, she went again into the garden, and said Then her kind friend the bird brought a dress still finer than the former one, and slippers which were all of gold so that when she came to the feast no one knew what to say, for wonder at her beauty and the king's son danced with nobody but her and when anyone else asked her to dance, he said, 'This lady is my partner, sir.' When night came she wanted to go home and the king's son would go with her, and said to himself, 'I will not lose her this time' but, however, she again slipped away from him, though in such a hurry that she dropped her left golden slipper upon the stairs. The prince took the shoe, and went the next day to the king his father, and said, 'I will take for my wife the lady that this golden slipper fits.' Then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it for they had beautiful feet, and had no doubt that they could wear the golden slipper. The eldest went first into the room where the slipper was, and wanted to try it on, and the mother stood by. But her great toe could not go into it, and the shoe was altogether much too small for her. Then the mother gave her a knife, and said, 'Never mind, cut it off when you are queen you will not care about toes you will not want to walk.' So the silly girl cut off her great toe, and thus squeezed on the shoe, and went to the king's son. Then he took her for his bride, and set her beside him on his horse, and rode away with her homewards. But on their way home they had to pass by the hazeltree that Ashputtel had planted and on the branch sat a little dove singing Then the prince got down and looked at her foot and he saw, by the blood that streamed from it, what a trick she had played him. So he turned his horse round, and brought the false bride back to her home, and said, 'This is not the right bride let the other sister try and put on the slipper.' Then she went into the room and got her foot into the shoe, all but the heel, which was too large. But her mother squeezed it in till the blood came, and took her to the king's son and he set her as his bride by his side on his horse, and rode away with her. But when they came to the hazeltree the little dove sat there still, and sang Then he looked down, and saw that the blood streamed so much from the shoe, that her white stockings were quite red. So he turned his horse and brought her also back again. 'This is not the true bride,' said he to the father 'have you no other daughters?' 'No,' said he 'there is only a little dirty Ashputtel here, the child of my first wife I am sure she cannot be the bride.' The prince told him to send her. But the mother said, 'No, no, she is much too dirty she will not dare to show herself.' However, the prince would have her come and she first washed her face and hands, and then went in and curtsied to him, and he reached her the golden slipper. Then she took her clumsy shoe off her left foot, and put on the golden slipper and it fitted her as if it had been made for her. And when he drew near and looked at her face he knew her, and said, 'This is the right bride.' But the mother and both the sisters were frightened, and turned pale with anger as he took Ashputtel on his horse, and rode away with her. And when they came to the hazeltree, the white dove sang And when the dove had done its song, it came flying, and perched upon her right shoulder, and so went home with her. A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed as if news of the most secret things was brought to him through the air. But he had a strange custom every day after dinner, when the table was cleared, and no one else was present, a trusty servant had to bring him one more dish. It was covered, however, and even the servant did not know what was in it, neither did anyone know, for the king never took off the cover to eat of it until he was quite alone. This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, who took away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he could not help carrying the dish into his room. When he had carefully locked the door, he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake lying on the dish. But when he saw it he could not deny himself the pleasure of tasting it, so he cut of a little bit and put it into his mouth. No sooner had it touched his tongue than he heard a strange whispering of little voices outside his window. He went and listened, and then noticed that it was the sparrows who were chattering together, and telling one another of all kinds of things which they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating the snake had given him power of understanding the language of animals. Now it so happened that on this very day the queen lost her most beautiful ring, and suspicion of having stolen it fell upon this trusty servant, who was allowed to go everywhere. The king ordered the man to be brought before him, and threatened with angry words that unless he could before the morrow point out the thief, he himself should be looked upon as guilty and executed. In vain he declared his innocence he was dismissed with no better answer. In his trouble and fear he went down into the courtyard and took thought how to help himself out of his trouble. Now some ducks were sitting together quietly by a brook and taking their rest and, whilst they were making their feathers smooth with their bills, they were having a confidential conversation together. The servant stood by and listened. They were telling one another of all the places where they had been waddling about all the morning, and what good food they had found and one said in a pitiful tone 'Something lies heavy on my stomach as I was eating in haste I swallowed a ring which lay under the queen's window.' The servant at once seized her by the neck, carried her to the kitchen, and said to the cook 'Here is a fine duck pray, kill her.' 'Yes,' said the cook, and weighed her in his hand 'she has spared no trouble to fatten herself, and has been waiting to be roasted long enough.' So he cut off her head, and as she was being dressed for the spit, the queen's ring was found inside her. The servant could now easily prove his innocence and the king, to make amends for the wrong, allowed him to ask a favour, and promised him the best place in the court that he could wish for. The servant refused everything, and only asked for a horse and some money for travelling, as he had a mind to see the world and go about a little. When his request was granted he set out on his way, and one day came to a pond, where he saw three fishes caught in the reeds and gasping for water. Now, though it is said that fishes are dumb, he heard them lamenting that they must perish so miserably, and, as he had a kind heart, he got off his horse and put the three prisoners back into the water. They leapt with delight, put out their heads, and cried to him 'We will remember you and repay you for saving us!' He rode on, and after a while it seemed to him that he heard a voice in the sand at his feet. He listened, and heard an antking complain 'Why cannot folks, with their clumsy beasts, keep off our bodies? That stupid horse, with his heavy hoofs, has been treading down my people without mercy!' So he turned on to a side path and the antking cried out to him 'We will remember youone good turn deserves another!' The path led him into a wood, and there he saw two old ravens standing by their nest, and throwing out their young ones. 'Out with you, you idle, goodfornothing creatures!' cried they 'we cannot find food for you any longer you are big enough, and can provide for yourselves.' But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and crying 'Oh, what helpless chicks we are! We must shift for ourselves, and yet we cannot fly! What can we do, but lie here and starve?' So the good young fellow alighted and killed his horse with his sword, and gave it to them for food. Then they came hopping up to it, satisfied their hunger, and cried 'We will remember youone good turn deserves another!' And now he had to use his own legs, and when he had walked a long way, he came to a large city. There was a great noise and crowd in the streets, and a man rode up on horseback, crying aloud 'The king's daughter wants a husband but whoever seeks her hand must perform a hard task, and if he does not succeed he will forfeit his life.' Many had already made the attempt, but in vain nevertheless when the youth saw the king's daughter he was so overcome by her great beauty that he forgot all danger, went before the king, and declared himself a suitor. So he was led out to the sea, and a gold ring was thrown into it, before his eyes then the king ordered him to fetch this ring up from the bottom of the sea, and added 'If you come up again without it you will be thrown in again and again until you perish amid the waves.' All the people grieved for the handsome youth then they went away, leaving him alone by the sea. He stood on the shore and considered what he should do, when suddenly he saw three fishes come swimming towards him, and they were the very fishes whose lives he had saved. The one in the middle held a mussel in its mouth, which it laid on the shore at the youth's feet, and when he had taken it up and opened it, there lay the gold ring in the shell. Full of joy he took it to the king and expected that he would grant him the promised reward. But when the proud princess perceived that he was not her equal in birth, she scorned him, and required him first to perform another task. She went down into the garden and strewed with her own hands ten sacksful of milletseed on the grass then she said 'Tomorrow morning before sunrise these must be picked up, and not a single grain be wanting.' The youth sat down in the garden and considered how it might be possible to perform this task, but he could think of nothing, and there he sat sorrowfully awaiting the break of day, when he should be led to death. But as soon as the first rays of the sun shone into the garden he saw all the ten sacks standing side by side, quite full, and not a single grain was missing. The antking had come in the night with thousands and thousands of ants, and the grateful creatures had by great industry picked up all the milletseed and gathered them into the sacks. Presently the king's daughter herself came down into the garden, and was amazed to see that the young man had done the task she had given him. But she could not yet conquer her proud heart, and said 'Although he has performed both the tasks, he shall not be my husband until he had brought me an apple from the Tree of Life.' The youth did not know where the Tree of Life stood, but he set out, and would have gone on for ever, as long as his legs would carry him, though he had no hope of finding it. After he had wandered through three kingdoms, he came one evening to a wood, and lay down under a tree to sleep. But he heard a rustling in the branches, and a golden apple fell into his hand. At the same time three ravens flew down to him, perched themselves upon his knee, and said 'We are the three young ravens whom you saved from starving when we had grown big, and heard that you were seeking the Golden Apple, we flew over the sea to the end of the world, where the Tree of Life stands, and have brought you the apple.' The youth, full of joy, set out homewards, and took the Golden Apple to the king's beautiful daughter, who had now no more excuses left to make. They cut the Apple of Life in two and ate it together and then her heart became full of love for him, and they lived in undisturbed happiness to a great age. There was once upon a time an old goat who had seven little kids, and loved them with all the love of a mother for her children. One day she wanted to go into the forest and fetch some food. So she called all seven to her and said 'Dear children, I have to go into the forest, be on your guard against the wolf if he comes in, he will devour you allskin, hair, and everything. The wretch often disguises himself, but you will know him at once by his rough voice and his black feet.' The kids said 'Dear mother, we will take good care of ourselves you may go away without any anxiety.' Then the old one bleated, and went on her way with an easy mind. It was not long before someone knocked at the housedoor and called 'Open the door, dear children your mother is here, and has brought something back with her for each of you.' But the little kids knew that it was the wolf, by the rough voice. 'We will not open the door,' cried they, 'you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but your voice is rough you are the wolf!' Then the wolf went away to a shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, ate this and made his voice soft with it. Then he came back, knocked at the door of the house, and called 'Open the door, dear children, your mother is here and has brought something back with her for each of you.' But the wolf had laid his black paws against the window, and the children saw them and cried 'We will not open the door, our mother has not black feet like you you are the wolf!' Then the wolf ran to a baker and said 'I have hurt my feet, rub some dough over them for me.' And when the baker had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said 'Strew some white meal over my feet for me.' The miller thought to himself 'The wolf wants to deceive someone,' and refused but the wolf said 'If you will not do it, I will devour you.' Then the miller was afraid, and made his paws white for him. Truly, this is the way of mankind. So now the wretch went for the third time to the housedoor, knocked at it and said 'Open the door for me, children, your dear little mother has come home, and has brought every one of you something back from the forest with her.' The little kids cried 'First show us your paws that we may know if you are our dear little mother.' Then he put his paws in through the window and when the kids saw that they were white, they believed that all he said was true, and opened the door. But who should come in but the wolf! They were terrified and wanted to hide themselves. One sprang under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the sixth under the washingbowl, and the seventh into the clockcase. But the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony one after the other he swallowed them down his throat. The youngest, who was in the clockcase, was the only one he did not find. When the wolf had satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down under a tree in the green meadow outside, and began to sleep. Soon afterwards the old goat came home again from the forest. Ah! what a sight she saw there! The housedoor stood wide open. The table, chairs, and benches were thrown down, the washingbowl lay broken to pieces, and the quilts and pillows were pulled off the bed. She sought her children, but they were nowhere to be found. She called them one after another by name, but no one answered. At last, when she came to the youngest, a soft voice cried 'Dear mother, I am in the clockcase.' She took the kid out, and it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten all the others. Then you may imagine how she wept over her poor children. At length in her grief she went out, and the youngest kid ran with her. When they came to the meadow, there lay the wolf by the tree and snored so loud that the branches shook. She looked at him on every side and saw that something was moving and struggling in his gorged belly. 'Ah, heavens,' she said, 'is it possible that my poor children whom he has swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?' Then the kid had to run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut open the monster's stomach, and hardly had she made one cut, than one little kid thrust its head out, and when she had cut farther, all six sprang out one after another, and were all still alive, and had suffered no injury whatever, for in his greediness the monster had swallowed them down whole. What rejoicing there was! They embraced their dear mother, and jumped like a tailor at his wedding. The mother, however, said 'Now go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast's stomach with them while he is still asleep.' Then the seven kids dragged the stones thither with all speed, and put as many of them into this stomach as they could get in and the mother sewed him up again in the greatest haste, so that he was not aware of anything and never once stirred. When the wolf at length had had his fill of sleep, he got on his legs, and as the stones in his stomach made him very thirsty, he wanted to go to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and to move about, the stones in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled. Then cried he And when he got to the well and stooped over the water to drink, the heavy stones made him fall in, and he drowned miserably. When the seven kids saw that, they came running to the spot and cried aloud 'The wolf is dead! The wolf is dead!' and danced for joy round about the well with their mother. Two kings' sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their fortunes but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so that they could not return home again. Then their brother, who was a little insignificant dwarf, went out to seek for his brothers but when he had found them they only laughed at him, to think that he, who was so young and simple, should try to travel through the world, when they, who were so much wiser, had been unable to get on. However, they all set out on their journey together, and came at last to an anthill. The two elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs. But the little dwarf said, 'Let the poor things enjoy themselves, I will not suffer you to trouble them.' So on they went, and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming about. The two brothers wanted to catch two, and roast them. But the dwarf said, 'Let the poor things enjoy themselves, you shall not kill them.' Next they came to a bees'nest in a hollow tree, and there was so much honey that it ran down the trunk and the two brothers wanted to light a fire under the tree and kill the bees, so as to get their honey. But the dwarf held them back, and said, 'Let the pretty insects enjoy themselves, I cannot let you burn them.' At length the three brothers came to a castle and as they passed by the stables they saw fine horses standing there, but all were of marble, and no man was to be seen. Then they went through all the rooms, till they came to a door on which were three locks but in the middle of the door was a wicket, so that they could look into the next room. There they saw a little grey old man sitting at a table and they called to him once or twice, but he did not hear however, they called a third time, and then he rose and came out to them. He said nothing, but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful table covered with all sorts of good things and when they had eaten and drunk, he showed each of them to a bedchamber. The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table, where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said 'In the wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king's daughter they must all be found and if one be missing by set of sun, he who seeks them will be turned into marble.' The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred so he was turned into stone as the tablet had foretold. The next day the second brother undertook the task but he succeeded no better than the first for he could only find the second hundred of the pearls and therefore he too was turned into stone. At last came the little dwarf's turn and he looked in the moss but it was so hard to find the pearls, and the job was so tiresome!so he sat down upon a stone and cried. And as he sat there, the king of the ants (whose life he had saved) came to help him, with five thousand ants and it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a heap. The second tablet said 'The key of the princess's bedchamber must be fished up out of the lake.' And as the dwarf came to the brink of it, he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about and they dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom. The third task was the hardest. It was to choose out the youngest and the best of the king's three daughters. Now they were all beautiful, and all exactly alike but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of sugar, the next some sweet syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey so he was to guess which it was that had eaten the honey. Then came the queen of the bees, who had been saved by the little dwarf from the fire, and she tried the lips of all three but at last she sat upon the lips of the one that had eaten the honey and so the dwarf knew which was the youngest. Thus the spell was broken, and all who had been turned into stones awoke, and took their proper forms. And the dwarf married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after her father's death but his two brothers married the other two sisters. There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest but still he could not earn enough to live upon and at last all he had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of shoes. Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up the next day, meaning to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and his heart light amidst all his troubles so he went peaceably to bed, left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work when, to his great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. He looked at the workmanship there was not one false stitch in the whole job all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. The same day a customer came in, and the shoes suited him so well that he willingly paid a price higher than usual for them and the poor shoemaker, with the money, bought leather enough to make two pairs more. In the evening he cut out the work, and went to bed early, that he might get up and begin betimes next day but he was saved all the trouble, for when he got up in the morning the work was done ready to his hand. Soon in came buyers, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought leather enough for four pair more. He cut out the work again overnight and found it done in the morning, as before and so it went on for some time what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and the good man soon became thriving and well off again. One evening, about Christmastime, as he and his wife were sitting over the fire chatting together, he said to her, 'I should like to sit up and watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for me.' The wife liked the thought so they left a light burning, and hid themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up there, and watched what would happen. As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table. This was long before daybreak and then they bustled away as quick as lightning. The next day the wife said to the shoemaker. 'These little wights have made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good turn if we can. I am quite sorry to see them run about as they do and indeed it is not very decent, for they have nothing upon their backs to keep off the cold. I'll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt, and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain and do you make each of them a little pair of shoes.' The thought pleased the good cobbler very much and one evening, when all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to watch what the little elves would do. About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual but when they saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed mightily delighted. Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and capered and sprang about, as merry as could be till at last they danced out at the door, and away over the green. The good couple saw them no more but everything went well with them from that time forward, as long as they lived. Long, long ago, some two thousand years or so, there lived a rich man with a good and beautiful wife. They loved each other dearly, but sorrowed much that they had no children. So greatly did they desire to have one, that the wife prayed for it day and night, but still they remained childless. In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a junipertree. One winter's day the wife stood under the tree to peel some apples, and as she was peeling them, she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the snow. 'Ah,' sighed the woman heavily, 'if I had but a child, as red as blood and as white as snow,' and as she spoke the words, her heart grew light within her, and it seemed to her that her wish was granted, and she returned to the house feeling glad and comforted. A month passed, and the snow had all disappeared then another month went by, and all the earth was green. So the months followed one another, and first the trees budded in the woods, and soon the green branches grew thickly intertwined, and then the blossoms began to fall. Once again the wife stood under the junipertree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and she was glad and at peace but when they were fully ripe she picked the berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. 'If I die, bury me under the junipertree.' Then she felt comforted and happy again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy was so great that she died. Her husband buried her under the junipertree, and wept bitterly for her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later on he married again. He now had a little daughter born to him the child of his first wife was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left school to the time he went back. One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the storeroom, and said, 'Mother, give me an apple.' 'Yes, my child,' said the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest the chest had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock. 'Mother,' said the little daughter again, 'may not brother have one too?' The mother was angry at this, but she answered, 'Yes, when he comes out of school.' Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out of her little daughter's hand, and said, 'You shall not have one before your brother.' She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say kindly to him, 'My son, will you have an apple?' but she gave him a wicked look. 'Mother,' said the boy, 'how dreadful you look! Yes, give me an apple.' The thought came to her that she would kill him. 'Come with me,' she said, and she lifted up the lid of the chest 'take one out for yourself.' And as he bent over to do so, the evil spirit urged her, and crash! down went the lid, and off went the little boy's head. Then she was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of what she had done. 'If only I can prevent anyone knowing that I did it,' she thought. So she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of her top drawer then she set the boy's head again on his shoulders, and bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand. Soon after this, little Marleen came up to her mother who was stirring a pot of boiling water over the fire, and said, 'Mother, brother is sitting by the door with an apple in his hand, and he looks so pale and when I asked him to give me the apple, he did not answer, and that frightened me.' 'Go to him again,' said her mother, 'and if he does not answer, give him a box on the ear.' So little Marleen went, and said, 'Brother, give me that apple,' but he did not say a word then she gave him a box on the ear, and his head rolled off. She was so terrified at this, that she ran crying and screaming to her mother. 'Oh!' she said, 'I have knocked off brother's head,' and then she wept and wept, and nothing would stop her. 'What have you done!' said her mother, 'but no one must know about it, so you must keep silence what is done can't be undone we will make him into puddings.' And she took the little boy and cut him up, made him into puddings, and put him in the pot. But Marleen stood looking on, and wept and wept, and her tears fell into the pot, so that there was no need of salt. Presently the father came home and sat down to his dinner he asked, 'Where is my son?' The mother said nothing, but gave him a large dish of black pudding, and Marleen still wept without ceasing. The father again asked, 'Where is my son?' 'Oh,' answered the wife, 'he is gone into the country to his mother's great uncle he is going to stay there some time.' 'What has he gone there for, and he never even said goodbye to me!' 'Well, he likes being there, and he told me he should be away quite six weeks he is well looked after there.' 'I feel very unhappy about it,' said the husband, 'in case it should not be all right, and he ought to have said goodbye to me.' With this he went on with his dinner, and said, 'Little Marleen, why do you weep? Brother will soon be back.' Then he asked his wife for more pudding, and as he ate, he threw the bones under the table. Little Marleen went upstairs and took her best silk handkerchief out of her bottom drawer, and in it she wrapped all the bones from under the table and carried them outside, and all the time she did nothing but weep. Then she laid them in the green grass under the junipertree, and she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her, and she wept no more. And now the junipertree began to move, and the branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it could no more be seen, the junipertree stood there as before, and the silk handkerchief and the bones were gone. Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to the table and ate. The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to sing The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on one foot and a sock on the other he still had on his apron, and still held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street. 'Bird,' he said, 'how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.' 'Nay,' said the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold chain, and I will sing it you again.' 'Here is the chain, take it,' said the goldsmith. 'Only sing me that again.' The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker's house and sang The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his shirtsleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun. 'Bird,' he said, 'how beautifully you sing!' Then he called through the door to his wife 'Wife, come out here is a bird, come and look at it and hear how beautifully it sings.' Then he called his daughter and the children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all ran up the street to look at the bird, and saw how splendid it was with its red and green feathers, and its neck like burnished gold, and eyes like two bright stars in its head. 'Bird,' said the shoemaker, 'sing me that song again.' 'Nay,' answered the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing you must give me something.' 'Wife,' said the man, 'go into the garret on the upper shelf you will see a pair of red shoes bring them to me.' The wife went in and fetched the shoes. 'There, bird,' said the shoemaker, 'now sing me that song again.' The bird flew down and took the red shoes in his left claw, and then he went back to the roof and sang When he had finished, he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the mill went 'Click clack, click clack, click clack.' Inside the mill were twenty of the miller's men hewing a stone, and as they went 'Hick hack, hick hack, hick hack,' the mill went 'Click clack, click clack, click clack.' The bird settled on a limetree in front of the mill and sang then one of the men left off, two more men left off and listened, then four more left off, Now there were only eight at work, and now only five, and now only one, then he looked up and the last one had left off work. 'Bird,' he said, 'what a beautiful song that is you sing! Let me hear it too sing it again.' 'Nay,' answered the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing give me that millstone, and I will sing it again.' 'If it belonged to me alone,' said the man, 'you should have it.' 'Yes, yes,' said the others 'if he will sing again, he can have it.' The bird came down, and all the twenty millers set to and lifted up the stone with a beam then the bird put his head through the hole and took the stone round his neck like a collar, and flew back with it to the tree and sang And when he had finished his song, he spread his wings, and with the chain in his right claw, the shoes in his left, and the millstone round his neck, he flew right away to his father's house. The father, the mother, and little Marleen were having their dinner. 'How lighthearted I feel,' said the father, 'so pleased and cheerful.' 'And I,' said the mother, 'I feel so uneasy, as if a heavy thunderstorm were coming.' But little Marleen sat and wept and wept. Then the bird came flying towards the house and settled on the roof. 'I do feel so happy,' said the father, 'and how beautifully the sun shines I feel just as if I were going to see an old friend again.' 'Ah!' said the wife, 'and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,' and she tore open her dress and all the while little Marleen sat in the corner and wept, and the plate on her knees was wet with her tears. The bird now flew to the junipertree and began singing the mother shut her eyes and her ears, that she might see and hear nothing, but there was a roaring sound in her ears like that of a violent storm, and in her eyes a burning and flashing like lightning 'Look, mother,' said the man, 'at the beautiful bird that is singing so magnificently and how warm and bright the sun is, and what a delicious scent of spice in the air!' then little Marleen laid her head down on her knees and sobbed. 'I must go outside and see the bird nearer,' said the man. 'Ah, do not go!' cried the wife. 'I feel as if the whole house were in flames!' But the man went out and looked at the bird. With that the bird let fall the gold chain, and it fell just round the man's neck, so that it fitted him exactly. He went inside, and said, 'See, what a splendid bird that is he has given me this beautiful gold chain, and looks so beautiful himself.' But the wife was in such fear and trouble, that she fell on the floor, and her cap fell from her head. Then the bird began again 'Ah me!' cried the wife, 'if I were but a thousand feet beneath the earth, that I might not hear that song.' then the woman fell down again as if dead. 'Well,' said little Marleen, 'I will go out too and see if the bird will give me anything.' So she went out. and he threw down the shoes to her, And she now felt quite happy and lighthearted she put on the shoes and danced and jumped about in them. 'I was so miserable,' she said, 'when I came out, but that has all passed away that is indeed a splendid bird, and he has given me a pair of red shoes.' The wife sprang up, with her hair standing out from her head like flames of fire. 'Then I will go out too,' she said, 'and see if it will lighten my misery, for I feel as if the world were coming to an end.' But as she crossed the threshold, crash! the bird threw the millstone down on her head, and she was crushed to death. The father and little Marleen heard the sound and ran out, but they only saw mist and flame and fire rising from the spot, and when these had passed, there stood the little brother, and he took the father and little Marleen by the hand then they all three rejoiced, and went inside together and sat down to their dinners and ate. There were two brothers who were both soldiers the one was rich and the other poor. The poor man thought he would try to better himself so, pulling off his red coat, he became a gardener, and dug his ground well, and sowed turnips. When the seed came up, there was one plant bigger than all the rest and it kept getting larger and larger, and seemed as if it would never cease growing so that it might have been called the prince of turnips for there never was such a one seen before, and never will again. At last it was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it and the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it would be a blessing or a curse to him. One day he said to himself, 'What shall I do with it? if I sell it, it will bring no more than another and for eating, the little turnips are better than this the best thing perhaps is to carry it and give it to the king as a mark of respect.' Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it to the king. 'What a wonderful thing!' said the king 'I have seen many strange things, but such a monster as this I never saw. Where did you get the seed? or is it only your good luck? If so, you are a true child of fortune.' 'Ah, no!' answered the gardener, 'I am no child of fortune I am a poor soldier, who never could get enough to live upon so I laid aside my red coat, and set to work, tilling the ground. I have a brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world knows him but because I am poor, everybody forgets me.' The king then took pity on him, and said, 'You shall be poor no longer. I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your brother.' Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so rich that his brother's fortune could not at all be compared with his. When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a rich present of gold and fine horses for the king and thought he must have a much larger gift in return for if his brother had received so much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth? The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip so the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him. When he reached home, he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite and at length wicked thoughts came into his head, and he resolved to kill his brother. So he hired some villains to murder him and having shown them where to lie in ambush, he went to his brother, and said, 'Dear brother, I have found a hidden treasure let us go and dig it up, and share it between us.' The other had no suspicions of his roguery so they went out together, and as they were travelling along, the murderers rushed out upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree. But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away. Meantime he worked and worked away, till he made a hole large enough to put out his head. When the horseman came up, he proved to be a student, a merry fellow, who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, 'Good morning! good morning to thee, my friend!' The student looked about everywhere and seeing no one, and not knowing where the voice came from, cried out, 'Who calls me?' Then the man in the tree answered, 'Lift up thine eyes, for behold here I sit in the sack of wisdom here have I, in a short time, learned great and wondrous things. Compared to this seat, all the learning of the schools is as empty air. A little longer, and I shall know all that man can know, and shall come forth wiser than the wisest of mankind. Here I discern the signs and motions of the heavens and the stars the laws that control the winds the number of the sands on the seashore the healing of the sick the virtues of all simples, of birds, and of precious stones. Wert thou but once here, my friend, though wouldst feel and own the power of knowledge. The student listened to all this and wondered much at last he said, 'Blessed be the day and hour when I found you cannot you contrive to let me into the sack for a little while?' Then the other answered, as if very unwillingly, 'A little space I may allow thee to sit here, if thou wilt reward me well and entreat me kindly but thou must tarry yet an hour below, till I have learnt some little matters that are yet unknown to me.' So the student sat himself down and waited a while but the time hung heavy upon him, and he begged earnestly that he might ascend forthwith, for his thirst for knowledge was great. Then the other pretended to give way, and said, 'Thou must let the sack of wisdom descend, by untying yonder cord, and then thou shalt enter.' So the student let him down, opened the sack, and set him free. 'Now then,' cried he, 'let me ascend quickly.' As he began to put himself into the sack heels first, 'Wait a while,' said the gardener, 'that is not the way.' Then he pushed him in head first, tied up the sack, and soon swung up the searcher after wisdom dangling in the air. 'How is it with thee, friend?' said he, 'dost thou not feel that wisdom comes unto thee? Rest there in peace, till thou art a wiser man than thou wert.' So saying, he trotted off on the student's nag, and left the poor fellow to gather wisdom till somebody should come and let him down. The mother of Hans said 'Whither away, Hans?' Hans answered 'To Gretel.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What do you bring that is good?' 'I bring nothing, I want to have something given me.' Gretel presents Hans with a needle, Hans says 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a haycart, and follows the cart home. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'Took nothing had something given me.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'Gave me a needle.' 'Where is the needle, Hans?' 'Stuck in the haycart.' 'That was ill done, Hans. You should have stuck the needle in your sleeve.' 'Never mind, I'll do better next time.' 'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What do you bring that is good?' 'I bring nothing. I want to have something given to me.' Gretel presents Hans with a knife. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans takes the knife, sticks it in his sleeve, and goes home. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' What did you take her?' 'Took her nothing, she gave me something.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'Gave me a knife.' 'Where is the knife, Hans?' 'Stuck in my sleeve.' 'That's ill done, Hans, you should have put the knife in your pocket.' 'Never mind, will do better next time.' 'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What good thing do you bring?' 'I bring nothing, I want something given me.' Gretel presents Hans with a young goat. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans takes the goat, ties its legs, and puts it in his pocket. When he gets home it is suffocated. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'Took nothing, she gave me something.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'She gave me a goat.' 'Where is the goat, Hans?' 'Put it in my pocket.' 'That was ill done, Hans, you should have put a rope round the goat's neck.' 'Never mind, will do better next time.' 'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What good thing do you bring?' 'I bring nothing, I want something given me.' Gretel presents Hans with a piece of bacon. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans takes the bacon, ties it to a rope, and drags it away behind him. The dogs come and devour the bacon. When he gets home, he has the rope in his hand, and there is no longer anything hanging on to it. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'I took her nothing, she gave me something.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'Gave me a bit of bacon.' 'Where is the bacon, Hans?' 'I tied it to a rope, brought it home, dogs took it.' 'That was ill done, Hans, you should have carried the bacon on your head.' 'Never mind, will do better next time.' 'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans, What good thing do you bring?' 'I bring nothing, but would have something given.' Gretel presents Hans with a calf. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans takes the calf, puts it on his head, and the calf kicks his face. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'I took nothing, but had something given me.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'A calf.' 'Where have you the calf, Hans?' 'I set it on my head and it kicked my face.' 'That was ill done, Hans, you should have led the calf, and put it in the stall.' 'Never mind, will do better next time.' 'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What good thing do you bring?' 'I bring nothing, but would have something given.' Gretel says to Hans 'I will go with you.' Hans takes Gretel, ties her to a rope, leads her to the rack, and binds her fast. Then Hans goes to his mother. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'I took her nothing.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'She gave me nothing, she came with me.' 'Where have you left Gretel?' 'I led her by the rope, tied her to the rack, and scattered some grass for her.' 'That was ill done, Hans, you should have cast friendly eyes on her.' 'Never mind, will do better.' Hans went into the stable, cut out all the calves' and sheep's eyes, and threw them in Gretel's face. Then Gretel became angry, tore herself loose and ran away, and was no longer the bride of Hans. An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he was stupid, and could learn nothing. Then said the father 'Hark you, my son, try as I will I can get nothing into your head. You must go from hence, I will give you into the care of a celebrated master, who shall see what he can do with you.' The youth was sent into a strange town, and remained a whole year with the master. At the end of this time, he came home again, and his father asked 'Now, my son, what have you learnt?' 'Father, I have learnt what the dogs say when they bark.' 'Lord have mercy on us!' cried the father 'is that all you have learnt? I will send you into another town, to another master.' The youth was taken thither, and stayed a year with this master likewise. When he came back the father again asked 'My son, what have you learnt?' He answered 'Father, I have learnt what the birds say.' Then the father fell into a rage and said 'Oh, you lost man, you have spent the precious time and learnt nothing are you not ashamed to appear before my eyes? I will send you to a third master, but if you learn nothing this time also, I will no longer be your father.' The youth remained a whole year with the third master also, and when he came home again, and his father inquired 'My son, what have you learnt?' he answered 'Dear father, I have this year learnt what the frogs croak.' Then the father fell into the most furious anger, sprang up, called his people thither, and said 'This man is no longer my son, I drive him forth, and command you to take him out into the forest, and kill him.' They took him forth, but when they should have killed him, they could not do it for pity, and let him go, and they cut the eyes and tongue out of a deer that they might carry them to the old man as a token. The youth wandered on, and after some time came to a fortress where he begged for a night's lodging. 'Yes,' said the lord of the castle, 'if you will pass the night down there in the old tower, go thither but I warn you, it is at the peril of your life, for it is full of wild dogs, which bark and howl without stopping, and at certain hours a man has to be given to them, whom they at once devour.' The whole district was in sorrow and dismay because of them, and yet no one could do anything to stop this. The youth, however, was without fear, and said 'Just let me go down to the barking dogs, and give me something that I can throw to them they will do nothing to harm me.' As he himself would have it so, they gave him some food for the wild animals, and led him down to the tower. When he went inside, the dogs did not bark at him, but wagged their tails quite amicably around him, ate what he set before them, and did not hurt one hair of his head. Next morning, to the astonishment of everyone, he came out again safe and unharmed, and said to the lord of the castle 'The dogs have revealed to me, in their own language, why they dwell there, and bring evil on the land. They are bewitched, and are obliged to watch over a great treasure which is below in the tower, and they can have no rest until it is taken away, and I have likewise learnt, from their discourse, how that is to be done.' Then all who heard this rejoiced, and the lord of the castle said he would adopt him as a son if he accomplished it successfully. He went down again, and as he knew what he had to do, he did it thoroughly, and brought a chest full of gold out with him. The howling of the wild dogs was henceforth heard no more they had disappeared, and the country was freed from the trouble. After some time he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor. They at length agreed that the person should be chosen as pope who should be distinguished by some divine and miraculous token. And just as that was decided on, the young count entered into the church, and suddenly two snowwhite doves flew on his shoulders and remained sitting there. The ecclesiastics recognized therein the token from above, and asked him on the spot if he would be pope. He was undecided, and knew not if he were worthy of this, but the doves counselled him to do it, and at length he said yes. Then was he anointed and consecrated, and thus was fulfilled what he had heard from the frogs on his way, which had so affected him, that he was to be his Holiness the Pope. Then he had to sing a mass, and did not know one word of it, but the two doves sat continually on his shoulders, and said it all in his ear. It happened that the cat met the fox in a forest, and as she thought to herself 'He is clever and full of experience, and much esteemed in the world,' she spoke to him in a friendly way. 'Good day, dear Mr Fox, how are you? How is all with you? How are you getting on in these hard times?' The fox, full of all kinds of arrogance, looked at the cat from head to foot, and for a long time did not know whether he would give any answer or not. At last he said 'Oh, you wretched beardcleaner, you piebald fool, you hungry mousehunter, what can you be thinking of? Have you the cheek to ask how I am getting on? What have you learnt? How many arts do you understand?' 'I understand but one,' replied the cat, modestly. 'What art is that?' asked the fox. 'When the hounds are following me, I can spring into a tree and save myself.' 'Is that all?' said the fox. 'I am master of a hundred arts, and have into the bargain a sackful of cunning. You make me sorry for you come with me, I will teach you how people get away from the hounds.' Just then came a hunter with four dogs. The cat sprang nimbly up a tree, and sat down at the top of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. 'Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,' cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast. 'Ah, Mr Fox,' cried the cat. 'You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been able to climb like me, you would not have lost your life.' 'Dear children,' said a poor man to his four sons, 'I have nothing to give you you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.' So the four brothers took their walkingsticks in their hands, and their little bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came to four crossways, each leading to a different country. Then the eldest said, 'Here we must part but this day four years we will come back to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for himself.' So each brother went his way and as the eldest was hastening on a man met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. 'I am going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning some art or trade,' answered he. 'Then,' said the man, 'go with me, and I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.' 'No,' said the other, 'that is not an honest calling, and what can one look to earn by it in the end but the gallows?' 'Oh!' said the man, 'you need not fear the gallows for I will only teach you to steal what will be fair game I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care anything about, and where no one can find you out.' So the young man agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon. The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. 'I do not know yet,' said he. 'Then come with me, and be a stargazer. It is a noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand the stars.' The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful stargazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave his master, he gave him a glass, and said, 'With this you can see all that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from you.' The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the craft of the woods and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and said, 'Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.' The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to do. 'Would not you like,' said he, 'to be a tailor?' 'Oh, no!' said the young man 'sitting crosslegged from morning to night, working backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.' 'Oh!' answered the man, 'that is not my sort of tailoring come with me, and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.' Not knowing what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the beginning and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, 'You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as steel and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.' After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four brothers met at the four crossroads and having welcomed each other, set off towards their father's home, where they told him all that had happened to them, and how each had learned some craft. Then, one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high tree, the father said, 'I should like to try what each of you can do in this way.' So he looked up, and said to the second son, 'At the top of this tree there is a chaffinch's nest tell me how many eggs there are in it.' The stargazer took his glass, looked up, and said, 'Five.' 'Now,' said the father to the eldest son, 'take away the eggs without letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them know anything of what you are doing.' So the cunning thief climbed up the tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at its ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, 'Cut all the eggs in two pieces at one shot.' The huntsman took up his bow, and at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished. 'Now comes your turn,' said he to the young tailor 'sew the eggs and the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall have done them no harm.' Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed the eggs as he was told and when he had done, the thief was sent to take them back to the nest, and put them under the bird without its knowing it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them and in a few days they crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks, where the tailor had sewn them together. 'Well done, sons!' said the old man 'you have made good use of your time, and learnt something worth the knowing but I am sure I do not know which ought to have the prize. Oh, that a time might soon come for you to turn your skill to some account!' Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country for the king's daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever brought her back to him should have her for a wife. Then the four brothers said to each other, 'Here is a chance for us let us try what we can do.' And they agreed to see whether they could not set the princess free. 'I will soon find out where she is, however,' said the stargazer, as he looked through his glass and he soon cried out, 'I see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the dragon close by, guarding her.' Then he went to the king, and asked for a ship for himself and his brothers and they sailed together over the sea, till they came to the right place. There they found the princess sitting, as the stargazer had said, on the rock and the dragon was lying asleep, with his head upon her lap. 'I dare not shoot at him,' said the huntsman, 'for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.' 'Then I will try my skill,' said the thief, and went and stole her away from under the dragon, so quietly and gently that the beast did not know it, but went on snoring. Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the ship but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air for he awoke and missed the princess. But when he got over the boat, and wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took up his bow and shot him straight through the heart so that he fell down dead. They were still not safe for he was such a great beast that in his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large stitches put some of the planks together and he sat down upon these, and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat and then tacked them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then reached the ship and got home safe. When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great rejoicing and he said to the four brothers, 'One of you shall marry her, but you must settle amongst yourselves which it is to be.' Then there arose a quarrel between them and the stargazer said, 'If I had not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use therefore she ought to be mine.' 'Your seeing her would have been of no use,' said the thief, 'if I had not taken her away from the dragon therefore she ought to be mine.' 'No, she is mine,' said the huntsman 'for if I had not killed the dragon, he would, after all, have torn you and the princess into pieces.' 'And if I had not sewn the boat together again,' said the tailor, 'you would all have been drowned, therefore she is mine.' Then the king put in a word, and said, 'Each of you is right and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for neither of you to have her for the truth is, there is somebody she likes a great deal better. But to make up for your loss, I will give each of you, as a reward for his skill, half a kingdom.' So the brothers agreed that this plan would be much better than either quarrelling or marrying a lady who had no mind to have them. And the king then gave to each half a kingdom, as he had said and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and took good care of their father and somebody took better care of the young lady, than to let either the dragon or one of the craftsmen have her again. A merchant, who had three daughters, was once setting out upon a journey but before he went he asked each daughter what gift he should bring back for her. The eldest wished for pearls the second for jewels but the third, who was called Lily, said, 'Dear father, bring me a rose.' Now it was no easy task to find a rose, for it was the middle of winter yet as she was his prettiest daughter, and was very fond of flowers, her father said he would try what he could do. So he kissed all three, and bid them goodbye. And when the time came for him to go home, he had bought pearls and jewels for the two eldest, but he had sought everywhere in vain for the rose and when he went into any garden and asked for such a thing, the people laughed at him, and asked him whether he thought roses grew in snow. This grieved him very much, for Lily was his dearest child and as he was journeying home, thinking what he should bring her, he came to a fine castle and around the castle was a garden, in one half of which it seemed to be summertime and in the other half winter. On one side the finest flowers were in full bloom, and on the other everything looked dreary and buried in the snow. 'A lucky hit!' said he, as he called to his servant, and told him to go to a beautiful bed of roses that was there, and bring him away one of the finest flowers. This done, they were riding away well pleased, when up sprang a fierce lion, and roared out, 'Whoever has stolen my roses shall be eaten up alive!' Then the man said, 'I knew not that the garden belonged to you can nothing save my life?' 'No!' said the lion, 'nothing, unless you undertake to give me whatever meets you on your return home if you agree to this, I will give you your life, and the rose too for your daughter.' But the man was unwilling to do so and said, 'It may be my youngest daughter, who loves me most, and always runs to meet me when I go home.' Then the servant was greatly frightened, and said, 'It may perhaps be only a cat or a dog.' And at last the man yielded with a heavy heart, and took the rose and said he would give the lion whatever should meet him first on his return. And as he came near home, it was Lily, his youngest and dearest daughter, that met him she came running, and kissed him, and welcomed him home and when she saw that he had brought her the rose, she was still more glad. But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep, saying, 'Alas, my dearest child! I have bought this flower at a high price, for I have said I would give you to a wild lion and when he has you, he will tear you in pieces, and eat you.' Then he told her all that had happened, and said she should not go, let what would happen. But she comforted him, and said, 'Dear father, the word you have given must be kept I will go to the lion, and soothe him perhaps he will let me come safe home again.' The next morning she asked the way she was to go, and took leave of her father, and went forth with a bold heart into the wood. But the lion was an enchanted prince. By day he and all his court were lions, but in the evening they took their right forms again. And when Lily came to the castle, he welcomed her so courteously that she agreed to marry him. The weddingfeast was held, and they lived happily together a long time. The prince was only to be seen as soon as evening came, and then he held his court but every morning he left his bride, and went away by himself, she knew not whither, till the night came again. After some time he said to her, 'Tomorrow there will be a great feast in your father's house, for your eldest sister is to be married and if you wish to go and visit her my lions shall lead you thither.' Then she rejoiced much at the thoughts of seeing her father once more, and set out with the lions and everyone was overjoyed to see her, for they had thought her dead long since. But she told them how happy she was, and stayed till the feast was over, and then went back to the wood. Her second sister was soon after married, and when Lily was asked to go to the wedding, she said to the prince, 'I will not go alone this timeyou must go with me.' But he would not, and said that it would be a very hazardous thing for if the least ray of the torchlight should fall upon him his enchantment would become still worse, for he should be changed into a dove, and be forced to wander about the world for seven long years. However, she gave him no rest, and said she would take care no light should fall upon him. So at last they set out together, and took with them their little child and she chose a large hall with thick walls for him to sit in while the weddingtorches were lighted but, unluckily, no one saw that there was a crack in the door. Then the wedding was held with great pomp, but as the train came from the church, and passed with the torches before the hall, a very small ray of light fell upon the prince. In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came in and looked for him, she found only a white dove and it said to her, 'Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you the way I am going follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me free.' This said, he flew out at the door, and poor Lily followed and every now and then a white feather fell, and showed her the way she was to journey. Thus she went roving on through the wide world, and looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor took any rest, for seven years. Then she began to be glad, and thought to herself that the time was fast coming when all her troubles should end yet repose was still far off, for one day as she was travelling on she missed the white feather, and when she lifted up her eyes she could nowhere see the dove. 'Now,' thought she to herself, 'no aid of man can be of use to me.' So she went to the sun and said, 'Thou shinest everywhere, on the hill's top and the valley's depthhast thou anywhere seen my white dove?' 'No,' said the sun, 'I have not seen it but I will give thee a casketopen it when thy hour of need comes.' So she thanked the sun, and went on her way till eventide and when the moon arose, she cried unto it, and said, 'Thou shinest through the night, over field and grovehast thou nowhere seen my white dove?' 'No,' said the moon, 'I cannot help thee but I will give thee an eggbreak it when need comes.' Then she thanked the moon, and went on till the nightwind blew and she raised up her voice to it, and said, 'Thou blowest through every tree and under every leafhast thou not seen my white dove?' 'No,' said the nightwind, 'but I will ask three other winds perhaps they have seen it.' Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said they too had not seen it, but the south wind said, 'I have seen the white dovehe has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into a lion, for the seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting with a dragon and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to separate him from you.' Then the nightwind said, 'I will give thee counsel. Go to the Red Sea on the right shore stand many rodscount them, and when thou comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite the dragon with it and so the lion will have the victory, and both of them will appear to you in their own forms. Then look round and thou wilt see a griffin, winged like bird, sitting by the Red Sea jump on to his back with thy beloved one as quickly as possible, and he will carry you over the waters to your home. I will also give thee this nut,' continued the nightwind. 'When you are halfway over, throw it down, and out of the waters will immediately spring up a high nuttree on which the griffin will be able to rest, otherwise he would not have the strength to bear you the whole way if, therefore, thou dost forget to throw down the nut, he will let you both fall into the sea.' So our poor wanderer went forth, and found all as the nightwind had said and she plucked the eleventh rod, and smote the dragon, and the lion forthwith became a prince, and the dragon a princess again. But no sooner was the princess released from the spell, than she seized the prince by the arm and sprang on to the griffin's back, and went off carrying the prince away with her. Thus the unhappy traveller was again forsaken and forlorn but she took heart and said, 'As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.' She went on for a long, long way, till at length she came to the castle whither the princess had carried the prince and there was a feast got ready, and she heard that the wedding was about to be held. 'Heaven aid me now!' said she and she took the casket that the sun had given her, and found that within it lay a dress as dazzling as the sun itself. So she put it on, and went into the palace, and all the people gazed upon her and the dress pleased the bride so much that she asked whether it was to be sold. 'Not for gold and silver.' said she, 'but for flesh and blood.' The princess asked what she meant, and she said, 'Let me speak with the bridegroom this night in his chamber, and I will give thee the dress.' At last the princess agreed, but she told her chamberlain to give the prince a sleeping draught, that he might not hear or see her. When evening came, and the prince had fallen asleep, she was led into his chamber, and she sat herself down at his feet, and said 'I have followed thee seven years. I have been to the sun, the moon, and the nightwind, to seek thee, and at last I have helped thee to overcome the dragon. Wilt thou then forget me quite?' But the prince all the time slept so soundly, that her voice only passed over him, and seemed like the whistling of the wind among the firtrees. Then poor Lily was led away, and forced to give up the golden dress and when she saw that there was no help for her, she went out into a meadow, and sat herself down and wept. But as she sat she bethought herself of the egg that the moon had given her and when she broke it, there ran out a hen and twelve chickens of pure gold, that played about, and then nestled under the old one's wings, so as to form the most beautiful sight in the world. And she rose up and drove them before her, till the bride saw them from her window, and was so pleased that she came forth and asked her if she would sell the brood. 'Not for gold or silver, but for flesh and blood let me again this evening speak with the bridegroom in his chamber, and I will give thee the whole brood.' Then the princess thought to betray her as before, and agreed to what she asked but when the prince went to his chamber he asked the chamberlain why the wind had whistled so in the night. And the chamberlain told him allhow he had given him a sleeping draught, and how a poor maiden had come and spoken to him in his chamber, and was to come again that night. Then the prince took care to throw away the sleeping draught and when Lily came and began again to tell him what woes had befallen her, and how faithful and true to him she had been, he knew his beloved wife's voice, and sprang up, and said, 'You have awakened me as from a dream, for the strange princess had thrown a spell around me, so that I had altogether forgotten you but Heaven hath sent you to me in a lucky hour.' And they stole away out of the palace by night unawares, and seated themselves on the griffin, who flew back with them over the Red Sea. When they were halfway across Lily let the nut fall into the water, and immediately a large nuttree arose from the sea, whereon the griffin rested for a while, and then carried them safely home. There they found their child, now grown up to be comely and fair and after all their troubles they lived happily together to the end of their days. A farmer had a horse that had been an excellent faithful servant to him but he was now grown too old to work so the farmer would give him nothing more to eat, and said, 'I want you no longer, so take yourself off out of my stable I shall not take you back again until you are stronger than a lion.' Then he opened the door and turned him adrift. The poor horse was very melancholy, and wandered up and down in the wood, seeking some little shelter from the cold wind and rain. Presently a fox met him 'What's the matter, my friend?' said he, 'why do you hang down your head and look so lonely and woebegone?' 'Ah!' replied the horse, 'justice and avarice never dwell in one house my master has forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become stronger than a lion he will not take me back again what chance can I have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.' However, the fox bid him be of good cheer, and said, 'I will help you lie down there, stretch yourself out quite stiff, and pretend to be dead.' The horse did as he was told, and the fox went straight to the lion who lived in a cave close by, and said to him, 'A little way off lies a dead horse come with me and you may make an excellent meal of his carcase.' The lion was greatly pleased, and set off immediately and when they came to the horse, the fox said, 'You will not be able to eat him comfortably here I'll tell you whatI will tie you fast to his tail, and then you can draw him to your den, and eat him at your leisure.' This advice pleased the lion, so he laid himself down quietly for the fox to make him fast to the horse. But the fox managed to tie his legs together and bound all so hard and fast that with all his strength he could not set himself free. When the work was done, the fox clapped the horse on the shoulder, and said, 'Jip! Dobbin! Jip!' Then up he sprang, and moved off, dragging the lion behind him. The beast began to roar and bellow, till all the birds of the wood flew away for fright but the horse let him sing on, and made his way quietly over the fields to his master's house. 'Here he is, master,' said he, 'I have got the better of him' and when the farmer saw his old servant, his heart relented, and he said. 'Thou shalt stay in thy stable and be well taken care of.' And so the poor old horse had plenty to eat, and livedtill he died. There was once upon a time a soldier who for many years had served the king faithfully, but when the war came to an end could serve no longer because of the many wounds which he had received. The king said to him 'You may return to your home, I need you no longer, and you will not receive any more money, for he only receives wages who renders me service for them.' Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, which he went up to, and came to a house wherein lived a witch. 'Do give me one night's lodging, and a little to eat and drink,' said he to her, 'or I shall starve.' 'Oho!' she answered, 'who gives anything to a runaway soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you will do what I wish.' 'What do you wish?' said the soldier. 'That you should dig all round my garden for me, tomorrow.' The soldier consented, and next day laboured with all his strength, but could not finish it by the evening. 'I see well enough,' said the witch, 'that you can do no more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood, and chop it small.' The soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch proposed that he should stay one night more. 'Tomorrow, you shall only do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes out, and you shall bring it up again.' Next day the old woman took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the blue light away from him. 'No,' said he, perceiving her evil intention, 'I will not give you the light until I am standing with both feet upon the ground.' The witch fell into a passion, let him fall again into the well, and went away. The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the blue light went on burning, but of what use was that to him? He saw very well that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which was still half full. 'This shall be my last pleasure,' thought he, pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke. When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood before him, and said 'Lord, what are your commands?' 'What my commands are?' replied the soldier, quite astonished. 'I must do everything you bid me,' said the little man. 'Good,' said the soldier 'then in the first place help me out of this well.' The little man took him by the hand, and led him through an underground passage, but he did not forget to take the blue light with him. On the way the dwarf showed him the treasures which the witch had collected and hidden there, and the soldier took as much gold as he could carry. When he was above, he said to the little man 'Now go and bind the old witch, and carry her before the judge.' In a short time she came by like the wind, riding on a wild tomcat and screaming frightfully. Nor was it long before the little man reappeared. 'It is all done,' said he, 'and the witch is already hanging on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?' inquired the dwarf. 'At this moment, none,' answered the soldier 'you can return home, only be at hand immediately, if I summon you.' 'Nothing more is needed than that you should light your pipe at the blue light, and I will appear before you at once.' Thereupon he vanished from his sight. The soldier returned to the town from which he came. He went to the best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord furnish him a room as handsome as possible. When it was ready and the soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the little black manikin and said 'I have served the king faithfully, but he has dismissed me, and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.' 'What am I to do?' asked the little man. 'Late at night, when the king's daughter is in bed, bring her here in her sleep, she shall do servant's work for me.' The manikin said 'That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.' When twelve o'clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the manikin carried in the princess. 'Aha! are you there?' cried the soldier, 'get to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.' When she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair, and then he stretched out his feet and said 'Pull off my boots,' and then he threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean and brighten them. She, however, did everything he bade her, without opposition, silently and with halfshut eyes. When the first cock crowed, the manikin carried her back to the royal palace, and laid her in her bed. Next morning when the princess arose she went to her father, and told him that she had had a very strange dream. 'I was carried through the streets with the rapidity of lightning,' said she, 'and taken into a soldier's room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.' 'The dream may have been true,' said the king. 'I will give you a piece of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the pocket, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and leave a track in the streets.' But unseen by the king, the manikin was standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night when the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the crafty manikin had just before scattered peas in every street there was. And again the princess was compelled to do servant's work until cockcrow. Next morning the king sent his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying 'It must have rained peas, last night.' 'We must think of something else,' said the king 'keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it.' The black manikin heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found in the soldier's house it would go badly with him. 'Do what I bid you,' replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under the bed. Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter's shoe. It was found at the soldier's, and the soldier himself, who at the entreaty of the dwarf had gone outside the gate, was soon brought back, and thrown into prison. In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one ducat in his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by. The soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to him 'Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.' His comrade ran thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the black manikin. 'Have no fear,' said the latter to his master. 'Go wheresoever they take you, and let them do what they will, only take the blue light with you.' Next day the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last favour of the king. 'What is it?' asked the king. 'That I may smoke one more pipe on my way.' 'You may smoke three,' answered the king, 'but do not imagine that I will spare your life.' Then the soldier pulled out his pipe and lighted it at the blue light, and as soon as a few wreaths of smoke had ascended, the manikin was there with a small cudgel in his hand, and said 'What does my lord command?' 'Strike down to earth that false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the king who has treated me so ill.' Then the manikin fell on them like lightning, darting this way and that way, and whosoever was so much as touched by his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The king was terrified he threw himself on the soldier's mercy, and merely to be allowed to live at all, gave him his kingdom for his own, and his daughter to wife. There was once a queen who had a little daughter, still too young to run alone. One day the child was very troublesome, and the mother could not quiet it, do what she would. She grew impatient, and seeing the ravens flying round the castle, she opened the window, and said 'I wish you were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.' Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the child in her arms was turned into a raven, and flew away from her through the open window. The bird took its flight to a dark wood and remained there for a long time, and meanwhile the parents could hear nothing of their child. Long after this, a man was making his way through the wood when he heard a raven calling, and he followed the sound of the voice. As he drew near, the raven said, 'I am by birth a king's daughter, but am now under the spell of some enchantment you can, however, set me free.' 'What am I to do?' he asked. She replied, 'Go farther into the wood until you come to a house, wherein lives an old woman she will offer you food and drink, but you must not take of either if you do, you will fall into a deep sleep, and will not be able to help me. In the garden behind the house is a large tanheap, and on that you must stand and watch for me. I shall drive there in my carriage at two o'clock in the afternoon for three successive days the first day it will be drawn by four white, the second by four chestnut, and the last by four black horses but if you fail to keep awake and I find you sleeping, I shall not be set free.' The man promised to do all that she wished, but the raven said, 'Alas! I know even now that you will take something from the woman and be unable to save me.' The man assured her again that he would on no account touch a thing to eat or drink. When he came to the house and went inside, the old woman met him, and said, 'Poor man! how tired you are! Come in and rest and let me give you something to eat and drink.' 'No,' answered the man, 'I will neither eat not drink.' But she would not leave him alone, and urged him saying, 'If you will not eat anything, at least you might take a draught of wine one drink counts for nothing,' and at last he allowed himself to be persuaded, and drank. As it drew towards the appointed hour, he went outside into the garden and mounted the tanheap to await the raven. Suddenly a feeling of fatigue came over him, and unable to resist it, he lay down for a little while, fully determined, however, to keep awake but in another minute his eyes closed of their own accord, and he fell into such a deep sleep, that all the noises in the world would not have awakened him. At two o'clock the raven came driving along, drawn by her four white horses but even before she reached the spot, she said to herself, sighing, 'I know he has fallen asleep.' When she entered the garden, there she found him as she had feared, lying on the tanheap, fast asleep. She got out of her carriage and went to him she called him and shook him, but it was all in vain, he still continued sleeping. The next day at noon, the old woman came to him again with food and drink which he at first refused. At last, overcome by her persistent entreaties that he would take something, he lifted the glass and drank again. Towards two o'clock he went into the garden and on to the tanheap to watch for the raven. He had not been there long before he began to feel so tired that his limbs seemed hardly able to support him, and he could not stand upright any longer so again he lay down and fell fast asleep. As the raven drove along her four chestnut horses, she said sorrowfully to herself, 'I know he has fallen asleep.' She went as before to look for him, but he slept, and it was impossible to awaken him. The following day the old woman said to him, 'What is this? You are not eating or drinking anything, do you want to kill yourself?' He answered, 'I may not and will not either eat or drink.' But she put down the dish of food and the glass of wine in front of him, and when he smelt the wine, he was unable to resist the temptation, and took a deep draught. When the hour came round again he went as usual on to the tanheap in the garden to await the king's daughter, but he felt even more overcome with weariness than on the two previous days, and throwing himself down, he slept like a log. At two o'clock the raven could be seen approaching, and this time her coachman and everything about her, as well as her horses, were black. She was sadder than ever as she drove along, and said mournfully, 'I know he has fallen asleep, and will not be able to set me free.' She found him sleeping heavily, and all her efforts to awaken him were of no avail. Then she placed beside him a loaf, and some meat, and a flask of wine, of such a kind, that however much he took of them, they would never grow less. After that she drew a gold ring, on which her name was engraved, off her finger, and put it upon one of his. Finally, she laid a letter near him, in which, after giving him particulars of the food and drink she had left for him, she finished with the following words 'I see that as long as you remain here you will never be able to set me free if, however, you still wish to do so, come to the golden castle of Stromberg this is well within your power to accomplish.' She then returned to her carriage and drove to the golden castle of Stromberg. When the man awoke and found that he had been sleeping, he was grieved at heart, and said, 'She has no doubt been here and driven away again, and it is now too late for me to save her.' Then his eyes fell on the things which were lying beside him he read the letter, and knew from it all that had happened. He rose up without delay, eager to start on his way and to reach the castle of Stromberg, but he had no idea in which direction he ought to go. He travelled about a long time in search of it and came at last to a dark forest, through which he went on walking for fourteen days and still could not find a way out. Once more the night came on, and worn out he lay down under a bush and fell asleep. Again the next day he pursued his way through the forest, and that evening, thinking to rest again, he lay down as before, but he heard such a howling and wailing that he found it impossible to sleep. He waited till it was darker and people had begun to light up their houses, and then seeing a little glimmer ahead of him, he went towards it. He found that the light came from a house which looked smaller than it really was, from the contrast of its height with that of an immense giant who stood in front of it. He thought to himself, 'If the giant sees me going in, my life will not be worth much.' However, after a while he summoned up courage and went forward. When the giant saw him, he called out, 'It is lucky for that you have come, for I have not had anything to eat for a long time. I can have you now for my supper.' 'I would rather you let that alone,' said the man, 'for I do not willingly give myself up to be eaten if you are wanting food I have enough to satisfy your hunger.' 'If that is so,' replied the giant, 'I will leave you in peace I only thought of eating you because I had nothing else.' So they went indoors together and sat down, and the man brought out the bread, meat, and wine, which although he had eaten and drunk of them, were still unconsumed. The giant was pleased with the good cheer, and ate and drank to his heart's content. When he had finished his supper the man asked him if he could direct him to the castle of Stromberg. The giant said, 'I will look on my map on it are marked all the towns, villages, and houses.' So he fetched his map, and looked for the castle, but could not find it. 'Never mind,' he said, 'I have larger maps upstairs in the cupboard, we will look on those,' but they searched in vain, for the castle was not marked even on these. The man now thought he should like to continue his journey, but the giant begged him to remain for a day or two longer until the return of his brother, who was away in search of provisions. When the brother came home, they asked him about the castle of Stromberg, and he told them he would look on his own maps as soon as he had eaten and appeased his hunger. Accordingly, when he had finished his supper, they all went up together to his room and looked through his maps, but the castle was not to be found. Then he fetched other older maps, and they went on looking for the castle until at last they found it, but it was many thousand miles away. 'How shall I be able to get there?' asked the man. 'I have two hours to spare,' said the giant, 'and I will carry you into the neighbourhood of the castle I must then return to look after the child who is in our care.' The giant, thereupon, carried the man to within about a hundred leagues of the castle, where he left him, saying, 'You will be able to walk the remainder of the way yourself.' The man journeyed on day and night till he reached the golden castle of Stromberg. He found it situated, however, on a glass mountain, and looking up from the foot he saw the enchanted maiden drive round her castle and then go inside. He was overjoyed to see her, and longed to get to the top of the mountain, but the sides were so slippery that every time he attempted to climb he fell back again. When he saw that it was impossible to reach her, he was greatly grieved, and said to himself, 'I will remain here and wait for her,' so he built himself a little hut, and there he sat and watched for a whole year, and every day he saw the king's daughter driving round her castle, but still was unable to get nearer to her. Looking out from his hut one day he saw three robbers fighting and he called out to them, 'God be with you.' They stopped when they heard the call, but looking round and seeing nobody, they went on again with their fighting, which now became more furious. 'God be with you,' he cried again, and again they paused and looked about, but seeing no one went back to their fighting. A third time he called out, 'God be with you,' and then thinking he should like to know the cause of dispute between the three men, he went out and asked them why they were fighting so angrily with one another. One of them said that he had found a stick, and that he had but to strike it against any door through which he wished to pass, and it immediately flew open. Another told him that he had found a cloak which rendered its wearer invisible and the third had caught a horse which would carry its rider over any obstacle, and even up the glass mountain. They had been unable to decide whether they would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would separate. On hearing this, the man said, 'I will give you something in exchange for those three things not money, for that I have not got, but something that is of far more value. I must first, however, prove whether all you have told me about your three things is true.' The robbers, therefore, made him get on the horse, and handed him the stick and the cloak, and when he had put this round him he was no longer visible. Then he fell upon them with the stick and beat them one after another, crying, 'There, you idle vagabonds, you have got what you deserve are you satisfied now!' After this he rode up the glass mountain. When he reached the gate of the castle, he found it closed, but he gave it a blow with his stick, and it flew wide open at once and he passed through. He mounted the steps and entered the room where the maiden was sitting, with a golden goblet full of wine in front of her. She could not see him for he still wore his cloak. He took the ring which she had given him off his finger, and threw it into the goblet, so that it rang as it touched the bottom. 'That is my own ring,' she exclaimed, 'and if that is so the man must also be here who is coming to set me free.' She sought for him about the castle, but could find him nowhere. Meanwhile he had gone outside again and mounted his horse and thrown off the cloak. When therefore she came to the castle gate she saw him, and cried aloud for joy. Then he dismounted and took her in his arms and she kissed him, and said, 'Now you have indeed set me free, and tomorrow we will celebrate our marriage.' There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called Dummling, and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion.  Simpleton It happened that the eldest wanted to go into the forest to hew wood, and before he went his mother gave him a beautiful sweet cake and a bottle of wine in order that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst. When he entered the forest he met a little greyhaired old man who bade him good day, and said 'Do give me a piece of cake out of your pocket, and let me have a draught of your wine I am so hungry and thirsty.' But the clever son answered 'If I give you my cake and wine, I shall have none for myself be off with you,' and he left the little man standing and went on. But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home and have it bound up. And this was the little grey man's doing. After this the second son went into the forest, and his mother gave him, like the eldest, a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old grey man met him likewise, and asked him for a piece of cake and a drink of wine. But the second son, too, said sensibly enough 'What I give you will be taken away from myself be off!' and he left the little man standing and went on. His punishment, however, was not delayed when he had made a few blows at the tree he struck himself in the leg, so that he had to be carried home. Then Dummling said 'Father, do let me go and cut wood.' The father answered 'Your brothers have hurt themselves with it, leave it alone, you do not understand anything about it.' But Dummling begged so long that at last he said 'Just go then, you will get wiser by hurting yourself.' His mother gave him a cake made with water and baked in the cinders, and with it a bottle of sour beer. When he came to the forest the little old grey man met him likewise, and greeting him, said 'Give me a piece of your cake and a drink out of your bottle I am so hungry and thirsty.' Dummling answered 'I have only cindercake and sour beer if that pleases you, we will sit down and eat.' So they sat down, and when Dummling pulled out his cindercake, it was a fine sweet cake, and the sour beer had become good wine. So they ate and drank, and after that the little man said 'Since you have a good heart, and are willing to divide what you have, I will give you good luck. There stands an old tree, cut it down, and you will find something at the roots.' Then the little man took leave of him. Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have liked to have one of its golden feathers. The eldest thought 'I shall soon find an opportunity of pulling out a feather,' and as soon as Dummling had gone out she seized the goose by the wing, but her finger and hand remained sticking fast to it. The second came soon afterwards, thinking only of how she might get a feather for herself, but she had scarcely touched her sister than she was held fast. At last the third also came with the like intent, and the others screamed out 'Keep away for goodness' sake keep away!' But she did not understand why she was to keep away. 'The others are there,' she thought, 'I may as well be there too,' and ran to them but as soon as she had touched her sister, she remained sticking fast to her. So they had to spend the night with the goose. The next morning Dummling took the goose under his arm and set out, without troubling himself about the three girls who were hanging on to it. They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, wherever his legs took him. In the middle of the fields the parson met them, and when he saw the procession he said 'For shame, you goodfornothing girls, why are you running across the fields after this young man? Is that seemly?' At the same time he seized the youngest by the hand in order to pull her away, but as soon as he touched her he likewise stuck fast, and was himself obliged to run behind. Before long the sexton came by and saw his master, the parson, running behind three girls. He was astonished at this and called out 'Hi! your reverence, whither away so quickly? Do not forget that we have a christening today!' and running after him he took him by the sleeve, but was also held fast to it. Whilst the five were trotting thus one behind the other, two labourers came with their hoes from the fields the parson called out to them and begged that they would set him and the sexton free. But they had scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose. Soon afterwards he came to a city, where a king ruled who had a daughter who was so serious that no one could make her laugh. So he had put forth a decree that whosoever should be able to make her laugh should marry her. When Dummling heard this, he went with his goose and all her train before the king's daughter, and as soon as she saw the seven people running on and on, one behind the other, she began to laugh quite loudly, and as if she would never stop. Thereupon Dummling asked to have her for his wife but the king did not like the soninlaw, and made all manner of excuses and said he must first produce a man who could drink a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the little grey man, who could certainly help him so he went into the forest, and in the same place where he had felled the tree, he saw a man sitting, who had a very sorrowful face. Dummling asked him what he was taking to heart so sorely, and he answered 'I have such a great thirst and cannot quench it cold water I cannot stand, a barrel of wine I have just emptied, but that to me is like a drop on a hot stone!' 'There, I can help you,' said Dummling, 'just come with me and you shall be satisfied.' He led him into the king's cellar, and the man bent over the huge barrels, and drank and drank till his loins hurt, and before the day was out he had emptied all the barrels. Then Dummling asked once more for his bride, but the king was vexed that such an ugly fellow, whom everyone called Dummling, should take away his daughter, and he made a new condition he must first find a man who could eat a whole mountain of bread. Dummling did not think long, but went straight into the forest, where in the same place there sat a man who was tying up his body with a strap, and making an awful face, and saying 'I have eaten a whole ovenful of rolls, but what good is that when one has such a hunger as I? My stomach remains empty, and I must tie myself up if I am not to die of hunger.' At this Dummling was glad, and said 'Get up and come with me you shall eat yourself full.' He led him to the king's palace where all the flour in the whole Kingdom was collected, and from it he caused a huge mountain of bread to be baked. The man from the forest stood before it, began to eat, and by the end of one day the whole mountain had vanished. Then Dummling for the third time asked for his bride but the king again sought a way out, and ordered a ship which could sail on land and on water. 'As soon as you come sailing back in it,' said he, 'you shall have my daughter for wife.' Dummling went straight into the forest, and there sat the little grey man to whom he had given his cake. When he heard what Dummling wanted, he said 'Since you have given me to eat and to drink, I will give you the ship and I do all this because you once were kind to me.' Then he gave him the ship which could sail on land and water, and when the king saw that, he could no longer prevent him from having his daughter. The wedding was celebrated, and after the king's death, Dummling inherited his kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife. Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way off, a king who had three sons. This king once fell very illso ill that nobody thought he could live. His sons were very much grieved at their father's sickness and as they were walking together very mournfully in the garden of the palace, a little old man met them and asked what was the matter. They told him that their father was very ill, and that they were afraid nothing could save him. 'I know what would,' said the little old man 'it is the Water of Life. If he could have a draught of it he would be well again but it is very hard to get.' Then the eldest son said, 'I will soon find it' and he went to the sick king, and begged that he might go in search of the Water of Life, as it was the only thing that could save him. 'No,' said the king. 'I had rather die than place you in such great danger as you must meet with in your journey.' But he begged so hard that the king let him go and the prince thought to himself, 'If I bring my father this water, he will make me sole heir to his kingdom.' Then he set out and when he had gone on his way some time he came to a deep valley, overhung with rocks and woods and as he looked around, he saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak and the dwarf called to him and said, 'Prince, whither so fast?' 'What is that to thee, you ugly imp?' said the prince haughtily, and rode on. But the dwarf was enraged at his behaviour, and laid a fairy spell of illluck upon him so that as he rode on the mountain pass became narrower and narrower, and at last the way was so straitened that he could not go to step forward and when he thought to have turned his horse round and go back the way he came, he heard a loud laugh ringing round him, and found that the path was closed behind him, so that he was shut in all round. He next tried to get off his horse and make his way on foot, but again the laugh rang in his ears, and he found himself unable to move a step, and thus he was forced to abide spellbound. Meantime the old king was lingering on in daily hope of his son's return, till at last the second son said, 'Father, I will go in search of the Water of Life.' For he thought to himself, 'My brother is surely dead, and the kingdom will fall to me if I find the water.' The king was at first very unwilling to let him go, but at last yielded to his wish. So he set out and followed the same road which his brother had done, and met with the same elf, who stopped him at the same spot in the mountains, saying, as before, 'Prince, prince, whither so fast?' 'Mind your own affairs, busybody!' said the prince scornfully, and rode on. But the dwarf put the same spell upon him as he put on his elder brother, and he, too, was at last obliged to take up his abode in the heart of the mountains. Thus it is with proud silly people, who think themselves above everyone else, and are too proud to ask or take advice. When the second prince had thus been gone a long time, the youngest son said he would go and search for the Water of Life, and trusted he should soon be able to make his father well again. So he set out, and the dwarf met him too at the same spot in the valley, among the mountains, and said, 'Prince, whither so fast?' And the prince said, 'I am going in search of the Water of Life, because my father is ill, and like to die can you help me? Pray be kind, and aid me if you can!' 'Do you know where it is to be found?' asked the dwarf. 'No,' said the prince, 'I do not. Pray tell me if you know.' 'Then as you have spoken to me kindly, and are wise enough to seek for advice, I will tell you how and where to go. The water you seek springs from a well in an enchanted castle and, that you may be able to reach it in safety, I will give you an iron wand and two little loaves of bread strike the iron door of the castle three times with the wand, and it will open two hungry lions will be lying down inside gaping for their prey, but if you throw them the bread they will let you pass then hasten on to the well, and take some of the Water of Life before the clock strikes twelve for if you tarry longer the door will shut upon you for ever.' Then the prince thanked his little friend with the scarlet cloak for his friendly aid, and took the wand and the bread, and went travelling on and on, over sea and over land, till he came to his journey's end, and found everything to be as the dwarf had told him. The door flew open at the third stroke of the wand, and when the lions were quieted he went on through the castle and came at length to a beautiful hall. Around it he saw several knights sitting in a trance then he pulled off their rings and put them on his own fingers. In another room he saw on a table a sword and a loaf of bread, which he also took. Further on he came to a room where a beautiful young lady sat upon a couch and she welcomed him joyfully, and said, if he would set her free from the spell that bound her, the kingdom should be his, if he would come back in a year and marry her. Then she told him that the well that held the Water of Life was in the palace gardens and bade him make haste, and draw what he wanted before the clock struck twelve. He walked on and as he walked through beautiful gardens he came to a delightful shady spot in which stood a couch and he thought to himself, as he felt tired, that he would rest himself for a while, and gaze on the lovely scenes around him. So he laid himself down, and sleep fell upon him unawares, so that he did not wake up till the clock was striking a quarter to twelve. Then he sprang from the couch dreadfully frightened, ran to the well, filled a cup that was standing by him full of water, and hastened to get away in time. Just as he was going out of the iron door it struck twelve, and the door fell so quickly upon him that it snapped off a piece of his heel. When he found himself safe, he was overjoyed to think that he had got the Water of Life and as he was going on his way homewards, he passed by the little dwarf, who, when he saw the sword and the loaf, said, 'You have made a noble prize with the sword you can at a blow slay whole armies, and the bread will never fail you.' Then the prince thought to himself, 'I cannot go home to my father without my brothers' so he said, 'My dear friend, cannot you tell me where my two brothers are, who set out in search of the Water of Life before me, and never came back?' 'I have shut them up by a charm between two mountains,' said the dwarf, 'because they were proud and illbehaved, and scorned to ask advice.' The prince begged so hard for his brothers, that the dwarf at last set them free, though unwillingly, saying, 'Beware of them, for they have bad hearts.' Their brother, however, was greatly rejoiced to see them, and told them all that had happened to him how he had found the Water of Life, and had taken a cup full of it and how he had set a beautiful princess free from a spell that bound her and how she had engaged to wait a whole year, and then to marry him, and to give him the kingdom. Then they all three rode on together, and on their way home came to a country that was laid waste by war and a dreadful famine, so that it was feared all must die for want. But the prince gave the king of the land the bread, and all his kingdom ate of it. And he lent the king the wonderful sword, and he slew the enemy's army with it and thus the kingdom was once more in peace and plenty. In the same manner he befriended two other countries through which they passed on their way. When they came to the sea, they got into a ship and during their voyage the two eldest said to themselves, 'Our brother has got the water which we could not find, therefore our father will forsake us and give him the kingdom, which is our right' so they were full of envy and revenge, and agreed together how they could ruin him. Then they waited till he was fast asleep, and poured the Water of Life out of the cup, and took it for themselves, giving him bitter seawater instead. When they came to their journey's end, the youngest son brought his cup to the sick king, that he might drink and be healed. Scarcely, however, had he tasted the bitter seawater when he became worse even than he was before and then both the elder sons came in, and blamed the youngest for what they had done and said that he wanted to poison their father, but that they had found the Water of Life, and had brought it with them. He no sooner began to drink of what they brought him, than he felt his sickness leave him, and was as strong and well as in his younger days. Then they went to their brother, and laughed at him, and said, 'Well, brother, you found the Water of Life, did you? You have had the trouble and we shall have the reward. Pray, with all your cleverness, why did not you manage to keep your eyes open? Next year one of us will take away your beautiful princess, if you do not take care. You had better say nothing about this to our father, for he does not believe a word you say and if you tell tales, you shall lose your life into the bargain but be quiet, and we will let you off.' The old king was still very angry with his youngest son, and thought that he really meant to have taken away his life so he called his court together, and asked what should be done, and all agreed that he ought to be put to death. The prince knew nothing of what was going on, till one day, when the king's chief huntsmen went ahunting with him, and they were alone in the wood together, the huntsman looked so sorrowful that the prince said, 'My friend, what is the matter with you?' 'I cannot and dare not tell you,' said he. But the prince begged very hard, and said, 'Only tell me what it is, and do not think I shall be angry, for I will forgive you.' 'Alas!' said the huntsman 'the king has ordered me to shoot you.' The prince started at this, and said, 'Let me live, and I will change dresses with you you shall take my royal coat to show to my father, and do you give me your shabby one.' 'With all my heart,' said the huntsman 'I am sure I shall be glad to save you, for I could not have shot you.' Then he took the prince's coat, and gave him the shabby one, and went away through the wood. Some time after, three grand embassies came to the old king's court, with rich gifts of gold and precious stones for his youngest son now all these were sent from the three kings to whom he had lent his sword and loaf of bread, in order to rid them of their enemy and feed their people. This touched the old king's heart, and he thought his son might still be guiltless, and said to his court, 'O that my son were still alive! how it grieves me that I had him killed!' 'He is still alive,' said the huntsman 'and I am glad that I had pity on him, but let him go in peace, and brought home his royal coat.' At this the king was overwhelmed with joy, and made it known throughout all his kingdom, that if his son would come back to his court he would forgive him. Meanwhile the princess was eagerly waiting till her deliverer should come back and had a road made leading up to her palace all of shining gold and told her courtiers that whoever came on horseback, and rode straight up to the gate upon it, was her true lover and that they must let him in but whoever rode on one side of it, they must be sure was not the right one and that they must send him away at once. The time soon came, when the eldest brother thought that he would make haste to go to the princess, and say that he was the one who had set her free, and that he should have her for his wife, and the kingdom with her. As he came before the palace and saw the golden road, he stopped to look at it, and he thought to himself, 'It is a pity to ride upon this beautiful road' so he turned aside and rode on the righthand side of it. But when he came to the gate, the guards, who had seen the road he took, said to him, he could not be what he said he was, and must go about his business. The second prince set out soon afterwards on the same errand and when he came to the golden road, and his horse had set one foot upon it, he stopped to look at it, and thought it very beautiful, and said to himself, 'What a pity it is that anything should tread here!' Then he too turned aside and rode on the left side of it. But when he came to the gate the guards said he was not the true prince, and that he too must go away about his business and away he went. Now when the full year was come round, the third brother left the forest in which he had lain hid for fear of his father's anger, and set out in search of his betrothed bride. So he journeyed on, thinking of her all the way, and rode so quickly that he did not even see what the road was made of, but went with his horse straight over it and as he came to the gate it flew open, and the princess welcomed him with joy, and said he was her deliverer, and should now be her husband and lord of the kingdom. When the first joy at their meeting was over, the princess told him she had heard of his father having forgiven him, and of his wish to have him home again so, before his wedding with the princess, he went to visit his father, taking her with him. Then he told him everything how his brothers had cheated and robbed him, and yet that he had borne all those wrongs for the love of his father. And the old king was very angry, and wanted to punish his wicked sons but they made their escape, and got into a ship and sailed away over the wide sea, and where they went to nobody knew and nobody cared. And now the old king gathered together his court, and asked all his kingdom to come and celebrate the wedding of his son and the princess. And young and old, noble and squire, gentle and simple, came at once on the summons and among the rest came the friendly dwarf, with the sugarloaf hat, and a new scarlet cloak. There was once a king's son who had a bride whom he loved very much. And when he was sitting beside her and very happy, news came that his father lay sick unto death, and desired to see him once again before his end. Then he said to his beloved 'I must now go and leave you, I give you a ring as a remembrance of me. When I am king, I will return and fetch you.' So he rode away, and when he reached his father, the latter was dangerously ill, and near his death. He said to him 'Dear son, I wished to see you once again before my end, promise me to marry as I wish,' and he named a certain king's daughter who was to be his wife. The son was in such trouble that he did not think what he was doing, and said 'Yes, dear father, your will shall be done,' and thereupon the king shut his eyes, and died. When therefore the son had been proclaimed king, and the time of mourning was over, he was forced to keep the promise which he had given his father, and caused the king's daughter to be asked in marriage, and she was promised to him. His first betrothed heard of this, and fretted so much about his faithfulness that she nearly died. Then her father said to her 'Dearest child, why are you so sad? You shall have whatsoever you will.' She thought for a moment and said 'Dear father, I wish for eleven girls exactly like myself in face, figure, and size.' The father said 'If it be possible, your desire shall be fulfilled,' and he caused a search to be made in his whole kingdom, until eleven young maidens were found who exactly resembled his daughter in face, figure, and size. When they came to the king's daughter, she had twelve suits of huntsmen's clothes made, all alike, and the eleven maidens had to put on the huntsmen's clothes, and she herself put on the twelfth suit. Thereupon she took her leave of her father, and rode away with them, and rode to the court of her former betrothed, whom she loved so dearly. Then she asked if he required any huntsmen, and if he would take all of them into his service. The king looked at her and did not know her, but as they were such handsome fellows, he said 'Yes,' and that he would willingly take them, and now they were the king's twelve huntsmen. The king, however, had a lion which was a wondrous animal, for he knew all concealed and secret things. It came to pass that one evening he said to the king 'You think you have twelve huntsmen?' 'Yes,' said the king, 'they are twelve huntsmen.' The lion continued 'You are mistaken, they are twelve girls.' The king said 'That cannot be true! How will you prove that to me?' 'Oh, just let some peas be strewn in the antechamber,' answered the lion, 'and then you will soon see. Men have a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.' The king was well pleased with the counsel, and caused the peas to be strewn. There was, however, a servant of the king's who favoured the huntsmen, and when he heard that they were going to be put to this test he went to them and repeated everything, and said 'The lion wants to make the king believe that you are girls.' Then the king's daughter thanked him, and said to her maidens 'Show some strength, and step firmly on the peas.' So next morning when the king had the twelve huntsmen called before him, and they came into the antechamber where the peas were lying, they stepped so firmly on them, and had such a strong, sure walk, that not one of the peas either rolled or stirred. Then they went away again, and the king said to the lion 'You have lied to me, they walk just like men.' The lion said 'They have been informed that they were going to be put to the test, and have assumed some strength. Just let twelve spinningwheels be brought into the antechamber, and they will go to them and be pleased with them, and that is what no man would do.' The king liked the advice, and had the spinningwheels placed in the antechamber. But the servant, who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them, and disclosed the project. So when they were alone the king's daughter said to her eleven girls 'Show some constraint, and do not look round at the spinningwheels.' And next morning when the king had his twelve huntsmen summoned, they went through the antechamber, and never once looked at the spinningwheels. Then the king again said to the lion 'You have deceived me, they are men, for they have not looked at the spinningwheels.' The lion replied 'They have restrained themselves.' The king, however, would no longer believe the lion. The twelve huntsmen always followed the king to the chase, and his liking for them continually increased. Now it came to pass that once when they were out hunting, news came that the king's bride was approaching. When the true bride heard that, it hurt her so much that her heart was almost broken, and she fell fainting to the ground. The king thought something had happened to his dear huntsman, ran up to him, wanted to help him, and drew his glove off. Then he saw the ring which he had given to his first bride, and when he looked in her face he recognized her. Then his heart was so touched that he kissed her, and when she opened her eyes he said 'You are mine, and I am yours, and no one in the world can alter that.' He sent a messenger to the other bride, and entreated her to return to her own kingdom, for he had a wife already, and someone who had just found an old key did not require a new one. Thereupon the wedding was celebrated, and the lion was again taken into favour, because, after all, he had told the truth. There was once a merchant who had only one child, a son, that was very young, and barely able to run alone. He had two richly laden ships then making a voyage upon the seas, in which he had embarked all his wealth, in the hope of making great gains, when the news came that both were lost. Thus from being a rich man he became all at once so very poor that nothing was left to him but one small plot of land and there he often went in an evening to take his walk, and ease his mind of a little of his trouble. One day, as he was roaming along in a brown study, thinking with no great comfort on what he had been and what he now was, and was like to be, all on a sudden there stood before him a little, roughlooking, black dwarf. 'Prithee, friend, why so sorrowful?' said he to the merchant 'what is it you take so deeply to heart?' 'If you would do me any good I would willingly tell you,' said the merchant. 'Who knows but I may?' said the little man 'tell me what ails you, and perhaps you will find I may be of some use.' Then the merchant told him how all his wealth was gone to the bottom of the sea, and how he had nothing left but that little plot of land. 'Oh, trouble not yourself about that,' said the dwarf 'only undertake to bring me here, twelve years hence, whatever meets you first on your going home, and I will give you as much as you please.' The merchant thought this was no great thing to ask that it would most likely be his dog or his cat, or something of that sort, but forgot his little boy Heinel so he agreed to the bargain, and signed and sealed the bond to do what was asked of him. But as he drew near home, his little boy was so glad to see him that he crept behind him, and laid fast hold of his legs, and looked up in his face and laughed. Then the father started, trembling with fear and horror, and saw what it was that he had bound himself to do but as no gold was come, he made himself easy by thinking that it was only a joke that the dwarf was playing him, and that, at any rate, when the money came, he should see the bearer, and would not take it in. About a month afterwards he went upstairs into a lumberroom to look for some old iron, that he might sell it and raise a little money and there, instead of his iron, he saw a large pile of gold lying on the floor. At the sight of this he was overjoyed, and forgetting all about his son, went into trade again, and became a richer merchant than before. Meantime little Heinel grew up, and as the end of the twelve years drew near the merchant began to call to mind his bond, and became very sad and thoughtful so that care and sorrow were written upon his face. The boy one day asked what was the matter, but his father would not tell for some time at last, however, he said that he had, without knowing it, sold him for gold to a little, uglylooking, black dwarf, and that the twelve years were coming round when he must keep his word. Then Heinel said, 'Father, give yourself very little trouble about that I shall be too much for the little man.' When the time came, the father and son went out together to the place agreed upon and the son drew a circle on the ground, and set himself and his father in the middle of it. The little black dwarf soon came, and walked round and round about the circle, but could not find any way to get into it, and he either could not, or dared not, jump over it. At last the boy said to him. 'Have you anything to say to us, my friend, or what do you want?' Now Heinel had found a friend in a good fairy, that was fond of him, and had told him what to do for this fairy knew what good luck was in store for him. 'Have you brought me what you said you would?' said the dwarf to the merchant. The old man held his tongue, but Heinel said again, 'What do you want here?' The dwarf said, 'I come to talk with your father, not with you.' 'You have cheated and taken in my father,' said the son 'pray give him up his bond at once.' 'Fair and softly,' said the little old man 'right is right I have paid my money, and your father has had it, and spent it so be so good as to let me have what I paid it for.' 'You must have my consent to that first,' said Heinel, 'so please to step in here, and let us talk it over.' The old man grinned, and showed his teeth, as if he should have been very glad to get into the circle if he could. Then at last, after a long talk, they came to terms. Heinel agreed that his father must give him up, and that so far the dwarf should have his way but, on the other hand, the fairy had told Heinel what fortune was in store for him, if he followed his own course and he did not choose to be given up to his humpbacked friend, who seemed so anxious for his company. So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the matter, it was settled that Heinel should be put into an open boat, that lay on the seashore hard by that the father should push him off with his own hand, and that he should thus be set adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind and weather. Then he took leave of his father, and set himself in the boat, but before it got far off a wave struck it, and it fell with one side low in the water, so the merchant thought that poor Heinel was lost, and went home very sorrowful, while the dwarf went his way, thinking that at any rate he had had his revenge. The boat, however, did not sink, for the good fairy took care of her friend, and soon raised the boat up again, and it went safely on. The young man sat safe within, till at length it ran ashore upon an unknown land. As he jumped upon the shore he saw before him a beautiful castle but empty and dreary within, for it was enchanted. 'Here,' said he to himself, 'must I find the prize the good fairy told me of.' So he once more searched the whole palace through, till at last he found a white snake, lying coiled up on a cushion in one of the chambers. Now the white snake was an enchanted princess and she was very glad to see him, and said, 'Are you at last come to set me free? Twelve long years have I waited here for the fairy to bring you hither as she promised, for you alone can save me. This night twelve men will come their faces will be black, and they will be dressed in chain armour. They will ask what you do here, but give no answer and let them do what they willbeat, whip, pinch, prick, or torment youbear all only speak not a word, and at twelve o'clock they must go away. The second night twelve others will come and the third night twentyfour, who will even cut off your head but at the twelfth hour of that night their power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come and bring you the Water of Life, and will wash you with it, and bring you back to life and health.' And all came to pass as she had said Heinel bore all, and spoke not a word and the third night the princess came, and fell on his neck and kissed him. Joy and gladness burst forth throughout the castle, the wedding was celebrated, and he was crowned king of the Golden Mountain. They lived together very happily, and the queen had a son. And thus eight years had passed over their heads, when the king thought of his father and he began to long to see him once again. But the queen was against his going, and said, 'I know well that misfortunes will come upon us if you go.' However, he gave her no rest till she agreed. At his going away she gave him a wishingring, and said, 'Take this ring, and put it on your finger whatever you wish it will bring you only promise never to make use of it to bring me hence to your father's house.' Then he said he would do what she asked, and put the ring on his finger, and wished himself near the town where his father lived. Heinel found himself at the gates in a moment but the guards would not let him go in, because he was so strangely clad. So he went up to a neighbouring hill, where a shepherd dwelt, and borrowed his old frock, and thus passed unknown into the town. When he came to his father's house, he said he was his son but the merchant would not believe him, and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long since dead and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would not even give him anything to eat. The king, however, still vowed that he was his son, and said, 'Is there no mark by which you would know me if I am really your son?' 'Yes,' said his mother, 'our Heinel had a mark like a raspberry on his right arm.' Then he showed them the mark, and they knew that what he had said was true. He next told them how he was king of the Golden Mountain, and was married to a princess, and had a son seven years old. But the merchant said, 'that can never be true he must be a fine king truly who travels about in a shepherd's frock!' At this the son was vexed and forgetting his word, turned his ring, and wished for his queen and son. In an instant they stood before him but the queen wept, and said he had broken his word, and bad luck would follow. He did all he could to soothe her, and she at last seemed to be appeased but she was not so in truth, and was only thinking how she should punish him. One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters. Then he sat himself down, and said, 'I am very much tired sit by me, I will rest my head in your lap, and sleep a while.' As soon as he had fallen asleep, however, she drew the ring from his finger, and crept softly away, and wished herself and her son at home in their kingdom. And when he awoke he found himself alone, and saw that the ring was gone from his finger. 'I can never go back to my father's house,' said he 'they would say I am a sorcerer I will journey forth into the world, till I come again to my kingdom.' So saying he set out and travelled till he came to a hill, where three giants were sharing their father's goods and as they saw him pass they cried out and said, 'Little men have sharp wits he shall part the goods between us.' Now there was a sword that cut off an enemy's head whenever the wearer gave the words, 'Heads off!' a cloak that made the owner invisible, or gave him any form he pleased and a pair of boots that carried the wearer wherever he wished. Heinel said they must first let him try these wonderful things, then he might know how to set a value upon them. Then they gave him the cloak, and he wished himself a fly, and in a moment he was a fly. 'The cloak is very well,' said he 'now give me the sword.' 'No,' said they 'not unless you undertake not to say, 'Heads off! for if you do we are all dead men.' So they gave it him, charging him to try it on a tree. He next asked for the boots also and the moment he had all three in his power, he wished himself at the Golden Mountain and there he was at once. So the giants were left behind with no goods to share or quarrel about. As Heinel came near his castle he heard the sound of merry music and the people around told him that his queen was about to marry another husband. Then he threw his cloak around him, and passed through the castle hall, and placed himself by the side of the queen, where no one saw him. But when anything to eat was put upon her plate, he took it away and ate it himself and when a glass of wine was handed to her, he took it and drank it and thus, though they kept on giving her meat and drink, her plate and cup were always empty. Upon this, fear and remorse came over her, and she went into her chamber alone, and sat there weeping and he followed her there. 'Alas!' said she to herself, 'was I not once set free? Why then does this enchantment still seem to bind me?' 'False and fickle one!' said he. 'One indeed came who set thee free, and he is now near thee again but how have you used him? Ought he to have had such treatment from thee?' Then he went out and sent away the company, and said the wedding was at an end, for that he was come back to the kingdom. But the princes, peers, and great men mocked at him. However, he would enter into no parley with them, but only asked them if they would go in peace or not. Then they turned upon him and tried to seize him but he drew his sword. 'Heads Off!' cried he and with the word the traitors' heads fell before him, and Heinel was once more king of the Golden Mountain. There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how well he ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and would willingly have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and at length inquired if he too could not be a doctor. 'Oh, yes,' said the doctor, 'that is soon managed.' 'What must I do?' asked the peasant. 'In the first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on the frontispiece in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to medicine thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words 'I am Doctor Knowall, and have that nailed up above your housedoor.' The peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored people awhile, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had the horses harnessed to his carriage, drove out to the village, and asked Crabb if he were Doctor Knowall. Yes, he was, he said. Then he was to go with him and bring back the stolen money. 'Oh, yes, but Grete, my wife, must go too.' The lord was willing, and let both of them have a seat in the carriage, and they all drove away together. When they came to the nobleman's castle, the table was spread, and Crabb was told to sit down and eat. 'Yes, but my wife, Grete, too,' said he, and he seated himself with her at the table. And when the first servant came with a dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said 'Grete, that was the first,' meaning that was the servant who brought the first dish. The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say 'That is the first thief,' and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said to his comrade outside 'The doctor knows all we shall fare ill, he said I was the first.' The second did not want to go in at all, but was forced. So when he went in with his dish, the peasant nudged his wife, and said 'Grete, that is the second.' This servant was equally alarmed, and he got out as fast as he could. The third fared no better, for the peasant again said 'Grete, that is the third.' The fourth had to carry in a dish that was covered, and the lord told the doctor that he was to show his skill, and guess what was beneath the cover. Actually, there were crabs. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what to say, and cried 'Ah, poor Crabb.' When the lord heard that, he cried 'There! he knows it he must also know who has the money!' On this the servants looked terribly uneasy, and made a sign to the doctor that they wished him to step outside for a moment. When therefore he went out, all four of them confessed to him that they had stolen the money, and said that they would willingly restore it and give him a heavy sum into the bargain, if he would not denounce them, for if he did they would be hanged. They led him to the spot where the money was concealed. With this the doctor was satisfied, and returned to the hall, sat down to the table, and said 'My lord, now will I search in my book where the gold is hidden.' The fifth servant, however, crept into the stove to hear if the doctor knew still more. But the doctor sat still and opened his A B C book, turned the pages backwards and forwards, and looked for the cock. As he could not find it immediately he said 'I know you are there, so you had better come out!' Then the fellow in the stove thought that the doctor meant him, and full of terror, sprang out, crying 'That man knows everything!' Then Doctor Knowall showed the lord where the money was, but did not say who had stolen it, and received from both sides much money in reward, and became a renowned man. There was once a man who had seven sons, and last of all one daughter. Although the little girl was very pretty, she was so weak and small that they thought she could not live but they said she should at once be christened. So the father sent one of his sons in haste to the spring to get some water, but the other six ran with him. Each wanted to be first at drawing the water, and so they were in such a hurry that all let their pitchers fall into the well, and they stood very foolishly looking at one another, and did not know what to do, for none dared go home. In the meantime the father was uneasy, and could not tell what made the young men stay so long. 'Surely,' said he, 'the whole seven must have forgotten themselves over some game of play' and when he had waited still longer and they yet did not come, he flew into a rage and wished them all turned into ravens. Scarcely had he spoken these words when he heard a croaking over his head, and looked up and saw seven ravens as black as coal flying round and round. Sorry as he was to see his wish so fulfilled, he did not know how what was done could be undone, and comforted himself as well as he could for the loss of his seven sons with his dear little daughter, who soon became stronger and every day more beautiful. For a long time she did not know that she had ever had any brothers for her father and mother took care not to speak of them before her but one day by chance she heard the people about her speak of them. 'Yes,' said they, 'she is beautiful indeed, but still 'tis a pity that her brothers should have been lost for her sake.' Then she was much grieved, and went to her father and mother, and asked if she had any brothers, and what had become of them. So they dared no longer hide the truth from her, but said it was the will of Heaven, and that her birth was only the innocent cause of it but the little girl mourned sadly about it every day, and thought herself bound to do all she could to bring her brothers back and she had neither rest nor ease, till at length one day she stole away, and set out into the wide world to find her brothers, wherever they might be, and free them, whatever it might cost her. She took nothing with her but a little ring which her father and mother had given her, a loaf of bread in case she should be hungry, a little pitcher of water in case she should be thirsty, and a little stool to rest upon when she should be weary. Thus she went on and on, and journeyed till she came to the world's end then she came to the sun, but the sun looked much too hot and fiery so she ran away quickly to the moon, but the moon was cold and chilly, and said, 'I smell flesh and blood this way!' so she took herself away in a hurry and came to the stars, and the stars were friendly and kind to her, and each star sat upon his own little stool but the morning star rose up and gave her a little piece of wood, and said, 'If you have not this little piece of wood, you cannot unlock the castle that stands on the glassmountain, and there your brothers live.' The little girl took the piece of wood, rolled it up in a little cloth, and went on again until she came to the glassmountain, and found the door shut. Then she felt for the little piece of wood but when she unwrapped the cloth it was not there, and she saw she had lost the gift of the good stars. What was to be done? She wanted to save her brothers, and had no key of the castle of the glassmountain so this faithful little sister took a knife out of her pocket and cut off her little finger, that was just the size of the piece of wood she had lost, and put it in the door and opened it. As she went in, a little dwarf came up to her, and said, 'What are you seeking for?' 'I seek for my brothers, the seven ravens,' answered she. Then the dwarf said, 'My masters are not at home but if you will wait till they come, pray step in.' Now the little dwarf was getting their dinner ready, and he brought their food upon seven little plates, and their drink in seven little glasses, and set them upon the table, and out of each little plate their sister ate a small piece, and out of each little glass she drank a small drop but she let the ring that she had brought with her fall into the last glass. On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the dwarf said, 'Here come my masters.' When they came in, they wanted to eat and drink, and looked for their little plates and glasses. Then said one after the other, 'Who has eaten from my little plate? And who has been drinking out of my little glass?' When the seventh came to the bottom of his glass, and found there the ring, he looked at it, and knew that it was his father's and mother's, and said, 'O that our little sister would but come! then we should be free.' When the little girl heard this (for she stood behind the door all the time and listened), she ran forward, and in an instant all the ravens took their right form again and all hugged and kissed each other, and went merrily home. FIRST STORY There was once upon a time an old fox with nine tails, who believed that his wife was not faithful to him, and wished to put her to the test. He stretched himself out under the bench, did not move a limb, and behaved as if he were stone dead. Mrs Fox went up to her room, shut herself in, and her maid, Miss Cat, sat by the fire, and did the cooking. When it became known that the old fox was dead, suitors presented themselves. The maid heard someone standing at the housedoor, knocking. She went and opened it, and it was a young fox, who said She answered 'No, thank you, miss,' said the fox, 'what is Mrs Fox doing?' The maid replied 'Do just tell her, miss, that a young fox is here, who would like to woo her.' 'Certainly, young sir.' 'Has he nine as beautiful tails as the late Mr Fox?' 'Oh, no,' answered the cat, 'he has only one.' 'Then I will not have him.' Miss Cat went downstairs and sent the wooer away. Soon afterwards there was another knock, and another fox was at the door who wished to woo Mrs Fox. He had two tails, but he did not fare better than the first. After this still more came, each with one tail more than the other, but they were all turned away, until at last one came who had nine tails, like old Mr Fox. When the widow heard that, she said joyfully to the cat But just as the wedding was going to be solemnized, old Mr Fox stirred under the bench, and cudgelled all the rabble, and drove them and Mrs Fox out of the house. SECOND STORY When old Mr Fox was dead, the wolf came as a suitor, and knocked at the door, and the cat who was servant to Mrs Fox, opened it for him. The wolf greeted her, and said The cat replied 'No, thank you, Mrs Cat,' answered the wolf. 'Is Mrs Fox not at home?' The cat said The wolf answered Mrs Fox asked 'Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has he a pointed mouth?' 'No,' answered the cat. 'Then he won't do for me.' When the wolf was gone, came a dog, a stag, a hare, a bear, a lion, and all the beasts of the forest, one after the other. But one of the good qualities which old Mr Fox had possessed, was always lacking, and the cat had continually to send the suitors away. At length came a young fox. Then Mrs Fox said 'Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has a little pointed mouth?' 'Yes,' said the cat, 'he has.' 'Then let him come upstairs,' said Mrs Fox, and ordered the servant to prepare the wedding feast. Then the wedding was solemnized with young Mr Fox, and there was much rejoicing and dancing and if they have not left off, they are dancing still. As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, there came up a little old woman, and said to him, 'Good day, good day you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty do pray give me something to eat.' The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way but she took hold of him, and said, 'Listen, my friend, to what I am going to tell you I will reward you for your kindness go your way, and after a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down dead the cloak will fall too take it, it is a wishingcloak, and when you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It is the bird's heart that will bring you this good luck.' The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, 'If all this does happen, it will be a fine thing for me.' When he had gone a hundred steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him, and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills and feet screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if each wished to have it himself. 'Well,' said the huntsman, 'this is wonderful this happens just as the old woman said' then he shot into the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the flock chattering away but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it. Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him. The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay the piece of gold glittering underneath the same happened next day, and indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and at last thought to himself, 'Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.' Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow, and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a witch, and said to the young lady, 'There is a young man coming out of the wood who carries a wonderful prize we must get it away from him, my dear child, for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird's heart that brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.' Meantime the huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, 'I have been travelling so long that I should like to go into this castle and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for anything I want' but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly and it was not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else but looking at the lady's eyes, and doing everything that she wished. Then the old woman said, 'Now is the time for getting the bird's heart.' So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his pillow, for it lay now under the young lady's, and the old woman took it away every morning but he was so much in love that he never missed his prize. 'Well,' said the old witch, 'we have got the bird's heart, but not the wishingcloak yet, and that we must also get.' 'Let us leave him that,' said the young lady 'he has already lost his wealth.' Then the witch was very angry, and said, 'Such a cloak is a very rare and wonderful thing, and I must and will have it.' So she did as the old woman told her, and set herself at the window, and looked about the country and seemed very sorrowful then the huntsman said, 'What makes you so sad?' 'Alas! dear sir,' said she, 'yonder lies the granite rock where all the costly diamonds grow, and I want so much to go there, that whenever I think of it I cannot help being sorrowful, for who can reach it? only the birds and the fliesman cannot.' 'If that's all your grief,' said the huntsman, 'I'll take you there with all my heart' so he drew her under his cloak, and the moment he wished to be on the granite mountain they were both there. The diamonds glittered so on all sides that they were delighted with the sight and picked up the finest. But the old witch made a deep sleep come upon him, and he said to the young lady, 'Let us sit down and rest ourselves a little, I am so tired that I cannot stand any longer.' So they sat down, and he laid his head in her lap and fell asleep and whilst he was sleeping on she took the cloak from his shoulders, hung it on her own, picked up the diamonds, and wished herself home again. When he awoke and found that his lady had tricked him, and left him alone on the wild rock, he said, 'Alas! what roguery there is in the world!' and there he sat in great grief and fear, not knowing what to do. Now this rock belonged to fierce giants who lived upon it and as he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, 'I can only save myself by feigning to be asleep' so he laid himself down as if he were in a sound sleep. When the giants came up to him, the first pushed him with his foot, and said, 'What worm is this that lies here curled up?' 'Tread upon him and kill him,' said the second. 'It's not worth the trouble,' said the third 'let him live, he'll go climbing higher up the mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.' And they passed on. But the huntsman had heard all they said and as soon as they were gone, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and when he had sat there a short time a cloud came rolling around him, and caught him in a whirlwind and bore him along for some time, till it settled in a garden, and he fell quite gently to the ground amongst the greens and cabbages. Then he looked around him, and said, 'I wish I had something to eat, if not I shall be worse off than before for here I see neither apples nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.' At last he thought to himself, 'I can eat salad, it will refresh and strengthen me.' So he picked out a fine head and ate of it but scarcely had he swallowed two bites when he felt himself quite changed, and saw with horror that he was turned into an ass. However, he still felt very hungry, and the salad tasted very nice so he ate on till he came to another kind of salad, and scarcely had he tasted it when he felt another change come over him, and soon saw that he was lucky enough to have found his old shape again. Then he laid himself down and slept off a little of his weariness and when he awoke the next morning he broke off a head both of the good and the bad salad, and thought to himself, 'This will help me to my fortune again, and enable me to pay off some folks for their treachery.' So he went away to try and find the castle of his friends and after wandering about a few days he luckily found it. Then he stained his face all over brown, so that even his mother would not have known him, and went into the castle and asked for a lodging 'I am so tired,' said he, 'that I can go no farther.' 'Countryman,' said the witch, 'who are you? and what is your business?' 'I am,' said he, 'a messenger sent by the king to find the finest salad that grows under the sun. I have been lucky enough to find it, and have brought it with me but the heat of the sun scorches so that it begins to wither, and I don't know that I can carry it farther.' When the witch and the young lady heard of his beautiful salad, they longed to taste it, and said, 'Dear countryman, let us just taste it.' 'To be sure,' answered he 'I have two heads of it with me, and will give you one' so he opened his bag and gave them the bad. Then the witch herself took it into the kitchen to be dressed and when it was ready she could not wait till it was carried up, but took a few leaves immediately and put them in her mouth, and scarcely were they swallowed when she lost her own form and ran braying down into the court in the form of an ass. Now the servantmaid came into the kitchen, and seeing the salad ready, was going to carry it up but on the way she too felt a wish to taste it as the old woman had done, and ate some leaves so she also was turned into an ass and ran after the other, letting the dish with the salad fall on the ground. The messenger sat all this time with the beautiful young lady, and as nobody came with the salad and she longed to taste it, she said, 'I don't know where the salad can be.' Then he thought something must have happened, and said, 'I will go into the kitchen and see.' And as he went he saw two asses in the court running about, and the salad lying on the ground. 'All right!' said he 'those two have had their share.' Then he took up the rest of the leaves, laid them on the dish and brought them to the young lady, saying, 'I bring you the dish myself that you may not wait any longer.' So she ate of it, and like the others ran off into the court braying away. Then the huntsman washed his face and went into the court that they might know him. 'Now you shall be paid for your roguery,' said he and tied them all three to a rope and took them along with him till he came to a mill and knocked at the window. 'What's the matter?' said the miller. 'I have three tiresome beasts here,' said the other 'if you will take them, give them food and room, and treat them as I tell you, I will pay you whatever you ask.' 'With all my heart,' said the miller 'but how shall I treat them?' Then the huntsman said, 'Give the old one stripes three times a day and hay once give the next (who was the servantmaid) stripes once a day and hay three times and give the youngest (who was the beautiful lady) hay three times a day and no stripes' for he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten. After this he went back to the castle, where he found everything he wanted. Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass was dead 'The other two,' said he, 'are alive and eat, but are so sorrowful that they cannot last long.' Then the huntsman pitied them, and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady fell upon her knees before him, and said, 'O dearest huntsman! forgive me all the ill I have done you my mother forced me to it, it was against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishingcloak hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird's heart, I will give it you too.' But he said, 'Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean to make you my wife.' So they were married, and lived together very happily till they died. A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and sensible, and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said 'There's a fellow who will give his father some trouble!' When anything had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it but if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the nighttime, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal place, he answered 'Oh, no father, I'll not go there, it makes me shudder!' for he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said 'Oh, it makes us shudder!' The younger sat in a corner and listened with the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. 'They are always saying 'It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder! It does not make me shudder,' thought he. 'That, too, must be an art of which I understand nothing!' Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day 'Hearken to me, you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.' 'Well, father,' he replied, 'I am quite willing to learn somethingindeed, if it could but be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don't understand that at all yet.' The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and thought to himself 'Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is! He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to be a sickle must bend himself betimes.' The father sighed, and answered him 'You shall soon learn what it is to shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.' Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing. 'Just think,' said he, 'when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he actually wanted to learn to shudder.' 'If that be all,' replied the sexton, 'he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon polish him.' The father was glad to do it, for he thought 'It will train the boy a little.' The sexton therefore took him into his house, and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the sexton awoke him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and ring the bell. 'You shall soon learn what shuddering is,' thought he, and secretly went there before him and when the boy was at the top of the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding hole. 'Who is there?' cried he, but the figure made no reply, and did not move or stir. 'Give an answer,' cried the boy, 'or take yourself off, you have no business here at night.' The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time 'What do you want here?speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the steps!' The sexton thought 'He can't mean to be as bad as his words,' uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose, he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it fell down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner. Thereupon he rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed, and fell asleep. The sexton's wife waited a long time for her husband, but he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and wakened the boy, and asked 'Do you know where my husband is? He climbed up the tower before you did.' 'No, I don't know,' replied the boy, 'but someone was standing by the sounding hole on the other side of the steps, and as he would neither give an answer nor go away, I took him for a scoundrel, and threw him downstairs. Just go there and you will see if it was he. I should be sorry if it were.' The woman ran away and found her husband, who was lying moaning in the corner, and had broken his leg. She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the boy's father, 'Your boy,' cried she, 'has been the cause of a great misfortune! He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke his leg. Take the goodfornothing fellow out of our house.' The father was terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. 'What wicked tricks are these?' said he. 'The devil must have put them into your head.' 'Father,' he replied, 'do listen to me. I am quite innocent. He was standing there by night like one intent on doing evil. I did not know who it was, and I entreated him three times either to speak or to go away.' 'Ah,' said the father, 'I have nothing but unhappiness with you. Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.' 'Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate, understand one art which will support me.' 'Learn what you will,' spoke the father, 'it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for you. Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from whence you come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be ashamed of you.' 'Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire nothing more than that, I can easily keep it in mind.' When the day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to himself 'If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!' Then a man approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding with himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they could see the gallows, the man said to him 'Look, there is the tree where seven men have married the ropemaker's daughter, and are now learning how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes, and you will soon learn how to shudder.' 'If that is all that is wanted,' answered the youth, 'it is easily done but if I learn how to shudder as fast as that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come back to me early in the morning.' Then the youth went to the gallows, sat down beneath it, and waited till evening came. And as he was cold, he lighted himself a fire, but at midnight the wind blew so sharply that in spite of his fire, he could not get warm. And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself 'If you shiver below by the fire, how those up above must freeze and suffer!' And as he felt pity for them, he raised the ladder, and climbed up, unbound one of them after the other, and brought down all seven. Then he stoked the fire, blew it, and set them all round it to warm themselves. But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught their clothes. So he said 'Take care, or I will hang you up again.' The dead men, however, did not hear, but were quite silent, and let their rags go on burning. At this he grew angry, and said 'If you will not take care, I cannot help you, I will not be burnt with you,' and he hung them up again each in his turn. Then he sat down by his fire and fell asleep, and the next morning the man came to him and wanted to have the fifty talers, and said 'Well do you know how to shudder?' 'No,' answered he, 'how should I know? Those fellows up there did not open their mouths, and were so stupid that they let the few old rags which they had on their bodies get burnt.' Then the man saw that he would not get the fifty talers that day, and went away saying 'Such a youth has never come my way before.' The youth likewise went his way, and once more began to mutter to himself 'Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!' A waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked 'Who are you?' 'I don't know,' answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked 'From whence do you come?' 'I know not.' 'Who is your father?' 'That I may not tell you.' 'What is it that you are always muttering between your teeth?' 'Ah,' replied the youth, 'I do so wish I could shudder, but no one can teach me how.' 'Enough of your foolish chatter,' said the waggoner. 'Come, go with me, I will see about a place for you.' The youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the parlour the youth again said quite loudly 'If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!' The host who heard this, laughed and said 'If that is your desire, there ought to be a good opportunity for you here.' 'Ah, be silent,' said the hostess, 'so many prying persons have already lost their lives, it would be a pity and a shame if such beautiful eyes as these should never see the daylight again.' But the youth said 'However difficult it may be, I will learn it. For this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth.' He let the host have no rest, until the latter told him, that not far from thence stood a haunted castle where anyone could very easily learn what shuddering was, if he would but watch in it for three nights. The king had promised that he who would venture should have his daughter to wife, and she was the most beautiful maiden the sun shone on. Likewise in the castle lay great treasures, which were guarded by evil spirits, and these treasures would then be freed, and would make a poor man rich enough. Already many men had gone into the castle, but as yet none had come out again. Then the youth went next morning to the king, and said 'If it be allowed, I will willingly watch three nights in the haunted castle.' The king looked at him, and as the youth pleased him, he said 'You may ask for three things to take into the castle with you, but they must be things without life.' Then he answered 'Then I ask for a fire, a turning lathe, and a cuttingboard with the knife.' The king had these things carried into the castle for him during the day. When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cuttingboard and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turninglathe. 'Ah, if I could but shudder!' said he, 'but I shall not learn it here either.' Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner 'Au, miau! how cold we are!' 'You fools!' cried he, 'what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.' And when he had said that, two great black cats came with one tremendous leap and sat down on each side of him, and looked savagely at him with their fiery eyes. After a short time, when they had warmed themselves, they said 'Comrade, shall we have a game of cards?' 'Why not?' he replied, 'but just show me your paws.' Then they stretched out their claws. 'Oh,' said he, 'what long nails you have! Wait, I must first cut them for you.' Thereupon he seized them by the throats, put them on the cuttingboard and screwed their feet fast. 'I have looked at your fingers,' said he, 'and my fancy for cardplaying has gone,' and he struck them dead and threw them out into the water. But when he had made away with these two, and was about to sit down again by his fire, out from every hole and corner came black cats and black dogs with redhot chains, and more and more of them came until he could no longer move, and they yelled horribly, and got on his fire, pulled it to pieces, and tried to put it out. He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were going too far, he seized his cuttingknife, and cried 'Away with you, vermin,' and began to cut them down. Some of them ran away, the others he killed, and threw out into the fishpond. When he came back he fanned the embers of his fire again and warmed himself. And as he thus sat, his eyes would keep open no longer, and he felt a desire to sleep. Then he looked round and saw a great bed in the corner. 'That is the very thing for me,' said he, and got into it. When he was just going to shut his eyes, however, the bed began to move of its own accord, and went over the whole of the castle. 'That's right,' said he, 'but go faster.' Then the bed rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, up and down, over thresholds and stairs, but suddenly hop, hop, it turned over upside down, and lay on him like a mountain. But he threw quilts and pillows up in the air, got out and said 'Now anyone who likes, may drive,' and lay down by his fire, and slept till it was day. In the morning the king came, and when he saw him lying there on the ground, he thought the evil spirits had killed him and he was dead. Then said he 'After all it is a pity,for so handsome a man.' The youth heard it, got up, and said 'It has not come to that yet.' Then the king was astonished, but very glad, and asked how he had fared. 'Very well indeed,' answered he 'one night is past, the two others will pass likewise.' Then he went to the innkeeper, who opened his eyes very wide, and said 'I never expected to see you alive again! Have you learnt how to shudder yet?' 'No,' said he, 'it is all in vain. If someone would but tell me!' The second night he again went up into the old castle, sat down by the fire, and once more began his old song 'If I could but shudder!' When midnight came, an uproar and noise of tumbling about was heard at first it was low, but it grew louder and louder. Then it was quiet for a while, and at length with a loud scream, half a man came down the chimney and fell before him. 'Hullo!' cried he, 'another half belongs to this. This is not enough!' Then the uproar began again, there was a roaring and howling, and the other half fell down likewise. 'Wait,' said he, 'I will just stoke up the fire a little for you.' When he had done that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a hideous man was sitting in his place. 'That is no part of our bargain,' said the youth, 'the bench is mine.' The man wanted to push him away the youth, however, would not allow that, but thrust him off with all his strength, and seated himself again in his own place. Then still more men fell down, one after the other they brought nine dead men's legs and two skulls, and set them up and played at ninepins with them. The youth also wanted to play and said 'Listen you, can I join you?' 'Yes, if you have any money.' 'Money enough,' replied he, 'but your balls are not quite round.' Then he took the skulls and put them in the lathe and turned them till they were round. 'There, now they will roll better!' said he. 'Hurrah! now we'll have fun!' He played with them and lost some of his money, but when it struck twelve, everything vanished from his sight. He lay down and quietly fell asleep. Next morning the king came to inquire after him. 'How has it fared with you this time?' asked he. 'I have been playing at ninepins,' he answered, 'and have lost a couple of farthings.' 'Have you not shuddered then?' 'What?' said he, 'I have had a wonderful time! If I did but know what it was to shudder!' The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly 'If I could but shudder.' When it grew late, six tall men came in and brought a coffin. Then he said 'Ha, ha, that is certainly my little cousin, who died only a few days ago,' and he beckoned with his finger, and cried 'Come, little cousin, come.' They placed the coffin on the ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. 'Wait,' said he, 'I will warm you a little,' and went to the fire and warmed his hand and laid it on the dead man's face, but he remained cold. Then he took him out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he thought to himself 'When two people lie in bed together, they warm each other,' and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to move. Then said the youth, 'See, little cousin, have I not warmed you?' The dead man, however, got up and cried 'Now will I strangle you.' 'What!' said he, 'is that the way you thank me? You shall at once go into your coffin again,' and he took him up, threw him into it, and shut the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. 'I cannot manage to shudder,' said he. 'I shall never learn it here as long as I live.' Then a man entered who was taller than all others, and looked terrible. He was old, however, and had a long white beard. 'You wretch,' cried he, 'you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you shall die.' 'Not so fast,' replied the youth. 'If I am to die, I shall have to have a say in it.' 'I will soon seize you,' said the fiend. 'Softly, softly, do not talk so big. I am as strong as you are, and perhaps even stronger.' 'We shall see,' said the old man. 'If you are stronger, I will let you gocome, we will try.' Then he led him by dark passages to a smith's forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground. 'I can do better than that,' said the youth, and went to the other anvil. The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his white beard hung down. Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in it caught the old man's beard. 'Now I have you,' said the youth. 'Now it is your turn to die.' Then he seized an iron bar and beat the old man till he moaned and entreated him to stop, when he would give him great riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go. The old man led him back into the castle, and in a cellar showed him three chests full of gold. 'Of these,' said he, 'one part is for the poor, the other for the king, the third yours.' In the meantime it struck twelve, and the spirit disappeared, so that the youth stood in darkness. 'I shall still be able to find my way out,' said he, and felt about, found the way into the room, and slept there by his fire. Next morning the king came and said 'Now you must have learnt what shuddering is?' 'No,' he answered 'what can it be? My dead cousin was here, and a bearded man came and showed me a great deal of money down below, but no one told me what it was to shudder.' 'Then,' said the king, 'you have saved the castle, and shall marry my daughter.' 'That is all very well,' said he, 'but still I do not know what it is to shudder!' Then the gold was brought up and the wedding celebrated but howsoever much the young king loved his wife, and however happy he was, he still said always 'If I could but shudderif I could but shudder.' And this at last angered her. Her waitingmaid said 'I will find a cure for him he shall soon learn what it is to shudder.' She went out to the stream which flowed through the garden, and had a whole bucketful of gudgeons brought to her. At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried 'Oh, what makes me shudder so?what makes me shudder so, dear wife? Ah! now I know what it is to shudder!' A great king of a land far away in the East had a daughter who was very beautiful, but so proud, and haughty, and conceited, that none of the princes who came to ask her in marriage was good enough for her, and she only made sport of them. Once upon a time the king held a great feast, and asked thither all her suitors and they all sat in a row, ranged according to their rankkings, and princes, and dukes, and earls, and counts, and barons, and knights. Then the princess came in, and as she passed by them she had something spiteful to say to every one. The first was too fat 'He's as round as a tub,' said she. The next was too tall 'What a maypole!' said she. The next was too short 'What a dumpling!' said she. The fourth was too pale, and she called him 'Wallface.' The fifth was too red, so she called him 'Coxcomb.' The sixth was not straight enough so she said he was like a green stick, that had been laid to dry over a baker's oven. And thus she had some joke to crack upon every one but she laughed more than all at a good king who was there. 'Look at him,' said she 'his beard is like an old mop he shall be called Grislybeard.' So the king got the nickname of Grislybeard. But the old king was very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved, and how she illtreated all his guests and he vowed that, willing or unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar, that came to the door. Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play under the window and beg alms and when the king heard him, he said, 'Let him come in.' So they brought in a dirtylooking fellow and when he had sung before the king and the princess, he begged a boon. Then the king said, 'You have sung so well, that I will give you my daughter for your wife.' The princess begged and prayed but the king said, 'I have sworn to give you to the first comer, and I will keep my word.' So words and tears were of no avail the parson was sent for, and she was married to the fiddler. When this was over the king said, 'Now get ready to goyou must not stay hereyou must travel on with your husband.' Then the fiddler went his way, and took her with him, and they soon came to a great wood. 'Pray,' said she, 'whose is this wood?' 'It belongs to King Grislybeard,' answered he 'hadst thou taken him, all had been thine.' 'Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!' sighed she 'would that I had married King Grislybeard!' Next they came to some fine meadows. 'Whose are these beautiful green meadows?' said she. 'They belong to King Grislybeard, hadst thou taken him, they had all been thine.' 'Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!' said she 'would that I had married King Grislybeard!' Then they came to a great city. 'Whose is this noble city?' said she. 'It belongs to King Grislybeard hadst thou taken him, it had all been thine.' 'Ah! wretch that I am!' sighed she 'why did I not marry King Grislybeard?' 'That is no business of mine,' said the fiddler 'why should you wish for another husband? Am not I good enough for you?' At last they came to a small cottage. 'What a paltry place!' said she 'to whom does that little dirty hole belong?' Then the fiddler said, 'That is your and my house, where we are to live.' 'Where are your servants?' cried she. 'What do we want with servants?' said he 'you must do for yourself whatever is to be done. Now make the fire, and put on water and cook my supper, for I am very tired.' But the princess knew nothing of making fires and cooking, and the fiddler was forced to help her. When they had eaten a very scanty meal they went to bed but the fiddler called her up very early in the morning to clean the house. Thus they lived for two days and when they had eaten up all there was in the cottage, the man said, 'Wife, we can't go on thus, spending money and earning nothing. You must learn to weave baskets.' Then he went out and cut willows, and brought them home, and she began to weave but it made her fingers very sore. 'I see this work won't do,' said he 'try and spin perhaps you will do that better.' So she sat down and tried to spin but the threads cut her tender fingers till the blood ran. 'See now,' said the fiddler, 'you are good for nothing you can do no work what a bargain I have got! However, I'll try and set up a trade in pots and pans, and you shall stand in the market and sell them.' 'Alas!' sighed she, 'if any of my father's court should pass by and see me standing in the market, how they will laugh at me!' But her husband did not care for that, and said she must work, if she did not wish to die of hunger. At first the trade went well for many people, seeing such a beautiful woman, went to buy her wares, and paid their money without thinking of taking away the goods. They lived on this as long as it lasted and then her husband bought a fresh lot of ware, and she sat herself down with it in the corner of the market but a drunken soldier soon came by, and rode his horse against her stall, and broke all her goods into a thousand pieces. Then she began to cry, and knew not what to do. 'Ah! what will become of me?' said she 'what will my husband say?' So she ran home and told him all. 'Who would have thought you would have been so silly,' said he, 'as to put an earthenware stall in the corner of the market, where everybody passes? but let us have no more crying I see you are not fit for this sort of work, so I have been to the king's palace, and asked if they did not want a kitchenmaid and they say they will take you, and there you will have plenty to eat.' Thus the princess became a kitchenmaid, and helped the cook to do all the dirtiest work but she was allowed to carry home some of the meat that was left, and on this they lived. She had not been there long before she heard that the king's eldest son was passing by, going to be married and she went to one of the windows and looked out. Everything was ready, and all the pomp and brightness of the court was there. Then she bitterly grieved for the pride and folly which had brought her so low. And the servants gave her some of the rich meats, which she put into her basket to take home. All on a sudden, as she was going out, in came the king's son in golden clothes and when he saw a beautiful woman at the door, he took her by the hand, and said she should be his partner in the dance but she trembled for fear, for she saw that it was King Grislybeard, who was making sport of her. However, he kept fast hold, and led her in and the cover of the basket came off, so that the meats in it fell about. Then everybody laughed and jeered at her and she was so abashed, that she wished herself a thousand feet deep in the earth. She sprang to the door to run away but on the steps King Grislybeard overtook her, and brought her back and said, 'Fear me not! I am the fiddler who has lived with you in the hut. I brought you there because I really loved you. I am also the soldier that overset your stall. I have done all this only to cure you of your silly pride, and to show you the folly of your illtreatment of me. Now all is over you have learnt wisdom, and it is time to hold our marriage feast.' Then the chamberlains came and brought her the most beautiful robes and her father and his whole court were there already, and welcomed her home on her marriage. Joy was in every face and every heart. The feast was grand they danced and sang all were merry and I only wish that you and I had been of the party. There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest near his palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a huntsman to shoot him a roe, but he did not come back. 'Perhaps some accident has befallen him,' said the king, and the next day he sent out two more huntsmen who were to search for him, but they too stayed away. Then on the third day, he sent for all his huntsmen, and said 'Scour the whole forest through, and do not give up until you have found all three.' But of these also, none came home again, none were seen again. From that time forth, no one would any longer venture into the forest, and it lay there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen of it, but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it. This lasted for many years, when an unknown huntsman announced himself to the king as seeking a situation, and offered to go into the dangerous forest. The king, however, would not give his consent, and said 'It is not safe in there I fear it would fare with you no better than with the others, and you would never come out again.' The huntsman replied 'Lord, I will venture it at my own risk, of fear I know nothing.' The huntsman therefore betook himself with his dog to the forest. It was not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way, and wanted to pursue it but hardly had the dog run two steps when it stood before a deep pool, could go no farther, and a naked arm stretched itself out of the water, seized it, and drew it under. When the huntsman saw that, he went back and fetched three men to come with buckets and bale out the water. When they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face down to his knees. They bound him with cords, and led him away to the castle. There was great astonishment over the wild man the king, however, had him put in an iron cage in his courtyard, and forbade the door to be opened on pain of death, and the queen herself was to take the key into her keeping. And from this time forth everyone could again go into the forest with safety. The king had a son of eight years, who was once playing in the courtyard, and while he was playing, his golden ball fell into the cage. The boy ran thither and said 'Give me my ball out.' 'Not till you have opened the door for me,' answered the man. 'No,' said the boy, 'I will not do that the king has forbidden it,' and ran away. The next day he again went and asked for his ball the wild man said 'Open my door,' but the boy would not. On the third day the king had ridden out hunting, and the boy went once more and said 'I cannot open the door even if I wished, for I have not the key.' Then the wild man said 'It lies under your mother's pillow, you can get it there.' The boy, who wanted to have his ball back, cast all thought to the winds, and brought the key. The door opened with difficulty, and the boy pinched his fingers. When it was open the wild man stepped out, gave him the golden ball, and hurried away. The boy had become afraid he called and cried after him 'Oh, wild man, do not go away, or I shall be beaten!' The wild man turned back, took him up, set him on his shoulder, and went with hasty steps into the forest. When the king came home, he observed the empty cage, and asked the queen how that had happened. She knew nothing about it, and sought the key, but it was gone. She called the boy, but no one answered. The king sent out people to seek for him in the fields, but they did not find him. Then he could easily guess what had happened, and much grief reigned in the royal court. When the wild man had once more reached the dark forest, he took the boy down from his shoulder, and said to him 'You will never see your father and mother again, but I will keep you with me, for you have set me free, and I have compassion on you. If you do all I bid you, you shall fare well. Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the world.' He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept, and the next morning the man took him to a well, and said 'Behold, the gold well is as bright and clear as crystal, you shall sit beside it, and take care that nothing falls into it, or it will be polluted. I will come every evening to see if you have obeyed my order.' The boy placed himself by the brink of the well, and often saw a golden fish or a golden snake show itself therein, and took care that nothing fell in. As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he involuntarily put it in the water. He drew it quickly out again, but saw that it was quite gilded, and whatsoever pains he took to wash the gold off again, all was to no purpose. In the evening Iron Hans came back, looked at the boy, and said 'What has happened to the well?' 'Nothing nothing,' he answered, and held his finger behind his back, that the man might not see it. But he said 'You have dipped your finger into the water, this time it may pass, but take care you do not again let anything go in.' By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and watching it. His finger hurt him again and he passed it over his head, and then unhappily a hair fell down into the well. He took it quickly out, but it was already quite gilded. Iron Hans came, and already knew what had happened. 'You have let a hair fall into the well,' said he. 'I will allow you to watch by it once more, but if this happens for the third time then the well is polluted and you can no longer remain with me.' On the third day, the boy sat by the well, and did not stir his finger, however much it hurt him. But the time was long to him, and he looked at the reflection of his face on the surface of the water. And as he still bent down more and more while he was doing so, and trying to look straight into the eyes, his long hair fell down from his shoulders into the water. He raised himself up quickly, but the whole of the hair of his head was already golden and shone like the sun. You can imagine how terrified the poor boy was! He took his pockethandkerchief and tied it round his head, in order that the man might not see it. When he came he already knew everything, and said 'Take the handkerchief off.' Then the golden hair streamed forth, and let the boy excuse himself as he might, it was of no use. 'You have not stood the trial and can stay here no longer. Go forth into the world, there you will learn what poverty is. But as you have not a bad heart, and as I mean well by you, there is one thing I will grant you if you fall into any difficulty, come to the forest and cry 'Iron Hans, and then I will come and help you. My power is great, greater than you think, and I have gold and silver in abundance.' Then the king's son left the forest, and walked by beaten and unbeaten paths ever onwards until at length he reached a great city. There he looked for work, but could find none, and he learnt nothing by which he could help himself. At length he went to the palace, and asked if they would take him in. The people about court did not at all know what use they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay. At length the cook took him into his service, and said he might carry wood and water, and rake the cinders together. Once when it so happened that no one else was at hand, the cook ordered him to carry the food to the royal table, but as he did not like to let his golden hair be seen, he kept his little cap on. Such a thing as that had never yet come under the king's notice, and he said 'When you come to the royal table you must take your hat off.' He answered 'Ah, Lord, I cannot I have a bad sore place on my head.' Then the king had the cook called before him and scolded him, and asked how he could take such a boy as that into his service and that he was to send him away at once. The cook, however, had pity on him, and exchanged him for the gardener's boy. And now the boy had to plant and water the garden, hoe and dig, and bear the wind and bad weather. Once in summer when he was working alone in the garden, the day was so warm he took his little cap off that the air might cool him. As the sun shone on his hair it glittered and flashed so that the rays fell into the bedroom of the king's daughter, and up she sprang to see what that could be. Then she saw the boy, and cried to him 'Boy, bring me a wreath of flowers.' He put his cap on with all haste, and gathered wild fieldflowers and bound them together. When he was ascending the stairs with them, the gardener met him, and said 'How can you take the king's daughter a garland of such common flowers? Go quickly, and get another, and seek out the prettiest and rarest.' 'Oh, no,' replied the boy, 'the wild ones have more scent, and will please her better.' When he got into the room, the king's daughter said 'Take your cap off, it is not seemly to keep it on in my presence.' He again said 'I may not, I have a sore head.' She, however, caught at his cap and pulled it off, and then his golden hair rolled down on his shoulders, and it was splendid to behold. He wanted to run out, but she held him by the arm, and gave him a handful of ducats. With these he departed, but he cared nothing for the gold pieces. He took them to the gardener, and said 'I present them to your children, they can play with them.' The following day the king's daughter again called to him that he was to bring her a wreath of fieldflowers, and then he went in with it, she instantly snatched at his cap, and wanted to take it away from him, but he held it fast with both hands. She again gave him a handful of ducats, but he would not keep them, and gave them to the gardener for playthings for his children. On the third day things went just the same she could not get his cap away from him, and he would not have her money. Not long afterwards, the country was overrun by war. The king gathered together his people, and did not know whether or not he could offer any opposition to the enemy, who was superior in strength and had a mighty army. Then said the gardener's boy 'I am grown up, and will go to the wars also, only give me a horse.' The others laughed, and said 'Seek one for yourself when we are gone, we will leave one behind us in the stable for you.' When they had gone forth, he went into the stable, and led the horse out it was lame of one foot, and limped hobblety jib, hobblety jib nevertheless he mounted it, and rode away to the dark forest. When he came to the outskirts, he called 'Iron Hans' three times so loudly that it echoed through the trees. Thereupon the wild man appeared immediately, and said 'What do you desire?' 'I want a strong steed, for I am going to the wars.' 'That you shall have, and still more than you ask for.' Then the wild man went back into the forest, and it was not long before a stableboy came out of it, who led a horse that snorted with its nostrils, and could hardly be restrained, and behind them followed a great troop of warriors entirely equipped in iron, and their swords flashed in the sun. The youth made over his threelegged horse to the stableboy, mounted the other, and rode at the head of the soldiers. When he got near the battlefield a great part of the king's men had already fallen, and little was wanting to make the rest give way. Then the youth galloped thither with his iron soldiers, broke like a hurricane over the enemy, and beat down all who opposed him. They began to flee, but the youth pursued, and never stopped, until there was not a single man left. Instead of returning to the king, however, he conducted his troop by byways back to the forest, and called forth Iron Hans. 'What do you desire?' asked the wild man. 'Take back your horse and your troops, and give me my threelegged horse again.' All that he asked was done, and soon he was riding on his threelegged horse. When the king returned to his palace, his daughter went to meet him, and wished him joy of his victory. 'I am not the one who carried away the victory,' said he, 'but a strange knight who came to my assistance with his soldiers.' The daughter wanted to hear who the strange knight was, but the king did not know, and said 'He followed the enemy, and I did not see him again.' She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but he smiled, and said 'He has just come home on his threelegged horse, and the others have been mocking him, and crying 'Here comes our hobblety jib back again! They asked, too 'Under what hedge have you been lying sleeping all the time? So he said 'I did the best of all, and it would have gone badly without me. And then he was still more ridiculed.' The king said to his daughter 'I will proclaim a great feast that shall last for three days, and you shall throw a golden apple. Perhaps the unknown man will show himself.' When the feast was announced, the youth went out to the forest, and called Iron Hans. 'What do you desire?' asked he. 'That I may catch the king's daughter's golden apple.' 'It is as safe as if you had it already,' said Iron Hans. 'You shall likewise have a suit of red armour for the occasion, and ride on a spirited chestnuthorse.' When the day came, the youth galloped to the spot, took his place amongst the knights, and was recognized by no one. The king's daughter came forward, and threw a golden apple to the knights, but none of them caught it but he, only as soon as he had it he galloped away. On the second day Iron Hans equipped him as a white knight, and gave him a white horse. Again he was the only one who caught the apple, and he did not linger an instant, but galloped off with it. The king grew angry, and said 'That is not allowed he must appear before me and tell his name.' He gave the order that if the knight who caught the apple, should go away again they should pursue him, and if he would not come back willingly, they were to cut him down and stab him. On the third day, he received from Iron Hans a suit of black armour and a black horse, and again he caught the apple. But when he was riding off with it, the king's attendants pursued him, and one of them got so near him that he wounded the youth's leg with the point of his sword. The youth nevertheless escaped from them, but his horse leapt so violently that the helmet fell from the youth's head, and they could see that he had golden hair. They rode back and announced this to the king. The following day the king's daughter asked the gardener about his boy. 'He is at work in the garden the queer creature has been at the festival too, and only came home yesterday evening he has likewise shown my children three golden apples which he has won.' The king had him summoned into his presence, and he came and again had his little cap on his head. But the king's daughter went up to him and took it off, and then his golden hair fell down over his shoulders, and he was so handsome that all were amazed. 'Are you the knight who came every day to the festival, always in different colours, and who caught the three golden apples?' asked the king. 'Yes,' answered he, 'and here the apples are,' and he took them out of his pocket, and returned them to the king. 'If you desire further proof, you may see the wound which your people gave me when they followed me. But I am likewise the knight who helped you to your victory over your enemies.' 'If you can perform such deeds as that, you are no gardener's boy tell me, who is your father?' 'My father is a mighty king, and gold have I in plenty as great as I require.' 'I well see,' said the king, 'that I owe my thanks to you can I do anything to please you?' 'Yes,' answered he, 'that indeed you can. Give me your daughter to wife.' The maiden laughed, and said 'He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his golden hair that he was no gardener's boy,' and then she went and kissed him. His father and mother came to the wedding, and were in great delight, for they had given up all hope of ever seeing their dear son again. And as they were sitting at the marriagefeast, the music suddenly stopped, the doors opened, and a stately king came in with a great retinue. He went up to the youth, embraced him and said 'I am Iron Hans, and was by enchantment a wild man, but you have set me free all the treasures which I possess, shall be your property.' There was once a king, whose queen had hair of the purest gold, and was so beautiful that her match was not to be met with on the whole face of the earth. But this beautiful queen fell ill, and when she felt that her end drew near she called the king to her and said, 'Promise me that you will never marry again, unless you meet with a wife who is as beautiful as I am, and who has golden hair like mine.' Then when the king in his grief promised all she asked, she shut her eyes and died. But the king was not to be comforted, and for a long time never thought of taking another wife. At last, however, his wise men said, 'this will not do the king must marry again, that we may have a queen.' So messengers were sent far and wide, to seek for a bride as beautiful as the late queen. But there was no princess in the world so beautiful and if there had been, still there was not one to be found who had golden hair. So the messengers came home, and had had all their trouble for nothing. Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her mother, and had the same golden hair. And when she was grown up, the king looked at her and saw that she was just like this late queen then he said to his courtiers, 'May I not marry my daughter? She is the very image of my dead wife unless I have her, I shall not find any bride upon the whole earth, and you say there must be a queen.' When the courtiers heard this they were shocked, and said, 'Heaven forbid that a father should marry his daughter! Out of so great a sin no good can come.' And his daughter was also shocked, but hoped the king would soon give up such thoughts so she said to him, 'Before I marry anyone I must have three dresses one must be of gold, like the sun another must be of shining silver, like the moon and a third must be dazzling as the stars besides this, I want a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur put together, to which every beast in the kingdom must give a part of his skin.' And thus she thought he would think of the matter no more. But the king made the most skilful workmen in his kingdom weave the three dresses one golden, like the sun another silvery, like the moon and a third sparkling, like the stars and his hunters were told to hunt out all the beasts in his kingdom, and to take the finest fur out of their skins and thus a mantle of a thousand furs was made. When all were ready, the king sent them to her but she got up in the night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three dressesof the sun, the moon, and the starsup in a nutshell, and wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared her face and hands with soot. Then she threw herself upon Heaven for help in her need, and went away, and journeyed on the whole night, till at last she came to a large wood. As she was very tired, she sat herself down in the hollow of a tree and soon fell asleep and there she slept on till it was midday. Now as the king to whom the wood belonged was hunting in it, his dogs came to the tree, and began to snuff about, and run round and round, and bark. 'Look sharp!' said the king to the huntsmen, 'and see what sort of game lies there.' And the huntsmen went up to the tree, and when they came back again said, 'In the hollow tree there lies a most wonderful beast, such as we never saw before its skin seems to be of a thousand kinds of fur, but there it lies fast asleep.' 'See,' said the king, 'if you can catch it alive, and we will take it with us.' So the huntsmen took it up, and the maiden awoke and was greatly frightened, and said, 'I am a poor child that has neither father nor mother left have pity on me and take me with you.' Then they said, 'Yes, Miss Catskin, you will do for the kitchen you can sweep up the ashes, and do things of that sort.' So they put her into the coach, and took her home to the king's palace. Then they showed her a little corner under the staircase, where no light of day ever peeped in, and said, 'Catskin, you may lie and sleep there.' And she was sent into the kitchen, and made to fetch wood and water, to blow the fire, pluck the poultry, pick the herbs, sift the ashes, and do all the dirty work. Thus Catskin lived for a long time very sorrowfully. 'Ah! pretty princess!' thought she, 'what will now become of thee?' But it happened one day that a feast was to be held in the king's castle, so she said to the cook, 'May I go up a little while and see what is going on? I will take care and stand behind the door.' And the cook said, 'Yes, you may go, but be back again in half an hour's time, to rake out the ashes.' Then she took her little lamp, and went into her cabin, and took off the fur skin, and washed the soot from off her face and hands, so that her beauty shone forth like the sun from behind the clouds. She next opened her nutshell, and brought out of it the dress that shone like the sun, and so went to the feast. Everyone made way for her, for nobody knew her, and they thought she could be no less than a king's daughter. But the king came up to her, and held out his hand and danced with her and he thought in his heart, 'I never saw any one half so beautiful.' When the dance was at an end she curtsied and when the king looked round for her, she was gone, no one knew wither. The guards that stood at the castle gate were called in but they had seen no one. The truth was, that she had run into her little cabin, pulled off her dress, blackened her face and hands, put on the furskin cloak, and was Catskin again. When she went into the kitchen to her work, and began to rake the ashes, the cook said, 'Let that alone till the morning, and heat the king's soup I should like to run up now and give a peep but take care you don't let a hair fall into it, or you will run a chance of never eating again.' As soon as the cook went away, Catskin heated the king's soup, and toasted a slice of bread first, as nicely as ever she could and when it was ready, she went and looked in the cabin for her little golden ring, and put it into the dish in which the soup was. When the dance was over, the king ordered his soup to be brought in and it pleased him so well, that he thought he had never tasted any so good before. At the bottom he saw a gold ring lying and as he could not make out how it had got there, he ordered the cook to be sent for. The cook was frightened when he heard the order, and said to Catskin, 'You must have let a hair fall into the soup if it be so, you will have a good beating.' Then he went before the king, and he asked him who had cooked the soup. 'I did,' answered the cook. But the king said, 'That is not true it was better done than you could do it.' Then he answered, 'To tell the truth I did not cook it, but Catskin did.' 'Then let Catskin come up,' said the king and when she came he said to her, 'Who are you?' 'I am a poor child,' said she, 'that has lost both father and mother.' 'How came you in my palace?' asked he. 'I am good for nothing,' said she, 'but to be sculliongirl, and to have boots and shoes thrown at my head.' 'But how did you get the ring that was in the soup?' asked the king. Then she would not own that she knew anything about the ring so the king sent her away again about her business. After a time there was another feast, and Catskin asked the cook to let her go up and see it as before. 'Yes,' said he, 'but come again in half an hour, and cook the king the soup that he likes so much.' Then she ran to her little cabin, washed herself quickly, and took her dress out which was silvery as the moon, and put it on and when she went in, looking like a king's daughter, the king went up to her, and rejoiced at seeing her again, and when the dance began he danced with her. After the dance was at an end she managed to slip out, so slyly that the king did not see where she was gone but she sprang into her little cabin, and made herself into Catskin again, and went into the kitchen to cook the soup. Whilst the cook was above stairs, she got the golden necklace and dropped it into the soup then it was brought to the king, who ate it, and it pleased him as well as before so he sent for the cook, who was again forced to tell him that Catskin had cooked it. Catskin was brought again before the king, but she still told him that she was only fit to have boots and shoes thrown at her head. But when the king had ordered a feast to be got ready for the third time, it happened just the same as before. 'You must be a witch, Catskin,' said the cook 'for you always put something into your soup, so that it pleases the king better than mine.' However, he let her go up as before. Then she put on her dress which sparkled like the stars, and went into the ballroom in it and the king danced with her again, and thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did then. So whilst he was dancing with her, he put a gold ring on her finger without her seeing it, and ordered that the dance should be kept up a long time. When it was at an end, he would have held her fast by the hand, but she slipped away, and sprang so quickly through the crowd that he lost sight of her and she ran as fast as she could into her little cabin under the stairs. But this time she kept away too long, and stayed beyond the halfhour so she had not time to take off her fine dress, and threw her fur mantle over it, and in her haste did not blacken herself all over with soot, but left one of her fingers white. Then she ran into the kitchen, and cooked the king's soup and as soon as the cook was gone, she put the golden brooch into the dish. When the king got to the bottom, he ordered Catskin to be called once more, and soon saw the white finger, and the ring that he had put on it whilst they were dancing so he seized her hand, and kept fast hold of it, and when she wanted to loose herself and spring away, the fur cloak fell off a little on one side, and the starry dress sparkled underneath it. Then he got hold of the fur and tore it off, and her golden hair and beautiful form were seen, and she could no longer hide herself so she washed the soot and ashes from her face, and showed herself to be the most beautiful princess upon the face of the earth. But the king said, 'You are my beloved bride, and we will never more be parted from each other.' And the wedding feast was held, and a merry day it was, as ever was heard of or seen in that country, or indeed in any other. There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rosetrees, one of which bore white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the two rosetrees, and one was called Snowwhite, and the other Rosered. They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever two children in the world were, only Snowwhite was more quiet and gentle than Rosered. Rosered liked better to run about in the meadows and fields seeking flowers and catching butterflies but Snowwhite sat at home with her mother, and helped her with her housework, or read to her when there was nothing to do. The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snowwhite said 'We will not leave each other,' Rosered answered 'Never so long as we live,' and their mother would add 'What one has she must share with the other.' They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully. The little hare would eat a cabbageleaf out of their hands, the roe grazed by their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon the boughs, and sang whatever they knew. No mishap overtook them if they had stayed too late in the forest, and night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss, and slept until morning came, and their mother knew this and did not worry on their account. Once when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near their bed. He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing and went into the forest. And when they looked round they found that they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice, and would certainly have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces further. And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who watches over good children. Snowwhite and Rosered kept their mother's little cottage so neat that it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rosered took care of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother's bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter Snowwhite lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said 'Go, Snowwhite, and bolt the door,' and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head hidden beneath its wings. One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in. The mother said 'Quick, Rosered, open the door, it must be a traveller who is seeking shelter.' Rosered went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a poor man, but it was not it was a bear that stretched his broad, black head within the door. Rosered screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered, and Snowwhite hid herself behind her mother's bed. But the bear began to speak and said 'Do not be afraid, I will do you no harm! I am halffrozen, and only want to warm myself a little beside you.' 'Poor bear,' said the mother, 'lie down by the fire, only take care that you do not burn your coat.' Then she cried 'Snowwhite, Rosered, come out, the bear will do you no harm, he means well.' So they both came out, and byandby the lamb and dove came nearer, and were not afraid of him. The bear said 'Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a little' so they brought the broom and swept the bear's hide clean and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and comfortably. It was not long before they grew quite at home, and played tricks with their clumsy guest. They tugged his hair with their hands, put their feet upon his back and rolled him about, or they took a hazelswitch and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. But the bear took it all in good part, only when they were too rough he called out 'Leave me alive, children, When it was bedtime, and the others went to bed, the mother said to the bear 'You can lie there by the hearth, and then you will be safe from the cold and the bad weather.' As soon as day dawned the two children let him out, and he trotted across the snow into the forest. Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as much as they liked and they got so used to him that the doors were never fastened until their black friend had arrived. When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one morning to Snowwhite 'Now I must go away, and cannot come back for the whole summer.' 'Where are you going, then, dear bear?' asked Snowwhite. 'I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged to stay below and cannot work their way through but now, when the sun has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to pry and steal and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, does not easily see daylight again.' Snowwhite was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snowwhite as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the trees. A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest to get firewood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a snowwhite beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog tied to a rope, and did not know what to do. He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried 'Why do you stand there? Can you not come here and help me?' 'What are you up to, little man?' asked Rosered. 'You stupid, prying goose!' answered the dwarf 'I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking. The little bit of food that we people get is immediately burnt up with heavy logs we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white beard so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek, milkfaced things laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!' The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it was caught too fast. 'I will run and fetch someone,' said Rosered. 'You senseless goose!' snarled the dwarf 'why should you fetch someone? You are already two too many for me can you not think of something better?' 'Don't be impatient,' said Snowwhite, 'I will help you,' and she pulled her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard. As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it up, grumbling to himself 'Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine beard. Bad luck to you!' and then he swung the bag upon his back, and went off without even once looking at the children. Some time afterwards Snowwhite and Rosered went to catch a dish of fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in. They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. 'Where are you going?' said Rosered 'you surely don't want to go into the water?' 'I am not such a fool!' cried the dwarf 'don't you see that the accursed fish wants to pull me in?' The little man had been sitting there fishing, and unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishingline a moment later a big fish made a bite and the feeble creature had not strength to pull it out the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water. The girls came just in time they held him fast and tried to free his beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast together. There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that he screamed out 'Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man's face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people. I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!' Then he took out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone. It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and round above them it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance the dwarf, and was going to carry him off. The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man, and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go. As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright he cried with his shrill voice 'Could you not have done it more carefully! You dragged at my brown coat so that it is all torn and full of holes, you clumsy creatures!' Then he took up a sack full of precious stones, and slipped away again under the rock into his hole. The girls, who by this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their business in town. As they crossed the heath again on their way home they surprised the dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot, and had not thought that anyone would come there so late. The evening sun shone upon the brilliant stones they glittered and sparkled with all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared at them. 'Why do you stand gaping there?' cried the dwarf, and his ashengrey face became copperred with rage. He was still cursing when a loud growling was heard, and a black bear came trotting towards them out of the forest. The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach his cave, for the bear was already close. Then in the dread of his heart he cried 'Dear Mr Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life what do you want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender morsels for you, fat as young quails for mercy's sake eat them!' The bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single blow with his paw, and he did not move again. The girls had run away, but the bear called to them 'Snowwhite and Rosered, do not be afraid wait, I will come with you.' Then they recognized his voice and waited, and when he came up to them suddenly his bearskin fell off, and he stood there a handsome man, clothed all in gold. 'I am a king's son,' he said, 'and I was bewitched by that wicked dwarf, who had stolen my treasures I have had to run about the forest as a savage bear until I was freed by his death. Now he has got his welldeserved punishment. Snowwhite was married to him, and Rosered to his brother, and they divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered together in his cave. The old mother lived peacefully and happily with her children for many years. She took the two rosetrees with her, and they stood before her window, and every year bore the most beautiful roses, white and red. The Brothers Grimm, Jacob () and Wilhelm (), were born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in the German state of Hesse. Throughout their lives they remained close friends, and both studied law at Marburg University. Jacob was a pioneer in the study of German philology, and although Wilhelm's work was hampered by poor health the brothers collaborated in the creation of a German dictionary, not completed until a century after their deaths. But they were best (and universally) known for the collection of over two hundred folk tales they made from oral sources and published in two volumes of 'Nursery and Household Tales' in  and . Although their intention was to preserve such material as part of German cultural and literary history, and their collection was first published with scholarly notes and no illustration, the tales soon came into the possession of young readers. This was in part due to Edgar Taylor, who made the first English translation in , selecting about fifty stories 'with the amusement of some young friends principally in view.' They have been an essential ingredient of children's reading ever since.
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister,Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, 'Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine,who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle,I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trouserspockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence. Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes and that the low leaden line beyond was the river and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. 'Hold your noise! cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. 'Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat! A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin. 'Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir, I pleaded in terror. 'Pray don't do it, sir. 'Tell us your name! said the man. 'Quick! 'Pip, sir. 'Once more, said the man, staring at me. 'Give it mouth! 'Pip. Pip, sir. 'Show us where you live, said the man. 'Pint out the place! I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat inshore among the aldertrees and pollards, a mile or more from the church. The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself,for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet,when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously. 'You young dog, said the man, licking his lips, 'what fat cheeks you ha' got. I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong. 'Darn me if I couldn't eat 'em, said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, 'and if I han't half a mind to't! I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me partly, to keep myself upon it partly, to keep myself from crying. 'Now lookee here! said the man. 'Where's your mother? 'There, sir! said I. He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder. 'There, sir! I timidly explained. 'Also Georgiana. That's my mother. 'Oh! said he, coming back. 'And is that your father alonger your mother? 'Yes, sir, said I 'him too late of this parish. 'Ha! he muttered then, considering. 'Who d'ye live with,supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about? 'My sister, sir,Mrs. Joe Gargery,wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir. 'Blacksmith, eh? said he. And looked down at his leg. After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his. 'Now lookee here, he said, 'the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is? 'Yes, sir. 'And you know what wittles is? 'Yes, sir. After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger. 'You get me a file. He tilted me again. 'And you get me wittles. He tilted me again. 'You bring 'em both to me. He tilted me again. 'Or I'll have your heart and liver out. He tilted me again. I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, 'If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more. He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms 'You bring me, tomorrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say? I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning. 'Say Lord strike you dead if you don't! said the man. I said so, and he took me down. 'Now, he pursued, 'you remember what you've undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home! 'Googood night, sir, I faltered. 'Much of that! said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. 'I wish I was a frog. Or a eel! At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms,clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in. When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for steppingplaces when the rains were heavy or the tide was in. The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered,like an unhooped cask upon a pole,an ugly thing when you were near it the other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping. My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up 'by hand. Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand. She was not a goodlooking woman, my sister and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, goodnatured, sweettempered, easygoing, foolish, dear fellow,a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness. My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeggrater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life. Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were,most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellowsufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner. 'Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen. 'Is she? 'Yes, Pip, said Joe 'and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her. At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a waxended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame. 'She sot down, said Joe, 'and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Rampaged out. That's what she did, said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it 'she Rampaged out, Pip. 'Has she been gone long, Joe? I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal. 'Well, said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, 'she's been on the Rampage, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's acoming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jacktowel betwixt you. I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing meI often served as a connubial missileat Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg. 'Where have you been, you young monkey? said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. 'Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys. 'I have only been to the churchyard, said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself. 'Churchyard! repeated my sister. 'If it warn't for me you'd have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand? 'You did, said I. 'And why did I do it, I should like to know? exclaimed my sister. I whimpered, 'I don't know. 'I don't! said my sister. 'I'd never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I've never had this apron of mine off since born you were. It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother. My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals. 'Hah! said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. 'Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two. One of us, by the by, had not said it at all. 'You'll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O, a prrrecious pair you'd be without me! As she applied herself to set the teathings, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his rightside flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times. My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib,where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other. On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers. The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our alreadymentioned freemasonry as fellowsufferers, and in his goodnatured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each other's admiration now and then,which stimulated us to new exertions. Tonight, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg. Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn't seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread and butter was gone. The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister's observation. 'What's the matter now? said she, smartly, as she put down her cup. 'I say, you know! muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. 'Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a mischief. It'll stick somewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip. 'What's the matter now? repeated my sister, more sharply than before. 'If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recommend you to do it, said Joe, all aghast. 'Manners is manners, but still your elth's your elth. By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on. 'Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter, said my sister, out of breath, 'you staring great stuck pig. Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again. 'You know, Pip, said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, 'you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a he moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me'such a most oncommon Bolt as that! 'Been bolting his food, has he? cried my sister. 'You know, old chap, said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, 'I Bolted, myself, when I was your agefrequentand as a boy I've been among a many Bolters but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't Bolted dead. My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying nothing more than the awful words, 'You come along and be dosed. Some medical beast had revived Tarwater in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), 'because he had had a turn. Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before. Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden cooperates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. JoeI never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as hisunited to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until tomorrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver tonight, instead of tomorrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever did? It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a copperstick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on his leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom. 'Hark! said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed 'was that great guns, Joe? 'Ah! said Joe. 'There's another conwict off. 'What does that mean, Joe? said I. Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, 'Escaped. Escaped. Administering the definition like Tarwater. While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, 'What's a convict? Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single word 'Pip. 'There was a conwict off last night, said Joe, aloud, 'after sunsetgun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they're firing warning of another. 'Who's firing? said I. 'Drat that boy, interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, 'what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies. It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite unless there was company. At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that looked to me like 'sulks. Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, 'her? But Joe wouldn't hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of the word. 'Mrs. Joe, said I, as a last resort, 'I should like to knowif you wouldn't much mindwhere the firing comes from? 'Lord bless the boy! exclaimed my sister, as if she didn't quite mean that but rather the contrary. 'From the Hulks! 'Ohh! said I, looking at Joe. 'Hulks! Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, 'Well, I told you so. 'And please, what's Hulks? said I. 'That's the way with this boy! exclaimed my sister, pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. 'Answer him one question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prisonships, right 'cross th' meshes. We always used that name for marshes, in our country. 'I wonder who's put into prisonships, and why they're put there? said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation. It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. 'I tell you what, young fellow, said she, 'I didn't bring you up by hand to badger people's lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed! I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling,from Mrs. Joe's thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe. Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted I had no hope of deliverance through my allpowerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn I am afraid to think of what I might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror. If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the river on a strong springtide, to the Hulks a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speakingtrumpet, as I passed the gibbetstation, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting a light by easy friction then to have got one I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his chains. As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot with grey, I got up and went downstairs every board upon the way, and every crack in every board calling after me, 'Stop thief! and 'Get up, Mrs. Joe! In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back was half turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pockethandkerchief with my last night's slice), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanishliquoricewater, up in my room diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in a covered earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would not be missed for some time. There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe's tools. Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes. It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pockethandkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders' webs hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our villagea direction which they never accepted, for they never came therewas invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks. The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, 'A boy with somebody else's pork pie! Stop him! The cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, 'Halloa, young thief! One black ox, with a white cravat on,who even had to my awakened conscience something of a clerical air,fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved round, that I blubbered out to him, 'I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't for myself I took it! Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kickup of his hindlegs and a flourish of his tail. All this time, I was getting on towards the river but however fast I went, I couldn't warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when I was 'prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there! However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to the right, and consequently had to try back along the riverside, on the bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep. I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast, in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but another man! And yet this man was dressed in coarse grey, too, and had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that the other man was except that he had not the same face, and had a flat broadbrimmed lowcrowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it in he swore an oath at me, made a hit at me,it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself down, for it made him stumble,and then he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went, and I lost him. 'It's the young man! I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had known where it was. I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right man,hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all night left off hugging and limping,waiting for me. He was awfully cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets. 'What's in the bottle, boy? said he. 'Brandy, said I. He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious manner,more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it,but he left off to take some of the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off. 'I think you have got the ague, said I. 'I'm much of your opinion, boy, said he. 'It's bad about here, I told him. 'You've been lying out on the meshes, and they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too. 'I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me, said he. 'I'd do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is over there, directly afterwards. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet you. He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often stoppingeven stopping his jawsto listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly, 'You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you? 'No, sir! No! 'Nor giv' no one the office to follow you? 'No! 'Well, said he, 'I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is! Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes. Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the pie, I made bold to say, 'I am glad you enjoy it. 'Did you speak? 'I said I was glad you enjoyed it. 'Thankee, my boy. I do. I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food and I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating, and the man's. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog. 'I am afraid you won't leave any of it for him, said I, timidly after a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making the remark. 'There's no more to be got where that came from. It was the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint. 'Leave any for him? Who's him? said my friend, stopping in his crunching of piecrust. 'The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you. 'Oh ah! he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. 'Him? Yes, yes! He don't want no wittles. 'I thought he looked as if he did, said I. The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise. 'Looked? When? 'Just now. 'Where? 'Yonder, said I, pointing 'over there, where I found him nodding asleep, and thought it was you. He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived. 'Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat, I explained, trembling 'andandI was very anxious to put this delicately'and withthe same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't you hear the cannon last night? 'Then there was firing! he said to himself. 'I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that, I returned, 'for we heard it up at home, and that's farther away, and we were shut in besides. 'Why, see now! said he. 'When a man's alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders 'Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!' and is laid hands onand there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last nightcoming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, trampI see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day,But this man he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there 'did you notice anything in him? 'He had a badly bruised face, said I, recalling what I hardly knew I knew. 'Not here? exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with the flat of his hand. 'Yes, there! 'Where is he? He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his grey jacket. 'Show me the way he went. I'll pull him down, like a bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file, boy. I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still going. I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dustpan,an article into which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment. 'And where the deuce ha' you been? was Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves. I said I had been down to hear the Carols. 'Ah! well! observed Mrs. Joe. 'You might ha' done worse. Not a doubt of that I thought. 'Perhaps if I warn't a blacksmith's wife, and (what's the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols, said Mrs. Joe. 'I'm rather partial to Carols, myself, and that's the best of reasons for my never hearing any. Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had retired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a conciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. This was so much her normal state, that Joe and I would often, for weeks together, be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their legs. We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mincepie had been made yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast 'for I ain't, said Mrs. Joe,'I ain't agoing to have no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I've got before me, I promise you! So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a forced march instead of a man and boy at home and we took gulps of milk and water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In the meantime, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new flowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered the little state parlour across the passage, which was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white crockery poodles on the mantelshelf, each with a black nose and a basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other. Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion. My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going. In his workingclothes, Joe was a wellknit characteristiclooking blacksmith in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him and everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law. I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs. Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to what I underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment. I conceived the idea that the time when the banns were read and when the clergyman said, 'Ye are now to declare it! would be the time for me to rise and propose a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to this extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday. Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us and Mr. Hubble the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle, but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a welltodo cornchandler in the nearest town, and drove his own chaisecart. The dinner hour was halfpast one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery. The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of indeed it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits he himself confessed that if the Church was 'thrown open, meaning to competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being 'thrown open, he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens tremendously and when he gave out the psalm,always giving the whole verse,he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say, 'You have heard my friend overhead oblige me with your opinion of this style! I opened the door to the company,making believe that it was a habit of ours to open that door,and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I was not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties. 'Mrs. Joe, said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hardbreathing middleaged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked, and had that moment come to, 'I have brought you as the compliments of the seasonI have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry wineand I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine. Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumbbells. Every Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, 'O, Uncle Pumblechook! This is kind! Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as he now retorted, 'It's no more than your merits. And now are you all bobbish, and how's Sixpennorth of halfpence? meaning me. We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts and oranges and apples to the parlour which was a change very like Joe's change from his workingclothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was uncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally more gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I remember Mrs. Hubble as a little curly sharpedged person in skyblue, who held a conventionally juvenile position, because she had married Mr. Hubble,I don't know at what remote period,when she was much younger than he. I remember Mr Hubble as a tough, highshouldered, stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane. Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn't robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they wouldn't leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads. It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation,as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, 'Do you hear that? Be grateful. 'Especially, said Mr. Pumblechook, 'be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand. Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, 'Why is it that the young are never grateful? This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, 'Naterally wicious. Everybody then murmured 'True! and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner. Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinnertime by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy today, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a pint. A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with some severity, and intimatedin the usual hypothetical case of the Church being 'thrown openwhat kind of sermon he would have given them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked that he considered the subject of the day's homily, ill chosen which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects 'going about. 'True again, said Uncle Pumblechook. 'You've hit it, sir! Plenty of subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject, if he's ready with his saltbox. Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short interval of reflection, 'Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you want a subject, look at Pork! 'True, sir. Many a moral for the young, returned Mr. Wopsle,and I knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it 'might be deduced from that text. ('You listen to this, said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.) Joe gave me some more gravy. 'Swine, pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,'swine were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an example to the young. (I thought this pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) 'What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy. 'Or girl, suggested Mr. Hubble. 'Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble, assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably, 'but there is no girl present. 'Besides, said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, 'think what you've got to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Squeaker 'He was, if ever a child was, said my sister, most emphatically. Joe gave me some more gravy. 'Well, but I mean a fourfooted Squeaker, said Mr. Pumblechook. 'If you had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you 'Unless in that form, said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish. 'But I don't mean in that form, sir, returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had an objection to being interrupted 'I mean, enjoying himself with his elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he wouldn't. And what would have been your destination? turning on me again. 'You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoatpocket, and he would have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a bit of it! Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take. 'He was a world of trouble to you, ma'am, said Mrs. Hubble, commiserating my sister. 'Trouble? echoed my sister 'trouble? and then entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go there. I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle's Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing in comparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the pause was broken which ensued upon my sister's recital, and in which pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with indignation and abhorrence. 'Yet, said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the theme from which they had strayed, 'Porkregarded as biledis rich, too ain't it? 'Have a little brandy, uncle, said my sister. O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate. My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle, and poured his brandy out no one else taking any. The wretched man trifled with his glass,took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down,prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmodic whoopingcough dance, and rushing out at the door he then became visible through the window, violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces, and apparently out of his mind. I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn't know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and surveying the company all round as if they had disagreed with him, sank down into his chair with the one significant gasp, 'Tar! I had filled up the bottle from the tarwater jug. I knew he would be worse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by the vigor of my unseen hold upon it. 'Tar! cried my sister, in amazement. 'Why, how ever could Tar come there? But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemonpeel, and mixing them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of gratitude. By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding. The course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the genial influence of gin and water. I began to think I should get over the day, when my sister said to Joe, 'Clean plates,cold. I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone. 'You must taste, said my sister, addressing the guests with her best grace'you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook's! Must they! Let them not hope to taste it! 'You must know, said my sister, rising, 'it's a pie a savory pork pie. The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his fellowcreatures, said,quite vivaciously, all things considered,'Well, Mrs. Joe, we'll do our best endeavours let us have a cut at this same pie. My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that 'a bit of savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm, and I heard Joe say, 'You shall have some, Pip. I have never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran for my life. But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran headforemost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me, saying, 'Here you are, look sharp, come on! The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the butends of their loaded muskets on our doorstep, caused the dinnerparty to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe reentering the kitchen emptyhanded, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of 'Gracious goodness gracious me, what's gonewith thepie! The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring at which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was the sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his right hand, and his left on my shoulder. 'Excuse me, ladies and gentleman, said the sergeant, 'but as I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver, (which he hadn't), 'I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith. 'And pray what might you want with him? retorted my sister, quick to resent his being wanted at all. 'Missis, returned the gallant sergeant, 'speaking for myself, I should reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife's acquaintance speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done. This was received as rather neat in the sergeant insomuch that Mr. Pumblechook cried audibly, 'Good again! 'You see, blacksmith, said the sergeant, who had by this time picked out Joe with his eye, 'we have had an accident with these, and I find the lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the coupling don't act pretty. As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over them? Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer two hours than one. 'Will it? Then will you set about it at once, blacksmith? said the offhand sergeant, 'as it's on his Majesty's service. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they'll make themselves useful. With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then they stood about, as soldiers do now, with their hands loosely clasped before them now, resting a knee or a shoulder now, easing a belt or a pouch now, opening the door to spit stiffly over their high stocks, out into the yard. All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits. 'Would you give me the time? said the sergeant, addressing himself to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the inference that he was equal to the time. 'It's just gone half past two. 'That's not so bad, said the sergeant, reflecting 'even if I was forced to halt here nigh two hours, that'll do. How far might you call yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I reckon? 'Just a mile, said Mrs. Joe. 'That'll do. We begin to close in upon 'em about dusk. A little before dusk, my orders are. That'll do. 'Convicts, sergeant? asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matterofcourse way. 'Ay! returned the sergeant, 'two. They're pretty well known to be out on the marshes still, and they won't try to get clear of 'em before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game? Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of me. 'Well! said the sergeant, 'they'll find themselves trapped in a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If you're ready, his Majesty the King is. Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its wooden windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at the bellows, the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on. The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer from the cask for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a glass of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, 'Give him wine, Mum. I'll engage there's no tar in that so, the sergeant thanked him and said that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it was equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his Majesty's health and compliments of the season, and took it all at a mouthful and smacked his lips. 'Good stuff, eh, sergeant? said Mr. Pumblechook. 'I'll tell you something, returned the sergeant 'I suspect that stuff's of your providing. Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, 'Ay, ay? Why? 'Because, returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder, 'you're a man that knows what's what. 'D'ye think so? said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. 'Have another glass! 'With you. Hob and nob, returned the sergeant. 'The top of mine to the foot of yours,the foot of yours to the top of mine,Ring once, ring twice,the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you are at the present moment of your life! The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the same liberality, when the first was gone. As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge, enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for a dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively anticipation of 'the two villains being taken, and when the bellows seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, and all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the blaze rose and sank, and the redhot sparks dropped and died, the pale afternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have turned pale on their account, poor wretches. At last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us should go down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies' society but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's curiosity to know all about it and how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, 'If you bring the boy back with his head blown to bits by a musket, don't look to me to put it together again. The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr. Pumblechook as from a comrade though I doubt if he were quite as fully sensible of that gentleman's merits under arid conditions, as when something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in. Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and to speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I treasonably whispered to Joe, 'I hope, Joe, we shan't find them. and Joe whispered to me, 'I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip. We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming on, and the people had good fires indoors and were keeping the day. A few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came out. We passed the fingerpost, and held straight on to the churchyard. There we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant's hand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the graves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding anything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us here on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back. Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little thought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him? It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe's back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist. Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it. Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a watery lead colour. With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe's broad shoulder, I looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by his blowing and hard breathing but I knew the sounds by this time, and could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful start, when I thought I heard the file still going but it was only a sheepbell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at us and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances but, except these things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass, there was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes. The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all stopped. For there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a long shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised together,if one might judge from a confusion in the sound. To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment's listening, Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not be answered, but that the course should be changed, and that his men should make towards it 'at the double. So we slanted to the right (where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to hold on tight to keep my seat. It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he spoke all the time, 'a Winder. Down banks and up banks, and over gates, and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes no man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more and more apparent that it was made by more than one voice. Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When it broke out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate than ever, and we after them. After a while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one voice calling 'Murder! and another voice, 'Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This way for the runaway convicts! Then both voices would seem to be stifled in a struggle, and then would break out again. And when it had come to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too. The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and two of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and levelled when we all ran in. 'Here are both men! panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a ditch. 'Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come asunder! Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and blows were being struck, when some more men went down into the ditch to help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling but of course I knew them both directly. 'Mind! said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers 'I took him! I give him up to you! Mind that! 'It's not much to be particular about, said the sergeant 'it'll do you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs there! 'I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good than it does now, said my convict, with a greedy laugh. 'I took him. He knows it. That's enough for me. The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from falling. 'Take notice, guard,he tried to murder me, were his first words. 'Tried to murder him? said my convict, disdainfully. 'Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv' him up that's what I done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,dragged him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag him back! The other one still gasped, 'He triedhe triedtomurder me. Bearbear witness. 'Lookee here! said my convict to the sergeant. 'Singlehanded I got clear of the prisonship I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got clear of these deathcold flats likewiselook at my leg you won't find much iron on itif I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at the bottom there, and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his manacled hands, 'I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in my hold. The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his companion, repeated, 'He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead man if you had not come up. 'He lies! said my convict, with fierce energy. 'He's a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face ain't it written there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it. The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not, however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression, looked at the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker. 'Do you see him? pursued my convict. 'Do you see what a villain he is? Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That's how he looked when we were tried together. He never looked at me. The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment on the speaker, with the words, 'You are not much to look at, and with a halftaunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict became so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him but for the interposition of the soldiers. 'Didn't I tell you, said the other convict then, 'that he would murder me, if he could? And any one could see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon his lips curious white flakes, like thin snow. 'Enough of this parley, said the sergeant. 'Light those torches. As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went down on his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back on the brink of the ditch when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive. The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite bank of the river. 'All right, said the sergeant. 'March. We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. 'You are expected on board, said the sergeant to my convict 'they know you are coming. Don't straggle, my man. Close up here. The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dike came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluicegate. When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of their lameness and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to halt while they rested. After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut and a landingplace. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut, where there was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their greatcoats were not much interested in us, but just lifted their heads and took a sleepy stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant made some kind of report, and some entry in a book, and then the convict whom I call the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go on board first. My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the sergeant, and remarked, 'I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me. 'You can say what you like, returned the sergeant, standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded, 'but you have no call to say it here. You'll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, before it's done with, you know. 'I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can't starve at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the willage over yonder,where the church stands a'most out on the marshes. 'You mean stole, said the sergeant. 'And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's. 'Halloa! said the sergeant, staring at Joe. 'Halloa, Pip! said Joe, staring at me. 'It was some broken wittlesthat's what it wasand a dram of liquor, and a pie. 'Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith? asked the sergeant, confidentially. 'My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip? 'So, said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and without the least glance at me,'so you're the blacksmith, are you? Than I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie. 'God knows you're welcome to it,so far as it was ever mine, returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. 'We don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellowcreatur.Would us, Pip? The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard were ready, so we followed him to the landingplace made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, 'Give way, you! which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prisonship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with him. My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure but I hope it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it. I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But I loved Joe,perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him,and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe's confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue. I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I never afterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his fair whisker, without thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at yesterday's meat or pudding when it came on today's table, without thinking that he was debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that his beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it, would bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this manner. Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of action for myself. As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prisonship, Joe took me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have hanged him, if it had been a capital offence. By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the shoulders, and the restorative exclamation 'Yah! Was there ever such a boy as this! from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the convict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut into strips and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his own chaisecartover everybodyit was agreed that it must be so. Mr. Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, 'No! with the feeble malice of a tired man but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously set at naught,not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out which was not calculated to inspire confidence. This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a slumberous offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me up to bed with such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as I have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted long after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned saving on exceptional occasions. At the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read 'wife of the Above as a complimentary reference to my father's exaltation to a better world and if any one of my deceased relations had been referred to as 'Below, I have no doubt I should have formed the worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither were my notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my declaration that I was to 'walk in the same all the days of my life, laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by the wheelwright's or up by the mill. When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called 'Pompeyed, or (as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only oddboy about the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be compromised thereby, a moneybox was kept on the kitchen mantelshelf, into which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure. Mr. Wopsle's greataunt kept an evening school in the village that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle 'examined the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge throwing his bloodstained sword in thunder down, and taking the Wardenouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not with me then, as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of both gentlemen. Mr. Wopsle's greataunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution, kept in the same rooma little general shop. She had no idea what stock she had, or what the price of anything in it was but there was a little greasy memorandumbook kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transactions. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's greataunt's granddaughter I confess myself quite unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of her extremities for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at heel. This description must be received with a weekday limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated. Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle's greataunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramblebush getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale. One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this epistle 'MI DEER JO i OPE U R KRWITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL   TEEDGE U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD  U JO WOT LARX AN BLEVE ME INF XN PIP. There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe received it as a miracle of erudition. 'I say, Pip, old chap! cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, 'what a scholar you are! An't you? 'I should like to be, said I, glancing at the slate as he held it with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly. 'Why, here's a J, said Joe, 'and a O equal to anythink! Here's a J and a O, Pip, and a JO, Joe. I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I accidentally held our PrayerBook upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, 'Ah! But read the rest, Jo. 'The rest, eh, Pip? said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching eye, 'One, two, three. Why, here's three Js, and three Os, and three JO, Joes in it, Pip! I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the whole letter. 'Astonishing! said Joe, when I had finished. 'You ARE a scholar. 'How do you spell Gargery, Joe? I asked him, with a modest patronage. 'I don't spell it at all, said Joe. 'But supposing you did? 'It can't be supposed, said Joe. 'Tho' I'm uncommon fond of reading, too. 'Are you, Joe? 'Oncommon. Give me, said Joe, 'a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord! he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, 'when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, 'Here, at last, is a JO, Joe,' how interesting reading is! I derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet in its infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired, 'Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me? 'No, Pip. 'Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me? 'Well, Pip, said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire between the lower bars 'I'll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering he did, indeed, 'xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn't hammer at his anwil.You're a listening and understanding, Pip? 'Yes, Joe. 'Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several times and then my mother she'd go out to work, and she'd say, 'Joe, she'd say, 'now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child, and she'd put me to school. But my father were that good in his hart that he couldn't abear to be without us. So, he'd come with a most tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see, Pip, said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and looking at me, 'were a drawback on my learning. 'Certainly, poor Joe! 'Though mind you, Pip, said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the poker on the top bar, 'rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his hart, don't you see? I didn't see but I didn't say so. 'Well! Joe pursued, 'somebody must keep the pot abiling, Pip, or the pot won't bile, don't you know? I saw that, and said so. 'Consequence, my father didn't make objections to my going to work so I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his tombstone that, Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his heart. Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself. 'I made it, said Joe, 'my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much surprised in all my life,couldn't credit my own ed,to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him but poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren't long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last. Joe's blue eyes turned a little watery he rubbed first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker. 'It were but lonesome then, said Joe, 'living here alone, and I got acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,Joe looked firmly at me as if he knew I was not going to agree with him'your sister is a fine figure of a woman. I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt. 'Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world's opinions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is, Joe tapped the top bar with the poker after every word following, 'afinefigureofawoman! I could think of nothing better to say than 'I am glad you think so, Joe. 'So am I, returned Joe, catching me up. 'I am glad I think so, Pip. A little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it signify to Me? I sagaciously observed, if it didn't signify to him, to whom did it signify? 'Certainly! assented Joe. 'That's it. You're right, old chap! When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. As to you, Joe pursued with a countenance expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, 'if you could have been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you'd have formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself! Not exactly relishing this, I said, 'Never mind me, Joe. 'But I did mind you, Pip, he returned with tender simplicity. 'When I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, 'And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,' I said to your sister, 'there's room for him at the forge!' I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, 'Ever the best of friends an't us, Pip? Don't cry, old chap! When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed 'Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That's about where it lights here we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn't see too much of what we're up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. And why on the sly? I'll tell you why, Pip. He had taken up the poker again without which, I doubt if he could have proceeded in his demonstration. 'Your sister is given to government. 'Given to government, Joe? I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea (and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a favour of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury. 'Given to government, said Joe. 'Which I meantersay the government of you and myself. 'Oh! 'And she an't over partial to having scholars on the premises, Joe continued, 'and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don't you see? I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as 'Why when Joe stopped me. 'Stay a bit. I know what you're agoing to say, Pip stay a bit! I don't deny that your sister comes the Mogul over us, now and again. I don't deny that she do throw us backfalls, and that she do drop down upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Rampage, Pip, Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, 'candour compels fur to admit that she is a Buster. Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital Bs. 'Why don't I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off, Pip? 'Yes, Joe. 'Well, said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he might feel his whisker and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that placid occupation 'your sister's a mastermind. A mastermind. 'What's that? I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, 'Her. 'And I ain't a mastermind, Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look, and got back to his whisker. 'And last of all, Pip,and this I want to say very serious to you, old chap,I see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I'm dead afeerd of going wrong in the way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd fur rather of the two go wrong the t'other way, and be a little illconwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip I wish there warn't no Tickler for you, old chap I wish I could take it all on myself but this is the upanddownandstraight on it, Pip, and I hope you'll overlook shortcomings. Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart. 'However, said Joe, rising to replenish the fire 'here's the Dutchclock aworking himself up to being equal to strike Eight of 'em, and she's not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook's mare mayn't have set a forefoot on a piece o' ice, and gone down. Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on marketdays, to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his domestic servant. This was marketday, and Mrs. Joe was out on one of these expeditions. Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to listen for the chaisecart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude. 'Here comes the mare, said Joe, 'ringing like a peal of bells! The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as she came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready for Mrs. Joe's alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire. 'Now, said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings, 'if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will be! I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that expression. 'It's only to be hoped, said my sister, 'that he won't be Pompeyed. But I have my fears. 'She ain't in that line, Mum, said Mr. Pumblechook. 'She knows better. She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows, 'She? Joe looked at me, making the motion with his lips and eyebrows, 'She? My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and looked at her. 'Well? said my sister, in her snappish way. 'What are you staring at? Is the house afire? 'Which some individual, Joe politely hinted, 'mentionedshe. 'And she is a she, I suppose? said my sister. 'Unless you call Miss Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you'll go so far as that. 'Miss Havisham, up town? said Joe. 'Is there any Miss Havisham down town? returned my sister. 'She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And he had better play there, said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, 'or I'll work him. I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,everybody for miles round had heard of Miss Havisham up town,as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion. 'Well to be sure! said Joe, astounded. 'I wonder how she come to know Pip! 'Noodle! cried my sister. 'Who said she knew him? 'Which some individual, Joe again politely hinted, 'mentioned that she wanted him to go and play there. 'And couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? Isn't it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimeswe won't say quarterly or halfyearly, for that would be requiring too much of youbut sometimesgo there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for usthough you may not think it, Joseph, in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews, 'then mention this boy, standing Prancing herewhich I solemnly declare I was not doing'that I have for ever been a willing slave to? 'Good again! cried Uncle Pumblechook. 'Well put! Prettily pointed! Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case. 'No, Joseph, said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose, 'you do not yetthough you may not think itknow the case. You may consider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you do not know that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered to take him into town tonight in his own chaisecart, and to keep him tonight, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's tomorrow morning. And Loramussy me! cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, 'here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot! With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of waterbutts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I may here remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted than any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a weddingring, passing unsympathetically over the human countenance.) When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along 'Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand! 'Goodbye, Joe! 'God bless you, Pip, old chap! I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaisecart. But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what on earth I was expected to play at. Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market town, were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a cornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a very happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop and I wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the tiedup brown paper packets inside, whether the flowerseeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom. It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in an attic with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the bedstead was, that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my eyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered a singular affinity between seeds and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did his shopman and somehow, there was a general air and flavour about the corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavour about the seeds, so much in the nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew which was which. The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with a magnifyingglass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of smockfrocks poring over him through the glass of his shopwindow, seemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade engaged his attention. Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlour behind the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread and butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr. Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted to my diet,besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out altogether,his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding him Goodmorning, he said, pompously, 'Seven times nine, boy? And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the breakfast. 'Seven? 'And four? 'And eight? 'And six? 'And two? 'And ten? And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came while he sat at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I may be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner. For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we started for Miss Havisham's though I was not at all at my ease regarding the manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred so we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. Pumblechook said, 'And fourteen? but I pretended not to hear him), and saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long time. A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded 'What name? To which my conductor replied, 'Pumblechook. The voice returned, 'Quite right, and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the courtyard, with keys in her hand. 'This, said Mr. Pumblechook, 'is Pip. 'This is Pip, is it? returned the young lady, who was very pretty and seemed very proud 'come in, Pip. Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate. 'Oh! she said. 'Did you wish to see Miss Havisham? 'If Miss Havisham wished to see me, returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited. 'Ah! said the girl 'but you see she don't. She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me severely,as if I had done anything to him!and departed with the words reproachfully delivered 'Boy! Let your behaviour here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand! I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound through the gate, 'And sixteen? But he didn't. My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea. She saw me looking at it, and she said, 'You could drink without hurt all the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy. 'I should think I could, miss, said I, in a shy way. 'Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy don't you think so? 'It looks like it, miss. 'Not that anybody means to try, she added, 'for that's all done with, and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As to strong beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor House. 'Is that the name of this house, miss? 'One of its names, boy. 'It has more than one, then, miss? 'One more. Its other name was Satis which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all threeor all one to mefor enough. 'Enough House, said I 'that's a curious name, miss. 'Yes, she replied 'but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't loiter, boy. Though she called me 'boy so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and selfpossessed and she was as scornful of me as if she had been oneandtwenty, and a queen. We went into the house by a side door, the great front entrance had two chains across it outside,and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us. At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, 'Go in. I answered, more in shyness than politeness, 'After you, miss. To this she returned 'Don't be ridiculous, boy I am not going in. And scornfully walked away, andwhat was worsetook the candle with her. This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressingroom, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded lookingglass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressingtable. Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an armchair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. She was dressed in rich materials,satins, and lace, and silks,all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and halfpacked trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on,the other was on the table near her hand,her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a PrayerBook all confusedly heaped about the lookingglass. It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could. 'Who is it? said the lady at the table. 'Pip, ma'am. 'Pip? 'Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Cometo play. 'Come nearer let me look at you. Come close. It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. 'Look at me, said Miss Havisham. 'You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born? I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer 'No. 'Do you know what I touch here? she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side. 'Yes, ma'am. (It made me think of the young man.) 'What do I touch? 'Your heart. 'Broken! She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy. 'I am tired, said Miss Havisham. 'I want diversion, and I have done with men and women. Play. I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide world more difficult to be done under the circumstances. 'I sometimes have sick fancies, she went on, 'and I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. There, there! with an impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand 'play, play, play! For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of Mr. Pumblechook's chaisecart. But I felt myself so unequal to the performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when we had taken a good look at each other, 'Are you sullen and obstinate? 'No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so I would do it if I could but it's so new here, and so strange, and so fine,and melancholy. I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or had already said it, and we took another look at each other. Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressingtable, and finally at herself in the lookingglass. 'So new to him, she muttered, 'so old to me so strange to him, so familiar to me so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella. As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was still talking to herself, and kept quiet. 'Call Estella, she repeated, flashing a look at me. 'You can do that. Call Estella. At the door. To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage like a star. Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the table, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her pretty brown hair. 'Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it well. Let me see you play cards with this boy. 'With this boy? Why, he is a common labouringboy! I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,only it seemed so unlikely,'Well? You can break his heart. 'What do you play, boy? asked Estella of myself, with the greatest disdain. 'Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss. 'Beggar him, said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards. It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressingtable again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could have looked so like graveclothes, or the long veil so like a shroud. So she sat, corpselike, as we played at cards the frillings and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing then of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly seen but, I have often thought since, that she must have looked as if the admission of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust. 'He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy! said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. 'And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots! I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it. She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong and she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy labouringboy. 'You say nothing of her, remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked on. 'She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her? 'I don't like to say, I stammered. 'Tell me in my ear, said Miss Havisham, bending down. 'I think she is very proud, I replied, in a whisper. 'Anything else? 'I think she is very pretty. 'Anything else? 'I think she is very insulting. (She was looking at me then with a look of supreme aversion.) 'Anything else? 'I think I should like to go home. 'And never see her again, though she is so pretty? 'I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like to go home now. 'You shall go soon, said Miss Havisham, aloud. 'Play the game out. Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost sure that Miss Havisham's face could not smile. It had dropped into a watchful and brooding expression,most likely when all the things about her had become transfixed,and it looked as if nothing could ever lift it up again. Her chest had dropped, so that she stooped and her voice had dropped, so that she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her altogether, she had the appearance of having dropped body and soul, within and without, under the weight of a crushing blow. I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she despised them for having been won of me. 'When shall I have you here again? said Miss Havisham. 'Let me think. I was beginning to remind her that today was Wednesday, when she checked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand. 'There, there! I know nothing of days of the week I know nothing of weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear? 'Yes, ma'am. 'Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip. I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be nighttime. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room many hours. 'You are to wait here, you boy, said Estella and disappeared and closed the door. I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favourable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picturecards Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too. She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,I cannot hit upon the right name for the smartGod knows what its name was,that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of them. This gave me power to keep them back and to look at her so, she gave a contemptuous tossbut with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure that I was so woundedand left me. But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewerylane, and leaned my sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair so bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that needed counteraction. My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rockinghorse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a bigboned Irish hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive. I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my face with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat were acceptable, and the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon in spirits to look about me. To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeonhouse in the breweryyard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high wind, and would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there had been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But there were no pigeons in the dovecot, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in the storehouse, no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat. All the uses and scents of the brewery might have evaporated with its last reek of smoke. In a byyard, there was a wilderness of empty casks, which had a certain sour remembrance of better days lingering about them but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of the beer that was gone,and in this respect I remember those recluses as being like most others. Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden with an old wall not so high but that I could struggle up and hold on long enough to look over it, and see that the rank garden was the garden of the house, and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was a track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked there, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw her walking on them at the end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held her pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never looked round, and passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery itself,by which I mean the large paved lofty place in which they used to make the beer, and where the brewing utensils still were. When I first went into it, and, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the door looking about me, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and ascend some light iron stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, as if she were going out into the sky. It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a stranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyesa little dimmed by looking up at the frosty lighttowards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet and it hung so, that I could see that the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was greatest of all when I found no figure there. Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of people passing beyond the bars of the courtyard gate, and the reviving influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened and she would have no fair reason. She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with a taunting hand. 'Why don't you cry? 'Because I don't want to. 'You do, said she. 'You have been crying till you are half blind, and you are near crying again now. She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook's, and was immensely relieved to find him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the fourmile walk to our forge pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouringboy that my hands were coarse that my boots were thick that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a lowlived bad way. When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length. If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine,which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,it is the key to many reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham's as my eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I felt convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood and although she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an impression that there would be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging her as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the contemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I could, and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall. The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping over in his chaisecart at teatime, to have the details divulged to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence. 'Well, boy, Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the chair of honour by the fire. 'How did you get on up town? I answered, 'Pretty well, sir, and my sister shook her fist at me. 'Pretty well? Mr. Pumblechook repeated. 'Pretty well is no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy? Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered a new idea, 'I mean pretty well. My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,I had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,when Mr. Pumblechook interposed with 'No! Don't lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma'am leave this lad to me. Mr. Pumblechook then turned me towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said, 'First (to get our thoughts in order) Fortythree pence? I calculated the consequences of replying 'Four Hundred Pound, and finding them against me, went as near the answer as I couldwhich was somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pencetable from 'twelve pence make one shilling, up to 'forty pence make three and fourpence, and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had done for me, 'Now! How much is fortythree pence? To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, 'I don't know. And I was so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know. Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me, and said, 'Is fortythree pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for instance? 'Yes! said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and brought him to a dead stop. 'Boy! What like is Miss Havisham? Mr. Pumblechook began again when he had recovered folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the screw. 'Very tall and dark, I told him. 'Is she, uncle? asked my sister. Mr. Pumblechook winked assent from which I at once inferred that he had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind. 'Good! said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. ('This is the way to have him! We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?) 'I am sure, uncle, returned Mrs. Joe, 'I wish you had him always you know so well how to deal with him. 'Now, boy! What was she adoing of, when you went in today? asked Mr. Pumblechook. 'She was sitting, I answered, 'in a black velvet coach. Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one anotheras they well mightand both repeated, 'In a black velvet coach? 'Yes, said I. 'And Miss Estellathat's her niece, I thinkhanded her in cake and wine at the coachwindow, on a gold plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine, because she told me to. 'Was anybody else there? asked Mr. Pumblechook. 'Four dogs, said I. 'Large or small? 'Immense, said I. 'And they fought for vealcutlets out of a silver basket. Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter amazement. I was perfectly frantic,a reckless witness under the torture,and would have told them anything. 'Where was this coach, in the name of gracious? asked my sister. 'In Miss Havisham's room. They stared again. 'But there weren't any horses to it. I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of harnessing. 'Can this be possible, uncle? asked Mrs. Joe. 'What can the boy mean? 'I'll tell you, Mum, said Mr. Pumblechook. 'My opinion is, it's a sedanchair. She's flighty, you know,very flighty,quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedanchair. 'Did you ever see her in it, uncle? asked Mrs. Joe. 'How could I, he returned, forced to the admission, 'when I never see her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her! 'Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her? 'Why, don't you know, said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, 'that when I have been there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the door has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you don't know that, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play at, boy? 'We played with flags, I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.) 'Flags! echoed my sister. 'Yes, said I. 'Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the coachwindow. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed. 'Swords! repeated my sister. 'Where did you get swords from? 'Out of a cupboard, said I. 'And I saw pistols in it,and jam,and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles. 'That's true, Mum, said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. 'That's the state of the case, for that much I've seen myself. And then they both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right hand. If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I escaped. The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for the gratification of his, related my pretended experiences. Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence but only as regarded him,not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards Joe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance and favour. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would 'do something for me their doubts related to the form that something would take. My sister stood out for 'property. Mr. Pumblechook was in favour of a handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,say, the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the vealcutlets. 'If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that, said my sister, 'and you have got any work to do, you had better go and do it. So he went. After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for the night. Then I said, 'Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you something. 'Should you, Pip? said Joe, drawing his shoeingstool near the forge. 'Then tell us. What is it, Pip? 'Joe, said I, taking hold of his rolledup shirt sleeve, and twisting it between my finger and thumb, 'you remember all that about Miss Havisham's? 'Remember? said Joe. 'I believe you! Wonderful! 'It's a terrible thing, Joe it ain't true. 'What are you telling of, Pip? cried Joe, falling back in the greatest amazement. 'You don't mean to say it's 'Yes I do it's lies, Joe. 'But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was no black welwet coeh? For, I stood shaking my head. 'But at least there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip, said Joe, persuasively, 'if there warn't no wealcutlets, at least there was dogs? 'No, Joe. 'A dog? said Joe. 'A puppy? Come? 'No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind. As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay. 'Pip, old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect to go to? 'It's terrible, Joe ain't it? 'Terrible? cried Joe. 'Awful! What possessed you? 'I don't know what possessed me, Joe, I replied, letting his shirt sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head 'but I wish you hadn't taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks and I wish my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse. And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, who were so rude to me, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I knew I was common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the lies had come of it somehow, though I didn't know how. This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal with as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of metaphysics, and by that means vanquished it. 'There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip, said Joe, after some rumination, 'namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar. 'No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe. 'Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I've seen lettersAh! and from gentlefolks!that I'll swear weren't wrote in print, said Joe. 'I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only that. 'Well, Pip, said Joe, 'be it so or be it son't, you must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his ed, can't sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted Prince, with the alphabet.Ah! added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning, 'and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z. And I know what that is to do, though I can't say I've exactly done it. There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged me. 'Whether common ones as to callings and earnings, pursued Joe, reflectively, 'mightn't be the better of continuing for to keep company with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon ones,which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps? 'No, Joe. '(I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip). Whether that might be or mightn't be, is a thing as can't be looked into now, without putting your sister on the Rampage and that's a thing not to be thought of as being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die happy. 'You are not angry with me, Joe? 'No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay of a stunning and outdacious sort,alluding to them which bordered on wealcutlets and dogfighting,a sincere wellwisher would adwise, Pip, their being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed. That's all, old chap, and don't never do it no more. When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget Joe's recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I 'used to do when I was at Miss Havisham's as though I had been there weeks or months, instead of hours and as though it were quite an old subject of remembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day. That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's greataunt's at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise within five minutes. The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's greataunt may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's greataunt collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a birchrod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling,that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's greataunt fell into a state of coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject of Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with, speckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what we could,or what we couldn'tin a frightful chorus Biddy leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we were reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's greataunt, who staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate the Course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition against any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with the ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch of study in the winter season, on account of the little general shop in which the classes were holdenand which was also Mr. Wopsle's greataunt's sittingroom and bedchamberbeing but faintly illuminated through the agency of one lowspirited dipcandle and no snuffers. It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under these circumstances nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that very evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by imparting some information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D which she had imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed, until she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle. Of course there was a publichouse in the village, and of course Joe liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders from my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To the Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps. There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk scores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to be never paid off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and had grown more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our country, and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning it to account. It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly at these records but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I merely wished him good evening, and passed into the common room at the end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, and where Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with 'Halloa, Pip, old chap! and the moment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me. He was a secretlooking man whom I had never seen before. His head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were taking aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away and looking hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit down there. But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of resort, I said 'No, thank you, sir, and fell into the space Joe made for me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again when I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his legin a very odd way, as it struck me. 'You was saying, said the strange man, turning to Joe, 'that you was a blacksmith. 'Yes. I said it, you know, said Joe. 'What'll you drink, Mr.? You didn't mention your name, by the bye. Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it. 'What'll you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with? 'Well, said Joe, 'to tell you the truth, I ain't much in the habit of drinking at anybody's expense but my own. 'Habit? No, returned the stranger, 'but once and away, and on a Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery. 'I wouldn't wish to be stiff company, said Joe. 'Rum. 'Rum, repeated the stranger. 'And will the other gentleman originate a sentiment. 'Rum, said Mr. Wopsle. 'Three Rums! cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. 'Glasses round! 'This other gentleman, observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle, 'is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our clerk at church. 'Aha! said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. 'The lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it! 'That's it, said Joe. The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping broadbrimmed traveller's hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his head in the manner of a cap so that he showed no hair. As he looked at the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, followed by a halflaugh, come into his face. 'I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a solitary country towards the river. 'Most marshes is solitary, said Joe. 'No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or vagrants of any sort, out there? 'No, said Joe 'none but a runaway convict now and then. And we don't find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle? Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented but not warmly. 'Seems you have been out after such? asked the stranger. 'Once, returned Joe. 'Not that we wanted to take them, you understand we went out as lookers on me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us, Pip? 'Yes, Joe. The stranger looked at me again,still cocking his eye, as if he were expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,and said, 'He's a likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him? 'Pip, said Joe. 'Christened Pip? 'No, not christened Pip. 'Surname Pip? 'No, said Joe, 'it's a kind of family name what he gave himself when a infant, and is called by. 'Son of yours? 'Well, said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was discussed over pipes,'wellno. No, he ain't. 'Nevvy? said the strange man. 'Well, said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, 'he is notno, not to deceive you, he is notmy nevvy. 'What the Blue Blazes is he? asked the stranger. Which appeared to me to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength. Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that as one who knew all about relationships, having professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man might not marry and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had done quite enough to account for it when he added, 'as the poet says. And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into my eyes. I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who visited at our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some largehanded person took some such ophthalmic steps to patronise me. All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at me as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, until the glasses of rum and water were brought and then he made his shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was. It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumbshow, and was pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me, and he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and he tasted it not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file. He did this so that nobody but I saw the file and when he had done it he wiped the file and put it in a breastpocket. I knew it to be Joe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the instrument. I sat gazing at him, spellbound. But he now reclined on his settle, taking very little notice of me, and talking principally about turnips. There was a delicious sense of cleaningup and making a quiet pause before going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which stimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays than at other times. The halfhour and the rum and water running out together, Joe got up to go, and took me by the hand. 'Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery, said the strange man. 'I think I've got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the boy shall have it. He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some crumpled paper, and gave it to me. 'Yours! said he. 'Mind! Your own. I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners, and holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe goodnight, and he gave Mr. Wopsle goodnight (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look with his aiming eye,no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done with an eye by hiding it. On the way home, if I had been in a humour for talking, the talk must have been all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted from us at the door of the Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as possible. But I was in a manner stupefied by this turning up of my old misdeed and old acquaintance, and could think of nothing else. My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in the kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell her about the bright shilling. 'A bad un, I'll be bound, said Mrs. Joe triumphantly, 'or he wouldn't have given it to the boy! Let's look at it. I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. 'But what's this? said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and catching up the paper. 'Two OnePound notes? Nothing less than two fat sweltering onepound notes that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattlemarkets in the county. Joe caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly Bargemen to restore them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down on my usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure that the man would not be there. Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he, Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some dried roseleaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in the state parlour. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many a night and day. I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the guiltily coarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with convicts,a feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten. I was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least expected it, the file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by thinking of Miss Havisham's, next Wednesday and in my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I screamed myself awake. At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the candle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously saying, 'You are to come this way today, and took me to quite another part of the house. The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square basement of the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square, however, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in a small paved courtyard, the opposite side of which was formed by a detached dwellinghouse, that looked as if it had once belonged to the manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and like Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. We went in at the door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a low ceiling, on the groundfloor at the back. There was some company in the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, 'You are to go and stand there boy, till you are wanted. 'There, being the window, I crossed to it, and stood 'there, in a very uncomfortable state of mind, looking out. It opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the neglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbagestalks, and one boxtree that had been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different colour, as if that part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This was my homely thought, as I contemplated the boxtree. There had been some light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge but, it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden, and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the window, as if it pelted me for coming there. I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that its other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room except the shining of the fire in the windowglass, but I stiffened in all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection. There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs because the admission that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug. They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face. 'Poor dear soul! said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my sister's. 'Nobody's enemy but his own! 'It would be much more commendable to be somebody else's enemy, said the gentleman 'far more natural. 'Cousin Raymond, observed another lady, 'we are to love our neighbour. 'Sarah Pocket, returned Cousin Raymond, 'if a man is not his own neighbour, who is? Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn), 'The idea! But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good idea too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and emphatically, 'Very true! 'Poor soul! Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been looking at me in the mean time), 'he is so very strange! Would anyone believe that when Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to see the importance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings to their mourning? 'Good Lord!' says he, 'Camilla, what can it signify so long as the poor bereaved little things are in black?' So like Matthew! The idea! 'Good points in him, good points in him, said Cousin Raymond 'Heaven forbid I should deny good points in him but he never had, and he never will have, any sense of the proprieties. 'You know I was obliged, said Camilla,'I was obliged to be firm. I said, 'It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.' I told him that, without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out in his violent way, and said, with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly went out in a pouring rain and bought the things. 'He paid for them, did he not? asked Estella. 'It's not the question, my dear child, who paid for them, returned Camilla. 'I bought them. And I shall often think of that with peace, when I wake up in the night. The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or call along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the conversation and caused Estella to say to me, 'Now, boy! On my turning round, they all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard Sarah Pocket say, 'Well I am sure! What next! and Camilla add, with indignation, 'Was there ever such a fancy! The idea! As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting manner, with her face quite close to mine, 'Well? 'Well, miss? I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself. She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her. 'Am I pretty? 'Yes I think you are very pretty. 'Am I insulting? 'Not so much so as you were last time, said I. 'Not so much so? 'No. She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with such force as she had, when I answered it. 'Now? said she. 'You little coarse monster, what do you think of me now? 'I shall not tell you. 'Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it? 'No, said I, 'that's not it. 'Why don't you cry again, you little wretch? 'Because I'll never cry for you again, said I. Which was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made for I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards. We went on our way upstairs after this episode and, as we were going up, we met a gentleman groping his way down. 'Whom have we here? asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me. 'A boy, said Estella. He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watchchain, and strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. He was nothing to me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be anything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of observing him well. 'Boy of the neighbourhood? Hey? said he. 'Yes, sir, said I. 'How do you come here? 'Miss Havisham sent for me, sir, I explained. 'Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind! said he, biting the side of his great forefinger as he frowned at me, 'you behave yourself! With those words, he released mewhich I was glad of, for his hand smelt of scented soapand went his way downstairs. I wondered whether he could be a doctor but no, I thought he couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where she and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her eyes upon me from the dressingtable. 'So! she said, without being startled or surprised 'the days have worn away, have they? 'Yes, ma'am. Today is 'There, there, there! with the impatient movement of her fingers. 'I don't want to know. Are you ready to play? I was obliged to answer in some confusion, 'I don't think I am, ma'am. 'Not at cards again? she demanded, with a searching look. 'Yes, ma'am I could do that, if I was wanted. 'Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy, said Miss Havisham, impatiently, 'and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work? I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to find for the other question, and I said I was quite willing. 'Then go into that opposite room, said she, pointing at the door behind me with her withered hand, 'and wait there till I come. I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp oldfashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air,like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimneypiece faintly lighted the chamber or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centrepiece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw specklelegged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community. I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were shortsighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another. These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutchheaded stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place. 'This, said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, 'is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here. With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realisation of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch. 'What do you think that is? she asked me, again pointing with her stick 'that, where those cobwebs are? 'I can't guess what it is, ma'am. 'It's a great cake. A bridecake. Mine! She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, 'Come, come, come! Walk me, walk me! I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss Havisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr. Pumblechook's chaisecart. She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, 'Slower! Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a while she said, 'Call Estella! so I went out on the landing and roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round and round the room. If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should have felt sufficiently discontented but as she brought with her the three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't know what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped but Miss Havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,with a shamefaced consciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing. 'Dear Miss Havisham, said Miss Sarah Pocket. 'How well you look! 'I do not, returned Miss Havisham. 'I am yellow skin and bone. Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff and she murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, 'Poor dear soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea! 'And how are you? said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss Havisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly obnoxious to Camilla. 'Thank you, Miss Havisham, she returned, 'I am as well as can be expected. 'Why, what's the matter with you? asked Miss Havisham, with exceeding sharpness. 'Nothing worth mentioning, replied Camilla. 'I don't wish to make a display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in the night than I am quite equal to. 'Then don't think of me, retorted Miss Havisham. 'Very easily said! remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob, while a hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears overflowed. 'Raymond is a witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night. Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs. Chokings and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive, I should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure I wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the nightThe idea! Here, a burst of tears. The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point, and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, 'Camilla, my dear, it is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other. 'I am not aware, observed the grave lady whose voice I had heard but once, 'that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that person, my dear. Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnutshells, and a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers, supported this position by saying, 'No, indeed, my dear. Hem! 'Thinking is easy enough, said the grave lady. 'What is easier, you know? assented Miss Sarah Pocket. 'Oh, yes, yes! cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to rise from her legs to her bosom. 'It's all very true! It's a weakness to be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my disposition if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's a consolation to know I posses it, when I wake up in the night. Here another burst of feeling. Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but kept going round and round the room now brushing against the skirts of the visitors, now giving them the whole length of the dismal chamber. 'There's Matthew! said Camilla. 'Never mixing with any natural ties, never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa with my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my head over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don't know where ('Much higher than your head, my love, said Mr. Camilla.) 'I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on account of Matthew's strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked me. 'Really I must say I should think not! interposed the grave lady. 'You see, my dear, added Miss Sarah Pocket (a blandly vicious personage), 'the question to put to yourself is, who did you expect to thank you, my love? 'Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort, resumed Camilla, 'I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the pianoforte tuner's across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,and now to be told Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical as to the formation of new combinations there. When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and herself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great influence in bringing Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end. 'Matthew will come and see me at last, said Miss Havisham, sternly, 'when I am laid on that table. That will be his place,there, striking the table with her stick, 'at my head! And yours will be there! And your husband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there! And Georgiana's there! Now you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me. And now go! At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in a new place. She now said, 'Walk me, walk me! and we went on again. 'I suppose there's nothing to be done, exclaimed Camilla, 'but comply and depart. It's something to have seen the object of one's love and duty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a display of my feelings, but it's very hard to be told one wants to feast on one's relations,as if one was a Giant,and to be told to go. The bare idea! Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her heaving bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I supposed to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah Pocket and Georgiana contended who should remain last but Sarah was too knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful slipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with, 'Bless you, Miss Havisham dear! and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnutshell countenance for the weaknesses of the rest. While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still walked with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it some seconds, 'This is my birthday, Pip. I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick. 'I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were here just now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but they dare not refer to it. Of course I made no further effort to refer to it. 'On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay, stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table, but not touching it, 'was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me. She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the table she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered the once white cloth all yellow and withered everything around in a state to crumble under a touch. 'When the ruin is complete, said she, with a ghastly look, 'and when they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table,which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him,so much the better if it is done on this day! She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might presently begin to decay. At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an instant, Miss Havisham said, 'Let me see you two play cards why have you not begun? With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as before I was beggared, as before and again, as before, Miss Havisham watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, and made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and hair. Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she did not condescend to speak. When we had played some halfdozen games, a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard to be fed in the former doglike manner. There, too, I was again left to wander about as I liked. It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which I had scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I saw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let the visitors out,for she had returned with the keys in her hand,I strolled into the garden, and strolled all over it. It was quite a wilderness, and there were old melonframes and cucumberframes in it, which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a weedy offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan. When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse with nothing in it but a fallendown grapevine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal corner upon which I had looked out of the window. Never questioning for a moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window, and found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside me. He had been at his books when I had found myself staring at him, and I now saw that he was inky. 'Halloa! said he, 'young fellow! Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to be best answered by itself, I said, 'Halloa! politely omitting young fellow. 'Who let you in? said he. 'Miss Estella. 'Who gave you leave to prowl about? 'Miss Estella. 'Come and fight, said the pale young gentleman. What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question since but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was so astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a spell. 'Stop a minute, though, he said, wheeling round before we had gone many paces. 'I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it is! In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach. The bulllike proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. I therefore hit out at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, 'Aha! Would you? and began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled within my limited experience. 'Laws of the game! said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to his right. 'Regular rules! Here, he skipped from his right leg on to his left. 'Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries! Here, he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I looked helplessly at him. I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous but I felt morally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I followed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed by the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. 'Available for both, he said, placing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once lighthearted, businesslike, and bloodthirsty. Although he did not look very healthy,having pimples on his face, and a breaking out at his mouth,these dreadful preparations quite appalled me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he had a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For the rest, he was a young gentleman in a grey suit (when not denuded for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in advance of the rest of him as to development. My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life, as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly foreshortened. But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a black eye. His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out of the waterbottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself according to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I hit him but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a few times, not knowing where I was but finally went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up at the same time panting out, 'That means you have won. He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly wiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, 'Can I help you? and he said 'No thankee, and I said 'Good afternoon, and he said 'Same to you. When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella waiting with the keys. But she neither asked me where I had been, nor why I had kept her waiting and there was a bright flush upon her face, as though something had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too, she stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me. 'Come here! You may kiss me, if you like. I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing. What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against a black nightsky, and Joe's furnace was flinging a path of fire across the road. My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the pale young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home, and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation before going on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman's nose had stained my trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman's teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of accounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before the Judges. When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice, especially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gatewhether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those graveclothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me deadwhether suborned boysa numerous band of mercenariesmight be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no moreit was high testimony to my confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him accessory to these retaliations they always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy with the family features. However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold! nothing came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows of the detached house but my view was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the young gentleman's existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with gardenmould from the eye of man. On the broad landing between Miss Havisham's own room and that other room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a gardenchair,a light chair on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed there since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular occupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and across the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months. As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more to me, and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was I going to be? I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I believed and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know everything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that desirable end. But she did not on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,or anything but my daily dinner,nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my services. Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me sometimes, she would condescend to me sometimes, she would be quite familiar with me sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she hated me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were alone, 'Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip? And when I said yes (for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella's moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like 'Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy! There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering homage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation towards smiths. It was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's respected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys roundOld Clem! With a thump and a soundOld Clem! Beat it out, beat it outOld Clem! With a clink for the stoutOld Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fireOld Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higherOld Clem! One day soon after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the impatient movement of her fingers, 'There, there, there! Sing! I was surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy that she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her sleep. After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would often join in though the whole strain was so subdued, even when there were three of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind. What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms? Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger to be put into the black velvet coach therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy but I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though I think I know now. Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaisecart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him,as it were, to operate upon,and he would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, 'Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, Mum, with respections to this boy! And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way,which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellowcreature to do,and would hold me before him by the sleeve,a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself. Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, that I used to wantquite painfullyto burst into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference while Pumblechook himself, selfconstituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job. In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at, while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe's perceiving that he was not favourable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old enough now to be apprenticed to Joe and when Joe sat with the poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition on his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, 'Come! there's enough of you! You get along to bed you've given trouble enough for one night, I hope! As if I had besought them as a favour to bother my life out. We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my shoulder and said with some displeasure, 'You are growing tall, Pip! I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control. She said no more at the time but she presently stopped and looked at me again and presently again and after that, looked frowning and moody. On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and I had landed her at her dressingtable, she stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers 'Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours. 'Joe Gargery, ma'am. 'Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to? 'Yes, Miss Havisham. 'You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with you, and bring your indentures, do you think? I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honour to be asked. 'Then let him come. 'At any particular time, Miss Havisham? 'There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come along with you. When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister 'went on the Rampage, in a more alarming degree than at any previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was doormats under our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously thought she was fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan,which was always a very bad sign,put on her coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbingbrush, and cleaned us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the backyard. It was ten o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and then she asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at once? Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a better speculation. It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss Havisham's. However, as he thought his courtsuit necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his workingdress the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his shirtcollar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. At breakfasttime my sister declared her intention of going to town with us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook's and called for 'when we had done with our fine ladiesa way of putting the case, from which Joe appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken. We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited Straw, a pair of pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it was a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these articles were carried penitentially or ostentatiously but I rather think they were displayed as articles of property,much as Cleopatra or any other sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or procession. When we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced in and left us. As it was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's house. Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands as if he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce. Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew so well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of his toes. Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coatcuff and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence. She was seated at her dressingtable, and looked round at us immediately. 'Oh! said she to Joe. 'You are the husband of the sister of this boy? I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or so like some extraordinary bird standing as he did speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm. 'You are the husband, repeated Miss Havisham, 'of the sister of this boy? It was very aggravating but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham. 'Which I meantersay, Pip, Joe now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great politeness, 'as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man. 'Well! said Miss Havisham. 'And you have reared the boy, with the intention of taking him for your apprentice is that so, Mr. Gargery? 'You know, Pip, replied Joe, 'as you and me were ever friends, and it were looked for'ard to betwixt us, as being calc'lated to lead to larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made objections to the business,such as its being open to black and sut, or suchlike,not but what they would have been attended to, don't you see? 'Has the boy, said Miss Havisham, 'ever made any objection? Does he like the trade? 'Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip, returned Joe, strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness, 'that it were the wish of your own hart. (I saw the idea suddenly break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion, before he went on to say) 'And there weren't no objection on your part, and Pip it were the great wish of your hart! It was quite in vain for me to endeavour to make him sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he persisted in being to Me. 'Have you brought his indentures with you? asked Miss Havisham. 'Well, Pip, you know, replied Joe, as if that were a little unreasonable, 'you yourself see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you know as they are here. With which he took them out, and gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow,I know I was ashamed of him,when I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to Miss Havisham. 'You expected, said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, 'no premium with the boy? 'Joe! I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. 'Why don't you answer 'Pip, returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, 'which I meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt yourself and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it to be No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it? Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there and took up a little bag from the table beside her. 'Pip has earned a premium here, she said, 'and here it is. There are fiveandtwenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master, Pip. As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass, persisted in addressing me. 'This is wery liberal on your part, Pip, said Joe, 'and it is as such received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near, nor nowheres. And now, old chap, said Joe, conveying to me a sensation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar expression were applied to Miss Havisham,'and now, old chap, may we do our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and another, and by them which your liberal presenthaveconweyedto befor the satisfaction of mindofthem as never here Joe showed that he felt he had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued himself with the words, 'and from myself far be it! These words had such a round and convincing sound for him that he said them twice. 'Goodbye, Pip! said Miss Havisham. 'Let them out, Estella. 'Am I to come again, Miss Havisham? I asked. 'No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word! Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe in a distinct emphatic voice, 'The boy has been a good boy here, and that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no other and no more. How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine but I know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went after him and laid hold of him. In another minute we were outside the gate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone. When we stood in the daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me, 'Astonishing! And there he remained so long saying, 'Astonishing at intervals, so often, that I began to think his senses were never coming back. At length he prolonged his remark into 'Pip, I do assure you this is asTONishing! and so, by degrees, became conversational and able to walk away. I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook's he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in what took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlour where, on our presenting ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman. 'Well? cried my sister, addressing us both at once. 'And what's happened to you? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor society as this, I am sure I do! 'Miss Havisham, said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of remembrance, 'made it wery partick'ler that we should give herwere it compliments or respects, Pip? 'Compliments, I said. 'Which that were my own belief, answered Joe 'her compliments to Mrs. J. Gargery 'Much good they'll do me! observed my sister but rather gratified too. 'And wishing, pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another effort of remembrance, 'that the state of Miss Havisham's elth were sitch as would haveallowed, were it, Pip? 'Of her having the pleasure, I added. 'Of ladies' company, said Joe. And drew a long breath. 'Well! cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook. 'She might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but it's better late than never. And what did she give young Rantipole here? 'She giv' him, said Joe, 'nothing. Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on. 'What she giv', said Joe, 'she giv' to his friends. 'And by his friends,' were her explanation, 'I mean into the hands of his sister Mrs. J. Gargery.' Them were her words 'Mrs. J. Gargery.' She mayn't have know'd, added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, 'whether it were Joe, or Jorge. My sister looked at Pumblechook who smoothed the elbows of his wooden armchair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand. 'And how much have you got? asked my sister, laughing. Positively laughing! 'What would present company say to ten pound? demanded Joe. 'They'd say, returned my sister, curtly, 'pretty well. Not too much, but pretty well. 'It's more than that, then, said Joe. That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he rubbed the arms of his chair, 'It's more than that, Mum. 'Why, you don't mean to say began my sister. 'Yes I do, Mum, said Pumblechook 'but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good in you! Go on! 'What would present company say, proceeded Joe, 'to twenty pound? 'Handsome would be the word, returned my sister. 'Well, then, said Joe, 'It's more than twenty pound. That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a patronizing laugh, 'It's more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up, Joseph! 'Then to make an end of it, said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my sister 'it's fiveandtwenty pound. 'It's fiveandtwenty pound, Mum, echoed that basest of swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her 'and it's no more than your merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the money! If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, with a right of patronage that left all his former criminality far behind. 'Now you see, Joseph and wife, said Pumblechook, as he took me by the arm above the elbow, 'I am one of them that always go right through with what they've begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That's my way. Bound out of hand. 'Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook, said my sister (grasping the money), 'we're deeply beholden to you. 'Never mind me, Mum, returned that diabolical cornchandler. 'A pleasure's a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know we must have him bound. I said I'd see to itto tell you the truth. The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at once went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick indeed, it was the general impression in Court that I had been taken redhanded for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some people say, 'What's he done? and others, 'He's a young 'un, too, but looks bad, don't he? One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted up with a perfect sausageshop of fetters, and entitled TO BE READ IN MY CELL. The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a church,and with people hanging over the pews looking on,and with mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the newspapers,and with some shining black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and stickingplaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and attested, and I was 'bound Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while as if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little preliminaries disposed of. When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disappointed to find that my friends were merely rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's. And there my sister became so excited by the twentyfive guineas, that nothing would serve her but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must go over in his chaisecart, and bring the Hubbles and Mr. Wopsle. It was agreed to be done and a most melancholy day I passed. For, it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole company, that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it worse, they all asked me from time to time,in short, whenever they had nothing else to do,why I didn't enjoy myself? And what could I possibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself,when I wasn't! However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the most of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had fiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company, or indulged in other vagaries which the form of my indentures appeared to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair beside him to illustrate his remarks. My only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they wouldn't let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up and told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle gave us Collins's ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder down, with such effect, that a waiter came in and said, 'The Commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumblers' Arms. That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going. Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe's trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now. It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account. How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to me or to any one. The change was made in me the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my shirtsleeves and go into the forge, Joe's 'prentice, I should be distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of smallcoal, and that I had a weight upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly entered road of apprenticeship to Joe. I remember that at a later period of my 'time, I used to stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness between them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both there came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite as dejected on the first workingday of my apprenticeship as in that aftertime but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know of myself in that connection. For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I proceed to add was Joe's. It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable honesthearted dutydoing man flies out into the world but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me. What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me. Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havisham's would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire, with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me,often at such a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the wall which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her just drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last. After that, when we went in to supper, the place and the meal would have a more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast. As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's greataunt's room, my education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a halfpenny. Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were the opening lines, When I went to Lunnon town sirs, Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul Wasn't I done very brown sirs? Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the poetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied. As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic layfigure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon declined that course of instruction though not until Mr. Wopsle in his poetic fury had severely mauled me. Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella's reproach. The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken slate and a short piece of slatepencil were our educational implements to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else,even with a learned air,as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did. It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or waterline, it was just the same.Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange life appeared to have something to do with everything that was picturesque. One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on being 'most awful dull, that I had given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them that had been much in my head. 'Joe, said I 'don't you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit? 'Well, Pip, returned Joe, slowly considering. 'What for? 'What for, Joe? What is any visit made for? 'There is some wisits p'r'aps, said Joe, 'as for ever remains open to the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might think you wanted something,expected something of her. 'Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe? 'You might, old chap, said Joe. 'And she might credit it. Similarly she mightn't. Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition. 'You see, Pip, Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, 'Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me as that were all. 'Yes, Joe. I heard her. 'ALL, Joe repeated, very emphatically. 'Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her. 'Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,Make a end on it!As you was!Me to the North, and you to the South!Keep in sunders! I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me to find that he had thought of it for it seemed to render it more probable. 'But, Joe. 'Yes, old chap. 'Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day of my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown that I remember her. 'That's true, Pip and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes all four round,and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all four round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of hoofs 'I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe I don't mean a present. But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it. 'Or even, said he, 'if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain for the front door,or say a gross or two of sharkheaded screws for general use,or some light fancy article, such as a toastingfork when she took her muffins,or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such like 'I don't mean any present at all, Joe, I interposed. 'Well, said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly pressed it, 'if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't. No, I would not. For what's a doorchain when she's got one always up? And sharkheaders is open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toastingfork, you'd go into brass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can't show himself oncommon in a gridiron,for a gridiron IS a gridiron, said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion, 'and you may haim at what you like, but a gridiron it will come out, either by your leave or again your leave, and you can't help yourself 'My dear Joe, I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat, 'don't go on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present. 'No, Pip, Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all along 'and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip. 'Yes, Joe but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack just now, if you would give me a halfholiday tomorrow, I think I would go uptown and make a call on Miss EstHavisham. 'Which her name, said Joe, gravely, 'ain't Estavisham, Pip, unless she have been rechris'ened. 'I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it, Joe? In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of it. But, he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a visit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a favour received, then this experimental trip should have no successor. By these conditions I promised to abide. Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick. He pretended that his Christian name was Dolge,a clear Impossibility,but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but wilfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its understanding. He was a broadshouldered looselimbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever coming back. He lodged at a sluicekeeper's out on the marshes, and on workingdays would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the sluicegates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched, locomotively, with his eyes on the ground and, when accosted or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a halfresentful, halfpuzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was, that it was rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking. This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and timid, he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well also that it was necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and that I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe's 'prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did anything, openly importing hostility I only noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came in out of time. Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of my halfholiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows but by and by he said, leaning on his hammer, 'Now, master! Sure you're not agoing to favour only one of us. If Young Pip has a halfholiday, do as much for Old Orlick. I suppose he was about fiveandtwenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient person. 'Why, what'll you do with a halfholiday, if you get it? said Joe. 'What'll I do with it! What'll he do with it? I'll do as much with it as him, said Orlick. 'As to Pip, he's going up town, said Joe. 'Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's agoing up town, retorted that worthy. 'Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town. 'Don't lose your temper, said Joe. 'Shall if I like, growled Orlick. 'Some and their uptowning! Now, master! Come. No favouring in this shop. Be a man! The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a redhot bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,and finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer, 'Now, master! 'Are you all right now? demanded Joe. 'Ah! I am all right, said gruff Old Orlick. 'Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men, said Joe, 'let it be a halfholiday for all. My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,she was a most unscrupulous spy and listener,and she instantly looked in at one of the windows. 'Like you, you fool! said she to Joe, 'giving holidays to great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in that way. I wish I was his master! 'You'd be everybody's master, if you durst, retorted Orlick, with an illfavoured grin. ('Let her alone, said Joe.) 'I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues, returned my sister, beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. 'And I couldn't be a match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who's the dunderheaded king of the noodles. And I couldn't be a match for the rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackestlooking and the worst rogue between this and France. Now! 'You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery, growled the journeyman. 'If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good'un. ('Let her alone, will you? said Joe.) 'What did you say? cried my sister, beginning to scream. 'What did you say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh! Each of these exclamations was a shriek and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages 'what was the name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh! 'Ahhh! growled the journeyman, between his teeth, 'I'd hold you, if you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you. ('I tell you, let her alone, said Joe.) 'Oh! To hear him! cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a scream together,which was her next stage. 'To hear the names he's giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my husband standing by! Oh! Oh! Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,which were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked. What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe and further whether he was man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than coming on, and was on his defence straightway so, without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went at one another, like two giants. But, if any man in that neighbourhood could stand uplong against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very soon among the coaldust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible at the window (but who had seen the fight first, I think), and who was carried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive, and would do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair. Then came that singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars and then, with the vague sensation which I have always connected with such a lull,namely, that it was Sunday, and somebody was dead,I went upstairs to dress myself. When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any other traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick's nostrils, which was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared from the Jolly Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner. The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting observation that might do me good, 'On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pipsuch is Life! With what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very serious in a man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to Miss Havisham's, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed the gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how I debated whether I should go away without ringing nor, how I should undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back. Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella. 'How, then? You here again? said Miss Pocket. 'What do you want? When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah evidently deliberated whether or no she should send me about my business. But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and presently brought the sharp message that I was to 'come up. Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone. 'Well? said she, fixing her eyes upon me. 'I hope you want nothing? You'll get nothing. 'No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing very well in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you. 'There, there! with the old restless fingers. 'Come now and then come on your birthday.Ay! she cried suddenly, turning herself and her chair towards me, 'You are looking round for Estella? Hey? I had been looking round,in fact, for Estella,and I stammered that I hoped she was well. 'Abroad, said Miss Havisham 'educating for a lady far out of reach prettier than ever admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you have lost her? There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, and she broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what to say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the walnutshell countenance, I felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything and that was all I took by that motion. As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman, who should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that moment invested sixpence, with the view of heaping every word of it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me, than he appeared to consider that a special Providence had put a 'prentice in his way to be read at and he laid hold of me, and insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlour. As I knew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better than none, I made no great resistance consequently, we turned into Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up. As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I don't know how long it may usually take but I know very well that it took until halfpast nine o' clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career. I thought it a little too much that he should complain of being cut short in his flower after all, as if he had not been running to seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course began. This, however, was a mere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion it became sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, 'Take warning, boy, take warning! as if it were a wellknown fact that I contemplated murdering a near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the weakness to become my benefactor. It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with Mr. Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and it fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the lamp's usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on the fog. We were noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose with a change of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when we came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike house. 'Halloa! we said, stopping. 'Orlick there? 'Ah! he answered, slouching out. 'I was standing by a minute, on the chance of company. 'You are late, I remarked. Orlick not unnaturally answered, 'Well? And you're late. 'We have been, said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance,'we have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening. Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his halfholiday up and down town? 'Yes, said he, 'all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you, but I must have been pretty close behind you. By the by, the guns is going again. 'At the Hulks? said I. 'Ay! There's some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been going since dark, about. You'll hear one presently. In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the wellremembered boom came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily rolled away along the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing and threatening the fugitives. 'A good night for cutting off in, said Orlick. 'We'd be puzzled how to bring down a jailbird on the wing, tonight. The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the illrequited uncle of the evening's tragedy, fell to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his hands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark, very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now and then, the sound of the signal cannon broke upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along the course of the river. I kept myself to myself and my thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceedingly game on Bosworth Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick sometimes growled, 'Beat it out, beat it out,Old Clem! With a clink for the stout,Old Clem! I thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk. Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us past the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to findit being eleven o'clockin a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and unwonted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered about. Mr. Wopsle dropped in to ask what was the matter (surmising that a convict had been taken), but came running out in a great hurry. 'There's something wrong, said he, without stopping, 'up at your place, Pip. Run all! 'What is it? I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side. 'I can't quite understand. The house seems to have been violently entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has been attacked and hurt. We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people the whole village was there, or in the yard and there was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, and so I became aware of my sister,lying without sense or movement on the bare boards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was turned towards the fire,destined never to be on the Rampage again, while she was the wife of Joe. With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than any one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began to reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I took another view of the case, which was more reasonable. Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a quarter after eight o'clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there, my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged Good Night with a farmlabourer going home. The man could not be more particular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into dense confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been before nine. When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her struck down on the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long the candle, however, had been blown out. Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond the blowing out of the candle,which stood on a table between the door and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was struck,was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine after the blows were dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when Joe picked her up, was a convict's legiron which had been filed asunder. Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion was corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the prisonships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged but they claimed to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, one of those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron. Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed the iron to be my convict's iron,the iron I had seen and heard him filing at, on the marshes,but my mind did not accuse him of having put it to its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have become possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account. Either Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the file. Now, as to Orlick he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we picked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the evening, he had been in divers companies in several publichouses, and he had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against him, save the quarrel and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man if he had come back for his two banknotes there could have been no dispute about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore them. Besides, there had been no altercation the assailant had come in so silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look round. It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable trouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I should at last dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the story. For months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally in the negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning. The contention came, after all, to thisthe secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much mischief, it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he believed it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not believe it, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and vealcutlets as a monstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of coursefor, was I not wavering between right and wrong, when the thing is always done?and resolved to make a full disclosure if I should see any such new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of the assailant. The Constables and the Bow Street men from Londonfor, this happened in the days of the extinct redwaistcoated policewere about the house for a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like authorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, they stood about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks that filled the whole neighbourhood with admiration and they had a mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it. Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied, and grasped at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of the realities her hearing was greatly impaired her memory also and her speech was unintelligible. When, at last, she came round so far as to be helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always by her, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate in speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more than indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, extraordinary complications arose between them which I was always called in to solve. The administration of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of my own mistakes. However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a part of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then remain for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We were at a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a circumstance happened conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle's greataunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she had fallen, and Biddy became a part of our establishment. It may have been about a month after my sister's reappearance in the kitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the whole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household. Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly cut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, 'Such a fine figure of a woman as she once were, Pip! Biddy instantly taking the cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy Joe became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life, and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then for a change that did him good. It was characteristic of the police people that they had all more or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and that they had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest spirits they had ever encountered. Biddy's first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty that had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made nothing of it. Thus it was Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a character that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost eagerness had called our attention to it as something she particularly wanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T, from tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my sister's ear, she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our hammers, one after another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook her head to that extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified lest in her weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck. When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his initial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me. 'Why, of course! cried Biddy, with an exultant face. 'Don't you see? It's him! Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify him by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching out, with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly distinguished him. I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his being at length produced, and motioned that she would have him given something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his reception, she showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that day, a day rarely passed without her drawing the hammer on her slate, and without Orlick's slouching in and standing doggedly before her, as if he knew no more than I did what to make of it. I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was varied beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate I found Miss Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke of Estella in the very same way, if not in the very same words. The interview lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a guinea when I was going, and told me to come again on my next birthday. I may mention at once that this became an annual custom. I tried to decline taking the guinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than causing her to ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after that, I took it. So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressingtable glass, that I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that mysterious place, and, while I and everything else outside it grew older, it stood still. Daylight never entered the house as to my thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact. It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home. Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always clean. She was not beautiful,she was common, and could not be like Estella,but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweettempered. She had not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly out of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself one evening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes eyes that were very pretty and very good. It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring atwriting some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at once by a sort of stratagemand seeing Biddy observant of what I was about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without laying it down. 'Biddy, said I, 'how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you are very clever. 'What is it that I manage? I don't know, returned Biddy, smiling. She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too but I did not mean that, though that made what I did mean more surprising. 'How do you manage, Biddy, said I, 'to learn everything that I learn, and always to keep up with me? I was beginning to be rather vain of my knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the greater part of my pocketmoney for similar investment though I have no doubt, now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price. 'I might as well ask you, said Biddy, 'how you manage? 'No because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see me turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy. 'I suppose I must catch it like a cough, said Biddy, quietly and went on with her sewing. Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at Biddy sewing away with her head on one side, I began to think her rather an extraordinary girl. For I called to mind now, that she was equally accomplished in the terms of our trade, and the names of our different sorts of work, and our various tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy knew. Theoretically, she was already as good a blacksmith as I, or better. 'You are one of those, Biddy, said I, 'who make the most of every chance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how improved you are! Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. 'I was your first teacher though wasn't I? said she, as she sewed. 'Biddy! I exclaimed, in amazement. 'Why, you are crying! 'No I am not, said Biddy, looking up and laughing. 'What put that in your head? What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it dropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been until Mr. Wopsle's greataunt successfully overcame that bad habit of living, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled the hopeless circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the miserable little shop and the miserable little noisy evening school, with that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be dragged and shouldered. I reflected that even in those untoward times there must have been latent in Biddy what was now developing, for, in my first uneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of course. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I looked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps I had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too reserved, and should have patronised her more (though I did not use that precise word in my meditations) with my confidence. 'Yes, Biddy, I observed, when I had done turning it over, 'you were my first teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being together like this, in this kitchen. 'Ah, poor thing! replied Biddy. It was like her selfforgetfulness to transfer the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her, making her more comfortable 'that's sadly true! 'Well! said I, 'we must talk together a little more, as we used to do. And I must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have a quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat. My sister was never left alone now but Joe more than readily undertook the care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out together. It was summertime, and lovely weather. When we had passed the village and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes and began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I began to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in my usual way. When we came to the riverside and sat down on the bank, with the water rippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it would have been without that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and place for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence. 'Biddy, said I, after binding her to secrecy, 'I want to be a gentleman. 'O, I wouldn't, if I was you! she returned. 'I don't think it would answer. 'Biddy, said I, with some severity, 'I have particular reasons for wanting to be a gentleman. 'You know best, Pip but don't you think you are happier as you are? 'Biddy, I exclaimed, impatiently, 'I am not at all happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to either, since I was bound. Don't be absurd. 'Was I absurd? said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows 'I am sorry for that I didn't mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be comfortable. 'Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be comfortableor anything but miserablethere, Biddy!unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now. 'That's a pity! said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful air. Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined to shed tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her sentiment and my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was much to be regretted, but still it was not to be helped. 'If I could have settled down, I said to Biddy, plucking up the short grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,'if I could have settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was little, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to keep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a fine Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for you shouldn't I, Biddy? Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for answer, 'Yes I am not overparticular. It scarcely sounded flattering, but I knew she meant well. 'Instead of that, said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or two, 'see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, andwhat would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so! Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships. 'It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say, she remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. 'Who said it? I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I answered, 'The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account. Having made this lunatic confession, I began to throw my tornup grass into the river, as if I had some thoughts of following it. 'Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over? Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause. 'I don't know, I moodily answered. 'Because, if it is to spite her, Biddy pursued, 'I should thinkbut you know bestthat might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should thinkbut you know bestshe was not worth gaining over. Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and wisest of men fall every day? 'It may be all quite true, said I to Biddy, 'but I admire her dreadfully. In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good grasp on the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All the while knowing the madness of my heart to be so very mad and misplaced, that I was quite conscious it would have served my face right, if I had lifted it up by my hair, and knocked it against the pebbles as a punishment for belonging to such an idiot. Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me. She put her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by work, upon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my hair. Then she softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my face upon my sleeve I cried a little,exactly as I had done in the brewery yard,and felt vaguely convinced that I was very much illused by somebody, or by everybody I can't say which. 'I am glad of one thing, said Biddy, 'and that is, that you have felt you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it and always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor one, and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher at the present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would set. But it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it's of no use now. So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank, and said, with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, 'Shall we walk a little farther, or go home? 'Biddy, I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and giving her a kiss, 'I shall always tell you everything. 'Till you're a gentleman, said Biddy. 'You know I never shall be, so that's always. Not that I have any occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know,as I told you at home the other night. 'Ah! said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the ships. And then repeated, with her former pleasant change, 'shall we walk a little farther, or go home? I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the summer afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very beautiful. I began to consider whether I was not more naturally and wholesomely situated, after all, in these circumstances, than playing beggar my neighbour by candlelight in the room with the stopped clocks, and being despised by Estella. I thought it would be very good for me if I could get her out of my head, with all the rest of those remembrances and fancies, and could go to work determined to relish what I had to do, and stick to it, and make the best of it. I asked myself the question whether I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I was obliged to admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to myself, 'Pip, what a fool you are! We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed right. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy today and somebody else tomorrow she would have derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving me pain she would far rather have wounded her own breast than mine. How could it be, then, that I did not like her much the better of the two? 'Biddy, said I, when we were walking homeward, 'I wish you could put me right. 'I wish I could! said Biddy. 'If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,you don't mind my speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance? 'Oh dear, not at all! said Biddy. 'Don't mind me. 'If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing for me. 'But you never will, you see, said Biddy. It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would have done if we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore observed I was not quite sure of that. But Biddy said she was, and she said it decisively. In my heart I believed her to be right and yet I took it rather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point. When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and get over a stile near a sluicegate. There started up, from the gate, or from the rushes, or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), Old Orlick. 'Halloa! he growled, 'where are you two going? 'Where should we be going, but home? 'Well, then, said he, 'I'm jiggered if I don't see you home! This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite supposititious case of his. He attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, but used it, like his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, and convey an idea of something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I had had a general belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he would have done it with a sharp and twisted hook. Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper, 'Don't let him come I don't like him. As I did not like him either, I took the liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we didn't want seeing home. He received that piece of information with a yell of laughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little distance. Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in that murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give any account, I asked her why she did not like him. 'Oh! she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after us, 'because II am afraid he likes me. 'Did he ever tell you he liked you? I asked indignantly. 'No, said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, 'he never told me so but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye. However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon Old Orlick's daring to admire her as hot as if it were an outrage on myself. 'But it makes no difference to you, you know, said Biddy, calmly. 'No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me only I don't like it I don't approve of it. 'Nor I neither, said Biddy. 'Though that makes no difference to you. 'Exactly, said I 'but I must tell you I should have no opinion of you, Biddy, if he danced at you with your own consent. I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances were favourable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that demonstration. He had struck root in Joe's establishment, by reason of my sister's sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him dismissed. He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as I had reason to know thereafter. And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated its confusion fifty thousandfold, by having states and seasons when I was clear that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the plain honest working life to which I was born had nothing in it to be ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of selfrespect and happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively that my disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone, and that I was growing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep company with Biddy,when all in a moment some confounding remembrance of the Havisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and scatter my wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up and often before I had got them well together, they would be dispersed in all directions by one stray thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune when my time was out. If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was brought to a premature end, as I proceed to relate. It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a Saturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud. Of that group I was one. A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent adjective in the description, and identified himself with every witness at the Inquest. He faintly moaned, 'I am done for, as the victim, and he barbarously bellowed, 'I'll serve you out, as the murderer. He gave the medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner and he piped and shook, as the aged turnpikekeeper who had heard blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental competency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle's hands, became Timon of Athens the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, and we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this cosey state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder. Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning over the back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an expression of contempt on his face, and he bit the side of a great forefinger as he watched the group of faces. 'Well! said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done, 'you have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no doubt? Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He looked at everybody coldly and sarcastically. 'Guilty, of course? said he. 'Out with it. Come! 'Sir, returned Mr. Wopsle, 'without having the honour of your acquaintance, I do say Guilty. Upon this we all took courage to unite in a confirmatory murmur. 'I know you do, said the stranger 'I knew you would. I told you so. But now I'll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not know, that the law of England supposes every man to be innocent, until he is provedprovedto be guilty? 'Sir, Mr. Wopsle began to reply, 'as an Englishman myself, I 'Come! said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him. 'Don't evade the question. Either you know it, or you don't know it. Which is it to be? He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a bullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr. Wopsle,as it were to mark him outbefore biting it again. 'Now! said he. 'Do you know it, or don't you know it? 'Certainly I know it, replied Mr. Wopsle. 'Certainly you know it. Then why didn't you say so at first? Now, I'll ask you another question,taking possession of Mr. Wopsle, as if he had a right to him,'do you know that none of these witnesses have yet been crossexamined? Mr. Wopsle was beginning, 'I can only say when the stranger stopped him. 'What? You won't answer the question, yes or no? Now, I'll try you again. Throwing his finger at him again. 'Attend to me. Are you aware, or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet been crossexamined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or no? Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor opinion of him. 'Come! said the stranger, 'I'll help you. You don't deserve help, but I'll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your hand. What is it? 'What is it? repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss. 'Is it, pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious manner, 'the printed paper you have just been reading from? 'Undoubtedly. 'Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal advisers instructed him altogether to reserve his defence? 'I read that just now, Mr. Wopsle pleaded. 'Never mind what you read just now, sir I don't ask you what you read just now. You may read the Lord's Prayer backwards, if you like,and, perhaps, have done it before today. Turn to the paper. No, no, no my friend not to the top of the column you know better than that to the bottom, to the bottom. (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of subterfuge.) 'Well? Have you found it? 'Here it is, said Mr. Wopsle. 'Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was instructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! Do you make that of it? Mr. Wopsle answered, 'Those are not the exact words. 'Not the exact words! repeated the gentleman bitterly. 'Is that the exact substance? 'Yes, said Mr. Wopsle. 'Yes, repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the company with his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle. 'And now I ask you what you say to the conscience of that man who, with that passage before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having pronounced a fellowcreature guilty, unheard? We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had thought him, and that he was beginning to be found out. 'And that same man, remember, pursued the gentleman, throwing his finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,'that same man might be summoned as a juryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed himself, might return to the bosom of his family and lay his head upon his pillow, after deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, and would a true verdict give according to the evidence, so help him God! We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone too far, and had better stop in his reckless career while there was yet time. The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed, and with a manner expressive of knowing something secret about every one of us that would effectually do for each individual if he chose to disclose it, left the back of the settle, and came into the space between the two settles, in front of the fire, where he remained standing, his left hand in his pocket, and he biting the forefinger of his right. 'From information I have received, said he, looking round at us as we all quailed before him, 'I have reason to believe there is a blacksmith among you, by name Josephor JoeGargery. Which is the man? 'Here is the man, said Joe. The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went. 'You have an apprentice, pursued the stranger, 'commonly known as Pip? Is he here? 'I am here! I cried. The stranger did not recognise me, but I recognised him as the gentleman I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second visit to Miss Havisham. I had known him the moment I saw him looking over the settle, and now that I stood confronting him with his hand upon my shoulder, I checked off again in detail his large head, his dark complexion, his deepset eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his large watchchain, his strong black dots of beard and whisker, and even the smell of scented soap on his great hand. 'I wish to have a private conference with you two, said he, when he had surveyed me at his leisure. 'It will take a little time. Perhaps we had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my communication here you will impart as much or as little of it as you please to your friends afterwards I have nothing to do with that. Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly Bargemen, and in a wondering silence walked home. While going along, the strange gentleman occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of his finger. As we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion as an impressive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front door. Our conference was held in the state parlour, which was feebly lighted by one candle. It began with the strange gentleman's sitting down at the table, drawing the candle to him, and looking over some entries in his pocketbook. He then put up the pocketbook and set the candle a little aside, after peering round it into the darkness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was which. 'My name, he said, 'is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice had been asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you see me here. What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I do. No less, no more. Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he got up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon it thus having one foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the ground. 'Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of this young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel his indentures at his request and for his good? You would want nothing for so doing? 'Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip's way, said Joe, staring. 'Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose, returned Mr. Jaggers. 'The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want anything? 'The answer is, returned Joe, sternly, 'No. I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool for his disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between breathless curiosity and surprise, to be sure of it. 'Very well, said Mr. Jaggers. 'Recollect the admission you have made, and don't try to go from it presently. 'Who's agoing to try? retorted Joe. 'I don't say anybody is. Do you keep a dog? 'Yes, I do keep a dog. 'Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Bear that in mind, will you? repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. 'Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations. Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another. 'I am instructed to communicate to him, said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at me sideways, 'that he will come into a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations. My dream was out my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale. 'Now, Mr. Pip, pursued the lawyer, 'I address the rest of what I have to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the request of the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great expectations being encumbered with that easy condition. But if you have any objection, this is the time to mention it. My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears, that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection. 'I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered to mention that it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first hand by word of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried out, I cannot say no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you are distinctly to understand that you are most positively prohibited from making any inquiry on this head, or any allusion or reference, however distant, to any individual whomsoever as the individual, in all the communications you may have with me. If you have a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. It is not the least to the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are they may be the strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere whim. This is not for you to inquire into. The condition is laid down. Your acceptance of it, and your observance of it as binding, is the only remaining condition that I am charged with, by the person from whom I take my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which to encumber such a rise in fortune but if you have any objection to it, this is the time to mention it. Speak out. Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection. 'I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations. Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he still could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion and even now he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. 'We come next, to mere details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used the term 'expectations' more than once, you are not endowed with expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money amply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will please consider me your guardian. Oh! for I was going to thank him, 'I tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn't render them. It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with your altered position, and that you will be alive to the importance and necessity of at once entering on that advantage. I said I had always longed for it. 'Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip, he retorted 'keep to the record. If you long for it now, that's enough. Am I answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper tutor? Is that it? I stammered yes, that was it. 'Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don't think that wise, mind, but it's my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom you would prefer to another? I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's greataunt so, I replied in the negative. 'There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think might suit the purpose, said Mr. Jaggers. 'I don't recommend him, observe because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is one Mr. Matthew Pocket. Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham's relation. The Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to be at Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in her bride's dress on the bride's table. 'You know the name? said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer. My answer was, that I had heard of the name. 'Oh! said he. 'You have heard of the name. But the question is, what do you say of it? I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his recommendation 'No, my young friend! he interrupted, shaking his great head very slowly. 'Recollect yourself! Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him for his recommendation 'No, my young friend, he interrupted, shaking his head and frowning and smiling both at once,'no, no, no it's very well done, but it won't do you are too young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not the word, Mr. Pip. Try another. Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket 'That's more like it! cried Mr. Jaggers.And (I added), I would gladly try that gentleman. 'Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When will you come to London? I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I supposed I could come directly. 'First, said Mr. Jaggers, 'you should have some new clothes to come in, and they should not be workingclothes. Say this day week. You'll want some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas? He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe. 'Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered? 'I am! said Joe, in a very decided manner. 'It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember? 'It were understood, said Joe. 'And it are understood. And it ever will be similar according. 'But what, said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,'what if it was in my instructions to make you a present, as compensation? 'As compensation what for? Joe demanded. 'For the loss of his services. Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have often thought him since, like the steamhammer that can crush a man or pat an eggshell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. 'Pip is that hearty welcome, said Joe, 'to go free with his services, to honour and fortun', as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money can make compensation to me for the loss of the little childwhat come to the forgeand ever the best of friends! O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I see you again, with your muscular blacksmith's arm before your eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing! But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future fortunes, and could not retrace the bypaths we had trodden together. I begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but said not another word. Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognised in Joe the village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said, weighing in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing 'Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in charge to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the contrary you mean to say Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped by Joe's suddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell pugilistic purpose. 'Which I meantersay, cried Joe, 'that if you come into my place bullbaiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if you're a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay and stand or fall by! I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable merely stating to me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not agoing to be bullbaited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door. Without evincing any inclination to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory remarks. They were these. 'Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave hereas you are to be a gentlemanthe better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a hackneycoach at the stagecoach office in London, and come straight to me. Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or other, on the trust I undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand that, finally. Understand that! He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off. Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he was going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired carriage. 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers. 'Halloa! said he, facing round, 'what's the matter? 'I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my taking leave of any one I know, about here, before I go away? 'No, said he, looking as if he hardly understood me. 'I don't mean in the village only, but up town? 'No, said he. 'No objection. I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had already locked the front door and vacated the state parlour, and was seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at the burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at the coals, and nothing was said for a long time. My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at her needlework before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the glowing coals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe the longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak. At length I got out, 'Joe, have you told Biddy? 'No, Pip, returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to make off somewhere, 'which I left it to yourself, Pip. 'I would rather you told, Joe. 'Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then, said Joe, 'and God bless him in it! Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily congratulated me but there was a certain touch of sadness in their congratulations that I rather resented. I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with the grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and say nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save that I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again, and said she would be very particular and Joe, still detaining his knees, said, 'Ay, ay, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip and then they congratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at the notion of my being a gentleman that I didn't half like it. Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times, and even repeated after Biddy, the words 'Pip and 'Property. But I doubt if they had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest a darker picture of her state of mind. I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy. Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be but it is possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied with myself. Anyhow, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand, looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and about what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and they often looked at me,particularly Biddy), I felt offended as if they were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did by word or sign. At those times I would get up and look out at the door for our kitchen door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to air the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic objects among which I had passed my life. 'Saturday night, said I, when we sat at our supper of bread and cheese and beer. 'Five more days, and then the day before the day! They'll soon go. 'Yes, Pip, observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beermug. 'They'll soon go. 'Soon, soon go, said Biddy. 'I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I'll come and put them on there, or that I'll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook's. It would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here. 'Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new genteel figure too, Pip, said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese on it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper as if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. 'So might Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment. 'That's just what I don't want, Joe. They would make such a business of it,such a coarse and common business,that I couldn't bear myself. 'Ah, that indeed, Pip! said Joe. 'If you couldn't abear yourself Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister's plate, 'Have you thought about when you'll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your sister and me? You will show yourself to us won't you? 'Biddy, I returned with some resentment, 'you are so exceedingly quick that it's difficult to keep up with you. ('She always were quick, observed Joe.) 'If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me say that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,most likely on the evening before I go away. Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an affectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When I got into my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as a mean little room that I should soon be parted from and raised above, for ever. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances too, and even at the same moment I fell into much the same confused division of mind between it and the better rooms to which I was going, as I had been in so often between the forge and Miss Havisham's, and Biddy and Estella. The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and the room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking out, I saw Joe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a turn or two in the air and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and light it for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed to hint to me that he wanted comforting, for some reason or other. He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his pipe, and Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew that they talked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an endearing tone by both of them more than once. I would not have listened for more, if I could have heard more so I drew away from the window, and sat down in my one chair by the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever known. Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's pipe floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared together. I put my light out, and crept into bed and it was an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more. Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life, and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay heaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened between me and the day of departure for I could not divest myself of a misgiving that something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and that, when I got there, it would be either greatly deteriorated or clean gone. Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I spoke of our approaching separation but they only referred to it when I did. After breakfast, Joe brought out my indentures from the press in the best parlour, and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I was free. With all the novelty of my emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, and thought perhaps the clergyman wouldn't have read that about the rich man and the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all. After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish off the marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed the church, I felt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the low green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a dinner of roastbeef and plumpudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of condescension, upon everybody in the village. If I had often thought before, with something allied to shame, of my companionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen limping among those graves, what were my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place recalled the wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron and badge! My comfort was, that it happened a long time ago, and that he had doubtless been transported a long way off, and that he was dead to me, and might be veritably dead into the bargain. No more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these grazing cattle,though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a more respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they might stare as long as possible at the possessor of such great expectations,farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, henceforth I was for London and greatness not for smith's work in general, and for you! I made my exultant way to the old Battery, and, lying down there to consider the question whether Miss Havisham intended me for Estella, fell asleep. When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me, smoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile on my opening my eyes, and said, 'As being the last time, Pip, I thought I'd foller. 'And Joe, I am very glad you did so. 'Thankee, Pip. 'You may be sure, dear Joe, I went on, after we had shaken hands, 'that I shall never forget you. 'No, no, Pip! said Joe, in a comfortable tone, 'I'm sure of that. Ay, ay, old chap! Bless you, it were only necessary to get it well round in a man's mind, to be certain on it. But it took a bit of time to get it well round, the change come so oncommon plump didn't it? Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe's being so mightily secure of me. I should have liked him to have betrayed emotion, or to have said, 'It does you credit, Pip, or something of that sort. Therefore, I made no remark on Joe's first head merely saying as to his second, that the tidings had indeed come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a gentleman, and had often and often speculated on what I would do, if I were one. 'Have you though? said Joe. 'Astonishing! 'It's a pity now, Joe, said I, 'that you did not get on a little more, when we had our lessons here isn't it? 'Well, I don't know, returned Joe. 'I'm so awful dull. I'm only master of my own trade. It were always a pity as I was so awful dull but it's no more of a pity now, than it wasthis day twelvemonthdon't you see? What I had meant was, that when I came into my property and was able to do something for Joe, it would have been much more agreeable if he had been better qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly innocent of my meaning, however, that I thought I would mention it to Biddy in preference. So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy into our little garden by the side of the lane, and, after throwing out in a general way for the elevation of her spirits, that I should never forget her, said I had a favour to ask of her. 'And it is, Biddy, said I, 'that you will not omit any opportunity of helping Joe on, a little. 'How helping him on? asked Biddy, with a steady sort of glance. 'Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,in fact, I think he is the dearest fellow that ever lived,but he is rather backward in some things. For instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners. Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her eyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me. 'O, his manners! won't his manners do then? asked Biddy, plucking a blackcurrant leaf. 'My dear Biddy, they do very well here 'O! they do very well here? interrupted Biddy, looking closely at the leaf in her hand. 'Hear me out,but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would hardly do him justice. 'And don't you think he knows that? asked Biddy. It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly, 'Biddy, what do you mean? Biddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,and the smell of a blackcurrant bush has ever since recalled to me that evening in the little garden by the side of the lane,said, 'Have you never considered that he may be proud? 'Proud? I repeated, with disdainful emphasis. 'O! there are many kinds of pride, said Biddy, looking full at me and shaking her head 'pride is not all of one kind 'Well? What are you stopping for? said I. 'Not all of one kind, resumed Biddy. 'He may be too proud to let any one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well and with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is though it sounds bold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I do. 'Now, Biddy, said I, 'I am very sorry to see this in you. I did not expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help showing it. 'If you have the heart to think so, returned Biddy, 'say so. Say so over and over again, if you have the heart to think so. 'If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy, said I, in a virtuous and superior tone 'don't put it off upon me. I am very sorry to see it, and it's ait's a bad side of human nature. I did intend to ask you to use any little opportunities you might have after I was gone, of improving dear Joe. But after this I ask you nothing. I am extremely sorry to see this in you, Biddy, I repeated. 'It's ait's a bad side of human nature. 'Whether you scold me or approve of me, returned poor Biddy, 'you may equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here, at all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make no difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be unjust neither, said Biddy, turning away her head. I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in which sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to think I was right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy, and Biddy went into the house, and I went out at the garden gate and took a dejected stroll until suppertime again feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this, the second night of my bright fortunes, should be as lonely and unsatisfactory as the first. But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency to Biddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I had, I went into town as early as I could hope to find the shops open, and presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his breakfast in the parlour behind his shop, and who did not think it worth his while to come out to me, but called me in to him. 'Well! said Mr. Trabb, in a hailfellowwellmet kind of way. 'How are you, and what can I do for you? Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three featherbeds, and was slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were put away in it in bags. 'Mr. Trabb, said I, 'it's an unpleasant thing to have to mention, because it looks like boasting but I have come into a handsome property. A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up from the bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming, 'Lord bless my soul! 'I am going up to my guardian in London, said I, casually drawing some guineas out of my pocket and looking at them 'and I want a fashionable suit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them, I addedotherwise I thought he might only pretend to make them, 'with ready money. 'My dear sir, said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body, opened his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each elbow, 'don't hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate you? Would you do me the favour of stepping into the shop? Mr. Trabb's boy was the most audacious boy in all that countryside. When I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his labours by sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into the shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible corners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality with any blacksmith, alive or dead. 'Hold that noise, said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, 'or I'll knock your head off!Do me the favour to be seated, sir. Now, this, said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under it to show the gloss, 'is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you! (To the boy, and with a dreadfully severe stare foreseeing the danger of that miscreant's brushing me with it, or making some other sign of familiarity.) Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had deposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again. Then he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. 'And let me have none of your tricks here, said Mr. Trabb, 'or you shall repent it, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live. Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential confidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that it would ever be an honour to him to reflect upon a distinguished fellowtownsman's (if he might claim me for a fellowtownsman) having worn. 'Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond, said Mr. Trabb to the boy after that, 'or shall I kick you out of the shop and bring them myself? I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb's judgment, and reentered the parlour to be measured. For although Mr. Trabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite contented with it, he said apologetically that it 'wouldn't do under existing circumstances, sir,wouldn't do at all. So, Mr. Trabb measured and calculated me in the parlour, as if I were an estate and he the finest species of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that I felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his pains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles to Mr. Pumblechook's on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand upon the parlour lock, 'I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be expected to patronise local work, as a rule but if you would give me a turn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem it. Goodmorning, sir, much obliged.Door! The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what it meant. But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his hands, and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money was, that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb's boy. After this memorable event, I went to the hatter's, and the bootmaker's, and the hosier's, and felt rather like Mother Hubbard's dog whose outfit required the services of so many trades. I also went to the coachoffice and took my place for seven o'clock on Saturday morning. It was not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come into a handsome property but whenever I said anything to that effect, it followed that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted through the window by the High Street, and concentrated his mind upon me. When I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards Pumblechook's, and, as I approached that gentleman's place of business, I saw him standing at his door. He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with the chaisecart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlour, and he too ordered his shopman to 'come out of the gangway as my sacred person passed. 'My dear friend, said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, when he and I and the collation were alone, 'I give you joy of your good fortune. Well deserved, well deserved! This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of expressing himself. 'To think, said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for some moments, 'that I should have been the humble instrument of leading up to this, is a proud reward. I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or hinted, on that point. 'My dear young friend, said Mr. Pumblechook 'if you will allow me to call you so I murmured 'Certainly, and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional appearance, though it was rather low down, 'My dear young friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before the mind of Joseph.Joseph! said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a compassionate adjuration. 'Joseph!! Joseph!!! Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph. 'But my dear young friend, said Mr. Pumblechook, 'you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here's one or two little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do I, said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat down, 'see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy infancy? And may Imay I? This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent, and then sat down again. 'Here is wine, said Mr. Pumblechook. 'Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favourites with equal judgment! And yet I cannot, said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, 'see afore me Oneand likewise drink to Onewithout again expressingMay Imay I? I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass and turned it upside down. I did the same and if I had turned myself upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to my head. Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of tongue (none of those outoftheway No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. 'Ah! poultry, poultry! You little thought, said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophising the fowl in the dish, 'when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble roof for one asCall it a weakness, if you will, said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, 'but may I? may I? It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself with my knife, I don't know. 'And your sister, he resumed, after a little steady eating, 'which had the honour of bringing you up by hand! It's a sad picter, to reflect that she's no longer equal to fully understanding the honour. May I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him. 'We'll drink her health, said I. 'Ah! cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid with admiration, 'that's the way you know 'em, sir! (I don't know who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person present) 'that's the way you know the nobleminded, sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might, said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, 'to a common person, have the appearance of repeatingbut may I? When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. 'Let us never be blind, said Mr. Pumblechook, 'to her faults of temper, but it is to be hoped she meant well. At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in the face as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting. I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I mentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the village, and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but himself, he intimated, worthy of my confidence, andin short, might he? Then he asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he had ever been my favourite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a sensible, practical, goodhearted prime fellow. By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask my advice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was an opportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and seed trade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had never occurred before in that or any other neighbourhood. What alone was wanting to the realisation of a vast fortune, he considered to be More Capital. Those were the two little words, more capital. Now it appeared to him (Pumblechook) that if that capital were got into the business, through a sleeping partner, sir,which sleeping partner would have nothing to do but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and examine the books,and walk in twice a year and take his profits away in his pocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,it appeared to him that that might be an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with property, which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think? He had great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it as my opinion. 'Wait a bit! The united vastness and distinctness of this view so struck him, that he no longer asked if he might shake hands with me, but said he really must,and did. We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and over again to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don't know what mark), and to render me efficient and constant service (I don't know what service). He also made known to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after having kept his secret wonderfully well, that he had always said of me, 'That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his fortun' will be no common fortun'. He said with a tearful smile that it was a singular thing to think of now, and I said so too. Finally, I went out into the air, with a dim perception that there was something unwonted in the conduct of the sunshine, and found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike without having taken any account of the road. There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook's hailing me. He was a long way down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless. 'No, my dear friend, said he, when he had recovered wind for speech. 'Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass without that affability on your part.May I, as an old friend and wellwisher? May I? We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed me and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the road and then I turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge before I pursued my way home. I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little I possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that same afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next morning, in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost. So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed and on Friday morning I went to Mr. Pumblechook's, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook's own room was given up to me to dress in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer's expectation. But after I had had my new suit on some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of posturing with Mr. Pumblechook's very limited dressingglass, in the futile endeavour to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being market morning at a neighbouring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook was not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave, and was not likely to shake hands with him again before departing. This was all as it should be, and I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed of having to pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a personal disadvantage, something like Joe's in his Sunday suit. I went circuitously to Miss Havisham's by all the back ways, and rang at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when she saw me so changed her walnutshell countenance likewise turned from brown to green and yellow. 'You? said she. 'You? Good gracious! What do you want? 'I am going to London, Miss Pocket, said I, 'and want to say goodbye to Miss Havisham. I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned and took me up, staring at me all the way. Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, and at the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just abreast of the rotted bridecake. 'Don't go, Sarah, she said. 'Well, Pip? 'I start for London, Miss Havisham, tomorrow, I was exceedingly careful what I said, 'and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking leave of you. 'This is a gay figure, Pip, said she, making her crutch stick play round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were bestowing the finishing gift. 'I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss Havisham, I murmured. 'And I am so grateful for it, Miss Havisham! 'Ay, ay! said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah, with delight. 'I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard about it, Pip. So you go tomorrow? 'Yes, Miss Havisham. 'And you are adopted by a rich person? 'Yes, Miss Havisham. 'Not named? 'No, Miss Havisham. 'And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian? 'Yes, Miss Havisham. She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her enjoyment of Sarah Pocket's jealous dismay. 'Well! she went on 'you have a promising career before you. Be gooddeserve itand abide by Mr. Jaggers's instructions. She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and Sarah's countenance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. 'Goodbye, Pip!you will always keep the name of Pip, you know. 'Yes, Miss Havisham. 'Goodbye, Pip! She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it to my lips. I had not considered how I should take leave of her it came naturally to me at the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket with triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy godmother, with both her hands on her crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly lighted room beside the rotten bridecake that was hidden in cobwebs. Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be seen out. She could not get over my appearance, and was in the last degree confounded. I said 'Goodbye, Miss Pocket but she merely stared, and did not seem collected enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the house, I made the best of my way back to Pumblechook's, took off my new clothes, made them into a bundle, and went back home in my older dress, carrying itto speak the truthmuch more at my ease too, though I had the bundle to carry. And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had run out fast and were gone, and tomorrow looked me in the face more steadily than I could look at it. As the six evenings had dwindled away, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this last evening, I dressed myself out in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my splendour until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the occasion, graced by the inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish with. We were all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in spirits. I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my little handportmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk away all alone. I am afraidsore afraidthat this purpose originated in my sense of the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to the coach together. I had pretended with myself that there was nothing of this taint in the arrangement but when I went up to my little room on this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so, and had an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat Joe to walk with me in the morning. I did not. All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places instead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now men,never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied me until the day dawned and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and partly dressed, and sat at the window to take a last look out, and in taking it fell asleep. Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although I did not sleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the kitchen fire when I started up with a terrible idea that it must be late in the afternoon. But long after that, and long after I had heard the clinking of the teacups and was quite ready, I wanted the resolution to go downstairs. After all, I remained up there, repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping my small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again, until Biddy called to me that I was late. It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the meal, saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred to me, 'Well! I suppose I must be off! and then I kissed my sister who was laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe's neck. Then I took up my little portmanteau and walked out. The last I saw of them was, when I presently heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe throwing an old shoe after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe. I stopped then, to wave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head, crying huskily 'Hooroar! and Biddy put her apron to her face. I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to have had an old shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High Street. I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village was very peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to show me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into tears. It was by the fingerpost at the end of the village, and I laid my hand upon it, and said, 'Goodbye, O my dear, dear friend! Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried than before,more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then. So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the course of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was clear of the town, I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get down when we changed horses and walk back, and have another evening at home, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made up my mind, and still reflected for my comfort that it would be quite practicable to get down and walk back, when we changed again. And while I was occupied with these deliberations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe in some man coming along the road towards us, and my heart would beat high.As if he could possibly be there! We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me. The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five hours. It was a little past midday when the fourhorse stagecoach by which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London. We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty. Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address it was, Little Britain, and he had written after it on his card, 'just out of Smithfield, and close by the coachoffice. Nevertheless, a hackneycoachman, who seemed to have as many capes to his greasy greatcoat as he was years old, packed me up in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of steps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his box, which I remember to have been decorated with an old weatherstained peagreen hammercloth motheaten into rags, was quite a work of time. It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged things behind for I don't know how many footmen to hold on by, and a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from yielding to the temptation. I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a strawyard it was, and yet how like a ragshop, and to wonder why the horses' nosebags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman beginning to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. And stop we presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain offices with an open door, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS. 'How much? I asked the coachman. The coachman answered, 'A shillingunless you wish to make it more. I naturally said I had no wish to make it more. 'Then it must be a shilling, observed the coachman. 'I don't want to get into trouble. I know him! He darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers's name, and shook his head. When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the ascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his mind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home? 'He is not, returned the clerk. 'He is in Court at present. Am I addressing Mr. Pip? I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip. 'Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He couldn't say how long he might be, having a case on. But it stands to reason, his time being valuable, that he won't be longer than he can help. With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner chamber at the back. Here, we found a gentleman with one eye, in a velveteen suit and kneebreeches, who wiped his nose with his sleeve on being interrupted in the perusal of the newspaper. 'Go and wait outside, Mike, said the clerk. I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the clerk shoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used, and tossing his fur cap out after him, left me alone. Mr. Jaggers's room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal place the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a broken head, and the distorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted themselves to peep down at me through it. There were not so many papers about, as I should have expected to see and there were some odd objects about, that I should not have expected to see,such as an old rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strangelooking boxes and packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about the nose. Mr. Jaggers's own highbacked chair was of deadly black horsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a coffin and I fancied I could see how he leaned back in it, and bit his forefinger at the clients. The room was but small, and the clients seemed to have had a habit of backing up against the wall the wall, especially opposite to Mr. Jaggers's chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that the oneeyed gentleman had shuffled forth against the wall when I was the innocent cause of his being turned out. I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers's chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I called to mind that the clerk had the same air of knowing something to everybody else's disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many other clerks there were upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have the same detrimental mastery of their fellowcreatures. I wondered what was the history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it came there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such illlooking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home. Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit that lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr. Jaggers's close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the shelf above Mr. Jaggers's chair, and got up and went out. When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield and the shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So, I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where I saw the great black dome of Saint Paul's bulging at me from behind a grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden the noise of passing vehicles and from this, and from the quantity of people standing about smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred that the trials were on. While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk minister of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a trial or so informing me that he could give me a front place for half a crown, whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in his wig and robes,mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and presently offering him at the reduced price of eighteenpence. As I declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as to take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors' Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that 'four on 'em would come out at that door the day after tomorrow at eight in the morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of London the more so as the Lord Chief Justice's proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his pockethandkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently not belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he had bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought myself well rid of him for a shilling. I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close and now I became aware that other people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well as I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew Close, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the pavement as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when they first passed me, that 'Jaggers would do it if it was to be done. There was a knot of three men and two women standing at a corner, and one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders, 'Jaggers is for him, 'Melia, and what more could you have? There was a redeyed little Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there, in company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an errand and while the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a highly excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a lamppost and accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the words, 'O Jaggerth, Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith CagMaggerth, give me Jaggerth! These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a deep impression on me, and I admired and wondered more than ever. At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road towards me. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and there was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder and walking me on at his side without saying anything to me, addressed himself to his followers. First, he took the two secret men. 'Now, I have nothing to say to you, said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at them. 'I want to know no more than I know. As to the result, it's a tossup. I told you from the first it was a tossup. Have you paid Wemmick? 'We made the money up this morning, sir, said one of the men, submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers's face. 'I don't ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made it up at all. Has Wemmick got it? 'Yes, sir, said both the men together. 'Very well then you may go. Now, I won't have it! said Mr Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put them behind him. 'If you say a word to me, I'll throw up the case. 'We thought, Mr. Jaggers one of the men began, pulling off his hat. 'That's what I told you not to do, said Mr. Jaggers. 'You thought! I think for you that's enough for you. If I want you, I know where to find you I don't want you to find me. Now I won't have it. I won't hear a word. The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind again, and humbly fell back and were heard no more. 'And now you! said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on the two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly separated,'Oh! Amelia, is it? 'Yes, Mr. Jaggers. 'And do you remember, retorted Mr. Jaggers, 'that but for me you wouldn't be here and couldn't be here? 'O yes, sir! exclaimed both women together. 'Lord bless you, sir, well we knows that! 'Then why, said Mr. Jaggers, 'do you come here? 'My Bill, sir! the crying woman pleaded. 'Now, I tell you what! said Mr. Jaggers. 'Once for all. If you don't know that your Bill's in good hands, I know it. And if you come here bothering about your Bill, I'll make an example of both your Bill and you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick? 'O yes, sir! Every farden. 'Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another wordone single wordand Wemmick shall give you your money back. This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately. No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the skirts of Mr. Jaggers's coat to his lips several times. 'I don't know this man! said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating strain 'What does this fellow want? 'Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth? 'Who's he? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Let go of my coat. The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing it, replied, 'Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate. 'You're too late, said Mr. Jaggers. 'I am over the way. 'Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth! cried my excitable acquaintance, turning white, 'don't thay you're again Habraham Latharuth! 'I am, said Mr. Jaggers, 'and there's an end of it. Get out of the way. 'Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen'th gone to Mithter Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If you'd have the condethenthun to be bought off from the t'other thideat hany thuperior prithe!money no object!Mithter JaggerthMithter! My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without further interruption, we reached the front office, where we found the clerk and the man in velveteen with the fur cap. 'Here's Mike, said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially. 'Oh! said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling at the bellrope 'your man comes on this afternoon. Well? 'Well, Mas'r Jaggers, returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer from a constitutional cold 'arter a deal o' trouble, I've found one, sir, as might do. 'What is he prepared to swear? 'Well, Mas'r Jaggers, said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur cap this time 'in a general way, anythink. Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. 'Now, I warned you before, said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, 'that if you ever presumed to talk in that way here, I'd make an example of you. You infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that? The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious what he had done. 'Spooney! said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with his elbow. 'Soft Head! Need you say it face to face? 'Now, I ask you, you blundering booby, said my guardian, very sternly, 'once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is prepared to swear? Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson from his face, and slowly replied, 'Ayther to character, or to having been in his company and never left him all the night in question. 'Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man? Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before beginning to reply in a nervous manner, 'We've dressed him up like when my guardian blustered out, 'What? You WILL, will you? ('Spooney! added the clerk again, with another stir.) After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again 'He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A sort of a pastrycook. 'Is he here? asked my guardian. 'I left him, said Mike, 'a setting on some doorsteps round the corner. 'Take him past that window, and let me see him. The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an accidental manner, with a murderouslooking tall individual, in a short suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not by any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery, which was painted over. 'Tell him to take his witness away directly, said my guardian to the clerk, in extreme disgust, 'and ask him what he means by bringing such a fellow as that. My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, standing, from a sandwichbox and a pocketflask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he had made for me. I was to go to 'Barnard's Inn, to young Mr. Pocket's rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation I was to remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday on Monday I was to go with him to his father's house on a visit, that I might try how I liked it. Also, I was told what my allowance was to be,it was a very liberal one,and had handed to me from one of my guardian's drawers, the cards of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes, and such other things as I could in reason want. 'You will find your credit good, Mr. Pip, said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, 'but I shall by this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable. Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's no fault of mine. After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I asked Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth while, I was so near my destination Wemmick should walk round with me, if I pleased. I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk was rung down from upstairs to take his place while he was out, and I accompanied him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian. We found a new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way among them by saying coolly yet decisively, 'I tell you it's no use he won't have a word to say to one of you and we soon got clear of them, and went on side by side. Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dulledged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watchchain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes,small, keen, and black,and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years. 'So you were never in London before? said Mr. Wemmick to me. 'No, said I. 'I was new here once, said Mr. Wemmick. 'Rum to think of now! 'You are well acquainted with it now? 'Why, yes, said Mr. Wemmick. 'I know the moves of it. 'Is it a very wicked place? I asked, more for the sake of saying something than for information. 'You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who'll do that for you. 'If there is bad blood between you and them, said I, to soften it off a little. 'O! I don't know about bad blood, returned Mr. Wemmick 'there's not much bad blood about. They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by it. 'That makes it worse. 'You think so? returned Mr. Wemmick. 'Much about the same, I should say. He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him walking in a selfcontained way as if there were nothing in the streets to claim his attention. His mouth was such a postoffice of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not smiling at all. 'Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives? I asked Mr. Wemmick. 'Yes, said he, nodding in the direction. 'At Hammersmith, west of London. 'Is that far? 'Well! Say five miles. 'Do you know him? 'Why, you're a regular crossexaminer! said Mr. Wemmick, looking at me with an approving air. 'Yes, I know him. I know him! There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his utterance of these words that rather depressed me and I was still looking sideways at his block of a face in search of any encouraging note to the text, when he said here we were at Barnard's Inn. My depression was not alleviated by the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town was a mere publichouse. Whereas I now found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for Tomcats. We entered this haven through a wicketgate, and were disgorged by an introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me like a flat buryingground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I thought the windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses were divided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled flowerpot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift while To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants and their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere dusthole. Thus far my sense of sight while dry rot and wet rot and all the silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,rot of rat and mouse and bug and coachingstables near at hand besidesaddressed themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, 'Try Barnard's Mixture. So imperfect was this realisation of the first of my great expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. 'Ah! said he, mistaking me 'the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me. He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,which appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of those days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find themselves without the means of coming down,to a set of chambers on the top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was a label on the letterbox, 'Return shortly. 'He hardly thought you'd come so soon, Mr. Wemmick explained. 'You don't want me any more? 'No, thank you, said I. 'As I keep the cash, Mr. Wemmick observed, 'we shall most likely meet pretty often. Good day. 'Good day. I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting himself, 'To be sure! Yes. You're in the habit of shaking hands? I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion, but said yes. 'I have got so out of it! said Mr. Wemmick,'except at last. Very glad, I'm sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day! When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window and had nearly beheaded myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it came down like the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not put my head out. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of the Inn through the window's encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated. Mr. Pocket, Junior's, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had nearly maddened myself with looking out for half an hour, and had written my name with my finger several times in the dirt of every pane in the window, before I heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose before me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a member of society of about my own standing. He had a paperbag under each arm and a pottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of breath. 'Mr. Pip? said he. 'Mr. Pocket? said I. 'Dear me! he exclaimed. 'I am extremely sorry but I knew there was a coach from your part of the country at midday, and I thought you would come by that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account,not that that is any excuse,for I thought, coming from the country, you might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden Market to get it good. For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think this was a dream. 'Dear me! said Mr. Pocket, Junior. 'This door sticks so! As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door while the paperbags were under his arms, I begged him to allow me to hold them. He relinquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated with the door as if it were a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last, that he staggered back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite door, and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start out of my head, and as if this must be a dream. 'Pray come in, said Mr. Pocket, Junior. 'Allow me to lead the way. I am rather bare here, but I hope you'll be able to make out tolerably well till Monday. My father thought you would get on more agreeably through tomorrow with me than with him, and might like to take a walk about London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our table, you won't find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our coffeehouse here, and (it is only right I should add) at your expense, such being Mr. Jaggers's directions. As to our lodging, it's not by any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father hasn't anything to give me, and I shouldn't be willing to take it, if he had. This is our sittingroom,just such chairs and tables and carpet and so forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You mustn't give me credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, because they come for you from the coffeehouse. This is my little bedroom rather musty, but Barnard's is musty. This is your bedroom the furniture's hired for the occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose if you should want anything, I'll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall be alone together, but we shan't fight, I dare say. But dear me, I beg your pardon, you're holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take these bags from you. I am quite ashamed. As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him the bags, One, Two, I saw the starting appearance come into his own eyes that I knew to be in mine, and he said, falling back, 'Lord bless me, you're the prowling boy! 'And you, said I, 'are the pale young gentleman! The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard's Inn, until we both burst out laughing. 'The idea of its being you! said he. 'The idea of its being you! said I. And then we contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. 'Well! said the pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand goodhumouredly, 'it's all over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you'll forgive me for having knocked you about so. I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman's name) still rather confounded his intention with his execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly. 'You hadn't come into your good fortune at that time? said Herbert Pocket. 'No, said I. 'No, he acquiesced 'I heard it had happened very lately. I was rather on the lookout for good fortune then. 'Indeed? 'Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to me. But she couldn't,at all events, she didn't. I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that. 'Bad taste, said Herbert, laughing, 'but a fact. Yes, she had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I suppose I should have been provided for perhaps I should have been whatyoumaycalled it to Estella. 'What's that? I asked, with sudden gravity. He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which divided his attention, and was the cause of his having made this lapse of a word. 'Affianced, he explained, still busy with the fruit. 'Betrothed. Engaged. What'shisnamed. Any word of that sort. 'How did you bear your disappointment? I asked. 'Pooh! said he, 'I didn't care much for it. She's a Tartar. 'Miss Havisham? 'I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl's hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex. 'What relation is she to Miss Havisham? 'None, said he. 'Only adopted. 'Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge? 'Lord, Mr. Pip! said he. 'Don't you know? 'No, said I. 'Dear me! It's quite a story, and shall be saved till dinnertime. And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come there, that day? I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst out laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards? I didn't ask him if he was, for my conviction on that point was perfectly established. 'Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand? he went on. 'Yes. 'You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business and solicitor, and has her confidence when nobody else has? This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I answered with a constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss Havisham's house on the very day of our combat, but never at any other time, and that I believed he had no recollection of having ever seen me there. 'He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father from his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham's cousin not that that implies familiar intercourse between them, for he is a bad courtier and will not propitiate her. Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking. I had never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since, who more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something wonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the same time whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich. I don't know how this was. I became imbued with the notion on that first occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define by what means. He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered languor about him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not seem indicative of natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome being extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure was a little ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had taken such liberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be light and young. Whether Mr. Trabb's local work would have sat more gracefully on him than on me, may be a question but I am conscious that he carried off his rather old clothes much better than I carried off my new suit. As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part would be a bad return unsuited to our years. I therefore told him my small story, and laid stress on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a country place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever he saw me at a loss or going wrong. 'With pleasure, said he, 'though I venture to prophesy that you'll want very few hints. I dare say we shall be often together, and I should like to banish any needless restraint between us. Will you do me the favour to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert? I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my Christian name was Philip. 'I don't take to Philip, said he, smiling, 'for it sounds like a moral boy out of the spellingbook, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond, or so fat that he couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a bird'snesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the neighbourhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and you have been a blacksmith,would you mind it? 'I shouldn't mind anything that you propose, I answered, 'but I don't understand you. 'Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith. 'I should like it very much. 'Then, my dear Handel, said he, turning round as the door opened, 'here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the table, because the dinner is of your providing. This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It was a nice little dinner,seemed to me then a very Lord Mayor's Feast,and it acquired additional relish from being eaten under those independent circumstances, with no old people by, and with London all around us. This again was heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the banquet off for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have said, the lap of luxury,being entirely furnished forth from the coffeehouse,the circumjacent region of sittingroom was of a comparatively pastureless and shifty character imposing on the waiter the wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the melted butter in the armchair, the bread on the bookshelves, the cheese in the coalscuttle, and the boiled fowl into my bed in the next room,where I found much of its parsley and butter in a state of congelation when I retired for the night. All this made the feast delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me, my pleasure was without alloy. We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his promise to tell me about Miss Havisham. 'True, he replied. 'I'll redeem it at once. Let me introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth,for fear of accidents,and that while the fork is reserved for that use, it is not put further in than necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning, only it's as well to do as other people do. Also, the spoon is not generally used overhand, but under. This has two advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening oysters, on the part of the right elbow. He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both laughed and I scarcely blushed. 'Now, he pursued, 'concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in your part of the world, and was a brewer. I don't know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer but it is indisputable that while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every day. 'Yet a gentleman may not keep a publichouse may he? said I. 'Not on any account, returned Herbert 'but a publichouse may keep a gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his daughter. 'Miss Havisham was an only child? I hazarded. 'Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child she had a halfbrother. Her father privately married againhis cook, I rather think. 'I thought he was proud, said I. 'My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately, because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant, undutiful,altogether bad. At last his father disinherited him but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.Take another glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose. I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I thanked him, and apologised. He said, 'Not at all, and resumed. 'Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after as a great match. Her halfbrother had now ample means again, but what with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again. There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger. Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,merely breaking off, my dear Handel, to remark that a dinnernapkin will not go into a tumbler. Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it within those limits. Again I thanked him and apologised, and again he said in the cheerfullest manner, 'Not at all, I am sure! and resumed. 'There appeared upon the scenesay at the races, or the public balls, or anywhere else you likea certain man, who made love to Miss Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened fiveandtwenty years ago, before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my father most strongly asseverates because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much susceptibility up to that time but all the susceptibility she possessed certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in that systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had been weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all. Your guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father he was poor enough, but not timeserving or jealous. The only independent one among them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his presence, and my father has never seen her since. I thought of her having said, 'Matthew will come and see me at last when I am laid dead upon that table and I asked Herbert whether his father was so inveterate against her? 'It's not that, said he, 'but she charged him, in the presence of her intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would look trueeven to himand even to her. To return to the man and make an end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter 'Which she received, I struck in, 'when she was dressing for her marriage? At twenty minutes to nine? 'At the hour and minute, said Herbert, nodding, 'at which she afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't tell you, because I don't know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since looked upon the light of day. 'Is that all the story? I asked, after considering it. 'All I know of it and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it out for myself for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss Havisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was absolutely requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten one thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced confidence acted throughout in concert with her halfbrother that it was a conspiracy between them and that they shared the profits. 'I wonder he didn't marry her and get all the property, said I. 'He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have been a part of her halfbrother's scheme, said Herbert. 'Mind! I don't know that. 'What became of the two men? I asked, after again considering the subject. 'They fell into deeper shame and degradationif there can be deeperand ruin. 'Are they alive now? 'I don't know. 'You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but adopted. When adopted? Herbert shrugged his shoulders. 'There has always been an Estella, since I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel, said he, finally throwing off the story as it were, 'there is a perfectly open understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you know. 'And all that I know, I retorted, 'you know. 'I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity between you and me. And as to the condition on which you hold your advancement in life,namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to whom you owe it,you may be very sure that it will never be encroached upon, or even approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me. In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject done with, even though I should be under his father's roof for years and years to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt he as perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as I understood the fact myself. It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for the purpose of clearing it out of our way but we were so much the lighter and easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this to be the case. We were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, in the course of conversation, what he was? He replied, 'A capitalist,an Insurer of Ships. I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search of some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, 'In the City. I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in the City, and I began to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer on his back, blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible head open. But again there came upon me, for my relief, that odd impression that Herbert Pocket would never be very successful or rich. 'I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in insuring ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and cut into the Direction. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these things will interfere with my chartering a few thousand tons on my own account. I think I shall trade, said he, leaning back in his chair, 'to the East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious woods. It's an interesting trade. 'And the profits are large? said I. 'Tremendous! said he. I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than my own. 'I think I shall trade, also, said he, putting his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, 'to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum. Also to Ceylon, especially for elephants' tusks. 'You will want a good many ships, said I. 'A perfect fleet, said he. Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked him where the ships he insured mostly traded to at present? 'I haven't begun insuring yet, he replied. 'I am looking about me. Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard's Inn. I said (in a tone of conviction), 'Ahh! 'Yes. I am in a countinghouse, and looking about me. 'Is a countinghouse profitable? I asked. 'Todo you mean to the young fellow who's in it? he asked, in reply. 'Yes to you. 'Why, nno not to me. He said this with the air of one carefully reckoning up and striking a balance. 'Not directly profitable. That is, it doesn't pay me anything, and I have tokeep myself. This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as if I would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative capital from such a source of income. 'But the thing is, said Herbert Pocket, 'that you look about you. That's the grand thing. You are in a countinghouse, you know, and you look about you. It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of a countinghouse, you know, and look about you but I silently deferred to his experience. 'Then the time comes, said Herbert, 'when you see your opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then there you are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to do but employ it. This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden very like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded to his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he took all blows and buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine then. It was evident that he had nothing around him but the simplest necessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been sent in on my account from the coffeehouse or somewhere else. Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being puffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his naturally pleasant ways, and we got on famously. In the evening we went out for a walk in the streets, and went halfprice to the Theatre and next day we went to church at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the Parks and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did. On a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sunday, since I had left Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them partook of that expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. That I could have been at our old church in my old churchgoing clothes, on the very last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the London streets so crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk of evening, there were depressing hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor old kitchen at home so far away and in the dead of night, the footsteps of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn, under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart. On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to the countinghouse to report himself,to look about him, too, I suppose,and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor did the countinghouse where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at all a good Observatory being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy presence in all particulars, and with a look into another back second floor, rather than a look out. I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 'Change, and I saw fluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to be great merchants, though I couldn't understand why they should all be out of spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have been the most abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help noticing, even then, that there was much more gravy on the tablecloths and knives and waiters' clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at a moderate price (considering the grease, which was not charged for), we went back to Barnard's Inn and got my little portmanteau, and then took coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket's house. Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket's children were playing about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs. Pocket's children were not growing up or being brought up, but were tumbling up. Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with her legs upon another garden chair and Mrs. Pocket's two nursemaids were looking about them while the children played. 'Mamma, said Herbert, 'this is young Mr. Pip. Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me with an appearance of amiable dignity. 'Master Alick and Miss Jane, cried one of the nurses to two of the children, 'if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you'll fall over into the river and be drownded, and what'll your pa say then? At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's handkerchief, and said, 'If that don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum! Upon which Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, 'Thank you, Flopson, and settling herself in one chair only, resumed her book. Her countenance immediately assumed a knitted and intent expression as if she had been reading for a week, but before she could have read half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes upon me, and said, 'I hope your mamma is quite well? This unexpected inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no doubt she would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue. 'Well! she cried, picking up the pockethandkerchief, 'if that don't make seven times! What ARE you adoing of this afternoon, Mum! Mrs. Pocket received her property, at first with a look of unutterable surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then with a laugh of recognition, and said, 'Thank you, Flopson, and forgot me, and went on reading. I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer than six little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up. I had scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the region of air, wailing dolefully. 'If there ain't Baby! said Flopson, appearing to think it most surprising. 'Make haste up, Millers. Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by degrees the child's wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a young ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all the time, and I was curious to know what the book could be. We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us at any rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing the remarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of the children strayed near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and tumbled over her,always very much to her momentary astonishment, and their own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to account for this surprising circumstance, and could not help giving my mind to speculations about it, until by and by Millers came down with the baby, which baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself. 'Gracious me, Flopson! said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for a moment, 'everybody's tumbling! 'Gracious you, indeed, Mum! returned Flopson, very red in the face 'what have you got there? 'I got here, Flopson? asked Mrs. Pocket. 'Why, if it ain't your footstool! cried Flopson. 'And if you keep it under your skirts like that, who's to help tumbling? Here! Take the baby, Mum, and give me your book. Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a little in her lap, while the other children played about it. This had lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap. Thus I made the second discovery on that first occasion, that the nurture of the little Pockets consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying down. Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the children into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out of it to make my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr. Pocket was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression of face, and with his very grey hair disordered on his head, as if he didn't quite see his way to putting anything straight. Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to see him. 'For, I really am not, he added, with his son's smile, 'an alarming personage. He was a younglooking man, in spite of his perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very near being so. When he had talked with me a little, he said to Mrs. Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which were black and handsome, 'Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip? And she looked up from her book, and said, 'Yes. She then smiled upon me in an absent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orangeflower water? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, on any foregone or subsequent transaction, I consider it to have been thrown out, like her previous approaches, in general conversational condescension. I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs. Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody's determined opposition arising out of entirely personal motives,I forget whose, if I ever knew,the Sovereign's, the Prime Minister's, the Lord Chancellor's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's,and had tacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for storming the English grammar at the point of the pen, in a desperate address engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of some building or other, and for handing some Royal Personage either the trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge. So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed, in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket who was also in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount to the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing the one or the other was a mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had taken Time by the forelock (when, to judge from its length, it would seem to have wanted cutting), and had married without the knowledge of the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife was 'a treasure for a Prince. Mr. Pocket had invested the Prince's treasure in the ways of the world ever since, and it was supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never got one. Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room which was a pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for my own private sittingroom. He then knocked at the doors of two other similar rooms, and introduced me to their occupants, by name Drummle and Startop. Drummle, an oldlooking young man of a heavy order of architecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in years and appearance, was reading and holding his head, as if he thought himself in danger of exploding it with too strong a charge of knowledge. Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody else's hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the servants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving trouble but it had the appearance of being expensive, for the servants felt it a duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and drinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been the kitchen,always supposing the boarder capable of selfdefence, for, before I had been there a week, a neighbouring lady with whom the family were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who burst into tears on receiving the note, and said that it was an extraordinary thing that the neighbours couldn't mind their own business. By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself but that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life, he had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling of a Grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades,of whom it was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had left the Grindstone,he had wearied of that poor work and had come to London. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had 'read with divers who had lacked opportunities or neglected them, and had refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had turned his acquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction, and on such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still maintained the house I saw. Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbour a widow lady of that highly sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances. This lady's name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honour of taking her down to dinner on the day of my installation. She gave me to understand on the stairs, that it was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen to read with him. That did not extend to me, she told me in a gush of love and confidence (at that time, I had known her something less than five minutes) if they were all like Me, it would be quite another thing. 'But dear Mrs. Pocket, said Mrs. Coiler, 'after her early disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that), requires so much luxury and elegance 'Yes, ma'am, I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going to cry. 'And she is of so aristocratic a disposition 'Yes, ma'am, I said again, with the same object as before. 'That it is hard, said Mrs. Coiler, 'to have dear Mr. Pocket's time and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket. I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher's time and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket but I said nothing, and indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company manners. It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and Drummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instruments of selfdestruction, that Drummle, whose Christian name was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy. It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the garden was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which her grandpapa would have come into the book, if he ever had come at all. Drummle didn't say much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky kind of fellow) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognised Mrs. Pocket as a woman and a sister. No one but themselves and Mrs. Coiler the toady neighbour showed any interest in this part of the conversation, and it appeared to me that it was painful to Herbert but it promised to last a long time, when the page came in with the announcement of a domestic affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid the beef. To my unutterable amazement, I now, for the first time, saw Mr. Pocket relieve his mind by going through a performance that struck me as very extraordinary, but which made no impression on anybody else, and with which I soon became as familiar as the rest. He laid down the carvingknife and fork,being engaged in carving, at the moment,put his two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make an extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it. When he had done this, and had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly went on with what he was about. Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the pleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine way of coming close at me when she pretended to be vitally interested in the friends and localities I had left, which was altogether snaky and forktongued and when she made an occasional bounce upon Startop (who said very little to her), or upon Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for being on the opposite side of the table. After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs,a sagacious way of improving their minds. There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the baby's next successor who was as yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much as though those two noncommissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere for children and had enlisted these, while Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to have been as if she rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what to make of them. 'Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby, said Flopson. 'Don't take it that way, or you'll get its head under the table. Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head upon the table which was announced to all present by a prodigious concussion. 'Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum, said Flopson 'and Miss Jane, come and dance to baby, do! One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and laughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the meantime had twice endeavoured to lift himself up by the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and were glad. Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll, then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket's lap, and gave it the nutcrackers to play with at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice that the handles of that instrument were not likely to agree with its eyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the two nurses left the room, and had a lively scuffle on the staircase with a dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost half his buttons at the gamingtable. I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket's falling into a discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a sliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and, forgetting all about the baby on her lap, who did most appalling things with the nutcrackers. At length little Jane, perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, softly left her place, and with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous weapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the same time, and not approving of this, said to Jane, 'You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant! 'Mamma dear, lisped the little girl, 'baby ood have put hith eyeth out. 'How dare you tell me so? retorted Mrs. Pocket. 'Go and sit down in your chair this moment! Mrs. Pocket's dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed, as if I myself had done something to rouse it. 'Belinda, remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the table, 'how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the protection of baby. 'I will not allow anybody to interfere, said Mrs. Pocket. 'I am surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of interference. 'Good God! cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation. 'Are infants to be nutcrackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save them? 'I will not be interfered with by Jane, said Mrs. Pocket, with a majestic glance at that innocent little offender. 'I hope I know my poor grandpapa's position. Jane, indeed! Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did lift himself some inches out of his chair. 'Hear this! he helplessly exclaimed to the elements. 'Babies are to be nutcrackered dead, for people's poor grandpapa's positions! Then he let himself down again, and became silent. We all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A pause succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby made a series of leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the only member of the family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had any decided acquaintance. 'Mr. Drummle, said Mrs. Pocket, 'will you ring for Flopson? Jane, you undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling, come with ma! The baby was the soul of honour, and protested with all its might. It doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket's arm, exhibited a pair of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft face, and was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it gained its point after all, for I saw it through the window within a few minutes, being nursed by little Jane. It happened that the other five children were left behind at the dinnertable, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and their not being anybody else's business. I thus became aware of the mutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face heightened and his hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if he couldn't make out how they came to be boarding and lodging in that establishment, and why they hadn't been billeted by Nature on somebody else. Then, in a distant Missionary way he asked them certain questions,as why little Joe had that hole in his frill, who said, Pa, Flopson was going to mend it when she had time,and how little Fanny came by that whitlow, who said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it when she didn't forget. Then, he melted into parental tenderness, and gave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and play and then as they went out, with one very strong effort to lift himself up by the hair he dismissed the hopeless subject. In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and Startop had each a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them both out. I was pretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as I was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,not to say for other waters,I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition of the winner of a prizewherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I was introduced by my new allies. This practical authority confused me very much by saying I had the arm of a blacksmith. If he could have known how nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would have paid it. There was a suppertray after we got home at night, and I think we should all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable domestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid came in, and said, 'If you please, sir, I should wish to speak to you. 'Speak to your master? said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused again. 'How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or speak to meat some other time. 'Begging your pardon, ma'am, returned the housemaid, 'I should wish to speak at once, and to speak to master. Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of ourselves until he came back. 'This is a pretty thing, Belinda! said Mr. Pocket, returning with a countenance expressive of grief and despair. 'Here's the cook lying insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease! Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, 'This is that odious Sophia's doing! 'What do you mean, Belinda? demanded Mr. Pocket. 'Sophia has told you, said Mrs. Pocket. 'Did I not see her with my own eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and ask to speak to you? 'But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda, returned Mr. Pocket, 'and shown me the woman, and the bundle too? 'And do you defend her, Matthew, said Mrs. Pocket, 'for making mischief? Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan. 'Am I, grandpapa's granddaughter, to be nothing in the house? said Mrs. Pocket. 'Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful woman, and said in the most natural manner when she came to look after the situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess. There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a hollow voice, 'Good night, Mr. Pip, when I deemed it advisable to go to bed and leave him. After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for he referred to his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any profession, and that I should be well enough educated for my destiny if I could 'hold my own with the average of young men in prosperous circumstances. I acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to the contrary. He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard him as having anything ludicrous about himor anything but what was serious, honest, and goodin his tutor communication with me. When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I had begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could retain my bedroom in Barnard's Inn, my life would be agreeably varied, while my manners would be none the worse for Herbert's society. Mr. Pocket did not object to this arrangement, but urged that before any step could possibly be taken in it, it must be submitted to my guardian. I felt that this delicacy arose out of the consideration that the plan would save Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little Britain and imparted my wish to Mr. Jaggers. 'If I could buy the furniture now hired for me, said I, 'and one or two other little things, I should be quite at home there. 'Go it! said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. 'I told you you'd get on. Well! How much do you want? I said I didn't know how much. 'Come! retorted Mr. Jaggers. 'How much? Fifty pounds? 'O, not nearly so much. 'Five pounds? said Mr. Jaggers. This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, 'O, more than that. 'More than that, eh! retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me, with his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the wall behind me 'how much more? 'It is so difficult to fix a sum, said I, hesitating. 'Come! said Mr. Jaggers. 'Let's get at it. Twice five will that do? Three times five will that do? Four times five will that do? I said I thought that would do handsomely. 'Four times five will do handsomely, will it? said Mr. Jaggers, knitting his brows. 'Now, what do you make of four times five? 'What do I make of it? 'Ah! said Mr. Jaggers 'how much? 'I suppose you make it twenty pounds, said I, smiling. 'Never mind what I make it, my friend, observed Mr. Jaggers, with a knowing and contradictory toss of his head. 'I want to know what you make it. 'Twenty pounds, of course. 'Wemmick! said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. 'Take Mr. Pip's written order, and pay him twenty pounds. This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never laughed but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers's manner. 'Tell him that, and he'll take it as a compliment, answered Wemmick 'he don't mean that you should know what to make of it.Oh! for I looked surprised, 'it's not personal it's professional only professional. Wemmick was at his desk, lunchingand crunchingon a dry hard biscuit pieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit of a mouth, as if he were posting them. 'Always seems to me, said Wemmick, 'as if he had set a mantrap and was watching it. Suddenlyclickyou're caught! Without remarking that mantraps were not among the amenities of life, I said I supposed he was very skilful? 'Deep, said Wemmick, 'as Australia. Pointing with his pen at the office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the purposes of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe. 'If there was anything deeper, added Wemmick, bringing his pen to paper, 'he'd be it. Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said, 'Capital! Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he replied, 'We don't run much into clerks, because there's only one Jaggers, and people won't have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would you like to see 'em? You are one of us, as I may say. I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the post, and had paid me my money from a cashbox in a safe, the key of which safe he kept somewhere down his back and produced from his coatcollar like an ironpigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark and shabby, and the greasy shoulders that had left their mark in Mr. Jaggers's room seemed to have been shuffling up and down the staircase for years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something between a publican and a ratcatchera large pale, puffed, swollen manwas attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers. 'Getting evidence together, said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out, 'for the Bailey. In the room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair (his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick presented to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt me anything I pleased,and who was in an excessive whiteperspiration, as if he had been trying his art on himself. In a back room, a highshouldered man with a faceache tied up in dirty flannel, who was dressed in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been waxed, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of the other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers's own use. This was all the establishment. When we went downstairs again, Wemmick led me into my guardian's room, and said, 'This you've seen already. 'Pray, said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them caught my sight again, 'whose likenesses are those? 'These? said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off the horrible heads before bringing them down. 'These are two celebrated ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly. 'Is it like him? I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. 'Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old Artful? said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, 'Had it made for me, express! 'Is the lady anybody? said I. 'No, returned Wemmick. 'Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,and she wasn't of this slender ladylike sort, and you wouldn't have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it. Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pockethandkerchief. 'Did that other creature come to the same end? I asked. 'He has the same look. 'You're right, said Wemmick 'it's the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horsehair and a little fishhook. Yes, he came to the same end quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophising), 'and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you! Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, 'Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before. While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands. 'O yes, he returned, 'these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guidingstar always is, 'Get hold of portable property'. When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner 'If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honour. I have not much to show you but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summerhouse. I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. 'Thankee, said he 'then we'll consider that it's to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet? 'Not yet. 'Well, said Wemmick, 'he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper. 'Shall I see something very uncommon? 'Well, said Wemmick, 'you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it. I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers 'at it? For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be 'at, I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded policecourt, where a bloodrelation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing something while my guardian had a woman under examination or crossexamination,I don't know which,and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to have it 'taken down. If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, 'I'll have it out of you! and if anybody made an admission, he said, 'Now I have got you! The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thieftakers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was'as you may see, though you never saw her, said Herbert to me'exactly like his mother. It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep inshore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the backwater, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in midstream. Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a halfshare in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith and my possession of a halfshare in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope. When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grownup infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves. These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. 'Did you think of walking down to Walworth? said he. 'Certainly, said I, 'if you approve. 'Very much, was Wemmick's reply, 'for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,which is of home preparation,and a cold roast fowl,which is from the cook'sshop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, 'Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it. He said to that, 'Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop. I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object to an aged parent, I hope? I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, 'Because I have got an aged parent at my place. I then said what politeness required. 'So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet? he pursued, as we walked along. 'Not yet. 'He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation tomorrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 'em ain't there? Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, 'Yes. 'Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,I hardly felt complimented by the word,'and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house, proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood 'he never lets a door or window be fastened at night. 'Is he never robbed? 'That's it! returned Wemmick. 'He says, and gives it out publicly, 'I want to see the man who'll rob me. Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, 'You know where I live now, no bolt is ever drawn there why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come can't I tempt you? Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money. 'They dread him so much? said I. 'Dread him, said Wemmick. 'I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon. 'So they wouldn't have much, I observed, 'even if they 'Ah! But he would have much, said Wemmick, cutting me short, 'and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it. I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked 'As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watchchain. That's real enough. 'It's very massive, said I. 'Massive? repeated Wemmick. 'I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it. At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth. It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. 'My own doing, said Wemmick. 'Looks pretty don't it? I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. 'That's a real flagstaff, you see, said Wemmick, 'and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it upsoand cut off the communication. The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically. 'At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time, said Wemmick, 'the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger. The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of latticework. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. 'Then, at the back, said Wemmick, 'out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,I don't know whether that's your opinion I said, decidedly. 'At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir, said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, 'if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions. Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet. 'I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades, said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. 'Well it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out? I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. 'Well aged parent, said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, 'how am you? 'All right, John all right! replied the old man. 'Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent, said Wemmick, 'and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking! 'This is a fine place of my son's, sir, cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. 'This is a pretty pleasureground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment. 'You're as proud of it as Punch ain't you, Aged? said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened 'there's a nod for you giving him a tremendous one 'there's another for you giving him a still more tremendous one 'you like that, don't you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pipthough I know it's tiring to strangerswill you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him. I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbour where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection. 'Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick? 'O yes, said Wemmick, 'I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George! 'Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it? 'Never seen it, said Wemmick. 'Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about. Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. 'Getting near gunfire, said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe 'it's the Aged's treat. Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the redhot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Agedwho I believe would have been blown out of his armchair but for holding on by the elbowscried out exultingly, 'He's fired! I heerd him! and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, 'every one of 'em Lies, sir. These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobaccostoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sittingroom but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roastingjack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the suppercloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent and though the Castle was rather subject to dryrot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night. Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at halfpast eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a postoffice again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coatcollar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth and he called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. 'No ceremony, he stipulated, 'and no dinner dress, and say tomorrow. I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, 'Come here, and I'll take you home with me. I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jacktowel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jacktowel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on. There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him but there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward, he was recognised ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me but he never otherwise recognised anybody, or took notice that anybody recognised him. He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like. Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms the second was his dressingroom the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laidno silver in the service, of courseand at the side of his chair was a capacious dumbwaiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. There was a bookcase in the room I saw from the backs of the books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watchchain. It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,for he and I had walked together,he stood on the hearthrug, after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. 'Pip, said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window, 'I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider? 'The spider? said I. 'The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow. 'That's Bentley Drummle, I replied 'the one with the delicate face is Startop. Not making the least account of 'the one with the delicate face, he returned, 'Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow. He immediately began to talk to Drummle not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,but I may have thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and flutter but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host from his dumbwaiter and when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant than the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish and I always saw in her face, a face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made a dreadful likeness of that woman, by causing a face that had no other natural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair to pass behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room. Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by her own striking appearance and by Wemmick's preparation, I observed that whenever she was in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my guardian, and that she would remove her hands from any dish she put before him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back, and wanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I fancied that I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, and a purpose of always holding her in suspense. Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather than originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of our dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronise Herbert, and to boast of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips. It was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummle the development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious way at the rest, was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off. It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his. Drummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to our company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that as to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible agency, my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this trifle and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in a ridiculous manner. Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table my guardian, taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her, was leaning back in his chair biting the side of his forefinger and showing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable. Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap, as she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do this, that we all stopped in our foolish contention. 'If you talk of strength, said Mr. Jaggers, 'I'll show you a wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist. Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other hand behind her waist. 'Master, she said, in a low voice, with her eyes attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. 'Don't. 'I'll show you a wrist, repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable determination to show it. 'Molly, let them see your wrist. 'Master, she again murmured. 'Please! 'Molly, said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking at the opposite side of the room, 'let them see both your wrists. Show them. Come! He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by side. The last wrist was much disfigured,deeply scarred and scarred across and across. When she held her hands out she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession. 'There's power here, said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews with his forefinger. 'Very few men have the power of wrist that this woman has. It's remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands but I never saw stronger in that respect, man's or woman's, than these. While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued to look at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment he ceased, she looked at him again. 'That'll do, Molly, said Mr. Jaggers, giving her a slight nod 'you have been admired, and can go. She withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, putting the decanters on from his dumbwaiter, filled his glass and passed round the wine. 'At halfpast nine, gentlemen, said he, 'we must break up. Pray make the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I drink to you. If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more, it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose depreciation of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree, until he became downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. Jaggers followed him with the same strange interest. He actually seemed to serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers's wine. In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink, and I know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with our money. It led to my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that it came with a bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my presence but a week or so before. 'Well, retorted Drummle 'he'll be paid. 'I don't mean to imply that he won't, said I, 'but it might make you hold your tongue about us and our money, I should think. 'You should think! retorted Drummle. 'Oh Lord! 'I dare say, I went on, meaning to be very severe, 'that you wouldn't lend money to any of us if we wanted it. 'You are right, said Drummle. 'I wouldn't lend one of you a sixpence. I wouldn't lend anybody a sixpence. 'Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say. 'You should say, repeated Drummle. 'Oh Lord! This was so very aggravatingthe more especially as I found myself making no way against his surly obtusenessthat I said, disregarding Herbert's efforts to check me, 'Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I'll tell you what passed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money. 'I don't want to know what passed between Herbert there and you, growled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower growl, that we might both go to the devil and shake ourselves. 'I'll tell you, however, said I, 'whether you want to know or not. We said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you seemed to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it. Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces, with his hands in his pockets and his round shoulders raised plainly signifying that it was quite true, and that he despised us as asses all. Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much better grace than I had shown, and exhorted him to be a little more agreeable. Startop, being a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made us all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would have flung it at his adversary's head, but for our entertainer's dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that purpose. 'Gentlemen, said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass, and hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, 'I am exceedingly sorry to announce that it's half past nine. On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door, Startop was cheerily calling Drummle 'old boy, as if nothing had happened. But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not even walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way so Herbert and I, who remained in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the houses, much as he was wont to follow in his boat. As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for a moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found him in his dressingroom surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard at it, washing his hands of us. I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame me much. 'Pooh! said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the waterdrops 'it's nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though. He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, and towelling himself. 'I am glad you like him, sir, said I'but I don't. 'No, no, my guardian assented 'don't have too much to do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip he is one of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortuneteller Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye. 'But I am not a fortuneteller, he said, letting his head drop into a festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. 'You know what I am, don't you? Good night, Pip. 'Good night, sir. In about a month after that, the Spider's time with Mr. Pocket was up for good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he went home to the family hole. 'MY DEAR MR PIP 'I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard's Hotel Tuesday morning at nine o'clock, when if not agreeable please leave word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from 'Your ever obliged, and affectionate servant, 'BIDDY. 'P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He says you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him, even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a worthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again what larks. I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joe's coming. Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties no with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming to Barnard's Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall in Bentley Drummle's way. I had little objection to his being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise. I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were vastly different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honour of occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighbouring upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a boy in boots,top boots,in bondage and slavery to whom I might have been said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out of the refuse of my washerwoman's family), and had clothed him with a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal to eat and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my existence. This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday morning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for floorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that he thought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being so interested and considerate, I had an odd halfprovoked sense of suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he wouldn't have been quite so brisk about it. However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and I got up early in the morning, and caused the sittingroom and breakfasttable to assume their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately the morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some weak giant of a Sweep. As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on the staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming upstairs,his state boots being always too big for him,and by the time it took him to read the names on the other floors in the course of his ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear his finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a faint single rap, and Peppersuch was the compromising name of the avenging boyannounced 'Mr. Gargery! I thought he never would have done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the mat, but at last he came in. 'Joe, how are you, Joe? 'Pip, how AIR you, Pip? With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put down on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them straight up and down, as if I had been the lastpatented Pump. 'I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat. But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird'snest with eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with that piece of property, and persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way. 'Which you have that growed, said Joe, 'and that swelled, and that gentlefolked Joe considered a little before he discovered this word 'as to be sure you are a honour to your king and country. 'And you, Joe, look wonderfully well. 'Thank God, said Joe, 'I'm ekerval to most. And your sister, she's no worse than she were. And Biddy, she's ever right and ready. And all friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. 'Ceptin Wopsle he's had a drop. All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the bird'snest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and round and round the flowered pattern of my dressinggown. 'Had a drop, Joe? 'Why yes, said Joe, lowering his voice, 'he's left the Church and went into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him to London along with me. And his wish were, said Joe, getting the bird'snest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an egg with his right 'if no offence, as I would 'and you that. I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled playbill of a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that very week, of 'the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown, whose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles. 'Were you at his performance, Joe? I inquired. 'I were, said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity. 'Was there a great sensation? 'Why, said Joe, 'yes, there certainly were a peck of orangepeel. Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir, whether it were calc'lated to keep a man up to his work with a good hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with 'Amen! A man may have had a misfortun' and been in the Church, said Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, 'but that is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I meantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father cannot be allowed to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning 'at is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers brings it off, try to keep it on how you may. A ghostseeing effect in Joe's own countenance informed me that Herbert had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his hand but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird'snest. 'Your servant, Sir, said Joe, 'which I hope as you and Piphere his eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the family, that I frowned it down and confused him more'I meantersay, you two gentlemen,which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot? For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions, said Joe, confidentially, 'and I believe its character do stand it but I wouldn't keep a pig in it myself,not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him. Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our dwellingplace, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me 'sir, Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,as if it were only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a resting place,and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the chimneypiece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals. 'Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery? asked Herbert, who always presided of a morning. 'Thankee, Sir, said Joe, stiff from head to foot, 'I'll take whichever is most agreeable to yourself. 'What do you say to coffee? 'Thankee, Sir, returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal, 'since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run contrairy to your own opinions. But don't you never find it a little 'eating? 'Say tea then, said Herbert, pouring it out. Here Joe's hat tumbled off the mantelpiece, and he started out of his chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it were an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again soon. 'When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery? 'Were it yesterday afternoon? said Joe, after coughing behind his hand, as if he had had time to catch the whoopingcough since he came. 'No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon (with an appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality). 'Have you seen anything of London yet? 'Why, yes, Sir, said Joe, 'me and Wopsle went off straight to look at the Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't find that it come up to its likeness in the red bills at the shop doors which I meantersay, added Joe, in an explanatory manner, 'as it is there drawd too architectooralooral. I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicketkeeping. He made extraordinary play with it, and showed the greatest skill now, rushing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped now, merely stopping it midway, beating it up, and humouring it in various parts of the room and against a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall, before he felt it safe to close with it finally splashing it into the slopbasin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it. As to his shirtcollar, and his coatcollar, they were perplexing to reflect upon,insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for his holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth had his eyes attracted in such strange directions was afflicted with such remarkable coughs sat so far from the table, and dropped so much more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn't dropped it that I was heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City. I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head. 'Us two being now alone, sir,began Joe. 'Joe, I interrupted, pettishly, 'how can you call me, sir? Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look. 'Us two being now alone, resumed Joe, 'and me having the intentions and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now concludeleastways beginto mention what have led to my having had the present honour. For was it not, said Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, 'that my only wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen. I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance against this tone. 'Well, sir, pursued Joe, 'this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen t'other night, Pipwhenever he subsided into affection, he called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir 'when there come up in his shaycart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical, said Joe, going down a new track, 'do comb my 'air the wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him which ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a playfellow by yourself. 'Nonsense. It was you, Joe. 'Which I fully believed it were, Pip, said Joe, slightly tossing his head, 'though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip this same identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the workingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were, 'Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.' 'Miss Havisham, Joe? ''She wish,' were Pumblechook's word, 'to speak to you.' Joe sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. 'Yes, Joe? Go on, please. 'Next day, sir, said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off, 'having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A. 'Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham? 'Which I say, sir, replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as if he were making his will, 'Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her expression air then as follering 'Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence with Mr. Pip?' Having had a letter from you, I were able to say 'I am.' (When I married your sister, sir, I said 'I will' and when I answered your friend, Pip, I said 'I am.') 'Would you tell him, then,' said she, 'that which Estella has come home and would be glad to see him.' I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause of its firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his errand, I should have given him more encouragement. 'Biddy, pursued Joe, 'when I got home and asked her fur to write the message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, 'I know he will be very glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see him, go!' I have now concluded, sir, said Joe, rising from his chair, 'and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a greater height. 'But you are not going now, Joe? 'Yes I am, said Joe. 'But you are coming back to dinner, Joe? 'No I am not, said Joe. Our eyes met, and all the 'Sir melted out of that manly heart as he gave me his hand. 'Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been any fault at all today, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th' meshes. You won't find half so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you! I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched me gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the neighbouring streets but he was gone. It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first flow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe's. But, when I had secured my boxplace by tomorrow's coach, and had been down to Mr. Pocket's and back, I was not by any means convinced on the last point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting up at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe's I was not expected, and my bed would not be ready I should be too far from Miss Havisham's, and she was exacting and mightn't like it. All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the selfswindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad halfcrown of somebody else's manufacture is reasonable enough but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of compactly folding up my banknotes for security's sake, abstracts the notes and gives me nutshells but what is his sleight of hand to mine, when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes! Having settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of the Blue Boar's postingyard it was almost solemn to imagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop, and confounding the disrespectful senses of Trabb's boy. On the other hand, Trabb's boy might worm himself into his intimacy and tell him things or, reckless and desperate wretch as I knew he could be, might hoot him in the High Street. My patroness, too, might hear of him, and not approve. On the whole, I resolved to leave the Avenger behind. It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place, and, as winter had now come round, I should not arrive at my destination until two or three hours after dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys was two o'clock. I arrived on the ground with a quarter of an hour to spare, attended by the Avenger,if I may connect that expression with one who never attended on me if he could possibly help it. At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the dockyards by stagecoach. As I had often heard of them in the capacity of outside passengers, and had more than once seen them on the high road dangling their ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised when Herbert, meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were two convicts going down with me. But I had a reason that was an old reason now for constitutionally faltering whenever I heard the word 'convict. 'You don't mind them, Handel? said Herbert. 'O no! 'I thought you seemed as if you didn't like them? 'I can't pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don't particularly. But I don't mind them. 'See! There they are, said Herbert, 'coming out of the Tap. What a degraded and vile sight it is! They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler with them, and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands. The two convicts were handcuffed together, and had irons on their legs,irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the dress that I likewise knew well. Their keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried a thickknobbed bludgeon under his arm but he was on terms of good understanding with them, and stood with them beside him, looking on at the puttingto of the horses, rather with an air as if the convicts were an interesting Exhibition not formally open at the moment, and he the Curator. One was a taller and stouter man than the other, and appeared as a matter of course, according to the mysterious ways of the world, both convict and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller suit of clothes. His arms and legs were like great pincushions of those shapes, and his attire disguised him absurdly but I knew his halfclosed eye at one glance. There stood the man whom I had seen on the settle at the Three Jolly Bargemen on a Saturday night, and who had brought me down with his invisible gun! It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than if he had never seen me in his life. He looked across at me, and his eye appraised my watchchain, and then he incidentally spat and said something to the other convict, and they laughed and slued themselves round with a clink of their coupling manacle, and looked at something else. The great numbers on their backs, as if they were street doors their coarse mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals their ironed legs, apologetically garlanded with pockethandkerchiefs and the way in which all present looked at them and kept from them made them (as Herbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded spectacle. But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of the back of the coach had been taken by a family removing from London, and that there were no places for the two prisoners but on the seat in front behind the coachman. Hereupon, a choleric gentleman, who had taken the fourth place on that seat, flew into a most violent passion, and said that it was a breach of contract to mix him up with such villainous company, and that it was poisonous, and pernicious, and infamous, and shameful, and I don't know what else. At this time the coach was ready and the coachman impatient, and we were all preparing to get up, and the prisoners had come over with their keeper,bringing with them that curious flavour of breadpoultice, baize, ropeyarn, and hearthstone, which attends the convict presence. 'Don't take it so much amiss, sir, pleaded the keeper to the angry passenger 'I'll sit next you myself. I'll put 'em on the outside of the row. They won't interfere with you, sir. You needn't know they're there. 'And don't blame me, growled the convict I had recognised. 'I don't want to go. I am quite ready to stay behind. As fur as I am concerned any one's welcome to my place. 'Or mine, said the other, gruffly. 'I wouldn't have incommoded none of you, if I'd had my way. Then they both laughed, and began cracking nuts, and spitting the shells about.As I really think I should have liked to do myself, if I had been in their place and so despised. At length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry gentleman, and that he must either go in his chance company or remain behind. So he got into his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into the place next him, and the convicts hauled themselves up as well as they could, and the convict I had recognised sat behind me with his breath on the hair of my head. 'Goodbye, Handel! Herbert called out as we started. I thought what a blessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip. It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict's breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and searching acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more breathing business to do than another man, and to make more noise in doing it and I was conscious of growing highshouldered on one side, in my shrinking endeavours to fend him off. The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Halfway House behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed off, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a couple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, and how it could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I were going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took the question up again. But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although I could recognise nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and shadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that blew at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me a screen against the wind, the convicts were closer to me than before. The very first words I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the words of my own thought, 'Two One Pound notes. 'How did he get 'em? said the convict I had never seen. 'How should I know? returned the other. 'He had 'em stowed away somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect. 'I wish, said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, 'that I had 'em here. 'Two one pound notes, or friends? 'Two one pound notes. I'd sell all the friends I ever had for one, and think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says? 'So he says, resumed the convict I had recognised,'it was all said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the Dockyard,'You're agoing to be discharged?' Yes, I was. Would I find out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did. 'More fool you, growled the other. 'I'd have spent 'em on a Man, in wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed nothing of you? 'Not a ha'porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried again for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer. 'And was thatHonour!the only time you worked out, in this part of the country? 'The only time. 'What might have been your opinion of the place? 'A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work work, swamp, mist, and mudbank. They both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually growled themselves out, and had nothing left to say. After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and been left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling certain that the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not only so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and so differently circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could have known me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a dread that some other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his hearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I executed successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my feet I had but to turn a hinge to get it out I threw it down before me, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for them at the slimewashed stairs,again heard the gruff 'Give way, you! like and order to dogs,again saw the wicked Noah's Ark lying out on the black water. I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of a painful or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident that it took no distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a few minutes of the terror of childhood. The coffeeroom at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered my dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As soon as he had apologised for the remissness of his memory, he asked me if he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook? 'No, said I, 'certainly not. The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from the Commercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and took the earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local newspaper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read this paragraph Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference to the recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of this neighbourhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet not universally acknowledged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our columns!) that the youth's earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a highly respected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business premises are situate within a hundred miles of the High Street. It is not wholly irrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the Mentor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced the founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the thoughtcontracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. VERB. SAP. I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes. Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's side of town,which was not Joe's side I could go there tomorrow,thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for me. She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could not fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks agoing and the cold hearths ablazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin,in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to look at the house as I passed and its seared red brick walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been allpowerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clue by which I am to be followed into my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection. I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart moderately quiet. I heard the sidedoor open, and steps come across the courtyard but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its rusty hinges. Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started much more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober grey dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of porter at Miss Havisham's door. 'Orlick! 'Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. But come in, come in. It's opposed to my orders to hold the gate open. I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. 'Yes! said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards the house. 'Here I am! 'How did you come here? 'I come here, he retorted, 'on my legs. I had my box brought alongside me in a barrow. 'Are you here for good? 'I ain't here for harm, young master, I suppose? I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my legs and arms, to my face. 'Then you have left the forge? I said. 'Do this look like a forge? replied Orlick, sending his glance all round him with an air of injury. 'Now, do it look like it? I asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge? 'One day is so like another here, he replied, 'that I don't know without casting it up. However, I come here some time since you left. 'I could have told you that, Orlick. 'Ah! said he, dryly. 'But then you've got to be a scholar. By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one just within the sidedoor, with a little window in it looking on the courtyard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place usually assigned to a gateporter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on the wall, to which he now added the gate key and his patchworkcovered bed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly, confined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up,as indeed he was. 'I never saw this room before, I remarked 'but there used to be no Porter here. 'No, said he 'not till it got about that there was no protection on the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to the place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and I took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering.That's loaded, that is. My eye had been caught by a gun with a brassbound stock over the chimneypiece, and his eye had followed mine. 'Well, said I, not desirous of more conversation, 'shall I go up to Miss Havisham? 'Burn me, if I know! he retorted, first stretching himself and then shaking himself 'my orders ends here, young master. I give this here bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till you meet somebody. 'I am expected, I believe? 'Burn me twice over, if I can say! said he. Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage, while the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket, who appeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason of me. 'Oh! said she. 'You, is it, Mr. Pip? 'It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and family are all well. 'Are they any wiser? said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head 'they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your way, sir? Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old way at the door of Miss Havisham's room. 'Pip's rap, I heard her say, immediately 'come in, Pip. She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on the fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant lady whom I had never seen. 'Come in, Pip, Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round or up 'come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, eh?Well? She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a grimly playful manner, 'Well? 'I heard, Miss Havisham, said I, rather at a loss, 'that you were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly. 'Well? The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. But she was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the inaccessibility that came about her! She gave me her hand. I stammered something about the pleasure I felt in seeing her again, and about my having looked forward to it, for a long, long time. 'Do you find her much changed, Pip? asked Miss Havisham, with her greedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that stood between them, as a sign to me to sit down there. 'When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella in the face or figure but now it all settles down so curiously into the old 'What? You are not going to say into the old Estella? Miss Havisham interrupted. 'She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go away from her. Don't you remember? I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no better then, and the like. Estella smiled with perfect composure, and said she had no doubt of my having been quite right, and of her having been very disagreeable. 'Is he changed? Miss Havisham asked her. 'Very much, said Estella, looking at me. 'Less coarse and common? said Miss Havisham, playing with Estella's hair. Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again, and looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still, but she lured me on. We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had so wrought upon me, and I learnt that she had but just come home from France, and that she was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old, she had brought those qualities into such subjection to her beauty that it was impossible and out of natureor I thought soto separate them from her beauty. Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had disturbed my boyhood,from all those illregulated aspirations that had first made me ashamed of home and Joe,from all those visions that had raised her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life. It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day, and return to the hotel at night, and to London tomorrow. When we had conversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the neglected garden on our coming in by and by, she said, I should wheel her about a little, as in times of yore. So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I had strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert I, trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress she, quite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we drew near to the place of encounter, she stopped and said, 'I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight that day but I did, and I enjoyed it very much. 'You rewarded me very much. 'Did I? she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. 'I remember I entertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it ill that he should be brought here to pester me with his company. 'He and I are great friends now. 'Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his father? 'Yes. I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have a boyish look, and she already treated me more than enough like a boy. 'Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have changed your companions, said Estella. 'Naturally, said I. 'And necessarily, she added, in a haughty tone 'what was fit company for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now. In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lingering intention left of going to see Joe but if I had, this observation put it to flight. 'You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those times? said Estella, with a slight wave of her hand, signifying in the fighting times. 'Not the least. The air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my side, and the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at hers, made a contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me more than it did, if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being so set apart for her and assigned to her. The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with ease, and after we had made the round of it twice or thrice, we came out again into the brewery yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her walking on the casks, that first old day, and she said, with a cold and careless look in that direction, 'Did I? I reminded her where she had come out of the house and given me my meat and drink, and she said, 'I don't remember. 'Not remember that you made me cry? said I. 'No, said she, and shook her head and looked about her. I verily believe that her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again, inwardly,and that is the sharpest crying of all. 'You must know, said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, 'that I have no heart,if that has anything to do with my memory. I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty without it. 'Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, said Estella, 'and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, nosympathysentimentnonsense. What was it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No. In some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resemblance to Miss Havisham which may often be noticed to have been acquired by children, from grown person with whom they have been much associated and secluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will produce a remarkable occasional likeness of expression between faces that are otherwise quite different. And yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked again, and though she was still looking at me, the suggestion was gone. What was it? 'I am serious, said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face 'if we are to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at once. No! imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips. 'I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any such thing. In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same first day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have seen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly the ghost passed once more and was gone. What was it? 'What is the matter? asked Estella. 'Are you scared again? 'I should be, if I believed what you said just now, I replied, to turn it off. 'Then you don't? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty today you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder. Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand now, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could not have been more cherished in my remembrance. There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me we were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more in her case than in mine but the air of inaccessibility which her beauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight, and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen us for one another. Wretched boy! At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise, that my guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and would come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in the room where the mouldering table was spread had been lighted while we were out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me. It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began the old slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But, in the funereal room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the chair fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful than before, and I was under stronger enchantment. The time so melted away, that our early dinnerhour drew close at hand, and Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre of the long table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms stretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow cloth. As Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at the door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity that was of its kind quite dreadful. Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and said in a whisper, 'Is she beautiful, graceful, wellgrown? Do you admire her? 'Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham. She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as she sat in the chair. 'Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you? Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all) she repeated, 'Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,love her, love her, love her! Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round my neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her. 'Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her! She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to say it but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of lovedespairrevengedire deathit could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse. 'I'll tell you, said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, 'what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning selfhumiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiteras I did! When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that, I caught her round the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a dress, and struck at the air as if she would as soon have struck herself against the wall and fallen dead. All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into her chair, I was conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning, saw my guardian in the room. He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a pockethandkerchief of rich silk and of imposing proportions, which was of great value to him in his profession. I have seen him so terrify a client or a witness by ceremoniously unfolding this pockethandkerchief as if he were immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing, as if he knew he should not have time to do it before such client or witness committed himself, that the selfcommittal has followed directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw him in the room he had this expressive pockethandkerchief in both hands, and was looking at us. On meeting my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and silent pause in that attitude, 'Indeed? Singular! and then put the handkerchief to its right use with wonderful effect. Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody else) afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to compose herself, and stammered that he was as punctual as ever. 'As punctual as ever, he repeated, coming up to us. '(How do you do, Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round?) And so you are here, Pip? I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had wished me to come and see Estella. To which he replied, 'Ah! Very fine young lady! Then he pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with one of his large hands, and put the other in his trouserspocket as if the pocket were full of secrets. 'Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before? said he, when he came to a stop. 'How often? 'Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times? 'Oh! Certainly not so many. 'Twice? 'Jaggers, interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief, 'leave my Pip alone, and go with him to your dinner. He complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs together. While we were still on our way to those detached apartments across the paved yard at the back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat and drink offering me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred times and once. I considered, and said, 'Never. 'And never will, Pip, he retorted, with a frowning smile. 'She has never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived this present life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays hands on such food as she takes. 'Pray, sir, said I, 'may I ask you a question? 'You may, said he, 'and I may decline to answer it. Put your question. 'Estella's name. Is it Havisham or? I had nothing to add. 'Or what? said he. 'Is it Havisham? 'It is Havisham. This brought us to the dinnertable, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my green and yellow friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a maidservant whom I had never seen in all my comings and goings, but who, for anything I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole time. After dinner a bottle of choice old port was placed before my guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and the two ladies left us. Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that roof I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to himself, and scarcely directed his eyes to Estella's face once during dinner. When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered, but never looked at her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often looked at him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his face never showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took a dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by often referring in conversation with me to my expectations but here, again, he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he extortedand even did extort, though I don't know howthose references out of my innocent self. And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him of general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that really was too much for me. He crossexamined his very wine when he had nothing else in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and crossexamined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had known the wine to be telling him something to my disadvantage. Three or four times I feebly thought I would start conversation but whenever he saw me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn't answer. I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her in the danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her cap,which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,and strewing the ground with her hair,which assuredly had never grown on her head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss Havisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her dressingtable into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and arms and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him, with those rich flushes of glitter and colour in it. Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and came out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the glory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing nor, of the feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the light of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his cold presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I could never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see him wash his hands of her it was, that my admiration should be within a foot or two of him,it was, that my feelings should be in the same place with him,that, was the agonizing circumstance. We played until nine o'clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her at the coach and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left her. My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far into the night, Miss Havisham's words, 'Love her, love her, love her! sounded in my ears. I adapted them for my own repetition, and said to my pillow, 'I love her, I love her, I love her! hundreds of times. Then, a burst of gratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the blacksmith's boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would she begin to be interested in me? When should I awaken the heart within her that was mute and sleeping now? Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never thought there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe had brought the tears into my eyes they had soon dried, God forgive me! soon dried. After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick's being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham's. 'Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip, said my guardian, comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, 'because the man who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man. It seemed quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was not exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a satisfied manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. 'Very good, Pip, he observed, when I had concluded, 'I'll go round presently, and pay our friend off. Rather alarmed by this summary action, I was for a little delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might be difficult to deal with. 'Oh no he won't, said my guardian, making his pockethandkerchiefpoint, with perfect confidence 'I should like to see him argue the question with me. As we were going back together to London by the midday coach, and as I breakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold my cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and that I would go on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers was occupied, if he would let the coachman know that I would get into my place when overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue Boar immediately after breakfast. By then making a loop of about a couple of miles into the open country at the back of Pumblechook's premises, I got round into the High Street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in comparative security. It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was not disagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognised and stared after. One or two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops and went a little way down the street before me, that they might turn, as if they had forgotten something, and pass me face to face,on which occasions I don't know whether they or I made the worse pretence they of not doing it, or I of not seeing it. Still my position was a distinguished one, and I was not at all dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the way of that unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy. Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the road, and crying to the populace, 'Hold me! I'm so frightened! feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him, his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust. This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced another two hundred yards when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement, and indignation, I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching. He was coming round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb's with cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he became aware of me, and was severely visited as before but this time his motion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators, and I felt utterly confounded. I had not got as much further down the street as the postoffice, when I again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my greatcoat, and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, 'Don't know yah! Words cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb's boy, when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirtcollar, twined his sidehair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants, 'Don't know yah, don't know yah, 'pon my soul don't know yah! The disgrace attendant on his immediately afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith, culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to speak, ejected by it into the open country. But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that occasion, I really do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower recompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt an invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew out again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in every respectable mind. The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took my boxseat again, and arrived in London safe,but not sound, for my heart was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having gone myself), and then went on to Barnard's Inn. I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me back. Having despatched The Avenger to the coffeehouse for an addition to the dinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very evening to my friend and chum. As confidence was out of the question with The Avenger in the hall, which could merely be regarded in the light of an antechamber to the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of the severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than the degrading shifts to which I was constantly driven to find him employment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park corner to see what o'clock it was. Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to Herbert, 'My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell you. 'My dear Handel, he returned, 'I shall esteem and respect your confidence. 'It concerns myself, Herbert, said I, 'and one other person. Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side, and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I didn't go on. 'Herbert, said I, laying my hand upon his knee, 'I loveI adoreEstella. Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matterofcourse way, 'Exactly. Well? 'Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well? 'What next, I mean? said Herbert. 'Of course I know that. 'How do you know it? said I. 'How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you. 'I never told you. 'Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed. 'Very well, then, said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome light, 'I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a most beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her. 'Lucky for you then, Handel, said Herbert, 'that you are picked out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground, we may venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views on the adoration question? I shook my head gloomily. 'Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from me, said I. 'Patience, my dear Handel time enough, time enough. But you have something more to say? 'I am ashamed to say it, I returned, 'and yet it's no worse to say it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday I amwhat shall I say I amtoday? 'Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase, returned Herbert, smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of mine'a good fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him. I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this mixture in my character. On the whole, I by no means recognised the analysis, but thought it not worth disputing. 'When I ask what I am to call myself today, Herbert, I went on, 'I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised me that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella ('And when don't you, you know? Herbert threw in, with his eyes on the fire which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.) 'Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what they are! In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been there, more or less, though no doubt most since yesterday. 'Now, Handel, Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way, 'it seems to me that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into our gifthorse's mouth with a magnifyingglass. Likewise, it seems to me that, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn't you tell me that your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were not endowed with expectations only? And even if he had not told you so,though that is a very large If, I grant,could you believe that of all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations towards you unless he were sure of his ground? I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth and justiceas if I wanted to deny it! 'I should think it was a strong point, said Herbert, 'and I should think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger as to the rest, you must bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his client's time. You'll be oneandtwenty before you know where you are, and then perhaps you'll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you'll be nearer getting it, for it must come at last. 'What a hopeful disposition you have! said I, gratefully admiring his cheery ways. 'I ought to have, said Herbert, 'for I have not much else. I must acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is not my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard him make on your story, was the final one, 'The thing is settled and done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be in it. And now before I say anything more about my father, or my father's son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,positively repulsive. 'You won't succeed, said I. 'O yes I shall! said he. 'One, two, three, and now I am in for it. Handel, my good fellowthough he spoke in this light tone, he was very much in earnest,'I have been thinking since we have been talking with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted, for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage ultimately? 'Never. 'Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her?I told you I should be disagreeable. I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village fingerpost, smote upon my heart again. There was silence between us for a little while. 'Yes but my dear Handel, Herbert went on, as if we had been talking, instead of silent, 'its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very serious. Think of her bringingup, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may lead to miserable things. 'I know it, Herbert, said I, with my head still turned away, 'but I can't help it. 'You can't detach yourself? 'No. Impossible! 'You can't try, Handel? 'No. Impossible! 'Well! said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had been asleep, and stirring the fire, 'now I'll endeavour to make myself agreeable again! So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs in their places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying about, looked into the hall, peeped into the letterbox, shut the door, and came back to his chair by the fire where he sat down, nursing his left leg in both arms. 'I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my father's son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father's son to remark that my father's establishment is not particularly brilliant in its housekeeping. 'There is always plenty, Herbert, said I, to say something encouraging. 'O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval, and so does the marinestore shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel, for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do. I suppose there was a time once when my father had not given matters up but if ever there was, the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the country, that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most particularly anxious to be married? This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, 'Is it so? 'I don't know, said Herbert, 'that's what I want to know. Because it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte, who was next me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already made arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby. 'Then you are? said I. 'I am, said Herbert 'but it's a secret. I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favoured with further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my weakness that I wanted to know something about his strength. 'May I ask the name? I said. 'Name of Clara, said Herbert. 'Live in London? 'Yes, perhaps I ought to mention, said Herbert, who had become curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting theme, 'that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family notions. Her father had to do with the victualling of passengerships. I think he was a species of purser. 'What is he now? said I. 'He's an invalid now, replied Herbert. 'Living on? 'On the first floor, said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant, for I had intended my question to apply to his means. 'I have never seen him, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known Clara. But I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous rows,roars, and pegs at the floor with some frightful instrument. In looking at me and then laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered his usual lively manner. 'Don't you expect to see him? said I. 'O yes, I constantly expect to see him, returned Herbert, 'because I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through the ceiling. But I don't know how long the rafters may hold. When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told me that the moment he began to realise Capital, it was his intention to marry this young lady. He added as a selfevident proposition, engendering low spirits, 'But you can't marry, you know, while you're looking about you. As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision to realise this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in my pockets. A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my attention, I opened it and found it to be the playbill I had received from Joe, relative to the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. 'And bless my heart, I involuntarily added aloud, 'it's tonight! This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable means, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me by reputation and that I should be presented to her, and when we had warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our candles, made up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark. On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country elevated in two armchairs on a kitchentable, holding a Court. The whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance consisting of a noble boy in the washleather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in life, and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could have wished that his curls and forehead had been more probable. Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded. The late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled with a cough at the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal phantom also carried a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had the appearance of occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference which were suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade's being advised by the gallery to 'turn over!a recommendation which it took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit, that whereas it always appeared with an air of having been out a long time and walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady, though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public to have too much brass about her her chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by another, and each of her arms by another, so that she was openly mentioned as 'the kettledrum. The noble boy in the ancestral boots was inconsistent, representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a gravedigger, a clergyman, and a person of the utmost importance at a Court fencingmatch, on the authority of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a want of toleration for him, and evenon his being detected in holy orders, and declining to perform the funeral serviceto the general indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that when, in course of time, she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried it, a sulky man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against an iron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled, 'Now the baby's put to bed let's have supper! Which, to say the least of it, was out of keeping. Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example on the question whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said 'Toss up for it and quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged with loud cries of 'Hear, hear! When he appeared with his stocking disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking the recorders,very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door,he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, 'And don't you do it, neither you're a deal worse than him! And I grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of these occasions. But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical washhouse on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, 'Look out! Here's the undertaker a coming, to see how you're a getting on with your work! I believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it, without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast but even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the comment, 'Waiter! The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty black box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off the kitchentable, and had died by inches from the ankles upward. We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly fine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution,not for old associations' sake, I am afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything. When the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said to Herbert, 'Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him. We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy smear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we came up with him, 'Mr. Pip and friend? Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed. 'Mr. Waldengarver, said the man, 'would be glad to have the honour. 'Waldengarver? I repeatedwhen Herbert murmured in my ear, 'Probably Wopsle. 'Oh! said I. 'Yes. Shall we follow you? 'A few steps, please. When we were in a side alley, he turned and asked, 'How did you think he looked?I dressed him. I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral with the addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice. 'When he come to the grave, said our conductor, 'he showed his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his stockings. I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door, into a sort of hot packingcase immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle was divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just room for us to look at him over one another's shoulders, by keeping the packingcase door, or lid, wide open. 'Gentlemen, said Mr. Wopsle, 'I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent. Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to get himself out of his princely sables. 'Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver, said the owner of that property, 'or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em, and you'll bust fiveandthirty shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave 'em to me. With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim who, on the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward with his chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow. I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said, 'Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front? Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), 'Capitally. So I said 'Capitally. 'How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen? said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage. Herbert said from behind (again poking me), 'Massive and concrete. So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, 'Massive and concrete. 'I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen, said Mr. Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair. 'But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver, said the man who was on his knees, 'in which you're out in your reading. Now mind! I don't care who says contrairy I tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out 'I don't see no wafers! And at night his reading was lovely. Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say 'a faithful DependentI overlook his folly and then said aloud, 'My view is a little classic and thoughtful for them here but they will improve, they will improve. Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve. 'Did you observe, gentlemen, said Mr. Waldengarver, 'that there was a man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the service,I mean, the representation? We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I added, 'He was drunk, no doubt. 'O dear no, sir, said Mr. Wopsle, 'not drunk. His employer would see to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk. 'You know his employer? said I. Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again performing both ceremonies very slowly. 'You must have observed, gentlemen, said he, 'an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance expressive of low malignity, who went throughI will not say sustainedthe rle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession! Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put on,which jostled us out at the doorway,to ask Herbert what he thought of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard's with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat until two o'clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing his plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end with crushing it inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft and without a chance or hope. Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Hamlet to Miss Havisham's Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty words of it. One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, I divined whose hand it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus 'I am to come to London the day after tomorrow by the midday coach. I believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her regard. 'Yours, ESTELLA. If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits of clothes for this occasion but as there was not, I was fain to be content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew no peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought me either for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the coachoffice in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still felt as if it were not safe to let the coachoffice be out of my sight longer than five minutes at a time and in this condition of unreason I had performed the first halfhour of a watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against me. 'Halloa, Mr. Pip, said he 'how do you do? I should hardly have thought this was your beat. I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged. 'Both flourishing thankye, said Wemmick, 'and particularly the Aged. He's in wonderful feather. He'll be eightytwo next birthday. I have a notion of firing eightytwo times, if the neighbourhood shouldn't complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to? 'To the office? said I, for he was tending in that direction. 'Next thing to it, returned Wemmick, 'I am going to Newgate. We are in a banker'sparcel case just at present, and I have been down the road taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word or two with our client. 'Did your client commit the robbery? I asked. 'Bless your soul and body, no, answered Wemmick, very drily. 'But he is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of it, you know. 'Only neither of us is, I remarked. 'Yah! said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger 'you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate? Have you time to spare? I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief, notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my eye on the coachoffice. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether I had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his temper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected,which I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by the information I had received, accepted his offer. We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrongdoingand which is always its heaviest and longest punishmentwas still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavour of their soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his rounds with beer and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying beer, and talking to friends and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was. It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener might walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, 'What, Captain Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed! and also, 'Is that Black Bill behind the cistern? Why I didn't look for you these two months how do you find yourself? Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to anxious whisperers,always singly,Wemmick with his postoffice in an immovable state, looked at them while in conference, as if he were taking particular notice of the advance they had made, since last observed, towards coming out in full blow at their trial. He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department of Mr. Jaggers's business though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers hung about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits. His personal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod, and in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both hands, and then tightening the postoffice, and putting his hands in his pockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting the raising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible from the insufficient money produced, said, 'it's no use, my boy. I'm only a subordinate. I can't take it. Don't go on in that way with a subordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had better address yourself to a principal there are plenty of principals in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, may be worth the while of another that's my recommendation to you, speaking as a subordinate. Don't try on useless measures. Why should you? Now, who's next? Thus, we walked through Wemmick's greenhouse, until he turned to me and said, 'Notice the man I shall shake hands with. I should have done so, without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet. Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can see now, as I write) in a wellworn olivecoloured frockcoat, with a peculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner of the bars, and put his hand to his hatwhich had a greasy and fatty surface like cold brothwith a halfserious and halfjocose military salute. 'Colonel, to you! said Wemmick 'how are you, Colonel? 'All right, Mr. Wemmick. 'Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong for us, Colonel. 'Yes, it was too strong, sir,but I don't care. 'No, no, said Wemmick, coolly, 'you don't care. Then, turning to me, 'Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought his discharge. I said, 'Indeed? and the man's eyes looked at me, and then looked over my head, and then looked all round me, and then he drew his hand across his lips and laughed. 'I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir, he said to Wemmick. 'Perhaps, returned my friend, 'but there's no knowing. 'I am glad to have the chance of bidding you goodbye, Mr. Wemmick, said the man, stretching out his hand between two bars. 'Thankye, said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. 'Same to you, Colonel. 'If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick, said the man, unwilling to let his hand go, 'I should have asked the favour of your wearing another ringin acknowledgment of your attentions. 'I'll accept the will for the deed, said Wemmick. 'By the by you were quite a pigeonfancier. The man looked up at the sky. 'I am told you had a remarkable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any friend of yours to bring me a pair, if you've no further use for 'em? 'It shall be done, sir. 'All right, said Wemmick, 'they shall be taken care of. Goodafternoon, Colonel. Goodbye! They shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick said to me, 'A Coiner, a very good workman. The Recorder's report is made today, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same. With that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant, and then cast his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if he were considering what other pot would go best in its place. As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less than by those whom they held in charge. 'Well, Mr. Wemmick, said the turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates, and who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, 'what's Mr. Jaggers going to do with that waterside murder? Is he going to make it manslaughter, or what's he going to make of it? 'Why don't you ask him? returned Wemmick. 'O yes, I dare say! said the turnkey. 'Now, that's the way with them here, Mr. Pip, remarked Wemmick, turning to me with his postoffice elongated. 'They don't mind what they ask of me, the subordinate but you'll never catch 'em asking any questions of my principal. 'Is this young gentleman one of the 'prentices or articled ones of your office? asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick's humour. 'There he goes again, you see! cried Wemmick, 'I told you so! Asks another question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well, supposing Mr. Pip is one of them? 'Why then, said the turnkey, grinning again, 'he knows what Mr. Jaggers is. 'Yah! cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in a facetious way, 'you're dumb as one of your own keys when you have to do with my principal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or I'll get him to bring an action against you for false imprisonment. The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing at us over the spikes of the wicket when we descended the steps into the street. 'Mind you, Mr. Pip, said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he took my arm to be more confidential 'I don't know that Mr. Jaggers does a better thing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He's always so high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. That Colonel durst no more take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him his intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and them, he slips in his subordinate,don't you see?and so he has 'em, soul and body. I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by my guardian's subtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily wished, and not for the first time, that I had had some other guardian of minor abilities. Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain, where suppliants for Mr. Jaggers's notice were lingering about as usual, and I returned to my watch in the street of the coachoffice, with some three hours on hand. I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I should have first encountered it that, it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone that, it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. While my mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her. I wished that Wemmick had not met me, or that I had not yielded to him and gone with him, so that, of all days in the year on this day, I might not have had Newgate in my breath and on my clothes. I beat the prison dust off my feet as I sauntered to and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled its air from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, remembering who was coming, that the coach came quickly after all, and I was not yet free from the soiling consciousness of Mr. Wemmick's conservatory, when I saw her face at the coach window and her hand waving to me. What was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed? In her furred travellingdress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change. We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and when it was all collected I rememberedhaving forgotten everything but herself in the meanwhilethat I knew nothing of her destination. 'I am going to Richmond, she told me. 'Our lesson is, that there are two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out of it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you and I. As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an inner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with displeasure. 'A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a little? 'Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you are to take care of me the while. She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen such a thing in his life, to show us a private sittingroom. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clue without which he couldn't find the way upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy saucecruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room with a dinnertable for thirty, and in the grate a scorched leaf of a copybook under a bushel of coaldust. Having looked at this extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order which, proving to be merely, 'Some tea for the lady, sent him out of the room in a very low state of mind. I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong combination of stable with soupstock, might have led one to infer that the coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising proprietor was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department. Yet the room was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.) 'Where are you going to, at Richmond? I asked Estella. 'I am going to live, said she, 'at a great expense, with a lady there, who has the poweror says she hasof taking me about, and introducing me, and showing people to me and showing me to people. 'I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration? 'Yes, I suppose so. She answered so carelessly, that I said, 'You speak of yourself as if you were some one else. 'Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come, said Estella, smiling delightfully, 'you must not expect me to go to school to you I must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket? 'I live quite pleasantly there at least It appeared to me that I was losing a chance. 'At least? repeated Estella. 'As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you. 'You silly boy, said Estella, quite composedly, 'how can you talk such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest of his family? 'Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy 'Don't add but his own, interposed Estella, 'for I hate that class of man. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy and spite, I have heard? 'I am sure I have every reason to say so. 'You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people, said Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at once grave and rallying, 'for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and insinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you, write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realise to yourself the hatred those people feel for you. 'They do me no harm, I hope? Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was very singular to me, and I looked at her in considerable perplexity. When she left offand she had not laughed languidly, but with real enjoymentI said, in my diffident way with her, 'I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any harm. 'No, no you may be sure of that, said Estella. 'You may be certain that I laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and the tortures they undergo! She laughed again, and even now when she had told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not doubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion. I thought there must really be something more here than I knew she saw the thought in my mind, and answered it. 'It is not easy for even you. said Estella, 'to know what satisfaction it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up in the night. I did. It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these remembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of that look of hers for all my expectations in a heap. 'Two things I can tell you, said Estella. 'First, notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people never willnever would in a hundred yearsimpair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it. As she gave it to me playfully,for her darker mood had been but momentaryI held it and put it to my lips. 'You ridiculous boy, said Estella, 'will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek? 'What spirit was that? said I. 'I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and plotters. 'If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again? 'You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you like. I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. 'Now, said Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, 'you are to take care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond. Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon us, and we were mere puppets, gave me pain but everything in our intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be, I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it and yet I went on against trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it always was. I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clue, brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of tea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and forks (including carvers), spoons (various), saltcellars, a meek little muffin confined with the utmost precaution under a strong iron cover, Moses in the bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions of the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread, and ultimately a fat family urn which the waiter staggered in with, expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged absence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with a casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot water, and so from the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I don't know what for Estella. The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, and the chambermaid taken into consideration,in a word, the whole house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse much lightened,we got into our postcoach and drove away. Turning into Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls of which I was so ashamed. 'What place is that? Estella asked me. I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognising it, and then told her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again, murmuring, 'Wretches! I would not have confessed to my visit for any consideration. 'Mr. Jaggers, said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody else, 'has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place than any man in London. 'He is more in the secrets of every place, I think, said Estella, in a low voice. 'You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose? 'I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since I can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could speak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with him? 'Once habituated to his distrustful manner, said I, 'I have done very well. 'Are you intimate? 'I have dined with him at his private house. 'I fancy, said Estella, shrinking 'that must be a curious place. 'It is a curious place. I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with her but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe the dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden glare of gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive with that inexplicable feeling I had had before and when we were out of it, I was as much dazed for a few moments as if I had been in lightning. So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by which we were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this side of it, and what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she told me, for she had never left Miss Havisham's neighbourhood until she had gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in going and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her while she remained here? To that she emphatically said 'God forbid! and no more. It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me that she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task had needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had not taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should have felt that she held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose to do it, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to crush it and throw it away. When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I hoped I should see her sometimes. 'O yes, you are to see me you are to come when you think proper you are to be mentioned to the family indeed you are already mentioned. I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of? 'No there are only two mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of some station, though not averse to increasing her income. 'I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon. 'It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip, said Estella, with a sigh, as if she were tired 'I am to write to her constantly and see her regularly and report how I go on,I and the jewels,for they are nearly all mine now. It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up. We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house by the green,a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches, embroidered coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their court days many a time. Some ancient trees before the house were still cut into fashions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and stiff skirts but their own allotted places in the great procession of the dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into them and go the silent way of the rest. A bell with an old voicewhich I dare say in its time had often said to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamondhilted sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitairesounded gravely in the moonlight, and two cherrycoloured maids came fluttering out to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she gave me her hand and a smile, and said goodnight, and was absorbed likewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable. I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in with a bad heartache, and I got out with a worse heartache. At our own door, I found little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party escorted by her little lover and I envied her little lover, in spite of his being subject to Flopson. Mr. Pocket was out lecturing for, he was a most delightful lecturer on domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and servants were considered the very best textbooks on those themes. But Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby's having been accommodated with a needlecase to keep him quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic. Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical advice, and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a highly judicious mind, I had some notion in my heartache of begging him to accept my confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she sat reading her book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign remedy for baby, I thoughtWellNo, I wouldn't. As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe. My conscience was not by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in the night,like Camilla,I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face, and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home. Yet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet of mind, that I really fell into confusion as to the limits of my own part in its production. That is to say, supposing I had had no expectations, and yet had had Estella to think of, I could not make out to my satisfaction that I should have done much better. Now, concerning the influence of my position on others, I was in no such difficulty, and so I perceivedthough dimly enough perhapsthat it was not beneficial to anybody, and, above all, that it was not beneficial to Herbert. My lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having unwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor arts they practised because such littlenesses were their natural bent, and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them slumbering. But Herbert's was a very different case, and it often caused me a twinge to think that I had done him evil service in crowding his sparely furnished chambers with incongruous upholstery work, and placing the Canarybreasted Avenger at his disposal. So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert must begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put ourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the Grove the object of which institution I have never divined, if it were not that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these gratifying social ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and I understood nothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast of the society which ran 'Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove. The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was in Covent Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I had the honour of joining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage headforemost over the apron and I saw him on one occasion deliver himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional waylike coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could not be, according to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of age. In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken Herbert's expenses on myself but Herbert was proud, and I could make no such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every direction, and continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a desponding eye at breakfasttime that he began to look about him more hopefully about midday that he drooped when he came into dinner that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after dinner that he all but realised Capital towards midnight and that at about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune. I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when I was at Hammersmith I haunted Richmond, whereof separately by and by. Herbert would often come to Hammersmith when I was there, and I think at those seasons his father would occasionally have some passing perception that the opening he was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the general tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out in life somewhere, was a thing to transact itself somehow. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew greyer, and tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by the hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family with her footstool, read her book of dignities, lost her pockethandkerchief, told us about her grandpapa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it into bed whenever it attracted her notice. As I am now generalising a period of my life with the object of clearing my way before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once completing the description of our usual manners and customs at Barnard's Inn. We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one. Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the City to look about him. I often paid him a visit in the dark backroom in which he consorted with an inkjar, a hatpeg, a coalbox, a stringbox, an almanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler and I do not remember that I ever saw him do anything else but look about him. If we all did what we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except at a certain hour of every afternoon to 'go to Lloyd'sin observance of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did anything else in connection with Lloyd's that I could find out, except come back again. When he felt his case unusually serious, and that he positively must find an opening, he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the assembled magnates. 'For, says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner on one of those special occasions, 'I find the truth to be, Handel, that an opening won't come to one, but one must go to it,so I have been. If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated one another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond expression at that period of repentance, and could not endure the sight of the Avenger's livery which had a more expensive and a less remunerative appearance then than at any other time in the fourandtwenty hours. As we got more and more into debt, breakfast became a hollower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at breakfasttime threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, 'not unwholly unconnected, as my local paper might put it, 'with jewelery, I went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake him off his feet,so that he was actually in the air, like a booted Cupid,for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll. At certain timesmeaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our humourI would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery, 'My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly. 'My dear Handel, Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity, 'if you will believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange coincidence. 'Then, Herbert, I would respond, 'let us look into our affairs. We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for this purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to confront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And I know Herbert thought so too. We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of something similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds might be fortified for the occasion, and we might come well up to the mark. Dinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery. I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in a neat hand, the heading, 'Memorandum of Pip's debts with Barnard's Inn and the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take a sheet of paper, and write across it with similar formalities, 'Memorandum of Herbert's debts. Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side, which had been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half burnt in lighting candles, stuck for weeks into the lookingglass, and otherwise damaged. The sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly, insomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between this edifying business proceeding and actually paying the money. In point of meritorious character, the two things seemed about equal. When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on? Herbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful manner at the sight of his accumulating figures. 'They are mounting up, Handel, Herbert would say 'upon my life, they are mounting up. 'Be firm, Herbert, I would retort, plying my own pen with great assiduity. 'Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare them out of countenance. 'So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of countenance. However, my determined manner would have its effect, and Herbert would fall to work again. After a time he would give up once more, on the plea that he had not got Cobbs's bill, or Lobbs's, or Nobbs's, as the case might be. 'Then, Herbert, estimate estimate it in round numbers, and put it down. 'What a fellow of resource you are! my friend would reply, with admiration. 'Really your business powers are very remarkable. I thought so too. I established with myself, on these occasions, the reputation of a firstrate man of business,prompt, decisive, energetic, clear, coolheaded. When I had got all my responsibilities down upon my list, I compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My selfapproval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious sensation. When I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my bills up uniformly, docketed each on the back, and tied the whole into a symmetrical bundle. Then I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not my administrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs into a focus for him. My business habits had one other bright feature, which I called 'leaving a Margin. For example supposing Herbert's debts to be one hundred and sixtyfour pounds fourandtwopence, I would say, 'Leave a margin, and put them down at two hundred. Or, supposing my own to be four times as much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at seven hundred. I had the highest opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am bound to acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive device. For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full extent of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom and solvency it imparted, got pretty far on into another margin. But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent on these examinations of our affairs that gave me, for the time, an admirable opinion of myself. Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert's compliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the table before me among the stationery, and feel like a Bank of some sort, rather than a private individual. We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order that we might not be interrupted. I had fallen into my serene state one evening, when we heard a letter dropped through the slit in the said door, and fall on the ground. 'It's for you, Handel, said Herbert, going out and coming back with it, 'and I hope there is nothing the matter. This was in allusion to its heavy black seal and border. The letter was signed Trabb  Co., and its contents were simply, that I was an honoured sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J. Gargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six in the evening, and that my attendance was requested at the interment on Monday next at three o'clock in the afternoon. It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed unable to compass and whereas she had seldom or never been in my thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming towards me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the door. In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, there was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were still alive and had been often there. Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret which may exist without much tenderness. Under its influence (and perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized with a violent indignation against the assailant from whom she had suffered so much and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have revengefully pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity. Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him that I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in the curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the morning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the forge. It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me, vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that softened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be softened as they thought of me. At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage,as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort to anybody,were posted at the front door and in one of them I recognised a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a young couple into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped round the neck with both arms. All the children of the village, and most of the women, were admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of the house and forge and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy) knocked at the door,implying that I was far too much exhausted by grief to have strength remaining to knock for myself. Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlour. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting somebody's hat into black longclothes, like an African baby so he held out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and confused by the occasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of warm affection. Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room where, as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent down and said to him, 'Dear Joe, how are you? he said, 'Pip, old chap, you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a and clasped my hand and said no more. Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly here and there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as I thought it not a time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and there began to wonder in what part of the house itshemy sisterwas. The air of the parlour being faint with the smell of sweetcake, I looked about for the table of refreshments it was scarcely visible until one had got accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cutup plum cake upon it, and there were cutup oranges, and sandwiches, and biscuits, and two decanters that I knew very well as ornaments, but had never seen used in all my life one full of port, and one of sherry. Standing at this table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak and several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself, and making obsequious movements to catch my attention. The moment he succeeded, he came over to me (breathing sherry and crumbs), and said in a subdued voice, 'May I, dear sir? and did. I then descried Mr. and Mrs. Hubble the lastnamed in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner. We were all going to 'follow, and were all in course of being tied up separately (by Trabb) into ridiculous bundles. 'Which I meantersay, Pip, Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr. Trabb called 'formed in the parlour, two and two,and it was dreadfully like a preparation for some grim kind of dance 'which I meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself, along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbours would look down on such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect. 'Pockethandkerchiefs out, all! cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a depressed businesslike voice. 'Pockethandkerchiefs out! We are ready! So we all put our pockethandkerchiefs to our faces, as if our noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two Joe and I Biddy and Pumblechook Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a horrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along, under the guidance of two keepers,the postboy and his comrade. The neighbourhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we were much admired as we went through the village the more youthful and vigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off, and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times the more exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on our emergence round some corner of expectancy, 'Here they come! 'Here they are! and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed by the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing my cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in being members of so distinguished a procession. And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the ships on the river growing out of it and we went into the churchyard, close to the graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was laid quietly in the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees. Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing, I desire to say no more than it was all addressed to me and that even when those noble passages were read which remind humanity how it brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like a shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him cough a reservation of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpectedly into large property. When we got back, he had the hardihood to tell me that he wished my sister could have known I had done her so much honour, and to hint that she would have considered it reasonably purchased at the price of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went away with Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,to make an evening of it, I felt sure, and to tell the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes and my earliest benefactor. When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his menbut not his Boy I looked for himhad crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too, the house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a cold dinner together but we dined in the best parlour, not in the old kitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his knife and fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great restraint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take his pipe, and when I had loitered with him about the forge, and when we sat down together on the great block of stone outside it, we got on better. I noticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far, as to make a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress in which the dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was. He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little room, and I was pleased too for I felt that I had done rather a great thing in making the request. When the shadows of evening were closing in, I took an opportunity of getting into the garden with Biddy for a little talk. 'Biddy, said I, 'I think you might have written to me about these sad matters. 'Do you, Mr. Pip? said Biddy. 'I should have written if I had thought that. 'Don't suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I consider that you ought to have thought that. 'Do you, Mr. Pip? She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty way with her, that I did not like the thought of making her cry again. After looking a little at her downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave up that point. 'I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy dear? 'Oh! I can't do so, Mr. Pip, said Biddy, in a tone of regret but still of quiet conviction. 'I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am going to her tomorrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of Mr. Gargery, together, until he settles down. 'How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo 'How am I going to live? repeated Biddy, striking in, with a momentary flush upon her face. 'I'll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip, pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, 'the new schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after that time, and have had time since then to improve. 'I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances. 'Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature, murmured Biddy. It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well! I thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further with Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes. 'I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, Biddy. 'They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad statesthough they had got better of late, rather than worsefor four days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at teatime, and said quite plainly, 'Joe.' As she had never said any word for a long while, I ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said 'Joe' again, and once 'Pardon,' and once 'Pip.' And so she never lifted her head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down on her own bed, because we found she was gone. Biddy cried the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were coming out, were blurred in my own sight. 'Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy? 'Nothing. 'Do you know what is become of Orlick? 'I should think from the colour of his clothes that he is working in the quarries. 'Of course you have seen him then?Why are you looking at that dark tree in the lane? 'I saw him there, on the night she died. 'That was not the last time either, Biddy? 'No I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.It is of no use, said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running out, 'you know I would not deceive you he was not there a minute, and he is gone. It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by this fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told her that I would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of that country. By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,she didn't say, of me she had no need I knew what she meant,but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart. 'Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him, said I 'and Biddy, we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often down here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone. Biddy said never a single word. 'Biddy, don't you hear me? 'Yes, Mr. Pip. 'Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,which appears to me to be in bad taste, Biddy,what do you mean? 'What do I mean? asked Biddy, timidly. 'Biddy, said I, in a virtuously selfasserting manner, 'I must request to know what you mean by this? 'By this? said Biddy. 'Now, don't echo, I retorted. 'You used not to echo, Biddy. 'Used not! said Biddy. 'O Mr. Pip! Used! Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position. 'Biddy, said I, 'I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to tell me why. 'Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often? asked Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the stars with a clear and honest eye. 'O dear me! said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in despair. 'This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don't say any more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much. For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and when I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her as I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me. Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun of the life in store for him were shining on it. 'Goodbye, dear Joe!No, don't wipe it offfor God's sake, give me your blackened hand!I shall be down soon and often. 'Never too soon, sir, said Joe, 'and never too often, Pip! Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and a crust of bread. 'Biddy, said I, when I gave her my hand at parting, 'I am not angry, but I am hurt. 'No, don't be hurt, she pleaded quite pathetically 'let only me be hurt, if I have been ungenerous. Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy was quite right, all I can say is,they were quite right too. Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary transactions and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing and I came of age,in fulfilment of Herbert's prediction, that I should do so before I knew where I was. Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a profound sensation in Barnard's Inn. But we had looked forward to my oneandtwentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly help saying something definite on that occasion. I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual flutter when I repaired to my guardian's office, a model of punctuality. In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of tissuepaper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian's room. It was November, and my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back against the chimneypiece, with his hands under his coattails. 'Well, Pip, said he, 'I must call you Mr. Pip today. Congratulations, Mr. Pip. We shook hands,he was always a remarkably short shaker,and I thanked him. 'Take a chair, Mr. Pip, said my guardian. As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were making a stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation. 'Now my young friend, my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the box, 'I am going to have a word or two with you. 'If you please, sir. 'What do you suppose, said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,'what do you suppose you are living at the rate of? 'At the rate of, sir? 'At, repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, 'therateof? And then looked all round the room, and paused with his pockethandkerchief in his hand, halfway to his nose. I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly, I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, 'I thought so! and blew his nose with an air of satisfaction. 'Now, I have asked you a question, my friend, said Mr. Jaggers. 'Have you anything to ask me? 'Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several questions, sir but I remember your prohibition. 'Ask one, said Mr. Jaggers. 'Is my benefactor to be made known to me today? 'No. Ask another. 'Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon? 'Waive that, a moment, said Mr. Jaggers, 'and ask another. I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from the inquiry, 'HaveIanything to receive, sir? On that, Mr. Jaggers said, triumphantly, 'I thought we should come to it! and called to Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in, and disappeared. 'Now, Mr. Pip, said Mr. Jaggers, 'attend, if you please. You have been drawing pretty freely here your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick's cashbook but you are in debt, of course? 'I am afraid I must say yes, sir. 'You know you must say yes don't you? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Yes, sir. 'I don't ask you what you owe, because you don't know and if you did know, you wouldn't tell me you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend, cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show of protesting 'it's likely enough that you think you wouldn't, but you would. You'll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it and tell me what it is. 'This is a banknote, said I, 'for five hundred pounds. 'That is a banknote, repeated Mr. Jaggers, 'for five hundred pounds. And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so? 'How could I do otherwise! 'Ah! But answer the question, said Mr. Jaggers. 'Undoubtedly. 'You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick one hundred and twentyfive pounds per quarter, until you are in communication with the fountainhead, and no longer with the mere agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits. I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. 'I am not paid, Pip, said he, coolly, 'to carry your words to any one and then gathered up his coattails, as he had gathered up the subject, and stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against him. After a pause, I hinted, 'There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again? 'What is it? said he. I might have known that he would never help me out but it took me aback to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. 'Is it likely, I said, after hesitating, 'that my patron, the fountainhead you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon there I delicately stopped. 'Will soon what? asked Mr. Jaggers. 'That's no question as it stands, you know. 'Will soon come to London, said I, after casting about for a precise form of words, 'or summon me anywhere else? 'Now, here, replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with his dark deepset eyes, 'we must revert to the evening when we first encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip? 'You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person appeared. 'Just so, said Mr. Jaggers, 'that's my answer. As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him. 'Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers? Mr. Jaggers shook his head,not in negativing the question, but in altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer it,and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their suspended attention, and were going to sneeze. 'Come! said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs of his warmed hands, 'I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a question I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell you it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little further with you I'll say something more. He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the calves of his legs in the pause he made. 'When that person discloses, said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself, 'you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about it. And that's all I have got to say. We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella that he resented this, and felt a jealousy about it or that he really did object to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, and was doing so still. 'If that is all you have to say, sir, I remarked, 'there can be nothing left for me to say. He nodded assent, and pulled out his thiefdreaded watch, and asked me where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert. As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favour us with his company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on walking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation for him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk to Wemmick. The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my pocket, a thought had come into my head which had been often there before and it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with concerning such thought. He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going home. He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to be extinguished he had raked his fire low, put his hat and greatcoat ready, and was beating himself all over the chest with his safekey, as an athletic exercise after business. 'Mr. Wemmick, said I, 'I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous to serve a friend. Wemmick tightened his postoffice and shook his head, as if his opinion were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort. 'This friend, I pursued, 'is trying to get on in commercial life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning. 'With money down? said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust. 'With some money down, I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home'with some money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations. 'Mr. Pip, said Wemmick, 'I should like just to run over with you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. Let's see there's London, one Southwark, two Blackfriars, three Waterloo, four Westminster, five Vauxhall, six. He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his safekey on the palm of his hand. 'There's as many as six, you see, to choose from. 'I don't understand you, said I. 'Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip, returned Wemmick, 'and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the end of it too,but it's a less pleasant and profitable end. I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after saying this. 'This is very discouraging, said I. 'Meant to be so, said Wemmick. 'Then is it your opinion, I inquired, with some little indignation, 'that a man should never 'Invest portable property in a friend? said Wemmick. 'Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him. 'And that, said I, 'is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick? 'That, he returned, 'is my deliberate opinion in this office. 'Ah! said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole here 'but would that be your opinion at Walworth? 'Mr. Pip, he replied, with gravity, 'Walworth is one place, and this office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Walworth none but my official sentiments can be taken in this office. 'Very well, said I, much relieved, 'then I shall look you up at Walworth, you may depend upon it. 'Mr. Pip, he returned, 'you will be welcome there, in a private and personal capacity. We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian's ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway, towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his greatcoat and stood by to snuff out the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from the doorstep Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours. I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable consideration on a twentyfirst birthday, that coming of age at all seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty. Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union Jack flying and the drawbridge up but undeterred by this show of defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most pacific manner by the Aged. 'My son, sir, said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, 'rather had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word that he would soon be home from his afternoon's walk. He is very regular in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son. I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and we went in and sat down by the fireside. 'You made acquaintance with my son, sir, said the old man, in his chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, 'at his office, I expect? I nodded. 'Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at his business, sir? I nodded hard. 'Yes so they tell me. His business is the Law? I nodded harder. 'Which makes it more surprising in my son, said the old man, 'for he was not brought up to the Law, but to the WineCoopering. Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner, 'No, to be sure you're right. And to this hour I have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I had made. As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own calling in life had been 'the WineCoopering. By dint of straining that term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning understood. 'No, said the old gentleman 'the warehousing, the warehousing. First, over yonder he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he intended to refer me to Liverpool 'and then in the City of London here. However, having an infirmityfor I am hard of hearing, sir I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment. 'Yes, hard of hearing having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you said, you know, pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, 'what I say is, No to be sure you're right. I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little wooden flap with 'JOHN upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried with great triumph, 'My son's come home! and we both went out to the drawbridge. It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the other side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with the greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge, that I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had come across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins a lady by whom he was accompanied. Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in the postoffice branch of the service. She might have been some two or three years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed of portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both before and behind, made her figure very like a boy's kite and I might have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in discovering that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle for, on our going in, and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a moment to the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently another click came, and another little door tumbled open with 'Miss Skiffins on it then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open then Miss Skiffins and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up together. On Wemmick's return from working these mechanical appliances, I expressed the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he said, 'Well, you know, they're both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, sir, it's a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me! 'And Mr. Wemmick made them, added Miss Skiffins, 'with his own hands out of his own head. While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green gloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was company), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the property, and see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle. Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I had never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how we had fought. I glanced at Herbert's home, and at his character, and at his having no means but such as he was dependent on his father for those, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had derived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might have done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham in the background at a great distance, I still hinted at the possibility of my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the certainty of his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any mean distrusts, retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick), and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a great affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some rays upon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick's experience and knowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try with my resources to help Herbert to some present income,say of a hundred a year, to keep him in good hope and heart,and gradually to buy him on to some small partnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to understand that my help must always be rendered without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and that there was no one else in the world with whom I could advise. I wound up by laying my hand upon his shoulder, and saying, 'I can't help confiding in you, though I know it must be troublesome to you but that is your fault, in having ever brought me here. Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of start, 'Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is devilish good of you. 'Say you'll help me to be good then, said I. 'Ecod, replied Wemmick, shaking his head, 'that's not my trade. 'Nor is this your tradingplace, said I. 'You are right, he returned. 'You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip, I'll put on my consideringcap, and I think all you want to do may be done by degrees. Skiffins (that's her brother) is an accountant and agent. I'll look him up and go to work for you. 'I thank you ten thousand times. 'On the contrary, said he, 'I thank you, for though we are strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there are Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away. After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were going to make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a haystack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him over it as it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the topbar while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and repeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment. The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed the tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of John and Miss Skiffins which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night and I rather suspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an undesirable female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a piece of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick. We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffinsin the absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday afternoonswashed up the teathings, in a trifling ladylike amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, 'Now, Aged Parent, tip us the paper. Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. 'I won't offer an apology, said Wemmick, 'for he isn't capable of many pleasuresare you, Aged P.? 'All right, John, all right, returned the old man, seeing himself spoken to. 'Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper, said Wemmick, 'and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all attention, Aged One. 'All right, John, all right! returned the cheerful old man, so busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming. The Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle's greataunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was always on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into them, he required as much watching as a powdermill. But Wemmick was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he resumed again. As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss Skiffins's composure while she did this was one of the most remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have thought the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically. By and by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to disappear again, and gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading, Wemmick's arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins. At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a black bottle with a porcelaintopped cork, representing some clerical dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought I had best go first which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and having passed a pleasant evening. Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth, stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and that he would be glad if I could come and see him again upon it. So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and I saw him by appointment in the City several times, but never held any communication with him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or shippingbroker, not long established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner. Between him and me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged for sundry other payments some, to fall due at certain dates out of my income some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss Skiffins's brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but never appeared in it. The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the radiant face with which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a mighty piece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the young merchant's name), and of Clarriker's having shown an extraordinary inclination towards him, and of his belief that the opening had come at last. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length, the thing being done, and he having that day entered Clarriker's House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to somebody. A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart. If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering, about that house. The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother looked young, and the daughter looked old the mother's complexion was pink, and the daughter's was yellow the mother set up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good position, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people. Little, if any, community of feeling subsisted between them and Estella, but the understanding was established that they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss Havisham's before the time of her seclusion. In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity without placing me on terms of favour, conduced to my distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very familiarity between herself and me to the account of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, steward, halfbrother, poor relation,if I had been a younger brother of her appointed husband,I could not have seemed to myself further from my hopes when I was nearest to her. The privilege of calling her by her name and hearing her call me by mine became, under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened me. She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer of every one who went near her but there were more than enough of them without that. I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I used often to take her and the Brandleys on the water there were picnics, fte days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures, through which I pursued her,and they were all miseries to me. I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the fourandtwenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death. Throughout this part of our intercourse,and it lasted, as will presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,she habitually reverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced upon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me. 'Pip, Pip, she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond 'will you never take warning? 'Of what? 'Of me. 'Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella? 'Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind. I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the reason that I always was restrainedand this was not the least of my miseriesby a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her, when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My dread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious struggle in her bosom. 'At any rate, said I, 'I have no warning given me just now, for you wrote to me to come to you, this time. 'That's true, said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always chilled me. After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on to say 'The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can you take me? 'Can I take you, Estella! 'You can then? The day after tomorrow, if you please. You are to pay all charges out of my purse. You hear the condition of your going? 'And must obey, said I. This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others like it Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as seen her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we found her in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that there was no change in Satis House. She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when I last saw them together I repeat the word advisedly, for there was something positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces. She hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had reared. From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed to pry into my heart and probe its wounds. 'How does she use you, Pip how does she use you? she asked me again, with her witchlike eagerness, even in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire at night, she was most weird for then, keeping Estella's hand drawn through her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her, by dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular letters, the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll, with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and diseased, she sat with her other hand on her crutch stick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a very spectre. I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of dependence and even of degradation that it awakened,I saw in this that Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men, and that she was not to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw in this, a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her out to attract and torment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with the malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach of all admirers, and that all who staked upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in this that I, too, was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while the prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my being staved off so long and the reason for my late guardian's declining to commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word, I saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my eyes, and always had had her before my eyes and I saw in this, the distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden from the sun. The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces on the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with the steady dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom renewed. As I looked round at them, and at the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped clock, and at the withered articles of bridal dress upon the table and the ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly reflection thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I saw in everything the construction that my mind had come to, repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across the landing where the table was spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of the cobwebs from the centrepiece, in the crawlings of the spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and pausings of the beetles on the floor. It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever seen them opposed. We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham still had Estella's arm drawn through her own, and still clutched Estella's hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it. 'What! said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, 'are you tired of me? 'Only a little tired of myself, replied Estella, disengaging her arm, and moving to the great chimneypiece, where she stood looking down at the fire. 'Speak the truth, you ingrate! cried Miss Havisham, passionately striking her stick upon the floor 'you are tired of me. Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a selfpossessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was almost cruel. 'You stock and stone! exclaimed Miss Havisham. 'You cold, cold heart! 'What? said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimneypiece and only moving her eyes 'do you reproach me for being cold? You? 'Are you not? was the fierce retort. 'You should know, said Estella. 'I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame take all the success, take all the failure in short, take me. 'O, look at her, look at her! cried Miss Havisham, bitterly 'Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her! 'At least I was no party to the compact, said Estella, 'for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you have? 'Love, replied the other. 'You have it. 'I have not, said Miss Havisham. 'Mother by adoption, retorted Estella, never departing from the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness,'mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities. 'Did I never give her love! cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me. 'Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad! 'Why should I call you mad, returned Estella, 'I, of all people? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me! 'Soon forgotten! moaned Miss Havisham. 'Times soon forgotten! 'No, not forgotten, retorted Estella,'not forgotten, but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving admission here, she touched her bosom with her hand, 'to anything that you excluded? Be just to me. 'So proud, so proud! moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey hair with both her hands. 'Who taught me to be proud? returned Estella. 'Who praised me when I learnt my lesson? 'So hard, so hard! moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action. 'Who taught me to be hard? returned Estella. 'Who praised me when I learnt my lesson? 'But to be proud and hard to me! Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. 'Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard to me! Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was not otherwise disturbed when the moment was past, she looked down at the fire again. 'I cannot think, said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence 'why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness that I can charge myself with. 'Would it be weakness to return my love? exclaimed Miss Havisham. 'But yes, yes, she would call it so! 'I begin to think, said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, 'that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once seen your face,if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer. 'Or, said Estella,'which is a nearer case,if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight herif you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her face), but still made no answer. 'So, said Estella, 'I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me. Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took advantage of the momentI had sought one from the firstto leave the room, after beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When I left, Estella was yet standing by the great chimneypiece, just as she had stood throughout. Miss Havisham's grey hair was all adrift upon the ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see. It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking up some stitches in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella and I played at cards, as of yore,only we were skilful now, and played French games,and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed. I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the halfopened door of the dressingroom, in the dressingroom, in the room overhead, in the room beneath,everywhere. At last, when the night was slow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no longer bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up. I therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the yard into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer courtyard and walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner in the passage than I extinguished my candle for I saw Miss Havisham going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare candle in her hand, which she had probably taken from one of the sconces in her own room, and was a most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feastchamber, without seeing her open the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across into her own room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low cry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back, but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and showed me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her light pass above, and heard her ceaseless low cry. Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion and there were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor, did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in anywise change, except that I believed it to have something like fear infused among its former characteristics. It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley Drummle's name upon it or I would, very gladly. On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and when good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody's agreeing with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to order, forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady which, according to the solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute's turn to do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us, that might easily be. What was my indignant surprise when he called upon the company to pledge him to 'Estella! 'Estella who? said I. 'Never you mind, retorted Drummle. 'Estella of where? said I. 'You are bound to say of where. Which he was, as a Finch. 'Of Richmond, gentlemen, said Drummle, putting me out of the question, 'and a peerless beauty. Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I whispered Herbert. 'I know that lady, said Herbert, across the table, when the toast had been honoured. 'Do you? said Drummle. 'And so do I, I added, with a scarlet face. 'Do you? said Drummle. 'O, Lord! This was the only retortexcept glass or crockerythat the heavy creature was capable of making but, I became as highly incensed by it as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place and said that I could not but regard it as being like the honourable Finch's impudence to come down to that Grove,we always talked about coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of expression,down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up, demanded what I meant by that? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew where I was to be found. Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood, after this, was a question on which the Finches were divided. The debate upon it grew so lively, indeed, that at least six more honourable members told six more, during the discussion, that they believed they knew where they were to be found. However, it was decided at last (the Grove being a Court of Honour) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the honour of her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret, as a gentleman and a Finch, for 'having been betrayed into a warmth which. Next day was appointed for the production (lest our honour should take cold from delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in Estella's hand, that she had had the honour of dancing with him several times. This left me no course but to regret that I had been 'betrayed into a warmth which, and on the whole to repudiate, as untenable, the idea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate contradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to have gone ahead at an amazing rate. I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should show any favour to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below the average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been referable to some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my love for her, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to that hound. No doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had favoured but a worthier object would have caused me a different kind and degree of distress. It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed one another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella held him on now with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very well, now scarcely remembering who he was. The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait, however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a blockhead confidence in his money and in his family greatness, which sometimes did him good service,almost taking the place of concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil himself and drop at the right nick of time. At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls at most places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties, this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration on her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the next opportunity which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to take her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go. I was with her, for I almost always accompanied them to and from such places. 'Are you tired, Estella? 'Rather, Pip. 'You should be. 'Say rather, I should not be for I have my letter to Satis House to write, before I go to sleep. 'Recounting tonight's triumph? said I. 'Surely a very poor one, Estella. 'What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any. 'Estella, said I, 'do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is looking over here at us. 'Why should I look at him? returned Estella, with her eyes on me instead. 'What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,to use your words,that I need look at? 'Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you, said I. 'For he has been hovering about you all night. 'Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, replied Estella, with a glance towards him, 'hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it? 'No, I returned 'but cannot the Estella help it? 'Well! said she, laughing, after a moment, 'perhaps. Yes. Anything you like. 'But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is despised. 'Well? said she. 'You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient, illtempered, lowering, stupid fellow. 'Well? said she. 'You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous roll of addleheaded predecessors now, don't you? 'Well? said she again and each time she said it, she opened her lovely eyes the wider. To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, 'Well! Then, that is why it makes me wretched. Now, if I could have believed that she favoured Drummle with any idea of making memewretched, I should have been in better heart about it but in that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the question, that I could believe nothing of the kind. 'Pip, said Estella, casting her glance over the room, 'don't be foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be meant to have. It's not worth discussing. 'Yes it is, said I, 'because I cannot bear that people should say, 'she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the crowd.' 'I can bear it, said Estella. 'Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible. 'Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath! said Estella, opening her hands. 'And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to a boor! 'There is no doubt you do, said I, something hurriedly, 'for I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give tome. 'Do you want me then, said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, 'to deceive and entrap you? 'Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella? 'Yes, and many others,all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley. I'll say no more. And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so filled my heart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass on unhindered, to the event that had impended over me longer yet the event that had begun to be prepared for, before I knew that the world held Estella, and in the days when her baby intelligence was receiving its first distortions from Miss Havisham's wasting hands. In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, the tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried through the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted in the roof, the rope was rove to it and slowly taken through the miles of hollow to the great iron ring. All being made ready with much labour, and the hour come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and the ceiling fell. So, in my case all the work, near and afar, that tended to the end, had been accomplished and in an instant the blow was struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me. I was threeandtwenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twentythird birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard's Inn more than a year, and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Gardencourt, down by the river. Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original relations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my inability to settle to anything,which I hope arose out of the restless and incomplete tenure on which I held my means,I had a taste for reading, and read regularly so many hours a day. That matter of Herbert's was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have brought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter. Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping that tomorrow or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, I sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend. It was wretched weather stormy and wet, stormy and wet and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all. Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time, and it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so exposed to the river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the wind rushing up the river shook the house that night, like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the rain came with it and dashed against the windows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they rocked, that I might have fancied myself in a stormbeaten lighthouse. Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as though it could not bear to go out into such a night and when I set the doors open and looked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out and when I shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black windows (opening them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of such wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out, and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering, and that the coalfires in barges on the river were being carried away before the wind like redhot splashes in the rain. I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book at eleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul's, and all the many churchclocks in the Citysome leading, some accompanying, some followingstruck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it, when I heard a footstep on the stair. What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on. Remembering then, that the staircaselights were blown out, I took up my readinglamp and went out to the stairhead. Whoever was below had stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet. 'There is some one down there, is there not? I called out, looking down. 'Yes, said a voice from the darkness beneath. 'What floor do you want? 'The top. Mr. Pip. 'That is my name.There is nothing the matter? 'Nothing the matter, returned the voice. And the man came on. I stood with my lamp held out over the stairrail, and he came slowly within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its circle of light was very contracted so that he was in it for a mere instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me. Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially dressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long irongrey hair. That his age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong on his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by exposure to weather. As he ascended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp included us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was holding out both his hands to me. 'Pray what is your business? I asked him. 'My business? he repeated, pausing. 'Ah! Yes. I will explain my business, by your leave. 'Do you wish to come in? 'Yes, he replied 'I wish to come in, master. I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the sort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face. I resented it, because it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond to it. But I took him into the room I had just left, and, having set the lamp on the table, asked him as civilly as I could to explain himself. He looked about him with the strangest air,an air of wondering pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired,and he pulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that his head was furrowed and bald, and that the long irongrey hair grew only on its sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explained him. On the contrary, I saw him next moment, once more holding out both his hands to me. 'What do you mean? said I, half suspecting him to be mad. He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over his head. 'It's disapinting to a man, he said, in a coarse broken voice, 'arter having looked for'ard so distant, and come so fur but you're not to blame for that,neither on us is to blame for that. I'll speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please. He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his forehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at him attentively then, and recoiled a little from him but I did not know him. 'There's no one nigh, said he, looking over his shoulder 'is there? 'Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night, ask that question? said I. 'You're a game one, he returned, shaking his head at me with a deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating 'I'm glad you've grow'd up, a game one! But don't catch hold of me. You'd be sorry arterwards to have done it. I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and the rain had driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the intervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood face to face on such different levels, I could not have known my convict more distinctly than I knew him now as he sat in the chair before the fire. No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to me no need to take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head no need to hug himself with both his arms, and take a shivering turn across the room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before he gave me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious of remotely suspecting his identity. He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands. Not knowing what to do,for, in my astonishment I had lost my selfpossession,I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them. 'You acted noble, my boy, said he. 'Noble, Pip! And I have never forgot it! At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I laid a hand upon his breast and put him away. 'Stay! said I. 'Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what I did when I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by mending your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not necessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must be something good in the feeling that has brought you here, and I will not repulse you but surely you must understand thatI My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed look at me, that the words died away on my tongue. 'You was asaying, he observed, when we had confronted one another in silence, 'that surely I must understand. What, surely must I understand? 'That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look weary. Will you drink something before you go? He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly observant of me, biting a long end of it. 'I think, he answered, still with the end at his mouth and still observant of me, 'that I will drink (I thank you) afore I go. There was a tray ready on a sidetable. I brought it to the table near the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum and water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look at me as he leaned back in his chair with the long draggled end of his neckerchief between his teethevidently forgottenmade my hand very difficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with amazement that his eyes were full of tears. Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and felt a touch of reproach. 'I hope, said I, hurriedly putting something into a glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, 'that you will not think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it, and I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy! As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the end of his neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, and stretched out his hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, and drew his sleeve across his eyes and forehead. 'How are you living? I asked him. 'I've been a sheepfarmer, stockbreeder, other trades besides, away in the new world, said he 'many a thousand mile of stormy water off from this. 'I hope you have done well? 'I've done wonderfully well. There's others went out alonger me as has done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I'm famous for it. 'I am glad to hear it. 'I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy. Without stopping to try to understand those words or the tone in which they were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come into my mind. 'Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me, I inquired, 'since he undertook that trust? 'Never set eyes upon him. I warn't likely to it. 'He came faithfully, and he brought me the two onepound notes. I was a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay them back. You can put them to some other poor boy's use. I took out my purse. He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he watched me as I separated two onepound notes from its contents. They were clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them over to him. Still watching me, he laid them one upon the other, folded them longwise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped the ashes into the tray. 'May I make so bold, he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, 'as ask you how you have done well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes? 'How? 'Ah! He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with his heavy brown hand on the mantelshelf. He put a foot up to the bars, to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam but, he neither looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only now that I began to tremble. When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were without sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property. 'Might a mere warmint ask what property? said he. I faltered, 'I don't know. 'Might a mere warmint ask whose property? said he. I faltered again, 'I don't know. 'Could I make a guess, I wonder, said the Convict, 'at your income since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five? With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him. 'Concerning a guardian, he went on. 'There ought to have been some guardian, or suchlike, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As to the first letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J? All the truth of my position came flashing on me and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew. 'Put it, he resumed, 'as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun with a J, and might be Jaggers,put it as he had come over sea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. 'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well! However, did I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for particulars of your address. That person's name? Why, Wemmick. I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. I stood, with a hand on the chairback and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to be suffocating,I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I shuddered at, very near to mine. 'Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman,and, Pip, you're him! The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some terrible beast. 'Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son,more to me nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a hiredout shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was aeating my dinner or my supper, and I says, 'Here's the boy again, a looking at me whiles I eats and drinks!' I see you there a many times, as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each time,and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens,'but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for wagers, and beat 'em! In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been nearly fainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this. It was the one grain of relief I had. 'Look'ee here! he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his touch as if he had been a snake, 'a gold 'un and a beauty that's a gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies that's a gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes better ain't to be got! And your books too, turning his eyes round the room, 'mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And you read 'em don't you? I see you'd been a reading of 'em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And if they're in foreign languages wot I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did. Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me. 'Don't you mind talking, Pip, said he, after again drawing his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well remembered,and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much in earnest 'you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have you wosn't prepared for this as I wos. But didn't you never think it might be me? 'O no, no, no, I returned, 'Never, never! 'Well, you see it wos me, and singlehanded. Never a soul in it but my own self and Mr. Jaggers. 'Was there no one else? I asked. 'No, said he, with a glance of surprise 'who else should there be? And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There's bright eyes somewhereseh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the thoughts on? O Estella, Estella! 'They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy 'em. Not that a gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can't win 'em off of his own game but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you, dear boy. From that there hut and that there hiringout, I got money left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got my liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went for you. 'Lord strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it was I went for, 'if it ain't for him!' It all prospered wonderful. As I giv' you to understand just now, I'm famous for it. It was the money left me, and the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggersall for youwhen he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter. O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,far from contented, yet, by comparison happy! 'And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look'ee here, to know in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists might fling up the dust over me as I was walking what do I say? I says to myself, 'I'm making a better gentleman nor ever you'll be!' When one of 'em says to another, 'He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a ignorant common fellow now, for all he's lucky,' what do I say? I says to myself, 'If I ain't a gentleman, nor yet ain't got no learning, I'm the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land which on you owns a broughtup London gentleman?' This way I kep myself agoing. And this way I held steady afore my mind that I would for certain come one day and see my boy, and make myself known to him, on his own ground. He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for anything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood. 'It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it warn't safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for I was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear boy, I done it! I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, I had seemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the rain than to him even now, I could not separate his voice from those voices, though those were loud and his was silent. 'Where will you put me? he asked, presently. 'I must be put somewheres, dear boy. 'To sleep? said I. 'Yes. And to sleep long and sound, he answered 'for I've been seatossed and seawashed, months and months. 'My friend and companion, said I, rising from the sofa, 'is absent you must have his room. 'He won't come back tomorrow will he? 'No, said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmost efforts 'not tomorrow. 'Because, look'ee here, dear boy, he said, dropping his voice, and laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, 'caution is necessary. 'How do you mean? Caution? 'By G, it's Death! 'What's death? 'I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's been overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if took. Nothing was needed but this the wretched man, after loading wretched me with his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead of abhorring him if I had been attracted to him by the strongest admiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with the strongest repugnance it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it would have been better, for his preservation would then have naturally and tenderly addressed my heart. My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might be seen from without, and then to close and make fast the doors. While I did so, he stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit and when I saw him thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his meal again. It almost seemed to me as if he must stoop down presently, to file at his leg. When I had gone into Herbert's room, and had shut off any other communication between it and the staircase than through the room in which our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed? He said yes, but asked me for some of my 'gentleman's linen to put on in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my blood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands to give me goodnight. I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended the fire in the room where we had been together, and sat down by it, afraid to go to bed. For an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think and it was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces. Miss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a mere dream Estella not designed for me I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a sting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to practise on when no other practice was at hand those were the first smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all,it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe. I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any consideration simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity but I could never, never, undo what I had done. In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I could have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door. With these fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I had had mysterious warnings of this man's approach. That, for weeks gone by, I had passed faces in the streets which I had thought like his. That these likenesses had grown more numerous, as he, coming over the sea, had drawn nearer. That his wicked spirit had somehow sent these messengers to mine, and that now on this stormy night he was as good as his word, and with me. Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I had seen him with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man that I had heard that other convict reiterate that he had tried to murder him that I had seen him down in the ditch tearing and fighting like a wild beast. Out of such remembrances I brought into the light of the fire a halfformed terror that it might not be safe to be shut up there with him in the dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it filled the room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in and look at my dreadful burden. He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were striking five, the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain intensified the thick black darkness. It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor for, this thought pressing on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a distance. The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was selfevident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it would inevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now, but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an animated ragbag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room secret from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get up a mystery with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle had unexpectedly come from the country. This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all, I was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to come with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I fell over something, and that something was a man crouching in a corner. As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but eluded my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman to come quickly telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind being as fierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by rekindling the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the staircase from the bottom to the top and found no one there. It then occurred to me as possible that the man might have slipped into my rooms so, lighting my candle at the watchman's, and leaving him standing at the door, I examined them carefully, including the room in which my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other man was in those chambers. It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had perceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said at different times of the night, three. One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in the Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only other man who dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a part had been in the country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned in the night, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came upstairs. 'The night being so bad, sir, said the watchman, as he gave me back my glass, 'uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three gentlemen that I have named, I don't call to mind another since about eleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you. 'My uncle, I muttered. 'Yes. 'You saw him, sir? 'Yes. Oh yes. 'Likewise the person with him? 'Person with him! I repeated. 'I judged the person to be with him, returned the watchman. 'The person stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person took this way when he took this way. 'What sort of person? The watchman had not particularly noticed he should say a working person to the best of his belief, he had a dustcoloured kind of clothes on, under a dark coat. The watchman made more light of the matter than I did, and naturally not having my reason for attaching weight to it. When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do without prolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by these two circumstances taken together. Whereas they were easy of innocent solution apart,as, for instance, some diner out or diner at home, who had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have strayed to my staircase and dropped asleep there,and my nameless visitor might have brought some one with him to show him the way,still, joined, they had an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the changes of a few hours had made me. I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of the morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a whole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and a half between me and daylight, I dozed again now, waking up uneasily, with prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears now, making thunder of the wind in the chimney at length, falling off into a profound sleep from which the daylight woke me with a start. All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way. As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant. When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue when I walked from room to room when I sat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to appear I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew why, or how long I had been so, or on what day of the week I made the reflection, or even who I was that made it. At last, the old woman and the niece came in,the latter with a head not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,and testified surprise at sight of me and the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come in the night and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were to be modified accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they knocked the furniture about and made a dust and so, in a sort of dream or sleepwaking, I found myself sitting by the fire again, waiting forHimto come to breakfast. By and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring myself to bear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse look by daylight. 'I do not even know, said I, speaking low as he took his seat at the table, 'by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my uncle. 'That's it, dear boy! Call me uncle. 'You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship? 'Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis. 'Do you mean to keep that name? 'Why, yes, dear boy, it's as good as another,unless you'd like another. 'What is your real name? I asked him in a whisper. 'Magwitch, he answered, in the same tone 'chrisen'd Abel. 'What were you brought up to be? 'A warmint, dear boy. He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denoted some profession. 'When you came into the Temple last night said I, pausing to wonder whether that could really have been last night, which seemed so long ago. 'Yes, dear boy? 'When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had you any one with you? 'With me? No, dear boy. 'But there was some one there? 'I didn't take particular notice, he said, dubiously, 'not knowing the ways of the place. But I think there was a person, too, come in alonger me. 'Are you known in London? 'I hope not! said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefinger that made me turn hot and sick. 'Were you known in London, once? 'Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly. 'Were youtriedin London? 'Which time? said he, with a sharp look. 'The last time. He nodded. 'First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me. It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up a knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, 'And what I done is worked out and paid for! fell to at his breakfast. He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth, and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon it, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun with any appetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have sat much as I did,repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, and gloomily looking at the cloth. 'I'm a heavy grubber, dear boy, he said, as a polite kind of apology when he made an end of his meal, 'but I always was. If it had been in my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha' got into lighter trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as shepherd t'other side the world, it's my belief I should ha' turned into a molloncollymad sheep myself, if I hadn't a had my smoke. As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand into the breast of the peacoat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, and a handful of loose tobacco of the kind that is called Negrohead. Having filled his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if his pocket were a drawer. Then, he took a live coal from the fire with the tongs, and lighted his pipe at it, and then turned round on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and went through his favourite action of holding out both his hands for mine. 'And this, said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as he puffed at his pipe,'and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip'late, is, to stand by and look at you, dear boy! I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was beginning slowly to settle down to the contemplation of my condition. What I was chained to, and how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard his hoarse voice, and sat looking up at his furrowed bald head with its iron grey hair at the sides. 'I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets there mustn't be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must have horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood 'uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. We'll show 'em another pair of shoes than that, Pip won't us? He took out of his pocket a great thick pocketbook, bursting with papers, and tossed it on the table. 'There's something worth spending in that there book, dear boy. It's yourn. All I've got ain't mine it's yourn. Don't you be afeerd on it. There's more where that come from. I've come to the old country fur to see my gentleman spend his money like a gentleman. That'll be my pleasure. My pleasure 'ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all! he wound up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once with a loud snap, 'blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the colonist a stirring up the dust, I'll show a better gentleman than the whole kit on you put together! 'Stop! said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, 'I want to speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you have. 'Look'ee here, Pip, said he, laying his hand on my arm in a suddenly altered and subdued manner 'first of all, look'ee here. I forgot myself half a minute ago. What I said was low that's what it was low. Look'ee here, Pip. Look over it. I ain't agoing to be low. 'First, I resumed, half groaning, 'what precautions can be taken against your being recognised and seized? 'No, dear boy, he said, in the same tone as before, 'that don't go first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many year to make a gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I was low that's what I was low. Look over it, dear boy. Some sense of the grimlyludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I replied, 'I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp upon it! 'Yes, but look'ee here, he persisted. 'Dear boy, I ain't come so fur, not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying 'How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred? 'Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. Without I was informed agen, the danger ain't so much to signify. There's Jaggers, and there's Wemmick, and there's you. Who else is there to inform? 'Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street? said I. 'Well, he returned, 'there ain't many. Nor yet I don't intend to advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from Botany Bay and years have rolled away, and who's to gain by it? Still, look'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should ha' come to see you, mind you, just the same. 'And how long do you remain? 'How long? said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and dropping his jaw as he stared at me. 'I'm not agoing back. I've come for good. 'Where are you to live? said I. 'What is to be done with you? Where will you be safe? 'Dear boy, he returned, 'there's disguising wigs can be bought for money, and there's hair powder, and spectacles, and black clothes,shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what others has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it. 'You take it smoothly now, said I, 'but you were very serious last night, when you swore it was Death. 'And so I swear it is Death, said he, putting his pipe back in his mouth, 'and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, and it's serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What then, when that's once done? Here I am. To go back now 'ud be as bad as to stand groundworse. Besides, Pip, I'm here, because I've meant it by you, years and years. As to what I dare, I'm a old bird now, as has dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I'm not afeerd to perch upon a scarecrow. If there's Death hid inside of it, there is, and let him come out, and I'll face him, and then I'll believe in him and not afore. And now let me have a look at my gentleman agen. Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with an air of admiring proprietorship smoking with great complacency all the while. It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some quiet lodging hard by, of which he might take possession when Herbert returned whom I expected in two or three days. That the secret must be confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I could have put the immense relief I should derive from sharing it with him out of the question, was plain to me. But it was by no means so plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name), who reserved his consent to Herbert's participation until he should have seen him and formed a favourable judgment of his physiognomy. 'And even then, dear boy, said he, pulling a greasy little clasped black Testament out of his pocket, 'we'll have him on his oath. To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about the world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to state what I never quite established but this I can say, that I never knew him put it to any other use. The book itself had the appearance of having been stolen from some court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge of its antecedents, combined with his own experience in that wise, gave him a reliance on its powers as a sort of legal spell or charm. On this first occasion of his producing it, I recalled how he had made me swear fidelity in the churchyard long ago, and how he had described himself last night as always swearing to his resolutions in his solitude. As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next discussed with him what dress he should wear. He cherished an extraordinary belief in the virtues of 'shorts as a disguise, and had in his own mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made him something between a dean and a dentist. It was with considerable difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more like a prosperous farmer's and we arranged that he should cut his hair close, and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen by the laundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view until his change of dress was made. It would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions but in my dazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I did not get out to further them until two or three in the afternoon. He was to remain shut up in the chambers while I was gone, and was on no account to open the door. There being to my knowledge a respectable lodginghouse in Essex Street, the back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of my windows, I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fortunate as to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from shop to shop, making such purchases as were necessary to the change in his appearance. This business transacted, I turned my face, on my own account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at his desk, but, seeing me enter, got up immediately and stood before his fire. 'Now, Pip, said he, 'be careful. 'I will, sir, I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of what I was going to say. 'Don't commit yourself, said Mr. Jaggers, 'and don't commit any one. You understandany one. Don't tell me anything I don't want to know anything I am not curious. Of course I saw that he knew the man was come. 'I merely want, Mr. Jaggers, said I, 'to assure myself that what I have been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least I may verify it. Mr. Jaggers nodded. 'But did you say 'told' or 'informed'? he asked me, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking in a listening way at the floor. 'Told would seem to imply verbal communication. You can't have verbal communication with a man in New South Wales, you know. 'I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers. 'Good. 'I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the benefactor so long unknown to me. 'That is the man, said Mr. Jaggers, 'in New South Wales. 'And only he? said I. 'And only he, said Mr. Jaggers. 'I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for my mistakes and wrong conclusions but I always supposed it was Miss Havisham. 'As you say, Pip, returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, 'I am not at all responsible for that. 'And yet it looked so like it, sir, I pleaded with a downcast heart. 'Not a particle of evidence, Pip, said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his head and gathering up his skirts. 'Take nothing on its looks take everything on evidence. There's no better rule. 'I have no more to say, said I, with a sigh, after standing silent for a little while. 'I have verified my information, and there's an end. 'And Magwitchin New South Waleshaving at last disclosed himself, said Mr. Jaggers, 'you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout my communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line of fact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of fact. You are quite aware of that? 'Quite, sir. 'I communicated to Magwitchin New South Waleswhen he first wrote to mefrom New South Walesthe caution that he must not expect me ever to deviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to him another caution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter at some distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cautioned him that I must hear no more of that that he was not at all likely to obtain a pardon that he was expatriated for the term of his natural life and that his presenting himself in this country would be an act of felony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave Magwitch that caution, said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me 'I wrote it to New South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt. 'No doubt, said I. 'I have been informed by Wemmick, pursued Mr. Jaggers, still looking hard at me, 'that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Purvis, or 'Or Provis, I suggested. 'Or Provisthank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know it's Provis? 'Yes, said I. 'You know it's Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by return of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received the explanation of Magwitchin New South Wales? 'It came through Provis, I replied. 'Good day, Pip, said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand 'glad to have seen you. In writing by post to Magwitchin New South Walesor in communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention that the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to you, together with the balance for there is still a balance remaining. Goodday, Pip! We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me. I turned at the door, and he was still looking hard at me, while the two vile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open, and to force out of their swollen throats, 'O, what a man he is! Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have done nothing for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I found the terrible Provis drinking rum and water and smoking negrohead, in safety. Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on. Whatever he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me) than what he had worn before. To my thinking, there was something in him that made it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him and the better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on the marshes. This effect on my anxious fancy was partly referable, no doubt, to his old face and manner growing more familiar to me but I believe too that he dragged one of his legs as if there were still a weight of iron on it, and that from head to foot there was Convict in the very grain of the man. The influences of his solitary hutlife were upon him besides, and gave him a savage air that no dress could tame added to these were the influences of his subsequent branded life among men, and, crowning all, his consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways of sitting and standing, and eating and drinking,of brooding about in a highshouldered reluctant style,of taking out his great hornhandled jackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food,of lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy pannikins,of chopping a wedge off his bread, and soaking up with it the last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the most of an allowance, and then drying his fingerends on it, and then swallowing it,in these ways and a thousand other small nameless instances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon, Bondsman, plain as plain could be. It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the effect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon the dead so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it was most desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of pretence, and seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It was abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut short. Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful mystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his knotted hands clenching the sides of the easychair, and his bald head tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit and look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all the crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to start up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my abhorrence of him, that I even think I might have yielded to this impulse in the first agonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for me and the risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back. Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there with everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private soldier. I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the rain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on my account, and the consideration that he could be, and the dread that he would be, were no small addition to my horrors. When he was not asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of cards of his own,a game that I never saw before or since, and in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table,when he was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would ask me to read to him,'Foreign language, dear boy! While I complied, he, not comprehending a single word, would stand before the fire surveying me with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the fingers of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show to the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the fonder he was of me. This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It lasted about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out, except when I took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one evening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite worn out,for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful dreams,I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis, who had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an instant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand. 'Quiet! It's Herbert! I said and Herbert came bursting in, with the airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him. 'Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, myHalloa! I beg your pardon. He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly putting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something else. 'Herbert, my dear friend, said I, shutting the double doors, while Herbert stood staring and wondering, 'something very strange has happened. This isa visitor of mine. 'It's all right, dear boy! said Provis coming forward, with his little clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert. 'Take it in your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in any way sumever! Kiss it! 'Do so, as he wishes it, I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis immediately shaking hands with him, said, 'Now you're on your oath, you know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't make a gentleman on you! In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings reflected in Herbert's face, and not least among them, my repugnance towards the man who had done so much for me. What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. Saving his troublesome sense of having been 'low on one occasion since his return,on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the moment my revelation was finished,he had no perception of the possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite established in his own mind. 'Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade, he said to Herbert, after having discoursed for some time, 'I know very well that once since I come backfor half a minuteI've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain't agoing to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may count upon me always having a genteel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will be. Herbert said, 'Certainly, but looked as if there were no specific consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us together, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat late. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and saw him safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of his arrival. Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in bringing him back and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a large city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is conscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that any of the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who were passing passed on their several ways, and the street was empty when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate with us, nobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when I stood for a few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before going up the stairs, Garden Court was as still and lifeless as the staircase was when I ascended it. Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done? The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had stood,for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with his pipe and his negrohead and his jackknife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate,I say his chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had no occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that confidence without shaping a syllable. 'What, said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,'what is to be done? 'My poor dear Handel, he replied, holding his head, 'I am too stunned to think. 'So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be done. He is intent upon various new expenses,horses, and carriages, and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow. 'You mean that you can't accept 'How can I? I interposed, as Herbert paused. 'Think of him! Look at him! An involuntary shudder passed over both of us. 'Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate! 'My poor dear Handel, Herbert repeated. 'Then, said I, 'after all, stopping short here, never taking another penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again I am heavily in debt,very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,and I have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing. 'Well, well, well! Herbert remonstrated. 'Don't say fit for nothing. 'What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection. Of course I broke down there and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it. 'Anyhow, my dear Handel, said he presently, 'soldiering won't do. If you were to renounce this patronage and these favours, I suppose you would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know. Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money. 'But there is another question, said Herbert. 'This is an ignorant, determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce character. 'I know he is, I returned. 'Let me tell you what evidence I have seen of it. And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that encounter with the other convict. 'See, then, said Herbert 'think of this! He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realisation of his fixed idea. In the moment of realisation, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment? 'I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his putting himself in the way of being taken. 'Then you may rely upon it, said Herbert, 'that there would be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him. I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recognised and taken, in spite of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes even though I was so wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would ever have come to this! But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done? 'The first and the main thing to be done, said Herbert, 'is to get him out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced to go. 'But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back? 'My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street, there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and making him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his life, now. 'There, again! said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. 'I know nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my childhood! Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and fro together, studying the carpet. 'Handel, said Herbert, stopping, 'you feel convinced that you can take no further benefits from him do you? 'Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place? 'And you feel convinced that you must break with him? 'Herbert, can you ask me? 'And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from throwing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven's name, and we'll see it out together, dear old boy. It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again, with only that done. 'Now, Herbert, said I, 'with reference to gaining some knowledge of his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point blank. 'Yes. Ask him, said Herbert, 'when we sit at breakfast in the morning. For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would come to breakfast with us. With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams concerning him, and woke unrefreshed I woke, too, to recover the fear which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned transport. Waking, I never lost that fear. He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat down to his meal. He was full of plans 'for his gentleman's coming out strong, and like a gentleman, and urged me to begin speedily upon the pocketbook which he had left in my possession. He considered the chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to look out at once for a 'fashionable crib near Hyde Park, in which he could have 'a shakedown. When he had made an end of his breakfast, and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of preface, 'After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You remember? 'Remember! said he. 'I think so! 'We want to know something about that manand about you. It is strange to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing more? 'Well! he said, after consideration. 'You're on your oath, you know, Pip's comrade? 'Assuredly, replied Herbert. 'As to anything I say, you know, he insisted. 'The oath applies to all. 'I understand it to do so. 'And look'ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for, he insisted again. 'So be it. He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negrohead, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a buttonhole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us and said what follows. 'Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not agoing fur to tell you my life like a song, or a storybook. But to give it you short and handy, I'll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you've got it. That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend. 'I've been done everything to, pretty wellexcept hanged. I've been locked up as much as a silver teakittle. I've been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more notion where I was born than you haveif so much. I first become aware of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from mea mana tinkerand he'd took the fire with him, and left me wery cold. 'I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as the birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did. 'So fur as I could find, there warn't a soul that see young Abel Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up. 'This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there warn't many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of being hardened. 'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. 'May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on 'em,they had better a measured my stomach,and others on 'em giv me tracts what I couldn't read, and made me speeches what I couldn't understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn't I?Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due. Dear boy and Pip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low. 'Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,though that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether you would ha' been overready to give me work yourselves,a bit of a poacher, a bit of a labourer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me to write. I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of keymetal still. 'At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi' a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster, if I'd got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson and that's the man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night. 'He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he'd been to a public boardingschool and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was goodlooking too. It was the night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth that I know'd on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a sporting one) called him out, and said, 'I think this is a man that might suit you,'meaning I was. 'Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a watch and a chain and a ring and a breastpin and a handsome suit of clothes. ''To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' says Compeyson to me. ''Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I had come out of Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have been for something else but it warn't.) ''Luck changes,' says Compeyson 'perhaps yours is going to change.' 'I says, 'I hope it may be so. There's room.' ''What can you do?' says Compeyson. ''Eat and drink,' I says 'if you'll find the materials.' 'Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place. 'I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson's business in which we was to go pardners? Compeyson's business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen banknote passing, and suchlike. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business. He'd no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned. 'There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,not as being so chrisen'd, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich lady some years afore, and they'd made a pot of money by it but Compeyson betted and gamed, and he'd have run through the king's taxes. So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, and Compeyson's wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and nobody. 'I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn't and I won't pretend I was partick'lerfor where 'ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi' Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur lived at the top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brentford it was), and Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a tearing down into Compeyson's parlour late at night, in only a flannel gown, with his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson's wife, 'Sally, she really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can't get rid of her. She's all in white,' he says, 'wi' white flowers in her hair, and she's awful mad, and she's got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she'll put it on me at five in the morning.' 'Says Compeyson 'Why, you fool, don't you know she's got a living body? And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in at the window, and up the stairs?' ''I don't know how she's there,' says Arthur, shivering dreadful with the horrors, 'but she's standing in the corner at the foot of the bed, awful mad. And over where her heart's brokeyou broke it!there's drops of blood.' 'Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. 'Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?' But he never come nigh himself. 'Compeyson's wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most dreadful. 'Why look at her!' he cries out. 'She's a shaking the shroud at me! Don't you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain't it awful to see her so mad?' Next he cries, 'She'll put it on me, and then I'm done for! Take it away from her, take it away!' And then he catched hold of us, and kep on a talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see her myself. 'Compeyson's wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get the horrors off, and by and by he quieted. 'O, she's gone! Has her keeper been for her?' he says. 'Yes,' says Compeyson's wife. 'Did you tell him to lock her and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to take that ugly thing away from her?' 'Yes, yes, all right.' 'You're a good creetur,' he says, 'don't leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!' 'He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, 'Here she is! She's got the shroud again. She's unfolding it. She's coming out of the corner. She's coming to the bed. Hold me, both on youone of each sidedon't let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time. Don't let her throw it over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to get it round me. She's lifting me up. Keep me down!' Then he lifted himself up hard, and was dead. 'Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own book,this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade on. 'Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I donewhich 'ud take a weekI'll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip's comrade, that that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he'd got craft, and he'd got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi'Stop though! I ain't brought her in He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in the book of his remembrance and he turned his face to the fire, and spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them on again. 'There ain't no need to go into it, he said, looking round once more. 'The time wi' Compeyson was a'most as hard a time as ever I had that said, all's said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson? I answered, No. 'Well! he said, 'I was, and got convicted. As to took up on suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five year that it lasted but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed for felony,on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation,and there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, 'Separate defences, no communication,' and that was all. And I was so miserable poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back, afore I could get Jaggers. 'When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi' his curly hair and his black clothes and his white pockethandkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had come for'ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing and get the profit. But when the defence come on, then I see the plan plainer for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, 'My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected t'other, the elder, always seen in 'em and always wi' his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?' And suchlike. And when it come to character, warn't it Compeyson as had been to the school, and warn't it his schoolfellows as was in this position and in that, and warn't it him as had been know'd by witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn't it me as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale in Bridewells and LockUps! And when it come to speechmaking, warn't it Compeyson as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now and then into his white pockethandkercher,ah! and wi' verses in his speech, too,and warn't it me as could only say, 'Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most precious rascal'? And when the verdict come, warn't it Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and bad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me, and warn't it me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to Compeyson, 'Once out of this court, I'll smash that face of yourn!' ain't it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we're sentenced, ain't it him as gets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain't it him as the Judge is sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain't it me as the Judge perceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to worse? He had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but he checked it, took two or three short breaths, swallowed as often, and stretching out his hand towards me said, in a reassuring manner, 'I ain't agoing to be low, dear boy! He had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and head and neck and hands, before he could go on. 'I had said to Compeyson that I'd smash that face of his, and I swore Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prisonship, but I couldn't get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him and hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at him, when I was seen and seized. The blackhole of that ship warn't a strong one, to a judge of blackholes that could swim and dive. I escaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, envying them as was in 'em and all over, when I first see my boy! He regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent to me again, though I had felt great pity for him. 'By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them marshes too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit of me, not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I smashed his face. 'And now,' says I 'as the worst thing I can do, caring nothing for myself, I'll drag you back.' And I'd have swum off, towing him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I'd a got him aboard without the soldiers. 'Of course he'd much the best of it to the last,his character was so good. He had escaped when he was made half wild by me and my murderous intentions and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, brought to trial again, and sent for life. I didn't stop for life, dear boy and Pip's comrade, being here. He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then slowly took his tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and plucked his pipe from his buttonhole, and slowly filled it, and began to smoke. 'Is he dead? I asked, after a silence. 'Is who dead, dear boy? 'Compeyson. 'He hopes I am, if he's alive, you may be sure, with a fierce look. 'I never heerd no more of him. Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes on the fire, and I read in it 'Young Havisham's name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed to be Miss Havisham's lover. I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the book by but we neither of us said anything, and both looked at Provis as he stood smoking by the fire. Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison before meeting her at the coachoffice, with the state of mind in which I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty, and the returned transport whom I harboured? The road would be none the smoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not be helped, nor I extenuated. A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative or rather, his narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already there. If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could hardly doubt the consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of him, neither of the two could know much better than I and that any such man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an informer was scarcely to be imagined. Never had I breathed, and never would I breatheor so I resolveda word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could go abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we were left alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. I resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went. On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley's, Estella's maid was called to tell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House, as usual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without me when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation in the answer which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that her maid believed she was only coming back at all for a little while. I could make nothing of this, except that it was meant that I should make nothing of it, and I went home again in complete discomfiture. Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I always took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the conclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came back from Miss Havisham's. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to consider separately what it would be best to say whether we should devise any pretence of being afraid that he was under suspicious observation or whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should propose an expedition. We both knew that I had but to propose anything, and he would consent. We agreed that his remaining many days in his present hazard was not to be thought of. Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise to go down to Joe but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe or his name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and Herbert was to take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be absent only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to be begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to Herbert also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that pretence,as, to make purchases, or the like. Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham's, I set off by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out on the open country road when the day came creeping on, halting and whimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of mist, like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand, to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle! As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a very lame pretence on both sides the lamer, because we both went into the coffeeroom, where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I ordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very well knew why he had come there. Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly irregular form, I sat at my table while he stood before the fire. By degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the fire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him. 'Is this a cut? said Mr. Drummle. 'Oh! said I, poker in hand 'it's you, is it? How do you do? I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off. With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire. 'You have just come down? said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little away with his shoulder. 'Yes, said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder. 'Beastly place, said Drummle. 'Your part of the country, I think? 'Yes, I assented. 'I am told it's very like your Shropshire. 'Not in the least like it, said Drummle. Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr. Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his. 'Have you been here long? I asked, determined not to yield an inch of the fire. 'Long enough to be tired of it, returned Drummle, pretending to yawn, but equally determined. 'Do you stay here long? 'Can't say, answered Mr. Drummle. 'Do you? 'Can't say, said I. I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr. Drummle's shoulder had claimed another hair's breadth of room, I should have jerked him into the window equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a similar claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He whistled a little. So did I. 'Large tract of marshes about here, I believe? said Drummle. 'Yes. What of that? said I. Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, 'Oh! and laughed. 'Are you amused, Mr. Drummle? 'No, said he, 'not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Outoftheway villages there, they tell me. Curious little publichousesand smithiesand that. Waiter! 'Yes, sir. 'Is that horse of mine ready? 'Brought round to the door, sir. 'I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won't ride today the weather won't do. 'Very good, sir. 'And I don't dine, because I'm going to dine at the lady's. 'Very good, sir. Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his greatjowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the robber in the storybook is said to have taken the old lady) and seat him on the fire. One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief came, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we stood, well squared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our hands behind us, not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in the drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on the table, Drummle's was cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both stood our ground. 'Have you been to the Grove since? said Drummle. 'No, said I, 'I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was there. 'Was that when we had a difference of opinion? 'Yes, I replied, very shortly. 'Come, come! They let you off easily enough, sneered Drummle. 'You shouldn't have lost your temper. 'Mr. Drummle, said I, 'you are not competent to give advice on that subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that occasion), I don't throw glasses. 'I do, said Drummle. After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of smouldering ferocity, I said, 'Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don't think it an agreeable one. 'I am sure it's not, said he, superciliously over his shoulder 'I don't think anything about it. 'And therefore, I went on, 'with your leave, I will suggest that we hold no kind of communication in future. 'Quite my opinion, said Drummle, 'and what I should have suggested myself, or donemore likelywithout suggesting. But don't lose your temper. Haven't you lost enough without that? 'What do you mean, sir? 'Waiter! said Drummle, by way of answering me. The waiter reappeared. 'Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don't ride today, and that I dine at the young lady's? 'Quite so, sir! When the waiter had felt my fastcooling teapot with the palm of his hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle, careful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without introducing Estella's name, which I could not endure to hear him utter and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but for the incursion of three thriving farmerslaid on by the waiter, I thinkwho came into the coffeeroom unbuttoning their greatcoats and rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we were obliged to give way. I saw him through the window, seizing his horse's mane, and mounting in his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought he was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dustcoloured dress appeared with what was wanted,I could not have said from where whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not,and as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the coffeeroom windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me of Orlick. Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the journey from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house that it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered, never to have seen. In the room where the dressingtable stood, and where the waxcandles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella Miss Havisham seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived that, from the look they interchanged. 'And what wind, said Miss Havisham, 'blows you here, Pip? Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused. Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I had discovered my real benefactor. 'Miss Havisham, said I, 'I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to Estella and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed. Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit down, I took the chair by the dressingtable, which I had often seen her occupy. With all that ruin at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural place for me, that day. 'What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you, presentlyin a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be. Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the action of Estella's fingers as they worked that she attended to what I said but she did not look up. 'I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune, anything. There are reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not my secret, but another's. As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how to go on, Miss Havisham repeated, 'It is not your secret, but another's. Well? 'When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left, I suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might have come,as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid for it? 'Ay, Pip, replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head 'you did. 'And that Mr. Jaggers 'Mr. Jaggers, said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone, 'had nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and his being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that as it may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one. Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no suppression or evasion so far. 'But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least you led me on? said I. 'Yes, she returned, again nodding steadily, 'I let you go on. 'Was that kind? 'Who am I, cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her in surprise,'who am I, for God's sake, that I should be kind? It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make it. I told her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst. 'Well, well, well! she said. 'What else? 'I was liberally paid for my old attendance here, I said, to soothe her, 'in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only for my own information. What follows has another (and I hope more disinterested) purpose. In humouring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you punishedpractised onperhaps you will supply whatever term expresses your intention, without offenceyour selfseeking relations? 'I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my history, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you not to have it so! You made your own snares. I never made them. Waiting until she was quiet again,for this, too, flashed out of her in a wild and sudden way,I went on. 'I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham, and have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them to have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be false and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or no, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you suppose them to be otherwise than generous, upright, open, and incapable of anything designing or mean. 'They are your friends, said Miss Havisham. 'They made themselves my friends, said I, 'when they supposed me to have superseded them and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I think. This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to see, to do them good with her. She looked at me keenly for a little while, and then said quietly, 'What do you want for them? 'Only, said I, 'that you would not confound them with the others. They may be of the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of the same nature. Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated, 'What do you want for them? 'I am not so cunning, you see, I said, in answer, conscious that I reddened a little, 'as that I could hide from you, even if I desired, that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money to do my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the nature of the case must be done without his knowledge, I could show you how. 'Why must it be done without his knowledge? she asked, settling her hands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more attentively. 'Because, said I, 'I began the service myself, more than two years ago, without his knowledge, and I don't want to be betrayed. Why I fail in my ability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the secret which is another person's and not mine. She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the fire. After watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the light of the slowly wasting candles to be a long time, she was roused by the collapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards me againat first, vacantlythen, with a gradually concentrating attention. All this time Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed her attention on me, she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in our dialogue, 'What else? 'Estella, said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my trembling voice, 'you know I love you. You know that I have loved you long and dearly. She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her fingers plied their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved countenance. I saw that Miss Havisham glanced from me to her, and from her to me. 'I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It induced me to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another. While I thought you could not help yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. But I must say it now. Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers still going, Estella shook her head. 'I know, said I, in answer to that action,'I know. I have no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house. Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her head again. 'It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that, in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella. I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and at me. 'It seems, said Estella, very calmly, 'that there are sentiments, fancies,I don't know how to call them,which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I don't care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this now, have I not? I said in a miserable manner, 'Yes. 'Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it. Now, did you not think so? 'I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature. 'It is in my nature, she returned. And then she added, with a stress upon the words, 'It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do no more. 'Is it not true, said I, 'that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and pursuing you? 'It is quite true, she replied, referring to him with the indifference of utter contempt. 'That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with you this very day? She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied, 'Quite true. 'You cannot love him, Estella! Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily, 'What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not mean what I say? 'You would never marry him, Estella? She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her work in her hands. Then she said, 'Why not tell you the truth? I am going to be married to him. I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear her say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a ghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me, even in my passionate hurry and grief. 'Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you into this fatal step. Put me aside for ever,you have done so, I well know,but bestow yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss Havisham gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly love you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even as dearly, though he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it better, for your sake! My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would have been touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at all intelligible to her own mind. 'I am going, she said again, in a gentler voice, 'to be married to him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my mother by adoption? It is my own act. 'Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute? 'On whom should I fling myself away? she retorted, with a smile. 'Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and not marry yet but I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other. 'Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute! I urged, in despair. 'Don't be afraid of my being a blessing to him, said Estella 'I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary boyor man? 'O Estella! I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do what I would to restrain them 'even if I remained in England and could hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife? 'Nonsense, she returned,'nonsense. This will pass in no time. 'Never, Estella! 'You will get me out of your thoughts in a week. 'Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I don't know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an inward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering moments, and so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,and soon afterwards with stronger reason,that while Estella looked at me merely with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand still covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of pity and remorse. All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at the gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker colour than when I went in. For a while, I hid myself among some lanes and bypaths, and then struck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had by that time come to myself so far as to consider that I could not go back to the inn and see Drummle there that I could not bear to sit upon the coach and be spoken to that I could do nothing half so good for myself as tire myself out. It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow intricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the Middlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was close by the riverside, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till tomorrow but I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could get to bed myself without disturbing him. As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it ill that the nightporter examined me with much attention as he held the gate a little way open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned my name. 'I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here's a note, sir. The messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my lantern? Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the words, 'PLEASE READ THIS, HERE. I opened it, the watchman holding up his light, and read inside, in Wemmick's writing, 'DON'T GO HOME. Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order on his list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a despotic monster of a fourpost bedstead in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fireplace and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little washingstand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner. As I had asked for a nightlight, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous daysan object like the ghost of a walkingcane, which instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly wideawake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the gloom and death of the night, we stared at one another. What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust and, as I looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what a number of bluebottle flies from the butchers', and earwigs from the market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,a disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little washingstand ticked, and one guitarstring played occasionally in the chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw written, DON'T GO HOME. Whatever nightfancies and nightnoises crowded on me, they never warded off this DON'T GO HOME. It plaited itself into whatever I thought of, as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had read in the newspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had been found in the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that he must have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to assure myself that there were no red marks about then opened the door to look out into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship of a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But all this time, why I was not to go home, and what had happened at home, and when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were questions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and when I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,even then I was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don't go home. When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present tense Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then potentially I may not and I cannot go home and I might not, could not, would not, and should not go home until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again. I had left directions that I was to be called at seven for it was plain that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally plain that this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments only could be taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had been so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me from my uneasy bed. The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company, and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective view of the Aged in bed. 'Halloa, Mr. Pip! said Wemmick. 'You did come home, then? 'Yes, I returned 'but I didn't go home. 'That's all right, said he, rubbing his hands. 'I left a note for you at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come to? I told him. 'I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the notes, said Wemmick 'it's a good rule never to leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put in. I'm going to take a liberty with you. Would you mind toasting this sausage for the Aged P.? I said I should be delighted to do it. 'Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne, said Wemmick to the little servant 'which leaves us to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip? he added, winking, as she disappeared. I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged's sausage and he buttered the crumb of the Aged's roll. 'Now, Mr. Pip, you know, said Wemmick, 'you and I understand one another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been engaged in a confidential transaction before today. Official sentiments are one thing. We are extra official. I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted the Aged's sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out. 'I accidentally heard, yesterday morning, said Wemmick, 'being in a certain place where I once took you,even between you and me, it's as well not to mention names when avoidable 'Much better not, said I. 'I understand you. 'I heard there by chance, yesterday morning, said Wemmick, 'that a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not unpossessed of portable property,I don't know who it may really be,we won't name this person 'Not necessary, said I. 'Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations, and not quite irrespective of the government expense In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's for which I apologised. 'By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of thereabouts. From which, said Wemmick, 'conjectures had been raised and theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden Court, Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again. 'By whom? said I. 'I wouldn't go into that, said Wemmick, evasively, 'it might clash with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard other curious things in the same place. I don't tell it you on information received. I heard it. He took the toastingfork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth the Aged's breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it before him, he went into the Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and tied the same under the old gentleman's chin, and propped him up, and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, 'All right, ain't you, Aged P.? To which the cheerful Aged replied, 'All right, John, my boy, all right! As there seemed to be a tacit understanding that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance of these proceedings. 'This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to suspect), I said to Wemmick when he came back, 'is inseparable from the person to whom you have adverted is it? Wemmick looked very serious. 'I couldn't undertake to say that, of my own knowledge. I mean, I couldn't undertake to say it was at first. But it either is, or it will be, or it's in great danger of being. As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out of his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I told him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to ask him a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he deemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirtsleeves (his notion of indoor comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me once, to put my question. 'You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is Compeyson? He answered with one other nod. 'Is he living? One other nod. 'Is he in London? He gave me one other nod, compressed the postoffice exceedingly, gave me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast. 'Now, said Wemmick, 'questioning being over, which he emphasised and repeated for my guidance, 'I come to what I did, after hearing what I heard. I went to Garden Court to find you not finding you, I went to Clarriker's to find Mr. Herbert. 'And him you found? said I, with great anxiety. 'And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybodyTom, Jack, or Richardbeing about the chambers, or about the immediate neighbourhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way while you were out of the way. 'He would be greatly puzzled what to do? 'He was puzzled what to do not the less, because I gave him my opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I'll tell you something. Under existing circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once in it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, before you try the open, even for foreign air. I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had done? 'Mr. Herbert, said Wemmick, 'after being all of a heap for half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies abed in a bowwindow where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You are acquainted with the young lady, most probably? 'Not personally, said I. The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very moderate warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I made her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third person into their interviews and thus, although I was assured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with these particulars. 'The house with the bowwindow, said Wemmick, 'being by the riverside, down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and being kept, it seems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for three reasons I'll give you. That is to say Firstly. It's altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets great and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly. After a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a foreign packetboat, there he isready. Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and again, and begged him to proceed. 'Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, and by nine o'clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or Richard,whichever it may be,you and I don't want to know,quite successfully. At the old lodgings it was understood that he was summoned to Dover, and, in fact, he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, another great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself about your movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts suspicion and confuses it and for the same reason I recommended that, even if you came back last night, you should not go home. It brings in more confusion, and you want confusion. Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and began to get his coat on. 'And now, Mr. Pip, said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, 'I have probably done the most I can do but if I can ever do more,from a Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal capacity,I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can be no harm in your going here tonight, and seeing for yourself that all is well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,which is another reason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone home, don't go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip his hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them 'and let me finally impress one important point upon you. He laid his hands upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper 'Avail yourself of this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don't know what may happen to him. Don't let anything happen to the portable property. Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I forbore to try. 'Time's up, said Wemmick, 'and I must be off. If you had nothing more pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that's what I should advise. You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a perfectly quiet day with the Aged,he'll be up presently,and a little bit ofyou remember the pig? 'Of course, said I. 'Well and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was his, and he was in all respects a firstrater. Do try him, if it is only for old acquaintance sake. Goodbye, Aged Parent! in a cheery shout. 'All right, John all right, my boy! piped the old man from within. I soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed one another's society by falling asleep before it more or less all day. We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate and I nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for toast and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from his glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was expected. Eight o'clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the longshore boatbuilders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that waterside region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin and I had no other guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Ropewalk. It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces, what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of shipbuilders and shipbreakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground, though for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks and timber, how many ropewalks that were not the Old Green Copper. After several times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where the wind from the river had room to turn itself round and there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Ropewalk,whose long and narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the ground, that looked like superannuated haymakingrakes which had grown old and lost most of their teeth. Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a wooden front and three stories of bowwindow (not baywindow, which is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there, Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into the parlour and shut the door. It was an odd sensation to see his very familiar face established quite at home in that very unfamiliar room and region and I found myself looking at him, much as I looked at the cornercupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the chimneypiece, and the coloured engravings on the wall, representing the death of Captain Cook, a shiplaunch, and his Majesty King George the Third in a state coachman's wig, leatherbreeches, and topboots, on the terrace at Windsor. 'All is well, Handel, said Herbert, 'and he is quite satisfied, though eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father and if you'll wait till she comes down, I'll make you known to her, and then we'll go upstairs. That's her father. I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had probably expressed the fact in my countenance. 'I am afraid he is a sad old rascal, said Herbert, smiling, 'but I have never seen him. Don't you smell rum? He is always at it. 'At rum? said I. 'Yes, returned Herbert, 'and you may suppose how mild it makes his gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in his room, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, and will weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler's shop. While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar, and then died away. 'What else can be the consequence, said Herbert, in explanation, 'if he will cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right handand everywhere elsecan't expect to get through a Double Gloucester without hurting himself. He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another furious roar. 'To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs. Whimple, said Herbert, 'for of course people in general won't stand that noise. A curious place, Handel isn't it? It was a curious place, indeed but remarkably well kept and clean. 'Mrs. Whimple, said Herbert, when I told him so, 'is the best of housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without her motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim. 'Surely that's not his name, Herbert? 'No, no, said Herbert, 'that's my name for him. His name is Mr. Barley. But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and mother to love a girl who has no relations, and who can never bother herself or anybody else about her family! Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that he first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her education at an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home to nurse her father, he and she had confided their affection to the motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated with equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout, Rum, and Purser's stores. As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley's sustained growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the room door opened, and a very pretty, slight, darkeyed girl of twenty or so came in with a basket in her hand whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the basket, and presented, blushing, as 'Clara. She really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service. 'Look here, said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a compassionate and tender smile, after we had talked a little 'here's poor Clara's supper, served out every night. Here's her allowance of bread, and here's her slice of cheese, and here's her rum,which I drink. This is Mr. Barley's breakfast for tomorrow, served out to be cooked. Two muttonchops, three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It's stewed up together, and taken hot, and it's a nice thing for the gout, I should think! There was something so natural and winning in Clara's resigned way of looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out and something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm and something so gentle in her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Ropewalk, with Old Barley growling in the beam,that I would not have undone the engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in the pocketbook I had never opened. I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly the growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise was heard above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it through the ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, 'Papa wants me, darling! and ran away. 'There is an unconscionable old shark for you! said Herbert. 'What do you suppose he wants now, Handel? 'I don't know, said I. 'Something to drink? 'That's it! cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraordinary merit. 'He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on the table. Wait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to take some. There he goes! Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end. 'Now, said Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence, 'he's drinking. Now, said Herbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once more, 'he's down again on his back! Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was heard hoarsely muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something quite the reverse 'Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder, here's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you. In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley would commune with himself by the day and night together Often, while it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which was fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river. In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to feel none that was worth mentioning but it struck me that he was softened,indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly. The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for reflection had resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man might otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick's judgment and sources of information? 'Ay, ay, dear boy! he answered, with a grave nod, 'Jaggers knows. 'Then, I have talked with Wemmick, said I, 'and have come to tell you what caution he gave me and what advice. This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned and I told him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or prisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that my chambers had been watched how Wemmick had recommended his keeping close for a time, and my keeping away from him and what Wemmick had said about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time came, I should go with him, or should follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick's judgment. What was to follow that I did not touch upon neither, indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my own mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in declared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living by enlarging my expenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and difficult circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse? He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had very little fear of his safety with such good help. Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. 'We are both good watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no boatmen that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance is worth saving. Never mind the season don't you think it might be a good thing if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit of rowing up and down the river? You fall into that habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, and there is nothing special in your doing it the twentyfirst or fiftyfirst. I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never recognise us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in that part of his window which gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right. Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to go remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home together, and that I would take half an hour's start of him. 'I don't like to leave you here, I said to Provis, 'though I cannot doubt your being safer here than near me. Goodbye! 'Dear boy, he answered, clasping my hands, 'I don't know when we may meet again, and I don't like goodbye. Say goodnight! 'Goodnight! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Goodnight, goodnight! We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms and we left him on the landing outside his door, holding a light over the stairrail to light us downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first night of his return, when our positions were reversed, and when I little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him as it was now. Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name of Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell. He also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was, that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong personal interest in his being well cared for, and living a secluded life. So, when we went into the parlour where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself. When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, darkeyed girl, and of the motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a little affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Ropewalk had grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and went home very sadly. All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were between me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my bedside when he came in,for I went straight to bed, dispirited and fatigued,made the same report. Opening one of the windows after that, he looked out into the moonlight, and told me that the pavement was as solemnly empty as the pavement of any cathedral at that same hour. Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach her within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and practice sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been out a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge but as the hours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of the tide there was a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad reputation. But I knew well enough how to 'shoot' the bridge after seeing it done, and so began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith. The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a pair of oars and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm, and I could not get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received, it is a haunting idea how many undesigning persons I suspected of watching me, it would be hard to calculate. In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him. Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick, and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at the Castle, I might have doubted him not so for a moment, knowing him as I did. My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed for money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve it by converting some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocketbook by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfactionwhether it was a false kind or a true, I hardly knowin not having profited by his generosity since his revelation of himself. As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last week? It was an unhappy life that I lived and its one dominant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror fresh upon me that he was discovered let me sit listening, as I would with dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest it should be fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,for all that, and much more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could. There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could not get back through the eddychafed arches and starlings of old London Bridge then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the waterside people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings that I have now to tell of. One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the signal in his window, All well. As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort myself with dinner at once and as I had hours of dejection and solitude before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable triumph was in that waterside neighbourhood (it is nowhere now), and to that theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the contrary, had rather partaken of its decline. He had been ominously heard of, through the playbills, as a faithful Black, in connection with a little girl of noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a predatory Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an outrageous hat all over bells. I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chophouse, where there were maps of the world in porterpot rims on every halfyard of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,to this day there is scarcely a single chophouse within the Lord Mayor's dominions which is not geographical,and wore out the time in dozing over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By and by, I roused myself, and went to the play. There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty's service,a most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so tight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,who knocked all the little men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and brave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was very patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in the cloth, and on that property married a young person in bedfurniture, with great rejoicings the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake everybody else's, and sing 'Fill, fill! A certain darkcomplexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figurehead, proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties which was so effectually done (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that it took half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought about through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron whom he couldn't confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle's (who had never been heard of before) coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot, and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honour, solicited permission to take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody danced a hornpipe and from that corner, surveying the public with a discontented eye, became aware of me. The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric countenance and a shock of red curtainfringe for his hair, engaged in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances for, the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,on account of the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice of his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a floursack, out of the firstfloor window,summoned a sententious Enchanter and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a highcrowned hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business of this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at, butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colours, he had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with great surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were lost in amazement. There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr. Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat thinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large watchcase, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking of it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him waiting for me near the door. 'How do you do? said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the street together. 'I saw that you saw me. 'Saw you, Mr. Pip! he returned. 'Yes, of course I saw you. But who else was there? 'Who else? 'It is the strangest thing, said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost look again 'and yet I could swear to him. Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning. 'Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there, said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, 'I can't be positive yet I think I should. Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me when I went home for these mysterious words gave me a chill. 'Oh! He can't be in sight, said Mr. Wopsle. 'He went out before I went off. I saw him go. Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission. Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing. 'I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a ghost. My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there. 'I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip indeed, I see you do. But it is so very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I could hardly believe it myself, if you told me. 'Indeed? said I. 'No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day, when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, and some soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended? 'I remember it very well. 'And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the lead, and you kept up with me as well as you could? 'I remember it all very well. Better than he thought,except the last clause. 'And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been severely handled and much mauled about the face by the other? 'I see it all before me. 'And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre, and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes, with the torchlight shining on their faces,I am particular about that,with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an outer ring of dark night all about us? 'Yes, said I. 'I remember all that. 'Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw him over your shoulder. 'Steady! I thought. I asked him then, 'Which of the two do you suppose you saw? 'The one who had been mauled, he answered readily, 'and I'll swear I saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him. 'This is very curious! said I, with the best assumption I could put on of its being nothing more to me. 'Very curious indeed! I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's having been behind me 'like a ghost. For if he had ever been out of my thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was in those very moments when he was closest to me and to think that I should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if I had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had found him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there, because I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger there might be about us, danger was always near and active. I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He could not tell me that he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man. It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to identify him but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise he thought, in black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed not too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no especial notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a face at all disfigured would have attracted my attention. When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment, after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one was near me when I went in and went home. Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint. As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to bed, and went out and posted it and again no one was near me. Herbert and I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And we were very cautious indeed,more cautious than before, if that were possible,and I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything else. The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf below Bridge the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon and, undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my arm. 'As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where are you bound for? 'For the Temple, I think, said I. 'Don't you know? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Well, I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in crossexamination, 'I do not know, for I have not made up my mind. 'You are going to dine? said Mr. Jaggers. 'You don't mind admitting that, I suppose? 'No, I returned, 'I don't mind admitting that. 'And are not engaged? 'I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged. 'Then, said Mr. Jaggers, 'come and dine with me. I was going to excuse myself, when he added, 'Wemmick's coming. So I changed my excuse into an acceptance,the few words I had uttered, serving for the beginning of either,and we went along Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamplighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall. At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letterwriting, handwashing, candlesnuffing, and safelocking, that closed the business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical game at bopeep with me while the pair of coarse, fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a corner were decorated with dirty windingsheets, as if in remembrance of a host of hanged clients. We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackneycoach And, as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one. 'Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick? Mr. Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner. 'No, sir, returned Wemmick 'it was going by post, when you brought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is. He handed it to his principal instead of to me. 'It's a note of two lines, Pip, said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, 'sent up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of your address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of business you mentioned to her. You'll go down? 'Yes, said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those terms. 'When do you think of going down? 'I have an impending engagement, said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was putting fish into the postoffice, 'that renders me rather uncertain of my time. At once, I think. 'If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once, said Wemmick to Mr. Jaggers, 'he needn't write an answer, you know. Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled that I would go tomorrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine, and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me. 'So, Pip! Our friend the Spider, said Mr. Jaggers, 'has played his cards. He has won the pool. It was as much as I could do to assent. 'Hah! He is a promising fellowin his waybut he may not have it all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her 'Surely, I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, 'you do not seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers? 'I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side if it should be a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such circumstances, because it's a tossup between two results. 'May I ask what they are? 'A fellow like our friend the Spider, answered Mr. Jaggers, 'either beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl but he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion. 'Either beats or cringes, said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself to me. 'So here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle, said Mr. Jaggers, taking a decanter of choicer wine from his dumbwaiter, and filling for each of us and for himself, 'and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are today! She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two, nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, as she spoke, arrested my attention. 'What's the matter? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of, said I, 'was rather painful to me. The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did go. Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such hands on a memorable occasion very lately! He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained before me as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair and I compared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew of, and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband and a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over me when I last walkednot alonein the ruined garden, and through the deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back when I saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stagecoach window and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like lightning, when I had passed in a carriagenot alonethrough a sudden glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association had helped that identification in the theatre, and how such a link, wanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a chance swift from Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting action, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this woman was Estella's mother. Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the wine again, and went on with his dinner. Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and if she had reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less sure that my conviction was the truth. It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it came round, quite as a matter of business,just as he might have drawn his salary when that came round,and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of perpetual readiness for crossexamination. As to the quantity of wine, his postoffice was as indifferent and ready as any other postoffice for its quantity of letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong twin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Walworth. We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping among Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right twin was on his way back and we had not gone half a dozen yards down Gerrard Street in the Walworth direction, before I found that I was walking arm in arm with the right twin, and that the wrong twin had evaporated into the evening air. 'Well! said Wemmick, 'that's over! He's a wonderful man, without his living likeness but I feel that I have to screw myself up when I dine with him,and I dine more comfortably unscrewed. I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so. 'Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself, he answered. 'I know that what is said between you and me goes no further. I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head, and a flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness. 'Wemmick, said I, 'do you remember telling me, before I first went to Mr. Jaggers's private house, to notice that housekeeper? 'Did I? he replied. 'Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take me, he added, suddenly, 'I know I did. I find I am not quite unscrewed yet. 'A wild beast tamed, you called her. 'And what do you call her? 'The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick? 'That's his secret. She has been with him many a long year. 'I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular interest in being acquainted with it. You know that what is said between you and me goes no further. 'Well! Wemmick replied, 'I don't know her story,that is, I don't know all of it. But what I do know I'll tell you. We are in our private and personal capacities, of course. 'Of course. 'A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for murder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I believe had some gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it was up, as you may suppose. 'But she was acquitted. 'Mr. Jaggers was for her, pursued Wemmick, with a look full of meaning, 'and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a desperate case, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and he worked it to general admiration in fact, it may almost be said to have made him. He worked it himself at the policeoffice, day after day for many days, contending against even a committal and at the trial where he couldn't work it himself, sat under counsel, andevery one knewput in all the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,a woman a good ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy. The murdered woman,more a match for the man, certainly, in point of yearswas found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a violent struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and torn, and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now, there was no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but this woman, and on the improbabilities of her having been able to do it Mr. Jaggers principally rested his case. You may be sure, said Wemmick, touching me on the sleeve, 'that he never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then, though he sometimes does now. I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner party. 'Well, sir! Wemmick went on 'it happenedhappened, don't you see?that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time of her apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really was in particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise or two about her,nothing for a tramp,but the backs of her hands were lacerated, and the question was, Was it with fingernails? Now, Mr. Jaggers showed that she had struggled through a great lot of brambles which were not as high as her face but which she could not have got through and kept her hands out of and bits of those brambles were actually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well as the fact that the brambles in question were found on examination to have been broken through, and to have little shreds of her dress and little spots of blood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he made was this it was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that she was under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder, frantically destroyed her child by this mansome three years oldto revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way 'We say these are not marks of fingernails, but marks of brambles, and we show you the brambles. You say they are marks of fingernails, and you set up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must accept all consequences of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have destroyed her child, and the child in clinging to her may have scratched her hands. What then? You are not trying her for the murder of her child why don't you? As to this case, if you will have scratches, we say that, for anything we know, you may have accounted for them, assuming for the sake of argument that you have not invented them? 'To sum up, sir, said Wemmick, 'Mr. Jaggers was altogether too many for the jury, and they gave in. 'Has she been in his service ever since? 'Yes but not only that, said Wemmick, 'she went into his service immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now. She has since been taught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she was tamed from the beginning. 'Do you remember the sex of the child? 'Said to have been a girl. 'You have nothing more to say to me tonight? 'Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing. We exchanged a cordial goodnight, and I went home, with new matter for my thoughts, though with no relief from the old. Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance for I sought to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it in the same manner. The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing courts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding observation, than they had ever had before so, the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral music and the rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower and swung in the bare high trees of the priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that Estella was gone out of it for ever. An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who lived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire. Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old chimneypiece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice, 'Is it real? 'It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost no time. 'Thank you. Thank you. As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me. 'I want, she said, 'to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart? When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right hand, as though she was going to touch me but she recalled it again before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it. 'You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it not? 'Something that I would like done very much. 'What is it? I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be so for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed that she was conscious of the fact. 'Do you break off, she asked then, with her former air of being afraid of me, 'because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me? 'No, no, I answered, 'how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped because I thought you were not following what I said. 'Perhaps I was not, she answered, putting a hand to her head. 'Begin again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me. She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of forcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her how I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how in this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her) involved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they were the weighty secrets of another. 'So! said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. 'And how much money is wanting to complete the purchase? I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. 'Nine hundred pounds. 'If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as you have kept your own? 'Quite as faithfully. 'And your mind will be more at rest? 'Much more at rest. 'Are you very unhappy now? She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it. 'I am far from happy, Miss Havisham but I have other causes of disquiet than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned. After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again. 'It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of unhappiness. Is it true? 'Too true. 'Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself? 'Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the tone of the question. But there is nothing. She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room for the means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from her neck. 'You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers? 'Quite. I dined with him yesterday. 'This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here but if you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it to you. 'Thank you, Miss Havisham I have not the least objection to receiving it from him. She read me what she had written and it was direct and clear, and evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without looking at me. 'My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, 'I forgive her, though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do it! 'O Miss Havisham, said I, 'I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes and my life has been a blind and thankless one and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you. She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from her mother's side. To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got my arms about her to help her up but she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground. 'O! she cried, despairingly. 'What have I done! What have I done! 'If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is she married? 'Yes. It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house had told me so. 'What have I done! What have I done! She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. 'What have I done! I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world? 'Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a lookingglass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done! And so again, twenty, fifty times over, What had she done! 'Miss Havisham, I said, when her cry had died away, 'you may dismiss me from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a part of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that than to bemoan the past through a hundred years. 'Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pipmy dear! There was an earnest womanly compassion for me in her new affection. 'My dear! Believe this when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first, I meant no more. 'Well, well! said I. 'I hope so. 'But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place. 'Better, I could not help saying, 'to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken. With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then burst out again, What had she done! 'If you knew all my story, she pleaded, 'you would have some compassion for me and a better understanding of me. 'Miss Havisham, I answered, as delicately as I could, 'I believe I may say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left this neighbourhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us give me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as she is, but as she was when she first came here? She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and her head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and replied, 'Go on. 'Whose child was Estella? She shook her head. 'You don't know? She shook her head again. 'But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here? 'Brought her here. 'Will you tell me how that came about? She answered in a low whisper and with caution 'I had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella. 'Might I ask her age then? 'Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an orphan and I adopted her. So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I thought, the connection here was clear and straight. What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter with what other words we parted we parted. Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving. For I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt that the dying light was suited to my last view of it. By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it round by the corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle round by the paths where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all! Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little door at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the opposite door,not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered with a growth of fungus,when I turned my head to look back. A childish association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,though to be sure I was there in an instant. The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left her. I took the latter course and went up. I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high. I had a doublecaped greatcoat on, and over my arm another thick coat. That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over her that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered there that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,that this occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress. Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who might escape and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us. She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling. On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts, but that they of themselves were far from hopeless the danger lay mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was carried into that room and laid upon the great table, which happened to be well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an hour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick, and had heard her say that she would lie one day. Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance for, they had covered her to the throat with white cottonwool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed was still upon her. I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next post. Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself intending to communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to town. There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she began to wander in her speech and after that it gradually set in that she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, 'What have I done! And then, 'When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like mine. And then, 'Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!' She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in one or other of them never putting in another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word. As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive out of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I would return by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being touched, 'Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her.' My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less severely, as high as the shoulder it was very painful, but the flames had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was no worse. My right hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. It was bandaged, of course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand and arm those I carried in a sling and I could only wear my coat like a cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck. My hair had been caught by the fire, but not my head or face. When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came back to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He was the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages, and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them on again, with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for. At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I dozed for a minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham's cries, and by her running at me with all that height of fire above her head. This pain of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I suffered and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention engaged. Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our agreeingwithout agreementto make my recovery of the use of my hands a question of so many hours, not of so many weeks. My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all was well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by the light of the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it spontaneously. 'I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours. 'Where was Clara? 'Dear little thing! said Herbert. 'She was up and down with Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor the moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though. What with rum and pepper,and pepper and rum,I should think his pegging must be nearly over. 'And then you will be married, Herbert? 'How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?Lay your arm out upon the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here, and get the bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves? 'I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him. 'So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and told me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some woman that he had had great trouble with.Did I hurt you? I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start. 'I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of it. 'Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is. Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now? 'Tell me by all means. Every word. Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been rather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. 'Your head is cool? he said, touching it. 'Quite, said I. 'Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert. 'It seems, said Herbert, 'there's a bandage off most charmingly, and now comes the cool one,makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow, don't it? but it will be comfortable presently,it seems that the woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman revengeful, Handel, to the last degree. 'To what last degree? 'Murder.Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place? 'I don't feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder? 'Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name, said Herbert, 'but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended her, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known to Provis. It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim, and there had been a strugglein a barn. Who began it, or how fair it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful but how it ended is certainly not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled. 'Was the woman brought in guilty? 'No she was acquitted.My poor Handel, I hurt you! 'It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else? 'This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child a little child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the young woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore that she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he should never see it again then she vanished.There's the worst arm comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor blistered patches too distinctly.You don't think your breathing is affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly. 'Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath? 'There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She did. 'That is, he says she did. 'Why, of course, my dear boy, returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise, and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. 'He says it all. I have no other information. 'No, to be sure. 'Now, whether, pursued Herbert, 'he had used the child's mother ill, or whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say but she had shared some four or five years of the wretched life he described to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for her, and forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the child's mother. 'I want to ask 'A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson, the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping out of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed the point of Provis's animosity. 'I want to know, said I, 'and particularly, Herbert, whether he told you when this happened? 'Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I took up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the little churchyard? 'I think in my seventh year. 'Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have been about your age. 'Herbert, said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, 'can you see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire? 'By the firelight, answered Herbert, coming close again. 'Look at me. 'I do look at you, my dear boy. 'Touch me. 'I do touch you, my dear boy. 'You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much disordered by the accident of last night? 'Nno, my dear boy, said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. 'You are rather excited, but you are quite yourself. 'I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river, is Estella's Father. What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the question was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before me by a wiser head than my own. But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,that I ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come at the bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth. Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street that night. Herbert's representations that, if I did, I should probably be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again and again reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers tomorrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out together, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain. There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things straight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr. Jaggers's room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post that morning, I knew what was going on but I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick together, as Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to compromise him. My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders, favoured my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all the details now and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk to be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of evidence, than it had been before. While I described the disaster, Mr. Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wemmick leaned back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. The two brutal casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings, seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at the present moment. My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for Herbert. Mr. Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick, with instructions to draw the check for his signature. While that was in course of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr. Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his wellpolished boots, looked on at me. 'I am sorry, Pip, said he, as I put the check in my pocket, when he had signed it, 'that we do nothing for you. 'Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me, I returned, 'whether she could do nothing for me, and I told her No. 'Everybody should know his own business, said Mr. Jaggers. And I saw Wemmick's lips form the words 'portable property. 'I should not have told her No, if I had been you, said Mr Jaggers 'but every man ought to know his own business best. 'Every man's business, said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me, 'is portable property. As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers 'I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me all she possessed. 'Did she? said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and then straightening himself. 'Hah! I don't think I should have done so, if I had been Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her own business best. 'I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child than Miss Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother. Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated 'Mother? 'I have seen her mother within these three days. 'Yes? said Mr. Jaggers. 'And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently. 'Yes? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do, said I. 'I know her father too. A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his mannerhe was too selfpossessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being brought to an indefinably attentive stopassured me that he did not know who her father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis's account (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept himself dark which I pieced on to the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers's client until some four years later, and when he could have no reason for claiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this unconsciousness on Mr. Jaggers's part before, though I was quite sure of it now. 'So! You know the young lady's father, Pip? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Yes, I replied, 'and his name is Provisfrom New South Wales. Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the action of taking out his pockethandkerchief. How Wemmick received the announcement I am unable to say for I was afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should detect that there had been some communication unknown to him between us. 'And on what evidence, Pip, asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, 'does Provis make this claim? 'He does not make it, said I, 'and has never made it, and has no knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence. For once, the powerful pockethandkerchief failed. My reply was so unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked with stern attention at me, though with an immovable face. Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it with the one reservation that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look towards Wemmick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for some time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers's look. When I did at last turn my eyes in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had unposted his pen, and was intent upon the table before him. 'Hah! said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the table. 'What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in? But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had made and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it, and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said, 'Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open with me! I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his employment but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder. 'What's all this? said Mr. Jaggers. 'You with an old father, and you with pleasant and playful ways? 'Well! returned Wemmick. 'If I don't bring 'em here, what does it matter? 'Pip, said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling openly, 'this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London. 'Not a bit of it, returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. 'I think you're another. Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still distrustful that the other was taking him in. 'You with a pleasant home? said Mr. Jaggers. 'Since it don't interfere with business, returned Wemmick, 'let it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of these days, when you're tired of all this work. Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and actually drew a sigh. 'Pip, said he, 'we won't talk about 'poor dreams' you know more about such things than I, having much fresher experience of that kind. But now about this other matter. I'll put a case to you. Mind! I admit nothing. He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he expressly said that he admitted nothing. 'Now, Pip, said Mr. Jaggers, 'put this case. Put the case that a woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal adviser, on his representing to her that he must know, with an eye to the latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put the case that, at the same time he held a trust to find a child for an eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up. 'I follow you, sir. 'Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net,to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow. 'I follow you, sir. 'Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the heap who could be saved whom the father believed dead, and dared make no stir about as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this power 'I know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you did such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be produced. Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If you are saved, your child is saved too if you are lost, your child is still saved. Put the case that this was done, and that the woman was cleared. 'I understand you perfectly. 'But that I make no admissions? 'That you make no admissions. And Wemmick repeated, 'No admissions. 'Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little shaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty, she was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend the imaginary case? 'Quite. 'Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That the mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was still a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case to yourself very carefully. 'I do. 'I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully. And Wemmick said, 'I do. 'For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father's? I think he would not be much the better for the mother. For the mother's? I think if she had done such a deed she would be safer where she was. For the daughter's? I think it would hardly serve her to establish her parentage for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to disgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for life. But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those 'poor dreams' which have, at one time or another, been in the heads of more men than you think likely, then I tell you that you had betterand would much sooner when you had thought well of itchop off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off too. I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same. 'Now, Wemmick, said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, 'what item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in? Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that the odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several times with this difference now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to the other. For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one another Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had never seen them on such ill terms for generally they got on very well indeed together. But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance within those walls. This individual, who, either in his own person or in that of some member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble (which in that place meant Newgate), called to announce that his eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy circumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to twinkle with a tear. 'What are you about? demanded Wemmick, with the utmost indignation. 'What do you come snivelling here for? 'I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick. 'You did, said Wemmick. 'How dare you? You're not in a fit state to come here, if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad pen. What do you mean by it? 'A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick, pleaded Mike. 'His what? demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. 'Say that again! 'Now look here my man, said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and pointing to the door. 'Get out of this office. I'll have no feelings here. Get out. 'It serves you right, said Wemmick, 'Get out. So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick appeared to have reestablished their good understanding, and went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had just had lunch. From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss Skiffins's brother, the accountant and Miss Skiffins's brother, the accountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised of my great expectations. Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a small branchhouse in the East which was much wanted for the extension of the business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would go out and take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for a separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had been more settled. And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening its hold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and waves. But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join them (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in those bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be happily provided for. We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it presented no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal that I was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably restored disfigured, but fairly serviceable. On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received the following letter from Wemmick by the post. 'Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try it. Now burn. When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the firebut not before we had both got it by heartwe considered what to do. For, of course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view. 'I have thought it over again and again, said Herbert, 'and I think I know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and honourable. I had thought of him more than once. 'But how much would you tell him, Herbert? 'It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes then let him know that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go with him? 'No doubt. 'Where? It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the point, almost indifferent what port we made for,Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp,the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do. I had always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the boat certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would leave London at about the time of highwater, our plan would be to get down the river by a previous ebbtide, and lie by in some quiet spot until we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we made inquiries beforehand. Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign steamers would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied ourselves that we knew the build and colour of each. We then separated for a few hours I, to get at once such passports as were necessary Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do without any hindrance, and when we met again at one o'clock reported it done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports Herbert had seen Startop, and he was more than ready to join. Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet as speed was not our object, we should make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home to dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening that he should not go there at all tomorrow evening, Tuesday that he should prepare Provis to come down to some stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when he saw us approach, and not sooner that all the arrangements with him should be concluded that Monday night and that he should be communicated with no more in any way, until we took him on board. These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home. On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter in the box, directed to me a very dirty letter, though not illwritten. It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its contents were these 'If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes tonight or tomorrow night at nine, and to come to the little sluicehouse by the limekiln, you had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You must come alone. Bring this with you. I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this strange letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I must decide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would take me down in time for tonight. Tomorrow night I could not think of going, for it would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again, for anything I knew, the proffered information might have some important bearing on the flight itself. If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still have gone. Having hardly any time for consideration,my watch showing me that the coach started within half an hour,I resolved to go. I should certainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That, coming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's busy preparation, turned the scale. It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this mysterious epistle again twice, before its injunction to me to be secret got mechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of way, I left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should be so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I had decided to hurry down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring. I had then barely time to get my greatcoat, lock up the chambers, and make for the coachoffice by the short byways. If I had taken a hackneychariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting away kneedeep in straw, when I came to myself. For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter it had so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The morning hurry and flutter had been great for, long and anxiously as I had waited for Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now I began to wonder at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had sufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I should get out presently and go back, and to argue against ever heeding an anonymous communication, and, in short, to pass through all those phases of contradiction and indecision to which I suppose very few hurried people are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name mastered everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing it,if that be reasoning,in case any harm should befall him through my not going, how could I ever forgive myself! It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary to me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing, I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham she was still very ill, though considered something better. My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I dined in a little octagonal commonroom, like a font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my own story,of course with the popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes. 'Do you know the young man? said I. 'Know him! repeated the landlord. 'Ever since he wasno height at all. 'Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood? 'Ay, he comes back, said the landlord, 'to his great friends, now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him. 'What man is that? 'Him that I speak of, said the landlord. 'Mr. Pumblechook. 'Is he ungrateful to no one else? 'No doubt he would be, if he could, returned the landlord, 'but he can't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him. 'Does Pumblechook say so? 'Say so! replied the landlord. 'He han't no call to say so. 'But does he say so? 'It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of it, sir, said the landlord. I thought, 'Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Longsuffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweettempered Biddy! 'Your appetite's been touched like by your accident, said the landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. 'Try a tenderer bit. 'No, thank you, I replied, turning from the table to brood over the fire. 'I can eat no more. Please take it away. I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe the meaner he, the nobler Joe. My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the fire for an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, but not from my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened round my neck, and went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the letter, that I might refer to it again but I could not find it, and was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in the straw of the coach. I knew very well, however, that the appointed place was the little sluicehouse by the limekiln on the marshes, and the hour nine. Towards the marshes I now went straight, having no time to spare. It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud. There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my inclination, I went on against it. The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart so that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, there would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright specks. At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand still while the cattle that were lying in the bankedup pathway arose and blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I seemed to have the whole flats to myself. It was another halfhour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stonequarry. It lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were lying about. Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,for the rude path lay through it,I saw a light in the old sluicehouse. I quickened my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the houseof wood with a tiled roofwould not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapour of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. No answer still, and I tried the latch. It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead. As there was a loft above, I called, 'Is there any one here? but no voice answered. Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine, called again, 'Is there any one here? There being still no answer, I went out at the door, irresolute what to do. It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen already, I turned back into the house, and stood just within the shelter of the doorway, looking out into the night. While I was considering that some one must have been there lately and must soon be coming back, or the candle would not be burning, it came into my head to look if the wick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up the candle in my hand, when it was extinguished by some violent shock and the next thing I comprehended was, that I had been caught in a strong running noose, thrown over my head from behind. 'Now, said a suppressed voice with an oath, 'I've got you! 'What is this? I cried, struggling. 'Who is it? Help, help, help! Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man's hand, sometimes a strong man's breast, was set against my mouth to deaden my cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall. 'And now, said the suppressed voice with another oath, 'call out again, and I'll make short work of you! Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so little. But, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as if, having been burnt before, it were now being boiled. The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter. After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he wanted, and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon the sparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of the match even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,no wonder there,and one after another the sparks died out. The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending over the table but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and showed me Orlick. Whom I had looked for, I don't know. I had not looked for him. Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes upon him. He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away from him on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,a fixture there,the means of ascent to the loft above. 'Now, said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, 'I've got you. 'Unbind me. Let me go! 'Ah! he returned, 'I'll let you go. I'll let you go to the moon, I'll let you go to the stars. All in good time. 'Why have you lured me here? 'Don't you know? said he, with a deadly look. 'Why have you set upon me in the dark? 'Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two. O you enemy, you enemy! His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a brassbound stock. 'Do you know this? said he, making as if he would take aim at me. 'Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf! 'Yes, I answered. 'You cost me that place. You did. Speak! 'What else could I do? 'You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to come betwixt me and a young woman I liked? 'When did I? 'When didn't you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name to her. 'You gave it to yourself you gained it for yourself. I could have done you no harm, if you had done yourself none. 'You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, to drive me out of this country, will you? said he, repeating my words to Biddy in the last interview I had with her. 'Now, I'll tell you a piece of information. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of this country as it is tonight. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times told, to the last brass farden! As he shook his heavy hand at me, with his mouth snarling like a tiger's, I felt that it was true. 'What are you going to do to me? 'I'm agoing, said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,'I'm agoing to have your life! He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again. 'You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. You goes out of his way this present night. He'll have no more on you. You're dead. I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked wildly round my trap for any chance of escape but there was none. 'More than that, said he, folding his arms on the table again, 'I won't have a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth. I'll put your body in the kiln,I'd carry two such to it, on my shouldersand, let people suppose what they may of you, they shall never know nothing. My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences of such a death. Estella's father would believe I had deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me even Herbert would doubt me, when he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I had called at Miss Havisham's gate for only a moment Joe and Biddy would never know how sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what I had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed through. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn generations,Estella's children, and their children,while the wretch's words were yet on his lips. 'Now, wolf, said he, 'afore I kill you like any other beast,which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,I'll have a good look at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy! It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again though few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of Heaven melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors,still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have done it. He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and took a fiery drink from it and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw flash into his face. 'Wolf! said he, folding his arms again, 'Old Orlick's agoing to tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister. Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words. 'It was you, villain, said I. 'I tell you it was your doing,I tell you it was done through you, he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the vacant air between us. 'I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you tonight. I giv' it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn't have come to life again. But it warn't Old Orlick as did it it was you. You was favoured, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it now you pays for it. He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly understood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an end of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew that when I was changed into a part of the vapour that had crept towards me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do as he had done in my sister's case,make all haste to the town, and be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it, and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white vapour creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved. It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures to me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain, I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without seeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,who would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!that I knew of the slightest action of his fingers. When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and, shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight. 'Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled over on your stairs that night. I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of the heavy stairrails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall. I saw the rooms that I was never to see again here, a door half open there, a door closed all the articles of furniture around. 'And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf. You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as getting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new companions, and new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I wants 'em wrote,do you mind?writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands they're not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I've had a firm mind and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your sister's burying. I han't seen a way to get you safe, and I've looked arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself, 'Somehow or another I'll have him!' What! When I looks for you, I finds your uncle Provis, eh? Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Ropewalk, all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running out to sea! 'You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o' doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you hadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the legiron wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he means to drop youhey?when he come for to hear thathey? In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I turned my face aside to save it from the flame. 'Ah! he cried, laughing, after doing it again, 'the burnt child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and know'd you'd come tonight! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost his nevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man can't find a rag of his dear relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't and that won't have Magwitch,yes, I know the name!alive in the same land with them, and that's had such sure information of him when he was alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it unbeknown and put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty hands, and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one. 'Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows! He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again. There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the opposite wall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards and forwards. His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as he did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with his eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of hope left. Wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that, unless he had resolved that I was within a few moments of surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he would never have told me what he had told. Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at me no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped and I saw in his hand a stonehammer with a long heavy handle. The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the night. After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the same place, with my head on some one's knee. My eyes were fixed on the ladder against the wall, when I came to myself,had opened on it before my mind saw it,and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I was in the place where I had lost it. Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came between me and it a face. The face of Trabb's boy! 'I think he's all right! said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice 'but ain't he just pale though! At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine, and I saw my supporter to be 'Herbert! Great Heaven! 'Softly, said Herbert. 'Gently, Handel. Don't be too eager. 'And our old comrade, Startop! I cried, as he too bent over me. 'Remember what he is going to assist us in, said Herbert, 'and be calm. The allusion made me spring up though I dropped again from the pain in my arm. 'The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is tonight? How long have I been here? For, I had a strange and strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long timea day and a night,two days and nights,more. 'The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night. 'Thank God! 'And you have all tomorrow, Tuesday, to rest in, said Herbert. 'But you can't help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you got? Can you stand? 'Yes, yes, said I, 'I can walk. I have no hurt but in this throbbing arm. They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But, they tore up their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling, until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the dark and empty sluicehouse, and were passing through the quarry on our way back. Trabb's boyTrabb's overgrown young man nowwent before us with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But, the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky, and the night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapour of the kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now. Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,which at first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining quiet,I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had met in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I was gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an hour's consideration, he set off for the coachoffice with Startop, who volunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went down. Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he resolved to follow in a postchaise. So he and Startop arrived at the Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me but, finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me. Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when I was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes. Among the loungers under the Boar's archway happened to be Trabb's Boy,true to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no business,and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss Havisham's in the direction of my diningplace. Thus Trabb's boy became their guide, and with him they went out to the sluicehouse, though by the town way to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert reflected, that I might, after all, have been brought there on some genuine and serviceable errand tending to Provis's safety, and, bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mischievous, left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by himself, and stole round the house two or three times, endeavouring to ascertain whether all was right within. As he could hear nothing but indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so busy), he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely followed by the other two. When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it was, and getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such a course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might be fatal to Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we relinquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather light of the matter to Trabb's boy who, I am convinced, would have been much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody's expense. When we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of him (which made no impression on him at all). Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London that night, three in the postchaise the rather, as we should then be clear away before the night's adventure began to be talked of. Herbert got a large bottle of stuff for my arm and by dint of having this stuff dropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain on the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went at once to bed, and lay in bed all day. My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for tomorrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon me that tomorrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with such consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden, though so near. No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining from communication with him that day yet this again increased my restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell me so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken that there was something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment that the fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before tomorrow morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot then I would say to myself with a start, 'Now it has come, and I am turning delirious! They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, and gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion I had had in the sluicehouse, that a long time had elapsed and the opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed and went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for fourandtwenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last selfexhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept soundly. Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges that were turning coldly grey, with here and there at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with churchtowers and spires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well. Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellowstudent lay asleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself without help but I made up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still flowing towards us. 'When it turns at nine o'clock, said Herbert, cheerfully, 'look out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank! It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. We had our peacoats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were questions utterly unknown to me nor did I vex my mind with them, for it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever. We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about highwater,halfpast eight. Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned, and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few, and where lone publichouses are scattered here and there, of which we could choose one for a restingplace. There, we meant to lie by all night. The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel. The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realise the condition in which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river itself,the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us on,freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, and they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day. At that time, the steamtraffic on the Thames was far below its present extent, and watermen's boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing colliers, and coastingtraders, there were perhaps, as many as now but of steamships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part so many. Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these and we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly. Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its oysterboats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor's Gate, and we were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen, and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking immensely high out of the water as we passed alongside here, were colliers by the score and score, with the coalwhippers plunging off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of coal swinging up, which were then rattled over the side into barges here, at her moorings was tomorrow's steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good notice and here tomorrow's for Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, could see, with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pond stairs. 'Is he there? said Herbert. 'Not yet. 'Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his signal? 'Not well from here but I think I see it.Now I see him! Pull both. Easy, Herbert. Oars! We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board, and we were off again. He had a boatcloak with him, and a black canvas bag and he looked as like a riverpilot as my heart could have wished. 'Dear boy! he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his seat. 'Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye! Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty chaincables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the figurehead of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the winds (as is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a firm formality of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head in and out, hammers going in shipbuilders' yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible seacreatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lightermen, in and out,out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships' boys might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the wind. At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat, I should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on, or to make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any appearance of molestation. He had his boatcloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he had led accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country he was not disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it but he had no notion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted it, but it must come before he troubled himself. 'If you knowed, dear boy, he said to me, 'what it is to sit here alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day betwixt four walls, you'd envy me. But you don't know what it is. 'I think I know the delights of freedom, I answered. 'Ah, said he, shaking his head gravely. 'But you don't know it equal to me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to me,but I ain't agoing to be low. It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he should have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little 'You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world, I was always a looking to this side and it come flat to be there, for all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head would be troubled about him. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear boy,wouldn't be, leastwise, if they knowed where I was. 'If all goes well, said I, 'you will be perfectly free and safe again within a few hours. 'Well, he returned, drawing a long breath, 'I hope so. 'And think so? He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said, smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me 'Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be more quiet and easygoing than we are at present. Butit's a flowing so soft and pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me think itI was a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than I can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see! holding up his dripping hand. 'But for your face I should think you were a little despondent, said I. 'Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of that there rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe I'm a growing a trifle old besides. He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been in constant terror for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would be safest where he was, and he said. 'Do you, dear boy? and quietly sat down again. The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the muddy banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or two's length of the floating Custom House, and so out to catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a large transport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing, and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and mudbanks. Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour's rest proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about. It was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a dim horizon while the winding river turned and turned, and the great floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had headed and the last green barge, strawladen, with a brown sail, had followed and some ballastlighters, shaped like a child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud and a little squat shoallighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud on stilts and crutches and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck out of the mud, and an old landingstage and an old roofless building slipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud. We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and rowed until the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little, so that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black and there was the solitary flat marsh and far away there were the rising grounds, between which and us there seemed to be no life, save here and there in the foreground a melancholy gull. As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full, would not rise early, we held a little council a short one, for clearly our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So, they plied their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like a house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It was very cold, and, a collier coming by us, with her galleyfire smoking and flaring, looked like a comfortable home. The night was as dark by this time as it would be until morning and what light we had, seemed to come more from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping struck at a few reflected stars. At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular intervals against the shore and whenever such a sound came, one or other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them nervously. Sometimes, 'What was that ripple? one of us would say in a low voice. Or another, 'Is that a boat yonder? And afterwards we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels. At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light to be in a window of a publichouse. It was a dirty place enough, and I dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various liquors to drink. Also, there were two doublebedded rooms,'such as they were, the landlord said. No other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the 'Jack of the little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been lowwater mark too. With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boathook, and all else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms Herbert and Startop were to occupy one I and our charge the other. We found the air as carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life and there were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found. While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the Jackwho was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashoreasked me if we had seen a fouroared galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have gone down then, and yet she 'took up too, when she left there. 'They must ha' thought better on't for some reason or another, said the Jack, 'and gone down. 'A fouroared galley, did you say? said I. 'A four, said the Jack, 'and two sitters. 'Did they come ashore here? 'They put in with a stone twogallon jar for some beer. I'd ha' been glad to pison the beer myself, said the Jack, 'or put some rattling physic in it. 'Why? 'I know why, said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much mud had washed into his throat. 'He thinks, said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,'he thinks they was, what they wasn't. 'I knows what I thinks, observed the Jack. 'You thinks Custom 'Us, Jack? said the landlord. 'I do, said the Jack. 'Then you're wrong, Jack. 'AM I! In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into it, knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on again. He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he could afford to do anything. 'Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, Jack? asked the landlord, vacillating weakly. 'Done with their buttons? returned the Jack. 'Chucked 'em overboard. Swallered 'em. Sowed 'em, to come up small salad. Done with their buttons! 'Don't be cheeky, Jack, remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and pathetic way. 'A Custom 'Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons, said the Jack, repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt, 'when they comes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters don't go hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and both with and against another, without there being Custom 'Us at the bottom of it. Saying which he went out in disdain and the landlord, having no one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject. This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind was muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A fouroared galley hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly circumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to go up to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop by this time knew the state of the case), and held another council. Whether we should remain at the house until near the steamer's time, which would be about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off early in the morning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the better course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the steamer's time, and then to get out in her track, and drift easily with the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and went to bed. I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a few hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house (the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and, as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at nothing else, and they did not go down to the landingplace which I could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction of the Nore. My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going away. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I could see the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the matter, and fell asleep again. We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our charge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,as, indeed, it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern. He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger, not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while I went on to reconnoitre for it was towards it that the men had passed in the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were there any signs of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure, the tide was high, and there might have been some footprints under water. When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited sometimes lying on the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving about to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got aboard easily, and rowed out into the track of the steamer. By that time it wanted but ten minutes of one o'clock, and we began to look out for her smoke. But, it was halfpast one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards we saw behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on at full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity of saying goodbye to Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands cordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I saw a fouroared galley shoot out from under the bank but a little way ahead of us, and row out into the same track. A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer's smoke, by reason of the bend and wind of the river but now she was visible, coming head on. I called to Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide, that she might see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis to sit quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered cheerily, 'Trust to me, dear boy, and sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which was very skilfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up with her, and fallen alongside. Leaving just room enough for the play of the oars, she kept alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or two when we pulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudderlines, and looked at us attentively,as did all the rowers the other sitter was wrapped up, much as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some instruction to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in either boat. Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was first, and gave me the word 'Hamburg, in a low voice, as we sat face to face. She was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her peddles grew louder and louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us, when the galley hailed us. I answered. 'You have a returned Transport there, said the man who held the lines. 'That's the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch, otherwise Provis. I apprehend that man, and call upon him to surrender, and you to assist. At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew, he ran the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead, had got their oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding on to our gunwale, before we knew what they were doing. This caused great confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and heard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw that both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, and saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite frantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the face disclosed, was the face of the other convict of long ago. Still, in the same moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white terror on it that I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer, and a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink from under me. It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand millweirs and a thousand flashes of light that instant past, I was taken on board the galley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there but our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone. What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first distinguish sky from water or shore from shore but the crew of the galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man looking silently and eagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming, but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled at the wrists and ankles. The galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager lookout at the water was resumed. But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not understanding what had happened, came on at speed. By the time she had been hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and we were rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The lookout was kept, long after all was still again and the two steamers were gone but everybody knew that it was hopeless now. At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern we had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch,Provis no longer,who had received some very severe injury in the chest, and a deep cut in the head. He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to his chest (which rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not pretend to say what he might or might not have done to Compeyson, but that, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify him, that villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they had both gone overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of our boat, and the endeavour of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away. I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me. The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going overboard. When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the publichouse, he gave it readily merely observing that he must take charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocketbook which had once been in my hands passed into the officer's. He further gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London but declined to accord that grace to my two friends. The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely and that may have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in various stages of decay. We remained at the publichouse until the tide turned, and then Magwitch was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he lived. For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe. His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on, and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm I could use, in any easy position but it was dreadful to think that I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living, people enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken prison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who was the cause of his arrest. As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us, and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake. 'Dear boy, he answered, 'I'm quite content to take my chance. I've seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me. No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No. Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick's hint now. I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to the Crown. 'Lookee here, dear boy, said he 'It's best as a gentleman should not be knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by chance alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for the last o' many times, and I don't ask no more. 'I will never stir from your side, said I, 'when I am suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me! I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his throat,softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing that he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might not otherwise have thought of until too late,that he need never know how his hopes of enriching me had perished. He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down for an old officer of the prisonship from which he had once escaped, to speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it but Compeyson, who had meant to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened that there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could give the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private house, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and Mr. Jaggers on the prisoner's behalf would admit nothing. It was the sole resource for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its going against us. I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for having 'let it slip through my fingers, and said we must memorialise by and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal from me that, although there might be many cases in which the forfeiture would not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this case to make it one of them. I understood that very well. I was not related to the outlaw, or connected with him by any recognisable tie he had put his hand to no writing or settlement in my favour before his apprehension, and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved, and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never be sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to establish one. There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer had hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some accurate knowledge of Magwitch's affairs. When his body was found, many miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he was only recognisable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still legible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a bankinghouse in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr. Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance, poor fellow, at last served him he never mistrusted but that my inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers's aid. After three days' delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over for the production of the witness from the prisonship, the witness came, and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial at the next Sessions, which would come on in a month. It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one evening, a good deal cast down, and said, 'My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you. His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he thought. 'We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me. 'Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you but my need is no greater now than at another time. 'You will be so lonely. 'I have not leisure to think of that, said I. 'You know that I am always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I should be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from him, you know that my thoughts are with him. The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to both of us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words. 'My dear fellow, said Herbert, 'let the near prospect of our separationfor, it is very nearbe my justification for troubling you about yourself. Have you thought of your future? 'No, for I have been afraid to think of any future. 'But yours cannot be dismissed indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must not be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly words go, with me. 'I will, said I. 'In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, 'A clerk. 'A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as a clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now, Handel,in short, my dear boy, will you come to me? There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which after saying 'Now, Handel, as if it were the grave beginning of a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy. 'Clara and I have talked about it again and again, Herbert pursued, 'and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with tears in her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her husband's friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well, Handel! I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could not yet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly. Secondly,Yes! Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my thoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative. 'But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury to your business, leave the question open for a little while 'For any while, cried Herbert. 'Six months, a year! 'Not so long as that, said I. 'Two or three months at most. Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement, and said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must go away at the end of the week. 'And Clara? said I. 'The dear little thing, returned Herbert, 'holds dutifully to her father as long as he lasts but he won't last long. Mrs. Whimple confides to me that he is certainly going. 'Not to say an unfeeling thing, said I, 'he cannot do better than go. 'I am afraid that must be admitted, said Herbert 'and then I shall come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed darling comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book, and hasn't a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of my mother! On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,full of bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,as he sat on one of the seaport mail coaches. I went into a coffeehouse to write a little note to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and over again, and then went to my lonely home,if it deserved the name for it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere. On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him alone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight and he had come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of explanation in reference to that failure. 'The late Compeyson, said Wemmick, 'had by little and little got at the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted and it was from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people being always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now, that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to deceive his own instruments. You don't blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried to serve you, with all my heart. 'I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most earnestly for all your interest and friendship. 'Thank you, thank you very much. It's a bad job, said Wemmick, scratching his head, 'and I assure you I haven't been so cut up for a long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable property. Dear me! 'What I think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property. 'Yes, to be sure, said Wemmick. 'Of course, there can be no objection to your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a fivepound note myself to get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late Compeyson having been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being so determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have been saved. Whereas, the portable property certainly could have been saved. That's the difference between the property and the owner, don't you see? I invited Wemmick to come upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass of grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he was drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to it, and after having appeared rather fidgety, 'What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip? 'Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months. 'These twelve years, more likely, said Wemmick. 'Yes. I'm going to take a holiday. More than that I'm going to take a walk. More than that I'm going to ask you to take a walk with me. I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then, when Wemmick anticipated me. 'I know your engagements, said he, 'and I know you are out of sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a kindness. It ain't a long walk, and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you (including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn't you stretch a point and manage it? He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little to do for him. I said I could manage it,would manage it,and he was so very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his particular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half past eight on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time. Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty. When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishingrod, and put it over his shoulder. 'Why, we are not going fishing! said I. 'No, returned Wemmick, 'but I like to walk with one. I thought this odd however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said suddenly, 'Halloa! Here's a church! There was nothing very surprising in that but again, I was rather surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea, 'Let's go in! We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishingrod in the porch, and looked all round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coatpockets, and getting something out of paper there. 'Halloa! said he. 'Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em on! As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the postoffice was widened to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady. 'Halloa! said Wemmick. 'Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding. That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old gentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and safe resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to perfection. The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of his waistcoatpocket before the service began, 'Halloa! Here's a ring! I acted in the capacity of backer, or bestman, to the bridegroom while a little limp pewopener in a soft bonnet like a baby's, made a feint of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving the lady away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman's being unintentionally scandalised, and it happened thus. When he said, 'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? the old gentleman, not in the least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood most amiably beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman said again, 'WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man? The old gentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness, the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, 'Now Aged P. you know who giveth? To which the Aged replied with great briskness, before saying that he gave, 'All right, John, all right, my boy! And the clergyman came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts for the moment whether we should get completely married that day. It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, and put the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. 'Now, Mr. Pip, said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishingrod as we came out, 'let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a weddingparty! Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a highbacked chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done. We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on table, Wemmick said, 'Provided by contract, you know don't be afraid of it! I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could. Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him, and wished him joy. 'Thankee! said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. 'She's such a manager of fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for yourself. I say, Mr. Pip! calling me back, and speaking low. 'This is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please. 'I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain, said I. Wemmick nodded. 'After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers may as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or something of the kind. He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible therefore he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me and it became the first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he ought to hear. Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a determined prisonbreaker, and I know not what else. Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time hence, the regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better he wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day when the prison door closed upon him. The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape. It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him complain. When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long, and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he stretched forth to me. The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said for him were said,how he had taken to industrious habits, and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that he had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty. At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw twoandthirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that sentence together. Foremost among the twoandthirty was he seated, that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colours of the moment, down to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner with his hand in mine, were the twoandthirty men and women some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks from among the women convicts but they had been stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great gallery full of people,a large theatrical audience,looked on, as the twoandthirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must single out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had been an offender against the laws who, after repeated imprisonments and punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his escape and been resentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when far removed from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and passions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had resisted them, and hadhe best knew whether by express design, or in the blindness of his hardihoodcaused the death of his denouncer, to whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die. The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the twoandthirty and the Judge, linking both together, and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on, with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things, and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light, the prisoner said, 'My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours, and sat down again. There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly and he held my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up (putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me. I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's Report was made but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could and when I had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty spring night, with their ranges of stern, shutup mansions, and their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association. The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses, (malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always joined in the same report. As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to understand his meaning very well. The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and lighted up as I entered. 'Dear boy, he said, as I sat down by his bed 'I thought you was late. But I knowed you couldn't be that. 'It is just the time, said I. 'I waited for it at the gate. 'You always waits at the gate don't you, dear boy? 'Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time. 'Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me, dear boy. I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him. 'And what's the best of all, he said, 'you've been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That's best of all. He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling. 'Are you in much pain today? 'I don't complain of none, dear boy. 'You never do complain. He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it. The allotted time ran out, while we were thus but, looking round, I found the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered, 'You needn't go yet. I thanked him gratefully, and asked, 'Might I speak to him, if he can hear me? The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me. 'Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I say? A gentle pressure on my hand. 'You had a child once, whom you loved and lost. A stronger pressure on my hand. 'She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her! With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then, he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast. Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could say beside his bed, than 'O Lord, be merciful to him a sinner! Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills up in the windows for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away I knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that. For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,anywhere, according as I happened to sink down,with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I found I could not do so. Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there whether I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown out whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss Havisham was consuming within it,these were things that I tried to settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on my bed. But the vapour of a limekiln would come between me and them, disordering them all, and it was through the vapour at last that I saw two men looking at me. 'What do you want? I asked, starting 'I don't know you. 'Well, sir, returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the shoulder, 'this is a matter that you'll soon arrange, I dare say, but you're arrested. 'What is the debt? 'Hundred and twentythree pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller's account, I think. 'What is to be done? 'You had better come to my house, said the man. 'I keep a very nice house. I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there. 'You see my state, said I. 'I would come with you if I could but indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die by the way. Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in my memory by only this one slender thread, I don't know what they did, except that they forbore to remove me. That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I confounded impossible existences with my own identity that I was a brick in the housewall, and yet entreating to be released from the giddy place where the builders had set me that I was a steel beam of a vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes struggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a constant tendency in all these people,who, when I was very ill, would present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face, and would be much dilated in size,above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to settle down into the likeness of Joe. After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the windowseat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe's. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe. At last, one day, I took courage, and said, 'Is it Joe? And the dear old homevoice answered, 'Which it air, old chap. 'O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me! For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and put his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him. 'Which dear old Pip, old chap, said Joe, 'you and me was ever friends. And when you're well enough to go out for a ridewhat larks! After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards me, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from getting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, 'O God bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man! Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me but I was holding his hand, and we both felt happy. 'How long, dear Joe? 'Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old chap? 'Yes, Joe. 'It's the end of May, Pip. Tomorrow is the first of June. 'And have you been here all that time, dear Joe? 'Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and being formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of walking and shoeleather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and marriage were the great wish of his hart 'It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you said to Biddy. 'Which it were, said Joe, 'that how you might be amongst strangers, and that how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a moment might not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, 'Go to him, without loss of time.' That, said Joe, summing up with his judicial air, 'were the word of Biddy. 'Go to him,' Biddy say, 'without loss of time.' In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you, Joe added, after a little grave reflection, 'if I represented to you that the word of that young woman were, 'without a minute's loss of time.' There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it. Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sittingroom, as the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own writingtable, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pentray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or sledgehammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin and when he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumblingblock but on the whole he got on very well indeed and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction. Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered. 'Is she dead, Joe? 'Why you see, old chap, said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by way of getting at it by degrees, 'I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for that's a deal to say but she ain't 'Living, Joe? 'That's nigher where it is, said Joe 'she ain't living. 'Did she linger long, Joe? 'Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you was put to it) a week, said Joe still determined, on my account, to come at everything by degrees. 'Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property? 'Well, old chap, said Joe, 'it do appear that she had settled the most of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand unto him? 'Because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew.' I am told by Biddy, that air the writing, said Joe, repeating the legal turn as if it did him infinite good, ''account of him the said Matthew.' And a cool four thousand, Pip! I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of the four thousand pounds but it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool. This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations had any legacies? 'Miss Sarah, said Joe, 'she have twentyfive pound perannium fur to buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty pound down. Mrs.what's the name of them wild beasts with humps, old chap? 'Camels? said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know. Joe nodded. 'Mrs. Camels, by which I presently understood he meant Camilla, 'she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in spirits when she wake up in the night. The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give me great confidence in Joe's information. 'And now, said Joe, 'you ain't that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor one additional shovelful today. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open a dwellingouse. 'Whose? said I. 'Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous, said Joe, apologetically 'still, a Englishman's ouse is his Castle, and castles must not be busted 'cept when done in war time. And wotsume'er the failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his hart. 'Is it Pumblechook's house that has been broken into, then? 'That's it, Pip, said Joe 'and they took his till, and they took his cashbox, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he knowed Orlick, and Orlick's in the county jail. By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again. For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need, that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the days of the old kitchen was one of the mental troubles of the fever that was gone. He did everything for me except the household work, for which he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on his first arrival. 'Which I do assure you, Pip, he would often say, in explanation of that liberty 'I found her a tapping the spare bed, like a cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers in a bucket, for sale. Which she would have tapped yourn next, and draw'd it off with you a laying on it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradiwally in the souptureen and wegetabledishes, and the wine and spirits in your Wellington boots. We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day came, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up, took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were still the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of the wealth of his great nature. And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how it had grown and changed, and how the little wildflowers had been forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt that I was not nearly thankful enough,that I was too weak yet to be even that,and I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much for my young senses. More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used to talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still just as simply faithful, and as simply right. When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried meso easily!across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now, and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I ought to refer to it when he did not. 'Have you heard, Joe, I asked him that evening, upon further consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, 'who my patron was? 'I heerd, returned Joe, 'as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap. 'Did you hear who it was, Joe? 'Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv' you the banknotes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip. 'So it was. 'Astonishing! said Joe, in the placidest way. 'Did you hear that he was dead, Joe? I presently asked, with increasing diffidence. 'Which? Him as sent the banknotes, Pip? 'Yes. 'I think, said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather evasively at the windowseat, 'as I did hear tell that how he were something or another in a general way in that direction. 'Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe? 'Not partickler, Pip. 'If you would like to hear, Joe I was beginning, when Joe got up and came to my sofa. 'Lookee here, old chap, said Joe, bending over me. 'Ever the best of friends ain't us, Pip? I was ashamed to answer him. 'Wery good, then, said Joe, as if I had answered 'that's all right that's agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as betwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary? There's subjects enough as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your poor sister and her Rampages! And don't you remember Tickler? 'I do indeed, Joe. 'Lookee here, old chap, said Joe. 'I done what I could to keep you and Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it were not so much, said Joe, in his favourite argumentative way, 'that she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that she dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a grab at a man's whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your sister was quite welcome), that 'ud put a man off from getting a little child out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into heavier for that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up and says to himself, 'Where is the good as you are adoing? I grant you I see the 'arm,' says the man, 'but I don't see the good. I call upon you, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.' 'The man says? I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak. 'The man says, Joe assented. 'Is he right, that man? 'Dear Joe, he is always right. 'Well, old chap, said Joe, 'then abide by your words. If he's always right (which in general he's more likely wrong), he's right when he says this Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when you was a little child, you kep it mostly because you know'd as J. Gargery's power to part you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal to his inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv' herself a deal o' trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should so put it. Both of which, said Joe, quite charmed with his logical arrangement, 'being done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely. You mustn't go a overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets. The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddywho with her woman's wit had found me out so soonhad prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not understand. Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension of, was this As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names, the dear 'old Pip, old chap, that now were music in my ears. I too had fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But, imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began to slacken and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was all mine. Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given Joe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better loosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself away? It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the Temple Gardens leaning on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the river, and I chanced to say as we got up, 'See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back by myself. 'Which do not overdo it, Pip, said Joe 'but I shall be happy fur to see you able, sir. The last word grated on me but how could I remonstrate! I walked no further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was thoughtful. I, for my part, was thoughtful too for, how best to check this growing change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come down to, I do not seek to conceal but I hope my reluctance was not quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I must not suffer him to do it. It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to bed, I had resolved that I would wait over tomorrow,tomorrow being Sunday,and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts (that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution too. We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and then walked in the fields. 'I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe, I said. 'Dear old Pip, old chap, you're a'most come round, sir. 'It has been a memorable time for me, Joe. 'Likeways for myself, sir, Joe returned. 'We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were days once, I know, that I did for a while forget but I never shall forget these. 'Pip, said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, 'there has been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt ushave been. At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well as in the morning? 'Yes, dear Joe, quite. 'And are always a getting stronger, old chap? 'Yes, dear Joe, steadily. Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and said, in what I thought a husky voice, 'Good night! When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him for, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone. I hurried then to the breakfasttable, and on it found a letter. These were its brief contents 'Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear Pip and will do better without JO. 'P.S. Ever the best of friends. Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the money but Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in his name. What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved Secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts, and had formed into a settled purpose? The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, 'Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since. If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like a forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I am a little worthier of you that I was,not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I shall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me which I set aside, when it was offered, until I knew your answer. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you. Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to the old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have left to tell. The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down to my native place and its neighbourhood before I got there. I found the Blue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a great change in the Boar's demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated my good opinion with warm assiduity when I was coming into property, the Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was going out of property. It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so often made so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom, which was engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), and could only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and postchaises up the yard. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as in the most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me, and the quality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom. Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled round by Satis House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits of carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of the Household Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to be sold as old building materials, and pulled down. LOT  was marked in whitewashed knockknee letters on the brew house LOT  on that part of the main building which had been so long shut up. Other lots were marked off on other parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down to make room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust and was withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open gate, and looking around me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger who had no business there, I saw the auctioneer's clerk walking on the casks and telling them off for the information of a cataloguecompiler, pen in hand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled chair I had so often pushed along to the tune of Old Clem. When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar's coffeeroom, I found Mr. Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved in appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and addressed me in the following terms 'Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be expected! what else could be expected! As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as I was broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it. 'William, said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, 'put a muffin on table. And has it come to this! Has it come to this! I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me and poured out my teabefore I could touch the teapotwith the air of a benefactor who was resolved to be true to the last. 'William, said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, 'put the salt on. In happier times, addressing me, 'I think you took sugar? And did you take milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress. 'Thank you, said I, shortly, 'but I don't eat watercresses. 'You don't eat 'em, returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding his head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as if abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall. 'True. The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn't bring any, William. I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand over me, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did. 'Little more than skin and bone! mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud. 'And yet when he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I spread afore him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a Peach! This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, 'May I? and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the same fat five fingers. 'Hah! he went on, handing me the bread and butter. 'And air you agoing to Joseph? 'In heaven's name, said I, firing in spite of myself, 'what does it matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot alone. It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave Pumblechook the opportunity he wanted. 'Yes, young man, said he, releasing the handle of the article in question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, 'I will leave that teapot alone. You are right, young man. For once you are right. I forgit myself when I take such an interest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame, exhausted by the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated by the 'olesome nourishment of your forefathers. And yet, said Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and pointing me out at arm's length, 'this is him as I ever sported with in his days of happy infancy! Tell me not it cannot be I tell you this is him! A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be particularly affected. 'This is him, said Pumblechook, 'as I have rode in my shaycart. This is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the sister of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria from her own mother, let him deny it if he can! The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave the case a black look. 'Young man, said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old fashion, 'you air agoing to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you ask me, where you air agoing? I say to you, Sir, you air agoing to Joseph. The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that. 'Now, said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and conclusive, 'I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of the Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is William, which his father's name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself. 'You do not, sir, said William. 'In their presence, pursued Pumblechook, 'I will tell you, young man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, 'Joseph, I have this day seen my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun's. I will name no names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have seen that man. 'I swear I don't see him here, said I. 'Say that likewise, retorted Pumblechook. 'Say you said that, and even Joseph will probably betray surprise. 'There you quite mistake him, said I. 'I know better. 'Says you, Pumblechook went on, ''Joseph, I have seen that man, and that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pigheadedness and ignorance and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,' says you, here Pumblechook shook his head and hand at me, ''he knows my total deficiency of common human gratitoode. He knows it, Joseph, as none can. You do not know it, Joseph, having no call to know it, but that man do.' Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face to talk thus to mine. 'Says you, 'Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of Providence. He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he saw it plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode to his earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun's. But that man said he did not repent of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do it, it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would do it again.' 'It's pity, said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted breakfast, 'that the man did not say what he had done and would do again. 'Squires of the Boar! Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord, 'and William! I have no objections to your mentioning, either up town or down town, if such should be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to do it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it again. With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an air, and left the house leaving me much more astonished than delighted by the virtues of that same indefinite 'it. I was not long after him in leaving the house too, and when I went down the High Street I saw him holding forth (no doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to a select group, who honoured me with very unfavourable glances as I passed on the opposite side of the way. But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be, contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for my limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief as I drew nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness further and further behind. The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant pictures of the life that I would lead there, and of the change for the better that would come over my character when I had a guiding spirit at my side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I had proved, beguiled my way. They awakened a tender emotion in me for my heart was softened by my return, and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like one who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings had lasted many years. The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen but, the little roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness' sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a holiday no children were there, and Biddy's house was closed. Some hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before she saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated. But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it under the sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe's hammer. Long after I ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it and found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, and the white thorns were there, and the chestnuttrees were there, and their leaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen but, the clink of Joe's hammer was not in the midsummer wind. Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I saw it at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no glittering shower of sparks, no roar of bellows all shut up, and still. But the house was not deserted, and the best parlour seemed to be in use, for there were white curtains fluttering in its window, and the window was open and gay with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep over the flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm. At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my apparition, but in another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept to see me I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant she, because I looked so worn and white. 'But dear Biddy, how smart you are! 'Yes, dear Pip. 'And Joe, how smart you are! 'Yes, dear old Pip, old chap. I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then 'It's my weddingday! cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness, 'and I am married to Joe! They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head down on the old deal table. Biddy held one of my hands to her lips, and Joe's restoring touch was on my shoulder. 'Which he warn't strong enough, my dear, fur to be surprised, said Joe. And Biddy said, 'I ought to have thought of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy. They were both so overjoyed to see me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to them, so delighted that I should have come by accident to make their day complete! My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my illness, had it risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been his knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour! 'Dear Biddy, said I, 'you have the best husband in the whole world, and if you could have seen him by my bed you would haveBut no, you couldn't love him better than you do. 'No, I couldn't indeed, said Biddy. 'And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe! Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before his eyes. 'And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church today, and are in charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall never rest until I have worked for the money with which you have kept me out of prison, and have sent it to you, don't think, dear Joe and Biddy, that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel a farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if I could! They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no more. 'But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love, and that some little fellow will sit in this chimneycorner of a winter night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for ever. Don't tell him, Joe, that I was thankless don't tell him, Biddy, that I was ungenerous and unjust only tell him that I honoured you both, because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did. 'I ain't agoing, said Joe, from behind his sleeve, 'to tell him nothink o' that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain't. Nor yet no one ain't. 'And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of me, in the time to come! 'O dear old Pip, old chap, said Joe. 'God knows as I forgive you, if I have anythink to forgive! 'Amen! And God knows I do! echoed Biddy. 'Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few minutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten and drunk with you, go with me as far as the fingerpost, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say goodbye! I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition with my creditors,who gave me ample time to pay them in full,and I went out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England, and within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four months I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across the parlour ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under old Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until he brought her back. Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House but I lived happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to Herbert but he then declared that the secret of Herbert's partnership had been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow and I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we made mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me. For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily eyes,though they had both been often before my fancy in the East,when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his pipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as ever, though a little grey, sat Joe and there, fenced into the corner with Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the fire, wasI again! 'We giv' him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap, said Joe, delighted, when I took another stool by the child's side (but I did not rumple his hair), 'and we hoped he might grow a little bit like you, and we think he do. I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we talked immensely, understanding one another to perfection. And I took him down to the churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there, and he showed me from that elevation which stone was sacred to the memory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. 'Biddy, said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little girl lay sleeping in her lap, 'you must give Pip to me one of these days or lend him, at all events. 'No, no, said Biddy, gently. 'You must marry. 'So Herbert and Clara say, but I don't think I shall, Biddy. I have so settled down in their home, that it's not at all likely. I am already quite an old bachelor. Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, and then put the good matronly hand with which she had touched it into mine. There was something in the action, and in the light pressure of Biddy's weddingring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it. 'Dear Pip, said Biddy, 'you are sure you don't fret for her? 'O no,I think not, Biddy. 'Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her? 'My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy,all gone by! Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended to revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake. Yes, even so. For Estella's sake. I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, from an accident consequent on his illtreatment of a horse. This release had befallen her some two years before for anything I knew, she was married again. The early dinner hour at Joe's, left me abundance of time, without hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark. But, what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think of old times, the day had quite declined when I came to the place. There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the wall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough fence, and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck root anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in the fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in. A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it. The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out, 'Estella! 'I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me. The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it, I had seen before what I had never seen before, was the saddened, softened light of the once proud eyes what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand. We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, 'After so many years, it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our first meeting was! Do you often come back? 'I have never been here since. 'Nor I. The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on earth. Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us. 'I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place! The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said quietly, 'Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this condition? 'Yes, Estella. 'The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I made in all the wretched years. 'Is it to be built on? 'At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And you, she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer,'you live abroad still? 'Still. 'And do well, I am sure? 'I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and thereforeyes, I do well. 'I have often thought of you, said Estella. 'Have you? 'Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart. 'You have always held your place in my heart, I answered. And we were silent again until she spoke. 'I little thought, said Estella, 'that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so. 'Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful. 'But you said to me, returned Estella, very earnestly, ''God bless you, God forgive you!' And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now,now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, butI hopeinto a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends. 'We are friends, said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench. 'And will continue friends apart, said Estella. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.
To Mrs. Saville, England. St. Petersburgh, Dec. th, . You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking. I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. Therefor with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigatorsthere snow and frost are banished and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine. These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purposea point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas' library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life. These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent. Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whalefishers on several expeditions to the North Sea I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an undermate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services. And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing. This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges the motion is pleasant, and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in fursa dress which I have already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. I have no ambition to lose my life on the postroad between St. Petersburgh and Archangel. I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the whalefishing. I do not intend to sail until the month of June and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never. Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for all your love and kindness. Your affectionate brother, R. Walton To Mrs. Saville, England. Archangel, th March, . How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage. But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me that I am selfeducated for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas' books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native country. Now I am twentyeight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) keeping and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind. Well, these are useless complaints I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and enterprise he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in his profession. He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity. I first became acquainted with him on board a whale vessel finding that he was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise. The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This circumstance, added to his wellknown integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prizemoney, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life but he bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his prizemoney to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations. 'What a noble fellow! you will exclaim. He is so but then he is wholly uneducated he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command. Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care. I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to 'the land of mist and snow, but I shall kill no albatross therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the 'Ancient Mariner. You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industriouspainstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labourbut besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore. But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture. Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again. Your affectionate brother, Robert Walton To Mrs. Saville, England. July th, . My dear Sister, I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safeand well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already reached a very high latitude but it is the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not expected. No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a letter. One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage. Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured that for my own sake, as well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool, persevering, and prudent. But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I must finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister! R.W. To Mrs. Saville, England. August th, . So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession. Last Monday (July st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the searoom in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather. About two o'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice. This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed, many hundred miles from any land but this apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it was impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with the greatest attention. About two hours after this occurrence we heard the ground sea, and before night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, however, lay to until the morning, fearing to encounter in the dark those large loose masses which float about after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time to rest for a few hours. In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive but there was a human being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European. When I appeared on deck the master said, 'Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish on the open sea. On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a foreign accent. 'Before I come on board your vessel, said he, 'will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound? You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed to me from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which he would not have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford. I replied, however, that we were on a voyage of discovery towards the northern pole. Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied and consented to come on board. Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for his safety, your surprise would have been boundless. His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition. We attempted to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as he had quitted the fresh air he fainted. We accordingly brought him back to the deck and restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. As soon as he showed signs of life we wrapped him up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By slow degrees he recovered and ate a little soup, which restored him wonderfully. Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding. When he had in some measure recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and attended on him as much as my duty would permit. I never saw a more interesting creature his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him. When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions but I would not allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle. His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and he replied, 'To seek one who fled from me. 'And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion? 'Yes. 'Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up we saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice. This aroused the stranger's attention, and he asked a multitude of questions concerning the route which the dmon, as he called him, had pursued. Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said, 'I have, doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good people but you are too considerate to make inquiries. 'Certainly it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine. 'And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation you have benevolently restored me to life. Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the ice had destroyed the other sledge. I replied that I could not answer with any degree of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near midnight, and the traveller might have arrived at a place of safety before that time but of this I could not judge. From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the stranger. He manifested the greatest eagerness to be upon deck to watch for the sledge which had before appeared but I have persuaded him to remain in the cabin, for he is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the atmosphere. I have promised that someone should watch for him and give him instant notice if any new object should appear in sight. Such is my journal of what relates to this strange occurrence up to the present day. The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very silent and appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters his cabin. Yet his manners are so conciliating and gentle that the sailors are all interested in him, although they have had very little communication with him. For my own part, I begin to love him as a brother, and his constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion. He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable. I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart. I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, should I have any fresh incidents to record. August th, . My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle, yet so wise his mind is so cultivated, and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence. He is now much recovered from his illness and is continually on the deck, apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own. Yet, although unhappy, he is not so utterly occupied by his own misery but that he interests himself deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently conversed with me on mine, which I have communicated to him without disguise. He entered attentively into all my arguments in favour of my eventual success and into every minute detail of the measures I had taken to secure it. I was easily led by the sympathy which he evinced to use the language of my heart, to give utterance to the burning ardour of my soul and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener's countenance. At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion he placed his hands before his eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from between his fingers a groan burst from his heaving breast. I paused at length he spoke, in broken accents 'Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips! Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity but the paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened powers, and many hours of repose and tranquil conversation were necessary to restore his composure. Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he appeared to despise himself for being the slave of passion and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he led me again to converse concerning myself personally. He asked me the history of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it awakened various trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing. 'I agree with you, replied the stranger 'we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselvessuch a friend ought to bedo not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But II have lost everything and cannot begin life anew. As he said this his countenance became expressive of a calm, settled grief that touched me to the heart. But he was silent and presently retired to his cabin. Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence he may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures. Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine wanderer? You would not if you saw him. You have been tutored and refined by books and retirement from the world, and you are therefore somewhat fastidious but this only renders you the more fit to appreciate the extraordinary merits of this wonderful man. Sometimes I have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he possesses that elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but neverfailing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision add to this a facility of expression and a voice whose varied intonations are soulsubduing music. August th, . Yesterday the stranger said to me, 'You may easily perceive, Captain Walton, that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes. I had determined at one time that the memory of these evils should die with me, but you have won me to alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you in case of failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvellous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule but many things will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the evervaried powers of nature nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed. You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered communication, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by a recital of his misfortunes. I felt the greatest eagerness to hear the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a strong desire to ameliorate his fate if it were in my power. I expressed these feelings in my answer. 'I thank you, he replied, 'for your sympathy, but it is useless my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace. I understand your feeling, continued he, perceiving that I wished to interrupt him 'but you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you nothing can alter my destiny listen to my history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is determined. He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest pleasure but to me, who know him, and who hear it from his own lipswith what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my task, his fulltoned voice swells in my ears his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness I see his thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul within. Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked itthus! I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family. As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin the world again through his credit and assistance. Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant's house. The interval was, consequently, spent in inaction his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion. His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She procured plain work she plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life. Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse her time was more entirely occupied in attending him her means of subsistence decreased and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt by Beaufort's coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care and after the interment of his friend he conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife. There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my father's upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the latediscovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had gradually relinquished all his public functions and immediately after their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for her weakened frame. From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something bettertheir child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of selfcontrol, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty it was a necessity, a passionremembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relievedfor her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of halfclothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were darkeyed, hardy little vagrants this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heavensent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with these good people to nurse they were better off then. They had not been long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italyone among the schiavi ognor frementi, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was confiscated his child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among darkleaved brambles. When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cheruba creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents' housemy more than sisterthe beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures. Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, 'I have a pretty present for my Victortomorrow he shall have it. And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as minemine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to memy more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only. We were brought up together there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summersshe found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember. On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my schoolfellows in general but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels. No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love. My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world. Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme and his hope and his dream was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrinededicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clervalcould aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval? Yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition. I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, 'Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this it is sad trash. If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy's apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit. The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomise, and give names but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined. But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century but while I followed the routine of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, selftaught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas. When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed. Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a wouldbe science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration. Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my lifethe last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with their disregard. It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction. When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my native country. My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurredan omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemperElizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. 'My children, she said, 'my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world. She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed for everthat the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform we must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized. My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks. It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled. She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal. She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us. She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget. The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrowminded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade ourselves to say the word 'Farewell! It was said, and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived but when at morning's dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all theremy father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend. I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasureI was now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval these were 'old familiar faces, but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent. I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased. The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to some of the principal professors. Chanceor rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father's doorled me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared. 'Have you, he said, 'really spent your time in studying such nonsense? I replied in the affirmative. 'Every minute, continued M. Krempe with warmth, 'every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew. So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he omitted. I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists. Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality and power such views, although futile, were grand but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new abode. But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures. And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town. Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very unlike his colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence a few grey hairs covered his temples, but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His person was short but remarkably erect and his voice the sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements made by different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour the names of the most distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of the present state of the science and explained many of its elementary terms. After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget 'The ancient teachers of this science, said he, 'promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hidingplaces. They ascend into the heavens they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows. Such were the professor's wordsrather let me say such the words of the fateenounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankensteinmore, far more, will I achieve treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning's dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight's thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit. His manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public, for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had given to his fellow professor. He heard with attention the little narration concerning my studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He said that 'These were men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind. I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure. 'I am happy, said M. Waldman, 'to have gained a disciple and if your application equals your ability, I have no doubt of your success. Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study but at the same time, I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics. He then took me into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had requested, and I took my leave. Thus ended a day memorable to me it decided my future destiny. From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation. I read with ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination, which modern inquirers have written on these subjects. I attended the lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and manners, but not on that account the less valuable. In M. Waldman I found a true friend. His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and good nature that banished every idea of pedantry. In a thousand ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at first fluctuating and uncertain it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory. As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters. Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress. Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder. A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study and I, who continually sought the attainment of one object of pursuit and was solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly that at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay. One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology. Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnelhouses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon mea light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret. Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light. I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted that cannot be listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow. When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began. No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption. These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realise. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hidingplaces. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnelhouses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse furnished many of my materials and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion. The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them, and I well remembered the words of my father 'I know that while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected. I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings, but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed. I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Csar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed. But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leavessights which before always yielded me supreme delightso deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become the energy of my purpose alone sustained me my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete. It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the halfextinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing his teeth of a pearly whiteness but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dunwhite sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the graveworms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretchthe miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life. Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived. I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete! Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky. I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring by bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind. I traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was or what I was doing. My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me Like one who, on a lonely road, Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner. Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped. Here I paused, I knew not why but I remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming towards me from the other end of the street. As it drew nearer I observed that it was the Swiss diligence it stopped just where I was standing, and on the door being opened, I perceived Henry Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly sprung out. 'My dear Frankenstein, exclaimed he, 'how glad I am to see you! How fortunate that you should be here at the very moment of my alighting! Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval his presence brought back to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear to my recollection. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune I felt suddenly, and for the first time during many months, calm and serene joy. I welcomed my friend, therefore, in the most cordial manner, and we walked towards my college. Clerval continued talking for some time about our mutual friends and his own good fortune in being permitted to come to Ingolstadt. 'You may easily believe, said he, 'how great was the difficulty to persuade my father that all necessary knowledge was not comprised in the noble art of bookkeeping and, indeed, I believe I left him incredulous to the last, for his constant answer to my unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield 'I have ten thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.' But his affection for me at length overcame his dislike of learning, and he has permitted me to undertake a voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge. 'It gives me the greatest delight to see you but tell me how you left my father, brothers, and Elizabeth. 'Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from you so seldom. By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their account myself. But, my dear Frankenstein, continued he, stopping short and gazing full in my face, 'I did not before remark how very ill you appear so thin and pale you look as if you had been watching for several nights. 'You have guessed right I have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest, as you see but I hope, I sincerely hope, that all these employments are now at an end and that I am at length free. I trembled excessively I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night. I walked with a quick pace, and we soon arrived at my college. I then reflected, and the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still be there, alive and walking about. I dreaded to behold this monster, but I feared still more that Henry should see him. Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my own room. My hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself. I then paused, and a cold shivering came over me. I threw the door forcibly open, as children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the other side but nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully in the apartment was empty, and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest. I could hardly believe that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clerval. We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud. Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter frightened and astonished him. 'My dear Victor, cried he, 'what, for God's sake, is the matter? Do not laugh in that manner. How ill you are! What is the cause of all this? 'Do not ask me, cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room 'he can tell. Oh, save me! Save me! I imagined that the monster seized me I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit. Poor Clerval! What must have been his feelings? A meeting, which he anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness. But I was not the witness of his grief, for I was lifeless and did not recover my senses for a long, long time. This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several months. During all that time Henry was my only nurse. I afterwards learned that, knowing my father's advanced age and unfitness for so long a journey, and how wretched my sickness would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my disorder. He knew that I could not have a more kind and attentive nurse than himself and, firm in the hope he felt of my recovery, he did not doubt that, instead of doing harm, he performed the kindest action that he could towards them. But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life. The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him. Doubtless my words surprised Henry he at first believed them to be the wanderings of my disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity with which I continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that my disorder indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event. By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure, I perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that the young buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window. It was a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence. I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion. 'Dearest Clerval, exclaimed I, 'how kind, how very good you are to me. This whole winter, instead of being spent in study, as you promised yourself, has been consumed in my sick room. How shall I ever repay you? I feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which I have been the occasion, but you will forgive me. 'You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get well as fast as you can and since you appear in such good spirits, I may speak to you on one subject, may I not? I trembled. One subject! What could it be? Could he allude to an object on whom I dared not even think? 'Compose yourself, said Clerval, who observed my change of colour, 'I will not mention it if it agitates you but your father and cousin would be very happy if they received a letter from you in your own handwriting. They hardly know how ill you have been and are uneasy at your long silence. 'Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and who are so deserving of my love? 'If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad to see a letter that has been lying here some days for you it is from your cousin, I believe. Clerval then put the following letter into my hands. It was from my own Elizabeth 'My dearest Cousin, 'You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account. You are forbidden to writeto hold a pen yet one word from you, dear Victor, is necessary to calm our apprehensions. For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt. I have prevented his encountering the inconveniences and perhaps dangers of so long a journey, yet how often have I regretted not being able to perform it myself! I figure to myself that the task of attending on your sickbed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of your poor cousin. Yet that is over now Clerval writes that indeed you are getting better. I eagerly hope that you will confirm this intelligence soon in your own handwriting. 'Get welland return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home and friends who love you dearly. Your father's health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well and not a care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance. How pleased you would be to remark the improvement of our Ernest! He is now sixteen and full of activity and spirit. He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter into foreign service, but we cannot part with him, at least until his elder brother returns to us. My uncle is not pleased with the idea of a military career in a distant country, but Ernest never had your powers of application. He looks upon study as an odious fetter his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake. I fear that he will become an idler unless we yield the point and permit him to enter on the profession which he has selected. 'Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken place since you left us. The blue lake and snowclad mountainsthey never change and I think our placid home and our contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable laws. My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me. Since you left us, but one change has taken place in our little household. Do you remember on what occasion Justine Moritz entered our family? Probably you do not I will relate her history, therefore in a few words. Madame Moritz, her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the third. This girl had always been the favourite of her father, but through a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her, and after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill. My aunt observed this, and when Justine was twelve years of age, prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house. The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral. A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being. 'Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours and I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelicashe looked so frankhearted and happy. My aunt conceived a great attachment for her, by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that which she had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world I do not mean that she made any professions I never heard one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress. Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt. She thought her the model of all excellence and endeavoured to imitate her phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her. 'When my dearest aunt died every one was too much occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill but other trials were reserved for her. 'One by one, her brothers and sister died and her mother, with the exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless. The conscience of the woman was troubled she began to think that the deaths of her favourites was a judgement from heaven to chastise her partiality. She was a Roman Catholic and I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived. Accordingly, a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her repentant mother. Poor girl! She wept when she quitted our house she was much altered since the death of my aunt grief had given softness and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity. Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature to restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her brothers and sister. Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace for ever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning of this last winter. Justine has just returned to us and I assure you I love her tenderly. She is very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty as I mentioned before, her mien and her expression continually remind me of my dear aunt. 'I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling William. I wish you could see him he is very tall of his age, with sweet laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes, and curling hair. When he smiles, two little dimples appear on each cheek, which are rosy with health. He has already had one or two little wives, but Louisa Biron is his favourite, a pretty little girl of five years of age. 'Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little gossip concerning the good people of Geneva. The pretty Miss Mansfield has already received the congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with a young Englishman, John Melbourne, Esq. Her ugly sister, Manon, married M. Duvillard, the rich banker, last autumn. Your favourite schoolfellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered several misfortunes since the departure of Clerval from Geneva. But he has already recovered his spirits, and is reported to be on the point of marrying a lively pretty Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier. She is a widow, and much older than Manoir but she is very much admired, and a favourite with everybody. 'I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin but my anxiety returns upon me as I conclude. Write, dearest Victor,one lineone word will be a blessing to us. Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his kindness, his affection, and his many letters we are sincerely grateful. Adieu! my cousin take care of yourself and, I entreat you, write! 'Elizabeth Lavenza. 'Geneva, March th, . 'Dear, dear Elizabeth! I exclaimed, when I had read her letter 'I will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel. I wrote, and this exertion greatly fatigued me but my convalescence had commenced, and proceeded regularly. In another fortnight I was able to leave my chamber. One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the several professors of the university. In doing this, I underwent a kind of rough usage, ill befitting the wounds that my mind had sustained. Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy. When I was otherwise quite restored to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would renew all the agony of my nervous symptoms. Henry saw this, and had removed all my apparatus from my view. He had also changed my apartment for he perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been my laboratory. But these cares of Clerval were made of no avail when I visited the professors. M. Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences. He soon perceived that I disliked the subject but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the science itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out. What could I do? He meant to please, and he tormented me. I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death. I writhed under his words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt. Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his total ignorance and the conversation took a more general turn. I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply. M. Krempe was not equally docile and in my condition at that time, of almost insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh blunt encomiums gave me even more pain than the benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. 'Dn the fellow! cried he 'why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has outstript us all. Ay, stare if you please but it is nevertheless true. A youngster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly as in the gospel, has now set himself at the head of the university and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of countenance.Ay, ay, continued he, observing my face expressive of suffering, 'M. Frankenstein is modest an excellent quality in a young man. Young men should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. Clerval I was myself when young but that wears out in a very short time. M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me. Clerval had never sympathised in my tastes for natural science and his literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me. He came to the university with the design of making himself complete master of the oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for the plan of life he had marked out for himself. Resolved to pursue no inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as affording scope for his spirit of enterprise. The Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit languages engaged his attention, and I was easily induced to enter on the same studies. Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt great relief in being the fellowpupil with my friend, and found not only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists. I did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for I did not contemplate making any other use of them than temporary amusement. I read merely to understand their meaning, and they well repaid my labours. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses,in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome! Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn but being delayed by several accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring. I felt this delay very bitterly for I longed to see my native town and my beloved friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The winter, however, was spent cheerfully and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness. The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited. I acceded with pleasure to this proposition I was fond of exercise, and Clerval had always been my favourite companion in the ramble of this nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native country. We passed a fortnight in these perambulations my health and spirits had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and the conversation of my friend. Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my fellowcreatures, and rendered me unsocial but Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children. Excellent friend! how sincerely you did love me, and endeavour to elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own. A selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and affection warmed and opened my senses I became the same happy creature who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care. When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy. The present season was indeed divine the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud. I was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an invincible burden. Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings he exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled his soul. The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing his conversation was full of imagination and very often, in imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity. We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon the peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity. On my return, I found the following letter from my father 'My dear Victor, 'You have probably waited impatiently for a letter to fix the date of your return to us and I was at first tempted to write only a few lines, merely mentioning the day on which I should expect you. But that would be a cruel kindness, and I dare not do it. What would be your surprise, my son, when you expected a happy and glad welcome, to behold, on the contrary, tears and wretchedness? And how, Victor, can I relate our misfortune? Absence cannot have rendered you callous to our joys and griefs and how shall I inflict pain on my long absent son? I wish to prepare you for the woeful news, but I know it is impossible even now your eye skims over the page to seek the words which are to convey to you the horrible tidings. 'William is dead!that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed my heart, who was so gentle, yet so gay! Victor, he is murdered! 'I will not attempt to console you but will simply relate the circumstances of the transaction. 'Last Thursday (May th), I, my niece, and your two brothers, went to walk in Plainpalais. The evening was warm and serene, and we prolonged our walk farther than usual. It was already dusk before we thought of returning and then we discovered that William and Ernest, who had gone on before, were not to be found. We accordingly rested on a seat until they should return. Presently Ernest came, and enquired if we had seen his brother he said, that he had been playing with him, that William had run away to hide himself, and that he vainly sought for him, and afterwards waited for a long time, but that he did not return. 'This account rather alarmed us, and we continued to search for him until night fell, when Elizabeth conjectured that he might have returned to the house. He was not there. We returned again, with torches for I could not rest, when I thought that my sweet boy had lost himself, and was exposed to all the damps and dews of night Elizabeth also suffered extreme anguish. About five in the morning I discovered my lovely boy, whom the night before I had seen blooming and active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motionless the print of the murder's finger was on his neck. 'He was conveyed home, and the anguish that was visible in my countenance betrayed the secret to Elizabeth. She was very earnest to see the corpse. At first I attempted to prevent her but she persisted, and entering the room where it lay, hastily examined the neck of the victim, and clasping her hands exclaimed, 'O God! I have murdered my darling child!' 'She fainted, and was restored with extreme difficulty. When she again lived, it was only to weep and sigh. She told me, that that same evening William had teased her to let him wear a very valuable miniature that she possessed of your mother. This picture is gone, and was doubtless the temptation which urged the murderer to the deed. We have no trace of him at present, although our exertions to discover him are unremitted but they will not restore my beloved William! 'Come, dearest Victor you alone can console Elizabeth. She weeps continually, and accuses herself unjustly as the cause of his death her words pierce my heart. We are all unhappy but will not that be an additional motive for you, my son, to return and be our comforter? Your dear mother! Alas, Victor! I now say, Thank God she did not live to witness the cruel, miserable death of her youngest darling! 'Come, Victor not brooding thoughts of vengeance against the assassin, but with feelings of peace and gentleness, that will heal, instead of festering, the wounds of our minds. Enter the house of mourning, my friend, but with kindness and affection for those who love you, and not with hatred for your enemies. 'Your affectionate and afflicted father, 'Alphonse Frankenstein. 'Geneva, May th, . Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this letter, was surprised to observe the despair that succeeded the joy I at first expressed on receiving new from my friends. I threw the letter on the table, and covered my face with my hands. 'My dear Frankenstein, exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weep with bitterness, 'are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened? I motioned him to take up the letter, while I walked up and down the room in the extremest agitation. Tears also gushed from the eyes of Clerval, as he read the account of my misfortune. 'I can offer you no consolation, my friend, said he 'your disaster is irreparable. What do you intend to do? 'To go instantly to Geneva come with me, Henry, to order the horses. During our walk, Clerval endeavoured to say a few words of consolation he could only express his heartfelt sympathy. 'Poor William! said he, 'dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother! Who that had seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his untimely loss! To die so miserably to feel the murderer's grasp! How much more a murdered that could destroy radiant innocence! Poor little fellow! one only consolation have we his friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever. A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a subject for pity we must reserve that for his miserable survivors. Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets the words impressed themselves on my mind and I remembered them afterwards in solitude. But now, as soon as the horses arrived, I hurried into a cabriolet, and bade farewell to my friend. My journey was very melancholy. At first I wished to hurry on, for I longed to console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends but when I drew near my native town, I slackened my progress. I could hardly sustain the multitude of feelings that crowded into my mind. I passed through scenes familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen for nearly six years. How altered every thing might be during that time! One sudden and desolating change had taken place but a thousand little circumstances might have by degrees worked other alterations, which, although they were done more tranquilly, might not be the less decisive. Fear overcame me I dared no advance, dreading a thousand nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define them. I remained two days at Lausanne, in this painful state of mind. I contemplated the lake the waters were placid all around was calm and the snowy mountains, 'the palaces of nature, were not changed. By degrees the calm and heavenly scene restored me, and I continued my journey towards Geneva. The road ran by the side of the lake, which became narrower as I approached my native town. I discovered more distinctly the black sides of Jura, and the bright summit of Mont Blanc. I wept like a child. 'Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness? I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on these preliminary circumstances but they were days of comparative happiness, and I think of them with pleasure. My country, my beloved country! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely lake! Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night also closed around and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings. Alas! I prophesied truly, and failed only in one single circumstance, that in all the misery I imagined and dreaded, I did not conceive the hundredth part of the anguish I was destined to endure. It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva the gates of the town were already shut and I was obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a village at the distance of half a league from the city. The sky was serene and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to visit the spot where my poor William had been murdered. As I could not pass through the town, I was obliged to cross the lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais. During this short voyage I saw the lightning playing on the summit of Mont Blanc in the most beautiful figures. The storm appeared to approach rapidly, and, on landing, I ascended a low hill, that I might observe its progress. It advanced the heavens were clouded, and I soon felt the rain coming slowly in large drops, but its violence quickly increased. I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm increased every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head. It was echoed from Salve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire then for an instant every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash. The storm, as is often the case in Switzerland, appeared at once in various parts of the heavens. The most violent storm hung exactly north of the town, over the part of the lake which lies between the promontory of Belrive and the village of Copt. Another storm enlightened Jura with faint flashes and another darkened and sometimes disclosed the Mle, a peaked mountain to the east of the lake. While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits I clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, 'William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy dirge! As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me I stood fixed, gazing intently I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy dmon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth my teeth chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape could have destroyed the fair child. He was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact. I thought of pursuing the devil but it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly perpendicular ascent of Mont Salve, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the south. He soon reached the summit, and disappeared. I remained motionless. The thunder ceased but the rain still continued, and the scene was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness. I revolved in my mind the events which I had until now sought to forget the whole train of my progress toward the creation the appearance of the works of my own hands at my bedside its departure. Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery had he not murdered my brother? No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the night, which I spent, cold and wet, in the open air. But I did not feel the inconvenience of the weather my imagination was busy in scenes of evil and despair. I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me. Day dawned and I directed my steps towards the town. The gates were open, and I hastened to my father's house. My first thought was to discover what I knew of the murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be made. But I paused when I reflected on the story that I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had met me at midnight among the precipices of an inaccessible mountain. I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an air of delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable. I well knew that if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked upon it as the ravings of insanity. Besides, the strange nature of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited as to persuade my relatives to commence it. And then of what use would be pursuit? Who could arrest a creature capable of scaling the overhanging sides of Mont Salve? These reflections determined me, and I resolved to remain silent. It was about five in the morning when I entered my father's house. I told the servants not to disturb the family, and went into the library to attend their usual hour of rising. Six years had elapsed, passed in a dream but for one indelible trace, and I stood in the same place where I had last embraced my father before my departure for Ingolstadt. Beloved and venerable parent! He still remained to me. I gazed on the picture of my mother, which stood over the mantelpiece. It was an historical subject, painted at my father's desire, and represented Caroline Beaufort in an agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. Her garb was rustic, and her cheek pale but there was an air of dignity and beauty, that hardly permitted the sentiment of pity. Below this picture was a miniature of William and my tears flowed when I looked upon it. While I was thus engaged, Ernest entered he had heard me arrive, and hastened to welcome me 'Welcome, my dearest Victor, said he. 'Ah! I wish you had come three months ago, and then you would have found us all joyous and delighted. You come to us now to share a misery which nothing can alleviate yet your presence will, I hope, revive our father, who seems sinking under his misfortune and your persuasions will induce poor Elizabeth to cease her vain and tormenting selfaccusations.Poor William! he was our darling and our pride! Tears, unrestrained, fell from my brother's eyes a sense of mortal agony crept over my frame. Before, I had only imagined the wretchedness of my desolated home the reality came on me as a new, and a not less terrible, disaster. I tried to calm Ernest I enquired more minutely concerning my father, and here I named my cousin. 'She most of all, said Ernest, 'requires consolation she accused herself of having caused the death of my brother, and that made her very wretched. But since the murderer has been discovered 'The murderer discovered! Good God! how can that be? who could attempt to pursue him? It is impossible one might as well try to overtake the winds, or confine a mountainstream with a straw. I saw him too he was free last night! 'I do not know what you mean, replied my brother, in accents of wonder, 'but to us the discovery we have made completes our misery. No one would believe it at first and even now Elizabeth will not be convinced, notwithstanding all the evidence. Indeed, who would credit that Justine Moritz, who was so amiable, and fond of all the family, could suddenly become so capable of so frightful, so appalling a crime? 'Justine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is wrongfully every one knows that no one believes it, surely, Ernest? 'No one did at first but several circumstances came out, that have almost forced conviction upon us and her own behaviour has been so confused, as to add to the evidence of facts a weight that, I fear, leaves no hope for doubt. But she will be tried today, and you will then hear all. He then related that, the morning on which the murder of poor William had been discovered, Justine had been taken ill, and confined to her bed for several days. During this interval, one of the servants, happening to examine the apparel she had worn on the night of the murder, had discovered in her pocket the picture of my mother, which had been judged to be the temptation of the murderer. The servant instantly showed it to one of the others, who, without saying a word to any of the family, went to a magistrate and, upon their deposition, Justine was apprehended. On being charged with the fact, the poor girl confirmed the suspicion in a great measure by her extreme confusion of manner. This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith and I replied earnestly, 'You are all mistaken I know the murderer. Justine, poor, good Justine, is innocent. At that instant my father entered. I saw unhappiness deeply impressed on his countenance, but he endeavoured to welcome me cheerfully and, after we had exchanged our mournful greeting, would have introduced some other topic than that of our disaster, had not Ernest exclaimed, 'Good God, papa! Victor says that he knows who was the murderer of poor William. 'We do also, unfortunately, replied my father, 'for indeed I had rather have been for ever ignorant than have discovered so much depravity and ungratitude in one I valued so highly. 'My dear father, you are mistaken Justine is innocent. 'If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty. She is to be tried today, and I hope, I sincerely hope, that she will be acquitted. This speech calmed me. I was firmly convinced in my own mind that Justine, and indeed every human being, was guiltless of this murder. I had no fear, therefore, that any circumstantial evidence could be brought forward strong enough to convict her. My tale was not one to announce publicly its astounding horror would be looked upon as madness by the vulgar. Did any one indeed exist, except I, the creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in the existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance which I had let loose upon the world? We were soon joined by Elizabeth. Time had altered her since I last beheld her it had endowed her with loveliness surpassing the beauty of her childish years. There was the same candour, the same vivacity, but it was allied to an expression more full of sensibility and intellect. She welcomed me with the greatest affection. 'Your arrival, my dear cousin, said she, 'fills me with hope. You perhaps will find some means to justify my poor guiltless Justine. Alas! who is safe, if she be convicted of crime? I rely on her innocence as certainly as I do upon my own. Our misfortune is doubly hard to us we have not only lost that lovely darling boy, but this poor girl, whom I sincerely love, is to be torn away by even a worse fate. If she is condemned, I never shall know joy more. But she will not, I am sure she will not and then I shall be happy again, even after the sad death of my little William. 'She is innocent, my Elizabeth, said I, 'and that shall be proved fear nothing, but let your spirits be cheered by the assurance of her acquittal. 'How kind and generous you are! every one else believes in her guilt, and that made me wretched, for I knew that it was impossible and to see every one else prejudiced in so deadly a manner rendered me hopeless and despairing. She wept. 'Dearest niece, said my father, 'dry your tears. If she is, as you believe, innocent, rely on the justice of our laws, and the activity with which I shall prevent the slightest shadow of partiality. We passed a few sad hours until eleven o'clock, when the trial was to commence. My father and the rest of the family being obliged to attend as witnesses, I accompanied them to the court. During the whole of this wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture. It was to be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow beings one a smiling babe full of innocence and joy, the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror. Justine also was a girl of merit and possessed qualities which promised to render her life happy now all was to be obliterated in an ignominious grave, and I the cause! A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me. The appearance of Justine was calm. She was dressed in mourning, and her countenance, always engaging, was rendered, by the solemnity of her feelings, exquisitely beautiful. Yet she appeared confident in innocence and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by thousands, for all the kindness which her beauty might otherwise have excited was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed. She was tranquil, yet her tranquillity was evidently constrained and as her confusion had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she worked up her mind to an appearance of courage. When she entered the court she threw her eyes round it and quickly discovered where we were seated. A tear seemed to dim her eye when she saw us, but she quickly recovered herself, and a look of sorrowful affection seemed to attest her utter guiltlessness. The trial began, and after the advocate against her had stated the charge, several witnesses were called. Several strange facts combined against her, which might have staggered anyone who had not such proof of her innocence as I had. She had been out the whole of the night on which the murder had been committed and towards morning had been perceived by a marketwoman not far from the spot where the body of the murdered child had been afterwards found. The woman asked her what she did there, but she looked very strangely and only returned a confused and unintelligible answer. She returned to the house about eight o'clock, and when one inquired where she had passed the night, she replied that she had been looking for the child and demanded earnestly if anything had been heard concerning him. When shown the body, she fell into violent hysterics and kept her bed for several days. The picture was then produced which the servant had found in her pocket and when Elizabeth, in a faltering voice, proved that it was the same which, an hour before the child had been missed, she had placed round his neck, a murmur of horror and indignation filled the court. Justine was called on for her defence. As the trial had proceeded, her countenance had altered. Surprise, horror, and misery were strongly expressed. Sometimes she struggled with her tears, but when she was desired to plead, she collected her powers and spoke in an audible although variable voice. 'God knows, she said, 'how entirely I am innocent. But I do not pretend that my protestations should acquit me I rest my innocence on a plain and simple explanation of the facts which have been adduced against me, and I hope the character I have always borne will incline my judges to a favourable interpretation where any circumstance appears doubtful or suspicious. She then related that, by the permission of Elizabeth, she had passed the evening of the night on which the murder had been committed at the house of an aunt at Chne, a village situated at about a league from Geneva. On her return, at about nine o'clock, she met a man who asked her if she had seen anything of the child who was lost. She was alarmed by this account and passed several hours in looking for him, when the gates of Geneva were shut, and she was forced to remain several hours of the night in a barn belonging to a cottage, being unwilling to call up the inhabitants, to whom she was well known. Most of the night she spent here watching towards morning she believed that she slept for a few minutes some steps disturbed her, and she awoke. It was dawn, and she quitted her asylum, that she might again endeavour to find my brother. If she had gone near the spot where his body lay, it was without her knowledge. That she had been bewildered when questioned by the marketwoman was not surprising, since she had passed a sleepless night and the fate of poor William was yet uncertain. Concerning the picture she could give no account. 'I know, continued the unhappy victim, 'how heavily and fatally this one circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of explaining it and when I have expressed my utter ignorance, I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket. But here also I am checked. I believe that I have no enemy on earth, and none surely would have been so wicked as to destroy me wantonly. Did the murderer place it there? I know of no opportunity afforded him for so doing or, if I had, why should he have stolen the jewel, to part with it again so soon? 'I commit my cause to the justice of my judges, yet I see no room for hope. I beg permission to have a few witnesses examined concerning my character, and if their testimony shall not overweigh my supposed guilt, I must be condemned, although I would pledge my salvation on my innocence. Several witnesses were called who had known her for many years, and they spoke well of her but fear and hatred of the crime of which they supposed her guilty rendered them timorous and unwilling to come forward. Elizabeth saw even this last resource, her excellent dispositions and irreproachable conduct, about to fail the accused, when, although violently agitated, she desired permission to address the court. 'I am, said she, 'the cousin of the unhappy child who was murdered, or rather his sister, for I was educated by and have lived with his parents ever since and even long before his birth. It may therefore be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion, but when I see a fellow creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character. I am well acquainted with the accused. I have lived in the same house with her, at one time for five and at another for nearly two years. During all that period she appeared to me the most amiable and benevolent of human creatures. She nursed Madame Frankenstein, my aunt, in her last illness, with the greatest affection and care and afterwards attended her own mother during a tedious illness, in a manner that excited the admiration of all who knew her, after which she again lived in my uncle's house, where she was beloved by all the family. She was warmly attached to the child who is now dead and acted towards him like a most affectionate mother. For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that, notwithstanding all the evidence produced against her, I believe and rely on her perfect innocence. She had no temptation for such an action as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value her. A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth's simple and powerful appeal, but it was excited by her generous interference, and not in favour of poor Justine, on whom the public indignation was turned with renewed violence, charging her with the blackest ingratitude. She herself wept as Elizabeth spoke, but she did not answer. My own agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial. I believed in her innocence I knew it. Could the dmon who had (I did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy? I could not sustain the horror of my situation, and when I perceived that the popular voice and the countenances of the judges had already condemned my unhappy victim, I rushed out of the court in agony. The tortures of the accused did not equal mine she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold. I passed a night of unmingled wretchedness. In the morning I went to the court my lips and throat were parched. I dared not ask the fatal question, but I was known, and the officer guessed the cause of my visit. The ballots had been thrown they were all black, and Justine was condemned. I cannot pretend to describe what I then felt. I had before experienced sensations of horror, and I have endeavoured to bestow upon them adequate expressions, but words cannot convey an idea of the heartsickening despair that I then endured. The person to whom I addressed myself added that Justine had already confessed her guilt. 'That evidence, he observed, 'was hardly required in so glaring a case, but I am glad of it, and, indeed, none of our judges like to condemn a criminal upon circumstantial evidence, be it ever so decisive. This was strange and unexpected intelligence what could it mean? Had my eyes deceived me? And was I really as mad as the whole world would believe me to be if I disclosed the object of my suspicions? I hastened to return home, and Elizabeth eagerly demanded the result. 'My cousin, replied I, 'it is decided as you may have expected all judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape. But she has confessed. This was a dire blow to poor Elizabeth, who had relied with firmness upon Justine's innocence. 'Alas! said she. 'How shall I ever again believe in human goodness? Justine, whom I loved and esteemed as my sister, how could she put on those smiles of innocence only to betray? Her mild eyes seemed incapable of any severity or guile, and yet she has committed a murder. Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see my cousin. My father wished her not to go but said that he left it to her own judgment and feelings to decide. 'Yes, said Elizabeth, 'I will go, although she is guilty and you, Victor, shall accompany me I cannot go alone. The idea of this visit was torture to me, yet I could not refuse. We entered the gloomy prison chamber and beheld Justine sitting on some straw at the farther end her hands were manacled, and her head rested on her knees. She rose on seeing us enter, and when we were left alone with her, she threw herself at the feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly. My cousin wept also. 'Oh, Justine! said she. 'Why did you rob me of my last consolation? I relied on your innocence, and although I was then very wretched, I was not so miserable as I am now. 'And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked? Do you also join with my enemies to crush me, to condemn me as a murderer? Her voice was suffocated with sobs. 'Rise, my poor girl, said Elizabeth 'why do you kneel, if you are innocent? I am not one of your enemies, I believed you guiltless, notwithstanding every evidence, until I heard that you had yourself declared your guilt. That report, you say, is false and be assured, dear Justine, that nothing can shake my confidence in you for a moment, but your own confession. 'I did confess, but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I might obtain absolution but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than all my other sins. The God of heaven forgive me! Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to support me all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What could I do? In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie and now only am I truly miserable. She paused, weeping, and then continued, 'I thought with horror, my sweet lady, that you should believe your Justine, whom your blessed aunt had so highly honoured, and whom you loved, was a creature capable of a crime which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated. Dear William! dearest blessed child! I soon shall see you again in heaven, where we shall all be happy and that consoles me, going as I am to suffer ignominy and death. 'Oh, Justine! Forgive me for having for one moment distrusted you. Why did you confess? But do not mourn, dear girl. Do not fear. I will proclaim, I will prove your innocence. I will melt the stony hearts of your enemies by my tears and prayers. You shall not die! You, my playfellow, my companion, my sister, perish on the scaffold! No! No! I never could survive so horrible a misfortune. Justine shook her head mournfully. 'I do not fear to die, she said 'that pang is past. God raises my weakness and gives me courage to endure the worst. I leave a sad and bitter world and if you remember me and think of me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting me. Learn from me, dear lady, to submit in patience to the will of heaven! During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony. I gnashed my teeth and ground them together, uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul. Justine started. When she saw who it was, she approached me and said, 'Dear sir, you are very kind to visit me you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty? I could not answer. 'No, Justine, said Elizabeth 'he is more convinced of your innocence than I was, for even when he heard that you had confessed, he did not credit it. 'I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest gratitude towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my misfortune, and I feel as if I could die in peace now that my innocence is acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin. Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself. She indeed gained the resignation she desired. But I, the true murderer, felt the neverdying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation. Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness. Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart I bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish. We stayed several hours with Justine, and it was with great difficulty that Elizabeth could tear herself away. 'I wish, cried she, 'that I were to die with you I cannot live in this world of misery. Justine assumed an air of cheerfulness, while she with difficulty repressed her bitter tears. She embraced Elizabeth and said in a voice of halfsuppressed emotion, 'Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, my beloved and only friend may heaven, in its bounty, bless and preserve you may this be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer! Live, and be happy, and make others so. And on the morrow Justine died. Elizabeth's heartrending eloquence failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the criminality of the saintly sufferer. My passionate and indignant appeals were lost upon them. And when I received their cold answers and heard the harsh, unfeeling reasoning of these men, my purposed avowal died away on my lips. Thus I might proclaim myself a madman, but not revoke the sentence passed upon my wretched victim. She perished on the scaffold as a murderess! From the tortures of my own heart, I turned to contemplate the deep and voiceless grief of my Elizabeth. This also was my doing! And my father's woe, and the desolation of that late so smiling home all was the work of my thriceaccursed hands! Ye weep, unhappy ones, but these are not your last tears! Again shall you raise the funeral wail, and the sound of your lamentations shall again and again be heard! Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early, muchloved friend he who would spend each vital drop of blood for your sakes, who has no thought nor sense of joy except as it is mirrored also in your dear countenances, who would fill the air with blessings and spend his life in serving youhe bids you weep, to shed countless tears happy beyond his hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the destruction pause before the peace of the grave have succeeded to your sad torments! Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts. Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear. Justine died, she rested, and I was alive. The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness and the love of virtue. I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings. Now all was blasted instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to look back upon the past with selfsatisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe. This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me solitude was my only consolationdeep, dark, deathlike solitude. My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my disposition and habits and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the feelings of his serene conscience and guiltless life to inspire me with fortitude and awaken in me the courage to dispel the dark cloud which brooded over me. 'Do you think, Victor, said he, 'that I do not suffer also? No one could love a child more than I loved your brothertears came into his eyes as he spoke'but is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society. This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case I should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if remorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my other sensations. Now I could only answer my father with a look of despair and endeavour to hide myself from his view. About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change was particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at ten o'clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that hour had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome to me. I was now free. Often, after the rest of the family had retired for the night, I took the boat and passed many hours upon the water. Sometimes, with my sails set, I was carried by the wind and sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the lake, I left the boat to pursue its own course and gave way to my own miserable reflections. I was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenlyif I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shoreoften, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities for ever. But I was restrained, when I thought of the heroic and suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly loved, and whose existence was bound up in mine. I thought also of my father and surviving brother should I by my base desertion leave them exposed and unprotected to the malice of the fiend whom I had let loose among them? At these moments I wept bitterly and wished that peace would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past. There was always scope for fear so long as anything I loved remained behind. My abhorrence of this fiend cannot be conceived. When I thought of him I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed. When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation. I would have made a pilgrimage to the highest peak of the Andes, could I, when there, have precipitated him to their base. I wished to see him again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head and avenge the deaths of William and Justine. Our house was the house of mourning. My father's health was deeply shaken by the horror of the recent events. Elizabeth was sad and desponding she no longer took delight in her ordinary occupations all pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the dead eternal woe and tears she then thought was the just tribute she should pay to innocence so blasted and destroyed. She was no longer that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles. 'When I reflect, my dear cousin, said she, 'on the miserable death of Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before appeared to me. Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient days or imaginary evils at least they were remote and more familiar to reason than to the imagination but now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood. Yet I am certainly unjust. Everybody believed that poor girl to be guilty and if she could have committed the crime for which she suffered, assuredly she would have been the most depraved of human creatures. For the sake of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor and friend, a child whom she had nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if it had been her own! I could not consent to the death of any human being, but certainly I should have thought such a creature unfit to remain in the society of men. But she was innocent. I know, I feel she was innocent you are of the same opinion, and that confirms me. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. William and Justine were assassinated, and the murderer escapes he walks about the world free, and perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer on the scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change places with such a wretch. I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer. Elizabeth read my anguish in my countenance, and kindly taking my hand, said, 'My dearest friend, you must calm yourself. These events have affected me, God knows how deeply but I am not so wretched as you are. There is an expression of despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance that makes me tremble. Dear Victor, banish these dark passions. Remember the friends around you, who centre all their hopes in you. Have we lost the power of rendering you happy? Ah! While we love, while we are true to each other, here in this land of peace and beauty, your native country, we may reap every tranquil blessingwhat can disturb our peace? And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before every other gift of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in my heart? Even as she spoke I drew near to her, as if in terror, lest at that very moment the destroyer had been near to rob me of her. Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had pierced it, and to die, was but a type of me. Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me, but sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations. It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows. My wanderings were directed towards the valley of Chamounix. I had visited it frequently during my boyhood. Six years had passed since then I was a wreck, but nought had changed in those savage and enduring scenes. I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I afterwards hired a mule, as the more surefooted and least liable to receive injury on these rugged roads. The weather was fine it was about the middle of the month of August, nearly two months after the death of Justine, that miserable epoch from which I dated all my woe. The weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in the ravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotenceand I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, the valley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing character. Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains, the impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty. But it was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings. I passed the bridge of Plissier, where the ravine, which the river forms, opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain that overhangs it. Soon after, I entered the valley of Chamounix. This valley is more wonderful and sublime, but not so beautiful and picturesque as that of Servox, through which I had just passed. The high and snowy mountains were its immediate boundaries, but I saw no more ruined castles and fertile fields. Immense glaciers approached the road I heard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche and marked the smoke of its passage. Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent Mont Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding aiguilles, and its tremendous dme overlooked the valley. A tingling longlost sense of pleasure often came across me during this journey. Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived and recognised, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with the lighthearted gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. Then again the kindly influence ceased to actI found myself fettered again to grief and indulging in all the misery of reflection. Then I spurred on my animal, striving so to forget the world, my fears, and more than all, myselfor, in a more desperate fashion, I alighted and threw myself on the grass, weighed down by horror and despair. At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion succeeded to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured. For a short space of time I remained at the window watching the pallid lightnings that played above Mont Blanc and listening to the rushing of the Arve, which pursued its noisy way beneath. The same lulling sounds acted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations when I placed my head upon my pillow, sleep crept over me I felt it as it came and blessed the giver of oblivion. I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me the icy wall of the glacier overhung me a few shattered pines were scattered around and the solemn silence of this glorious presencechamber of imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. In some degree, also, they diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the last month. I retired to rest at night my slumbers, as it were, waited on and ministered to by the assemblance of grand shapes which I had contemplated during the day. They congregated round me the unstained snowy mountaintop, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods, and ragged bare ravine, the eagle, soaring amidst the cloudsthey all gathered round me and bade me be at peace. Where had they fled when the next morning I awoke? All of soulinspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every thought. The rain was pouring in torrents, and thick mists hid the summits of the mountains, so that I even saw not the faces of those mighty friends. Still I would penetrate their misty veil and seek them in their cloudy retreats. What were rain and storm to me? My mule was brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit of Montanvert. I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous and evermoving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life. I determined to go without a guide, for I was well acquainted with the path, and the presence of another would destroy the solitary grandeur of the scene. The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the mountain. It is a scene terrifically desolate. In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon other trees. The path, as you ascend higher, is intersected by ravines of snow, down which stones continually roll from above one of them is particularly dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even speaking in a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw destruction upon the head of the speaker. The pines are not tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene. I looked on the valley beneath vast mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it and curling in thick wreaths around the opposite mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain poured from the dark sky and added to the melancholy impression I received from the objects around me. Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us. We rest a dream has power to poison sleep. We rise one wand'ring thought pollutes the day. We feel, conceive, or reason laugh or weep, Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away It is the same for, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free. Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow Nought may endure but mutability! It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost a league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it. The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where I now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy I exclaimed, 'Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life. As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains. I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt. 'Devil, I exclaimed, 'do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered! 'I expected this reception, said the dmon. 'All men hate the wretched how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends. 'Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil! You reproach me with your creation, come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed. My rage was without bounds I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another. He easily eluded me and said, 'Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous. 'Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall. 'How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent my soul glowed with love and humanity but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands. 'Why do you call to my remembrance, I rejoined, 'circumstances of which I shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and author? Cursed be the day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw light! Cursed (although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you! You have made me wretched beyond expression. You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you or not. Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form. 'Thus I relieve thee, my creator, he said, and placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence 'thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion. By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. Hear my tale it is long and strange, and the temperature of this place is not fitting to your fine sensations come to the hut upon the mountain. The sun is yet high in the heavens before it descends to hide itself behind your snowy precipices and illuminate another world, you will have heard my story and can decide. On you it rests, whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of your own speedy ruin. As he said this he led the way across the ice I followed. My heart was full, and I did not answer him, but as I proceeded, I weighed the various arguments that he had used and determined at least to listen to his tale. I was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution. I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness. These motives urged me to comply with his demand. We crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended the opposite rock. The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend we entered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a heavy heart and depressed spirits. But I consented to listen, and seating myself by the fire which my odious companion had lighted, he thus began his tale. 'It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light poured in upon me again. I walked and, I believe, descended, but I presently found a great alteration in my sensations. Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my touch or sight but I now found that I could wander on at liberty, with no obstacles which I could not either surmount or avoid. The light became more and more oppressive to me, and the heat wearying me as I walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade. This was the forest near Ingolstadt and here I lay by the side of a brook resting from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by hunger and thirst. This roused me from my nearly dormant state, and I ate some berries which I found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst at the brook, and then lying down, was overcome by sleep. 'It was dark when I awoke I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were, instinctively, finding myself so desolate. Before I had quitted your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the dews of night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch I knew, and could distinguish, nothing but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept. 'Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees. The moon I gazed with a kind of wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened my path, and I again went out in search of berries. I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I covered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No distinct ideas occupied my mind all was confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me the only object that I could distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure. 'Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of night had greatly lessened, when I began to distinguish my sensations from each other. I gradually saw plainly the clear stream that supplied me with drink and the trees that shaded me with their foliage. I was delighted when I first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals who had often intercepted the light from my eyes. I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me and to perceive the boundaries of the radiant roof of light which canopied me. Sometimes I tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds but was unable. Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into silence again. 'The moon had disappeared from the night, and again, with a lessened form, showed itself, while I still remained in the forest. My sensations had by this time become distinct, and my mind received every day additional ideas. My eyes became accustomed to the light and to perceive objects in their right forms I distinguished the insect from the herb, and by degrees, one herb from another. I found that the sparrow uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the blackbird and thrush were sweet and enticing. 'One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been left by some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the warmth I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects! I examined the materials of the fire, and to my joy found it to be composed of wood. I quickly collected some branches, but they were wet and would not burn. I was pained at this and sat still watching the operation of the fire. The wet wood which I had placed near the heat dried and itself became inflamed. I reflected on this, and by touching the various branches, I discovered the cause and busied myself in collecting a great quantity of wood, that I might dry it and have a plentiful supply of fire. When night came on and brought sleep with it, I was in the greatest fear lest my fire should be extinguished. I covered it carefully with dry wood and leaves and placed wet branches upon it and then, spreading my cloak, I lay on the ground and sank into sleep. 'It was morning when I awoke, and my first care was to visit the fire. I uncovered it, and a gentle breeze quickly fanned it into a flame. I observed this also and contrived a fan of branches, which roused the embers when they were nearly extinguished. When night came again I found, with pleasure, that the fire gave light as well as heat and that the discovery of this element was useful to me in my food, for I found some of the offals that the travellers had left had been roasted, and tasted much more savoury than the berries I gathered from the trees. I tried, therefore, to dress my food in the same manner, placing it on the live embers. I found that the berries were spoiled by this operation, and the nuts and roots much improved. 'Food, however, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger. When I found this, I resolved to quit the place that I had hitherto inhabited, to seek for one where the few wants I experienced would be more easily satisfied. In this emigration I exceedingly lamented the loss of the fire which I had obtained through accident and knew not how to reproduce it. I gave several hours to the serious consideration of this difficulty, but I was obliged to relinquish all attempt to supply it, and wrapping myself up in my cloak, I struck across the wood towards the setting sun. I passed three days in these rambles and at length discovered the open country. A great fall of snow had taken place the night before, and the fields were of one uniform white the appearance was disconsolate, and I found my feet chilled by the cold damp substance that covered the ground. 'It was about seven in the morning, and I longed to obtain food and shelter at length I perceived a small hut, on a rising ground, which had doubtless been built for the convenience of some shepherd. This was a new sight to me, and I examined the structure with great curiosity. Finding the door open, I entered. An old man sat in it, near a fire, over which he was preparing his breakfast. He turned on hearing a noise, and perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable. His appearance, different from any I had ever before seen, and his flight somewhat surprised me. But I was enchanted by the appearance of the hut here the snow and rain could not penetrate the ground was dry and it presented to me then as exquisite and divine a retreat as Pandmonium appeared to the dmons of hell after their sufferings in the lake of fire. I greedily devoured the remnants of the shepherd's breakfast, which consisted of bread, cheese, milk, and wine the latter, however, I did not like. Then, overcome by fatigue, I lay down among some straw and fell asleep. 'It was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which shone brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my travels and, depositing the remains of the peasant's breakfast in a wallet I found, I proceeded across the fields for several hours, until at sunset I arrived at a village. How miraculous did this appear! The huts, the neater cottages, and stately houses engaged my admiration by turns. The vegetables in the gardens, the milk and cheese that I saw placed at the windows of some of the cottages, allured my appetite. One of the best of these I entered, but I had hardly placed my foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had beheld in the village. This hovel however, joined a cottage of a neat and pleasant appearance, but after my late dearly bought experience, I dared not enter it. My place of refuge was constructed of wood, but so low that I could with difficulty sit upright in it. No wood, however, was placed on the earth, which formed the floor, but it was dry and although the wind entered it by innumerable chinks, I found it an agreeable asylum from the snow and rain. 'Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man. As soon as morning dawned I crept from my kennel, that I might view the adjacent cottage and discover if I could remain in the habitation I had found. It was situated against the back of the cottage and surrounded on the sides which were exposed by a pig sty and a clear pool of water. One part was open, and by that I had crept in but now I covered every crevice by which I might be perceived with stones and wood, yet in such a manner that I might move them on occasion to pass out all the light I enjoyed came through the sty, and that was sufficient for me. 'Having thus arranged my dwelling and carpeted it with clean straw, I retired, for I saw the figure of a man at a distance, and I remembered too well my treatment the night before to trust myself in his power. I had first, however, provided for my sustenance for that day by a loaf of coarse bread, which I purloined, and a cup with which I could drink more conveniently than from my hand of the pure water which flowed by my retreat. The floor was a little raised, so that it was kept perfectly dry, and by its vicinity to the chimney of the cottage it was tolerably warm. 'Being thus provided, I resolved to reside in this hovel until something should occur which might alter my determination. It was indeed a paradise compared to the bleak forest, my former residence, the raindropping branches, and dank earth. I ate my breakfast with pleasure and was about to remove a plank to procure myself a little water when I heard a step, and looking through a small chink, I beheld a young creature, with a pail on her head, passing before my hovel. The girl was young and of gentle demeanour, unlike what I have since found cottagers and farmhouse servants to be. Yet she was meanly dressed, a coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb her fair hair was plaited but not adorned she looked patient yet sad. I lost sight of her, and in about a quarter of an hour she returned bearing the pail, which was now partly filled with milk. As she walked along, seemingly incommoded by the burden, a young man met her, whose countenance expressed a deeper despondence. Uttering a few sounds with an air of melancholy, he took the pail from her head and bore it to the cottage himself. She followed, and they disappeared. Presently I saw the young man again, with some tools in his hand, cross the field behind the cottage and the girl was also busied, sometimes in the house and sometimes in the yard. 'On examining my dwelling, I found that one of the windows of the cottage had formerly occupied a part of it, but the panes had been filled up with wood. In one of these was a small and almost imperceptible chink through which the eye could just penetrate. Through this crevice a small room was visible, whitewashed and clean but very bare of furniture. In one corner, near a small fire, sat an old man, leaning his head on his hands in a disconsolate attitude. The young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage but presently she took something out of a drawer, which employed her hands, and she sat down beside the old man, who, taking up an instrument, began to play and to produce sounds sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the nightingale. It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch who had never beheld aught beautiful before. The silver hair and benevolent countenance of the aged cottager won my reverence, while the gentle manners of the girl enticed my love. He played a sweet mournful air which I perceived drew tears from the eyes of his amiable companion, of which the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly he then pronounced a few sounds, and the fair creature, leaving her work, knelt at his feet. He raised her and smiled with such kindness and affection that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature they were a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or food and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear these emotions. 'Soon after this the young man returned, bearing on his shoulders a load of wood. The girl met him at the door, helped to relieve him of his burden, and taking some of the fuel into the cottage, placed it on the fire then she and the youth went apart into a nook of the cottage, and he showed her a large loaf and a piece of cheese. She seemed pleased and went into the garden for some roots and plants, which she placed in water, and then upon the fire. She afterwards continued her work, whilst the young man went into the garden and appeared busily employed in digging and pulling up roots. After he had been employed thus about an hour, the young woman joined him and they entered the cottage together. 'The old man had, in the meantime, been pensive, but on the appearance of his companions he assumed a more cheerful air, and they sat down to eat. The meal was quickly dispatched. The young woman was again occupied in arranging the cottage, the old man walked before the cottage in the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of the youth. Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent creatures. One was old, with silver hairs and a countenance beaming with benevolence and love the younger was slight and graceful in his figure, and his features were moulded with the finest symmetry, yet his eyes and attitude expressed the utmost sadness and despondency. The old man returned to the cottage, and the youth, with tools different from those he had used in the morning, directed his steps across the fields. 'Night quickly shut in, but to my extreme wonder, I found that the cottagers had a means of prolonging light by the use of tapers, and was delighted to find that the setting of the sun did not put an end to the pleasure I experienced in watching my human neighbours. In the evening the young girl and her companion were employed in various occupations which I did not understand and the old man again took up the instrument which produced the divine sounds that had enchanted me in the morning. So soon as he had finished, the youth began, not to play, but to utter sounds that were monotonous, and neither resembling the harmony of the old man's instrument nor the songs of the birds I since found that he read aloud, but at that time I knew nothing of the science of words or letters. 'The family, after having been thus occupied for a short time, extinguished their lights and retired, as I conjectured, to rest. 'I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep. I thought of the occurrences of the day. What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavouring to discover the motives which influenced their actions. 'The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun. The young woman arranged the cottage and prepared the food, and the youth departed after the first meal. 'This day was passed in the same routine as that which preceded it. The young man was constantly employed out of doors, and the girl in various laborious occupations within. The old man, whom I soon perceived to be blind, employed his leisure hours on his instrument or in contemplation. Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion. They performed towards him every little office of affection and duty with gentleness, and he rewarded them by his benevolent smiles. 'They were not entirely happy. The young man and his companion often went apart and appeared to weep. I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched. Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy? They possessed a delightful house (for such it was in my eyes) and every luxury they had a fire to warm them when chill and delicious viands when hungry they were dressed in excellent clothes and, still more, they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging each day looks of affection and kindness. What did their tears imply? Did they really express pain? I was at first unable to solve these questions, but perpetual attention and time explained to me many appearances which were at first enigmatic. 'A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of the uneasiness of this amiable family it was poverty, and they suffered that evil in a very distressing degree. Their nourishment consisted entirely of the vegetables of their garden and the milk of one cow, which gave very little during the winter, when its masters could scarcely procure food to support it. They often, I believe, suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially the two younger cottagers, for several times they placed food before the old man when they reserved none for themselves. 'This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots which I gathered from a neighbouring wood. 'I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their labours. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in collecting wood for the family fire, and during the night I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days. 'I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I observed, with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the cottage and cultivating the garden. 'By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it. But I was baffled in every attempt I made for this purpose. Their pronunciation was quick, and the words they uttered, not having any apparent connection with visible objects, I was unable to discover any clue by which I could unravel the mystery of their reference. By great application, however, and after having remained during the space of several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse I learned and applied the words, fire, milk, bread, and wood. I learned also the names of the cottagers themselves. The youth and his companion had each of them several names, but the old man had only one, which was father. The girl was called sister or Agatha, and the youth Felix, brother, or son. I cannot describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas appropriated to each of these sounds and was able to pronounce them. I distinguished several other words without being able as yet to understand or apply them, such as good, dearest, unhappy. 'I spent the winter in this manner. The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me when they were unhappy, I felt depressed when they rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys. I saw few human beings besides them, and if any other happened to enter the cottage, their harsh manners and rude gait only enhanced to me the superior accomplishments of my friends. The old man, I could perceive, often endeavoured to encourage his children, as sometimes I found that he called them, to cast off their melancholy. He would talk in a cheerful accent, with an expression of goodness that bestowed pleasure even upon me. Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes filled with tears, which she endeavoured to wipe away unperceived but I generally found that her countenance and tone were more cheerful after having listened to the exhortations of her father. It was not thus with Felix. He was always the saddest of the group, and even to my unpractised senses, he appeared to have suffered more deeply than his friends. But if his countenance was more sorrowful, his voice was more cheerful than that of his sister, especially when he addressed the old man. 'I could mention innumerable instances which, although slight, marked the dispositions of these amiable cottagers. In the midst of poverty and want, Felix carried with pleasure to his sister the first little white flower that peeped out from beneath the snowy ground. Early in the morning, before she had risen, he cleared away the snow that obstructed her path to the milkhouse, drew water from the well, and brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his perpetual astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an invisible hand. In the day, I believe, he worked sometimes for a neighbouring farmer, because he often went forth and did not return until dinner, yet brought no wood with him. At other times he worked in the garden, but as there was little to do in the frosty season, he read to the old man and Agatha. 'This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when he talked. I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend these also but how was that possible when I did not even understand the sounds for which they stood as signs? I improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavour, for I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become master of their language, which knowledge might enable me to make them overlook the deformity of my figure, for with this also the contrast perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted. 'I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagerstheir grace, beauty, and delicate complexions but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity. 'As the sun became warmer and the light of day longer, the snow vanished, and I beheld the bare trees and the black earth. From this time Felix was more employed, and the heartmoving indications of impending famine disappeared. Their food, as I afterwards found, was coarse, but it was wholesome and they procured a sufficiency of it. Several new kinds of plants sprang up in the garden, which they dressed and these signs of comfort increased daily as the season advanced. 'The old man, leaning on his son, walked each day at noon, when it did not rain, as I found it was called when the heavens poured forth its waters. This frequently took place, but a high wind quickly dried the earth, and the season became far more pleasant than it had been. 'My mode of life in my hovel was uniform. During the morning I attended the motions of the cottagers, and when they were dispersed in various occupations, I slept the remainder of the day was spent in observing my friends. When they had retired to rest, if there was any moon or the night was starlight, I went into the woods and collected my own food and fuel for the cottage. When I returned, as often as it was necessary, I cleared their path from the snow and performed those offices that I had seen done by Felix. I afterwards found that these labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them and once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words good spirit, wonderful but I did not then understand the signification of these terms. 'My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures I was inquisitive to know why Felix appeared so miserable and Agatha so sad. I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people. When I slept or was absent, the forms of the venerable blind father, the gentle Agatha, and the excellent Felix flitted before me. I looked upon them as superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their reception of me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and afterwards their love. 'These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to the acquiring the art of language. My organs were indeed harsh, but supple and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the ass and the lapdog yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration. 'The pleasant showers and genial warmth of spring greatly altered the aspect of the earth. Men who before this change seemed to have been hid in caves dispersed themselves and were employed in various arts of cultivation. The birds sang in more cheerful notes, and the leaves began to bud forth on the trees. Happy, happy earth! Fit habitation for gods, which, so short a time before, was bleak, damp, and unwholesome. My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy. 'I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am. 'Spring advanced rapidly the weather became fine and the skies cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight and a thousand sights of beauty. 'It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested from labourthe old man played on his guitar, and the children listened to himthat I observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression he sighed frequently, and once his father paused in his music, and I conjectured by his manner that he inquired the cause of his son's sorrow. Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and the old man was recommencing his music when someone tapped at the door. 'It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a countryman as a guide. The lady was dressed in a dark suit and covered with a thick black veil. Agatha asked a question, to which the stranger only replied by pronouncing, in a sweet accent, the name of Felix. Her voice was musical but unlike that of either of my friends. On hearing this word, Felix came up hastily to the lady, who, when she saw him, threw up her veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and expression. Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided her eyes were dark, but gentle, although animated her features of a regular proportion, and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink. 'Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed a degree of ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly have believed it capable his eyes sparkled, as his cheek flushed with pleasure and at that moment I thought him as beautiful as the stranger. She appeared affected by different feelings wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she held out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously and called her, as well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did not appear to understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to dismount, and dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage. Some conversation took place between him and his father, and the young stranger knelt at the old man's feet and would have kissed his hand, but he raised her and embraced her affectionately. 'I soon perceived that although the stranger uttered articulate sounds and appeared to have a language of her own, she was neither understood by nor herself understood the cottagers. They made many signs which I did not comprehend, but I saw that her presence diffused gladness through the cottage, dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the morning mists. Felix seemed peculiarly happy and with smiles of delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha, the evergentle Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to her brother, made signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful until she came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their countenances, expressed joy, the cause of which I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after them, that she was endeavouring to learn their language and the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to the same end. The stranger learned about twenty words at the first lesson most of them, indeed, were those which I had before understood, but I profited by the others. 'As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early. When they separated Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, 'Good night sweet Safie.' He sat up much longer, conversing with his father, and by the frequent repetition of her name I conjectured that their lovely guest was the subject of their conversation. I ardently desired to understand them, and bent every faculty towards that purpose, but found it utterly impossible. 'The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old man, and taking his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a nightingale of the woods. 'When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first declined it. She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared enraptured and said some words which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him the greatest delight by her music. 'The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration that joy had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends. Safie was always gay and happy she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language, so that in two months I began to comprehend most of the words uttered by my protectors. 'In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods the sun became warmer, the nights clear and balmy and my nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun, for I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I entered. 'My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily master the language and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that was spoken. 'While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight. 'The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world it gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romansof their subsequent degeneratingof the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants. 'These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing. 'Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. While I listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood. 'The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? 'I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had for ever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat! 'Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was deatha state which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me. The mild exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation of the loved Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch! 'Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge, of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual bonds. 'But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans. 'I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, halfpainful selfdeceit, to call them). 'Some time elapsed before I learned the history of my friends. It was one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfolding as it did a number of circumstances, each interesting and wonderful to one so utterly inexperienced as I was. 'The name of the old man was De Lacey. He was descended from a good family in France, where he had lived for many years in affluence, respected by his superiors and beloved by his equals. His son was bred in the service of his country, and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the highest distinction. A few months before my arrival they had lived in a large and luxurious city called Paris, surrounded by friends and possessed of every enjoyment which virtue, refinement of intellect, or taste, accompanied by a moderate fortune, could afford. 'The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He was a Turkish merchant and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some reason which I could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government. He was seized and cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from Constantinople to join him. He was tried and condemned to death. The injustice of his sentence was very flagrant all Paris was indignant and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation. 'Felix had accidentally been present at the trial his horror and indignation were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the court. He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliver him and then looked around for the means. After many fruitless attempts to gain admittance to the prison, he found a strongly grated window in an unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the unfortunate Muhammadan, who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the execution of the barbarous sentence. Felix visited the grate at night and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour. The Turk, amazed and delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer by promises of reward and wealth. Felix rejected his offers with contempt, yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit her father and who by her gestures expressed her lively gratitude, the youth could not help owning to his own mind that the captive possessed a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard. 'The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made on the heart of Felix and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in his interests by the promise of her hand in marriage so soon as he should be conveyed to a place of safety. Felix was too delicate to accept this offer, yet he looked forward to the probability of the event as to the consummation of his happiness. 'During the ensuing days, while the preparations were going forward for the escape of the merchant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by several letters that he received from this lovely girl, who found means to express her thoughts in the language of her lover by the aid of an old man, a servant of her father who understood French. She thanked him in the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her parent, and at the same time she gently deplored her own fate. 'I have copies of these letters, for I found means, during my residence in the hovel, to procure the implements of writing and the letters were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha. Before I depart I will give them to you they will prove the truth of my tale but at present, as the sun is already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat the substance of them to you. 'Safie related that her mother was a Christian Arab, seized and made a slave by the Turks recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of the father of Safie, who married her. The young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced. She instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female followers of Muhammad. This lady died, but her lessons were indelibly impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem, allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, illsuited to the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue. The prospect of marrying a Christian and remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in society was enchanting to her. 'The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed, but on the night previous to it he quitted his prison and before morning was distant many leagues from Paris. Felix had procured passports in the name of his father, sister, and himself. He had previously communicated his plan to the former, who aided the deceit by quitting his house, under the pretence of a journey and concealed himself, with his daughter, in an obscure part of Paris. 'Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont Cenis to Leghorn, where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable opportunity of passing into some part of the Turkish dominions. 'Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his departure, before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she should be united to his deliverer and Felix remained with them in expectation of that event and in the meantime he enjoyed the society of the Arabian, who exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest affection. They conversed with one another through the means of an interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks and Safie sang to him the divine airs of her native country. 'The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place and encouraged the hopes of the youthful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far other plans. He loathed the idea that his daughter should be united to a Christian, but he feared the resentment of Felix if he should appear lukewarm, for he knew that he was still in the power of his deliverer if he should choose to betray him to the Italian state which they inhabited. He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed. His plans were facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris. 'The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their victim and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer. The plot of Felix was quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were thrown into prison. The news reached Felix and roused him from his dream of pleasure. His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of her whom he loved. This idea was torture to him. He quickly arranged with the Turk that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a boarder at a convent at Leghorn and then, quitting the lovely Arabian, he hastened to Paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the law, hoping to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding. 'He did not succeed. They remained confined for five months before the trial took place, the result of which deprived them of their fortune and condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country. 'They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I discovered them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family endured such unheardof oppression, on discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin, became a traitor to good feeling and honour and had quitted Italy with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance. 'Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss of his beloved Safie were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul. 'When the news reached Leghorn that Felix was deprived of his wealth and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her lover, but to prepare to return to her native country. The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate. 'A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter's apartment and told her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the French government he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours. He intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn. 'When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it would become her to pursue in this emergency. A residence in Turkey was abhorrent to her her religion and her feelings were alike averse to it. By some papers of her father which fell into her hands she heard of the exile of her lover and learnt the name of the spot where he then resided. She hesitated some time, but at length she formed her determination. Taking with her some jewels that belonged to her and a sum of money, she quitted Italy with an attendant, a native of Leghorn, but who understood the common language of Turkey, and departed for Germany. 'She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from the cottage of De Lacey, when her attendant fell dangerously ill. Safie nursed her with the most devoted affection, but the poor girl died, and the Arabian was left alone, unacquainted with the language of the country and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world. She fell, however, into good hands. The Italian had mentioned the name of the spot for which they were bound, and after her death the woman of the house in which they had lived took care that Safie should arrive in safety at the cottage of her lover. 'Such was the history of my beloved cottagers. It impressed me deeply. I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their virtues and to deprecate the vices of mankind. 'As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed. But in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred in the beginning of the month of August of the same year. 'One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in the language, the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations. 'I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. In the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a neverending source of speculation and astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which were for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined his character contained no pretension, but it sank deep. The disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely understanding it. 'As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and condition. I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I was a listener. I sympathised with and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind I was dependent on none and related to none. 'The path of my departure was free,' and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them. 'The volume of Plutarch's Lives which I possessed contained the histories of the first founders of the ancient republics. This book had a far different effect upon me from the Sorrows of Werter. I learned from Werter's imaginations despondency and gloom, but Plutarch taught me high thoughts he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns and large assemblages of men. The cottage of my protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature, but this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced by these feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations. 'But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me. 'Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress of your work this history was mingled with accounts of domestic occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. 'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.' 'These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude but when I contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and benevolent dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they would compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship? I resolved, at least, not to despair, but in every way to fit myself for an interview with them which would decide my fate. I postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail. Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every day's experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking until a few more months should have added to my sagacity. 'Several changes, in the meantime, took place in the cottage. The presence of Safie diffused happiness among its inhabitants, and I also found that a greater degree of plenty reigned there. Felix and Agatha spent more time in amusement and conversation, and were assisted in their labours by servants. They did not appear rich, but they were contented and happy their feelings were serene and peaceful, while mine became every day more tumultuous. Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade. 'I endeavoured to crush these fears and to fortify myself for the trial which in a few months I resolved to undergo and sometimes I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathising with my feelings and cheering my gloom their angelic countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was all a dream no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts I was alone. I remembered Adam's supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him. 'Autumn passed thus. I saw, with surprise and grief, the leaves decay and fall, and nature again assume the barren and bleak appearance it had worn when I first beheld the woods and the lovely moon. Yet I did not heed the bleakness of the weather I was better fitted by my conformation for the endurance of cold than heat. But my chief delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay apparel of summer when those deserted me, I turned with more attention towards the cottagers. Their happiness was not decreased by the absence of summer. They loved and sympathised with one another and their joys, depending on each other, were not interrupted by the casualties that took place around them. The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost limit of my ambition. I dared not think that they would turn them from me with disdain and horror. The poor that stopped at their door were never driven away. I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little food or rest I required kindness and sympathy but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it. 'The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the seasons had taken place since I awoke into life. My attention at this time was solely directed towards my plan of introducing myself into the cottage of my protectors. I revolved many projects, but that on which I finally fixed was to enter the dwelling when the blind old man should be alone. I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me. My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in it I thought, therefore, that if in the absence of his children I could gain the good will and mediation of the old De Lacey, I might by his means be tolerated by my younger protectors. 'One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground and diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth, Safie, Agatha, and Felix departed on a long country walk, and the old man, at his own desire, was left alone in the cottage. When his children had departed, he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before. At first his countenance was illuminated with pleasure, but as he continued, thoughtfulness and sadness succeeded at length, laying aside the instrument, he sat absorbed in reflection. 'My heart beat quick this was the hour and moment of trial, which would decide my hopes or realise my fears. The servants were gone to a neighbouring fair. All was silent in and around the cottage it was an excellent opportunity yet, when I proceeded to execute my plan, my limbs failed me and I sank to the ground. Again I rose, and exerting all the firmness of which I was master, removed the planks which I had placed before my hovel to conceal my retreat. The fresh air revived me, and with renewed determination I approached the door of their cottage. 'I knocked. 'Who is there?' said the old man. 'Come in.' 'I entered. 'Pardon this intrusion,' said I 'I am a traveller in want of a little rest you would greatly oblige me if you would allow me to remain a few minutes before the fire.' ''Enter,' said De Lacey, 'and I will try in what manner I can to relieve your wants but, unfortunately, my children are from home, and as I am blind, I am afraid I shall find it difficult to procure food for you.' ''Do not trouble yourself, my kind host I have food it is warmth and rest only that I need.' 'I sat down, and a silence ensued. I knew that every minute was precious to me, yet I remained irresolute in what manner to commence the interview, when the old man addressed me. 'By your language, stranger, I suppose you are my countryman are you French?' ''No but I was educated by a French family and understand that language only. I am now going to claim the protection of some friends, whom I sincerely love, and of whose favour I have some hopes.' ''Are they Germans?' ''No, they are French. But let us change the subject. I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.' ''Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious selfinterest, are full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes and if these friends are good and amiable, do not despair.' ''They are kindthey are the most excellent creatures in the world but, unfortunately, they are prejudiced against me. I have good dispositions my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster.' ''That is indeed unfortunate but if you are really blameless, cannot you undeceive them?' ''I am about to undertake that task and it is on that account that I feel so many overwhelming terrors. I tenderly love these friends I have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily kindness towards them but they believe that I wish to injure them, and it is that prejudice which I wish to overcome.' ''Where do these friends reside?' ''Near this spot.' 'The old man paused and then continued, 'If you will unreservedly confide to me the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in undeceiving them. I am blind and cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in your words which persuades me that you are sincere. I am poor and an exile, but it will afford me true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.' ''Excellent man! I thank you and accept your generous offer. You raise me from the dust by this kindness and I trust that, by your aid, I shall not be driven from the society and sympathy of your fellow creatures.' ''Heaven forbid! Even if you were really criminal, for that can only drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue. I also am unfortunate I and my family have been condemned, although innocent judge, therefore, if I do not feel for your misfortunes.' ''How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor? From your lips first have I heard the voice of kindness directed towards me I shall be for ever grateful and your present humanity assures me of success with those friends whom I am on the point of meeting.' ''May I know the names and residence of those friends?' 'I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to rob me of or bestow happiness on me for ever. I struggled vainly for firmness sufficient to answer him, but the effort destroyed all my remaining strength I sank on the chair and sobbed aloud. At that moment I heard the steps of my younger protectors. I had not a moment to lose, but seizing the hand of the old man, I cried, 'Now is the time! Save and protect me! You and your family are the friends whom I seek. Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!' ''Great God!' exclaimed the old man. 'Who are you?' 'At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix, Safie, and Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung, in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel. 'Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not despair had not yet taken possession of me my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery. 'When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood and now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery, I gave vent to my anguish in fearful howlings. I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a staglike swiftness. Oh! What a miserable night I passed! The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment I, like the archfiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin. 'But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure I became fatigued with excess of bodily exertion and sank on the damp grass in the sick impotence of despair. There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery. 'The sun rose I heard the voices of men and knew that it was impossible to return to my retreat during that day. Accordingly I hid myself in some thick underwood, determining to devote the ensuing hours to reflection on my situation. 'The pleasant sunshine and the pure air of day restored me to some degree of tranquillity and when I considered what had passed at the cottage, I could not help believing that I had been too hasty in my conclusions. I had certainly acted imprudently. It was apparent that my conversation had interested the father in my behalf, and I was a fool in having exposed my person to the horror of his children. I ought to have familiarised the old De Lacey to me, and by degrees to have discovered myself to the rest of his family, when they should have been prepared for my approach. But I did not believe my errors to be irretrievable, and after much consideration I resolved to return to the cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my party. 'These thoughts calmed me, and in the afternoon I sank into a profound sleep but the fever of my blood did not allow me to be visited by peaceful dreams. The horrible scene of the preceding day was for ever acting before my eyes the females were flying and the enraged Felix tearing me from his father's feet. I awoke exhausted, and finding that it was already night, I crept forth from my hidingplace, and went in search of food. 'When my hunger was appeased, I directed my steps towards the wellknown path that conducted to the cottage. All there was at peace. I crept into my hovel and remained in silent expectation of the accustomed hour when the family arose. That hour passed, the sun mounted high in the heavens, but the cottagers did not appear. I trembled violently, apprehending some dreadful misfortune. The inside of the cottage was dark, and I heard no motion I cannot describe the agony of this suspense. 'Presently two countrymen passed by, but pausing near the cottage, they entered into conversation, using violent gesticulations but I did not understand what they said, as they spoke the language of the country, which differed from that of my protectors. Soon after, however, Felix approached with another man I was surprised, as I knew that he had not quitted the cottage that morning, and waited anxiously to discover from his discourse the meaning of these unusual appearances. ''Do you consider,' said his companion to him, 'that you will be obliged to pay three months' rent and to lose the produce of your garden? I do not wish to take any unfair advantage, and I beg therefore that you will take some days to consider of your determination.' ''It is utterly useless,' replied Felix 'we can never again inhabit your cottage. The life of my father is in the greatest danger, owing to the dreadful circumstance that I have related. My wife and my sister will never recover from their horror. I entreat you not to reason with me any more. Take possession of your tenement and let me fly from this place.' 'Felix trembled violently as he said this. He and his companion entered the cottage, in which they remained for a few minutes, and then departed. I never saw any of the family of De Lacey more. 'I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter and stupid despair. My protectors had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them, but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death. When I thought of my friends, of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of Agatha, and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished and a gush of tears somewhat soothed me. But again when I reflected that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects. As night advanced, I placed a variety of combustibles around the cottage, and after having destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden, I waited with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my operations. 'As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection. I lighted the dry branch of a tree and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, my eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the moon nearly touched. A part of its orb was at length hid, and I waved my brand it sank, and with a loud scream I fired the straw, and heath, and bushes, which I had collected. The wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to it and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues. 'As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save any part of the habitation, I quitted the scene and sought for refuge in the woods. 'And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps? I resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes but to me, hated and despised, every country must be equally horrible. At length the thought of you crossed my mind. I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? Among the lessons that Felix had bestowed upon Safie, geography had not been omitted I had learned from these the relative situations of the different countries of the earth. You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town, and towards this place I resolved to proceed. 'But how was I to direct myself? I knew that I must travel in a southwesterly direction to reach my destination, but the sun was my only guide. I did not know the names of the towns that I was to pass through, nor could I ask information from a single human being but I did not despair. From you only could I hope for succour, although towards you I felt no sentiment but that of hatred. Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind. But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I determined to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from any other being that wore the human form. 'My travels were long and the sufferings I endured intense. It was late in autumn when I quitted the district where I had so long resided. I travelled only at night, fearful of encountering the visage of a human being. Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless rain and snow poured around me mighty rivers were frozen the surface of the earth was hard and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter. Oh, earth! How often did I imprecate curses on the cause of my being! The mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall and bitterness. The nearer I approached to your habitation, the more deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart. Snow fell, and the waters were hardened, but I rested not. A few incidents now and then directed me, and I possessed a map of the country but I often wandered wide from my path. The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food but a circumstance that happened when I arrived on the confines of Switzerland, when the sun had recovered its warmth and the earth again began to look green, confirmed in an especial manner the bitterness and horror of my feelings. 'I generally rested during the day and travelled only when I was secured by night from the view of man. One morning, however, finding that my path lay through a deep wood, I ventured to continue my journey after the sun had risen the day, which was one of the first of spring, cheered even me by the loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess of the air. I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy. Soft tears again bedewed my cheeks, and I even raised my humid eyes with thankfulness towards the blessed sun, which bestowed such joy upon me. 'I continued to wind among the paths of the wood, until I came to its boundary, which was skirted by a deep and rapid river, into which many of the trees bent their branches, now budding with the fresh spring. Here I paused, not exactly knowing what path to pursue, when I heard the sound of voices, that induced me to conceal myself under the shade of a cypress. I was scarcely hid when a young girl came running towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing, as if she ran from someone in sport. She continued her course along the precipitous sides of the river, when suddenly her foot slipped, and she fell into the rapid stream. I rushed from my hidingplace and with extreme labour, from the force of the current, saved her and dragged her to shore. She was senseless, and I endeavoured by every means in my power to restore animation, when I was suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic, who was probably the person from whom she had playfully fled. On seeing me, he darted towards me, and tearing the girl from my arms, hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood. I followed speedily, I hardly knew why but when the man saw me draw near, he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body and fired. I sank to the ground, and my injurer, with increased swiftness, escaped into the wood. 'This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind. But the agony of my wound overcame me my pulses paused, and I fainted. 'For some weeks I led a miserable life in the woods, endeavouring to cure the wound which I had received. The ball had entered my shoulder, and I knew not whether it had remained there or passed through at any rate I had no means of extracting it. My sufferings were augmented also by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of their infliction. My daily vows rose for revengea deep and deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish I had endured. 'After some weeks my wound healed, and I continued my journey. The labours I endured were no longer to be alleviated by the bright sun or gentle breezes of spring all joy was but a mockery which insulted my desolate state and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for the enjoyment of pleasure. 'But my toils now drew near a close, and in two months from this time I reached the environs of Geneva. 'It was evening when I arrived, and I retired to a hidingplace among the fields that surround it to meditate in what manner I should apply to you. I was oppressed by fatigue and hunger and far too unhappy to enjoy the gentle breezes of evening or the prospect of the sun setting behind the stupendous mountains of Jura. 'At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection, which was disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came running into the recess I had chosen, with all the sportiveness of infancy. Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me that this little creature was unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I could seize him and educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth. 'Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed and drew him towards me. As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before his eyes and uttered a shrill scream I drew his hand forcibly from his face and said, 'Child, what is the meaning of this? I do not intend to hurt you listen to me.' 'He struggled violently. 'Let me go,' he cried 'monster! Ugly wretch! You wish to eat me and tear me to pieces. You are an ogre. Let me go, or I will tell my papa.' ''Boy, you will never see your father again you must come with me.' ''Hideous monster! Let me go. My papa is a syndiche is M. Frankensteinhe will punish you. You dare not keep me.' ''Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemyto him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge you shall be my first victim.' 'The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet. 'I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph clapping my hands, I exclaimed, 'I too can create desolation my enemy is not invulnerable this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.' 'As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his breast. I took it it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips but presently my rage returned I remembered that I was for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright. 'Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind and perish in the attempt to destroy them. 'While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had committed the murder, and seeking a more secluded hidingplace, I entered a barn which had appeared to me to be empty. A woman was sleeping on some straw she was young, not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an agreeable aspect and blooming in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of those whose joyimparting smiles are bestowed on all but me. And then I bent over her and whispered, 'Awake, fairest, thy lover is nearhe who would give his life but to obtain one look of affection from thine eyes my beloved, awake!' 'The sleeper stirred a thrill of terror ran through me. Should she indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me. The thought was madness it stirred the fiend within menot I, but she, shall suffer the murder I have committed because I am for ever robbed of all that she could give me, she shall atone. The crime had its source in her be hers the punishment! Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress. She moved again, and I fled. 'For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place, sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries for ever. At length I wandered towards these mountains, and have ranged through their immense recesses, consumed by a burning passion which you alone can gratify. We may not part until you have promised to comply with my requisition. I am alone and miserable man will not associate with me but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create. The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition. He continued, 'You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede. The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and as he said this I could no longer suppress the rage that burned within me. 'I do refuse it, I replied 'and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world. Begone! I have answered you you may torture me, but I will never consent. 'You are in the wrong, replied the fiend 'and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those icerifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my archenemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth. A fiendish rage animated him as he said this his face was wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold but presently he calmed himself and proceeded 'I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess. If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundredfold for that one creature's sake I would make peace with the whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised. What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! My creator, make me happy let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing do not deny me my request! I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences of my consent, but I felt that there was some justice in his argument. His tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations, and did I not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow? He saw my change of feeling and continued, 'If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not that of man I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards me, I now see compassion in your eyes let me seize the favourable moment and persuade you to promise what I so ardently desire. 'You propose, replied I, 'to fly from the habitations of man, to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only companions. How can you, who long for the love and sympathy of man, persevere in this exile? You will return and again seek their kindness, and you will meet with their detestation your evil passions will be renewed, and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task of destruction. This may not be cease to argue the point, for I cannot consent. 'How inconstant are your feelings! But a moment ago you were moved by my representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints? I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that with the companion you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of places. My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my maker. His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations I thought that as I could not sympathise with him, I had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow. 'You swear, I said, 'to be harmless but have you not already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge? 'How is this? I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of existence and events from which I am now excluded. I paused some time to reflect on all he had related and the various arguments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations a creature who could exist in the icecaves of the glaciers and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection I concluded that the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of me that I should comply with his request. Turning to him, therefore, I said, 'I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile. 'I swear, he cried, 'by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home and commence your labours I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety and fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear. Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in my sentiments. I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice. His tale had occupied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of the horizon when he departed. I knew that I ought to hasten my descent towards the valley, as I should soon be encompassed in darkness but my heart was heavy, and my steps slow. The labour of winding among the little paths of the mountain and fixing my feet firmly as I advanced perplexed me, occupied as I was by the emotions which the occurrences of the day had produced. Night was far advanced when I came to the halfway restingplace and seated myself beside the fountain. The stars shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them the dark pines rose before me, and every here and there a broken tree lay on the ground it was a scene of wonderful solemnity and stirred strange thoughts within me. I wept bitterly, and clasping my hands in agony, I exclaimed, 'Oh! stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory let me become as nought but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness. These were wild and miserable thoughts, but I cannot describe to you how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how I listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me. Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of Chamounix I took no rest, but returned immediately to Geneva. Even in my own heart I could give no expression to my sensationsthey weighed on me with a mountain's weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them. Thus I returned home, and entering the house, presented myself to the family. My haggard and wild appearance awoke intense alarm, but I answered no question, scarcely did I speak. I felt as if I were placed under a banas if I had no right to claim their sympathiesas if never more might I enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus I loved them to adoration and to save them, I resolved to dedicate myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life. Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva and I could not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task which was enjoined me. I found that I could not compose a female without again devoting several months to profound study and laborious disquisition. I had heard of some discoveries having been made by an English philosopher, the knowledge of which was material to my success, and I sometimes thought of obtaining my father's consent to visit England for this purpose but I clung to every pretence of delay and shrank from taking the first step in an undertaking whose immediate necessity began to appear less absolute to me. A change indeed had taken place in me my health, which had hitherto declined, was now much restored and my spirits, when unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise, rose proportionably. My father saw this change with pleasure, and he turned his thoughts towards the best method of eradicating the remains of my melancholy, which every now and then would return by fits, and with a devouring blackness overcast the approaching sunshine. At these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless. But the fresh air and bright sun seldom failed to restore me to some degree of composure, and on my return I met the salutations of my friends with a readier smile and a more cheerful heart. It was after my return from one of these rambles that my father, calling me aside, thus addressed me, 'I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have resumed your former pleasures and seem to be returning to yourself. And yet you are still unhappy and still avoid our society. For some time I was lost in conjecture as to the cause of this, but yesterday an idea struck me, and if it is well founded, I conjure you to avow it. Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all. I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued 'I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your earliest infancy you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions and tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the experience of man that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may have met with another whom you may love and considering yourself as bound in honour to Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery which you appear to feel. 'My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my warmest admiration and affection. My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union. 'The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my dear Victor, gives me more pleasure than I have for some time experienced. If you feel thus, we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast a gloom over us. But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so strong a hold of your mind that I wish to dissipate. Tell me, therefore, whether you object to an immediate solemnisation of the marriage. We have been unfortunate, and recent events have drawn us from that everyday tranquillity befitting my years and infirmities. You are younger yet I do not suppose, possessed as you are of a competent fortune, that an early marriage would at all interfere with any future plans of honour and utility that you may have formed. Do not suppose, however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you or that a delay on your part would cause me any serious uneasiness. Interpret my words with candour and answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and sincerity. I listened to my father in silence and remained for some time incapable of offering any reply. I revolved rapidly in my mind a multitude of thoughts and endeavoured to arrive at some conclusion. Alas! To me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay. I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me to the ground? I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from which I expected peace. I remembered also the necessity imposed upon me of either journeying to England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful accidents might occur, the slightest of which would disclose a tale to thrill all connected with me with horror. I was aware also that I should often lose all selfcommand, all capacity of hiding the harrowing sensations that would possess me during the progress of my unearthly occupation. I must absent myself from all I loved while thus employed. Once commenced, it would quickly be achieved, and I might be restored to my family in peace and happiness. My promise fulfilled, the monster would depart for ever. Or (so my fond fancy imaged) some accident might meanwhile occur to destroy him and put an end to my slavery for ever. These feelings dictated my answer to my father. I expressed a wish to visit England, but concealing the true reasons of this request, I clothed my desires under a guise which excited no suspicion, while I urged my desire with an earnestness that easily induced my father to comply. After so long a period of an absorbing melancholy that resembled madness in its intensity and effects, he was glad to find that I was capable of taking pleasure in the idea of such a journey, and he hoped that change of scene and varied amusement would, before my return, have restored me entirely to myself. The duration of my absence was left to my own choice a few months, or at most a year, was the period contemplated. One paternal kind precaution he had taken to ensure my having a companion. Without previously communicating with me, he had, in concert with Elizabeth, arranged that Clerval should join me at Strasburgh. This interfered with the solitude I coveted for the prosecution of my task yet at the commencement of my journey the presence of my friend could in no way be an impediment, and truly I rejoiced that thus I should be saved many hours of lonely, maddening reflection. Nay, Henry might stand between me and the intrusion of my foe. If I were alone, would he not at times force his abhorred presence on me to remind me of my task or to contemplate its progress? To England, therefore, I was bound, and it was understood that my union with Elizabeth should take place immediately on my return. My father's age rendered him extremely averse to delay. For myself, there was one reward I promised myself from my detested toilsone consolation for my unparalleled sufferings it was the prospect of that day when, enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her. I now made arrangements for my journey, but one feeling haunted me which filled me with fear and agitation. During my absence I should leave my friends unconscious of the existence of their enemy and unprotected from his attacks, exasperated as he might be by my departure. But he had promised to follow me wherever I might go, and would he not accompany me to England? This imagination was dreadful in itself, but soothing inasmuch as it supposed the safety of my friends. I was agonised with the idea of the possibility that the reverse of this might happen. But through the whole period during which I was the slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend would follow me and exempt my family from the danger of his machinations. It was in the latter end of September that I again quitted my native country. My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth therefore acquiesced, but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief. It had been her care which provided me a companion in Clervaland yet a man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call forth a woman's sedulous attention. She longed to bid me hasten my return a thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful, silent farewell. I threw myself into the carriage that was to convey me away, hardly knowing whither I was going, and careless of what was passing around. I remembered only, and it was with a bitter anguish that I reflected on it, to order that my chemical instruments should be packed to go with me. Filled with dreary imaginations, I passed through many beautiful and majestic scenes, but my eyes were fixed and unobserving. I could only think of the bourne of my travels and the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured. After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I traversed many leagues, I arrived at Strasburgh, where I waited two days for Clerval. He came. Alas, how great was the contrast between us! He was alive to every new scene, joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new day. He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape and the appearances of the sky. 'This is what it is to live, he cried 'now I enjoy existence! But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful! In truth, I was occupied by gloomy thoughts and neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden sunrise reflected in the Rhine. And you, my friend, would be far more amused with the journal of Clerval, who observed the scenery with an eye of feeling and delight, than in listening to my reflections. I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment. We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasburgh to Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London. During this voyage we passed many willowy islands and saw several beautiful towns. We stayed a day at Mannheim, and on the fifth from our departure from Strasburgh, arrived at Mainz. The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath and on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene. We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the labourers as we glided down the stream. Even I, depressed in mind, and my spirits continually agitated by gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. I lay at the bottom of the boat, and as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger. And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of Henry? He felt as if he had been transported to Fairyland and enjoyed a happiness seldom tasted by man. 'I have seen, he said, 'the most beautiful scenes of my own country I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the waterspout must be on the great ocean and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. Look at that castle which overhangs yon precipice and that also on the island, almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees and now that group of labourers coming from among their vines and that village half hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely the spirit that inhabits and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man than those who pile the glacier or retire to the inaccessible peaks of the mountains of our own country. Clerval! Beloved friend! Even now it delights me to record your words and to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the 'very poetry of nature. His wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. His soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the worldlyminded teach us to look for only in the imagination. But even human sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind. The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with ardour The sounding cataract Haunted him like a passion the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to him An appetite a feeling, and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrow'd from the eye. Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey. And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever? Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creatorhas this mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it is not thus your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend. Pardon this gush of sorrow these ineffectual words are but a slight tribute to the unexampled worth of Henry, but they soothe my heart, overflowing with the anguish which his remembrance creates. I will proceed with my tale. Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland and we resolved to post the remainder of our way, for the wind was contrary and the stream of the river was too gentle to aid us. Our journey here lost the interest arising from beautiful scenery, but we arrived in a few days at Rotterdam, whence we proceeded by sea to England. It was on a clear morning, in the latter days of December, that I first saw the white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames presented a new scene they were flat but fertile, and almost every town was marked by the remembrance of some story. We saw Tilbury Fort and remembered the Spanish Armada, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwichplaces which I had heard of even in my country. At length we saw the numerous steeples of London, St. Paul's towering above all, and the Tower famed in English history. London was our present point of rest we determined to remain several months in this wonderful and celebrated city. Clerval desired the intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this time, but this was with me a secondary object I was principally occupied with the means of obtaining the information necessary for the completion of my promise and quickly availed myself of the letters of introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to the most distinguished natural philosophers. If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me when alone, I could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth the voice of Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself into a transitory peace. But busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back despair to my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow men this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine, and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with anguish. But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self he was inquisitive and anxious to gain experience and instruction. The difference of manners which he observed was to him an inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement. He was also pursuing an object he had long had in view. His design was to visit India, in the belief that he had in his knowledge of its various languages, and in the views he had taken of its society, the means of materially assisting the progress of European colonization and trade. In Britain only could he further the execution of his plan. He was for ever busy, and the only check to his enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mind. I tried to conceal this as much as possible, that I might not debar him from the pleasures natural to one who was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by any care or bitter recollection. I often refused to accompany him, alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone. I now also began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this was to me like the torture of single drops of water continually falling on the head. Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate. After passing some months in London, we received a letter from a person in Scotland who had formerly been our visitor at Geneva. He mentioned the beauties of his native country and asked us if those were not sufficient allurements to induce us to prolong our journey as far north as Perth, where he resided. Clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation, and I, although I abhorred society, wished to view again mountains and streams and all the wondrous works with which Nature adorns her chosen dwellingplaces. We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now February. We accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the north at the expiration of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to follow the great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour about the end of July. I packed up my chemical instruments and the materials I had collected, resolving to finish my labours in some obscure nook in the northern highlands of Scotland. We quitted London on the th of March and remained a few days at Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest. This was a new scene to us mountaineers the majestic oaks, the quantity of game, and the herds of stately deer were all novelties to us. From thence we proceeded to Oxford. As we entered this city, our minds were filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted there more than a century and a half before. It was here that Charles I. had collected his forces. This city had remained faithful to him, after the whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of Parliament and liberty. The memory of that unfortunate king and his companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent Goring, his queen, and son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city which they might be supposed to have inhabited. The spirit of elder days found a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps. If these feelings had not found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of the city had yet in itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration. The colleges are ancient and picturesque the streets are almost magnificent and the lovely Isis, which flows beside it through meadows of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a placid expanse of waters, which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers, and spires, and domes, embosomed among aged trees. I enjoyed this scene, and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of the past and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind, and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man could always interest my heart and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree the bolt has entered my soul and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to bea miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself. We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most animating epoch of English history. Our little voyages of discovery were often prolonged by the successive objects that presented themselves. We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden and the field on which that patriot fell. For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas of liberty and selfsacrifice of which these sights were the monuments and the remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains and look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self. We left Oxford with regret and proceeded to Matlock, which was our next place of rest. The country in the neighbourhood of this village resembled, to a greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland but everything is on a lower scale, and the green hills want the crown of distant white Alps which always attend on the piny mountains of my native country. We visited the wondrous cave and the little cabinets of natural history, where the curiosities are disposed in the same manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix. The latter name made me tremble when pronounced by Henry, and I hastened to quit Matlock, with which that terrible scene was thus associated. From Derby, still journeying northwards, we passed two months in Cumberland and Westmorland. I could now almost fancy myself among the Swiss mountains. The little patches of snow which yet lingered on the northern sides of the mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the rocky streams were all familiar and dear sights to me. Here also we made some acquaintances, who almost contrived to cheat me into happiness. The delight of Clerval was proportionably greater than mine his mind expanded in the company of men of talent, and he found in his own nature greater capacities and resources than he could have imagined himself to have possessed while he associated with his inferiors. 'I could pass my life here, said he to me 'and among these mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine. But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties. We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on. For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the dmon's disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited for my letters with feverish impatience if they were delayed I was miserable and overcome by a thousand fears and when they arrived and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime. I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind and yet that city might have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey. We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew's, and along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest and accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone. 'Do you, said I, 'enjoy yourself, and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two but do not interfere with my motions, I entreat you leave me to peace and solitude for a short time and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more congenial to your own temper. Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to remonstrate. He entreated me to write often. 'I had rather be with you, he said, 'in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch people, whom I do not know hasten, then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence. Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion. With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from the mainland, which was about five miles distant. On the whole island there were but three miserable huts, and one of these was vacant when I arrived. This I hired. It contained but two rooms, and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury. The thatch had fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the door was off its hinges. I ordered it to be repaired, bought some furniture, and took possession, an incident which would doubtless have occasioned some surprise had not all the senses of the cottagers been benumbed by want and squalid poverty. As it was, I lived ungazed at and unmolested, hardly thanked for the pittance of food and clothes which I gave, so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men. In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour but in the evening, when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea to listen to the waves as they roared and dashed at my feet. It was a monotonous yet everchanging scene. I thought of Switzerland it was far different from this desolate and appalling landscape. Its hills are covered with vines, and its cottages are scattered thickly in the plains. Its fair lakes reflect a blue and gentle sky, and when troubled by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of a lively infant when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean. In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first arrived, but as I proceeded in my labour, it became every day more horrible and irksome to me. Sometimes I could not prevail on myself to enter my laboratory for several days, and at other times I toiled day and night in order to complete my work. It was, indeed, a filthy process in which I was engaged. During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment my mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands. Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal I grew restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much dreaded to behold. I feared to wander from the sight of my fellow creatures lest when alone he should come to claim his companion. In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably advanced. I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself to question but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken in my bosom. I sat one evening in my laboratory the sun had set, and the moon was just rising from the sea I had not sufficient light for my employment, and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should leave my labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to me which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three years before, I was engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it for ever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race. I trembled and my heart failed within me, when, on looking up, I saw by the light of the moon the dmon at the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels he had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths and he now came to mark my progress and claim the fulfilment of my promise. As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew. I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart never to resume my labours and then, with trembling steps, I sought my own apartment. I was alone none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries. Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea it was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature reposed under the eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of voices as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence, although I was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity, until my ear was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a person landed close to my house. In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot I felt a presentiment of who it was and wished to rouse one of the peasants who dwelt in a cottage not far from mine but I was overcome by the sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to the spot. Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage the door opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. Shutting the door, he approached me and said in a smothered voice, 'You have destroyed the work which you began what is it that you intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery I left Switzerland with you I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among its willow islands and over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt many months in the heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland. I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger do you dare destroy my hopes? 'Begone! I do break my promise never will I create another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness. 'Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master obey! 'The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness but they confirm me in a determination of not creating you a companion in vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a dmon whose delight is in death and wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your words will only exasperate my rage. The monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in the impotence of anger. 'Shall each man, cried he, 'find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man! You may hate, but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever. Are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions, but revenge remainsrevenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict. 'Devil, cease and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath words. Leave me I am inexorable. 'It is well. I go but remember, I shall be with you on your weddingnight. I started forward and exclaimed, 'Villain! Before you sign my deathwarrant, be sure that you are yourself safe. I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house with precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across the waters with an arrowy swiftness and was soon lost amidst the waves. All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with rage to pursue the murderer of my peace and precipitate him into the ocean. I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not followed him and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the mainland. I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words'I will be with you on your weddingnight. That, then, was the period fixed for the fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle. The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow creatures nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me. I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock, wearily, it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If I returned, it was to be sacrificed or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a dmon whom I had myself created. I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it loved and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the sun rose higher, I lay down on the grass and was overpowered by a deep sleep. I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery. The sleep into which I now sank refreshed me and when I awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater composure yet still the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a deathknell they appeared like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality. The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a fishingboat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval entreating me to join him. He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where he was, that letters from the friends he had formed in London desired his return to complete the negotiation they had entered into for his Indian enterprise. He could not any longer delay his departure but as his journey to London might be followed, even sooner than he now conjectured, by his longer voyage, he entreated me to bestow as much of my society on him as I could spare. He besought me, therefore, to leave my solitary isle and to meet him at Perth, that we might proceed southwards together. This letter in a degree recalled me to life, and I determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days. Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I shuddered to reflect I must pack up my chemical instruments, and for that purpose I must enter the room which had been the scene of my odious work, and I must handle those utensils the sight of which was sickening to me. The next morning, at daybreak, I summoned sufficient courage and unlocked the door of my laboratory. The remains of the halffinished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being. I paused to collect myself and then entered the chamber. With trembling hand I conveyed the instruments out of the room, but I reflected that I ought not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great quantity of stones, and laying them up, determined to throw them into the sea that very night and in the meantime I sat upon the beach, employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical apparatus. Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the dmon. I had before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with whatever consequences, must be fulfilled but I now felt as if a film had been taken from before my eyes and that I for the first time saw clearly. The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in my own mind that to create another like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness, and I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion. Between two and three in the morning the moon rose and I then, putting my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the shore. The scene was perfectly solitary a few boats were returning towards land, but I sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about the commission of a dreadful crime and avoided with shuddering anxiety any encounter with my fellow creatures. At one time the moon, which had before been clear, was suddenly overspread by a thick cloud, and I took advantage of the moment of darkness and cast my basket into the sea I listened to the gurgling sound as it sank and then sailed away from the spot. The sky became clouded, but the air was pure, although chilled by the northeast breeze that was then rising. But it refreshed me and filled me with such agreeable sensations that I resolved to prolong my stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a direct position, stretched myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, everything was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat as its keel cut through the waves the murmur lulled me, and in a short time I slept soundly. I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but when I awoke I found that the sun had already mounted considerably. The wind was high, and the waves continually threatened the safety of my little skiff. I found that the wind was northeast and must have driven me far from the coast from which I had embarked. I endeavoured to change my course but quickly found that if I again made the attempt the boat would be instantly filled with water. Thus situated, my only resource was to drive before the wind. I confess that I felt a few sensations of terror. I had no compass with me and was so slenderly acquainted with the geography of this part of the world that the sun was of little benefit to me. I might be driven into the wide Atlantic and feel all the tortures of starvation or be swallowed up in the immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around me. I had already been out many hours and felt the torment of a burning thirst, a prelude to my other sufferings. I looked on the heavens, which were covered by clouds that flew before the wind, only to be replaced by others I looked upon the sea it was to be my grave. 'Fiend, I exclaimed, 'your task is already fulfilled! I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clervalall left behind, on whom the monster might satisfy his sanguinary and merciless passions. This idea plunged me into a reverie so despairing and frightful that even now, when the scene is on the point of closing before me for ever, I shudder to reflect on it. Some hours passed thus but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze and the sea became free from breakers. But these gave place to a heavy swell I felt sick and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high land towards the south. Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dreadful suspense I endured for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes. How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery! I constructed another sail with a part of my dress and eagerly steered my course towards the land. It had a wild and rocky appearance, but as I approached nearer I easily perceived the traces of cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore and found myself suddenly transported back to the neighbourhood of civilised man. I carefully traced the windings of the land and hailed a steeple which I at length saw issuing from behind a small promontory. As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment. Fortunately I had money with me. As I turned the promontory I perceived a small neat town and a good harbour, which I entered, my heart bounding with joy at my unexpected escape. As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails, several people crowded towards the spot. They seemed much surprised at my appearance, but instead of offering me any assistance, whispered together with gestures that at any other time might have produced in me a slight sensation of alarm. As it was, I merely remarked that they spoke English, and I therefore addressed them in that language. 'My good friends, said I, 'will you be so kind as to tell me the name of this town and inform me where I am? 'You will know that soon enough, replied a man with a hoarse voice. 'Maybe you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste, but you will not be consulted as to your quarters, I promise you. I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a stranger, and I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and angry countenances of his companions. 'Why do you answer me so roughly? I replied. 'Surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to receive strangers so inhospitably. 'I do not know, said the man, 'what the custom of the English may be, but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains. While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which annoyed and in some degree alarmed me. I inquired the way to the inn, but no one replied. I then moved forward, and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me, when an illlooking man approaching tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Come, sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin's to give an account of yourself. 'Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is not this a free country? 'Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate, and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was found murdered here last night. This answer startled me, but I presently recovered myself. I was innocent that could easily be proved accordingly I followed my conductor in silence and was led to one of the best houses in the town. I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt. Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy or death. I must pause here, for it requires all my fortitude to recall the memory of the frightful events which I am about to relate, in proper detail, to my recollection. I was soon introduced into the presence of the magistrate, an old benevolent man with calm and mild manners. He looked upon me, however, with some degree of severity, and then, turning towards my conductors, he asked who appeared as witnesses on this occasion. About half a dozen men came forward and, one being selected by the magistrate, he deposed that he had been out fishing the night before with his son and brotherinlaw, Daniel Nugent, when, about ten o'clock, they observed a strong northerly blast rising, and they accordingly put in for port. It was a very dark night, as the moon had not yet risen they did not land at the harbour, but, as they had been accustomed, at a creek about two miles below. He walked on first, carrying a part of the fishing tackle, and his companions followed him at some distance. As he was proceeding along the sands, he struck his foot against something and fell at his length on the ground. His companions came up to assist him, and by the light of their lantern they found that he had fallen on the body of a man, who was to all appearance dead. Their first supposition was that it was the corpse of some person who had been drowned and was thrown on shore by the waves, but on examination they found that the clothes were not wet and even that the body was not then cold. They instantly carried it to the cottage of an old woman near the spot and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore it to life. It appeared to be a handsome young man, about five and twenty years of age. He had apparently been strangled, for there was no sign of any violence except the black mark of fingers on his neck. The first part of this deposition did not in the least interest me, but when the mark of the fingers was mentioned I remembered the murder of my brother and felt myself extremely agitated my limbs trembled, and a mist came over my eyes, which obliged me to lean on a chair for support. The magistrate observed me with a keen eye and of course drew an unfavourable augury from my manner. The son confirmed his father's account, but when Daniel Nugent was called he swore positively that just before the fall of his companion, he saw a boat, with a single man in it, at a short distance from the shore and as far as he could judge by the light of a few stars, it was the same boat in which I had just landed. A woman deposed that she lived near the beach and was standing at the door of her cottage, waiting for the return of the fishermen, about an hour before she heard of the discovery of the body, when she saw a boat with only one man in it push off from that part of the shore where the corpse was afterwards found. Another woman confirmed the account of the fishermen having brought the body into her house it was not cold. They put it into a bed and rubbed it, and Daniel went to the town for an apothecary, but life was quite gone. Several other men were examined concerning my landing, and they agreed that, with the strong north wind that had arisen during the night, it was very probable that I had beaten about for many hours and had been obliged to return nearly to the same spot from which I had departed. Besides, they observed that it appeared that I had brought the body from another place, and it was likely that as I did not appear to know the shore, I might have put into the harbour ignorant of the distance of the town of  from the place where I had deposited the corpse. Mr. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should be taken into the room where the body lay for interment, that it might be observed what effect the sight of it would produce upon me. This idea was probably suggested by the extreme agitation I had exhibited when the mode of the murder had been described. I was accordingly conducted, by the magistrate and several other persons, to the inn. I could not help being struck by the strange coincidences that had taken place during this eventful night but, knowing that I had been conversing with several persons in the island I had inhabited about the time that the body had been found, I was perfectly tranquil as to the consequences of the affair. I entered the room where the corpse lay and was led up to the coffin. How can I describe my sensations on beholding it? I feel yet parched with horror, nor can I reflect on that terrible moment without shuddering and agony. The examination, the presence of the magistrate and witnesses, passed like a dream from my memory when I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me. I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed, 'Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed other victims await their destiny but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions. A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death my ravings, as I afterwards heard, were frightful I called myself the murderer of William, of Justine, and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was tormented and at others I felt the fingers of the monster already grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror. Fortunately, as I spoke my native language, Mr. Kirwin alone understood me but my gestures and bitter cries were sufficient to affright the other witnesses. Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture? But I was doomed to live and in two months found myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by gaolers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon. It was morning, I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding I had forgotten the particulars of what had happened and only felt as if some great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed me but when I looked around and saw the barred windows and the squalidness of the room in which I was, all flashed across my memory and I groaned bitterly. This sound disturbed an old woman who was sleeping in a chair beside me. She was a hired nurse, the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterise that class. The lines of her face were hard and rude, like that of persons accustomed to see without sympathising in sights of misery. Her tone expressed her entire indifference she addressed me in English, and the voice struck me as one that I had heard during my sufferings. 'Are you better now, sir? said she. I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, 'I believe I am but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am still alive to feel this misery and horror. 'For that matter, replied the old woman, 'if you mean about the gentleman you murdered, I believe that it were better for you if you were dead, for I fancy it will go hard with you! However, that's none of my business I am sent to nurse you and get you well I do my duty with a safe conscience it were well if everybody did the same. I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a speech to a person just saved, on the very edge of death but I felt languid and unable to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality. As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish a darkness pressed around me no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle voice of love no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed medicines, and the old woman prepared them for me but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but the hangman who would gain his fee? These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had shown me extreme kindness. He had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best) and it was he who had provided a physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me, for although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature, he did not wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came, therefore, sometimes to see that I was not neglected, but his visits were short and with long intervals. One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair, my eyes half open and my cheeks livid like those in death. I was overcome by gloom and misery and often reflected I had better seek death than desire to remain in a world which to me was replete with wretchedness. At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justine had been. Such were my thoughts when the door of my apartment was opened and Mr. Kirwin entered. His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion he drew a chair close to mine and addressed me in French, 'I fear that this place is very shocking to you can I do anything to make you more comfortable? 'I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me on the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving. 'I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune. But you will, I hope, soon quit this melancholy abode, for doubtless evidence can easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge. 'That is my least concern I am, by a course of strange events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me? 'Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonising than the strange chances that have lately occurred. You were thrown, by some surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality, seized immediately, and charged with murder. The first sight that was presented to your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so unaccountable a manner and placed, as it were, by some fiend across your path. As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on this retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt considerable surprise at the knowledge he seemed to possess concerning me. I suppose some astonishment was exhibited in my countenance, for Mr. Kirwin hastened to say, 'Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that were on your person were brought me, and I examined them that I might discover some trace by which I could send to your relations an account of your misfortune and illness. I found several letters, and, among others, one which I discovered from its commencement to be from your father. I instantly wrote to Geneva nearly two months have elapsed since the departure of my letter. But you are ill even now you tremble you are unfit for agitation of any kind. 'This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event tell me what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am now to lament? 'Your family is perfectly well, said Mr. Kirwin with gentleness 'and someone, a friend, is come to visit you. I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony, 'Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him for God's sake, do not let him enter! Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance. He could not help regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in rather a severe tone, 'I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have been welcome instead of inspiring such violent repugnance. 'My father! cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed from anguish to pleasure. 'Is my father indeed come? How kind, how very kind! But where is he, why does he not hasten to me? My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate perhaps he thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium, and now he instantly resumed his former benevolence. He rose and quitted the room with my nurse, and in a moment my father entered it. Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my father. I stretched out my hand to him and cried, 'Are you then safeand Elizabethand Ernest? My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare and endeavoured, by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness. 'What a place is this that you inhabit, my son! said he, looking mournfully at the barred windows and wretched appearance of the room. 'You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too great to be endured in my weak state I shed tears. 'Alas! Yes, my father, replied I 'some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on the coffin of Henry. We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for the precarious state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that could ensure tranquillity. Mr. Kirwin came in and insisted that my strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion. But the appearance of my father was to me like that of my good angel, and I gradually recovered my health. As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was for ever before me, ghastly and murdered. More than once the agitation into which these reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous relapse. Alas! Why did they preserve so miserable and detested a life? It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny, which is now drawing to a close. Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish these throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest. Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins. The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months in prison, and although I was still weak and in continual danger of a relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country town where the court was held. Mr. Kirwin charged himself with every care of collecting witnesses and arranging my defence. I was spared the disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal, as the case was not brought before the court that decides on life and death. The grand jury rejected the bill, on its being proved that I was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body of my friend was found and a fortnight after my removal I was liberated from prison. My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. I did not participate in these feelings, for to me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned for ever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me. Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed them sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt. My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection. He talked of Geneva, which I should soon visit, of Elizabeth and Ernest but these words only drew deep groans from me. Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair. At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the existence I loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence. Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary that I should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous. My father still desired to delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a journey, for I was a shattered wreckthe shadow of a human being. My strength was gone. I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and day preyed upon my wasted frame. Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude and impatience, my father thought it best to yield. We took our passage on board a vessel bound for HavredeGrace and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores. It was midnight. I lay on the deck looking at the stars and listening to the dashing of the waves. I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my sight, and my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva. The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream yet the vessel in which I was, the wind that blew me from the detested shore of Ireland, and the sea which surrounded me, told me too forcibly that I was deceived by no vision and that Clerval, my friend and dearest companion, had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my creation. I repassed, in my memory, my whole life my quiet happiness while residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother, and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering, the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night in which he first lived. I was unable to pursue the train of thought a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly. Ever since my recovery from the fever, I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum, for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life. Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes, I now swallowed double my usual quantity and soon slept profoundly. But sleep did not afford me respite from thought and misery my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me. Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of nightmare I felt the fiend's grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it groans and cries rang in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me the dashing waves were around, the cloudy sky above, the fiend was not here a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present hour and the irresistible, disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its structure peculiarly susceptible. The voyage came to an end. We landed, and proceeded to Paris. I soon found that I had overtaxed my strength and that I must repose before I could continue my journey. My father's care and attentions were indefatigable, but he did not know the origin of my sufferings and sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill. He wished me to seek amusement in society. I abhorred the face of man. Oh, not abhorred! They were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I felt attracted even to the most repulsive among them, as to creatures of an angelic nature and celestial mechanism. But I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse. I had unchained an enemy among them whose joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans. How they would, each and all, abhor me and hunt me from the world, did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me! My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by various arguments to banish my despair. Sometimes he thought that I felt deeply the degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of murder, and he endeavoured to prove to me the futility of pride. 'Alas! My father, said I, 'how little do you know me. Human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as I felt pride. Justine, poor unhappy Justine, was as innocent as I, and she suffered the same charge she died for it and I am the cause of thisI murdered her. William, Justine, and Henrythey all died by my hands. My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same assertion when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed to desire an explanation, and at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring of delirium, and that, during my illness, some idea of this kind had presented itself to my imagination, the remembrance of which I preserved in my convalescence. I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad, and this in itself would for ever have chained my tongue. But, besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast. I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret. Yet, still, words like those I have recorded would burst uncontrollably from me. I could offer no explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe. Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder, 'My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again. 'I am not mad, I cried energetically 'the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent victims they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race. The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my misfortunes. As time passed away I became more calm misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes sufficient for me was the consciousness of them. By the utmost selfviolence I curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world, and my manners were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice. A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I received the following letter from Elizabeth 'My dear Friend, 'It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle dated at Paris you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may hope to see you in less than a fortnight. My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered! I expect to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva. This winter has been passed most miserably, tortured as I have been by anxious suspense yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity. 'Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable a year ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at this period, when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a conversation that I had with my uncle previous to his departure renders some explanation necessary before we meet. Explanation! You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain? If you really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied. But you are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be pleased with this explanation and in a probability of this being the case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, I have often wished to express to you but have never had the courage to begin. 'You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favourite plan of your parents ever since our infancy. We were told this when young, and taught to look forward to it as an event that would certainly take place. We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe, dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you by our mutual happiness, with simple truthDo you not love another? 'You have travelled you have spent several years of your life at Ingolstadt and I confess to you, my friend, that when I saw you last autumn so unhappy, flying to solitude from the society of every creature, I could not help supposing that you might regret our connection and believe yourself bound in honour to fulfil the wishes of your parents, although they opposed themselves to your inclinations. But this is false reasoning. I confess to you, my friend, that I love you and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my constant friend and companion. But it is your happiness I desire as well as my own when I declare to you that our marriage would render me eternally miserable unless it were the dictate of your own free choice. Even now I weep to think that, borne down as you are by the cruellest misfortunes, you may stifle, by the word honour, all hope of that love and happiness which would alone restore you to yourself. I, who have so disinterested an affection for you, may increase your miseries tenfold by being an obstacle to your wishes. Ah! Victor, be assured that your cousin and playmate has too sincere a love for you not to be made miserable by this supposition. Be happy, my friend and if you obey me in this one request, remain satisfied that nothing on earth will have the power to interrupt my tranquillity. 'Do not let this letter disturb you do not answer tomorrow, or the next day, or even until you come, if it will give you pain. My uncle will send me news of your health, and if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness. 'Elizabeth Lavenza. 'Geneva, May th,  This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of the fiend'I will be with you on your weddingnight! Such was my sentence, and on that night would the dmon employ every art to destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of happiness which promised partly to console my sufferings. On that night he had determined to consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it so a deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he were victorious I should be at peace and his power over me be at an end. If he were vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! What freedom? Such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and alone, but free. Such would be my liberty except that in my Elizabeth I possessed a treasure, alas, balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue me until death. Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper paradisiacal dreams of love and joy but the apple was already eaten, and the angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope. Yet I would die to make her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable yet, again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my fate. My destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner, but if my torturer should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces, he would surely find other and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge. He had vowed to be with me on my weddingnight, yet he did not consider that threat as binding him to peace in the meantime, for as if to show me that he was not yet satiated with blood, he had murdered Clerval immediately after the enunciation of his threats. I resolved, therefore, that if my immediate union with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my father's happiness, my adversary's designs against my life should not retard it a single hour. In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth. My letter was calm and affectionate. 'I fear, my beloved girl, I said, 'little happiness remains for us on earth yet all that I may one day enjoy is centred in you. Chase away your idle fears to you alone do I consecrate my life and my endeavours for contentment. I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured. I will confide this tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place, for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us. But until then, I conjure you, do not mention or allude to it. This I most earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply. In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth's letter we returned to Geneva. The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection, yet tears were in her eyes as she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks. I saw a change in her also. She was thinner and had lost much of that heavenly vivacity that had before charmed me but her gentleness and soft looks of compassion made her a more fit companion for one blasted and miserable as I was. The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not endure. Memory brought madness with it, and when I thought of what had passed, a real insanity possessed me sometimes I was furious and burnt with rage, sometimes low and despondent. I neither spoke nor looked at anyone, but sat motionless, bewildered by the multitude of miseries that overcame me. Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human feelings when sunk in torpor. She wept with me and for me. When reason returned, she would remonstrate and endeavour to inspire me with resignation. Ah! It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief. Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with Elizabeth. I remained silent. 'Have you, then, some other attachment? 'None on earth. I love Elizabeth and look forward to our union with delight. Let the day therefore be fixed and on it I will consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin. 'My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived. Such were the lessons of my father. But to me the remembrance of the threat returned nor can you wonder that, omnipotent as the fiend had yet been in his deeds of blood, I should almost regard him as invincible, and that when he had pronounced the words 'I shall be with you on your weddingnight, I should regard the threatened fate as unavoidable. But death was no evil to me if the loss of Elizabeth were balanced with it, and I therefore, with a contented and even cheerful countenance, agreed with my father that if my cousin would consent, the ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined, the seal to my fate. Great God! If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have banished myself for ever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth than have consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real intentions and when I thought that I had prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim. As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within me. But I concealed my feelings by an appearance of hilarity that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of my father, but hardly deceived the everwatchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth. She looked forward to our union with placid contentment, not unmingled with a little fear, which past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain and tangible happiness might soon dissipate into an airy dream and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret. Preparations were made for the event, congratulatory visits were received, and all wore a smiling appearance. I shut up, as well as I could, in my own heart the anxiety that preyed there and entered with seeming earnestness into the plans of my father, although they might only serve as the decorations of my tragedy. Through my father's exertions a part of the inheritance of Elizabeth had been restored to her by the Austrian government. A small possession on the shores of Como belonged to her. It was agreed that, immediately after our union, we should proceed to Villa Lavenza and spend our first days of happiness beside the beautiful lake near which it stood. In the meantime I took every precaution to defend my person in case the fiend should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice, and by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the period approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty as the day fixed for its solemnisation drew nearer and I heard it continually spoken of as an occurrence which no accident could possibly prevent. Elizabeth seemed happy my tranquil demeanour contributed greatly to calm her mind. But on the day that was to fulfil my wishes and my destiny, she was melancholy, and a presentiment of evil pervaded her and perhaps also she thought of the dreadful secret which I had promised to reveal to her on the following day. My father was in the meantime overjoyed, and, in the bustle of preparation, only recognised in the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a bride. After the ceremony was performed a large party assembled at my father's, but it was agreed that Elizabeth and I should commence our journey by water, sleeping that night at Evian and continuing our voyage on the following day. The day was fair, the wind favourable all smiled on our nuptial embarkation. Those were the last moments of my life during which I enjoyed the feeling of happiness. We passed rapidly along the sun was hot, but we were sheltered from its rays by a kind of canopy while we enjoyed the beauty of the scene, sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw Mont Salve, the pleasant banks of Montalgre, and at a distance, surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blanc, and the assemblage of snowy mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her sometimes coasting the opposite banks, we saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark side to the ambition that would quit its native country, and an almost insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to enslave it. I took the hand of Elizabeth. 'You are sorrowful, my love. Ah! If you knew what I have suffered and what I may yet endure, you would endeavour to let me taste the quiet and freedom from despair that this one day at least permits me to enjoy. 'Be happy, my dear Victor, replied Elizabeth 'there is, I hope, nothing to distress you and be assured that if a lively joy is not painted in my face, my heart is contented. Something whispers to me not to depend too much on the prospect that is opened before us, but I will not listen to such a sinister voice. Observe how fast we move along and how the clouds, which sometimes obscure and sometimes rise above the dome of Mont Blanc, render this scene of beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in the clear waters, where we can distinguish every pebble that lies at the bottom. What a divine day! How happy and serene all nature appears! Thus Elizabeth endeavoured to divert her thoughts and mine from all reflection upon melancholy subjects. But her temper was fluctuating joy for a few instants shone in her eyes, but it continually gave place to distraction and reverie. The sun sank lower in the heavens we passed the river Drance and observed its path through the chasms of the higher and the glens of the lower hills. The Alps here come closer to the lake, and we approached the amphitheatre of mountains which forms its eastern boundary. The spire of Evian shone under the woods that surrounded it and the range of mountain above mountain by which it was overhung. The wind, which had hitherto carried us along with amazing rapidity, sank at sunset to a light breeze the soft air just ruffled the water and caused a pleasant motion among the trees as we approached the shore, from which it wafted the most delightful scent of flowers and hay. The sun sank beneath the horizon as we landed, and as I touched the shore I felt those cares and fears revive which soon were to clasp me and cling to me for ever. It was eight o'clock when we landed we walked for a short time on the shore, enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn and contemplated the lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured in darkness, yet still displaying their black outlines. The wind, which had fallen in the south, now rose with great violence in the west. The moon had reached her summit in the heavens and was beginning to descend the clouds swept across it swifter than the flight of the vulture and dimmed her rays, while the lake reflected the scene of the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the restless waves that were beginning to rise. Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended. I had been calm during the day, but so soon as night obscured the shapes of objects, a thousand fears arose in my mind. I was anxious and watchful, while my right hand grasped a pistol which was hidden in my bosom every sound terrified me, but I resolved that I would sell my life dearly and not shrink from the conflict until my own life or that of my adversary was extinguished. Elizabeth observed my agitation for some time in timid and fearful silence, but there was something in my glance which communicated terror to her, and trembling, she asked, 'What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it you fear? 'Oh! Peace, peace, my love, replied I 'this night, and all will be safe but this night is dreadful, very dreadful. I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how fearful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly entreated her to retire, resolving not to join her until I had obtained some knowledge as to the situation of my enemy. She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages of the house and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary. But I discovered no trace of him and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired. As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended I could feel the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This state lasted but for an instant the scream was repeated, and I rushed into the room. Great God! Why did I not then expire! Why am I here to relate the destruction of the best hope and the purest creature on earth? She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same figureher bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold this and live? Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose recollection I fell senseless on the ground. When I recovered I found myself surrounded by the people of the inn their countenances expressed a breathless terror, but the horror of others appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me. I escaped from them to the room where lay the body of Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy. She had been moved from the posture in which I had first beheld her, and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm and a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck, I might have supposed her asleep. I rushed towards her and embraced her with ardour, but the deadly languor and coldness of the limbs told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished. The murderous mark of the fiend's grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips. While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I happened to look up. The windows of the room had before been darkened, and I felt a kind of panic on seeing the pale yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber. The shutters had been thrown back, and with a sensation of horror not to be described, I saw at the open window a figure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of the monster he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards the window, and drawing a pistol from my bosom, fired but he eluded me, leaped from his station, and running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake. The report of the pistol brought a crowd into the room. I pointed to the spot where he had disappeared, and we followed the track with boats nets were cast, but in vain. After passing several hours, we returned hopeless, most of my companions believing it to have been a form conjured up by my fancy. After having landed, they proceeded to search the country, parties going in different directions among the woods and vines. I attempted to accompany them and proceeded a short distance from the house, but my head whirled round, my steps were like those of a drunken man, I fell at last in a state of utter exhaustion a film covered my eyes, and my skin was parched with the heat of fever. In this state I was carried back and placed on a bed, hardly conscious of what had happened my eyes wandered round the room as if to seek something that I had lost. After an interval I arose, and as if by instinct, crawled into the room where the corpse of my beloved lay. There were women weeping around I hung over it and joined my sad tears to theirs all this time no distinct idea presented itself to my mind, but my thoughts rambled to various subjects, reflecting confusedly on my misfortunes and their cause. I was bewildered, in a cloud of wonder and horror. The death of William, the execution of Justine, the murder of Clerval, and lastly of my wife even at that moment I knew not that my only remaining friends were safe from the malignity of the fiend my father even now might be writhing under his grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his feet. This idea made me shudder and recalled me to action. I started up and resolved to return to Geneva with all possible speed. There were no horses to be procured, and I must return by the lake but the wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in torrents. However, it was hardly morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I hired men to row and took an oar myself, for I had always experienced relief from mental torment in bodily exercise. But the overflowing misery I now felt, and the excess of agitation that I endured rendered me incapable of any exertion. I threw down the oar, and leaning my head upon my hands, gave way to every gloomy idea that arose. If I looked up, I saw scenes which were familiar to me in my happier time and which I had contemplated but the day before in the company of her who was now but a shadow and a recollection. Tears streamed from my eyes. The rain had ceased for a moment, and I saw the fish play in the waters as they had done a few hours before they had then been observed by Elizabeth. Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness no creature had ever been so miserable as I was so frightful an event is single in the history of man. But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed this last overwhelming event? Mine has been a tale of horrors I have reached their acme, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to you. Know that, one by one, my friends were snatched away I was left desolate. My own strength is exhausted, and I must tell, in a few words, what remains of my hideous narration. I arrived at Geneva. My father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under the tidings that I bore. I see him now, excellent and venerable old man! His eyes wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their delighthis Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of life, having few affections, clings more earnestly to those that remain. Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hairs and doomed him to waste in wretchedness! He could not live under the horrors that were accumulated around him the springs of existence suddenly gave way he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few days he died in my arms. What then became of me? I know not I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me. Sometimes, indeed, I dreamt that I wandered in flowery meadows and pleasant vales with the friends of my youth, but I awoke and found myself in a dungeon. Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation and was then released from my prison. For they had called me mad, and during many months, as I understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation. Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me, had I not, as I awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge. As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their causethe monster whom I had created, the miserable dmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruction. I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head. Nor did my hate long confine itself to useless wishes I began to reflect on the best means of securing him and for this purpose, about a month after my release, I repaired to a criminal judge in the town and told him that I had an accusation to make, that I knew the destroyer of my family, and that I required him to exert his whole authority for the apprehension of the murderer. The magistrate listened to me with attention and kindness. 'Be assured, sir, said he, 'no pains or exertions on my part shall be spared to discover the villain. 'I thank you, replied I 'listen, therefore, to the deposition that I have to make. It is indeed a tale so strange that I should fear you would not credit it were there not something in truth which, however wonderful, forces conviction. The story is too connected to be mistaken for a dream, and I have no motive for falsehood. My manner as I thus addressed him was impressive but calm I had formed in my own heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to death, and this purpose quieted my agony and for an interval reconciled me to life. I now related my history briefly but with firmness and precision, marking the dates with accuracy and never deviating into invective or exclamation. The magistrate appeared at first perfectly incredulous, but as I continued he became more attentive and interested I saw him sometimes shudder with horror at others a lively surprise, unmingled with disbelief, was painted on his countenance. When I had concluded my narration, I said, 'This is the being whom I accuse and for whose seizure and punishment I call upon you to exert your whole power. It is your duty as a magistrate, and I believe and hope that your feelings as a man will not revolt from the execution of those functions on this occasion. This address caused a considerable change in the physiognomy of my own auditor. He had heard my story with that half kind of belief that is given to a tale of spirits and supernatural events but when he was called upon to act officially in consequence, the whole tide of his incredulity returned. He, however, answered mildly, 'I would willingly afford you every aid in your pursuit, but the creature of whom you speak appears to have powers which would put all my exertions to defiance. Who can follow an animal which can traverse the sea of ice and inhabit caves and dens where no man would venture to intrude? Besides, some months have elapsed since the commission of his crimes, and no one can conjecture to what place he has wandered or what region he may now inhabit. 'I do not doubt that he hovers near the spot which I inhabit, and if he has indeed taken refuge in the Alps, he may be hunted like the chamois and destroyed as a beast of prey. But I perceive your thoughts you do not credit my narrative and do not intend to pursue my enemy with the punishment which is his desert. As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes the magistrate was intimidated. 'You are mistaken, said he. 'I will exert myself, and if it is in my power to seize the monster, be assured that he shall suffer punishment proportionate to his crimes. But I fear, from what you have yourself described to be his properties, that this will prove impracticable and thus, while every proper measure is pursued, you should make up your mind to disappointment. 'That cannot be but all that I can say will be of little avail. My revenge is of no moment to you yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul. My rage is unspeakable when I reflect that the murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still exists. You refuse my just demand I have but one resource, and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction. I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this there was a frenzy in my manner, and something, I doubt not, of that haughty fierceness which the martyrs of old are said to have possessed. But to a Genevan magistrate, whose mind was occupied by far other ideas than those of devotion and heroism, this elevation of mind had much the appearance of madness. He endeavoured to soothe me as a nurse does a child and reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium. 'Man, I cried, 'how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease you know not what it is you say. I broke from the house angry and disturbed and retired to meditate on some other mode of action. My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure it moulded my feelings and allowed me to be calculating and calm at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion. My first resolution was to quit Geneva for ever my country, which, when I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few jewels which had belonged to my mother, and departed. And now my wanderings began which are to cease but with life. I have traversed a vast portion of the earth and have endured all the hardships which travellers in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet. How I have lived I hardly know many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain and prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive I dared not die and leave my adversary in being. When I quitted Geneva my first labour was to gain some clue by which I might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy. But my plan was unsettled, and I wandered many hours round the confines of the town, uncertain what path I should pursue. As night approached I found myself at the entrance of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father reposed. I entered it and approached the tomb which marked their graves. Everything was silent except the leaves of the trees, which were gently agitated by the wind the night was nearly dark, and the scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested observer. The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to cast a shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the head of the mourner. The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived their murderer also lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt on the grass and kissed the earth and with quivering lips exclaimed, 'By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the dmon who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my life to execute this dear revenge will I again behold the sun and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony let him feel the despair that now torments me. I had begun my adjuration with solemnity and an awe which almost assured me that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my devotion, but the furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked my utterance. I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish laugh. It rang on my ears long and heavily the mountains reechoed it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter. Surely in that moment I should have been possessed by frenzy and have destroyed my miserable existence but that my vow was heard and that I was reserved for vengeance. The laughter died away, when a wellknown and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an audible whisper, 'I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have determined to live, and I am satisfied. I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded, but the devil eluded my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose and shone full upon his ghastly and distorted shape as he fled with more than mortal speed. I pursued him, and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly. The blue Mediterranean appeared, and by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took my passage in the same ship, but he escaped, I know not how. Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die, left some mark to guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step on the white plain. To you first entering on life, to whom care is new and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have felt and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue were the least pains which I was destined to endure I was cursed by some devil and carried about with me my eternal hell yet still a spirit of good followed and directed my steps and when I most murmured would suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sank under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that restored and inspirited me. The fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate, but I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few drops that revived me, and vanish. I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers but the dmon generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom seen, and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my path. I had money with me and gained the friendship of the villagers by distributing it or I brought with me some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had provided me with fire and utensils for cooking. My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep! Often, when most miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture. The spirits that guarded me had provided these moments, or rather hours, of happiness that I might retain strength to fulfil my pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite, I should have sunk under my hardships. During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night, for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country again I saw the benevolent countenance of my father, heard the silver tones of my Elizabeth's voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and youth. Often, when wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should come and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for them! How did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking hours, and persuade myself that they still lived! At such moments vengeance, that burned within me, died in my heart, and I pursued my path towards the destruction of the dmon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul. What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know. Sometimes, indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in stone that guided me and instigated my fury. 'My reign is not yet overthese words were legible in one of these inscriptions'you live, and my power is complete. Follow me I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy we have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable hours must you endure until that period shall arrive. Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search until he or I perish and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even now prepare for me the reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage! As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened and the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize the animals whom starvation had forced from their hidingplaces to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish could be procured and thus I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance. The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of my labours. One inscription that he left was in these words 'Prepare! Your toils only begin wrap yourself in furs and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred. My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words I resolved not to fail in my purpose, and calling on Heaven to support me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts, until the ocean appeared at a distance and formed the utmost boundary of the horizon. Oh! How unlike it was to the blue seasons of the south! Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from land by its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for joy when they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep, but I knelt down and with a full heart thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary's gibe, to meet and grapple with him. Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs and thus traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know not whether the fiend possessed the same advantages, but I found that, as before I had daily lost ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him, so much so that when I first saw the ocean he was but one day's journey in advance, and I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the beach. With new courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days arrived at a wretched hamlet on the seashore. I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the fiend and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols, putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage through fear of his terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter food, and placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy of the horrorstruck villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land and they conjectured that he must speedily be destroyed by the breaking of the ice or frozen by the eternal frosts. On hearing this information I suffered a temporary access of despair. He had escaped me, and I must commence a destructive and almost endless journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean, amidst cold that few of the inhabitants could long endure and which I, the native of a genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. Yet at the idea that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance returned, and like a mighty tide, overwhelmed every other feeling. After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered round and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey. I exchanged my landsledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the Frozen Ocean, and purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I departed from land. I cannot guess how many days have passed since then, but I have endured misery which nothing but the eternal sentiment of a just retribution burning within my heart could have enabled me to support. Immense and rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage, and I often heard the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my destruction. But again the frost came and made the paths of the sea secure. By the quantity of provision which I had consumed, I should guess that I had passed three weeks in this journey and the continual protraction of hope, returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of despondency and grief from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost secured her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery. Once, after the poor animals that conveyed me had with incredible toil gained the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one, sinking under his fatigue, died, I viewed the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of a wellknown form within. Oh! With what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart! Warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, that they might not intercept the view I had of the dmon but still my sight was dimmed by the burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that oppressed me, I wept aloud. But this was not the time for delay I disencumbered the dogs of their dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food, and after an hour's rest, which was absolutely necessary, and yet which was bitterly irksome to me, I continued my route. The sledge was still visible, nor did I again lose sight of it except at the moments when for a short time some icerock concealed it with its intervening crags. I indeed perceptibly gained on it, and when, after nearly two days' journey, I beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within me. But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my foe, my hopes were suddenly extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I had ever done before. A ground sea was heard the thunder of its progress, as the waters rolled and swelled beneath me, became every moment more ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind arose the sea roared and, as with the mighty shock of an earthquake, it split and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a hideous death. In this manner many appalling hours passed several of my dogs died, and I myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress when I saw your vessel riding at anchor and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life. I had no conception that vessels ever came so far north and was astounded at the sight. I quickly destroyed part of my sledge to construct oars, and by these means was enabled, with infinite fatigue, to move my ice raft in the direction of your ship. I had determined, if you were going southwards, still to trust myself to the mercy of the seas rather than abandon my purpose. I hoped to induce you to grant me a boat with which I could pursue my enemy. But your direction was northwards. You took me on board when my vigour was exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my multiplied hardships into a death which I still dread, for my task is unfulfilled. Oh! When will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the dmon, allow me the rest I so much desire or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in his death. And do I dare to ask of you to undertake my pilgrimage, to endure the hardships that I have undergone? No I am not so selfish. Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear, if the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not liveswear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes. He is eloquent and persuasive, and once his words had even power over my heart but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice. Hear him not call on the names of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and thrust your sword into his heart. I will hover near and direct the steel aright. Walton, in continuation. August th, . You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles mine? Sometimes, seized with sudden agony, he could not continue his tale at others, his voice broken, yet piercing, uttered with difficulty the words so replete with anguish. His fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow and quenched in infinite wretchedness. Sometimes he commanded his countenance and tones and related the most horrible incidents with a tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation then, like a volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression of the wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor. His tale is connected and told with an appearance of the simplest truth, yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he showed me, and the apparition of the monster seen from our ship, brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of his narrative than his asseverations, however earnest and connected. Such a monster has, then, really existence! I cannot doubt it, yet I am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature's formation, but on this point he was impenetrable. 'Are you mad, my friend? said he. 'Or whither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, peace! Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own. Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history he asked to see them and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places, but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy. 'Since you have preserved my narration, said he, 'I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity. Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale and his own elevated and gentle manners have created. I wish to soothe him, yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of every hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no! The only joy that he can now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth. Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes. On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, without tears. What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall. 'When younger, said he, 'I believed myself destined for some great enterprise. My feelings are profound, but I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others would have been oppressed, for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. But this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application were intense by the union of these qualities I conceived the idea and executed the creation of a man. Even now I cannot recollect without passion my reveries while the work was incomplete. I trod heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea of their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition but how am I sunk! Oh! My friend, if you had known me as I once was, you would not recognise me in this state of degradation. Despondency rarely visited my heart a high destiny seemed to bear me on, until I fell, never, never again to rise. Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a friend I have sought one who would sympathise with and love me. Behold, on these desert seas I have found such a one, but I fear I have gained him only to know his value and lose him. I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea. 'I thank you, Walton, he said, 'for your kind intentions towards so miserable a wretch but when you speak of new ties and fresh affections, think you that any can replace those who are gone? Can any man be to me as Clerval was, or any woman another Elizabeth? Even where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence, the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain. They know our infantine dispositions, which, however they may be afterwards modified, are never eradicated and they can judge of our actions with more certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives. A sister or a brother can never, unless indeed such symptoms have been shown early, suspect the other of fraud or false dealing, when another friend, however strongly he may be attached, may, in spite of himself, be contemplated with suspicion. But I enjoyed friends, dear not only through habit and association, but from their own merits and wherever I am, the soothing voice of my Elizabeth and the conversation of Clerval will be ever whispered in my ear. They are dead, and but one feeling in such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life. If I were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught with extensive utility to my fellow creatures, then could I live to fulfil it. But such is not my destiny I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I gave existence then my lot on earth will be fulfilled and I may die. My beloved Sister, September d. I write to you, encompassed by peril and ignorant whether I am ever doomed to see again dear England and the dearer friends that inhabit it. I am surrounded by mountains of ice which admit of no escape and threaten every moment to crush my vessel. The brave fellows whom I have persuaded to be my companions look towards me for aid, but I have none to bestow. There is something terribly appalling in our situation, yet my courage and hopes do not desert me. Yet it is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered through me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause. And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You will not hear of my destruction, and you will anxiously await my return. Years will pass, and you will have visitings of despair and yet be tortured by hope. Oh! My beloved sister, the sickening failing of your heartfelt expectations is, in prospect, more terrible to me than my own death. But you have a husband and lovely children you may be happy. Heaven bless you and make you so! My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion. He endeavours to fill me with hope and talks as if life were a possession which he valued. He reminds me how often the same accidents have happened to other navigators who have attempted this sea, and in spite of myself, he fills me with cheerful auguries. Even the sailors feel the power of his eloquence when he speaks, they no longer despair he rouses their energies, and while they hear his voice they believe these vast mountains of ice are molehills which will vanish before the resolutions of man. These feelings are transitory each day of expectation delayed fills them with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny caused by this despair. September th. A scene has just passed of such uncommon interest that, although it is highly probable that these papers may never reach you, yet I cannot forbear recording it. We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in imminent danger of being crushed in their conflict. The cold is excessive, and many of my unfortunate comrades have already found a grave amidst this scene of desolation. Frankenstein has daily declined in health a feverish fire still glimmers in his eyes, but he is exhausted, and when suddenly roused to any exertion, he speedily sinks again into apparent lifelessness. I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny. This morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friendhis eyes half closed and his limbs hanging listlesslyI was roused by half a dozen of the sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin. They entered, and their leader addressed me. He told me that he and his companions had been chosen by the other sailors to come in deputation to me to make me a requisition which, in justice, I could not refuse. We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards. This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered, when Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly to have force enough to attend, now roused himself his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, he said, 'What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? 'And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe. He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different feelings expressed in his speech, with an eye so full of lofty design and heroism, that can you wonder that these men were moved? They looked at one another and were unable to reply. I spoke I told them to retire and consider of what had been said, that I would not lead them farther north if they strenuously desired the contrary, but that I hoped that, with reflection, their courage would return. They retired and I turned towards my friend, but he was sunk in languor and almost deprived of life. How all this will terminate, I know not, but I had rather die than return shamefully, my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear such will be my fate the men, unsupported by ideas of glory and honour, can never willingly continue to endure their present hardships. September th. The die is cast I have consented to return if we are not destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice with patience. September th. It is past I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and glory I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister and while I am wafted towards England and towards you, I will not despond. September th, the ice began to move, and roarings like thunder were heard at a distance as the islands split and cracked in every direction. We were in the most imminent peril, but as we could only remain passive, my chief attention was occupied by my unfortunate guest whose illness increased in such a degree that he was entirely confined to his bed. The ice cracked behind us and was driven with force towards the north a breeze sprang from the west, and on the th the passage towards the south became perfectly free. When the sailors saw this and that their return to their native country was apparently assured, a shout of tumultuous joy broke from them, loud and longcontinued. Frankenstein, who was dozing, awoke and asked the cause of the tumult. 'They shout, I said, 'because they will soon return to England. 'Do you, then, really return? 'Alas! Yes I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead them unwillingly to danger, and I must return. 'Do so, if you will but I will not. You may give up your purpose, but mine is assigned to me by Heaven, and I dare not. I am weak, but surely the spirits who assist my vengeance will endow me with sufficient strength. Saying this, he endeavoured to spring from the bed, but the exertion was too great for him he fell back and fainted. It was long before he was restored, and I often thought that life was entirely extinct. At length he opened his eyes he breathed with difficulty and was unable to speak. The surgeon gave him a composing draught and ordered us to leave him undisturbed. In the meantime he told me that my friend had certainly not many hours to live. His sentence was pronounced, and I could only grieve and be patient. I sat by his bed, watching him his eyes were closed, and I thought he slept but presently he called to me in a feeble voice, and bidding me come near, said, 'Alas! The strength I relied on is gone I feel that I shall soon die, and he, my enemy and persecutor, may still be in being. Think not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I feel that burning hatred and ardent desire of revenge I once expressed but I feel myself justified in desiring the death of my adversary. During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct nor do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and wellbeing. This was my duty, but there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil he destroyed my friends he devoted to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself that he may render no other wretched, he ought to die. The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to undertake my unfinished work, and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue. 'Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends to fulfil this task and now that you are returning to England, you will have little chance of meeting with him. But the consideration of these points, and the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties, I leave to you my judgment and ideas are already disturbed by the near approach of death. I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I may still be misled by passion. 'That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me in other respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the only happy one which I have enjoyed for several years. The forms of the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed. His voice became fainter as he spoke, and at length, exhausted by his effort, he sank into silence. About half an hour afterwards he attempted again to speak but was unable he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed for ever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away from his lips. Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this glorious spirit? What can I say that will enable you to understand the depth of my sorrow? All that I should express would be inadequate and feeble. My tears flow my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of disappointment. But I journey towards England, and I may there find consolation. I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight the breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again there is a sound as of a human voice, but hoarser it comes from the cabin where the remains of Frankenstein still lie. I must arise and examine. Good night, my sister. Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy with the remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power to detail it yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete without this final and wonderful catastrophe. I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my illfated and admirable friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describegigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair but one vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy. When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror and sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily and endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer. I called on him to stay. He paused, looking on me with wonder, and again turning towards the lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence, and every feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some uncontrollable passion. 'That is also my victim! he exclaimed. 'In his murder my crimes are consummated the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and selfdevoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer me. His voice seemed suffocated, and my first impulses, which had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend in destroying his enemy, were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion. I approached this tremendous being I dared not again raise my eyes to his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness. I attempted to speak, but the words died away on my lips. The monster continued to utter wild and incoherent selfreproaches. At length I gathered resolution to address him in a pause of the tempest of his passion. 'Your repentance, I said, 'is now superfluous. If you had listened to the voice of conscience and heeded the stings of remorse before you had urged your diabolical vengeance to this extremity, Frankenstein would yet have lived. 'And do you dream? said the dmon. 'Do you think that I was then dead to agony and remorse? He, he continued, pointing to the corpse, 'he suffered not in the consummation of the deed. Oh! Not the tenthousandth portion of the anguish that was mine during the lingering detail of its execution. A frightful selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine. 'After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland, heartbroken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein my pity amounted to horror I abhorred myself. But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness, that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which I was for ever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey. Yet when she died! Nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended there is my last victim! I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery yet, when I called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was rekindled within me. 'Wretch! I said. 'It is well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you feel you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn from your power. 'Oh, it is not thusnot thus, interrupted the being. 'Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation I am alone. 'You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice. 'But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more. 'Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man's death is needed to consummate the series of my being and accomplish that which must be done, but it requires my own. Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice raft which brought me thither and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will pass away and in this condition must I find my happiness. Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death? 'Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so thou didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause greater wretchedness and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them for ever. 'But soon, he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, 'I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell. He sprang from the cabinwindow as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence and had lived nearly twentyone years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection. Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as a governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma. Between them it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but directed chiefly by her own. The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her. Sorrow camea gentle sorrowbut not at all in the shape of any disagreeable consciousness.Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor's loss which first brought grief. It was on the weddingday of this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance. The wedding over, and the bridepeople gone, her father and herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost. The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners and there was some satisfaction in considering with what selfdenying, generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match but it was a black morning's work for her. The want of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her past kindnessthe kindness, the affection of sixteen yearshow she had taught and how she had played with her from five years oldhow she had devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in healthand how nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of gratitude was owing here but the intercourse of the last seven years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed Isabella's marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such as few possessed intelligent, wellinformed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of hersone to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. How was she to bear the change?It was true that her friend was going only half a mile from them but Emma was aware that great must be the difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss Taylor in the house and with all her advantages, natural and domestic, she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not meet her in conversation, rational or playful. The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time. Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily reach and many a long October and November evening must be struggled through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house, and give her pleasant society again. Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town, to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even half a day. It was a melancholy change and Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner, 'Poor Miss Taylor!I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her! 'I cannot agree with you, papa you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a goodhumoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wifeand you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own? 'A house of her own!But where is the advantage of a house of her own? This is three times as large.And you have never any odd humours, my dear. 'How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!We shall be always meeting! We must begin we must go and pay wedding visit very soon. 'My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so far. 'No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure. 'The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little wayand where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit? 'They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there. I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing, papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you mentioned herJames is so obliged to you! 'I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account and I am sure she will make a very good servant she is a civil, prettyspoken girl I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner and when you have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an excellent servant and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will be able to tell her how we all are. Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The backgammontable was placed but a visitor immediately afterwards walked in and made it unnecessary. Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eightandthirty, was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella's husband. He lived about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome, and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after some days' absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which always did him good and his many inquiries after 'poor Isabella and her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr. Woodhouse gratefully observed, 'It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley, to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have had a shocking walk. 'Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night and so mild that I must draw back from your great fire. 'But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not catch cold. 'Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them. 'Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding. 'By the byeI have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my congratulations but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you all behave? Who cried most? 'Ah! poor Miss Taylor! 'Tis a sad business. 'Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please but I cannot possibly say 'poor Miss Taylor.' I have a great regard for you and Emma but when it comes to the question of dependence or independence!At any rate, it must be better to have only one to please than two. 'Especially when one of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome creature! said Emma playfully. 'That is what you have in your head, I knowand what you would certainly say if my father were not by. 'I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed, said Mr. Woodhouse, with a sigh. 'I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome. 'My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean you, or suppose Mr. Knightley to mean you. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you knowin a jokeit is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another. Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them and though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by every body. 'Emma knows I never flatter her, said Mr. Knightley, 'but I meant no reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons to please she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be a gainer. 'Well, said Emma, willing to let it pass'you want to hear about the wedding and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks not a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no we all felt that we were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every day. 'Dear Emma bears every thing so well, said her father. 'But, Mr. Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am sure she will miss her more than she thinks for. Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. 'It is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion, said Mr. Knightley. 'We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could suppose it but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor's advantage she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor's time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor must be glad to have her so happily married. 'And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me, said Emma, 'and a very considerable onethat I made the match myself. I made the match, you know, four years ago and to have it take place, and be proved in the right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may comfort me for any thing. Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, 'Ah! my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more matches. 'I promise you to make none for myself, papa but I must, indeed, for other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such success, you know!Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied either in his business in town or among his friends here, always acceptable wherever he went, always cheerfulMr. Weston need not spend a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr. Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the subject, but I believed none of it. 'Ever since the dayabout four years agothat Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from Farmer Mitchell's, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match from that hour and when such success has blessed me in this instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off matchmaking. 'I do not understand what you mean by 'success,' said Mr. Knightley. 'Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady's mind! But if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, 'I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry her,' and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You made a lucky guess and that is all that can be said. 'And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?I pity you.I thought you clevererfor, depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my poor word 'success,' which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures but I think there may be a thirda something between the donothing and the doall. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston's visits here, and given many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield enough to comprehend that. 'A straightforward, openhearted man like Weston, and a rational, unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them, by interference. 'Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others, rejoined Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. 'But, my dear, pray do not make any more matches they are silly things, and break up one's family circle grievously. 'Only one more, papa only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr. Elton, papa,I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in Highbury who deserves himand he has been here a whole year, and has fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have him single any longerand I thought when he was joining their hands today, he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way I have of doing him a service. 'Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good young man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to meet him. 'With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time, said Mr. Knightley, laughing, 'and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a man of six or sevenandtwenty can take care of himself. Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family, which for the last two or three generations had been rising into gentility and property. He had received a good education, but, on succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged, and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering into the militia of his county, then embodied. Captain Weston was a general favourite and when the chances of his military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized, except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend. Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her fortunethough her fortune bore no proportion to the familyestatewas not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had a husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every thing due to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best. She had resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother, but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother's unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home. They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison of Enscombe she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe. Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills, as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of the bargain for when his wife died, after a three years' marriage, he was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his mother's, been the means of a sort of reconciliation and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance the widowerfather may be supposed to have felt but as they were overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could. A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury, where most of his leisure days were spent and between useful occupation and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy competenceenough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed forenough to marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of his own friendly and social disposition. It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his schemes but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth, it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained his wife and was beginning a new period of existence, with every probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had never been an unhappy man his own temper had secured him from that, even in his first marriage but his second must shew him how delightful a welljudging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it. He had only himself to please in his choice his fortune was his own for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his uncle's heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore, that he should ever want his father's assistance. His father had no apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her husband entirely but it was not in Mr. Weston's nature to imagine that any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and was proud of him and his fond report of him as a very fine young man had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a kind of common concern. Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit his father had been often talked of but never achieved. Now, upon his father's marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them and the hope strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received. 'I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter, indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life. It was, indeed, a highly prized letter. Mrs. Weston had, of course, formed a very favourable idea of the young man and such a pleasing attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most fortunate woman and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and who could ill bear to part with her. She knew that at times she must be missed and could not think, without pain, of Emma's losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour's ennui, from the want of her companionableness but dear Emma was of no feeble character she was more equal to her situation than most girls would have been, and had sense, and energy, and spirits that might be hoped would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and privations. And then there was such comfort in the very easy distance of Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking, and in Mr. Weston's disposition and circumstances, which would make the approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in the week together. Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs. Weston, and of moments only of regret and her satisfactionher more than satisfactionher cheerful enjoyment, was so just and so apparent, that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprize at his being still able to pity 'poor Miss Taylor,' when they left her at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort, or saw her go away in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her own. But never did she go without Mr. Woodhouse's giving a gentle sigh, and saying, 'Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay. There was no recovering Miss Taylornor much likelihood of ceasing to pity her but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr. Woodhouse. The compliments of his neighbours were over he was no longer teased by being wished joy of so sorrowful an event and the weddingcake, which had been a great distress to him, was all eat up. His own stomach could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit for any body and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them from having any weddingcake at all, and when that proved vain, as earnestly tried to prevent any body's eating it. He had been at the pains of consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr. Perry was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse's life and upon being applied to, he could not but acknowledge (though it seemed rather against the bias of inclination) that weddingcake might certainly disagree with manyperhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence every visitor of the newly married pair but still the cake was eaten and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone. There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's weddingcake in their hands but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it. Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to have his friends come and see him and from various united causes, from his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune, his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much intercourse with any families beyond that circle his horror of late hours, and large dinnerparties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury, including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not unfrequently, through Emma's persuasion, he had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him but evening parties were what he preferred and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a cardtable for him. Real, longstanding regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley and by Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse's drawingroom, and the smiles of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away. After these came a second set among the most comeatable of whom were Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it would have been a grievance. Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without goodwill. It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body, was interested in every body's happiness, quicksighted to every body's merits thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse, full of trivial communications and harmless gossip. Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a Schoolnot of a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systemsand where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanitybut a real, honest, oldfashioned Boardingschool, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's school was in high reputeand very deservedly for Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot she had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a teavisit and having formerly owed much to Mr. Woodhouse's kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung round with fancywork, whenever she could, and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside. These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to collect and happy was she, for her father's sake, in the power though, as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated. As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her a most welcome request for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion. Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlourboarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her. She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance. She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's conversation, but she found her altogether very engagingnot inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talkand yet so far from pushing, shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement. Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwellvery creditably, she believedshe knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of thembut they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect. She would notice her she would improve her she would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good society she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers. She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and listening, and forming all these schemes in the inbetweens, that the evening flew away at a very unusual rate and the suppertable, which always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every thing well and attentively, with the real goodwill of a mind delighted with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil scruples of their guests. Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse's feelings were in sad warfare. He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him rather sorry to see any thing put on it and while his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat. Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, with thorough selfapprobation, recommend though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to say 'Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you seeone of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tarta very little bit. Ours are all appletarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine? A small halfglass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you. Emma allowed her father to talkbut supplied her visitors in a much more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much panic as pleasure but the humble, grateful little girl went off with highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands with her at last! Harriet Smith's intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and telling her to come very often and as their acquaintance increased, so did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect Mrs. Weston's loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long walk, or his short, as the year varied and since Mrs. Weston's marriage her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to Randalls, but it was not pleasant and a Harriet Smith, therefore, one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs. Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only desiring to be guided by any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself was very amiable and her inclination for good company, and power of appreciating what was elegant and clever, shewed that there was no want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected. Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith's being exactly the young friend she wantedexactly the something which her home required. Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there was nothing to be done for Harriet every thing. Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell every thing in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma was obliged to fancy what she likedbut she could never believe that in the same situation she should not have discovered the truth. Harriet had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her and looked no farther. Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls and the affairs of the school in general, formed naturally a great part of the conversationand but for her acquaintance with the Martins of AbbeyMill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied her thoughts a good deal she had spent two very happy months with them, and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her talkativenessamused by such a picture of another set of beings, and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much exultation of Mrs. Martin's having 'two parlours, two very good parlours, indeed one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard's drawingroom and of her having an upper maid who had lived fiveandtwenty years with her and of their having eight cows, two of them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a very pretty little Welch cow indeed and of Mrs. Martin's saying as she was so fond of it, it should be called her cow and of their having a very handsome summerhouse in their garden, where some day next year they were all to drink teaa very handsome summerhouse, large enough to hold a dozen people. For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate cause but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and daughter, a son and son's wife, who all lived together but when it appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was always mentioned with approbation for his great goodnature in doing something or other, was a single man that there was no young Mrs. Martin, no wife in the case she did suspect danger to her poor little friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever. With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and meaning and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin, and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening games and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very goodhumoured and obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd's son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted him to marry. She was in no hurry at all. 'Well done, Mrs. Martin! thought Emma. 'You know what you are about. 'And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goosethe finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with her. 'Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business? He does not read? 'Oh yes!that is, noI do not knowbut I believe he has read a good dealbut not what you would think any thing of. He reads the Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window seatsbut he reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can. The next question was 'What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin? 'Oh! not handsomenot at all handsome. I thought him very plain at first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know, after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston. He has passed you very often. 'That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as much above my notice as in every other he is below it. 'To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him but he knows you very well indeedI mean by sight. 'I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know, indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine his age to be? 'He was fourandtwenty the th of last June, and my birthday is the rd just a fortnight and a day's differencewhich is very odd. 'Only fourandtwenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very desirable. 'Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old! 'Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely to makecannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing yet. 'To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no indoors man, else they do not want for any thing and Mrs. Martin talks of taking a boy another year. 'I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does marryI mean, as to being acquainted with his wifefor though his sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a gentleman's daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who would take pleasure in degrading you. 'Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield, and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any body can do. 'You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet but I would have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd acquaintance as may be and, therefore, I say that if you should still be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmer's daughter, without education. 'To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body but what had had some educationand been very well brought up. However, I do not mean to set up my opinion against yoursand I am sure I shall not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not visit her, if I can help it. Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious difficulty, on Harriet's side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her own. They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey and walking a few yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no other advantage and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen, she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet's inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner she had voluntarily noticed her father's gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr. Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was. They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be kept waiting and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face, and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to compose. 'Only think of our happening to meet him!How very odd! It was quite a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet. He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it, but he goes again tomorrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well, Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him? Do you think him so very plain? 'He is very plain, undoubtedlyremarkably plainbut that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not expect much but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility. 'To be sure, said Harriet, in a mortified voice, 'he is not so genteel as real gentlemen. 'I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been repeatedly in the company of some such very real gentlemen, that you must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield, you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I should be surprized if, after seeing them, you could be in company with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior creatureand rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly unmodulated as I stood here. 'Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man! 'Mr. Knightley's air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to compare Mr. Martin with him. You might not see one in a hundred with gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of them. Compare their manner of carrying themselves of walking of speaking of being silent. You must see the difference. 'Oh yes!there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty. 'Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt what will he be at Mr. Weston's time of life? 'There is no saying, indeed, replied Harriet rather solemnly. 'But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross, vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of nothing but profit and loss. 'Will he, indeed? That will be very bad. 'How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended. He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing elsewhich is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to do with books? And I have no doubt that he will thrive, and be a very rich man in timeand his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb us. 'I wonder he did not remember the bookwas all Harriet's answer, and spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her next beginning was, 'In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton's manners are superior to Mr. Knightley's or Mr. Weston's. They have more gentleness. They might be more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness, almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in him, because there is so much goodhumour with itbut that would not do to be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley's downright, decided, commanding sort of manner, though it suits him very well his figure, and look, and situation in life seem to allow it but if any young man were to set about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a model. Mr. Elton is goodhumoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle. He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us, Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day? She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr. Elton, and now did full justice to and Harriet blushed and smiled, and said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable. Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young farmer out of Harriet's head. She thought it would be an excellent match and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet's coming to Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater was her sense of its expediency. Mr. Elton's situation was most suitable, quite the gentleman himself, and without low connexions at the same time, not of any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet. He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient income for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known to have some independent property and she thought very highly of him as a goodhumoured, wellmeaning, respectable young man, without any deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world. She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was foundation enough on his side and on Harriet's there could be little doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very handsome his person much admired in general, though not by her, there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense withbut the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin's riding about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by Mr. Elton's admiration. 'I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston, said Mr. Knightley, 'of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I think it a bad thing. 'A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?why so? 'I think they will neither of them do the other any good. 'You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good and by supplying her with a new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently we feel!Not think they will do each other any good! This will certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr. Knightley. 'Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle. 'Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday, and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live alone, that you do not know the value of a companion and, perhaps no man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman which Emma's friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more herself. They will read together. She means it, I know. 'Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawingup at various times of books that she meant to read regularly throughand very good lists they werevery well chosen, and very neatly arrangedsometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteenI remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it some time and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing.You never could persuade her to read half so much as you wished.You know you could not. 'I dare say, replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, 'that I thought so thenbut since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting to do any thing I wished. 'There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as that,said Mr. Knightley, feelingly and for a moment or two he had done. 'But I, he soon added, 'who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her mother's talents, and must have been under subjection to her. 'I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on your recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse's family and wanted another situation I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held. 'Yes, said he, smiling. 'You are better placed here very fit for a wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to promise but you were receiving a very good education from her, on the very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing as you were bid and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I should certainly have named Miss Taylor. 'Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to such a man as Mr. Weston. 'Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of comfort, or his son may plague him. 'I hope not that.It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not foretell vexation from that quarter. 'Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.But Harriet SmithI have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing. She is a flatterer in all her ways and so much the worse, because undesigned. Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma's doctrines give any strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally to the varieties of her situation in life.They only give a little polish. 'I either depend more upon Emma's good sense than you do, or am more anxious for her present comfort for I cannot lament the acquaintance. How well she looked last night! 'Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very well I shall not attempt to deny Emma's being pretty. 'Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect beauty than Emma altogetherface and figure? 'I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial old friend. 'Such an eye!the true hazle eyeand so brilliant! regular features, open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health, and such a pretty height and size such a firm and upright figure! There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her glance. One hears sometimes of a child being 'the picture of health' now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of grownup health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she? 'I have not a fault to find with her person, he replied. 'I think her all you describe. I love to look at her and I will add this praise, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome she is, she appears to be little occupied with it her vanity lies another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm. 'And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not doing them any harm. With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend? No, no she has qualities which may be trusted she will never lead any one really wrong she will make no lasting blunder where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times. 'Very well I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella. John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection, and Isabella always thinks as he does except when he is not quite frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions with me. 'I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty (I consider myself, you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma's mother might have had) the liberty of hinting that I do not think any possible good can arise from Harriet Smith's intimacy being made a matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me but supposing any little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to give advice, that you cannot be surprized, Mr. Knightley, at this little remains of office. 'Not at all, cried he 'I am much obliged to you for it. It is very good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often found for it shall be attended to. 'Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about her sister. 'Be satisfied, said he, 'I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my illhumour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella does not seem more my sister has never excited a greater interest perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her! 'So do I, said Mrs. Weston gently, 'very much. 'She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of a return it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts to attach her and she goes so seldom from home. 'There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution at present, said Mrs. Weston, 'as can well be and while she is so happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which would be creating such difficulties on poor Mr. Woodhouse's account. I do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight to the state, I assure you. Part of her meaning was to conceal some favourite thoughts of her own and Mr. Weston's on the subject, as much as possible. There were wishes at Randalls respecting Emma's destiny, but it was not desirable to have them suspected and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon afterwards made to 'What does Weston think of the weather shall we have rain? convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about Hartfield. Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet's fancy a proper direction and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good purpose, for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr. Elton's being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating as much liking on Harriet's side, as there could be any occasion for. She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton's being in the fairest way of falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard to him. He talked of Harriet, and praised her so warmly, that she could not suppose any thing wanting which a little time would not add. His perception of the striking improvement of Harriet's manner, since her introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of his growing attachment. 'You have given Miss Smith all that she required, said he 'you have made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she came to you, but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are infinitely superior to what she received from nature. 'I am glad you think I have been useful to her but Harriet only wanted drawing out, and receiving a few, very few hints. She had all the natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have done very little. 'If it were admissible to contradict a lady, said the gallant Mr. Elton 'I have perhaps given her a little more decision of character, have taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before. 'Exactly so that is what principally strikes me. So much superadded decision of character! Skilful has been the hand! 'Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition more truly amiable. 'I have no doubt of it. And it was spoken with a sort of sighing animation, which had a vast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased another day with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers, to have Harriet's picture. 'Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet? said she 'did you ever sit for your picture? Harriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopt to say, with a very interesting navet, 'Oh! dear, no, never. No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed, 'What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself. You do not know it I dare say, but two or three years ago I had a great passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and was thought to have a tolerable eye in general. But from one cause or another, I gave it up in disgust. But really, I could almost venture, if Harriet would sit to me. It would be such a delight to have her picture! 'Let me entreat you, cried Mr. Elton 'it would indeed be a delight! Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your landscapes and flowers and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable figurepieces in her drawingroom, at Randalls? Yes, good man!thought Emmabut what has all that to do with taking likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don't pretend to be in raptures about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet's face. 'Well, if you give me such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do. Harriet's features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth which one ought to catch. 'Exactly soThe shape of the eye and the lines about the mouthI have not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it, it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession. 'But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit. She thinks so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering me? How completely it meant, 'why should my picture be drawn?' 'Oh! yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded. Harriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly, and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were displayed. Miniatures, halflengths, wholelengths, pencil, crayon, and watercolours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do every thing, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to. She played and sangand drew in almost every style but steadiness had always been wanting and in nothing had she approached the degree of excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved. There was merit in every drawingin the least finished, perhaps the most her style was spirited but had there been much less, or had there been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness pleases every body and Miss Woodhouse's performances must be capital. 'No great variety of faces for you, said Emma. 'I had only my own family to study from. There is my fatheranother of my fatherbut the idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only take him by stealth neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her. There is my sister and really quite her own little elegant figure!and the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my attempts at three of those four childrenthere they are, Henry and John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them drawn that I could not refuse but there is no making children of three or four years old stand still you know nor can it be very easy to take any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are coarser featured than any of mama's children ever were. Here is my sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That's very like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very good. Then here is my last,unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman in small size, wholelength'my last and my bestmy brother, Mr. John Knightley.This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not help being provoked for after all my pains, and when I had really made a very good likeness of it(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in thinking it very like)only too handsometoo flatteringbut that was a fault on the right sideafter all this, came poor dear Isabella's cold approbation of'Yes, it was a little likebut to be sure it did not do him justice. We had had a great deal of trouble in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of and altogether it was more than I could bear and so I never would finish it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every morning visitor in Brunswick Squareand, as I said, I did then forswear ever drawing any body again. But for Harriet's sake, or rather for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case at present, I will break my resolution now. Mr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was repeating, 'No husbands and wives in the case at present indeed, as you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives, with so interesting a consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the declaration must wait a little longer. She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be a wholelength in watercolours, like Mr. John Knightley's, and was destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station over the mantelpiece. The sitting began and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no doing any thing, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her and watching every touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze and gaze again without offence but was really obliged to put an end to it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her to employ him in reading. 'If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the irksomeness of Miss Smith's. Mr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace. She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look any thing less would certainly have been too little in a lover and he was ready at the smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress, and be charmed.There was no being displeased with such an encourager, for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his complaisance were unexceptionable. The sitting was altogether very satisfactory she was quite enough pleased with the first day's sketch to wish to go on. There was no want of likeness, she had been fortunate in the attitude, and as she meant to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling its destined place with credit to them botha standing memorial of the beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton's very promising attachment was likely to add. Harriet was to sit again the next day and Mr. Elton, just as he ought, entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again. 'By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the party. The same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction, took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the picture, which was rapid and happy. Every body who saw it was pleased, but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every criticism. 'Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she wanted,observed Mrs. Weston to himnot in the least suspecting that she was addressing a lover.'The expression of the eye is most correct, but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of her face that she has them not. 'Do you think so? replied he. 'I cannot agree with you. It appears to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know. 'You have made her too tall, Emma, said Mr. Knightley. Emma knew that she had, but would not own it and Mr. Elton warmly added, 'Oh no! certainly not too tall not in the least too tall. Consider, she is sitting downwhich naturally presents a differentwhich in short gives exactly the ideaand the proportions must be preserved, you know. Proportions, foreshortening.Oh no! it gives one exactly the idea of such a height as Miss Smith's. Exactly so indeed! 'It is very pretty, said Mr. Woodhouse. 'So prettily done! Just as your drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her shouldersand it makes one think she must catch cold. 'But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer a warm day in summer. Look at the tree. 'But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear. 'You, sir, may say any thing, cried Mr. Elton, 'but I must confess that I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing of Miss Smith out of doors and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other situation would have been much less in character. The navet of Miss Smith's mannersand altogetherOh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness. The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed and here were a few difficulties. It must be done directly it must be done in London the order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste could be depended on and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions, must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton, than it was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. 'Might he be trusted with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing it! he could ride to London at any time. It was impossible to say how much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand. 'He was too good!she could not endure the thought!she would not give him such a troublesome office for the world,brought on the desired repetition of entreaties and assurances,and a very few minutes settled the business. Mr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, chuse the frame, and give the directions and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of not being incommoded enough. 'What a precious deposit! said he with a tender sigh, as he received it. 'This man is almost too gallant to be in love, thought Emma. 'I should say so, but that I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet exactly it will be an 'Exactly so,' as he says himself but he does sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second. But it is his gratitude on Harriet's account. The very day of Mr. Elton's going to London produced a fresh occasion for Emma's services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield, as usual, soon after breakfast and, after a time, had gone home to return again to dinner she returned, and sooner than had been talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to Mrs. Goddard's, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away and on opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself and this letter was from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage. 'Who could have thought it? She was so surprized she did not know what to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage and a very good letter, at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very muchbut she did not knowand so, she was come as fast as she could to ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do. Emma was halfashamed of her friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful. 'Upon my word, she cried, 'the young man is determined not to lose any thing for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can. 'Will you read the letter? cried Harriet. 'Pray do. II'd rather you would. Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a gentleman the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety, even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood anxiously watching for her opinion, with a 'Well, well, and was at last forced to add, 'Is it a good letter? or is it too short? 'Yes, indeed, a very good letter, replied Emma rather slowly'so good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman no, certainly, it is too strong and concise not diffuse enough for a woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural talent forthinks strongly and clearlyand when he takes a pen in hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men. Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet (returning it,) than I had expected. 'Well, said the still waiting Harriet'wellandand what shall I do? 'What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this letter? 'Yes. 'But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of courseand speedily. 'Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me. 'Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be unequivocal no doubts or demurs and such expressions of gratitude and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will present themselves unbidden to your mind, I am persuaded. You need not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his disappointment. 'You think I ought to refuse him then, said Harriet, looking down. 'Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any doubt as to that? I thoughtbut I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel in doubt as to the purport of your answer. I had imagined you were consulting me only as to the wording of it. Harriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued 'You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect. 'No, I do not that is, I do not meanWhat shall I do? What would you advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do. 'I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do with it. This is a point which you must settle with your feelings. 'I had no notion that he liked me so very much, said Harriet, contemplating the letter. For a little while Emma persevered in her silence but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say, 'I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to 'Yes,' she ought to say 'No' directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself, to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence you. 'Oh! no, I am sure you are a great deal too kind tobut if you would just advise me what I had best doNo, no, I do not mean thatAs you say, one's mind ought to be quite made upOne should not be hesitatingIt is a very serious thing.It will be safer to say 'No,' perhaps.Do you think I had better say 'No?' 'Not for the world, said Emma, smiling graciously, 'would I advise you either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you prefer Mr. Martin to every other person if you think him the most agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you hesitate? You blush, Harriet.Does any body else occur to you at this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive yourself do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this moment whom are you thinking of? The symptoms were favourable.Instead of answering, Harriet turned away confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire and though the letter was still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard. Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At last, with some hesitation, Harriet said 'Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well as I can by myself and I have now quite determined, and really almost made up my mindto refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right? 'Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet you are doing just what you ought. While you were at all in suspense I kept my feelings to myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence but it would have been the loss of a friend to me. I could not have visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of AbbeyMill Farm. Now I am secure of you for ever. Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her forcibly. 'You could not have visited me! she cried, looking aghast. 'No, to be sure you could not but I never thought of that before. That would have been too dreadful!What an escape!Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing in the world. 'Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you but it must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society. I must have given you up. 'Dear me!How should I ever have borne it! It would have killed me never to come to Hartfield any more! 'Dear affectionate creature!You banished to AbbeyMill Farm!You confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must have a pretty good opinion of himself. 'I do not think he is conceited either, in general, said Harriet, her conscience opposing such censure 'at least, he is very good natured, and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard forbut that is quite a different thing fromand you know, though he may like me, it does not follow that I shouldand certainly I must confess that since my visiting here I have seen peopleand if one comes to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all, one is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr. Martin a very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him and his being so much attached to meand his writing such a letterbut as to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration. 'Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter. 'Oh noand it is but a short letter too. Emma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a 'very true and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that her husband could write a good letter. 'Oh! yes, very. Nobody cares for a letter the thing is, to be always happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But how shall I do? What shall I say? Emma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her assistance and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence. The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up with a few decisive expressions and she was so very much concerned at the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all. This letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening, but Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of Mr. Elton. 'I shall never be invited to AbbeyMill again, was said in rather a sorrowful tone. 'Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You are a great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to AbbeyMill. 'And I am sure I should never want to go there for I am never happy but at Hartfield. Some time afterwards it was, 'I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash wouldfor Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a linendraper. 'One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be among the tittletattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained themselves. Harriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly cheering but still, after a time, she was tenderhearted again towards the rejected Mr. Martin. 'Now he has got my letter, said she softly. 'I wonder what they are all doingwhether his sisters knowif he is unhappy, they will be unhappy too. I hope he will not mind it so very much. 'Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully employed, cried Emma. 'At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is shewing your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times, allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name. 'My picture!But he has left my picture in Bondstreet. 'Has he so!Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest Harriet, depend upon it the picture will not be in Bondstreet till just before he mounts his horse tomorrow. It is his companion all this evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family, it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy their imaginations all are! Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger. Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have a bedroom appropriated to herself and Emma judged it best in every respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or two to Mrs. Goddard's, but it was then to be settled that she should return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days. While she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat some time with Mr. Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his mind to walk out, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley, who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering by his short, decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and civil hesitations of the other. 'Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma's advice and go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony, Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people. 'My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me. 'I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my three turnsmy winter walk. 'You cannot do better, sir. 'I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you and, besides, you have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey. 'Thank you, sir, thank you I am going this moment myself and I think the sooner you go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the garden door for you. Mr. Woodhouse at last was off but Mr. Knightley, instead of being immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before. 'I cannot rate her beauty as you do, said he 'but she is a pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with but in good hands she will turn out a valuable woman. 'I am glad you think so and the good hands, I hope, may not be wanting. 'Come, said he, 'you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you that you have improved her. You have cured her of her schoolgirl's giggle she really does you credit. 'Thank you. I should be mortified indeed if I did not believe I had been of some use but it is not every body who will bestow praise where they may. You do not often overpower me with it. 'You are expecting her again, you say, this morning? 'Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she intended. 'Something has happened to delay her some visitors perhaps. 'Highbury gossips!Tiresome wretches! 'Harriet may not consider every body tiresome that you would. Emma knew this was too true for contradiction, and therefore said nothing. He presently added, with a smile, 'I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of something to her advantage. 'Indeed! how so? of what sort? 'A very serious sort, I assure you still smiling. 'Very serious! I can think of but one thingWho is in love with her? Who makes you their confidant? Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton's having dropt a hint. Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr. Elton looked up to him. 'I have reason to think, he replied, 'that Harriet Smith will soon have an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarterRobert Martin is the man. Her visit to AbbeyMill, this summer, seems to have done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her. 'He is very obliging, said Emma 'but is he sure that Harriet means to marry him? 'Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe, considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early whether I thought her too young in short, whether I approved his choice altogether having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered (especially since your making so much of her) as in a line of society above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the purpose open, straightforward, and very well judging. He told me every thing his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me that he could afford it and that being the case, I was convinced he could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he would have thought highly of me then and, I dare say, left the house thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs. Goddard's today and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking him at all a tiresome wretch. 'Pray, Mr. Knightley, said Emma, who had been smiling to herself through a great part of this speech, 'how do you know that Mr. Martin did not speak yesterday? 'Certainly, replied he, surprized, 'I do not absolutely know it but it may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you? 'Come, said she, 'I will tell you something, in return for what you have told me. He did speak yesterdaythat is, he wrote, and was refused. This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed and Mr. Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure, as he stood up, in tall indignation, and said, 'Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the foolish girl about? 'Oh! to be sure, cried Emma, 'it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her. 'Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is so but I hope you are mistaken. 'I saw her answer!nothing could be clearer. 'You saw her answer!you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your doing. You persuaded her to refuse him. 'And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing) I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet's equal and am rather surprized indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever got over. 'Not Harriet's equal! exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly and with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, 'No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are Harriet Smith's claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlourboarder at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well. The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side and had not the smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cryout upon her extreme good luck. Even your satisfaction I made sure of. It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend's leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember saying to myself, 'Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will think this a good match.' 'I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend! Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are not just to Harriet's claims. They would be estimated very differently by others as well as myself Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.The sphere in which she moves is much above his.It would be a degradation. 'A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable, intelligent gentlemanfarmer! 'As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with whom she is brought up.There can scarcely be a doubt that her father is a gentlemanand a gentleman of fortune.Her allowance is very liberal nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or comfort.That she is a gentleman's daughter, is indubitable to me that she associates with gentlemen's daughters, no one, I apprehend, will deny.She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin. 'Whoever might be her parents, said Mr. Knightley, 'whoever may have had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs. Goddard's hands to shift as she canto move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard's line, to have Mrs. Goddard's acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought this good enough for her and it was good enough. She desired nothing better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had encouragement. It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this assertion she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject again. 'You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin but, as I said before, are unjust to Harriet. Harriet's claims to marry well are not so contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point, however, and supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and goodnatured, let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninetynine people out of an hundred and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the subject of beauty than they are generally supposed till they do fall in love with wellinformed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a claim to be nice. Her goodnature, too, is not so very slight a claim, comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims a woman could possess. 'Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do. 'To be sure! cried she playfully. 'I know that is the feeling of you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights inwhat at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at because she does not accept the first offer she receives? Nopray let her have time to look about her. 'I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy, said Mr. Knightley presently, 'though I have kept my thoughts to myself but I now perceive that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that, in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her. Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. Nothing so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurityand most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy for ever but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large fortune, she may be a parlourboarder at Mrs. Goddard's all the rest of her lifeor, at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry somebody or other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the old writingmaster's son. 'We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more angry. But as to my letting her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him, whatever it may be and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to say that I might not influence her a little but I assure you there was very little for me or for any body to do. His appearance is so much against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen any body superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her friends, and he took pains to please her and altogether, having seen nobody better (that must have been his great assistant) she might not, while she was at AbbeyMill, find him disagreeable. But the case is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are and nothing but a gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet. 'Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked! cried Mr. Knightley.'Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity, and goodhumour to recommend them and his mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could understand. Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She did not repent what she had done she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general, which made her dislike having it so loudly against her and to have him sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable. Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt on Emma's side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words. 'Robert Martin has no great lossif he can but think so and I hope it will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known to yourself but as you make no secret of your love of matchmaking, it is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you haveand as a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it will be all labour in vain. Emma laughed and disclaimed. He continued, 'Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man, and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is as well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet's. He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite wherever he goes and from his general way of talking in unreserved moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece. 'I am very much obliged to you, said Emma, laughing again. 'If I had set my heart on Mr. Elton's marrying Harriet, it would have been very kind to open my eyes but at present I only want to keep Harriet to myself. I have done with matchmaking indeed. I could never hope to equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well. 'Good morning to you,said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had given and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair, was provoking him exceedingly. Emma remained in a state of vexation too but there was more indistinctness in the causes of her's, than in his. She did not always feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that her opinions were right and her adversary's wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He walked off in more complete selfapprobation than he left for her. She was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet's staying away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the young man's coming to Mrs. Goddard's that morning, and meeting with Harriet and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread of such a failure after all became the prominent uneasiness and when Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr. Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman's friendship and woman's feelings would not justify. He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton but when she considered that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither with the interest, nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of Mr. Knightley's pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might have heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to money matters he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise to them but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr. Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its effects but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest and more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure did not belong to Mr. Elton. Harriet's cheerful look and manner established hers she came back, not to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard's to attend a sick child, and Miss Nash had seen him, and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was coming back yesterday from Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, and found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the whistclub night, which he had been never known to miss before and Mr. Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to persuade him to put off his journey only one day but it would not do Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a very particular way indeed, that he was going on business which he would not put off for any inducement in the world and something about a very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure there must be a lady in the case, and he told him so and Mr. Elton only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits. Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about Mr. Elton and said, looking so very significantly at her, 'that she did not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only knew that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the luckiest woman in the world for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his equal for beauty or agreeableness. Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before he came to Hartfield again and when they did meet, his grave looks shewed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent. On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days. The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr. Elton's return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common sittingroom, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences of admiration just as he ought and as for Harriet's feelings, they were visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied of Mr. Martin's being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter. Her views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal of useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few first chapters, and the intention of going on tomorrow. It was much easier to chat than to study much pleasanter to let her imagination range and work at Harriet's fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts and the only literary pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin quarto of hotpressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with ciphers and trophies. In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are not uncommon. Miss Nash, headteacher at Mrs. Goddard's, had written out at least three hundred and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse's help, to get a great many more. Emma assisted with her invention, memory and taste and as Harriet wrote a very pretty hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first order, in form as well as quantity. Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting in. 'So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was younghe wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time. And it always ended in 'Kitty, a fair but frozen maid. His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject, did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind but he had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much, something, he thought, might come from that quarter. It was by no means his daughter's wish that the intellects of Highbury in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect and she had the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the sex should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest puzzles and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and rather sentimentally recited, that wellknown charade, My first doth affliction denote, Which my second is destin'd to feel And my whole is the best antidote That affliction to soften and heal. made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some pages ago already. 'Why will not you write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton? said she 'that is the only security for its freshness and nothing could be easier to you. 'Oh no! he had never written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhousehe stopt a moment'or Miss Smith could inspire him. The very next day however produced some proof of inspiration. He called for a few moments, just to leave a piece of paper on the table containing, as he said, a charade, which a friend of his had addressed to a young lady, the object of his admiration, but which, from his manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own. 'I do not offer it for Miss Smith's collection, said he. 'Being my friend's, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye, but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it. The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found it easier to meet her eye than her friend's. He was gone the next momentafter another moment's pause, 'Take it, said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards Harriet'it is for you. Take your own. But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not touch it and Emma, never loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself. To Miss CHARADE. My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. Another view of man, my second brings, Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! But ah! united, what reverse we have! Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. Thy ready wit the word will soon supply, May its approval beam in that soft eye! She cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then passing it to Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and dulness, 'Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse charades. Courtshipa very good hint. I give you credit for it. This is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly'Pray, Miss Smith, give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my intentions in the same glance.' May its approval beam in that soft eye! Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eyeof all epithets, the justest that could be given. Thy ready wit the word will soon supply. HumphHarriet's ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the benefit of this I think this would convince you. For once in your life you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon now. She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations, which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the eagerness of Harriet's wondering questions. 'What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?what can it be? I have not an ideaI cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it kingdom? I wonder who the friend wasand who could be the young lady. Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman? And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. Can it be Neptune? Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no! shark is only one syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out? 'Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen. For Miss , read Miss Smith. My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. That is court. Another view of man, my second brings Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! That is shipplain as it can be.Now for the cream. But ah! united, (courtship, you know,) what reverse we have! Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown. Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. A very proper compliment!and then follows the application, which I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of its being written for you and to you. Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel. Emma spoke for her. 'There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment, said she, 'that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton's intentions. You are his objectand you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived but now, it is clear the state of his mind is as clear and decided, as my wishes on the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen that has happened. I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing but good. It will give you every thing that you wantconsideration, independence, a proper homeit will fix you in the centre of all your real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in either of us. 'Dear Miss Woodhouse!and 'Dear Miss Woodhouse, was all that Harriet, with many tender embraces could articulate at first but when they did arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she ought. Mr. Elton's superiority had very ample acknowledgment. 'Whatever you say is always right, cried Harriet, 'and therefore I suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so but otherwise I could not have imagined it. It is so much beyond any thing I deserve. Mr. Elton, who might marry any body! There cannot be two opinions about him. He is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses'To Miss .' Dear me, how clever!Could it really be meant for me? 'I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to the play, a motto to the chapter and will be soon followed by matteroffact prose. 'It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure, a month ago, I had no more idea myself!The strangest things do take place! 'When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquaintedthey do indeedand really it is strange it is out of the common course that what is so evidently, so palpably desirablewhat courts the prearrangement of other people, should so immediately shape itself into the proper form. You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together you belong to one another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow. The course of true love never did run smooth A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that passage. 'That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,me, of all people, who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to, quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that every body says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not chuse it that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so excellent in the Church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back to the first time I saw him! How little did I think!The two Abbots and I ran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look through herself however, she called me back presently, and let me look too, which was very goodnatured. And how beautiful we thought he looked! He was arminarm with Mr. Cole. 'This is an alliance which, whoeverwhatever your friends may be, must be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense and we are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they are anxious to see you happily married, here is a man whose amiable character gives every assurance of itif they wish to have you settled in the same country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will be accomplished and if their only object is that you should, in the common phrase, be well married, here is the comfortable fortune, the respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy them. 'Yes, very true. How nicely you talk I love to hear you. You understand every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This charade!If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made any thing like it. 'I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it yesterday. 'I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read. 'I never read one more to the purpose, certainly. 'It is as long again as almost all we have had before. 'I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things in general cannot be too short. Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory comparisons were rising in her mind. 'It is one thing, said she, presentlyher cheeks in a glow'to have very good sense in a common way, like every body else, and if there is any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you must, in a short way and another, to write verses and charades like this. Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin's prose. 'Such sweet lines! continued Harriet'these two last!But how shall I ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out?Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what can we do about that? 'Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I dare say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will pass between us, and you shall not be committed.Your soft eyes shall chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me. 'Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good. 'Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not write it into your book. 'Oh! but those two lines are 'The best of all. Grantedfor private enjoyment and for private enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know, because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its meaning change. But take it away, and all appropriation ceases, and a very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be no possible reflection on you. Harriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts, so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree of publicity. 'I shall never let that book go out of my own hands, said she. 'Very well, replied Emma 'a most natural feeling and the longer it lasts, the better I shall be pleased. But here is my father coming you will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him so much pleasure! He loves any thing of the sort, and especially any thing that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of gallantry towards us all!You must let me read it to him. Harriet looked grave. 'My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not have left the paper while I was by but he rather pushed it towards me than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over this charade. 'Oh! noI hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please. Mr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the recurrence of his very frequent inquiry of 'Well, my dears, how does your book go on?Have you got any thing fresh? 'Yes, papa we have something to read you, something quite fresh. A piece of paper was found on the table this morning(dropt, we suppose, by a fairy)containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied it in. She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every part as she proceededand he was very much pleased, and, as she had foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion. 'Aye, that's very just, indeed, that's very properly said. Very true. 'Woman, lovely woman.' It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I can easily guess what fairy brought it.Nobody could have written so prettily, but you, Emma. Emma only nodded, and smiled.After a little thinking, and a very tender sigh, he added, 'Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can remember nothingnot even that particular riddle which you have heard me mention I can only recollect the first stanza and there are several. Kitty, a fair but frozen maid, Kindled a flame I yet deplore, The hoodwink'd boy I called to aid, Though of his near approach afraid, So fatal to my suit before. And that is all that I can recollect of itbut it is very clever all the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it. 'Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick's, you know. 'Aye, very true.I wish I could recollect more of it. Kitty, a fair but frozen maid. The name makes me think of poor Isabella for she was very near being christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put herand what room there will be for the children? 'Oh! yesshe will have her own room, of course the room she always hasand there is the nursery for the children,just as usual, you know. Why should there be any change? 'I do not know, my dearbut it is so long since she was here!not since last Easter, and then only for a few days.Mr. John Knightley's being a lawyer is very inconvenient.Poor Isabella!she is sadly taken away from us all!and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see Miss Taylor here! 'She will not be surprized, papa, at least. 'I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I first heard she was going to be married. 'We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is here. 'Yes, my dear, if there is time.But(in a very depressed tone)she is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing. 'It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longerbut it seems a case of necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the th, and we ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to be taken out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this Christmasthough you know it is longer since they were with him, than with us. 'It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be anywhere but at Hartfield. Mr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley's claims on his brother, or any body's claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing a little while, and then said, 'But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well. 'Ah! papathat is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her husband. This was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse could only give a submissive sigh and as Emma saw his spirits affected by the idea of his daughter's attachment to her husband, she immediately led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them. 'Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children. We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she will think the handsomest, Henry or John? 'Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet. 'I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not. 'Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second, is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They are all remarkably clever and they have so many pretty ways. They will come and stand by my chair, and say, 'Grandpapa, can you give me a bit of string?' and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with them very often. 'He appears rough to you, said Emma, 'because you are so very gentle yourself but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy and if they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then but he is an affectionate fathercertainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate father. The children are all fond of him. 'And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a very frightful way! 'But they like it, papa there is nothing they like so much. It is such enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other. 'Well, I cannot understand it. 'That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate in preparation for the regular four o'clock dinner, the hero of this inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away but Emma could receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in his the consciousness of having made a pushof having thrown a die and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse's party could be made up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give way but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his dining with himhad made such a point of it, that he had promised him conditionally to come. Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend on their account her father was sure of his rubber. He reurgedshe redeclined and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the paper from the table, she returned it 'Oh! here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us thank you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured to write it into Miss Smith's collection. Your friend will not take it amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight lines. Mr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather doubtinglyrather confused said something about 'honour,glanced at Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an awkward moment, Emma smilingly said, 'You must make my apologies to your friend but so good a charade must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman's approbation while he writes with such gallantry. 'I have no hesitation in saying, replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating a good deal while he spoke 'I have no hesitation in sayingat least if my friend feels at all as I doI have not the smallest doubt that, could he see his little effusion honoured as I see it, (looking at the book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the proudest moment of his life. After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think it too soon for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and the sublime of pleasure to Harriet's share. Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise and on the morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who lived a little way out of Highbury. Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of the place and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr. Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had no advantage of situation but had been very much smartened up by the present proprietor and, such as it was, there could be no possibility of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing eyes.Emma's remark was 'There it is. There go you and your riddlebook one of these days.Harriet's was 'Oh, what a sweet house!How very beautiful!There are the yellow curtains that Miss Nash admires so much. 'I do not often walk this way now, said Emma, as they proceeded, 'but then there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part of Highbury. Harriet, she found, had never in her life been inside the Vicarage, and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with Mr. Elton's seeing ready wit in her. 'I wish we could contrive it, said she 'but I cannot think of any tolerable pretence for going inno servant that I want to inquire about of his housekeeperno message from my father. She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some minutes, Harriet thus began again 'I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married! so charming as you are! Emma laughed, and replied, 'My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry I must find other people charmingone other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all. 'Ah!so you say but I cannot believe it. 'I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be tempted Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the question and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it. 'Dear me!it is so odd to hear a woman talk so! 'I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love it is not my way, or my nature and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want employment I do not want consequence I do not want I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's house as I am of Hartfield and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's. 'But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates! 'That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so sillyso satisfiedso smilingso prosingso undistinguishing and unfastidiousand so apt to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry tomorrow. But between us, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unmarried. 'But still, you will be an old maid! and that's so dreadful! 'Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the candour and common sense of the world as appears at first for a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me but, in general, she is very much to the taste of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it and nobody is afraid of her that is a great charm. 'Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you grow old? 'If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than oneandtwenty. Woman's usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they are now or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more if I give up music, I shall take to carpetwork. And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every fear and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces!I shall often have a niece with me. 'Do you know Miss Bates's niece? That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred timesbut are you acquainted? 'Oh! yes we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to Highbury. By the bye, that is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over her compliments to all friends go round and round again and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well but she tires me to death. They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were superseded. Emma was very compassionate and the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as goodwill. In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away, 'These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make every thing else appear!I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind? 'Very true, said Harriet. 'Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else. 'And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over, said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again. 'I do not think it will, stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within. 'Oh! dear, no, said her companion. They walked on. The lane made a slight bend and when that bend was passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight and so near as to give Emma time only to say farther, 'Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves. Harriet could just answer, 'Oh! dear, yes, before the gentleman joined them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit he would now defer but they had a very interesting parley about what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to accompany them. 'To fall in with each other on such an errand as this, thought Emma 'to meet in a charitable scheme this will bring a great increase of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else. Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet's habits of dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short, they would both be soon after her. This would not do she immediately stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing of her halfboot, and stooping down in complete occupation of the footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired and by the time she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have been the most natural, had she been acting just then without design and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however, involuntarily the child's pace was quick, and theirs rather slow and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention and Emma, having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join them. Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday's party at his friend Cole's, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beetroot, and all the dessert. 'This would soon have led to something better, of course, was her consoling reflection 'any thing interests between those who love and any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I could but have kept longer away! They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short, and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to entreat them to stop, and acknowledged her inability to put herself to rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort. 'Part of my lace is gone, said she, 'and I do not know how I am to contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I hope I am not often so illequipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string, or any thing just to keep my boot on. Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition and nothing could exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards behind it was another with which it immediately communicated the door between them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave the door ajar as she found it but she fully intended that Mr. Elton should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar but by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her appearance. The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most favourable aspect and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having schemed successfully. But it would not do he had not come to the point. He had been most agreeable, most delightful he had told Harriet that he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them other little gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious. 'Cautious, very cautious, thought Emma 'he advances inch by inch, and will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure. Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them forward to the great event. Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma's power to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures. The coming of her sister's family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation, and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be expectedshe did not herself expectthat any thing beyond occasional, fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might advance rapidly if they would, however they must advance somehow or other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest. Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey but all the holidays of this autumn had been given to seabathing for the children, and it was therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella's sake and who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in forestalling this too short visit. He thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some of the party the last half of the way but his alarms were needless the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nurserymaids, all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival, the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even for this but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for, without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to be long a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance on them. Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate wrapt up in her family a devoted wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any quickness and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also much of his constitution was delicate in her own health, overcareful of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry. They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong habit of regard for every old acquaintance. Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentlemanlike, and very clever man rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private character but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally pleasing and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an illtempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a reproach but his temper was not his great perfection and, indeed, with such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing. He was not a great favourite with his fair sisterinlaw. Nothing wrong in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella's sister, but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without praise and without blindness but hardly any degree of personal compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse's peculiarities and fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or sharp retort equally illbestowed. It did not often happen for Mr. John Knightley had really a great regard for his fatherinlaw, and generally a strong sense of what was due to him but it was too often for Emma's charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality. They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter's attention to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last. 'Ah, my dear, said he, 'poor Miss TaylorIt is a grievous business. 'Oh yes, sir, cried she with ready sympathy, 'how you must miss her! And dear Emma, too!What a dreadful loss to you both!I have been so grieved for you.I could not imagine how you could possibly do without her.It is a sad change indeed.But I hope she is pretty well, sir. 'Pretty well, my dearI hopepretty well.I do not know but that the place agrees with her tolerably. Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts of the air of Randalls. 'Oh! nonone in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my lifenever looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret. 'Very much to the honour of both, was the handsome reply. 'And do you see her, sir, tolerably often? asked Isabella in the plaintive tone which just suited her father. Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.'Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish. 'Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one, have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both, either at Randalls or hereand as you may suppose, Isabella, most frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way, you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by any means to the extent we ourselves anticipatedwhich is the exact truth. 'Just as it should be, said Mr. John Knightley, 'and just as I hoped it was from your letters. Her wish of shewing you attention could not be doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended and now you have Emma's account, I hope you will be satisfied. 'Why, to be sure, said Mr. Woodhouse'yes, certainlyI cannot deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty oftenbut thenshe is always obliged to go away again. 'It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.You quite forget poor Mr. Weston. 'I think, indeed, said John Knightley pleasantly, 'that Mr. Weston has some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the poor husband. I, being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella, she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can. 'Me, my love, cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part. 'Are you talking about me?I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a greater advocate for matrimony than I am and if it had not been for the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world and as to slighting Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston, I think there is nothing he does not deserve. I believe he is one of the very besttempered men that ever existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry's kite for him that very windy day last Easterand ever since his particular kindness last September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o'clock at night, on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better man in existence.If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor. 'Where is the young man? said John Knightley. 'Has he been here on this occasionor has he not? 'He has not been here yet, replied Emma. 'There was a strong expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in nothing and I have not heard him mentioned lately. 'But you should tell them of the letter, my dear, said her father. 'He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps 'My dear papa, he is threeandtwenty. You forget how time passes. 'Threeandtwenty!is he indeed?Well, I could not have thought itand he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well, time does fly indeed!and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept. thand began, 'My dear Madam,' but I forget how it went on and it was signed 'F. C. Weston Churchill.'I remember that perfectly. 'How very pleasing and proper of him! cried the goodhearted Mrs. John Knightley. 'I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is something so shocking in a child's being taken away from his parents and natural home! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with him. To give up one's child! I really never could think well of any body who proposed such a thing to any body else. 'Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy, observed Mr. John Knightley coolly. 'But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather an easy, cheerfultempered man, than a man of strong feelings he takes things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other, depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection, or any thing that home affords. Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had half a mind to take it up but she struggled, and let it pass. She would keep the peace if possible and there was something honourable and valuable in the strong domestic habits, the allsufficiency of home to himself, whence resulted her brother's disposition to look down on the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was important.It had a high claim to forbearance. Mr. Knightley was to dine with themrather against the inclination of Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in Isabella's first day. Emma's sense of right however had decided it and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper invitation. She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time to make up. Makingup indeed would not do. She certainly had not been in the wrong, and he would never own that he had. Concession must be out of the question but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever quarrelled and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children with herthe youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced about in her aunt's arms. It did assist for though he began with grave looks and short questions, he was soon led on to talk of them all in the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the baby, 'What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces. As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different but with regard to these children, I observe we never disagree. 'If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women, and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always think alike. 'To be sureour discordancies must always arise from my being in the wrong. 'Yes, said he, smiling'and reason good. I was sixteen years old when you were born. 'A material difference then, she replied'and no doubt you were much my superior in judgment at that period of our lives but does not the lapse of oneandtwenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer? 'Yesa good deal nearer. 'But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we think differently. 'I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years' experience, and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now. 'That's true, she cried'very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good intentions went, we were both right, and I must say that no effects on my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed. 'A man cannot be more so, was his short, full answer. 'Ah!Indeed I am very sorry.Come, shake hands with me. This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley made his appearance, and 'How d'ye do, George? and 'John, how are you? succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led either of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the other. The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and the little party made two natural divisions on one side he and his daughter on the other the two Mr. Knightleys their subjects totally distinct, or very rarely mixingand Emma only occasionally joining in one or the other. The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative, and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious anecdote to give and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the homefarm at Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality of interest by John, as his cooler manners rendered possible and if his willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about, his inquiries even approached a tone of eagerness. While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter. 'My poor dear Isabella, said he, fondly taking her hand, and interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her five children'How long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dearand I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel. Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herselfand two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection, 'It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air. 'Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, siror we should not have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for the weakness in little Bella's throat,both sea air and bathing. 'Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any good and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once. 'Come, come, cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, 'I must beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserableI who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet and he never forgets you. 'Oh! good Mr. Perryhow is he, sir? 'Why, pretty well but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not time to take care of himselfhe tells me he has not time to take care of himselfwhich is very sadbut he is always wanted all round the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But then there is not so clever a man any where. 'And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow? I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He will be so pleased to see my little ones. 'I hope he will be here tomorrow, for I have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you had better let him look at little Bella's throat. 'Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr. Wingfield's, which we have been applying at times ever since August. 'It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use to herand if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have spoken to 'You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates, said Emma, 'I have not heard one inquiry after them. 'Oh! the good BatesesI am quite ashamed of myselfbut you mention them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs. BatesI will call upon her tomorrow, and take my children.They are always so pleased to see my children.And that excellent Miss Bates!such thorough worthy people!How are they, sir? 'Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a bad cold about a month ago. 'How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he has never known them more general or heavyexcept when it has been quite an influenza. 'That has been a good deal the case, my dear but not to the degree you mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it altogether a sickly season. 'No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it very sickly except 'Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!and the air so bad! 'No, indeedwe are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is very superior to most others!You must not confound us with London in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the townthere is hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in but we are so remarkably airy!Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air. 'Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of itbut after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different creatures you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think you are any of you looking well at present. 'I am sorry to hear you say so, sir but I assure you, excepting those little nervous headaches and palpitations which I am never entirely free from anywhere, I am quite well myself and if the children were rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of coming. I hope you will think better of their looks tomorrow for I assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill, turning her eyes with affectionate anxiety towards her husband. 'Middling, my dear I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley very far from looking well. 'What is the matter, sir?Did you speak to me? cried Mr. John Knightley, hearing his own name. 'I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking wellbut I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you left home. 'My dear Isabella,exclaimed he hastily'pray do not concern yourself about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I chuse. 'I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother, cried Emma, 'about your friend Mr. Graham's intending to have a bailiff from Scotland, to look after his new estate. What will it answer? Will not the old prejudice be too strong? And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing worse to hear than Isabella's kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that moment very happy to assist in praising. 'That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax! said Mrs. John Knightley.'It is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always regret excessively on dear Emma's account that she cannot be more at Highbury but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs. Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a delightful companion for Emma. Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added, 'Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a better companion than Harriet. 'I am most happy to hear itbut only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so very accomplished and superior!and exactly Emma's age. This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar moment, and passed away with similar harmony but the evening did not close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied a great deal to be saidmuch praise and many commentsundoubting decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerablybut, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a dangerous opening. 'Ah! said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her with tender concern.The ejaculation in Emma's ear expressed, 'Ah! there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It does not bear talking of. And for a little while she hoped he would not talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes, however, he began with, 'I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn, instead of coming here. 'But why should you be sorry, sir?I assure you, it did the children a great deal of good. 'And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprized to hear you had fixed upon South End. 'I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite a mistake, sir.We all had our health perfectly well there, never found the least inconvenience from the mud and Mr. Wingfield says it is entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy and I am sure he may be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and his own brother and family have been there repeatedly. 'You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the seabathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the seaa quarter of a mile offvery comfortable. You should have consulted Perry. 'But, my dear sir, the difference of the journeyonly consider how great it would have been.An hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty. 'Ah! my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else should be considered and if one is to travel, there is not much to chuse between forty miles and an hundred.Better not move at all, better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very illjudged measure. Emma's attempts to stop her father had been vain and when he had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her brotherinlaw's breaking out. 'Mr. Perry, said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, 'would do as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it any business of his, to wonder at what I do?at my taking my family to one part of the coast or another?I may be allowed, I hope, the use of my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.I want his directions no more than his drugs. He pausedand growing cooler in a moment, added, with only sarcastic dryness, 'If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself. 'True, true, cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition'very true. That's a consideration indeed.But John, as to what I was telling you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however, will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey tomorrow morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me your opinion. Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been attributing many of his own feelings and expressionsbut the soothing attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the other, prevented any renewal of it. There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visitperfect, in being much too short. In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their mornings but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too, there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no denial they must all dine at Randalls one dayeven Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of the party. How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he could, but as his son and daughter's carriage and horses were actually at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on that head it hardly amounted to a doubt nor did it occupy Emma long to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for Harriet also. Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the only persons invited to meet themthe hours were to be early, as well as the numbers few Mr. Woodhouse's habits and inclination being consulted in every thing. The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the th of December) had been spent by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs. Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat Mrs. Goddard was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss without many tears. Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard's unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr. Elton's would be depressed when he knew her state and left her at last tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard's door, when she was met by Mr. Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly together in conversation about the invalidof whom he, on the rumour of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might carry some report of her to Hartfieldthey were overtaken by Mr. John Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend's complaint'a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat about her, a quick, low pulse, c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs. Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sorethroats, and had often alarmed her with them. Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as he exclaimed, 'A sorethroat!I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. Why does not Perry see her? Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and care but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist than not, she added soon afterwardsas if quite another subject, 'It is so cold, so very coldand looks and feels so very much like snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I should really try not to go out todayand dissuade my father from venturing but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues tomorrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself tonight. Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make which was exactly the case for though very much gratified by the kind care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visitbut Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being 'very cold, certainly very cold, and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. 'You do quite right, said she'we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her. 'Well, said she to herself, 'this is most strange!After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!Most strange indeed!But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclinationsuch a passion for dining outa dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any thing gives way to itand this must be the case with Mr. Elton a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her. Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming Harriet at parting in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report and he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of approbation much in his favour. After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began with 'I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works. 'Mr. Elton's manners are not perfect, replied Emma 'but where there is a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect goodtemper and goodwill in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value. 'Yes, said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, 'he seems to have a great deal of goodwill towards you. 'Me! she replied with a smile of astonishment, 'are you imagining me to be Mr. Elton's object? 'Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma and if it never occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now. 'Mr. Elton in love with me!What an idea! 'I do not say it is so but you will do well to consider whether it is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do. 'I thank you but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more and she walked on, amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in want of counsel. He said no more. Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the weather than either of the others too full of the wonder of his own going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world in a very short time. Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least, which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like he anticipated nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase and the whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his discontent. 'A man, said he, 'must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdityActually snowing at this moment!The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at homeand the folly of people's not staying comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we should deem itand here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter that he canhere are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man's house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again tomorrow. Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worsefour horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home. Emma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the 'Very true, my love, which must have been usually administered by his travelling companion but she had resolution enough to refrain from making any answer at all. She could not be complying, she dreaded being quarrelsome her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening her lips. They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was let down, and Mr. Elton, spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and cheerfulness he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had been, 'Much the samenot better. 'My report from Mrs. Goddard's, said she presently, 'was not so pleasant as I had hoped'Not better' was my answer. His face lengthened immediately and his voice was the voice of sentiment as he answered. 'Oh! noI am grieved to findI was on the point of telling you that when I called at Mrs. Goddard's door, which I did the very last thing before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better, by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concernedI had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I knew had been given her in the morning. Emma smiled and answered'My visit was of use to the nervous part of her complaint, I hope but not even I can charm away a sore throat it is a most severe cold indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you probably heard. 'YesI imaginedthat isI did not 'He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope tomorrow morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party today! 'Dreadful!Exactly so, indeed.She will be missed every moment. This was very proper the sigh which accompanied it was really estimable but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things, and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment. 'What an excellent device, said he, 'the use of a sheepskin for carriages. How very comfortable they make itimpossible to feel cold with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days indeed have rendered a gentleman's carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very cold afternoonbut in this carriage we know nothing of the matter.Ha! snows a little I see. 'Yes, said John Knightley, 'and I think we shall have a good deal of it. 'Christmas weather, observed Mr. Elton. 'Quite seasonable and extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin yesterday, and prevent this day's party, which it might very possibly have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been much snow on the ground but now it is of no consequence. This is quite the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather. I was snowed up at a friend's house once for a week. Nothing could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away till that very day se'nnight. Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but said only, coolly, 'I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls. At another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much astonished now at Mr. Elton's spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party. 'We are sure of excellent fires, continued he, 'and every thing in the greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. WestonMrs. Weston indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so hospitable, and so fond of societyit will be a small party, but where small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any. Mr. Weston's diningroom does not accommodate more than ten comfortably and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me, (turning with a soft air to Emma,) I think I shall certainly have your approbation, though Mr. Knightley perhaps, from being used to the large parties of London, may not quite enter into our feelings. 'I know nothing of the large parties of London, sirI never dine with any body. 'Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great enjoyment. 'My first enjoyment, replied John Knightley, as they passed through the sweepgate, 'will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again. Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they walked into Mrs. Weston's drawingroomMr. Elton must compose his joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his illhumour. Mr. Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the place.Emma only might be as nature prompted, and shew herself just as happy as she was. To her it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons. Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the world to whom she spoke with such unreserve, as to his wife not any one, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston had not a lively concern and half an hour's uninterrupted communication of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life depends, was one of the first gratifications of each. This was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day's visit might not afford, which certainly did not belong to the present halfhour but the very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice was grateful to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr. Elton's oddities, or of any thing else unpleasant, and enjoy all that was enjoyable to the utmost. The misfortune of Harriet's cold had been pretty well gone through before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and Isabella's coming, and of Emma's being to follow, and had indeed just got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and welcome her dear Emma. Emma's project of forgetting Mr. Elton for a while made her rather sorry to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her. The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal suggestion of 'Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from Harriet to me?Absurd and insufferable!Yet he would be so anxious for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father, and so delighted with Mrs. Weston and at last would begin admiring her drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly like a wouldbe lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude and for Harriet's, in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively civil but it was an effort especially as something was going on amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton's nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son she heard the words 'my son, and 'Frank, and 'my son, repeated several times over and, from a few other halfsyllables very much suspected that he was announcing an early visit from his son but before she could quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving question from her would have been awkward. Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma's resolution of never marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr. Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently thoughtespecially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylorthat if she were to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age, character and condition. He seemed by this connexion between the families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be a match that every body who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs. Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded and though not meaning to be induced by him, or by any body else, to give up a situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends' imaginations. With such sensations, Mr. Elton's civilities were dreadfully illtimed but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very crossand of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the substance of it, from the openhearted Mr. Weston.So it provedfor when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston, at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to her, 'We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see two more here,your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my sonand then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me telling the others in the drawingroom that we are expecting Frank. I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a fortnight. Emma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure and fully assented to his proposition of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party quite complete. 'He has been wanting to come to us, continued Mr. Weston, 'ever since September every letter has been full of it but he cannot command his own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices. But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in January. 'What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as yourself. 'Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another putoff. She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do but she does not know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is(but this is quite between ourselves I did not mention a syllable of it in the other room. There are secrets in all families, you know)The case is, that a party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January and that Frank's coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular dislike to and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point. I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table) has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been long in the practice of doing. 'I am sorry there should be any thing like doubt in the case, replied Emma 'but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he will come, I shall think so too for you know Enscombe. 'YesI have some right to that knowledge though I have never been at the place in my life.She is an odd woman!But I never allow myself to speak ill of her, on Frank's account for I do believe her to be very fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of any body, except herself but she has always been kind to him (in her wayallowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him, that he should excite such an affection for, though I would not say it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in general and the devil of a temper. Emma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston, very soon after their moving into the drawingroom wishing her joyyet observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming. Mrs. Weston agreed to it but added, that she should be very glad to be secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked of 'for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr. Weston, I dare say, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands? 'Yesit seems to depend upon nothing but the illhumour of Mrs. Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world. 'My Emma! replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, 'what is the certainty of caprice? Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending before'You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in my opinion, as his father thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt's spirits and pleasure in short, upon her temper. To youto my two daughtersI may venture on the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very oddtempered woman and his coming now, depends upon her being willing to spare him. 'Oh, Mrs. Churchill every body knows Mrs. Churchill, replied Isabella 'and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest compassion. To be constantly living with an illtempered person, must be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known any thing of but it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them! Emma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have heard more Mrs. Weston would speak to her, with a degree of unreserve which she would not hazard with Isabella and, she really believed, would scarcely try to conceal any thing relative to the Churchills from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon followed them into the drawingroom. To be sitting long after dinner, was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor conversation was any thing to him and gladly did he move to those with whom he was always comfortable. While he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of saying, 'And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant, whenever it takes place and the sooner it could be over, the better. 'Yes and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that some excuse may be found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine any reluctance on his side but I am sure there is a great wish on the Churchills' to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine. 'He ought to come, said Emma. 'If he could stay only a couple of days, he ought to come and one can hardly conceive a young man's not having it in his power to do as much as that. A young woman, if she fall into bad hands, may be teased, and kept at a distance from those she wants to be with but one cannot comprehend a young man's being under such restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he likes it. 'One ought to be at Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before one decides upon what he can do, replied Mrs. Weston. 'One ought to use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of any one individual of any one family but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must not be judged by general rules she is so very unreasonable and every thing gives way to her. 'But she is so fond of the nephew he is so very great a favourite. Now, according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she owes every thing, while she exercises incessant caprice towards him, she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes nothing at all. 'My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand a bad one, or to lay down rules for it you must let it go its own way. I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence but it may be perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand when it will be. Emma listened, and then coolly said, 'I shall not be satisfied, unless he comes. 'He may have a great deal of influence on some points, continued Mrs. Weston, 'and on others, very little and among those, on which she is beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be this very circumstance of his coming away from them to visit us. Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea and when he had drank his tea he was quite ready to go home and it was as much as his three companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort but at last the drawingroom party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and, with scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them. Emma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most friendly smiles. He professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friendher fair, lovely, amiable friend. 'Did she know?had she heard any thing about her, since their being at Randalls?he felt much anxietyhe must confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably. And in this style he talked on for some time very properly, not much attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror of a bad sore throat and Emma was quite in charity with him. But at last there seemed a perverse turn it seemed all at once as if he were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on Harriet'smore anxious that she should escape the infection, than that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sickchamber again, for the presentto entreat her to promise him not to venture into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learnt his opinion and though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude about her. She was vexed. It did appearthere was no concealing itexactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of Harriet an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable! and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston to implore her assistance, 'Would not she give him her support?would not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go to Mrs. Goddard's till it were certain that Miss Smith's disorder had no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promisewould not she give him her influence in procuring it? 'So scrupulous for others, he continued, 'and yet so careless for herself! She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home today, and yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston?Judge between us. Have not I some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid. Emma saw Mrs. Weston's surprize, and felt that it must be great, at an address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of first interest in her and as for herself, she was too much provoked and offended to have the power of directly saying any thing to the purpose. She could only give him a look but it was such a look as she thought must restore him to his senses, and then left the sofa, removing to a seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention. She had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did another subject succeed for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing fast, with a strong drifting wind concluding with these words to Mr. Woodhouse 'This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements, sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way through a storm of snow. Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation but every body else had something to say every body was either surprized or not surprized, and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his soninlaw, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly. 'I admired your resolution very much, sir, said he, 'in venturing out in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon. Every body must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit and I dare say we shall get home very well. Another hour or two's snow can hardly make the road impassable and we are two carriages if one is blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other at hand. I dare say we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight. Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he had known it to be snowing some time, but had not said a word, lest it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and be an excuse for his hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke he was afraid they would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that he might be able to keep them all at Randalls and with the utmost goodwill was sure that accommodation might be found for every body, calling on his wife to agree with him, that with a little contrivance, every body might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house. 'What is to be done, my dear Emma?what is to be done? was Mr. Woodhouse's first exclamation, and all that he could say for some time. To her he looked for comfort and her assurances of safety, her representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of their having so many friends about them, revived him a little. His eldest daughter's alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full in her imagination and fancying the road to be now just passable for adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls, while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them. 'You had better order the carriage directly, my love, said she 'I dare say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly and if we do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes, you know, the moment I got home and it is not the sort of thing that gives me cold. 'Indeed! replied he. 'Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general every thing does give you cold. Walk home!you are prettily shod for walking home, I dare say. It will be bad enough for the horses. Isabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs. Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma but Emma could not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to get away and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had left the room immediately after his brother's first report of the snow, came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine, and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He had gone beyond the sweepsome way along the Highbury roadthe snow was nowhere above half an inch deepin many places hardly enough to whiten the ground a very few flakes were falling at present, but the clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there being nothing to apprehend. To Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father's account, who was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous constitution allowed but the alarm that had been raised could not be appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning home, but no assurances could convince him that it was safe to stay and while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences thus 'Your father will not be easy why do not you go? 'I am ready, if the others are. 'Shall I ring the bell? 'Yes, do. And the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more, and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and happiness when this visit of hardship were over. The carriage came and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr. Weston but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. 'He was afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind. He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together as they could and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very slow and wait for the other carriage. Isabella stept in after her father John Knightley, forgetting that he did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them, and that they were to have a ttette drive. It would not have been the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure, previous to the suspicions of this very day she could have talked to him of Harriet, and the threequarters of a mile would have seemed but one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston's good wine, and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense. To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of the weather and the night but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they passed the sweepgate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut upher hand seizedher attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known, hopingfearingadoringready to die if she refused him but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It really was so. Without scruplewithout apologywithout much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself her lover. She tried to stop him but vainly he would go on, and say it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she replied, 'I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to me! you forget yourselfyou take me for my friendany message to Miss Smith I shall be happy to deliver but no more of this to me, if you please. 'Miss Smith!message to Miss Smith!What could she possibly mean!And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with quickness, 'Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account for it only in one way you are not yourself, or you could not speak either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it. But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning and having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,but acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,he resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a favourable answer. As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his inconstancy and presumption and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied, 'It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smithsuch attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observingto be addressing me in this mannerthis is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions. 'Good Heaven! cried Mr. Elton, 'what can be the meaning of this?Miss Smith!I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existencenever paid her any attentions, but as your friend never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorryextremely sorryBut, Miss Smith, indeed!Oh! Miss Woodhouse! who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!(in an accent meant to be insinuating)I am sure you have seen and understood me. It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing thiswhich of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed 'Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me. 'No, sir, cried Emma, 'it confesses no such thing. So far from having long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you should have been giving way to any feelingsNothing could be farther from my wishesyour attachment to my friend Harrietyour pursuit of her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success but had I supposed that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?that you have never thought seriously of her? 'Never, madam, cried he, affronted in his turn 'never, I assure you. I think seriously of Miss Smith!Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well and, no doubt, there are men who might not object toEvery body has their level but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only and the encouragement I received 'Encouragement!I give you encouragement!Sir, you have been entirely mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry but it is well that the mistake ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might have been led into a misconception of your views not being aware, probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present. He was too angry to say another word her manner too decided to invite supplication and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer, for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a footpace. If there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate awkwardness but their straightforward emotions left no room for the little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves, all at once, at the door of his house and he was out before another syllable passed.Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly and, under indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield. There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage Laneturning a corner which he could never bear to think ofand in strange handsa mere common coachmanno James and there it seemed as if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well for Mr. John Knightley, ashamed of his illhumour, was now all kindness and attention and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her father, as to seemif not quite ready to join him in a basin of gruelperfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome and the day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party, except herself.But her mind had never been in such perturbation and it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection. The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable.It was a wretched business indeed!Such an overthrow of every thing she had been wishing for!Such a development of every thing most unwelcome!Such a blow for Harriet!that was the worst of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or other but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light and she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistakenmore in errormore disgraced by misjudgment, than she actually was, could the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself. 'If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to mebut poor Harriet! How she could have been so deceived!He protested that he had never thought seriously of Harrietnever! She looked back as well as she could but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so misled. The picture!How eager he had been about the picture!and the charade!and an hundred other circumstanceshow clearly they had seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its 'ready witbut then the 'soft eyesin fact it suited neither it was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such thickheaded nonsense? Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to herself unnecessarily gallant but it had passed as his way, as a mere error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting but, till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet's friend. To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry indiscreetly and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It was dreadfully mortifying but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him proud, assuming, conceited very full of his own claims, and little concerned about the feelings of others. Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton's wanting to pay his addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment, and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love but she was perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance but she could hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody else with twenty, or with ten. Butthat he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry him!should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!look down upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no presumption in addressing her!It was most provoking. Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of such equality might prevent his perception of it but he must know that in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient familyand that the Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate, to which all the rest of Highbury belonged but their fortune, from other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence and the Woodhouses had long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend him to notice but his situation and his civility.But he had fancied her in love with him that evidently must have been his dependence and after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop and admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite. If she had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to wonder that he, with selfinterest to blind him, should have mistaken hers. The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more. 'Here have I, said she, 'actually talked poor Harriet into being very much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for me and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her not to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done of me but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the opportunity of pleasing some one worth having I ought not to have attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time. I have been but half a friend to her and if she were not to feel this disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body else who would be at all desirable for herWilliam CoxeOh! no, I could not endure William Coxea pert young lawyer. She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be, and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully. To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma's, though under temporary gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, and of powerful operation and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope. Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to depend on getting tolerably out of it. It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to disappoint himthat Harriet's nature should not be of that superior sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentiveand that there could be no necessity for any body's knowing what had passed except the three principals, and especially for her father's being given a moment's uneasiness about it. These were very cheering thoughts and the sight of a great deal of snow on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that might justify their all three being quite asunder at present. The weather was most favourable for her though Christmas Day, she could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse with Harriet possible but by note no church for her on Sunday any more than on Christmas Day and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton's absenting himself. It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home and though she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out and to hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from them, 'Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton? These days of confinement would have been, but for her private perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to his companions and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his illhumour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging, and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes of cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease. Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move and Mr. Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor Isabellawhich poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness. The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr. Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with Mr. Elton's best compliments, 'that he was proposing to leave Highbury the following morning in his way to Bath where, in compliance with the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever retain a grateful senseand had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be happy to attend to them. Emma was most agreeably surprized.Mr. Elton's absence just at this time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded. She had not even a share in his opening compliments.Her name was not mentionedand there was so striking a change in all this, and such an illjudged solemnity of leavetaking in his graceful acknowledgments, as she thought, at first, could not escape her father's suspicion. It did, however.Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away with all her usual promptitude. She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of her other complaint before the gentleman's return. She went to Mrs. Goddard's accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary penance of communication and a severe one it was.She had to destroy all the hopes which she had been so industriously feedingto appear in the ungracious character of the one preferredand acknowledge herself grossly mistaken and misjudging in all her ideas on one subject, all her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last six weeks. The confession completely renewed her first shameand the sight of Harriet's tears made her think that she should never be in charity with herself again. Harriet bore the intelligence very wellblaming nobodyand in every thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to her friend. Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on Harriet's side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton would have been too great a distinction.She never could have deserved himand nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would have thought it possible. Her tears fell abundantlybut her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyesand she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understandingreally for the time convinced that Harriet was the superior creature of the twoand that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do. It was rather too late in the day to set about being simpleminded and ignorant but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father's claims, was to promote Harriet's comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection in some better method than by matchmaking. She got her to Hartfield, and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her thoughts. Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done and she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton in particular but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet's age, and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton's return, as to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance, without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them. Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the nonexistence of any body equal to him in person or goodnessand did, in truth, prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen but yet it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an inclination of that sort unrequited, that she could not comprehend its continuing very long in equal force. If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not imagine Harriet's persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the recollection of him. Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each other, and make the best of it. Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs. Goddard's Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great girls in the school and it must be at Hartfield only that she could have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be found if anywhere and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of cure, there could be no true peace for herself. Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs. Weston's fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For the present, he could not be spared, to his 'very great mortification and regret but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to Randalls at no distant period. Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointedmuch more disappointed, in fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man had been so much more sober but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprized and sorry but then he began to perceive that Frank's coming two or three months later would be a much better plan better time of year better weather and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner. These feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of excuses and delays and after all her concern for what her husband was to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself. Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr. Frank Churchill's not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls. The acquaintance at present had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to be quiet, and out of temptation but still, as it was desirable that she should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr. and Mrs. Weston's disappointment, as might naturally belong to their friendship. She was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley and exclaimed quite as much as was necessary, (or, being acting a part, perhaps rather more,) at the conduct of the Churchills, in keeping him away. She then proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt, of the advantage of such an addition to their confined society in Surry the pleasure of looking at somebody new the galaday to Highbury entire, which the sight of him would have made and ending with reflections on the Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement with Mr. Knightley and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and making use of Mrs. Weston's arguments against herself. 'The Churchills are very likely in fault, said Mr. Knightley, coolly 'but I dare say he might come if he would. 'I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come but his uncle and aunt will not spare him. 'I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a point of it. It is too unlikely, for me to believe it without proof. 'How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose him such an unnatural creature? 'I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that he may have learnt to be above his connexions, and to care very little for any thing but his own pleasure, from living with those who have always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud, luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it between September and January. A man at his agewhat is he?three or fourandtwentycannot be without the means of doing as much as that. It is impossible. 'That's easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers to manage. 'It is not to be conceived that a man of three or fourandtwenty should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want moneyhe cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in the kingdom. We hear of him for ever at some wateringplace or other. A little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the Churchills. 'Yes, sometimes he can. 'And those times are whenever he thinks it worth his while whenever there is any temptation of pleasure. 'It is very unfair to judge of any body's conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs. Churchill's temper, before we pretend to decide upon what her nephew can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at others. 'There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and that is, his duty not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. It is Frank Churchill's duty to pay this attention to his father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages but if he wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill'Every sacrifice of mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion. I shall, therefore, set off tomorrow.'If he would say so to her at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no opposition made to his going. 'No, said Emma, laughing 'but perhaps there might be some made to his coming back again. Such language for a young man entirely dependent, to use!Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible. But you have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to the uncle and aunt, who have brought him up, and are to provide for him!Standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as loud as he could!How can you imagine such conduct practicable? 'Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it. He would feel himself in the right and the declarationmade, of course, as a man of sense would make it, in a proper mannerwould do him more good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do. Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could trust him that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do rightly by them for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father and while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for right conduct is felt by every body. If he would act in this sort of manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would bend to his. 'I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds but where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill's situation, you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for him and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have a word to say in return but then, you would have no habits of early obedience and long observance to break through. To him who has, it might not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it. 'Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction. 'Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his life. 'Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there would have been no difficulty now. 'We shall never agree about him, cried Emma 'but that is nothing extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly, though in his own son but he is very likely to have a more yielding, complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man's perfection. I dare say he has and though it may cut him off from some advantages, it will secure him many others. 'Yes all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of preserving peace at home and preventing his father's having any right to complain. His letters disgust me. 'Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else. 'I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy a woman of her good sense and quick feelings standing in a mother's place, but without a mother's affection to blind her. It is on her account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he would have come I dare say and it would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very 'amiable,' have very good manners, and be very agreeable but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people nothing really amiable about him. 'You seem determined to think ill of him. 'Me!not at all, replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased 'I do not want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits as any other man but I hear of none, except what are merely personal that he is wellgrown and goodlooking, with smooth, plausible manners. 'Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, wellbred and agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a sensation his coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the parishes of Donwell and Highbury but one interestone object of curiosity it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill we shall think and speak of nobody else. 'You will excuse my being so much overpowered. If I find him conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance but if he is only a chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts. 'My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming to me, of drawing or music and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each that is my idea of him. 'And mine, said Mr. Knightley warmly, 'is, that if he turn out any thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What! at threeandtwenty to be the king of his companythe great manthe practised politician, who is to read every body's character, and make every body's talents conduce to the display of his own superiority to be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not endure such a puppy when it came to the point. 'I will say no more about him, cried Emma, 'you turn every thing to evil. We are both prejudiced you against, I for him and we have no chance of agreeing till he is really here. 'Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced. 'But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour. 'He is a person I never think of from one month's end to another, said Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be angry. To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him for with all the high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had never before for a moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit of another. Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma's opinion, had been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could not think that Harriet's solace or her own sins required more and she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they returnedbut it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded, and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and receiving no other answer than a very plaintive'Mr. Elton is so good to the poor! she found something else must be done. They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates. She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was always sufficient reason for such an attention Mrs. and Miss Bates loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of their scanty comforts. She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart, as to her deficiencybut none were equal to counteract the persuasion of its being very disagreeable,a waste of timetiresome womenand all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the secondrate and thirdrate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not passing their door without going inobserving, as she proposed it to Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax. The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied the drawingroom floor and there, in the very moderatesized apartment, which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse's health, cheerful communications about her mother's, and sweetcake from the beaufet'Mrs. Cole had just been there, just called in for ten minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and she had taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them the favour to eat a piece too. The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton. There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton since his going away. Emma knew what was coming they must have the letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went, and how full the Master of the Ceremonies' ball had been and she went through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet's being obliged to say a word. This she had been prepared for when she entered the house but meant, having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses and Misses of Highbury, and their cardparties. She had not been prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton but he was actually hurried off by Miss Bates, she jumped away from him at last abruptly to the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece. 'Oh! yesMr. Elton, I understandcertainly as to dancingMrs. Cole was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath wasMrs. Cole was so kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane for as soon as she came in, she began inquiring after her, Jane is so very great a favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to shew her kindness enough and I must say that Jane deserves it as much as any body can. And so she began inquiring after her directly, saying, 'I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her time for writing' and when I immediately said, 'But indeed we have, we had a letter this very morning,' I do not know that I ever saw any body more surprized. 'Have you, upon your honour?' said she 'well, that is quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.' Emma's politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest 'Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I hope she is well? 'Thank you. You are so kind! replied the happily deceived aunt, while eagerly hunting for the letter.'Oh! here it is. I was sure it could not be far off but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs. Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to hera letter from Janethat she can never hear it often enough so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only just under my huswifeand since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she saysbut, first of all, I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letteronly two pages you seehardly twoand in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often says, when the letter is first opened, 'Well, Hetty, now I think you will be put to it to make out all that checkerwork'don't you, ma'am?And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out herself, if she had nobody to do it for herevery word of itI am sure she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed, though my mother's eyes are not so good as they were, she can see amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such a blessing! My mother's are really very good indeed. Jane often says, when she is here, 'I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong eyes to see as you doand so much fine work as you have done too!I only wish my eyes may last me as well.' All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss Fairfax's handwriting. 'You are extremely kind, replied Miss Bates, highly gratified 'you who are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is nobody's praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse's. My mother does not hear she is a little deaf you know. Ma'am, addressing her, 'do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say about Jane's handwriting? And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax's letter, and had almost resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss Bates turned to her again and seized her attention. 'My mother's deafness is very trifling you seejust nothing at all. By only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over, she is sure to hear but then she is used to my voice. But it is very remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me. Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all deafer than she was two years ago which is saying a great deal at my mother's time of lifeand it really is full two years, you know, since she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her now. 'Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon? 'Oh yes next week. 'Indeed!that must be a very great pleasure. 'Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so surprized and every body says the same obliging things. I am sure she will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see her. Yes, Friday or Saturday she cannot say which, because Colonel Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it for, in the common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or Wednesday. 'Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my hearing any thing of Miss Fairfax today. 'So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My mother is so delighted!for she is to be three months with us at least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the summer, but she is so impatient to see them againfor till she married, last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say, but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter to her motheror her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but we shall see presently in Jane's letterwrote in Mr. Dixon's name as well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country seat, Balycraig, a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty from Mr. Dixon, I meanI do not know that she ever heard about it from any body else but it was very natural, you know, that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addressesand as Jane used to be very often walking out with themfor Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all blame them of course she heard every thing he might be telling Miss Campbell about his own home in Ireland and I think she wrote us word that he had shewn them some drawings of the place, views that he had taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things. At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma's brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of farther discovery, 'You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell. 'Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been rather afraid of for we should not have liked to have her at such a distance from us, for months togethernot able to come if any thing was to happen. But you see, every thing turns out for the best. They want her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell quite depend upon it nothing can be more kind or pressing than their joint invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit (I can never think of it without trembling!)But ever since we had the history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon! 'But, in spite of all her friends' urgency, and her own wish of seeing Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates? 'Yesentirely her own doing, entirely her own choice and Colonel and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should recommend and indeed they particularly wish her to try her native air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately. 'I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs. Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has no remarkable degree of personal beauty is not, by any means, to be compared with Miss Fairfax. 'Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such thingsbut certainly not. There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely plainbut extremely elegant and amiable. 'Yes, that of course. 'Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the th of November, (as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so considerate!But however, she is so far from well, that her kind friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air that always agrees with her and they have no doubt that three or four months at Highbury will entirely cure herand it is certainly a great deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do. 'It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world. 'And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday followingas you will find from Jane's letter. So sudden!You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse, what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of her illnessbut I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane's letters through to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me to do it, so I always do and so I began today with my usual caution but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I burst out, quite frightened, with 'Bless me! poor Jane is ill!'which my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I had fancied at first and I make so light of it now to her, that she does not think much about it. But I cannot imagine how I could be so off my guard. If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The expense shall not be thought of and though he is so liberal, and so fond of Jane that I dare say he would not mean to charge any thing for attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to her letter, and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better than I can tell it for her. 'I am afraid we must be running away, said Emma, glancing at Harriet, and beginning to rise'My father will be expecting us. I had no intention, I thought I had no power of staying more than five minutes, when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not pass the door without inquiring after Mrs. Bates but I have been so pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good morning. And not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained the streethappy in this, that though much had been forced on her against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of Jane Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself. Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates's youngest daughter. The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax of the regiment of infantry, and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope and interest but nothing now remained of it, save the melancholy remembrance of him dying in action abroadof his widow sinking under consumption and grief soon afterwardsand this girl. By birth she belonged to Highbury and when at three years old, on losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation, the foundling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every probability of her being permanently fixed there of her being taught only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no advantages of connexion or improvement, to be engrafted on what nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and warmhearted, wellmeaning relations. But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man and farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe campfever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the death of poor Fairfax, before his own return to England put any thing in his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice of her. He was a married man, with only one living child, a girl, about Jane's age and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and growing a favourite with all and before she was nine years old, his daughter's great fondness for her, and his own wish of being a real friend, united to produce an offer from Colonel Campbell of undertaking the whole charge of her education. It was accepted and from that period Jane had belonged to Colonel Campbell's family, and had lived with them entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time. The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others the very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Colonel Campbell's power for though his income, by pay and appointments, was handsome, his fortune was moderate and must be all his daughter's but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of respectable subsistence hereafter. Such was Jane Fairfax's history. She had fallen into good hands, known nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent education. Living constantly with rightminded and wellinformed people, her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline and culture and Colonel Campbell's residence being in London, every lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of firstrate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy of all that friendship could do and at eighteen or nineteen she was, as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children, fully competent to the office of instruction herself but she was too much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote, and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was easy to decide that she was still too young and Jane remained with them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with only the drawback of the future, the sobering suggestions of her own good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over. The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from the circumstance of Jane's decided superiority both in beauty and acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the parents. They continued together with unabated regard however, till the marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were acquainted and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had yet her bread to earn. This event had very lately taken place too lately for any thing to be yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path of duty though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that oneandtwenty should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she had resolved at oneandtwenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and mortification for ever. The good sense of Colonel and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever and for their own comfort they would have retained her wholly but this would be selfishnesswhat must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however, affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of their daughter's marriage and till she should have completely recovered her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits, seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with tolerable comfort. With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths not told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to Highbury to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with those kind relations to whom she was so very dear and the Campbells, whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery of her health, than on any thing else. Certain it was that she was to come and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which had been so long promised itMr. Frank Churchillmust put up for the present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two years' absence. Emma was sorryto have to pay civilities to a person she did not like through three long months!to be always doing more than she wished, and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of selfexamination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her. But 'she could never get acquainted with her she did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reservesuch apparent indifference whether she pleased or notand then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!and she was made such a fuss with by every body!and it had been always imagined that they were to be so intimatebecause their ages were the same, every body had supposed they must be so fond of each other. These were her reasonsshe had no better. It was a dislike so little justevery imputed fault was so magnified by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her and now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years' interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant and she had herself the highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall her figure particularly graceful her size a most becoming medium, between fat and thin, though a slight appearance of illhealth seemed to point out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this and then, her faceher featuresthere was more beauty in them altogether than she had remembered it was not regular, but it was very pleasing beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows, had never been denied their praise but the skin, which she had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her principles, admire itelegance, which, whether of person or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction, and merit. In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with twofold complacency the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible to feel any thing but compassion and respect especially, if to every wellknown particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on. Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon's affections from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her imagination had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single, successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her friend and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself effectually from him and his connexions by soon beginning her career of laborious duty. Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings, as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence nobody that she could wish to scheme about for her. These were charming feelingsbut not lasting. Before she had committed herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax, or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than saying to Mr. Knightley, 'She certainly is handsome she is better than handsome! Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state. Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever more tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration of her powers and they had to listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new workbags for her mother and herself and Jane's offences rose again. They had music Emma was obliged to play and the thanks and praise which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved. If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon's character, or her own value for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all general approbation and smoothness nothing delineated or distinguished. It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably was something more to conceal than her own preference Mr. Dixon, perhaps, had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds. The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a little acquainted but not a syllable of real information could Emma procure as to what he truly was. 'Was he handsome?'She believed he was reckoned a very fine young man. 'Was he agreeable?'He was generally thought so. 'Did he appear a sensible young man a young man of information?'At a wateringplace, or in a common London acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his manners pleasing. Emma could not forgive her. Emma could not forgive herbut as neither provocation nor resentment were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole not so openly as he might have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement. 'A very pleasant evening, he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers swept away'particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting at one's ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no instrument at her grandmother's, it must have been a real indulgence. 'I am happy you approved, said Emma, smiling 'but I hope I am not often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield. 'No, my dear, said her father instantly 'that I am sure you are not. There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing, you are too attentive. The muffin last nightif it had been handed round once, I think it would have been enough. 'No, said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time 'you are not often deficient not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I think you understand me, therefore. An arch look expressed'I understand you well enough but she said only, 'Miss Fairfax is reserved. 'I always told you she wasa little but you will soon overcome all that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured. 'You think her diffident. I do not see it. 'My dear Emma, said he, moving from his chair into one close by her, 'you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant evening. 'Oh! no I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions and amused to think how little information I obtained. 'I am disappointed, was his only answer. 'I hope every body had a pleasant evening, said Mr. Woodhouse, in his quiet way. 'I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much but then I moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me. Miss Bates was very chatty and goodhumoured, as she always is, though she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs. Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends and Miss Jane Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a very wellbehaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma. 'True, sir and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax. Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question 'She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one's eyes from. I am always watching her to admire and I do pity her from my heart. Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to express and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose thoughts were on the Bates's, said 'It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a great pity indeed! and I have often wishedbut it is so little one can venture to dosmall, trifling presents, of any thing uncommonNow we have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg it is very small and delicateHartfield pork is not like any other porkbut still it is porkand, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast porkI think we had better send the legdo not you think so, my dear? 'My dear papa, I sent the whole hindquarter. I knew you would wish it. There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like. 'That's right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but that is the best way. They must not oversalt the leg and then, if it is not oversalted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome. 'Emma, said Mr. Knightley presently, 'I have a piece of news for you. You like newsand I heard an article in my way hither that I think will interest you. 'News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?why do you smile so?where did you hear it?at Randalls? He had time only to say, 'No, not at Randalls I have not been near Randalls, when the door was thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest. Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another syllable of communication could rest with him. 'Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss WoodhouseI come quite overpowered. Such a beautiful hindquarter of pork! You are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be married. Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a little blush, at the sound. 'There is my newsI thought it would interest you, said Mr. Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what had passed between them. 'But where could you hear it? cried Miss Bates. 'Where could you possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I received Mrs. Cole's noteno, it cannot be more than fiveor at least tenfor I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come outI was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the porkJane was standing in the passagewere not you, Jane?for my mother was so afraid that we had not any saltingpan large enough. So I said I would go down and see, and Jane said, 'Shall I go down instead? for I think you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen.''Oh! my dear,' said Iwell, and just then came the note. A Miss Hawkinsthat's all I know. A Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley, how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins 'I was with Mr. Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just read Elton's letter as I was shewn in, and handed it to me directly. 'Well! that is quiteI suppose there never was a piece of news more generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand thanks, and says you really quite oppress her. 'We consider our Hartfield pork, replied Mr. Woodhouse'indeed it certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot have a greater pleasure than 'Oh! my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth themselves, had every thing they could wish for, I am sure it is us. We may well say that 'our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.' Well, Mr. Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter well 'It was shortmerely to announcebut cheerful, exulting, of course. Here was a sly glance at Emma. 'He had been so fortunate as toI forget the precise wordsone has no business to remember them. The information was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By his style, I should imagine it just settled. 'Mr. Elton going to be married! said Emma, as soon as she could speak. 'He will have every body's wishes for his happiness. 'He is very young to settle, was Mr. Woodhouse's observation. 'He had better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We were always glad to see him at Hartfield. 'A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse! said Miss Bates, joyfully 'my mother is so pleased!she says she cannot bear to have the poor old Vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have never seen Mr. Elton!no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see him. Jane's curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to occupy her. 'NoI have never seen Mr. Elton, she replied, starting on this appeal 'is heis he a tall man? 'Who shall answer that question? cried Emma. 'My father would say 'yes,' Mr. Knightley 'no' and Miss Bates and I that he is just the happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax, you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in Highbury, both in person and mind. 'Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young manBut, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,I dare say, an excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my motherwanting her to sit in the vicarage pew, that she might hear the better, for my mother is a little deaf, you knowit is not much, but she does not hear quite quick. Jane says that Colonel Campbell is a little deaf. He fancied bathing might be good for itthe warm bathbut she says it did him no lasting benefit. Colonel Campbell, you know, is quite our angel. And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It is such a happiness when good people get togetherand they always do. Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins and there are the Coles, such very good people and the PerrysI suppose there never was a happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir, turning to Mr. Woodhouse, 'I think there are few places with such society as Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours.My dear sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better than another, it is porka roast loin of pork 'As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted with her, said Emma, 'nothing I suppose can be known. One feels that it cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks. Nobody had any information to give and, after a few more wonderings, Emma said, 'You are silent, Miss Fairfaxbut I hope you mean to take an interest in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss Campbell's accountwe shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins. 'When I have seen Mr. Elton, replied Jane, 'I dare say I shall be interestedbut I believe it requires that with me. And as it is some months since Miss Campbell married, the impression may be a little worn off. 'Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse, said Miss Bates, 'four weeks yesterday.A Miss Hawkins!Well, I had always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts not that I everMrs. Cole once whispered to mebut I immediately said, 'No, Mr. Elton is a most worthy young manbut'In short, I do not think I am particularly quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it. What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if Mr. Elton should have aspiredMiss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so goodhumouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs. John Knightley lately? Oh! those dear little children. Jane, do you know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley. I mean in persontall, and with that sort of lookand not very talkative. 'Quite wrong, my dear aunt there is no likeness at all. 'Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of any body beforehand. One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is not, strictly speaking, handsome? 'Handsome! Oh! nofar from itcertainly plain. I told you he was plain. 'My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain, and that you yourself 'Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard, I always think a person welllooking. But I gave what I believed the general opinion, when I called him plain. 'Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does not look well, and grandmama will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my dear Miss Woodhouse but we really must take leave. This has been a most agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole's but I shall not stop three minutes and, Jane, you had better go home directlyI would not have you out in a shower!We think she is the better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for any thing but boiled pork when we dress the leg it will be another thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh! Mr. Knightley is coming too. Well, that is so very!I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be so kind as to give her your arm.Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins!Good morning to you. Emma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him while he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marryand to marry strangers tooand the other half she could give to her own view of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long but she was sorry for Harriet Harriet must feel itand all that she could hope was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!and upon its beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard's, and that the intelligence would undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation. The shower was heavy, but short and it had not been over five minutes, when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give and the 'Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what do you think has happened! which instantly burst forth, had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in listening and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to tell. 'She had set out from Mrs. Goddard's half an hour agoshe had been afraid it would rainshe had been afraid it would pour down every momentbut she thought she might get to Hartfield firstshe had hurried on as fast as possible but then, as she was passing by the house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she would just step in and see how it went on and though she did not seem to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain, and she did not know what to do so she ran on directly, as fast as she could, and took shelter at Ford's.Ford's was the principal woollendraper, linendraper, and haberdasher's shop united the shop first in size and fashion in the place.'And so, there she had set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes, perhapswhen, all of a sudden, who should come into be sure it was so very odd!but they always dealt at Ford'swho should come in, but Elizabeth Martin and her brother!Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting near the doorElizabeth saw me directly but he did not he was busy with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly, and took no notice and they both went to quite the farther end of the shop and I kept sitting near the door!Oh! dear I was so miserable! I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away you know, because of the rain but I did so wish myself anywhere in the world but there.Oh! dear, Miss Woodhousewell, at last, I fancy, he looked round and saw me for instead of going on with her buyings, they began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me and I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me(do you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)for presently she came forwardcame quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands, if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used I could see she was altered but, however, she seemed to try to be very friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time but I know no more what I saidI was in such a tremble!I remember she said she was sorry we never met now which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to hold up, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting awayand thenonly think!I found he was coming up towards me tooslowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do and so he came and spoke, and I answeredand I stood for a minute, feeling dreadfully, you know, one can't tell how and then I took courage, and said it did not rain, and I must go and so off I set and I had not got three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole's stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh! dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was very much obliged to him you know I could not do less and then he went back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stablesI believe I didbut I hardly knew where I was, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I would rather done any thing than have it happen and yet, you know, there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and make me comfortable again. Very sincerely did Emma wish to do so but it was not immediately in her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly comfortable herself. The young man's conduct, and his sister's, seemed the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection and genuine delicacy in their behaviour. But she had believed them to be wellmeaning, worthy people before and what difference did this make in the evils of the connexion? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of course, he must be sorry to lose herthey must be all sorry. Ambition, as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped to rise by Harriet's acquaintance and besides, what was the value of Harriet's description?So easily pleasedso little discerningwhat signified her praise? She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt on, 'It might be distressing, for the moment, said she 'but you seem to have behaved extremely well and it is overand may nevercan never, as a first meeting, occur again, and therefore you need not think about it. Harriet said, 'very true, and she 'would not think about it but still she talked of itstill she could talk of nothing else and Emma, at last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harrietsuch a conclusion of Mr. Elton's importance with her! Mr. Elton's rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour before, its interest soon increased and before their first conversation was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity, wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins, which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in her fancy. Emma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the courage or the condescension to seek her for since her refusal of the brother, the sisters never had been at Mrs. Goddard's and a twelvemonth might pass without their being thrown together again, with any necessity, or even any power of speech. Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of. A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins's name was first mentioned in Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have every recommendation of person and mind to be handsome, elegant, highly accomplished, and perfectly amiable and when Mr. Elton himself arrived to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits, there was very little more for him to do, than to tell her Christian name, and say whose music she principally played. Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and mortifieddisappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what appeared to him strong encouragement and not only losing the right lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He had gone away deeply offendedhe came back engaged to anotherand to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay and selfsatisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse, and defying Miss Smith. The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune, of so many thousands as would always be called ten a point of some dignity, as well as some convenience the story told well he had not thrown himself awayhe had gained a woman of , l. or thereabouts and he had gained her with such delightful rapiditythe first hour of introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress of the affair was so gloriousthe steps so quick, from the accidental rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green's, and the party at Mrs. Brown'ssmiles and blushes rising in importancewith consciousness and agitation richly scatteredthe lady had been so easily impressedso sweetly disposedhad in short, to use a most intelligible phrase, been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally contented. He had caught both substance and shadowboth fortune and affection, and was just the happy man he ought to be talking only of himself and his own concernsexpecting to be congratulatedready to be laughed atand, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more cautiously gallant. The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for and when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which a certain glance of Mrs. Cole's did not seem to contradict, that when he next entered Highbury he would bring his bride. During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him but just enough to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder that she had ever thought him pleasing at all and his sight was so inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that, except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured of never seeing him again. She wished him very well but he gave her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most satisfaction. The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be preventedmany awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A Mrs. Elton would be an excuse for any change of intercourse former intimacy might sink without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility again. Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough for Mr. Elton, no doubt accomplished enough for Highburyhandsome enoughto look plain, probably, by Harriet's side. As to connexion, there Emma was perfectly easy persuaded, that after all his own vaunted claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article, truth seemed attainable. What she was, must be uncertain but who she was, might be found out and setting aside the , l., it did not appear that she was at all Harriet's superior. She brought no name, no blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters of a Bristolmerchant, of course, he must be called but, as the whole of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol for though the father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remainedin the law linenothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the law line and with him the daughter had lived. Emma guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise. And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was very well married, to a gentleman in a great way, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the windup of the history that was the glory of Miss Hawkins. Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had talked her into love but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet's mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another he certainly would indeed nothing could be clearer even a Robert Martin would have been sufficient but nothing else, she feared, would cure her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once but two or three times every day Harriet was sure just to meet with him, or just to miss him, just to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, just to have something occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about him for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as the discussion of his concerns and every report, therefore, every guessall that had already occurred, all that might occur in the arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss Hawkins's happiness, and continual observation of, how much he seemed attached!his air as he walked by the housethe very sitting of his hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love! Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet's mind, Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton predominated, sometimes the Martins and each was occasionally useful as a check to the other. Mr. Elton's engagement had been the cure of the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth Martin's calling at Mrs. Goddard's a few days afterwards. Harriet had not been at home but a note had been prepared and left for her, written in the very style to touch a small mixture of reproach, with a great deal of kindness and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return, and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were forgotten and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again, Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best for her to return Elizabeth Martin's visit. How that visit was to be acknowledgedwhat would be necessaryand what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration. Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would be ingratitude. It must not be and yet the danger of a renewal of the acquaintance! After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better, than Harriet's returning the visit but in a way that, if they had understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree of intimacy was chosen for the future. She could think of nothing better and though there was something in it which her own heart could not approvesomething of ingratitude, merely glossed overit must be done, or what would become of Harriet? Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard's, her evil stars had led her to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to The Rev. Philip Elton, WhiteHart, Bath, was to be seen under the operation of being lifted into the butcher's cart, which was to convey it to where the coaches past and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk and the direction, was consequently a blank. She went, however and when they reached the farm, and she was to be put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between espalier appletrees to the front door, the sight of every thing which had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to revive a little local agitation and when they parted, Emma observed her to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour. She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who was married, and settled in Donwell. The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the gravel walka Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with her seemingly with ceremonious civility. Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was feeling too much but at last Emma collected from her enough to understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating. She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her doubtingly, if not coolly and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had been talked almost all the timetill just at last, when Mrs. Martin's saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window. He had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour, the party, the occasionto feel the same consciousness, the same regretsto be ready to return to the same good understanding and they were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect, as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months ago!Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a little higher should have been enough but as it was, how could she have done otherwise?Impossible!She could not repent. They must be separated but there was a great deal of pain in the processso much to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary. It was a good scheme but on driving to the door they heard that neither 'master nor mistress was at home they had both been out some time the man believed they were gone to Hartfield. 'This is too bad, cried Emma, as they turned away. 'And now we shall just miss them too provoking!I do not know when I have been so disappointed. And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her murmurs, or to reason them away probably a little of bothsuch being the commonest process of a not illdisposed mind. Presently the carriage stopt she looked up it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in soundfor Mr. Weston immediately accosted her with, 'How d'ye do?how d'ye do?We have been sitting with your fatherglad to see him so well. Frank comes tomorrowI had a letter this morningwe see him tomorrow by dinnertime to a certaintyhe is at Oxford today, and he comes for a whole fortnight I knew it would be so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days I was always glad he did not come at Christmas now we are going to have just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall enjoy him completely every thing has turned out exactly as we could wish. There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston's, confirmed as it all was by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not less to the purpose. To know that she thought his coming certain was enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits. The wornout past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming and in the rapidity of half a moment's thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now be talked of no more. Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command, as well as the route and the method of his journey and she listened, and smiled, and congratulated. 'I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield, said he, at the conclusion. Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his wife. 'We had better move on, Mr. Weston, said she, 'we are detaining the girls. 'Well, well, I am readyand turning again to Emma, 'but you must not be expecting such a very fine young man you have only had my account you know I dare say he is really nothing extraordinarythough his own sparkling eyes at the moment were speaking a very different conviction. Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a manner that appropriated nothing. 'Think of me tomorrow, my dear Emma, about four o'clock, was Mrs. Weston's parting injunction spoken with some anxiety, and meant only for her. 'Four o'clock!depend upon it he will be here by three, was Mr. Weston's quick amendment and so ended a most satisfactory meeting. Emma's spirits were mounted quite up to happiness every thing wore a different air James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least must soon be coming out and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there. 'Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?was a question, however, which did not augur much. But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time. The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston's faithful pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o'clock, that she was to think of her at four. 'My dear, dear anxious friend,said she, in mental soliloquy, while walking downstairs from her own room, 'always overcareful for every body's comfort but your own I see you now in all your little fidgets, going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right. The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. ''Tis twelve I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence and by this time tomorrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him soon. She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her fatherMr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank's being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure. The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually before herhe was presented to her, and she did not think too much had been said in his praise he was a very good looking young man height, air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father's he looked quick and sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him and there was a wellbred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted they soon must be. He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day. 'I told you yesterday, cried Mr. Weston with exultation, 'I told you all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey one cannot help getting on faster than one has planned and the pleasure of coming in upon one's friends before the lookout begins, is worth a great deal more than any little exertion it needs. 'It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it, said the young man, 'though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far but in coming home I felt I might do any thing. The word home made his father look on him with fresh complacency. Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable the conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but one's own country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before, passed suspiciously through Emma's brain but still, if it were a falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a state of no common enjoyment. Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,'Was she a horsewoman?Pleasant rides?Pleasant walks?Had they a large neighbourhood?Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?There were several very pretty houses in and about it.Ballshad they balls?Was it a musical society? But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his motherinlaw, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional proof of his knowing how to pleaseand of his certainly thinking it worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston but, undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood what would be welcome he could be sure of little else. 'His father's marriage, he said, 'had been the wisest measure, every friend must rejoice in it and the family from whom he had received such a blessing must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on him. He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor's merits, without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse's character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor's. And at last, as if resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of her person. 'Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for, said he 'but I confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a very tolerably welllooking woman of a certain age I did not know that I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston. 'You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings, said Emma 'were you to guess her to be eighteen, I should listen with pleasure but she would be ready to quarrel with you for using such words. Don't let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty young woman. 'I hope I should know better, he replied 'no, depend upon it, (with a gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my terms. Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind, had ever crossed his and whether his compliments were to be considered as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more of him to understand his ways at present she only felt they were agreeable. She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy expression and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was confident that he was often listening. Her own father's perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion, was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.Though always objecting to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from the apprehension of any it seemed as if he could not think so ill of any two persons' understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all his natural kindhearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr. Frank Churchill's accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching coldwhich, however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till after another night. A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.'He must be going. He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for Mrs. Weston at Ford's, but he need not hurry any body else. His son, too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying, 'As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near Highbury a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty, I suppose, in finding the house though Fairfax, I believe, is not the proper nameI should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any family of that name? 'To be sure we do, cried his father 'Mrs. Bateswe passed her houseI saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted with Miss Fairfax I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl she is. Call upon her, by all means. 'There is no necessity for my calling this morning, said the young man 'another day would do as well but there was that degree of acquaintance at Weymouth which 'Oh! go today, go today. Do not defer it. What is right to be done cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank any want of attention to her here should be carefully avoided. You saw her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight. The son looked convinced. 'I have heard her speak of the acquaintance, said Emma 'she is a very elegant young woman. He agreed to it, but with so quiet a 'Yes, as inclined her almost to doubt his real concurrence and yet there must be a very distinct sort of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought only ordinarily gifted with it. 'If you were never particularly struck by her manners before, said she, 'I think you will today. You will see her to advantage see her and hear herno, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an aunt who never holds her tongue. 'You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you? said Mr. Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation 'then give me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very worthy people I have known them all my life. They will be extremely glad to see you, I am sure and one of my servants shall go with you to shew you the way. 'My dear sir, upon no account in the world my father can direct me. 'But your father is not going so far he is only going to the Crown, quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many houses you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk, unless you keep on the footpath but my coachman can tell you where you had best cross the street. Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could, and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, 'My good friend, this is quite unnecessary Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees it, and as to Mrs. Bates's, he may get there from the Crown in a hop, step, and jump. They were permitted to go alone and with a cordial nod from one, and a graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full confidence in their comfort. The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs. Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till her usual hour of exercise and on being desired to chuse their walk, immediately fixed on Highbury.'He did not doubt there being very pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happylooking Highbury, would be his constant attraction.Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood for Hartfield and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with him. They walked thither directly. Emma had hardly expected them for Mr. Weston, who had called in for half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew nothing of their plans and it was an agreeable surprize to her, therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his duty nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to hernothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour or twofirst round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing admired Hartfield sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse's ear and when their going farther was resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than Emma could have supposed. Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and which had been the home of his father's father and on recollecting that an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of her cottage from one end of the street to the other and though in some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they shewed, altogether, a goodwill towards Highbury in general, which must be very like a merit to those he was with. Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting himself that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of insincere professions and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him justice. Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of posthorses were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any run on the road and his companions had not expected to be detained by any interest excited there but in passing it they gave the history of the large room visibly added it had been built many years ago for a ballroom, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as suchbut such brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established among the gentlemen and halfgentlemen of the place. He was immediately interested. Its character as a ballroom caught him and instead of passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities, and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived the former good old days of the room?She who could do any thing in Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted to attend, were mentioned but he was not satisfied. He could not be persuaded that so many goodlooking houses as he saw around him, could not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting and even when particulars were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there would be the smallest difficulty in every body's returning into their proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent on dancing and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills. He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough his indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap. It was but an effusion of lively spirits. At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had paid it. 'Yes, oh! yeshe replied 'I was just going to mention it. A very successful visitI saw all the three ladies and felt very much obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper and I had told my father I should certainly be at home before himbut there was no getting away, no pause and, to my utter astonishment, I found, when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had been actually sitting with them very nearly threequarters of an hour. The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before. 'And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking? 'Ill, very illthat is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.A most deplorable want of complexion. Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax's complexion. 'It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not allow it to have a sickly hue in general and there was a softness and delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of her face. He listened with all due deference acknowledged that he had heard many people say the samebut yet he must confess, that to him nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all and where they were good, the effect wasfortunately he need not attempt to describe what the effect was. 'Well, said Emma, 'there is no disputing about taste.At least you admire her except her complexion. He shook his head and laughed.'I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion. 'Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society? At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, 'Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom.I dare say they sell gloves. 'Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because you were Mr. Weston's sonbut lay out half a guinea at Ford's, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues. They went in and while the sleek, welltied parcels of 'Men's Beavers and 'York Tan were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he said'But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me, you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my amor patriae. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in private life. 'I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her party at Weymouth. 'And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.I shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow. 'Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance with her. 'May I, indeed?Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warmhearted woman. I like them all. 'You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude what she is destined to be? 'Yes(rather hesitatingly)I believe I do. 'You get upon delicate subjects, Emma, said Mrs. Weston smiling 'remember that I am here.Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little farther off. 'I certainly do forget to think of her, said Emma, 'as having ever been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend. He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment. When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, 'Did you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play? said Frank Churchill. 'Ever hear her! repeated Emma. 'You forget how much she belongs to Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began. She plays charmingly. 'You think so, do you?I wanted the opinion of some one who could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.I am excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right of judging of any body's performance.I have been used to hear her's admired and I remember one proof of her being thought to play wella man, a very musical man, and in love with another womanengaged to heron the point of marriagewould yet never ask that other woman to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down insteadnever seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other. That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof. 'Proof indeed! said Emma, highly amused.'Mr. Dixon is very musical, is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you, than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year. 'Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons and I thought it a very strong proof. 'Certainlyvery strong it was to own the truth, a great deal stronger than, if I had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable to me. I could not excuse a man's having more music than lovemore ear than eyea more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings. How did Miss Campbell appear to like it? 'It was her very particular friend, you know. 'Poor comfort! said Emma, laughing. 'One would rather have a stranger preferred than one's very particular friendwith a stranger it might not recur againbut the misery of having a very particular friend always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!Poor Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland. 'You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell but she really did not seem to feel it. 'So much the betteror so much the worseI do not know which. But be it sweetness or be it stupidity in herquickness of friendship, or dulness of feelingthere was one person, I think, who must have felt it Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous distinction. 'As to thatI do not 'Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax's sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses. 'There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, 'however, it is impossible for me to say on what terms they really werehow it might all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct herself in critical situations, than I can be. 'I have known her from a child, undoubtedly we have been children and women together and it is natural to suppose that we should be intimate,that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened a little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was, by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserveI never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved. 'It is a most repulsive quality, indeed, said he. 'Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person. 'Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself and then the attraction may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering any body's reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think ill of hernot the leastexcept that such extreme and perpetual cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to conceal. He perfectly agreed with her and after walking together so long, and thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was not exactly what she had expected less of the man of the world in some of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderatehis feelings warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr. Elton's house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at, and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not believe it a bad house not such a house as a man was to be pitied for having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who wanted more. Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about. Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma, in her own mind, determined that he did know what he was talking about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or a bad butler's pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment. Emma's very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner, but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut. There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over on such an errand but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart, which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity, extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be doing something, good or bad heedlessness as to the pleasure of his father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear in general he became liable to all these charges. His father only called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story but that Mrs. Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that 'all young people would have their little whims. With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made himselfhow much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He appeared to have a very open tempercertainly a very cheerful and lively one she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal decidedly right he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of talking of himsaid he would be the best man in the world if he were left to himself and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to speak of her with respect. This was all very promising and, but for such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination had given him the honour, if not of being really in love with her, of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own indifference(for still her resolution held of never marrying)the honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint acquaintance. Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her extremelythought her very beautiful and very charming and with so much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, 'all young people would have their little whims. There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of Donwell and Highbury, with great candour liberal allowances were made for the little excesses of such a handsome young manone who smiled so often and bowed so well but there was one spirit among them not to be softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smilesMr. Knightley. The circumstance was told him at Hartfield for the moment, he was silent but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself, over a newspaper he held in his hand, 'Hum! just the trifling, silly fellow I took him for. She had half a mind to resent but an instant's observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his own feelings, and not meant to provoke and therefore she let it pass. Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and Mrs. Weston's visit this morning was in another respect particularly opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma want their advice and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly the advice they gave. This was the occurrenceThe Coles had been settled some years in Highbury, and were very good sort of peoplefriendly, liberal, and unpretending but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country, they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little company, and that little unexpensively but the last year or two had brought them a considerable increase of meansthe house in town had yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With their wealth, their views increased their want of a larger house, their inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number of servants, to their expenses of every sort and by this time were, in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield. Their love of society, and their new diningroom, prepared every body for their keeping dinnercompany and a few parties, chiefly among the single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma could hardly suppose they would presume to inviteneither Donwell, nor Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt her to go, if they did and she regretted that her father's known habits would be giving her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from herself she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston. But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her very differently affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their invitation, and none had come for her father and herself and Mrs. Weston's accounting for it with 'I suppose they will not take the liberty with you they know you do not dine out, was not quite sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of refusal and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there, consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and the Bateses. They had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before, and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare possibility of it acted as a farther irritation on her spirits and her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort. It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable for though her first remark, on reading it, was that 'of course it must be declined, she so very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their advice for her going was most prompt and successful. She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so properlythere was so much real attention in the manner of itso much consideration for her father. 'They would have solicited the honour earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a foldingscreen from London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught of air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour of his company. Upon the whole, she was very persuadable and it being briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting his comforthow certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be depended on for bearing him companyMr. Woodhouse was to be talked into an acquiescence of his daughter's going out to dinner on a day now near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for his going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible, the hours would be too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned. 'I am not fond of dinnervisiting, said he'I never was. No more is Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with ustake us in their afternoon walk which they might do, as our hours are so reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose any body to. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy. Then turning to Mrs. Weston, with a look of gentle reproach'Ah! Miss Taylor, if you had not married, you would have staid at home with me. 'Well, sir, cried Mr. Weston, 'as I took Miss Taylor away, it is incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can and I will step to Mrs. Goddard in a moment, if you wish it. But the idea of any thing to be done in a moment, was increasing, not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse's agitation. The ladies knew better how to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and every thing deliberately arranged. With this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking as usual. 'He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard for Mrs. Goddard and Emma should write a line, and invite her. James could take the note. But first of all, there must be an answer written to Mrs. Cole. 'You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say that I am quite an invalid, and go no where, and therefore must decline their obliging invitation beginning with my compliments, of course. But you will do every thing right. I need not tell you what is to be done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never been there above once since the new approach was made but still I have no doubt that James will take you very safely. And when you get there, you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late. You will get very tired when tea is over. 'But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa? 'Oh! no, my love but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many people talking at once. You will not like the noise. 'But, my dear sir, cried Mr. Weston, 'if Emma comes away early, it will be breaking up the party. 'And no great harm if it does, said Mr. Woodhouse. 'The sooner every party breaks up, the better. 'But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma's going away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are goodnatured people, and think little of their own claims but still they must feel that any body's hurrying away is no great compliment and Miss Woodhouse's doing it would be more thought of than any other person's in the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am sure, sir friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have been your neighbours these ten years. 'No, upon no account in the world, Mr. Weston I am much obliged to you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but he is biliousMr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure, rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends. 'Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself and I should have no scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you know but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual timeand the idea of that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit up. He did, on the condition of some promises on her side such as that, if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly if hungry, that she would take something to eat that her own maid should sit up for her and that Serle and the butler should see that every thing were safe in the house, as usual. Frank Churchill came back again and if he kept his father's dinner waiting, it was not known at Hartfield for Mrs. Weston was too anxious for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection which could be concealed. He came back, had had his hair cut, and laughed at himself with a very good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer, to conceal any confusion of face no reason to wish the money unspent, to improve his spirits. He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever and, after seeing him, Emma thus moralised to herself 'I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.It depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is not a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own vanities.No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly. With Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and for a longer time than hitherto of judging of his general manners, and by inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself of guessing how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were now seeing them together for the first time. She meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr. Cole's and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr. Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole. Her father's comfort was amply secured, Mrs. Bates as well as Mrs. Goddard being able to come and her last pleasing duty, before she left the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after dinner and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever unwilling selfdenial his care of their constitution might have obliged them to practise during the meal.She had provided a plentiful dinner for them she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat it. She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole's door and was pleased to see that it was Mr. Knightley's for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses, having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and independence, was too apt, in Emma's opinion, to get about as he could, and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey. She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from her heart, for he stopped to hand her out. 'This is coming as you should do, said she 'like a gentleman.I am quite glad to see you. He thanked her, observing, 'How lucky that we should arrive at the same moment! for, if we had met first in the drawingroom, I doubt whether you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual.You might not have distinguished how I came, by my look or manner. 'Yes I should, I am sure I should. There is always a look of consciousness or bustle when people come in a way which they know to be beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I dare say, but with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern I always observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. Now you have nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You are not striving to look taller than any body else. Now I shall really be very happy to walk into the same room with you. 'Nonsensical girl! was his reply, but not at all in anger. Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for. When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of admiration were for her, from both husband and wife the son approached her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object, and at dinner she found him seated by herand, as she firmly believed, not without some dexterity on his side. The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr. Cox's family, the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith but already, at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be general and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour. The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend, was the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy, received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been calling on Miss Bates, and as soon as she entered the room had been struck by the sight of a pianofortea very elegant looking instrumentnot a grand, but a largesized square pianoforte and the substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of surprize, and inquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations on Miss Bates's, was, that this pianoforte had arrived from Broadwood's the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and nieceentirely unexpected that at first, by Miss Bates's account, Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could possibly have ordered itbut now, they were both perfectly satisfied that it could be from only one quarterof course it must be from Colonel Campbell. 'One can suppose nothing else, added Mrs. Cole, 'and I was only surprized that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems, had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it. She knows their ways best but I should not consider their silence as any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might chuse to surprize her. Mrs. Cole had many to agree with her every body who spoke on the subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell, and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made and there were enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still listen to Mrs. Cole. 'I declare, I do not know when I have heard any thing that has given me more satisfaction!It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole, I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the drawingroom, while I do not know one note from another, and our little girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of it and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old spinet in the world, to amuse herself with.I was saying this to Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me only he is so particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can and that really is the reason why the instrument was boughtor else I am sure we ought to be ashamed of it.We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse may be prevailed with to try it this evening. Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence and finding that nothing more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole's, turned to Frank Churchill. 'Why do you smile? said she. 'Nay, why do you? 'Me!I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell's being so rich and so liberal.It is a handsome present. 'Very. 'I rather wonder that it was never made before. 'Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before. 'Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrumentwhich must now be shut up in London, untouched by any body. 'That is a grand pianoforte, and he might think it too large for Mrs. Bates's house. 'You may say what you chusebut your countenance testifies that your thoughts on this subject are very much like mine. 'I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably suspect whatever I find you suspect but at present I do not see what there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can be? 'What do you say to Mrs. Dixon? 'Mrs. Dixon! very true indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must know as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be and perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprize, is more like a young woman's scheme than an elderly man's. It is Mrs. Dixon, I dare say. I told you that your suspicions would guide mine. 'If so, you must extend your suspicions and comprehend Mr. Dixon in them. 'Mr. Dixon.Very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance. 'Yes, and what you told me on that head, confirmed an idea which I had entertained before.I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax, but I cannot help suspecting either that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune to fall in love with her, or that he became conscious of a little attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing exactly the right but I am sure there must be a particular cause for her chusing to come to Highbury instead of going with the Campbells to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance there it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse.In the summer it might have passed but what can any body's native air do for them in the months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would be much more to the purpose in most cases of delicate health, and I dare say in her's. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what they are. 'And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon's preference of her music to her friend's, I can answer for being very decided. 'And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that?A water party and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her. 'He did. I was thereone of the party. 'Were you really?Well!But you observed nothing of course, for it seems to be a new idea to you.If I had been there, I think I should have made some discoveries. 'I dare say you would but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel and that Mr. Dixon caught her.It was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and alarm was very great and much more durableindeed I believe it was half an hour before any of us were comfortable againyet that was too general a sensation for any thing of peculiar anxiety to be observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made discoveries. The conversation was here interrupted. They were called on to share in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others but when the table was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said, 'The arrival of this pianoforte is decisive with me. I wanted to know a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. 'And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it we must conclude it to come from the Campbells. 'No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows it is not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have convinced you perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr. Dixon is a principal in the business. 'Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world. But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in no other light than as an offering of love. There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed real he looked as if he felt it. She said no more, other subjects took their turn and the rest of the dinner passed away the dessert succeeded, the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the usual rate of conversation a few clever things said, a few downright silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the othernothing worse than everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news, and heavy jokes. The ladies had not been long in the drawingroom, before the other ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entree of her own particular little friend and if she could not exult in her dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light, cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many alleviations of pleasure, in the midst of the pangs of disappointed affection. There she satand who would have guessed how many tears she had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself and seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax did look and move superior but Emma suspected she might have been glad to change feelings with Harriet, very glad to have purchased the mortification of having lovedyes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in vainby the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself beloved by the husband of her friend. In so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her. She did not wish to speak of the pianoforte, she felt too much in the secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair, and therefore purposely kept at a distance but by the others, the subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush of guilt which accompanied the name of 'my excellent friend Colonel Campbell. Mrs. Weston, kindhearted and musical, was particularly interested by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her perseverance in dwelling on the subject and having so much to ask and to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the fair heroine's countenance. They were soon joined by some of the gentlemen and the very first of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the handsomest and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle, where sat Miss Woodhouse and till he could find a seat by her, would not sit at all. Emma divined what every body present must be thinking. She was his object, and every body must perceive it. She introduced him to her friend, Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard what each thought of the other. 'He had never seen so lovely a face, and was delighted with her navet. And she, 'Only to be sure it was paying him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a little like Mr. Elton. Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned from her in silence. Smiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first glancing towards Miss Fairfax but it was most prudent to avoid speech. He told her that he had been impatient to leave the diningroomhated sitting longwas always the first to move when he couldthat his father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over parish businessthat as long as he had staid, however, it had been pleasant enough, as he had found them in general a set of gentlemanlike, sensible men and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogetherthought it so abundant in agreeable familiesthat Emma began to feel she had been used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the society in Yorkshirethe extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe, and the sort and could make out from his answers that, as far as Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on, that their visitings were among a range of great families, none very near and that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health and spirits for going that they made a point of visiting no fresh person and that, though he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty, without considerable address at times, that he could get away, or introduce an acquaintance for a night. She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken at its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could with time persuade her to any thing. One of those points on which his influence failed, he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to go abroadhad been very eager indeed to be allowed to travelbut she would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. Now, he said, he was beginning to have no longer the same wish. The unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be good behaviour to his father. 'I have made a most wretched discovery, said he, after a short pause. 'I have been here a week tomorrowhalf my time. I never knew days fly so fast. A week tomorrow!And I have hardly begun to enjoy myself. But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others!I hate the recollection. 'Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out of so few, in having your hair cut. 'No, said he, smiling, 'that is no subject of regret at all. I have no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be seen. The rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself obliged to turn from him for a few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before, she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite. 'What is the matter? said she. He started. 'Thank you for rousing me, he replied. 'I believe I have been very rude but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a wayso very odd a waythat I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw any thing so outre!Those curls!This must be a fancy of her own. I see nobody else looking like her!I must go and ask her whether it is an Irish fashion. Shall I?Yes, I willI declare I willand you shall see how she takes itwhether she colours. He was gone immediately and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss Fairfax, and talking to her but as to its effect on the young lady, as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing. Before he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston. 'This is the luxury of a large party, said she'one can get near every body, and say every thing. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how Miss Bates and her niece came here? 'How?They were invited, were not they? 'Oh! yesbut how they were conveyed hither?the manner of their coming? 'They walked, I conclude. How else could they come? 'Very true.Well, a little while ago it occurred to me how very sad it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could not bear the idea of it so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room, and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess how readily he came into my wishes and having his approbation, I made my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would be at her service before it took us home for I thought it would be making her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you may be sure. 'Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!'but with many, many thanks'there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley's carriage had brought, and was to take them home again.' I was quite surprizedvery glad, I am sure but really quite surprized. Such a very kind attentionand so thoughtful an attention!the sort of thing that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse for assisting them. 'Very likely, said Emma'nothing more likely. I know no man more likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thingto do any thing really goodnatured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a gallant man, but he is a very humane one and this, considering Jane Fairfax's illhealth, would appear a case of humanity to himand for an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses todayfor we arrived together and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that could betray. 'Well, said Mrs. Weston, smiling, 'you give him credit for more simple, disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do for while Miss Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!What do you say to it? 'Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax! exclaimed Emma. 'Dear Mrs. Weston, how could you think of such a thing?Mr. Knightley!Mr. Knightley must not marry!You would not have little Henry cut out from Donwell?Oh! no, no, Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley's marrying and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you should think of such a thing. 'My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want the matchI do not want to injure dear little Henrybut the idea has been given me by circumstances and if Mr. Knightley really wished to marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry's account, a boy of six years old, who knows nothing of the matter? 'Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.Mr. Knightley marry!No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women! 'Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well know. 'But the imprudence of such a match! 'I am not speaking of its prudence merely its probability. 'I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than what you mention. His goodnature, his humanity, as I tell you, would be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfaxand is always glad to shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to matchmaking. You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!Oh! no, noevery feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so mad a thing. 'Imprudent, if you pleasebut not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune, and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable. 'But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?He is as happy as possible by himself with his farm, and his sheep, and his library, and all the parish to manage and he is extremely fond of his brother's children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up his time or his heart. 'My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so but if he really loves Jane Fairfax 'Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family but 'Well, said Mrs. Weston, laughing, 'perhaps the greatest good he could do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home. 'If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself a very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss Bates belonging to him?To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?'So very kind and obliging!But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!' And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old petticoat. 'Not that it was such a very old petticoat eitherfor still it would last a great whileand, indeed, she must thankfully say that their petticoats were all very strong.' 'For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience. And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on and if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad connexion for him, but whether he wishes it and I think he does. I have heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The interest he takes in herhis anxiety about her healthhis concern that she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself so warmly on those points!Such an admirer of her performance on the pianoforte, and of her voice! I have heard him say that he could listen to her for ever. Oh! and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred to methis pianoforte that has been sent here by somebodythough we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in love. 'Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does nothing mysteriously. 'I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly oftener than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of things, occur to him. 'Very well and if he had intended to give her one, he would have told her so. 'There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner. 'You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and run away with it as you have many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachmentI believe nothing of the pianoforteand proof only shall convince me that Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax. They combated the point some time longer in the same way Emma rather gaining ground over the mind of her friend for Mrs. Weston was the most used of the two to yield till a little bustle in the room shewed them that tea was over, and the instrument in preparationand at the same moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very pressing entreaties and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to lead, she gave a very proper compliance. She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than she could perform with credit she wanted neither taste nor spirit in the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by surprizea second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and every thing usual followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect knowledge of music which was properly denied and that he knew nothing of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang together once more and Emma would then resign her place to Miss Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own. With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again. They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive, soon drew away half Emma's mind and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of Mrs. Weston's suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley's marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley consequently to Isabella. A real injury to the childrena most mortifying change, and material loss to them alla very great deduction from her father's daily comfortand, as to herself, she could not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs. Knightley for them all to give way to!NoMr. Knightley must never marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell. Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly very warm yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his kindness in conveying the aunt and niece and though his answer was in the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own. 'I often feel concern, said she, 'that I dare not make our carriage more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish but you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should putto for such a purpose. 'Quite out of the question, quite out of the question, he replied'but you must often wish it, I am sure. And he smiled with such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another step. 'This present from the Campbells, said she'this pianoforte is very kindly given. 'Yes, he replied, and without the smallest apparent embarrassment.'But they would have done better had they given her notice of it. Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell. From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were entirely free from peculiar attachmentwhether there were no actual preferenceremained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane's second song, her voice grew thick. 'That will do, said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud'you have sung quite enough for one eveningnow be quiet. Another song, however, was soon begged for. 'One morethey would not fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more. And Frank Churchill was heard to say, 'I think you could manage this without effort the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the song falls on the second. Mr. Knightley grew angry. 'That fellow, said he, indignantly, 'thinks of nothing but shewing off his own voice. This must not be. And touching Miss Bates, who at that moment passed near'Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on her. Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to be grateful, before she stept forward and put an end to all farther singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers but soon (within five minutes) the proposal of dancingoriginating nobody exactly knew wherewas so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that every thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston, capital in her countrydances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible waltz and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top. While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off, Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr. Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no dancer in general. If he were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur something. There was no immediate appearance. No he was talking to Mrs. Colehe was looking on unconcerned Jane was asked by somebody else, and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole. Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry his interest was yet safe and she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than five couple could be mustered but the rarity and the suddenness of it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a partner. They were a couple worth looking at. Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother's account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again, they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done. 'Perhaps it is as well, said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to her carriage. 'I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing would not have agreed with me, after yours. Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day and all that she might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion, must be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted the Colesworthy people, who deserved to be made happy!And left a name behind her that would not soon die away. Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common and there were two points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of Jane Fairfax's feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right but it had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission to all that she told, was a compliment to her penetration, which made it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her tongue. The other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax and there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily grieve over the idleness of her childhoodand sat down and practised vigorously an hour and a half. She was then interrupted by Harriet's coming in and if Harriet's praise could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted. 'Oh! if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax! 'Don't class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her's, than a lamp is like sunshine. 'Oh! dearI think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Every body last night said how well you played. 'Those who knew any thing about it, must have felt the difference. The truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised, but Jane Fairfax's is much beyond it. 'Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole said how much taste you had and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution. 'Ah! but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet. 'Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing.There is no understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked? 'Just as they always dovery vulgar. 'They told me something, said Harriet rather hesitatingly 'but it is nothing of any consequence. Emma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its producing Mr. Elton. 'They told methat Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday. 'Oh! 'He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay to dinner. 'Oh! 'They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there again next summer. 'She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should be. 'She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry him. 'Very likely.I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar girls in Highbury. Harriet had business at Ford's.Emma thought it most prudent to go with her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and in her present state, would be dangerous. Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always very long at a purchase and while she was still hanging over muslins and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement.Much could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of HighburyMr. Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the officedoor, Mr. Cole's carriagehorses returning from exercise, or a stray letterboy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she could presume to expect and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling children round the baker's little bowwindow eyeing the gingerbread, she knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough quite enough still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer. She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged two persons appeared Mrs. Weston and her soninlaw they were walking into Highburyto Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the first place at Mrs. Bates's whose house was a little nearer Randalls than Ford's and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their eye.Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her and the agreeableness of yesterday's engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument. 'For my companion tells me, said she, 'that I absolutely promised Miss Bates last night, that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day, but as he says I did, I am going now. 'And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I may be allowed, I hope, said Frank Churchill, 'to join your party and wait for her at Hartfieldif you are going home. Mrs. Weston was disappointed. 'I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased. 'Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhapsI may be equally in the way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death and Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am I to do? 'I am here on no business of my own, said Emma 'I am only waiting for my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home. But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument. 'Wellif you advise it.But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an indifferent tonewhat shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs. Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world at a civil falsehood. 'I do not believe any such thing, replied Emma.'I am persuaded that you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary but there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite otherwise indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax's opinion last night. 'Do come with me, said Mrs. Weston, 'if it be not very disagreeable to you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards. We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me. It will be felt so great an attention! and I always thought you meant it. He could say no more and with the hope of Hartfield to reward him, returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates's door. Emma watched them in, and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter,trying, with all the force of her own mind, to convince her that if she wanted plain muslin it was of no use to look at figured and that a blue ribbon, be it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel. 'Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard's, ma'am? asked Mrs. Ford.'Yesnoyes, to Mrs. Goddard's. Only my pattern gown is at Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then, Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.And I could take the pattern gown home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directlyso it had better go to Hartfieldat least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels, Mrs. Ford, could not you? 'It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two parcels. 'No more it is. 'No trouble in the world, ma'am, said the obliging Mrs. Ford. 'Oh! but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard'sI do not knowNo, I think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and take it home with me at night. What do you advise? 'That you do not give another halfsecond to the subject. To Hartfield, if you please, Mrs. Ford. 'Aye, that will be much best, said Harriet, quite satisfied, 'I should not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard's. Voices approached the shopor rather one voice and two ladies Mrs. Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door. 'My dear Miss Woodhouse, said the latter, 'I am just run across to entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while, and give us your opinion of our new instrument you and Miss Smith. How do you do, Miss Smith?Very well I thank you.And I begged Mrs. Weston to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding. 'I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are 'Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?I am so glad to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.Oh! then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me just to run across and entreat her to come in my mother will be so very happy to see herand now we are such a nice party, she cannot refuse.'Aye, pray do,' said Mr. Frank Churchill, 'Miss Woodhouse's opinion of the instrument will be worth having.'But, said I, I shall be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.'Oh,' said he, 'wait half a minute, till I have finished my job'For, would you believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother's spectacles.The rivet came out, you know, this morning.So very obliging!For my mother had no use of her spectaclescould not put them on. And, by the bye, every body ought to have two pair of spectacles they should indeed. Jane said so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did, but something or other hindered me all the morning first one thing, then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I, Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your mistress's spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis sent them by her boy they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the Wallises, alwaysI have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know? Only three of us.besides dear Jane at presentand she really eats nothingmakes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eatsso I say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry I happened to meet him in the street. Not that I had any doubt beforeI have so often heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We have appledumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent appledumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these ladies will oblige us. Emma would be 'very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, c., and they did at last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than, 'How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before. I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very wellonly a little too large about the wrist but Jane is taking them in. 'What was I talking of? said she, beginning again when they were all in the street. Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix. 'I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.Oh! my mother's spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! 'Oh!' said he, 'I do think I can fasten the rivet I like a job of this kind excessively.'Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected, he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could.... 'Oh!' said he, 'I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort excessively.' I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very obliging as to take some, 'Oh!' said he directly, 'there is nothing in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finestlooking homebaked apples I ever saw in my life.' That, you know, was so very.... And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justiceonly we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us promise to have them done three timesbut Miss Woodhouse will be so good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest sort for baking, beyond a doubt all from Donwellsome of Mr. Knightley's most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year and certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his treesI believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the other dayfor Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. 'I am sure you must be,' said he, 'and I will send you another supply for I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more, before they get good for nothing.' So I begged he would notfor really as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great many leftit was but half a dozen indeed but they should be all kept for Jane and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more, so liberal as he had been already and Jane said the same. And when he was gone, she almost quarrelled with meNo, I should not say quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives but she was quite distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone she wished I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear, I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose. William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it was all the apples of that sort his master had he had brought them alland now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had sold so many for William, you know, thinks more of his master's profit than any thing but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be able to have another appletart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for Mrs. Hodges would be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very.... I wanted to keep it from Jane's knowledge but, unluckily, I had mentioned it before I was aware. Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door and her visitors walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, pursued only by the sounds of her desultory goodwill. 'Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircaserather darker and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss Smith, the step at the turning. The appearance of the little sittingroom as they entered, was tranquillity itself Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment, slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax, standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte. Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy countenance on seeing Emma again. 'This is a pleasure, said he, in rather a low voice, 'coming at least ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be useful tell me if you think I shall succeed. 'What! said Mrs. Weston, 'have not you finished it yet? you would not earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate. 'I have not been working uninterruptedly, he replied, 'I have been assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily, it was not quite firm an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home. He contrived that she should be seated by him and was sufficiently employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready to sit down to the pianoforte again. That she was not immediately ready, Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves she had not yet possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion she must reason herself into the power of performance and Emma could not but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve never to expose them to her neighbour again. At last Jane began, and though the first bars were feebly given, the powers of the instrument were gradually done full justice to. Mrs. Weston had been delighted before, and was delighted again Emma joined her in all her praise and the pianoforte, with every proper discrimination, was pronounced to be altogether of the highest promise. 'Whoever Colonel Campbell might employ, said Frank Churchill, with a smile at Emma, 'the person has not chosen ill. I heard a good deal of Colonel Campbell's taste at Weymouth and the softness of the upper notes I am sure is exactly what he and all that party would particularly prize. I dare say, Miss Fairfax, that he either gave his friend very minute directions, or wrote to Broadwood himself. Do not you think so? Jane did not look round. She was not obliged to hear. Mrs. Weston had been speaking to her at the same moment. 'It is not fair, said Emma, in a whisper 'mine was a random guess. Do not distress her. He shook his head with a smile, and looked as if he had very little doubt and very little mercy. Soon afterwards he began again, 'How much your friends in Ireland must be enjoying your pleasure on this occasion, Miss Fairfax. I dare say they often think of you, and wonder which will be the day, the precise day of the instrument's coming to hand. Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going forward just at this time?Do you imagine it to be the consequence of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon contingencies and conveniences? He paused. She could not but hear she could not avoid answering, 'Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell, said she, in a voice of forced calmness, 'I can imagine nothing with any confidence. It must be all conjecture. 'Conjectureaye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this rivet quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard at work, if one talks at allyour real workmen, I suppose, hold their tongues but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a wordMiss Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed for the present. He was very warmly thanked both by mother and daughter to escape a little from the latter, he went to the pianoforte, and begged Miss Fairfax, who was still sitting at it, to play something more. 'If you are very kind, said he, 'it will be one of the waltzes we danced last nightlet me live them over again. You did not enjoy them as I did you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we danced no longer but I would have given worldsall the worlds one ever has to givefor another halfhour. She played. 'What felicity it is to hear a tune again which has made one happy!If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth. She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforte, and turning to Emma, said, 'Here is something quite new to me. Do you know it?Cramer.And here are a new set of Irish melodies. That, from such a quarter, one might expect. This was all sent with the instrument. Very thoughtful of Colonel Campbell, was not it?He knew Miss Fairfax could have no music here. I honour that part of the attention particularly it shews it to have been so thoroughly from the heart. Nothing hastily done nothing incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it. Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness, there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.This amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very reprehensible feelings. He brought all the music to her, and they looked it over together.Emma took the opportunity of whispering, 'You speak too plain. She must understand you. 'I hope she does. I would have her understand me. I am not in the least ashamed of my meaning. 'But really, I am half ashamed, and wish I had never taken up the idea. 'I am very glad you did, and that you communicated it to me. I have now a key to all her odd looks and ways. Leave shame to her. If she does wrong, she ought to feel it. 'She is not entirely without it, I think. 'I do not see much sign of it. She is playing Robin Adair at this momenthis favourite. Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr. Knightley on horseback not far off. 'Mr. Knightley I declare!I must speak to him if possible, just to thank him. I will not open the window here it would give you all cold but I can go into my mother's room you know. I dare say he will come in when he knows who is here. Quite delightful to have you all meet so!Our little room so honoured! She was in the adjoining chamber while she still spoke, and opening the casement there, immediately called Mr. Knightley's attention, and every syllable of their conversation was as distinctly heard by the others, as if it had passed within the same apartment. 'How d' ye do?how d'ye do?Very well, I thank you. So obliged to you for the carriage last night. We were just in time my mother just ready for us. Pray come in do come in. You will find some friends here. So began Miss Bates and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say, 'How is your niece, Miss Bates?I want to inquire after you all, but particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax?I hope she caught no cold last night. How is she today? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is. And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear her in any thing else. The listeners were amused and Mrs. Weston gave Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in steady scepticism. 'So obliged to you!so very much obliged to you for the carriage, resumed Miss Bates. He cut her short with, 'I am going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you? 'Oh! dear, Kingstonare you?Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she wanted something from Kingston. 'Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for you? 'No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here?Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte. Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in. 'Well, said he, in a deliberating manner, 'for five minutes, perhaps. 'And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill too!Quite delightful so many friends! 'No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on to Kingston as fast as I can. 'Oh! do come in. They will be so very happy to see you. 'No, no your room is full enough. I will call another day, and hear the pianoforte. 'Well, I am so sorry!Oh! Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last night how extremely pleasant.Did you ever see such dancing?Was not it delightful?Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill I never saw any thing equal to it. 'Oh! very delightful indeed I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing every thing that passes. And (raising his voice still more) I do not see why Miss Fairfax should not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well and Mrs. Weston is the very best countrydance player, without exception, in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say something pretty loud about you and me in return but I cannot stay to hear it. 'Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more something of consequenceso shocked!Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples! 'What is the matter now? 'To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked! Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You should not have done it, indeed you should not. Ah! he is off. He never can bear to be thanked. But I thought he would have staid now, and it would have been a pity not to have mentioned.... Well, (returning to the room,) I have not been able to succeed. Mr. Knightley cannot stop. He is going to Kingston. He asked me if he could do any thing.... 'Yes, said Jane, 'we heard his kind offers, we heard every thing. 'Oh! yes, my dear, I dare say you might, because you know, the door was open, and the window was open, and Mr. Knightley spoke loud. You must have heard every thing to be sure. 'Can I do any thing for you at Kingston?' said he so I just mentioned.... Oh! Miss Woodhouse, must you be going?You seem but just comeso very obliging of you. Emma found it really time to be at home the visit had already lasted long and on examining watches, so much of the morning was perceived to be gone, that Mrs. Weston and her companion taking leave also, could allow themselves only to walk with the two young ladies to Hartfield gates, before they set off for Randalls. It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mindbut when a beginning is madewhen the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, feltit must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more. Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again and the last halfhour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young people in schemes on the subject. Frank's was the first idea and his the greatest zeal in pursuing it for the lady was the best judge of the difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance. But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse dancedfor doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane Fairfaxand even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked aids of vanityto assist him first in pacing out the room they were in to see what it could be made to holdand then in taking the dimensions of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little the largest. His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole's should be finished therethat the same party should be collected, and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr. Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space to every couple. 'You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five, had been repeated many times over. 'And there will be the two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley. Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five and for five couple there will be plenty of room. But soon it came to be on one side, 'But will there be good room for five couple?I really do not think there will. On another, 'And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it. It will not do to invite five couple. It can be allowable only as the thought of the moment. Somebody said that Miss Gilbert was expected at her brother's, and must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed Mrs. Gilbert would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was put in for a second young Cox and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what possible manner they could be disposed of. The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. 'Might not they use both rooms, and dance across the passage? It seemed the best scheme and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a better. Emma said it would be awkward Mrs. Weston was in distress about the supper and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be persevered in. 'Oh! no, said he 'it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not bear it for Emma!Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold. So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would be quite laid up do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening, and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not quite the thing! Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only in the room they were in resorted to again and with such goodwill on Frank Churchill's part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured to be made out quite enough for ten. 'We were too magnificent, said he. 'We allowed unnecessary room. Ten couple may stand here very well. Emma demurred. 'It would be a crowda sad crowd and what could be worse than dancing without space to turn in? 'Very true, he gravely replied 'it was very bad. But still he went on measuring, and still he ended with, 'I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple. 'No, no, said she, 'you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be dancing in a crowdand a crowd in a little room! 'There is no denying it, he replied. 'I agree with you exactly. A crowd in a little roomMiss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!Still, however, having proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be a disappointment to my fatherand altogetherI do not know thatI am rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well. Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little selfwilled, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of dancing with her but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest. Had she intended ever to marry him, it might have been worth while to pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference, and the character of his temper but for all the purposes of their acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough. Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield and he entered the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement. 'Well, Miss Woodhouse, he almost immediately began, 'your inclination for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors of my father's little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subjecta thought of my father's, which waits only your approbation to be acted upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the Crown Inn? 'The Crown! 'Yes if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot, my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there. Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel. Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls rooms, would have been insufferable!Dreadful!I felt how right you were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing any thing to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?You consentI hope you consent? 'It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs. Weston do not. I think it admirable and, as far as I can answer for myself, shall be most happyIt seems the only improvement that could be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement? She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully comprehended and then, being quite new, farther representations were necessary to make it acceptable. 'No he thought it very far from an improvementa very bad planmuch worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown in his lifedid not know the people who kept it by sight.Oh! noa very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere. 'I was going to observe, sir, said Frank Churchill, 'that one of the great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger of any body's catching coldso much less danger at the Crown than at Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but nobody else could. 'Sir, said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, 'you are very much mistaken if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father's house. 'From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no occasion to open the windows at allnot once the whole evening and it is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief. 'Open the windows!but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!I am sure, neither your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer it. 'Ah! sirbut a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a windowcurtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have often known it done myself. 'Have you indeed, sir?Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However, this does make a difference and, perhaps, when we come to talk it overbut these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what can be done. 'But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited 'Oh! interrupted Emma, 'there will be plenty of time for talking every thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be so near their own stable. 'So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever complains but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could be sure of the rooms being thoroughly airedbut is Mrs. Stokes to be trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight. 'I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be under Mrs. Weston's care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole. 'There, papa!Now you must be satisfiedOur own dear Mrs. Weston, who is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many years ago, when I had the measles? 'If Miss Taylor undertakes to wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.' How often have I heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her! 'Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor little Emma! You were very bad with the measles that is, you would have been very bad, but for Perry's great attention. He came four times a day for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sortwhich was our great comfort but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope whenever poor Isabella's little ones have the measles, she will send for Perry. 'My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment, said Frank Churchill, 'examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing satisfactorily without you. Emma was most happy to be called to such a council and her father, engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs. Weston delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and very happy in their different way she, in some little distress and he, finding every thing perfect. 'Emma, said she, 'this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places you see it is dreadfully dirty and the wainscot is more yellow and forlorn than any thing I could have imagined. 'My dear, you are too particular, said her husband. 'What does all that signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our clubnights. The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, 'Men never know when things are dirty or not and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, 'Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares. One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain. It regarded a supperroom. At the time of the ballroom's being built, suppers had not been in question and a small cardroom adjoining, was the only addition. What was to be done? This cardroom would be wanted as a cardroom now or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the purpose but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs. Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being miserably crowded at supper. Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper merely sandwiches, c., set out in the little room but that was scouted as a wretched suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women and Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed, 'I do not think it is so very small. We shall not be many, you know. And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through the passage, was calling out, 'You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a mere nothing after all and not the least draught from the stairs. 'I wish, said Mrs. Weston, 'one could know which arrangement our guests in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing must be our objectif one could but tell what that would be. 'Yes, very true, cried Frank, 'very true. You want your neighbours' opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief of themthe Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.And I do not know whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council. Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us? 'Wellif you please, said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, 'if you think she will be of any use. 'You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates, said Emma. 'She will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting Miss Bates. 'But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know. Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it his decided approbation. 'Aye, do, Frank.Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure and I do not know a properer person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates. We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both. 'Both sir! Can the old lady?... 'The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece. 'Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect. Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both. And away he ran. Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, briskmoving aunt, and her elegant niece,Mrs. Weston, like a sweettempered woman and a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it much less than she had supposed beforeindeed very trifling and here ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves or were left as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs. Stokes.Every body invited, was certainly to come Frank had already written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight, which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to be. Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must. As a counsellor she was not wanted but as an approver, (a much safer character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please and for another halfhour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms, some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the future. The party did not break up without Emma's being positively secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, 'He has asked her, my dear. That's right. I knew he would! One thing only was wanting to make the prospect of the ball completely satisfactory to Emmaits being fixed for a day within the granted term of Frank Churchill's stay in Surry for, in spite of Mr. Weston's confidence, she could not think it so very impossible that the Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his fortnight. But this was not judged feasible. The preparations must take their time, nothing could be properly ready till the third week were entered on, and for a few days they must be planning, proceeding and hoping in uncertaintyat the riskin her opinion, the great risk, of its being all in vain. Enscombe however was gracious, gracious in fact, if not in word. His wish of staying longer evidently did not please but it was not opposed. All was safe and prosperous and as the removal of one solicitude generally makes way for another, Emma, being now certain of her ball, began to adopt as the next vexation Mr. Knightley's provoking indifference about it. Either because he did not dance himself, or because the plan had been formed without his being consulted, he seemed resolved that it should not interest him, determined against its exciting any present curiosity, or affording him any future amusement. To her voluntary communications Emma could get no more approving reply, than, 'Very well. If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.Oh! yes, I must be there I could not refuse and I will keep as much awake as I can but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins's week's account much rather, I confess.Pleasure in seeing dancing!not I, indeedI never look at itI do not know who does.Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different. This Emma felt was aimed at her and it made her quite angry. It was not in compliment to Jane Fairfax however that he was so indifferent, or so indignant he was not guided by her feelings in reprobating the ball, for she enjoyed the thought of it to an extraordinary degree. It made her animatedopen heartedshe voluntarily said 'Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing may happen to prevent the ball. What a disappointment it would be! I do look forward to it, I own, with very great pleasure. It was not to oblige Jane Fairfax therefore that he would have preferred the society of William Larkins. No!she was more and more convinced that Mrs. Weston was quite mistaken in that surmise. There was a great deal of friendly and of compassionate attachment on his sidebut no love. Alas! there was soon no leisure for quarrelling with Mr. Knightley. Two days of joyful security were immediately followed by the overthrow of every thing. A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew's instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwellfar too unwell to do without him she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband) when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of herself, she had not mentioned it but now she was too ill to trifle, and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay. The substance of this letter was forwarded to Emma, in a note from Mrs. Weston, instantly. As to his going, it was inevitable. He must be gone within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt, to lessen his repugnance. He knew her illnesses they never occurred but for her own convenience. Mrs. Weston added, 'that he could only allow himself time to hurry to Highbury, after breakfast, and take leave of the few friends there whom he could suppose to feel any interest in him and that he might be expected at Hartfield very soon. This wretched note was the finale of Emma's breakfast. When once it had been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim. The loss of the ballthe loss of the young manand all that the young man might be feeling!It was too wretched!Such a delightful evening as it would have been!Every body so happy! and she and her partner the happiest!'I said it would be so, was the only consolation. Her father's feelings were quite distinct. He thought principally of Mrs. Churchill's illness, and wanted to know how she was treated and as for the ball, it was shocking to have dear Emma disappointed but they would all be safer at home. Emma was ready for her visitor some time before he appeared but if this reflected at all upon his impatience, his sorrowful look and total want of spirits when he did come might redeem him. He felt the going away almost too much to speak of it. His dejection was most evident. He sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes and when rousing himself, it was only to say, 'Of all horrid things, leavetaking is the worst. 'But you will come again, said Emma. 'This will not be your only visit to Randalls. 'Ah!(shaking his head)the uncertainty of when I may be able to return!I shall try for it with a zeal!It will be the object of all my thoughts and cares!and if my uncle and aunt go to town this springbut I am afraidthey did not stir last springI am afraid it is a custom gone for ever. 'Our poor ball must be quite given up. 'Ah! that ball!why did we wait for any thing?why not seize the pleasure at once?How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!You told us it would be so.Oh! Miss Woodhouse, why are you always so right? 'Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. 'If I can come again, we are still to have our ball. My father depends on it. Do not forget your engagement. Emma looked graciously. 'Such a fortnight as it has been! he continued 'every day more precious and more delightful than the day before!every day making me less fit to bear any other place. Happy those, who can remain at Highbury! 'As you do us such ample justice now, said Emma, laughing, 'I will venture to ask, whether you did not come a little doubtfully at first? Do not we rather surpass your expectations? I am sure we do. I am sure you did not much expect to like us. You would not have been so long in coming, if you had had a pleasant idea of Highbury. He laughed rather consciously and though denying the sentiment, Emma was convinced that it had been so. 'And you must be off this very morning? 'Yes my father is to join me here we shall walk back together, and I must be off immediately. I am almost afraid that every moment will bring him. 'Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss Bates? How unlucky! Miss Bates's powerful, argumentative mind might have strengthened yours. 'YesI have called there passing the door, I thought it better. It was a right thing to do. I went in for three minutes, and was detained by Miss Bates's being absent. She was out and I felt it impossible not to wait till she came in. She is a woman that one may, that one must laugh at but that one would not wish to slight. It was better to pay my visit, then He hesitated, got up, walked to a window. 'In short, said he, 'perhaps, Miss WoodhouseI think you can hardly be quite without suspicion He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in the hope of putting it by, she calmly said, 'You are quite in the right it was most natural to pay your visit, then He was silent. She believed he was looking at her probably reflecting on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner. She heard him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had cause to sigh. He could not believe her to be encouraging him. A few awkward moments passed, and he sat down again and in a more determined manner said, 'It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to Hartfield. My regard for Hartfield is most warm He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.He was more in love with her than Emma had supposed and who can say how it might have ended, if his father had not made his appearance? Mr. Woodhouse soon followed and the necessity of exertion made him composed. A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr. Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that was doubtful, said, 'It was time to go and the young man, though he might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave. 'I shall hear about you all, said he 'that is my chief consolation. I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you. I have engaged Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really interested in the absent!she will tell me every thing. In her letters I shall be at dear Highbury again. A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest 'Goodbye, closed the speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill. Short had been the noticeshort their meeting he was gone and Emma felt so sorry to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too much. It was a sad change. They had been meeting almost every day since his arrival. Certainly his being at Randalls had given great spirit to the last two weeksindescribable spirit the idea, the expectation of seeing him which every morning had brought, the assurance of his attentions, his liveliness, his manners! It had been a very happy fortnight, and forlorn must be the sinking from it into the common course of Hartfield days. To complete every other recommendation, he had almost told her that he loved her. What strength, or what constancy of affection he might be subject to, was another point but at present she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious preference of herself and this persuasion, joined to all the rest, made her think that she must be a little in love with him, in spite of every previous determination against it. 'I certainly must, said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were notfor a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to others. I shall have many fellowmourners for the ball, if not for Frank Churchill but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening with his dear William Larkins now if he likes. Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say that he was sorry on his own account his very cheerful look would have contradicted him if he had but he said, and very steadily, that he was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable kindness added, 'You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out of luck you are very much out of luck! It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest regret in this woeful change but when they did meet, her composure was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it and it was charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of illhealth. Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good deal and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing Frank Churchill talked of and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston she was very often thinking of him, and quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed for employment than usual she was still busy and cheerful and, pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults and farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she refused him. Their affection was always to subside into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their parting but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this, it struck her that she could not be very much in love for in spite of her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle than she could foresee in her own feelings. 'I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice, said she.'In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more. Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings. 'He is undoubtedly very much in loveevery thing denotes itvery much in love indeed!and when he comes again, if his affection continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.It would be most inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and language at parting would have been different.Still, however, I must be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing what it now is but I do not know that I expect it will I do not look upon him to be quite the sort of manI do not altogether build upon his steadiness or constancy.His feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable.Every consideration of the subject, in short, makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.I shall do very well again after a little whileand then, it will be a good thing over for they say every body is in love once in their lives, and I shall have been let off easily. When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it and she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had undervalued their strength. It was a long, wellwritten letter, giving the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable, and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of apology or concern it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs. Weston and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.The charm of her own name was not wanting. Miss Woodhouse appeared more than once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said and in the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these words'I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss Woodhouse's beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus to her. This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was remembered only from being her friend. His information and prospects as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again. Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her. Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which clothed it, the 'beautiful little friend, suggested to her the idea of Harriet's succeeding her in his affections. Was it impossible?No.Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in understanding but he had been very much struck with the loveliness of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner and all the probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.For Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed. 'I must not dwell upon it, said she.'I must not think of it. I know the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have happened and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure. It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet's behalf, though it might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom for evil in that quarter was at hand. As Frank Churchill's arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton's engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill's disappearance, Mr. Elton's concerns were assuming the most irresistible form.His weddingday was named. He would soon be among them again Mr. Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter from Enscombe before 'Mr. Elton and his bride was in every body's mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound. She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton and Harriet's mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength. With Mr. Weston's ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of insensibility to other things but it was now too evident that she had not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual approachnew carriage, bellringing, and all. Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience but it was heavy work to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened submissively, and said 'it was very trueit was just as Miss Woodhouse describedit was not worth while to think about themand she would not think about them any longer but no change of subject could avail, and the next halfhour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground. 'Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr. Elton's marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make me. You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into. It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure you.Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive youand it will be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of forgetting it. Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager exclamation. Emma continued, 'I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake think less, talk less of Mr. Elton for my sake because for your own sake rather, I would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my comfort, a habit of selfcommand in you, a consideration of what is your duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity. These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very importantand sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration. I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes have felt that Harriet would not forget what was dueor rather what would be kind by me. This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to what was right and support her in it very tolerably. 'You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my lifeWant gratitude to you!Nobody is equal to you!I care for nobody as I do for you!Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been! Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so well, nor valued her affection so highly before. 'There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart, said she afterwards to herself. 'There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally belovedwhich gives Isabella all her popularity.I have it notbut I know how to prize and respect it.Harriet is my superior in all the charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!I would not change you for the clearestheaded, longestsighted, bestjudging female breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!Harriet is worth a hundred suchAnd for a wifea sensible man's wifeit is invaluable. I mention no names but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet! Mrs. Elton was first seen at church but though devotion might be interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or not pretty at all. Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects and she made a point of Harriet's going with her, that the worst of the business might be gone through as soon as possible. She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to lace up her boot, without recollecting. A thousand vexatious thoughts would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders and it was not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too but she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit was of course short and there was so much embarrassment and occupation of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the nothingmeaning terms of being 'elegantly dressed, and very pleasing. She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault, but she suspected that there was no eleganceease, but not elegance. She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there was too much ease. Her person was rather good her face not unpretty but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma thought at least it would turn out so. As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appearbut no, she would not permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman was better off she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to depend on and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr. Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as could be. 'Well, Miss Woodhouse, said Harriet, when they had quitted the house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin 'Well, Miss Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?Is not she very charming? There was a little hesitation in Emma's answer. 'Oh! yesverya very pleasing young woman. 'I think her beautiful, quite beautiful. 'Very nicely dressed, indeed a remarkably elegant gown. 'I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love. 'Oh! nothere is nothing to surprize one at all.A pretty fortune and she came in his way. 'I dare say, returned Harriet, sighing again, 'I dare say she was very much attached to him. 'Perhaps she might but it is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this the best offer she was likely to have. 'Yes, said Harriet earnestly, 'and well she might, nobody could ever have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as superior as everbut being married, you know, it is quite a different thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid I can sit and admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown himself away, is such a comfort!She does seem a charming young woman, just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her 'Augusta.' How delightful! When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see more and judge better. From Harriet's happening not to be at Hartfield, and her father's being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter of an hour of the lady's conversation to herself, and could composedly attend to her and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking much of her own importance that she meant to shine and be very superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert and familiar that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good. Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself, she would have connected him with those who were but Miss Hawkins, it might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of her own set. The rich brotherinlaw near Bristol was the pride of the alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him. The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, 'My brother Mr. Suckling's seata comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty and the house was modern and wellbuilt. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or imagine. 'Very like Maple Grove indeed!She was quite struck by the likeness!That room was the very shape and size of the morningroom at Maple Grove her sister's favourite room.Mr. Elton was appealed to.'Was not it astonishingly like?She could really almost fancy herself at Maple Grove. 'And the staircaseYou know, as I came in, I observed how very like the staircase was placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who sees it is struck by its beauty but to me, it has been quite a home. Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of matrimony. Emma made as slight a reply as she could but it was fully sufficient for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself. 'So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the housethe grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like. The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand very much in the same wayjust across the lawn and I had a glimpse of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing in the same style. Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the extensive grounds of any body else but it was not worth while to attack an error so doubledyed, and therefore only said in reply, 'When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties. 'Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you know. Surry is the garden of England. 'Yes but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as Surry. 'No, I fancy not, replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile. 'I never heard any county but Surry called so. Emma was silenced. 'My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer at farthest, continued Mrs. Elton 'and that will be our time for exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare say. They will have their barouchelandau, of course, which holds four perfectly and therefore, without saying any thing of our carriage, we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their bringing the barouchelandau it will be so very much preferable. When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible and Mr. Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King'sWeston twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their first having the barouchelandau. You have many parties of that kind here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer? 'No not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of and we are a very quiet set of people, I believe more disposed to stay at home than engage in schemes of pleasure. 'Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol, 'I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouchelandau without a companion but Augusta, I believe, with her own goodwill, would never stir beyond the park paling.' Many a time has she said so and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary, when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very bad thing and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse(looking towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father's state of health must be a great drawback. Why does not he try Bath?Indeed he should. Let me recommend Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse good. 'My father tried it more than once, formerly but without receiving any benefit and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you, does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now. 'Ah! that's a great pity for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place, that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse's spirits, which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its recommendations to you, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived so secluded a life and I could immediately secure you some of the best society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of acquaintance and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public with. It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an introductionof her going into public under the auspices of a friend of Mrs. Elton'sprobably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!The dignity of Miss Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed! She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly 'but their going to Bath was quite out of the question and she was not perfectly convinced that the place might suit her better than her father. And then, to prevent farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly. 'I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions, a lady's character generally precedes her and Highbury has long known that you are a superior performer. 'Oh! no, indeed I must protest against any such idea. A superior performer!very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of musicpassionately fondand my friends say I am not entirely devoid of taste but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is mediocre to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction, comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to me and having always been used to a very musical society, both at Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be disagreeable and the inferiority of the house tooknowing what I had been accustomed toof course he was not wholly without apprehension. When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that the world I could give upparties, balls, playsfor I had no fear of retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was not necessary to me. I could do very well without it. To those who had no resources it was a different thing but my resources made me quite independent. And as to smallersized rooms than I had been used to, I really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every luxury at Maple Grove but I did assure him that two carriages were not necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. 'But,' said I, 'to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a musical society. I condition for nothing else but without music, life would be a blank to me.' 'We cannot suppose, said Emma, smiling, 'that Mr. Elton would hesitate to assure you of there being a very musical society in Highbury and I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be pardoned, in consideration of the motive. 'No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours. Will not it be a good plan? If we exert ourselves, I think we shall not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be particularly desirable for me, as an inducement to keep me in practice for married women, you knowthere is a sad story against them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music. 'But you, who are so extremely fond of itthere can be no danger, surely? 'I should hope not but really when I look around among my acquaintance, I tremble. Selina has entirely given up musicnever touches the instrumentthough she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs. JeffereysClara Partridge, that wasand of the two Milmans, now Mrs. Bird and Mrs. James Cooper and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with Selina but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this morning shut up with my housekeeper. 'But every thing of that kind, said Emma, 'will soon be in so regular a train 'Well, said Mrs. Elton, laughing, 'we shall see. Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing more to say and, after a moment's pause, Mrs. Elton chose another subject. 'We have been calling at Randalls, said she, 'and found them both at home and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely. Mr. Weston seems an excellent creaturequite a firstrate favourite with me already, I assure you. And she appears so truly goodthere is something so motherly and kindhearted about her, that it wins upon one directly. She was your governess, I think? Emma was almost too much astonished to answer but Mrs. Elton hardly waited for the affirmative before she went on. 'Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very ladylike! But she is really quite the gentlewoman. 'Mrs. Weston's manners, said Emma, 'were always particularly good. Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest model for any young woman. 'And who do you think came in while we were there? Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintanceand how could she possibly guess? 'Knightley! continued Mrs. Elton 'Knightley himself!Was not it lucky?for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never seen him before and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.'s, I had a great curiosity. 'My friend Knightley' had been so often mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him and I must do my caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend. Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I think, a very gentlemanlike man. Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off and Emma could breathe. 'Insufferable woman! was her immediate exclamation. 'Worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!I could not have believed it. Knightley!never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley!and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery. Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs. Weston!Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he would be! Ah! there I amthinking of him directly. Always the first person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes as regularly into my mind! All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons' departure, and was ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending. 'Well, my dear, he deliberately began, 'considering we never saw her before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady and I dare say she was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe I am nice I do not like strange voices and nobody speaks like you and poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, prettybehaved young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion I said that I hoped I should in the course of the summer. But I ought to have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage Lane. 'I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you. 'Yes but a young ladya brideI ought to have paid my respects to her if possible. It was being very deficient. 'But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony and therefore why should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a bride? It ought to be no recommendation to you. It is encouraging people to marry if you make so much of them. 'No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always wish to pay every proper attention to a ladyand a bride, especially, is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to her. A bride, you know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who they may. 'Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to such vanitybaits for poor young ladies. 'My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere common politeness and goodbreeding, and has nothing to do with any encouragement to people to marry. Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand her. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton's offences, and long, very long, did they occupy her. Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared whenever they met again,selfimportant, presuming, familiar, ignorant, and illbred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment, but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs. Elton's consequence only could surpass. There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury, as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal and the greater part of her new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging, following the lead of Miss Bates's goodwill, or taking it for granted that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed herself, were very well satisfied so that Mrs. Elton's praise passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with a good grace of her being 'very pleasant and very elegantly dressed. In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.Offended, probably, by the little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant and though the effect was agreeable, the illwill which produced it was necessarily increasing Emma's dislike. Her manners, tooand Mr. Elton's, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet's cure but the sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very much.It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet's attachment had been an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him, had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object of their joint dislike.When they had nothing else to say, it must be always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse and the enmity which they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in contemptuous treatment of Harriet. Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax and from the first. Not merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to recommend the other, but from the very first and she was not satisfied with expressing a natural and reasonable admirationbut without solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and befriend her.Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton's knighterrantry on the subject. 'Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.I quite rave about Jane Fairfax.A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and ladylikeand with such talents!I assure you I think she has very extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmthbut, upon my word, I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.And her situation is so calculated to affect one!Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers must not be suffered to remain unknown.I dare say you have heard those charming lines of the poet, 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 'And waste its fragrance on the desert air.' We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax. 'I cannot think there is any danger of it, was Emma's calm answer'and when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax's situation and understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown. 'Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such obscurity, so thrown away.Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it. I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for timidityand I am sure one does not often meet with it.But in those who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more than I can express. 'You appear to feel a great dealbut I am not aware how you or any of Miss Fairfax's acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer than yourself, can shew her any other attention than 'My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to act. You and I need not be afraid. If we set the example, many will follow it as far as they can though all have not our situations. We have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and we live in a style which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the least inconvenient.I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked more than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of thing. It is not likely that I should, considering what I have been used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to befor we do not at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.However, my resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.I shall certainly have her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit her shortly.I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her extremely and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners of either but what is highly conciliating.I shall have her very often indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a seat for her in the barouchelandau in some of our exploring parties. 'Poor Jane Fairfax!thought Emma.'You have not deserved this. You may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment beyond what you can have merited!The kindness and protection of Mrs. Elton!'Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.' Heavens! Let me not suppose that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouseing me!But upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue! Emma had not to listen to such paradings againto any so exclusively addressed to herselfso disgustingly decorated with a 'dear Miss Woodhouse. The change on Mrs. Elton's side soon afterwards appeared, and she was left in peaceneither forced to be the very particular friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton's guidance, the very active patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done. She looked on with some amusement.Miss Bates's gratitude for Mrs. Elton's attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthiesthe most amiable, affable, delightful womanjust as accomplished and condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma's only surprize was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs. Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons, sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was astonishing!She could not have believed it possible that the taste or the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as the Vicarage had to offer. 'She is a riddle, quite a riddle! said she.'To chuse to remain here month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the mortification of Mrs. Elton's notice and the penury of her conversation, rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her with such real, generous affection. Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months the Campbells were gone to Ireland for three months but now the Campbells had promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss Batesit all came from herMrs. Dixon had written most pressingly. Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends contrivedno travelling difficulty allowed to exist but still she had declined it! 'She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing this invitation, was Emma's conclusion. 'She must be under some sort of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.She is not to be with the Dixons. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she consent to be with the Eltons?Here is quite a separate puzzle. Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this apology for Jane. 'We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage, my dear Emmabut it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for what she goes to. 'You are right, Mrs. Weston, said Mr. Knightley warmly, 'Miss Fairfax is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton. Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her. Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance and she was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently replied, 'Such attentions as Mrs. Elton's, I should have imagined, would rather disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton's invitations I should have imagined any thing but inviting. 'I should not wonder, said Mrs. Weston, 'if Miss Fairfax were to have been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt's eagerness in accepting Mrs. Elton's civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in spite of the very natural wish of a little change. Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again and after a few minutes silence, he said, 'Another thing must be taken into consideration tooMrs. Elton does not talk to Miss Fairfax as she speaks of her. We all know the difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken amongst us we all feel the influence of a something beyond common civility in our personal intercourse with each othera something more early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently. And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind and manner and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably never fell in Mrs. Elton's way beforeand no degree of vanity can prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if not in consciousness. 'I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax, said Emma. Little Henry was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her irresolute what else to say. 'Yes, he replied, 'any body may know how highly I think of her. 'And yet, said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon stoppingit was better, however, to know the worst at onceshe hurried on'And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or other. Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered, 'Oh! are you there?But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me a hint of it six weeks ago. He stopped.Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not herself know what to think. In a moment he went on 'That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare say, would not have me if I were to ask herand I am very sure I shall never ask her. Emma returned her friend's pressure with interest and was pleased enough to exclaim, 'You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you. He seemed hardly to hear her he was thoughtfuland in a manner which shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said, 'So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax? 'No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for matchmaking, for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now, meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married. Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, 'No, Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take me by surprize.I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure you. And soon afterwards, 'Jane Fairfax is a very charming young womanbut not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife. Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. 'Well, said she, 'and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose? 'Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint I told him he was mistaken he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or wittier than his neighbours. 'In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coleswhat she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightleywhat can she do for Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of Miss Fairfax's mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton's acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed or in her being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of goodbreeding. I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor with praise, encouragement, and offers of service that she will not be continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring parties which are to take place in the barouchelandau. 'Jane Fairfax has feeling, said Mr. Knightley'I do not accuse her of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strongand her temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, selfcontrol but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than she used to beAnd I love an open temper. Notill Cole alluded to my supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure alwaysbut with no thought beyond. 'Well, Mrs. Weston, said Emma triumphantly when he left them, 'what do you say now to Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax? 'Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the idea of not being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me. Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinnerparties and eveningparties were made for him and his lady and invitations flowed in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were never to have a disengaged day. 'I see how it is, said she. 'I see what a life I am to lead among you. Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a disengaged day!A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have been at a loss. No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made eveningparties perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at the poor attempt at routcakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury cardparties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a good deal behindhand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring she must return their civilities by one very superior partyin which her cardtables should be set out with their separate candles and unbroken packs in the true styleand more waiters engaged for the evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order. Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself, with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him. The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley so far it was all of courseand it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must be asked to make the eighthbut this invitation was not given with equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased by Harriet's begging to be allowed to decline it. 'She would rather not be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would rather stay at home. It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the fortitude of her little friendfor fortitude she knew it was in her to give up being in company and stay at home and she could now invite the very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax. Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she was more consciencestricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often been.Mr. Knightley's words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her. 'This is very true, said she, 'at least as far as relates to me, which was all that was meantand it is very shameful.Of the same ageand always knowing herI ought to have been more her friend.She will never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her greater attention than I have done. Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all happy.The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and staying one whole day at Hartfieldwhich one day would be the very day of this party.His professional engagements did not allow of his being put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the utmost that his nerves could bearand here would be a ninthand Emma apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not being able to come even to Hartfield for fortyeight hours without falling in with a dinnerparty. She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her instead of his brother. The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John Knightley came but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the chief of even Emma's vexation. The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton, as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in silencewanting only to observe enough for Isabella's informationbut Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said, 'I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am sure you must have been wet.We scarcely got home in time. I hope you turned directly. 'I went only to the postoffice, said she, 'and reached home before the rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk before breakfast does me good. 'Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine. 'No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out. Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied, 'That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you and Henry and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The postoffice has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for. There was a little blush, and then this answer, 'I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing older should make me indifferent about letters. 'Indifferent! Oh! noI never conceived you could become indifferent. Letters are no matter of indifference they are generally a very positive curse. 'You are speaking of letters of business mine are letters of friendship. 'I have often thought them the worst of the two, replied he coolly. 'Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does. 'Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too wellI am very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a postoffice, I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than today. 'When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years, said John Knightley, 'I meant to imply the change of situation which time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily circlebut that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence you may have as many concentrated objects as I have. It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant 'thank you seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular compliments to the ladies, was ending with herand with all his mildest urbanity, said, 'I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.Young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings? 'Yes, sir, I did indeed and I am very much obliged by your kind solicitude about me. 'My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.I hope your good grandmama and aunt are well. They are some of my very old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You do us a great deal of honour today, I am sure. My daughter and I are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield. The kindhearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy. By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her remonstrances now opened upon Jane. 'My dear Jane, what is this I hear?Going to the postoffice in the rain!This must not be, I assure you.You sad girl, how could you do such a thing?It is a sign I was not there to take care of you. Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold. 'Oh! do not tell me. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know how to take care of yourself.To the postoffice indeed! Mrs. Weston, did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our authority. 'My advice, said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, 'I certainly do feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.Liable as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again. 'Oh! she shall not do such a thing again, eagerly rejoined Mrs. Elton. 'We will not allow her to do such a thing againand nodding significantly'there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed. I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning (one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know and from us I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept such an accommodation. 'You are extremely kind, said Jane 'but I cannot give up my early walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk somewhere, and the postoffice is an object and upon my word, I have scarcely ever had a bad morning before. 'My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is (laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston, you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as settled. 'Excuse me, said Jane earnestly, 'I cannot by any means consent to such an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am not here, by my grandmama's. 'Oh! my dear but so much as Patty has to do!And it is a kindness to employ our men. Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered but instead of answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley. 'The postoffice is a wonderful establishment! said she.'The regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing! 'It is certainly very well regulated. 'So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the kingdom, is even carried wrongand not one in a million, I suppose, actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder. 'The clerks grow expert from habit.They must begin with some quickness of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther explanation, continued he, smiling, 'they are paid for it. That is the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served well. The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual observations made. 'I have heard it asserted, said John Knightley, 'that the same sort of handwriting often prevails in a family and where the same master teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not always known their writing apart. 'Yes, said his brother hesitatingly, 'there is a likeness. I know what you meanbut Emma's hand is the strongest. 'Isabella and Emma both write beautifully, said Mr. Woodhouse 'and always did. And so does poor Mrs. Westonwith half a sigh and half a smile at her. 'I never saw any gentleman's handwritingEmma began, looking also at Mrs. Weston but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending to some one elseand the pause gave her time to reflect, 'Now, how am I going to introduce him?Am I unequal to speaking his name at once before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout phrase?Your Yorkshire friendyour correspondent in Yorkshirethat would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.No, I can pronounce his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and better.Now for it. Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again'Mr. Frank Churchill writes one of the best gentleman's hands I ever saw. 'I do not admire it, said Mr. Knightley. 'It is too smallwants strength. It is like a woman's writing. This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against the base aspersion. 'No, it by no means wanted strengthit was not a large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any letter about her to produce? No, she had heard from him very lately, but having answered the letter, had put it away. 'If we were in the other room, said Emma, 'if I had my writingdesk, I am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.Do not you remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day? 'He chose to say he was employed 'Well, well, I have that note and can shew it after dinner to convince Mr. Knightley. 'Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill, said Mr. Knightley dryly, 'writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of course, put forth his best. Dinner was on table.Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was ready and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be allowed to hand her into the diningparlour, was saying 'Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way. Jane's solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma. She had heard and seen it all and felt some curiosity to know whether the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it had that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usuala glow both of complexion and spirits. She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the expense of the Irish mailsit was at her tongue's endbut she abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt Jane Fairfax's feelings and they followed the other ladies out of the room, arm in arm, with an appearance of goodwill highly becoming to the beauty and grace of each. When the ladies returned to the drawingroom after dinner, Emma found it hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct partieswith so much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did Mrs. Elton engross Jane Fairfax and slight herself. She and Mrs. Weston were obliged to be almost always either talking together or silent together. Mrs. Elton left them no choice. If Jane repressed her for a little time, she soon began again and though much that passed between them was in a halfwhisper, especially on Mrs. Elton's side, there was no avoiding a knowledge of their principal subjects The postofficecatching coldfetching lettersand friendship, were long under discussion and to them succeeded one, which must be at least equally unpleasant to Janeinquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to suit her, and professions of Mrs. Elton's meditated activity. 'Here is April come! said she, 'I get quite anxious about you. June will soon be here. 'But I have never fixed on June or any other monthmerely looked forward to the summer in general. 'But have you really heard of nothing? 'I have not even made any inquiry I do not wish to make any yet. 'Oh! my dear, we cannot begin too early you are not aware of the difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing. 'I not aware! said Jane, shaking her head 'dear Mrs. Elton, who can have thought of it as I have done? 'But you have not seen so much of the world as I have. You do not know how many candidates there always are for the first situations. I saw a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round Maple Grove. A cousin of Mr. Suckling, Mrs. Bragge, had such an infinity of applications every body was anxious to be in her family, for she moves in the first circle. Waxcandles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable! Of all houses in the kingdom Mrs. Bragge's is the one I would most wish to see you in. 'Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are to be in town again by midsummer, said Jane. 'I must spend some time with them I am sure they will want itafterwards I may probably be glad to dispose of myself. But I would not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present. 'Trouble! aye, I know your scruples. You are afraid of giving me trouble but I assure you, my dear Jane, the Campbells can hardly be more interested about you than I am. I shall write to Mrs. Partridge in a day or two, and shall give her a strict charge to be on the lookout for any thing eligible. 'Thank you, but I would rather you did not mention the subject to her till the time draws nearer, I do not wish to be giving any body trouble. 'But, my dear child, the time is drawing near here is April, and June, or say even July, is very near, with such business to accomplish before us. Your inexperience really amuses me! A situation such as you deserve, and your friends would require for you, is no everyday occurrence, is not obtained at a moment's notice indeed, indeed, we must begin inquiring directly. 'Excuse me, ma'am, but this is by no means my intention I make no inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce somethingOffices for the salenot quite of human fleshbut of human intellect. 'Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me if you mean a fling at the slavetrade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition. 'I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slavetrade, replied Jane 'governesstrade, I assure you, was all that I had in view widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with something that would do. 'Something that would do! repeated Mrs. Elton. 'Aye, that may suit your humble ideas of yourselfI know what a modest creature you are but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any thing that may offer, any inferior, commonplace situation, in a family not moving in a certain circle, or able to command the elegancies of life. 'You are very obliging but as to all that, I am very indifferent it would be no object to me to be with the rich my mortifications, I think, would only be the greater I should suffer more from comparison. A gentleman's family is all that I should condition for. 'I know you, I know you you would take up with any thing but I shall be a little more nice, and I am sure the good Campbells will be quite on my side with your superior talents, you have a right to move in the first circle. Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family as much as you chosethat isI do not knowif you knew the harp, you might do all that, I am very sure but you sing as well as playyes, I really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what you choseand you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest. 'You may well class the delight, the honour, and the comfort of such a situation together, said Jane, 'they are pretty sure to be equal however, I am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted at present for me. I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Elton, I am obliged to any body who feels for me, but I am quite serious in wishing nothing to be done till the summer. For two or three months longer I shall remain where I am, and as I am. 'And I am quite serious too, I assure you, replied Mrs. Elton gaily, 'in resolving to be always on the watch, and employing my friends to watch also, that nothing really unexceptionable may pass us. In this style she ran on never thoroughly stopped by any thing till Mr. Woodhouse came into the room her vanity had then a change of object, and Emma heard her saying in the same halfwhisper to Jane, 'Here comes this dear old beau of mine, I protest!Only think of his gallantry in coming away before the other men!what a dear creature he isI assure you I like him excessively. I admire all that quaint, oldfashioned politeness it is much more to my taste than modern ease modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous. I fancy I am rather a favourite he took notice of my gown. How do you like it?Selina's choicehandsome, I think, but I do not know whether it is not overtrimmed I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being overtrimmedquite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments now, because it is expected of me. A bride, you know, must appear like a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity a simple style of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery. But I am quite in the minority, I believe few people seem to value simplicity of dress,show and finery are every thing. I have some notion of putting such a trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will look well? The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawingroom when Mr. Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner, and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much expected by the best judges, for surprizebut there was great joy. Mr. Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.That a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile to another man's house, for the sake of being in mixed company till bedtime, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been in motion since eight o'clock in the morning, and might now have been still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone!Such a man, to quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!Could he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there would have been a motive but his coming would probably prolong rather than break up the party. John Knightley looked at him with amazement, then shrugged his shoulders, and said, 'I could not have believed it even of him. Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was making himself agreeable among the rest and having satisfied the inquiries of his wife as to his dinner, convincing her that none of all her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten, and spread abroad what public news he had heard, was proceeding to a family communication, which, though principally addressed to Mrs. Weston, he had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in the room. He gave her a letter, it was from Frank, and to herself he had met with it in his way, and had taken the liberty of opening it. 'Read it, read it, said he, 'it will give you pleasure only a few lineswill not take you long read it to Emma. The two ladies looked over it together and he sat smiling and talking to them the whole time, in a voice a little subdued, but very audible to every body. 'Well, he is coming, you see good news, I think. Well, what do you say to it?I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?Anne, my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?In town next week, you seeat the latest, I dare say for she is as impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done most likely they will be there tomorrow or Saturday. As to her illness, all nothing of course. But it is an excellent thing to have Frank among us again, so near as town. They will stay a good while when they do come, and he will be half his time with us. This is precisely what I wanted. Well, pretty good news, is not it? Have you finished it? Has Emma read it all? Put it up, put it up we will have a good talk about it some other time, but it will not do now. I shall only just mention the circumstance to the others in a common way. Mrs. Weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion. Her looks and words had nothing to restrain them. She was happy, she knew she was happy, and knew she ought to be happy. Her congratulations were warm and open but Emma could not speak so fluently. She was a little occupied in weighing her own feelings, and trying to understand the degree of her agitation, which she rather thought was considerable. Mr. Weston, however, too eager to be very observant, too communicative to want others to talk, was very well satisfied with what she did say, and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial communication of what the whole room must have overheard already. It was well that he took every body's joy for granted, or he might not have thought either Mr. Woodhouse or Mr. Knightley particularly delighted. They were the first entitled, after Mrs. Weston and Emma, to be made happyfrom them he would have proceeded to Miss Fairfax, but she was so deep in conversation with John Knightley, that it would have been too positive an interruption and finding himself close to Mrs. Elton, and her attention disengaged, he necessarily began on the subject with her. 'I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you, said Mr. Weston. Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her by such a hope, smiled most graciously. 'You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume, he continued'and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name. 'Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr. Elton will lose no time in calling on him and we shall both have great pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage. 'You are very obliging.Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure. He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a letter today. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my son's hand, presumed to open itthough it was not directed to meit was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I hardly ever get a letter. 'And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr. Weston(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.A most dangerous precedent indeed!I beg you will not let your neighbours follow your example.Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we married women must begin to exert ourselves!Oh! Mr. Weston, I could not have believed it of you! 'Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs. Elton.This letter tells usit is a short letterwritten in a hurry, merely to give us noticeit tells us that they are all coming up to town directly, on Mrs. Churchill's accountshe has not been well the whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for herso they are all to move southward without loss of time. 'Indeed!from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire? 'Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a considerable journey. 'Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixtyfive miles farther than from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people of large fortune?You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr. Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe mebut twice in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four horses. 'The evil of the distance from Enscombe, said Mr. Weston, 'is, that Mrs. Churchill, as we understand, has not been able to leave the sofa for a week together. In Frank's last letter she complained, he said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having both his arm and his uncle's! This, you know, speaks a great degree of weaknessbut now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to sleep only two nights on the road.So Frank writes word. Certainly, delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me that. 'No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you noticeYou will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for womenand I assure you, if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill's making incredible exertions to avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to herand I believe I have caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same? 'Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land for Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with, 'Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure you. Do not run away with such an idea. 'Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough a fine lady as any body ever beheld. Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly. It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was not a fine lady perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of itand she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr. Weston went on. 'Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspectbut this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health now but that indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs. Churchill's illness. 'If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?To Bath, or to Clifton? 'She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very retired. 'Ayelike Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You seem shut out from every thingin the most complete retirement.And Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot have too many resourcesand I feel very thankful that I have so many myself as to be quite independent of society. 'Frank was here in February for a fortnight. 'So I remember to have heard. He will find an addition to the society of Highbury when he comes again that is, if I may presume to call myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being such a creature in the world. This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr. Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed, 'My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible. Not heard of you!I believe Mrs. Weston's letters lately have been full of very little else than Mrs. Elton. He had done his duty and could return to his son. 'When Frank left us, continued he, 'it was quite uncertain when we might see him again, which makes this day's news doubly welcome. It has been completely unexpected. That is, I always had a strong persuasion he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn upbut nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully desponding. 'How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?' and so forthI always felt that something would happen in our favour and so it has, you see. I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next. 'Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that he was sure at this rate it would be May before Hymen's saffron robe would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriagewe had disappointments about the carriageone morning, I remember, he came to me quite in despair. She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly seized the opportunity of going on. 'You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than Enscombein short, to spend in London so that we have the agreeable prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole springprecisely the season of the year which one should have chosen for it days almost at the longest weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best of it but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment and I do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in today or tomorrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be pleased with my son but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston's partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him. 'And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr. Frank Churchill.At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall judge of him.I am no flatterer. Mr. Weston was musing. 'I hope, said he presently, 'I have not been severe upon poor Mrs. Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice but there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant, Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have met with and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid to her. She was the instigator. Frank's mother would never have been slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride but his pride is nothing to his wife's his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless and tiresome but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood. She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has outChurchill'd them all in high and mighty claims but in herself, I assure you, she is an upstart. 'Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to people of that sort for there is a family in that neighbourhood who are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs, and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families. A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West Hall and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston. One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound but nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected and yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before himI believe, at leastI am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed the purchase before his death. They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away. After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr. Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers, and Emma doubted their getting on very well for Mr. Knightley seemed little disposed for conversation Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits which would have made her prefer being silent. Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to leave them early the next day and he soon began with 'Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the boys but you have your sister's letter, and every thing is down at full length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than her's, and probably not much in the same spirit all that I have to recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic them. 'I rather hope to satisfy you both, said Emma, 'for I shall do all in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella and happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic. 'And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again. 'That is very likely. You think so, do not you? 'I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your fatheror even may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to increase as much as they have done lately. 'Increase! 'Certainly you must be sensible that the last halfyear has made a great difference in your way of life. 'Difference! No indeed I am not. 'There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only one day, and you are engaged with a dinnerparty!When did it happen before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought an account of fresh gaieties dinners at Mr. Cole's, or balls at the Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your goingson, is very great. 'Yes, said his brother quickly, 'it is Randalls that does it all. 'Very welland as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg you to send them home. 'No, cried Mr. Knightley, 'that need not be the consequence. Let them be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure. 'Upon my word, exclaimed Emma, 'you amuse me! I should like to know how many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of the party and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of minewhat have they been? Dining once with the Colesand having a ball talked of, which never took place. I can understand you(nodding at Mr. John Knightley)your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she is absent oneand who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself or settling his accounts. Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him. A very little quiet reflection was enough to satisfy Emma as to the nature of her agitation on hearing this news of Frank Churchill. She was soon convinced that it was not for herself she was feeling at all apprehensive or embarrassed it was for him. Her own attachment had really subsided into a mere nothing it was not worth thinking ofbut if he, who had undoubtedly been always so much the most in love of the two, were to be returning with the same warmth of sentiment which he had taken away, it would be very distressing. If a separation of two months should not have cooled him, there were dangers and evils before hercaution for him and for herself would be necessary. She did not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his. She wished she might be able to keep him from an absolute declaration. That would be so very painful a conclusion of their present acquaintance! and yet, she could not help rather anticipating something decisive. She felt as if the spring would not pass without bringing a crisis, an event, a something to alter her present composed and tranquil state. It was not very long, though rather longer than Mr. Weston had foreseen, before she had the power of forming some opinion of Frank Churchill's feelings. The Enscombe family were not in town quite so soon as had been imagined, but he was at Highbury very soon afterwards. He rode down for a couple of hours he could not yet do more but as he came from Randalls immediately to Hartfield, she could then exercise all her quick observation, and speedily determine how he was influenced, and how she must act. They met with the utmost friendliness. There could be no doubt of his great pleasure in seeing her. But she had an almost instant doubt of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness in the same degree. She watched him well. It was a clear thing he was less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable effect. He was in high spirits as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories and he was not without agitation. It was not in his calmness that she read his comparative indifference. He was not calm his spirits were evidently fluttered there was restlessness about him. Lively as he was, it seemed a liveliness that did not satisfy himself but what decided her belief on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying away to make other calls in Highbury. 'He had seen a group of old acquaintance in the street as he passedhe had not stopped, he would not stop for more than a wordbut he had the vanity to think they would be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer at Hartfield, he must hurry off. She had no doubt as to his being less in lovebut neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed like a perfect cure and she was rather inclined to think it implied a dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting himself with her long. This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days. He was often hoping, intending to comebut was always prevented. His aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at Randall's. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill's removal to London had been of no service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was really ill was very certain he had declared himself convinced of it, at Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many years of existence before her but he could not be prevailed on, by all his father's doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary, or that she was as strong as ever. It soon appeared that London was not the place for her. She could not endure its noise. Her nerves were under continual irritation and suffering and by the ten days' end, her nephew's letter to Randalls communicated a change of plan. They were going to remove immediately to Richmond. Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place. A readyfurnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit expected from the change. Emma heard that Frank wrote in the highest spirits of this arrangement, and seemed most fully to appreciate the blessing of having two months before him of such near neighbourhood to many dear friendsfor the house was taken for May and June. She was told that now he wrote with the greatest confidence of being often with them, almost as often as he could even wish. Emma saw how Mr. Weston understood these joyous prospects. He was considering her as the source of all the happiness they offered. She hoped it was not so. Two months must bring it to the proof. Mr. Weston's own happiness was indisputable. He was quite delighted. It was the very circumstance he could have wished for. Now, it would be really having Frank in their neighbourhood. What were nine miles to a young man?An hour's ride. He would be always coming over. The difference in that respect of Richmond and London was enough to make the whole difference of seeing him always and seeing him never. Sixteen milesnay, eighteenit must be full eighteen to Manchesterstreetwas a serious obstacle. Were he ever able to get away, the day would be spent in coming and returning. There was no comfort in having him in London he might as well be at Enscombe but Richmond was the very distance for easy intercourse. Better than nearer! One good thing was immediately brought to a certainty by this removal,the ball at the Crown. It had not been forgotten before, but it had been soon acknowledged vain to attempt to fix a day. Now, however, it was absolutely to be every preparation was resumed, and very soon after the Churchills had removed to Richmond, a few lines from Frank, to say that his aunt felt already much better for the change, and that he had no doubt of being able to join them for twentyfour hours at any given time, induced them to name as early a day as possible. Mr. Weston's ball was to be a real thing. A very few tomorrows stood between the young people of Highbury and happiness. Mr. Woodhouse was resigned. The time of year lightened the evil to him. May was better for every thing than February. Mrs. Bates was engaged to spend the evening at Hartfield, James had due notice, and he sanguinely hoped that neither dear little Henry nor dear little John would have any thing the matter with them, while dear Emma were gone. No misfortune occurred, again to prevent the ball. The day approached, the day arrived and after a morning of some anxious watching, Frank Churchill, in all the certainty of his own self, reached Randalls before dinner, and every thing was safe. No second meeting had there yet been between him and Emma. The room at the Crown was to witness itbut it would be better than a common meeting in a crowd. Mr. Weston had been so very earnest in his entreaties for her arriving there as soon as possible after themselves, for the purpose of taking her opinion as to the propriety and comfort of the rooms before any other persons came, that she could not refuse him, and must therefore spend some quiet interval in the young man's company. She was to convey Harriet, and they drove to the Crown in good time, the Randalls party just sufficiently before them. Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch and though he did not say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening. They all walked about together, to see that every thing was as it should be and within a few minutes were joined by the contents of another carriage, which Emma could not hear the sound of at first, without great surprize. 'So unreasonably early! she was going to exclaim but she presently found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming, like herself, by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston's judgment and they were so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins, who had been entreated to come early with the same distinguishing earnestness, on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company might soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory inspection. Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr. Weston depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but a little less of openheartedness would have made him a higher character.General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.She could fancy such a man. The whole party walked about, and looked, and praised again and then, having nothing else to do, formed a sort of halfcircle round the fire, to observe in their various modes, till other subjects were started, that, though May, a fire in the evening was still very pleasant. Emma found that it was not Mr. Weston's fault that the number of privy councillors was not yet larger. They had stopped at Mrs. Bates's door to offer the use of their carriage, but the aunt and niece were to be brought by the Eltons. Frank was standing by her, but not steadily there was a restlessness, which shewed a mind not at ease. He was looking about, he was going to the door, he was watching for the sound of other carriages,impatient to begin, or afraid of being always near her. Mrs. Elton was spoken of. 'I think she must be here soon, said he. 'I have a great curiosity to see Mrs. Elton, I have heard so much of her. It cannot be long, I think, before she comes. A carriage was heard. He was on the move immediately but coming back, said, 'I am forgetting that I am not acquainted with her. I have never seen either Mr. or Mrs. Elton. I have no business to put myself forward. Mr. and Mrs. Elton appeared and all the smiles and the proprieties passed. 'But Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax! said Mr. Weston, looking about. 'We thought you were to bring them. The mistake had been slight. The carriage was sent for them now. Emma longed to know what Frank's first opinion of Mrs. Elton might be how he was affected by the studied elegance of her dress, and her smiles of graciousness. He was immediately qualifying himself to form an opinion, by giving her very proper attention, after the introduction had passed. In a few minutes the carriage returned.Somebody talked of rain.'I will see that there are umbrellas, sir, said Frank to his father 'Miss Bates must not be forgotten and away he went. Mr. Weston was following but Mrs. Elton detained him, to gratify him by her opinion of his son and so briskly did she begin, that the young man himself, though by no means moving slowly, could hardly be out of hearing. 'A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you I should form my own opinion and I am happy to say that I am extremely pleased with him.You may believe me. I never compliment. I think him a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and approveso truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism. You must know I have a vast dislike to puppiesquite a horror of them. They were never tolerated at Maple Grove. Neither Mr. Suckling nor me had ever any patience with them and we used sometimes to say very cutting things! Selina, who is mild almost to a fault, bore with them much better. While she talked of his son, Mr. Weston's attention was chained but when she got to Maple Grove, he could recollect that there were ladies just arriving to be attended to, and with happy smiles must hurry away. Mrs. Elton turned to Mrs. Weston. 'I have no doubt of its being our carriage with Miss Bates and Jane. Our coachman and horses are so extremely expeditious!I believe we drive faster than any body.What a pleasure it is to send one's carriage for a friend!I understand you were so kind as to offer, but another time it will be quite unnecessary. You may be very sure I shall always take care of them. Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into the room and Mrs. Elton seemed to think it as much her duty as Mrs. Weston's to receive them. Her gestures and movements might be understood by any one who looked on like Emma but her words, every body's words, were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was heard, 'So very obliging of you!No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declaresWell!(as soon as she was within the door) Well! This is brilliant indeed!This is admirable!Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could not have imagined it.So well lighted up!Jane, Jane, look!did you ever see any thing? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin's lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not know her own room again. I saw her as I came in she was standing in the entrance. 'Oh! Mrs. Stokes,' said Ibut I had not time for more. She was now met by Mrs. Weston.'Very well, I thank you, ma'am. I hope you are quite well. Very happy to hear it. So afraid you might have a headache!seeing you pass by so often, and knowing how much trouble you must have. Delighted to hear it indeed. Ah! dear Mrs. Elton, so obliged to you for the carriage!excellent time. Jane and I quite ready. Did not keep the horses a moment. Most comfortable carriage.Oh! and I am sure our thanks are due to you, Mrs. Weston, on that score. Mrs. Elton had most kindly sent Jane a note, or we should have been.But two such offers in one day!Never were such neighbours. I said to my mother, 'Upon my word, ma'am.' Thank you, my mother is remarkably well. Gone to Mr. Woodhouse's. I made her take her shawlfor the evenings are not warmher large new shawl Mrs. Dixon's weddingpresent.So kind of her to think of my mother! Bought at Weymouth, you knowMr. Dixon's choice. There were three others, Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did not wet your feet?It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraidbut Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremelyand there was a mat to step uponI shall never forget his extreme politeness.Oh! Mr. Frank Churchill, I must tell you my mother's spectacles have never been in fault since the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of your goodnature. Does not she, Jane?Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank Churchill?Ah! here's Miss Woodhouse.Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do you do?Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite in fairyland!Such a transformation!Must not compliment, I know (eyeing Emma most complacently)that would be rudebut upon my word, Miss Woodhouse, you do lookhow do you like Jane's hair?You are a judge.She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her hair!No hairdresser from London I think could.Ah! Dr. Hughes I declareand Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a moment.How do you do? How do you do?Very well, I thank you. This is delightful, is not it?Where's dear Mr. Richard?Oh! there he is. Don't disturb him. Much better employed talking to the young ladies. How do you do, Mr. Richard?I saw you the other day as you rode through the townMrs. Otway, I protest!and good Mr. Otway, and Miss Otway and Miss Caroline.Such a host of friends!and Mr. George and Mr. Arthur!How do you do? How do you all do?Quite well, I am much obliged to you. Never better.Don't I hear another carriage?Who can this be?very likely the worthy Coles.Upon my word, this is charming to be standing about among such friends! And such a noble fire!I am quite roasted. No coffee, I thank you, for menever take coffee.A little tea if you please, sir, by and bye,no hurryOh! here it comes. Every thing so good! Frank Churchill returned to his station by Emma and as soon as Miss Bates was quiet, she found herself necessarily overhearing the discourse of Mrs. Elton and Miss Fairfax, who were standing a little way behind her.He was thoughtful. Whether he were overhearing too, she could not determine. After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look, compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently wanting to be complimented herselfand it was, 'How do you like my gown?How do you like my trimming?How has Wright done my hair?with many other relative questions, all answered with patient politeness. Mrs. Elton then said, 'Nobody can think less of dress in general than I dobut upon such an occasion as this, when every body's eyes are so much upon me, and in compliment to the Westonswho I have no doubt are giving this ball chiefly to do me honourI would not wish to be inferior to others. And I see very few pearls in the room except mine.So Frank Churchill is a capital dancer, I understand.We shall see if our styles suit.A fine young man certainly is Frank Churchill. I like him very well. At this moment Frank began talking so vigorously, that Emma could not but imagine he had overheard his own praises, and did not want to hear moreand the voices of the ladies were drowned for a while, till another suspension brought Mrs. Elton's tones again distinctly forward.Mr. Elton had just joined them, and his wife was exclaiming, 'Oh! you have found us out at last, have you, in our seclusion?I was this moment telling Jane, I thought you would begin to be impatient for tidings of us. 'Jane!repeated Frank Churchill, with a look of surprize and displeasure.'That is easybut Miss Fairfax does not disapprove it, I suppose. 'How do you like Mrs. Elton? said Emma in a whisper. 'Not at all. 'You are ungrateful. 'Ungrateful!What do you mean? Then changing from a frown to a smile'No, do not tell meI do not want to know what you mean.Where is my father?When are we to begin dancing? Emma could hardly understand him he seemed in an odd humour. He walked off to find his father, but was quickly back again with both Mr. and Mrs. Weston. He had met with them in a little perplexity, which must be laid before Emma. It had just occurred to Mrs. Weston that Mrs. Elton must be asked to begin the ball that she would expect it which interfered with all their wishes of giving Emma that distinction.Emma heard the sad truth with fortitude. 'And what are we to do for a proper partner for her? said Mr. Weston. 'She will think Frank ought to ask her. Frank turned instantly to Emma, to claim her former promise and boasted himself an engaged man, which his father looked his most perfect approbation ofand it then appeared that Mrs. Weston was wanting him to dance with Mrs. Elton himself, and that their business was to help to persuade him into it, which was done pretty soon.Mr. Weston and Mrs. Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed. Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, though she had always considered the ball as peculiarly for her. It was almost enough to make her think of marrying. Mrs. Elton had undoubtedly the advantage, at this time, in vanity completely gratified for though she had intended to begin with Frank Churchill, she could not lose by the change. Mr. Weston might be his son's superior.In spite of this little rub, however, Emma was smiling with enjoyment, delighted to see the respectable length of the set as it was forming, and to feel that she had so many hours of unusual festivity before her.She was more disturbed by Mr. Knightley's not dancing than by any thing else.There he was, among the standersby, where he ought not to be he ought to be dancing,not classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whistplayers, who were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were made up,so young as he looked!He could not have appeared to greater advantage perhaps anywhere, than where he had placed himself. His tall, firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body's eyes and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of young men who could be compared with him.He moved a few steps nearer, and those few steps were enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner, with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the trouble.Whenever she caught his eye, she forced him to smile but in general he was looking grave. She wished he could love a ballroom better, and could like Frank Churchill better.He seemed often observing her. She must not flatter herself that he thought of her dancing, but if he were criticising her behaviour, she did not feel afraid. There was nothing like flirtation between her and her partner. They seemed more like cheerful, easy friends, than lovers. That Frank Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable. The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away. Every body seemed happy and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in the very beginning of the existence of this. Of very important, very recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually are. There was one, however, which Emma thought something of.The two last dances before supper were begun, and Harriet had no partnerthe only young lady sitting downand so equal had been hitherto the number of dancers, that how there could be any one disengaged was the wonder!But Emma's wonder lessened soon afterwards, on seeing Mr. Elton sauntering about. He would not ask Harriet to dance if it were possible to be avoided she was sure he would notand she was expecting him every moment to escape into the cardroom. Escape, however, was not his plan. He came to the part of the room where the sittersby were collected, spoke to some, and walked about in front of them, as if to shew his liberty, and his resolution of maintaining it. He did not omit being sometimes directly before Miss Smith, or speaking to those who were close to her.Emma saw it. She was not yet dancing she was working her way up from the bottom, and had therefore leisure to look around, and by only turning her head a little she saw it all. When she was halfway up the set, the whole group were exactly behind her, and she would no longer allow her eyes to watch but Mr. Elton was so near, that she heard every syllable of a dialogue which just then took place between him and Mrs. Weston and she perceived that his wife, who was standing immediately above her, was not only listening also, but even encouraging him by significant glances.The kindhearted, gentle Mrs. Weston had left her seat to join him and say, 'Do not you dance, Mr. Elton? to which his prompt reply was, 'Most readily, Mrs. Weston, if you will dance with me. 'Me!oh! noI would get you a better partner than myself. I am no dancer. 'If Mrs. Gilbert wishes to dance, said he, 'I shall have great pleasure, I am surefor, though beginning to feel myself rather an old married man, and that my dancing days are over, it would give me very great pleasure at any time to stand up with an old friend like Mrs. Gilbert. 'Mrs. Gilbert does not mean to dance, but there is a young lady disengaged whom I should be very glad to see dancingMiss Smith. 'Miss Smith!oh!I had not observed.You are extremely obligingand if I were not an old married man.But my dancing days are over, Mrs. Weston. You will excuse me. Any thing else I should be most happy to do, at your commandbut my dancing days are over. Mrs. Weston said no more and Emma could imagine with what surprize and mortification she must be returning to her seat. This was Mr. Elton! the amiable, obliging, gentle Mr. Elton.She looked round for a moment he had joined Mr. Knightley at a little distance, and was arranging himself for settled conversation, while smiles of high glee passed between him and his wife. She would not look again. Her heart was in a glow, and she feared her face might be as hot. In another moment a happier sight caught herMr. Knightley leading Harriet to the set!Never had she been more surprized, seldom more delighted, than at that instant. She was all pleasure and gratitude, both for Harriet and herself, and longed to be thanking him and though too distant for speech, her countenance said much, as soon as she could catch his eye again. His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever, flew farther down the middle, and was in a continual course of smiles. Mr. Elton had retreated into the cardroom, looking (Emma trusted) very foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife, though growing very like hershe spoke some of her feelings, by observing audibly to her partner, 'Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!Very goodnatured, I declare. Supper was announced. The move began and Miss Bates might be heard from that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and taking up her spoon. 'Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?Here is your tippet. Mrs. Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been doneOne door nailed upQuantities of mattingMy dear Jane, indeed you must. Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!so gratified! Excellent dancing indeed!Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and nobody missed me.I set off without saying a word, just as I told you. Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a vast deal of chat, and backgammon.Tea was made downstairs, biscuits and baked apples and wine before she came away amazing luck in some of her throws and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were amused, and who were your partners. 'Oh!' said I, 'I shall not forestall Jane I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway she will love to tell you all about it herself tomorrow her first partner was Mr. Elton, I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.' My dear sir, you are too obliging.Is there nobody you would not rather?I am not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and me on the other!Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is going dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!Beautiful lace!Now we all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!Well, here we are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no, there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd! I was convinced there were two, and there is but one. I never saw any thing equal to the comfort and styleCandles everywhere.I was telling you of your grandmama, Jane,There was a little disappointment.The baked apples and biscuits, excellent in their way, you know but there was a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and some asparagus brought in at first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the asparagus quite boiled enough, sent it all out again. Now there is nothing grandmama loves better than sweetbread and asparagusso she was rather disappointed, but we agreed we would not speak of it to any body, for fear of its getting round to dear Miss Woodhouse, who would be so very much concerned!Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have supposed any thing!Such elegance and profusion!I have seen nothing like it sinceWell, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere, so that Jane is not in a draught. Where I sit is of no consequence. Oh! do you recommend this side?Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchillonly it seems too goodbut just as you please. What you direct in this house cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning. Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his reprobation of Mr. Elton's conduct it had been unpardonable rudeness and Mrs. Elton's looks also received the due share of censure. 'They aimed at wounding more than Harriet, said he. 'Emma, why is it that they are your enemies? He looked with smiling penetration and, on receiving no answer, added, 'She ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may be.To that surmise, you say nothing, of course but confess, Emma, that you did want him to marry Harriet. 'I did, replied Emma, 'and they cannot forgive me. He shook his head but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he only said, 'I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections. 'Can you trust me with such flatterers?Does my vain spirit ever tell me I am wrong? 'Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.If one leads you wrong, I am sure the other tells you of it. 'I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not and I was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a series of strange blunders! 'And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has chosen for himself.Harriet Smith has some firstrate qualities, which Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, singleminded, artless girlinfinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected. Emma was extremely gratified.They were interrupted by the bustle of Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again. 'Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all doing?Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy! Every body is asleep! 'I am ready, said Emma, 'whenever I am wanted. 'Whom are you going to dance with? asked Mr. Knightley. She hesitated a moment, and then replied, 'With you, if you will ask me. 'Will you? said he, offering his hand. 'Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper. 'Brother and sister! no, indeed. This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.She was extremely glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much alike and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the occasion of some of its highest satisfactions and she looked forward to another happy resultthe cure of Harriet's infatuation.From Harriet's manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted the ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were suddenly opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the superior creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma could harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by injurious courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther requisite.Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer must be before her! She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that he could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he was to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it. Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them all to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened up for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their grandpapa, when the great iron sweepgate opened, and two persons entered whom she had never less expected to see togetherFrank Churchill, with Harriet leaning on his armactually Harriet!A moment sufficed to convince her that something extraordinary had happened. Harriet looked white and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.The iron gates and the frontdoor were not twenty yards asunderthey were all three soon in the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away. A young lady who faints, must be recovered questions must be answered, and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted with the whole. Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs. Goddard's, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough for safety, had led them into alarm.About half a mile beyond Highbury, making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became for a considerable stretch very retired and when the young ladies had advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg and Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and calling on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury. But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such a return of it as made her absolutely powerlessand in this state, and exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain. How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more courageous, must be doubtful but such an invitation for attack could not be resisted and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children, headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and impertinent in look, though not absolutely in word.More and more frightened, she immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse, gave them a shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.She was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving awaybut her terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more. In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road, a mile or two beyond Highburyand happening to have borrowed a pair of scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a few minutes he was therefore later than he had intended and being on foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then their own portion. He had left them completely frightened and Harriet eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome. It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield he had thought of no other place. This was the amount of the whole story,of his communication and of Harriet's as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.He dared not stay longer than to see her well these several delays left him not another minute to lose and Emma engaging to give assurance of her safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the grateful blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself. Such an adventure as this,a fine young man and a lovely young woman thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?How much more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and foresight!especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her mind had already made. It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory no rencontre, no alarm of the kindand now it had happened to the very person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing to pass by to rescue her!It certainly was very extraordinary!And knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton. It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most interesting consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence should not be strongly recommending each to the other. In the few minutes' conversation which she had yet had with him, while Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror, her navet, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a sensibility amused and delighted and just at last, after Harriet's own account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing was to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted. She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme. It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account proceed. Emma's first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of what had passed,aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion but she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those who talk most, the young and the low and all the youth and servants in the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last night's ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat, and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without their promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some comfort to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse (for his neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well as Miss Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day and he had the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very indifferentwhich, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well, and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man, for she hardly knew what indisposition was and if he did not invent illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message. The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice they took themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her nephewsin her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the slightest particular from the original recital. A very few days had passed after this adventure, when Harriet came one morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after sitting down and hesitating, thus began 'Miss Woodhouseif you are at leisureI have something that I should like to tell youa sort of confession to makeand then, you know, it will be over. Emma was a good deal surprized but begged her to speak. There was a seriousness in Harriet's manner which prepared her, quite as much as her words, for something more than ordinary. 'It is my duty, and I am sure it is my wish, she continued, 'to have no reserves with you on this subject. As I am happily quite an altered creature in one respect, it is very fit that you should have the satisfaction of knowing it. I do not want to say more than is necessaryI am too much ashamed of having given way as I have done, and I dare say you understand me. 'Yes, said Emma, 'I hope I do. 'How I could so long a time be fancying myself!... cried Harriet, warmly. 'It seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary in him now.I do not care whether I meet him or notexcept that of the two I had rather not see himand indeed I would go any distance round to avoid himbut I do not envy his wife in the least I neither admire her nor envy her, as I have done she is very charming, I dare say, and all that, but I think her very illtempered and disagreeableI shall never forget her look the other night!However, I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, I wish her no evil.No, let them be ever so happy together, it will not give me another moment's pang and to convince you that I have been speaking truth, I am now going to destroywhat I ought to have destroyed long agowhat I ought never to have keptI know that very well (blushing as she spoke).However, now I will destroy it alland it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you may see how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel holds? said she, with a conscious look. 'Not the least in the world.Did he ever give you any thing? 'NoI cannot call them gifts but they are things that I have valued very much. She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words Most precious treasures on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited. Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience. Within abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridgeware box, which Harriet opened it was well lined with the softest cotton but, excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of courtplaister. 'Now, said Harriet, 'you must recollect. 'No, indeed I do not. 'Dear me! I should not have thought it possible you could forget what passed in this very room about courtplaister, one of the very last times we ever met in it!It was but a very few days before I had my sore throatjust before Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley cameI think the very evening.Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new penknife, and your recommending courtplaister?But, as you had none about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him and so I took mine out and cut him a piece but it was a great deal too large, and he cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left, before he gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making a treasure of itso I put it by never to be used, and looked at it now and then as a great treat. 'My dearest Harriet! cried Emma, putting her hand before her face, and jumping up, 'you make me more ashamed of myself than I can bear. Remember it? Aye, I remember it all now all, except your saving this relicI knew nothing of that till this momentbut the cutting the finger, and my recommending courtplaister, and saying I had none about me!Oh! my sins, my sins!And I had plenty all the while in my pocket!One of my senseless tricks!I deserve to be under a continual blush all the rest of my life.Well(sitting down again)go onwhat else? 'And had you really some at hand yourself? I am sure I never suspected it, you did it so naturally. 'And so you actually put this piece of courtplaister by for his sake! said Emma, recovering from her state of shame and feeling divided between wonder and amusement. And secretly she added to herself, 'Lord bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a piece of courtplaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I never was equal to this. 'Here, resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, 'here is something still more valuable, I mean that has been more valuable, because this is what did really once belong to him, which the courtplaister never did. Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an old pencil,the part without any lead. 'This was really his, said Harriet.'Do not you remember one morning?no, I dare say you do not. But one morningI forget exactly the daybut perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before that evening, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocketbook it was about sprucebeer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about brewing sprucebeer, and he wanted to put it down but when he took out his pencil, there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye on it and, as soon as I dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment. 'I do remember it, cried Emma 'I perfectly remember it.Talking about sprucebeer.Oh! yesMr. Knightley and I both saying we liked it, and Mr. Elton's seeming resolved to learn to like it too. I perfectly remember it.Stop Mr. Knightley was standing just here, was not he? I have an idea he was standing just here. 'Ah! I do not know. I cannot recollect.It is very odd, but I cannot recollect.Mr. Elton was sitting here, I remember, much about where I am now. 'Well, go on. 'Oh! that's all. I have nothing more to shew you, or to sayexcept that I am now going to throw them both behind the fire, and I wish you to see me do it. 'My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in treasuring up these things? 'Yes, simpleton as I was!but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you know, to keep any remembrances, after he was married. I knew it wasbut had not resolution enough to part with them. 'But, Harriet, is it necessary to burn the courtplaister?I have not a word to say for the bit of old pencil, but the courtplaister might be useful. 'I shall be happier to burn it, replied Harriet. 'It has a disagreeable look to me. I must get rid of every thing.There it goes, and there is an end, thank Heaven! of Mr. Elton. 'And when, thought Emma, 'will there be a beginning of Mr. Churchill? She had soon afterwards reason to believe that the beginning was already made, and could not but hope that the gipsy, though she had told no fortune, might be proved to have made Harriet's.About a fortnight after the alarm, they came to a sufficient explanation, and quite undesignedly. Emma was not thinking of it at the moment, which made the information she received more valuable. She merely said, in the course of some trivial chat, 'Well, Harriet, whenever you marry I would advise you to do so and soand thought no more of it, till after a minute's silence she heard Harriet say in a very serious tone, 'I shall never marry. Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was and after a moment's debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied, 'Never marry!This is a new resolution. 'It is one that I shall never change, however. After another short hesitation, 'I hope it does not proceed fromI hope it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton? 'Mr. Elton indeed! cried Harriet indignantly.'Oh! noand Emma could just catch the words, 'so superior to Mr. Elton! She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed no farther?should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?Perhaps Harriet might think her cold or angry if she did or perhaps if she were totally silent, it might only drive Harriet into asking her to hear too much and against any thing like such an unreserve as had been, such an open and frequent discussion of hopes and chances, she was perfectly resolved.She believed it would be wiser for her to say and know at once, all that she meant to say and know. Plain dealing was always best. She had previously determined how far she would proceed, on any application of the sort and it would be safer for both, to have the judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed.She was decided, and thus spoke 'Harriet, I will not affect to be in doubt of your meaning. Your resolution, or rather your expectation of never marrying, results from an idea that the person whom you might prefer, would be too greatly your superior in situation to think of you. Is not it so? 'Oh! Miss Woodhouse, believe me I have not the presumption to suppose Indeed I am not so mad.But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a distanceand to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so proper, in me especially. 'I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you was enough to warm your heart. 'Service! oh! it was such an inexpressible obligation!The very recollection of it, and all that I felt at the timewhen I saw him cominghis noble lookand my wretchedness before. Such a change! In one moment such a change! From perfect misery to perfect happiness! 'It is very natural. It is natural, and it is honourable.Yes, honourable, I think, to chuse so well and so gratefully.But that it will be a fortunate preference is more than I can promise. I do not advise you to give way to it, Harriet. I do not by any means engage for its being returned. Consider what you are about. Perhaps it will be wisest in you to check your feelings while you can at any rate do not let them carry you far, unless you are persuaded of his liking you. Be observant of him. Let his behaviour be the guide of your sensations. I give you this caution now, because I shall never speak to you again on the subject. I am determined against all interference. Henceforward I know nothing of the matter. Let no name ever pass our lips. We were very wrong before we will be cautious now.He is your superior, no doubt, and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature but yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place, there have been matches of greater disparity. But take care of yourself. I would not have you too sanguine though, however it may end, be assured your raising your thoughts to him, is a mark of good taste which I shall always know how to value. Harriet kissed her hand in silent and submissive gratitude. Emma was very decided in thinking such an attachment no bad thing for her friend. Its tendency would be to raise and refine her mindand it must be saving her from the danger of degradation. In this state of schemes, and hopes, and connivance, June opened upon Hartfield. To Highbury in general it brought no material change. The Eltons were still talking of a visit from the Sucklings, and of the use to be made of their barouchelandau and Jane Fairfax was still at her grandmother's and as the return of the Campbells from Ireland was again delayed, and August, instead of Midsummer, fixed for it, she was likely to remain there full two months longer, provided at least she were able to defeat Mrs. Elton's activity in her service, and save herself from being hurried into a delightful situation against her will. Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing declared it his own attentions, his father's hints, his motherinlaw's guarded silence it was all in unison words, conduct, discretion, and indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He could not understand it but there were symptoms of intelligence between themhe thought so at leastsymptoms of admiration on his side, which, having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma's errors of imagination. She was not present when the suspicion first arose. He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons' and he had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and his fire at twilight, 'Myself creating what I saw, brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane. He had walked up one day after dinner, as he very often did, to spend his evening at Hartfield. Emma and Harriet were going to walk he joined them and, on returning, they fell in with a larger party, who, like themselves, judged it wisest to take their exercise early, as the weather threatened rain Mr. and Mrs. Weston and their son, Miss Bates and her niece, who had accidentally met. They all united and, on reaching Hartfield gates, Emma, who knew it was exactly the sort of visiting that would be welcome to her father, pressed them all to go in and drink tea with him. The Randalls party agreed to it immediately and after a pretty long speech from Miss Bates, which few persons listened to, she also found it possible to accept dear Miss Woodhouse's most obliging invitation. As they were turning into the grounds, Mr. Perry passed by on horseback. The gentlemen spoke of his horse. 'By the bye, said Frank Churchill to Mrs. Weston presently, 'what became of Mr. Perry's plan of setting up his carriage? Mrs. Weston looked surprized, and said, 'I did not know that he ever had any such plan. 'Nay, I had it from you. You wrote me word of it three months ago. 'Me! impossible! 'Indeed you did. I remember it perfectly. You mentioned it as what was certainly to be very soon. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was extremely happy about it. It was owing to her persuasion, as she thought his being out in bad weather did him a great deal of harm. You must remember it now? 'Upon my word I never heard of it till this moment. 'Never! really, never!Bless me! how could it be?Then I must have dreamt itbut I was completely persuadedMiss Smith, you walk as if you were tired. You will not be sorry to find yourself at home. 'What is this?What is this? cried Mr. Weston, 'about Perry and a carriage? Is Perry going to set up his carriage, Frank? I am glad he can afford it. You had it from himself, had you? 'No, sir, replied his son, laughing, 'I seem to have had it from nobody.Very odd!I really was persuaded of Mrs. Weston's having mentioned it in one of her letters to Enscombe, many weeks ago, with all these particularsbut as she declares she never heard a syllable of it before, of course it must have been a dream. I am a great dreamer. I dream of every body at Highbury when I am awayand when I have gone through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs. Perry. 'It is odd though, observed his father, 'that you should have had such a regular connected dream about people whom it was not very likely you should be thinking of at Enscombe. Perry's setting up his carriage! and his wife's persuading him to it, out of care for his healthjust what will happen, I have no doubt, some time or other only a little premature. What an air of probability sometimes runs through a dream! And at others, what a heap of absurdities it is! Well, Frank, your dream certainly shews that Highbury is in your thoughts when you are absent. Emma, you are a great dreamer, I think? Emma was out of hearing. She had hurried on before her guests to prepare her father for their appearance, and was beyond the reach of Mr. Weston's hint. 'Why, to own the truth, cried Miss Bates, who had been trying in vain to be heard the last two minutes, 'if I must speak on this subject, there is no denying that Mr. Frank Churchill might haveI do not mean to say that he did not dream itI am sure I have sometimes the oddest dreams in the worldbut if I am questioned about it, I must acknowledge that there was such an idea last spring for Mrs. Perry herself mentioned it to my mother, and the Coles knew of it as well as ourselvesbut it was quite a secret, known to nobody else, and only thought of about three days. Mrs. Perry was very anxious that he should have a carriage, and came to my mother in great spirits one morning because she thought she had prevailed. Jane, don't you remember grandmama's telling us of it when we got home? I forget where we had been walking tovery likely to Randalls yes, I think it was to Randalls. Mrs. Perry was always particularly fond of my motherindeed I do not know who is notand she had mentioned it to her in confidence she had no objection to her telling us, of course, but it was not to go beyond and, from that day to this, I never mentioned it to a soul that I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before I am aware. I am a talker, you know I am rather a talker and now and then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like Jane I wish I were. I will answer for it she never betrayed the least thing in the world. Where is she?Oh! just behind. Perfectly remember Mrs. Perry's coming.Extraordinary dream, indeed! They were entering the hall. Mr. Knightley's eyes had preceded Miss Bates's in a glance at Jane. From Frank Churchill's face, where he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had involuntarily turned to hers but she was indeed behind, and too busy with her shawl. Mr. Weston had walked in. The two other gentlemen waited at the door to let her pass. Mr. Knightley suspected in Frank Churchill the determination of catching her eyehe seemed watching her intentlyin vain, however, if it were soJane passed between them into the hall, and looked at neither. There was no time for farther remark or explanation. The dream must be borne with, and Mr. Knightley must take his seat with the rest round the large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, and which none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her father to use, instead of the smallsized Pembroke, on which two of his daily meals had, for forty years been crowded. Tea passed pleasantly, and nobody seemed in a hurry to move. 'Miss Woodhouse, said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind him, which he could reach as he sat, 'have your nephews taken away their alphabetstheir box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it? This is a sort of dulllooking evening, that ought to be treated rather as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one morning. I want to puzzle you again. Emma was pleased with the thought and producing the box, the table was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting, with tender melancholy, over the departure of the 'poor little boys, or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how beautifully Emma had written it. Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to Emma, Jane opposite to themand Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them all and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of looking just across, for it was not mixed and Harriet, eager after every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The word was blunder and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a blush on Jane's cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible. Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream but how it could all be, was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and trick. It was a child's play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank Churchill's part. With great indignation did he continue to observe him with great alarm and distrust, to observe also his two blinded companions. He saw a short word prepared for Emma, and given to her with a look sly and demure. He saw that Emma had soon made it out, and found it highly entertaining, though it was something which she judged it proper to appear to censure for she said, 'Nonsense! for shame! He heard Frank Churchill next say, with a glance towards Jane, 'I will give it to hershall I?and as clearly heard Emma opposing it with eager laughing warmth. 'No, no, you must not you shall not, indeed. It was done however. This gallant young man, who seemed to love without feeling, and to recommend himself without complaisance, directly handed over the word to Miss Fairfax, and with a particular degree of sedate civility entreated her to study it. Mr. Knightley's excessive curiosity to know what this word might be, made him seize every possible moment for darting his eye towards it, and it was not long before he saw it to be Dixon. Jane Fairfax's perception seemed to accompany his her comprehension was certainly more equal to the covert meaning, the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged. She was evidently displeased looked up, and seeing herself watched, blushed more deeply than he had ever perceived her, and saying only, 'I did not know that proper names were allowed, pushed away the letters with even an angry spirit, and looked resolved to be engaged by no other word that could be offered. Her face was averted from those who had made the attack, and turned towards her aunt. 'Aye, very true, my dear, cried the latter, though Jane had not spoken a word'I was just going to say the same thing. It is time for us to be going indeed. The evening is closing in, and grandmama will be looking for us. My dear sir, you are too obliging. We really must wish you good night. Jane's alertness in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table but so many were also moving, that she could not get away and Mr. Knightley thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards her, and resolutely swept away by her unexamined. She was afterwards looking for her shawlFrank Churchill was looking alsoit was growing dusk, and the room was in confusion and how they parted, Mr. Knightley could not tell. He remained at Hartfield after all the rest, his thoughts full of what he had seen so full, that when the candles came to assist his observations, he mustyes, he certainly must, as a friendan anxious friendgive Emma some hint, ask her some question. He could not see her in a situation of such danger, without trying to preserve her. It was his duty. 'Pray, Emma, said he, 'may I ask in what lay the great amusement, the poignant sting of the last word given to you and Miss Fairfax? I saw the word, and am curious to know how it could be so very entertaining to the one, and so very distressing to the other. Emma was extremely confused. She could not endure to give him the true explanation for though her suspicions were by no means removed, she was really ashamed of having ever imparted them. 'Oh! she cried in evident embarrassment, 'it all meant nothing a mere joke among ourselves. 'The joke, he replied gravely, 'seemed confined to you and Mr. Churchill. He had hoped she would speak again, but she did not. She would rather busy herself about any thing than speak. He sat a little while in doubt. A variety of evils crossed his mind. Interferencefruitless interference. Emma's confusion, and the acknowledged intimacy, seemed to declare her affection engaged. Yet he would speak. He owed it to her, to risk any thing that might be involved in an unwelcome interference, rather than her welfare to encounter any thing, rather than the remembrance of neglect in such a cause. 'My dear Emma, said he at last, with earnest kindness, 'do you think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the gentleman and lady we have been speaking of? 'Between Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax? Oh! yes, perfectly.Why do you make a doubt of it? 'Have you never at any time had reason to think that he admired her, or that she admired him? 'Never, never! she cried with a most open eagerness'Never, for the twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me. And how could it possibly come into your head? 'I have lately imagined that I saw symptoms of attachment between themcertain expressive looks, which I did not believe meant to be public. 'Oh! you amuse me excessively. I am delighted to find that you can vouchsafe to let your imagination wanderbut it will not dovery sorry to check you in your first essaybut indeed it will not do. There is no admiration between them, I do assure you and the appearances which have caught you, have arisen from some peculiar circumstancesfeelings rather of a totally different natureit is impossible exactly to explainthere is a good deal of nonsense in itbut the part which is capable of being communicated, which is sense, is, that they are as far from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in the world can be. That is, I presume it to be so on her side, and I can answer for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman's indifference. She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a circumstance which highly entertained her but his gaiety did not meet hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse's tender habits required almost every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey. After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs. Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings' coming had been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs. Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was by the approach of it. Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought at firstbut a little consideration convinced her that every thing need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was to be such a party had been long generally known it had even given the idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill she wished to see what every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the Eltons and the Sucklings. This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together and that as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly aware, it was not worth bringing forward againit could not be done without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife and she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which she would have done a great deal to avoid an arrangement which would probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs. Elton's party! Every feeling was offended and the forbearance of her outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper. 'I am glad you approve of what I have done, said he very comfortably. 'But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement. And she is a goodnatured woman after all. One could not leave her out. Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeonpies and cold lamb, when a lame carriagehorse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack. 'Is not this most vexatious, Knightley? she cried.'And such weather for exploring!These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston. 'You had better explore to Donwell, replied Mr. Knightley. 'That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast. If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight and the 'Oh! I should like it of all things, was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was famous for its strawberrybeds, which seemed a plea for the invitation but no plea was necessary cabbagebeds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again and again to comemuch oftener than he doubtedand was extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it. 'You may depend upon me, said she. 'I certainly will come. Name your day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax? 'I cannot name a day, said he, 'till I have spoken to some others whom I would wish to meet you. 'Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carteblanche.I am Lady Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me. 'I hope you will bring Elton, said he 'but I will not trouble you to give any other invitations. 'Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consideryou need not be afraid of delegating power to me. I am no young lady on her preferment. Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests. 'No,he calmly replied,'there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is 'Mrs. Weston, I suppose, interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified. 'NoMrs. Knightleyand till she is in being, I will manage such matters myself. 'Ah! you are an odd creature! she cried, satisfied to have no one preferred to herself.'You are a humourist, and may say what you like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with meJane and her aunt.The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting the Hartfield family. Don't scruple. I know you are attached to them. 'You certainly will meet them if I can prevail and I shall call on Miss Bates in my way home. 'That's quite unnecessary I see Jane every daybut as you like. It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley quite a simple thing. I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging on my arm. Here,probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be no form or paradea sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under treesand whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out of doorsa table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural and simple as possible. Is not that your idea? 'Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have the table spread in the diningroom. The nature and the simplicity of gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house. 'Wellas you please only don't have a great set out. And, by the bye, can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?Pray be sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect anything 'I have not the least wish for it, I thank you. 'Wellbut if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely clever. 'I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and would spurn any body's assistance. 'I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and meand my caro sposo walking by. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life I conceive it to be a sort of necessary for, let a woman have ever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at homeand very long walks, you knowin summer there is dust, and in winter there is dirt. 'You will not find either, between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs. Cole's. I would wish every thing to be as much to your taste as possible. 'That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend. Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the warmest heart. As I tell Mr. E., you are a thorough humourist.Yes, believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please me. Mr. Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He wished to persuade Mr. Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at Donwell, be tempted away to his misery. He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two years. 'Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet, could go very well and he could sit still with Mrs. Weston, while the dear girls walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now, in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, and any other of his neighbours.He could not see any objection at all to his, and Emma's, and Harriet's going there some very fine morning. He thought it very well done of Mr. Knightley to invite themvery kind and sensiblemuch cleverer than dining out.He was not fond of dining out. Mr. Knightley was fortunate in every body's most ready concurrence. The invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like Mrs. Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment to themselves.Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of pleasure from it and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to join them, if possible a proof of approbation and gratitude which could have been dispensed with.Mr. Knightley was then obliged to say that he should be glad to see him and Mr. Weston engaged to lose no time in writing, and spare no arguments to induce him to come. In the meanwhile the lame horse recovered so fast, that the party to Box Hill was again under happy consideration and at last Donwell was settled for one day, and Box Hill for the next,the weather appearing exactly right. Under a bright midday sun, at almost Midsummer, Mr. Woodhouse was safely conveyed in his carriage, with one window down, to partake of this alfresco party and in one of the most comfortable rooms in the Abbey, especially prepared for him by a fire all the morning, he was happily placed, quite at his ease, ready to talk with pleasure of what had been achieved, and advise every body to come and sit down, and not to heat themselves.Mrs. Weston, who seemed to have walked there on purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and sympathiser. It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey, that as soon as she was satisfied of her father's comfort, she was glad to leave him, and look around her eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must ever be so interesting to her and all her family. She felt all the honest pride and complacency which her alliance with the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming, characteristic situation, low and shelteredits ample gardens stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sightand its abundance of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance had rooted up.The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.It was just what it ought to be, and it looked what it wasand Emma felt an increasing respect for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted in blood and understanding.Some faults of temper John Knightley had but Isabella had connected herself unexceptionably. She had given them neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush. These were pleasant feelings, and she walked about and indulged them till it was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the strawberrybeds.The whole party were assembled, excepting Frank Churchill, who was expected every moment from Richmond and Mrs. Elton, in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket, was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or talkingstrawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or spoken of.'The best fruit in Englandevery body's favouritealways wholesome.These the finest beds and finest sorts.Delightful to gather for one's selfthe only way of really enjoying them.Morning decidedly the best timenever tiredevery sort goodhautboy infinitely superiorno comparisonthe others hardly eatablehautboys very scarceChili preferredwhite wood finest flavour of allprice of strawberries in Londonabundance about BristolMaple Grovecultivationbeds when to be renewedgardeners thinking exactly differentno general rulegardeners never to be put out of their waydelicious fruitonly too rich to be eaten much ofinferior to cherriescurrants more refreshingonly objection to gathering strawberries the stoopingglaring suntired to deathcould bear it no longermust go and sit in the shade. Such, for half an hour, was the conversationinterrupted only once by Mrs. Weston, who came out, in her solicitude after her soninlaw, to inquire if he were comeand she was a little uneasy.She had some fears of his horse. Seats tolerably in the shade were found and now Emma was obliged to overhear what Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax were talking of.A situation, a most desirable situation, was in question. Mrs. Elton had received notice of it that morning, and was in raptures. It was not with Mrs. Suckling, it was not with Mrs. Bragge, but in felicity and splendour it fell short only of them it was with a cousin of Mrs. Bragge, an acquaintance of Mrs. Suckling, a lady known at Maple Grove. Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks, every thingand Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with immediately.On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumphand she positively refused to take her friend's negative, though Miss Fairfax continued to assure her that she would not at present engage in any thing, repeating the same motives which she had been heard to urge before.Still Mrs. Elton insisted on being authorised to write an acquiescence by the morrow's post.How Jane could bear it at all, was astonishing to Emma.She did look vexed, she did speak pointedlyand at last, with a decision of action unusual to her, proposed a removal.'Should not they walk? Would not Mr. Knightley shew them the gardensall the gardens?She wished to see the whole extent.The pertinacity of her friend seemed more than she could bear. It was hot and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered, dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed the finish of the pleasure grounds.It led to nothing nothing but a view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and the view which closed it extremely pretty.The considerable slope, at nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper form beyond its grounds and at half a mile distant was a bank of considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with woodand at the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and handsome curve around it. It was a sweet viewsweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive. In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled and towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and Harriet!It was an odd ttette but she was glad to see it.There had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm but now she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.She joined them at the wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma received a smile which seemed to say, 'These are my own concerns. I have a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of introducing Robert Martin.She did not suspect him. It was too old a story.Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.They took a few turns together along the walk.The shade was most refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day. The next remove was to the house they must all go in and eatand they were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs. Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself uneasy, and laughed at her fears but she could not be cured of wishing that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to coming, with more than common certainty. 'His aunt was so much better, that he had not a doubt of getting over to them.Mrs. Churchill's state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable dependenceand Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say, that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was prevented coming.Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under consideration she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion. The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fishponds perhaps get as far as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.Mr. Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him, stirred no more and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and variety which her spirits seemed to need. Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals, shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning and the kindness had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused. Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them all to Emmafortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and groundplot of the houseand was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. 'Will you be so kind, said she, 'when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?I am going this moment.My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absentbut I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.I have said nothing about it to any body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be missed and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am gone? 'Certainly, if you wish itbut you are not going to walk to Highbury alone? 'Yeswhat should hurt me?I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty minutes. 'But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my father's servant go with you.Let me order the carriage. It can be round in five minutes. 'Thank you, thank youbut on no account.I would rather walk.And for me to be afraid of walking alone!I, who may so soon have to guard others! She spoke with great agitation and Emma very feelingly replied, 'That can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the carriage. The heat even would be danger.You are fatigued already. 'I am,she answered'I am fatigued but it is not the sort of fatiguequick walking will refresh me.Miss Woodhouse, we all know at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary. Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all and entering into her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was gratefuland her parting words, 'Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her, even towards some of those who loved her best. 'Such a home, indeed! such an aunt! said Emma, as she turned back into the hall again. 'I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of their just horrors, the more I shall like you. Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only accomplished some views of St. Mark's Place, Venice, when Frank Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had forgotten to think of himbut she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston would be at ease. The black mare was blameless they were right who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by a temporary increase of illness in her a nervous seizure, which had lasted some hoursand he had quite given up every thought of coming, till very lateand had he known how hot a ride he should have, and how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have come at all. The heat was excessive he had never suffered any thing like italmost wished he had staid at homenothing killed him like heathe could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was intolerableand he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse's fire, looking very deplorable. 'You will soon be cooler, if you sit still, said Emma. 'As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be sparedbut such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be going soon I suppose the whole party breaking up. I met one as I cameMadness in such weather!absolute madness! Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill's state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be his constitution and as she knew that eating and drinking were often the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking some refreshment he would find abundance of every thing in the diningroomand she humanely pointed out the door. 'Nohe should not eat. He was not hungry it would only make him hotter. In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour and muttering something about sprucebeer, walked off. Emma returned all her attention to her father, saying in secret 'I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet's sweet easy temper will not mind it. He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came back all the bettergrown quite cooland, with good manners, like himselfable to draw a chair close to them, take an interest in their employment and regret, in a reasonable way, that he should be so late. He was not in his best spirits, but seemed trying to improve them and, at last, made himself talk nonsense very agreeably. They were looking over views in Swisserland. 'As soon as my aunt gets well, I shall go abroad, said he. 'I shall never be easy till I have seen some of these places. You will have my sketches, some time or other, to look ator my tour to reador my poem. I shall do something to expose myself. 'That may bebut not by sketches in Swisserland. You will never go to Swisserland. Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England. 'They may be induced to go too. A warm climate may be prescribed for her. I have more than half an expectation of our all going abroad. I assure you I have. I feel a strong persuasion, this morning, that I shall soon be abroad. I ought to travel. I am tired of doing nothing. I want a change. I am serious, Miss Woodhouse, whatever your penetrating eyes may fancyI am sick of Englandand would leave it tomorrow, if I could. 'You are sick of prosperity and indulgence. Cannot you invent a few hardships for yourself, and be contented to stay? 'I sick of prosperity and indulgence! You are quite mistaken. I do not look upon myself as either prosperous or indulged. I am thwarted in every thing material. I do not consider myself at all a fortunate person. 'You are not quite so miserable, though, as when you first came. Go and eat and drink a little more, and you will do very well. Another slice of cold meat, another draught of Madeira and water, will make you nearly on a par with the rest of us. 'NoI shall not stir. I shall sit by you. You are my best cure. 'We are going to Box Hill tomorrowyou will join us. It is not Swisserland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of a change. You will stay, and go with us? 'No, certainly not I shall go home in the cool of the evening. 'But you may come again in the cool of tomorrow morning. 'NoIt will not be worth while. If I come, I shall be cross. 'Then pray stay at Richmond. 'But if I do, I shall be crosser still. I can never bear to think of you all there without me. 'These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself. Chuse your own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more. The rest of the party were now returning, and all were soon collected. With some there was great joy at the sight of Frank Churchill others took it very composedly but there was a very general distress and disturbance on Miss Fairfax's disappearance being explained. That it was time for every body to go, concluded the subject and with a short final arrangement for the next day's scheme, they parted. Frank Churchill's little inclination to exclude himself increased so much, that his last words to Emma were, 'Wellif you wish me to stay and join the party, I will. She smiled her acceptance and nothing less than a summons from Richmond was to take him back before the following evening. They had a very fine day for Box Hill and all the other outward circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good time. Emma and Harriet went together Miss Bates and her niece, with the Eltons the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr. Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there. Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body had a burst of admiration on first arriving but in the general amount of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits, a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much into parties. The Eltons walked together Mr. Knightley took charge of Miss Bates and Jane and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill. And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable as they could but during the two whole hours that were spent on the hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties, too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove. At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearinglooked without seeingadmired without intelligencelistened without knowing what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet should be dull likewise and they were both insufferable. When they all sat down it was better to her taste a great deal better, for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object. Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her. To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared forand Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating period of their acquaintance but which now, in her own estimation, meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very well describe. 'Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together excessively. They were laying themselves open to that very phraseand to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any real felicity it was rather because she felt less happy than she had expected. She laughed because she was disappointed and though she liked him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship, admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning back her heart. She still intended him for her friend. 'How much I am obliged to you, said he, 'for telling me to come today!If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again. 'Yes, you were very cross and I do not know what about, except that you were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come. 'Don't say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me. 'It is hotter today. 'Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable today. 'You are comfortable because you are under command. 'Your command?Yes. 'Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant selfcommand. You had, somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own management but today you are got back againand as I cannot be always with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command rather than mine. 'It comes to the same thing. I can have no selfcommand without a motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always with me. You are always with me. 'Dating from three o'clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before. 'Three o'clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you first in February. 'Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)nobody speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people. 'I say nothing of which I am ashamed, replied he, with lively impudence. 'I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side, and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February. And then whispering'Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They shall talk. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is, presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking of? Some laughed, and answered goodhumouredly. Miss Bates said a great deal Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse's presiding Mr. Knightley's answer was the most distinct. 'Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all thinking of? 'Oh! no, nocried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could'Upon no account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of knowing. 'It is a sort of thing, cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, 'which I should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though, perhaps, as the Chaperon of the partyI never was in any circleexploring partiesyoung ladiesmarried women Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband and he murmured, in reply, 'Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeedquite unheard ofbut some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every body knows what is due to you. 'It will not do, whispered Frank to Emma 'they are most of them affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemenI am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeatedor two things moderately cleveror three things very dull indeed, and she engages to laugh heartily at them all. 'Oh! very well, exclaimed Miss Bates, 'then I need not be uneasy. 'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I? (looking round with the most goodhumoured dependence on every body's assent)Do not you all think I shall? Emma could not resist. 'Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon mebut you will be limited as to numberonly three at once. Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her. 'Ah!wellto be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend. 'I like your plan, cried Mr. Weston. 'Agreed, agreed. I will do my best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon? 'Low, I am afraid, sir, very low, answered his son'but we shall be indulgentespecially to any one who leads the way. 'No, no, said Emma, 'it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr. Weston's shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me hear it. 'I doubt its being very clever myself, said Mr. Weston. 'It is too much a matter of fact, but here it is.What two letters of the alphabet are there, that express perfection? 'What two letters!express perfection! I am sure I do not know. 'Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never guess.I will tell you.M. and A.Emma.Do you understand? Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and enjoy in itand so did Frank and Harriet.It did not seem to touch the rest of the party equally some looked very stupid about it, and Mr. Knightley gravely said, 'This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston has done very well for himself but he must have knocked up every body else. Perfection should not have come quite so soon. 'Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused, said Mrs. Elton 'I really cannot attemptI am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!You know who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire but quite out of place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer. Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty things at every body's service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please, Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing clever to saynot one of us. 'Yes, yes, pray pass me, added her husband, with a sort of sneering consciousness 'I have nothing to say that can entertain Miss Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married manquite good for nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta? 'With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot. Come, Jane, take my other arm. Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off. 'Happy couple! said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of hearing'How well they suit one another!Very luckymarrying as they did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!They only knew each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!for as to any real knowledge of a person's disposition that Bath, or any public place, can giveit is all nothing there can be no knowledge. It is only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it is all guess and luckand will generally be illluck. How many a man has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest of his life! Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own confederates, spoke now. 'Such things do occur, undoubtedly.She was stopped by a cough. Frank Churchill turned towards her to listen. 'You were speaking, said he, gravely. She recovered her voice. 'I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arisebut there is generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever. He made no answer merely looked, and bowed in submission and soon afterwards said, in a lively tone, 'Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?I am sure I should like any body fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate her. 'And make her like myself. 'By all means, if you can. 'Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife. 'She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else. I shall go abroad for a couple of yearsand when I return, I shall come to you for my wife. Remember. Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described? Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished. He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment who could say? Referring the education to her seemed to imply it. 'Now, ma'am, said Jane to her aunt, 'shall we join Mrs. Elton? 'If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall soon overtake her. There she isno, that's somebody else. That's one of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.Well, I declare They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston, his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained and the young man's spirits now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the carriages was a joyful sight and even the bustle of collecting and preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have her carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many illassorted people, she hoped never to be betrayed into again. While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said, 'Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do a privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it. I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?Emma, I had not thought it possible. Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off. 'Nay, how could I help saying what I did?Nobody could have helped it. It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me. 'I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of itwith what candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be so irksome. 'Oh! cried Emma, 'I know there is not a better creature in the world but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most unfortunately blended in her. 'They are blended, said he, 'I acknowledge and, were she prosperous, I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situationbut, Emma, consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor she has sunk from the comforts she was born to and, if she live to old age, must probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble herand before her niece, tooand before others, many of whom (certainly some,) would be entirely guided by your treatment of her.This is not pleasant to you, Emmaand it is very far from pleasant to me but I must, I will,I will tell you truths while I can satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now. While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage it was ready and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself, mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak and, on entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcomethen reproaching herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a difference but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain and soon, with what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been expressedalmost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal, so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness! Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself, fagged, and very willing to be silent and Emma felt the tears running down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to check them, extraordinary as they were. The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma's thoughts all the evening. How it might be considered by the rest of the party, she could not tell. They, in their different homes, and their different ways, might be looking back on it with pleasure but in her view it was a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than any she had ever passed. A whole evening of backgammon with her father, was felicity to it. There, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she was giving up the sweetest hours of the twentyfour to his comfort and feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any severe reproach. As a daughter, she hoped she was not without a heart. She hoped no one could have said to her, 'How could you be so unfeeling to your father?I must, I will tell you truths while I can. Miss Bates should never againno, never! If attention, in future, could do away the past, she might hope to be forgiven. She had been often remiss, her conscience told her so remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true contrition, she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse. She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she might see Mr. Knightley in her way or, perhaps, he might come in while she were paying her visit. She had no objection. She would not be ashamed of the appearance of the penitence, so justly and truly hers. Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked, but she saw him not. 'The ladies were all at home. She had never rejoiced at the sound before, nor ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs, with any wish of giving pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule. There was a bustle on her approach a good deal of moving and talking. She heard Miss Bates's voice, something was to be done in a hurry the maid looked frightened and awkward hoped she would be pleased to wait a moment, and then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both escaping into the adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of, looking extremely ill and, before the door had shut them out, she heard Miss Bates saying, 'Well, my dear, I shall say you are laid down upon the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough. Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not quite understand what was going on. 'I am afraid Jane is not very well, said she, 'but I do not know they tell me she is well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently, Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am very little ableHave you a chair, ma'am? Do you sit where you like? I am sure she will be here presently. Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment's fear of Miss Bates keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came'Very happy and obligedbut Emma's conscience told her that there was not the same cheerful volubility as beforeless ease of look and manner. A very friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she hoped, might lead the way to a return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate. 'Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are!I suppose you have heardand are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in me(twinkling away a tear or two)but it will be very trying for us to part with her, after having had her so long, and she has a dreadful headache just now, writing all the morningsuch long letters, you know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon. 'My dear,' said I, 'you will blind yourself'for tears were in her eyes perpetually. One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change and though she is amazingly fortunatesuch a situation, I suppose, as no young woman before ever met with on first going outdo not think us ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such surprising good fortune(again dispersing her tears)but, poor dear soul! if you were to see what a headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel any blessing quite as it may deserve. She is as low as possible. To look at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have secured such a situation. You will excuse her not coming to youshe is not ableshe is gone into her own roomI want her to lie down upon the bed. 'My dear,' said I, 'I shall say you are laid down upon the bed' but, however, she is not she is walking about the room. But, now that she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the doorI was quite ashamedbut somehow there was a little bustlefor it so happened that we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not know any body was coming. 'It is only Mrs. Cole,' said I, 'depend upon it. Nobody else would come so early.' 'Well,' said she, 'it must be borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.' But then Patty came in, and said it was you. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is Miss Woodhouse I am sure you will like to see her.''I can see nobody,' said she and up she got, and would go away and that was what made us keep you waitingand extremely sorry and ashamed we were. 'If you must go, my dear,' said I, 'you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the bed.' Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing kinder towards Jane and this picture of her present sufferings acted as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but pity and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and solicitudesincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for Miss Fairfax's advantage and comfort as possible. 'It must be a severe trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel Campbell's return. 'So very kind! replied Miss Bates. 'But you are always kind. There was no bearing such an 'always and to break through her dreadful gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of 'Wheremay I ask?is Miss Fairfax going? 'To a Mrs. Smallridgecharming womanmost superiorto have the charge of her three little girlsdelightful children. Impossible that any situation could be more replete with comfort if we except, perhaps, Mrs. Suckling's own family, and Mrs. Bragge's but Mrs. Smallridge is intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhoodlives only four miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove. 'Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes 'Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, 'No' for when Jane first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention exactly as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel Campbell's return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any engagement at presentand so she told Mrs. Elton over and over againand I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her mind!but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane's answer but she positively declared she would not write any such denial yesterday, as Jane wished her she would waitand, sure enough, yesterday evening it was all settled that Jane should go. Quite a surprize to me! I had not the least idea!Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge's situation, she had come to the resolution of accepting it.I did not know a word of it till it was all settled. 'You spent the evening with Mrs. Elton? 'Yes, all of us Mrs. Elton would have us come. It was settled so, upon the hill, while we were walking about with Mr. Knightley. 'You must all spend your evening with us,' said she'I positively must have you all come.' 'Mr. Knightley was there too, was he? 'No, not Mr. Knightley he declined it from the first and though I thought he would come, because Mrs. Elton declared she would not let him off, he did notbut my mother, and Jane, and I, were all there, and a very agreeable evening we had. Such kind friends, you know, Miss Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though every body seemed rather fagged after the morning's party. Even pleasure, you know, is fatiguingand I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have enjoyed it. However, I shall always think it a very pleasant party, and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it. 'Miss Fairfax, I suppose, though you were not aware of it, had been making up her mind the whole day? 'I dare say she had. 'Whenever the time may come, it must be unwelcome to her and all her friendsbut I hope her engagement will have every alleviation that is possibleI mean, as to the character and manners of the family. 'Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse. Yes, indeed, there is every thing in the world that can make her happy in it. Except the Sucklings and Bragges, there is not such another nursery establishment, so liberal and elegant, in all Mrs. Elton's acquaintance. Mrs. Smallridge, a most delightful woman!A style of living almost equal to Maple Groveand as to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there are not such elegant sweet children anywhere. Jane will be treated with such regard and kindness!It will be nothing but pleasure, a life of pleasure.And her salary!I really cannot venture to name her salary to you, Miss Woodhouse. Even you, used as you are to great sums, would hardly believe that so much could be given to a young person like Jane. 'Ah! madam, cried Emma, 'if other children are at all like what I remember to have been myself, I should think five times the amount of what I have ever yet heard named as a salary on such occasions, dearly earned. 'You are so noble in your ideas! 'And when is Miss Fairfax to leave you? 'Very soon, very soon, indeed that's the worst of it. Within a fortnight. Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry. My poor mother does not know how to bear it. So then, I try to put it out of her thoughts, and say, Come ma'am, do not let us think about it any more. 'Her friends must all be sorry to lose her and will not Colonel and Mrs. Campbell be sorry to find that she has engaged herself before their return? 'Yes Jane says she is sure they will but yet, this is such a situation as she cannot feel herself justified in declining. I was so astonished when she first told me what she had been saying to Mrs. Elton, and when Mrs. Elton at the same moment came congratulating me upon it! It was before teastayno, it could not be before tea, because we were just going to cardsand yet it was before tea, because I remember thinkingOh! no, now I recollect, now I have it something happened before tea, but not that. Mr. Elton was called out of the room before tea, old John Abdy's son wanted to speak with him. Poor old John, I have a great regard for him he was clerk to my poor father twentyseven years and now, poor old man, he is bedridden, and very poorly with the rheumatic gout in his jointsI must go and see him today and so will Jane, I am sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John's son came to talk to Mr. Elton about relief from the parish he is very well to do himself, you know, being head man at the Crown, ostler, and every thing of that sort, but still he cannot keep his father without some help and so, when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John ostler had been telling him, and then it came out about the chaise having been sent to Randalls to take Mr. Frank Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs. Elton. Miss Bates would hardly give Emma time to say how perfectly new this circumstance was to her but as without supposing it possible that she could be ignorant of any of the particulars of Mr. Frank Churchill's going, she proceeded to give them all, it was of no consequence. What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the accumulation of the ostler's own knowledge, and the knowledge of the servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond soon after the return of the party from Box Hillwhich messenger, however, had been no more than was expected and that Mr. Churchill had sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming back beyond the next morning early but that Mr. Frank Churchill having resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy going a good pace, and driving very steady. There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it caught Emma's attention only as it united with the subject which already engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill's importance in the world, and Jane Fairfax's, struck her one was every thing, the other nothingand she sat musing on the difference of woman's destiny, and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss Bates's saying, 'Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become of that?Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now.'You must go,' said she. 'You and I must part. You will have no business here.Let it stay, however,' said she 'give it houseroom till Colonel Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him he will settle for me he will help me out of all my difficulties.'And to this day, I do believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter's. Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte and the remembrance of all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing, that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of the good wishes which she really felt, took leave. Emma's pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr. Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting with her father.Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner decidedly graver than usual, said, 'I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare, and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say, besides the 'love,' which nobody carries? 'Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme? 'YesratherI have been thinking of it some little time. Emma was sure he had not forgiven her he looked unlike himself. Time, however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not goingher father began his inquiries. 'Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?And how did you find my worthy old friend and her daughter?I dare say they must have been very much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs. and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so attentive to them! Emma's colour was heightened by this unjust praise and with a smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr. Knightley.It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured. He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratifiedand in another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common friendliness on his part.He took her handwhether she had not herself made the first motion, she could not sayshe might, perhaps, have rather offered itbut he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly was on the point of carrying it to his lipswhen, from some fancy or other, he suddenly let it go.Why he should feel such a scruple, why he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not perceive.He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not stopped.The intention, however, was indubitable and whether it was that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it happened, but she thought nothing became him more.It was with him, of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.She could not but recall the attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.He left them immediately afterwardsgone in a moment. He always moved with the alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance. Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she had left her ten minutes earlierit would have been a great pleasure to talk over Jane Fairfax's situation with Mr. Knightley.Neither would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she knew how much his visit would be enjoyedbut it might have happened at a better timeand to have had longer notice of it, would have been pleasanter.They parted thorough friends, however she could not be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished gallantryit was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered his good opinion.He had been sitting with them half an hour, she found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier! In the hope of diverting her father's thoughts from the disagreeableness of Mr. Knightley's going to London and going so suddenly and going on horseback, which she knew would be all very bad Emma communicated her news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified it supplied a very useful check,interested, without disturbing him. He had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax's going out as governess, and could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley's going to London had been an unexpected blow. 'I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably settled. Mrs. Elton is very goodnatured and agreeable, and I dare say her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor's always was with me. You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be induced to go away after it has been her home so long. The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above sixandthirty hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more. It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of gravity and sorrow tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of illfame. Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twentyfive years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of imaginary complaints. 'Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal more than any body had ever supposedand continual pain would try the temper. It was a sad eventa great shockwith all her faults, what would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill's loss would be dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it.Even Mr. Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, 'Ah! poor woman, who would have thought it! and resolved, that his mourning should be as handsome as possible and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill, the grief of her husbandher mind glanced over them both with awe and compassionand then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared by nobody an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel no certainty of its being already formed. Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great selfcommand. What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character, and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance. They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill's death with mutual forbearance. Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill was better than could be expected and their first removal, on the departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for Harriet good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible on Emma's side. It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose prospects were closing, while Harriet's opened, and whose engagements now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her kindnessand with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely a stronger regret than for her past coldness and the person, whom she had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted to be of use to her wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused, and by a verbal message. 'Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge's at the time proposed. Her health seemed for the moment completely derangedappetite quite goneand though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself, though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous disorderconfined always to one roomhe could have wished it otherwiseand her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that description. Her care and attention could not be questioned they were, in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some way of being useful. To take herbe it only an hour or twofrom her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good and the following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any hour that Jane would namementioning that she had Mr. Perry's decided opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only in this short note 'Miss Fairfax's compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any exercise. Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better but it was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates's, in the hope that Jane would be induced to join herbut it would not doMiss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest serviceand every thing that message could do was triedbut all in vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success Jane was quite unpersuadable the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her worse.Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in. 'Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any bodyany body at allMrs. Elton, indeed, could not be deniedand Mrs. Cole had made such a pointand Mrs. Perry had said so muchbut, except them, Jane would really see nobody. Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys, and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere neither could she feel any right of preference herselfshe submitted, therefore, and only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece's appetite and diet, which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates was very unhappy, and very communicative Jane would hardly eat any thingMr. Perry recommended nourishing food but every thing they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was distasteful. Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an examination of her stores and some arrowroot of very superior quality was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss Bates, but 'dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent back it was a thing she could not takeand, moreover, she insisted on her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing. When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage, she could have no doubtputting every thing togetherthat Jane was resolved to receive no kindness from her. She was sorry, very sorry. Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and inequality of powers and it mortified her that she was given so little credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend but she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to reprove. One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill's decease, Emma was called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who 'could not stay five minutes, and wanted particularly to speak with her.He met her at the parlourdoor, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father, 'Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?Do, if it be possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you. 'Is she unwell? 'No, no, not at allonly a little agitated. She would have ordered the carriage, and come to you, but she must see you alone, and that you know(nodding towards her father)Humph!Can you come? 'Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?Is she really not ill? 'Depend upon mebut ask no more questions. You will know it all in time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush! To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something really important seemed announced by his looks but, as her friend was well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father, that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls. 'Now,said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,'now Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened. 'No, no,he gravely replied.'Don't ask me. I promised my wife to leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not be impatient, Emma it will all come out too soon. 'Break it to me, cried Emma, standing still with terror.'Good God!Mr. Weston, tell me at once.Something has happened in Brunswick Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it is. 'No, indeed you are mistaken. 'Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.Consider how many of my dearest friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?I charge you by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment. 'Upon my word, Emma. 'Your word!why not your honour!why not say upon your honour, that it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!What can be to be broke to me, that does not relate to one of that family? 'Upon my honour, said he very seriously, 'it does not. It is not in the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of Knightley. Emma's courage returned, and she walked on. 'I was wrong, he continued, 'in talking of its being broke to you. I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern youit concerns only myself,that is, we hope.Humph!In short, my dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don't say that it is not a disagreeable businessbut things might be much worse.If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls. Emma found that she must wait and now it required little effort. She asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money concernsomething just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the circumstances of the family,something which the late event at Richmond had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural children, perhapsand poor Frank cut off!This, though very undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more than an animating curiosity. 'Who is that gentleman on horseback? said she, as they proceededspeaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret, than with any other view. 'I do not know.One of the Otways.Not Frankit is not Frank, I assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this time. 'Has your son been with you, then? 'Oh! yesdid not you know?Well, well, never mind. For a moment he was silent and then added, in a tone much more guarded and demure, 'Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did. They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.'Well, my dear, said he, as they entered the room'I have brought her, and now I hope you will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me.And Emma distinctly heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,'I have been as good as my word. She has not the least idea. Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation, that Emma's uneasiness increased and the moment they were alone, she eagerly said, 'What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I find, has occurreddo let me know directly what it is. I have been walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense. Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your distress, whatever it may be. 'Have you indeed no idea? said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice. 'Cannot you, my dear Emmacannot you form a guess as to what you are to hear? 'So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess. 'You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly (resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) 'He has been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a subject,to announce an attachment She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of Harriet. 'More than an attachment, indeed, resumed Mrs. Weston 'an engagementa positive engagement.What will you say, Emmawhat will any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are engagednay, that they have been long engaged! Emma even jumped with surprizeand, horrorstruck, exclaimed, 'Jane Fairfax!Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it? 'You may well be amazed, returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes, and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover 'You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn engagement between them ever since Octoberformed at Weymouth, and kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but themselvesneither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.It is so wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.I thought I knew him. Emma scarcely heard what was said.Her mind was divided between two ideasher own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax and poor Harrietand for some time she could only exclaim, and require confirmation, repeated confirmation. 'Well, said she at last, trying to recover herself 'this is a circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at all comprehend it. What!engaged to her all the winterbefore either of them came to Highbury? 'Engaged since October,secretly engaged.It has hurt me, Emma, very much. It has hurt his father equally. Some part of his conduct we cannot excuse. Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, 'I will not pretend not to understand you and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are apprehensive of. Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe but Emma's countenance was as steady as her words. 'That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my present perfect indifference, she continued, 'I will farther tell you, that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to himnay, was attachedand how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder. Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past, for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth. Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy and when she could find utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good than any thing else in the world could do. 'Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself, said she. 'On this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you might be attached to each otherand we were persuaded that it was so. Imagine what we have been feeling on your account. 'I have escaped and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit him, Mrs. Weston and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners so very disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as he certainly didto distinguish any one young woman with persevering attention, as he certainly didwhile he really belonged to another?How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?How could he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?very wrong, very wrong indeed. 'From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine 'And how could she bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness! to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman, before her face, and not resent it.That is a degree of placidity, which I can neither comprehend nor respect. 'There were misunderstandings between them, Emma he said so expressly. He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow the full use even of the time he could staybut that there had been misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed, seemed to be brought on by them and those misunderstandings might very possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct. 'Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Westonit is too calm a censure. Much, much beyond impropriety!It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life. 'Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part for though he has been wrong in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having many, very many, good qualities and 'Good God! cried Emma, not attending to her.'Mrs. Smallridge, too! Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herselfto suffer her even to think of such a measure! 'He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to himor at least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.Till yesterday, I know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do not know how, but by some letter or messageand it was the discovery of what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of concealment that had been carrying on so long. Emma began to listen better. 'I am to hear from him soon, continued Mrs. Weston. 'He told me at parting, that he should soon write and he spoke in a manner which seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to be understood. Don't let us be severe, don't let us be in a hurry to condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him and now that I am satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and concealment. 'His sufferings, replied Emma dryly, 'do not appear to have done him much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it? 'Most favourably for his nephewgave his consent with scarcely a difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family! While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a hope, a chance, a possibilitybut scarcely are her remains at rest in the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue influence does not survive the grave!He gave his consent with very little persuasion. 'Ah! thought Emma, 'he would have done as much for Harriet. 'This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates's, I fancy, some timeand then came on hither but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle, to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you, he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.He was very much agitatedvery much, indeedto a degree that made him appear quite a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.In addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion ofand there was every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal. 'And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such perfect secresy?The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of the engagement? Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush. 'None not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in the world but their two selves. 'Well, said Emma, 'I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of hypocrisy and deceit,espionage, and treachery?To come among us with professions of openness and simplicity and such a league in secret to judge us all!Here have we been, the whole winter and spring, completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and words that were never meant for both to hear.They must take the consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not perfectly agreeable! 'I am quite easy on that head, replied Mrs. Weston. 'I am very sure that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not have heard. 'You are in luck.Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady. 'True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her and as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe. At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window, evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him in and, while he was coming round, added, 'Now, dearest Emma, let me intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease, and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of itand, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It is not a connexion to gratify but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that, why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her credit forand still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may be said in her situation for even that error! 'Much, indeed! cried Emma feelingly. 'If a woman can ever be excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane Fairfax's.Of such, one may almost say, that 'the world is not their's, nor the world's law.' She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance, exclaiming, 'A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.I congratulate you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter. A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as right as this speech proclaimed and its happy effect on his spirits was immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness he shook her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections and by the time they had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank could possibly have done. 'Harriet, poor Harriet!Those were the words in them lay the tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very ill by herselfvery ill in many ways,but it was not so much his behaviour as her own, which made her so angry with him. It was the scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet's account, that gave the deepest hue to his offence.Poor Harriet! to be a second time the dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken prophetically, when he once said, 'Emma, you have been no friend to Harriet Smith.She was afraid she had done her nothing but disservice.It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of the mischief with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise never have entered Harriet's imagination for Harriet had acknowledged her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever given her a hint on the subject but she felt completely guilty of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought to have prevented them.She felt that she had been risking her friend's happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him, and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring for her.'But, with common sense, she added, 'I am afraid I have had little to do. She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.As for Jane Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough she need no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose illhealth having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.Her days of insignificance and evil were over.She would soon be well, and happy, and prosperous.Emma could now imagine why her own attentions had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No doubt it had been from jealousy.In Jane's eyes she had been a rival and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack, and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She understood it all and as far as her mind could disengage itself from the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first. Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought and judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet's mind, producing reserve and selfcommand, it would.She must communicate the painful truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secresy had been among Mr. Weston's parting words. 'For the present, the whole affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a point of it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum.Emma had promised but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty. In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost ridiculous, that she should have the very same distressing and delicate office to perform by Harriet, which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by herself. The intelligence, which had been so anxiously announced to her, she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quick on hearing Harriet's footstep and voice so, she supposed, had poor Mrs. Weston felt when she was approaching Randalls. Could the event of the disclosure bear an equal resemblance!But of that, unfortunately, there could be no chance. 'Well, Miss Woodhouse! cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room'is not this the oddest news that ever was? 'What news do you mean? replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint. 'About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear any thing so strange? Oh!you need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to any body but you, but he said you knew it. 'What did Mr. Weston tell you?said Emma, still perplexed. 'Oh! he told me all about it that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one another this long while. How very odd! It was, indeed, so odd Harriet's behaviour was so extremely odd, that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at her, quite unable to speak. 'Had you any idea, cried Harriet, 'of his being in love with her?You, perhaps, might.You (blushing as she spoke) who can see into every body's heart but nobody else 'Upon my word, said Emma, 'I begin to doubt my having any such talent. Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached to another woman at the very time that I wastacitly, if not openlyencouraging you to give way to your own feelings?I never had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank Churchill's having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly. 'Me! cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. 'Why should you caution me?You do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill. 'I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject, replied Emma, smiling 'but you do not mean to deny that there was a timeand not very distant eitherwhen you gave me reason to understand that you did care about him? 'Him!never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me? turning away distressed. 'Harriet! cried Emma, after a moment's pause'What do you mean?Good Heaven! what do you mean?Mistake you!Am I to suppose then? She could not speak another word.Her voice was lost and she sat down, waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer. Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from her, did not immediately say any thing and when she did speak, it was in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma's. 'I should not have thought it possible, she began, 'that you could have misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name himbut considering how infinitely superior he is to every body else, I should not have thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person. Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should have been so mistaken, is amazing!I am sure, but for believing that you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost, to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more wonderful things had happened that there had been matches of greater disparity (those were your very words)I should not have dared to give way toI should not have thought it possibleBut if you, who had been always acquainted with him 'Harriet! cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely'Let us understand each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you speaking ofMr. Knightley? 'To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body elseand so I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as possible. 'Not quite, returned Emma, with forced calmness, 'for all that you then said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost assert that you had named Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the gipsies, was spoken of. 'Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget! 'My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely naturaland you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.The impression of it is strong on my memory. 'Oh, dear, cried Harriet, 'now I recollect what you mean but I was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the gipsiesit was not Mr. Frank Churchill that I meant. No! (with some elevation) I was thinking of a much more precious circumstanceof Mr. Knightley's coming and asking me to dance, when Mr. Elton would not stand up with me and when there was no other partner in the room. That was the kind action that was the noble benevolence and generosity that was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every other being upon earth. 'Good God! cried Emma, 'this has been a most unfortunatemost deplorable mistake!What is to be done? 'You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the other had been the person and nowit is possible She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak. 'I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse, she resumed, 'that you should feel a great difference between the two, as to me or as to any body. You must think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposingthat ifstrange as it may appear. But you know they were your own words, that more wonderful things had happened, matches of greater disparity had taken place than between Mr. Frank Churchill and me and, therefore, it seems as if such a thing even as this, may have occurred beforeand if I should be so fortunate, beyond expression, as toif Mr. Knightley should reallyif he does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But you are too good for that, I am sure. Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at her in consternation, and hastily said, 'Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley's returning your affection? 'Yes, replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully'I must say that I have. Emma's eyes were instantly withdrawn and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touchedshe admittedshe acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet's having some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself! Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all these demeritssome concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense of justice by Harriet(there would be no need of compassion to the girl who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightleybut justice required that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,) gave Emma the resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent kindness.For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost extent of Harriet's hopes should be enquired into and Harriet had done nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily formed and maintainedor to deserve to be slighted by the person, whose counsels had never led her right.Rousing from reflection, therefore, and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more inviting accent, renewed the conversation for as to the subject which had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was quite sunk and lost.Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and themselves. Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.Emma's tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than Harriet's, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady but her mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing emotions, must create.She listened with much inward suffering, but with great outward patience, to Harriet's detail.Methodical, or well arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be but it contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her spiritespecially with the corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet. Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since those two decisive dances.Emma knew that he had, on that occasion, found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at least from the time of Miss Woodhouse's encouraging her to think of him, Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner towards her a manner of kindness and sweetness!Latterly she had been more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together, he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very delightfully!He seemed to want to be acquainted with her. Emma knew it to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to almost the same extent.Harriet repeated expressions of approbation and praise from himand Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous, feelings.She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet he had dwelt on them to her more than once.Much that lived in Harriet's memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected, by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour's relation, and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed undiscerned by her who now heard them but the two latest occurrences to be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without some degree of witness from Emma herself.The first, was his walking with her apart from the others, in the limewalk at Donwell, where they had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as she was convinced) to draw her from the rest to himselfand at first, he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done before, in a very particular way indeed!(Harriet could not recall it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her affections were engaged.But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse) appeared likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about farmingThe second, was his having sat talking with her nearly half an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of his being at Hartfieldthough, when he first came in, he had said that he could not stay five minutesand his having told her, during their conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more (as Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to her. The superior degree of confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her severe pain. On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a little reflection, venture the following question. 'Might he not?Is not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martinhe might have Mr. Martin's interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with spirit. 'Mr. Martin! No indeed!There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it. When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear Miss Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope. 'I never should have presumed to think of it at first, said she, 'but for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour be the rule of mineand so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may deserve him and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so very wonderful. The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter feelings, made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma's side, to enable her to say on reply, 'Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his feeling for her more than he really does. Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so satisfactory and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which at that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her father's footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too much agitated to encounter him. 'She could not compose herself Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmedshe had better gowith most ready encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another doorand the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of Emma's feelings 'Oh God! that I had never seen her! The rest of the day, the following night, were hardly enough for her thoughts.She was bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had rushed on her within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a fresh surprize and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to her.How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had been thus practising on herself, and living under!The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart!she sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubberyin every place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly that she had been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree that she had been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying that she was wretched, and should probably find this day but the beginning of wretchedness. To understand, thoroughly understand her own heart, was the first endeavour. To that point went every leisure moment which her father's claims on her allowed, and every moment of involuntary absence of mind. How long had Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every feeling declared him now to be? When had his influence, such influence begun? When had he succeeded to that place in her affection, which Frank Churchill had once, for a short period, occupied?She looked back she compared the twocompared them, as they had always stood in her estimation, from the time of the latter's becoming known to herand as they must at any time have been compared by her, had itoh! had it, by any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison.She saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr. Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her had not been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading herself, in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a delusion, totally ignorant of her own heartand, in short, that she had never really cared for Frank Churchill at all! This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection. This was the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry, which she reached and without being long in reaching it.She was most sorrowfully indignant ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed to herher affection for Mr. Knightley.Every other part of her mind was disgusting. With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of every body's feelings with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every body's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken and she had not quite done nothingfor she had done mischief. She had brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr. Knightley.Were this most unequal of all connexions to take place, on her must rest all the reproach of having given it a beginning for his attachment, she must believe to be produced only by a consciousness of Harriet'sand even were this not the case, he would never have known Harriet at all but for her folly. Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!It was a union to distance every wonder of the kind.The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax became commonplace, threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no surprize, presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or thought.Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!Such an elevation on her side! Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the sneers, the merriment it would prompt at his expense the mortification and disdain of his brother, the thousand inconveniences to himself.Could it be?No it was impossible. And yet it was far, very far, from impossible.Was it a new circumstance for a man of firstrate abilities to be captivated by very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him?Was it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent, incongruousor for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct the human fate? Oh! had she never brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she ought, and where he had told her she ought!Had she not, with a folly which no tongue could express, prevented her marrying the unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy and respectable in the line of life to which she ought to belongall would have been safe none of this dreadful sequel would have been. How Harriet could ever have had the presumption to raise her thoughts to Mr. Knightley!How she could dare to fancy herself the chosen of such a man till actually assured of it!But Harriet was less humble, had fewer scruples than formerly.Her inferiority, whether of mind or situation, seemed little felt.She had seemed more sensible of Mr. Elton's being to stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr. Knightley's.Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at pains to give Harriet notions of selfconsequence but herself?Who but herself had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible, and that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment?If Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing too. Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known how much of her happiness depended on being first with Mr. Knightley, first in interest and affection.Satisfied that it was so, and feeling it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection and only in the dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had been.Long, very long, she felt she had been first for, having no female connexions of his own, there had been only Isabella whose claims could be compared with hers, and she had always known exactly how far he loved and esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for many years past. She had not deserved it she had often been negligent or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him, insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he would not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her ownbut still, from family attachment and habit, and thorough excellence of mind, he had loved her, and watched over her from a girl, with an endeavour to improve her, and an anxiety for her doing right, which no other creature had at all shared. In spite of all her faults, she knew she was dear to him might she not say, very dear?When the suggestions of hope, however, which must follow here, presented themselves, she could not presume to indulge them. Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy of being peculiarly, exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley. She could not. She could not flatter herself with any idea of blindness in his attachment to her. She had received a very recent proof of its impartiality.How shocked had he been by her behaviour to Miss Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her on the subject!Not too strongly for the offencebut far, far too strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and clearsighted goodwill.She had no hope, nothing to deserve the name of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself which was now in question but there was a hope (at times a slight one, at times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived herself, and be overrating his regard for her.Wish it she must, for his sakebe the consequence nothing to herself, but his remaining single all his life. Could she be secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she believed she should be perfectly satisfied.Let him but continue the same Mr. Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to all the world let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be fully secured.Marriage, in fact, would not do for her. It would be incompatible with what she owed to her father, and with what she felt for him. Nothing should separate her from her father. She would not marry, even if she were asked by Mr. Knightley. It must be her ardent wish that Harriet might be disappointed and she hoped, that when able to see them together again, she might at least be able to ascertain what the chances for it were.She should see them henceforward with the closest observance and wretchedly as she had hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how to admit that she could be blinded here.He was expected back every day. The power of observation would be soon givenfrightfully soon it appeared when her thoughts were in one course. In the meanwhile, she resolved against seeing Harriet.It would do neither of them good, it would do the subject no good, to be talking of it farther.She was resolved not to be convinced, as long as she could doubt, and yet had no authority for opposing Harriet's confidence. To talk would be only to irritate.She wrote to her, therefore, kindly, but decisively, to beg that she would not, at present, come to Hartfield acknowledging it to be her conviction, that all farther confidential discussion of one topic had better be avoided and hoping, that if a few days were allowed to pass before they met again, except in the company of othersshe objected only to a ttettethey might be able to act as if they had forgotten the conversation of yesterday.Harriet submitted, and approved, and was grateful. This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma's thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them, sleeping or waking, the last twentyfour hoursMrs. Weston, who had been calling on her daughterinlaw elect, and took Hartfield in her way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview. Mr. Weston had accompanied her to Mrs. Bates's, and gone through his share of this essential attention most handsomely but she having then induced Miss Fairfax to join her in an airing, was now returned with much more to say, and much more to say with satisfaction, than a quarter of an hour spent in Mrs. Bates's parlour, with all the encumbrance of awkward feelings, could have afforded. A little curiosity Emma had and she made the most of it while her friend related. Mrs. Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal of agitation herself and in the first place had wished not to go at all at present, to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead, and to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed, and Mr. Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement's becoming known as, considering every thing, she thought such a visit could not be paid without leading to reportsbut Mr. Weston had thought differently he was extremely anxious to shew his approbation to Miss Fairfax and her family, and did not conceive that any suspicion could be excited by it or if it were, that it would be of any consequence for 'such things, he observed, 'always got about. Emma smiled, and felt that Mr. Weston had very good reason for saying so. They had gone, in shortand very great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady. She had hardly been able to speak a word, and every look and action had shewn how deeply she was suffering from consciousness. The quiet, heartfelt satisfaction of the old lady, and the rapturous delight of her daughterwho proved even too joyous to talk as usual, had been a gratifying, yet almost an affecting, scene. They were both so truly respectable in their happiness, so disinterested in every sensation thought so much of Jane so much of every body, and so little of themselves, that every kindly feeling was at work for them. Miss Fairfax's recent illness had offered a fair plea for Mrs. Weston to invite her to an airing she had drawn back and declined at first, but, on being pressed had yielded and, in the course of their drive, Mrs. Weston had, by gentle encouragement, overcome so much of her embarrassment, as to bring her to converse on the important subject. Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception, and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause but when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been, and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject. 'On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so many months, continued Mrs. Weston, 'she was energetic. This was one of her expressions. 'I will not say, that since I entered into the engagement I have not had some happy moments but I can say, that I have never known the blessing of one tranquil hour'and the quivering lip, Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart. 'Poor girl! said Emma. 'She thinks herself wrong, then, for having consented to a private engagement? 'Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed to blame herself. 'The consequence,' said she, 'has been a state of perpetual suffering to me and so it ought. But after all the punishment that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all my sense of right and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken, and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me ought not to be.' 'Do not imagine, madam,' she continued, 'that I was taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel Campbell.' 'Poor girl! said Emma again. 'She loves him then excessively, I suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her judgment. 'Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him. 'I am afraid, returned Emma, sighing, 'that I must often have contributed to make her unhappy. 'On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural consequence of the evil she had involved herself in, she said, 'was that of making her unreasonable. The consciousness of having done amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious and irritable to a degree that must have beenthat had beenhard for him to bear. 'I did not make the allowances,' said she, 'which I ought to have done, for his temper and spiritshis delightful spirits, and that gaiety, that playfulness of disposition, which, under any other circumstances, would, I am sure, have been as constantly bewitching to me, as they were at first.' She then began to speak of you, and of the great kindness you had shewn her during her illness and with a blush which shewed me how it was all connected, desired me, whenever I had an opportunity, to thank youI could not thank you too muchfor every wish and every endeavour to do her good. She was sensible that you had never received any proper acknowledgment from herself. 'If I did not know her to be happy now, said Emma, seriously, 'which, in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she must be, I could not bear these thanksfor, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss Fairfax!Well (checking herself, and trying to be more lively), this is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is very goodI hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers. Such a conclusion could not pass unanswered by Mrs. Weston. She thought well of Frank in almost every respect and, what was more, she loved him very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a great deal of reason, and at least equal affectionbut she had too much to urge for Emma's attention it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or to Donwell she forgot to attempt to listen and when Mrs. Weston ended with, 'We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know, but I hope it will soon come, she was obliged to pause before she answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for. 'Are you well, my Emma? was Mrs. Weston's parting question. 'Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me intelligence of the letter as soon as possible. Mrs. Weston's communications furnished Emma with more food for unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause. Had she followed Mr. Knightley's known wishes, in paying that attention to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due had she tried to know her better had she done her part towards intimacy had she endeavoured to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith she must, in all probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her now.Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as an associate for her, to be received with gratitude and the otherwhat was she?Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax's confidence on this important matterwhich was most probablestill, in knowing her as she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so unpardonably imparted an idea which she greatly feared had been made a subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane's feelings, by the levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill's. Of all the sources of evil surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without her having stabbed Jane Fairfax's peace in a thousand instances and on Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no more. The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield. The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights the longer visible. The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter's side, and by exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded her of their first forlorn ttette, on the evening of Mrs. Weston's weddingday but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea, and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of Hartfield's attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the approaching winter, had proved erroneous no friends had deserted them, no pleasures had been lost.But her present forebodings she feared would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now, was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelledthat might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be comparatively deserted and she left to cheer her father with the spirits only of ruined happiness. The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than herself and Mrs. Weston's heart and time would be occupied by it. They should lose her and, probably, in great measure, her husband also.Frank Churchill would return among them no more and Miss Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe. All that were good would be withdrawn and if to these losses, the loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer coming there for his evening comfort!No longer walking in at all hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their's!How was it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet's sake if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet's society all that he wanted if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first, the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best blessings of existence what could be increasing Emma's wretchedness but the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her own work? When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a few secondsand the only source whence any thing like consolation or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone. The weather continued much the same all the following morning and the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at Hartfieldbut in the afternoon it cleared the wind changed into a softer quarter the clouds were carried off the sun appeared it was summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they might gradually introduce and on Mr. Perry's coming in soon after dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time in hurrying into the shrubbery.There, with spirits freshened, and thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr. Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her.It was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles distant.There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The 'How d'ye do's were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after their mutual friends they were all well.When had he left them?Only that morning. He must have had a wet ride.Yes.He meant to walk with her, she found. 'He had just looked into the diningroom, and as he was not wanted there, preferred being out of doors.She thought he neither looked nor spoke cheerfully and the first possible cause for it, suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had been received. They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet he might be watching for encouragement to begin.She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She consideredresolvedand, trying to smile, began 'You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather surprize you. 'Have I? said he quietly, and looking at her 'of what nature? 'Oh! the best nature in the worlda wedding. After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he replied, 'If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that already. 'How is it possible? cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards him for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called at Mrs. Goddard's in his way. 'I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened. Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more composure, 'You probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have had your suspicions.I have not forgotten that you once tried to give me a caution.I wish I had attended to itbut(with a sinking voice and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness. For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone of great sensibility, speaking low, 'Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound.Your own excellent senseyour exertions for your father's sakeI know you will not allow yourself. Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more broken and subdued accent, 'The feelings of the warmest friendshipIndignationAbominable scoundrel!And in a louder, steadier tone, he concluded with, 'He will soon be gone. They will soon be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for her. She deserves a better fate. Emma understood him and as soon as she could recover from the flutter of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied, 'You are very kindbut you are mistakenand I must set you right. I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason to regret that I was not in the secret earlier. 'Emma! cried he, looking eagerly at her, 'are you, indeed?but checking himself'No, no, I understand youforgive meI am pleased that you can say even so much.He is no object of regret, indeed! and it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment of more than your reason.Fortunate that your affections were not farther entangled!I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure myself as to the degree of what you feltI could only be certain that there was a preferenceand a preference which I never believed him to deserve.He is a disgrace to the name of man.And is he to be rewarded with that sweet young woman?Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable creature. 'Mr. Knightley, said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused'I am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your error and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.But I never have. He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his clemency but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in his opinion. She went on, however. 'I have very little to say for my own conduct.I was tempted by his attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased.An old story, probablya common caseand no more than has happened to hundreds of my sex before and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation. He was the son of Mr. Westonhe was continually hereI always found him very pleasantand, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at lastmy vanity was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, howeverfor some time, indeedI have had no idea of their meaning any thing.I thought them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side. He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real situation with another.It was his object to blind all about him and no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myselfexcept that I was not blindedthat it was my good fortunethat, in short, I was somehow or other safe from him. She had hoped for an answer herefor a few words to say that her conduct was at least intelligible but he was silent and, as far as she could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone, he said, 'I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill.I can suppose, however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has been but trifling.And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he may yet turn out well.With such a woman he has a chance.I have no motive for wishing him illand for her sake, whose happiness will be involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him well. 'I have no doubt of their being happy together, said Emma 'I believe them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached. 'He is a most fortunate man! returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. 'So early in lifeat threeandtwentya period when, if a man chuses a wife, he generally chuses ill. At threeandtwenty to have drawn such a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation, has before him!Assured of the love of such a womanthe disinterested love, for Jane Fairfax's character vouches for her disinterestedness every thing in his favour,equality of situationI mean, as far as regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important equality in every point but oneand that one, since the purity of her heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.Frank Churchill is, indeed, the favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.He meets with a young woman at a wateringplace, gains her affection, cannot even weary her by negligent treatmentand had he and all his family sought round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found her superior.His aunt is in the way.His aunt dies.He has only to speak.His friends are eager to promote his happiness.He had used every body illand they are all delighted to forgive him.He is a fortunate man indeed! 'You speak as if you envied him. 'And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy. Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if possible. She made her plan she would speak of something totally differentthe children in Brunswick Square and she only waited for breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying, 'You will not ask me what is the point of envy.You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity.You are wisebut I cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. 'Oh! then, don't speak it, don't speak it, she eagerly cried. 'Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself. 'Thank you, said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not another syllable followed. Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in herperhaps to consult hercost her what it would, she would listen. She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it she might give just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence, relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.They had reached the house. 'You are going in, I suppose? said he. 'No,replied Emmaquite confirmed by the depressed manner in which he still spoke'I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not gone. And, after proceeding a few steps, she added'I stopped you ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you pain.But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplationas a friend, indeed, you may command me.I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think. 'As a friend!repeated Mr. Knightley.'Emma, that I fear is a wordNo, I have no wishStay, yes, why should I hesitate?I have gone too far already for concealment.Emma, I accept your offerExtraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend.Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding? He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowered her. 'My dearest Emma, said he, 'for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emmatell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said.She could really say nothing.'You are silent, he cried, with great animation 'absolutely silent! at present I ask no more. Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most prominent feeling. 'I cannot make speeches, Emma he soon resumed and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing.'If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.You hear nothing but truth from me.I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover.But you understand me.Yes, you see, you understand my feelingsand will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice. While he spoke, Emma's mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful velocity of thought, had been ableand yet without losing a wordto catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole to see that Harriet's hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a delusion as any of her ownthat Harriet was nothing that she was every thing herself that what she had been saying relative to Harriet had been all taken as the language of her own feelings and that her agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all received as discouragement from herself.And not only was there time for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness there was time also to rejoice that Harriet's secret had not escaped her, and to resolve that it need not, and should not.It was all the service she could now render her poor friend for as to any of that heroism of sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the twoor even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and with contrition but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever but her judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.She spoke then, on being so entreated.What did she say?Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.She said enough to shew there need not be despairand to invite him to say more himself. He had despaired at one period he had received such an injunction to caution and silence, as for the time crushed every hopeshe had begun by refusing to hear him.The change had perhaps been somewhat suddenher proposal of taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!She felt its inconsistency but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it, and seek no farther explanation. Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken but where, as in this case, though the conduct is mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.Mr. Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his. He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come, in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill's engagement, with no selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an opening, to soothe or to counsel her.The rest had been the work of the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill, of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himselfbut it had been no present hopehe had only, in the momentary conquest of eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his attempt to attach her.The superior hopes which gradually opened were so much the more enchanting.The affection, which he had been asking to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!Within half an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name. Her change was equal.This one halfhour had given to each the same precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust.On his side, there had been a longstanding jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation, of Frank Churchill.He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill that had taken him from the country.The Box Hill party had decided him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again such permitted, encouraged attentions.He had gone to learn to be indifferent.But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much domestic happiness in his brother's house woman wore too amiable a form in it Isabella was too much like Emmadiffering only in those striking inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.He had stayed on, however, vigorously, day after daytill this very morning's post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax.Then, with the gladness which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no longer. He had ridden home through the rain and had walked up directly after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery. He had found her agitated and low.Frank Churchill was a villain. He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill's character was not desperate.She was his own Emma, by hand and word, when they returned into the house and if he could have thought of Frank Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow. What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from what she had brought out!she had then been only daring to hope for a little respite of sufferingshe was now in an exquisite flutter of happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be greater when the flutter should have passed away. They sat down to teathe same party round the same tablehow often it had been collected!and how often had her eyes fallen on the same shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the western sun!But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing like it and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive daughter. Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.Could he have seen the heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs but without the most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either, he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much selfcontentment, totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return. As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma's fever continued but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and subduedand in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some alloy. Her fatherand Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling the full weight of their separate claims and how to guard the comfort of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father, it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley would ask but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most solemn resolution of never quitting her father.She even wept over the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an engagement but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.How to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decisionhow to spare her from any unnecessary pain how to make her any possible atonement how to appear least her enemy?On these subjects, her perplexity and distress were very greatand her mind had to pass again and again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever surrounded it.She could only resolve at last, that she would still avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by letter that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed just now for a time from Highbury, andindulging in one scheme morenearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation for her to Brunswick Square.Isabella had been pleased with Harriet and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.She did not think it in Harriet's nature to escape being benefited by novelty and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.At any rate, it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom every thing was due a separation for the present an averting of the evil day, when they must all be together again. She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet an employment which left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon and half an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him, literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a proper share of the happiness of the evening before. He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was brought her from Randallsa very thick lettershe guessed what it must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.She was now in perfect charity with Frank Churchill she wanted no explanations, she wanted only to have her thoughts to herselfand as for understanding any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.It must be waded through, however. She opened the packet it was too surely soa note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to Mrs. Weston. 'I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely a doubt of its happy effect.I think we shall never materially disagree about the writer again but I will not delay you by a long preface.We are quite well.This letter has been the cure of all the little nervousness I have been feeling lately.I did not quite like your looks on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning and though you will never own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a northeast wind.I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill. 'Yours ever, 'A. W. To Mrs. Weston. WindsorJuly. MY DEAR MADAM, 'If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be expected but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and indulgence.You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.But I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours, and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.You must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I first arrived at Randalls you must consider me as having a secret which was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question. I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to think it a right, I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly my difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to require definition and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.Had she refused, I should have gone mad.But you will be ready to say, what was your hope in doing this?What did you look forward to?To any thing, every thingto time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts, perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation, I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband's son, and the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.See me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to Randallsand here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till Miss Fairfax was in Highbury and as you were the person slighted, you will forgive me instantly but I must work on my father's compassion, by reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal, the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss Woodhouse my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest humiliation.A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.My behaviour to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.In order to assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately thrown.I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible objectbut I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any selfish views to go on.Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is, she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached and that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me, was as much my conviction as my wish.She received my attentions with an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me. We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.Whether Miss Woodhouse began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight, I cannot saywhen I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not without suspicion but I have no doubt of her having since detected me, at least in some degree.She may not have surmised the whole, but her quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find, whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it. I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.I hope this history of my conduct towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as myself.Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight, you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion. If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.Of the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F, who would never have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.The delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam, is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly hope, know her thoroughly yourself.No description can describe her. She must tell you herself what she isyet not by word, for never was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own merit.Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw, I have heard from her.She gives a good account of her own health but as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion of her looks. I know you will soon call on her she is living in dread of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without delay I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state and I am not much better yet still insane either from happiness or misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her excellence and patience, and my uncle's generosity, I am mad with joy but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her again!But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me to encroach.I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail yesterday but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness with which the affair burst out, needs explanation for though the event of the th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures, but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and refinement.But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered into with that womanHere, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.I have been walking over the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of my letter what it ought to be.It is, in fact, a most mortifying retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly blameable. She disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.My plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient.She was displeased I thought unreasonably so I thought her, on a thousand occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious I thought her even cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.We quarrelled. Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?There every little dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a proposal which might have made every previous caution useless?Had we been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must have been suspected.I was mad enough, however, to resent.I doubted her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill when, provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.In short, my dear madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine and I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time but I was the injured person, injured by her coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first advances.I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon her appears in the immediate resolution it produced as soon as she found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that officious Mrs. Elton the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards myself but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it which that woman has known.'Jane,' indeed!You will observe that I have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you. Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon have done.She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet again.She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each she dissolved it.This letter reached me on the very morning of my poor aunt's death. I answered it within an hour but from the confusion of my mind, and the multiplicity of business falling on me at once, my answer, instead of being sent with all the many other letters of that day, was locked up in my writingdesk and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but a few lines, to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.I was rather disappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily but I made excuses for her, and was too busy, andmay I add?too cheerful in my views to be captious.We removed to Windsor and two days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own letters all returned!and a few lines at the same time by the post, stating her extreme surprize at not having had the smallest reply to her last and adding, that as silence on such a point could not be misconstrued, and as it must be equally desirable to both to have every subordinate arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she now sent me, by a safe conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that if I could not directly command hers, so as to send them to Highbury within a week, I would forward them after that period to her at in short, the full direction to Mr. Smallridge's, near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the name, the place, I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had been doing. It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of character which I knew her to possess and the secrecy she had maintained, as to any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptive of its anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemed to threaten me.Imagine the shock imagine how, till I had actually detected my own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.What was to be done?One thing only.I must speak to my uncle. Without his sanction I could not hope to be listened to again.I spoke circumstances were in my favour the late event had softened away his pride, and he was, earlier than I could have anticipated, wholly reconciled and complying and could say at last, poor man! with a deep sigh, that he wished I might find as much happiness in the marriage state as he had done.I felt that it would be of a different sort.Are you disposed to pity me for what I must have suffered in opening the cause to him, for my suspense while all was at stake?No do not pity me till I reached Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her wan, sick looks.I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from my knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chance of finding her alone.I was not disappointed and at last I was not disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great deal of very reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away. But it is done we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment's uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, my dear madam, I will release you but I could not conclude before. A thousand and a thousand thanks for all the kindness you have ever shewn me, and ten thousand for the attentions your heart will dictate towards her.If you think me in a way to be happier than I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.Miss W. calls me the child of good fortune. I hope she is right.In one respect, my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribe myself, Your obliged and affectionate Son, F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL. This letter must make its way to Emma's feelings. She was obliged, in spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name, it was irresistible every line relating to herself was interesting, and almost every line agreeable and when this charm ceased, the subject could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone through the whole and though it was impossible not to feel that he had been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposedand he had suffered, and was very sorryand he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that there was no being severe and could he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever. She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again, she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston's wishing it to be communicated especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so much to blame in his conduct. 'I shall be very glad to look it over, said he 'but it seems long. I will take it home with me at night. But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she must return it by him. 'I would rather be talking to you, he replied 'but as it seems a matter of justice, it shall be done. He beganstopping, however, almost directly to say, 'Had I been offered the sight of one of this gentleman's letters to his motherinlaw a few months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference. He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself and then, with a smile, observed, 'Humph! a fine complimentary opening But it is his way. One man's style must not be the rule of another's. We will not be severe. 'It will be natural for me, he added shortly afterwards, 'to speak my opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you. It will not be so great a loss of time but if you dislike it 'Not at all. I should wish it. Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity. 'He trifles here, said he, 'as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong, and has nothing rational to urge.Bad.He ought not to have formed the engagement.'His father's disposition'he is unjust, however, to his father. Mr. Weston's sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright and honourable exertions but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort before he endeavoured to gain it.Very true he did not come till Miss Fairfax was here. 'And I have not forgotten, said Emma, 'how sure you were that he might have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomelybut you were perfectly right. 'I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emmabut yet, I thinkhad you not been in the caseI should still have distrusted him. When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it aloudall that related to her, with a smile a look a shake of the head a word or two of assent, or disapprobation or merely of love, as the subject required concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady reflection, thus 'Very badthough it might have been worse.Playing a most dangerous game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.No judge of his own manners by you.Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and regardless of little besides his own convenience.Fancying you to have fathomed his secret. Natural enough!his own mind full of intrigue, that he should suspect it in others.Mystery Finessehow they pervert the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other? Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's account, which she could not give any sincere explanation of. 'You had better go on, said she. He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, 'the pianoforte! Ah! That was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed!I cannot comprehend a man's wishing to give a woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense with and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument's coming if she could. After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for more than a word in passing. 'I perfectly agree with you, sir,was then his remark. 'You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line. And having gone through what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax's sense of right, he made a fuller pause to say, 'This is very bad.He had induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from suffering unnecessarily.She must have had much more to contend with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such but hers were all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she should have been in such a state of punishment. Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read, however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark and, excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear of giving painno remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist. 'There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the Eltons, was his next observation.'His feelings are natural.What! actually resolve to break with him entirely!She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to eachshe dissolved it.What a view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!Well, he must be a most extraordinary 'Nay, nay, read on.You will find how very much he suffers. 'I hope he does, replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. ''Smallridge!'What does this mean? What is all this? 'She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's childrena dear friend of Mrs. Elton'sa neighbour of Maple Grove and, by the bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment? 'Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to readnot even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter the man writes! 'I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him. 'Well, there is feeling here.He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill.Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of her. 'Dearer, much dearer than ever.' I hope he may long continue to feel all the value of such a reconciliation.He is a very liberal thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.'Happier than I deserve.' Come, he knows himself there. 'Miss Woodhouse calls me the child of good fortune.'Those were Miss Woodhouse's words, were they? And a fine endingand there is the letter. The child of good fortune! That was your name for him, was it? 'You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am but still you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I hope it does him some service with you. 'Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of inconsideration and thoughtlessness and I am very much of his opinion in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves but still as he is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk to you of something else. I have another person's interest at present so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill. Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work on one subject. The subject followed it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the happiness of her father. Emma's answer was ready at the first word. 'While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible for her. She could never quit him. Part only of this answer, however, was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr. Knightley felt as strongly as herself but the inadmissibility of any other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most deeply, most intently he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to Donwell he had wanted to believe it feasible, but his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself long and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation would be a risk of her father's comfort, perhaps even of his life, which must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!No, he felt that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any respect objectionable it was, that he should be received at Hartfield that so long as her father's happinessin other words, his liferequired Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise. Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it but such an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits that in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it, and advised him to think of it more but he was fully convinced, that no reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration he had been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his thoughts to himself. 'Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for, cried Emma. 'I am sure William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you ask mine. She promised, however, to think of it and pretty nearly promised, moreover, to think of it, with the intention of finding it a very good scheme. It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as heirexpectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must of the possible difference to the poor little boy and yet she only gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt. This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at Hartfieldthe more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became. His evils seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual good to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!Such a partner in all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of melancholy! She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet but every blessing of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend, who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be a loser in every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence as any deduction from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a dead weight than otherwise but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of unmerited punishment. In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is, supplanted but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr. Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the curenot like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly considerate for every body, would never deserve to be less worshipped than now and it really was too much to hope even of Harriet, that she could be in love with more than three men in one year. It was a very great relief to Emma to find Harriet as desirous as herself to avoid a meeting. Their intercourse was painful enough by letter. How much worse, had they been obliged to meet! Harriet expressed herself very much as might be supposed, without reproaches, or apparent sense of illusage and yet Emma fancied there was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style, which increased the desirableness of their being separate.It might be only her own consciousness but it seemed as if an angel only could have been quite without resentment under such a stroke. She had no difficulty in procuring Isabella's invitation and she was fortunate in having a sufficient reason for asking it, without resorting to invention.There was a tooth amiss. Harriet really wished, and had wished some time, to consult a dentist. Mrs. John Knightley was delighted to be of use any thing of ill health was a recommendation to herand though not so fond of a dentist as of a Mr. Wingfield, she was quite eager to have Harriet under her care.When it was thus settled on her sister's side, Emma proposed it to her friend, and found her very persuadable.Harriet was to go she was invited for at least a fortnight she was to be conveyed in Mr. Woodhouse's carriage.It was all arranged, it was all completed, and Harriet was safe in Brunswick Square. Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley's visits now she could talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings which she had led astray herself. The difference of Harriet at Mrs. Goddard's, or in London, made perhaps an unreasonable difference in Emma's sensations but she could not think of her in London without objects of curiosity and employment, which must be averting the past, and carrying her out of herself. She would not allow any other anxiety to succeed directly to the place in her mind which Harriet had occupied. There was a communication before her, one which she only could be competent to makethe confession of her engagement to her father but she would have nothing to do with it at present.She had resolved to defer the disclosure till Mrs. Weston were safe and well. No additional agitation should be thrown at this period among those she lovedand the evil should not act on herself by anticipation before the appointed time.A fortnight, at least, of leisure and peace of mind, to crown every warmer, but more agitating, delight, should be hers. She soon resolved, equally as a duty and a pleasure, to employ half an hour of this holiday of spirits in calling on Miss Fairfax.She ought to goand she was longing to see her the resemblance of their present situations increasing every other motive of goodwill. It would be a secret satisfaction but the consciousness of a similarity of prospect would certainly add to the interest with which she should attend to any thing Jane might communicate. She wentshe had driven once unsuccessfully to the door, but had not been into the house since the morning after Box Hill, when poor Jane had been in such distress as had filled her with compassion, though all the worst of her sufferings had been unsuspected.The fear of being still unwelcome, determined her, though assured of their being at home, to wait in the passage, and send up her name.She heard Patty announcing it but no such bustle succeeded as poor Miss Bates had before made so happily intelligible.No she heard nothing but the instant reply of, 'Beg her to walk upand a moment afterwards she was met on the stairs by Jane herself, coming eagerly forward, as if no other reception of her were felt sufficient.Emma had never seen her look so well, so lovely, so engaging. There was consciousness, animation, and warmth there was every thing which her countenance or manner could ever have wanted. She came forward with an offered hand and said, in a low, but very feeling tone, 'This is most kind, indeed!Miss Woodhouse, it is impossible for me to expressI hope you will believeExcuse me for being so entirely without words. Emma was gratified, and would soon have shewn no want of words, if the sound of Mrs. Elton's voice from the sittingroom had not checked her, and made it expedient to compress all her friendly and all her congratulatory sensations into a very, very earnest shake of the hand. Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Elton were together. Miss Bates was out, which accounted for the previous tranquillity. Emma could have wished Mrs. Elton elsewhere but she was in a humour to have patience with every body and as Mrs. Elton met her with unusual graciousness, she hoped the rencontre would do them no harm. She soon believed herself to penetrate Mrs. Elton's thoughts, and understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits it was being in Miss Fairfax's confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was still a secret to other people. Emma saw symptoms of it immediately in the expression of her face and while paying her own compliments to Mrs. Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady's replies, she saw her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into the purple and gold reticule by her side, saying, with significant nods, 'We can finish this some other time, you know. You and I shall not want opportunities. And, in fact, you have heard all the essential already. I only wanted to prove to you that Mrs. S. admits our apology, and is not offended. You see how delightfully she writes. Oh! she is a sweet creature! You would have doated on her, had you gone.But not a word more. Let us be discreetquite on our good behaviour.Hush!You remember those linesI forget the poem at this moment 'For when a lady's in the case, 'You know all other things give place. Now I say, my dear, in our case, for lady, readmum! a word to the wise.I am in a fine flow of spirits, an't I? But I want to set your heart at ease as to Mrs. S.My representation, you see, has quite appeased her. And again, on Emma's merely turning her head to look at Mrs. Bates's knitting, she added, in a half whisper, 'I mentioned no names, you will observe.Oh! no cautious as a minister of state. I managed it extremely well. Emma could not doubt. It was a palpable display, repeated on every possible occasion. When they had all talked a little while in harmony of the weather and Mrs. Weston, she found herself abruptly addressed with, 'Do not you think, Miss Woodhouse, our saucy little friend here is charmingly recovered?Do not you think her cure does Perry the highest credit?(here was a sideglance of great meaning at Jane.) Upon my word, Perry has restored her in a wonderful short time!Oh! if you had seen her, as I did, when she was at the worst!And when Mrs. Bates was saying something to Emma, whispered farther, 'We do not say a word of any assistance that Perry might have not a word of a certain young physician from Windsor.Oh! no Perry shall have all the credit. 'I have scarce had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, she shortly afterwards began, 'since the party to Box Hill. Very pleasant party. But yet I think there was something wanting. Things did not seemthat is, there seemed a little cloud upon the spirits of some.So it appeared to me at least, but I might be mistaken. However, I think it answered so far as to tempt one to go again. What say you both to our collecting the same party, and exploring to Box Hill again, while the fine weather lasts?It must be the same party, you know, quite the same party, not one exception. Soon after this Miss Bates came in, and Emma could not help being diverted by the perplexity of her first answer to herself, resulting, she supposed, from doubt of what might be said, and impatience to say every thing. 'Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse, you are all kindness.It is impossible to sayYes, indeed, I quite understanddearest Jane's prospectsthat is, I do not mean.But she is charmingly recovered.How is Mr. Woodhouse?I am so glad.Quite out of my power.Such a happy little circle as you find us here.Yes, indeed.Charming young man!that isso very friendly I mean good Mr. Perry!such attention to Jane!And from her great, her more than commonly thankful delight towards Mrs. Elton for being there, Emma guessed that there had been a little show of resentment towards Jane, from the vicarage quarter, which was now graciously overcome.After a few whispers, indeed, which placed it beyond a guess, Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said, 'Yes, here I am, my good friend and here I have been so long, that anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise but, the truth is, that I am waiting for my lord and master. He promised to join me here, and pay his respects to you. 'What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?That will be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like morning visits, and Mr. Elton's time is so engaged. 'Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.He really is engaged from morning to night.There is no end of people's coming to him, on some pretence or other.The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always wanting his opinion. They seem not able to do any thing without him.'Upon my word, Mr. E.,' I often say, 'rather you than I.I do not know what would become of my crayons and my instrument, if I had half so many applicants.'Bad enough as it is, for I absolutely neglect them both to an unpardonable degree.I believe I have not played a bar this fortnight.However, he is coming, I assure you yes, indeed, on purpose to wait on you all. And putting up her hand to screen her words from Emma'A congratulatory visit, you know.Oh! yes, quite indispensable. Miss Bates looked about her, so happily! 'He promised to come to me as soon as he could disengage himself from Knightley but he and Knightley are shut up together in deep consultation.Mr. E. is Knightley's right hand. Emma would not have smiled for the world, and only said, 'Is Mr. Elton gone on foot to Donwell?He will have a hot walk. 'Oh! no, it is a meeting at the Crown, a regular meeting. Weston and Cole will be there too but one is apt to speak only of those who lead.I fancy Mr. E. and Knightley have every thing their own way. 'Have not you mistaken the day? said Emma. 'I am almost certain that the meeting at the Crown is not till tomorrow.Mr. Knightley was at Hartfield yesterday, and spoke of it as for Saturday. 'Oh! no, the meeting is certainly today, was the abrupt answer, which denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton's side.'I do believe, she continued, 'this is the most troublesome parish that ever was. We never heard of such things at Maple Grove. 'Your parish there was small, said Jane. 'Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, for I never heard the subject talked of. 'But it is proved by the smallness of the school, which I have heard you speak of, as under the patronage of your sister and Mrs. Bragge the only school, and not more than fiveandtwenty children. 'Ah! you clever creature, that's very true. What a thinking brain you have! I say, Jane, what a perfect character you and I should make, if we could be shaken together. My liveliness and your solidity would produce perfection.Not that I presume to insinuate, however, that some people may not think you perfection already.But hush!not a word, if you please. It seemed an unnecessary caution Jane was wanting to give her words, not to Mrs. Elton, but to Miss Woodhouse, as the latter plainly saw. The wish of distinguishing her, as far as civility permitted, was very evident, though it could not often proceed beyond a look. Mr. Elton made his appearance. His lady greeted him with some of her sparkling vivacity. 'Very pretty, sir, upon my word to send me on here, to be an encumbrance to my friends, so long before you vouchsafe to come!But you knew what a dutiful creature you had to deal with. You knew I should not stir till my lord and master appeared.Here have I been sitting this hour, giving these young ladies a sample of true conjugal obediencefor who can say, you know, how soon it may be wanted? Mr. Elton was so hot and tired, that all this wit seemed thrown away. His civilities to the other ladies must be paid but his subsequent object was to lament over himself for the heat he was suffering, and the walk he had had for nothing. 'When I got to Donwell, said he, 'Knightley could not be found. Very odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one. 'Donwell! cried his wife.'My dear Mr. E., you have not been to Donwell!You mean the Crown you come from the meeting at the Crown. 'No, no, that's tomorrow and I particularly wanted to see Knightley today on that very account.Such a dreadful broiling morning!I went over the fields too(speaking in a tone of great illusage,) which made it so much the worse. And then not to find him at home! I assure you I am not at all pleased. And no apology left, no message for me. The housekeeper declared she knew nothing of my being expected.Very extraordinary!And nobody knew at all which way he was gone. Perhaps to Hartfield, perhaps to the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods.Miss Woodhouse, this is not like our friend Knightley!Can you explain it? Emma amused herself by protesting that it was very extraordinary, indeed, and that she had not a syllable to say for him. 'I cannot imagine, said Mrs. Elton, (feeling the indignity as a wife ought to do,) 'I cannot imagine how he could do such a thing by you, of all people in the world! The very last person whom one should expect to be forgotten!My dear Mr. E., he must have left a message for you, I am sure he must.Not even Knightley could be so very eccentricand his servants forgot it. Depend upon it, that was the case and very likely to happen with the Donwell servants, who are all, I have often observed, extremely awkward and remiss.I am sure I would not have such a creature as his Harry stand at our sideboard for any consideration. And as for Mrs. Hodges, Wright holds her very cheap indeed.She promised Wright a receipt, and never sent it. 'I met William Larkins, continued Mr. Elton, 'as I got near the house, and he told me I should not find his master at home, but I did not believe him.William seemed rather out of humour. He did not know what was come to his master lately, he said, but he could hardly ever get the speech of him. I have nothing to do with William's wants, but it really is of very great importance that I should see Knightley today and it becomes a matter, therefore, of very serious inconvenience that I should have had this hot walk to no purpose. Emma felt that she could not do better than go home directly. In all probability she was at this very time waited for there and Mr. Knightley might be preserved from sinking deeper in aggression towards Mr. Elton, if not towards William Larkins. She was pleased, on taking leave, to find Miss Fairfax determined to attend her out of the room, to go with her even downstairs it gave her an opportunity which she immediately made use of, to say, 'It is as well, perhaps, that I have not had the possibility. Had you not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might have been strictly correct.I feel that I should certainly have been impertinent. 'Oh! cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual composure'there would have been no danger. The danger would have been of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than by expressing an interest. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not disgusted to such a degree as toI have not time for half that I could wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunatelyin short, if your compassion does not stand my friend 'Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are, cried Emma warmly, and taking her hand. 'You owe me no apologies and every body to whom you might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted even 'You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.So cold and artificial!I had always a part to act.It was a life of deceit!I know that I must have disgusted you. 'Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side. Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you have pleasant accounts from Windsor? 'Very. 'And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose youjust as I begin to know you. 'Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell. 'Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps, replied Emma, smiling'but, excuse me, it must be thought of. The smile was returned as Jane answered, 'You are very right it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of deep mourning but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing more to wait for. 'Thank you, thank you.This is just what I wanted to be assured of.Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and open!Goodbye, goodbye. Mrs. Weston's friends were all made happy by her safety and if the satisfaction of her welldoing could be increased to Emma, it was by knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella's sons but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew olderand even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years henceto have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home and Mrs. Westonno one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her and it would be quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have their powers in exercise again. 'She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me, she continued'like La Baronne d'Almane on La Comtesse d'Ostalis, in Madame de Genlis' Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan. 'That is, replied Mr. Knightley, 'she will indulge her even more than she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will be the only difference. 'Poor child! cried Emma 'at that rate, what will become of her? 'Nothing very bad.The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all my happiness to you, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be severe on them? Emma laughed, and replied 'But I had the assistance of all your endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether my own sense would have corrected me without it. 'Do you?I have no doubt. Nature gave you understandingMiss Taylor gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what right has he to lecture me?and I am afraid very natural for you to feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without doating on you, faults and all and by dint of fancying so many errors, have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least. 'I am sure you were of use to me, cried Emma. 'I was very often influenced rightly by youoftener than I would own at the time. I am very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is thirteen. 'How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your saucy looks'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do soandso papa says I may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'something which, you knew, I did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad feelings instead of one. 'What an amiable creature I was!No wonder you should hold my speeches in such affectionate remembrance. ''Mr. Knightley.'You always called me, 'Mr. Knightley' and, from habit, it has not so very formal a sound.And yet it is formal. I want you to call me something else, but I do not know what. 'I remember once calling you 'George,' in one of my amiable fits, about ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you but, as you made no objection, I never did it again. 'And cannot you call me 'George' now? 'Impossible!I never can call you any thing but 'Mr. Knightley.' I will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by calling you Mr. K.But I will promise, she added presently, laughing and blushing'I will promise to call you once by your Christian name. I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess wherein the building in which N. takes M. for better, for worse. Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly folliesher wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith but it was too tender a subject.She could not enter on it.Harriet was very seldom mentioned between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being thought of but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy, and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on Isabella's letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to the pain of having made Harriet unhappy. Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be expected on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted but, since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet different from what she had known her before.Isabella, to be sure, was no very quick observer yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma's comforts and hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet's being to stay longer her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain till they could bring her back. 'John does not even mention your friend, said Mr. Knightley. 'Here is his answer, if you like to see it. It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her friend was unmentioned. 'John enters like a brother into my happiness, continued Mr. Knightley, 'but he is no complimenter and though I well know him to have, likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes. 'He writes like a sensible man, replied Emma, when she had read the letter. 'I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different construction, I should not have believed him. 'My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means 'He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two, interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile'much less, perhaps, than he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the subject. 'Emma, my dear Emma 'Oh! she cried with more thorough gaiety, 'if you fancy your brother does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret, and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing you justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on your side of the question all the merit on mine. I wish I may not sink into 'poor Emma' with him at once.His tender compassion towards oppressed worth can go no farther. 'Ah! he cried, 'I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be happy together. I am amused by one part of John's letterdid you notice it?where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the kind. 'If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly unprepared for that. 'Yes, yesbut I am amused that he should have seen so far into my feelings. What has he been judging by?I am not conscious of any difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at this time for my marrying any more than at another.But it was so, I suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, 'Uncle seems always tired now.' The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other persons' reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse's visits, Emma having it in view that her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to announce it at home, and then at Randalls.But how to break it to her father at last!She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr. Knightley's absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have failed her, and she must have put it off but Mr. Knightley was to come at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.She was forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself. She must not appear to think it a misfortune.With all the spirits she could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then, in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be obtainedwhich, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty, since it was a plan to promote the happiness of allshe and Mr. Knightley meant to marry by which means Hartfield would receive the constant addition of that person's company whom she knew he loved, next to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world. Poor man!it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be a great deal better for her to remain single and told of poor Isabella, and poor Miss Taylor.But it would not do. Emma hung about him affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so and that he must not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change but she was not going from Hartfield she should be always there she was introducing no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better and she was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr. Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea.Did he not love Mr. Knightley very much?He would not deny that he did, she was sure.Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr. Knightley?Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters, who so glad to assist him?Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached to him?Would not he like to have him always on the spot?Yes. That was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often he should be glad to see him every daybut they did see him every day as it was.Why could not they go on as they had done? Mr. Woodhouse could not be soon reconciled but the worst was overcome, the idea was given time and continual repetition must do the rest.To Emma's entreaties and assurances succeeded Mr. Knightley's, whose fond praise of her gave the subject even a kind of welcome and he was soon used to be talked to by each, on every fair occasion.They had all the assistance which Isabella could give, by letters of the strongest approbation and Mrs. Weston was ready, on the first meeting, to consider the subject in the most serviceable lightfirst, as a settled, and, secondly, as a good onewell aware of the nearly equal importance of the two recommendations to Mr. Woodhouse's mind.It was agreed upon, as what was to be and every body by whom he was used to be guided assuring him that it would be for his happiness and having some feelings himself which almost admitted it, he began to think that some time or otherin another year or two, perhapsit might not be so very bad if the marriage did take place. Mrs. Weston was acting no part, feigning no feelings in all that she said to him in favour of the event.She had been extremely surprized, never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her but she saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in urging him to the utmost.She had such a regard for Mr. Knightley, as to think he deserved even her dearest Emma and it was in every respect so proper, suitable, and unexceptionable a connexion, and in one respect, one point of the highest importance, so peculiarly eligible, so singularly fortunate, that now it seemed as if Emma could not safely have attached herself to any other creature, and that she had herself been the stupidest of beings in not having thought of it, and wished it long ago.How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! And who but Mr. Knightley could know and bear with Mr. Woodhouse, so as to make such an arrangement desirable!The difficulty of disposing of poor Mr. Woodhouse had been always felt in her husband's plans and her own, for a marriage between Frank and Emma. How to settle the claims of Enscombe and Hartfield had been a continual impedimentless acknowledged by Mr. Weston than by herselfbut even he had never been able to finish the subject better than by saying'Those matters will take care of themselves the young people will find a way. But here there was nothing to be shifted off in a wild speculation on the future. It was all right, all open, all equal. No sacrifice on any side worth the name. It was a union of the highest promise of felicity in itself, and without one real, rational difficulty to oppose or delay it. Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have outgrown its first set of caps. The news was universally a surprize wherever it spread and Mr. Weston had his five minutes share of it but five minutes were enough to familiarise the idea to his quickness of mind.He saw the advantages of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife but the wonder of it was very soon nothing and by the end of an hour he was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it. 'It is to be a secret, I conclude, said he. 'These matters are always a secret, till it is found out that every body knows them. Only let me be told when I may speak out.I wonder whether Jane has any suspicion. He went to Highbury the next morning, and satisfied himself on that point. He told her the news. Was not she like a daughter, his eldest daughter?he must tell her and Miss Bates being present, it passed, of course, to Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Perry, and Mrs. Elton, immediately afterwards. It was no more than the principals were prepared for they had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it would be over Highbury and were thinking of themselves, as the evening wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity. In general, it was a very well approved match. Some might think him, and others might think her, the most in luck. One set might recommend their all removing to Donwell, and leaving Hartfield for the John Knightleys and another might predict disagreements among their servants but yet, upon the whole, there was no serious objection raised, except in one habitation, the Vicarage.There, the surprize was not softened by any satisfaction. Mr. Elton cared little about it, compared with his wife he only hoped 'the young lady's pride would now be contented and supposed 'she had always meant to catch Knightley if she could and, on the point of living at Hartfield, could daringly exclaim, 'Rather he than I!But Mrs. Elton was very much discomposed indeed.'Poor Knightley! poor fellow!sad business for him.She was extremely concerned for, though very eccentric, he had a thousand good qualities.How could he be so taken in?Did not think him at all in lovenot in the least.Poor Knightley!There would be an end of all pleasant intercourse with him.How happy he had been to come and dine with them whenever they asked him! But that would be all over now.Poor fellow!No more exploring parties to Donwell made for her. Oh! no there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every thing.Extremely disagreeable! But she was not at all sorry that she had abused the housekeeper the other day.Shocking plan, living together. It would never do. She knew a family near Maple Grove who had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first quarter. Time passed on. A few more tomorrows, and the party from London would be arriving. It was an alarming change and Emma was thinking of it one morning, as what must bring a great deal to agitate and grieve her, when Mr. Knightley came in, and distressing thoughts were put by. After the first chat of pleasure he was silent and then, in a graver tone, began with, 'I have something to tell you, Emma some news. 'Good or bad? said she, quickly, looking up in his face. 'I do not know which it ought to be called. 'Oh! good I am sure.I see it in your countenance. You are trying not to smile. 'I am afraid, said he, composing his features, 'I am very much afraid, my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it. 'Indeed! but why so?I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too. 'There is one subject, he replied, 'I hope but one, on which we do not think alike. He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on her face. 'Does nothing occur to you?Do not you recollect?Harriet Smith. Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though she knew not what. 'Have you heard from her yourself this morning? cried he. 'You have, I believe, and know the whole. 'No, I have not I know nothing pray tell me. 'You are prepared for the worst, I seeand very bad it is. Harriet Smith marries Robert Martin. Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being preparedand her eyes, in eager gaze, said, 'No, this is impossible! but her lips were closed. 'It is so, indeed, continued Mr. Knightley 'I have it from Robert Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago. She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement. 'You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.I wish our opinions were the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one or the other of us think differently and, in the meanwhile, we need not talk much on the subject. 'You mistake me, you quite mistake me, she replied, exerting herself. 'It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!You cannot mean to say, that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he has even proposed to her againyet. You only mean, that he intends it. 'I mean that he has done it, answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but determined decision, 'and been accepted. 'Good God! she cried.'Well!Then having recourse to her workbasket, in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be expressing, she added, 'Well, now tell me every thing make this intelligible to me. How, where, when?Let me know it all. I never was more surprizedbut it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.Howhow has it been possible? 'It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago, and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send to John.He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley's. They were going to take the two eldest boys to Astley's. The party was to be our brother and sister, Henry, Johnand Miss Smith. My friend Robert could not resist. They called for him in their way were all extremely amused and my brother asked him to dine with them the next daywhich he didand in the course of that visit (as I understand) he found an opportunity of speaking to Harriet and certainly did not speak in vain.She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is deserving. He came down by yesterday's coach, and was with me this morning immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first on my affairs, and then on his own. This is all that I can relate of the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much longer history when you see her.She will give you all the minute particulars, which only woman's language can make interesting.In our communications we deal only in the great.However, I must say, that Robert Martin's heart seemed for him, and to me, very overflowing and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that on quitting their box at Astley's, my brother took charge of Mrs. John Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith rather uneasy. He stopped.Emma dared not attempt any immediate reply. To speak, she was sure would be to betray a most unreasonable degree of happiness. She must wait a moment, or he would think her mad. Her silence disturbed him and after observing her a little while, he added, 'Emma, my love, you said that this circumstance would not now make you unhappy but I am afraid it gives you more pain than you expected. His situation is an evilbut you must consider it as what satisfies your friend and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight you.As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could, which is saying a great deal I assure you, Emma.You laugh at me about William Larkins but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin. He wanted her to look up and smile and having now brought herself not to smile too broadlyshe didcheerfully answering, 'You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think Harriet is doing extremely well. Her connexions may be worse than his. In respectability of character, there can be no doubt that they are. I have been silent from surprize merely, excessive surprize. You cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! how peculiarly unprepared I was!for I had reason to believe her very lately more determined against him, much more, than she was before. 'You ought to know your friend best, replied Mr. Knightley 'but I should say she was a goodtempered, softhearted girl, not likely to be very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her. Emma could not help laughing as she answered, 'Upon my word, I believe you know her quite as well as I do.But, Mr. Knightley, are you perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright accepted him. I could suppose she might in timebut can she already?Did not you misunderstand him?You were both talking of other things of business, shows of cattle, or new drillsand might not you, in the confusion of so many subjects, mistake him?It was not Harriet's hand that he was certain ofit was the dimensions of some famous ox. The contrast between the countenance and air of Mr. Knightley and Robert Martin was, at this moment, so strong to Emma's feelings, and so strong was the recollection of all that had so recently passed on Harriet's side, so fresh the sound of those words, spoken with such emphasis, 'No, I hope I know better than to think of Robert Martin, that she was really expecting the intelligence to prove, in some measure, premature. It could not be otherwise. 'Do you dare say this? cried Mr. Knightley. 'Do you dare to suppose me so great a blockhead, as not to know what a man is talking of?What do you deserve? 'Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other and, therefore, you must give me a plain, direct answer. Are you quite sure that you understand the terms on which Mr. Martin and Harriet now are? 'I am quite sure, he replied, speaking very distinctly, 'that he told me she had accepted him and that there was no obscurity, nothing doubtful, in the words he used and I think I can give you a proof that it must be so. He asked my opinion as to what he was now to do. He knew of no one but Mrs. Goddard to whom he could apply for information of her relations or friends. Could I mention any thing more fit to be done, than to go to Mrs. Goddard? I assured him that I could not. Then, he said, he would endeavour to see her in the course of this day. 'I am perfectly satisfied, replied Emma, with the brightest smiles, 'and most sincerely wish them happy. 'You are materially changed since we talked on this subject before. 'I hope sofor at that time I was a fool. 'And I am changed also for I am now very willing to grant you all Harriet's good qualities. I have taken some pains for your sake, and for Robert Martin's sake, (whom I have always had reason to believe as much in love with her as ever,) to get acquainted with her. I have often talked to her a good deal. You must have seen that I did. Sometimes, indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor Martin's cause, which was never the case but, from all my observations, I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in the affections and utility of domestic life.Much of this, I have no doubt, she may thank you for. 'Me! cried Emma, shaking her head.'Ah! poor Harriet! She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more praise than she deserved. Their conversation was soon afterwards closed by the entrance of her father. She was not sorry. She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits and till she had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she could be fit for nothing rational. Her father's business was to announce James's being gone out to put the horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls and she had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing. The joy, the gratitude, the exquisite delight of her sensations may be imagined. The sole grievance and alloy thus removed in the prospect of Harriet's welfare, she was really in danger of becoming too happy for security.What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of him, whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own. Nothing, but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility and circumspection in future. Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her resolutions and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heartsuch a Harriet! Now there would be pleasure in her returningEvery thing would be a pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin. High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities, was the reflection that all necessity of concealment from Mr. Knightley would soon be over. The disguise, equivocation, mystery, so hateful to her to practise, might soon be over. She could now look forward to giving him that full and perfect confidence which her disposition was most ready to welcome as a duty. In the gayest and happiest spirits she set forward with her father not always listening, but always agreeing to what he said and, whether in speech or silence, conniving at the comfortable persuasion of his being obliged to go to Randalls every day, or poor Mrs. Weston would be disappointed. They arrived.Mrs. Weston was alone in the drawingroombut hardly had they been told of the baby, and Mr. Woodhouse received the thanks for coming, which he asked for, when a glimpse was caught through the blind, of two figures passing near the window. 'It is Frank and Miss Fairfax, said Mrs. Weston. 'I was just going to tell you of our agreeable surprize in seeing him arrive this morning. He stays till tomorrow, and Miss Fairfax has been persuaded to spend the day with us.They are coming in, I hope. In half a minute they were in the room. Emma was extremely glad to see himbut there was a degree of confusiona number of embarrassing recollections on each side. They met readily and smiling, but with a consciousness which at first allowed little to be said and having all sat down again, there was for some time such a blank in the circle, that Emma began to doubt whether the wish now indulged, which she had long felt, of seeing Frank Churchill once more, and of seeing him with Jane, would yield its proportion of pleasure. When Mr. Weston joined the party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a want of subject or animationor of courage and opportunity for Frank Churchill to draw near her and say, 'I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message in one of Mrs. Weston's letters. I hope time has not made you less willing to pardon. I hope you do not retract what you then said. 'No, indeed, cried Emma, most happy to begin, 'not in the least. I am particularly glad to see and shake hands with youand to give you joy in person. He thanked her with all his heart, and continued some time to speak with serious feeling of his gratitude and happiness. 'Is not she looking well? said he, turning his eyes towards Jane. 'Better than she ever used to do?You see how my father and Mrs. Weston doat upon her. But his spirits were soon rising again, and with laughing eyes, after mentioning the expected return of the Campbells, he named the name of Dixon.Emma blushed, and forbade its being pronounced in her hearing. 'I can never think of it, she cried, 'without extreme shame. 'The shame, he answered, 'is all mine, or ought to be. But is it possible that you had no suspicion?I mean of late. Early, I know, you had none. 'I never had the smallest, I assure you. 'That appears quite wonderful. I was once very nearand I wish I hadit would have been better. But though I was always doing wrong things, they were very bad wrong things, and such as did me no service.It would have been a much better transgression had I broken the bond of secrecy and told you every thing. 'It is not now worth a regret, said Emma. 'I have some hope, resumed he, 'of my uncle's being persuaded to pay a visit at Randalls he wants to be introduced to her. When the Campbells are returned, we shall meet them in London, and continue there, I trust, till we may carry her northward.But now, I am at such a distance from heris not it hard, Miss Woodhouse?Till this morning, we have not once met since the day of reconciliation. Do not you pity me? Emma spoke her pity so very kindly, that with a sudden accession of gay thought, he cried, 'Ah! by the bye, then sinking his voice, and looking demure for the moment'I hope Mr. Knightley is well? He paused.She coloured and laughed.'I know you saw my letter, and think you may remember my wish in your favour. Let me return your congratulations.I assure you that I have heard the news with the warmest interest and satisfaction.He is a man whom I cannot presume to praise. Emma was delighted, and only wanted him to go on in the same style but his mind was the next moment in his own concerns and with his own Jane, and his next words were, 'Did you ever see such a skin?such smoothness! such delicacy!and yet without being actually fair.One cannot call her fair. It is a most uncommon complexion, with her dark eyelashes and haira most distinguishing complexion! So peculiarly the lady in it.Just colour enough for beauty. 'I have always admired her complexion, replied Emma, archly 'but do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so pale?When we first began to talk of her.Have you quite forgotten? 'Oh! nowhat an impudent dog I was!How could I dare But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help saying, 'I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you had very great amusement in tricking us all.I am sure you had.I am sure it was a consolation to you. 'Oh! no, no, nohow can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most miserable wretch! 'Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us all in.Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same situation. I think there is a little likeness between us. He bowed. 'If not in our dispositions, she presently added, with a look of true sensibility, 'there is a likeness in our destiny the destiny which bids fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own. 'True, true, he answered, warmly. 'No, not true on your side. You can have no superior, but most true on mine.She is a complete angel. Look at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.You will be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be beautiful in her dark hair? 'Very beautiful, indeed, replied Emma and she spoke so kindly, that he gratefully burst out, 'How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent looks!I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come. The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an account of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the infant's appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish, but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been almost as uneasy as herself.In ten minutes, however, the child had been perfectly well again. This was her history and particularly interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done it. 'She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps, that he had not come last night for, though the child seemed well now, very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had seen it. Frank Churchill caught the name. 'Perry! said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss Fairfax's eye. 'My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr. Perry?Has he been here this morning?And how does he travel now?Has he set up his carriage? Emma soon recollected, and understood him and while she joined in the laugh, it was evident from Jane's countenance that she too was really hearing him, though trying to seem deaf. 'Such an extraordinary dream of mine! he cried. 'I can never think of it without laughing.She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter, which sent me the report, is passing under her eyethat the whole blunder is spread before herthat she can attend to nothing else, though pretending to listen to the others? Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment and the smile partly remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet steady voice, 'How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!They will sometimes obtrudebut how you can court them! He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly but Emma's feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument and on leaving Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more sensible of Mr. Knightley's high superiority of character. The happiness of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced. If Emma had still, at intervals, an anxious feeling for Harriet, a momentary doubt of its being possible for her to be really cured of her attachment to Mr. Knightley, and really able to accept another man from unbiased inclination, it was not long that she had to suffer from the recurrence of any such uncertainty. A very few days brought the party from London, and she had no sooner an opportunity of being one hour alone with Harriet, than she became perfectly satisfiedunaccountable as it was!that Robert Martin had thoroughly supplanted Mr. Knightley, and was now forming all her views of happiness. Harriet was a little distresseddid look a little foolish at first but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and selfdeceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the fullest exultation in the present and future for, as to her friend's approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.Harriet was most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley's, and the dinner the next day she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight. But what did such particulars explain?The fact was, as Emma could now acknowledge, that Harriet had always liked Robert Martin and that his continuing to love her had been irresistible.Beyond this, it must ever be unintelligible to Emma. The event, however, was most joyful and every day was giving her fresh reason for thinking so.Harriet's parentage became known. She proved to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to have always wished for concealment.Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!It was likely to be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman but what a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightleyor for the Churchillsor even for Mr. Elton!The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed. No objection was raised on the father's side the young man was treated liberally it was all as it should be and as Emma became acquainted with Robert Martin, who was now introduced at Hartfield, she fully acknowledged in him all the appearance of sense and worth which could bid fairest for her little friend. She had no doubt of Harriet's happiness with any goodtempered man but with him, and in the home he offered, there would be the hope of more, of security, stability, and improvement. She would be placed in the midst of those who loved her, and who had better sense than herself retired enough for safety, and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into temptation, nor left for it to find her out. She would be respectable and happy and Emma admitted her to be the luckiest creature in the world, to have created so steady and persevering an affection in such a manor, if not quite the luckiest, to yield only to herself. Harriet, necessarily drawn away by her engagements with the Martins, was less and less at Hartfield which was not to be regretted.The intimacy between her and Emma must sink their friendship must change into a calmer sort of goodwill and, fortunately, what ought to be, and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural manner. Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw her hand bestowed on Robert Martin with so complete a satisfaction, as no remembrances, even connected with Mr. Elton as he stood before them, could impair.Perhaps, indeed, at that time she scarcely saw Mr. Elton, but as the clergyman whose blessing at the altar might next fall on herself.Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, the latest couple engaged of the three, were the first to be married. Jane Fairfax had already quitted Highbury, and was restored to the comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells.The Mr. Churchills were also in town and they were only waiting for November. The intermediate month was the one fixed on, as far as they dared, by Emma and Mr. Knightley.They had determined that their marriage ought to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to allow them the fortnight's absence in a tour to the seaside, which was the plan.John and Isabella, and every other friend, were agreed in approving it. But Mr. Woodhousehow was Mr. Woodhouse to be induced to consent?he, who had never yet alluded to their marriage but as a distant event. When first sounded on the subject, he was so miserable, that they were almost hopeless.A second allusion, indeed, gave less pain.He began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent ita very promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. Still, however, he was not happy. Nay, he appeared so much otherwise, that his daughter's courage failed. She could not bear to see him suffering, to know him fancying himself neglected and though her understanding almost acquiesced in the assurance of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when once the event were over, his distress would be soon over too, she hesitatedshe could not proceed. In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden illumination of Mr. Woodhouse's mind, or any wonderful change of his nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another way.Mrs. Weston's poultryhouse was robbed one night of all her turkeysevidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultryyards in the neighbourhood also suffered.Pilfering was housebreaking to Mr. Woodhouse's fears.He was very uneasy and but for the sense of his soninlaw's protection, would have been under wretched alarm every night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them protected him and his, Hartfield was safe.But Mr. John Knightley must be in London again by the end of the first week in November. The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary, cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the moment, she was able to fix her weddingdayand Mr. Elton was called on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse. The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.'Very little white satin, very few lace veils a most pitiful business!Selina would stare when she heard of it.But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union. FINIS
by Bram Stoker NEW YORK GROSSET  DUNLAP Publishers Copyright, , in the United States of America, according to Act of Congress, by Bram Stoker All rights reserved. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. TO MY DEAR FRIEND HOMMYBEG (Kept in shorthand.)  May. Bistritz.Left Munich at  P. M., on st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning should have arrived at , but train was an hour late. BudaPesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule. We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called 'paprika hendl, and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here indeed, I don't know how I should be able to get on without it. Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly wellknown place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina. In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.) I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was 'mamaliga, and eggplant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call 'impletata. (Mem., get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at  I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China? All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats and homemade trousers but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cowboy hats, great baggy dirtywhite trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural selfassertion. It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontierfor the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovinait has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost , people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease. Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly oldfashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheerylooking elderly woman in the usual peasant dresswhite undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, 'The Herr Englishman? 'Yes, I said, 'Jonathan Harker. She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirtsleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter 'My Friend.Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. 'Your friend, 'Dracula.  May.I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me but on making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting. Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way 'Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go? She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again 'Do you know what day it is? I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again 'Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is? On my saying that I did not understand, she went on 'It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to? She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, 'For your mother's sake, and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my goodbye. Here comes the coach!  May. The Castle.The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they called 'robber steakbits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat's meat! The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else. When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the doorwhich they call by a name meaning 'wordbearercame and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were 'OrdogSatan, 'pokolhell, 'stregoicawitch, 'vrolok and 'vlkoslakboth of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions) When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellowpassenger to tell me what they meant he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man but every one seemed so kindhearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the innyard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the boxseat'gotza they call themcracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey. I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellowpassengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossomapple, plum, pear, cherry and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the 'Mittel Land ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point. Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snowcovered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us 'Look! Isten szek!'God's seat!and he crossed himself reverently. As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountaintop still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the selfsurrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me for instance, hayricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and again we passed a leiterwagonthe ordinary peasant's cartwith its long, snakelike vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of homecoming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lancefashion their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of latelying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghostlike clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. 'No, no, he said 'you must not walk here the dogs are too fierce and then he added, with what he evidently meant for grim pleasantryfor he looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest'and you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep. The only stop he would make was a moment's pause to light his lamps. When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater the crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us we were entering on the Borgo Pass. One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial these were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fearmeaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritzthe sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for some little time and at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our harddriven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best do, when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something which I could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a tone I thought it was 'An hour less than the time. Then turning to me, he said in German worse than my own 'There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return tomorrow or the next day better the next day. Whilst he was speaking the horses began to neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up. Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves, a calche, with four horses, drove up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our lamps, as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coalblack and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us. He said to the driver 'You are early tonight, my friend. The man stammered in reply 'The English Herr was in a hurry, to which the stranger replied 'That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend I know too much, and my horses are swift. As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hardlooking mouth, with very red lips and sharplooking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger's 'Lenore The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. 'Give me the Herr's luggage, said the driver and with exceeding alacrity my bags were handed out and put in the calche. Then I descended from the side of the coach, as the calche was close alongside, the driver helping me with a hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel his strength must have been prodigious. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the Pass. As I looked back I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept on their way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me but a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent German 'The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) underneath the seat, if you should require it. I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground again and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay. Byandby, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch it was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense. Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the roada long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night. At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howlingthat of wolveswhich affected both the horses and myself in the same wayfor I was minded to jump from the calche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horsetamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled. The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right. Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed he kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness. Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment he at once checked the horses, and, jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer but while I wondered the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver's motions. He went rapidly to where the blue flame aroseit must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at alland gathering a few stones, formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical effect when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle. At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pineclad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import. All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side and they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the calche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.  May.I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. When the calche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitorfor just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful and I am now a fullblown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning. Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back. Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation 'Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will! He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as icemore like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said 'Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely and leave something of the happiness you bring! The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking so to make sure, I said interrogatively 'Count Dracula? He bowed in a courtly way as he replied 'I am Dracula and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest. As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage he had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested but he insisted 'Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself. He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a welllit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared. The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight for here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire,also added to but lately, for the top logs were freshwhich sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door 'You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared. The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger so making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room. I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said 'I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you but I have dined already, and I do not sup. I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure. 'I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters. The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced. By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. His face was a stronga very strongaquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruellooking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarsebroad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said 'Listen to themthe children of the night. What music they make! Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added 'Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter. Then he rose and said 'But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon so sleep well and dream well! With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom.... I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt I fear I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!  May.It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twentyfour hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which was written 'I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me.D. I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and motheaten. But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time after I had finished my mealI do not know whether to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six o'clock when I had itI looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked. In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books were of the most varied kindhistory, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, lawall relating to England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the 'Red and 'Blue books, Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, andit somehow gladdened my heart to see itthe Law List. Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good night's rest. Then he went on 'I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These companionsand he laid his hand on some of the books'have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books. To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak. 'But, Count, I said, 'you know and speak English thoroughly! He bowed gravely. 'I thank you, my friend, for your all tooflattering estimate, but yet I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them. 'Indeed, I said, 'you speak excellently. 'Not so, he answered. 'Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble I am boyar the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one men know him notand to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, 'Ha, ha! a stranger!' I have been so long master that I would be master stillor at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me awhile, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation and I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long today but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand. Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. He answered 'Yes, certainly, and added 'You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand. I said I was sure of this, and then he went on 'We are in Transylvania and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be. This led to much conversation and as it was evident that he wanted to talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the yearlast night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked swaya blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed. 'That treasure has been hidden, he went on, 'in the region through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet themmen and women, the aged and the children tooand waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil. 'But how, said I, 'can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look? The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely he answered 'Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only appear on one night and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again? 'There you are right, I said. 'I know no more than the dead where even to look for them. Then we drifted into other matters. 'Come, he said at last, 'tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me. With an apology for my remissness, I went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw's Guide. When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered 'Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathannay, pardon me, I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic firstmy friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So! We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here 'At Purfleet, on a byroad, I came across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It is surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. 'The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the house is foursided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, darklooking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fairsized stream. The house is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to medival times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my kodak views of it from various points. The house has been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds. When I had finished, he said 'I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may. Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine. Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to put all my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally at England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated the other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. 'Aha! he said 'still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come I am informed that your supper is ready. He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide any one who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said 'Why, there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us, and, with a courtly bow, he quickly left me. I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice my window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day.  May.I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse but now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. It may be that this strange nightexistence is telling on me but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, and he!I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be it will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say at once how I standor seem to. I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count's voice saying to me, 'Goodmorning. I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there. 'Take care, he said, 'take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country. Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on 'And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man's vanity. Away with it! and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watchcase or the bottom of the shavingpot, which is fortunately of metal. When I went into the diningroom, breakfast was prepared but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner! WHEN I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window I could find but after a little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietlyas quietly as I have ever done anything in my lifeand began to think over what was best to be done. I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain that it is no use making my ideas known to the Count. He knows well that I am imprisoned and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in desperate straits and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need, all my brains to get through. I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along thoughtthat there were no servants in the house. When later I saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the diningroom, I was assured of it for if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them. This gave me a fright, for if there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought for if so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand in silence. How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! for it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand. Tonight he may talk of himself, if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion. Midnight.I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a boyar the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said 'we, and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down as nearly as I can for it tells in its way the story of his race 'We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins? He held up his arms. 'Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race that we were proud that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, 'water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.' Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the 'bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohcs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelysand the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swordscan boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told. It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (Mem., this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the 'Arabian Nights, for everything has to break off at cockcrowor like the ghost of Hamlet's father.)  May.Let me begin with factsbare, meagre facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my memory of them. Last evening when the Count came from his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and on the doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day wearily over books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I had been examining at Lincoln's Inn. There was a certain method in the Count's inquiries, so I shall try to put them down in sequence the knowledge may somehow or some time be useful to me. First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more. I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not by any chance mislead him, so he said 'I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be served save my wish only and as one of London residence might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my interest. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports? I answered that certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors had a system of agency one for the other, so that local work could be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client, simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble. 'But, said he, 'I could be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so? 'Of course, I replied and 'such is often done by men of business, who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person. 'Good! he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability, and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said 'Have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other? It was with some bitterness in my heart that I answered that I had not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to anybody. 'Then write now, my young friend, he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder 'write to our friend and to any other and say, if it will please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now. 'Do you wish me to stay so long? I asked, for my heart grew cold at the thought. 'I desire it much nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so? What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr. Hawkins's interest, not mine, and I had to think of him, not myself and besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in his own smooth, resistless way 'I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so? As he spoke he handed me three sheets of notepaper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile, with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with his own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which were face down on the table. I felt no compunction in doing so, for under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could. One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. , The Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna the third was to Coutts  Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock  Billreuth, bankers, BudaPesth. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just about to look at them when I saw the doorhandle move. I sank back in my seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been and to resume my book before the Count, holding still another letter in his hand, entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then turning to me, said 'I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish. At the door he turned, and after a moment's pause said 'Let me advise you, my dear young friendnay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, thenHe finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. I quite understood my only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me. Later.I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bedI imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams and there it shall remain. When he left me I went to my room. After a little while, not hearing any sound, I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could look out towards the South. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the narrow darkness of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place! I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me there was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the Count's own room would look out. The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stonemullioned, and though weatherworn, was still complete but it was evidently many a day since the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out. What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me I am in fearin awful fearand there is no escape for me I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of....  May.Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion. He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but without availthe distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet. I went back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new but I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains but the door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count's room I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and motheaten. At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it seemed to be locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more air of comfort than any I had seen. The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. My lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the Count, and after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her illspelt loveletter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is nineteenth century uptodate with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere 'modernity cannot kill. Later the Morning of  May.God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me. The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time it frightens me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say! When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning came into my mind, but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return tonight to the gloomhaunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly realso real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep. I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughedsuch a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of waterglasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said 'Go on! You are first, and we shall follow yours is the right to begin. The other added 'He is young and strong there are kisses for us all. I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honeysweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearernearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waitedwaited with beating heart. But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hellfire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of whitehot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room he said 'How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me. The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him 'You yourself never loved you never love! On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper 'Yes, I too can love you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done. 'Are we to have nothing tonight? said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a halfsmothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious. I AWOKE in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who werewho arewaiting to suck my blood.  May.I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise.  May.I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said 'The first should be June , the second June , and the third June . I know now the span of my life. God help me!  May.There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to send word home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are encamped in the courtyard. These Szgany are gipsies I have notes of them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though allied to the ordinary gipsies all the world over. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble or boyar, and call themselves by his name. They are fearless and without religion, save superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of the Romany tongue. I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them posted. I have already spoken them through my window to begin acquaintanceship. They took their hats off and made obeisance and many signs, which, however, I could not understand any more than I could their spoken language.... I have written the letters. Mina's is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. Hawkins to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her. Should the letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my secret or the extent of my knowledge.... I have given the letters I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study, and began to read. As the Count did not come in, I have written here.... The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest voice as he opened two letters 'The Szgany has given me these, of which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take care. See!he must have looked at it'one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins the otherhere he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly'the other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! so it cannot matter to us. And he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp till they were consumed. Then he went on 'The letter to Hawkinsthat I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again? He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried it, and the door was locked. When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been sleeping, he said 'So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk tonight, since there are many labours to me but you will sleep, I pray. I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms.  May.This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself with some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket, so that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a surprise, again a shock! Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and pondered awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made search of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes. The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new scheme of villainy....  June.This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed cudgelling my brains, I heard without a cracking of whips and pounding and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great leiterwagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great nailstudded belt, dirty sheepskin, and high boots. They had also their long staves in hand. I ran to the door, intending to descend and try and join them through the main hall, as I thought that way might be opened for them. Again a shock my door was fastened on the outside. Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed, but just then the 'hetman of the Szgany came out, and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonised entreaty, would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away. The leiterwagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick rope these were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved. When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and spitting on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse's head. Shortly afterwards, I heard the cracking of their whips die away in the distance.  June, before morning.Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into his own room. As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and looked out of the window, which opened south. I thought I would watch for the Count, for there is something going on. The Szgany are quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind. I know it, for now and then I hear a faraway muffled sound as of mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some ruthless villainy. I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw something coming out of the Count's window. I drew back and watched carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil that he will allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local people be attributed to me. It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which is even a criminal's right and consolation. I thought I would watch for the Count's return, and for a long time sat doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way. I watched them with a sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me. I leaned back in the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the arial gambolling. Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere far below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to awake to some call of my instincts nay, my very soul was struggling, and my halfremembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. I was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes. And then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed. I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight and where the lamp was burning brightly. When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed and then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me. With a beating heart, I tried the door but I was locked in my prison, and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried. As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard withoutthe agonised cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace 'Monster, give me my child! She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pentup dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard. There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead. What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear?  June, morning.No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me. Last night one of my postdated letters went to post, the first of that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence from the earth. Let me not think of it. Action! It has always been at nighttime that I have been molested or threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room! But there is no possible way. The door is always locked, no way for me. Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his window. Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window? The chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk it. At the worst it can only be death and a man's death is not a calf's, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me. God help me in my task! Goodbye, Mina, if I fail goodbye, my faithful friend and second father goodbye, all, and last of all Mina! Same day, later.I have made the effort, and God, helping me, have come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south side, and at once got outside on the narrow ledge of stone which runs around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I knew pretty well the direction and distance of the Count's window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did not feel dizzyI suppose I was too excitedand the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself standing on the windowsill and trying to raise up the sash. I was filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet foremost in through the window. Then I looked around for the Count, but, with surprise and gladness, made a discovery. The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used the furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one cornergold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, some jewelled, but all of them old and stained. At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. I descended, minding carefully where I went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there was a dark, tunnellike passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the passage the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy door which stood ajar, and found myself in an old, ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two places were steps leading to vaults, but the ground had recently been dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes, manifestly those which had been brought by the Slovaks. There was nobody about, and I made search for any further outlet, but there was none. Then I went over every inch of the ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the vaults, where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to my very soul. Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust in the third, however, I made a discovery. There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I could not say whichfor the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of deathand the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room by the window, crawled again up the castle wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think....  June.Today is the date of my last letter, and the Count has taken steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the castle by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man's hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there till I fell asleep. I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man can look as he said 'Tomorrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may never meet. Your letter home has been despatched tomorrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and also come some Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula. I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so asked him pointblank 'Why may I not go tonight? 'Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission. 'But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once. He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was some trick behind his smoothness. He said 'And your baggage? 'I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time. The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my eyes, it seemed so real 'You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars 'Welcome the coming speed the parting guest.' Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come! With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped. 'Hark! Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great orchestra seems to leap under the bton of the conductor. After a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it open. To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked. Suspiciously, I looked all round, but could see no key of any kind. As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder and angrier their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their bluntclawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door. I knew then that to struggle at the moment against the Count was useless. With such allies as these at his command, I could do nothing. But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count's body stood in the gap. Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment and means of my doom I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own instigation. There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the Count, and as a last chance I cried out 'Shut the door I shall wait till morning! and covered my face with my hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment. With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back into their places. In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of. When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless my ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count 'Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! Tonight is mine. Tomorrow night is yours! There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away. I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near the end? Tomorrow! tomorrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am dear!  June, morning.These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready. At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning had come. Then came the welcome cockcrow, and I felt that I was safe. With a glad heart, I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and drew back the massive bolts. But the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled, and pulled, at the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its casement. I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the Count. Then a wild desire took me to obtain that key at any risk, and I determined then and there to scale the wall again and gain the Count's room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and scrambled down the wall, as before, into the Count's room. It was empty, but that was as I expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the winding stair and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew now well enough where to find the monster I sought. The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their places to be hammered home. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and laid it back against the wall and then I saw something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark irongrey the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed rubyred underneath the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion. I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact but I had to search, or I was lost. The coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar way to those horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and everwidening circle of semidemons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell full upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, bloodstained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost hell. I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me. As I waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices coming closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips the Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened. With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door. There must have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key for one of the locked doors. Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some passage which sent up a clanging echo. I turned to run down again towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance but at the moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the lintels flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast. I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing round me more closely. As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes, with their freight of earth. There is a sound of hammering it is the box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again along the hall, with many other idle feet coming behind them. The door is shut, and the chains rattle there is a grinding of the key in the lock I can hear the key withdraw then another door opens and shuts I hear the creaking of lock and bolt. Hark! in the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass into the distance. I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! I shall not remain alone with them I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place. And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet! At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleepas a man. Goodbye, all! Mina! Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra. ' May. 'My dearest Lucy, 'Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those twopagestotheweekwithSundaysqueezedinacorner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if weI mean Jonathan and Ishall ever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Goodbye. 'Your loving 'Mina. 'Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curlyhaired man??? Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray. ', Chatham Street, 'Wednesday. 'My dearest Mina, 'I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote to you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal to picturegalleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curlyhaired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well together they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nineandtwenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind Arthur says that every day. There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children we have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him I love him I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Goodnight. Bless me in your prayers and, Mina, pray for my happiness. 'LUCY. 'P.S.I need not tell you this is a secret. Goodnight again. 'L. Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray. ' May. 'My dearest Mina, 'Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy. 'My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one, except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everythingdon't you think so, dear?and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunaticasylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all brokenhearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy. 'Evening. 'Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slangthat is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite mannersbut he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly ' 'Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?' 'Well, he did look so goodhumoured and so jolly that it didn't seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward so I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn't broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help feeling a bit serious tooI know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirtthough I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of lovemaking, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free ' 'Lucy, you are an honesthearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.' 'My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this greathearted, true gentleman. I burst into tearsI am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than oneand I really felt very badly. Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris's brave eyes, and I told him out straight ' 'Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.' I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mineI think I put them into hisand said in a hearty way ' 'That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don't cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover it's more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give me one kiss? It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellowhe must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love himhasn't spoken yet.' That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rivalwasn't it?and he so sad so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my faceI am afraid I was blushing very muchhe said ' 'Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these things don't make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye.' He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were freeonly I don't want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it and I don't wish to tell of the number three until it can be all happy. 'Ever your loving 'Lucy. 'P.S.Oh, about number ThreeI needn't tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend. 'Goodbye. Dr. Seward's Diary. (Kept in phonograph)  May.Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madnessa thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. (Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia Rom venalia sunt. Hell has its price! verb. sap. If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore R. M. Renfield, tat .Sanguine temperament great physical strength morbidly excitable periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentallyaccomplished finish a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood. ' May. 'My dear Art, 'We've told yarns by the campfire in the prairies and dressed one another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinnerparty, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the winecup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come! 'Yours, as ever and always, 'Quincey P. Morris. Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris. ' May. 'Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle. 'Art.  July. Whitby.Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old townthe side away from usare all redroofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of 'Marmion, where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk. The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy seawall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the seawall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens. It is nice at high water but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this he is coming this way.... He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely 'I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feetfolks from York and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to themeven the newspapers, which is full of fooltalk. I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whalefishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said 'I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My granddaughter doesn't like to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em an', miss, I lack bellytimber sairly by the clock. He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of themI do not know how manyand they wind up in a delicate curve the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this.  August.I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can't outargue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down 'It be all fooltalk, lock, stock, and barrel that's what it be, an' nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' bohghosts an' barguests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women abelderin'. They be nowt but airblebs. They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome beukbodies an' railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do somethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on paper an' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them on the tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will all them steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acantsimply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote on them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on all of them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all an' the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin' up in their deathsarks, all jouped together an' tryin' to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was some of them trimmlin' and ditherin', with their hands that dozzened an' slippy from lyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their grup o' them. I could see from the old fellow's selfsatisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was 'showing off, so I put in a word to keep him going 'Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong? 'Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they make out the people too good for there be folk that do think a balmbowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here you come here a stranger, an' you see this kirkgarth. I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on 'And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an' snog? I assented again. 'Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these laybeds that be toom as old Dun's 'baccabox on Friday night. He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. 'And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bierbank read it! I went over and read 'Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, , t. . When I came back Mr. Swales went on 'Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas abovehe pointed northwards'or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the smallprint of the lies from here. This Braithwaite LowreyI knew his father, lost in the Lively off Greenland in ' or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in  or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in '. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an' jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis. This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto. 'But, I said, 'surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary? 'Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss! 'To please their relatives, I suppose. 'To please their relatives, you suppose! This he said with intense scorn. 'How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies? He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. 'Read the lies on that thruffstean, he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read 'Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, , , falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. 'He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.' Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that! She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. 'Ye don't see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that's because ye don't gawm the sorrowin' mother was a hellcat that hated him because he was acrewk'da regular lamiter he wasan' he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin' the crows with. 'Twarn't for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where she was. Now isn't that stean at any ratehe hammered it with his stick as he spoke'a pack of lies? and won't it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin' up the grees with the tombstean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence! I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up 'Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide. 'That won't harm ye, my pretty an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I've sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me no harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' lie there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubblefield. There's the clock, an' I must gang. My service to ye, ladies! And off he hobbled. Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heartsick, for I haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month. The same day. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here. Dr. Seward's Diary.  June.The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said 'May I have three days? I shall clear them away. Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him.  June.He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room.  July.His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blowfly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little notebook in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were 'focussing some account, as the auditors put it.  July.There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food.  July.We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favoura very, very great favour and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing 'A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feedand feedand feed! I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered 'Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they? I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out then I shall know more.  p. m.I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat that his salvation depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early.  July.Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his flycatching again and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day.  a. m.The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. 'My belief is, doctor, he said, 'that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!  p. m.I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zophagous (lifeeating) maniac what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspectthe knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such minddid I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunaticI might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which BurdonSanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brainknowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally? How well the man reasoned lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work! If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend therea good, unselfish cause to make me workthat would be indeed happiness. Mina Murray's Journal.  July.I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here it is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleepwalkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwoodhe is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalmingis coming up here very shortlyas soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her she will be all right when he arrives.  July.No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though why I should I do not know but I do wish that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold but still the anxiety and the perpetually being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rosepink. She has lost that anmic look which she had. I pray it will all last.  August.Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key.  August.Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. Today is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is greyexcept the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it grey earthy rock grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sandpoints stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the seamists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a 'brool over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem 'men like trees walking. The fishingboats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.... I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way 'I want to say something to you, miss. I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully so he said, leaving his hand in mine 'I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been sayin' about the dead, and such like, for weeks past but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krokhooal, don't altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at once the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my deary!for he saw that I was crying'if he should come this very night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin' and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look! he cried suddenly. 'There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the air I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes! He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said goodbye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. 'I can't make her out, he said 'she's a Russian, by the look of her but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind a bit she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before this time tomorrow. (Pasted in Mina Murray's Journal.) From a Correspondent. Whitby. ONE greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holidaymakers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of 'tripping both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of 'mares'tails high in the sky to the northwest. The wind was then blowing from the southwest in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked 'No.  light breeze. The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidlycoloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunsetcolourflame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the 'Prelude to the Great Storm will grace the R. A. and R. I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his 'cobble or his 'mule, as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually 'hug the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishingboats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea, Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. Whitecrested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of seafog came drifting inlandwhite, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of seamist swept by. At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm. Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing interestthe sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space here and there a fishingboat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast now and again the white wings of a stormtossed seabird. On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishingboat, with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush. Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they realized the terrible danger in which she now was. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbour. It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the words of one old salt, 'she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell. Then came another rush of seafog, greater than any hithertoa mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before. The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the northeast, and the remnant of the seafog melted in the blast and then, mirabile dictu, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the southeast corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier. There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the 'tophammer came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones'thruffsteans or 'throughstones, as they call them in the Whitby vernacularactually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight. It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier, was the first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it, and recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to pique general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, I found already assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group who saw the dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel. It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctorSurgeon J. M. Caffyn, of , East Elliot Placewho came immediately after me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead hand. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till deatha steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabiancaand placed in the mortuary to await inquest. Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating crowds are scattering homeward, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the storm. Whitby  August.The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargoa number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of , The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and formally took possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charterparty, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here today except the strange coincidence the officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a 'nine days' wonder, they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of after complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a halfbred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite to its master's yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw. Later.By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been permitted to look over the logbook of the Demeter, which was in order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was today produced at the inquest and a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a rescript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken cum grano, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short. LOG OF THE 'DEMETER. Varna to Whitby. Written  July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land. On  July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain). On  July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at  p. m. On  July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. On  July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out. On  July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong they only told him there was something, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet. On  July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was something aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them feared some trouble ahead. On  July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deckhouse, as there was a rainstorm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall today search entire ship carefully from stem to stern. Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from stem to stern. First mate angry said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but said nothing.  July.Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sailsno time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad weather. Passed Gibralter and out through Straits. All well.  July.There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lostdisappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence.  July.Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours' sleep. Wind abating seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier.  July.Another tragedy. Had single watch tonight, as crew too tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause.  July.Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out slept soundly awaked by mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship.  August.Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he Roumanian.  August, midnight.Woke up from few minutes' sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us and God seems to have deserted us.  August.At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wildeyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear 'It is here I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife but the knife went through It, empty as the air. And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on 'But It is here, and I'll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I'll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm. And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a toolchest and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it's no use my trying to stop him. He can't hurt those big boxes they are invoiced as 'clay, and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can't steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails and lie by, and signal for help.... It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmerfor I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for himthere came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a guna raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear. 'Save me! save me! he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said 'You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. He is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left! Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port? When I get to port! Will that ever be?  August.Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw ItHim! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which HeIt!dare not touch and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty.... Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as wishing to follow him to the grave. No trace has ever been found of the great dog at which there is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I believe, be adopted by the town. Tomorrow will see the funeral and so will end this one more 'mystery of the sea. Mina Murray's Journal.  August.Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could not sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the chimneypots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake but she got up twice and dressed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time and managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a very strange thing, this sleepwalking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her life. Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, grimlooking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth of the harbourlike a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully anxious about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything!  August.The funeral of the poor seacaptain today was most touching. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst the cortge of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one thing she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bristling out like a cat's tail when puss is on the warpath. Finally the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing became quiet and fell all into a tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too supersensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this tonight, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of thingsthe ship steered into port by a dead man his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads the touching funeral the dog, now furious and now in terrorwill all afford material for her dreams. I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleepwalking then. Same day,  o'clock p. m.Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital 'severe tea at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little oldfashioned inn, with a bowwindow right over the seaweedcovered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the 'New Woman with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic. I think that some day the bishops must get together and see about breeding up a new class of curates, who don't take supper, no matter how they may be pressed to, and who will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her only in the drawingroom, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the 'New Women writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! There's some consolation in that. I am so happy tonight, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming. I should be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him.  August,  a. m.Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy's bed I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressinggown would mean house dress, outside. Dressinggown and dress were both in their places. 'Thank God, I said to myself, 'she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress. I ran downstairs and looked in the sittingroom. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms of the house, with an evergrowing fear chilling my heart. Finally I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might happen a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fearI don't know whichof seeing Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a swordcut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a halfreclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fishmarket to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy's condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the halfreclining white figure. I called in fright, 'Lucy! Lucy! and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about. When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathingnot softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safetypin but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for byandby, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet and then began very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and, for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was. Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me when I told her to come at once with me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet. Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of us but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as there are here, steep little closes, or 'wynds, as they call them in Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I tucked her into bed. Before falling asleep she askedeven imploredme not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her sleepwalking adventure. I hesitated at first to promise but on thinking of the state of her mother's health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her, and thinking, too, of how such a story might become distortednay, infallibly wouldin case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do so. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed. Lucy is sleeping soundly the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea.... Same day, noon.All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed not to have even changed her side. The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safetypin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pinpricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny. Same day, night.We passed a happy day. The air was clear, and the sun bright, and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the cliffpath and joining her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself, for I could not but feel how absolutely happy it would have been had Jonathan been with me. But there! I must only be patient. In the evening we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by Spohr and Mackenzie, and went to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than she has been for some time, and fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect any trouble tonight.  August.My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I was wakened by Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed under a sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was about Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded somewhat, for, though sympathy can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.  August.Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as before. Again I awoke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed, still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, and pulling aside the blind, looked out. It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft effect of the light over the sea and skymerged together in one great, silent mysterywas beautiful beyond words. Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling circles. Once or twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose, frightened at seeing me, and flitted away across the harbour towards the abbey. When I came back from the window Lucy had lain down again, and was sleeping peacefully. She did not stir again all night.  August.On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or dinner. This afternoon she made a funny remark. We were coming home for dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and stopped to look at the view, as we generally do. The setting sun, low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness the red light was thrown over on the East Cliff and the old abbey, and seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while, and suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself 'His red eyes again! They are just the same. It was such an odd expression, coming apropos of nothing, that it quite startled me. I slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare at her, and saw that she was in a halfdreamy state, with an odd look on her face that I could not quite make out so I said nothing, but followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at our own seat, whereon was a dark figure seated alone. I was a little startled myself, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary's Church behind our seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. I called Lucy's attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself with a start, but she looked sad all the same it may have been that she was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never refer to it so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went early to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan. When coming homeit was then bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seenI threw a glance up at our window, and saw Lucy's head leaning out. I thought that perhaps she was looking out for me, so I opened my handkerchief and waved it. She did not notice or make any movement whatever. Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell on the window. There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against the side of the windowsill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the windowsill, was something that looked like a goodsized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily she was holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect it from cold. I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly I have taken care that the door is locked and the window securely fastened. She looks so sweet as she sleeps but she is paler than is her wont, and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like. I fear she is fretting about something. I wish I could find out what it is.  August.Rose later than usual. Lucy was languid and tired, and slept on after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. Arthur's father is better, and wants the marriage to come off soon. Lucy is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry at once. Later on in the day she told me the cause. She is grieved to lose Lucy as her very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have some one to protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got her deathwarrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy her doctor told her that within a few months, at most, she must die, for her heart is weakening. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep from her the affair of the dreadful night of Lucy's sleepwalking.  August.No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her mother's hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucy's fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day at night I hear her gasping as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to wake her I could not she was in a faint. When I managed to restore her she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head and turned away. I trust her feeling ill may not be from that unlucky prick of the safetypin. I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them. Letter, Samuel F. Billington  Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. Carter, Paterson  Co., London. ' August. 'Dear Sirs, 'Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King's Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled. 'You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked 'A' on rough diagram enclosed. Your agent will easily recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The goods leave by the train at  tonight, and will be due at King's Cross at  tomorrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at King's Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment in your departments, we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds (), receipt of which please acknowledge. Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance if greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key. 'Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition. 'We are, dear Sirs, 'Faithfully yours, 'Samuel F. Billington  Son. Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson  Co., London, to Messrs. Billington  Son, Whitby. ' August. 'Dear Sirs, 'We beg to acknowledge  received and to return cheque  s. d, amount of overplus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as directed. 'We are, dear Sirs, 'Yours respectfully. 'Pro Carter, Paterson  Co. Mina Murray's Journal.  August.I am happy today, and write sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all night, and did not disturb me once. The roses seem coming back already to her cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and wanlooking. If she were in any way anmic I could understand it, but she is not. She is in gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness. All the morbid reticence seems to have passed from her, and she has just reminded me, as if I needed any reminding, of that night, and that it was here, on this very seat, I found her asleep. As she told me she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said 'My poor little feet didn't make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didn't want to wake up Geordie. As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet, puckered look came into her forehead, which ArthurI call him Arthur from her habitsays he loves and, indeed, I don't wonder that he does. Then she went on in a halfdreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to herself 'I didn't quite dream but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be here in this spotI don't know why, for I was afraid of somethingI don't know what. I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing through the streets and over the bridge. A fish leaped as I went by, and I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howlingthe whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at onceas I went up the steps. Then I had a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men and then everything seemed passing away from me my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you. Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to other subjects, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home the fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more rosy. Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very happy evening together.  August.Joy, joy, joy! although not all joy. At last, news of Jonathan. The dear fellow has been ill that is why he did not write. I am not afraid to think it or say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent me on the letter, and wrote himself, oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the morning and go over to Jonathan, and to help to nurse him if necessary, and to bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if we were to be married out there. I have cried over the good Sister's letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it lies. It is of Jonathan, and must be next my heart, for he is in my heart. My journey is all mapped out, and my luggage ready. I am only taking one change of dress Lucy will bring my trunk to London and keep it till I send for it, for it may be that ... I must write no more I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband. The letter that he has seen and touched must comfort me till we meet. Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, BudaPesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray. ' August. 'Dear Madam, 'I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and that all of his work is completed. He will require some few weeks' rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but will then return. He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall not be wanting for help. 'Believe me, 'Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, 'Sister Agatha. 'P. S.My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are shortly to be his wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some fearful shockso says our doctorand in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful of wolves and poison and blood of ghosts and demons and I fear to say of what. Be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come the traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the stationmaster there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached. 'Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for safety's sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, many, happy years for you both. Dr. Seward's Diary.  August.Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight o'clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does when setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest in him, encouraged him to talk. He is usually respectful to the attendant and at times servile but tonight, the man tells me, he was quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he would say was 'I don't want to talk to you you don't count now the Master is at hand. The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. At nine o'clock I visited him myself. His attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant in his sublime selffeeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him as nothing. It looks like religious mania, and he will soon think that he himself is God. These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall but the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew! For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and greater degree. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept strict observation all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to know so well. He became quite quiet, and went and sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and looked into space with lacklustre eyes. I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed to excite his attention. At first he made no reply, but at length said testily 'Bother them all! I don't care a pin about them. 'What? I said. 'You don't mean to tell me you don't care about spiders? (Spiders at present are his hobby and the notebook is filling up with columns of small figures.) To this he answered enigmatically 'The bridemaidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled. He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed all the time I remained with him. I am weary tonight and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don't sleep at once, chloral, the modern MorpheusCHClO. HO! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none tonight! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need be, tonight shall be sleepless.... Later.Glad I made the resolution gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the nightwatchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once my patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observationtrap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his nightgear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn't get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and, as we were only a few feet above ground, landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house. I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield's figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old ironbound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, lest I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to himthe more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say 'I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things? He is a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than a man. I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before and I hope I shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now at any rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldn't get free from the straitwaistcoat that keeps him restrained, and he's chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement. Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time 'I shall be patient, Master. It is comingcomingcoming! So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep tonight. Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra. 'BudaPesth,  August. 'My dearest Lucy, 'I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to Jonathan, and, that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weaklooking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was off his head. I wanted her to tell me what they were but she would only cross herself, and say she would never tell that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she should respect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved about, added 'I can tell you this much, my dear that it was not about anything which he has done wrong himself and you, as his wife to be, have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can treat of.' I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of my being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I felt a thrill of joy through me when I knew that no other woman was a cause of trouble. I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking!... 'When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something from the pocket I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that amongst them was his notebook, and was going to ask him to let me look at itfor I knew then that I might find some clue to his troublebut I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back, and when I came he had his hand over the notebook, and he said to me very solemnly ' 'Wilhelmina'I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him'you know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife there should be no secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage.' For, my dear, we had decided to be married as soon as the formalities are complete. 'Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.' He fell back exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon, and am waiting her reply.... 'She has come and told me that the chaplain of the English mission church has been sent for. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon after as Jonathan awakes.... 'Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his 'I will' firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak my heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken upon me. I must tell you of my wedding present. When the chaplain and the sisters had left me alone with my husbandoh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the words 'my husband'left me alone with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealingwax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each other that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it was the first time he took his wife's hand, and said that it was the dearest thing in all the wide world, and that he would go through all the past again to win it, if need be. The poor dear meant to have said a part of the past, but he cannot think of time yet, and I shall not wonder if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the year. 'Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us.... 'Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are, very dear to me. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide when you came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. I want you to see now, and with the eyes of a very happy wife, whither duty has led me so that in your own married life you too may be all happy as I am. My dear, please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, for that can never be but I do hope you will be always as happy as I am now. Goodbye, my dear. I shall post this at once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Jonathan is wakingI must attend to my husband! 'Your everloving 'Mina Harker. Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker. 'Whitby,  August. 'My dearest Mina, 'Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you could be coming home soon enough to stay with us here. The strong air would soon restore Jonathan it has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing together and I love him more than ever. He tells me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldn't love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. So no more just at present from your loving 'Lucy. 'P. S.Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear. 'P. P. S.We are to be married on  September. Dr. Seward's Diary.  August.The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion. For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself 'Now I can wait now I can wait. The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the straitwaistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleadingI might almost say, 'cringingsoftness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them 'They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools! It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my wellbeing is needful to him? I must find out later on. Tonight he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a fullgrown cat will not tempt him. He will only say 'I don't take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait I can wait. After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted him so that he swooned into a sort of coma. ... Three nights has the same thing happenedviolent all day then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. Happy thought! We shall tonight play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help tonight he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required....  August.'The unexpected always happens. How well Disraeli knew life. Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our subtle arrangements were for nought. At any rate, we have proved one thing that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, when once he is quiet, until an hour before sunrise. The poor soul's body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! The unexpected again! I am called the patient has once more escaped. Later.Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. As we were holding him a strange thing happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then as suddenly grew calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught the patient's eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked into the moonlit sky except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel and flit about, but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said 'You needn't tie me I shall go quietly! Without trouble we came back to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this night.... Lucy Westenra's Diary Hillingham,  August.I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, for I can remember nothing but I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and worn out. When Arthur came to lunch he looked quite grieved when he saw me, and I hadn't the spirit to try to be cheerful. I wonder if I could sleep in mother's room tonight. I shall make an excuse and try.  August.Another bad night. Mother did not seem to take to my proposal. She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to worry me. I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while but when the clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep. There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the window, but I did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I must then have fallen asleep. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This morning I am horribly weak. My face is ghastly pale, and my throat pains me. It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I don't seem ever to get air enough. I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes, or else I know he will be miserable to see me so. Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward. 'Albemarle Hotel,  August. 'My dear Jack, 'I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill that is, she has no special disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every day. I have asked her if there is any cause I do not dare to ask her mother, for to disturb the poor lady's mind about her daughter in her present state of health would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is spokendisease of the heartthough poor Lucy does not know it yet. I am sure that there is something preying on my dear girl's mind. I am almost distracted when I think of her to look at her gives me a pang. I told her I should ask you to see her, and though she demurred at firstI know why, old fellowshe finally consented. It will be a painful task for you, I know, old friend, but it is for her sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act. You are to come to lunch at Hillingham tomorrow, two o'clock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in Mrs. Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together I am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do not fail! 'Arthur. Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward. ' September. 'Am summoned to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write me fully by tonight's post to Ring. Wire me if necessary. Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood. ' September. 'My dear old fellow, 'With regard to Miss Westenra's health I hasten to let you know at once that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or any malady that I know of. At the same time, I am not by any means satisfied with her appearance she is woefully different from what she was when I saw her last. Of course you must bear in mind that I did not have full opportunity of examination such as I should wish our very friendship makes a little difficulty which not even medical science or custom can bridge over. I had better tell you exactly what happened, leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own conclusions. I shall then say what I have done and propose doing. 'I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly ' 'I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.' I reminded her that a doctor's confidence was sacred, but that you were grievously anxious about her. She caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that matter in a word. 'Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for myself, but all for him!' So I am quite free. 'I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless, but I could not see the usual anmic signs, and by a chance I was actually able to test the quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was stiff a cord gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken glass. It was a slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident chance, and I secured a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The qualitative analysis gives a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need for anxiety but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something mental. She complains of difficulty in breathing satisfactorily at times, and of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but regarding which she can remember nothing. She says that as a child she used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit came back, and that once she walked out in the night and went to East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her but she assures me that of late the habit has not returned. I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your relations to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her. Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason, so, no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, but this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the icebrook, an indomitable resolution, selfcommand, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beatsthese form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankindwork both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his allembracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra tomorrow again. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I may not alarm her mother by too early a repetition of my call. 'Yours always, 'John Seward. Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward. ' September. 'My good Friend, 'When I have received your letter I am already coming to you. By good fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend it is to you that I come. Have then rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near to hand, and please it so arrange that we may see the young lady not too late on tomorrow, for it is likely that I may have to return here that night. But if need be I shall come again in three days, and stay longer if it must. Till then goodbye, my friend John. 'Van Helsing. Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood. ' September. 'My dear Art, 'Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by Lucy's discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not present all the time. He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he must think. When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said 'You must tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.' I asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious. This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam. He would not give me any further clue. You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure. So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for The Daily Telegraph. He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here. I am to get his report tomorrow if he can possibly make it. In any case I am to have a letter. 'Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal. She was very sweet to the professor (as she always is), and tried to make him feel at ease though I could see that the poor girl was making a hard struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old. Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy's pretense of animation merge into reality. Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and suavely said ' 'My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so much beloved. That is much, my dear, ever were there that which I do not see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a ghastly pale. To them I say 'Pouf! ' And he snapped his fingers at me and went on 'But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can he'and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind me of'know anything of a young ladies? He has his madmans to play with, and to bring them back to happiness, and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, in that we can bestow such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves.' I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the professor came to the window and called me in. He looked grave, but said 'I have made careful examination, but there is no functional cause. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost it has been, but is not. But the conditions of her are in no way anmic. I have asked her to send me her maid, that I may ask just one or two question, that so I may not chance to miss nothing. I know well what she will say. And yet there is cause there is always cause for everything. I must go back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day and if there be cause I shall come again. The diseasefor not to be all well is a diseaseinterest me, and the sweet young dear, she interest me too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come.' 'As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch. I trust your poor father is rallying. It must be a terrible thing to you, my dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position between two people who are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and you are right to stick to it but, if need be, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy so do not be overanxious unless you hear from me. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.Zophagous patient still keeps up our interest in him. He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really appalling I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinnerhour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding, with a dull, sullen, woebegone look in his face, which seems rather to indicate than to show something directly. I cannot quite understand it. Later.Another change in my patient. At five o'clock I looked in on him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be. He was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his capture by making nailmarks on the edge of the door between the ridges of padding. When he saw me, he came over and apologised for his bad conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be led back to his own room and to have his notebook again. I thought it well to humour him so he is back in his room with the window open. He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the windowsill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies. He is not now eating them, but putting them into a box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his room to find a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days, for any clue to his thoughts would be of immense help to me but he would not rise. For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said in a sort of faraway voice, as though saying it rather to himself than to me 'All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do it for myself! Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he said 'Doctor, won't you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me. 'And the flies? I said. 'Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies therefore I like it. And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do not argue. I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a man as, I suppose, any in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind. Midnight.Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at our own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him yelling. As his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it better than in the morning. It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down, and from his window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he became less and less frenzied and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor. It is wonderful, however, what intellectual recuperative power lunatics have, for within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious to see what he would do. He went straight over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar then he took his flybox, and emptied it outside, and threw away the box then he shut the window, and crossing over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised me, so I asked him 'Are you not going to keep flies any more? 'No, said he 'I am sick of all that rubbish! He certainly is a wonderfully interesting study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his mind or of the cause of his sudden passion. Stop there may be a clue after all, if we can find why today his paroxysms came on at high noon and at sunset. Can it be that there is a malign influence of the sun at periods which affects certain naturesas at times the moon does others? We shall see. Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam. ' September.Patient still better today. Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam. ' September.Patient greatly improved. Good appetite sleeps naturally good spirits colour coming back. Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam. ' September.Terrible change for the worse. Come at once do not lose an hour. I hold over telegram to Holmwood till have seen you. Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood. ' September. 'My dear Art, 'My news today is not so good. Lucy this morning had gone back a bit. There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has consulted me professionally about her. I took advantage of the opportunity, and told her that my old master, Van Helsing, the great specialist, was coming to stay with me, and that I would put her in his charge conjointly with myself so now we can come and go without alarming her unduly, for a shock to her would mean sudden death, and this, in Lucy's weak condition, might be disastrous to her. We are hedged in with difficulties, all of us, my poor old fellow but, please God, we shall come through them all right. If any need I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from me, take it for granted that I am simply waiting for news. In haste Yours ever, 'John Seward. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at Liverpool Street was 'Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her? 'No, I said. 'I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be. 'Right, my friend, he said, 'quite right! Better he not know as yet perhaps he shall never know. I pray so but if it be needed, then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen, toothe rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may restwhere it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here. He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way. 'I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you. 'Why not now? I asked. 'It may do some good we may arrive at some decision. He stopped and looked at me, and said 'My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripenedwhile the milk of its motherearth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you 'Look! he's good corn he will make good crop when the time comes.'  I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said 'The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow that is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout if he sprout at all, there's some promise and I wait till the ear begins to swell. He broke off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very gravely 'You were always a careful student, and your casebook was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then now you are master, and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is one that may bemind, I say may beof such interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success! When I described Lucy's symptomsthe same as before, but infinitely more markedhe looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, 'the ghastly paraphernalia of our beneficial trade, as he once called, in one of his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not personaleven the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so attacheddo not seem to reach her. It is something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of. I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy's room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her today. She was ghastly, chalkily pale the red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out prominently her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van Helsing's face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. 'My God! he said 'this is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart's action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me? 'I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me. 'Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared. I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at the halldoor. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper 'Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming. When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to him gravely as he held out his hand 'Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that. For he suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. 'You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help. 'What can I do? asked Arthur hoarsely. 'Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her. The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer 'My young sir, I do not ask so much as thatnot the last! 'What shall I do? There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostril quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. 'Come! he said. 'You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John. Arthur looked bewildered, and the Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way 'Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have consulted and we are about to perform what we call transfusion of bloodto transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than mehere Arthur took my hand and wrung it hard in silence'but, now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours! Arthur turned to him and said 'If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice. 'Good boy! said Van Helsing. 'In the notsofaroff you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame you know how it is with her! There must be no shock any knowledge of this would be one. Come! We all went up to Lucy's room. Arthur by direction remained outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to the bed, said cheerily 'Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes. She had made the effort with success. It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest its potency and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his coat. Then he added 'You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me! So neither of us looked whilst he bent over her. Van Helsing turning to me, said 'He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it. Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy's cheeks, and through Arthur's growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucy's system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. But the Professor's face was set, and he stood watch in hand and with his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own heart beat. Presently he said in a soft voice 'Do not stir an instant. It is enough. You attend him I will look to her. When all was over I could see how much Arthur was weakened. I dressed the wound and took his arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing spoke without turning roundthe man seems to have eyes in the back of his head 'The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have presently. And as he had now finished his operation, he adjusted the pillow to the patient's head. As he did so the narrow black velvet band which she seems always to wear round her throat, buckled with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was dragged a little up, and showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it, but I could hear the deep hiss of indrawn breath which is one of Van Helsing's ways of betraying emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to me, saying 'Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much, that he may be recruited of what he has so given to his love. He must not stay here. Hold! a moment. I may take it, sir, that you are anxious of result. Then bring it with you that in all ways the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time, and you can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be is. I shall tell her all when she is well she shall love you none the less for what you have done. Goodbye. When Arthur had gone I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, but her breathing was stronger I could see the counterpane move as her breast heaved. By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at her intently. The velvet band again covered the red mark. I asked the Professor in a whisper 'What do you make of that mark on her throat? 'What do you make of it? 'I have not examined it yet, I answered, and then and there proceeded to loose the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two punctures, not large, but not wholesomelooking. There was no sign of disease, but the edges were white and wornlooking, as if by some trituration. It at once occurred to me that this wound, or whatever it was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood but I abandoned the idea as soon as formed, for such a thing could not be. The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood which the girl must have lost to leave such a pallor as she had before the transfusion. 'Well? said Van Helsing. 'Well, said I, 'I can make nothing of it. The Professor stood up. 'I must go back to Amsterdam tonight, he said. 'There are books and things there which I want. You must remain here all the night, and you must not let your sight pass from her. 'Shall I have a nurse? I asked. 'We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night see that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as possible. And then we may begin. 'May begin? I said. 'What on earth do you mean? 'We shall see! he answered, as he hurried out. He came back a moment later and put his head inside the door and said with warning finger held up 'Remember, she is your charge. If you leave her, and harm befall, you shall not sleep easy hereafter! Dr. Seward's Diarycontinued.  September.I sat up all night with Lucy. The opiate worked itself off towards dusk, and she waked naturally she looked a different being from what she had been before the operation. Her spirits even were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone. When I told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her she almost poohpoohed the idea, pointing out her daughter's renewed strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took a seat by the bedside. She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long spell she seemed sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as the time moved on. It was apparent that she did not want to sleep, so I tackled the subject at once 'You do not want to go to sleep? 'No I am afraid. 'Afraid to go to sleep! Why so? It is the boon we all crave for. 'Ah, not if you were like meif sleep was to you a presage of horror! 'A presage of horror! What on earth do you mean? 'I don't know oh, I don't know. And that is what is so terrible. All this weakness comes to me in sleep until I dread the very thought. 'But, my dear girl, you may sleep tonight. I am here watching you, and I can promise that nothing will happen. 'Ah, I can trust you! I seized the opportunity, and said 'I promise you that if I see any evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once. 'You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me. Then I will sleep! And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and sank back, asleep. All night long I watched by her. She never stirred, but slept on and on in a deep, tranquil, lifegiving, healthgiving sleep. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum. There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind. In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took myself back home, for I was anxious about many things. I sent a short wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result of the operation. My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all day to clear off it was dark when I was able to inquire about my zophagous patient. The report was good he had been quite quiet for the past day and night. A telegram came from Van Helsing at Amsterdam whilst I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at Hillingham tonight, as it might be well to be at hand, and stating that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the morning.  September.I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral exhaustion. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands with me she looked sharply in my face and said 'No sitting up tonight for you. You are worn out. I am quite well again indeed, I am and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who will sit up with you. I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper. Lucy came with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I made an excellent meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs, and showed me a room next her own, where a cozy fire was burning. 'Now, she said, 'you must stay here. I shall leave this door open and my door too. You can lie on the sofa for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon. If I want anything I shall call out, and you can come to me at once. I could not but acquiesce, for I was 'dogtired, and could not have sat up had I tried. So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she should want anything, I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about everything. Lucy Westenra's Diary.  September.I feel so happy tonight. I have been so miserably weak, that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. I suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength give Love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of last night! How I slept, with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. And tonight I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! Goodnight, Arthur. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.I was conscious of the Professor's hand on my head, and started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum, at any rate. 'And how is our patient? 'Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me, I answered. 'Come, let us see, he said. And together we went into the room. The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, catlike tread, over to the bed. As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I heard the Professor's low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and his exclamation of horror, 'Gott in Himmel! needed no enforcement from his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to tremble. There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wanlooking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly. 'Quick! he said. 'Bring the brandy. I flew to the diningroom, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said 'It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John. As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for transfusion I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirtsleeve. There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of one and so, without a moment's delay, we began the operation. After a timeit did not seem a short time either, for the draining away of one's blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feelingVan Helsing held up a warning finger. 'Do not stir, he said, 'but I fear that with growing strength she may wake and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia. He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent. The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. The Professor watched me critically. 'That will do, he said. 'Already? I remonstrated. 'You took a great deal more from Art. To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied 'He is her lover, her fianc. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others and the present will suffice. When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision. I laid down, whilst I waited his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. Byandby he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered 'Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too. There must be none. So! When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said 'You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest awhile then have much breakfast, and come here to me. I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were. I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at what had occurred. I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign anywhere to show for it. I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for, sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their edgestiny though they were. Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before. When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office. Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but said to me gratefully 'We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit that you do! As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long such an unwonted drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips with a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows. Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me 'Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here tonight, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave reasons. No, do not ask them think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most notprobable. Goodnight. In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either of them might not sit up with Miss Lucy. They implored me to let them and when I said it was Dr. Van Helsing's wish that either he or I should sit up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with the 'foreign gentleman. I was much touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because I am weak at present, and perhaps because it was on Lucy's account, that their devotion was manifested for over and over again have I seen similar instances of woman's kindness. I got back here in time for a late dinner went my roundsall well and set this down whilst waiting for sleep. It is coming.  September.This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. Found Van Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressmentassumed, of courseand showed a great bundle of white flowers. 'These are for you, Miss Lucy, he said. 'For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing! 'Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines. Here Lucy made a wry face. 'Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late. Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down, saying, with halflaughter, and halfdisgust 'Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic. To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting 'No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in all I do and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own. Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might well be, he went on more gently 'Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good but there is much virtue to you in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! no telling to others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still awhile. Come with me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic, which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise herb in his glasshouses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here. We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor's actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopia that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched them securely next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and presently I said 'Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit. 'Perhaps I am! he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck. We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck. The last words he said to her were 'Take care you do not disturb it and even if the room feel close, do not tonight open the window or the door. 'I promise, said Lucy, 'and thank you both a thousand times for all your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such friends? As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said 'Tonight I can sleep in peace, and sleep I wanttwo nights of travel, much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink. Tomorrow in the morning early you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty miss, so much more strong for my 'spell' which I have work. Ho! ho! He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears. Lucy Westenra's Diary.  September.How good they all are to me. I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread being alone tonight, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with 'virgin crants and maiden strewments. I never liked garlic before, but tonight it is delightful! There is peace in its smell I feel sleep coming already. Goodnight, everybody. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now. Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o'clock. It was a lovely morning the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature's annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early riser. She greeted us warmly and said 'You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her. The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said 'Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working, to which she answered 'You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy's state this morning is due in part to me. 'How you do mean, ma'am? asked the Professor. 'Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundlyso soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strongsmelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure. She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As she had spoken, I watched the Professor's face, and saw it turn ashen grey. He had been able to retain his selfcommand whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the diningroom and closed the door. Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. 'God! God! God! he said. 'What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us! Suddenly he jumped to his feet. 'Come, he said, 'come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not we fight him all the same. He went to the halldoor for his bag and together we went up to Lucy's room. Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity. 'As I expected, he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognised the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand. 'No! he said. 'Today you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already. As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve. Again the operation again the narcotic again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep. This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested. Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy's room without consulting him that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would send me word when to come. After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal. What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain. Lucy Westenra's Diary.  September.Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim halfremembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant and then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away the noises that used to frighten me out of my witsthe flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not whathave all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for mother's sake, and dear Arthur's, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I awoke but I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against the windowpanes. 'The Pall Mall Gazette,  September. THE ESCAPED WOLF. PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER. Interview with the Keeper in the Zological Gardens. After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words 'Pall Mall Gazette as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zological Gardens in which the wolf department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephanthouse, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called 'business until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said 'Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You'll excoose me refoosin' to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions. 'How do you mean, ask them questions? I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humour. ' 'Ittin' of them over the 'ead with a pole is one way scratchin' of their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a showorf to their gals. I don't so much mind the fustthe 'ittin' with a pole afore I chucks in their dinner but I waits till they've 'ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the earscratchin'. Mind you, he added philosophically, 'there's a deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here's you acomin' and arskin' of me questions about my business, and I that grumpylike that only for your bloomin' 'arfquid I'd 'a' seen you blowed fust 'fore I'd answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcasticlike if I'd like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to 'ell? 'You did. 'An' when you said you'd report me for usin' of obscene language that was 'ittin' me over the 'ead but the 'arfquid made that all right. I weren't agoin' to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my 'owl as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor' love yer 'art, now that the old 'ooman has stuck a chunk of her teacake in me, an' rinsed me out with her bloomin' old teapot, and I've lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you're worth, and won't git even a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer acomin' at, that 'ere escaped wolf. 'Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened and when I know the facts I'll get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end. 'All right, guv'nor. This 'ere is about the 'ole story. That 'ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from Norway to Jamrach's, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a nice wellbehaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I'm more surprised at 'im for wantin' to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you can't trust wolves no more nor women. 'Don't you mind him, sir! broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. ' 'E's got mindin' the animiles so long that blest if he ain't like a old wolf 'isself! But there ain't no 'arm in 'im. 'Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin' yesterday when I first hear my disturbance. I was makin' up a litter in the monkeyhouse for a young puma which is ill but when I heard the yelpin' and 'owlin' I kem away straight. There was Bersicker atearin' like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn't much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a 'ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin' through it. He had a 'ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was 'im as they was hirritated at. He 'ad white kid gloves on 'is 'ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says 'Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.' ' 'Maybe it's you,' says I, for I did not like the airs as he give 'isself. He didn't git angry, as I 'oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. 'Oh no, they wouldn't like me,' 'e says. ' 'Ow yes, they would,' says I, aimitatin' of him. 'They always likes a bone or two to clean their teeth on about teatime, which you 'as a bagful.' 'Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us atalkin' they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn't put in his hand and stroke the old wolf's ears too! ' 'Tyke care,' says I. 'Bersicker is quick.' ' 'Never mind,' he says. 'I'm used to 'em!' ' 'Are you in the business yourself?' I says, tyking off my 'at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers. ' 'No' says he, 'not exactly in the business, but I 'ave made pets of several.' And with that he lifts his 'at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep' alookin' arter 'im till 'e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn't come hout the 'ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began a'owling. There warn't nothing for them to 'owl at. There warn't no one near, except some one that was evidently acallin' a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the 'owling stopped. Just before twelve o'clock I just took a look round afore turnin' in, an', bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker's cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And that's all I know for certing. 'Did any one else see anything? 'One of our gard'ners was acomin' 'ome about that time from a 'armony, when he sees a big grey dog comin' out through the garding 'edges. At least, so he says, but I don't give much for it myself, for if he did 'e never said a word about it to his missis when 'e got 'ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all nightahuntin' of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein' anything. My own belief was that the 'armony 'ad got into his 'ead. 'Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf? 'Well, sir, he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, 'I think I can but I don't know as 'ow you'd be satisfied with the theory. 'Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, can't hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try? 'Well then, sir, I accounts for it this way it seems to me that 'ere wolf escapedsimply because he wanted to get out. From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn't cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said 'Now, Mr. Bilder, we'll consider that first halfsovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you've told me what you think will happen. 'Right y'are, sir, he said briskly. 'Ye'll excoose me, I know, for achaffin' of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on. 'Well, I never! said the old lady. 'My opinion is this that 'ere wolf is a'idin' of, somewheres. The gard'ner wot didn't remember said he was agallopin' northward faster than a horse could go but I don't believe him, for, yer see, sir, wolves don't gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein' built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivyin' somethin' that's more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor' bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog and not half a quarter so much fight in 'im. This one ain't been used to fightin' or even to providin' for hisself, and more like he's somewhere round the Park a'idin' an' ashiverin' of, and, if he thinks at all, wonderin' where he is to get his breakfast from or maybe he's got down some area and is in a coalcellar. My eye, won't some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes ashining at her out of the dark! If he can't get food he's bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher's shop in time. If he doesn't, and some nursemaid goes awalkin' orf with a soldier, leavin' of the hinfant in the perambulatorwell, then I shouldn't be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That's all. I was handing him the halfsovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilder's face doubled its natural length with surprise. 'God bless me! he said. 'If there ain't old Bersicker come back by 'isself! He went to the door and opened it a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us a personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea. After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was as peaceful and wellbehaved as that father of all picturewolvesRed Riding Hood's quondam friend, whilst moving her confidence in masquerade. The whole scene was an unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said 'There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble didn't I say it all along? Here's his head all cut and full of broken glass. 'E's been agettin' over some bloomin' wall or other. It's a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This 'ere's what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker. He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report. I came off, too, to report the only exclusive information that is given today regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord into the Superintendent's study is almost unknown. Without an instant's pause he made straight at me. He had a dinnerknife in his hand, and, as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was too quick and too strong for me, however for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right and he was sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again 'The blood is the life! The blood is the life! I cannot afford to lose blood just at present I have lost too much of late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy's illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am overexcited and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep tonight I could not well do without it. Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax. (Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given delivered late by twentytwo hours.) ' September.Do not fail to be at Hillingham tonight. If not watching all the time frequently, visit and see that flowers are as placed very important do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.Just off for train to London. The arrival of Van Helsing's telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what may have happened? Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucy's phonograph. Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra.  September. Night.I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing. I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep. I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after that sleepwalking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next roomas Dr. Van Helsing said he would beso that I might have called him. I tried to go to sleep, but could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it so, as I feared to be alone, I opened my door and called out 'Is there anybody there? There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dog's, but more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, came in, and sat by me. She said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont 'I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right. I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me she did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers, the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out 'What is that? I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet but I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat then she fell overas if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother's poor body, which seemed to grow cold alreadyfor her dear heart had ceased to beatweighed me down and I remembered no more for a while. The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling the dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the diningroom and have each a glass of wine. The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the diningroom and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mother's breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didn't like to remove them, and, besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the diningroom to look for them. My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which mother's doctor uses for heroh! did usewas empty. What am I to do? what am I to do? I am back in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window. The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Goodbye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!  September.I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hourfor it was now ten o'clockand so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late? I knew that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere. I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the rapid pitpat of a swiftly driven horse's feet. They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out 'Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram? I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his telegram early in the morning, and had not lost a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly 'Then I fear we are too late. God's will be done! With his usual recuperative energy, he went on 'Come. If there be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now. We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants' rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the diningroom, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servantwomen lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said 'We can attend to them later. Then we ascended to Lucy's room. For an instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the room. How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the draught through the broken window, showing the drawn, white face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother's bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching poor Lucy's breast then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me 'It is not yet too late! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy! I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her hands. He said to me 'I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside her. She will need be heated before we can do anything more. I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently affected her more strongly, so I lifted her on the sofa and let her sleep. The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner. I was stern with them, however, and would not let them talk. I told them that one life was bad enough to lose, and that if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss Lucy. So, sobbing and crying, they went about their way, half clad as they were, and prepared fire and water. Fortunately, the kitchen and boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water. We got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it. Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall door. One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and opened it. Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I bade her simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now. She went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean forgot all about him. I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly earnest. I knewas he knewthat it was a standup fight with death, and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear 'If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon. He went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour. Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to be of some effect. Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing's face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me 'The first gain is ours! Check to the King! We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had ever seen her. Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me out of the room. 'We must consult as to what is to be done, he said as we descended the stairs. In the hall he opened the diningroom door, and we passed in, he closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light enough for our purposes. Van Helsing's sternness was somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke 'What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl's life won't be worth an hour's purchase. You are exhausted already I am exhausted too. I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her? 'What's the matter with me, anyhow? The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out 'Quincey Morris! and rushed towards him with outstretched hands. 'What brought you here? I cried as our hands met. 'I guess Art is the cause. He handed me a telegram 'Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.Holmwood. 'I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell me what to do. Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in the eyes as he said 'A brave man's blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You're a man and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us for all he's worth, but God sends us men when we want them. Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a subcutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of notepaper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. He handed me the paper saying only 'It dropped from Lucy's breast when we carried her to the bath. When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a pause asked him 'In God's name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, mad or what sort of horrible danger is it? I was so bewildered that I did not know what to say more. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the paper, saying 'Do not trouble about it now. Forget it for the present. You shall know and understand it all in good time but it will be later. And now what is it that you came to me to say? This brought me back to fact, and I was all myself again. 'I came to speak about the certificate of death. If we do not act properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would have to be produced. I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for if we had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that Mrs. Westenra had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she died of it. Let us fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take it myself to the registrar and go on to the undertaker. 'Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old man. Ah yes, I know, friend John I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go. In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling him that Mrs. Westenra was dead that Lucy also had been ill, but was now going on better and that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told him where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said 'When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to ourselves? I nodded in reply and went out. I found no difficulty about the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come up in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements. When I got back Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her side. From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered that he expected her to wake before long and was afraid of forestalling nature. So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfastroom, where the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a little more cheerful, or rather less cheerless, than the other rooms. When we were alone, he said to me 'Jack Seward, I don't want to shove myself in anywhere where I've no right to be but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her but, although that's all past and gone, I can't help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it that's wrong with her? The Dutchmanand a fine old fellow he is I can see thatsaid, that time you two came into the room, that you must have another transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. Now I know well that you medical men speak in camera, and that a man must not expect to know what they consult about in private. But this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that so? 'That's so, I said, and he went on 'I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did today. Is not that so? 'That's so. 'And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago down at his own place he looked queer. I have not seen anything pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and what with his gorge and the vein left open, there wasn't enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay. Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur was the first, is not that so? As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her intensified his pain. His very heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of himand there was a royal lot of it, tooto keep him from breaking down. I paused before answering, for I felt that I must not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret but already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could be no reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase 'That's so. 'And how long has this been going on? 'About ten days. 'Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldn't hold it. Then, coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce halfwhisper 'What took it out? I shook my head. 'That, I said, 'is the crux. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits' end. I can't even hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched. But these shall not occur again. Here we stay until all be wellor ill. Quincey held out his hand. 'Count me in, he said. 'You and the Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I'll do it. When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy's first movement was to feel in her breast, and, to my surprise, produced the paper which Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had replaced it where it had come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed. Her eye then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and gladdened. Then she looked around the room, and seeing where she was, shuddered she gave a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands before her pale face. We both understood what that meantthat she had realised to the full her mother's death so we tried what we could to comfort her. Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time. We told her that either or both of us would now remain with her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however, she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as if in thought, but he said nothing.  September.All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The Professor and I took it in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the house. When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucy's strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. Quincey went off to meet him at the station. When he arrived it was nearly six o'clock, and the sun was setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible were shortened. Arthur's presence, however, seemed to act as a stimulant she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything. It was now nearly one o'clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering this on Lucy's phonograph. Until six o'clock they are to try to rest. I fear that tomorrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too great the poor child cannot rally. God help us all. Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra. (Unopened by her.) ' September. 'My dearest Lucy, 'It seems an age since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right when we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said ' 'My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity and may every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.' I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one. 'So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my bedroom and the drawingroom I can see the great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooksand humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day for, now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients. 'How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my shoulders and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long illness even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, dear tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his 'respectful duty,' but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins  Harker and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his 'love' instead. Goodbye, my dearest Lucy, and all blessings on you. 'Yours, 'Mina Harker. Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D. ' September. 'My dear Sir, 'In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carrier's cart with two men made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on oursthe house to which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of Renfield's room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to 'shut up for a foulmouthed beggar, whereon our man accused him of robbing him and wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying 'Lor' bless yer, sir, I wouldn't mind what was said to me in a bloomin' madhouse. I pity ye and the guv'nor for havin' to live in the house with a wild beast like that.' Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him where the gate of the empty house was he went away, followed by threats and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a wellbehaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the buttend of his heavy whip. It was a terrible blow but he did not seem to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting but as we began to master him, and the attendants were putting a straitwaistcoat on him, he began to shout 'I'll frustrate them! They shan't rob me! they shan't murder me by inches! I'll fight for my Lord and Master!' and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it all right and he is going on well. 'The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of meeting so 'bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent. I took their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as followsJack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris  Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard, Soho. 'I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance. 'Believe me, dear Sir, 'Yours faithfully, 'Patrick Hennessey. Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra. (Unopened by her.) ' September. 'My dearest Lucy, 'Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man's death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as hisa nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise from clerk to master in a few yearsshould be so injured that the very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after tomorrow for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings, 'Your loving 'Mina Harker. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too lowspirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of lateLucy's mother and Arthur's father, and now.... Let me get on with my work. I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer, that he agreed to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. 'Come, my child, he said 'come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of. You must not be alone for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. Come to the drawingroom, where there is a big fire, and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do not speak, and even if we sleep. Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy's face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay quite still, and I looked round the room to see that all was as it should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic the whole of the windowsashes reeked with it, and round Lucy's neck, over the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers. Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled rounddoubtless attracted by the light, although so dimand every now and again struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat, I found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and sat watching her. Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto so marked her illness. It struck me as curious that the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was certainly odd that whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her but that when she waked she clutched them close. There was no possibility of making any mistake about this, for in the long hours that followed, she had many spells of sleeping and waking and repeated both actions many times. At six o'clock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then fallen into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw Lucy's face I could hear the sissing indraw of his breath, and he said to me in a sharp whisper 'Draw up the blind I want light! Then he bent down, and, with his face almost touching Lucy's, examined her carefully. He removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As he did so he started back, and I could hear his ejaculation, 'Mein Gott! as it was smothered in his throat. I bent over and looked, too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me. The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared. For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly 'She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the last he trusts us, and we have promised him. I went to the diningroom and waked him. He was dazed for a moment, but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I assured him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He covered his face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he remained, perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, whilst his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. 'Come, I said, 'my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude it will be best and easiest for her. When we came into Lucy's room I could see that Van Helsing had, with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed Lucy's hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples. When we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered softly 'Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back. 'No, he whispered, 'not yet! Hold her hand it will comfort her more. So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best, with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a little bit her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired child's. And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. In a sort of sleepwaking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips 'Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me! Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her but at that instant Van Helsing, who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury of strength which I never thought he could have possessed, and actually hurled him almost across the room. 'Not for your life! he said 'not for your living soul and hers! And he stood between them like a lion at bay. Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do or say and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realised the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting. I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily. Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great brown one drawing it to her, she kissed it. 'My true friend, she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, 'My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace! 'I swear it! he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said to him 'Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once. Their eyes met instead of their lips and so they parted. Lucy's eyes closed and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthur's arm, and drew him away. And then Lucy's breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it ceased. 'It is all over, said Van Helsing. 'She is dead! I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawingroom, where he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way that nearly broke me down to see. I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy, and his face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines even the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be. I stood beside Van Helsing, and said 'Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end! He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity 'Not so alas! not so. It is only the beginning! When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered 'We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see. THE funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were afflictedor blessedwith something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brotherprofessional way, when she had come out from the deathchamber 'She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege to attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment! I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was possible from the disordered state of things in the household. There were no relatives at hand and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend at his father's funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy's papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble. He answered me 'I know I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers moresuch as this. As he spoke he took from his pocketbook the memorandum which had been in Lucy's breast, and which she had torn in her sleep. 'When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him tonight. For me, I watch here in the room and in Miss Lucy's old room all night, and I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very thoughts go into the hands of strangers. I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor and had written to him. All the poor lady's papers were in order explicit directions regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly sealed the letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, saying 'Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to you. 'Have you got what you looked for? I asked, to which he replied 'I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there wasonly some letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad tomorrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some. When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me 'And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you and I, and rest to recuperate. Tomorrow we shall have much to do, but for the tonight there is no need of us. Alas! Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small chapelle ardente. There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The end of the windingsheet was laid over the face when the Professor bent over and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us, the tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well. All Lucy's loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of 'decay's effacing fingers, had but restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse. The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me 'Remain till I return, and left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and placed it over the mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we came away. I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the door, he entered, and at once began to speak 'Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of postmortem knives. 'Must we make an autopsy? I asked. 'Yes and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her and I have not forgotten it, for it is I that shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it tonight, but for Arthur I must not he will be free after his father's funeral tomorrow, and he will want to see herto see it. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffinlid, and shall do our operation and then replace all, so that none know, save we alone. 'But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a postmortem and nothing to gain by itno good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledgewhy do it? Without such it is monstrous. For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite tenderness 'Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart and I love you the more because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you do bear. But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may errI am but man but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his lovethough she was dyingand snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes! 'Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for many years trust me you have believe me weeks past, when there be things so strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think and that is not perhaps well. And if I workas work I shall, no matter trust or no trustwithout my friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart and feel, oh! so lonely when I want all help and courage that may be! He paused a moment and went on solemnly 'Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me? I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, and watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passageshe had her back towards me, so did not see meand go into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.... I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to my bedside and said 'You need not trouble about the knives we shall not do it. 'Why not? I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me. 'Because, he said sternly, 'it is too lateor too early. See! Here he held up the little golden crucifix. 'This was stolen in the night. 'How, stolen, I asked in wonder, 'since you have it now? 'Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely come, but not through me she knew not altogether what she did and thus unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait. He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a new puzzle to grapple with. The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand  Lidderdale. He was very genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order he informed us that, with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy's father's which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much he went on 'Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle, and ninetynine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment. Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no willand a will was a practical impossibility in such a casehave been treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which case Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the world and the inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to abandon their just rights, for sentimental reasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced. He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little partin which he was officially interestedof so great a tragedy, was an objectlesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding. He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at five o'clock, so a little before that time we visited the deathchamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once. Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to, explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his fiance quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we could avoid were saved. Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken even his stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his muchtried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly attached to his father and to lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous but I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him. The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone with her, but he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily 'You loved her too, old fellow she told me all about it, and there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don't know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can't think yet.... Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and laid his head on my breast, crying 'Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for. I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man's heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and then I said softly to him 'Come and look at her. Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her face. God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat and as for Arthur, he fell atrembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper 'Jack, is she really dead? I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggestfor I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer than I could helpthat it often happened that after death faces became softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty that this was especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged suffering. It seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and, after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and long, he turned aside. I told him that that must be goodbye, as the coffin had to be prepared so he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came. I left him in the drawingroom, and told Van Helsing that he had said goodbye so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker's men to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told him of Arthur's question, and he replied 'I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself! We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinnertime but when we had lit our cigars he said 'Lord but Arthur interrupted him 'No, no, not that, for God's sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir I did not mean to speak offensively it is only because my loss is so recent. The Professor answered very sweetly 'I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you 'Mr.,' and I have grown to love youyes, my dear boy, to love youas Arthur. Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man's warmly. 'Call me what you will, he said. 'I hope I may always have the title of a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for your goodness to my poor dear. He paused a moment, and went on 'I know that she understood your goodness even better than I do and if I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted soyou rememberthe Professor nodded'you must forgive me. He answered with a grave kindness 'I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand and I take it that you do notthat you cannottrust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannotand may notand must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect. 'And, indeed, indeed, sir, said Arthur warmly, 'I shall in all ways trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are Jack's friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like. The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to speak, and finally said 'May I ask you something now? 'Certainly. 'You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property? 'No, poor dear I never thought of it. 'And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's papers and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch themno strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost and in the good time I shall give them back to you. It's a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy's sake? Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self 'Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions till the time comes. The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly 'And you are right. There will be pain for us all but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you tooyou most of all, my dear boywill have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well! I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night. Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night. Mina Harker's Journal.  September.In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news of him and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthandsee what unexpected prosperity does for usso it may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow.... The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us.... We came back to town quietly, taking a 'bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down but there were very few people there, and it was sadlooking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can't go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn't know anybody who saw usand we didn't care if they didso on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cartwheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano's, when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath 'My God! I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit may upset him again so I turned to him quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him. He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's. Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did 'Do you see who it is? 'No, dear, I said 'I don't know him who is it? His answer seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking 'It is the man himself! The poor dear was evidently terrified at somethingvery greatly terrified I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring a man came out of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself 'I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew! He was distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. After a few minutes' staring at nothing, Jonathan's eyes closed, and he went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully 'Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. Come, and we'll have a cup of tea somewhere. He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of. I don't like this lapsing into forgetfulness it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I must open that parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know, forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake. Later.A sad homecoming in every waythe house empty of the dear soul who was so good to us Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight relapse of his malady and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he may be 'You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried today. Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have lost such sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our troubles. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy's death as any of us but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his journey. He goes over to Amsterdam tonight, but says he returns tomorrow night that he only wants to make some arrangements which can only be made personally. He is to stop with me then, if he can he says he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his iron strength. All the time of the burial he was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucy's veins I could see Van Helsing's face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humour asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge and then he cried, till he laughed again and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous strength or weakness! Then when his face grew grave and stern again I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. His reply was in a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and forceful and mysterious. He said 'Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.' Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn I give my time, my skill, my sleep I let my other sufferers want that so she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very gravelaugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say 'Thud! thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boythat dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say things that touch my husbandheart to the quick, and make my fatherheart yearn to him as to no other mannot even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and sonyet even at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, 'Here I am! here I am!' till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fallall dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be. I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea but, as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a different tone 'Oh, it was the grim irony of it allthis so lovely lady garlanded with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we wondered if she were truly dead she laid in that so fine marble house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her kin, laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved and that sacred bell going 'Toll! toll! toll!' so sad and slow and those holy men, with the white garments of the angel, pretending to read books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page and all of us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead so! Is it not? 'Well, for the life of me, Professor, I said, 'I can't see anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply breaking. 'Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride? 'Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him. 'Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though no wits, all goneeven I, who am faithful husband to this nownowife, am bigamist. 'I don't see where the joke comes in there either! I said and I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things. He laid his hand on my arm, and said 'Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh if you could have done so when the laugh arrived if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to himfor he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long timemaybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all. I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why. 'Because I know! And now we are all scattered and for many a long day loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly deathhouse in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord. So I can finish this diary and God only knows if I shall ever begin another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal with different people and different themes for here at the end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my lifework, I say sadly and without hope, 'FINIS. 'The Westminster Gazette,  September. A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as 'The Kensington Horror, or 'The Stabbing Woman, or 'The Woman in Black. During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a 'bloofer lady. It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a 'bloofer lady had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the 'bloofer lady is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the 'bloofer lady should be the popular rle at these al fresco performances. Our correspondent navely says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubbyfaced little children pretendand even imagine themselvesto be. There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about. 'The Westminster Gazette,  September. Extra Special. THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. ANOTHER CHILD INJURED. The 'Bloofer Lady. We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the 'bloofer lady.  September.Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it....  September.I hadn't the heart to write last night that terrible record of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how on our weddingday he said 'Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane. There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Count was coming to London.... If it should be, and he came to London, with his teeming millions.... There may be a solemn duty and if it come we must not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker. ' September. (Confidence) 'Dear Madam, 'I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra's death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others' good that I askto redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troublesthat may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer so I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. 'Van Helsing. Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing. ' September.Come today by quarterpast ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call. 'Wilhelmina Harker. MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL.  September.I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason of his coming it is concerning Lucy and her sleepwalking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of her sleepwalking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it and now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. I suppose a cry does us all good at timesclears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have typewritten out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him it will save much questioning. Later.He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan's journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it but it may be even a consolation and a help to himterrible though it be and awful in its consequencesto know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him that when the doubt is removed, no matter whichwaking or dreamingmay prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr. Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes tomorrow I shall ask him about Jonathan and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing Jonathan's friend on 'The Exeter News told him that memory was everything in such workthat you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview I shall try to record it verbatim. It was halfpast two o'clock when the knock came. I took my courage  deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced 'Dr. Van Helsing. I rose and bowed, and he came towards me a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power the head is noble, wellsized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, cleanshaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a goodsized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. He said to me 'Mrs. Harker, is it not? I bowed assent. 'That was Miss Mina Murray? Again I assented. 'It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come. 'Sir, I said, 'you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra. And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly 'Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began 'I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diaryyou need not look surprised, Madam Mina it was begun after you had left, and was in imitation of youand in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleepwalking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember. 'I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it. 'Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies. 'No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like. 'Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful you will do me much favour. I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bitI suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouthsso I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said 'May I read it? 'If you wish, I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. 'Oh, you so clever woman! he said. 'I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand. By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed so I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him. 'Forgive me, I said 'I could not help it but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to waitnot on my account, but because I know your time must be preciousI have written it out on the typewriter for you. He took it and his eyes glistened. 'You are so good, he said. 'And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read. 'By all means, I said, 'read it over whilst I order lunch and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat. He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands. 'Oh, Madam Mina, he said, 'how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madamhe said this very solemnly'if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you. 'But, doctor, you praise me too much, andand you do not know me. 'Not know youI, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women I, who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husbandtell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty? I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said 'He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins's death. He interrupted 'Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters. I went on 'I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock. 'A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of a shock was it? 'He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever. And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness 'My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than everand it has grown with my advancing yearsthe loneliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hopehope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happygood women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I canall to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps overanxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now afterwards you shall tell me all. After lunch, when we went back to the drawingroom, he said to me 'And now tell me all about him. When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madmanthat journal is all so strangeand I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said 'Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things. He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said 'Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane. 'Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think. 'I promise, he said as I gave him the papers 'I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may. 'Jonathan will be here at halfpast eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then you could catch the quick  train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight. He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry. So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinkingthinking I don't know what. Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker. ' September,  o'clock. 'Dear Madam Mina, 'I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others but for him and you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow and let me tell you from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that roomay, and going a second timeis not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right this I swear, before I have even seen him so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that today I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzledazzle more than ever, and I must think. 'Yours the most faithful, 'Abraham Van Helsing. Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing. ' September,  p. m. 'My dear Dr. Van Helsing, 'A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the  tonight from Launceston and will be here at , so that I shall have no fear tonight. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the  train, which will bring you to Paddington by . Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. 'Believe me, 'Your faithful and grateful friend, 'Mina Harker. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  September.I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.... He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny 'But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock. It was so funny to hear my wife called 'Madam Mina by this kindly, strongfaced old man. I smiled, and said 'I was ill, I have had a shock but you have cured me already. 'And how? 'By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't you couldn't with eyebrows like yours. He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said 'So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife. I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent. 'She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoistand that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sirI have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives. We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky. 'And now, he said, 'may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind but at first this will do. 'Look here, sir, I said, 'does what you have to do concern the Count? 'It does, he said solemnly. 'Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the  train, you will not have time to read them but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train. After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said 'Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Mina too. 'We shall both come when you will, I said. I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, 'The Westminster GazetteI knew it by the colourand he grew quite white. He read something intently, groaning to himself 'Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon! I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out 'Love to Madam Mina I shall write so soon as ever I can. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said 'Finis, and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business and he had just started in the spider line also so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today he came back, and almost bounded into the room at about halfpast five o'clock, and thrust last night's 'Westminster Gazette into my hand. 'What do you think of that? he asked as he stood back and folded his arms. I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. 'Well? he said. 'It is like poor Lucy's. 'And what do you make of it? 'Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured her has injured them. I did not quite understand his answer 'That is true indirectly, but not directly. 'How do you mean, Professor? I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightlyfor, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one's spiritsbut when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. 'Tell me! I said. 'I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture. 'Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me? 'Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood. 'And how the blood lost or waste? I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on 'You are clever man, friend John you reason well, and your wit is bold but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men's eyes, because they knowor think they knowsome things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be younglike the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism 'Yes, I said. 'Charcot has proved that pretty well. He smiled as he went on 'Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcotalas that he is no more!into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell mefor I am student of the brainhow you accept the hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricitywho would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred and sixtynine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them, and thenand then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was? 'Good God, Professor! I said, starting up. 'Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century? He waved his hand for silence, and went on 'Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are some few who live on always if they be permit that there are men and women who cannot die? We all knowbecause science has vouched for the factthat there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before? Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered he so crowded on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam but he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without this help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said 'Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going. 'That is good image, he said. 'Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this I want you to believe. 'To believe what? 'To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith 'that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe. 'Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright? 'Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children's throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy? 'I suppose so. He stood up and said solemnly 'Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no. It is worse, far, far worse. 'In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean? I cried. He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke 'They were made by Miss Lucy! FOR a while sheer anger mastered me it was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him 'Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad? He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. 'Would I were! he said. 'Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no! 'Forgive me, said I. He went on 'My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the 'no' of it it is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me? This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth Byron excepted from the category, jealousy. He saw my hesitation, and spoke 'The logic is simple, no madman's logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread yet very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose first, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then 'And then? He took a key from his pocket and held it up. 'And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffinman to give to Arthur. My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing.... We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher that was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat but, for his own part, he was inclined to think that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. 'Out of so many harmless ones, he said, 'there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape or even from the Zological Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this 'bloofer lady' scare came along, since when it has been quite a galatime with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up today, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the 'bloofer lady.'  'I hope, said Van Helsing, 'that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous and if the child were to remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it away for some days? 'Certainly not, not for a week at least longer if the wound is not healed. Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said 'There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way. We dined at 'Jack Straw's Castle along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o'clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficultyfor it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to uswe found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring, one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance when timediscoloured stone, and dustencrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silverplating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that lifeanimal lifewas not the only thing which could pass away. Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew. 'What are you going to do? I asked. 'To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced. Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said 'You shall see, and again fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fretsaw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the weekold corpse. We doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look. I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to proceed in his task. 'Are you satisfied now, friend John? he asked. I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as I answered him 'I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin but that only proves one thing. 'And what is that, friend John? 'That it is not there. 'That is good logic, he said, 'so far as it goes. But how do youhow can youaccount for it not being there? 'Perhaps a bodysnatcher, I suggested. 'Some of the undertaker's people may have stolen it. I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. 'Ah well! he said, 'we must have more proof. Come with me. He put on the coffinlid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying 'Will you keep it? You had better be assured. I laughedit was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to sayas I motioned him to keep it. 'A key is nothing, I said 'there may be duplicates and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind. He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yewtree, and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight. It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time. Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between two dark yewtrees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb at the same time a dark mass moved from the Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved but I had to go round headstones and railedoff tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered junipertrees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held it out to me, and said 'Are you satisfied now? 'No, I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive. 'Do you not see the child? 'Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded? I asked. 'We shall see, said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child. When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any kind. 'Was I right? I asked triumphantly. 'We were just in time, said the Professor thankfully. We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a policestation we should have to give some account of our movements during the night at least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find it we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the 'Spaniards, and drove to town. I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours' sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall go with him on another expedition.  September.It was two o'clock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of aldertrees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning did we desire it but the Professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably meanlooking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange and then a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me. There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. 'Is this a juggle? I said to him. 'Are you convinced now? said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. 'See, he went on, 'see, they are even sharper than before. With this and thisand he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it'the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John? Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I could not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said 'She may have been placed here since last night. 'Indeed? That is so, and by whom? 'I do not know. Some one has done it. 'And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so. I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said 'Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleepwalkingoh, you start you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all laterand in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is UnDead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the UnDead sleep at homeas he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was 'home'their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not UnDead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep. This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's theories but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he said almost joyously 'Ah, you believe now? I answered 'Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work? 'I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body. It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this UnDead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective? I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said 'I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done but there are other things to follow, and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time and to act now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child's at the hospital if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full today with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she dieif you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say goodbye as he ought and he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive and that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered and again, he will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an UnDead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for tonight to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. Tomorrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set. So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to John Seward, M. D. (Not delivered.) ' September. 'Friend John, 'I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the UnDead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave tonight, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like notgarlic and a crucifixand so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as UnDead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out they may not prevail on her wanting to get in for then the UnDead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or from her, I have no fear but that other to whom is there that she is UnDead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and we lost and in many ways the UnDead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall find me but none other shalluntil it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should his hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the UnDead woman sleep, and the one old man watch. 'Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this great UnDead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that the world may rest from him. 'If it be so, farewell. 'Van Helsing. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing's monstrous ideas but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery.  September, morning..... Last night, at a little before ten o'clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing's room he told us all that he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, 'for, he said, 'there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter? This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming. 'I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I'm about up a tree as to any meaning about anything. 'Me too, said Quincey Morris laconically. 'Oh, said the Professor, 'then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin. It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity 'I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I know, much to ask and when you know what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a timeI must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may beyou shall not blame yourselves for anything. 'That's frank anyhow, broke in Quincey. 'I'll answer for the Professor. I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest and that's good enough for me. 'I thank you, sir, said Van Helsing proudly. 'I have done myself the honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me. He held out a hand, which Quincey took. Then Arthur spoke out 'Dr. Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a pig in a poke,' as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at. 'I accept your limitation, said Van Helsing, 'and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations. 'Agreed! said Arthur 'that is only fair. And now that the pourparlers are over, may I ask what it is we are to do? 'I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at Kingstead. Arthur's face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way 'Where poor Lucy is buried? The Professor bowed. Arthur went on 'And when there? 'To enter the tomb! Arthur stood up. 'Professor, are you in earnest or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest. He sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again 'And when in the tomb? 'To open the coffin. 'This is too much! he said, angrily rising again. 'I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable but in thisthis desecration of the graveof one who He fairly choked with indignation. The Professor looked pityingly at him. 'If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend, he said, 'God knows I would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame! Arthur looked up with set white face and said 'Take care, sir, take care! 'Would it not be well to hear what I have to say? said Van Helsing. 'And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on? 'That's fair enough, broke in Morris. After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort 'Miss Lucy is dead is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead Arthur jumped to his feet. 'Good God! he cried. 'What do you mean? Has there been any mistake has she been buried alive? He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften. 'I did not say she was alive, my child I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be UnDead. 'UnDead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it? 'There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy? 'Heavens and earth, no! cried Arthur in a storm of passion. 'Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad to speak such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don't dare to think more of such a desecration I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage and, by God, I shall do it! Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, gravely and sternly 'My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, thenthen I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship's wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will. His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity 'But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For herI am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindnessI gave what you gave the blood of my veins I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights and daysbefore death, after death and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it freely. He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice 'Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand but at least I shall go with you and wait. IT was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly Van Helsing said to me 'You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin? 'It was. The Professor turned to the rest saying 'You hear and yet there is no one who does not believe with me. He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent when the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled. The coffin was empty! For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris 'Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn't ask such a thing ordinarilyI wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply a doubt but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing? 'I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came herewith good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in daytime, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John? 'Yes. 'That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the UnDead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the UnDead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so tonight before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. Sohere he shut the dark slide of his lantern'now to the outside. He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him. Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passinglike the gladness and sorrow of a man's life how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a goodsized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, waferlike biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin next he took out a doublehandful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He answered 'I am closing the tomb, so that the UnDead may not enter. 'And is that stuff you have put there going to do it? asked Quincey. 'Great Scott! Is this a game? 'It is. 'What is that which you are using? This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered 'The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence. It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor's, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously never did bough creak so mysteriously and never did the faraway howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night. There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the Professor a keen 'Ssss! He pointed and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advancea dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a darkhaired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fairhaired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yewtree, kept us back and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide by the concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn deathrobe. We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. When LucyI call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shapesaw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hellfire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a coldbloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands. She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said 'Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come! There was something diabolically sweet in her tonessomething of the tingling of glass when struckwhich rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb. When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hellfire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, bloodstained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant deathif looks could killwe saw it at that moment. And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur 'Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work? Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he answered 'Do as you will, friend do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knifeblade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door. When this was done, he lifted the child and said 'Come now, my friends we can do no more till tomorrow. There is a funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do but not like this of tonight. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by tomorrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night and then to home. Coming close to Arthur, he said 'My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial but after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time tomorrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me. Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired so we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.  September, night.A little before twelve o'clock we threeArthur, Quincey Morris, and myselfcalled for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by halfpast one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag it was manifestly of fair weight. When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all lookedArthur trembling like an aspenand saw that the body lay there in all its deathbeauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing 'Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape? 'It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her as she was, and is. She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouthwhich it made one shudder to seethe whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oillamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue flame then his operating knives, which he placed to hand and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coalcellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor's preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet. When all was ready, Van Helsing said 'Before we do anything, let me tell you this it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the UnDead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world for all that die from the preying of the UnDead becomes themselves UnDead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those UnDeads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse but if she live on, UnDead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over them they come to her and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease the tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now UnDead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not 'It was my hand that sent her to the stars it was the hand of him that loved her best the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if there be such a one amongst us? We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow 'My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter! Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said 'Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordealbe not deceived in thatbut it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time. 'Go on, said Arthur hoarsely. 'Tell me what I am to do. 'Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the deadI shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall followstrike in God's name, that so all may be well with the dead that we love and that the UnDead pass away. Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. The Thing in the coffin writhed and a hideous, bloodcurdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercybearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it the sight of it gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault. And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over. The hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on him and had he not been forced to his task by more than human considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked too and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it. There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever. Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to him 'And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven? The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said 'Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace. He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him 'And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil nownot any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil's UnDead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him! Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffinlid, and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur. Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy. Before we moved away Van Helsing said 'Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. But there remains a greater task to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of usis it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end? Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the Professor as we moved off 'Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you know not as yet and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult about, and you can help me. Tonight I leave for Amsterdam, but shall return tomorrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread. Then our promise shall be made to each other anew for there is a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare we must not draw back. WHEN we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for him 'Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.Mina Harker. The Professor was delighted. 'Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina, he said, 'pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her en route, so that she may be prepared. When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea over it he told me of a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker's diary at Whitby. 'Take these, he said, 'and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of today. What is here told, he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, 'may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another or it may sound the knell of the UnDead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for it is allimportant. You have kept diary of all these so strange things is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when we meet. He then made ready for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in. The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my guest, when a sweetfaced, daintylooking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said 'Dr. Seward, is it not? 'And you are Mrs. Harker! I answered at once whereupon she held out her hand. 'I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy but She stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face. The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sittingroom and bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker. In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder when we entered. She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here she is! Mina Harker's Journal.  September.After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward's study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at the door, and on his calling out, 'Come in, I entered. To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone, and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much interested. 'I hope I did not keep you waiting, I said 'but I stayed at the door as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you. 'Oh, he replied with a smile, 'I was only entering my diary. 'Your diary? I asked him in surprise. 'Yes, he answered. 'I keep it in this. As he spoke he laid his hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out 'Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something? 'Certainly, he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face. 'The fact is, he began awkwardly, 'I only keep my diary in it and as it is entirelyalmost entirelyabout my cases, it may be awkwardthat is, I mean He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment 'You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very dear to me. To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face 'Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world! 'Why not? I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me. Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At length he stammered out 'You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary. Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the navet of a child 'That's quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian! I could not but smile, at which he grimaced. 'I gave myself away that time! he said. 'But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up? By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and I said boldly 'Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter. He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said 'No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn't let you know that terrible story! Then it was terrible my intuition was right! For a moment I thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of typewriting on the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking, followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realised my meaning. 'You do not know me, I said. 'When you have read those papersmy own diary and my husband's also, which I have typedyou will know me better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in this cause but, of course, you do not know meyet and I must not expect you to trust me so far. He is certainly a man of noble nature poor dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and said 'You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me she told me of you too. May I make the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear themthe first halfdozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things. He carried the phonograph himself up to my sittingroom and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure for it will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one side already.... Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce dinner, so I said 'She is possibly tired let dinner wait an hour, and I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker's diary, when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had cause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could 'I greatly fear I have distressed you. 'Oh, no, not distressed me, she replied, 'but I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did. 'No one need ever know, shall ever know, I said in a low voice. She laid her hand on mine and said very gravely 'Ah, but they must! 'Must! But why? I asked. 'Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucy's death and all that led to it because in the struggle which we have before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know but I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point and I see already, though your diary only took me to  September, how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he will be here tomorrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark. She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her wishes. 'You shall, I said, 'do as you like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things yet to learn of but if you have so far travelled on the road to poor Lucy's death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark. Nay, the endthe very endmay give you a gleam of peace. Come, there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and I shall answer any questions you askif there be anything which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present. Mina Harker's Journal.  September.After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He placed me in a comfortable chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause. Then he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I put the forked metal to my ears and listened. When the terrible story of Lucy's death, andand all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a casebottle from a cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear, dear Lucy was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild, and mysterious, and strange that if I had not known Jonathan's experience in Transylvania I could not have believed. As it was, I didn't know what to believe, and so got out of my difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward 'Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell him when they come. He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about his work of going his round of the patients when he had finished he came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is the world seems full of good meneven if there are monsters in it. Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professor's perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at Exeter so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers, I borrowed the files of 'The Westminster Gazette and 'The Pall Mall Gazette, and took them to my room. I remember how much 'The Dailygraph and 'The Whitby Gazette, of which I had made cuttings, helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet. Dr. Seward's Diary.  September.Mr. Harker arrived at nine o'clock. He had got his wife's wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be trueand judging by one's own wonderful experiences, it must behe is also a man of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, businesslike gentleman who came here today. Later.After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wife's typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it is.... Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Count's hidingplace! Goodness knows that we had enough clues from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters relating to the purchase of the house were with the typescript. Oh, if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy! Stop that way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again collating his material. He says that by dinnertime they will be able to show a whole connected narrative. He thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Mrs. Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have found the dates otherwise.... I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those outbreaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire's ultimate triumph? Stay he is himself zophagous, and in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of 'master. This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away my friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, and then! So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of his so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to have a straitwaistcoat ready in case of need. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  September, in train to London.When I received Mr. Billington's courteous message that he would give me any information in his power I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo of the Count's to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station, and brought me to his father's house, where they had decided that I must stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr. Billington had ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count's table before I knew of his diabolical plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, he had 'taken no chances, and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled, was simply the logical result of his care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it 'Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes. Also the copy of letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply of both of these I got copies. This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs officers and the harbourmaster. They had all something to say of the strange entry of the ship, which is already taking its place in local tradition but no one could add to the simple description 'Fifty cases of common earth. I then saw the stationmaster, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add except that the boxes were 'main and mortal heavy, and that shifting them was dry work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn't any gentleman 'suchlike as yourself, squire, to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, for ever and adequately, this source of reproach.  September.The stationmaster was good enough to give me a line to his old companion the stationmaster at King's Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes. He, too, put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited a noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in an ex post facto manner. From thence I went on to Carter Paterson's central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their daybook and letterbook, and at once telephoned to their King's Cross office for more details. By good fortune, the men who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the waybill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly the carriers' men were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few details. These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked 'That 'ere 'ouse, guv'nor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! but it ain't been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep' on it without 'urtin' of yer bones an' the place was that neglected that yer might 'ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. But the ole chapelthat took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thort we wouldn't never git out quick enough. Lor', I wouldn't take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark. Having been in the house, I could well believe him but if he knew what I know, he would, I think, have raised his terms. Of one thing I am now satisfied that all the boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the Demeter were safely deposited in the old chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have since been removedas from Dr. Seward's diary I fear. I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good deal. Later.Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order. Mina Harker's Journal  September.I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound might act detrimentally on Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a face as I could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, however, done him good. He was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said he is true grit, and he improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and hope and determination we have got everything in order for tonight. I feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity any thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it this Thing is not humannot even beast. To read Dr. Seward's account of poor Lucy's death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in one's heart. Later.Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with him, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it brought back all poor dear Lucy's hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, has been quite 'blowing my trumpet, as Mr. Morris expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not quite know what to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge so they had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post them in affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward's diary that they had been at Lucy's deathher real deathand that I need not fear to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my husband and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lord Godalming got his and turned it overit does make a pretty good pilehe said 'Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker? I nodded, and he went on 'I don't quite see the drift of it but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in woman's nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood for when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I hope he didn't think it forward of me, and that if he ever thinks of it afterwards he never will have such a thought. There I wrong him I know he never willhe is too true a gentleman. I said to him, for I could see that his heart was breaking 'I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to her. She and I were like sisters and now she is gone, will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, won't you let me be of some little servicefor Lucy's sake? In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence found a vent at once. He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open hands, beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion. We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the motherspirit is invoked I felt this big sorrowing man's head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was. After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion. He told me that for days and nights pastweary days and sleepless nightshe had been unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of sorrow. There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or with whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which his sorrow was surrounded, he could speak freely. 'I know now how I suffered, he said, as he dried his eyes, 'but I do not know even yetand none other can ever knowhow much your sweet sympathy has been to me today. I shall know better in time and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be like a brother, will you not, for all our livesfor dear Lucy's sake? 'For dear Lucy's sake, I said as we clasped hands. 'Ay, and for your own sake, he added, 'for if a man's esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine today. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man's help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know. He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort him, so I said 'I promise. As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. He turned as he heard my footsteps. 'How is Art? he said. Then noticing my red eyes, he went on 'Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor old fellow! he needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart and he had no one to comfort him. He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would realise how much I knew so I said to him 'I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know, later on, why I speak. He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and there was a momentary choking in his throat he said quite calmly 'Little girl, you will never regret that truehearted kindness, so long as ever you live! Then he went into the study to his friend. 'Little girl!the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he proved himself a friend!  September.I got home at five o'clock, and found that Godalming and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to the carriers' men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like home. When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said 'Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary interests me so much! She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should so I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him to which he simply answered 'Why? 'She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it, I answered. 'Oh, very well, he said 'let her come in, by all means but just wait a minute till I tidy up the place. His method of tidying was peculiar he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting task, he said cheerfully 'Let the lady come in, and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might have some homicidal intent I remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command the respect of any lunaticfor easiness is one of the qualities mad people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and held out her hand. 'Goodevening, Mr. Renfield, said she. 'You see, I know you, for Dr. Seward has told me of you. He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one of wonder, which merged in doubt then, to my intense astonishment, he said 'You're not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can't be, you know, for she's dead. Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied 'Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker. 'Then what are you doing here? 'My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward. 'Then don't stay. 'But why not? I thought that this style of conversation might not be pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in 'How did you know I wanted to marry any one? His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again 'What an asinine question! 'I don't see that at all, Mr. Renfield, said Mrs. Harker, at once championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as he had shown contempt to me 'You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is so loved and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his household and his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of them hardly in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and effects. Since I myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates lean towards the errors of non causa and ignoratio elenchi. I positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunaticthe most pronounced of his type that I had ever met withtalking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. I wonder if it was Mrs. Harker's presence which had touched some chord in his memory. If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some rare gift or power. We continued to talk for some time and, seeing that he was seemingly quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the completest sanity he even took himself as an example when he mentioned certain things. 'Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his bloodrelying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.' Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn't that true, doctor? I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to either think or say it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying pleasantly to Mr. Renfield 'Goodbye, and I hope I may see you often, under auspices pleasanter to yourself, to which, to my astonishment, he replied 'Goodbye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you! When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many a long day. Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying 'Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good! As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker's suggestion at which the Professor interrupted me 'Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man's braina brain that a man should have were he much giftedand a woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us after tonight she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determinednay, are we not pledged?to destroy this monster but it is no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors and hereafter she may sufferboth in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married there may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she must consult with us but tomorrow she say goodbye to this work, and we go alone. I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we had found in his absence that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on him. 'Oh that we had known it before! he said, 'for then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, 'the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,' as you say. We shall not think of that, but go on our way to the end. Then he fell into a silence that lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for dinner he said to Mrs. Harker 'I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment. 'Not up to this moment, Professor, she said impulsively, 'but up to this morning. 'But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who has told is the worse for it. Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she said 'Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It is my record of today. I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything, however trivial but there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in? The Professor read it over gravely, and handed it back, saying 'It need not go in if you do not wish it but I pray that it may. It can but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more honour youas well as more esteem and love. She took it back with another blush and a bright smile. And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o'clock. The rest of us have already read everything so when we meet in the study we shall all be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this terrible and mysterious enemy. Mina Harker's Journal.  September.When we met in Dr. Seward's study two hours after dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. MorrisLord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said 'I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers. We all expressed assent, and he went on 'Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according. 'There are such beings as vampires some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. 'See! see! I prove I prove.' Alas! Had I known at the first what now I knownay, had I even guess at himone so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command he is brute, and more than brute he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him he can, within his range, direct the elements the storm, the fog, the thunder he can command all the meaner things the rat, and the owl, and the batthe moth, and the fox, and the wolf he can grow and become small and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win and then where end we? Life is nothings I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him that we henceforward become foul things of the night like himwithout heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all a blot on the face of God's sunshine an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow but there are fair days yet in store. What say you? Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out but it was life to me to feel its touchso strong, so selfreliant, so resolute. A brave man's hand can speak for itself it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music. When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his there was no need for speaking between us. 'I answer for Mina and myself, he said. 'Count me in, Professor, said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual. 'I am with you, said Lord Godalming, 'for Lucy's sake, if for no other reason. Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left Jonathan held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of life 'Well, you know what we have to contend against but we, too, are not without strength. We have on our side power of combinationa power denied to the vampire kind we have sources of science we are free to act and think and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have selfdevotion in a cause, and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much. 'Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular. 'All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and deathnay of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied in the first place because we have to beno other means is at our controland secondly, because, after all, these thingstradition and superstitionare everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for othersthough not, alas! for uson them? A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, sceptical, matteroffact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the Chernosese and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devilbegotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we have all we may act upon and let me tell you that very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he cannot flourish without this diet he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never! He throws no shadow he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his handwitness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he createthat noble ship's captain proved him of this but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He come on moonlight rays as elemental dustas again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so smallwe ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with firesolder you call it. He can see in the darkno small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's lawswhy we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earthhome, his coffinhome, his hellhome, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic that we know of and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace or the cutoff head that giveth rest. We have seen it with our eyes. 'Thus when we find the habitation of this manthatwas, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of BudaPesth University, to make his record and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkeyland. If it be so, then was he no common man for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.' That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as 'stregoica'witch, 'ordog,' and 'pokol'Satan and hell and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all understand too well. There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest. Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window, and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on 'And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which were delivered at Carfax we also know that at least some of these boxes have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall where we look today or whether any more have been removed. If the latter, we must trace Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistolshot the glass of the window was shattered with a bullet, which, ricochetting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked out. The men all jumped to their feet Lord Godalming flew over to the window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris's voice without 'Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it. A minute later he came in and said 'It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the windowsill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art. 'Did you hit it? asked Dr. Van Helsing. 'I don't know I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood. Without saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his statement 'We must trace each of these boxes and when we are ready, we must either capture or kill this monster in his lair or we must, so to speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak. 'And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part tonight, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men and are able to bear but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are. All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved but it did not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their safetystrength being the best safetythrough care of me but their minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me. Mr. Morris resumed the discussion 'As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now. Time is everything with him and swift action on our part may save another victim. I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, with means to get into the house. Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns. Dr. Seward's Diary.  October,  a. m.Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. I told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the morning I was busy just at the moment. The attendant added 'He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I don't know but what, if you don't see him soon, he will have one of his violent fits. I knew the man would not have said this without some cause, so I said 'All right I'll go now and I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my 'patient. 'Take me with you, friend John, said the Professor. 'His case in your diary interest me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on our case. I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is disturbed. 'May I come also? asked Lord Godalming. 'Me too? said Quincey Morris. 'May I come? said Harker. I nodded, and we all went down the passage together. We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had ever met with in a lunatic and he took it for granted that his reasons would prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room, but none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I would at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced his own existing sanity. 'I appeal to your friends, he said, 'they will, perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you have not introduced me. I was so much astonished, that the oddness of introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment and, besides, there was a certain dignity in the man's manner, so much of the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction 'Lord Godalming Professor Van Helsing Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas Mr. Renfield. He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn 'Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him and in his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have farreaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brainmatter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class. You, gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medicojurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances. He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm. I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the conviction, despite my knowledge of the man's character and history, that his reason had been restored and I felt under a strong impulse to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about the necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable. So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared to be improving very rapidly that I would have a longer chat with him in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction of meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said quickly 'But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire to go at onceherenowthis very hourthis very moment, if I may. Time presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to put before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment. He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on 'Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition? 'You have, I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally. There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly 'Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask for this concessionboon, privilege, what you will. I am content to implore in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others. I am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons but you may, I assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and unselfish, and spring from the highest sense of duty. Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and truest of your friends. Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a growing conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so determined to let him go on a little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was gazing at him with a look of utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting with the fixed concentration of his look. He said to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of it afterwardsfor it was as of one addressing an equal 'Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free tonight? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even mea stranger, without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mindDr. Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege you seek. He shook his head sadly, and with a look of poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on 'Come, sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help us and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish. He still shook his head as he said 'Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment but I am not my own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am refused, the responsibility does not rest with me. I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying 'Come, my friends, we have work to do. Goodnight. As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes so I became a little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he wanted a cat and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised, for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion 'Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you will send keepers with me with whips and chains let them take me in a straitwaistcoat, manacled and legironed, even to a gaol but let me go out of this. You don't know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heartof my very soul. You don't know whom you wrong, or how and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacredby all you hold dearby your love that is lostby your hope that livesfor the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can't you hear me, man? Can't you understand? Will you never learn? Don't you know that I am sane and earnest now that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go! I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so would bring on a fit so I took him by the hand and raised him up. 'Come, I said sternly, 'no more of this we have had quite enough already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly. He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments. Then, without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of the bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasion, just as I had expected. When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a quiet, wellbred voice 'You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you tonight.  October,  a. m.I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward 'Say, Jack, if that man wasn't attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I'm not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance. Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added 'Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I'm glad of it, for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. All is best as they are. Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way 'I don't know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I can't forget how he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count 'lord and master,' and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way. That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him, so I suppose he isn't above trying to use a respectable lunatic. He certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand, help to unnerve a man. The Professor stepped over, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way 'Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good God? Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he returned. He held up a little silver whistle, as he remarked 'That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I've got an antidote on call. Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke 'My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are of the common kindand therefore breakable or crushablehis are not amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong in all than him, can at certain times hold him but they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from his touch. Keep this near your heartas he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him'put these flowers round your neckhere he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms'for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your breast and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate needless. This was a portion of Sacred Wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others was similarly equipped. 'Now, he said, 'friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house by the window, as before at Miss Lucy's. Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as a surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in Dr. Seward's diary of the opening of Miss Westenra's tomb I fancy that the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped into the open door. 'In manus tuas, Domine! he said, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have lit our lamps we should possibly attract attention from the road. The Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it from within should we be in a hurry making our exit. Then we all lit our lamps and proceeded on our search. The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible experience in Transylvania. I think the feeling was common to us all, for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing. The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was cracked. The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spider's webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a timeyellowed label on each. They had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents in the blanket of dust, similar to that exposed when the Professor lifted them. He turned to me and said 'You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know it at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel? I had an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been able to get admission to it so I led the way, and after a few wrong turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with iron bands. 'This is the spot, said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a small map of the house, copied from the file of my original correspondence regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an odour as we encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was gloated with fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air but here the place was small and close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul. There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness. Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our enterprise to an end but this was no ordinary case, and the high and terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses. We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we began 'The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left we must then examine every hole and corner and cranny and see if we cannot get some clue as to what has become of the rest. A glance was sufficient to show how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was no mistaking them. There were only twentynine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to see the high lights of the Count's evil face, the ridge of the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for, as Lord Godalming said, 'I thought I saw a face, but it was only the shadows, and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one and as there were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid walls of the passage, there could be no hidingplace even for him. I took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing. A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats. For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great ironbound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside, and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered from behind Dr. Seward's house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed the boxes which had been taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out. Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other dogs, who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but small prey ere the whole mass had vanished. With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise. Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding ourselves in the open I know not but most certainly the shadow of dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming lost something of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a whit in our resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit. Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been rabbithunting in a summer wood. The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front. Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the halldoor from the bunch, and locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket when he had done. 'So far, he said, 'our night has been eminently successful. No harm has come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our firstand perhaps our most difficult and dangerousstep has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have learned, if it be allowable to argue a particulari that the brute beasts which are to the Count's command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him, they run pellmell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears and that monsterhe has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the last time tonight. So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity to cry 'check' in some ways in this chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content with our first night's work. It may be ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink. The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound from Renfield's room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain. I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting tonight has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours but I must be resolute, and tomorrow I shall keep dark over tonight's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her.  October, later.I suppose it was natural that we should have all overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognize me, but looked at me with a sort of blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the day. We now know of twentyone boxes having been removed, and if it be that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to trace them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and the sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas Snelling today. Dr. Seward's Diary.  October.It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and it is quite evident that last night's work has helped to take some of the brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the night he suddenly said 'Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, and reason so sound. I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to keep him waiting so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against getting any false impression from my patient. 'But, he answered, 'I want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John? 'Excuse me, I said, 'but the answer is here. I laid my hand on the typewritten matter. 'When our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement of how he used to consume life, his mouth was actually nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. Harker entered the room. Van Helsing smiled in turn. 'Good! he said. 'Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise. Who knows? I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study. 'Do I interrupt? he asked politely as he stood at the door. 'Not at all, I answered. 'Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. I can go with you now, if you like. 'It is needless I have seen him! 'Well? 'I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short. When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. 'Don't you know me? I asked. His answer was not reassuring 'I know you well enough you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thickheaded Dutchmen! Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so. 'I agree with you with all my heart, I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter. 'Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her. So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker Quincey and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earthboxes. I shall finish my round of work and we shall meet tonight. Mina Harker's Journal.  October.It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am today after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men. That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and lowspirited today. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible excitement. Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told me to. I didn't feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety. I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which is most to be deplored. If I hadn't gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now. She hadn't taken to visiting the churchyard till I came, and if she hadn't come there in the daytime with me she wouldn't have walked there in her sleep and if she hadn't gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldn't have destroyed her as he did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what has come over me today. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morningI, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tearthe dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn.... I can't quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield's room, which is somewhere under this. And then there was silence over everything, silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts must have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy creeping over me. I lay a while, but could not quite sleep, so I got out and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said, I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears. I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought but I must have fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and a little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams. I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The mist grew thicker and thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smokeor with the white energy of boiling waterpouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words 'a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. Was it indeed some such spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was composed of both the day and the nightguiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me till, as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes, such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary's Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one's reason if there were too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their fears for me. Tonight I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, I shall tomorrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night's sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all.  October  p. m.Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed but the sleep has not refreshed me, for today I feel terribly weak and spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till dinnertime, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day I could see from Jonathan's manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so sleepy as I should have been so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Goodnight.  October, evening.I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog'seared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, halfobliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at , Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical schemelet alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the southwest and west. I went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax. He replied 'Well, guv'nor, you've treated me wery 'an'someI had given him half a sovereign'an' I'll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds, in Pincher's Alley, as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in a old 'ouse at Purfect. There ain't amany such jobs as this 'ere, an' I'm thinkin' that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut. I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another halfsovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and there. At the door he stopped, and said 'Look 'ere, guv'nor, there ain't no sense in me akeepin' you 'ere. I may find Sam soon, or I mayn't but anyhow he ain't like to be in a way to tell ye much tonight. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, I'll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye tonight. But ye'd better be up arter 'im soon in the mornin', or maybe ye won't ketch 'im for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore. This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way to home. We're on the track anyhow. I am tired tonight, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision.  October, evening.A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand 'Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, , Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite. I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potter's Court. Mr. Smollet's spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court. However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran's lodginghouse. When I asked the man who came to the door for the 'depite, he shook his head, and said 'I dunno 'im. There ain't no such a person 'ere I never 'eard of 'im in all my bloomin' days. Don't believe there ain't nobody of that kind livin' ere or anywheres. I took out Smollet's letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. 'What are you? I asked. 'I'm the depity, he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track phonetic spelling had again misled me. A halfcrown tip put the deputy's knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran's, had left for his work at Poplar at five o'clock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a 'newfangled ware'us and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o'clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffeeshop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new 'cold storage building and as this suited the condition of a 'newfangled ware'us, I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day's wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes'main heavy oneswith a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied 'Well, guv'nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old 'ouse, too, though nothin' to the dustiness of the 'ouse we tooked the bloomin' boxes from. 'How did you get into the houses if they were both empty? 'There was the old party what engaged me awaitin' in the 'ouse at Purfleet. He 'elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an' him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn't throw a shadder. How this phrase thrilled through me! 'Why, 'e took up 'is end o' the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me apuffin' an' ablowin' afore I could upend mine anyhowan' I'm no chicken, neither. 'How did you get into the house in Piccadilly? I asked. 'He was there too. He must 'a' started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped me to carry the boxes into the 'all. 'The whole nine? I asked. 'Yus there was five in the first load an' four in the second. It was main dry work, an' I don't so well remember 'ow I got 'ome. I interrupted him 'Were the boxes left in the hall? 'Yus it was a big 'all, an' there was nothin' else in it. I made one more attempt to further matters 'You didn't have any key? 'Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door 'isself an' shut it again when I druv off. I don't remember the last timebut that was the beer. 'And you can't remember the number of the house? 'No, sir. But ye needn't have no difficulty about that. It's a 'igh 'un with a stone front with a bow on it, an' 'igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, 'avin' 'ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin's, an' they seein' they got so much, they wanted more but 'e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw 'im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin'. I thought that with this description I could find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience the Count could, it was evident, handle the earthboxes himself. If so, time was precious for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large noticeboard in front of the balcony it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the noticeboard intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access to the house. There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been taken, but he couldn't say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a noticeboard of 'For Sale up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons,  Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons,  Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street. The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly housewhich throughout our interview he called a 'mansionwas sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying 'It is sold, sir. 'Pardon me, I said, with equal politeness, 'but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it. Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. 'It is sold, sir, was again his laconic reply. 'Surely, I said, 'you do not mind letting me know so much. 'But I do mind, he answered. 'The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons,  Candy. This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said 'Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man. Here I handed him my card. 'In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale. These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said 'I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship's address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by tonight's post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship. I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Seward's and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Arated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train. I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her. I could not tell the others of the day's discovery till we were alone so after dinnerfollowed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselvesI took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us. When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information when I had finished Van Helsing said 'This has been a great day's work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final coup, and hunt the wretch to his real death. We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke 'Say! how are we going to get into that house? 'We got into the other, answered Lord Godalming quickly. 'But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don't see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning. Lord Godalming's brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. Byandby he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us 'Quincey's head is level. This burglary business is getting serious we got off once all right but we have now a rare job on handunless we can find the Count's key basket. As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell's, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.... Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. Tomorrow will, I hope, mend all this she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy! Dr. Seward's Diary.  October.I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own wellbeing, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destinysubjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him 'What about the flies these times? He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of waysuch a smile as would have become the face of Malvolioas he answered me 'The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature its wings are typical of the arial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly! I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly 'Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it? His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said 'Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want. Here he brightened up 'I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zophagy! This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on 'Then you command life you are a god, I suppose? He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority. 'Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually! This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall Enoch's appositeness so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic 'And why with Enoch? 'Because he walked with God. I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it so I harked back to what he had denied 'So you don't care about life and you don't want souls. Why not? I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. The effort succeeded for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied 'I don't want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don't. I couldn't use them if I had them they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn't eat them or He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a windsweep on the surface of the water. 'And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you've got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friendsgood friendslike you, Dr. Seward this was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning. 'I know that I shall never lack the means of life! I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as hea dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away. Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the record prepared by the Harkers he seems to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he might not care to go again. There was also another reason Renfield might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were alone. I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips 'What about souls? It was evident then that my surmise had been correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. 'What about them yourself? I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer. 'I don't want any souls! he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use itto 'be cruel only to be kind. So I said 'You like life, and you want life? 'Oh yes! but that is all right you needn't worry about that! 'But, I asked, 'how are we to get the life without getting the soul also? This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up 'A nice time you'll have some time when you're flying out there, with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and twittering and miauing all round you. You've got their lives, you know, and you must put up with their souls! Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me it also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a childonly a child, though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears 'Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again? He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied 'Not much! flies are poor things, after all! After a pause he added, 'But I don't want their souls buzzing round me, all the same. 'Or spiders? I went on. 'Blow spiders! What's the use of spiders? There isn't anything in them to eat orhe stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden topic. 'So, so! I thought to myself, 'this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word 'drink' what does it mean? Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it 'I don't take any stock at all in such matters. 'Rats and mice and such small deer,' as Shakespeare has it, 'chickenfeed of the larder' they might be called. I'm past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks, as to try to interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before me. 'I see, I said. 'You want big things that you can make your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant? 'What ridiculous nonsense you are talking! He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. 'I wonder, I said reflectively, 'what an elephant's soul is like! The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his highhorse and became a child again. 'I don't want an elephant's soul, or any soul at all! he said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. 'To hell with you and your souls! he shouted. 'Why do you plague me about souls? Haven't I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, without thinking of souls! He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically 'Forgive me, Doctor I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a straitwaistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand! He had evidently selfcontrol so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go when the door was closed he said, with considerable dignity and sweetness 'Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I am very, very grateful to you! I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in this man's state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls 'a story, if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are Will not mention 'drinking. Fears the thought of being burdened with the 'soul of anything. Has no dread of wanting 'life in the future. Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls. Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequencethe burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! And the assurance? Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot! Later.I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my suspicion. He grew very grave and, after thinking the matter over for a while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old the flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a notebook. We had to come away as ignorant as we went in. His is a curious case indeed we must watch him tonight. Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming. ' October. 'My Lord, 'We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. , Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald WinterSuffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes 'over the counter,' if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him. 'We are, my Lord, 'Your Lordship's humble servants, 'Mitchell, Sons  Candy. Dr. Seward's Diary.  October.I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield's room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the studyMrs. Harker having gone to bedwe discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one. Before going to bed I went round to the patient's room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart rose and fell with regular respiration. This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having 'dozed for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched. Today Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later. I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in straitwaistcoats. Later.We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work of tomorrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield's quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument with him today and his resumption of flycatching, it might afford us a valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he? That wild yell seemed to come from his room.... The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once....  October.Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten in all calmness I must proceed. When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floorindeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over 'I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed. How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said 'I can't understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can't imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn't beat his head and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it. I said to him 'Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want him without an instant's delay. The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me. I think he recognised my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant 'Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you. The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made up for, almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me 'Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation. So I said 'I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere. The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face was superficial the real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The Professor thought a moment and said 'We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late. As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in pajamas and slippers the former spoke 'I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times. I've been thinking that tomorrow night will not see things as they have been. We'll have to look backand forward a little more than we have done. May we come in? I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly 'My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil! I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after the operationfor a short time, at all events. He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him we all watched in patience. 'We shall wait, said Van Helsing, 'just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot for it is evident that the hmorrhage is increasing. The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing's face I gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men who have heard the deathwatch. The poor man's breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and speak but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of my own heart and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it. At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was sinking fast he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke 'There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear. Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments then it softened into a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said 'I'll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the straitwaistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What's wrong with my face? it feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully. He tried to turn his head but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet grave tone 'Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield. As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its mutilation, and he said 'That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry and I shall try to tell you. I dreamedhe stopped and seemed fainting, I called quietly to Quincey'The brandyit is in my studyquick! He flew and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I shall never forget, and said 'I must not deceive myself it was no dream, but all a grim reality. Then his eyes roved round the room as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on 'If I were not sure already, I would know from them. For an instant his eyes closednot with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear when he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed 'Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes and then I must go back to deathor worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn't speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied but I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I realised where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was! As he spoke, Van Helsing's eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself he nodded slightly and said 'Go on, in a low voice. Renfield proceeded 'He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before but he was solid thennot a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man's when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn't ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted tojust as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me thingsnot in words but by doing them. He was interrupted by a word from the Professor 'How? 'By making them happen just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings and big moths, in the night, with skull and crossbones on their backs. Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously 'The Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphingeswhat you call the 'Death'shead Moth'? The patient went on without stopping. 'Then he began to whisper 'Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it and not merely buzzing flies!' I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing redlike His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped and I thought he seemed to be saying 'All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!' And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him 'Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch widejust as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour. His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and he continued but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me 'Let him go on. Do not interrupt him he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought. He proceeded 'All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not even a blowfly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn't even smell the same as he went by me. I couldn't hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room. The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered his face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing 'When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn't the same it was like tea after the teapot had been watered. Here we all moved, but no one said a word he went on 'I didn't know that she was here till she spoke and she didn't look the same. I don't care for the pale people I like them with lots of blood in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn't think of it at the time but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her. I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did, but we remained otherwise still. 'So when He came tonight I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength and as I knew I was a madmanat times anyhowI resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me. I held tight and I thought I was going to win, for I didn't mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door. His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively. 'We know the worst now, he said. 'He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armedthe same as we were the other night, but lose no time there is not an instant to spare. There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into wordswe shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count's house. The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said 'They never leave me and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! that that dear Madam Mina should suffer! He stopped his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart. Outside the Harkers' door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said 'Should we disturb her? 'We must, said Van Helsing grimly. 'If the door be locked, I shall break it in. 'May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady's room! Van Helsing said solemnly, 'You are always right but this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor and even were they not they are all as one to me tonight. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove and you too, my friends. Now! He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw ourselves against it with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still. The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the whiteclad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognised the Countin every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which was shown by his tornopen dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blooddripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky and when the gaslight sprang up under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so earpiercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin from her throat trickled a thin stream of blood her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me 'Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself I must wake him! He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heartbreaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was much moonshine and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yewtree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this but at the instant I heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook. 'In God's name what does this mean? Harker cried out. 'Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to this! and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. 'Good God help us! help her! oh, help her! With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes,all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. 'What has happened? Tell me all about it! he cried without pausing. 'Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for him! His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out 'No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough tonight, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you! Her expression became frantic as she spoke and, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bed side, and clung to him fiercely. Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness 'Do not fear, my dear. We are here and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach. You are safe for tonight and we must be calm and take counsel together. She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband's breast. When she raised it, his white nightrobe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs 'Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear. To this he spoke out resolutely 'Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us! He put out his arms and folded her to his breast and for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils his mouth was set as steel. After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost 'And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact tell me all that has been. I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to see, that, whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves so on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered 'I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said gravely 'Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely! So Art went on 'He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames. Here I interrupted. 'Thank God there is the other copy in the safe! His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on 'I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfield's room but there was no trace there except! Again he paused. 'Go on, said Harker hoarsely so he bowed his head and moistening his lips with his tongue, added 'except that the poor fellow is dead. Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us she said solemnly 'God's will be done! I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked 'And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell? 'A little, he answered. 'It may be much eventually, but at present I can't say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him but I saw a bat rise from Renfield's window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax but he evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back tonight for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work tomorrow! He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating then Van Helsing said, placing his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker's head 'And now, Madam Minapoor, dear, dear Madam Minatell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained but it is need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so and now is the chance that we may live and learn. The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began 'I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mindall of them connected with death, and vampires with blood, and pain, and trouble. Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said lovingly 'Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this you will find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mistor rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappearedstood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan ' 'Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.' I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so, 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!' I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat! Her husband groaned again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one, and went on 'I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood! The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her husband's sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on 'Then he spoke to me mockingly, 'And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against meagainst me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were bornI was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh blood of my blood kin of my kin my bountiful winepress for a while and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me now you shall come to my call. When my brain says 'Come! to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding and to that end this!' With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the Oh my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear! Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution. As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair. We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action. Of this I am sure the sun rises today on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course.  October.As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God knows, required today. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are today. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is testedthat we must keep on trusting and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God! what end?... To work! To work! When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken. Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting downhe confessed to half dozingwhen he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, 'God! God! God! after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard 'voices or 'a voice, and he said he could not say that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word 'God was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant's evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result. When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence that nothing of any sortno matter how painfulshould be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. 'There must be no concealment, she said, 'Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already enduredthan I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me! Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly 'But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened? Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered 'Ah no! for my mind is made up! 'To what? he asked gently, whilst we were all very still for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact 'Because if I find in myselfand I shall watch keenly for ita sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die! 'You would not kill yourself? he asked, hoarsely. 'I would if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort! She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly 'My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my child For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat he gulped it down and went on 'There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die for if he is still with the quick UnDead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy by the day, or the night in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not dienay, nor think of deathtill this great evil be past. The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand 'I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me. She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to doif 'pleased could be used in connection with so grim an interest. As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work. 'It is perhaps well, he said, 'that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earthboxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others but now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. Today, then, is ours and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets tonight, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure. Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina's life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. 'Nay, friend Jonathan, he said, 'in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have somewhere why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search that house and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt 'stop the earths' and so we run down our old foxso? is it not? 'Then let us come at once, I cried, 'we are wasting the precious, precious time! The Professor did not move, but simply said 'And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly? 'Any way! I cried. 'We shall break in if need be. 'And your police where will they be, and what will they say? I was staggered but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could 'Don't wait more than need be you know, I am sure, what torture I am in. 'Ah, my child, that I do and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key is it not so? I nodded. 'Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get in and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do? 'I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me. 'And your police, they would interfere, would they not? 'Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed. 'Then, he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, 'all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police must indeed be zealous men and cleveroh, so clever!in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en rgle and in our work we shall be en rgle too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange but we shall go after ten o'clock, when there are many about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house. I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina's face became relaxed a thought there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on 'When once within that house we may find more clues at any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earthboxesat Bermondsey and Mile End. Lord Godalming stood up. 'I can be of some use here, he said. 'I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient. 'Look here, old fellow, said Morris, 'it is a capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horsebacking but don't you think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east and even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to. 'Friend Quincey is right! said the Professor. 'His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may. Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very palealmost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear. When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count's lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us some new clue. As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful that amongst the Count's papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count's extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina's resolution was fixed she said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together. 'As for me, she said, 'I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present. So I started up crying out 'Then in God's name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think. 'Not so! said Van Helsing, holding up his hand. 'But why? I asked. 'Do you forget, he said, with actually a smile, 'that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late? Did I forget! shall I evercan I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. 'Oh, Madam Mina, he said, 'dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so but you will forget it, will you not? He bent low beside her as he spoke she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely 'No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong. Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said 'Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's lair armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack? We all assured him. 'Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset and before then we shall returnif We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared ithad burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of whitehot metal. My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out 'Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day. They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside himself 'It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame through tears and blood through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man. There was hope in his words, and comfort and they made for resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us. It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day and we set out. To one thing I have made up my mind if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks. We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them 'And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to God. As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked. One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had found them to all appearance but in each was a portion of the Host. When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly 'So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no stain! As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform. I have written this in the train. Piccadilly,  o'clock.Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me 'Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty for under the circumstances it wouldn't seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better. I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on 'Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall let you in. 'The advice is good! said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and sprucelooking neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others. At length we saw a fourwheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris and down from the box descended a thickset working man with his rushwoven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a goodsized bunch of keys selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing's went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction. When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar. 'The place smells so vilely, said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell vilelylike the old chapel at Carfaxand with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house. In the diningroom, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stoneflagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being overlooked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects. After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the diningroom contained any effects which might belong to the Count and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great diningroom table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey notepaper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basinthe latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, waiting their returnor the coming of the Count.  October.The time seemed terribly long whilst we were waiting for the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happylooking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. Today he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and griefwritten lines of his face. His energy is still intact in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his! The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. So well as I can remember, here it is 'I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of BudaPesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemistwhich latter was the highest development of the scienceknowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yethe may be yet if we failthe father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life. Harker groaned and said, 'And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him! 'He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely that big childbrain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a childbrain for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. Festina lente may well be his motto. 'I fail to understand, said Harker wearily. 'Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain. The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke 'Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been making use of the zophagous patient to effect his entry into friend John's home for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great childbrain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help and then, when he found that this be allright, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him and none but he know where they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they do him equal well and none may know these are his hidingplace! But, my child, do not despair this knowledge come to him just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilise as for him and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. Today is our day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are five of us when those absent ones return. Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the double postman's knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a despatch. The Professor closed the door again, and, after looking at the direction, opened it and read aloud. 'Look out for D. He has just now, , come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you Mina. There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker's voice 'Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet! Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said 'God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings. 'I care for nothing now, he answered hotly, 'except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it! 'Oh, hush, hush, my child! said Van Helsing. 'God does not purchase souls in this wise and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us, we are all devoted to this cause, and today shall see the end. The time is coming for action today this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive heresee, it is twenty minutes past oneand there are yet some times before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first. About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker's telegram, there came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made the Professor's heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together moved out into the hall we each held ready to use our various armamentsthe spiritual in the left hand, the mortal in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the hall 'It is all right. We found both places six boxes in each and we destroyed them all! 'Destroyed? asked the Professor. 'For him! We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said 'There's nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesn't turn up by five o'clock, we must start off for it won't do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset. 'He will be here before long now, said Van Helsing, who had been consulting his pocketbook. 'Nota bene, in Madam's telegram he went south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one o'clock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only suspicious and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time for he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready! He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the hall door. I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be renewed instinctively. With a swift glance around the room, he at once laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along the hall the Count was evidently prepared for some surpriseat least he feared it. Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movementsomething so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lionlike disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of banknotes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignityof anger and hellish ragewhich came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenishyellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and, grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the 'ting of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us 'You think to baffle me, youwith your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already and through them you and others shall yet be minemy creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah! With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. 'We have learnt somethingmuch! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he return. As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket took the titledeeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a match. Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, bolted the stable door and by the time they had forced it open there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back of the house but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart. It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to recognise that our game was up with heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said 'Let us go back to Madam Minapoor, poor dear Madam Mina. All we can do just now is done and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need not despair. There is but one more earthbox, and we must try to find it when that is done all may yet be well. I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken down now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppresshe was thinking of his wife. With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as pale as death for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were in secret prayer and then she said cheerfully 'I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling! As she spoke, she took her husband's grey head in her hands and kissed it'Lay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He so will it in His good intent. The poor fellow groaned. There was no place for words in his sublime misery. We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry peoplefor none of us had eaten anything since breakfastor the sense of companionship may have helped us but anyhow we were all less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed and although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to her husband's arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up to the present time. Then without letting go her husband's hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teethremembering whence and how it came her loving kindness against our grim hate her tender faith against all our fears and doubting and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God. 'Jonathan, she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, 'Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fightthat you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction. As she spoke I could see her husband's face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wife's hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke 'May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it! 'Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don't say such things, Jonathan, my husband or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dearI have been thinking all this long, long day of itthat ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity and that some other like youand with equal cause for angermay deny it to me! Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought had there been another way but I pray that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the heartbroken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have come. We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone with their God. Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her husband's sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle and was, I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us shall be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done I, too, shall go to bed. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  October, close to midnight.I thought yesterday would never end. There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step was to be, but we could arrive at no result. All we knew was that one earthbox remained, and that the Count alone knew where it was. If he chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years and in the meantime!the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even now. This I know that if ever there was a woman who was all perfection, that one is my poor wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her sweet pity of last night, a pity that made my own hate of the monster seem despicable. Surely God will not permit the world to be the poorer by the loss of such a creature. This is hope to me. We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I fear what her dreams might be like, with such terrible memories to ground them in. She has not been so calm, within my seeing, since the sunset. Then, for a while, there came over her face a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March. I thought at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her face, but somehow now I think it has a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy myself, though I am wearyweary to death. However, I must try to sleep for there is tomorrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until.... Later.I must have fallen asleep, for I was awaked by Mina, who was sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face. I could see easily, for we did not leave the room in darkness she had placed a warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear 'Hush! there is someone in the corridor! I got up softly, and crossing the room, gently opened the door. Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake. He raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me 'Hush! go back to bed it is all right. One of us will be here all night. We don't mean to take any chances! His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina. She sighed and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor, pale face as she put her arms round me and said softly 'Oh, thank God for good brave men! With a sigh she sank back again to sleep. I write this now as I am not sleepy, though I must try again.  October, morning.Once again during the night I was wakened by Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a speck rather than a disc of light. She said to me hurriedly 'Go, call the Professor. I want to see him at once. 'Why? I asked. 'I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest the time is getting close. I went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and, seeing me, he sprang to his feet. 'Is anything wrong? he asked, in alarm. 'No, I replied 'but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once. 'I will go, he said, and hurried into the Professor's room. In two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressinggown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the door asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina smilea positive smile ousted the anxiety of his face he rubbed his hands as he said 'Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam Mina, as of old, back to us today! Then turning to her, he said, cheerfully 'And what am I do for you? For at this hour you do not want me for nothings. 'I want you to hypnotise me! she said. 'Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short! Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed. Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand. Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still only by the gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive. The Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration. Mina opened her eyes but she did not seem the same woman. There was a faraway look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which was new to me. Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor motioned to me to bring the others in. They came on tiptoe, closing the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on. Mina appeared not to see them. The stillness was broken by Van Helsing's voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the current of her thoughts 'Where are you? The answer came in a neutral way 'I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own. For several minutes there was silence. Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood staring at her fixedly the rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room was growing lighter without taking his eyes from Mina's face, Dr. Van Helsing motioned me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse itself through the room. On the instant the Professor spoke again 'Where are you now? The answer came dreamily, but with intention it were as though she were interpreting something. I have heard her use the same tone when reading her shorthand notes. 'I do not know. It is all strange to me! 'What do you see? 'I can see nothing it is all dark. 'What do you hear? I could detect the strain in the Professor's patient voice. 'The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves leap. I can hear them on the outside. 'Then you are on a ship? We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came quick 'Oh, yes! 'What else do you hear? 'The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the rachet. 'What are you doing? 'I am stilloh, so still. It is like death! The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again. By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Mina's shoulders, and laid her head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder to see us all around her. 'Have I been talking in my sleep? was all she said. She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling, though she was eager to know what she had told. The Professor repeated the conversation, and she said 'Then there is not a moment to lose it may not be yet too late! Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door but the Professor's calm voice called them back 'Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor whilst she spoke. There are many ships weighing anchor at the moment in your so great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be thanked that we have once again a clue, though whither it may lead us we know not. We have been blind somewhat blind after the manner of men, since when we can look back we see what we might have seen looking forward if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas, but that sentence is a puddle is it not? We can know now what was in the Count's mind, when he seize that money, though Jonathan's so fierce knife put him in the danger that even he dread. He meant escape. Hear me, ESCAPE! He saw that with but one earthbox left, and a pack of men following like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He have take his last earthbox on board a ship, and he leave the land. He think to escape, but no! we follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would say when he put on his red frock! Our old fox is wily oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile. I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while. In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are waters between us which he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he wouldunless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide. See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is to us. Let us take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, and which we can eat comfortably since he be not in the same land with us. Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked 'But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us? He took her hand and patted it as he replied 'Ask me nothings as yet. When we have breakfast, then I answer all questions. He would say no more, and we separated to dress. After breakfast Mina repeated her question. He looked at her gravely for a minute and then said sorrowfully 'Because my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever must we find him even if we have to follow him to the jaws of Hell! She grew paler as she asked faintly 'Why? 'Because, he answered solemnly, 'he can live for centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreadedsince once he put that mark upon your throat. I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint. THIS to Jonathan Harker. You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our searchif I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we seek confirmation only. But do you stay and take care of her today. This is your best and most holiest office. This day nothing can find him here. Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, for I have tell them. He, our enemy, have gone away he have gone back to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepare for this in some way, and that last earthbox was ready to ship somewheres. For this he took the money for this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before the sun go down. It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the tomb that he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep open to him. But there was not of time. When that fail he make straight for his last resourcehis last earthwork I might say did I wish double entente. He is clever, oh, so clever! he know that his game here was finish and so he decide he go back home. He find ship going by the route he came, and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound when we have discover that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope when you think it over that all is not lost. This very creature that we pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London and yet in one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out. He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose and we are all more strong together. Take heart afresh, dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle is but begun, and in the end we shall winso sure as that God sits on high to watch over His children. Therefore be of much comfort till we return. Van Helsing. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  October.When I read to Mina, Van Helsing's message in the phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably. Already the certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort and comfort is strength to her. For my own part, now that his horrible danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost impossible to believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem like a longforgotten dream. Here in the crisp autumn air in the bright sunlight Alas! how can I disbelieve! In the midst of my thought my eye fell on the red scar on my poor darling's white forehead. Whilst that lasts, there can be no disbelief. And afterwards the very memory of it will keep faith crystal clear. Mina and I fear to be idle, so we have been over all the diaries again and again. Somehow, although the reality seems greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less. There is something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is comforting. Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate good. It may be! I shall try to think as she does. We have never spoken to each other yet of the future. It is better to wait till we see the Professor and the others after their investigations. The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run for me again. It is now three o'clock. Mina Harker's Journal.  October,  p. m.Our meeting for report. Present Professor Van Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker. Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape 'As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure that he must go by the Danube mouth or by somewhere in the Black Sea, since by that way he come. It was a dreary blank that was before us. Omne ignotum pro magnifico and so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships leave for the Black Sea last night. He was in sailing ship, since Madam Mina tell of sails being set. These not so important as to go in your list of the shipping in the Times, and so we go, by suggestion of Lord Godalming, to your Lloyd's, where are note of all ships that sail, however so small. There we find that only one BlackSeabound ship go out with the tide. She is the Czarina Catherine, and she sail from Doolittle's Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the Danube. 'Soh!' said I, 'this is the ship whereon is the Count.' So off we go to Doolittle's Wharf, and there we find a man in an office of wood so small that the man look bigger than the office. From him we inquire of the goings of the Czarina Catherine. He swear much, and he red face and loud of voice, but he good fellow all the same and when Quincey give him something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he still better fellow and humble servant to us. He come with us, and ask many men who are rough and hot these be better fellows too when they have been no more thirsty. They say much of blood and bloom, and of others which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean but nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know. 'They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five o'clock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time. That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where. Some took him to the office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at shore end of gangplank, and ask that the captain come to him. The captain come, when told that he will be pay well and though he swear much at the first he agree to term. Then the thin man go and some one tell him where horse and cart can be hired. He go there and soon he come again, himself driving cart on which a great box this he himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to be place but the captain like it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it shall be. But he say 'no' that he come not yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be quickwith bloodfor that his ship will leave the placeof bloodbefore the turn of the tidewith blood. Then the thin man smile and say that of course he must go when he think fit but he will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues tell him that he doesn't want no Frenchmenwith bloom upon them and also with bloodin his shipwith blood on her also. And so, after asking where there might be close at hand a ship where he might purchase ship forms, he departed. 'No one knew where he went 'or bloomin' well cared,' as they said, for they had something else to think ofwell with blood again for it soon became apparent to all that the Czarina Catherine would not sail as was expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it grew, and grew till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all around her. The captain swore polyglotvery polyglotpolyglot with bloom and blood but he could do nothing. The water rose and rose and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gangplank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain replied that he wished that he and his boxold and with much bloom and bloodwere in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for none notice him. Indeed they thought not of him for soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again. My friends of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captain's swears exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were on movement up and down on the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. However, the ship went out on the ebb tide and was doubtless by morning far down the river mouth. She was by then, when they told us, well out to sea. 'And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time, for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way to the Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she never so quick and when we start we go on land more quick, and we meet him there. Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between sunrise and sunset for then he can make no struggle, and we may deal with him as we should. There are days for us, in which we can make ready our plan. We know all about where he go for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials and so our merchant friend will have done his part. When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna, we say 'no' for what is to be done is not for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone and in our own way. When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied 'We have the best proof of that your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance this morning. I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing passion, at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master amongst men 'Yes, it is necessarynecessarynecessary! For your sake in the first, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small measure in darkness and not knowing. All this have I told these others you, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of my friend John, or in that of your husband. I have told them how the measure of leaving his own barren landbarren of peoplesand coming to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries. Were another of the UnDead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in some wondrous way. The very place, where he have been alive, UnDead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way and in himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man. In him some vital principle have in strange way found their utmost and as his body keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too. All this without that diabolic aid which is surely to him for it have to yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good. And now this is what he is to us. He have infect youoh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say such but it is for good of you that I speak. He infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to liveto live in your own old, sweet way and so in time, death, which is of man's common lot and with God's sanction, shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not. Thus are we ministers of God's own wish that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause. He paused and I said 'But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely? Since he has been driven from England, will he not avoid it, as a tiger does the village from which he has been hunted? 'Aha! he said, 'your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall adopt him. Your maneater, as they of India call the tiger who has once tasted blood of the human, care no more for the other prey, but prowl unceasing till he get him. This that we hunt from our village is a tiger, too, a maneater, and he never cease to prowl. Nay, in himself he is not one to retire and stay afar. In his life, his living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground he be beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. Look at his persistence and endurance. With the childbrain that was to him he have long since conceive the idea of coming to a great city. What does he do? He find out the place of all the world most of promise for him. Then he deliberately set himself down to prepare for the task. He find in patience just how is his strength, and what are his powers. He study new tongues. He learn new social life new environment of old ways, the politic, the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new land and a new people who have come to be since he was. His glimpse that he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire. Nay, it help him to grow as to his brain for it all prove to him how right he was at the first in his surmises. He have done this alone all alone! from a ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him. He that can smile at death, as we know him who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh, if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours. But we are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret for in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we lovefor the good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God. After a general discussion it was determined that for tonight nothing be definitely settled that we should all sleep on the facts, and try to think out the proper conclusions. Tomorrow, at breakfast, we are to meet again, and, after making our conclusions known to one another, we shall decide on some definite cause of action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I feel a wonderful peace and rest tonight. It is as if some haunting presence were removed from me. Perhaps ... My surmise was not finished, could not be for I caught sight in the mirror of the red mark upon my forehead and I knew that I was still unclean. Dr. Seward's Diary.  October.We all rose early, and I think that sleep did much for each and all of us. When we met at early breakfast there was more general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience again. It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any wayeven by deathand we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker's forehead that I was brought back to reality. Even now, when I am gravely revolving the matter, it is almost impossible to realise that the cause of all our trouble is still existent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells it is only now and again, when something recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible scar. We are to meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on our course of action. I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it by instinct rather than reason we shall all have to speak frankly and yet I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker's tongue is tied. I know that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be but she will not, or cannot, give them utterance. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and he and I are to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is some of that horrid poison which has got into her veins beginning to work. The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called 'the Vampire's baptism of blood. Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything! One thing I know that if my instinct be true regarding poor Mrs. Harker's silences, then there is a terrible difficultyan unknown dangerin the work before us. The same power that compels her silence may compel her speech. I dare not think further for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman! Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall try to open the subject with him. Later.When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of things. I could see that he had something on his mind which he wanted to say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject. After beating about the bush a little, he said suddenly 'Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, just at the first at any rate. Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence then he stopped, so I waited he went on 'Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is changing. A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed. Van Helsing continued 'With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned before things go too far. Our task is now in reality more difficult than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst importance. I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now but very, very slight but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the silence now often as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotise her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, compel her mind to disclose to him that which she know? I nodded acquiescence he went on 'Then, what we must do is to prevent this we must keep her ignorant of our intent, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful task! Oh, so painful that it heartbreak me to think of but it must be. When today we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by us. He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration at the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor soul already so tortured. I knew that it would be some sort of comfort to him if I told him that I also had come to the same conclusion for at any rate it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the effect was as I expected. It is now close to the time of our general gathering. Van Helsing has gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it. I really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone. Later.At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realised the danger herself, it was much pain as well as much danger averted. Under the circumstances we agreed, by a questioning look and answer, with finger on lip, to preserve silence in our suspicions, until we should have been able to confer alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. Van Helsing roughly put the facts before us first 'The Czarina Catherine left the Thames yesterday morning. It will take her at the quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to reach Varna but we can travel overland to the same place in three days. Now, if we allow for two days less for the ship's voyage, owing to such weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear and if we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us, then we have a margin of nearly two weeks. Thus, in order to be quite safe, we must leave here on th at latest. Then we shall at any rate be in Varna a day before the ship arrives, and able to make such preparations as may be necessary. Of course we shall all go armedarmed against evil things, spiritual as well as physical. Here Quincey Morris added 'I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and it may be that he shall get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to our armament. I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk? What wouldn't we have given then for a repeater apiece! 'Good! said Van Helsing, 'Winchesters it shall be. Quincey's head is level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, metaphor be more dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man. In the meantime we can do nothing here and as I think that Varna is not familiar to any of us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. Tonight and tomorrow we can get ready, and then, if all be well, we four can set out on our journey. 'We four? said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of us. 'Of course! answered the Professor quickly, 'you must remain to take care of your so sweet wife! Harker was silent for awhile and then said in a hollow voice 'Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to consult with Mina. I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to disclose our plans to her but he took no notice. I looked at him significantly and coughed. For answer he put his finger on his lips and turned away. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  October, afternoon.For some time after our meeting this morning I could not think. The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of wonder which allows no room for active thought. Mina's determination not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking and as I could not argue the matter with her, I could only guess. I am as far as ever from a solution now. The way the others received it, too, puzzled me the last time we talked of the subject we agreed that there was to be no more concealment of anything amongst us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God, there are such moments still for her. Later.How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina's happy sleep, and came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be. As the evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun sinking lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly, said 'Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. A promise made to me, but made holily in God's hearing, and not to be broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once. 'Mina, I said, 'a promise like that, I cannot make at once. I may have no right to make it. 'But, dear one, she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes were like pole stars, 'it is I who wish it and it is not for myself. You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right if he disagrees you may do as you will. Nay, more, if you all agree, later, you are absolved from the promise. 'I promise! I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy though to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. She said 'Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans formed for the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or inference, or implication not at any time whilst this remains to me! and she solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was in earnest, and said solemnly 'I promise! and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us. Later, midnight.Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening. So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected somewhat with her gaiety as a result even I myself felt as if the pall of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted. We all retired early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child it is a wonderful thing that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst of her terrible trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her care. Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did tonight. I shall try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep.  October, morning.Another surprise. Mina woke me early, about the same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without question went for the Professor. He had evidently expected some such call, for I found him dressed in his room. His door was ajar, so that he could hear the opening of the door of our room. He came at once as he passed into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come, too. 'No, she said quite simply, 'it will not be necessary. You can tell them just as well. I must go with you on your journey. Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moment's pause he asked 'But why? 'You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer, too. 'But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than any of us fromfrom circumstancesthings that have been. He paused, embarrassed. As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead 'I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, whilst the sun is coming up I may not be able again. I know that when the Count wills me I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by wile by any device to hoodwinkeven Jonathan. God saw the look that she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording Angel that look is noted to her everlasting honour. I could only clasp her hand. I could not speak my emotion was too great for even the relief of tears. She went on 'You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers, for you can defy that which would break down the human endurance of one who had to guard alone. Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me and so learn that which even I myself do not know. Dr. Van Helsing said very gravely 'Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come and together we shall do that which we go forth to achieve. When he had spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow asleep she did not even wake when I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing motioned to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris were with us also. He told them what Mina had said, and went on 'In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a new factor Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is to her an agony to tell us so much as she has done but it is most right, and we are warned in time. There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be ready to act the instant when that ship arrives. 'What shall we do exactly? asked Mr. Morris laconically. The Professor paused before replying 'We shall at the first board that ship then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten, for when it is there none can emerge so at least says the superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first it was man's faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still. Then, when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall open the box, andand all will be well. 'I shall not wait for any opportunity, said Morris. 'When I see the box I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a thousand men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment! I grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a piece of steel. I think he understood my look I hope he did. 'Good boy, said Dr. Van Helsing. 'Brave boy. Quincey is all man. God bless him for it. My child, believe me none of us shall lag behind or pause from any fear. I do but say what we may dowhat we must do. But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things which may happen, and their ways and their ends are so various that until the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways and when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now let us today put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete for none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are regulate and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangements for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so forth for our journey. There was nothing further to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come.... Later.It is all done my will is made, and all complete. Mina if she survive is my sole heir. If it should not be so, then the others who have been so good to us shall have remainder. It is now drawing towards the sunset Mina's uneasiness calls my attention to it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the time of exact sunset will reveal. These occasions are becoming harrowing times for us all, for each sunrise and sunset opens up some new dangersome new pain, which, however, may in God's will be means to a good end. I write all these things in the diary since my darling must not hear them now but if it may be that she can see them again, they shall be ready. She is calling to me.  October, Evening.Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record kept. I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before the time of sunset. We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows when, however, the freedom ceases the changeback or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of warning silence. Tonight, when we met, she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the signs of an internal struggle. I put it down myself to her making a violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so. A very few minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself then, motioning her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she was half reclining, she made the rest of us bring chairs up close. Taking her husband's hand in hers began 'We are all here together in freedom, for perhaps the last time! I know, dear I know that you will always be with me to the end. This was to her husband whose hand had, as we could see, tightened upon hers. 'In the morning we go out upon our task, and God alone knows what may be in store for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me with you. I know that all that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak woman, whose soul perhaps is lostno, no, not yet, but is at any rate at stakeyou will do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me which must destroy me, unless some relief comes to us. Oh, my friends, you know as well as I do, that my soul is at stake and though I know there is one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it! She looked appealingly to us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband. 'What is that way? asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. 'What is that way, which we must notmay nottake? 'That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before the greater evil is entirely wrought. I know, and you know, that were I once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as you did my poor Lucy's. Were death, or the fear of death, the only thing that stood in the way I would not shrink to die here, now, amidst the friends who love me. But death is not all. I cannot believe that to die in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task to be done, is God's will. Therefore, I, on my part, give up here the certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the blackest things that the world or the nether world holds! We were all silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a prelude. The faces of the others were set and Harker's grew ashen grey perhaps he guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued 'This is what I can give into the hotchpot. I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness. 'What will each of you give? Your lives I know, she went on quickly, 'that is easy for brave men. Your lives are God's, and you can give them back to Him but what will you give to me? She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her husband's face. Quincey seemed to understand he nodded, and her face lit up. 'Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and alleven you, my beloved husbandthat, should the time come, you will kill me. 'What is that time? The voice was Quincey's, but it was low and strained. 'When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better that I die than I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, without a moment's delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest! Quincey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down before her and taking her hand in his said solemnly 'I'm only a rough fellow, who hasn't, perhaps, lived as a man should to win such a distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has come! 'My true friend! was all she could say amid her fastfalling tears, as, bending over, she kissed his hand. 'I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina! said Van Helsing. 'And I! said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her waneyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked 'And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife? 'You too, my dearest, she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her voice and eyes. 'You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is men's duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy's case to him who lovedshe stopped with a flying blush, and changed her phrase'to him who had best right to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make it a happy memory of my husband's life that it was his loving hand which set me free from the awful thrall upon me. 'Again I swear! came the Professor's resonant voice. Mrs. Harker smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she leaned back and said 'And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and unexpectedly, and in such case you must lose no time in using your opportunity. At such a time I myself might benay! if the time ever comes, shall beleagued with your enemy against you. 'One more request she became very solemn as she said this, 'it is not vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for me, if you will. We all acquiesced, but no one spoke there was no need to speak 'I want you to read the Burial Service. She was interrupted by a deep groan from her husband taking his hand in hers, she held it over her heart, and continued 'You must read it over me some day. Whatever may be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory for evercome what may! 'But oh, my dear one, he pleaded, 'death is afar off from you. 'Nay, she said, holding up a warning hand. 'I am deeper in death at this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me! 'Oh, my wife, must I read it? he said, before he began. 'It would comfort me, my husband! was all she said and he began to read when she had got the book ready. 'How can Ihow could any onetell of that strange scene, its solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror and, withal, its sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady or heard the tender passion of her husband's voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the Dead. II cannot go onwordsandvvoiceffail mme! She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it comforted us much and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker's coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had dreaded. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  October, Varna.We left Charing Cross on the morning of the th, got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the Orient Express. We travelled night and day, arriving here at about five o'clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this hotel'the Odessus. The journey may have had incidents I was, however, too eager to get on, to care for them. Until the Czarina Catherine comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything in the wide world. Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting stronger her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time. Before sunrise and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert and it has become a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotise her at such times. At first, some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes but now, she seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcely any action is needed. He seems to have power at these particular moments to simply will, and her thoughts obey him. He always asks her what she can see and hear. She answers to the first 'Nothing all is dark. And to the second 'I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing by. Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards creak. The wind is highI can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam. It is evident that the Czarina Catherine is still at sea, hastening on her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just returned. He had four telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect that the Czarina Catherine had not been reported to Lloyd's from anywhere. He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported. He was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he might be sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of the wire. We had dinner and went to bed early. Tomorrow we are to see the ViceConsul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get on the boat between sunrise and sunset. The Count, even if he takes the form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition, and so cannot leave the ship. As he dare not change to man's form without suspicionwhich he evidently wishes to avoidhe must remain in the box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, before he wakes. What mercy he shall get from us will not count for much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think!  October.Mina's report still the same lapping waves and rushing water, darkness and favouring winds. We are evidently in good time, and when we hear of the Czarina Catherine we shall be ready. As she must pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  October.Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome the Count on his return from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something stolen from a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open it at his own risk. The owner gave him a paper telling the Captain to give him every facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship, and also a similar authorisation to his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent, who was much impressed with Godalming's kindly manner to him, and we are all satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our wishes will be done. We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall have ready. The Professor says that if we can so treat the Count's body, it will soon after fall into dust. In such case there would be no evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were aroused. But even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act, and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come between some of us and a rope. For myself, I should take the chance only too thankfully if it were to come. We mean to leave no stone unturned to carry out our intent. We have arranged with certain officials that the instant the Czarina Catherine is seen, we are to be informed by a special messenger.  October.A whole week of waiting. Daily telegrams to Godalming, but only the same story 'Not yet reported. Mina's morning and evening hypnotic answer is unvaried lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts. Telegram, October th. Rufus Smith, Lloyd's, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H. B. M. ViceConsul, Varna. 'Czarina Catherine reported this morning from Dardanelles. Dr. Seward's Diary.  October.How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd's. I know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard. Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After all, it is not strange that she did not for we took special care not to let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to show any excitement when we were in her presence. In old days she would, I am sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to conceal it but in this way she is greatly changed during the past three weeks. The lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong and well, and is getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We talk of her often we have not, however, said a word to the others. It would break poor Harker's heartcertainly his nerveif he knew that we had even a suspicion on the subject. Van Helsing examines, he tells me, her teeth very carefully, whilst she is in the hypnotic condition, for he says that so long as they do not begin to sharpen there is no active danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not mention our thoughts to each other. We should neither of us shrink from the taskawful though it be to contemplate. 'Euthanasia is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it. It is only about  hours' sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the rate the Czarina Catherine has come from London. She should therefore arrive some time in the morning but as she cannot possibly get in before then, we are all about to retire early. We shall get up at one o'clock, so as to be ready.  October, Noon.No news yet of the ship's arrival. Mrs. Harker's hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible that we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm his hands are cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad lookout for the Count if the edge of that 'Kukri ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, icecold hand! Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker today. About noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like although we kept silence to the others, we were neither of us happy about it. She had been restless all the morning, so that we were at first glad to know that she was sleeping. When, however, her husband mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her, we went to her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally and looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that the sleep was better for her than anything else. Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good. Later.Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she had been for days. At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To his doom, I trust!  October.Another day and no tidings of the Czarina Catherine. She ought to be here by now. That she is still journeying somewhere is apparent, for Mrs. Harker's hypnotic report at sunrise was still the same. It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for fog some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog both to north and south of the port. We must continue our watching, as the ship may now be signalled any moment.  October, Noon.Most strange no news yet of the ship we wait for. Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual 'lapping waves and rushing water, though she added that 'the waves were very faint. The telegrams from London have been the same 'no further report. Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he fears the Count is escaping us. He added significantly 'I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina's. Souls and memories can do strange things during trance. I was about to ask him more, but Harker just then came in, and he held up a warning hand. We must try tonight at sunset to make her speak more fully when in her hypnotic state.  October.Telegram. Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, care H. B. M. Vice Consul, Varna. 'Czarina Catherine reported entering Galatz at one o'clock today. Dr. Seward's Diary.  October.When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would come but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things would not be just as we had expected we only waited to learn where the change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a willo'thewisp to man. It was an odd experience and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty but he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well in our old wandering days it meant 'action. Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiledactually smiledthe dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. 'When does the next train start for Galatz? said Van Helsing to us generally. 'At  tomorrow morning! We all started, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker. 'How on earth do you know? said Art. 'You forgetor perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsingthat I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the timetables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the timetables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train tomorrow leaves as I say. 'Wonderful woman! murmured the Professor. 'Can't we get a special? asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his head 'I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the ViceConsul, and get his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report. 'And I, said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, 'shall try to be of use in all ways, and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late! The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to realise the significance of her words but Van Helsing and I, turning to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the time, however. When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of Harker's journal at the Castle. She went away to get it when the door was shut upon her he said to me 'We mean the same! speak out! 'There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us. 'Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript? 'No! said I, 'unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone. 'You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a greata terriblerisk but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her mind or more like he took her to see him in his earthbox in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here for she have more to tell in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffinbox. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not. 'He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call but he cut her offtake her, as he can do, out of his own power, that so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our manbrains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his childbrain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina not a word to her of her trance! She know it not and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage when most we want all her great brain which is trained like man's brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogetherthough he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes! I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into the room, bright and happylooking and, in the doing of work, seemingly forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face brightening up as he read. Then holding the pages between his finger and thumb he said 'Friend John, to you with so much of experience alreadyand you, too, dear Madam Mina, that are younghere is a lesson do not fear ever to think. A halfthought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that halfthought come from and I find that he be no halfthought at all that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the 'Ugly Duck of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duckthought at all, but a big swanthought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I read here what Jonathan have written 'That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph. 'What does this tell us? Not much? no! The Count's childthought see nothing therefore he speak so free. Your manthought see nothing my manthought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it meanwhat it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touchthen pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some but that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? 'Yes' and 'No.' You, John, yes for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina for crime touch you notnot but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crimethat is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full manbrain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful but he be not of manstature as to brain. He be of childbrain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also he, too, have childbrain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. 'Dos pou sto,' said Archimedes. 'Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!' To do once, is the fulcrum whereby childbrain become manbrain and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues, for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled. He went on 'Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes. He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke 'The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and qu criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we knowand that from his own lipstells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a 'tight place,' he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself for a new effort. He came again better equipped for his work and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey Land. 'Good, good! oh, you so clever lady! said Van Helsing, enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sickroom consultation 'Seventytwo only and in all this excitement. I have hope. Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation 'But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear! 'I will try to but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical. 'Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think. 'Then, as he is criminal he is selfish and as his intellect is small and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour and all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for his ends. The Professor stood up 'He has so used your mind and by it he has left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his childmind only saw so far and it may be that, as ever is in God's Providence, the very thing that the evildoer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his selfish childbrain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his and this power to good of you and others, as you have won from your suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious that he know it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where. We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him and we shall not flinch even if we peril ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can give it to them then they shall know as we do. And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us.  October.This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset. Each of us had done his work as well as he could so far as thought, and endeavour, and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came round Mrs. Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort and after a longer and more serious effort on the part of Van Helsing than has been usually necessary, she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks on a hint but this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and to ask them pretty resolutely, before we could learn anything at last her answer came 'I can see nothing we are still there are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged along. What is this? There is a gleam of light I can feel the air blowing upon me. Here she stopped. She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she lay on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other with understanding. Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently, whilst Harker's hand instinctively closed round the hilt of his Kukri. There was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was passing but we felt that it was useless to say anything. Suddenly she sat up, and, as she opened her eyes, said sweetly 'Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired! We could only make her happy, and so acquiesced. She bustled off to get tea when she had gone Van Helsing said 'You see, my friends. He is close to land he has left his earthchest. But he has yet to get on shore. In the night he may lie hidden somewhere but if he be not carried on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot achieve the land. In such case he can, if it be in the night, change his form and can jump or fly on shore, as he did at Whitby. But if the day come before he get on shore, then, unless he be carried he cannot escape. And if he be carried, then the customs men may discover what the box contain. Thus, in fine, if he escape not on shore tonight, or before dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him. We may then arrive in time for if he escape not at night we shall come on him in daytime, boxed up and at our mercy for he dare not be his true self, awake and visible, lest he be discovered. There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker. Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her response in her trance. The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming than before and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise was so short that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to throw his whole soul into the effort at last, in obedience to his will she made reply 'All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking as of wood on wood. She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till tonight. And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of expectation. We are due to arrive between two and three in the morning but already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we cannot possibly get in till well after sunup. Thus we shall have two more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker either or both may possibly throw more light on what is happening. Later.Sunset has come and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction for had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count's sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Count's power over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be a happy thought but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were enigmatical 'Something is going out I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can hear, far off, confused soundsas of men talking in strange tongues, fiercefalling water, and the howling of wolves. She stopped and a shudder ran through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till, at the end, she shook as though in a palsy. She said no more, even in answer to the Professor's imperative questioning. When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid but her mind was all alert. She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said when she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in silence.  October,  a. m.We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to write later. Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all. Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance, Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual. They produced no effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor lost no time in his questioning her answer came with equal quickness 'All is dark. I hear water swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood. Cattle low far off. There is another sound, a queer one like She stopped and grew white, and whiter still. 'Go on go on! Speak, I command you! said Van Helsing in an agonised voice. At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen sun was reddening even Mrs. Harker's pale face. She opened her eyes, and we all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost unconcern 'Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can't? I don't remember anything. Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said, turning from one to the other with a troubled look 'What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing, only that I was lying here, half asleep, and heard you say go on! speak, I command you!' It seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad child! 'Oh, Madam Mina, he said, sadly, 'it is proof, if proof be needed, of how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I am proud to obey! The whistles are sounding we are nearing Galatz. We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness. Mina Harker's Journal.  October.Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the ViceConsul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival of the Czarina Catherine. Later.Lord Godalming has returned. The Consul is away, and the ViceConsul sick so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk. He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power. Jonathan Harker's Journal.  October.At nine o'clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called on Messrs. Mackenzie  Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of Hapgood. They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord Godalming's telegraphed request, asking us to show them any civility in their power. They were more than kind and courteous, and took us at once on board the Czarina Catherine, which lay at anchor out in the river harbour. There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run. 'Man! he said, 'but it made us afeard, for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi' some rare piece o' ill luck, so as to keep up the average. It's no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi' a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin' on yer sail for his ain purpose. An' a' the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi' us, till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could we see. We ran by Gibraltar wi'oot bein' able to signal an' till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o' aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the fog was lifted but whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit wi' the owners, or no hurt to our traffic an' the Old Mon who had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin' him. This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said 'Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some and he know when he meet his match! The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on 'When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble some o' them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had been put on board by a queer lookin' old man just before we had started frae London. I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out their twa fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly rideeculous! I sent them aboot their business pretty quick but as just after a fog closed in on us I felt a wee bit as they did anent something, though I wouldn't say it was agin the big box. Well, on we went, and as the fog didn't let up for five days I joost let the wind carry us for if the Deil wanted to get somewhereswell, he would fetch it up a'reet. An' if he didn't, well, we'd keep a sharp lookout anyhow. Sure eneuch, we had a fair way and deep water all the time and two days ago, when the mornin' sun came through the fog, we found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz. The Roumanians were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the box and fling it in the river. I had to argy wi' them aboot it wi' a handspike an' when the last o' them rose off the deck wi' his head in his hand, I had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the property and the trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the river Danube. They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to fling in, and as it was marked Galatz via Varna, I thocht I'd let it lie till we discharged in the port an' get rid o't althegither. We didn't do much clearin' that day, an' had to remain the nicht at anchor but in the mornin', braw an' airly, an hour before sunup, a man came aboard wi' an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one Count Dracula. Sure eneuch the matter was one ready to his hand. He had his papers a' reet, an' glad I was to be rid o' the dam' thing, for I was beginnin' masel' to feel uneasy at it. If the Deil did have any luggage aboord the ship, I'm thinkin' it was nane ither than that same! 'What was the name of the man who took it? asked Dr. Van Helsing with restrained eagerness. 'I'll be tellin' ye quick! he answered, and, stepping down to his cabin, produced a receipt signed 'Immanuel Hildesheim. Burgenstrasse  was the address. We found out that this was all the Captain knew so with thanks we came away. We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez. His arguments were pointed with speciewe doing the punctuationand with a little bargaining he told us what he knew. This turned out to be simple but important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the Czarina Catherine. This he was to give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with the Slovaks who traded down the river to the port. He had been paid for his work by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube International Bank. When Skinsky had come to him, he had taken him to the ship and handed over the box, so as to save porterage. That was all he knew. We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his neighbours, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he had gone away two days before, no one knew whither. This was corroborated by his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of the house together with the rent due, in English money. This had been between ten and eleven o'clock last night. We were at a standstill again. Whilst we were talking one came running and breathlessly gasped out that the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal. Those we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror, the women crying out 'This is the work of a Slovak! We hurried away lest we should have been in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained. As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion. We were all convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere but where that might be we would have to discover. With heavy hearts we came home to the hotel to Mina. When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina again into our confidence. Things are getting desperate, and it is at least a chance, though a hazardous one. As a preliminary step, I was released from my promise to her. Mina Harker's Journal.  October, evening.They were so tired and worn out and dispirited that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest so I asked them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything up to the moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the 'Traveller's typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for me. I should have felt quite astray doing the work if I had to write with a pen.... It is all done poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered, what must he be suffering now. He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse. His brows are knit his face is drawn with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I can see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his thoughts. Oh! if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can. I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I have not yet seen.... Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion. I shall try to follow the Professor's example, and think without prejudice on the facts before me.... I do believe that under God's providence I have made a discovery. I shall get the maps and look over them.... I am more than ever sure that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so I shall get our party together and read it. They can judge it it is well to be accurate, and every minute is precious. Mina Harker's Memorandum. (Entered in her Journal.) Ground of inquiry.Count Dracula's problem is to get back to his own place. (a) He must be brought back by some one. This is evident for had he power to move himself as he wished he could go either as man, or wolf, or bat, or in some other way. He evidently fears discovery or interference, in the state of helplessness in which he must beconfined as he is between dawn and sunset in his wooden box. (b) How is he to be taken?Here a process of exclusions may help us. By road, by rail, by water? . By Road.There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the city. (x) There are people and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him. (y) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers to pass. (z) His pursuers might follow. This is his highest fear and in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even his victimme! . By Rail.There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed and delay would be fatal, with enemies on the track. True, he might escape at night but what would he be, if left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not what he intends and he does not mean to risk it. . By Water.Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night even then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless and he would indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land but if it were unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate. We know from the record that he was on the water so what we have to do is to ascertain what water. The first thing is to realise exactly what he has done as yet we may, then, get a light on what his later task is to be. Firstly.We must differentiate between what he did in London as part of his general plan of action, when he was pressed for moments and had to arrange as best he could. Secondly we must see, as well as we can surmise it from the facts we know of, what he has done here. As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz, and sent invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain his means of exit from England his immediate and sole purpose then was to escape. The proof of this, is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim to clear and take away the box before sunrise. There is also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. These we must only guess at but there must have been some letter or message, since Skinsky came to Hildesheim. That, so far, his plans were successful we know. The Czarina Catherine made a phenomenally quick journeyso much so that Captain Donelson's suspicions were aroused but his superstition united with his canniness played the Count's game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the Count's arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took itand here we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been avoided. Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrivalon land, at Galatz. The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to aid in the work? In my husband's diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port and the man's remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation. My surmise is, this that in London the Count decided to get back to his castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from the castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London. Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought, by murdering his agent. I have examined the map and find that the river most suitable for the Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then, was on a river in an open boatpropelled probably either by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There would be no such sound if floating down stream. Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula's castle as can be got by water. Mina Harker's Journalcontinued. When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said 'Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have been where we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless and if we can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave his box lest those who carry him may suspect for them to suspect would be to prompt them to throw him in the stream where he perish. This he knows, and will not. Now men, to our Council of War for, here and now, we must plan what each and all shall do. 'I shall get a steam launch and follow him, said Lord Godalming. 'And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land, said Mr. Morris. 'Good! said the Professor, 'both good. But neither must go alone. There must be force to overcome force if need be the Slovak is strong and rough, and he carries rude arms. All the men smiled, for amongst them they carried a small arsenal. Said Mr. Morris 'I have brought some Winchesters they are pretty handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other precautions he made some requisitions on others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand. We must be ready at all points. Dr. Seward said 'I think I had better go with Quincey. We have been accustomed to hunt together, and we two, well armed, will be a match for whatever may come along. You must not be alone, Art. It may be necessary to fight the Slovaks, and a chance thrustfor I don't suppose these fellows carry gunswould undo all our plans. There must be no chances, this time we shall not rest until the Count's head and body have been separated, and we are sure that he cannot reincarnate. He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was torn about in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me but then the boat service would, most likely, be the one which would destroy the ... the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke 'Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons. First, because you are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed at the last and again that it is your right to destroy himthatwhich has wrought such woe to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina she will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as once and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service I can fight in other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let me say that what I would is this while you, my Lord Godalming and friend Jonathan go in your so swift little steamboat up the river, and whilst John and Quincey guard the bank where perchance he might be landed, I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy's country. Whilst the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to landwhere he dares not raise the lid of his coffinbox lest his Slovak carriers should in fear leave him to perishwe shall go in the track where Jonathan went,from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam Mina's hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our wayall dark and unknown otherwiseafter the first sunrise when we are near that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated. Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly 'Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as she is with that devil's illness, right into the jaws of his deathtrap? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell! He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on 'Do you know what the place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamywith the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo? Have you felt the Vampire's lips upon your throat? Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up his arms with a cry 'Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us! and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery. The Professor's voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to vibrate in the air, calmed us all 'Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that place. There is workwild workto be done there, that her eyes may not see. We men here, all save Jonathan, have seen with their own eyes what is to be done before that place can be purify. Remember that we are in terrible straits. If the Count escape us this timeand he is strong and subtle and cunninghe may choose to sleep him for a century, and then in time our dear onehe took my hand'would come to him to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips you heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder and well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for the which I am giving, possibly my life? If it were that any one went into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go to keep them company. 'Do as you will, said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over, 'we are in the hands of God! Later.Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked. How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and so brave! And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied and what might it do when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour. It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each of us was to do and now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready to start at a moment's notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well appointed. We have all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the  train tonight for Veresti, where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are bringing a good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust in the matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so we shall get on all right. We have all got arms, even for me a largebore revolver Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest. Alas! I cannot carry one arm that the rest do the scar on my forehead forbids that. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling me that I am fully armed as there may be wolves the weather is getting colder every hour, and there are snowflurries which come and go as warnings. Later.It took all my courage to say goodbye to my darling. We may never meet again. Courage, Mina! the Professor is looking at you keenly his look is a warning. There must be no tears nowunless it may be that God will let them fall in gladness. Jonathan Harker's Journal. October . Night.I am writing this in the light from the furnace door of the steam launch Lord Godalming is firing up. He is an experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. Regarding our plans, we finally decided that Mina's guess was correct, and that if any waterway was chosen for the Count's escape back to his Castle, the Sereth and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one. We took it, that somewhere about the th degree, north latitude, would be the place chosen for the crossing the country between the river and the Carpathians. We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at night there is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough. Lord Godalming tells me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be on watch. But I cannot sleephow can I with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Only for that faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all the trouble. Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride before we started they are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher lands where they can see a good stretch of river and avoid the following of its curves. They have, for the first stages, two men to ride and lead their spare horsesfour in all, so as not to excite curiosity. When they dismiss the men, which shall be shortly, they shall themselves look after the horses. It may be necessary for us to join forces if so they can mount our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and can be easily adapted for Mina, if required. It is a wild adventure we are on. Here, as we are rushing along through the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up and strike us with all the mysterious voices of the night around us, it all comes home. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the furnace door....  October.Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold the furnace heat is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats. As yet we have passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package of anything like the size of the one we seek. The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed.  November, evening.No news all day we have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza and if we are wrong in our surmise our chance is gone. We have overhauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we have overhauled since then this trick has succeeded we have had every deference shown to us, and not once any objection to whatever we chose to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, going at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu, so they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Sereth. At Fundu we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the night. I am feeling very sleepy the cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he shall keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and me.  November, morning.It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not wake me. He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept peacefully and was forgetting my trouble. It seems brutally selfish to me to have slept so long, and let him watch all night but he was quite right. I am a new man this morning and, as I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do all that is necessary both as to minding the engine, steering, and keeping watch. I can feel that my strength and energy are coming back to me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the carriage and horses so if they had started and travelled hard, they would be about now at the Borgo Pass. God guide and help them! I am afraid to think what may happen. If we could only go faster! but we cannot the engines are throbbing and doing their utmost. I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless streams running down the mountains into this river, but as none of them are very largeat present, at all events, though they are terrible doubtless in winter and when the snow meltsthe horsemen may not have met much obstruction. I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see them for if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be necessary to take counsel together what to do next. Dr. Seward's Diary.  November.Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been, for every moment is precious. We have had only the rest needful for the horses but we are both bearing it wonderfully. Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful. We must push on we shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again.  November.We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the Bistritza. I wish it wasn't so cold. There are signs of snow coming and if it falls heavy it will stop us. In such case we must get a sledge and go on, Russian fashion.  November.Today we heard of the launch having been detained by an accident when trying to force a way up the rapids. The Slovak boats get up all right, by aid of a rope and steering with knowledge. Some went up only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur fitter himself, and evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again. Finally, they got up the rapids all right, with local help, and are off on the chase afresh. I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident the peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight. We must push on harder than ever our help may be wanted soon. Mina Harker's Journal.  October.Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotise me at all, and that all I could say was 'dark and quiet. He is off now buying a carriage and horses. He says that he will later on try to buy additional horses, so that we may be able to change them on the way. We have something more than  miles before us. The country is lovely, and most interesting if only we were under different conditions, how delightful it would be to see it all. If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone what a pleasure it would be. To stop and see people, and learn something of their life, and to fill our minds and memories with all the colour and picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful country and the quaint people! But, alas! Later.Dr. Van Helsing has returned. He has got the carriage and horses we are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour. The landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions it seems enough for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her, and whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of fur coats and wraps, and all sorts of warm things. There will not be any chance of our being cold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may be, and I pray Him, with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will watch over my beloved husband that whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my latest and truest thought will be always for him.  November.All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea and off we go. It is a lovely country full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are very, very superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into our food and I can't abide garlic. Ever since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal but I daresay that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The Professor seems tireless all day he would not take any rest, though he made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotised me, and he says that I answered as usual 'darkness, lapping water and creaking wood so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. Van Helsing is sleeping, Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror's even in his sleep he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us, and we must not break down when most of all his strength will be needed.... All is ready we are off shortly.  November, morning.I was successful, and we took turns driving all night now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange heaviness in the airI say heaviness for want of a better word I mean that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me he says I answered 'darkness, creaking wood and roaring water, so the river is changing as they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of dangermore than need be but we are in God's hands.  November, night.All day long driving. The country gets wilder as we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits I think we make an effort each to cheer the other in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horse we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude fourinhand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight we do not want to arrive before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what will tomorrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred His wrath. Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing.  November.This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept aliveMadam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold so cold that the grey heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have affected Madam Mina she has been so heavy of head all day that she was not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day she even have lost her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well. However, tonight she is more vif. Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect the power has grown less and less with each day, and tonight it fail me altogether. Well, God's will be donewhatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead! Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go unrecorded. We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As before, came the answer 'darkness and the swirling of water. Then she woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass. At this time and place, she become all on fire with zeal some new guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say 'This is the way. 'How know you it? I ask. 'Of course I know it, she answer, and with a pause, add 'Have not my Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel? At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one such byroad. It is used but little, and very different from the coach road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and more of use. So we came down this road when we meet other waysnot always were we sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow have fallenthe horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and they go on so patient. Byandby we find all the things which Jonathan have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep she try, and she succeed. She sleep all the time till at the last, I feel myself to suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm her for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be allinall to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel guilt, as though I have done something I find myself bolt up, with the reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood, so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep. For we are going up, and up and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world. Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and myself in dark so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down. Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake, and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we first enter the Count's house. I am amaze, and not at ease then but she is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go to help her but she smile, and tell me that she have eat alreadythat she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have grave doubts but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She help me and I eat alone and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all of watching and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I wake I try to hypnotise her but alas! though she shut her eyes obedient, she may not sleep. The sun rise up, and up, and up and then sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and she look in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!I am afraid of all thingseven to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and death, or more than these, and we must not flinch.  November, morning.Let me be accurate in everything, for though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am madthat the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain. All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep and though I did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken hereven for food. I began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism. 'Well, said I to myself, 'if it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night. As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed the frowning mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a steeprising hill, on summit of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared for now, for good or ill, the end was near. I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her but alas! unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon usfor even after downsun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and all was for a time in a great twilightI took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire and near it I make Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid her rugs. I got ready food but she would not eat, simply saying that she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round where Madam Mina sat and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the timeso still as one dead and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the snow was not more pale and no word she said. But when I drew near, she clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to feet with a tremor that was pain to feel. I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet 'Will you not come over to the fire? for I wished to make a test of what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken. 'Why not go on? I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked from sleep, she said simply 'I cannot! and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be danger to her body, yet her soul was safe! Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to the cold hour when all nature is at lowest and every time my coming was with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of some kind, as there ever is over snow and it seemed as though the snowflurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence only that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to fearhorrible fears but then came to me the sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's horrid experience were befooling me for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me when I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was 'No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe! I turned to her, and looking in her eyes, said 'But you? It is for you that I fear! whereat she laugheda laugh, low and unreal, and said 'Fear for me! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them than I am, and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise tillif God have not take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyesthere were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina and as their laugh came through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable sweetness of the waterglasses 'Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come! In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame for oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not for I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground the snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of terror. And so we remained till the red of the dawn to fall through the snowgloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror but when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling mist and snow the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost. Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending to hypnotise her but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have made my fire and have seen the horses, they are all dead. Today I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high for there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety. I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps and, God be thanked! she is calm in her sleep.... Jonathan Harker's Journal.  November, evening.The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more Goodbye, Mina! God bless and keep you. Dr. Seward's Diary.  November.With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiterwagon. They surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be.... Dr. Van Helsing's Memorandum.  November, afternoon.I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some illintent or illchance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan's bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive it seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns. Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle and yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God's will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work. I knew that there were at least three graves to findgraves that are inhabit so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton UnDead have hypnotise him and he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kissand man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the UnDead!... There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was movedI, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hateI was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the openeyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snowstilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard. Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tombtops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall but I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soulwail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears and, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell and as there had been only three of these UnDead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active UnDead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word DRACULA. This then was the UnDead home of the KingVampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, UnDead, for ever. Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives.... Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud 'I am here! Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there UnDead. When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep, and, seeing, me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much. 'Come! she said, 'come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us. She was looking thin and pale and weak but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep. And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friendsand himwhom Madam Mina tell me that she know are coming to meet us. Mina Harker's Journal.  November.It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us we dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our provisions, too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula's castle cut the sky for we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards we could trace it through the drifted snow. In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the hand and drew me in 'See! he said, 'here you will be in shelter and if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one. He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and forced them upon me. But I could not eat to even try to do so was repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not reproach me. Taking his fieldglasses from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out 'Look! Madam Mina, look! look! I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we were it was possible to see a great distance and far off, beyond the white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far offin fact, so near that I wondered we had not noticed beforecame a group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a long leiterwagon which swept from side to side, like a dog's tail wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from the men's clothes that they were peasants or gypsies of some kind. On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor to my consternation, however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying 'At least you shall be safe here from him! He took the glasses from me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us. 'See, he said, 'they come quickly they are flogging the horses, and galloping as hard as they can. He paused and went on in a hollow voice 'They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God's will be done! Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry 'Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow blots it all out! I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I knew that Jonathan was not far off looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at breakneck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and, after looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of our shelter. 'They are all converging, he said. 'When the time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides. I got out my revolver ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger numbersthe wolves were gathering for their prey. Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm's length before us but at others, as the hollowsounding wind swept by us, it seemed to clear the airspace around us so that we could see afar off. We had of late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it would be and we knew that before long the sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly had driven the snow clouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts, the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were pursued they seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops. Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock, and held our weapons ready I could see that he was determined that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our presence. All at once two voices shouted out to 'Halt! One was my Jonathan's, raised in a high key of passion the other Mr. Morris' strong resolute tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendidlooking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang forward but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened their reins and drew up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant. The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in front, and pointing first to the sunnow close down on the hill topsand then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command his men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the order. In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him instinctively they cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first I thought that he too had come through in safety but as he sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back. By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well. As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph. But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there. The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun. The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiterwagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving us alone. Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side the blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said 'I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God! he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, 'It was worth for this to die! Look! look! The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest 'Amen broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man spoke 'Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away! And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman. Seven years ago we all went through the flames and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy's birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend's spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together but we call him Quincey. In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation. When we got home we were talking of the old timewhich we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they had been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one authentic document nothing but a mass of typewriting, except the later notebooks of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsing's memorandum. We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee 'We want no proofs we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake. Jonathan Harker. THE END There's More to Follow! More stories of the sort you like more, probably, by the author of this one more than  titles all told by writers of worldwide reputation, in the Authors' Alphabetical List which you will find on the reverse side of the wrapper of this book. Look it over before you lay it aside. There are books here you are sure to wantsome, possibly, that you have always wanted. It is a selected list every book in it has achieved a certain measure of success. The Grosset  Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally accepted Standard of Value. It will pay you to Look on the Other Side of the Wrapper! In case the wrapper is lost write to the publishers for a complete catalog DETECTIVE STORIES BY J. S. FLETCHER May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset  Dunlap's list THE SECRET OF THE BARBICAN THE ANNEXATION SOCIETY THE WOLVES AND THE LAMB GREEN INK THE KING versus WARGRAVE THE LOST MR. LINTHWAITE THE MILL OF MANY WINDOWS THE HEAVENKISSED HILL THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER RAVENSDENE COURT THE RAYNERSLADE AMALGAMATION THE SAFETY PIN THE SECRET WAY THE VALLEY OF HEADSTRONG MEN Ask for Complete free list of G.  D. 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The book cover and spine above and the images which follow were not part of the original Ormsby translationthey are taken from the  edition of J. W. Clark, illustrated by Gustave Dor. Clark in his edition states that, 'The English text of 'Don Quixote' adopted in this edition is that of Jarvis, with occasional corrections from Motteaux. See in the introduction below John Ormsby's critique of both the Jarvis and Motteaux translations. It has been elected in the present Project Gutenberg edition to attach the famous engravings of Gustave Dor to the Ormsby translation instead of the JarvisMotteaux. The detail of many of the Dor engravings can be fully appreciated only by utilizing the 'Full Size button to expand them to their original dimensions. Ormsby in his Preface has criticized the fanciful nature of Dor's illustrations others feel these woodcuts and steel engravings well match Quixote's dreams. D.W. It was with considerable reluctance that I abandoned in favour of the present undertaking what had long been a favourite project that of a new edition of Shelton's 'Don Quixote, which has now become a somewhat scarce book. There are someand I confess myself to be onefor whom Shelton's racy old version, with all its defects, has a charm that no modern translation, however skilful or correct, could possess. Shelton had the inestimable advantage of belonging to the same generation as Cervantes 'Don Quixote had to him a vitality that only a contemporary could feel it cost him no dramatic effort to see things as Cervantes saw them there is no anachronism in his language he put the Spanish of Cervantes into the English of Shakespeare. Shakespeare himself most likely knew the book he may have carried it home with him in his saddlebags to Stratford on one of his last journeys, and under the mulberry tree at New Place joined hands with a kindred genius in its pages. But it was soon made plain to me that to hope for even a moderate popularity for Shelton was vain. His fine old crusted English would, no doubt, be relished by a minority, but it would be only by a minority. His warmest admirers must admit that he is not a satisfactory representative of Cervantes. His translation of the First Part was very hastily made and was never revised by him. It has all the freshness and vigour, but also a full measure of the faults, of a hasty production. It is often very literalbarbarously literal frequentlybut just as often very loose. He had evidently a good colloquial knowledge of Spanish, but apparently not much more. It never seems to occur to him that the same translation of a word will not suit in every case. It is often said that we have no satisfactory translation of 'Don Quixote. To those who are familiar with the original, it savours of truism or platitude to say so, for in truth there can be no thoroughly satisfactory translation of 'Don Quixote into English or any other language. It is not that the Spanish idioms are so utterly unmanageable, or that the untranslatable words, numerous enough no doubt, are so superabundant, but rather that the sententious terseness to which the humour of the book owes its flavour is peculiar to Spanish, and can at best be only distantly imitated in any other tongue. The history of our English translations of 'Don Quixote is instructive. Shelton's, the first in any language, was made, apparently, about , but not published till . This of course was only the First Part. It has been asserted that the Second, published in , is not the work of Shelton, but there is nothing to support the assertion save the fact that it has less spirit, less of what we generally understand by 'go, about it than the first, which would be only natural if the first were the work of a young man writing currente calamo, and the second that of a middleaged man writing for a bookseller. On the other hand, it is closer and more literal, the style is the same, the very same translations, or mistranslations, occur in it, and it is extremely unlikely that a new translator would, by suppressing his name, have allowed Shelton to carry off the credit. In  John Phillips, Milton's nephew, produced a 'Don Quixote 'made English, he says, 'according to the humour of our modern language. His 'Quixote is not so much a translation as a travesty, and a travesty that for coarseness, vulgarity, and buffoonery is almost unexampled even in the literature of that day. Ned Ward's 'Life and Notable Adventures of Don Quixote, merrily translated into Hudibrastic Verse (), can scarcely be reckoned a translation, but it serves to show the light in which 'Don Quixote was regarded at the time. A further illustration may be found in the version published in  by Peter Motteux, who had then recently combined teadealing with literature. It is described as 'translated from the original by several hands, but if so all Spanish flavour has entirely evaporated under the manipulation of the several hands. The flavour that it has, on the other hand, is distinctly Francocockney. Anyone who compares it carefully with the original will have little doubt that it is a concoction from Shelton and the French of Filleau de Saint Martin, eked out by borrowings from Phillips, whose mode of treatment it adopts. It is, to be sure, more decent and decorous, but it treats 'Don Quixote in the same fashion as a comic book that cannot be made too comic. To attempt to improve the humour of 'Don Quixote by an infusion of cockney flippancy and facetiousness, as Motteux's operators did, is not merely an impertinence like larding a sirloin of prize beef, but an absolute falsification of the spirit of the book, and it is a proof of the uncritical way in which 'Don Quixote is generally read that this worse than worthless translationworthless as failing to represent, worse than worthless as misrepresentingshould have been favoured as it has been. It had the effect, however, of bringing out a translation undertaken and executed in a very different spirit, that of Charles Jervas, the portrait painter, and friend of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. Jervas has been allowed little credit for his work, indeed it may be said none, for it is known to the world in general as Jarvis's. It was not published until after his death, and the printers gave the name according to the current pronunciation of the day. It has been the most freely used and the most freely abused of all the translations. It has seen far more editions than any other, it is admitted on all hands to be by far the most faithful, and yet nobody seems to have a good word to say for it or for its author. Jervas no doubt prejudiced readers against himself in his preface, where among many true words about Shelton, Stevens, and Motteux, he rashly and unjustly charges Shelton with having translated not from the Spanish, but from the Italian version of Franciosini, which did not appear until ten years after Shelton's first volume. A suspicion of incompetence, too, seems to have attached to him because he was by profession a painter and a mediocre one (though he has given us the best portrait we have of Swift), and this may have been strengthened by Pope's remark that he 'translated 'Don Quixote' without understanding Spanish. He has been also charged with borrowing from Shelton, whom he disparaged. It is true that in a few difficult or obscure passages he has followed Shelton, and gone astray with him but for one case of this sort, there are fifty where he is right and Shelton wrong. As for Pope's dictum, anyone who examines Jervas's version carefully, side by side with the original, will see that he was a sound Spanish scholar, incomparably a better one than Shelton, except perhaps in mere colloquial Spanish. He was, in fact, an honest, faithful, and painstaking translator, and he has left a version which, whatever its shortcomings may be, is singularly free from errors and mistranslations. The charge against it is that it is stiff, dry'wooden in a word,and no one can deny that there is a foundation for it. But it may be pleaded for Jervas that a good deal of this rigidity is due to his abhorrence of the light, flippant, jocose style of his predecessors. He was one of the few, very few, translators that have shown any apprehension of the unsmiling gravity which is the essence of Quixotic humour it seemed to him a crime to bring Cervantes forward smirking and grinning at his own good things, and to this may be attributed in a great measure the ascetic abstinence from everything savouring of liveliness which is the characteristic of his translation. In most modern editions, it should be observed, his style has been smoothed and smartened, but without any reference to the original Spanish, so that if he has been made to read more agreeably he has also been robbed of his chief merit of fidelity. Smollett's version, published in , may be almost counted as one of these. At any rate it is plain that in its construction Jervas's translation was very freely drawn upon, and very little or probably no heed given to the original Spanish. The later translations may be dismissed in a few words. George Kelly's, which appeared in , 'printed for the Translator, was an impudent imposture, being nothing more than Motteux's version with a few of the words, here and there, artfully transposed Charles Wilmot's () was only an abridgment like Florian's, but not so skilfully executed and the version published by Miss Smirke in , to accompany her brother's plates, was merely a patchwork production made out of former translations. On the latest, Mr. A. J. Duffield's, it would be in every sense of the word impertinent in me to offer an opinion here. I had not even seen it when the present undertaking was proposed to me, and since then I may say vidi tantum, having for obvious reasons resisted the temptation which Mr. Duffield's reputation and comely volumes hold out to every lover of Cervantes. From the foregoing history of our translations of 'Don Quixote, it will be seen that there are a good many people who, provided they get the mere narrative with its full complement of facts, incidents, and adventures served up to them in a form that amuses them, care very little whether that form is the one in which Cervantes originally shaped his ideas. On the other hand, it is clear that there are many who desire to have not merely the story he tells, but the story as he tells it, so far at least as differences of idiom and circumstances permit, and who will give a preference to the conscientious translator, even though he may have acquitted himself somewhat awkwardly. But after all there is no real antagonism between the two classes there is no reason why what pleases the one should not please the other, or why a translator who makes it his aim to treat 'Don Quixote with the respect due to a great classic, should not be as acceptable even to the careless reader as the one who treats it as a famous old jestbook. It is not a question of caviare to the general, or, if it is, the fault rests with him who makes so. The method by which Cervantes won the ear of the Spanish people ought, mutatis mutandis, to be equally effective with the great majority of English readers. At any rate, even if there are readers to whom it is a matter of indifference, fidelity to the method is as much a part of the translator's duty as fidelity to the matter. If he can please all parties, so much the better but his first duty is to those who look to him for as faithful a representation of his author as it is in his power to give them, faithful to the letter so long as fidelity is practicable, faithful to the spirit so far as he can make it. My purpose here is not to dogmatise on the rules of translation, but to indicate those I have followed, or at least tried to the best of my ability to follow, in the present instance. One which, it seems to me, cannot be too rigidly followed in translating 'Don Quixote, is to avoid everything that savours of affectation. The book itself is, indeed, in one sense a protest against it, and no man abhorred it more than Cervantes. For this reason, I think, any temptation to use antiquated or obsolete language should be resisted. It is after all an affectation, and one for which there is no warrant or excuse. Spanish has probably undergone less change since the seventeenth century than any language in Europe, and by far the greater and certainly the best part of 'Don Quixote differs but little in language from the colloquial Spanish of the present day. Except in the tales and Don Quixote's speeches, the translator who uses the simplest and plainest everyday language will almost always be the one who approaches nearest to the original. Seeing that the story of 'Don Quixote and all its characters and incidents have now been for more than two centuries and a half familiar as household words in English mouths, it seems to me that the old familiar names and phrases should not be changed without good reason. Of course a translator who holds that 'Don Quixote should receive the treatment a great classic deserves, will feel himself bound by the injunction laid upon the Morisco in Chap. IX not to omit or add anything. Four generations had laughed over 'Don Quixote before it occurred to anyone to ask, who and what manner of man was this Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra whose name is on the titlepage and it was too late for a satisfactory answer to the question when it was proposed to add a life of the author to the London edition published at Lord Carteret's instance in . All traces of the personality of Cervantes had by that time disappeared. Any floating traditions that may once have existed, transmitted from men who had known him, had long since died out, and of other record there was none for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were incurious as to 'the men of the time, a reproach against which the nineteenth has, at any rate, secured itself, if it has produced no Shakespeare or Cervantes. All that Mayans y Siscar, to whom the task was entrusted, or any of those who followed him, Rios, Pellicer, or Navarrete, could do was to eke out the few allusions Cervantes makes to himself in his various prefaces with such pieces of documentary evidence bearing upon his life as they could find. This, however, has been done by the lastnamed biographer to such good purpose that he has superseded all predecessors. Thoroughness is the chief characteristic of Navarrete's work. Besides sifting, testing, and methodising with rare patience and judgment what had been previously brought to light, he left, as the saying is, no stone unturned under which anything to illustrate his subject might possibly be found. Navarrete has done all that industry and acumen could do, and it is no fault of his if he has not given us what we want. What Hallam says of Shakespeare may be applied to the almost parallel case of Cervantes 'It is not the register of his baptism, or the draft of his will, or the orthography of his name that we seek no letter of his writing, no record of his conversation, no character of him drawn ... by a contemporary has been produced. It is only natural, therefore, that the biographers of Cervantes, forced to make brick without straw, should have recourse largely to conjecture, and that conjecture should in some instances come by degrees to take the place of established fact. All that I propose to do here is to separate what is matter of fact from what is matter of conjecture, and leave it to the reader's judgment to decide whether the data justify the inference or not. The men whose names by common consent stand in the front rank of Spanish literature, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Calderon, Garcilaso de la Vega, the Mendozas, Gongora, were all men of ancient families, and, curiously, all, except the last, of families that traced their origin to the same mountain district in the North of Spain. The family of Cervantes is commonly said to have been of Galician origin, and unquestionably it was in possession of lands in Galicia at a very early date but I think the balance of the evidence tends to show that the 'solar, the original site of the family, was at Cervatos in the northwest corner of Old Castile, close to the junction of Castile, Leon, and the Asturias. As it happens, there is a complete history of the Cervantes family from the tenth century down to the seventeenth extant under the title of 'Illustrious Ancestry, Glorious Deeds, and Noble Posterity of the Famous Nuno Alfonso, Alcaide of Toledo, written in  by the industrious genealogist Rodrigo Mendez Silva, who availed himself of a manuscript genealogy by Juan de Mena, the poet laureate and historiographer of John II. The origin of the name Cervantes is curious. Nuno Alfonso was almost as distinguished in the struggle against the Moors in the reign of Alfonso VII as the Cid had been half a century before in that of Alfonso VI, and was rewarded by divers grants of land in the neighbourhood of Toledo. On one of his acquisitions, about two leagues from the city, he built himself a castle which he called Cervatos, because 'he was lord of the solar of Cervatos in the Montana, as the mountain region extending from the Basque Provinces to Leon was always called. At his death in battle in , the castle passed by his will to his son Alfonso Munio, who, as territorial or local surnames were then coming into vogue in place of the simple patronymic, took the additional name of Cervatos. His eldest son Pedro succeeded him in the possession of the castle, and followed his example in adopting the name, an assumption at which the younger son, Gonzalo, seems to have taken umbrage. Everyone who has paid even a flying visit to Toledo will remember the ruined castle that crowns the hill above the spot where the bridge of Alcntara spans the gorge of the Tagus, and with its broken outline and crumbling walls makes such an admirable pendant to the square solid Alcazar towering over the city roofs on the opposite side. It was built, or as some say restored, by Alfonso VI shortly after his occupation of Toledo in , and called by him San Servando after a Spanish martyr, a name subsequently modified into San Servan (in which form it appears in the 'Poem of the Cid), San Servantes, and San Cervantes with regard to which last the 'Handbook for Spain warns its readers against the supposition that it has anything to do with the author of 'Don Quixote. Ford, as all know who have taken him for a companion and counsellor on the roads of Spain, is seldom wrong in matters of literature or history. In this instance, however, he is in error. It has everything to do with the author of 'Don Quixote, for it is in fact these old walls that have given to Spain the name she is proudest of today. Gonzalo, above mentioned, it may be readily conceived, did not relish the appropriation by his brother of a name to which he himself had an equal right, for though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial possession of the family, and as a setoff, and to distinguish himself (diferenciarse) from his brother, he took as a surname the name of the castle on the bank of the Tagus, in the building of which, according to a family tradition, his greatgrandfather had a share. Both brothers founded families. The Cervantes branch had more tenacity it sent offshoots in various directions, Andalusia, Estremadura, Galicia, and Portugal, and produced a goodly line of men distinguished in the service of Church and State. Gonzalo himself, and apparently a son of his, followed Ferdinand III in the great campaign of  that gave Cordova and Seville to Christian Spain and penned up the Moors in the kingdom of Granada, and his descendants intermarried with some of the noblest families of the Peninsula and numbered among them soldiers, magistrates, and Church dignitaries, including at least two cardinalarchbishops. Of the line that settled in Andalusia, Deigo de Cervantes, Commander of the Order of Santiago, married Juana Avellaneda, daughter of Juan Arias de Saavedra, and had several sons, of whom one was Gonzalo Gomez, Corregidor of Jerez and ancestor of the Mexican and Columbian branches of the family and another, Juan, whose son Rodrigo married Doa Leonor de Cortinas, and by her had four children, Rodrigo, Andrea, Luisa, and Miguel, our author. The pedigree of Cervantes is not without its bearing on 'Don Quixote. A man who could look back upon an ancestry of genuine knightserrant extending from wellnigh the time of Pelayo to the siege of Granada was likely to have a strong feeling on the subject of the sham chivalry of the romances. It gives a point, too, to what he says in more than one place about families that have once been great and have tapered away until they have come to nothing, like a pyramid. It was the case of his own. He was born at Alcal de Henares and baptised in the church of Santa Maria Mayor on the th of October, . Of his boyhood and youth we know nothing, unless it be from the glimpse he gives us in the preface to his 'Comedies of himself as a boy looking on with delight while Lope de Rueda and his company set up their rude plank stage in the plaza and acted the rustic farces which he himself afterwards took as the model of his interludes. This first glimpse, however, is a significant one, for it shows the early development of that love of the drama which exercised such an influence on his life and seems to have grown stronger as he grew older, and of which this very preface, written only a few months before his death, is such a striking proof. He gives us to understand, too, that he was a great reader in his youth but of this no assurance was needed, for the First Part of 'Don Quixote alone proves a vast amount of miscellaneous reading, romances of chivalry, ballads, popular poetry, chronicles, for which he had no time or opportunity except in the first twenty years of his life and his misquotations and mistakes in matters of detail are always, it may be noticed, those of a man recalling the reading of his boyhood. Other things besides the drama were in their infancy when Cervantes was a boy. The period of his boyhood was in every way a transition period for Spain. The old chivalrous Spain had passed away. The new Spain was the mightiest power the world had seen since the Roman Empire and it had not yet been called upon to pay the price of its greatness. By the policy of Ferdinand and Ximenez the sovereign had been made absolute, and the Church and Inquisition adroitly adjusted to keep him so. The nobles, who had always resisted absolutism as strenuously as they had fought the Moors, had been divested of all political power, a like fate had befallen the cities, the free constitutions of Castile and Aragon had been swept away, and the only function that remained to the Corts was that of granting money at the King's dictation. The transition extended to literature. Men who, like Garcilaso de la Vega and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, followed the Italian wars, had brought back from Italy the products of the postRenaissance literature, which took root and flourished and even threatened to extinguish the native growths. Damon and Thyrsis, Phyllis and Chloe had been fairly naturalised in Spain, together with all the devices of pastoral poetry for investing with an air of novelty the idea of a dispairing shepherd and inflexible shepherdess. As a setoff against this, the old historical and traditional ballads, and the true pastorals, the songs and ballads of peasant life, were being collected assiduously and printed in the cancioneros that succeeded one another with increasing rapidity. But the most notable consequence, perhaps, of the spread of printing was the flood of romances of chivalry that had continued to pour from the press ever since Garci Ordoez de Montalvo had resuscitated 'Amadis of Gaul at the beginning of the century. For a youth fond of reading, solid or light, there could have been no better spot in Spain than Alcal de Henares in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was then a busy, populous university town, something more than the enterprising rival of Salamanca, and altogether a very different place from the melancholy, silent, deserted Alcal the traveller sees now as he goes from Madrid to Saragossa. Theology and medicine may have been the strong points of the university, but the town itself seems to have inclined rather to the humanities and light literature, and as a producer of books Alcal was already beginning to compete with the older presses of Toledo, Burgos, Salamanca and Seville. A pendant to the picture Cervantes has given us of his first playgoings might, no doubt, have been often seen in the streets of Alcal at that time a bright, eager, tawnyhaired boy peering into a bookshop where the latest volumes lay open to tempt the public, wondering, it may be, what that little book with the woodcut of the blind beggar and his boy, that called itself 'Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, segunda impresion, could be about or with eyes brimming over with merriment gazing at one of those preposterous portraits of a knighterrant in outrageous panoply and plumes with which the publishers of chivalry romances loved to embellish the titlepages of their folios. If the boy was the father of the man, the sense of the incongruous that was strong at fifty was lively at ten, and some such reflections as these may have been the true genesis of 'Don Quixote. For his more solid education, we are told, he went to Salamanca. But why Rodrigo de Cervantes, who was very poor, should have sent his son to a university a hundred and fifty miles away when he had one at his own door, would be a puzzle, if we had any reason for supposing that he did so. The only evidence is a vague statement by Professor Tomas Gonzalez, that he once saw an old entry of the matriculation of a Miguel de Cervantes. This does not appear to have been ever seen again but even if it had, and if the date corresponded, it would prove nothing, as there were at least two other Miguels born about the middle of the century one of them, moreover, a Cervantes Saavedra, a cousin, no doubt, who was a source of great embarrassment to the biographers. That he was a student neither at Salamanca nor at Alcal is best proved by his own works. No man drew more largely upon experience than he did, and he has nowhere left a single reminiscence of student lifefor the 'Tia Fingida, if it be his, is not onenothing, not even 'a college joke, to show that he remembered days that most men remember best. All that we know positively about his education is that Juan Lopez de Hoyos, a professor of humanities and belleslettres of some eminence, calls him his 'dear and beloved pupil. This was in a little collection of verses by different hands on the death of Isabel de Valois, second queen of Philip II., published by the professor in , to which Cervantes contributed four pieces, including an elegy, and an epitaph in the form of a sonnet. It is only by a rare chance that a 'Lycidas finds its way into a volume of this sort, and Cervantes was no Milton. His verses are no worse than such things usually are so much, at least, may be said for them. By the time the book appeared he had left Spain, and, as fate ordered it, for twelve years, the most eventful ones of his life. Giulio, afterwards Cardinal, Acquaviva had been sent at the end of  to Philip II. by the Pope on a mission, partly of condolence, partly political, and on his return to Rome, which was somewhat brusquely expedited by the King, he took Cervantes with him as his camarero (chamberlain), the office he himself held in the Pope's household. The post would no doubt have led to advancement at the Papal Court had Cervantes retained it, but in the summer of  he resigned it and enlisted as a private soldier in Captain Diego Urbina's company, belonging to Don Miguel de Moncada's regiment, but at that time forming a part of the command of Marc Antony Colonna. What impelled him to this step we know not, whether it was distaste for the career before him, or purely military enthusiasm. It may well have been the latter, for it was a stirring time the events, however, which led to the alliance between Spain, Venice, and the Pope, against the common enemy, the Porte, and to the victory of the combined fleets at Lepanto, belong rather to the history of Europe than to the life of Cervantes. He was one of those that sailed from Messina, in September , under the command of Don John of Austria but on the morning of the th of October, when the Turkish fleet was sighted, he was lying below ill with fever. At the news that the enemy was in sight he rose, and, in spite of the remonstrances of his comrades and superiors, insisted on taking his post, saying he preferred death in the service of God and the King to health. His galley, the Marquesa, was in the thick of the fight, and before it was over he had received three gunshot wounds, two in the breast and one in the left hand or arm. On the morning after the battle, according to Navarrete, he had an interview with the commanderinchief, Don John, who was making a personal inspection of the wounded, one result of which was an addition of three crowns to his pay, and another, apparently, the friendship of his general. How severely Cervantes was wounded may be inferred from the fact, that with youth, a vigorous frame, and as cheerful and buoyant a temperament as ever invalid had, he was seven months in hospital at Messina before he was discharged. He came out with his left hand permanently disabled he had lost the use of it, as Mercury told him in the 'Viaje del Parnaso for the greater glory of the right. This, however, did not absolutely unfit him for service, and in April  he joined Manuel Ponce de Leon's company of Lope de Figueroa's regiment, in which, it seems probable, his brother Rodrigo was serving, and shared in the operations of the next three years, including the capture of the Goletta and Tunis. Taking advantage of the lull which followed the recapture of these places by the Turks, he obtained leave to return to Spain, and sailed from Naples in September  on board the Sun galley, in company with his brother Rodrigo, Pedro Carrillo de Quesada, late Governor of the Goletta, and some others, and furnished with letters from Don John of Austria and the Duke of Sesa, the Viceroy of Sicily, recommending him to the King for the command of a company, on account of his services a dono infelice as events proved. On the th they fell in with a squadron of Algerine galleys, and after a stout resistance were overpowered and carried into Algiers. By means of a ransomed fellowcaptive the brothers contrived to inform their family of their condition, and the poor people at Alcal at once strove to raise the ransom money, the father disposing of all he possessed, and the two sisters giving up their marriage portions. But Dali Mami had found on Cervantes the letters addressed to the King by Don John and the Duke of Sesa, and, concluding that his prize must be a person of great consequence, when the money came he refused it scornfully as being altogether insufficient. The owner of Rodrigo, however, was more easily satisfied ransom was accepted in his case, and it was arranged between the brothers that he should return to Spain and procure a vessel in which he was to come back to Algiers and take off Miguel and as many of their comrades as possible. This was not the first attempt to escape that Cervantes had made. Soon after the commencement of his captivity he induced several of his companions to join him in trying to reach Oran, then a Spanish post, on foot but after the first day's journey, the Moor who had agreed to act as their guide deserted them, and they had no choice but to return. The second attempt was more disastrous. In a garden outside the city on the seashore, he constructed, with the help of the gardener, a Spaniard, a hidingplace, to which he brought, one by one, fourteen of his fellowcaptives, keeping them there in secrecy for several months, and supplying them with food through a renegade known as El Dorador, 'the Gilder. How he, a captive himself, contrived to do all this, is one of the mysteries of the story. Wild as the project may appear, it was very nearly successful. The vessel procured by Rodrigo made its appearance off the coast, and under cover of night was proceeding to take off the refugees, when the crew were alarmed by a passing fishing boat, and beat a hasty retreat. On renewing the attempt shortly afterwards, they, or a portion of them at least, were taken prisoners, and just as the poor fellows in the garden were exulting in the thought that in a few moments more freedom would be within their grasp, they found themselves surrounded by Turkish troops, horse and foot. The Dorador had revealed the whole scheme to the Dey Hassan. When Cervantes saw what had befallen them, he charged his companions to lay all the blame upon him, and as they were being bound he declared aloud that the whole plot was of his contriving, and that nobody else had any share in it. Brought before the Dey, he said the same. He was threatened with impalement and with torture and as cutting off ears and noses were playful freaks with the Algerines, it may be conceived what their tortures were like but nothing could make him swerve from his original statement that he and he alone was responsible. The upshot was that the unhappy gardener was hanged by his master, and the prisoners taken possession of by the Dey, who, however, afterwards restored most of them to their masters, but kept Cervantes, paying Dali Mami  crowns for him. He felt, no doubt, that a man of such resource, energy, and daring, was too dangerous a piece of property to be left in private hands and he had him heavily ironed and lodged in his own prison. If he thought that by these means he could break the spirit or shake the resolution of his prisoner, he was soon undeceived, for Cervantes contrived before long to despatch a letter to the Governor of Oran, entreating him to send him someone that could be trusted, to enable him and three other gentlemen, fellowcaptives of his, to make their escape intending evidently to renew his first attempt with a more trustworthy guide. Unfortunately the Moor who carried the letter was stopped just outside Oran, and the letter being found upon him, he was sent back to Algiers, where by the order of the Dey he was promptly impaled as a warning to others, while Cervantes was condemned to receive two thousand blows of the stick, a number which most likely would have deprived the world of 'Don Quixote, had not some persons, who they were we know not, interceded on his behalf. After this he seems to have been kept in still closer confinement than before, for nearly two years passed before he made another attempt. This time his plan was to purchase, by the aid of a Spanish renegade and two Valencian merchants resident in Algiers, an armed vessel in which he and about sixty of the leading captives were to make their escape but just as they were about to put it into execution one Doctor Juan Blanco de Paz, an ecclesiastic and a compatriot, informed the Dey of the plot. Cervantes by force of character, by his selfdevotion, by his untiring energy and his exertions to lighten the lot of his companions in misery, had endeared himself to all, and become the leading spirit in the captive colony, and, incredible as it may seem, jealousy of his influence and the esteem in which he was held, moved this man to compass his destruction by a cruel death. The merchants finding that the Dey knew all, and fearing that Cervantes under torture might make disclosures that would imperil their own lives, tried to persuade him to slip away on board a vessel that was on the point of sailing for Spain but he told them they had nothing to fear, for no tortures would make him compromise anybody, and he went at once and gave himself up to the Dey. As before, the Dey tried to force him to name his accomplices. Everything was made ready for his immediate execution the halter was put round his neck and his hands tied behind him, but all that could be got from him was that he himself, with the help of four gentlemen who had since left Algiers, had arranged the whole, and that the sixty who were to accompany him were not to know anything of it until the last moment. Finding he could make nothing of him, the Dey sent him back to prison more heavily ironed than before. The povertystricken Cervantes family had been all this time trying once more to raise the ransom money, and at last a sum of three hundred ducats was got together and entrusted to the Redemptorist Father Juan Gil, who was about to sail for Algiers. The Dey, however, demanded more than double the sum offered, and as his term of office had expired and he was about to sail for Constantinople, taking all his slaves with him, the case of Cervantes was critical. He was already on board heavily ironed, when the Dey at length agreed to reduce his demand by onehalf, and Father Gil by borrowing was able to make up the amount, and on September , , after a captivity of five years all but a week, Cervantes was at last set free. Before long he discovered that Blanco de Paz, who claimed to be an officer of the Inquisition, was now concocting on false evidence a charge of misconduct to be brought against him on his return to Spain. To checkmate him Cervantes drew up a series of twentyfive questions, covering the whole period of his captivity, upon which he requested Father Gil to take the depositions of credible witnesses before a notary. Eleven witnesses taken from among the principal captives in Algiers deposed to all the facts above stated and to a great deal more besides. There is something touching in the admiration, love, and gratitude we see struggling to find expression in the formal language of the notary, as they testify one after another to the good deeds of Cervantes, how he comforted and helped the weakhearted, how he kept up their drooping courage, how he shared his poor purse with this deponent, and how 'in him this deponent found father and mother. On his return to Spain he found his old regiment about to march for Portugal to support Philip's claim to the crown, and utterly penniless now, had no choice but to rejoin it. He was in the expeditions to the Azores in  and the following year, and on the conclusion of the war returned to Spain in the autumn of , bringing with him the manuscript of his pastoral romance, the 'Galatea, and probably also, to judge by internal evidence, that of the first portion of 'Persiles and Sigismunda. He also brought back with him, his biographers assert, an infant daughter, the offspring of an amour, as some of them with great circumstantiality inform us, with a Lisbon lady of noble birth, whose name, however, as well as that of the street she lived in, they omit to mention. The sole foundation for all this is that in  there certainly was living in the family of Cervantes a Doa Isabel de Saavedra, who is described in an official document as his natural daughter, and then twenty years of age. With his crippled left hand promotion in the army was hopeless, now that Don John was dead and he had no one to press his claims and services, and for a man drawing on to forty life in the ranks was a dismal prospect he had already a certain reputation as a poet he made up his mind, therefore, to cast his lot with literature, and for a first venture committed his 'Galatea to the press. It was published, as Salva y Mallen shows conclusively, at Alcal, his own birthplace, in  and no doubt helped to make his name more widely known, but certainly did not do him much good in any other way. While it was going through the press, he married Doa Catalina de Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, a lady of Esquivias near Madrid, and apparently a friend of the family, who brought him a fortune which may possibly have served to keep the wolf from the door, but if so, that was all. The drama had by this time outgrown marketplace stages and strolling companies, and with his old love for it he naturally turned to it for a congenial employment. In about three years he wrote twenty or thirty plays, which he tells us were performed without any throwing of cucumbers or other missiles, and ran their course without any hisses, outcries, or disturbance. In other words, his plays were not bad enough to be hissed off the stage, but not good enough to hold their own upon it. Only two of them have been preserved, but as they happen to be two of the seven or eight he mentions with complacency, we may assume they are favourable specimens, and no one who reads the 'Numancia and the 'Trato de Argel will feel any surprise that they failed as acting dramas. Whatever merits they may have, whatever occasional they may show, they are, as regards construction, incurably clumsy. How completely they failed is manifest from the fact that with all his sanguine temperament and indomitable perseverance he was unable to maintain the struggle to gain a livelihood as a dramatist for more than three years nor was the rising popularity of Lope the cause, as is often said, notwithstanding his own words to the contrary. When Lope began to write for the stage is uncertain, but it was certainly after Cervantes went to Seville. Among the 'Nuevos Documentos printed by Seor Asensio y Toledo is one dated , and curiously characteristic of Cervantes. It is an agreement with one Rodrigo Osorio, a manager, who was to accept six comedies at fifty ducats (about l.) apiece, not to be paid in any case unless it appeared on representation that the said comedy was one of the best that had ever been represented in Spain. The test does not seem to have been ever applied perhaps it was sufficiently apparent to Rodrigo Osorio that the comedies were not among the best that had ever been represented. Among the correspondence of Cervantes there might have been found, no doubt, more than one letter like that we see in the 'Rake's Progress, 'Sir, I have read your play, and it will not doo. He was more successful in a literary contest at Saragossa in  in honour of the canonisation of St. Jacinto, when his composition won the first prize, three silver spoons. The year before this he had been appointed a collector of revenues for the kingdom of Granada. In order to remit the money he had collected more conveniently to the treasury, he entrusted it to a merchant, who failed and absconded and as the bankrupt's assets were insufficient to cover the whole, he was sent to prison at Seville in September . The balance against him, however, was a small one, about l., and on giving security for it he was released at the end of the year. It was as he journeyed from town to town collecting the king's taxes, that he noted down those bits of inn and wayside life and character that abound in the pages of 'Don Quixote the Benedictine monks with spectacles and sunshades, mounted on their tall mules the strollers in costume bound for the next village the barber with his basin on his head, on his way to bleed a patient the recruit with his breeches in his bundle, tramping along the road singing the reapers gathered in the venta gateway listening to 'Felixmarte of Hircania read out to them and those little Hogarthian touches that he so well knew how to bring in, the oxtail hanging up with the landlord's comb stuck in it, the wineskins at the bedhead, and those notable examples of hostelry art, Helen going off in high spirits on Paris's arm, and Dido on the tower dropping tears as big as walnuts. Nay, it may well be that on those journeys into remote regions he came across now and then a specimen of the pauper gentleman, with his lean hack and his greyhound and his books of chivalry, dreaming away his life in happy ignorance that the world had changed since his greatgrandfather's old helmet was new. But it was in Seville that he found out his true vocation, though he himself would not by any means have admitted it to be so. It was there, in Triana, that he was first tempted to try his hand at drawing from life, and first brought his humour into play in the exquisite little sketch of 'Rinconete y Cortadillo, the germ, in more ways than one, of 'Don Quixote. Where and when that was written, we cannot tell. After his imprisonment all trace of Cervantes in his official capacity disappears, from which it may be inferred that he was not reinstated. That he was still in Seville in November  appears from a satirical sonnet of his on the elaborate catafalque erected to testify the grief of the city at the death of Philip II, but from this up to  we have no clue to his movements. The words in the preface to the First Part of 'Don Quixote are generally held to be conclusive that he conceived the idea of the book, and wrote the beginning of it at least, in a prison, and that he may have done so is extremely likely. There is a tradition that Cervantes read some portions of his work to a select audience at the Duke of Bejar's, which may have helped to make the book known but the obvious conclusion is that the First Part of 'Don Quixote lay on his hands some time before he could find a publisher bold enough to undertake a venture of so novel a character and so little faith in it had Francisco Robles of Madrid, to whom at last he sold it, that he did not care to incur the expense of securing the copyright for Aragon or Portugal, contenting himself with that for Castile. The printing was finished in December, and the book came out with the new year, . It is often said that 'Don Quixote was at first received coldly. The facts show just the contrary. No sooner was it in the hands of the public than preparations were made to issue pirated editions at Lisbon and Valencia, and to bring out a second edition with the additional copyrights for Aragon and Portugal, which he secured in February. No doubt it was received with something more than coldness by certain sections of the community. Men of wit, taste, and discrimination among the aristocracy gave it a hearty welcome, but the aristocracy in general were not likely to relish a book that turned their favourite reading into ridicule and laughed at so many of their favourite ideas. The dramatists who gathered round Lope as their leader regarded Cervantes as their common enemy, and it is plain that he was equally obnoxious to the other clique, the culto poets who had Gongora for their chief. Navarrete, who knew nothing of the letter above mentioned, tries hard to show that the relations between Cervantes and Lope were of a very friendly sort, as indeed they were until 'Don Quixote was written. Cervantes, indeed, to the last generously and manfully declared his admiration of Lope's powers, his unfailing invention, and his marvellous fertility but in the preface of the First Part of 'Don Quixote and in the verses of 'Urganda the Unknown, and one or two other places, there are, if we read between the lines, sly hits at Lope's vanities and affectations that argue no personal goodwill and Lope openly sneers at 'Don Quixote and Cervantes, and fourteen years after his death gives him only a few lines of cold commonplace in the 'Laurel de Apolo, that seem all the colder for the eulogies of a host of nonentities whose names are found nowhere else. In  Valladolid was made the seat of the Court, and at the beginning of  Cervantes had been summoned thither in connection with the balance due by him to the Treasury, which was still outstanding. He remained at Valladolid, apparently supporting himself by agencies and scrivener's work of some sort probably drafting petitions and drawing up statements of claims to be presented to the Council, and the like. So, at least, we gather from the depositions taken on the occasion of the death of a gentleman, the victim of a street brawl, who had been carried into the house in which he lived. In these he himself is described as a man who wrote and transacted business, and it appears that his household then consisted of his wife, the natural daughter Isabel de Saavedra already mentioned, his sister Andrea, now a widow, her daughter Constanza, a mysterious Magdalena de Sotomayor calling herself his sister, for whom his biographers cannot account, and a servantmaid. Meanwhile 'Don Quixote had been growing in favour, and its author's name was now known beyond the Pyrenees. In  an edition was printed at Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet the demand by a third edition, the seventh in all, in . The popularity of the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller was led to bring out an edition in  and another was called for in Brussels in . It might naturally have been expected that, with such proofs before him that he had hit the taste of the public, Cervantes would have at once set about redeeming his rather vague promise of a second volume. But, to all appearance, nothing was farther from his thoughts. He had still by him one or two short tales of the same vintage as those he had inserted in 'Don Quixote and instead of continuing the adventures of Don Quixote, he set to work to write more of these 'Novelas Exemplares as he afterwards called them, with a view to making a book of them. The novels were published in the summer of , with a dedication to the Conde de Lemos, the Maecenas of the day, and with one of those chatty confidential prefaces Cervantes was so fond of. In this, eight years and a half after the First Part of 'Don Quixote had appeared, we get the first hint of a forthcoming Second Part. 'You shall see shortly, he says, 'the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza. His idea of 'shortly was a somewhat elastic one, for, as we know by the date to Sancho's letter, he had barely onehalf of the book completed that time twelvemonth. But more than poems, or pastorals, or novels, it was his dramatic ambition that engrossed his thoughts. The same indomitable spirit that kept him from despair in the bagnios of Algiers, and prompted him to attempt the escape of himself and his comrades again and again, made him persevere in spite of failure and discouragement in his efforts to win the ear of the public as a dramatist. The temperament of Cervantes was essentially sanguine. The portrait he draws in the preface to the novels, with the aquiline features, chestnut hair, smooth untroubled forehead, and bright cheerful eyes, is the very portrait of a sanguine man. Nothing that the managers might say could persuade him that the merits of his plays would not be recognised at last if they were only given a fair chance. The old soldier of the Spanish Salamis was bent on being the Aeschylus of Spain. He was to found a great national drama, based on the true principles of art, that was to be the envy of all nations he was to drive from the stage the silly, childish plays, the 'mirrors of nonsense and models of folly that were in vogue through the cupidity of the managers and shortsightedness of the authors he was to correct and educate the public taste until it was ripe for tragedies on the model of the Greek dramalike the 'Numancia for instanceand comedies that would not only amuse but improve and instruct. All this he was to do, could he once get a hearing there was the initial difficulty. He shows plainly enough, too, that 'Don Quixote and the demolition of the chivalry romances was not the work that lay next his heart. He was, indeed, as he says himself in his preface, more a stepfather than a father to 'Don Quixote. Never was great work so neglected by its author. That it was written carelessly, hastily, and by fits and starts, was not always his fault, but it seems clear he never read what he sent to the press. He knew how the printers had blundered, but he never took the trouble to correct them when the third edition was in progress, as a man who really cared for the child of his brain would have done. He appears to have regarded the book as little more than a mere libro de entretenimiento, an amusing book, a thing, as he says in the 'Viaje, 'to divert the melancholy moody heart at any time or season. No doubt he had an affection for his hero, and was very proud of Sancho Panza. It would have been strange indeed if he had not been proud of the most humorous creation in all fiction. He was proud, too, of the popularity and success of the book, and beyond measure delightful is the naivete with which he shows his pride in a dozen passages in the Second Part. But it was not the success he coveted. In all probability he would have given all the success of 'Don Quixote, nay, would have seen every copy of 'Don Quixote burned in the Plaza Mayor, for one such success as Lope de Vega was enjoying on an average once a week. And so he went on, dawdling over 'Don Quixote, adding a chapter now and again, and putting it aside to turn to 'Persiles and Sigismundawhich, as we know, was to be the most entertaining book in the language, and the rival of 'Theagenes and Charicleaor finishing off one of his darling comedies and if Robles asked when 'Don Quixote would be ready, the answer no doubt was En breveshortly, there was time enough for that. At sixtyeight he was as full of life and hope and plans for the future as a boy of eighteen. Nemesis was coming, however. He had got as far as Chapter LIX, which at his leisurely pace he could hardly have reached before October or November , when there was put into his hand a small octave lately printed at Tarragona, and calling itself 'Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by the Licentiate Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda of Tordesillas. The last half of Chapter LIX and most of the following chapters of the Second Part give us some idea of the effect produced upon him, and his irritation was not likely to be lessened by the reflection that he had no one to blame but himself. Had Avellaneda, in fact, been content with merely bringing out a continuation to 'Don Quixote, Cervantes would have had no reasonable grievance. His own intentions were expressed in the very vaguest language at the end of the book nay, in his last words, 'forse altro cantera con miglior plettro, he seems actually to invite someone else to continue the work, and he made no sign until eight years and a half had gone by by which time Avellaneda's volume was no doubt written. In fact Cervantes had no case, or a very bad one, as far as the mere continuation was concerned. But Avellaneda chose to write a preface to it, full of such coarse personal abuse as only an illconditioned man could pour out. He taunts Cervantes with being old, with having lost his hand, with having been in prison, with being poor, with being friendless, accuses him of envy of Lope's success, of petulance and querulousness, and so on and it was in this that the sting lay. Avellaneda's reason for this personal attack is obvious enough. Whoever he may have been, it is clear that he was one of the dramatists of Lope's school, for he has the impudence to charge Cervantes with attacking him as well as Lope in his criticism on the drama. His identification has exercised the best critics and baffled all the ingenuity and research that has been brought to bear on it. Navarrete and Ticknor both incline to the belief that Cervantes knew who he was but I must say I think the anger he shows suggests an invisible assailant it is like the irritation of a man stung by a mosquito in the dark. Cervantes from certain solecisms of language pronounces him to be an Aragonese, and Pellicer, an Aragonese himself, supports this view and believes him, moreover, to have been an ecclesiastic, a Dominican probably. Any merit Avellaneda has is reflected from Cervantes, and he is too dull to reflect much. 'Dull and dirty will always be, I imagine, the verdict of the vast majority of unprejudiced readers. He is, at best, a poor plagiarist all he can do is to follow slavishly the lead given him by Cervantes his only humour lies in making Don Quixote take inns for castles and fancy himself some legendary or historical personage, and Sancho mistake words, invert proverbs, and display his gluttony all through he shows a proclivity to coarseness and dirt, and he has contrived to introduce two tales filthier than anything by the sixteenth century novellieri and without their sprightliness. But whatever Avellaneda and his book may be, we must not forget the debt we owe them. But for them, there can be no doubt, 'Don Quixote would have come to us a mere torso instead of a complete work. Even if Cervantes had finished the volume he had in hand, most assuredly he would have left off with a promise of a Third Part, giving the further adventures of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza as shepherds. It is plain that he had at one time an intention of dealing with the pastoral romances as he had dealt with the books of chivalry, and but for Avellaneda he would have tried to carry it out. But it is more likely that, with his plans, and projects, and hopefulness, the volume would have remained unfinished till his death, and that we should have never made the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess, or gone with Sancho to Barataria. From the moment the book came into his hands he seems to have been haunted by the fear that there might be more Avellanedas in the field, and putting everything else aside, he set himself to finish off his task and protect Don Quixote in the only way he could, by killing him. The conclusion is no doubt a hasty and in some places clumsy piece of work and the frequent repetition of the scolding administered to Avellaneda becomes in the end rather wearisome but it is, at any rate, a conclusion and for that we must thank Avellaneda. The new volume was ready for the press in February, but was not printed till the very end of , and during the interval Cervantes put together the comedies and interludes he had written within the last few years, and, as he adds plaintively, found no demand for among the managers, and published them with a preface, worth the book it introduces tenfold, in which he gives an account of the early Spanish stage, and of his own attempts as a dramatist. It is needless to say they were put forward by Cervantes in all good faith and full confidence in their merits. The reader, however, was not to suppose they were his last word or final effort in the drama, for he had in hand a comedy called 'Engano a los ojos, about which, if he mistook not, there would be no question. Of this dramatic masterpiece the world has no opportunity of judging his health had been failing for some time, and he died, apparently of dropsy, on the rd of April, , the day on which England lost Shakespeare, nominally at least, for the English calendar had not yet been reformed. He died as he had lived, accepting his lot bravely and cheerfully. Was it an unhappy life, that of Cervantes? His biographers all tell us that it was but I must say I doubt it. It was a hard life, a life of poverty, of incessant struggle, of toil ill paid, of disappointment, but Cervantes carried within himself the antidote to all these evils. His was not one of those light natures that rise above adversity merely by virtue of their own buoyancy it was in the fortitude of a high spirit that he was proof against it. It is impossible to conceive Cervantes giving way to despondency or prostrated by dejection. As for poverty, it was with him a thing to be laughed over, and the only sigh he ever allows to escape him is when he says, 'Happy he to whom Heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but Heaven itself. Add to all this his vital energy and mental activity, his restless invention and his sanguine temperament, and there will be reason enough to doubt whether his could have been a very unhappy life. He who could take Cervantes' distresses together with his apparatus for enduring them would not make so bad a bargain, perhaps, as far as happiness in life is concerned. Of his burialplace nothing is known except that he was buried, in accordance with his will, in the neighbouring convent of Trinitarian nuns, of which it is supposed his daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, was an inmate, and that a few years afterwards the nuns removed to another convent, carrying their dead with them. But whether the remains of Cervantes were included in the removal or not no one knows, and the clue to their restingplace is now lost beyond all hope. This furnishes perhaps the least defensible of the items in the charge of neglect brought against his contemporaries. In some of the others there is a good deal of exaggeration. To listen to most of his biographers one would suppose that all Spain was in league not only against the man but against his memory, or at least that it was insensible to his merits, and left him to live in misery and die of want. To talk of his hard life and unworthy employments in Andalusia is absurd. What had he done to distinguish him from thousands of other struggling men earning a precarious livelihood? True, he was a gallant soldier, who had been wounded and had undergone captivity and suffering in his country's cause, but there were hundreds of others in the same case. He had written a mediocre specimen of an insipid class of romance, and some plays which manifestly did not comply with the primary condition of pleasing were the playgoers to patronise plays that did not amuse them, because the author was to produce 'Don Quixote twenty years afterwards? The scramble for copies which, as we have seen, followed immediately on the appearance of the book, does not look like general insensibility to its merits. No doubt it was received coldly by some, but if a man writes a book in ridicule of periwigs he must make his account with being coldly received by the periwig wearers and hated by the whole tribe of wigmakers. If Cervantes had the chivalryromance readers, the sentimentalists, the dramatists, and the poets of the period all against him, it was because 'Don Quixote was what it was and if the general public did not come forward to make him comfortable for the rest of his days, it is no more to be charged with neglect and ingratitude than the Englishspeaking public that did not pay off Scott's liabilities. It did the best it could it read his book and liked it and bought it, and encouraged the bookseller to pay him well for others. It has been also made a reproach to Spain that she has erected no monument to the man she is proudest of no monument, that is to say, of him for the bronze statue in the little garden of the Plaza de las Corts, a fair work of art no doubt, and unexceptionable had it been set up to the local poet in the marketplace of some provincial town, is not worthy of Cervantes or of Madrid. But what need has Cervantes of 'such weak witness of his name or what could a monument do in his case except testify to the selfglorification of those who had put it up? Si monumentum quoeris, circumspice. The nearest bookseller's shop will show what bathos there would be in a monument to the author of 'Don Quixote. Nine editions of the First Part of 'Don Quixote had already appeared before Cervantes died, thirty thousand copies in all, according to his own estimate, and a tenth was printed at Barcelona the year after his death. So large a number naturally supplied the demand for some time, but by  it appears to have been exhausted and from that time down to the present day the stream of editions has continued to flow rapidly and regularly. The translations show still more clearly in what request the book has been from the very outset. In seven years from the completion of the work it had been translated into the four leading languages of Europe. Except the Bible, in fact, no book has been so widely diffused as 'Don Quixote. The 'Imitatio Christi may have been translated into as many different languages, and perhaps 'Robinson Crusoe and the 'Vicar of Wakefield into nearly as many, but in multiplicity of translations and editions 'Don Quixote leaves them all far behind. Still more remarkable is the character of this wide diffusion. 'Don Quixote has been thoroughly naturalised among people whose ideas about knighterrantry, if they had any at all, were of the vaguest, who had never seen or heard of a book of chivalry, who could not possibly feel the humour of the burlesque or sympathise with the author's purpose. Another curious fact is that this, the most cosmopolitan book in the world, is one of the most intensely national. 'Manon Lescaut is not more thoroughly French, 'Tom Jones not more English, 'Rob Roy not more Scotch, than 'Don Quixote is Spanish, in character, in ideas, in sentiment, in local colour, in everything. What, then, is the secret of this unparalleled popularity, increasing year by year for wellnigh three centuries? One explanation, no doubt, is that of all the books in the world, 'Don Quixote is the most catholic. There is something in it for every sort of reader, young or old, sage or simple, high or low. As Cervantes himself says with a touch of pride, 'It is thumbed and read and got by heart by people of all sorts the children turn its leaves, the young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise it. But it would be idle to deny that the ingredient which, more than its humour, or its wisdom, or the fertility of invention or knowledge of human nature it displays, has insured its success with the multitude, is the vein of farce that runs through it. It was the attack upon the sheep, the battle with the wineskins, Mambrino's helmet, the balsam of Fierabras, Don Quixote knocked over by the sails of the windmill, Sancho tossed in the blanket, the mishaps and misadventures of master and man, that were originally the great attraction, and perhaps are so still to some extent with the majority of readers. It is plain that 'Don Quixote was generally regarded at first, and indeed in Spain for a long time, as little more than a queer droll book, full of laughable incidents and absurd situations, very amusing, but not entitled to much consideration or care. All the editions printed in Spain from  to , when the famous printer Ibarra took it up, were mere trade editions, badly and carelessly printed on vile paper and got up in the style of chapbooks intended only for popular use, with, in most instances, uncouth illustrations and claptrap additions by the publisher. To England belongs the credit of having been the first country to recognise the right of 'Don Quixote to better treatment than this. The London edition of , commonly called Lord Carteret's from having been suggested by him, was not a mere dition de luxe. It produced 'Don Quixote in becoming form as regards paper and type, and embellished with plates which, if not particularly happy as illustrations, were at least well intentioned and well executed, but it also aimed at correctness of text, a matter to which nobody except the editors of the Valencia and Brussels editions had given even a passing thought and for a first attempt it was fairly successful, for though some of its emendations are inadmissible, a good many of them have been adopted by all subsequent editors. The zeal of publishers, editors, and annotators brought about a remarkable change of sentiment with regard to 'Don Quixote. A vast number of its admirers began to grow ashamed of laughing over it. It became almost a crime to treat it as a humorous book. The humour was not entirely denied, but, according to the new view, it was rated as an altogether secondary quality, a mere accessory, nothing more than the stalkinghorse under the presentation of which Cervantes shot his philosophy or his satire, or whatever it was he meant to shoot for on this point opinions varied. All were agreed, however, that the object he aimed at was not the books of chivalry. He said emphatically in the preface to the First Part and in the last sentence of the Second, that he had no other object in view than to discredit these books, and this, to advanced criticism, made it clear that his object must have been something else. One theory was that the book was a kind of allegory, setting forth the eternal struggle between the ideal and the real, between the spirit of poetry and the spirit of prose and perhaps German philosophy never evolved a more ungainly or unlikely camel out of the depths of its inner consciousness. Something of the antagonism, no doubt, is to be found in 'Don Quixote, because it is to be found everywhere in life, and Cervantes drew from life. It is difficult to imagine a community in which the neverceasing game of crosspurposes between Sancho Panza and Don Quixote would not be recognised as true to nature. In the stone age, among the lake dwellers, among the cave men, there were Don Quixotes and Sancho Panzas there must have been the troglodyte who never could see the facts before his eyes, and the troglodyte who could see nothing else. But to suppose Cervantes deliberately setting himself to expound any such idea in two stout quarto volumes is to suppose something not only very unlike the age in which he lived, but altogether unlike Cervantes himself, who would have been the first to laugh at an attempt of the sort made by anyone else. The extraordinary influence of the romances of chivalry in his day is quite enough to account for the genesis of the book. Some idea of the prodigious development of this branch of literature in the sixteenth century may be obtained from the scrutiny of Chapter VII, if the reader bears in mind that only a portion of the romances belonging to by far the largest group are enumerated. As to its effect upon the nation, there is abundant evidence. From the time when the Amadises and Palmerins began to grow popular down to the very end of the century, there is a steady stream of invective, from men whose character and position lend weight to their words, against the romances of chivalry and the infatuation of their readers. Ridicule was the only besom to sweep away that dust. That this was the task Cervantes set himself, and that he had ample provocation to urge him to it, will be sufficiently clear to those who look into the evidence as it will be also that it was not chivalry itself that he attacked and swept away. Of all the absurdities that, thanks to poetry, will be repeated to the end of time, there is no greater one than saying that 'Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away. In the first place there was no chivalry for him to smile away. Spain's chivalry had been dead for more than a century. Its work was done when Granada fell, and as chivalry was essentially republican in its nature, it could not live under the rule that Ferdinand substituted for the free institutions of mediaeval Spain. What he did smile away was not chivalry but a degrading mockery of it. The true nature of the 'right arm and the 'bright array, before which, according to the poet, 'the world gave ground, and which Cervantes' single laugh demolished, may be gathered from the words of one of his own countrymen, Don Felix Pacheco, as reported by Captain George Carleton, in his 'Military Memoirs from  to . 'Before the appearance in the world of that labour of Cervantes, he said, 'it was next to an impossibility for a man to walk the streets with any delight or without danger. There were seen so many cavaliers prancing and curvetting before the windows of their mistresses, that a stranger would have imagined the whole nation to have been nothing less than a race of knighterrants. But after the world became a little acquainted with that notable history, the man that was seen in that once celebrated drapery was pointed at as a Don Quixote, and found himself the jest of high and low. And I verily believe that to this, and this only, we owe that dampness and poverty of spirit which has run through all our councils for a century past, so little agreeable to those nobler actions of our famous ancestors. To call 'Don Quixote a sad book, preaching a pessimist view of life, argues a total misconception of its drift. It would be so if its moral were that, in this world, true enthusiasm naturally leads to ridicule and discomfiture. But it preaches nothing of the sort its moral, so far as it can be said to have one, is that the spurious enthusiasm that is born of vanity and selfconceit, that is made an end in itself, not a means to an end, that acts on mere impulse, regardless of circumstances and consequences, is mischievous to its owner, and a very considerable nuisance to the community at large. To those who cannot distinguish between the one kind and the other, no doubt 'Don Quixote is a sad book no doubt to some minds it is very sad that a man who had just uttered so beautiful a sentiment as that 'it is a hard case to make slaves of those whom God and Nature made free, should be ungratefully pelted by the scoundrels his crazy philanthropy had let loose on society but to others of a more judicial cast it will be a matter of regret that reckless selfsufficient enthusiasm is not oftener requited in some such way for all the mischief it does in the world. A very slight examination of the structure of 'Don Quixote will suffice to show that Cervantes had no deep design or elaborate plan in his mind when he began the book. When he wrote those lines in which 'with a few strokes of a great master he sets before us the pauper gentleman, he had no idea of the goal to which his imagination was leading him. There can be little doubt that all he contemplated was a short tale to range with those he had already written, a tale setting forth the ludicrous results that might be expected to follow the attempt of a crazy gentleman to act the part of a knighterrant in modern life. It is plain, for one thing, that Sancho Panza did not enter into the original scheme, for had Cervantes thought of him he certainly would not have omitted him in his hero's outfit, which he obviously meant to be complete. Him we owe to the landlord's chance remark in Chapter III that knights seldom travelled without squires. To try to think of a Don Quixote without Sancho Panza is like trying to think of a onebladed pair of scissors. The story was written at first, like the others, without any division and without the intervention of Cid Hamete Benengeli and it seems not unlikely that Cervantes had some intention of bringing Dulcinea, or Aldonza Lorenzo, on the scene in person. It was probably the ransacking of the Don's library and the discussion on the books of chivalry that first suggested it to him that his idea was capable of development. What, if instead of a mere string of farcical misadventures, he were to make his tale a burlesque of one of these books, caricaturing their style, incidents, and spirit? In pursuance of this change of plan, he hastily and somewhat clumsily divided what he had written into chapters on the model of 'Amadis, invented the fable of a mysterious Arabic manuscript, and set up Cid Hamete Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the chivalryromance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho's part, but to the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he announces his intention of taking his ass with him. 'About the ass, we are told, 'Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could call to mind any knighterrant taking with him an esquire mounted on assback but no instance occurred to his memory. We can see the whole scene at a glance, the stolid unconsciousness of Sancho and the perplexity of his master, upon whose perception the incongruity has just forced itself. This is Sancho's mission throughout the book he is an unconscious Mephistopheles, always unwittingly making mockery of his master's aspirations, always exposing the fallacy of his ideas by some unintentional ad absurdum, always bringing him back to the world of fact and commonplace by force of sheer stolidity. By the time Cervantes had got his volume of novels off his hands, and summoned up resolution enough to set about the Second Part in earnest, the case was very much altered. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had not merely found favour, but had already become, what they have never since ceased to be, veritable entities to the popular imagination. There was no occasion for him now to interpolate extraneous matter nay, his readers told him plainly that what they wanted of him was more Don Quixote and more Sancho Panza, and not novels, tales, or digressions. To himself, too, his creations had become realities, and he had become proud of them, especially of Sancho. He began the Second Part, therefore, under very different conditions, and the difference makes itself manifest at once. Even in translation the style will be seen to be far easier, more flowing, more natural, and more like that of a man sure of himself and of his audience. Don Quixote and Sancho undergo a change also. In the First Part, Don Quixote has no character or individuality whatever. He is nothing more than a crazy representative of the sentiments of the chivalry romances. In all that he says and does he is simply repeating the lesson he has learned from his books and therefore, it is absurd to speak of him in the gushing strain of the sentimental critics when they dilate upon his nobleness, disinterestedness, dauntless courage, and so forth. It was the business of a knighterrant to right wrongs, redress injuries, and succour the distressed, and this, as a matter of course, he makes his business when he takes up the part a knighterrant was bound to be intrepid, and so he feels bound to cast fear aside. Of all Byron's melodious nonsense about Don Quixote, the most nonsensical statement is that ''tis his virtue makes him mad! The exact opposite is the truth it is his madness makes him virtuous. In the Second Part, Cervantes repeatedly reminds the reader, as if it was a point upon which he was anxious there should be no mistake, that his hero's madness is strictly confined to delusions on the subject of chivalry, and that on every other subject he is discreto, one, in fact, whose faculty of discernment is in perfect order. The advantage of this is that he is enabled to make use of Don Quixote as a mouthpiece for his own reflections, and so, without seeming to digress, allow himself the relief of digression when he requires it, as freely as in a commonplace book. It is true the amount of individuality bestowed upon Don Quixote is not very great. There are some natural touches of character about him, such as his mixture of irascibility and placability, and his curious affection for Sancho together with his impatience of the squire's loquacity and impertinence but in the main, apart from his craze, he is little more than a thoughtful, cultured gentleman, with instinctive good taste and a great deal of shrewdness and originality of mind. As to Sancho, it is plain, from the concluding words of the preface to the First Part, that he was a favourite with his creator even before he had been taken into favour by the public. An inferior genius, taking him in hand a second time, would very likely have tried to improve him by making him more comical, clever, amiable, or virtuous. But Cervantes was too true an artist to spoil his work in this way. Sancho, when he reappears, is the old Sancho with the old familiar features but with a difference they have been brought out more distinctly, but at the same time with a careful avoidance of anything like caricature the outline has been filled in where filling in was necessary, and, vivified by a few touches of a master's hand, Sancho stands before us as he might in a character portrait by Velazquez. He is a much more important and prominent figure in the Second Part than in the First indeed, it is his matchless mendacity about Dulcinea that to a great extent supplies the action of the story. His development in this respect is as remarkable as in any other. In the First Part he displays a great natural gift of lying. His lies are not of the highly imaginative sort that liars in fiction commonly indulge in like Falstaff's, they resemble the father that begets them they are simple, homely, plump lies plain working lies, in short. But in the service of such a master as Don Quixote he develops rapidly, as we see when he comes to palm off the three country wenches as Dulcinea and her ladies in waiting. It is worth noticing how, flushed by his success in this instance, he is tempted afterwards to try a flight beyond his powers in his account of the journey on Clavileo. In the Second Part it is the spirit rather than the incidents of the chivalry romances that is the subject of the burlesque. Enchantments of the sort travestied in those of Dulcinea and the Trifaldi and the cave of Montesinos play a leading part in the later and inferior romances, and another distinguishing feature is caricatured in Don Quixote's blind adoration of Dulcinea. In the romances of chivalry love is either a mere animalism or a fantastic idolatry. Only a coarseminded man would care to make merry with the former, but to one of Cervantes' humour the latter was naturally an attractive subject for ridicule. Like everything else in these romances, it is a gross exaggeration of the real sentiment of chivalry, but its peculiar extravagance is probably due to the influence of those masters of hyperbole, the Provencal poets. When a troubadour professed his readiness to obey his lady in all things, he made it incumbent upon the next comer, if he wished to avoid the imputation of tameness and commonplace, to declare himself the slave of her will, which the next was compelled to cap by some still stronger declaration and so expressions of devotion went on rising one above the other like biddings at an auction, and a conventional language of gallantry and theory of love came into being that in time permeated the literature of Southern Europe, and bore fruit, in one direction in the transcendental worship of Beatrice and Laura, and in another in the grotesque idolatry which found exponents in writers like Feliciano de Silva. This is what Cervantes deals with in Don Quixote's passion for Dulcinea, and in no instance has he carried out the burlesque more happily. By keeping Dulcinea in the background, and making her a vague shadowy being of whose very existence we are left in doubt, he invests Don Quixote's worship of her virtues and charms with an additional extravagance, and gives still more point to the caricature of the sentiment and language of the romances. One of the great merits of 'Don Quixote, and one of the qualities that have secured its acceptance by all classes of readers and made it the most cosmopolitan of books, is its simplicity. There are, of course, points obvious enough to a Spanish seventeenth century audience which do not immediately strike a reader nowadays, and Cervantes often takes it for granted that an allusion will be generally understood which is only intelligible to a few. For example, on many of his readers in Spain, and most of his readers out of it, the significance of his choice of a country for his hero is completely lost. It would be going too far to say that no one can thoroughly comprehend 'Don Quixote without having seen La Mancha, but undoubtedly even a glimpse of La Mancha will give an insight into the meaning of Cervantes such as no commentator can give. Of all the regions of Spain it is the last that would suggest the idea of romance. Of all the dull central plateau of the Peninsula it is the dullest tract. There is something impressive about the grim solitudes of Estremadura and if the plains of Leon and Old Castile are bald and dreary, they are studded with old cities renowned in history and rich in relics of the past. But there is no redeeming feature in the Manchegan landscape it has all the sameness of the desert without its dignity the few towns and villages that break its monotony are mean and commonplace, there is nothing venerable about them, they have not even the picturesqueness of poverty indeed, Don Quixote's own village, Argamasilla, has a sort of oppressive respectability in the prim regularity of its streets and houses everything is ignoble the very windmills are the ugliest and shabbiest of the windmill kind. To anyone who knew the country well, the mere style and title of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha gave the key to the author's meaning at once. La Mancha as the knight's country and scene of his chivalries is of a piece with the pasteboard helmet, the farmlabourer on assback for a squire, knighthood conferred by a rascally ventero, convicts taken for victims of oppression, and the rest of the incongruities between Don Quixote's world and the world he lived in, between things as he saw them and things as they were. It is strange that this element of incongruity, underlying the whole humour and purpose of the book, should have been so little heeded by the majority of those who have undertaken to interpret 'Don Quixote. It has been completely overlooked, for example, by the illustrators. To be sure, the great majority of the artists who illustrated 'Don Quixote knew nothing whatever of Spain. To them a venta conveyed no idea but the abstract one of a roadside inn, and they could not therefore do full justice to the humour of Don Quixote's misconception in taking it for a castle, or perceive the remoteness of all its realities from his ideal. But even when better informed they seem to have no apprehension of the full force of the discrepancy. Take, for instance, Gustave Dor's drawing of Don Quixote watching his armour in the innyard. Whether or not the Venta de Quesada on the Seville road is, as tradition maintains, the inn described in 'Don Quixote, beyond all question it was just such an innyard as the one behind it that Cervantes had in his mind's eye, and it was on just such a rude stone trough as that beside the primitive drawwell in the corner that he meant Don Quixote to deposit his armour. Gustave Dor makes it an elaborate fountain such as no arriero ever watered his mules at in the corral of any venta in Spain, and thereby entirely misses the point aimed at by Cervantes. It is the mean, prosaic, commonplace character of all the surroundings and circumstances that gives a significance to Don Quixote's vigil and the ceremony that follows. Cervantes' humour is for the most part of that broader and simpler sort, the strength of which lies in the perception of the incongruous. It is the incongruity of Sancho in all his ways, words, and works, with the ideas and aims of his master, quite as much as the wonderful vitality and truth to nature of the character, that makes him the most humorous creation in the whole range of fiction. That unsmiling gravity of which Cervantes was the first great master, 'Cervantes' serious air, which sits naturally on Swift alone, perhaps, of later humourists, is essential to this kind of humour, and here again Cervantes has suffered at the hands of his interpreters. Nothing, unless indeed the coarse buffoonery of Phillips, could be more out of place in an attempt to represent Cervantes, than a flippant, wouldbe facetious style, like that of Motteux's version for example, or the sprightly, jaunty air, French translators sometimes adopt. It is the grave matteroffactness of the narrative, and the apparent unconsciousness of the author that he is saying anything ludicrous, anything but the merest commonplace, that give its peculiar flavour to the humour of Cervantes. His, in fact, is the exact opposite of the humour of Sterne and the selfconscious humourists. Even when Uncle Toby is at his best, you are always aware of 'the man Sterne behind him, watching you over his shoulder to see what effect he is producing. Cervantes always leaves you alone with Don Quixote and Sancho. He and Swift and the great humourists always keep themselves out of sight, or, more properly speaking, never think about themselves at all, unlike our latterday school of humourists, who seem to have revived the old horsecollar method, and try to raise a laugh by some grotesque assumption of ignorance, imbecility, or bad taste. It is true that to do full justice to Spanish humour in any other language is wellnigh an impossibility. There is a natural gravity and a sonorous stateliness about Spanish, be it ever so colloquial, that make an absurdity doubly absurd, and give plausibility to the most preposterous statement. This is what makes Sancho Panza's drollery the despair of the conscientious translator. Sancho's curt comments can never fall flat, but they lose half their flavour when transferred from their native Castilian into any other medium. But if foreigners have failed to do justice to the humour of Cervantes, they are no worse than his own countrymen. Indeed, were it not for the Spanish peasant's relish of 'Don Quixote, one might be tempted to think that the great humourist was not looked upon as a humourist at all in his own country. The craze of Don Quixote seems, in some instances, to have communicated itself to his critics, making them see things that are not in the book and run full tilt at phantoms that have no existence save in their own imaginations. Like a good many critics nowadays, they forget that screams are not criticism, and that it is only vulgar tastes that are influenced by strings of superlatives, threepiled hyperboles, and pompous epithets. But what strikes one as particularly strange is that while they deal in extravagant eulogies, and ascribe all manner of imaginary ideas and qualities to Cervantes, they show no perception of the quality that ninetynine out of a hundred of his readers would rate highest in him, and hold to be the one that raises him above all rivalry. To speak of 'Don Quixote as if it were merely a humorous book would be a manifest misdescription. Cervantes at times makes it a kind of commonplace book for occasional essays and criticisms, or for the observations and reflections and gathered wisdom of a long and stirring life. It is a mine of shrewd observation on mankind and human nature. Among modern novels there may be, here and there, more elaborate studies of character, but there is no book richer in individualised character. What Coleridge said of Shakespeare in minimis is true of Cervantes he never, even for the most temporary purpose, puts forward a lay figure. There is life and individuality in all his characters, however little they may have to do, or however short a time they may be before the reader. Samson Carrasco, the curate, Teresa Panza, Altisidora, even the two students met on the road to the cave of Montesinos, all live and move and have their being and it is characteristic of the broad humanity of Cervantes that there is not a hateful one among them all. Even poor Maritornes, with her deplorable morals, has a kind heart of her own and 'some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her and as for Sancho, though on dissection we fail to find a lovable trait in him, unless it be a sort of doglike affection for his master, who is there that in his heart does not love him? But it is, after all, the humour of 'Don Quixote that distinguishes it from all other books of the romance kind. It is this that makes it, as one of the most judicialminded of modern critics calls it, 'the best novel in the world beyond all comparison. It is its varied humour, ranging from broad farce to comedy as subtle as Shakespeare's or Molire's that has naturalised it in every country where there are readers, and made it a classic in every language that has a literature. Idle reader thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this book, as it is the child of my brain, were the fairest, gayest, and cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not counteract Nature's law that everything shall beget its like and what, then, could this sterile, illtilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled, whimsical offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such as never came into any other imaginationjust what might be begotten in a prison, where every misery is lodged and every doleful sound makes its dwelling? Tranquillity, a cheerful retreat, pleasant fields, bright skies, murmuring brooks, peace of mind, these are the things that go far to make even the most barren muses fertile, and bring into the world births that fill it with wonder and delight. Sometimes when a father has an ugly, loutish son, the love he bears him so blindfolds his eyes that he does not see his defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms of mind and body, and talks of them to his friends as wit and grace. I, howeverfor though I pass for the father, I am but the stepfather to 'Don Quixotehave no desire to go with the current of custom, or to implore thee, dearest reader, almost with tears in my eyes, as others do, to pardon or excuse the defects thou wilt perceive in this child of mine. Thou art neither its kinsman nor its friend, thy soul is thine own and thy will as free as any man's, whate'er he be, thou art in thine own house and master of it as much as the king of his taxes and thou knowest the common saying, 'Under my cloak I kill the king all which exempts and frees thee from every consideration and obligation, and thou canst say what thou wilt of the story without fear of being abused for any ill or rewarded for any good thou mayest say of it. My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned, without any embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now reading. Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many did I lay it down again, not knowing what to write. One of these times, as I was pondering with the paper before me, a pen in my ear, my elbow on the desk, and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should say, there came in unexpectedly a certain lively, clever friend of mine, who, seeing me so deep in thought, asked the reason to which I, making no mystery of it, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had to make for the story of 'Don Quixote, which so troubled me that I had a mind not to make any at all, nor even publish the achievements of so noble a knight. 'For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that ancient lawgiver they call the Public will say when it sees me, after slumbering so many years in the silence of oblivion, coming out now with all my years upon my back, and with a book as dry as a rush, devoid of invention, meagre in style, poor in thoughts, wholly wanting in learning and wisdom, without quotations in the margin or annotations at the end, after the fashion of other books I see, which, though all fables and profanity, are so full of maxims from Aristotle, and Plato, and the whole herd of philosophers, that they fill the readers with amazement and convince them that the authors are men of learning, erudition, and eloquence. And then, when they quote the Holy Scriptures!anyone would say they are St. Thomases or other doctors of the Church, observing as they do a decorum so ingenious that in one sentence they describe a distracted lover and in the next deliver a devout little sermon that it is a pleasure and a treat to hear and read. Of all this there will be nothing in my book, for I have nothing to quote in the margin or to note at the end, and still less do I know what authors I follow in it, to place them at the beginning, as all do, under the letters A, B, C, beginning with Aristotle and ending with Xenophon, or Zoilus, or Zeuxis, though one was a slanderer and the other a painter. Also my book must do without sonnets at the beginning, at least sonnets whose authors are dukes, marquises, counts, bishops, ladies, or famous poets. Though if I were to ask two or three obliging friends, I know they would give me them, and such as the productions of those that have the highest reputation in our Spain could not equal. 'In short, my friend, I continued, 'I am determined that Seor Don Quixote shall remain buried in the archives of his own La Mancha until Heaven provide someone to garnish him with all those things he stands in need of because I find myself, through my shallowness and want of learning, unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy and careless about hunting for authors to say what I myself can say without them. Hence the cogitation and abstraction you found me in, and reason enough, what you have heard from me. Hearing this, my friend, giving himself a slap on the forehead and breaking into a hearty laugh, exclaimed, 'Before God, Brother, now am I disabused of an error in which I have been living all this long time I have known you, all through which I have taken you to be shrewd and sensible in all you do but now I see you are as far from that as the heaven is from the earth. Is it possible that things of so little moment and so easy to set right can occupy and perplex a ripe wit like yours, fit to break through and crush far greater obstacles? By my faith, this comes, not of any want of ability, but of too much indolence and too little knowledge of life. Do you want to know if I am telling the truth? Well, then, attend to me, and you will see how, in the opening and shutting of an eye, I sweep away all your difficulties, and supply all those deficiencies which you say check and discourage you from bringing before the world the story of your famous Don Quixote, the light and mirror of all knighterrantry. 'Say on, said I, listening to his talk 'how do you propose to make up for my diffidence, and reduce to order this chaos of perplexity I am in? To which he made answer, 'Your first difficulty about the sonnets, epigrams, or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and which ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to make them you can afterwards baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my knowledge, were said to have been famous poets and even if they were not, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the fact, never care two maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lie against you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with. 'As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom you take the aphorisms and sayings you put into your story, it is only contriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of Latin you may happen to have by heart, or at any rate that will not give you much trouble to look up so as, when you speak of freedom and captivity, to insert Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro and then refer in the margin to Horace, or whoever said it or, if you allude to the power of death, to come in with Pallida mors quo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Regumque turres. 'If it be friendship and the love God bids us bear to our enemy, go at once to the Holy Scriptures, which you can do with a very small amount of research, and quote no less than the words of God himself Ego autem dico vobis diligite inimicos vestros. If you speak of evil thoughts, turn to the Gospel De corde exeunt cogitationes mal. If of the fickleness of friends, there is Cato, who will give you his distich Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos, Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris. 'With these and such like bits of Latin they will take you for a grammarian at all events, and that nowadays is no small honour and profit. 'With regard to adding annotations at the end of the book, you may safely do it in this way. If you mention any giant in your book contrive that it shall be the giant Goliath, and with this alone, which will cost you almost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can putThe giant Golias or Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew by a mighty stonecast in the Terebinth valley, as is related in the Book of Kingsin the chapter where you find it written. 'Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and cosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story, and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting forthThe river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain it has its source in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the walls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it has golden sands, etc. If you should have anything to do with robbers, I will give you the story of Cacus, for I have it by heart if with loose women, there is the Bishop of Mondonedo, who will give you the loan of Lamia, Laida, and Flora, any reference to whom will bring you great credit if with hardhearted ones, Ovid will furnish you with Medea if with witches or enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and Virgil Circe if with valiant captains, Julius Csar himself will lend you himself in his own 'Commentaries,' and Plutarch will give you a thousand Alexanders. If you should deal with love, with two ounces you may know of Tuscan you can go to Leon the Hebrew, who will supply you to your heart's content or if you should not care to go to foreign countries you have at home Fonseca's 'Of the Love of God,' in which is condensed all that you or the most imaginative mind can want on the subject. In short, all you have to do is to manage to quote these names, or refer to these stories I have mentioned, and leave it to me to insert the annotations and quotations, and I swear by all that's good to fill your margins and use up four sheets at the end of the book. 'Now let us come to those references to authors which other books have, and you want for yours. The remedy for this is very simple You have only to look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z as you say yourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and though the imposition may be plain to see, because you have so little need to borrow from them, that is no matter there will probably be some simple enough to believe that you have made use of them all in this plain, artless story of yours. At any rate, if it answers no other purpose, this long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look of authority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to verify whether you have followed them or whether you have not, being no way concerned in it especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours has no need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, from beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of which Aristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had any knowledge nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of astrology come within the range of its fanciful vagaries nor have geometrical measurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything to do with it nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things human and divine, a sort of motley in which no Christian understanding should dress itself. It has only to avail itself of truth to nature in its composition, and the more perfect the imitation the better the work will be. And as this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy the authority and influence which books of chivalry have in the world and with the public, there is no need for you to go abegging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets, speeches from orators, or miracles from saints but merely to take care that your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with clear, proper, and wellplaced words, setting forth your purpose to the best of your power, and putting your ideas intelligibly, without confusion or obscurity. Strive, too, that in reading your story the melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made merrier still that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it. Finally, keep your aim fixed on the destruction of that illfounded edifice of the books of chivalry, hated by some and praised by many more for if you succeed in this you will have achieved no small success. In profound silence I listened to what my friend said, and his observations made such an impression on me that, without attempting to question them, I admitted their soundness, and out of them I determined to make this Preface wherein, gentle reader, thou wilt perceive my friend's good sense, my good fortune in finding such an adviser in such a time of need, and what thou hast gained in receiving, without addition or alteration, the story of the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, who is held by all the inhabitants of the district of the Campo de Montiel to have been the chastest lover and the bravest knight that has for many years been seen in that neighbourhood. I have no desire to magnify the service I render thee in making thee acquainted with so renowned and honoured a knight, but I do desire thy thanks for the acquaintance thou wilt make with the famous Sancho Panza, his squire, in whom, to my thinking, I have given thee condensed all the squirely drolleries that are scattered through the swarm of the vain books of chivalry. And somay God give thee health, and not forget me. Vale. To the book of Don Quixote of la Mancha If to be welcomed by the good, O Book! thou make thy steady aim, No empty chatterer will dare To question or dispute thy claim. But if perchance thou hast a mind To win of idiots approbation, Lost labour will be thy reward, Though they'll pretend appreciation. They say a goodly shade he finds Who shelters 'neath a goodly tree And such a one thy kindly star In Bejar bath provided thee A royal tree whose spreading boughs A show of princely fruit display A tree that bears a noble Duke, The Alexander of his day. Of a Manchegan gentleman Thy purpose is to tell the story, Relating how he lost his wits O'er idle tales of love and glory, Of 'ladies, arms, and cavaliers A new Orlando Furioso Innamorato, ratherwho Won Dulcinea del Toboso. Put no vain emblems on thy shield All figuresthat is bragging play. A modest dedication make, And give no scoffer room to say, 'What! lvaro de Luna here? Or is it Hannibal again? Or does King Francis at Madrid Once more of destiny complain? Since Heaven it hath not pleased on thee Deep erudition to bestow, Or black Latino's gift of tongues, No Latin let thy pages show. Ape not philosophy or wit, Lest one who cannot comprehend, Make a wry face at thee and ask, 'Why offer flowers to me, my friend? Be not a meddler no affair Of thine the life thy neighbours lead Be prudent oft the random jest Recoils upon the jester's head. Thy constant labour let it be To earn thyself an honest name, For fooleries preserved in print Are perpetuity of shame. A further counsel bear in mind If that thy roof be made of glass, It shows small wit to pick up stones To pelt the people as they pass. Win the attention of the wise, And give the thinker food for thought Whoso indites frivolities, Will but by simpletons be sought. To Don Quixote of la Mancha SONNET Thou that didst imitate that life of mine When I in lonely sadness on the great Rock Pea Pobre sat disconsolate, In selfimposed penance there to pine Thou, whose sole beverage was the bitter brine Of thine own tears, and who withouten plate Of silver, copper, tin, in lowly state Off the bare earth and on earth's fruits didst dine Live thou, of thine eternal glory sure. So long as on the round of the fourth sphere The bright Apollo shall his coursers steer, In thy renown thou shalt remain secure, Thy country's name in story shall endure, And thy sage author stand without a peer. To Don Quixote of la Mancha SONNET In slashing, hewing, cleaving, word and deed, I was the foremost knight of chivalry, Stout, bold, expert, as e'er the world did see Thousands from the oppressor's wrong I freed Great were my feats, eternal fame their meed In love I proved my truth and loyalty The hugest giant was a dwarf for me Ever to knighthood's laws gave I good heed. My mastery the Fickle Goddess owned, And even Chance, submitting to control, Grasped by the forelock, yielded to my will. Yetthough above yon horned moon enthroned My fortune seems to sitgreat Quixote, still Envy of thy achievements fills my soul. To Dulcinea del Toboso SONNET Oh, fairest Dulcinea, could it be! It were a pleasant fancy to suppose so Could Miraflores change to El Toboso, And London's town to that which shelters thee! Oh, could mine but acquire that livery Of countless charms thy mind and body show so! Or him, now famous grownthou mad'st him grow so Thy knight, in some dread combat could I see! Oh, could I be released from Amadis By exercise of such coy chastity As led thee gentle Quixote to dismiss! Then would my heavy sorrow turn to joy None would I envy, all would envy me, And happiness be mine without alloy. To Sancho Panza, squire of Don Quixote SONNET All hail, illustrious man! Fortune, when she Bound thee apprentice to the esquire trade, Her care and tenderness of thee displayed, Shaping thy course from misadventure free. No longer now doth proud knighterrantry Regard with scorn the sickle and the spade Of towering arrogance less count is made Than of plain esquirelike simplicity. I envy thee thy Dapple, and thy name, And those alforjas thou wast wont to stuff With comforts that thy providence proclaim. Excellent Sancho! hail to thee again! To thee alone the Ovid of our Spain Does homage with the rustic kiss and cuff. On Sancho Panza and Rocinante ON SANCHO I am the esquire Sancho Pan Who served Don Quixote of La Man But from his service I retreat, Resolved to pass my life discreet For Villadiego, called the Si, Maintained that only in reti Was found the secret of wellbe, According to the 'Celesti A book divine, except for sin By speech too plain, in my opin ON ROCINANTE I am that Rocinante fa, Greatgrandson of great Babie, Who, all for being lean and bon, Had one Don Quixote for an own But if I matched him well in weak, I never took short commons meek, But kept myself in corn by steal, A trick I learned from Lazaril, When with a piece of straw so neat The blind man of his wine he cheat. To Don Quixote of La Mancha SONNET If thou art not a Peer, peer thou hast none Among a thousand Peers thou art a peer Nor is there room for one when thou art near, Unvanquished victor, great unconquered one! Orlando, by Angelica undone, Am I o'er distant seas condemned to steer, And to Fame's altars as an offering bear Valour respected by Oblivion. I cannot be thy rival, for thy fame And prowess rise above all rivalry, Albeit both bereft of wits we go. But, though the Scythian or the Moor to tame Was not thy lot, still thou dost rival me Love binds us in a fellowship of woe. To Don Quixote of La Mancha My sword was not to be compared with thine Phbus of Spain, marvel of courtesy, Nor with thy famous arm this hand of mine That smote from east to west as lightnings fly. I scorned all empire, and that monarchy The rosy east held out did I resign For one glance of Claridiana's eye, The bright Aurora for whose love I pine. A miracle of constancy my love And banished by her ruthless cruelty, This arm had might the rage of Hell to tame. But, Gothic Quixote, happier thou dost prove, For thou dost live in Dulcinea's name, And famous, honoured, wise, she lives in thee. To Don Quixote of La Mancha SONNET Your fantasies, Sir Quixote, it is true, That crazy brain of yours have quite upset, But aught of base or mean hath never yet Been charged by any in reproach to you. Your deeds are open proof in all men's view For you went forth injustice to abate, And for your pains sore drubbings did you get From many a rascally and ruffian crew. If the fair Dulcinea, your heart's queen, Be unrelenting in her cruelty, If still your woe be powerless to move her, In such hard case your comfort let it be That Sancho was a sorry gobetween A booby he, hardhearted she, and you no lover. Between Babieca and Rocinante SONNET B. 'How comes it, Rocinante, you're so lean? R. 'I'm underfed, with overwork I'm worn. B. 'But what becomes of all the hay and corn? R. 'My master gives me none he's much too mean. B. 'Come, come, you show illbreeding, sir, I ween 'Tis like an ass your master thus to scorn. R. He is an ass, will die an ass, an ass was born Why, he's in love what's plainer to be seen? B. 'To be in love is folly?R. 'No great sense. B. 'You're metaphysical.R. 'From want of food. B. 'Rail at the squire, then.R. 'Why, what's the good? I might indeed complain of him, I grant ye, But, squire or master, where's the difference? They're both as sorry hacks as Rocinante. TO THE DUKE OF BEJAR, MARQUIS OF GIBRALEON, COUNT OF BENALCAZAR AND BANARES, VICECOUNT OF THE PUEBLA DE ALCOCER, MASTER OF THE TOWNS OF CAPILLA, CURIEL AND BURGUILLOS In belief of the good reception and honours that Your Excellency bestows on all sort of books, as prince so inclined to favor good arts, chiefly those who by their nobleness do not submit to the service and bribery of the vulgar, I have determined bringing to light The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of la Mancha, in shelter of Your Excellency's glamorous name, to whom, with the obeisance I owe to such grandeur, I pray to receive it agreeably under his protection, so that in this shadow, though deprived of that precious ornament of elegance and erudition that clothe the works composed in the houses of those who know, it dares appear with assurance in the judgment of some who, trespassing the bounds of their own ignorance, use to condemn with more rigour and less justice the writings of others. It is my earnest hope that Your Excellency's good counsel in regard to my honourable purpose, will not disdain the littleness of so humble a service. Miguel de Cervantes In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lancerack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with threequarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on weekdays he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and marketplace, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the billhook. The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty he was of a hardy habit, spare, gauntfeatured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it. You must know, then, that the abovenamed gentleman whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his fieldsports, and even the management of his property and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like 'the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty or again, 'the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves. Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis gave and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the surgeons who had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered all over with seams and scars. He commended, however, the author's way of ending his book with the promise of that interminable adventure, and many a time was he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as is there proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a successful piece of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing thoughts prevented him. Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas, the village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Knight of Phbus, and that if there was any that could compare with him it was Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, nor lachrymose like his brother, while in the matter of valour he was not a whit behind him. In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one backstroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because, although of the giant breed which is always arrogant and illconditioned, he alone was affable and wellbred. But above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him sallying forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain. In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knighterrant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knightserrant righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution. The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his greatgrandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of halfhelmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that, in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut, he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease with which he had knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and to guard against that danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron on the inside until he was satisfied with its strength and then, not caring to try any more experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it as a helmet of the most perfect construction. He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that 'tantum pellis et ossa fuit, surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knighterrant, and what he then was for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and fullsounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow. And so, after having composed, struck out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world. Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself 'Don Quixote, whence, as has been already said, the authors of this veracious history have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight, resolved to add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha, whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin and country, and did honour to it in taking his surname from it. So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love with for a knighterrant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself, 'If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knightserrant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have someone I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'? Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of someone to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very goodlooking farmgirl with whom he had been at one time in love, though, so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts and after some search for a name which should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Tobososhe being of El Tobosoa name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him. These preliminaries settled, he did not care to put off any longer the execution of his design, urged on to it by the thought of all the world was losing by his delay, seeing what wrongs he intended to right, grievances to redress, injustices to repair, abuses to remove, and duties to discharge. So, without giving notice of his intention to anyone, and without anybody seeing him, one morning before the dawning of the day (which was one of the hottest of the month of July) he donned his suit of armour, mounted Rocinante with his patchedup helmet on, braced his buckler, took his lance, and by the back door of the yard sallied forth upon the plain in the highest contentment and satisfaction at seeing with what ease he had made a beginning with his grand purpose. But scarcely did he find himself upon the open plain, when a terrible thought struck him, one all but enough to make him abandon the enterprise at the very outset. It occurred to him that he had not been dubbed a knight, and that according to the law of chivalry he neither could nor ought to bear arms against any knight and that even if he had been, still he ought, as a novice knight, to wear white armour, without a device upon the shield until by his prowess he had earned one. These reflections made him waver in his purpose, but his craze being stronger than any reasoning, he made up his mind to have himself dubbed a knight by the first one he came across, following the example of others in the same case, as he had read in the books that brought him to this pass. As for white armour, he resolved, on the first opportunity, to scour his until it was whiter than an ermine and so comforting himself he pursued his way, taking that which his horse chose, for in this he believed lay the essence of adventures. Thus setting out, our newfledged adventurer paced along, talking to himself and saying, 'Who knows but that in time to come, when the veracious history of my famous deeds is made known, the sage who writes it, when he has to set forth my first sally in the early morning, will do it after this fashion? 'Scarce had the rubicund Apollo spread o'er the face of the broad spacious earth the golden threads of his bright hair, scarce had the little birds of painted plumage attuned their notes to hail with dulcet and mellifluous harmony the coming of the rosy Dawn, that, deserting the soft couch of her jealous spouse, was appearing to mortals at the gates and balconies of the Manchegan horizon, when the renowned knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, quitting the lazy down, mounted his celebrated steed Rocinante and began to traverse the ancient and famous Campo de Montiel' which in fact he was actually traversing. 'Happy the age, happy the time, he continued, 'in which shall be made known my deeds of fame, worthy to be moulded in brass, carved in marble, limned in pictures, for a memorial for ever. And thou, O sage magician, whoever thou art, to whom it shall fall to be the chronicler of this wondrous history, forget not, I entreat thee, my good Rocinante, the constant companion of my ways and wanderings. Presently he broke out again, as if he were lovestricken in earnest, 'O Princess Dulcinea, lady of this captive heart, a grievous wrong hast thou done me to drive me forth with scorn, and with inexorable obduracy banish me from the presence of thy beauty. O lady, deign to hold in remembrance this heart, thy vassal, that thus in anguish pines for love of thee. So he went on stringing together these and other absurdities, all in the style of those his books had taught him, imitating their language as well as he could and all the while he rode so slowly and the sun mounted so rapidly and with such fervour that it was enough to melt his brains if he had any. Nearly all day he travelled without anything remarkable happening to him, at which he was in despair, for he was anxious to encounter someone at once upon whom to try the might of his strong arm. Writers there are who say the first adventure he met with was that of Puerto Lapice others say it was that of the windmills but what I have ascertained on this point, and what I have found written in the annals of La Mancha, is that he was on the road all day, and towards nightfall his hack and he found themselves dead tired and hungry, when, looking all around to see if he could discover any castle or shepherd's shanty where he might refresh himself and relieve his sore wants, he perceived not far out of his road an inn, which was as welcome as a star guiding him to the portals, if not the palaces, of his redemption and quickening his pace he reached it just as night was setting in. At the door were standing two young women, girls of the district as they call them, on their way to Seville with some carriers who had chanced to halt that night at the inn and as, happen what might to our adventurer, everything he saw or imagined seemed to him to be and to happen after the fashion of what he read of, the moment he saw the inn he pictured it to himself as a castle with its four turrets and pinnacles of shining silver, not forgetting the drawbridge and moat and all the belongings usually ascribed to castles of the sort. To this inn, which to him seemed a castle, he advanced, and at a short distance from it he checked Rocinante, hoping that some dwarf would show himself upon the battlements, and by sound of trumpet give notice that a knight was approaching the castle. But seeing that they were slow about it, and that Rocinante was in a hurry to reach the stable, he made for the inn door, and perceived the two gay damsels who were standing there, and who seemed to him to be two fair maidens or lovely ladies taking their ease at the castle gate. At this moment it so happened that a swineherd who was going through the stubbles collecting a drove of pigs (for, without any apology, that is what they are called) gave a blast of his horn to bring them together, and forthwith it seemed to Don Quixote to be what he was expecting, the signal of some dwarf announcing his arrival and so with prodigious satisfaction he rode up to the inn and to the ladies, who, seeing a man of this sort approaching in full armour and with lance and buckler, were turning in dismay into the inn, when Don Quixote, guessing their fear by their flight, raising his pasteboard visor, disclosed his dry dusty visage, and with courteous bearing and gentle voice addressed them, 'Your ladyships need not fly or fear any rudeness, for that it belongs not to the order of knighthood which I profess to offer to anyone, much less to highborn maidens as your appearance proclaims you to be. The girls were looking at him and straining their eyes to make out the features which the clumsy visor obscured, but when they heard themselves called maidens, a thing so much out of their line, they could not restrain their laughter, which made Don Quixote wax indignant, and say, 'Modesty becomes the fair, and moreover laughter that has little cause is great silliness this, however, I say not to pain or anger you, for my desire is none other than to serve you. The incomprehensible language and the unpromising looks of our cavalier only increased the ladies' laughter, and that increased his irritation, and matters might have gone farther if at that moment the landlord had not come out, who, being a very fat man, was a very peaceful one. He, seeing this grotesque figure clad in armour that did not match any more than his saddle, bridle, lance, buckler, or corselet, was not at all indisposed to join the damsels in their manifestations of amusement but, in truth, standing in awe of such a complicated armament, he thought it best to speak him fairly, so he said, 'Seor Caballero, if your worship wants lodging, bating the bed (for there is not one in the inn) there is plenty of everything else here. Don Quixote, observing the respectful bearing of the Alcaide of the fortress (for so innkeeper and inn seemed in his eyes), made answer, 'Sir Castellan, for me anything will suffice, for 'My armour is my only wear, My only rest the fray.' The host fancied he called him Castellan because he took him for a 'worthy of Castile, though he was in fact an Andalusian, and one from the strand of San Lucar, as crafty a thief as Cacus and as full of tricks as a student or a page. 'In that case, said he, ''Your bed is on the flinty rock, Your sleep to watch alway' and if so, you may dismount and safely reckon upon any quantity of sleeplessness under this roof for a twelvemonth, not to say for a single night. So saying, he advanced to hold the stirrup for Don Quixote, who got down with great difficulty and exertion (for he had not broken his fast all day), and then charged the host to take great care of his horse, as he was the best bit of flesh that ever ate bread in this world. The landlord eyed him over but did not find him as good as Don Quixote said, nor even half as good and putting him up in the stable, he returned to see what might be wanted by his guest, whom the damsels, who had by this time made their peace with him, were now relieving of his armour. They had taken off his breastplate and backpiece, but they neither knew nor saw how to open his gorget or remove his makeshift helmet, for he had fastened it with green ribbons, which, as there was no untying the knots, required to be cut. This, however, he would not by any means consent to, so he remained all the evening with his helmet on, the drollest and oddest figure that can be imagined and while they were removing his armour, taking the baggages who were about it for ladies of high degree belonging to the castle, he said to them with great sprightliness 'Oh, never, surely, was there knight So served by hand of dame, As served was he, Don Quixote hight, When from his town he came With maidens waiting on himself, Princesses on his hack or Rocinante, for that, ladies mine, is my horse's name, and Don Quixote of La Mancha is my own for though I had no intention of declaring myself until my achievements in your service and honour had made me known, the necessity of adapting that old ballad of Lancelot to the present occasion has given you the knowledge of my name altogether prematurely. A time, however, will come for your ladyships to command and me to obey, and then the might of my arm will show my desire to serve you. The girls, who were not used to hearing rhetoric of this sort, had nothing to say in reply they only asked him if he wanted anything to eat. 'I would gladly eat a bit of something, said Don Quixote, 'for I feel it would come very seasonably. The day happened to be a Friday, and in the whole inn there was nothing but some pieces of the fish they call in Castile 'abadejo, in Andalusia 'bacallao, and in some places 'curadillo, and in others 'troutlet so they asked him if he thought he could eat troutlet, for there was no other fish to give him. 'If there be troutlets enough, said Don Quixote, 'they will be the same thing as a trout for it is all one to me whether I am given eight reals in small change or a piece of eight moreover, it may be that these troutlets are like veal, which is better than beef, or kid, which is better than goat. But whatever it be let it come quickly, for the burden and pressure of arms cannot be borne without support to the inside. They laid a table for him at the door of the inn for the sake of the air, and the host brought him a portion of illsoaked and worse cooked stockfish, and a piece of bread as black and mouldy as his own armour but a laughable sight it was to see him eating, for having his helmet on and the beaver up, he could not with his own hands put anything into his mouth unless someone else placed it there, and this service one of the ladies rendered him. But to give him anything to drink was impossible, or would have been so had not the landlord bored a reed, and putting one end in his mouth poured the wine into him through the other all which he bore with patience rather than sever the ribbons of his helmet. While this was going on there came up to the inn a sowgelder, who, as he approached, sounded his reed pipe four or five times, and thereby completely convinced Don Quixote that he was in some famous castle, and that they were regaling him with music, and that the stockfish was trout, the bread the whitest, the wenches ladies, and the landlord the castellan of the castle and consequently he held that his enterprise and sally had been to some purpose. But still it distressed him to think he had not been dubbed a knight, for it was plain to him he could not lawfully engage in any adventure without receiving the order of knighthood. Harassed by this reflection, he made haste with his scanty pothouse supper, and having finished it called the landlord, and shutting himself into the stable with him, fell on his knees before him, saying, 'From this spot I rise not, valiant knight, until your courtesy grants me the boon I seek, one that will redound to your praise and the benefit of the human race. The landlord, seeing his guest at his feet and hearing a speech of this kind, stood staring at him in bewilderment, not knowing what to do or say, and entreating him to rise, but all to no purpose until he had agreed to grant the boon demanded of him. 'I looked for no less, my lord, from your High Magnificence, replied Don Quixote, 'and I have to tell you that the boon I have asked and your liberality has granted is that you shall dub me knight tomorrow morning, and that tonight I shall watch my arms in the chapel of this your castle thus tomorrow, as I have said, will be accomplished what I so much desire, enabling me lawfully to roam through all the four quarters of the world seeking adventures on behalf of those in distress, as is the duty of chivalry and of knightserrant like myself, whose ambition is directed to such deeds. The landlord, who, as has been mentioned, was something of a wag, and had already some suspicion of his guest's want of wits, was quite convinced of it on hearing talk of this kind from him, and to make sport for the night he determined to fall in with his humour. So he told him he was quite right in pursuing the object he had in view, and that such a motive was natural and becoming in cavaliers as distinguished as he seemed and his gallant bearing showed him to be and that he himself in his younger days had followed the same honourable calling, roaming in quest of adventures in various parts of the world, among others the Curinggrounds of Malaga, the Isles of Riaran, the Precinct of Seville, the Little Market of Segovia, the Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the Strand of San Lucar, the Colt of Cordova, the Taverns of Toledo, and divers other quarters, where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows, ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain until at last he had retired to this castle of his, where he was living upon his property and upon that of others and where he received all knightserrant of whatever rank or condition they might be, all for the great love he bore them and that they might share their substance with him in return for his benevolence. He told him, moreover, that in this castle of his there was no chapel in which he could watch his armour, as it had been pulled down in order to be rebuilt, but that in a case of necessity it might, he knew, be watched anywhere, and he might watch it that night in a courtyard of the castle, and in the morning, God willing, the requisite ceremonies might be performed so as to have him dubbed a knight, and so thoroughly dubbed that nobody could be more so. He asked if he had any money with him, to which Don Quixote replied that he had not a farthing, as in the histories of knightserrant he had never read of any of them carrying any. On this point the landlord told him he was mistaken for, though not recorded in the histories, because in the author's opinion there was no need to mention anything so obvious and necessary as money and clean shirts, it was not to be supposed therefore that they did not carry them, and he might regard it as certain and established that all knightserrant (about whom there were so many full and unimpeachable books) carried wellfurnished purses in case of emergency, and likewise carried shirts and a little box of ointment to cure the wounds they received. For in those plains and deserts where they engaged in combat and came out wounded, it was not always that there was someone to cure them, unless indeed they had for a friend some sage magician to succour them at once by fetching through the air upon a cloud some damsel or dwarf with a vial of water of such virtue that by tasting one drop of it they were cured of their hurts and wounds in an instant and left as sound as if they had not received any damage whatever. But in case this should not occur, the knights of old took care to see that their squires were provided with money and other requisites, such as lint and ointments for healing purposes and when it happened that knights had no squires (which was rarely and seldom the case) they themselves carried everything in cunning saddlebags that were hardly seen on the horse's croup, as if it were something else of more importance, because, unless for some such reason, carrying saddlebags was not very favourably regarded among knightserrant. He therefore advised him (and, as his godson so soon to be, he might even command him) never from that time forth to travel without money and the usual requirements, and he would find the advantage of them when he least expected it. Don Quixote promised to follow his advice scrupulously, and it was arranged forthwith that he should watch his armour in a large yard at one side of the inn so, collecting it all together, Don Quixote placed it on a trough that stood by the side of a well, and bracing his buckler on his arm he grasped his lance and began with a stately air to march up and down in front of the trough, and as he began his march night began to fall. The landlord told all the people who were in the inn about the craze of his guest, the watching of the armour, and the dubbing ceremony he contemplated. Full of wonder at so strange a form of madness, they flocked to see it from a distance, and observed with what composure he sometimes paced up and down, or sometimes, leaning on his lance, gazed on his armour without taking his eyes off it for ever so long and as the night closed in with a light from the moon so brilliant that it might vie with his that lent it, everything the novice knight did was plainly seen by all. Meanwhile one of the carriers who were in the inn thought fit to water his team, and it was necessary to remove Don Quixote's armour as it lay on the trough but he seeing the other approach hailed him in a loud voice, 'O thou, whoever thou art, rash knight that comest to lay hands on the armour of the most valorous errant that ever girt on sword, have a care what thou dost touch it not unless thou wouldst lay down thy life as the penalty of thy rashness. The carrier gave no heed to these words (and he would have done better to heed them if he had been heedful of his health), but seizing it by the straps flung the armour some distance from him. Seeing this, Don Quixote raised his eyes to heaven, and fixing his thoughts, apparently, upon his lady Dulcinea, exclaimed, 'Aid me, lady mine, in this the first encounter that presents itself to this breast which thou holdest in subjection let not thy favour and protection fail me in this first jeopardy and, with these words and others to the same purpose, dropping his buckler he lifted his lance with both hands and with it smote such a blow on the carrier's head that he stretched him on the ground, so stunned that had he followed it up with a second there would have been no need of a surgeon to cure him. This done, he picked up his armour and returned to his beat with the same serenity as before. Shortly after this, another, not knowing what had happened (for the carrier still lay senseless), came with the same object of giving water to his mules, and was proceeding to remove the armour in order to clear the trough, when Don Quixote, without uttering a word or imploring aid from anyone, once more dropped his buckler and once more lifted his lance, and without actually breaking the second carrier's head into pieces, made more than three of it, for he laid it open in four. At the noise all the people of the inn ran to the spot, and among them the landlord. Seeing this, Don Quixote braced his buckler on his arm, and with his hand on his sword exclaimed, 'O Lady of Beauty, strength and support of my faint heart, it is time for thee to turn the eyes of thy greatness on this thy captive knight on the brink of so mighty an adventure. By this he felt himself so inspired that he would not have flinched if all the carriers in the world had assailed him. The comrades of the wounded perceiving the plight they were in began from a distance to shower stones on Don Quixote, who screened himself as best he could with his buckler, not daring to quit the trough and leave his armour unprotected. The landlord shouted to them to leave him alone, for he had already told them that he was mad, and as a madman he would not be accountable even if he killed them all. Still louder shouted Don Quixote, calling them knaves and traitors, and the lord of the castle, who allowed knightserrant to be treated in this fashion, a villain and a lowborn knight whom, had he received the order of knighthood, he would call to account for his treachery. 'But of you, he cried, 'base and vile rabble, I make no account fling, strike, come on, do all ye can against me, ye shall see what the reward of your folly and insolence will be. This he uttered with so much spirit and boldness that he filled his assailants with a terrible fear, and as much for this reason as at the persuasion of the landlord they left off stoning him, and he allowed them to carry off the wounded, and with the same calmness and composure as before resumed the watch over his armour. But these freaks of his guest were not much to the liking of the landlord, so he determined to cut matters short and confer upon him at once the unlucky order of knighthood before any further misadventure could occur so, going up to him, he apologised for the rudeness which, without his knowledge, had been offered to him by these low people, who, however, had been well punished for their audacity. As he had already told him, he said, there was no chapel in the castle, nor was it needed for what remained to be done, for, as he understood the ceremonial of the order, the whole point of being dubbed a knight lay in the accolade and in the slap on the shoulder, and that could be administered in the middle of a field and that he had now done all that was needful as to watching the armour, for all requirements were satisfied by a watch of two hours only, while he had been more than four about it. Don Quixote believed it all, and told him he stood there ready to obey him, and to make an end of it with as much despatch as possible for, if he were again attacked, and felt himself to be dubbed knight, he would not, he thought, leave a soul alive in the castle, except such as out of respect he might spare at his bidding. Thus warned and menaced, the castellan forthwith brought out a book in which he used to enter the straw and barley he served out to the carriers, and, with a lad carrying a candleend, and the two damsels already mentioned, he returned to where Don Quixote stood, and bade him kneel down. Then, reading from his accountbook as if he were repeating some devout prayer, in the middle of his delivery he raised his hand and gave him a sturdy blow on the neck, and then, with his own sword, a smart slap on the shoulder, all the while muttering between his teeth as if he was saying his prayers. Having done this, he directed one of the ladies to gird on his sword, which she did with great selfpossession and gravity, and not a little was required to prevent a burst of laughter at each stage of the ceremony but what they had already seen of the novice knight's prowess kept their laughter within bounds. On girding him with the sword the worthy lady said to him, 'May God make your worship a very fortunate knight, and grant you success in battle. Don Quixote asked her name in order that he might from that time forward know to whom he was beholden for the favour he had received, as he meant to confer upon her some portion of the honour he acquired by the might of his arm. She answered with great humility that she was called La Tolosa, and that she was the daughter of a cobbler of Toledo who lived in the stalls of Sanchobienaya, and that wherever she might be she would serve and esteem him as her lord. Don Quixote said in reply that she would do him a favour if thenceforward she assumed the 'Don and called herself Doa Tolosa. She promised she would, and then the other buckled on his spur, and with her followed almost the same conversation as with the lady of the sword. He asked her name, and she said it was La Molinera, and that she was the daughter of a respectable miller of Antequera and of her likewise Don Quixote requested that she would adopt the 'Don and call herself Doa Molinera, making offers to her further services and favours. Having thus, with hot haste and speed, brought to a conclusion these nevertillnowseen ceremonies, Don Quixote was on thorns until he saw himself on horseback sallying forth in quest of adventures and saddling Rocinante at once he mounted, and embracing his host, as he returned thanks for his kindness in knighting him, he addressed him in language so extraordinary that it is impossible to convey an idea of it or report it. The landlord, to get him out of the inn, replied with no less rhetoric though with shorter words, and without calling upon him to pay the reckoning let him go with a Godspeed. Day was dawning when Don Quixote quitted the inn, so happy, so gay, so exhilarated at finding himself now dubbed a knight, that his joy was like to burst his horsegirths. However, recalling the advice of his host as to the requisites he ought to carry with him, especially that referring to money and shirts, he determined to go home and provide himself with all, and also with a squire, for he reckoned upon securing a farmlabourer, a neighbour of his, a poor man with a family, but very well qualified for the office of squire to a knight. With this object he turned his horse's head towards his village, and Rocinante, thus reminded of his old quarters, stepped out so briskly that he hardly seemed to tread the earth. He had not gone far, when out of a thicket on his right there seemed to come feeble cries as of someone in distress, and the instant he heard them he exclaimed, 'Thanks be to heaven for the favour it accords me, that it so soon offers me an opportunity of fulfilling the obligation I have undertaken, and gathering the fruit of my ambition. These cries, no doubt, come from some man or woman in want of help, and needing my aid and protection and wheeling, he turned Rocinante in the direction whence the cries seemed to proceed. He had gone but a few paces into the wood, when he saw a mare tied to an oak, and tied to another, and stripped from the waist upwards, a youth of about fifteen years of age, from whom the cries came. Nor were they without cause, for a lusty farmer was flogging him with a belt and following up every blow with scoldings and commands, repeating, 'Your mouth shut and your eyes open! while the youth made answer, 'I won't do it again, master mine by God's passion I won't do it again, and I'll take more care of the flock another time. Seeing what was going on, Don Quixote said in an angry voice, 'Discourteous knight, it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend himself mount your steed and take your lance (for there was a lance leaning against the oak to which the mare was tied), 'and I will make you know that you are behaving as a coward. The farmer, seeing before him this figure in full armour brandishing a lance over his head, gave himself up for dead, and made answer meekly, 'Sir Knight, this youth that I am chastising is my servant, employed by me to watch a flock of sheep that I have hard by, and he is so careless that I lose one every day, and when I punish him for his carelessness and knavery he says I do it out of niggardliness, to escape paying him the wages I owe him, and before God, and on my soul, he lies. 'Lies before me, base clown! said Don Quixote. 'By the sun that shines on us I have a mind to run you through with this lance. Pay him at once without another word if not, by the God that rules us I will make an end of you, and annihilate you on the spot release him instantly. The farmer hung his head, and without a word untied his servant, of whom Don Quixote asked how much his master owed him. He replied, nine months at seven reals a month. Don Quixote added it up, found that it came to sixtythree reals, and told the farmer to pay it down immediately, if he did not want to die for it. The trembling clown replied that as he lived and by the oath he had sworn (though he had not sworn any) it was not so much for there were to be taken into account and deducted three pairs of shoes he had given him, and a real for two bloodlettings when he was sick. 'All that is very well, said Don Quixote 'but let the shoes and the bloodlettings stand as a setoff against the blows you have given him without any cause for if he spoiled the leather of the shoes you paid for, you have damaged that of his body, and if the barber took blood from him when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was sound so on that score he owes you nothing. 'The difficulty is, Sir Knight, that I have no money here let Andres come home with me, and I will pay him all, real by real. 'I go with him! said the youth. 'Nay, God forbid! No, seor, not for the world for once alone with me, he would ray me like a Saint Bartholomew. 'He will do nothing of the kind, said Don Quixote 'I have only to command, and he will obey me and as he has sworn to me by the order of knighthood which he has received, I leave him free, and I guarantee the payment. 'Consider what you are saying, seor, said the youth 'this master of mine is not a knight, nor has he received any order of knighthood for he is Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar. 'That matters little, replied Don Quixote 'there may be Haldudos knights moreover, everyone is the son of his works. 'That is true, said Andres 'but this master of mineof what works is he the son, when he refuses me the wages of my sweat and labour? 'I do not refuse, brother Andres, said the farmer, 'be good enough to come along with me, and I swear by all the orders of knighthood there are in the world to pay you as I have agreed, real by real, and perfumed. 'For the perfumery I excuse you, said Don Quixote 'give it to him in reals, and I shall be satisfied and see that you do as you have sworn if not, by the same oath I swear to come back and hunt you out and punish you and I shall find you though you should lie closer than a lizard. And if you desire to know who it is lays this command upon you, that you be more firmly bound to obey it, know that I am the valorous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injustices and so, God be with you, and keep in mind what you have promised and sworn under those penalties that have been already declared to you. So saying, he gave Rocinante the spur and was soon out of reach. The farmer followed him with his eyes, and when he saw that he had cleared the wood and was no longer in sight, he turned to his boy Andres, and said, 'Come here, my son, I want to pay you what I owe you, as that undoer of wrongs has commanded me. 'My oath on it, said Andres, 'your worship will be well advised to obey the command of that good knightmay he live a thousand yearsfor, as he is a valiant and just judge, by Roque, if you do not pay me, he will come back and do as he said. 'My oath on it, too, said the farmer 'but as I have a strong affection for you, I want to add to the debt in order to add to the payment and seizing him by the arm, he tied him up again, and gave him such a flogging that he left him for dead. 'Now, Master Andres, said the farmer, 'call on the undoer of wrongs you will find he won't undo that, though I am not sure that I have quite done with you, for I have a good mind to flay you alive. But at last he untied him, and gave him leave to go look for his judge in order to put the sentence pronounced into execution. Andres went off rather down in the mouth, swearing he would go to look for the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha and tell him exactly what had happened, and that all would have to be repaid him sevenfold but for all that, he went off weeping, while his master stood laughing. Thus did the valiant Don Quixote right that wrong, and, thoroughly satisfied with what had taken place, as he considered he had made a very happy and noble beginning with his knighthood, he took the road towards his village in perfect selfcontent, saying in a low voice, 'Well mayest thou this day call thyself fortunate above all on earth, O Dulcinea del Toboso, fairest of the fair! since it has fallen to thy lot to hold subject and submissive to thy full will and pleasure a knight so renowned as is and will be Don Quixote of La Mancha, who, as all the world knows, yesterday received the order of knighthood, and hath today righted the greatest wrong and grievance that ever injustice conceived and cruelty perpetrated who hath today plucked the rod from the hand of yonder ruthless oppressor so wantonly lashing that tender child. He now came to a road branching in four directions, and immediately he was reminded of those crossroads where knightserrant used to stop to consider which road they should take. In imitation of them he halted for a while, and after having deeply considered it, he gave Rocinante his head, submitting his own will to that of his hack, who followed out his first intention, which was to make straight for his own stable. After he had gone about two miles Don Quixote perceived a large party of people, who, as afterwards appeared, were some Toledo traders, on their way to buy silk at Murcia. There were six of them coming along under their sunshades, with four servants mounted, and three muleteers on foot. Scarcely had Don Quixote descried them when the fancy possessed him that this must be some new adventure and to help him to imitate as far as he could those passages he had read of in his books, here seemed to come one made on purpose, which he resolved to attempt. So with a lofty bearing and determination he fixed himself firmly in his stirrups, got his lance ready, brought his buckler before his breast, and planting himself in the middle of the road, stood waiting the approach of these knightserrant, for such he now considered and held them to be and when they had come near enough to see and hear, he exclaimed with a haughty gesture, 'All the world stand, unless all the world confess that in all the world there is no maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. The traders halted at the sound of this language and the sight of the strange figure that uttered it, and from both figure and language at once guessed the craze of their owner they wished, however, to learn quietly what was the object of this confession that was demanded of them, and one of them, who was rather fond of a joke and was very sharpwitted, said to him, 'Sir Knight, we do not know who this good lady is that you speak of show her to us, for, if she be of such beauty as you suggest, with all our hearts and without any pressure we will confess the truth that is on your part required of us. 'If I were to show her to you, replied Don Quixote, 'what merit would you have in confessing a truth so manifest? The essential point is that without seeing her you must believe, confess, affirm, swear, and defend it else ye have to do with me in battle, illconditioned, arrogant rabble that ye are and come ye on, one by one as the order of knighthood requires, or all together as is the custom and vile usage of your breed, here do I bide and await you relying on the justice of the cause I maintain. 'Sir Knight, replied the trader, 'I entreat your worship in the name of this present company of princes, that, to save us from charging our consciences with the confession of a thing we have never seen or heard of, and one moreover so much to the prejudice of the Empresses and Queens of the Alcarria and Estremadura, your worship will be pleased to show us some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat for by the thread one gets at the ball, and in this way we shall be satisfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased nay, I believe we are already so far agreed with you that even though her portrait should show her blind of one eye, and distilling vermilion and sulphur from the other, we would nevertheless, to gratify your worship, say all in her favour that you desire. 'She distils nothing of the kind, vile rabble, said Don Quixote, burning with rage, 'nothing of the kind, I say, only ambergris and civet in cotton nor is she oneeyed or humpbacked, but straighter than a Guadarrama spindle but ye must pay for the blasphemy ye have uttered against beauty like that of my lady. And so saying, he charged with levelled lance against the one who had spoken, with such fury and fierceness that, if luck had not contrived that Rocinante should stumble midway and come down, it would have gone hard with the rash trader. Down went Rocinante, and over went his master, rolling along the ground for some distance and when he tried to rise he was unable, so encumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs, helmet, and the weight of his old armour and all the while he was struggling to get up he kept saying, 'Fly not, cowards and caitiffs! stay, for not by my fault, but my horse's, am I stretched here. One of the muleteers in attendance, who could not have had much good nature in him, hearing the poor prostrate man blustering in this style, was unable to refrain from giving him an answer on his ribs and coming up to him he seized his lance, and having broken it in pieces, with one of them he began so to belabour our Don Quixote that, notwithstanding and in spite of his armour, he milled him like a measure of wheat. His masters called out not to lay on so hard and to leave him alone, but the muleteer's blood was up, and he did not care to drop the game until he had vented the rest of his wrath, and gathering up the remaining fragments of the lance he finished with a discharge upon the unhappy victim, who all through the storm of sticks that rained on him never ceased threatening heaven, and earth, and the brigands, for such they seemed to him. At last the muleteer was tired, and the traders continued their journey, taking with them matter for talk about the poor fellow who had been cudgelled. He when he found himself alone made another effort to rise but if he was unable when whole and sound, how was he to rise after having been thrashed and wellnigh knocked to pieces? And yet he esteemed himself fortunate, as it seemed to him that this was a regular knighterrant's mishap, and entirely, he considered, the fault of his horse. However, battered in body as he was, to rise was beyond his power. Finding, then, that, in fact he could not move, he thought himself of having recourse to his usual remedy, which was to think of some passage in his books, and his craze brought to his mind that about Baldwin and the Marquis of Mantua, when Carloto left him wounded on the mountainside, a story known by heart by the children, not forgotten by the young men, and lauded and even believed by the old folk and for all that not a whit truer than the miracles of Mahomet. This seemed to him to fit exactly the case in which he found himself, so, making a show of severe suffering, he began to roll on the ground and with feeble breath repeat the very words which the wounded knight of the wood is said to have uttered Where art thou, lady mine, that thou My sorrow dost not rue? Thou canst not know it, lady mine, Or else thou art untrue. And so he went on with the ballad as far as the lines O noble Marquis of Mantua, My Uncle and liege lord! As chance would have it, when he had got to this line there happened to come by a peasant from his own village, a neighbour of his, who had been with a load of wheat to the mill, and he, seeing the man stretched there, came up to him and asked him who he was and what was the matter with him that he complained so dolefully. Don Quixote was firmly persuaded that this was the Marquis of Mantua, his uncle, so the only answer he made was to go on with his ballad, in which he told the tale of his misfortune, and of the loves of the Emperor's son and his wife all exactly as the ballad sings it. The peasant stood amazed at hearing such nonsense, and relieving him of the visor, already battered to pieces by blows, he wiped his face, which was covered with dust, and as soon as he had done so he recognised him and said, 'Seor Quixada (for so he appears to have been called when he was in his senses and had not yet changed from a quiet country gentleman into a knighterrant), 'who has brought your worship to this pass? But to all questions the other only went on with his ballad. Seeing this, the good man removed as well as he could his breastplate and backpiece to see if he had any wound, but he could perceive no blood nor any mark whatever. He then contrived to raise him from the ground, and with no little difficulty hoisted him upon his ass, which seemed to him to be the easiest mount for him and collecting the arms, even to the splinters of the lance, he tied them on Rocinante, and leading him by the bridle and the ass by the halter he took the road for the village, very sad to hear what absurd stuff Don Quixote was talking. Nor was Don Quixote less so, for what with blows and bruises he could not sit upright on the ass, and from time to time he sent up sighs to heaven, so that once more he drove the peasant to ask what ailed him. And it could have been only the devil himself that put into his head tales to match his own adventures, for now, forgetting Baldwin, he bethought himself of the Moor Abindarraez, when the Alcaide of Antequera, Rodrigo de Narvaez, took him prisoner and carried him away to his castle so that when the peasant again asked him how he was and what ailed him, he gave him for reply the same words and phrases that the captive Abindarraez gave to Rodrigo de Narvaez, just as he had read the story in the 'Diana of Jorge de Montemayor where it is written, applying it to his own case so aptly that the peasant went along cursing his fate that he had to listen to such a lot of nonsense from which, however, he came to the conclusion that his neighbour was mad, and so made all haste to reach the village to escape the wearisomeness of this harangue of Don Quixote's who, at the end of it, said, 'Seor Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, your worship must know that this fair Xarifa I have mentioned is now the lovely Dulcinea del Toboso, for whom I have done, am doing, and will do the most famous deeds of chivalry that in this world have been seen, are to be seen, or ever shall be seen. To this the peasant answered, 'Seorsinner that I am!cannot your worship see that I am not Don Rodrigo de Narvaez nor the Marquis of Mantua, but Pedro Alonso your neighbour, and that your worship is neither Baldwin nor Abindarraez, but the worthy gentleman Seor Quixada? 'I know who I am, replied Don Quixote, 'and I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done all together and each of them on his own account. With this talk and more of the same kind they reached the village just as night was beginning to fall, but the peasant waited until it was a little later that the belaboured gentleman might not be seen riding in such a miserable trim. When it was what seemed to him the proper time he entered the village and went to Don Quixote's house, which he found all in confusion, and there were the curate and the village barber, who were great friends of Don Quixote, and his housekeeper was saying to them in a loud voice, 'What does your worship think can have befallen my master, Seor Licentiate Pero Perez? for so the curate was called 'it is three days now since anything has been seen of him, or the hack, or the buckler, lance, or armour. Miserable me! I am certain of it, and it is as true as that I was born to die, that these accursed books of chivalry he has, and has got into the way of reading so constantly, have upset his reason for now I remember having often heard him saying to himself that he would turn knighterrant and go all over the world in quest of adventures. To the devil and Barabbas with such books, that have brought to ruin in this way the finest understanding there was in all La Mancha! The niece said the same, and, more 'You must know, Master Nicholasfor that was the name of the barber'it was often my uncle's way to stay two days and nights together poring over these unholy books of misventures, after which he would fling the book away and snatch up his sword and fall to slashing the walls and when he was tired out he would say he had killed four giants like four towers and the sweat that flowed from him when he was weary he said was the blood of the wounds he had received in battle and then he would drink a great jug of cold water and become calm and quiet, saying that this water was a most precious potion which the sage Esquife, a great magician and friend of his, had brought him. But I take all the blame upon myself for never having told your worships of my uncle's vagaries, that you might put a stop to them before things had come to this pass, and burn all these accursed booksfor he has a great numberthat richly deserve to be burned like heretics. 'So say I too, said the curate, 'and by my faith tomorrow shall not pass without public judgment upon them, and may they be condemned to the flames lest they lead those that read to behave as my good friend seems to have behaved. All this the peasant heard, and from it he understood at last what was the matter with his neighbour, so he began calling aloud, 'Open, your worships, to Seor Baldwin and to Seor the Marquis of Mantua, who comes badly wounded, and to Seor Abindarraez, the Moor, whom the valiant Rodrigo de Narvaez, the Alcaide of Antequera, brings captive. At these words they all hurried out, and when they recognised their friend, master, and uncle, who had not yet dismounted from the ass because he could not, they ran to embrace him. 'Hold! said he, 'for I am badly wounded through my horse's fault carry me to bed, and if possible send for the wise Urganda to cure and see to my wounds. 'See there! plague on it! cried the housekeeper at this 'did not my heart tell the truth as to which foot my master went lame of? To bed with your worship at once, and we will contrive to cure you here without fetching that Hurgada. A curse I say once more, and a hundred times more, on those books of chivalry that have brought your worship to such a pass. They carried him to bed at once, and after searching for his wounds could find none, but he said they were all bruises from having had a severe fall with his horse Rocinante when in combat with ten giants, the biggest and the boldest to be found on earth. 'So, so! said the curate, 'are there giants in the dance? By the sign of the Cross I will burn them tomorrow before the day is over. They put a host of questions to Don Quixote, but his only answer to all wasgive him something to eat, and leave him to sleep, for that was what he needed most. They did so, and the curate questioned the peasant at great length as to how he had found Don Quixote. He told him, and the nonsense he had talked when found and on the way home, all which made the licentiate the more eager to do what he did the next day, which was to summon his friend the barber, Master Nicholas, and go with him to Don Quixote's house. He was still sleeping so the curate asked the niece for the keys of the room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and right willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying, 'Here, your worship, seor licentiate, sprinkle this room don't leave any magician of the many there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge for our design of banishing them from the world. The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate laugh, and he directed the barber to give him the books one by one to see what they were about, as there might be some to be found among them that did not deserve the penalty of fire. 'No, said the niece, 'there is no reason for showing mercy to any of them they have every one of them done mischief better fling them out of the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to them or else carry them into the yard, and there a bonfire can be made without the smoke giving any annoyance. The housekeeper said the same, so eager were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate the titles. The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was 'The four books of Amadis of Gaul. 'This seems a mysterious thing, said the curate, 'for, as I have heard say, this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin so it seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames as the founder of so vile a sect. 'Nay, sir, said the barber, 'I too, have heard say that this is the best of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned. 'True, said the curate 'and for that reason let its life be spared for the present. Let us see that other which is next to it. 'It is, said the barber, 'the 'Sergas de Esplandian,' the lawful son of Amadis of Gaul. 'Then verily, said the curate, 'the merit of the father must not be put down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper open the window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the pile for the bonfire we are to make. The housekeeper obeyed with great satisfaction, and the worthy 'Esplandian went flying into the yard to await with all patience the fire that was in store for him. 'Proceed, said the curate. 'This that comes next, said the barber, 'is 'Amadis of Greece,' and, indeed, I believe all those on this side are of the same Amadis lineage. 'Then to the yard with the whole of them, said the curate 'for to have the burning of Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and his eclogues, and the bedevilled and involved discourses of his author, I would burn with them the father who begot me if he were going about in the guise of a knighterrant. 'I am of the same mind, said the barber. 'And so am I, added the niece. 'In that case, said the housekeeper, 'here, into the yard with them! They were handed to her, and as there were many of them, she spared herself the staircase, and flung them down out of the window. 'Who is that tub there? said the curate. 'This, said the barber, 'is 'Don Olivante de Laura.' 'The author of that book, said the curate, 'was the same that wrote 'The Garden of Flowers,' and truly there is no deciding which of the two books is the more truthful, or, to put it better, the less lying all I can say is, send this one into the yard for a swaggering fool. 'This that follows is 'Florismarte of Hircania,' said the barber. 'Seor Florismarte here? said the curate 'then by my faith he must take up his quarters in the yard, in spite of his marvellous birth and visionary adventures, for the stiffness and dryness of his style deserve nothing else into the yard with him and the other, mistress housekeeper. 'With all my heart, seor, said she, and executed the order with great delight. 'This, said the barber, 'is 'The Knight Platir.' 'An old book that, said the curate, 'but I find no reason for clemency in it send it after the others without appeal which was done. Another book was opened, and they saw it was entitled, 'The Knight of the Cross. 'For the sake of the holy name this book has, said the curate, 'its ignorance might be excused but then, they say, 'behind the cross there's the devil' to the fire with it. Taking down another book, the barber said, 'This is 'The Mirror of Chivalry.' 'I know his worship, said the curate 'that is where Seor Reinaldos of Montalvan figures with his friends and comrades, greater thieves than Cacus, and the Twelve Peers of France with the veracious historian Turpin however, I am not for condemning them to more than perpetual banishment, because, at any rate, they have some share in the invention of the famous Matteo Boiardo, whence too the Christian poet Ludovico Ariosto wove his web, to whom, if I find him here, and speaking any language but his own, I shall show no respect whatever but if he speaks his own tongue I will put him upon my head. 'Well, I have him in Italian, said the barber, 'but I do not understand him. 'Nor would it be well that you should understand him, said the curate, 'and on that score we might have excused the Captain if he had not brought him into Spain and turned him into Castilian. He robbed him of a great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the level of the originals as they were first produced. In short, I say that this book, and all that may be found treating of those French affairs, should be thrown into or deposited in some dry well, until after more consideration it is settled what is to be done with them excepting always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called 'Roncesvalles' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass at once into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into the fire without any reprieve. To all this the barber gave his assent, and looked upon it as right and proper, being persuaded that the curate was so staunch to the Faith and loyal to the Truth that he would not for the world say anything opposed to them. Opening another book he saw it was 'Palmerin de Oliva, and beside it was another called 'Palmerin of England, seeing which the licentiate said, 'Let the Olive be made firewood of at once and burned until no ashes even are left and let that Palm of England be kept and preserved as a thing that stands alone, and let such another case be made for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius and set aside for the safe keeping of the works of the poet Homer. This book, gossip, is of authority for two reasons, first because it is very good, and secondly because it is said to have been written by a wise and witty king of Portugal. All the adventures at the Castle of Miraguarda are excellent and of admirable contrivance, and the language is polished and clear, studying and observing the style befitting the speaker with propriety and judgment. So then, provided it seems good to you, Master Nicholas, I say let this and 'Amadis of Gaul' be remitted the penalty of fire, and as for all the rest, let them perish without further question or query. 'Nay, gossip, said the barber, 'for this that I have here is the famous 'Don Belianis.' 'Well, said the curate, 'that and the second, third, and fourth parts all stand in need of a little rhubarb to purge their excess of bile, and they must be cleared of all that stuff about the Castle of Fame and other greater affectations, to which end let them be allowed the overseas term, and, according as they mend, so shall mercy or justice be meted out to them and in the mean time, gossip, do you keep them in your house and let no one read them. 'With all my heart, said the barber and not caring to tire himself with reading more books of chivalry, he told the housekeeper to take all the big ones and throw them into the yard. It was not said to one dull or deaf, but to one who enjoyed burning them more than weaving the broadest and finest web that could be and seizing about eight at a time, she flung them out of the window. In carrying so many together she let one fall at the feet of the barber, who took it up, curious to know whose it was, and found it said, 'History of the Famous Knight, Tirante el Blanco. 'God bless me! said the curate with a shout, ''Tirante el Blanco' here! Hand it over, gossip, for in it I reckon I have found a treasury of enjoyment and a mine of recreation. Here is Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan, a valiant knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight Fonseca, with the battle the bold Tirante fought with the mastiff, and the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves and wiles of the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the squire Hipolitoin truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best book in the world. Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills before dying, and a great deal more of which there is nothing in all the other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it, for deliberately composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the galleys for life. Take it home with you and read it, and you will see that what I have said is true. 'As you will, said the barber 'but what are we to do with these little books that are left? 'These must be, not chivalry, but poetry, said the curate and opening one he saw it was the 'Diana of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all the others to be of the same sort, 'these, he said, 'do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can hurt no one. 'Ah, seor! said the niece, 'your worship had better order these to be burned as well as the others for it would be no wonder if, after being cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping or, what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable and infectious malady. 'The damsel is right, said the curate, 'and it will be well to put this stumblingblock and temptation out of our friend's way. To begin, then, with the 'Diana' of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be burned, but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage Felicia and the magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of verse let it keep, and welcome, its prose and the honour of being the first of books of the kind. 'This that comes next, said the barber, 'is the 'Diana,' entitled the 'Second Part, by the Salamancan,' and this other has the same title, and its author is Gil Polo. 'As for that of the Salamancan, replied the curate, 'let it go to swell the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo's be preserved as if it came from Apollo himself but get on, gossip, and make haste, for it is growing late. 'This book, said the barber, opening another, 'is the ten books of the 'Fortune of Love,' written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet. 'By the orders I have received, said the curate, 'since Apollo has been Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets, so droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its way it is the best and the most singular of all of this species that have as yet appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has never read what is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more account of having found it than if they had given me a cassock of Florence stuff. He put it aside with extreme satisfaction, and the barber went on, 'These that come next are 'The Shepherd of Iberia,' 'Nymphs of Henares,' and 'The Enlightenment of Jealousy.' 'Then all we have to do, said the curate, 'is to hand them over to the secular arm of the housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never have done. 'This next is the 'Pastor de Flida.' 'No Pastor that, said the curate, 'but a highly polished courtier let it be preserved as a precious jewel. 'This large one here, said the barber, 'is called 'The Treasury of various Poems.' 'If there were not so many of them, said the curate, 'they would be more relished this book must be weeded and cleansed of certain vulgarities which it has with its excellences let it be preserved because the author is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other more heroic and loftier works that he has written. 'This, continued the barber, 'is the 'Cancionero' of Lopez de Maldonado. 'The author of that book, too, said the curate, 'is a great friend of mine, and his verses from his own mouth are the admiration of all who hear them, for such is the sweetness of his voice that he enchants when he chants them it gives rather too much of its eclogues, but what is good was never yet plentiful let it be kept with those that have been set apart. But what book is that next it? 'The 'Galatea' of Miguel de Cervantes, said the barber. 'That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to my knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His book has some good invention in it, it presents us with something but brings nothing to a conclusion we must wait for the Second Part it promises perhaps with amendment it may succeed in winning the full measure of grace that is now denied it and in the mean time do you, seor gossip, keep it shut up in your own quarters. 'Very good, said the barber 'and here come three together, the 'Araucana' of Don Alonso de Ercilla, the 'Austriada' of Juan Rufo, Justice of Cordova, and the 'Montserrate' of Christobal de Virus, the Valencian poet. 'These three books, said the curate, 'are the best that have been written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the most famous of Italy let them be preserved as the richest treasures of poetry that Spain possesses. The curate was tired and would not look into any more books, and so he decided that, 'contents uncertified, all the rest should be burned but just then the barber held open one, called 'The Tears of Angelica. 'I should have shed tears myself, said the curate when he heard the title, 'had I ordered that book to be burned, for its author was one of the famous poets of the world, not to say of Spain, and was very happy in the translation of some of Ovid's fables. At this instant Don Quixote began shouting out, 'Here, here, valiant knights! here is need for you to put forth the might of your strong arms, for they of the Court are gaining the mastery in the tourney! Called away by this noise and outcry, they proceeded no farther with the scrutiny of the remaining books, and so it is thought that 'The Carolea, 'The Lion of Spain, and 'The Deeds of the Emperor, written by Don Luis de vila, went to the fire unseen and unheard for no doubt they were among those that remained, and perhaps if the curate had seen them they would not have undergone so severe a sentence. When they reached Don Quixote he was already out of bed, and was still shouting and raving, and slashing and cutting all round, as wide awake as if he had never slept. They closed with him and by force got him back to bed, and when he had become a little calm, addressing the curate, he said to him, 'Of a truth, Seor Archbishop Turpin, it is a great disgrace for us who call ourselves the Twelve Peers, so carelessly to allow the knights of the Court to gain the victory in this tourney, we the adventurers having carried off the honour on the three former days. 'Hush, gossip, said the curate 'please God, the luck may turn, and what is lost today may be won tomorrow for the present let your worship have a care of your health, for it seems to me that you are overfatigued, if not badly wounded. 'Wounded no, said Don Quixote, 'but bruised and battered no doubt, for that bastard Don Roland has cudgelled me with the trunk of an oak tree, and all for envy, because he sees that I alone rival him in his achievements. But I should not call myself Reinaldos of Montalvan did he not pay me for it in spite of all his enchantments as soon as I rise from this bed. For the present let them bring me something to eat, for that, I feel, is what will be more to my purpose, and leave it to me to avenge myself. They did as he wished they gave him something to eat, and once more he fell asleep, leaving them marvelling at his madness. That night the housekeeper burned to ashes all the books that were in the yard and in the whole house and some must have been consumed that deserved preservation in everlasting archives, but their fate and the laziness of the examiner did not permit it, and so in them was verified the proverb that the innocent suffer for the guilty. One of the remedies which the curate and the barber immediately applied to their friend's disorder was to wall up and plaster the room where the books were, so that when he got up he should not find them (possibly the cause being removed the effect might cease), and they might say that a magician had carried them off, room and all and this was done with all despatch. Two days later Don Quixote got up, and the first thing he did was to go and look at his books, and not finding the room where he had left it, he wandered from side to side looking for it. He came to the place where the door used to be, and tried it with his hands, and turned and twisted his eyes in every direction without saying a word but after a good while he asked his housekeeper whereabouts was the room that held his books. The housekeeper, who had been already well instructed in what she was to answer, said, 'What room or what nothing is it that your worship is looking for? There are neither room nor books in this house now, for the devil himself has carried all away. 'It was not the devil, said the niece, 'but a magician who came on a cloud one night after the day your worship left this, and dismounting from a serpent that he rode he entered the room, and what he did there I know not, but after a little while he made off, flying through the roof, and left the house full of smoke and when we went to see what he had done we saw neither book nor room but we remember very well, the housekeeper and I, that on leaving, the old villain said in a loud voice that, for a private grudge he owed the owner of the books and the room, he had done mischief in that house that would be discovered byandby he said too that his name was the Sage Muaton. 'He must have said Friston, said Don Quixote. 'I don't know whether he called himself Friston or Friton, said the housekeeper, 'I only know that his name ended with 'ton.' 'So it does, said Don Quixote, 'and he is a sage magician, a great enemy of mine, who has a spite against me because he knows by his arts and lore that in process of time I am to engage in single combat with a knight whom he befriends and that I am to conquer, and he will be unable to prevent it and for this reason he endeavours to do me all the ill turns that he can but I promise him it will be hard for him to oppose or avoid what is decreed by Heaven. 'Who doubts that? said the niece 'but, uncle, who mixes you up in these quarrels? Would it not be better to remain at peace in your own house instead of roaming the world looking for better bread than ever came of wheat, never reflecting that many go for wool and come back shorn? 'Oh, niece of mine, replied Don Quixote, 'how much astray art thou in thy reckoning ere they shear me I shall have plucked away and stripped off the beards of all who dare to touch only the tip of a hair of mine. The two were unwilling to make any further answer, as they saw that his anger was kindling. In short, then, he remained at home fifteen days very quietly without showing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delusions, and during this time he held lively discussions with his two gossips, the curate and the barber, on the point he maintained, that knightserrant were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be accomplished the revival of knighterrantry. The curate sometimes contradicted him, sometimes agreed with him, for if he had not observed this precaution he would have been unable to bring him to reason. Meanwhile Don Quixote worked upon a farm labourer, a neighbour of his, an honest man (if indeed that title can be given to him who is poor), but with very little wit in his pate. In a word, he so talked him over, and with such persuasions and promises, that the poor clown made up his mind to sally forth with him and serve him as esquire. Don Quixote, among other things, told him he ought to be ready to go with him gladly, because any moment an adventure might occur that might win an island in the twinkling of an eye and leave him governor of it. On these and the like promises Sancho Panza (for so the labourer was called) left wife and children, and engaged himself as esquire to his neighbour. Don Quixote next set about getting some money and selling one thing and pawning another, and making a bad bargain in every case, he got together a fair sum. He provided himself with a buckler, which he begged as a loan from a friend, and, restoring his battered helmet as best he could, he warned his squire Sancho of the day and hour he meant to set out, that he might provide himself with what he thought most needful. Above all, he charged him to take alforjas with him. The other said he would, and that he meant to take also a very good ass he had, as he was not much given to going on foot. About the ass, Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could call to mind any knighterrant taking with him an esquire mounted on assback, but no instance occurred to his memory. For all that, however, he determined to take him, intending to furnish him with a more honourable mount when a chance of it presented itself, by appropriating the horse of the first discourteous knight he encountered. Himself he provided with shirts and such other things as he could, according to the advice the host had given him all which being done, without taking leave, Sancho Panza of his wife and children, or Don Quixote of his housekeeper and niece, they sallied forth unseen by anybody from the village one night, and made such good way in the course of it that by daylight they held themselves safe from discovery, even should search be made for them. Sancho rode on his ass like a patriarch, with his alforjas and bota, and longing to see himself soon governor of the island his master had promised him. Don Quixote decided upon taking the same route and road he had taken on his first journey, that over the Campo de Montiel, which he travelled with less discomfort than on the last occasion, for, as it was early morning and the rays of the sun fell on them obliquely, the heat did not distress them. And now said Sancho Panza to his master, 'Your worship will take care, Seor Knighterrant, not to forget about the island you have promised me, for be it ever so big I'll be equal to governing it. To which Don Quixote replied, 'Thou must know, friend Sancho Panza, that it was a practice very much in vogue with the knightserrant of old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they won, and I am determined that there shall be no failure on my part in so liberal a custom on the contrary, I mean to improve upon it, for they sometimes, and perhaps most frequently, waited until their squires were old, and then when they had had enough of service and hard days and worse nights, they gave them some title or other, of count, or at the most marquis, of some valley or province more or less but if thou livest and I live, it may well be that before six days are over, I may have won some kingdom that has others dependent upon it, which will be just the thing to enable thee to be crowned king of one of them. Nor needst thou count this wonderful, for things and chances fall to the lot of such knights in ways so unexampled and unexpected that I might easily give thee even more than I promise thee. 'In that case, said Sancho Panza, 'if I should become a king by one of those miracles your worship speaks of, even Juana Gutierrez, my old woman, would come to be queen and my children infantes. 'Well, who doubts it? said Don Quixote. 'I doubt it, replied Sancho Panza, 'because for my part I am persuaded that though God should shower down kingdoms upon earth, not one of them would fit the head of Mari Gutierrez. Let me tell you, seor, she is not worth two maravedis for a queen countess will fit her better, and that only with God's help. 'Leave it to God, Sancho, returned Don Quixote, 'for he will give her what suits her best but do not undervalue thyself so much as to come to be content with anything less than being governor of a province. 'I will not, seor, answered Sancho, 'specially as I have a man of such quality for a master in your worship, who will know how to give me all that will be suitable for me and that I can bear. At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that there are on that plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, 'Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth. 'What giants? said Sancho Panza. 'Those thou seest there, answered his master, 'with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long. 'Look, your worship, said Sancho 'what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go. 'It is easy to see, replied Don Quixote, 'that thou art not used to this business of adventures those are giants and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat. So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were, but made at them shouting, 'Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight attacks you. A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move, seeing which Don Quixote exclaimed, 'Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me. So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rocinante's fullest gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him but as he drove his lancepoint into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on the plain, in a sorry condition. Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when he came up found him unable to move, with such a shock had Rocinante fallen with him. 'God bless me! said Sancho, 'did I not tell your worship to mind what you were about, for they were only windmills? and no one could have made any mistake about it but one who had something of the same kind in his head. 'Hush, friend Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'the fortunes of war more than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations and moreover I think, and it is the truth, that that same sage Friston who carried off my study and books, has turned these giants into mills in order to rob me of the glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me but in the end his wicked arts will avail but little against my good sword. 'God order it as he may, said Sancho Panza, and helping him to rise got him up again on Rocinante, whose shoulder was half out and then, discussing the late adventure, they followed the road to Puerto Lapice, for there, said Don Quixote, they could not fail to find adventures in abundance and variety, as it was a great thoroughfare. For all that, he was much grieved at the loss of his lance, and saying so to his squire, he added, 'I remember having read how a Spanish knight, Diego Perez de Vargas by name, having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a ponderous bough or branch, and with it did such things that day, and pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of Machuca, and he and his descendants from that day forth were called Vargas y Machuca. I mention this because from the first oak I see I mean to rend such another branch, large and stout like that, with which I am determined and resolved to do such deeds that thou mayest deem thyself very fortunate in being found worthy to come and see them, and be an eyewitness of things that will with difficulty be believed. 'Be that as God will, said Sancho, 'I believe it all as your worship says it but straighten yourself a little, for you seem all on one side, may be from the shaking of the fall. 'That is the truth, said Don Quixote, 'and if I make no complaint of the pain it is because knightserrant are not permitted to complain of any wound, even though their bowels be coming out through it. 'If so, said Sancho, 'I have nothing to say but God knows I would rather your worship complained when anything ailed you. For my part, I confess I must complain however small the ache may be unless this rule about not complaining extends to the squires of knightserrant also. Don Quixote could not help laughing at his squire's simplicity, and he assured him he might complain whenever and however he chose, just as he liked, for, so far, he had never read of anything to the contrary in the order of knighthood. Sancho bade him remember it was dinnertime, to which his master answered that he wanted nothing himself just then, but that he might eat when he had a mind. With this permission Sancho settled himself as comfortably as he could on his beast, and taking out of the alforjas what he had stowed away in them, he jogged along behind his master munching deliberately, and from time to time taking a pull at the bota with a relish that the thirstiest tapster in Malaga might have envied and while he went on in this way, gulping down draught after draught, he never gave a thought to any of the promises his master had made him, nor did he rate it as hardship but rather as recreation going in quest of adventures, however dangerous they might be. Finally they passed the night among some trees, from one of which Don Quixote plucked a dry branch to serve him after a fashion as a lance, and fixed on it the head he had removed from the broken one. All that night Don Quixote lay awake thinking of his lady Dulcinea, in order to conform to what he had read in his books, how many a night in the forests and deserts knights used to lie sleepless supported by the memory of their mistresses. Not so did Sancho Panza spend it, for having his stomach full of something stronger than chicory water he made but one sleep of it, and, if his master had not called him, neither the rays of the sun beating on his face nor all the cheery notes of the birds welcoming the approach of day would have had power to waken him. On getting up he tried the bota and found it somewhat less full than the night before, which grieved his heart because they did not seem to be on the way to remedy the deficiency readily. Don Quixote did not care to break his fast, for, as has been already said, he confined himself to savoury recollections for nourishment. They returned to the road they had set out with, leading to Puerto Lapice, and at three in the afternoon they came in sight of it. 'Here, brother Sancho Panza, said Don Quixote when he saw it, 'we may plunge our hands up to the elbows in what they call adventures but observe, even shouldst thou see me in the greatest danger in the world, thou must not put a hand to thy sword in my defence, unless indeed thou perceivest that those who assail me are rabble or base folk for in that case thou mayest very properly aid me but if they be knights it is on no account permitted or allowed thee by the laws of knighthood to help me until thou hast been dubbed a knight. 'Most certainly, seor, replied Sancho, 'your worship shall be fully obeyed in this matter all the more as of myself I am peaceful and no friend to mixing in strife and quarrels it is true that as regards the defence of my own person I shall not give much heed to those laws, for laws human and divine allow each one to defend himself against any assailant whatever. 'That I grant, said Don Quixote, 'but in this matter of aiding me against knights thou must put a restraint upon thy natural impetuosity. 'I will do so, I promise you, answered Sancho, 'and will keep this precept as carefully as Sunday. While they were thus talking there appeared on the road two friars of the order of St. Benedict, mounted on two dromedaries, for not less tall were the two mules they rode on. They wore travelling spectacles and carried sunshades and behind them came a coach attended by four or five persons on horseback and two muleteers on foot. In the coach there was, as afterwards appeared, a Biscay lady on her way to Seville, where her husband was about to take passage for the Indies with an appointment of high honour. The friars, though going the same road, were not in her company but the moment Don Quixote perceived them he said to his squire, 'Either I am mistaken, or this is going to be the most famous adventure that has ever been seen, for those black bodies we see there must be, and doubtless are, magicians who are carrying off some stolen princess in that coach, and with all my might I must undo this wrong. 'This will be worse than the windmills, said Sancho. 'Look, seor those are friars of St. Benedict, and the coach plainly belongs to some travellers I tell you to mind well what you are about and don't let the devil mislead you. 'I have told thee already, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'that on the subject of adventures thou knowest little. What I say is the truth, as thou shalt see presently. So saying, he advanced and posted himself in the middle of the road along which the friars were coming, and as soon as he thought they had come near enough to hear what he said, he cried aloud, 'Devilish and unnatural beings, release instantly the highborn princesses whom you are carrying off by force in this coach, else prepare to meet a speedy death as the just punishment of your evil deeds. The friars drew rein and stood wondering at the appearance of Don Quixote as well as at his words, to which they replied, 'Seor Caballero, we are not devilish or unnatural, but two brothers of St. Benedict following our road, nor do we know whether or not there are any captive princesses coming in this coach. 'No soft words with me, for I know you, lying rabble, said Don Quixote, and without waiting for a reply he spurred Rocinante and with levelled lance charged the first friar with such fury and determination, that, if the friar had not flung himself off the mule, he would have brought him to the ground against his will, and sore wounded, if not killed outright. The second brother, seeing how his comrade was treated, drove his heels into his castle of a mule and made off across the country faster than the wind. Sancho Panza, when he saw the friar on the ground, dismounting briskly from his ass, rushed towards him and began to strip off his gown. At that instant the friars' muleteers came up and asked what he was stripping him for. Sancho answered them that this fell to him lawfully as spoil of the battle which his lord Don Quixote had won. The muleteers, who had no idea of a joke and did not understand all this about battles and spoils, seeing that Don Quixote was some distance off talking to the travellers in the coach, fell upon Sancho, knocked him down, and leaving hardly a hair in his beard, belaboured him with kicks and left him stretched breathless and senseless on the ground and without any more delay helped the friar to mount, who, trembling, terrified, and pale, as soon as he found himself in the saddle, spurred after his companion, who was standing at a distance looking on, watching the result of the onslaught then, not caring to wait for the end of the affair just begun, they pursued their journey making more crosses than if they had the devil after them. Don Quixote was, as has been said, speaking to the lady in the coach 'Your beauty, lady mine, said he, 'may now dispose of your person as may be most in accordance with your pleasure, for the pride of your ravishers lies prostrate on the ground through this strong arm of mine and lest you should be pining to know the name of your deliverer, know that I am called Don Quixote of La Mancha, knighterrant and adventurer, and captive to the peerless and beautiful lady Dulcinea del Toboso and in return for the service you have received of me I ask no more than that you should return to El Toboso, and on my behalf present yourself before that lady and tell her what I have done to set you free. One of the squires in attendance upon the coach, a Biscayan, was listening to all Don Quixote was saying, and, perceiving that he would not allow the coach to go on, but was saying it must return at once to El Toboso, he made at him, and seizing his lance addressed him in bad Castilian and worse Biscayan after his fashion, 'Begone, caballero, and ill go with thee by the God that made me, unless thou quittest coach, slayest thee as art here a Biscayan. Don Quixote understood him quite well, and answered him very quietly, 'If thou wert a knight, as thou art none, I should have already chastised thy folly and rashness, miserable creature. To which the Biscayan returned, 'I no gentleman!I swear to God thou liest as I am Christian if thou droppest lance and drawest sword, soon shalt thou see thou art carrying water to the cat Biscayan on land, hidalgo at sea, hidalgo at the devil, and look, if thou sayest otherwise thou liest. '''You will see presently, said Agrajes,' replied Don Quixote and throwing his lance on the ground he drew his sword, braced his buckler on his arm, and attacked the Biscayan, bent upon taking his life. The Biscayan, when he saw him coming on, though he wished to dismount from his mule, in which, being one of those sorry ones let out for hire, he had no confidence, had no choice but to draw his sword it was lucky for him, however, that he was near the coach, from which he was able to snatch a cushion that served him for a shield and they went at one another as if they had been two mortal enemies. The others strove to make peace between them, but could not, for the Biscayan declared in his disjointed phrase that if they did not let him finish his battle he would kill his mistress and everyone that strove to prevent him. The lady in the coach, amazed and terrified at what she saw, ordered the coachman to draw aside a little, and set herself to watch this severe struggle, in the course of which the Biscayan smote Don Quixote a mighty stroke on the shoulder over the top of his buckler, which, given to one without armour, would have cleft him to the waist. Don Quixote, feeling the weight of this prodigious blow, cried aloud, saying, 'O lady of my soul, Dulcinea, flower of beauty, come to the aid of this your knight, who, in fulfilling his obligations to your beauty, finds himself in this extreme peril. To say this, to lift his sword, to shelter himself well behind his buckler, and to assail the Biscayan was the work of an instant, determined as he was to venture all upon a single blow. The Biscayan, seeing him come on in this way, was convinced of his courage by his spirited bearing, and resolved to follow his example, so he waited for him keeping well under cover of his cushion, being unable to execute any sort of manoeuvre with his mule, which, dead tired and never meant for this kind of game, could not stir a step. On, then, as aforesaid, came Don Quixote against the wary Biscayan, with uplifted sword and a firm intention of splitting him in half, while on his side the Biscayan waited for him sword in hand, and under the protection of his cushion and all present stood trembling, waiting in suspense the result of blows such as threatened to fall, and the lady in the coach and the rest of her following were making a thousand vows and offerings to all the images and shrines of Spain, that God might deliver her squire and all of them from this great peril in which they found themselves. But it spoils all, that at this point and crisis the author of the history leaves this battle impending, giving as excuse that he could find nothing more written about these achievements of Don Quixote than what has been already set forth. It is true the second author of this work was unwilling to believe that a history so curious could have been allowed to fall under the sentence of oblivion, or that the wits of La Mancha could have been so undiscerning as not to preserve in their archives or registries some documents referring to this famous knight and this being his persuasion, he did not despair of finding the conclusion of this pleasant history, which, heaven favouring him, he did find in a way that shall be related in the Second Part. In the First Part of this history we left the valiant Biscayan and the renowned Don Quixote with drawn swords uplifted, ready to deliver two such furious slashing blows that if they had fallen full and fair they would at least have split and cleft them asunder from top to toe and laid them open like a pomegranate and at this so critical point the delightful history came to a stop and stood cut short without any intimation from the author where what was missing was to be found. This distressed me greatly, because the pleasure derived from having read such a small portion turned to vexation at the thought of the poor chance that presented itself of finding the large part that, so it seemed to me, was missing of such an interesting tale. It appeared to me to be a thing impossible and contrary to all precedent that so good a knight should have been without some sage to undertake the task of writing his marvellous achievements a thing that was never wanting to any of those knightserrant who, they say, went after adventures for every one of them had one or two sages as if made on purpose, who not only recorded their deeds but described their most trifling thoughts and follies, however secret they might be and such a good knight could not have been so unfortunate as not to have what Platir and others like him had in abundance. And so I could not bring myself to believe that such a gallant tale had been left maimed and mutilated, and I laid the blame on Time, the devourer and destroyer of all things, that had either concealed or consumed it. On the other hand, it struck me that, inasmuch as among his books there had been found such modern ones as 'The Enlightenment of Jealousy and the 'Nymphs and Shepherds of Henares, his story must likewise be modern, and that though it might not be written, it might exist in the memory of the people of his village and of those in the neighbourhood. This reflection kept me perplexed and longing to know really and truly the whole life and wondrous deeds of our famous Spaniard, Don Quixote of La Mancha, light and mirror of Manchegan chivalry, and the first that in our age and in these so evil days devoted himself to the labour and exercise of the arms of knighterrantry, righting wrongs, succouring widows, and protecting damsels of that sort that used to ride about, whip in hand, on their palfreys, with all their virginity about them, from mountain to mountain and valley to valleyfor, if it were not for some ruffian, or boor with a hood and hatchet, or monstrous giant, that forced them, there were in days of yore damsels that at the end of eighty years, in all which time they had never slept a day under a roof, went to their graves as much maids as the mothers that bore them. I say, then, that in these and other respects our gallant Don Quixote is worthy of everlasting and notable praise, nor should it be withheld even from me for the labour and pains spent in searching for the conclusion of this delightful history though I know well that if Heaven, chance and good fortune had not helped me, the world would have remained deprived of an entertainment and pleasure that for a couple of hours or so may well occupy him who shall read it attentively. The discovery of it occurred in this way. One day, as I was in the Alcana of Toledo, a boy came up to sell some pamphlets and old papers to a silk mercer, and, as I am fond of reading even the very scraps of paper in the streets, led by this natural bent of mine I took up one of the pamphlets the boy had for sale, and saw that it was in characters which I recognised as Arabic, and as I was unable to read them though I could recognise them, I looked about to see if there were any Spanishspeaking Morisco at hand to read them for me nor was there any great difficulty in finding such an interpreter, for even had I sought one for an older and better language I should have found him. In short, chance provided me with one, who when I told him what I wanted and put the book into his hands, opened it in the middle and after reading a little in it began to laugh. I asked him what he was laughing at, and he replied that it was at something the book had written in the margin by way of a note. I bade him tell it to me and he still laughing said, 'In the margin, as I told you, this is written 'This Dulcinea del Toboso so often mentioned in this history, had, they say, the best hand of any woman in all La Mancha for salting pigs.' When I heard Dulcinea del Toboso named, I was struck with surprise and amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he told me it meant, 'History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cid Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian. It required great caution to hide the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and snatching it from the silk mercer, I bought all the papers and pamphlets from the boy for half a real and if he had had his wits about him and had known how eager I was for them, he might have safely calculated on making more than six reals by the bargain. I withdrew at once with the Morisco into the cloister of the cathedral, and begged him to turn all these pamphlets that related to Don Quixote into the Castilian tongue, without omitting or adding anything to them, offering him whatever payment he pleased. He was satisfied with two arrobas of raisins and two bushels of wheat, and promised to translate them faithfully and with all despatch but to make the matter easier, and not to let such a precious find out of my hands, I took him to my house, where in little more than a month and a half he translated the whole just as it is set down here. In the first pamphlet the battle between Don Quixote and the Biscayan was drawn to the very life, they planted in the same attitude as the history describes, their swords raised, and the one protected by his buckler, the other by his cushion, and the Biscayan's mule so true to nature that it could be seen to be a hired one a bowshot off. The Biscayan had an inscription under his feet which said, 'Don Sancho de Azpeitia, which no doubt must have been his name and at the feet of Rocinante was another that said, 'Don Quixote. Rocinante was marvellously portrayed, so long and thin, so lank and lean, with so much backbone and so far gone in consumption, that he showed plainly with what judgment and propriety the name of Rocinante had been bestowed upon him. Near him was Sancho Panza holding the halter of his ass, at whose feet was another label that said, 'Sancho Zancas, and according to the picture, he must have had a big belly, a short body, and long shanks, for which reason, no doubt, the names of Panza and Zancas were given him, for by these two surnames the history several times calls him. Some other trifling particulars might be mentioned, but they are all of slight importance and have nothing to do with the true relation of the history and no history can be bad so long as it is true. If against the present one any objection be raised on the score of its truth, it can only be that its author was an Arab, as lying is a very common propensity with those of that nation though, as they are such enemies of ours, it is conceivable that there were omissions rather than additions made in the course of it. And this is my own opinion for, where he could and should give freedom to his pen in praise of so worthy a knight, he seems to me deliberately to pass it over in silence which is ill done and worse contrived, for it is the business and duty of historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from passion, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make them swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and warning for the future. In this I know will be found all that can be desired in the pleasantest, and if it be wanting in any good quality, I maintain it is the fault of its hound of an author and not the fault of the subject. To be brief, its Second Part, according to the translation, began in this way With trenchant swords upraised and poised on high, it seemed as though the two valiant and wrathful combatants stood threatening heaven, and earth, and hell, with such resolution and determination did they bear themselves. The fiery Biscayan was the first to strike a blow, which was delivered with such force and fury that had not the sword turned in its course, that single stroke would have sufficed to put an end to the bitter struggle and to all the adventures of our knight but that good fortune which reserved him for greater things, turned aside the sword of his adversary, so that although it smote him upon the left shoulder, it did him no more harm than to strip all that side of its armour, carrying away a great part of his helmet with half of his ear, all which with fearful ruin fell to the ground, leaving him in a sorry plight. Good God! Who is there that could properly describe the rage that filled the heart of our Manchegan when he saw himself dealt with in this fashion? All that can be said is, it was such that he again raised himself in his stirrups, and, grasping his sword more firmly with both hands, he came down on the Biscayan with such fury, smiting him full over the cushion and over the head, thateven so good a shield proving uselessas if a mountain had fallen on him, he began to bleed from nose, mouth, and ears, reeling as if about to fall backwards from his mule, as no doubt he would have done had he not flung his arms about its neck at the same time, however, he slipped his feet out of the stirrups and then unclasped his arms, and the mule, taking fright at the terrible blow, made off across the plain, and with a few plunges flung its master to the ground. Don Quixote stood looking on very calmly, and, when he saw him fall, leaped from his horse and with great briskness ran to him, and, presenting the point of his sword to his eyes, bade him surrender, or he would cut his head off. The Biscayan was so bewildered that he was unable to answer a word, and it would have gone hard with him, so blind was Don Quixote, had not the ladies in the coach, who had hitherto been watching the combat in great terror, hastened to where he stood and implored him with earnest entreaties to grant them the great grace and favour of sparing their squire's life to which Don Quixote replied with much gravity and dignity, 'In truth, fair ladies, I am well content to do what ye ask of me but it must be on one condition and understanding, which is that this knight promise me to go to the village of El Toboso, and on my behalf present himself before the peerless lady Dulcinea, that she deal with him as shall be most pleasing to her. The terrified and disconsolate ladies, without discussing Don Quixote's demand or asking who Dulcinea might be, promised that their squire should do all that had been commanded. 'Then, on the faith of that promise, said Don Quixote, 'I shall do him no further harm, though he well deserves it of me. Now by this time Sancho had risen, rather the worse for the handling of the friars' muleteers, and stood watching the battle of his master, Don Quixote, and praying to God in his heart that it might be his will to grant him the victory, and that he might thereby win some island to make him governor of, as he had promised. Seeing, therefore, that the struggle was now over, and that his master was returning to mount Rocinante, he approached to hold the stirrup for him, and, before he could mount, he went on his knees before him, and taking his hand, kissed it saying, 'May it please your worship, Seor Don Quixote, to give me the government of that island which has been won in this hard fight, for be it ever so big I feel myself in sufficient force to be able to govern it as much and as well as anyone in the world who has ever governed islands. To which Don Quixote replied, 'Thou must take notice, brother Sancho, that this adventure and those like it are not adventures of islands, but of crossroads, in which nothing is got except a broken head or an ear the less have patience, for adventures will present themselves from which I may make you, not only a governor, but something more. Sancho gave him many thanks, and again kissing his hand and the skirt of his hauberk, helped him to mount Rocinante, and mounting his ass himself, proceeded to follow his master, who at a brisk pace, without taking leave, or saying anything further to the ladies belonging to the coach, turned into a wood that was hard by. Sancho followed him at his ass's best trot, but Rocinante stepped out so that, seeing himself left behind, he was forced to call to his master to wait for him. Don Quixote did so, reining in Rocinante until his weary squire came up, who on reaching him said, 'It seems to me, seor, it would be prudent in us to go and take refuge in some church, for, seeing how mauled he with whom you fought has been left, it will be no wonder if they give information of the affair to the Holy Brotherhood and arrest us, and, faith, if they do, before we come out of gaol we shall have to sweat for it. 'Peace, said Don Quixote 'where hast thou ever seen or heard that a knighterrant has been arraigned before a court of justice, however many homicides he may have committed? 'I know nothing about omecils, answered Sancho, 'nor in my life have had anything to do with one I only know that the Holy Brotherhood looks after those who fight in the fields, and in that other matter I do not meddle. 'Then thou needst have no uneasiness, my friend, said Don Quixote, 'for I will deliver thee out of the hands of the Chaldeans, much more out of those of the Brotherhood. But tell me, as thou livest, hast thou seen a more valiant knight than I in all the known world hast thou read in history of any who has or had higher mettle in attack, more spirit in maintaining it, more dexterity in wounding or skill in overthrowing? 'The truth is, answered Sancho, 'that I have never read any history, for I can neither read nor write, but what I will venture to bet is that a more daring master than your worship I have never served in all the days of my life, and God grant that this daring be not paid for where I have said what I beg of your worship is to dress your wound, for a great deal of blood flows from that ear, and I have here some lint and a little white ointment in the alforjas. 'All that might be well dispensed with, said Don Quixote, 'if I had remembered to make a vial of the balsam of Fierabras, for time and medicine are saved by one single drop. 'What vial and what balsam is that? said Sancho Panza. 'It is a balsam, answered Don Quixote, 'the receipt of which I have in my memory, with which one need have no fear of death, or dread dying of any wound and so when I make it and give it to thee thou hast nothing to do when in some battle thou seest they have cut me in half through the middle of the bodyas is wont to happen frequentlybut neatly and with great nicety, ere the blood congeal, to place that portion of the body which shall have fallen to the ground upon the other half which remains in the saddle, taking care to fit it on evenly and exactly. Then thou shalt give me to drink but two drops of the balsam I have mentioned, and thou shalt see me become sounder than an apple. 'If that be so, said Panza, 'I renounce henceforth the government of the promised island, and desire nothing more in payment of my many and faithful services than that your worship give me the receipt of this supreme liquor, for I am persuaded it will be worth more than two reals an ounce anywhere, and I want no more to pass the rest of my life in ease and honour but it remains to be told if it costs much to make it. 'With less than three reals, six quarts of it may be made, said Don Quixote. 'Sinner that I am! said Sancho, 'then why does your worship put off making it and teaching it to me? 'Peace, friend, answered Don Quixote 'greater secrets I mean to teach thee and greater favours to bestow upon thee and for the present let us see to the dressing, for my ear pains me more than I could wish. Sancho took out some lint and ointment from the alforjas but when Don Quixote came to see his helmet shattered, he was like to lose his senses, and clapping his hand upon his sword and raising his eyes to heaven, he said, 'I swear by the Creator of all things and the four Gospels in their fullest extent, to do as the great Marquis of Mantua did when he swore to avenge the death of his nephew Baldwin (and that was not to eat bread from a tablecloth, nor embrace his wife, and other points which, though I cannot now call them to mind, I here grant as expressed) until I take complete vengeance upon him who has committed such an offence against me. Hearing this, Sancho said to him, 'Your worship should bear in mind, Seor Don Quixote, that if the knight has done what was commanded him in going to present himself before my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he will have done all that he was bound to do, and does not deserve further punishment unless he commits some new offence. 'Thou hast said well and hit the point, answered Don Quixote and so I recall the oath in so far as relates to taking fresh vengeance on him, but I make and confirm it anew to lead the life I have said until such time as I take by force from some knight another helmet such as this and as good and think not, Sancho, that I am raising smoke with straw in doing so, for I have one to imitate in the matter, since the very same thing to a hair happened in the case of Mambrino's helmet, which cost Sacripante so dear. 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'let your worship send all such oaths to the devil, for they are very pernicious to salvation and prejudicial to the conscience just tell me now, if for several days to come we fall in with no man armed with a helmet, what are we to do? Is the oath to be observed in spite of all the inconvenience and discomfort it will be to sleep in your clothes, and not to sleep in a house, and a thousand other mortifications contained in the oath of that old fool the Marquis of Mantua, which your worship is now wanting to revive? Let your worship observe that there are no men in armour travelling on any of these roads, nothing but carriers and carters, who not only do not wear helmets, but perhaps never heard tell of them all their lives. 'Thou art wrong there, said Don Quixote, 'for we shall not have been above two hours among these crossroads before we see more men in armour than came to Albraca to win the fair Angelica. 'Enough, said Sancho 'so be it then, and God grant us success, and that the time for winning that island which is costing me so dear may soon come, and then let me die. 'I have already told thee, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'not to give thyself any uneasiness on that score for if an island should fail, there is the kingdom of Denmark, or of Sobradisa, which will fit thee as a ring fits the finger, and all the more that, being on terra firma, thou wilt all the better enjoy thyself. But let us leave that to its own time see if thou hast anything for us to eat in those alforjas, because we must presently go in quest of some castle where we may lodge tonight and make the balsam I told thee of, for I swear to thee by God, this ear is giving me great pain. 'I have here an onion and a little cheese and a few scraps of bread, said Sancho, 'but they are not victuals fit for a valiant knight like your worship. 'How little thou knowest about it, answered Don Quixote 'I would have thee to know, Sancho, that it is the glory of knightserrant to go without eating for a month, and even when they do eat, that it should be of what comes first to hand and this would have been clear to thee hadst thou read as many histories as I have, for, though they are very many, among them all I have found no mention made of knightserrant eating, unless by accident or at some sumptuous banquets prepared for them, and the rest of the time they passed in dalliance. And though it is plain they could not do without eating and performing all the other natural functions, because, in fact, they were men like ourselves, it is plain too that, wandering as they did the most part of their lives through woods and wilds and without a cook, their most usual fare would be rustic viands such as those thou now offer me so that, friend Sancho, let not that distress thee which pleases me, and do not seek to make a new world or pervert knighterrantry. 'Pardon me, your worship, said Sancho, 'for, as I cannot read or write, as I said just now, I neither know nor comprehend the rules of the profession of chivalry henceforward I will stock the alforjas with every kind of dry fruit for your worship, as you are a knight and for myself, as I am not one, I will furnish them with poultry and other things more substantial. 'I do not say, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'that it is imperative on knightserrant not to eat anything else but the fruits thou speakest of only that their more usual diet must be those, and certain herbs they found in the fields which they knew and I know too. 'A good thing it is, answered Sancho, 'to know those herbs, for to my thinking it will be needful some day to put that knowledge into practice. And here taking out what he said he had brought, the pair made their repast peaceably and sociably. But anxious to find quarters for the night, they with all despatch made an end of their poor dry fare, mounted at once, and made haste to reach some habitation before night set in but daylight and the hope of succeeding in their object failed them close by the huts of some goatherds, so they determined to pass the night there, and it was as much to Sancho's discontent not to have reached a house, as it was to his master's satisfaction to sleep under the open heaven, for he fancied that each time this happened to him he performed an act of ownership that helped to prove his chivalry. He was cordially welcomed by the goatherds, and Sancho, having as best he could put up Rocinante and the ass, drew towards the fragrance that came from some pieces of salted goat simmering in a pot on the fire and though he would have liked at once to try if they were ready to be transferred from the pot to the stomach, he refrained from doing so as the goatherds removed them from the fire, and laying sheepskins on the ground, quickly spread their rude table, and with signs of hearty goodwill invited them both to share what they had. Round the skins six of the men belonging to the fold seated themselves, having first with rough politeness pressed Don Quixote to take a seat upon a trough which they placed for him upside down. Don Quixote seated himself, and Sancho remained standing to serve the cup, which was made of horn. Seeing him standing, his master said to him 'That thou mayest see, Sancho, the good that knighterrantry contains in itself, and how those who fill any office in it are on the high road to be speedily honoured and esteemed by the world, I desire that thou seat thyself here at my side and in the company of these worthy people, and that thou be one with me who am thy master and natural lord, and that thou eat from my plate and drink from whatever I drink from for the same may be said of knighterrantry as of love, that it levels all. 'Great thanks, said Sancho, 'but I may tell your worship that provided I have enough to eat, I can eat it as well, or better, standing, and by myself, than seated alongside of an emperor. And indeed, if the truth is to be told, what I eat in my corner without form or fuss has much more relish for me, even though it be bread and onions, than the turkeys of those other tables where I am forced to chew slowly, drink little, wipe my mouth every minute, and cannot sneeze or cough if I want or do other things that are the privileges of liberty and solitude. So, seor, as for these honours which your worship would put upon me as a servant and follower of knighterrantry, exchange them for other things which may be of more use and advantage to me for these, though I fully acknowledge them as received, I renounce from this moment to the end of the world. 'For all that, said Don Quixote, 'thou must seat thyself, because him who humbleth himself God exalteth and seizing him by the arm he forced him to sit down beside himself. The goatherds did not understand this jargon about squires and knightserrant, and all they did was to eat in silence and stare at their guests, who with great elegance and appetite were stowing away pieces as big as one's fist. The course of meat finished, they spread upon the sheepskins a great heap of parched acorns, and with them they put down a half cheese harder than if it had been made of mortar. All this while the horn was not idle, for it went round so constantly, now full, now empty, like the bucket of a waterwheel, that it soon drained one of the two wineskins that were in sight. When Don Quixote had quite appeased his appetite he took up a handful of the acorns, and contemplating them attentively delivered himself somewhat in this fashion 'Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients gave the name of golden, not because in that fortunate age the gold so coveted in this our iron one was gained without toil, but because they that lived in it knew not the two words 'mine and 'thine! In that blessed age all things were in common to win the daily food no labour was required of any save to stretch forth his hand and gather it from the sturdy oaks that stood generously inviting him with their sweet ripe fruit. The clear streams and running brooks yielded their savoury limpid waters in noble abundance. The busy and sagacious bees fixed their republic in the clefts of the rocks and hollows of the trees, offering without usance the plenteous produce of their fragrant toil to every hand. The mighty cork trees, unenforced save of their own courtesy, shed the broad light bark that served at first to roof the houses supported by rude stakes, a protection against the inclemency of heaven alone. Then all was peace, all friendship, all concord as yet the dull share of the crooked plough had not dared to rend and pierce the tender bowels of our first mother that without compulsion yielded from every portion of her broad fertile bosom all that could satisfy, sustain, and delight the children that then possessed her. Then was it that the innocent and fair young shepherdess roamed from vale to vale and hill to hill, with flowing locks, and no more garments than were needful modestly to cover what modesty seeks and ever sought to hide. Nor were their ornaments like those in use today, set off by Tyrian purple, and silk tortured in endless fashions, but the wreathed leaves of the green dock and ivy, wherewith they went as bravely and becomingly decked as our Court dames with all the rare and farfetched artifices that idle curiosity has taught them. Then the lovethoughts of the heart clothed themselves simply and naturally as the heart conceived them, nor sought to commend themselves by forced and rambling verbiage. Fraud, deceit, or malice had then not yet mingled with truth and sincerity. Justice held her ground, undisturbed and unassailed by the efforts of favour and of interest, that now so much impair, pervert, and beset her. Arbitrary law had not yet established itself in the mind of the judge, for then there was no cause to judge and no one to be judged. Maidens and modesty, as I have said, wandered at will alone and unattended, without fear of insult from lawlessness or libertine assault, and if they were undone it was of their own will and pleasure. But now in this hateful age of ours not one is safe, not though some new labyrinth like that of Crete conceal and surround her even there the pestilence of gallantry will make its way to them through chinks or on the air by the zeal of its accursed importunity, and, despite of all seclusion, lead them to ruin. In defence of these, as time advanced and wickedness increased, the order of knightserrant was instituted, to defend maidens, to protect widows and to succour the orphans and the needy. To this order I belong, brother goatherds, to whom I return thanks for the hospitality and kindly welcome ye offer me and my squire for though by natural law all living are bound to show favour to knightserrant, yet, seeing that without knowing this obligation ye have welcomed and feasted me, it is right that with all the goodwill in my power I should thank you for yours. All this long harangue (which might very well have been spared) our knight delivered because the acorns they gave him reminded him of the golden age and the whim seized him to address all this unnecessary argument to the goatherds, who listened to him gaping in amazement without saying a word in reply. Sancho likewise held his peace and ate acorns, and paid repeated visits to the second wineskin, which they had hung up on a cork tree to keep the wine cool. Don Quixote was longer in talking than the supper in finishing, at the end of which one of the goatherds said, 'That your worship, seor knighterrant, may say with more truth that we show you hospitality with ready goodwill, we will give you amusement and pleasure by making one of our comrades sing he will be here before long, and he is a very intelligent youth and deep in love, and what is more he can read and write and play on the rebeck to perfection. The goatherd had hardly done speaking, when the notes of the rebeck reached their ears and shortly after, the player came up, a very goodlooking young man of about twoandtwenty. His comrades asked him if he had supped, and on his replying that he had, he who had already made the offer said to him 'In that case, Antonio, thou mayest as well do us the pleasure of singing a little, that the gentleman, our guest, may see that even in the mountains and woods there are musicians we have told him of thy accomplishments, and we want thee to show them and prove that we say true so, as thou livest, pray sit down and sing that ballad about thy love that thy uncle the prebendary made thee, and that was so much liked in the town. 'With all my heart, said the young man, and without waiting for more pressing he seated himself on the trunk of a felled oak, and tuning his rebeck, presently began to sing to these words. ANTONIO'S BALLAD Thou dost love me well, Olalla Well I know it, even though Love's mute tongues, thine eyes, have never By their glances told me so. For I know my love thou knowest, Therefore thine to claim I dare Once it ceases to be secret, Love need never feel despair. True it is, Olalla, sometimes Thou hast all too plainly shown That thy heart is brass in hardness, And thy snowy bosom stone. Yet for all that, in thy coyness, And thy fickle fits between, Hope is thereat least the border Of her garment may be seen. Lures to faith are they, those glimpses, And to faith in thee I hold Kindness cannot make it stronger, Coldness cannot make it cold. If it be that love is gentle, In thy gentleness I see Something holding out assurance To the hope of winning thee. If it be that in devotion Lies a power hearts to move, That which every day I show thee, Helpful to my suit should prove. Many a time thou must have noticed If to notice thou dost care How I go about on Monday Dressed in all my Sunday wear. Love's eyes love to look on brightness Love loves what is gaily drest Sunday, Monday, all I care is Thou shouldst see me in my best. No account I make of dances, Or of strains that pleased thee so, Keeping thee awake from midnight Till the cocks began to crow Or of how I roundly swore it That there's none so fair as thou True it is, but as I said it, By the girls I'm hated now. For Teresa of the hillside At my praise of thee was sore Said, 'You think you love an angel It's a monkey you adore 'Caught by all her glittering trinkets, And her borrowed braids of hair, And a host of madeup beauties That would Love himself ensnare. 'Twas a lie, and so I told her, And her cousin at the word Gave me his defiance for it And what followed thou hast heard. Mine is no highflown affection, Mine no passion par amours As they call itwhat I offer Is an honest love, and pure. Cunning cords the holy Church has, Cords of softest silk they be Put thy neck beneath the yoke, dear Mine will follow, thou wilt see. Elseand once for all I swear it By the saint of most renown If I ever quit the mountains, 'Twill be in a friar's gown. Here the goatherd brought his song to an end, and though Don Quixote entreated him to sing more, Sancho had no mind that way, being more inclined for sleep than for listening to songs so said he to his master, 'Your worship will do well to settle at once where you mean to pass the night, for the labour these good men are at all day does not allow them to spend the night in singing. 'I understand thee, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'I perceive clearly that those visits to the wineskin demand compensation in sleep rather than in music. 'It's sweet to us all, blessed be God, said Sancho. 'I do not deny it, replied Don Quixote 'but settle thyself where thou wilt those of my calling are more becomingly employed in watching than in sleeping still it would be as well if thou wert to dress this ear for me again, for it is giving me more pain than it need. Sancho did as he bade him, but one of the goatherds, seeing the wound, told him not to be uneasy, as he would apply a remedy with which it would be soon healed and gathering some leaves of rosemary, of which there was a great quantity there, he chewed them and mixed them with a little salt, and applying them to the ear he secured them firmly with a bandage, assuring him that no other treatment would be required, and so it proved. Just then another young man, one of those who fetched their provisions from the village, came up and said, 'Do you know what is going on in the village, comrades? 'How could we know it? replied one of them. 'Well, then, you must know, continued the young man, 'this morning that famous studentshepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured that he died of love for that devil of a village girl the daughter of Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the dress of a shepherdess. 'You mean Marcela? said one. 'Her I mean, answered the goatherd 'and the best of it is, he has directed in his will that he is to be buried in the fields like a Moor, and at the foot of the rock where the Corktree spring is, because, as the story goes (and they say he himself said so), that was the place where he first saw her. And he has also left other directions which the clergy of the village say should not and must not be obeyed because they savour of paganism. To all which his great friend Ambrosio the student, he who, like him, also went dressed as a shepherd, replies that everything must be done without any omission according to the directions left by Chrysostom, and about this the village is all in commotion however, report says that, after all, what Ambrosio and all the shepherds his friends desire will be done, and tomorrow they are coming to bury him with great ceremony where I said. I am sure it will be something worth seeing at least I will not fail to go and see it even if I knew I should not return to the village tomorrow. 'We will do the same, answered the goatherds, 'and cast lots to see who must stay to mind the goats of all. 'Thou sayest well, Pedro, said one, 'though there will be no need of taking that trouble, for I will stay behind for all and don't suppose it is virtue or want of curiosity in me it is that the splinter that ran into my foot the other day will not let me walk. 'For all that, we thank thee, answered Pedro. Don Quixote asked Pedro to tell him who the dead man was and who the shepherdess, to which Pedro replied that all he knew was that the dead man was a wealthy gentleman belonging to a village in those mountains, who had been a student at Salamanca for many years, at the end of which he returned to his village with the reputation of being very learned and deeply read. 'Above all, they said, he was learned in the science of the stars and of what went on yonder in the heavens and the sun and the moon, for he told us of the cris of the sun and moon to exact time. 'Eclipse it is called, friend, not cris, the darkening of those two luminaries, said Don Quixote but Pedro, not troubling himself with trifles, went on with his story, saying, 'Also he foretold when the year was going to be one of abundance or estility. 'Sterility, you mean, said Don Quixote. 'Sterility or estility, answered Pedro, 'it is all the same in the end. And I can tell you that by this his father and friends who believed him grew very rich because they did as he advised them, bidding them 'sow barley this year, not wheat this year you may sow pulse and not barley the next there will be a full oil crop, and the three following not a drop will be got.' 'That science is called astrology, said Don Quixote. 'I do not know what it is called, replied Pedro, 'but I know that he knew all this and more besides. But, to make an end, not many months had passed after he returned from Salamanca, when one day he appeared dressed as a shepherd with his crook and sheepskin, having put off the long gown he wore as a scholar and at the same time his great friend, Ambrosio by name, who had been his companion in his studies, took to the shepherd's dress with him. I forgot to say that Chrysostom, who is dead, was a great man for writing verses, so much so that he made carols for Christmas Eve, and plays for Corpus Christi, which the young men of our village acted, and all said they were excellent. When the villagers saw the two scholars so unexpectedly appearing in shepherd's dress, they were lost in wonder, and could not guess what had led them to make so extraordinary a change. About this time the father of our Chrysostom died, and he was left heir to a large amount of property in chattels as well as in land, no small number of cattle and sheep, and a large sum of money, of all of which the young man was left dissolute owner, and indeed he was deserving of it all, for he was a very good comrade, and kindhearted, and a friend of worthy folk, and had a countenance like a benediction. Presently it came to be known that he had changed his dress with no other object than to wander about these wastes after that shepherdess Marcela our lad mentioned a while ago, with whom the deceased Chrysostom had fallen in love. And I must tell you now, for it is well you should know it, who this girl is perhaps, and even without any perhaps, you will not have heard anything like it all the days of your life, though you should live more years than sarna. 'Say Sarra, said Don Quixote, unable to endure the goatherd's confusion of words. 'The sarna lives long enough, answered Pedro 'and if, seor, you must go finding fault with words at every step, we shall not make an end of it this twelvemonth. 'Pardon me, friend, said Don Quixote 'but, as there is such a difference between sarna and Sarra, I told you of it however, you have answered very rightly, for sarna lives longer than Sarra so continue your story, and I will not object any more to anything. 'I say then, my dear sir, said the goatherd, 'that in our village there was a farmer even richer than the father of Chrysostom, who was named Guillermo, and upon whom God bestowed, over and above great wealth, a daughter at whose birth her mother died, the most respected woman there was in this neighbourhood I fancy I can see her now with that countenance which had the sun on one side and the moon on the other and moreover active, and kind to the poor, for which I trust that at the present moment her soul is in bliss with God in the other world. Her husband Guillermo died of grief at the death of so good a wife, leaving his daughter Marcela, a child and rich, to the care of an uncle of hers, a priest and prebendary in our village. The girl grew up with such beauty that it reminded us of her mother's, which was very great, and yet it was thought that the daughter's would exceed it and so when she reached the age of fourteen to fifteen years nobody beheld her but blessed God that had made her so beautiful, and the greater number were in love with her past redemption. Her uncle kept her in great seclusion and retirement, but for all that the fame of her great beauty spread so that, as well for it as for her great wealth, her uncle was asked, solicited, and importuned, to give her in marriage not only by those of our town but of those many leagues round, and by the persons of highest quality in them. But he, being a good Christian man, though he desired to give her in marriage at once, seeing her to be old enough, was unwilling to do so without her consent, not that he had any eye to the gain and profit which the custody of the girl's property brought him while he put off her marriage and, faith, this was said in praise of the good priest in more than one set in the town. For I would have you know, Sir Errant, that in these little villages everything is talked about and everything is carped at, and rest assured, as I am, that the priest must be over and above good who forces his parishioners to speak well of him, especially in villages. 'That is the truth, said Don Quixote 'but go on, for the story is very good, and you, good Pedro, tell it with very good grace. 'May that of the Lord not be wanting to me, said Pedro 'that is the one to have. To proceed you must know that though the uncle put before his niece and described to her the qualities of each one in particular of the many who had asked her in marriage, begging her to marry and make a choice according to her own taste, she never gave any other answer than that she had no desire to marry just yet, and that being so young she did not think herself fit to bear the burden of matrimony. At these, to all appearance, reasonable excuses that she made, her uncle ceased to urge her, and waited till she was somewhat more advanced in age and could mate herself to her own liking. For, said heand he said quite rightparents are not to settle children in life against their will. But when one least looked for it, lo and behold! one day the demure Marcela makes her appearance turned shepherdess and, in spite of her uncle and all those of the town that strove to dissuade her, took to going afield with the other shepherdlasses of the village, and tending her own flock. And so, since she appeared in public, and her beauty came to be seen openly, I could not well tell you how many rich youths, gentlemen and peasants, have adopted the costume of Chrysostom, and go about these fields making love to her. One of these, as has been already said, was our deceased friend, of whom they say that he did not love but adore her. But you must not suppose, because Marcela chose a life of such liberty and independence, and of so little or rather no retirement, that she has given any occasion, or even the semblance of one, for disparagement of her purity and modesty on the contrary, such and so great is the vigilance with which she watches over her honour, that of all those that court and woo her not one has boasted, or can with truth boast, that she has given him any hope however small of obtaining his desire. For although she does not avoid or shun the society and conversation of the shepherds, and treats them courteously and kindly, should any one of them come to declare his intention to her, though it be one as proper and holy as that of matrimony, she flings him from her like a catapult. And with this kind of disposition she does more harm in this country than if the plague had got into it, for her affability and her beauty draw on the hearts of those that associate with her to love her and to court her, but her scorn and her frankness bring them to the brink of despair and so they know not what to say save to proclaim her aloud cruel and hardhearted, and other names of the same sort which well describe the nature of her character and if you should remain here any time, seor, you would hear these hills and valleys resounding with the laments of the rejected ones who pursue her. Not far from this there is a spot where there are a couple of dozen of tall beeches, and there is not one of them but has carved and written on its smooth bark the name of Marcela, and above some a crown carved on the same tree as though her lover would say more plainly that Marcela wore and deserved that of all human beauty. Here one shepherd is sighing, there another is lamenting there love songs are heard, here despairing elegies. One will pass all the hours of the night seated at the foot of some oak or rock, and there, without having closed his weeping eyes, the sun finds him in the morning bemused and bereft of sense and another without relief or respite to his sighs, stretched on the burning sand in the full heat of the sultry summer noontide, makes his appeal to the compassionate heavens, and over one and the other, over these and all, the beautiful Marcela triumphs free and careless. And all of us that know her are waiting to see what her pride will come to, and who is to be the happy man that will succeed in taming a nature so formidable and gaining possession of a beauty so supreme. All that I have told you being such wellestablished truth, I am persuaded that what they say of the cause of Chrysostom's death, as our lad told us, is the same. And so I advise you, seor, fail not to be present tomorrow at his burial, which will be well worth seeing, for Chrysostom had many friends, and it is not half a league from this place to where he directed he should be buried. 'I will make a point of it, said Don Quixote, 'and I thank you for the pleasure you have given me by relating so interesting a tale. 'Oh, said the goatherd, 'I do not know even the half of what has happened to the lovers of Marcela, but perhaps tomorrow we may fall in with some shepherd on the road who can tell us and now it will be well for you to go and sleep under cover, for the night air may hurt your wound, though with the remedy I have applied to you there is no fear of an untoward result. Sancho Panza, who was wishing the goatherd's loquacity at the devil, on his part begged his master to go into Pedro's hut to sleep. He did so, and passed all the rest of the night in thinking of his lady Dulcinea, in imitation of the lovers of Marcela. Sancho Panza settled himself between Rocinante and his ass, and slept, not like a lover who had been discarded, but like a man who had been soundly kicked. But hardly had day begun to show itself through the balconies of the east, when five of the six goatherds came to rouse Don Quixote and tell him that if he was still of a mind to go and see the famous burial of Chrysostom they would bear him company. Don Quixote, who desired nothing better, rose and ordered Sancho to saddle and pannel at once, which he did with all despatch, and with the same they all set out forthwith. They had not gone a quarter of a league when at the meeting of two paths they saw coming towards them some six shepherds dressed in black sheepskins and with their heads crowned with garlands of cypress and bitter oleander. Each of them carried a stout holly staff in his hand, and along with them there came two men of quality on horseback in handsome travelling dress, with three servants on foot accompanying them. Courteous salutations were exchanged on meeting, and inquiring one of the other which way each party was going, they learned that all were bound for the scene of the burial, so they went on all together. One of those on horseback addressing his companion said to him, 'It seems to me, Seor Vivaldo, that we may reckon as well spent the delay we shall incur in seeing this remarkable funeral, for remarkable it cannot but be judging by the strange things these shepherds have told us, of both the dead shepherd and homicide shepherdess. 'So I think too, replied Vivaldo, 'and I would delay not to say a day, but four, for the sake of seeing it. Don Quixote asked them what it was they had heard of Marcela and Chrysostom. The traveller answered that the same morning they had met these shepherds, and seeing them dressed in this mournful fashion they had asked them the reason of their appearing in such a guise which one of them gave, describing the strange behaviour and beauty of a shepherdess called Marcela, and the loves of many who courted her, together with the death of that Chrysostom to whose burial they were going. In short, he repeated all that Pedro had related to Don Quixote. This conversation dropped, and another was commenced by him who was called Vivaldo asking Don Quixote what was the reason that led him to go armed in that fashion in a country so peaceful. To which Don Quixote replied, 'The pursuit of my calling does not allow or permit me to go in any other fashion easy life, enjoyment, and repose were invented for soft courtiers, but toil, unrest, and arms were invented and made for those alone whom the world calls knightserrant, of whom I, though unworthy, am the least of all. The instant they heard this all set him down as mad, and the better to settle the point and discover what kind of madness his was, Vivaldo proceeded to ask him what knightserrant meant. 'Have not your worships, replied Don Quixote, 'read the annals and histories of England, in which are recorded the famous deeds of King Arthur, whom we in our popular Castilian invariably call King Artus, with regard to whom it is an ancient tradition, and commonly received all over that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but was changed by magic art into a raven, and that in process of time he is to return to reign and recover his kingdom and sceptre for which reason it cannot be proved that from that time to this any Englishman ever killed a raven? Well, then, in the time of this good king that famous order of chivalry of the Knights of the Round Table was instituted, and the amour of Don Lancelot of the Lake with the Queen Guinevere occurred, precisely as is there related, the gobetween and confidante therein being the highly honourable dame Quintaona, whence came that ballad so well known and widely spread in our Spain O never surely was there knight So served by hand of dame, As served was he Sir Lancelot hight When he from Britain came with all the sweet and delectable course of his achievements in love and war. Handed down from that time, then, this order of chivalry went on extending and spreading itself over many and various parts of the world and in it, famous and renowned for their deeds, were the mighty Amadis of Gaul with all his sons and descendants to the fifth generation, and the valiant Felixmarte of Hircania, and the never sufficiently praised Tirante el Blanco, and in our own days almost we have seen and heard and talked with the invincible knight Don Belianis of Greece. This, then, sirs, is to be a knighterrant, and what I have spoken of is the order of his chivalry, of which, as I have already said, I, though a sinner, have made profession, and what the aforesaid knights professed that same do I profess, and so I go through these solitudes and wilds seeking adventures, resolved in soul to oppose my arm and person to the most perilous that fortune may offer me in aid of the weak and needy. By these words of his the travellers were able to satisfy themselves of Don Quixote's being out of his senses and of the form of madness that overmastered him, at which they felt the same astonishment that all felt on first becoming acquainted with it and Vivaldo, who was a person of great shrewdness and of a lively temperament, in order to beguile the short journey which they said was required to reach the mountain, the scene of the burial, sought to give him an opportunity of going on with his absurdities. So he said to him, 'It seems to me, Seor Knighterrant, that your worship has made choice of one of the most austere professions in the world, and I imagine even that of the Carthusian monks is not so austere. 'As austere it may perhaps be, replied our Don Quixote, 'but so necessary for the world I am very much inclined to doubt. For, if the truth is to be told, the soldier who executes what his captain orders does no less than the captain himself who gives the order. My meaning, is, that churchmen in peace and quiet pray to Heaven for the welfare of the world, but we soldiers and knights carry into effect what they pray for, defending it with the might of our arms and the edge of our swords, not under shelter but in the open air, a target for the intolerable rays of the sun in summer and the piercing frosts of winter. Thus are we God's ministers on earth and the arms by which his justice is done therein. And as the business of war and all that relates and belongs to it cannot be conducted without exceeding great sweat, toil, and exertion, it follows that those who make it their profession have undoubtedly more labour than those who in tranquil peace and quiet are engaged in praying to God to help the weak. I do not mean to say, nor does it enter into my thoughts, that the knighterrant's calling is as good as that of the monk in his cell I would merely infer from what I endure myself that it is beyond a doubt a more laborious and a more belaboured one, a hungrier and thirstier, a wretcheder, raggeder, and lousier for there is no reason to doubt that the knightserrant of yore endured much hardship in the course of their lives. And if some of them by the might of their arms did rise to be emperors, in faith it cost them dear in the matter of blood and sweat and if those who attained to that rank had not had magicians and sages to help them they would have been completely baulked in their ambition and disappointed in their hopes. 'That is my own opinion, replied the traveller 'but one thing among many others seems to me very wrong in knightserrant, and that is that when they find themselves about to engage in some mighty and perilous adventure in which there is manifest danger of losing their lives, they never at the moment of engaging in it think of commending themselves to God, as is the duty of every good Christian in like peril instead of which they commend themselves to their ladies with as much devotion as if these were their gods, a thing which seems to me to savour somewhat of heathenism. 'Sir, answered Don Quixote, 'that cannot be on any account omitted, and the knighterrant would be disgraced who acted otherwise for it is usual and customary in knighterrantry that the knighterrant, who on engaging in any great feat of arms has his lady before him, should turn his eyes towards her softly and lovingly, as though with them entreating her to favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is about to undertake, and even though no one hear him, he is bound to say certain words between his teeth, commending himself to her with all his heart, and of this we have innumerable instances in the histories. Nor is it to be supposed from this that they are to omit commending themselves to God, for there will be time and opportunity for doing so while they are engaged in their task. 'For all that, answered the traveller, 'I feel some doubt still, because often I have read how words will arise between two knightserrant, and from one thing to another it comes about that their anger kindles and they wheel their horses round and take a good stretch of field, and then without any more ado at the top of their speed they come to the charge, and in midcareer they are wont to commend themselves to their ladies and what commonly comes of the encounter is that one falls over the haunches of his horse pierced through and through by his antagonist's lance, and as for the other, it is only by holding on to the mane of his horse that he can help falling to the ground but I know not how the dead man had time to commend himself to God in the course of such rapid work as this it would have been better if those words which he spent in commending himself to his lady in the midst of his career had been devoted to his duty and obligation as a Christian. Moreover, it is my belief that all knightserrant have not ladies to commend themselves to, for they are not all in love. 'That is impossible, said Don Quixote 'I say it is impossible that there could be a knighterrant without a lady, because to such it is as natural and proper to be in love as to the heavens to have stars most certainly no history has been seen in which there is to be found a knighterrant without an amour, and for the simple reason that without one he would be held no legitimate knight but a bastard, and one who had gained entrance into the stronghold of the said knighthood, not by the door, but over the wall like a thief and a robber. 'Nevertheless, said the traveller, 'if I remember rightly, I think I have read that Don Galaor, the brother of the valiant Amadis of Gaul, never had any special lady to whom he might commend himself, and yet he was not the less esteemed, and was a very stout and famous knight. To which our Don Quixote made answer, 'Sir, one solitary swallow does not make summer moreover, I know that knight was in secret very deeply in love besides which, that way of falling in love with all that took his fancy was a natural propensity which he could not control. But, in short, it is very manifest that he had one alone whom he made mistress of his will, to whom he commended himself very frequently and very secretly, for he prided himself on being a reticent knight. 'Then if it be essential that every knighterrant should be in love, said the traveller, 'it may be fairly supposed that your worship is so, as you are of the order and if you do not pride yourself on being as reticent as Don Galaor, I entreat you as earnestly as I can, in the name of all this company and in my own, to inform us of the name, country, rank, and beauty of your lady, for she will esteem herself fortunate if all the world knows that she is loved and served by such a knight as your worship seems to be. At this Don Quixote heaved a deep sigh and said, 'I cannot say positively whether my sweet enemy is pleased or not that the world should know I serve her I can only say in answer to what has been so courteously asked of me, that her name is Dulcinea, her country El Toboso, a village of La Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a princess, since she is my queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman, since all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are verified in her for her hairs are gold, her forehead Elysian fields, her eyebrows rainbows, her eyes suns, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, her teeth pearls, her neck alabaster, her bosom marble, her hands ivory, her fairness snow, and what modesty conceals from sight such, I think and imagine, as rational reflection can only extol, not compare. 'We should like to know her lineage, race, and ancestry, said Vivaldo. To which Don Quixote replied, 'She is not of the ancient Roman Curtii, Caii, or Scipios, nor of the modern Colonnas or Orsini, nor of the Moncadas or Requesenes of Catalonia, nor yet of the Rebellas or Villanovas of Valencia Palafoxes, Nuzas, Rocabertis, Corellas, Lunas, Alagones, Urreas, Foces, or Gurreas of Aragon Cerdas, Manriques, Mendozas, or Guzmans of Castile Alencastros, Pallas, or Meneses of Portugal but she is of those of El Toboso of La Mancha, a lineage that though modern, may furnish a source of gentle blood for the most illustrious families of the ages that are to come, and this let none dispute with me save on the condition that Zerbino placed at the foot of the trophy of Orlando's arms, saying, These let none move Who dareth not his might with Roland prove. 'Although mine is of the Cachopins of Laredo, said the traveller, 'I will not venture to compare it with that of El Toboso of La Mancha, though, to tell the truth, no such surname has until now ever reached my ears. 'What! said Don Quixote, 'has that never reached them? The rest of the party went along listening with great attention to the conversation of the pair, and even the very goatherds and shepherds perceived how exceedingly out of his wits our Don Quixote was. Sancho Panza alone thought that what his master said was the truth, knowing who he was and having known him from his birth and all that he felt any difficulty in believing was that about the fair Dulcinea del Toboso, because neither any such name nor any such princess had ever come to his knowledge though he lived so close to El Toboso. They were going along conversing in this way, when they saw descending a gap between two high mountains some twenty shepherds, all clad in sheepskins of black wool, and crowned with garlands which, as afterwards appeared, were, some of them of yew, some of cypress. Six of the number were carrying a bier covered with a great variety of flowers and branches, on seeing which one of the goatherds said, 'Those who come there are the bearers of Chrysostom's body, and the foot of that mountain is the place where he ordered them to bury him. They therefore made haste to reach the spot, and did so by the time those who came had laid the bier upon the ground, and four of them with sharp pickaxes were digging a grave by the side of a hard rock. They greeted each other courteously, and then Don Quixote and those who accompanied him turned to examine the bier, and on it, covered with flowers, they saw a dead body in the dress of a shepherd, to all appearance of one thirty years of age, and showing even in death that in life he had been of comely features and gallant bearing. Around him on the bier itself were laid some books, and several papers open and folded and those who were looking on as well as those who were opening the grave and all the others who were there preserved a strange silence, until one of those who had borne the body said to another, 'Observe carefully, Ambrosio if this is the place Chrysostom spoke of, since you are anxious that what he directed in his will should be so strictly complied with. 'This is the place, answered Ambrosio 'for in it many a time did my poor friend tell me the story of his hard fortune. Here it was, he told me, that he saw for the first time that mortal enemy of the human race, and here, too, for the first time he declared to her his passion, as honourable as it was devoted, and here it was that at last Marcela ended by scorning and rejecting him so as to bring the tragedy of his wretched life to a close here, in memory of misfortunes so great, he desired to be laid in the bowels of eternal oblivion. Then turning to Don Quixote and the travellers he went on to say, 'That body, sirs, on which you are looking with compassionate eyes, was the abode of a soul on which Heaven bestowed a vast share of its riches. That is the body of Chrysostom, who was unrivalled in wit, unequalled in courtesy, unapproached in gentle bearing, a phnix in friendship, generous without limit, grave without arrogance, gay without vulgarity, and, in short, first in all that constitutes goodness and second to none in all that makes up misfortune. He loved deeply, he was hated he adored, he was scorned he wooed a wild beast, he pleaded with marble, he pursued the wind, he cried to the wilderness, he served ingratitude, and for reward was made the prey of death in the midcourse of life, cut short by a shepherdess whom he sought to immortalise in the memory of man, as these papers which you see could fully prove, had he not commanded me to consign them to the fire after having consigned his body to the earth. 'You would deal with them more harshly and cruelly than their owner himself, said Vivaldo, 'for it is neither right nor proper to do the will of one who enjoins what is wholly unreasonable it would not have been reasonable in Augustus Csar had he permitted the directions left by the divine Mantuan in his will to be carried into effect. So that, Seor Ambrosio while you consign your friend's body to the earth, you should not consign his writings to oblivion, for if he gave the order in bitterness of heart, it is not right that you should irrationally obey it. On the contrary, by granting life to those papers, let the cruelty of Marcela live for ever, to serve as a warning in ages to come to all men to shun and avoid falling into like danger or I and all of us who have come here know already the story of this your lovestricken and heartbroken friend, and we know, too, your friendship, and the cause of his death, and the directions he gave at the close of his life from which sad story may be gathered how great was the cruelty of Marcela, the love of Chrysostom, and the loyalty of your friendship, together with the end awaiting those who pursue rashly the path that insane passion opens to their eyes. Last night we learned the death of Chrysostom and that he was to be buried here, and out of curiosity and pity we left our direct road and resolved to come and see with our eyes that which when heard of had so moved our compassion, and in consideration of that compassion and our desire to prove it if we might by condolence, we beg of you, excellent Ambrosio, or at least I on my own account entreat you, that instead of burning those papers you allow me to carry away some of them. And without waiting for the shepherd's answer, he stretched out his hand and took up some of those that were nearest to him seeing which Ambrosio said, 'Out of courtesy, seor, I will grant your request as to those you have taken, but it is idle to expect me to abstain from burning the remainder. Vivaldo, who was eager to see what the papers contained, opened one of them at once, and saw that its title was 'Lay of Despair. Ambrosio hearing it said, 'That is the last paper the unhappy man wrote and that you may see, seor, to what an end his misfortunes brought him, read it so that you may be heard, for you will have time enough for that while we are waiting for the grave to be dug. 'I will do so very willingly, said Vivaldo and as all the bystanders were equally eager they gathered round him, and he, reading in a loud voice, found that it ran as follows. THE LAY OF CHRYSOSTOM Since thou dost in thy cruelty desire The ruthless rigour of thy tyranny From tongue to tongue, from land to land proclaimed, The very Hell will I constrain to lend This stricken breast of mine deep notes of woe To serve my need of fitting utterance. And as I strive to body forth the tale Of all I suffer, all that thou hast done, Forth shall the dread voice roll, and bear along Shreds from my vitals torn for greater pain. Then listen, not to dulcet harmony, But to a discord wrung by mad despair Out of this bosom's depths of bitterness, To ease my heart and plant a sting in thine. The lion's roar, the fierce wolf's savage howl, The horrid hissing of the scaly snake, The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed, The crow's illboding croak, the hollow moan Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea, The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull, The plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove, The envied owl's sad note, the wail of woe That rises from the dreary choir of Hell, Commingled in one sound, confusing sense, Let all these come to aid my soul's complaint, For pain like mine demands new modes of song. No echoes of that discord shall be heard Where Father Tagus rolls, or on the banks Of olivebordered Betis to the rocks Or in deep caverns shall my plaint be told, And by a lifeless tongue in living words Or in dark valleys or on lonely shores, Where neither foot of man nor sunbeam falls Or in among the poisonbreathing swarms Of monsters nourished by the sluggish Nile. For, though it be to solitudes remote The hoarse vague echoes of my sorrows sound Thy matchless cruelty, my dismal fate Shall carry them to all the spacious world. Disdain hath power to kill, and patience dies Slain by suspicion, be it false or true And deadly is the force of jealousy Long absence makes of life a dreary void No hope of happiness can give repose To him that ever fears to be forgot And death, inevitable, waits in hall. But I, by some strange miracle, live on A prey to absence, jealousy, disdain Racked by suspicion as by certainty Forgotten, left to feed my flame alone. And while I suffer thus, there comes no ray Of hope to gladden me athwart the gloom Nor do I look for it in my despair But rather clinging to a cureless woe, All hope do I abjure for evermore. Can there be hope where fear is? Were it well, When far more certain are the grounds of fear? Ought I to shut mine eyes to jealousy, If through a thousand heartwounds it appears? Who would not give free access to distrust, Seeing disdain unveiled, andbitter change! All his suspicions turned to certainties, And the fair truth transformed into a lie? Oh, thou fierce tyrant of the realms of love, Oh, Jealousy! put chains upon these hands, And bind me with thy strongest cord, Disdain. But, woe is me! triumphant over all, My sufferings drown the memory of you. And now I die, and since there is no hope Of happiness for me in life or death, Still to my fantasy I'll fondly cling. I'll say that he is wise who loveth well, And that the soul most free is that most bound In thraldom to the ancient tyrant Love. I'll say that she who is mine enemy In that fair body hath as fair a mind, And that her coldness is but my desert, And that by virtue of the pain he sends Love rules his kingdom with a gentle sway. Thus, selfdeluding, and in bondage sore, And wearing out the wretched shred of life To which I am reduced by her disdain, I'll give this soul and body to the winds, All hopeless of a crown of bliss in store. Thou whose injustice hath supplied the cause That makes me quit the weary life I loathe, As by this wounded bosom thou canst see How willingly thy victim I become, Let not my death, if haply worth a tear, Cloud the clear heaven that dwells in thy bright eyes I would not have thee expiate in aught The crime of having made my heart thy prey But rather let thy laughter gaily ring And prove my death to be thy festival. Fool that I am to bid thee! well I know Thy glory gains by my untimely end. And now it is the time from Hell's abyss Come thirsting Tantalus, come Sisyphus Heaving the cruel stone, come Tityus With vulture, and with wheel Ixion come, And come the sisters of the ceaseless toil And all into this breast transfer their pains, And (if such tribute to despair be due) Chant in their deepest tones a doleful dirge Over a corse unworthy of a shroud. Let the threeheaded guardian of the gate, And all the monstrous progeny of hell, The doleful concert join a lover dead Methinks can have no fitter obsequies. Lay of despair, grieve not when thou art gone Forth from this sorrowing heart my misery Brings fortune to the cause that gave thee birth Then banish sadness even in the tomb. The 'Lay of Chrysostom met with the approbation of the listeners, though the reader said it did not seem to him to agree with what he had heard of Marcela's reserve and propriety, for Chrysostom complained in it of jealousy, suspicion, and absence, all to the prejudice of the good name and fame of Marcela to which Ambrosio replied as one who knew well his friend's most secret thoughts, 'Seor, to remove that doubt I should tell you that when the unhappy man wrote this lay he was away from Marcela, from whom he had voluntarily separated himself, to try if absence would act with him as it is wont and as everything distresses and every fear haunts the banished lover, so imaginary jealousies and suspicions, dreaded as if they were true, tormented Chrysostom and thus the truth of what report declares of the virtue of Marcela remains unshaken, and with her envy itself should not and cannot find any fault save that of being cruel, somewhat haughty, and very scornful. 'That is true, said Vivaldo and as he was about to read another paper of those he had preserved from the fire, he was stopped by a marvellous vision (for such it seemed) that unexpectedly presented itself to their eyes for on the summit of the rock where they were digging the grave there appeared the shepherdess Marcela, so beautiful that her beauty exceeded its reputation. Those who had never till then beheld her gazed upon her in wonder and silence, and those who were accustomed to see her were not less amazed than those who had never seen her before. But the instant Ambrosio saw her he addressed her, with manifest indignation 'Art thou come, by chance, cruel basilisk of these mountains, to see if in thy presence blood will flow from the wounds of this wretched being thy cruelty has robbed of life or is it to exult over the cruel work of thy humours that thou art come or like another pitiless Nero to look down from that height upon the ruin of his Rome in embers or in thy arrogance to trample on this illfated corpse, as the ungrateful daughter trampled on her father Tarquin's? Tell us quickly for what thou art come, or what it is thou wouldst have, for, as I know the thoughts of Chrysostom never failed to obey thee in life, I will make all these who call themselves his friends obey thee, though he be dead. 'I come not, Ambrosio for any of the purposes thou hast named, replied Marcela, 'but to defend myself and to prove how unreasonable are all those who blame me for their sorrow and for Chrysostom's death and therefore I ask all of you that are here to give me your attention, for it will not take much time or many words to bring the truth home to persons of sense. Heaven has made me, so you say, beautiful, and so much so that in spite of yourselves my beauty leads you to love me and for the love you show me you say, and even urge, that I am bound to love you. By that natural understanding which God has given me I know that everything beautiful attracts love, but I cannot see how, by reason of being loved, that which is loved for its beauty is bound to love that which loves it besides, it may happen that the lover of that which is beautiful may be ugly, and ugliness being detestable, it is very absurd to say, 'I love thee because thou art beautiful, thou must love me though I be ugly. But supposing the beauty equal on both sides, it does not follow that the inclinations must be therefore alike, for it is not every beauty that excites love, some but pleasing the eye without winning the affection and if every sort of beauty excited love and won the heart, the will would wander vaguely to and fro unable to make choice of any for as there is an infinity of beautiful objects there must be an infinity of inclinations, and true love, I have heard it said, is indivisible, and must be voluntary and not compelled. If this be so, as I believe it to be, why do you desire me to bend my will by force, for no other reason but that you say you love me? Naytell mehad Heaven made me ugly, as it has made me beautiful, could I with justice complain of you for not loving me? Moreover, you must remember that the beauty I possess was no choice of mine, for, be it what it may, Heaven of its bounty gave it me without my asking or choosing it and as the viper, though it kills with it, does not deserve to be blamed for the poison it carries, as it is a gift of nature, neither do I deserve reproach for being beautiful for beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword the one does not burn, the other does not cut, those who do not come too near. Honour and virtue are the ornaments of the mind, without which the body, though it be so, has no right to pass for beautiful but if modesty is one of the virtues that specially lend a grace and charm to mind and body, why should she who is loved for her beauty part with it to gratify one who for his pleasure alone strives with all his might and energy to rob her of it? I was born free, and that I might live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields in the trees of the mountains I find society, the clear waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to the trees and waters I make known my thoughts and charms. I am a fire afar off, a sword laid aside. Those whom I have inspired with love by letting them see me, I have by words undeceived, and if their longings live on hopeand I have given none to Chrysostom or to any otherit cannot justly be said that the death of any is my doing, for it was rather his own obstinacy than my cruelty that killed him and if it be made a charge against me that his wishes were honourable, and that therefore I was bound to yield to them, I answer that when on this very spot where now his grave is made he declared to me his purity of purpose, I told him that mine was to live in perpetual solitude, and that the earth alone should enjoy the fruits of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty and if, after this open avowal, he chose to persist against hope and steer against the wind, what wonder is it that he should sink in the depths of his infatuation? If I had encouraged him, I should be false if I had gratified him, I should have acted against my own better resolution and purpose. He was persistent in spite of warning, he despaired without being hated. Bethink you now if it be reasonable that his suffering should be laid to my charge. Let him who has been deceived complain, let him give way to despair whose encouraged hopes have proved vain, let him flatter himself whom I shall entice, let him boast whom I shall receive but let not him call me cruel or homicide to whom I make no promise, upon whom I practise no deception, whom I neither entice nor receive. It has not been so far the will of Heaven that I should love by fate, and to expect me to love by choice is idle. Let this general declaration serve for each of my suitors on his own account, and let it be understood from this time forth that if anyone dies for me it is not of jealousy or misery he dies, for she who loves no one can give no cause for jealousy to any, and candour is not to be confounded with scorn. Let him who calls me wild beast and basilisk, leave me alone as something noxious and evil let him who calls me ungrateful, withhold his service who calls me wayward, seek not my acquaintance who calls me cruel, pursue me not for this wild beast, this basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, wayward being has no kind of desire to seek, serve, know, or follow them. If Chrysostom's impatience and violent passion killed him, why should my modest behaviour and circumspection be blamed? If I preserve my purity in the society of the trees, why should he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob me of it? I have, as you know, wealth of my own, and I covet not that of others my taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint I neither love nor hate anyone I do not deceive this one or court that, or trifle with one or play with another. The modest converse of the shepherd girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my recreations my desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they ever wander hence it is to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, steps by which the soul travels to its primeval abode. With these words, and not waiting to hear a reply, she turned and passed into the thickest part of a wood that was hard by, leaving all who were there lost in admiration as much of her good sense as of her beauty. Somethose wounded by the irresistible shafts launched by her bright eyesmade as though they would follow her, heedless of the frank declaration they had heard seeing which, and deeming this a fitting occasion for the exercise of his chivalry in aid of distressed damsels, Don Quixote, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword, exclaimed in a loud and distinct voice 'Let no one, whatever his rank or condition, dare to follow the beautiful Marcela, under pain of incurring my fierce indignation. She has shown by clear and satisfactory arguments that little or no fault is to be found with her for the death of Chrysostom, and also how far she is from yielding to the wishes of any of her lovers, for which reason, instead of being followed and persecuted, she should in justice be honoured and esteemed by all the good people of the world, for she shows that she is the only woman in it that holds to such a virtuous resolution. Whether it was because of the threats of Don Quixote, or because Ambrosio told them to fulfil their duty to their good friend, none of the shepherds moved or stirred from the spot until, having finished the grave and burned Chrysostom's papers, they laid his body in it, not without many tears from those who stood by. They closed the grave with a heavy stone until a slab was ready which Ambrosio said he meant to have prepared, with an epitaph which was to be to this effect Beneath the stone before your eyes The body of a lover lies In life he was a shepherd swain, In death a victim to disdain. Ungrateful, cruel, coy, and fair, Was she that drove him to despair, And Love hath made her his ally For spreading wide his tyranny. They then strewed upon the grave a profusion of flowers and branches, and all expressing their condolence with his friend Ambrosio, took their leave. Vivaldo and his companion did the same and Don Quixote bade farewell to his hosts and to the travellers, who pressed him to come with them to Seville, as being such a convenient place for finding adventures, for they presented themselves in every street and round every corner oftener than anywhere else. Don Quixote thanked them for their advice and for the disposition they showed to do him a favour, and said that for the present he would not, and must not go to Seville until he had cleared all these mountains of highwaymen and robbers, of whom report said they were full. Seeing his good intention, the travellers were unwilling to press him further, and once more bidding him farewell, they left him and pursued their journey, in the course of which they did not fail to discuss the story of Marcela and Chrysostom as well as the madness of Don Quixote. He, on his part, resolved to go in quest of the shepherdess Marcela, and make offer to her of all the service he could render her but things did not fall out with him as he expected, according to what is related in the course of this veracious history, of which the Second Part ends here. The sage Cid Hamete Benengeli relates that as soon as Don Quixote took leave of his hosts and all who had been present at the burial of Chrysostom, he and his squire passed into the same wood which they had seen the shepherdess Marcela enter, and after having wandered for more than two hours in all directions in search of her without finding her, they came to a halt in a glade covered with tender grass, beside which ran a pleasant cool stream that invited and compelled them to pass there the hours of the noontide heat, which by this time was beginning to come on oppressively. Don Quixote and Sancho dismounted, and turning Rocinante and the ass loose to feed on the grass that was there in abundance, they ransacked the alforjas, and without any ceremony very peacefully and sociably master and man made their repast on what they found in them. Sancho had not thought it worth while to hobble Rocinante, feeling sure, from what he knew of his staidness and freedom from incontinence, that all the mares in the Cordova pastures would not lead him into an impropriety. Chance, however, and the devil, who is not always asleep, so ordained it that feeding in this valley there was a drove of Galician ponies belonging to certain Yanguesan carriers, whose way it is to take their midday rest with their teams in places and spots where grass and water abound and that where Don Quixote chanced to be suited the Yanguesans' purpose very well. It so happened, then, that Rocinante took a fancy to disport himself with their ladyships the ponies, and abandoning his usual gait and demeanour as he scented them, he, without asking leave of his master, got up a briskish little trot and hastened to make known his wishes to them they, however, it seemed, preferred their pasture to him, and received him with their heels and teeth to such effect that they soon broke his girths and left him naked without a saddle to cover him but what must have been worse to him was that the carriers, seeing the violence he was offering to their mares, came running up armed with stakes, and so belaboured him that they brought him sorely battered to the ground. By this time Don Quixote and Sancho, who had witnessed the drubbing of Rocinante, came up panting, and said Don Quixote to Sancho 'So far as I can see, friend Sancho, these are not knights but base folk of low birth I mention it because thou canst lawfully aid me in taking due vengeance for the insult offered to Rocinante before our eyes. 'What the devil vengeance can we take, answered Sancho, 'if they are more than twenty, and we no more than two, or, indeed, perhaps not more than one and a half? 'I count for a hundred, replied Don Quixote, and without more words he drew his sword and attacked the Yanguesans and excited and impelled by the example of his master, Sancho did the same and to begin with, Don Quixote delivered a slash at one of them that laid open the leather jerkin he wore, together with a great portion of his shoulder. The Yanguesans, seeing themselves assaulted by only two men while they were so many, betook themselves to their stakes, and driving the two into the middle they began to lay on with great zeal and energy in fact, at the second blow they brought Sancho to the ground, and Don Quixote fared the same way, all his skill and high mettle availing him nothing, and fate willed it that he should fall at the feet of Rocinante, who had not yet risen whereby it may be seen how furiously stakes can pound in angry boorish hands. Then, seeing the mischief they had done, the Yanguesans with all the haste they could loaded their team and pursued their journey, leaving the two adventurers a sorry sight and in sorrier mood. Sancho was the first to come to, and finding himself close to his master he called to him in a weak and doleful voice, 'Seor Don Quixote, ah, Seor Don Quixote! 'What wouldst thou, brother Sancho? answered Don Quixote in the same feeble suffering tone as Sancho. 'I would like, if it were possible, answered Sancho Panza, 'your worship to give me a couple of sups of that potion of the fiery Blas, if it be that you have any to hand there perhaps it will serve for broken bones as well as for wounds. 'If I only had it here, wretch that I am, what more should we want? said Don Quixote 'but I swear to thee, Sancho Panza, on the faith of a knighterrant, ere two days are over, unless fortune orders otherwise, I mean to have it in my possession, or my hand will have lost its cunning. 'But in how many does your worship think we shall have the use of our feet? answered Sancho Panza. 'For myself I must say I cannot guess how many, said the battered knight Don Quixote 'but I take all the blame upon myself, for I had no business to put hand to sword against men who where not dubbed knights like myself, and so I believe that in punishment for having transgressed the laws of chivalry the God of battles has permitted this chastisement to be administered to me for which reason, brother Sancho, it is well thou shouldst receive a hint on the matter which I am now about to mention to thee, for it is of much importance to the welfare of both of us. It is that when thou shalt see rabble of this sort offering us insult thou art not to wait till I draw sword against them, for I shall not do so at all but do thou draw sword and chastise them to thy heart's content, and if any knights come to their aid and defence I will take care to defend thee and assail them with all my might and thou hast already seen by a thousand signs and proofs what the might of this strong arm of mine is equal toso uplifted had the poor gentleman become through the victory over the stout Biscayan. But Sancho did not so fully approve of his master's admonition as to let it pass without saying in reply, 'Seor, I am a man of peace, meek and quiet, and I can put up with any affront because I have a wife and children to support and bring up so let it be likewise a hint to your worship, as it cannot be a mandate, that on no account will I draw sword either against clown or against knight, and that here before God I forgive the insults that have been offered me, whether they have been, are, or shall be offered me by high or low, rich or poor, noble or commoner, not excepting any rank or condition whatsoever. To all which his master said in reply, 'I wish I had breath enough to speak somewhat easily, and that the pain I feel on this side would abate so as to let me explain to thee, Panza, the mistake thou makest. Come now, sinner, suppose the wind of fortune, hitherto so adverse, should turn in our favour, filling the sails of our desires so that safely and without impediment we put into port in some one of those islands I have promised thee, how would it be with thee if on winning it I made thee lord of it? Why, thou wilt make it wellnigh impossible through not being a knight nor having any desire to be one, nor possessing the courage nor the will to avenge insults or defend thy lordship for thou must know that in newly conquered kingdoms and provinces the minds of the inhabitants are never so quiet nor so well disposed to the new lord that there is no fear of their making some move to change matters once more, and try, as they say, what chance may do for them so it is essential that the new possessor should have good sense to enable him to govern, and valour to attack and defend himself, whatever may befall him. 'In what has now befallen us, answered Sancho, 'I'd have been well pleased to have that good sense and that valour your worship speaks of, but I swear on the faith of a poor man I am more fit for plasters than for arguments. See if your worship can get up, and let us help Rocinante, though he does not deserve it, for he was the main cause of all this thrashing. I never thought it of Rocinante, for I took him to be a virtuous person and as quiet as myself. After all, they say right that it takes a long time to come to know people, and that there is nothing sure in this life. Who would have said that, after such mighty slashes as your worship gave that unlucky knighterrant, there was coming, travelling post and at the very heels of them, such a great storm of sticks as has fallen upon our shoulders? 'And yet thine, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'ought to be used to such squalls but mine, reared in soft cloth and fine linen, it is plain they must feel more keenly the pain of this mishap, and if it were not that I imaginewhy do I say imagine?know of a certainty that all these annoyances are very necessary accompaniments of the calling of arms, I would lay me down here to die of pure vexation. To this the squire replied, 'Seor, as these mishaps are what one reaps of chivalry, tell me if they happen very often, or if they have their own fixed times for coming to pass because it seems to me that after two harvests we shall be no good for the third, unless God in his infinite mercy helps us. 'Know, friend Sancho, answered Don Quixote, 'that the life of knightserrant is subject to a thousand dangers and reverses, and neither more nor less is it within immediate possibility for knightserrant to become kings and emperors, as experience has shown in the case of many different knights with whose histories I am thoroughly acquainted and I could tell thee now, if the pain would let me, of some who simply by might of arm have risen to the high stations I have mentioned and those same, both before and after, experienced divers misfortunes and miseries for the valiant Amadis of Gaul found himself in the power of his mortal enemy Arcalaus the magician, who, it is positively asserted, holding him captive, gave him more than two hundred lashes with the reins of his horse while tied to one of the pillars of a court and moreover there is a certain recondite author of no small authority who says that the Knight of Phbus, being caught in a certain pitfall, which opened under his feet in a certain castle, on falling found himself bound hand and foot in a deep pit underground, where they administered to him one of those things they call clysters, of sand and snowwater, that wellnigh finished him and if he had not been succoured in that sore extremity by a sage, a great friend of his, it would have gone very hard with the poor knight so I may well suffer in company with such worthy folk, for greater were the indignities which they had to suffer than those which we suffer. For I would have thee know, Sancho, that wounds caused by any instruments which happen by chance to be in hand inflict no indignity, and this is laid down in the law of the duel in express words if, for instance, the cobbler strikes another with the last which he has in his hand, though it be in fact a piece of wood, it cannot be said for that reason that he whom he struck with it has been cudgelled. I say this lest thou shouldst imagine that because we have been drubbed in this affray we have therefore suffered any indignity for the arms those men carried, with which they pounded us, were nothing more than their stakes, and not one of them, so far as I remember, carried rapier, sword, or dagger. 'They gave me no time to see that much, answered Sancho, 'for hardly had I laid hand on my tizona when they signed the cross on my shoulders with their sticks in such style that they took the sight out of my eyes and the strength out of my feet, stretching me where I now lie, and where thinking of whether all those stakestrokes were an indignity or not gives me no uneasiness, which the pain of the blows does, for they will remain as deeply impressed on my memory as on my shoulders. 'For all that let me tell thee, brother Panza, said Don Quixote, 'that there is no recollection which time does not put an end to, and no pain which death does not remove. 'And what greater misfortune can there be, replied Panza, 'than the one that waits for time to put an end to it and death to remove it? If our mishap were one of those that are cured with a couple of plasters, it would not be so bad but I am beginning to think that all the plasters in a hospital almost won't be enough to put us right. 'No more of that pluck strength out of weakness, Sancho, as I mean to do, returned Don Quixote, 'and let us see how Rocinante is, for it seems to me that not the least share of this mishap has fallen to the lot of the poor beast. 'There is nothing wonderful in that, replied Sancho, 'since he is a knighterrant too what I wonder at is that my beast should have come off scotfree where we come out scotched. 'Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity in order to bring relief to it, said Don Quixote 'I say so because this little beast may now supply the want of Rocinante, carrying me hence to some castle where I may be cured of my wounds. And moreover I shall not hold it any dishonour to be so mounted, for I remember having read how the good old Silenus, the tutor and instructor of the gay god of laughter, when he entered the city of the hundred gates, went very contentedly mounted on a handsome ass. 'It may be true that he went mounted as your worship says, answered Sancho, 'but there is a great difference between going mounted and going slung like a sack of manure. To which Don Quixote replied, 'Wounds received in battle confer honour instead of taking it away and so, friend Panza, say no more, but, as I told thee before, get up as well as thou canst and put me on top of thy beast in whatever fashion pleases thee best, and let us go hence ere night come on and surprise us in these wilds. 'And yet I have heard your worship say, observed Panza, 'that it is very meet for knightserrant to sleep in wastes and deserts, and that they esteem it very good fortune. 'That is, said Don Quixote, 'when they cannot help it, or when they are in love and so true is this that there have been knights who have remained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade and all the inclemencies of heaven, without their ladies knowing anything of it and one of these was Amadis, when, under the name of Beltenebros, he took up his abode on the Pea Pobre forI know not if it was eight years or eight months, for I am not very sure of the reckoning at any rate he stayed there doing penance for I know not what pique the Princess Oriana had against him but no more of this now, Sancho, and make haste before a mishap like Rocinante's befalls the ass. 'The very devil would be in it in that case, said Sancho and letting off thirty 'ohs, and sixty sighs, and a hundred and twenty maledictions and execrations on whomsoever it was that had brought him there, he raised himself, stopping halfway bent like a Turkish bow without power to bring himself upright, but with all his pains he saddled his ass, who too had gone astray somewhat, yielding to the excessive licence of the day he next raised up Rocinante, and as for him, had he possessed a tongue to complain with, most assuredly neither Sancho nor his master would have been behind him. To be brief, Sancho fixed Don Quixote on the ass and secured Rocinante with a leading rein, and taking the ass by the halter, he proceeded more or less in the direction in which it seemed to him the high road might be and, as chance was conducting their affairs for them from good to better, he had not gone a short league when the road came in sight, and on it he perceived an inn, which to his annoyance and to the delight of Don Quixote must needs be a castle. Sancho insisted that it was an inn, and his master that it was not one, but a castle, and the dispute lasted so long that before the point was settled they had time to reach it, and into it Sancho entered with all his team without any further controversy. The innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote slung across the ass, asked Sancho what was amiss with him. Sancho answered that it was nothing, only that he had fallen down from a rock and had his ribs a little bruised. The innkeeper had a wife whose disposition was not such as those of her calling commonly have, for she was by nature kindhearted and felt for the sufferings of her neighbours, so she at once set about tending Don Quixote, and made her young daughter, a very comely girl, help her in taking care of her guest. There was besides in the inn, as servant, an Asturian lass with a broad face, flat poll, and snub nose, blind of one eye and not very sound in the other. The elegance of her shape, to be sure, made up for all her defects she did not measure seven palms from head to foot, and her shoulders, which overweighted her somewhat, made her contemplate the ground more than she liked. This graceful lass, then, helped the young girl, and the two made up a very bad bed for Don Quixote in a garret that showed evident signs of having formerly served for many years as a strawloft, in which there was also quartered a carrier whose bed was placed a little beyond our Don Quixote's, and, though only made of the packsaddles and cloths of his mules, had much the advantage of it, as Don Quixote's consisted simply of four rough boards on two not very even trestles, a mattress, that for thinness might have passed for a quilt, full of pellets which, were they not seen through the rents to be wool, would to the touch have seemed pebbles in hardness, two sheets made of buckler leather, and a coverlet the threads of which anyone that chose might have counted without missing one in the reckoning. On this accursed bed Don Quixote stretched himself, and the hostess and her daughter soon covered him with plasters from top to toe, while Maritornesfor that was the name of the Asturianheld the light for them, and while plastering him, the hostess, observing how full of wheals Don Quixote was in some places, remarked that this had more the look of blows than of a fall. It was not blows, Sancho said, but that the rock had many points and projections, and that each of them had left its mark. 'Pray, seora, he added, 'manage to save some tow, as there will be no want of someone to use it, for my loins too are rather sore. 'Then you must have fallen too, said the hostess. 'I did not fall, said Sancho Panza, 'but from the shock I got at seeing my master fall, my body aches so that I feel as if I had had a thousand thwacks. 'That may well be, said the young girl, 'for it has many a time happened to me to dream that I was falling down from a tower and never coming to the ground, and when I awoke from the dream to find myself as weak and shaken as if I had really fallen. 'There is the point, seora, replied Sancho Panza, 'that I without dreaming at all, but being more awake than I am now, find myself with scarcely less wheals than my master, Don Quixote. 'How is the gentleman called? asked Maritornes the Asturian. 'Don Quixote of La Mancha, answered Sancho Panza, 'and he is a knightadventurer, and one of the best and stoutest that have been seen in the world this long time past. 'What is a knightadventurer? said the lass. 'Are you so new in the world as not to know? answered Sancho Panza. 'Well, then, you must know, sister, that a knightadventurer is a thing that in two words is seen drubbed and emperor, that is today the most miserable and needy being in the world, and tomorrow will have two or three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire. 'Then how is it, said the hostess, 'that belonging to so good a master as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a county? 'It is too soon yet, answered Sancho, 'for we have only been a month going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for another thing is found however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not change my hopes for the best title in Spain. To all this conversation Don Quixote was listening very attentively, and sitting up in bed as well as he could, and taking the hostess by the hand he said to her, 'Believe me, fair lady, you may call yourself fortunate in having in this castle of yours sheltered my person, which is such that if I do not myself praise it, it is because of what is commonly said, that selfpraise debaseth but my squire will inform you who I am. I only tell you that I shall preserve for ever inscribed on my memory the service you have rendered me in order to tender you my gratitude while life shall last me and would to Heaven love held me not so enthralled and subject to its laws and to the eyes of that fair ingrate whom I name between my teeth, but that those of this lovely damsel might be the masters of my liberty. The hostess, her daughter, and the worthy Maritornes listened in bewilderment to the words of the knighterrant for they understood about as much of them as if he had been talking Greek, though they could perceive they were all meant for expressions of goodwill and blandishments and not being accustomed to this kind of language, they stared at him and wondered to themselves, for he seemed to them a man of a different sort from those they were used to, and thanking him in pothouse phrase for his civility they left him, while the Asturian gave her attention to Sancho, who needed it no less than his master. The carrier had made an arrangement with her for recreation that night, and she had given him her word that when the guests were quiet and the family asleep she would come in search of him and meet his wishes unreservedly. And it is said of this good lass that she never made promises of the kind without fulfilling them, even though she made them in a forest and without any witness present, for she plumed herself greatly on being a lady and held it no disgrace to be in such an employment as servant in an inn, because, she said, misfortunes and illluck had brought her to that position. The hard, narrow, wretched, rickety bed of Don Quixote stood first in the middle of this starlit stable, and close beside it Sancho made his, which merely consisted of a rush mat and a blanket that looked as if it was of threadbare canvas rather than of wool. Next to these two beds was that of the carrier, made up, as has been said, of the packsaddles and all the trappings of the two best mules he had, though there were twelve of them, sleek, plump, and in prime condition, for he was one of the rich carriers of Arvalo, according to the author of this history, who particularly mentions this carrier because he knew him very well, and they even say was in some degree a relation of his besides which Cid Hamete Benengeli was a historian of great research and accuracy in all things, as is very evident since he would not pass over in silence those that have been already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they might be, an example that might be followed by those grave historians who relate transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a taste of them, all the substance of the work being left in the inkstand from carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand blessings on the author of 'Tablante de Ricamonte and that of the other book in which the deeds of the Conde Tomillas are recounted with what minuteness they describe everything! To proceed, then after having paid a visit to his team and given them their second feed, the carrier stretched himself on his packsaddles and lay waiting for his conscientious Maritornes. Sancho was by this time plastered and had lain down, and though he strove to sleep the pain of his ribs would not let him, while Don Quixote with the pain of his had his eyes as wide open as a hare's. The inn was all in silence, and in the whole of it there was no light except that given by a lantern that hung burning in the middle of the gateway. This strange stillness, and the thoughts, always present to our knight's mind, of the incidents described at every turn in the books that were the cause of his misfortune, conjured up to his imagination as extraordinary a delusion as can well be conceived, which was that he fancied himself to have reached a famous castle (for, as has been said, all the inns he lodged in were castles to his eyes), and that the daughter of the innkeeper was daughter of the lord of the castle, and that she, won by his highbred bearing, had fallen in love with him, and had promised to come to his bed for a while that night without the knowledge of her parents and holding all this fantasy that he had constructed as solid fact, he began to feel uneasy and to consider the perilous risk which his virtue was about to encounter, and he resolved in his heart to commit no treason to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, even though the queen Guinevere herself and the dame Quintaona should present themselves before him. While he was taken up with these vagaries, then, the time and the houran unlucky one for himarrived for the Asturian to come, who in her smock, with bare feet and her hair gathered into a fustian coif, with noiseless and cautious steps entered the chamber where the three were quartered, in quest of the carrier but scarcely had she gained the door when Don Quixote perceived her, and sitting up in his bed in spite of his plasters and the pain of his ribs, he stretched out his arms to receive his beauteous damsel. The Asturian, who went all doubled up and in silence with her hands before her feeling for her lover, encountered the arms of Don Quixote, who grasped her tightly by the wrist, and drawing her towards him, while she dared not utter a word, made her sit down on the bed. He then felt her smock, and although it was of sackcloth it appeared to him to be of the finest and softest silk on her wrists she wore some glass beads, but to him they had the sheen of precious Orient pearls her hair, which in some measure resembled a horse's mane, he rated as threads of the brightest gold of Araby, whose refulgence dimmed the sun himself her breath, which no doubt smelt of yesterday's stale salad, seemed to him to diffuse a sweet aromatic fragrance from her mouth and, in short, he drew her portrait in his imagination with the same features and in the same style as that which he had seen in his books of the other princesses who, smitten by love, came with all the adornments that are here set down, to see the sorely wounded knight and so great was the poor gentleman's blindness that neither touch, nor smell, nor anything else about the good lass that would have made any but a carrier vomit, were enough to undeceive him on the contrary, he was persuaded he had the goddess of beauty in his arms, and holding her firmly in his grasp he went on to say in low, tender voice 'Would that I found myself, lovely and exalted lady, in a position to repay such a favour as that which you, by the sight of your great beauty, have granted me but fortune, which is never weary of persecuting the good, has chosen to place me upon this bed, where I lie so bruised and broken that though my inclination would gladly comply with yours it is impossible besides, to this impossibility another yet greater is to be added, which is the faith that I have pledged to the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole lady of my most secret thoughts and were it not that this stood in the way I should not be so insensible a knight as to miss the happy opportunity which your great goodness has offered me. Maritornes was fretting and sweating at finding herself held so fast by Don Quixote, and not understanding or heeding the words he addressed to her, she strove without speaking to free herself. The worthy carrier, whose unholy thoughts kept him awake, was aware of his doxy the moment she entered the door, and was listening attentively to all Don Quixote said and jealous that the Asturian should have broken her word with him for another, drew nearer to Don Quixote's bed and stood still to see what would come of this talk which he could not understand but when he perceived the wench struggling to get free and Don Quixote striving to hold her, not relishing the joke he raised his arm and delivered such a terrible cuff on the lank jaws of the amorous knight that he bathed all his mouth in blood, and not content with this he mounted on his ribs and with his feet tramped all over them at a pace rather smarter than a trot. The bed which was somewhat crazy and not very firm on its feet, unable to support the additional weight of the carrier, came to the ground, and at the mighty crash of this the innkeeper awoke and at once concluded that it must be some brawl of Maritornes', because after calling loudly to her he got no answer. With this suspicion he got up, and lighting a lamp hastened to the quarter where he had heard the disturbance. The wench, seeing that her master was coming and knowing that his temper was terrible, frightened and panicstricken made for the bed of Sancho Panza, who still slept, and crouching upon it made a ball of herself. The innkeeper came in exclaiming, 'Where art thou, strumpet? Of course this is some of thy work. At this Sancho awoke, and feeling this mass almost on top of him fancied he had the nightmare and began to distribute fisticuffs all round, of which a certain share fell upon Maritornes, who, irritated by the pain and flinging modesty aside, paid back so many in return to Sancho that she woke him up in spite of himself. He then, finding himself so handled, by whom he knew not, raising himself up as well as he could, grappled with Maritornes, and he and she between them began the bitterest and drollest scrimmage in the world. The carrier, however, perceiving by the light of the innkeeper candle how it fared with his ladylove, quitting Don Quixote, ran to bring her the help she needed and the innkeeper did the same but with a different intention, for his was to chastise the lass, as he believed that beyond a doubt she alone was the cause of all the harmony. And so, as the saying is, cat to rat, rat to rope, rope to stick, the carrier pounded Sancho, Sancho the lass, she him, and the innkeeper her, and all worked away so briskly that they did not give themselves a moment's rest and the best of it was that the innkeeper's lamp went out, and as they were left in the dark they all laid on one upon the other in a mass so unmercifully that there was not a sound spot left where a hand could light. It so happened that there was lodging that night in the inn a caudrillero of what they call the Old Holy Brotherhood of Toledo, who, also hearing the extraordinary noise of the conflict, seized his staff and the tin case with his warrants, and made his way in the dark into the room crying 'Hold! in the name of the Jurisdiction! Hold! in the name of the Holy Brotherhood! The first that he came upon was the pummelled Don Quixote, who lay stretched senseless on his back upon his brokendown bed, and, his hand falling on the beard as he felt about, he continued to cry, 'Help for the Jurisdiction! but perceiving that he whom he had laid hold of did not move or stir, he concluded that he was dead and that those in the room were his murderers, and with this suspicion he raised his voice still higher, calling out, 'Shut the inn gate see that no one goes out they have killed a man here! This cry startled them all, and each dropped the contest at the point at which the voice reached him. The innkeeper retreated to his room, the carrier to his packsaddles, the lass to her crib the unlucky Don Quixote and Sancho alone were unable to move from where they were. The cuadrillero on this let go Don Quixote's beard, and went out to look for a light to search for and apprehend the culprits but not finding one, as the innkeeper had purposely extinguished the lantern on retreating to his room, he was compelled to have recourse to the hearth, where after much time and trouble he lit another lamp. By this time Don Quixote had recovered from his swoon and in the same tone of voice in which he had called to his squire the day before when he lay stretched 'in the vale of the stakes, he began calling to him now, 'Sancho, my friend, art thou asleep? sleepest thou, friend Sancho? 'How can I sleep, curses on it! returned Sancho discontentedly and bitterly, 'when it is plain that all the devils have been at me this night? 'Thou mayest well believe that, answered Don Quixote, 'because, either I know little, or this castle is enchanted, for thou must knowbut this that I am now about to tell thee thou must swear to keep secret until after my death. 'I swear it, answered Sancho. 'I say so, continued Don Quixote, 'because I hate taking away anyone's good name. 'I say, replied Sancho, 'that I swear to hold my tongue about it till the end of your worship's days, and God grant I may be able to let it out tomorrow. 'Do I do thee such injuries, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that thou wouldst see me dead so soon? 'It is not for that, replied Sancho, 'but because I hate keeping things long, and I don't want them to grow rotten with me from overkeeping. 'At any rate, said Don Quixote, 'I have more confidence in thy affection and good nature and so I would have thee know that this night there befell me one of the strangest adventures that I could describe, and to relate it to thee briefly thou must know that a little while ago the daughter of the lord of this castle came to me, and that she is the most elegant and beautiful damsel that could be found in the wide world. What I could tell thee of the charms of her person! of her lively wit! of other secret matters which, to preserve the fealty I owe to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, I shall pass over unnoticed and in silence! I will only tell thee that, either fate being envious of so great a boon placed in my hands by good fortune, or perhaps (and this is more probable) this castle being, as I have already said, enchanted, at the time when I was engaged in the sweetest and most amorous discourse with her, there came, without my seeing or knowing whence it came, a hand attached to some arm of some huge giant, that planted such a cuff on my jaws that I have them all bathed in blood, and then pummelled me in such a way that I am in a worse plight than yesterday when the carriers, on account of Rocinante's misbehaviour, inflicted on us the injury thou knowest of whence conjecture that there must be some enchanted Moor guarding the treasure of this damsel's beauty, and that it is not for me. 'Not for me either, said Sancho, 'for more than four hundred Moors have so thrashed me that the drubbing of the stakes was cakes and fancybread to it. But tell me, seor, what do you call this excellent and rare adventure that has left us as we are left now? Though your worship was not so badly off, having in your arms that incomparable beauty you spoke of but I, what did I have, except the heaviest whacks I think I had in all my life? Unlucky me and the mother that bore me! for I am not a knighterrant and never expect to be one, and of all the mishaps, the greater part falls to my share. 'Then thou hast been thrashed too? said Don Quixote. 'Didn't I say so? worse luck to my line! said Sancho. 'Be not distressed, friend, said Don Quixote, 'for I will now make the precious balsam with which we shall cure ourselves in the twinkling of an eye. By this time the cuadrillero had succeeded in lighting the lamp, and came in to see the man that he thought had been killed and as Sancho caught sight of him at the door, seeing him coming in his shirt, with a cloth on his head, and a lamp in his hand, and a very forbidding countenance, he said to his master, 'Seor, can it be that this is the enchanted Moor coming back to give us more castigation if there be anything still left in the inkbottle? 'It cannot be the Moor, answered Don Quixote, 'for those under enchantment do not let themselves be seen by anyone. 'If they don't let themselves be seen, they let themselves be felt, said Sancho 'if not, let my shoulders speak to the point. 'Mine could speak too, said Don Quixote, 'but that is not a sufficient reason for believing that what we see is the enchanted Moor. The officer came up, and finding them engaged in such a peaceful conversation, stood amazed though Don Quixote, to be sure, still lay on his back unable to move from pure pummelling and plasters. The officer turned to him and said, 'Well, how goes it, good man? 'I would speak more politely if I were you, replied Don Quixote 'is it the way of this country to address knightserrant in that style, you booby? The cuadrillero finding himself so disrespectfully treated by such a sorrylooking individual, lost his temper, and raising the lamp full of oil, smote Don Quixote such a blow with it on the head that he gave him a badly broken pate then, all being in darkness, he went out, and Sancho Panza said, 'That is certainly the enchanted Moor, Seor, and he keeps the treasure for others, and for us only the cuffs and lampwhacks. 'That is the truth, answered Don Quixote, 'and there is no use in troubling oneself about these matters of enchantment or being angry or vexed at them, for as they are invisible and visionary we shall find no one on whom to avenge ourselves, do what we may rise, Sancho, if thou canst, and call the alcaide of this fortress, and get him to give me a little oil, wine, salt, and rosemary to make the salutiferous balsam, for indeed I believe I have great need of it now, because I am losing much blood from the wound that phantom gave me. Sancho got up with pain enough in his bones, and went after the innkeeper in the dark, and meeting the officer, who was looking to see what had become of his enemy, he said to him, 'Seor, whoever you are, do us the favour and kindness to give us a little rosemary, oil, salt, and wine, for it is wanted to cure one of the best knightserrant on earth, who lies on yonder bed wounded by the hands of the enchanted Moor that is in this inn. When the officer heard him talk in this way, he took him for a man out of his senses, and as day was now beginning to break, he opened the inn gate, and calling the host, he told him what this good man wanted. The host furnished him with what he required, and Sancho brought it to Don Quixote, who, with his hand to his head, was bewailing the pain of the blow of the lamp, which had done him no more harm than raising a couple of rather large lumps, and what he fancied blood was only the sweat that flowed from him in his sufferings during the late storm. To be brief, he took the materials, of which he made a compound, mixing them all and boiling them a good while until it seemed to him they had come to perfection. He then asked for some vial to pour it into, and as there was not one in the inn, he decided on putting it into a tin oilbottle or flask of which the host made him a free gift and over the flask he repeated more than eighty paternosters and as many more avemarias, salves, and credos, accompanying each word with a cross by way of benediction, at all which there were present Sancho, the innkeeper, and the cuadrillero for the carrier was now peacefully engaged in attending to the comfort of his mules. This being accomplished, he felt anxious to make trial himself, on the spot, of the virtue of this precious balsam, as he considered it, and so he drank near a quart of what could not be put into the flask and remained in the pigskin in which it had been boiled but scarcely had he done drinking when he began to vomit in such a way that nothing was left in his stomach, and with the pangs and spasms of vomiting he broke into a profuse sweat, on account of which he bade them cover him up and leave him alone. They did so, and he lay sleeping more than three hours, at the end of which he awoke and felt very great bodily relief and so much ease from his bruises that he thought himself quite cured, and verily believed he had hit upon the balsam of Fierabras and that with this remedy he might thenceforward, without any fear, face any kind of destruction, battle, or combat, however perilous it might be. Sancho Panza, who also regarded the amendment of his master as miraculous, begged him to give him what was left in the pigskin, which was no small quantity. Don Quixote consented, and he, taking it with both hands, in good faith and with a better will, gulped down and drained off very little less than his master. But the fact is, that the stomach of poor Sancho was of necessity not so delicate as that of his master, and so, before vomiting, he was seized with such gripings and retchings, and such sweats and faintness, that verily and truly he believed his last hour had come, and finding himself so racked and tormented he cursed the balsam and the thief that had given it to him. Don Quixote seeing him in this state said, 'It is my belief, Sancho, that this mischief comes of thy not being dubbed a knight, for I am persuaded this liquor cannot be good for those who are not so. 'If your worship knew that, returned Sancho'woe betide me and all my kindred!why did you let me taste it? At this moment the draught took effect, and the poor squire began to discharge both ways at such a rate that the rush mat on which he had thrown himself and the canvas blanket he had covering him were fit for nothing afterwards. He sweated and perspired with such paroxysms and convulsions that not only he himself but all present thought his end had come. This tempest and tribulation lasted about two hours, at the end of which he was left, not like his master, but so weak and exhausted that he could not stand. Don Quixote, however, who, as has been said, felt himself relieved and well, was eager to take his departure at once in quest of adventures, as it seemed to him that all the time he loitered there was a fraud upon the world and those in it who stood in need of his help and protection, all the more when he had the security and confidence his balsam afforded him and so, urged by this impulse, he saddled Rocinante himself and put the packsaddle on his squire's beast, whom likewise he helped to dress and mount the ass after which he mounted his horse and turning to a corner of the inn he laid hold of a pike that stood there, to serve him by way of a lance. All that were in the inn, who were more than twenty persons, stood watching him the innkeeper's daughter was likewise observing him, and he too never took his eyes off her, and from time to time fetched a sigh that he seemed to pluck up from the depths of his bowels but they all thought it must be from the pain he felt in his ribs at any rate they who had seen him plastered the night before thought so. As soon as they were both mounted, at the gate of the inn, he called to the host and said in a very grave and measured voice, 'Many and great are the favours, Seor Alcaide, that I have received in this castle of yours, and I remain under the deepest obligation to be grateful to you for them all the days of my life if I can repay them in avenging you of any arrogant foe who may have wronged you, know that my calling is no other than to aid the weak, to avenge those who suffer wrong, and to chastise perfidy. Search your memory, and if you find anything of this kind you need only tell me of it, and I promise you by the order of knighthood which I have received to procure you satisfaction and reparation to the utmost of your desire. The innkeeper replied to him with equal calmness, 'Sir Knight, I do not want your worship to avenge me of any wrong, because when any is done me I can take what vengeance seems good to me the only thing I want is that you pay me the score that you have run up in the inn last night, as well for the straw and barley for your two beasts, as for supper and beds. 'Then this is an inn? said Don Quixote. 'And a very respectable one, said the innkeeper. 'I have been under a mistake all this time, answered Don Quixote, 'for in truth I thought it was a castle, and not a bad one but since it appears that it is not a castle but an inn, all that can be done now is that you should excuse the payment, for I cannot contravene the rule of knightserrant, of whom I know as a fact (and up to the present I have read nothing to the contrary) that they never paid for lodging or anything else in the inn where they might be for any hospitality that might be offered them is their due by law and right in return for the insufferable toil they endure in seeking adventures by night and by day, in summer and in winter, on foot and on horseback, in hunger and thirst, cold and heat, exposed to all the inclemencies of heaven and all the hardships of earth. 'I have little to do with that, replied the innkeeper 'pay me what you owe me, and let us have no more talk of chivalry, for all I care about is to get my money. 'You are a stupid, scurvy innkeeper, said Don Quixote, and putting spurs to Rocinante and bringing his pike to the slope he rode out of the inn before anyone could stop him, and pushed on some distance without looking to see if his squire was following him. The innkeeper when he saw him go without paying him ran to get payment of Sancho, who said that as his master would not pay neither would he, because, being as he was squire to a knighterrant, the same rule and reason held good for him as for his master with regard to not paying anything in inns and hostelries. At this the innkeeper waxed very wroth, and threatened if he did not pay to compel him in a way that he would not like. To which Sancho made answer that by the law of chivalry his master had received he would not pay a rap, though it cost him his life for the excellent and ancient usage of knightserrant was not going to be violated by him, nor should the squires of such as were yet to come into the world ever complain of him or reproach him with breaking so just a privilege. The illluck of the unfortunate Sancho so ordered it that among the company in the inn there were four woolcarders from Segovia, three needlemakers from the Colt of Cordova, and two lodgers from the Fair of Seville, lively fellows, tenderhearted, fond of a joke, and playful, who, almost as if instigated and moved by a common impulse, made up to Sancho and dismounted him from his ass, while one of them went in for the blanket of the host's bed but on flinging him into it they looked up, and seeing that the ceiling was somewhat lower than what they required for their work, they decided upon going out into the yard, which was bounded by the sky, and there, putting Sancho in the middle of the blanket, they began to raise him high, making sport with him as they would with a dog at Shrovetide. The cries of the poor blanketed wretch were so loud that they reached the ears of his master, who, halting to listen attentively, was persuaded that some new adventure was coming, until he clearly perceived that it was his squire who uttered them. Wheeling about he came up to the inn with a laborious gallop, and finding it shut went round it to see if he could find some way of getting in but as soon as he came to the wall of the yard, which was not very high, he discovered the game that was being played with his squire. He saw him rising and falling in the air with such grace and nimbleness that, had his rage allowed him, it is my belief he would have laughed. He tried to climb from his horse on to the top of the wall, but he was so bruised and battered that he could not even dismount and so from the back of his horse he began to utter such maledictions and objurgations against those who were blanketing Sancho as it would be impossible to write down accurately they, however, did not stay their laughter or their work for this, nor did the flying Sancho cease his lamentations, mingled now with threats, now with entreaties but all to little purpose, or none at all, until from pure weariness they left off. They then brought him his ass, and mounting him on top of it they put his jacket round him and the compassionate Maritornes, seeing him so exhausted, thought fit to refresh him with a jug of water, and that it might be all the cooler she fetched it from the well. Sancho took it, and as he was raising it to his mouth he was stopped by the cries of his master exclaiming, 'Sancho, my son, drink not water drink it not, my son, for it will kill thee see, here I have the blessed balsam (and he held up the flask of liquor), and with drinking two drops of it thou wilt certainly be restored. At these words Sancho turned his eyes asquint, and in a still louder voice said, 'Can it be your worship has forgotten that I am not a knight, or do you want me to end by vomiting up what bowels I have left after last night? Keep your liquor in the name of all the devils, and leave me to myself! and at one and the same instant he left off talking and began drinking but as at the first sup he perceived it was water he did not care to go on with it, and begged Maritornes to fetch him some wine, which she did with right good will, and paid for it with her own money for indeed they say of her that, though she was in that line of life, there was some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her. When Sancho had done drinking he dug his heels into his ass, and the gate of the inn being thrown open he passed out very well pleased at having paid nothing and carried his point, though it had been at the expense of his usual sureties, his shoulders. It is true that the innkeeper detained his alforjas in payment of what was owing to him, but Sancho took his departure in such a flurry that he never missed them. The innkeeper, as soon as he saw him off, wanted to bar the gate close, but the blanketers would not agree to it, for they were fellows who would not have cared two farthings for Don Quixote, even had he been really one of the knightserrant of the Round Table. Sancho reached his master so limp and faint that he could not urge on his beast. When Don Quixote saw the state he was in he said, 'I have now come to the conclusion, good Sancho, that this castle or inn is beyond a doubt enchanted, because those who have so atrociously diverted themselves with thee, what can they be but phantoms or beings of another world? and I hold this confirmed by having noticed that when I was by the wall of the yard witnessing the acts of thy sad tragedy, it was out of my power to mount upon it, nor could I even dismount from Rocinante, because they no doubt had me enchanted for I swear to thee by the faith of what I am that if I had been able to climb up or dismount, I would have avenged thee in such a way that those braggart thieves would have remembered their freak for ever, even though in so doing I knew that I contravened the laws of chivalry, which, as I have often told thee, do not permit a knight to lay hands on him who is not one, save in case of urgent and great necessity in defence of his own life and person. 'I would have avenged myself too if I could, said Sancho, 'whether I had been dubbed knight or not, but I could not though for my part I am persuaded those who amused themselves with me were not phantoms or enchanted men, as your worship says, but men of flesh and bone like ourselves and they all had their names, for I heard them name them when they were tossing me, and one was called Pedro Martinez, and another Tenorio Hernandez, and the innkeeper, I heard, was called Juan Palomeque the Lefthanded so that, seor, your not being able to leap over the wall of the yard or dismount from your horse came of something else besides enchantments and what I make out clearly from all this is, that these adventures we go seeking will in the end lead us into such misadventures that we shall not know which is our right foot and that the best and wisest thing, according to my small wits, would be for us to return home, now that it is harvesttime, and attend to our business, and give over wandering from Zeca to Mecca and from pail to bucket, as the saying is. 'How little thou knowest about chivalry, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'hold thy peace and have patience the day will come when thou shalt see with thine own eyes what an honourable thing it is to wander in the pursuit of this calling nay, tell me, what greater pleasure can there be in the world, or what delight can equal that of winning a battle, and triumphing over one's enemy? None, beyond all doubt. 'Very likely, answered Sancho, 'though I do not know it all I know is that since we have been knightserrant, or since your worship has been one (for I have no right to reckon myself one of so honourable a number) we have never won any battle except the one with the Biscayan, and even out of that your worship came with half an ear and half a helmet the less and from that till now it has been all cudgellings and more cudgellings, cuffs and more cuffs, I getting the blanketing over and above, and falling in with enchanted persons on whom I cannot avenge myself so as to know what the delight, as your worship calls it, of conquering an enemy is like. 'That is what vexes me, and what ought to vex thee, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'but henceforward I will endeavour to have at hand some sword made by such craft that no kind of enchantments can take effect upon him who carries it, and it is even possible that fortune may procure for me that which belonged to Amadis when he was called 'The Knight of the Burning Sword,' which was one of the best swords that ever knight in the world possessed, for, besides having the said virtue, it cut like a razor, and there was no armour, however strong and enchanted it might be, that could resist it. 'Such is my luck, said Sancho, 'that even if that happened and your worship found some such sword, it would, like the balsam, turn out serviceable and good for dubbed knights only, and as for the squires, they might sup sorrow. 'Fear not that, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'Heaven will deal better by thee. Thus talking, Don Quixote and his squire were going along, when, on the road they were following, Don Quixote perceived approaching them a large and thick cloud of dust, on seeing which he turned to Sancho and said 'This is the day, Sancho, on which will be seen the boon my fortune is reserving for me this, I say, is the day on which as much as on any other shall be displayed the might of my arm, and on which I shall do deeds that shall remain written in the book of fame for all ages to come. Seest thou that cloud of dust which rises yonder? Well, then, all that is churned up by a vast army composed of various and countless nations that comes marching there. 'According to that there must be two, said Sancho, 'for on this opposite side also there rises just such another cloud of dust. Don Quixote turned to look and found that it was true, and rejoicing exceedingly, he concluded that they were two armies about to engage and encounter in the midst of that broad plain for at all times and seasons his fancy was full of the battles, enchantments, adventures, crazy feats, loves, and defiances that are recorded in the books of chivalry, and everything he said, thought, or did had reference to such things. Now the cloud of dust he had seen was raised by two great droves of sheep coming along the same road in opposite directions, which, because of the dust, did not become visible until they drew near, but Don Quixote asserted so positively that they were armies that Sancho was led to believe it and say, 'Well, and what are we to do, seor? 'What? said Don Quixote 'give aid and assistance to the weak and those who need it and thou must know, Sancho, that this which comes opposite to us is conducted and led by the mighty emperor Alifanfaron, lord of the great isle of Trapobana this other that marches behind me is that of his enemy the king of the Garamantas, Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, for he always goes into battle with his right arm bare. 'But why are these two lords such enemies? 'They are at enmity, replied Don Quixote, 'because this Alifanfaron is a furious pagan and is in love with the daughter of Pentapolin, who is a very beautiful and moreover gracious lady, and a Christian, and her father is unwilling to bestow her upon the pagan king unless he first abandons the religion of his false prophet Mahomet, and adopts his own. 'By my beard, said Sancho, 'but Pentapolin does quite right, and I will help him as much as I can. 'In that thou wilt do what is thy duty, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'for to engage in battles of this sort it is not requisite to be a dubbed knight. 'That I can well understand, answered Sancho 'but where shall we put this ass where we may be sure to find him after the fray is over? for I believe it has not been the custom so far to go into battle on a beast of this kind. 'That is true, said Don Quixote, 'and what you had best do with him is to leave him to take his chance whether he be lost or not, for the horses we shall have when we come out victors will be so many that even Rocinante will run a risk of being changed for another. But attend to me and observe, for I wish to give thee some account of the chief knights who accompany these two armies and that thou mayest the better see and mark, let us withdraw to that hillock which rises yonder, whence both armies may be seen. They did so, and placed themselves on a rising ground from which the two droves that Don Quixote made armies of might have been plainly seen if the clouds of dust they raised had not obscured them and blinded the sight nevertheless, seeing in his imagination what he did not see and what did not exist, he began thus in a loud voice 'That knight whom thou seest yonder in yellow armour, who bears upon his shield a lion crowned crouching at the feet of a damsel, is the valiant Laurcalco, lord of the Silver Bridge that one in armour with flowers of gold, who bears on his shield three crowns argent on an azure field, is the dreaded Micocolembo, grand duke of Quirocia that other of gigantic frame, on his right hand, is the ever dauntless Brandabarbaran de Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who for armour wears that serpent skin, and has for shield a gate which, according to tradition, is one of those of the temple that Samson brought to the ground when by his death he revenged himself upon his enemies. But turn thine eyes to the other side, and thou shalt see in front and in the van of this other army the ever victorious and never vanquished Timonel of Carcajona, prince of New Biscay, who comes in armour with arms quartered azure, vert, white, and yellow, and bears on his shield a cat or on a field tawny with a motto which says Miau, which is the beginning of the name of his lady, who according to report is the peerless Miaulina, daughter of the duke Alfeniquen of the Algarve the other, who burdens and presses the loins of that powerful charger and bears arms white as snow and a shield blank and without any device, is a novice knight, a Frenchman by birth, Pierres Papin by name, lord of the baronies of Utrique that other, who with ironshod heels strikes the flanks of that nimble particoloured zebra, and for arms bears azure vair, is the mighty duke of Nerbia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, who bears for device on his shield an asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, 'Rastrea mi suerte'. And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned offhand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheardof craze and without a pause, he continued, 'People of divers nations compose this squadron in front here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many and various ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names. In this other squadron there come those that drink of the crystal streams of the olivebearing Betis, those that make smooth their countenances with the water of the ever rich and golden Tagus, those that rejoice in the fertilising flow of the divine Genil, those that roam the Tartesian plains abounding in pasture, those that take their pleasure in the Elysian meadows of Jerez, the rich Manchegans crowned with ruddy ears of corn, the wearers of iron, old relics of the Gothic race, those that bathe in the Pisuerga renowned for its gentle current, those that feed their herds along the spreading pastures of the winding Guadiana famed for its hidden course, those that tremble with the cold of the pineclad Pyrenees or the dazzling snows of the lofty Apennine in a word, as many as all Europe includes and contains. Good God! what a number of countries and nations he named! giving to each its proper attributes with marvellous readiness brimful and saturated with what he had read in his lying books! Sancho Panza hung upon his words without speaking, and from time to time turned to try if he could see the knights and giants his master was describing, and as he could not make out one of them he said to him 'Seor, devil take it if there's a sign of any man you talk of, knight or giant, in the whole thing maybe it's all enchantment, like the phantoms last night. 'How canst thou say that! answered Don Quixote 'dost thou not hear the neighing of the steeds, the braying of the trumpets, the roll of the drums? 'I hear nothing but a great bleating of ewes and sheep, said Sancho which was true, for by this time the two flocks had come close. 'The fear thou art in, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'prevents thee from seeing or hearing correctly, for one of the effects of fear is to derange the senses and make things appear different from what they are if thou art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself, for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted after him, crying, 'Come back, Seor Don Quixote I vow to God they are sheep and ewes you are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that begot me! what madness is this! Look, there is no giant, nor knight, nor cats, nor arms, nor shields quartered or whole, nor vair azure or bedevilled. What are you about? Sinner that I am before God! But not for all these entreaties did Don Quixote turn back on the contrary he went on shouting out, 'Ho, knights, ye who follow and fight under the banners of the valiant emperor Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, follow me all ye shall see how easily I shall give him his revenge over his enemy Alifanfaron of the Trapobana. So saying, he dashed into the midst of the squadron of ewes, and began spearing them with as much spirit and intrepidity as if he were transfixing mortal enemies in earnest. The shepherds and drovers accompanying the flock shouted to him to desist seeing it was no use, they ungirt their slings and began to salute his ears with stones as big as one's fist. Don Quixote gave no heed to the stones, but, letting drive right and left kept saying 'Where art thou, proud Alifanfaron? Come before me I am a single knight who would fain prove thy prowess hand to hand, and make thee yield thy life a penalty for the wrong thou dost to the valiant Pentapolin Garamanta. Here came a sugarplum from the brook that struck him on the side and buried a couple of ribs in his body. Feeling himself so smitten, he imagined himself slain or badly wounded for certain, and recollecting his liquor he drew out his flask, and putting it to his mouth began to pour the contents into his stomach but ere he had succeeded in swallowing what seemed to him enough, there came another almond which struck him on the hand and on the flask so fairly that it smashed it to pieces, knocking three or four teeth and grinders out of his mouth in its course, and sorely crushing two fingers of his hand. Such was the force of the first blow and of the second, that the poor knight in spite of himself came down backwards off his horse. The shepherds came up, and felt sure they had killed him so in all haste they collected their flock together, took up the dead beasts, of which there were more than seven, and made off without waiting to ascertain anything further. All this time Sancho stood on the hill watching the crazy feats his master was performing, and tearing his beard and cursing the hour and the occasion when fortune had made him acquainted with him. Seeing him, then, brought to the ground, and that the shepherds had taken themselves off, he ran to him and found him in very bad case, though not unconscious and said he 'Did I not tell you to come back, Seor Don Quixote and that what you were going to attack were not armies but droves of sheep? 'That's how that thief of a sage, my enemy, can alter and falsify things, answered Don Quixote 'thou must know, Sancho, that it is a very easy matter for those of his sort to make us believe what they choose and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the glory he knew I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of the enemy into droves of sheep. At any rate, do this much, I beg of thee, Sancho, to undeceive thyself, and see that what I say is true mount thy ass and follow them quietly, and thou shalt see that when they have gone some little distance from this they will return to their original shape and, ceasing to be sheep, become men in all respects as I described them to thee at first. But go not just yet, for I want thy help and assistance come hither, and see how many of my teeth and grinders are missing, for I feel as if there was not one left in my mouth. Sancho came so close that he almost put his eyes into his mouth now just at that moment the balsam had acted on the stomach of Don Quixote, so, at the very instant when Sancho came to examine his mouth, he discharged all its contents with more force than a musket, and full into the beard of the compassionate squire. 'Holy Mary! cried Sancho, 'what is this that has happened me? Clearly this sinner is mortally wounded, as he vomits blood from the mouth but considering the matter a little more closely he perceived by the colour, taste, and smell, that it was not blood but the balsam from the flask which he had seen him drink and he was taken with such a loathing that his stomach turned, and he vomited up his inside over his very master, and both were left in a precious state. Sancho ran to his ass to get something wherewith to clean himself, and relieve his master, out of his alforjas but not finding them, he wellnigh took leave of his senses, and cursed himself anew, and in his heart resolved to quit his master and return home, even though he forfeited the wages of his service and all hopes of the promised island. Don Quixote now rose, and putting his left hand to his mouth to keep his teeth from falling out altogether, with the other he laid hold of the bridle of Rocinante, who had never stirred from his master's sideso loyal and wellbehaved was heand betook himself to where the squire stood leaning over his ass with his hand to his cheek, like one in deep dejection. Seeing him in this mood, looking so sad, Don Quixote said to him 'Bear in mind, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, unless he does more than another all these tempests that fall upon us are signs that fair weather is coming shortly, and that things will go well with us, for it is impossible for good or evil to last for ever and hence it follows that the evil having lasted long, the good must be now nigh at hand so thou must not distress thyself at the misfortunes which happen to me, since thou hast no share in them. 'How have I not? replied Sancho 'was he whom they blanketed yesterday perchance any other than my father's son? and the alforjas that are missing today with all my treasures, did they belong to any other but myself? 'What! are the alforjas missing, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'Yes, they are missing, answered Sancho. 'In that case we have nothing to eat today, replied Don Quixote. 'It would be so, answered Sancho, 'if there were none of the herbs your worship says you know in these meadows, those with which knightserrant as unlucky as your worship are wont to supply suchlike shortcomings. 'For all that, answered Don Quixote, 'I would rather have just now a quarter of bread, or a loaf and a couple of pilchards' heads, than all the herbs described by Dioscorides, even with Doctor Laguna's notes. Nevertheless, Sancho the Good, mount thy beast and come along with me, for God, who provides for all things, will not fail us (more especially when we are so active in his service as we are), since he fails not the midges of the air, nor the grubs of the earth, nor the tadpoles of the water, and is so merciful that he maketh his sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and sendeth rain on the unjust and on the just. 'Your worship would make a better preacher than knighterrant, said Sancho. 'Knightserrant knew and ought to know everything, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'for there were knightserrant in former times as well qualified to deliver a sermon or discourse in the middle of an encampment, as if they had graduated in the University of Paris whereby we may see that the lance has never blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance. 'Well, be it as your worship says, replied Sancho 'let us be off now and find some place of shelter for the night, and God grant it may be somewhere where there are no blankets, nor blanketeers, nor phantoms, nor enchanted Moors for if there are, may the devil take the whole concern. 'Ask that of God, my son, said Don Quixote and do thou lead on where thou wilt, for this time I leave our lodging to thy choice but reach me here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out how many of my teeth and grinders are missing from this right side of the upper jaw, for it is there I feel the pain. Sancho put in his fingers, and feeling about asked him, 'How many grinders used your worship have on this side? 'Four, replied Don Quixote, 'besides the backtooth, all whole and quite sound. 'Mind what you are saying, seor. 'I say four, if not five, answered Don Quixote, 'for never in my life have I had tooth or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been destroyed by any decay or rheum. 'Well, then, said Sancho, 'in this lower side your worship has no more than two grinders and a half, and in the upper neither a half nor any at all, for it is all as smooth as the palm of my hand. 'Luckless that I am! said Don Quixote, hearing the sad news his squire gave him 'I had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were not the swordarm for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth without teeth is like a mill without a millstone, and a tooth is much more to be prized than a diamond but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are liable to all this. Mount, friend, and lead the way, and I will follow thee at whatever pace thou wilt. Sancho did as he bade him, and proceeded in the direction in which he thought he might find refuge without quitting the high road, which was there very much frequented. As they went along, then, at a slow pacefor the pain in Don Quixote's jaws kept him uneasy and illdisposed for speedSancho thought it well to amuse and divert him by talk of some kind, and among the things he said to him was that which will be told in the following chapter. 'It seems to me, seor, that all these mishaps that have befallen us of late have been without any doubt a punishment for the offence committed by your worship against the order of chivalry in not keeping the oath you made not to eat bread off a tablecloth or embrace the queen, and all the rest of it that your worship swore to observe until you had taken that helmet of Malandrino's, or whatever the Moor is called, for I do not very well remember. 'Thou art very right, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'but to tell the truth, it had escaped my memory and likewise thou mayest rely upon it that the affair of the blanket happened to thee because of thy fault in not reminding me of it in time but I will make amends, for there are ways of compounding for everything in the order of chivalry. 'Why! have I taken an oath of some sort, then? said Sancho. 'It makes no matter that thou hast not taken an oath, said Don Quixote 'suffice it that I see thou art not quite clear of complicity and whether or no, it will not be ill done to provide ourselves with a remedy. 'In that case, said Sancho, 'mind that your worship does not forget this as you did the oath perhaps the phantoms may take it into their heads to amuse themselves once more with me or even with your worship if they see you so obstinate. While engaged in this and other talk, night overtook them on the road before they had reached or discovered any place of shelter and what made it still worse was that they were dying of hunger, for with the loss of the alforjas they had lost their entire larder and commissariat and to complete the misfortune they met with an adventure which without any invention had really the appearance of one. It so happened that the night closed in somewhat darkly, but for all that they pushed on, Sancho feeling sure that as the road was the king's highway they might reasonably expect to find some inn within a league or two. Going along, then, in this way, the night dark, the squire hungry, the master sharpset, they saw coming towards them on the road they were travelling a great number of lights which looked exactly like stars in motion. Sancho was taken aback at the sight of them, nor did Don Quixote altogether relish them the one pulled up his ass by the halter, the other his hack by the bridle, and they stood still, watching anxiously to see what all this would turn out to be, and found that the lights were approaching them, and the nearer they came the greater they seemed, at which spectacle Sancho began to shake like a man dosed with mercury, and Don Quixote's hair stood on end he, however, plucking up spirit a little, said 'This, no doubt, Sancho, will be a most mighty and perilous adventure, in which it will be needful for me to put forth all my valour and resolution. 'Unlucky me! answered Sancho 'if this adventure happens to be one of phantoms, as I am beginning to think it is, where shall I find the ribs to bear it? 'Be they phantoms ever so much, said Don Quixote, 'I will not permit them to touch a thread of thy garments for if they played tricks with thee the time before, it was because I was unable to leap the walls of the yard but now we are on a wide plain, where I shall be able to wield my sword as I please. 'And if they enchant and cripple you as they did the last time, said Sancho, 'what difference will it make being on the open plain or not? 'For all that, replied Don Quixote, 'I entreat thee, Sancho, to keep a good heart, for experience will tell thee what mine is. 'I will, please God, answered Sancho, and the two retiring to one side of the road set themselves to observe closely what all these moving lights might be and very soon afterwards they made out some twenty encamisados, all on horseback, with lighted torches in their hands, the aweinspiring aspect of whom completely extinguished the courage of Sancho, who began to chatter with his teeth like one in the cold fit of an ague and his heart sank and his teeth chattered still more when they perceived distinctly that behind them there came a litter covered over with black and followed by six more mounted figures in mourning down to the very feet of their mulesfor they could perceive plainly they were not horses by the easy pace at which they went. And as the encamisados came along they muttered to themselves in a low plaintive tone. This strange spectacle at such an hour and in such a solitary place was quite enough to strike terror into Sancho's heart, and even into his master's and (save in Don Quixote's case) did so, for all Sancho's resolution had now broken down. It was just the opposite with his master, whose imagination immediately conjured up all this to him vividly as one of the adventures of his books. He took it into his head that the litter was a bier on which was borne some sorely wounded or slain knight, to avenge whom was a task reserved for him alone and without any further reasoning he laid his lance in rest, fixed himself firmly in his saddle, and with gallant spirit and bearing took up his position in the middle of the road where the encamisados must of necessity pass and as soon as he saw them near at hand he raised his voice and said 'Halt, knights, or whosoever ye may be, and render me account of who ye are, whence ye come, where ye go, what it is ye carry upon that bier, for, to judge by appearances, either ye have done some wrong or some wrong has been done to you, and it is fitting and necessary that I should know, either that I may chastise you for the evil ye have done, or else that I may avenge you for the injury that has been inflicted upon you. 'We are in haste, answered one of the encamisados, 'and the inn is far off, and we cannot stop to render you such an account as you demand and spurring his mule he moved on. Don Quixote was mightily provoked by this answer, and seizing the mule by the bridle he said, 'Halt, and be more mannerly, and render an account of what I have asked of you else, take my defiance to combat, all of you. The mule was shy, and was so frightened at her bridle being seized that rearing up she flung her rider to the ground over her haunches. An attendant who was on foot, seeing the encamisado fall, began to abuse Don Quixote, who now moved to anger, without any more ado, laying his lance in rest charged one of the men in mourning and brought him badly wounded to the ground, and as he wheeled round upon the others the agility with which he attacked and routed them was a sight to see, for it seemed just as if wings had that instant grown upon Rocinante, so lightly and proudly did he bear himself. The encamisados were all timid folk and unarmed, so they speedily made their escape from the fray and set off at a run across the plain with their lighted torches, looking exactly like maskers running on some gala or festival night. The mourners, too, enveloped and swathed in their skirts and gowns, were unable to bestir themselves, and so with entire safety to himself Don Quixote belaboured them all and drove them off against their will, for they all thought it was no man but a devil from hell come to carry away the dead body they had in the litter. Sancho beheld all this in astonishment at the intrepidity of his lord, and said to himself, 'Clearly this master of mine is as bold and valiant as he says he is. A burning torch lay on the ground near the first man whom the mule had thrown, by the light of which Don Quixote perceived him, and coming up to him he presented the point of the lance to his face, calling on him to yield himself prisoner, or else he would kill him to which the prostrate man replied, 'I am prisoner enough as it is I cannot stir, for one of my legs is broken I entreat you, if you be a Christian gentleman, not to kill me, which will be committing grave sacrilege, for I am a licentiate and I hold first orders. 'Then what the devil brought you here, being a churchman? said Don Quixote. 'What, seor? said the other. 'My bad luck. 'Then still worse awaits you, said Don Quixote, 'if you do not satisfy me as to all I asked you at first. 'You shall be soon satisfied, said the licentiate 'you must know, then, that though just now I said I was a licentiate, I am only a bachelor, and my name is Alonzo Lopez I am a native of Alcobendas, I come from the city of Baeza with eleven others, priests, the same who fled with the torches, and we are going to the city of Segovia accompanying a dead body which is in that litter, and is that of a gentleman who died in Baeza, where he was interred and now, as I said, we are taking his bones to their burialplace, which is in Segovia, where he was born. 'And who killed him? asked Don Quixote. 'God, by means of a malignant fever that took him, answered the bachelor. 'In that case, said Don Quixote, 'the Lord has relieved me of the task of avenging his death had any other slain him but, he who slew him having slain him, there is nothing for it but to be silent, and shrug one's shoulders I should do the same were he to slay myself and I would have your reverence know that I am a knight of La Mancha, Don Quixote by name, and it is my business and calling to roam the world righting wrongs and redressing injuries. 'I do not know how that about righting wrongs can be, said the bachelor, 'for from straight you have made me crooked, leaving me with a broken leg that will never see itself straight again all the days of its life and the injury you have redressed in my case has been to leave me injured in such a way that I shall remain injured for ever and the height of misadventure it was to fall in with you who go in search of adventures. 'Things do not all happen in the same way, answered Don Quixote 'it all came, Sir Bachelor Alonzo Lopez, of your going, as you did, by night, dressed in those surplices, with lighted torches, praying, covered with mourning, so that naturally you looked like something evil and of the other world and so I could not avoid doing my duty in attacking you, and I should have attacked you even had I known positively that you were the very devils of hell, for such I certainly believed and took you to be. 'As my fate has so willed it, said the bachelor, 'I entreat you, sir knighterrant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help me to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between the stirrup and the saddle. 'I would have talked on till tomorrow, said Don Quixote 'how long were you going to wait before telling me of your distress? He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he was just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with provender, which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them. Sancho made a bag of his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and as the bag would hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey his master's call, and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the mule then putting him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don Quixote bade him follow the track of his companions, and beg pardon of them on his part for the wrong which he could not help doing them. And said Sancho, 'If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. The bachelor then took his departure. I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote, 'Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands on a holy thing, juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo. 'I do not understand that Latin, answered Don Quixote, 'but I know well I did not lay hands, only this pike besides, I did not think I was committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which, like a Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere, but upon phantoms and spectres of the other world but even so, I remember how it fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the ambassador of that king before his Holiness the Pope, who excommunicated him for the same and yet the good Roderick of Vivar bore himself that day like a very noble and valiant knight. On hearing this the bachelor took his departure, as has been said, without making any reply and Don Quixote asked Sancho what had induced him to call him the 'Knight of the Rueful Countenance more then than at any other time. 'I will tell you, answered Sancho 'it was because I have been looking at you for some time by the light of the torch held by that unfortunate, and verily your worship has got of late the most illfavoured countenance I ever saw it must be either owing to the fatigue of this combat, or else to the want of teeth and grinders. 'It is not that, replied Don Quixote, 'but because the sage whose duty it will be to write the history of my achievements must have thought it proper that I should take some distinctive name as all knights of yore did one being 'He of the Burning Sword,' another 'He of the Unicorn,' this one 'He of the Damsels,' that 'He of the Phnix,' another 'The Knight of the Griffin,' and another 'He of the Death,' and by these names and designations they were known all the world round and so I say that the sage aforesaid must have put it into your mouth and mind just now to call me 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance,' as I intend to call myself from this day forward and that the said name may fit me better, I mean, when the opportunity offers, to have a very rueful countenance painted on my shield. 'There is no occasion, seor, for wasting time or money on making that countenance, said Sancho 'for all that need be done is for your worship to show your own, face to face, to those who look at you, and without anything more, either image or shield, they will call you 'Him of the Rueful Countenance' and believe me I am telling you the truth, for I assure you, seor (and in good part be it said), hunger and the loss of your grinders have given you such an illfavoured face that, as I say, the rueful picture may be very well spared. Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's pleasantry nevertheless he resolved to call himself by that name, and have his shield or buckler painted as he had devised. Don Quixote would have looked to see whether the body in the litter were bones or not, but Sancho would not have it, saying 'Seor, you have ended this perilous adventure more safely for yourself than any of those I have seen perhaps these people, though beaten and routed, may bethink themselves that it is a single man that has beaten them, and feeling sore and ashamed of it may take heart and come in search of us and give us trouble enough. The ass is in proper trim, the mountains are near at hand, hunger presses, we have nothing more to do but make good our retreat, and, as the saying is, the dead to the grave and the living to the loaf. And driving his ass before him he begged his master to follow, who, feeling that Sancho was right, did so without replying and after proceeding some little distance between two hills they found themselves in a wide and retired valley, where they alighted, and Sancho unloaded his beast, and stretched upon the green grass, with hunger for sauce, they breakfasted, dined, lunched, and supped all at once, satisfying their appetites with more than one store of cold meat which the dead man's clerical gentlemen (who seldom put themselves on short allowance) had brought with them on their sumpter mule. But another piece of illluck befell them, which Sancho held the worst of all, and that was that they had no wine to drink, nor even water to moisten their lips and as thirst tormented them, Sancho, observing that the meadow where they were was full of green and tender grass, said what will be told in the following chapter. 'It cannot be, seor, but that this grass is a proof that there must be hard by some spring or brook to give it moisture, so it would be well to move a little farther on, that we may find some place where we may quench this terrible thirst that plagues us, which beyond a doubt is more distressing than hunger. The advice seemed good to Don Quixote, and, he leading Rocinante by the bridle and Sancho the ass by the halter, after he had packed away upon him the remains of the supper, they advanced the meadow feeling their way, for the darkness of the night made it impossible to see anything but they had not gone two hundred paces when a loud noise of water, as if falling from great rocks, struck their ears. The sound cheered them greatly but halting to make out by listening from what quarter it came they heard unseasonably another noise which spoiled the satisfaction the sound of the water gave them, especially for Sancho, who was by nature timid and fainthearted. They heard, I say, strokes falling with a measured beat, and a certain rattling of iron and chains that, together with the furious din of the water, would have struck terror into any heart but Don Quixote's. The night was, as has been said, dark, and they had happened to reach a spot in among some tall trees, whose leaves stirred by a gentle breeze made a low ominous sound so that, what with the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water, and the rustling of the leaves, everything inspired awe and dread more especially as they perceived that the strokes did not cease, nor the wind lull, nor morning approach to all which might be added their ignorance as to where they were. But Don Quixote, supported by his intrepid heart, leaped on Rocinante, and bracing his buckler on his arm, brought his pike to the slope, and said, 'Friend Sancho, know that I by Heaven's will have been born in this our iron age to revive in it the age of gold, or the golden as it is called I am he for whom perils, mighty achievements, and valiant deeds are reserved I am, I say again, he who is to revive the Knights of the Round Table, the Twelve of France and the Nine Worthies and he who is to consign to oblivion the Platirs, the Tablantes, the Olivantes and Tirantes, the Phbuses and Belianises, with the whole herd of famous knightserrant of days gone by, performing in these in which I live such exploits, marvels, and feats of arms as shall obscure their brightest deeds. Thou dost mark well, faithful and trusty squire, the gloom of this night, its strange silence, the dull confused murmur of those trees, the awful sound of that water in quest of which we came, that seems as though it were precipitating and dashing itself down from the lofty mountains of the Moon, and that incessant hammering that wounds and pains our ears which things all together and each of itself are enough to instil fear, dread, and dismay into the breast of Mars himself, much more into one not used to hazards and adventures of the kind. Well, then, all this that I put before thee is but an incentive and stimulant to my spirit, making my heart burst in my bosom through eagerness to engage in this adventure, arduous as it promises to be therefore tighten Rocinante's girths a little, and God be with thee wait for me here three days and no more, and if in that time I come not back, thou canst return to our village, and thence, to do me a favour and a service, thou wilt go to El Toboso, where thou shalt say to my incomparable lady Dulcinea that her captive knight hath died in attempting things that might make him worthy of being called hers. When Sancho heard his master's words he began to weep in the most pathetic way, saying 'Seor, I know not why your worship wants to attempt this so dreadful adventure it is night now, no one sees us here, we can easily turn about and take ourselves out of danger, even if we don't drink for three days to come and as there is no one to see us, all the less will there be anyone to set us down as cowards besides, I have many a time heard the curate of our village, whom your worship knows well, preach that he who seeks danger perishes in it so it is not right to tempt God by trying so tremendous a feat from which there can be no escape save by a miracle, and Heaven has performed enough of them for your worship in delivering you from being blanketed as I was, and bringing you out victorious and safe and sound from among all those enemies that were with the dead man and if all this does not move or soften that hard heart, let this thought and reflection move it, that you will have hardly quitted this spot when from pure fear I shall yield my soul up to anyone that will take it. I left home and wife and children to come and serve your worship, trusting to do better and not worse but as covetousness bursts the bag, it has rent my hopes asunder, for just as I had them highest about getting that wretched unlucky island your worship has so often promised me, I see that instead and in lieu of it you mean to desert me now in a place so far from human reach for God's sake, master mine, deal not so unjustly by me, and if your worship will not entirely give up attempting this feat, at least put it off till morning, for by what the lore I learned when I was a shepherd tells me it cannot want three hours of dawn now, because the mouth of the Horn is overhead and makes midnight in the line of the left arm. 'How canst thou see, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'where it makes that line, or where this mouth or this occiput is that thou talkest of, when the night is so dark that there is not a star to be seen in the whole heaven? 'That's true, said Sancho, 'but fear has sharp eyes, and sees things underground, much more above in heavens besides, there is good reason to show that it now wants but little of day. 'Let it want what it may, replied Don Quixote, 'it shall not be said of me now or at any time that tears or entreaties turned me aside from doing what was in accordance with knightly usage and so I beg of thee, Sancho, to hold thy peace, for God, who has put it into my heart to undertake now this so unexampled and terrible adventure, will take care to watch over my safety and console thy sorrow what thou hast to do is to tighten Rocinante's girths well, and wait here, for I shall come back shortly, alive or dead. Sancho perceiving it his master's final resolve, and how little his tears, counsels, and entreaties prevailed with him, determined to have recourse to his own ingenuity and compel him, if he could, to wait till daylight and so, while tightening the girths of the horse, he quietly and without being felt, with his ass' halter tied both Rocinante's legs, so that when Don Quixote strove to go he was unable as the horse could only move by jumps. Seeing the success of his trick, Sancho Panza said 'See there, seor! Heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has so ordered it that Rocinante cannot stir and if you will be obstinate, and spur and strike him, you will only provoke fortune, and kick, as they say, against the pricks. Don Quixote at this grew desperate, but the more he drove his heels into the horse, the less he stirred him and not having any suspicion of the tying, he was fain to resign himself and wait till daybreak or until Rocinante could move, firmly persuaded that all this came of something other than Sancho's ingenuity. So he said to him, 'As it is so, Sancho, and as Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait till dawn smiles upon us, even though I weep while it delays its coming. 'There is no need to weep, answered Sancho, 'for I will amuse your worship by telling stories from this till daylight, unless indeed you like to dismount and lie down to sleep a little on the green grass after the fashion of knightserrant, so as to be fresher when day comes and the moment arrives for attempting this extraordinary adventure you are looking forward to. 'What art thou talking about dismounting or sleeping for? said Don Quixote. 'Am I, thinkest thou, one of those knights that take their rest in the presence of danger? Sleep thou who art born to sleep, or do as thou wilt, for I will act as I think most consistent with my character. 'Be not angry, master mine, replied Sancho, 'I did not mean to say that and coming close to him he laid one hand on the pommel of the saddle and the other on the cantle so that he held his master's left thigh in his embrace, not daring to separate a finger's width from him so much afraid was he of the strokes which still resounded with a regular beat. Don Quixote bade him tell some story to amuse him as he had proposed, to which Sancho replied that he would if his dread of what he heard would let him 'Still, said he, 'I will strive to tell a story which, if I can manage to relate it, and nobody interferes with the telling, is the best of stories, and let your worship give me your attention, for here I begin. What was, was and may the good that is to come be for all, and the evil for him who goes to look for ityour worship must know that the beginning the old folk used to put to their tales was not just as each one pleased it was a maxim of Cato Zonzorino the Roman, that says 'the evil for him that goes to look for it,' and it comes as pat to the purpose now as ring to finger, to show that your worship should keep quiet and not go looking for evil in any quarter, and that we should go back by some other road, since nobody forces us to follow this in which so many terrors affright us. 'Go on with thy story, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and leave the choice of our road to my care. 'I say then, continued Sancho, 'that in a village of Estremadura there was a goatshepherdthat is to say, one who tended goatswhich shepherd or goatherd, as my story goes, was called Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, which shepherdess called Torralva was the daughter of a rich grazier, and this rich grazier 'If that is the way thou tellest thy tale, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'repeating twice all thou hast to say, thou wilt not have done these two days go straight on with it, and tell it like a reasonable man, or else say nothing. 'Tales are always told in my country in the very way I am telling this, answered Sancho, 'and I cannot tell it in any other, nor is it right of your worship to ask me to make new customs. 'Tell it as thou wilt, replied Don Quixote 'and as fate will have it that I cannot help listening to thee, go on. 'And so, lord of my soul, continued Sancho, as I have said, this shepherd was in love with Torralva the shepherdess, who was a wild buxom lass with something of the look of a man about her, for she had little moustaches I fancy I see her now. 'Then you knew her? said Don Quixote. 'I did not know her, said Sancho, 'but he who told me the story said it was so true and certain that when I told it to another I might safely declare and swear I had seen it all myself. And so in course of time, the devil, who never sleeps and puts everything in confusion, contrived that the love the shepherd bore the shepherdess turned into hatred and illwill, and the reason, according to evil tongues, was some little jealousy she caused him that crossed the line and trespassed on forbidden ground and so much did the shepherd hate her from that time forward that, in order to escape from her, he determined to quit the country and go where he should never set eyes on her again. Torralva, when she found herself spurned by Lope, was immediately smitten with love for him, though she had never loved him before. 'That is the natural way of women, said Don Quixote, 'to scorn the one that loves them, and love the one that hates them go on, Sancho. 'It came to pass, said Sancho, 'that the shepherd carried out his intention, and driving his goats before him took his way across the plains of Estremadura to pass over into the Kingdom of Portugal. Torralva, who knew of it, went after him, and on foot and barefoot followed him at a distance, with a pilgrim's staff in her hand and a scrip round her neck, in which she carried, it is said, a bit of lookingglass and a piece of a comb and some little pot or other of paint for her face but let her carry what she did, I am not going to trouble myself to prove it all I say is, that the shepherd, they say, came with his flock to cross over the river Guadiana, which was at that time swollen and almost overflowing its banks, and at the spot he came to there was neither ferry nor boat nor anyone to carry him or his flock to the other side, at which he was much vexed, for he perceived that Torralva was approaching and would give him great annoyance with her tears and entreaties however, he went looking about so closely that he discovered a fisherman who had alongside of him a boat so small that it could only hold one person and one goat but for all that he spoke to him and agreed with him to carry himself and his three hundred goats across. The fisherman got into the boat and carried one goat over he came back and carried another over he came back again, and again brought over anotherlet your worship keep count of the goats the fisherman is taking across, for if one escapes the memory there will be an end of the story, and it will be impossible to tell another word of it. To proceed, I must tell you the landing place on the other side was miry and slippery, and the fisherman lost a great deal of time in going and coming still he returned for another goat, and another, and another. 'Take it for granted he brought them all across, said Don Quixote, 'and don't keep going and coming in this way, or thou wilt not make an end of bringing them over this twelvemonth. 'How many have gone across so far? said Sancho. 'How the devil do I know? replied Don Quixote. 'There it is, said Sancho, 'what I told you, that you must keep a good count well then, by God, there is an end of the story, for there is no going any farther. 'How can that be? said Don Quixote 'is it so essential to the story to know to a nicety the goats that have crossed over, that if there be a mistake of one in the reckoning, thou canst not go on with it? 'No, seor, not a bit, replied Sancho 'for when I asked your worship to tell me how many goats had crossed, and you answered you did not know, at that very instant all I had to say passed away out of my memory, and, faith, there was much virtue in it, and entertainment. 'So, then, said Don Quixote, 'the story has come to an end? 'As much as my mother has, said Sancho. 'In truth, said Don Quixote, 'thou hast told one of the rarest stories, tales, or histories, that anyone in the world could have imagined, and such a way of telling it and ending it was never seen nor will be in a lifetime though I expected nothing else from thy excellent understanding. But I do not wonder, for perhaps those ceaseless strokes may have confused thy wits. 'All that may be, replied Sancho, 'but I know that as to my story, all that can be said is that it ends there where the mistake in the count of the passage of the goats begins. 'Let it end where it will, well and good, said Don Quixote, 'and let us see if Rocinante can go and again he spurred him, and again Rocinante made jumps and remained where he was, so well tied was he. Just then, whether it was the cold of the morning that was now approaching, or that he had eaten something laxative at supper, or that it was only natural (as is most likely), Sancho felt a desire to do what no one could do for him but so great was the fear that had penetrated his heart, he dared not separate himself from his master by as much as the black of his nail to escape doing what he wanted was, however, also impossible so what he did for peace's sake was to remove his right hand, which held the back of the saddle, and with it to untie gently and silently the running string which alone held up his breeches, so that on loosening it they at once fell down round his feet like fetters he then raised his shirt as well as he could and bared his hind quarters, no slim ones. But, this accomplished, which he fancied was all he had to do to get out of this terrible strait and embarrassment, another still greater difficulty presented itself, for it seemed to him impossible to relieve himself without making some noise, and he ground his teeth and squeezed his shoulders together, holding his breath as much as he could but in spite of his precautions he was unlucky enough after all to make a little noise, very different from that which was causing him so much fear. Don Quixote, hearing it, said, 'What noise is that, Sancho? 'I don't know, seor, said he 'it must be something new, for adventures and misadventures never begin with a trifle. Once more he tried his luck, and succeeded so well, that without any further noise or disturbance he found himself relieved of the burden that had given him so much discomfort. But as Don Quixote's sense of smell was as acute as his hearing, and as Sancho was so closely linked with him that the fumes rose almost in a straight line, it could not be but that some should reach his nose, and as soon as they did he came to its relief by compressing it between his fingers, saying in a rather snuffing tone, 'Sancho, it strikes me thou art in great fear. 'I am, answered Sancho 'but how does your worship perceive it now more than ever? 'Because just now thou smellest stronger than ever, and not of ambergris, answered Don Quixote. 'Very likely, said Sancho, 'but that's not my fault, but your worship's, for leading me about at unseasonable hours and at such unwonted paces. 'Then go back three or four, my friend, said Don Quixote, all the time with his fingers to his nose 'and for the future pay more attention to thy person and to what thou owest to mine for it is my great familiarity with thee that has bred this contempt. 'I'll bet, replied Sancho, 'that your worship thinks I have done something I ought not with my person. 'It makes it worse to stir it, friend Sancho, returned Don Quixote. With this and other talk of the same sort master and man passed the night, till Sancho, perceiving that daybreak was coming on apace, very cautiously untied Rocinante and tied up his breeches. As soon as Rocinante found himself free, though by nature he was not at all mettlesome, he seemed to feel lively and began pawingfor as to capering, begging his pardon, he knew not what it meant. Don Quixote, then, observing that Rocinante could move, took it as a good sign and a signal that he should attempt the dread adventure. By this time day had fully broken and everything showed distinctly, and Don Quixote saw that he was among some tall trees, chestnuts, which cast a very deep shade he perceived likewise that the sound of the strokes did not cease, but could not discover what caused it, and so without any further delay he let Rocinante feel the spur, and once more taking leave of Sancho, he told him to wait for him there three days at most, as he had said before, and if he should not have returned by that time, he might feel sure it had been God's will that he should end his days in that perilous adventure. He again repeated the message and commission with which he was to go on his behalf to his lady Dulcinea, and said he was not to be uneasy as to the payment of his services, for before leaving home he had made his will, in which he would find himself fully recompensed in the matter of wages in due proportion to the time he had served but if God delivered him safe, sound, and unhurt out of that danger, he might look upon the promised island as much more than certain. Sancho began to weep afresh on again hearing the affecting words of his good master, and resolved to stay with him until the final issue and end of the business. From these tears and this honourable resolve of Sancho Panza's the author of this history infers that he must have been of good birth and at least an old Christian and the feeling he displayed touched his but not so much as to make him show any weakness on the contrary, hiding what he felt as well as he could, he began to move towards that quarter whence the sound of the water and of the strokes seemed to come. Sancho followed him on foot, leading by the halter, as his custom was, his ass, his constant comrade in prosperity or adversity and advancing some distance through the shady chestnut trees they came upon a little meadow at the foot of some high rocks, down which a mighty rush of water flung itself. At the foot of the rocks were some rudely constructed houses looking more like ruins than houses, from among which came, they perceived, the din and clatter of blows, which still continued without intermission. Rocinante took fright at the noise of the water and of the blows, but quieting him Don Quixote advanced step by step towards the houses, commending himself with all his heart to his lady, imploring her support in that dread pass and enterprise, and on the way commending himself to God, too, not to forget him. Sancho who never quitted his side, stretched his neck as far as he could and peered between the legs of Rocinante to see if he could now discover what it was that caused him such fear and apprehension. They went it might be a hundred paces farther, when on turning a corner the true cause, beyond the possibility of any mistake, of that dreadsounding and to them aweinspiring noise that had kept them all the night in such fear and perplexity, appeared plain and obvious and it was (if, reader, thou art not disgusted and disappointed) six fulling hammers which by their alternate strokes made all the din. When Don Quixote perceived what it was, he was struck dumb and rigid from head to foot. Sancho glanced at him and saw him with his head bent down upon his breast in manifest mortification and Don Quixote glanced at Sancho and saw him with his cheeks puffed out and his mouth full of laughter, and evidently ready to explode with it, and in spite of his vexation he could not help laughing at the sight of him and when Sancho saw his master begin he let go so heartily that he had to hold his sides with both hands to keep himself from bursting with laughter. Four times he stopped, and as many times did his laughter break out afresh with the same violence as at first, whereat Don Quixote grew furious, above all when he heard him say mockingly, 'Thou must know, friend Sancho, that of Heaven's will I was born in this our iron age to revive in it the golden or age of gold I am he for whom are reserved perils, mighty achievements, valiant deeds and here he went on repeating the words that Don Quixote uttered the first time they heard the awful strokes. Don Quixote, then, seeing that Sancho was turning him into ridicule, was so mortified and vexed that he lifted up his pike and smote him two such blows that if, instead of catching them on his shoulders, he had caught them on his head there would have been no wages to pay, unless indeed to his heirs. Sancho seeing that he was getting an awkward return in earnest for his jest, and fearing his master might carry it still further, said to him very humbly, 'Calm yourself, sir, for by God I am only joking. 'Well, then, if you are joking I am not, replied Don Quixote. 'Look here, my lively gentleman, if these, instead of being fulling hammers, had been some perilous adventure, have I not, think you, shown the courage required for the attempt and achievement? Am I, perchance, being, as I am, a gentleman, bound to know and distinguish sounds and tell whether they come from fulling mills or not and that, when perhaps, as is the case, I have never in my life seen any as you have, low boor as you are, that have been born and bred among them? But turn me these six hammers into six giants, and bring them to beard me, one by one or all together, and if I do not knock them head over heels, then make what mockery you like of me. 'No more of that, seor, returned Sancho 'I own I went a little too far with the joke. But tell me, your worship, now that peace is made between us (and may God bring you out of all the adventures that may befall you as safe and sound as he has brought you out of this one), was it not a thing to laugh at, and is it not a good story, the great fear we were in?at least that I was in for as to your worship I see now that you neither know nor understand what either fear or dismay is. 'I do not deny, said Don Quixote, 'that what happened to us may be worth laughing at, but it is not worth making a story about, for it is not everyone that is shrewd enough to hit the right point of a thing. 'At any rate, said Sancho, 'your worship knew how to hit the right point with your pike, aiming at my head and hitting me on the shoulders, thanks be to God and my own smartness in dodging it. But let that pass all will come out in the scouring for I have heard say 'he loves thee well that makes thee weep' and moreover that it is the way with great lords after any hard words they give a servant to give him a pair of breeches though I do not know what they give after blows, unless it be that knightserrant after blows give islands, or kingdoms on the mainland. 'It may be on the dice, said Don Quixote, 'that all thou sayest will come true overlook the past, for thou art shrewd enough to know that our first movements are not in our own control and one thing for the future bear in mind, that thou curb and restrain thy loquacity in my company for in all the books of chivalry that I have read, and they are innumerable, I never met with a squire who talked so much to his lord as thou dost to thine and in fact I feel it to be a great fault of thine and of mine of thine, that thou hast so little respect for me of mine, that I do not make myself more respected. There was Gandalin, the squire of Amadis of Gaul, that was Count of the Insula Firme, and we read of him that he always addressed his lord with his cap in his hand, his head bowed down and his body bent double, more turquesco. And then, what shall we say of Gasabal, the squire of Galaor, who was so silent that in order to indicate to us the greatness of his marvellous taciturnity his name is only once mentioned in the whole of that history, as long as it is truthful? From all I have said thou wilt gather, Sancho, that there must be a difference between master and man, between lord and lackey, between knight and squire so that from this day forward in our intercourse we must observe more respect and take less liberties, for in whatever way I may be provoked with you it will be bad for the pitcher. The favours and benefits that I have promised you will come in due time, and if they do not your wages at least will not be lost, as I have already told you. 'All that your worship says is very well, said Sancho, 'but I should like to know (in case the time of favours should not come, and it might be necessary to fall back upon wages) how much did the squire of a knighterrant get in those days, and did they agree by the month, or by the day like bricklayers? 'I do not believe, replied Don Quixote, 'that such squires were ever on wages, but were dependent on favour and if I have now mentioned thine in the sealed will I have left at home, it was with a view to what may happen for as yet I know not how chivalry will turn out in these wretched times of ours, and I do not wish my soul to suffer for trifles in the other world for I would have thee know, Sancho, that in this there is no condition more hazardous than that of adventurers. 'That is true, said Sancho, 'since the mere noise of the hammers of a fulling mill can disturb and disquiet the heart of such a valiant errant adventurer as your worship but you may be sure I will not open my lips henceforward to make light of anything of your worship's, but only to honour you as my master and natural lord. 'By so doing, replied Don Quixote, 'shalt thou live long on the face of the earth for next to parents, masters are to be respected as though they were parents. It now began to rain a little, and Sancho was for going into the fulling mills, but Don Quixote had taken such an abhorrence to them on account of the late joke that he would not enter them on any account so turning aside to right they came upon another road, different from that which they had taken the night before. Shortly afterwards Don Quixote perceived a man on horseback who wore on his head something that shone like gold, and the moment he saw him he turned to Sancho and said 'I think, Sancho, there is no proverb that is not true, all being maxims drawn from experience itself, the mother of all the sciences, especially that one that says, 'Where one door shuts, another opens.' I say so because if last night fortune shut the door of the adventure we were looking for against us, cheating us with the fulling mills, it now opens wide another one for another better and more certain adventure, and if I do not contrive to enter it, it will be my own fault, and I cannot lay it to my ignorance of fulling mills, or the darkness of the night. I say this because, if I mistake not, there comes towards us one who wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino, concerning which I took the oath thou rememberest. 'Mind what you say, your worship, and still more what you do, said Sancho, 'for I don't want any more fulling mills to finish off fulling and knocking our senses out. 'The devil take thee, man, said Don Quixote 'what has a helmet to do with fulling mills? 'I don't know, replied Sancho, 'but, faith, if I might speak as I used, perhaps I could give such reasons that your worship would see you were mistaken in what you say. 'How can I be mistaken in what I say, unbelieving traitor? returned Don Quixote 'tell me, seest thou not yonder knight coming towards us on a dappled grey steed, who has upon his head a helmet of gold? 'What I see and make out, answered Sancho, 'is only a man on a grey ass like my own, who has something that shines on his head. 'Well, that is the helmet of Mambrino, said Don Quixote 'stand to one side and leave me alone with him thou shalt see how, without saying a word, to save time, I shall bring this adventure to an issue and possess myself of the helmet I have so longed for. 'I will take care to stand aside, said Sancho 'but God grant, I say once more, that it may be marjoram and not fulling mills. 'I have told thee, brother, on no account to mention those fulling mills to me again, said Don Quixote, 'or I vowand I say no moreI'll full the soul out of you. Sancho held his peace in dread lest his master should carry out the vow he had hurled like a bowl at him. The fact of the matter as regards the helmet, steed, and knight that Don Quixote saw, was this. In that neighbourhood there were two villages, one of them so small that it had neither apothecary's shop nor barber, which the other that was close to it had, so the barber of the larger served the smaller, and in it there was a sick man who required to be bled and another man who wanted to be shaved, and on this errand the barber was going, carrying with him a brass basin but as luck would have it, as he was on the way it began to rain, and not to spoil his hat, which probably was a new one, he put the basin on his head, and being clean it glittered at half a league's distance. He rode upon a grey ass, as Sancho said, and this was what made it seem to Don Quixote to be a dapplegrey steed and a knight and a golden helmet for everything he saw he made to fall in with his crazy chivalry and illerrant notions and when he saw the poor knight draw near, without entering into any parley with him, at Rocinante's top speed he bore down upon him with the pike pointed low, fully determined to run him through and through, and as he reached him, without checking the fury of his charge, he cried to him 'Defend thyself, miserable being, or yield me of thine own accord that which is so reasonably my due. The barber, who without any expectation or apprehension of it saw this apparition coming down upon him, had no other way of saving himself from the stroke of the lance but to let himself fall off his ass and no sooner had he touched the ground than he sprang up more nimbly than a deer and sped away across the plain faster than the wind. He left the basin on the ground, with which Don Quixote contented himself, saying that the pagan had shown his discretion and imitated the beaver, which finding itself pressed by the hunters bites and cuts off with its teeth that for which, by its natural instinct, it knows it is pursued. He told Sancho to pick up the helmet, and he taking it in his hands said 'By God the basin is a good one, and worth a real of eight if it is worth a maravedis, and handed it to his master, who immediately put it on his head, turning it round, now this way, now that, in search of fitment, and not finding it he said, 'Clearly the pagan to whose measure this famous headpiece was first forged must have had a very large head but the worst of it is half of it is wanting. When Sancho heard him call the basin a headpiece he was unable to restrain his laughter, but remembering his master's wrath he checked himself in the midst of it. 'What art thou laughing at, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'I am laughing, said he, 'to think of the great head the pagan must have had who owned this helmet, for it looks exactly like a regular barber's basin. 'Dost thou know what I suspect, Sancho? said Don Quixote 'that this wonderful piece of this enchanted helmet must by some strange accident have come into the hands of someone who was unable to recognise or realise its value, and who, not knowing what he did, and seeing it to be of the purest gold, must have melted down one half for the sake of what it might be worth, and of the other made this which is like a barber's basin as thou sayest but be it as it may, to me who recognise it, its transformation makes no difference, for I will set it to rights at the first village where there is a blacksmith, and in such style that that helmet the god of smithies forged for the god of battles shall not surpass it or even come up to it and in the meantime I will wear it as well as I can, for something is better than nothing all the more as it will be quite enough to protect me from any chance blow of a stone. 'That is, said Sancho, 'if it is not shot with a sling as they were in the battle of the two armies, when they signed the cross on your worship's grinders and smashed the flask with that blessed draught that made me vomit my bowels up. 'It does not grieve me much to have lost it, said Don Quixote, 'for thou knowest, Sancho, that I have the receipt in my memory. 'So have I, answered Sancho, 'but if ever I make it, or try it again as long as I live, may this be my last hour moreover, I have no intention of putting myself in the way of wanting it, for I mean, with all my five senses, to keep myself from being wounded or from wounding anyone as to being blanketed again I say nothing, for it is hard to prevent mishaps of that sort, and if they come there is nothing for it but to squeeze our shoulders together, hold our breath, shut our eyes, and let ourselves go where luck and the blanket may send us. 'Thou art a bad Christian, Sancho, said Don Quixote on hearing this, 'for once an injury has been done thee thou never forgettest it but know that it is the part of noble and generous hearts not to attach importance to trifles. What lame leg hast thou got by it, what broken rib, what cracked head, that thou canst not forget that jest? For jest and sport it was, properly regarded, and had I not seen it in that light I would have returned and done more mischief in revenging thee than the Greeks did for the rape of Helen, who, if she were alive now, or if my Dulcinea had lived then, might depend upon it she would not be so famous for her beauty as she is and here he heaved a sigh and sent it aloft and said Sancho, 'Let it pass for a jest as it cannot be revenged in earnest, but I know what sort of jest and earnest it was, and I know it will never be rubbed out of my memory any more than off my shoulders. But putting that aside, will your worship tell me what are we to do with this dapplegrey steed that looks like a grey ass, which that Martino that your worship overthrew has left deserted here? for, from the way he took to his heels and bolted, he is not likely ever to come back for it and by my beard but the grey is a good one. 'I have never been in the habit, said Don Quixote, 'of taking spoil of those whom I vanquish, nor is it the practice of chivalry to take away their horses and leave them to go on foot, unless indeed it be that the victor have lost his own in the combat, in which case it is lawful to take that of the vanquished as a thing won in lawful war therefore, Sancho, leave this horse, or ass, or whatever thou wilt have it to be for when its owner sees us gone hence he will come back for it. 'God knows I should like to take it, returned Sancho, 'or at least to change it for my own, which does not seem to me as good a one verily the laws of chivalry are strict, since they cannot be stretched to let one ass be changed for another I should like to know if I might at least change trappings. 'On that head I am not quite certain, answered Don Quixote, 'and the matter being doubtful, pending better information, I say thou mayest change them, if so be thou hast urgent need of them. 'So urgent is it, answered Sancho, 'that if they were for my own person I could not want them more and forthwith, fortified by this licence, he effected the mutatio capparum, and rigged out his beast to the ninetynines and making quite another thing of it. This done, they broke their fast on the remains of the spoils of war plundered from the sumpter mule, and drank of the brook that flowed from the fulling mills, without casting a look in that direction, in such loathing did they hold them for the alarm they had caused them and, all anger and gloom removed, they mounted and, without taking any fixed road (not to fix upon any being the proper thing for true knightserrant), they set out, guided by Rocinante's will, which carried along with it that of his master, not to say that of the ass, which always followed him wherever he led, lovingly and sociably nevertheless they returned to the high road, and pursued it at a venture without any other aim. As they went along, then, in this way Sancho said to his master, 'Seor, would your worship give me leave to speak a little to you? For since you laid that hard injunction of silence on me several things have gone to rot in my stomach, and I have now just one on the tip of my tongue that I don't want to be spoiled. 'Say, on, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and be brief in thy discourse, for there is no pleasure in one that is long. 'Well then, seor, returned Sancho, 'I say that for some days past I have been considering how little is got or gained by going in search of these adventures that your worship seeks in these wilds and crossroads, where, even if the most perilous are victoriously achieved, there is no one to see or know of them, and so they must be left untold for ever, to the loss of your worship's object and the credit they deserve therefore it seems to me it would be better (saving your worship's better judgment) if we were to go and serve some emperor or other great prince who may have some war on hand, in whose service your worship may prove the worth of your person, your great might, and greater understanding, on perceiving which the lord in whose service we may be will perforce have to reward us, each according to his merits and there you will not be at a loss for someone to set down your achievements in writing so as to preserve their memory for ever. Of my own I say nothing, as they will not go beyond squirely limits, though I make bold to say that, if it be the practice in chivalry to write the achievements of squires, I think mine must not be left out. 'Thou speakest not amiss, Sancho, answered Don Quixote, 'but before that point is reached it is requisite to roam the world, as it were on probation, seeking adventures, in order that, by achieving some, name and fame may be acquired, such that when he betakes himself to the court of some great monarch the knight may be already known by his deeds, and that the boys, the instant they see him enter the gate of the city, may all follow him and surround him, crying, 'This is the Knight of the Sun'or the Serpent, or any other title under which he may have achieved great deeds. 'This,' they will say, 'is he who vanquished in single combat the gigantic Brocabruno of mighty strength he who delivered the great Mameluke of Persia out of the long enchantment under which he had been for almost nine hundred years.' So from one to another they will go proclaiming his achievements and presently at the tumult of the boys and the others the king of that kingdom will appear at the windows of his royal palace, and as soon as he beholds the knight, recognising him by his arms and the device on his shield, he will as a matter of course say, 'What ho! Forth all ye, the knights of my court, to receive the flower of chivalry who cometh hither!' At which command all will issue forth, and he himself, advancing halfway down the stairs, will embrace him closely, and salute him, kissing him on the cheek, and will then lead him to the queen's chamber, where the knight will find her with the princess her daughter, who will be one of the most beautiful and accomplished damsels that could with the utmost pains be discovered anywhere in the known world. Straightway it will come to pass that she will fix her eyes upon the knight and he his upon her, and each will seem to the other something more divine than human, and, without knowing how or why they will be taken and entangled in the inextricable toils of love, and sorely distressed in their hearts not to see any way of making their pains and sufferings known by speech. Thence they will lead him, no doubt, to some richly adorned chamber of the palace, where, having removed his armour, they will bring him a rich mantle of scarlet wherewith to robe himself, and if he looked noble in his armour he will look still more so in a doublet. When night comes he will sup with the king, queen, and princess and all the time he will never take his eyes off her, stealing stealthy glances, unnoticed by those present, and she will do the same, and with equal cautiousness, being, as I have said, a damsel of great discretion. The tables being removed, suddenly through the door of the hall there will enter a hideous and diminutive dwarf followed by a fair dame, between two giants, who comes with a certain adventure, the work of an ancient sage and he who shall achieve it shall be deemed the best knight in the world. 'The king will then command all those present to essay it, and none will bring it to an end and conclusion save the stranger knight, to the great enhancement of his fame, whereat the princess will be overjoyed and will esteem herself happy and fortunate in having fixed and placed her thoughts so high. And the best of it is that this king, or prince, or whatever he is, is engaged in a very bitter war with another as powerful as himself, and the stranger knight, after having been some days at his court, requests leave from him to go and serve him in the said war. The king will grant it very readily, and the knight will courteously kiss his hands for the favour done to him and that night he will take leave of his lady the princess at the grating of the chamber where she sleeps, which looks upon a garden, and at which he has already many times conversed with her, the gobetween and confidante in the matter being a damsel much trusted by the princess. He will sigh, she will swoon, the damsel will fetch water, much distressed because morning approaches, and for the honour of her lady he would not that they were discovered at last the princess will come to herself and will present her white hands through the grating to the knight, who will kiss them a thousand and a thousand times, bathing them with his tears. It will be arranged between them how they are to inform each other of their good or evil fortunes, and the princess will entreat him to make his absence as short as possible, which he will promise to do with many oaths once more he kisses her hands, and takes his leave in such grief that he is wellnigh ready to die. He betakes him thence to his chamber, flings himself on his bed, cannot sleep for sorrow at parting, rises early in the morning, goes to take leave of the king, queen, and princess, and, as he takes his leave of the pair, it is told him that the princess is indisposed and cannot receive a visit the knight thinks it is from grief at his departure, his heart is pierced, and he is hardly able to keep from showing his pain. The confidante is present, observes all, goes to tell her mistress, who listens with tears and says that one of her greatest distresses is not knowing who this knight is, and whether he is of kingly lineage or not the damsel assures her that so much courtesy, gentleness, and gallantry of bearing as her knight possesses could not exist in any save one who was royal and illustrious her anxiety is thus relieved, and she strives to be of good cheer lest she should excite suspicion in her parents, and at the end of two days she appears in public. Meanwhile the knight has taken his departure he fights in the war, conquers the king's enemy, wins many cities, triumphs in many battles, returns to the court, sees his lady where he was wont to see her, and it is agreed that he shall demand her in marriage of her parents as the reward of his services the king is unwilling to give her, as he knows not who he is, but nevertheless, whether carried off or in whatever other way it may be, the princess comes to be his bride, and her father comes to regard it as very good fortune for it so happens that this knight is proved to be the son of a valiant king of some kingdom, I know not what, for I fancy it is not likely to be on the map. The father dies, the princess inherits, and in two words the knight becomes king. And here comes in at once the bestowal of rewards upon his squire and all who have aided him in rising to so exalted a rank. He marries his squire to a damsel of the princess's, who will be, no doubt, the one who was confidante in their amour, and is daughter of a very great duke. 'That's what I want, and no mistake about it! said Sancho. 'That's what I'm waiting for for all this, word for word, is in store for your worship under the title of the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. 'Thou needst not doubt it, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'for in the same manner, and by the same steps as I have described here, knightserrant rise and have risen to be kings and emperors all we want now is to find out what king, Christian or pagan, is at war and has a beautiful daughter but there will be time enough to think of that, for, as I have told thee, fame must be won in other quarters before repairing to the court. There is another thing, too, that is wanting for supposing we find a king who is at war and has a beautiful daughter, and that I have won incredible fame throughout the universe, I know not how it can be made out that I am of royal lineage, or even second cousin to an emperor for the king will not be willing to give me his daughter in marriage unless he is first thoroughly satisfied on this point, however much my famous deeds may deserve it so that by this deficiency I fear I shall lose what my arm has fairly earned. True it is I am a gentleman of known house, of estate and property, and entitled to the five hundred sueldos mulet and it may be that the sage who shall write my history will so clear up my ancestry and pedigree that I may find myself fifth or sixth in descent from a king for I would have thee know, Sancho, that there are two kinds of lineages in the world some there be tracing and deriving their descent from kings and princes, whom time has reduced little by little until they end in a point like a pyramid upside down and others who spring from the common herd and go on rising step by step until they come to be great lords so that the difference is that the one were what they no longer are, and the others are what they formerly were not. And I may be of such that after investigation my origin may prove great and famous, with which the king, my fatherinlaw that is to be, ought to be satisfied and should he not be, the princess will so love me that even though she well knew me to be the son of a watercarrier, she will take me for her lord and husband in spite of her father if not, then it comes to seizing her and carrying her off where I please for time or death will put an end to the wrath of her parents. 'It comes to this, too, said Sancho, 'what some naughty people say, 'Never ask as a favour what thou canst take by force' though it would fit better to say, 'A clear escape is better than good men's prayers.' I say so because if my lord the king, your worship's fatherinlaw, will not condescend to give you my lady the princess, there is nothing for it but, as your worship says, to seize her and transport her. But the mischief is that until peace is made and you come into the peaceful enjoyment of your kingdom, the poor squire is famishing as far as rewards go, unless it be that the confidante damsel that is to be his wife comes with the princess, and that with her he tides over his bad luck until Heaven otherwise orders things for his master, I suppose, may as well give her to him at once for a lawful wife. 'Nobody can object to that, said Don Quixote. 'Then since that may be, said Sancho, 'there is nothing for it but to commend ourselves to God, and let fortune take what course it will. 'God guide it according to my wishes and thy wants, said Don Quixote, 'and mean be he who thinks himself mean. 'In God's name let him be so, said Sancho 'I am an old Christian, and to fit me for a count that's enough. 'And more than enough for thee, said Don Quixote 'and even wert thou not, it would make no difference, because I being the king can easily give thee nobility without purchase or service rendered by thee, for when I make thee a count, then thou art at once a gentleman and they may say what they will, but by my faith they will have to call thee 'your lordship,' whether they like it or not. 'Not a doubt of it and I'll know how to support the tittle, said Sancho. 'Title thou shouldst say, not tittle, said his master. 'So be it, answered Sancho. 'I say I will know how to behave, for once in my life I was beadle of a brotherhood, and the beadle's gown sat so well on me that all said I looked as if I was to be steward of the same brotherhood. What will it be, then, when I put a duke's robe on my back, or dress myself in gold and pearls like a count? I believe they'll come a hundred leagues to see me. 'Thou wilt look well, said Don Quixote, 'but thou must shave thy beard often, for thou hast it so thick and rough and unkempt, that if thou dost not shave it every second day at least, they will see what thou art at the distance of a musket shot. 'What more will it be, said Sancho, 'than having a barber, and keeping him at wages in the house? and even if it be necessary, I will make him go behind me like a nobleman's equerry. 'Why, how dost thou know that noblemen have equerries behind them? asked Don Quixote. 'I will tell you, answered Sancho. 'Years ago I was for a month at the capital and there I saw taking the air a very small gentleman who they said was a very great man, and a man following him on horseback in every turn he took, just as if he was his tail. I asked why this man did not join the other man, instead of always going behind him they answered me that he was his equerry, and that it was the custom with nobles to have such persons behind them, and ever since then I know it, for I have never forgotten it. 'Thou art right, said Don Quixote, 'and in the same way thou mayest carry thy barber with thee, for customs did not come into use all together, nor were they all invented at once, and thou mayest be the first count to have a barber to follow him and, indeed, shaving one's beard is a greater trust than saddling one's horse. 'Let the barber business be my lookout, said Sancho 'and your worship's be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count. 'So it shall be, answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw what will be told in the following chapter. Cid Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author, relates in this most grave, highsounding, minute, delightful, and original history that after the discussion between the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha and his squire Sancho Panza which is set down at the end of chapter twentyone, Don Quixote raised his eyes and saw coming along the road he was following some dozen men on foot strung together by the neck, like beads, on a great iron chain, and all with manacles on their hands. With them there came also two men on horseback and two on foot those on horseback with wheellock muskets, those on foot with javelins and swords, and as soon as Sancho saw them he said 'That is a chain of galley slaves, on the way to the galleys by force of the king's orders. 'How by force? asked Don Quixote 'is it possible that the king uses force against anyone? 'I do not say that, answered Sancho, 'but that these are people condemned for their crimes to serve by force in the king's galleys. 'In fact, replied Don Quixote, 'however it may be, these people are going where they are taking them by force, and not of their own will. 'Just so, said Sancho. 'Then if so, said Don Quixote, 'here is a case for the exercise of my office, to put down force and to succour and help the wretched. 'Recollect, your worship, said Sancho, 'Justice, which is the king himself, is not using force or doing wrong to such persons, but punishing them for their crimes. The chain of galley slaves had by this time come up, and Don Quixote in very courteous language asked those who were in custody of it to be good enough to tell him the reason or reasons for which they were conducting these people in this manner. One of the guards on horseback answered that they were galley slaves belonging to his majesty, that they were going to the galleys, and that was all that was to be said and all he had any business to know. 'Nevertheless, replied Don Quixote, 'I should like to know from each of them separately the reason of his misfortune to this he added more to the same effect to induce them to tell him what he wanted so civilly that the other mounted guard said to him 'Though we have here the register and certificate of the sentence of every one of these wretches, this is no time to take them out or read them come and ask themselves they can tell if they choose, and they will, for these fellows take a pleasure in doing and talking about rascalities. With this permission, which Don Quixote would have taken even had they not granted it, he approached the chain and asked the first for what offences he was now in such a sorry case. He made answer that it was for being a lover. 'For that only? replied Don Quixote 'why, if for being lovers they send people to the galleys I might have been rowing in them long ago. 'The love is not the sort your worship is thinking of, said the galley slave 'mine was that I loved a washerwoman's basket of clean linen so well, and held it so close in my embrace, that if the arm of the law had not forced it from me, I should never have let it go of my own will to this moment I was caught in the act, there was no occasion for torture, the case was settled, they treated me to a hundred lashes on the back, and three years of gurapas besides, and that was the end of it. 'What are gurapas? asked Don Quixote. 'Gurapas are galleys, answered the galley slave, who was a young man of about fourandtwenty, and said he was a native of Piedrahita. Don Quixote asked the same question of the second, who made no reply, so downcast and melancholy was he but the first answered for him, and said, 'He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer. 'What! said Don Quixote, 'for being musicians and singers are people sent to the galleys too? 'Yes, sir, answered the galley slave, 'for there is nothing worse than singing under suffering. 'On the contrary, I have heard say, said Don Quixote, 'that he who sings scares away his woes. 'Here it is the reverse, said the galley slave 'for he who sings once weeps all his life. 'I do not understand it, said Don Quixote but one of the guards said to him, 'Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternity to confess under torture they put this sinner to the torture and he confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is a cattlestealer, and on his confession they sentenced him to six years in the galleys, besides two hundred lashes that he has already had on the back and he is always dejected and downcast because the other thieves that were left behind and that march here illtreat, and snub, and jeer, and despise him for confessing and not having spirit enough to say nay for, say they, 'nay' has no more letters in it than 'yea,' and a culprit is well off when life or death with him depends on his own tongue and not on that of witnesses or evidence and to my thinking they are not very far out. 'And I think so too, answered Don Quixote then passing on to the third he asked him what he had asked the others, and the man answered very readily and unconcernedly, 'I am going for five years to their ladyships the gurapas for the want of ten ducats. 'I will give twenty with pleasure to get you out of that trouble, said Don Quixote. 'That, said the galley slave, 'is like a man having money at sea when he is dying of hunger and has no way of buying what he wants I say so because if at the right time I had had those twenty ducats that your worship now offers me, I would have greased the notary's pen and freshened up the attorney's wit with them, so that today I should be in the middle of the plaza of the Zocodover at Toledo, and not on this road coupled like a greyhound. But God is great patiencethere, that's enough of it. Don Quixote passed on to the fourth, a man of venerable aspect with a white beard falling below his breast, who on hearing himself asked the reason of his being there began to weep without answering a word, but the fifth acted as his tongue and said, 'This worthy man is going to the galleys for four years, after having gone the rounds in ceremony and on horseback. 'That means, said Sancho Panza, 'as I take it, to have been exposed to shame in public. 'Just so, replied the galley slave, 'and the offence for which they gave him that punishment was having been an earbroker, nay bodybroker I mean, in short, that this gentleman goes as a pimp, and for having besides a certain touch of the sorcerer about him. 'If that touch had not been thrown in, said Don Quixote, 'he would not deserve, for mere pimping, to row in the galleys, but rather to command and be admiral of them for the office of pimp is no ordinary one, being the office of persons of discretion, one very necessary in a wellordered state, and only to be exercised by persons of good birth nay, there ought to be an inspector and overseer of them, as in other offices, and recognised number, as with the brokers on change in this way many of the evils would be avoided which are caused by this office and calling being in the hands of stupid and ignorant people, such as women more or less silly, and pages and jesters of little standing and experience, who on the most urgent occasions, and when ingenuity of contrivance is needed, let the crumbs freeze on the way to their mouths, and know not which is their right hand. I should like to go farther, and give reasons to show that it is advisable to choose those who are to hold so necessary an office in the state, but this is not the fit place for it some day I will expound the matter to someone able to see to and rectify it all I say now is, that the additional fact of his being a sorcerer has removed the sorrow it gave me to see these white hairs and this venerable countenance in so painful a position on account of his being a pimp though I know well there are no sorceries in the world that can move or compel the will as some simple folk fancy, for our will is free, nor is there herb or charm that can force it. All that certain silly women and quacks do is to turn men mad with potions and poisons, pretending that they have power to cause love, for, as I say, it is an impossibility to compel the will. 'It is true, said the good old man, 'and indeed, sir, as far as the charge of sorcery goes I was not guilty as to that of being a pimp I cannot deny it but I never thought I was doing any harm by it, for my only object was that all the world should enjoy itself and live in peace and quiet, without quarrels or troubles but my good intentions were unavailing to save me from going where I never expect to come back from, with this weight of years upon me and a urinary ailment that never gives me a moment's ease and again he fell to weeping as before, and such compassion did Sancho feel for him that he took out a real of four from his bosom and gave it to him in alms. Don Quixote went on and asked another what his crime was, and the man answered with no less but rather much more sprightliness than the last one. 'I am here because I carried the joke too far with a couple of cousins of mine, and with a couple of other cousins who were none of mine in short, I carried the joke so far with them all that it ended in such a complicated increase of kindred that no accountant could make it clear it was all proved against me, I got no favour, I had no money, I was near having my neck stretched, they sentenced me to the galleys for six years, I accepted my fate, it is the punishment of my fault I am a young man let life only last, and with that all will come right. If you, sir, have anything wherewith to help the poor, God will repay it to you in heaven, and we on earth will take care in our petitions to him to pray for the life and health of your worship, that they may be as long and as good as your amiable appearance deserves. This one was in the dress of a student, and one of the guards said he was a great talker and a very elegant Latin scholar. Behind all these there came a man of thirty, a very personable fellow, except that when he looked, his eyes turned in a little one towards the other. He was bound differently from the rest, for he had to his leg a chain so long that it was wound all round his body, and two rings on his neck, one attached to the chain, the other to what they call a 'keepfriend or 'friend's foot, from which hung two irons reaching to his waist with two manacles fixed to them in which his hands were secured by a big padlock, so that he could neither raise his hands to his mouth nor lower his head to his hands. Don Quixote asked why this man carried so many more chains than the others. The guard replied that it was because he alone had committed more crimes than all the rest put together, and was so daring and such a villain, that though they marched him in that fashion they did not feel sure of him, but were in dread of his making his escape. 'What crimes can he have committed, said Don Quixote, 'if they have not deserved a heavier punishment than being sent to the galleys? 'He goes for ten years, replied the guard, 'which is the same thing as civil death, and all that need be said is that this good fellow is the famous Gines de Pasamonte, otherwise called Ginesillo de Parapilla. 'Gently, seor commissary, said the galley slave at this, 'let us have no fixing of names or surnames my name is Gines, not Ginesillo, and my family name is Pasamonte, not Parapilla as you say let each one mind his own business, and he will be doing enough. 'Speak with less impertinence, master thief of extra measure, replied the commissary, 'if you don't want me to make you hold your tongue in spite of your teeth. 'It is easy to see, returned the galley slave, 'that man goes as God pleases, but someone shall know some day whether I am called Ginesillo de Parapilla or not. 'Don't they call you so, you liar? said the guard. 'They do, returned Gines, 'but I will make them give over calling me so, or I will be shaved, where, I only say behind my teeth. If you, sir, have anything to give us, give it to us at once, and God speed you, for you are becoming tiresome with all this inquisitiveness about the lives of others if you want to know about mine, let me tell you I am Gines de Pasamonte, whose life is written by these fingers. 'He says true, said the commissary, 'for he has himself written his story as grand as you please, and has left the book in the prison in pawn for two hundred reals. 'And I mean to take it out of pawn, said Gines, 'though it were in for two hundred ducats. 'Is it so good? said Don Quixote. 'So good is it, replied Gines, 'that a fig for 'Lazarillo de Tormes,' and all of that kind that have been written, or shall be written compared with it all I will say about it is that it deals with facts, and facts so neat and diverting that no lies could match them. 'And how is the book entitled? asked Don Quixote. 'The 'Life of Gines de Pasamonte,' replied the subject of it. 'And is it finished? asked Don Quixote. 'How can it be finished, said the other, 'when my life is not yet finished? All that is written is from my birth down to the point when they sent me to the galleys this last time. 'Then you have been there before? said Don Quixote. 'In the service of God and the king I have been there for four years before now, and I know by this time what the biscuit and courbash are like, replied Gines 'and it is no great grievance to me to go back to them, for there I shall have time to finish my book I have still many things left to say, and in the galleys of Spain there is more than enough leisure though I do not want much for what I have to write, for I have it by heart. 'You seem a clever fellow, said Don Quixote. 'And an unfortunate one, replied Gines, 'for misfortune always persecutes good wit. 'It persecutes rogues, said the commissary. 'I told you already to go gently, master commissary, said Pasamonte 'their lordships yonder never gave you that staff to illtreat us wretches here, but to conduct and take us where his majesty orders you if not, by the life ofnever mind it may be that some day the stains made in the inn will come out in the scouring let everyone hold his tongue and behave well and speak better and now let us march on, for we have had quite enough of this entertainment. The commissary lifted his staff to strike Pasamonte in return for his threats, but Don Quixote came between them, and begged him not to illuse him, as it was not too much to allow one who had his hands tied to have his tongue a trifle free and turning to the whole chain of them he said 'From all you have told me, dear brethren, I make out clearly that though they have punished you for your faults, the punishments you are about to endure do not give you much pleasure, and that you go to them very much against the grain and against your will, and that perhaps this one's want of courage under torture, that one's want of money, the other's want of advocacy, and lastly the perverted judgment of the judge may have been the cause of your ruin and of your failure to obtain the justice you had on your side. All which presents itself now to my mind, urging, persuading, and even compelling me to demonstrate in your case the purpose for which Heaven sent me into the world and caused me to make profession of the order of chivalry to which I belong, and the vow I took therein to give aid to those in need and under the oppression of the strong. But as I know that it is a mark of prudence not to do by foul means what may be done by fair, I will ask these gentlemen, the guards and commissary, to be so good as to release you and let you go in peace, as there will be no lack of others to serve the king under more favourable circumstances for it seems to me a hard case to make slaves of those whom God and nature have made free. Moreover, sirs of the guard, added Don Quixote, 'these poor fellows have done nothing to you let each answer for his own sins yonder there is a God in Heaven who will not forget to punish the wicked or reward the good and it is not fitting that honest men should be the instruments of punishment to others, they being therein no way concerned. This request I make thus gently and quietly, that, if you comply with it, I may have reason for thanking you and, if you will not voluntarily, this lance and sword together with the might of my arm shall compel you to comply with it by force. 'Nice nonsense! said the commissary 'a fine piece of pleasantry he has come out with at last! He wants us to let the king's prisoners go, as if we had any authority to release them, or he to order us to do so! Go your way, sir, and good luck to you put that basin straight that you've got on your head, and don't go looking for three feet on a cat. ''Tis you that are the cat, rat, and rascal, replied Don Quixote, and acting on the word he fell upon him so suddenly that without giving him time to defend himself he brought him to the ground sorely wounded with a lancethrust and lucky it was for him that it was the one that had the musket. The other guards stood thunderstruck and amazed at this unexpected event, but recovering presence of mind, those on horseback seized their swords, and those on foot their javelins, and attacked Don Quixote, who was waiting for them with great calmness and no doubt it would have gone badly with him if the galley slaves, seeing the chance before them of liberating themselves, had not effected it by contriving to break the chain on which they were strung. Such was the confusion, that the guards, now rushing at the galley slaves who were breaking loose, now to attack Don Quixote who was waiting for them, did nothing at all that was of any use. Sancho, on his part, gave a helping hand to release Gines de Pasamonte, who was the first to leap forth upon the plain free and unfettered, and who, attacking the prostrate commissary, took from him his sword and the musket, with which, aiming at one and levelling at another, he, without ever discharging it, drove every one of the guards off the field, for they took to flight, as well to escape Pasamonte's musket, as the showers of stones the now released galley slaves were raining upon them. Sancho was greatly grieved at the affair, because he anticipated that those who had fled would report the matter to the Holy Brotherhood, who at the summons of the alarmbell would at once sally forth in quest of the offenders and he said so to his master, and entreated him to leave the place at once, and go into hiding in the sierra that was close by. 'That is all very well, said Don Quixote, 'but I know what must be done now and calling together all the galley slaves, who were now running riot, and had stripped the commissary to the skin, he collected them round him to hear what he had to say, and addressed them as follows 'To be grateful for benefits received is the part of persons of good birth, and one of the sins most offensive to God is ingratitude I say so because, sirs, ye have already seen by manifest proof the benefit ye have received of me in return for which I desire, and it is my good pleasure that, laden with that chain which I have taken off your necks, ye at once set out and proceed to the city of El Toboso, and there present yourselves before the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and say to her that her knight, he of the Rueful Countenance, sends to commend himself to her and that ye recount to her in full detail all the particulars of this notable adventure, up to the recovery of your longedfor liberty and this done ye may go where ye will, and good fortune attend you. Gines de Pasamonte made answer for all, saying, 'That which you, sir, our deliverer, demand of us, is of all impossibilities the most impossible to comply with, because we cannot go together along the roads, but only singly and separate, and each one his own way, endeavouring to hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth to escape the Holy Brotherhood, which, no doubt, will come out in search of us. What your worship may do, and fairly do, is to change this service and tribute as regards the lady Dulcinea del Toboso for a certain quantity of avemarias and credos which we will say for your worship's intention, and this is a condition that can be complied with by night as by day, running or resting, in peace or in war but to imagine that we are going now to return to the fleshpots of Egypt, I mean to take up our chain and set out for El Toboso, is to imagine that it is now night, though it is not yet ten in the morning, and to ask this of us is like asking pears of the elm tree. 'Then by all that's good, said Don Quixote (now stirred to wrath), 'Don son of a bitch, Don Ginesillo de Paropillo, or whatever your name is, you will have to go yourself alone, with your tail between your legs and the whole chain on your back. Pasamonte, who was anything but meek (being by this time thoroughly convinced that Don Quixote was not quite right in his head as he had committed such a vagary as to set them free), finding himself abused in this fashion, gave the wink to his companions, and falling back they began to shower stones on Don Quixote at such a rate that he was quite unable to protect himself with his buckler, and poor Rocinante no more heeded the spur than if he had been made of brass. Sancho planted himself behind his ass, and with him sheltered himself from the hailstorm that poured on both of them. Don Quixote was unable to shield himself so well but that more pebbles than I could count struck him full on the body with such force that they brought him to the ground and the instant he fell the student pounced upon him, snatched the basin from his head, and with it struck three or four blows on his shoulders, and as many more on the ground, knocking it almost to pieces. They then stripped him of a jacket that he wore over his armour, and they would have stripped off his stockings if his greaves had not prevented them. From Sancho they took his coat, leaving him in his shirtsleeves and dividing among themselves the remaining spoils of the battle, they went each one his own way, more solicitous about keeping clear of the Holy Brotherhood they dreaded, than about burdening themselves with the chain, or going to present themselves before the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. The ass and Rocinante, Sancho and Don Quixote, were all that were left upon the spot the ass with drooping head, serious, shaking his ears from time to time as if he thought the storm of stones that assailed them was not yet over Rocinante stretched beside his master, for he too had been brought to the ground by a stone Sancho stripped, and trembling with fear of the Holy Brotherhood and Don Quixote fuming to find himself so served by the very persons for whom he had done so much. Seeing himself served in this way, Don Quixote said to his squire, 'I have always heard it said, Sancho, that to do good to boors is to throw water into the sea. If I had believed thy words, I should have avoided this trouble but it is done now, it is only to have patience and take warning for the future. 'Your worship will take warning as much as I am a Turk, returned Sancho 'but, as you say this mischief might have been avoided if you had believed me, believe me now, and a still greater one will be avoided for I tell you chivalry is of no account with the Holy Brotherhood, and they don't care two maravedis for all the knightserrant in the world and I can tell you I fancy I hear their arrows whistling past my ears this minute. 'Thou art a coward by nature, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'but lest thou shouldst say I am obstinate, and that I never do as thou dost advise, this once I will take thy advice, and withdraw out of reach of that fury thou so dreadest but it must be on one condition, that never, in life or in death, thou art to say to anyone that I retired or withdrew from this danger out of fear, but only in compliance with thy entreaties for if thou sayest otherwise thou wilt lie therein, and from this time to that, and from that to this, I give thee lie, and say thou liest and wilt lie every time thou thinkest or sayest it and answer me not again for at the mere thought that I am withdrawing or retiring from any danger, above all from this, which does seem to carry some little shadow of fear with it, I am ready to take my stand here and await alone, not only that Holy Brotherhood you talk of and dread, but the brothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Seven Maccabees, and Castor and Pollux, and all the brothers and brotherhoods in the world. 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'to retire is not to flee, and there is no wisdom in waiting when danger outweighs hope, and it is the part of wise men to preserve themselves today for tomorrow, and not risk all in one day and let me tell you, though I am a clown and a boor, I have got some notion of what they call safe conduct so repent not of having taken my advice, but mount Rocinante if you can, and if not I will help you and follow me, for my motherwit tells me we have more need of legs than hands just now. Don Quixote mounted without replying, and, Sancho leading the way on his ass, they entered the side of the Sierra Morena, which was close by, as it was Sancho's design to cross it entirely and come out again at El Viso or Almodvar del Campo, and hide for some days among its crags so as to escape the search of the Brotherhood should they come to look for them. He was encouraged in this by perceiving that the stock of provisions carried by the ass had come safe out of the fray with the galley slaves, a circumstance that he regarded as a miracle, seeing how they pillaged and ransacked. That night they reached the very heart of the Sierra Morena, where it seemed prudent to Sancho to pass the night and even some days, at least as many as the stores he carried might last, and so they encamped between two rocks and among some cork trees but fatal destiny, which, according to the opinion of those who have not the light of the true faith, directs, arranges, and settles everything in its own way, so ordered it that Gines de Pasamonte, the famous knave and thief who by the virtue and madness of Don Quixote had been released from the chain, driven by fear of the Holy Brotherhood, which he had good reason to dread, resolved to take hiding in the mountains and his fate and fear led him to the same spot to which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been led by theirs, just in time to recognise them and leave them to fall asleep and as the wicked are always ungrateful, and necessity leads to evildoing, and immediate advantage overcomes all considerations of the future, Gines, who was neither grateful nor wellprincipled, made up his mind to steal Sancho Panza's ass, not troubling himself about Rocinante, as being a prize that was no good either to pledge or sell. While Sancho slept he stole his ass, and before day dawned he was far out of reach. Aurora made her appearance bringing gladness to the earth but sadness to Sancho Panza, for he found that his Dapple was missing, and seeing himself bereft of him he began the saddest and most doleful lament in the world, so loud that Don Quixote awoke at his exclamations and heard him saying, 'O son of my bowels, born in my very house, my children's plaything, my wife's joy, the envy of my neighbours, relief of my burdens, and lastly, half supporter of myself, for with the sixandtwenty maravedis thou didst earn me daily I met half my charges. Don Quixote, when he heard the lament and learned the cause, consoled Sancho with the best arguments he could, entreating him to be patient, and promising to give him a letter of exchange ordering three out of five asscolts that he had at home to be given to him. Sancho took comfort at this, dried his tears, suppressed his sobs, and returned thanks for the kindness shown him by Don Quixote. He on his part was rejoiced to the heart on entering the mountains, as they seemed to him to be just the place for the adventures he was in quest of. They brought back to his memory the marvellous adventures that had befallen knightserrant in like solitudes and wilds, and he went along reflecting on these things, so absorbed and carried away by them that he had no thought for anything else. Nor had Sancho any other care (now that he fancied he was travelling in a safe quarter) than to satisfy his appetite with such remains as were left of the clerical spoils, and so he marched behind his master laden with what Dapple used to carry, emptying the sack and packing his paunch, and so long as he could go that way, he would not have given a farthing to meet with another adventure. While so engaged he raised his eyes and saw that his master had halted, and was trying with the point of his pike to lift some bulky object that lay upon the ground, on which he hastened to join him and help him if it were needful, and reached him just as with the point of the pike he was raising a saddlepad with a valise attached to it, half or rather wholly rotten and torn but so heavy were they that Sancho had to help to take them up, and his master directed him to see what the valise contained. Sancho did so with great alacrity, and though the valise was secured by a chain and padlock, from its torn and rotten condition he was able to see its contents, which were four shirts of fine holland, and other articles of linen no less curious than clean and in a handkerchief he found a good lot of gold crowns, and as soon as he saw them he exclaimed 'Blessed be all Heaven for sending us an adventure that is good for something! Searching further he found a little memorandum book richly bound this Don Quixote asked of him, telling him to take the money and keep it for himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the favour, and cleared the valise of its linen, which he stowed away in the provision sack. Considering the whole matter, Don Quixote observed 'It seems to me, Sanchoand it is impossible it can be otherwisethat some strayed traveller must have crossed this sierra and been attacked and slain by footpads, who brought him to this remote spot to bury him. 'That cannot be, answered Sancho, 'because if they had been robbers they would not have left this money. 'Thou art right, said Don Quixote, 'and I cannot guess or explain what this may mean but stay let us see if in this memorandum book there is anything written by which we may be able to trace out or discover what we want to know. He opened it, and the first thing he found in it, written roughly but in a very good hand, was a sonnet, and reading it aloud that Sancho might hear it, he found that it ran as follows SONNET Or Love is lacking in intelligence, Or to the height of cruelty attains, Or else it is my doom to suffer pains Beyond the measure due to my offence. But if Love be a God, it follows thence That he knows all, and certain it remains No God loves cruelty then who ordains This penance that enthrals while it torments? It were a falsehood, Chloe, thee to name Such evil with such goodness cannot live And against Heaven I dare not charge the blame, I only know it is my fate to die. To him who knows not whence his malady A miracle alone a cure can give. 'There is nothing to be learned from that rhyme, said Sancho, 'unless by that clue there's in it, one may draw out the ball of the whole matter. 'What clue is there? said Don Quixote. 'I thought your worship spoke of a clue in it, said Sancho. 'I only said Chloe, replied Don Quixote 'and that no doubt, is the name of the lady of whom the author of the sonnet complains and, faith, he must be a tolerable poet, or I know little of the craft. 'Then your worship understands rhyming too? 'And better than thou thinkest, replied Don Quixote, 'as thou shalt see when thou carriest a letter written in verse from beginning to end to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, for I would have thee know, Sancho, that all or most of the knightserrant in days of yore were great troubadours and great musicians, for both of these accomplishments, or more properly speaking gifts, are the peculiar property of loverserrant true it is that the verses of the knights of old have more spirit than neatness in them. 'Read more, your worship, said Sancho, 'and you will find something that will enlighten us. Don Quixote turned the page and said, 'This is prose and seems to be a letter. 'A correspondence letter, seor? 'From the beginning it seems to be a love letter, replied Don Quixote. 'Then let your worship read it aloud, said Sancho, 'for I am very fond of love matters. 'With all my heart, said Don Quixote, and reading it aloud as Sancho had requested him, he found it ran thus Thy false promise and my sure misfortune carry me to a place whence the news of my death will reach thy ears before the words of my complaint. Ungrateful one, thou hast rejected me for one more wealthy, but not more worthy but if virtue were esteemed wealth I should neither envy the fortunes of others nor weep for misfortunes of my own. What thy beauty raised up thy deeds have laid low by it I believed thee to be an angel, by them I know thou art a woman. Peace be with thee who hast sent war to me, and Heaven grant that the deceit of thy husband be ever hidden from thee, so that thou repent not of what thou hast done, and I reap not a revenge I would not have. When he had finished the letter, Don Quixote said, 'There is less to be gathered from this than from the verses, except that he who wrote it is some rejected lover and turning over nearly all the pages of the book he found more verses and letters, some of which he could read, while others he could not but they were all made up of complaints, laments, misgivings, desires and aversions, favours and rejections, some rapturous, some doleful. While Don Quixote examined the book, Sancho examined the valise, not leaving a corner in the whole of it or in the pad that he did not search, peer into, and explore, or seam that he did not rip, or tuft of wool that he did not pick to pieces, lest anything should escape for want of care and pains so keen was the covetousness excited in him by the discovery of the crowns, which amounted to near a hundred and though he found no more booty, he held the blanket flights, balsam vomits, stake benedictions, carriers' fisticuffs, missing alforjas, stolen coat, and all the hunger, thirst, and weariness he had endured in the service of his good master, cheap at the price as he considered himself more than fully indemnified for all by the payment he received in the gift of the treasuretrove. The Knight of the Rueful Countenance was still very anxious to find out who the owner of the valise could be, conjecturing from the sonnet and letter, from the money in gold, and from the fineness of the shirts, that he must be some lover of distinction whom the scorn and cruelty of his lady had driven to some desperate course but as in that uninhabited and rugged spot there was no one to be seen of whom he could inquire, he saw nothing else for it but to push on, taking whatever road Rocinante chosewhich was where he could make his wayfirmly persuaded that among these wilds he could not fail to meet some rare adventure. As he went along, then, occupied with these thoughts, he perceived on the summit of a height that rose before their eyes a man who went springing from rock to rock and from tussock to tussock with marvellous agility. As well as he could make out he was unclad, with a thick black beard, long tangled hair, and bare legs and feet, his thighs were covered by breeches apparently of tawny velvet but so ragged that they showed his skin in several places. He was bareheaded, and notwithstanding the swiftness with which he passed as has been described, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance observed and noted all these trifles, and though he made the attempt, he was unable to follow him, for it was not granted to the feebleness of Rocinante to make way over such rough ground, he being, moreover, slowpaced and sluggish by nature. Don Quixote at once came to the conclusion that this was the owner of the saddlepad and of the valise, and made up his mind to go in search of him, even though he should have to wander a year in those mountains before he found him, and so he directed Sancho to take a short cut over one side of the mountain, while he himself went by the other, and perhaps by this means they might light upon this man who had passed so quickly out of their sight. 'I could not do that, said Sancho, 'for when I separate from your worship fear at once lays hold of me, and assails me with all sorts of panics and fancies and let what I now say be a notice that from this time forth I am not going to stir a finger's width from your presence. 'It shall be so, said he of the Rueful Countenance, 'and I am very glad that thou art willing to rely on my courage, which will never fail thee, even though the soul in thy body fail thee so come on now behind me slowly as well as thou canst, and make lanterns of thine eyes let us make the circuit of this ridge perhaps we shall light upon this man that we saw, who no doubt is no other than the owner of what we found. To which Sancho made answer, 'Far better would it be not to look for him, for, if we find him, and he happens to be the owner of the money, it is plain I must restore it it would be better, therefore, that without taking this needless trouble, I should keep possession of it until in some other less meddlesome and officious way the real owner may be discovered and perhaps that will be when I shall have spent it, and then the king will hold me harmless. 'Thou art wrong there, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for now that we have a suspicion who the owner is, and have him almost before us, we are bound to seek him and make restitution and if we do not see him, the strong suspicion we have as to his being the owner makes us as guilty as if he were so and so, friend Sancho, let not our search for him give thee any uneasiness, for if we find him it will relieve mine. And so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and Sancho followed him on foot and loaded, and after having partly made the circuit of the mountain they found lying in a ravine, dead and half devoured by dogs and pecked by jackdaws, a mule saddled and bridled, all which still further strengthened their suspicion that he who had fled was the owner of the mule and the saddlepad. As they stood looking at it they heard a whistle like that of a shepherd watching his flock, and suddenly on their left there appeared a great number of goats and behind them on the summit of the mountain the goatherd in charge of them, a man advanced in years. Don Quixote called aloud to him and begged him to come down to where they stood. He shouted in return, asking what had brought them to that spot, seldom or never trodden except by the feet of goats, or of the wolves and other wild beasts that roamed around. Sancho in return bade him come down, and they would explain all to him. The goatherd descended, and reaching the place where Don Quixote stood, he said, 'I will wager you are looking at that hack mule that lies dead in the hollow there, and, faith, it has been lying there now these six months tell me, have you come upon its master about here? 'We have come upon nobody, answered Don Quixote, 'nor on anything except a saddlepad and a little valise that we found not far from this. 'I found it too, said the goatherd, 'but I would not lift it nor go near it for fear of some illluck or being charged with theft, for the devil is crafty, and things rise up under one's feet to make one fall without knowing why or wherefore. 'That's exactly what I say, said Sancho 'I found it too, and I would not go within a stone's throw of it there I left it, and there it lies just as it was, for I don't want a dog with a bell. 'Tell me, good man, said Don Quixote, 'do you know who is the owner of this property? 'All I can tell you, said the goatherd, 'is that about six months ago, more or less, there arrived at a shepherd's hut three leagues, perhaps, away from this, a youth of wellbred appearance and manners, mounted on that same mule which lies dead here, and with the same saddlepad and valise which you say you found and did not touch. He asked us what part of this sierra was the most rugged and retired we told him that it was where we now are and so in truth it is, for if you push on half a league farther, perhaps you will not be able to find your way out and I am wondering how you have managed to come here, for there is no road or path that leads to this spot. I say, then, that on hearing our answer the youth turned about and made for the place we pointed out to him, leaving us all charmed with his good looks, and wondering at his question and the haste with which we saw him depart in the direction of the sierra and after that we saw him no more, until some days afterwards he crossed the path of one of our shepherds, and without saying a word to him, came up to him and gave him several cuffs and kicks, and then turned to the ass with our provisions and took all the bread and cheese it carried, and having done this made off back again into the sierra with extraordinary swiftness. When some of us goatherds learned this we went in search of him for about two days through the most remote portion of this sierra, at the end of which we found him lodged in the hollow of a large thick cork tree. He came out to meet us with great gentleness, with his dress now torn and his face so disfigured and burned by the sun, that we hardly recognised him but that his clothes, though torn, convinced us, from the recollection we had of them, that he was the person we were looking for. He saluted us courteously, and in a few wellspoken words he told us not to wonder at seeing him going about in this guise, as it was binding upon him in order that he might work out a penance which for his many sins had been imposed upon him. We asked him to tell us who he was, but we were never able to find out from him we begged of him too, when he was in want of food, which he could not do without, to tell us where we should find him, as we would bring it to him with all goodwill and readiness or if this were not to his taste, at least to come and ask it of us and not take it by force from the shepherds. He thanked us for the offer, begged pardon for the late assault, and promised for the future to ask it in God's name without offering violence to anybody. As for fixed abode, he said he had no other than that which chance offered wherever night might overtake him and his words ended in an outburst of weeping so bitter that we who listened to him must have been very stones had we not joined him in it, comparing what we saw of him the first time with what we saw now for, as I said, he was a graceful and gracious youth, and in his courteous and polished language showed himself to be of good birth and courtly breeding, and rustics as we were that listened to him, even to our rusticity his gentle bearing sufficed to make it plain. 'But in the midst of his conversation he stopped and became silent, keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground for some time, during which we stood still waiting anxiously to see what would come of this abstraction and with no little pity, for from his behaviour, now staring at the ground with fixed gaze and eyes wide open without moving an eyelid, again closing them, compressing his lips and raising his eyebrows, we could perceive plainly that a fit of madness of some kind had come upon him and before long he showed that what we imagined was the truth, for he arose in a fury from the ground where he had thrown himself, and attacked the first he found near him with such rage and fierceness that if we had not dragged him off him, he would have beaten or bitten him to death, all the while exclaiming, 'Oh faithless Fernando, here, here shalt thou pay the penalty of the wrong thou hast done me these hands shall tear out that heart of thine, abode and dwelling of all iniquity, but of deceit and fraud above all and to these he added other words all in effect upbraiding this Fernando and charging him with treachery and faithlessness. 'We forced him to release his hold with no little difficulty, and without another word he left us, and rushing off plunged in among these brakes and brambles, so as to make it impossible for us to follow him from this we suppose that madness comes upon him from time to time, and that someone called Fernando must have done him a wrong of a grievous nature such as the condition to which it had brought him seemed to show. All this has been since then confirmed on those occasions, and they have been many, on which he has crossed our path, at one time to beg the shepherds to give him some of the food they carry, at another to take it from them by force for when there is a fit of madness upon him, even though the shepherds offer it freely, he will not accept it but snatches it from them by dint of blows but when he is in his senses he begs it for the love of God, courteously and civilly, and receives it with many thanks and not a few tears. And to tell you the truth, sirs, continued the goatherd, 'it was yesterday that we resolved, I and four of the lads, two of them our servants, and the other two friends of mine, to go in search of him until we find him, and when we do to take him, whether by force or of his own consent, to the town of Almodvar, which is eight leagues from this, and there strive to cure him (if indeed his malady admits of a cure), or learn when he is in his senses who he is, and if he has relatives to whom we may give notice of his misfortune. This, sirs, is all I can say in answer to what you have asked me and be sure that the owner of the articles you found is he whom you saw pass by with such nimbleness and so naked. For Don Quixote had already described how he had seen the man go bounding along the mountainside, and he was now filled with amazement at what he heard from the goatherd, and more eager than ever to discover who the unhappy madman was and in his heart he resolved, as he had done before, to search for him all over the mountain, not leaving a corner or cave unexamined until he had found him. But chance arranged matters better than he expected or hoped, for at that very moment, in a gorge on the mountain that opened where they stood, the youth he wished to find made his appearance, coming along talking to himself in a way that would have been unintelligible near at hand, much more at a distance. His garb was what has been described, save that as he drew near, Don Quixote perceived that a tattered doublet which he wore was ambertanned, from which he concluded that one who wore such garments could not be of very low rank. Approaching them, the youth greeted them in a harsh and hoarse voice but with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his salutation with equal politeness, and dismounting from Rocinante advanced with wellbred bearing and grace to embrace him, and held him for some time close in his arms as if he had known him for a long time. The other, whom we may call the Ragged One of the Sorry Countenance, as Don Quixote was of the Rueful, after submitting to the embrace pushed him back a little and, placing his hands on Don Quixote's shoulders, stood gazing at him as if seeking to see whether he knew him, not less amazed, perhaps, at the sight of the face, figure, and armour of Don Quixote than Don Quixote was at the sight of him. To be brief, the first to speak after embracing was the Ragged One, and he said what will be told farther on. The history relates that it was with the greatest attention Don Quixote listened to the ragged knight of the Sierra, who began by saying 'Of a surety, seor, whoever you are, for I know you not, I thank you for the proofs of kindness and courtesy you have shown me, and would I were in a condition to requite with something more than goodwill that which you have displayed towards me in the cordial reception you have given me but my fate does not afford me any other means of returning kindnesses done me save the hearty desire to repay them. 'Mine, replied Don Quixote, 'is to be of service to you, so much so that I had resolved not to quit these mountains until I had found you, and learned of you whether there is any kind of relief to be found for that sorrow under which from the strangeness of your life you seem to labour and to search for you with all possible diligence, if search had been necessary. And if your misfortune should prove to be one of those that refuse admission to any sort of consolation, it was my purpose to join you in lamenting and mourning over it, so far as I could for it is still some comfort in misfortune to find one who can feel for it. And if my good intentions deserve to be acknowledged with any kind of courtesy, I entreat you, seor, by that which I perceive you possess in so high a degree, and likewise conjure you by whatever you love or have loved best in life, to tell me who you are and the cause that has brought you to live or die in these solitudes like a brute beast, dwelling among them in a manner so foreign to your condition as your garb and appearance show. And I swear, added Don Quixote, 'by the order of knighthood which I have received, and by my vocation of knighterrant, if you gratify me in this, to serve you with all the zeal my calling demands of me, either in relieving your misfortune if it admits of relief, or in joining you in lamenting it as I promised to do. The Knight of the Thicket, hearing him of the Rueful Countenance talk in this strain, did nothing but stare at him, and stare at him again, and again survey him from head to foot and when he had thoroughly examined him, he said to him 'If you have anything to give me to eat, for God's sake give it me, and after I have eaten I will do all you ask in acknowledgment of the goodwill you have displayed towards me. Sancho from his sack, and the goatherd from his pouch, furnished the Ragged One with the means of appeasing his hunger, and what they gave him he ate like a halfwitted being, so hastily that he took no time between mouthfuls, gorging rather than swallowing and while he ate neither he nor they who observed him uttered a word. As soon as he had done he made signs to them to follow him, which they did, and he led them to a green plot which lay a little farther off round the corner of a rock. On reaching it he stretched himself upon the grass, and the others did the same, all keeping silence, until the Ragged One, settling himself in his place, said 'If it is your wish, sirs, that I should disclose in a few words the surpassing extent of my misfortunes, you must promise not to break the thread of my sad story with any question or other interruption, for the instant you do so the tale I tell will come to an end. These words of the Ragged One reminded Don Quixote of the tale his squire had told him, when he failed to keep count of the goats that had crossed the river and the story remained unfinished but to return to the Ragged One, he went on to say 'I give you this warning because I wish to pass briefly over the story of my misfortunes, for recalling them to memory only serves to add fresh ones, and the less you question me the sooner shall I make an end of the recital, though I shall not omit to relate anything of importance in order fully to satisfy your curiosity. Don Quixote gave the promise for himself and the others, and with this assurance he began as follows 'My name is Cardenio, my birthplace one of the best cities of this Andalusia, my family noble, my parents rich, my misfortune so great that my parents must have wept and my family grieved over it without being able by their wealth to lighten it for the gifts of fortune can do little to relieve reverses sent by Heaven. In that same country there was a heaven in which love had placed all the glory I could desire such was the beauty of Luscinda, a damsel as noble and as rich as I, but of happier fortunes, and of less firmness than was due to so worthy a passion as mine. This Luscinda I loved, worshipped, and adored from my earliest and tenderest years, and she loved me in all the innocence and sincerity of childhood. Our parents were aware of our feelings, and were not sorry to perceive them, for they saw clearly that as they ripened they must lead at last to a marriage between us, a thing that seemed almost prearranged by the equality of our families and wealth. We grew up, and with our growth grew the love between us, so that the father of Luscinda felt bound for propriety's sake to refuse me admission to his house, in this perhaps imitating the parents of that Thisbe so celebrated by the poets, and this refusal but added love to love and flame to flame for though they enforced silence upon our tongues they could not impose it upon our pens, which can make known the heart's secrets to a loved one more freely than tongues for many a time the presence of the object of love shakes the firmest will and strikes dumb the boldest tongue. Ah heavens! how many letters did I write her, and how many dainty modest replies did I receive! how many ditties and lovesongs did I compose in which my heart declared and made known its feelings, described its ardent longings, revelled in its recollections and dallied with its desires! At length growing impatient and feeling my heart languishing with longing to see her, I resolved to put into execution and carry out what seemed to me the best mode of winning my desired and merited reward, to ask her of her father for my lawful wife, which I did. To this his answer was that he thanked me for the disposition I showed to do honour to him and to regard myself as honoured by the bestowal of his treasure but that as my father was alive it was his by right to make this demand, for if it were not in accordance with his full will and pleasure, Luscinda was not to be taken or given by stealth. I thanked him for his kindness, reflecting that there was reason in what he said, and that my father would assent to it as soon as I should tell him, and with that view I went the very same instant to let him know what my desires were. When I entered the room where he was I found him with an open letter in his hand, which, before I could utter a word, he gave me, saying, 'By this letter thou wilt see, Cardenio, the disposition the Duke Ricardo has to serve thee.' This Duke Ricardo, as you, sirs, probably know already, is a grandee of Spain who has his seat in the best part of this Andalusia. I took and read the letter, which was couched in terms so flattering that even I myself felt it would be wrong in my father not to comply with the request the duke made in it, which was that he would send me immediately to him, as he wished me to become the companion, not servant, of his eldest son, and would take upon himself the charge of placing me in a position corresponding to the esteem in which he held me. On reading the letter my voice failed me, and still more when I heard my father say, 'Two days hence thou wilt depart, Cardenio, in accordance with the duke's wish, and give thanks to God who is opening a road to thee by which thou mayest attain what I know thou dost deserve and to these words he added others of fatherly counsel. The time for my departure arrived I spoke one night to Luscinda, I told her all that had occurred, as I did also to her father, entreating him to allow some delay, and to defer the disposal of her hand until I should see what the Duke Ricardo sought of me he gave me the promise, and she confirmed it with vows and swoonings unnumbered. Finally, I presented myself to the duke, and was received and treated by him so kindly that very soon envy began to do its work, the old servants growing envious of me, and regarding the duke's inclination to show me favour as an injury to themselves. But the one to whom my arrival gave the greatest pleasure was the duke's second son, Fernando by name, a gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very soon made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody for though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did not carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don Fernando. It so happened, then, that as between friends no secret remains unshared, and as the favour I enjoyed with Don Fernando had grown into friendship, he made all his thoughts known to me, and in particular a love affair which troubled his mind a little. He was deeply in love with a peasant girl, a vassal of his father's, the daughter of wealthy parents, and herself so beautiful, modest, discreet, and virtuous, that no one who knew her was able to decide in which of these respects she was most highly gifted or most excelled. The attractions of the fair peasant raised the passion of Don Fernando to such a point that, in order to gain his object and overcome her virtuous resolutions, he determined to pledge his word to her to become her husband, for to attempt it in any other way was to attempt an impossibility. Bound to him as I was by friendship, I strove by the best arguments and the most forcible examples I could think of to restrain and dissuade him from such a course but perceiving I produced no effect I resolved to make the Duke Ricardo, his father, acquainted with the matter but Don Fernando, being sharpwitted and shrewd, foresaw and apprehended this, perceiving that by my duty as a good servant I was bound not to keep concealed a thing so much opposed to the honour of my lord the duke and so, to mislead and deceive me, he told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the beauty that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months, and that he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us, to my father's house under the pretence, which he would make to the duke, of going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my city, which produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so, even if his resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed it as one of the happiest that could be imagined, prompted by my affection, seeing what a favourable chance and opportunity it offered me of returning to see my Luscinda. With this thought and wish I commended his idea and encouraged his design, advising him to put it into execution as quickly as possible, as, in truth, absence produced its effect in spite of the most deeply rooted feelings. But, as afterwards appeared, when he said this to me he had already enjoyed the peasant girl under the title of husband, and was waiting for an opportunity of making it known with safety to himself, being in dread of what his father the duke would do when he came to know of his folly. It happened, then, that as with young men love is for the most part nothing more than appetite, which, as its final object is enjoyment, comes to an end on obtaining it, and that which seemed to be love takes to flight, as it cannot pass the limit fixed by nature, which fixes no limit to true lovewhat I mean is that after Don Fernando had enjoyed this peasant girl his passion subsided and his eagerness cooled, and if at first he feigned a wish to absent himself in order to cure his love, he was now in reality anxious to go to avoid keeping his promise. 'The duke gave him permission, and ordered me to accompany him we arrived at my city, and my father gave him the reception due to his rank I saw Luscinda without delay, and, though it had not been dead or deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great friendship he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I extolled her beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises excited in him a desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To my misfortune I yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the light of a taper at a window where we used to talk to one another. As she appeared to him in her dressinggown, she drove all the beauties he had seen until then out of his recollection speech failed him, his head turned, he was spellbound, and in the end lovesmitten, as you will see in the course of the story of my misfortune and to inflame still further his passion, which he hid from me and revealed to Heaven alone, it so happened that one day he found a note of hers entreating me to demand her of her father in marriage, so delicate, so modest, and so tender, that on reading it he told me that in Luscinda alone were combined all the charms of beauty and understanding that were distributed among all the other women in the world. It is true, and I own it now, that though I knew what good cause Don Fernando had to praise Luscinda, it gave me uneasiness to hear these praises from his mouth, and I began to fear, and with reason to feel distrust of him, for there was no moment when he was not ready to talk of Luscinda, and he would start the subject himself even though he dragged it in unseasonably, a circumstance that aroused in me a certain amount of jealousy not that I feared any change in the constancy or faith of Luscinda but still my fate led me to forebode what she assured me against. Don Fernando contrived always to read the letters I sent to Luscinda and her answers to me, under the pretence that he enjoyed the wit and sense of both. It so happened, then, that Luscinda having begged of me a book of chivalry to read, one that she was very fond of, Amadis of Gaul Don Quixote no sooner heard a book of chivalry mentioned, than he said 'Had your worship told me at the beginning of your story that the Lady Luscinda was fond of books of chivalry, no other laudation would have been requisite to impress upon me the superiority of her understanding, for it could not have been of the excellence you describe had a taste for such delightful reading been wanting so, as far as I am concerned, you need waste no more words in describing her beauty, worth, and intelligence for, on merely hearing what her taste was, I declare her to be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman in the world and I wish your worship had, along with Amadis of Gaul, sent her the worthy Don Rugel of Greece, for I know the Lady Luscinda would greatly relish Daraida and Garaya, and the shrewd sayings of the shepherd Darinel, and the admirable verses of his bucolics, sung and delivered by him with such sprightliness, wit, and ease but a time may come when this omission can be remedied, and to rectify it nothing more is needed than for your worship to be so good as to come with me to my village, for there I can give you more than three hundred books which are the delight of my soul and the entertainment of my lifethough it occurs to me that I have not got one of them now, thanks to the spite of wicked and envious enchantersbut pardon me for having broken the promise we made not to interrupt your discourse for when I hear chivalry or knightserrant mentioned, I can no more help talking about them than the rays of the sun can help giving heat, or those of the moon moisture pardon me, therefore, and proceed, for that is more to the purpose now. While Don Quixote was saying this, Cardenio allowed his head to fall upon his breast, and seemed plunged in deep thought and though twice Don Quixote bade him go on with his story, he neither looked up nor uttered a word in reply but after some time he raised his head and said, 'I cannot get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world remove it, or make me think otherwiseand he would be a blockhead who would hold or believe anything else than that that arrant knave Master Elisabad made free with Queen Madasima. 'That is not true, by all that's good, said Don Quixote in high wrath, turning upon him angrily, as his way was 'and it is a very great slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious lady, and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would have made free with a quack and whoever maintains the contrary lies like a great scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot or on horseback, armed or unarmed, by night or by day, or as he likes best. Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad fit having now come upon him, he had no disposition to go on with his story, nor would Don Quixote have listened to it, so much had what he had heard about Madasima disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood up for her as if she were in earnest his veritable born lady to such a pass had his unholy books brought him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad, when he heard himself given the lie, and called a scoundrel and other insulting names, not relishing the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near him, and with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote's breast that he laid him on his back. Sancho Panza, seeing his master treated in this fashion, attacked the madman with his closed fist but the Ragged One received him in such a way that with a blow of his fist he stretched him at his feet, and then mounting upon him crushed his ribs to his own satisfaction the goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same fate and having beaten and pummelled them all he left them and quietly withdrew to his hidingplace on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the rage he felt at finding himself so belaboured without deserving it, ran to take vengeance on the goatherd, accusing him of not giving them warning that this man was at times taken with a mad fit, for if they had known it they would have been on their guard to protect themselves. The goatherd replied that he had said so, and that if he had not heard him, that was no fault of his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd rejoined, and the altercation ended in their seizing each other by the beard, and exchanging such fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made peace between them, they would have knocked one another to pieces. 'Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, said Sancho, grappling with the goatherd, 'for of this fellow, who is a clown like myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an honest man. 'That is true, said Don Quixote, 'but I know that he is not to blame for what has happened. With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before, that there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was but that if he wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to fall in with him either in or out of his senses. Don Quixote took leave of the goatherd, and once more mounting Rocinante bade Sancho follow him, which he having no ass, did very discontentedly. They proceeded slowly, making their way into the most rugged part of the mountain, Sancho all the while dying to have a talk with his master, and longing for him to begin, so that there should be no breach of the injunction laid upon him but unable to keep silence so long he said to him 'Seor Don Quixote, give me your worship's blessing and dismissal, for I'd like to go home at once to my wife and children with whom I can at any rate talk and converse as much as I like for to want me to go through these solitudes day and night and not speak to you when I have a mind is burying me alive. If luck would have it that animals spoke as they did in the days of Guisopete, it would not be so bad, because I could talk to Rocinante about whatever came into my head, and so put up with my illfortune but it is a hard case, and not to be borne with patience, to go seeking adventures all one's life and get nothing but kicks and blanketings, brickbats and punches, and with all this to have to sew up one's mouth without daring to say what is in one's heart, just as if one were dumb. 'I understand thee, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'thou art dying to have the interdict I placed upon thy tongue removed consider it removed, and say what thou wilt while we are wandering in these mountains. 'So be it, said Sancho 'let me speak now, for God knows what will happen byandby and to take advantage of the permit at once, I ask, what made your worship stand up so for that Queen Majimasa, or whatever her name is, or what did it matter whether that abbot was a friend of hers or not? for if your worship had let that passand you were not a judge in the matterit is my belief the madman would have gone on with his story, and the blow of the stone, and the kicks, and more than half a dozen cuffs would have been escaped. 'In faith, Sancho, answered Don Quixote, 'if thou knewest as I do what an honourable and illustrious lady Queen Madasima was, I know thou wouldst say I had great patience that I did not break in pieces the mouth that uttered such blasphemies, for a very great blasphemy it is to say or imagine that a queen has made free with a surgeon. The truth of the story is that that Master Elisabad whom the madman mentioned was a man of great prudence and sound judgment, and served as governor and physician to the queen, but to suppose that she was his mistress is nonsense deserving very severe punishment and as a proof that Cardenio did not know what he was saying, remember when he said it he was out of his wits. 'That is what I say, said Sancho 'there was no occasion for minding the words of a madman for if good luck had not helped your worship, and he had sent that stone at your head instead of at your breast, a fine way we should have been in for standing up for my lady yonder, God confound her! And then, would not Cardenio have gone free as a madman? 'Against men in their senses or against madmen, said Don Quixote, 'every knighterrant is bound to stand up for the honour of women, whoever they may be, much more for queens of such high degree and dignity as Queen Madasima, for whom I have a particular regard on account of her amiable qualities for, besides being extremely beautiful, she was very wise, and very patient under her misfortunes, of which she had many and the counsel and society of the Master Elisabad were a great help and support to her in enduring her afflictions with wisdom and resignation hence the ignorant and illdisposed vulgar took occasion to say and think that she was his mistress and they lie, I say it once more, and will lie two hundred times more, all who think and say so. 'I neither say nor think so, said Sancho 'let them look to it with their bread let them eat it they have rendered account to God whether they misbehaved or not I come from my vineyard, I know nothing I am not fond of prying into other men's lives he who buys and lies feels it in his purse moreover, naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain but if they did, what is that to me? many think there are flitches where there are no hooks but who can put gates to the open plain? moreover they said of God 'God bless me, said Don Quixote, 'what a set of absurdities thou art stringing together! What has what we are talking about got to do with the proverbs thou art threading one after the other? for God's sake hold thy tongue, Sancho, and henceforward keep to prodding thy ass and don't meddle in what does not concern thee and understand with all thy five senses that everything I have done, am doing, or shall do, is well founded on reason and in conformity with the rules of chivalry, for I understand them better than all the world that profess them. 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'is it a good rule of chivalry that we should go astray through these mountains without path or road, looking for a madman who when he is found will perhaps take a fancy to finish what he began, not his story, but your worship's head and my ribs, and end by breaking them altogether for us? 'Peace, I say again, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for let me tell thee it is not so much the desire of finding that madman that leads me into these regions as that which I have of performing among them an achievement wherewith I shall win eternal name and fame throughout the known world and it shall be such that I shall thereby set the seal on all that can make a knighterrant perfect and famous. 'And is it very perilous, this achievement? 'No, replied he of the Rueful Countenance 'though it may be in the dice that we may throw deuceace instead of sixes but all will depend on thy diligence. 'On my diligence! said Sancho. 'Yes, said Don Quixote, 'for if thou dost return soon from the place where I mean to send thee, my penance will be soon over, and my glory will soon begin. But as it is not right to keep thee any longer in suspense, waiting to see what comes of my words, I would have thee know, Sancho, that the famous Amadis of Gaul was one of the most perfect knightserrantI am wrong to say he was one he stood alone, the first, the only one, the lord of all that were in the world in his time. A fig for Don Belianis, and for all who say he equalled him in any respect, for, my oath upon it, they are deceiving themselves! I say, too, that when a painter desires to become famous in his art he endeavours to copy the originals of the rarest painters that he knows and the same rule holds good for all the most important crafts and callings that serve to adorn a state thus must he who would be esteemed prudent and patient imitate Ulysses, in whose person and labours Homer presents to us a lively picture of prudence and patience as Virgil, too, shows us in the person of neas the virtue of a pious son and the sagacity of a brave and skilful captain not representing or describing them as they were, but as they ought to be, so as to leave the example of their virtues to posterity. In the same way Amadis was the polestar, daystar, sun of valiant and devoted knights, whom all we who fight under the banner of love and chivalry are bound to imitate. This, then, being so, I consider, friend Sancho, that the knighterrant who shall imitate him most closely will come nearest to reaching the perfection of chivalry. Now one of the instances in which this knight most conspicuously showed his prudence, worth, valour, endurance, fortitude, and love, was when he withdrew, rejected by the Lady Oriana, to do penance upon the Pea Pobre, changing his name into that of Beltenebros, a name assuredly significant and appropriate to the life which he had voluntarily adopted. So, as it is easier for me to imitate him in this than in cleaving giants asunder, cutting off serpents' heads, slaying dragons, routing armies, destroying fleets, and breaking enchantments, and as this place is so well suited for a similar purpose, I must not allow the opportunity to escape which now so conveniently offers me its forelock. 'What is it in reality, said Sancho, 'that your worship means to do in such an outoftheway place as this? 'Have I not told thee, answered Don Quixote, 'that I mean to imitate Amadis here, playing the victim of despair, the madman, the maniac, so as at the same time to imitate the valiant Don Roland, when at the fountain he had evidence of the fair Angelica having disgraced herself with Medoro and through grief thereat went mad, and plucked up trees, troubled the waters of the clear springs, slew shepherds, destroyed flocks, burned down huts, levelled houses, dragged mares after him, and perpetrated a hundred thousand other outrages worthy of everlasting renown and record? And though I have no intention of imitating Roland, or Orlando, or Rotolando (for he went by all these names), step by step in all the mad things he did, said, and thought, I will make a rough copy to the best of my power of all that seems to me most essential but perhaps I shall content myself with the simple imitation of Amadis, who without giving way to any mischievous madness but merely to tears and sorrow, gained as much fame as the most famous. 'It seems to me, said Sancho, 'that the knights who behaved in this way had provocation and cause for those follies and penances but what cause has your worship for going mad? What lady has rejected you, or what evidence have you found to prove that the lady Dulcinea del Toboso has been trifling with Moor or Christian? 'There is the point, replied Don Quixote, 'and that is the beauty of this business of mine no thanks to a knighterrant for going mad when he has cause the thing is to turn crazy without any provocation, and let my lady know, if I do this in the dry, what I would do in the moist moreover I have abundant cause in the long separation I have endured from my lady till death, Dulcinea del Toboso for as thou didst hear that shepherd Ambrosio say the other day, in absence all ills are felt and feared and so, friend Sancho, waste no time in advising me against so rare, so happy, and so unheardof an imitation mad I am, and mad I must be until thou returnest with the answer to a letter that I mean to send by thee to my lady Dulcinea and if it be such as my constancy deserves, my insanity and penance will come to an end and if it be to the opposite effect, I shall become mad in earnest, and, being so, I shall suffer no more thus in whatever way she may answer I shall escape from the struggle and affliction in which thou wilt leave me, enjoying in my senses the boon thou bearest me, or as a madman not feeling the evil thou bringest me. But tell me, Sancho, hast thou got Mambrino's helmet safe? for I saw thee take it up from the ground when that ungrateful wretch tried to break it in pieces but could not, by which the fineness of its temper may be seen. To which Sancho made answer, 'By the living God, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I cannot endure or bear with patience some of the things that your worship says and from them I begin to suspect that all you tell me about chivalry, and winning kingdoms and empires, and giving islands, and bestowing other rewards and dignities after the custom of knightserrant, must be all made up of wind and lies, and all pigments or figments, or whatever we may call them for what would anyone think that heard your worship calling a barber's basin Mambrino's helmet without ever seeing the mistake all this time, but that one who says and maintains such things must have his brains addled? I have the basin in my sack all dinted, and I am taking it home to have it mended, to trim my beard in it, if, by God's grace, I am allowed to see my wife and children some day or other. 'Look here, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'by him thou didst swear by just now I swear thou hast the most limited understanding that any squire in the world has or ever had. Is it possible that all this time thou hast been going about with me thou hast never found out that all things belonging to knightserrant seem to be illusions and nonsense and ravings, and to go always by contraries? And not because it really is so, but because there is always a swarm of enchanters in attendance upon us that change and alter everything with us, and turn things as they please, and according as they are disposed to aid or destroy us thus what seems to thee a barber's basin seems to me Mambrino's helmet, and to another it will seem something else and rare foresight it was in the sage who is on my side to make what is really and truly Mambrino's helmet seem a basin to everybody, for, being held in such estimation as it is, all the world would pursue me to rob me of it but when they see it is only a barber's basin they do not take the trouble to obtain it as was plainly shown by him who tried to break it, and left it on the ground without taking it, for, by my faith, had he known it he would never have left it behind. Keep it safe, my friend, for just now I have no need of it indeed, I shall have to take off all this armour and remain as naked as I was born, if I have a mind to follow Roland rather than Amadis in my penance. Thus talking they reached the foot of a high mountain which stood like an isolated peak among the others that surrounded it. Past its base there flowed a gentle brook, all around it spread a meadow so green and luxuriant that it was a delight to the eyes to look upon it, and forest trees in abundance, and shrubs and flowers, added to the charms of the spot. Upon this place the Knight of the Rueful Countenance fixed his choice for the performance of his penance, and as he beheld it exclaimed in a loud voice as though he were out of his senses 'This is the place, oh, ye heavens, that I select and choose for bewailing the misfortune in which ye yourselves have plunged me this is the spot where the overflowings of mine eyes shall swell the waters of yon little brook, and my deep and endless sighs shall stir unceasingly the leaves of these mountain trees, in testimony and token of the pain my persecuted heart is suffering. Oh, ye rural deities, whoever ye be that haunt this lone spot, give ear to the complaint of a wretched lover whom long absence and brooding jealousy have driven to bewail his fate among these wilds and complain of the hard heart of that fair and ungrateful one, the end and limit of all human beauty! Oh, ye wood nymphs and dryads, that dwell in the thickets of the forest, so may the nimble wanton satyrs by whom ye are vainly wooed never disturb your sweet repose, help me to lament my hard fate or at least weary not at listening to it! Oh, Dulcinea del Toboso, day of my night, glory of my pain, guide of my path, star of my fortune, so may Heaven grant thee in full all thou seekest of it, bethink thee of the place and condition to which absence from thee has brought me, and make that return in kindness that is due to my fidelity! Oh, lonely trees, that from this day forward shall bear me company in my solitude, give me some sign by the gentle movement of your boughs that my presence is not distasteful to you! Oh, thou, my squire, pleasant companion in my prosperous and adverse fortunes, fix well in thy memory what thou shalt see me do here, so that thou mayest relate and report it to the sole cause of all, and so saying he dismounted from Rocinante, and in an instant relieved him of saddle and bridle, and giving him a slap on the croup, said, 'He gives thee freedom who is bereft of it himself, oh steed as excellent in deed as thou art unfortunate in thy lot begone where thou wilt, for thou bearest written on thy forehead that neither Astolfo's hippogriff, nor the famed Frontino that cost Bradamante so dear, could equal thee in speed. Seeing this Sancho said, 'Good luck to him who has saved us the trouble of stripping the packsaddle off Dapple! By my faith he would not have gone without a slap on the croup and something said in his praise though if he were here I would not let anyone strip him, for there would be no occasion, as he had nothing of the lover or victim of despair about him, inasmuch as his master, which I was while it was God's pleasure, was nothing of the sort and indeed, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if my departure and your worship's madness are to come off in earnest, it will be as well to saddle Rocinante again in order that he may supply the want of Dapple, because it will save me time in going and returning for if I go on foot I don't know when I shall get there or when I shall get back, as I am, in truth, a bad walker. 'I declare, Sancho, returned Don Quixote, 'it shall be as thou wilt, for thy plan does not seem to me a bad one, and three days hence thou wilt depart, for I wish thee to observe in the meantime what I do and say for her sake, that thou mayest be able to tell it. 'But what more have I to see besides what I have seen? said Sancho. 'Much thou knowest about it! said Don Quixote. 'I have now got to tear up my garments, to scatter about my armour, knock my head against these rocks, and more of the same sort of thing, which thou must witness. 'For the love of God, said Sancho, 'be careful, your worship, how you give yourself those knocks on the head, for you may come across such a rock, and in such a way, that the very first may put an end to the whole contrivance of this penance and I should think, if indeed knocks on the head seem necessary to you, and this business cannot be done without them, you might be contentas the whole thing is feigned, and counterfeit, and in jokeyou might be content, I say, with giving them to yourself in the water, or against something soft, like cotton and leave it all to me for I'll tell my lady that your worship knocked your head against a point of rock harder than a diamond. 'I thank thee for thy good intentions, friend Sancho, answered Don Quixote, 'but I would have thee know that all these things I am doing are not in joke, but very much in earnest, for anything else would be a transgression of the ordinances of chivalry, which forbid us to tell any lie whatever under the penalties due to apostasy and to do one thing instead of another is just the same as lying so my knocks on the head must be real, solid, and valid, without anything sophisticated or fanciful about them, and it will be needful to leave me some lint to dress my wounds, since fortune has compelled us to do without the balsam we lost. 'It was worse losing the ass, replied Sancho, 'for with him lint and all were lost but I beg of your worship not to remind me again of that accursed liquor, for my soul, not to say my stomach, turns at hearing the very name of it and I beg of you, too, to reckon as past the three days you allowed me for seeing the mad things you do, for I take them as seen already and pronounced upon, and I will tell wonderful stories to my lady so write the letter and send me off at once, for I long to return and take your worship out of this purgatory where I am leaving you. 'Purgatory dost thou call it, Sancho? said Don Quixote, 'rather call it hell, or even worse if there be anything worse. 'For one who is in hell, said Sancho, 'nulla est retentio, as I have heard say. 'I do not understand what retentio means, said Don Quixote. 'Retentio, answered Sancho, 'means that whoever is in hell never comes nor can come out of it, which will be the opposite case with your worship or my legs will be idle, that is if I have spurs to enliven Rocinante let me once get to El Toboso and into the presence of my lady Dulcinea, and I will tell her such things of the follies and madnesses (for it is all one) that your worship has done and is still doing, that I will manage to make her softer than a glove though I find her harder than a cork tree and with her sweet and honeyed answer I will come back through the air like a witch, and take your worship out of this purgatory that seems to be hell but is not, as there is hope of getting out of it which, as I have said, those in hell have not, and I believe your worship will not say anything to the contrary. 'That is true, said he of the Rueful Countenance, 'but how shall we manage to write the letter? 'And the asscolt order too, added Sancho. 'All shall be included, said Don Quixote 'and as there is no paper, it would be well done to write it on the leaves of trees, as the ancients did, or on tablets of wax though that would be as hard to find just now as paper. But it has just occurred to me how it may be conveniently and even more than conveniently written, and that is in the notebook that belonged to Cardenio, and thou wilt take care to have it copied on paper, in a good hand, at the first village thou comest to where there is a schoolmaster, or if not, any sacristan will copy it but see thou give it not to any notary to copy, for they write a law hand that Satan could not make out. 'But what is to be done about the signature? said Sancho. 'The letters of Amadis were never signed, said Don Quixote. 'That is all very well, said Sancho, 'but the order must needs be signed, and if it is copied they will say the signature is false, and I shall be left without asscolts. 'The order shall go signed in the same book, said Don Quixote, 'and on seeing it my niece will make no difficulty about obeying it as to the loveletter thou canst put by way of signature, 'Yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.' And it will be no great matter if it is in some other person's hand, for as well as I recollect Dulcinea can neither read nor write, nor in the whole course of her life has she seen handwriting or letter of mine, for my love and hers have been always platonic, not going beyond a modest look, and even that so seldom that I can safely swear I have not seen her four times in all these twelve years I have been loving her more than the light of these eyes that the earth will one day devour and perhaps even of those four times she has not once perceived that I was looking at her such is the retirement and seclusion in which her father Lorenzo Corchuelo and her mother Aldonza Nogales have brought her up. 'So, so! said Sancho 'Lorenzo Corchuelo's daughter is the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, otherwise called Aldonza Lorenzo? 'She it is, said Don Quixote, 'and she it is that is worthy to be lady of the whole universe. 'I know her well, said Sancho, 'and let me tell you she can fling a crowbar as well as the lustiest lad in all the town. Giver of all good! but she is a brave lass, and a right and stout one, and fit to be helpmate to any knighterrant that is or is to be, who may make her his lady the whoreson wench, what sting she has and what a voice! I can tell you one day she posted herself on the top of the belfry of the village to call some labourers of theirs that were in a ploughed field of her father's, and though they were better than half a league off they heard her as well as if they were at the foot of the tower and the best of her is that she is not a bit prudish, for she has plenty of affability, and jokes with everybody, and has a grin and a jest for everything. So, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I say you not only may and ought to do mad freaks for her sake, but you have a good right to give way to despair and hang yourself and no one who knows of it but will say you did well, though the devil should take you and I wish I were on my road already, simply to see her, for it is many a day since I saw her, and she must be altered by this time, for going about the fields always, and the sun and the air spoil women's looks greatly. But I must own the truth to your worship, Seor Don Quixote until now I have been under a great mistake, for I believed truly and honestly that the lady Dulcinea must be some princess your worship was in love with, or some person great enough to deserve the rich presents you have sent her, such as the Biscayan and the galley slaves, and many more no doubt, for your worship must have won many victories in the time when I was not yet your squire. But all things considered, what good can it do the lady Aldonza Lorenzo, I mean the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, to have the vanquished your worship sends or will send coming to her and going down on their knees before her? Because maybe when they came she'd be hackling flax or threshing on the threshing floor, and they'd be ashamed to see her, and she'd laugh, or resent the present. 'I have before now told thee many times, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that thou art a mighty great chatterer, and that with a blunt wit thou art always striving at sharpness but to show thee what a fool thou art and how rational I am, I would have thee listen to a short story. Thou must know that a certain widow, fair, young, independent, and rich, and above all free and easy, fell in love with a sturdy strapping young laybrother his superior came to know of it, and one day said to the worthy widow by way of brotherly remonstrance, 'I am surprised, seora, and not without good reason, that a woman of such high standing, so fair, and so rich as you are, should have fallen in love with such a mean, low, stupid fellow as Soandso, when in this house there are so many masters, graduates, and divinity students from among whom you might choose as if they were a lot of pears, saying, 'This one I'll take, that I won't take' but she replied to him with great sprightliness and candour, 'My dear sir, you are very much mistaken, and your ideas are very oldfashioned, if you think that I have made a bad choice in Soandso, fool as he seems because for all I want with him he knows as much and more philosophy than Aristotle.' In the same way, Sancho, for all I want with Dulcinea del Toboso she is just as good as the most exalted princess on earth. It is not to be supposed that all those poets who sang the praises of ladies under the fancy names they give them, had any such mistresses. Thinkest thou that the Amarillises, the Phillises, the Sylvias, the Dianas, the Galateas, the Flidas, and all the rest of them, that the books, the ballads, the barber's shops, the theatres are full of, were really and truly ladies of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that glorify and have glorified them? Nothing of the kind they only invent them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that they may pass for lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so and so it suffices me to think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair and virtuous and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one will examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her, and I, for my part, reckon her the most exalted princess in the world. For thou shouldst know, Sancho, if thou dost not know, that two things alone beyond all others are incentives to love, and these are great beauty and a good name, and these two things are to be found in Dulcinea in the highest degree, for in beauty no one equals her and in good name few approach her and to put the whole thing in a nutshell, I persuade myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and I picture her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in beauty as in condition Helen approaches her not nor does Lucretia come up to her, nor any other of the famous women of times past, Greek, Barbarian, or Latin and let each say what he will, for if in this I am taken to task by the ignorant, I shall not be censured by the critical. 'I say that your worship is entirely right, said Sancho, 'and that I am an ass. But I know not how the name of ass came into my mouth, for a rope is not to be mentioned in the house of him who has been hanged but now for the letter, and then, God be with you, I am off. Don Quixote took out the notebook, and, retiring to one side, very deliberately began to write the letter, and when he had finished it he called to Sancho, saying he wished to read it to him, so that he might commit it to memory, in case of losing it on the road for with evil fortune like his anything might be apprehended. To which Sancho replied, 'Write it two or three times there in the book and give it to me, and I will carry it very carefully, because to expect me to keep it in my memory is all nonsense, for I have such a bad one that I often forget my own name but for all that repeat it to me, as I shall like to hear it, for surely it will run as if it was in print. 'Listen, said Don Quixote, 'this is what it says 'Don Quixote's Letter to Dulcinea del Toboso 'Sovereign and exalted Lady,The pierced by the point of absence, the wounded to the heart's core, sends thee, sweetest Dulcinea del Toboso, the health that he himself enjoys not. If thy beauty despises me, if thy worth is not for me, if thy scorn is my affliction, though I be sufficiently longsuffering, hardly shall I endure this anxiety, which, besides being oppressive, is protracted. My good squire Sancho will relate to thee in full, fair ingrate, dear enemy, the condition to which I am reduced on thy account if it be thy pleasure to give me relief, I am thine if not, do as may be pleasing to thee for by ending my life I shall satisfy thy cruelty and my desire. 'Thine till death, 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance. 'By the life of my father, said Sancho, when he heard the letter, 'it is the loftiest thing I ever heard. Body of me! how your worship says everything as you like in it! And how well you fit in 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance' into the signature. I declare your worship is indeed the very devil, and there is nothing you don't know. 'Everything is needed for the calling I follow, said Don Quixote. 'Now then, said Sancho, 'let your worship put the order for the three asscolts on the other side, and sign it very plainly, that they may recognise it at first sight. 'With all my heart, said Don Quixote, and as he had written it he read it to this effect 'Mistress Niece,By this first of asscolts please pay to Sancho Panza, my squire, three of the five I left at home in your charge said three asscolts to be paid and delivered for the same number received here in hand, which upon this and upon his receipt shall be duly paid. Done in the heart of the Sierra Morena, the twentyseventh of August of this present year. 'That will do, said Sancho 'now let your worship sign it. 'There is no need to sign it, said Don Quixote, 'but merely to put my flourish, which is the same as a signature, and enough for three asses, or even three hundred. 'I can trust your worship, returned Sancho 'let me go and saddle Rocinante, and be ready to give me your blessing, for I mean to go at once without seeing the fooleries your worship is going to do I'll say I saw you do so many that she will not want any more. 'At any rate, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'I should likeand there is reason for itI should like thee, I say, to see me stripped to the skin and performing a dozen or two of insanities, which I can get done in less than half an hour for having seen them with thine own eyes, thou canst then safely swear to the rest that thou wouldst add and I promise thee thou wilt not tell of as many as I mean to perform. 'For the love of God, master mine, said Sancho, 'let me not see your worship stripped, for it will sorely grieve me, and I shall not be able to keep from tears, and my head aches so with all I shed last night for Dapple, that I am not fit to begin any fresh weeping but if it is your worship's pleasure that I should see some insanities, do them in your clothes, short ones, and such as come readiest to hand for I myself want nothing of the sort, and, as I have said, it will be a saving of time for my return, which will be with the news your worship desires and deserves. If not, let the lady Dulcinea look to it if she does not answer reasonably, I swear as solemnly as I can that I will fetch a fair answer out of her stomach with kicks and cuffs for why should it be borne that a knighterrant as famous as your worship should go mad without rhyme or reason for a? Her ladyship had best not drive me to say it, for by God I will speak out and let off everything cheap, even if it doesn't sell I am pretty good at that! she little knows me faith, if she knew me she'd be in awe of me. 'In faith, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'to all appearance thou art no sounder in thy wits than I. 'I am not so mad, answered Sancho, 'but I am more peppery but apart from all this, what has your worship to eat until I come back? Will you sally out on the road like Cardenio to force it from the shepherds? 'Let not that anxiety trouble thee, replied Don Quixote, 'for even if I had it I should not eat anything but the herbs and the fruits which this meadow and these trees may yield me the beauty of this business of mine lies in not eating, and in performing other mortifications. 'Do you know what I am afraid of? said Sancho upon this 'that I shall not be able to find my way back to this spot where I am leaving you, it is such an outoftheway place. 'Observe the landmarks well, said Don Quixote, 'for I will try not to go far from this neighbourhood, and I will even take care to mount the highest of these rocks to see if I can discover thee returning however, not to miss me and lose thyself, the best plan will be to cut some branches of the broom that is so abundant about here, and as thou goest to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain these will serve thee, after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth of Theseus, as marks and signs for finding me on thy return. 'So I will, said Sancho Panza, and having cut some, he asked his master's blessing, and not without many tears on both sides, took his leave of him, and mounting Rocinante, of whom Don Quixote charged him earnestly to have as much care as of his own person, he set out for the plain, strewing at intervals the branches of broom as his master had recommended him and so he went his way, though Don Quixote still entreated him to see him do were it only a couple of mad acts. He had not gone a hundred paces, however, when he returned and said 'I must say, seor, your worship said quite right, that in order to be able to swear without a weight on my conscience that I had seen you do mad things, it would be well for me to see if it were only one though in your worship's remaining here I have seen a very great one. 'Did I not tell thee so? said Don Quixote. 'Wait, Sancho, and I will do them in the saying of a credo, and pulling off his breeches in all haste he stripped himself to his skin and his shirt, and then, without more ado, he cut a couple of gambados in the air, and a couple of somersaults, heels over head, making such a display that, not to see it a second time, Sancho wheeled Rocinante round, and felt easy, and satisfied in his mind that he could swear he had left his master mad and so we will leave him to follow his road until his return, which was a quick one. Returning to the proceedings of him of the Rueful Countenance when he found himself alone, the history says that when Don Quixote had completed the performance of the somersaults or capers, naked from the waist down and clothed from the waist up, and saw that Sancho had gone off without waiting to see any more crazy feats, he climbed up to the top of a high rock, and there set himself to consider what he had several times before considered without ever coming to any conclusion on the point, namely whether it would be better and more to his purpose to imitate the outrageous madness of Roland, or the melancholy madness of Amadis and communing with himself he said 'What wonder is it if Roland was so good a knight and so valiant as everyone says he was, when, after all, he was enchanted, and nobody could kill him save by thrusting a corking pin into the sole of his foot, and he always wore shoes with seven iron soles? Though cunning devices did not avail him against Bernardo del Carpio, who knew all about them, and strangled him in his arms at Roncesvalles. But putting the question of his valour aside, let us come to his losing his wits, for certain it is that he did lose them in consequence of the proofs he discovered at the fountain, and the intelligence the shepherd gave him of Angelica having slept more than two siestas with Medoro, a little curlyheaded Moor, and page to Agramante. If he was persuaded that this was true, and that his lady had wronged him, it is no wonder that he should have gone mad but I, how am I to imitate him in his madness, unless I can imitate him in the cause of it? For my Dulcinea, I will venture to swear, never saw a Moor in her life, as he is, in his proper costume, and she is this day as the mother that bore her, and I should plainly be doing her a wrong if, fancying anything else, I were to go mad with the same kind of madness as Roland the Furious. On the other hand, I see that Amadis of Gaul, without losing his senses and without doing anything mad, acquired as a lover as much fame as the most famous for, according to his history, on finding himself rejected by his lady Oriana, who had ordered him not to appear in her presence until it should be her pleasure, all he did was to retire to the Pea Pobre in company with a hermit, and there he took his fill of weeping until Heaven sent him relief in the midst of his great grief and need. And if this be true, as it is, why should I now take the trouble to strip stark naked, or do mischief to these trees which have done me no harm, or why am I to disturb the clear waters of these brooks which will give me to drink whenever I have a mind? Long live the memory of Amadis and let him be imitated so far as is possible by Don Quixote of La Mancha, of whom it will be said, as was said of the other, that if he did not achieve great things, he died in attempting them and if I am not repulsed or rejected by my Dulcinea, it is enough for me, as I have said, to be absent from her. And so, now to business come to my memory ye deeds of Amadis, and show me how I am to begin to imitate you. I know already that what he chiefly did was to pray and commend himself to God but what am I to do for a rosary, for I have not got one? And then it occurred to him how he might make one, and that was by tearing a great strip off the tail of his shirt which hung down, and making eleven knots on it, one bigger than the rest, and this served him for a rosary all the time he was there, during which he repeated countless avemarias. But what distressed him greatly was not having another hermit there to confess him and receive consolation from and so he solaced himself with pacing up and down the little meadow, and writing and carving on the bark of the trees and on the fine sand a multitude of verses all in harmony with his sadness, and some in praise of Dulcinea but, when he was found there afterwards, the only ones completely legible that could be discovered were those that follow here Ye on the mountainside that grow, Ye green things all, trees, shrubs, and bushes, Are ye aweary of the woe That this poor aching bosom crushes? If it disturb you, and I owe Some reparation, it may be a Defence for me to let you know Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant Dulcinea Del Toboso. The lealest lover time can show, Doomed for a ladylove to languish, Among these solitudes doth go, A prey to every kind of anguish. Why Love should like a spiteful foe Thus use him, he hath no idea, But hogsheads fullthis doth he know Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant Dulcinea Del Toboso. Adventureseeking doth he go Up rugged heights, down rocky valleys, But hill or dale, or high or low, Mishap attendeth all his sallies Love still pursues him to and fro, And plies his cruel scourgeah me! a Relentless fate, an endless woe Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant Dulcinea Del Toboso. The addition of 'Del Toboso to Dulcinea's name gave rise to no little laughter among those who found the above lines, for they suspected Don Quixote must have fancied that unless he added 'del Toboso when he introduced the name of Dulcinea the verse would be unintelligible which was indeed the fact, as he himself afterwards admitted. He wrote many more, but, as has been said, these three verses were all that could be plainly and perfectly deciphered. In this way, and in sighing and calling on the fauns and satyrs of the woods and the nymphs of the streams, and Echo, moist and mournful, to answer, console, and hear him, as well as in looking for herbs to sustain him, he passed his time until Sancho's return and had that been delayed three weeks, as it was three days, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance would have worn such an altered countenance that the mother that bore him would not have known him and here it will be well to leave him, wrapped up in sighs and verses, to relate how Sancho Panza fared on his mission. As for him, coming out upon the high road, he made for El Toboso, and the next day reached the inn where the mishap of the blanket had befallen him. As soon as he recognised it he felt as if he were once more living through the air, and he could not bring himself to enter it though it was an hour when he might well have done so, for it was dinnertime, and he longed to taste something hot as it had been all cold fare with him for many days past. This craving drove him to draw near to the inn, still undecided whether to go in or not, and as he was hesitating there came out two persons who at once recognised him, and said one to the other 'Seor licentiate, is not he on the horse there Sancho Panza who, our adventurer's housekeeper told us, went off with her master as esquire? 'So it is, said the licentiate, 'and that is our friend Don Quixote's horse and if they knew him so well it was because they were the curate and the barber of his own village, the same who had carried out the scrutiny and sentence upon the books and as soon as they recognised Sancho Panza and Rocinante, being anxious to hear of Don Quixote, they approached, and calling him by his name the curate said, 'Friend Sancho Panza, where is your master? Sancho recognised them at once, and determined to keep secret the place and circumstances where and under which he had left his master, so he replied that his master was engaged in a certain quarter on a certain matter of great importance to him which he could not disclose for the eyes in his head. 'Nay, nay, said the barber, 'if you don't tell us where he is, Sancho Panza, we will suspect as we suspect already, that you have murdered and robbed him, for here you are mounted on his horse in fact, you must produce the master of the hack, or else take the consequences. 'There is no need of threats with me, said Sancho, 'for I am not a man to rob or murder anybody let his own fate, or God who made him, kill each one my master is engaged very much to his taste doing penance in the midst of these mountains and then, offhand and without stopping, he told them how he had left him, what adventures had befallen him, and how he was carrying a letter to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, the daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo, with whom he was over head and ears in love. They were both amazed at what Sancho Panza told them for though they were aware of Don Quixote's madness and the nature of it, each time they heard of it they were filled with fresh wonder. They then asked Sancho Panza to show them the letter he was carrying to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. He said it was written in a notebook, and that his master's directions were that he should have it copied on paper at the first village he came to. On this the curate said if he showed it to him, he himself would make a fair copy of it. Sancho put his hand into his bosom in search of the notebook but could not find it, nor, if he had been searching until now, could he have found it, for Don Quixote had kept it, and had never given it to him, nor had he himself thought of asking for it. When Sancho discovered he could not find the book his face grew deadly pale, and in great haste he again felt his body all over, and seeing plainly it was not to be found, without more ado he seized his beard with both hands and plucked away half of it, and then, as quick as he could and without stopping, gave himself half a dozen cuffs on the face and nose till they were bathed in blood. Seeing this, the curate and the barber asked him what had happened him that he gave himself such rough treatment. 'What should happen to me? replied Sancho, 'but to have lost from one hand to the other, in a moment, three asscolts, each of them like a castle? 'How is that? said the barber. 'I have lost the notebook, said Sancho, 'that contained the letter to Dulcinea, and an order signed by my master in which he directed his niece to give me three asscolts out of four or five he had at home and he then told them about the loss of Dapple. The curate consoled him, telling him that when his master was found he would get him to renew the order, and make a fresh draft on paper, as was usual and customary for those made in notebooks were never accepted or honoured. Sancho comforted himself with this, and said if that were so the loss of Dulcinea's letter did not trouble him much, for he had it almost by heart, and it could be taken down from him wherever and whenever they liked. 'Repeat it then, Sancho, said the barber, 'and we will write it down afterwards. Sancho Panza stopped to scratch his head to bring back the letter to his memory, and balanced himself now on one foot, now the other, one moment staring at the ground, the next at the sky, and after having half gnawed off the end of a finger and kept them in suspense waiting for him to begin, he said, after a long pause, 'By God, seor licentiate, devil a thing can I recollect of the letter but it said at the beginning, 'Exalted and scrubbing Lady.' 'It cannot have said 'scrubbing,' said the barber, 'but 'superhuman' or 'sovereign.' 'That is it, said Sancho 'then, as well as I remember, it went on, 'The wounded, and wanting of sleep, and the pierced, kisses your worship's hands, ungrateful and very unrecognised fair one and it said something or other about health and sickness that he was sending her and from that it went tailing off until it ended with 'Yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.' It gave them no little amusement, both of them, to see what a good memory Sancho had, and they complimented him greatly upon it, and begged him to repeat the letter a couple of times more, so that they too might get it by heart to write it out byandby. Sancho repeated it three times, and as he did, uttered three thousand more absurdities then he told them more about his master but he never said a word about the blanketing that had befallen himself in that inn, into which he refused to enter. He told them, moreover, how his lord, if he brought him a favourable answer from the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, was to put himself in the way of endeavouring to become an emperor, or at least a monarch for it had been so settled between them, and with his personal worth and the might of his arm it was an easy matter to come to be one and how on becoming one his lord was to make a marriage for him (for he would be a widower by that time, as a matter of course) and was to give him as a wife one of the damsels of the empress, the heiress of some rich and grand state on the mainland, having nothing to do with islands of any sort, for he did not care for them now. All this Sancho delivered with so much composurewiping his nose from time to timeand with so little commonsense that his two hearers were again filled with wonder at the force of Don Quixote's madness that could run away with this poor man's reason. They did not care to take the trouble of disabusing him of his error, as they considered that since it did not in any way hurt his conscience it would be better to leave him in it, and they would have all the more amusement in listening to his simplicities and so they bade him pray to God for his lord's health, as it was a very likely and a very feasible thing for him in course of time to come to be an emperor, as he said, or at least an archbishop or some other dignitary of equal rank. To which Sancho made answer, 'If fortune, sirs, should bring things about in such a way that my master should have a mind, instead of being an emperor, to be an archbishop, I should like to know what archbishopserrant commonly give their squires? 'They commonly give them, said the curate, some simple benefice or cure, or some place as sacristan which brings them a good fixed income, not counting the altar fees, which may be reckoned at as much more. 'But for that, said Sancho, 'the squire must be unmarried, and must know, at any rate, how to help at mass, and if that be so, woe is me, for I am married already and I don't know the first letter of the A B C. What will become of me if my master takes a fancy to be an archbishop and not an emperor, as is usual and customary with knightserrant? 'Be not uneasy, friend Sancho, said the barber, 'for we will entreat your master, and advise him, even urging it upon him as a case of conscience, to become an emperor and not an archbishop, because it will be easier for him as he is more valiant than lettered. 'So I have thought, said Sancho 'though I can tell you he is fit for anything what I mean to do for my part is to pray to our Lord to place him where it may be best for him, and where he may be able to bestow most favours upon me. 'You speak like a man of sense, said the curate, 'and you will be acting like a good Christian but what must now be done is to take steps to coax your master out of that useless penance you say he is performing and we had best turn into this inn to consider what plan to adopt, and also to dine, for it is now time. Sancho said they might go in, but that he would wait there outside, and that he would tell them afterwards the reason why he was unwilling, and why it did not suit him to enter it but he begged them to bring him out something to eat, and to let it be hot, and also to bring barley for Rocinante. They left him and went in, and presently the barber brought him out something to eat. Byandby, after they had between them carefully thought over what they should do to carry out their object, the curate hit upon an idea very well adapted to humour Don Quixote, and effect their purpose and his notion, which he explained to the barber, was that he himself should assume the disguise of a wandering damsel, while the other should try as best he could to pass for a squire, and that they should thus proceed to where Don Quixote was, and he, pretending to be an aggrieved and distressed damsel, should ask a favour of him, which as a valiant knighterrant he could not refuse to grant and the favour he meant to ask him was that he should accompany her whither she would conduct him, in order to redress a wrong which a wicked knight had done her, while at the same time she should entreat him not to require her to remove her mask, nor ask her any question touching her circumstances until he had righted her with the wicked knight. And he had no doubt that Don Quixote would comply with any request made in these terms, and that in this way they might remove him and take him to his own village, where they would endeavour to find out if his extraordinary madness admitted of any kind of remedy. The curate's plan did not seem a bad one to the barber, but on the contrary so good that they immediately set about putting it in execution. They begged a petticoat and hood of the landlady, leaving her in pledge a new cassock of the curate's and the barber made a beard out of a greybrown or red oxtail in which the landlord used to stick his comb. The landlady asked them what they wanted these things for, and the curate told her in a few words about the madness of Don Quixote, and how this disguise was intended to get him away from the mountain where he then was. The landlord and landlady immediately came to the conclusion that the madman was their guest, the balsam man and master of the blanketed squire, and they told the curate all that had passed between him and them, not omitting what Sancho had been so silent about. Finally the landlady dressed up the curate in a style that left nothing to be desired she put on him a cloth petticoat with black velvet stripes a palm broad, all slashed, and a bodice of green velvet set off by a binding of white satin, which as well as the petticoat must have been made in the time of king Wamba. The curate would not let them hood him, but put on his head a little quilted linen cap which he used for a nightcap, and bound his forehead with a strip of black silk, while with another he made a mask with which he concealed his beard and face very well. He then put on his hat, which was broad enough to serve him for an umbrella, and enveloping himself in his cloak seated himself womanfashion on his mule, while the barber mounted his with a beard down to the waist of mingled red and white, for it was, as has been said, the tail of a clayred ox. They took leave of all, and of the good Maritornes, who, sinner as she was, promised to pray a rosary of prayers that God might grant them success in such an arduous and Christian undertaking as that they had in hand. But hardly had he sallied forth from the inn when it struck the curate that he was doing wrong in rigging himself out in that fashion, as it was an indecorous thing for a priest to dress himself that way even though much might depend upon it and saying so to the barber he begged him to change dresses, as it was fitter he should be the distressed damsel, while he himself would play the squire's part, which would be less derogatory to his dignity otherwise he was resolved to have nothing more to do with the matter, and let the devil take Don Quixote. Just at this moment Sancho came up, and on seeing the pair in such a costume he was unable to restrain his laughter the barber, however, agreed to do as the curate wished, and, altering their plan, the curate went on to instruct him how to play his part and what to say to Don Quixote to induce and compel him to come with them and give up his fancy for the place he had chosen for his idle penance. The barber told him he could manage it properly without any instruction, and as he did not care to dress himself up until they were near where Don Quixote was, he folded up the garments, and the curate adjusted his beard, and they set out under the guidance of Sancho Panza, who went along telling them of the encounter with the madman they met in the Sierra, saying nothing, however, about the finding of the valise and its contents for with all his simplicity the lad was a trifle covetous. The next day they reached the place where Sancho had laid the broombranches as marks to direct him to where he had left his master, and recognising it he told them that here was the entrance, and that they would do well to dress themselves, if that was required to deliver his master for they had already told him that going in this guise and dressing in this way were of the highest importance in order to rescue his master from the pernicious life he had adopted and they charged him strictly not to tell his master who they were, or that he knew them, and should he ask, as ask he would, if he had given the letter to Dulcinea, to say that he had, and that, as she did not know how to read, she had given an answer by word of mouth, saying that she commanded him, on pain of her displeasure, to come and see her at once and it was a very important matter for himself, because in this way and with what they meant to say to him they felt sure of bringing him back to a better mode of life and inducing him to take immediate steps to become an emperor or monarch, for there was no fear of his becoming an archbishop. All this Sancho listened to and fixed it well in his memory, and thanked them heartily for intending to recommend his master to be an emperor instead of an archbishop, for he felt sure that in the way of bestowing rewards on their squires emperors could do more than archbishopserrant. He said, too, that it would be as well for him to go on before them to find him, and give him his lady's answer for that perhaps might be enough to bring him away from the place without putting them to all this trouble. They approved of what Sancho proposed, and resolved to wait for him until he brought back word of having found his master. Sancho pushed on into the glens of the Sierra, leaving them in one through which there flowed a little gentle rivulet, and where the rocks and trees afforded a cool and grateful shade. It was an August day with all the heat of one, and the heat in those parts is intense, and the hour was three in the afternoon, all which made the spot the more inviting and tempted them to wait there for Sancho's return, which they did. They were reposing, then, in the shade, when a voice unaccompanied by the notes of any instrument, but sweet and pleasing in its tone, reached their ears, at which they were not a little astonished, as the place did not seem to them likely quarters for one who sang so well for though it is often said that shepherds of rare voice are to be found in the woods and fields, this is rather a flight of the poet's fancy than the truth. And still more surprised were they when they perceived that what they heard sung were the verses not of rustic shepherds, but of the polished wits of the city and so it proved, for the verses they heard were these What makes my quest of happiness seem vain? Disdain. What bids me to abandon hope of ease? Jealousies. What holds my heart in anguish of suspense? Absence. If that be so, then for my grief Where shall I turn to seek relief, When hope on every side lies slain By Absence, Jealousies, Disdain? What the prime cause of all my woe doth prove? Love. What at my glory ever looks askance? Chance. Whence is permission to afflict me given? Heaven. If that be so, I but await The stroke of a resistless fate, Since, working for my woe, these three, Love, Chance and Heaven, in league I see. What must I do to find a remedy? Die. What is the lure for love when coy and strange? Change. What, if all fail, will cure the heart of sadness? Madness. If that be so, it is but folly To seek a cure for melancholy Ask where it lies the answer saith In Change, in Madness, or in Death. The hour, the summer season, the solitary place, the voice and skill of the singer, all contributed to the wonder and delight of the two listeners, who remained still waiting to hear something more finding, however, that the silence continued some little time, they resolved to go in search of the musician who sang with so fine a voice but just as they were about to do so they were checked by the same voice, which once more fell upon their ears, singing this SONNET When heavenward, holy Friendship, thou didst go Soaring to seek thy home beyond the sky, And take thy seat among the saints on high, It was thy will to leave on earth below Thy semblance, and upon it to bestow Thy veil, wherewith at times hypocrisy, Parading in thy shape, deceives the eye, And makes its vileness bright as virtue show. Friendship, return to us, or force the cheat That wears it now, thy livery to restore, By aid whereof sincerity is slain. If thou wilt not unmask thy counterfeit, This earth will be the prey of strife once more, As when primval discord held its reign. The song ended with a deep sigh, and again the listeners remained waiting attentively for the singer to resume but perceiving that the music had now turned to sobs and heartrending moans they determined to find out who the unhappy being could be whose voice was as rare as his sighs were piteous, and they had not proceeded far when on turning the corner of a rock they discovered a man of the same aspect and appearance as Sancho had described to them when he told them the story of Cardenio. He, showing no astonishment when he saw them, stood still with his head bent down upon his breast like one in deep thought, without raising his eyes to look at them after the first glance when they suddenly came upon him. The curate, who was aware of his misfortune and recognised him by the description, being a man of good address, approached him and in a few sensible words entreated and urged him to quit a life of such misery, lest he should end it there, which would be the greatest of all misfortunes. Cardenio was then in his right mind, free from any attack of that madness which so frequently carried him away, and seeing them dressed in a fashion so unusual among the frequenters of those wilds, could not help showing some surprise, especially when he heard them speak of his case as if it were a wellknown matter (for the curate's words gave him to understand as much) so he replied to them thus 'I see plainly, sirs, whoever you may be, that Heaven, whose care it is to succour the good, and even the wicked very often, here, in this remote spot, cut off from human intercourse, sends me, though I deserve it not, those who seek to draw me away from this to some better retreat, showing me by many and forcible arguments how unreasonably I act in leading the life I do but as they know, that if I escape from this evil I shall fall into another still greater, perhaps they will set me down as a weakminded man, or, what is worse, one devoid of reason nor would it be any wonder, for I myself can perceive that the effect of the recollection of my misfortunes is so great and works so powerfully to my ruin, that in spite of myself I become at times like a stone, without feeling or consciousness and I come to feel the truth of it when they tell me and show me proofs of the things I have done when the terrible fit overmasters me and all I can do is bewail my lot in vain, and idly curse my destiny, and plead for my madness by telling how it was caused, to any that care to hear it for no reasonable beings on learning the cause will wonder at the effects and if they cannot help me at least they will not blame me, and the repugnance they feel at my wild ways will turn into pity for my woes. If it be, sirs, that you are here with the same design as others have come with, before you proceed with your wise arguments, I entreat you to hear the story of my countless misfortunes, for perhaps when you have heard it you will spare yourselves the trouble you would take in offering consolation to grief that is beyond the reach of it. As they, both of them, desired nothing more than to hear from his own lips the cause of his suffering, they entreated him to tell it, promising not to do anything for his relief or comfort that he did not wish and thereupon the unhappy gentleman began his sad story in nearly the same words and manner in which he had related it to Don Quixote and the goatherd a few days before, when, through Master Elisabad, and Don Quixote's scrupulous observance of what was due to chivalry, the tale was left unfinished, as this history has already recorded but now fortunately the mad fit kept off, allowed him to tell it to the end and so, coming to the incident of the note which Don Fernando had found in the volume of 'Amadis of Gaul, Cardenio said that he remembered it perfectly and that it was in these words 'Luscinda to Cardenio. 'Every day I discover merits in you that oblige and compel me to hold you in higher estimation so if you desire to relieve me of this obligation without cost to my honour, you may easily do so. I have a father who knows you and loves me dearly, who without putting any constraint on my inclination will grant what will be reasonable for you to have, if it be that you value me as you say and as I believe you do. 'By this letter I was induced, as I told you, to demand Luscinda for my wife, and it was through it that Luscinda came to be regarded by Don Fernando as one of the most discreet and prudent women of the day, and this letter it was that suggested his design of ruining me before mine could be carried into effect. I told Don Fernando that all Luscinda's father was waiting for was that mine should ask her of him, which I did not dare to suggest to him, fearing that he would not consent to do so not because he did not know perfectly well the rank, goodness, virtue, and beauty of Luscinda, and that she had qualities that would do honour to any family in Spain, but because I was aware that he did not wish me to marry so soon, before seeing what the Duke Ricardo would do for me. In short, I told him I did not venture to mention it to my father, as well on account of that difficulty, as of many others that discouraged me though I knew not well what they were, only that it seemed to me that what I desired was never to come to pass. To all this Don Fernando answered that he would take it upon himself to speak to my father, and persuade him to speak to Luscinda's father. O, ambitious Marius! O, cruel Catiline! O, wicked Sylla! O, perfidious Ganelon! O, treacherous Vellido! O, vindictive Julian! O, covetous Judas! Traitor, cruel, vindictive, and perfidious, wherein had this poor wretch failed in his fidelity, who with such frankness showed thee the secrets and the joys of his heart? What offence did I commit? What words did I utter, or what counsels did I give that had not the furtherance of thy honour and welfare for their aim? But, woe is me, wherefore do I complain? for sure it is that when misfortunes spring from the stars, descending from on high they fall upon us with such fury and violence that no power on earth can check their course nor human device stay their coming. Who could have thought that Don Fernando, a highborn gentleman, intelligent, bound to me by gratitude for my services, one that could win the object of his love wherever he might set his affections, could have become so obdurate, as they say, as to rob me of my one ewe lamb that was not even yet in my possession? But laying aside these useless and unavailing reflections, let us take up the broken thread of my unhappy story. 'To proceed, then Don Fernando finding my presence an obstacle to the execution of his treacherous and wicked design, resolved to send me to his elder brother under the pretext of asking money from him to pay for six horses which, purposely, and with the sole object of sending me away that he might the better carry out his infernal scheme, he had purchased the very day he offered to speak to my father, and the price of which he now desired me to fetch. Could I have anticipated this treachery? Could I by any chance have suspected it? Nay so far from that, I offered with the greatest pleasure to go at once, in my satisfaction at the good bargain that had been made. That night I spoke with Luscinda, and told her what had been agreed upon with Don Fernando, and how I had strong hopes of our fair and reasonable wishes being realised. She, as unsuspicious as I was of the treachery of Don Fernando, bade me try to return speedily, as she believed the fulfilment of our desires would be delayed only so long as my father put off speaking to hers. I know not why it was that on saying this to me her eyes filled with tears, and there came a lump in her throat that prevented her from uttering a word of many more that it seemed to me she was striving to say to me. I was astonished at this unusual turn, which I never before observed in her, for we always conversed, whenever good fortune and my ingenuity gave us the chance, with the greatest gaiety and cheerfulness, mingling tears, sighs, jealousies, doubts, or fears with our words it was all on my part a eulogy of my good fortune that Heaven should have given her to me for my mistress I glorified her beauty, I extolled her worth and her understanding and she paid me back by praising in me what in her love for me she thought worthy of praise and besides we had a hundred thousand trifles and doings of our neighbours and acquaintances to talk about, and the utmost extent of my boldness was to take, almost by force, one of her fair white hands and carry it to my lips, as well as the closeness of the low grating that separated us allowed me. But the night before the unhappy day of my departure she wept, she moaned, she sighed, and she withdrew leaving me filled with perplexity and amazement, overwhelmed at the sight of such strange and affecting signs of grief and sorrow in Luscinda but not to dash my hopes I ascribed it all to the depth of her love for me and the pain that separation gives those who love tenderly. At last I took my departure, sad and dejected, my heart filled with fancies and suspicions, but not knowing well what it was I suspected or fancied plain omens pointing to the sad event and misfortune that was awaiting me. 'I reached the place whither I had been sent, gave the letter to Don Fernando's brother, and was kindly received but not promptly dismissed, for he desired me to wait, very much against my will, eight days in some place where the duke his father was not likely to see me, as his brother wrote that the money was to be sent without his knowledge all of which was a scheme of the treacherous Don Fernando, for his brother had no want of money to enable him to despatch me at once. 'The command was one that exposed me to the temptation of disobeying it, as it seemed to me impossible to endure life for so many days separated from Luscinda, especially after leaving her in the sorrowful mood I have described to you nevertheless as a dutiful servant I obeyed, though I felt it would be at the cost of my wellbeing. But four days later there came a man in quest of me with a letter which he gave me, and which by the address I perceived to be from Luscinda, as the writing was hers. I opened it with fear and trepidation, persuaded that it must be something serious that had impelled her to write to me when at a distance, as she seldom did so when I was near. Before reading it I asked the man who it was that had given it to him, and how long he had been upon the road he told me that as he happened to be passing through one of the streets of the city at the hour of noon, a very beautiful lady called to him from a window, and with tears in her eyes said to him hurriedly, 'Brother, if you are, as you seem to be, a Christian, for the love of God I entreat you to have this letter despatched without a moment's delay to the place and person named in the address, all which is well known, and by this you will render a great service to our Lord and that you may be at no inconvenience in doing so take what is in this handkerchief' and said he, 'with this she threw me a handkerchief out of the window in which were tied up a hundred reals and this gold ring which I bring here together with the letter I have given you. And then without waiting for any answer she left the window, though not before she saw me take the letter and the handkerchief, and I had by signs let her know that I would do as she bade me and so, seeing myself so well paid for the trouble I would have in bringing it to you, and knowing by the address that it was to you it was sent (for, seor, I know you very well), and also unable to resist that beautiful lady's tears, I resolved to trust no one else, but to come myself and give it to you, and in sixteen hours from the time when it was given me I have made the journey, which, as you know, is eighteen leagues.' 'All the while the goodnatured improvised courier was telling me this, I hung upon his words, my legs trembling under me so that I could scarcely stand. However, I opened the letter and read these words The promise Don Fernando gave you to urge your father to speak to mine, he has fulfilled much more to his own satisfaction than to your advantage. I have to tell you, seor, that he has demanded me for a wife, and my father, led away by what he considers Don Fernando's superiority over you, has favoured his suit so cordially, that in two days hence the betrothal is to take place with such secrecy and so privately that the only witnesses are to be the Heavens above and a few of the household. Picture to yourself the state I am in judge if it be urgent for you to come the issue of the affair will show you whether I love you or not. God grant this may come to your hand before mine shall be forced to link itself with his who keeps so ill the faith that he has pledged. 'Such, in brief, were the words of the letter, words that made me set out at once without waiting any longer for reply or money for I now saw clearly that it was not the purchase of horses but of his own pleasure that had made Don Fernando send me to his brother. The exasperation I felt against Don Fernando, joined with the fear of losing the prize I had won by so many years of love and devotion, lent me wings so that almost flying I reached home the same day, by the hour which served for speaking with Luscinda. I arrived unobserved, and left the mule on which I had come at the house of the worthy man who had brought me the letter, and fortune was pleased to be for once so kind that I found Luscinda at the grating that was the witness of our loves. She recognised me at once, and I her, but not as she ought to have recognised me, or I her. But who is there in the world that can boast of having fathomed or understood the wavering mind and unstable nature of a woman? Of a truth no one. To proceed as soon as Luscinda saw me she said, 'Cardenio, I am in my bridal dress, and the treacherous Don Fernando and my covetous father are waiting for me in the hall with the other witnesses, who shall be the witnesses of my death before they witness my betrothal. Be not distressed, my friend, but contrive to be present at this sacrifice, and if that cannot be prevented by my words, I have a dagger concealed which will prevent more deliberate violence, putting an end to my life and giving thee a first proof of the love I have borne and bear thee.' I replied to her distractedly and hastily, in fear lest I should not have time to reply, 'May thy words be verified by thy deeds, lady and if thou hast a dagger to save thy honour, I have a sword to defend thee or kill myself if fortune be against us.' 'I think she could not have heard all these words, for I perceived that they called her away in haste, as the bridegroom was waiting. Now the night of my sorrow set in, the sun of my happiness went down, I felt my eyes bereft of sight, my mind of reason. I could not enter the house, nor was I capable of any movement but reflecting how important it was that I should be present at what might take place on the occasion, I nerved myself as best I could and went in, for I well knew all the entrances and outlets and besides, with the confusion that in secret pervaded the house no one took notice of me, so, without being seen, I found an opportunity of placing myself in the recess formed by a window of the hall itself, and concealed by the ends and borders of two tapestries, from between which I could, without being seen, see all that took place in the room. Who could describe the agitation of heart I suffered as I stood therethe thoughts that came to methe reflections that passed through my mind? They were such as cannot be, nor were it well they should be, told. Suffice it to say that the bridegroom entered the hall in his usual dress, without ornament of any kind as groomsman he had with him a cousin of Luscinda's and except the servants of the house there was no one else in the chamber. Soon afterwards Luscinda came out from an antechamber, attended by her mother and two of her damsels, arrayed and adorned as became her rank and beauty, and in full festival and ceremonial attire. My anxiety and distraction did not allow me to observe or notice particularly what she wore I could only perceive the colours, which were crimson and white, and the glitter of the gems and jewels on her head dress and apparel, surpassed by the rare beauty of her lovely auburn hair that vying with the precious stones and the light of the four torches that stood in the hall shone with a brighter gleam than all. Oh memory, mortal foe of my peace! why bring before me now the incomparable beauty of that adored enemy of mine? Were it not better, cruel memory, to remind me and recall what she then did, that stirred by a wrong so glaring I may seek, if not vengeance now, at least to rid myself of life? Be not weary, sirs, of listening to these digressions my sorrow is not one of those that can or should be told tersely and briefly, for to me each incident seems to call for many words. To this the curate replied that not only were they not weary of listening to him, but that the details he mentioned interested them greatly, being of a kind by no means to be omitted and deserving of the same attention as the main story. 'To proceed, then, continued Cardenio 'all being assembled in the hall, the priest of the parish came in and as he took the pair by the hand to perform the requisite ceremony, at the words, 'Will you, Seora Luscinda, take Seor Don Fernando, here present, for your lawful husband, as the holy Mother Church ordains?' I thrust my head and neck out from between the tapestries, and with eager ears and throbbing heart set myself to listen to Luscinda's answer, awaiting in her reply the sentence of death or the grant of life. Oh, that I had but dared at that moment to rush forward crying aloud, 'Luscinda, Luscinda! have a care what thou dost remember what thou owest me bethink thee thou art mine and canst not be another's reflect that thy utterance of 'Yes and the end of my life will come at the same instant. O, treacherous Don Fernando! robber of my glory, death of my life! What seekest thou? Remember that thou canst not as a Christian attain the object of thy wishes, for Luscinda is my bride, and I am her husband!' Fool that I am! now that I am far away, and out of danger, I say I should have done what I did not do now that I have allowed my precious treasure to be robbed from me, I curse the robber, on whom I might have taken vengeance had I as much heart for it as I have for bewailing my fate in short, as I was then a coward and a fool, little wonder is it if I am now dying shamestricken, remorseful, and mad. 'The priest stood waiting for the answer of Luscinda, who for a long time withheld it and just as I thought she was taking out the dagger to save her honour, or struggling for words to make some declaration of the truth on my behalf, I heard her say in a faint and feeble voice, 'I will' Don Fernando said the same, and giving her the ring they stood linked by a knot that could never be loosed. The bridegroom then approached to embrace his bride and she, pressing her hand upon her heart, fell fainting in her mother's arms. It only remains now for me to tell you the state I was in when in that consent that I heard I saw all my hopes mocked, the words and promises of Luscinda proved falsehoods, and the recovery of the prize I had that instant lost rendered impossible for ever. I stood stupefied, wholly abandoned, it seemed, by Heaven, declared the enemy of the earth that bore me, the air refusing me breath for my sighs, the water moisture for my tears it was only the fire that gathered strength so that my whole frame glowed with rage and jealousy. They were all thrown into confusion by Luscinda's fainting, and as her mother was unlacing her to give her air a sealed paper was discovered in her bosom which Don Fernando seized at once and began to read by the light of one of the torches. As soon as he had read it he seated himself in a chair, leaning his cheek on his hand in the attitude of one deep in thought, without taking any part in the efforts that were being made to recover his bride from her fainting fit. 'Seeing all the household in confusion, I ventured to come out regardless whether I were seen or not, and determined, if I were, to do some frenzied deed that would prove to all the world the righteous indignation of my breast in the punishment of the treacherous Don Fernando, and even in that of the fickle fainting traitress. But my fate, doubtless reserving me for greater sorrows, if such there be, so ordered it that just then I had enough and to spare of that reason which has since been wanting to me and so, without seeking to take vengeance on my greatest enemies (which might have been easily taken, as all thought of me was so far from their minds), I resolved to take it upon myself, and on myself to inflict the pain they deserved, perhaps with even greater severity than I should have dealt out to them had I then slain them for sudden pain is soon over, but that which is protracted by tortures is ever slaying without ending life. In a word, I quitted the house and reached that of the man with whom I had left my mule I made him saddle it for me, mounted without bidding him farewell, and rode out of the city, like another Lot, not daring to turn my head to look back upon it and when I found myself alone in the open country, screened by the darkness of the night, and tempted by the stillness to give vent to my grief without apprehension or fear of being heard or seen, then I broke silence and lifted up my voice in maledictions upon Luscinda and Don Fernando, as if I could thus avenge the wrong they had done me. I called her cruel, ungrateful, false, thankless, but above all covetous, since the wealth of my enemy had blinded the eyes of her affection, and turned it from me to transfer it to one to whom fortune had been more generous and liberal. And yet, in the midst of this outburst of execration and upbraiding, I found excuses for her, saying it was no wonder that a young girl in the seclusion of her parents' house, trained and schooled to obey them always, should have been ready to yield to their wishes when they offered her for a husband a gentleman of such distinction, wealth, and noble birth, that if she had refused to accept him she would have been thought out of her senses, or to have set her affection elsewhere, a suspicion injurious to her fair name and fame. But then again, I said, had she declared I was her husband, they would have seen that in choosing me she had not chosen so ill but that they might excuse her, for before Don Fernando had made his offer, they themselves could not have desired, if their desires had been ruled by reason, a more eligible husband for their daughter than I was and she, before taking the last fatal step of giving her hand, might easily have said that I had already given her mine, for I should have come forward to support any assertion of hers to that effect. In short, I came to the conclusion that feeble love, little reflection, great ambition, and a craving for rank, had made her forget the words with which she had deceived me, encouraged and supported by my firm hopes and honourable passion. 'Thus soliloquising and agitated, I journeyed onward for the remainder of the night, and by daybreak I reached one of the passes of these mountains, among which I wandered for three days more without taking any path or road, until I came to some meadows lying on I know not which side of the mountains, and there I inquired of some herdsmen in what direction the most rugged part of the range lay. They told me that it was in this quarter, and I at once directed my course hither, intending to end my life here but as I was making my way among these crags, my mule dropped dead through fatigue and hunger, or, as I think more likely, in order to have done with such a worthless burden as it bore in me. I was left on foot, worn out, famishing, without anyone to help me or any thought of seeking help and so thus I lay stretched on the ground, how long I know not, after which I rose up free from hunger, and found beside me some goatherds, who no doubt were the persons who had relieved me in my need, for they told me how they had found me, and how I had been uttering ravings that showed plainly I had lost my reason and since then I am conscious that I am not always in full possession of it, but at times so deranged and crazed that I do a thousand mad things, tearing my clothes, crying aloud in these solitudes, cursing my fate, and idly calling on the dear name of her who is my enemy, and only seeking to end my life in lamentation and when I recover my senses I find myself so exhausted and weary that I can scarcely move. Most commonly my dwelling is the hollow of a cork tree large enough to shelter this miserable body the herdsmen and goatherds who frequent these mountains, moved by compassion, furnish me with food, leaving it by the wayside or on the rocks, where they think I may perhaps pass and find it and so, even though I may be then out of my senses, the wants of nature teach me what is required to sustain me, and make me crave it and eager to take it. At other times, so they tell me when they find me in a rational mood, I sally out upon the road, and though they would gladly give it me, I snatch food by force from the shepherds bringing it from the village to their huts. Thus do pass the wretched life that remains to me, until it be Heaven's will to bring it to a close, or so to order my memory that I no longer recollect the beauty and treachery of Luscinda, or the wrong done me by Don Fernando for if it will do this without depriving me of life, I will turn my thoughts into some better channel if not, I can only implore it to have full mercy on my soul, for in myself I feel no power or strength to release my body from this strait in which I have of my own accord chosen to place it. 'Such, sirs, is the dismal story of my misfortune say if it be one that can be told with less emotion than you have seen in me and do not trouble yourselves with urging or pressing upon me what reason suggests as likely to serve for my relief, for it will avail me as much as the medicine prescribed by a wise physician avails the sick man who will not take it. I have no wish for health without Luscinda and since it is her pleasure to be another's, when she is or should be mine, let it be mine to be a prey to misery when I might have enjoyed happiness. She by her fickleness strove to make my ruin irretrievable I will strive to gratify her wishes by seeking destruction and it will show generations to come that I alone was deprived of that of which all others in misfortune have a superabundance, for to them the impossibility of being consoled is itself a consolation, while to me it is the cause of greater sorrows and sufferings, for I think that even in death there will not be an end of them. Here Cardenio brought to a close his long discourse and story, as full of misfortune as it was of love but just as the curate was going to address some words of comfort to him, he was stopped by a voice that reached his ear, saying in melancholy tones what will be told in the Fourth Part of this narrative for at this point the sage and sagacious historian, Cid Hamete Benengeli, brought the Third to a conclusion. Happy and fortunate were the times when that most daring knight Don Quixote of La Mancha was sent into the world for by reason of his having formed a resolution so honourable as that of seeking to revive and restore to the world the longlost and almost defunct order of knighterrantry, we now enjoy in this age of ours, so poor in light entertainment, not only the charm of his veracious history, but also of the tales and episodes contained in it which are, in a measure, no less pleasing, ingenious, and truthful, than the history itself which, resuming its thread, carded, spun, and wound, relates that just as the curate was going to offer consolation to Cardenio, he was interrupted by a voice that fell upon his ear saying in plaintive tones 'O God! is it possible I have found a place that may serve as a secret grave for the weary load of this body that I support so unwillingly? If the solitude these mountains promise deceives me not, it is so ah! woe is me! how much more grateful to my mind will be the society of these rocks and brakes that permit me to complain of my misfortune to Heaven, than that of any human being, for there is none on earth to look to for counsel in doubt, comfort in sorrow, or relief in distress! All this was heard distinctly by the curate and those with him, and as it seemed to them to be uttered close by, as indeed it was, they got up to look for the speaker, and before they had gone twenty paces they discovered behind a rock, seated at the foot of an ash tree, a youth in the dress of a peasant, whose face they were unable at the moment to see as he was leaning forward, bathing his feet in the brook that flowed past. They approached so silently that he did not perceive them, being fully occupied in bathing his feet, which were so fair that they looked like two pieces of shining crystal brought forth among the other stones of the brook. The whiteness and beauty of these feet struck them with surprise, for they did not seem to have been made to crush clods or to follow the plough and the oxen as their owner's dress suggested and so, finding they had not been noticed, the curate, who was in front, made a sign to the other two to conceal themselves behind some fragments of rock that lay there which they did, observing closely what the youth was about. He had on a loose doubleskirted dark brown jacket bound tight to his body with a white cloth he wore besides breeches and gaiters of brown cloth, and on his head a brown montera and he had the gaiters turned up as far as the middle of the leg, which verily seemed to be of pure alabaster. As soon as he had done bathing his beautiful feet, he wiped them with a towel he took from under the montera, on taking off which he raised his face, and those who were watching him had an opportunity of seeing a beauty so exquisite that Cardenio said to the curate in a whisper 'As this is not Luscinda, it is no human creature but a divine being. The youth then took off the montera, and shaking his head from side to side there broke loose and spread out a mass of hair that the beams of the sun might have envied by this they knew that what had seemed a peasant was a lovely woman, nay the most beautiful the eyes of two of them had ever beheld, or even Cardenio's if they had not seen and known Luscinda, for he afterwards declared that only the beauty of Luscinda could compare with this. The long auburn tresses not only covered her shoulders, but such was their length and abundance, concealed her all round beneath their masses, so that except the feet nothing of her form was visible. She now used her hands as a comb, and if her feet had seemed like bits of crystal in the water, her hands looked like pieces of driven snow among her locks all which increased not only the admiration of the three beholders, but their anxiety to learn who she was. With this object they resolved to show themselves, and at the stir they made in getting upon their feet the fair damsel raised her head, and parting her hair from before her eyes with both hands, she looked to see who had made the noise, and the instant she perceived them she started to her feet, and without waiting to put on her shoes or gather up her hair, hastily snatched up a bundle as though of clothes that she had beside her, and, scared and alarmed, endeavoured to take flight but before she had gone six paces she fell to the ground, her delicate feet being unable to bear the roughness of the stones seeing which, the three hastened towards her, and the curate addressing her first said 'Stay, seora, whoever you may be, for those whom you see here only desire to be of service to you you have no need to attempt a flight so heedless, for neither can your feet bear it, nor we allow it. Taken by surprise and bewildered, she made no reply to these words. They, however, came towards her, and the curate taking her hand went on to say 'What your dress would hide, seora, is made known to us by your hair a clear proof that it can be no trifling cause that has disguised your beauty in a garb so unworthy of it, and sent it into solitudes like these where we have had the good fortune to find you, if not to relieve your distress, at least to offer you comfort for no distress, so long as life lasts, can be so oppressive or reach such a height as to make the sufferer refuse to listen to comfort offered with good intention. And so, seora, or seor, or whatever you prefer to be, dismiss the fears that our appearance has caused you and make us acquainted with your good or evil fortunes, for from all of us together, or from each one of us, you will receive sympathy in your trouble. While the curate was speaking, the disguised damsel stood as if spellbound, looking at them without opening her lips or uttering a word, just like a village rustic to whom something strange that he has never seen before has been suddenly shown but on the curate addressing some further words to the same effect to her, sighing deeply she broke silence and said 'Since the solitude of these mountains has been unable to conceal me, and the escape of my dishevelled tresses will not allow my tongue to deal in falsehoods, it would be idle for me now to make any further pretence of what, if you were to believe me, you would believe more out of courtesy than for any other reason. This being so, I say I thank you, sirs, for the offer you have made me, which places me under the obligation of complying with the request you have made of me though I fear the account I shall give you of my misfortunes will excite in you as much concern as compassion, for you will be unable to suggest anything to remedy them or any consolation to alleviate them. However, that my honour may not be left a matter of doubt in your minds, now that you have discovered me to be a woman, and see that I am young, alone, and in this dress, things that taken together or separately would be enough to destroy any good name, I feel bound to tell what I would willingly keep secret if I could. All this she who was now seen to be a lovely woman delivered without any hesitation, with so much ease and in so sweet a voice that they were not less charmed by her intelligence than by her beauty, and as they again repeated their offers and entreaties to her to fulfil her promise, she without further pressing, first modestly covering her feet and gathering up her hair, seated herself on a stone with the three placed around her, and, after an effort to restrain some tears that came to her eyes, in a clear and steady voice began her story thus 'In this Andalusia there is a town from which a duke takes a title which makes him one of those that are called Grandees of Spain. This nobleman has two sons, the elder heir to his dignity and apparently to his good qualities the younger heir to I know not what, unless it be the treachery of Vellido and the falsehood of Ganelon. My parents are this lord's vassals, lowly in origin, but so wealthy that if birth had conferred as much on them as fortune, they would have had nothing left to desire, nor should I have had reason to fear trouble like that in which I find myself now for it may be that my ill fortune came of theirs in not having been nobly born. It is true they are not so low that they have any reason to be ashamed of their condition, but neither are they so high as to remove from my mind the impression that my mishap comes of their humble birth. They are, in short, peasants, plain homely people, without any taint of disreputable blood, and, as the saying is, old rusty Christians, but so rich that by their wealth and freehanded way of life they are coming by degrees to be considered gentlefolk by birth, and even by position though the wealth and nobility they thought most of was having me for their daughter and as they have no other child to make their heir, and are affectionate parents, I was one of the most indulged daughters that ever parents indulged. 'I was the mirror in which they beheld themselves, the staff of their old age, and the object in which, with submission to Heaven, all their wishes centred, and mine were in accordance with theirs, for I knew their worth and as I was mistress of their hearts, so was I also of their possessions. Through me they engaged or dismissed their servants through my hands passed the accounts and returns of what was sown and reaped the oilmills, the winepresses, the count of the flocks and herds, the beehives, all in short that a rich farmer like my father has or can have, I had under my care, and I acted as steward and mistress with an assiduity on my part and satisfaction on theirs that I cannot well describe to you. The leisure hours left to me after I had given the requisite orders to the headshepherds, overseers, and other labourers, I passed in such employments as are not only allowable but necessary for young girls, those that the needle, embroidery cushion, and spinning wheel usually afford, and if to refresh my mind I quitted them for a while, I found recreation in reading some devotional book or playing the harp, for experience taught me that music soothes the troubled mind and relieves weariness of spirit. Such was the life I led in my parents' house and if I have depicted it thus minutely, it is not out of ostentation, or to let you know that I am rich, but that you may see how, without any fault of mine, I have fallen from the happy condition I have described, to the misery I am in at present. The truth is, that while I was leading this busy life, in a retirement that might compare with that of a monastery, and unseen as I thought by any except the servants of the house (for when I went to Mass it was so early in the morning, and I was so closely attended by my mother and the women of the household, and so thickly veiled and so shy, that my eyes scarcely saw more ground than I trod on), in spite of all this, the eyes of love, or idleness, more properly speaking, that the lynx's cannot rival, discovered me, with the help of the assiduity of Don Fernando for that is the name of the younger son of the duke I told of. The moment the speaker mentioned the name of Don Fernando, Cardenio changed colour and broke into a sweat, with such signs of emotion that the curate and the barber, who observed it, feared that one of the mad fits which they heard attacked him sometimes was coming upon him but Cardenio showed no further agitation and remained quiet, regarding the peasant girl with fixed attention, for he began to suspect who she was. She, however, without noticing the excitement of Cardenio, continuing her story, went on to say 'And they had hardly discovered me, when, as he owned afterwards, he was smitten with a violent love for me, as the manner in which it displayed itself plainly showed. But to shorten the long recital of my woes, I will pass over in silence all the artifices employed by Don Fernando for declaring his passion for me. He bribed all the household, he gave and offered gifts and presents to my parents every day was like a holiday or a merrymaking in our street by night no one could sleep for the music the love letters that used to come to my hand, no one knew how, were innumerable, full of tender pleadings and pledges, containing more promises and oaths than there were letters in them all which not only did not soften me, but hardened my heart against him, as if he had been my mortal enemy, and as if everything he did to make me yield were done with the opposite intention. Not that the highbred bearing of Don Fernando was disagreeable to me, or that I found his importunities wearisome for it gave me a certain sort of satisfaction to find myself so sought and prized by a gentleman of such distinction, and I was not displeased at seeing my praises in his letters (for however ugly we women may be, it seems to me it always pleases us to hear ourselves called beautiful) but that my own sense of right was opposed to all this, as well as the repeated advice of my parents, who now very plainly perceived Don Fernando's purpose, for he cared very little if all the world knew it. They told me they trusted and confided their honour and good name to my virtue and rectitude alone, and bade me consider the disparity between Don Fernando and myself, from which I might conclude that his intentions, whatever he might say to the contrary, had for their aim his own pleasure rather than my advantage and if I were at all desirous of opposing an obstacle to his unreasonable suit, they were ready, they said, to marry me at once to anyone I preferred, either among the leading people of our own town, or of any of those in the neighbourhood for with their wealth and my good name, a match might be looked for in any quarter. This offer, and their sound advice strengthened my resolution, and I never gave Don Fernando a word in reply that could hold out to him any hope of success, however remote. 'All this caution of mine, which he must have taken for coyness, had apparently the effect of increasing his wanton appetitefor that is the name I give to his passion for me had it been what he declared it to be, you would not know of it now, because there would have been no occasion to tell you of it. At length he learned that my parents were contemplating marriage for me in order to put an end to his hopes of obtaining possession of me, or at least to secure additional protectors to watch over me, and this intelligence or suspicion made him act as you shall hear. One night, as I was in my chamber with no other companion than a damsel who waited on me, with the doors carefully locked lest my honour should be imperilled through any carelessness, I know not nor can conceive how it happened, but, with all this seclusion and these precautions, and in the solitude and silence of my retirement, I found him standing before me, a vision that so astounded me that it deprived my eyes of sight, and my tongue of speech. I had no power to utter a cry, nor, I think, did he give me time to utter one, as he immediately approached me, and taking me in his arms (for, overwhelmed as I was, I was powerless, I say, to help myself), he began to make such professions to me that I know not how falsehood could have had the power of dressing them up to seem so like truth and the traitor contrived that his tears should vouch for his words, and his sighs for his sincerity. 'I, a poor young creature alone, ill versed among my people in cases such as this, began, I know not how, to think all these lying protestations true, though without being moved by his sighs and tears to anything more than pure compassion and so, as the first feeling of bewilderment passed away, and I began in some degree to recover myself, I said to him with more courage than I thought I could have possessed, 'If, as I am now in your arms, seor, I were in the claws of a fierce lion, and my deliverance could be procured by doing or saying anything to the prejudice of my honour, it would no more be in my power to do it or say it, than it would be possible that what was should not have been so then, if you hold my body clasped in your arms, I hold my soul secured by virtuous intentions, very different from yours, as you will see if you attempt to carry them into effect by force. I am your vassal, but I am not your slave your nobility neither has nor should have any right to dishonour or degrade my humble birth and lowborn peasant as I am, I have my selfrespect as much as you, a lord and gentleman with me your violence will be to no purpose, your wealth will have no weight, your words will have no power to deceive me, nor your sighs or tears to soften me were I to see any of the things I speak of in him whom my parents gave me as a husband, his will should be mine, and mine should be bounded by his and my honour being preserved even though my inclinations were not would willingly yield him what you, seor, would now obtain by force and this I say lest you should suppose that any but my lawful husband shall ever win anything of me.' 'If that,' said this disloyal gentleman, 'be the only scruple you feel, fairest Dorothea' (for that is the name of this unhappy being), 'see here I give you my hand to be yours, and let Heaven, from which nothing is hid, and this image of Our Lady you have here, be witnesses of this pledge.' When Cardenio heard her say she was called Dorothea, he showed fresh agitation and felt convinced of the truth of his former suspicion, but he was unwilling to interrupt the story, and wished to hear the end of what he already all but knew, so he merely said 'What! is Dorothea your name, seora? I have heard of another of the same name who can perhaps match your misfortunes. But proceed byandby I may tell you something that will astonish you as much as it will excite your compassion. Dorothea was struck by Cardenio's words as well as by his strange and miserable attire, and begged him if he knew anything concerning her to tell it to her at once, for if fortune had left her any blessing it was courage to bear whatever calamity might fall upon her, as she felt sure that none could reach her capable of increasing in any degree what she endured already. 'I would not let the occasion pass, seora, replied Cardenio, 'of telling you what I think, if what I suspect were the truth, but so far there has been no opportunity, nor is it of any importance to you to know it. 'Be it as it may, replied Dorothea, 'what happened in my story was that Don Fernando, taking an image that stood in the chamber, placed it as a witness of our betrothal, and with the most binding words and extravagant oaths gave me his promise to become my husband though before he had made an end of pledging himself I bade him consider well what he was doing, and think of the anger his father would feel at seeing him married to a peasant girl and one of his vassals I told him not to let my beauty, such as it was, blind him, for that was not enough to furnish an excuse for his transgression and if in the love he bore me he wished to do me any kindness, it would be to leave my lot to follow its course at the level my condition required for marriages so unequal never brought happiness, nor did they continue long to afford the enjoyment they began with. 'All this that I have now repeated I said to him, and much more which I cannot recollect but it had no effect in inducing him to forego his purpose he who has no intention of paying does not trouble himself about difficulties when he is striking the bargain. At the same time I argued the matter briefly in my own mind, saying to myself, 'I shall not be the first who has risen through marriage from a lowly to a lofty station, nor will Don Fernando be the first whom beauty or, as is more likely, a blind attachment, has led to mate himself below his rank. Then, since I am introducing no new usage or practice, I may as well avail myself of the honour that chance offers me, for even though his inclination for me should not outlast the attainment of his wishes, I shall be, after all, his wife before God. And if I strive to repel him by scorn, I can see that, fair means failing, he is in a mood to use force, and I shall be left dishonoured and without any means of proving my innocence to those who cannot know how innocently I have come to be in this position for what arguments would persuade my parents that this gentleman entered my chamber without my consent?' 'All these questions and answers passed through my mind in a moment but the oaths of Don Fernando, the witnesses he appealed to, the tears he shed, and lastly the charms of his person and his highbred grace, which, accompanied by such signs of genuine love, might well have conquered a heart even more free and coy than minethese were the things that more than all began to influence me and lead me unawares to my ruin. I called my waitingmaid to me, that there might be a witness on earth besides those in Heaven, and again Don Fernando renewed and repeated his oaths, invoked as witnesses fresh saints in addition to the former ones, called down upon himself a thousand curses hereafter should he fail to keep his promise, shed more tears, redoubled his sighs and pressed me closer in his arms, from which he had never allowed me to escape and so I was left by my maid, and ceased to be one, and he became a traitor and a perjured man. 'The day which followed the night of my misfortune did not come so quickly, I imagine, as Don Fernando wished, for when desire has attained its object, the greatest pleasure is to fly from the scene of pleasure. I say so because Don Fernando made all haste to leave me, and by the adroitness of my maid, who was indeed the one who had admitted him, gained the street before daybreak but on taking leave of me he told me, though not with as much earnestness and fervour as when he came, that I might rest assured of his faith and of the sanctity and sincerity of his oaths and to confirm his words he drew a rich ring off his finger and placed it upon mine. He then took his departure and I was left, I know not whether sorrowful or happy all I can say is, I was left agitated and troubled in mind and almost bewildered by what had taken place, and I had not the spirit, or else it did not occur to me, to chide my maid for the treachery she had been guilty of in concealing Don Fernando in my chamber for as yet I was unable to make up my mind whether what had befallen me was for good or evil. I told Don Fernando at parting, that as I was now his, he might see me on other nights in the same way, until it should be his pleasure to let the matter become known but, except the following night, he came no more, nor for more than a month could I catch a glimpse of him in the street or in church, while I wearied myself with watching for one although I knew he was in the town, and almost every day went out hunting, a pastime he was very fond of. I remember well how sad and dreary those days and hours were to me I remember well how I began to doubt as they went by, and even to lose confidence in the faith of Don Fernando and I remember, too, how my maid heard those words in reproof of her audacity that she had not heard before, and how I was forced to put a constraint on my tears and on the expression of my countenance, not to give my parents cause to ask me why I was so melancholy, and drive me to invent falsehoods in reply. But all this was suddenly brought to an end, for the time came when all such considerations were disregarded, and there was no further question of honour, when my patience gave way and the secret of my heart became known abroad. The reason was, that a few days later it was reported in the town that Don Fernando had been married in a neighbouring city to a maiden of rare beauty, the daughter of parents of distinguished position, though not so rich that her portion would entitle her to look for so brilliant a match it was said, too, that her name was Luscinda, and that at the betrothal some strange things had happened. Cardenio heard the name of Luscinda, but he only shrugged his shoulders, bit his lips, bent his brows, and before long two streams of tears escaped from his eyes. Dorothea, however, did not interrupt her story, but went on in these words 'This sad intelligence reached my ears, and, instead of being struck with a chill, with such wrath and fury did my heart burn that I scarcely restrained myself from rushing out into the streets, crying aloud and proclaiming openly the perfidy and treachery of which I was the victim but this transport of rage was for the time checked by a resolution I formed, to be carried out the same night, and that was to assume this dress, which I got from a servant of my father's, one of the zagals, as they are called in farmhouses, to whom I confided the whole of my misfortune, and whom I entreated to accompany me to the city where I heard my enemy was. He, though he remonstrated with me for my boldness, and condemned my resolution, when he saw me bent upon my purpose, offered to bear me company, as he said, to the end of the world. I at once packed up in a linen pillowcase a woman's dress, and some jewels and money to provide for emergencies, and in the silence of the night, without letting my treacherous maid know, I sallied forth from the house, accompanied by my servant and abundant anxieties, and on foot set out for the city, but borne as it were on wings by my eagerness to reach it, if not to prevent what I presumed to be already done, at least to call upon Don Fernando to tell me with what conscience he had done it. I reached my destination in two days and a half, and on entering the city inquired for the house of Luscinda's parents. The first person I asked gave me more in reply than I sought to know he showed me the house, and told me all that had occurred at the betrothal of the daughter of the family, an affair of such notoriety in the city that it was the talk of every knot of idlers in the street. He said that on the night of Don Fernando's betrothal with Luscinda, as soon as she had consented to be his bride by saying 'Yes,' she was taken with a sudden fainting fit, and that on the bridegroom approaching to unlace the bosom of her dress to give her air, he found a paper in her own handwriting, in which she said and declared that she could not be Don Fernando's bride, because she was already Cardenio's, who, according to the man's account, was a gentleman of distinction of the same city and that if she had accepted Don Fernando, it was only in obedience to her parents. In short, he said, the words of the paper made it clear she meant to kill herself on the completion of the betrothal, and gave her reasons for putting an end to herself all which was confirmed, it was said, by a dagger they found somewhere in her clothes. On seeing this, Don Fernando, persuaded that Luscinda had befooled, slighted, and trifled with him, assailed her before she had recovered from her swoon, and tried to stab her with the dagger that had been found, and would have succeeded had not her parents and those who were present prevented him. It was said, moreover, that Don Fernando went away at once, and that Luscinda did not recover from her prostration until the next day, when she told her parents how she was really the bride of that Cardenio I have mentioned. I learned besides that Cardenio, according to report, had been present at the betrothal and that upon seeing her betrothed contrary to his expectation, he had quitted the city in despair, leaving behind him a letter declaring the wrong Luscinda had done him, and his intention of going where no one should ever see him again. All this was a matter of notoriety in the city, and everyone spoke of it especially when it became known that Luscinda was missing from her father's house and from the city, for she was not to be found anywhere, to the distraction of her parents, who knew not what steps to take to recover her. What I learned revived my hopes, and I was better pleased not to have found Don Fernando than to find him married, for it seemed to me that the door was not yet entirely shut upon relief in my case, and I thought that perhaps Heaven had put this impediment in the way of the second marriage, to lead him to recognise his obligations under the former one, and reflect that as a Christian he was bound to consider his soul above all human objects. All this passed through my mind, and I strove to comfort myself without comfort, indulging in faint and distant hopes of cherishing that life that I now abhor. 'But while I was in the city, uncertain what to do, as I could not find Don Fernando, I heard notice given by the public crier offering a great reward to anyone who should find me, and giving the particulars of my age and of the very dress I wore and I heard it said that the lad who came with me had taken me away from my father's house a thing that cut me to the heart, showing how low my good name had fallen, since it was not enough that I should lose it by my flight, but they must add with whom I had fled, and that one so much beneath me and so unworthy of my consideration. The instant I heard the notice I quitted the city with my servant, who now began to show signs of wavering in his fidelity to me, and the same night, for fear of discovery, we entered the most thickly wooded part of these mountains. But, as is commonly said, one evil calls up another and the end of one misfortune is apt to be the beginning of one still greater, and so it proved in my case for my worthy servant, until then so faithful and trusty when he found me in this lonely spot, moved more by his own villainy than by my beauty, sought to take advantage of the opportunity which these solitudes seemed to present him, and with little shame and less fear of God and respect for me, began to make overtures to me and finding that I replied to the effrontery of his proposals with justly severe language, he laid aside the entreaties which he had employed at first, and began to use violence. 'But just Heaven, that seldom fails to watch over and aid good intentions, so aided mine that with my slight strength and with little exertion I pushed him over a precipice, where I left him, whether dead or alive I know not and then, with greater speed than seemed possible in my terror and fatigue, I made my way into the mountains, without any other thought or purpose save that of hiding myself among them, and escaping my father and those despatched in search of me by his orders. It is now I know not how many months since with this object I came here, where I met a herdsman who engaged me as his servant at a place in the heart of this Sierra, and all this time I have been serving him as herd, striving to keep always afield to hide these locks which have now unexpectedly betrayed me. But all my care and pains were unavailing, for my master made the discovery that I was not a man, and harboured the same base designs as my servant and as fortune does not always supply a remedy in cases of difficulty, and I had no precipice or ravine at hand down which to fling the master and cure his passion, as I had in the servant's case, I thought it a lesser evil to leave him and again conceal myself among these crags, than make trial of my strength and argument with him. So, as I say, once more I went into hiding to seek for some place where I might with sighs and tears implore Heaven to have pity on my misery, and grant me help and strength to escape from it, or let me die among the solitudes, leaving no trace of an unhappy being who, by no fault of hers, has furnished matter for talk and scandal at home and abroad. 'Such, sirs, is the true story of my sad adventures judge for yourselves now whether the sighs and lamentations you heard, and the tears that flowed from my eyes, had not sufficient cause even if I had indulged in them more freely and if you consider the nature of my misfortune you will see that consolation is idle, as there is no possible remedy for it. All I ask of you is, what you may easily and reasonably do, to show me where I may pass my life unharassed by the fear and dread of discovery by those who are in search of me for though the great love my parents bear me makes me feel sure of being kindly received by them, so great is my feeling of shame at the mere thought that I cannot present myself before them as they expect, that I had rather banish myself from their sight for ever than look them in the face with the reflection that they beheld mine stripped of that purity they had a right to expect in me. With these words she became silent, and the colour that overspread her face showed plainly the pain and shame she was suffering at heart. In theirs the listeners felt as much pity as wonder at her misfortunes but as the curate was just about to offer her some consolation and advice Cardenio forestalled him, saying, 'So then, seora, you are the fair Dorothea, the only daughter of the rich Clenardo? Dorothea was astonished at hearing her father's name, and at the miserable appearance of him who mentioned it, for it has been already said how wretchedly clad Cardenio was so she said to him 'And who may you be, brother, who seem to know my father's name so well? For so far, if I remember rightly, I have not mentioned it in the whole story of my misfortunes. 'I am that unhappy being, seora, replied Cardenio, 'whom, as you have said, Luscinda declared to be her husband I am the unfortunate Cardenio, whom the wrongdoing of him who has brought you to your present condition has reduced to the state you see me in, bare, ragged, bereft of all human comfort, and what is worse, of reason, for I only possess it when Heaven is pleased for some short space to restore it to me. I, Dorothea, am he who witnessed the wrong done by Don Fernando, and waited to hear the 'Yes' uttered by which Luscinda owned herself his betrothed I am he who had not courage enough to see how her fainting fit ended, or what came of the paper that was found in her bosom, because my heart had not the fortitude to endure so many strokes of illfortune at once and so losing patience I quitted the house, and leaving a letter with my host, which I entreated him to place in Luscinda's hands, I betook myself to these solitudes, resolved to end here the life I hated as if it were my mortal enemy. But fate would not rid me of it, contenting itself with robbing me of my reason, perhaps to preserve me for the good fortune I have had in meeting you for if that which you have just told us be true, as I believe it to be, it may be that Heaven has yet in store for both of us a happier termination to our misfortunes than we look for because seeing that Luscinda cannot marry Don Fernando, being mine, as she has herself so openly declared, and that Don Fernando cannot marry her as he is yours, we may reasonably hope that Heaven will restore to us what is ours, as it is still in existence and not yet alienated or destroyed. And as we have this consolation springing from no very visionary hope or wild fancy, I entreat you, seora, to form new resolutions in your better mind, as I mean to do in mine, preparing yourself to look forward to happier fortunes for I swear to you by the faith of a gentleman and a Christian not to desert you until I see you in possession of Don Fernando, and if I cannot by words induce him to recognise his obligation to you, in that case to avail myself of the right which my rank as a gentleman gives me, and with just cause challenge him on account of the injury he has done you, not regarding my own wrongs, which I shall leave to Heaven to avenge, while I on earth devote myself to yours. Cardenio's words completed the astonishment of Dorothea, and not knowing how to return thanks for such an offer, she attempted to kiss his feet but Cardenio would not permit it, and the licentiate replied for both, commended the sound reasoning of Cardenio, and lastly, begged, advised, and urged them to come with him to his village, where they might furnish themselves with what they needed, and take measures to discover Don Fernando, or restore Dorothea to her parents, or do what seemed to them most advisable. Cardenio and Dorothea thanked him, and accepted the kind offer he made them and the barber, who had been listening to all attentively and in silence, on his part some kindly words also, and with no less goodwill than the curate offered his services in any way that might be of use to them. He also explained to them in a few words the object that had brought them there, and the strange nature of Don Quixote's madness, and how they were waiting for his squire, who had gone in search of him. Like the recollection of a dream, the quarrel he had had with Don Quixote came back to Cardenio's memory, and he described it to the others but he was unable to say what the dispute was about. At this moment they heard a shout, and recognised it as coming from Sancho Panza, who, not finding them where he had left them, was calling aloud to them. They went to meet him, and in answer to their inquiries about Don Quixote, he told them how he had found him stripped to his shirt, lank, yellow, half dead with hunger, and sighing for his lady Dulcinea and although he had told him that she commanded him to quit that place and come to El Toboso, where she was expecting him, he had answered that he was determined not to appear in the presence of her beauty until he had done deeds to make him worthy of her favour and if this went on, Sancho said, he ran the risk of not becoming an emperor as in duty bound, or even an archbishop, which was the least he could be for which reason they ought to consider what was to be done to get him away from there. The licentiate in reply told him not to be uneasy, for they would fetch him away in spite of himself. He then told Cardenio and Dorothea what they had proposed to do to cure Don Quixote, or at any rate take him home upon which Dorothea said that she could play the distressed damsel better than the barber especially as she had there the dress in which to do it to the life, and that they might trust to her acting the part in every particular requisite for carrying out their scheme, for she had read a great many books of chivalry, and knew exactly the style in which afflicted damsels begged boons of knightserrant. 'In that case, said the curate, 'there is nothing more required than to set about it at once, for beyond a doubt fortune is declaring itself in our favour, since it has so unexpectedly begun to open a door for your relief, and smoothed the way for us to our object. Dorothea then took out of her pillowcase a complete petticoat of some rich stuff, and a green mantle of some other fine material, and a necklace and other ornaments out of a little box, and with these in an instant she so arrayed herself that she looked like a great and rich lady. All this, and more, she said, she had taken from home in case of need, but that until then she had had no occasion to make use of it. They were all highly delighted with her grace, air, and beauty, and declared Don Fernando to be a man of very little taste when he rejected such charms. But the one who admired her most was Sancho Panza, for it seemed to him (what indeed was true) that in all the days of his life he had never seen such a lovely creature and he asked the curate with great eagerness who this beautiful lady was, and what she wanted in these outoftheway quarters. 'This fair lady, brother Sancho, replied the curate, 'is no less a personage than the heiress in the direct male line of the great kingdom of Micomicon, who has come in search of your master to beg a boon of him, which is that he redress a wrong or injury that a wicked giant has done her and from the fame as a good knight which your master has acquired far and wide, this princess has come from Guinea to seek him. 'A lucky seeking and a lucky finding! said Sancho Panza at this 'especially if my master has the good fortune to redress that injury, and right that wrong, and kill that son of a bitch of a giant your worship speaks of as kill him he will if he meets him, unless, indeed, he happens to be a phantom for my master has no power at all against phantoms. But one thing among others I would beg of you, seor licentiate, which is, that, to prevent my master taking a fancy to be an archbishop, for that is what I'm afraid of, your worship would recommend him to marry this princess at once for in this way he will be disabled from taking archbishop's orders, and will easily come into his empire, and I to the end of my desires I have been thinking over the matter carefully, and by what I can make out I find it will not do for me that my master should become an archbishop, because I am no good for the Church, as I am married and for me now, having as I have a wife and children, to set about obtaining dispensations to enable me to hold a place of profit under the Church, would be endless work so that, seor, it all turns on my master marrying this lady at oncefor as yet I do not know her grace, and so I cannot call her by her name. 'She is called the Princess Micomicona, said the curate 'for as her kingdom is Micomicon, it is clear that must be her name. 'There's no doubt of that, replied Sancho, 'for I have known many to take their name and title from the place where they were born and call themselves Pedro of Alcal, Juan of beda, and Diego of Valladolid and it may be that over there in Guinea queens have the same way of taking the names of their kingdoms. 'So it may, said the curate 'and as for your master's marrying, I will do all in my power towards it with which Sancho was as much pleased as the curate was amazed at his simplicity and at seeing what a hold the absurdities of his master had taken of his fancy, for he had evidently persuaded himself that he was going to be an emperor. By this time Dorothea had seated herself upon the curate's mule, and the barber had fitted the oxtail beard to his face, and they now told Sancho to conduct them to where Don Quixote was, warning him not to say that he knew either the licentiate or the barber, as his master's becoming an emperor entirely depended on his not recognising them neither the curate nor Cardenio, however, thought fit to go with them Cardenio lest he should remind Don Quixote of the quarrel he had with him, and the curate as there was no necessity for his presence just yet, so they allowed the others to go on before them, while they themselves followed slowly on foot. The curate did not forget to instruct Dorothea how to act, but she said they might make their minds easy, as everything would be done exactly as the books of chivalry required and described. They had gone about threequarters of a league when they discovered Don Quixote in a wilderness of rocks, by this time clothed, but without his armour and as soon as Dorothea saw him and was told by Sancho that that was Don Quixote, she whipped her palfrey, the wellbearded barber following her, and on coming up to him her squire sprang from his mule and came forward to receive her in his arms, and she dismounting with great ease of manner advanced to kneel before the feet of Don Quixote and though he strove to raise her up, she without rising addressed him in this fashion 'From this spot I will not rise, valiant and doughty knight, until your goodness and courtesy grant me a boon, which will redound to the honour and renown of your person and render a service to the most disconsolate and afflicted damsel the sun has seen and if the might of your strong arm corresponds to the repute of your immortal fame, you are bound to aid the helpless being who, led by the savour of your renowned name, hath come from far distant lands to seek your aid in her misfortunes. 'I will not answer a word, beauteous lady, replied Don Quixote, 'nor will I listen to anything further concerning you, until you rise from the earth. 'I will not rise, seor, answered the afflicted damsel, 'unless of your courtesy the boon I ask is first granted me. 'I grant and accord it, said Don Quixote, 'provided without detriment or prejudice to my king, my country, or her who holds the key of my heart and freedom, it may be complied with. 'It will not be to the detriment or prejudice of any of them, my worthy lord, said the afflicted damsel and here Sancho Panza drew close to his master's ear and said to him very softly, 'Your worship may very safely grant the boon she asks it's nothing at all only to kill a big giant and she who asks it is the exalted Princess Micomicona, queen of the great kingdom of Micomicon of Ethiopia. 'Let her be who she may, replied Don Quixote, 'I will do what is my bounden duty, and what my conscience bids me, in conformity with what I have professed and turning to the damsel he said, 'Let your great beauty rise, for I grant the boon which you would ask of me. 'Then what I ask, said the damsel, 'is that your magnanimous person accompany me at once whither I will conduct you, and that you promise not to engage in any other adventure or quest until you have avenged me of a traitor who against all human and divine law, has usurped my kingdom. 'I repeat that I grant it, replied Don Quixote 'and so, lady, you may from this day forth lay aside the melancholy that distresses you, and let your failing hopes gather new life and strength, for with the help of God and of my arm you will soon see yourself restored to your kingdom, and seated upon the throne of your ancient and mighty realm, notwithstanding and despite of the felons who would gainsay it and now hands to the work, for in delay there is apt to be danger. The distressed damsel strove with much pertinacity to kiss his hands but Don Quixote, who was in all things a polished and courteous knight, would by no means allow it, but made her rise and embraced her with great courtesy and politeness, and ordered Sancho to look to Rocinante's girths, and to arm him without a moment's delay. Sancho took down the armour, which was hung up on a tree like a trophy, and having seen to the girths armed his master in a trice, who as soon as he found himself in his armour exclaimed 'Let us be gone in the name of God to bring aid to this great lady. The barber was all this time on his knees at great pains to hide his laughter and not let his beard fall, for had it fallen maybe their fine scheme would have come to nothing but now seeing the boon granted, and the promptitude with which Don Quixote prepared to set out in compliance with it, he rose and took his lady's hand, and between them they placed her upon the mule. Don Quixote then mounted Rocinante, and the barber settled himself on his beast, Sancho being left to go on foot, which made him feel anew the loss of his Dapple, finding the want of him now. But he bore all with cheerfulness, being persuaded that his master had now fairly started and was just on the point of becoming an emperor for he felt no doubt at all that he would marry this princess, and be king of Micomicon at least. The only thing that troubled him was the reflection that this kingdom was in the land of the blacks, and that the people they would give him for vassals would be all black but for this he soon found a remedy in his fancy, and said he to himself, 'What is it to me if my vassals are blacks? What more have I to do than make a cargo of them and carry them to Spain, where I can sell them and get ready money for them, and with it buy some title or some office in which to live at ease all the days of my life? Not unless you go to sleep and haven't the wit or skill to turn things to account and sell three, six, or ten thousand vassals while you would be talking about it! By God I will stir them up, big and little, or as best I can, and let them be ever so black I'll turn them into white or yellow. Come, come, what a fool I am! And so he jogged on, so occupied with his thoughts and easy in his mind that he forgot all about the hardship of travelling on foot. Cardenio and the curate were watching all this from among some bushes, not knowing how to join company with the others but the curate, who was very fertile in devices, soon hit upon a way of effecting their purpose, and with a pair of scissors he had in a case he quickly cut off Cardenio's beard, and putting on him a grey jerkin of his own he gave him a black cloak, leaving himself in his breeches and doublet, while Cardenio's appearance was so different from what it had been that he would not have known himself had he seen himself in a mirror. Having effected this, although the others had gone on ahead while they were disguising themselves, they easily came out on the high road before them, for the brambles and awkward places they encountered did not allow those on horseback to go as fast as those on foot. They then posted themselves on the level ground at the outlet of the Sierra, and as soon as Don Quixote and his companions emerged from it the curate began to examine him very deliberately, as though he were striving to recognise him, and after having stared at him for some time he hastened towards him with open arms exclaiming, 'A happy meeting with the mirror of chivalry, my worthy compatriot Don Quixote of La Mancha, the flower and cream of high breeding, the protection and relief of the distressed, the quintessence of knightserrant! And so saying he clasped in his arms the knee of Don Quixote's left leg. He, astonished at the stranger's words and behaviour, looked at him attentively, and at length recognised him, very much surprised to see him there, and made great efforts to dismount. This, however, the curate would not allow, on which Don Quixote said, 'Permit me, seor licentiate, for it is not fitting that I should be on horseback and so reverend a person as your worship on foot. 'On no account will I allow it, said the curate 'your mightiness must remain on horseback, for it is on horseback you achieve the greatest deeds and adventures that have been beheld in our age as for me, an unworthy priest, it will serve me well enough to mount on the haunches of one of the mules of these gentlefolk who accompany your worship, if they have no objection, and I will fancy I am mounted on the steed Pegasus, or on the zebra or charger that bore the famous Moor, Muzaraque, who to this day lies enchanted in the great hill of Zulema, a little distance from the great Complutum. 'Nor even that will I consent to, seor licentiate, answered Don Quixote, 'and I know it will be the good pleasure of my lady the princess, out of love for me, to order her squire to give up the saddle of his mule to your worship, and he can sit behind if the beast will bear it. 'It will, I am sure, said the princess, 'and I am sure, too, that I need not order my squire, for he is too courteous and considerate to allow a Churchman to go on foot when he might be mounted. 'That he is, said the barber, and at once alighting, he offered his saddle to the curate, who accepted it without much entreaty but unfortunately as the barber was mounting behind, the mule, being as it happened a hired one, which is the same thing as saying illconditioned, lifted its hind hoofs and let fly a couple of kicks in the air, which would have made Master Nicholas wish his expedition in quest of Don Quixote at the devil had they caught him on the breast or head. As it was, they so took him by surprise that he came to the ground, giving so little heed to his beard that it fell off, and all he could do when he found himself without it was to cover his face hastily with both his hands and moan that his teeth were knocked out. Don Quixote when he saw all that bundle of beard detached, without jaws or blood, from the face of the fallen squire, exclaimed 'By the living God, but this is a great miracle! it has knocked off and plucked away the beard from his face as if it had been shaved off designedly. The curate, seeing the danger of discovery that threatened his scheme, at once pounced upon the beard and hastened with it to where Master Nicholas lay, still uttering moans, and drawing his head to his breast had it on in an instant, muttering over him some words which he said were a certain special charm for sticking on beards, as they would see and as soon as he had it fixed he left him, and the squire appeared well bearded and whole as before, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure astonished, and begged the curate to teach him that charm when he had an opportunity, as he was persuaded its virtue must extend beyond the sticking on of beards, for it was clear that where the beard had been stripped off the flesh must have remained torn and lacerated, and when it could heal all that it must be good for more than beards. 'And so it is, said the curate, and he promised to teach it to him on the first opportunity. They then agreed that for the present the curate should mount, and that the three should ride by turns until they reached the inn, which might be about six leagues from where they were. Three then being mounted, that is to say, Don Quixote, the princess, and the curate, and three on foot, Cardenio, the barber, and Sancho Panza, Don Quixote said to the damsel 'Let your highness, lady, lead on whithersoever is most pleasing to you but before she could answer the licentiate said 'Towards what kingdom would your ladyship direct our course? Is it perchance towards that of Micomicon? It must be, or else I know little about kingdoms. She, being ready on all points, understood that she was to answer 'Yes, so she said 'Yes, seor, my way lies towards that kingdom. 'In that case, said the curate, 'we must pass right through my village, and there your worship will take the road to Cartagena, where you will be able to embark, fortune favouring and if the wind be fair and the sea smooth and tranquil, in somewhat less than nine years you may come in sight of the great lake Meona, I mean Meotides, which is little more than a hundred days' journey this side of your highness's kingdom. 'Your worship is mistaken, seor, said she 'for it is not two years since I set out from it, and though I never had good weather, nevertheless I am here to behold what I so longed for, and that is my lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose fame came to my ears as soon as I set foot in Spain and impelled me to go in search of him, to commend myself to his courtesy, and entrust the justice of my cause to the might of his invincible arm. 'Enough no more praise, said Don Quixote at this, 'for I hate all flattery and though this may not be so, still language of the kind is offensive to my chaste ears. I will only say, seora, that whether it has might or not, that which it may or may not have shall be devoted to your service even to death and now, leaving this to its proper season, I would ask the seor licentiate to tell me what it is that has brought him into these parts, alone, unattended, and so lightly clad that I am filled with amazement. 'I will answer that briefly, replied the curate 'you must know then, Seor Don Quixote, that Master Nicholas, our friend and barber, and I were going to Seville to receive some money that a relative of mine who went to the Indies many years ago had sent me, and not such a small sum but that it was over sixty thousand pieces of eight, full weight, which is something and passing by this place yesterday we were attacked by four footpads, who stripped us even to our beards, and them they stripped off so that the barber found it necessary to put on a false one, and even this young man herepointing to Cardenio'they completely transformed. But the best of it is, the story goes in the neighbourhood that those who attacked us belong to a number of galley slaves who, they say, were set free almost on the very same spot by a man of such valour that, in spite of the commissary and of the guards, he released the whole of them and beyond all doubt he must have been out of his senses, or he must be as great a scoundrel as they, or some man without heart or conscience to let the wolf loose among the sheep, the fox among the hens, the fly among the honey. He has defrauded justice, and opposed his king and lawful master, for he opposed his just commands he has, I say, robbed the galleys of their feet, stirred up the Holy Brotherhood which for many years past has been quiet, and, lastly, has done a deed by which his soul may be lost without any gain to his body. Sancho had told the curate and the barber of the adventure of the galley slaves, which, so much to his glory, his master had achieved, and hence the curate in alluding to it made the most of it to see what would be said or done by Don Quixote who changed colour at every word, not daring to say that it was he who had been the liberator of those worthy people. 'These, then, said the curate, 'were they who robbed us and God in his mercy pardon him who would not let them go to the punishment they deserved. The curate had hardly ceased speaking, when Sancho said, 'In faith, then, seor licentiate, he who did that deed was my master and it was not for want of my telling him beforehand and warning him to mind what he was about, and that it was a sin to set them at liberty, as they were all on the march there because they were special scoundrels. 'Blockhead! said Don Quixote at this, 'it is no business or concern of knightserrant to inquire whether any persons in affliction, in chains, or oppressed that they may meet on the high roads go that way and suffer as they do because of their faults or because of their misfortunes. It only concerns them to aid them as persons in need of help, having regard to their sufferings and not to their rascalities. I encountered a chaplet or string of miserable and unfortunate people, and did for them what my sense of duty demands of me, and as for the rest be that as it may and whoever takes objection to it, saving the sacred dignity of the seor licentiate and his honoured person, I say he knows little about chivalry and lies like a whoreson villain, and this I will give him to know to the fullest extent with my sword and so saying he settled himself in his stirrups and pressed down his morion for the barber's basin, which according to him was Mambrino's helmet, he carried hanging at the saddlebow until he could repair the damage done to it by the galley slaves. Dorothea, who was shrewd and sprightly, and by this time thoroughly understood Don Quixote's crazy turn, and that all except Sancho Panza were making game of him, not to be behind the rest said to him, on observing his irritation, 'Sir Knight, remember the boon you have promised me, and that in accordance with it you must not engage in any other adventure, be it ever so pressing calm yourself, for if the licentiate had known that the galley slaves had been set free by that unconquered arm he would have stopped his mouth thrice over, or even bitten his tongue three times before he would have said a word that tended towards disrespect of your worship. 'That I swear heartily, said the curate, 'and I would have even plucked off a moustache. 'I will hold my peace, seora, said Don Quixote, 'and I will curb the natural anger that had arisen in my breast, and will proceed in peace and quietness until I have fulfilled my promise but in return for this consideration I entreat you to tell me, if you have no objection to do so, what is the nature of your trouble, and how many, who, and what are the persons of whom I am to require due satisfaction, and on whom I am to take vengeance on your behalf? 'That I will do with all my heart, replied Dorothea, 'if it will not be wearisome to you to hear of miseries and misfortunes. 'It will not be wearisome, seora, said Don Quixote to which Dorothea replied, 'Well, if that be so, give me your attention. As soon as she said this, Cardenio and the barber drew close to her side, eager to hear what sort of story the quickwitted Dorothea would invent for herself and Sancho did the same, for he was as much taken in by her as his master and she having settled herself comfortably in the saddle, and with the help of coughing and other preliminaries taken time to think, began with great sprightliness of manner in this fashion. 'First of all, I would have you know, sirs, that my name is and here she stopped for a moment, for she forgot the name the curate had given her but he came to her relief, seeing what her difficulty was, and said, 'It is no wonder, seora, that your highness should be confused and embarrassed in telling the tale of your misfortunes for such afflictions often have the effect of depriving the sufferers of memory, so that they do not even remember their own names, as is the case now with your ladyship, who has forgotten that she is called the Princess Micomicona, lawful heiress of the great kingdom of Micomicon and with this cue your highness may now recall to your sorrowful recollection all you may wish to tell us. 'That is the truth, said the damsel 'but I think from this on I shall have no need of any prompting, and I shall bring my true story safe into port, and here it is. The king my father, who was called Tinacrio the Sapient, was very learned in what they call magic arts, and became aware by his craft that my mother, who was called Queen Jaramilla, was to die before he did, and that soon after he too was to depart this life, and I was to be left an orphan without father or mother. But all this, he declared, did not so much grieve or distress him as his certain knowledge that a prodigious giant, the lord of a great island close to our kingdom, Pandafilando of the Scowl by namefor it is averred that, though his eyes are properly placed and straight, he always looks askew as if he squinted, and this he does out of malignity, to strike fear and terror into those he looks atthat he knew, I say, that this giant on becoming aware of my orphan condition would overrun my kingdom with a mighty force and strip me of all, not leaving me even a small village to shelter me but that I could avoid all this ruin and misfortune if I were willing to marry him however, as far as he could see, he never expected that I would consent to a marriage so unequal and he said no more than the truth in this, for it has never entered my mind to marry that giant, or any other, let him be ever so great or enormous. My father said, too, that when he was dead, and I saw Pandafilando about to invade my kingdom, I was not to wait and attempt to defend myself, for that would be destructive to me, but that I should leave the kingdom entirely open to him if I wished to avoid the death and total destruction of my good and loyal vassals, for there would be no possibility of defending myself against the giant's devilish power and that I should at once with some of my followers set out for Spain, where I should obtain relief in my distress on finding a certain knighterrant whose fame by that time would extend over the whole kingdom, and who would be called, if I remember rightly, Don Azote or Don Gigote. ''Don Quixote,' he must have said, seora, observed Sancho at this, 'otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. 'That is it, said Dorothea 'he said, moreover, that he would be tall of stature and lank featured and that on his right side under the left shoulder, or thereabouts, he would have a grey mole with hairs like bristles. On hearing this, Don Quixote said to his squire, 'Here, Sancho my son, bear a hand and help me to strip, for I want to see if I am the knight that sage king foretold. 'What does your worship want to strip for? said Dorothea. 'To see if I have that mole your father spoke of, answered Don Quixote. 'There is no occasion to strip, said Sancho 'for I know your worship has just such a mole on the middle of your backbone, which is the mark of a strong man. 'That is enough, said Dorothea, 'for with friends we must not look too closely into trifles and whether it be on the shoulder or on the backbone matters little it is enough if there is a mole, be it where it may, for it is all the same flesh no doubt my good father hit the truth in every particular, and I have made a lucky hit in commending myself to Don Quixote for he is the one my father spoke of, as the features of his countenance correspond with those assigned to this knight by that wide fame he has acquired not only in Spain but in all La Mancha for I had scarcely landed at Osuna when I heard such accounts of his achievements, that at once my heart told me he was the very one I had come in search of. 'But how did you land at Osuna, seora, asked Don Quixote, 'when it is not a seaport? But before Dorothea could reply the curate anticipated her, saying, 'The princess meant to say that after she had landed at Malaga the first place where she heard of your worship was Osuna. 'That is what I meant to say, said Dorothea. 'And that would be only natural, said the curate. 'Will your majesty please proceed? 'There is no more to add, said Dorothea, 'save that in finding Don Quixote I have had such good fortune, that I already reckon and regard myself queen and mistress of my entire dominions, since of his courtesy and magnanimity he has granted me the boon of accompanying me whithersoever I may conduct him, which will be only to bring him face to face with Pandafilando of the Scowl, that he may slay him and restore to me what has been unjustly usurped by him for all this must come to pass satisfactorily since my good father Tinacrio the Sapient foretold it, who likewise left it declared in writing in Chaldee or Greek characters (for I cannot read them), that if this predicted knight, after having cut the giant's throat, should be disposed to marry me I was to offer myself at once without demur as his lawful wife, and yield him possession of my kingdom together with my person. 'What thinkest thou now, friend Sancho? said Don Quixote at this. 'Hearest thou that? Did I not tell thee so? See how we have already got a kingdom to govern and a queen to marry! 'On my oath it is so, said Sancho 'and foul fortune to him who won't marry after slitting Seor Pandahilado's windpipe! And then, how illfavoured the queen is! I wish the fleas in my bed were that sort! And so saying he cut a couple of capers in the air with every sign of extreme satisfaction, and then ran to seize the bridle of Dorothea's mule, and checking it fell on his knees before her, begging her to give him her hand to kiss in token of his acknowledgment of her as his queen and mistress. Which of the bystanders could have helped laughing to see the madness of the master and the simplicity of the servant? Dorothea therefore gave her hand, and promised to make him a great lord in her kingdom, when Heaven should be so good as to permit her to recover and enjoy it, for which Sancho returned thanks in words that set them all laughing again. 'This, sirs, continued Dorothea, 'is my story it only remains to tell you that of all the attendants I took with me from my kingdom I have none left except this wellbearded squire, for all were drowned in a great tempest we encountered when in sight of port and he and I came to land on a couple of planks as if by a miracle and indeed the whole course of my life is a miracle and a mystery as you may have observed and if I have been over minute in any respect or not as precise as I ought, let it be accounted for by what the licentiate said at the beginning of my tale, that constant and excessive troubles deprive the sufferers of their memory. 'They shall not deprive me of mine, exalted and worthy princess, said Don Quixote, 'however great and unexampled those which I shall endure in your service may be and here I confirm anew the boon I have promised you, and I swear to go with you to the end of the world until I find myself in the presence of your fierce enemy, whose haughty head I trust by the aid of my arm to cut off with the edge of thisI will not say good sword, thanks to Gines de Pasamonte who carried away mine(this he said between his teeth, and then continued), 'and when it has been cut off and you have been put in peaceful possession of your realm it shall be left to your own decision to dispose of your person as may be most pleasing to you for so long as my memory is occupied, my will enslaved, and my understanding enthralled by herI say no moreit is impossible for me for a moment to contemplate marriage, even with a Phnix. The last words of his master about not wanting to marry were so disagreeable to Sancho that raising his voice he exclaimed with great irritation 'By my oath, Seor Don Quixote, you are not in your right senses for how can your worship possibly object to marrying such an exalted princess as this? Do you think Fortune will offer you behind every stone such a piece of luck as is offered you now? Is my lady Dulcinea fairer, perchance? Not she nor half as fair and I will even go so far as to say she does not come up to the shoe of this one here. A poor chance I have of getting that county I am waiting for if your worship goes looking for dainties in the bottom of the sea. In the devil's name, marry, marry, and take this kingdom that comes to hand without any trouble, and when you are king make me a marquis or governor of a province, and for the rest let the devil take it all. Don Quixote, when he heard such blasphemies uttered against his lady Dulcinea, could not endure it, and lifting his pike, without saying anything to Sancho or uttering a word, he gave him two such thwacks that he brought him to the ground and had it not been that Dorothea cried out to him to spare him he would have no doubt taken his life on the spot. 'Do you think, he said to him after a pause, 'you scurvy clown, that you are to be always interfering with me, and that you are to be always offending and I always pardoning? Don't fancy it, impious scoundrel, for that beyond a doubt thou art, since thou hast set thy tongue going against the peerless Dulcinea. Know you not, lout, vagabond, beggar, that were it not for the might that she infuses into my arm I should not have strength enough to kill a flea? Say, scoffer with a viper's tongue, what think you has won this kingdom and cut off this giant's head and made you a marquis (for all this I count as already accomplished and decided), but the might of Dulcinea, employing my arm as the instrument of her achievements? She fights in me and conquers in me, and I live and breathe in her, and owe my life and being to her. O whoreson scoundrel, how ungrateful you are, you see yourself raised from the dust of the earth to be a titled lord, and the return you make for so great a benefit is to speak evil of her who has conferred it upon you! Sancho was not so stunned but that he heard all his master said, and rising with some degree of nimbleness he ran to place himself behind Dorothea's palfrey, and from that position he said to his master 'Tell me, seor if your worship is resolved not to marry this great princess, it is plain the kingdom will not be yours and not being so, how can you bestow favours upon me? That is what I complain of. Let your worship at any rate marry this queen, now that we have got her here as if showered down from heaven, and afterwards you may go back to my lady Dulcinea for there must have been kings in the world who kept mistresses. As to beauty, I have nothing to do with it and if the truth is to be told, I like them both though I have never seen the lady Dulcinea. 'How! never seen her, blasphemous traitor! exclaimed Don Quixote 'hast thou not just now brought me a message from her? 'I mean, said Sancho, 'that I did not see her so much at my leisure that I could take particular notice of her beauty, or of her charms piecemeal but taken in the lump I like her. 'Now I forgive thee, said Don Quixote 'and do thou forgive me the injury I have done thee for our first impulses are not in our control. 'That I see, replied Sancho, 'and with me the wish to speak is always the first impulse, and I cannot help saying, once at any rate, what I have on the tip of my tongue. 'For all that, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'take heed of what thou sayest, for the pitcher goes so often to the wellI need say no more to thee. 'Well, well, said Sancho, 'God is in heaven, and sees all tricks, and will judge who does most harm, I in not speaking right, or your worship in not doing it. 'That is enough, said Dorothea 'run, Sancho, and kiss your lord's hand and beg his pardon, and henceforward be more circumspect with your praise and abuse and say nothing in disparagement of that lady Toboso, of whom I know nothing save that I am her servant and put your trust in God, for you will not fail to obtain some dignity so as to live like a prince. Sancho advanced hanging his head and begged his master's hand, which Don Quixote with dignity presented to him, giving him his blessing as soon as he had kissed it he then bade him go on ahead a little, as he had questions to ask him and matters of great importance to discuss with him. Sancho obeyed, and when the two had gone some distance in advance Don Quixote said to him, 'Since thy return I have had no opportunity or time to ask thee many particulars touching thy mission and the answer thou hast brought back, and now that chance has granted us the time and opportunity, deny me not the happiness thou canst give me by such good news. 'Let your worship ask what you will, answered Sancho, 'for I shall find a way out of all as I found a way in but I implore you, seor, not to be so revengeful in future. 'Why dost thou say that, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'I say it, he returned, 'because those blows just now were more because of the quarrel the devil stirred up between us both the other night, than for what I said against my lady Dulcinea, whom I love and reverence as I would a relicthough there is nothing of that about hermerely as something belonging to your worship. 'Say no more on that subject for thy life, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for it is displeasing to me I have already pardoned thee for that, and thou knowest the common saying, 'for a fresh sin a fresh penance.' While this was going on they saw coming along the road they were following a man mounted on an ass, who when he came close seemed to be a gipsy but Sancho Panza, whose eyes and heart were there wherever he saw asses, no sooner beheld the man than he knew him to be Gines de Pasamonte and by the thread of the gipsy he got at the ball, his ass, for it was, in fact, Dapple that carried Pasamonte, who to escape recognition and to sell the ass had disguised himself as a gipsy, being able to speak the gipsy language, and many more, as well as if they were his own. Sancho saw him and recognised him, and the instant he did so he shouted to him, 'Ginesillo, you thief, give up my treasure, release my life, embarrass thyself not with my repose, quit my ass, leave my delight, be off, rip, get thee gone, thief, and give up what is not thine. There was no necessity for so many words or objurgations, for at the first one Gines jumped down, and at a like racing speed made off and got clear of them all. Sancho hastened to his Dapple, and embracing him he said, 'How hast thou fared, my blessing, Dapple of my eyes, my comrade? all the while kissing him and caressing him as if he were a human being. The ass held his peace, and let himself be kissed and caressed by Sancho without answering a single word. They all came up and congratulated him on having found Dapple, Don Quixote especially, who told him that notwithstanding this he would not cancel the order for the three asscolts, for which Sancho thanked him. While the two had been going along conversing in this fashion, the curate observed to Dorothea that she had shown great cleverness, as well in the story itself as in its conciseness, and the resemblance it bore to those of the books of chivalry. She said that she had many times amused herself reading them but that she did not know the situation of the provinces or seaports, and so she had said at haphazard that she had landed at Osuna. 'So I saw, said the curate, 'and for that reason I made haste to say what I did, by which it was all set right. But is it not a strange thing to see how readily this unhappy gentleman believes all these figments and lies, simply because they are in the style and manner of the absurdities of his books? 'So it is, said Cardenio 'and so uncommon and unexampled, that were one to attempt to invent and concoct it in fiction, I doubt if there be any wit keen enough to imagine it. 'But another strange thing about it, said the curate, 'is that, apart from the silly things which this worthy gentleman says in connection with his craze, when other subjects are dealt with, he can discuss them in a perfectly rational manner, showing that his mind is quite clear and composed so that, provided his chivalry is not touched upon, no one would take him to be anything but a man of thoroughly sound understanding. While they were holding this conversation Don Quixote continued his with Sancho, saying 'Friend Panza, let us forgive and forget as to our quarrels, and tell me now, dismissing anger and irritation, where, how, and when didst thou find Dulcinea? What was she doing? What didst thou say to her? What did she answer? How did she look when she was reading my letter? Who copied it out for thee? and everything in the matter that seems to thee worth knowing, asking, and learning neither adding nor falsifying to give me pleasure, nor yet curtailing lest you should deprive me of it. 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'if the truth is to be told, nobody copied out the letter for me, for I carried no letter at all. 'It is as thou sayest, said Don Quixote, 'for the notebook in which I wrote it I found in my own possession two days after thy departure, which gave me very great vexation, as I knew not what thou wouldst do on finding thyself without any letter and I made sure thou wouldst return from the place where thou didst first miss it. 'So I should have done, said Sancho, 'if I had not got it by heart when your worship read it to me, so that I repeated it to a sacristan, who copied it out for me from hearing it, so exactly that he said in all the days of his life, though he had read many a letter of excommunication, he had never seen or read so pretty a letter as that. 'And hast thou got it still in thy memory, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'No, seor, replied Sancho, 'for as soon as I had repeated it, seeing there was no further use for it, I set about forgetting it and if I recollect any of it, it is that about 'Scrubbing,' I mean to say 'Sovereign Lady,' and the end 'Yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance' and between these two I put into it more than three hundred 'my souls' and 'my life's' and 'my eyes. 'All that is not unsatisfactory to me, said Don Quixote. 'Go on thou didst reach her and what was that queen of beauty doing? Surely thou didst find her stringing pearls, or embroidering some device in gold thread for this her enslaved knight. 'I did not, said Sancho, 'but I found her winnowing two bushels of wheat in the yard of her house. 'Then depend upon it, said Don Quixote, 'the grains of that wheat were pearls when touched by her hands and didst thou look, friend? was it white wheat or brown? 'It was neither, but red, said Sancho. 'Then I promise thee, said Don Quixote, 'that, winnowed by her hands, beyond a doubt the bread it made was of the whitest but go on when thou gavest her my letter, did she kiss it? Did she place it on her head? Did she perform any ceremony befitting it, or what did she do? 'When I went to give it to her, replied Sancho, 'she was hard at it swaying from side to side with a lot of wheat she had in the sieve, and she said to me, 'Lay the letter, friend, on the top of that sack, for I cannot read it until I have done sifting all this. 'Discreet lady! said Don Quixote 'that was in order to read it at her leisure and enjoy it proceed, Sancho while she was engaged in her occupation what converse did she hold with thee? What did she ask about me, and what answer didst thou give? Make haste tell me all, and let not an atom be left behind in the inkbottle. 'She asked me nothing, said Sancho 'but I told her how your worship was left doing penance in her service, naked from the waist up, in among these mountains like a savage, sleeping on the ground, not eating bread off a tablecloth nor combing your beard, weeping and cursing your fortune. 'In saying I cursed my fortune thou saidst wrong, said Don Quixote 'for rather do I bless it and shall bless it all the days of my life for having made me worthy of aspiring to love so lofty a lady as Dulcinea del Toboso. 'And so lofty she is, said Sancho, 'that she overtops me by more than a hand'sbreadth. 'What! Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'didst thou measure with her? 'I measured in this way, said Sancho 'going to help her to put a sack of wheat on the back of an ass, we came so close together that I could see she stood more than a good palm over me. 'Well! said Don Quixote, 'and doth she not of a truth accompany and adorn this greatness with a thousand million charms of mind! But one thing thou wilt not deny, Sancho when thou camest close to her didst thou not perceive a Saban odour, an aromatic fragrance, a, I know not what, delicious, that I cannot find a name for I mean a redolence, an exhalation, as if thou wert in the shop of some dainty glover? 'All I can say is, said Sancho, 'that I did perceive a little odour, something goaty it must have been that she was all in a sweat with hard work. 'It could not be that, said Don Quixote, 'but thou must have been suffering from cold in the head, or must have smelt thyself for I know well what would be the scent of that rose among thorns, that lily of the field, that dissolved amber. 'Maybe so, replied Sancho 'there often comes from myself that same odour which then seemed to me to come from her grace the lady Dulcinea but that's no wonder, for one devil is like another. 'Well then, continued Don Quixote, 'now she has done sifting the corn and sent it to the mill what did she do when she read the letter? 'As for the letter, said Sancho, 'she did not read it, for she said she could neither read nor write instead of that she tore it up into small pieces, saying that she did not want to let anyone read it lest her secrets should become known in the village, and that what I had told her by word of mouth about the love your worship bore her, and the extraordinary penance you were doing for her sake, was enough and, to make an end of it, she told me to tell your worship that she kissed your hands, and that she had a greater desire to see you than to write to you and that therefore she entreated and commanded you, on sight of this present, to come out of these thickets, and to have done with carrying on absurdities, and to set out at once for El Toboso, unless something else of greater importance should happen, for she had a great desire to see your worship. She laughed greatly when I told her how your worship was called The Knight of the Rueful Countenance I asked her if that Biscayan the other day had been there and she told me he had, and that he was an honest fellow I asked her too about the galley slaves, but she said she had not seen any as yet. 'So far all goes well, said Don Quixote 'but tell me what jewel was it that she gave thee on taking thy leave, in return for thy tidings of me? For it is a usual and ancient custom with knights and ladies errant to give the squires, damsels, or dwarfs who bring tidings of their ladies to the knights, or of their knights to the ladies, some rich jewel as a guerdon for good news, and acknowledgment of the message. 'That is very likely, said Sancho, 'and a good custom it was, to my mind but that must have been in days gone by, for now it would seem to be the custom only to give a piece of bread and cheese because that was what my lady Dulcinea gave me over the top of the yardwall when I took leave of her and more by token it was sheep'smilk cheese. 'She is generous in the extreme, said Don Quixote, 'and if she did not give thee a jewel of gold, no doubt it must have been because she had not one to hand there to give thee but sleeves are good after Easter I shall see her and all shall be made right. But knowest thou what amazes me, Sancho? It seems to me thou must have gone and come through the air, for thou hast taken but little more than three days to go to El Toboso and return, though it is more than thirty leagues from here to there. From which I am inclined to think that the sage magician who is my friend, and watches over my interests (for of necessity there is and must be one, or else I should not be a right knighterrant), that this same, I say, must have helped thee to travel without thy knowledge for some of these sages will catch up a knighterrant sleeping in his bed, and without his knowing how or in what way it happened, he wakes up the next day more than a thousand leagues away from the place where he went to sleep. And if it were not for this, knightserrant would not be able to give aid to one another in peril, as they do at every turn. For a knight, maybe, is fighting in the mountains of Armenia with some dragon, or fierce serpent, or another knight, and gets the worst of the battle, and is at the point of death but when he least looks for it, there appears over against him on a cloud, or chariot of fire, another knight, a friend of his, who just before had been in England, and who takes his part, and delivers him from death and at night he finds himself in his own quarters supping very much to his satisfaction and yet from one place to the other will have been two or three thousand leagues. And all this is done by the craft and skill of the sage enchanters who take care of those valiant knights so that, friend Sancho, I find no difficulty in believing that thou mayest have gone from this place to El Toboso and returned in such a short time, since, as I have said, some friendly sage must have carried thee through the air without thee perceiving it. 'That must have been it, said Sancho, 'for indeed Rocinante went like a gipsy's ass with quicksilver in his ears. 'Quicksilver! said Don Quixote, 'aye and what is more, a legion of devils, folk that can travel and make others travel without being weary, exactly as the whim seizes them. But putting this aside, what thinkest thou I ought to do about my lady's command to go and see her? For though I feel that I am bound to obey her mandate, I feel too that I am debarred by the boon I have accorded to the princess that accompanies us, and the law of chivalry compels me to have regard for my word in preference to my inclination on the one hand the desire to see my lady pursues and harasses me, on the other my solemn promise and the glory I shall win in this enterprise urge and call me but what I think I shall do is to travel with all speed and reach quickly the place where this giant is, and on my arrival I shall cut off his head, and establish the princess peacefully in her realm, and forthwith I shall return to behold the light that lightens my senses, to whom I shall make such excuses that she will be led to approve of my delay, for she will see that it entirely tends to increase her glory and fame for all that I have won, am winning, or shall win by arms in this life, comes to me of the favour she extends to me, and because I am hers. 'Ah! what a sad state your worship's brains are in! said Sancho. 'Tell me, seor, do you mean to travel all that way for nothing, and to let slip and lose so rich and great a match as this where they give as a portion a kingdom that in sober truth I have heard say is more than twenty thousand leagues round about, and abounds with all things necessary to support human life, and is bigger than Portugal and Castile put together? Peace, for the love of God! Blush for what you have said, and take my advice, and forgive me, and marry at once in the first village where there is a curate if not, here is our licentiate who will do the business beautifully remember, I am old enough to give advice, and this I am giving comes pat to the purpose for a sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing, and he who has the good to his hand and chooses the bad, that the good he complains of may not come to him. 'Look here, Sancho, said Don Quixote. 'If thou art advising me to marry, in order that immediately on slaying the giant I may become king, and be able to confer favours on thee, and give thee what I have promised, let me tell thee I shall be able very easily to satisfy thy desires without marrying for before going into battle I will make it a stipulation that, if I come out of it victorious, even I do not marry, they shall give me a portion of the kingdom, that I may bestow it upon whomsoever I choose, and when they give it to me upon whom wouldst thou have me bestow it but upon thee? 'That is plain speaking, said Sancho 'but let your worship take care to choose it on the seacoast, so that if I don't like the life, I may be able to ship off my black vassals and deal with them as I have said don't mind going to see my lady Dulcinea now, but go and kill this giant and let us finish off this business for by God it strikes me it will be one of great honour and great profit. 'I hold thou art in the right of it, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and I will take thy advice as to accompanying the princess before going to see Dulcinea but I counsel thee not to say anything to anyone, or to those who are with us, about what we have considered and discussed, for as Dulcinea is so decorous that she does not wish her thoughts to be known it is not right that I or anyone for me should disclose them. 'Well then, if that be so, said Sancho, 'how is it that your worship makes all those you overcome by your arm go to present themselves before my lady Dulcinea, this being the same thing as signing your name to it that you love her and are her lover? And as those who go must perforce kneel before her and say they come from your worship to submit themselves to her, how can the thoughts of both of you be hid? 'O, how silly and simple thou art! said Don Quixote 'seest thou not, Sancho, that this tends to her greater exaltation? For thou must know that according to our way of thinking in chivalry, it is a high honour to a lady to have many knightserrant in her service, whose thoughts never go beyond serving her for her own sake, and who look for no other reward for their great and true devotion than that she should be willing to accept them as her knights. 'It is with that kind of love, said Sancho, 'I have heard preachers say we ought to love our Lord, for himself alone, without being moved by the hope of glory or the fear of punishment though for my part, I would rather love and serve him for what he could do. 'The devil take thee for a clown! said Don Quixote, 'and what shrewd things thou sayest at times! One would think thou hadst studied. 'In faith, then, I cannot even read. Master Nicholas here called out to them to wait a while, as they wanted to halt and drink at a little spring there was there. Don Quixote drew up, not a little to the satisfaction of Sancho, for he was by this time weary of telling so many lies, and in dread of his master catching him tripping, for though he knew that Dulcinea was a peasant girl of El Toboso, he had never seen her in all his life. Cardenio had now put on the clothes which Dorothea was wearing when they found her, and though they were not very good, they were far better than those he put off. They dismounted together by the side of the spring, and with what the curate had provided himself with at the inn they appeased, though not very well, the keen appetite they all of them brought with them. While they were so employed there happened to come by a youth passing on his way, who stopping to examine the party at the spring, the next moment ran to Don Quixote and clasping him round the legs, began to weep freely, saying, 'O, seor, do you not know me? Look at me well I am that lad Andres that your worship released from the oaktree where I was tied. Don Quixote recognised him, and taking his hand he turned to those present and said 'That your worships may see how important it is to have knightserrant to redress the wrongs and injuries done by tyrannical and wicked men in this world, I may tell you that some days ago passing through a wood, I heard cries and piteous complaints as of a person in pain and distress I immediately hastened, impelled by my bounden duty, to the quarter whence the plaintive accents seemed to me to proceed, and I found tied to an oak this lad who now stands before you, which in my heart I rejoice at, for his testimony will not permit me to depart from the truth in any particular. He was, I say, tied to an oak, naked from the waist up, and a clown, whom I afterwards found to be his master, was scarifying him by lashes with the reins of his mare. As soon as I saw him I asked the reason of so cruel a flagellation. The boor replied that he was flogging him because he was his servant and because of carelessness that proceeded rather from dishonesty than stupidity on which this boy said, 'Seor, he flogs me only because I ask for my wages.' The master made I know not what speeches and explanations, which, though I listened to them, I did not accept. In short, I compelled the clown to unbind him, and to swear he would take him with him, and pay him real by real, and perfumed into the bargain. Is not all this true, Andres my son? Didst thou not mark with what authority I commanded him, and with what humility he promised to do all I enjoined, specified, and required of him? Answer without hesitation tell these gentlemen what took place, that they may see that it is as great an advantage as I say to have knightserrant abroad. 'All that your worship has said is quite true, answered the lad 'but the end of the business turned out just the opposite of what your worship supposes. 'How! the opposite? said Don Quixote 'did not the clown pay thee then? 'Not only did he not pay me, replied the lad, 'but as soon as your worship had passed out of the wood and we were alone, he tied me up again to the same oak and gave me a fresh flogging, that left me like a flayed Saint Bartholomew and every stroke he gave me he followed up with some jest or gibe about having made a fool of your worship, and but for the pain I was suffering I should have laughed at the things he said. In short he left me in such a condition that I have been until now in a hospital getting cured of the injuries which that rascally clown inflicted on me then for all which your worship is to blame for if you had gone your own way and not come where there was no call for you, nor meddled in other people's affairs, my master would have been content with giving me one or two dozen lashes, and would have then loosed me and paid me what he owed me but when your worship abused him so out of measure, and gave him so many hard words, his anger was kindled and as he could not revenge himself on you, as soon as he saw you had left him the storm burst upon me in such a way, that I feel as if I should never be a man again. 'The mischief, said Don Quixote, 'lay in my going away for I should not have gone until I had seen thee paid because I ought to have known well by long experience that there is no clown who will keep his word if he finds it will not suit him to keep it but thou rememberest, Andres, that I swore if he did not pay thee I would go and seek him, and find him though he were to hide himself in the whale's belly. 'That is true, said Andres 'but it was of no use. 'Thou shalt see now whether it is of use or not, said Don Quixote and so saying, he got up hastily and bade Sancho bridle Rocinante, who was browsing while they were eating. Dorothea asked him what he meant to do. He replied that he meant to go in search of this clown and chastise him for such iniquitous conduct, and see Andres paid to the last maravedi, despite and in the teeth of all the clowns in the world. To which she replied that he must remember that in accordance with his promise he could not engage in any enterprise until he had concluded hers and that as he knew this better than anyone, he should restrain his ardour until his return from her kingdom. 'That is true, said Don Quixote, 'and Andres must have patience until my return as you say, seora but I once more swear and promise not to stop until I have seen him avenged and paid. 'I have no faith in those oaths, said Andres 'I would rather have now something to help me to get to Seville than all the revenges in the world if you have here anything to eat that I can take with me, give it me, and God be with your worship and all knightserrant and may their errands turn out as well for themselves as they have for me. Sancho took out from his store a piece of bread and another of cheese, and giving them to the lad he said, 'Here, take this, brother Andres, for we have all of us a share in your misfortune. 'Why, what share have you got? 'This share of bread and cheese I am giving you, answered Sancho 'and God knows whether I shall feel the want of it myself or not for I would have you know, friend, that we squires to knightserrant have to bear a great deal of hunger and hard fortune, and even other things more easily felt than told. Andres seized his bread and cheese, and seeing that nobody gave him anything more, bent his head, and took hold of the road, as the saying is. However, before leaving he said, 'For the love of God, sir knighterrant, if you ever meet me again, though you may see them cutting me to pieces, give me no aid or succour, but leave me to my misfortune, which will not be so great but that a greater will come to me by being helped by your worship, on whom and all the knightserrant that have ever been born God send his curse. Don Quixote was getting up to chastise him, but he took to his heels at such a pace that no one attempted to follow him and mightily chapfallen was Don Quixote at Andres' story, and the others had to take great care to restrain their laughter so as not to put him entirely out of countenance. Their dainty repast being finished, they saddled at once, and without any adventure worth mentioning they reached next day the inn, the object of Sancho Panza's fear and dread but though he would have rather not entered it, there was no help for it. The landlady, the landlord, their daughter, and Maritornes, when they saw Don Quixote and Sancho coming, went out to welcome them with signs of hearty satisfaction, which Don Quixote received with dignity and gravity, and bade them make up a better bed for him than the last time to which the landlady replied that if he paid better than he did the last time she would give him one fit for a prince. Don Quixote said he would, so they made up a tolerable one for him in the same garret as before and he lay down at once, being sorely shaken and in want of sleep. No sooner was the door shut upon him than the landlady made at the barber, and seizing him by the beard, said 'By my faith you are not going to make a beard of my tail any longer you must give me back my tail, for it is a shame the way that thing of my husband's goes tossing about on the floor I mean the comb that I used to stick in my good tail. But for all she tugged at it the barber would not give it up until the licentiate told him to let her have it, as there was now no further occasion for that stratagem, because he might declare himself and appear in his own character, and tell Don Quixote that he had fled to this inn when those thieves the galley slaves robbed him and should he ask for the princess's squire, they could tell him that she had sent him on before her to give notice to the people of her kingdom that she was coming, and bringing with her the deliverer of them all. On this the barber cheerfully restored the tail to the landlady, and at the same time they returned all the accessories they had borrowed to effect Don Quixote's deliverance. All the people of the inn were struck with astonishment at the beauty of Dorothea, and even at the comely figure of the shepherd Cardenio. The curate made them get ready such fare as there was in the inn, and the landlord, in hope of better payment, served them up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote was asleep, and they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would now do him more good than eating. While at dinner, the company consisting of the landlord, his wife, their daughter, Maritornes, and all the travellers, they discussed the strange craze of Don Quixote and the manner in which he had been found and the landlady told them what had taken place between him and the carrier and then, looking round to see if Sancho was there, when she saw he was not, she gave them the whole story of his blanketing, which they received with no little amusement. But on the curate observing that it was the books of chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had turned his brain, the landlord said 'I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is no better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them, with other writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of plenty more for when it is harvesttime, the reapers flock here on holidays, and there is always one among them who can read and who takes up one of these books, and we gather round him, thirty or more of us, and stay listening to him with a delight that makes our grey hairs grow young again. At least I can say for myself that when I hear of what furious and terrible blows the knights deliver, I am seized with the longing to do the same, and I would like to be hearing about them night and day. 'And I just as much, said the landlady, 'because I never have a quiet moment in my house except when you are listening to someone reading for then you are so taken up that for the time being you forget to scold. 'That is true, said Maritornes 'and, faith, I relish hearing these things greatly too, for they are very pretty especially when they describe some lady or another in the arms of her knight under the orange trees, and the duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead with envy and fright all this I say is as good as honey. 'And you, what do you think, young lady? said the curate turning to the landlord's daughter. 'I don't know indeed, seor, said she 'I listen too, and to tell the truth, though I do not understand it, I like hearing it but it is not the blows that my father likes that I like, but the laments the knights utter when they are separated from their ladies and indeed they sometimes make me weep with the pity I feel for them. 'Then you would console them if it was for you they wept, young lady? said Dorothea. 'I don't know what I should do, said the girl 'I only know that there are some of those ladies so cruel that they call their knights tigers and lions and a thousand other foul names and Jesus! I don't know what sort of folk they can be, so unfeeling and heartless, that rather than bestow a glance upon a worthy man they leave him to die or go mad. I don't know what is the good of such prudery if it is for honour's sake, why not marry them? That's all they want. 'Hush, child, said the landlady 'it seems to me thou knowest a great deal about these things, and it is not fit for girls to know or talk so much. 'As the gentleman asked me, I could not help answering him, said the girl. 'Well then, said the curate, 'bring me these books, seor landlord, for I should like to see them. 'With all my heart, said he, and going into his own room he brought out an old valise secured with a little chain, on opening which the curate found in it three large books and some manuscripts written in a very good hand. The first that he opened he found to be 'Don Cirongilio of Thrace, and the second 'Don Felixmarte of Hircania, and the other the 'History of the Great Captain Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, with the Life of Diego Garca de Paredes. When the curate read the two first titles he looked over at the barber and said, 'We want my friend's housekeeper and niece here now. 'Nay, said the barber, 'I can do just as well to carry them to the yard or to the hearth, and there is a very good fire there. 'What! your worship would burn my books! said the landlord. 'Only these two, said the curate, 'Don Cirongilio, and Felixmarte. 'Are my books, then, heretics or phlegmatics that you want to burn them? said the landlord. 'Schismatics you mean, friend, said the barber, 'not phlegmatics. 'That's it, said the landlord 'but if you want to burn any, let it be that about the Great Captain and that Diego Garca for I would rather have a child of mine burnt than either of the others. 'Brother, said the curate, 'those two books are made up of lies, and are full of folly and nonsense but this of the Great Captain is a true history, and contains the deeds of Gonzalo Hernandez of Cordova, who by his many and great achievements earned the title all over the world of the Great Captain, a famous and illustrious name, and deserved by him alone and this Diego Garca de Paredes was a distinguished knight of the city of Trujillo in Estremadura, a most gallant soldier, and of such bodily strength that with one finger he stopped a millwheel in full motion and posted with a twohanded sword at the foot of a bridge he kept the whole of an immense army from passing over it, and achieved such other exploits that if, instead of his relating them himself with the modesty of a knight and of one writing his own history, some free and unbiased writer had recorded them, they would have thrown into the shade all the deeds of the Hectors, Achilleses, and Rolands. 'Tell that to my father, said the landlord. 'There's a thing to be astonished at! Stopping a millwheel! By God your worship should read what I have read of Felixmarte of Hircania, how with one single backstroke he cleft five giants asunder through the middle as if they had been made of beanpods like the little friars the children make and another time he attacked a very great and powerful army, in which there were more than a million six hundred thousand soldiers, all armed from head to foot, and he routed them all as if they had been flocks of sheep. 'And then, what do you say to the good Cirongilio of Thrace, that was so stout and bold as may be seen in the book, where it is related that as he was sailing along a river there came up out of the midst of the water against him a fiery serpent, and he, as soon as he saw it, flung himself upon it and got astride of its scaly shoulders, and squeezed its throat with both hands with such force that the serpent, finding he was throttling it, had nothing for it but to let itself sink to the bottom of the river, carrying with it the knight who would not let go his hold and when they got down there he found himself among palaces and gardens so pretty that it was a wonder to see and then the serpent changed itself into an old ancient man, who told him such things as were never heard. Hold your peace, seor for if you were to hear this you would go mad with delight. A couple of figs for your Great Captain and your Diego Garca! Hearing this Dorothea said in a whisper to Cardenio, 'Our landlord is almost fit to play a second part to Don Quixote. 'I think so, said Cardenio, 'for, as he shows, he accepts it as a certainty that everything those books relate took place exactly as it is written down and the barefooted friars themselves would not persuade him to the contrary. 'But consider, brother, said the curate once more, 'there never was any Felixmarte of Hircania in the world, nor any Cirongilio of Thrace, or any of the other knights of the same sort, that the books of chivalry talk of the whole thing is the fabrication and invention of idle wits, devised by them for the purpose you describe of beguiling the time, as your reapers do when they read for I swear to you in all seriousness there never were any such knights in the world, and no such exploits or nonsense ever happened anywhere. 'Try that bone on another dog, said the landlord 'as if I did not know how many make five, and where my shoe pinches me don't think to feed me with pap, for by God I am no fool. It is a good joke for your worship to try and persuade me that everything these good books say is nonsense and lies, and they printed by the license of the Lords of the Royal Council, as if they were people who would allow such a lot of lies to be printed all together, and so many battles and enchantments that they take away one's senses. 'I have told you, friend, said the curate, 'that this is done to divert our idle thoughts and as in wellordered states games of chess, fives, and billiards are allowed for the diversion of those who do not care, or are not obliged, or are unable to work, so books of this kind are allowed to be printed, on the supposition that, what indeed is the truth, there can be nobody so ignorant as to take any of them for true stories and if it were permitted me now, and the present company desired it, I could say something about the qualities books of chivalry should possess to be good ones, that would be to the advantage and even to the taste of some but I hope the time will come when I can communicate my ideas to someone who may be able to mend matters and in the meantime, seor landlord, believe what I have said, and take your books, and make up your mind about their truth or falsehood, and much good may they do you and God grant you may not fall lame of the same foot your guest Don Quixote halts on. 'No fear of that, returned the landlord 'I shall not be so mad as to make a knighterrant of myself for I see well enough that things are not now as they used to be in those days, when they say those famous knights roamed about the world. Sancho had made his appearance in the middle of this conversation, and he was very much troubled and cast down by what he heard said about knightserrant being now no longer in vogue, and all books of chivalry being folly and lies and he resolved in his heart to wait and see what came of this journey of his master's, and if it did not turn out as happily as his master expected, he determined to leave him and go back to his wife and children and his ordinary labour. The landlord was carrying away the valise and the books, but the curate said to him, 'Wait I want to see what those papers are that are written in such a good hand. The landlord taking them out handed them to him to read, and he perceived they were a work of about eight sheets of manuscript, with, in large letters at the beginning, the title of 'Novel of the Illadvised Curiosity. The curate read three or four lines to himself, and said, 'I must say the title of this novel does not seem to me a bad one, and I feel an inclination to read it all. To which the landlord replied, 'Then your reverence will do well to read it, for I can tell you that some guests who have read it here have been much pleased with it, and have begged it of me very earnestly but I would not give it, meaning to return it to the person who forgot the valise, books, and papers here, for maybe he will return here some time or other and though I know I shall miss the books, faith I mean to return them for though I am an innkeeper, still I am a Christian. 'You are very right, friend, said the curate 'but for all that, if the novel pleases me you must let me copy it. 'With all my heart, replied the host. While they were talking Cardenio had taken up the novel and begun to read it, and forming the same opinion of it as the curate, he begged him to read it so that they might all hear it. 'I would read it, said the curate, 'if the time would not be better spent in sleeping. 'It will be rest enough for me, said Dorothea, 'to while away the time by listening to some tale, for my spirits are not yet tranquil enough to let me sleep when it would be seasonable. 'Well then, in that case, said the curate, 'I will read it, if it were only out of curiosity perhaps it may contain something pleasant. Master Nicholas added his entreaties to the same effect, and Sancho too seeing which, and considering that he would give pleasure to all, and receive it himself, the curate said, 'Well then, attend to me everyone, for the novel begins thus. In Florence, a rich and famous city of Italy in the province called Tuscany, there lived two gentlemen of wealth and quality, Anselmo and Lothario, such great friends that by way of distinction they were called by all that knew them 'The Two Friends. They were unmarried, young, of the same age and of the same tastes, which was enough to account for the reciprocal friendship between them. Anselmo, it is true, was somewhat more inclined to seek pleasure in love than Lothario, for whom the pleasures of the chase had more attraction but on occasion Anselmo would forego his own tastes to yield to those of Lothario, and Lothario would surrender his to fall in with those of Anselmo, and in this way their inclinations kept pace one with the other with a concord so perfect that the best regulated clock could not surpass it. Anselmo was deep in love with a highborn and beautiful maiden of the same city, the daughter of parents so estimable, and so estimable herself, that he resolved, with the approval of his friend Lothario, without whom he did nothing, to ask her of them in marriage, and did so, Lothario being the bearer of the demand, and conducting the negotiation so much to the satisfaction of his friend that in a short time he was in possession of the object of his desires, and Camilla so happy in having won Anselmo for her husband, that she gave thanks unceasingly to heaven and to Lothario, by whose means such good fortune had fallen to her. The first few days, those of a wedding being usually days of merrymaking, Lothario frequented his friend Anselmo's house as he had been wont, striving to do honour to him and to the occasion, and to gratify him in every way he could but when the wedding days were over and the succession of visits and congratulations had slackened, he began purposely to leave off going to the house of Anselmo, for it seemed to him, as it naturally would to all men of sense, that friends' houses ought not to be visited after marriage with the same frequency as in their masters' bachelor days because, though true and genuine friendship cannot and should not be in any way suspicious, still a married man's honour is a thing of such delicacy that it is held liable to injury from brothers, much more from friends. Anselmo remarked the cessation of Lothario's visits, and complained of it to him, saying that if he had known that marriage was to keep him from enjoying his society as he used, he would have never married and that, if by the thorough harmony that subsisted between them while he was a bachelor they had earned such a sweet name as that of 'The Two Friends, he should not allow a title so rare and so delightful to be lost through a needless anxiety to act circumspectly and so he entreated him, if such a phrase was allowable between them, to be once more master of his house and to come in and go out as formerly, assuring him that his wife Camilla had no other desire or inclination than that which he would wish her to have, and that knowing how sincerely they loved one another she was grieved to see such coldness in him. To all this and much more that Anselmo said to Lothario to persuade him to come to his house as he had been in the habit of doing, Lothario replied with so much prudence, sense, and judgment, that Anselmo was satisfied of his friend's good intentions, and it was agreed that on two days in the week, and on holidays, Lothario should come to dine with him but though this arrangement was made between them Lothario resolved to observe it no further than he considered to be in accordance with the honour of his friend, whose good name was more to him than his own. He said, and justly, that a married man upon whom heaven had bestowed a beautiful wife should consider as carefully what friends he brought to his house as what female friends his wife associated with, for what cannot be done or arranged in the marketplace, in church, at public festivals or at stations (opportunities that husbands cannot always deny their wives), may be easily managed in the house of the female friend or relative in whom most confidence is reposed. Lothario said, too, that every married man should have some friend who would point out to him any negligence he might be guilty of in his conduct, for it will sometimes happen that owing to the deep affection the husband bears his wife either he does not caution her, or, not to vex her, refrains from telling her to do or not to do certain things, doing or avoiding which may be a matter of honour or reproach to him and errors of this kind he could easily correct if warned by a friend. But where is such a friend to be found as Lothario would have, so judicious, so loyal, and so true? Of a truth I know not Lothario alone was such a one, for with the utmost care and vigilance he watched over the honour of his friend, and strove to diminish, cut down, and reduce the number of days for going to his house according to their agreement, lest the visits of a young man, wealthy, highborn, and with the attractions he was conscious of possessing, at the house of a woman so beautiful as Camilla, should be regarded with suspicion by the inquisitive and malicious eyes of the idle public. For though his integrity and reputation might bridle slanderous tongues, still he was unwilling to hazard either his own good name or that of his friend and for this reason most of the days agreed upon he devoted to some other business which he pretended was unavoidable so that a great portion of the day was taken up with complaints on one side and excuses on the other. It happened, however, that on one occasion when the two were strolling together outside the city, Anselmo addressed the following words to Lothario. 'Thou mayest suppose, Lothario my friend, that I am unable to give sufficient thanks for the favours God has rendered me in making me the son of such parents as mine were, and bestowing upon me with no niggard hand what are called the gifts of nature as well as those of fortune, and above all for what he has done in giving me thee for a friend and Camilla for a wifetwo treasures that I value, if not as highly as I ought, at least as highly as I am able. And yet, with all these good things, which are commonly all that men need to enable them to live happily, I am the most discontented and dissatisfied man in the whole world for, I know not how long since, I have been harassed and oppressed by a desire so strange and so unusual, that I wonder at myself and blame and chide myself when I am alone, and strive to stifle it and hide it from my own thoughts, and with no better success than if I were endeavouring deliberately to publish it to all the world and as, in short, it must come out, I would confide it to thy safe keeping, feeling sure that by this means, and by thy readiness as a true friend to afford me relief, I shall soon find myself freed from the distress it causes me, and that thy care will give me happiness in the same degree as my own folly has caused me misery. The words of Anselmo struck Lothario with astonishment, unable as he was to conjecture the purport of such a lengthy preamble and though he strove to imagine what desire it could be that so troubled his friend, his conjectures were all far from the truth, and to relieve the anxiety which this perplexity was causing him, he told him he was doing a flagrant injustice to their great friendship in seeking circuitous methods of confiding to him his most hidden thoughts, for he well knew he might reckon upon his counsel in diverting them, or his help in carrying them into effect. 'That is the truth, replied Anselmo, 'and relying upon that I will tell thee, friend Lothario, that the desire which harasses me is that of knowing whether my wife Camilla is as good and as perfect as I think her to be and I cannot satisfy myself of the truth on this point except by testing her in such a way that the trial may prove the purity of her virtue as the fire proves that of gold because I am persuaded, my friend, that a woman is virtuous only in proportion as she is or is not tempted and that she alone is strong who does not yield to the promises, gifts, tears, and importunities of earnest lovers for what thanks does a woman deserve for being good if no one urges her to be bad, and what wonder is it that she is reserved and circumspect to whom no opportunity is given of going wrong and who knows she has a husband that will take her life the first time he detects her in an impropriety? I do not therefore hold her who is virtuous through fear or want of opportunity in the same estimation as her who comes out of temptation and trial with a crown of victory and so, for these reasons and many others that I could give thee to justify and support the opinion I hold, I am desirous that my wife Camilla should pass this crisis, and be refined and tested by the fire of finding herself wooed and by one worthy to set his affections upon her and if she comes out, as I know she will, victorious from this struggle, I shall look upon my good fortune as unequalled, I shall be able to say that the cup of my desire is full, and that the virtuous woman of whom the sage says 'Who shall find her?' has fallen to my lot. And if the result be the contrary of what I expect, in the satisfaction of knowing that I have been right in my opinion, I shall bear without complaint the pain which my so dearly bought experience will naturally cause me. And, as nothing of all thou wilt urge in opposition to my wish will avail to keep me from carrying it into effect, it is my desire, friend Lothario, that thou shouldst consent to become the instrument for effecting this purpose that I am bent upon, for I will afford thee opportunities to that end, and nothing shall be wanting that I may think necessary for the pursuit of a virtuous, honourable, modest and highminded woman. And among other reasons, I am induced to entrust this arduous task to thee by the consideration that if Camilla be conquered by thee the conquest will not be pushed to extremes, but only far enough to account that accomplished which from a sense of honour will be left undone thus I shall not be wronged in anything more than intention, and my wrong will remain buried in the integrity of thy silence, which I know well will be as lasting as that of death in what concerns me. If, therefore, thou wouldst have me enjoy what can be called life, thou wilt at once engage in this love struggle, not lukewarmly nor slothfully, but with the energy and zeal that my desire demands, and with the loyalty our friendship assures me of. Such were the words Anselmo addressed to Lothario, who listened to them with such attention that, except to say what has been already mentioned, he did not open his lips until the other had finished. Then perceiving that he had no more to say, after regarding him for a while, as one would regard something never before seen that excited wonder and amazement, he said to him, 'I cannot persuade myself, Anselmo my friend, that what thou hast said to me is not in jest if I thought that thou wert speaking seriously I would not have allowed thee to go so far so as to put a stop to thy long harangue by not listening to thee I verily suspect that either thou dost not know me, or I do not know thee but no, I know well thou art Anselmo, and thou knowest that I am Lothario the misfortune is, it seems to me, that thou art not the Anselmo thou wert, and must have thought that I am not the Lothario I should be for the things that thou hast said to me are not those of that Anselmo who was my friend, nor are those that thou demandest of me what should be asked of the Lothario thou knowest. True friends will prove their friends and make use of them, as a poet has said, usque ad aras whereby he meant that they will not make use of their friendship in things that are contrary to God's will. If this, then, was a heathen's feeling about friendship, how much more should it be a Christian's, who knows that the divine must not be forfeited for the sake of any human friendship? And if a friend should go so far as to put aside his duty to Heaven to fulfil his duty to his friend, it should not be in matters that are trifling or of little moment, but in such as affect the friend's life and honour. Now tell me, Anselmo, in which of these two art thou imperilled, that I should hazard myself to gratify thee, and do a thing so detestable as that thou seekest of me? Neither forsooth on the contrary, thou dost ask of me, so far as I understand, to strive and labour to rob thee of honour and life, and to rob myself of them at the same time for if I take away thy honour it is plain I take away thy life, as a man without honour is worse than dead and being the instrument, as thou wilt have it so, of so much wrong to thee, shall not I, too, be left without honour, and consequently without life? Listen to me, Anselmo my friend, and be not impatient to answer me until I have said what occurs to me touching the object of thy desire, for there will be time enough left for thee to reply and for me to hear. 'Be it so, said Anselmo, 'say what thou wilt. Lothario then went on to say, 'It seems to me, Anselmo, that thine is just now the temper of mind which is always that of the Moors, who can never be brought to see the error of their creed by quotations from the Holy Scriptures, or by reasons which depend upon the examination of the understanding or are founded upon the articles of faith, but must have examples that are palpable, easy, intelligible, capable of proof, not admitting of doubt, with mathematical demonstrations that cannot be denied, like, 'If equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal' and if they do not understand this in words, and indeed they do not, it has to be shown to them with the hands, and put before their eyes, and even with all this no one succeeds in convincing them of the truth of our holy religion. This same mode of proceeding I shall have to adopt with thee, for the desire which has sprung up in thee is so absurd and remote from everything that has a semblance of reason, that I feel it would be a waste of time to employ it in reasoning with thy simplicity, for at present I will call it by no other name and I am even tempted to leave thee in thy folly as a punishment for thy pernicious desire but the friendship I bear thee, which will not allow me to desert thee in such manifest danger of destruction, keeps me from dealing so harshly by thee. And that thou mayest clearly see this, say, Anselmo, hast thou not told me that I must force my suit upon a modest woman, decoy one that is virtuous, make overtures to one that is pureminded, pay court to one that is prudent? Yes, thou hast told me so. Then, if thou knowest that thou hast a wife, modest, virtuous, pureminded and prudent, what is it that thou seekest? And if thou believest that she will come forth victorious from all my attacksas doubtless she wouldwhat higher titles than those she possesses now dost thou think thou canst bestow upon her then, or in what will she be better then than she is now? Either thou dost not hold her to be what thou sayest, or thou knowest not what thou dost demand. If thou dost not hold her to be what thou sayest, why dost thou seek to prove her instead of treating her as guilty in the way that may seem best to thee? but if she be as virtuous as thou believest, it is an uncalledfor proceeding to make trial of truth itself, for, after trial, it will but be in the same estimation as before. Thus, then, it is conclusive that to attempt things from which harm rather than advantage may come to us is the part of unreasoning and reckless minds, more especially when they are things which we are not forced or compelled to attempt, and which show from afar that it is plainly madness to attempt them. 'Difficulties are attempted either for the sake of God or for the sake of the world, or for both those undertaken for God's sake are those which the saints undertake when they attempt to live the lives of angels in human bodies those undertaken for the sake of the world are those of the men who traverse such a vast expanse of water, such a variety of climates, so many strange countries, to acquire what are called the blessings of fortune and those undertaken for the sake of God and the world together are those of brave soldiers, who no sooner do they see in the enemy's wall a breach as wide as a cannon ball could make, than, casting aside all fear, without hesitating, or heeding the manifest peril that threatens them, borne onward by the desire of defending their faith, their country, and their king, they fling themselves dauntlessly into the midst of the thousand opposing deaths that await them. Such are the things that men are wont to attempt, and there is honour, glory, gain, in attempting them, however full of difficulty and peril they may be but that which thou sayest it is thy wish to attempt and carry out will not win thee the glory of God nor the blessings of fortune nor fame among men for even if the issue be as thou wouldst have it, thou wilt be no happier, richer, or more honoured than thou art this moment and if it be otherwise thou wilt be reduced to misery greater than can be imagined, for then it will avail thee nothing to reflect that no one is aware of the misfortune that has befallen thee it will suffice to torture and crush thee that thou knowest it thyself. And in confirmation of the truth of what I say, let me repeat to thee a stanza made by the famous poet Luigi Tansillo at the end of the first part of his 'Tears of Saint Peter,' which says thus The anguish and the shame but greater grew In Peter's heart as morning slowly came No eye was there to see him, well he knew, Yet he himself was to himself a shame Exposed to all men's gaze, or screened from view, A noble heart will feel the pang the same A prey to shame the sinning soul will be, Though none but heaven and earth its shame can see. Thus by keeping it secret thou wilt not escape thy sorrow, but rather thou wilt shed tears unceasingly, if not tears of the eyes, tears of blood from the heart, like those shed by that simple doctor our poet tells us of, that tried the test of the cup, which the wise Rinaldo, better advised, refused to do for though this may be a poetic fiction it contains a moral lesson worthy of attention and study and imitation. Moreover by what I am about to say to thee thou wilt be led to see the great error thou wouldst commit. 'Tell me, Anselmo, if Heaven or good fortune had made thee master and lawful owner of a diamond of the finest quality, with the excellence and purity of which all the lapidaries that had seen it had been satisfied, saying with one voice and common consent that in purity, quality, and fineness, it was all that a stone of the kind could possibly be, thou thyself too being of the same belief, as knowing nothing to the contrary, would it be reasonable in thee to desire to take that diamond and place it between an anvil and a hammer, and by mere force of blows and strength of arm try if it were as hard and as fine as they said? And if thou didst, and if the stone should resist so silly a test, that would add nothing to its value or reputation and if it were broken, as it might be, would not all be lost? Undoubtedly it would, leaving its owner to be rated as a fool in the opinion of all. Consider, then, Anselmo my friend, that Camilla is a diamond of the finest quality as well in thy estimation as in that of others, and that it is contrary to reason to expose her to the risk of being broken for if she remains intact she cannot rise to a higher value than she now possesses and if she give way and be unable to resist, bethink thee now how thou wilt be deprived of her, and with what good reason thou wilt complain of thyself for having been the cause of her ruin and thine own. Remember there is no jewel in the world so precious as a chaste and virtuous woman, and that the whole honour of women consists in reputation and since thy wife's is of that high excellence that thou knowest, wherefore shouldst thou seek to call that truth in question? Remember, my friend, that woman is an imperfect animal, and that impediments are not to be placed in her way to make her trip and fall, but that they should be removed, and her path left clear of all obstacles, so that without hindrance she may run her course freely to attain the desired perfection, which consists in being virtuous. Naturalists tell us that the ermine is a little animal which has a fur of purest white, and that when the hunters wish to take it, they make use of this artifice. Having ascertained the places which it frequents and passes, they stop the way to them with mud, and then rousing it, drive it towards the spot, and as soon as the ermine comes to the mud it halts, and allows itself to be taken captive rather than pass through the mire, and spoil and sully its whiteness, which it values more than life and liberty. The virtuous and chaste woman is an ermine, and whiter and purer than snow is the virtue of modesty and he who wishes her not to lose it, but to keep and preserve it, must adopt a course different from that employed with the ermine he must not put before her the mire of the gifts and attentions of persevering lovers, because perhapsand even without a perhapsshe may not have sufficient virtue and natural strength in herself to pass through and tread under foot these impediments they must be removed, and the brightness of virtue and the beauty of a fair fame must be put before her. A virtuous woman, too, is like a mirror, of clear shining crystal, liable to be tarnished and dimmed by every breath that touches it. She must be treated as relics are adored, not touched. She must be protected and prized as one protects and prizes a fair garden full of roses and flowers, the owner of which allows no one to trespass or pluck a blossom enough for others that from afar and through the iron grating they may enjoy its fragrance and its beauty. Finally let me repeat to thee some verses that come to my mind I heard them in a modern comedy, and it seems to me they bear upon the point we are discussing. A prudent old man was giving advice to another, the father of a young girl, to lock her up, watch over her and keep her in seclusion, and among other arguments he used these Woman is a thing of glass But her brittleness 'tis best Not too curiously to test Who knows what may come to pass? Breaking is an easy matter, And it's folly to expose What you cannot mend to blows What you can't make whole to shatter. This, then, all may hold as true, And the reason's plain to see For if Danas there be, There are golden showers too. 'All that I have said to thee so far, Anselmo, has had reference to what concerns thee now it is right that I should say something of what regards myself and if I be prolix, pardon me, for the labyrinth into which thou hast entered and from which thou wouldst have me extricate thee makes it necessary. 'Thou dost reckon me thy friend, and thou wouldst rob me of honour, a thing wholly inconsistent with friendship and not only dost thou aim at this, but thou wouldst have me rob thee of it also. That thou wouldst rob me of it is clear, for when Camilla sees that I pay court to her as thou requirest, she will certainly regard me as a man without honour or right feeling, since I attempt and do a thing so much opposed to what I owe to my own position and thy friendship. That thou wouldst have me rob thee of it is beyond a doubt, for Camilla, seeing that I press my suit upon her, will suppose that I have perceived in her something light that has encouraged me to make known to her my base desire and if she holds herself dishonoured, her dishonour touches thee as belonging to her and hence arises what so commonly takes place, that the husband of the adulterous woman, though he may not be aware of or have given any cause for his wife's failure in her duty, or (being careless or negligent) have had it in his power to prevent his dishonour, nevertheless is stigmatised by a vile and reproachful name, and in a manner regarded with eyes of contempt instead of pity by all who know of his wife's guilt, though they see that he is unfortunate not by his own fault, but by the lust of a vicious consort. But I will tell thee why with good reason dishonour attaches to the husband of the unchaste wife, though he know not that she is so, nor be to blame, nor have done anything, or given any provocation to make her so and be not weary with listening to me, for it will be for thy good. 'When God created our first parent in the earthly paradise, the Holy Scripture says that he infused sleep into Adam and while he slept took a rib from his left side of which he formed our mother Eve, and when Adam awoke and beheld her he said, 'This is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone.' And God said 'For this shall a man leave his father and his mother, and they shall be two in one flesh and then was instituted the divine sacrament of marriage, with such ties that death alone can loose them. And such is the force and virtue of this miraculous sacrament that it makes two different persons one and the same flesh and even more than this when the virtuous are married for though they have two souls they have but one will. And hence it follows that as the flesh of the wife is one and the same with that of her husband the stains that may come upon it, or the injuries it incurs fall upon the husband's flesh, though he, as has been said, may have given no cause for them for as the pain of the foot or any member of the body is felt by the whole body, because all is one flesh, as the head feels the hurt to the ankle without having caused it, so the husband, being one with her, shares the dishonour of the wife and as all worldly honour or dishonour comes of flesh and blood, and the erring wife's is of that kind, the husband must needs bear his part of it and be held dishonoured without knowing it. See, then, Anselmo, the peril thou art encountering in seeking to disturb the peace of thy virtuous consort see for what an empty and illadvised curiosity thou wouldst rouse up passions that now repose in quiet in the breast of thy chaste wife reflect that what thou art staking all to win is little, and what thou wilt lose so much that I leave it undescribed, not having the words to express it. But if all I have said be not enough to turn thee from thy vile purpose, thou must seek some other instrument for thy dishonour and misfortune for such I will not consent to be, though I lose thy friendship, the greatest loss that I can conceive. Having said this, the wise and virtuous Lothario was silent, and Anselmo, troubled in mind and deep in thought, was unable for a while to utter a word in reply but at length he said, 'I have listened, Lothario my friend, attentively, as thou hast seen, to what thou hast chosen to say to me, and in thy arguments, examples, and comparisons I have seen that high intelligence thou dost possess, and the perfection of true friendship thou hast reached and likewise I see and confess that if I am not guided by thy opinion, but follow my own, I am flying from the good and pursuing the evil. This being so, thou must remember that I am now labouring under that infirmity which women sometimes suffer from, when the craving seizes them to eat clay, plaster, charcoal, and things even worse, disgusting to look at, much more to eat so that it will be necessary to have recourse to some artifice to cure me and this can be easily effected if only thou wilt make a beginning, even though it be in a lukewarm and makebelieve fashion, to pay court to Camilla, who will not be so yielding that her virtue will give way at the first attack with this mere attempt I shall rest satisfied, and thou wilt have done what our friendship binds thee to do, not only in giving me life, but in persuading me not to discard my honour. And this thou art bound to do for one reason alone, that, being, as I am, resolved to apply this test, it is not for thee to permit me to reveal my weakness to another, and so imperil that honour thou art striving to keep me from losing and if thine may not stand as high as it ought in the estimation of Camilla while thou art paying court to her, that is of little or no importance, because ere long, on finding in her that constancy which we expect, thou canst tell her the plain truth as regards our stratagem, and so regain thy place in her esteem and as thou art venturing so little, and by the venture canst afford me so much satisfaction, refuse not to undertake it, even if further difficulties present themselves to thee for, as I have said, if thou wilt only make a beginning I will acknowledge the issue decided. Lothario seeing the fixed determination of Anselmo, and not knowing what further examples to offer or arguments to urge in order to dissuade him from it, and perceiving that he threatened to confide his pernicious scheme to someone else, to avoid a greater evil resolved to gratify him and do what he asked, intending to manage the business so as to satisfy Anselmo without corrupting the mind of Camilla so in reply he told him not to communicate his purpose to any other, for he would undertake the task himself, and would begin it as soon as he pleased. Anselmo embraced him warmly and affectionately, and thanked him for his offer as if he had bestowed some great favour upon him and it was agreed between them to set about it the next day, Anselmo affording opportunity and time to Lothario to converse alone with Camilla, and furnishing him with money and jewels to offer and present to her. He suggested, too, that he should treat her to music, and write verses in her praise, and if he was unwilling to take the trouble of composing them, he offered to do it himself. Lothario agreed to all with an intention very different from what Anselmo supposed, and with this understanding they returned to Anselmo's house, where they found Camilla awaiting her husband anxiously and uneasily, for he was later than usual in returning that day. Lothario repaired to his own house, and Anselmo remained in his, as well satisfied as Lothario was troubled in mind for he could see no satisfactory way out of this illadvised business. That night, however, he thought of a plan by which he might deceive Anselmo without any injury to Camilla. The next day he went to dine with his friend, and was welcomed by Camilla, who received and treated him with great cordiality, knowing the affection her husband felt for him. When dinner was over and the cloth removed, Anselmo told Lothario to stay there with Camilla while he attended to some pressing business, as he would return in an hour and a half. Camilla begged him not to go, and Lothario offered to accompany him, but nothing could persuade Anselmo, who on the contrary pressed Lothario to remain waiting for him as he had a matter of great importance to discuss with him. At the same time he bade Camilla not to leave Lothario alone until he came back. In short he contrived to put so good a face on the reason, or the folly, of his absence that no one could have suspected it was a pretence. Anselmo took his departure, and Camilla and Lothario were left alone at the table, for the rest of the household had gone to dinner. Lothario saw himself in the lists according to his friend's wish, and facing an enemy that could by her beauty alone vanquish a squadron of armed knights judge whether he had good reason to fear but what he did was to lean his elbow on the arm of the chair, and his cheek upon his hand, and, asking Camilla's pardon for his ill manners, he said he wished to take a little sleep until Anselmo returned. Camilla in reply said he could repose more at his ease in the receptionroom than in his chair, and begged of him to go in and sleep there but Lothario declined, and there he remained asleep until the return of Anselmo, who finding Camilla in her own room, and Lothario asleep, imagined that he had stayed away so long as to have afforded them time enough for conversation and even for sleep, and was all impatience until Lothario should wake up, that he might go out with him and question him as to his success. Everything fell out as he wished Lothario awoke, and the two at once left the house, and Anselmo asked what he was anxious to know, and Lothario in answer told him that he had not thought it advisable to declare himself entirely the first time, and therefore had only extolled the charms of Camilla, telling her that all the city spoke of nothing else but her beauty and wit, for this seemed to him an excellent way of beginning to gain her goodwill and render her disposed to listen to him with pleasure the next time, thus availing himself of the device the devil has recourse to when he would deceive one who is on the watch for he being the angel of darkness transforms himself into an angel of light, and, under cover of a fair seeming, discloses himself at length, and effects his purpose if at the beginning his wiles are not discovered. All this gave great satisfaction to Anselmo, and he said he would afford the same opportunity every day, but without leaving the house, for he would find things to do at home so that Camilla should not detect the plot. Thus, then, several days went by, and Lothario, without uttering a word to Camilla, reported to Anselmo that he had talked with her and that he had never been able to draw from her the slightest indication of consent to anything dishonourable, nor even a sign or shadow of hope on the contrary, he said she would inform her husband of it. 'So far well, said Anselmo 'Camilla has thus far resisted words we must now see how she will resist deeds. I will give you tomorrow two thousand crowns in gold for you to offer or even present, and as many more to buy jewels to lure her, for women are fond of being becomingly attired and going gaily dressed, and all the more so if they are beautiful, however chaste they may be and if she resists this temptation, I will rest satisfied and will give you no more trouble. Lothario replied that now he had begun he would carry on the undertaking to the end, though he perceived he was to come out of it wearied and vanquished. The next day he received the four thousand crowns, and with them four thousand perplexities, for he knew not what to say by way of a new falsehood but in the end he made up his mind to tell him that Camilla stood as firm against gifts and promises as against words, and that there was no use in taking any further trouble, for the time was all spent to no purpose. But chance, directing things in a different manner, so ordered it that Anselmo, having left Lothario and Camilla alone as on other occasions, shut himself into a chamber and posted himself to watch and listen through the keyhole to what passed between them, and perceived that for more than half an hour Lothario did not utter a word to Camilla, nor would utter a word though he were to be there for an age and he came to the conclusion that what his friend had told him about the replies of Camilla was all invention and falsehood, and to ascertain if it were so, he came out, and calling Lothario aside asked him what news he had and in what humour Camilla was. Lothario replied that he was not disposed to go on with the business, for she had answered him so angrily and harshly that he had no heart to say anything more to her. 'Ah, Lothario, Lothario, said Anselmo, 'how ill dost thou meet thy obligations to me, and the great confidence I repose in thee! I have been just now watching through this keyhole, and I have seen that thou hast not said a word to Camilla, whence I conclude that on the former occasions thou hast not spoken to her either, and if this be so, as no doubt it is, why dost thou deceive me, or wherefore seekest thou by craft to deprive me of the means I might find of attaining my desire? Anselmo said no more, but he had said enough to cover Lothario with shame and confusion, and he, feeling as it were his honour touched by having been detected in a lie, swore to Anselmo that he would from that moment devote himself to satisfying him without any deception, as he would see if he had the curiosity to watch though he need not take the trouble, for the pains he would take to satisfy him would remove all suspicions from his mind. Anselmo believed him, and to afford him an opportunity more free and less liable to surprise, he resolved to absent himself from his house for eight days, betaking himself to that of a friend of his who lived in a village not far from the city and, the better to account for his departure to Camilla, he so arranged it that the friend should send him a very pressing invitation. Unhappy, shortsighted Anselmo, what art thou doing, what art thou plotting, what art thou devising? Bethink thee thou art working against thyself, plotting thine own dishonour, devising thine own ruin. Thy wife Camilla is virtuous, thou dost possess her in peace and quietness, no one assails thy happiness, her thoughts wander not beyond the walls of thy house, thou art her heaven on earth, the object of her wishes, the fulfilment of her desires, the measure wherewith she measures her will, making it conform in all things to thine and Heaven's. If, then, the mine of her honour, beauty, virtue, and modesty yields thee without labour all the wealth it contains and thou canst wish for, why wilt thou dig the earth in search of fresh veins, of new unknown treasure, risking the collapse of all, since it but rests on the feeble props of her weak nature? Bethink thee that from him who seeks impossibilities that which is possible may with justice be withheld, as was better expressed by a poet who said 'Tis mine to seek for life in death, Health in disease seek I, I seek in prison freedom's breath, In traitors loyalty. So Fate that ever scorns to grant Or grace or boon to me, Since what can never be I want, Denies me what might be. The next day Anselmo took his departure for the village, leaving instructions with Camilla that during his absence Lothario would come to look after his house and to dine with her, and that she was to treat him as she would himself. Camilla was distressed, as a discreet and rightminded woman would be, at the orders her husband left her, and bade him remember that it was not becoming that anyone should occupy his seat at the table during his absence, and if he acted thus from not feeling confidence that she would be able to manage his house, let him try her this time, and he would find by experience that she was equal to greater responsibilities. Anselmo replied that it was his pleasure to have it so, and that she had only to submit and obey. Camilla said she would do so, though against her will. Anselmo went, and the next day Lothario came to his house, where he was received by Camilla with a friendly and modest welcome but she never suffered Lothario to see her alone, for she was always attended by her men and women servants, especially by a handmaid of hers, Leonela by name, to whom she was much attached (for they had been brought up together from childhood in her father's house), and whom she had kept with her after her marriage with Anselmo. The first three days Lothario did not speak to her, though he might have done so when they removed the cloth and the servants retired to dine hastily for such were Camilla's orders nay more, Leonela had directions to dine earlier than Camilla and never to leave her side. She, however, having her thoughts fixed upon other things more to her taste, and wanting that time and opportunity for her own pleasures, did not always obey her mistress's commands, but on the contrary left them alone, as if they had ordered her to do so but the modest bearing of Camilla, the calmness of her countenance, the composure of her aspect were enough to bridle the tongue of Lothario. But the influence which the many virtues of Camilla exerted in imposing silence on Lothario's tongue proved mischievous for both of them, for if his tongue was silent his thoughts were busy, and could dwell at leisure upon the perfections of Camilla's goodness and beauty one by one, charms enough to warm with love a marble statue, not to say a heart of flesh. Lothario gazed upon her when he might have been speaking to her, and thought how worthy of being loved she was and thus reflection began little by little to assail his allegiance to Anselmo, and a thousand times he thought of withdrawing from the city and going where Anselmo should never see him nor he see Camilla. But already the delight he found in gazing on her interposed and held him fast. He put a constraint upon himself, and struggled to repel and repress the pleasure he found in contemplating Camilla when alone he blamed himself for his weakness, called himself a bad friend, nay a bad Christian then he argued the matter and compared himself with Anselmo always coming to the conclusion that the folly and rashness of Anselmo had been worse than his faithlessness, and that if he could excuse his intentions as easily before God as with man, he had no reason to fear any punishment for his offence. In short the beauty and goodness of Camilla, joined with the opportunity which the blind husband had placed in his hands, overthrew the loyalty of Lothario and giving heed to nothing save the object towards which his inclinations led him, after Anselmo had been three days absent, during which he had been carrying on a continual struggle with his passion, he began to make love to Camilla with so much vehemence and warmth of language that she was overwhelmed with amazement, and could only rise from her place and retire to her room without answering him a word. But the hope which always springs up with love was not weakened in Lothario by this repelling demeanour on the contrary his passion for Camilla increased, and she discovering in him what she had never expected, knew not what to do and considering it neither safe nor right to give him the chance or opportunity of speaking to her again, she resolved to send, as she did that very night, one of her servants with a letter to Anselmo, in which she addressed the following words to him. 'It is commonly said that an army looks ill without its general and a castle without its castellan, and I say that a young married woman looks still worse without her husband unless there are very good reasons for it. I find myself so ill at ease without you, and so incapable of enduring this separation, that unless you return quickly I shall have to go for relief to my parents' house, even if I leave yours without a protector for the one you left me, if indeed he deserved that title, has, I think, more regard to his own pleasure than to what concerns you as you are possessed of discernment I need say no more to you, nor indeed is it fitting I should say more. Anselmo received this letter, and from it he gathered that Lothario had already begun his task and that Camilla must have replied to him as he would have wished and delighted beyond measure at such intelligence he sent word to her not to leave his house on any account, as he would very shortly return. Camilla was astonished at Anselmo's reply, which placed her in greater perplexity than before, for she neither dared to remain in her own house, nor yet to go to her parents' for in remaining her virtue was imperilled, and in going she was opposing her husband's commands. Finally she decided upon what was the worse course for her, to remain, resolving not to fly from the presence of Lothario, that she might not give food for gossip to her servants and she now began to regret having written as she had to her husband, fearing he might imagine that Lothario had perceived in her some lightness which had impelled him to lay aside the respect he owed her but confident of her rectitude she put her trust in God and in her own virtuous intentions, with which she hoped to resist in silence all the solicitations of Lothario, without saying anything to her husband so as not to involve him in any quarrel or trouble and she even began to consider how to excuse Lothario to Anselmo when he should ask her what it was that induced her to write that letter. With these resolutions, more honourable than judicious or effectual, she remained the next day listening to Lothario, who pressed his suit so strenuously that Camilla's firmness began to waver, and her virtue had enough to do to come to the rescue of her eyes and keep them from showing signs of a certain tender compassion which the tears and appeals of Lothario had awakened in her bosom. Lothario observed all this, and it inflamed him all the more. In short he felt that while Anselmo's absence afforded time and opportunity he must press the siege of the fortress, and so he assailed her selfesteem with praises of her beauty, for there is nothing that more quickly reduces and levels the castle towers of fair women's vanity than vanity itself upon the tongue of flattery. In fact with the utmost assiduity he undermined the rock of her purity with such engines that had Camilla been of brass she must have fallen. He wept, he entreated, he promised, he flattered, he importuned, he pretended with so much feeling and apparent sincerity, that he overthrew the virtuous resolves of Camilla and won the triumph he least expected and most longed for. Camilla yielded, Camilla fell but what wonder if the friendship of Lothario could not stand firm? A clear proof to us that the passion of love is to be conquered only by flying from it, and that no one should engage in a struggle with an enemy so mighty for divine strength is needed to overcome his human power. Leonela alone knew of her mistress's weakness, for the two false friends and new lovers were unable to conceal it. Lothario did not care to tell Camilla the object Anselmo had in view, nor that he had afforded him the opportunity of attaining such a result, lest she should undervalue his love and think that it was by chance and without intending it and not of his own accord that he had made love to her. A few days later Anselmo returned to his house and did not perceive what it had lost, that which he so lightly treated and so highly prized. He went at once to see Lothario, and found him at home they embraced each other, and Anselmo asked for the tidings of his life or his death. 'The tidings I have to give thee, Anselmo my friend, said Lothario, 'are that thou dost possess a wife that is worthy to be the pattern and crown of all good wives. The words that I have addressed to her were borne away on the wind, my promises have been despised, my presents have been refused, such feigned tears as I shed have been turned into open ridicule. In short, as Camilla is the essence of all beauty, so is she the treasurehouse where purity dwells, and gentleness and modesty abide with all the virtues that can confer praise, honour, and happiness upon a woman. Take back thy money, my friend here it is, and I have had no need to touch it, for the chastity of Camilla yields not to things so base as gifts or promises. Be content, Anselmo, and refrain from making further proof and as thou hast passed dryshod through the sea of those doubts and suspicions that are and may be entertained of women, seek not to plunge again into the deep ocean of new embarrassments, or with another pilot make trial of the goodness and strength of the bark that Heaven has granted thee for thy passage across the sea of this world but reckon thyself now safe in port, moor thyself with the anchor of sound reflection, and rest in peace until thou art called upon to pay that debt which no nobility on earth can escape paying. Anselmo was completely satisfied by the words of Lothario, and believed them as fully as if they had been spoken by an oracle nevertheless he begged of him not to relinquish the undertaking, were it but for the sake of curiosity and amusement though thenceforward he need not make use of the same earnest endeavours as before all he wished him to do was to write some verses to her, praising her under the name of Chloris, for he himself would give her to understand that he was in love with a lady to whom he had given that name to enable him to sing her praises with the decorum due to her modesty and if Lothario were unwilling to take the trouble of writing the verses he would compose them himself. 'That will not be necessary, said Lothario, 'for the muses are not such enemies of mine but that they visit me now and then in the course of the year. Do thou tell Camilla what thou hast proposed about a pretended amour of mine as for the verses I will make them, and if not as good as the subject deserves, they shall be at least the best I can produce. An agreement to this effect was made between the friends, the illadvised one and the treacherous, and Anselmo returning to his house asked Camilla the question she already wondered he had not asked beforewhat it was that had caused her to write the letter she had sent him. Camilla replied that it had seemed to her that Lothario looked at her somewhat more freely than when he had been at home but that now she was undeceived and believed it to have been only her own imagination, for Lothario now avoided seeing her, or being alone with her. Anselmo told her she might be quite easy on the score of that suspicion, for he knew that Lothario was in love with a damsel of rank in the city whom he celebrated under the name of Chloris, and that even if he were not, his fidelity and their great friendship left no room for fear. Had not Camilla, however, been informed beforehand by Lothario that this love for Chloris was a pretence, and that he himself had told Anselmo of it in order to be able sometimes to give utterance to the praises of Camilla herself, no doubt she would have fallen into the despairing toils of jealousy but being forewarned she received the startling news without uneasiness. The next day as the three were at table Anselmo asked Lothario to recite something of what he had composed for his mistress Chloris for as Camilla did not know her, he might safely say what he liked. 'Even did she know her, returned Lothario, 'I would hide nothing, for when a lover praises his lady's beauty, and charges her with cruelty, he casts no imputation upon her fair name at any rate, all I can say is that yesterday I made a sonnet on the ingratitude of this Chloris, which goes thus SONNET At midnight, in the silence, when the eyes Of happier mortals balmy slumbers close, The weary tale of my unnumbered woes To Chloris and to Heaven is wont to rise. And when the light of day returning dyes The portals of the east with tints of rose, With undiminished force my sorrow flows In broken accents and in burning sighs. And when the sun ascends his stargirt throne, And on the earth pours down his midday beams, Noon but renews my wailing and my tears And with the night again goes up my moan. Yet ever in my agony it seems To me that neither Heaven nor Chloris hears. The sonnet pleased Camilla, and still more Anselmo, for he praised it and said the lady was excessively cruel who made no return for sincerity so manifest. On which Camilla said, 'Then all that lovesmitten poets say is true? 'As poets they do not tell the truth, replied Lothario 'but as lovers they are not more defective in expression than they are truthful. 'There is no doubt of that, observed Anselmo, anxious to support and uphold Lothario's ideas with Camilla, who was as regardless of his design as she was deep in love with Lothario and so taking delight in anything that was his, and knowing that his thoughts and writings had her for their object, and that she herself was the real Chloris, she asked him to repeat some other sonnet or verses if he recollected any. 'I do, replied Lothario, 'but I do not think it as good as the first one, or, more correctly speaking, less bad but you can easily judge, for it is this. SONNET I know that I am doomed death is to me As certain as that thou, ungrateful fair, Dead at thy feet shouldst see me lying, ere My heart repented of its love for thee. If buried in oblivion I should be, Bereft of life, fame, favour, even there It would be found that I thy image bear Deep graven in my breast for all to see. This like some holy relic do I prize To save me from the fate my truth entails, Truth that to thy hard heart its vigour owes. Alas for him that under lowering skies, In peril o'er a trackless ocean sails, Where neither friendly port nor polestar shows. Anselmo praised this second sonnet too, as he had praised the first and so he went on adding link after link to the chain with which he was binding himself and making his dishonour secure for when Lothario was doing most to dishonour him he told him he was most honoured and thus each step that Camilla descended towards the depths of her abasement, she mounted, in his opinion, towards the summit of virtue and fair fame. It so happened that finding herself on one occasion alone with her maid, Camilla said to her, 'I am ashamed to think, my dear Leonela, how lightly I have valued myself that I did not compel Lothario to purchase by at least some expenditure of time that full possession of me that I so quickly yielded him of my own free will. I fear that he will think ill of my pliancy or lightness, not considering the irresistible influence he brought to bear upon me. 'Let not that trouble you, my lady, said Leonela, 'for it does not take away the value of the thing given or make it the less precious to give it quickly if it be really valuable and worthy of being prized nay, they are wont to say that he who gives quickly gives twice. 'They say also, said Camilla, 'that what costs little is valued less. 'That saying does not hold good in your case, replied Leonela, 'for love, as I have heard say, sometimes flies and sometimes walks with this one it runs, with that it moves slowly some it cools, others it burns some it wounds, others it slays it begins the course of its desires, and at the same moment completes and ends it in the morning it will lay siege to a fortress and by night will have taken it, for there is no power that can resist it so what are you in dread of, what do you fear, when the same must have befallen Lothario, love having chosen the absence of my lord as the instrument for subduing you? and it was absolutely necessary to complete then what love had resolved upon, without affording the time to let Anselmo return and by his presence compel the work to be left unfinished for love has no better agent for carrying out his designs than opportunity and of opportunity he avails himself in all his feats, especially at the outset. All this I know well myself, more by experience than by hearsay, and some day, seora, I will enlighten you on the subject, for I am of your flesh and blood too. Moreover, lady Camilla, you did not surrender yourself or yield so quickly but that first you saw Lothario's whole soul in his eyes, in his sighs, in his words, his promises and his gifts, and by it and his good qualities perceived how worthy he was of your love. This, then, being the case, let not these scrupulous and prudish ideas trouble your imagination, but be assured that Lothario prizes you as you do him, and rest content and satisfied that as you are caught in the noose of love it is one of worth and merit that has taken you, and one that has not only the four S's that they say true lovers ought to have, but a complete alphabet only listen to me and you will see how I can repeat it by rote. He is to my eyes and thinking, Amiable, Brave, Courteous, Distinguished, Elegant, Fond, Gay, Honourable, Illustrious, Loyal, Manly, Noble, Open, Polite, Quickwitted, Rich, and the S's according to the saying, and then Tender, Veracious X does not suit him, for it is a rough letter Y has been given already and Z Zealous for your honour. Camilla laughed at her maid's alphabet, and perceived her to be more experienced in love affairs than she said, which she admitted, confessing to Camilla that she had love passages with a young man of good birth of the same city. Camilla was uneasy at this, dreading lest it might prove the means of endangering her honour, and asked whether her intrigue had gone beyond words, and she with little shame and much effrontery said it had for certain it is that ladies' imprudences make servants shameless, who, when they see their mistresses make a false step, think nothing of going astray themselves, or of its being known. All that Camilla could do was to entreat Leonela to say nothing about her doings to him whom she called her lover, and to conduct her own affairs secretly lest they should come to the knowledge of Anselmo or of Lothario. Leonela said she would, but kept her word in such a way that she confirmed Camilla's apprehension of losing her reputation through her means for this abandoned and bold Leonela, as soon as she perceived that her mistress's demeanour was not what it was wont to be, had the audacity to introduce her lover into the house, confident that even if her mistress saw him she would not dare to expose him for the sins of mistresses entail this mischief among others they make themselves the slaves of their own servants, and are obliged to hide their laxities and depravities as was the case with Camilla, who though she perceived, not once but many times, that Leonela was with her lover in some room of the house, not only did not dare to chide her, but afforded her opportunities for concealing him and removed all difficulties, lest he should be seen by her husband. She was unable, however, to prevent him from being seen on one occasion, as he sallied forth at daybreak, by Lothario, who, not knowing who he was, at first took him for a spectre but, as soon as he saw him hasten away, muffling his face with his cloak and concealing himself carefully and cautiously, he rejected this foolish idea, and adopted another, which would have been the ruin of all had not Camilla found a remedy. It did not occur to Lothario that this man he had seen issuing at such an untimely hour from Anselmo's house could have entered it on Leonela's account, nor did he even remember there was such a person as Leonela all he thought was that as Camilla had been light and yielding with him, so she had been with another for this further penalty the erring woman's sin brings with it, that her honour is distrusted even by him to whose overtures and persuasions she has yielded and he believes her to have surrendered more easily to others, and gives implicit credence to every suspicion that comes into his mind. All Lothario's good sense seems to have failed him at this juncture all his prudent maxims escaped his memory for without once reflecting rationally, and without more ado, in his impatience and in the blindness of the jealous rage that gnawed his heart, and dying to revenge himself upon Camilla, who had done him no wrong, before Anselmo had risen he hastened to him and said to him, 'Know, Anselmo, that for several days past I have been struggling with myself, striving to withhold from thee what it is no longer possible or right that I should conceal from thee. Know that Camilla's fortress has surrendered and is ready to submit to my will and if I have been slow to reveal this fact to thee, it was in order to see if it were some light caprice of hers, or if she sought to try me and ascertain if the love I began to make to her with thy permission was made with a serious intention. I thought, too, that she, if she were what she ought to be, and what we both believed her, would have ere this given thee information of my addresses but seeing that she delays, I believe the truth of the promise she has given me that the next time thou art absent from the house she will grant me an interview in the closet where thy jewels are kept (and it was true that Camilla used to meet him there) but I do not wish thee to rush precipitately to take vengeance, for the sin is as yet only committed in intention, and Camilla's may change perhaps between this and the appointed time, and repentance spring up in its place. As hitherto thou hast always followed my advice wholly or in part, follow and observe this that I will give thee now, so that, without mistake, and with mature deliberation, thou mayest satisfy thyself as to what may seem the best course pretend to absent thyself for two or three days as thou hast been wont to do on other occasions, and contrive to hide thyself in the closet for the tapestries and other things there afford great facilities for thy concealment, and then thou wilt see with thine own eyes and I with mine what Camilla's purpose may be. And if it be a guilty one, which may be feared rather than expected, with silence, prudence, and discretion thou canst thyself become the instrument of punishment for the wrong done thee. Anselmo was amazed, overwhelmed, and astounded at the words of Lothario, which came upon him at a time when he least expected to hear them, for he now looked upon Camilla as having triumphed over the pretended attacks of Lothario, and was beginning to enjoy the glory of her victory. He remained silent for a considerable time, looking on the ground with fixed gaze, and at length said, 'Thou hast behaved, Lothario, as I expected of thy friendship I will follow thy advice in everything do as thou wilt, and keep this secret as thou seest it should be kept in circumstances so unlooked for. Lothario gave him his word, but after leaving him he repented altogether of what he had said to him, perceiving how foolishly he had acted, as he might have revenged himself upon Camilla in some less cruel and degrading way. He cursed his want of sense, condemned his hasty resolution, and knew not what course to take to undo the mischief or find some ready escape from it. At last he decided upon revealing all to Camilla, and, as there was no want of opportunity for doing so, he found her alone the same day but she, as soon as she had the chance of speaking to him, said, 'Lothario my friend, I must tell thee I have a sorrow in my heart which fills it so that it seems ready to burst and it will be a wonder if it does not for the audacity of Leonela has now reached such a pitch that every night she conceals a gallant of hers in this house and remains with him till morning, at the expense of my reputation inasmuch as it is open to anyone to question it who may see him quitting my house at such unseasonable hours but what distresses me is that I cannot punish or chide her, for her privity to our intrigue bridles my mouth and keeps me silent about hers, while I am dreading that some catastrophe will come of it. As Camilla said this Lothario at first imagined it was some device to delude him into the idea that the man he had seen going out was Leonela's lover and not hers but when he saw how she wept and suffered, and begged him to help her, he became convinced of the truth, and the conviction completed his confusion and remorse however, he told Camilla not to distress herself, as he would take measures to put a stop to the insolence of Leonela. At the same time he told her what, driven by the fierce rage of jealousy, he had said to Anselmo, and how he had arranged to hide himself in the closet that he might there see plainly how little she preserved her fidelity to him and he entreated her pardon for this madness, and her advice as to how to repair it, and escape safely from the intricate labyrinth in which his imprudence had involved him. Camilla was struck with alarm at hearing what Lothario said, and with much anger, and great good sense, she reproved him and rebuked his base design and the foolish and mischievous resolution he had made but as woman has by nature a nimbler wit than man for good and for evil, though it is apt to fail when she sets herself deliberately to reason, Camilla on the spur of the moment thought of a way to remedy what was to all appearance irremediable, and told Lothario to contrive that the next day Anselmo should conceal himself in the place he mentioned, for she hoped from his concealment to obtain the means of their enjoying themselves for the future without any apprehension and without revealing her purpose to him entirely she charged him to be careful, as soon as Anselmo was concealed, to come to her when Leonela should call him, and to all she said to him to answer as he would have answered had he not known that Anselmo was listening. Lothario pressed her to explain her intention fully, so that he might with more certainty and precaution take care to do what he saw to be needful. 'I tell you, said Camilla, 'there is nothing to take care of except to answer me what I shall ask you for she did not wish to explain to him beforehand what she meant to do, fearing lest he should be unwilling to follow out an idea which seemed to her such a good one, and should try or devise some other less practicable plan. Lothario then retired, and the next day Anselmo, under pretence of going to his friend's country house, took his departure, and then returned to conceal himself, which he was able to do easily, as Camilla and Leonela took care to give him the opportunity and so he placed himself in hiding in the state of agitation that it may be imagined he would feel who expected to see the vitals of his honour laid bare before his eyes, and found himself on the point of losing the supreme blessing he thought he possessed in his beloved Camilla. Having made sure of Anselmo's being in his hidingplace, Camilla and Leonela entered the closet, and the instant she set foot within it Camilla said, with a deep sigh, 'Ah! dear Leonela, would it not be better, before I do what I am unwilling you should know lest you should seek to prevent it, that you should take Anselmo's dagger that I have asked of you and with it pierce this vile heart of mine? But no there is no reason why I should suffer the punishment of another's fault. I will first know what it is that the bold licentious eyes of Lothario have seen in me that could have encouraged him to reveal to me a design so base as that which he has disclosed regardless of his friend and of my honour. Go to the window, Leonela, and call him, for no doubt he is in the street waiting to carry out his vile project but mine, cruel it may be, but honourable, shall be carried out first. 'Ah, seora, said the crafty Leonela, who knew her part, 'what is it you want to do with this dagger? Can it be that you mean to take your own life, or Lothario's? for whichever you mean to do, it will lead to the loss of your reputation and good name. It is better to dissemble your wrong and not give this wicked man the chance of entering the house now and finding us alone consider, seora, we are weak women and he is a man, and determined, and as he comes with such a base purpose, blind and urged by passion, perhaps before you can put yours into execution he may do what will be worse for you than taking your life. Ill betide my master, Anselmo, for giving such authority in his house to this shameless fellow! And supposing you kill him, seora, as I suspect you mean to do, what shall we do with him when he is dead? 'What, my friend? replied Camilla, 'we shall leave him for Anselmo to bury him for in reason it will be to him a light labour to hide his own infamy under ground. Summon him, make haste, for all the time I delay in taking vengeance for my wrong seems to me an offence against the loyalty I owe my husband. Anselmo was listening to all this, and every word that Camilla uttered made him change his mind but when he heard that it was resolved to kill Lothario his first impulse was to come out and show himself to avert such a disaster but in his anxiety to see the issue of a resolution so bold and virtuous he restrained himself, intending to come forth in time to prevent the deed. At this moment Camilla, throwing herself upon a bed that was close by, swooned away, and Leonela began to weep bitterly, exclaiming, 'Woe is me! that I should be fated to have dying here in my arms the flower of virtue upon earth, the crown of true wives, the pattern of chastity! with more to the same effect, so that anyone who heard her would have taken her for the most tenderhearted and faithful handmaid in the world, and her mistress for another persecuted Penelope. Camilla was not long in recovering from her fainting fit and on coming to herself she said, 'Why do you not go, Leonela, to call hither that friend, the falsest to his friend the sun ever shone upon or night concealed? Away, run, haste, speed! lest the fire of my wrath burn itself out with delay, and the righteous vengeance that I hope for melt away in menaces and maledictions. 'I am just going to call him, seora, said Leonela 'but you must first give me that dagger, lest while I am gone you should by means of it give cause to all who love you to weep all their lives. 'Go in peace, dear Leonela, I will not do so, said Camilla, 'for rash and foolish as I may be, to your mind, in defending my honour, I am not going to be so much so as that Lucretia who they say killed herself without having done anything wrong, and without having first killed him on whom the guilt of her misfortune lay. I shall die, if I am to die but it must be after full vengeance upon him who has brought me here to weep over audacity that no fault of mine gave birth to. Leonela required much pressing before she would go to summon Lothario, but at last she went, and while awaiting her return Camilla continued, as if speaking to herself, 'Good God! would it not have been more prudent to have repulsed Lothario, as I have done many a time before, than to allow him, as I am now doing, to think me unchaste and vile, even for the short time I must wait until I undeceive him? No doubt it would have been better but I should not be avenged, nor the honour of my husband vindicated, should he find so clear and easy an escape from the strait into which his depravity has led him. Let the traitor pay with his life for the temerity of his wanton wishes, and let the world know (if haply it shall ever come to know) that Camilla not only preserved her allegiance to her husband, but avenged him of the man who dared to wrong him. Still, I think it might be better to disclose this to Anselmo. But then I have called his attention to it in the letter I wrote to him in the country, and, if he did nothing to prevent the mischief I there pointed out to him, I suppose it was that from pure goodness of heart and trustfulness he would not and could not believe that any thought against his honour could harbour in the breast of so stanch a friend nor indeed did I myself believe it for many days, nor should I have ever believed it if his insolence had not gone so far as to make it manifest by open presents, lavish promises, and ceaseless tears. But why do I argue thus? Does a bold determination stand in need of arguments? Surely not. Then traitors avaunt! Vengeance to my aid! Let the false one come, approach, advance, die, yield up his life, and then befall what may. Pure I came to him whom Heaven bestowed upon me, pure I shall leave him and at the worst bathed in my own chaste blood and in the foul blood of the falsest friend that friendship ever saw in the world and as she uttered these words she paced the room holding the unsheathed dagger, with such irregular and disordered steps, and such gestures that one would have supposed her to have lost her senses, and taken her for some violent desperado instead of a delicate woman. Anselmo, concealed behind some tapestries where he had hidden himself, beheld and was amazed at all, and already felt that what he had seen and heard was a sufficient answer to even greater suspicions and he would have been now well pleased if the proof afforded by Lothario's coming were dispensed with, as he feared some sudden mishap but as he was on the point of showing himself and coming forth to embrace and undeceive his wife he paused as he saw Leonela returning, leading Lothario. Camilla when she saw him, drawing a long line in front of her on the floor with the dagger, said to him, 'Lothario, pay attention to what I say to thee if by any chance thou darest to cross this line thou seest, or even approach it, the instant I see thee attempt it that same instant will I pierce my bosom with this dagger that I hold in my hand and before thou answerest me a word I desire thee to listen to a few from me, and afterwards thou shalt reply as may please thee. First, I desire thee to tell me, Lothario, if thou knowest my husband Anselmo, and in what light thou regardest him and secondly I desire to know if thou knowest me too. Answer me this, without embarrassment or reflecting deeply what thou wilt answer, for they are no riddles I put to thee. Lothario was not so dull but that from the first moment when Camilla directed him to make Anselmo hide himself he understood what she intended to do, and therefore he fell in with her idea so readily and promptly that between them they made the imposture look more true than truth so he answered her thus 'I did not think, fair Camilla, that thou wert calling me to ask questions so remote from the object with which I come but if it is to defer the promised reward thou art doing so, thou mightst have put it off still longer, for the longing for happiness gives the more distress the nearer comes the hope of gaining it but lest thou shouldst say that I do not answer thy questions, I say that I know thy husband Anselmo, and that we have known each other from our earliest years I will not speak of what thou too knowest, of our friendship, that I may not compel myself to testify against the wrong that love, the mighty excuse for greater errors, makes me inflict upon him. Thee I know and hold in the same estimation as he does, for were it not so I had not for a lesser prize acted in opposition to what I owe to my station and the holy laws of true friendship, now broken and violated by me through that powerful enemy, love. 'If thou dost confess that, returned Camilla, 'mortal enemy of all that rightly deserves to be loved, with what face dost thou dare to come before one whom thou knowest to be the mirror wherein he is reflected on whom thou shouldst look to see how unworthily thou wrongest him? But, woe is me, I now comprehend what has made thee give so little heed to what thou owest to thyself it must have been some freedom of mine, for I will not call it immodesty, as it did not proceed from any deliberate intention, but from some heedlessness such as women are guilty of through inadvertence when they think they have no occasion for reserve. But tell me, traitor, when did I by word or sign give a reply to thy prayers that could awaken in thee a shadow of hope of attaining thy base wishes? When were not thy professions of love sternly and scornfully rejected and rebuked? When were thy frequent pledges and still more frequent gifts believed or accepted? But as I am persuaded that no one can long persevere in the attempt to win love unsustained by some hope, I am willing to attribute to myself the blame of thy assurance, for no doubt some thoughtlessness of mine has all this time fostered thy hopes and therefore will I punish myself and inflict upon myself the penalty thy guilt deserves. And that thou mayest see that being so relentless to myself I cannot possibly be otherwise to thee, I have summoned thee to be a witness of the sacrifice I mean to offer to the injured honour of my honoured husband, wronged by thee with all the assiduity thou wert capable of, and by me too through want of caution in avoiding every occasion, if I have given any, of encouraging and sanctioning thy base designs. Once more I say the suspicion in my mind that some imprudence of mine has engendered these lawless thoughts in thee, is what causes me most distress and what I desire most to punish with my own hands, for were any other instrument of punishment employed my error might become perhaps more widely known but before I do so, in my death I mean to inflict death, and take with me one that will fully satisfy my longing for the revenge I hope for and have for I shall see, wheresoever it may be that I go, the penalty awarded by inflexible, unswerving justice on him who has placed me in a position so desperate. As she uttered these words, with incredible energy and swiftness she flew upon Lothario with the naked dagger, so manifestly bent on burying it in his breast that he was almost uncertain whether these demonstrations were real or feigned, for he was obliged to have recourse to all his skill and strength to prevent her from striking him and with such reality did she act this strange farce and mystification that, to give it a colour of truth, she determined to stain it with her own blood for perceiving, or pretending, that she could not wound Lothario, she said, 'Fate, it seems, will not grant my just desire complete satisfaction, but it will not be able to keep me from satisfying it partially at least and making an effort to free the hand with the dagger which Lothario held in his grasp, she released it, and directing the point to a place where it could not inflict a deep wound, she plunged it into her left side high up close to the shoulder, and then allowed herself to fall to the ground as if in a faint. Leonela and Lothario stood amazed and astounded at the catastrophe, and seeing Camilla stretched on the ground and bathed in her blood they were still uncertain as to the true nature of the act. Lothario, terrified and breathless, ran in haste to pluck out the dagger but when he saw how slight the wound was he was relieved of his fears and once more admired the subtlety, coolness, and ready wit of the fair Camilla and the better to support the part he had to play he began to utter profuse and doleful lamentations over her body as if she were dead, invoking maledictions not only on himself but also on him who had been the means of placing him in such a position and knowing that his friend Anselmo heard him he spoke in such a way as to make a listener feel much more pity for him than for Camilla, even though he supposed her dead. Leonela took her up in her arms and laid her on the bed, entreating Lothario to go in quest of someone to attend to her wound in secret, and at the same time asking his advice and opinion as to what they should say to Anselmo about his lady's wound if he should chance to return before it was healed. He replied they might say what they liked, for he was not in a state to give advice that would be of any use all he could tell her was to try and stanch the blood, as he was going where he should never more be seen and with every appearance of deep grief and sorrow he left the house but when he found himself alone, and where there was nobody to see him, he crossed himself unceasingly, lost in wonder at the adroitness of Camilla and the consistent acting of Leonela. He reflected how convinced Anselmo would be that he had a second Portia for a wife, and he looked forward anxiously to meeting him in order to rejoice together over falsehood and truth the most craftily veiled that could be imagined. Leonela, as he told her, stanched her lady's blood, which was no more than sufficed to support her deception and washing the wound with a little wine she bound it up to the best of her skill, talking all the time she was tending her in a strain that, even if nothing else had been said before, would have been enough to assure Anselmo that he had in Camilla a model of purity. To Leonela's words Camilla added her own, calling herself cowardly and wanting in spirit, since she had not enough at the time she had most need of it to rid herself of the life she so much loathed. She asked her attendant's advice as to whether or not she ought to inform her beloved husband of all that had happened, but the other bade her say nothing about it, as she would lay upon him the obligation of taking vengeance on Lothario, which he could not do but at great risk to himself and it was the duty of a true wife not to give her husband provocation to quarrel, but, on the contrary, to remove it as far as possible from him. Camilla replied that she believed she was right and that she would follow her advice, but at any rate it would be well to consider how she was to explain the wound to Anselmo, for he could not help seeing it to which Leonela answered that she did not know how to tell a lie even in jest. 'How then can I know, my dear? said Camilla, 'for I should not dare to forge or keep up a falsehood if my life depended on it. If we can think of no escape from this difficulty, it will be better to tell him the plain truth than that he should find us out in an untrue story. 'Be not uneasy, seora, said Leonela 'between this and tomorrow I will think of what we must say to him, and perhaps the wound being where it is it can be hidden from his sight, and Heaven will be pleased to aid us in a purpose so good and honourable. Compose yourself, seora, and endeavour to calm your excitement lest my lord find you agitated and leave the rest to my care and God's, who always supports good intentions. Anselmo had with the deepest attention listened to and seen played out the tragedy of the death of his honour, which the performers acted with such wonderfully effective truth that it seemed as if they had become the realities of the parts they played. He longed for night and an opportunity of escaping from the house to go and see his good friend Lothario, and with him give vent to his joy over the precious pearl he had gained in having established his wife's purity. Both mistress and maid took care to give him time and opportunity to get away, and taking advantage of it he made his escape, and at once went in quest of Lothario, and it would be impossible to describe how he embraced him when he found him, and the things he said to him in the joy of his heart, and the praises he bestowed upon Camilla all which Lothario listened to without being able to show any pleasure, for he could not forget how deceived his friend was, and how dishonourably he had wronged him and though Anselmo could see that Lothario was not glad, still he imagined it was only because he had left Camilla wounded and had been himself the cause of it and so among other things he told him not to be distressed about Camilla's accident, for, as they had agreed to hide it from him, the wound was evidently trifling and that being so, he had no cause for fear, but should henceforward be of good cheer and rejoice with him, seeing that by his means and adroitness he found himself raised to the greatest height of happiness that he could have ventured to hope for, and desired no better pastime than making verses in praise of Camilla that would preserve her name for all time to come. Lothario commended his purpose, and promised on his own part to aid him in raising a monument so glorious. And so Anselmo was left the most charmingly hoodwinked man there could be in the world. He himself, persuaded he was conducting the instrument of his glory, led home by the hand of him who had been the utter destruction of his good name whom Camilla received with averted countenance, though with smiles in her heart. The deception was carried on for some time, until at the end of a few months Fortune turned her wheel and the guilt which had been until then so skilfully concealed was published abroad, and Anselmo paid with his life the penalty of his illadvised curiosity. There remained but little more of the novel to be read, when Sancho Panza burst forth in wild excitement from the garret where Don Quixote was lying, shouting, 'Run, sirs! quick and help my master, who is in the thick of the toughest and stiffest battle I ever laid eyes on. By the living God he has given the giant, the enemy of my lady the Princess Micomicona, such a slash that he has sliced his head clean off as if it were a turnip. 'What are you talking about, brother? said the curate, pausing as he was about to read the remainder of the novel. 'Are you in your senses, Sancho? How the devil can it be as you say, when the giant is two thousand leagues away? Here they heard a loud noise in the chamber, and Don Quixote shouting out, 'Stand, thief, brigand, villain now I have got thee, and thy scimitar shall not avail thee! And then it seemed as though he were slashing vigorously at the wall. 'Don't stop to listen, said Sancho, 'but go in and part them or help my master though there is no need of that now, for no doubt the giant is dead by this time and giving account to God of his past wicked life for I saw the blood flowing on the ground, and the head cut off and fallen on one side, and it is as big as a large wineskin. 'May I die, said the landlord at this, 'if Don Quixote or Don Devil has not been slashing some of the skins of red wine that stand full at his bed's head, and the spilt wine must be what this good fellow takes for blood and so saying he went into the room and the rest after him, and there they found Don Quixote in the strangest costume in the world. He was in his shirt, which was not long enough in front to cover his thighs completely and was six fingers shorter behind his legs were very long and lean, covered with hair, and anything but clean on his head he had a little greasy red cap that belonged to the host, round his left arm he had rolled the blanket of the bed, to which Sancho, for reasons best known to himself, owed a grudge, and in his right hand he held his unsheathed sword, with which he was slashing about on all sides, uttering exclamations as if he were actually fighting some giant and the best of it was his eyes were not open, for he was fast asleep, and dreaming that he was doing battle with the giant. For his imagination was so wrought upon by the adventure he was going to accomplish, that it made him dream he had already reached the kingdom of Micomicon, and was engaged in combat with his enemy and believing he was laying on the giant, he had given so many sword cuts to the skins that the whole room was full of wine. On seeing this the landlord was so enraged that he fell on Don Quixote, and with his clenched fist began to pummel him in such a way, that if Cardenio and the curate had not dragged him off, he would have brought the war of the giant to an end. But in spite of all the poor gentleman never woke until the barber brought a great pot of cold water from the well and flung it with one dash all over his body, on which Don Quixote woke up, but not so completely as to understand what was the matter. Dorothea, seeing how short and slight his attire was, would not go in to witness the battle between her champion and her opponent. As for Sancho, he went searching all over the floor for the head of the giant, and not finding it he said, 'I see now that it's all enchantment in this house for the last time, on this very spot where I am now, I got ever so many thumps without knowing who gave them to me, or being able to see anybody and now this head is not to be seen anywhere about, though I saw it cut off with my own eyes and the blood running from the body as if from a fountain. 'What blood and fountains are you talking about, enemy of God and his saints? said the landlord. 'Don't you see, you thief, that the blood and the fountain are only these skins here that have been stabbed and the red wine swimming all over the room?and I wish I saw the soul of him that stabbed them swimming in hell. 'I know nothing about that, said Sancho 'all I know is it will be my bad luck that through not finding this head my county will melt away like salt in waterfor Sancho awake was worse than his master asleep, so much had his master's promises addled his wits. The landlord was beside himself at the coolness of the squire and the mischievous doings of the master, and swore it should not be like the last time when they went without paying and that their privileges of chivalry should not hold good this time to let one or other of them off without paying, even to the cost of the plugs that would have to be put to the damaged wineskins. The curate was holding Don Quixote's hands, who, fancying he had now ended the adventure and was in the presence of the Princess Micomicona, knelt before the curate and said, 'Exalted and beauteous lady, your highness may live from this day forth fearless of any harm this base being could do you and I too from this day forth am released from the promise I gave you, since by the help of God on high and by the favour of her by whom I live and breathe, I have fulfilled it so successfully. 'Did not I say so? said Sancho on hearing this. 'You see I wasn't drunk there you see my master has already salted the giant there's no doubt about the bulls my county is all right! Who could have helped laughing at the absurdities of the pair, master and man? And laugh they did, all except the landlord, who cursed himself but at length the barber, Cardenio, and the curate contrived with no small trouble to get Don Quixote on the bed, and he fell asleep with every appearance of excessive weariness. They left him to sleep, and came out to the gate of the inn to console Sancho Panza on not having found the head of the giant but much more work had they to appease the landlord, who was furious at the sudden death of his wineskins and said the landlady half scolding, half crying, 'At an evil moment and in an unlucky hour he came into my house, this knighterrantwould that I had never set eyes on him, for dear he has cost me the last time he went off with the overnight score against him for supper, bed, straw, and barley, for himself and his squire and a hack and an ass, saying he was a knight adventurerGod send unlucky adventures to him and all the adventurers in the worldand therefore not bound to pay anything, for it was so settled by the knighterrantry tariff and then, all because of him, came the other gentleman and carried off my tail, and gives it back more than two cuartillos the worse, all stripped of its hair, so that it is no use for my husband's purpose and then, for a finishing touch to all, to burst my wineskins and spill my wine! I wish I saw his own blood spilt! But let him not deceive himself, for, by the bones of my father and the shade of my mother, they shall pay me down every quarto or my name is not what it is, and I am not my father's daughter. All this and more to the same effect the landlady delivered with great irritation, and her good maid Maritornes backed her up, while the daughter held her peace and smiled from time to time. The curate smoothed matters by promising to make good all losses to the best of his power, not only as regarded the wineskins but also the wine, and above all the depreciation of the tail which they set such store by. Dorothea comforted Sancho, telling him that she pledged herself, as soon as it should appear certain that his master had decapitated the giant, and she found herself peacefully established in her kingdom, to bestow upon him the best county there was in it. With this Sancho consoled himself, and assured the princess she might rely upon it that he had seen the head of the giant, and more by token it had a beard that reached to the girdle, and that if it was not to be seen now it was because everything that happened in that house went by enchantment, as he himself had proved the last time he had lodged there. Dorothea said she fully believed it, and that he need not be uneasy, for all would go well and turn out as he wished. All therefore being appeased, the curate was anxious to go on with the novel, as he saw there was but little more left to read. Dorothea and the others begged him to finish it, and he, as he was willing to please them, and enjoyed reading it himself, continued the tale in these words The result was, that from the confidence Anselmo felt in Camilla's virtue, he lived happy and free from anxiety, and Camilla purposely looked coldly on Lothario, that Anselmo might suppose her feelings towards him to be the opposite of what they were and the better to support the position, Lothario begged to be excused from coming to the house, as the displeasure with which Camilla regarded his presence was plain to be seen. But the befooled Anselmo said he would on no account allow such a thing, and so in a thousand ways he became the author of his own dishonour, while he believed he was insuring his happiness. Meanwhile the satisfaction with which Leonela saw herself empowered to carry on her amour reached such a height that, regardless of everything else, she followed her inclinations unrestrainedly, feeling confident that her mistress would screen her, and even show her how to manage it safely. At last one night Anselmo heard footsteps in Leonela's room, and on trying to enter to see who it was, he found that the door was held against him, which made him all the more determined to open it and exerting his strength he forced it open, and entered the room in time to see a man leaping through the window into the street. He ran quickly to seize him or discover who he was, but he was unable to effect either purpose, for Leonela flung her arms round him crying, 'Be calm, seor do not give way to passion or follow him who has escaped from this he belongs to me, and in fact he is my husband. Anselmo would not believe it, but blind with rage drew a dagger and threatened to stab Leonela, bidding her tell the truth or he would kill her. She, in her fear, not knowing what she was saying, exclaimed, 'Do not kill me, seor, for I can tell you things more important than any you can imagine. 'Tell me then at once or thou diest, said Anselmo. 'It would be impossible for me now, said Leonela, 'I am so agitated leave me till tomorrow, and then you shall hear from me what will fill you with astonishment but rest assured that he who leaped through the window is a young man of this city, who has given me his promise to become my husband. Anselmo was appeased with this, and was content to wait the time she asked of him, for he never expected to hear anything against Camilla, so satisfied and sure of her virtue was he and so he quitted the room, and left Leonela locked in, telling her she should not come out until she had told him all she had to make known to him. He went at once to see Camilla, and tell her, as he did, all that had passed between him and her handmaid, and the promise she had given him to inform him matters of serious importance. There is no need of saying whether Camilla was agitated or not, for so great was her fear and dismay, that, making sure, as she had good reason to do, that Leonela would tell Anselmo all she knew of her faithlessness, she had not the courage to wait and see if her suspicions were confirmed and that same night, as soon as she thought that Anselmo was asleep, she packed up the most valuable jewels she had and some money, and without being observed by anybody escaped from the house and betook herself to Lothario's, to whom she related what had occurred, imploring him to convey her to some place of safety or fly with her where they might be safe from Anselmo. The state of perplexity to which Camilla reduced Lothario was such that he was unable to utter a word in reply, still less to decide upon what he should do. At length he resolved to conduct her to a convent of which a sister of his was prioress Camilla agreed to this, and with the speed which the circumstances demanded, Lothario took her to the convent and left her there, and then himself quitted the city without letting anyone know of his departure. As soon as daylight came Anselmo, without missing Camilla from his side, rose eager to learn what Leonela had to tell him, and hastened to the room where he had locked her in. He opened the door, entered, but found no Leonela all he found was some sheets knotted to the window, a plain proof that she had let herself down from it and escaped. He returned, uneasy, to tell Camilla, but not finding her in bed or anywhere in the house he was lost in amazement. He asked the servants of the house about her, but none of them could give him any explanation. As he was going in search of Camilla it happened by chance that he observed her boxes were lying open, and that the greater part of her jewels were gone and now he became fully aware of his disgrace, and that Leonela was not the cause of his misfortune and, just as he was, without delaying to dress himself completely, he repaired, sad at heart and dejected, to his friend Lothario to make known his sorrow to him but when he failed to find him and the servants reported that he had been absent from his house all night and had taken with him all the money he had, he felt as though he were losing his senses and to make all complete on returning to his own house he found it deserted and empty, not one of all his servants, male or female, remaining in it. He knew not what to think, or say, or do, and his reason seemed to be deserting him little by little. He reviewed his position, and saw himself in a moment left without wife, friend, or servants, abandoned, he felt, by the heaven above him, and more than all robbed of his honour, for in Camilla's disappearance he saw his own ruin. After long reflection he resolved at last to go to his friend's village, where he had been staying when he afforded opportunities for the contrivance of this complication of misfortune. He locked the doors of his house, mounted his horse, and with a broken spirit set out on his journey but he had hardly gone halfway when, harassed by his reflections, he had to dismount and tie his horse to a tree, at the foot of which he threw himself, giving vent to piteous heartrending sighs and there he remained till nearly nightfall, when he observed a man approaching on horseback from the city, of whom, after saluting him, he asked what was the news in Florence. The citizen replied, 'The strangest that have been heard for many a day for it is reported abroad that Lothario, the great friend of the wealthy Anselmo, who lived at San Giovanni, carried off last night Camilla, the wife of Anselmo, who also has disappeared. All this has been told by a maidservant of Camilla's, whom the governor found last night lowering herself by a sheet from the windows of Anselmo's house. I know not indeed, precisely, how the affair came to pass all I know is that the whole city is wondering at the occurrence, for no one could have expected a thing of the kind, seeing the great and intimate friendship that existed between them, so great, they say, that they were called 'The Two Friends.' 'Is it known at all, said Anselmo, 'what road Lothario and Camilla took? 'Not in the least, said the citizen, 'though the governor has been very active in searching for them. 'God speed you, seor, said Anselmo. 'God be with you, said the citizen and went his way. This disastrous intelligence almost robbed Anselmo not only of his senses but of his life. He got up as well as he was able and reached the house of his friend, who as yet knew nothing of his misfortune, but seeing him come pale, worn, and haggard, perceived that he was suffering some heavy affliction. Anselmo at once begged to be allowed to retire to rest, and to be given writing materials. His wish was complied with and he was left lying down and alone, for he desired this, and even that the door should be locked. Finding himself alone he so took to heart the thought of his misfortune that by the signs of death he felt within him he knew well his life was drawing to a close, and therefore he resolved to leave behind him a declaration of the cause of his strange end. He began to write, but before he had put down all he meant to say, his breath failed him and he yielded up his life, a victim to the suffering which his illadvised curiosity had entailed upon him. The master of the house observing that it was now late and that Anselmo did not call, determined to go in and ascertain if his indisposition was increasing, and found him lying on his face, his body partly in the bed, partly on the writingtable, on which he lay with the written paper open and the pen still in his hand. Having first called to him without receiving any answer, his host approached him, and taking him by the hand, found that it was cold, and saw that he was dead. Greatly surprised and distressed he summoned the household to witness the sad fate which had befallen Anselmo and then he read the paper, the handwriting of which he recognised as his, and which contained these words 'A foolish and illadvised desire has robbed me of life. If the news of my death should reach the ears of Camilla, let her know that I forgive her, for she was not bound to perform miracles, nor ought I to have required her to perform them and since I have been the author of my own dishonour, there is no reason why So far Anselmo had written, and thus it was plain that at this point, before he could finish what he had to say, his life came to an end. The next day his friend sent intelligence of his death to his relatives, who had already ascertained his misfortune, as well as the convent where Camilla lay almost on the point of accompanying her husband on that inevitable journey, not on account of the tidings of his death, but because of those she received of her lover's departure. Although she saw herself a widow, it is said she refused either to quit the convent or take the veil, until, not long afterwards, intelligence reached her that Lothario had been killed in a battle in which M. de Lautrec had been recently engaged with the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova in the kingdom of Naples, whither her too late repentant lover had repaired. On learning this Camilla took the veil, and shortly afterwards died, worn out by grief and melancholy. This was the end of all three, an end that came of a thoughtless beginning. 'I like this novel, said the curate 'but I cannot persuade myself of its truth and if it has been invented, the author's invention is faulty, for it is impossible to imagine any husband so foolish as to try such a costly experiment as Anselmo's. If it had been represented as occurring between a gallant and his mistress it might pass but between husband and wife there is something of an impossibility about it. As to the way in which the story is told, however, I have no fault to find. Just at that instant the landlord, who was standing at the gate of the inn, exclaimed, 'Here comes a fine troop of guests if they stop here we may say gaudeamus. 'What are they? said Cardenio. 'Four men, said the landlord, 'riding  la jineta, with lances and bucklers, and all with black veils, and with them there is a woman in white on a sidesaddle, whose face is also veiled, and two attendants on foot. 'Are they very near? said the curate. 'So near, answered the landlord, 'that here they come. Hearing this Dorothea covered her face, and Cardenio retreated into Don Quixote's room, and they hardly had time to do so before the whole party the host had described entered the inn, and the four that were on horseback, who were of highbred appearance and bearing, dismounted, and came forward to take down the woman who rode on the sidesaddle, and one of them taking her in his arms placed her in a chair that stood at the entrance of the room where Cardenio had hidden himself. All this time neither she nor they had removed their veils or spoken a word, only on sitting down on the chair the woman gave a deep sigh and let her arms fall like one that was ill and weak. The attendants on foot then led the horses away to the stable. Observing this the curate, curious to know who these people in such a dress and preserving such silence were, went to where the servants were standing and put the question to one of them, who answered him. 'Faith, sir, I cannot tell you who they are, I only know they seem to be people of distinction, particularly he who advanced to take the lady you saw in his arms and I say so because all the rest show him respect, and nothing is done except what he directs and orders. 'And the lady, who is she? asked the curate. 'That I cannot tell you either, said the servant, 'for I have not seen her face all the way I have indeed heard her sigh many times and utter such groans that she seems to be giving up the ghost every time but it is no wonder if we do not know more than we have told you, as my comrade and I have only been in their company two days, for having met us on the road they begged and persuaded us to accompany them to Andalusia, promising to pay us well. 'And have you heard any of them called by his name? asked the curate. 'No, indeed, replied the servant 'they all preserve a marvellous silence on the road, for not a sound is to be heard among them except the poor lady's sighs and sobs, which make us pity her and we feel sure that wherever it is she is going, it is against her will, and as far as one can judge from her dress she is a nun or, what is more likely, about to become one and perhaps it is because taking the vows is not of her own free will, that she is so unhappy as she seems to be. 'That may well be, said the curate, and leaving them he returned to where Dorothea was, who, hearing the veiled lady sigh, moved by natural compassion drew near to her and said, 'What are you suffering from, seora? If it be anything that women are accustomed and know how to relieve, I offer you my services with all my heart. To this the unhappy lady made no reply and though Dorothea repeated her offers more earnestly she still kept silence, until the gentleman with the veil, who, the servant said, was obeyed by the rest, approached and said to Dorothea, 'Do not give yourself the trouble, seora, of making any offers to that woman, for it is her way to give no thanks for anything that is done for her and do not try to make her answer unless you want to hear some lie from her lips. 'I have never told a lie, was the immediate reply of her who had been silent until now 'on the contrary, it is because I am so truthful and so ignorant of lying devices that I am now in this miserable condition and this I call you yourself to witness, for it is my unstained truth that has made you false and a liar. Cardenio heard these words clearly and distinctly, being quite close to the speaker, for there was only the door of Don Quixote's room between them, and the instant he did so, uttering a loud exclamation he cried, 'Good God! what is this I hear? What voice is this that has reached my ears? Startled at the voice the lady turned her head and not seeing the speaker she stood up and attempted to enter the room observing which the gentleman held her back, preventing her from moving a step. In her agitation and sudden movement the silk with which she had covered her face fell off and disclosed a countenance of incomparable and marvellous beauty, but pale and terrified for she kept turning her eyes, everywhere she could direct her gaze, with an eagerness that made her look as if she had lost her senses, and so marked that it excited the pity of Dorothea and all who beheld her, though they knew not what caused it. The gentleman grasped her firmly by the shoulders, and being so fully occupied with holding her back, he was unable to put a hand to his veil which was falling off, as it did at length entirely, and Dorothea, who was holding the lady in her arms, raising her eyes saw that he who likewise held her was her husband, Don Fernando. The instant she recognised him, with a prolonged plaintive cry drawn from the depths of her heart, she fell backwards fainting, and but for the barber being close by to catch her in his arms, she would have fallen completely to the ground. The curate at once hastened to uncover her face and throw water on it, and as he did so Don Fernando, for he it was who held the other in his arms, recognised her and stood as if deathstricken by the sight not, however, relaxing his grasp of Luscinda, for it was she that was struggling to release herself from his hold, having recognised Cardenio by his voice, as he had recognised her. Cardenio also heard Dorothea's cry as she fell fainting, and imagining that it came from his Luscinda burst forth in terror from the room, and the first thing he saw was Don Fernando with Luscinda in his arms. Don Fernando, too, knew Cardenio at once and all three, Luscinda, Cardenio, and Dorothea, stood in silent amazement scarcely knowing what had happened to them. They gazed at one another without speaking, Dorothea at Don Fernando, Don Fernando at Cardenio, Cardenio at Luscinda, and Luscinda at Cardenio. The first to break silence was Luscinda, who thus addressed Don Fernando 'Leave me, Seor Don Fernando, for the sake of what you owe to yourself if no other reason will induce you, leave me to cling to the wall of which I am the ivy, to the support from which neither your importunities, nor your threats, nor your promises, nor your gifts have been able to detach me. See how Heaven, by ways strange and hidden from our sight, has brought me face to face with my true husband and well you know by dearbought experience that death alone will be able to efface him from my memory. May this plain declaration, then, lead you, as you can do nothing else, to turn your love into rage, your affection into resentment, and so to take my life for if I yield it up in the presence of my beloved husband I count it well bestowed it may be by my death he will be convinced that I kept my faith to him to the last moment of life. Meanwhile Dorothea had come to herself, and had heard Luscinda's words, by means of which she divined who she was but seeing that Don Fernando did not yet release her or reply to her, summoning up her resolution as well as she could she rose and knelt at his feet, and with a flood of bright and touching tears addressed him thus 'If, my lord, the beams of that sun that thou holdest eclipsed in thine arms did not dazzle and rob thine eyes of sight thou wouldst have seen by this time that she who kneels at thy feet is, so long as thou wilt have it so, the unhappy and unfortunate Dorothea. I am that lowly peasant girl whom thou in thy goodness or for thy pleasure wouldst raise high enough to call herself thine I am she who in the seclusion of innocence led a contented life until at the voice of thy importunity, and thy true and tender passion, as it seemed, she opened the gates of her modesty and surrendered to thee the keys of her liberty a gift received by thee but thanklessly, as is clearly shown by my forced retreat to the place where thou dost find me, and by thy appearance under the circumstances in which I see thee. Nevertheless, I would not have thee suppose that I have come here driven by my shame it is only grief and sorrow at seeing myself forgotten by thee that have led me. It was thy will to make me thine, and thou didst so follow thy will, that now, even though thou repentest, thou canst not help being mine. Bethink thee, my lord, the unsurpassable affection I bear thee may compensate for the beauty and noble birth for which thou wouldst desert me. Thou canst not be the fair Luscinda's because thou art mine, nor can she be thine because she is Cardenio's and it will be easier, remember, to bend thy will to love one who adores thee, than to lead one to love thee who abhors thee now. Thou didst address thyself to my simplicity, thou didst lay siege to my virtue, thou wert not ignorant of my station, well dost thou know how I yielded wholly to thy will there is no ground or reason for thee to plead deception, and if it be so, as it is, and if thou art a Christian as thou art a gentleman, why dost thou by such subterfuges put off making me as happy at last as thou didst at first? And if thou wilt not have me for what I am, thy true and lawful wife, at least take and accept me as thy slave, for so long as I am thine I will count myself happy and fortunate. Do not by deserting me let my shame become the talk of the gossips in the streets make not the old age of my parents miserable for the loyal services they as faithful vassals have ever rendered thine are not deserving of such a return and if thou thinkest it will debase thy blood to mingle it with mine, reflect that there is little or no nobility in the world that has not travelled the same road, and that in illustrious lineages it is not the woman's blood that is of account and, moreover, that true nobility consists in virtue, and if thou art wanting in that, refusing me what in justice thou owest me, then even I have higher claims to nobility than thine. To make an end, seor, these are my last words to thee whether thou wilt, or wilt not, I am thy wife witness thy words, which must not and ought not to be false, if thou dost pride thyself on that for want of which thou scornest me witness the pledge which thou didst give me, and witness Heaven, which thou thyself didst call to witness the promise thou hadst made me and if all this fail, thy own conscience will not fail to lift up its silent voice in the midst of all thy gaiety, and vindicate the truth of what I say and mar thy highest pleasure and enjoyment. All this and more the injured Dorothea delivered with such earnest feeling and such tears that all present, even those who came with Don Fernando, were constrained to join her in them. Don Fernando listened to her without replying, until, ceasing to speak, she gave way to such sobs and sighs that it must have been a heart of brass that was not softened by the sight of so great sorrow. Luscinda stood regarding her with no less compassion for her sufferings than admiration for her intelligence and beauty, and would have gone to her to say some words of comfort to her, but was prevented by Don Fernando's grasp which held her fast. He, overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment, after regarding Dorothea for some moments with a fixed gaze, opened his arms, and, releasing Luscinda, exclaimed 'Thou hast conquered, fair Dorothea, thou hast conquered, for it is impossible to have the heart to deny the united force of so many truths. Luscinda in her feebleness was on the point of falling to the ground when Don Fernando released her, but Cardenio, who stood near, having retreated behind Don Fernando to escape recognition, casting fear aside and regardless of what might happen, ran forward to support her, and said as he clasped her in his arms, 'If Heaven in its compassion is willing to let thee rest at last, mistress of my heart, true, constant, and fair, nowhere canst thou rest more safely than in these arms that now receive thee, and received thee before when fortune permitted me to call thee mine. At these words Luscinda looked up at Cardenio, at first beginning to recognise him by his voice and then satisfying herself by her eyes that it was he, and hardly knowing what she did, and heedless of all considerations of decorum, she flung her arms around his neck and pressing her face close to his, said, 'Yes, my dear lord, you are the true master of this your slave, even though adverse fate interpose again, and fresh dangers threaten this life that hangs on yours. A strange sight was this for Don Fernando and those that stood around, filled with surprise at an incident so unlooked for. Dorothea fancied that Don Fernando changed colour and looked as though he meant to take vengeance on Cardenio, for she observed him put his hand to his sword and the instant the idea struck her, with wonderful quickness she clasped him round the knees, and kissing them and holding him so as to prevent his moving, she said, while her tears continued to flow, 'What is it thou wouldst do, my only refuge, in this unforeseen event? Thou hast thy wife at thy feet, and she whom thou wouldst have for thy wife is in the arms of her husband reflect whether it will be right for thee, whether it will be possible for thee to undo what Heaven has done, or whether it will be becoming in thee to seek to raise her to be thy mate who in spite of every obstacle, and strong in her truth and constancy, is before thine eyes, bathing with the tears of love the face and bosom of her lawful husband. For God's sake I entreat of thee, for thine own I implore thee, let not this open manifestation rouse thy anger but rather so calm it as to allow these two lovers to live in peace and quiet without any interference from thee so long as Heaven permits them and in so doing thou wilt prove the generosity of thy lofty noble spirit, and the world shall see that with thee reason has more influence than passion. All the time Dorothea was speaking, Cardenio, though he held Luscinda in his arms, never took his eyes off Don Fernando, determined, if he saw him make any hostile movement, to try and defend himself and resist as best he could all who might assail him, though it should cost him his life. But now Don Fernando's friends, as well as the curate and the barber, who had been present all the while, not forgetting the worthy Sancho Panza, ran forward and gathered round Don Fernando, entreating him to have regard for the tears of Dorothea, and not suffer her reasonable hopes to be disappointed, since, as they firmly believed, what she said was but the truth and bidding him observe that it was not, as it might seem, by accident, but by a special disposition of Providence that they had all met in a place where no one could have expected a meeting. And the curate bade him remember that only death could part Luscinda from Cardenio that even if some sword were to separate them they would think their death most happy and that in a case that admitted of no remedy his wisest course was, by conquering and putting a constraint upon himself, to show a generous mind, and of his own accord suffer these two to enjoy the happiness Heaven had granted them. He bade him, too, turn his eyes upon the beauty of Dorothea and he would see that few if any could equal much less excel her while to that beauty should be added her modesty and the surpassing love she bore him. But besides all this, he reminded him that if he prided himself on being a gentleman and a Christian, he could not do otherwise than keep his plighted word and that in doing so he would obey God and meet the approval of all sensible people, who know and recognised it to be the privilege of beauty, even in one of humble birth, provided virtue accompany it, to be able to raise itself to the level of any rank, without any slur upon him who places it upon an equality with himself and furthermore that when the potent sway of passion asserts itself, so long as there be no mixture of sin in it, he is not to be blamed who gives way to it. To be brief, they added to these such other forcible arguments that Don Fernando's manly heart, being after all nourished by noble blood, was touched, and yielded to the truth which, even had he wished it, he could not gainsay and he showed his submission, and acceptance of the good advice that had been offered to him, by stooping down and embracing Dorothea, saying to her, 'Rise, dear lady, it is not right that what I hold in my heart should be kneeling at my feet and if until now I have shown no sign of what I own, it may have been by Heaven's decree in order that, seeing the constancy with which you love me, I may learn to value you as you deserve. What I entreat of you is that you reproach me not with my transgression and grievous wrongdoing for the same cause and force that drove me to make you mine impelled me to struggle against being yours and to prove this, turn and look at the eyes of the now happy Luscinda, and you will see in them an excuse for all my errors and as she has found and gained the object of her desires, and I have found in you what satisfies all my wishes, may she live in peace and contentment as many happy years with her Cardenio, as on my knees I pray Heaven to allow me to live with my Dorothea and with these words he once more embraced her and pressed his face to hers with so much tenderness that he had to take great heed to keep his tears from completing the proof of his love and repentance in the sight of all. Not so Luscinda, and Cardenio, and almost all the others, for they shed so many tears, some in their own happiness, some at that of the others, that one would have supposed a heavy calamity had fallen upon them all. Even Sancho Panza was weeping though afterwards he said he only wept because he saw that Dorothea was not as he fancied the queen Micomicona, of whom he expected such great favours. Their wonder as well as their weeping lasted some time, and then Cardenio and Luscinda went and fell on their knees before Don Fernando, returning him thanks for the favour he had rendered them in language so grateful that he knew not how to answer them, and raising them up embraced them with every mark of affection and courtesy. He then asked Dorothea how she had managed to reach a place so far removed from her own home, and she in a few fitting words told all that she had previously related to Cardenio, with which Don Fernando and his companions were so delighted that they wished the story had been longer so charmingly did Dorothea describe her misadventures. When she had finished Don Fernando recounted what had befallen him in the city after he had found in Luscinda's bosom the paper in which she declared that she was Cardenio's wife, and never could be his. He said he meant to kill her, and would have done so had he not been prevented by her parents, and that he quitted the house full of rage and shame, and resolved to avenge himself when a more convenient opportunity should offer. The next day he learned that Luscinda had disappeared from her father's house, and that no one could tell whither she had gone. Finally, at the end of some months he ascertained that she was in a convent and meant to remain there all the rest of her life, if she were not to share it with Cardenio and as soon as he had learned this, taking these three gentlemen as his companions, he arrived at the place where she was, but avoided speaking to her, fearing that if it were known he was there stricter precautions would be taken in the convent and watching a time when the porter's lodge was open he left two to guard the gate, and he and the other entered the convent in quest of Luscinda, whom they found in the cloisters in conversation with one of the nuns, and carrying her off without giving her time to resist, they reached a place with her where they provided themselves with what they required for taking her away all which they were able to do in complete safety, as the convent was in the country at a considerable distance from the city. He added that when Luscinda found herself in his power she lost all consciousness, and after returning to herself did nothing but weep and sigh without speaking a word and thus in silence and tears they reached that inn, which for him was reaching heaven where all the mischances of earth are over and at an end. To all this Sancho listened with no little sorrow at heart to see how his hopes of dignity were fading away and vanishing in smoke, and how the fair Princess Micomicona had turned into Dorothea, and the giant into Don Fernando, while his master was sleeping tranquilly, totally unconscious of all that had come to pass. Dorothea was unable to persuade herself that her present happiness was not all a dream Cardenio was in a similar state of mind, and Luscinda's thoughts ran in the same direction. Don Fernando gave thanks to Heaven for the favour shown to him and for having been rescued from the intricate labyrinth in which he had been brought so near the destruction of his good name and of his soul and in short everybody in the inn was full of contentment and satisfaction at the happy issue of such a complicated and hopeless business. The curate as a sensible man made sound reflections upon the whole affair, and congratulated each upon his good fortune but the one that was in the highest spirits and good humour was the landlady, because of the promise Cardenio and the curate had given her to pay for all the losses and damage she had sustained through Don Quixote's means. Sancho, as has been already said, was the only one who was distressed, unhappy, and dejected and so with a long face he went in to his master, who had just awoke, and said to him 'Sir Rueful Countenance, your worship may as well sleep on as much as you like, without troubling yourself about killing any giant or restoring her kingdom to the princess for that is all over and settled now. 'I should think it was, replied Don Quixote, 'for I have had the most prodigious and stupendous battle with the giant that I ever remember having had all the days of my life and with one backstrokeswish!I brought his head tumbling to the ground, and so much blood gushed forth from him that it ran in rivulets over the earth like water. 'Like red wine, your worship had better say, replied Sancho 'for I would have you know, if you don't know it, that the dead giant is a hacked wineskin, and the blood fourandtwenty gallons of red wine that it had in its belly, and the cutoff head is the bitch that bore me and the devil take it all. 'What art thou talking about, fool? said Don Quixote 'art thou in thy senses? 'Let your worship get up, said Sancho, 'and you will see the nice business you have made of it, and what we have to pay and you will see the queen turned into a private lady called Dorothea, and other things that will astonish you, if you understand them. 'I shall not be surprised at anything of the kind, returned Don Quixote 'for if thou dost remember the last time we were here I told thee that everything that happened here was a matter of enchantment, and it would be no wonder if it were the same now. 'I could believe all that, replied Sancho, 'if my blanketing was the same sort of thing also only it wasn't, but real and genuine for I saw the landlord, who is here today, holding one end of the blanket and jerking me up to the skies very neatly and smartly, and with as much laughter as strength and when it comes to be a case of knowing people, I hold for my part, simple and sinner as I am, that there is no enchantment about it at all, but a great deal of bruising and bad luck. 'Well, well, God will give a remedy, said Don Quixote 'hand me my clothes and let me go out, for I want to see these transformations and things thou speakest of. Sancho fetched him his clothes and while he was dressing, the curate gave Don Fernando and the others present an account of Don Quixote's madness and of the stratagem they had made use of to withdraw him from that Pena Pobre where he fancied himself stationed because of his lady's scorn. He described to them also nearly all the adventures that Sancho had mentioned, at which they marvelled and laughed not a little, thinking it, as all did, the strangest form of madness a crazy intellect could be capable of. But now, the curate said, that the lady Dorothea's good fortune prevented her from proceeding with their purpose, it would be necessary to devise or discover some other way of getting him home. Cardenio proposed to carry out the scheme they had begun, and suggested that Luscinda would act and support Dorothea's part sufficiently well. 'No, said Don Fernando, 'that must not be, for I want Dorothea to follow out this idea of hers and if the worthy gentleman's village is not very far off, I shall be happy if I can do anything for his relief. 'It is not more than two days' journey from this, said the curate. 'Even if it were more, said Don Fernando, 'I would gladly travel so far for the sake of doing so good a work. At this moment Don Quixote came out in full panoply, with Mambrino's helmet, all dinted as it was, on his head, his buckler on his arm, and leaning on his staff or pike. The strange figure he presented filled Don Fernando and the rest with amazement as they contemplated his lean yellow face half a league long, his armour of all sorts, and the solemnity of his deportment. They stood silent waiting to see what he would say, and he, fixing his eyes on the fair Dorothea, addressed her with great gravity and composure 'I am informed, fair lady, by my squire here that your greatness has been annihilated and your being abolished, since, from a queen and lady of high degree as you used to be, you have been turned into a private maiden. If this has been done by the command of the magician king your father, through fear that I should not afford you the aid you need and are entitled to, I may tell you he did not know and does not know half the mass, and was little versed in the annals of chivalry for, if he had read and gone through them as attentively and deliberately as I have, he would have found at every turn that knights of less renown than mine have accomplished things more difficult it is no great matter to kill a whelp of a giant, however arrogant he may be for it is not many hours since I myself was engaged with one, andI will not speak of it, that they may not say I am lying time, however, that reveals all, will tell the tale when we least expect it. 'You were engaged with a couple of wineskins, and not a giant, said the landlord at this but Don Fernando told him to hold his tongue and on no account interrupt Don Quixote, who continued, 'I say in conclusion, high and disinherited lady, that if your father has brought about this metamorphosis in your person for the reason I have mentioned, you ought not to attach any importance to it for there is no peril on earth through which my sword will not force a way, and with it, before many days are over, I will bring your enemy's head to the ground and place on yours the crown of your kingdom. Don Quixote said no more, and waited for the reply of the princess, who aware of Don Fernando's determination to carry on the deception until Don Quixote had been conveyed to his home, with great ease of manner and gravity made answer, 'Whoever told you, valiant Knight of the Rueful Countenance, that I had undergone any change or transformation did not tell you the truth, for I am the same as I was yesterday. It is true that certain strokes of good fortune, that have given me more than I could have hoped for, have made some alteration in me but I have not therefore ceased to be what I was before, or to entertain the same desire I have had all through of availing myself of the might of your valiant and invincible arm. And so, seor, let your goodness reinstate the father that begot me in your good opinion, and be assured that he was a wise and prudent man, since by his craft he found out such a sure and easy way of remedying my misfortune for I believe, seor, that had it not been for you I should never have lit upon the good fortune I now possess and in this I am saying what is perfectly true as most of these gentlemen who are present can fully testify. All that remains is to set out on our journey tomorrow, for today we could not make much way and for the rest of the happy result I am looking forward to, I trust to God and the valour of your heart. So said the sprightly Dorothea, and on hearing her Don Quixote turned to Sancho, and said to him, with an angry air, 'I declare now, little Sancho, thou art the greatest little villain in Spain. Say, thief and vagabond, hast thou not just now told me that this princess had been turned into a maiden called Dorothea, and that the head which I am persuaded I cut off from a giant was the bitch that bore thee, and other nonsense that put me in the greatest perplexity I have ever been in all my life? I vow (and here he looked to heaven and ground his teeth) 'I have a mind to play the mischief with thee, in a way that will teach sense for the future to all lying squires of knightserrant in the world. 'Let your worship be calm, seor, returned Sancho, 'for it may well be that I have been mistaken as to the change of the lady princess Micomicona but as to the giant's head, or at least as to the piercing of the wineskins, and the blood being red wine, I make no mistake, as sure as there is a God because the wounded skins are there at the head of your worship's bed, and the wine has made a lake of the room if not you will see when the eggs come to be fried I mean when his worship the landlord calls for all the damages for the rest, I am heartily glad that her ladyship the queen is as she was, for it concerns me as much as anyone. 'I tell thee again, Sancho, thou art a fool, said Don Quixote 'forgive me, and that will do. 'That will do, said Don Fernando 'let us say no more about it and as her ladyship the princess proposes to set out tomorrow because it is too late today, so be it, and we will pass the night in pleasant conversation, and tomorrow we will all accompany Seor Don Quixote for we wish to witness the valiant and unparalleled achievements he is about to perform in the course of this mighty enterprise which he has undertaken. 'It is I who shall wait upon and accompany you, said Don Quixote 'and I am much gratified by the favour that is bestowed upon me, and the good opinion entertained of me, which I shall strive to justify or it shall cost me my life, or even more, if it can possibly cost me more. Many were the compliments and expressions of politeness that passed between Don Quixote and Don Fernando but they were brought to an end by a traveller who at this moment entered the inn, and who seemed from his attire to be a Christian lately come from the country of the Moors, for he was dressed in a shortskirted coat of blue cloth with halfsleeves and without a collar his breeches were also of blue cloth, and his cap of the same colour, and he wore yellow buskins and had a Moorish cutlass slung from a baldric across his breast. Behind him, mounted upon an ass, there came a woman dressed in Moorish fashion, with her face veiled and a scarf on her head, and wearing a little brocaded cap, and a mantle that covered her from her shoulders to her feet. The man was of a robust and wellproportioned frame, in age a little over forty, rather swarthy in complexion, with long moustaches and a full beard, and, in short, his appearance was such that if he had been well dressed he would have been taken for a person of quality and good birth. On entering he asked for a room, and when they told him there was none in the inn he seemed distressed, and approaching her who by her dress seemed to be a Moor, he took her down from the saddle in his arms. Luscinda, Dorothea, the landlady, her daughter and Maritornes, attracted by the strange, and to them entirely new costume, gathered round her and Dorothea, who was always kindly, courteous, and quickwitted, perceiving that both she and the man who had brought her were annoyed at not finding a room, said to her, 'Do not be put out, seora, by the discomfort and want of luxuries here, for it is the way of roadside inns to be without them still, if you will be pleased to share our lodging with us (pointing to Luscinda) perhaps you will have found worse accommodation in the course of your journey. To this the veiled lady made no reply all she did was to rise from her seat, crossing her hands upon her bosom, bowing her head and bending her body as a sign that she returned thanks. From her silence they concluded that she must be a Moor and unable to speak a Christian tongue. At this moment the captive came up, having been until now otherwise engaged, and seeing that they all stood round his companion and that she made no reply to what they addressed to her, he said, 'Ladies, this damsel hardly understands my language and can speak none but that of her own country, for which reason she does not and cannot answer what has been asked of her. 'Nothing has been asked of her, returned Luscinda 'she has only been offered our company for this evening and a share of the quarters we occupy, where she shall be made as comfortable as the circumstances allow, with the goodwill we are bound to show all strangers that stand in need of it, especially if it be a woman to whom the service is rendered. 'On her part and my own, seora, replied the captive, 'I kiss your hands, and I esteem highly, as I ought, the favour you have offered, which, on such an occasion and coming from persons of your appearance, is, it is plain to see, a very great one. 'Tell me, seor, said Dorothea, 'is this lady a Christian or a Moor? for her dress and her silence lead us to imagine that she is what we could wish she was not. 'In dress and outwardly, said he, 'she is a Moor, but at heart she is a thoroughly good Christian, for she has the greatest desire to become one. 'Then she has not been baptised? returned Luscinda. 'There has been no opportunity for that, replied the captive, 'since she left Algiers, her native country and home and up to the present she has not found herself in any such imminent danger of death as to make it necessary to baptise her before she has been instructed in all the ceremonies our holy mother Church ordains but, please God, ere long she shall be baptised with the solemnity befitting her which is higher than her dress or mine indicates. By these words he excited a desire in all who heard him, to know who the Moorish lady and the captive were, but no one liked to ask just then, seeing that it was a fitter moment for helping them to rest themselves than for questioning them about their lives. Dorothea took the Moorish lady by the hand and leading her to a seat beside herself, requested her to remove her veil. She looked at the captive as if to ask him what they meant and what she was to do. He said to her in Arabic that they asked her to take off her veil, and thereupon she removed it and disclosed a countenance so lovely, that to Dorothea she seemed more beautiful than Luscinda, and to Luscinda more beautiful than Dorothea, and all the bystanders felt that if any beauty could compare with theirs it was the Moorish lady's, and there were even those who were inclined to give it somewhat the preference. And as it is the privilege and charm of beauty to win the heart and secure goodwill, all forthwith became eager to show kindness and attention to the lovely Moor. Don Fernando asked the captive what her name was, and he replied that it was Lela Zoraida but the instant she heard him, she guessed what the Christian had asked, and said hastily, with some displeasure and energy, 'No, not Zoraida Maria, Maria! giving them to understand that she was called 'Maria and not 'Zoraida. These words, and the touching earnestness with which she uttered them, drew more than one tear from some of the listeners, particularly the women, who are by nature tenderhearted and compassionate. Luscinda embraced her affectionately, saying, 'Yes, yes, Maria, Maria, to which the Moor replied, 'Yes, yes, Maria Zoraida macange, which means 'not Zoraida. Night was now approaching, and by the orders of those who accompanied Don Fernando the landlord had taken care and pains to prepare for them the best supper that was in his power. The hour therefore having arrived they all took their seats at a long table like a refectory one, for round or square table there was none in the inn, and the seat of honour at the head of it, though he was for refusing it, they assigned to Don Quixote, who desired the lady Micomicona to place herself by his side, as he was her protector. Luscinda and Zoraida took their places next her, opposite to them were Don Fernando and Cardenio, and next the captive and the other gentlemen, and by the side of the ladies, the curate and the barber. And so they supped in high enjoyment, which was increased when they observed Don Quixote leave off eating, and, moved by an impulse like that which made him deliver himself at such length when he supped with the goatherds, begin to address them 'Verily, gentlemen, if we reflect upon it, great and marvellous are the things they see, who make profession of the order of knighterrantry. Say, what being is there in this world, who entering the gate of this castle at this moment, and seeing us as we are here, would suppose or imagine us to be what we are? Who would say that this lady who is beside me was the great queen that we all know her to be, or that I am that Knight of the Rueful Countenance, trumpeted far and wide by the mouth of Fame? Now, there can be no doubt that this art and calling surpasses all those that mankind has invented, and is the more deserving of being held in honour in proportion as it is the more exposed to peril. Away with those who assert that letters have the preeminence over arms I will tell them, whosoever they may be, that they know not what they say. For the reason which such persons commonly assign, and upon which they chiefly rest, is, that the labours of the mind are greater than those of the body, and that arms give employment to the body alone as if the calling were a porter's trade, for which nothing more is required than sturdy strength or as if, in what we who profess them call arms, there were not included acts of vigour for the execution of which high intelligence is requisite or as if the soul of the warrior, when he has an army, or the defence of a city under his care, did not exert itself as much by mind as by body. Nay see whether by bodily strength it be possible to learn or divine the intentions of the enemy, his plans, stratagems, or obstacles, or to ward off impending mischief for all these are the work of the mind, and in them the body has no share whatever. Since, therefore, arms have need of the mind, as much as letters, let us see now which of the two minds, that of the man of letters or that of the warrior, has most to do and this will be seen by the end and goal that each seeks to attain for that purpose is the more estimable which has for its aim the nobler object. The end and goal of lettersI am not speaking now of divine letters, the aim of which is to raise and direct the soul to Heaven for with an end so infinite no other can be comparedI speak of human letters, the end of which is to establish distributive justice, give to every man that which is his, and see and take care that good laws are observed an end undoubtedly noble, lofty, and deserving of high praise, but not such as should be given to that sought by arms, which have for their end and object peace, the greatest boon that men can desire in this life. The first good news the world and mankind received was that which the angels announced on the night that was our day, when they sang in the air, 'Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of goodwill' and the salutation which the great Master of heaven and earth taught his disciples and chosen followers when they entered any house, was to say, 'Peace be on this house' and many other times he said to them, 'My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave you, peace be with you' a jewel and a precious gift given and left by such a hand a jewel without which there can be no happiness either on earth or in heaven. This peace is the true end of war and war is only another name for arms. This, then, being admitted, that the end of war is peace, and that so far it has the advantage of the end of letters, let us turn to the bodily labours of the man of letters, and those of him who follows the profession of arms, and see which are the greater. Don Quixote delivered his discourse in such a manner and in such correct language, that for the time being he made it impossible for any of his hearers to consider him a madman on the contrary, as they were mostly gentlemen, to whom arms are an appurtenance by birth, they listened to him with great pleasure as he continued 'Here, then, I say is what the student has to undergo first of all poverty not that all are poor, but to put the case as strongly as possible and when I have said that he endures poverty, I think nothing more need be said about his hard fortune, for he who is poor has no share of the good things of life. This poverty he suffers from in various ways, hunger, or cold, or nakedness, or all together but for all that it is not so extreme but that he gets something to eat, though it may be at somewhat unseasonable hours and from the leavings of the rich for the greatest misery of the student is what they themselves call 'going out for soup,' and there is always some neighbour's brazier or hearth for them, which, if it does not warm, at least tempers the cold to them, and lastly, they sleep comfortably at night under a roof. I will not go into other particulars, as for example want of shirts, and no superabundance of shoes, thin and threadbare garments, and gorging themselves to surfeit in their voracity when good luck has treated them to a banquet of some sort. By this road that I have described, rough and hard, stumbling here, falling there, getting up again to fall again, they reach the rank they desire, and that once attained, we have seen many who have passed these Syrtes and Scyllas and Charybdises, as if borne flying on the wings of favouring fortune we have seen them, I say, ruling and governing the world from a chair, their hunger turned into satiety, their cold into comfort, their nakedness into fine raiment, their sleep on a mat into repose in holland and damask, the justly earned reward of their virtue but, contrasted and compared with what the warrior undergoes, all they have undergone falls far short of it, as I am now about to show. Continuing his discourse Don Quixote said 'As we began in the student's case with poverty and its accompaniments, let us see now if the soldier is richer, and we shall find that in poverty itself there is no one poorer for he is dependent on his miserable pay, which comes late or never, or else on what he can plunder, seriously imperilling his life and conscience and sometimes his nakedness will be so great that a slashed doublet serves him for uniform and shirt, and in the depth of winter he has to defend himself against the inclemency of the weather in the open field with nothing better than the breath of his mouth, which I need not say, coming from an empty place, must come out cold, contrary to the laws of nature. To be sure he looks forward to the approach of night to make up for all these discomforts on the bed that awaits him, which, unless by some fault of his, never sins by being over narrow, for he can easily measure out on the ground as he likes, and roll himself about in it to his heart's content without any fear of the sheets slipping away from him. Then, after all this, suppose the day and hour for taking his degree in his calling to have come suppose the day of battle to have arrived, when they invest him with the doctor's cap made of lint, to mend some bullethole, perhaps, that has gone through his temples, or left him with a crippled arm or leg. Or if this does not happen, and merciful Heaven watches over him and keeps him safe and sound, it may be he will be in the same poverty he was in before, and he must go through more engagements and more battles, and come victorious out of all before he betters himself but miracles of that sort are seldom seen. For tell me, sirs, if you have ever reflected upon it, by how much do those who have gained by war fall short of the number of those who have perished in it? No doubt you will reply that there can be no comparison, that the dead cannot be numbered, while the living who have been rewarded may be summed up with three figures. All which is the reverse in the case of men of letters for by skirts, to say nothing of sleeves, they all find means of support so that though the soldier has more to endure, his reward is much less. But against all this it may be urged that it is easier to reward two thousand soldiers, for the former may be remunerated by giving them places, which must perforce be conferred upon men of their calling, while the latter can only be recompensed out of the very property of the master they serve but this impossibility only strengthens my argument. 'Putting this, however, aside, for it is a puzzling question for which it is difficult to find a solution, let us return to the superiority of arms over letters, a matter still undecided, so many are the arguments put forward on each side for besides those I have mentioned, letters say that without them arms cannot maintain themselves, for war, too, has its laws and is governed by them, and laws belong to the domain of letters and men of letters. To this arms make answer that without them laws cannot be maintained, for by arms states are defended, kingdoms preserved, cities protected, roads made safe, seas cleared of pirates and, in short, if it were not for them, states, kingdoms, monarchies, cities, ways by sea and land would be exposed to the violence and confusion which war brings with it, so long as it lasts and is free to make use of its privileges and powers. And then it is plain that whatever costs most is valued and deserves to be valued most. To attain to eminence in letters costs a man time, watching, hunger, nakedness, headaches, indigestions, and other things of the sort, some of which I have already referred to. But for a man to come in the ordinary course of things to be a good soldier costs him all the student suffers, and in an incomparably higher degree, for at every step he runs the risk of losing his life. For what dread of want or poverty that can reach or harass the student can compare with what the soldier feels, who finds himself beleaguered in some stronghold mounting guard in some ravelin or cavalier, knows that the enemy is pushing a mine towards the post where he is stationed, and cannot under any circumstances retire or fly from the imminent danger that threatens him? All he can do is to inform his captain of what is going on so that he may try to remedy it by a countermine, and then stand his ground in fear and expectation of the moment when he will fly up to the clouds without wings and descend into the deep against his will. And if this seems a trifling risk, let us see whether it is equalled or surpassed by the encounter of two galleys stem to stem, in the midst of the open sea, locked and entangled one with the other, when the soldier has no more standing room than two feet of the plank of the spur and yet, though he sees before him threatening him as many ministers of death as there are cannon of the foe pointed at him, not a lance length from his body, and sees too that with the first heedless step he will go down to visit the profundities of Neptune's bosom, still with dauntless heart, urged on by honour that nerves him, he makes himself a target for all that musketry, and struggles to cross that narrow path to the enemy's ship. And what is still more marvellous, no sooner has one gone down into the depths he will never rise from till the end of the world, than another takes his place and if he too falls into the sea that waits for him like an enemy, another and another will succeed him without a moment's pause between their deaths courage and daring the greatest that all the chances of war can show. Happy the blest ages that knew not the dread fury of those devilish engines of artillery, whose inventor I am persuaded is in hell receiving the reward of his diabolical invention, by which he made it easy for a base and cowardly arm to take the life of a gallant gentleman and that, when he knows not how or whence, in the height of the ardour and enthusiasm that fire and animate brave hearts, there should come some random bullet, discharged perhaps by one who fled in terror at the flash when he fired off his accursed machine, which in an instant puts an end to the projects and cuts off the life of one who deserved to live for ages to come. And thus when I reflect on this, I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I repent of having adopted this profession of knighterrant in so detestable an age as we live in now for though no peril can make me fear, still it gives me some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may rob me of the opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout the known earth by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword. But Heaven's will be done if I succeed in my attempt I shall be all the more honoured, as I have faced greater dangers than the knightserrant of yore exposed themselves to. All this lengthy discourse Don Quixote delivered while the others supped, forgetting to raise a morsel to his lips, though Sancho more than once told him to eat his supper, as he would have time enough afterwards to say all he wanted. It excited fresh pity in those who had heard him to see a man of apparently sound sense, and with rational views on every subject he discussed, so hopelessly wanting in all, when his wretched unlucky chivalry was in question. The curate told him he was quite right in all he had said in favour of arms, and that he himself, though a man of letters and a graduate, was of the same opinion. They finished their supper, the cloth was removed, and while the hostess, her daughter, and Maritornes were getting Don Quixote of La Mancha's garret ready, in which it was arranged that the women were to be quartered by themselves for the night, Don Fernando begged the captive to tell them the story of his life, for it could not fail to be strange and interesting, to judge by the hints he had let fall on his arrival in company with Zoraida. To this the captive replied that he would very willingly yield to his request, only he feared his tale would not give them as much pleasure as he wished nevertheless, not to be wanting in compliance, he would tell it. The curate and the others thanked him and added their entreaties, and he finding himself so pressed said there was no occasion to ask, where a command had such weight, and added, 'If your worships will give me your attention you will hear a true story which, perhaps, fictitious ones constructed with ingenious and studied art cannot come up to. These words made them settle themselves in their places and preserve a deep silence, and he seeing them waiting on his words in mute expectation, began thus in a pleasant quiet voice. My family had its origin in a village in the mountains of Leon, and nature had been kinder and more generous to it than fortune though in the general poverty of those communities my father passed for being even a rich man and he would have been so in reality had he been as clever in preserving his property as he was in spending it. This tendency of his to be liberal and profuse he had acquired from having been a soldier in his youth, for the soldier's life is a school in which the niggard becomes freehanded and the freehanded prodigal and if any soldiers are to be found who are misers, they are monsters of rare occurrence. My father went beyond liberality and bordered on prodigality, a disposition by no means advantageous to a married man who has children to succeed to his name and position. My father had three, all sons, and all of sufficient age to make choice of a profession. Finding, then, that he was unable to resist his propensity, he resolved to divest himself of the instrument and cause of his prodigality and lavishness, to divest himself of wealth, without which Alexander himself would have seemed parsimonious and so calling us all three aside one day into a room, he addressed us in words somewhat to the following effect 'My sons, to assure you that I love you, no more need be known or said than that you are my sons and to encourage a suspicion that I do not love you, no more is needed than the knowledge that I have no selfcontrol as far as preservation of your patrimony is concerned therefore, that you may for the future feel sure that I love you like a father, and have no wish to ruin you like a stepfather, I propose to do with you what I have for some time back meditated, and after mature deliberation decided upon. You are now of an age to choose your line of life or at least make choice of a calling that will bring you honour and profit when you are older and what I have resolved to do is to divide my property into four parts three I will give to you, to each his portion without making any difference, and the other I will retain to live upon and support myself for whatever remainder of life Heaven may be pleased to grant me. But I wish each of you on taking possession of the share that falls to him to follow one of the paths I shall indicate. In this Spain of ours there is a proverb, to my mind very trueas they all are, being short aphorisms drawn from long practical experienceand the one I refer to says, 'The church, or the sea, or the king's house' as much as to say, in plainer language, whoever wants to flourish and become rich, let him follow the church, or go to sea, adopting commerce as his calling, or go into the king's service in his household, for they say, 'Better a king's crumb than a lord's favour.' I say so because it is my will and pleasure that one of you should follow letters, another trade, and the third serve the king in the wars, for it is a difficult matter to gain admission to his service in his household, and if war does not bring much wealth it confers great distinction and fame. Eight days hence I will give you your full shares in money, without defrauding you of a farthing, as you will see in the end. Now tell me if you are willing to follow out my idea and advice as I have laid it before you. Having called upon me as the eldest to answer, I, after urging him not to strip himself of his property but to spend it all as he pleased, for we were young men able to gain our living, consented to comply with his wishes, and said that mine were to follow the profession of arms and thereby serve God and my king. My second brother having made the same proposal, decided upon going to the Indies, embarking the portion that fell to him in trade. The youngest, and in my opinion the wisest, said he would rather follow the church, or go to complete his studies at Salamanca. As soon as we had come to an understanding, and made choice of our professions, my father embraced us all, and in the short time he mentioned carried into effect all he had promised and when he had given to each his share, which as well as I remember was three thousand ducats apiece in cash (for an uncle of ours bought the estate and paid for it down, not to let it go out of the family), we all three on the same day took leave of our good father and at the same time, as it seemed to me inhuman to leave my father with such scanty means in his old age, I induced him to take two of my three thousand ducats, as the remainder would be enough to provide me with all a soldier needed. My two brothers, moved by my example, gave him each a thousand ducats, so that there was left for my father four thousand ducats in money, besides three thousand, the value of the portion that fell to him which he preferred to retain in land instead of selling it. Finally, as I said, we took leave of him, and of our uncle whom I have mentioned, not without sorrow and tears on both sides, they charging us to let them know whenever an opportunity offered how we fared, whether well or ill. We promised to do so, and when he had embraced us and given us his blessing, one set out for Salamanca, the other for Seville, and I for Alicante, where I had heard there was a Genoese vessel taking in a cargo of wool for Genoa. It is now some twentytwo years since I left my father's house, and all that time, though I have written several letters, I have had no news whatever of him or of my brothers my own adventures during that period I will now relate briefly. I embarked at Alicante, reached Genoa after a prosperous voyage, and proceeded thence to Milan, where I provided myself with arms and a few soldier's accoutrements thence it was my intention to go and take service in Piedmont, but as I was already on the road to Alessandria della Paglia, I learned that the great Duke of Alva was on his way to Flanders. I changed my plans, joined him, served under him in the campaigns he made, was present at the deaths of the Counts Egmont and Horn, and was promoted to be ensign under a famous captain of Guadalajara, Diego de Urbina by name. Some time after my arrival in Flanders news came of the league that his Holiness Pope Pius V. of happy memory, had made with Venice and Spain against the common enemy, the Turk, who had just then with his fleet taken the famous island of Cyprus, which belonged to the Venetians, a loss deplorable and disastrous. It was known as a fact that the Most Serene Don John of Austria, natural brother of our good king Don Philip, was coming as commanderinchief of the allied forces, and rumours were abroad of the vast warlike preparations which were being made, all which stirred my heart and filled me with a longing to take part in the campaign which was expected and though I had reason to believe, and almost certain promises, that on the first opportunity that presented itself I should be promoted to be captain, I preferred to leave all and betake myself, as I did, to Italy and it was my good fortune that Don John had just arrived at Genoa, and was going on to Naples to join the Venetian fleet, as he afterwards did at Messina. I may say, in short, that I took part in that glorious expedition, promoted by this time to be a captain of infantry, to which honourable charge my good luck rather than my merits raised me and that dayso fortunate for Christendom, because then all the nations of the earth were disabused of the error under which they lay in imagining the Turks to be invincible on seaon that day, I say, on which the Ottoman pride and arrogance were broken, among all that were there made happy (for the Christians who died that day were happier than those who remained alive and victorious) I alone was miserable for, instead of some naval crown that I might have expected had it been in Roman times, on the night that followed that famous day I found myself with fetters on my feet and manacles on my hands. It happened in this way El Uchali, the king of Algiers, a daring and successful corsair, having attacked and taken the leading Maltese galley (only three knights being left alive in it, and they badly wounded), the chief galley of John Andrea, on board of which I and my company were placed, came to its relief, and doing as was bound to do in such a case, I leaped on board the enemy's galley, which, sheering off from that which had attacked it, prevented my men from following me, and so I found myself alone in the midst of my enemies, who were in such numbers that I was unable to resist in short I was taken, covered with wounds El Uchali, as you know, sirs, made his escape with his entire squadron, and I was left a prisoner in his power, the only sad being among so many filled with joy, and the only captive among so many free for there were fifteen thousand Christians, all at the oar in the Turkish fleet, that regained their longedfor liberty that day. They carried me to Constantinople, where the Grand Turk, Selim, made my master general at sea for having done his duty in the battle and carried off as evidence of his bravery the standard of the Order of Malta. The following year, which was the year seventytwo, I found myself at Navarino rowing in the leading galley with the three lanterns. There I saw and observed how the opportunity of capturing the whole Turkish fleet in harbour was lost for all the marines and janizzaries that belonged to it made sure that they were about to be attacked inside the very harbour, and had their kits and pasamaques, or shoes, ready to flee at once on shore without waiting to be assailed, in so great fear did they stand of our fleet. But Heaven ordered it otherwise, not for any fault or neglect of the general who commanded on our side, but for the sins of Christendom, and because it was God's will and pleasure that we should always have instruments of punishment to chastise us. As it was, El Uchali took refuge at Modon, which is an island near Navarino, and landing forces fortified the mouth of the harbour and waited quietly until Don John retired. On this expedition was taken the galley called the Prize, whose captain was a son of the famous corsair Barbarossa. It was taken by the chief Neapolitan galley called the Shewolf, commanded by that thunderbolt of war, that father of his men, that successful and unconquered captain Don lvaro de Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz and I cannot help telling you what took place at the capture of the Prize. The son of Barbarossa was so cruel, and treated his slaves so badly, that, when those who were at the oars saw that the Shewolf galley was bearing down upon them and gaining upon them, they all at once dropped their oars and seized their captain who stood on the stage at the end of the gangway shouting to them to row lustily and passing him on from bench to bench, from the poop to the prow, they so bit him that before he had got much past the mast his soul had already got to hell so great, as I said, was the cruelty with which he treated them, and the hatred with which they hated him. We returned to Constantinople, and the following year, seventythree, it became known that Don John had seized Tunis and taken the kingdom from the Turks, and placed Muley Hamet in possession, putting an end to the hopes which Muley Hamida, the cruelest and bravest Moor in the world, entertained of returning to reign there. The Grand Turk took the loss greatly to heart, and with the cunning which all his race possess, he made peace with the Venetians (who were much more eager for it than he was), and the following year, seventyfour, he attacked the Goletta and the fort which Don John had left half built near Tunis. While all these events were occurring, I was labouring at the oar without any hope of freedom at least I had no hope of obtaining it by ransom, for I was firmly resolved not to write to my father telling him of my misfortunes. At length the Goletta fell, and the fort fell, before which places there were seventyfive thousand regular Turkish soldiers, and more than four hundred thousand Moors and Arabs from all parts of Africa, and in the train of all this great host such munitions and engines of war, and so many pioneers that with their hands they might have covered the Goletta and the fort with handfuls of earth. The first to fall was the Goletta, until then reckoned impregnable, and it fell, not by any fault of its defenders, who did all that they could and should have done, but because experiment proved how easily entrenchments could be made in the desert sand there for water used to be found at two palms depth, while the Turks found none at two yards and so by means of a quantity of sandbags they raised their works so high that they commanded the walls of the fort, sweeping them as if from a cavalier, so that no one was able to make a stand or maintain the defence. It was a common opinion that our men should not have shut themselves up in the Goletta, but should have waited in the open at the landingplace but those who say so talk at random and with little knowledge of such matters for if in the Goletta and in the fort there were barely seven thousand soldiers, how could such a small number, however resolute, sally out and hold their own against numbers like those of the enemy? And how is it possible to help losing a stronghold that is not relieved, above all when surrounded by a host of determined enemies in their own country? But many thought, and I thought so too, that it was special favour and mercy which Heaven showed to Spain in permitting the destruction of that source and hiding place of mischief, that devourer, sponge, and moth of countless money, fruitlessly wasted there to no other purpose save preserving the memory of its capture by the invincible Charles V. as if to make that eternal, as it is and will be, these stones were needed to support it. The fort also fell but the Turks had to win it inch by inch, for the soldiers who defended it fought so gallantly and stoutly that the number of the enemy killed in twentytwo general assaults exceeded twentyfive thousand. Of three hundred that remained alive not one was taken unwounded, a clear and manifest proof of their gallantry and resolution, and how sturdily they had defended themselves and held their post. A small fort or tower which was in the middle of the lagoon under the command of Don Juan Zanoguera, a Valencian gentleman and a famous soldier, capitulated upon terms. They took prisoner Don Pedro Puertocarrero, commandant of the Goletta, who had done all in his power to defend his fortress, and took the loss of it so much to heart that he died of grief on the way to Constantinople, where they were carrying him a prisoner. They also took the commandant of the fort, Gabrio Cerbellon by name, a Milanese gentleman, a great engineer and a very brave soldier. In these two fortresses perished many persons of note, among whom was Pagano Doria, knight of the Order of St. John, a man of generous disposition, as was shown by his extreme liberality to his brother, the famous John Andrea Doria and what made his death the more sad was that he was slain by some Arabs to whom, seeing that the fort was now lost, he entrusted himself, and who offered to conduct him in the disguise of a Moor to Tabarca, a small fort or station on the coast held by the Genoese employed in the coral fishery. These Arabs cut off his head and carried it to the commander of the Turkish fleet, who proved on them the truth of our Castilian proverb, that 'though the treason may please, the traitor is hated for they say he ordered those who brought him the present to be hanged for not having brought him alive. Among the Christians who were taken in the fort was one named Don Pedro de Aguilar, a native of some place, I know not what, in Andalusia, who had been ensign in the fort, a soldier of great repute and rare intelligence, who had in particular a special gift for what they call poetry. I say so because his fate brought him to my galley and to my bench, and made him a slave to the same master and before we left the port this gentleman composed two sonnets by way of epitaphs, one on the Goletta and the other on the fort indeed, I may as well repeat them, for I have them by heart, and I think they will be liked rather than disliked. The instant the captive mentioned the name of Don Pedro de Aguilar, Don Fernando looked at his companions and they all three smiled and when he came to speak of the sonnets one of them said, 'Before your worship proceeds any further I entreat you to tell me what became of that Don Pedro de Aguilar you have spoken of. 'All I know is, replied the captive, 'that after having been in Constantinople two years, he escaped in the disguise of an Arnaut, in company with a Greek spy but whether he regained his liberty or not I cannot tell, though I fancy he did, because a year afterwards I saw the Greek at Constantinople, though I was unable to ask him what the result of the journey was. 'Well then, you are right, returned the gentleman, 'for that Don Pedro is my brother, and he is now in our village in good health, rich, married, and with three children. 'Thanks be to God for all the mercies he has shown him, said the captive 'for to my mind there is no happiness on earth to compare with recovering lost liberty. 'And what is more, said the gentleman, 'I know the sonnets my brother made. 'Then let your worship repeat them, said the captive, 'for you will recite them better than I can. 'With all my heart, said the gentleman 'that on the Goletta runs thus. SONNET 'Blest souls, that, from this mortal husk set free, In guerdon of brave deeds beatified, Above this lowly orb of ours abide Made heirs of heaven and immortality, With noble rage and ardour glowing ye Your strength, while strength was yours, in battle plied, And with your own blood and the foeman's dyed The sandy soil and the encircling sea. It was the ebbing lifeblood first that failed The weary arms the stout hearts never quailed. Though vanquished, yet ye earned the victor's crown Though mourned, yet still triumphant was your fall For there ye won, between the sword and wall, In Heaven glory and on earth renown. 'That is it exactly, according to my recollection, said the captive. 'Well then, that on the fort, said the gentleman, 'if my memory serves me, goes thus SONNET 'Up from this wasted soil, this shattered shell, Whose walls and towers here in ruin lie, Three thousand soldier souls took wing on high, In the bright mansions of the blest to dwell. The onslaught of the foeman to repel By might of arm all vainly did they try, And when at length 'twas left them but to die, Wearied and few the last defenders fell. And this same arid soil hath ever been A haunt of countless mournful memories, As well in our day as in days of yore. But never yet to Heaven it sent, I ween, From its hard bosom purer souls than these, Or braver bodies on its surface bore. The sonnets were not disliked, and the captive was rejoiced at the tidings they gave him of his comrade, and continuing his tale, he went on to say The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave orders to dismantle the Golettafor the fort was reduced to such a state that there was nothing left to leveland to do the work more quickly and easily they mined it in three places but nowhere were they able to blow up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications that the Fratin had made came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few months later died my master, El Uchali, otherwise Uchali Fartax, which means in Turkish 'the scabby renegade for that he was it is the practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they may possess the reason being that there are among them only four surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This 'scabby one rowed at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor's for fourteen years, and when over thirtyfour years of age, in resentment at having been struck by a Turk while at the oar, turned renegade and renounced his faith in order to be able to revenge himself and such was his valour that, without owing his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favourites of the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and afterwards generalonsea, which is the third place of trust in the realm. He was a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he treated his slaves with great humanity. He had three thousand of them, and after his death they were divided, as he directed by his will, between the Grand Signor (who is heir of all who die and shares with the children of the deceased) and his renegades. I fell to the lot of a Venetian renegade who, when a cabin boy on board a ship, had been taken by Uchali and was so much beloved by him that he became one of his most favoured youths. He came to be the most cruel renegade I ever saw his name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich and became king of Algiers. With him I went there from Constantinople, rather glad to be so near Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about my unhappy lot, but to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than in Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape without ever finding a favourable time or chance but in Algiers I resolved to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished so dearly for the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me and when in my plots and schemes and attempts the result did not answer my expectations, without giving way to despair I immediately began to look out for or conjure up some new hope to support me, however faint or feeble it might be. In this way I lived on immured in a building or prison called by the Turks a bao in which they confine the Christian captives, as well those that are the king's as those belonging to private individuals, and also what they call those of the Almacen, which is as much as to say the slaves of the municipality, who serve the city in the public works and other employments but captives of this kind recover their liberty with great difficulty, for, as they are public property and have no particular master, there is no one with whom to treat for their ransom, even though they may have the means. To these baos, as I have said, some private individuals of the town are in the habit of bringing their captives, especially when they are to be ransomed because there they can keep them in safety and comfort until their ransom arrives. The king's captives also, that are on ransom, do not go out to work with the rest of the crew, unless when their ransom is delayed for then, to make them write for it more pressingly, they compel them to work and go for wood, which is no light labour. I, however, was one of those on ransom, for when it was discovered that I was a captain, although I declared my scanty means and want of fortune, nothing could dissuade them from including me among the gentlemen and those waiting to be ransomed. They put a chain on me, more as a mark of this than to keep me safe, and so I passed my life in that bao with several other gentlemen and persons of quality marked out as held to ransom but though at times, or rather almost always, we suffered from hunger and scanty clothing, nothing distressed us so much as hearing and seeing at every turn the unexampled and unheardof cruelties my master inflicted upon the Christians. Every day he hanged a man, impaled one, cut off the ears of another and all with so little provocation, or so entirely without any, that the Turks acknowledged he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because he was by nature murderously disposed towards the whole human race. The only one that fared at all well with him was a Spanish soldier, something de Saavedra by name, to whom he never gave a blow himself, or ordered a blow to be given, or addressed a hard word, although he had done things that will dwell in the memory of the people there for many a year, and all to recover his liberty and for the least of the many things he did we all dreaded that he would be impaled, and he himself was in fear of it more than once and only that time does not allow, I could tell you now something of what that soldier did, that would interest and astonish you much more than the narration of my own tale. To go on with my story the courtyard of our prison was overlooked by the windows of the house belonging to a wealthy Moor of high position and these, as is usual in Moorish houses, were rather loopholes than windows, and besides were covered with thick and close latticework. It so happened, then, that as I was one day on the terrace of our prison with three other comrades, trying, to pass away the time, how far we could leap with our chains, we being alone, for all the other Christians had gone out to work, I chanced to raise my eyes, and from one of these little closed windows I saw a reed appear with a cloth attached to the end of it, and it kept waving to and fro, and moving as if making signs to us to come and take it. We watched it, and one of those who were with me went and stood under the reed to see whether they would let it drop, or what they would do, but as he did so the reed was raised and moved from side to side, as if they meant to say 'no by a shake of the head. The Christian came back, and it was again lowered, making the same movements as before. Another of my comrades went, and with him the same happened as with the first, and then the third went forward, but with the same result as the first and second. Seeing this I did not like not to try my luck, and as soon as I came under the reed it was dropped and fell inside the bao at my feet. I hastened to untie the cloth, in which I perceived a knot, and in this were ten cianis, which are coins of base gold, current among the Moors, and each worth ten reals of our money. It is needless to say I rejoiced over this godsend, and my joy was not less than my wonder as I strove to imagine how this good fortune could have come to us, but to me specially for the evident unwillingness to drop the reed for any but me showed that it was for me the favour was intended. I took my welcome money, broke the reed, and returned to the terrace, and looking up at the window, I saw a very white hand put out that opened and shut very quickly. From this we gathered or fancied that it must be some woman living in that house that had done us this kindness, and to show that we were grateful for it, we made salaams after the fashion of the Moors, bowing the head, bending the body, and crossing the arms on the breast. Shortly afterwards at the same window a small cross made of reeds was put out and immediately withdrawn. This sign led us to believe that some Christian woman was a captive in the house, and that it was she who had been so good to us but the whiteness of the hand and the bracelets we had perceived made us dismiss that idea, though we thought it might be one of the Christian renegades whom their masters very often take as lawful wives, and gladly, for they prefer them to the women of their own nation. In all our conjectures we were wide of the truth so from that time forward our sole occupation was watching and gazing at the window where the cross had appeared to us, as if it were our polestar but at least fifteen days passed without our seeing either it or the hand, or any other sign and though meanwhile we endeavoured with the utmost pains to ascertain who it was that lived in the house, and whether there were any Christian renegade in it, nobody could ever tell us anything more than that he who lived there was a rich Moor of high position, Hadji Morato by name, formerly alcaide of La Pata, an office of high dignity among them. But when we least thought it was going to rain any more cianis from that quarter, we saw the reed suddenly appear with another cloth tied in a larger knot attached to it, and this at a time when, as on the former occasion, the bao was deserted and unoccupied. We made trial as before, each of the same three going forward before I did but the reed was delivered to none but me, and on my approach it was let drop. I untied the knot and I found forty Spanish gold crowns with a paper written in Arabic, and at the end of the writing there was a large cross drawn. I kissed the cross, took the crowns and returned to the terrace, and we all made our salaams again the hand appeared, I made signs that I would read the paper, and then the window was closed. We were all puzzled, though filled with joy at what had taken place and as none of us understood Arabic, great was our curiosity to know what the paper contained, and still greater the difficulty of finding someone to read it. At last I resolved to confide in a renegade, a native of Murcia, who professed a very great friendship for me, and had given pledges that bound him to keep any secret I might entrust to him for it is the custom with some renegades, when they intend to return to Christian territory, to carry about them certificates from captives of mark testifying, in whatever form they can, that such and such a renegade is a worthy man who has always shown kindness to Christians, and is anxious to escape on the first opportunity that may present itself. Some obtain these testimonials with good intentions, others put them to a cunning use for when they go to pillage on Christian territory, if they chance to be cast away, or taken prisoners, they produce their certificates and say that from these papers may be seen the object they came for, which was to remain on Christian ground, and that it was to this end they joined the Turks in their foray. In this way they escape the consequences of the first outburst and make their peace with the Church before it does them any harm, and then when they have the chance they return to Barbary to become what they were before. Others, however, there are who procure these papers and make use of them honestly, and remain on Christian soil. This friend of mine, then, was one of these renegades that I have described he had certificates from all our comrades, in which we testified in his favour as strongly as we could and if the Moors had found the papers they would have burned him alive. I knew that he understood Arabic very well, and could not only speak but also write it but before I disclosed the whole matter to him, I asked him to read for me this paper which I had found by accident in a hole in my cell. He opened it and remained some time examining it and muttering to himself as he translated it. I asked him if he understood it, and he told me he did perfectly well, and that if I wished him to tell me its meaning word for word, I must give him pen and ink that he might do it more satisfactorily. We at once gave him what he required, and he set about translating it bit by bit, and when he had done he said 'All that is here in Spanish is what the Moorish paper contains, and you must bear in mind that when it says 'Lela Marien' it means 'Our Lady the Virgin Mary.' We read the paper and it ran thus 'When I was a child my father had a slave who taught me to pray the Christian prayer in my own language, and told me many things about Lela Marien. The Christian died, and I know that she did not go to the fire, but to Allah, because since then I have seen her twice, and she told me to go to the land of the Christians to see Lela Marien, who had great love for me. I know not how to go. I have seen many Christians, but except thyself none has seemed to me to be a gentleman. I am young and beautiful, and have plenty of money to take with me. See if thou canst contrive how we may go, and if thou wilt thou shalt be my husband there, and if thou wilt not it will not distress me, for Lela Marien will find me someone to marry me. I myself have written this have a care to whom thou givest it to read trust no Moor, for they are all perfidious. I am greatly troubled on this account, for I would not have thee confide in anyone, because if my father knew it he would at once fling me down a well and cover me with stones. I will put a thread to the reed tie the answer to it, and if thou hast no one to write for thee in Arabic, tell it to me by signs, for Lela Marien will make me understand thee. She and Allah and this cross, which I often kiss as the captive bade me, protect thee. Judge, sirs, whether we had reason for surprise and joy at the words of this paper and both one and the other were so great, that the renegade perceived that the paper had not been found by chance, but had been in reality addressed to someone of us, and he begged us, if what he suspected were the truth, to trust him and tell him all, for he would risk his life for our freedom and so saying he took out from his breast a metal crucifix, and with many tears swore by the God the image represented, in whom, sinful and wicked as he was, he truly and faithfully believed, to be loyal to us and keep secret whatever we chose to reveal to him for he thought and almost foresaw that by means of her who had written that paper, he and all of us would obtain our liberty, and he himself obtain the object he so much desired, his restoration to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church, from which by his own sin and ignorance he was now severed like a corrupt limb. The renegade said this with so many tears and such signs of repentance, that with one consent we all agreed to tell him the whole truth of the matter, and so we gave him a full account of all, without hiding anything from him. We pointed out to him the window at which the reed appeared, and he by that means took note of the house, and resolved to ascertain with particular care who lived in it. We agreed also that it would be advisable to answer the Moorish lady's letter, and the renegade without a moment's delay took down the words I dictated to him, which were exactly what I shall tell you, for nothing of importance that took place in this affair has escaped my memory, or ever will while life lasts. This, then, was the answer returned to the Moorish lady 'The true Allah protect thee, Lady, and that blessed Marien who is the true mother of God, and who has put it into thy heart to go to the land of the Christians, because she loves thee. Entreat her that she be pleased to show thee how thou canst execute the command she gives thee, for she will, such is her goodness. On my own part, and on that of all these Christians who are with me, I promise to do all that we can for thee, even to death. Fail not to write to me and inform me what thou dost mean to do, and I will always answer thee for the great Allah has given us a Christian captive who can speak and write thy language well, as thou mayest see by this paper without fear, therefore, thou canst inform us of all thou wouldst. As to what thou sayest, that if thou dost reach the land of the Christians thou wilt be my wife, I give thee my promise upon it as a good Christian and know that the Christians keep their promises better than the Moors. Allah and Marien his mother watch over thee, my Lady. The paper being written and folded I waited two days until the bao was empty as before, and immediately repaired to the usual walk on the terrace to see if there were any sign of the reed, which was not long in making its appearance. As soon as I saw it, although I could not distinguish who put it out, I showed the paper as a sign to attach the thread, but it was already fixed to the reed, and to it I tied the paper and shortly afterwards our star once more made its appearance with the white flag of peace, the little bundle. It was dropped, and I picked it up, and found in the cloth, in gold and silver coins of all sorts, more than fifty crowns, which fifty times more strengthened our joy and doubled our hope of gaining our liberty. That very night our renegade returned and said he had learned that the Moor we had been told of lived in that house, that his name was Hadji Morato, that he was enormously rich, that he had one only daughter the heiress of all his wealth, and that it was the general opinion throughout the city that she was the most beautiful woman in Barbary, and that several of the viceroys who came there had sought her for a wife, but that she had been always unwilling to marry and he had learned, moreover, that she had a Christian slave who was now dead all which agreed with the contents of the paper. We immediately took counsel with the renegade as to what means would have to be adopted in order to carry off the Moorish lady and bring us all to Christian territory and in the end it was agreed that for the present we should wait for a second communication from Zoraida (for that was the name of her who now desires to be called Maria), because we saw clearly that she and no one else could find a way out of all these difficulties. When we had decided upon this the renegade told us not to be uneasy, for he would lose his life or restore us to liberty. For four days the bao was filled with people, for which reason the reed delayed its appearance for four days, but at the end of that time, when the bao was, as it generally was, empty, it appeared with the cloth so bulky that it promised a happy birth. Reed and cloth came down to me, and I found another paper and a hundred crowns in gold, without any other coin. The renegade was present, and in our cell we gave him the paper to read, which was to this effect 'I cannot think of a plan, seor, for our going to Spain, nor has Lela Marien shown me one, though I have asked her. All that can be done is for me to give you plenty of money in gold from this window. With it ransom yourself and your friends, and let one of you go to the land of the Christians, and there buy a vessel and come back for the others and he will find me in my father's garden, which is at the Babazon gate near the seashore, where I shall be all this summer with my father and my servants. You can carry me away from there by night without any danger, and bring me to the vessel. And remember thou art to be my husband, else I will pray to Marien to punish thee. If thou canst not trust anyone to go for the vessel, ransom thyself and do thou go, for I know thou wilt return more surely than any other, as thou art a gentleman and a Christian. Endeavour to make thyself acquainted with the garden and when I see thee walking yonder I shall know that the bao is empty and I will give thee abundance of money. Allah protect thee, seor. These were the words and contents of the second paper, and on hearing them, each declared himself willing to be the ransomed one, and promised to go and return with scrupulous good faith and I too made the same offer but to all this the renegade objected, saying that he would not on any account consent to one being set free before all went together, as experience had taught him how ill those who have been set free keep promises which they made in captivity for captives of distinction frequently had recourse to this plan, paying the ransom of one who was to go to Valencia or Majorca with money to enable him to arm a bark and return for the others who had ransomed him, but who never came back for recovered liberty and the dread of losing it again efface from the memory all the obligations in the world. And to prove the truth of what he said, he told us briefly what had happened to a certain Christian gentleman almost at that very time, the strangest case that had ever occurred even there, where astonishing and marvellous things are happening every instant. In short, he ended by saying that what could and ought to be done was to give the money intended for the ransom of one of us Christians to him, so that he might with it buy a vessel there in Algiers under the pretence of becoming a merchant and trader at Tetuan and along the coast and when master of the vessel, it would be easy for him to hit on some way of getting us all out of the bao and putting us on board especially if the Moorish lady gave, as she said, money enough to ransom all, because once free it would be the easiest thing in the world for us to embark even in open day but the greatest difficulty was that the Moors do not allow any renegade to buy or own any craft, unless it be a large vessel for going on roving expeditions, because they are afraid that anyone who buys a small vessel, especially if he be a Spaniard, only wants it for the purpose of escaping to Christian territory. This however he could get over by arranging with a Tagarin Moor to go shares with him in the purchase of the vessel, and in the profit on the cargo and under cover of this he could become master of the vessel, in which case he looked upon all the rest as accomplished. But though to me and my comrades it had seemed a better plan to send to Majorca for the vessel, as the Moorish lady suggested, we did not dare to oppose him, fearing that if we did not do as he said he would denounce us, and place us in danger of losing all our lives if he were to disclose our dealings with Zoraida, for whose life we would have all given our own. We therefore resolved to put ourselves in the hands of God and in the renegade's and at the same time an answer was given to Zoraida, telling her that we would do all she recommended, for she had given as good advice as if Lela Marien had delivered it, and that it depended on her alone whether we were to defer the business or put it in execution at once. I renewed my promise to be her husband and thus the next day that the bao chanced to be empty she at different times gave us by means of the reed and cloth two thousand gold crowns and a paper in which she said that the next Juma, that is to say Friday, she was going to her father's garden, but that before she went she would give us more money and if it were not enough we were to let her know, as she would give us as much as we asked, for her father had so much he would not miss it, and besides she kept all the keys. We at once gave the renegade five hundred crowns to buy the vessel, and with eight hundred I ransomed myself, giving the money to a Valencian merchant who happened to be in Algiers at the time, and who had me released on his word, pledging it that on the arrival of the first ship from Valencia he would pay my ransom for if he had given the money at once it would have made the king suspect that my ransom money had been for a long time in Algiers, and that the merchant had for his own advantage kept it secret. In fact my master was so difficult to deal with that I dared not on any account pay down the money at once. The Thursday before the Friday on which the fair Zoraida was to go to the garden she gave us a thousand crowns more, and warned us of her departure, begging me, if I were ransomed, to find out her father's garden at once, and by all means to seek an opportunity of going there to see her. I answered in a few words that I would do so, and that she must remember to commend us to Lela Marien with all the prayers the captive had taught her. This having been done, steps were taken to ransom our three comrades, so as to enable them to quit the bao, and lest, seeing me ransomed and themselves not, though the money was forthcoming, they should make a disturbance about it and the devil should prompt them to do something that might injure Zoraida for though their position might be sufficient to relieve me from this apprehension, nevertheless I was unwilling to run any risk in the matter and so I had them ransomed in the same way as I was, handing over all the money to the merchant so that he might with safety and confidence give security without, however, confiding our arrangement and secret to him, which might have been dangerous. Before fifteen days were over our renegade had already purchased an excellent vessel with room for more than thirty persons and to make the transaction safe and lend a colour to it, he thought it well to make, as he did, a voyage to a place called Shershel, twenty leagues from Algiers on the Oran side, where there is an extensive trade in dried figs. Two or three times he made this voyage in company with the Tagarin already mentioned. The Moors of Aragon are called Tagarins in Barbary, and those of Granada Mudjares but in the Kingdom of Fez they call the Mudjares Elches, and they are the people the king chiefly employs in war. To proceed every time he passed with his vessel he anchored in a cove that was not two crossbow shots from the garden where Zoraida was waiting and there the renegade, together with the two Moorish lads that rowed, used purposely to station himself, either going through his prayers, or else practising as a part what he meant to perform in earnest. And thus he would go to Zoraida's garden and ask for fruit, which her father gave him, not knowing him but though, as he afterwards told me, he sought to speak to Zoraida, and tell her who he was, and that by my orders he was to take her to the land of the Christians, so that she might feel satisfied and easy, he had never been able to do so for the Moorish women do not allow themselves to be seen by any Moor or Turk, unless their husband or father bid them with Christian captives they permit freedom of intercourse and communication, even more than might be considered proper. But for my part I should have been sorry if he had spoken to her, for perhaps it might have alarmed her to find her affairs talked of by renegades. But God, who ordered it otherwise, afforded no opportunity for our renegade's wellmeant purpose and he, seeing how safely he could go to Shershel and return, and anchor when and how and where he liked, and that the Tagarin his partner had no will but his, and that, now I was ransomed, all we wanted was to find some Christians to row, told me to look out for any I should be willing to take with me, over and above those who had been ransomed, and to engage them for the next Friday, which he fixed upon for our departure. On this I spoke to twelve Spaniards, all stout rowers, and such as could most easily leave the city but it was no easy matter to find so many just then, because there were twenty ships out on a cruise and they had taken all the rowers with them and these would not have been found were it not that their master remained at home that summer without going to sea in order to finish a galliot that he had upon the stocks. To these men I said nothing more than that the next Friday in the evening they were to come out stealthily one by one and hang about Hadji Morato's garden, waiting for me there until I came. These directions I gave each one separately, with orders that if they saw any other Christians there they were not to say anything to them except that I had directed them to wait at that spot. This preliminary having been settled, another still more necessary step had to be taken, which was to let Zoraida know how matters stood that she might be prepared and forewarned, so as not to be taken by surprise if we were suddenly to seize upon her before she thought the Christians' vessel could have returned. I determined, therefore, to go to the garden and try if I could speak to her and the day before my departure I went there under the pretence of gathering herbs. The first person I met was her father, who addressed me in the language that all over Barbary and even in Constantinople is the medium between captives and Moors, and is neither Morisco nor Castilian, nor of any other nation, but a mixture of all languages, by means of which we can all understand one another. In this sort of language, I say, he asked me what I wanted in his garden, and to whom I belonged. I replied that I was a slave of the Arnaut Mami (for I knew as a certainty that he was a very great friend of his), and that I wanted some herbs to make a salad. He asked me then whether I were on ransom or not, and what my master demanded for me. While these questions and answers were proceeding, the fair Zoraida, who had already perceived me some time before, came out of the house in the garden, and as Moorish women are by no means particular about letting themselves be seen by Christians, or, as I have said before, at all coy, she had no hesitation in coming to where her father stood with me moreover her father, seeing her approaching slowly, called to her to come. It would be beyond my power now to describe to you the great beauty, the highbred air, the brilliant attire of my beloved Zoraida as she presented herself before my eyes. I will content myself with saying that more pearls hung from her fair neck, her ears, and her hair than she had hairs on her head. On her ankles, which as is customary were bare, she had carcajes (for so bracelets or anklets are called in Morisco) of the purest gold, set with so many diamonds that she told me afterwards her father valued them at ten thousand doubloons, and those she had on her wrists were worth as much more. The pearls were in profusion and very fine, for the highest display and adornment of the Moorish women is decking themselves with rich pearls and seedpearls and of these there are therefore more among the Moors than among any other people. Zoraida's father had to the reputation of possessing a great number, and the purest in all Algiers, and of possessing also more than two hundred thousand Spanish crowns and she, who is now mistress of me only, was mistress of all this. Whether thus adorned she would have been beautiful or not, and what she must have been in her prosperity, may be imagined from the beauty remaining to her after so many hardships for, as everyone knows, the beauty of some women has its times and its seasons, and is increased or diminished by chance causes and naturally the emotions of the mind will heighten or impair it, though indeed more frequently they totally destroy it. In a word she presented herself before me that day attired with the utmost splendour, and supremely beautiful at any rate, she seemed to me the most beautiful object I had ever seen and when, besides, I thought of all I owed to her I felt as though I had before me some heavenly being come to earth to bring me relief and happiness. As she approached her father told her in his own language that I was a captive belonging to his friend the Arnaut Mami, and that I had come for salad. She took up the conversation, and in that mixture of tongues I have spoken of she asked me if I was a gentleman, and why I was not ransomed. I answered that I was already ransomed, and that by the price it might be seen what value my master set on me, as they had given one thousand five hundred zoltanis for me to which she replied, 'Hadst thou been my father's, I can tell thee, I would not have let him part with thee for twice as much, for you Christians always tell lies about yourselves and make yourselves out poor to cheat the Moors. 'That may be, lady, said I 'but indeed I dealt truthfully with my master, as I do and mean to do with everybody in the world. 'And when dost thou go? said Zoraida. 'Tomorrow, I think, said I, 'for there is a vessel here from France which sails tomorrow, and I think I shall go in her. 'Would it not be better, said Zoraida, 'to wait for the arrival of ships from Spain and go with them and not with the French who are not your friends? 'No, said I 'though if there were intelligence that a vessel were now coming from Spain it is true I might, perhaps, wait for it however, it is more likely I shall depart tomorrow, for the longing I feel to return to my country and to those I love is so great that it will not allow me to wait for another opportunity, however more convenient, if it be delayed. 'No doubt thou art married in thine own country, said Zoraida, 'and for that reason thou art anxious to go and see thy wife. 'I am not married, I replied, 'but I have given my promise to marry on my arrival there. 'And is the lady beautiful to whom thou hast given it? said Zoraida. 'So beautiful, said I, 'that, to describe her worthily and tell thee the truth, she is very like thee. At this her father laughed very heartily and said, 'By Allah, Christian, she must be very beautiful if she is like my daughter, who is the most beautiful woman in all this kingdom only look at her well and thou wilt see I am telling the truth. Zoraida's father as the better linguist helped to interpret most of these words and phrases, for though she spoke the bastard language, that, as I have said, is employed there, she expressed her meaning more by signs than by words. While we were still engaged in this conversation, a Moor came running up, exclaiming that four Turks had leaped over the fence or wall of the garden, and were gathering the fruit though it was not yet ripe. The old man was alarmed and Zoraida too, for the Moors commonly, and, so to speak, instinctively have a dread of the Turks, but particularly of the soldiers, who are so insolent and domineering to the Moors who are under their power that they treat them worse than if they were their slaves. Her father said to Zoraida, 'Daughter, retire into the house and shut thyself in while I go and speak to these dogs and thou, Christian, pick thy herbs, and go in peace, and Allah bring thee safe to thy own country. I bowed, and he went away to look for the Turks, leaving me alone with Zoraida, who made as if she were about to retire as her father bade her but the moment he was concealed by the trees of the garden, turning to me with her eyes full of tears she said, 'Tameji, cristiano, tameji? that is to say, 'Art thou going, Christian, art thou going? I made answer, 'Yes, lady, but not without thee, come what may be on the watch for me on the next Juma, and be not alarmed when thou seest us for most surely we shall go to the land of the Christians. This I said in such a way that she understood perfectly all that passed between us, and throwing her arm round my neck she began with feeble steps to move towards the house but as fate would have it (and it might have been very unfortunate if Heaven had not otherwise ordered it), just as we were moving on in the manner and position I have described, with her arm round my neck, her father, as he returned after having sent away the Turks, saw how we were walking and we perceived that he saw us but Zoraida, ready and quickwitted, took care not to remove her arm from my neck, but on the contrary drew closer to me and laid her head on my breast, bending her knees a little and showing all the signs and tokens of fainting, while I at the same time made it seem as though I were supporting her against my will. Her father came running up to where we were, and seeing his daughter in this state asked what was the matter with her she, however, giving no answer, he said, 'No doubt she has fainted in alarm at the entrance of those dogs, and taking her from mine he drew her to his own breast, while she sighing, her eyes still wet with tears, said again, 'Ameji, cristiano, ameji'Go, Christian, go. To this her father replied, 'There is no need, daughter, for the Christian to go, for he has done thee no harm, and the Turks have now gone feel no alarm, there is nothing to hurt thee, for as I say, the Turks at my request have gone back the way they came. 'It was they who terrified her, as thou hast said, seor, said I to her father 'but since she tells me to go, I have no wish to displease her peace be with thee, and with thy leave I will come back to this garden for herbs if need be, for my master says there are nowhere better herbs for salad than here. 'Come back for any thou hast need of, replied Hadji Morato 'for my daughter does not speak thus because she is displeased with thee or any Christian she only meant that the Turks should go, not thou or that it was time for thee to look for thy herbs. With this I at once took my leave of both and she, looking as though her heart were breaking, retired with her father. While pretending to look for herbs I made the round of the garden at my ease, and studied carefully all the approaches and outlets, and the fastenings of the house and everything that could be taken advantage of to make our task easy. Having done so I went and gave an account of all that had taken place to the renegade and my comrades, and looked forward with impatience to the hour when, all fear at an end, I should find myself in possession of the prize which fortune held out to me in the fair and lovely Zoraida. The time passed at length, and the appointed day we so longed for arrived and, all following out the arrangement and plan which, after careful consideration and many a long discussion, we had decided upon, we succeeded as fully as we could have wished for on the Friday following the day upon which I spoke to Zoraida in the garden, the renegade anchored his vessel at nightfall almost opposite the spot where she was. The Christians who were to row were ready and in hiding in different places round about, all waiting for me, anxious and elated, and eager to attack the vessel they had before their eyes for they did not know the renegade's plan, but expected that they were to gain their liberty by force of arms and by killing the Moors who were on board the vessel. As soon, then, as I and my comrades made our appearance, all those that were in hiding seeing us came and joined us. It was now the time when the city gates are shut, and there was no one to be seen in all the space outside. When we were collected together we debated whether it would be better first to go for Zoraida, or to make prisoners of the Moorish rowers who rowed in the vessel but while we were still uncertain our renegade came up asking us what kept us, as it was now the time, and all the Moors were off their guard and most of them asleep. We told him why we hesitated, but he said it was of more importance first to secure the vessel, which could be done with the greatest ease and without any danger, and then we could go for Zoraida. We all approved of what he said, and so without further delay, guided by him we made for the vessel, and he leaping on board first, drew his cutlass and said in Morisco, 'Let no one stir from this if he does not want it to cost him his life. By this almost all the Christians were on board, and the Moors, who were fainthearted, hearing their captain speak in this way, were cowed, and without any one of them taking to his arms (and indeed they had few or hardly any) they submitted without saying a word to be bound by the Christians, who quickly secured them, threatening them that if they raised any kind of outcry they would be all put to the sword. This having been accomplished, and half of our party being left to keep guard over them, the rest of us, again taking the renegade as our guide, hastened towards Hadji Morato's garden, and as good luck would have it, on trying the gate it opened as easily as if it had not been locked and so, quite quietly and in silence, we reached the house without being perceived by anybody. The lovely Zoraida was watching for us at a window, and as soon as she perceived that there were people there, she asked in a low voice if we were 'Nizarani, as much as to say or ask if we were Christians. I answered that we were, and begged her to come down. As soon as she recognised me she did not delay an instant, but without answering a word came down immediately, opened the door and presented herself before us all, so beautiful and so richly attired that I cannot attempt to describe her. The moment I saw her I took her hand and kissed it, and the renegade and my two comrades did the same and the rest, who knew nothing of the circumstances, did as they saw us do, for it only seemed as if we were returning thanks to her, and recognising her as the giver of our liberty. The renegade asked her in the Morisco language if her father was in the house. She replied that he was and that he was asleep. 'Then it will be necessary to waken him and take him with us, said the renegade, 'and everything of value in this fair mansion. 'Nay, said she, 'my father must not on any account be touched, and there is nothing in the house except what I shall take, and that will be quite enough to enrich and satisfy all of you wait a little and you shall see, and so saying she went in, telling us she would return immediately and bidding us keep quiet without making any noise. I asked the renegade what had passed between them, and when he told me, I declared that nothing should be done except in accordance with the wishes of Zoraida, who now came back with a little trunk so full of gold crowns that she could scarcely carry it. Unfortunately her father awoke while this was going on, and hearing a noise in the garden, came to the window, and at once perceiving that all those who were there were Christians, raising a prodigiously loud outcry, he began to call out in Arabic, 'Christians, Christians! thieves, thieves! by which cries we were all thrown into the greatest fear and embarrassment but the renegade seeing the danger we were in and how important it was for him to effect his purpose before we were heard, mounted with the utmost quickness to where Hadji Morato was, and with him went some of our party I, however, did not dare to leave Zoraida, who had fallen almost fainting in my arms. To be brief, those who had gone upstairs acted so promptly that in an instant they came down, carrying Hadji Morato with his hands bound and a napkin tied over his mouth, which prevented him from uttering a word, warning him at the same time that to attempt to speak would cost him his life. When his daughter caught sight of him she covered her eyes so as not to see him, and her father was horrorstricken, not knowing how willingly she had placed herself in our hands. But it was now most essential for us to be on the move, and carefully and quickly we regained the vessel, where those who had remained on board were waiting for us in apprehension of some mishap having befallen us. It was barely two hours after night set in when we were all on board the vessel, where the cords were removed from the hands of Zoraida's father, and the napkin from his mouth but the renegade once more told him not to utter a word, or they would take his life. He, when he saw his daughter there, began to sigh piteously, and still more when he perceived that I held her closely embraced and that she lay quiet without resisting or complaining, or showing any reluctance nevertheless he remained silent lest they should carry into effect the repeated threats the renegade had addressed to him. Finding herself now on board, and that we were about to give way with the oars, Zoraida, seeing her father there, and the other Moors bound, bade the renegade ask me to do her the favour of releasing the Moors and setting her father at liberty, for she would rather drown herself in the sea than suffer a father that had loved her so dearly to be carried away captive before her eyes and on her account. The renegade repeated this to me, and I replied that I was very willing to do so but he replied that it was not advisable, because if they were left there they would at once raise the country and stir up the city, and lead to the despatch of swift cruisers in pursuit, and our being taken, by sea or land, without any possibility of escape and that all that could be done was to set them free on the first Christian ground we reached. On this point we all agreed and Zoraida, to whom it was explained, together with the reasons that prevented us from doing at once what she desired, was satisfied likewise and then in glad silence and with cheerful alacrity each of our stout rowers took his oar, and commending ourselves to God with all our hearts, we began to shape our course for the island of Majorca, the nearest Christian land. Owing, however, to the Tramontana rising a little, and the sea growing somewhat rough, it was impossible for us to keep a straight course for Majorca, and we were compelled to coast in the direction of Oran, not without great uneasiness on our part lest we should be observed from the town of Shershel, which lies on that coast, not more than sixty miles from Algiers. Moreover we were afraid of meeting on that course one of the galliots that usually come with goods from Tetuan although each of us for himself and all of us together felt confident that, if we were to meet a merchant galliot, so that it were not a cruiser, not only should we not be lost, but that we should take a vessel in which we could more safely accomplish our voyage. As we pursued our course Zoraida kept her head between my hands so as not to see her father, and I felt that she was praying to Lela Marien to help us. We might have made about thirty miles when daybreak found us some three musketshots off the land, which seemed to us deserted, and without anyone to see us. For all that, however, by hard rowing we put out a little to sea, for it was now somewhat calmer, and having gained about two leagues the word was given to row by batches, while we ate something, for the vessel was well provided but the rowers said it was not a time to take any rest let food be served out to those who were not rowing, but they would not leave their oars on any account. This was done, but now a stiff breeze began to blow, which obliged us to leave off rowing and make sail at once and steer for Oran, as it was impossible to make any other course. All this was done very promptly, and under sail we ran more than eight miles an hour without any fear, except that of coming across some vessel out on a roving expedition. We gave the Moorish rowers some food, and the renegade comforted them by telling them that they were not held as captives, as we should set them free on the first opportunity. The same was said to Zoraida's father, who replied, 'Anything else, Christian, I might hope for or think likely from your generosity and good behaviour, but do not think me so simple as to imagine you will give me my liberty for you would have never exposed yourselves to the danger of depriving me of it only to restore it to me so generously, especially as you know who I am and the sum you may expect to receive on restoring it and if you will only name that, I here offer you all you require for myself and for my unhappy daughter there or else for her alone, for she is the greatest and most precious part of my soul. As he said this he began to weep so bitterly that he filled us all with compassion and forced Zoraida to look at him, and when she saw him weeping she was so moved that she rose from my feet and ran to throw her arms round him, and pressing her face to his, they both gave way to such an outburst of tears that several of us were constrained to keep them company. But when her father saw her in full dress and with all her jewels about her, he said to her in his own language, 'What means this, my daughter? Last night, before this terrible misfortune in which we are plunged befell us, I saw thee in thy everyday and indoor garments and now, without having had time to attire thyself, and without my bringing thee any joyful tidings to furnish an occasion for adorning and bedecking thyself, I see thee arrayed in the finest attire it would be in my power to give thee when fortune was most kind to us. Answer me this for it causes me greater anxiety and surprise than even this misfortune itself. The renegade interpreted to us what the Moor said to his daughter she, however, returned him no answer. But when he observed in one corner of the vessel the little trunk in which she used to keep her jewels, which he well knew he had left in Algiers and had not brought to the garden, he was still more amazed, and asked her how that trunk had come into our hands, and what there was in it. To which the renegade, without waiting for Zoraida to reply, made answer, 'Do not trouble thyself by asking thy daughter Zoraida so many questions, seor, for the one answer I will give thee will serve for all I would have thee know that she is a Christian, and that it is she who has been the file for our chains and our deliverer from captivity. She is here of her own free will, as glad, I imagine, to find herself in this position as he who escapes from darkness into the light, from death to life, and from suffering to glory. 'Daughter, is this true, what he says? cried the Moor. 'It is, replied Zoraida. 'That thou art in truth a Christian, said the old man, 'and that thou hast given thy father into the power of his enemies? To which Zoraida made answer, 'A Christian I am, but it is not I who have placed thee in this position, for it never was my wish to leave thee or do thee harm, but only to do good to myself. 'And what good hast thou done thyself, daughter? said he. 'Ask thou that, said she, 'of Lela Marien, for she can tell thee better than I. The Moor had hardly heard these words when with marvellous quickness he flung himself headforemost into the sea, where no doubt he would have been drowned had not the long and full dress he wore held him up for a little on the surface of the water. Zoraida cried aloud to us to save him, and we all hastened to help, and seizing him by his robe we drew him in half drowned and insensible, at which Zoraida was in such distress that she wept over him as piteously and bitterly as though he were already dead. We turned him upon his face and he voided a great quantity of water, and at the end of two hours came to himself. Meanwhile, the wind having changed we were compelled to head for the land, and ply our oars to avoid being driven on shore but it was our good fortune to reach a creek that lies on one side of a small promontory or cape, called by the Moors that of the 'Cava rumia, which in our language means 'the wicked Christian woman for it is a tradition among them that La Cava, through whom Spain was lost, lies buried at that spot 'cava in their language meaning 'wicked woman, and 'rumia 'Christian moreover, they count it unlucky to anchor there when necessity compels them, and they never do so otherwise. For us, however, it was not the restingplace of the wicked woman but a haven of safety for our relief, so much had the sea now got up. We posted a lookout on shore, and never let the oars out of our hands, and ate of the stores the renegade had laid in, imploring God and Our Lady with all our hearts to help and protect us, that we might give a happy ending to a beginning so prosperous. At the entreaty of Zoraida orders were given to set on shore her father and the other Moors who were still bound, for she could not endure, nor could her tender heart bear to see her father in bonds and her fellowcountrymen prisoners before her eyes. We promised her to do this at the moment of departure, for as it was uninhabited we ran no risk in releasing them at that place. Our prayers were not so far in vain as to be unheard by Heaven, for after a while the wind changed in our favour, and made the sea calm, inviting us once more to resume our voyage with a good heart. Seeing this we unbound the Moors, and one by one put them on shore, at which they were filled with amazement but when we came to land Zoraida's father, who had now completely recovered his senses, he said 'Why is it, think ye, Christians, that this wicked woman is rejoiced at your giving me my liberty? Think ye it is because of the affection she bears me? Nay verily, it is only because of the hindrance my presence offers to the execution of her base designs. And think not that it is her belief that yours is better than ours that has led her to change her religion it is only because she knows that immodesty is more freely practised in your country than in ours. Then turning to Zoraida, while I and another of the Christians held him fast by both arms, lest he should do some mad act, he said to her, 'Infamous girl, misguided maiden, whither in thy blindness and madness art thou going in the hands of these dogs, our natural enemies? Cursed be the hour when I begot thee! Cursed the luxury and indulgence in which I reared thee! But seeing that he was not likely soon to cease I made haste to put him on shore, and thence he continued his maledictions and lamentations aloud calling on Mohammed to pray to Allah to destroy us, to confound us, to make an end of us and when, in consequence of having made sail, we could no longer hear what he said we could see what he did how he plucked out his beard and tore his hair and lay writhing on the ground. But once he raised his voice to such a pitch that we were able to hear what he said. 'Come back, dear daughter, come back to shore I forgive thee all let those men have the money, for it is theirs now, and come back to comfort thy sorrowing father, who will yield up his life on this barren strand if thou dost leave him. All this Zoraida heard, and heard with sorrow and tears, and all she could say in answer was, 'Allah grant that Lela Marien, who has made me become a Christian, give thee comfort in thy sorrow, my father. Allah knows that I could not do otherwise than I have done, and that these Christians owe nothing to my will for even had I wished not to accompany them, but remain at home, it would have been impossible for me, so eagerly did my soul urge me on to the accomplishment of this purpose, which I feel to be as righteous as to thee, dear father, it seems wicked. But neither could her father hear her nor we see him when she said this and so, while I consoled Zoraida, we turned our attention to our voyage, in which a breeze from the right point so favoured us that we made sure of finding ourselves off the coast of Spain on the morrow by daybreak. But, as good seldom or never comes pure and unmixed, without being attended or followed by some disturbing evil that gives a shock to it, our fortune, or perhaps the curses which the Moor had hurled at his daughter (for whatever kind of father they may come from these are always to be dreaded), brought it about that when we were now in midsea, and the night about three hours spent, as we were running with all sail set and oars lashed, for the favouring breeze saved us the trouble of using them, we saw by the light of the moon, which shone brilliantly, a squarerigged vessel in full sail close to us, luffing up and standing across our course, and so close that we had to strike sail to avoid running foul of her, while they too put the helm hard up to let us pass. They came to the side of the ship to ask who we were, whither we were bound, and whence we came, but as they asked this in French our renegade said, 'Let no one answer, for no doubt these are French corsairs who plunder all comers. Acting on this warning no one answered a word, but after we had gone a little ahead, and the vessel was now lying to leeward, suddenly they fired two guns, and apparently both loaded with chainshot, for with one they cut our mast in half and brought down both it and the sail into the sea, and the other, discharged at the same moment, sent a ball into our vessel amidships, staving her in completely, but without doing any further damage. We, however, finding ourselves sinking began to shout for help and call upon those in the ship to pick us up as we were beginning to fill. They then lay to, and lowering a skiff or boat, as many as a dozen Frenchmen, well armed with matchlocks, and their matches burning, got into it and came alongside and seeing how few we were, and that our vessel was going down, they took us in, telling us that this had come to us through our incivility in not giving them an answer. Our renegade took the trunk containing Zoraida's wealth and dropped it into the sea without anyone perceiving what he did. In short we went on board with the Frenchmen, who, after having ascertained all they wanted to know about us, rifled us of everything we had, as if they had been our bitterest enemies, and from Zoraida they took even the anklets she wore on her feet but the distress they caused her did not distress me so much as the fear I was in that from robbing her of her rich and precious jewels they would proceed to rob her of the most precious jewel that she valued more than all. The desires, however, of those people do not go beyond money, but of that their covetousness is insatiable, and on this occasion it was carried to such a pitch that they would have taken even the clothes we wore as captives if they had been worth anything to them. It was the advice of some of them to throw us all into the sea wrapped up in a sail for their purpose was to trade at some of the ports of Spain, giving themselves out as Bretons, and if they brought us alive they would be punished as soon as the robbery was discovered but the captain (who was the one who had plundered my beloved Zoraida) said he was satisfied with the prize he had got, and that he would not touch at any Spanish port, but pass the Straits of Gibraltar by night, or as best he could, and make for La Rochelle, from which he had sailed. So they agreed by common consent to give us the skiff belonging to their ship and all we required for the short voyage that remained to us, and this they did the next day on coming in sight of the Spanish coast, with which, and the joy we felt, all our sufferings and miseries were as completely forgotten as if they had never been endured by us, such is the delight of recovering lost liberty. It may have been about midday when they placed us in the boat, giving us two kegs of water and some biscuit and the captain, moved by I know not what compassion, as the lovely Zoraida was about to embark, gave her some forty gold crowns, and would not permit his men to take from her those same garments which she has on now. We got into the boat, returning them thanks for their kindness to us, and showing ourselves grateful rather than indignant. They stood out to sea, steering for the straits we, without looking to any compass save the land we had before us, set ourselves to row with such energy that by sunset we were so near that we might easily, we thought, land before the night was far advanced. But as the moon did not show that night, and the sky was clouded, and as we knew not whereabouts we were, it did not seem to us a prudent thing to make for the shore, as several of us advised, saying we ought to run ourselves ashore even if it were on rocks and far from any habitation, for in this way we should be relieved from the apprehensions we naturally felt of the prowling vessels of the Tetuan corsairs, who leave Barbary at nightfall and are on the Spanish coast by daybreak, where they commonly take some prize, and then go home to sleep in their own houses. But of the conflicting counsels the one which was adopted was that we should approach gradually, and land where we could if the sea were calm enough to permit us. This was done, and a little before midnight we drew near to the foot of a huge and lofty mountain, not so close to the sea but that it left a narrow space on which to land conveniently. We ran our boat up on the sand, and all sprang out and kissed the ground, and with tears of joyful satisfaction returned thanks to God our Lord for all his incomparable goodness to us on our voyage. We took out of the boat the provisions it contained, and drew it up on the shore, and then climbed a long way up the mountain, for even there we could not feel easy in our hearts, or persuade ourselves that it was Christian soil that was now under our feet. The dawn came, more slowly, I think, than we could have wished we completed the ascent in order to see if from the summit any habitation or any shepherds' huts could be discovered, but strain our eyes as we might, neither dwelling, nor human being, nor path nor road could we perceive. However, we determined to push on farther, as it could not but be that ere long we must see someone who could tell us where we were. But what distressed me most was to see Zoraida going on foot over that rough ground for though I once carried her on my shoulders, she was more wearied by my weariness than rested by the rest and so she would never again allow me to undergo the exertion, and went on very patiently and cheerfully, while I led her by the hand. We had gone rather less than a quarter of a league when the sound of a little bell fell on our ears, a clear proof that there were flocks hard by, and looking about carefully to see if any were within view, we observed a young shepherd tranquilly and unsuspiciously trimming a stick with his knife at the foot of a cork tree. We called to him, and he, raising his head, sprang nimbly to his feet, for, as we afterwards learned, the first who presented themselves to his sight were the renegade and Zoraida, and seeing them in Moorish dress he imagined that all the Moors of Barbary were upon him and plunging with marvellous swiftness into the thicket in front of him, he began to raise a prodigious outcry, exclaiming, 'The Moorsthe Moors have landed! To arms, to arms! We were all thrown into perplexity by these cries, not knowing what to do but reflecting that the shouts of the shepherd would raise the country and that the mounted coastguard would come at once to see what was the matter, we agreed that the renegade must strip off his Turkish garments and put on a captive's jacket or coat which one of our party gave him at once, though he himself was reduced to his shirt and so commending ourselves to God, we followed the same road which we saw the shepherd take, expecting every moment that the coastguard would be down upon us. Nor did our expectation deceive us, for two hours had not passed when, coming out of the brushwood into the open ground, we perceived some fifty mounted men swiftly approaching us at a handgallop. As soon as we saw them we stood still, waiting for them but as they came close and, instead of the Moors they were in quest of, saw a set of poor Christians, they were taken aback, and one of them asked if it could be we who were the cause of the shepherd having raised the call to arms. I said 'Yes, and as I was about to explain to him what had occurred, and whence we came and who we were, one of the Christians of our party recognised the horseman who had put the question to us, and before I could say anything more he exclaimed 'Thanks be to God, sirs, for bringing us to such good quarters for, if I do not deceive myself, the ground we stand on is that of Velez Malaga unless, indeed, all my years of captivity have made me unable to recollect that you, seor, who ask who we are, are Pedro de Bustamante, my uncle. The Christian captive had hardly uttered these words, when the horseman threw himself off his horse, and ran to embrace the young man, crying 'Nephew of my soul and life! I recognise thee now and long have I mourned thee as dead, I, and my sister, thy mother, and all thy kin that are still alive, and whom God has been pleased to preserve that they may enjoy the happiness of seeing thee. We knew long since that thou wert in Algiers, and from the appearance of thy garments and those of all this company, I conclude that ye have had a miraculous restoration to liberty. 'It is true, replied the young man, 'and byandby we will tell you all. As soon as the horsemen understood that we were Christian captives, they dismounted from their horses, and each offered his to carry us to the city of Velez Malaga, which was a league and a half distant. Some of them went to bring the boat to the city, we having told them where we had left it others took us up behind them, and Zoraida was placed on the horse of the young man's uncle. The whole town came out to meet us, for they had by this time heard of our arrival from one who had gone on in advance. They were not astonished to see liberated captives or captive Moors, for people on that coast are well used to see both one and the other but they were astonished at the beauty of Zoraida, which was just then heightened, as well by the exertion of travelling as by joy at finding herself on Christian soil, and relieved of all fear of being lost for this had brought such a glow upon her face, that unless my affection for her were deceiving me, I would venture to say that there was not a more beautiful creature in the worldat least, that I had ever seen. We went straight to the church to return thanks to God for the mercies we had received, and when Zoraida entered it she said there were faces there like Lela Marien's. We told her they were her images and as well as he could the renegade explained to her what they meant, that she might adore them as if each of them were the very same Lela Marien that had spoken to her and she, having great intelligence and a quick and clear instinct, understood at once all he said to her about them. Thence they took us away and distributed us all in different houses in the town but as for the renegade, Zoraida, and myself, the Christian who came with us brought us to the house of his parents, who had a fair share of the gifts of fortune, and treated us with as much kindness as they did their own son. We remained six days in Velez, at the end of which the renegade, having informed himself of all that was requisite for him to do, set out for the city of Granada to restore himself to the sacred bosom of the Church through the medium of the Holy Inquisition. The other released captives took their departures, each the way that seemed best to him, and Zoraida and I were left alone, with nothing more than the crowns which the courtesy of the Frenchman had bestowed upon Zoraida, out of which I bought the beast on which she rides and, I for the present attending her as her father and squire and not as her husband, we are now going to ascertain if my father is living, or if any of my brothers has had better fortune than mine has been though, as Heaven has made me the companion of Zoraida, I think no other lot could be assigned to me, however happy, that I would rather have. The patience with which she endures the hardships that poverty brings with it, and the eagerness she shows to become a Christian, are such that they fill me with admiration, and bind me to serve her all my life though the happiness I feel in seeing myself hers, and her mine, is disturbed and marred by not knowing whether I shall find any corner to shelter her in my own country, or whether time and death may not have made such changes in the fortunes and lives of my father and brothers, that I shall hardly find anyone who knows me, if they are not alive. I have no more of my story to tell you, gentlemen whether it be an interesting or a curious one let your better judgments decide all I can say is I would gladly have told it to you more briefly although my fear of wearying you has made me leave out more than one circumstance. With these words the captive held his peace, and Don Fernando said to him, 'In truth, captain, the manner in which you have related this remarkable adventure has been such as befitted the novelty and strangeness of the matter. The whole story is curious and uncommon, and abounds with incidents that fill the hearers with wonder and astonishment and so great is the pleasure we have found in listening to it that we should be glad if it were to begin again, even though tomorrow were to find us still occupied with the same tale. And while he said this Cardenio and the rest of them offered to be of service to him in any way that lay in their power, and in words and language so kindly and sincere that the captain was much gratified by their goodwill. In particular Don Fernando offered, if he would go back with him, to get his brother the marquis to become godfather at the baptism of Zoraida, and on his own part to provide him with the means of making his appearance in his own country with the credit and comfort he was entitled to. For all this the captive returned thanks very courteously, although he would not accept any of their generous offers. By this time night closed in, and as it did, there came up to the inn a coach attended by some men on horseback, who demanded accommodation to which the landlady replied that there was not a hand's breadth of the whole inn unoccupied. 'Still, for all that, said one of those who had entered on horseback, 'room must be found for his lordship the Judge here. At this name the landlady was taken aback, and said, 'Seor, the fact is I have no beds but if his lordship the Judge carries one with him, as no doubt he does, let him come in and welcome for my husband and I will give up our room to accommodate his worship. 'Very good, so be it, said the squire but in the meantime a man had got out of the coach whose dress indicated at a glance the office and post he held, for the long robe with ruffled sleeves that he wore showed that he was, as his servant said, a Judge of appeal. He led by the hand a young girl in a travelling dress, apparently about sixteen years of age, and of such a highbred air, so beautiful and so graceful, that all were filled with admiration when she made her appearance, and but for having seen Dorothea, Luscinda, and Zoraida, who were there in the inn, they would have fancied that a beauty like that of this maiden's would have been hard to find. Don Quixote was present at the entrance of the Judge with the young lady, and as soon as he saw him he said, 'Your worship may with confidence enter and take your ease in this castle for though the accommodation be scanty and poor, there are no quarters so cramped or inconvenient that they cannot make room for arms and letters above all if arms and letters have beauty for a guide and leader, as letters represented by your worship have in this fair maiden, to whom not only ought castles to throw themselves open and yield themselves up, but rocks should rend themselves asunder and mountains divide and bow themselves down to give her a reception. Enter, your worship, I say, into this paradise, for here you will find stars and suns to accompany the heaven your worship brings with you, here you will find arms in their supreme excellence, and beauty in its highest perfection. The Judge was struck with amazement at the language of Don Quixote, whom he scrutinized very carefully, no less astonished by his figure than by his talk and before he could find words to answer him he had a fresh surprise, when he saw opposite to him Luscinda, Dorothea, and Zoraida, who, having heard of the new guests and of the beauty of the young lady, had come to see her and welcome her Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the curate, however, greeted him in a more intelligible and polished style. In short, the Judge made his entrance in a state of bewilderment, as well with what he saw as what he heard, and the fair ladies of the inn gave the fair damsel a cordial welcome. On the whole he could perceive that all who were there were people of quality but with the figure, countenance, and bearing of Don Quixote he was at his wits' end and all civilities having been exchanged, and the accommodation of the inn inquired into, it was settled, as it had been before settled, that all the women should retire to the garret that has been already mentioned, and that the men should remain outside as if to guard them the Judge, therefore, was very well pleased to allow his daughter, for such the damsel was, to go with the ladies, which she did very willingly and with part of the host's narrow bed and half of what the Judge had brought with him, they made a more comfortable arrangement for the night than they had expected. The captive, whose heart had leaped within him the instant he saw the Judge, telling him somehow that this was his brother, asked one of the servants who accompanied him what his name was, and whether he knew from what part of the country he came. The servant replied that he was called the Licentiate Juan Perez de Viedma, and that he had heard it said he came from a village in the mountains of Leon. From this statement, and what he himself had seen, he felt convinced that this was his brother who had adopted letters by his father's advice and excited and rejoiced, he called Don Fernando and Cardenio and the curate aside, and told them how the matter stood, assuring them that the judge was his brother. The servant had further informed him that he was now going to the Indies with the appointment of Judge of the Supreme Court of Mexico and he had learned, likewise, that the young lady was his daughter, whose mother had died in giving birth to her, and that he was very rich in consequence of the dowry left to him with the daughter. He asked their advice as to what means he should adopt to make himself known, or to ascertain beforehand whether, when he had made himself known, his brother, seeing him so poor, would be ashamed of him, or would receive him with a warm heart. 'Leave it to me to find out that, said the curate 'though there is no reason for supposing, seor captain, that you will not be kindly received, because the worth and wisdom that your brother's bearing shows him to possess do not make it likely that he will prove haughty or insensible, or that he will not know how to estimate the accidents of fortune at their proper value. 'Still, said the captain, 'I would not make myself known abruptly, but in some indirect way. 'I have told you already, said the curate, 'that I will manage it in a way to satisfy us all. By this time supper was ready, and they all took their seats at the table, except the captive, and the ladies, who supped by themselves in their own room. In the middle of supper the curate said 'I had a comrade of your worship's name, Seor Judge, in Constantinople, where I was a captive for several years, and that same comrade was one of the stoutest soldiers and captains in the whole Spanish infantry but he had as large a share of misfortune as he had of gallantry and courage. 'And how was the captain called, seor? asked the Judge. 'He was called Ruy Perez de Viedma, replied the curate, 'and he was born in a village in the mountains of Leon and he mentioned a circumstance connected with his father and his brothers which, had it not been told me by so truthful a man as he was, I should have set down as one of those fables the old women tell over the fire in winter for he said his father had divided his property among his three sons and had addressed words of advice to them sounder than any of Cato's. But I can say this much, that the choice he made of going to the wars was attended with such success, that by his gallant conduct and courage, and without any help save his own merit, he rose in a few years to be captain of infantry, and to see himself on the highroad and in position to be given the command of a corps before long but Fortune was against him, for where he might have expected her favour he lost it, and with it his liberty, on that glorious day when so many recovered theirs, at the battle of Lepanto. I lost mine at the Goletta, and after a variety of adventures we found ourselves comrades at Constantinople. Thence he went to Algiers, where he met with one of the most extraordinary adventures that ever befell anyone in the world. Here the curate went on to relate briefly his brother's adventure with Zoraida to all which the Judge gave such an attentive hearing that he never before had been so much of a hearer. The curate, however, only went so far as to describe how the Frenchmen plundered those who were in the boat, and the poverty and distress in which his comrade and the fair Moor were left, of whom he said he had not been able to learn what became of them, or whether they had reached Spain, or been carried to France by the Frenchmen. The captain, standing a little to one side, was listening to all the curate said, and watching every movement of his brother, who, as soon as he perceived the curate had made an end of his story, gave a deep sigh and said with his eyes full of tears, 'Oh, seor, if you only knew what news you have given me and how it comes home to me, making me show how I feel it with these tears that spring from my eyes in spite of all my worldly wisdom and selfrestraint! That brave captain that you speak of is my eldest brother, who, being of a bolder and loftier mind than my other brother or myself, chose the honourable and worthy calling of arms, which was one of the three careers our father proposed to us, as your comrade mentioned in that fable you thought he was telling you. I followed that of letters, in which God and my own exertions have raised me to the position in which you see me. My second brother is in Peru, so wealthy that with what he has sent to my father and to me he has fully repaid the portion he took with him, and has even furnished my father's hands with the means of gratifying his natural generosity, while I too have been enabled to pursue my studies in a more becoming and creditable fashion, and so to attain my present standing. My father is still alive, though dying with anxiety to hear of his eldest son, and he prays God unceasingly that death may not close his eyes until he has looked upon those of his son but with regard to him what surprises me is, that having so much common sense as he had, he should have neglected to give any intelligence about himself, either in his troubles and sufferings, or in his prosperity, for if his father or any of us had known of his condition he need not have waited for that miracle of the reed to obtain his ransom but what now disquiets me is the uncertainty whether those Frenchmen may have restored him to liberty, or murdered him to hide the robbery. All this will make me continue my journey, not with the satisfaction in which I began it, but in the deepest melancholy and sadness. Oh dear brother! that I only knew where thou art now, and I would hasten to seek thee out and deliver thee from thy sufferings, though it were to cost me suffering myself! Oh that I could bring news to our old father that thou art alive, even wert thou in the deepest dungeon of Barbary for his wealth and my brother's and mine would rescue thee thence! Oh beautiful and generous Zoraida, that I could repay thy goodness to a brother! That I could be present at the new birth of thy soul, and at thy bridal that would give us all such happiness! All this and more the Judge uttered with such deep emotion at the news he had received of his brother that all who heard him shared in it, showing their sympathy with his sorrow. The curate, seeing, then, how well he had succeeded in carrying out his purpose and the captain's wishes, had no desire to keep them unhappy any longer, so he rose from the table and going into the room where Zoraida was he took her by the hand, Luscinda, Dorothea, and the Judge's daughter following her. The captain was waiting to see what the curate would do, when the latter, taking him with the other hand, advanced with both of them to where the Judge and the other gentlemen were and said, 'Let your tears cease to flow, Seor Judge, and the wish of your heart be gratified as fully as you could desire, for you have before you your worthy brother and your good sisterinlaw. He whom you see here is the Captain Viedma, and this is the fair Moor who has been so good to him. The Frenchmen I told you of have reduced them to the state of poverty you see that you may show the generosity of your kind heart. The captain ran to embrace his brother, who placed both hands on his breast so as to have a good look at him, holding him a little way off but as soon as he had fully recognised him he clasped him in his arms so closely, shedding such tears of heartfelt joy, that most of those present could not but join in them. The words the brothers exchanged, the emotion they showed can scarcely be imagined, I fancy, much less put down in writing. They told each other in a few words the events of their lives they showed the true affection of brothers in all its strength then the judge embraced Zoraida, putting all he possessed at her disposal then he made his daughter embrace her, and the fair Christian and the lovely Moor drew fresh tears from every eye. And there was Don Quixote observing all these strange proceedings attentively without uttering a word, and attributing the whole to chimeras of knighterrantry. Then they agreed that the captain and Zoraida should return with his brother to Seville, and send news to his father of his having been delivered and found, so as to enable him to come and be present at the marriage and baptism of Zoraida, for it was impossible for the Judge to put off his journey, as he was informed that in a month from that time the fleet was to sail from Seville for New Spain, and to miss the passage would have been a great inconvenience to him. In short, everybody was well pleased and glad at the captive's good fortune and as now almost twothirds of the night were past, they resolved to retire to rest for the remainder of it. Don Quixote offered to mount guard over the castle lest they should be attacked by some giant or other malevolent scoundrel, covetous of the great treasure of beauty the castle contained. Those who understood him returned him thanks for this service, and they gave the Judge an account of his extraordinary humour, with which he was not a little amused. Sancho Panza alone was fuming at the lateness of the hour for retiring to rest and he of all was the one that made himself most comfortable, as he stretched himself on the trappings of his ass, which, as will be told farther on, cost him so dear. The ladies, then, having retired to their chamber, and the others having disposed themselves with as little discomfort as they could, Don Quixote sallied out of the inn to act as sentinel of the castle as he had promised. It happened, however, that a little before the approach of dawn a voice so musical and sweet reached the ears of the ladies that it forced them all to listen attentively, but especially Dorothea, who had been awake, and by whose side Doa Clara de Viedma, for so the Judge's daughter was called, lay sleeping. No one could imagine who it was that sang so sweetly, and the voice was unaccompanied by any instrument. At one moment it seemed to them as if the singer were in the courtyard, at another in the stable and as they were all attention, wondering, Cardenio came to the door and said, 'Listen, whoever is not asleep, and you will hear a muleteer's voice that enchants as it chants. 'We are listening to it already, seor, said Dorothea on which Cardenio went away and Dorothea, giving all her attention to it, made out the words of the song to be these Ah me, Love's mariner am I On Love's deep ocean sailing I know not where the haven lies, I dare not hope to gain it. One solitary distant star Is all I have to guide me, A brighter orb than those of old That Palinurus lighted. And vaguely drifting am I borne, I know not where it leads me I fix my gaze on it alone, Of all beside it heedless. But overcautious prudery, And coyness cold and cruel, When most I need it, these, like clouds, Its longedfor light refuse me. Bright star, goal of my yearning eyes As thou above me beamest, When thou shalt hide thee from my sight I'll know that death is near me. The singer had got so far when it struck Dorothea that it was not fair to let Clara miss hearing such a sweet voice, so, shaking her from side to side, she woke her, saying 'Forgive me, child, for waking thee, but I do so that thou mayest have the pleasure of hearing the best voice thou hast ever heard, perhaps, in all thy life. Clara awoke quite drowsy, and not understanding at the moment what Dorothea said, asked her what it was she repeated what she had said, and Clara became attentive at once but she had hardly heard two lines, as the singer continued, when a strange trembling seized her, as if she were suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, and throwing her arms round Dorothea she said 'Ah, dear lady of my soul and life! why did you wake me? The greatest kindness fortune could do me now would be to close my eyes and ears so as neither to see or hear that unhappy musician. 'What art thou talking about, child? said Dorothea. 'Why, they say this singer is a muleteer! 'Nay, he is the lord of many places, replied Clara, 'and that one in my heart which he holds so firmly shall never be taken from him, unless he be willing to surrender it. Dorothea was amazed at the ardent language of the girl, for it seemed to be far beyond such experience of life as her tender years gave any promise of, so she said to her 'You speak in such a way that I cannot understand you, Seora Clara explain yourself more clearly, and tell me what is this you are saying about hearts and places and this musician whose voice has so moved you? But do not tell me anything now I do not want to lose the pleasure I get from listening to the singer by giving my attention to your transports, for I perceive he is beginning to sing a new strain and a new air. 'Let him, in Heaven's name, returned Clara and not to hear him she stopped both ears with her hands, at which Dorothea was again surprised but turning her attention to the song she found that it ran in this fashion Sweet Hope, my stay, That onward to the goal of thy intent Dost make thy way, Heedless of hindrance or impediment, Have thou no fear If at each step thou findest death is near. No victory, No joy of triumph doth the faint heart know Unblest is he That a bold front to Fortune dares not show, But soul and sense In bondage yieldeth up to indolence. If Love his wares Do dearly sell, his right must be contest What gold compares With that whereon his stamp he hath imprest? And all men know What costeth little that we rate but low. Love resolute Knows not the word 'impossibility And though my suit Beset by endless obstacles I see, Yet no despair Shall hold me bound to earth while heaven is there. Here the voice ceased and Clara's sobs began afresh, all which excited Dorothea's curiosity to know what could be the cause of singing so sweet and weeping so bitter, so she again asked her what it was she was going to say before. On this Clara, afraid that Luscinda might overhear her, winding her arms tightly round Dorothea put her mouth so close to her ear that she could speak without fear of being heard by anyone else, and said 'This singer, dear seora, is the son of a gentleman of Aragon, lord of two villages, who lives opposite my father's house at Madrid and though my father had curtains to the windows of his house in winter, and latticework in summer, in some wayI know not howthis gentleman, who was pursuing his studies, saw me, whether in church or elsewhere, I cannot tell, and, in fact, fell in love with me, and gave me to know it from the windows of his house, with so many signs and tears that I was forced to believe him, and even to love him, without knowing what it was he wanted of me. One of the signs he used to make me was to link one hand in the other, to show me he wished to marry me and though I should have been glad if that could be, being alone and motherless I knew not whom to open my mind to, and so I left it as it was, showing him no favour, except when my father, and his too, were from home, to raise the curtain or the lattice a little and let him see me plainly, at which he would show such delight that he seemed as if he were going mad. Meanwhile the time for my father's departure arrived, which he became aware of, but not from me, for I had never been able to tell him of it. He fell sick, of grief I believe, and so the day we were going away I could not see him to take farewell of him, were it only with the eyes. But after we had been two days on the road, on entering the posada of a village a day's journey from this, I saw him at the inn door in the dress of a muleteer, and so well disguised, that if I did not carry his image graven on my heart it would have been impossible for me to recognise him. But I knew him, and I was surprised, and glad he watched me, unsuspected by my father, from whom he always hides himself when he crosses my path on the road, or in the posadas where we halt and, as I know what he is, and reflect that for love of me he makes this journey on foot in all this hardship, I am ready to die of sorrow and where he sets foot there I set my eyes. I know not with what object he has come or how he could have got away from his father, who loves him beyond measure, having no other heir, and because he deserves it, as you will perceive when you see him. And moreover, I can tell you, all that he sings is out of his own head for I have heard them say he is a great scholar and poet and what is more, every time I see him or hear him sing I tremble all over, and am terrified lest my father should recognise him and come to know of our loves. I have never spoken a word to him in my life and for all that I love him so that I could not live without him. This, dear seora, is all I have to tell you about the musician whose voice has delighted you so much and from it alone you might easily perceive he is no muleteer, but a lord of hearts and towns, as I told you already. 'Say no more, Doa Clara, said Dorothea at this, at the same time kissing her a thousand times over, 'say no more, I tell you, but wait till day comes when I trust in God to arrange this affair of yours so that it may have the happy ending such an innocent beginning deserves. 'Ah, seora, said Doa Clara, 'what end can be hoped for when his father is of such lofty position, and so wealthy, that he would think I was not fit to be even a servant to his son, much less wife? And as to marrying without the knowledge of my father, I would not do it for all the world. I would not ask anything more than that this youth should go back and leave me perhaps with not seeing him, and the long distance we shall have to travel, the pain I suffer now may become easier though I daresay the remedy I propose will do me very little good. I don't know how the devil this has come about, or how this love I have for him got in I such a young girl, and he such a mere boy for I verily believe we are both of an age, and I am not sixteen yet for I will be sixteen Michaelmas Day, next, my father says. Dorothea could not help laughing to hear how like a child Doa Clara spoke. 'Let us go to sleep now, seora, said she, 'for the little of the night that I fancy is left to us God will soon send us daylight, and we will set all to rights, or it will go hard with me. With this they fell asleep, and deep silence reigned all through the inn. The only persons not asleep were the landlady's daughter and her servant Maritornes, who, knowing the weak point of Don Quixote's humour, and that he was outside the inn mounting guard in armour and on horseback, resolved, the pair of them, to play some trick upon him, or at any rate to amuse themselves for a while by listening to his nonsense. As it so happened there was not a window in the whole inn that looked outwards except a hole in the wall of a strawloft through which they used to throw out the straw. At this hole the two demidamsels posted themselves, and observed Don Quixote on his horse, leaning on his pike and from time to time sending forth such deep and doleful sighs, that he seemed to pluck up his soul by the roots with each of them and they could hear him, too, saying in a soft, tender, loving tone, 'Oh my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, perfection of all beauty, summit and crown of discretion, treasure house of grace, depositary of virtue, and finally, ideal of all that is good, honourable, and delectable in this world! What is thy grace doing now? Art thou, perchance, mindful of thy enslaved knight who of his own free will hath exposed himself to so great perils, and all to serve thee? Give me tidings of her, oh luminary of the three faces! Perhaps at this moment, envious of hers, thou art regarding her, either as she paces to and fro some gallery of her sumptuous palaces, or leans over some balcony, meditating how, whilst preserving her purity and greatness, she may mitigate the tortures this wretched heart of mine endures for her sake, what glory should recompense my sufferings, what repose my toil, and lastly what death my life, and what reward my services? And thou, oh sun, that art now doubtless harnessing thy steeds in haste to rise betimes and come forth to see my lady when thou seest her I entreat of thee to salute her on my behalf but have a care, when thou shalt see her and salute her, that thou kiss not her face for I shall be more jealous of thee than thou wert of that lightfooted ingrate that made thee sweat and run so on the plains of Thessaly, or on the banks of the Peneus (for I do not exactly recollect where it was thou didst run on that occasion) in thy jealousy and love. Don Quixote had got so far in his pathetic speech when the landlady's daughter began to signal to him, saying, 'Seor, come over here, please. At these signals and voice Don Quixote turned his head and saw by the light of the moon, which then was in its full splendour, that someone was calling to him from the hole in the wall, which seemed to him to be a window, and what is more, with a gilt grating, as rich castles, such as he believed the inn to be, ought to have and it immediately suggested itself to his imagination that, as on the former occasion, the fair damsel, the daughter of the lady of the castle, overcome by love for him, was once more endeavouring to win his affections and with this idea, not to show himself discourteous, or ungrateful, he turned Rocinante's head and approached the hole, and as he perceived the two wenches he said 'I pity you, beauteous lady, that you should have directed your thoughts of love to a quarter from whence it is impossible that such a return can be made to you as is due to your great merit and gentle birth, for which you must not blame this unhappy knighterrant whom love renders incapable of submission to any other than her whom, the first moment his eyes beheld her, he made absolute mistress of his soul. Forgive me, noble lady, and retire to your apartment, and do not, by any further declaration of your passion, compel me to show myself more ungrateful and if, of the love you bear me, you should find that there is anything else in my power wherein I can gratify you, provided it be not love itself, demand it of me for I swear to you by that sweet absent enemy of mine to grant it this instant, though it be that you require of me a lock of Medusa's hair, which was all snakes, or even the very beams of the sun shut up in a vial. 'My mistress wants nothing of that sort, sir knight, said Maritornes at this. 'What then, discreet dame, is it that your mistress wants? replied Don Quixote. 'Only one of your fair hands, said Maritornes, 'to enable her to vent over it the great passion, passion which has brought her to this loophole, so much to the risk of her honour for if the lord her father had heard her, the least slice he would cut off her would be her ear. 'I should like to see that tried, said Don Quixote 'but he had better beware of that, if he does not want to meet the most disastrous end that ever father in the world met for having laid hands on the tender limbs of a lovestricken daughter. Maritornes felt sure that Don Quixote would present the hand she had asked, and making up her mind what to do, she got down from the hole and went into the stable, where she took the halter of Sancho Panza's ass, and in all haste returned to the hole, just as Don Quixote had planted himself standing on Rocinante's saddle in order to reach the grated window where he supposed the lovelorn damsel to be and giving her his hand, he said, 'Lady, take this hand, or rather this scourge of the evildoers of the earth take, I say, this hand which no other hand of woman has ever touched, not even hers who has complete possession of my entire body. I present it to you, not that you may kiss it, but that you may observe the contexture of the sinews, the close network of the muscles, the breadth and capacity of the veins, whence you may infer what must be the strength of the arm that has such a hand. 'That we shall see presently, said Maritornes, and making a running knot on the halter, she passed it over his wrist and coming down from the hole tied the other end very firmly to the bolt of the door of the strawloft. Don Quixote, feeling the roughness of the rope on his wrist, exclaimed, 'Your grace seems to be grating rather than caressing my hand treat it not so harshly, for it is not to blame for the offence my resolution has given you, nor is it just to wreak all your vengeance on so small a part remember that one who loves so well should not revenge herself so cruelly. But there was nobody now to listen to these words of Don Quixote's, for as soon as Maritornes had tied him she and the other made off, ready to die with laughing, leaving him fastened in such a way that it was impossible for him to release himself. He was, as has been said, standing on Rocinante, with his arm passed through the hole and his wrist tied to the bolt of the door, and in mighty fear and dread of being left hanging by the arm if Rocinante were to stir one side or the other so he did not dare to make the least movement, although from the patience and imperturbable disposition of Rocinante, he had good reason to expect that he would stand without budging for a whole century. Finding himself fast, then, and that the ladies had retired, he began to fancy that all this was done by enchantment, as on the former occasion when in that same castle that enchanted Moor of a carrier had belaboured him and he cursed in his heart his own want of sense and judgment in venturing to enter the castle again, after having come off so badly the first time it being a settled point with knightserrant that when they have tried an adventure, and have not succeeded in it, it is a sign that it is not reserved for them but for others, and that therefore they need not try it again. Nevertheless he pulled his arm to see if he could release himself, but it had been made so fast that all his efforts were in vain. It is true he pulled it gently lest Rocinante should move, but try as he might to seat himself in the saddle, he had nothing for it but to stand upright or pull his hand off. Then it was he wished for the sword of Amadis, against which no enchantment whatever had any power then he cursed his ill fortune then he magnified the loss the world would sustain by his absence while he remained there enchanted, for that he believed he was beyond all doubt then he once more took to thinking of his beloved Dulcinea del Toboso then he called to his worthy squire Sancho Panza, who, buried in sleep and stretched upon the packsaddle of his ass, was oblivious, at that moment, of the mother that bore him then he called upon the sages Lirgandeo and Alquife to come to his aid then he invoked his good friend Urganda to succour him and then, at last, morning found him in such a state of desperation and perplexity that he was bellowing like a bull, for he had no hope that day would bring any relief to his suffering, which he believed would last for ever, inasmuch as he was enchanted and of this he was convinced by seeing that Rocinante never stirred, much or little, and he felt persuaded that he and his horse were to remain in this state, without eating or drinking or sleeping, until the malign influence of the stars was overpast, or until some other more sage enchanter should disenchant him. But he was very much deceived in this conclusion, for daylight had hardly begun to appear when there came up to the inn four men on horseback, well equipped and accoutred, with firelocks across their saddlebows. They called out and knocked loudly at the gate of the inn, which was still shut on seeing which, Don Quixote, even there where he was, did not forget to act as sentinel, and said in a loud and imperious tone, 'Knights, or squires, or whatever ye be, ye have no right to knock at the gates of this castle for it is plain enough that they who are within are either asleep, or else are not in the habit of throwing open the fortress until the sun's rays are spread over the whole surface of the earth. Withdraw to a distance, and wait till it is broad daylight, and then we shall see whether it will be proper or not to open to you. 'What the devil fortress or castle is this, said one, 'to make us stand on such ceremony? If you are the innkeeper bid them open to us we are travellers who only want to feed our horses and go on, for we are in haste. 'Do you think, gentlemen, that I look like an innkeeper? said Don Quixote. 'I don't know what you look like, replied the other 'but I know that you are talking nonsense when you call this inn a castle. 'A castle it is, returned Don Quixote, 'nay, more, one of the best in this whole province, and it has within it people who have had the sceptre in the hand and the crown on the head. 'It would be better if it were the other way, said the traveller, 'the sceptre on the head and the crown in the hand but if so, maybe there is within some company of players, with whom it is a common thing to have those crowns and sceptres you speak of for in such a small inn as this, and where such silence is kept, I do not believe any people entitled to crowns and sceptres can have taken up their quarters. 'You know but little of the world, returned Don Quixote, 'since you are ignorant of what commonly occurs in knighterrantry. But the comrades of the spokesman, growing weary of the dialogue with Don Quixote, renewed their knocks with great vehemence, so much so that the host, and not only he but everybody in the inn, awoke, and he got up to ask who knocked. It happened at this moment that one of the horses of the four who were seeking admittance went to smell Rocinante, who melancholy, dejected, and with drooping ears stood motionless, supporting his sorely stretched master and as he was, after all, flesh, though he looked as if he were made of wood, he could not help giving way and in return smelling the one who had come to offer him attentions. But he had hardly moved at all when Don Quixote lost his footing and slipping off the saddle, he would have come to the ground, but for being suspended by the arm, which caused him such agony that he believed either his wrist would be cut through or his arm torn off and he hung so near the ground that he could just touch it with his feet, which was all the worse for him for, finding how little was wanted to enable him to plant his feet firmly, he struggled and stretched himself as much as he could to gain a footing just like those undergoing the torture of the strappado, when they are fixed at 'touch and no touch, who aggravate their own sufferings by their violent efforts to stretch themselves, deceived by the hope which makes them fancy that with a very little more they will reach the ground. So loud, in fact, were the shouts of Don Quixote, that the landlord opening the gate of the inn in all haste, came out in dismay, and ran to see who was uttering such cries, and those who were outside joined him. Maritornes, who had been by this time roused up by the same outcry, suspecting what it was, ran to the loft and, without anyone seeing her, untied the halter by which Don Quixote was suspended, and down he came to the ground in the sight of the landlord and the travellers, who approaching asked him what was the matter with him that he shouted so. He without replying a word took the rope off his wrist, and rising to his feet leaped upon Rocinante, braced his buckler on his arm, put his lance in rest, and making a considerable circuit of the plain came back at a halfgallop exclaiming 'Whoever shall say that I have been enchanted with just cause, provided my lady the Princess Micomicona grants me permission to do so, I give him the lie, challenge him and defy him to single combat. The newly arrived travellers were amazed at the words of Don Quixote but the landlord removed their surprise by telling them who he was, and not to mind him as he was out of his senses. They then asked the landlord if by any chance a youth of about fifteen years of age had come to that inn, one dressed like a muleteer, and of such and such an appearance, describing that of Doa Clara's lover. The landlord replied that there were so many people in the inn he had not noticed the person they were inquiring for but one of them observing the coach in which the Judge had come, said, 'He is here no doubt, for this is the coach he is following let one of us stay at the gate, and the rest go in to look for him or indeed it would be as well if one of us went round the inn, lest he should escape over the wall of the yard. 'So be it, said another and while two of them went in, one remained at the gate and the other made the circuit of the inn observing all which, the landlord was unable to conjecture for what reason they were taking all these precautions, though he understood they were looking for the youth whose description they had given him. It was by this time broad daylight and for that reason, as well as in consequence of the noise Don Quixote had made, everybody was awake and up, but particularly Doa Clara and Dorothea for they had been able to sleep but badly that night, the one from agitation at having her lover so near her, the other from curiosity to see him. Don Quixote, when he saw that not one of the four travellers took any notice of him or replied to his challenge, was furious and ready to die with indignation and wrath and if he could have found in the ordinances of chivalry that it was lawful for a knighterrant to undertake or engage in another enterprise, when he had plighted his word and faith not to involve himself in any until he had made an end of the one to which he was pledged, he would have attacked the whole of them, and would have made them return an answer in spite of themselves. But considering that it would not become him, nor be right, to begin any new emprise until he had established Micomicona in her kingdom, he was constrained to hold his peace and wait quietly to see what would be the upshot of the proceedings of those same travellers one of whom found the youth they were seeking lying asleep by the side of a muleteer, without a thought of anyone coming in search of him, much less finding him. The man laid hold of him by the arm, saying, 'It becomes you well indeed, Seor Don Luis, to be in the dress you wear, and well the bed in which I find you agrees with the luxury in which your mother reared you. The youth rubbed his sleepy eyes and stared for a while at him who held him, but presently recognised him as one of his father's servants, at which he was so taken aback that for some time he could not find or utter a word while the servant went on to say, 'There is nothing for it now, Seor Don Luis, but to submit quietly and return home, unless it is your wish that my lord, your father, should take his departure for the other world, for nothing else can be the consequence of the grief he is in at your absence. 'But how did my father know that I had gone this road and in this dress? said Don Luis. 'It was a student to whom you confided your intentions, answered the servant, 'that disclosed them, touched with pity at the distress he saw your father suffer on missing you he therefore despatched four of his servants in quest of you, and here we all are at your service, better pleased than you can imagine that we shall return so soon and be able to restore you to those eyes that so yearn for you. 'That shall be as I please, or as heaven orders, returned Don Luis. 'What can you please or heaven order, said the other, 'except to agree to go back? Anything else is impossible. All this conversation between the two was overheard by the muleteer at whose side Don Luis lay, and rising, he went to report what had taken place to Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the others, who had by this time dressed themselves and told them how the man had addressed the youth as 'Don, and what words had passed, and how he wanted him to return to his father, which the youth was unwilling to do. With this, and what they already knew of the rare voice that heaven had bestowed upon him, they all felt very anxious to know more particularly who he was, and even to help him if it was attempted to employ force against him so they hastened to where he was still talking and arguing with his servant. Dorothea at this instant came out of her room, followed by Doa Clara all in a tremor and calling Cardenio aside, she told him in a few words the story of the musician and Doa Clara, and he at the same time told her what had happened, how his father's servants had come in search of him but in telling her so, he did not speak low enough but that Doa Clara heard what he said, at which she was so much agitated that had not Dorothea hastened to support her she would have fallen to the ground. Cardenio then bade Dorothea return to her room, as he would endeavour to make the whole matter right, and they did as he desired. All the four who had come in quest of Don Luis had now come into the inn and surrounded him, urging him to return and console his father at once and without a moment's delay. He replied that he could not do so on any account until he had concluded some business in which his life, honour, and heart were at stake. The servants pressed him, saying that most certainly they would not return without him, and that they would take him away whether he liked it or not. 'You shall not do that, replied Don Luis, 'unless you take me dead though however you take me, it will be without life. By this time most of those in the inn had been attracted by the dispute, but particularly Cardenio, Don Fernando, his companions, the Judge, the curate, the barber, and Don Quixote for he now considered there was no necessity for mounting guard over the castle any longer. Cardenio being already acquainted with the young man's story, asked the men who wanted to take him away, what object they had in seeking to carry off this youth against his will. 'Our object, said one of the four, 'is to save the life of his father, who is in danger of losing it through this gentleman's disappearance. Upon this Don Luis exclaimed, 'There is no need to make my affairs public here I am free, and I will return if I please and if not, none of you shall compel me. 'Reason will compel your worship, said the man, 'and if it has no power over you, it has power over us, to make us do what we came for, and what it is our duty to do. 'Let us hear what the whole affair is about, said the Judge at this but the man, who knew him as a neighbour of theirs, replied, 'Do you not know this gentleman, Seor Judge? He is the son of your neighbour, who has run away from his father's house in a dress so unbecoming his rank, as your worship may perceive. The judge on this looked at him more carefully and recognised him, and embracing him said, 'What folly is this, Seor Don Luis, or what can have been the cause that could have induced you to come here in this way, and in this dress, which so ill becomes your condition? Tears came into the eyes of the young man, and he was unable to utter a word in reply to the Judge, who told the four servants not to be uneasy, for all would be satisfactorily settled and then taking Don Luis by the hand, he drew him aside and asked the reason of his having come there. But while he was questioning him they heard a loud outcry at the gate of the inn, the cause of which was that two of the guests who had passed the night there, seeing everybody busy about finding out what it was the four men wanted, had conceived the idea of going off without paying what they owed but the landlord, who minded his own affairs more than other people's, caught them going out of the gate and demanded his reckoning, abusing them for their dishonesty with such language that he drove them to reply with their fists, and so they began to lay on him in such a style that the poor man was forced to cry out, and call for help. The landlady and her daughter could see no one more free to give aid than Don Quixote, and to him the daughter said, 'Sir knight, by the virtue God has given you, help my poor father, for two wicked men are beating him to a mummy. To which Don Quixote very deliberately and phlegmatically replied, 'Fair damsel, at the present moment your request is inopportune, for I am debarred from involving myself in any adventure until I have brought to a happy conclusion one to which my word has pledged me but that which I can do for you is what I will now mention run and tell your father to stand his ground as well as he can in this battle, and on no account to allow himself to be vanquished, while I go and request permission of the Princess Micomicona to enable me to succour him in his distress and if she grants it, rest assured I will relieve him from it. 'Sinner that I am, exclaimed Maritornes, who stood by 'before you have got your permission my master will be in the other world. 'Give me leave, seora, to obtain the permission I speak of, returned Don Quixote 'and if I get it, it will matter very little if he is in the other world for I will rescue him thence in spite of all the same world can do or at any rate I will give you such a revenge over those who shall have sent him there that you will be more than moderately satisfied and without saying anything more he went and knelt before Dorothea, requesting her Highness in knightly and errant phrase to be pleased to grant him permission to aid and succour the castellan of that castle, who now stood in grievous jeopardy. The princess granted it graciously, and he at once, bracing his buckler on his arm and drawing his sword, hastened to the inngate, where the two guests were still handling the landlord roughly but as soon as he reached the spot he stopped short and stood still, though Maritornes and the landlady asked him why he hesitated to help their master and husband. 'I hesitate, said Don Quixote, 'because it is not lawful for me to draw sword against persons of squirely condition but call my squire Sancho to me for this defence and vengeance are his affair and business. Thus matters stood at the inngate, where there was a very lively exchange of fisticuffs and punches, to the sore damage of the landlord and to the wrath of Maritornes, the landlady, and her daughter, who were furious when they saw the pusillanimity of Don Quixote, and the hard treatment their master, husband and father was undergoing. But let us leave him there for he will surely find someone to help him, and if not, let him suffer and hold his tongue who attempts more than his strength allows him to do and let us go back fifty paces to see what Don Luis said in reply to the Judge whom we left questioning him privately as to his reasons for coming on foot and so meanly dressed. To which the youth, pressing his hand in a way that showed his heart was troubled by some great sorrow, and shedding a flood of tears, made answer 'Seor, I have no more to tell you than that from the moment when, through heaven's will and our being near neighbours, I first saw Doa Clara, your daughter and my lady, from that instant I made her the mistress of my will, and if yours, my true lord and father, offers no impediment, this very day she shall become my wife. For her I left my father's house, and for her I assumed this disguise, to follow her whithersoever she may go, as the arrow seeks its mark or the sailor the polestar. She knows nothing more of my passion than what she may have learned from having sometimes seen from a distance that my eyes were filled with tears. You know already, seor, the wealth and noble birth of my parents, and that I am their sole heir if this be a sufficient inducement for you to venture to make me completely happy, accept me at once as your son for if my father, influenced by other objects of his own, should disapprove of this happiness I have sought for myself, time has more power to alter and change things, than human will. With this the lovesmitten youth was silent, while the Judge, after hearing him, was astonished, perplexed, and surprised, as well at the manner and intelligence with which Don Luis had confessed the secret of his heart, as at the position in which he found himself, not knowing what course to take in a matter so sudden and unexpected. All the answer, therefore, he gave him was to bid him to make his mind easy for the present, and arrange with his servants not to take him back that day, so that there might be time to consider what was best for all parties. Don Luis kissed his hands by force, nay, bathed them with his tears, in a way that would have touched a heart of marble, not to say that of the Judge, who, as a shrewd man, had already perceived how advantageous the marriage would be to his daughter though, were it possible, he would have preferred that it should be brought about with the consent of the father of Don Luis, who he knew looked for a title for his son. The guests had by this time made peace with the landlord, for, by persuasion and Don Quixote's fair words more than by threats, they had paid him what he demanded, and the servants of Don Luis were waiting for the end of the conversation with the Judge and their master's decision, when the devil, who never sleeps, contrived that the barber, from whom Don Quixote had taken Mambrino's helmet, and Sancho Panza the trappings of his ass in exchange for those of his own, should at this instant enter the inn which said barber, as he led his ass to the stable, observed Sancho Panza engaged in repairing something or other belonging to the packsaddle and the moment he saw it he knew it, and made bold to attack Sancho, exclaiming, 'Ho, sir thief, I have caught you! hand over my basin and my packsaddle, and all my trappings that you robbed me of. Sancho, finding himself so unexpectedly assailed, and hearing the abuse poured upon him, seized the packsaddle with one hand, and with the other gave the barber a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood. The barber, however, was not so ready to relinquish the prize he had made in the packsaddle on the contrary, he raised such an outcry that everyone in the inn came running to know what the noise and quarrel meant. 'Here, in the name of the king and justice! he cried, 'this thief and highwayman wants to kill me for trying to recover my property. 'You lie, said Sancho, 'I am no highwayman it was in fair war my master Don Quixote won these spoils. Don Quixote was standing by at the time, highly pleased to see his squire's stoutness, both offensive and defensive, and from that time forth he reckoned him a man of mettle, and in his heart resolved to dub him a knight on the first opportunity that presented itself, feeling sure that the order of chivalry would be fittingly bestowed upon him. In the course of the altercation, among other things the barber said, 'Gentlemen, this packsaddle is mine as surely as I owe God a death, and I know it as well as if I had given birth to it, and here is my ass in the stable who will not let me lie only try it, and if it does not fit him like a glove, call me a rascal and what is more, the same day I was robbed of this, they robbed me likewise of a new brass basin, never yet handselled, that would fetch a crown any day. At this Don Quixote could not keep himself from answering and interposing between the two, and separating them, he placed the packsaddle on the ground, to lie there in sight until the truth was established, and said, 'Your worships may perceive clearly and plainly the error under which this worthy squire lies when he calls a basin which was, is, and shall be the helmet of Mambrino which I won from him in fair war, and made myself master of by legitimate and lawful possession. With the packsaddle I do not concern myself but I may tell you on that head that my squire Sancho asked my permission to strip off the caparison of this vanquished poltroon's steed, and with it adorn his own I allowed him, and he took it and as to its having been changed from a caparison into a packsaddle, I can give no explanation except the usual one, that such transformations will take place in adventures of chivalry. To confirm all which, run, Sancho my son, and fetch hither the helmet which this good fellow calls a basin. 'Egad, master, said Sancho, 'if we have no other proof of our case than what your worship puts forward, Mambrino's helmet is just as much a basin as this good fellow's caparison is a packsaddle. 'Do as I bid thee, said Don Quixote 'it cannot be that everything in this castle goes by enchantment. Sancho hastened to where the basin was, and brought it back with him, and when Don Quixote saw it, he took hold of it and said 'Your worships may see with what a face this squire can assert that this is a basin and not the helmet I told you of and I swear by the order of chivalry I profess, that this helmet is the identical one I took from him, without anything added to or taken from it. 'There is no doubt of that, said Sancho, 'for from the time my master won it until now he has only fought one battle in it, when he let loose those unlucky men in chains and if it had not been for this basinhelmet he would not have come off over well that time, for there was plenty of stonethrowing in that affair. 'What do you think now, gentlemen, said the barber, 'of what these gentles say, when they want to make out that this is a helmet? 'And whoever says the contrary, said Don Quixote, 'I will let him know he lies if he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies again a thousand times. Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood Don Quixote's humour so thoroughly, took it into his head to back up his delusion and carry on the joke for the general amusement so addressing the other barber he said 'Seor barber, or whatever you are, you must know that I belong to your profession too, and have had a licence to practise for more than twenty years, and I know the implements of the barber craft, every one of them, perfectly well and I was likewise a soldier for some time in the days of my youth, and I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a headpiece with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering, I meant to say to soldiers' arms and I saysaving better opinions and always with submission to sounder judgmentsthat this piece we have now before us, which this worthy gentleman has in his hands, not only is no barber's basin, but is as far from being one as white is from black, and truth from falsehood I say, moreover, that this, although it is a helmet, is not a complete helmet. 'Certainly not, said Don Quixote, 'for half of it is wanting, that is to say the beaver. 'It is quite true, said the curate, who saw the object of his friend the barber and Cardenio, Don Fernando and his companions agreed with him, and even the Judge, if his thoughts had not been so full of Don Luis's affair, would have helped to carry on the joke but he was so taken up with the serious matters he had on his mind that he paid little or no attention to these facetious proceedings. 'God bless me! exclaimed their butt the barber at this 'is it possible that such an honourable company can say that this is not a basin but a helmet? Why, this is a thing that would astonish a whole university, however wise it might be! That will do if this basin is a helmet, why, then the packsaddle must be a horse's caparison, as this gentleman has said. 'To me it looks like a packsaddle, said Don Quixote 'but I have already said that with that question I do not concern myself. 'As to whether it be packsaddle or caparison, said the curate, 'it is only for Seor Don Quixote to say for in these matters of chivalry all these gentlemen and I bow to his authority. 'By God, gentlemen, said Don Quixote, 'so many strange things have happened to me in this castle on the two occasions on which I have sojourned in it, that I will not venture to assert anything positively in reply to any question touching anything it contains for it is my belief that everything that goes on within it goes by enchantment. The first time, an enchanted Moor that there is in it gave me sore trouble, nor did Sancho fare well among certain followers of his and last night I was kept hanging by this arm for nearly two hours, without knowing how or why I came by such a mishap. So that now, for me to come forward to give an opinion in such a puzzling matter, would be to risk a rash decision. As regards the assertion that this is a basin and not a helmet I have already given an answer but as to the question whether this is a packsaddle or a caparison I will not venture to give a positive opinion, but will leave it to your worships' better judgment. Perhaps as you are not dubbed knights like myself, the enchantments of this place have nothing to do with you, and your faculties are unfettered, and you can see things in this castle as they really and truly are, and not as they appear to me. 'There can be no question, said Don Fernando on this, 'but that Seor Don Quixote has spoken very wisely, and that with us rests the decision of this matter and that we may have surer ground to go on, I will take the votes of the gentlemen in secret, and declare the result clearly and fully. To those who were in on the secret of Don Quixote's humour all this afforded great amusement but to those who knew nothing about it, it seemed the greatest nonsense in the world, in particular to the four servants of Don Luis, as well as to Don Luis himself, and to three other travellers who had by chance come to the inn, and had the appearance of officers of the Holy Brotherhood, as indeed they were but the one who above all was at his wits' end was the barber whose basin, there before his very eyes, had been turned into Mambrino's helmet, and whose packsaddle he had no doubt whatever was about to become a rich caparison for a horse. All laughed to see Don Fernando going from one to another collecting the votes, and whispering to them to give him their private opinion whether the treasure over which there had been so much fighting was a packsaddle or a caparison but after he had taken the votes of those who knew Don Quixote, he said aloud, 'The fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired collecting such a number of opinions, for I find that there is not one of whom I ask what I desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd to say that this is the packsaddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse so you must submit, for, in spite of you and your ass, this is a caparison and no packsaddle, and you have stated and proved your case very badly. 'May I never share heaven, said the poor barber, 'if your worships are not all mistaken and may my soul appear before God as that appears to me a packsaddle and not a caparison but, 'laws go,'I say no more and indeed I am not drunk, for I am fasting, except it be from sin. The simple talk of the barber did not afford less amusement than the absurdities of Don Quixote, who now observed 'There is no more to be done now than for each to take what belongs to him, and to whom God has given it, may St. Peter add his blessing. But said one of the four servants, 'Unless, indeed, this is a deliberate joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so intelligent as those present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare and assert that this is not a basin, and that not a packsaddle but as I perceive that they do assert and declare it, I can only come to the conclusion that there is some mystery in this persistence in what is so opposed to the evidence of experience and truth itself for I swear byand here he rapped out a round oath'all the people in the world will not make me believe that this is not a barber's basin and that a jackass's packsaddle. 'It might easily be a sheass's, observed the curate. 'It is all the same, said the servant 'that is not the point but whether it is or is not a packsaddle, as your worships say. On hearing this one of the newly arrived officers of the Brotherhood, who had been listening to the dispute and controversy, unable to restrain his anger and impatience, exclaimed, 'It is a packsaddle as sure as my father is my father, and whoever has said or will say anything else must be drunk. 'You lie like a rascally clown, returned Don Quixote and lifting his pike, which he had never let out of his hand, he delivered such a blow at his head that, had not the officer dodged it, it would have stretched him at full length. The pike was shivered in pieces against the ground, and the rest of the officers, seeing their comrade assaulted, raised a shout, calling for help for the Holy Brotherhood. The landlord, who was of the fraternity, ran at once to fetch his staff of office and his sword, and ranged himself on the side of his comrades the servants of Don Luis clustered round him, lest he should escape from them in the confusion the barber, seeing the house turned upside down, once more laid hold of his packsaddle and Sancho did the same Don Quixote drew his sword and charged the officers Don Luis cried out to his servants to leave him alone and go and help Don Quixote, and Cardenio and Don Fernando, who were supporting him the curate was shouting at the top of his voice, the landlady was screaming, her daughter was wailing, Maritornes was weeping, Dorothea was aghast, Luscinda terrorstricken, and Doa Clara in a faint. The barber cudgelled Sancho, and Sancho pommelled the barber Don Luis gave one of his servants, who ventured to catch him by the arm to keep him from escaping, a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood the Judge took his part Don Fernando had got one of the officers down and was belabouring him heartily the landlord raised his voice again calling for help for the Holy Brotherhood so that the whole inn was nothing but cries, shouts, shrieks, confusion, terror, dismay, mishaps, swordcuts, fisticuffs, cudgellings, kicks, and bloodshed and in the midst of all this chaos, complication, and general entanglement, Don Quixote took it into his head that he had been plunged into the thick of the discord of Agramante's camp and, in a voice that shook the inn like thunder, he cried out 'Hold all, let all sheathe their swords, let all be calm and attend to me as they value their lives! All paused at his mighty voice, and he went on to say, 'Did I not tell you, sirs, that this castle was enchanted, and that a legion or so of devils dwelt in it? In proof whereof I call upon you to behold with your own eyes how the discord of Agramante's camp has come hither, and been transferred into the midst of us. See how they fight, there for the sword, here for the horse, on that side for the eagle, on this for the helmet we are all fighting, and all at cross purposes. Come then, you, Seor Judge, and you, seor curate let the one represent King Agramante and the other King Sobrino, and make peace among us for by God Almighty it is a sorry business that so many persons of quality as we are should slay one another for such trifling cause. The officers, who did not understand Don Quixote's mode of speaking, and found themselves roughly handled by Don Fernando, Cardenio, and their companions, were not to be appeased the barber was, however, for both his beard and his packsaddle were the worse for the struggle Sancho like a good servant obeyed the slightest word of his master while the four servants of Don Luis kept quiet when they saw how little they gained by not being so. The landlord alone insisted upon it that they must punish the insolence of this madman, who at every turn raised a disturbance in the inn but at length the uproar was stilled for the present the packsaddle remained a caparison till the day of judgment, and the basin a helmet and the inn a castle in Don Quixote's imagination. All having been now pacified and made friends by the persuasion of the Judge and the curate, the servants of Don Luis began again to urge him to return with them at once and while he was discussing the matter with them, the Judge took counsel with Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the curate as to what he ought to do in the case, telling them how it stood, and what Don Luis had said to him. It was agreed at length that Don Fernando should tell the servants of Don Luis who he was, and that it was his desire that Don Luis should accompany him to Andalusia, where he would receive from the marquis his brother the welcome his quality entitled him to for, otherwise, it was easy to see from the determination of Don Luis that he would not return to his father at present, though they tore him to pieces. On learning the rank of Don Fernando and the resolution of Don Luis the four then settled it between themselves that three of them should return to tell his father how matters stood, and that the other should remain to wait upon Don Luis, and not leave him until they came back for him, or his father's orders were known. Thus by the authority of Agramante and the wisdom of King Sobrino all this complication of disputes was arranged but the enemy of concord and hater of peace, feeling himself slighted and made a fool of, and seeing how little he had gained after having involved them all in such an elaborate entanglement, resolved to try his hand once more by stirring up fresh quarrels and disturbances. It came about in this wise the officers were pacified on learning the rank of those with whom they had been engaged, and withdrew from the contest, considering that whatever the result might be they were likely to get the worst of the battle but one of them, the one who had been thrashed and kicked by Don Fernando, recollected that among some warrants he carried for the arrest of certain delinquents, he had one against Don Quixote, whom the Holy Brotherhood had ordered to be arrested for setting the galley slaves free, as Sancho had, with very good reason, apprehended. Suspecting how it was, then, he wished to satisfy himself as to whether Don Quixote's features corresponded and taking a parchment out of his bosom he lit upon what he was in search of, and setting himself to read it deliberately, for he was not a quick reader, as he made out each word he fixed his eyes on Don Quixote, and went on comparing the description in the warrant with his face, and discovered that beyond all doubt he was the person described in it. As soon as he had satisfied himself, folding up the parchment, he took the warrant in his left hand and with his right seized Don Quixote by the collar so tightly that he did not allow him to breathe, and shouted aloud, 'Help for the Holy Brotherhood! and that you may see I demand it in earnest, read this warrant which says this highwayman is to be arrested. The curate took the warrant and saw that what the officer said was true, and that it agreed with Don Quixote's appearance, who, on his part, when he found himself roughly handled by this rascally clown, worked up to the highest pitch of wrath, and all his joints cracking with rage, with both hands seized the officer by the throat with all his might, so that had he not been helped by his comrades he would have yielded up his life ere Don Quixote released his hold. The landlord, who had perforce to support his brother officers, ran at once to aid them. The landlady, when she saw her husband engaged in a fresh quarrel, lifted up her voice afresh, and its note was immediately caught up by Maritornes and her daughter, calling upon heaven and all present for help and Sancho, seeing what was going on, exclaimed, 'By the Lord, it is quite true what my master says about the enchantments of this castle, for it is impossible to live an hour in peace in it! Don Fernando parted the officer and Don Quixote, and to their mutual contentment made them relax the grip by which they held, the one the coat collar, the other the throat of his adversary for all this, however, the officers did not cease to demand their prisoner and call on them to help, and deliver him over bound into their power, as was required for the service of the King and of the Holy Brotherhood, on whose behalf they again demanded aid and assistance to effect the capture of this robber and footpad of the highways. Don Quixote smiled when he heard these words, and said very calmly, 'Come now, base, illborn brood call ye it highway robbery to give freedom to those in bondage, to release the captives, to succour the miserable, to raise up the fallen, to relieve the needy? Infamous beings, who by your vile grovelling intellects deserve that heaven should not make known to you the virtue that lies in knighterrantry, or show you the sin and ignorance in which ye lie when ye refuse to respect the shadow, not to say the presence, of any knighterrant! Come now band, not of officers, but of thieves footpads with the licence of the Holy Brotherhood tell me who was the ignoramus who signed a warrant of arrest against such a knight as I am? Who was he that did not know that knightserrant are independent of all jurisdictions, that their law is their sword, their charter their prowess, and their edicts their will? Who, I say again, was the fool that knows not that there are no letters patent of nobility that confer such privileges or exemptions as a knighterrant acquires the day he is dubbed a knight, and devotes himself to the arduous calling of chivalry? What knighterrant ever paid polltax, duty, queen's pinmoney, king's dues, toll or ferry? What tailor ever took payment of him for making his clothes? What castellan that received him in his castle ever made him pay his shot? What king did not seat him at his table? What damsel was not enamoured of him and did not yield herself up wholly to his will and pleasure? And, lastly, what knighterrant has there been, is there, or will there ever be in the world, not bold enough to give, singlehanded, four hundred cudgellings to four hundred officers of the Holy Brotherhood if they come in his way? While Don Quixote was talking in this strain, the curate was endeavouring to persuade the officers that he was out of his senses, as they might perceive by his deeds and his words, and that they need not press the matter any further, for even if they arrested him and carried him off, they would have to release him byandby as a madman to which the holder of the warrant replied that he had nothing to do with inquiring into Don Quixote's madness, but only to execute his superior's orders, and that once taken they might let him go three hundred times if they liked. 'For all that, said the curate, 'you must not take him away this time, nor will he, it is my opinion, let himself be taken away. In short, the curate used such arguments, and Don Quixote did such mad things, that the officers would have been more mad than he was if they had not perceived his want of wits, and so they thought it best to allow themselves to be pacified, and even to act as peacemakers between the barber and Sancho Panza, who still continued their altercation with much bitterness. In the end they, as officers of justice, settled the question by arbitration in such a manner that both sides were, if not perfectly contented, at least to some extent satisfied for they changed the packsaddles, but not the girths or headstalls and as to Mambrino's helmet, the curate, under the rose and without Don Quixote's knowing it, paid eight reals for the basin, and the barber executed a full receipt and engagement to make no further demand then or thenceforth for evermore, amen. These two disputes, which were the most important and gravest, being settled, it only remained for the servants of Don Luis to consent that three of them should return while one was left to accompany him whither Don Fernando desired to take him and good luck and better fortune, having already begun to solve difficulties and remove obstructions in favour of the lovers and warriors of the inn, were pleased to persevere and bring everything to a happy issue for the servants agreed to do as Don Luis wished which gave Doa Clara such happiness that no one could have looked into her face just then without seeing the joy of her heart. Zoraida, though she did not fully comprehend all she saw, was grave or gay without knowing why, as she watched and studied the various countenances, but particularly her Spaniard's, whom she followed with her eyes and clung to with her soul. The gift and compensation which the curate gave the barber had not escaped the landlord's notice, and he demanded Don Quixote's reckoning, together with the amount of the damage to his wineskins, and the loss of his wine, swearing that neither Rocinante nor Sancho's ass should leave the inn until he had been paid to the very last farthing. The curate settled all amicably, and Don Fernando paid though the Judge had also very readily offered to pay the score and all became so peaceful and quiet that the inn no longer reminded one of the discord of Agramante's camp, as Don Quixote said, but of the peace and tranquillity of the days of Octavianus for all which it was the universal opinion that their thanks were due to the great zeal and eloquence of the curate, and to the unexampled generosity of Don Fernando. Finding himself now clear and quit of all quarrels, his squire's as well as his own, Don Quixote considered that it would be advisable to continue the journey he had begun, and bring to a close that great adventure for which he had been called and chosen and with this high resolve he went and knelt before Dorothea, who, however, would not allow him to utter a word until he had risen so to obey her he rose, and said, 'It is a common proverb, fair lady, that 'diligence is the mother of good fortune,' and experience has often shown in important affairs that the earnestness of the negotiator brings the doubtful case to a successful termination but in nothing does this truth show itself more plainly than in war, where quickness and activity forestall the devices of the enemy, and win the victory before the foe has time to defend himself. All this I say, exalted and esteemed lady, because it seems to me that for us to remain any longer in this castle now is useless, and may be injurious to us in a way that we shall find out some day for who knows but that your enemy the giant may have learned by means of secret and diligent spies that I am going to destroy him, and if the opportunity be given him he may seize it to fortify himself in some impregnable castle or stronghold, against which all my efforts and the might of my indefatigable arm may avail but little? Therefore, lady, let us, as I say, forestall his schemes by our activity, and let us depart at once in quest of fair fortune for your highness is only kept from enjoying it as fully as you could desire by my delay in encountering your adversary. Don Quixote held his peace and said no more, calmly awaiting the reply of the beauteous princess, who, with commanding dignity and in a style adapted to Don Quixote's own, replied to him in these words, 'I give you thanks, sir knight, for the eagerness you, like a good knight to whom it is a natural obligation to succour the orphan and the needy, display to afford me aid in my sore trouble and heaven grant that your wishes and mine may be realised, so that you may see that there are women in this world capable of gratitude as to my departure, let it be forthwith, for I have no will but yours dispose of me entirely in accordance with your good pleasure for she who has once entrusted to you the defence of her person, and placed in your hands the recovery of her dominions, must not think of offering opposition to that which your wisdom may ordain. 'On, then, in God's name, said Don Quixote 'for, when a lady humbles herself to me, I will not lose the opportunity of raising her up and placing her on the throne of her ancestors. Let us depart at once, for the common saying that in delay there is danger, lends spurs to my eagerness to take the road and as neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me, saddle Rocinante, Sancho, and get ready thy ass and the queen's palfrey, and let us take leave of the castellan and these gentlemen, and go hence this very instant. Sancho, who was standing by all the time, said, shaking his head, 'Ah! master, master, there is more mischief in the village than one hears of, begging all good bodies' pardon. 'What mischief can there be in any village, or in all the cities of the world, you booby, that can hurt my reputation? said Don Quixote. 'If your worship is angry, replied Sancho, 'I will hold my tongue and leave unsaid what as a good squire I am bound to say, and what a good servant should tell his master. 'Say what thou wilt, returned Don Quixote, 'provided thy words be not meant to work upon my fears for thou, if thou fearest, art behaving like thyself but I like myself, in not fearing. 'It is nothing of the sort, as I am a sinner before God, said Sancho, 'but that I take it to be sure and certain that this lady, who calls herself queen of the great kingdom of Micomicon, is no more so than my mother for, if she was what she says, she would not go rubbing noses with one that is here every instant and behind every door. Dorothea turned red at Sancho's words, for the truth was that her husband Don Fernando had now and then, when the others were not looking, gathered from her lips some of the reward his love had earned, and Sancho seeing this had considered that such freedom was more like a courtesan than a queen of a great kingdom she, however, being unable or not caring to answer him, allowed him to proceed, and he continued, 'This I say, seor, because, if after we have travelled roads and highways, and passed bad nights and worse days, one who is now enjoying himself in this inn is to reap the fruit of our labours, there is no need for me to be in a hurry to saddle Rocinante, put the pad on the ass, or get ready the palfrey for it will be better for us to stay quiet, and let every jade mind her spinning, and let us go to dinner. Good God, what was the indignation of Don Quixote when he heard the audacious words of his squire! So great was it, that in a voice inarticulate with rage, with a stammering tongue, and eyes that flashed living fire, he exclaimed, 'Rascally clown, boorish, insolent, and ignorant, illspoken, foulmouthed, impudent backbiter and slanderer! Hast thou dared to utter such words in my presence and in that of these illustrious ladies? Hast thou dared to harbour such gross and shameless thoughts in thy muddled imagination? Begone from my presence, thou born monster, storehouse of lies, hoard of untruths, garner of knaveries, inventor of scandals, publisher of absurdities, enemy of the respect due to royal personages! Begone, show thyself no more before me under pain of my wrath and so saying he knitted his brows, puffed out his cheeks, gazed around him, and stamped on the ground violently with his right foot, showing in every way the rage that was pent up in his heart and at his words and furious gestures Sancho was so scared and terrified that he would have been glad if the earth had opened that instant and swallowed him, and his only thought was to turn round and make his escape from the angry presence of his master. But the readywitted Dorothea, who by this time so well understood Don Quixote's humour, said, to mollify his wrath, 'Be not irritated at the absurdities your good squire has uttered, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, for perhaps he did not utter them without cause, and from his good sense and Christian conscience it is not likely that he would bear false witness against anyone. We may therefore believe, without any hesitation, that since, as you say, sir knight, everything in this castle goes and is brought about by means of enchantment, Sancho, I say, may possibly have seen, through this diabolical medium, what he says he saw so much to the detriment of my modesty. 'I swear by God Omnipotent, exclaimed Don Quixote at this, 'your highness has hit the point and that some vile illusion must have come before this sinner of a Sancho, that made him see what it would have been impossible to see by any other means than enchantments for I know well enough, from the poor fellow's goodness and harmlessness, that he is incapable of bearing false witness against anybody. 'True, no doubt, said Don Fernando, 'for which reason, Seor Don Quixote, you ought to forgive him and restore him to the bosom of your favour, sicut erat in principio, before illusions of this sort had taken away his senses. Don Quixote said he was ready to pardon him, and the curate went for Sancho, who came in very humbly, and falling on his knees begged for the hand of his master, who having presented it to him and allowed him to kiss it, gave him his blessing and said, 'Now, Sancho my son, thou wilt be convinced of the truth of what I have many a time told thee, that everything in this castle is done by means of enchantment. 'So it is, I believe, said Sancho, 'except the affair of the blanket, which came to pass in reality by ordinary means. 'Believe it not, said Don Quixote, 'for had it been so, I would have avenged thee that instant, or even now but neither then nor now could I, nor have I seen anyone upon whom to avenge thy wrong. They were all eager to know what the affair of the blanket was, and the landlord gave them a minute account of Sancho's flights, at which they laughed not a little, and at which Sancho would have been no less out of countenance had not his master once more assured him it was all enchantment. For all that his simplicity never reached so high a pitch that he could persuade himself it was not the plain and simple truth, without any deception whatever about it, that he had been blanketed by beings of flesh and blood, and not by visionary and imaginary phantoms, as his master believed and protested. The illustrious company had now been two days in the inn and as it seemed to them time to depart, they devised a plan so that, without giving Dorothea and Don Fernando the trouble of going back with Don Quixote to his village under pretence of restoring Queen Micomicona, the curate and the barber might carry him away with them as they proposed, and the curate be able to take his madness in hand at home and in pursuance of their plan they arranged with the owner of an oxcart who happened to be passing that way to carry him after this fashion. They constructed a kind of cage with wooden bars, large enough to hold Don Quixote comfortably and then Don Fernando and his companions, the servants of Don Luis, and the officers of the Brotherhood, together with the landlord, by the directions and advice of the curate, covered their faces and disguised themselves, some in one way, some in another, so as to appear to Don Quixote quite different from the persons he had seen in the castle. This done, in profound silence they entered the room where he was asleep, taking his rest after the past frays, and advancing to where he was sleeping tranquilly, not dreaming of anything of the kind happening, they seized him firmly and bound him fast hand and foot, so that, when he awoke startled, he was unable to move, and could only marvel and wonder at the strange figures he saw before him upon which he at once gave way to the idea which his crazed fancy invariably conjured up before him, and took it into his head that all these shapes were phantoms of the enchanted castle, and that he himself was unquestionably enchanted as he could neither move nor help himself precisely what the curate, the concoctor of the scheme, expected would happen. Of all that were there Sancho was the only one who was at once in his senses and in his own proper character, and he, though he was within very little of sharing his master's infirmity, did not fail to perceive who all these disguised figures were but he did not dare to open his lips until he saw what came of this assault and capture of his master nor did the latter utter a word, waiting to the upshot of his mishap which was that bringing in the cage, they shut him up in it and nailed the bars so firmly that they could not be easily burst open. They then took him on their shoulders, and as they passed out of the room an awful voiceas much so as the barber, not he of the packsaddle but the other, was able to make itwas heard to say, 'O Knight of the Rueful Countenance, let not this captivity in which thou art placed afflict thee, for this must needs be, for the more speedy accomplishment of the adventure in which thy great heart has engaged thee the which shall be accomplished when the raging Manchegan lion and the white Tobosan dove shall be linked together, having first humbled their haughty necks to the gentle yoke of matrimony. And from this marvellous union shall come forth to the light of the world brave whelps that shall rival the ravening claws of their valiant father and this shall come to pass ere the pursuer of the flying nymph shall in his swift natural course have twice visited the starry signs. And thou, O most noble and obedient squire that ever bore sword at side, beard on face, or nose to smell with, be not dismayed or grieved to see the flower of knighterrantry carried away thus before thy very eyes for soon, if it so please the Framer of the universe, thou shalt see thyself exalted to such a height that thou shalt not know thyself, and the promises which thy good master has made thee shall not prove false and I assure thee, on the authority of the sage Mentironiana, that thy wages shall be paid thee, as thou shalt see in due season. Follow then the footsteps of the valiant enchanted knight, for it is expedient that thou shouldst go to the destination assigned to both of you and as it is not permitted to me to say more, God be with thee for I return to that place I wot of and as he brought the prophecy to a close he raised his voice to a high pitch, and then lowered it to such a soft tone, that even those who knew it was all a joke were almost inclined to take what they heard seriously. Don Quixote was comforted by the prophecy he heard, for he at once comprehended its meaning perfectly, and perceived it was promised to him that he should see himself united in holy and lawful matrimony with his beloved Dulcinea del Toboso, from whose blessed womb should proceed the whelps, his sons, to the eternal glory of La Mancha and being thoroughly and firmly persuaded of this, he lifted up his voice, and with a deep sigh exclaimed, 'Oh thou, whoever thou art, who hast foretold me so much good, I implore of thee that on my part thou entreat that sage enchanter who takes charge of my interests, that he leave me not to perish in this captivity in which they are now carrying me away, ere I see fulfilled promises so joyful and incomparable as those which have been now made me for, let this but come to pass, and I shall glory in the pains of my prison, find comfort in these chains wherewith they bind me, and regard this bed whereon they stretch me, not as a hard battlefield, but as a soft and happy nuptial couch and touching the consolation of Sancho Panza, my squire, I rely upon his goodness and rectitude that he will not desert me in good or evil fortune for if, by his ill luck or mine, it may not happen to be in my power to give him the island I have promised, or any equivalent for it, at least his wages shall not be lost for in my will, which is already made, I have declared the sum that shall be paid to him, measured, not by his many faithful services, but by the means at my disposal. Sancho bowed his head very respectfully and kissed both his hands, for, being tied together, he could not kiss one and then the apparitions lifted the cage upon their shoulders and fixed it upon the oxcart. When Don Quixote saw himself caged and hoisted on the cart in this way, he said, 'Many grave histories of knightserrant have I read but never yet have I read, seen, or heard of their carrying off enchanted knightserrant in this fashion, or at the slow pace that these lazy, sluggish animals promise for they always take them away through the air with marvellous swiftness, enveloped in a dark thick cloud, or on a chariot of fire, or it may be on some hippogriff or other beast of the kind but to carry me off like this on an oxcart! By God, it puzzles me! But perhaps the chivalry and enchantments of our day take a different course from that of those in days gone by and it may be, too, that as I am a new knight in the world, and the first to revive the already forgotten calling of knightadventurers, they may have newly invented other kinds of enchantments and other modes of carrying off the enchanted. What thinkest thou of the matter, Sancho my son? 'I don't know what to think, answered Sancho, 'not being as well read as your worship in errant writings but for all that I venture to say and swear that these apparitions that are about us are not quite catholic. 'Catholic! said Don Quixote. 'Father of me! how can they be Catholic when they are all devils that have taken fantastic shapes to come and do this, and bring me to this condition? And if thou wouldst prove it, touch them, and feel them, and thou wilt find they have only bodies of air, and no consistency except in appearance. 'By God, master, returned Sancho, 'I have touched them already and that devil, that goes about there so busily, has firm flesh, and another property very different from what I have heard say devils have, for by all accounts they all smell of brimstone and other bad smells but this one smells of amber half a league off. Sancho was here speaking of Don Fernando, who, like a gentleman of his rank, was very likely perfumed as Sancho said. 'Marvel not at that, Sancho my friend, said Don Quixote 'for let me tell thee devils are crafty and even if they do carry odours about with them, they themselves have no smell, because they are spirits or, if they have any smell, they cannot smell of anything sweet, but of something foul and fetid and the reason is that as they carry hell with them wherever they go, and can get no ease whatever from their torments, and as a sweet smell is a thing that gives pleasure and enjoyment, it is impossible that they can smell sweet if, then, this devil thou speakest of seems to thee to smell of amber, either thou art deceiving thyself, or he wants to deceive thee by making thee fancy he is not a devil. Such was the conversation that passed between master and man and Don Fernando and Cardenio, apprehensive of Sancho's making a complete discovery of their scheme, towards which he had already gone some way, resolved to hasten their departure, and calling the landlord aside, they directed him to saddle Rocinante and put the packsaddle on Sancho's ass, which he did with great alacrity. In the meantime the curate had made an arrangement with the officers that they should bear them company as far as his village, he paying them so much a day. Cardenio hung the buckler on one side of the bow of Rocinante's saddle and the basin on the other, and by signs commanded Sancho to mount his ass and take Rocinante's bridle, and at each side of the cart he placed two officers with their muskets but before the cart was put in motion, out came the landlady and her daughter and Maritornes to bid Don Quixote farewell, pretending to weep with grief at his misfortune and to them Don Quixote said 'Weep not, good ladies, for all these mishaps are the lot of those who follow the profession I profess and if these reverses did not befall me I should not esteem myself a famous knighterrant for such things never happen to knights of little renown and fame, because nobody in the world thinks about them to valiant knights they do, for these are envied for their virtue and valour by many princes and other knights who compass the destruction of the worthy by base means. Nevertheless, virtue is of herself so mighty, that, in spite of all the magic that Zoroaster its first inventor knew, she will come victorious out of every trial, and shed her light upon the earth as the sun does upon the heavens. Forgive me, fair ladies, if, through inadvertence, I have in aught offended you for intentionally and wittingly I have never done so to any and pray to God that he deliver me from this captivity to which some malevolent enchanter has consigned me and should I find myself released therefrom, the favours that ye have bestowed upon me in this castle shall be held in memory by me, that I may acknowledge, recognise, and requite them as they deserve. While this was passing between the ladies of the castle and Don Quixote, the curate and the barber bade farewell to Don Fernando and his companions, to the captain, his brother, and the ladies, now all made happy, and in particular to Dorothea and Luscinda. They all embraced one another, and promised to let each other know how things went with them, and Don Fernando directed the curate where to write to him, to tell him what became of Don Quixote, assuring him that there was nothing that could give him more pleasure than to hear of it, and that he too, on his part, would send him word of everything he thought he would like to know, about his marriage, Zoraida's baptism, Don Luis's affair, and Luscinda's return to her home. The curate promised to comply with his request carefully, and they embraced once more, and renewed their promises. The landlord approached the curate and handed him some papers, saying he had discovered them in the lining of the valise in which the novel of 'The Illadvised Curiosity had been found, and that he might take them all away with him as their owner had not since returned for, as he could not read, he did not want them himself. The curate thanked him, and opening them he saw at the beginning of the manuscript the words, 'Novel of Rinconete and Cortadillo, by which he perceived that it was a novel, and as that of 'The Illadvised Curiosity had been good he concluded this would be so too, as they were both probably by the same author so he kept it, intending to read it when he had an opportunity. He then mounted and his friend the barber did the same, both masked, so as not to be recognised by Don Quixote, and set out following in the rear of the cart. The order of march was this first went the cart with the owner leading it at each side of it marched the officers of the Brotherhood, as has been said, with their muskets then followed Sancho Panza on his ass, leading Rocinante by the bridle and behind all came the curate and the barber on their mighty mules, with faces covered, as aforesaid, and a grave and serious air, measuring their pace to suit the slow steps of the oxen. Don Quixote was seated in the cage, with his hands tied and his feet stretched out, leaning against the bars as silent and as patient as if he were a stone statue and not a man of flesh. Thus slowly and silently they made, it might be, two leagues, until they reached a valley which the carter thought a convenient place for resting and feeding his oxen, and he said so to the curate, but the barber was of opinion that they ought to push on a little farther, as at the other side of a hill which appeared close by he knew there was a valley that had more grass and much better than the one where they proposed to halt and his advice was taken and they continued their journey. Just at that moment the curate, looking back, saw coming on behind them six or seven mounted men, well found and equipped, who soon overtook them, for they were travelling, not at the sluggish, deliberate pace of oxen, but like men who rode canons' mules, and in haste to take their noontide rest as soon as possible at the inn which was in sight not a league off. The quick travellers came up with the slow, and courteous salutations were exchanged and one of the new comers, who was, in fact, a canon of Toledo and master of the others who accompanied him, observing the regular order of the procession, the cart, the officers, Sancho, Rocinante, the curate and the barber, and above all Don Quixote caged and confined, could not help asking what was the meaning of carrying the man in that fashion though, from the badges of the officers, he already concluded that he must be some desperate highwayman or other malefactor whose punishment fell within the jurisdiction of the Holy Brotherhood. One of the officers to whom he had put the question, replied, 'Let the gentleman himself tell you the meaning of his going this way, seor, for we do not know. Don Quixote overheard the conversation and said, 'Haply, gentlemen, you are versed and learned in matters of errant chivalry? Because if you are I will tell you my misfortunes if not, there is no good in my giving myself the trouble of relating them but here the curate and the barber, seeing that the travellers were engaged in conversation with Don Quixote, came forward, in order to answer in such a way as to save their stratagem from being discovered. The canon, replying to Don Quixote, said, 'In truth, brother, I know more about books of chivalry than I do about Villalpando's elements of logic so if that be all, you may safely tell me what you please. 'In God's name, then, seor, replied Don Quixote 'if that be so, I would have you know that I am held enchanted in this cage by the envy and fraud of wicked enchanters for virtue is more persecuted by the wicked than loved by the good. I am a knighterrant, and not one of those whose names Fame has never thought of immortalising in her record, but of those who, in defiance and in spite of envy itself, and all the magicians that Persia, or Brahmans that India, or Gymnosophists that Ethiopia ever produced, will place their names in the temple of immortality, to serve as examples and patterns for ages to come, whereby knightserrant may see the footsteps in which they must tread if they would attain the summit and crowning point of honour in arms. 'What Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha says, observed the curate, 'is the truth for he goes enchanted in this cart, not from any fault or sins of his, but because of the malevolence of those to whom virtue is odious and valour hateful. This, seor, is the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if you have ever heard him named, whose valiant achievements and mighty deeds shall be written on lasting brass and imperishable marble, notwithstanding all the efforts of envy to obscure them and malice to hide them. When the canon heard both the prisoner and the man who was at liberty talk in such a strain he was ready to cross himself in his astonishment, and could not make out what had befallen him and all his attendants were in the same state of amazement. At this point Sancho Panza, who had drawn near to hear the conversation, said, in order to make everything plain, 'Well, sirs, you may like or dislike what I am going to say, but the fact of the matter is, my master, Don Quixote, is just as much enchanted as my mother. He is in his full senses, he eats and he drinks, and he has his calls like other men and as he had yesterday, before they caged him. And if that's the case, what do they mean by wanting me to believe that he is enchanted? For I have heard many a one say that enchanted people neither eat, nor sleep, nor talk and my master, if you don't stop him, will talk more than thirty lawyers. Then turning to the curate he exclaimed, 'Ah, seor curate, seor curate! do you think I don't know you? Do you think I don't guess and see the drift of these new enchantments? Well then, I can tell you I know you, for all your face is covered, and I can tell you I am up to you, however you may hide your tricks. After all, where envy reigns virtue cannot live, and where there is niggardliness there can be no liberality. Ill betide the devil! if it had not been for your worship my master would be married to the Princess Micomicona this minute, and I should be a count at least for no less was to be expected, as well from the goodness of my master, him of the Rueful Countenance, as from the greatness of my services. But I see now how true it is what they say in these parts, that the wheel of fortune turns faster than a millwheel, and that those who were up yesterday are down today. I am sorry for my wife and children, for when they might fairly and reasonably expect to see their father return to them a governor or viceroy of some island or kingdom, they will see him come back a horseboy. I have said all this, seor curate, only to urge your paternity to lay to your conscience your illtreatment of my master and have a care that God does not call you to account in another life for making a prisoner of him in this way, and charge against you all the succours and good deeds that my lord Don Quixote leaves undone while he is shut up. 'Trim those lamps there! exclaimed the barber at this 'so you are of the same fraternity as your master, too, Sancho? By God, I begin to see that you will have to keep him company in the cage, and be enchanted like him for having caught some of his humour and chivalry. It was an evil hour when you let yourself be got with child by his promises, and that island you long so much for found its way into your head. 'I am not with child by anyone, returned Sancho, 'nor am I a man to let myself be got with child, if it was by the King himself. Though I am poor I am an old Christian, and I owe nothing to nobody, and if I long for an island, other people long for worse. Each of us is the son of his own works and being a man I may come to be pope, not to say governor of an island, especially as my master may win so many that he will not know whom to give them to. Mind how you talk, master barber for shaving is not everything, and there is some difference between Peter and Peter. I say this because we all know one another, and it will not do to throw false dice with me and as to the enchantment of my master, God knows the truth leave it as it is it only makes it worse to stir it. The barber did not care to answer Sancho lest by his plain speaking he should disclose what the curate and he himself were trying so hard to conceal and under the same apprehension the curate had asked the canon to ride on a little in advance, so that he might tell him the mystery of this man in the cage, and other things that would amuse him. The canon agreed, and going on ahead with his servants, listened with attention to the account of the character, life, madness, and ways of Don Quixote, given him by the curate, who described to him briefly the beginning and origin of his craze, and told him the whole story of his adventures up to his being confined in the cage, together with the plan they had of taking him home to try if by any means they could discover a cure for his madness. The canon and his servants were surprised anew when they heard Don Quixote's strange story, and when it was finished he said, 'To tell the truth, seor curate, I for my part consider what they call books of chivalry to be mischievous to the State and though, led by idle and false taste, I have read the beginnings of almost all that have been printed, I never could manage to read any one of them from beginning to end for it seems to me they are all more or less the same thing and one has nothing more in it than another this no more than that. And in my opinion this sort of writing and composition is of the same species as the fables they call the Milesian, nonsensical tales that aim solely at giving amusement and not instruction, exactly the opposite of the apologue fables which amuse and instruct at the same time. And though it may be the chief object of such books to amuse, I do not know how they can succeed, when they are so full of such monstrous nonsense. For the enjoyment the mind feels must come from the beauty and harmony which it perceives or contemplates in the things that the eye or the imagination brings before it and nothing that has any ugliness or disproportion about it can give any pleasure. What beauty, then, or what proportion of the parts to the whole, or of the whole to the parts, can there be in a book or fable where a lad of sixteen cuts down a giant as tall as a tower and makes two halves of him as if he was an almond cake? And when they want to give us a picture of a battle, after having told us that there are a million of combatants on the side of the enemy, let the hero of the book be opposed to them, and we have perforce to believe, whether we like it or not, that the said knight wins the victory by the single might of his strong arm. And then, what shall we say of the facility with which a born queen or empress will give herself over into the arms of some unknown wandering knight? What mind, that is not wholly barbarous and uncultured, can find pleasure in reading of how a great tower full of knights sails away across the sea like a ship with a fair wind, and will be tonight in Lombardy and tomorrow morning in the land of Prester John of the Indies, or some other that Ptolemy never described nor Marco Polo saw? And if, in answer to this, I am told that the authors of books of the kind write them as fiction, and therefore are not bound to regard niceties of truth, I would reply that fiction is all the better the more it looks like truth, and gives the more pleasure the more probability and possibility there is about it. Plots in fiction should be wedded to the understanding of the reader, and be constructed in such a way that, reconciling impossibilities, smoothing over difficulties, keeping the mind on the alert, they may surprise, interest, divert, and entertain, so that wonder and delight joined may keep pace one with the other all which he will fail to effect who shuns verisimilitude and truth to nature, wherein lies the perfection of writing. I have never yet seen any book of chivalry that puts together a connected plot complete in all its numbers, so that the middle agrees with the beginning, and the end with the beginning and middle on the contrary, they construct them with such a multitude of members that it seems as though they meant to produce a chimera or monster rather than a wellproportioned figure. And besides all this they are harsh in their style, incredible in their achievements, licentious in their amours, uncouth in their courtly speeches, prolix in their battles, silly in their arguments, absurd in their travels, and, in short, wanting in everything like intelligent art for which reason they deserve to be banished from the Christian commonwealth as a worthless breed. The curate listened to him attentively and felt that he was a man of sound understanding, and that there was good reason in what he said so he told him that, being of the same opinion himself, and bearing a grudge to books of chivalry, he had burned all Don Quixote's, which were many and gave him an account of the scrutiny he had made of them, and of those he had condemned to the flames and those he had spared, with which the canon was not a little amused, adding that though he had said so much in condemnation of these books, still he found one good thing in them, and that was the opportunity they afforded to a gifted intellect for displaying itself for they presented a wide and spacious field over which the pen might range freely, describing shipwrecks, tempests, combats, battles, portraying a valiant captain with all the qualifications requisite to make one, showing him sagacious in foreseeing the wiles of the enemy, eloquent in speech to encourage or restrain his soldiers, ripe in counsel, rapid in resolve, as bold in biding his time as in pressing the attack now picturing some sad tragic incident, now some joyful and unexpected event here a beauteous lady, virtuous, wise, and modest there a Christian knight, brave and gentle here a lawless, barbarous braggart there a courteous prince, gallant and gracious setting forth the devotion and loyalty of vassals, the greatness and generosity of nobles. 'Or again, said he, 'the author may show himself to be an astronomer, or a skilled cosmographer, or musician, or one versed in affairs of state, and sometimes he will have a chance of coming forward as a magician if he likes. He can set forth the craftiness of Ulysses, the piety of neas, the valour of Achilles, the misfortunes of Hector, the treachery of Sinon, the friendship of Euryalus, the generosity of Alexander, the boldness of Csar, the clemency and truth of Trajan, the fidelity of Zopyrus, the wisdom of Cato, and in short all the faculties that serve to make an illustrious man perfect, now uniting them in one individual, again distributing them among many and if this be done with charm of style and ingenious invention, aiming at the truth as much as possible, he will assuredly weave a web of bright and varied threads that, when finished, will display such perfection and beauty that it will attain the worthiest object any writing can seek, which, as I said before, is to give instruction and pleasure combined for the unrestricted range of these books enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric, tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning arts of poesy and oratory are capable of for the epic may be written in prose just as well as in verse. 'It is as you say, seor canon, said the curate 'and for that reason those who have hitherto written books of the sort deserve all the more censure for writing without paying any attention to good taste or the rules of art, by which they might guide themselves and become as famous in prose as the two princes of Greek and Latin poetry are in verse. 'I myself, at any rate, said the canon, 'was once tempted to write a book of chivalry in which all the points I have mentioned were to be observed and if I must own the truth I have more than a hundred sheets written and to try if it came up to my own opinion of it, I showed them to persons who were fond of this kind of reading, to learned and intelligent men as well as to ignorant people who cared for nothing but the pleasure of listening to nonsense, and from all I obtained flattering approval nevertheless I proceeded no farther with it, as well because it seemed to me an occupation inconsistent with my profession, as because I perceived that the fools are more numerous than the wise and, though it is better to be praised by the wise few than applauded by the foolish many, I have no mind to submit myself to the stupid judgment of the silly public, to whom the reading of such books falls for the most part. 'But what most of all made me hold my hand and even abandon all idea of finishing it was an argument I put to myself taken from the plays that are acted nowadays, which was in this wise if those that are now in vogue, as well those that are pure invention as those founded on history, are, all or most of them, downright nonsense and things that have neither head nor tail, and yet the public listens to them with delight, and regards and cries them up as perfection when they are so far from it and if the authors who write them, and the players who act them, say that this is what they must be, for the public wants this and will have nothing else and that those that go by rule and work out a plot according to the laws of art will only find some halfdozen intelligent people to understand them, while all the rest remain blind to the merit of their composition and that for themselves it is better to get bread from the many than praise from the few then my book will fare the same way, after I have burnt off my eyebrows in trying to observe the principles I have spoken of, and I shall be 'the tailor of the corner.' And though I have sometimes endeavoured to convince actors that they are mistaken in this notion they have adopted, and that they would attract more people, and get more credit, by producing plays in accordance with the rules of art, than by absurd ones, they are so thoroughly wedded to their own opinion that no argument or evidence can wean them from it. 'I remember saying one day to one of these obstinate fellows, 'Tell me, do you not recollect that a few years ago, there were three tragedies acted in Spain, written by a famous poet of these kingdoms, which were such that they filled all who heard them with admiration, delight, and interest, the ignorant as well as the wise, the masses as well as the higher orders, and brought in more money to the performers, these three alone, than thirty of the best that have been since produced?' ''No doubt,' replied the actor in question, 'you mean the 'Isabella, the 'Phyllis, and the 'Alexandra.' ''Those are the ones I mean,' said I 'and see if they did not observe the principles of art, and if, by observing them, they failed to show their superiority and please all the world so that the fault does not lie with the public that insists upon nonsense, but with those who don't know how to produce something else. 'The Ingratitude Revenged was not nonsense, nor was there any in 'The Numantia, nor any to be found in 'The Merchant Lover, nor yet in 'The Friendly Fair Foe, nor in some others that have been written by certain gifted poets, to their own fame and renown, and to the profit of those that brought them out' some further remarks I added to these, with which, I think, I left him rather dumbfoundered, but not so satisfied or convinced that I could disabuse him of his error. 'You have touched upon a subject, seor canon, observed the curate here, 'that has awakened an old enmity I have against the plays in vogue at the present day, quite as strong as that which I bear to the books of chivalry for while the drama, according to Tully, should be the mirror of human life, the model of manners, and the image of the truth, those which are presented nowadays are mirrors of nonsense, models of folly, and images of lewdness. For what greater nonsense can there be in connection with what we are now discussing than for an infant to appear in swaddling clothes in the first scene of the first act, and in the second a grownup bearded man? Or what greater absurdity can there be than putting before us an old man as a swashbuckler, a young man as a poltroon, a lackey using fine language, a page giving sage advice, a king plying as a porter, a princess who is a kitchenmaid? And then what shall I say of their attention to the time in which the action they represent may or can take place, save that I have seen a play where the first act began in Europe, the second in Asia, the third finished in Africa, and no doubt, had it been in four acts, the fourth would have ended in America, and so it would have been laid in all four quarters of the globe? And if truth to life is the main thing the drama should keep in view, how is it possible for any average understanding to be satisfied when the action is supposed to pass in the time of King Pepin or Charlemagne, and the principal personage in it they represent to be the Emperor Heraclius who entered Jerusalem with the cross and won the Holy Sepulchre, like Godfrey of Bouillon, there being years innumerable between the one and the other? or, if the play is based on fiction and historical facts are introduced, or bits of what occurred to different people and at different times mixed up with it, all, not only without any semblance of probability, but with obvious errors that from every point of view are inexcusable? And the worst of it is, there are ignorant people who say that this is perfection, and that anything beyond this is affected refinement. And then if we turn to sacred dramaswhat miracles they invent in them! What apocryphal, illdevised incidents, attributing to one saint the miracles of another! And even in secular plays they venture to introduce miracles without any reason or object except that they think some such miracle, or transformation as they call it, will come in well to astonish stupid people and draw them to the play. All this tends to the prejudice of the truth and the corruption of history, nay more, to the reproach of the wits of Spain for foreigners who scrupulously observe the laws of the drama look upon us as barbarous and ignorant, when they see the absurdity and nonsense of the plays we produce. Nor will it be a sufficient excuse to say that the chief object wellordered governments have in view when they permit plays to be performed in public is to entertain the people with some harmless amusement occasionally, and keep it from those evil humours which idleness is apt to engender and that, as this may be attained by any sort of play, good or bad, there is no need to lay down laws, or bind those who write or act them to make them as they ought to be made, since, as I say, the object sought for may be secured by any sort. To this I would reply that the same end would be, beyond all comparison, better attained by means of good plays than by those that are not so for after listening to an artistic and properly constructed play, the hearer will come away enlivened by the jests, instructed by the serious parts, full of admiration at the incidents, his wits sharpened by the arguments, warned by the tricks, all the wiser for the examples, inflamed against vice, and in love with virtue for in all these ways a good play will stimulate the mind of the hearer be he ever so boorish or dull and of all impossibilities the greatest is that a play endowed with all these qualities will not entertain, satisfy, and please much more than one wanting in them, like the greater number of those which are commonly acted nowadays. Nor are the poets who write them to be blamed for this for some there are among them who are perfectly well aware of their faults, and know what they ought to do but as plays have become a salable commodity, they say, and with truth, that the actors will not buy them unless they are after this fashion and so the poet tries to adapt himself to the requirements of the actor who is to pay him for his work. And that this is the truth may be seen by the countless plays that a most fertile wit of these kingdoms has written, with so much brilliancy, so much grace and gaiety, such polished versification, such choice language, such profound reflections, and in a word, so rich in eloquence and elevation of style, that he has filled the world with his fame and yet, in consequence of his desire to suit the taste of the actors, they have not all, as some of them have, come as near perfection as they ought. Others write plays with such heedlessness that, after they have been acted, the actors have to fly and abscond, afraid of being punished, as they often have been, for having acted something offensive to some king or other, or insulting to some noble family. All which evils, and many more that I say nothing of, would be removed if there were some intelligent and sensible person at the capital to examine all plays before they were acted, not only those produced in the capital itself, but all that were intended to be acted in Spain without whose approval, seal, and signature, no local magistracy should allow any play to be acted. In that case actors would take care to send their plays to the capital, and could act them in safety, and those who write them would be more careful and take more pains with their work, standing in awe of having to submit it to the strict examination of one who understood the matter and so good plays would be produced and the objects they aim at happily attained as well the amusement of the people, as the credit of the wits of Spain, the interest and safety of the actors, and the saving of trouble in inflicting punishment on them. And if the same or some other person were authorised to examine the newly written books of chivalry, no doubt some would appear with all the perfections you have described, enriching our language with the gracious and precious treasure of eloquence, and driving the old books into obscurity before the light of the new ones that would come out for the harmless entertainment, not merely of the idle but of the very busiest for the bow cannot be always bent, nor can weak human nature exist without some lawful amusement. The canon and the curate had proceeded thus far with their conversation, when the barber, coming forward, joined them, and said to the curate, 'This is the spot, seor licentiate, that I said was a good one for fresh and plentiful pasture for the oxen, while we take our noontide rest. 'And so it seems, returned the curate, and he told the canon what he proposed to do, on which he too made up his mind to halt with them, attracted by the aspect of the fair valley that lay before their eyes and to enjoy it as well as the conversation of the curate, to whom he had begun to take a fancy, and also to learn more particulars about the doings of Don Quixote, he desired some of his servants to go on to the inn, which was not far distant, and fetch from it what eatables there might be for the whole party, as he meant to rest for the afternoon where he was to which one of his servants replied that the sumpter mule, which by this time ought to have reached the inn, carried provisions enough to make it unnecessary to get anything from the inn except barley. 'In that case, said the canon, 'take all the beasts there, and bring the sumpter mule back. While this was going on, Sancho, perceiving that he could speak to his master without having the curate and the barber, of whom he had his suspicions, present all the time, approached the cage in which Don Quixote was placed, and said, 'Seor, to ease my conscience I want to tell you the state of the case as to your enchantment, and that is that these two here, with their faces covered, are the curate of our village and the barber and I suspect they have hit upon this plan of carrying you off in this fashion, out of pure envy because your worship surpasses them in doing famous deeds and if this be the truth it follows that you are not enchanted, but hoodwinked and made a fool of. And to prove this I want to ask you one thing and if you answer me as I believe you will answer, you will be able to lay your finger on the trick, and you will see that you are not enchanted but gone wrong in your wits. 'Ask what thou wilt, Sancho my son, returned Don Quixote, 'for I will satisfy thee and answer all thou requirest. As to what thou sayest, that these who accompany us yonder are the curate and the barber, our neighbours and acquaintances, it is very possible that they may seem to be those same persons but that they are so in reality and in fact, believe it not on any account what thou art to believe and think is that, if they look like them, as thou sayest, it must be that those who have enchanted me have taken this shape and likeness for it is easy for enchanters to take any form they please, and they may have taken those of our friends in order to make thee think as thou dost, and lead thee into a labyrinth of fancies from which thou wilt find no escape though thou hadst the cord of Theseus and they may also have done it to make me uncertain in my mind, and unable to conjecture whence this evil comes to me for if on the one hand thou dost tell me that the barber and curate of our village are here in company with us, and on the other I find myself shut up in a cage, and know in my heart that no power on earth that was not supernatural would have been able to shut me in, what wouldst thou have me say or think, but that my enchantment is of a sort that transcends all I have ever read of in all the histories that deal with knightserrant that have been enchanted? So thou mayest set thy mind at rest as to the idea that they are what thou sayest, for they are as much so as I am a Turk. But touching thy desire to ask me something, say on, and I will answer thee, though thou shouldst ask questions from this till tomorrow morning. 'May Our Lady be good to me! said Sancho, lifting up his voice 'and is it possible that your worship is so thick of skull and so short of brains that you cannot see that what I say is the simple truth, and that malice has more to do with your imprisonment and misfortune than enchantment? But as it is so, I will prove plainly to you that you are not enchanted. Now tell me, so may God deliver you from this affliction, and so may you find yourself when you least expect it in the arms of my lady Dulcinea 'Leave off conjuring me, said Don Quixote, 'and ask what thou wouldst know I have already told thee I will answer with all possible precision. 'That is what I want, said Sancho 'and what I would know, and have you tell me, without adding or leaving out anything, but telling the whole truth as one expects it to be told, and as it is told, by all who profess arms, as your worship professes them, under the title of knightserrant 'I tell thee I will not lie in any particular, said Don Quixote 'finish thy question for in truth thou weariest me with all these asseverations, requirements, and precautions, Sancho. 'Well, I rely on the goodness and truth of my master, said Sancho 'and so, because it bears upon what we are talking about, I would ask, speaking with all reverence, whether since your worship has been shut up and, as you think, enchanted in this cage, you have felt any desire or inclination to go anywhere, as the saying is? 'I do not understand 'going anywhere,' said Don Quixote 'explain thyself more clearly, Sancho, if thou wouldst have me give an answer to the point. 'Is it possible, said Sancho, 'that your worship does not understand 'going anywhere'? Why, the schoolboys know that from the time they were babes. Well then, you must know I mean have you had any desire to do what cannot be avoided? 'Ah! now I understand thee, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'yes, often, and even this minute get me out of this strait, or all will not go right. 'Aha, I have caught you, said Sancho 'this is what in my heart and soul I was longing to know. Come now, seor, can you deny what is commonly said around us, when a person is out of humour, 'I don't know what ails soandso, that he neither eats, nor drinks, nor sleeps, nor gives a proper answer to any question one would think he was enchanted'? From which it is to be gathered that those who do not eat, or drink, or sleep, or do any of the natural acts I am speaking ofthat such persons are enchanted but not those that have the desire your worship has, and drink when drink is given them, and eat when there is anything to eat, and answer every question that is asked them. 'What thou sayest is true, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'but I have already told thee there are many sorts of enchantments, and it may be that in the course of time they have been changed one for another, and that now it may be the way with enchanted people to do all that I do, though they did not do so before so it is vain to argue or draw inferences against the usage of the time. I know and feel that I am enchanted, and that is enough to ease my conscience for it would weigh heavily on it if I thought that I was not enchanted, and that in a fainthearted and cowardly way I allowed myself to lie in this cage, defrauding multitudes of the succour I might afford to those in need and distress, who at this very moment may be in sore want of my aid and protection. 'Still for all that, replied Sancho, 'I say that, for your greater and fuller satisfaction, it would be well if your worship were to try to get out of this prison (and I promise to do all in my power to help, and even to take you out of it), and see if you could once more mount your good Rocinante, who seems to be enchanted too, he is so melancholy and dejected and then we might try our chance in looking for adventures again and if we have no luck there will be time enough to go back to the cage in which, on the faith of a good and loyal squire, I promise to shut myself up along with your worship, if so be you are so unfortunate, or I so stupid, as not to be able to carry out my plan. 'I am content to do as thou sayest, brother Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and when thou seest an opportunity for effecting my release I will obey thee absolutely but thou wilt see, Sancho, how mistaken thou art in thy conception of my misfortune. The knighterrant and the illerrant squire kept up their conversation till they reached the place where the curate, the canon, and the barber, who had already dismounted, were waiting for them. The carter at once unyoked the oxen and left them to roam at large about the pleasant green spot, the freshness of which seemed to invite, not enchanted people like Don Quixote, but wideawake, sensible folk like his squire, who begged the curate to allow his master to leave the cage for a little for if they did not let him out, the prison might not be as clean as the propriety of such a gentleman as his master required. The curate understood him, and said he would very gladly comply with his request, only that he feared his master, finding himself at liberty, would take to his old courses and make off where nobody could ever find him again. 'I will answer for his not running away, said Sancho. 'And I also, said the canon, 'especially if he gives me his word as a knight not to leave us without our consent. Don Quixote, who was listening to all this, said, 'I give itmoreover one who is enchanted as I am cannot do as he likes with himself for he who had enchanted him could prevent his moving from one place for three ages, and if he attempted to escape would bring him back flying.And that being so, they might as well release him, particularly as it would be to the advantage of all for, if they did not let him out, he protested he would be unable to avoid offending their nostrils unless they kept their distance. The canon took his hand, tied together as they both were, and on his word and promise they unbound him, and rejoiced beyond measure he was to find himself out of the cage. The first thing he did was to stretch himself all over, and then he went to where Rocinante was standing and giving him a couple of slaps on the haunches said, 'I still trust in God and in his blessed mother, O flower and mirror of steeds, that we shall soon see ourselves, both of us, as we wish to be, thou with thy master on thy back, and I mounted upon thee, following the calling for which God sent me into the world. And so saying, accompanied by Sancho, he withdrew to a retired spot, from which he came back much relieved and more eager than ever to put his squire's scheme into execution. The canon gazed at him, wondering at the extraordinary nature of his madness, and that in all his remarks and replies he should show such excellent sense, and only lose his stirrups, as has been already said, when the subject of chivalry was broached. And so, moved by compassion, he said to him, as they all sat on the green grass awaiting the arrival of the provisions 'Is it possible, gentle sir, that the nauseous and idle reading of books of chivalry can have had such an effect on your worship as to upset your reason so that you fancy yourself enchanted, and the like, all as far from the truth as falsehood itself is? How can there be any human understanding that can persuade itself there ever was all that infinity of Amadises in the world, or all that multitude of famous knights, all those emperors of Trebizond, all those Felixmartes of Hircania, all those palfreys, and damselserrant, and serpents, and monsters, and giants, and marvellous adventures, and enchantments of every kind, and battles, and prodigious encounters, splendid costumes, lovesick princesses, squires made counts, droll dwarfs, love letters, billings and cooings, swashbuckler women, and, in a word, all that nonsense the books of chivalry contain? For myself, I can only say that when I read them, so long as I do not stop to think that they are all lies and frivolity, they give me a certain amount of pleasure but when I come to consider what they are, I fling the very best of them at the wall, and would fling it into the fire if there were one at hand, as richly deserving such punishment as cheats and impostors out of the range of ordinary toleration, and as founders of new sects and modes of life, and teachers that lead the ignorant public to believe and accept as truth all the folly they contain. And such is their audacity, they even dare to unsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence, as is shown plainly by the way they have served your worship, when they have brought you to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage and carried on an oxcart as one would carry a lion or a tiger from place to place to make money by showing it. Come, Seor Don Quixote, have some compassion for yourself, return to the bosom of common sense, and make use of the liberal share of it that heaven has been pleased to bestow upon you, employing your abundant gifts of mind in some other reading that may serve to benefit your conscience and add to your honour. And if, still led away by your natural bent, you desire to read books of achievements and of chivalry, read the Book of Judges in the Holy Scriptures, for there you will find grand reality, and deeds as true as they are heroic. Lusitania had a Viriatus, Rome a Csar, Carthage a Hannibal, Greece an Alexander, Castile a Count Fernan Gonzalez, Valencia a Cid, Andalusia a Gonzalo Fernandez, Estremadura a Diego Garca de Paredes, Jerez a Garci Perez de Vargas, Toledo a Garcilaso, Seville a Don Manuel de Leon, to read of whose valiant deeds will entertain and instruct the loftiest minds and fill them with delight and wonder. Here, Seor Don Quixote, will be reading worthy of your sound understanding from which you will rise learned in history, in love with virtue, strengthened in goodness, improved in manners, brave without rashness, prudent without cowardice and all to the honour of God, your own advantage and the glory of La Mancha, whence, I am informed, your worship derives your birth. Don Quixote listened with the greatest attention to the canon's words, and when he found he had finished, after regarding him for some time, he replied to him 'It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship's discourse is intended to persuade me that there never were any knightserrant in the world, and that all the books of chivalry are false, lying, mischievous and useless to the State, and that I have done wrong in reading them, and worse in believing them, and still worse in imitating them, when I undertook to follow the arduous calling of knighterrantry which they set forth for you deny that there ever were Amadises of Gaul or of Greece, or any other of the knights of whom the books are full. 'It is all exactly as you state it, said the canon to which Don Quixote returned, 'You also went on to say that books of this kind had done me much harm, inasmuch as they had upset my senses, and shut me up in a cage, and that it would be better for me to reform and change my studies, and read other truer books which would afford more pleasure and instruction. 'Just so, said the canon. 'Well then, returned Don Quixote, 'to my mind it is you who are the one that is out of his wits and enchanted, as you have ventured to utter such blasphemies against a thing so universally acknowledged and accepted as true that whoever denies it, as you do, deserves the same punishment which you say you inflict on the books that irritate you when you read them. For to try to persuade anybody that Amadis, and all the other knightsadventurers with whom the books are filled, never existed, would be like trying to persuade him that the sun does not yield light, or ice cold, or earth nourishment. What wit in the world can persuade another that the story of the Princess Floripes and Guy of Burgundy is not true, or that of Fierabras and the bridge of Mantible, which happened in the time of Charlemagne? For by all that is good it is as true as that it is daylight now and if it be a lie, it must be a lie too that there was a Hector, or Achilles, or Trojan war, or Twelve Peers of France, or Arthur of England, who still lives changed into a raven, and is unceasingly looked for in his kingdom. One might just as well try to make out that the history of Guarino Mezquino, or of the quest of the Holy Grail, is false, or that the loves of Tristram and the Queen Yseult are apocryphal, as well as those of Guinevere and Lancelot, when there are persons who can almost remember having seen the Dame Quintaona, who was the best cupbearer in Great Britain. And so true is this, that I recollect a grandmother of mine on the father's side, whenever she saw any dame in a venerable hood, used to say to me, 'Grandson, that one is like Dame Quintaona,' from which I conclude that she must have known her, or at least had managed to see some portrait of her. Then who can deny that the story of Pierres and the fair Magalona is true, when even to this day may be seen in the king's armoury the pin with which the valiant Pierres guided the wooden horse he rode through the air, and it is a trifle bigger than the pole of a cart? And alongside of the pin is Babieca's saddle, and at Roncesvalles there is Roland's horn, as large as a large beam whence we may infer that there were Twelve Peers, and a Pierres, and a Cid, and other knights like them, of the sort people commonly call adventurers. Or perhaps I shall be told, too, that there was no such knighterrant as the valiant Lusitanian Juan de Merlo, who went to Burgundy and in the city of Arras fought with the famous lord of Charny, Mosen Pierres by name, and afterwards in the city of Basle with Mosen Enrique de Remesten, coming out of both encounters covered with fame and honour or adventures and challenges achieved and delivered, also in Burgundy, by the valiant Spaniards Pedro Barba and Gutierre Quixada (of whose family I come in the direct male line), when they vanquished the sons of the Count of San Polo. I shall be told, too, that Don Fernando de Guevara did not go in quest of adventures to Germany, where he engaged in combat with Micer George, a knight of the house of the Duke of Austria. I shall be told that the jousts of Suero de Quiones, him of the 'Paso,' and the emprise of Mosen Luis de Falces against the Castilian knight, Don Gonzalo de Guzman, were mere mockeries as well as many other achievements of Christian knights of these and foreign realms, which are so authentic and true, that, I repeat, he who denies them must be totally wanting in reason and good sense. The canon was amazed to hear the medley of truth and fiction Don Quixote uttered, and to see how well acquainted he was with everything relating or belonging to the achievements of his knighterrantry so he said in reply 'I cannot deny, Seor Don Quixote, that there is some truth in what you say, especially as regards the Spanish knightserrant and I am willing to grant too that the Twelve Peers of France existed, but I am not disposed to believe that they did all the things that the Archbishop Turpin relates of them. For the truth of the matter is they were knights chosen by the kings of France, and called 'Peers' because they were all equal in worth, rank and prowess (at least if they were not they ought to have been), and it was a kind of religious order like those of Santiago and Calatrava in the present day, in which it is assumed that those who take it are valiant knights of distinction and good birth and just as we say now a Knight of St. John, or of Alcntara, they used to say then a Knight of the Twelve Peers, because twelve equals were chosen for that military order. That there was a Cid, as well as a Bernardo del Carpio, there can be no doubt but that they did the deeds people say they did, I hold to be very doubtful. In that other matter of the pin of Count Pierres that you speak of, and say is near Babieca's saddle in the Armoury, I confess my sin for I am either so stupid or so shortsighted, that, though I have seen the saddle, I have never been able to see the pin, in spite of it being as big as your worship says it is. 'For all that it is there, without any manner of doubt, said Don Quixote 'and more by token they say it is inclosed in a sheath of cowhide to keep it from rusting. 'All that may be, replied the canon 'but, by the orders I have received, I do not remember seeing it. However, granting it is there, that is no reason why I am bound to believe the stories of all those Amadises and of all that multitude of knights they tell us about, nor is it reasonable that a man like your worship, so worthy, and with so many good qualities, and endowed with such a good understanding, should allow himself to be persuaded that such wild crazy things as are written in those absurd books of chivalry are really true. 'A good joke, that! returned Don Quixote. 'Books that have been printed with the king's licence, and with the approbation of those to whom they have been submitted, and read with universal delight, and extolled by great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, gentle and simple, in a word by people of every sort, of whatever rank or condition they may bethat these should be lies! And above all when they carry such an appearance of truth with them for they tell us the father, mother, country, kindred, age, place, and the achievements, step by step, and day by day, performed by such a knight or knights! Hush, sir utter not such blasphemy trust me I am advising you now to act as a sensible man should only read them, and you will see the pleasure you will derive from them. For, come, tell me, can there be anything more delightful than to see, as it were, here now displayed before us a vast lake of bubbling pitch with a host of snakes and serpents and lizards, and ferocious and terrible creatures of all sorts swimming about in it, while from the middle of the lake there comes a plaintive voice saying 'Knight, whosoever thou art who beholdest this dread lake, if thou wouldst win the prize that lies hidden beneath these dusky waves, prove the valour of thy stout heart and cast thyself into the midst of its dark burning waters, else thou shalt not be worthy to see the mighty wonders contained in the seven castles of the seven Fays that lie beneath this black expanse' and then the knight, almost ere the awful voice has ceased, without stopping to consider, without pausing to reflect upon the danger to which he is exposing himself, without even relieving himself of the weight of his massive armour, commending himself to God and to his lady, plunges into the midst of the boiling lake, and when he little looks for it, or knows what his fate is to be, he finds himself among flowery meadows, with which the Elysian fields are not to be compared. 'The sky seems more transparent there, and the sun shines with a strange brilliancy, and a delightful grove of green leafy trees presents itself to the eyes and charms the sight with its verdure, while the ear is soothed by the sweet untutored melody of the countless birds of gay plumage that flit to and fro among the interlacing branches. Here he sees a brook whose limpid waters, like liquid crystal, ripple over fine sands and white pebbles that look like sifted gold and purest pearls. There he perceives a cunningly wrought fountain of manycoloured jasper and polished marble here another of rustic fashion where the little musselshells and the spiral white and yellow mansions of the snail disposed in studious disorder, mingled with fragments of glittering crystal and mock emeralds, make up a work of varied aspect, where art, imitating nature, seems to have outdone it. 'Suddenly there is presented to his sight a strong castle or gorgeous palace with walls of massy gold, turrets of diamond and gates of jacinth in short, so marvellous is its structure that though the materials of which it is built are nothing less than diamonds, carbuncles, rubies, pearls, gold, and emeralds, the workmanship is still more rare. And after having seen all this, what can be more charming than to see how a bevy of damsels comes forth from the gate of the castle in gay and gorgeous attire, such that, were I to set myself now to depict it as the histories describe it to us, I should never have done and then how she who seems to be the first among them all takes the bold knight who plunged into the boiling lake by the hand, and without addressing a word to him leads him into the rich palace or castle, and strips him as naked as when his mother bore him, and bathes him in lukewarm water, and anoints him all over with sweetsmelling unguents, and clothes him in a shirt of the softest sendal, all scented and perfumed, while another damsel comes and throws over his shoulders a mantle which is said to be worth at the very least a city, and even more? How charming it is, then, when they tell us how, after all this, they lead him to another chamber where he finds the tables set out in such style that he is filled with amazement and wonder to see how they pour out water for his hands distilled from amber and sweetscented flowers how they seat him on an ivory chair to see how the damsels wait on him all in profound silence how they bring him such a variety of dainties so temptingly prepared that the appetite is at a loss which to select to hear the music that resounds while he is at table, by whom or whence produced he knows not. And then when the repast is over and the tables removed, for the knight to recline in the chair, picking his teeth perhaps as usual, and a damsel, much lovelier than any of the others, to enter unexpectedly by the chamber door, and herself by his side, and begin to tell him what the castle is, and how she is held enchanted there, and other things that amaze the knight and astonish the readers who are perusing his history. 'But I will not expatiate any further upon this, as it may be gathered from it that whatever part of whatever history of a knighterrant one reads, it will fill the reader, whoever he be, with delight and wonder and take my advice, sir, and, as I said before, read these books and you will see how they will banish any melancholy you may feel and raise your spirits should they be depressed. For myself I can say that since I have been a knighterrant I have become valiant, polite, generous, wellbred, magnanimous, courteous, dauntless, gentle, patient, and have learned to bear hardships, imprisonments, and enchantments and though it be such a short time since I have seen myself shut up in a cage like a madman, I hope by the might of my arm, if heaven aid me and fortune thwart me not, to see myself king of some kingdom where I may be able to show the gratitude and generosity that dwell in my heart for by my faith, seor, the poor man is incapacitated from showing the virtue of generosity to anyone, though he may possess it in the highest degree and gratitude that consists of disposition only is a dead thing, just as faith without works is dead. For this reason I should be glad were fortune soon to offer me some opportunity of making myself an emperor, so as to show my heart in doing good to my friends, particularly to this poor Sancho Panza, my squire, who is the best fellow in the world and I would gladly give him a county I have promised him this ever so long, only that I am afraid he has not the capacity to govern his realm. Sancho partly heard these last words of his master, and said to him, 'Strive hard you, Seor Don Quixote, to give me that county so often promised by you and so long looked for by me, for I promise you there will be no want of capacity in me to govern it and even if there is, I have heard say there are men in the world who farm seigniories, paying so much a year, and they themselves taking charge of the government, while the lord, with his legs stretched out, enjoys the revenue they pay him, without troubling himself about anything else. That's what I'll do, and not stand haggling over trifles, but wash my hands at once of the whole business, and enjoy my rents like a duke, and let things go their own way. 'That, brother Sancho, said the canon, 'only holds good as far as the enjoyment of the revenue goes but the lord of the seigniory must attend to the administration of justice, and here capacity and sound judgment come in, and above all a firm determination to find out the truth for if this be wanting in the beginning, the middle and the end will always go wrong and God as commonly aids the honest intentions of the simple as he frustrates the evil designs of the crafty. 'I don't understand those philosophies, returned Sancho Panza 'all I know is I would I had the county as soon as I shall know how to govern it for I have as much soul as another, and as much body as anyone, and I shall be as much king of my realm as any other of his and being so I should do as I liked, and doing as I liked I should please myself, and pleasing myself I should be content, and when one is content he has nothing more to desire, and when one has nothing more to desire there is an end of it so let the county come, and God be with you, and let us see one another, as one blind man said to the other. 'That is not bad philosophy thou art talking, Sancho, said the canon 'but for all that there is a good deal to be said on this matter of counties. To which Don Quixote returned, 'I know not what more there is to be said I only guide myself by the example set me by the great Amadis of Gaul, when he made his squire count of the Insula Firme and so, without any scruples of conscience, I can make a count of Sancho Panza, for he is one of the best squires that ever knighterrant had. The canon was astonished at the methodical nonsense (if nonsense be capable of method) that Don Quixote uttered, at the way in which he had described the adventure of the knight of the lake, at the impression that the deliberate lies of the books he read had made upon him, and lastly he marvelled at the simplicity of Sancho, who desired so eagerly to obtain the county his master had promised him. By this time the canon's servants, who had gone to the inn to fetch the sumpter mule, had returned, and making a carpet and the green grass of the meadow serve as a table, they seated themselves in the shade of some trees and made their repast there, that the carter might not be deprived of the advantage of the spot, as has been already said. As they were eating they suddenly heard a loud noise and the sound of a bell that seemed to come from among some brambles and thick bushes that were close by, and the same instant they observed a beautiful goat, spotted all over black, white, and brown, spring out of the thicket with a goatherd after it, calling to it and uttering the usual cries to make it stop or turn back to the fold. The fugitive goat, scared and frightened, ran towards the company as if seeking their protection and then stood still, and the goatherd coming up seized it by the horns and began to talk to it as if it were possessed of reason and understanding 'Ah wanderer, wanderer, Spotty, Spotty how have you gone limping all this time? What wolves have frightened you, my daughter? Won't you tell me what is the matter, my beauty? But what else can it be except that you are a she, and cannot keep quiet? A plague on your humours and the humours of those you take after! Come back, come back, my darling and if you will not be so happy, at any rate you will be safe in the fold or with your companions for if you who ought to keep and lead them, go wandering astray, what will become of them? The goatherd's talk amused all who heard it, but especially the canon, who said to him, 'As you live, brother, take it easy, and be not in such a hurry to drive this goat back to the fold for, being a female, as you say, she will follow her natural instinct in spite of all you can do to prevent it. Take this morsel and drink a sup, and that will soothe your irritation, and in the meantime the goat will rest herself, and so saying, he handed him the loins of a cold rabbit on a fork. The goatherd took it with thanks, and drank and calmed himself, and then said, 'I should be sorry if your worships were to take me for a simpleton for having spoken so seriously as I did to this animal but the truth is there is a certain mystery in the words I used. I am a clown, but not so much of one but that I know how to behave to men and to beasts. 'That I can well believe, said the curate, 'for I know already by experience that the woods breed men of learning, and shepherds' huts harbour philosophers. 'At all events, seor, returned the goatherd, 'they shelter men of experience and that you may see the truth of this and grasp it, though I may seem to put myself forward without being asked, I will, if it will not tire you, gentlemen, and you will give me your attention for a little, tell you a true story which will confirm this gentleman's word (and he pointed to the curate) as well as my own. To this Don Quixote replied, 'Seeing that this affair has a certain colour of chivalry about it, I for my part, brother, will hear you most gladly, and so will all these gentlemen, from the high intelligence they possess and their love of curious novelties that interest, charm, and entertain the mind, as I feel quite sure your story will do. So begin, friend, for we are all prepared to listen. 'I draw my stakes, said Sancho, 'and will retreat with this pasty to the brook there, where I mean to victual myself for three days for I have heard my lord, Don Quixote, say that a knighterrant's squire should eat until he can hold no more, whenever he has the chance, because it often happens them to get by accident into a wood so thick that they cannot find a way out of it for six days and if the man is not well filled or his alforjas well stored, there he may stay, as very often he does, turned into a dried mummy. 'Thou art in the right of it, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'go where thou wilt and eat all thou canst, for I have had enough, and only want to give my mind its refreshment, as I shall by listening to this good fellow's story. 'It is what we shall all do, said the canon and then begged the goatherd to begin the promised tale. The goatherd gave the goat which he held by the horns a couple of slaps on the back, saying, 'Lie down here beside me, Spotty, for we have time enough to return to our fold. The goat seemed to understand him, for as her master seated himself, she stretched herself quietly beside him and looked up in his face to show him she was all attention to what he was going to say, and then in these words he began his story. Three leagues from this valley there is a village which, though small, is one of the richest in all this neighbourhood, and in it there lived a farmer, a very worthy man, and so much respected that, although to be so is the natural consequence of being rich, he was even more respected for his virtue than for the wealth he had acquired. But what made him still more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary gifts with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen she was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad through all the villages aroundbut why do I say the villages around, merely, when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls of royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from all sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or some wonderworking image? Her father watched over her and she watched over herself for there are no locks, or guards, or bolts that can protect a young girl better than her own modesty. The wealth of the father and the beauty of the daughter led many neighbours as well as strangers to seek her for a wife but he, as one might well be who had the disposal of so rich a jewel, was perplexed and unable to make up his mind to which of her countless suitors he should entrust her. I was one among the many who felt a desire so natural, and, as her father knew who I was, and I was of the same town, of pure blood, in the bloom of life, and very rich in possessions, I had great hopes of success. There was another of the same place and qualifications who also sought her, and this made her father's choice hang in the balance, for he felt that on either of us his daughter would be well bestowed so to escape from this state of perplexity he resolved to refer the matter to Leandra (for that is the name of the rich damsel who has reduced me to misery), reflecting that as we were both equal it would be best to leave it to his dear daughter to choose according to her inclinationa course that is worthy of imitation by all fathers who wish to settle their children in life. I do not mean that they ought to leave them to make a choice of what is contemptible and bad, but that they should place before them what is good and then allow them to make a good choice as they please. I do not know which Leandra chose I only know her father put us both off with the tender age of his daughter and vague words that neither bound him nor dismissed us. My rival is called Anselmo and I myself Eugeniothat you may know the names of the personages that figure in this tragedy, the end of which is still in suspense, though it is plain to see it must be disastrous. About this time there arrived in our town one Vicente de la Roca, the son of a poor peasant of the same town, the said Vicente having returned from service as a soldier in Italy and divers other parts. A captain who chanced to pass that way with his company had carried him off from our village when he was a boy of about twelve years, and now twelve years later the young man came back in a soldier's uniform, arrayed in a thousand colours, and all over glass trinkets and fine steel chains. Today he would appear in one gay dress, tomorrow in another but all flimsy and gaudy, of little substance and less worth. The peasant folk, who are naturally malicious, and when they have nothing to do can be malice itself, remarked all this, and took note of his finery and jewellery, piece by piece, and discovered that he had three suits of different colours, with garters and stockings to match but he made so many arrangements and combinations out of them, that if they had not counted them, anyone would have sworn that he had made a display of more than ten suits of clothes and twenty plumes. Do not look upon all this that I am telling you about the clothes as uncalled for or spun out, for they have a great deal to do with the story. He used to seat himself on a bench under the great poplar in our plaza, and there he would keep us all hanging openmouthed on the stories he told us of his exploits. There was no country on the face of the globe he had not seen, nor battle he had not been engaged in he had killed more Moors than there are in Morocco and Tunis, and fought more single combats, according to his own account, than Garcilaso, Diego Garca de Paredes and a thousand others he named, and out of all he had come victorious without losing a drop of blood. On the other hand he showed marks of wounds, which, though they could not be made out, he said were gunshot wounds received in divers encounters and actions. Lastly, with monstrous impudence he used to say 'you to his equals and even those who knew what he was, and declare that his arm was his father and his deeds his pedigree, and that being a soldier he was as good as the king himself. And to add to these swaggering ways he was a trifle of a musician, and played the guitar with such a flourish that some said he made it speak nor did his accomplishments end here, for he was something of a poet too, and on every trifle that happened in the town he made a ballad a league long. This soldier, then, that I have described, this Vicente de la Roca, this bravo, gallant, musician, poet, was often seen and watched by Leandra from a window of her house which looked out on the plaza. The glitter of his showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her (for he gave away twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his exploits which he told about himself came to her ears and in short, as the devil no doubt had arranged it, she fell in love with him before the presumption of making love to her had suggested itself to him and as in loveaffairs none are more easily brought to an issue than those which have the inclination of the lady for an ally, Leandra and Vicente came to an understanding without any difficulty and before any of her numerous suitors had any suspicion of her design, she had already carried it into effect, having left the house of her dearly beloved father (for mother she had none), and disappeared from the village with the soldier, who came more triumphantly out of this enterprise than out of any of the large number he laid claim to. All the village and all who heard of it were amazed at the affair I was aghast, Anselmo thunderstruck, her father full of grief, her relations indignant, the authorities all in a ferment, the officers of the Brotherhood in arms. They scoured the roads, they searched the woods and all quarters, and at the end of three days they found the flighty Leandra in a mountain cave, stript to her shift, and robbed of all the money and precious jewels she had carried away from home with her. They brought her back to her unhappy father, and questioned her as to her misfortune, and she confessed without pressure that Vicente de la Roca had deceived her, and under promise of marrying her had induced her to leave her father's house, as he meant to take her to the richest and most delightful city in the whole world, which was Naples and that she, illadvised and deluded, had believed him, and robbed her father, and handed over all to him the night she disappeared and that he had carried her away to a rugged mountain and shut her up in the cave where they had found her. She said, moreover, that the soldier, without robbing her of her honour, had taken from her everything she had, and made off, leaving her in the cave, a thing that still further surprised everybody. It was not easy for us to credit the young man's continence, but she asserted it with such earnestness that it helped to console her distressed father, who thought nothing of what had been taken since the jewel that once lost can never be recovered had been left to his daughter. The same day that Leandra made her appearance her father removed her from our sight and took her away to shut her up in a convent in a town near this, in the hope that time may wear away some of the disgrace she has incurred. Leandra's youth furnished an excuse for her fault, at least with those to whom it was of no consequence whether she was good or bad but those who knew her shrewdness and intelligence did not attribute her misdemeanour to ignorance but to wantonness and the natural disposition of women, which is for the most part flighty and illregulated. Leandra withdrawn from sight, Anselmo's eyes grew blind, or at any rate found nothing to look at that gave them any pleasure, and mine were in darkness without a ray of light to direct them to anything enjoyable while Leandra was away. Our melancholy grew greater, our patience grew less we cursed the soldier's finery and railed at the carelessness of Leandra's father. At last Anselmo and I agreed to leave the village and come to this valley and, he feeding a great flock of sheep of his own, and I a large herd of goats of mine, we pass our life among the trees, giving vent to our sorrows, together singing the fair Leandra's praises, or upbraiding her, or else sighing alone, and to heaven pouring forth our complaints in solitude. Following our example, many more of Leandra's lovers have come to these rude mountains and adopted our mode of life, and they are so numerous that one would fancy the place had been turned into the pastoral Arcadia, so full is it of shepherds and sheepfolds nor is there a spot in it where the name of the fair Leandra is not heard. Here one curses her and calls her capricious, fickle, and immodest, there another condemns her as frail and frivolous this pardons and absolves her, that spurns and reviles her one extols her beauty, another assails her character, and in short all abuse her, and all adore her, and to such a pitch has this general infatuation gone that there are some who complain of her scorn without ever having exchanged a word with her, and even some that bewail and mourn the raging fever of jealousy, for which she never gave anyone cause, for, as I have already said, her misconduct was known before her passion. There is no nook among the rocks, no brookside, no shade beneath the trees that is not haunted by some shepherd telling his woes to the breezes wherever there is an echo it repeats the name of Leandra the mountains ring with 'Leandra, 'Leandra murmur the brooks, and Leandra keeps us all bewildered and bewitched, hoping without hope and fearing without knowing what we fear. Of all this silly set the one that shows the least and also the most sense is my rival Anselmo, for having so many other things to complain of, he only complains of separation, and to the accompaniment of a rebeck, which he plays admirably, he sings his complaints in verses that show his ingenuity. I follow another, easier, and to my mind wiser course, and that is to rail at the frivolity of women, at their inconstancy, their double dealing, their broken promises, their unkept pledges, and in short the want of reflection they show in fixing their affections and inclinations. This, sirs, was the reason of words and expressions I made use of to this goat when I came up just now for as she is a female I have a contempt for her, though she is the best in all my fold. This is the story I promised to tell you, and if I have been tedious in telling it, I will not be slow to serve you my hut is close by, and I have fresh milk and dainty cheese there, as well as a variety of toothsome fruit, no less pleasing to the eye than to the palate. The goatherd's tale gave great satisfaction to all the hearers, and the canon especially enjoyed it, for he had remarked with particular attention the manner in which it had been told, which was as unlike the manner of a clownish goatherd as it was like that of a polished city wit and he observed that the curate had been quite right in saying that the woods bred men of learning. They all offered their services to Eugenio but he who showed himself most liberal in this way was Don Quixote, who said to him, 'Most assuredly, brother goatherd, if I found myself in a position to attempt any adventure, I would, this very instant, set out on your behalf, and would rescue Leandra from that convent (where no doubt she is kept against her will), in spite of the abbess and all who might try to prevent me, and would place her in your hands to deal with her according to your will and pleasure, observing, however, the laws of chivalry which lay down that no violence of any kind is to be offered to any damsel. But I trust in God our Lord that the might of one malignant enchanter may not prove so great but that the power of another better disposed may prove superior to it, and then I promise you my support and assistance, as I am bound to do by my profession, which is none other than to give aid to the weak and needy. The goatherd eyed him, and noticing Don Quixote's sorry appearance and looks, he was filled with wonder, and asked the barber, who was next him, 'Seor, who is this man who makes such a figure and talks in such a strain? 'Who should it be, said the barber, 'but the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the undoer of injustice, the righter of wrongs, the protector of damsels, the terror of giants, and the winner of battles? 'That, said the goatherd, 'sounds like what one reads in the books of the knightserrant, who did all that you say this man does though it is my belief that either you are joking, or else this gentleman has empty lodgings in his head. 'You are a great scoundrel, said Don Quixote, 'and it is you who are empty and a fool. I am fuller than ever was the whoreson bitch that bore you and passing from words to deeds, he caught up a loaf that was near him and sent it full in the goatherd's face, with such force that he flattened his nose but the goatherd, who did not understand jokes, and found himself roughly handled in such good earnest, paying no respect to carpet, tablecloth, or diners, sprang upon Don Quixote, and seizing him by the throat with both hands would no doubt have throttled him, had not Sancho Panza that instant come to the rescue, and grasping him by the shoulders flung him down on the table, smashing plates, breaking glasses, and upsetting and scattering everything on it. Don Quixote, finding himself free, strove to get on top of the goatherd, who, with his face covered with blood, and soundly kicked by Sancho, was on all fours feeling about for one of the tableknives to take a bloody revenge with. The canon and the curate, however, prevented him, but the barber so contrived it that he got Don Quixote under him, and rained down upon him such a shower of fisticuffs that the poor knight's face streamed with blood as freely as his own. The canon and the curate were bursting with laughter, the officers were capering with delight, and both the one and the other hissed them on as they do dogs that are worrying one another in a fight. Sancho alone was frantic, for he could not free himself from the grasp of one of the canon's servants, who kept him from going to his master's assistance. At last, while they were all, with the exception of the two bruisers who were mauling each other, in high glee and enjoyment, they heard a trumpet sound a note so doleful that it made them all look in the direction whence the sound seemed to come. But the one that was most excited by hearing it was Don Quixote, who though sorely against his will he was under the goatherd, and something more than pretty well pummelled, said to him, 'Brother devil (for it is impossible but that thou must be one since thou hast had might and strength enough to overcome mine), I ask thee to agree to a truce for but one hour for the solemn note of yonder trumpet that falls on our ears seems to me to summon me to some new adventure. The goatherd, who was by this time tired of pummelling and being pummelled, released him at once, and Don Quixote rising to his feet and turning his eyes to the quarter where the sound had been heard, suddenly saw coming down the slope of a hill several men clad in white like penitents. The fact was that the clouds had that year withheld their moisture from the earth, and in all the villages of the district they were organising processions, rogations, and penances, imploring God to open the hands of his mercy and send the rain and to this end the people of a village that was hard by were going in procession to a holy hermitage there was on one side of that valley. Don Quixote when he saw the strange garb of the penitents, without reflecting how often he had seen it before, took it into his head that this was a case of adventure, and that it fell to him alone as a knighterrant to engage in it and he was all the more confirmed in this notion, by the idea that an image draped in black they had with them was some illustrious lady that these villains and discourteous thieves were carrying off by force. As soon as this occurred to him he ran with all speed to Rocinante who was grazing at large, and taking the bridle and the buckler from the saddlebow, he had him bridled in an instant, and calling to Sancho for his sword he mounted Rocinante, braced his buckler on his arm, and in a loud voice exclaimed to those who stood by, 'Now, noble company, ye shall see how important it is that there should be knights in the world professing the order of knighterrantry now, I say, ye shall see, by the deliverance of that worthy lady who is borne captive there, whether knightserrant deserve to be held in estimation, and so saying he brought his legs to bear on Rocinantefor he had no spursand at a full canter (for in all this veracious history we never read of Rocinante fairly galloping) set off to encounter the penitents, though the curate, the canon, and the barber ran to prevent him. But it was out of their power, nor did he even stop for the shouts of Sancho calling after him, 'Where are you going, Seor Don Quixote? What devils have possessed you to set you on against our Catholic faith? Plague take me! mind, that is a procession of penitents, and the lady they are carrying on that stand there is the blessed image of the immaculate Virgin. Take care what you are doing, seor, for this time it may be safely said you don't know what you are about. Sancho laboured in vain, for his master was so bent on coming to quarters with these sheeted figures and releasing the lady in black that he did not hear a word and even had he heard, he would not have turned back if the king had ordered him. He came up with the procession and reined in Rocinante, who was already anxious enough to slacken speed a little, and in a hoarse, excited voice he exclaimed, 'You who hide your faces, perhaps because you are not good subjects, pay attention and listen to what I am about to say to you. The first to halt were those who were carrying the image, and one of the four ecclesiastics who were chanting the Litany, struck by the strange figure of Don Quixote, the leanness of Rocinante, and the other ludicrous peculiarities he observed, said in reply to him, 'Brother, if you have anything to say to us say it quickly, for these brethren are whipping themselves, and we cannot stop, nor is it reasonable we should stop to hear anything, unless indeed it is short enough to be said in two words. 'I will say it in one, replied Don Quixote, 'and it is this that at once, this very instant, ye release that fair lady whose tears and sad aspect show plainly that ye are carrying her off against her will, and that ye have committed some scandalous outrage against her and I, who was born into the world to redress all such like wrongs, will not permit you to advance another step until you have restored to her the liberty she pines for and deserves. From these words all the hearers concluded that he must be a madman, and began to laugh heartily, and their laughter acted like gunpowder on Don Quixote's fury, for drawing his sword without another word he made a rush at the stand. One of those who supported it, leaving the burden to his comrades, advanced to meet him, flourishing a forked stick that he had for propping up the stand when resting, and with this he caught a mighty cut Don Quixote made at him that severed it in two but with the portion that remained in his hand he dealt such a thwack on the shoulder of Don Quixote's sword arm (which the buckler could not protect against the clownish assault) that poor Don Quixote came to the ground in a sad plight. Sancho Panza, who was coming on close behind puffing and blowing, seeing him fall, cried out to his assailant not to strike him again, for he was a poor enchanted knight, who had never harmed anyone all the days of his life but what checked the clown was, not Sancho's shouting, but seeing that Don Quixote did not stir hand or foot and so, fancying he had killed him, he hastily hitched up his tunic under his girdle and took to his heels across the country like a deer. By this time all Don Quixote's companions had come up to where he lay but the processionists seeing them come running, and with them the officers of the Brotherhood with their crossbows, apprehended mischief, and clustering round the image, raised their hoods, and grasped their scourges, as the priests did their tapers, and awaited the attack, resolved to defend themselves and even to take the offensive against their assailants if they could. Fortune, however, arranged the matter better than they expected, for all Sancho did was to fling himself on his master's body, raising over him the most doleful and laughable lamentation that ever was heard, for he believed he was dead. The curate was known to another curate who walked in the procession, and their recognition of one another set at rest the apprehensions of both parties the first then told the other in two words who Don Quixote was, and he and the whole troop of penitents went to see if the poor gentleman was dead, and heard Sancho Panza saying, with tears in his eyes, 'Oh flower of chivalry, that with one blow of a stick hast ended the course of thy wellspent life! Oh pride of thy race, honour and glory of all La Mancha, nay, of all the world, that for want of thee will be full of evildoers, no longer in fear of punishment for their misdeeds! Oh thou, generous above all the Alexanders, since for only eight months of service thou hast given me the best island the sea girds or surrounds! Humble with the proud, haughty with the humble, encounterer of dangers, endurer of outrages, enamoured without reason, imitator of the good, scourge of the wicked, enemy of the mean, in short, knighterrant, which is all that can be said! At the cries and moans of Sancho, Don Quixote came to himself, and the first word he said was, 'He who lives separated from you, sweetest Dulcinea, has greater miseries to endure than these. Aid me, friend Sancho, to mount the enchanted cart, for I am not in a condition to press the saddle of Rocinante, as this shoulder is all knocked to pieces. 'That I will do with all my heart, seor, said Sancho 'and let us return to our village with these gentlemen, who seek your good, and there we will prepare for making another sally, which may turn out more profitable and creditable to us. 'Thou art right, Sancho, returned Don Quixote 'It will be wise to let the malign influence of the stars which now prevails pass off. The canon, the curate, and the barber told him he would act very wisely in doing as he said and so, highly amused at Sancho Panza's simplicities, they placed Don Quixote in the cart as before. The procession once more formed itself in order and proceeded on its road the goatherd took his leave of the party the officers of the Brotherhood declined to go any farther, and the curate paid them what was due to them the canon begged the curate to let him know how Don Quixote did, whether he was cured of his madness or still suffered from it, and then begged leave to continue his journey in short, they all separated and went their ways, leaving to themselves the curate and the barber, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and the good Rocinante, who regarded everything with as great resignation as his master. The carter yoked his oxen and made Don Quixote comfortable on a truss of hay, and at his usual deliberate pace took the road the curate directed, and at the end of six days they reached Don Quixote's village, and entered it about the middle of the day, which it so happened was a Sunday, and the people were all in the plaza, through which Don Quixote's cart passed. They all flocked to see what was in the cart, and when they recognised their townsman they were filled with amazement, and a boy ran off to bring the news to his housekeeper and his niece that their master and uncle had come back all lean and yellow and stretched on a truss of hay on an oxcart. It was piteous to hear the cries the two good ladies raised, how they beat their breasts and poured out fresh maledictions on those accursed books of chivalry all which was renewed when they saw Don Quixote coming in at the gate. At the news of Don Quixote's arrival Sancho Panza's wife came running, for she by this time knew that her husband had gone away with him as his squire, and on seeing Sancho, the first thing she asked him was if the ass was well. Sancho replied that he was, better than his master was. 'Thanks be to God, said she, 'for being so good to me but now tell me, my friend, what have you made by your squirings? What gown have you brought me back? What shoes for your children? 'I bring nothing of that sort, wife, said Sancho 'though I bring other things of more consequence and value. 'I am very glad of that, returned his wife 'show me these things of more value and consequence, my friend for I want to see them to cheer my heart that has been so sad and heavy all these ages that you have been away. 'I will show them to you at home, wife, said Sancho 'be content for the present for if it please God that we should again go on our travels in search of adventures, you will soon see me a count, or governor of an island, and that not one of those everyday ones, but the best that is to be had. 'Heaven grant it, husband, said she, 'for indeed we have need of it. But tell me, what's this about islands, for I don't understand it? 'Honey is not for the mouth of the ass, returned Sancho 'all in good time thou shalt see, wifenay, thou wilt be surprised to hear thyself called 'your ladyship' by all thy vassals. 'What are you talking about, Sancho, with your ladyships, islands, and vassals? returned Teresa Panzafor so Sancho's wife was called, though they were not relations, for in La Mancha it is customary for wives to take their husbands' surnames. 'Don't be in such a hurry to know all this, Teresa, said Sancho 'it is enough that I am telling you the truth, so shut your mouth. But I may tell you this much by the way, that there is nothing in the world more delightful than to be a person of consideration, squire to a knighterrant, and a seeker of adventures. To be sure most of those one finds do not end as pleasantly as one could wish, for out of a hundred, ninetynine will turn out cross and contrary. I know it by experience, for out of some I came blanketed, and out of others belaboured. Still, for all that, it is a fine thing to be on the lookout for what may happen, crossing mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting castles, putting up at inns, all at free quarters, and devil take the maravedi to pay. While this conversation passed between Sancho Panza and his wife, Don Quixote's housekeeper and niece took him in and undressed him and laid him in his old bed. He eyed them askance, and could not make out where he was. The curate charged his niece to be very careful to make her uncle comfortable and to keep a watch over him lest he should make his escape from them again, telling her what they had been obliged to do to bring him home. On this the pair once more lifted up their voices and renewed their maledictions upon the books of chivalry, and implored heaven to plunge the authors of such lies and nonsense into the midst of the bottomless pit. They were, in short, kept in anxiety and dread lest their uncle and master should give them the slip the moment he found himself somewhat better, and as they feared so it fell out. But the author of this history, though he has devoted research and industry to the discovery of the deeds achieved by Don Quixote in his third sally, has been unable to obtain any information respecting them, at any rate derived from authentic documents tradition has merely preserved in the memory of La Mancha the fact that Don Quixote, the third time he sallied forth from his home, betook himself to Saragossa, where he was present at some famous jousts which came off in that city, and that he had adventures there worthy of his valour and high intelligence. Of his end and death he could learn no particulars, nor would he have ascertained it or known of it, if good fortune had not produced an old physician for him who had in his possession a leaden box, which, according to his account, had been discovered among the crumbling foundations of an ancient hermitage that was being rebuilt in which box were found certain parchment manuscripts in Gothic character, but in Castilian verse, containing many of his achievements, and setting forth the beauty of Dulcinea, the form of Rocinante, the fidelity of Sancho Panza, and the burial of Don Quixote himself, together with sundry epitaphs and eulogies on his life and character but all that could be read and deciphered were those which the trustworthy author of this new and unparalleled history here presents. And the said author asks of those that shall read it nothing in return for the vast toil which it has cost him in examining and searching the Manchegan archives in order to bring it to light, save that they give him the same credit that people of sense give to the books of chivalry that pervade the world and are so popular for with this he will consider himself amply paid and fully satisfied, and will be encouraged to seek out and produce other histories, if not as truthful, at least equal in invention and not less entertaining. The first words written on the parchment found in the leaden box were these THE ACADEMICIANS OF ARGAMASILLA, A VILLAGE OF LA MANCHA, ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA, HOC SCRIPSERUNT MONICONGO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, ON THE TOMB OF DON QUIXOTE EPITAPH The scatterbrain that gave La Mancha more Rich spoils than Jason's who a point so keen Had to his wit, and happier far had been If his wit's weathercock a blunter bore The arm renowned far as Gaeta's shore, Cathay, and all the lands that lie between The muse discreet and terrible in mien As ever wrote on brass in days of yore He who surpassed the Amadises all, And who as naught the Galaors accounted, Supported by his love and gallantry Who made the Belianises sing small, And sought renown on Rocinante mounted Here, underneath this cold stone, doth he lie. PANIAGUADO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, IN LAUDEM DULCINEAE DEL TOBOSO SONNET She, whose full features may be here descried, Highbosomed, with a bearing of disdain, Is Dulcinea, she for whom in vain The great Don Quixote of La Mancha sighed. For her, Toboso's queen, from side to side He traversed the grim sierra, the champaign Of Aranjuez, and Montiel's famous plain On Rocinante oft a weary ride. Malignant planets, cruel destiny, Pursued them both, the fair Manchegan dame, And the unconquered star of chivalry. Nor youth nor beauty saved her from the claim Of death he paid love's bitter penalty, And left the marble to preserve his name. CAPRICHOSO, A MOST ACUTE ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, IN PRAISE OF ROCINANTE, STEED OF DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA SONNET On that proud throne of diamantine sheen, Which the bloodreeking feet of Mars degrade, The mad Manchegan's banner now hath been By him in all its bravery displayed. There hath he hung his arms and trenchant blade Wherewith, achieving deeds till now unseen, He slays, lays low, cleaves, hews but art hath made A novel style for our new paladin. If Amadis be the proud boast of Gaul, If by his progeny the fame of Greece Through all the regions of the earth be spread, Great Quixote crowned in grim Bellona's hall Today exalts La Mancha over these, And above Greece or Gaul she holds her head. Nor ends his glory here, for his good steed Doth Brillador and Bayard far exceed As mettled steeds compared with Rocinante, The reputation they have won is scanty. BURLADOR, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, ON SANCHO PANZA SONNET The worthy Sancho Panza here you see A great soul once was in that body small, Nor was there squire upon this earthly ball So plain and simple, or of guile so free. Within an ace of being Count was he, And would have been but for the spite and gall Of this vile age, mean and illiberal, That cannot even let a donkey be. For mounted on an ass (excuse the word), By Rocinante's side this gentle squire Was wont his wandering master to attend. Delusive hopes that lure the common herd With promises of ease, the heart's desire, In shadows, dreams, and smoke ye always end. CACHIDIABLO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, ON THE TOMB OF DON QUIXOTE EPITAPH The knight lies here below, Illerrant and bruised sore, Whom Rocinante bore In his wanderings to and fro. By the side of the knight is laid Stolid man Sancho too, Than whom a squire more true Was not in the esquire trade. TIQUITOC, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, ON THE TOMB OF DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO EPITAPH Here Dulcinea lies. Plump was she and robust Now she is ashes and dust The end of all flesh that dies. A lady of high degree, With the port of a lofty dame, And the great Don Quixote's flame, And the pride of her village was she. These were all the verses that could be deciphered the rest, the writing being wormeaten, were handed over to one of the Academicians to make out their meaning conjecturally. We have been informed that at the cost of many sleepless nights and much toil he has succeeded, and that he means to publish them in hopes of Don Quixote's third sally. 'Forse altro cantera con miglior plettro. These days past, when sending Your Excellency my plays, that had appeared in print before being shown on the stage, I said, if I remember well, that Don Quixote was putting on his spurs to go and render homage to Your Excellency. Now I say that 'with his spurs, he is on his way. Should he reach destination methinks I shall have rendered some service to Your Excellency, as from many parts I am urged to send him off, so as to dispel the loathing and disgust caused by another Don Quixote who, under the name of Second Part, has run masquerading through the whole world. And he who has shown the greatest longing for him has been the great Emperor of China, who wrote me a letter in Chinese a month ago and sent it by a special courier. He asked me, or to be truthful, he begged me to send him Don Quixote, for he intended to found a college where the Spanish tongue would be taught, and it was his wish that the book to be read should be the History of Don Quixote. He also added that I should go and be the rector of this college. I asked the bearer if His Majesty had afforded a sum in aid of my travel expenses. He answered, 'No, not even in thought. 'Then, brother, I replied, 'you can return to your China, post haste or at whatever haste you are bound to go, as I am not fit for so long a travel and, besides being ill, I am very much without money, while Emperor for Emperor and Monarch for Monarch, I have at Naples the great Count of Lemos, who, without so many petty titles of colleges and rectorships, sustains me, protects me and does me more favour than I can wish for. Thus I gave him his leave and I beg mine from you, offering Your Excellency the 'Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, a book I shall finish within four months, Deo volente, and which will be either the worst or the best that has been composed in our language, I mean of those intended for entertainment at which I repent of having called it the worst, for, in the opinion of friends, it is bound to attain the summit of possible quality. May Your Excellency return in such health that is wished you Persiles will be ready to kiss your hand and I your feet, being as I am, Your Excellency's most humble servant. From Madrid, this last day of October of the year one thousand six hundred and fifteen. At the service of Your Excellency MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA God bless me, gentle (or it may be plebeian) reader, how eagerly must thou be looking forward to this preface, expecting to find there retaliation, scolding, and abuse against the author of the second Don QuixoteI mean him who was, they say, begotten at Tordesillas and born at Tarragona! Well then, the truth is, I am not going to give thee that satisfaction for, though injuries stir up anger in humbler breasts, in mine the rule must admit of an exception. Thou wouldst have me call him ass, fool, and malapert, but I have no such intention let his offence be his punishment, with his bread let him eat it, and there's an end of it. What I cannot help taking amiss is that he charges me with being old and onehanded, as if it had been in my power to keep time from passing over me, or as if the loss of my hand had been brought about in some tavern, and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen, or the future can hope to see. If my wounds have no beauty to the beholder's eye, they are, at least, honourable in the estimation of those who know where they were received for the soldier shows to greater advantage dead in battle than alive in flight and so strongly is this my feeling, that if now it were proposed to perform an impossibility for me, I would rather have had my share in that mighty action, than be free from my wounds this minute without having been present at it. Those the soldier shows on his face and breast are stars that direct others to the heaven of honour and ambition of merited praise and moreover it is to be observed that it is not with grey hairs that one writes, but with the understanding, and that commonly improves with years. I take it amiss, too, that he calls me envious, and explains to me, as if I were ignorant, what envy is for really and truly, of the two kinds there are, I only know that which is holy, noble, and highminded and if that be so, as it is, I am not likely to attack a priest, above all if, in addition, he holds the rank of familiar of the Holy Office. And if he said what he did on account of him on whose behalf it seems he spoke, he is entirely mistaken for I worship the genius of that person, and admire his works and his unceasing and strenuous industry. After all, I am grateful to this gentleman, the author, for saying that my novels are more satirical than exemplary, but that they are good for they could not be that unless there was a little of everything in them. I suspect thou wilt say that I am taking a very humble line, and keeping myself too much within the bounds of my moderation, from a feeling that additional suffering should not be inflicted upon a sufferer, and that what this gentleman has to endure must doubtless be very great, as he does not dare to come out into the open field and broad daylight, but hides his name and disguises his country as if he had been guilty of some lese majesty. If perchance thou shouldst come to know him, tell him from me that I do not hold myself aggrieved for I know well what the temptations of the devil are, and that one of the greatest is putting it into a man's head that he can write and print a book by which he will get as much fame as money, and as much money as fame and to prove it I will beg of you, in your own sprightly, pleasant way, to tell him this story. There was a madman in Seville who took to one of the drollest absurdities and vagaries that ever madman in the world gave way to. It was this he made a tube of reed sharp at one end, and catching a dog in the street, or wherever it might be, he with his foot held one of its legs fast, and with his hand lifted up the other, and as best he could fixed the tube where, by blowing, he made the dog as round as a ball then holding it in this position, he gave it a couple of slaps on the belly, and let it go, saying to the bystanders (and there were always plenty of them) 'Do your worships think, now, that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog?Does your worship think now, that it is an easy thing to write a book? And if this story does not suit him, you may, dear reader, tell him this one, which is likewise of a madman and a dog. In Cordova there was another madman, whose way it was to carry a piece of marble slab or a stone, not of the lightest, on his head, and when he came upon any unwary dog he used to draw close to him and let the weight fall right on top of him on which the dog in a rage, barking and howling, would run three streets without stopping. It so happened, however, that one of the dogs he discharged his load upon was a capmaker's dog, of which his master was very fond. The stone came down hitting it on the head, the dog raised a yell at the blow, the master saw the affair and was wroth, and snatching up a measuringyard rushed out at the madman and did not leave a sound bone in his body, and at every stroke he gave him he said, 'You dog, you thief! my lurcher! Don't you see, you brute, that my dog is a lurcher? and so, repeating the word 'lurcher again and again, he sent the madman away beaten to a jelly. The madman took the lesson to heart, and vanished, and for more than a month never once showed himself in public but after that he came out again with his old trick and a heavier load than ever. He came up to where there was a dog, and examining it very carefully without venturing to let the stone fall, he said 'This is a lurcher ware! In short, all the dogs he came across, be they mastiffs or terriers, he said were lurchers and he discharged no more stones. Maybe it will be the same with this historian that he will not venture another time to discharge the weight of his wit in books, which, being bad, are harder than stones. Tell him, too, that I do not care a farthing for the threat he holds out to me of depriving me of my profit by means of his book for, to borrow from the famous interlude of 'The Perendenga, I say in answer to him, 'Long life to my lord the Veintiquatro, and Christ be with us all. Long life to the great Conde de Lemos, whose Christian charity and wellknown generosity support me against all the strokes of my curst fortune and long life to the supreme benevolence of His Eminence of Toledo, Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas and what matter if there be no printingpresses in the world, or if they print more books against me than there are letters in the verses of Mingo Revulgo! These two princes, unsought by any adulation or flattery of mine, of their own goodness alone, have taken it upon them to show me kindness and protect me, and in this I consider myself happier and richer than if Fortune had raised me to her greatest height in the ordinary way. The poor man may retain honour, but not the vicious poverty may cast a cloud over nobility, but cannot hide it altogether and as virtue of itself sheds a certain light, even though it be through the straits and chinks of penury, it wins the esteem of lofty and noble spirits, and in consequence their protection. Thou needst say no more to him, nor will I say anything more to thee, save to tell thee to bear in mind that this Second Part of 'Don Quixote which I offer thee is cut by the same craftsman and from the same cloth as the First, and that in it I present thee Don Quixote continued, and at length dead and buried, so that no one may dare to bring forward any further evidence against him, for that already produced is sufficient and suffice it, too, that some reputable person should have given an account of all these shrewd lunacies of his without going into the matter again for abundance, even of good things, prevents them from being valued and scarcity, even in the case of what is bad, confers a certain value. I was forgetting to tell thee that thou mayest expect the 'Persiles, which I am now finishing, and also the Second Part of 'Galatea. Cide Hamete Benengeli, in the Second Part of this history, and third sally of Don Quixote, says that the curate and the barber remained nearly a month without seeing him, lest they should recall or bring back to his recollection what had taken place. They did not, however, omit to visit his niece and housekeeper, and charge them to be careful to treat him with attention, and give him comforting things to eat, and such as were good for the heart and the brain, whence, it was plain to see, all his misfortune proceeded. The niece and housekeeper replied that they did so, and meant to do so with all possible care and assiduity, for they could perceive that their master was now and then beginning to show signs of being in his right mind. This gave great satisfaction to the curate and the barber, for they concluded they had taken the right course in carrying him off enchanted on the oxcart, as has been described in the First Part of this great as well as accurate history, in the last chapter thereof. So they resolved to pay him a visit and test the improvement in his condition, although they thought it almost impossible that there could be any and they agreed not to touch upon any point connected with knighterrantry so as not to run the risk of reopening wounds which were still so tender. They came to see him consequently, and found him sitting up in bed in a green baize waistcoat and a red Toledo cap, and so withered and dried up that he looked as if he had been turned into a mummy. They were very cordially received by him they asked him after his health, and he talked to them about himself very naturally and in very wellchosen language. In the course of their conversation they fell to discussing what they call Statecraft and systems of government, correcting this abuse and condemning that, reforming one practice and abolishing another, each of the three setting up for a new legislator, a modern Lycurgus, or a brandnew Solon and so completely did they remodel the State, that they seemed to have thrust it into a furnace and taken out something quite different from what they had put in and on all the subjects they dealt with, Don Quixote spoke with such good sense that the pair of examiners were fully convinced that he was quite recovered and in his full senses. The niece and housekeeper were present at the conversation and could not find words enough to express their thanks to God at seeing their master so clear in his mind the curate, however, changing his original plan, which was to avoid touching upon matters of chivalry, resolved to test Don Quixote's recovery thoroughly, and see whether it were genuine or not and so, from one subject to another, he came at last to talk of the news that had come from the capital, and, among other things, he said it was considered certain that the Turk was coming down with a powerful fleet, and that no one knew what his purpose was, or when the great storm would burst and that all Christendom was in apprehension of this, which almost every year calls us to arms, and that his Majesty had made provision for the security of the coasts of Naples and Sicily and the island of Malta. To this Don Quixote replied, 'His Majesty has acted like a prudent warrior in providing for the safety of his realms in time, so that the enemy may not find him unprepared but if my advice were taken I would recommend him to adopt a measure which at present, no doubt, his Majesty is very far from thinking of. The moment the curate heard this he said to himself, 'God keep thee in his hand, poor Don Quixote, for it seems to me thou art precipitating thyself from the height of thy madness into the profound abyss of thy simplicity. But the barber, who had the same suspicion as the curate, asked Don Quixote what would be his advice as to the measures that he said ought to be adopted for perhaps it might prove to be one that would have to be added to the list of the many impertinent suggestions that people were in the habit of offering to princes. 'Mine, master shaver, said Don Quixote, 'will not be impertinent, but, on the contrary, pertinent. 'I don't mean that, said the barber, 'but that experience has shown that all or most of the expedients which are proposed to his Majesty are either impossible, or absurd, or injurious to the King and to the kingdom. 'Mine, however, replied Don Quixote, 'is neither impossible nor absurd, but the easiest, the most reasonable, the readiest and most expeditious that could suggest itself to any projector's mind. 'You take a long time to tell it, Seor Don Quixote, said the curate. 'I don't choose to tell it here, now, said Don Quixote, 'and have it reach the ears of the lords of the council tomorrow morning, and some other carry off the thanks and rewards of my trouble. 'For my part, said the barber, 'I give my word here and before God that I will not repeat what your worship says, to King, Rook or earthly manan oath I learned from the ballad of the curate, who, in the prelude, told the king of the thief who had robbed him of the hundred gold crowns and his pacing mule. 'I am not versed in stories, said Don Quixote 'but I know the oath is a good one, because I know the barber to be an honest fellow. 'Even if he were not, said the curate, 'I will go bail and answer for him that in this matter he will be as silent as a dummy, under pain of paying any penalty that may be pronounced. 'And who will be security for you, seor curate? said Don Quixote. 'My profession, replied the curate, 'which is to keep secrets. 'Ods body! said Don Quixote at this, 'what more has his Majesty to do but to command, by public proclamation, all the knightserrant that are scattered over Spain to assemble on a fixed day in the capital, for even if no more than half a dozen come, there may be one among them who alone will suffice to destroy the entire might of the Turk. Give me your attention and follow me. Is it, pray, any new thing for a single knighterrant to demolish an army of two hundred thousand men, as if they all had but one throat or were made of sugar paste? Nay, tell me, how many histories are there filled with these marvels? If only (in an evil hour for me I don't speak for anyone else) the famous Don Belianis were alive now, or anyone of the innumerable progeny of Amadis of Gaul! If any these were alive today, and were to come face to face with the Turk, by my faith, I would not give much for the Turk's chance. But God will have regard for his people, and will provide someone, who, if not so valiant as the knightserrant of yore, at least will not be inferior to them in spirit but God knows what I mean, and I say no more. 'Alas! exclaimed the niece at this, 'may I die if my master does not want to turn knighterrant again to which Don Quixote replied, 'A knighterrant I shall die, and let the Turk come down or go up when he likes, and in as strong force as he can, once more I say, God knows what I mean. But here the barber said, 'I ask your worships to give me leave to tell a short story of something that happened in Seville, which comes so pat to the purpose just now that I should like greatly to tell it. Don Quixote gave him leave, and the rest prepared to listen, and he began thus 'In the madhouse at Seville there was a man whom his relations had placed there as being out of his mind. He was a graduate of Osuna in canon law but even if he had been of Salamanca, it was the opinion of most people that he would have been mad all the same. This graduate, after some years of confinement, took it into his head that he was sane and in his full senses, and under this impression wrote to the Archbishop, entreating him earnestly, and in very correct language, to have him released from the misery in which he was living for by God's mercy he had now recovered his lost reason, though his relations, in order to enjoy his property, kept him there, and, in spite of the truth, would make him out to be mad until his dying day. The Archbishop, moved by repeated sensible, wellwritten letters, directed one of his chaplains to make inquiry of the madhouse as to the truth of the licentiate's statements, and to have an interview with the madman himself, and, if it should appear that he was in his senses, to take him out and restore him to liberty. The chaplain did so, and the governor assured him that the man was still mad, and that though he often spoke like a highly intelligent person, he would in the end break out into nonsense that in quantity and quality counterbalanced all the sensible things he had said before, as might be easily tested by talking to him. The chaplain resolved to try the experiment, and obtaining access to the madman conversed with him for an hour or more, during the whole of which time he never uttered a word that was incoherent or absurd, but, on the contrary, spoke so rationally that the chaplain was compelled to believe him to be sane. Among other things, he said the governor was against him, not to lose the presents his relations made him for reporting him still mad but with lucid intervals and that the worst foe he had in his misfortune was his large property for in order to enjoy it his enemies disparaged and threw doubts upon the mercy our Lord had shown him in turning him from a brute beast into a man. In short, he spoke in such a way that he cast suspicion on the governor, and made his relations appear covetous and heartless, and himself so rational that the chaplain determined to take him away with him that the Archbishop might see him, and ascertain for himself the truth of the matter. Yielding to this conviction, the worthy chaplain begged the governor to have the clothes in which the licentiate had entered the house given to him. The governor again bade him beware of what he was doing, as the licentiate was beyond a doubt still mad but all his cautions and warnings were unavailing to dissuade the chaplain from taking him away. The governor, seeing that it was the order of the Archbishop, obeyed, and they dressed the licentiate in his own clothes, which were new and decent. He, as soon as he saw himself clothed like one in his senses, and divested of the appearance of a madman, entreated the chaplain to permit him in charity to go and take leave of his comrades the madmen. The chaplain said he would go with him to see what madmen there were in the house so they went upstairs, and with them some of those who were present. Approaching a cage in which there was a furious madman, though just at that moment calm and quiet, the licentiate said to him, 'Brother, think if you have any commands for me, for I am going home, as God has been pleased, in his infinite goodness and mercy, without any merit of mine, to restore me my reason. I am now cured and in my senses, for with God's power nothing is impossible. Have strong hope and trust in him, for as he has restored me to my original condition, so likewise he will restore you if you trust in him. I will take care to send you some good things to eat and be sure you eat them for I would have you know I am convinced, as one who has gone through it, that all this madness of ours comes of having the stomach empty and the brains full of wind. Take courage! take courage! for despondency in misfortune breaks down health and brings on death.' 'To all these words of the licentiate another madman in a cage opposite that of the furious one was listening and raising himself up from an old mat on which he lay stark naked, he asked in a loud voice who it was that was going away cured and in his senses. The licentiate answered, 'It is I, brother, who am going I have now no need to remain here any longer, for which I return infinite thanks to Heaven that has had so great mercy upon me.' ''Mind what you are saying, licentiate don't let the devil deceive you,' replied the madman. 'Keep quiet, stay where you are, and you will save yourself the trouble of coming back.' ''I know I am cured,' returned the licentiate, 'and that I shall not have to go stations again.' ''You cured!' said the madman 'well, we shall see God be with you but I swear to you by Jupiter, whose majesty I represent on earth, that for this crime alone, which Seville is committing today in releasing you from this house, and treating you as if you were in your senses, I shall have to inflict such a punishment on it as will be remembered for ages and ages, amen. Dost thou not know, thou miserable little licentiate, that I can do it, being, as I say, Jupiter the Thunderer, who hold in my hands the fiery bolts with which I am able and am wont to threaten and lay waste the world? But in one way only will I punish this ignorant town, and that is by not raining upon it, nor on any part of its district or territory, for three whole years, to be reckoned from the day and moment when this threat is pronounced. Thou free, thou cured, thou in thy senses! and I mad, I disordered, I bound! I will as soon think of sending rain as of hanging myself. 'Those present stood listening to the words and exclamations of the madman but our licentiate, turning to the chaplain and seizing him by the hands, said to him, 'Be not uneasy, seor attach no importance to what this madman has said for if he is Jupiter and will not send rain, I, who am Neptune, the father and god of the waters, will rain as often as it pleases me and may be needful.' 'The governor and the bystanders laughed, and at their laughter the chaplain was half ashamed, and he replied, 'For all that, Seor Neptune, it will not do to vex Seor Jupiter remain where you are, and some other day, when there is a better opportunity and more time, we will come back for you.' So they stripped the licentiate, and he was left where he was and that's the end of the story. 'So that's the story, master barber, said Don Quixote, 'which came in so pat to the purpose that you could not help telling it? Master shaver, master shaver! how blind is he who cannot see through a sieve. Is it possible that you do not know that comparisons of wit with wit, valour with valour, beauty with beauty, birth with birth, are always odious and unwelcome? I, master barber, am not Neptune, the god of the waters, nor do I try to make anyone take me for an astute man, for I am not one. My only endeavour is to convince the world of the mistake it makes in not reviving in itself the happy time when the order of knighterrantry was in the field. But our depraved age does not deserve to enjoy such a blessing as those ages enjoyed when knightserrant took upon their shoulders the defence of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the succour of orphans and minors, the chastisement of the proud, and the recompense of the humble. With the knights of these days, for the most part, it is the damask, brocade, and rich stuffs they wear, that rustle as they go, not the chain mail of their armour no knight nowadays sleeps in the open field exposed to the inclemency of heaven, and in full panoply from head to foot no one now takes a nap, as they call it, without drawing his feet out of the stirrups, and leaning upon his lance, as the knightserrant used to do no one now, issuing from the wood, penetrates yonder mountains, and then treads the barren, lonely shore of the seamostly a tempestuous and stormy oneand finding on the beach a little bark without oars, sail, mast, or tackling of any kind, in the intrepidity of his heart flings himself into it and commits himself to the wrathful billows of the deep sea, that one moment lift him up to heaven and the next plunge him into the depths and opposing his breast to the irresistible gale, finds himself, when he least expects it, three thousand leagues and more away from the place where he embarked and leaping ashore in a remote and unknown land has adventures that deserve to be written, not on parchment, but on brass. But now sloth triumphs over energy, indolence over exertion, vice over virtue, arrogance over courage, and theory over practice in arms, which flourished and shone only in the golden ages and in knightserrant. For tell me, who was more virtuous and more valiant than the famous Amadis of Gaul? Who more discreet than Palmerin of England? Who more gracious and easy than Tirante el Blanco? Who more courtly than Lisuarte of Greece? Who more slashed or slashing than Don Belianis? Who more intrepid than Perion of Gaul? Who more ready to face danger than Felixmarte of Hircania? Who more sincere than Esplandian? Who more impetuous than Don Cirongilio of Thrace? Who more bold than Rodamonte? Who more prudent than King Sobrino? Who more daring than Reinaldos? Who more invincible than Roland? and who more gallant and courteous than Ruggiero, from whom the dukes of Ferrara of the present day are descended, according to Turpin in his 'Cosmography.' All these knights, and many more that I could name, seor curate, were knightserrant, the light and glory of chivalry. These, or such as these, I would have to carry out my plan, and in that case his Majesty would find himself well served and would save great expense, and the Turk would be left tearing his beard. And so I will stay where I am, as the chaplain does not take me away and if Jupiter, as the barber has told us, will not send rain, here am I, and I will rain when I please. I say this that Master Basin may know that I understand him. 'Indeed, Seor Don Quixote, said the barber, 'I did not mean it in that way, and, so help me God, my intention was good, and your worship ought not to be vexed. 'As to whether I ought to be vexed or not, returned Don Quixote, 'I myself am the best judge. Hereupon the curate observed, 'I have hardly said a word as yet and I would gladly be relieved of a doubt, arising from what Don Quixote has said, that worries and works my conscience. 'The seor curate has leave for more than that, returned Don Quixote, 'so he may declare his doubt, for it is not pleasant to have a doubt on one's conscience. 'Well then, with that permission, said the curate, 'I say my doubt is that, all I can do, I cannot persuade myself that the whole pack of knightserrant you, Seor Don Quixote, have mentioned, were really and truly persons of flesh and blood, that ever lived in the world on the contrary, I suspect it to be all fiction, fable, and falsehood, and dreams told by men awakened from sleep, or rather still half asleep. 'That is another mistake, replied Don Quixote, 'into which many have fallen who do not believe that there ever were such knights in the world, and I have often, with divers people and on divers occasions, tried to expose this almost universal error to the light of truth. Sometimes I have not been successful in my purpose, sometimes I have, supporting it upon the shoulders of the truth which truth is so clear that I can almost say I have with my own eyes seen Amadis of Gaul, who was a man of lofty stature, fair complexion, with a handsome though black beard, of a countenance between gentle and stern in expression, sparing of words, slow to anger, and quick to put it away from him and as I have depicted Amadis, so I could, I think, portray and describe all the knightserrant that are in all the histories in the world for by the perception I have that they were what their histories describe, and by the deeds they did and the dispositions they displayed, it is possible, with the aid of sound philosophy, to deduce their features, complexion, and stature. 'How big, in your worship's opinion, may the giant Morgante have been, Seor Don Quixote? asked the barber. 'With regard to giants, replied Don Quixote, 'opinions differ as to whether there ever were any or not in the world but the Holy Scripture, which cannot err by a jot from the truth, shows us that there were, when it gives us the history of that big Philistine, Goliath, who was seven cubits and a half in height, which is a huge size. Likewise, in the island of Sicily, there have been found legbones and armbones so large that their size makes it plain that their owners were giants, and as tall as great towers geometry puts this fact beyond a doubt. But, for all that, I cannot speak with certainty as to the size of Morgante, though I suspect he cannot have been very tall and I am inclined to be of this opinion because I find in the history in which his deeds are particularly mentioned, that he frequently slept under a roof and as he found houses to contain him, it is clear that his bulk could not have been anything excessive. 'That is true, said the curate, and yielding to the enjoyment of hearing such nonsense, he asked him what was his notion of the features of Reinaldos of Montalban, and Don Roland and the rest of the Twelve Peers of France, for they were all knightserrant. 'As for Reinaldos, replied Don Quixote, 'I venture to say that he was broadfaced, of ruddy complexion, with roguish and somewhat prominent eyes, excessively punctilious and touchy, and given to the society of thieves and scapegraces. With regard to Roland, or Rotolando, or Orlando (for the histories call him by all these names), I am of opinion, and hold, that he was of middle height, broadshouldered, rather bowlegged, swarthycomplexioned, redbearded, with a hairy body and a severe expression of countenance, a man of few words, but very polite and wellbred. 'If Roland was not a more graceful person than your worship has described, said the curate, 'it is no wonder that the fair Lady Angelica rejected him and left him for the gaiety, liveliness, and grace of that buddingbearded little Moor to whom she surrendered herself and she showed her sense in falling in love with the gentle softness of Medoro rather than the roughness of Roland. 'That Angelica, seor curate, returned Don Quixote, 'was a giddy damsel, flighty and somewhat wanton, and she left the world as full of her vagaries as of the fame of her beauty. She treated with scorn a thousand gentlemen, men of valour and wisdom, and took up with a smoothfaced sprig of a page, without fortune or fame, except such reputation for gratitude as the affection he bore his friend got for him. The great poet who sang her beauty, the famous Ariosto, not caring to sing her adventures after her contemptible surrender (which probably were not over and above creditable), dropped her where he says How she received the sceptre of Cathay, Some bard of defter quill may sing some day and this was no doubt a kind of prophecy, for poets are also called vates, that is to say diviners and its truth was made plain for since then a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears, and another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty. 'Tell me, Seor Don Quixote, said the barber here, 'among all those who praised her, has there been no poet to write a satire on this Lady Angelica? 'I can well believe, replied Don Quixote, 'that if Sacripante or Roland had been poets they would have given the damsel a trimming for it is naturally the way with poets who have been scorned and rejected by their ladies, whether fictitious or not, in short by those whom they select as the ladies of their thoughts, to avenge themselves in satires and libelsa vengeance, to be sure, unworthy of generous hearts but up to the present I have not heard of any defamatory verse against the Lady Angelica, who turned the world upside down. 'Strange, said the curate but at this moment they heard the housekeeper and the niece, who had previously withdrawn from the conversation, exclaiming aloud in the courtyard, and at the noise they all ran out. The history relates that the outcry Don Quixote, the curate, and the barber heard came from the niece and the housekeeper exclaiming to Sancho, who was striving to force his way in to see Don Quixote while they held the door against him, 'What does the vagabond want in this house? Be off to your own, brother, for it is you, and no one else, that delude my master, and lead him astray, and take him tramping about the country. To which Sancho replied, 'Devil's own housekeeper! it is I who am deluded, and led astray, and taken tramping about the country, and not thy master! He has carried me all over the world, and you are mightily mistaken. He enticed me away from home by a trick, promising me an island, which I am still waiting for. 'May evil islands choke thee, thou detestable Sancho, said the niece 'What are islands? Is it something to eat, glutton and gormandiser that thou art? 'It is not something to eat, replied Sancho, 'but something to govern and rule, and better than four cities or four judgeships at court. 'For all that, said the housekeeper, 'you don't enter here, you bag of mischief and sack of knavery go govern your house and dig your seedpatch, and give over looking for islands or shylands. The curate and the barber listened with great amusement to the words of the three but Don Quixote, uneasy lest Sancho should blab and blurt out a whole heap of mischievous stupidities, and touch upon points that might not be altogether to his credit, called to him and made the other two hold their tongues and let him come in. Sancho entered, and the curate and the barber took their leave of Don Quixote, of whose recovery they despaired when they saw how wedded he was to his crazy ideas, and how saturated with the nonsense of his unlucky chivalry and said the curate to the barber, 'You will see, gossip, that when we are least thinking of it, our gentleman will be off once more for another flight. 'I have no doubt of it, returned the barber 'but I do not wonder so much at the madness of the knight as at the simplicity of the squire, who has such a firm belief in all that about the island, that I suppose all the exposures that could be imagined would not get it out of his head. 'God help them, said the curate 'and let us be on the lookout to see what comes of all these absurdities of the knight and squire, for it seems as if they had both been cast in the same mould, and the madness of the master without the simplicity of the man would not be worth a farthing. 'That is true, said the barber, 'and I should like very much to know what the pair are talking about at this moment. 'I promise you, said the curate, 'the niece or the housekeeper will tell us byandby, for they are not the ones to forget to listen. Meanwhile Don Quixote shut himself up in his room with Sancho, and when they were alone he said to him, 'It grieves me greatly, Sancho, that thou shouldst have said, and sayest, that I took thee out of thy cottage, when thou knowest I did not remain in my house. We sallied forth together, we took the road together, we wandered abroad together we have had the same fortune and the same luck if they blanketed thee once, they belaboured me a hundred times, and that is the only advantage I have of thee. 'That was only reasonable, replied Sancho, 'for, by what your worship says, misfortunes belong more properly to knightserrant than to their squires. 'Thou art mistaken, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'according to the maxim quando caput dolet, etc. 'I don't understand any language but my own, said Sancho. 'I mean to say, said Don Quixote, 'that when the head suffers all the members suffer and so, being thy lord and master, I am thy head, and thou a part of me as thou art my servant and therefore any evil that affects or shall affect me should give thee pain, and what affects thee give pain to me. 'It should be so, said Sancho 'but when I was blanketed as a member, my head was on the other side of the wall, looking on while I was flying through the air, and did not feel any pain whatever and if the members are obliged to feel the suffering of the head, it should be obliged to feel their sufferings. 'Dost thou mean to say now, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that I did not feel when they were blanketing thee? If thou dost, thou must not say so or think so, for I felt more pain then in spirit than thou didst in body. But let us put that aside for the present, for we shall have opportunities enough for considering and settling the point tell me, Sancho my friend, what do they say about me in the village here? What do the common people think of me? What do the hidalgos? What do the caballeros? What do they say of my valour of my achievements of my courtesy? How do they treat the task I have undertaken in reviving and restoring to the world the now forgotten order of chivalry? In short, Sancho, I would have thee tell me all that has come to thine ears on this subject and thou art to tell me, without adding anything to the good or taking away anything from the bad for it is the duty of loyal vassals to tell the truth to their lords just as it is and in its proper shape, not allowing flattery to add to it or any idle deference to lessen it. And I would have thee know, Sancho, that if the naked truth, undisguised by flattery, came to the ears of princes, times would be different, and other ages would be reckoned iron ages more than ours, which I hold to be the golden of these latter days. Profit by this advice, Sancho, and report to me clearly and faithfully the truth of what thou knowest touching what I have demanded of thee. 'That I will do with all my heart, master, replied Sancho, 'provided your worship will not be vexed at what I say, as you wish me to say it out in all its nakedness, without putting any more clothes on it than it came to my knowledge in. 'I will not be vexed at all, returned Don Quixote 'thou mayest speak freely, Sancho, and without any beating about the bush. 'Well then, said he, 'first of all, I have to tell you that the common people consider your worship a mighty great madman, and me no less a fool. The hidalgos say that, not keeping within the bounds of your quality of gentleman, you have assumed the 'Don,' and made a knight of yourself at a jump, with four vinestocks and a couple of acres of land, and never a shirt to your back. The caballeros say they do not want to have hidalgos setting up in opposition to them, particularly squire hidalgos who polish their own shoes and darn their black stockings with green silk. 'That, said Don Quixote, 'does not apply to me, for I always go well dressed and never patched ragged I may be, but ragged more from the wear and tear of arms than of time. 'As to your worship's valour, courtesy, accomplishments, and task, there is a variety of opinions. Some say, 'mad but droll' others, 'valiant but unlucky' others, 'courteous but meddling,' and then they go into such a number of things that they don't leave a whole bone either in your worship or in myself. 'Recollect, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that wherever virtue exists in an eminent degree it is persecuted. Few or none of the famous men that have lived escaped being calumniated by malice. Julius Csar, the boldest, wisest, and bravest of captains, was charged with being ambitious, and not particularly cleanly in his dress, or pure in his morals. Of Alexander, whose deeds won him the name of Great, they say that he was somewhat of a drunkard. Of Hercules, him of the many labours, it is said that he was lewd and luxurious. Of Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, it was whispered that he was overquarrelsome, and of his brother that he was lachrymose. So that, O Sancho, amongst all these calumnies against good men, mine may be let pass, since they are no more than thou hast said. 'That's just where it is, body of my father! 'Is there more, then? asked Don Quixote. 'There's the tail to be skinned yet, said Sancho 'all so far is cakes and fancy bread but if your worship wants to know all about the calumnies they bring against you, I will fetch you one this instant who can tell you the whole of them without missing an atom for last night the son of Bartholomew Carrasco, who has been studying at Salamanca, came home after having been made a bachelor, and when I went to welcome him, he told me that your worship's history is already abroad in books, with the title of THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA and he says they mention me in it by my own name of Sancho Panza, and the lady Dulcinea del Toboso too, and divers things that happened to us when we were alone so that I crossed myself in my wonder how the historian who wrote them down could have known them. 'I promise thee, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'the author of our history will be some sage enchanter for to such nothing that they choose to write about is hidden. 'What! said Sancho, 'a sage and an enchanter! Why, the bachelor Samson Carrasco (that is the name of him I spoke of) says the author of the history is called Cide Hamete Berengena. 'That is a Moorish name, said Don Quixote. 'May be so, replied Sancho 'for I have heard say that the Moors are mostly great lovers of berengenas. 'Thou must have mistaken the surname of this 'Cide'which means in Arabic 'Lord'Sancho, observed Don Quixote. 'Very likely, replied Sancho, 'but if your worship wishes me to fetch the bachelor I will go for him in a twinkling. 'Thou wilt do me a great pleasure, my friend, said Don Quixote, 'for what thou hast told me has amazed me, and I shall not eat a morsel that will agree with me until I have heard all about it. 'Then I am off for him, said Sancho and leaving his master he went in quest of the bachelor, with whom he returned in a short time, and, all three together, they had a very droll colloquy. Don Quixote remained very deep in thought, waiting for the bachelor Carrasco, from whom he was to hear how he himself had been put into a book as Sancho said and he could not persuade himself that any such history could be in existence, for the blood of the enemies he had slain was not yet dry on the blade of his sword, and now they wanted to make out that his mighty achievements were going about in print. For all that, he fancied some sage, either a friend or an enemy, might, by the aid of magic, have given them to the press if a friend, in order to magnify and exalt them above the most famous ever achieved by any knighterrant if an enemy, to bring them to naught and degrade them below the meanest ever recorded of any low squire, though as he said to himself, the achievements of squires never were recorded. If, however, it were the fact that such a history were in existence, it must necessarily, being the story of a knighterrant, be grandiloquent, lofty, imposing, grand and true. With this he comforted himself somewhat, though it made him uncomfortable to think that the author was a Moor, judging by the title of 'Cide and that no truth was to be looked for from Moors, as they are all impostors, cheats, and schemers. He was afraid he might have dealt with his love affairs in some indecorous fashion, that might tend to the discredit and prejudice of the purity of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso he would have had him set forth the fidelity and respect he had always observed towards her, spurning queens, empresses, and damsels of all sorts, and keeping in check the impetuosity of his natural impulses. Absorbed and wrapped up in these and divers other cogitations, he was found by Sancho and Carrasco, whom Don Quixote received with great courtesy. The bachelor, though he was called Samson, was of no great bodily size, but he was a very great wag he was of a sallow complexion, but very sharpwitted, somewhere about fourandtwenty years of age, with a round face, a flat nose, and a large mouth, all indications of a mischievous disposition and a love of fun and jokes and of this he gave a sample as soon as he saw Don Quixote, by falling on his knees before him and saying, 'Let me kiss your mightiness's hand, Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, for, by the habit of St. Peter that I wear, though I have no more than the first four orders, your worship is one of the most famous knightserrant that have ever been, or will be, all the world over. A blessing on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history of your great deeds, and a double blessing on that connoisseur who took the trouble of having it translated out of the Arabic into our Castilian vulgar tongue for the universal entertainment of the people! Don Quixote made him rise, and said, 'So, then, it is true that there is a history of me, and that it was a Moor and a sage who wrote it? 'So true is it, seor, said Samson, 'that my belief is there are more than twelve thousand volumes of the said history in print this very day. Only ask Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they have been printed, and moreover there is a report that it is being printed at Antwerp, and I am persuaded there will not be a country or language in which there will not be a translation of it. 'One of the things, here observed Don Quixote, 'that ought to give most pleasure to a virtuous and eminent man is to find himself in his lifetime in print and in type, familiar in people's mouths with a good name I say with a good name, for if it be the opposite, then there is no death to be compared to it. 'If it goes by good name and fame, said the bachelor, 'your worship alone bears away the palm from all the knightserrant for the Moor in his own language, and the Christian in his, have taken care to set before us your gallantry, your high courage in encountering dangers, your fortitude in adversity, your patience under misfortunes as well as wounds, the purity and continence of the platonic loves of your worship and my lady Doa Dulcinea del Toboso 'I never heard my lady Dulcinea called Doa, observed Sancho here 'nothing more than the lady Dulcinea del Toboso so here already the history is wrong. 'That is not an objection of any importance, replied Carrasco. 'Certainly not, said Don Quixote 'but tell me, seor bachelor, what deeds of mine are they that are made most of in this history? 'On that point, replied the bachelor, 'opinions differ, as tastes do some swear by the adventure of the windmills that your worship took to be Briareuses and giants others by that of the fulling mills one cries up the description of the two armies that afterwards took the appearance of two droves of sheep another that of the dead body on its way to be buried at Segovia a third says the liberation of the galley slaves is the best of all, and a fourth that nothing comes up to the affair with the Benedictine giants, and the battle with the valiant Biscayan. 'Tell me, seor bachelor, said Sancho at this point, 'does the adventure with the Yanguesans come in, when our good Rocinante went hankering after dainties? 'The sage has left nothing in the inkbottle, replied Samson 'he tells all and sets down everything, even to the capers that worthy Sancho cut in the blanket. 'I cut no capers in the blanket, returned Sancho 'in the air I did, and more of them than I liked. 'There is no human history in the world, I suppose, said Don Quixote, 'that has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal with chivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperous adventures. 'For all that, replied the bachelor, 'there are those who have read the history who say they would have been glad if the author had left out some of the countless cudgellings that were inflicted on Seor Don Quixote in various encounters. 'That's where the truth of the history comes in, said Sancho. 'At the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence, observed Don Quixote 'for there is no need of recording events which do not change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring the hero of it into contempt. neas was not in truth and earnest so pious as Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him. 'That is true, said Samson 'but it is one thing to write as a poet, another to write as a historian the poet may describe or sing things, not as they were, but as they ought to have been but the historian has to write them down, not as they ought to have been, but as they were, without adding anything to the truth or taking anything from it. 'Well then, said Sancho, 'if this seor Moor goes in for telling the truth, no doubt among my master's drubbings mine are to be found for they never took the measure of his worship's shoulders without doing the same for my whole body but I have no right to wonder at that, for, as my master himself says, the members must share the pain of the head. 'You are a sly dog, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'i' faith, you have no want of memory when you choose to remember. 'If I were to try to forget the thwacks they gave me, said Sancho, 'my weals would not let me, for they are still fresh on my ribs. 'Hush, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and don't interrupt the bachelor, whom I entreat to go on and tell all that is said about me in this history. 'And about me, said Sancho, 'for they say, too, that I am one of the principal presonages in it. 'Personages, not presonages, friend Sancho, said Samson. 'What! Another wordcatcher! said Sancho 'if that's to be the way we shall not make an end in a lifetime. 'May God shorten mine, Sancho, returned the bachelor, 'if you are not the second person in the history, and there are even some who would rather hear you talk than the cleverest in the whole book though there are some, too, who say you showed yourself overcredulous in believing there was any possibility in the government of that island offered you by Seor Don Quixote. 'There is still sunshine on the wall, said Don Quixote 'and when Sancho is somewhat more advanced in life, with the experience that years bring, he will be fitter and better qualified for being a governor than he is at present. 'By God, master, said Sancho, 'the island that I cannot govern with the years I have, I'll not be able to govern with the years of Methuselah the difficulty is that the said island keeps its distance somewhere, I know not where and not that there is any want of head in me to govern it. 'Leave it to God, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for all will be and perhaps better than you think no leaf on the tree stirs but by God's will. 'That is true, said Samson 'and if it be God's will, there will not be any want of a thousand islands, much less one, for Sancho to govern. 'I have seen governors in these parts, said Sancho, 'that are not to be compared to my shoesole and for all that they are called 'your lordship' and served on silver. 'Those are not governors of islands, observed Samson, 'but of other governments of an easier kind those that govern islands must at least know grammar. 'I could manage the gram well enough, said Sancho 'but for the mar I have neither leaning nor liking, for I don't know what it is but leaving this matter of the government in God's hands, to send me wherever it may be most to his service, I may tell you, seor bachelor Samson Carrasco, it has pleased me beyond measure that the author of this history should have spoken of me in such a way that what is said of me gives no offence for, on the faith of a true squire, if he had said anything about me that was at all unbecoming an old Christian, such as I am, the deaf would have heard of it. 'That would be working miracles, said Samson. 'Miracles or no miracles, said Sancho, 'let everyone mind how he speaks or writes about people, and not set down at random the first thing that comes into his head. 'One of the faults they find with this history, said the bachelor, 'is that its author inserted in it a novel called 'The Illadvised Curiosity' not that it is bad or illtold, but that it is out of place and has nothing to do with the history of his worship Seor Don Quixote. 'I will bet the son of a dog has mixed the cabbages and the baskets, said Sancho. 'Then, I say, said Don Quixote, 'the author of my history was no sage, but some ignorant chatterer, who, in a haphazard and heedless way, set about writing it, let it turn out as it might, just as Orbaneja, the painter of beda, used to do, who, when they asked him what he was painting, answered, 'What it may turn out.' Sometimes he would paint a cock in such a fashion, and so unlike, that he had to write alongside of it in Gothic letters, 'This is a cock' and so it will be with my history, which will require a commentary to make it intelligible. 'No fear of that, returned Samson, 'for it is so plain that there is nothing in it to puzzle over the children turn its leaves, the young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise it in a word, it is so thumbed, and read, and got by heart by people of all sorts, that the instant they see any lean hack, they say, 'There goes Rocinante.' And those that are most given to reading it are the pages, for there is not a lord's antechamber where there is not a 'Don Quixote' to be found one takes it up if another lays it down this one pounces upon it, and that begs for it. In short, the said history is the most delightful and least injurious entertainment that has been hitherto seen, for there is not to be found in the whole of it even the semblance of an immodest word, or a thought that is other than Catholic. 'To write in any other way, said Don Quixote, 'would not be to write truth, but falsehood, and historians who have recourse to falsehood ought to be burned, like those who coin false money and I know not what could have led the author to have recourse to novels and irrelevant stories, when he had so much to write about in mine no doubt he must have gone by the proverb 'with straw or with hay, c.,' for by merely setting forth my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises, he might have made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostado would make up. In fact, the conclusion I arrive at, seor bachelor, is, that to write histories, or books of any kind, there is need of great judgment and a ripe understanding. To give expression to humour, and write in a strain of graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses. The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one. History is in a measure a sacred thing, for it should be true, and where the truth is, there God is but notwithstanding this, there are some who write and fling books broadcast on the world as if they were fritters. 'There is no book so bad but it has something good in it, said the bachelor. 'No doubt of that, replied Don Quixote 'but it often happens that those who have acquired and attained a welldeserved reputation by their writings, lose it entirely, or damage it in some degree, when they give them to the press. 'The reason of that, said Samson, 'is, that as printed works are examined leisurely, their faults are easily seen and the greater the fame of the writer, the more closely are they scrutinised. Men famous for their genius, great poets, illustrious historians, are always, or most commonly, envied by those who take a particular delight and pleasure in criticising the writings of others, without having produced any of their own. 'That is no wonder, said Don Quixote 'for there are many divines who are no good for the pulpit, but excellent in detecting the defects or excesses of those who preach. 'All that is true, Seor Don Quixote, said Carrasco 'but I wish such faultfinders were more lenient and less exacting, and did not pay so much attention to the spots on the bright sun of the work they grumble at for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, they should remember how long he remained awake to shed the light of his work with as little shade as possible and perhaps it may be that what they find fault with may be moles, that sometimes heighten the beauty of the face that bears them and so I say very great is the risk to which he who prints a book exposes himself, for of all impossibilities the greatest is to write one that will satisfy and please all readers. 'That which treats of me must have pleased few, said Don Quixote. 'Quite the contrary, said the bachelor 'for, as stultorum infinitum est numerus, innumerable are those who have relished the said history but some have brought a charge against the author's memory, inasmuch as he forgot to say who the thief was who stole Sancho's Dapple for it is not stated there, but only to be inferred from what is set down, that he was stolen, and a little farther on we see Sancho mounted on the same ass, without any reappearance of it. They say, too, that he forgot to state what Sancho did with those hundred crowns that he found in the valise in the Sierra Morena, as he never alludes to them again, and there are many who would be glad to know what he did with them, or what he spent them on, for it is one of the serious omissions of the work. 'Seor Samson, I am not in a humour now for going into accounts or explanations, said Sancho 'for there's a sinking of the stomach come over me, and unless I doctor it with a couple of sups of the old stuff it will put me on the thorn of Santa Lucia. I have it at home, and my old woman is waiting for me after dinner I'll come back, and will answer you and all the world every question you may choose to ask, as well about the loss of the ass as about the spending of the hundred crowns and without another word or waiting for a reply he made off home. Don Quixote begged and entreated the bachelor to stay and do penance with him. The bachelor accepted the invitation and remained, a couple of young pigeons were added to the ordinary fare, at dinner they talked chivalry, Carrasco fell in with his host's humour, the banquet came to an end, they took their afternoon sleep, Sancho returned, and their conversation was resumed. Sancho came back to Don Quixote's house, and returning to the late subject of conversation, he said, 'As to what Seor Samson said, that he would like to know by whom, or how, or when my ass was stolen, I say in reply that the same night we went into the Sierra Morena, flying from the Holy Brotherhood after that unlucky adventure of the galley slaves, and the other of the corpse that was going to Segovia, my master and I ensconced ourselves in a thicket, and there, my master leaning on his lance, and I seated on my Dapple, battered and weary with the late frays we fell asleep as if it had been on four feather mattresses and I in particular slept so sound, that, whoever he was, he was able to come and prop me up on four stakes, which he put under the four corners of the packsaddle in such a way that he left me mounted on it, and took away Dapple from under me without my feeling it. 'That is an easy matter, said Don Quixote, 'and it is no new occurrence, for the same thing happened to Sacripante at the siege of Albracca the famous thief, Brunello, by the same contrivance, took his horse from between his legs. 'Day came, continued Sancho, 'and the moment I stirred the stakes gave way and I fell to the ground with a mighty come down I looked about for the ass, but could not see him the tears rushed to my eyes and I raised such a lamentation that, if the author of our history has not put it in, he may depend upon it he has left out a good thing. Some days after, I know not how many, travelling with her ladyship the Princess Micomicona, I saw my ass, and mounted upon him, in the dress of a gipsy, was that Gines de Pasamonte, the great rogue and rascal that my master and I freed from the chain. 'That is not where the mistake is, replied Samson 'it is, that before the ass has turned up, the author speaks of Sancho as being mounted on it. 'I don't know what to say to that, said Sancho, 'unless that the historian made a mistake, or perhaps it might be a blunder of the printer's. 'No doubt that's it, said Samson 'but what became of the hundred crowns? Did they vanish? To which Sancho answered, 'I spent them for my own good, and my wife's, and my children's, and it is they that have made my wife bear so patiently all my wanderings on highways and byways, in the service of my master, Don Quixote for if after all this time I had come back to the house without a rap and without the ass, it would have been a poor lookout for me and if anyone wants to know anything more about me, here I am, ready to answer the king himself in person and it is no affair of anyone's whether I took or did not take, whether I spent or did not spend for the whacks that were given me in these journeys were to be paid for in money, even if they were valued at no more than four maravedis apiece, another hundred crowns would not pay me for half of them. Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and black white for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse. 'I will take care, said Carrasco, 'to impress upon the author of the history that, if he prints it again, he must not forget what worthy Sancho has said, for it will raise it a good span higher. 'Is there anything else to correct in the history, seor bachelor? asked Don Quixote. 'No doubt there is, replied he 'but not anything that will be of the same importance as those I have mentioned. 'Does the author promise a second part at all? said Don Quixote. 'He does promise one, replied Samson 'but he says he has not found it, nor does he know who has got it and we cannot say whether it will appear or not and so, on that head, as some say that no second part has ever been good, and others that enough has been already written about Don Quixote, it is thought there will be no second part though some, who are jovial rather than saturnine, say, 'Let us have more Quixotades, let Don Quixote charge and Sancho chatter, and no matter what it may turn out, we shall be satisfied with that.' 'And what does the author mean to do? said Don Quixote. 'What? replied Samson 'why, as soon as he has found the history which he is now searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will at once give it to the press, moved more by the profit that may accrue to him from doing so than by any thought of praise. Whereat Sancho observed, 'The author looks for money and profit, does he? It will be a wonder if he succeeds, for it will be only hurry, hurry, with him, like the tailor on Easter Eve and works done in a hurry are never finished as perfectly as they ought to be. Let master Moor, or whatever he is, pay attention to what he is doing, and I and my master will give him as much grouting ready to his hand, in the way of adventures and accidents of all sorts, as would make up not only one second part, but a hundred. The good man fancies, no doubt, that we are fast asleep in the straw here, but let him hold up our feet to be shod and he will see which foot it is we go lame on. All I say is, that if my master would take my advice, we would be now afield, redressing outrages and righting wrongs, as is the use and custom of good knightserrant. Sancho had hardly uttered these words when the neighing of Rocinante fell upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time. Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, and the bachelor replied that in his opinion he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragon, and the city of Saragossa, where there were to be certain solemn joustings at the festival of St. George, at which he might win renown above all the knights of Aragon, which would be winning it above all the knights of the world. He commended his very praiseworthy and gallant resolution, but admonished him to proceed with greater caution in encountering dangers, because his life did not belong to him, but to all those who had need of him to protect and aid them in their misfortunes. 'There's where it is, what I abominate, Seor Samson, said Sancho here 'my master will attack a hundred armed men as a greedy boy would half a dozen melons. Body of the world, seor bachelor! there is a time to attack and a time to retreat, and it is not to be always 'Santiago, and close Spain!' Moreover, I have heard it said (and I think by my master himself, if I remember rightly) that the mean of valour lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness and if that be so, I don't want him to fly without having good reason, or to attack when the odds make it better not. But, above all things, I warn my master that if he is to take me with him it must be on the condition that he is to do all the fighting, and that I am not to be called upon to do anything except what concerns keeping him clean and comfortable in this I will dance attendance on him readily but to expect me to draw sword, even against rascally churls of the hatchet and hood, is idle. I don't set up to be a fighting man, Seor Samson, but only the best and most loyal squire that ever served knighterrant and if my master Don Quixote, in consideration of my many faithful services, is pleased to give me some island of the many his worship says one may stumble on in these parts, I will take it as a great favour and if he does not give it to me, I was born like everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on anyone except God and what is more, my bread will taste as well, and perhaps even better, without a government than if I were a governor and how do I know but that in these governments the devil may have prepared some trip for me, to make me lose my footing and fall and knock my grinders out? Sancho I was born and Sancho I mean to die. But for all that, if heaven were to make me a fair offer of an island or something else of the kind, without much trouble and without much risk, I am not such a fool as to refuse it for they say, too, 'when they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter and 'when good luck comes to thee, take it in.' 'Brother Sancho, said Carrasco, 'you have spoken like a professor but, for all that, put your trust in God and in Seor Don Quixote, for he will give you a kingdom, not to say an island. 'It is all the same, be it more or be it less, replied Sancho 'though I can tell Seor Carrasco that my master would not throw the kingdom he might give me into a sack all in holes for I have felt my own pulse and I find myself sound enough to rule kingdoms and govern islands and I have before now told my master as much. 'Take care, Sancho, said Samson 'honours change manners, and perhaps when you find yourself a governor you won't know the mother that bore you. 'That may hold good of those that are born in the ditches, said Sancho, 'not of those who have the fat of an old Christian four fingers deep on their souls, as I have. Nay, only look at my disposition, is that likely to show ingratitude to anyone? 'God grant it, said Don Quixote 'we shall see when the government comes and I seem to see it already. He then begged the bachelor, if he were a poet, to do him the favour of composing some verses for him conveying the farewell he meant to take of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and to see that a letter of her name was placed at the beginning of each line, so that, at the end of the verses, 'Dulcinea del Toboso might be read by putting together the first letters. The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the famous poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he would not fail to compose the required verses though he saw a great difficulty in the task, as the letters which made up the name were seventeen so, if he made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there would be a letter over, and if he made them of five, what they called decimas or redondillas, there were three letters short nevertheless he would try to drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name 'Dulcinea del Toboso might be got into four ballad stanzas. 'It must be, by some means or other, said Don Quixote, 'for unless the name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses were made for her. They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in three days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it a secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of his praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then took his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil fortunes whenever he had an opportunity and thus they bade each other farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for their expedition. The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it possible he could have conceived them however, desirous of doing what his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and therefore he went on to say Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, 'What have you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad? To which he replied, 'Wife, if it were God's will, I should be very glad not to be so well pleased as I show myself. 'I don't understand you, husband, said she, 'and I don't know what you mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well pleased for, fool as I am, I don't know how one can find pleasure in not having it. 'Hark ye, Teresa, replied Sancho, 'I am glad because I have made up my mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go out a third time to seek for adventures and I am going with him again, for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have spent though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children and if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dryshod and at home, without taking me out into the byways and crossroadsand he could do it at small cost by merely willing itit is clear my happiness would be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with sorrow at leaving thee so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well pleased. 'Look here, Sancho, said Teresa 'ever since you joined on to a knighterrant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no understanding you. 'It is enough that God understands me, wife, replied Sancho 'for he is the understander of all things that will do but mind, sister, you must look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit to take arms double his feed, and see to the packsaddle and other harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the world, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters, and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings and even all this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and enchanted Moors. 'I know well enough, husband, said Teresa, 'that squireserrant don't eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune. 'I can tell you, wife, said Sancho, 'if I did not expect to see myself governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot. 'Nay, then, husband, said Teresa 'let the hen live, though it be with her pip, live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world you came out of your mother's womb without a government, you have lived until now without a government, and when it is God's will you will go, or be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same, and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with some government, don't forget me and your children. Remember that Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church. Consider, too, that your daughter MariSancha will not die of grief if we marry her for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband as you to get a government and, after all, a daughter looks better ill married than well whored. 'By my faith, replied Sancho, 'if God brings me to get any sort of a government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for MariSancha that there will be no approaching her without calling her 'my lady. 'Nay, Sancho, returned Teresa 'marry her to her equal, that is the safest plan for if you put her out of wooden clogs into highheeled shoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out of the plain 'Marica' and 'thou,' into 'Doa Soandso' and 'my lady,' the girl won't know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into a thousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespun stuff. 'Tut, you fool, said Sancho 'it will be only to practise it for two or three years and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily as a glove and if not, what matter? Let her be 'my lady,' and never mind what happens. 'Keep to your own station, Sancho, replied Teresa 'don't try to raise yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'wipe the nose of your neigbbour's son, and take him into your house.' A fine thing it would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grand gentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her and call her clownbred and clodhopper's daughter and spinning wench. I have not been bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband. Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care there is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we know, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl and with him, one of our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her always under our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children, grandchildren and sonsinlaw, and the peace and blessing of God will dwell among us so don't you go marrying her in those courts and grand palaces where they won't know what to make of her, or she what to make of herself. 'Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas, said Sancho, 'what do you mean by trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter to one who will give me grandchildren that will be called 'your lordship'? Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does not know how to take advantage of luck when it comes to him, has no right to complain if it gives him the goby and now that it is knocking at our door, it will not do to shut it out let us go with the favouring breeze that blows upon us. It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made the translator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal. 'Don't you see, you animal, continued Sancho, 'that it will be well for me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of the mire, and marry MariSancha to whom I like and you yourself will find yourself called 'Doa Teresa Panza,' and sitting in church on a fine carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all the born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater nor less, like a tapestry figureLet us say no more about it, for Sanchica shall be a countess, say what you will. 'Are you sure of all you say, husband? replied Teresa. 'Well, for all that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin. You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tell you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover of equality, brother, and I can't bear to see people give themselves airs without any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain, simple name, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Doas Cascajo was my father's name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza, though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo but 'kings go where laws like,' and I am content with this name without having the 'Don' put on top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it and I don't want to make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess or governor's wife for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slut gives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used to go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of a mantle, and there she goes today in a hooped gown with her broaches and airs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in my seven senses, or five, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such a pass go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swagger as much as you like for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughter nor I are going to stir a step from our village a respectable woman should have a broken leg and keep at home and to be busy at something is a virtuous damsel's holiday be off to your adventures along with your Don Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend them for us according as we deserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the 'Don' to him, what neither his father nor grandfather ever had. 'I declare thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body! said Sancho. 'God help thee, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, one after the other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the broaches and the proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt (for so I may call you, when you don't understand my words, and run away from good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herself down from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Doa Urraca wanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will but if in an instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'my lady' on her back, and take her out of the stubble, and place her under a canopy, on a dais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all the Almohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent and fall in with my wishes? 'Do you know why, husband? replied Teresa 'because of the proverb that says 'who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor man people only throw a hasty glance on the rich man they fix their eyes and if the said rich man was once on a time poor, it is then there is the sneering and the tattle and spite of backbiters and in the streets here they swarm as thick as bees. 'Look here, Teresa, said Sancho, 'and listen to what I am now going to say to you maybe you never heard it in all your life and I do not give my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of his reverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, and who said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyes behold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves on our memory much better and more forcibly than things past. These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on account of which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal, inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity. 'Whence it arises, he continued, 'that when we see any person well dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants, it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory may at the same moment recall to us some lowly condition in which we have seen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, being now a thing of the past, has no existence while the only thing that has any existence is what we see before us and if this person whom fortune has raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words the padre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well bred, generous, courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is of ancient date, depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was, and everyone will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, from whom no fair fortune is safe. 'I do not understand you, husband, replied Teresa 'do as you like, and don't break my head with any more speechifying and rethoric and if you have revolved to do what you say 'Resolved, you should say, woman, said Sancho, 'not revolved. 'Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband, said Teresa 'I speak as God pleases, and don't deal in outoftheway phrases and I say if you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, and teach him from this time on how to hold a government for sons ought to inherit and learn the trades of their fathers. 'As soon as I have the government, said Sancho, 'I will send for him by post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, for there is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they have not got it and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make him look what he is to be. 'You send the money, said Teresa, 'and I'll dress him up for you as fine as you please. 'Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess, said Sancho. 'The day that I see her a countess, replied Teresa, 'it will be the same to me as if I was burying her but once more I say do as you please, for we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands, though they be dogs and with this she began to weep in earnest, as if she already saw Sanchica dead and buried. Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, he would put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to an end, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote, and make arrangements for their departure. While Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa Cascajo, held the above irrelevant conversation, Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper were not idle, for by a thousand signs they began to perceive that their uncle and master meant to give them the slip the third time, and once more betake himself to his, for them, illerrant chivalry. They strove by all the means in their power to divert him from such an unlucky scheme but it was all preaching in the desert and hammering cold iron. Nevertheless, among many other representations made to him, the housekeeper said to him, 'In truth, master, if you do not keep still and stay quiet at home, and give over roaming mountains and valleys like a troubled spirit, looking for what they say are called adventures, but what I call misfortunes, I shall have to make complaint to God and the king with loud supplication to send some remedy. To which Don Quixote replied, 'What answer God will give to your complaints, housekeeper, I know not, nor what his Majesty will answer either I only know that if I were king I should decline to answer the numberless silly petitions they present every day for one of the greatest among the many troubles kings have is being obliged to listen to all and answer all, and therefore I should be sorry that any affairs of mine should worry him. Whereupon the housekeeper said, 'Tell us, seor, at his Majesty's court are there no knights? 'There are, replied Don Quixote, 'and plenty of them and it is right there should be, to set off the dignity of the prince, and for the greater glory of the king's majesty. 'Then might not your worship, said she, 'be one of those that, without stirring a step, serve their king and lord in his court? 'Recollect, my friend, said Don Quixote, 'all knights cannot be courtiers, nor can all courtiers be knightserrant, nor need they be. There must be all sorts in the world and though we may be all knights, there is a great difference between one and another for the courtiers, without quitting their chambers, or the threshold of the court, range the world over by looking at a map, without its costing them a farthing, and without suffering heat or cold, hunger or thirst but we, the true knightserrant, measure the whole earth with our own feet, exposed to the sun, to the cold, to the air, to the inclemencies of heaven, by day and night, on foot and on horseback nor do we only know enemies in pictures, but in their own real shapes and at all risks and on all occasions we attack them, without any regard to childish points or rules of single combat, whether one has or has not a shorter lance or sword, whether one carries relics or any secret contrivance about him, whether or not the sun is to be divided and portioned out, and other niceties of the sort that are observed in set combats of man to man, that you know nothing about, but I do. And you must know besides, that the true knighterrant, though he may see ten giants, that not only touch the clouds with their heads but pierce them, and that go, each of them, on two tall towers by way of legs, and whose arms are like the masts of mighty ships, and each eye like a great millwheel, and glowing brighter than a glass furnace, must not on any account be dismayed by them. On the contrary, he must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus steel, or clubs studded with spikes also of steel, such as I have more than once seen. All this I say, housekeeper, that you may see the difference there is between the one sort of knight and the other and it would be well if there were no prince who did not set a higher value on this second, or more properly speaking first, kind of knightserrant for, as we read in their histories, there have been some among them who have been the salvation, not merely of one kingdom, but of many. 'Ah, seor, here exclaimed the niece, 'remember that all this you are saying about knightserrant is fable and fiction and their histories, if indeed they were not burned, would deserve, each of them, to have a sambenito put on it, or some mark by which it might be known as infamous and a corrupter of good manners. 'By the God that gives me life, said Don Quixote, 'if thou wert not my full niece, being daughter of my own sister, I would inflict a chastisement upon thee for the blasphemy thou hast uttered that all the world should ring with. What! can it be that a young hussy that hardly knows how to handle a dozen lacebobbins dares to wag her tongue and criticise the histories of knightserrant? What would Seor Amadis say if he heard of such a thing? He, however, no doubt would forgive thee, for he was the most humbleminded and courteous knight of his time, and moreover a great protector of damsels but some there are that might have heard thee, and it would not have been well for thee in that case for they are not all courteous or mannerly some are illconditioned scoundrels nor is it everyone that calls himself a gentleman, that is so in all respects some are gold, others pinchbeck, and all look like gentlemen, but not all can stand the touchstone of truth. There are men of low rank who strain themselves to bursting to pass for gentlemen, and high gentlemen who, one would fancy, were dying to pass for men of low rank the former raise themselves by their ambition or by their virtues, the latter debase themselves by their lack of spirit or by their vices and one has need of experience and discernment to distinguish these two kinds of gentlemen, so much alike in name and so different in conduct. 'God bless me! said the niece, 'that you should know so much, uncleenough, if need be, to get up into a pulpit and go preach in the streetsand yet that you should fall into a delusion so great and a folly so manifest as to try to make yourself out vigorous when you are old, strong when you are sickly, able to put straight what is crooked when you yourself are bent by age, and, above all, a caballero when you are not one for though gentlefolk may be so, poor men are nothing of the kind! 'There is a great deal of truth in what you say, niece, returned Don Quixote, 'and I could tell you somewhat about birth that would astonish you but, not to mix up things human and divine, I refrain. Look you, my dears, all the lineages in the world (attend to what I am saying) can be reduced to four sorts, which are these those that had humble beginnings, and went on spreading and extending themselves until they attained surpassing greatness those that had great beginnings and maintained them, and still maintain and uphold the greatness of their origin those, again, that from a great beginning have ended in a point like a pyramid, having reduced and lessened their original greatness till it has come to nought, like the point of a pyramid, which, relatively to its base or foundation, is nothing and then there are thoseand it is they that are the most numerousthat have had neither an illustrious beginning nor a remarkable midcourse, and so will have an end without a name, like an ordinary plebeian line. Of the first, those that had an humble origin and rose to the greatness they still preserve, the Ottoman house may serve as an example, which from an humble and lowly shepherd, its founder, has reached the height at which we now see it. For examples of the second sort of lineage, that began with greatness and maintains it still without adding to it, there are the many princes who have inherited the dignity, and maintain themselves in their inheritance, without increasing or diminishing it, keeping peacefully within the limits of their states. Of those that began great and ended in a point, there are thousands of examples, for all the Pharaohs and Ptolemies of Egypt, the Csars of Rome, and the whole herd (if I may apply such a word to them) of countless princes, monarchs, lords, Medes, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and barbarians, all these lineages and lordships have ended in a point and come to nothing, they themselves as well as their founders, for it would be impossible now to find one of their descendants, and, even should we find one, it would be in some lowly and humble condition. Of plebeian lineages I have nothing to say, save that they merely serve to swell the number of those that live, without any eminence to entitle them to any fame or praise beyond this. From all I have said I would have you gather, my poor innocents, that great is the confusion among lineages, and that only those are seen to be great and illustrious that show themselves so by the virtue, wealth, and generosity of their possessors. I have said virtue, wealth, and generosity, because a great man who is vicious will be a great example of vice, and a rich man who is not generous will be merely a miserly beggar for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it, and not by spending as he pleases, but by knowing how to spend it well. The poor gentleman has no way of showing that he is a gentleman but by virtue, by being affable, wellbred, courteous, gentlemannered, and kindly, not haughty, arrogant, or censorious, but above all by being charitable for by two maravedis given with a cheerful heart to the poor, he will show himself as generous as he who distributes alms with bellringing, and no one that perceives him to be endowed with the virtues I have named, even though he know him not, will fail to recognise and set him down as one of good blood and it would be strange were it not so praise has ever been the reward of virtue, and those who are virtuous cannot fail to receive commendation. There are two roads, my daughters, by which men may reach wealth and honours one is that of letters, the other that of arms. I have more of arms than of letters in my composition, and, judging by my inclination to arms, was born under the influence of the planet Mars. I am, therefore, in a measure constrained to follow that road, and by it I must travel in spite of all the world, and it will be labour in vain for you to urge me to resist what heaven wills, fate ordains, reason requires, and, above all, my own inclination favours for knowing as I do the countless toils that are the accompaniments of knighterrantry, I know, too, the infinite blessings that are attained by it I know that the path of virtue is very narrow, and the road of vice broad and spacious I know their ends and goals are different, for the broad and easy road of vice ends in death, and the narrow and toilsome one of virtue in life, and not transitory life, but in that which has no end I know, as our great Castilian poet says, that It is by rugged paths like these they go That scale the heights of immortality, Unreached by those that falter here below. 'Woe is me! exclaimed the niece, 'my lord is a poet, too! He knows everything, and he can do everything I will bet, if he chose to turn mason, he could make a house as easily as a cage. 'I can tell you, niece, replied Don Quixote, 'if these chivalrous thoughts did not engage all my faculties, there would be nothing that I could not do, nor any sort of knickknack that would not come from my hands, particularly cages and toothpicks. At this moment there came a knocking at the door, and when they asked who was there, Sancho Panza made answer that it was he. The instant the housekeeper knew who it was, she ran to hide herself so as not to see him in such abhorrence did she hold him. The niece let him in, and his master Don Quixote came forward to receive him with open arms, and the pair shut themselves up in his room, where they had another conversation not inferior to the previous one. The instant the housekeeper saw Sancho Panza shut himself in with her master, she guessed what they were about and suspecting that the result of the consultation would be a resolve to undertake a third sally, she seized her mantle, and in deep anxiety and distress, ran to find the bachelor Samson Carrasco, as she thought that, being a wellspoken man, and a new friend of her master's, he might be able to persuade him to give up any such crazy notion. She found him pacing the patio of his house, and, perspiring and flurried, she fell at his feet the moment she saw him. Carrasco, seeing how distressed and overcome she was, said to her, 'What is this, mistress housekeeper? What has happened to you? One would think you heartbroken. 'Nothing, Seor Samson, said she, 'only that my master is breaking out, plainly breaking out. 'Whereabouts is he breaking out, seora? asked Samson 'has any part of his body burst? 'He is only breaking out at the door of his madness, she replied 'I mean, dear seor bachelor, that he is going to break out again (and this will be the third time) to hunt all over the world for what he calls ventures, though I can't make out why he gives them that name. The first time he was brought back to us slung across the back of an ass, and belaboured all over and the second time he came in an oxcart, shut up in a cage, in which he persuaded himself he was enchanted, and the poor creature was in such a state that the mother that bore him would not have known him lean, yellow, with his eyes sunk deep in the cells of his skull so that to bring him round again, ever so little, cost me more than six hundred eggs, as God knows, and all the world, and my hens too, that won't let me tell a lie. 'That I can well believe, replied the bachelor, 'for they are so good and so fat, and so wellbred, that they would not say one thing for another, though they were to burst for it. In short then, mistress housekeeper, that is all, and there is nothing the matter, except what it is feared Don Quixote may do? 'No, seor, said she. 'Well then, returned the bachelor, 'don't be uneasy, but go home in peace get me ready something hot for breakfast, and while you are on the way say the prayer of Santa Apollonia, that is if you know it for I will come presently and you will see miracles. 'Woe is me, cried the housekeeper, 'is it the prayer of Santa Apollonia you would have me say? That would do if it was the toothache my master had but it is in the brains, what he has got. 'I know what I am saying, mistress housekeeper go, and don't set yourself to argue with me, for you know I am a bachelor of Salamanca, and one can't be more of a bachelor than that, replied Carrasco and with this the housekeeper retired, and the bachelor went to look for the curate, and arrange with him what will be told in its proper place. While Don Quixote and Sancho were shut up together, they had a discussion which the history records with great precision and scrupulous exactness. Sancho said to his master, 'Seor, I have educed my wife to let me go with your worship wherever you choose to take me. 'Induced, you should say, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'not educed. 'Once or twice, as well as I remember, replied Sancho, 'I have begged of your worship not to mend my words, if so be as you understand what I mean by them and if you don't understand them to say 'Sancho,' or 'devil,' 'I don't understand thee and if I don't make my meaning plain, then you may correct me, for I am so focile 'I don't understand thee, Sancho, said Don Quixote at once 'for I know not what 'I am so focile' means. ''So focile' means I am so much that way, replied Sancho. 'I understand thee still less now, said Don Quixote. 'Well, if you can't understand me, said Sancho, 'I don't know how to put it I know no more, God help me. 'Oh, now I have hit it, said Don Quixote 'thou wouldst say thou art so docile, tractable, and gentle that thou wilt take what I say to thee, and submit to what I teach thee. 'I would bet, said Sancho, 'that from the very first you understood me, and knew what I meant, but you wanted to put me out that you might hear me make another couple of dozen blunders. 'May be so, replied Don Quixote 'but to come to the point, what does Teresa say? 'Teresa says, replied Sancho, 'that I should make sure with your worship, and 'let papers speak and beards be still,' for 'he who binds does not wrangle,' since one 'take' is better than two 'I'll give thee's' and I say a woman's advice is no great thing, and he who won't take it is a fool. 'And so say I, said Don Quixote 'continue, Sancho my friend go on you talk pearls today. 'The fact is, continued Sancho, 'that, as your worship knows better than I do, we are all of us liable to death, and today we are, and tomorrow we are not, and the lamb goes as soon as the sheep, and nobody can promise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleased to give him for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life's door, it is always urgent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, nor sceptres, nor mitres, can keep it back, as common talk and report say, and as they tell us from the pulpits every day. 'All that is very true, said Don Quixote 'but I cannot make out what thou art driving at. 'What I am driving at, said Sancho, 'is that your worship settle some fixed wages for me, to be paid monthly while I am in your service, and that the same be paid me out of your estate for I don't care to stand on rewards which either come late, or ill, or never at all God help me with my own. In short, I would like to know what I am to get, be it much or little for the hen will lay on one egg, and many littles make a much, and so long as one gains something there is nothing lost. To be sure, if it should happen (what I neither believe nor expect) that your worship were to give me that island you have promised me, I am not so ungrateful nor so grasping but that I would be willing to have the revenue of such island valued and stopped out of my wages in due promotion. 'Sancho, my friend, replied Don Quixote, 'sometimes proportion may be as good as promotion. 'I see, said Sancho 'I'll bet I ought to have said proportion, and not promotion but it is no matter, as your worship has understood me. 'And so well understood, returned Don Quixote, 'that I have seen into the depths of thy thoughts, and know the mark thou art shooting at with the countless shafts of thy proverbs. Look here, Sancho, I would readily fix thy wages if I had ever found any instance in the histories of the knightserrant to show or indicate, by the slightest hint, what their squires used to get monthly or yearly but I have read all or the best part of their histories, and I cannot remember reading of any knighterrant having assigned fixed wages to his squire I only know that they all served on reward, and that when they least expected it, if good luck attended their masters, they found themselves recompensed with an island or something equivalent to it, or at the least they were left with a title and lordship. If with these hopes and additional inducements you, Sancho, please to return to my service, well and good but to suppose that I am going to disturb or unhinge the ancient usage of knighterrantry, is all nonsense. And so, my Sancho, get you back to your house and explain my intentions to your Teresa, and if she likes and you like to be on reward with me, bene quidem if not, we remain friends for if the pigeonhouse does not lack food, it will not lack pigeons and bear in mind, my son, that a good hope is better than a bad holding, and a good grievance better than a bad compensation. I speak in this way, Sancho, to show you that I can shower down proverbs just as well as yourself and in short, I mean to say, and I do say, that if you don't like to come on reward with me, and run the same chance that I run, God be with you and make a saint of you for I shall find plenty of squires more obedient and painstaking, and not so thickheaded or talkative as you are. When Sancho heard his master's firm, resolute language, a cloud came over the sky with him and the wings of his heart drooped, for he had made sure that his master would not go without him for all the wealth of the world and as he stood there dumbfoundered and moody, Samson Carrasco came in with the housekeeper and niece, who were anxious to hear by what arguments he was about to dissuade their master from going to seek adventures. The arch wag Samson came forward, and embracing him as he had done before, said with a loud voice, 'O flower of knighterrantry! O shining light of arms! O honour and mirror of the Spanish nation! may God Almighty in his infinite power grant that any person or persons, who would impede or hinder thy third sally, may find no way out of the labyrinth of their schemes, nor ever accomplish what they most desire! And then, turning to the housekeeper, he said, 'Mistress housekeeper may just as well give over saying the prayer of Santa Apollonia, for I know it is the positive determination of the spheres that Seor Don Quixote shall proceed to put into execution his new and lofty designs and I should lay a heavy burden on my conscience did I not urge and persuade this knight not to keep the might of his strong arm and the virtue of his valiant spirit any longer curbed and checked, for by his inactivity he is defrauding the world of the redress of wrongs, of the protection of orphans, of the honour of virgins, of the aid of widows, and of the support of wives, and other matters of this kind appertaining, belonging, proper and peculiar to the order of knighterrantry. On, then, my lord Don Quixote, beautiful and brave, let your worship and highness set out today rather than tomorrow and if anything be needed for the execution of your purpose, here am I ready in person and purse to supply the want and were it requisite to attend your magnificence as squire, I should esteem it the happiest good fortune. At this, Don Quixote, turning to Sancho, said, 'Did I not tell thee, Sancho, there would be squires enough and to spare for me? See now who offers to become one no less than the illustrious bachelor Samson Carrasco, the perpetual joy and delight of the courts of the Salamancan schools, sound in body, discreet, patient under heat or cold, hunger or thirst, with all the qualifications requisite to make a knighterrant's squire! But heaven forbid that, to gratify my own inclination, I should shake or shatter this pillar of letters and vessel of the sciences, and cut down this towering palm of the fair and liberal arts. Let this new Samson remain in his own country, and, bringing honour to it, bring honour at the same time on the grey heads of his venerable parents for I will be content with any squire that comes to hand, as Sancho does not deign to accompany me. 'I do deign, said Sancho, deeply moved and with tears in his eyes 'it shall not be said of me, master mine, he continued, ''the bread eaten and the company dispersed.' Nay, I come of no ungrateful stock, for all the world knows, but particularly my own town, who the Panzas from whom I am descended were and, what is more, I know and have learned, by many good words and deeds, your worship's desire to show me favour and if I have been bargaining more or less about my wages, it was only to please my wife, who, when she sets herself to press a point, no hammer drives the hoops of a cask as she drives one to do what she wants but, after all, a man must be a man, and a woman a woman and as I am a man anyhow, which I can't deny, I will be one in my own house too, let who will take it amiss and so there's nothing more to do but for your worship to make your will with its codicil in such a way that it can't be provoked, and let us set out at once, to save Seor Samson's soul from suffering, as he says his conscience obliges him to persuade your worship to sally out upon the world a third time so I offer again to serve your worship faithfully and loyally, as well and better than all the squires that served knightserrant in times past or present. The bachelor was filled with amazement when he heard Sancho's phraseology and style of talk, for though he had read the first part of his master's history he never thought that he could be so droll as he was there described but now, hearing him talk of a 'will and codicil that could not be provoked, instead of 'will and codicil that could not be revoked, he believed all he had read of him, and set him down as one of the greatest simpletons of modern times and he said to himself that two such lunatics as master and man the world had never seen. In fine, Don Quixote and Sancho embraced one another and made friends, and by the advice and with the approval of the great Carrasco, who was now their oracle, it was arranged that their departure should take place three days thence, by which time they could have all that was requisite for the journey ready, and procure a closed helmet, which Don Quixote said he must by all means take. Samson offered him one, as he knew a friend of his who had it would not refuse it to him, though it was more dingy with rust and mildew than bright and clean like burnished steel. The curses which both housekeeper and niece poured out on the bachelor were past counting they tore their hair, they clawed their faces, and in the style of the hired mourners that were once in fashion, they raised a lamentation over the departure of their master and uncle, as if it had been his death. Samson's intention in persuading him to sally forth once more was to do what the history relates farther on all by the advice of the curate and barber, with whom he had previously discussed the subject. Finally, then, during those three days, Don Quixote and Sancho provided themselves with what they considered necessary, and Sancho having pacified his wife, and Don Quixote his niece and housekeeper, at nightfall, unseen by anyone except the bachelor, who thought fit to accompany them half a league out of the village, they set out for El Toboso, Don Quixote on his good Rocinante and Sancho on his old Dapple, his alforjas furnished with certain matters in the way of victuals, and his purse with money that Don Quixote gave him to meet emergencies. Samson embraced him, and entreated him to let him hear of his good or evil fortunes, so that he might rejoice over the former or condole with him over the latter, as the laws of friendship required. Don Quixote promised him he would do so, and Samson returned to the village, and the other two took the road for the great city of El Toboso. 'Blessed be Allah the allpowerful! says Hamete Benengeli on beginning this eighth chapter 'blessed be Allah! he repeats three times and he says he utters these thanksgivings at seeing that he has now got Don Quixote and Sancho fairly afield, and that the readers of his delightful history may reckon that the achievements and humours of Don Quixote and his squire are now about to begin and he urges them to forget the former chivalries of the ingenious gentleman and to fix their eyes on those that are to come, which now begin on the road to El Toboso, as the others began on the plains of Montiel nor is it much that he asks in consideration of all he promises, and so he goes on to say Don Quixote and Sancho were left alone, and the moment Samson took his departure, Rocinante began to neigh, and Dapple to sigh, which, by both knight and squire, was accepted as a good sign and a very happy omen though, if the truth is to be told, the sighs and brays of Dapple were louder than the neighings of the hack, from which Sancho inferred that his good fortune was to exceed and overtop that of his master, building, perhaps, upon some judicial astrology that he may have known, though the history says nothing about it all that can be said is, that when he stumbled or fell, he was heard to say he wished he had not come out, for by stumbling or falling there was nothing to be got but a damaged shoe or a broken rib and, fool as he was, he was not much astray in this. Said Don Quixote, 'Sancho, my friend, night is drawing on upon us as we go, and more darkly than will allow us to reach El Toboso by daylight for there I am resolved to go before I engage in another adventure, and there I shall obtain the blessing and generous permission of the peerless Dulcinea, with which permission I expect and feel assured that I shall conclude and bring to a happy termination every perilous adventure for nothing in life makes knightserrant more valorous than finding themselves favoured by their ladies. 'So I believe, replied Sancho 'but I think it will be difficult for your worship to speak with her or see her, at any rate where you will be able to receive her blessing unless, indeed, she throws it over the wall of the yard where I saw her the time before, when I took her the letter that told of the follies and mad things your worship was doing in the heart of Sierra Morena. 'Didst thou take that for a yard wall, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'where or at which thou sawest that never sufficiently extolled grace and beauty? It must have been the gallery, corridor, or portico of some rich and royal palace. 'It might have been all that, returned Sancho, 'but to me it looked like a wall, unless I am short of memory. 'At all events, let us go there, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'for, so that I see her, it is the same to me whether it be over a wall, or at a window, or through the chink of a door, or the grate of a garden for any beam of the sun of her beauty that reaches my eyes will give light to my reason and strength to my heart, so that I shall be unmatched and unequalled in wisdom and valour. 'Well, to tell the truth, seor, said Sancho, 'when I saw that sun of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, it was not bright enough to throw out beams at all it must have been, that as her grace was sifting that wheat I told you of, the thick dust she raised came before her face like a cloud and dimmed it. 'What! dost thou still persist, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'in saying, thinking, believing, and maintaining that my lady Dulcinea was sifting wheat, that being an occupation and task entirely at variance with what is and should be the employment of persons of distinction, who are constituted and reserved for other avocations and pursuits that show their rank a bowshot off? Thou hast forgotten, O Sancho, those lines of our poet wherein he paints for us how, in their crystal abodes, those four nymphs employed themselves who rose from their loved Tagus and seated themselves in a verdant meadow to embroider those tissues which the ingenious poet there describes to us, how they were worked and woven with gold and silk and pearls and something of this sort must have been the employment of my lady when thou sawest her, only that the spite which some wicked enchanter seems to have against everything of mine changes all those things that give me pleasure, and turns them into shapes unlike their own and so I fear that in that history of my achievements which they say is now in print, if haply its author was some sage who is an enemy of mine, he will have put one thing for another, mingling a thousand lies with one truth, and amusing himself by relating transactions which have nothing to do with the sequence of a true history. O envy, root of all countless evils, and cankerworm of the virtues! All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage. 'So I say too, replied Sancho 'and I suspect in that legend or history of us that the bachelor Samson Carrasco told us he saw, my honour goes dragged in the dirt, knocked about, up and down, sweeping the streets, as they say. And yet, on the faith of an honest man, I never spoke ill of any enchanter, and I am not so well off that I am to be envied to be sure, I am rather sly, and I have a certain spice of the rogue in me but all is covered by the great cloak of my simplicity, always natural and never acted and if I had no other merit save that I believe, as I always do, firmly and truly in God, and all the holy Roman Catholic Church holds and believes, and that I am a mortal enemy of the Jews, the historians ought to have mercy on me and treat me well in their writings. But let them say what they like naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain nay, while I see myself put into a book and passed on from hand to hand over the world, I don't care a fig, let them say what they like of me. 'That, Sancho, returned Don Quixote, 'reminds me of what happened to a famous poet of our own day, who, having written a bitter satire against all the courtesan ladies, did not insert or name in it a certain lady of whom it was questionable whether she was one or not. She, seeing she was not in the list of the poet, asked him what he had seen in her that he did not include her in the number of the others, telling him he must add to his satire and put her in the new part, or else look out for the consequences. The poet did as she bade him, and left her without a shred of reputation, and she was satisfied by getting fame though it was infamy. In keeping with this is what they relate of that shepherd who set fire to the famous temple of Diana, by repute one of the seven wonders of the world, and burned it with the sole object of making his name live in after ages and, though it was forbidden to name him, or mention his name by word of mouth or in writing, lest the object of his ambition should be attained, nevertheless it became known that he was called Erostratus. And something of the same sort is what happened in the case of the great emperor Charles V. and a gentleman in Rome. The emperor was anxious to see that famous temple of the Rotunda, called in ancient times the temple 'of all the gods,' but nowadays, by a better nomenclature, 'of all the saints,' which is the best preserved building of all those of pagan construction in Rome, and the one which best sustains the reputation of mighty works and magnificence of its founders. It is in the form of a half orange, of enormous dimensions, and well lighted, though no light penetrates it save that which is admitted by a window, or rather round skylight, at the top and it was from this that the emperor examined the building. A Roman gentleman stood by his side and explained to him the skilful construction and ingenuity of the vast fabric and its wonderful architecture, and when they had left the skylight he said to the emperor, 'A thousand times, your Sacred Majesty, the impulse came upon me to seize your Majesty in my arms and fling myself down from yonder skylight, so as to leave behind me in the world a name that would last for ever.' 'I am thankful to you for not carrying such an evil thought into effect,' said the emperor, 'and I shall give you no opportunity in future of again putting your loyalty to the test and I therefore forbid you ever to speak to me or to be where I am and he followed up these words by bestowing a liberal bounty upon him. My meaning is, Sancho, that the desire of acquiring fame is a very powerful motive. What, thinkest thou, was it that flung Horatius in full armour down from the bridge into the depths of the Tiber? What burned the hand and arm of Mutius? What impelled Curtius to plunge into the deep burning gulf that opened in the midst of Rome? What, in opposition to all the omens that declared against him, made Julius Csar cross the Rubicon? And to come to more modern examples, what scuttled the ships, and left stranded and cut off the gallant Spaniards under the command of the most courteous Corts in the New World? All these and a variety of other great exploits are, were and will be, the work of fame that mortals desire as a reward and a portion of the immortality their famous deeds deserve though we Catholic Christians and knightserrant look more to that future glory that is everlasting in the ethereal regions of heaven than to the vanity of the fame that is to be acquired in this present transitory life a fame that, however long it may last, must after all end with the world itself, which has its own appointed end. So that, O Sancho, in what we do we must not overpass the bounds which the Christian religion we profess has assigned to us. We have to slay pride in giants, envy by generosity and nobleness of heart, anger by calmness of demeanour and equanimity, gluttony and sloth by the spareness of our diet and the length of our vigils, lust and lewdness by the loyalty we preserve to those whom we have made the mistresses of our thoughts, indolence by traversing the world in all directions seeking opportunities of making ourselves, besides Christians, famous knights. Such, Sancho, are the means by which we reach those extremes of praise that fair fame carries with it. 'All that your worship has said so far, said Sancho, 'I have understood quite well but still I would be glad if your worship would dissolve a doubt for me, which has just this minute come into my mind. 'Solve, thou meanest, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'say on, in God's name, and I will answer as well as I can. 'Tell me, seor, Sancho went on to say, 'those Julys or Augusts, and all those venturous knights that you say are now deadwhere are they now? 'The heathens, replied Don Quixote, 'are, no doubt, in hell the Christians, if they were good Christians, are either in purgatory or in heaven. 'Very good, said Sancho 'but now I want to knowthe tombs where the bodies of those great lords are, have they silver lamps before them, or are the walls of their chapels ornamented with crutches, windingsheets, tresses of hair, legs and eyes in wax? Or what are they ornamented with? To which Don Quixote made answer 'The tombs of the heathens were generally sumptuous temples the ashes of Julius Csar's body were placed on the top of a stone pyramid of vast size, which they now call in Rome Saint Peter's needle. The emperor Hadrian had for a tomb a castle as large as a goodsized village, which they called the Moles Adriani, and is now the castle of St. Angelo in Rome. The queen Artemisia buried her husband Mausolus in a tomb which was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world but none of these tombs, or of the many others of the heathens, were ornamented with windingsheets or any of those other offerings and tokens that show that they who are buried there are saints. 'That's the point I'm coming to, said Sancho 'and now tell me, which is the greater work, to bring a dead man to life or to kill a giant? 'The answer is easy, replied Don Quixote 'it is a greater work to bring to life a dead man. 'Now I have got you, said Sancho 'in that case the fame of them who bring the dead to life, who give sight to the blind, cure cripples, restore health to the sick, and before whose tombs there are lamps burning, and whose chapels are filled with devout folk on their knees adoring their relics be a better fame in this life and in the other than that which all the heathen emperors and knightserrant that have ever been in the world have left or may leave behind them? 'That I grant, too, said Don Quixote. 'Then this fame, these favours, these privileges, or whatever you call it, said Sancho, 'belong to the bodies and relics of the saints who, with the approbation and permission of our holy mother Church, have lamps, tapers, windingsheets, crutches, pictures, eyes and legs, by means of which they increase devotion and add to their own Christian reputation. Kings carry the bodies or relics of saints on their shoulders, and kiss bits of their bones, and enrich and adorn their oratories and favourite altars with them. 'What wouldst thou have me infer from all thou hast said, Sancho? asked Don Quixote. 'My meaning is, said Sancho, 'let us set about becoming saints, and we shall obtain more quickly the fair fame we are striving after for you know, seor, yesterday or the day before yesterday (for it is so lately one may say so) they canonised and beatified two little barefoot friars, and it is now reckoned the greatest good luck to kiss or touch the iron chains with which they girt and tortured their bodies, and they are held in greater veneration, so it is said, than the sword of Roland in the armoury of our lord the King, whom God preserve. So that, seor, it is better to be an humble little friar of no matter what order, than a valiant knighterrant with God a couple of dozen of penance lashings are of more avail than two thousand lancethrusts, be they given to giants, or monsters, or dragons. 'All that is true, returned Don Quixote, 'but we cannot all be friars, and many are the ways by which God takes his own to heaven chivalry is a religion, there are sainted knights in glory. 'Yes, said Sancho, 'but I have heard say that there are more friars in heaven than knightserrant. 'That, said Don Quixote, 'is because those in religious orders are more numerous than knights. 'The errants are many, said Sancho. 'Many, replied Don Quixote, 'but few they who deserve the name of knights. With these, and other discussions of the same sort, they passed that night and the following day, without anything worth mention happening to them, whereat Don Quixote was not a little dejected but at length the next day, at daybreak, they descried the great city of El Toboso, at the sight of which Don Quixote's spirits rose and Sancho's fell, for he did not know Dulcinea's house, nor in all his life had he ever seen her, any more than his master so that they were both uneasy, the one to see her, the other at not having seen her, and Sancho was at a loss to know what he was to do when his master sent him to El Toboso. In the end, Don Quixote made up his mind to enter the city at nightfall, and they waited until the time came among some oak trees that were near El Toboso and when the moment they had agreed upon arrived, they made their entrance into the city, where something happened them that may fairly be called something. 'Twas at the very midnight hourmore or lesswhen Don Quixote and Sancho quitted the wood and entered El Toboso. The town was in deep silence, for all the inhabitants were asleep, and stretched on the broad of their backs, as the saying is. The night was darkish, though Sancho would have been glad had it been quite dark, so as to find in the darkness an excuse for his blundering. All over the place nothing was to be heard except the barking of dogs, which deafened the ears of Don Quixote and troubled the heart of Sancho. Now and then an ass brayed, pigs grunted, cats mewed, and the various noises they made seemed louder in the silence of the night all which the enamoured knight took to be of evil omen nevertheless he said to Sancho, 'Sancho, my son, lead on to the palace of Dulcinea, it may be that we shall find her awake. 'Body of the sun! what palace am I to lead to, said Sancho, 'when what I saw her highness in was only a very little house? 'Most likely she had then withdrawn into some small apartment of her palace, said Don Quixote, 'to amuse herself with damsels, as great ladies and princesses are accustomed to do. 'Seor, said Sancho, 'if your worship will have it in spite of me that the house of my lady Dulcinea is a palace, is this an hour, think you, to find the door open and will it be right for us to go knocking till they hear us and open the door making a disturbance and confusion all through the household? Are we going, do you fancy, to the house of our wenches, like gallants who come and knock and go in at any hour, however late it may be? 'Let us first of all find out the palace for certain, replied Don Quixote, 'and then I will tell thee, Sancho, what we had best do but look, Sancho, for either I see badly, or that dark mass that one sees from here should be Dulcinea's palace. 'Then let your worship lead the way, said Sancho, 'perhaps it may be so though I see it with my eyes and touch it with my hands, I'll believe it as much as I believe it is daylight now. Don Quixote took the lead, and having gone a matter of two hundred paces he came upon the mass that produced the shade, and found it was a great tower, and then he perceived that the building in question was no palace, but the chief church of the town, and said he, 'It's the church we have lit upon, Sancho. 'So I see, said Sancho, 'and God grant we may not light upon our graves it is no good sign to find oneself wandering in a graveyard at this time of night and that, after my telling your worship, if I don't mistake, that the house of this lady will be in an alley without an outlet. 'The curse of God on thee for a blockhead! said Don Quixote 'where hast thou ever heard of castles and royal palaces being built in alleys without an outlet? 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'every country has a way of its own perhaps here in El Toboso it is the way to build palaces and grand buildings in alleys so I entreat your worship to let me search about among these streets or alleys before me, and perhaps, in some corner or other, I may stumble on this palaceand I wish I saw the dogs eating it for leading us such a dance. 'Speak respectfully of what belongs to my lady, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'let us keep the feast in peace, and not throw the rope after the bucket. 'I'll hold my tongue, said Sancho, 'but how am I to take it patiently when your worship wants me, with only once seeing the house of our mistress, to know always, and find it in the middle of the night, when your worship can't find it, who must have seen it thousands of times? 'Thou wilt drive me to desperation, Sancho, said Don Quixote. 'Look here, heretic, have I not told thee a thousand times that I have never once in my life seen the peerless Dulcinea or crossed the threshold of her palace, and that I am enamoured solely by hearsay and by the great reputation she bears for beauty and discretion? 'I hear it now, returned Sancho 'and I may tell you that if you have not seen her, no more have I. 'That cannot be, said Don Quixote, 'for, at any rate, thou saidst, on bringing back the answer to the letter I sent by thee, that thou sawest her sifting wheat. 'Don't mind that, seor, said Sancho 'I must tell you that my seeing her and the answer I brought you back were by hearsay too, for I can no more tell who the lady Dulcinea is than I can hit the sky. 'Sancho, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'there are times for jests and times when jests are out of place if I tell thee that I have neither seen nor spoken to the lady of my heart, it is no reason why thou shouldst say thou hast not spoken to her or seen her, when the contrary is the case, as thou well knowest. While the two were engaged in this conversation, they perceived someone with a pair of mules approaching the spot where they stood, and from the noise the plough made, as it dragged along the ground, they guessed him to be some labourer who had got up before daybreak to go to his work, and so it proved to be. He came along singing the ballad that says Ill did ye fare, ye men of France, In Roncesvalles chase 'May I die, Sancho, said Don Quixote, when he heard him, 'if any good will come to us tonight! Dost thou not hear what that clown is singing? 'I do, said Sancho, 'but what has Roncesvalles chase to do with what we have in hand? He might just as well be singing the ballad of Calainos, for any good or ill that can come to us in our business. By this time the labourer had come up, and Don Quixote asked him, 'Can you tell me, worthy friend, and God speed you, whereabouts here is the palace of the peerless princess Doa Dulcinea del Toboso? 'Seor, replied the lad, 'I am a stranger, and I have been only a few days in the town, doing farm work for a rich farmer. In that house opposite there live the curate of the village and the sacristan, and both or either of them will be able to give your worship some account of this lady princess, for they have a list of all the people of El Toboso though it is my belief there is not a princess living in the whole of it many ladies there are, of quality, and in her own house each of them may be a princess. 'Well, then, she I am inquiring for will be one of these, my friend, said Don Quixote. 'May be so, replied the lad 'God be with you, for here comes the daylight and without waiting for any more of his questions, he whipped on his mules. Sancho, seeing his master downcast and somewhat dissatisfied, said to him, 'Seor, daylight will be here before long, and it will not do for us to let the sun find us in the street it will be better for us to quit the city, and for your worship to hide in some forest in the neighbourhood, and I will come back in the daytime, and I won't leave a nook or corner of the whole village that I won't search for the house, castle, or palace, of my lady, and it will be hard luck for me if I don't find it and as soon as I have found it I will speak to her grace, and tell her where and how your worship is waiting for her to arrange some plan for you to see her without any damage to her honour and reputation. 'Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'thou hast delivered a thousand sentences condensed in the compass of a few words I thank thee for the advice thou hast given me, and take it most gladly. Come, my son, let us go look for some place where I may hide, while thou dost return, as thou sayest, to seek, and speak with my lady, from whose discretion and courtesy I look for favours more than miraculous. Sancho was in a fever to get his master out of the town, lest he should discover the falsehood of the reply he had brought to him in the Sierra Morena on behalf of Dulcinea so he hastened their departure, which they took at once, and two miles out of the village they found a forest or thicket wherein Don Quixote ensconced himself, while Sancho returned to the city to speak to Dulcinea, in which embassy things befell him which demand fresh attention and a new chapter. When the author of this great history comes to relate what is set down in this chapter he says he would have preferred to pass it over in silence, fearing it would not be believed, because here Don Quixote's madness reaches the confines of the greatest that can be conceived, and even goes a couple of bowshots beyond the greatest. But after all, though still under the same fear and apprehension, he has recorded it without adding to the story or leaving out a particle of the truth, and entirely disregarding the charges of falsehood that might be brought against him and he was right, for the truth may run fine but will not break, and always rises above falsehood as oil above water and so, going on with his story, he says that as soon as Don Quixote had ensconced himself in the forest, oak grove, or wood near El Toboso, he bade Sancho return to the city, and not come into his presence again without having first spoken on his behalf to his lady, and begged of her that it might be her good pleasure to permit herself to be seen by her enslaved knight, and deign to bestow her blessing upon him, so that he might thereby hope for a happy issue in all his encounters and difficult enterprises. Sancho undertook to execute the task according to the instructions, and to bring back an answer as good as the one he brought back before. 'Go, my son, said Don Quixote, 'and be not dazed when thou findest thyself exposed to the light of that sun of beauty thou art going to seek. Happy thou, above all the squires in the world! Bear in mind, and let it not escape thy memory, how she receives thee if she changes colour while thou art giving her my message if she is agitated and disturbed at hearing my name if she cannot rest upon her cushion, shouldst thou haply find her seated in the sumptuous state chamber proper to her rank and should she be standing, observe if she poises herself now on one foot, now on the other if she repeats two or three times the reply she gives thee if she passes from gentleness to austerity, from asperity to tenderness if she raises her hand to smooth her hair though it be not disarranged. In short, my son, observe all her actions and motions, for if thou wilt report them to me as they were, I will gather what she hides in the recesses of her heart as regards my love for I would have thee know, Sancho, if thou knowest it not, that with lovers the outward actions and motions they give way to when their loves are in question are the faithful messengers that carry the news of what is going on in the depths of their hearts. Go, my friend, may better fortune than mine attend thee, and bring thee a happier issue than that which I await in dread in this dreary solitude. 'I will go and return quickly, said Sancho 'cheer up that little heart of yours, master mine, for at the present moment you seem to have got one no bigger than a hazel nut remember what they say, that a stout heart breaks bad luck, and that where there are no fletches there are no pegs and moreover they say, the hare jumps up where it's not looked for. I say this because, if we could not find my lady's palaces or castles tonight, now that it is daylight I count upon finding them when I least expect it, and once found, leave it to me to manage her. 'Verily, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'thou dost always bring in thy proverbs happily, whatever we deal with may God give me better luck in what I am anxious about. With this, Sancho wheeled about and gave Dapple the stick, and Don Quixote remained behind, seated on his horse, resting in his stirrups and leaning on the end of his lance, filled with sad and troubled forebodings and there we will leave him, and accompany Sancho, who went off no less serious and troubled than he left his master so much so, that as soon as he had got out of the thicket, and looking round saw that Don Quixote was not within sight, he dismounted from his ass, and seating himself at the foot of a tree began to commune with himself, saying, 'Now, brother Sancho, let us know where your worship is going. Are you going to look for some ass that has been lost? Not at all. Then what are you going to look for? I am going to look for a princess, that's all and in her for the sun of beauty and the whole heaven at once. And where do you expect to find all this, Sancho? Where? Why, in the great city of El Toboso. Well, and for whom are you going to look for her? For the famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who rights wrongs, gives food to those who thirst and drink to the hungry. That's all very well, but do you know her house, Sancho? My master says it will be some royal palace or grand castle. And have you ever seen her by any chance? Neither I nor my master ever saw her. And does it strike you that it would be just and right if the El Toboso people, finding out that you were here with the intention of going to tamper with their princesses and trouble their ladies, were to come and cudgel your ribs, and not leave a whole bone in you? They would, indeed, have very good reason, if they did not see that I am under orders, and that 'you are a messenger, my friend, no blame belongs to you.' Don't you trust to that, Sancho, for the Manchegan folk are as hottempered as they are honest, and won't put up with liberties from anybody. By the Lord, if they get scent of you, it will be worse for you, I promise you. Be off, you scoundrel! Let the bolt fall. Why should I go looking for three feet on a cat, to please another man and what is more, when looking for Dulcinea will be looking for Marica in Ravena, or the bachelor in Salamanca? The devil, the devil and nobody else, has mixed me up in this business! Such was the soliloquy Sancho held with himself, and all the conclusion he could come to was to say to himself again, 'Well, there's remedy for everything except death, under whose yoke we have all to pass, whether we like it or not, when life's finished. I have seen by a thousand signs that this master of mine is a madman fit to be tied, and for that matter, I too, am not behind him for I'm a greater fool than he is when I follow him and serve him, if there's any truth in the proverb that says, 'Tell me what company thou keepest, and I'll tell thee what thou art,' or in that other, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed.' Well then, if he be mad, as he is, and with a madness that mostly takes one thing for another, and white for black, and black for white, as was seen when he said the windmills were giants, and the monks' mules dromedaries, flocks of sheep armies of enemies, and much more to the same tune, it will not be very hard to make him believe that some country girl, the first I come across here, is the lady Dulcinea and if he does not believe it, I'll swear it and if he should swear, I'll swear again and if he persists I'll persist still more, so as, come what may, to have my quoit always over the peg. Maybe, by holding out in this way, I may put a stop to his sending me on messages of this kind another time or maybe he will think, as I suspect he will, that one of those wicked enchanters, who he says have a spite against him, has changed her form for the sake of doing him an ill turn and injuring him. With this reflection Sancho made his mind easy, counting the business as good as settled, and stayed there till the afternoon so as to make Don Quixote think he had time enough to go to El Toboso and return and things turned out so luckily for him that as he got up to mount Dapple, he spied, coming from El Toboso towards the spot where he stood, three peasant girls on three colts, or filliesfor the author does not make the point clear, though it is more likely they were sheasses, the usual mount with village girls but as it is of no great consequence, we need not stop to prove it. To be brief, the instant Sancho saw the peasant girls, he returned full speed to seek his master, and found him sighing and uttering a thousand passionate lamentations. When Don Quixote saw him he exclaimed, 'What news, Sancho, my friend? Am I to mark this day with a white stone or a black? 'Your worship, replied Sancho, 'had better mark it with ruddle, like the inscriptions on the walls of class rooms, that those who see it may see it plain. 'Then thou bringest good news, said Don Quixote. 'So good, replied Sancho, 'that your worship has only to spur Rocinante and get out into the open field to see the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who, with two others, damsels of hers, is coming to see your worship. 'Holy God! what art thou saying, Sancho, my friend? exclaimed Don Quixote. 'Take care thou art not deceiving me, or seeking by false joy to cheer my real sadness. 'What could I get by deceiving your worship, returned Sancho, 'especially when it will so soon be shown whether I tell the truth or not? Come, seor, push on, and you will see the princess our mistress coming, robed and adornedin fact, like what she is. Her damsels and she are all one glow of gold, all bunches of pearls, all diamonds, all rubies, all cloth of brocade of more than ten borders with their hair loose on their shoulders like so many sunbeams playing with the wind and moreover, they come mounted on three piebald cackneys, the finest sight ever you saw. 'Hackneys, you mean, Sancho, said Don Quixote. 'There is not much difference between cackneys and hackneys, said Sancho 'but no matter what they come on, there they are, the finest ladies one could wish for, especially my lady the princess Dulcinea, who staggers one's senses. 'Let us go, Sancho, my son, said Don Quixote, 'and in guerdon of this news, as unexpected as it is good, I bestow upon thee the best spoil I shall win in the first adventure I may have or if that does not satisfy thee, I promise thee the foals I shall have this year from my three mares that thou knowest are in foal on our village common. 'I'll take the foals, said Sancho 'for it is not quite certain that the spoils of the first adventure will be good ones. By this time they had cleared the wood, and saw the three village lasses close at hand. Don Quixote looked all along the road to El Toboso, and as he could see nobody except the three peasant girls, he was completely puzzled, and asked Sancho if it was outside the city he had left them. 'How outside the city? returned Sancho. 'Are your worship's eyes in the back of your head, that you can't see that they are these who are coming here, shining like the very sun at noonday? 'I see nothing, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'but three country girls on three jackasses. 'Now, may God deliver me from the devil! said Sancho, 'and can it be that your worship takes three hackneysor whatever they're calledas white as the driven snow, for jackasses? By the Lord, I could tear my beard if that was the case! 'Well, I can only say, Sancho, my friend, said Don Quixote, 'that it is as plain they are jackassesor jennyassesas that I am Don Quixote, and thou Sancho Panza at any rate, they seem to me to be so. 'Hush, seor, said Sancho, 'don't talk that way, but open your eyes, and come and pay your respects to the lady of your thoughts, who is close upon us now and with these words he advanced to receive the three village lasses, and dismounting from Dapple, caught hold of one of the asses of the three country girls by the halter, and dropping on both knees on the ground, he said, 'Queen and princess and duchess of beauty, may it please your haughtiness and greatness to receive into your favour and goodwill your captive knight who stands there turned into marble stone, and quite stupefied and benumbed at finding himself in your magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he the vagabond knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance.' Don Quixote had by this time placed himself on his knees beside Sancho, and, with eyes starting out of his head and a puzzled gaze, was regarding her whom Sancho called queen and lady and as he could see nothing in her except a village lass, and not a very wellfavoured one, for she was platterfaced and snubnosed, he was perplexed and bewildered, and did not venture to open his lips. The country girls, at the same time, were astonished to see these two men, so different in appearance, on their knees, preventing their companion from going on. She, however, who had been stopped, breaking silence, said angrily and testily, 'Get out of the way, bad luck to you, and let us pass, for we are in a hurry. To which Sancho returned, 'Oh, princess and universal lady of El Toboso, is not your magnanimous heart softened by seeing the pillar and prop of knighterrantry on his knees before your sublimated presence? On hearing this, one of the others exclaimed, 'Woa then! why, I'm rubbing thee down, sheass of my fatherinlaw! See how the lordlings come to make game of the village girls now, as if we here could not chaff as well as themselves. Go your own way, and let us go ours, and it will be better for you. 'Get up, Sancho, said Don Quixote at this 'I see that fortune, 'with evil done to me unsated still,' has taken possession of all the roads by which any comfort may reach 'this wretched soul' that I carry in my flesh. And thou, highest perfection of excellence that can be desired, utmost limit of grace in human shape, sole relief of this afflicted heart that adores thee, though the malign enchanter that persecutes me has brought clouds and cataracts on my eyes, and to them, and them only, transformed thy unparagoned beauty and changed thy features into those of a poor peasant girl, if so be he has not at the same time changed mine into those of some monster to render them loathsome in thy sight, refuse not to look upon me with tenderness and love seeing in this submission that I make on my knees to thy transformed beauty the humility with which my soul adores thee. 'Heyday! My grandfather! cried the girl, 'much I care for your lovemaking! Get out of the way and let us pass, and we'll thank you. Sancho stood aside and let her go, very well pleased to have got so well out of the hobble he was in. The instant the village lass who had done duty for Dulcinea found herself free, prodding her 'cackney with a spike she had at the end of a stick, she set off at full speed across the field. The sheass, however, feeling the point more acutely than usual, began cutting such capers, that it flung the lady Dulcinea to the ground seeing which, Don Quixote ran to raise her up, and Sancho to fix and girth the packsaddle, which also had slipped under the ass's belly. The packsaddle being secured, as Don Quixote was about to lift up his enchanted mistress in his arms and put her upon her beast, the lady, getting up from the ground, saved him the trouble, for, going back a little, she took a short run, and putting both hands on the croup of the ass she dropped into the saddle more lightly than a falcon, and sat astride like a man, whereat Sancho said, 'Rogue! but our lady is lighter than a lanner, and might teach the cleverest Cordovan or Mexican how to mount she cleared the back of the saddle in one jump, and without spurs she is making the hackney go like a zebra and her damsels are no way behind her, for they all fly like the wind which was the truth, for as soon as they saw Dulcinea mounted, they pushed on after her, and sped away without looking back, for more than half a league. Don Quixote followed them with his eyes, and when they were no longer in sight, he turned to Sancho and said, 'How now, Sancho? thou seest how I am hated by enchanters! And see to what a length the malice and spite they bear me go, when they seek to deprive me of the happiness it would give me to see my lady in her own proper form. The fact is I was born to be an example of misfortune, and the target and mark at which the arrows of adversity are aimed and directed. Observe too, Sancho, that these traitors were not content with changing and transforming my Dulcinea, but they transformed and changed her into a shape as mean and illfavoured as that of the village girl yonder and at the same time they robbed her of that which is such a peculiar property of ladies of distinction, that is to say, the sweet fragrance that comes of being always among perfumes and flowers. For I must tell thee, Sancho, that when I approached to put Dulcinea upon her hackney (as thou sayest it was, though to me it appeared a sheass), she gave me a whiff of raw garlic that made my head reel, and poisoned my very heart. 'O scum of the earth! cried Sancho at this, 'O miserable, spiteful enchanters! O that I could see you all strung by the gills, like sardines on a twig! Ye know a great deal, ye can do a great deal, and ye do a great deal more. It ought to have been enough for you, ye scoundrels, to have changed the pearls of my lady's eyes into oak galls, and her hair of purest gold into the bristles of a red ox's tail, and in short, all her features from fair to foul, without meddling with her smell for by that we might somehow have found out what was hidden underneath that ugly rind though, to tell the truth, I never perceived her ugliness, but only her beauty, which was raised to the highest pitch of perfection by a mole she had on her right lip, like a moustache, with seven or eight red hairs like threads of gold, and more than a palm long. 'From the correspondence which exists between those of the face and those of the body, said Don Quixote, 'Dulcinea must have another mole resembling that on the thick of the thigh on that side on which she has the one on her face but hairs of the length thou hast mentioned are very long for moles. 'Well, all I can say is there they were as plain as could be, replied Sancho. 'I believe it, my friend, returned Don Quixote 'for nature bestowed nothing on Dulcinea that was not perfect and wellfinished and so, if she had a hundred moles like the one thou hast described, in her they would not be moles, but moons and shining stars. But tell me, Sancho, that which seemed to me to be a packsaddle as thou wert fixing it, was it a flatsaddle or a sidesaddle? 'It was neither, replied Sancho, 'but a jineta saddle, with a field covering worth half a kingdom, so rich is it. 'And that I could not see all this, Sancho! said Don Quixote 'once more I say, and will say a thousand times, I am the most unfortunate of men. Sancho, the rogue, had enough to do to hide his laughter, at hearing the simplicity of the master he had so nicely befooled. At length, after a good deal more conversation had passed between them, they remounted their beasts, and followed the road to Saragossa, which they expected to reach in time to take part in a certain grand festival which is held every year in that illustrious city but before they got there things happened to them, so many, so important, and so strange, that they deserve to be recorded and read, as will be seen farther on. Dejected beyond measure did Don Quixote pursue his journey, turning over in his mind the cruel trick the enchanters had played him in changing his lady Dulcinea into the vile shape of the village lass, nor could he think of any way of restoring her to her original form and these reflections so absorbed him, that without being aware of it he let go Rocinante's bridle, and he, perceiving the liberty that was granted him, stopped at every step to crop the fresh grass with which the plain abounded. Sancho recalled him from his reverie. 'Melancholy, seor, said he, 'was made, not for beasts, but for men but if men give way to it overmuch they turn to beasts control yourself, your worship be yourself again gather up Rocinante's reins cheer up, rouse yourself and show that gallant spirit that knightserrant ought to have. What the devil is this? What weakness is this? Are we here or in France? The devil fly away with all the Dulcineas in the world for the wellbeing of a single knighterrant is of more consequence than all the enchantments and transformations on earth. 'Hush, Sancho, said Don Quixote in a weak and faint voice, 'hush and utter no blasphemies against that enchanted lady for I alone am to blame for her misfortune and hard fate her calamity has come of the hatred the wicked bear me. 'So say I, returned Sancho 'his heart rend in twain, I trow, who saw her once, to see her now. 'Thou mayest well say that, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'as thou sawest her in the full perfection of her beauty for the enchantment does not go so far as to pervert thy vision or hide her loveliness from thee against me alone and against my eyes is the strength of its venom directed. Nevertheless, there is one thing which has occurred to me, and that is that thou didst ill describe her beauty to me, for, as well as I recollect, thou saidst that her eyes were pearls but eyes that are like pearls are rather the eyes of a seabream than of a lady, and I am persuaded that Dulcinea's must be green emeralds, full and soft, with two rainbows for eyebrows take away those pearls from her eyes and transfer them to her teeth for beyond a doubt, Sancho, thou hast taken the one for the other, the eyes for the teeth. 'Very likely, said Sancho 'for her beauty bewildered me as much as her ugliness did your worship but let us leave it all to God, who alone knows what is to happen in this vale of tears, in this evil world of ours, where there is hardly a thing to be found without some mixture of wickedness, roguery, and rascality. But one thing, seor, troubles me more than all the rest, and that is thinking what is to be done when your worship conquers some giant, or some other knight, and orders him to go and present himself before the beauty of the lady Dulcinea. Where is this poor giant, or this poor wretch of a vanquished knight, to find her? I think I can see them wandering all over El Toboso, looking like noddies, and asking for my lady Dulcinea and even if they meet her in the middle of the street they won't know her any more than they would my father. 'Perhaps, Sancho, returned Don Quixote, 'the enchantment does not go so far as to deprive conquered and presented giants and knights of the power of recognising Dulcinea we will try by experiment with one or two of the first I vanquish and send to her, whether they see her or not, by commanding them to return and give me an account of what happened to them in this respect. 'I declare, I think what your worship has proposed is excellent, said Sancho 'and that by this plan we shall find out what we want to know and if it be that it is only from your worship she is hidden, the misfortune will be more yours than hers but so long as the lady Dulcinea is well and happy, we on our part will make the best of it, and get on as well as we can, seeking our adventures, and leaving Time to take his own course for he is the best physician for these and greater ailments. Don Quixote was about to reply to Sancho Panza, but he was prevented by a cart crossing the road full of the most diverse and strange personages and figures that could be imagined. He who led the mules and acted as carter was a hideous demon the cart was open to the sky, without a tilt or cane roof, and the first figure that presented itself to Don Quixote's eyes was that of Death itself with a human face next to it was an angel with large painted wings, and at one side an emperor, with a crown, to all appearance of gold, on his head. At the feet of Death was the god called Cupid, without his bandage, but with his bow, quiver, and arrows there was also a knight in full armour, except that he had no morion or helmet, but only a hat decked with plumes of divers colours and along with these there were others with a variety of costumes and faces. All this, unexpectedly encountered, took Don Quixote somewhat aback, and struck terror into the heart of Sancho but the next instant Don Quixote was glad of it, believing that some new perilous adventure was presenting itself to him, and under this impression, and with a spirit prepared to face any danger, he planted himself in front of the cart, and in a loud and menacing tone, exclaimed, 'Carter, or coachman, or devil, or whatever thou art, tell me at once who thou art, whither thou art going, and who these folk are thou carriest in thy wagon, which looks more like Charon's boat than an ordinary cart. To which the devil, stopping the cart, answered quietly, 'Seor, we are players of Angulo el Malo's company we have been acting the play of 'The Corts of Death' this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, in a village behind that hill, and we have to act it this afternoon in that village which you can see from this and as it is so near, and to save the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we go in the costumes in which we perform. That lad there appears as Death, that other as an angel, that woman, the manager's wife, plays the queen, this one the soldier, that the emperor, and I the devil and I am one of the principal characters of the play, for in this company I take the leading parts. If you want to know anything more about us, ask me and I will answer with the utmost exactitude, for as I am a devil I am up to everything. 'By the faith of a knighterrant, replied Don Quixote, 'when I saw this cart I fancied some great adventure was presenting itself to me but I declare one must touch with the hand what appears to the eye, if illusions are to be avoided. God speed you, good people keep your festival, and remember, if you demand of me ought wherein I can render you a service, I will do it gladly and willingly, for from a child I was fond of the play, and in my youth a keen lover of the actor's art. While they were talking, fate so willed it that one of the company in a mummers' dress with a great number of bells, and armed with three blown oxbladders at the end of a stick, joined them, and this merryandrew approaching Don Quixote, began flourishing his stick and banging the ground with the bladders and cutting capers with great jingling of the bells, which untoward apparition so startled Rocinante that, in spite of Don Quixote's efforts to hold him in, taking the bit between his teeth he set off across the plain with greater speed than the bones of his anatomy ever gave any promise of. Sancho, who thought his master was in danger of being thrown, jumped off Dapple, and ran in all haste to help him but by the time he reached him he was already on the ground, and beside him was Rocinante, who had come down with his master, the usual end and upshot of Rocinante's vivacity and high spirits. But the moment Sancho quitted his beast to go and help Don Quixote, the dancing devil with the bladders jumped up on Dapple, and beating him with them, more by the fright and the noise than by the pain of the blows, made him fly across the fields towards the village where they were going to hold their festival. Sancho witnessed Dapple's career and his master's fall, and did not know which of the two cases of need he should attend to first but in the end, like a good squire and good servant, he let his love for his master prevail over his affection for his ass though every time he saw the bladders rise in the air and come down on the hind quarters of his Dapple he felt the pains and terrors of death, and he would have rather had the blows fall on the apples of his own eyes than on the least hair of his ass's tail. In this trouble and perplexity he came to where Don Quixote lay in a far sorrier plight than he liked, and having helped him to mount Rocinante, he said to him, 'Seor, the devil has carried off my Dapple. 'What devil? asked Don Quixote. 'The one with the bladders, said Sancho. 'Then I will recover him, said Don Quixote, 'even if he be shut up with him in the deepest and darkest dungeons of hell. Follow me, Sancho, for the cart goes slowly, and with the mules of it I will make good the loss of Dapple. 'You need not take the trouble, seor, said Sancho 'keep cool, for as I now see, the devil has let Dapple go and he is coming back to his old quarters and so it turned out, for, having come down with Dapple, in imitation of Don Quixote and Rocinante, the devil made off on foot to the town, and the ass came back to his master. 'For all that, said Don Quixote, 'it will be well to visit the discourtesy of that devil upon some of those in the cart, even if it were the emperor himself. 'Don't think of it, your worship, returned Sancho 'take my advice and never meddle with actors, for they are a favoured class I myself have known an actor taken up for two murders, and yet come off scotfree remember that, as they are merry folk who give pleasure, everyone favours and protects them, and helps and makes much of them, above all when they are those of the royal companies and under patent, all or most of whom in dress and appearance look like princes. 'Still, for all that, said Don Quixote, 'the player devil must not go off boasting, even if the whole human race favours him. So saying, he made for the cart, which was now very near the town, shouting out as he went, 'Stay! halt! ye merry, jovial crew! I want to teach you how to treat asses and animals that serve the squires of knightserrant for steeds. So loud were the shouts of Don Quixote, that those in the cart heard and understood them, and, guessing by the words what the speaker's intention was, Death in an instant jumped out of the cart, and the emperor, the devil carter and the angel after him, nor did the queen or the god Cupid stay behind and all armed themselves with stones and formed in line, prepared to receive Don Quixote on the points of their pebbles. Don Quixote, when he saw them drawn up in such a gallant array with uplifted arms ready for a mighty discharge of stones, checked Rocinante and began to consider in what way he could attack them with the least danger to himself. As he halted Sancho came up, and seeing him disposed to attack this wellordered squadron, said to him, 'It would be the height of madness to attempt such an enterprise remember, seor, that against sops from the brook, and plenty of them, there is no defensive armour in the world, except to stow oneself away under a brass bell and besides, one should remember that it is rashness, and not valour, for a single man to attack an army that has Death in it, and where emperors fight in person, with angels, good and bad, to help them and if this reflection will not make you keep quiet, perhaps it will to know for certain that among all these, though they look like kings, princes, and emperors, there is not a single knighterrant. 'Now indeed thou hast hit the point, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'which may and should turn me from the resolution I had already formed. I cannot and must not draw sword, as I have many a time before told thee, against anyone who is not a dubbed knight it is for thee, Sancho, if thou wilt, to take vengeance for the wrong done to thy Dapple and I will help thee from here by shouts and salutary counsels. 'There is no occasion to take vengeance on anyone, seor, replied Sancho 'for it is not the part of good Christians to revenge wrongs and besides, I will arrange it with my ass to leave his grievance to my goodwill and pleasure, and that is to live in peace as long as heaven grants me life. 'Well, said Don Quixote, 'if that be thy determination, good Sancho, sensible Sancho, Christian Sancho, honest Sancho, let us leave these phantoms alone and turn to the pursuit of better and worthier adventures for, from what I see of this country, we cannot fail to find plenty of marvellous ones in it. He at once wheeled about, Sancho ran to take possession of his Dapple, Death and his flying squadron returned to their cart and pursued their journey, and thus the dread adventure of the cart of Death ended happily, thanks to the advice Sancho gave his master who had, the following day, a fresh adventure, of no less thrilling interest than the last, with an enamoured knighterrant. The night succeeding the day of the encounter with Death, Don Quixote and his squire passed under some tall shady trees, and Don Quixote at Sancho's persuasion ate a little from the store carried by Dapple, and over their supper Sancho said to his master, 'Seor, what a fool I should have looked if I had chosen for my reward the spoils of the first adventure your worship achieved, instead of the foals of the three mares. After all, 'a sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing.' 'At the same time, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'if thou hadst let me attack them as I wanted, at the very least the emperor's gold crown and Cupid's painted wings would have fallen to thee as spoils, for I should have taken them by force and given them into thy hands. 'The sceptres and crowns of those playactor emperors, said Sancho, 'were never yet pure gold, but only brass foil or tin. 'That is true, said Don Quixote, 'for it would not be right that the accessories of the drama should be real, instead of being mere fictions and semblances, like the drama itself towards which, Sanchoand, as a necessary consequence, towards those who represent and produce itI would that thou wert favourably disposed, for they are all instruments of great good to the State, placing before us at every step a mirror in which we may see vividly displayed what goes on in human life nor is there any similitude that shows us more faithfully what we are and ought to be than the play and the players. Come, tell me, hast thou not seen a play acted in which kings, emperors, pontiffs, knights, ladies, and divers other personages were introduced? One plays the villain, another the knave, this one the merchant, that the soldier, one the sharpwitted fool, another the foolish lover and when the play is over, and they have put off the dresses they wore in it, all the actors become equal. 'Yes, I have seen that, said Sancho. 'Well then, said Don Quixote, 'the same thing happens in the comedy and life of this world, where some play emperors, others popes, and, in short, all the characters that can be brought into a play but when it is over, that is to say when life ends, death strips them all of the garments that distinguish one from the other, and all are equal in the grave. 'A fine comparison! said Sancho 'though not so new but that I have heard it many and many a time, as well as that other one of the game of chess how, so long as the game lasts, each piece has its own particular office, and when the game is finished they are all mixed, jumbled up and shaken together, and stowed away in the bag, which is much like ending life in the grave. 'Thou art growing less doltish and more shrewd every day, Sancho, said Don Quixote. 'Ay, said Sancho 'it must be that some of your worship's shrewdness sticks to me land that, of itself, is barren and dry, will come to yield good fruit if you dung it and till it what I mean is that your worship's conversation has been the dung that has fallen on the barren soil of my dry wit, and the time I have been in your service and society has been the tillage and with the help of this I hope to yield fruit in abundance that will not fall away or slide from those paths of good breeding that your worship has made in my parched understanding. Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's affected phraseology, and perceived that what he said about his improvement was true, for now and then he spoke in a way that surprised him though always, or mostly, when Sancho tried to talk fine and attempted polite language, he wound up by toppling over from the summit of his simplicity into the abyss of his ignorance and where he showed his culture and his memory to the greatest advantage was in dragging in proverbs, no matter whether they had any bearing or not upon the subject in hand, as may have been seen already and will be noticed in the course of this history. In conversation of this kind they passed a good part of the night, but Sancho felt a desire to let down the curtains of his eyes, as he used to say when he wanted to go to sleep and stripping Dapple he left him at liberty to graze his fill. He did not remove Rocinante's saddle, as his master's express orders were, that so long as they were in the field or not sleeping under a roof Rocinante was not to be strippedthe ancient usage established and observed by knightserrant being to take off the bridle and hang it on the saddlebow, but to remove the saddle from the horsenever! Sancho acted accordingly, and gave him the same liberty he had given Dapple, between whom and Rocinante there was a friendship so unequalled and so strong, that it is handed down by tradition from father to son, that the author of this veracious history devoted some special chapters to it, which, in order to preserve the propriety and decorum due to a history so heroic, he did not insert therein although at times he forgets this resolution of his and describes how eagerly the two beasts would scratch one another when they were together and how, when they were tired or full, Rocinante would lay his neck across Dapple's, stretching half a yard or more on the other side, and the pair would stand thus, gazing thoughtfully on the ground, for three days, or at least so long as they were left alone, or hunger did not drive them to go and look for food. I may add that they say the author left it on record that he likened their friendship to that of Nisus and Euryalus, and Pylades and Orestes and if that be so, it may be perceived, to the admiration of mankind, how firm the friendship must have been between these two peaceful animals, shaming men, who preserve friendships with one another so badly. This was why it was said For friend no longer is there friend The reeds turn lances now. And someone else has sung Friend to friend the bug, etc. and let no one fancy that the author was at all astray when he compared the friendship of these animals to that of men for men have received many lessons from beasts, and learned many important things, as, for example, the clyster from the stork, vomit and gratitude from the dog, watchfulness from the crane, foresight from the ant, modesty from the elephant, and loyalty from the horse. Sancho at last fell asleep at the foot of a cork tree, while Don Quixote dozed at that of a sturdy oak but a short time only had elapsed when a noise he heard behind him awoke him, and rising up startled, he listened and looked in the direction the noise came from, and perceived two men on horseback, one of whom, letting himself drop from the saddle, said to the other, 'Dismount, my friend, and take the bridles off the horses, for, so far as I can see, this place will furnish grass for them, and the solitude and silence my lovesick thoughts need of. As he said this he stretched himself upon the ground, and as he flung himself down, the armour in which he was clad rattled, whereby Don Quixote perceived that he must be a knighterrant and going over to Sancho, who was asleep, he shook him by the arm and with no small difficulty brought him back to his senses, and said in a low voice to him, 'Brother Sancho, we have got an adventure. 'God send us a good one, said Sancho 'and where may her ladyship the adventure be? 'Where, Sancho? replied Don Quixote 'turn thine eyes and look, and thou wilt see stretched there a knighterrant, who, it strikes me, is not over and above happy, for I saw him fling himself off his horse and throw himself on the ground with a certain air of dejection, and his armour rattled as he fell. 'Well, said Sancho, 'how does your worship make out that to be an adventure? 'I do not mean to say, returned Don Quixote, 'that it is a complete adventure, but that it is the beginning of one, for it is in this way adventures begin. But listen, for it seems he is tuning a lute or guitar, and from the way he is spitting and clearing his chest he must be getting ready to sing something. 'Faith, you are right, said Sancho, 'and no doubt he is some enamoured knight. 'There is no knighterrant that is not, said Don Quixote 'but let us listen to him, for, if he sings, by that thread we shall extract the ball of his thoughts because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Sancho was about to reply to his master, but the Knight of the Grove's voice, which was neither very bad nor very good, stopped him, and listening attentively the pair heard him sing this SONNET Your pleasure, prithee, lady mine, unfold Declare the terms that I am to obey My will to yours submissively I mould, And from your law my feet shall never stray. Would you I die, to silent grief a prey? Then count me even now as dead and cold Would you I tell my woes in some new way? Then shall my tale by Love itself be told. The unison of opposites to prove, Of the soft wax and diamond hard am I But still, obedient to the laws of love, Here, hard or soft, I offer you my breast, Whate'er you grave or stamp thereon shall rest Indelible for all eternity. With an 'Ah me! that seemed to be drawn from the inmost recesses of his heart, the Knight of the Grove brought his lay to an end, and shortly afterwards exclaimed in a melancholy and piteous voice, 'O fairest and most ungrateful woman on earth! What! can it be, most serene Casildea de Vandalia, that thou wilt suffer this thy captive knight to waste away and perish in ceaseless wanderings and rude and arduous toils? It is not enough that I have compelled all the knights of Navarre, all the Leonese, all the Tartesians, all the Castilians, and finally all the knights of La Mancha, to confess thee the most beautiful in the world? 'Not so, said Don Quixote at this, 'for I am of La Mancha, and I have never confessed anything of the sort, nor could I nor should I confess a thing so much to the prejudice of my lady's beauty thou seest how this knight is raving, Sancho. But let us listen, perhaps he will tell us more about himself. 'That he will, returned Sancho, 'for he seems in a mood to bewail himself for a month at a stretch. But this was not the case, for the Knight of the Grove, hearing voices near him, instead of continuing his lamentation, stood up and exclaimed in a distinct but courteous tone, 'Who goes there? What are you? Do you belong to the number of the happy or of the miserable? 'Of the miserable, answered Don Quixote. 'Then come to me, said he of the Grove, 'and rest assured that it is to woe itself and affliction itself you come. Don Quixote, finding himself answered in such a soft and courteous manner, went over to him, and so did Sancho. The doleful knight took Don Quixote by the arm, saying, 'Sit down here, sir knight for, that you are one, and of those that profess knighterrantry, it is to me a sufficient proof to have found you in this place, where solitude and night, the natural couch and proper retreat of knightserrant, keep you company. To which Don made answer, 'A knight I am of the profession you mention, and though sorrows, misfortunes, and calamities have made my heart their abode, the compassion I feel for the misfortunes of others has not been thereby banished from it. From what you have just now sung I gather that yours spring from love, I mean from the love you bear that fair ingrate you named in your lament. In the meantime, they had seated themselves together on the hard ground peaceably and sociably, just as if, as soon as day broke, they were not going to break one another's heads. 'Are you, sir knight, in love perchance? asked he of the Grove of Don Quixote. 'By mischance I am, replied Don Quixote 'though the ills arising from wellbestowed affections should be esteemed favours rather than misfortunes. 'That is true, returned he of the Grove, 'if scorn did not unsettle our reason and understanding, for if it be excessive it looks like revenge. 'I was never scorned by my lady, said Don Quixote. 'Certainly not, said Sancho, who stood close by, 'for my lady is as a lamb, and softer than a roll of butter. 'Is this your squire? asked he of the Grove. 'He is, said Don Quixote. 'I never yet saw a squire, said he of the Grove, 'who ventured to speak when his master was speaking at least, there is mine, who is as big as his father, and it cannot be proved that he has ever opened his lips when I am speaking. 'By my faith then, said Sancho, 'I have spoken, and am fit to speak, in the presence of one as much, or evenbut never mindit only makes it worse to stir it. The squire of the Grove took Sancho by the arm, saying to him, 'Let us two go where we can talk in squire style as much as we please, and leave these gentlemen our masters to fight it out over the story of their loves and, depend upon it, daybreak will find them at it without having made an end of it. 'So be it by all means, said Sancho 'and I will tell your worship who I am, that you may see whether I am to be reckoned among the number of the most talkative squires. With this the two squires withdrew to one side, and between them there passed a conversation as droll as that which passed between their masters was serious. The knights and the squires made two parties, these telling the story of their lives, the others the story of their loves but the history relates first of all the conversation of the servants, and afterwards takes up that of the masters and it says that, withdrawing a little from the others, he of the Grove said to Sancho, 'A hard life it is we lead and live, seor, we that are squires to knightserrant verily, we eat our bread in the sweat of our faces, which is one of the curses God laid on our first parents. 'It may be said, too, added Sancho, 'that we eat it in the chill of our bodies for who gets more heat and cold than the miserable squires of knighterrantry? Even so it would not be so bad if we had something to eat, for woes are lighter if there's bread but sometimes we go a day or two without breaking our fast, except with the wind that blows. 'All that, said he of the Grove, 'may be endured and put up with when we have hopes of reward for, unless the knighterrant he serves is excessively unlucky, after a few turns the squire will at least find himself rewarded with a fine government of some island or some fair county. 'I, said Sancho, 'have already told my master that I shall be content with the government of some island, and he is so noble and generous that he has promised it to me ever so many times. 'I, said he of the Grove, 'shall be satisfied with a canonry for my services, and my master has already assigned me one. 'Your master, said Sancho, 'no doubt is a knight in the Church line, and can bestow rewards of that sort on his good squire but mine is only a layman though I remember some clever, but, to my mind, designing people, strove to persuade him to try and become an archbishop. He, however, would not be anything but an emperor but I was trembling all the time lest he should take a fancy to go into the Church, not finding myself fit to hold office in it for I may tell you, though I seem a man, I am no better than a beast for the Church. 'Well, then, you are wrong there, said he of the Grove 'for those island governments are not all satisfactory some are awkward, some are poor, some are dull, and, in short, the highest and choicest brings with it a heavy burden of cares and troubles which the unhappy wight to whose lot it has fallen bears upon his shoulders. Far better would it be for us who have adopted this accursed service to go back to our own houses, and there employ ourselves in pleasanter occupationsin hunting or fishing, for instance for what squire in the world is there so poor as not to have a hack and a couple of greyhounds and a fishingrod to amuse himself with in his own village? 'I am not in want of any of those things, said Sancho 'to be sure I have no hack, but I have an ass that is worth my master's horse twice over God send me a bad Easter, and that the next one I am to see, if I would swap, even if I got four bushels of barley to boot. You will laugh at the value I put on my Dapplefor dapple is the colour of my beast. As to greyhounds, I can't want for them, for there are enough and to spare in my town and, moreover, there is more pleasure in sport when it is at other people's expense. 'In truth and earnest, sir squire, said he of the Grove, 'I have made up my mind and determined to have done with these drunken vagaries of these knights, and go back to my village, and bring up my children for I have three, like three Oriental pearls. 'I have two, said Sancho, 'that might be presented before the Pope himself, especially a girl whom I am breeding up for a countess, please God, though in spite of her mother. 'And how old is this lady that is being bred up for a countess? asked he of the Grove. 'Fifteen, a couple of years more or less, answered Sancho 'but she is as tall as a lance, and as fresh as an April morning, and as strong as a porter. 'Those are gifts to fit her to be not only a countess but a nymph of the greenwood, said he of the Grove 'whoreson strumpet! what pith the rogue must have! To which Sancho made answer, somewhat sulkily, 'She's no strumpet, nor was her mother, nor will either of them be, please God, while I live speak more civilly for one bred up among knightserrant, who are courtesy itself, your words don't seem to me to be very becoming. 'O how little you know about compliments, sir squire, returned he of the Grove. 'What! don't you know that when a horseman delivers a good lance thrust at the bull in the plaza, or when anyone does anything very well, the people are wont to say, 'Ha, whoreson rip! how well he has done it!' and that what seems to be abuse in the expression is high praise? Disown sons and daughters, seor, who don't do what deserves that compliments of this sort should be paid to their parents. 'I do disown them, replied Sancho, 'and in this way, and by the same reasoning, you might call me and my children and my wife all the strumpets in the world, for all they do and say is of a kind that in the highest degree deserves the same praise and to see them again I pray God to deliver me from mortal sin, or, what comes to the same thing, to deliver me from this perilous calling of squire into which I have fallen a second time, decayed and beguiled by a purse with a hundred ducats that I found one day in the heart of the Sierra Morena and the devil is always putting a bag full of doubloons before my eyes, here, there, everywhere, until I fancy at every stop I am putting my hand on it, and hugging it, and carrying it home with me, and making investments, and getting interest, and living like a prince and so long as I think of this I make light of all the hardships I endure with this simpleton of a master of mine, who, I well know, is more of a madman than a knight. 'There's why they say that 'covetousness bursts the bag,' said he of the Grove 'but if you come to talk of that sort, there is not a greater one in the world than my master, for he is one of those of whom they say, 'the cares of others kill the ass' for, in order that another knight may recover the senses he has lost, he makes a madman of himself and goes looking for what, when found, may, for all I know, fly in his own face. 'And is he in love perchance? asked Sancho. 'He is, said of the Grove, 'with one Casildea de Vandalia, the rawest and best roasted lady the whole world could produce but that rawness is not the only foot he limps on, for he has greater schemes rumbling in his bowels, as will be seen before many hours are over. 'There's no road so smooth but it has some hole or hindrance in it, said Sancho 'in other houses they cook beans, but in mine it's by the potful madness will have more followers and hangerson than sound sense but if there be any truth in the common saying, that to have companions in trouble gives some relief, I may take consolation from you, inasmuch as you serve a master as crazy as my own. 'Crazy but valiant, replied he of the Grove, 'and more roguish than crazy or valiant. 'Mine is not that, said Sancho 'I mean he has nothing of the rogue in him on the contrary, he has the soul of a pitcher he has no thought of doing harm to anyone, only good to all, nor has he any malice whatever in him a child might persuade him that it is night at noonday and for this simplicity I love him as the core of my heart, and I can't bring myself to leave him, let him do ever such foolish things. 'For all that, brother and seor, said he of the Grove, 'if the blind lead the blind, both are in danger of falling into the pit. It is better for us to beat a quiet retreat and get back to our own quarters for those who seek adventures don't always find good ones. Sancho kept spitting from time to time, and his spittle seemed somewhat ropy and dry, observing which the compassionate squire of the Grove said, 'It seems to me that with all this talk of ours our tongues are sticking to the roofs of our mouths but I have a pretty good loosener hanging from the saddlebow of my horse, and getting up he came back the next minute with a large bota of wine and a pasty half a yard across and this is no exaggeration, for it was made of a house rabbit so big that Sancho, as he handled it, took it to be made of a goat, not to say a kid, and looking at it he said, 'And do you carry this with you, seor? 'Why, what are you thinking about? said the other 'do you take me for some paltry squire? I carry a better larder on my horse's croup than a general takes with him when he goes on a march. Sancho ate without requiring to be pressed, and in the dark bolted mouthfuls like the knots on a tether, and said he, 'You are a proper trusty squire, one of the right sort, sumptuous and grand, as this banquet shows, which, if it has not come here by magic art, at any rate has the look of it not like me, unlucky beggar, that have nothing more in my alforjas than a scrap of cheese, so hard that one might brain a giant with it, and, to keep it company, a few dozen carobs and as many more filberts and walnuts thanks to the austerity of my master, and the idea he has and the rule he follows, that knightserrant must not live or sustain themselves on anything except dried fruits and the herbs of the field. 'By my faith, brother, said he of the Grove, 'my stomach is not made for thistles, or wild pears, or roots of the woods let our masters do as they like, with their chivalry notions and laws, and eat what those enjoin I carry my progbasket and this bota hanging to the saddlebow, whatever they may say and it is such an object of worship with me, and I love it so, that there is hardly a moment but I am kissing and embracing it over and over again and so saying he thrust it into Sancho's hands, who raising it aloft pointed to his mouth, gazed at the stars for a quarter of an hour and when he had done drinking let his head fall on one side, and giving a deep sigh, exclaimed, 'Ah, whoreson rogue, how catholic it is! 'There, you see, said he of the Grove, hearing Sancho's exclamation, 'how you have called this wine whoreson by way of praise. 'Well, said Sancho, 'I own it, and I grant it is no dishonour to call anyone whoreson when it is to be understood as praise. But tell me, seor, by what you love best, is this Ciudad Real wine? 'O rare winetaster! said he of the Grove 'nowhere else indeed does it come from, and it has some years' age too. 'Leave me alone for that, said Sancho 'never fear but I'll hit upon the place it came from somehow. What would you say, sir squire, to my having such a great natural instinct in judging wines that you have only to let me smell one and I can tell positively its country, its kind, its flavour and soundness, the changes it will undergo, and everything that appertains to a wine? But it is no wonder, for I have had in my family, on my father's side, the two best winetasters that have been known in La Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a thing that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan. The owner said the cask was clean, and that nothing had been added to the wine from which it could have got a flavour of either iron or leather. Nevertheless, these two great winetasters held to what they had said. Time went by, the wine was sold, and when they came to clean out the cask, they found in it a small key hanging to a thong of cordovan see now if one who comes of the same stock has not a right to give his opinion in such like cases. 'Therefore, I say, said he of the Grove, 'let us give up going in quest of adventures, and as we have loaves let us not go looking for cakes, but return to our cribs, for God will find us there if it be his will. 'Until my master reaches Saragossa, said Sancho, 'I'll remain in his service after that we'll see. The end of it was that the two squires talked so much and drank so much that sleep had to tie their tongues and moderate their thirst, for to quench it was impossible and so the pair of them fell asleep clinging to the now nearly empty bota and with halfchewed morsels in their mouths and there we will leave them for the present, to relate what passed between the Knight of the Grove and him of the Rueful Countenance. Among the things that passed between Don Quixote and the Knight of the Wood, the history tells us he of the Grove said to Don Quixote, 'In fine, sir knight, I would have you know that my destiny, or, more properly speaking, my choice led me to fall in love with the peerless Casildea de Vandalia. I call her peerless because she has no peer, whether it be in bodily stature or in the supremacy of rank and beauty. This same Casildea, then, that I speak of, requited my honourable passion and gentle aspirations by compelling me, as his stepmother did Hercules, to engage in many perils of various sorts, at the end of each promising me that, with the end of the next, the object of my hopes should be attained but my labours have gone on increasing link by link until they are past counting, nor do I know what will be the last one that is to be the beginning of the accomplishment of my chaste desires. On one occasion she bade me go and challenge the famous giantess of Seville, La Giralda by name, who is as mighty and strong as if made of brass, and though never stirring from one spot, is the most restless and changeable woman in the world. I came, I saw, I conquered, and I made her stay quiet and behave herself, for nothing but north winds blew for more than a week. Another time I was ordered to lift those ancient stones, the mighty bulls of Guisando, an enterprise that might more fitly be entrusted to porters than to knights. Again, she bade me fling myself into the cavern of Cabraan unparalleled and awful periland bring her a minute account of all that is concealed in those gloomy depths. I stopped the motion of the Giralda, I lifted the bulls of Guisando, I flung myself into the cavern and brought to light the secrets of its abyss and my hopes are as dead as dead can be, and her scorn and her commands as lively as ever. To be brief, last of all she has commanded me to go through all the provinces of Spain and compel all the knightserrant wandering therein to confess that she surpasses all women alive today in beauty, and that I am the most valiant and the most deeply enamoured knight on earth in support of which claim I have already travelled over the greater part of Spain, and have there vanquished several knights who have dared to contradict me but what I most plume and pride myself upon is having vanquished in single combat that so famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, and made him confess that my Casildea is more beautiful than his Dulcinea and in this one victory I hold myself to have conquered all the knights in the world for this Don Quixote that I speak of has vanquished them all, and I having vanquished him, his glory, his fame, and his honour have passed and are transferred to my person for The more the vanquished hath of fair renown, The greater glory gilds the victor's crown. Thus the innumerable achievements of the said Don Quixote are now set down to my account and have become mine. Don Quixote was amazed when he heard the Knight of the Grove, and was a thousand times on the point of telling him he lied, and had the lie direct already on the tip of his tongue but he restrained himself as well as he could, in order to force him to confess the lie with his own lips so he said to him quietly, 'As to what you say, sir knight, about having vanquished most of the knights of Spain, or even of the whole world, I say nothing but that you have vanquished Don Quixote of La Mancha I consider doubtful it may have been some other that resembled him, although there are few like him. 'How! not vanquished? said he of the Grove 'by the heaven that is above us I fought Don Quixote and overcame him and made him yield and he is a man of tall stature, gaunt features, long, lank limbs, with hair turning grey, an aquiline nose rather hooked, and large black drooping moustaches he does battle under the name of 'The Countenance,' and he has for squire a peasant called Sancho Panza he presses the loins and rules the reins of a famous steed called Rocinante and lastly, he has for the mistress of his will a certain Dulcinea del Toboso, once upon a time called Aldonza Lorenzo, just as I call mine Casildea de Vandalia because her name is Casilda and she is of Andalusia. If all these tokens are not enough to vindicate the truth of what I say, here is my sword, that will compel incredulity itself to give credence to it. 'Calm yourself, sir knight, said Don Quixote, 'and give ear to what I am about to say to you. I would have you know that this Don Quixote you speak of is the greatest friend I have in the world so much so that I may say I regard him in the same light as my own person and from the precise and clear indications you have given I cannot but think that he must be the very one you have vanquished. On the other hand, I see with my eyes and feel with my hands that it is impossible it can have been the same unless indeed it be that, as he has many enemies who are enchanters, and one in particular who is always persecuting him, someone of these may have taken his shape in order to allow himself to be vanquished, so as to defraud him of the fame that his exalted achievements as a knight have earned and acquired for him throughout the known world. And in confirmation of this, I must tell you, too, that it is but ten hours since these said enchanters his enemies transformed the shape and person of the fair Dulcinea del Toboso into a foul and mean village lass, and in the same way they must have transformed Don Quixote and if all this does not suffice to convince you of the truth of what I say, here is Don Quixote himself, who will maintain it by arms, on foot or on horseback or in any way you please. And so saying he stood up and laid his hand on his sword, waiting to see what the Knight of the Grove would do, who in an equally calm voice said in reply, 'Pledges don't distress a good payer he who has succeeded in vanquishing you once when transformed, Sir Don Quixote, may fairly hope to subdue you in your own proper shape but as it is not becoming for knights to perform their feats of arms in the dark, like highwaymen and bullies, let us wait till daylight, that the sun may behold our deeds and the conditions of our combat shall be that the vanquished shall be at the victor's disposal, to do all that he may enjoin, provided the injunction be such as shall be becoming a knight. 'I am more than satisfied with these conditions and terms, replied Don Quixote and so saying, they betook themselves to where their squires lay, and found them snoring, and in the same posture they were in when sleep fell upon them. They roused them up, and bade them get the horses ready, as at sunrise they were to engage in a bloody and arduous single combat at which intelligence Sancho was aghast and thunderstruck, trembling for the safety of his master because of the mighty deeds he had heard the squire of the Grove ascribe to his but without a word the two squires went in quest of their cattle for by this time the three horses and the ass had smelt one another out, and were all together. On the way, he of the Grove said to Sancho, 'You must know, brother, that it is the custom with the fighting men of Andalusia, when they are godfathers in any quarrel, not to stand idle with folded arms while their godsons fight I say so to remind you that while our masters are fighting, we, too, have to fight, and knock one another to shivers. 'That custom, sir squire, replied Sancho, 'may hold good among those bullies and fighting men you talk of, but certainly not among the squires of knightserrant at least, I have never heard my master speak of any custom of the sort, and he knows all the laws of knighterrantry by heart but granting it true that there is an express law that squires are to fight while their masters are fighting, I don't mean to obey it, but to pay the penalty that may be laid on peacefully minded squires like myself for I am sure it cannot be more than two pounds of wax, and I would rather pay that, for I know it will cost me less than the lint I shall be at the expense of to mend my head, which I look upon as broken and split already there's another thing that makes it impossible for me to fight, that I have no sword, for I never carried one in my life. 'I know a good remedy for that, said he of the Grove 'I have here two linen bags of the same size you shall take one, and I the other, and we will fight at bag blows with equal arms. 'If that's the way, so be it with all my heart, said Sancho, 'for that sort of battle will serve to knock the dust out of us instead of hurting us. 'That will not do, said the other, 'for we must put into the bags, to keep the wind from blowing them away, half a dozen nice smooth pebbles, all of the same weight and in this way we shall be able to baste one another without doing ourselves any harm or mischief. 'Body of my father! said Sancho, 'see what marten and sable, and pads of carded cotton he is putting into the bags, that our heads may not be broken and our bones beaten to jelly! But even if they are filled with toss silk, I can tell you, seor, I am not going to fight let our masters fight, that's their lookout, and let us drink and live for time will take care to ease us of our lives, without our going to look for fillips so that they may be finished off before their proper time comes and they drop from ripeness. 'Still, returned he of the Grove, 'we must fight, if it be only for half an hour. 'By no means, said Sancho 'I am not going to be so discourteous or so ungrateful as to have any quarrel, be it ever so small, with one I have eaten and drunk with besides, who the devil could bring himself to fight in cold blood, without anger or provocation? 'I can remedy that entirely, said he of the Grove, 'and in this way before we begin the battle, I will come up to your worship fair and softly, and give you three or four buffets, with which I shall stretch you at my feet and rouse your anger, though it were sleeping sounder than a dormouse. 'To match that plan, said Sancho, 'I have another that is not a whit behind it I will take a cudgel, and before your worship comes near enough to waken my anger I will send yours so sound to sleep with whacks, that it won't waken unless it be in the other world, where it is known that I am not a man to let my face be handled by anyone let each look out for the arrowthough the surer way would be to let everyone's anger sleep, for nobody knows the heart of anyone, and a man may come for wool and go back shorn God gave his blessing to peace and his curse to quarrels if a hunted cat, surrounded and hard pressed, turns into a lion, God knows what I, who am a man, may turn into and so from this time forth I warn you, sir squire, that all the harm and mischief that may come of our quarrel will be put down to your account. 'Very good, said he of the Grove 'God will send the dawn and we shall be all right. And now gayplumaged birds of all sorts began to warble in the trees, and with their varied and gladsome notes seemed to welcome and salute the fresh morn that was beginning to show the beauty of her countenance at the gates and balconies of the east, shaking from her locks a profusion of liquid pearls in which dulcet moisture bathed, the plants, too, seemed to shed and shower down a pearly spray, the willows distilled sweet manna, the fountains laughed, the brooks babbled, the woods rejoiced, and the meadows arrayed themselves in all their glory at her coming. But hardly had the light of day made it possible to see and distinguish things, when the first object that presented itself to the eyes of Sancho Panza was the squire of the Grove's nose, which was so big that it almost overshadowed his whole body. It is, in fact, stated, that it was of enormous size, hooked in the middle, covered with warts, and of a mulberry colour like an eggplant it hung down two fingers' length below his mouth, and the size, the colour, the warts, and the bend of it, made his face so hideous, that Sancho, as he looked at him, began to tremble hand and foot like a child in convulsions, and he vowed in his heart to let himself be given two hundred buffets, sooner than be provoked to fight that monster. Don Quixote examined his adversary, and found that he already had his helmet on and visor lowered, so that he could not see his face he observed, however, that he was a sturdily built man, but not very tall in stature. Over his armour he wore a surcoat or cassock of what seemed to be the finest cloth of gold, all bespangled with glittering mirrors like little moons, which gave him an extremely gallant and splendid appearance above his helmet fluttered a great quantity of plumes, green, yellow, and white, and his lance, which was leaning against a tree, was very long and stout, and had a steel point more than a palm in length. Don Quixote observed all, and took note of all, and from what he saw and observed he concluded that the said knight must be a man of great strength, but he did not for all that give way to fear, like Sancho Panza on the contrary, with a composed and dauntless air, he said to the Knight of the Mirrors, 'If, sir knight, your great eagerness to fight has not banished your courtesy, by it I would entreat you to raise your visor a little, in order that I may see if the comeliness of your countenance corresponds with that of your equipment. 'Whether you come victorious or vanquished out of this emprise, sir knight, replied he of the Mirrors, 'you will have more than enough time and leisure to see me and if now I do not comply with your request, it is because it seems to me I should do a serious wrong to the fair Casildea de Vandalia in wasting time while I stopped to raise my visor before compelling you to confess what you are already aware I maintain. 'Well then, said Don Quixote, 'while we are mounting you can at least tell me if I am that Don Quixote whom you said you vanquished. 'To that we answer you, said he of the Mirrors, 'that you are as like the very knight I vanquished as one egg is like another, but as you say enchanters persecute you, I will not venture to say positively whether you are the said person or not. 'That, said Don Quixote, 'is enough to convince me that you are under a deception however, entirely to relieve you of it, let our horses be brought, and in less time than it would take you to raise your visor, if God, my lady, and my arm stand me in good stead, I shall see your face, and you shall see that I am not the vanquished Don Quixote you take me to be. With this, cutting short the colloquy, they mounted, and Don Quixote wheeled Rocinante round in order to take a proper distance to charge back upon his adversary, and he of the Mirrors did the same but Don Quixote had not moved away twenty paces when he heard himself called by the other, and, each returning halfway, he of the Mirrors said to him, 'Remember, sir knight, that the terms of our combat are, that the vanquished, as I said before, shall be at the victor's disposal. 'I am aware of it already, said Don Quixote 'provided what is commanded and imposed upon the vanquished be things that do not transgress the limits of chivalry. 'That is understood, replied he of the Mirrors. At this moment the extraordinary nose of the squire presented itself to Don Quixote's view, and he was no less amazed than Sancho at the sight insomuch that he set him down as a monster of some kind, or a human being of some new species or unearthly breed. Sancho, seeing his master retiring to run his course, did not like to be left alone with the nosy man, fearing that with one flap of that nose on his own the battle would be all over for him and he would be left stretched on the ground, either by the blow or with fright so he ran after his master, holding on to Rocinante's stirrupleather, and when it seemed to him time to turn about, he said, 'I implore of your worship, seor, before you turn to charge, to help me up into this cork tree, from which I will be able to witness the gallant encounter your worship is going to have with this knight, more to my taste and better than from the ground. 'It seems to me rather, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that thou wouldst mount a scaffold in order to see the bulls without danger. 'To tell the truth, returned Sancho, 'the monstrous nose of that squire has filled me with fear and terror, and I dare not stay near him. 'It is, said Don Quixote, 'such a one that were I not what I am it would terrify me too so, come, I will help thee up where thou wilt. While Don Quixote waited for Sancho to mount into the cork tree he of the Mirrors took as much ground as he considered requisite, and, supposing Don Quixote to have done the same, without waiting for any sound of trumpet or other signal to direct them, he wheeled his horse, which was not more agile or betterlooking than Rocinante, and at his top speed, which was an easy trot, he proceeded to charge his enemy seeing him, however, engaged in putting Sancho up, he drew rein, and halted in mid career, for which his horse was very grateful, as he was already unable to go. Don Quixote, fancying that his foe was coming down upon him flying, drove his spurs vigorously into Rocinante's lean flanks and made him scud along in such style that the history tells us that on this occasion only was he known to make something like running, for on all others it was a simple trot with him and with this unparalleled fury he bore down where he of the Mirrors stood digging his spurs into his horse up to buttons, without being able to make him stir a finger's length from the spot where he had come to a standstill in his course. At this lucky moment and crisis, Don Quixote came upon his adversary, in trouble with his horse, and embarrassed with his lance, which he either could not manage, or had no time to lay in rest. Don Quixote, however, paid no attention to these difficulties, and in perfect safety to himself and without any risk encountered him of the Mirrors with such force that he brought him to the ground in spite of himself over the haunches of his horse, and with so heavy a fall that he lay to all appearance dead, not stirring hand or foot. The instant Sancho saw him fall he slid down from the cork tree, and made all haste to where his master was, who, dismounting from Rocinante, went and stood over him of the Mirrors, and unlacing his helmet to see if he was dead, and to give him air if he should happen to be alive, he sawwho can say what he saw, without filling all who hear it with astonishment, wonder, and awe? He saw, the history says, the very countenance, the very face, the very look, the very physiognomy, the very effigy, the very image of the bachelor Samson Carrasco! As soon as he saw it he called out in a loud voice, 'Make haste here, Sancho, and behold what thou art to see but not to believe quick, my son, and learn what magic can do, and wizards and enchanters are capable of. Sancho came up, and when he saw the countenance of the bachelor Carrasco, he fell to crossing himself a thousand times, and blessing himself as many more. All this time the prostrate knight showed no signs of life, and Sancho said to Don Quixote, 'It is my opinion, seor, that in any case your worship should take and thrust your sword into the mouth of this one here that looks like the bachelor Samson Carrasco perhaps in him you will kill one of your enemies, the enchanters. 'Thy advice is not bad, said Don Quixote, 'for of enemies the fewer the better and he was drawing his sword to carry into effect Sancho's counsel and suggestion, when the squire of the Mirrors came up, now without the nose which had made him so hideous, and cried out in a loud voice, 'Mind what you are about, Seor Don Quixote that is your friend, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, you have at your feet, and I am his squire. 'And the nose? said Sancho, seeing him without the hideous feature he had before to which he replied, 'I have it here in my pocket, and putting his hand into his right pocket, he pulled out a masquerade nose of varnished pasteboard of the make already described and Sancho, examining him more and more closely, exclaimed aloud in a voice of amazement, 'Holy Mary be good to me! Isn't it Tom Cecial, my neighbour and gossip? 'Why, to be sure I am! returned the now unnosed squire 'Tom Cecial I am, gossip and friend Sancho Panza and I'll tell you presently the means and tricks and falsehoods by which I have been brought here but in the meantime, beg and entreat of your master not to touch, maltreat, wound, or slay the Knight of the Mirrors whom he has at his feet because, beyond all dispute, it is the rash and illadvised bachelor Samson Carrasco, our fellow townsman. At this moment he of the Mirrors came to himself, and Don Quixote perceiving it, held the naked point of his sword over his face, and said to him, 'You are a dead man, knight, unless you confess that the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso excels your Casildea de Vandalia in beauty and in addition to this you must promise, if you should survive this encounter and fall, to go to the city of El Toboso and present yourself before her on my behalf, that she deal with you according to her good pleasure and if she leaves you free to do yours, you are in like manner to return and seek me out (for the trail of my mighty deeds will serve you as a guide to lead you to where I may be), and tell me what may have passed between you and herconditions which, in accordance with what we stipulated before our combat, do not transgress the just limits of knighterrantry. 'I confess, said the fallen knight, 'that the dirty tattered shoe of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso is better than the illcombed though clean beard of Casildea and I promise to go and to return from her presence to yours, and to give you a full and particular account of all you demand of me. 'You must also confess and believe, added Don Quixote, 'that the knight you vanquished was not and could not be Don Quixote of La Mancha, but someone else in his likeness, just as I confess and believe that you, though you seem to be the bachelor Samson Carrasco, are not so, but some other resembling him, whom my enemies have here put before me in his shape, in order that I may restrain and moderate the vehemence of my wrath, and make a gentle use of the glory of my victory. 'I confess, hold, and think everything to be as you believe, hold, and think it, the crippled knight 'let me rise, I entreat you if, indeed, the shock of my fall will allow me, for it has left me in a sorry plight enough. Don Quixote helped him to rise, with the assistance of his squire Tom Cecial from whom Sancho never took his eyes, and to whom he put questions, the replies to which furnished clear proof that he was really and truly the Tom Cecial he said but the impression made on Sancho's mind by what his master said about the enchanters having changed the face of the Knight of the Mirrors into that of the bachelor Samson Carrasco, would not permit him to believe what he saw with his eyes. In fine, both master and man remained under the delusion and, down in the mouth, and out of luck, he of the Mirrors and his squire parted from Don Quixote and Sancho, he meaning to go look for some village where he could plaster and strap his ribs. Don Quixote and Sancho resumed their journey to Saragossa, and on it the history leaves them in order that it may tell who the Knight of the Mirrors and his longnosed squire were. Don Quixote went off satisfied, elated, and vainglorious in the highest degree at having won a victory over such a valiant knight as he fancied him of the Mirrors to be, and one from whose knightly word he expected to learn whether the enchantment of his lady still continued inasmuch as the said vanquished knight was bound, under the penalty of ceasing to be one, to return and render him an account of what took place between him and her. But Don Quixote was of one mind, he of the Mirrors of another, for he just then had no thought of anything but finding some village where he could plaster himself, as has been said already. The history goes on to say, then, that when the bachelor Samson Carrasco recommended Don Quixote to resume his knighterrantry which he had laid aside, it was in consequence of having been previously in conclave with the curate and the barber on the means to be adopted to induce Don Quixote to stay at home in peace and quiet without worrying himself with his illstarred adventures at which consultation it was decided by the unanimous vote of all, and on the special advice of Carrasco, that Don Quixote should be allowed to go, as it seemed impossible to restrain him, and that Samson should sally forth to meet him as a knighterrant, and do battle with him, for there would be no difficulty about a cause, and vanquish him, that being looked upon as an easy matter and that it should be agreed and settled that the vanquished was to be at the mercy of the victor. Then, Don Quixote being vanquished, the bachelor knight was to command him to return to his village and his house, and not quit it for two years, or until he received further orders from him all which it was clear Don Quixote would unhesitatingly obey, rather than contravene or fail to observe the laws of chivalry and during the period of his seclusion he might perhaps forget his folly, or there might be an opportunity of discovering some ready remedy for his madness. Carrasco undertook the task, and Tom Cecial, a gossip and neighbour of Sancho Panza's, a lively, featherheaded fellow, offered himself as his squire. Carrasco armed himself in the fashion described, and Tom Cecial, that he might not be known by his gossip when they met, fitted on over his own natural nose the false masquerade one that has been mentioned and so they followed the same route Don Quixote took, and almost came up with him in time to be present at the adventure of the cart of Death and finally encountered them in the grove, where all that the sagacious reader has been reading about took place and had it not been for the extraordinary fancies of Don Quixote, and his conviction that the bachelor was not the bachelor, seor bachelor would have been incapacitated for ever from taking his degree of licentiate, all through not finding nests where he thought to find birds. Tom Cecial, seeing how ill they had succeeded, and what a sorry end their expedition had come to, said to the bachelor, 'Sure enough, Seor Samson Carrasco, we are served right it is easy enough to plan and set about an enterprise, but it is often a difficult matter to come well out of it. Don Quixote a madman, and we sane he goes off laughing, safe, and sound, and you are left sore and sorry! I'd like to know now which is the madder, he who is so because he cannot help it, or he who is so of his own choice? To which Samson replied, 'The difference between the two sorts of madmen is, that he who is so will he nil he, will be one always, while he who is so of his own accord can leave off being one whenever he likes. 'In that case, said Tom Cecial, 'I was a madman of my own accord when I volunteered to become your squire, and, of my own accord, I'll leave off being one and go home. 'That's your affair, returned Samson, 'but to suppose that I am going home until I have given Don Quixote a thrashing is absurd and it is not any wish that he may recover his senses that will make me hunt him out now, but a wish for the sore pain I am in with my ribs won't let me entertain more charitable thoughts. Thus discoursing, the pair proceeded until they reached a town where it was their good luck to find a bonesetter, with whose help the unfortunate Samson was cured. Tom Cecial left him and went home, while he stayed behind meditating vengeance and the history will return to him again at the proper time, so as not to omit making merry with Don Quixote now. Don Quixote pursued his journey in the high spirits, satisfaction, and selfcomplacency already described, fancying himself the most valorous knighterrant of the age in the world because of his late victory. All the adventures that could befall him from that time forth he regarded as already done and brought to a happy issue he made light of enchantments and enchanters he thought no more of the countless drubbings that had been administered to him in the course of his knighterrantry, nor of the volley of stones that had levelled half his teeth, nor of the ingratitude of the galley slaves, nor of the audacity of the Yanguesans and the shower of stakes that fell upon him in short, he said to himself that could he discover any means, mode, or way of disenchanting his lady Dulcinea, he would not envy the highest fortune that the most fortunate knighterrant of yore ever reached or could reach. He was going along entirely absorbed in these fancies, when Sancho said to him, 'Isn't it odd, seor, that I have still before my eyes that monstrous enormous nose of my gossip, Tom Cecial? 'And dost thou, then, believe, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that the Knight of the Mirrors was the bachelor Carrasco, and his squire Tom Cecial thy gossip? 'I don't know what to say to that, replied Sancho 'all I know is that the tokens he gave me about my own house, wife and children, nobody else but himself could have given me and the face, once the nose was off, was the very face of Tom Cecial, as I have seen it many a time in my town and next door to my own house and the sound of the voice was just the same. 'Let us reason the matter, Sancho, said Don Quixote. 'Come now, by what process of thinking can it be supposed that the bachelor Samson Carrasco would come as a knighterrant, in arms offensive and defensive, to fight with me? Have I ever been by any chance his enemy? Have I ever given him any occasion to owe me a grudge? Am I his rival, or does he profess arms, that he should envy the fame I have acquired in them? 'Well, but what are we to say, seor, returned Sancho, 'about that knight, whoever he is, being so like the bachelor Carrasco, and his squire so like my gossip, Tom Cecial? And if that be enchantment, as your worship says, was there no other pair in the world for them to take the likeness of? 'It is all, said Don Quixote, 'a scheme and plot of the malignant magicians that persecute me, who, foreseeing that I was to be victorious in the conflict, arranged that the vanquished knight should display the countenance of my friend the bachelor, in order that the friendship I bear him should interpose to stay the edge of my sword and might of my arm, and temper the just wrath of my heart so that he who sought to take my life by fraud and falsehood should save his own. And to prove it, thou knowest already, Sancho, by experience which cannot lie or deceive, how easy it is for enchanters to change one countenance into another, turning fair into foul, and foul into fair for it is not two days since thou sawest with thine own eyes the beauty and elegance of the peerless Dulcinea in all its perfection and natural harmony, while I saw her in the repulsive and mean form of a coarse country wench, with cataracts in her eyes and a foul smell in her mouth and when the perverse enchanter ventured to effect so wicked a transformation, it is no wonder if he effected that of Samson Carrasco and thy gossip in order to snatch the glory of victory out of my grasp. For all that, however, I console myself, because, after all, in whatever shape he may have been, I have been victorious over my enemy. 'God knows what's the truth of it all, said Sancho and knowing as he did that the transformation of Dulcinea had been a device and imposition of his own, his master's illusions were not satisfactory to him but he did not like to reply lest he should say something that might disclose his trickery. As they were engaged in this conversation they were overtaken by a man who was following the same road behind them, mounted on a very handsome fleabitten mare, and dressed in a gaban of fine green cloth, with tawny velvet facings, and a montera of the same velvet. The trappings of the mare were of the field and jineta fashion, and of mulberry colour and green. He carried a Moorish cutlass hanging from a broad green and gold baldric the buskins were of the same make as the baldric the spurs were not gilt, but lacquered green, and so brightly polished that, matching as they did the rest of his apparel, they looked better than if they had been of pure gold. When the traveller came up with them he saluted them courteously, and spurring his mare was passing them without stopping, but Don Quixote called out to him, 'Gallant sir, if so be your worship is going our road, and has no occasion for speed, it would be a pleasure to me if we were to join company. 'In truth, replied he on the mare, 'I would not pass you so hastily but for fear that horse might turn restive in the company of my mare. 'You may safely hold in your mare, seor, said Sancho in reply to this, 'for our horse is the most virtuous and wellbehaved horse in the world he never does anything wrong on such occasions, and the only time he misbehaved, my master and I suffered for it sevenfold I say again your worship may pull up if you like for if she was offered to him between two plates the horse would not hanker after her. The traveller drew rein, amazed at the trim and features of Don Quixote, who rode without his helmet, which Sancho carried like a valise in front of Dapple's packsaddle and if the man in green examined Don Quixote closely, still more closely did Don Quixote examine the man in green, who struck him as being a man of intelligence. In appearance he was about fifty years of age, with but few grey hairs, an aquiline cast of features, and an expression between grave and gay and his dress and accoutrements showed him to be a man of good condition. What he in green thought of Don Quixote of La Mancha was that a man of that sort and shape he had never yet seen he marvelled at the length of his hair, his lofty stature, the lankness and sallowness of his countenance, his armour, his bearing and his gravitya figure and picture such as had not been seen in those regions for many a long day. Don Quixote saw very plainly the attention with which the traveller was regarding him, and read his curiosity in his astonishment and courteous as he was and ready to please everybody, before the other could ask him any question he anticipated him by saying, 'The appearance I present to your worship being so strange and so out of the common, I should not be surprised if it filled you with wonder but you will cease to wonder when I tell you, as I do, that I am one of those knights who, as people say, go seeking adventures. I have left my home, I have mortgaged my estate, I have given up my comforts, and committed myself to the arms of Fortune, to bear me whithersoever she may please. My desire was to bring to life again knighterrantry, now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here, falling there, now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again, I have carried out a great portion of my design, succouring widows, protecting maidens, and giving aid to wives, orphans, and minors, the proper and natural duty of knightserrant and, therefore, because of my many valiant and Christian achievements, I have been already found worthy to make my way in print to wellnigh all, or most, of the nations of the earth. Thirty thousand volumes of my history have been printed, and it is on the highroad to be printed thirty thousand thousands of times, if heaven does not put a stop to it. In short, to sum up all in a few words, or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance' for though selfpraise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me. So that, gentle sir, neither this horse, nor this lance, nor this shield, nor this squire, nor all these arms put together, nor the sallowness of my countenance, nor my gaunt leanness, will henceforth astonish you, now that you know who I am and what profession I follow. With these words Don Quixote held his peace, and, from the time he took to answer, the man in green seemed to be at a loss for a reply after a long pause, however, he said to him, 'You were right when you saw curiosity in my amazement, sir knight but you have not succeeded in removing the astonishment I feel at seeing you for although you say, seor, that knowing who you are ought to remove it, it has not done so on the contrary, now that I know, I am left more amazed and astonished than before. What! is it possible that there are knightserrant in the world in these days, and histories of real chivalry printed? I cannot realise the fact that there can be anyone on earth nowadays who aids widows, or protects maidens, or defends wives, or succours orphans nor should I believe it had I not seen it in your worship with my own eyes. Blessed be heaven! for by means of this history of your noble and genuine chivalrous deeds, which you say has been printed, the countless stories of fictitious knightserrant with which the world is filled, so much to the injury of morality and the prejudice and discredit of good histories, will have been driven into oblivion. 'There is a good deal to be said on that point, said Don Quixote, 'as to whether the histories of the knightserrant are fiction or not. 'Why, is there anyone who doubts that those histories are false? said the man in green. 'I doubt it, said Don Quixote, 'but never mind that just now if our journey lasts long enough, I trust in God I shall show your worship that you do wrong in going with the stream of those who regard it as a matter of certainty that they are not true. From this last observation of Don Quixote's, the traveller began to have a suspicion that he was some crazy being, and was waiting for him to confirm it by something further but before they could turn to any new subject Don Quixote begged him to tell him who he was, since he himself had rendered account of his station and life. To this, he in the green gaban replied 'I, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, am a gentleman by birth, native of the village where, please God, we are going to dine today I am more than fairly well off, and my name is Don Diego de Miranda. I pass my life with my wife, children, and friends my pursuits are hunting and fishing, but I keep neither hawks nor greyhounds, nothing but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two I have six dozen or so of books, some in our mother tongue, some Latin, some of them history, others devotional those of chivalry have not as yet crossed the threshold of my door I am more given to turning over the profane than the devotional, so long as they are books of honest entertainment that charm by their style and attract and interest by the invention they display, though of these there are very few in Spain. Sometimes I dine with my neighbours and friends, and often invite them my entertainments are neat and well served without stint of anything. I have no taste for tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence I pry not into my neighbours' lives, nor have I lynxeyes for what others do. I hear mass every day I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance I am the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ever in the infinite mercy of God our Lord. Sancho listened with the greatest attention to the account of the gentleman's life and occupation and thinking it a good and a holy life, and that he who led it ought to work miracles, he threw himself off Dapple, and running in haste seized his right stirrup and kissed his foot again and again with a devout heart and almost with tears. Seeing this the gentleman asked him, 'What are you about, brother? What are these kisses for? 'Let me kiss, said Sancho, 'for I think your worship is the first saint in the saddle I ever saw all the days of my life. 'I am no saint, replied the gentleman, 'but a great sinner but you are, brother, for you must be a good fellow, as your simplicity shows. Sancho went back and regained his packsaddle, having extracted a laugh from his master's profound melancholy, and excited fresh amazement in Don Diego. Don Quixote then asked him how many children he had, and observed that one of the things wherein the ancient philosophers, who were without the true knowledge of God, placed the summum bonum was in the gifts of nature, in those of fortune, in having many friends, and many and good children. 'I, Seor Don Quixote, answered the gentleman, 'have one son, without whom, perhaps, I should count myself happier than I am, not because he is a bad son, but because he is not so good as I could wish. He is eighteen years of age he has been for six at Salamanca studying Latin and Greek, and when I wished him to turn to the study of other sciences I found him so wrapped up in that of poetry (if that can be called a science) that there is no getting him to take kindly to the law, which I wished him to study, or to theology, the queen of them all. I would like him to be an honour to his family, as we live in days when our kings liberally reward learning that is virtuous and worthy for learning without virtue is a pearl on a dunghill. He spends the whole day in settling whether Homer expressed himself correctly or not in such and such a line of the Iliad, whether Martial was indecent or not in such and such an epigram, whether such and such lines of Virgil are to be understood in this way or in that in short, all his talk is of the works of these poets, and those of Horace, Perseus, Juvenal, and Tibullus for of the moderns in our own language he makes no great account but with all his seeming indifference to Spanish poetry, just now his thoughts are absorbed in making a gloss on four lines that have been sent him from Salamanca, which I suspect are for some poetical tournament. To all this Don Quixote said in reply, 'Children, seor, are portions of their parents' bowels, and therefore, be they good or bad, are to be loved as we love the souls that give us life it is for the parents to guide them from infancy in the ways of virtue, propriety, and worthy Christian conduct, so that when grown up they may be the staff of their parents' old age, and the glory of their posterity and to force them to study this or that science I do not think wise, though it may be no harm to persuade them and when there is no need to study for the sake of pane lucrando, and it is the student's good fortune that heaven has given him parents who provide him with it, it would be my advice to them to let him pursue whatever science they may see him most inclined to and though that of poetry is less useful than pleasurable, it is not one of those that bring discredit upon the possessor. Poetry, gentle sir, is, as I take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, bedeck, and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens, who are all the rest of the sciences and she must avail herself of the help of all, and all derive their lustre from her. But this maiden will not bear to be handled, nor dragged through the streets, nor exposed either at the corners of the marketplaces, or in the closets of palaces. She is the product of an Alchemy of such virtue that he who is able to practise it, will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth. He that possesses her must keep her within bounds, not permitting her to break out in ribald satires or soulless sonnets. She must on no account be offered for sale, unless, indeed, it be in heroic poems, moving tragedies, or sprightly and ingenious comedies. She must not be touched by the buffoons, nor by the ignorant vulgar, incapable of comprehending or appreciating her hidden treasures. And do not suppose, seor, that I apply the term vulgar here merely to plebeians and the lower orders for everyone who is ignorant, be he lord or prince, may and should be included among the vulgar. He, then, who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the conditions I have named, shall become famous, and his name honoured throughout all the civilised nations of the earth. And with regard to what you say, seor, of your son having no great opinion of Spanish poetry, I am inclined to think that he is not quite right there, and for this reason the great poet Homer did not write in Latin, because he was a Greek, nor did Virgil write in Greek, because he was a Latin in short, all the ancient poets wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother's milk, and never went in quest of foreign ones to express their sublime conceptions and that being so, the usage should in justice extend to all nations, and the German poet should not be undervalued because he writes in his own language, nor the Castilian, nor even the Biscayan, for writing in his. But your son, seor, I suspect, is not prejudiced against Spanish poetry, but against those poets who are mere Spanish verse writers, without any knowledge of other languages or sciences to adorn and give life and vigour to their natural inspiration and yet even in this he may be wrong for, according to a true belief, a poet is born one that is to say, the poet by nature comes forth a poet from his mother's womb and following the bent that heaven has bestowed upon him, without the aid of study or art, he produces things that show how truly he spoke who said, 'Est Deus in nobis,' etc. At the same time, I say that the poet by nature who calls in art to his aid will be a far better poet, and will surpass him who tries to be one relying upon his knowledge of art alone. The reason is, that art does not surpass nature, but only brings it to perfection and thus, nature combined with art, and art with nature, will produce a perfect poet. To bring my argument to a close, I would say then, gentle sir, let your son go on as his star leads him, for being so studious as he seems to be, and having already successfully surmounted the first step of the sciences, which is that of the languages, with their help he will by his own exertions reach the summit of polite literature, which so well becomes an independent gentleman, and adorns, honours, and distinguishes him, as much as the mitre does the bishop, or the gown the learned counsellor. If your son write satires reflecting on the honour of others, chide and correct him, and tear them up but if he compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in general, in the style of Horace, and with elegance like his, commend him for it is legitimate for a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his verse, and the other vices too, provided he does not single out individuals there are, however, poets who, for the sake of saying something spiteful, would run the risk of being banished to the coast of Pontus. If the poet be pure in his morals, he will be pure in his verses too the pen is the tongue of the mind, and as the thought engendered there, so will be the things that it writes down. And when kings and princes observe this marvellous science of poetry in wise, virtuous, and thoughtful subjects, they honour, value, exalt them, and even crown them with the leaves of that tree which the thunderbolt strikes not, as if to show that they whose brows are honoured and adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed by anyone. He of the green gaban was filled with astonishment at Don Quixote's argument, so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up about his being crazy. But in the middle of the discourse, it being not very much to his taste, Sancho had turned aside out of the road to beg a little milk from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by and just as the gentleman, highly pleased, was about to renew the conversation, Don Quixote, raising his head, perceived a cart covered with royal flags coming along the road they were travelling and persuaded that this must be some new adventure, he called aloud to Sancho to come and bring him his helmet. Sancho, hearing himself called, quitted the shepherds, and, prodding Dapple vigorously, came up to his master, to whom there fell a terrific and desperate adventure. The history tells that when Don Quixote called out to Sancho to bring him his helmet, Sancho was buying some curds the shepherds agreed to sell him, and flurried by the great haste his master was in did not know what to do with them or what to carry them in so, not to lose them, for he had already paid for them, he thought it best to throw them into his master's helmet, and acting on this bright idea he went to see what his master wanted with him. He, as he approached, exclaimed to him 'Give me that helmet, my friend, for either I know little of adventures, or what I observe yonder is one that will, and does, call upon me to arm myself. He of the green gaban, on hearing this, looked in all directions, but could perceive nothing, except a cart coming towards them with two or three small flags, which led him to conclude it must be carrying treasure of the King's, and he said so to Don Quixote. He, however, would not believe him, being always persuaded and convinced that all that happened to him must be adventures and still more adventures so he replied to the gentleman, 'He who is prepared has his battle half fought nothing is lost by my preparing myself, for I know by experience that I have enemies, visible and invisible, and I know not when, or where, or at what moment, or in what shapes they will attack me and turning to Sancho, he called for his helmet and Sancho, as he had no time to take out the curds, had to give it just as it was. Don Quixote took it, and without perceiving what was in it thrust it down in hot haste upon his head but as the curds were pressed and squeezed the whey began to run all over his face and beard, whereat he was so startled that he cried out to Sancho 'Sancho, what's this? I think my head is softening, or my brains are melting, or I am sweating from head to foot! If I am sweating it is not indeed from fear. I am convinced beyond a doubt that the adventure which is about to befall me is a terrible one. Give me something to wipe myself with, if thou hast it, for this profuse sweat is blinding me. Sancho held his tongue, and gave him a cloth, and gave thanks to God at the same time that his master had not found out what was the matter. Don Quixote then wiped himself, and took off his helmet to see what it was that made his head feel so cool, and seeing all that white mash inside his helmet he put it to his nose, and as soon as he had smelt it he exclaimed 'By the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, but it is curds thou hast put here, thou treacherous, impudent, illmannered squire! To which, with great composure and pretended innocence, Sancho replied, 'If they are curds let me have them, your worship, and I'll eat them but let the devil eat them, for it must have been he who put them there. I dare to dirty your helmet! You have guessed the offender finely! Faith, sir, by the light God gives me, it seems I must have enchanters too, that persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship, and they must have put that nastiness there in order to provoke your patience to anger, and make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do. Well, this time, indeed, they have missed their aim, for I trust to my master's good sense to see that I have got no curds or milk, or anything of the sort and that if I had it is in my stomach I would put it and not in the helmet. 'May be so, said Don Quixote. All this the gentleman was observing, and with astonishment, more especially when, after having wiped himself clean, his head, face, beard, and helmet, Don Quixote put it on, and settling himself firmly in his stirrups, easing his sword in the scabbard, and grasping his lance, he cried, 'Now, come who will, here am I, ready to try conclusions with Satan himself in person! By this time the cart with the flags had come up, unattended by anyone except the carter on a mule, and a man sitting in front. Don Quixote planted himself before it and said, 'Whither are you going, brothers? What cart is this? What have you got in it? What flags are those? To this the carter replied, 'The cart is mine what is in it is a pair of wild caged lions, which the governor of Oran is sending to court as a present to his Majesty and the flags are our lord the King's, to show that what is here is his property. 'And are the lions large? asked Don Quixote. 'So large, replied the man who sat at the door of the cart, 'that larger, or as large, have never crossed from Africa to Spain I am the keeper, and I have brought over others, but never any like these. They are male and female the male is in that first cage and the female in the one behind, and they are hungry now, for they have eaten nothing today, so let your worship stand aside, for we must make haste to the place where we are to feed them. Hereupon, smiling slightly, Don Quixote exclaimed, 'Lionwhelps to me! to me whelps of lions, and at such a time! Then, by God! those gentlemen who send them here shall see if I am a man to be frightened by lions. Get down, my good fellow, and as you are the keeper open the cages, and turn me out those beasts, and in the midst of this plain I will let them know who Don Quixote of La Mancha is, in spite and in the teeth of the enchanters who send them to me. 'So, so, said the gentleman to himself at this 'our worthy knight has shown of what sort he is the curds, no doubt, have softened his skull and brought his brains to a head. At this instant Sancho came up to him, saying, 'Seor, for God's sake do something to keep my master, Don Quixote, from tackling these lions for if he does they'll tear us all to pieces here. 'Is your master then so mad, asked the gentleman, 'that you believe and are afraid he will engage such fierce animals? 'He is not mad, said Sancho, 'but he is venturesome. 'I will prevent it, said the gentleman and going over to Don Quixote, who was insisting upon the keeper's opening the cages, he said to him, 'Sir knight, knightserrant should attempt adventures which encourage the hope of a successful issue, not those which entirely withhold it for valour that trenches upon temerity savours rather of madness than of courage moreover, these lions do not come to oppose you, nor do they dream of such a thing they are going as presents to his Majesty, and it will not be right to stop them or delay their journey. 'Gentle sir, replied Don Quixote, 'you go and mind your tame partridge and your bold ferret, and leave everyone to manage his own business this is mine, and I know whether these gentlemen the lions come to me or not and then turning to the keeper he exclaimed, 'By all that's good, sir scoundrel, if you don't open the cages this very instant, I'll pin you to the cart with this lance. The carter, seeing the determination of this apparition in armour, said to him, 'Please your worship, for charity's sake, seor, let me unyoke the mules and place myself in safety along with them before the lions are turned out for if they kill them on me I am ruined for life, for all I possess is this cart and mules. 'O man of little faith, replied Don Quixote, 'get down and unyoke you will soon see that you are exerting yourself for nothing, and that you might have spared yourself the trouble. The carter got down and with all speed unyoked the mules, and the keeper called out at the top of his voice, 'I call all here to witness that against my will and under compulsion I open the cages and let the lions loose, and that I warn this gentleman that he will be accountable for all the harm and mischief which these beasts may do, and for my salary and dues as well. You, gentlemen, place yourselves in safety before I open, for I know they will do me no harm. Once more the gentleman strove to persuade Don Quixote not to do such a mad thing, as it was tempting God to engage in such a piece of folly. To this, Don Quixote replied that he knew what he was about. The gentleman in return entreated him to reflect, for he knew he was under a delusion. 'Well, seor, answered Don Quixote, 'if you do not like to be a spectator of this tragedy, as in your opinion it will be, spur your fleabitten mare, and place yourself in safety. Hearing this, Sancho with tears in his eyes entreated him to give up an enterprise compared with which the one of the windmills, and the awful one of the fulling mills, and, in fact, all the feats he had attempted in the whole course of his life, were cakes and fancy bread. 'Look ye, seor, said Sancho, 'there's no enchantment here, nor anything of the sort, for between the bars and chinks of the cage I have seen the paw of a real lion, and judging by that I reckon the lion such a paw could belong to must be bigger than a mountain. 'Fear at any rate, replied Don Quixote, 'will make him look bigger to thee than half the world. Retire, Sancho, and leave me and if I die here thou knowest our old compact thou wilt repair to DulcineaI say no more. To these he added some further words that banished all hope of his giving up his insane project. He of the green gaban would have offered resistance, but he found himself illmatched as to arms, and did not think it prudent to come to blows with a madman, for such Don Quixote now showed himself to be in every respect and the latter, renewing his commands to the keeper and repeating his threats, gave warning to the gentleman to spur his mare, Sancho his Dapple, and the carter his mules, all striving to get away from the cart as far as they could before the lions broke loose. Sancho was weeping over his master's death, for this time he firmly believed it was in store for him from the claws of the lions and he cursed his fate and called it an unlucky hour when he thought of taking service with him again but with all his tears and lamentations he did not forget to thrash Dapple so as to put a good space between himself and the cart. The keeper, seeing that the fugitives were now some distance off, once more entreated and warned him as before but he replied that he heard him, and that he need not trouble himself with any further warnings or entreaties, as they would be fruitless, and bade him make haste. During the delay that occurred while the keeper was opening the first cage, Don Quixote was considering whether it would not be well to do battle on foot, instead of on horseback, and finally resolved to fight on foot, fearing that Rocinante might take fright at the sight of the lions he therefore sprang off his horse, flung his lance aside, braced his buckler on his arm, and drawing his sword, advanced slowly with marvellous intrepidity and resolute courage, to plant himself in front of the cart, commending himself with all his heart to God and to his lady Dulcinea. It is to be observed, that on coming to this passage, the author of this veracious history breaks out into exclamations. 'O doughty Don Quixote! highmettled past extolling! Mirror, wherein all the heroes of the world may see themselves! Second modern Don Manuel de Leon, once the glory and honour of Spanish knighthood! In what words shall I describe this dread exploit, by what language shall I make it credible to ages to come, what eulogies are there unmeet for thee, though they be hyperboles piled on hyperboles! On foot, alone, undaunted, highsouled, with but a simple sword, and that no trenchant blade of the Perrillo brand, a shield, but no bright polished steel one, there stoodst thou, biding and awaiting the two fiercest lions that Africa's forests ever bred! Thy own deeds be thy praise, valiant Manchegan, and here I leave them as they stand, wanting the words wherewith to glorify them! Here the author's outburst came to an end, and he proceeded to take up the thread of his story, saying that the keeper, seeing that Don Quixote had taken up his position, and that it was impossible for him to avoid letting out the male without incurring the enmity of the fiery and daring knight, flung open the doors of the first cage, containing, as has been said, the lion, which was now seen to be of enormous size, and grim and hideous mien. The first thing he did was to turn round in the cage in which he lay, and protrude his claws, and stretch himself thoroughly he next opened his mouth, and yawned very leisurely, and with near two palms' length of tongue that he had thrust forth, he licked the dust out of his eyes and washed his face having done this, he put his head out of the cage and looked all round with eyes like glowing coals, a spectacle and demeanour to strike terror into temerity itself. Don Quixote merely observed him steadily, longing for him to leap from the cart and come to close quarters with him, when he hoped to hew him in pieces. So far did his unparalleled madness go but the noble lion, more courteous than arrogant, not troubling himself about silly bravado, after having looked all round, as has been said, turned about and presented his hindquarters to Don Quixote, and very coolly and tranquilly lay down again in the cage. Seeing this, Don Quixote ordered the keeper to take a stick to him and provoke him to make him come out. 'That I won't, said the keeper 'for if I anger him, the first he'll tear in pieces will be myself. Be satisfied, sir knight, with what you have done, which leaves nothing more to be said on the score of courage, and do not seek to tempt fortune a second time. The lion has the door open he is free to come out or not to come out but as he has not come out so far, he will not come out today. Your worship's great courage has been fully manifested already no brave champion, so it strikes me, is bound to do more than challenge his enemy and wait for him on the field if his adversary does not come, on him lies the disgrace, and he who waits for him carries off the crown of victory. 'That is true, said Don Quixote 'close the door, my friend, and let me have, in the best form thou canst, what thou hast seen me do, by way of certificate to wit, that thou didst open for the lion, that I waited for him, that he did not come out, that I still waited for him, and that still he did not come out, and lay down again. I am not bound to do more enchantments avaunt, and God uphold the right, the truth, and true chivalry! Close the door as I bade thee, while I make signals to the fugitives that have left us, that they may learn this exploit from thy lips. The keeper obeyed, and Don Quixote, fixing on the point of his lance the cloth he had wiped his face with after the deluge of curds, proceeded to recall the others, who still continued to fly, looking back at every step, all in a body, the gentleman bringing up the rear. Sancho, however, happening to observe the signal of the white cloth, exclaimed, 'May I die, if my master has not overcome the wild beasts, for he is calling to us. They all stopped, and perceived that it was Don Quixote who was making signals, and shaking off their fears to some extent, they approached slowly until they were near enough to hear distinctly Don Quixote's voice calling to them. They returned at length to the cart, and as they came up, Don Quixote said to the carter, 'Put your mules to once more, brother, and continue your journey and do thou, Sancho, give him two gold crowns for himself and the keeper, to compensate for the delay they have incurred through me. 'That will I give with all my heart, said Sancho 'but what has become of the lions? Are they dead or alive? The keeper, then, in full detail, and bit by bit, described the end of the contest, exalting to the best of his power and ability the valour of Don Quixote, at the sight of whom the lion quailed, and would not and dared not come out of the cage, although he had held the door open ever so long and showing how, in consequence of his having represented to the knight that it was tempting God to provoke the lion in order to force him out, which he wished to have done, he very reluctantly, and altogether against his will, had allowed the door to be closed. 'What dost thou think of this, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'Are there any enchantments that can prevail against true valour? The enchanters may be able to rob me of good fortune, but of fortitude and courage they cannot. Sancho paid the crowns, the carter put to, the keeper kissed Don Quixote's hands for the bounty bestowed upon him, and promised to give an account of the valiant exploit to the King himself, as soon as he saw him at court. 'Then, said Don Quixote, 'if his Majesty should happen to ask who performed it, you must say THE KNIGHT OF THE LIONS for it is my desire that into this the name I have hitherto borne of Knight of the Rueful Countenance be from this time forward changed, altered, transformed, and turned and in this I follow the ancient usage of knightserrant, who changed their names when they pleased, or when it suited their purpose. The cart went its way, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and he of the green gaban went theirs. All this time, Don Diego de Miranda had not spoken a word, being entirely taken up with observing and noting all that Don Quixote did and said, and the opinion he formed was that he was a man of brains gone mad, and a madman on the verge of rationality. The first part of his history had not yet reached him, for, had he read it, the amazement with which his words and deeds filled him would have vanished, as he would then have understood the nature of his madness but knowing nothing of it, he took him to be rational one moment, and crazy the next, for what he said was sensible, elegant, and well expressed, and what he did, absurd, rash, and foolish and said he to himself, 'What could be madder than putting on a helmet full of curds, and then persuading oneself that enchanters are softening one's skull or what could be greater rashness and folly than wanting to fight lions tooth and nail? Don Quixote roused him from these reflections and this soliloquy by saying, 'No doubt, Seor Don Diego de Miranda, you set me down in your mind as a fool and a madman, and it would be no wonder if you did, for my deeds do not argue anything else. But for all that, I would have you take notice that I am neither so mad nor so foolish as I must have seemed to you. A gallant knight shows to advantage bringing his lance to bear adroitly upon a fierce bull under the eyes of his sovereign, in the midst of a spacious plaza a knight shows to advantage arrayed in glittering armour, pacing the lists before the ladies in some joyous tournament, and all those knights show to advantage that entertain, divert, and, if we may say so, honour the courts of their princes by warlike exercises, or what resemble them but to greater advantage than all these does a knighterrant show when he traverses deserts, solitudes, crossroads, forests, and mountains, in quest of perilous adventures, bent on bringing them to a happy and successful issue, all to win a glorious and lasting renown. To greater advantage, I maintain, does the knighterrant show bringing aid to some widow in some lonely waste, than the court knight dallying with some city damsel. All knights have their own special parts to play let the courtier devote himself to the ladies, let him add lustre to his sovereign's court by his liveries, let him entertain poor gentlemen with the sumptuous fare of his table, let him arrange joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil the duties that are especially his but let the knighterrant explore the corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the winter winds and frosts let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him, no dragons make him quail for to seek these, to attack those, and to vanquish all, are in truth his main duties. I, then, as it has fallen to my lot to be a member of knighterrantry, cannot avoid attempting all that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties thus it was my bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I knew it to be the height of rashness for I know well what valour is, that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes, cowardice and temerity but it will be a lesser evil for him who is valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until he reaches the point of cowardice for, as it is easier for the prodigal than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour and believe me, Seor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a card too many than by a card too few for to hear it said, 'such a knight is rash and daring,' sounds better than 'such a knight is timid and cowardly.' 'I protest, Seor Don Quixote, said Don Diego, 'everything you have said and done is proved correct by the test of reason itself and I believe, if the laws and ordinances of knighterrantry should be lost, they might be found in your worship's breast as in their own proper depository and munimenthouse but let us make haste, and reach my village, where you shall take rest after your late exertions for if they have not been of the body they have been of the spirit, and these sometimes tend to produce bodily fatigue. 'I take the invitation as a great favour and honour, Seor Don Diego, replied Don Quixote and pressing forward at a better pace than before, at about two in the afternoon they reached the village and house of Don Diego, or, as Don Quixote called him, 'The Knight of the Green Gaban. Don Quixote found Don Diego de Miranda's house built in village style, with his arms in rough stone over the street door in the patio was the storeroom, and at the entrance the cellar, with plenty of winejars standing round, which, coming from El Toboso, brought back to his memory his enchanted and transformed Dulcinea and with a sigh, and not thinking of what he was saying, or in whose presence he was, he exclaimed 'O ye sweet treasures, to my sorrow found! Once sweet and welcome when 'twas heaven's goodwill. 'O ye Tobosan jars, how ye bring back to my memory the sweet object of my bitter regrets! The student poet, Don Diego's son, who had come out with his mother to receive him, heard this exclamation, and both mother and son were filled with amazement at the extraordinary figure he presented he, however, dismounting from Rocinante, advanced with great politeness to ask permission to kiss the lady's hand, while Don Diego said, 'Seora, pray receive with your wonted kindness Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, whom you see before you, a knighterrant, and the bravest and wisest in the world. The lady, whose name was Doa Christina, received him with every sign of goodwill and great courtesy, and Don Quixote placed himself at her service with an abundance of wellchosen and polished phrases. Almost the same civilities were exchanged between him and the student, who listening to Don Quixote, took him to be a sensible, clearheaded person. Here the author describes minutely everything belonging to Don Diego's mansion, putting before us in his picture the whole contents of a rich gentlemanfarmer's house but the translator of the history thought it best to pass over these and other details of the same sort in silence, as they are not in harmony with the main purpose of the story, the strong point of which is truth rather than dull digressions. They led Don Quixote into a room, and Sancho removed his armour, leaving him in loose Walloon breeches and chamoisleather doublet, all stained with the rust of his armour his collar was a falling one of scholastic cut, without starch or lace, his buskins buffcoloured, and his shoes polished. He wore his good sword, which hung in a baldric of seawolf's skin, for he had suffered for many years, they say, from an ailment of the kidneys and over all he threw a long cloak of good grey cloth. But first of all, with five or six buckets of water (for as regard the number of buckets there is some dispute), he washed his head and face, and still the water remained wheycoloured, thanks to Sancho's greediness and purchase of those unlucky curds that turned his master so white. Thus arrayed, and with an easy, sprightly, and gallant air, Don Quixote passed out into another room, where the student was waiting to entertain him while the table was being laid for on the arrival of so distinguished a guest, Doa Christina was anxious to show that she knew how and was able to give a becoming reception to those who came to her house. While Don Quixote was taking off his armour, Don Lorenzo (for so Don Diego's son was called) took the opportunity to say to his father, 'What are we to make of this gentleman you have brought home to us, sir? For his name, his appearance, and your describing him as a knighterrant have completely puzzled my mother and me. 'I don't know what to say, my son, replied. Don Diego 'all I can tell thee is that I have seen him act the acts of the greatest madman in the world, and heard him make observations so sensible that they efface and undo all he does do thou talk to him and feel the pulse of his wits, and as thou art shrewd, form the most reasonable conclusion thou canst as to his wisdom or folly though, to tell the truth, I am more inclined to take him to be mad than sane. With this Don Lorenzo went away to entertain Don Quixote as has been said, and in the course of the conversation that passed between them Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, 'Your father, Seor Don Diego de Miranda, has told me of the rare abilities and subtle intellect you possess, and, above all, that you are a great poet. 'A poet, it may be, replied Don Lorenzo, 'but a great one, by no means. It is true that I am somewhat given to poetry and to reading good poets, but not so much so as to justify the title of 'great' which my father gives me. 'I do not dislike that modesty, said Don Quixote 'for there is no poet who is not conceited and does not think he is the best poet in the world. 'There is no rule without an exception, said Don Lorenzo 'there may be some who are poets and yet do not think they are. 'Very few, said Don Quixote 'but tell me, what verses are those which you have now in hand, and which your father tells me keep you somewhat restless and absorbed? If it be some gloss, I know something about glosses, and I should like to hear them and if they are for a poetical tournament, contrive to carry off the second prize for the first always goes by favour or personal standing, the second by simple justice and so the third comes to be the second, and the first, reckoning in this way, will be third, in the same way as licentiate degrees are conferred at the universities but, for all that, the title of first is a great distinction. 'So far, said Don Lorenzo to himself, 'I should not take you to be a madman but let us go on. So he said to him, 'Your worship has apparently attended the schools what sciences have you studied? 'That of knighterrantry, said Don Quixote, 'which is as good as that of poetry, and even a finger or two above it. 'I do not know what science that is, said Don Lorenzo, 'and until now I have never heard of it. 'It is a science, said Don Quixote, 'that comprehends in itself all or most of the sciences in the world, for he who professes it must be a jurist, and must know the rules of justice, distributive and equitable, so as to give to each one what belongs to him and is due to him. He must be a theologian, so as to be able to give a clear and distinctive reason for the Christian faith he professes, wherever it may be asked of him. He must be a physician, and above all a herbalist, so as in wastes and solitudes to know the herbs that have the property of healing wounds, for a knighterrant must not go looking for someone to cure him at every step. He must be an astronomer, so as to know by the stars how many hours of the night have passed, and what clime and quarter of the world he is in. He must know mathematics, for at every turn some occasion for them will present itself to him and, putting it aside that he must be adorned with all the virtues, cardinal and theological, to come down to minor particulars, he must, I say, be able to swim as well as Nicholas or Nicolao the Fish could, as the story goes he must know how to shoe a horse, and repair his saddle and bridle and, to return to higher matters, he must be faithful to God and to his lady he must be pure in thought, decorous in words, generous in works, valiant in deeds, patient in suffering, compassionate towards the needy, and, lastly, an upholder of the truth though its defence should cost him his life. Of all these qualities, great and small, is a true knighterrant made up judge then, Seor Don Lorenzo, whether it be a contemptible science which the knight who studies and professes it has to learn, and whether it may not compare with the very loftiest that are taught in the schools. 'If that be so, replied Don Lorenzo, 'this science, I protest, surpasses all. 'How, if that be so? said Don Quixote. 'What I mean to say, said Don Lorenzo, 'is, that I doubt whether there are now, or ever were, any knightserrant, and adorned with such virtues. 'Many a time, replied Don Quixote, 'have I said what I now say once more, that the majority of the world are of opinion that there never were any knightserrant in it and as it is my opinion that, unless heaven by some miracle brings home to them the truth that there were and are, all the pains one takes will be in vain (as experience has often proved to me), I will not now stop to disabuse you of the error you share with the multitude. All I shall do is to pray to heaven to deliver you from it, and show you how beneficial and necessary knightserrant were in days of yore, and how useful they would be in these days were they but in vogue but now, for the sins of the people, sloth and indolence, gluttony and luxury are triumphant. 'Our guest has broken out on our hands, said Don Lorenzo to himself at this point 'but, for all that, he is a glorious madman, and I should be a dull blockhead to doubt it. Here, being summoned to dinner, they brought their colloquy to a close. Don Diego asked his son what he had been able to make out as to the wits of their guest. To which he replied, 'All the doctors and clever scribes in the world will not make sense of the scrawl of his madness he is a madman full of streaks, full of lucid intervals. They went in to dinner, and the repast was such as Don Diego said on the road he was in the habit of giving to his guests, neat, plentiful, and tasty but what pleased Don Quixote most was the marvellous silence that reigned throughout the house, for it was like a Carthusian monastery. When the cloth had been removed, grace said and their hands washed, Don Quixote earnestly pressed Don Lorenzo to repeat to him his verses for the poetical tournament, to which he replied, 'Not to be like those poets who, when they are asked to recite their verses, refuse, and when they are not asked for them vomit them up, I will repeat my gloss, for which I do not expect any prize, having composed it merely as an exercise of ingenuity. 'A discerning friend of mine, said Don Quixote, 'was of opinion that no one ought to waste labour in glossing verses and the reason he gave was that the gloss can never come up to the text, and that often or most frequently it wanders away from the meaning and purpose aimed at in the glossed lines and besides, that the laws of the gloss were too strict, as they did not allow interrogations, nor 'said he,' nor 'I say,' nor turning verbs into nouns, or altering the construction, not to speak of other restrictions and limitations that fetter glosswriters, as you no doubt know. 'Verily, Seor Don Quixote, said Don Lorenzo, 'I wish I could catch your worship tripping at a stretch, but I cannot, for you slip through my fingers like an eel. 'I don't understand what you say, or mean by slipping, said Don Quixote. 'I will explain myself another time, said Don Lorenzo 'for the present pray attend to the glossed verses and the gloss, which run thus Could 'was' become an 'is' for me, Then would I ask no more than this Or could, for me, the time that is Become the time that is to be! GLOSS Dame Fortune once upon a day To me was bountiful and kind But all things change she changed her mind, And what she gave she took away. O Fortune, long I've sued to thee The gifts thou gavest me restore, For, trust me, I would ask no more, Could 'was' become an 'is' for me. No other prize I seek to gain, No triumph, glory, or success, Only the longlost happiness, The memory whereof is pain. One taste, methinks, of bygone bliss The heartconsuming fire might stay And, so it come without delay, Then would I ask no more than this. I ask what cannot be, alas! That time should ever be, and then Come back to us, and be again, No power on earth can bring to pass For fleet of foot is he, I wis, And idly, therefore, do we pray That what for aye hath left us may Become for us the time that is. Perplexed, uncertain, to remain 'Twixt hope and fear, is death, not life 'Twere better, sure, to end the strife, And dying, seek release from pain. And yet, thought were the best for me. Anon the thought aside I fling, And to the present fondly cling, And dread the time that is to be. When Don Lorenzo had finished reciting his gloss, Don Quixote stood up, and in a loud voice, almost a shout, exclaimed as he grasped Don Lorenzo's right hand in his, 'By the highest heavens, noble youth, but you are the best poet on earth, and deserve to be crowned with laurel, not by Cyprus or by Gaetaas a certain poet, God forgive him, saidbut by the Academies of Athens, if they still flourished, and by those that flourish now, Paris, Bologna, Salamanca. Heaven grant that the judges who rob you of the first prizethat Phbus may pierce them with his arrows, and the Muses never cross the thresholds of their doors. Repeat me some of your longmeasure verses, seor, if you will be so good, for I want thoroughly to feel the pulse of your rare genius. Is there any need to say that Don Lorenzo enjoyed hearing himself praised by Don Quixote, albeit he looked upon him as a madman? power of flattery, how farreaching art thou, and how wide are the bounds of thy pleasant jurisdiction! Don Lorenzo gave a proof of it, for he complied with Don Quixote's request and entreaty, and repeated to him this sonnet on the fable or story of Pyramus and Thisbe. SONNET The lovely maid, she pierces now the wall Heartpierced by her young Pyramus doth lie And Love spreads wing from Cyprus isle to fly, A chink to view so wondrous great and small. There silence speaketh, for no voice at all Can pass so strait a strait but love will ply Where to all other power 'twere vain to try For love will find a way whate'er befall. Impatient of delay, with reckless pace The rash maid wins the fatal spot where she Sinks not in lover's arms but death's embrace. So runs the strange tale, how the lovers twain One sword, one sepulchre, one memory, Slays, and entombs, and brings to life again. 'Blessed be God, said Don Quixote when he had heard Don Lorenzo's sonnet, 'that among the hosts there are of irritable poets I have found one consummate one, which, seor, the art of this sonnet proves to me that you are! For four days was Don Quixote most sumptuously entertained in Don Diego's house, at the end of which time he asked his permission to depart, telling him he thanked him for the kindness and hospitality he had received in his house, but that, as it did not become knightserrant to give themselves up for long to idleness and luxury, he was anxious to fulfill the duties of his calling in seeking adventures, of which he was informed there was an abundance in that neighbourhood, where he hoped to employ his time until the day came round for the jousts at Saragossa, for that was his proper destination and that, first of all, he meant to enter the cave of Montesinos, of which so many marvellous things were reported all through the country, and at the same time to investigate and explore the origin and true source of the seven lakes commonly called the lakes of Ruidera. Don Diego and his son commended his laudable resolution, and bade him furnish himself with all he wanted from their house and belongings, as they would most gladly be of service to him which, indeed, his personal worth and his honourable profession made incumbent upon them. The day of his departure came at length, as welcome to Don Quixote as it was sad and sorrowful to Sancho Panza, who was very well satisfied with the abundance of Don Diego's house, and objected to return to the starvation of the woods and wilds and the shortcommons of his illstocked alforjas these, however, he filled and packed with what he considered needful. On taking leave, Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, 'I know not whether I have told you already, but if I have I tell you once more, that if you wish to spare yourself fatigue and toil in reaching the inaccessible summit of the temple of fame, you have nothing to do but to turn aside out of the somewhat narrow path of poetry and take the still narrower one of knighterrantry, wide enough, however, to make you an emperor in the twinkling of an eye. In this speech Don Quixote wound up the evidence of his madness, but still better in what he added when he said, 'God knows, I would gladly take Don Lorenzo with me to teach him how to spare the humble, and trample the proud under foot, virtues that are part and parcel of the profession I belong to but since his tender age does not allow of it, nor his praiseworthy pursuits permit it, I will simply content myself with impressing it upon your worship that you will become famous as a poet if you are guided by the opinion of others rather than by your own because no fathers or mothers ever think their own children illfavoured, and this sort of deception prevails still more strongly in the case of the children of the brain. Both father and son were amazed afresh at the strange medley Don Quixote talked, at one moment sense, at another nonsense, and at the pertinacity and persistence he displayed in going through thick and thin in quest of his unlucky adventures, which he made the end and aim of his desires. There was a renewal of offers of service and civilities, and then, with the gracious permission of the lady of the castle, they took their departure, Don Quixote on Rocinante, and Sancho on Dapple. Don Quixote had gone but a short distance beyond Don Diego's village, when he fell in with a couple of either priests or students, and a couple of peasants, mounted on four beasts of the ass kind. One of the students carried, wrapped up in a piece of green buckram by way of a portmanteau, what seemed to be a little linen and a couple of pairs of ribbed stockings the other carried nothing but a pair of new fencingfoils with buttons. The peasants carried divers articles that showed they were on their way from some large town where they had bought them, and were taking them home to their village and both students and peasants were struck with the same amazement that everybody felt who saw Don Quixote for the first time, and were dying to know who this man, so different from ordinary men, could be. Don Quixote saluted them, and after ascertaining that their road was the same as his, made them an offer of his company, and begged them to slacken their pace, as their young asses travelled faster than his horse and then, to gratify them, he told them in a few words who he was and the calling and profession he followed, which was that of a knighterrant seeking adventures in all parts of the world. He informed them that his own name was Don Quixote of La Mancha, and that he was called, by way of surname, the Knight of the Lions. All this was Greek or gibberish to the peasants, but not so to the students, who very soon perceived the crack in Don Quixote's pate for all that, however, they regarded him with admiration and respect, and one of them said to him, 'If you, sir knight, have no fixed road, as it is the way with those who seek adventures not to have any, let your worship come with us you will see one of the finest and richest weddings that up to this day have ever been celebrated in La Mancha, or for many a league round. Don Quixote asked him if it was some prince's, that he spoke of it in this way. 'Not at all, said the student 'it is the wedding of a farmer and a farmer's daughter, he the richest in all this country, and she the fairest mortal ever set eyes on. The display with which it is to be attended will be something rare and out of the common, for it will be celebrated in a meadow adjoining the town of the bride, who is called, par excellence, Quiteria the fair, as the bridegroom is called Camacho the rich. She is eighteen, and he twentytwo, and they are fairly matched, though some knowing ones, who have all the pedigrees in the world by heart, will have it that the family of the fair Quiteria is better than Camacho's but no one minds that nowadays, for wealth can solder a great many flaws. At any rate, Camacho is freehanded, and it is his fancy to screen the whole meadow with boughs and cover it in overhead, so that the sun will have hard work if he tries to get in to reach the grass that covers the soil. He has provided dancers too, not only sword but also belldancers, for in his own town there are those who ring the changes and jingle the bells to perfection of shoedancers I say nothing, for of them he has engaged a host. But none of these things, nor of the many others I have omitted to mention, will do more to make this a memorable wedding than the part which I suspect the despairing Basilio will play in it. This Basilio is a youth of the same village as Quiteria, and he lived in the house next door to that of her parents, of which circumstance Love took advantage to reproduce to the word the longforgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe for Basilio loved Quiteria from his earliest years, and she responded to his passion with countless modest proofs of affection, so that the loves of the two children, Basilio and Quiteria, were the talk and the amusement of the town. As they grew up, the father of Quiteria made up his mind to refuse Basilio his wonted freedom of access to the house, and to relieve himself of constant doubts and suspicions, he arranged a match for his daughter with the rich Camacho, as he did not approve of marrying her to Basilio, who had not so large a share of the gifts of fortune as of nature for if the truth be told ungrudgingly, he is the most agile youth we know, a mighty thrower of the bar, a firstrate wrestler, and a great ballplayer he runs like a deer, and leaps better than a goat, bowls over the ninepins as if by magic, sings like a lark, plays the guitar so as to make it speak, and, above all, handles a sword as well as the best. 'For that excellence alone, said Don Quixote at this, 'the youth deserves to marry, not merely the fair Quiteria, but Queen Guinevere herself, were she alive now, in spite of Launcelot and all who would try to prevent it. 'Say that to my wife, said Sancho, who had until now listened in silence, 'for she won't hear of anything but each one marrying his equal, holding with the proverb 'each ewe to her like.' What I would like is that this good Basilio (for I am beginning to take a fancy to him already) should marry this lady Quiteria and a blessing and good luckI meant to say the oppositeon people who would prevent those who love one another from marrying. 'If all those who love one another were to marry, said Don Quixote, 'it would deprive parents of the right to choose, and marry their children to the proper person and at the proper time and if it was left to daughters to choose husbands as they pleased, one would be for choosing her father's servant, and another, someone she has seen passing in the street and fancies gallant and dashing, though he may be a drunken bully for love and fancy easily blind the eyes of the judgment, so much wanted in choosing one's way of life and the matrimonial choice is very liable to error, and it needs great caution and the special favour of heaven to make it a good one. He who has to make a long journey, will, if he is wise, look out for some trusty and pleasant companion to accompany him before he sets out. Why, then, should not he do the same who has to make the whole journey of life down to the final haltingplace of death, more especially when the companion has to be his companion in bed, at board, and everywhere, as the wife is to her husband? The companionship of one's wife is no article of merchandise, that, after it has been bought, may be returned, or bartered, or changed for it is an inseparable accident that lasts as long as life lasts it is a noose that, once you put it round your neck, turns into a Gordian knot, which, if the scythe of Death does not cut it, there is no untying. I could say a great deal more on this subject, were I not prevented by the anxiety I feel to know if the seor licentiate has anything more to tell about the story of Basilio. To this the student, bachelor, or, as Don Quixote called him, licentiate, replied, 'I have nothing whatever to say further, but that from the moment Basilio learned that the fair Quiteria was to be married to Camacho the rich, he has never been seen to smile, or heard to utter rational word, and he always goes about moody and dejected, talking to himself in a way that shows plainly he is out of his senses. He eats little and sleeps little, and all he eats is fruit, and when he sleeps, if he sleeps at all, it is in the field on the hard earth like a brute beast. Sometimes he gazes at the sky, at other times he fixes his eyes on the earth in such an abstracted way that he might be taken for a clothed statue, with its drapery stirred by the wind. In short, he shows such signs of a heart crushed by suffering, that all we who know him believe that when tomorrow the fair Quiteria says 'yes,' it will be his sentence of death. 'God will guide it better, said Sancho, 'for God who gives the wound gives the salve nobody knows what will happen there are a good many hours between this and tomorrow, and any one of them, or any moment, the house may fall I have seen the rain coming down and the sun shining all at one time many a one goes to bed in good health who can't stir the next day. And tell me, is there anyone who can boast of having driven a nail into the wheel of fortune? No, faith and between a woman's 'yes' and 'no' I wouldn't venture to put the point of a pin, for there would not be room for it if you tell me Quiteria loves Basilio heart and soul, then I'll give him a bag of good luck for love, I have heard say, looks through spectacles that make copper seem gold, poverty wealth, and bleary eyes pearls. 'What art thou driving at, Sancho? curses on thee! said Don Quixote 'for when thou takest to stringing proverbs and sayings together, no one can understand thee but Judas himself, and I wish he had thee. Tell me, thou animal, what dost thou know about nails or wheels, or anything else? 'Oh, if you don't understand me, replied Sancho, 'it is no wonder my words are taken for nonsense but no matter I understand myself, and I know I have not said anything very foolish in what I have said only your worship, seor, is always gravelling at everything I say, nay, everything I do. 'Cavilling, not gravelling, said Don Quixote, 'thou prevaricator of honest language, God confound thee! 'Don't find fault with me, your worship, returned Sancho, 'for you know I have not been bred up at court or trained at Salamanca, to know whether I am adding or dropping a letter or so in my words. Why! God bless me, it's not fair to force a Sayagoman to speak like a Toledan maybe there are Toledans who do not hit it off when it comes to polished talk. 'That is true, said the licentiate, 'for those who have been bred up in the Tanneries and the Zocodover cannot talk like those who are almost all day pacing the cathedral cloisters, and yet they are all Toledans. Pure, correct, elegant and lucid language will be met with in men of courtly breeding and discrimination, though they may have been born in Majalahonda I say of discrimination, because there are many who are not so, and discrimination is the grammar of good language, if it be accompanied by practice. I, sirs, for my sins have studied canon law at Salamanca, and I rather pique myself on expressing my meaning in clear, plain, and intelligible language. 'If you did not pique yourself more on your dexterity with those foils you carry than on dexterity of tongue, said the other student, 'you would have been head of the degrees, where you are now tail. 'Look here, bachelor Corchuelo, returned the licentiate, 'you have the most mistaken idea in the world about skill with the sword, if you think it useless. 'It is no idea on my part, but an established truth, replied Corchuelo 'and if you wish me to prove it to you by experiment, you have swords there, and it is a good opportunity I have a steady hand and a strong arm, and these joined with my resolution, which is not small, will make you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount and put in practice your positions and circles and angles and science, for I hope to make you see stars at noonday with my rude raw swordsmanship, in which, next to God, I place my trust that the man is yet to be born who will make me turn my back, and that there is not one in the world I will not compel to give ground. 'As to whether you turn your back or not, I do not concern myself, replied the master of fence 'though it might be that your grave would be dug on the spot where you planted your foot the first time I mean that you would be stretched dead there for despising skill with the sword. 'We shall soon see, replied Corchuelo, and getting off his ass briskly, he drew out furiously one of the swords the licentiate carried on his beast. 'It must not be that way, said Don Quixote at this point 'I will be the director of this fencing match, and judge of this often disputed question and dismounting from Rocinante and grasping his lance, he planted himself in the middle of the road, just as the licentiate, with an easy, graceful bearing and step, advanced towards Corchuelo, who came on against him, darting fire from his eyes, as the saying is. The other two of the company, the peasants, without dismounting from their asses, served as spectators of the mortal tragedy. The cuts, thrusts, down strokes, back strokes and doubles, that Corchuelo delivered were past counting, and came thicker than hops or hail. He attacked like an angry lion, but he was met by a tap on the mouth from the button of the licentiate's sword that checked him in the midst of his furious onset, and made him kiss it as if it were a relic, though not as devoutly as relics are and ought to be kissed. The end of it was that the licentiate reckoned up for him by thrusts every one of the buttons of the short cassock he wore, tore the skirts into strips, like the tails of a cuttlefish, knocked off his hat twice, and so completely tired him out, that in vexation, anger, and rage, he took the sword by the hilt and flung it away with such force, that one of the peasants that were there, who was a notary, and who went for it, made an affidavit afterwards that he sent it nearly threequarters of a league, which testimony will serve, and has served, to show and establish with all certainty that strength is overcome by skill. Corchuelo sat down wearied, and Sancho approaching him said, 'By my faith, seor bachelor, if your worship takes my advice, you will never challenge anyone to fence again, only to wrestle and throw the bar, for you have the youth and strength for that but as for these fencers as they call them, I have heard say they can put the point of a sword through the eye of a needle. 'I am satisfied with having tumbled off my donkey, said Corchuelo, 'and with having had the truth I was so ignorant of proved to me by experience and getting up he embraced the licentiate, and they were better friends than ever and not caring to wait for the notary who had gone for the sword, as they saw he would be a long time about it, they resolved to push on so as to reach the village of Quiteria, to which they all belonged, in good time. During the remainder of the journey the licentiate held forth to them on the excellences of the sword, with such conclusive arguments, and such figures and mathematical proofs, that all were convinced of the value of the science, and Corchuelo cured of his dogmatism. It grew dark but before they reached the town it seemed to them all as if there was a heaven full of countless glittering stars in front of it. They heard, too, the pleasant mingled notes of a variety of instruments, flutes, drums, psalteries, pipes, tabors, and timbrels, and as they drew near they perceived that the trees of a leafy arcade that had been constructed at the entrance of the town were filled with lights unaffected by the wind, for the breeze at the time was so gentle that it had not power to stir the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the life of the wedding, wandering through the pleasant grounds in separate bands, some dancing, others singing, others playing the various instruments already mentioned. In short, it seemed as though mirth and gaiety were frisking and gambolling all over the meadow. Several other persons were engaged in erecting raised benches from which people might conveniently see the plays and dances that were to be performed the next day on the spot dedicated to the celebration of the marriage of Camacho the rich and the obsequies of Basilio. Don Quixote would not enter the village, although the peasant as well as the bachelor pressed him he excused himself, however, on the grounds, amply sufficient in his opinion, that it was the custom of knightserrant to sleep in the fields and woods in preference to towns, even were it under gilded ceilings and so turned aside a little out of the road, very much against Sancho's will, as the good quarters he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don Diego came back to his mind. Scarce had the fair Aurora given bright Phbus time to dry the liquid pearls upon her golden locks with the heat of his fervent rays, when Don Quixote, shaking off sloth from his limbs, sprang to his feet and called to his squire Sancho, who was still snoring seeing which Don Quixote ere he roused him thus addressed him 'Happy thou, above all the dwellers on the face of the earth, that, without envying or being envied, sleepest with tranquil mind, and that neither enchanters persecute nor enchantments affright. Sleep, I say, and will say a hundred times, without any jealous thoughts of thy mistress to make thee keep ceaseless vigils, or any cares as to how thou art to pay the debts thou owest, or find tomorrow's food for thyself and thy needy little family, to interfere with thy repose. Ambition breaks not thy rest, nor doth this world's empty pomp disturb thee, for the utmost reach of thy anxiety is to provide for thy ass, since upon my shoulders thou hast laid the support of thyself, the counterpoise and burden that nature and custom have imposed upon masters. The servant sleeps and the master lies awake thinking how he is to feed him, advance him, and reward him. The distress of seeing the sky turn brazen, and withhold its needful moisture from the earth, is not felt by the servant but by the master, who in time of scarcity and famine must support him who has served him in times of plenty and abundance. To all this Sancho made no reply because he was asleep, nor would he have wakened up so soon as he did had not Don Quixote brought him to his senses with the butt of his lance. He awoke at last, drowsy and lazy, and casting his eyes about in every direction, observed, 'There comes, if I don't mistake, from the quarter of that arcade a steam and a smell a great deal more like fried rashers than galingale or thyme a wedding that begins with smells like that, by my faith, ought to be plentiful and unstinting. 'Have done, thou glutton, said Don Quixote 'come, let us go and witness this bridal, and see what the rejected Basilio does. 'Let him do what he likes, returned Sancho 'be he not poor, he would marry Quiteria. To make a grand match for himself, and he without a farthing is there nothing else? Faith, seor, it's my opinion the poor man should be content with what he can get, and not go looking for dainties in the bottom of the sea. I will bet my arm that Camacho could bury Basilio in reals and if that be so, as no doubt it is, what a fool Quiteria would be to refuse the fine dresses and jewels Camacho must have given her and will give her, and take Basilio's barthrowing and swordplay. They won't give a pint of wine at the tavern for a good cast of the bar or a neat thrust of the sword. Talents and accomplishments that can't be turned into money, let Count Dirlos have them but when such gifts fall to one that has hard cash, I wish my condition of life was as becoming as they are. On a good foundation you can raise a good building, and the best foundation in the world is money. 'For God's sake, Sancho, said Don Quixote here, 'stop that harangue it is my belief, if thou wert allowed to continue all thou beginnest every instant, thou wouldst have no time left for eating or sleeping for thou wouldst spend it all in talking. 'If your worship had a good memory, replied Sancho, 'you would remember the articles of our agreement before we started from home this last time one of them was that I was to be let say all I liked, so long as it was not against my neighbour or your worship's authority and so far, it seems to me, I have not broken the said article. 'I remember no such article, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'and even if it were so, I desire you to hold your tongue and come along for the instruments we heard last night are already beginning to enliven the valleys again, and no doubt the marriage will take place in the cool of the morning, and not in the heat of the afternoon. Sancho did as his master bade him, and putting the saddle on Rocinante and the packsaddle on Dapple, they both mounted and at a leisurely pace entered the arcade. The first thing that presented itself to Sancho's eyes was a whole ox spitted on a whole elm tree, and in the fire at which it was to be roasted there was burning a middlingsized mountain of faggots, and six stewpots that stood round the blaze had not been made in the ordinary mould of common pots, for they were six half winejars, each fit to hold the contents of a slaughterhouse they swallowed up whole sheep and hid them away in their insides without showing any more sign of them than if they were pigeons. Countless were the hares ready skinned and the plucked fowls that hung on the trees for burial in the pots, numberless the wildfowl and game of various sorts suspended from the branches that the air might keep them cool. Sancho counted more than sixty wine skins of over six gallons each, and all filled, as it proved afterwards, with generous wines. There were, besides, piles of the whitest bread, like the heaps of corn one sees on the threshingfloors. There was a wall made of cheeses arranged like open brickwork, and two cauldrons full of oil, bigger than those of a dyer's shop, served for cooking fritters, which when fried were taken out with two mighty shovels, and plunged into another cauldron of prepared honey that stood close by. Of cooks and cookmaids there were over fifty, all clean, brisk, and blithe. In the capacious belly of the ox were a dozen soft little suckingpigs, which, sewn up there, served to give it tenderness and flavour. The spices of different kinds did not seem to have been bought by the pound but by the quarter, and all lay open to view in a great chest. In short, all the preparations made for the wedding were in rustic style, but abundant enough to feed an army. Sancho observed all, contemplated all, and everything won his heart. The first to captivate and take his fancy were the pots, out of which he would have very gladly helped himself to a moderate pipkinful then the wine skins secured his affections and lastly, the produce of the fryingpans, if, indeed, such imposing cauldrons may be called fryingpans and unable to control himself or bear it any longer, he approached one of the busy cooks and civilly but hungrily begged permission to soak a scrap of bread in one of the pots to which the cook made answer, 'Brother, this is not a day on which hunger is to have any sway, thanks to the rich Camacho get down and look about for a ladle and skim off a hen or two, and much good may they do you. 'I don't see one, said Sancho. 'Wait a bit, said the cook 'sinner that I am! how particular and bashful you are! and so saying, he seized a bucket and plunging it into one of the half jars took up three hens and a couple of geese, and said to Sancho, 'Fall to, friend, and take the edge off your appetite with these skimmings until dinnertime comes. 'I have nothing to put them in, said Sancho. 'Well then, said the cook, 'take spoon and all for Camacho's wealth and happiness furnish everything. While Sancho fared thus, Don Quixote was watching the entrance, at one end of the arcade, of some twelve peasants, all in holiday and gala dress, mounted on twelve beautiful mares with rich handsome field trappings and a number of little bells attached to their petrals, who, marshalled in regular order, ran not one but several courses over the meadow, with jubilant shouts and cries of 'Long live Camacho and Quiteria! he as rich as she is fair and she the fairest on earth! Hearing this, Don Quixote said to himself, 'It is easy to see these folk have never seen my Dulcinea del Toboso for if they had they would be more moderate in their praises of this Quiteria of theirs. Shortly after this, several bands of dancers of various sorts began to enter the arcade at different points, and among them one of sworddancers composed of some fourandtwenty lads of gallant and highspirited mien, clad in the finest and whitest of linen, and with handkerchiefs embroidered in various colours with fine silk and one of those on the mares asked an active youth who led them if any of the dancers had been wounded. 'As yet, thank God, no one has been wounded, said he, 'we are all safe and sound and he at once began to execute complicated figures with the rest of his comrades, with so many turns and so great dexterity, that although Don Quixote was well used to see dances of the same kind, he thought he had never seen any so good as this. He also admired another that came in composed of fair young maidens, none of whom seemed to be under fourteen or over eighteen years of age, all clad in green stuff, with their locks partly braided, partly flowing loose, but all of such bright gold as to vie with the sunbeams, and over them they wore garlands of jessamine, roses, amaranth, and honeysuckle. At their head were a venerable old man and an ancient dame, more brisk and active, however, than might have been expected from their years. The notes of a Zamora bagpipe accompanied them, and with modesty in their countenances and in their eyes, and lightness in their feet, they looked the best dancers in the world. Following these there came an artistic dance of the sort they call 'speaking dances. It was composed of eight nymphs in two files, with the god Cupid leading one and Interest the other, the former furnished with wings, bow, quiver and arrows, the latter in a rich dress of gold and silk of divers colours. The nymphs that followed Love bore their names written on white parchment in large letters on their backs. 'Poetry was the name of the first, 'Wit of the second, 'Birth of the third, and 'Valour of the fourth. Those that followed Interest were distinguished in the same way the badge of the first announced 'Liberality, that of the second 'Largess, the third 'Treasure, and the fourth 'Peaceful Possession. In front of them all came a wooden castle drawn by four wild men, all clad in ivy and hemp stained green, and looking so natural that they nearly terrified Sancho. On the front of the castle and on each of the four sides of its frame it bore the inscription 'Castle of Caution. Four skillful tabor and flute players accompanied them, and the dance having been opened, Cupid, after executing two figures, raised his eyes and bent his bow against a damsel who stood between the turrets of the castle, and thus addressed her I am the mighty God whose sway Is potent over land and sea. The heavens above us own me nay, The shades below acknowledge me. I know not fear, I have my will, Whate'er my whim or fancy be For me there's no impossible, I order, bind, forbid, set free. Having concluded the stanza he discharged an arrow at the top of the castle, and went back to his place. Interest then came forward and went through two more figures, and as soon as the tabors ceased, he said But mightier than Love am I, Though Love it be that leads me on, Than mine no lineage is more high, Or older, underneath the sun. To use me rightly few know how, To act without me fewer still, For I am Interest, and I vow For evermore to do thy will. Interest retired, and Poetry came forward, and when she had gone through her figures like the others, fixing her eyes on the damsel of the castle, she said With many a fanciful conceit, Fair Lady, winsome Poesy Her soul, an offering at thy feet, Presents in sonnets unto thee. If thou my homage wilt not scorn, Thy fortune, watched by envious eyes, On wings of poesy upborne Shall be exalted to the skies. Poetry withdrew, and on the side of Interest Liberality advanced, and after having gone through her figures, said To give, while shunning each extreme, The sparing hand, the overfree, Therein consists, so wise men deem, The virtue Liberality. But thee, fair lady, to enrich, Myself a prodigal I'll prove, A vice not wholly shameful, which May find its fair excuse in love. In the same manner all the characters of the two bands advanced and retired, and each executed its figures, and delivered its verses, some of them graceful, some burlesque, but Don Quixote's memory (though he had an excellent one) only carried away those that have been just quoted. All then mingled together, forming chains and breaking off again with graceful, unconstrained gaiety and whenever Love passed in front of the castle he shot his arrows up at it, while Interest broke gilded pellets against it. At length, after they had danced a good while, Interest drew out a great purse, made of the skin of a large brindled cat and to all appearance full of money, and flung it at the castle, and with the force of the blow the boards fell asunder and tumbled down, leaving the damsel exposed and unprotected. Interest and the characters of his band advanced, and throwing a great chain of gold over her neck pretended to take her and lead her away captive, on seeing which, Love and his supporters made as though they would release her, the whole action being to the accompaniment of the tabors and in the form of a regular dance. The wild men made peace between them, and with great dexterity readjusted and fixed the boards of the castle, and the damsel once more ensconced herself within and with this the dance wound up, to the great enjoyment of the beholders. Don Quixote asked one of the nymphs who it was that had composed and arranged it. She replied that it was a beneficiary of the town who had a nice taste in devising things of the sort. 'I will lay a wager, said Don Quixote, 'that the same bachelor or beneficiary is a greater friend of Camacho's than of Basilio's, and that he is better at satire than at vespers he has introduced the accomplishments of Basilio and the riches of Camacho very neatly into the dance. Sancho Panza, who was listening to all this, exclaimed, 'The king is my cock I stick to Camacho. 'It is easy to see thou art a clown, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and one of that sort that cry 'Long life to the conqueror.' 'I don't know of what sort I am, returned Sancho, 'but I know very well I'll never get such elegant skimmings off Basilio's pots as these I have got off Camacho's and he showed him the bucketful of geese and hens, and seizing one began to eat with great gaiety and appetite, saying, 'A fig for the accomplishments of Basilio! As much as thou hast so much art thou worth, and as much as thou art worth so much hast thou. As a grandmother of mine used to say, there are only two families in the world, the Haves and the Haven'ts and she stuck to the Haves and to this day, Seor Don Quixote, people would sooner feel the pulse of 'Have,' than of 'Know' an ass covered with gold looks better than a horse with a packsaddle. So once more I say I stick to Camacho, the bountiful skimmings of whose pots are geese and hens, hares and rabbits but of Basilio's, if any ever come to hand, or even to foot, they'll be only rinsings. 'Hast thou finished thy harangue, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'Of course I have finished it, replied Sancho, 'because I see your worship takes offence at it but if it was not for that, there was work enough cut out for three days. 'God grant I may see thee dumb before I die, Sancho, said Don Quixote. 'At the rate we are going, said Sancho, 'I'll be chewing clay before your worship dies and then, maybe, I'll be so dumb that I'll not say a word until the end of the world, or, at least, till the day of judgment. 'Even should that happen, O Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'thy silence will never come up to all thou hast talked, art talking, and wilt talk all thy life moreover, it naturally stands to reason, that my death will come before thine so I never expect to see thee dumb, not even when thou art drinking or sleeping, and that is the utmost I can say. 'In good faith, seor, replied Sancho, 'there's no trusting that fleshless one, I mean Death, who devours the lamb as soon as the sheep, and, as I have heard our curate say, treads with equal foot upon the lofty towers of kings and the lowly huts of the poor. That lady is more mighty than dainty, she is in no way squeamish, she devours all and is ready for all, and fills her alforjas with people of all sorts, ages, and ranks. She is no reaper that sleeps out the noontide at all times she is reaping and cutting down, as well the dry grass as the green she never seems to chew, but bolts and swallows all that is put before her, for she has a canine appetite that is never satisfied and though she has no belly, she shows she has a dropsy and is athirst to drink the lives of all that live, as one would drink a jug of cold water. 'Say no more, Sancho, said Don Quixote at this 'don't try to better it, and risk a fall for in truth what thou hast said about death in thy rustic phrase is what a good preacher might have said. I tell thee, Sancho, if thou hadst discretion equal to thy mother wit, thou mightst take a pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons. 'He preaches well who lives well, said Sancho, 'and I know no more theology than that. 'Nor needst thou, said Don Quixote, 'but I cannot conceive or make out how it is that, the fear of God being the beginning of wisdom, thou, who art more afraid of a lizard than of him, knowest so much. 'Pass judgment on your chivalries, seor, returned Sancho, 'and don't set yourself up to judge of other men's fears or braveries, for I am as good a fearer of God as my neighbours but leave me to despatch these skimmings, for all the rest is only idle talk that we shall be called to account for in the other world and so saying, he began a fresh attack on the bucket, with such a hearty appetite that he aroused Don Quixote's, who no doubt would have helped him had he not been prevented by what must be told farther on. While Don Quixote and Sancho were engaged in the discussion set forth the last chapter, they heard loud shouts and a great noise, which were uttered and made by the men on the mares as they went at full gallop, shouting, to receive the bride and bridegroom, who were approaching with musical instruments and pageantry of all sorts around them, and accompanied by the priest and the relatives of both, and all the most distinguished people of the surrounding villages. When Sancho saw the bride, he exclaimed, 'By my faith, she is not dressed like a country girl, but like some fine court lady egad, as well as I can make out, the patena she wears rich coral, and her green Cuenca stuff is thirtypile velvet and then the white linen trimmingby my oath, but it's satin! Look at her handsjet rings on them! May I never have luck if they're not gold rings, and real gold, and set with pearls as white as a curdled milk, and every one of them worth an eye of one's head! Whoreson baggage, what hair she has! if it's not a wig, I never saw longer or fairer all the days of my life. See how bravely she bears herselfand her shape! Wouldn't you say she was like a walking palm tree loaded with clusters of dates? for the trinkets she has hanging from her hair and neck look just like them. I swear in my heart she is a brave lass, and fit 'to pass over the banks of Flanders.' Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's boorish eulogies and thought that, saving his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he had never seen a more beautiful woman. The fair Quiteria appeared somewhat pale, which was, no doubt, because of the bad night brides always pass dressing themselves out for their wedding on the morrow. They advanced towards a theatre that stood on one side of the meadow decked with carpets and boughs, where they were to plight their troth, and from which they were to behold the dances and plays but at the moment of their arrival at the spot they heard a loud outcry behind them, and a voice exclaiming, 'Wait a little, ye, as inconsiderate as ye are hasty! At these words all turned round, and perceived that the speaker was a man clad in what seemed to be a loose black coat garnished with crimson patches like flames. He was crowned (as was presently seen) with a crown of gloomy cypress, and in his hand he held a long staff. As he approached he was recognised by everyone as the gay Basilio, and all waited anxiously to see what would come of his words, in dread of some catastrophe in consequence of his appearance at such a moment. He came up at last weary and breathless, and planting himself in front of the bridal pair, drove his staff, which had a steel spike at the end, into the ground, and, with a pale face and eyes fixed on Quiteria, he thus addressed her in a hoarse, trembling voice 'Well dost thou know, ungrateful Quiteria, that according to the holy law we acknowledge, so long as live thou canst take no husband nor art thou ignorant either that, in my hopes that time and my own exertions would improve my fortunes, I have never failed to observe the respect due to thy honour but thou, casting behind thee all thou owest to my true love, wouldst surrender what is mine to another whose wealth serves to bring him not only good fortune but supreme happiness and now to complete it (not that I think he deserves it, but inasmuch as heaven is pleased to bestow it upon him), I will, with my own hands, do away with the obstacle that may interfere with it, and remove myself from between you. Long live the rich Camacho! many a happy year may he live with the ungrateful Quiteria! and let the poor Basilio die, Basilio whose poverty clipped the wings of his happiness, and brought him to the grave! And so saying, he seized the staff he had driven into the ground, and leaving one half of it fixed there, showed it to be a sheath that concealed a tolerably long rapier and, what may be called its hilt being planted in the ground, he swiftly, coolly, and deliberately threw himself upon it, and in an instant the bloody point and half the steel blade appeared at his back, the unhappy man falling to the earth bathed in his blood, and transfixed by his own weapon. His friends at once ran to his aid, filled with grief at his misery and sad fate, and Don Quixote, dismounting from Rocinante, hastened to support him, and took him in his arms, and found he had not yet ceased to breathe. They were about to draw out the rapier, but the priest who was standing by objected to its being withdrawn before he had confessed him, as the instant of its withdrawal would be that of this death. Basilio, however, reviving slightly, said in a weak voice, as though in pain, 'If thou wouldst consent, cruel Quiteria, to give me thy hand as my bride in this last fatal moment, I might still hope that my rashness would find pardon, as by its means I attained the bliss of being thine. Hearing this the priest bade him think of the welfare of his soul rather than of the cravings of the body, and in all earnestness implore God's pardon for his sins and for his rash resolve to which Basilio replied that he was determined not to confess unless Quiteria first gave him her hand in marriage, for that happiness would compose his mind and give him courage to make his confession. Don Quixote hearing the wounded man's entreaty, exclaimed aloud that what Basilio asked was just and reasonable, and moreover a request that might be easily complied with and that it would be as much to Seor Camacho's honour to receive the lady Quiteria as the widow of the brave Basilio as if he received her direct from her father. 'In this case, said he, 'it will be only to say 'yes,' and no consequences can follow the utterance of the word, for the nuptial couch of this marriage must be the grave. Camacho was listening to all this, perplexed and bewildered and not knowing what to say or do but so urgent were the entreaties of Basilio's friends, imploring him to allow Quiteria to give him her hand, so that his soul, quitting this life in despair, should not be lost, that they moved, nay, forced him, to say that if Quiteria were willing to give it he was satisfied, as it was only putting off the fulfillment of his wishes for a moment. At once all assailed Quiteria and pressed her, some with prayers, and others with tears, and others with persuasive arguments, to give her hand to poor Basilio but she, harder than marble and more unmoved than any statue, seemed unable or unwilling to utter a word, nor would she have given any reply had not the priest bade her decide quickly what she meant to do, as Basilio now had his soul at his teeth, and there was no time for hesitation. On this the fair Quiteria, to all appearance distressed, grieved, and repentant, advanced without a word to where Basilio lay, his eyes already turned in his head, his breathing short and painful, murmuring the name of Quiteria between his teeth, and apparently about to die like a heathen and not like a Christian. Quiteria approached him, and kneeling, demanded his hand by signs without speaking. Basilio opened his eyes and gazing fixedly at her, said, 'O Quiteria, why hast thou turned compassionate at a moment when thy compassion will serve as a dagger to rob me of life, for I have not now the strength left either to bear the happiness thou givest me in accepting me as thine, or to suppress the pain that is rapidly drawing the dread shadow of death over my eyes? What I entreat of thee, O thou fatal star to me, is that the hand thou demandest of me and wouldst give me, be not given out of complaisance or to deceive me afresh, but that thou confess and declare that without any constraint upon thy will thou givest it to me as to thy lawful husband for it is not meet that thou shouldst trifle with me at such a moment as this, or have recourse to falsehoods with one who has dealt so truly by thee. While uttering these words he showed such weakness that the bystanders expected each return of faintness would take his life with it. Then Quiteria, overcome with modesty and shame, holding in her right hand the hand of Basilio, said, 'No force would bend my will as freely, therefore, as it is possible for me to do so, I give thee the hand of a lawful wife, and take thine if thou givest it to me of thine own free will, untroubled and unaffected by the calamity thy hasty act has brought upon thee. 'Yes, I give it, said Basilio, 'not agitated or distracted, but with unclouded reason that heaven is pleased to grant me, thus do I give myself to be thy husband. 'And I give myself to be thy wife, said Quiteria, 'whether thou livest many years, or they carry thee from my arms to the grave. 'For one so badly wounded, observed Sancho at this point, 'this young man has a great deal to say they should make him leave off billing and cooing, and attend to his soul for to my thinking he has it more on his tongue than at his teeth. Basilio and Quiteria having thus joined hands, the priest, deeply moved and with tears in his eyes, pronounced the blessing upon them, and implored heaven to grant an easy passage to the soul of the newly wedded man, who, the instant he received the blessing, started nimbly to his feet and with unparalleled effrontery pulled out the rapier that had been sheathed in his body. All the bystanders were astounded, and some, more simple than inquiring, began shouting, 'A miracle, a miracle! But Basilio replied, 'No miracle, no miracle only a trick, a trick! The priest, perplexed and amazed, made haste to examine the wound with both hands, and found that the blade had passed, not through Basilio's flesh and ribs, but through a hollow iron tube full of blood, which he had adroitly fixed at the place, the blood, as was afterwards ascertained, having been so prepared as not to congeal. In short, the priest and Camacho and most of those present saw they were tricked and made fools of. The bride showed no signs of displeasure at the deception on the contrary, hearing them say that the marriage, being fraudulent, would not be valid, she said that she confirmed it afresh, whence they all concluded that the affair had been planned by agreement and understanding between the pair, whereat Camacho and his supporters were so mortified that they proceeded to revenge themselves by violence, and a great number of them drawing their swords attacked Basilio, in whose protection as many more swords were in an instant unsheathed, while Don Quixote taking the lead on horseback, with his lance over his arm and well covered with his shield, made all give way before him. Sancho, who never found any pleasure or enjoyment in such doings, retreated to the winejars from which he had taken his delectable skimmings, considering that, as a holy place, that spot would be respected. 'Hold, sirs, hold! cried Don Quixote in a loud voice 'we have no right to take vengeance for wrongs that love may do to us remember love and war are the same thing, and as in war it is allowable and common to make use of wiles and stratagems to overcome the enemy, so in the contests and rivalries of love the tricks and devices employed to attain the desired end are justifiable, provided they be not to the discredit or dishonour of the loved object. Quiteria belonged to Basilio and Basilio to Quiteria by the just and beneficent disposal of heaven. Camacho is rich, and can purchase his pleasure when, where, and as it pleases him. Basilio has but this ewelamb, and no one, however powerful he may be, shall take her from him these two whom God hath joined man cannot separate and he who attempts it must first pass the point of this lance and so saying he brandished it so stoutly and dexterously that he overawed all who did not know him. But so deep an impression had the rejection of Quiteria made on Camacho's mind that it banished her at once from his thoughts and so the counsels of the priest, who was a wise and kindly disposed man, prevailed with him, and by their means he and his partisans were pacified and tranquillised, and to prove it put up their swords again, inveighing against the pliancy of Quiteria rather than the craftiness of Basilio Camacho maintaining that, if Quiteria as a maiden had such a love for Basilio, she would have loved him too as a married woman, and that he ought to thank heaven more for having taken her than for having given her. Camacho and those of his following, therefore, being consoled and pacified, those on Basilio's side were appeased and the rich Camacho, to show that he felt no resentment for the trick, and did not care about it, desired the festival to go on just as if he were married in reality. Neither Basilio, however, nor his bride, nor their followers would take any part in it, and they withdrew to Basilio's village for the poor, if they are persons of virtue and good sense, have those who follow, honour, and uphold them, just as the rich have those who flatter and dance attendance on them. With them they carried Don Quixote, regarding him as a man of worth and a stout one. Sancho alone had a cloud on his soul, for he found himself debarred from waiting for Camacho's splendid feast and festival, which lasted until night and thus dragged away, he moodily followed his master, who accompanied Basilio's party, and left behind him the fleshpots of Egypt though in his heart he took them with him, and their now nearly finished skimmings that he carried in the bucket conjured up visions before his eyes of the glory and abundance of the good cheer he was losing. And so, vexed and dejected though not hungry, without dismounting from Dapple he followed in the footsteps of Rocinante. Many and great were the attentions shown to Don Quixote by the newly married couple, who felt themselves under an obligation to him for coming forward in defence of their cause and they exalted his wisdom to the same level with his courage, rating him as a Cid in arms, and a Cicero in eloquence. Worthy Sancho enjoyed himself for three days at the expense of the pair, from whom they learned that the sham wound was not a scheme arranged with the fair Quiteria, but a device of Basilio's, who counted on exactly the result they had seen he confessed, it is true, that he had confided his idea to some of his friends, so that at the proper time they might aid him in his purpose and insure the success of the deception. 'That, said Don Quixote, 'is not and ought not to be called deception which aims at virtuous ends and the marriage of lovers he maintained to be a most excellent end, reminding them, however, that love has no greater enemy than hunger and constant want for love is all gaiety, enjoyment, and happiness, especially when the lover is in the possession of the object of his love, and poverty and want are the declared enemies of all these which he said to urge Seor Basilio to abandon the practice of those accomplishments he was skilled in, for though they brought him fame, they brought him no money, and apply himself to the acquisition of wealth by legitimate industry, which will never fail those who are prudent and persevering. The poor man who is a man of honour (if indeed a poor man can be a man of honour) has a jewel when he has a fair wife, and if she is taken from him, his honour is taken from him and slain. The fair woman who is a woman of honour, and whose husband is poor, deserves to be crowned with the laurels and crowns of victory and triumph. Beauty by itself attracts the desires of all who behold it, and the royal eagles and birds of towering flight stoop on it as on a dainty lure but if beauty be accompanied by want and penury, then the ravens and the kites and other birds of prey assail it, and she who stands firm against such attacks well deserves to be called the crown of her husband. 'Remember, O prudent Basilio, added Don Quixote, 'it was the opinion of a certain sage, I know not whom, that there was not more than one good woman in the whole world and his advice was that each one should think and believe that this one good woman was his own wife, and in this way he would live happy. I myself am not married, nor, so far, has it ever entered my thoughts to be so nevertheless I would venture to give advice to anyone who might ask it, as to the mode in which he should seek a wife such as he would be content to marry. The first thing I would recommend him, would be to look to good name rather than to wealth, for a good woman does not win a good name merely by being good, but by letting it be seen that she is so, and open looseness and freedom do much more damage to a woman's honour than secret depravity. If you take a good woman into your house it will be an easy matter to keep her good, and even to make her still better but if you take a bad one you will find it hard work to mend her, for it is no very easy matter to pass from one extreme to another. I do not say it is impossible, but I look upon it as difficult. Sancho, listening to all this, said to himself, 'This master of mine, when I say anything that has weight and substance, says I might take a pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons but I say of him that, when he begins stringing maxims together and giving advice not only might he take a pulpit in hand, but two on each finger, and go into the marketplaces to his heart's content. Devil take you for a knighterrant, what a lot of things you know! I used to think in my heart that the only thing he knew was what belonged to his chivalry but there is nothing he won't have a finger in. Sancho muttered this somewhat aloud, and his master overheard him, and asked, 'What art thou muttering there, Sancho? 'I'm not saying anything or muttering anything, said Sancho 'I was only saying to myself that I wish I had heard what your worship has said just now before I married perhaps I'd say now, 'The ox that's loose licks himself well.' 'Is thy Teresa so bad then, Sancho? 'She is not very bad, replied Sancho 'but she is not very good at least she is not as good as I could wish. 'Thou dost wrong, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'to speak ill of thy wife for after all she is the mother of thy children. 'We are quits, returned Sancho 'for she speaks ill of me whenever she takes it into her head, especially when she is jealous and Satan himself could not put up with her then. In fine, they remained three days with the newly married couple, by whom they were entertained and treated like kings. Don Quixote begged the fencing licentiate to find him a guide to show him the way to the cave of Montesinos, as he had a great desire to enter it and see with his own eyes if the wonderful tales that were told of it all over the country were true. The licentiate said he would get him a cousin of his own, a famous scholar, and one very much given to reading books of chivalry, who would have great pleasure in conducting him to the mouth of the very cave, and would show him the lakes of Ruidera, which were likewise famous all over La Mancha, and even all over Spain and he assured him he would find him entertaining, for he was a youth who could write books good enough to be printed and dedicated to princes. The cousin arrived at last, leading an ass in foal, with a packsaddle covered with a particoloured carpet or sackcloth Sancho saddled Rocinante, got Dapple ready, and stocked his alforjas, along with which went those of the cousin, likewise well filled and so, commending themselves to God and bidding farewell to all, they set out, taking the road for the famous cave of Montesinos. On the way Don Quixote asked the cousin of what sort and character his pursuits, avocations, and studies were, to which he replied that he was by profession a humanist, and that his pursuits and studies were making books for the press, all of great utility and no less entertainment to the nation. One was called 'The Book of Liveries, in which he described seven hundred and three liveries, with their colours, mottoes, and ciphers, from which gentlemen of the court might pick and choose any they fancied for festivals and revels, without having to go abegging for them from anyone, or puzzling their brains, as the saying is, to have them appropriate to their objects and purposes 'for, said he, 'I give the jealous, the rejected, the forgotten, the absent, what will suit them, and fit them without fail. I have another book, too, which I shall call 'Metamorphoses, or the Spanish Ovid,' one of rare and original invention, for imitating Ovid in burlesque style, I show in it who the Giralda of Seville and the Angel of the Magdalena were, what the sewer of Vecinguerra at Cordova was, what the bulls of Guisando, the Sierra Morena, the Leganitos and Lavapies fountains at Madrid, not forgetting those of the Piojo, of the Cano Dorado, and of the Priora and all with their allegories, metaphors, and changes, so that they are amusing, interesting, and instructive, all at once. Another book I have which I call 'The Supplement to Polydore Vergil,' which treats of the invention of things, and is a work of great erudition and research, for I establish and elucidate elegantly some things of great importance which Polydore omitted to mention. He forgot to tell us who was the first man in the world that had a cold in his head, and who was the first to try salivation for the French disease, but I give it accurately set forth, and quote more than fiveandtwenty authors in proof of it, so you may perceive I have laboured to good purpose and that the book will be of service to the whole world. Sancho, who had been very attentive to the cousin's words, said to him, 'Tell me, seorand God give you luck in printing your bookscan you tell me (for of course you know, as you know everything) who was the first man that scratched his head? For to my thinking it must have been our father Adam. 'So it must, replied the cousin 'for there is no doubt but Adam had a head and hair and being the first man in the world he would have scratched himself sometimes. 'So I think, said Sancho 'but now tell me, who was the first tumbler in the world? 'Really, brother, answered the cousin, 'I could not at this moment say positively without having investigated it I will look it up when I go back to where I have my books, and will satisfy you the next time we meet, for this will not be the last time. 'Look here, seor, said Sancho, 'don't give yourself any trouble about it, for I have just this minute hit upon what I asked you. The first tumbler in the world, you must know, was Lucifer, when they cast or pitched him out of heaven for he came tumbling into the bottomless pit. 'You are right, friend, said the cousin and said Don Quixote, 'Sancho, that question and answer are not thine own thou hast heard them from someone else. 'Hold your peace, seor, said Sancho 'faith, if I take to asking questions and answering, I'll go on from this till tomorrow morning. Nay! to ask foolish things and answer nonsense I needn't go looking for help from my neighbours. 'Thou hast said more than thou art aware of, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'for there are some who weary themselves out in learning and proving things that, after they are known and proved, are not worth a farthing to the understanding or memory. In this and other pleasant conversation the day went by, and that night they put up at a small hamlet whence it was not more than two leagues to the cave of Montesinos, so the cousin told Don Quixote, adding, that if he was bent upon entering it, it would be requisite for him to provide himself with ropes, so that he might be tied and lowered into its depths. Don Quixote said that even if it reached to the bottomless pit he meant to see where it went to so they bought about a hundred fathoms of rope, and next day at two in the afternoon they arrived at the cave, the mouth of which is spacious and wide, but full of thorn and wildfig bushes and brambles and briars, so thick and matted that they completely close it up and cover it over. On coming within sight of it the cousin, Sancho, and Don Quixote dismounted, and the first two immediately tied the latter very firmly with the ropes, and as they were girding and swathing him Sancho said to him, 'Mind what you are about, master mine don't go burying yourself alive, or putting yourself where you'll be like a bottle put to cool in a well it's no affair or business of your worship's to become the explorer of this, which must be worse than a Moorish dungeon. 'Tie me and hold thy peace, said Don Quixote, 'for an emprise like this, friend Sancho, was reserved for me and said the guide, 'I beg of you, Seor Don Quixote, to observe carefully and examine with a hundred eyes everything that is within there perhaps there may be some things for me to put into my book of 'Transformations.' 'The drum is in hands that will know how to beat it well enough, said Sancho Panza. When he had said this and finished the tying (which was not over the armour but only over the doublet) Don Quixote observed, 'It was careless of us not to have provided ourselves with a small cattlebell to be tied on the rope close to me, the sound of which would show that I was still descending and alive but as that is out of the question now, in God's hand be it to guide me and forthwith he fell on his knees and in a low voice offered up a prayer to heaven, imploring God to aid him and grant him success in this to all appearance perilous and untried adventure, and then exclaimed aloud, 'O mistress of my actions and movements, illustrious and peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, if so be the prayers and supplications of this fortunate lover can reach thy ears, by thy incomparable beauty I entreat thee to listen to them, for they but ask thee not to refuse me thy favour and protection now that I stand in such need of them. I am about to precipitate, to sink, to plunge myself into the abyss that is here before me, only to let the world know that while thou dost favour me there is no impossibility I will not attempt and accomplish. With these words he approached the cavern, and perceived that it was impossible to let himself down or effect an entrance except by sheer force or cleaving a passage so drawing his sword he began to demolish and cut away the brambles at the mouth of the cave, at the noise of which a vast multitude of crows and choughs flew out of it so thick and so fast that they knocked Don Quixote down and if he had been as much of a believer in augury as he was a Catholic Christian he would have taken it as a bad omen and declined to bury himself in such a place. He got up, however, and as there came no more crows, or nightbirds like the bats that flew out at the same time with the crows, the cousin and Sancho giving him rope, he lowered himself into the depths of the dread cavern and as he entered it Sancho sent his blessing after him, making a thousand crosses over him and saying, 'God, and the Pea de Francia, and the Trinity of Gaeta guide thee, flower and cream of knightserrant. There thou goest, thou daredevil of the earth, heart of steel, arm of brass once more, God guide thee and send thee back safe, sound, and unhurt to the light of this world thou art leaving to bury thyself in the darkness thou art seeking there and the cousin offered up almost the same prayers and supplications. Don Quixote kept calling to them to give him rope and more rope, and they gave it out little by little, and by the time the calls, which came out of the cave as out of a pipe, ceased to be heard they had let down the hundred fathoms of rope. They were inclined to pull Don Quixote up again, as they could give him no more rope however, they waited about half an hour, at the end of which time they began to gather in the rope again with great ease and without feeling any weight, which made them fancy Don Quixote was remaining below and persuaded that it was so, Sancho wept bitterly, and hauled away in great haste in order to settle the question. When, however, they had come to, as it seemed, rather more than eighty fathoms they felt a weight, at which they were greatly delighted and at last, at ten fathoms more, they saw Don Quixote distinctly, and Sancho called out to him, saying, 'Welcome back, seor, for we had begun to think you were going to stop there to found a family. But Don Quixote answered not a word, and drawing him out entirely they perceived he had his eyes shut and every appearance of being fast asleep. They stretched him on the ground and untied him, but still he did not awake however, they rolled him back and forwards and shook and pulled him about, so that after some time he came to himself, stretching himself just as if he were waking up from a deep and sound sleep, and looking about him he said, 'God forgive you, friends ye have taken me away from the sweetest and most delightful existence and spectacle that ever human being enjoyed or beheld. Now indeed do I know that all the pleasures of this life pass away like a shadow and a dream, or fade like the flower of the field. O illfated Montesinos! O sorewounded Durandarte! O unhappy Belerma! O tearful Guadiana, and ye O hapless daughters of Ruidera who show in your waves the tears that flowed from your beauteous eyes! The cousin and Sancho Panza listened with deep attention to the words of Don Quixote, who uttered them as though with immense pain he drew them up from his very bowels. They begged of him to explain himself, and tell them what he had seen in that hell down there. 'Hell do you call it? said Don Quixote 'call it by no such name, for it does not deserve it, as ye shall soon see. He then begged them to give him something to eat, as he was very hungry. They spread the cousin's sackcloth on the grass, and put the stores of the alforjas into requisition, and all three sitting down lovingly and sociably, they made a luncheon and a supper of it all in one and when the sackcloth was removed, Don Quixote of La Mancha said, 'Let no one rise, and attend to me, my sons, both of you. It was about four in the afternoon when the sun, veiled in clouds, with subdued light and tempered beams, enabled Don Quixote to relate, without heat or inconvenience, what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos to his two illustrious hearers, and he began as follows 'A matter of some twelve or fourteen times a man's height down in this pit, on the righthand side, there is a recess or space, roomy enough to contain a large cart with its mules. A little light reaches it through some chinks or crevices, communicating with it and open to the surface of the earth. This recess or space I perceived when I was already growing weary and disgusted at finding myself hanging suspended by the rope, travelling downwards into that dark region without any certainty or knowledge of where I was going, so I resolved to enter it and rest myself for a while. I called out, telling you not to let out more rope until I bade you, but you cannot have heard me. I then gathered in the rope you were sending me, and making a coil or pile of it I seated myself upon it, ruminating and considering what I was to do to lower myself to the bottom, having no one to hold me up and as I was thus deep in thought and perplexity, suddenly and without provocation a profound sleep fell upon me, and when I least expected it, I know not how, I awoke and found myself in the midst of the most beautiful, delightful meadow that nature could produce or the most lively human imagination conceive. I opened my eyes, I rubbed them, and found I was not asleep but thoroughly awake. Nevertheless, I felt my head and breast to satisfy myself whether it was I myself who was there or some empty delusive phantom but touch, feeling, the collected thoughts that passed through my mind, all convinced me that I was the same then and there that I am this moment. Next there presented itself to my sight a stately royal palace or castle, with walls that seemed built of clear transparent crystal and through two great doors that opened wide therein, I saw coming forth and advancing towards me a venerable old man, clad in a long gown of mulberrycoloured serge that trailed upon the ground. On his shoulders and breast he had a green satin collegiate hood, and covering his head a black Milanese bonnet, and his snowwhite beard fell below his girdle. He carried no arms whatever, nothing but a rosary of beads bigger than fairsized filberts, each tenth bead being like a moderate ostrich egg his bearing, his gait, his dignity and imposing presence held me spellbound and wondering. He approached me, and the first thing he did was to embrace me closely, and then he said to me, 'For a long time now, O valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, we who are here enchanted in these solitudes have been hoping to see thee, that thou mayest make known to the world what is shut up and concealed in this deep cave, called the cave of Montesinos, which thou hast entered, an achievement reserved for thy invincible heart and stupendous courage alone to attempt. Come with me, illustrious sir, and I will show thee the marvels hidden within this transparent castle, whereof I am the alcaide and perpetual warden for I am Montesinos himself, from whom the cave takes its name.' 'The instant he told me he was Montesinos, I asked him if the story they told in the world above here was true, that he had taken out the heart of his great friend Durandarte from his breast with a little dagger, and carried it to the lady Belerma, as his friend when at the point of death had commanded him. He said in reply that they spoke the truth in every respect except as to the dagger, for it was not a dagger, nor little, but a burnished poniard sharper than an awl. 'That poniard must have been made by Ramon de Hoces the Sevillian, said Sancho. 'I do not know, said Don Quixote 'it could not have been by that poniard maker, however, because Ramon de Hoces was a man of yesterday, and the affair of Roncesvalles, where this mishap occurred, was long ago but the question is of no great importance, nor does it affect or make any alteration in the truth or substance of the story. 'That is true, said the cousin 'continue, Seor Don Quixote, for I am listening to you with the greatest pleasure in the world. 'And with no less do I tell the tale, said Don Quixote 'and so, to proceedthe venerable Montesinos led me into the palace of crystal, where, in a lower chamber, strangely cool and entirely of alabaster, was an elaborately wrought marble tomb, upon which I beheld, stretched at full length, a knight, not of bronze, or marble, or jasper, as are seen on other tombs, but of actual flesh and bone. His right hand (which seemed to me somewhat hairy and sinewy, a sign of great strength in its owner) lay on the side of his heart but before I could put any question to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the tomb in amazement, said to me, 'This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true lovers and valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here, as I myself and many others are, by that French enchanter Merlin, who, they say, was the devil's son but my belief is, not that he was the devil's son, but that he knew, as the saying is, a point more than the devil. How or why he enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and I suspect that time is not far off. What I marvel at is, that I know it to be as sure as that it is now day, that Durandarte ended his life in my arms, and that, after his death, I took out his heart with my own hands and indeed it must have weighed more than two pounds, for, according to naturalists, he who has a large heart is more largely endowed with valour than he who has a small one. Then, as this is the case, and as the knight did really die, how comes it that he now moans and sighs from time to time, as if he were still alive?' 'As he said this, the wretched Durandarte cried out in a loud voice O cousin Montesinos! 'Twas my last request of thee, When my soul hath left the body, And that lying dead I be, With thy poniard or thy dagger Cut the heart from out my breast, And bear it to Belerma. This was my last request. 'On hearing which, the venerable Montesinos fell on his knees before the unhappy knight, and with tearful eyes exclaimed, 'Long since, Seor Durandarte, my beloved cousin, long since have I done what you bade me on that sad day when I lost you I took out your heart as well as I could, not leaving an atom of it in your breast, I wiped it with a lace handkerchief, and I took the road to France with it, having first laid you in the bosom of the earth with tears enough to wash and cleanse my hands of the blood that covered them after wandering among your bowels and more by token, O cousin of my soul, at the first village I came to after leaving Roncesvalles, I sprinkled a little salt upon your heart to keep it sweet, and bring it, if not fresh, at least pickled, into the presence of the lady Belerma, whom, together with you, myself, Guadiana your squire, the duenna Ruidera and her seven daughters and two nieces, and many more of your friends and acquaintances, the sage Merlin has been keeping enchanted here these many years and although more than five hundred have gone by, not one of us has died Ruidera and her daughters and nieces alone are missing, and these, because of the tears they shed, Merlin, out of the compassion he seems to have felt for them, changed into so many lakes, which to this day in the world of the living, and in the province of La Mancha, are called the Lakes of Ruidera. The seven daughters belong to the kings of Spain and the two nieces to the knights of a very holy order called the Order of St. John. Guadiana your squire, likewise bewailing your fate, was changed into a river of his own name, but when he came to the surface and beheld the sun of another heaven, so great was his grief at finding he was leaving you, that he plunged into the bowels of the earth however, as he cannot help following his natural course, he from time to time comes forth and shows himself to the sun and the world. The lakes aforesaid send him their waters, and with these, and others that come to him, he makes a grand and imposing entrance into Portugal but for all that, go where he may, he shows his melancholy and sadness, and takes no pride in breeding dainty choice fish, only coarse and tasteless sorts, very different from those of the golden Tagus. All this that I tell you now, O cousin mine, I have told you many times before, and as you make no answer, I fear that either you believe me not, or do not hear me, whereat I feel God knows what grief. I have now news to give you, which, if it serves not to alleviate your sufferings, will not in any wise increase them. Know that you have here before you (open your eyes and you will see) that great knight of whom the sage Merlin has prophesied such great things that Don Quixote of La Mancha I mean, who has again, and to better purpose than in past times, revived in these days knighterrantry, long since forgotten, and by whose intervention and aid it may be we shall be disenchanted for great deeds are reserved for great men.' ''And if that may not be,' said the wretched Durandarte in a low and feeble voice, 'if that may not be, then, my cousin, I say 'patience and shuffle' and turning over on his side, he relapsed into his former silence without uttering another word. 'And now there was heard a great outcry and lamentation, accompanied by deep sighs and bitter sobs. I looked round, and through the crystal wall I saw passing through another chamber a procession of two lines of fair damsels all clad in mourning, and with white turbans of Turkish fashion on their heads. Behind, in the rear of these, there came a lady, for so from her dignity she seemed to be, also clad in black, with a white veil so long and ample that it swept the ground. Her turban was twice as large as the largest of any of the others her eyebrows met, her nose was rather flat, her mouth was large but with ruddy lips, and her teeth, of which at times she allowed a glimpse, were seen to be sparse and illset, though as white as peeled almonds. She carried in her hands a fine cloth, and in it, as well as I could make out, a heart that had been mummied, so parched and dried was it. Montesinos told me that all those forming the procession were the attendants of Durandarte and Belerma, who were enchanted there with their master and mistress, and that the last, she who carried the heart in the cloth, was the lady Belerma, who, with her damsels, four days in the week went in procession singing, or rather weeping, dirges over the body and miserable heart of his cousin and that if she appeared to me somewhat illfavoured or not so beautiful as fame reported her, it was because of the bad nights and worse days that she passed in that enchantment, as I could see by the great dark circles round her eyes, and her sickly complexion 'her sallowness, and the rings round her eyes,' said he, 'are not caused by the periodical ailment usual with women, for it is many months and even years since she has had any, but by the grief her own heart suffers because of that which she holds in her hand perpetually, and which recalls and brings back to her memory the sad fate of her lost lover were it not for this, hardly would the great Dulcinea del Toboso, so celebrated in all these parts, and even in the world, come up to her for beauty, grace, and gaiety.' ''Hold hard!' said I at this, 'tell your story as you ought, Seor Don Montesinos, for you know very well that all comparisons are odious, and there is no occasion to compare one person with another the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso is what she is, and the lady Doa Belerma is what she is and has been, and that's enough.' To which he made answer, 'Forgive me, Seor Don Quixote I own I was wrong and spoke unadvisedly in saying that the lady Dulcinea could scarcely come up to the lady Belerma for it were enough for me to have learned, by what means I know not, that you are her knight, to make me bite my tongue out before I compared her to anything save heaven itself.' After this apology which the great Montesinos made me, my heart recovered itself from the shock I had received in hearing my lady compared with Belerma. 'Still I wonder, said Sancho, 'that your worship did not get upon the old fellow and bruise every bone of him with kicks, and pluck his beard until you didn't leave a hair in it. 'Nay, Sancho, my friend, said Don Quixote, 'it would not have been right in me to do that, for we are all bound to pay respect to the aged, even though they be not knights, but especially to those who are, and who are enchanted I only know I gave him as good as he brought in the many other questions and answers we exchanged. 'I cannot understand, Seor Don Quixote, remarked the cousin here, 'how it is that your worship, in such a short space of time as you have been below there, could have seen so many things, and said and answered so much. 'How long is it since I went down? asked Don Quixote. 'Little better than an hour, replied Sancho. 'That cannot be, returned Don Quixote, 'because night overtook me while I was there, and day came, and it was night again and day again three times so that, by my reckoning, I have been three days in those remote regions beyond our ken. 'My master must be right, replied Sancho 'for as everything that has happened to him is by enchantment, maybe what seems to us an hour would seem three days and nights there. 'That's it, said Don Quixote. 'And did your worship eat anything all that time, seor? asked the cousin. 'I never touched a morsel, answered Don Quixote, 'nor did I feel hunger, or think of it. 'And do the enchanted eat? said the cousin. 'They neither eat, said Don Quixote 'nor are they subject to the greater excrements, though it is thought that their nails, beards, and hair grow. 'And do the enchanted sleep, now, seor? asked Sancho. 'Certainly not, replied Don Quixote 'at least, during those three days I was with them not one of them closed an eye, nor did I either. 'The proverb, 'Tell me what company thou keepest and I'll tell thee what thou art,' is to the point here, said Sancho 'your worship keeps company with enchanted people that are always fasting and watching what wonder is it, then, that you neither eat nor sleep while you are with them? But forgive me, seor, if I say that of all this you have told us now, may God take meI was just going to say the devilif I believe a single particle. 'What! said the cousin, 'has Seor Don Quixote, then, been lying? Why, even if he wished it he has not had time to imagine and put together such a host of lies. 'I don't believe my master lies, said Sancho. 'If not, what dost thou believe? asked Don Quixote. 'I believe, replied Sancho, 'that this Merlin, or those enchanters who enchanted the whole crew your worship says you saw and discoursed with down there, stuffed your imagination or your mind with all this rigmarole you have been treating us to, and all that is still to come. 'All that might be, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'but it is not so, for everything that I have told you I saw with my own eyes, and touched with my own hands. But what will you say when I tell you now how, among the countless other marvellous things Montesinos showed me (of which at leisure and at the proper time I will give thee an account in the course of our journey, for they would not be all in place here), he showed me three country girls who went skipping and capering like goats over the pleasant fields there, and the instant I beheld them I knew one to be the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, and the other two those same country girls that were with her and that we spoke to on the road from El Toboso! I asked Montesinos if he knew them, and he told me he did not, but he thought they must be some enchanted ladies of distinction, for it was only a few days before that they had made their appearance in those meadows but I was not to be surprised at that, because there were a great many other ladies there of times past and present, enchanted in various strange shapes, and among them he had recognised Queen Guinevere and her dame Quintaona, she who poured out the wine for Lancelot when he came from Britain. When Sancho Panza heard his master say this he was ready to take leave of his senses, or die with laughter for, as he knew the real truth about the pretended enchantment of Dulcinea, in which he himself had been the enchanter and concocter of all the evidence, he made up his mind at last that, beyond all doubt, his master was out of his wits and stark mad, so he said to him, 'It was an evil hour, a worse season, and a sorrowful day, when your worship, dear master mine, went down to the other world, and an unlucky moment when you met with Seor Montesinos, who has sent you back to us like this. You were well enough here above in your full senses, such as God had given you, delivering maxims and giving advice at every turn, and not as you are now, talking the greatest nonsense that can be imagined. 'As I know thee, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'I heed not thy words. 'Nor I your worship's, said Sancho, 'whether you beat me or kill me for those I have spoken, and will speak if you don't correct and mend your own. But tell me, while we are still at peace, how or by what did you recognise the lady our mistress and if you spoke to her, what did you say, and what did she answer? 'I recognised her, said Don Quixote, 'by her wearing the same garments she wore when thou didst point her out to me. I spoke to her, but she did not utter a word in reply on the contrary, she turned her back on me and took to flight, at such a pace that crossbow bolt could not have overtaken her. I wished to follow her, and would have done so had not Montesinos recommended me not to take the trouble as it would be useless, particularly as the time was drawing near when it would be necessary for me to quit the cavern. He told me, moreover, that in course of time he would let me know how he and Belerma, and Durandarte, and all who were there, were to be disenchanted. But of all I saw and observed down there, what gave me most pain was, that while Montesinos was speaking to me, one of the two companions of the hapless Dulcinea approached me on one without my having seen her coming, and with tears in her eyes said to me, in a low, agitated voice, 'My lady Dulcinea del Toboso kisses your worship's hands, and entreats you to do her the favour of letting her know how you are and, being in great need, she also entreats your worship as earnestly as she can to be so good as to lend her half a dozen reals, or as much as you may have about you, on this new dimity petticoat that I have here and she promises to repay them very speedily.' I was amazed and taken aback by such a message, and turning to Seor Montesinos I asked him, 'Is it possible, Seor Montesinos, that persons of distinction under enchantment can be in need?' To which he replied, 'Believe me, Seor Don Quixote, that which is called need is to be met with everywhere, and penetrates all quarters and reaches everyone, and does not spare even the enchanted and as the lady Dulcinea del Toboso sends to beg those six reals, and the pledge is to all appearance a good one, there is nothing for it but to give them to her, for no doubt she must be in some great strait.' 'I will take no pledge of her,' I replied, 'nor yet can I give her what she asks, for all I have is four reals which I gave (they were those which thou, Sancho, gavest me the other day to bestow in alms upon the poor I met along the road), and I said, 'Tell your mistress, my dear, that I am grieved to the heart because of her distresses, and wish I was a Fucar to remedy them, and that I would have her know that I cannot be, and ought not be, in health while deprived of the happiness of seeing her and enjoying her discreet conversation, and that I implore her as earnestly as I can, to allow herself to be seen and addressed by this her captive servant and forlorn knight. Tell her, too, that when she least expects it she will hear it announced that I have made an oath and vow after the fashion of that which the Marquis of Mantua made to avenge his nephew Baldwin, when he found him at the point of death in the heart of the mountains, which was, not to eat bread off a tablecloth, and other trifling matters which he added, until he had avenged him and I will make the same to take no rest, and to roam the seven regions of the earth more thoroughly than the Infante Don Pedro of Portugal ever roamed them, until I have disenchanted her.' 'All that and more, you owe my lady,' the damsel's answer to me, and taking the four reals, instead of making me a curtsey she cut a caper, springing two full yards into the air. 'O blessed God! exclaimed Sancho aloud at this, 'is it possible that such things can be in the world, and that enchanters and enchantments can have such power in it as to have changed my master's right senses into a craze so full of absurdity! O seor, seor, for God's sake, consider yourself, have a care for your honour, and give no credit to this silly stuff that has left you scant and short of wits. 'Thou talkest in this way because thou lovest me, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'and not being experienced in the things of the world, everything that has some difficulty about it seems to thee impossible but time will pass, as I said before, and I will tell thee some of the things I saw down there which will make thee believe what I have related now, the truth of which admits of neither reply nor question. He who translated this great history from the original written by its first author, Cide Hamete Benengeli, says that on coming to the chapter giving the adventures of the cave of Montesinos he found written on the margin of it, in Hamete's own hand, these exact words 'I cannot convince or persuade myself that everything that is written in the preceding chapter could have precisely happened to the valiant Don Quixote and for this reason, that all the adventures that have occurred up to the present have been possible and probable but as for this one of the cave, I see no way of accepting it as true, as it passes all reasonable bounds. For me to believe that Don Quixote could lie, he being the most truthful gentleman and the noblest knight of his time, is impossible he would not have told a lie though he were shot to death with arrows. On the other hand, I reflect that he related and told the story with all the circumstances detailed, and that he could not in so short a space have fabricated such a vast complication of absurdities if, then, this adventure seems apocryphal, it is no fault of mine and so, without affirming its falsehood or its truth, I write it down. Decide for thyself in thy wisdom, reader for I am not bound, nor is it in my power, to do more though certain it is they say that at the time of his death he retracted, and said he had invented it, thinking it matched and tallied with the adventures he had read of in his histories. And then he goes on to say The cousin was amazed as well at Sancho's boldness as at the patience of his master, and concluded that the good temper the latter displayed arose from the happiness he felt at having seen his lady Dulcinea, even enchanted as she was because otherwise the words and language Sancho had addressed to him deserved a thrashing for indeed he seemed to him to have been rather impudent to his master, to whom he now observed, 'I, Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, look upon the time I have spent in travelling with your worship as very well employed, for I have gained four things in the course of it the first is that I have made your acquaintance, which I consider great good fortune the second, that I have learned what the cave of Montesinos contains, together with the transformations of Guadiana and of the lakes of Ruidera which will be of use to me for the Spanish Ovid that I have in hand the third, to have discovered the antiquity of cards, that they were in use at least in the time of Charlemagne, as may be inferred from the words you say Durandarte uttered when, at the end of that long spell while Montesinos was talking to him, he woke up and said, 'Patience and shuffle.' This phrase and expression he could not have learned while he was enchanted, but only before he had become so, in France, and in the time of the aforesaid emperor Charlemagne. And this demonstration is just the thing for me for that other book I am writing, the 'Supplement to Polydore Vergil on the Invention of Antiquities' for I believe he never thought of inserting that of cards in his book, as I mean to do in mine, and it will be a matter of great importance, particularly when I can cite so grave and veracious an authority as Seor Durandarte. And the fourth thing is, that I have ascertained the source of the river Guadiana, heretofore unknown to mankind. 'You are right, said Don Quixote 'but I should like to know, if by God's favour they grant you a licence to print those books of yourswhich I doubtto whom do you mean to dedicate them? 'There are lords and grandees in Spain to whom they can be dedicated, said the cousin. 'Not many, said Don Quixote 'not that they are unworthy of it, but because they do not care to accept books and incur the obligation of making the return that seems due to the author's labour and courtesy. One prince I know who makes up for all the rest, and morehow much more, if I ventured to say, perhaps I should stir up envy in many a noble breast but let this stand over for some more convenient time, and let us go and look for some place to shelter ourselves in tonight. 'Not far from this, said the cousin, 'there is a hermitage, where there lives a hermit, who they say was a soldier, and who has the reputation of being a good Christian and a very intelligent and charitable man. Close to the hermitage he has a small house which he built at his own cost, but though small it is large enough for the reception of guests. 'Has this hermit any hens, do you think? asked Sancho. 'Few hermits are without them, said Don Quixote 'for those we see nowadays are not like the hermits of the Egyptian deserts who were clad in palmleaves, and lived on the roots of the earth. But do not think that by praising these I am disparaging the others all I mean to say is that the penances of those of the present day do not come up to the asceticism and austerity of former times but it does not follow from this that they are not all worthy at least I think them so and at the worst the hypocrite who pretends to be good does less harm than the open sinner. At this point they saw approaching the spot where they stood a man on foot, proceeding at a rapid pace, and beating a mule loaded with lances and halberds. When he came up to them, he saluted them and passed on without stopping. Don Quixote called to him, 'Stay, good fellow you seem to be making more haste than suits that mule. 'I cannot stop, seor, answered the man 'for the arms you see I carry here are to be used tomorrow, so I must not delay God be with you. But if you want to know what I am carrying them for, I mean to lodge tonight at the inn that is beyond the hermitage, and if you be going the same road you will find me there, and I will tell you some curious things once more God be with you and he urged on his mule at such a pace that Don Quixote had no time to ask him what these curious things were that he meant to tell them and as he was somewhat inquisitive, and always tortured by his anxiety to learn something new, he decided to set out at once, and go and pass the night at the inn instead of stopping at the hermitage, where the cousin would have had them halt. Accordingly they mounted and all three took the direct road for the inn, which they reached a little before nightfall. On the road the cousin proposed they should go up to the hermitage to drink a sup. The instant Sancho heard this he steered his Dapple towards it, and Don Quixote and the cousin did the same but it seems Sancho's bad luck so ordered it that the hermit was not at home, for so a subhermit they found in the hermitage told them. They called for some of the best. She replied that her master had none, but that if they liked cheap water she would give it with great pleasure. 'If I found any in water, said Sancho, 'there are wells along the road where I could have had enough of it. Ah, Camacho's wedding, and plentiful house of Don Diego, how often do I miss you! Leaving the hermitage, they pushed on towards the inn, and a little farther they came upon a youth who was pacing along in front of them at no great speed, so that they overtook him. He carried a sword over his shoulder, and slung on it a budget or bundle of his clothes apparently, probably his breeches or pantaloons, and his cloak and a shirt or two for he had on a short jacket of velvet with a gloss like satin on it in places, and had his shirt out his stockings were of silk, and his shoes squaretoed as they wear them at court. His age might have been eighteen or nineteen he was of a merry countenance, and to all appearance of an active habit, and he went along singing seguidillas to beguile the wearisomeness of the road. As they came up with him he was just finishing one, which the cousin got by heart and they say ran thus I'm off to the wars For the want of pence, Oh, had I but money I'd show more sense. The first to address him was Don Quixote, who said, 'You travel very airily, sir gallant whither bound, may we ask, if it is your pleasure to tell us? To which the youth replied, 'The heat and my poverty are the reason of my travelling so airily, and it is to the wars that I am bound. 'How poverty? asked Don Quixote 'the heat one can understand. 'Seor, replied the youth, 'in this bundle I carry velvet pantaloons to match this jacket if I wear them out on the road, I shall not be able to make a decent appearance in them in the city, and I have not the wherewithal to buy others and so for this reason, as well as to keep myself cool, I am making my way in this fashion to overtake some companies of infantry that are not twelve leagues off, in which I shall enlist, and there will be no want of baggage trains to travel with after that to the place of embarkation, which they say will be Carthagena I would rather have the King for a master, and serve him in the wars, than serve a court pauper. 'And did you get any bounty, now? asked the cousin. 'If I had been in the service of some grandee of Spain or personage of distinction, replied the youth, 'I should have been safe to get it for that is the advantage of serving good masters, that out of the servants' hall men come to be ancients or captains, or get a good pension. But I, to my misfortune, always served placehunters and adventurers, whose keep and wages were so miserable and scanty that half went in paying for the starching of one's collars it would be a miracle indeed if a page volunteer ever got anything like a reasonable bounty. 'And tell me, for heaven's sake, asked Don Quixote, 'is it possible, my friend, that all the time you served you never got any livery? 'They gave me two, replied the page 'but just as when one quits a religious community before making profession, they strip him of the dress of the order and give him back his own clothes, so did my masters return me mine for as soon as the business on which they came to court was finished, they went home and took back the liveries they had given merely for show. 'What spilorceria!as an Italian would say, said Don Quixote 'but for all that, consider yourself happy in having left court with as worthy an object as you have, for there is nothing on earth more honourable or profitable than serving, first of all God, and then one's king and natural lord, particularly in the profession of arms, by which, if not more wealth, at least more honour is to be won than by letters, as I have said many a time for though letters may have founded more great houses than arms, still those founded by arms have I know not what superiority over those founded by letters, and a certain splendour belonging to them that distinguishes them above all. And bear in mind what I am now about to say to you, for it will be of great use and comfort to you in time of trouble it is, not to let your mind dwell on the adverse chances that may befall you for the worst of all is death, and if it be a good death, the best of all is to die. They asked Julius Csar, the valiant Roman emperor, what was the best death. He answered, that which is unexpected, which comes suddenly and unforeseen and though he answered like a pagan, and one without the knowledge of the true God, yet, as far as sparing our feelings is concerned, he was right for suppose you are killed in the first engagement or skirmish, whether by a cannon ball or blown up by mine, what matters it? It is only dying, and all is over and according to Terence, a soldier shows better dead in battle, than alive and safe in flight and the good soldier wins fame in proportion as he is obedient to his captains and those in command over him. And remember, my son, that it is better for the soldier to smell of gunpowder than of civet, and that if old age should come upon you in this honourable calling, though you may be covered with wounds and crippled and lame, it will not come upon you without honour, and that such as poverty cannot lessen especially now that provisions are being made for supporting and relieving old and disabled soldiers for it is not right to deal with them after the fashion of those who set free and get rid of their black slaves when they are old and useless, and, turning them out of their houses under the pretence of making them free, make them slaves to hunger, from which they cannot expect to be released except by death. But for the present I won't say more than get ye up behind me on my horse as far as the inn, and sup with me there, and tomorrow you shall pursue your journey, and God give you as good speed as your intentions deserve. The page did not accept the invitation to mount, though he did that to supper at the inn and here they say Sancho said to himself, 'God be with you for a master is it possible that a man who can say things so many and so good as he has said just now, can say that he saw the impossible absurdities he reports about the cave of Montesinos? Well, well, we shall see. And now, just as night was falling, they reached the inn, and it was not without satisfaction that Sancho perceived his master took it for a real inn, and not for a castle as usual. The instant they entered Don Quixote asked the landlord after the man with the lances and halberds, and was told that he was in the stable seeing to his mule which was what Sancho and the cousin proceeded to do for their beasts, giving the best manger and the best place in the stable to Rocinante. Don Quixote's bread would not bake, as the common saying is, until he had heard and learned the curious things promised by the man who carried the arms. He went to seek him where the innkeeper said he was and having found him, bade him say now at any rate what he had to say in answer to the question he had asked him on the road. 'The tale of my wonders must be taken more leisurely and not standing, said the man 'let me finish foddering my beast, good sir and then I'll tell you things that will astonish you. 'Don't wait for that, said Don Quixote 'I'll help you in everything, and so he did, sifting the barley for him and cleaning out the manger a degree of humility which made the other feel bound to tell him with a good grace what he had asked so seating himself on a bench, with Don Quixote beside him, and the cousin, the page, Sancho Panza, and the landlord, for a senate and an audience, he began his story in this way 'You must know that in a village four leagues and a half from this inn, it so happened that one of the regidors, by the tricks and roguery of a servant girl of his (it's too long a tale to tell), lost an ass and though he did all he possibly could to find it, it was all to no purpose. A fortnight might have gone by, so the story goes, since the ass had been missing, when, as the regidor who had lost it was standing in the plaza, another regidor of the same town said to him, 'Pay me for good news, gossip your ass has turned up.' 'That I will, and well, gossip,' said the other 'but tell us, where has he turned up?' 'In the forest,' said the finder 'I saw him this morning without packsaddle or harness of any sort, and so lean that it went to one's heart to see him. I tried to drive him before me and bring him to you, but he is already so wild and shy that when I went near him he made off into the thickest part of the forest. If you have a mind that we two should go back and look for him, let me put up this sheass at my house and I'll be back at once.' 'You will be doing me a great kindness,' said the owner of the ass, 'and I'll try to pay it back in the same coin.' It is with all these circumstances, and in the very same way I am telling it now, that those who know all about the matter tell the story. Well then, the two regidors set off on foot, arm in arm, for the forest, and coming to the place where they hoped to find the ass they could not find him, nor was he to be seen anywhere about, search as they might. Seeing, then, that there was no sign of him, the regidor who had seen him said to the other, 'Look here, gossip a plan has occurred to me, by which, beyond a doubt, we shall manage to discover the animal, even if he is stowed away in the bowels of the earth, not to say the forest. Here it is. I can bray to perfection, and if you can ever so little, the thing's as good as done.' 'Ever so little did you say, gossip?' said the other 'by God, I'll not give in to anybody, not even to the asses themselves.' 'We'll soon see,' said the second regidor, 'for my plan is that you should go one side of the forest, and I the other, so as to go all round about it and every now and then you will bray and I will bray and it cannot be but that the ass will hear us, and answer us if he is in the forest.' To which the owner of the ass replied, 'It's an excellent plan, I declare, gossip, and worthy of your great genius' and the two separating as agreed, it so fell out that they brayed almost at the same moment, and each, deceived by the braying of the other, ran to look, fancying the ass had turned up at last. When they came in sight of one another, said the loser, 'Is it possible, gossip, that it was not my ass that brayed?' 'No, it was I,' said the other. 'Well then, I can tell you, gossip,' said the ass's owner, 'that between you and an ass there is not an atom of difference as far as braying goes, for I never in all my life saw or heard anything more natural.' 'Those praises and compliments belong to you more justly than to me, gossip,' said the inventor of the plan 'for, by the God that made me, you might give a couple of brays odds to the best and most finished brayer in the world the tone you have got is deep, your voice is well kept up as to time and pitch, and your finishing notes come thick and fast in fact, I own myself beaten, and yield the palm to you, and give in to you in this rare accomplishment.' 'Well then,' said the owner, 'I'll set a higher value on myself for the future, and consider that I know something, as I have an excellence of some sort for though I always thought I brayed well, I never supposed I came up to the pitch of perfection you say.' 'And I say too,' said the second, 'that there are rare gifts going to loss in the world, and that they are ill bestowed upon those who don't know how to make use of them.' 'Ours,' said the owner of the ass, 'unless it is in cases like this we have now in hand, cannot be of any service to us, and even in this God grant they may be of some use.' So saying they separated, and took to their braying once more, but every instant they were deceiving one another, and coming to meet one another again, until they arranged by way of countersign, so as to know that it was they and not the ass, to give two brays, one after the other. In this way, doubling the brays at every step, they made the complete circuit of the forest, but the lost ass never gave them an answer or even the sign of one. How could the poor illstarred brute have answered, when, in the thickest part of the forest, they found him devoured by wolves? As soon as he saw him his owner said, 'I was wondering he did not answer, for if he wasn't dead he'd have brayed when he heard us, or he'd have been no ass but for the sake of having heard you bray to such perfection, gossip, I count the trouble I have taken to look for him well bestowed, even though I have found him dead.' 'It's in a good hand, gossip,' said the other 'if the abbot sings well, the acolyte is not much behind him.' So they returned disconsolate and hoarse to their village, where they told their friends, neighbours, and acquaintances what had befallen them in their search for the ass, each crying up the other's perfection in braying. The whole story came to be known and spread abroad through the villages of the neighbourhood and the devil, who never sleeps, with his love for sowing dissensions and scattering discord everywhere, blowing mischief about and making quarrels out of nothing, contrived to make the people of the other towns fall to braying whenever they saw anyone from our village, as if to throw the braying of our regidors in our teeth. Then the boys took to it, which was the same thing for it as getting into the hands and mouths of all the devils of hell and braying spread from one town to another in such a way that the men of the braying town are as easy to be known as blacks are to be known from whites, and the unlucky joke has gone so far that several times the scoffed have come out in arms and in a body to do battle with the scoffers, and neither king nor rook, fear nor shame, can mend matters. Tomorrow or the day after, I believe, the men of my town, that is, of the braying town, are going to take the field against another village two leagues away from ours, one of those that persecute us most and that we may turn out well prepared I have bought these lances and halberds you have seen. These are the curious things I told you I had to tell, and if you don't think them so, I have got no others and with this the worthy fellow brought his story to a close. Just at this moment there came in at the gate of the inn a man entirely clad in chamois leather, hose, breeches, and doublet, who said in a loud voice, 'Seor host, have you room? Here's the divining ape and the show of the Release of Melisendra just coming. 'Ods body! said the landlord, 'why, it's Master Pedro! We're in for a grand night! I forgot to mention that the said Master Pedro had his left eye and nearly half his cheek covered with a patch of green taffety, showing that something ailed all that side. 'Your worship is welcome, Master Pedro, continued the landlord 'but where are the ape and the show, for I don't see them? 'They are close at hand, said he in the chamois leather, 'but I came on first to know if there was any room. 'I'd make the Duke of Alva himself clear out to make room for Master Pedro, said the landlord 'bring in the ape and the show there's company in the inn tonight that will pay to see that and the cleverness of the ape. 'So be it by all means, said the man with the patch 'I'll lower the price, and be well satisfied if I only pay my expenses and now I'll go back and hurry on the cart with the ape and the show and with this he went out of the inn. Don Quixote at once asked the landlord what this Master Pedro was, and what was the show and what was the ape he had with him which the landlord replied, 'This is a famous puppetshowman, who for some time past has been going about this Mancha de Aragon, exhibiting a show of the release of Melisendra by the famous Don Gaiferos, one of the best and bestrepresented stories that have been seen in this part of the kingdom for many a year he has also with him an ape with the most extraordinary gift ever seen in an ape or imagined in a human being for if you ask him anything, he listens attentively to the question, and then jumps on his master's shoulder, and pressing close to his ear tells him the answer which Master Pedro then delivers. He says a great deal more about things past than about things to come and though he does not always hit the truth in every case, most times he is not far wrong, so that he makes us fancy he has got the devil in him. He gets two reals for every question if the ape answers I mean if his master answers for him after he has whispered into his ear and so it is believed that this same Master Pedro is very rich. He is a 'gallant man' as they say in Italy, and good company, and leads the finest life in the world talks more than six, drinks more than a dozen, and all by his tongue, and his ape, and his show. Master Pedro now came back, and in a cart followed the show and the apea big one, without a tail and with buttocks as bare as felt, but not viciouslooking. As soon as Don Quixote saw him, he asked him, 'Can you tell me, sir fortuneteller, what fish do we catch, and how will it be with us? See, here are my two reals, and he bade Sancho give them to Master Pedro but he answered for the ape and said, 'Seor, this animal does not give any answer or information touching things that are to come of things past he knows something, and more or less of things present. 'Gad, said Sancho, 'I would not give a farthing to be told what's past with me, for who knows that better than I do myself? And to pay for being told what I know would be mighty foolish. But as you know things present, here are my two reals, and tell me, most excellent sir ape, what is my wife Teresa Panza doing now, and what is she diverting herself with? Master Pedro refused to take the money, saying, 'I will not receive payment in advance or until the service has been first rendered and then with his right hand he gave a couple of slaps on his left shoulder, and with one spring the ape perched himself upon it, and putting his mouth to his master's ear began chattering his teeth rapidly and having kept this up as long as one would be saying a credo, with another spring he brought himself to the ground, and the same instant Master Pedro ran in great haste and fell upon his knees before Don Quixote, and embracing his legs exclaimed, 'These legs do I embrace as I would embrace the two pillars of Hercules, O illustrious reviver of knighterrantry, so long consigned to oblivion! O never yet duly extolled knight, Don Quixote of La Mancha, courage of the fainthearted, prop of the tottering, arm of the fallen, staff and counsel of all who are unfortunate! Don Quixote was thunderstruck, Sancho astounded, the cousin staggered, the page astonished, the man from the braying town agape, the landlord in perplexity, and, in short, everyone amazed at the words of the puppetshowman, who went on to say, 'And thou, worthy Sancho Panza, the best squire and squire to the best knight in the world! Be of good cheer, for thy good wife Teresa is well, and she is at this moment hackling a pound of flax and more by token she has at her left hand a jug with a broken spout that holds a good drop of wine, with which she solaces herself at her work. 'That I can well believe, said Sancho. 'She is a lucky one, and if it was not for her jealousy I would not change her for the giantess Andandona, who by my master's account was a very clever and worthy woman my Teresa is one of those that won't let themselves want for anything, though their heirs may have to pay for it. 'Now I declare, said Don Quixote, 'he who reads much and travels much sees and knows a great deal. I say so because what amount of persuasion could have persuaded me that there are apes in the world that can divine as I have seen now with my own eyes? For I am that very Don Quixote of La Mancha this worthy animal refers to, though he has gone rather too far in my praise but whatever I may be, I thank heaven that it has endowed me with a tender and compassionate heart, always disposed to do good to all and harm to none. 'If I had money, said the page, 'I would ask seor ape what will happen to me in the peregrination I am making. To this Master Pedro, who had by this time risen from Don Quixote's feet, replied, 'I have already said that this little beast gives no answer as to the future but if he did, not having money would be of no consequence, for to oblige Seor Don Quixote, here present, I would give up all the profits in the world. And now, because I have promised it, and to afford him pleasure, I will set up my show and offer entertainment to all who are in the inn, without any charge whatever. As soon as he heard this, the landlord, delighted beyond measure, pointed out a place where the show might be fixed, which was done at once. Don Quixote was not very well satisfied with the divinations of the ape, as he did not think it proper that an ape should divine anything, either past or future so while Master Pedro was arranging the show, he retired with Sancho into a corner of the stable, where, without being overheard by anyone, he said to him, 'Look here, Sancho, I have been seriously thinking over this ape's extraordinary gift, and have come to the conclusion that beyond doubt this Master Pedro, his master, has a pact, tacit or express, with the devil. 'If the packet is express from the devil, said Sancho, 'it must be a very dirty packet no doubt but what good can it do Master Pedro to have such packets? 'Thou dost not understand me, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'I only mean he must have made some compact with the devil to infuse this power into the ape, that he may get his living, and after he has grown rich he will give him his soul, which is what the enemy of mankind wants this I am led to believe by observing that the ape only answers about things past or present, and the devil's knowledge extends no further for the future he knows only by guesswork, and that not always for it is reserved for God alone to know the times and the seasons, and for him there is neither past nor future all is present. This being as it is, it is clear that this ape speaks by the spirit of the devil and I am astonished they have not denounced him to the Holy Office, and put him to the question, and forced it out of him by whose virtue it is that he divines because it is certain this ape is not an astrologer neither his master nor he sets up, or knows how to set up, those figures they call judiciary, which are now so common in Spain that there is not a jade, or page, or old cobbler, that will not undertake to set up a figure as readily as pick up a knave of cards from the ground, bringing to nought the marvellous truth of the science by their lies and ignorance. I know of a lady who asked one of these figure schemers whether her little lapdog would be in pup and would breed, and how many and of what colour the little pups would be. To which seor astrologer, after having set up his figure, made answer that the bitch would be in pup, and would drop three pups, one green, another bright red, and the third particoloured, provided she conceived between eleven and twelve either of the day or night, and on a Monday or Saturday but as things turned out, two days after this the bitch died of a surfeit, and seor planetruler had the credit all over the place of being a most profound astrologer, as most of these planetrulers have. 'Still, said Sancho, 'I would be glad if your worship would make Master Pedro ask his ape whether what happened your worship in the cave of Montesinos is true for, begging your worship's pardon, I, for my part, take it to have been all flam and lies, or at any rate something you dreamt. 'That may be, replied Don Quixote 'however, I will do what you suggest though I have my own scruples about it. At this point Master Pedro came up in quest of Don Quixote, to tell him the show was now ready and to come and see it, for it was worth seeing. Don Quixote explained his wish, and begged him to ask his ape at once to tell him whether certain things which had happened to him in the cave of Montesinos were dreams or realities, for to him they appeared to partake of both. Upon this Master Pedro, without answering, went back to fetch the ape, and, having placed it in front of Don Quixote and Sancho, said 'See here, seor ape, this gentleman wishes to know whether certain things which happened to him in the cave called the cave of Montesinos were false or true. On his making the usual sign the ape mounted on his left shoulder and seemed to whisper in his ear, and Master Pedro said at once, 'The ape says that the things you saw or that happened to you in that cave are, part of them false, part true and that he only knows this and no more as regards this question but if your worship wishes to know more, on Friday next he will answer all that may be asked him, for his virtue is at present exhausted, and will not return to him till Friday, as he has said. 'Did I not say, seor, said Sancho, 'that I could not bring myself to believe that all your worship said about the adventures in the cave was true, or even the half of it? 'The course of events will tell, Sancho, replied Don Quixote 'time, that discloses all things, leaves nothing that it does not drag into the light of day, though it be buried in the bosom of the earth. But enough of that for the present let us go and see Master Pedro's show, for I am sure there must be something novel in it. 'Something! said Master Pedro 'this show of mine has sixty thousand novel things in it let me tell you, Seor Don Quixote, it is one of the bestworthseeing things in the world this day but operibus credite et non verbis, and now let's get to work, for it is growing late, and we have a great deal to do and to say and show. Don Quixote and Sancho obeyed him and went to where the show was already put up and uncovered, set all around with lighted wax tapers which made it look splendid and bright. When they came to it Master Pedro ensconced himself inside it, for it was he who had to work the puppets, and a boy, a servant of his, posted himself outside to act as showman and explain the mysteries of the exhibition, having a wand in his hand to point to the figures as they came out. And so, all who were in the inn being arranged in front of the show, some of them standing, and Don Quixote, Sancho, the page, and cousin, accommodated with the best places, the interpreter began to say what he will hear or see who reads or hears the next chapter. All were silent, Tyrians and Trojans I mean all who were watching the show were hanging on the lips of the interpreter of its wonders, when drums and trumpets were heard to sound inside it and cannon to go off. The noise was soon over, and then the boy lifted up his voice and said, 'This true story which is here represented to your worships is taken word for word from the French chronicles and from the Spanish ballads that are in everybody's mouth, and in the mouth of the boys about the streets. Its subject is the release by Seor Don Gaiferos of his wife Melisendra, when a captive in Spain at the hands of the Moors in the city of Sansuea, for so they called then what is now called Saragossa and there you may see how Don Gaiferos is playing at the tables, just as they sing it At tables playing Don Gaiferos sits, For Melisendra is forgotten now. And that personage who appears there with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand is the Emperor Charlemagne, the supposed father of Melisendra, who, angered to see his soninlaw's inaction and unconcern, comes in to chide him and observe with what vehemence and energy he chides him, so that you would fancy he was going to give him half a dozen raps with his sceptre and indeed there are authors who say he did give them, and sound ones too and after having said a great deal to him about imperilling his honour by not effecting the release of his wife, he said, so the tale runs, Enough I've said, see to it now. Observe, too, how the emperor turns away, and leaves Don Gaiferos fuming and you see now how in a burst of anger, he flings the table and the board far from him and calls in haste for his armour, and asks his cousin Don Roland for the loan of his sword, Durindana, and how Don Roland refuses to lend it, offering him his company in the difficult enterprise he is undertaking but he, in his valour and anger, will not accept it, and says that he alone will suffice to rescue his wife, even though she were imprisoned deep in the centre of the earth, and with this he retires to arm himself and set out on his journey at once. Now let your worships turn your eyes to that tower that appears there, which is supposed to be one of the towers of the alcazar of Saragossa, now called the Aljaferia that lady who appears on that balcony dressed in Moorish fashion is the peerless Melisendra, for many a time she used to gaze from thence upon the road to France, and seek consolation in her captivity by thinking of Paris and her husband. Observe, too, a new incident which now occurs, such as, perhaps, never was seen. Do you not see that Moor, who silently and stealthily, with his finger on his lip, approaches Melisendra from behind? Observe now how he prints a kiss upon her lips, and what a hurry she is in to spit, and wipe them with the white sleeve of her smock, and how she bewails herself, and tears her fair hair as though it were to blame for the wrong. Observe, too, that the stately Moor who is in that corridor is King Marsilio of Sansuea, who, having seen the Moor's insolence, at once orders him (though his kinsman and a great favourite of his) to be seized and given two hundred lashes, while carried through the streets of the city according to custom, with criers going before him and officers of justice behind and here you see them come out to execute the sentence, although the offence has been scarcely committed for among the Moors there are no indictments nor remands as with us. Here Don Quixote called out, 'Child, child, go straight on with your story, and don't run into curves and slants, for to establish a fact clearly there is need of a great deal of proof and confirmation and said Master Pedro from within, 'Boy, stick to your text and do as the gentleman bids you it's the best plan keep to your plain song, and don't attempt harmonies, for they are apt to break down from being over fine. 'I will, said the boy, and he went on to say, 'This figure that you see here on horseback, covered with a Gascon cloak, is Don Gaiferos himself, whom his wife, now avenged of the insult of the amorous Moor, and taking her stand on the balcony of the tower with a calmer and more tranquil countenance, has perceived without recognising him and she addresses her husband, supposing him to be some traveller, and holds with him all that conversation and colloquy in the ballad that runs If you, sir knight, to France are bound, Oh! for Gaiferos ask which I do not repeat here because prolixity begets disgust suffice it to observe how Don Gaiferos discovers himself, and that by her joyful gestures Melisendra shows us she has recognised him and what is more, we now see she lowers herself from the balcony to place herself on the haunches of her good husband's horse. But ah! unhappy lady, the edge of her petticoat has caught on one of the bars of the balcony and she is left hanging in the air, unable to reach the ground. But you see how compassionate heaven sends aid in our sorest need Don Gaiferos advances, and without minding whether the rich petticoat is torn or not, he seizes her and by force brings her to the ground, and then with one jerk places her on the haunches of his horse, astraddle like a man, and bids her hold on tight and clasp her arms round his neck, crossing them on his breast so as not to fall, for the lady Melisendra was not used to that style of riding. You see, too, how the neighing of the horse shows his satisfaction with the gallant and beautiful burden he bears in his lord and lady. You see how they wheel round and quit the city, and in joy and gladness take the road to Paris. Go in peace, O peerless pair of true lovers! May you reach your longedfor fatherland in safety, and may fortune interpose no impediment to your prosperous journey may the eyes of your friends and kinsmen behold you enjoying in peace and tranquillity the remaining days of your lifeand that they may be as many as those of Nestor! Here Master Pedro called out again and said, 'Simplicity, boy! None of your high flights all affectation is bad. The interpreter made no answer, but went on to say, 'There was no want of idle eyes, that see everything, to see Melisendra come down and mount, and word was brought to King Marsilio, who at once gave orders to sound the alarm and see what a stir there is, and how the city is drowned with the sound of the bells pealing in the towers of all the mosques. 'Nay, nay, said Don Quixote at this 'on that point of the bells Master Pedro is very inaccurate, for bells are not in use among the Moors only kettledrums, and a kind of small trumpet somewhat like our clarion to ring bells this way in Sansuea is unquestionably a great absurdity. On hearing this, Master Pedro stopped ringing, and said, 'Don't look into trifles, Seor Don Quixote, or want to have things up to a pitch of perfection that is out of reach. Are there not almost every day a thousand comedies represented all round us full of thousands of inaccuracies and absurdities, and, for all that, they have a successful run, and are listened to not only with applause, but with admiration and all the rest of it? Go on, boy, and don't mind for so long as I fill my pouch, no matter if I show as many inaccuracies as there are motes in a sunbeam. 'True enough, said Don Quixote and the boy went on 'See what a numerous and glittering crowd of horsemen issues from the city in pursuit of the two faithful lovers, what a blowing of trumpets there is, what sounding of horns, what beating of drums and tabors I fear me they will overtake them and bring them back tied to the tail of their own horse, which would be a dreadful sight. Don Quixote, however, seeing such a swarm of Moors and hearing such a din, thought it would be right to aid the fugitives, and standing up he exclaimed in a loud voice, 'Never, while I live, will I permit foul play to be practised in my presence on such a famous knight and fearless lover as Don Gaiferos. Halt! illborn rabble, follow him not nor pursue him, or ye will have to reckon with me in battle! and suiting the action to the word, he drew his sword, and with one bound placed himself close to the show, and with unexampled rapidity and fury began to shower down blows on the puppet troop of Moors, knocking over some, decapitating others, maiming this one and demolishing that and among many more he delivered one down stroke which, if Master Pedro had not ducked, made himself small, and got out of the way, would have sliced off his head as easily as if it had been made of almondpaste. Master Pedro kept shouting, 'Hold hard! Seor Don Quixote! can't you see they're not real Moors you're knocking down and killing and destroying, but only little pasteboard figures! Looksinner that I am!how you're wrecking and ruining all that I'm worth! But in spite of this, Don Quixote did not leave off discharging a continuous rain of cuts, slashes, downstrokes, and backstrokes, and at length, in less than the space of two credos, he brought the whole show to the ground, with all its fittings and figures shivered and knocked to pieces, King Marsilio badly wounded, and the Emperor Charlemagne with his crown and head split in two. The whole audience was thrown into confusion, the ape fled to the roof of the inn, the cousin was frightened, and even Sancho Panza himself was in mighty fear, for, as he swore after the storm was over, he had never seen his master in such a furious passion. The complete destruction of the show being thus accomplished, Don Quixote became a little calmer, said, 'I wish I had here before me now all those who do not or will not believe how useful knightserrant are in the world just think, if I had not been here present, what would have become of the brave Don Gaiferos and the fair Melisendra! Depend upon it, by this time those dogs would have overtaken them and inflicted some outrage upon them. So, then, long live knighterrantry beyond everything living on earth this day! 'Let it live, and welcome, said Master Pedro at this in a feeble voice, 'and let me die, for I am so unfortunate that I can say with King Don Rodrigo Yesterday was I lord of Spain Today I've not a turret left That I may call mine own. Not half an hour, nay, barely a minute ago, I saw myself lord of kings and emperors, with my stables filled with countless horses, and my trunks and bags with gay dresses unnumbered and now I find myself ruined and laid low, destitute and a beggar, and above all without my ape, for, by my faith, my teeth will have to sweat for it before I have him caught and all through the reckless fury of sir knight here, who, they say, protects the fatherless, and rights wrongs, and does other charitable deeds but whose generous intentions have been found wanting in my case only, blessed and praised be the highest heavens! Verily, knight of the rueful figure he must be to have disfigured mine. Sancho Panza was touched by Master Pedro's words, and said to him, 'Don't weep and lament, Master Pedro you break my heart let me tell you my master, Don Quixote, is so catholic and scrupulous a Christian that, if he can make out that he has done you any wrong, he will own it, and be willing to pay for it and make it good, and something over and above. 'Only let Seor Don Quixote pay me for some part of the work he has destroyed, said Master Pedro, 'and I would be content, and his worship would ease his conscience, for he cannot be saved who keeps what is another's against the owner's will, and makes no restitution. 'That is true, said Don Quixote 'but at present I am not aware that I have got anything of yours, Master Pedro. 'What! returned Master Pedro 'and these relics lying here on the bare hard groundwhat scattered and shattered them but the invincible strength of that mighty arm? And whose were the bodies they belonged to but mine? And what did I get my living by but by them? 'Now am I fully convinced, said Don Quixote, 'of what I had many a time before believed that the enchanters who persecute me do nothing more than put figures like these before my eyes, and then change and turn them into what they please. In truth and earnest, I assure you gentlemen who now hear me, that to me everything that has taken place here seemed to take place literally, that Melisendra was Melisendra, Don Gaiferos Don Gaiferos, Marsilio Marsilio, and Charlemagne Charlemagne. That was why my anger was roused and to be faithful to my calling as a knighterrant I sought to give aid and protection to those who fled, and with this good intention I did what you have seen. If the result has been the opposite of what I intended, it is no fault of mine, but of those wicked beings that persecute me but, for all that, I am willing to condemn myself in costs for this error of mine, though it did not proceed from malice let Master Pedro see what he wants for the spoiled figures, for I agree to pay it at once in good and current money of Castile. Master Pedro made him a bow, saying, 'I expected no less of the rare Christianity of the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, true helper and protector of all destitute and needy vagabonds master landlord here and the great Sancho Panza shall be the arbitrators and appraisers between your worship and me of what these dilapidated figures are worth or may be worth. The landlord and Sancho consented, and then Master Pedro picked up from the ground King Marsilio of Saragossa with his head off, and said, 'Here you see how impossible it is to restore this king to his former state, so I think, saving your better judgments, that for his death, decease, and demise, four reals and a half may be given me. 'Proceed, said Don Quixote. 'Well then, for this cleavage from top to bottom, continued Master Pedro, taking up the split Emperor Charlemagne, 'it would not be much if I were to ask five reals and a quarter. 'It's not little, said Sancho. 'Nor is it much, said the landlord 'make it even, and say five reals. 'Let him have the whole five and a quarter, said Don Quixote 'for the sum total of this notable disaster does not stand on a quarter more or less and make an end of it quickly, Master Pedro, for it's getting on to suppertime, and I have some hints of hunger. 'For this figure, said Master Pedro, 'that is without a nose, and wants an eye, and is the fair Melisendra, I ask, and I am reasonable in my charge, two reals and twelve maravedis. 'The very devil must be in it, said Don Quixote, 'if Melisendra and her husband are not by this time at least on the French border, for the horse they rode on seemed to me to fly rather than gallop so you needn't try to sell me the cat for the hare, showing me here a noseless Melisendra when she is now, may be, enjoying herself at her ease with her husband in France. God help every one to his own, Master Pedro, and let us all proceed fairly and honestly and now go on. Master Pedro, perceiving that Don Quixote was beginning to wander, and return to his original fancy, was not disposed to let him escape, so he said to him, 'This cannot be Melisendra, but must be one of the damsels that waited on her so if I'm given sixty maravedis for her, I'll be content and sufficiently paid. And so he went on, putting values on ever so many more smashed figures, which, after the two arbitrators had adjusted them to the satisfaction of both parties, came to forty reals and threequarters and over and above this sum, which Sancho at once disbursed, Master Pedro asked for two reals for his trouble in catching the ape. 'Let him have them, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'not to catch the ape, but to get drunk and two hundred would I give this minute for the good news, to anyone who could tell me positively, that the lady Doa Melisandra and Seor Don Gaiferos were now in France and with their own people. 'No one could tell us that better than my ape, said Master Pedro 'but there's no devil that could catch him now I suspect, however, that affection and hunger will drive him to come looking for me tonight but tomorrow will soon be here and we shall see. In short, the puppetshow storm passed off, and all supped in peace and good fellowship at Don Quixote's expense, for he was the height of generosity. Before it was daylight the man with the lances and halberds took his departure, and soon after daybreak the cousin and the page came to bid Don Quixote farewell, the former returning home, the latter resuming his journey, towards which, to help him, Don Quixote gave him twelve reals. Master Pedro did not care to engage in any more palaver with Don Quixote, whom he knew right well so he rose before the sun, and having got together the remains of his show and caught his ape, he too went off to seek his adventures. The landlord, who did not know Don Quixote, was as much astonished at his mad freaks as at his generosity. To conclude, Sancho, by his master's orders, paid him very liberally, and taking leave of him they quitted the inn at about eight in the morning and took to the road, where we will leave them to pursue their journey, for this is necessary in order to allow certain other matters to be set forth, which are required to clear up this famous history. Cide Hamete, the chronicler of this great history, begins this chapter with these words, 'I swear as a Catholic Christian with regard to which his translator says that Cide Hamete's swearing as a Catholic Christian, he beingas no doubt he wasa Moor, only meant that, just as a Catholic Christian taking an oath swears, or ought to swear, what is true, and tell the truth in what he avers, so he was telling the truth, as much as if he swore as a Catholic Christian, in all he chose to write about Quixote, especially in declaring who Master Pedro was and what was the divining ape that astonished all the villages with his divinations. He says, then, that he who has read the First Part of this history will remember well enough the Gines de Pasamonte whom, with other galley slaves, Don Quixote set free in the Sierra Morena a kindness for which he afterwards got poor thanks and worse payment from that evilminded, illconditioned set. This Gines de PasamonteDon Ginesillo de Parapilla, Don Quixote called himit was that stole Dapple from Sancho Panza which, because by the fault of the printers neither the how nor the when was stated in the First Part, has been a puzzle to a good many people, who attribute to the bad memory of the author what was the error of the press. In fact, however, Gines stole him while Sancho Panza was asleep on his back, adopting the plan and device that Brunello had recourse to when he stole Sacripante's horse from between his legs at the siege of Albracca and, as has been told, Sancho afterwards recovered him. This Gines, then, afraid of being caught by the officers of justice, who were looking for him to punish him for his numberless rascalities and offences (which were so many and so great that he himself wrote a big book giving an account of them), resolved to shift his quarters into the kingdom of Aragon, and cover up his left eye, and take up the trade of a puppetshowman for this, as well as juggling, he knew how to practise to perfection. From some released Christians returning from Barbary, it so happened, he bought the ape, which he taught to mount upon his shoulder on his making a certain sign, and to whisper, or seem to do so, in his ear. Thus prepared, before entering any village whither he was bound with his show and his ape, he used to inform himself at the nearest village, or from the most likely person he could find, as to what particular things had happened there, and to whom and bearing them well in mind, the first thing he did was to exhibit his show, sometimes one story, sometimes another, but all lively, amusing, and familiar. As soon as the exhibition was over he brought forward the accomplishments of his ape, assuring the public that he divined all the past and the present, but as to the future he had no skill. For each question answered he asked two reals, and for some he made a reduction, just as he happened to feel the pulse of the questioners and when now and then he came to houses where things that he knew of had happened to the people living there, even if they did not ask him a question, not caring to pay for it, he would make the sign to the ape and then declare that it had said so and so, which fitted the case exactly. In this way he acquired a prodigious name and all ran after him on other occasions, being very crafty, he would answer in such a way that the answers suited the questions and as no one crossquestioned him or pressed him to tell how his ape divined, he made fools of them all and filled his pouch. The instant he entered the inn he knew Don Quixote and Sancho, and with that knowledge it was easy for him to astonish them and all who were there but it would have cost him dear had Don Quixote brought down his hand a little lower when he cut off King Marsilio's head and destroyed all his horsemen, as related in the preceeding chapter. So much for Master Pedro and his ape and now to return to Don Quixote of La Mancha. After he had left the inn he determined to visit, first of all, the banks of the Ebro and that neighbourhood, before entering the city of Saragossa, for the ample time there was still to spare before the jousts left him enough for all. With this object in view he followed the road and travelled along it for two days, without meeting any adventure worth committing to writing until on the third day, as he was ascending a hill, he heard a great noise of drums, trumpets, and musketshots. At first he imagined some regiment of soldiers was passing that way, and to see them he spurred Rocinante and mounted the hill. On reaching the top he saw at the foot of it over two hundred men, as it seemed to him, armed with weapons of various sorts, lances, crossbows, partisans, halberds, and pikes, and a few muskets and a great many bucklers. He descended the slope and approached the band near enough to see distinctly the flags, make out the colours and distinguish the devices they bore, especially one on a standard or ensign of white satin, on which there was painted in a very lifelike style an ass like a little sard, with its head up, its mouth open and its tongue out, as if it were in the act and attitude of braying and round it were inscribed in large characters these two lines They did not bray in vain, Our alcaldes twain. From this device Don Quixote concluded that these people must be from the braying town, and he said so to Sancho, explaining to him what was written on the standard. At the same time be observed that the man who had told them about the matter was wrong in saying that the two who brayed were regidors, for according to the lines of the standard they were alcaldes. To which Sancho replied, 'Seor, there's nothing to stick at in that, for maybe the regidors who brayed then came to be alcaldes of their town afterwards, and so they may go by both titles moreover, it has nothing to do with the truth of the story whether the brayers were alcaldes or regidors, provided at any rate they did bray for an alcalde is just as likely to bray as a regidor. They perceived, in short, clearly that the town which had been twitted had turned out to do battle with some other that had jeered it more than was fair or neighbourly. Don Quixote proceeded to join them, not a little to Sancho's uneasiness, for he never relished mixing himself up in expeditions of that sort. The members of the troop received him into the midst of them, taking him to be someone who was on their side. Don Quixote, putting up his visor, advanced with an easy bearing and demeanour to the standard with the ass, and all the chief men of the army gathered round him to look at him, staring at him with the usual amazement that everybody felt on seeing him for the first time. Don Quixote, seeing them examining him so attentively, and that none of them spoke to him or put any question to him, determined to take advantage of their silence so, breaking his own, he lifted up his voice and said, 'Worthy sirs, I entreat you as earnestly as I can not to interrupt an argument I wish to address to you, until you find it displeases or wearies you and if that come to pass, on the slightest hint you give me I will put a seal upon my lips and a gag upon my tongue. They all bade him say what he liked, for they would listen to him willingly. With this permission Don Quixote went on to say, 'I, sirs, am a knighterrant whose calling is that of arms, and whose profession is to protect those who require protection, and give help to such as stand in need of it. Some days ago I became acquainted with your misfortune and the cause which impels you to take up arms again and again to revenge yourselves upon your enemies and having many times thought over your business in my mind, I find that, according to the laws of combat, you are mistaken in holding yourselves insulted for a private individual cannot insult an entire community unless it be by defying it collectively as a traitor, because he cannot tell who in particular is guilty of the treason for which he defies it. Of this we have an example in Don Diego Ordoez de Lara, who defied the whole town of Zamora, because he did not know that Vellido Dolfos alone had committed the treachery of slaying his king and therefore he defied them all, and the vengeance and the reply concerned all though, to be sure, Seor Don Diego went rather too far, indeed very much beyond the limits of a defiance for he had no occasion to defy the dead, or the waters, or the fishes, or those yet unborn, and all the rest of it as set forth but let that pass, for when anger breaks out there's no father, governor, or bridle to check the tongue. The case being, then, that no one person can insult a kingdom, province, city, state, or entire community, it is clear there is no reason for going out to avenge the defiance of such an insult, inasmuch as it is not one. A fine thing it would be if the people of the clock town were to be at loggerheads every moment with everyone who called them by that name,or the Cazoleros, Berengeneros, Ballenatos, Jaboneros, or the bearers of all the other names and titles that are always in the mouth of the boys and common people! It would be a nice business indeed if all these illustrious cities were to take huff and revenge themselves and go about perpetually making trombones of their swords in every petty quarrel! No, no God forbid! There are four things for which sensible men and wellordered States ought to take up arms, draw their swords, and risk their persons, lives, and properties. The first is to defend the Catholic faith the second, to defend one's life, which is in accordance with natural and divine law the third, in defence of one's honour, family, and property the fourth, in the service of one's king in a just war and if to these we choose to add a fifth (which may be included in the second), in defence of one's country. To these five, as it were capital causes, there may be added some others that may be just and reasonable, and make it a duty to take up arms but to take them up for trifles and things to laugh at and be amused by rather than offended, looks as though he who did so was altogether wanting in common sense. Moreover, to take an unjust revenge (and there cannot be any just one) is directly opposed to the sacred law that we acknowledge, wherein we are commanded to do good to our enemies and to love them that hate us a command which, though it seems somewhat difficult to obey, is only so to those who have in them less of God than of the world, and more of the flesh than of the spirit for Jesus Christ, God and true man, who never lied, and could not and cannot lie, said, as our lawgiver, that his yoke was easy and his burden light he would not, therefore, have laid any command upon us that it was impossible to obey. Thus, sirs, you are bound to keep quiet by human and divine law. 'The devil take me, said Sancho to himself at this, 'but this master of mine is a theologian or, if not, faith, he's as like one as one egg is like another. Don Quixote stopped to take breath, and, observing that silence was still preserved, had a mind to continue his discourse, and would have done so had not Sancho interposed with his smartness for he, seeing his master pause, took the lead, saying, 'My lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, who once was called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, but now is called the Knight of the Lions, is a gentleman of great discretion who knows Latin and his mother tongue like a bachelor, and in everything that he deals with or advises proceeds like a good soldier, and has all the laws and ordinances of what they call combat at his fingers' ends so you have nothing to do but to let yourselves be guided by what he says, and on my head be it if it is wrong. Besides which, you have been told that it is folly to take offence at merely hearing a bray. I remember when I was a boy I brayed as often as I had a fancy, without anyone hindering me, and so elegantly and naturally that when I brayed all the asses in the town would bray but I was none the less for that the son of my parents who were greatly respected and though I was envied because of the gift by more than one of the high and mighty ones of the town, I did not care two farthings for it and that you may see I am telling the truth, wait a bit and listen, for this art, like swimming, once learnt is never forgotten and then, taking hold of his nose, he began to bray so vigorously that all the valleys around rang again. One of those, however, that stood near him, fancying he was mocking them, lifted up a long staff he had in his hand and smote him such a blow with it that Sancho dropped helpless to the ground. Don Quixote, seeing him so roughly handled, attacked the man who had struck him lance in hand, but so many thrust themselves between them that he could not avenge him. Far from it, finding a shower of stones rained upon him, and crossbows and muskets unnumbered levelled at him, he wheeled Rocinante round and, as fast as his best gallop could take him, fled from the midst of them, commending himself to God with all his heart to deliver him out of this peril, in dread every step of some ball coming in at his back and coming out at his breast, and every minute drawing his breath to see whether it had gone from him. The members of the band, however, were satisfied with seeing him take to flight, and did not fire on him. They put up Sancho, scarcely restored to his senses, on his ass, and let him go after his master not that he was sufficiently in his wits to guide the beast, but Dapple followed the footsteps of Rocinante, from whom he could not remain a moment separated. Don Quixote having got some way off looked back, and seeing Sancho coming, waited for him, as he perceived that no one followed him. The men of the troop stood their ground till night, and as the enemy did not come out to battle, they returned to their town exulting and had they been aware of the ancient custom of the Greeks, they would have erected a trophy on the spot. When the brave man flees, treachery is manifest and it is for wise men to reserve themselves for better occasions. This proved to be the case with Don Quixote, who, giving way before the fury of the townsfolk and the hostile intentions of the angry troop, took to flight and, without a thought of Sancho or the danger in which he was leaving him, retreated to such a distance as he thought made him safe. Sancho, lying across his ass, followed him, as has been said, and at length came up, having by this time recovered his senses, and on joining him let himself drop off Dapple at Rocinante's feet, sore, bruised, and belaboured. Don Quixote dismounted to examine his wounds, but finding him whole from head to foot, he said to him, angrily enough, 'In an evil hour didst thou take to braying, Sancho! Where hast thou learned that it is well done to mention the rope in the house of the man that has been hanged? To the music of brays what harmonies couldst thou expect to get but cudgels? Give thanks to God, Sancho, that they signed the cross on thee just now with a stick, and did not mark thee per signum crucis with a cutlass. 'I'm not equal to answering, said Sancho, 'for I feel as if I was speaking through my shoulders let us mount and get away from this I'll keep from braying, but not from saying that knightserrant fly and leave their good squires to be pounded like privet, or made meal of at the hands of their enemies. 'He does not fly who retires, returned Don Quixote 'for I would have thee know, Sancho, that the valour which is not based upon a foundation of prudence is called rashness, and the exploits of the rash man are to be attributed rather to good fortune than to courage and so I own that I retired, but not that I fled and therein I have followed the example of many valiant men who have reserved themselves for better times the histories are full of instances of this, but as it would not be any good to thee or pleasure to me, I will not recount them to thee now. Sancho was by this time mounted with the help of Don Quixote, who then himself mounted Rocinante, and at a leisurely pace they proceeded to take shelter in a grove which was in sight about a quarter of a league off. Every now and then Sancho gave vent to deep sighs and dismal groans, and on Don Quixote asking him what caused such acute suffering, he replied that, from the end of his backbone up to the nape of his neck, he was so sore that it nearly drove him out of his senses. 'The cause of that soreness, said Don Quixote, 'will be, no doubt, that the staff wherewith they smote thee being a very long one, it caught thee all down the back, where all the parts that are sore are situated, and had it reached any further thou wouldst be sorer still. 'By God, said Sancho, 'your worship has relieved me of a great doubt, and cleared up the point for me in elegant style! Body o' me! is the cause of my soreness such a mystery that there's any need to tell me I am sore everywhere the staff hit me? If it was my ankles that pained me there might be something in going divining why they did, but it is not much to divine that I'm sore where they thrashed me. By my faith, master mine, the ills of others hang by a hair every day I am discovering more and more how little I have to hope for from keeping company with your worship for if this time you have allowed me to be drubbed, the next time, or a hundred times more, we'll have the blanketings of the other day over again, and all the other pranks which, if they have fallen on my shoulders now, will be thrown in my teeth byandby. I would do a great deal better (if I was not an ignorant brute that will never do any good all my life), I would do a great deal better, I say, to go home to my wife and children and support them and bring them up on what God may please to give me, instead of following your worship along roads that lead nowhere and paths that are none at all, with little to drink and less to eat. And then when it comes to sleeping! Measure out seven feet on the earth, brother squire, and if that's not enough for you, take as many more, for you may have it all your own way and stretch yourself to your heart's content. Oh that I could see burnt and turned to ashes the first man that meddled with knighterrantry or at any rate the first who chose to be squire to such fools as all the knightserrant of past times must have been! Of those of the present day I say nothing, because, as your worship is one of them, I respect them, and because I know your worship knows a point more than the devil in all you say and think. 'I would lay a good wager with you, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that now that you are talking on without anyone to stop you, you don't feel a pain in your whole body. Talk away, my son, say whatever comes into your head or mouth, for so long as you feel no pain, the irritation your impertinences give me will be a pleasure to me and if you are so anxious to go home to your wife and children, God forbid that I should prevent you you have money of mine see how long it is since we left our village this third time, and how much you can and ought to earn every month, and pay yourself out of your own hand. 'When I worked for Tom Carrasco, the father of the bachelor Samson Carrasco that your worship knows, replied Sancho, 'I used to earn two ducats a month besides my food I can't tell what I can earn with your worship, though I know a knighterrant's squire has harder times of it than he who works for a farmer for after all, we who work for farmers, however much we toil all day, at the worst, at night, we have our olla supper and sleep in a bed, which I have not slept in since I have been in your worship's service, if it wasn't the short time we were in Don Diego de Miranda's house, and the feast I had with the skimmings I took off Camacho's pots, and what I ate, drank, and slept in Basilio's house all the rest of the time I have been sleeping on the hard ground under the open sky, exposed to what they call the inclemencies of heaven, keeping life in me with scraps of cheese and crusts of bread, and drinking water either from the brooks or from the springs we come to on these bypaths we travel. 'I own, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that all thou sayest is true how much, thinkest thou, ought I to give thee over and above what Tom Carrasco gave thee? 'I think, said Sancho, 'that if your worship was to add on two reals a month I'd consider myself well paid that is, as far as the wages of my labour go but to make up to me for your worship's pledge and promise to me to give me the government of an island, it would be fair to add six reals more, making thirty in all. 'Very good, said Don Quixote 'it is twentyfive days since we left our village, so reckon up, Sancho, according to the wages you have made out for yourself, and see how much I owe you in proportion, and pay yourself, as I said before, out of your own hand. 'O body o' me! said Sancho, 'but your worship is very much out in that reckoning for when it comes to the promise of the island we must count from the day your worship promised it to me to this present hour we are at now. 'Well, how long is it, Sancho, since I promised it to you? said Don Quixote. 'If I remember rightly, said Sancho, 'it must be over twenty years, three days more or less. Don Quixote gave himself a great slap on the forehead and began to laugh heartily, and said he, 'Why, I have not been wandering, either in the Sierra Morena or in the whole course of our sallies, but barely two months, and thou sayest, Sancho, that it is twenty years since I promised thee the island. I believe now thou wouldst have all the money thou hast of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure, I give it to thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee, for so long as I see myself rid of such a goodfornothing squire I'll be glad to be left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely rules of knighterrantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any knighterrant's squire made terms with his lord, 'you must give me so much a month for serving you'? Plunge, scoundrel, rogue, monsterfor such I take thee to beplunge, I say, into the mare magnum of their histories and if thou shalt find that any squire ever said or thought what thou hast said now, I will let thee nail it on my forehead, and give me, over and above, four sound slaps in the face. Turn the rein, or the halter, of thy Dapple, and begone home for one single step further thou shalt not make in my company. O bread thanklessly received! O promises illbestowed! O man more beast than human being! Now, when I was about to raise thee to such a position, that, in spite of thy wife, they would call thee 'my lord,' thou art leaving me? Thou art going now when I had a firm and fixed intention of making thee lord of the best island in the world? Well, as thou thyself hast said before now, honey is not for the mouth of the ass. Ass thou art, ass thou wilt be, and ass thou wilt end when the course of thy life is run for I know it will come to its close before thou dost perceive or discern that thou art a beast. Sancho regarded Don Quixote earnestly while he was giving him this rating, and was so touched by remorse that the tears came to his eyes, and in a piteous and broken voice he said to him, 'Master mine, I confess that, to be a complete ass, all I want is a tail if your worship will only fix one on to me, I'll look on it as rightly placed, and I'll serve you as an ass all the remaining days of my life. Forgive me and have pity on my folly, and remember I know but little, and, if I talk much, it's more from infirmity than malice but he who sins and mends commends himself to God. 'I should have been surprised, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'if thou hadst not introduced some bit of a proverb into thy speech. Well, well, I forgive thee, provided thou dost mend and not show thyself in future so fond of thine own interest, but try to be of good cheer and take heart, and encourage thyself to look forward to the fulfillment of my promises, which, by being delayed, does not become impossible. Sancho said he would do so, and keep up his heart as best he could. They then entered the grove, and Don Quixote settled himself at the foot of an elm, and Sancho at that of a beech, for trees of this kind and others like them always have feet but no hands. Sancho passed the night in pain, for with the evening dews the blow of the staff made itself felt all the more. Don Quixote passed it in his neverfailing meditations but, for all that, they had some winks of sleep, and with the appearance of daylight they pursued their journey in quest of the banks of the famous Ebro, where that befell them which will be told in the following chapter. By stages as already described or left undescribed, two days after quitting the grove Don Quixote and Sancho reached the river Ebro, and the sight of it was a great delight to Don Quixote as he contemplated and gazed upon the charms of its banks, the clearness of its stream, the gentleness of its current and the abundance of its crystal waters and the pleasant view revived a thousand tender thoughts in his mind. Above all, he dwelt upon what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos for though Master Pedro's ape had told him that of those things part was true, part false, he clung more to their truth than to their falsehood, the very reverse of Sancho, who held them all to be downright lies. As they were thus proceeding, then, they discovered a small boat, without oars or any other gear, that lay at the water's edge tied to the stem of a tree growing on the bank. Don Quixote looked all round, and seeing nobody, at once, without more ado, dismounted from Rocinante and bade Sancho get down from Dapple and tie both beasts securely to the trunk of a poplar or willow that stood there. Sancho asked him the reason of this sudden dismounting and tying. Don Quixote made answer, 'Thou must know, Sancho, that this bark is plainly, and without the possibility of any alternative, calling and inviting me to enter it, and in it go to give aid to some knight or other person of distinction in need of it, who is no doubt in some sore strait for this is the way of the books of chivalry and of the enchanters who figure and speak in them. When a knight is involved in some difficulty from which he cannot be delivered save by the hand of another knight, though they may be at a distance of two or three thousand leagues or more one from the other, they either take him up on a cloud, or they provide a bark for him to get into, and in less than the twinkling of an eye they carry him where they will and where his help is required and so, Sancho, this bark is placed here for the same purpose this is as true as that it is now day, and ere this one passes tie Dapple and Rocinante together, and then in God's hand be it to guide us for I would not hold back from embarking, though barefooted friars were to beg me. 'As that's the case, said Sancho, 'and your worship chooses to give in to theseI don't know if I may call them absurditiesat every turn, there's nothing for it but to obey and bow the head, bearing in mind the proverb, 'Do as thy master bids thee, and sit down to table with him' but for all that, for the sake of easing my conscience, I warn your worship that it is my opinion this bark is no enchanted one, but belongs to some of the fishermen of the river, for they catch the best shad in the world here. As Sancho said this, he tied the beasts, leaving them to the care and protection of the enchanters with sorrow enough in his heart. Don Quixote bade him not be uneasy about deserting the animals, 'for he who would carry themselves over such longinquous roads and regions would take care to feed them. 'I don't understand that logiquous, said Sancho, 'nor have I ever heard the word all the days of my life. 'Longinquous, replied Don Quixote, 'means far off but it is no wonder thou dost not understand it, for thou art not bound to know Latin, like some who pretend to know it and don't. 'Now they are tied, said Sancho 'what are we to do next? 'What? said Don Quixote, 'cross ourselves and weigh anchor I mean, embark and cut the moorings by which the bark is held and the bark began to drift away slowly from the bank. But when Sancho saw himself somewhere about two yards out in the river, he began to tremble and give himself up for lost but nothing distressed him more than hearing Dapple bray and seeing Rocinante struggling to get loose, and said he to his master, 'Dapple is braying in grief at our leaving him, and Rocinante is trying to escape and plunge in after us. O dear friends, peace be with you, and may this madness that is taking us away from you, turned into sober sense, bring us back to you. And with this he fell weeping so bitterly, that Don Quixote said to him, sharply and angrily, 'What art thou afraid of, cowardly creature? What art thou weeping at, heart of butterpaste? Who pursues or molests thee, thou soul of a tame mouse? What dost thou want, unsatisfied in the very heart of abundance? Art thou, perchance, tramping barefoot over the Riphaean mountains, instead of being seated on a bench like an archduke on the tranquil stream of this pleasant river, from which in a short space we shall come out upon the broad sea? But we must have already emerged and gone seven hundred or eight hundred leagues and if I had here an astrolabe to take the altitude of the pole, I could tell thee how many we have travelled, though either I know little, or we have already crossed or shall shortly cross the equinoctial line which parts the two opposite poles midway. 'And when we come to that line your worship speaks of, said Sancho, 'how far shall we have gone? 'Very far, said Don Quixote, 'for of the three hundred and sixty degrees that this terraqueous globe contains, as computed by Ptolemy, the greatest cosmographer known, we shall have travelled onehalf when we come to the line I spoke of. 'By God, said Sancho, 'your worship gives me a nice authority for what you say, putrid Dolly something transmogrified, or whatever it is. Don Quixote laughed at the interpretation Sancho put upon 'computed, and the name of the cosmographer Ptolemy, and said he, 'Thou must know, Sancho, that with the Spaniards and those who embark at Cadiz for the East Indies, one of the signs they have to show them when they have passed the equinoctial line I told thee of, is, that the lice die upon everybody on board the ship, and not a single one is left, or to be found in the whole vessel if they gave its weight in gold for it so, Sancho, thou mayest as well pass thy hand down thy thigh, and if thou comest upon anything alive we shall be no longer in doubt if not, then we have crossed. 'I don't believe a bit of it, said Sancho 'still, I'll do as your worship bids me though I don't know what need there is for trying these experiments, for I can see with my own eyes that we have not moved five yards away from the bank, or shifted two yards from where the animals stand, for there are Rocinante and Dapple in the very same place where we left them and watching a point, as I do now, I swear by all that's good, we are not stirring or moving at the pace of an ant. 'Try the test I told thee of, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and don't mind any other, for thou knowest nothing about colures, lines, parallels, zodiacs, ecliptics, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs, bearings, the measures of which the celestial and terrestrial spheres are composed if thou wert acquainted with all these things, or any portion of them, thou wouldst see clearly how many parallels we have cut, what signs we have seen, and what constellations we have left behind and are now leaving behind. But again I tell thee, feel and hunt, for I am certain thou art cleaner than a sheet of smooth white paper. Sancho felt, and passing his hand gently and carefully down to the hollow of his left knee, he looked up at his master and said, 'Either the test is a false one, or we have not come to where your worship says, nor within many leagues of it. 'Why, how so? asked Don Quixote 'hast thou come upon aught? 'Ay, and aughts, replied Sancho and shaking his fingers he washed his whole hand in the river along which the boat was quietly gliding in midstream, not moved by any occult intelligence or invisible enchanter, but simply by the current, just there smooth and gentle. They now came in sight of some large water mills that stood in the middle of the river, and the instant Don Quixote saw them he cried out, 'Seest thou there, my friend? there stands the castle or fortress, where there is, no doubt, some knight in durance, or illused queen, or infanta, or princess, in whose aid I am brought hither. 'What the devil city, fortress, or castle is your worship talking about, seor? said Sancho 'don't you see that those are mills that stand in the river to grind corn? 'Hold thy peace, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'though they look like mills they are not so I have already told thee that enchantments transform things and change their proper shapes I do not mean to say they really change them from one form into another, but that it seems as though they did, as experience proved in the transformation of Dulcinea, sole refuge of my hopes. By this time, the boat, having reached the middle of the stream, began to move less slowly than hitherto. The millers belonging to the mills, when they saw the boat coming down the river, and on the point of being sucked in by the draught of the wheels, ran out in haste, several of them, with long poles to stop it, and being all mealy, with faces and garments covered with flour, they presented a sinister appearance. They raised loud shouts, crying, 'Devils of men, where are you going to? Are you mad? Do you want to drown yourselves, or dash yourselves to pieces among these wheels? 'Did I not tell thee, Sancho, said Don Quixote at this, 'that we had reached the place where I am to show what the might of my arm can do? See what ruffians and villains come out against me see what monsters oppose me see what hideous countenances come to frighten us! You shall soon see, scoundrels! And then standing up in the boat he began in a loud voice to hurl threats at the millers, exclaiming, 'Illconditioned and worsecounselled rabble, restore to liberty and freedom the person ye hold in durance in this your fortress or prison, high or low or of whatever rank or quality he be, for I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Lions, for whom, by the disposition of heaven above, it is reserved to give a happy issue to this adventure and so saying he drew his sword and began making passes in the air at the millers, who, hearing but not understanding all this nonsense, strove to stop the boat, which was now getting into the rushing channel of the wheels. Sancho fell upon his knees devoutly appealing to heaven to deliver him from such imminent peril which it did by the activity and quickness of the millers, who, pushing against the boat with their poles, stopped it, not, however, without upsetting and throwing Don Quixote and Sancho into the water and lucky it was for Don Quixote that he could swim like a goose, though the weight of his armour carried him twice to the bottom and had it not been for the millers, who plunged in and hoisted them both out, it would have been Troy town with the pair of them. As soon as, more drenched than thirsty, they were landed, Sancho went down on his knees and with clasped hands and eyes raised to heaven, prayed a long and fervent prayer to God to deliver him evermore from the rash projects and attempts of his master. The fishermen, the owners of the boat, which the millwheels had knocked to pieces, now came up, and seeing it smashed they proceeded to strip Sancho and to demand payment for it from Don Quixote but he with great calmness, just as if nothing had happened him, told the millers and fishermen that he would pay for the bark most cheerfully, on condition that they delivered up to him, free and unhurt, the person or persons that were in durance in that castle of theirs. 'What persons or what castle art thou talking of, madman? Art thou for carrying off the people who come to grind corn in these mills? 'That's enough, said Don Quixote to himself, 'it would be preaching in the desert to attempt by entreaties to induce this rabble to do any virtuous action. In this adventure two mighty enchanters must have encountered one another, and one frustrates what the other attempts one provided the bark for me, and the other upset me God help us, this world is all machinations and schemes at cross purposes one with the other. I can do no more. And then turning towards the mills he said aloud, 'Friends, whoe'er ye be that are immured in that prison, forgive me that, to my misfortune and yours, I cannot deliver you from your misery this adventure is doubtless reserved and destined for some other knight. So saying he settled with the fishermen, and paid fifty reals for the boat, which Sancho handed to them very much against the grain, saying, 'With a couple more bark businesses like this we shall have sunk our whole capital. The fishermen and the millers stood staring in amazement at the two figures, so very different to all appearance from ordinary men, and were wholly unable to make out the drift of the observations and questions Don Quixote addressed to them and coming to the conclusion that they were madmen, they left them and betook themselves, the millers to their mills, and the fishermen to their huts. Don Quixote and Sancho returned to their beasts, and to their life of beasts, and so ended the adventure of the enchanted bark. They reached their beasts in low spirits and bad humour enough, knight and squire, Sancho particularly, for with him what touched the stock of money touched his heart, and when any was taken from him he felt as if he was robbed of the apples of his eyes. In fine, without exchanging a word, they mounted and quitted the famous river, Don Quixote absorbed in thoughts of his love, Sancho in thinking of his advancement, which just then, it seemed to him, he was very far from securing for, fool as he was, he saw clearly enough that his master's acts were all or most of them utterly senseless and he began to cast about for an opportunity of retiring from his service and going home some day, without entering into any explanations or taking any farewell of him. Fortune, however, ordered matters after a fashion very much the opposite of what he contemplated. It so happened that the next day towards sunset, on coming out of a wood, Don Quixote cast his eyes over a green meadow, and at the far end of it observed some people, and as he drew nearer saw that it was a hawking party. Coming closer, he distinguished among them a lady of graceful mien, on a pure white palfrey or hackney caparisoned with green trappings and a silvermounted sidesaddle. The lady was also in green, and so richly and splendidly dressed that splendour itself seemed personified in her. On her left hand she bore a hawk, a proof to Don Quixote's mind that she must be some great lady and the mistress of the whole hunting party, which was the fact so he said to Sancho, 'Run Sancho, my son, and say to that lady on the palfrey with the hawk that I, the Knight of the Lions, kiss the hands of her exalted beauty, and if her excellence will grant me leave I will go and kiss them in person and place myself at her service for aught that may be in my power and her highness may command and mind, Sancho, how thou speakest, and take care not to thrust in any of thy proverbs into thy message. 'You've got a likely one here to thrust any in! said Sancho 'leave me alone for that! Why, this is not the first time in my life I have carried messages to high and exalted ladies. 'Except that thou didst carry to the lady Dulcinea, said Don Quixote, 'I know not that thou hast carried any other, at least in my service. 'That is true, replied Sancho 'but pledges don't distress a good payer, and in a house where there's plenty supper is soon cooked I mean there's no need of telling or warning me about anything for I'm ready for everything and know a little of everything. 'That I believe, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'go and good luck to thee, and God speed thee. Sancho went off at top speed, forcing Dapple out of his regular pace, and came to where the fair huntress was standing, and dismounting knelt before her and said, 'Fair lady, that knight that you see there, the Knight of the Lions by name, is my master, and I am a squire of his, and at home they call me Sancho Panza. This same Knight of the Lions, who was called not long since the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, sends by me to say may it please your highness to give him leave that, with your permission, approbation, and consent, he may come and carry out his wishes, which are, as he says and I believe, to serve your exalted loftiness and beauty and if you give it, your ladyship will do a thing which will redound to your honour, and he will receive a most distinguished favour and happiness. 'You have indeed, squire, said the lady, 'delivered your message with all the formalities such messages require rise up, for it is not right that the squire of a knight so great as he of the Rueful Countenance, of whom we have heard a great deal here, should remain on his knees rise, my friend, and bid your master welcome to the services of myself and the duke my husband, in a country house we have here. Sancho got up, charmed as much by the beauty of the good lady as by her highbred air and her courtesy, but, above all, by what she had said about having heard of his master, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance for if she did not call him Knight of the Lions it was no doubt because he had so lately taken the name. 'Tell me, brother squire, asked the duchess (whose title, however, is not known), 'this master of yours, is he not one of whom there is a history extant in print, called 'The Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote of La Mancha,' who has for the lady of his heart a certain Dulcinea del Toboso? 'He is the same, seora, replied Sancho 'and that squire of his who figures, or ought to figure, in the said history under the name of Sancho Panza, is myself, unless they have changed me in the cradle, I mean in the press. 'I am rejoiced at all this, said the duchess 'go, brother Panza, and tell your master that he is welcome to my estate, and that nothing could happen to me that could give me greater pleasure. Sancho returned to his master mightily pleased with this gratifying answer, and told him all the great lady had said to him, lauding to the skies, in his rustic phrase, her rare beauty, her graceful gaiety, and her courtesy. Don Quixote drew himself up briskly in his saddle, fixed himself in his stirrups, settled his visor, gave Rocinante the spur, and with an easy bearing advanced to kiss the hands of the duchess, who, having sent to summon the duke her husband, told him while Don Quixote was approaching all about the message and as both of them had read the First Part of this history, and from it were aware of Don Quixote's crazy turn, they awaited him with the greatest delight and anxiety to make his acquaintance, meaning to fall in with his humour and agree with everything he said, and, so long as he stayed with them, to treat him as a knighterrant, with all the ceremonies usual in the books of chivalry they had read, for they themselves were very fond of them. Don Quixote now came up with his visor raised, and as he seemed about to dismount Sancho made haste to go and hold his stirrup for him but in getting down off Dapple he was so unlucky as to hitch his foot in one of the ropes of the packsaddle in such a way that he was unable to free it, and was left hanging by it with his face and breast on the ground. Don Quixote, who was not used to dismount without having the stirrup held, fancying that Sancho had by this time come to hold it for him, threw himself off with a lurch and brought Rocinante's saddle after him, which was no doubt badly girthed, and saddle and he both came to the ground not without discomfiture to him and abundant curses muttered between his teeth against the unlucky Sancho, who had his foot still in the shackles. The duke ordered his huntsmen to go to the help of knight and squire, and they raised Don Quixote, sorely shaken by his fall and he, limping, advanced as best he could to kneel before the noble pair. This, however, the duke would by no means permit on the contrary, dismounting from his horse, he went and embraced Don Quixote, saying, 'I am grieved, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, that your first experience on my ground should have been such an unfortunate one as we have seen but the carelessness of squires is often the cause of worse accidents. 'That which has happened me in meeting you, mighty prince, replied Don Quixote, 'cannot be unfortunate, even if my fall had not stopped short of the depths of the bottomless pit, for the glory of having seen you would have lifted me up and delivered me from it. My squire, God's curse upon him, is better at unloosing his tongue in talking impertinence than in tightening the girths of a saddle to keep it steady but however I may be, fallen or raised up, on foot or on horseback, I shall always be at your service and that of my lady the duchess, your worthy consort, worthy queen of beauty and paramount princess of courtesy. 'Gently, Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, said the duke 'where my lady Doa Dulcinea del Toboso is, it is not right that other beauties should be praised. Sancho, by this time released from his entanglement, was standing by, and before his master could answer he said, 'There is no denying, and it must be maintained, that my lady Dulcinea del Toboso is very beautiful but the hare jumps up where one least expects it and I have heard say that what we call nature is like a potter that makes vessels of clay, and he who makes one fair vessel can as well make two, or three, or a hundred I say so because, by my faith, my lady the duchess is in no way behind my mistress the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. Don Quixote turned to the duchess and said, 'Your highness may conceive that never had knighterrant in this world a more talkative or a droller squire than I have, and he will prove the truth of what I say, if your highness is pleased to accept of my services for a few days. To which the duchess made answer, 'that worthy Sancho is droll I consider a very good thing, because it is a sign that he is shrewd for drollery and sprightliness, Seor Don Quixote, as you very well know, do not take up their abode with dull wits and as good Sancho is droll and sprightly I here set him down as shrewd. 'And talkative, added Don Quixote. 'So much the better, said the duke, 'for many droll things cannot be said in few words but not to lose time in talking, come, great Knight of the Rueful Countenance 'Of the Lions, your highness must say, said Sancho, 'for there is no Rueful Countenance nor any such character now. 'He of the Lions be it, continued the duke 'I say, let Sir Knight of the Lions come to a castle of mine close by, where he shall be given that reception which is due to so exalted a personage, and which the duchess and I are wont to give to all knightserrant who come there. By this time Sancho had fixed and girthed Rocinante's saddle, and Don Quixote having got on his back and the duke mounted a fine horse, they placed the duchess in the middle and set out for the castle. The duchess desired Sancho to come to her side, for she found infinite enjoyment in listening to his shrewd remarks. Sancho required no pressing, but pushed himself in between them and the duke, who thought it rare good fortune to receive such a knighterrant and such a homely squire in their castle. Supreme was the satisfaction that Sancho felt at seeing himself, as it seemed, an established favourite with the duchess, for he looked forward to finding in her castle what he had found in Don Diego's house and in Basilio's he was always fond of good living, and always seized by the forelock any opportunity of feasting himself whenever it presented itself. The history informs us, then, that before they reached the country house or castle, the duke went on in advance and instructed all his servants how they were to treat Don Quixote and so the instant he came up to the castle gates with the duchess, two lackeys or equerries, clad in what they call morning gowns of fine crimson satin reaching to their feet, hastened out, and catching Don Quixote in their arms before he saw or heard them, said to him, 'Your highness should go and take my lady the duchess off her horse. Don Quixote obeyed, and great bandying of compliments followed between the two over the matter but in the end the duchess's determination carried the day, and she refused to get down or dismount from her palfrey except in the arms of the duke, saying she did not consider herself worthy to impose so unnecessary a burden on so great a knight. At length the duke came out to take her down, and as they entered a spacious court two fair damsels came forward and threw over Don Quixote's shoulders a large mantle of the finest scarlet cloth, and at the same instant all the galleries of the court were lined with the menservants and womenservants of the household, crying, 'Welcome, flower and cream of knighterrantry! while all or most of them flung pellets filled with scented water over Don Quixote and the duke and duchess at all which Don Quixote was greatly astonished, and this was the first time that he thoroughly felt and believed himself to be a knighterrant in reality and not merely in fancy, now that he saw himself treated in the same way as he had read of such knights being treated in days of yore. Sancho, deserting Dapple, hung on to the duchess and entered the castle, but feeling some twinges of conscience at having left the ass alone, he approached a respectable duenna who had come out with the rest to receive the duchess, and in a low voice he said to her, 'Seora Gonzalez, or however your grace may be called 'I am called Doa Rodriguez de Grijalba, replied the duenna 'what is your will, brother? To which Sancho made answer, 'I should be glad if your worship would do me the favour to go out to the castle gate, where you will find a grey ass of mine make them, if you please, put him in the stable, or put him there yourself, for the poor little beast is rather easily frightened, and cannot bear being alone at all. 'If the master is as wise as the man, said the duenna, 'we have got a fine bargain. Be off with you, brother, and bad luck to you and him who brought you here go, look after your ass, for we, the duennas of this house, are not used to work of that sort. 'Well then, in troth, returned Sancho, 'I have heard my master, who is the very treasurefinder of stories, telling the story of Lancelot when he came from Britain, say that ladies waited upon him and duennas upon his hack and, if it comes to my ass, I wouldn't change him for Seor Lancelot's hack. 'If you are a jester, brother, said the duenna, 'keep your drolleries for some place where they'll pass muster and be paid for for you'll get nothing from me but a fig. 'At any rate, it will be a very ripe one, said Sancho, 'for you won't lose the trick in years by a point too little. 'Son of a bitch, said the duenna, all aglow with anger, 'whether I'm old or not, it's with God I have to reckon, not with you, you garlicstuffed scoundrel! and she said it so loud, that the duchess heard it, and turning round and seeing the duenna in such a state of excitement, and her eyes flaming so, asked whom she was wrangling with. 'With this good fellow here, said the duenna, 'who has particularly requested me to go and put an ass of his that is at the castle gate into the stable, holding it up to me as an example that they did the same I don't know wherethat some ladies waited on one Lancelot, and duennas on his hack and what is more, to wind up with, he called me old. 'That, said the duchess, 'I should have considered the greatest affront that could be offered me and addressing Sancho, she said to him, 'You must know, friend Sancho, that Doa Rodriguez is very youthful, and that she wears that hood more for authority and custom's sake than because of her years. 'May all the rest of mine be unlucky, said Sancho, 'if I meant it that way I only spoke because the affection I have for my ass is so great, and I thought I could not commend him to a more kindhearted person than the lady Doa Rodriguez. Don Quixote, who was listening, said to him, 'Is this proper conversation for the place, Sancho? 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'every one must mention what he wants wherever he may be I thought of Dapple here, and I spoke of him here if I had thought of him in the stable I would have spoken there. On which the duke observed, 'Sancho is quite right, and there is no reason at all to find fault with him Dapple shall be fed to his heart's content, and Sancho may rest easy, for he shall be treated like himself. While this conversation, amusing to all except Don Quixote, was proceeding, they ascended the staircase and ushered Don Quixote into a chamber hung with rich cloth of gold and brocade six damsels relieved him of his armour and waited on him like pages, all of them prepared and instructed by the duke and duchess as to what they were to do, and how they were to treat Don Quixote, so that he might see and believe they were treating him like a knighterrant. When his armour was removed, there stood Don Quixote in his tightfitting breeches and chamois doublet, lean, lanky, and long, with cheeks that seemed to be kissing each other inside such a figure, that if the damsels waiting on him had not taken care to check their merriment (which was one of the particular directions their master and mistress had given them), they would have burst with laughter. They asked him to let himself be stripped that they might put a shirt on him, but he would not on any account, saying that modesty became knightserrant just as much as valour. However, he said they might give the shirt to Sancho and shutting himself in with him in a room where there was a sumptuous bed, he undressed and put on the shirt and then, finding himself alone with Sancho, he said to him, 'Tell me, thou newfledged buffoon and old booby, dost thou think it right to offend and insult a duenna so deserving of reverence and respect as that one just now? Was that a time to bethink thee of thy Dapple, or are these noble personages likely to let the beasts fare badly when they treat their owners in such elegant style? For God's sake, Sancho, restrain thyself, and don't show the thread so as to let them see what a coarse, boorish texture thou art of. Remember, sinner that thou art, the master is the more esteemed the more respectable and wellbred his servants are and that one of the greatest advantages that princes have over other men is that they have servants as good as themselves to wait on them. Dost thou not seeshortsighted being that thou art, and unlucky mortal that I am!that if they perceive thee to be a coarse clown or a dull blockhead, they will suspect me to be some impostor or swindler? Nay, nay, Sancho friend, keep clear, oh, keep clear of these stumblingblocks for he who falls into the way of being a chatterbox and droll, drops into a wretched buffoon the first time he trips bridle thy tongue, consider and weigh thy words before they escape thy mouth, and bear in mind we are now in quarters whence, by God's help, and the strength of my arm, we shall come forth mightily advanced in fame and fortune. Sancho promised him with much earnestness to keep his mouth shut, and to bite off his tongue before he uttered a word that was not altogether to the purpose and well considered, and told him he might make his mind easy on that point, for it should never be discovered through him what they were. Don Quixote dressed himself, put on his baldric with his sword, threw the scarlet mantle over his shoulders, placed on his head a montera of green satin that the damsels had given him, and thus arrayed passed out into the large room, where he found the damsels drawn up in double file, the same number on each side, all with the appliances for washing the hands, which they presented to him with profuse obeisances and ceremonies. Then came twelve pages, together with the seneschal, to lead him to dinner, as his hosts were already waiting for him. They placed him in the midst of them, and with much pomp and stateliness they conducted him into another room, where there was a sumptuous table laid with but four covers. The duchess and the duke came out to the door of the room to receive him, and with them a grave ecclesiastic, one of those who rule noblemen's houses one of those who, not being born magnates themselves, never know how to teach those who are how to behave as such one of those who would have the greatness of great folk measured by their own narrowness of mind one of those who, when they try to introduce economy into the household they rule, lead it into meanness. One of this sort, I say, must have been the grave churchman who came out with the duke and duchess to receive Don Quixote. A vast number of polite speeches were exchanged, and at length, taking Don Quixote between them, they proceeded to sit down to table. The duke pressed Don Quixote to take the head of the table, and, though he refused, the entreaties of the duke were so urgent that he had to accept it. The ecclesiastic took his seat opposite to him, and the duke and duchess those at the sides. All this time Sancho stood by, gaping with amazement at the honour he saw shown to his master by these illustrious persons and observing all the ceremonious pressing that had passed between the duke and Don Quixote to induce him to take his seat at the head of the table, he said, 'If your worship will give me leave I will tell you a story of what happened in my village about this matter of seats. The moment Sancho said this Don Quixote trembled, making sure that he was about to say something foolish. Sancho glanced at him, and guessing his thoughts, said, 'Don't be afraid of my going astray, seor, or saying anything that won't be pat to the purpose I haven't forgotten the advice your worship gave me just now about talking much or little, well or ill. 'I have no recollection of anything, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'say what thou wilt, only say it quickly. 'Well then, said Sancho, 'what I am going to say is so true that my master Don Quixote, who is here present, will keep me from lying. 'Lie as much as thou wilt for all I care, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for I am not going to stop thee, but consider what thou art going to say. 'I have so considered and reconsidered, said Sancho, 'that the bellringer's in a safe berth as will be seen by what follows. 'It would be well, said Don Quixote, 'if your highnesses would order them to turn out this idiot, for he will talk a heap of nonsense. 'By the life of the duke, Sancho shall not be taken away from me for a moment, said the duchess 'I am very fond of him, for I know he is very discreet. 'Discreet be the days of your holiness, said Sancho, 'for the good opinion you have of my wit, though there's none in me but the story I want to tell is this. There was an invitation given by a gentleman of my town, a very rich one, and one of quality, for he was one of the Alamos of Medina del Campo, and married to Doa Mencia de Quiones, the daughter of Don Alonso de Maraon, Knight of the Order of Santiago, that was drowned at the Herradurahim there was that quarrel about years ago in our village, that my master Don Quixote was mixed up in, to the best of my belief, that Tomasillo the scapegrace, the son of Balbastro the smith, was wounded in.Isn't all this true, master mine? As you live, say so, that these gentlefolk may not take me for some lying chatterer. 'So far, said the ecclesiastic, 'I take you to be more a chatterer than a liar but I don't know what I shall take you for byandby. 'Thou citest so many witnesses and proofs, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that I have no choice but to say thou must be telling the truth go on, and cut the story short, for thou art taking the way not to make an end for two days to come. 'He is not to cut it short, said the duchess 'on the contrary, for my gratification, he is to tell it as he knows it, though he should not finish it these six days and if he took so many they would be to me the pleasantest I ever spent. 'Well then, sirs, I say, continued Sancho, 'that this same gentleman, whom I know as well as I do my own hands, for it's not a bowshot from my house to his, invited a poor but respectable labourer 'Get on, brother, said the churchman 'at the rate you are going you will not stop with your story short of the next world. 'I'll stop less than halfway, please God, said Sancho 'and so I say this labourer, coming to the house of the gentleman I spoke of that invited himrest his soul, he is now dead and more by token he died the death of an angel, so they say for I was not there, for just at that time I had gone to reap at Tembleque 'As you live, my son, said the churchman, 'make haste back from Tembleque, and finish your story without burying the gentleman, unless you want to make more funerals. 'Well then, it so happened, said Sancho, 'that as the pair of them were going to sit down to tableand I think I can see them now plainer than ever Great was the enjoyment the duke and duchess derived from the irritation the worthy churchman showed at the longwinded, halting way Sancho had of telling his story, while Don Quixote was chafing with rage and vexation. 'So, as I was saying, continued Sancho, 'as the pair of them were going to sit down to table, as I said, the labourer insisted upon the gentleman's taking the head of the table, and the gentleman insisted upon the labourer's taking it, as his orders should be obeyed in his house but the labourer, who plumed himself on his politeness and good breeding, would not on any account, until the gentleman, out of patience, putting his hands on his shoulders, compelled him by force to sit down, saying, 'Sit down, you stupid lout, for wherever I sit will be the head to you and that's the story, and, troth, I think it hasn't been brought in amiss here. Don Quixote turned all colours, which, on his sunburnt face, mottled it till it looked like jasper. The duke and duchess suppressed their laughter so as not altogether to mortify Don Quixote, for they saw through Sancho's impertinence and to change the conversation, and keep Sancho from uttering more absurdities, the duchess asked Don Quixote what news he had of the lady Dulcinea, and if he had sent her any presents of giants or miscreants lately, for he could not but have vanquished a good many. To which Don Quixote replied, 'Seora, my misfortunes, though they had a beginning, will never have an end. I have vanquished giants and I have sent her caitiffs and miscreants but where are they to find her if she is enchanted and turned into the most illfavoured peasant wench that can be imagined? 'I don't know, said Sancho Panza 'to me she seems the fairest creature in the world at any rate, in nimbleness and jumping she won't give in to a tumbler by my faith, seora duchess, she leaps from the ground on to the back of an ass like a cat. 'Have you seen her enchanted, Sancho? asked the duke. 'What, seen her! said Sancho 'why, who the devil was it but myself that first thought of the enchantment business? She is as much enchanted as my father. The ecclesiastic, when he heard them talking of giants and caitiffs and enchantments, began to suspect that this must be Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose story the duke was always reading and he had himself often reproved him for it, telling him it was foolish to read such fooleries and becoming convinced that his suspicion was correct, addressing the duke, he said very angrily to him, 'Seor, your excellence will have to give account to God for what this good man does. This Don Quixote, or Don Simpleton, or whatever his name is, cannot, I imagine, be such a blockhead as your excellence would have him, holding out encouragement to him to go on with his vagaries and follies. Then turning to address Don Quixote he said, 'And you, numskull, who put it into your head that you are a knighterrant, and vanquish giants and capture miscreants? Go your ways in a good hour, and in a good hour be it said to you. Go home and bring up your children if you have any, and attend to your business, and give over going wandering about the world, gaping and making a laughingstock of yourself to all who know you and all who don't. Where, in heaven's name, have you discovered that there are or ever were knightserrant? Where are there giants in Spain or miscreants in La Mancha, or enchanted Dulcineas, or all the rest of the silly things they tell about you? Don Quixote listened attentively to the reverend gentleman's words, and as soon as he perceived he had done speaking, regardless of the presence of the duke and duchess, he sprang to his feet with angry looks and an agitated countenance, and saidBut the reply deserves a chapter to itself. Don Quixote, then, having risen to his feet, trembling from head to foot like a man dosed with mercury, said in a hurried, agitated voice, 'The place I am in, the presence in which I stand, and the respect I have and always have had for the profession to which your worship belongs, hold and bind the hands of my just indignation and as well for these reasons as because I know, as everyone knows, that a gownsman's weapon is the same as a woman's, the tongue, I will with mine engage in equal combat with your worship, from whom one might have expected good advice instead of foul abuse. Pious, wellmeant reproof requires a different demeanour and arguments of another sort at any rate, to have reproved me in public, and so roughly, exceeds the bounds of proper reproof, for that comes better with gentleness than with rudeness and it is not seemly to call the sinner roundly blockhead and booby, without knowing anything of the sin that is reproved. Come, tell me, for which of the stupidities you have observed in me do you condemn and abuse me, and bid me go home and look after my house and wife and children, without knowing whether I have any? Is nothing more needed than to get a footing, by hook or by crook, in other people's houses to rule over the masters (and that, perhaps, after having been brought up in all the straitness of some seminary, and without having ever seen more of the world than may lie within twenty or thirty leagues round), to fit one to lay down the law rashly for chivalry, and pass judgment on knightserrant? Is it, haply, an idle occupation, or is the time illspent that is spent in roaming the world in quest, not of its enjoyments, but of those arduous toils whereby the good mount upwards to the abodes of everlasting life? If gentlemen, great lords, nobles, men of high birth, were to rate me as a fool I should take it as an irreparable insult but I care not a farthing if clerks who have never entered upon or trod the paths of chivalry should think me foolish. Knight I am, and knight I will die, if such be the pleasure of the Most High. Some take the broad road of overweening ambition others that of mean and servile flattery others that of deceitful hypocrisy, and some that of true religion but I, led by my star, follow the narrow path of knighterrantry, and in pursuit of that calling I despise wealth, but not honour. I have redressed injuries, righted wrongs, punished insolences, vanquished giants, and crushed monsters I am in love, for no other reason than that it is incumbent on knightserrant to be so but though I am, I am no carnalminded lover, but one of the chaste, platonic sort. My intentions are always directed to worthy ends, to do good to all and evil to none and if he who means this, does this, and makes this his practice deserves to be called a fool, it is for your highnesses to say, O most excellent duke and duchess. 'Good, by God! cried Sancho 'say no more in your own defence, master mine, for there's nothing more in the world to be said, thought, or insisted on and besides, when this gentleman denies, as he has, that there are or ever have been any knightserrant in the world, is it any wonder if he knows nothing of what he has been talking about? 'Perhaps, brother, said the ecclesiastic, 'you are that Sancho Panza that is mentioned, to whom your master has promised an island? 'Yes, I am, said Sancho, 'and what's more, I am one who deserves it as much as anyone I am one of the sort'Attach thyself to the good, and thou wilt be one of them,' and of those, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed,' and of those, 'Who leans against a good tree, a good shade covers him' I have leant upon a good master, and I have been for months going about with him, and please God I shall be just such another long life to him and long life to me, for neither will he be in any want of empires to rule, or I of islands to govern. 'No, Sancho my friend, certainly not, said the duke, 'for in the name of Seor Don Quixote I confer upon you the government of one of no small importance that I have at my disposal. 'Go down on thy knees, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and kiss the feet of his excellence for the favour he has bestowed upon thee. Sancho obeyed, and on seeing this the ecclesiastic stood up from table completely out of temper, exclaiming, 'By the gown I wear, I am almost inclined to say that your excellence is as great a fool as these sinners. No wonder they are mad, when people who are in their senses sanction their madness! I leave your excellence with them, for so long as they are in the house, I will remain in my own, and spare myself the trouble of reproving what I cannot remedy and without uttering another word, or eating another morsel, he went off, the entreaties of the duke and duchess being entirely unavailing to stop him not that the duke said much to him, for he could not, because of the laughter his uncalledfor anger provoked. When he had done laughing, he said to Don Quixote, 'You have replied on your own behalf so stoutly, Sir Knight of the Lions, that there is no occasion to seek further satisfaction for this, which, though it may look like an offence, is not so at all, for, as women can give no offence, no more can ecclesiastics, as you very well know. 'That is true, said Don Quixote, 'and the reason is, that he who is not liable to offence cannot give offence to anyone. Women, children, and ecclesiastics, as they cannot defend themselves, though they may receive offence cannot be insulted, because between the offence and the insult there is, as your excellence very well knows, this difference the insult comes from one who is capable of offering it, and does so, and maintains it the offence may come from any quarter without carrying insult. To take an example a man is standing unsuspectingly in the street and ten others come up armed and beat him he draws his sword and quits himself like a man, but the number of his antagonists makes it impossible for him to effect his purpose and avenge himself this man suffers an offence but not an insult. Another example will make the same thing plain a man is standing with his back turned, another comes up and strikes him, and after striking him takes to flight, without waiting an instant, and the other pursues him but does not overtake him he who received the blow received an offence, but not an insult, because an insult must be maintained. If he who struck him, though he did so sneakingly and treacherously, had drawn his sword and stood and faced him, then he who had been struck would have received offence and insult at the same time offence because he was struck treacherously, insult because he who struck him maintained what he had done, standing his ground without taking to flight. And so, according to the laws of the accursed duel, I may have received offence, but not insult, for neither women nor children can maintain it, nor can they wound, nor have they any way of standing their ground, and it is just the same with those connected with religion for these three sorts of persons are without arms offensive or defensive, and so, though naturally they are bound to defend themselves, they have no right to offend anybody and though I said just now I might have received offence, I say now certainly not, for he who cannot receive an insult can still less give one for which reasons I ought not to feel, nor do I feel, aggrieved at what that good man said to me I only wish he had stayed a little longer, that I might have shown him the mistake he makes in supposing and maintaining that there are not and never have been any knightserrant in the world had Amadis or any of his countless descendants heard him say as much, I am sure it would not have gone well with his worship. 'I will take my oath of that, said Sancho 'they would have given him a slash that would have slit him down from top to toe like a pomegranate or a ripe melon they were likely fellows to put up with jokes of that sort! By my faith, I'm certain if Reinaldos of Montalvan had heard the little man's words he would have given him such a spank on the mouth that he wouldn't have spoken for the next three years ay, let him tackle them, and he'll see how he'll get out of their hands! The duchess, as she listened to Sancho, was ready to die with laughter, and in her own mind she set him down as droller and madder than his master and there were a good many just then who were of the same opinion. Don Quixote finally grew calm, and dinner came to an end, and as the cloth was removed four damsels came in, one of them with a silver basin, another with a jug also of silver, a third with two fine white towels on her shoulder, and the fourth with her arms bared to the elbows, and in her white hands (for white they certainly were) a round ball of Naples soap. The one with the basin approached, and with arch composure and impudence, thrust it under Don Quixote's chin, who, wondering at such a ceremony, said never a word, supposing it to be the custom of that country to wash beards instead of hands he therefore stretched his out as far as he could, and at the same instant the jug began to pour and the damsel with the soap rubbed his beard briskly, raising snowflakes, for the soap lather was no less white, not only over the beard, but all over the face, and over the eyes of the submissive knight, so that they were perforce obliged to keep shut. The duke and duchess, who had not known anything about this, waited to see what came of this strange washing. The barber damsel, when she had him a hand's breadth deep in lather, pretended that there was no more water, and bade the one with the jug go and fetch some, while Seor Don Quixote waited. She did so, and Don Quixote was left the strangest and most ludicrous figure that could be imagined. All those present, and there were a good many, were watching him, and as they saw him there with half a yard of neck, and that uncommonly brown, his eyes shut, and his beard full of soap, it was a great wonder, and only by great discretion, that they were able to restrain their laughter. The damsels, the concocters of the joke, kept their eyes down, not daring to look at their master and mistress and as for them, laughter and anger struggled within them, and they knew not what to do, whether to punish the audacity of the girls, or to reward them for the amusement they had received from seeing Don Quixote in such a plight. At length the damsel with the jug returned and they made an end of washing Don Quixote, and the one who carried the towels very deliberately wiped him and dried him and all four together making him a profound obeisance and curtsey, they were about to go, when the duke, lest Don Quixote should see through the joke, called out to the one with the basin saying, 'Come and wash me, and take care that there is water enough. The girl, sharpwitted and prompt, came and placed the basin for the duke as she had done for Don Quixote, and they soon had him well soaped and washed, and having wiped him dry they made their obeisance and retired. It appeared afterwards that the duke had sworn that if they had not washed him as they had Don Quixote he would have punished them for their impudence, which they adroitly atoned for by soaping him as well. Sancho observed the ceremony of the washing very attentively, and said to himself, 'God bless me, if it were only the custom in this country to wash squires' beards too as well as knights'. For by God and upon my soul I want it badly and if they gave me a scrape of the razor besides I'd take it as a still greater kindness. 'What are you saying to yourself, Sancho? asked the duchess. 'I was saying, seora, he replied, 'that in the courts of other princes, when the cloth is taken away, I have always heard say they give water for the hands, but not lye for the beard and that shows it is good to live long that you may see much to be sure, they say too that he who lives a long life must undergo much evil, though to undergo a washing of that sort is pleasure rather than pain. 'Don't be uneasy, friend Sancho, said the duchess 'I will take care that my damsels wash you, and even put you in the tub if necessary. 'I'll be content with the beard, said Sancho, 'at any rate for the present and as for the future, God has decreed what is to be. 'Attend to worthy Sancho's request, seneschal, said the duchess, 'and do exactly what he wishes. The seneschal replied that Seor Sancho should be obeyed in everything and with that he went away to dinner and took Sancho along with him, while the duke and duchess and Don Quixote remained at table discussing a great variety of things, but all bearing on the calling of arms and knighterrantry. The duchess begged Don Quixote, as he seemed to have a retentive memory, to describe and portray to her the beauty and features of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, for, judging by what fame trumpeted abroad of her beauty, she felt sure she must be the fairest creature in the world, nay, in all La Mancha. Don Quixote sighed on hearing the duchess's request, and said, 'If I could pluck out my heart, and lay it on a plate on this table here before your highness's eyes, it would spare my tongue the pain of telling what can hardly be thought of, for in it your excellence would see her portrayed in full. But why should I attempt to depict and describe in detail, and feature by feature, the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, the burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise wherein the pencils of Parrhasius, Timantes, and Apelles, and the graver of Lysippus ought to be employed, to paint it in pictures and carve it in marble and bronze, and Ciceronian and Demosthenian eloquence to sound its praises? 'What does Demosthenian mean, Seor Don Quixote? said the duchess 'it is a word I never heard in all my life. 'Demosthenian eloquence, said Don Quixote, 'means the eloquence of Demosthenes, as Ciceronian means that of Cicero, who were the two most eloquent orators in the world. 'True, said the duke 'you must have lost your wits to ask such a question. Nevertheless, Seor Don Quixote would greatly gratify us if he would depict her to us for never fear, even in an outline or sketch she will be something to make the fairest envious. 'I would do so certainly, said Don Quixote, 'had she not been blurred to my mind's eye by the misfortune that fell upon her a short time since, one of such a nature that I am more ready to weep over it than to describe it. For your highnesses must know that, going a few days back to kiss her hands and receive her benediction, approbation, and permission for this third sally, I found her altogether a different being from the one I sought I found her enchanted and changed from a princess into a peasant, from fair to foul, from an angel into a devil, from fragrant to pestiferous, from refined to clownish, from a dignified lady into a jumping tomboy, and, in a word, from Dulcinea del Toboso into a coarse Sayago wench. 'God bless me! said the duke aloud at this, 'who can have done the world such an injury? Who can have robbed it of the beauty that gladdened it, of the grace and gaiety that charmed it, of the modesty that shed a lustre upon it? 'Who? replied Don Quixote 'who could it be but some malignant enchanter of the many that persecute me out of envythat accursed race born into the world to obscure and bring to naught the achievements of the good, and glorify and exalt the deeds of the wicked? Enchanters have persecuted me, enchanters persecute me still, and enchanters will continue to persecute me until they have sunk me and my lofty chivalry in the deep abyss of oblivion and they injure and wound me where they know I feel it most. For to deprive a knighterrant of his lady is to deprive him of the eyes he sees with, of the sun that gives him light, of the food whereby he lives. Many a time before have I said it, and I say it now once more, a knighterrant without a lady is like a tree without leaves, a building without a foundation, or a shadow without the body that causes it. 'There is no denying it, said the duchess 'but still, if we are to believe the history of Don Quixote that has come out here lately with general applause, it is to be inferred from it, if I mistake not, that you never saw the lady Dulcinea, and that the said lady is nothing in the world but an imaginary lady, one that you yourself begot and gave birth to in your brain, and adorned with whatever charms and perfections you chose. 'There is a good deal to be said on that point, said Don Quixote 'God knows whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world, or whether she is imaginary or not imaginary these are things the proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths. I have not begotten nor given birth to my lady, though I behold her as she needs must be, a lady who contains in herself all the qualities to make her famous throughout the world, beautiful without blemish, dignified without haughtiness, tender and yet modest, gracious from courtesy and courteous from good breeding, and lastly, of exalted lineage, because beauty shines forth and excels with a higher degree of perfection upon good blood than in the fair of lowly birth. 'That is true, said the duke 'but Seor Don Quixote will give me leave to say what I am constrained to say by the story of his exploits that I have read, from which it is to be inferred that, granting there is a Dulcinea in El Toboso, or out of it, and that she is in the highest degree beautiful as you have described her to us, as regards the loftiness of her lineage she is not on a par with the Orianas, Alastrajareas, Madasimas, or others of that sort, with whom, as you well know, the histories abound. 'To that I may reply, said Don Quixote, 'that Dulcinea is the daughter of her own works, and that virtues rectify blood, and that lowly virtue is more to be regarded and esteemed than exalted vice. Dulcinea, besides, has that within her that may raise her to be a crowned and sceptred queen for the merit of a fair and virtuous woman is capable of performing greater miracles and virtually, though not formally, she has in herself higher fortunes. 'I protest, Seor Don Quixote, said the duchess, 'that in all you say, you go most cautiously and lead in hand, as the saying is henceforth I will believe myself, and I will take care that everyone in my house believes, even my lord the duke if needs be, that there is a Dulcinea in El Toboso, and that she is living today, and that she is beautiful and nobly born and deserves to have such a knight as Seor Don Quixote in her service, and that is the highest praise that it is in my power to give her or that I can think of. But I cannot help entertaining a doubt, and having a certain grudge against Sancho Panza the doubt is this, that the aforesaid history declares that the said Sancho Panza, when he carried a letter on your worship's behalf to the said lady Dulcinea, found her sifting a sack of wheat and more by token it says it was red wheat a thing which makes me doubt the loftiness of her lineage. To this Don Quixote made answer, 'Seora, your highness must know that everything or almost everything that happens me transcends the ordinary limits of what happens to other knightserrant whether it be that it is directed by the inscrutable will of destiny, or by the malice of some jealous enchanter. Now it is an established fact that all or most famous knightserrant have some special gift, one that of being proof against enchantment, another that of being made of such invulnerable flesh that he cannot be wounded, as was the famous Roland, one of the twelve peers of France, of whom it is related that he could not be wounded except in the sole of his left foot, and that it must be with the point of a stout pin and not with any other sort of weapon whatever and so, when Bernardo del Carpio slew him at Roncesvalles, finding that he could not wound him with steel, he lifted him up from the ground in his arms and strangled him, calling to mind seasonably the death which Hercules inflicted on Antus, the fierce giant that they say was the son of Terra. I would infer from what I have mentioned that perhaps I may have some gift of this kind, not that of being invulnerable, because experience has many times proved to me that I am of tender flesh and not at all impenetrable nor that of being proof against enchantment, for I have already seen myself thrust into a cage, in which all the world would not have been able to confine me except by force of enchantments. But as I delivered myself from that one, I am inclined to believe that there is no other that can hurt me and so, these enchanters, seeing that they cannot exert their vile craft against my person, revenge themselves on what I love most, and seek to rob me of life by maltreating that of Dulcinea in whom I live and therefore I am convinced that when my squire carried my message to her, they changed her into a common peasant girl, engaged in such a mean occupation as sifting wheat I have already said, however, that that wheat was not red wheat, nor wheat at all, but grains of orient pearl. And as a proof of all this, I must tell your highnesses that, coming to El Toboso a short time back, I was altogether unable to discover the palace of Dulcinea and that the next day, though Sancho, my squire, saw her in her own proper shape, which is the fairest in the world, to me she appeared to be a coarse, illfavoured farmwench, and by no means a wellspoken one, she who is propriety itself. And so, as I am not and, so far as one can judge, cannot be enchanted, she it is that is enchanted, that is smitten, that is altered, changed, and transformed in her have my enemies revenged themselves upon me, and for her shall I live in ceaseless tears, until I see her in her pristine state. I have mentioned this lest anybody should mind what Sancho said about Dulcinea's winnowing or sifting for, as they changed her to me, it is no wonder if they changed her to him. Dulcinea is illustrious and wellborn, and of one of the gentle families of El Toboso, which are many, ancient, and good. Therein, most assuredly, not small is the share of the peerless Dulcinea, through whom her town will be famous and celebrated in ages to come, as Troy was through Helen, and Spain through La Cava, though with a better title and tradition. For another thing I would have your graces understand that Sancho Panza is one of the drollest squires that ever served knighterrant sometimes there is a simplicity about him so acute that it is an amusement to try and make out whether he is simple or sharp he has mischievous tricks that stamp him rogue, and blundering ways that prove him a booby he doubts everything and believes everything when I fancy he is on the point of coming down headlong from sheer stupidity, he comes out with something shrewd that sends him up to the skies. After all, I would not exchange him for another squire, though I were given a city to boot, and therefore I am in doubt whether it will be well to send him to the government your highness has bestowed upon him though I perceive in him a certain aptitude for the work of governing, so that, with a little trimming of his understanding, he would manage any government as easily as the king does his taxes and moreover, we know already ample experience that it does not require much cleverness or much learning to be a governor, for there are a hundred round about us that scarcely know how to read, and govern like gerfalcons. The main point is that they should have good intentions and be desirous of doing right in all things, for they will never be at a loss for persons to advise and direct them in what they have to do, like those knightgovernors who, being no lawyers, pronounce sentences with the aid of an assessor. My advice to him will be to take no bribe and surrender no right, and I have some other little matters in reserve, that shall be produced in due season for Sancho's benefit and the advantage of the island he is to govern. The duke, duchess, and Don Quixote had reached this point in their conversation, when they heard voices and a great hubbub in the palace, and Sancho burst abruptly into the room all glowing with anger, with a strainingcloth by way of a bib, and followed by several servants, or, more properly speaking, kitchenboys and other underlings, one of whom carried a small trough full of water, that from its colour and impurity was plainly dishwater. The one with the trough pursued him and followed him everywhere he went, endeavouring with the utmost persistence to thrust it under his chin, while another kitchenboy seemed anxious to wash his beard. 'What is all this, brothers? asked the duchess. 'What is it? What do you want to do to this good man? Do you forget he is a governorelect? To which the barber kitchenboy replied, 'The gentleman will not let himself be washed as is customary, and as my lord and the seor his master have been. 'Yes, I will, said Sancho, in a great rage 'but I'd like it to be with cleaner towels, clearer lye, and not such dirty hands for there's not so much difference between me and my master that he should be washed with angels' water and I with devil's lye. The customs of countries and princes' palaces are only good so long as they give no annoyance but the way of washing they have here is worse than doing penance. I have a clean beard, and I don't require to be refreshed in that fashion, and whoever comes to wash me or touch a hair of my head, I mean to say my beard, with all due respect be it said, I'll give him a punch that will leave my fist sunk in his skull for cirimonies and soapings of this sort are more like jokes than the polite attentions of one's host. The duchess was ready to die with laughter when she saw Sancho's rage and heard his words but it was no pleasure to Don Quixote to see him in such a sorry trim, with the dingy towel about him, and the hangerson of the kitchen all round him so making a low bow to the duke and duchess, as if to ask their permission to speak, he addressed the rout in a dignified tone 'Holloa, gentlemen! you let that youth alone, and go back to where you came from, or anywhere else if you like my squire is as clean as any other person, and those troughs are as bad as narrow thinnecked jars to him take my advice and leave him alone, for neither he nor I understand joking. Sancho took the word out of his mouth and went on, 'Nay, let them come and try their jokes on the country bumpkin, for it's about as likely I'll stand them as that it's now midnight! Let them bring me a comb here, or what they please, and curry this beard of mine, and if they get anything out of it that offends against cleanliness, let them clip me to the skin. Upon this, the duchess, laughing all the while, said, 'Sancho Panza is right, and always will be in all he says he is clean, and, as he says himself, he does not require to be washed and if our ways do not please him, he is free to choose. Besides, you promoters of cleanliness have been excessively careless and thoughtless, I don't know if I ought not to say audacious, to bring troughs and wooden utensils and kitchen dishclouts, instead of basins and jugs of pure gold and towels of holland, to such a person and such a beard but, after all, you are illconditioned and illbred, and spiteful as you are, you cannot help showing the grudge you have against the squires of knightserrant. The impudent servitors, and even the seneschal who came with them, took the duchess to be speaking in earnest, so they removed the strainingcloth from Sancho's neck, and with something like shame and confusion of face went off all of them and left him whereupon he, seeing himself safe out of that extreme danger, as it seemed to him, ran and fell on his knees before the duchess, saying, 'From great ladies great favours may be looked for this which your grace has done me today cannot be requited with less than wishing I was dubbed a knighterrant, to devote myself all the days of my life to the service of so exalted a lady. I am a labouring man, my name is Sancho Panza, I am married, I have children, and I am serving as a squire if in any one of these ways I can serve your highness, I will not be longer in obeying than your grace in commanding. 'It is easy to see, Sancho, replied the duchess, 'that you have learned to be polite in the school of politeness itself I mean to say it is easy to see that you have been nursed in the bosom of Seor Don Quixote, who is, of course, the cream of good breeding and flower of ceremonyor cirimony, as you would say yourself. Fair be the fortunes of such a master and such a servant, the one the cynosure of knighterrantry, the other the star of squirely fidelity! Rise, Sancho, my friend I will repay your courtesy by taking care that my lord the duke makes good to you the promised gift of the government as soon as possible. With this, the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote retired to take his midday sleep but the duchess begged Sancho, unless he had a very great desire to go to sleep, to come and spend the afternoon with her and her damsels in a very cool chamber. Sancho replied that, though he certainly had the habit of sleeping four or five hours in the heat of the day in summer, to serve her excellence he would try with all his might not to sleep even one that day, and that he would come in obedience to her command, and with that he went off. The duke gave fresh orders with respect to treating Don Quixote as a knighterrant, without departing even in smallest particular from the style in which, as the stories tell us, they used to treat the knights of old. The history records that Sancho did not sleep that afternoon, but in order to keep his word came, before he had well done dinner, to visit the duchess, who, finding enjoyment in listening to him, made him sit down beside her on a low seat, though Sancho, out of pure good breeding, wanted not to sit down the duchess, however, told him he was to sit down as governor and talk as squire, as in both respects he was worthy of even the chair of the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. Sancho shrugged his shoulders, obeyed, and sat down, and all the duchess's damsels and duennas gathered round him, waiting in profound silence to hear what he would say. It was the duchess, however, who spoke first, saying 'Now that we are alone, and that there is nobody here to overhear us, I should be glad if the seor governor would relieve me of certain doubts I have, rising out of the history of the great Don Quixote that is now in print. One is inasmuch as worthy Sancho never saw Dulcinea, I mean the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, nor took Don Quixote's letter to her, for it was left in the memorandum book in the Sierra Morena, how did he dare to invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat, the whole story being a deception and falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of the peerless Dulcinea's good name, a thing that is not at all becoming the character and fidelity of a good squire? At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up from his chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and his finger on his lips, went all round the room lifting up the hangings and this done, he came back to his seat and said, 'Now, seora, that I have seen that there is no one except the bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer what you have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread. And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that, to my mind, and indeed everybody's that listens to him, are so wise, and run in such a straight furrow, that Satan himself could not have said them better but for all that, really, and beyond all question, it's my firm belief he is cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or eight days ago, which is not yet in history, that is to say, the affair of the enchantment of my lady Dulcinea for I made him believe she is enchanted, though there's no more truth in it than over the hills of beda. The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or deception, so Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had happened, and his hearers were not a little amused by it and then resuming, the duchess said, 'In consequence of what worthy Sancho has told me, a doubt starts up in my mind, and there comes a kind of whisper to my ear that says, 'If Don Quixote be mad, crazy, and cracked, and Sancho Panza his squire knows it, and, notwithstanding, serves and follows him, and goes trusting to his empty promises, there can be no doubt he must be still madder and sillier than his master and that being so, it will be cast in your teeth, seora duchess, if you give the said Sancho an island to govern for how will he who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?' 'By God, seora, said Sancho, 'but that doubt comes timely but your grace may say it out, and speak plainly, or as you like for I know what you say is true, and if I were wise I should have left my master long ago but this was my fate, this was my bad luck I can't help it, I must follow him we're from the same village, I've eaten his bread, I'm fond of him, I'm grateful, he gave me his asscolts, and above all I'm faithful so it's quite impossible for anything to separate us, except the pickaxe and shovel. And if your highness does not like to give me the government you promised, God made me without it, and maybe your not giving it to me will be all the better for my conscience, for fool as I am I know the proverb 'to her hurt the ant got wings,' and it may be that Sancho the squire will get to heaven sooner than Sancho the governor. 'They make as good bread here as in France,' and 'by night all cats are grey,' and 'a hard case enough his, who hasn't broken his fast at two in the afternoon,' and 'there's no stomach a hand's breadth bigger than another,' and the same can be filled 'with straw or hay,' as the saying is, and 'the little birds of the field have God for their purveyor and caterer,' and 'four yards of Cuenca frieze keep one warmer than four of Segovia broadcloth,' and 'when we quit this world and are put underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman,' and 'the Pope's body does not take up more feet of earth than the sacristan's,' for all that the one is higher than the other for when we go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and thengood night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give me the island because I'm a fool, like a wise man I will take care to give myself no trouble about it I have heard say that 'behind the cross there's the devil,' and that 'all that glitters is not gold,' and that from among the oxen, and the ploughs, and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman was taken to be made King of Spain, and from among brocades, and pleasures, and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if the verses of the old ballads don't lie. 'To be sure they don't lie! exclaimed Doa Rodriguez, the duenna, who was one of the listeners. 'Why, there's a ballad that says they put King Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried out from within the tomb They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now, There where I most did sin. And according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would rather be a labouring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him. The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said, 'Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island, in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho be of good cheer for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his government that he may discard it for another of threebordered brocade. The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals, bearing in mind that they are all loyal and wellborn. 'As to governing them well, said Sancho, 'there's no need of charging me to do that, for I'm kindhearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes' and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me I am an old dog, and I know all about 'tus, tus' I can be wideawake if need be, and I don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in governments, to make a beginning is everything and maybe, after having been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour I have been brought up to. 'You are right, Sancho, said the duchess, 'for no one is born ready taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to return to the subject we were discussing just now, the enchantment of the lady Dulcinea, I look upon it as certain, and something more than evident, that Sancho's idea of practising a deception upon his master, making him believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did not recognise her it must be because she was enchanted, was all a device of one of the enchanters that persecute Don Quixote. For in truth and earnest, I know from good authority that the coarse country wench who jumped up on the ass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that worthy Sancho, though he fancies himself the deceiver, is the one that is deceived and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this, than of anything else we never saw. Seor Sancho Panza must know that we too have enchanters here that are well disposed to us, and tell us what goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or deception and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore her and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at present. 'All that's very possible, said Sancho Panza 'and now I'm willing to believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of Montesinos, where he says he saw the lady Dulcinea del Toboso in the very same dress and apparel that I said I had seen her in when I enchanted her all to please myself. It must be all exactly the other way, as your ladyship says because it is impossible to suppose that out of my poor wit such a cunning trick could be concocted in a moment, nor do I think my master is so mad that by my weak and feeble persuasion he could be made to believe a thing so out of all reason. But, seora, your excellence must not therefore think me illdisposed, for a dolt like me is not bound to see into the thoughts and plots of those vile enchanters. I invented all that to escape my master's scolding, and not with any intention of hurting him and if it has turned out differently, there is a God in heaven who judges our hearts. 'That is true, said the duchess 'but tell me, Sancho, what is this you say about the cave of Montesinos, for I should like to know. Sancho upon this related to her, word for word, what has been said already touching that adventure, and having heard it the duchess said, 'From this occurrence it may be inferred that, as the great Don Quixote says he saw there the same country wench Sancho saw on the way from El Toboso, it is, no doubt, Dulcinea, and that there are some very active and exceedingly busy enchanters about. 'So I say, said Sancho, 'and if my lady Dulcinea is enchanted, so much the worse for her, and I'm not going to pick a quarrel with my master's enemies, who seem to be many and spiteful. The truth is that the one I saw was a country wench, and I set her down to be a country wench and if that was Dulcinea it must not be laid at my door, nor should I be called to answer for it or take the consequences. But they must go nagging at me at every step'Sancho said it, Sancho did it, Sancho here, Sancho there,' as if Sancho was nobody at all, and not that same Sancho Panza that's now going all over the world in books, so Samson Carrasco told me, and he's at any rate one that's a bachelor of Salamanca and people of that sort can't lie, except when the whim seizes them or they have some very good reason for it. So there's no occasion for anybody to quarrel with me and then I have a good character, and, as I have heard my master say, 'a good name is better than great riches' let them only stick me into this government and they'll see wonders, for one who has been a good squire will be a good governor. 'All worthy Sancho's observations, said the duchess, 'are Catonian sentences, or at any rate out of the very heart of Michael Verino himself, who florentibus occidit annis. In fact, to speak in his own style, 'under a bad cloak there's often a good drinker.' 'Indeed, seora, said Sancho, 'I never yet drank out of wickedness from thirst I have very likely, for I have nothing of the hypocrite in me I drink when I'm inclined, or, if I'm not inclined, when they offer it to me, so as not to look either straitlaced or illbred for when a friend drinks one's health what heart can be so hard as not to return it? But if I put on my shoes I don't dirty them besides, squires to knightserrant mostly drink water, for they are always wandering among woods, forests and meadows, mountains and crags, without a drop of wine to be had if they gave their eyes for it. 'So I believe, said the duchess 'and now let Sancho go and take his sleep, and we will talk byandby at greater length, and settle how he may soon go and stick himself into the government, as he says. Sancho once more kissed the duchess's hand, and entreated her to let good care be taken of his Dapple, for he was the light of his eyes. 'What is Dapple? said the duchess. 'My ass, said Sancho, 'which, not to mention him by that name, I'm accustomed to call Dapple I begged this lady duenna here to take care of him when I came into the castle, and she got as angry as if I had said she was ugly or old, though it ought to be more natural and proper for duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers. God bless me! what a spite a gentleman of my village had against these ladies! 'He must have been some clown, said Doa Rodriguez the duenna 'for if he had been a gentleman and wellborn he would have exalted them higher than the horns of the moon. 'That will do, said the duchess 'no more of this hush, Doa Rodriguez, and let Seor Panza rest easy and leave the treatment of Dapple in my charge, for as he is a treasure of Sancho's, I'll put him on the apple of my eye. 'It will be enough for him to be in the stable, said Sancho, 'for neither he nor I are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your highness's eye, and I'd as soon stab myself as consent to it for though my master says that in civilities it is better to lose by a card too many than a card too few, when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind what we are about and keep within due bounds. 'Take him to your government, Sancho, said the duchess, 'and there you will be able to make as much of him as you like, and even release him from work and pension him off. 'Don't think, seora duchess, that you have said anything absurd, said Sancho 'I have seen more than two asses go to governments, and for me to take mine with me would be nothing new. Sancho's words made the duchess laugh again and gave her fresh amusement, and dismissing him to sleep she went away to tell the duke the conversation she had had with him, and between them they plotted and arranged to play a joke upon Don Quixote that was to be a rare one and entirely in knighterrantry style, and in that same style they practised several upon him, so much in keeping and so clever that they form the best adventures this great history contains. Great was the pleasure the duke and duchess took in the conversation of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and, more bent than ever upon the plan they had of practising some jokes upon them that should have the look and appearance of adventures, they took as their basis of action what Don Quixote had already told them about the cave of Montesinos, in order to play him a famous one. But what the duchess marvelled at above all was that Sancho's simplicity could be so great as to make him believe as absolute truth that Dulcinea had been enchanted, when it was he himself who had been the enchanter and trickster in the business. Having, therefore, instructed their servants in everything they were to do, six days afterwards they took him out to hunt, with as great a retinue of huntsmen and beaters as a crowned king. They presented Don Quixote with a hunting suit, and Sancho with another of the finest green cloth but Don Quixote declined to put his on, saying that he must soon return to the hard pursuit of arms, and could not carry wardrobes or stores with him. Sancho, however, took what they gave him, meaning to sell it at the first opportunity. The appointed day having arrived, Don Quixote armed himself, and Sancho arrayed himself, and mounted on his Dapple (for he would not give him up though they offered him a horse), he placed himself in the midst of the troop of huntsmen. The duchess came out splendidly attired, and Don Quixote, in pure courtesy and politeness, held the rein of her palfrey, though the duke wanted not to allow him and at last they reached a wood that lay between two high mountains, where, after occupying various posts, ambushes, and paths, and distributing the party in different positions, the hunt began with great noise, shouting, and hallooing, so that, between the baying of the hounds and the blowing of the horns, they could not hear one another. The duchess dismounted, and with a sharp boarspear in her hand posted herself where she knew the wild boars were in the habit of passing. The duke and Don Quixote likewise dismounted and placed themselves one at each side of her. Sancho took up a position in the rear of all without dismounting from Dapple, whom he dared not desert lest some mischief should befall him. Scarcely had they taken their stand in a line with several of their servants, when they saw a huge boar, closely pressed by the hounds and followed by the huntsmen, making towards them, grinding his teeth and tusks, and scattering foam from his mouth. As soon as he saw him Don Quixote, bracing his shield on his arm, and drawing his sword, advanced to meet him the duke with boarspear did the same but the duchess would have gone in front of them all had not the duke prevented her. Sancho alone, deserting Dapple at the sight of the mighty beast, took to his heels as hard as he could and strove in vain to mount a tall oak. As he was clinging to a branch, however, halfway up in his struggle to reach the top, the bough, such was his illluck and hard fate, gave way, and caught in his fall by a broken limb of the oak, he hung suspended in the air unable to reach the ground. Finding himself in this position, and that the green coat was beginning to tear, and reflecting that if the fierce animal came that way he might be able to get at him, he began to utter such cries, and call for help so earnestly, that all who heard him and did not see him felt sure he must be in the teeth of some wild beast. In the end the tusked boar fell pierced by the blades of the many spears they held in front of him and Don Quixote, turning round at the cries of Sancho, for he knew by them that it was he, saw him hanging from the oak head downwards, with Dapple, who did not forsake him in his distress, close beside him and Cide Hamete observes that he seldom saw Sancho Panza without seeing Dapple, or Dapple without seeing Sancho Panza such was their attachment and loyalty one to the other. Don Quixote went over and unhooked Sancho, who, as soon as he found himself on the ground, looked at the rent in his huntingcoat and was grieved to the heart, for he thought he had got a patrimonial estate in that suit. Meanwhile they had slung the mighty boar across the back of a mule, and having covered it with sprigs of rosemary and branches of myrtle, they bore it away as the spoils of victory to some large fieldtents which had been pitched in the middle of the wood, where they found the tables laid and dinner served, in such grand and sumptuous style that it was easy to see the rank and magnificence of those who had provided it. Sancho, as he showed the rents in his torn suit to the duchess, observed, 'If we had been hunting hares, or after small birds, my coat would have been safe from being in the plight it's in I don't know what pleasure one can find in lying in wait for an animal that may take your life with his tusk if he gets at you. I recollect having heard an old ballad sung that says, By bears be thou devoured, as erst Was famous Favila. 'That, said Don Quixote, 'was a Gothic king, who, going ahunting, was devoured by a bear. 'Just so, said Sancho 'and I would not have kings and princes expose themselves to such dangers for the sake of a pleasure which, to my mind, ought not to be one, as it consists in killing an animal that has done no harm whatever. 'Quite the contrary, Sancho you are wrong there, said the duke 'for hunting is more suitable and requisite for kings and princes than for anybody else. The chase is the emblem of war it has stratagems, wiles, and crafty devices for overcoming the enemy in safety in it extreme cold and intolerable heat have to be borne, indolence and sleep are despised, the bodily powers are invigorated, the limbs of him who engages in it are made supple, and, in a word, it is a pursuit which may be followed without injury to anyone and with enjoyment to many and the best of it is, it is not for everybody, as fieldsports of other sorts are, except hawking, which also is only for kings and great lords. Reconsider your opinion therefore, Sancho, and when you are governor take to hunting, and you will find the good of it. 'Nay, said Sancho, 'the good governor should have a broken leg and keep at home it would be a nice thing if, after people had been at the trouble of coming to look for him on business, the governor were to be away in the forest enjoying himself the government would go on badly in that fashion. By my faith, seor, hunting and amusements are more fit for idlers than for governors what I intend to amuse myself with is playing all fours at Eastertime, and bowls on Sundays and holidays for these huntings don't suit my condition or agree with my conscience. 'God grant it may turn out so, said the duke 'because it's a long step from saying to doing. 'Be that as it may, said Sancho, ''pledges don't distress a good payer,' and 'he whom God helps does better than he who gets up early,' and 'it's the tripes that carry the feet and not the feet the tripes' I mean to say that if God gives me help and I do my duty honestly, no doubt I'll govern better than a gerfalcon. Nay, let them only put a finger in my mouth, and they'll see whether I can bite or not. 'The curse of God and all his saints upon thee, thou accursed Sancho! exclaimed Don Quixote 'when will the day comeas I have often said to theewhen I shall hear thee make one single coherent, rational remark without proverbs? Pray, your highnesses, leave this fool alone, for he will grind your souls between, not to say two, but two thousand proverbs, dragged in as much in season, and as much to the purpose asmay God grant as much health to him, or to me if I want to listen to them! 'Sancho Panza's proverbs, said the duchess, 'though more in number than the Greek Commander's, are not therefore less to be esteemed for the conciseness of the maxims. For my own part, I can say they give me more pleasure than others that may be better brought in and more seasonably introduced. In pleasant conversation of this sort they passed out of the tent into the wood, and the day was spent in visiting some of the posts and hidingplaces, and then night closed in, not, however, as brilliantly or tranquilly as might have been expected at the season, for it was then midsummer but bringing with it a kind of haze that greatly aided the project of the duke and duchess and thus, as night began to fall, and a little after twilight set in, suddenly the whole wood on all four sides seemed to be on fire, and shortly after, here, there, on all sides, a vast number of trumpets and other military instruments were heard, as if several troops of cavalry were passing through the wood. The blaze of the fire and the noise of the warlike instruments almost blinded the eyes and deafened the ears of those that stood by, and indeed of all who were in the wood. Then there were heard repeated lelilies after the fashion of the Moors when they rush to battle trumpets and clarions brayed, drums beat, fifes played, so unceasingly and so fast that he could not have had any senses who did not lose them with the confused din of so many instruments. The duke was astounded, the duchess amazed, Don Quixote wondering, Sancho Panza trembling, and indeed, even they who were aware of the cause were frightened. In their fear, silence fell upon them, and a postillion, in the guise of a demon, passed in front of them, blowing, in lieu of a bugle, a huge hollow horn that gave out a horrible hoarse note. 'Ho there! brother courier, cried the duke, 'who are you? Where are you going? What troops are these that seem to be passing through the wood? To which the courier replied in a harsh, discordant voice, 'I am the devil I am in search of Don Quixote of La Mancha those who are coming this way are six troops of enchanters, who are bringing on a triumphal car the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso she comes under enchantment, together with the gallant Frenchman Montesinos, to give instructions to Don Quixote as to how, she the said lady, may be disenchanted. 'If you were the devil, as you say and as your appearance indicates, said the duke, 'you would have known the said knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, for you have him here before you. 'By God and upon my conscience, said the devil, 'I never observed it, for my mind is occupied with so many different things that I was forgetting the main thing I came about. 'This demon must be an honest fellow and a good Christian, said Sancho 'for if he wasn't he wouldn't swear by God and his conscience I feel sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself. Without dismounting, the demon then turned to Don Quixote and said, 'The unfortunate but valiant knight Montesinos sends me to thee, the Knight of the Lions (would that I saw thee in their claws), bidding me tell thee to wait for him wherever I may find thee, as he brings with him her whom they call Dulcinea del Toboso, that he may show thee what is needful in order to disenchant her and as I came for no more I need stay no longer demons of my sort be with thee, and good angels with these gentles and so saying he blew his huge horn, turned about and went off without waiting for a reply from anyone. They all felt fresh wonder, but particularly Sancho and Don Quixote Sancho to see how, in defiance of the truth, they would have it that Dulcinea was enchanted Don Quixote because he could not feel sure whether what had happened to him in the cave of Montesinos was true or not and as he was deep in these cogitations the duke said to him, 'Do you mean to wait, Seor Don Quixote? 'Why not? replied he 'here will I wait, fearless and firm, though all hell should come to attack me. 'Well then, if I see another devil or hear another horn like the last, I'll wait here as much as in Flanders, said Sancho. Night now closed in more completely, and many lights began to flit through the wood, just as those fiery exhalations from the earth, that look like shootingstars to our eyes, flit through the heavens a frightful noise, too, was heard, like that made by the solid wheels the oxcarts usually have, by the harsh, ceaseless creaking of which, they say, the bears and wolves are put to flight, if there happen to be any where they are passing. In addition to all this commotion, there came a further disturbance to increase the tumult, for now it seemed as if in truth, on all four sides of the wood, four encounters or battles were going on at the same time in one quarter resounded the dull noise of a terrible cannonade, in another numberless muskets were being discharged, the shouts of the combatants sounded almost close at hand, and farther away the Moorish lelilies were raised again and again. In a word, the bugles, the horns, the clarions, the trumpets, the drums, the cannon, the musketry, and above all the tremendous noise of the carts, all made up together a din so confused and terrific that Don Quixote had need to summon up all his courage to brave it but Sancho's gave way, and he fell fainting on the skirt of the duchess's robe, who let him lie there and promptly bade them throw water in his face. This was done, and he came to himself by the time that one of the carts with the creaking wheels reached the spot. It was drawn by four plodding oxen all covered with black housings on each horn they had fixed a large lighted wax taper, and on the top of the cart was constructed a raised seat, on which sat a venerable old man with a beard whiter than the very snow, and so long that it fell below his waist he was dressed in a long robe of black buckram for as the cart was thickly set with a multitude of candles it was easy to make out everything that was on it. Leading it were two hideous demons, also clad in buckram, with countenances so frightful that Sancho, having once seen them, shut his eyes so as not to see them again. As soon as the cart came opposite the spot the old man rose from his lofty seat, and standing up said in a loud voice, 'I am the sage Lirgandeo, and without another word the cart then passed on. Behind it came another of the same form, with another aged man enthroned, who, stopping the cart, said in a voice no less solemn than that of the first, 'I am the sage Alquife, the great friend of Urganda the Unknown, and passed on. Then another cart came by at the same pace, but the occupant of the throne was not old like the others, but a man stalwart and robust, and of a forbidding countenance, who as he came up said in a voice far hoarser and more devilish, 'I am the enchanter Archelaus, the mortal enemy of Amadis of Gaul and all his kindred, and then passed on. Having gone a short distance the three carts halted and the monotonous noise of their wheels ceased, and soon after they heard another, not noise, but sound of sweet, harmonious music, of which Sancho was very glad, taking it to be a good sign and said he to the duchess, from whom he did not stir a step, or for a single instant, 'Seora, where there's music there can't be mischief. 'Nor where there are lights and it is bright, said the duchess to which Sancho replied, 'Fire gives light, and it's bright where there are bonfires, as we see by those that are all round us and perhaps may burn us but music is a sign of mirth and merrymaking. 'That remains to be seen, said Don Quixote, who was listening to all that passed and he was right, as is shown in the following chapter. They saw advancing towards them, to the sound of this pleasing music, what they call a triumphal car, drawn by six grey mules with white linen housings, on each of which was mounted a penitent, robed also in white, with a large lighted wax taper in his hand. The car was twice or, perhaps, three times as large as the former ones, and in front and on the sides stood twelve more penitents, all as white as snow and all with lighted tapers, a spectacle to excite fear as well as wonder and on a raised throne was seated a nymph draped in a multitude of silvertissue veils with an embroidery of countless gold spangles glittering all over them, that made her appear, if not richly, at least brilliantly, apparelled. She had her face covered with thin transparent sendal, the texture of which did not prevent the fair features of a maiden from being distinguished, while the numerous lights made it possible to judge of her beauty and of her years, which seemed to be not less than seventeen but not to have yet reached twenty. Beside her was a figure in a robe of state, as they call it, reaching to the feet, while the head was covered with a black veil. But the instant the car was opposite the duke and duchess and Don Quixote the music of the clarions ceased, and then that of the lutes and harps on the car, and the figure in the robe rose up, and flinging it apart and removing the veil from its face, disclosed to their eyes the shape of Death itself, fleshless and hideous, at which sight Don Quixote felt uneasy, Sancho frightened, and the duke and duchess displayed a certain trepidation. Having risen to its feet, this living death, in a sleepy voice and with a tongue hardly awake, held forth as follows I am that Merlin who the legends say The devil had for father, and the lie Hath gathered credence with the lapse of time. Of magic prince, of Zoroastric lore Monarch and treasurer, with jealous eye I view the efforts of the age to hide The gallant deeds of doughty errant knights, Who are, and ever have been, dear to me. Enchanters and magicians and their kind Are mostly hard of heart not so am I For mine is tender, soft, compassionate, And its delight is doing good to all. In the dim caverns of the gloomy Dis, Where, tracing mystic lines and characters, My soul abideth now, there came to me The sorrowladen plaint of her, the fair, The peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. I knew of her enchantment and her fate, From highborn dame to peasant wench transformed And touched with pity, first I turned the leaves Of countless volumes of my devilish craft, And then, in this grim grisly skeleton Myself encasing, hither have I come To show where lies the fitting remedy To give relief in such a piteous case. O thou, the pride and pink of all that I wear The adamantine steel! O shining light, O beacon, polestar, path and guide of all Who, scorning slumber and the lazy down, Adopt the toilsome life of bloodstained arms! To thee, great hero who all praise transcends, La Mancha's lustre and Iberia's star, Don Quixote, wise as brave, to thee I say For peerless Dulcinea del Toboso Her pristine form and beauty to regain, 'Tis needful that thy esquire Sancho shall, On his own sturdy buttocks bared to heaven, Three thousand and three hundred lashes lay, And that they smart and sting and hurt him well. Thus have the authors of her woe resolved. And this is, gentles, wherefore I have come. 'By all that's good, exclaimed Sancho at this, 'I'll just as soon give myself three stabs with a dagger as three, not to say three thousand, lashes. The devil take such a way of disenchanting! I don't see what my backside has got to do with enchantments. By God, if Seor Merlin has not found out some other way of disenchanting the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, she may go to her grave enchanted. 'But I'll take you, Don Clown stuffed with garlic, said Don Quixote, 'and tie you to a tree as naked as when your mother brought you forth, and give you, not to say three thousand three hundred, but six thousand six hundred lashes, and so well laid on that they won't be got rid of if you try three thousand three hundred times don't answer me a word or I'll tear your soul out. On hearing this Merlin said, 'That will not do, for the lashes worthy Sancho has to receive must be given of his own free will and not by force, and at whatever time he pleases, for there is no fixed limit assigned to him but it is permitted him, if he likes to commute by half the pain of this whipping, to let them be given by the hand of another, though it may be somewhat weighty. 'Not a hand, my own or anybody else's, weighty or weighable, shall touch me, said Sancho. 'Was it I that gave birth to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, that my backside is to pay for the sins of her eyes? My master, indeed, that's a part of herfor, he's always calling her 'my life' and 'my soul,' and his stay and propmay and ought to whip himself for her and take all the trouble required for her disenchantment. But for me to whip myself! Abernuncio! As soon as Sancho had done speaking the nymph in silver that was at the side of Merlin's ghost stood up, and removing the thin veil from her face disclosed one that seemed to all something more than exceedingly beautiful and with a masculine freedom from embarrassment and in a voice not very like a lady's, addressing Sancho directly, said, 'Thou wretched squire, soul of a pitcher, heart of a cork tree, with bowels of flint and pebbles if, thou impudent thief, they bade thee throw thyself down from some lofty tower if, enemy of mankind, they asked thee to swallow a dozen of toads, two of lizards, and three of adders if they wanted thee to slay thy wife and children with a sharp murderous scimitar, it would be no wonder for thee to show thyself stubborn and squeamish. But to make a piece of work about three thousand three hundred lashes, what every poor little charityboy gets every monthit is enough to amaze, astonish, astound the compassionate bowels of all who hear it, nay, all who come to hear it in the course of time. Turn, O miserable, hardhearted animal, turn, I say, those timorous owl's eyes upon these of mine that are compared to radiant stars, and thou wilt see them weeping trickling streams and rills, and tracing furrows, tracks, and paths over the fair fields of my cheeks. Let it move thee, crafty, illconditioned monster, to see my blooming youthstill in its teens, for I am not yet twentywasting and withering away beneath the husk of a rude peasant wench and if I do not appear in that shape now, it is a special favour Seor Merlin here has granted me, to the sole end that my beauty may soften thee for the tears of beauty in distress turn rocks into cotton and tigers into ewes. Lay on to that hide of thine, thou great untamed brute, rouse up thy lusty vigour that only urges thee to eat and eat, and set free the softness of my flesh, the gentleness of my nature, and the fairness of my face. And if thou wilt not relent or come to reason for me, do so for the sake of that poor knight thou hast beside thee thy master I mean, whose soul I can this moment see, how he has it stuck in his throat not ten fingers from his lips, and only waiting for thy inflexible or yielding reply to make its escape by his mouth or go back again into his stomach. Don Quixote on hearing this felt his throat, and turning to the duke he said, 'By God, seor, Dulcinea says true, I have my soul stuck here in my throat like the nut of a crossbow. 'What say you to this, Sancho? said the duchess. 'I say, seora, returned Sancho, 'what I said before as for the lashes, abernuncio! 'Abrenuncio, you should say, Sancho, and not as you do, said the duke. 'Let me alone, your highness, said Sancho. 'I'm not in a humour now to look into niceties or a letter more or less, for these lashes that are to be given me, or I'm to give myself, have so upset me, that I don't know what I'm saying or doing. But I'd like to know of this lady, my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, where she learned this way she has of asking favours. She comes to ask me to score my flesh with lashes, and she calls me soul of a pitcher, and great untamed brute, and a string of foul names that the devil is welcome to. Is my flesh brass? or is it anything to me whether she is enchanted or not? Does she bring with her a basket of fair linen, shirts, kerchiefs, socksnot that I wear anyto coax me? No, nothing but one piece of abuse after another, though she knows the proverb they have here that 'an ass loaded with gold goes lightly up a mountain,' and that 'gifts break rocks,' and 'praying to God and plying the hammer,' and that 'one 'take is better than two 'I'll give thee's.' Then there's my master, who ought to stroke me down and pet me to make me turn wool and carded cotton he says if he gets hold of me he'll tie me naked to a tree and double the tale of lashes on me. These tenderhearted gentry should consider that it's not merely a squire, but a governor they are asking to whip himself just as if it was 'drink with cherries.' Let them learn, plague take them, the right way to ask, and beg, and behave themselves for all times are not alike, nor are people always in good humour. I'm now ready to burst with grief at seeing my green coat torn, and they come to ask me to whip myself of my own free will, I having as little fancy for it as for turning cacique. 'Well then, the fact is, friend Sancho, said the duke, 'that unless you become softer than a ripe fig, you shall not get hold of the government. It would be a nice thing for me to send my islanders a cruel governor with flinty bowels, who won't yield to the tears of afflicted damsels or to the prayers of wise, magisterial, ancient enchanters and sages. In short, Sancho, either you must be whipped by yourself, or they must whip you, or you shan't be governor. 'Seor, said Sancho, 'won't two days' grace be given me in which to consider what is best for me? 'No, certainly not, said Merlin 'here, this minute, and on the spot, the matter must be settled either Dulcinea will return to the cave of Montesinos and to her former condition of peasant wench, or else in her present form shall be carried to the Elysian fields, where she will remain waiting until the number of stripes is completed. 'Now then, Sancho! said the duchess, 'show courage, and gratitude for your master Don Quixote's bread that you have eaten we are all bound to oblige and please him for his benevolent disposition and lofty chivalry. Consent to this whipping, my son to the devil with the devil, and leave fear to milksops, for 'a stout heart breaks bad luck,' as you very well know. To this Sancho replied with an irrelevant remark, which, addressing Merlin, he made to him, 'Will your worship tell me, Seor Merlinwhen that courier devil came up he gave my master a message from Seor Montesinos, charging him to wait for him here, as he was coming to arrange how the lady Doa Dulcinea del Toboso was to be disenchanted but up to the present we have not seen Montesinos, nor anything like him. To which Merlin made answer, 'The devil, Sancho, is a blockhead and a great scoundrel I sent him to look for your master, but not with a message from Montesinos but from myself for Montesinos is in his cave expecting, or more properly speaking, waiting for his disenchantment for there's the tail to be skinned yet for him if he owes you anything, or you have any business to transact with him, I'll bring him to you and put him where you choose but for the present make up your mind to consent to this penance, and believe me it will be very good for you, for soul as well for bodyfor your soul because of the charity with which you perform it, for your body because I know that you are of a sanguine habit and it will do you no harm to draw a little blood. 'There are a great many doctors in the world even the enchanters are doctors, said Sancho 'however, as everybody tells me the same thingthough I can't see it myselfI say I am willing to give myself the three thousand three hundred lashes, provided I am to lay them on whenever I like, without any fixing of days or times and I'll try and get out of debt as quickly as I can, that the world may enjoy the beauty of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso as it seems, contrary to what I thought, that she is beautiful after all. It must be a condition, too, that I am not to be bound to draw blood with the scourge, and that if any of the lashes happen to be flyflappers they are to count. Item, that, in case I should make any mistake in the reckoning, Seor Merlin, as he knows everything, is to keep count, and let me know how many are still wanting or over the number. 'There will be no need to let you know of any over, said Merlin, 'because, when you reach the full number, the lady Dulcinea will at once, and that very instant, be disenchanted, and will come in her gratitude to seek out the worthy Sancho, and thank him, and even reward him for the good work. So you have no cause to be uneasy about stripes too many or too few heaven forbid I should cheat anyone of even a hair of his head. 'Well then, in God's hands be it, said Sancho 'in the hard case I'm in I give in I say I accept the penance on the conditions laid down. The instant Sancho uttered these last words the music of the clarions struck up once more, and again a host of muskets were discharged, and Don Quixote hung on Sancho's neck kissing him again and again on the forehead and cheeks. The duchess and the duke expressed the greatest satisfaction, the car began to move on, and as it passed the fair Dulcinea bowed to the duke and duchess and made a low curtsey to Sancho. And now bright smiling dawn came on apace the flowers of the field, revived, raised up their heads, and the crystal waters of the brooks, murmuring over the grey and white pebbles, hastened to pay their tribute to the expectant rivers the glad earth, the unclouded sky, the fresh breeze, the clear light, each and all showed that the day that came treading on the skirts of morning would be calm and bright. The duke and duchess, pleased with their hunt and at having carried out their plans so cleverly and successfully, returned to their castle resolved to follow up their joke for to them there was no reality that could afford them more amusement. The duke had a majordomo of a very facetious and sportive turn, and he it was that played the part of Merlin, made all the arrangements for the late adventure, composed the verses, and got a page to represent Dulcinea and now, with the assistance of his master and mistress, he got up another of the drollest and strangest contrivances that can be imagined. The duchess asked Sancho the next day if he had made a beginning with his penance task which he had to perform for the disenchantment of Dulcinea. He said he had, and had given himself five lashes overnight. The duchess asked him what he had given them with. He said with his hand. 'That, said the duchess, 'is more like giving oneself slaps than lashes I am sure the sage Merlin will not be satisfied with such tenderness worthy Sancho must make a scourge with claws, or a cato'nine tails, that will make itself felt for it's with blood that letters enter, and the release of so great a lady as Dulcinea will not be granted so cheaply, or at such a paltry price and remember, Sancho, that works of charity done in a lukewarm and halfhearted way are without merit and of no avail. To which Sancho replied, 'If your ladyship will give me a proper scourge or cord, I'll lay on with it, provided it does not hurt too much for you must know, boor as I am, my flesh is more cotton than hemp, and it won't do for me to destroy myself for the good of anybody else. 'So be it by all means, said the duchess 'tomorrow I'll give you a scourge that will be just the thing for you, and will accommodate itself to the tenderness of your flesh, as if it was its own sister. Then said Sancho, 'Your highness must know, dear lady of my soul, that I have a letter written to my wife, Teresa Panza, giving her an account of all that has happened me since I left her I have it here in my bosom, and there's nothing wanting but to put the address to it I'd be glad if your discretion would read it, for I think it runs in the governor style I mean the way governors ought to write. 'And who dictated it? asked the duchess. 'Who should have dictated but myself, sinner as I am? said Sancho. 'And did you write it yourself? said the duchess. 'That I didn't, said Sancho 'for I can neither read nor write, though I can sign my name. 'Let us see it, said the duchess, 'for never fear but you display in it the quality and quantity of your wit. Sancho drew out an open letter from his bosom, and the duchess, taking it, found it ran in this fashion SANCHO PANZA'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE, TERESA PANZA If I was well whipped I went mounted like a gentleman if I have got a good government it is at the cost of a good whipping. Thou wilt not understand this just now, my Teresa byandby thou wilt know what it means. I may tell thee, Teresa, I mean thee to go in a coach, for that is a matter of importance, because every other way of going is going on allfours. Thou art a governor's wife take care that nobody speaks evil of thee behind thy back. I send thee here a green hunting suit that my lady the duchess gave me alter it so as to make a petticoat and bodice for our daughter. Don Quixote, my master, if I am to believe what I hear in these parts, is a madman of some sense, and a droll blockhead, and I am in no way behind him. We have been in the cave of Montesinos, and the sage Merlin has laid hold of me for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, her that is called Aldonza Lorenzo over there. With three thousand three hundred lashes, less five, that I'm to give myself, she will be left as entirely disenchanted as the mother that bore her. Say nothing of this to anyone for, make thy affairs public, and some will say they are white and others will say they are black. I shall leave this in a few days for my government, to which I am going with a mighty great desire to make money, for they tell me all new governors set out with the same desire I will feel the pulse of it and will let thee know if thou art to come and live with me or not. Dapple is well and sends many remembrances to thee I am not going to leave him behind though they took me away to be Grand Turk. My lady the duchess kisses thy hands a thousand times do thou make a return with two thousand, for as my master says, nothing costs less or is cheaper than civility. God has not been pleased to provide another valise for me with another hundred crowns, like the one the other day but never mind, my Teresa, the bellringer is in safe quarters, and all will come out in the scouring of the government only it troubles me greatly what they tell methat once I have tasted it I will eat my hands off after it and if that is so it will not come very cheap to me though to be sure the maimed have a benefice of their own in the alms they beg for so that one way or another thou wilt be rich and in luck. God give it to thee as he can, and keep me to serve thee. From this castle, the th of July, . Thy husband, the governor, SANCHO PANZA When she had done reading the letter the duchess said to Sancho, 'On two points the worthy governor goes rather astray one is in saying or hinting that this government has been bestowed upon him for the lashes that he is to give himself, when he knows (and he cannot deny it) that when my lord the duke promised it to him nobody ever dreamt of such a thing as lashes the other is that he shows himself here to be very covetous and I would not have him a moneyseeker, for 'covetousness bursts the bag,' and the covetous governor does ungoverned justice. 'I don't mean it that way, seora, said Sancho 'and if you think the letter doesn't run as it ought to do, it's only to tear it up and make another and maybe it will be a worse one if it is left to my gumption. 'No, no, said the duchess, 'this one will do, and I wish the duke to see it. With this they betook themselves to a garden where they were to dine, and the duchess showed Sancho's letter to the duke, who was highly delighted with it. They dined, and after the cloth had been removed and they had amused themselves for a while with Sancho's rich conversation, the melancholy sound of a fife and harsh discordant drum made itself heard. All seemed somewhat put out by this dull, confused, martial harmony, especially Don Quixote, who could not keep his seat from pure disquietude as to Sancho, it is needless to say that fear drove him to his usual refuge, the side or the skirts of the duchess and indeed and in truth the sound they heard was a most doleful and melancholy one. While they were still in uncertainty they saw advancing towards them through the garden two men clad in mourning robes so long and flowing that they trailed upon the ground. As they marched they beat two great drums which were likewise draped in black, and beside them came the fife player, black and sombre like the others. Following these came a personage of gigantic stature enveloped rather than clad in a gown of the deepest black, the skirt of which was of prodigious dimensions. Over the gown, girdling or crossing his figure, he had a broad baldric which was also black, and from which hung a huge scimitar with a black scabbard and furniture. He had his face covered with a transparent black veil, through which might be descried a very long beard as white as snow. He came on keeping step to the sound of the drums with great gravity and dignity and, in short, his stature, his gait, the sombreness of his appearance and his following might well have struck with astonishment, as they did, all who beheld him without knowing who he was. With this measured pace and in this guise he advanced to kneel before the duke, who, with the others, awaited him standing. The duke, however, would not on any account allow him to speak until he had risen. The prodigious scarecrow obeyed, and standing up, removed the veil from his face and disclosed the most enormous, the longest, the whitest and the thickest beard that human eyes had ever beheld until that moment, and then fetching up a grave, sonorous voice from the depths of his broad, capacious chest, and fixing his eyes on the duke, he said 'Most high and mighty seor, my name is Trifaldin of the White Beard I am squire to the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed Duenna, on whose behalf I bear a message to your highness, which is that your magnificence will be pleased to grant her leave and permission to come and tell you her trouble, which is one of the strangest and most wonderful that the mind most familiar with trouble in the world could have imagined but first she desires to know if the valiant and never vanquished knight, Don Quixote of La Mancha, is in this your castle, for she has come in quest of him on foot and without breaking her fast from the kingdom of Kandy to your realms here a thing which may and ought to be regarded as a miracle or set down to enchantment she is even now at the gate of this fortress or plaisance, and only waits for your permission to enter. I have spoken. And with that he coughed, and stroked down his beard with both his hands, and stood very tranquilly waiting for the response of the duke, which was to this effect 'Many days ago, worthy squire Trifaldin of the White Beard, we heard of the misfortune of my lady the Countess Trifaldi, whom the enchanters have caused to be called the Distressed Duenna. Bid her enter, O stupendous squire, and tell her that the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is here, and from his generous disposition she may safely promise herself every protection and assistance and you may tell her, too, that if my aid be necessary it will not be withheld, for I am bound to give it to her by my quality of knight, which involves the protection of women of all sorts, especially widowed, wronged, and distressed dames, such as her ladyship seems to be. On hearing this Trifaldin bent the knee to the ground, and making a sign to the fifer and drummers to strike up, he turned and marched out of the garden to the same notes and at the same pace as when he entered, leaving them all amazed at his bearing and solemnity. Turning to Don Quixote, the duke said, 'After all, renowned knight, the mists of malice and ignorance are unable to hide or obscure the light of valour and virtue. I say so, because your excellence has been barely six days in this castle, and already the unhappy and the afflicted come in quest of you from lands far distant and remote, and not in coaches or on dromedaries, but on foot and fasting, confident that in that mighty arm they will find a cure for their sorrows and troubles thanks to your great achievements, which are circulated all over the known earth. 'I wish, seor duke, replied Don Quixote, 'that blessed ecclesiastic, who at table the other day showed such illwill and bitter spite against knightserrant, were here now to see with his own eyes whether knights of the sort are needed in the world he would at any rate learn by experience that those suffering any extraordinary affliction or sorrow, in extreme cases and unusual misfortunes do not go to look for a remedy to the houses of jurists or village sacristans, or to the knight who has never attempted to pass the bounds of his own town, or to the indolent courtier who only seeks for news to repeat and talk of, instead of striving to do deeds and exploits for others to relate and record. Relief in distress, help in need, protection for damsels, consolation for widows, are to be found in no sort of persons better than in knightserrant and I give unceasing thanks to heaven that I am one, and regard any misfortune or suffering that may befall me in the pursuit of so honourable a calling as endured to good purpose. Let this duenna come and ask what she will, for I will effect her relief by the might of my arm and the dauntless resolution of my bold heart. The duke and duchess were extremely glad to see how readily Don Quixote fell in with their scheme but at this moment Sancho observed, 'I hope this seora duenna won't be putting any difficulties in the way of the promise of my government for I have heard a Toledo apothecary, who talked like a goldfinch, say that where duennas were mixed up nothing good could happen. God bless me, how he hated them, that same apothecary! And so what I'm thinking is, if all duennas, of whatever sort or condition they may be, are plagues and busybodies, what must they be that are distressed, like this Countess Threeskirts or Threetails!for in my country skirts or tails, tails or skirts, it's all one. 'Hush, friend Sancho, said Don Quixote 'since this lady duenna comes in quest of me from such a distant land she cannot be one of those the apothecary meant moreover this is a countess, and when countesses serve as duennas it is in the service of queens and empresses, for in their own houses they are mistresses paramount and have other duennas to wait on them. To this Doa Rodriguez, who was present, made answer, 'My lady the duchess has duennas in her service that might be countesses if it was the will of fortune 'but laws go as kings like' let nobody speak ill of duennas, above all of ancient maiden ones for though I am not one myself, I know and am aware of the advantage a maiden duenna has over one that is a widow but 'he who clipped us has kept the scissors.' 'For all that, said Sancho, 'there's so much to be clipped about duennas, so my barber said, that 'it will be better not to stir the rice even though it sticks.' 'These squires, returned Doa Rodriguez, 'are always our enemies and as they are the haunting spirits of the antechambers and watch us at every step, whenever they are not saying their prayers (and that's often enough) they spend their time in tattling about us, digging up our bones and burying our good name. But I can tell these walking blocks that we will live in spite of them, and in great houses too, though we die of hunger and cover our flesh, be it delicate or not, with widow's weeds, as one covers or hides a dunghill on a procession day. By my faith, if it were permitted me and time allowed, I could prove, not only to those here present, but to all the world, that there is no virtue that is not to be found in a duenna. 'I have no doubt, said the duchess, 'that my good Doa Rodriguez is right, and very much so but she had better bide her time for fighting her own battle and that of the rest of the duennas, so as to crush the calumny of that vile apothecary, and root out the prejudice in the great Sancho Panza's mind. To which Sancho replied, 'Ever since I have sniffed the governorship I have got rid of the humours of a squire, and I don't care a wild fig for all the duennas in the world. They would have carried on this duenna dispute further had they not heard the notes of the fife and drums once more, from which they concluded that the Distressed Duenna was making her entrance. The duchess asked the duke if it would be proper to go out to receive her, as she was a countess and a person of rank. 'In respect of her being a countess, said Sancho, before the duke could reply, 'I am for your highnesses going out to receive her but in respect of her being a duenna, it is my opinion you should not stir a step. 'Who bade thee meddle in this, Sancho? said Don Quixote. 'Who, seor? said Sancho 'I meddle for I have a right to meddle, as a squire who has learned the rules of courtesy in the school of your worship, the most courteous and bestbred knight in the whole world of courtliness and in these things, as I have heard your worship say, as much is lost by a card too many as by a card too few, and to one who has his ears open, few words. 'Sancho is right, said the duke 'we'll see what the countess is like, and by that measure the courtesy that is due to her. And now the drums and fife made their entrance as before and here the author brought this short chapter to an end and began the next, following up the same adventure, which is one of the most notable in the history. Following the melancholy musicians there filed into the garden as many as twelve duennas, in two lines, all dressed in ample mourning robes apparently of milled serge, with hoods of fine white gauze so long that they allowed only the border of the robe to be seen. Behind them came the Countess Trifaldi, the squire Trifaldin of the White Beard leading her by the hand, clad in the finest unnapped black baize, such that, had it a nap, every tuft would have shown as big as a Martos chickpea the tail, or skirt, or whatever it might be called, ended in three points which were borne up by the hands of three pages, likewise dressed in mourning, forming an elegant geometrical figure with the three acute angles made by the three points, from which all who saw the peaked skirt concluded that it must be because of it the countess was called Trifaldi, as though it were Countess of the Three Skirts and Benengeli says it was so, and that by her right name she was called the Countess Lobuna, because wolves bred in great numbers in her country and if, instead of wolves, they had been foxes, she would have been called the Countess Zorruna, as it was the custom in those parts for lords to take distinctive titles from the thing or things most abundant in their dominions this countess, however, in honour of the new fashion of her skirt, dropped Lobuna and took up Trifaldi. The twelve duennas and the lady came on at procession pace, their faces being covered with black veils, not transparent ones like Trifaldin's, but so close that they allowed nothing to be seen through them. As soon as the band of duennas was fully in sight, the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote stood up, as well as all who were watching the slowmoving procession. The twelve duennas halted and formed a lane, along which the Distressed One advanced, Trifaldin still holding her hand. On seeing this the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote went some twelve paces forward to meet her. She then, kneeling on the ground, said in a voice hoarse and rough, rather than fine and delicate, 'May it please your highnesses not to offer such courtesies to this your servant, I should say to this your handmaid, for I am in such distress that I shall never be able to make a proper return, because my strange and unparalleled misfortune has carried off my wits, and I know not whither but it must be a long way off, for the more I look for them the less I find them. 'He would be wanting in wits, seora countess, said the duke, 'who did not perceive your worth by your person, for at a glance it may be seen it deserves all the cream of courtesy and flower of polite usage and raising her up by the hand he led her to a seat beside the duchess, who likewise received her with great urbanity. Don Quixote remained silent, while Sancho was dying to see the features of Trifaldi and one or two of her many duennas but there was no possibility of it until they themselves displayed them of their own accord and free will. All kept still, waiting to see who would break silence, which the Distressed Duenna did in these words 'I am confident, most mighty lord, most fair lady, and most discreet company, that my most miserable misery will be accorded a reception no less dispassionate than generous and condolent in your most valiant bosoms, for it is one that is enough to melt marble, soften diamonds, and mollify the steel of the most hardened hearts in the world but ere it is proclaimed to your hearing, not to say your ears, I would fain be enlightened whether there be present in this society, circle, or company, that knight immaculatissimus, Don Quixote de la Manchissima, and his squirissimus Panza. 'The Panza is here, said Sancho, before anyone could reply, 'and Don Quixotissimus too and so, most distressedest Duenissima, you may say what you willissimus, for we are all readissimus to do you any servissimus. On this Don Quixote rose, and addressing the Distressed Duenna, said, 'If your sorrows, afflicted lady, can indulge in any hope of relief from the valour or might of any knighterrant, here are mine, which, feeble and limited though they be, shall be entirely devoted to your service. I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose calling it is to give aid to the needy of all sorts and that being so, it is not necessary for you, seora, to make any appeal to benevolence, or deal in preambles, only to tell your woes plainly and straightforwardly for you have hearers that will know how, if not to remedy them, to sympathise with them. On hearing this, the Distressed Duenna made as though she would throw herself at Don Quixote's feet, and actually did fall before them and said, as she strove to embrace them, 'Before these feet and legs I cast myself, O unconquered knight, as before, what they are, the foundations and pillars of knighterrantry these feet I desire to kiss, for upon their steps hangs and depends the sole remedy for my misfortune, O valorous errant, whose veritable achievements leave behind and eclipse the fabulous ones of the Amadises, Esplandians, and Belianises! Then turning from Don Quixote to Sancho Panza, and grasping his hands, she said, 'O thou, most loyal squire that ever served knighterrant in this present age or ages past, whose goodness is more extensive than the beard of Trifaldin my companion here of present, well mayest thou boast thyself that, in serving the great Don Quixote, thou art serving, summed up in one, the whole host of knights that have ever borne arms in the world. I conjure thee, by what thou owest to thy most loyal goodness, that thou wilt become my kind intercessor with thy master, that he speedily give aid to this most humble and most unfortunate countess. To this Sancho made answer, 'As to my goodness, seora, being as long and as great as your squire's beard, it matters very little to me may I have my soul well bearded and moustached when it comes to quit this life, that's the point about beards here below I care little or nothing but without all these blandishments and prayers, I will beg my master (for I know he loves me, and, besides, he has need of me just now for a certain business) to help and aid your worship as far as he can unpack your woes and lay them before us, and leave us to deal with them, for we'll be all of one mind. The duke and duchess, as it was they who had made the experiment of this adventure, were ready to burst with laughter at all this, and between themselves they commended the clever acting of the Trifaldi, who, returning to her seat, said, 'Queen Doa Maguncia reigned over the famous kingdom of Kandy, which lies between the great Trapobana and the Southern Sea, two leagues beyond Cape Comorin. She was the widow of King Archipiela, her lord and husband, and of their marriage they had issue the Princess Antonomasia, heiress of the kingdom which Princess Antonomasia was reared and brought up under my care and direction, I being the oldest and highest in rank of her mother's duennas. Time passed, and the young Antonomasia reached the age of fourteen, and such a perfection of beauty, that nature could not raise it higher. Then, it must not be supposed her intelligence was childish she was as intelligent as she was fair, and she was fairer than all the world and is so still, unless the envious fates and hardhearted sisters three have cut for her the thread of life. But that they have not, for Heaven will not suffer so great a wrong to Earth, as it would be to pluck unripe the grapes of the fairest vineyard on its surface. Of this beauty, to which my poor feeble tongue has failed to do justice, countless princes, not only of that country, but of others, were enamoured, and among them a private gentleman, who was at the court, dared to raise his thoughts to the heaven of so great beauty, trusting to his youth, his gallant bearing, his numerous accomplishments and graces, and his quickness and readiness of wit for I may tell your highnesses, if I am not wearying you, that he played the guitar so as to make it speak, and he was, besides, a poet and a great dancer, and he could make birdcages so well, that by making them alone he might have gained a livelihood, had he found himself reduced to utter poverty and gifts and graces of this kind are enough to bring down a mountain, not to say a tender young girl. But all his gallantry, wit, and gaiety, all his graces and accomplishments, would have been of little or no avail towards gaining the fortress of my pupil, had not the impudent thief taken the precaution of gaining me over first. First, the villain and heartless vagabond sought to win my goodwill and purchase my compliance, so as to get me, like a treacherous warder, to deliver up to him the keys of the fortress I had in charge. In a word, he gained an influence over my mind, and overcame my resolutions with I know not what trinkets and jewels he gave me but it was some verses I heard him singing one night from a grating that opened on the street where he lived, that, more than anything else, made me give way and led to my fall and if I remember rightly they ran thus From that sweet enemy of mine My bleeding heart hath had its wound And to increase the pain I'm bound To suffer and to make no sign. The lines seemed pearls to me and his voice sweet as syrup and afterwards, I may say ever since then, looking at the misfortune into which I have fallen, I have thought that poets, as Plato advised, ought to be banished from all wellordered States at least the amatory ones, for they write verses, not like those of 'The Marquis of Mantua,' that delight and draw tears from the women and children, but sharppointed conceits that pierce the heart like soft thorns, and like the lightning strike it, leaving the raiment uninjured. Another time he sang Come Death, so subtly veiled that I Thy coming know not, how or when, Lest it should give me life again To find how sweet it is to die. and other verses and burdens of the same sort, such as enchant when sung and fascinate when written. And then, when they condescend to compose a sort of verse that was at that time in vogue in Kandy, which they call seguidillas! Then it is that hearts leap and laughter breaks forth, and the body grows restless and all the senses turn quicksilver. And so I say, sirs, that these troubadours richly deserve to be banished to the isles of the lizards. Though it is not they that are in fault, but the simpletons that extol them, and the fools that believe in them and had I been the faithful duenna I should have been, his stale conceits would have never moved me, nor should I have been taken in by such phrases as 'in death I live,' 'in ice I burn,' 'in flames I shiver,' 'hopeless I hope,' 'I go and stay,' and paradoxes of that sort which their writings are full of. And then when they promise the Phnix of Arabia, the crown of Ariadne, the horses of the Sun, the pearls of the South, the gold of Tibar, and the balsam of Panchaia! Then it is they give a loose to their pens, for it costs them little to make promises they have no intention or power of fulfilling. But where am I wandering to? Woe is me, unfortunate being! What madness or folly leads me to speak of the faults of others, when there is so much to be said about my own? Again, woe is me, hapless that I am! it was not verses that conquered me, but my own simplicity it was not music made me yield, but my own imprudence my own great ignorance and little caution opened the way and cleared the path for Don Clavijo's advances, for that was the name of the gentleman I have referred to and so, with my help as gobetween, he found his way many a time into the chamber of the deceived Antonomasia (deceived not by him but by me) under the title of a lawful husband for, sinner though I was, I would not have allowed him to approach the edge of her shoesole without being her husband. No, no, not that marriage must come first in any business of this sort that I take in hand. But there was one hitch in this case, which was that of inequality of rank, Don Clavijo being a private gentleman, and the Princess Antonomasia, as I said, heiress to the kingdom. The entanglement remained for some time a secret, kept hidden by my cunning precautions, until I perceived that a certain expansion of waist in Antonomasia must before long disclose it, the dread of which made us all there take counsel together, and it was agreed that before the mischief came to light, Don Clavijo should demand Antonomasia as his wife before the Vicar, in virtue of an agreement to marry him made by the princess, and drafted by my wit in such binding terms that the might of Samson could not have broken it. The necessary steps were taken the Vicar saw the agreement, and took the lady's confession she confessed everything in full, and he ordered her into the custody of a very worthy alguacil of the court. 'Are there alguacils of the court in Kandy, too, said Sancho at this, 'and poets, and seguidillas? I swear I think the world is the same all over! But make haste, Seora Trifaldi for it is late, and I am dying to know the end of this long story. 'I will, replied the countess. By every word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as Don Quixote was driven to desperation. He bade him hold his tongue, and the Distressed One went on to say 'At length, after much questioning and answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or varying her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour of Don Clavijo, and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife which the Queen Doa Maguncia, the Princess Antonomasia's mother, so took to heart, that within the space of three days we buried her. 'She died, no doubt, said Sancho. 'Of course, said Trifaldin 'they don't bury living people in Kandy, only the dead. 'Seor Squire, said Sancho, 'a man in a swoon has been known to be buried before now, in the belief that he was dead and it struck me that Queen Maguncia ought to have swooned rather than died because with life a great many things come right, and the princess's folly was not so great that she need feel it so keenly. If the lady had married some page of hers, or some other servant of the house, as many another has done, so I have heard say, then the mischief would have been past curing. But to marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been just now described to usindeed, indeed, though it was a folly, it was not such a great one as you think for according to the rules of my master hereand he won't allow me to lieas of men of letters bishops are made, so of gentlemen knights, specially if they be errant, kings and emperors may be made. 'Thou art right, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for with a knighterrant, if he has but two fingers' breadth of good fortune, it is on the cards to become the mightiest lord on earth. But let seora the Distressed One proceed for I suspect she has got yet to tell us the bitter part of this so far sweet story. 'The bitter is indeed to come, said the countess 'and such bitter that colocynth is sweet and oleander toothsome in comparison. The queen, then, being dead, and not in a swoon, we buried her and hardly had we covered her with earth, hardly had we said our last farewells, when, quis talia fando temperet a lachrymis? over the queen's grave there appeared, mounted upon a wooden horse, the giant Malambruno, Maguncia's first cousin, who besides being cruel is an enchanter and he, to revenge the death of his cousin, punish the audacity of Don Clavijo, and in wrath at the contumacy of Antonomasia, left them both enchanted by his art on the grave itself she being changed into an ape of brass, and he into a horrible crocodile of some unknown metal while between the two there stands a pillar, also of metal, with certain characters in the Syriac language inscribed upon it, which, being translated into Kandian, and now into Castilian, contain the following sentence 'These two rash lovers shall not recover their former shape until the valiant Manchegan comes to do battle with me in single combat for the Fates reserve this unexampled adventure for his mighty valour alone.' This done, he drew from its sheath a huge broad scimitar, and seizing me by the hair he made as though he meant to cut my throat and shear my head clean off. I was terrorstricken, my voice stuck in my throat, and I was in the deepest distress nevertheless I summoned up my strength as well as I could, and in a trembling and piteous voice I addressed such words to him as induced him to stay the infliction of a punishment so severe. He then caused all the duennas of the palace, those that are here present, to be brought before him and after having dwelt upon the enormity of our offence, and denounced duennas, their characters, their evil ways and worse intrigues, laying to the charge of all what I alone was guilty of, he said he would not visit us with capital punishment, but with others of a slow nature which would be in effect civil death for ever and the very instant he ceased speaking we all felt the pores of our faces opening, and pricking us, as if with the points of needles. We at once put our hands up to our faces and found ourselves in the state you now see. Here the Distressed One and the other duennas raised the veils with which they were covered, and disclosed countenances all bristling with beards, some red, some black, some white, and some grizzled, at which spectacle the duke and duchess made a show of being filled with wonder. Don Quixote and Sancho were overwhelmed with amazement, and the bystanders lost in astonishment, while the Trifaldi went on to say 'Thus did that malevolent villain Malambruno punish us, covering the tenderness and softness of our faces with these rough bristles! Would to heaven that he had swept off our heads with his enormous scimitar instead of obscuring the light of our countenances with these woolcombings that cover us! For if we look into the matter, sirs (and what I am now going to say I would say with eyes flowing like fountains, only that the thought of our misfortune and the oceans they have already wept, keep them as dry as barley spears, and so I say it without tears), where, I ask, can a duenna with a beard go to? What father or mother will feel pity for her? Who will help her? For, if even when she has a smooth skin, and a face tortured by a thousand kinds of washes and cosmetics, she can hardly get anybody to love her, what will she do when she shows a countenance turned into a thicket? Oh duennas, companions mine! it was an unlucky moment when we were born and an illstarred hour when our fathers begot us! And as she said this she showed signs of being about to faint. Verily and truly all those who find pleasure in histories like this ought show their gratitude to Cide Hamete, its original author, for the scrupulous care he has taken to set before us all its minute particulars, not leaving anything, however trifling it may be, that he does not make clear and plain. He portrays the thoughts, he reveals the fancies, he answers implied questions, clears up doubts, sets objections at rest, and, in a word, makes plain the smallest points the most inquisitive can desire to know. O renowned author! O happy Don Quixote! O famous famous droll Sancho! All and each, may ye live countless ages for the delight and amusement of the dwellers on earth! The history goes on to say that when Sancho saw the Distressed One faint he exclaimed 'I swear by the faith of an honest man and the shades of all my ancestors the Panzas, that never I did see or hear of, nor has my master related or conceived in his mind, such an adventure as this. A thousand devilsnot to curse theetake thee, Malambruno, for an enchanter and a giant! Couldst thou find no other sort of punishment for these sinners but bearding them? Would it not have been betterit would have been better for themto have taken off half their noses from the middle upwards, even though they'd have snuffled when they spoke, than to have put beards on them? I'll bet they have not the means of paying anybody to shave them. 'That is the truth, seor, said one of the twelve 'we have not the money to get ourselves shaved, and so we have, some of us, taken to using stickingplasters by way of an economical remedy, for by applying them to our faces and plucking them off with a jerk we are left as bare and smooth as the bottom of a stone mortar. There are, to be sure, women in Kandy that go about from house to house to remove down, and trim eyebrows, and make cosmetics for the use of the women, but we, the duennas of my lady, would never let them in, for most of them have a flavour of agents that have ceased to be principals and if we are not relieved by Seor Don Quixote we shall be carried to our graves with beards. 'I will pluck out my own in the land of the Moors, said Don Quixote, 'if I don't cure yours. At this instant the Trifaldi recovered from her swoon and said, 'The chink of that promise, valiant knight, reached my ears in the midst of my swoon, and has been the means of reviving me and bringing back my senses and so once more I implore you, illustrious errant, indomitable sir, to let your gracious promises be turned into deeds. 'There shall be no delay on my part, said Don Quixote. 'Bethink you, seora, of what I must do, for my heart is most eager to serve you. 'The fact is, replied the Distressed One, 'it is five thousand leagues, a couple more or less, from this to the kingdom of Kandy, if you go by land but if you go through the air and in a straight line, it is three thousand two hundred and twentyseven. You must know, too, that Malambruno told me that, whenever fate provided the knight our deliverer, he himself would send him a steed far better and with less tricks than a posthorse for he will be that same wooden horse on which the valiant Pierres carried off the fair Magalona which said horse is guided by a peg he has in his forehead that serves for a bridle, and flies through the air with such rapidity that you would fancy the very devils were carrying him. This horse, according to ancient tradition, was made by Merlin. He lent him to Pierres, who was a friend of his, and who made long journeys with him, and, as has been said, carried off the fair Magalona, bearing her through the air on its haunches and making all who beheld them from the earth gape with astonishment and he never lent him save to those whom he loved or those who paid him well and since the great Pierres we know of no one having mounted him until now. From him Malambruno stole him by his magic art, and he has him now in his possession, and makes use of him in his journeys which he constantly makes through different parts of the world he is here today, tomorrow in France, and the next day in Potosi and the best of it is the said horse neither eats nor sleeps nor wears out shoes, and goes at an ambling pace through the air without wings, so that he whom he has mounted upon him can carry a cup full of water in his hand without spilling a drop, so smoothly and easily does he go, for which reason the fair Magalona enjoyed riding him greatly. 'For going smoothly and easily, said Sancho at this, 'give me my Dapple, though he can't go through the air but on the ground I'll back him against all the amblers in the world. They all laughed, and the Distressed One continued 'And this same horse, if so be that Malambruno is disposed to put an end to our sufferings, will be here before us ere the night shall have advanced half an hour for he announced to me that the sign he would give me whereby I might know that I had found the knight I was in quest of, would be to send me the horse wherever he might be, speedily and promptly. 'And how many is there room for on this horse? asked Sancho. 'Two, said the Distressed One, 'one in the saddle, and the other on the croup and generally these two are knight and squire, when there is no damsel that's being carried off. 'I'd like to know, Seora Distressed One, said Sancho, 'what is the name of this horse? 'His name, said the Distressed One, 'is not the same as Bellerophon's horse that was called Pegasus, or Alexander the Great's, called Bucephalus, or Orlando Furioso's, the name of which was Brigliador, nor yet Bayard, the horse of Reinaldos of Montalvan, nor Frontino like Ruggiero's, nor Bootes or Peritoa, as they say the horses of the sun were called, nor is he called Orelia, like the horse on which the unfortunate Rodrigo, the last king of the Goths, rode to the battle where he lost his life and his kingdom. 'I'll bet, said Sancho, 'that as they have given him none of these famous names of wellknown horses, no more have they given him the name of my master's Rocinante, which for being apt surpasses all that have been mentioned. 'That is true, said the bearded countess, 'still it fits him very well, for he is called Clavileo the Swift, which name is in accordance with his being made of wood, with the peg he has in his forehead, and with the swift pace at which he travels and so, as far as name goes, he may compare with the famous Rocinante. 'I have nothing to say against his name, said Sancho 'but with what sort of bridle or halter is he managed? 'I have said already, said the Trifaldi, 'that it is with a peg, by turning which to one side or the other the knight who rides him makes him go as he pleases, either through the upper air, or skimming and almost sweeping the earth, or else in that middle course that is sought and followed in all wellregulated proceedings. 'I'd like to see him, said Sancho 'but to fancy I'm going to mount him, either in the saddle or on the croup, is to ask pears of the elm tree. A good joke indeed! I can hardly keep my seat upon Dapple, and on a packsaddle softer than silk itself, and here they'd have me hold on upon haunches of plank without pad or cushion of any sort! Gad, I have no notion of bruising myself to get rid of anyone's beard let each one shave himself as best he can I'm not going to accompany my master on any such long journey besides, I can't give any help to the shaving of these beards as I can to the disenchantment of my lady Dulcinea. 'Yes, you can, my friend, replied the Trifaldi 'and so much, that without you, so I understand, we shall be able to do nothing. 'In the king's name! exclaimed Sancho, 'what have squires got to do with the adventures of their masters? Are they to have the fame of such as they go through, and we the labour? Body o' me! if the historians would only say, 'Such and such a knight finished such and such an adventure, but with the help of so and so, his squire, without which it would have been impossible for him to accomplish it' but they write curtly, 'Don Paralipomenon of the Three Stars accomplished the adventure of the six monsters' without mentioning such a person as his squire, who was there all the time, just as if there was no such being. Once more, sirs, I say my master may go alone, and much good may it do him and I'll stay here in the company of my lady the duchess and maybe when he comes back, he will find the lady Dulcinea's affair ever so much advanced for I mean in leisure hours, and at idle moments, to give myself a spell of whipping without so much as a hair to cover me. 'For all that you must go if it be necessary, my good Sancho, said the duchess, 'for they are worthy folk who ask you and the faces of these ladies must not remain overgrown in this way because of your idle fears that would be a hard case indeed. 'In the king's name, once more! said Sancho 'If this charitable work were to be done for the sake of damsels in confinement or charitygirls, a man might expose himself to some hardships but to bear it for the sake of stripping beards off duennas! Devil take it! I'd sooner see them all bearded, from the highest to the lowest, and from the most prudish to the most affected. 'You are very hard on duennas, Sancho my friend, said the duchess 'you incline very much to the opinion of the Toledo apothecary. But indeed you are wrong there are duennas in my house that may serve as patterns of duennas and here is my Doa Rodriguez, who will not allow me to say otherwise. 'Your excellence may say it if you like, said the Rodriguez 'for God knows the truth of everything and whether we duennas are good or bad, bearded or smooth, we are our mothers' daughters like other women and as God sent us into the world, he knows why he did, and on his mercy I rely, and not on anybody's beard. 'Well, Seora Rodriguez, Seora Trifaldi, and present company, said Don Quixote, 'I trust in Heaven that it will look with kindly eyes upon your troubles, for Sancho will do as I bid him. Only let Clavileo come and let me find myself face to face with Malambruno, and I am certain no razor will shave you more easily than my sword shall shave Malambruno's head off his shoulders for 'God bears with the wicked, but not for ever.' 'Ah! exclaimed the Distressed One at this, 'may all the stars of the celestial regions look down upon your greatness with benign eyes, valiant knight, and shed every prosperity and valour upon your heart, that it may be the shield and safeguard of the abused and downtrodden race of duennas, detested by apothecaries, sneered at by squires, and made game of by pages. Ill betide the jade that in the flower of her youth would not sooner become a nun than a duenna! Unfortunate beings that we are, we duennas! Though we may be descended in the direct male line from Hector of Troy himself, our mistresses never fail to address us as 'you' if they think it makes queens of them. O giant Malambruno, though thou art an enchanter, thou art true to thy promises. Send us now the peerless Clavileo, that our misfortune may be brought to an end for if the hot weather sets in and these beards of ours are still there, alas for our lot! The Trifaldi said this in such a pathetic way that she drew tears from the eyes of all and even Sancho's filled up and he resolved in his heart to accompany his master to the uttermost ends of the earth, if so be the removal of the wool from those venerable countenances depended upon it. And now night came, and with it the appointed time for the arrival of the famous horse Clavileo, the nonappearance of which was already beginning to make Don Quixote uneasy, for it struck him that, as Malambruno was so long about sending it, either he himself was not the knight for whom the adventure was reserved, or else Malambruno did not dare to meet him in single combat. But lo! suddenly there came into the garden four wildmen all clad in green ivy bearing on their shoulders a great wooden horse. They placed it on its feet on the ground, and one of the wildmen said, 'Let the knight who has heart for it mount this machine. Here Sancho exclaimed, 'I don't mount, for neither have I the heart nor am I a knight. 'And let the squire, if he has one, continued the wildman, 'take his seat on the croup, and let him trust the valiant Malambruno for by no sword save his, nor by the malice of any other, shall he be assailed. It is but to turn this peg the horse has in his neck, and he will bear them through the air to where Malambruno awaits them but lest the vast elevation of their course should make them giddy, their eyes must be covered until the horse neighs, which will be the sign of their having completed their journey. With these words, leaving Clavileo behind them, they retired with easy dignity the way they came. As soon as the Distressed One saw the horse, almost in tears she exclaimed to Don Quixote, 'Valiant knight, the promise of Malambruno has proved trustworthy the horse has come, our beards are growing, and by every hair in them all of us implore thee to shave and shear us, as it is only mounting him with thy squire and making a happy beginning with your new journey. 'That I will, Seora Countess Trifaldi, said Don Quixote, 'most gladly and with right goodwill, without stopping to take a cushion or put on my spurs, so as not to lose time, such is my desire to see you and all these duennas shaved clean. 'That I won't, said Sancho, 'with goodwill or badwill, or any way at all and if this shaving can't be done without my mounting on the croup, my master had better look out for another squire to go with him, and these ladies for some other way of making their faces smooth I'm no witch to have a taste for travelling through the air. What would my islanders say when they heard their governor was going, strolling about on the winds? And another thing, as it is three thousand and odd leagues from this to Kandy, if the horse tires, or the giant takes huff, we'll be half a dozen years getting back, and there won't be isle or island in the world that will know me and so, as it is a common saying 'in delay there's danger,' and 'when they offer thee a heifer run with a halter,' these ladies' beards must excuse me 'Saint Peter is very well in Rome' I mean I am very well in this house where so much is made of me, and I hope for such a good thing from the master as to see myself a governor. 'Friend Sancho, said the duke at this, 'the island that I have promised you is not a moving one, or one that will run away it has roots so deeply buried in the bowels of the earth that it will be no easy matter to pluck it up or shift it from where it is you know as well as I do that there is no sort of office of any importance that is not obtained by a bribe of some kind, great or small well then, that which I look to receive for this government is that you go with your master Don Quixote, and bring this memorable adventure to a conclusion and whether you return on Clavileo as quickly as his speed seems to promise, or adverse fortune brings you back on foot travelling as a pilgrim from hostel to hostel and from inn to inn, you will always find your island on your return where you left it, and your islanders with the same eagerness they have always had to receive you as their governor, and my goodwill will remain the same doubt not the truth of this, Seor Sancho, for that would be grievously wronging my disposition to serve you. 'Say no more, seor, said Sancho 'I am a poor squire and not equal to carrying so much courtesy let my master mount bandage my eyes and commit me to God's care, and tell me if I may commend myself to our Lord or call upon the angels to protect me when we go towering up there. To this the Trifaldi made answer, 'Sancho, you may freely commend yourself to God or whom you will for Malambruno though an enchanter is a Christian, and works his enchantments with great circumspection, taking very good care not to fall out with anyone. 'Well then, said Sancho, 'God and the most holy Trinity of Gaeta give me help! 'Since the memorable adventure of the fulling mills, said Don Quixote, 'I have never seen Sancho in such a fright as now were I as superstitious as others his abject fear would cause me some little trepidation of spirit. But come here, Sancho, for with the leave of these gentles I would say a word or two to thee in private and drawing Sancho aside among the trees of the garden and seizing both his hands he said, 'Thou seest, brother Sancho, the long journey we have before us, and God knows when we shall return, or what leisure or opportunities this business will allow us I wish thee therefore to retire now to thy chamber, as though thou wert going to fetch something required for the road, and in a trice give thyself if it be only five hundred lashes on account of the three thousand three hundred to which thou art bound it will be all to the good, and to make a beginning with a thing is to have it half finished. 'By God, said Sancho, 'but your worship must be out of your senses! This is like the common saying, 'You see me with child, and you want me a virgin.' Just as I'm about to go sitting on a bare board, your worship would have me score my backside! Indeed, your worship is not reasonable. Let us be off to shave these duennas and on our return I promise on my word to make such haste to wipe off all that's due as will satisfy your worship I can't say more. 'Well, I will comfort myself with that promise, my good Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'and I believe thou wilt keep it for indeed though stupid thou art veracious. 'I'm not voracious, said Sancho, 'only peckish but even if I was a little, still I'd keep my word. With this they went back to mount Clavileo, and as they were about to do so Don Quixote said, 'Cover thine eyes, Sancho, and mount for one who sends for us from lands so far distant cannot mean to deceive us for the sake of the paltry glory to be derived from deceiving persons who trust in him though all should turn out the contrary of what I hope, no malice will be able to dim the glory of having undertaken this exploit. 'Let us be off, seor, said Sancho, 'for I have taken the beards and tears of these ladies deeply to heart, and I shan't eat a bit to relish it until I have seen them restored to their former smoothness. Mount, your worship, and blindfold yourself, for if I am to go on the croup, it is plain the rider in the saddle must mount first. 'That is true, said Don Quixote, and, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he begged the Distressed One to bandage his eyes very carefully but after having them bandaged he uncovered them again, saying, 'If my memory does not deceive me, I have read in Virgil of the Palladium of Troy, a wooden horse the Greeks offered to the goddess Pallas, which was big with armed knights, who were afterwards the destruction of Troy so it would be as well to see, first of all, what Clavileo has in his stomach. 'There is no occasion, said the Distressed One 'I will be bail for him, and I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherous about him you may mount without any fear, Seor Don Quixote on my head be it if any harm befalls you. Don Quixote thought that to say anything further with regard to his safety would be putting his courage in an unfavourable light and so, without more words, he mounted Clavileo, and tried the peg, which turned easily and as he had no stirrups and his legs hung down, he looked like nothing so much as a figure in some Roman triumph painted or embroidered on a Flemish tapestry. Much against the grain, and very slowly, Sancho proceeded to mount, and, after settling himself as well as he could on the croup, found it rather hard, and not at all soft, and asked the duke if it would be possible to oblige him with a pad of some kind, or a cushion even if it were off the couch of his lady the duchess, or the bed of one of the pages as the haunches of that horse were more like marble than wood. On this the Trifaldi observed that Clavileo would not bear any kind of harness or trappings, and that his best plan would be to sit sideways like a woman, as in that way he would not feel the hardness so much. Sancho did so, and, bidding them farewell, allowed his eyes to be bandaged, but immediately afterwards uncovered them again, and looking tenderly and tearfully on those in the garden, bade them help him in his present strait with plenty of Paternosters and Ave Marias, that God might provide someone to say as many for them, whenever they found themselves in a similar emergency. At this Don Quixote exclaimed, 'Art thou on the gallows, thief, or at thy last moment, to use pitiful entreaties of that sort? Cowardly, spiritless creature, art thou not in the very place the fair Magalona occupied, and from which she descended, not into the grave, but to become Queen of France unless the histories lie? And I who am here beside thee, may I not put myself on a par with the valiant Pierres, who pressed this very spot that I now press? Cover thine eyes, cover thine eyes, abject animal, and let not thy fear escape thy lips, at least in my presence. 'Blindfold me, said Sancho 'as you won't let me commend myself or be commended to God, is it any wonder if I am afraid there is a region of devils about here that will carry us off to Peralvillo? They were then blindfolded, and Don Quixote, finding himself settled to his satisfaction, felt for the peg, and the instant he placed his fingers on it, all the duennas and all who stood by lifted up their voices exclaiming, 'God guide thee, valiant knight! God be with thee, intrepid squire! Now, now ye go cleaving the air more swiftly than an arrow! Now ye begin to amaze and astonish all who are gazing at you from the earth! Take care not to wobble about, valiant Sancho! Mind thou fall not, for thy fall will be worse than that rash youth's who tried to steer the chariot of his father the Sun! As Sancho heard the voices, clinging tightly to his master and winding his arms round him, he said, 'Seor, how do they make out we are going up so high, if their voices reach us here and they seem to be speaking quite close to us? 'Don't mind that, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'for as affairs of this sort, and flights like this are out of the common course of things, you can see and hear as much as you like a thousand leagues off but don't squeeze me so tight or thou wilt upset me and really I know not what thou hast to be uneasy or frightened at, for I can safely swear I never mounted a smoothergoing steed all the days of my life one would fancy we never stirred from one place. Banish fear, my friend, for indeed everything is going as it ought, and we have the wind astern. 'That's true, said Sancho, 'for such a strong wind comes against me on this side, that it seems as if people were blowing on me with a thousand pair of bellows which was the case they were puffing at him with a great pair of bellows for the whole adventure was so well planned by the duke, the duchess, and their majordomo, that nothing was omitted to make it perfectly successful. Don Quixote now, feeling the blast, said, 'Beyond a doubt, Sancho, we must have already reached the second region of the air, where the hail and snow are generated the thunder, the lightning, and the thunderbolts are engendered in the third region, and if we go on ascending at this rate, we shall shortly plunge into the region of fire, and I know not how to regulate this peg, so as not to mount up where we shall be burned. And now they began to warm their faces, from a distance, with tow that could be easily set on fire and extinguished again, fixed on the end of a cane. On feeling the heat Sancho said, 'May I die if we are not already in that fire place, or very near it, for a good part of my beard has been singed, and I have a mind, seor, to uncover and see whereabouts we are. 'Do nothing of the kind, said Don Quixote 'remember the true story of the licentiate Torralva that the devils carried flying through the air riding on a stick with his eyes shut who in twelve hours reached Rome and dismounted at Torre di Nona, which is a street of the city, and saw the whole sack and storming and the death of Bourbon, and was back in Madrid the next morning, where he gave an account of all he had seen and he said moreover that as he was going through the air, the devil bade him open his eyes, and he did so, and saw himself so near the body of the moon, so it seemed to him, that he could have laid hold of it with his hand, and that he did not dare to look at the earth lest he should be seized with giddiness. So that, Sancho, it will not do for us to uncover ourselves, for he who has us in charge will be responsible for us and perhaps we are gaining an altitude and mounting up to enable us to descend at one swoop on the kingdom of Kandy, as the saker or falcon does on the heron, so as to seize it however high it may soar and though it seems to us not half an hour since we left the garden, believe me we must have travelled a great distance. 'I don't know how that may be, said Sancho 'all I know is that if the Seora Magallanes or Magalona was satisfied with this croup, she could not have been very tender of flesh. The duke, the duchess, and all in the garden were listening to the conversation of the two heroes, and were beyond measure amused by it and now, desirous of putting a finishing touch to this rare and wellcontrived adventure, they applied a light to Clavileo's tail with some tow, and the horse, being full of squibs and crackers, immediately blew up with a prodigious noise, and brought Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to the ground half singed. By this time the bearded band of duennas, the Trifaldi and all, had vanished from the garden, and those that remained lay stretched on the ground as if in a swoon. Don Quixote and Sancho got up rather shaken, and, looking about them, were filled with amazement at finding themselves in the same garden from which they had started, and seeing such a number of people stretched on the ground and their astonishment was increased when at one side of the garden they perceived a tall lance planted in the ground, and hanging from it by two cords of green silk a smooth white parchment on which there was the following inscription in large gold letters 'The illustrious knight Don Quixote of La Mancha has, by merely attempting it, finished and concluded the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed Duenna Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of the duennas are now smooth and clean, and King Don Clavijo and Queen Antonomasia in their original form and when the squirely flagellation shall have been completed, the white dove shall find herself delivered from the pestiferous gerfalcons that persecute her, and in the arms of her beloved mate for such is the decree of the sage Merlin, archenchanter of enchanters. As soon as Don Quixote had read the inscription on the parchment he perceived clearly that it referred to the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and returning hearty thanks to heaven that he had with so little danger achieved so grand an exploit as to restore to their former complexion the countenances of those venerable duennas, he advanced towards the duke and duchess, who had not yet come to themselves, and taking the duke by the hand he said, 'Be of good cheer, worthy sir, be of good cheer it's nothing at all the adventure is now over and without any harm done, as the inscription fixed on this post shows plainly. The duke came to himself slowly and like one recovering consciousness after a heavy sleep, and the duchess and all who had fallen prostrate about the garden did the same, with such demonstrations of wonder and amazement that they would have almost persuaded one that what they pretended so adroitly in jest had happened to them in reality. The duke read the placard with halfshut eyes, and then ran to embrace Don Quixote with open arms, declaring him to be the best knight that had ever been seen in any age. Sancho kept looking about for the Distressed One, to see what her face was like without the beard, and if she was as fair as her elegant person promised but they told him that, the instant Clavileo descended flaming through the air and came to the ground, the whole band of duennas with the Trifaldi vanished, and that they were already shaved and without a stump left. The duchess asked Sancho how he had fared on that long journey, to which Sancho replied, 'I felt, seora, that we were flying through the region of fire, as my master told me, and I wanted to uncover my eyes for a bit but my master, when I asked leave to uncover myself, would not let me but as I have a little bit of curiosity about me, and a desire to know what is forbidden and kept from me, quietly and without anyone seeing me I drew aside the handkerchief covering my eyes ever so little, close to my nose, and from underneath looked towards the earth, and it seemed to me that it was altogether no bigger than a grain of mustard seed, and that the men walking on it were little bigger than hazel nuts so you may see how high we must have got to then. To this the duchess said, 'Sancho, my friend, mind what you are saying it seems you could not have seen the earth, but only the men walking on it for if the earth looked to you like a grain of mustard seed, and each man like a hazel nut, one man alone would have covered the whole earth. 'That is true, said Sancho, 'but for all that I got a glimpse of a bit of one side of it, and saw it all. 'Take care, Sancho, said the duchess, 'with a bit of one side one does not see the whole of what one looks at. 'I don't understand that way of looking at things, said Sancho 'I only know that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that as we were flying by enchantment so I might have seen the whole earth and all the men by enchantment whatever way I looked and if you won't believe this, no more will you believe that, uncovering myself nearly to the eyebrows, I saw myself so close to the sky that there was not a palm and a half between me and it and by everything that I can swear by, seora, it is mighty great! And it so happened we came by where the seven goats are, and by God and upon my soul, as in my youth I was a goatherd in my own country, as soon as I saw them I felt a longing to be among them for a little, and if I had not given way to it I think I'd have burst. So I come and take, and what do I do? without saying anything to anybody, not even to my master, softly and quietly I got down from Clavileo and amused myself with the goatswhich are like violets, like flowersfor nigh threequarters of an hour and Clavileo never stirred or moved from one spot. 'And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats, said the duke, 'how did Seor Don Quixote amuse himself? To which Don Quixote replied, 'As all these things and such like occurrences are out of the ordinary course of nature, it is no wonder that Sancho says what he does for my own part I can only say that I did not uncover my eyes either above or below, nor did I see sky or earth or sea or shore. It is true I felt that I was passing through the region of the air, and even that I touched that of fire but that we passed farther I cannot believe for the region of fire being between the heaven of the moon and the last region of the air, we could not have reached that heaven where the seven goats Sancho speaks of are without being burned and as we were not burned, either Sancho is lying or Sancho is dreaming. 'I am neither lying nor dreaming, said Sancho 'only ask me the tokens of those same goats, and you'll see by that whether I'm telling the truth or not. 'Tell us them then, Sancho, said the duchess. 'Two of them, said Sancho, 'are green, two bloodred, two blue, and one a mixture of all colours. 'An odd sort of goat, that, said the duke 'in this earthly region of ours we have no such colours I mean goats of such colours. 'That's very plain, said Sancho 'of course there must be a difference between the goats of heaven and the goats of the earth. 'Tell me, Sancho, said the duke, 'did you see any hegoat among those goats? 'No, seor, said Sancho 'but I have heard say that none ever passed the horns of the moon. They did not care to ask him anything more about his journey, for they saw he was in the vein to go rambling all over the heavens giving an account of everything that went on there, without having ever stirred from the garden. Such, in short, was the end of the adventure of the Distressed Duenna, which gave the duke and duchess laughing matter not only for the time being, but for all their lives, and Sancho something to talk about for ages, if he lived so long but Don Quixote, coming close to his ear, said to him, 'Sancho, as you would have us believe what you saw in heaven, I require you to believe me as to what I saw in the cave of Montesinos I say no more. The duke and duchess were so well pleased with the successful and droll result of the adventure of the Distressed One, that they resolved to carry on the joke, seeing what a fit subject they had to deal with for making it all pass for reality. So having laid their plans and given instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to Sancho in his government of the promised island, the next day, that following Clavileo's flight, the duke told Sancho to prepare and get ready to go and be governor, for his islanders were already looking out for him as for the showers of May. Sancho made him an obeisance, and said, 'Ever since I came down from heaven, and from the top of it beheld the earth, and saw how little it is, the great desire I had to be a governor has been partly cooled in me for what is there grand in being ruler on a grain of mustard seed, or what dignity or authority in governing half a dozen men about as big as hazel nuts for, so far as I could see, there were no more on the whole earth? If your lordship would be so good as to give me ever so small a bit of heaven, were it no more than half a league, I'd rather have it than the best island in the world. 'Recollect, Sancho, said the duke, 'I cannot give a bit of heaven, no not so much as the breadth of my nail, to anyone rewards and favours of that sort are reserved for God alone. What I can give I give you, and that is a real, genuine island, compact, well proportioned, and uncommonly fertile and fruitful, where, if you know how to use your opportunities, you may, with the help of the world's riches, gain those of heaven. 'Well then, said Sancho, 'let the island come and I'll try and be such a governor, that in spite of scoundrels I'll go to heaven and it's not from any craving to quit my own humble condition or better myself, but from the desire I have to try what it tastes like to be a governor. 'If you once make trial of it, Sancho, said the duke, 'you'll eat your fingers off after the government, so sweet a thing is it to command and be obeyed. Depend upon it when your master comes to be emperor (as he will beyond a doubt from the course his affairs are taking), it will be no easy matter to wrest the dignity from him, and he will be sore and sorry at heart to have been so long without becoming one. 'Seor, said Sancho, 'it is my belief it's a good thing to be in command, if it's only over a drove of cattle. 'May I be buried with you, Sancho, said the duke, 'but you know everything I hope you will make as good a governor as your sagacity promises and that is all I have to say and now remember tomorrow is the day you must set out for the government of the island, and this evening they will provide you with the proper attire for you to wear, and all things requisite for your departure. 'Let them dress me as they like, said Sancho 'however I'm dressed I'll be Sancho Panza. 'That's true, said the duke 'but one's dress must be suited to the office or rank one holds for it would not do for a jurist to dress like a soldier, or a soldier like a priest. You, Sancho, shall go partly as a lawyer, partly as a captain, for, in the island I am giving you, arms are needed as much as letters, and letters as much as arms. 'Of letters I know but little, said Sancho, 'for I don't even know the A B C but it is enough for me to have the Christus in my memory to be a good governor. As for arms, I'll handle those they give me till I drop, and then, God be my help! 'With so good a memory, said the duke, 'Sancho cannot go wrong in anything. Here Don Quixote joined them and learning what passed, and how soon Sancho was to go to his government, he with the duke's permission took him by the hand, and retired to his room with him for the purpose of giving him advice as to how he was to demean himself in his office. As soon as they had entered the chamber he closed the door after him, and almost by force made Sancho sit down beside him, and in a quiet tone thus addressed him 'I give infinite thanks to heaven, friend Sancho, that, before I have met with any good luck, fortune has come forward to meet thee. I who counted upon my good fortune to discharge the recompense of thy services, find myself still waiting for advancement, while thou, before the time, and contrary to all reasonable expectation, seest thyself blessed in the fulfillment of thy desires. Some will bribe, beg, solicit, rise early, entreat, persist, without attaining the object of their suit while another comes, and without knowing why or wherefore, finds himself invested with the place or office so many have sued for and here it is that the common saying, 'There is good luck as well as bad luck in suits,' applies. Thou, who, to my thinking, art beyond all doubt a dullard, without early rising or night watching or taking any trouble, with the mere breath of knighterrantry that has breathed upon thee, seest thyself without more ado governor of an island, as though it were a mere matter of course. This I say, Sancho, that thou attribute not the favour thou hast received to thine own merits, but give thanks to heaven that disposes matters beneficently, and secondly thanks to the great power the profession of knighterrantry contains in itself. With a heart, then, inclined to believe what I have said to thee, attend, my son, to thy Cato here who would counsel thee and be thy polestar and guide to direct and pilot thee to a safe haven out of this stormy sea wherein thou art about to ingulf thyself for offices and great trusts are nothing else but a mighty gulf of troubles. 'First of all, my son, thou must fear God, for in the fear of him is wisdom, and being wise thou canst not err in aught. 'Secondly, thou must keep in view what thou art, striving to know thyself, the most difficult thing to know that the mind can imagine. If thou knowest thyself, it will follow thou wilt not puff thyself up like the frog that strove to make himself as large as the ox if thou dost, the recollection of having kept pigs in thine own country will serve as the ugly feet for the wheel of thy folly. 'That's the truth, said Sancho 'but that was when I was a boy afterwards when I was something more of a man it was geese I kept, not pigs. But to my thinking that has nothing to do with it for all who are governors don't come of a kingly stock. 'True, said Don Quixote, 'and for that reason those who are not of noble origin should take care that the dignity of the office they hold be accompanied by a gentle suavity, which wisely managed will save them from the sneers of malice that no station escapes. 'Glory in thy humble birth, Sancho, and be not ashamed of saying thou art peasantborn for when it is seen thou art not ashamed no one will set himself to put thee to the blush and pride thyself rather upon being one of lowly virtue than a lofty sinner. Countless are they who, born of mean parentage, have risen to the highest dignities, pontifical and imperial, and of the truth of this I could give thee instances enough to weary thee. 'Remember, Sancho, if thou make virtue thy aim, and take a pride in doing virtuous actions, thou wilt have no cause to envy those who have princely and lordly ones, for blood is an inheritance, but virtue an acquisition, and virtue has in itself alone a worth that blood does not possess. 'This being so, if perchance anyone of thy kinsfolk should come to see thee when thou art in thine island, thou art not to repel or slight him, but on the contrary to welcome him, entertain him, and make much of him for in so doing thou wilt be approved of heaven (which is not pleased that any should despise what it hath made), and wilt comply with the laws of wellordered nature. 'If thou carriest thy wife with thee (and it is not well for those that administer governments to be long without their wives), teach and instruct her, and strive to smooth down her natural roughness for all that may be gained by a wise governor may be lost and wasted by a boorish stupid wife. 'If perchance thou art left a widowera thing which may happenand in virtue of thy office seekest a consort of higher degree, choose not one to serve thee for a hook, or for a fishingrod, or for the hood of thy 'won't have it' for verily, I tell thee, for all the judge's wife receives, the husband will be held accountable at the general calling to account where he will have repay in death fourfold, items that in life he regarded as naught. 'Never go by arbitrary law, which is so much favoured by ignorant men who plume themselves on cleverness. 'Let the tears of the poor man find with thee more compassion, but not more justice, than the pleadings of the rich. 'Strive to lay bare the truth, as well amid the promises and presents of the rich man, as amid the sobs and entreaties of the poor. 'When equity may and should be brought into play, press not the utmost rigour of the law against the guilty for the reputation of the stern judge stands not higher than that of the compassionate. 'If perchance thou permittest the staff of justice to swerve, let it be not by the weight of a gift, but by that of mercy. 'If it should happen to thee to give judgment in the cause of one who is thine enemy, turn thy thoughts away from thy injury and fix them on the justice of the case. 'Let not thine own passion blind thee in another man's cause for the errors thou wilt thus commit will be most frequently irremediable or if not, only to be remedied at the expense of thy good name and even of thy fortune. 'If any handsome woman come to seek justice of thee, turn away thine eyes from her tears and thine ears from her lamentations, and consider deliberately the merits of her demand, if thou wouldst not have thy reason swept away by her weeping, and thy rectitude by her sighs. 'Abuse not by word him whom thou hast to punish in deed, for the pain of punishment is enough for the unfortunate without the addition of thine objurgations. 'Bear in mind that the culprit who comes under thy jurisdiction is but a miserable man subject to all the propensities of our depraved nature, and so far as may be in thy power show thyself lenient and forbearing for though the attributes of God are all equal, to our eyes that of mercy is brighter and loftier than that of justice. 'If thou followest these precepts and rules, Sancho, thy days will be long, thy fame eternal, thy reward abundant, thy felicity unutterable thou wilt marry thy children as thou wouldst they and thy grandchildren will bear titles thou wilt live in peace and concord with all men and, when life draws to a close, death will come to thee in calm and ripe old age, and the light and loving hands of thy greatgrandchildren will close thine eyes. 'What I have thus far addressed to thee are instructions for the adornment of thy mind listen now to those which tend to that of the body. Who, hearing the foregoing discourse of Don Quixote, would not have set him down for a person of great good sense and greater rectitude of purpose? But, as has been frequently observed in the course of this great history, he only talked nonsense when he touched on chivalry, and in discussing all other subjects showed that he had a clear and unbiassed understanding so that at every turn his acts gave the lie to his intellect, and his intellect to his acts but in the case of these second counsels that he gave Sancho, he showed himself to have a lively turn of humour, and displayed conspicuously his wisdom, and also his folly. Sancho listened to him with the deepest attention, and endeavoured to fix his counsels in his memory, like one who meant to follow them and by their means bring the full promise of his government to a happy issue. Don Quixote, then, went on to say 'With regard to the mode in which thou shouldst govern thy person and thy house, Sancho, the first charge I have to give thee is to be clean, and to cut thy nails, not letting them grow as some do, whose ignorance makes them fancy that long nails are an ornament to their hands, as if those excrescences they neglect to cut were nails, and not the talons of a lizardcatching kestrela filthy and unnatural abuse. 'Go not ungirt and loose, Sancho for disordered attire is a sign of an unstable mind, unless indeed the slovenliness and slackness is to be set down to craft, as was the common opinion in the case of Julius Csar. 'Ascertain cautiously what thy office may be worth and if it will allow thee to give liveries to thy servants, give them respectable and serviceable, rather than showy and gay ones, and divide them between thy servants and the poor that is to say, if thou canst clothe six pages, clothe three and three poor men, and thus thou wilt have pages for heaven and pages for earth the vainglorious never think of this new mode of giving liveries. 'Eat not garlic nor onions, lest they find out thy boorish origin by the smell walk slowly and speak deliberately, but not in such a way as to make it seem thou art listening to thyself, for all affectation is bad. 'Dine sparingly and sup more sparingly still for the health of the whole body is forged in the workshop of the stomach. 'Be temperate in drinking, bearing in mind that wine in excess keeps neither secrets nor promises. 'Take care, Sancho, not to chew on both sides, and not to eruct in anybody's presence. 'Eruct! said Sancho 'I don't know what that means. 'To eruct, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'means to belch, and that is one of the filthiest words in the Spanish language, though a very expressive one and therefore nice folk have had recourse to the Latin, and instead of belch say eruct, and instead of belches say eructations and if some do not understand these terms it matters little, for custom will bring them into use in the course of time, so that they will be readily understood this is the way a language is enriched custom and the public are allpowerful there. 'In truth, seor, said Sancho, 'one of the counsels and cautions I mean to bear in mind shall be this, not to belch, for I'm constantly doing it. 'Eruct, Sancho, not belch, said Don Quixote. 'Eruct, I shall say henceforth, and I swear not to forget it, said Sancho. 'Likewise, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'thou must not mingle such a quantity of proverbs in thy discourse as thou dost for though proverbs are short maxims, thou dost drag them in so often by the head and shoulders that they savour more of nonsense than of maxims. 'God alone can cure that, said Sancho 'for I have more proverbs in me than a book, and when I speak they come so thick together into my mouth that they fall to fighting among themselves to get out that's why my tongue lets fly the first that come, though they may not be pat to the purpose. But I'll take care henceforward to use such as befit the dignity of my office for 'in a house where there's plenty, supper is soon cooked,' and 'he who binds does not wrangle,' and 'the bellringer's in a safe berth,' and 'giving and keeping require brains.' 'That's it, Sancho! said Don Quixote 'pack, tack, string proverbs together nobody is hindering thee! 'My mother beats me, and I go on with my tricks.' I am bidding thee avoid proverbs, and here in a second thou hast shot out a whole litany of them, which have as much to do with what we are talking about as 'over the hills of beda.' Mind, Sancho, I do not say that a proverb aptly brought in is objectionable but to pile up and string together proverbs at random makes conversation dull and vulgar. 'When thou ridest on horseback, do not go lolling with thy body on the back of the saddle, nor carry thy legs stiff or sticking out from the horse's belly, nor yet sit so loosely that one would suppose thou wert on Dapple for the seat on a horse makes gentlemen of some and grooms of others. 'Be moderate in thy sleep for he who does not rise early does not get the benefit of the day and remember, Sancho, diligence is the mother of good fortune, and indolence, its opposite, never yet attained the object of an honest ambition. 'The last counsel I will give thee now, though it does not tend to bodily improvement, I would have thee carry carefully in thy memory, for I believe it will be no less useful to thee than those I have given thee already, and it is thisnever engage in a dispute about families, at least in the way of comparing them one with another for necessarily one of those compared will be better than the other, and thou wilt be hated by the one thou hast disparaged, and get nothing in any shape from the one thou hast exalted. 'Thy attire shall be hose of full length, a long jerkin, and a cloak a trifle longer loose breeches by no means, for they are becoming neither for gentlemen nor for governors. 'For the present, Sancho, this is all that has occurred to me to advise thee as time goes by and occasions arise my instructions shall follow, if thou take care to let me know how thou art circumstanced. 'Seor, said Sancho, 'I see well enough that all these things your worship has said to me are good, holy, and profitable but what use will they be to me if I don't remember one of them? To be sure that about not letting my nails grow, and marrying again if I have the chance, will not slip out of my head but all that other hash, muddle, and jumbleI don't and can't recollect any more of it than of last year's clouds so it must be given me in writing for though I can't either read or write, I'll give it to my confessor, to drive it into me and remind me of it whenever it is necessary. 'Ah, sinner that I am! said Don Quixote, 'how bad it looks in governors not to know how to read or write for let me tell thee, Sancho, when a man knows not how to read, or is lefthanded, it argues one of two things either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents, or that he himself was so incorrigible and illconditioned that neither good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him. It is a great defect that thou labourest under, and therefore I would have thee learn at any rate to sign thy name. 'I can sign my name well enough, said Sancho, 'for when I was steward of the brotherhood in my village I learned to make certain letters, like the marks on bales of goods, which they told me made out my name. Besides I can pretend my right hand is disabled and make someone else sign for me, for 'there's a remedy for everything except death' and as I shall be in command and hold the staff, I can do as I like moreover, 'he who has the alcalde for his father,' and I'll be governor, and that's higher than alcalde. Only come and see! Let them make light of me and abuse me 'they'll come for wool and go back shorn' 'whom God loves, his house is known to Him' 'the silly sayings of the rich pass for saws in the world' and as I'll be rich, being a governor, and at the same time generous, as I mean to be, no fault will be seen in me. 'Only make yourself honey and the flies will suck you' 'as much as thou hast so much art thou worth,' as my grandmother used to say and 'thou canst have no revenge of a man of substance.' 'Oh, God's curse upon thee, Sancho! here exclaimed Don Quixote 'sixty thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs! For the last hour thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting the pangs of torture on me with every one of them. Those proverbs will bring thee to the gallows one day, I promise thee thy subjects will take the government from thee, or there will be revolts among them. Tell me, where dost thou pick them up, thou booby? How dost thou apply them, thou blockhead? For with me, to utter one and make it apply properly, I have to sweat and labour as if I were digging. 'By God, master mine, said Sancho, 'your worship is making a fuss about very little. Why the devil should you be vexed if I make use of what is my own? And I have got nothing else, nor any other stock in trade except proverbs and more proverbs and here are three just this instant come into my head, pat to the purpose and like pears in a basket but I won't repeat them, for 'sage silence is called Sancho.' 'That, Sancho, thou art not, said Don Quixote 'for not only art thou not sage silence, but thou art pestilent prate and perversity still I would like to know what three proverbs have just now come into thy memory, for I have been turning over mine ownand it is a good oneand none occurs to me. 'What can be better, said Sancho, 'than 'never put thy thumbs between two back teeth' and 'to 'get out of my house and 'what do you want with my wife? there is no answer' and 'whether the pitcher hits the stone, or the stone the pitcher, it's a bad business for the pitcher' all which fit to a hair? For no one should quarrel with his governor, or him in authority over him, because he will come off the worst, as he does who puts his finger between two back and if they are not back teeth it makes no difference, so long as they are teeth and to whatever the governor may say there's no answer, any more than to 'get out of my house' and 'what do you want with my wife?' and then, as for that about the stone and the pitcher, a blind man could see that. So that he 'who sees the mote in another's eye had need to see the beam in his own,' that it be not said of himself, 'the dead woman was frightened at the one with her throat cut' and your worship knows well that 'the fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in another's.' 'Nay, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'the fool knows nothing, either in his own house or in anybody else's, for no wise structure of any sort can stand on a foundation of folly but let us say no more about it, Sancho, for if thou governest badly, thine will be the fault and mine the shame but I comfort myself with having done my duty in advising thee as earnestly and as wisely as I could and thus I am released from my obligations and my promise. God guide thee, Sancho, and govern thee in thy government, and deliver me from the misgiving I have that thou wilt turn the whole island upside down, a thing I might easily prevent by explaining to the duke what thou art and telling him that all that fat little person of thine is nothing else but a sack full of proverbs and sauciness. 'Seor, said Sancho, 'if your worship thinks I'm not fit for this government, I give it up on the spot for the mere black of the nail of my soul is dearer to me than my whole body and I can live just as well, simple Sancho, on bread and onions, as governor, on partridges and capons and what's more, while we're asleep we're all equal, great and small, rich and poor. But if your worship looks into it, you will see it was your worship alone that put me on to this business of governing for I know no more about the government of islands than a buzzard and if there's any reason to think that because of my being a governor the devil will get hold of me, I'd rather go Sancho to heaven than governor to hell. 'By God, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for those last words thou hast uttered alone, I consider thou deservest to be governor of a thousand islands. Thou hast good natural instincts, without which no knowledge is worth anything commend thyself to God, and try not to swerve in the pursuit of thy main object I mean, always make it thy aim and fixed purpose to do right in all matters that come before thee, for heaven always helps good intentions and now let us go to dinner, for I think my lord and lady are waiting for us. It is stated, they say, in the true original of this history, that when Cide Hamete came to write this chapter, his interpreter did not translate it as he wrote itthat is, as a kind of complaint the Moor made against himself for having taken in hand a story so dry and of so little variety as this of Don Quixote, for he found himself forced to speak perpetually of him and Sancho, without venturing to indulge in digressions and episodes more serious and more interesting. He said, too, that to go on, mind, hand, pen always restricted to writing upon one single subject, and speaking through the mouths of a few characters, was intolerable drudgery, the result of which was never equal to the author's labour, and that to avoid this he had in the First Part availed himself of the device of novels, like 'The Illadvised Curiosity, and 'The Captive Captain, which stand, as it were, apart from the story the others are given there being incidents which occurred to Don Quixote himself and could not be omitted. He also thought, he says, that many, engrossed by the interest attaching to the exploits of Don Quixote, would take none in the novels, and pass them over hastily or impatiently without noticing the elegance and art of their composition, which would be very manifest were they published by themselves and not as mere adjuncts to the crazes of Don Quixote or the simplicities of Sancho. Therefore in this Second Part he thought it best not to insert novels, either separate or interwoven, but only episodes, something like them, arising out of the circumstances the facts present and even these sparingly, and with no more words than suffice to make them plain and as he confines and restricts himself to the narrow limits of the narrative, though he has ability capacity, and brains enough to deal with the whole universe, he requests that his labours may not be despised, and that credit be given him, not alone for what he writes, but for what he has refrained from writing. And so he goes on with his story, saying that the day Don Quixote gave the counsels to Sancho, the same afternoon after dinner he handed them to him in writing so that he might get someone to read them to him. They had scarcely, however, been given to him when he let them drop, and they fell into the hands of the duke, who showed them to the duchess and they were both amazed afresh at the madness and wit of Don Quixote. To carry on the joke, then, the same evening they despatched Sancho with a large following to the village that was to serve him for an island. It happened that the person who had him in charge was a majordomo of the duke's, a man of great discretion and humourand there can be no humour without discretionand the same who played the part of the Countess Trifaldi in the comical way that has been already described and thus qualified, and instructed by his master and mistress as to how to deal with Sancho, he carried out their scheme admirably. Now it came to pass that as soon as Sancho saw this majordomo he seemed in his features to recognise those of the Trifaldi, and turning to his master, he said to him, 'Seor, either the devil will carry me off, here on this spot, righteous and believing, or your worship will own to me that the face of this majordomo of the duke's here is the very face of the Distressed One. Don Quixote regarded the majordomo attentively, and having done so, said to Sancho, 'There is no reason why the devil should carry thee off, Sancho, either righteous or believingand what thou meanest by that I know not the face of the Distressed One is that of the majordomo, but for all that the majordomo is not the Distressed One for his being so would involve a mighty contradiction but this is not the time for going into questions of the sort, which would be involving ourselves in an inextricable labyrinth. Believe me, my friend, we must pray earnestly to our Lord that he deliver us both from wicked wizards and enchanters. 'It is no joke, seor, said Sancho, 'for before this I heard him speak, and it seemed exactly as if the voice of the Trifaldi was sounding in my ears. Well, I'll hold my peace but I'll take care to be on the lookout henceforth for any sign that may be seen to confirm or do away with this suspicion. 'Thou wilt do well, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and thou wilt let me know all thou discoverest, and all that befalls thee in thy government. Sancho at last set out attended by a great number of people. He was dressed in the garb of a lawyer, with a gaban of tawny watered camlet over all and a montera cap of the same material, and mounted a la gineta upon a mule. Behind him, in accordance with the duke's orders, followed Dapple with brand new asstrappings and ornaments of silk, and from time to time Sancho turned round to look at his ass, so well pleased to have him with him that he would not have changed places with the emperor of Germany. On taking leave he kissed the hands of the duke and duchess and got his master's blessing, which Don Quixote gave him with tears, and he received blubbering. Let worthy Sancho go in peace, and good luck to him, Gentle Reader and look out for two bushels of laughter, which the account of how he behaved himself in office will give thee. In the meantime turn thy attention to what happened his master the same night, and if thou dost not laugh thereat, at any rate thou wilt stretch thy mouth with a grin for Don Quixote's adventures must be honoured either with wonder or with laughter. It is recorded, then, that as soon as Sancho had gone, Don Quixote felt his loneliness, and had it been possible for him to revoke the mandate and take away the government from him he would have done so. The duchess observed his dejection and asked him why he was melancholy because, she said, if it was for the loss of Sancho, there were squires, duennas, and damsels in her house who would wait upon him to his full satisfaction. 'The truth is, seora, replied Don Quixote, 'that I do feel the loss of Sancho but that is not the main cause of my looking sad and of all the offers your excellence makes me, I accept only the goodwill with which they are made, and as to the remainder I entreat of your excellence to permit and allow me alone to wait upon myself in my chamber. 'Indeed, Seor Don Quixote, said the duchess, 'that must not be four of my damsels, as beautiful as flowers, shall wait upon you. 'To me, said Don Quixote, 'they will not be flowers, but thorns to pierce my heart. They, or anything like them, shall as soon enter my chamber as fly. If your highness wishes to gratify me still further, though I deserve it not, permit me to please myself, and wait upon myself in my own room for I place a barrier between my inclinations and my virtue, and I do not wish to break this rule through the generosity your highness is disposed to display towards me and, in short, I will sleep in my clothes, sooner than allow anyone to undress me. 'Say no more, Seor Don Quixote, say no more, said the duchess 'I assure you I will give orders that not even a fly, not to say a damsel, shall enter your room. I am not the one to undermine the propriety of Seor Don Quixote, for it strikes me that among his many virtues the one that is preeminent is that of modesty. Your worship may undress and dress in private and in your own way, as you please and when you please, for there will be no one to hinder you and in your chamber you will find all the utensils requisite to supply the wants of one who sleeps with his door locked, to the end that no natural needs compel you to open it. May the great Dulcinea del Toboso live a thousand years, and may her fame extend all over the surface of the globe, for she deserves to be loved by a knight so valiant and so virtuous and may kind heaven infuse zeal into the heart of our governor Sancho Panza to finish off his discipline speedily, so that the world may once more enjoy the beauty of so grand a lady. To which Don Quixote replied, 'Your highness has spoken like what you are from the mouth of a noble lady nothing bad can come and Dulcinea will be more fortunate, and better known to the world by the praise of your highness than by all the eulogies the greatest orators on earth could bestow upon her. 'Well, well, Seor Don Quixote, said the duchess, it is nearly suppertime, and the duke is probably waiting come let us go to supper, and retire to rest early, for the journey you made yesterday from Kandy was not such a short one but that it must have caused you some fatigue. 'I feel none, seora, said Don Quixote, 'for I would go so far as to swear to your excellence that in all my life I never mounted a quieter beast, or a pleasanter paced one, than Clavileo and I don't know what could have induced Malambruno to discard a steed so swift and so gentle, and burn it so recklessly as he did. 'Probably, said the duchess, 'repenting of the evil he had done to the Trifaldi and company, and others, and the crimes he must have committed as a wizard and enchanter, he resolved to make away with all the instruments of his craft and so burned Clavileo as the chief one, and that which mainly kept him restless, wandering from land to land and by its ashes and the trophy of the placard the valour of the great Don Quixote of La Mancha is established for ever. Don Quixote renewed his thanks to the duchess and having supped, retired to his chamber alone, refusing to allow anyone to enter with him to wait on him, such was his fear of encountering temptations that might lead or drive him to forget his chaste fidelity to his lady Dulcinea for he had always present to his mind the virtue of Amadis, that flower and mirror of knightserrant. He locked the door behind him, and by the light of two wax candles undressed himself, but as he was taking off his stockingsO disaster unworthy of such a personage!there came a burst, not of sighs, or anything belying his delicacy or good breeding, but of some two dozen stitches in one of his stockings, that made it look like a windowlattice. The worthy gentleman was beyond measure distressed, and at that moment he would have given an ounce of silver to have had half a drachm of green silk there I say green silk, because the stockings were green. Here Cide Hamete exclaimed as he was writing, 'O poverty, poverty! I know not what could have possessed the great Cordovan poet to call thee 'holy gift ungratefully received.' Although a Moor, I know well enough from the intercourse I have had with Christians that holiness consists in charity, humility, faith, obedience, and poverty but for all that, I say he must have a great deal of godliness who can find any satisfaction in being poor unless, indeed, it be the kind of poverty one of their greatest saints refers to, saying, 'possess all things as though ye possessed them not' which is what they call poverty in spirit. But thou, that other povertyfor it is of thee I am speaking nowwhy dost thou love to fall out with gentlemen and men of good birth more than with other people? Why dost thou compel them to smear the cracks in their shoes, and to have the buttons of their coats, one silk, another hair, and another glass? Why must their ruffs be always crinkled like endive leaves, and not crimped with a crimping iron? (From this we may perceive the antiquity of starch and crimped ruffs.) Then he goes on 'Poor gentleman of good family! always cockering up his honour, dining miserably and in secret, and making a hypocrite of the toothpick with which he sallies out into the street after eating nothing to oblige him to use it! Poor fellow, I say, with his nervous honour, fancying they perceive a league off the patch on his shoe, the sweatstains on his hat, the shabbiness of his cloak, and the hunger of his stomach! All this was brought home to Don Quixote by the bursting of his stitches however, he comforted himself on perceiving that Sancho had left behind a pair of travelling boots, which he resolved to wear the next day. At last he went to bed, out of spirits and heavy at heart, as much because he missed Sancho as because of the irreparable disaster to his stockings, the stitches of which he would have even taken up with silk of another colour, which is one of the greatest signs of poverty a gentleman can show in the course of his neverfailing embarrassments. He put out the candles but the night was warm and he could not sleep he rose from his bed and opened slightly a grated window that looked out on a beautiful garden, and as he did so he perceived and heard people walking and talking in the garden. He set himself to listen attentively, and those below raised their voices so that he could hear these words 'Urge me not to sing, Emerencia, for thou knowest that ever since this stranger entered the castle and my eyes beheld him, I cannot sing but only weep besides my lady is a light rather than a heavy sleeper, and I would not for all the wealth of the world that she found us here and even if she were asleep and did not waken, my singing would be in vain, if this strange neas, who has come into my neighbourhood to flout me, sleeps on and wakens not to hear it. 'Heed not that, dear Altisidora, replied a voice 'the duchess is no doubt asleep, and everybody in the house save the lord of thy heart and disturber of thy soul for just now I perceived him open the grated window of his chamber, so he must be awake sing, my poor sufferer, in a low sweet tone to the accompaniment of thy harp and even if the duchess hears us we can lay the blame on the heat of the night. 'That is not the point, Emerencia, replied Altisidora, 'it is that I would not that my singing should lay bare my heart, and that I should be thought a light and wanton maiden by those who know not the mighty power of love but come what may better a blush on the cheeks than a sore in the heart and here a harp softly touched made itself heard. As he listened to all this Don Quixote was in a state of breathless amazement, for immediately the countless adventures like this, with windows, gratings, gardens, serenades, lovemakings, and languishings, that he had read of in his trashy books of chivalry, came to his mind. He at once concluded that some damsel of the duchess's was in love with him, and that her modesty forced her to keep her passion secret. He trembled lest he should fall, and made an inward resolution not to yield and commending himself with all his might and soul to his lady Dulcinea he made up his mind to listen to the music and to let them know he was there he gave a pretended sneeze, at which the damsels were not a little delighted, for all they wanted was that Don Quixote should hear them. So having tuned the harp, Altisidora, running her hand across the strings, began this ballad O thou that art above in bed, Between the holland sheets, Alying there from night till morn, With outstretched legs asleep O thou, most valiant knight of all The famed Manchegan breed, Of purity and virtue more Than gold of Araby Give ear unto a suffering maid, Wellgrown but evilstarr'd, For those two suns of thine have lit A fire within her heart. Adventures seeking thou dost rove, To others bringing woe Thou scatterest wounds, but, ah, the balm To heal them dost withhold! Say, valiant youth, and so may God Thy enterprises speed, Didst thou the light mid Libya's sands Or Jaca's rocks first see? Did scaly serpents give thee suck? Who nursed thee when a babe? Wert cradled in the forest rude, Or gloomy mountain cave? O Dulcinea may be proud, That plump and lusty maid For she alone hath had the power A tiger fierce to tame. And she for this shall famous be From Tagus to Jarama, From Manzanares to Genil, From Duero to Arlanza. Fain would I change with her, and give A petticoat to boot, The best and bravest that I have, All trimmed with gold galloon. O for to be the happy fair Thy mighty arms enfold, Or even sit beside thy bed And scratch thy dusty poll! I rave,to favours such as these Unworthy to aspire Thy feet to tickle were enough For one so mean as I. What caps, what slippers silverlaced, Would I on thee bestow! What damask breeches make for thee What fine long holland cloaks! And I would give thee pearls that should As big as oakgalls show So matchless big that each might well Be called the great 'Alone. Manchegan Nero, look not down From thy Tarpeian Rock Upon this burning heart, nor add The fuel of thy wrath. A virgin soft and young am I, Not yet fifteen years old (I'm only three months past fourteen, I swear upon my soul). I hobble not nor do I limp, All blemish I'm without, And as I walk my lily locks Are trailing on the ground. And though my nose be rather flat, And though my mouth be wide, My teeth like topazes exalt My beauty to the sky. Thou knowest that my voice is sweet, That is if thou dost hear And I am moulded in a form Somewhat below the mean. These charms, and many more, are thine, Spoils to thy spear and bow all A damsel of this house am I, By name Altisidora. Here the lay of the heartstricken Altisidora came to an end, while the warmly wooed Don Quixote began to feel alarm and with a deep sigh he said to himself, 'O that I should be such an unlucky knight that no damsel can set eyes on me but falls in love with me! O that the peerless Dulcinea should be so unfortunate that they cannot let her enjoy my incomparable constancy in peace! What would ye with her, ye queens? Why do ye persecute her, ye empresses? Why ye pursue her, ye virgins of from fourteen to fifteen? Leave the unhappy being to triumph, rejoice and glory in the lot love has been pleased to bestow upon her in surrendering my heart and yielding up my soul to her. Ye lovesmitten host, know that to Dulcinea only I am dough and sugarpaste, flint to all others for her I am honey, for you aloes. For me Dulcinea alone is beautiful, wise, virtuous, graceful, and highbred, and all others are illfavoured, foolish, light, and lowborn. Nature sent me into the world to be hers and no other's Altisidora may weep or sing, the lady for whose sake they belaboured me in the castle of the enchanted Moor may give way to despair, but I must be Dulcinea's, boiled or roast, pure, courteous, and chaste, in spite of all the magicworking powers on earth. And with that he shut the window with a bang, and, as much out of temper and out of sorts as if some great misfortune had befallen him, stretched himself on his bed, where we will leave him for the present, as the great Sancho Panza, who is about to set up his famous government, now demands our attention. O perpetual discoverer of the antipodes, torch of the world, eye of heaven, sweet stimulator of the watercoolers! Thimbraeus here, Phbus there, now archer, now physician, father of poetry, inventor of music thou that always risest and, notwithstanding appearances, never settest! To thee, O Sun, by whose aid man begetteth man, to thee I appeal to help me and lighten the darkness of my wit that I may be able to proceed with scrupulous exactitude in giving an account of the great Sancho Panza's government for without thee I feel myself weak, feeble, and uncertain. To come to the point, thenSancho with all his attendants arrived at a village of some thousand inhabitants, and one of the largest the duke possessed. They informed him that it was called the island of Barataria, either because the name of the village was Baratario, or because of the joke by way of which the government had been conferred upon him. On reaching the gates of the town, which was a walled one, the municipality came forth to meet him, the bells rang out a peal, and the inhabitants showed every sign of general satisfaction and with great pomp they conducted him to the principal church to give thanks to God, and then with burlesque ceremonies they presented him with the keys of the town, and acknowledged him as perpetual governor of the island of Barataria. The costume, the beard, and the fat squat figure of the new governor astonished all those who were not in on the secret, and even all who were, and they were not a few. Finally, leading him out of the church they carried him to the judgment seat and seated him on it, and the duke's majordomo said to him, 'It is an ancient custom in this island, seor governor, that he who comes to take possession of this famous island is bound to answer a question which shall be put to him, and which must be a somewhat knotty and difficult one and by his answer the people take the measure of their new governor's wit, and hail with joy or deplore his arrival accordingly. While the majordomo was making this speech Sancho was gazing at several large letters inscribed on the wall opposite his seat, and as he could not read he asked what that was that was painted on the wall. The answer was, 'Seor, there is written and recorded the day on which your lordship took possession of this island, and the inscription says, 'This day, the soandso of suchandsuch a month and year, Seor Don Sancho Panza took possession of this island many years may he enjoy it.' 'And whom do they call Don Sancho Panza? asked Sancho. 'Your lordship, replied the majordomo 'for no other Panza but the one who is now seated in that chair has ever entered this island. 'Well then, let me tell you, brother, said Sancho, 'I haven't got the 'Don,' nor has anyone of my family ever had it my name is plain Sancho Panza, and Sancho was my father's name, and Sancho was my grandfather's and they were all Panzas, without any Dons or Doas tacked on I suspect that in this island there are more Dons than stones but never mind God knows what I mean, and maybe if my government lasts four days I'll weed out these Dons that no doubt are as great a nuisance as the midges, they're so plenty. Let the majordomo go on with his question, and I'll give the best answer I can, whether the people deplore or not. At this instant there came into court two old men, one carrying a cane by way of a walkingstick, and the one who had no stick said, 'Seor, some time ago I lent this good man ten goldcrowns in gold to gratify him and do him a service, on the condition that he was to return them to me whenever I should ask for them. A long time passed before I asked for them, for I would not put him to any greater straits to return them than he was in when I lent them to him but thinking he was growing careless about payment I asked for them once and several times and not only will he not give them back, but he denies that he owes them, and says I never lent him any such crowns or if I did, that he repaid them and I have no witnesses either of the loan, or the payment, for he never paid me I want your worship to put him to his oath, and if he swears he returned them to me I forgive him the debt here and before God. 'What say you to this, good old man, you with the stick? said Sancho. To which the old man replied, 'I admit, seor, that he lent them to me but let your worship lower your staff, and as he leaves it to my oath, I'll swear that I gave them back, and paid him really and truly. The governor lowered the staff, and as he did so the old man who had the stick handed it to the other old man to hold for him while he swore, as if he found it in his way and then laid his hand on the cross of the staff, saying that it was true the ten crowns that were demanded of him had been lent him but that he had with his own hand given them back into the hand of the other, and that he, not recollecting it, was always asking for them. Seeing this the great governor asked the creditor what answer he had to make to what his opponent said. He said that no doubt his debtor had told the truth, for he believed him to be an honest man and a good Christian, and he himself must have forgotten when and how he had given him back the crowns and that from that time forth he would make no further demand upon him. The debtor took his stick again, and bowing his head left the court. Observing this, and how, without another word, he made off, and observing too the resignation of the plaintiff, Sancho buried his head in his bosom and remained for a short space in deep thought, with the forefinger of his right hand on his brow and nose then he raised his head and bade them call back the old man with the stick, for he had already taken his departure. They brought him back, and as soon as Sancho saw him he said, 'Honest man, give me that stick, for I want it. 'Willingly, said the old man 'here it is seor, and he put it into his hand. Sancho took it and, handing it to the other old man, said to him, 'Go, and God be with you for now you are paid. 'I, seor! returned the old man 'why, is this cane worth ten goldcrowns? 'Yes, said the governor, 'or if not I am the greatest dolt in the world now you will see whether I have got the headpiece to govern a whole kingdom and he ordered the cane to be broken in two, there, in the presence of all. It was done, and in the middle of it they found ten goldcrowns. All were filled with amazement, and looked upon their governor as another Solomon. They asked him how he had come to the conclusion that the ten crowns were in the cane he replied, that observing how the old man who swore gave the stick to his opponent while he was taking the oath, and swore that he had really and truly given him the crowns, and how as soon as he had done swearing he asked for the stick again, it came into his head that the sum demanded must be inside it and from this he said it might be seen that God sometimes guides those who govern in their judgments, even though they may be fools besides he had himself heard the curate of his village mention just such another case, and he had so good a memory, that if it was not that he forgot everything he wished to remember, there would not be such a memory in all the island. To conclude, the old men went off, one crestfallen, and the other in high contentment, all who were present were astonished, and he who was recording the words, deeds, and movements of Sancho could not make up his mind whether he was to look upon him and set him down as a fool or as a man of sense. As soon as this case was disposed of, there came into court a woman holding on with a tight grip to a man dressed like a welltodo cattle dealer, and she came forward making a great outcry and exclaiming, 'Justice, seor governor, justice! and if I don't get it on earth I'll go look for it in heaven. Seor governor of my soul, this wicked man caught me in the middle of the fields here and used my body as if it was an illwashed rag, and, woe is me! got from me what I had kept these threeandtwenty years and more, defending it against Moors and Christians, natives and strangers and I always as hard as an oak, and keeping myself as pure as a salamander in the fire, or wool among the brambles, for this good fellow to come now with clean hands to handle me! 'It remains to be proved whether this gallant has clean hands or not, said Sancho and turning to the man he asked him what he had to say in answer to the woman's charge. He all in confusion made answer, 'Sirs, I am a poor pig dealer, and this morning I left the village to sell (saving your presence) four pigs, and between dues and cribbings they got out of me little less than the worth of them. As I was returning to my village I fell in on the road with this good dame, and the devil who makes a coil and a mess out of everything, yoked us together. I paid her fairly, but she not contented laid hold of me and never let go until she brought me here she says I forced her, but she lies by the oath I swear or am ready to swear and this is the whole truth and every particle of it. The governor on this asked him if he had any money in silver about him he said he had about twenty ducats in a leather purse in his bosom. The governor bade him take it out and hand it to the complainant he obeyed trembling the woman took it, and making a thousand salaams to all and praying to God for the long life and health of the seor governor who had such regard for distressed orphans and virgins, she hurried out of court with the purse grasped in both her hands, first looking, however, to see if the money it contained was silver. As soon as she was gone Sancho said to the cattle dealer, whose tears were already starting and whose eyes and heart were following his purse, 'Good fellow, go after that woman and take the purse from her, by force even, and come back with it here and he did not say it to one who was a fool or deaf, for the man was off like a flash of lightning, and ran to do as he was bid. All the bystanders waited anxiously to see the end of the case, and presently both man and woman came back at even closer grips than before, she with her petticoat up and the purse in the lap of it, and he struggling hard to take it from her, but all to no purpose, so stout was the woman's defence, she all the while crying out, 'Justice from God and the world! see here, seor governor, the shamelessness and boldness of this villain, who in the middle of the town, in the middle of the street, wanted to take from me the purse your worship bade him give me. 'And did he take it? asked the governor. 'Take it! said the woman 'I'd let my life be taken from me sooner than the purse. A pretty child I'd be! It's another sort of cat they must throw in my face, and not that poor scurvy knave. Pincers and hammers, mallets and chisels would not get it out of my grip no, nor lions' claws the soul from out of my body first! 'She is right, said the man 'I own myself beaten and powerless I confess I haven't the strength to take it from her and he let go his hold of her. Upon this the governor said to the woman, 'Let me see that purse, my worthy and sturdy friend. She handed it to him at once, and the governor returned it to the man, and said to the unforced mistress of force, 'Sister, if you had shown as much, or only half as much, spirit and vigour in defending your body as you have shown in defending that purse, the strength of Hercules could not have forced you. Be off, and God speed you, and bad luck to you, and don't show your face in all this island, or within six leagues of it on any side, under pain of two hundred lashes be off at once, I say, you shameless, cheating shrew. The woman was cowed and went off disconsolately, hanging her head and the governor said to the man, 'Honest man, go home with your money, and God speed you and for the future, if you don't want to lose it, see that you don't take it into your head to yoke with anybody. The man thanked him as clumsily as he could and went his way, and the bystanders were again filled with admiration at their new governor's judgments and sentences. Next, two men, one apparently a farm labourer, and the other a tailor, for he had a pair of shears in his hand, presented themselves before him, and the tailor said, 'Seor governor, this labourer and I come before your worship by reason of this honest man coming to my shop yesterday (for saving everybody's presence I'm a passed tailor, God be thanked), and putting a piece of cloth into my hands and asking me, 'Seor, will there be enough in this cloth to make me a cap?' Measuring the cloth I said there would. He probably suspectedas I supposed, and I supposed rightthat I wanted to steal some of the cloth, led to think so by his own roguery and the bad opinion people have of tailors and he told me to see if there would be enough for two. I guessed what he would be at, and I said 'yes.' He, still following up his original unworthy notion, went on adding cap after cap, and I 'yes' after 'yes,' until we got as far as five. He has just this moment come for them I gave them to him, but he won't pay me for the making on the contrary, he calls upon me to pay him, or else return his cloth. 'Is all this true, brother? said Sancho. 'Yes, replied the man 'but will your worship make him show the five caps he has made me? 'With all my heart, said the tailor and drawing his hand from under his cloak he showed five caps stuck upon the five fingers of it, and said, 'there are the caps this good man asks for and by God and upon my conscience I haven't a scrap of cloth left, and I'll let the work be examined by the inspectors of the trade. All present laughed at the number of caps and the novelty of the suit Sancho set himself to think for a moment, and then said, 'It seems to me that in this case it is not necessary to deliver longwinded arguments, but only to give offhand the judgment of an honest man and so my decision is that the tailor lose the making and the labourer the cloth, and that the caps go to the prisoners in the gaol, and let there be no more about it. If the previous decision about the cattle dealer's purse excited the admiration of the bystanders, this provoked their laughter however, the governor's orders were after all executed. All this, having been taken down by his chronicler, was at once despatched to the duke, who was looking out for it with great eagerness and here let us leave the good Sancho for his master, sorely troubled in mind by Altisidora's music, has pressing claims upon us now. We left Don Quixote wrapped up in the reflections which the music of the enamourned maid Altisidora had given rise to. He went to bed with them, and just like fleas they would not let him sleep or get a moment's rest, and the broken stitches of his stockings helped them. But as Time is fleet and no obstacle can stay his course, he came riding on the hours, and morning very soon arrived. Seeing which Don Quixote quitted the soft down, and, nowise slothful, dressed himself in his chamois suit and put on his travelling boots to hide the disaster to his stockings. He threw over him his scarlet mantle, put on his head a montera of green velvet trimmed with silver edging, flung across his shoulder the baldric with his good trenchant sword, took up a large rosary that he always carried with him, and with great solemnity and precision of gait proceeded to the antechamber where the duke and duchess were already dressed and waiting for him. But as he passed through a gallery, Altisidora and the other damsel, her friend, were lying in wait for him, and the instant Altisidora saw him she pretended to faint, while her friend caught her in her lap, and began hastily unlacing the bosom of her dress. Don Quixote observed it, and approaching them said, 'I know very well what this seizure arises from. 'I know not from what, replied the friend, 'for Altisidora is the healthiest damsel in all this house, and I have never heard her complain all the time I have known her. A plague on all the knightserrant in the world, if they be all ungrateful! Go away, Seor Don Quixote for this poor child will not come to herself again so long as you are here. To which Don Quixote returned, 'Do me the favour, seora, to let a lute be placed in my chamber tonight and I will comfort this poor maiden to the best of my power for in the early stages of love a prompt disillusion is an approved remedy and with this he retired, so as not to be remarked by any who might see him there. He had scarcely withdrawn when Altisidora, recovering from her swoon, said to her companion, 'The lute must be left, for no doubt Don Quixote intends to give us some music and being his it will not be bad. They went at once to inform the duchess of what was going on, and of the lute Don Quixote asked for, and she, delighted beyond measure, plotted with the duke and her two damsels to play him a trick that should be amusing but harmless and in high glee they waited for night, which came quickly as the day had come and as for the day, the duke and duchess spent it in charming conversation with Don Quixote. When eleven o'clock came, Don Quixote found a guitar in his chamber he tried it, opened the window, and perceived that some persons were walking in the garden and having passed his fingers over the frets of the guitar and tuned it as well as he could, he spat and cleared his chest, and then with a voice a little hoarse but fulltoned, he sang the following ballad, which he had himself that day composed Mighty Love the hearts of maidens Doth unsettle and perplex, And the instrument he uses Most of all is idleness. Sewing, stitching, any labour, Having always work to do, To the poison Love instilleth Is the antidote most sure. And to properminded maidens Who desire the matron's name Modesty's a marriage portion, Modesty their highest praise. Men of prudence and discretion, Courtiers gay and gallant knights, With the wanton damsels dally, But the modest take to wife. There are passions, transient, fleeting, Loves in hostelries declar'd, Sunrise loves, with sunset ended, When the guest hath gone his way. Love that springs up swift and sudden, Here today, tomorrow flown, Passes, leaves no trace behind it, Leaves no image on the soul. Painting that is laid on painting Maketh no display or show Where one beauty's in possession There no other can take hold. Dulcinea del Toboso Painted on my heart I wear Never from its tablets, never, Can her image be eras'd. The quality of all in lovers Most esteemed is constancy 'Tis by this that love works wonders, This exalts them to the skies. Don Quixote had got so far with his song, to which the duke, the duchess, Altisidora, and nearly the whole household of the castle were listening, when all of a sudden from a gallery above that was exactly over his window they let down a cord with more than a hundred bells attached to it, and immediately after that discharged a great sack full of cats, which also had bells of smaller size tied to their tails. Such was the din of the bells and the squalling of the cats, that though the duke and duchess were the contrivers of the joke they were startled by it, while Don Quixote stood paralysed with fear and as luck would have it, two or three of the cats made their way in through the grating of his chamber, and flying from one side to the other, made it seem as if there was a legion of devils at large in it. They extinguished the candles that were burning in the room, and rushed about seeking some way of escape the cord with the large bells never ceased rising and falling and most of the people of the castle, not knowing what was really the matter, were at their wits' end with astonishment. Don Quixote sprang to his feet, and drawing his sword, began making passes at the grating, shouting out, 'Avaunt, malignant enchanters! avaunt, ye witchcraftworking rabble! I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, against whom your evil machinations avail not nor have any power. And turning upon the cats that were running about the room, he made several cuts at them. They dashed at the grating and escaped by it, save one that, finding itself hard pressed by the slashes of Don Quixote's sword, flew at his face and held on to his nose tooth and nail, with the pain of which he began to shout his loudest. The duke and duchess hearing this, and guessing what it was, ran with all haste to his room, and as the poor gentleman was striving with all his might to detach the cat from his face, they opened the door with a masterkey and went in with lights and witnessed the unequal combat. The duke ran forward to part the combatants, but Don Quixote cried out aloud, 'Let no one take him from me leave me hand to hand with this demon, this wizard, this enchanter I will teach him, I myself, who Don Quixote of La Mancha is. The cat, however, never minding these threats, snarled and held on but at last the duke pulled it off and flung it out of the window. Don Quixote was left with a face as full of holes as a sieve and a nose not in very good condition, and greatly vexed that they did not let him finish the battle he had been so stoutly fighting with that villain of an enchanter. They sent for some oil of John's wort, and Altisidora herself with her own fair hands bandaged all the wounded parts and as she did so she said to him in a low voice. 'All these mishaps have befallen thee, hardhearted knight, for the sin of thy insensibility and obstinacy and God grant thy squire Sancho may forget to whip himself, so that that dearly beloved Dulcinea of thine may never be released from her enchantment, that thou mayest never come to her bed, at least while I who adore thee am alive. To all this Don Quixote made no answer except to heave deep sighs, and then stretched himself on his bed, thanking the duke and duchess for their kindness, not because he stood in any fear of that bellringing rabble of enchanters in cat shape, but because he recognised their good intentions in coming to his rescue. The duke and duchess left him to repose and withdrew greatly grieved at the unfortunate result of the joke as they never thought the adventure would have fallen so heavy on Don Quixote or cost him so dear, for it cost him five days of confinement to his bed, during which he had another adventure, pleasanter than the late one, which his chronicler will not relate just now in order that he may turn his attention to Sancho Panza, who was proceeding with great diligence and drollery in his government. The history says that from the justice court they carried Sancho to a sumptuous palace, where in a spacious chamber there was a table laid out with royal magnificence. The clarions sounded as Sancho entered the room, and four pages came forward to present him with water for his hands, which Sancho received with great dignity. The music ceased, and Sancho seated himself at the head of the table, for there was only that seat placed, and no more than one cover laid. A personage, who it appeared afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by his side with a whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a fine white cloth covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of different sorts one who looked like a student said grace, and a page put a laced bib on Sancho, while another who played the part of head carver placed a dish of fruit before him. But hardly had he tasted a morsel when the man with the wand touched the plate with it, and they took it away from before him with the utmost celerity. The carver, however, brought him another dish, and Sancho proceeded to try it but before he could get at it, not to say taste it, already the wand had touched it and a page had carried it off with the same promptitude as the fruit. Sancho seeing this was puzzled, and looking from one to another asked if this dinner was to be eaten after the fashion of a jugglery trick. To this he with the wand replied, 'It is not to be eaten, seor governor, except as is usual and customary in other islands where there are governors. I, seor, am a physician, and I am paid a salary in this island to serve its governors as such, and I have a much greater regard for their health than for my own, studying day and night and making myself acquainted with the governor's constitution, in order to be able to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I have to do is to attend at his dinners and suppers and allow him to eat what appears to me to be fit for him, and keep from him what I think will do him harm and be injurious to his stomach and therefore I ordered that plate of fruit to be removed as being too moist, and that other dish I ordered to be removed as being too hot and containing many spices that stimulate thirst for he who drinks much kills and consumes the radical moisture wherein life consists. 'Well then, said Sancho, 'that dish of roast partridges there that seems so savoury will not do me any harm. To this the physician replied, 'Of those my lord the governor shall not eat so long as I live. 'Why so? said Sancho. 'Because, replied the doctor, 'our master Hippocrates, the polestar and beacon of medicine, says in one of his aphorisms omnis saturatio mala, perdicis autem pessima, which means 'all repletion is bad, but that of partridge is the worst of all. 'In that case, said Sancho, 'let seor doctor see among the dishes that are on the table what will do me most good and least harm, and let me eat it, without tapping it with his stick for by the life of the governor, and so may God suffer me to enjoy it, but I'm dying of hunger and in spite of the doctor and all he may say, to deny me food is the way to take my life instead of prolonging it. 'Your worship is right, seor governor, said the physician 'and therefore your worship, I consider, should not eat of those stewed rabbits there, because it is a furry kind of food if that veal were not roasted and served with pickles, you might try it but it is out of the question. 'That big dish that is smoking farther off, said Sancho, 'seems to me to be an olla podrida, and out of the diversity of things in such ollas, I can't fail to light upon something tasty and good for me. 'Absit, said the doctor 'far from us be any such base thought! There is nothing in the world less nourishing than an olla podrida to canons, or rectors of colleges, or peasants' weddings with your ollas podridas, but let us have none of them on the tables of governors, where everything that is present should be delicate and refined and the reason is, that always, everywhere and by everybody, simple medicines are more esteemed than compound ones, for we cannot go wrong in those that are simple, while in the compound we may, by merely altering the quantity of the things composing them. But what I am of opinion the governor should eat now in order to preserve and fortify his health is a hundred or so of wafer cakes and a few thin slices of conserve of quinces, which will settle his stomach and help his digestion. Sancho on hearing this threw himself back in his chair and surveyed the doctor steadily, and in a solemn tone asked him what his name was and where he had studied. He replied, 'My name, seor governor, is Doctor Pedro Recio de Aguero I am a native of a place called Tirteafuera which lies between Caracuel and Almodvar del Campo, on the righthand side, and I have the degree of doctor from the university of Osuna. To which Sancho, glowing all over with rage, returned, 'Then let Doctor Pedro Recio de Malaguero, native of Tirteafuera, a place that's on the righthand side as we go from Caracuel to Almodvar del Campo, graduate of Osuna, get out of my presence at once or I swear by the sun I'll take a cudgel, and by dint of blows, beginning with him, I'll not leave a doctor in the whole island at least of those I know to be ignorant for as to learned, wise, sensible physicians, them I will reverence and honour as divine persons. Once more I say let Pedro Recio get out of this or I'll take this chair I am sitting on and break it over his head. And if they call me to account for it, I'll clear myself by saying I served God in killing a bad doctora general executioner. And now give me something to eat, or else take your government for a trade that does not feed its master is not worth two beans. The doctor was dismayed when he saw the governor in such a passion, and he would have made a Tirteafuera out of the room but that the same instant a posthorn sounded in the street and the carver putting his head out of the window turned round and said, 'It's a courier from my lord the duke, no doubt with some despatch of importance. The courier came in all sweating and flurried, and taking a paper from his bosom, placed it in the governor's hands. Sancho handed it to the majordomo and bade him read the superscription, which ran thus To Don Sancho Panza, Governor of the Island of Barataria, into his own hands or those of his secretary. Sancho when he heard this said, 'Which of you is my secretary? 'I am, seor, said one of those present, 'for I can read and write, and am a Biscayan. 'With that addition, said Sancho, 'you might be secretary to the emperor himself open this paper and see what it says. The newborn secretary obeyed, and having read the contents said the matter was one to be discussed in private. Sancho ordered the chamber to be cleared, the majordomo and the carver only remaining so the doctor and the others withdrew, and then the secretary read the letter, which was as follows It has come to my knowledge, Seor Don Sancho Panza, that certain enemies of mine and of the island are about to make a furious attack upon it some night, I know not when. It behoves you to be on the alert and keep watch, that they surprise you not. I also know by trustworthy spies that four persons have entered the town in disguise in order to take your life, because they stand in dread of your great capacity keep your eyes open and take heed who approaches you to address you, and eat nothing that is presented to you. I will take care to send you aid if you find yourself in difficulty, but in all things you will act as may be expected of your judgment. From this place, the Sixteenth of August, at four in the morning. Your friend, THE DUKE Sancho was astonished, and those who stood by made believe to be so too, and turning to the majordomo he said to him, 'What we have got to do first, and it must be done at once, is to put Doctor Recio in the lockup for if anyone wants to kill me it is he, and by a slow death and the worst of all, which is hunger. 'Likewise, said the carver, 'it is my opinion your worship should not eat anything that is on this table, for the whole was a present from some nuns and as they say, 'behind the cross there's the devil.' 'I don't deny it, said Sancho 'so for the present give me a piece of bread and four pounds or so of grapes no poison can come in them for the fact is I can't go on without eating and if we are to be prepared for these battles that are threatening us we must be well provisioned for it is the tripes that carry the heart and not the heart the tripes. And you, secretary, answer my lord the duke and tell him that all his commands shall be obeyed to the letter, as he directs and say from me to my lady the duchess that I kiss her hands, and that I beg of her not to forget to send my letter and bundle to my wife Teresa Panza by a messenger and I will take it as a great favour and will not fail to serve her in all that may lie within my power and as you are about it you may enclose a kiss of the hand to my master Don Quixote that he may see I am grateful bread and as a good secretary and a good Biscayan you may add whatever you like and whatever will come in best and now take away this cloth and give me something to eat, and I'll be ready to meet all the spies and assassins and enchanters that may come against me or my island. At this instant a page entered saying, 'Here is a farmer on business, who wants to speak to your lordship on a matter of great importance, he says. 'It's very odd, said Sancho, 'the ways of these men on business is it possible they can be such fools as not to see that an hour like this is no hour for coming on business? We who govern and we who are judgesare we not men of flesh and blood, and are we not to be allowed the time required for taking rest, unless they'd have us made of marble? By God and on my conscience, if the government remains in my hands (which I have a notion it won't), I'll bring more than one man on business to order. However, tell this good man to come in but take care first of all that he is not some spy or one of my assassins. 'No, my lord, said the page, 'for he looks like a simple fellow, and either I know very little or he is as good as good bread. 'There is nothing to be afraid of, said the majordomo, 'for we are all here. 'Would it be possible, carver, said Sancho, 'now that Doctor Pedro Recio is not here, to let me eat something solid and substantial, if it were even a piece of bread and an onion? 'Tonight at supper, said the carver, 'the shortcomings of the dinner shall be made good, and your lordship shall be fully contented. 'God grant it, said Sancho. The farmer now came in, a wellfavoured man that one might see a thousand leagues off was an honest fellow and a good soul. The first thing he said was, 'Which is the lord governor here? 'Which should it be, said the secretary, 'but he who is seated in the chair? 'Then I humble myself before him, said the farmer and going on his knees he asked for his hand, to kiss it. Sancho refused it, and bade him stand up and say what he wanted. The farmer obeyed, and then said, 'I am a farmer, seor, a native of Miguelturra, a village two leagues from Ciudad Real. 'Another Tirteafuera! said Sancho 'say on, brother I know Miguelturra very well I can tell you, for it's not very far from my own town. 'The case is this, seor, continued the farmer, 'that by God's mercy I am married with the leave and licence of the holy Roman Catholic Church I have two sons, students, and the younger is studying to become bachelor, and the elder to be licentiate I am a widower, for my wife died, or more properly speaking, a bad doctor killed her on my hands, giving her a purge when she was with child and if it had pleased God that the child had been born, and was a boy, I would have put him to study for doctor, that he might not envy his brothers the bachelor and the licentiate. 'So that if your wife had not died, or had not been killed, you would not now be a widower, said Sancho. 'No, seor, certainly not, said the farmer. 'We've got that much settled, said Sancho 'get on, brother, for it's more bedtime than businesstime. 'Well then, said the farmer, 'this son of mine who is going to be a bachelor, fell in love in the said town with a damsel called Clara Perlerina, daughter of Andres Perlerino, a very rich farmer and this name of Perlerines does not come to them by ancestry or descent, but because all the family are paralytics, and for a better name they call them Perlerines though to tell the truth the damsel is as fair as an Oriental pearl, and like a flower of the field, if you look at her on the right side on the left not so much, for on that side she wants an eye that she lost by smallpox and though her face is thickly and deeply pitted, those who love her say they are not pits that are there, but the graves where the hearts of her lovers are buried. She is so cleanly that not to soil her face she carries her nose turned up, as they say, so that one would fancy it was running away from her mouth and with all this she looks extremely well, for she has a wide mouth and but for wanting ten or a dozen teeth and grinders she might compare and compete with the comeliest. Of her lips I say nothing, for they are so fine and thin that, if lips might be reeled, one might make a skein of them but being of a different colour from ordinary lips they are wonderful, for they are mottled, blue, green, and purplelet my lord the governor pardon me for painting so minutely the charms of her who some time or other will be my daughter for I love her, and I don't find her amiss. 'Paint what you will, said Sancho 'I enjoy your painting, and if I had dined there could be no dessert more to my taste than your portrait. 'That I have still to furnish, said the farmer 'but a time will come when we may be able if we are not now and I can tell you, seor, if I could paint her gracefulness and her tall figure, it would astonish you but that is impossible because she is bent double with her knees up to her mouth but for all that it is easy to see that if she could stand up she'd knock her head against the ceiling and she would have given her hand to my bachelor ere this, only that she can't stretch it out, for it's contracted but still one can see its elegance and fine make by its long furrowed nails. 'That will do, brother, said Sancho 'consider you have painted her from head to foot what is it you want now? Come to the point without all this beating about the bush, and all these scraps and additions. 'I want your worship, seor, said the farmer, 'to do me the favour of giving me a letter of recommendation to the girl's father, begging him to be so good as to let this marriage take place, as we are not illmatched either in the gifts of fortune or of nature for to tell the truth, seor governor, my son is possessed of a devil, and there is not a day but the evil spirits torment him three or four times and from having once fallen into the fire, he has his face puckered up like a piece of parchment, and his eyes watery and always running but he has the disposition of an angel, and if it was not for belabouring and pummelling himself he'd be a saint. 'Is there anything else you want, good man? said Sancho. 'There's another thing I'd like, said the farmer, 'but I'm afraid to mention it however, out it must for after all I can't let it be rotting in my breast, come what may. I mean, seor, that I'd like your worship to give me three hundred or six hundred ducats as a help to my bachelor's portion, to help him in setting up house for they must, in short, live by themselves, without being subject to the interferences of their fathersinlaw. 'Just see if there's anything else you'd like, said Sancho, 'and don't hold back from mentioning it out of bashfulness or modesty. 'No, indeed there is not, said the farmer. The moment he said this the governor started to his feet, and seizing the chair he had been sitting on exclaimed, 'By all that's good, you illbred, boorish Don Bumpkin, if you don't get out of this at once and hide yourself from my sight, I'll lay your head open with this chair. You whoreson rascal, you devil's own painter, and is it at this hour you come to ask me for six hundred ducats! How should I have them, you stinking brute? And why should I give them to you if I had them, you knave and blockhead? What have I to do with Miguelturra or the whole family of the Perlerines? Get out I say, or by the life of my lord the duke I'll do as I said. You're not from Miguelturra, but some knave sent here from hell to tempt me. Why, you villain, I have not yet had the government half a day, and you want me to have six hundred ducats already! The carver made signs to the farmer to leave the room, which he did with his head down, and to all appearance in terror lest the governor should carry his threats into effect, for the rogue knew very well how to play his part. But let us leave Sancho in his wrath, and peace be with them all and let us return to Don Quixote, whom we left with his face bandaged and doctored after the cat wounds, of which he was not cured for eight days and on one of these there befell him what Cide Hamete promises to relate with that exactitude and truth with which he is wont to set forth everything connected with this great history, however minute it may be. Exceedingly moody and dejected was the sorely wounded Don Quixote, with his face bandaged and marked, not by the hand of God, but by the claws of a cat, mishaps incidental to knighterrantry. Six days he remained without appearing in public, and one night as he lay awake thinking of his misfortunes and of Altisidora's pursuit of him, he perceived that someone was opening the door of his room with a key, and he at once made up his mind that the enamoured damsel was coming to make an assault upon his chastity and put him in danger of failing in the fidelity he owed to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso. 'No, said he, firmly persuaded of the truth of his idea (and he said it loud enough to be heard), 'the greatest beauty upon earth shall not avail to make me renounce my adoration of her whom I bear stamped and graved in the core of my heart and the secret depths of my bowels be thou, lady mine, transformed into a clumsy country wench, or into a nymph of golden Tagus weaving a web of silk and gold, let Merlin or Montesinos hold thee captive where they will where'er thou art, thou art mine, and where'er I am, must be thine. The very instant he had uttered these words, the door opened. He stood up on the bed wrapped from head to foot in a yellow satin coverlet, with a cap on his head, and his face and his moustaches tied up, his face because of the scratches, and his moustaches to keep them from drooping and falling down, in which trim he looked the most extraordinary scarecrow that could be conceived. He kept his eyes fixed on the door, and just as he was expecting to see the lovesmitten and unhappy Altisidora make her appearance, he saw coming in a most venerable duenna, in a long whitebordered veil that covered and enveloped her from head to foot. Between the fingers of her left hand she held a short lighted candle, while with her right she shaded it to keep the light from her eyes, which were covered by spectacles of great size, and she advanced with noiseless steps, treading very softly. Don Quixote kept an eye upon her from his watchtower, and observing her costume and noting her silence, he concluded that it must be some witch or sorceress that was coming in such a guise to work him some mischief, and he began crossing himself at a great rate. The spectre still advanced, and on reaching the middle of the room, looked up and saw the energy with which Don Quixote was crossing himself and if he was scared by seeing such a figure as hers, she was terrified at the sight of his for the moment she saw his tall yellow form with the coverlet and the bandages that disfigured him, she gave a loud scream, and exclaiming, 'Jesus! what's this I see? let fall the candle in her fright, and then finding herself in the dark, turned about to make off, but stumbling on her skirts in her consternation, she measured her length with a mighty fall. Don Quixote in his trepidation began saying, 'I conjure thee, phantom, or whatever thou art, tell me what thou art and what thou wouldst with me. If thou art a soul in torment, say so, and all that my powers can do I will do for thee for I am a Catholic Christian and love to do good to all the world, and to this end I have embraced the order of knighterrantry to which I belong, the province of which extends to doing good even to souls in purgatory. The unfortunate duenna hearing herself thus conjured, by her own fear guessed Don Quixote's and in a low plaintive voice answered, 'Seor Don Quixoteif so be you are indeed Don QuixoteI am no phantom or spectre or soul in purgatory, as you seem to think, but Doa Rodriguez, duenna of honour to my lady the duchess, and I come to you with one of those grievances your worship is wont to redress. 'Tell me, Seora Doa Rodriguez, said Don Quixote, 'do you perchance come to transact any gobetween business? Because I must tell you I am not available for anybody's purpose, thanks to the peerless beauty of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso. In short, Seora Doa Rodriguez, if you will leave out and put aside all love messages, you may go and light your candle and come back, and we will discuss all the commands you have for me and whatever you wish, saving only, as I said, all seductive communications. 'I carry nobody's messages, seor, said the duenna 'little you know me. Nay, I'm not far enough advanced in years to take to any such childish tricks. God be praised I have a soul in my body still, and all my teeth and grinders in my mouth, except one or two that the colds, so common in this Aragon country, have robbed me of. But wait a little, while I go and light my candle, and I will return immediately and lay my sorrows before you as before one who relieves those of all the world and without staying for an answer she quitted the room and left Don Quixote tranquilly meditating while he waited for her. A thousand thoughts at once suggested themselves to him on the subject of this new adventure, and it struck him as being ill done and worse advised in him to expose himself to the danger of breaking his plighted faith to his lady and said he to himself, 'Who knows but that the devil, being wily and cunning, may be trying now to entrap me with a duenna, having failed with empresses, queens, duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses? Many a time have I heard it said by many a man of sense that he will sooner offer you a flatnosed wench than a romannosed one and who knows but this privacy, this opportunity, this silence, may awaken my sleeping desires, and lead me in these my latter years to fall where I have never tripped? In cases of this sort it is better to flee than to await the battle. But I must be out of my senses to think and utter such nonsense for it is impossible that a long, whitehooded spectacled duenna could stir up or excite a wanton thought in the most graceless bosom in the world. Is there a duenna on earth that has fair flesh? Is there a duenna in the world that escapes being illtempered, wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt, then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to all mankind. Oh, but that lady did well who, they say, had at the end of her reception room a couple of figures of duennas with spectacles and lacecushions, as if at work, and those statues served quite as well to give an air of propriety to the room as if they had been real duennas. So saying he leaped off the bed, intending to close the door and not allow Seora Rodriguez to enter but as he went to shut it Seora Rodriguez returned with a wax candle lighted, and having a closer view of Don Quixote, with the coverlet round him, and his bandages and nightcap, she was alarmed afresh, and retreating a couple of paces, exclaimed, 'Am I safe, sir knight? for I don't look upon it as a sign of very great virtue that your worship should have got up out of bed. 'I may well ask the same, seora, said Don Quixote 'and I do ask whether I shall be safe from being assailed and forced? 'Of whom and against whom do you demand that security, sir knight? said the duenna. 'Of you and against you I ask it, said Don Quixote 'for I am not marble, nor are you brass, nor is it now ten o'clock in the morning, but midnight, or a trifle past it I fancy, and we are in a room more secluded and retired than the cave could have been where the treacherous and daring neas enjoyed the fair softhearted Dido. But give me your hand, seora I require no better protection than my own continence, and my own sense of propriety as well as that which is inspired by that venerable headdress and so saying he kissed her right hand and took it in his own, she yielding it to him with equal ceremoniousness. And here Cide Hamete inserts a parenthesis in which he says that to have seen the pair marching from the door to the bed, linked hand in hand in this way, he would have given the best of the two tunics he had. Don Quixote finally got into bed, and Doa Rodriguez took her seat on a chair at some little distance from his couch, without taking off her spectacles or putting aside the candle. Don Quixote wrapped the bedclothes round him and covered himself up completely, leaving nothing but his face visible, and as soon as they had both regained their composure he broke silence, saying, 'Now, Seora Doa Rodriguez, you may unbosom yourself and out with everything you have in your sorrowful heart and afflicted bowels and by me you shall be listened to with chaste ears, and aided by compassionate exertions. 'I believe it, replied the duenna 'from your worship's gentle and winning presence only such a Christian answer could be expected. The fact is, then, Seor Don Quixote, that though you see me seated in this chair, here in the middle of the kingdom of Aragon, and in the attire of a despised outcast duenna, I am from the Asturias of Oviedo, and of a family with which many of the best of the province are connected by blood but my untoward fate and the improvidence of my parents, who, I know not how, were unseasonably reduced to poverty, brought me to the court of Madrid, where as a provision and to avoid greater misfortunes, my parents placed me as seamstress in the service of a lady of quality, and I would have you know that for hemming and sewing I have never been surpassed by any all my life. My parents left me in service and returned to their own country, and a few years later went, no doubt, to heaven, for they were excellent good Catholic Christians. I was left an orphan with nothing but the miserable wages and trifling presents that are given to servants of my sort in palaces but about this time, without any encouragement on my part, one of the esquires of the household fell in love with me, a man somewhat advanced in years, fullbearded and personable, and above all as good a gentleman as the king himself, for he came of a mountain stock. We did not carry on our loves with such secrecy but that they came to the knowledge of my lady, and she, not to have any fuss about it, had us married with the full sanction of the holy mother Roman Catholic Church, of which marriage a daughter was born to put an end to my good fortune, if I had any not that I died in childbirth, for I passed through it safely and in due season, but because shortly afterwards my husband died of a certain shock he received, and had I time to tell you of it I know your worship would be surprised and here she began to weep bitterly and said, 'Pardon me, Seor Don Quixote, if I am unable to control myself, for every time I think of my unfortunate husband my eyes fill up with tears. God bless me, with what an air of dignity he used to carry my lady behind him on a stout mule as black as jet! for in those days they did not use coaches or chairs, as they say they do now, and ladies rode behind their squires. This much at least I cannot help telling you, that you may observe the good breeding and punctiliousness of my worthy husband. As he was turning into the Calle de Santiago in Madrid, which is rather narrow, one of the alcaldes of the Court, with two alguacils before him, was coming out of it, and as soon as my good squire saw him he wheeled his mule about and made as if he would turn and accompany him. My lady, who was riding behind him, said to him in a low voice, 'What are you about, you sneak, don't you see that I am here?' The alcalde like a polite man pulled up his horse and said to him, 'Proceed, seor, for it is I, rather, who ought to accompany my lady Doa Casilda'for that was my mistress's name. Still my husband, cap in hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather think, a bodkin, out of her needlecase and drove it into his back with such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the ground with his lady. Her two lacqueys ran to rise her up, and the alcalde and the alguacils did the same the Guadalajara gate was all in commotionI mean the idlers congregated there my mistress came back on foot, and my husband hurried away to a barber's shop protesting that he was run right through the guts. The courtesy of my husband was noised abroad to such an extent, that the boys gave him no peace in the street and on this account, and because he was somewhat shortsighted, my lady dismissed him and it was chagrin at this I am convinced beyond a doubt that brought on his death. I was left a helpless widow, with a daughter on my hands growing up in beauty like the seafoam at length, however, as I had the character of being an excellent needlewoman, my lady the duchess, then lately married to my lord the duke, offered to take me with her to this kingdom of Aragon, and my daughter also, and here as time went by my daughter grew up and with her all the graces in the world she sings like a lark, dances quick as thought, foots it like a gipsy, reads and writes like a schoolmaster, and does sums like a miser of her neatness I say nothing, for the running water is not purer, and her age is now, if my memory serves me, sixteen years five months and three days, one more or less. To come to the point, the son of a very rich farmer, living in a village of my lord the duke's not very far from here, fell in love with this girl of mine and in short, how I know not, they came together, and under the promise of marrying her he made a fool of my daughter, and will not keep his word. And though my lord the duke is aware of it (for I have complained to him, not once but many and many a time, and entreated him to order the farmer to marry my daughter), he turns a deaf ear and will scarcely listen to me the reason being that as the deceiver's father is so rich, and lends him money, and is constantly going security for his debts, he does not like to offend or annoy him in any way. Now, seor, I want your worship to take it upon yourself to redress this wrong either by entreaty or by arms for by what all the world says you came into it to redress grievances and right wrongs and help the unfortunate. Let your worship put before you the unprotected condition of my daughter, her youth, and all the perfections I have said she possesses and before God and on my conscience, out of all the damsels my lady has, there is not one that comes up to the sole of her shoe, and the one they call Altisidora, and look upon as the boldest and gayest of them, put in comparison with my daughter, does not come within two leagues of her. For I would have you know, seor, all is not gold that glitters, and that same little Altisidora has more forwardness than good looks, and more impudence than modesty besides being not very sound, for she has such a disagreeable breath that one cannot bear to be near her for a moment and even my lady the duchessbut I'll hold my tongue, for they say that walls have ears. 'For heaven's sake, Doa Rodriguez, what ails my lady the duchess? asked Don Quixote. 'Adjured in that way, replied the duenna, 'I cannot help answering the question and telling the whole truth. Seor Don Quixote, have you observed the comeliness of my lady the duchess, that smooth complexion of hers like a burnished polished sword, those two cheeks of milk and carmine, that gay lively step with which she treads or rather seems to spurn the earth, so that one would fancy she went radiating health wherever she passed? Well then, let me tell you she may thank, first of all God, for this, and next, two issues that she has, one in each leg, by which all the evil humours, of which the doctors say she is full, are discharged. 'Blessed Virgin! exclaimed Don Quixote 'and is it possible that my lady the duchess has drains of that sort? I would not have believed it if the barefoot friars had told it me but as the lady Doa Rodriguez says so, it must be so. But surely such issues, and in such places, do not discharge humours, but liquid amber. Verily, I do believe now that this practice of opening issues is a very important matter for the health. Don Quixote had hardly said this, when the chamber door flew open with a loud bang, and with the start the noise gave her Doa Rodriguez let the candle fall from her hand, and the room was left as dark as a wolf's mouth, as the saying is. Suddenly the poor duenna felt two hands seize her by the throat, so tightly that she could not croak, while someone else, without uttering a word, very briskly hoisted up her petticoats, and with what seemed to be a slipper began to lay on so heartily that anyone would have felt pity for her but although Don Quixote felt it he never stirred from his bed, but lay quiet and silent, nay apprehensive that his turn for a drubbing might be coming. Nor was the apprehension an idle one for leaving the duenna (who did not dare to cry out) well basted, the silent executioners fell upon Don Quixote, and stripping him of the sheet and the coverlet, they pinched him so fast and so hard that he was driven to defend himself with his fists, and all this in marvellous silence. The battle lasted nearly half an hour, and then the phantoms fled Doa Rodriguez gathered up her skirts, and bemoaning her fate went out without saying a word to Don Quixote, and he, sorely pinched, puzzled, and dejected, remained alone, and there we will leave him, wondering who could have been the perverse enchanter who had reduced him to such a state but that shall be told in due season, for Sancho claims our attention, and the methodical arrangement of the story demands it. We left the great governor angered and irritated by that portraitpainting rogue of a farmer who, instructed by the majordomo, as the majordomo was by the duke, tried to practise upon him he however, fool, boor, and clown as he was, held his own against them all, saying to those round him and to Doctor Pedro Recio, who as soon as the private business of the duke's letter was disposed of had returned to the room, 'Now I see plainly enough that judges and governors ought to be and must be made of brass not to feel the importunities of the applicants that at all times and all seasons insist on being heard, and having their business despatched, and their own affairs and no others attended to, come what may and if the poor judge does not hear them and settle the mattereither because he cannot or because that is not the time set apart for hearing themforthwith they abuse him, and run him down, and gnaw at his bones, and even pick holes in his pedigree. You silly, stupid applicant, don't be in a hurry wait for the proper time and season for doing business don't come at dinnerhour, or at bedtime for judges are only flesh and blood, and must give to Nature what she naturally demands of them all except myself, for in my case I give her nothing to eat, thanks to Seor Doctor Pedro Recio Tirteafuera here, who would have me die of hunger, and declares that death to be life and the same sort of life may God give him and all his kindI mean the bad doctors for the good ones deserve palms and laurels. All who knew Sancho Panza were astonished to hear him speak so elegantly, and did not know what to attribute it to unless it were that office and grave responsibility either smarten or stupefy men's wits. At last Doctor Pedro Recio Agilers of Tirteafuera promised to let him have supper that night though it might be in contravention of all the aphorisms of Hippocrates. With this the governor was satisfied and looked forward to the approach of night and suppertime with great anxiety and though time, to his mind, stood still and made no progress, nevertheless the hour he so longed for came, and they gave him a beef salad with onions and some boiled calves' feet rather far gone. At this he fell to with greater relish than if they had given him francolins from Milan, pheasants from Rome, veal from Sorrento, partridges from Moron, or geese from Lavajos, and turning to the doctor at supper he said to him, 'Look here, seor doctor, for the future don't trouble yourself about giving me dainty things or choice dishes to eat, for it will be only taking my stomach off its hinges it is accustomed to goat, cow, bacon, hung beef, turnips and onions and if by any chance it is given these palace dishes, it receives them squeamishly, and sometimes with loathing. What the headcarver had best do is to serve me with what they call ollas podridas (and the rottener they are the better they smell) and he can put whatever he likes into them, so long as it is good to eat, and I'll be obliged to him, and will requite him some day. But let nobody play pranks on me, for either we are or we are not let us live and eat in peace and goodfellowship, for when God sends the dawn, he sends it for all. I mean to govern this island without giving up a right or taking a bribe let everyone keep his eye open, and look out for the arrow for I can tell them 'the devil's in Cantillana,' and if they drive me to it they'll see something that will astonish them. Nay! make yourself honey and the flies eat you. 'Of a truth, seor governor, said the carver, 'your worship is in the right of it in everything you have said and I promise you in the name of all the inhabitants of this island that they will serve your worship with all zeal, affection, and goodwill, for the mild kind of government you have given a sample of to begin with, leaves them no ground for doing or thinking anything to your worship's disadvantage. 'That I believe, said Sancho 'and they would be great fools if they did or thought otherwise once more I say, see to my feeding and my Dapple's for that is the great point and what is most to the purpose and when the hour comes let us go the rounds, for it is my intention to purge this island of all manner of uncleanness and of all idle goodfornothing vagabonds for I would have you know that lazy idlers are the same thing in a State as the drones in a hive, that eat up the honey the industrious bees make. I mean to protect the husbandman, to preserve to the gentleman his privileges, to reward the virtuous, and above all to respect religion and honour its ministers. What say you to that, my friends? Is there anything in what I say, or am I talking to no purpose? 'There is so much in what your worship says, seor governor, said the majordomo, 'that I am filled with wonder when I see a man like your worship, entirely without learning (for I believe you have none at all), say such things, and so full of sound maxims and sage remarks, very different from what was expected of your worship's intelligence by those who sent us or by us who came here. Every day we see something new in this world jokes become realities, and the jokers find the tables turned upon them. Night came, and with the permission of Doctor Pedro Recio, the governor had supper. They then got ready to go the rounds, and he started with the majordomo, the secretary, the headcarver, the chronicler charged with recording his deeds, and alguacils and notaries enough to form a fairsized squadron. In the midst marched Sancho with his staff, as fine a sight as one could wish to see, and but a few streets of the town had been traversed when they heard a noise as of a clashing of swords. They hastened to the spot, and found that the combatants were but two, who seeing the authorities approaching stood still, and one of them exclaimed, 'Help, in the name of God and the king! Are men to be allowed to rob in the middle of this town, and rush out and attack people in the very streets? 'Be calm, my good man, said Sancho, 'and tell me what the cause of this quarrel is for I am the governor. Said the other combatant, 'Seor governor, I will tell you in a very few words. Your worship must know that this gentleman has just now won more than a thousand reals in that gambling house opposite, and God knows how. I was there, and gave more than one doubtful point in his favour, very much against what my conscience told me. He made off with his winnings, and when I made sure he was going to give me a crown or so at least by way of a present, as it is usual and customary to give men of quality of my sort who stand by to see fair or foul play, and back up swindles, and prevent quarrels, he pocketed his money and left the house. Indignant at this I followed him, and speaking to him fairly and civilly asked him to give me if it were only eight reals, for he knows I am an honest man and that I have neither profession nor property, for my parents never brought me up to any or left me any but the rogue, who is a greater thief than Cacus and a greater sharper than Andradilla, would not give me more than four reals so your worship may see how little shame and conscience he has. But by my faith if you had not come up I'd have made him disgorge his winnings, and he'd have learned what the range of the steelyard was. 'What say you to this? asked Sancho. The other replied that all his antagonist said was true, and that he did not choose to give him more than four reals because he very often gave him money and that those who expected presents ought to be civil and take what is given them with a cheerful countenance, and not make any claim against winners unless they know them for certain to be sharpers and their winnings to be unfairly won and that there could be no better proof that he himself was an honest man than his having refused to give anything for sharpers always pay tribute to lookerson who know them. 'That is true, said the majordomo 'let your worship consider what is to be done with these men. 'What is to be done, said Sancho, 'is this you, the winner, be you good, bad, or indifferent, give this assailant of yours a hundred reals at once, and you must disburse thirty more for the poor prisoners and you who have neither profession nor property, and hang about the island in idleness, take these hundred reals now, and some time of the day tomorrow quit the island under sentence of banishment for ten years, and under pain of completing it in another life if you violate the sentence, for I'll hang you on a gibbet, or at least the hangman will by my orders not a word from either of you, or I'll make him feel my hand. The one paid down the money and the other took it, and the latter quitted the island, while the other went home and then the governor said, 'Either I am not good for much, or I'll get rid of these gambling houses, for it strikes me they are very mischievous. 'This one at least, said one of the notaries, 'your worship will not be able to get rid of, for a great man owns it, and what he loses every year is beyond all comparison more than what he makes by the cards. On the minor gambling houses your worship may exercise your power, and it is they that do most harm and shelter the most barefaced practices for in the houses of lords and gentlemen of quality the notorious sharpers dare not attempt to play their tricks and as the vice of gambling has become common, it is better that men should play in houses of repute than in some tradesman's, where they catch an unlucky fellow in the small hours of the morning and skin him alive. 'I know already, notary, that there is a good deal to be said on that point, said Sancho. And now a tipstaff came up with a young man in his grasp, and said, 'Seor governor, this youth was coming towards us, and as soon as he saw the officers of justice he turned about and ran like a deer, a sure proof that he must be some evildoer I ran after him, and had it not been that he stumbled and fell, I should never have caught him. 'What did you run for, fellow? said Sancho. To which the young man replied, 'Seor, it was to avoid answering all the questions officers of justice put. 'What are you by trade? 'A weaver. 'And what do you weave? 'Lance heads, with your worship's good leave. 'You're facetious with me! You plume yourself on being a wag? Very good and where were you going just now? 'To take the air, seor. 'And where does one take the air in this island? 'Where it blows. 'Good! your answers are very much to the point you are a smart youth but take notice that I am the air, and that I blow upon you astern, and send you to gaol. Ho there! lay hold of him and take him off I'll make him sleep there tonight without air. 'By God, said the young man, 'your worship will make me sleep in gaol just as soon as make me king. 'Why shan't I make thee sleep in gaol? said Sancho. 'Have I not the power to arrest thee and release thee whenever I like? 'All the power your worship has, said the young man, 'won't be able to make me sleep in gaol. 'How? not able! said Sancho 'take him away at once where he'll see his mistake with his own eyes, even if the gaoler is willing to exert his interested generosity on his behalf for I'll lay a penalty of two thousand ducats on him if he allows him to stir a step from the prison. 'That's ridiculous, said the young man 'the fact is, all the men on earth will not make me sleep in prison. 'Tell me, you devil, said Sancho, 'have you got any angel that will deliver you, and take off the irons I am going to order them to put upon you? 'Now, seor governor, said the young man in a sprightly manner, 'let us be reasonable and come to the point. Granted your worship may order me to be taken to prison, and to have irons and chains put on me, and to be shut up in a cell, and may lay heavy penalties on the gaoler if he lets me out, and that he obeys your orders still, if I don't choose to sleep, and choose to remain awake all night without closing an eye, will your worship with all your power be able to make me sleep if I don't choose? 'No, truly, said the secretary, 'and the fellow has made his point. 'So then, said Sancho, 'it would be entirely of your own choice you would keep from sleeping not in opposition to my will? 'No, seor, said the youth, 'certainly not. 'Well then, go, and God be with you, said Sancho 'be off home to sleep, and God give you sound sleep, for I don't want to rob you of it but for the future, let me advise you don't joke with the authorities, because you may come across someone who will bring down the joke on your own skull. The young man went his way, and the governor continued his round, and shortly afterwards two tipstaffs came up with a man in custody, and said, 'Seor governor, this person, who seems to be a man, is not so, but a woman, and not an illfavoured one, in man's clothes. They raised two or three lanterns to her face, and by their light they distinguished the features of a woman to all appearance of the age of sixteen or a little more, with her hair gathered into a gold and green silk net, and fair as a thousand pearls. They scanned her from head to foot, and observed that she had on red silk stockings with garters of white taffety bordered with gold and pearl her breeches were of green and gold stuff, and under an open jacket or jerkin of the same she wore a doublet of the finest white and gold cloth her shoes were white and such as men wear she carried no sword at her belt, but only a richly ornamented dagger, and on her fingers she had several handsome rings. In short, the girl seemed fair to look at in the eyes of all, and none of those who beheld her knew her, the people of the town said they could not imagine who she was, and those who were in on the secret of the jokes that were to be practised upon Sancho were the ones who were most surprised, for this incident or discovery had not been arranged by them and they watched anxiously to see how the affair would end. Sancho was fascinated by the girl's beauty, and he asked her who she was, where she was going, and what had induced her to dress herself in that garb. She with her eyes fixed on the ground answered in modest confusion, 'I cannot tell you, seor, before so many people what it is of such consequence to me to have kept secret one thing I wish to be known, that I am no thief or evildoer, but only an unhappy maiden whom the power of jealousy has led to break through the respect that is due to modesty. Hearing this the majordomo said to Sancho, 'Make the people stand back, seor governor, that this lady may say what she wishes with less embarrassment. Sancho gave the order, and all except the majordomo, the headcarver, and the secretary fell back. Finding herself then in the presence of no more, the damsel went on to say, 'I am the daughter, sirs, of Pedro Perez Mazorca, the woolfarmer of this town, who is in the habit of coming very often to my father's house. 'That won't do, seora, said the majordomo 'for I know Pedro Perez very well, and I know he has no child at all, either son or daughter and besides, though you say he is your father, you add then that he comes very often to your father's house. 'I had already noticed that, said Sancho. 'I am confused just now, sirs, said the damsel, 'and I don't know what I am saying but the truth is that I am the daughter of Diego de la Llana, whom you must all know. 'Ay, that will do, said the majordomo 'for I know Diego de la Llana, and know that he is a gentleman of position and a rich man, and that he has a son and a daughter, and that since he was left a widower nobody in all this town can speak of having seen his daughter's face for he keeps her so closely shut up that he does not give even the sun a chance of seeing her and for all that report says she is extremely beautiful. 'It is true, said the damsel, 'and I am that daughter whether report lies or not as to my beauty, you, sirs, will have decided by this time, as you have seen me and with this she began to weep bitterly. On seeing this the secretary leant over to the headcarver's ear, and said to him in a low voice, 'Something serious has no doubt happened this poor maiden, that she goes wandering from home in such a dress and at such an hour, and one of her rank too. 'There can be no doubt about it, returned the carver, 'and moreover her tears confirm your suspicion. Sancho gave her the best comfort he could, and entreated her to tell them without any fear what had happened her, as they would all earnestly and by every means in their power endeavour to relieve her. 'The fact is, sirs, said she, 'that my father has kept me shut up these ten years, for so long is it since the earth received my mother. Mass is said at home in a sumptuous chapel, and all this time I have seen but the sun in the heaven by day, and the moon and the stars by night nor do I know what streets are like, or plazas, or churches, or even men, except my father and a brother I have, and Pedro Perez the woolfarmer whom, because he came frequently to our house, I took it into my head to call my father, to avoid naming my own. This seclusion and the restrictions laid upon my going out, were it only to church, have been keeping me unhappy for many a day and month past I longed to see the world, or at least the town where I was born, and it did not seem to me that this wish was inconsistent with the respect maidens of good quality should have for themselves. When I heard them talking of bullfights taking place, and of javelin games, and of acting plays, I asked my brother, who is a year younger than myself, to tell me what sort of things these were, and many more that I had never seen he explained them to me as well as he could, but the only effect was to kindle in me a still stronger desire to see them. At last, to cut short the story of my ruin, I begged and entreated my brotherO that I had never made such an entreaty And once more she gave way to a burst of weeping. 'Proceed, seora, said the majordomo, 'and finish your story of what has happened to you, for your words and tears are keeping us all in suspense. 'I have but little more to say, though many a tear to shed, said the damsel 'for illplaced desires can only be paid for in some such way. The maiden's beauty had made a deep impression on the headcarver's heart, and he again raised his lantern for another look at her, and thought they were not tears she was shedding, but seedpearl or dew of the meadow, nay, he exalted them still higher, and made Oriental pearls of them, and fervently hoped her misfortune might not be so great a one as her tears and sobs seemed to indicate. The governor was losing patience at the length of time the girl was taking to tell her story, and told her not to keep them waiting any longer for it was late, and there still remained a good deal of the town to be gone over. She, with broken sobs and halfsuppressed sighs, went on to say, 'My misfortune, my misadventure, is simply this, that I entreated my brother to dress me up as a man in a suit of his clothes, and take me some night, when our father was asleep, to see the whole town he, overcome by my entreaties, consented, and dressing me in this suit and himself in clothes of mine that fitted him as if made for him (for he has not a hair on his chin, and might pass for a very beautiful young girl), tonight, about an hour ago, more or less, we left the house, and guided by our youthful and foolish impulse we made the circuit of the whole town, and then, as we were about to return home, we saw a great troop of people coming, and my brother said to me, 'Sister, this must be the round, stir your feet and put wings to them, and follow me as fast as you can, lest they recognise us, for that would be a bad business for us' and so saying he turned about and began, I cannot say to run but to fly in less than six paces I fell from fright, and then the officer of justice came up and carried me before your worships, where I find myself put to shame before all these people as whimsical and vicious. 'So then, seora, said Sancho, 'no other mishap has befallen you, nor was it jealousy that made you leave home, as you said at the beginning of your story? 'Nothing has happened me, said she, 'nor was it jealousy that brought me out, but merely a longing to see the world, which did not go beyond seeing the streets of this town. The appearance of the tipstaffs with her brother in custody, whom one of them had overtaken as he ran away from his sister, now fully confirmed the truth of what the damsel said. He had nothing on but a rich petticoat and a short blue damask cloak with fine gold lace, and his head was uncovered and adorned only with its own hair, which looked like rings of gold, so bright and curly was it. The governor, the majordomo, and the carver went aside with him, and, unheard by his sister, asked him how he came to be in that dress, and he with no less shame and embarrassment told exactly the same story as his sister, to the great delight of the enamoured carver the governor, however, said to them, 'In truth, young lady and gentleman, this has been a very childish affair, and to explain your folly and rashness there was no necessity for all this delay and all these tears and sighs for if you had said we are soandso, and we escaped from our father's house in this way in order to ramble about, out of mere curiosity and with no other object, there would have been an end of the matter, and none of these little sobs and tears and all the rest of it. 'That is true, said the damsel, 'but you see the confusion I was in was so great it did not let me behave as I ought. 'No harm has been done, said Sancho 'come, we will leave you at your father's house perhaps they will not have missed you and another time don't be so childish or eager to see the world for a respectable damsel should have a broken leg and keep at home and the woman and the hen by gadding about are soon lost and she who is eager to see is also eager to be seen I say no more. The youth thanked the governor for his kind offer to take them home, and they directed their steps towards the house, which was not far off. On reaching it the youth threw a pebble up at a grating, and immediately a womanservant who was waiting for them came down and opened the door to them, and they went in, leaving the party marvelling as much at their grace and beauty as at the fancy they had for seeing the world by night and without quitting the village which, however, they set down to their youth. The headcarver was left with a heart pierced through and through, and he made up his mind on the spot to demand the damsel in marriage of her father on the morrow, making sure she would not be refused him as he was a servant of the duke's and even to Sancho ideas and schemes of marrying the youth to his daughter Sanchica suggested themselves, and he resolved to open the negotiation at the proper season, persuading himself that no husband could be refused to a governor's daughter. And so the night's round came to an end, and a couple of days later the government, whereby all his plans were overthrown and swept away, as will be seen farther on. Cide Hamete, the painstaking investigator of the minute points of this veracious history, says that when Doa Rodriguez left her own room to go to Don Quixote's, another duenna who slept with her observed her, and as all duennas are fond of prying, listening, and sniffing, she followed her so silently that the good Rodriguez never perceived it and as soon as the duenna saw her enter Don Quixote's room, not to fail in a duenna's invariable practice of tattling, she hurried off that instant to report to the duchess how Doa Rodriguez was closeted with Don Quixote. The duchess told the duke, and asked him to let her and Altisidora go and see what the said duenna wanted with Don Quixote. The duke gave them leave, and the pair cautiously and quietly crept to the door of the room and posted themselves so close to it that they could hear all that was said inside. But when the duchess heard how the Rodriguez had made public the Aranjuez of her issues she could not restrain herself, nor Altisidora either and so, filled with rage and thirsting for vengeance, they burst into the room and tormented Don Quixote and flogged the duenna in the manner already described for indignities offered to their charms and selfesteem mightily provoke the anger of women and make them eager for revenge. The duchess told the duke what had happened, and he was much amused by it and she, in pursuance of her design of making merry and diverting herself with Don Quixote, despatched the page who had played the part of Dulcinea in the negotiations for her disenchantment (which Sancho Panza in the cares of government had forgotten all about) to Teresa Panza his wife with her husband's letter and another from herself, and also a great string of fine coral beads as a present. Now the history says this page was very sharp and quickwitted and eager to serve his lord and lady he set off very willingly for Sancho's village. Before he entered it he observed a number of women washing in a brook, and asked them if they could tell him whether there lived there a woman of the name of Teresa Panza, wife of one Sancho Panza, squire to a knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha. At the question a young girl who was washing stood up and said, 'Teresa Panza is my mother, and that Sancho is my father, and that knight is our master. 'Well then, miss, said the page, 'come and show me where your mother is, for I bring her a letter and a present from your father. 'That I will with all my heart, seor, said the girl, who seemed to be about fourteen, more or less and leaving the clothes she was washing to one of her companions, and without putting anything on her head or feet, for she was barelegged and had her hair hanging about her, away she skipped in front of the page's horse, saying, 'Come, your worship, our house is at the entrance of the town, and my mother is there, sorrowful enough at not having had any news of my father this ever so long. 'Well, said the page, 'I am bringing her such good news that she will have reason to thank God. And then, skipping, running, and capering, the girl reached the town, but before going into the house she called out at the door, 'Come out, mother Teresa, come out, come out here's a gentleman with letters and other things from my good father. At these words her mother Teresa Panza came out spinning a bundle of flax, in a grey petticoat (so short was it one would have fancied 'they to her shame had cut it short), a grey bodice of the same stuff, and a smock. She was not very old, though plainly past forty, strong, healthy, vigorous, and sundried and seeing her daughter and the page on horseback, she exclaimed, 'What's this, child? What gentleman is this? 'A servant of my lady, Doa Teresa Panza, replied the page and suiting the action to the word he flung himself off his horse, and with great humility advanced to kneel before the lady Teresa, saying, 'Let me kiss your hand, Seora Doa Teresa, as the lawful and only wife of Seor Don Sancho Panza, rightful governor of the island of Barataria. 'Ah, seor, get up, do that, said Teresa 'for I'm not a bit of a court lady, but only a poor country woman, the daughter of a clodcrusher, and the wife of a squireerrant and not of any governor at all. 'You are, said the page, 'the most worthy wife of a most archworthy governor and as a proof of what I say accept this letter and this present and at the same time he took out of his pocket a string of coral beads with gold clasps, and placed it on her neck, and said, 'This letter is from his lordship the governor, and the other as well as these coral beads from my lady the duchess, who sends me to your worship. Teresa stood lost in astonishment, and her daughter just as much, and the girl said, 'May I die but our master Don Quixote's at the bottom of this he must have given father the government or county he so often promised him. 'That is the truth, said the page 'for it is through Seor Don Quixote that Seor Sancho is now governor of the island of Barataria, as will be seen by this letter. 'Will your worship read it to me, noble sir? said Teresa 'for though I can spin I can't read, not a scrap. 'Nor I either, said Sanchica 'but wait a bit, and I'll go and fetch someone who can read it, either the curate himself or the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and they'll come gladly to hear any news of my father. 'There is no need to fetch anybody, said the page 'for though I can't spin I can read, and I'll read it and so he read it through, but as it has been already given it is not inserted here and then he took out the other one from the duchess, which ran as follows Friend Teresa,Your husband Sancho's good qualities, of heart as well as of head, induced and compelled me to request my husband the duke to give him the government of one of his many islands. I am told he governs like a gerfalcon, of which I am very glad, and my lord the duke, of course, also and I am very thankful to heaven that I have not made a mistake in choosing him for that same government for I would have Seora Teresa know that a good governor is hard to find in this world and may God make me as good as Sancho's way of governing. Herewith I send you, my dear, a string of coral beads with gold clasps I wish they were Oriental pearls but 'he who gives thee a bone does not wish to see thee dead a time will come when we shall become acquainted and meet one another, but God knows the future. Commend me to your daughter Sanchica, and tell her from me to hold herself in readiness, for I mean to make a high match for her when she least expects it. They tell me there are big acorns in your village send me a couple of dozen or so, and I shall value them greatly as coming from your hand and write to me at length to assure me of your health and wellbeing and if there be anything you stand in need of, it is but to open your mouth, and that shall be the measure and so God keep you. From this place. Your loving friend, THE DUCHESS. 'Ah, what a good, plain, lowly lady! said Teresa when she heard the letter 'that I may be buried with ladies of that sort, and not the gentlewomen we have in this town, that fancy because they are gentlewomen the wind must not touch them, and go to church with as much airs as if they were queens, no less, and seem to think they are disgraced if they look at a farmer's wife! And see here how this good lady, for all she's a duchess, calls me 'friend,' and treats me as if I was her equaland equal may I see her with the tallest churchtower in La Mancha! And as for the acorns, seor, I'll send her ladyship a peck and such big ones that one might come to see them as a show and a wonder. And now, Sanchica, see that the gentleman is comfortable put up his horse, and get some eggs out of the stable, and cut plenty of bacon, and let's give him his dinner like a prince for the good news he has brought, and his own bonny face deserve it all and meanwhile I'll run out and give the neighbours the news of our good luck, and father curate, and Master Nicholas the barber, who are and always have been such friends of thy father's. 'That I will, mother, said Sanchica 'but mind, you must give me half of that string for I don't think my lady the duchess could have been so stupid as to send it all to you. 'It is all for thee, my child, said Teresa 'but let me wear it round my neck for a few days for verily it seems to make my heart glad. 'You will be glad too, said the page, 'when you see the bundle there is in this portmanteau, for it is a suit of the finest cloth, that the governor only wore one day out hunting and now sends, all for Seora Sanchica. 'May he live a thousand years, said Sanchica, 'and the bearer as many, nay two thousand, if needful. With this Teresa hurried out of the house with the letters, and with the string of beads round her neck, and went along thrumming the letters as if they were a tambourine, and by chance coming across the curate and Samson Carrasco she began capering and saying, 'None of us poor now, faith! We've got a little government! Ay, let the finest fine lady tackle me, and I'll give her a setting down! 'What's all this, Teresa Panza, said they 'what madness is this, and what papers are those? 'The madness is only this, said she, 'that these are the letters of duchesses and governors, and these I have on my neck are fine coral beads, with avemarias and paternosters of beaten gold, and I am a governess. 'God help us, said the curate, 'we don't understand you, Teresa, or know what you are talking about. 'There, you may see it yourselves, said Teresa, and she handed them the letters. The curate read them out for Samson Carrasco to hear, and Samson and he regarded one another with looks of astonishment at what they had read, and the bachelor asked who had brought the letters. Teresa in reply bade them come with her to her house and they would see the messenger, a most elegant youth, who had brought another present which was worth as much more. The curate took the coral beads from her neck and examined them again and again, and having satisfied himself as to their fineness he fell to wondering afresh, and said, 'By the gown I wear I don't know what to say or think of these letters and presents on the one hand I can see and feel the fineness of these coral beads, and on the other I read how a duchess sends to beg for a couple of dozen of acorns. 'Square that if you can, said Carrasco 'well, let's go and see the messenger, and from him we'll learn something about this mystery that has turned up. They did so, and Teresa returned with them. They found the page sifting a little barley for his horse, and Sanchica cutting a rasher of bacon to be paved with eggs for his dinner. His looks and his handsome apparel pleased them both greatly and after they had saluted him courteously, and he them, Samson begged him to give them his news, as well of Don Quixote as of Sancho Panza, for, he said, though they had read the letters from Sancho and her ladyship the duchess, they were still puzzled and could not make out what was meant by Sancho's government, and above all of an island, when all or most of those in the Mediterranean belonged to his Majesty. To this the page replied, 'As to Seor Sancho Panza's being a governor there is no doubt whatever but whether it is an island or not that he governs, with that I have nothing to do suffice it that it is a town of more than a thousand inhabitants with regard to the acorns I may tell you my lady the duchess is so unpretending and unassuming that, not to speak of sending to beg for acorns from a peasant woman, she has been known to send to ask for the loan of a comb from one of her neighbours for I would have your worships know that the ladies of Aragon, though they are just as illustrious, are not so punctilious and haughty as the Castilian ladies they treat people with greater familiarity. In the middle of this conversation Sanchica came in with her skirt full of eggs, and said she to the page, 'Tell me, seor, does my father wear trunkhose since he has been governor? 'I have not noticed, said the page 'but no doubt he wears them. 'Ah! my God! said Sanchica, 'what a sight it must be to see my father in tights! Isn't it odd that ever since I was born I have had a longing to see my father in trunkhose? 'As things go you will see that if you live, said the page 'by God he is in the way to take the road with a sunshade if the government only lasts him two months more. The curate and the bachelor could see plainly enough that the page spoke in a waggish vein but the fineness of the coral beads, and the hunting suit that Sancho sent (for Teresa had already shown it to them) did away with the impression and they could not help laughing at Sanchica's wish, and still more when Teresa said, 'Seor curate, look about if there's anybody here going to Madrid or Toledo, to buy me a hooped petticoat, a proper fashionable one of the best quality for indeed and indeed I must do honour to my husband's government as well as I can nay, if I am put to it and have to, I'll go to Court and set a coach like all the world for she who has a governor for her husband may very well have one and keep one. 'And why not, mother! said Sanchica 'would to God it were today instead of tomorrow, even though they were to say when they saw me seated in the coach with my mother, 'See that rubbish, that garlicstuffed fellow's daughter, how she goes stretched at her ease in a coach as if she was a shepope!' But let them tramp through the mud, and let me go in my coach with my feet off the ground. Bad luck to backbiters all over the world 'let me go warm and the people may laugh.' Do I say right, mother? 'To be sure you do, my child, said Teresa 'and all this good luck, and even more, my good Sancho foretold me and thou wilt see, my daughter, he won't stop till he has made me a countess for to make a beginning is everything in luck and as I have heard thy good father say many a time (for besides being thy father he's the father of proverbs too), 'When they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter when they offer thee a government, take it when they would give thee a county, seize it when they say, 'Here, here! to thee with something good, swallow it.' Oh no! go to sleep, and don't answer the strokes of good fortune and the lucky chances that are knocking at the door of your house! 'And what do I care, added Sanchica, 'whether anybody says when he sees me holding my head up, 'The dog saw himself in hempen breeches,' and the rest of it? Hearing this the curate said, 'I do believe that all this family of the Panzas are born with a sackful of proverbs in their insides, every one of them I never saw one of them that does not pour them out at all times and on all occasions. 'That is true, said the page, 'for Seor Governor Sancho utters them at every turn and though a great many of them are not to the purpose, still they amuse one, and my lady the duchess and the duke praise them highly. 'Then you still maintain that all this about Sancho's government is true, seor, said the bachelor, 'and that there actually is a duchess who sends him presents and writes to him? Because we, although we have handled the present and read the letters, don't believe it and suspect it to be something in the line of our fellowtownsman Don Quixote, who fancies that everything is done by enchantment and for this reason I am almost ready to say that I'd like to touch and feel your worship to see whether you are a mere ambassador of the imagination or a man of flesh and blood. 'All I know, sirs, replied the page, 'is that I am a real ambassador, and that Seor Sancho Panza is governor as a matter of fact, and that my lord and lady the duke and duchess can give, and have given him this same government, and that I have heard it said Sancho Panza bears himself very stoutly therein whether there be any enchantment in all this or not, it is for your worships to settle between you for that's all I know by the oath I swear, and that is by the life of my parents whom I have still alive, and love dearly. 'It may be so, said the bachelor 'but dubitat Augustinus. 'Doubt who will, said the page 'what I have told you is the truth, and that will always rise above falsehood as oil above water if not operibus credite, et non verbis. Let one of you come with me, and he will see with his eyes what he does not believe with his ears. 'It's for me to make that trip, said Sanchica 'take me with you, seor, behind you on your horse for I'll go with all my heart to see my father. 'Governors' daughters, said the page, 'must not travel along the roads alone, but accompanied by coaches and litters and a great number of attendants. 'By God, said Sanchica, 'I can go just as well mounted on a sheass as in a coach what a dainty lass you must take me for! 'Hush, girl, said Teresa 'you don't know what you're talking about the gentleman is quite right, for 'as the time so the behaviour' when it was Sancho it was 'Sancha' when it is governor it's 'seora' I don't know if I'm right. 'Seora Teresa says more than she is aware of, said the page 'and now give me something to eat and let me go at once, for I mean to return this evening. 'Come and do penance with me, said the curate at this 'for Seora Teresa has more will than means to serve so worthy a guest. The page refused, but had to consent at last for his own sake and the curate took him home with him very gladly, in order to have an opportunity of questioning him at leisure about Don Quixote and his doings. The bachelor offered to write the letters in reply for Teresa but she did not care to let him mix himself up in her affairs, for she thought him somewhat given to joking and so she gave a cake and a couple of eggs to a young acolyte who was a penman, and he wrote for her two letters, one for her husband and the other for the duchess, dictated out of her own head, which are not the worst inserted in this great history, as will be seen farther on. Day came after the night of the governor's round a night which the headcarver passed without sleeping, so were his thoughts of the face and air and beauty of the disguised damsel, while the majordomo spent what was left of it in writing an account to his lord and lady of all Sancho said and did, being as much amazed at his sayings as at his doings, for there was a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity in all his words and deeds. The seor governor got up, and by Doctor Pedro Recio's directions they made him break his fast on a little conserve and four sups of cold water, which Sancho would have readily exchanged for a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes but seeing there was no help for it, he submitted with no little sorrow of heart and discomfort of stomach Pedro Recio having persuaded him that light and delicate diet enlivened the wits, and that was what was most essential for persons placed in command and in responsible situations, where they have to employ not only the bodily powers but those of the mind also. By means of this sophistry Sancho was made to endure hunger, and hunger so keen that in his heart he cursed the government, and even him who had given it to him however, with his hunger and his conserve he undertook to deliver judgments that day, and the first thing that came before him was a question that was submitted to him by a stranger, in the presence of the majordomo and the other attendants, and it was in these words 'Seor, a large river separated two districts of one and the same lordshipwill your worship please to pay attention, for the case is an important and a rather knotty one? Well then, on this river there was a bridge, and at one end of it a gallows, and a sort of tribunal, where four judges commonly sat to administer the law which the lord of river, bridge and the lordship had enacted, and which was to this effect, 'If anyone crosses by this bridge from one side to the other he shall declare on oath where he is going to and with what object and if he swears truly, he shall be allowed to pass, but if falsely, he shall be put to death for it by hanging on the gallows erected there, without any remission.' Though the law and its severe penalty were known, many persons crossed, but in their declarations it was easy to see at once they were telling the truth, and the judges let them pass free. It happened, however, that one man, when they came to take his declaration, swore and said that by the oath he took he was going to die upon that gallows that stood there, and nothing else. The judges held a consultation over the oath, and they said, 'If we let this man pass free he has sworn falsely, and by the law he ought to die but if we hang him, as he swore he was going to die on that gallows, and therefore swore the truth, by the same law he ought to go free.' It is asked of your worship, seor governor, what are the judges to do with this man? For they are still in doubt and perplexity and having heard of your worship's acute and exalted intellect, they have sent me to entreat your worship on their behalf to give your opinion on this very intricate and puzzling case. To this Sancho made answer, 'Indeed those gentlemen the judges that send you to me might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have more of the obtuse than the acute in me but repeat the case over again, so that I may understand it, and then perhaps I may be able to hit the point. The querist repeated again and again what he had said before, and then Sancho said, 'It seems to me I can set the matter right in a moment, and in this way the man swears that he is going to die upon the gallows but if he dies upon it, he has sworn the truth, and by the law enacted deserves to go free and pass over the bridge but if they don't hang him, then he has sworn falsely, and by the same law deserves to be hanged. 'It is as the seor governor says, said the messenger 'and as regards a complete comprehension of the case, there is nothing left to desire or hesitate about. 'Well then I say, said Sancho, 'that of this man they should let pass the part that has sworn truly, and hang the part that has lied and in this way the conditions of the passage will be fully complied with. 'But then, seor governor, replied the querist, 'the man will have to be divided into two parts and if he is divided of course he will die and so none of the requirements of the law will be carried out, and it is absolutely necessary to comply with it. 'Look here, my good sir, said Sancho 'either I'm a numskull or else there is the same reason for this passenger dying as for his living and passing over the bridge for if the truth saves him the falsehood equally condemns him and that being the case it is my opinion you should say to the gentlemen who sent you to me that as the arguments for condemning him and for absolving him are exactly balanced, they should let him pass freely, as it is always more praiseworthy to do good than to do evil this I would give signed with my name if I knew how to sign and what I have said in this case is not out of my own head, but one of the many precepts my master Don Quixote gave me the night before I left to become governor of this island, that came into my mind, and it was this, that when there was any doubt about the justice of a case I should lean to mercy and it is God's will that I should recollect it now, for it fits this case as if it was made for it. 'That is true, said the majordomo 'and I maintain that Lycurgus himself, who gave laws to the Lacedemonians, could not have pronounced a better decision than the great Panza has given let the morning's audience close with this, and I will see that the seor governor has dinner entirely to his liking. 'That's all I ask forfair play, said Sancho 'give me my dinner, and then let it rain cases and questions on me, and I'll despatch them in a twinkling. The majordomo kept his word, for he felt it against his conscience to kill so wise a governor by hunger particularly as he intended to have done with him that same night, playing off the last joke he was commissioned to practise upon him. It came to pass, then, that after he had dined that day, in opposition to the rules and aphorisms of Doctor Tirteafuera, as they were taking away the cloth there came a courier with a letter from Don Quixote for the governor. Sancho ordered the secretary to read it to himself, and if there was nothing in it that demanded secrecy to read it aloud. The secretary did so, and after he had skimmed the contents he said, 'It may well be read aloud, for what Seor Don Quixote writes to your worship deserves to be printed or written in letters of gold, and it is as follows. DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA'S LETTER TO SANCHO PANZA, GOVERNOR OF THE ISLAND OF BARATARIA. When I was expecting to hear of thy stupidities and blunders, friend Sancho, I have received intelligence of thy displays of good sense, for which I give special thanks to heaven that can raise the poor from the dunghill and of fools to make wise men. They tell me thou dost govern as if thou wert a man, and art a man as if thou wert a beast, so great is the humility wherewith thou dost comport thyself. But I would have thee bear in mind, Sancho, that very often it is fitting and necessary for the authority of office to resist the humility of the heart for the seemly array of one who is invested with grave duties should be such as they require and not measured by what his own humble tastes may lead him to prefer. Dress well a stick dressed up does not look like a stick I do not say thou shouldst wear trinkets or fine raiment, or that being a judge thou shouldst dress like a soldier, but that thou shouldst array thyself in the apparel thy office requires, and that at the same time it be neat and handsome. To win the goodwill of the people thou governest there are two things, among others, that thou must do one is to be civil to all (this, however, I told thee before), and the other to take care that food be abundant, for there is nothing that vexes the heart of the poor more than hunger and high prices. Make not many proclamations but those thou makest take care that they be good ones, and above all that they be observed and carried out for proclamations that are not observed are the same as if they did not exist nay, they encourage the idea that the prince who had the wisdom and authority to make them had not the power to enforce them and laws that threaten and are not enforced come to be like the log, the king of the frogs, that frightened them at first, but that in time they despised and mounted upon. Be a father to virtue and a stepfather to vice. Be not always strict, nor yet always lenient, but observe a mean between these two extremes, for in that is the aim of wisdom. Visit the gaols, the slaughterhouses, and the marketplaces for the presence of the governor is of great importance in such places it comforts the prisoners who are in hopes of a speedy release, it is the bugbear of the butchers who have then to give just weight, and it is the terror of the marketwomen for the same reason. Let it not be seen that thou art (even if perchance thou art, which I do not believe) covetous, a follower of women, or a glutton for when the people and those that have dealings with thee become aware of thy special weakness they will bring their batteries to bear upon thee in that quarter, till they have brought thee down to the depths of perdition. Consider and reconsider, con and con over again the advices and the instructions I gave thee before thy departure hence to thy government, and thou wilt see that in them, if thou dost follow them, thou hast a help at hand that will lighten for thee the troubles and difficulties that beset governors at every step. Write to thy lord and lady and show thyself grateful to them, for ingratitude is the daughter of pride, and one of the greatest sins we know of and he who is grateful to those who have been good to him shows that he will be so to God also who has bestowed and still bestows so many blessings upon him. My lady the duchess sent off a messenger with thy suit and another present to thy wife Teresa Panza we expect the answer every moment. I have been a little indisposed through a certain scratching I came in for, not very much to the benefit of my nose but it was nothing for if there are enchanters who maltreat me, there are also some who defend me. Let me know if the majordomo who is with thee had any share in the Trifaldi performance, as thou didst suspect and keep me informed of everything that happens thee, as the distance is so short all the more as I am thinking of giving over very shortly this idle life I am now leading, for I was not born for it. A thing has occurred to me which I am inclined to think will put me out of favour with the duke and duchess but though I am sorry for it I do not care, for after all I must obey my calling rather than their pleasure, in accordance with the common saying, amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. I quote this Latin to thee because I conclude that since thou hast been a governor thou wilt have learned it. Adieu God keep thee from being an object of pity to anyone. Thy friend, DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA. Sancho listened to the letter with great attention, and it was praised and considered wise by all who heard it he then rose up from table, and calling his secretary shut himself in with him in his own room, and without putting it off any longer set about answering his master Don Quixote at once and he bade the secretary write down what he told him without adding or suppressing anything, which he did, and the answer was to the following effect. SANCHO PANZA'S LETTER TO DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA. The pressure of business is so great upon me that I have no time to scratch my head or even to cut my nails and I have them so longGod send a remedy for it. I say this, master of my soul, that you may not be surprised if I have not until now sent you word of how I fare, well or ill, in this government, in which I am suffering more hunger than when we two were wandering through the woods and wastes. My lord the duke wrote to me the other day to warn me that certain spies had got into this island to kill me but up to the present I have not found out any except a certain doctor who receives a salary in this town for killing all the governors that come here he is called Doctor Pedro Recio, and is from Tirteafuera so you see what a name he has to make me dread dying under his hands. This doctor says of himself that he does not cure diseases when there are any, but prevents them coming, and the medicines he uses are diet and more diet until he brings one down to bare bones as if leanness was not worse than fever. In short he is killing me with hunger, and I am dying myself of vexation for when I thought I was coming to this government to get my meat hot and my drink cool, and take my ease between holland sheets on feather beds, I find I have come to do penance as if I was a hermit and as I don't do it willingly I suspect that in the end the devil will carry me off. So far I have not handled any dues or taken any bribes, and I don't know what to think of it for here they tell me that the governors that come to this island, before entering it have plenty of money either given to them or lent to them by the people of the town, and that this is the usual custom not only here but with all who enter upon governments. Last night going the rounds I came upon a fair damsel in man's clothes, and a brother of hers dressed as a woman my headcarver has fallen in love with the girl, and has in his own mind chosen her for a wife, so he says, and I have chosen the youth for a soninlaw today we are going to explain our intentions to the father of the pair, who is one Diego de la Llana, a gentleman and an old Christian as much as you please. I have visited the marketplaces, as your worship advises me, and yesterday I found a stallkeeper selling new hazel nuts and proved her to have mixed a bushel of old empty rotten nuts with a bushel of new I confiscated the whole for the children of the charityschool, who will know how to distinguish them well enough, and I sentenced her not to come into the marketplace for a fortnight they told me I did bravely. I can tell your worship it is commonly said in this town that there are no people worse than the marketwomen, for they are all barefaced, unconscionable, and impudent, and I can well believe it from what I have seen of them in other towns. I am very glad my lady the duchess has written to my wife Teresa Panza and sent her the present your worship speaks of and I will strive to show myself grateful when the time comes kiss her hands for me, and tell her I say she has not thrown it into a sack with a hole in it, as she will see in the end. I should not like your worship to have any difference with my lord and lady for if you fall out with them it is plain it must do me harm and as you give me advice to be grateful it will not do for your worship not to be so yourself to those who have shown you such kindness, and by whom you have been treated so hospitably in their castle. That about the scratching I don't understand but I suppose it must be one of the illturns the wicked enchanters are always doing your worship when we meet I shall know all about it. I wish I could send your worship something but I don't know what to send, unless it be some very curious clyster pipes, to work with bladders, that they make in this island but if the office remains with me I'll find out something to send, one way or another. If my wife Teresa Panza writes to me, pay the postage and send me the letter, for I have a very great desire to hear how my house and wife and children are going on. And so, may God deliver your worship from evilminded enchanters, and bring me well and peacefully out of this government, which I doubt, for I expect to take leave of it and my life together, from the way Doctor Pedro Recio treats me. Your worship's servant SANCHO PANZA THE GOVERNOR. The secretary sealed the letter, and immediately dismissed the courier and those who were carrying on the joke against Sancho putting their heads together arranged how he was to be dismissed from the government. Sancho spent the afternoon in drawing up certain ordinances relating to the good government of what he fancied the island and he ordained that there were to be no provision hucksters in the State, and that men might import wine into it from any place they pleased, provided they declared the quarter it came from, so that a price might be put upon it according to its quality, reputation, and the estimation it was held in and he that watered his wine, or changed the name, was to forfeit his life for it. He reduced the prices of all manner of shoes, boots, and stockings, but of shoes in particular, as they seemed to him to run extravagantly high. He established a fixed rate for servants' wages, which were becoming recklessly exorbitant. He laid extremely heavy penalties upon those who sang lewd or loose songs either by day or night. He decreed that no blind man should sing of any miracle in verse, unless he could produce authentic evidence that it was true, for it was his opinion that most of those the blind men sing are trumped up, to the detriment of the true ones. He established and created an alguacil of the poor, not to harass them, but to examine them and see whether they really were so for many a sturdy thief or drunkard goes about under cover of a makebelieve crippled limb or a sham sore. In a word, he made so many good rules that to this day they are preserved there, and are called The constitutions of the great governor Sancho Panza. Cide Hamete relates that Don Quixote being now cured of his scratches felt that the life he was leading in the castle was entirely inconsistent with the order of chivalry he professed, so he determined to ask the duke and duchess to permit him to take his departure for Saragossa, as the time of the festival was now drawing near, and he hoped to win there the suit of armour which is the prize at festivals of the sort. But one day at table with the duke and duchess, just as he was about to carry his resolution into effect and ask for their permission, lo and behold suddenly there came in through the door of the great hall two women, as they afterwards proved to be, draped in mourning from head to foot, one of whom approaching Don Quixote flung herself at full length at his feet, pressing her lips to them, and uttering moans so sad, so deep, and so doleful that she put all who heard and saw her into a state of perplexity and though the duke and duchess supposed it must be some joke their servants were playing off upon Don Quixote, still the earnest way the woman sighed and moaned and wept puzzled them and made them feel uncertain, until Don Quixote, touched with compassion, raised her up and made her unveil herself and remove the mantle from her tearful face. She complied and disclosed what no one could have ever anticipated, for she disclosed the countenance of Doa Rodriguez, the duenna of the house the other female in mourning being her daughter, who had been made a fool of by the rich farmer's son. All who knew her were filled with astonishment, and the duke and duchess more than any for though they thought her a simpleton and a weak creature, they did not think her capable of crazy pranks. Doa Rodriguez, at length, turning to her master and mistress said to them, 'Will your excellences be pleased to permit me to speak to this gentleman for a moment, for it is requisite I should do so in order to get successfully out of the business in which the boldness of an evilminded clown has involved me? The duke said that for his part he gave her leave, and that she might speak with Seor Don Quixote as much as she liked. She then, turning to Don Quixote and addressing herself to him said, 'Some days since, valiant knight, I gave you an account of the injustice and treachery of a wicked farmer to my dearly beloved daughter, the unhappy damsel here before you, and you promised me to take her part and right the wrong that has been done her but now it has come to my hearing that you are about to depart from this castle in quest of such fair adventures as God may vouchsafe to you therefore, before you take the road, I would that you challenge this froward rustic, and compel him to marry my daughter in fulfillment of the promise he gave her to become her husband before he seduced her for to expect that my lord the duke will do me justice is to ask pears from the elm tree, for the reason I stated privately to your worship and so may our Lord grant you good health and forsake us not. To these words Don Quixote replied very gravely and solemnly, 'Worthy duenna, check your tears, or rather dry them, and spare your sighs, for I take it upon myself to obtain redress for your daughter, for whom it would have been better not to have been so ready to believe lovers' promises, which are for the most part quickly made and very slowly performed and so, with my lord the duke's leave, I will at once go in quest of this inhuman youth, and will find him out and challenge him and slay him, if so be he refuses to keep his promised word for the chief object of my profession is to spare the humble and chastise the proud I mean, to help the distressed and destroy the oppressors. 'There is no necessity, said the duke, 'for your worship to take the trouble of seeking out the rustic of whom this worthy duenna complains, nor is there any necessity, either, for asking my leave to challenge him for I admit him duly challenged, and will take care that he is informed of the challenge, and accepts it, and comes to answer it in person to this castle of mine, where I shall afford to both a fair field, observing all the conditions which are usually and properly observed in such trials, and observing too justice to both sides, as all princes who offer a free field to combatants within the limits of their lordships are bound to do. 'Then with that assurance and your highness's good leave, said Don Quixote, 'I hereby for this once waive my privilege of gentle blood, and come down and put myself on a level with the lowly birth of the wrongdoer, making myself equal with him and enabling him to enter into combat with me and so, I challenge and defy him, though absent, on the plea of his malfeasance in breaking faith with this poor damsel, who was a maiden and now by his misdeed is none and say that he shall fulfill the promise he gave her to become her lawful husband, or else stake his life upon the question. And then plucking off a glove he threw it down in the middle of the hall, and the duke picked it up, saying, as he had said before, that he accepted the challenge in the name of his vassal, and fixed six days thence as the time, the courtyard of the castle as the place, and for arms the customary ones of knights, lance and shield and full armour, with all the other accessories, without trickery, guile, or charms of any sort, and examined and passed by the judges of the field. 'But first of all, he said, 'it is requisite that this worthy duenna and unworthy damsel should place their claim for justice in the hands of Don Quixote for otherwise nothing can be done, nor can the said challenge be brought to a lawful issue. 'I do so place it, replied the duenna. 'And I too, added her daughter, all in tears and covered with shame and confusion. This declaration having been made, and the duke having settled in his own mind what he would do in the matter, the ladies in black withdrew, and the duchess gave orders that for the future they were not to be treated as servants of hers, but as lady adventurers who came to her house to demand justice so they gave them a room to themselves and waited on them as they would on strangers, to the consternation of the other womenservants, who did not know where the folly and imprudence of Doa Rodriguez and her unlucky daughter would stop. And now, to complete the enjoyment of the feast and bring the dinner to a satisfactory end, lo and behold the page who had carried the letters and presents to Teresa Panza, the wife of the governor Sancho, entered the hall and the duke and duchess were very well pleased to see him, being anxious to know the result of his journey but when they asked him the page said in reply that he could not give it before so many people or in a few words, and begged their excellences to be pleased to let it wait for a private opportunity, and in the meantime amuse themselves with these letters and taking out the letters he placed them in the duchess's hand. One bore by way of address, Letter for my lady the Duchess Soandso, of I don't know where and the other To my husband Sancho Panza, governor of the island of Barataria, whom God prosper longer than me. The duchess's bread would not bake, as the saying is, until she had read her letter and having looked over it herself and seen that it might be read aloud for the duke and all present to hear, she read out as follows. TERESA PANZA'S LETTER TO THE DUCHESS. The letter your highness wrote me, my lady, gave me great pleasure, for indeed I found it very welcome. The string of coral beads is very fine, and my husband's hunting suit does not fall short of it. All this village is very much pleased that your ladyship has made a governor of my good man Sancho though nobody will believe it, particularly the curate, and Master Nicholas the barber, and the bachelor Samson Carrasco but I don't care for that, for so long as it is true, as it is, they may all say what they like though, to tell the truth, if the coral beads and the suit had not come I would not have believed it either for in this village everybody thinks my husband a numskull, and except for governing a flock of goats, they cannot fancy what sort of government he can be fit for. God grant it, and direct him according as he sees his children stand in need of it. I am resolved with your worship's leave, lady of my soul, to make the most of this fair day, and go to Court to stretch myself at ease in a coach, and make all those I have envying me already burst their eyes out so I beg your excellence to order my husband to send me a small trifle of money, and to let it be something to speak of, because one's expenses are heavy at the Court for a loaf costs a real, and meat thirty maravedis a pound, which is beyond everything and if he does not want me to go let him tell me in time, for my feet are on the fidgets to be off and my friends and neighbours tell me that if my daughter and I make a figure and a brave show at Court, my husband will come to be known far more by me than I by him, for of course plenty of people will ask, 'Who are those ladies in that coach? and some servant of mine will answer, 'The wife and daughter of Sancho Panza, governor of the island of Barataria and in this way Sancho will become known, and I'll be thought well of, and 'to Rome for everything. I am as vexed as vexed can be that they have gathered no acorns this year in our village for all that I send your highness about half a peck that I went to the wood to gather and pick out one by one myself, and I could find no bigger ones I wish they were as big as ostrich eggs. Let not your high mightiness forget to write to me and I will take care to answer, and let you know how I am, and whatever news there may be in this place, where I remain, praying our Lord to have your highness in his keeping and not to forget me. Sancha my daughter, and my son, kiss your worship's hands. She who would rather see your ladyship than write to you, Your servant, TERESA PANZA. All were greatly amused by Teresa Panza's letter, but particularly the duke and duchess and the duchess asked Don Quixote's opinion whether they might open the letter that had come for the governor, which she suspected must be very good. Don Quixote said that to gratify them he would open it, and did so, and found that it ran as follows. TERESA PANZA'S LETTER TO HER HUSBAND SANCHO PANZA. I got thy letter, Sancho of my soul, and I promise thee and swear as a Catholic Christian that I was within two fingers' breadth of going mad I was so happy. I can tell thee, brother, when I came to hear that thou wert a governor I thought I should have dropped dead with pure joy and thou knowest they say sudden joy kills as well as great sorrow and as for Sanchica thy daughter, she leaked from sheer happiness. I had before me the suit thou didst send me, and the coral beads my lady the duchess sent me round my neck, and the letters in my hands, and there was the bearer of them standing by, and in spite of all this I verily believed and thought that what I saw and handled was all a dream for who could have thought that a goatherd would come to be a governor of islands? Thou knowest, my friend, what my mother used to say, that one must live long to see much I say it because I expect to see more if I live longer for I don't expect to stop until I see thee a farmer of taxes or a collector of revenue, which are offices where, though the devil carries off those who make a bad use of them, still they make and handle money. My lady the duchess will tell thee the desire I have to go to the Court consider the matter and let me know thy pleasure I will try to do honour to thee by going in a coach. Neither the curate, nor the barber, nor the bachelor, nor even the sacristan, can believe that thou art a governor, and they say the whole thing is a delusion or an enchantment affair, like everything belonging to thy master Don Quixote and Samson says he must go in search of thee and drive the government out of thy head and the madness out of Don Quixote's skull I only laugh, and look at my string of beads, and plan out the dress I am going to make for our daughter out of thy suit. I sent some acorns to my lady the duchess I wish they had been gold. Send me some strings of pearls if they are in fashion in that island. Here is the news of the village La Berrueca has married her daughter to a goodfornothing painter, who came here to paint anything that might turn up. The council gave him an order to paint his Majesty's arms over the door of the townhall he asked two ducats, which they paid him in advance he worked for eight days, and at the end of them had nothing painted, and then said he had no turn for painting such trifling things he returned the money, and for all that has married on the pretence of being a good workman to be sure he has now laid aside his paintbrush and taken a spade in hand, and goes to the field like a gentleman. Pedro Lobo's son has received the first orders and tonsure, with the intention of becoming a priest. Minguilla, Mingo Silvato's granddaughter, found it out, and has gone to law with him on the score of having given her promise of marriage. Evil tongues say she is with child by him, but he denies it stoutly. There are no olives this year, and there is not a drop of vinegar to be had in the whole village. A company of soldiers passed through here when they left they took away with them three of the girls of the village I will not tell thee who they are perhaps they will come back, and they will be sure to find those who will take them for wives with all their blemishes, good or bad. Sanchica is making bonelace she earns eight maravedis a day clear, which she puts into a moneybox as a help towards house furnishing but now that she is a governor's daughter thou wilt give her a portion without her working for it. The fountain in the plaza has run dry. A flash of lightning struck the gibbet, and I wish they all lit there. I look for an answer to this, and to know thy mind about my going to the Court and so, God keep thee longer than me, or as long, for I would not leave thee in this world without me. Thy wife, TERESA PANZA. The letters were applauded, laughed over, relished, and admired and then, as if to put the seal to the business, the courier arrived, bringing the one Sancho sent to Don Quixote, and this, too, was read out, and it raised some doubts as to the governor's simplicity. The duchess withdrew to hear from the page about his adventures in Sancho's village, which he narrated at full length without leaving a single circumstance unmentioned. He gave her the acorns, and also a cheese which Teresa had given him as being particularly good and superior to those of Tronchon. The duchess received it with greatest delight, in which we will leave her, to describe the end of the government of the great Sancho Panza, flower and mirror of all governors of islands. To fancy that in this life anything belonging to it will remain for ever in the same state is an idle fancy on the contrary, in it everything seems to go in a circle, I mean round and round. The spring succeeds the summer, the summer the fall, the fall the autumn, the autumn the winter, and the winter the spring, and so time rolls with neverceasing wheel. Man's life alone, swifter than time, speeds onward to its end without any hope of renewal, save it be in that other life which is endless and boundless. Thus saith Cide Hamete the Mahometan philosopher for there are many that by the light of nature alone, without the light of faith, have a comprehension of the fleeting nature and instability of this present life and the endless duration of that eternal life we hope for but our author is here speaking of the rapidity with which Sancho's government came to an end, melted away, disappeared, vanished as it were in smoke and shadow. For as he lay in bed on the night of the seventh day of his government, sated, not with bread and wine, but with delivering judgments and giving opinions and making laws and proclamations, just as sleep, in spite of hunger, was beginning to close his eyelids, he heard such a noise of bellringing and shouting that one would have fancied the whole island was going to the bottom. He sat up in bed and remained listening intently to try if he could make out what could be the cause of so great an uproar not only, however, was he unable to discover what it was, but as countless drums and trumpets now helped to swell the din of the bells and shouts, he was more puzzled than ever, and filled with fear and terror and getting up he put on a pair of slippers because of the dampness of the floor, and without throwing a dressing gown or anything of the kind over him he rushed out of the door of his room, just in time to see approaching along a corridor a band of more than twenty persons with lighted torches and naked swords in their hands, all shouting out, 'To arms, to arms, seor governor, to arms! The enemy is in the island in countless numbers, and we are lost unless your skill and valour come to our support. Keeping up this noise, tumult, and uproar, they came to where Sancho stood dazed and bewildered by what he saw and heard, and as they approached one of them called out to him, 'Arm at once, your lordship, if you would not have yourself destroyed and the whole island lost. 'What have I to do with arming? said Sancho. 'What do I know about arms or supports? Better leave all that to my master Don Quixote, who will settle it and make all safe in a trice for I, sinner that I am, God help me, don't understand these scuffles. 'Ah, seor governor, said another, 'what slackness of mettle this is! Arm yourself here are arms for you, offensive and defensive come out to the plaza and be our leader and captain it falls upon you by right, for you are our governor. 'Arm me then, in God's name, said Sancho, and they at once produced two large shields they had come provided with, and placed them upon him over his shirt, without letting him put on anything else, one shield in front and the other behind, and passing his arms through openings they had made, they bound him tight with ropes, so that there he was walled and boarded up as straight as a spindle and unable to bend his knees or stir a single step. In his hand they placed a lance, on which he leant to keep himself from falling, and as soon as they had him thus fixed they bade him march forward and lead them on and give them all courage for with him for their guide and lamp and morning star, they were sure to bring their business to a successful issue. 'How am I to march, unlucky being that I am? said Sancho, 'when I can't stir my kneecaps, for these boards I have bound so tight to my body won't let me. What you must do is carry me in your arms, and lay me across or set me upright in some postern, and I'll hold it either with this lance or with my body. 'On, seor governor! cried another, 'it is fear more than the boards that keeps you from moving make haste, stir yourself, for there is no time to lose the enemy is increasing in numbers, the shouts grow louder, and the danger is pressing. Urged by these exhortations and reproaches the poor governor made an attempt to advance, but fell to the ground with such a crash that he fancied he had broken himself all to pieces. There he lay like a tortoise enclosed in its shell, or a side of bacon between two kneadingtroughs, or a boat bottom up on the beach nor did the gang of jokers feel any compassion for him when they saw him down so far from that, extinguishing their torches they began to shout afresh and to renew the calls to arms with such energy, trampling on poor Sancho, and slashing at him over the shield with their swords in such a way that, if he had not gathered himself together and made himself small and drawn in his head between the shields, it would have fared badly with the poor governor, as, squeezed into that narrow compass, he lay, sweating and sweating again, and commending himself with all his heart to God to deliver him from his present peril. Some stumbled over him, others fell upon him, and one there was who took up a position on top of him for some time, and from thence as if from a watchtower issued orders to the troops, shouting out, 'Here, our side! Here the enemy is thickest! Hold the breach there! Shut that gate! Barricade those ladders! Here with your stinkpots of pitch and resin, and kettles of boiling oil! Block the streets with feather beds! In short, in his ardour he mentioned every little thing, and every implement and engine of war by means of which an assault upon a city is warded off, while the bruised and battered Sancho, who heard and suffered all, was saying to himself, 'O if it would only please the Lord to let the island be lost at once, and I could see myself either dead or out of this torture! Heaven heard his prayer, and when he least expected it he heard voices exclaiming, 'Victory, victory! The enemy retreats beaten! Come, seor governor, get up, and come and enjoy the victory, and divide the spoils that have been won from the foe by the might of that invincible arm. 'Lift me up, said the wretched Sancho in a woebegone voice. They helped him to rise, and as soon as he was on his feet said, 'The enemy I have beaten you may nail to my forehead I don't want to divide the spoils of the foe, I only beg and entreat some friend, if I have one, to give me a sup of wine, for I'm parched with thirst, and wipe me dry, for I'm turning to water. They rubbed him down, fetched him wine and unbound the shields, and he seated himself upon his bed, and with fear, agitation, and fatigue he fainted away. Those who had been concerned in the joke were now sorry they had pushed it so far however, the anxiety his fainting away had caused them was relieved by his returning to himself. He asked what o'clock it was they told him it was just daybreak. He said no more, and in silence began to dress himself, while all watched him, waiting to see what the haste with which he was putting on his clothes meant. He got himself dressed at last, and then, slowly, for he was sorely bruised and could not go fast, he proceeded to the stable, followed by all who were present, and going up to Dapple embraced him and gave him a loving kiss on the forehead, and said to him, not without tears in his eyes, 'Come along, comrade and friend and partner of my toils and sorrows when I was with you and had no cares to trouble me except mending your harness and feeding your little carcass, happy were my hours, my days, and my years but since I left you, and mounted the towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand troubles, and four thousand anxieties have entered into my soul and all the while he was speaking in this strain he was fixing the packsaddle on the ass, without a word from anyone. Then having Dapple saddled, he, with great pain and difficulty, got up on him, and addressing himself to the majordomo, the secretary, the headcarver, and Pedro Recio the doctor and several others who stood by, he said, 'Make way, gentlemen, and let me go back to my old freedom let me go look for my past life, and raise myself up from this present death. I was not born to be a governor or protect islands or cities from the enemies that choose to attack them. Ploughing and digging, vinedressing and pruning, are more in my way than defending provinces or kingdoms. Saint Peter is very well at Rome I mean each of us is best following the trade he was born to. A reapinghook fits my hand better than a governor's sceptre I'd rather have my fill of gazpacho than be subject to the misery of a meddling doctor who kills me with hunger, and I'd rather lie in summer under the shade of an oak, and in winter wrap myself in a double sheepskin jacket in freedom, than go to bed between holland sheets and dress in sables under the restraint of a government. God be with your worships, and tell my lord the duke that 'naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain' I mean that without a farthing I came into this government, and without a farthing I go out of it, very different from the way governors commonly leave other islands. Stand aside and let me go I have to plaster myself, for I believe every one of my ribs is crushed, thanks to the enemies that have been trampling over me tonight. 'That is unnecessary, seor governor, said Doctor Recio, 'for I will give your worship a draught against falls and bruises that will soon make you as sound and strong as ever and as for your diet I promise your worship to behave better, and let you eat plentifully of whatever you like. 'You spoke late, said Sancho. 'I'd as soon turn Turk as stay any longer. Those jokes won't pass a second time. By God I'd as soon remain in this government, or take another, even if it was offered me between two plates, as fly to heaven without wings. I am of the breed of the Panzas, and they are every one of them obstinate, and if they once say 'odds,' odds it must be, no matter if it is evens, in spite of all the world. Here in this stable I leave the ant's wings that lifted me up into the air for the swifts and other birds to eat me, and let's take to level ground and our feet once more and if they're not shod in pinked shoes of cordovan, they won't want for rough sandals of hemp 'every ewe to her like,' 'and let no one stretch his leg beyond the length of the sheet' and now let me pass, for it's growing late with me. To this the majordomo said, 'Seor governor, we would let your worship go with all our hearts, though it sorely grieves us to lose you, for your wit and Christian conduct naturally make us regret you but it is well known that every governor, before he leaves the place where he has been governing, is bound first of all to render an account. Let your worship do so for the ten days you have held the government, and then you may go and the peace of God go with you. 'No one can demand it of me, said Sancho, 'but he whom my lord the duke shall appoint I am going to meet him, and to him I will render an exact one besides, when I go forth naked as I do, there is no other proof needed to show that I have governed like an angel. 'By God the great Sancho is right, said Doctor Recio, 'and we should let him go, for the duke will be beyond measure glad to see him. They all agreed to this, and allowed him to go, first offering to bear him company and furnish him with all he wanted for his own comfort or for the journey. Sancho said he did not want anything more than a little barley for Dapple, and half a cheese and half a loaf for himself for the distance being so short there was no occasion for any better or bulkier provant. They all embraced him, and he with tears embraced all of them, and left them filled with admiration not only at his remarks but at his firm and sensible resolution. The duke and duchess resolved that the challenge Don Quixote had, for the reason already mentioned, given their vassal, should be proceeded with and as the young man was in Flanders, whither he had fled to escape having Doa Rodriguez for a motherinlaw, they arranged to substitute for him a Gascon lacquey, named Tosilos, first of all carefully instructing him in all he had to do. Two days later the duke told Don Quixote that in four days from that time his opponent would present himself on the field of battle armed as a knight, and would maintain that the damsel lied by half a beard, nay a whole beard, if she affirmed that he had given her a promise of marriage. Don Quixote was greatly pleased at the news, and promised himself to do wonders in the lists, and reckoned it rare good fortune that an opportunity should have offered for letting his noble hosts see what the might of his strong arm was capable of and so in high spirits and satisfaction he awaited the expiration of the four days, which measured by his impatience seemed spinning themselves out into four hundred ages. Let us leave them to pass as we do other things, and go and bear Sancho company, as mounted on Dapple, half glad, half sad, he paced along on his road to join his master, in whose society he was happier than in being governor of all the islands in the world. Well then, it so happened that before he had gone a great way from the island of his government (and whether it was island, city, town, or village that he governed he never troubled himself to inquire) he saw coming along the road he was travelling six pilgrims with staves, foreigners of that sort that beg for alms singing who as they drew near arranged themselves in a line and lifting up their voices all together began to sing in their own language something that Sancho could not understand, with the exception of one word which sounded plainly 'alms, from which he gathered that it was alms they asked for in their song and being, as Cide Hamete says, remarkably charitable, he took out of his alforjas the half loaf and half cheese he had been provided with, and gave them to them, explaining to them by signs that he had nothing else to give them. They received them very gladly, but exclaimed, 'Geld! Geld! 'I don't understand what you want of me, good people, said Sancho. On this one of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them who had been examining him very closely rushed towards him, and flinging his arms round him exclaimed in a loud voice and good Spanish, 'God bless me! What's this I see? Is it possible that I hold in my arms my dear friend, my good neighbour Sancho Panza? But there's no doubt about it, for I'm not asleep, nor am I drunk just now. Sancho was surprised to hear himself called by his name and find himself embraced by a foreign pilgrim, and after regarding him steadily without speaking he was still unable to recognise him but the pilgrim perceiving his perplexity cried, 'What! and is it possible, Sancho Panza, that thou dost not know thy neighbour Ricote, the Morisco shopkeeper of thy village? Sancho upon this looking at him more carefully began to recall his features, and at last recognised him perfectly, and without getting off the ass threw his arms round his neck saying, 'Who the devil could have known thee, Ricote, in this mummer's dress thou art in? Tell me, who has frenchified thee, and how dost thou dare to return to Spain, where if they catch thee and recognise thee it will go hard enough with thee? 'If thou dost not betray me, Sancho, said the pilgrim, 'I am safe for in this dress no one will recognise me but let us turn aside out of the road into that grove there where my comrades are going to eat and rest, and thou shalt eat with them there, for they are very good fellows I'll have time enough to tell thee then all that has happened me since I left our village in obedience to his Majesty's edict that threatened such severities against the unfortunate people of my nation, as thou hast heard. Sancho complied, and Ricote having spoken to the other pilgrims they withdrew to the grove they saw, turning a considerable distance out of the road. They threw down their staves, took off their pilgrim's cloaks and remained in their underclothing they were all goodlooking young fellows, except Ricote, who was a man somewhat advanced in years. They carried alforjas all of them, and all apparently well filled, at least with things provocative of thirst, such as would summon it from two leagues off. They stretched themselves on the ground, and making a tablecloth of the grass they spread upon it bread, salt, knives, walnut, scraps of cheese, and wellpicked hambones which if they were past gnawing were not past sucking. They also put down a black dainty called, they say, caviar, and made of the eggs of fish, a great thirstwakener. Nor was there any lack of olives, dry, it is true, and without any seasoning, but for all that toothsome and pleasant. But what made the best show in the field of the banquet was half a dozen botas of wine, for each of them produced his own from his alforjas even the good Ricote, who from a Morisco had transformed himself into a German or Dutchman, took out his, which in size might have vied with the five others. They then began to eat with very great relish and very leisurely, making the most of each morselvery small ones of everythingthey took up on the point of the knife and then all at the same moment raised their arms and botas aloft, the mouths placed in their mouths, and all eyes fixed on heaven just as if they were taking aim at it and in this attitude they remained ever so long, wagging their heads from side to side as if in acknowledgment of the pleasure they were enjoying while they decanted the bowels of the bottles into their own stomachs. Sancho beheld all, 'and nothing gave him pain so far from that, acting on the proverb he knew so well, 'when thou art at Rome do as thou seest, he asked Ricote for his bota and took aim like the rest of them, and with not less enjoyment. Four times did the botas bear being uplifted, but the fifth it was all in vain, for they were drier and more sapless than a rush by that time, which made the jollity that had been kept up so far begin to flag. Every now and then someone of them would grasp Sancho's right hand in his own saying, 'Espaol y Tudesqui tuto uno bon compao and Sancho would answer, 'Bon compao, jur a Di! and then go off into a fit of laughter that lasted an hour, without a thought for the moment of anything that had befallen him in his government for cares have very little sway over us while we are eating and drinking. At length, the wine having come to an end with them, drowsiness began to come over them, and they dropped asleep on their very table and tablecloth. Ricote and Sancho alone remained awake, for they had eaten more and drunk less, and Ricote drawing Sancho aside, they seated themselves at the foot of a beech, leaving the pilgrims buried in sweet sleep and without once falling into his own Morisco tongue Ricote spoke as follows in pure Castilian 'Thou knowest well, neighbour and friend Sancho Panza, how the proclamation or edict his Majesty commanded to be issued against those of my nation filled us all with terror and dismay me at least it did, insomuch that I think before the time granted us for quitting Spain was out, the full force of the penalty had already fallen upon me and upon my children. I decided, then, and I think wisely (just like one who knows that at a certain date the house he lives in will be taken from him, and looks out beforehand for another to change into), I decided, I say, to leave the town myself, alone and without my family, and go to seek out some place to remove them to comfortably and not in the hurried way in which the others took their departure for I saw very plainly, and so did all the older men among us, that the proclamations were not mere threats, as some said, but positive enactments which would be enforced at the appointed time and what made me believe this was what I knew of the base and extravagant designs which our people harboured, designs of such a nature that I think it was a divine inspiration that moved his Majesty to carry out a resolution so spirited not that we were all guilty, for some there were true and steadfast Christians but they were so few that they could make no head against those who were not and it was not prudent to cherish a viper in the bosom by having enemies in the house. In short it was with just cause that we were visited with the penalty of banishment, a mild and lenient one in the eyes of some, but to us the most terrible that could be inflicted upon us. Wherever we are we weep for Spain for after all we were born there and it is our natural fatherland. Nowhere do we find the reception our unhappy condition needs and in Barbary and all the parts of Africa where we counted upon being received, succoured, and welcomed, it is there they insult and illtreat us most. We knew not our good fortune until we lost it and such is the longing we almost all of us have to return to Spain, that most of those who like myself know the language, and there are many who do, come back to it and leave their wives and children forsaken yonder, so great is their love for it and now I know by experience the meaning of the saying, sweet is the love of one's country. 'I left our village, as I said, and went to France, but though they gave us a kind reception there I was anxious to see all I could. I crossed into Italy, and reached Germany, and there it seemed to me we might live with more freedom, as the inhabitants do not pay any attention to trifling points everyone lives as he likes, for in most parts they enjoy liberty of conscience. I took a house in a town near Augsburg, and then joined these pilgrims, who are in the habit of coming to Spain in great numbers every year to visit the shrines there, which they look upon as their Indies and a sure and certain source of gain. They travel nearly all over it, and there is no town out of which they do not go full up of meat and drink, as the saying is, and with a real, at least, in money, and they come off at the end of their travels with more than a hundred crowns saved, which, changed into gold, they smuggle out of the kingdom either in the hollow of their staves or in the patches of their pilgrim's cloaks or by some device of their own, and carry to their own country in spite of the guards at the posts and passes where they are searched. Now my purpose is, Sancho, to carry away the treasure that I left buried, which, as it is outside the town, I shall be able to do without risk, and to write, or cross over from Valencia, to my daughter and wife, who I know are at Algiers, and find some means of bringing them to some French port and thence to Germany, there to await what it may be God's will to do with us for, after all, Sancho, I know well that Ricota my daughter and Francisca Ricota my wife are Catholic Christians, and though I am not so much so, still I am more of a Christian than a Moor, and it is always my prayer to God that he will open the eyes of my understanding and show me how I am to serve him but what amazes me and I cannot understand is why my wife and daughter should have gone to Barbary rather than to France, where they could live as Christians. To this Sancho replied, 'Remember, Ricote, that may not have been open to them, for Juan Tiopieyo thy wife's brother took them, and being a true Moor he went where he could go most easily and another thing I can tell thee, it is my belief thou art going in vain to look for what thou hast left buried, for we heard they took from thy brotherinlaw and thy wife a great quantity of pearls and money in gold which they brought to be passed. 'That may be, said Ricote 'but I know they did not touch my hoard, for I did not tell them where it was, for fear of accidents and so, if thou wilt come with me, Sancho, and help me to take it away and conceal it, I will give thee two hundred crowns wherewith thou mayest relieve thy necessities, and, as thou knowest, I know they are many. 'I would do it, said Sancho 'but I am not at all covetous, for I gave up an office this morning in which, if I was, I might have made the walls of my house of gold and dined off silver plates before six months were over and so for this reason, and because I feel I would be guilty of treason to my king if I helped his enemies, I would not go with thee if instead of promising me two hundred crowns thou wert to give me four hundred here in hand. 'And what office is this thou hast given up, Sancho? asked Ricote. 'I have given up being governor of an island, said Sancho, 'and such a one, faith, as you won't find the like of easily. 'And where is this island? said Ricote. 'Where? said Sancho 'two leagues from here, and it is called the island of Barataria. 'Nonsense! Sancho, said Ricote 'islands are away out in the sea there are no islands on the mainland. 'What? No islands! said Sancho 'I tell thee, friend Ricote, I left it this morning, and yesterday I was governing there as I pleased like a sagittarius but for all that I gave it up, for it seemed to me a dangerous office, a governor's. 'And what hast thou gained by the government? asked Ricote. 'I have gained, said Sancho, 'the knowledge that I am no good for governing, unless it is a drove of cattle, and that the riches that are to be got by these governments are got at the cost of one's rest and sleep, ay and even one's food for in islands the governors must eat little, especially if they have doctors to look after their health. 'I don't understand thee, Sancho, said Ricote 'but it seems to me all nonsense thou art talking. Who would give thee islands to govern? Is there any scarcity in the world of cleverer men than thou art for governors? Hold thy peace, Sancho, and come back to thy senses, and consider whether thou wilt come with me as I said to help me to take away treasure I left buried (for indeed it may be called a treasure, it is so large), and I will give thee wherewithal to keep thee, as I told thee. 'And I have told thee already, Ricote, that I will not, said Sancho 'let it content thee that by me thou shalt not be betrayed, and go thy way in God's name and let me go mine for I know that wellgotten gain may be lost, but illgotten gain is lost, itself and its owner likewise. 'I will not press thee, Sancho, said Ricote 'but tell me, wert thou in our village when my wife and daughter and brotherinlaw left it? 'I was so, said Sancho 'and I can tell thee thy daughter left it looking so lovely that all the village turned out to see her, and everybody said she was the fairest creature in the world. She wept as she went, and embraced all her friends and acquaintances and those who came out to see her, and she begged them all to commend her to God and Our Lady his mother, and this in such a touching way that it made me weep myself, though I'm not much given to tears commonly and, faith, many a one would have liked to hide her, or go out and carry her off on the road but the fear of going against the king's command kept them back. The one who showed himself most moved was Don Pedro Gregorio, the rich young heir thou knowest of, and they say he was deep in love with her and since she left he has not been seen in our village again, and we all suspect he has gone after her to steal her away, but so far nothing has been heard of it. 'I always had a suspicion that gentleman had a passion for my daughter, said Ricote 'but as I felt sure of my Ricota's virtue it gave me no uneasiness to know that he loved her for thou must have heard it said, Sancho, that the Morisco women seldom or never engage in amours with the old Christians and my daughter, who I fancy thought more of being a Christian than of lovemaking, would not trouble herself about the attentions of this heir. 'God grant it, said Sancho, 'for it would be a bad business for both of them but now let me be off, friend Ricote, for I want to reach where my master Don Quixote is tonight. 'God be with thee, brother Sancho, said Ricote 'my comrades are beginning to stir, and it is time, too, for us to continue our journey and then they both embraced, and Sancho mounted Dapple, and Ricote leant upon his staff, and so they parted. The length of time he delayed with Ricote prevented Sancho from reaching the duke's castle that day, though he was within half a league of it when night, somewhat dark and cloudy, overtook him. This, however, as it was summer time, did not give him much uneasiness, and he turned aside out of the road intending to wait for morning but his ill luck and hard fate so willed it that as he was searching about for a place to make himself as comfortable as possible, he and Dapple fell into a deep dark hole that lay among some very old buildings. As he fell he commended himself with all his heart to God, fancying he was not going to stop until he reached the depths of the bottomless pit but it did not turn out so, for at little more than thrice a man's height Dapple touched bottom, and he found himself sitting on him without having received any hurt or damage whatever. He felt himself all over and held his breath to try whether he was quite sound or had a hole made in him anywhere, and finding himself all right and whole and in perfect health he was profuse in his thanks to God our Lord for the mercy that had been shown him, for he made sure he had been broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt along the sides of the pit with his hands to see if it were possible to get out of it without help, but he found they were quite smooth and afforded no hold anywhere, at which he was greatly distressed, especially when he heard how pathetically and dolefully Dapple was bemoaning himself, and no wonder he complained, nor was it from illtemper, for in truth he was not in a very good case. 'Alas, said Sancho, 'what unexpected accidents happen at every step to those who live in this miserable world! Who would have said that one who saw himself yesterday sitting on a throne, governor of an island, giving orders to his servants and his vassals, would see himself today buried in a pit without a soul to help him, or servant or vassal to come to his relief? Here must we perish with hunger, my ass and myself, if indeed we don't die first, he of his bruises and injuries, and I of grief and sorrow. At any rate I'll not be as lucky as my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down into the cave of that enchanted Montesinos, where he found people to make more of him than if he had been in his own house for it seems he came in for a table laid out and a bed ready made. There he saw fair and pleasant visions, but here I'll see, I imagine, toads and adders. Unlucky wretch that I am, what an end my follies and fancies have come to! They'll take up my bones out of this, when it is heaven's will that I'm found, picked clean, white and polished, and my good Dapple's with them, and by that, perhaps, it will be found out who we are, at least by such as have heard that Sancho Panza never separated from his ass, nor his ass from Sancho Panza. Unlucky wretches, I say again, that our hard fate should not let us die in our own country and among our own people, where if there was no help for our misfortune, at any rate there would be someone to grieve for it and to close our eyes as we passed away! O comrade and friend, how ill have I repaid thy faithful services! Forgive me, and entreat Fortune, as well as thou canst, to deliver us out of this miserable strait we are both in and I promise to put a crown of laurel on thy head, and make thee look like a poet laureate, and give thee double feeds. In this strain did Sancho bewail himself, and his ass listened to him, but answered him never a word, such was the distress and anguish the poor beast found himself in. At length, after a night spent in bitter moanings and lamentations, day came, and by its light Sancho perceived that it was wholly impossible to escape out of that pit without help, and he fell to bemoaning his fate and uttering loud shouts to find out if there was anyone within hearing but all his shouting was only crying in the wilderness, for there was not a soul anywhere in the neighbourhood to hear him, and then at last he gave himself up for dead. Dapple was lying on his back, and Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely able to keep and then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which had shared their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it was not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, 'With bread all sorrows are less. And now he perceived on one side of the pit a hole large enough to admit a person if he stooped and squeezed himself into a small compass. Sancho made for it, and entered it by creeping, and found it wide and spacious on the inside, which he was able to see as a ray of sunlight that penetrated what might be called the roof showed it all plainly. He observed too that it opened and widened out into another spacious cavity seeing which he made his way back to where the ass was, and with a stone began to pick away the clay from the hole until in a short time he had made room for the beast to pass easily, and this accomplished, taking him by the halter, he proceeded to traverse the cavern to see if there was any outlet at the other end. He advanced, sometimes in the dark, sometimes without light, but never without fear 'God Almighty help me! said he to himself 'this that is a misadventure to me would make a good adventure for my master Don Quixote. He would have been sure to take these depths and dungeons for flowery gardens or the palaces of Galiana, and would have counted upon issuing out of this darkness and imprisonment into some blooming meadow but I, unlucky that I am, hopeless and spiritless, expect at every step another pit deeper than the first to open under my feet and swallow me up for good 'welcome evil, if thou comest alone.' In this way and with these reflections he seemed to himself to have travelled rather more than half a league, when at last he perceived a dim light that looked like daylight and found its way in on one side, showing that this road, which appeared to him the road to the other world, led to some opening. Here Cide Hamete leaves him, and returns to Don Quixote, who in high spirits and satisfaction was looking forward to the day fixed for the battle he was to fight with him who had robbed Doa Rodriguez's daughter of her honour, for whom he hoped to obtain satisfaction for the wrong and injury shamefully done to her. It came to pass, then, that having sallied forth one morning to practise and exercise himself in what he would have to do in the encounter he expected to find himself engaged in the next day, as he was putting Rocinante through his paces or pressing him to the charge, he brought his feet so close to a pit that but for reining him in tightly it would have been impossible for him to avoid falling into it. He pulled him up, however, without a fall, and coming a little closer examined the hole without dismounting but as he was looking at it he heard loud cries proceeding from it, and by listening attentively was able to make out that he who uttered them was saying, 'Ho, above there! is there any Christian that hears me, or any charitable gentleman that will take pity on a sinner buried alive, on an unfortunate disgoverned governor? It struck Don Quixote that it was the voice of Sancho Panza he heard, whereat he was taken aback and amazed, and raising his own voice as much as he could, he cried out, 'Who is below there? Who is that complaining? 'Who should be here, or who should complain, was the answer, 'but the forlorn Sancho Panza, for his sins and for his illluck governor of the island of Barataria, squire that was to the famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha? When Don Quixote heard this his amazement was redoubled and his perturbation grew greater than ever, for it suggested itself to his mind that Sancho must be dead, and that his soul was in torment down there and carried away by this idea he exclaimed, 'I conjure thee by everything that as a Catholic Christian I can conjure thee by, tell me who thou art and if thou art a soul in torment, tell me what thou wouldst have me do for thee for as my profession is to give aid and succour to those that need it in this world, it will also extend to aiding and succouring the distressed of the other, who cannot help themselves. 'In that case, answered the voice, 'your worship who speaks to me must be my master Don Quixote of La Mancha nay, from the tone of the voice it is plain it can be nobody else. 'Don Quixote I am, replied Don Quixote, 'he whose profession it is to aid and succour the living and the dead in their necessities wherefore tell me who thou art, for thou art keeping me in suspense because, if thou art my squire Sancho Panza, and art dead, since the devils have not carried thee off, and thou art by God's mercy in purgatory, our holy mother the Roman Catholic Church has intercessory means sufficient to release thee from the pains thou art in and I for my part will plead with her to that end, so far as my substance will go without further delay, therefore, declare thyself, and tell me who thou art. 'By all that's good, was the answer, 'and by the birth of whomsoever your worship chooses, I swear, Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, that I am your squire Sancho Panza, and that I have never died all my life but that, having given up my government for reasons that would require more time to explain, I fell last night into this pit where I am now, and Dapple is witness and won't let me lie, for more by token he is here with me. Nor was this all one would have fancied the ass understood what Sancho said, because that moment he began to bray so loudly that the whole cave rang again. 'Famous testimony! exclaimed Don Quixote 'I know that bray as well as if I was its mother, and thy voice too, my Sancho. Wait while I go to the duke's castle, which is close by, and I will bring someone to take thee out of this pit into which thy sins no doubt have brought thee. 'Go, your worship, said Sancho, 'and come back quick for God's sake for I cannot bear being buried alive any longer, and I'm dying of fear. Don Quixote left him, and hastened to the castle to tell the duke and duchess what had happened Sancho, and they were not a little astonished at it they could easily understand his having fallen, from the confirmatory circumstance of the cave which had been in existence there from time immemorial but they could not imagine how he had quitted the government without their receiving any intimation of his coming. To be brief, they fetched ropes and tackle, as the saying is, and by dint of many hands and much labour they drew up Dapple and Sancho Panza out of the darkness into the light of day. A student who saw him remarked, 'That's the way all bad governors should come out of their governments, as this sinner comes out of the depths of the pit, dead with hunger, pale, and I suppose without a farthing. Sancho overheard him and said, 'It is eight or ten days, brother growler, since I entered upon the government of the island they gave me, and all that time I never had a bellyful of victuals, no not for an hour doctors persecuted me and enemies crushed my bones nor had I any opportunity of taking bribes or levying taxes and if that be the case, as it is, I don't deserve, I think, to come out in this fashion but 'man proposes and God disposes' and God knows what is best, and what suits each one best and 'as the occasion, so the behaviour' and 'let nobody say 'I won't drink of this water' and 'where one thinks there are flitches, there are no pegs' God knows my meaning and that's enough I say no more, though I could. 'Be not angry or annoyed at what thou hearest, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'or there will never be an end of it keep a safe conscience and let them say what they like for trying to stop slanderers' tongues is like trying to put gates to the open plain. If a governor comes out of his government rich, they say he has been a thief and if he comes out poor, that he has been a noodle and a blockhead. 'They'll be pretty sure this time, said Sancho, 'to set me down for a fool rather than a thief. Thus talking, and surrounded by boys and a crowd of people, they reached the castle, where in one of the corridors the duke and duchess stood waiting for them but Sancho would not go up to see the duke until he had first put up Dapple in the stable, for he said he had passed a very bad night in his last quarters then he went upstairs to see his lord and lady, and kneeling before them he said, 'Because it was your highnesses' pleasure, not because of any desert of my own, I went to govern your island of Barataria, which 'I entered naked, and naked I find myself I neither lose nor gain.' Whether I have governed well or ill, I have had witnesses who will say what they think fit. I have answered questions, I have decided causes, and always dying of hunger, for Doctor Pedro Recio of Tirteafuera, the island and governor doctor, would have it so. Enemies attacked us by night and put us in a great quandary, but the people of the island say they came off safe and victorious by the might of my arm and may God give them as much health as there's truth in what they say. In short, during that time I have weighed the cares and responsibilities governing brings with it, and by my reckoning I find my shoulders can't bear them, nor are they a load for my loins or arrows for my quiver and so, before the government threw me over I preferred to throw the government over and yesterday morning I left the island as I found it, with the same streets, houses, and roofs it had when I entered it. I asked no loan of anybody, nor did I try to fill my pocket and though I meant to make some useful laws, I made hardly any, as I was afraid they would not be kept for in that case it comes to the same thing to make them or not to make them. I quitted the island, as I said, without any escort except my ass I fell into a pit, I pushed on through it, until this morning by the light of the sun I saw an outlet, but not so easy a one but that, had not heaven sent me my master Don Quixote, I'd have stayed there till the end of the world. So now my lord and lady duke and duchess, here is your governor Sancho Panza, who in the bare ten days he has held the government has come by the knowledge that he would not give anything to be governor, not to say of an island, but of the whole world and that point being settled, kissing your worships' feet, and imitating the game of the boys when they say, 'leap thou, and give me one,' I take a leap out of the government and pass into the service of my master Don Quixote for after all, though in it I eat my bread in fear and trembling, at any rate I take my fill and for my part, so long as I'm full, it's all alike to me whether it's with carrots or with partridges. Here Sancho brought his long speech to an end, Don Quixote having been the whole time in dread of his uttering a host of absurdities and when he found him leave off with so few, he thanked heaven in his heart. The duke embraced Sancho and told him he was heartily sorry he had given up the government so soon, but that he would see that he was provided with some other post on his estate less onerous and more profitable. The duchess also embraced him, and gave orders that he should be taken good care of, as it was plain to see he had been badly treated and worse bruised. The duke and duchess had no reason to regret the joke that had been played upon Sancho Panza in giving him the government especially as their majordomo returned the same day, and gave them a minute account of almost every word and deed that Sancho uttered or did during the time and to wind up with, eloquently described to them the attack upon the island and Sancho's fright and departure, with which they were not a little amused. After this the history goes on to say that the day fixed for the battle arrived, and that the duke, after having repeatedly instructed his lacquey Tosilos how to deal with Don Quixote so as to vanquish him without killing or wounding him, gave orders to have the heads removed from the lances, telling Don Quixote that Christian charity, on which he plumed himself, could not suffer the battle to be fought with so much risk and danger to life and that he must be content with the offer of a battlefield on his territory (though that was against the decree of the holy Council, which prohibits all challenges of the sort) and not push such an arduous venture to its extreme limits. Don Quixote bade his excellence arrange all matters connected with the affair as he pleased, as on his part he would obey him in everything. The dread day, then, having arrived, and the duke having ordered a spacious stand to be erected facing the court of the castle for the judges of the field and the appellant duennas, mother and daughter, vast crowds flocked from all the villages and hamlets of the neighbourhood to see the novel spectacle of the battle nobody, dead or alive, in those parts having ever seen or heard of such a one. The first person to enter the field and the lists was the master of the ceremonies, who surveyed and paced the whole ground to see that there was nothing unfair and nothing concealed to make the combatants stumble or fall then the duennas entered and seated themselves, enveloped in mantles covering their eyes, nay even their bosoms, and displaying no slight emotion as Don Quixote appeared in the lists. Shortly afterwards, accompanied by several trumpets and mounted on a powerful steed that threatened to crush the whole place, the great lacquey Tosilos made his appearance on one side of the courtyard with his visor down and stiffly cased in a suit of stout shining armour. The horse was a manifest Frieslander, broadbacked and fleabitten, and with half a hundred of wool hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha being warned that he must on no account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband the marshal of the field summoned Don Quixote, who had already presented himself in the courtyard, and standing by the side of Tosilos he addressed the duennas, and asked them if they consented that Don Quixote of La Mancha should do battle for their right. They said they did, and that whatever he should do in that behalf they declared rightly done, final and valid. By this time the duke and duchess had taken their places in a gallery commanding the enclosure, which was filled to overflowing with a multitude of people eager to see this perilous and unparalleled encounter. The conditions of the combat were that if Don Quixote proved the victor his antagonist was to marry the daughter of Doa Rodriguez but if he should be vanquished his opponent was released from the promise that was claimed against him and from all obligations to give satisfaction. The master of the ceremonies apportioned the sun to them, and stationed them, each on the spot where he was to stand. The drums beat, the sound of the trumpets filled the air, the earth trembled under foot, the hearts of the gazing crowd were full of anxiety, some hoping for a happy issue, some apprehensive of an untoward ending to the affair, and lastly, Don Quixote, commending himself with all his heart to God our Lord and to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, stood waiting for them to give the necessary signal for the onset. Our lacquey, however, was thinking of something very different he only thought of what I am now going to mention. It seems that as he stood contemplating his enemy she struck him as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen all his life and the little blind boy whom in our streets they commonly call Love had no mind to let slip the chance of triumphing over a lacquey heart, and adding it to the list of his trophies and so, stealing gently upon him unseen, he drove a dart two yards long into the poor lacquey's left side and pierced his heart through and through which he was able to do quite at his ease, for Love is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone calling him to account for what he does. Well then, when they gave the signal for the onset our lacquey was in an ecstasy, musing upon the beauty of her whom he had already made mistress of his liberty, and so he paid no attention to the sound of the trumpet, unlike Don Quixote, who was off the instant he heard it, and, at the highest speed Rocinante was capable of, set out to meet his enemy, his good squire Sancho shouting lustily as he saw him start, 'God guide thee, cream and flower of knightserrant! God give thee the victory, for thou hast the right on thy side! But though Tosilos saw Don Quixote coming at him he never stirred a step from the spot where he was posted and instead of doing so called loudly to the marshal of the field, to whom when he came up to see what he wanted he said, 'Seor, is not this battle to decide whether I marry or do not marry that lady? 'Just so, was the answer. 'Well then, said the lacquey, 'I feel qualms of conscience, and I should lay a heavy burden upon it if I were to proceed any further with the combat I therefore declare that I yield myself vanquished, and that I am willing to marry the lady at once. The marshal of the field was lost in astonishment at the words of Tosilos and as he was one of those who were privy to the arrangement of the affair he knew not what to say in reply. Don Quixote pulled up in mid career when he saw that his enemy was not coming on to the attack. The duke could not make out the reason why the battle did not go on but the marshal of the field hastened to him to let him know what Tosilos said, and he was amazed and extremely angry at it. In the meantime Tosilos advanced to where Doa Rodriguez sat and said in a loud voice, 'Seora, I am willing to marry your daughter, and I have no wish to obtain by strife and fighting what I can obtain in peace and without any risk to my life. The valiant Don Quixote heard him, and said, 'As that is the case I am released and absolved from my promise let them marry by all means, and as 'God our Lord has given her, may Saint Peter add his blessing.' The duke had now descended to the courtyard of the castle, and going up to Tosilos he said to him, 'Is it true, sir knight, that you yield yourself vanquished, and that moved by scruples of conscience you wish to marry this damsel? 'It is, seor, replied Tosilos. 'And he does well, said Sancho, 'for what thou hast to give to the mouse, give to the cat, and it will save thee all trouble. Tosilos meanwhile was trying to unlace his helmet, and he begged them to come to his help at once, as his power of breathing was failing him, and he could not remain so long shut up in that confined space. They removed it in all haste, and his lacquey features were revealed to public gaze. At this sight Doa Rodriguez and her daughter raised a mighty outcry, exclaiming, 'This is a trick! This is a trick! They have put Tosilos, my lord the duke's lacquey, upon us in place of the real husband. The justice of God and the king against such trickery, not to say roguery! 'Do not distress yourselves, ladies, said Don Quixote 'for this is no trickery or roguery or if it is, it is not the duke who is at the bottom of it, but those wicked enchanters who persecute me, and who, jealous of my reaping the glory of this victory, have turned your husband's features into those of this person, who you say is a lacquey of the duke's take my advice, and notwithstanding the malice of my enemies marry him, for beyond a doubt he is the one you wish for a husband. When the duke heard this all his anger was near vanishing in a fit of laughter, and he said, 'The things that happen to Seor Don Quixote are so extraordinary that I am ready to believe this lacquey of mine is not one but let us adopt this plan and device let us put off the marriage for, say, a fortnight, and let us keep this person about whom we are uncertain in close confinement, and perhaps in the course of that time he may return to his original shape for the spite which the enchanters entertain against Seor Don Quixote cannot last so long, especially as it is of so little advantage to them to practise these deceptions and transformations. 'Oh, seor, said Sancho, 'those scoundrels are well used to changing whatever concerns my master from one thing into another. A knight that he overcame some time back, called the Knight of the Mirrors, they turned into the shape of the bachelor Samson Carrasco of our town and a great friend of ours and my lady Dulcinea del Toboso they have turned into a common country wench so I suspect this lacquey will have to live and die a lacquey all the days of his life. Here the Rodriguez's daughter exclaimed, 'Let him be who he may, this man that claims me for a wife I am thankful to him for the same, for I had rather be the lawful wife of a lacquey than the cheated mistress of a gentleman though he who played me false is nothing of the kind. To be brief, all the talk and all that had happened ended in Tosilos being shut up until it was seen how his transformation turned out. All hailed Don Quixote as victor, but the greater number were vexed and disappointed at finding that the combatants they had been so anxiously waiting for had not battered one another to pieces, just as the boys are disappointed when the man they are waiting to see hanged does not come out, because the prosecution or the court has pardoned him. The people dispersed, the duke and Don Quixote returned to the castle, they locked up Tosilos, Doa Rodriguez and her daughter remained perfectly contented when they saw that any way the affair must end in marriage, and Tosilos wanted nothing else. Don Quixote now felt it right to quit a life of such idleness as he was leading in the castle for he fancied that he was making himself sorely missed by suffering himself to remain shut up and inactive amid the countless luxuries and enjoyments his hosts lavished upon him as a knight, and he felt too that he would have to render a strict account to heaven of that indolence and seclusion and so one day he asked the duke and duchess to grant him permission to take his departure. They gave it, showing at the same time that they were very sorry he was leaving them. The duchess gave his wife's letters to Sancho Panza, who shed tears over them, saying, 'Who would have thought that such grand hopes as the news of my government bred in my wife Teresa Panza's breast would end in my going back now to the vagabond adventures of my master Don Quixote of La Mancha? Still I'm glad to see my Teresa behaved as she ought in sending the acorns, for if she had not sent them I'd have been sorry, and she'd have shown herself ungrateful. It is a comfort to me that they can't call that present a bribe for I had got the government already when she sent them, and it's but reasonable that those who have had a good turn done them should show their gratitude, if it's only with a trifle. After all I went into the government naked, and I come out of it naked so I can say with a safe conscienceand that's no small matter'naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain.' Thus did Sancho soliloquise on the day of their departure, as Don Quixote, who had the night before taken leave of the duke and duchess, coming out made his appearance at an early hour in full armour in the courtyard of the castle. The whole household of the castle were watching him from the corridors, and the duke and duchess, too, came out to see him. Sancho was mounted on his Dapple, with his alforjas, valise, and proven supremely happy because the duke's majordomo, the same that had acted the part of the Trifaldi, had given him a little purse with two hundred gold crowns to meet the necessary expenses of the road, but of this Don Quixote knew nothing as yet. While all were, as has been said, observing him, suddenly from among the duennas and handmaidens the impudent and witty Altisidora lifted up her voice and said in pathetic tones Give ear, cruel knight Draw rein where's the need Of spurring the flanks Of that illbroken steed? From what art thou flying? No dragon I am, Not even a sheep, But a tender young lamb. Thou hast jilted a maiden As fair to behold As nymph of Diana Or Venus of old. Bireno, neas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee! In thy claws, ruthless robber, Thou bearest away The heart of a meek Loving maid for thy prey, Three kerchiefs thou stealest, And garters a pair, From legs than the whitest Of marble more fair And the sighs that pursue thee Would burn to the ground Two thousand Troy Towns, If so many were found. Bireno, neas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee! May no bowels of mercy To Sancho be granted, And thy Dulcinea Be left still enchanted, May thy falsehood to me Find its punishment in her, For in my land the just Often pays for the sinner. May thy grandest adventures Discomfitures prove, May thy joys be all dreams, And forgotten thy love. Bireno, neas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee! May thy name be abhorred For thy conduct to ladies, From London to England, From Seville to Cadiz May thy cards be unlucky, Thy hands contain ne'er a King, seven, or ace When thou playest primera When thy corns are cut May it be to the quick When thy grinders are drawn May the roots of them stick. Bireno, neas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee! All the while the unhappy Altisidora was bewailing herself in the above strain Don Quixote stood staring at her and without uttering a word in reply to her he turned round to Sancho and said, 'Sancho my friend, I conjure thee by the life of thy forefathers tell me the truth say, hast thou by any chance taken the three kerchiefs and the garters this lovesick maid speaks of? To this Sancho made answer, 'The three kerchiefs I have but the garters, as much as 'over the hills of beda.' The duchess was amazed at Altisidora's assurance she knew that she was bold, lively, and impudent, but not so much so as to venture to make free in this fashion and not being prepared for the joke, her astonishment was all the greater. The duke had a mind to keep up the sport, so he said, 'It does not seem to me well done in you, sir knight, that after having received the hospitality that has been offered you in this very castle, you should have ventured to carry off even three kerchiefs, not to say my handmaid's garters. It shows a bad heart and does not tally with your reputation. Restore her garters, or else I defy you to mortal combat, for I am not afraid of rascally enchanters changing or altering my features as they changed his who encountered you into those of my lacquey, Tosilos. 'God forbid, said Don Quixote, 'that I should draw my sword against your illustrious person from which I have received such great favours. The kerchiefs I will restore, as Sancho says he has them as to the garters that is impossible, for I have not got them, neither has he and if your handmaiden here will look in her hidingplaces, depend upon it she will find them. I have never been a thief, my lord duke, nor do I mean to be so long as I live, if God cease not to have me in his keeping. This damsel by her own confession speaks as one in love, for which I am not to blame, and therefore need not ask pardon, either of her or of your excellence, whom I entreat to have a better opinion of me, and once more to give me leave to pursue my journey. 'And may God so prosper it, Seor Don Quixote, said the duchess, 'that we may always hear good news of your exploits God speed you for the longer you stay, the more you inflame the hearts of the damsels who behold you and as for this one of mine, I will so chastise her that she will not transgress again, either with her eyes or with her words. 'One word and no more, O valiant Don Quixote, I ask you to hear, said Altisidora, 'and that is that I beg your pardon about the theft of the garters for by God and upon my soul I have got them on, and I have fallen into the same blunder as he did who went looking for his ass being all the while mounted on it. 'Didn't I say so? said Sancho. 'I'm a likely one to hide thefts! Why if I wanted to deal in them, opportunities came ready enough to me in my government. Don Quixote bowed his head, and saluted the duke and duchess and all the bystanders, and wheeling Rocinante round, Sancho following him on Dapple, he rode out of the castle, shaping his course for Saragossa. When Don Quixote saw himself in open country, free, and relieved from the attentions of Altisidora, he felt at his ease, and in fresh spirits to take up the pursuit of chivalry once more and turning to Sancho, he said, 'Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon men no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea conceals can compare with it for freedom, as for honour, life may and should be ventured and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man. I say this, Sancho, because thou hast seen the good cheer, the abundance we have enjoyed in this castle we are leaving well then, amid those dainty banquets and snowcooled beverages I felt as though I were undergoing the straits of hunger, because I did not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been mine own for the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit. Happy he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but heaven itself! 'For all your worship says, said Sancho, 'it is not becoming that there should be no thanks on our part for two hundred gold crowns that the duke's majordomo has given me in a little purse which I carry next my heart, like a warming plaster or comforter, to meet any chance calls for we shan't always find castles where they'll entertain us now and then we may light upon roadside inns where they'll cudgel us. In conversation of this sort the knight and squire errant were pursuing their journey, when, after they had gone a little more than half a league, they perceived some dozen men dressed like labourers stretched upon their cloaks on the grass of a green meadow eating their dinner. They had beside them what seemed to be white sheets concealing some objects under them, standing upright or lying flat, and arranged at intervals. Don Quixote approached the diners, and, saluting them courteously first, he asked them what it was those cloths covered. 'Seor, answered one of the party, 'under these cloths are some images carved in relief intended for a retablo we are putting up in our village we carry them covered up that they may not be soiled, and on our shoulders that they may not be broken. 'With your good leave, said Don Quixote, 'I should like to see them for images that are carried so carefully no doubt must be fine ones. 'I should think they were! said the other 'let the money they cost speak for that for as a matter of fact there is not one of them that does not stand us in more than fifty ducats and that your worship may judge wait a moment, and you shall see with your own eyes and getting up from his dinner he went and uncovered the first image, which proved to be one of Saint George on horseback with a serpent writhing at his feet and the lance thrust down its throat with all that fierceness that is usually depicted. The whole group was one blaze of gold, as the saying is. On seeing it Don Quixote said, 'That knight was one of the best knightserrant the army of heaven ever owned he was called Don Saint George, and he was moreover a defender of maidens. Let us see this next one. The man uncovered it, and it was seen to be that of Saint Martin on his horse, dividing his cloak with the beggar. The instant Don Quixote saw it he said, 'This knight too was one of the Christian adventurers, but I believe he was generous rather than valiant, as thou mayest perceive, Sancho, by his dividing his cloak with the beggar and giving him half of it no doubt it was winter at the time, for otherwise he would have given him the whole of it, so charitable was he. 'It was not that, most likely, said Sancho, 'but that he held with the proverb that says, 'For giving and keeping there's need of brains.' Don Quixote laughed, and asked them to take off the next cloth, underneath which was seen the image of the patron saint of the Spains seated on horseback, his sword stained with blood, trampling on Moors and treading heads underfoot and on seeing it Don Quixote exclaimed, 'Ay, this is a knight, and of the squadrons of Christ! This one is called Don Saint James the Moorslayer, one of the bravest saints and knights the world ever had or heaven has now. They then raised another cloth which it appeared covered Saint Paul falling from his horse, with all the details that are usually given in representations of his conversion. When Don Quixote saw it, rendered in such lifelike style that one would have said Christ was speaking and Paul answering, 'This, he said, 'was in his time the greatest enemy that the Church of God our Lord had, and the greatest champion it will ever have a knighterrant in life, a steadfast saint in death, an untiring labourer in the Lord's vineyard, a teacher of the Gentiles, whose school was heaven, and whose instructor and master was Jesus Christ himself. There were no more images, so Don Quixote bade them cover them up again, and said to those who had brought them, 'I take it as a happy omen, brothers, to have seen what I have for these saints and knights were of the same profession as myself, which is the calling of arms only there is this difference between them and me, that they were saints, and fought with divine weapons, and I am a sinner and fight with human ones. They won heaven by force of arms, for heaven suffereth violence and I, so far, know not what I have won by dint of my sufferings but if my Dulcinea del Toboso were to be released from hers, perhaps with mended fortunes and a mind restored to itself I might direct my steps in a better path than I am following at present. 'May God hear and sin be deaf, said Sancho to this. The men were filled with wonder, as well at the figure as at the words of Don Quixote, though they did not understand one half of what he meant by them. They finished their dinner, took their images on their backs, and bidding farewell to Don Quixote resumed their journey. Sancho was amazed afresh at the extent of his master's knowledge, as much as if he had never known him, for it seemed to him that there was no story or event in the world that he had not at his fingers' ends and fixed in his memory, and he said to him, 'In truth, master mine, if this that has happened to us today is to be called an adventure, it has been one of the sweetest and pleasantest that have befallen us in the whole course of our travels we have come out of it unbelaboured and undismayed, neither have we drawn sword nor have we smitten the earth with our bodies, nor have we been left famishing blessed be God that he has let me see such a thing with my own eyes! 'Thou sayest well, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'but remember all times are not alike nor do they always run the same way and these things the vulgar commonly call omens, which are not based upon any natural reason, will by him who is wise be esteemed and reckoned happy accidents merely. One of these believers in omens will get up of a morning, leave his house, and meet a friar of the order of the blessed Saint Francis, and, as if he had met a griffin, he will turn about and go home. With another Mendoza the salt is spilt on his table, and gloom is spilt over his heart, as if nature was obliged to give warning of coming misfortunes by means of such trivial things as these. The wise man and the Christian should not trifle with what it may please heaven to do. Scipio on coming to Africa stumbled as he leaped on shore his soldiers took it as a bad omen but he, clasping the soil with his arms, exclaimed, 'Thou canst not escape me, Africa, for I hold thee tight between my arms.' Thus, Sancho, meeting those images has been to me a most happy occurrence. 'I can well believe it, said Sancho 'but I wish your worship would tell me what is the reason that the Spaniards, when they are about to give battle, in calling on that Saint James the Moorslayer, say 'Santiago and close Spain!' Is Spain, then, open, so that it is needful to close it or what is the meaning of this form? 'Thou art very simple, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'God, look you, gave that great knight of the Red Cross to Spain as her patron saint and protector, especially in those hard struggles the Spaniards had with the Moors and therefore they invoke and call upon him as their defender in all their battles and in these he has been many a time seen beating down, trampling under foot, destroying and slaughtering the Hagarene squadrons in the sight of all of which fact I could give thee many examples recorded in truthful Spanish histories. Sancho changed the subject, and said to his master, 'I marvel, seor, at the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess's handmaid he whom they call Love must have cruelly pierced and wounded her they say he is a little blind urchin who, though bleareyed, or more properly speaking sightless, if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the arrows of Love are blunted and robbed of their points by maidenly modesty and reserve but with this Altisidora it seems they are sharpened rather than blunted. 'Bear in mind, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that love is influenced by no consideration, recognises no restraints of reason, and is of the same nature as death, that assails alike the lofty palaces of kings and the humble cabins of shepherds and when it takes entire possession of a heart, the first thing it does is to banish fear and shame from it and so without shame Altisidora declared her passion, which excited in my mind embarrassment rather than commiseration. 'Notable cruelty! exclaimed Sancho 'unheardof ingratitude! I can only say for myself that the very smallest loving word of hers would have subdued me and made a slave of me. The devil! What a heart of marble, what bowels of brass, what a soul of mortar! But I can't imagine what it is that this damsel saw in your worship that could have conquered and captivated her so. What gallant figure was it, what bold bearing, what sprightly grace, what comeliness of feature, which of these things by itself, or what all together, could have made her fall in love with you? For indeed and in truth many a time I stop to look at your worship from the sole of your foot to the topmost hair of your head, and I see more to frighten one than to make one fall in love moreover I have heard say that beauty is the first and main thing that excites love, and as your worship has none at all, I don't know what the poor creature fell in love with. 'Recollect, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'there are two sorts of beauty, one of the mind, the other of the body that of the mind displays and exhibits itself in intelligence, in modesty, in honourable conduct, in generosity, in good breeding and all these qualities are possible and may exist in an ugly man and when it is this sort of beauty and not that of the body that is the attraction, love is apt to spring up suddenly and violently. I, Sancho, perceive clearly enough that I am not beautiful, but at the same time I know I am not hideous and it is enough for an honest man not to be a monster to be an object of love, if only he possesses the endowments of mind I have mentioned. While engaged in this discourse they were making their way through a wood that lay beyond the road, when suddenly, without expecting anything of the kind, Don Quixote found himself caught in some nets of green cord stretched from one tree to another and unable to conceive what it could be, he said to Sancho, 'Sancho, it strikes me this affair of these nets will prove one of the strangest adventures imaginable. May I die if the enchanters that persecute me are not trying to entangle me in them and delay my journey, by way of revenge for my obduracy towards Altisidora. Well then let me tell them that if these nets, instead of being green cord, were made of the hardest diamonds, or stronger than that wherewith the jealous god of blacksmiths enmeshed Venus and Mars, I would break them as easily as if they were made of rushes or cotton threads. But just as he was about to press forward and break through all, suddenly from among some trees two shepherdesses of surpassing beauty presented themselves to his sightor at least damsels dressed like shepherdesses, save that their jerkins and sayas were of fine brocade that is to say, the sayas were rich farthingales of gold embroidered tabby. Their hair, that in its golden brightness vied with the beams of the sun itself, fell loose upon their shoulders and was crowned with garlands twined with green laurel and red everlasting and their years to all appearance were not under fifteen nor above eighteen. Such was the spectacle that filled Sancho with amazement, fascinated Don Quixote, made the sun halt in his course to behold them, and held all four in a strange silence. One of the shepherdesses, at length, was the first to speak and said to Don Quixote, 'Hold, sir knight, and do not break these nets for they are not spread here to do you any harm, but only for our amusement and as I know you will ask why they have been put up, and who we are, I will tell you in a few words. In a village some two leagues from this, where there are many people of quality and rich gentlefolk, it was agreed upon by a number of friends and relations to come with their wives, sons and daughters, neighbours, friends and kinsmen, and make holiday in this spot, which is one of the pleasantest in the whole neighbourhood, setting up a new pastoral Arcadia among ourselves, we maidens dressing ourselves as shepherdesses and the youths as shepherds. We have prepared two eclogues, one by the famous poet Garcilasso, the other by the most excellent Camoens, in its own Portuguese tongue, but we have not as yet acted them. Yesterday was the first day of our coming here we have a few of what they say are called fieldtents pitched among the trees on the bank of an ample brook that fertilises all these meadows last night we spread these nets in the trees here to snare the silly little birds that startled by the noise we make may fly into them. If you please to be our guest, seor, you will be welcomed heartily and courteously, for here just now neither care nor sorrow shall enter. She held her peace and said no more, and Don Quixote made answer, 'Of a truth, fairest lady, Actaeon when he unexpectedly beheld Diana bathing in the stream could not have been more fascinated and wonderstruck than I at the sight of your beauty. I commend your mode of entertainment, and thank you for the kindness of your invitation and if I can serve you, you may command me with full confidence of being obeyed, for my profession is none other than to show myself grateful, and ready to serve persons of all conditions, but especially persons of quality such as your appearance indicates and if, instead of taking up, as they probably do, but a small space, these nets took up the whole surface of the globe, I would seek out new worlds through which to pass, so as not to break them and that ye may give some degree of credence to this exaggerated language of mine, know that it is no less than Don Quixote of La Mancha that makes this declaration to you, if indeed it be that such a name has reached your ears. 'Ah! friend of my soul, instantly exclaimed the other shepherdess, 'what great good fortune has befallen us! Seest thou this gentleman we have before us? Well then let me tell thee he is the most valiant and the most devoted and the most courteous gentleman in all the world, unless a history of his achievements that has been printed and I have read is telling lies and deceiving us. I will lay a wager that this good fellow who is with him is one Sancho Panza his squire, whose drolleries none can equal. 'That's true, said Sancho 'I am that same droll and squire you speak of, and this gentleman is my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, the same that's in the history and that they talk about. 'Oh, my friend, said the other, 'let us entreat him to stay for it will give our fathers and brothers infinite pleasure I too have heard just what thou hast told me of the valour of the one and the drolleries of the other and what is more, of him they say that he is the most constant and loyal lover that was ever heard of, and that his lady is one Dulcinea del Toboso, to whom all over Spain the palm of beauty is awarded. 'And justly awarded, said Don Quixote, 'unless, indeed, your unequalled beauty makes it a matter of doubt. But spare yourselves the trouble, ladies, of pressing me to stay, for the urgent calls of my profession do not allow me to take rest under any circumstances. At this instant there came up to the spot where the four stood a brother of one of the two shepherdesses, like them in shepherd costume, and as richly and gaily dressed as they were. They told him that their companion was the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, and the other Sancho his squire, of whom he knew already from having read their history. The gay shepherd offered him his services and begged that he would accompany him to their tents, and Don Quixote had to give way and comply. And now the game was started, and the nets were filled with a variety of birds that deceived by the colour fell into the danger they were flying from. Upwards of thirty persons, all gaily attired as shepherds and shepherdesses, assembled on the spot, and were at once informed who Don Quixote and his squire were, whereat they were not a little delighted, as they knew of him already through his history. They repaired to the tents, where they found tables laid out, and choicely, plentifully, and neatly furnished. They treated Don Quixote as a person of distinction, giving him the place of honour, and all observed him, and were full of astonishment at the spectacle. At last the cloth being removed, Don Quixote with great composure lifted up his voice and said 'One of the greatest sins that men are guilty of issome will say pridebut I say ingratitude, going by the common saying that hell is full of ingrates. This sin, so far as it has lain in my power, I have endeavoured to avoid ever since I have enjoyed the faculty of reason and if I am unable to requite good deeds that have been done me by other deeds, I substitute the desire to do so and if that be not enough I make them known publicly for he who declares and makes known the good deeds done to him would repay them by others if it were in his power, and for the most part those who receive are the inferiors of those who give. Thus, God is superior to all because he is the supreme giver, and the offerings of man fall short by an infinite distance of being a full return for the gifts of God but gratitude in some degree makes up for this deficiency and shortcoming. I therefore, grateful for the favour that has been extended to me here, and unable to make a return in the same measure, restricted as I am by the narrow limits of my power, offer what I can and what I have to offer in my own way and so I declare that for two full days I will maintain in the middle of this highway leading to Saragossa, that these ladies disguised as shepherdesses, who are here present, are the fairest and most courteous maidens in the world, excepting only the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole mistress of my thoughts, be it said without offence to those who hear me, ladies and gentlemen. On hearing this Sancho, who had been listening with great attention, cried out in a loud voice, 'Is it possible there is anyone in the world who will dare to say and swear that this master of mine is a madman? Say, gentlemen shepherds, is there a village priest, be he ever so wise or learned, who could say what my master has said or is there knighterrant, whatever renown he may have as a man of valour, that could offer what my master has offered now? Don Quixote turned upon Sancho, and with a countenance glowing with anger said to him, 'Is it possible, Sancho, there is anyone in the whole world who will say thou art not a fool, with a lining to match, and I know not what trimmings of impertinence and roguery? Who asked thee to meddle in my affairs, or to inquire whether I am a wise man or a blockhead? Hold thy peace answer me not a word saddle Rocinante if he be unsaddled and let us go to put my offer into execution for with the right that I have on my side thou mayest reckon as vanquished all who shall venture to question it and in a great rage, and showing his anger plainly, he rose from his seat, leaving the company lost in wonder, and making them feel doubtful whether they ought to regard him as a madman or a rational being. In the end, though they sought to dissuade him from involving himself in such a challenge, assuring him they admitted his gratitude as fully established, and needed no fresh proofs to be convinced of his valiant spirit, as those related in the history of his exploits were sufficient, still Don Quixote persisted in his resolve and mounted on Rocinante, bracing his buckler on his arm and grasping his lance, he posted himself in the middle of a high road that was not far from the green meadow. Sancho followed on Dapple, together with all the members of the pastoral gathering, eager to see what would be the upshot of his vainglorious and extraordinary proposal. Don Quixote, then, having, as has been said, planted himself in the middle of the road, made the welkin ring with words to this effect 'Ho ye travellers and wayfarers, knights, squires, folk on foot or on horseback, who pass this way or shall pass in the course of the next two days! Know that Don Quixote of La Mancha, knighterrant, is posted here to maintain by arms that the beauty and courtesy enshrined in the nymphs that dwell in these meadows and groves surpass all upon earth, putting aside the lady of my heart, Dulcinea del Toboso. Wherefore, let him who is of the opposite opinion come on, for here I await him. Twice he repeated the same words, and twice they fell unheard by any adventurer but fate, that was guiding affairs for him from better to better, so ordered it that shortly afterwards there appeared on the road a crowd of men on horseback, many of them with lances in their hands, all riding in a compact body and in great haste. No sooner had those who were with Don Quixote seen them than they turned about and withdrew to some distance from the road, for they knew that if they stayed some harm might come to them but Don Quixote with intrepid heart stood his ground, and Sancho Panza shielded himself with Rocinante's hindquarters. The troop of lancers came up, and one of them who was in advance began shouting to Don Quixote, 'Get out of the way, you son of the devil, or these bulls will knock you to pieces! 'Rabble! returned Don Quixote, 'I care nothing for bulls, be they the fiercest Jarama breeds on its banks. Confess at once, scoundrels, that what I have declared is true else ye have to deal with me in combat. The herdsman had no time to reply, nor Don Quixote to get out of the way even if he wished and so the drove of fierce bulls and tame bullocks, together with the crowd of herdsmen and others who were taking them to be penned up in a village where they were to be run the next day, passed over Don Quixote and over Sancho, Rocinante and Dapple, hurling them all to the earth and rolling them over on the ground. Sancho was left crushed, Don Quixote scared, Dapple belaboured and Rocinante in no very sound condition. They all got up, however, at length, and Don Quixote in great haste, stumbling here and falling there, started off running after the drove, shouting out, 'Hold! stay! ye rascally rabble, a single knight awaits you, and he is not of the temper or opinion of those who say, 'For a flying enemy make a bridge of silver.' The retreating party in their haste, however, did not stop for that, or heed his menaces any more than last year's clouds. Weariness brought Don Quixote to a halt, and more enraged than avenged he sat down on the road to wait until Sancho, Rocinante and Dapple came up. When they reached him master and man mounted once more, and without going back to bid farewell to the mock or imitation Arcadia, and more in humiliation than contentment, they continued their journey. A clear limpid spring which they discovered in a cool grove relieved Don Quixote and Sancho of the dust and fatigue due to the unpolite behaviour of the bulls, and by the side of this, having turned Dapple and Rocinante loose without headstall or bridle, the forlorn pair, master and man, seated themselves. Sancho had recourse to the larder of his alforjas and took out of them what he called the prog Don Quixote rinsed his mouth and bathed his face, by which cooling process his flagging energies were revived. Out of pure vexation he remained without eating, and out of pure politeness Sancho did not venture to touch a morsel of what was before him, but waited for his master to act as taster. Seeing, however, that, absorbed in thought, he was forgetting to carry the bread to his mouth, he said never a word, and trampling every sort of good breeding under foot, began to stow away in his paunch the bread and cheese that came to his hand. 'Eat, Sancho my friend, said Don Quixote 'support life, which is of more consequence to thee than to me, and leave me to die under the pain of my thoughts and pressure of my misfortunes. I was born, Sancho, to live dying, and thou to die eating and to prove the truth of what I say, look at me, printed in histories, famed in arms, courteous in behaviour, honoured by princes, courted by maidens and after all, when I looked forward to palms, triumphs, and crowns, won and earned by my valiant deeds, I have this morning seen myself trampled on, kicked, and crushed by the feet of unclean and filthy animals. This thought blunts my teeth, paralyses my jaws, cramps my hands, and robs me of all appetite for food so much so that I have a mind to let myself die of hunger, the cruelest death of all deaths. 'So then, said Sancho, munching hard all the time, 'your worship does not agree with the proverb that says, 'Let Martha die, but let her die with a full belly.' I, at any rate, have no mind to kill myself so far from that, I mean to do as the cobbler does, who stretches the leather with his teeth until he makes it reach as far as he wants. I'll stretch out my life by eating until it reaches the end heaven has fixed for it and let me tell you, seor, there's no greater folly than to think of dying of despair as your worship does take my advice, and after eating lie down and sleep a bit on this green grassmattress, and you will see that when you awake you'll feel something better. Don Quixote did as he recommended, for it struck him that Sancho's reasoning was more like a philosopher's than a blockhead's, and said he, 'Sancho, if thou wilt do for me what I am going to tell thee my ease of mind would be more assured and my heaviness of heart not so great and it is this to go aside a little while I am sleeping in accordance with thy advice, and, making bare thy carcase to the air, to give thyself three or four hundred lashes with Rocinante's reins, on account of the three thousand and odd thou art to give thyself for the disenchantment of Dulcinea for it is a great pity that the poor lady should be left enchanted through thy carelessness and negligence. 'There is a good deal to be said on that point, said Sancho 'let us both go to sleep now, and after that, God has decreed what will happen. Let me tell your worship that for a man to whip himself in cold blood is a hard thing, especially if the stripes fall upon an illnourished and worsefed body. Let my lady Dulcinea have patience, and when she is least expecting it, she will see me made a riddle of with whipping, and 'until death it's all life' I mean that I have still life in me, and the desire to make good what I have promised. Don Quixote thanked him, and ate a little, and Sancho a good deal, and then they both lay down to sleep, leaving those two inseparable friends and comrades, Rocinante and Dapple, to their own devices and to feed unrestrained upon the abundant grass with which the meadow was furnished. They woke up rather late, mounted once more and resumed their journey, pushing on to reach an inn which was in sight, apparently a league off. I say an inn, because Don Quixote called it so, contrary to his usual practice of calling all inns castles. They reached it, and asked the landlord if they could put up there. He said yes, with as much comfort and as good fare as they could find in Saragossa. They dismounted, and Sancho stowed away his larder in a room of which the landlord gave him the key. He took the beasts to the stable, fed them, and came back to see what orders Don Quixote, who was seated on a bench at the door, had for him, giving special thanks to heaven that this inn had not been taken for a castle by his master. Suppertime came, and they repaired to their room, and Sancho asked the landlord what he had to give them for supper. To this the landlord replied that his mouth should be the measure he had only to ask what he would for that inn was provided with the birds of the air and the fowls of the earth and the fish of the sea. 'There's no need of all that, said Sancho 'if they'll roast us a couple of chickens we'll be satisfied, for my master is delicate and eats little, and I'm not over and above gluttonous. The landlord replied he had no chickens, for the kites had stolen them. 'Well then, said Sancho, 'let seor landlord tell them to roast a pullet, so that it is a tender one. 'Pullet! My father! said the landlord 'indeed and in truth it's only yesterday I sent over fifty to the city to sell but saving pullets ask what you will. 'In that case, said Sancho, 'you will not be without veal or kid. 'Just now, said the landlord, 'there's none in the house, for it's all finished but next week there will be enough and to spare. 'Much good that does us, said Sancho 'I'll lay a bet that all these shortcomings are going to wind up in plenty of bacon and eggs. 'By God, said the landlord, 'my guest's wits must be precious dull I tell him I have neither pullets nor hens, and he wants me to have eggs! Talk of other dainties, if you please, and don't ask for hens again. 'Body o' me! said Sancho, 'let's settle the matter say at once what you have got, and let us have no more words about it. 'In truth and earnest, seor guest, said the landlord, 'all I have is a couple of cowheels like calves' feet, or a couple of calves' feet like cowheels they are boiled with chickpeas, onions, and bacon, and at this moment they are crying 'Come eat me, come eat me. 'I mark them for mine on the spot, said Sancho 'let nobody touch them I'll pay better for them than anyone else, for I could not wish for anything more to my taste and I don't care a pin whether they are feet or heels. 'Nobody shall touch them, said the landlord 'for the other guests I have, being persons of high quality, bring their own cook and caterer and larder with them. 'If you come to people of quality, said Sancho, 'there's nobody more so than my master but the calling he follows does not allow of larders or storerooms we lay ourselves down in the middle of a meadow, and fill ourselves with acorns or medlars. Here ended Sancho's conversation with the landlord, Sancho not caring to carry it any farther by answering him for he had already asked him what calling or what profession it was his master was of. Suppertime having come, then, Don Quixote betook himself to his room, the landlord brought in the stewpan just as it was, and he sat himself down to sup very resolutely. It seems that in another room, which was next to Don Quixote's, with nothing but a thin partition to separate it, he overheard these words, 'As you live, Seor Don Jeronimo, while they are bringing supper, let us read another chapter of the Second Part of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha.' The instant Don Quixote heard his own name he started to his feet and listened with open ears to catch what they said about him, and heard the Don Jeronimo who had been addressed say in reply, 'Why would you have us read that absurd stuff, Don Juan, when it is impossible for anyone who has read the First Part of the history of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha' to take any pleasure in reading this Second Part? 'For all that, said he who was addressed as Don Juan, 'we shall do well to read it, for there is no book so bad but it has something good in it. What displeases me most in it is that it represents Don Quixote as now cured of his love for Dulcinea del Toboso. On hearing this Don Quixote, full of wrath and indignation, lifted up his voice and said, 'Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth for neither can the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have a place in Don Quixote his motto is constancy, and his profession to maintain the same with his life and never wrong it. 'Who is this that answers us? said they in the next room. 'Who should it be, said Sancho, 'but Don Quixote of La Mancha himself, who will make good all he has said and all he will say for pledges don't trouble a good payer. Sancho had hardly uttered these words when two gentlemen, for such they seemed to be, entered the room, and one of them, throwing his arms round Don Quixote's neck, said to him, 'Your appearance cannot leave any question as to your name, nor can your name fail to identify your appearance unquestionably, seor, you are the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, cynosure and morning star of knighterrantry, despite and in defiance of him who has sought to usurp your name and bring to naught your achievements, as the author of this book which I here present to you has done and with this he put a book which his companion carried into the hands of Don Quixote, who took it, and without replying began to run his eye over it but he presently returned it saying, 'In the little I have seen I have discovered three things in this author that deserve to be censured. The first is some words that I have read in the preface the next that the language is Aragonese, for sometimes he writes without articles and the third, which above all stamps him as ignorant, is that he goes wrong and departs from the truth in the most important part of the history, for here he says that my squire Sancho Panza's wife is called Mari Gutierrez, when she is called nothing of the sort, but Teresa Panza and when a man errs on such an important point as this there is good reason to fear that he is in error on every other point in the history. 'A nice sort of historian, indeed! exclaimed Sancho at this 'he must know a deal about our affairs when he calls my wife Teresa Panza, Mari Gutierrez take the book again, seor, and see if I am in it and if he has changed my name. 'From your talk, friend, said Don Jeronimo, 'no doubt you are Sancho Panza, Seor Don Quixote's squire. 'Yes, I am, said Sancho 'and I'm proud of it. 'Faith, then, said the gentleman, 'this new author does not handle you with the decency that displays itself in your person he makes you out a heavy feeder and a fool, and not in the least droll, and a very different being from the Sancho described in the First Part of your master's history. 'God forgive him, said Sancho 'he might have left me in my corner without troubling his head about me 'let him who knows how ring the bells 'Saint Peter is very well in Rome.' The two gentlemen pressed Don Quixote to come into their room and have supper with them, as they knew very well there was nothing in that inn fit for one of his sort. Don Quixote, who was always polite, yielded to their request and supped with them. Sancho stayed behind with the stew. and invested with plenary delegated authority seated himself at the head of the table, and the landlord sat down with him, for he was no less fond of cowheel and calves' feet than Sancho was. While at supper Don Juan asked Don Quixote what news he had of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, was she married, had she been brought to bed, or was she with child, or did she in maidenhood, still preserving her modesty and delicacy, cherish the remembrance of the tender passion of Seor Don Quixote? To this he replied, 'Dulcinea is a maiden still, and my passion more firmly rooted than ever, our intercourse unsatisfactory as before, and her beauty transformed into that of a foul country wench and then he proceeded to give them a full and particular account of the enchantment of Dulcinea, and of what had happened him in the cave of Montesinos, together with what the sage Merlin had prescribed for her disenchantment, namely the scourging of Sancho. Exceedingly great was the amusement the two gentlemen derived from hearing Don Quixote recount the strange incidents of his history and if they were amazed by his absurdities they were equally amazed by the elegant style in which he delivered them. On the one hand they regarded him as a man of wit and sense, and on the other he seemed to them a maundering blockhead, and they could not make up their minds whereabouts between wisdom and folly they ought to place him. Sancho having finished his supper, and left the landlord in the X condition, repaired to the room where his master was, and as he came in said, 'May I die, sirs, if the author of this book your worships have got has any mind that we should agree as he calls me glutton (according to what your worships say) I wish he may not call me drunkard too. 'But he does, said Don Jeronimo 'I cannot remember, however, in what way, though I know his words are offensive, and what is more, lying, as I can see plainly by the physiognomy of the worthy Sancho before me. 'Believe me, said Sancho, 'the Sancho and the Don Quixote of this history must be different persons from those that appear in the one Cide Hamete Benengeli wrote, who are ourselves my master valiant, wise, and true in love, and I simple, droll, and neither glutton nor drunkard. 'I believe it, said Don Juan 'and were it possible, an order should be issued that no one should have the presumption to deal with anything relating to Don Quixote, save his original author Cide Hamete just as Alexander commanded that no one should presume to paint his portrait save Apelles. 'Let him who will paint me, said Don Quixote 'but let him not abuse me for patience will often break down when they heap insults upon it. 'None can be offered to Seor Don Quixote, said Don Juan, 'that he himself will not be able to avenge, if he does not ward it off with the shield of his patience, which, I take it, is great and strong. A considerable portion of the night passed in conversation of this sort, and though Don Juan wished Don Quixote to read more of the book to see what it was all about, he was not to be prevailed upon, saying that he treated it as read and pronounced it utterly silly and, if by any chance it should come to its author's ears that he had it in his hand, he did not want him to flatter himself with the idea that he had read it for our thoughts, and still more our eyes, should keep themselves aloof from what is obscene and filthy. They asked him whither he meant to direct his steps. He replied, to Saragossa, to take part in the harness jousts which were held in that city every year. Don Juan told him that the new history described how Don Quixote, let him be who he might, took part there in a tilting at the ring, utterly devoid of invention, poor in mottoes, very poor in costume, though rich in sillinesses. 'For that very reason, said Don Quixote, 'I will not set foot in Saragossa and by that means I shall expose to the world the lie of this new history writer, and people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he speaks of. 'You will do quite right, said Don Jeronimo 'and there are other jousts at Barcelona in which Seor Don Quixote may display his prowess. 'That is what I mean to do, said Don Quixote 'and as it is now time, I pray your worships to give me leave to retire to bed, and to place and retain me among the number of your greatest friends and servants. 'And me too, said Sancho 'maybe I'll be good for something. With this they exchanged farewells, and Don Quixote and Sancho retired to their room, leaving Don Juan and Don Jeronimo amazed to see the medley he made of his good sense and his craziness and they felt thoroughly convinced that these, and not those their Aragonese author described, were the genuine Don Quixote and Sancho. Don Quixote rose betimes, and bade adieu to his hosts by knocking at the partition of the other room. Sancho paid the landlord magnificently, and recommended him either to say less about the providing of his inn or to keep it better provided. It was a fresh morning giving promise of a cool day as Don Quixote quitted the inn, first of all taking care to ascertain the most direct road to Barcelona without touching upon Saragossa so anxious was he to make out this new historian, who they said abused him so, to be a liar. Well, as it fell out, nothing worthy of being recorded happened him for six days, at the end of which, having turned aside out of the road, he was overtaken by night in a thicket of oak or cork trees for on this point Cide Hamete is not as precise as he usually is on other matters. Master and man dismounted from their beasts, and as soon as they had settled themselves at the foot of the trees, Sancho, who had had a good noontide meal that day, let himself, without more ado, pass the gates of sleep. But Don Quixote, whom his thoughts, far more than hunger, kept awake, could not close an eye, and roamed in fancy to and fro through all sorts of places. At one moment it seemed to him that he was in the cave of Montesinos and saw Dulcinea, transformed into a country wench, skipping and mounting upon her sheass again that the words of the sage Merlin were sounding in his ears, setting forth the conditions to be observed and the exertions to be made for the disenchantment of Dulcinea. He lost all patience when he considered the laziness and want of charity of his squire Sancho for to the best of his belief he had only given himself five lashes, a number paltry and disproportioned to the vast number required. At this thought he felt such vexation and anger that he reasoned the matter thus 'If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, saying, 'To cut comes to the same thing as to untie,' and yet did not fail to become lord paramount of all Asia, neither more nor less could happen now in Dulcinea's disenchantment if I scourge Sancho against his will for, if it is the condition of the remedy that Sancho shall receive three thousand and odd lashes, what does it matter to me whether he inflicts them himself, or someone else inflicts them, when the essential point is that he receives them, let them come from whatever quarter they may? With this idea he went over to Sancho, having first taken Rocinante's reins and arranged them so as to be able to flog him with them, and began to untie the points (the common belief is he had but one in front) by which his breeches were held up but the instant he approached him Sancho woke up in his full senses and cried out, 'What is this? Who is touching me and untrussing me? 'It is I, said Don Quixote, 'and I come to make good thy shortcomings and relieve my own distresses I come to whip thee, Sancho, and wipe off some portion of the debt thou hast undertaken. Dulcinea is perishing, thou art living on regardless, I am dying of hope deferred therefore untruss thyself with a good will, for mine it is, here, in this retired spot, to give thee at least two thousand lashes. 'Not a bit of it, said Sancho 'let your worship keep quiet, or else by the living God the deaf shall hear us the lashes I pledged myself to must be voluntary and not forced upon me, and just now I have no fancy to whip myself it is enough if I give you my word to flog and flap myself when I have a mind. 'It will not do to leave it to thy courtesy, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for thou art hard of heart and, though a clown, tender of flesh and at the same time he strove and struggled to untie him. Seeing this Sancho got up, and grappling with his master he gripped him with all his might in his arms, giving him a trip with the heel stretched him on the ground on his back, and pressing his right knee on his chest held his hands in his own so that he could neither move nor breathe. 'How now, traitor! exclaimed Don Quixote. 'Dost thou revolt against thy master and natural lord? Dost thou rise against him who gives thee his bread? 'I neither put down king, nor set up king, said Sancho 'I only stand up for myself who am my own lord if your worship promises me to be quiet, and not to offer to whip me now, I'll let you go free and unhindered if not Traitor and Doa Sancha's foe, Thou diest on the spot. Don Quixote gave his promise, and swore by the life of his thoughts not to touch so much as a hair of his garments, and to leave him entirely free and to his own discretion to whip himself whenever he pleased. Sancho rose and removed some distance from the spot, but as he was about to place himself leaning against another tree he felt something touch his head, and putting up his hands encountered somebody's two feet with shoes and stockings on them. He trembled with fear and made for another tree, where the very same thing happened to him, and he fell ashouting, calling upon Don Quixote to come and protect him. Don Quixote did so, and asked him what had happened to him, and what he was afraid of. Sancho replied that all the trees were full of men's feet and legs. Don Quixote felt them, and guessed at once what it was, and said to Sancho, 'Thou hast nothing to be afraid of, for these feet and legs that thou feelest but canst not see belong no doubt to some outlaws and freebooters that have been hanged on these trees for the authorities in these parts are wont to hang them up by twenties and thirties when they catch them whereby I conjecture that I must be near Barcelona and it was, in fact, as he supposed with the first light they looked up and saw that the fruit hanging on those trees were freebooters' bodies. And now day dawned and if the dead freebooters had scared them, their hearts were no less troubled by upwards of forty living ones, who all of a sudden surrounded them, and in the Catalan tongue bade them stand and wait until their captain came up. Don Quixote was on foot with his horse unbridled and his lance leaning against a tree, and in short completely defenceless he thought it best therefore to fold his arms and bow his head and reserve himself for a more favourable occasion and opportunity. The robbers made haste to search Dapple, and did not leave him a single thing of all he carried in the alforjas and in the valise and lucky it was for Sancho that the duke's crowns and those he brought from home were in a girdle that he wore round him but for all that these good folk would have stripped him, and even looked to see what he had hidden between the skin and flesh, but for the arrival at that moment of their captain, who was about thirtyfour years of age apparently, strongly built, above the middle height, of stern aspect and swarthy complexion. He was mounted upon a powerful horse, and had on a coat of mail, with four of the pistols they call petronels in that country at his waist. He saw that his squires (for so they call those who follow that trade) were about to rifle Sancho Panza, but he ordered them to desist and was at once obeyed, so the girdle escaped. He wondered to see the lance leaning against the tree, the shield on the ground, and Don Quixote in armour and dejected, with the saddest and most melancholy face that sadness itself could produce and going up to him he said, 'Be not so cast down, good man, for you have not fallen into the hands of any inhuman Busiris, but into Roque Guinart's, which are more merciful than cruel. 'The cause of my dejection, returned Don Quixote, 'is not that I have fallen into thy hands, O valiant Roque, whose fame is bounded by no limits on earth, but that my carelessness should have been so great that thy soldiers should have caught me unbridled, when it is my duty, according to the rule of knighterrantry which I profess, to be always on the alert and at all times my own sentinel for let me tell thee, great Roque, had they found me on my horse, with my lance and shield, it would not have been very easy for them to reduce me to submission, for I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, he who hath filled the whole world with his achievements. Roque Guinart at once perceived that Don Quixote's weakness was more akin to madness than to swagger and though he had sometimes heard him spoken of, he never regarded the things attributed to him as true, nor could he persuade himself that such a humour could become dominant in the heart of man he was extremely glad, therefore, to meet him and test at close quarters what he had heard of him at a distance so he said to him, 'Despair not, valiant knight, nor regard as an untoward fate the position in which thou findest thyself it may be that by these slips thy crooked fortune will make itself straight for heaven by strange circuitous ways, mysterious and incomprehensible to man, raises up the fallen and makes rich the poor. Don Quixote was about to thank him, when they heard behind them a noise as of a troop of horses there was, however, but one, riding on which at a furious pace came a youth, apparently about twenty years of age, clad in green damask edged with gold and breeches and a loose frock, with a hat looped up in the Walloon fashion, tightfitting polished boots, gilt spurs, dagger and sword, and in his hand a musketoon, and a pair of pistols at his waist. Roque turned round at the noise and perceived this comely figure, which drawing near thus addressed him, 'I came in quest of thee, valiant Roque, to find in thee if not a remedy at least relief in my misfortune and not to keep thee in suspense, for I see thou dost not recognise me, I will tell thee who I am I am Claudia Jeronima, the daughter of Simon Forte, thy good friend, and special enemy of Clauquel Torrellas, who is thine also as being of the faction opposed to thee. Thou knowest that this Torrellas has a son who is called, or at least was not two hours since, Don Vicente Torrellas. Well, to cut short the tale of my misfortune, I will tell thee in a few words what this youth has brought upon me. He saw me, he paid court to me, I listened to him, and, unknown to my father, I loved him for there is no woman, however secluded she may live or close she may be kept, who will not have opportunities and to spare for following her headlong impulses. In a word, he pledged himself to be mine, and I promised to be his, without carrying matters any further. Yesterday I learned that, forgetful of his pledge to me, he was about to marry another, and that he was to go this morning to plight his troth, intelligence which overwhelmed and exasperated me my father not being at home I was able to adopt this costume you see, and urging my horse to speed I overtook Don Vicente about a league from this, and without waiting to utter reproaches or hear excuses I fired this musket at him, and these two pistols besides, and to the best of my belief I must have lodged more than two bullets in his body, opening doors to let my honour go free, enveloped in his blood. I left him there in the hands of his servants, who did not dare and were not able to interfere in his defence, and I come to seek from thee a safeconduct into France, where I have relatives with whom I can live and also to implore thee to protect my father, so that Don Vicente's numerous kinsmen may not venture to wreak their lawless vengeance upon him. Roque, filled with admiration at the gallant bearing, high spirit, comely figure, and adventure of the fair Claudia, said to her, 'Come, seora, let us go and see if thy enemy is dead and then we will consider what will be best for thee. Don Quixote, who had been listening to what Claudia said and Roque Guinart said in reply to her, exclaimed, 'Nobody need trouble himself with the defence of this lady, for I take it upon myself. Give me my horse and arms, and wait for me here I will go in quest of this knight, and dead or alive I will make him keep his word plighted to so great beauty. 'Nobody need have any doubt about that, said Sancho, 'for my master has a very happy knack of matchmaking it's not many days since he forced another man to marry, who in the same way backed out of his promise to another maiden and if it had not been for his persecutors the enchanters changing the man's proper shape into a lacquey's the said maiden would not be one this minute. Roque, who was paying more attention to the fair Claudia's adventure than to the words of master or man, did not hear them and ordering his squires to restore to Sancho everything they had stripped Dapple of, he directed them to return to the place where they had been quartered during the night, and then set off with Claudia at full speed in search of the wounded or slain Don Vicente. They reached the spot where Claudia met him, but found nothing there save freshly spilt blood looking all round, however, they descried some people on the slope of a hill above them, and concluded, as indeed it proved to be, that it was Don Vicente, whom either dead or alive his servants were removing to attend to his wounds or to bury him. They made haste to overtake them, which, as the party moved slowly, they were able to do with ease. They found Don Vicente in the arms of his servants, whom he was entreating in a broken feeble voice to leave him there to die, as the pain of his wounds would not suffer him to go any farther. Claudia and Roque threw themselves off their horses and advanced towards him the servants were overawed by the appearance of Roque, and Claudia was moved by the sight of Don Vicente, and going up to him half tenderly half sternly, she seized his hand and said to him, 'Hadst thou given me this according to our compact thou hadst never come to this pass. The wounded gentleman opened his all but closed eyes, and recognising Claudia said, 'I see clearly, fair and mistaken lady, that it is thou that hast slain me, a punishment not merited or deserved by my feelings towards thee, for never did I mean to, nor could I, wrong thee in thought or deed. 'It is not true, then, said Claudia, 'that thou wert going this morning to marry Leonora the daughter of the rich Balvastro? 'Assuredly not, replied Don Vicente 'my cruel fortune must have carried those tidings to thee to drive thee in thy jealousy to take my life and to assure thyself of this, press my hands and take me for thy husband if thou wilt I have no better satisfaction to offer thee for the wrong thou fanciest thou hast received from me. Claudia wrung his hands, and her own heart was so wrung that she lay fainting on the bleeding breast of Don Vicente, whom a death spasm seized the same instant. Roque was in perplexity and knew not what to do the servants ran to fetch water to sprinkle their faces, and brought some and bathed them with it. Claudia recovered from her fainting fit, but not so Don Vicente from the paroxysm that had overtaken him, for his life had come to an end. On perceiving this, Claudia, when she had convinced herself that her beloved husband was no more, rent the air with her sighs and made the heavens ring with her lamentations she tore her hair and scattered it to the winds, she beat her face with her hands and showed all the signs of grief and sorrow that could be conceived to come from an afflicted heart. 'Cruel, reckless woman! she cried, 'how easily wert thou moved to carry out a thought so wicked! O furious force of jealousy, to what desperate lengths dost thou lead those that give thee lodging in their bosoms! O husband, whose unhappy fate in being mine hath borne thee from the marriage bed to the grave! So vehement and so piteous were the lamentations of Claudia that they drew tears from Roque's eyes, unused as they were to shed them on any occasion. The servants wept, Claudia swooned away again and again, and the whole place seemed a field of sorrow and an abode of misfortune. In the end Roque Guinart directed Don Vicente's servants to carry his body to his father's village, which was close by, for burial. Claudia told him she meant to go to a monastery of which an aunt of hers was abbess, where she intended to pass her life with a better and everlasting spouse. He applauded her pious resolution, and offered to accompany her whithersoever she wished, and to protect her father against the kinsmen of Don Vicente and all the world, should they seek to injure him. Claudia would not on any account allow him to accompany her and thanking him for his offers as well as she could, took leave of him in tears. The servants of Don Vicente carried away his body, and Roque returned to his comrades, and so ended the love of Claudia Jeronima but what wonder, when it was the insuperable and cruel might of jealousy that wove the web of her sad story? Roque Guinart found his squires at the place to which he had ordered them, and Don Quixote on Rocinante in the midst of them delivering a harangue to them in which he urged them to give up a mode of life so full of peril, as well to the soul as to the body but as most of them were Gascons, rough lawless fellows, his speech did not make much impression on them. Roque on coming up asked Sancho if his men had returned and restored to him the treasures and jewels they had stripped off Dapple. Sancho said they had, but that three kerchiefs that were worth three cities were missing. 'What are you talking about, man? said one of the bystanders 'I have got them, and they are not worth three reals. 'That is true, said Don Quixote 'but my squire values them at the rate he says, as having been given me by the person who gave them. Roque Guinart ordered them to be restored at once and making his men fall in in line he directed all the clothing, jewellery, and money that they had taken since the last distribution to be produced and making a hasty valuation, and reducing what could not be divided into money, he made shares for the whole band so equitably and carefully, that in no case did he exceed or fall short of strict distributive justice. When this had been done, and all left satisfied, Roque observed to Don Quixote, 'If this scrupulous exactness were not observed with these fellows there would be no living with them. Upon this Sancho remarked, 'From what I have seen here, justice is such a good thing that there is no doing without it, even among the thieves themselves. One of the squires heard this, and raising the buttend of his harquebuss would no doubt have broken Sancho's head with it had not Roque Guinart called out to him to hold his hand. Sancho was frightened out of his wits, and vowed not to open his lips so long as he was in the company of these people. At this instant one or two of those squires who were posted as sentinels on the roads, to watch who came along them and report what passed to their chief, came up and said, 'Seor, there is a great troop of people not far off coming along the road to Barcelona. To which Roque replied, 'Hast thou made out whether they are of the sort that are after us, or of the sort we are after? 'The sort we are after, said the squire. 'Well then, away with you all, said Roque, 'and bring them here to me at once without letting one of them escape. They obeyed, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and Roque, left by themselves, waited to see what the squires brought, and while they were waiting Roque said to Don Quixote, 'It must seem a strange sort of life to Seor Don Quixote, this of ours, strange adventures, strange incidents, and all full of danger and I do not wonder that it should seem so, for in truth I must own there is no mode of life more restless or anxious than ours. What led me into it was a certain thirst for vengeance, which is strong enough to disturb the quietest hearts. I am by nature tenderhearted and kindly, but, as I said, the desire to revenge myself for a wrong that was done me so overturns all my better impulses that I keep on in this way of life in spite of what conscience tells me and as one depth calls to another, and one sin to another sin, revenges have linked themselves together, and I have taken upon myself not only my own but those of others it pleases God, however, that, though I see myself in this maze of entanglements, I do not lose all hope of escaping from it and reaching a safe port. Don Quixote was amazed to hear Roque utter such excellent and just sentiments, for he did not think that among those who followed such trades as robbing, murdering, and waylaying, there could be anyone capable of a virtuous thought, and he said in reply, 'Seor Roque, the beginning of health lies in knowing the disease and in the sick man's willingness to take the medicines which the physician prescribes you are sick, you know what ails you, and heaven, or more properly speaking God, who is our physician, will administer medicines that will cure you, and cure gradually, and not of a sudden or by a miracle besides, sinners of discernment are nearer amendment than those who are fools and as your worship has shown good sense in your remarks, all you have to do is to keep up a good heart and trust that the weakness of your conscience will be strengthened. And if you have any desire to shorten the journey and put yourself easily in the way of salvation, come with me, and I will show you how to become a knighterrant, a calling wherein so many hardships and mishaps are encountered that if they be taken as penances they will lodge you in heaven in a trice. Roque laughed at Don Quixote's exhortation, and changing the conversation he related the tragic affair of Claudia Jeronima, at which Sancho was extremely grieved for he had not found the young woman's beauty, boldness, and spirit at all amiss. And now the squires despatched to make the prize came up, bringing with them two gentlemen on horseback, two pilgrims on foot, and a coach full of women with some six servants on foot and on horseback in attendance on them, and a couple of muleteers whom the gentlemen had with them. The squires made a ring round them, both victors and vanquished maintaining profound silence, waiting for the great Roque Guinart to speak. He asked the gentlemen who they were, whither they were going, and what money they carried with them 'Seor, replied one of them, 'we are two captains of Spanish infantry our companies are at Naples, and we are on our way to embark in four galleys which they say are at Barcelona under orders for Sicily and we have about two or three hundred crowns, with which we are, according to our notions, rich and contented, for a soldier's poverty does not allow a more extensive hoard. Roque asked the pilgrims the same questions he had put to the captains, and was answered that they were going to take ship for Rome, and that between them they might have about sixty reals. He asked also who was in the coach, whither they were bound and what money they had, and one of the men on horseback replied, 'The persons in the coach are my lady Doa Guiomar de Quiones, wife of the regent of the Vicaria at Naples, her little daughter, a handmaid and a duenna we six servants are in attendance upon her, and the money amounts to six hundred crowns. 'So then, said Roque Guinart, 'we have got here nine hundred crowns and sixty reals my soldiers must number some sixty see how much there falls to each, for I am a bad arithmetician. As soon as the robbers heard this they raised a shout of 'Long life to Roque Guinart, in spite of the lladres that seek his ruin! The captains showed plainly the concern they felt, the regent's lady was downcast, and the pilgrims did not at all enjoy seeing their property confiscated. Roque kept them in suspense in this way for a while but he had no desire to prolong their distress, which might be seen a bowshot off, and turning to the captains he said, 'Sirs, will your worships be pleased of your courtesy to lend me sixty crowns, and her ladyship the regent's wife eighty, to satisfy this band that follows me, for 'it is by his singing the abbot gets his dinner' and then you may at once proceed on your journey, free and unhindered, with a safeconduct which I shall give you, so that if you come across any other bands of mine that I have scattered in these parts, they may do you no harm for I have no intention of doing injury to soldiers, or to any woman, especially one of quality. Profuse and hearty were the expressions of gratitude with which the captains thanked Roque for his courtesy and generosity for such they regarded his leaving them their own money. Seora Doa Guiomar de Quiones wanted to throw herself out of the coach to kiss the feet and hands of the great Roque, but he would not suffer it on any account so far from that, he begged her pardon for the wrong he had done her under pressure of the inexorable necessities of his unfortunate calling. The regent's lady ordered one of her servants to give the eighty crowns that had been assessed as her share at once, for the captains had already paid down their sixty. The pilgrims were about to give up the whole of their little hoard, but Roque bade them keep quiet, and turning to his men he said, 'Of these crowns two fall to each man and twenty remain over let ten be given to these pilgrims, and the other ten to this worthy squire that he may be able to speak favourably of this adventure and then having writing materials, with which he always went provided, brought to him, he gave them in writing a safeconduct to the leaders of his bands and bidding them farewell let them go free and filled with admiration at his magnanimity, his generous disposition, and his unusual conduct, and inclined to regard him as an Alexander the Great rather than a notorious robber. One of the squires observed in his mixture of Gascon and Catalan, 'This captain of ours would make a better friar than highwayman if he wants to be so generous another time, let it be with his own property and not ours. The unlucky wight did not speak so low but that Roque overheard him, and drawing his sword almost split his head in two, saying, 'That is the way I punish impudent saucy fellows. They were all taken aback, and not one of them dared to utter a word, such deference did they pay him. Roque then withdrew to one side and wrote a letter to a friend of his at Barcelona, telling him that the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the knighterrant of whom there was so much talk, was with him, and was, he assured him, the drollest and wisest man in the world and that in four days from that date, that is to say, on Saint John the Baptist's Day, he was going to deposit him in full armour mounted on his horse Rocinante, together with his squire Sancho on an ass, in the middle of the strand of the city and bidding him give notice of this to his friends the Niarros, that they might divert themselves with him. He wished, he said, his enemies the Cadells could be deprived of this pleasure but that was impossible, because the crazes and shrewd sayings of Don Quixote and the humours of his squire Sancho Panza could not help giving general pleasure to all the world. He despatched the letter by one of his squires, who, exchanging the costume of a highwayman for that of a peasant, made his way into Barcelona and gave it to the person to whom it was directed. Don Quixote passed three days and three nights with Roque, and had he passed three hundred years he would have found enough to observe and wonder at in his mode of life. At daybreak they were in one spot, at dinnertime in another sometimes they fled without knowing from whom, at other times they lay in wait, not knowing for what. They slept standing, breaking their slumbers to shift from place to place. There was nothing but sending out spies and scouts, posting sentinels and blowing the matches of harquebusses, though they carried but few, for almost all used flintlocks. Roque passed his nights in some place or other apart from his men, that they might not know where he was, for the many proclamations the viceroy of Barcelona had issued against his life kept him in fear and uneasiness, and he did not venture to trust anyone, afraid that even his own men would kill him or deliver him up to the authorities of a truth, a weary miserable life! At length, by unfrequented roads, short cuts, and secret paths, Roque, Don Quixote, and Sancho, together with six squires, set out for Barcelona. They reached the strand on Saint John's Eve during the night and Roque, after embracing Don Quixote and Sancho (to whom he presented the ten crowns he had promised but had not until then given), left them with many expressions of goodwill on both sides. Roque went back, while Don Quixote remained on horseback, just as he was, waiting for day, and it was not long before the countenance of the fair Aurora began to show itself at the balconies of the east, gladdening the grass and flowers, if not the ear, though to gladden that too there came at the same moment a sound of clarions and drums, and a din of bells, and a tramp, tramp, and cries of 'Clear the way there! of some runners, that seemed to issue from the city. The dawn made way for the sun that with a face broader than a buckler began to rise slowly above the low line of the horizon Don Quixote and Sancho gazed all round them they beheld the sea, a sight until then unseen by them it struck them as exceedingly spacious and broad, much more so than the lakes of Ruidera which they had seen in La Mancha. They saw the galleys along the beach, which, lowering their awnings, displayed themselves decked with streamers and pennons that trembled in the breeze and kissed and swept the water, while on board the bugles, trumpets, and clarions were sounding and filling the air far and near with melodious warlike notes. Then they began to move and execute a kind of skirmish upon the calm water, while a vast number of horsemen on fine horses and in showy liveries, issuing from the city, engaged on their side in a somewhat similar movement. The soldiers on board the galleys kept up a ceaseless fire, which they on the walls and forts of the city returned, and the heavy cannon rent the air with the tremendous noise they made, to which the gangway guns of the galleys replied. The bright sea, the smiling earth, the clear airthough at times darkened by the smoke of the gunsall seemed to fill the whole multitude with unexpected delight. Sancho could not make out how it was that those great masses that moved over the sea had so many feet. And now the horsemen in livery came galloping up with shouts and outlandish cries and cheers to where Don Quixote stood amazed and wondering and one of them, he to whom Roque had sent word, addressing him exclaimed, 'Welcome to our city, mirror, beacon, star and cynosure of all knighterrantry in its widest extent! Welcome, I say, valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal, that these latter days have offered us in lying histories, but the true, the legitimate, the real one that Cide Hamete Benengeli, flower of historians, has described to us! Don Quixote made no answer, nor did the horsemen wait for one, but wheeling again with all their followers, they began curvetting round Don Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said, 'These gentlemen have plainly recognised us I will wager they have read our history, and even that newly printed one by the Aragonese. The cavalier who had addressed Don Quixote again approached him and said, 'Come with us, Seor Don Quixote, for we are all of us your servants and great friends of Roque Guinart's to which Don Quixote returned, 'If courtesy breeds courtesy, yours, sir knight, is daughter or very nearly akin to the great Roque's carry me where you please I will have no will but yours, especially if you deign to employ it in your service. The cavalier replied with words no less polite, and then, all closing in around him, they set out with him for the city, to the music of the clarions and the drums. As they were entering it, the wicked one, who is the author of all mischief, and the boys who are wickeder than the wicked one, contrived that a couple of these audacious irrepressible urchins should force their way through the crowd, and lifting up, one of them Dapple's tail and the other Rocinante's, insert a bunch of furze under each. The poor beasts felt the strange spurs and added to their anguish by pressing their tails tight, so much so that, cutting a multitude of capers, they flung their masters to the ground. Don Quixote, covered with shame and out of countenance, ran to pluck the plume from his poor jade's tail, while Sancho did the same for Dapple. His conductors tried to punish the audacity of the boys, but there was no possibility of doing so, for they hid themselves among the hundreds of others that were following them. Don Quixote and Sancho mounted once more, and with the same music and acclamations reached their conductor's house, which was large and stately, that of a rich gentleman, in short and there for the present we will leave them, for such is Cide Hamete's pleasure. Don Quixote's host was one Don Antonio Moreno by name, a gentleman of wealth and intelligence, and very fond of diverting himself in any fair and goodnatured way and having Don Quixote in his house he set about devising modes of making him exhibit his mad points in some harmless fashion for jests that give pain are no jests, and no sport is worth anything if it hurts another. The first thing he did was to make Don Quixote take off his armour, and lead him, in that tight chamois suit we have already described and depicted more than once, out on a balcony overhanging one of the chief streets of the city, in full view of the crowd and of the boys, who gazed at him as they would at a monkey. The cavaliers in livery careered before him again as though it were for him alone, and not to enliven the festival of the day, that they wore it, and Sancho was in high delight, for it seemed to him that, how he knew not, he had fallen upon another Camacho's wedding, another house like Don Diego de Miranda's, another castle like the duke's. Some of Don Antonio's friends dined with him that day, and all showed honour to Don Quixote and treated him as a knighterrant, and he becoming puffed up and exalted in consequence could not contain himself for satisfaction. Such were the drolleries of Sancho that all the servants of the house, and all who heard him, were kept hanging upon his lips. While at table Don Antonio said to him, 'We hear, worthy Sancho, that you are so fond of manjar blanco and forcedmeat balls, that if you have any left, you keep them in your bosom for the next day. 'No, seor, that's not true, said Sancho, 'for I am more cleanly than greedy, and my master Don Quixote here knows well that we two are used to live for a week on a handful of acorns or nuts. To be sure, if it so happens that they offer me a heifer, I run with a halter I mean, I eat what I'm given, and make use of opportunities as I find them but whoever says that I'm an outoftheway eater or not cleanly, let me tell him that he is wrong and I'd put it in a different way if I did not respect the honourable beards that are at the table. 'Indeed, said Don Quixote, 'Sancho's moderation and cleanliness in eating might be inscribed and graved on plates of brass, to be kept in eternal remembrance in ages to come. It is true that when he is hungry there is a certain appearance of voracity about him, for he eats at a great pace and chews with both jaws but cleanliness he is always mindful of and when he was governor he learned how to eat daintily, so much so that he eats grapes, and even pomegranate pips, with a fork. 'What! said Don Antonio, 'has Sancho been a governor? 'Ay, said Sancho, 'and of an island called Barataria. I governed it to perfection for ten days and lost my rest all the time and learned to look down upon all the governments in the world I got out of it by taking to flight, and fell into a pit where I gave myself up for dead, and out of which I escaped alive by a miracle. Don Quixote then gave them a minute account of the whole affair of Sancho's government, with which he greatly amused his hearers. On the cloth being removed Don Antonio, taking Don Quixote by the hand, passed with him into a distant room in which there was nothing in the way of furniture except a table, apparently of jasper, resting on a pedestal of the same, upon which was set up, after the fashion of the busts of the Roman emperors, a head which seemed to be of bronze. Don Antonio traversed the whole apartment with Don Quixote and walked round the table several times, and then said, 'Now, Seor Don Quixote, that I am satisfied that no one is listening to us, and that the door is shut, I will tell you of one of the rarest adventures, or more properly speaking strange things, that can be imagined, on condition that you will keep what I say to you in the remotest recesses of secrecy. 'I swear it, said Don Quixote, 'and for greater security I will put a flagstone over it for I would have you know, Seor Don Antonio (he had by this time learned his name), 'that you are addressing one who, though he has ears to hear, has no tongue to speak so that you may safely transfer whatever you have in your bosom into mine, and rely upon it that you have consigned it to the depths of silence. 'In reliance upon that promise, said Don Antonio, 'I will astonish you with what you shall see and hear, and relieve myself of some of the vexation it gives me to have no one to whom I can confide my secrets, for they are not of a sort to be entrusted to everybody. Don Quixote was puzzled, wondering what could be the object of such precautions whereupon Don Antonio taking his hand passed it over the bronze head and the whole table and the pedestal of jasper on which it stood, and then said, 'This head, Seor Don Quixote, has been made and fabricated by one of the greatest magicians and wizards the world ever saw, a Pole, I believe, by birth, and a pupil of the famous Escotillo of whom such marvellous stories are told. He was here in my house, and for a consideration of a thousand crowns that I gave him he constructed this head, which has the property and virtue of answering whatever questions are put to its ear. He observed the points of the compass, he traced figures, he studied the stars, he watched favourable moments, and at length brought it to the perfection we shall see tomorrow, for on Fridays it is mute, and this being Friday we must wait till the next day. In the interval your worship may consider what you would like to ask it and I know by experience that in all its answers it tells the truth. Don Quixote was amazed at the virtue and property of the head, and was inclined to disbelieve Don Antonio but seeing what a short time he had to wait to test the matter, he did not choose to say anything except that he thanked him for having revealed to him so mighty a secret. They then quitted the room, Don Antonio locked the door, and they repaired to the chamber where the rest of the gentlemen were assembled. In the meantime Sancho had recounted to them several of the adventures and accidents that had happened his master. That afternoon they took Don Quixote out for a stroll, not in his armour but in street costume, with a surcoat of tawny cloth upon him, that at that season would have made ice itself sweat. Orders were left with the servants to entertain Sancho so as not to let him leave the house. Don Quixote was mounted, not on Rocinante, but upon a tall mule of easy pace and handsomely caparisoned. They put the surcoat on him, and on the back, without his perceiving it, they stitched a parchment on which they wrote in large letters, 'This is Don Quixote of La Mancha. As they set out upon their excursion the placard attracted the eyes of all who chanced to see him, and as they read out, 'This is Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was amazed to see how many people gazed at him, called him by his name, and recognised him, and turning to Don Antonio, who rode at his side, he observed to him, 'Great are the privileges knighterrantry involves, for it makes him who professes it known and famous in every region of the earth see, Don Antonio, even the very boys of this city know me without ever having seen me. 'True, Seor Don Quixote, returned Don Antonio 'for as fire cannot be hidden or kept secret, virtue cannot escape being recognised and that which is attained by the profession of arms shines distinguished above all others. It came to pass, however, that as Don Quixote was proceeding amid the acclamations that have been described, a Castilian, reading the inscription on his back, cried out in a loud voice, 'The devil take thee for a Don Quixote of La Mancha! What! art thou here, and not dead of the countless drubbings that have fallen on thy ribs? Thou art mad and if thou wert so by thyself, and kept thyself within thy madness, it would not be so bad but thou hast the gift of making fools and blockheads of all who have anything to do with thee or say to thee. Why, look at these gentlemen bearing thee company! Get thee home, blockhead, and see after thy affairs, and thy wife and children, and give over these fooleries that are sapping thy brains and skimming away thy wits. 'Go your own way, brother, said Don Antonio, 'and don't offer advice to those who don't ask you for it. Seor Don Quixote is in his full senses, and we who bear him company are not fools virtue is to be honoured wherever it may be found go, and bad luck to you, and don't meddle where you are not wanted. 'By God, your worship is right, replied the Castilian 'for to advise this good man is to kick against the pricks still for all that it fills me with pity that the sound wit they say the blockhead has in everything should dribble away by the channel of his knighterrantry but may the bad luck your worship talks of follow me and all my descendants, if, from this day forth, though I should live longer than Methuselah, I ever give advice to anybody even if he asks me for it. The advicegiver took himself off, and they continued their stroll but so great was the press of the boys and people to read the placard, that Don Antonio was forced to remove it as if he were taking off something else. Night came and they went home, and there was a ladies' dancing party, for Don Antonio's wife, a lady of rank and gaiety, beauty and wit, had invited some friends of hers to come and do honour to her guest and amuse themselves with his strange delusions. Several of them came, they supped sumptuously, the dance began at about ten o'clock. Among the ladies were two of a mischievous and frolicsome turn, and, though perfectly modest, somewhat free in playing tricks for harmless diversion's sake. These two were so indefatigable in taking Don Quixote out to dance that they tired him down, not only in body but in spirit. It was a sight to see the figure Don Quixote made, long, lank, lean, and yellow, his garments clinging tight to him, ungainly, and above all anything but agile. The gay ladies made secret love to him, and he on his part secretly repelled them, but finding himself hard pressed by their blandishments he lifted up his voice and exclaimed, 'Fugite, partes advers! Leave me in peace, unwelcome overtures avaunt, with your desires, ladies, for she who is queen of mine, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, suffers none but hers to lead me captive and subdue me and so saying he sat down on the floor in the middle of the room, tired out and broken down by all this exertion in the dance. Don Antonio directed him to be taken up bodily and carried to bed, and the first that laid hold of him was Sancho, saying as he did so, 'In an evil hour you took to dancing, master mine do you fancy all mighty men of valour are dancers, and all knightserrant given to capering? If you do, I can tell you you are mistaken there's many a man would rather undertake to kill a giant than cut a caper. If it had been the shoefling you were at I could take your place, for I can do the shoefling like a gerfalcon but I'm no good at dancing. With these and other observations Sancho set the whole ballroom laughing, and then put his master to bed, covering him up well so that he might sweat out any chill caught after his dancing. The next day Don Antonio thought he might as well make trial of the enchanted head, and with Don Quixote, Sancho, and two others, friends of his, besides the two ladies that had tired out Don Quixote at the ball, who had remained for the night with Don Antonio's wife, he locked himself up in the chamber where the head was. He explained to them the property it possessed and entrusted the secret to them, telling them that now for the first time he was going to try the virtue of the enchanted head but except Don Antonio's two friends no one else was privy to the mystery of the enchantment, and if Don Antonio had not first revealed it to them they would have been inevitably reduced to the same state of amazement as the rest, so artfully and skilfully was it contrived. The first to approach the ear of the head was Don Antonio himself, and in a low voice but not so low as not to be audible to all, he said to it, 'Head, tell me by the virtue that lies in thee what am I at this moment thinking of? The head, without any movement of the lips, answered in a clear and distinct voice, so as to be heard by all, 'I cannot judge of thoughts. All were thunderstruck at this, and all the more so as they saw that there was nobody anywhere near the table or in the whole room that could have answered. 'How many of us are here? asked Don Antonio once more and it was answered him in the same way softly, 'Thou and thy wife, with two friends of thine and two of hers, and a famous knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha, and a squire of his, Sancho Panza by name. Now there was fresh astonishment now everyone's hair was standing on end with awe and Don Antonio retiring from the head exclaimed, 'This suffices to show me that I have not been deceived by him who sold thee to me, O sage head, talking head, answering head, wonderful head! Let someone else go and put what question he likes to it. And as women are commonly impulsive and inquisitive, the first to come forward was one of the two friends of Don Antonio's wife, and her question was, 'Tell me, Head, what shall I do to be very beautiful? and the answer she got was, 'Be very modest. 'I question thee no further, said the fair querist. Her companion then came up and said, 'I should like to know, Head, whether my husband loves me or not the answer given to her was, 'Think how he uses thee, and thou mayest guess and the married lady went off saying, 'That answer did not need a question for of course the treatment one receives shows the disposition of him from whom it is received. Then one of Don Antonio's two friends advanced and asked it, 'Who am I? 'Thou knowest, was the answer. 'That is not what I ask thee, said the gentleman, 'but to tell me if thou knowest me. 'Yes, I know thee, thou art Don Pedro Noriz, was the reply. 'I do not seek to know more, said the gentleman, 'for this is enough to convince me, O Head, that thou knowest everything and as he retired the other friend came forward and asked it, 'Tell me, Head, what are the wishes of my eldest son? 'I have said already, was the answer, 'that I cannot judge of wishes however, I can tell thee the wish of thy son is to bury thee. 'That's 'what I see with my eyes I point out with my finger,' said the gentleman, 'so I ask no more. Don Antonio's wife came up and said, 'I know not what to ask thee, Head I would only seek to know of thee if I shall have many years of enjoyment of my good husband and the answer she received was, 'Thou shalt, for his vigour and his temperate habits promise many years of life, which by their intemperance others so often cut short. Then Don Quixote came forward and said, 'Tell me, thou that answerest, was that which I describe as having happened to me in the cave of Montesinos the truth or a dream? Will Sancho's whipping be accomplished without fail? Will the disenchantment of Dulcinea be brought about? 'As to the question of the cave, was the reply, 'there is much to be said there is something of both in it. Sancho's whipping will proceed leisurely. The disenchantment of Dulcinea will attain its due consummation. 'I seek to know no more, said Don Quixote 'let me but see Dulcinea disenchanted, and I will consider that all the good fortune I could wish for has come upon me all at once. The last questioner was Sancho, and his questions were, 'Head, shall I by any chance have another government? Shall I ever escape from the hard life of a squire? Shall I get back to see my wife and children? To which the answer came, 'Thou shalt govern in thy house and if thou returnest to it thou shalt see thy wife and children and on ceasing to serve thou shalt cease to be a squire. 'Good, by God! said Sancho Panza 'I could have told myself that the prophet Perogrullo could have said no more. 'What answer wouldst thou have, beast? said Don Quixote 'is it not enough that the replies this head has given suit the questions put to it? 'Yes, it is enough, said Sancho 'but I should have liked it to have made itself plainer and told me more. The questions and answers came to an end here, but not the wonder with which all were filled, except Don Antonio's two friends who were in the secret. This Cide Hamete Benengeli thought fit to reveal at once, not to keep the world in suspense, fancying that the head had some strange magical mystery in it. He says, therefore, that on the model of another head, the work of an image maker, which he had seen at Madrid, Don Antonio made this one at home for his own amusement and to astonish ignorant people and its mechanism was as follows. The table was of wood painted and varnished to imitate jasper, and the pedestal on which it stood was of the same material, with four eagles' claws projecting from it to support the weight more steadily. The head, which resembled a bust or figure of a Roman emperor, and was coloured like bronze, was hollow throughout, as was the table, into which it was fitted so exactly that no trace of the joining was visible. The pedestal of the table was also hollow and communicated with the throat and neck of the head, and the whole was in communication with another room underneath the chamber in which the head stood. Through the entire cavity in the pedestal, table, throat and neck of the bust or figure, there passed a tube of tin carefully adjusted and concealed from sight. In the room below corresponding to the one above was placed the person who was to answer, with his mouth to the tube, and the voice, as in an eartrumpet, passed from above downwards, and from below upwards, the words coming clearly and distinctly it was impossible, thus, to detect the trick. A nephew of Don Antonio's, a smart sharpwitted student, was the answerer, and as he had been told beforehand by his uncle who the persons were that would come with him that day into the chamber where the head was, it was an easy matter for him to answer the first question at once and correctly the others he answered by guesswork, and, being clever, cleverly. Cide Hamete adds that this marvellous contrivance stood for some ten or twelve days but that, as it became noised abroad through the city that he had in his house an enchanted head that answered all who asked questions of it, Don Antonio, fearing it might come to the ears of the watchful sentinels of our faith, explained the matter to the inquisitors, who commanded him to break it up and have done with it, lest the ignorant vulgar should be scandalised. By Don Quixote, however, and by Sancho the head was still held to be an enchanted one, and capable of answering questions, though more to Don Quixote's satisfaction than Sancho's. The gentlemen of the city, to gratify Don Antonio and also to do the honours to Don Quixote, and give him an opportunity of displaying his folly, made arrangements for a tilting at the ring in six days from that time, which, however, for reason that will be mentioned hereafter, did not take place. Don Quixote took a fancy to stroll about the city quietly and on foot, for he feared that if he went on horseback the boys would follow him so he and Sancho and two servants that Don Antonio gave him set out for a walk. Thus it came to pass that going along one of the streets Don Quixote lifted up his eyes and saw written in very large letters over a door, 'Books printed here, at which he was vastly pleased, for until then he had never seen a printing office, and he was curious to know what it was like. He entered with all his following, and saw them drawing sheets in one place, correcting in another, setting up type here, revising there in short all the work that is to be seen in great printing offices. He went up to one case and asked what they were about there the workmen told him, he watched them with wonder, and passed on. He approached one man, among others, and asked him what he was doing. The workman replied, 'Seor, this gentleman here (pointing to a man of prepossessing appearance and a certain gravity of look) 'has translated an Italian book into our Spanish tongue, and I am setting it up in type for the press. 'What is the title of the book? asked Don Quixote to which the author replied, 'Seor, in Italian the book is called Le Bagatelle. 'And what does Le Bagatelle import in our Spanish? asked Don Quixote. 'Le Bagatelle, said the author, 'is as though we should say in Spanish Los Juguetes but though the book is humble in name it has good solid matter in it. 'I, said Don Quixote, 'have some little smattering of Italian, and I plume myself on singing some of Ariosto's stanzas but tell me, seorI do not say this to test your ability, but merely out of curiosityhave you ever met with the word pignatta in your book? 'Yes, often, said the author. 'And how do you render that in Spanish? 'How should I render it, returned the author, 'but by olla? 'Body o' me, exclaimed Don Quixote, 'what a proficient you are in the Italian language! I would lay a good wager that where they say in Italian piace you say in Spanish place, and where they say piu you say mas, and you translate s by arriba and gi by abajo. 'I translate them so of course, said the author, 'for those are their proper equivalents. 'I would venture to swear, said Don Quixote, 'that your worship is not known in the world, which always begrudges their reward to rare wits and praiseworthy labours. What talents lie wasted there! What genius thrust away into corners! What worth left neglected! Still it seems to me that translation from one language into another, if it be not from the queens of languages, the Greek and the Latin, is like looking at Flemish tapestries on the wrong side for though the figures are visible, they are full of threads that make them indistinct, and they do not show with the smoothness and brightness of the right side and translation from easy languages argues neither ingenuity nor command of words, any more than transcribing or copying out one document from another. But I do not mean by this to draw the inference that no credit is to be allowed for the work of translating, for a man may employ himself in ways worse and less profitable to himself. This estimate does not include two famous translators, Doctor Cristbal de Figueroa, in his Pastor Fido, and Don Juan de Juregui, in his Aminta, wherein by their felicity they leave it in doubt which is the translation and which the original. But tell me, are you printing this book at your own risk, or have you sold the copyright to some bookseller? 'I print at my own risk, said the author, 'and I expect to make a thousand ducats at least by this first edition, which is to be of two thousand copies that will go off in a twinkling at six reals apiece. 'A fine calculation you are making! said Don Quixote 'it is plain you don't know the ins and outs of the printers, and how they play into one another's hands. I promise you when you find yourself saddled with two thousand copies you will feel so sore that it will astonish you, particularly if the book is a little out of the common and not in any way highly spiced. 'What! said the author, 'would your worship, then, have me give it to a bookseller who will give three maravedis for the copyright and think he is doing me a favour? I do not print my books to win fame in the world, for I am known in it already by my works I want to make money, without which reputation is not worth a rap. 'God send your worship good luck, said Don Quixote and he moved on to another case, where he saw them correcting a sheet of a book with the title of 'Light of the Soul noticing it he observed, 'Books like this, though there are many of the kind, are the ones that deserve to be printed, for many are the sinners in these days, and lights unnumbered are needed for all that are in darkness. He passed on, and saw they were also correcting another book, and when he asked its title they told him it was called, 'The Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, by one of Tordesillas. 'I have heard of this book already, said Don Quixote, 'and verily and on my conscience I thought it had been by this time burned to ashes as a meddlesome intruder but its Martinmas will come to it as it does to every pig for fictions have the more merit and charm about them the more nearly they approach the truth or what looks like it and true stories, the truer they are the better they are and so saying he walked out of the printing office with a certain amount of displeasure in his looks. That same day Don Antonio arranged to take him to see the galleys that lay at the beach, whereat Sancho was in high delight, as he had never seen any all his life. Don Antonio sent word to the commandant of the galleys that he intended to bring his guest, the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, of whom the commandant and all the citizens had already heard, that afternoon to see them and what happened on board of them will be told in the next chapter. Profound were Don Quixote's reflections on the reply of the enchanted head, not one of them, however, hitting on the secret of the trick, but all concentrated on the promise, which he regarded as a certainty, of Dulcinea's disenchantment. This he turned over in his mind again and again with great satisfaction, fully persuaded that he would shortly see its fulfillment and as for Sancho, though, as has been said, he hated being a governor, still he had a longing to be giving orders and finding himself obeyed once more this is the misfortune that being in authority, even in jest, brings with it. To resume that afternoon their host Don Antonio Moreno and his two friends, with Don Quixote and Sancho, went to the galleys. The commandant had been already made aware of his good fortune in seeing two such famous persons as Don Quixote and Sancho, and the instant they came to the shore all the galleys struck their awnings and the clarions rang out. A skiff covered with rich carpets and cushions of crimson velvet was immediately lowered into the water, and as Don Quixote stepped on board of it, the leading galley fired her gangway gun, and the other galleys did the same and as he mounted the starboard ladder the whole crew saluted him (as is the custom when a personage of distinction comes on board a galley) by exclaiming 'Hu, hu, hu, three times. The general, for so we shall call him, a Valencian gentleman of rank, gave him his hand and embraced him, saying, 'I shall mark this day with a white stone as one of the happiest I can expect to enjoy in my lifetime, since I have seen Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, pattern and image wherein we see contained and condensed all that is worthy in knighterrantry. Don Quixote delighted beyond measure with such a lordly reception, replied to him in words no less courteous. All then proceeded to the poop, which was very handsomely decorated, and seated themselves on the bulwark benches the boatswain passed along the gangway and piped all hands to strip, which they did in an instant. Sancho, seeing such a number of men stripped to the skin, was taken aback, and still more when he saw them spread the awning so briskly that it seemed to him as if all the devils were at work at it but all this was cakes and fancy bread to what I am going to tell now. Sancho was seated on the captain's stage, close to the aftermost rower on the righthand side. He, previously instructed in what he was to do, laid hold of Sancho, hoisting him up in his arms, and the whole crew, who were standing ready, beginning on the right, proceeded to pass him on, whirling him along from hand to hand and from bench to bench with such rapidity that it took the sight out of poor Sancho's eyes, and he made quite sure that the devils themselves were flying away with him nor did they leave off with him until they had sent him back along the left side and deposited him on the poop and the poor fellow was left bruised and breathless and all in a sweat, and unable to comprehend what it was that had happened to him. Don Quixote when he saw Sancho's flight without wings asked the general if this was a usual ceremony with those who came on board the galleys for the first time for, if so, as he had no intention of adopting them as a profession, he had no mind to perform such feats of agility, and if anyone offered to lay hold of him to whirl him about, he vowed to God he would kick his soul out and as he said this he stood up and clapped his hand upon his sword. At this instant they struck the awning and lowered the yard with a prodigious rattle. Sancho thought heaven was coming off its hinges and going to fall on his head, and full of terror he ducked it and buried it between his knees nor were Don Quixote's knees altogether under control, for he too shook a little, squeezed his shoulders together and lost colour. The crew then hoisted the yard with the same rapidity and clatter as when they lowered it, all the while keeping silence as though they had neither voice nor breath. The boatswain gave the signal to weigh anchor, and leaping upon the middle of the gangway began to lay on to the shoulders of the crew with his courbash or whip, and to haul out gradually to sea. When Sancho saw so many red feet (for such he took the oars to be) moving all together, he said to himself, 'It's these that are the real chanted things, and not the ones my master talks of. What can those wretches have done to be so whipped and how does that one man who goes along there whistling dare to whip so many? I declare this is hell, or at least purgatory! Don Quixote, observing how attentively Sancho regarded what was going on, said to him, 'Ah, Sancho my friend, how quickly and cheaply might you finish off the disenchantment of Dulcinea, if you would strip to the waist and take your place among those gentlemen! Amid the pain and sufferings of so many you would not feel your own much and moreover perhaps the sage Merlin would allow each of these lashes, being laid on with a good hand, to count for ten of those which you must give yourself at last. The general was about to ask what these lashes were, and what was Dulcinea's disenchantment, when a sailor exclaimed, 'Monjui signals that there is an oared vessel off the coast to the west. On hearing this the general sprang upon the gangway crying, 'Now then, my sons, don't let her give us the slip! It must be some Algerine corsair brigantine that the watchtower signals to us. The three others immediately came alongside the chief galley to receive their orders. The general ordered two to put out to sea while he with the other kept in shore, so that in this way the vessel could not escape them. The crews plied the oars driving the galleys so furiously that they seemed to fly. The two that had put out to sea, after a couple of miles sighted a vessel which, so far as they could make out, they judged to be one of fourteen or fifteen banks, and so she proved. As soon as the vessel discovered the galleys she went about with the object and in the hope of making her escape by her speed but the attempt failed, for the chief galley was one of the fastest vessels afloat, and overhauled her so rapidly that they on board the brigantine saw clearly there was no possibility of escaping, and the rais therefore would have had them drop their oars and give themselves up so as not to provoke the captain in command of our galleys to anger. But chance, directing things otherwise, so ordered it that just as the chief galley came close enough for those on board the vessel to hear the shouts from her calling on them to surrender, two Toraquis, that is to say two Turks, both drunken, that with a dozen more were on board the brigantine, discharged their muskets, killing two of the soldiers that lined the sides of our vessel. Seeing this the general swore he would not leave one of those he found on board the vessel alive, but as he bore down furiously upon her she slipped away from him underneath the oars. The galley shot a good way ahead those on board the vessel saw their case was desperate, and while the galley was coming about they made sail, and by sailing and rowing once more tried to sheer off but their activity did not do them as much good as their rashness did them harm, for the galley coming up with them in a little more than half a mile threw her oars over them and took the whole of them alive. The other two galleys now joined company and all four returned with the prize to the beach, where a vast multitude stood waiting for them, eager to see what they brought back. The general anchored close in, and perceived that the viceroy of the city was on the shore. He ordered the skiff to push off to fetch him, and the yard to be lowered for the purpose of hanging forthwith the rais and the rest of the men taken on board the vessel, about sixandthirty in number, all smart fellows and most of them Turkish musketeers. He asked which was the rais of the brigantine, and was answered in Spanish by one of the prisoners (who afterwards proved to be a Spanish renegade), 'This young man, seor, that you see here is our rais, and he pointed to one of the handsomest and most gallantlooking youths that could be imagined. He did not seem to be twenty years of age. 'Tell me, dog, said the general, 'what led thee to kill my soldiers, when thou sawest it was impossible for thee to escape? Is that the way to behave to chief galleys? Knowest thou not that rashness is not valour? Faint prospects of success should make men bold, but not rash. The rais was about to reply, but the general could not at that moment listen to him, as he had to hasten to receive the viceroy, who was now coming on board the galley, and with him certain of his attendants and some of the people. 'You have had a good chase, seor general, said the viceroy. 'Your excellency shall soon see how good, by the game strung up to this yard, replied the general. 'How so? returned the viceroy. 'Because, said the general, 'against all law, reason, and usages of war they have killed on my hands two of the best soldiers on board these galleys, and I have sworn to hang every man that I have taken, but above all this youth who is the rais of the brigantine, and he pointed to him as he stood with his hands already bound and the rope round his neck, ready for death. The viceroy looked at him, and seeing him so wellfavoured, so graceful, and so submissive, he felt a desire to spare his life, the comeliness of the youth furnishing him at once with a letter of recommendation. He therefore questioned him, saying, 'Tell me, rais, art thou Turk, Moor, or renegade? To which the youth replied, also in Spanish, 'I am neither Turk, nor Moor, nor renegade. 'What art thou, then? said the viceroy. 'A Christian woman, replied the youth. 'A woman and a Christian, in such a dress and in such circumstances! It is more marvellous than credible, said the viceroy. 'Suspend the execution of the sentence, said the youth 'your vengeance will not lose much by waiting while I tell you the story of my life. What heart could be so hard as not to be softened by these words, at any rate so far as to listen to what the unhappy youth had to say? The general bade him say what he pleased, but not to expect pardon for his flagrant offence. With this permission the youth began in these words. 'Born of Morisco parents, I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise, upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, nor would my uncles believe it on the contrary, they treated it as an untruth and a subterfuge set up to enable me to remain behind in the land of my birth and so, more by force than of my own will, they took me with them. I had a Christian mother, and a father who was a man of sound sense and a Christian too I imbibed the Catholic faith with my mother's milk, I was well brought up, and neither in word nor in deed did I, I think, show any sign of being a Morisco. To accompany these virtues, for such I hold them, my beauty, if I possess any, grew with my growth and great as was the seclusion in which I lived it was not so great but that a young gentleman, Don Gaspar Gregorio by name, eldest son of a gentleman who is lord of a village near ours, contrived to find opportunities of seeing me. How he saw me, how we met, how his heart was lost to me, and mine not kept from him, would take too long to tell, especially at a moment when I am in dread of the cruel cord that threatens me interposing between tongue and throat I will only say, therefore, that Don Gregorio chose to accompany me in our banishment. He joined company with the Moriscoes who were going forth from other villages, for he knew their language very well, and on the voyage he struck up a friendship with my two uncles who were carrying me with them for my father, like a wise and farsighted man, as soon as he heard the first edict for our expulsion, quitted the village and departed in quest of some refuge for us abroad. He left hidden and buried, at a spot of which I alone have knowledge, a large quantity of pearls and precious stones of great value, together with a sum of money in gold cruzadoes and doubloons. He charged me on no account to touch the treasure, if by any chance they expelled us before his return. I obeyed him, and with my uncles, as I have said, and others of our kindred and neighbours, passed over to Barbary, and the place where we took up our abode was Algiers, much the same as if we had taken it up in hell itself. The king heard of my beauty, and report told him of my wealth, which was in some degree fortunate for me. He summoned me before him, and asked me what part of Spain I came from, and what money and jewels I had. I mentioned the place, and told him the jewels and money were buried there but that they might easily be recovered if I myself went back for them. All this I told him, in dread lest my beauty and not his own covetousness should influence him. While he was engaged in conversation with me, they brought him word that in company with me was one of the handsomest and most graceful youths that could be imagined. I knew at once that they were speaking of Don Gaspar Gregorio, whose comeliness surpasses the most highly vaunted beauty. I was troubled when I thought of the danger he was in, for among those barbarous Turks a fair youth is more esteemed than a woman, be she ever so beautiful. The king immediately ordered him to be brought before him that he might see him, and asked me if what they said about the youth was true. I then, almost as if inspired by heaven, told him it was, but that I would have him to know it was not a man, but a woman like myself, and I entreated him to allow me to go and dress her in the attire proper to her, so that her beauty might be seen to perfection, and that she might present herself before him with less embarrassment. He bade me go by all means, and said that the next day we should discuss the plan to be adopted for my return to Spain to carry away the hidden treasure. I saw Don Gaspar, I told him the danger he was in if he let it be seen he was a man, I dressed him as a Moorish woman, and that same afternoon I brought him before the king, who was charmed when he saw him, and resolved to keep the damsel and make a present of her to the Grand Signor and to avoid the risk she might run among the women of his seraglio, and distrustful of himself, he commanded her to be placed in the house of some Moorish ladies of rank who would protect and attend to her and thither he was taken at once. What we both suffered (for I cannot deny that I love him) may be left to the imagination of those who are separated if they love one another dearly. The king then arranged that I should return to Spain in this brigantine, and that two Turks, those who killed your soldiers, should accompany me. There also came with me this Spanish renegadeand here she pointed to him who had first spoken'whom I know to be secretly a Christian, and to be more desirous of being left in Spain than of returning to Barbary. The rest of the crew of the brigantine are Moors and Turks, who merely serve as rowers. The two Turks, greedy and insolent, instead of obeying the orders we had to land me and this renegade in Christian dress (with which we came provided) on the first Spanish ground we came to, chose to run along the coast and make some prize if they could, fearing that if they put us ashore first, we might, in case of some accident befalling us, make it known that the brigantine was at sea, and thus, if there happened to be any galleys on the coast, they might be taken. We sighted this shore last night, and knowing nothing of these galleys, we were discovered, and the result was what you have seen. To sum up, there is Don Gregorio in woman's dress, among women, in imminent danger of his life and here am I, with hands bound, in expectation, or rather in dread, of losing my life, of which I am already weary. Here, sirs, ends my sad story, as true as it is unhappy all I ask of you is to allow me to die like a Christian, for, as I have already said, I am not to be charged with the offence of which those of my nation are guilty and she stood silent, her eyes filled with moving tears, accompanied by plenty from the bystanders. The viceroy, touched with compassion, went up to her without speaking and untied the cord that bound the hands of the Moorish girl. But all the while the Morisco Christian was telling her strange story, an elderly pilgrim, who had come on board of the galley at the same time as the viceroy, kept his eyes fixed upon her and the instant she ceased speaking he threw himself at her feet, and embracing them said in a voice broken by sobs and sighs, 'O Ana Felix, my unhappy daughter, I am thy father Ricote, come back to look for thee, unable to live without thee, my soul that thou art! At these words of his, Sancho opened his eyes and raised his head, which he had been holding down, brooding over his unlucky excursion and looking at the pilgrim he recognised in him that same Ricote he met the day he quitted his government, and felt satisfied that this was his daughter. She being now unbound embraced her father, mingling her tears with his, while he addressing the general and the viceroy said, 'This, sirs, is my daughter, more unhappy in her adventures than in her name. She is Ana Felix, surnamed Ricote, celebrated as much for her own beauty as for my wealth. I quitted my native land in search of some shelter or refuge for us abroad, and having found one in Germany I returned in this pilgrim's dress, in the company of some other German pilgrims, to seek my daughter and take up a large quantity of treasure I had left buried. My daughter I did not find, the treasure I found and have with me and now, in this strange roundabout way you have seen, I find the treasure that more than all makes me rich, my beloved daughter. If our innocence and her tears and mine can with strict justice open the door to clemency, extend it to us, for we never had any intention of injuring you, nor do we sympathise with the aims of our people, who have been justly banished. 'I know Ricote well, said Sancho at this, 'and I know too that what he says about Ana Felix being his daughter is true but as to those other particulars about going and coming, and having good or bad intentions, I say nothing. While all present stood amazed at this strange occurrence the general said, 'At any rate your tears will not allow me to keep my oath live, fair Ana Felix, all the years that heaven has allotted you but these rash insolent fellows must pay the penalty of the crime they have committed and with that he gave orders to have the two Turks who had killed his two soldiers hanged at once at the yardarm. The viceroy, however, begged him earnestly not to hang them, as their behaviour savoured rather of madness than of bravado. The general yielded to the viceroy's request, for revenge is not easily taken in cold blood. They then tried to devise some scheme for rescuing Don Gaspar Gregorio from the danger in which he had been left. Ricote offered for that object more than two thousand ducats that he had in pearls and gems they proposed several plans, but none so good as that suggested by the renegade already mentioned, who offered to return to Algiers in a small vessel of about six banks, manned by Christian rowers, as he knew where, how, and when he could and should land, nor was he ignorant of the house in which Don Gaspar was staying. The general and the viceroy had some hesitation about placing confidence in the renegade and entrusting him with the Christians who were to row, but Ana Felix said she could answer for him, and her father offered to go and pay the ransom of the Christians if by any chance they should not be forthcoming. This, then, being agreed upon, the viceroy landed, and Don Antonio Moreno took the fair Morisco and her father home with him, the viceroy charging him to give them the best reception and welcome in his power, while on his own part he offered all that house contained for their entertainment so great was the goodwill and kindliness the beauty of Ana Felix had infused into his heart. The wife of Don Antonio Moreno, so the history says, was extremely happy to see Ana Felix in her house. She welcomed her with great kindness, charmed as well by her beauty as by her intelligence for in both respects the fair Morisco was richly endowed, and all the people of the city flocked to see her as though they had been summoned by the ringing of the bells. Don Quixote told Don Antonio that the plan adopted for releasing Don Gregorio was not a good one, for its risks were greater than its advantages, and that it would be better to land himself with his arms and horse in Barbary for he would carry him off in spite of the whole Moorish host, as Don Gaiferos carried off his wife Melisendra. 'Remember, your worship, observed Sancho on hearing him say so, 'Seor Don Gaiferos carried off his wife from the mainland, and took her to France by land but in this case, if by chance we carry off Don Gregorio, we have no way of bringing him to Spain, for there's the sea between. 'There's a remedy for everything except death, said Don Quixote 'if they bring the vessel close to the shore we shall be able to get on board though all the world strive to prevent us. 'Your worship hits it off mighty well and mighty easy, said Sancho 'but 'it's a long step from saying to doing' and I hold to the renegade, for he seems to me an honest goodhearted fellow. Don Antonio then said that if the renegade did not prove successful, the expedient of the great Don Quixote's expedition to Barbary should be adopted. Two days afterwards the renegade put to sea in a light vessel of six oars aside manned by a stout crew, and two days later the galleys made sail eastward, the general having begged the viceroy to let him know all about the release of Don Gregorio and about Ana Felix, and the viceroy promised to do as he requested. One morning as Don Quixote went out for a stroll along the beach, arrayed in full armour (for, as he often said, that was 'his only gear, his only rest the fray, and he never was without it for a moment), he saw coming towards him a knight, also in full armour, with a shining moon painted on his shield, who, on approaching sufficiently near to be heard, said in a loud voice, addressing himself to Don Quixote, 'Illustrious knight, and never sufficiently extolled Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am the Knight of the White Moon, whose unheardof achievements will perhaps have recalled him to thy memory. I come to do battle with thee and prove the might of thy arm, to the end that I make thee acknowledge and confess that my lady, let her be who she may, is incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea del Toboso. If thou dost acknowledge this fairly and openly, thou shalt escape death and save me the trouble of inflicting it upon thee if thou fightest and I vanquish thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that, laying aside arms and abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou withdraw and betake thyself to thine own village for the space of a year, and live there without putting hand to sword, in peace and quiet and beneficial repose, the same being needful for the increase of thy substance and the salvation of thy soul and if thou dost vanquish me, my head shall be at thy disposal, my arms and horse thy spoils, and the renown of my deeds transferred and added to thine. Consider which will be thy best course, and give me thy answer speedily, for this day is all the time I have for the despatch of this business. Don Quixote was amazed and astonished, as well at the Knight of the White Moon's arrogance, as at his reason for delivering the defiance, and with calm dignity he answered him, 'Knight of the White Moon, of whose achievements I have never heard until now, I will venture to swear you have never seen the illustrious Dulcinea for had you seen her I know you would have taken care not to venture yourself upon this issue, because the sight would have removed all doubt from your mind that there ever has been or can be a beauty to be compared with hers and so, not saying you lie, but merely that you are not correct in what you state, I accept your challenge, with the conditions you have proposed, and at once, that the day you have fixed may not expire and from your conditions I except only that of the renown of your achievements being transferred to me, for I know not of what sort they are nor what they may amount to I am satisfied with my own, such as they be. Take, therefore, the side of the field you choose, and I will do the same and to whom God shall give it may Saint Peter add his blessing. The Knight of the White Moon had been seen from the city, and it was told the viceroy how he was in conversation with Don Quixote. The viceroy, fancying it must be some fresh adventure got up by Don Antonio Moreno or some other gentleman of the city, hurried out at once to the beach accompanied by Don Antonio and several other gentlemen, just as Don Quixote was wheeling Rocinante round in order to take up the necessary distance. The viceroy upon this, seeing that the pair of them were evidently preparing to come to the charge, put himself between them, asking them what it was that led them to engage in combat all of a sudden in this way. The Knight of the White Moon replied that it was a question of precedence of beauty and briefly told him what he had said to Don Quixote, and how the conditions of the defiance agreed upon on both sides had been accepted. The viceroy went over to Don Antonio, and asked in a low voice did he know who the Knight of the White Moon was, or was it some joke they were playing on Don Quixote. Don Antonio replied that he neither knew who he was nor whether the defiance was in joke or in earnest. This answer left the viceroy in a state of perplexity, not knowing whether he ought to let the combat go on or not but unable to persuade himself that it was anything but a joke he fell back, saying, 'If there be no other way out of it, gallant knights, except to confess or die, and Don Quixote is inflexible, and your worship of the White Moon still more so, in God's hand be it, and fall on. He of the White Moon thanked the viceroy in courteous and wellchosen words for the permission he gave them, and so did Don Quixote, who then, commending himself with all his heart to heaven and to his Dulcinea, as was his custom on the eve of any combat that awaited him, proceeded to take a little more distance, as he saw his antagonist was doing the same then, without blast of trumpet or other warlike instrument to give them the signal to charge, both at the same instant wheeled their horses and he of the White Moon, being the swifter, met Don Quixote after having traversed twothirds of the course, and there encountered him with such violence that, without touching him with his lance (for he held it high, to all appearance purposely), he hurled Don Quixote and Rocinante to the earth, a perilous fall. He sprang upon him at once, and placing the lance over his visor said to him, 'You are vanquished, sir knight, nay dead unless you admit the conditions of our defiance. Don Quixote, bruised and stupefied, without raising his visor said in a weak feeble voice as if he were speaking out of a tomb, 'Dulcinea del Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight on earth it is not fitting that this truth should suffer by my feebleness drive your lance home, sir knight, and take my life, since you have taken away my honour. 'That will I not, in sooth, said he of the White Moon 'live the fame of the lady Dulcinea's beauty undimmed as ever all I require is that the great Don Quixote retire to his own home for a year, or for so long a time as shall by me be enjoined upon him, as we agreed before engaging in this combat. The viceroy, Don Antonio, and several others who were present heard all this, and heard too how Don Quixote replied that so long as nothing in prejudice of Dulcinea was demanded of him, he would observe all the rest like a true and loyal knight. The engagement given, he of the White Moon wheeled about, and making obeisance to the viceroy with a movement of the head, rode away into the city at a half gallop. The viceroy bade Don Antonio hasten after him, and by some means or other find out who he was. They raised Don Quixote up and uncovered his face, and found him pale and bathed with sweat. Rocinante from the mere hard measure he had received lay unable to stir for the present. Sancho, wholly dejected and woebegone, knew not what to say or do. He fancied that all was a dream, that the whole business was a piece of enchantment. Here was his master defeated, and bound not to take up arms for a year. He saw the light of the glory of his achievements obscured the hopes of the promises lately made him swept away like smoke before the wind Rocinante, he feared, was crippled for life, and his master's bones out of joint for if he were only shaken out of his madness it would be no small luck. In the end they carried him into the city in a handchair which the viceroy sent for, and thither the viceroy himself returned, eager to ascertain who this Knight of the White Moon was who had left Don Quixote in such a sad plight. Don Antonio Moreno followed the Knight of the White Moon, and a number of boys followed him too, nay pursued him, until they had him fairly housed in a hostel in the heart of the city. Don Antonio, eager to make his acquaintance, entered also a squire came out to meet him and remove his armour, and he shut himself into a lower room, still attended by Don Antonio, whose bread would not bake until he had found out who he was. He of the White Moon, seeing then that the gentleman would not leave him, said, 'I know very well, seor, what you have come for it is to find out who I am and as there is no reason why I should conceal it from you, while my servant here is taking off my armour I will tell you the true state of the case, without leaving out anything. You must know, seor, that I am called the bachelor Samson Carrasco. I am of the same village as Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose craze and folly make all of us who know him feel pity for him, and I am one of those who have felt it most and persuaded that his chance of recovery lay in quiet and keeping at home and in his own house, I hit upon a device for keeping him there. Three months ago, therefore, I went out to meet him as a knighterrant, under the assumed name of the Knight of the Mirrors, intending to engage him in combat and overcome him without hurting him, making it the condition of our combat that the vanquished should be at the disposal of the victor. What I meant to demand of him (for I regarded him as vanquished already) was that he should return to his own village, and not leave it for a whole year, by which time he might be cured. But fate ordered it otherwise, for he vanquished me and unhorsed me, and so my plan failed. He went his way, and I came back conquered, covered with shame, and sorely bruised by my fall, which was a particularly dangerous one. But this did not quench my desire to meet him again and overcome him, as you have seen today. And as he is so scrupulous in his observance of the laws of knighterrantry, he will, no doubt, in order to keep his word, obey the injunction I have laid upon him. This, seor, is how the matter stands, and I have nothing more to tell you. I implore of you not to betray me, or tell Don Quixote who I am so that my honest endeavours may be successful, and that a man of excellent witswere he only rid of the fooleries of chivalrymay get them back again. 'O seor, said Don Antonio, 'may God forgive you the wrong you have done the whole world in trying to bring the most amusing madman in it back to his senses. Do you not see, seor, that the gain by Don Quixote's sanity can never equal the enjoyment his crazes give? But my belief is that all the seor bachelor's pains will be of no avail to bring a man so hopelessly cracked to his senses again and if it were not uncharitable, I would say may Don Quixote never be cured, for by his recovery we lose not only his own drolleries, but his squire Sancho Panza's too, any one of which is enough to turn melancholy itself into merriment. However, I'll hold my peace and say nothing to him, and we'll see whether I am right in my suspicion that Seor Carrasco's efforts will be fruitless. The bachelor replied that at all events the affair promised well, and he hoped for a happy result from it and putting his services at Don Antonio's commands he took his leave of him and having had his armour packed at once upon a mule, he rode away from the city the same day on the horse he rode to battle, and returned to his own country without meeting any adventure calling for record in this veracious history. Don Antonio reported to the viceroy what Carrasco told him, and the viceroy was not very well pleased to hear it, for with Don Quixote's retirement there was an end to the amusement of all who knew anything of his mad doings. Six days did Don Quixote keep his bed, dejected, melancholy, moody and out of sorts, brooding over the unhappy event of his defeat. Sancho strove to comfort him, and among other things he said to him, 'Hold up your head, seor, and be of good cheer if you can, and give thanks to heaven that if you have had a tumble to the ground you have not come off with a broken rib and, as you know that 'where they give they take,' and that 'there are not always fletches where there are pegs,' a fig for the doctor, for there's no need of him to cure this ailment. Let us go home, and give over going about in search of adventures in strange lands and places rightly looked at, it is I that am the greater loser, though it is your worship that has had the worse usage. With the government I gave up all wish to be a governor again, but I did not give up all longing to be a count and that will never come to pass if your worship gives up becoming a king by renouncing the calling of chivalry and so my hopes are going to turn into smoke. 'Peace, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'thou seest my suspension and retirement is not to exceed a year I shall soon return to my honoured calling, and I shall not be at a loss for a kingdom to win and a county to bestow on thee. 'May God hear it and sin be deaf, said Sancho 'I have always heard say that 'a good hope is better than a bad holding. As they were talking Don Antonio came in looking extremely pleased and exclaiming, 'Reward me for my good news, Seor Don Quixote! Don Gregorio and the renegade who went for him have come ashoreashore do I say? They are by this time in the viceroy's house, and will be here immediately. Don Quixote cheered up a little and said, 'Of a truth I am almost ready to say I should have been glad had it turned out just the other way, for it would have obliged me to cross over to Barbary, where by the might of my arm I should have restored to liberty, not only Don Gregorio, but all the Christian captives there are in Barbary. But what am I saying, miserable being that I am? Am I not he that has been conquered? Am I not he that has been overthrown? Am I not he who must not take up arms for a year? Then what am I making professions for what am I bragging about when it is fitter for me to handle the distaff than the sword? 'No more of that, seor, said Sancho ''let the hen live, even though it be with her pip' 'today for thee and tomorrow for me' in these affairs of encounters and whacks one must not mind them, for he that falls today may get up tomorrow unless indeed he chooses to lie in bed, I mean gives way to weakness and does not pluck up fresh spirit for fresh battles let your worship get up now to receive Don Gregorio for the household seems to be in a bustle, and no doubt he has come by this time and so it proved, for as soon as Don Gregorio and the renegade had given the viceroy an account of the voyage out and home, Don Gregorio, eager to see Ana Felix, came with the renegade to Don Antonio's house. When they carried him away from Algiers he was in woman's dress on board the vessel, however, he exchanged it for that of a captive who escaped with him but in whatever dress he might be he looked like one to be loved and served and esteemed, for he was surpassingly wellfavoured, and to judge by appearances some seventeen or eighteen years of age. Ricote and his daughter came out to welcome him, the father with tears, the daughter with bashfulness. They did not embrace each other, for where there is deep love there will never be overmuch boldness. Seen side by side, the comeliness of Don Gregorio and the beauty of Ana Felix were the admiration of all who were present. It was silence that spoke for the lovers at that moment, and their eyes were the tongues that declared their pure and happy feelings. The renegade explained the measures and means he had adopted to rescue Don Gregorio, and Don Gregorio at no great length, but in a few words, in which he showed that his intelligence was in advance of his years, described the peril and embarrassment he found himself in among the women with whom he had sojourned. To conclude, Ricote liberally recompensed and rewarded as well the renegade as the men who had rowed and the renegade effected his readmission into the body of the Church and was reconciled with it, and from a rotten limb became by penance and repentance a clean and sound one. Two days later the viceroy discussed with Don Antonio the steps they should take to enable Ana Felix and her father to stay in Spain, for it seemed to them there could be no objection to a daughter who was so good a Christian and a father to all appearance so well disposed remaining there. Don Antonio offered to arrange the matter at the capital, whither he was compelled to go on some other business, hinting that many a difficult affair was settled there with the help of favour and bribes. 'Nay, said Ricote, who was present during the conversation, 'it will not do to rely upon favour or bribes, because with the great Don Bernardino de Velasco, Conde de Salazar, to whom his Majesty has entrusted our expulsion, neither entreaties nor promises, bribes nor appeals to compassion, are of any use for though it is true he mingles mercy with justice, still, seeing that the whole body of our nation is tainted and corrupt, he applies to it the cautery that burns rather than the salve that soothes and thus, by prudence, sagacity, care and the fear he inspires, he has borne on his mighty shoulders the weight of this great policy and carried it into effect, all our schemes and plots, importunities and wiles, being ineffectual to blind his Argus eyes, ever on the watch lest one of us should remain behind in concealment, and like a hidden root come in course of time to sprout and bear poisonous fruit in Spain, now cleansed, and relieved of the fear in which our vast numbers kept it. Heroic resolve of the great Philip the Third, and unparalleled wisdom to have entrusted it to the said Don Bernardino de Velasco! 'At any rate, said Don Antonio, 'when I am there I will make all possible efforts, and let heaven do as pleases it best Don Gregorio will come with me to relieve the anxiety which his parents must be suffering on account of his absence Ana Felix will remain in my house with my wife, or in a monastery and I know the viceroy will be glad that the worthy Ricote should stay with him until we see what terms I can make. The viceroy agreed to all that was proposed but Don Gregorio on learning what had passed declared he could not and would not on any account leave Ana Felix however, as it was his purpose to go and see his parents and devise some way of returning for her, he fell in with the proposed arrangement. Ana Felix remained with Don Antonio's wife, and Ricote in the viceroy's house. The day for Don Antonio's departure came and two days later that for Don Quixote's and Sancho's, for Don Quixote's fall did not suffer him to take the road sooner. There were tears and sighs, swoonings and sobs, at the parting between Don Gregorio and Ana Felix. Ricote offered Don Gregorio a thousand crowns if he would have them, but he would not take any save five which Don Antonio lent him and he promised to repay at the capital. So the two of them took their departure, and Don Quixote and Sancho afterwards, as has been already said, Don Quixote without his armour and in travelling gear, and Sancho on foot, Dapple being loaded with the armour. As he left Barcelona, Don Quixote turned gaze upon the spot where he had fallen. 'Here Troy was, said he 'here my illluck, not my cowardice, robbed me of all the glory I had won here Fortune made me the victim of her caprices here the lustre of my achievements was dimmed here, in a word, fell my happiness never to rise again. 'Seor, said Sancho on hearing this, 'it is the part of brave hearts to be patient in adversity just as much as to be glad in prosperity I judge by myself, for, if when I was a governor I was glad, now that I am a squire and on foot I am not sad and I have heard say that she whom commonly they call Fortune is a drunken whimsical jade, and, what is more, blind, and therefore neither sees what she does, nor knows whom she casts down or whom she sets up. 'Thou art a great philosopher, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'thou speakest very sensibly I know not who taught thee. But I can tell thee there is no such thing as Fortune in the world, nor does anything which takes place there, be it good or bad, come about by chance, but by the special preordination of heaven and hence the common saying that 'each of us is the maker of his own Fortune.' I have been that of mine but not with the proper amount of prudence, and my selfconfidence has therefore made me pay dearly for I ought to have reflected that Rocinante's feeble strength could not resist the mighty bulk of the Knight of the White Moon's horse. In a word, I ventured it, I did my best, I was overthrown, but though I lost my honour I did not lose nor can I lose the virtue of keeping my word. When I was a knighterrant, daring and valiant, I supported my achievements by hand and deed, and now that I am a humble squire I will support my words by keeping the promise I have given. Forward then, Sancho my friend, let us go to keep the year of the novitiate in our own country, and in that seclusion we shall pick up fresh strength to return to the by me neverforgotten calling of arms. 'Seor, returned Sancho, 'travelling on foot is not such a pleasant thing that it makes me feel disposed or tempted to make long marches. Let us leave this armour hung up on some tree, instead of someone that has been hanged and then with me on Dapple's back and my feet off the ground we will arrange the stages as your worship pleases to measure them out but to suppose that I am going to travel on foot, and make long ones, is to suppose nonsense. 'Thou sayest well, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'let my armour be hung up for a trophy, and under it or round it we will carve on the trees what was inscribed on the trophy of Roland's armour These let none move Who dareth not his might with Roland prove. 'That's the very thing, said Sancho 'and if it was not that we should feel the want of Rocinante on the road, it would be as well to leave him hung up too. 'And yet, I had rather not have either him or the armour hung up, said Don Quixote, 'that it may not be said, 'for good service a bad return.' 'Your worship is right, said Sancho 'for, as sensible people hold, 'the fault of the ass must not be laid on the packsaddle' and, as in this affair the fault is your worship's, punish yourself and don't let your anger break out against the already battered and bloody armour, or the meekness of Rocinante, or the tenderness of my feet, trying to make them travel more than is reasonable. In converse of this sort the whole of that day went by, as did the four succeeding ones, without anything occurring to interrupt their journey, but on the fifth as they entered a village they found a great number of people at the door of an inn enjoying themselves, as it was a holiday. Upon Don Quixote's approach a peasant called out, 'One of these two gentlemen who come here, and who don't know the parties, will tell us what we ought to do about our wager. 'That I will, certainly, said Don Quixote, 'and according to the rights of the case, if I can manage to understand it. 'Well, here it is, worthy sir, said the peasant 'a man of this village who is so fat that he weighs twenty stone challenged another, a neighbour of his, who does not weigh more than nine, to run a race. The agreement was that they were to run a distance of a hundred paces with equal weights and when the challenger was asked how the weights were to be equalised he said that the other, as he weighed nine stone, should put eleven in iron on his back, and that in this way the twenty stone of the thin man would equal the twenty stone of the fat one. 'Not at all, exclaimed Sancho at once, before Don Quixote could answer 'it's for me, that only a few days ago left off being a governor and a judge, as all the world knows, to settle these doubtful questions and give an opinion in disputes of all sorts. 'Answer in God's name, Sancho my friend, said Don Quixote, 'for I am not fit to give crumbs to a cat, my wits are so confused and upset. With this permission Sancho said to the peasants who stood clustered round him, waiting with open mouths for the decision to come from his, 'Brothers, what the fat man requires is not in reason, nor has it a shadow of justice in it because, if it be true, as they say, that the challenged may choose the weapons, the other has no right to choose such as will prevent and keep him from winning. My decision, therefore, is that the fat challenger prune, peel, thin, trim and correct himself, and take eleven stone of his flesh off his body, here or there, as he pleases, and as suits him best and being in this way reduced to nine stone weight, he will make himself equal and even with nine stone of his opponent, and they will be able to run on equal terms. 'By all that's good, said one of the peasants as he heard Sancho's decision, 'but the gentleman has spoken like a saint, and given judgment like a canon! But I'll be bound the fat man won't part with an ounce of his flesh, not to say eleven stone. 'The best plan will be for them not to run, said another, 'so that neither the thin man break down under the weight, nor the fat one strip himself of his flesh let half the wager be spent in wine, and let's take these gentlemen to the tavern where there's the best, and 'over me be the cloak when it rains.' 'I thank you, sirs, said Don Quixote 'but I cannot stop for an instant, for sad thoughts and unhappy circumstances force me to seem discourteous and to travel apace and spurring Rocinante he pushed on, leaving them wondering at what they had seen and heard, at his own strange figure and at the shrewdness of his servant, for such they took Sancho to be and another of them observed, 'If the servant is so clever, what must the master be? I'll bet, if they are going to Salamanca to study, they'll come to be alcaldes of the Court in a trice for it's a mere jokeonly to read and read, and have interest and good luck and before a man knows where he is he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his head. That night master and man passed out in the fields in the open air, and the next day as they were pursuing their journey they saw coming towards them a man on foot with alforjas at the neck and a javelin or spiked staff in his hand, the very cut of a foot courier who, as soon as he came close to Don Quixote, increased his pace and half running came up to him, and embracing his right thigh, for he could reach no higher, exclaimed with evident pleasure, 'O Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, what happiness it will be to the heart of my lord the duke when he knows your worship is coming back to his castle, for he is still there with my lady the duchess! 'I do not recognise you, friend, said Don Quixote, 'nor do I know who you are, unless you tell me. 'I am Tosilos, my lord the duke's lacquey, Seor Don Quixote, replied the courier 'he who refused to fight your worship about marrying the daughter of Doa Rodriguez. 'God bless me! exclaimed Don Quixote 'is it possible that you are the one whom mine enemies the enchanters changed into the lacquey you speak of in order to rob me of the honour of that battle? 'Nonsense, good sir! said the messenger 'there was no enchantment or transformation at all I entered the lists just as much lacquey Tosilos as I came out of them lacquey Tosilos. I thought to marry without fighting, for the girl had taken my fancy but my scheme had a very different result, for as soon as your worship had left the castle my lord the duke had a hundred strokes of the stick given me for having acted contrary to the orders he gave me before engaging in the combat and the end of the whole affair is that the girl has become a nun, and Doa Rodriguez has gone back to Castile, and I am now on my way to Barcelona with a packet of letters for the viceroy which my master is sending him. If your worship would like a drop, sound though warm, I have a gourd here full of the best, and some scraps of Tronchon cheese that will serve as a provocative and wakener of your thirst if so be it is asleep. 'I take the offer, said Sancho 'no more compliments about it pour out, good Tosilos, in spite of all the enchanters in the Indies. 'Thou art indeed the greatest glutton in the world, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'and the greatest booby on earth, not to be able to see that this courier is enchanted and this Tosilos a sham one stop with him and take thy fill I will go on slowly and wait for thee to come up with me. The lacquey laughed, unsheathed his gourd, unwalletted his scraps, and taking out a small loaf of bread he and Sancho seated themselves on the green grass, and in peace and good fellowship finished off the contents of the alforjas down to the bottom, so resolutely that they licked the wrapper of the letters, merely because it smelt of cheese. Said Tosilos to Sancho, 'Beyond a doubt, Sancho my friend, this master of thine ought to be a madman. 'Ought! said Sancho 'he owes no man anything he pays for everything, particularly when the coin is madness. I see it plain enough, and I tell him so plain enough but what's the use? especially now that it is all over with him, for here he is beaten by the Knight of the White Moon. Tosilos begged him to explain what had happened him, but Sancho replied that it would not be good manners to leave his master waiting for him and that some other day if they met there would be time enough for that and then getting up, after shaking his doublet and brushing the crumbs out of his beard, he drove Dapple on before him, and bidding adieu to Tosilos left him and rejoined his master, who was waiting for him under the shade of a tree. If a multitude of reflections used to harass Don Quixote before he had been overthrown, a great many more harassed him since his fall. He was under the shade of a tree, as has been said, and there, like flies on honey, thoughts came crowding upon him and stinging him. Some of them turned upon the disenchantment of Dulcinea, others upon the life he was about to lead in his enforced retirement. Sancho came up and spoke in high praise of the generous disposition of the lacquey Tosilos. 'Is it possible, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'that thou dost still think that he yonder is a real lacquey? Apparently it has escaped thy memory that thou hast seen Dulcinea turned and transformed into a peasant wench, and the Knight of the Mirrors into the bachelor Carrasco all the work of the enchanters that persecute me. But tell me now, didst thou ask this Tosilos, as thou callest him, what has become of Altisidora, did she weep over my absence, or has she already consigned to oblivion the love thoughts that used to afflict her when I was present? 'The thoughts that I had, said Sancho, 'were not such as to leave time for asking fool's questions. Body o' me, seor! is your worship in a condition now to inquire into other people's thoughts, above all love thoughts? 'Look ye, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'there is a great difference between what is done out of love and what is done out of gratitude. A knight may very possibly be proof against love but it is impossible, strictly speaking, for him to be ungrateful. Altisidora, to all appearance, loved me truly she gave me the three kerchiefs thou knowest of she wept at my departure, she cursed me, she abused me, casting shame to the winds she bewailed herself in public all signs that she adored me for the wrath of lovers always ends in curses. I had no hopes to give her, nor treasures to offer her, for mine are given to Dulcinea, and the treasures of knightserrant are like those of the fairies,' illusory and deceptive all I can give her is the place in my memory I keep for her, without prejudice, however, to that which I hold devoted to Dulcinea, whom thou art wronging by thy remissness in whipping thyself and scourging that fleshwould that I saw it eaten by wolveswhich would rather keep itself for the worms than for the relief of that poor lady. 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'if the truth is to be told, I cannot persuade myself that the whipping of my backside has anything to do with the disenchantment of the enchanted it is like saying, 'If your head aches rub ointment on your knees' at any rate I'll make bold to swear that in all the histories dealing with knighterrantry that your worship has read you have never come across anybody disenchanted by whipping but whether or no I'll whip myself when I have a fancy for it, and the opportunity serves for scourging myself comfortably. 'God grant it, said Don Quixote 'and heaven give thee grace to take it to heart and own the obligation thou art under to help my lady, who is thine also, inasmuch as thou art mine. As they pursued their journey talking in this way they came to the very same spot where they had been trampled on by the bulls. Don Quixote recognised it, and said he to Sancho, 'This is the meadow where we came upon those gay shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who were trying to revive and imitate the pastoral Arcadia there, an idea as novel as it was happy, in emulation whereof, if so be thou dost approve of it, Sancho, I would have ourselves turn shepherds, at any rate for the time I have to live in retirement. I will buy some ewes and everything else requisite for the pastoral calling and, I under the name of the shepherd Quixotize and thou as the shepherd Panzino, we will roam the woods and groves and meadows singing songs here, lamenting in elegies there, drinking of the crystal waters of the springs or limpid brooks or flowing rivers. The oaks will yield us their sweet fruit with bountiful hand, the trunks of the hard cork trees a seat, the willows shade, the roses perfume, the widespread meadows carpets tinted with a thousand dyes the clear pure air will give us breath, the moon and stars lighten the darkness of the night for us, song shall be our delight, lamenting our joy, Apollo will supply us with verses, and love with conceits whereby we shall make ourselves famed for ever, not only in this but in ages to come. 'Egad, said Sancho, 'but that sort of life squares, nay corners, with my notions and what is more the bachelor Samson Carrasco and Master Nicholas the barber won't have well seen it before they'll want to follow it and turn shepherds along with us and God grant it may not come into the curate's head to join the sheepfold too, he's so jovial and fond of enjoying himself. 'Thou art in the right of it, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as no doubt he will, may call himself the shepherd Samsonino, or perhaps the shepherd Carrascon Nicholas the barber may call himself Niculoso, as old Boscan formerly was called Nemoroso as for the curate I don't know what name we can fit to him unless it be something derived from his title, and we call him the shepherd Curiambro. For the shepherdesses whose lovers we shall be, we can pick names as we would pears and as my lady's name does just as well for a shepherdess's as for a princess's, I need not trouble myself to look for one that will suit her better to thine, Sancho, thou canst give what name thou wilt. 'I don't mean to give her any but Teresona, said Sancho, 'which will go well with her stoutness and with her own right name, as she is called Teresa and then when I sing her praises in my verses I'll show how chaste my passion is, for I'm not going to look 'for better bread than ever came from wheat' in other men's houses. It won't do for the curate to have a shepherdess, for the sake of good example and if the bachelor chooses to have one, that is his lookout. 'God bless me, Sancho my friend! said Don Quixote, 'what a life we shall lead! What hautboys and Zamora bagpipes we shall hear, what tabors, timbrels, and rebecks! And then if among all these different sorts of music that of the albogues is heard, almost all the pastoral instruments will be there. 'What are albogues? asked Sancho, 'for I never in my life heard tell of them or saw them. 'Albogues, said Don Quixote, 'are brass plates like candlesticks that struck against one another on the hollow side make a noise which, if not very pleasing or harmonious, is not disagreeable and accords very well with the rude notes of the bagpipe and tabor. The word albogue is Morisco, as are all those in our Spanish tongue that begin with al for example, almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacen, alcancia, and others of the same sort, of which there are not many more our language has only three that are Morisco and end in i, which are borcegu, zaquizam, and maraved. Alhel and alfaqu are seen to be Arabic, as well by the al at the beginning as by the  they end with. I mention this incidentally, the chance allusion to albogues having reminded me of it and it will be of great assistance to us in the perfect practice of this calling that I am something of a poet, as thou knowest, and that besides the bachelor Samson Carrasco is an accomplished one. Of the curate I say nothing but I will wager he has some spice of the poet in him, and no doubt Master Nicholas too, for all barbers, or most of them, are guitar players and stringers of verses. I will bewail my separation thou shalt glorify thyself as a constant lover the shepherd Carrascon will figure as a rejected one, and the curate Curiambro as whatever may please him best and so all will go as gaily as heart could wish. To this Sancho made answer, 'I am so unlucky, seor, that I'm afraid the day will never come when I'll see myself at such a calling. O what neat spoons I'll make when I'm a shepherd! What messes, creams, garlands, pastoral odds and ends! And if they don't get me a name for wisdom, they'll not fail to get me one for ingenuity. My daughter Sanchica will bring us our dinner to the pasture. But stayshe's goodlooking, and shepherds there are with more mischief than simplicity in them I would not have her 'come for wool and go back shorn' lovemaking and lawless desires are just as common in the fields as in the cities, and in shepherds' shanties as in royal palaces 'do away with the cause, you do away with the sin' 'if eyes don't see hearts don't break' and 'better a clear escape than good men's prayers.' 'A truce to thy proverbs, Sancho, exclaimed Don Quixote 'any one of those thou hast uttered would suffice to explain thy meaning many a time have I recommended thee not to be so lavish with proverbs and to exercise some moderation in delivering them but it seems to me it is only 'preaching in the desert' 'my mother beats me and I go on with my tricks. 'It seems to me, said Sancho, 'that your worship is like the common saying, 'Said the fryingpan to the kettle, Get away, blackbreech.' You chide me for uttering proverbs, and you string them in couples yourself. 'Observe, Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'I bring in proverbs to the purpose, and when I quote them they fit like a ring to the finger thou bringest them in by the head and shoulders, in such a way that thou dost drag them in, rather than introduce them if I am not mistaken, I have told thee already that proverbs are short maxims drawn from the experience and observation of our wise men of old but the proverb that is not to the purpose is a piece of nonsense and not a maxim. But enough of this as nightfall is drawing on let us retire some little distance from the high road to pass the night what is in store for us tomorrow God knoweth. They turned aside, and supped late and poorly, very much against Sancho's will, who turned over in his mind the hardships attendant upon knighterrantry in woods and forests, even though at times plenty presented itself in castles and houses, as at Don Diego de Miranda's, at the wedding of Camacho the Rich, and at Don Antonio Moreno's he reflected, however, that it could not be always day, nor always night and so that night he passed in sleeping, and his master in waking. The night was somewhat dark, for though there was a moon in the sky it was not in a quarter where she could be seen for sometimes the lady Diana goes on a stroll to the antipodes, and leaves the mountains all black and the valleys in darkness. Don Quixote obeyed nature so far as to sleep his first sleep, but did not give way to the second, very different from Sancho, who never had any second, because with him sleep lasted from night till morning, wherein he showed what a sound constitution and few cares he had. Don Quixote's cares kept him restless, so much so that he awoke Sancho and said to him, 'I am amazed, Sancho, at the unconcern of thy temperament. I believe thou art made of marble or hard brass, incapable of any emotion or feeling whatever. I lie awake while thou sleepest, I weep while thou singest, I am faint with fasting while thou art sluggish and torpid from pure repletion. It is the duty of good servants to share the sufferings and feel the sorrows of their masters, if it be only for the sake of appearances. See the calmness of the night, the solitude of the spot, inviting us to break our slumbers by a vigil of some sort. Rise as thou livest, and retire a little distance, and with a good heart and cheerful courage give thyself three or four hundred lashes on account of Dulcinea's disenchantment score and this I entreat of thee, making it a request, for I have no desire to come to grips with thee a second time, as I know thou hast a heavy hand. As soon as thou hast laid them on we will pass the rest of the night, I singing my separation, thou thy constancy, making a beginning at once with the pastoral life we are to follow at our village. 'Seor, replied Sancho, 'I'm no monk to get up out of the middle of my sleep and scourge myself, nor does it seem to me that one can pass from one extreme of the pain of whipping to the other of music. Will your worship let me sleep, and not worry me about whipping myself? or you'll make me swear never to touch a hair of my doublet, not to say my flesh. 'O hard heart! said Don Quixote, 'O pitiless squire! O bread illbestowed and favours illacknowledged, both those I have done thee and those I mean to do thee! Through me hast thou seen thyself a governor, and through me thou seest thyself in immediate expectation of being a count, or obtaining some other equivalent title, for Ipost tenebras spero lucem. 'I don't know what that is, said Sancho 'all I know is that so long as I am asleep I have neither fear nor hope, trouble nor glory and good luck betide him that invented sleep, the cloak that covers over all a man's thoughts, the food that removes hunger, the drink that drives away thirst, the fire that warms the cold, the cold that tempers the heat, and, to wind up with, the universal coin wherewith everything is bought, the weight and balance that makes the shepherd equal with the king and the fool with the wise man. Sleep, I have heard say, has only one fault, that it is like death for between a sleeping man and a dead man there is very little difference. 'Never have I heard thee speak so elegantly as now, Sancho, said Don Quixote 'and here I begin to see the truth of the proverb thou dost sometimes quote, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed.' 'Ha, by my life, master mine, said Sancho, 'it's not I that am stringing proverbs now, for they drop in pairs from your worship's mouth faster than from mine only there is this difference between mine and yours, that yours are welltimed and mine are untimely but anyhow, they are all proverbs. At this point they became aware of a harsh indistinct noise that seemed to spread through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stood up and laid his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himself under Dapple and put the bundle of armour on one side of him and the ass's packsaddle on the other, in fear and trembling as great as Don Quixote's perturbation. Each instant the noise increased and came nearer to the two terrified men, or at least to one, for as to the other, his courage is known to all. The fact of the matter was that some men were taking above six hundred pigs to sell at a fair, and were on their way with them at that hour, and so great was the noise they made and their grunting and blowing, that they deafened the ears of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and they could not make out what it was. The widespread grunting drove came on in a surging mass, and without showing any respect for Don Quixote's dignity or Sancho's, passed right over the pair of them, demolishing Sancho's entrenchments, and not only upsetting Don Quixote but sweeping Rocinante off his feet into the bargain and what with the trampling and the grunting, and the pace at which the unclean beasts went, packsaddle, armour, Dapple and Rocinante were left scattered on the ground and Sancho and Don Quixote at their wits' end. Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to give him his sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirty unmannerly pigs, for he had by this time found out that that was what they were. 'Let them be, my friend, said Don Quixote 'this insult is the penalty of my sin and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven that jackals should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs trample him under foot. 'I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too, said Sancho, 'that flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty of their misdeeds overtook us, even to the fourth generation. But what have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well, well, let's lie down again and sleep out what little of the night there's left, and God will send us dawn and we shall be all right. 'Sleep thou, Sancho, returned Don Quixote, 'for thou wast born to sleep as I was born to watch and during the time it now wants of dawn I will give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in a little madrigal which, unknown to thee, I composed in my head last night. 'I should think, said Sancho, 'that the thoughts that allow one to make verses cannot be of great consequence let your worship string verses as much as you like and I'll sleep as much as I can and forthwith, taking the space of ground he required, he muffled himself up and fell into a sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt, or trouble of any sort. Don Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a cork treefor Cide Hamete does not specify what kind of tree it wassang in this strain to the accompaniment of his own sighs When in my mind I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty, To death I flee, In hope therein the end of all to find. But drawing near That welcome haven in my sea of woe, Such joy I know, That life revives, and still I linger here. Thus life doth slay, And death again to life restoreth me Strange destiny, That deals with life and death as with a play! He accompanied each verse with many sighs and not a few tears, just like one whose heart was pierced with grief at his defeat and his separation from Dulcinea. And now daylight came, and the sun smote Sancho on the eyes with his beams. He awoke, roused himself up, shook himself and stretched his lazy limbs, and seeing the havoc the pigs had made with his stores he cursed the drove, and more besides. Then the pair resumed their journey, and as evening closed in they saw coming towards them some ten men on horseback and four or five on foot. Don Quixote's heart beat quick and Sancho's quailed with fear, for the persons approaching them carried lances and bucklers, and were in very warlike guise. Don Quixote turned to Sancho and said, 'If I could make use of my weapons, and my promise had not tied my hands, I would count this host that comes against us but cakes and fancy bread but perhaps it may prove something different from what we apprehend. The men on horseback now came up, and raising their lances surrounded Don Quixote in silence, and pointed them at his back and breast, menacing him with death. One of those on foot, putting his finger to his lips as a sign to him to be silent, seized Rocinante's bridle and drew him out of the road, and the others driving Sancho and Dapple before them, and all maintaining a strange silence, followed in the steps of the one who led Don Quixote. The latter two or three times attempted to ask where they were taking him to and what they wanted, but the instant he began to open his lips they threatened to close them with the points of their lances and Sancho fared the same way, for the moment he seemed about to speak one of those on foot punched him with a goad, and Dapple likewise, as if he too wanted to talk. Night set in, they quickened their pace, and the fears of the two prisoners grew greater, especially as they heard themselves assailed with'Get on, ye Troglodytes 'Silence, ye barbarians 'March, ye cannibals 'No murmuring, ye Scythians 'Don't open your eyes, ye murderous Polyphemes, ye bloodthirsty lions, and suchlike names with which their captors harassed the ears of the wretched master and man. Sancho went along saying to himself, 'We, tortolites, barbers, animals! I don't like those names at all 'it's in a bad wind our corn is being winnowed' 'misfortune comes upon us all at once like sticks on a dog,' and God grant it may be no worse than them that this unlucky adventure has in store for us. Don Quixote rode completely dazed, unable with the aid of all his wits to make out what could be the meaning of these abusive names they called them, and the only conclusion he could arrive at was that there was no good to be hoped for and much evil to be feared. And now, about an hour after midnight, they reached a castle which Don Quixote saw at once was the duke's, where they had been but a short time before. 'God bless me! said he, as he recognised the mansion, 'what does this mean? It is all courtesy and politeness in this house but with the vanquished good turns into evil, and evil into worse. They entered the chief court of the castle and found it prepared and fitted up in a style that added to their amazement and doubled their fears, as will be seen in the following chapter. The horsemen dismounted, and, together with the men on foot, without a moment's delay taking up Sancho and Don Quixote bodily, they carried them into the court, all round which near a hundred torches fixed in sockets were burning, besides above five hundred lamps in the corridors, so that in spite of the night, which was somewhat dark, the want of daylight could not be perceived. In the middle of the court was a catafalque, raised about two yards above the ground and covered completely by an immense canopy of black velvet, and on the steps all round it white wax tapers burned in more than a hundred silver candlesticks. Upon the catafalque was seen the dead body of a damsel so lovely that by her beauty she made death itself look beautiful. She lay with her head resting upon a cushion of brocade and crowned with a garland of sweetsmelling flowers of divers sorts, her hands crossed upon her bosom, and between them a branch of yellow palm of victory. On one side of the court was erected a stage, where upon two chairs were seated two persons who from having crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands appeared to be kings of some sort, whether real or mock ones. By the side of this stage, which was reached by steps, were two other chairs on which the men carrying the prisoners seated Don Quixote and Sancho, all in silence, and by signs giving them to understand that they too were to be silent which, however, they would have been without any signs, for their amazement at all they saw held them tonguetied. And now two persons of distinction, who were at once recognised by Don Quixote as his hosts the duke and duchess, ascended the stage attended by a numerous suite, and seated themselves on two gorgeous chairs close to the two kings, as they seemed to be. Who would not have been amazed at this? Nor was this all, for Don Quixote had perceived that the dead body on the catafalque was that of the fair Altisidora. As the duke and duchess mounted the stage Don Quixote and Sancho rose and made them a profound obeisance, which they returned by bowing their heads slightly. At this moment an official crossed over, and approaching Sancho threw over him a robe of black buckram painted all over with flames of fire, and taking off his cap put upon his head a mitre such as those undergoing the sentence of the Holy Office wear and whispered in his ear that he must not open his lips, or they would put a gag upon him, or take his life. Sancho surveyed himself from head to foot and saw himself all ablaze with flames but as they did not burn him, he did not care two farthings for them. He took off the mitre and seeing it painted with devils he put it on again, saying to himself, 'Well, so far those don't burn me nor do these carry me off. Don Quixote surveyed him too, and though fear had got the better of his faculties, he could not help smiling to see the figure Sancho presented. And now from underneath the catafalque, so it seemed, there rose a low sweet sound of flutes, which, coming unbroken by human voice (for there silence itself kept silence), had a soft and languishing effect. Then, beside the pillow of what seemed to be the dead body, suddenly appeared a fair youth in a Roman habit, who, to the accompaniment of a harp which he himself played, sang in a sweet and clear voice these two stanzas While fair Altisidora, who the sport Of cold Don Quixote's cruelty hath been, Returns to life, and in this magic court The dames in sables come to grace the scene, And while her matrons all in seemly sort My lady robes in baize and bombazine, Her beauty and her sorrows will I sing With defter quill than touched the Thracian string. But not in life alone, methinks, to me Belongs the office Lady, when my tongue Is cold in death, believe me, unto thee My voice shall raise its tributary song. My soul, from this strait prisonhouse set free, As o'er the Stygian lake it floats along, Thy praises singing still shall hold its way, And make the waters of oblivion stay. At this point one of the two that looked like kings exclaimed, 'Enough, enough, divine singer! It would be an endless task to put before us now the death and the charms of the peerless Altisidora, not dead as the ignorant world imagines, but living in the voice of fame and in the penance which Sancho Panza, here present, has to undergo to restore her to the longlost light. Do thou, therefore, O Rhadamanthus, who sittest in judgment with me in the murky caverns of Dis, as thou knowest all that the inscrutable fates have decreed touching the resuscitation of this damsel, announce and declare it at once, that the happiness we look forward to from her restoration be no longer deferred. No sooner had Minos the fellow judge of Rhadamanthus said this, than Rhadamanthus rising up said 'Ho, officials of this house, high and low, great and small, make haste hither one and all, and print on Sancho's face fourandtwenty smacks, and give him twelve pinches and six pin thrusts in the back and arms for upon this ceremony depends the restoration of Altisidora. On hearing this Sancho broke silence and cried out, 'By all that's good, I'll as soon let my face be smacked or handled as turn Moor. Body o' me! What has handling my face got to do with the resurrection of this damsel? 'The old woman took kindly to the blits' they enchant Dulcinea, and whip me in order to disenchant her Altisidora dies of ailments God was pleased to send her, and to bring her to life again they must give me fourandtwenty smacks, and prick holes in my body with pins, and raise weals on my arms with pinches! Try those jokes on a brotherinlaw 'I'm an old dog, and 'tus, tus is no use with me.' 'Thou shalt die, said Rhadamanthus in a loud voice 'relent, thou tiger humble thyself, proud Nimrod suffer and he silent, for no impossibilities are asked of thee it is not for thee to inquire into the difficulties in this matter smacked thou must be, pricked thou shalt see thyself, and with pinches thou must be made to howl. Ho, I say, officials, obey my orders or by the word of an honest man, ye shall see what ye were born for. At this some six duennas, advancing across the court, made their appearance in procession, one after the other, four of them with spectacles, and all with their right hands uplifted, showing four fingers of wrist to make their hands look longer, as is the fashion nowadays. No sooner had Sancho caught sight of them than, bellowing like a bull, he exclaimed, 'I might let myself be handled by all the world but allow duennas to touch menot a bit of it! Scratch my face, as my master was served in this very castle run me through the body with burnished daggers pinch my arms with redhot pincers I'll bear all in patience to serve these gentlefolk but I won't let duennas touch me, though the devil should carry me off! Here Don Quixote, too, broke silence, saying to Sancho, 'Have patience, my son, and gratify these noble persons, and give all thanks to heaven that it has infused such virtue into thy person, that by its sufferings thou canst disenchant the enchanted and restore to life the dead. The duennas were now close to Sancho, and he, having become more tractable and reasonable, settling himself well in his chair presented his face and beard to the first, who delivered him a smack very stoutly laid on, and then made him a low curtsey. 'Less politeness and less paint, seora duenna, said Sancho 'by God your hands smell of vinegarwash. In line, all the duennas smacked him and several others of the household pinched him but what he could not stand was being pricked by the pins and so, apparently out of patience, he started up out of his chair, and seizing a lighted torch that stood near him fell upon the duennas and the whole set of his tormentors, exclaiming, 'Begone, ye ministers of hell I'm not made of brass not to feel such outoftheway tortures. At this instant Altisidora, who probably was tired of having been so long lying on her back, turned on her side seeing which the bystanders cried out almost with one voice, 'Altisidora is alive! Altisidora lives! Rhadamanthus bade Sancho put away his wrath, as the object they had in view was now attained. When Don Quixote saw Altisidora move, he went on his knees to Sancho saying to him, 'Now is the time, son of my bowels, not to call thee my squire, for thee to give thyself some of those lashes thou art bound to lay on for the disenchantment of Dulcinea. Now, I say, is the time when the virtue that is in thee is ripe, and endowed with efficacy to work the good that is looked for from thee. To which Sancho made answer, 'That's trick upon trick, I think, and not honey upon pancakes a nice thing it would be for a whipping to come now, on the top of pinches, smacks, and pinproddings! You had better take a big stone and tie it round my neck, and pitch me into a well I should not mind it much, if I'm to be always made the cow of the wedding for the cure of other people's ailments. Leave me alone or else by God I'll fling the whole thing to the dogs, let come what may. Altisidora had by this time sat up on the catafalque, and as she did so the clarions sounded, accompanied by the flutes, and the voices of all present exclaiming, 'Long life to Altisidora! long life to Altisidora! The duke and duchess and the kings Minos and Rhadamanthus stood up, and all, together with Don Quixote and Sancho, advanced to receive her and take her down from the catafalque and she, making as though she were recovering from a swoon, bowed her head to the duke and duchess and to the kings, and looking sideways at Don Quixote, said to him, 'God forgive thee, insensible knight, for through thy cruelty I have been, to me it seems, more than a thousand years in the other world and to thee, the most compassionate upon earth, I render thanks for the life I am now in possession of. From this day forth, friend Sancho, count as thine six smocks of mine which I bestow upon thee, to make as many shirts for thyself, and if they are not all quite whole, at any rate they are all clean. Sancho kissed her hands in gratitude, kneeling, and with the mitre in his hand. The duke bade them take it from him, and give him back his cap and doublet and remove the flaming robe. Sancho begged the duke to let them leave him the robe and mitre as he wanted to take them home for a token and memento of that unexampled adventure. The duchess said they must leave them with him for he knew already what a great friend of his she was. The duke then gave orders that the court should be cleared, and that all should retire to their chambers, and that Don Quixote and Sancho should be conducted to their old quarters. Sancho slept that night in a cot in the same chamber with Don Quixote, a thing he would have gladly excused if he could for he knew very well that with questions and answers his master would not let him sleep, and he was in no humour for talking much, as he still felt the pain of his late martyrdom, which interfered with his freedom of speech and it would have been more to his taste to sleep in a hovel alone, than in that luxurious chamber in company. And so well founded did his apprehension prove, and so correct was his anticipation, that scarcely had his master got into bed when he said, 'What dost thou think of tonight's adventure, Sancho? Great and mighty is the power of coldhearted scorn, for thou with thine own eyes hast seen Altisidora slain, not by arrows, nor by the sword, nor by any warlike weapon, nor by deadly poisons, but by the thought of the sternness and scorn with which I have always treated her. 'She might have died and welcome, said Sancho, 'when she pleased and how she pleased and she might have left me alone, for I never made her fall in love or scorned her. I don't know nor can I imagine how the recovery of Altisidora, a damsel more fanciful than wise, can have, as I have said before, anything to do with the sufferings of Sancho Panza. Now I begin to see plainly and clearly that there are enchanters and enchanted people in the world and may God deliver me from them, since I can't deliver myself and so I beg of your worship to let me sleep and not ask me any more questions, unless you want me to throw myself out of the window. 'Sleep, Sancho my friend, said Don Quixote, 'if the pinprodding and pinches thou hast received and the smacks administered to thee will let thee. 'No pain came up to the insult of the smacks, said Sancho, 'for the simple reason that it was duennas, confound them, that gave them to me but once more I entreat your worship to let me sleep, for sleep is relief from misery to those who are miserable when awake. 'Be it so, and God be with thee, said Don Quixote. They fell asleep, both of them, and Cide Hamete, the author of this great history, took this opportunity to record and relate what it was that induced the duke and duchess to get up the elaborate plot that has been described. The bachelor Samson Carrasco, he says, not forgetting how he as the Knight of the Mirrors had been vanquished and overthrown by Don Quixote, which defeat and overthrow upset all his plans, resolved to try his hand again, hoping for better luck than he had before and so, having learned where Don Quixote was from the page who brought the letter and present to Sancho's wife, Teresa Panza, he got himself new armour and another horse, and put a white moon upon his shield, and to carry his arms he had a mule led by a peasant, not by Tom Cecial his former squire for fear he should be recognised by Sancho or Don Quixote. He came to the duke's castle, and the duke informed him of the road and route Don Quixote had taken with the intention of being present at the jousts at Saragossa. He told him, too, of the jokes he had practised upon him, and of the device for the disenchantment of Dulcinea at the expense of Sancho's backside and finally he gave him an account of the trick Sancho had played upon his master, making him believe that Dulcinea was enchanted and turned into a country wench and of how the duchess, his wife, had persuaded Sancho that it was he himself who was deceived, inasmuch as Dulcinea was really enchanted at which the bachelor laughed not a little, and marvelled as well at the sharpness and simplicity of Sancho as at the length to which Don Quixote's madness went. The duke begged of him if he found him (whether he overcame him or not) to return that way and let him know the result. This the bachelor did he set out in quest of Don Quixote, and not finding him at Saragossa, he went on, and how he fared has been already told. He returned to the duke's castle and told him all, what the conditions of the combat were, and how Don Quixote was now, like a loyal knighterrant, returning to keep his promise of retiring to his village for a year, by which time, said the bachelor, he might perhaps be cured of his madness for that was the object that had led him to adopt these disguises, as it was a sad thing for a gentleman of such good parts as Don Quixote to be a madman. And so he took his leave of the duke, and went home to his village to wait there for Don Quixote, who was coming after him. Thereupon the duke seized the opportunity of practising this mystification upon him so much did he enjoy everything connected with Sancho and Don Quixote. He had the roads about the castle far and near, everywhere he thought Don Quixote was likely to pass on his return, occupied by large numbers of his servants on foot and on horseback, who were to bring him to the castle, by fair means or foul, if they met him. They did meet him, and sent word to the duke, who, having already settled what was to be done, as soon as he heard of his arrival, ordered the torches and lamps in the court to be lit and Altisidora to be placed on the catafalque with all the pomp and ceremony that has been described, the whole affair being so well arranged and acted that it differed but little from reality. And Cide Hamete says, moreover, that for his part he considers the concocters of the joke as crazy as the victims of it, and that the duke and duchess were not two fingers' breadth removed from being something like fools themselves when they took such pains to make game of a pair of fools. As for the latter, one was sleeping soundly and the other lying awake occupied with his desultory thoughts, when daylight came to them bringing with it the desire to rise for the lazy down was never a delight to Don Quixote, victor or vanquished. Altisidora, come back from death to life as Don Quixote fancied, following up the freak of her lord and lady, entered the chamber, crowned with the garland she had worn on the catafalque and in a robe of white taffeta embroidered with gold flowers, her hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and leaning upon a staff of fine black ebony. Don Quixote, disconcerted and in confusion at her appearance, huddled himself up and wellnigh covered himself altogether with the sheets and counterpane of the bed, tonguetied, and unable to offer her any civility. Altisidora seated herself on a chair at the head of the bed, and, after a deep sigh, said to him in a feeble, soft voice, 'When women of rank and modest maidens trample honour under foot, and give a loose to the tongue that breaks through every impediment, publishing abroad the inmost secrets of their hearts, they are reduced to sore extremities. Such a one am I, Seor Don Quixote of La Mancha, crushed, conquered, lovesmitten, but yet patient under suffering and virtuous, and so much so that my heart broke with grief and I lost my life. For the last two days I have been dead, slain by the thought of the cruelty with which thou hast treated me, obdurate knight, O harder thou than marble to my plaint or at least believed to be dead by all who saw me and had it not been that Love, taking pity on me, let my recovery rest upon the sufferings of this good squire, there I should have remained in the other world. 'Love might very well have let it rest upon the sufferings of my ass, and I should have been obliged to him, said Sancho. 'But tell me, seoraand may heaven send you a tenderer lover than my masterwhat did you see in the other world? What goes on in hell? For of course that's where one who dies in despair is bound for. 'To tell you the truth, said Altisidora, 'I cannot have died outright, for I did not go into hell had I gone in, it is very certain I should never have come out again, do what I might. The truth is, I came to the gate, where some dozen or so of devils were playing tennis, all in breeches and doublets, with falling collars trimmed with Flemish bonelace, and ruffles of the same that served them for wristbands, with four fingers' breadth of the arms exposed to make their hands look longer in their hands they held rackets of fire but what amazed me still more was that books, apparently full of wind and rubbish, served them for tennis balls, a strange and marvellous thing this, however, did not astonish me so much as to observe that, although with players it is usual for the winners to be glad and the losers sorry, there in that game all were growling, all were snarling, and all were cursing one another. 'That's no wonder, said Sancho 'for devils, whether playing or not, can never be content, win or lose. 'Very likely, said Altisidora 'but there is another thing that surprises me too, I mean surprised me then, and that was that no ball outlasted the first throw or was of any use a second time and it was wonderful the constant succession there was of books, new and old. To one of them, a brandnew, wellbound one, they gave such a stroke that they knocked the guts out of it and scattered the leaves about. 'Look what book that is,' said one devil to another, and the other replied, 'It is the 'Second Part of the History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, not by Cide Hamete, the original author, but by an Aragonese who by his own account is of Tordesillas.' 'Out of this with it,' said the first, 'and into the depths of hell with it out of my sight.' 'Is it so bad?' said the other. 'So bad is it,' said the first, 'that if I had set myself deliberately to make a worse, I could not have done it.' They then went on with their game, knocking other books about and I, having heard them mention the name of Don Quixote whom I love and adore so, took care to retain this vision in my memory. 'A vision it must have been, no doubt, said Don Quixote, 'for there is no other I in the world this history has been going about here for some time from hand to hand, but it does not stay long in any, for everybody gives it a taste of his foot. I am not disturbed by hearing that I am wandering in a fantastic shape in the darkness of the pit or in the daylight above, for I am not the one that history treats of. If it should be good, faithful, and true, it will have ages of life but if it should be bad, from its birth to its burial will not be a very long journey. Altisidora was about to proceed with her complaint against Don Quixote, when he said to her, 'I have several times told you, seora, that it grieves me you should have set your affections upon me, as from mine they can only receive gratitude, but no return. I was born to belong to Dulcinea del Toboso, and the fates, if there are any, dedicated me to her and to suppose that any other beauty can take the place she occupies in my heart is to suppose an impossibility. This frank declaration should suffice to make you retire within the bounds of your modesty, for no one can bind himself to do impossibilities. Hearing this, Altisidora, with a show of anger and agitation, exclaimed, 'God's life! Don Stockfish, soul of a mortar, stone of a date, more obstinate and obdurate than a clown asked a favour when he has his mind made up, if I fall upon you I'll tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, Don Vanquished, Don Cudgelled, that I died for your sake? All that you have seen tonight has been makebelieve I'm not the woman to let the black of my nail suffer for such a camel, much less die! 'That I can well believe, said Sancho 'for all that about lovers pining to death is absurd they may talk of it, but as for doing itJudas may believe that! While they were talking, the musician, singer, and poet, who had sung the two stanzas given above came in, and making a profound obeisance to Don Quixote said, 'Will your worship, sir knight, reckon and retain me in the number of your most faithful servants, for I have long been a great admirer of yours, as well because of your fame as because of your achievements? 'Will your worship tell me who you are, replied Don Quixote, 'so that my courtesy may be answerable to your deserts? The young man replied that he was the musician and songster of the night before. 'Of a truth, said Don Quixote, 'your worship has a most excellent voice but what you sang did not seem to me very much to the purpose for what have Garcilasso's stanzas to do with the death of this lady? 'Don't be surprised at that, returned the musician 'for with the callow poets of our day the way is for every one to write as he pleases and pilfer where he chooses, whether it be germane to the matter or not, and nowadays there is no piece of silliness they can sing or write that is not set down to poetic licence. Don Quixote was about to reply, but was prevented by the duke and duchess, who came in to see him, and with them there followed a long and delightful conversation, in the course of which Sancho said so many droll and saucy things that he left the duke and duchess wondering not only at his simplicity but at his sharpness. Don Quixote begged their permission to take his departure that same day, inasmuch as for a vanquished knight like himself it was fitter he should live in a pigsty than in a royal palace. They gave it very readily, and the duchess asked him if Altisidora was in his good graces. He replied, 'Seora, let me tell your ladyship that this damsel's ailment comes entirely of idleness, and the cure for it is honest and constant employment. She herself has told me that lace is worn in hell and as she must know how to make it, let it never be out of her hands for when she is occupied in shifting the bobbins to and fro, the image or images of what she loves will not shift to and fro in her thoughts this is the truth, this is my opinion, and this is my advice. 'And mine, added Sancho 'for I never in all my life saw a lacemaker that died for love when damsels are at work their minds are more set on finishing their tasks than on thinking of their loves. I speak from my own experience for when I'm digging I never think of my old woman I mean my Teresa Panza, whom I love better than my own eyelids. 'You say well, Sancho, said the duchess, 'and I will take care that my Altisidora employs herself henceforward in needlework of some sort for she is extremely expert at it. 'There is no occasion to have recourse to that remedy, seora, said Altisidora 'for the mere thought of the cruelty with which this vagabond villain has treated me will suffice to blot him out of my memory without any other device with your highness's leave I will retire, not to have before my eyes, I won't say his rueful countenance, but his abominable, ugly looks. 'That reminds me of the common saying, that 'he that rails is ready to forgive,' said the duke. Altisidora then, pretending to wipe away her tears with a handkerchief, made an obeisance to her master and mistress and quitted the room. 'Ill luck betide thee, poor damsel, said Sancho, 'ill luck betide thee! Thou hast fallen in with a soul as dry as a rush and a heart as hard as oak had it been me, i'faith 'another cock would have crowed to thee.' So the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote dressed himself and dined with the duke and duchess, and set out the same evening. The vanquished and afflicted Don Quixote went along very downcast in one respect and very happy in another. His sadness arose from his defeat, and his satisfaction from the thought of the virtue that lay in Sancho, as had been proved by the resurrection of Altisidora though it was with difficulty he could persuade himself that the lovesmitten damsel had been really dead. Sancho went along anything but cheerful, for it grieved him that Altisidora had not kept her promise of giving him the smocks and turning this over in his mind he said to his master, 'Surely, seor, I'm the most unlucky doctor in the world there's many a physician that, after killing the sick man he had to cure, requires to be paid for his work, though it is only signing a bit of a list of medicines, that the apothecary and not he makes up, and, there, his labour is over but with me though to cure somebody else costs me drops of blood, smacks, pinches, pinproddings, and whippings, nobody gives me a farthing. Well, I swear by all that's good if they put another patient into my hands, they'll have to grease them for me before I cure him for, as they say, 'it's by his singing the abbot gets his dinner,' and I'm not going to believe that heaven has bestowed upon me the virtue I have, that I should be dealing it out to others all for nothing. 'Thou art right, Sancho my friend, said Don Quixote, 'and Altisidora has behaved very badly in not giving thee the smocks she promised and although that virtue of thine is gratis dataas it has cost thee no study whatever, any more than such study as thy personal sufferings may beI can say for myself that if thou wouldst have payment for the lashes on account of the disenchant of Dulcinea, I would have given it to thee freely ere this. I am not sure, however, whether payment will comport with the cure, and I would not have the reward interfere with the medicine. I think there will be nothing lost by trying it consider how much thou wouldst have, Sancho, and whip thyself at once, and pay thyself down with thine own hand, as thou hast money of mine. At this proposal Sancho opened his eyes and his ears a palm's breadth wide, and in his heart very readily acquiesced in whipping himself, and said he to his master, 'Very well then, seor, I'll hold myself in readiness to gratify your worship's wishes if I'm to profit by it for the love of my wife and children forces me to seem grasping. Let your worship say how much you will pay me for each lash I give myself. 'If Sancho, replied Don Quixote, 'I were to requite thee as the importance and nature of the cure deserves, the treasures of Venice, the mines of Potosi, would be insufficient to pay thee. See what thou hast of mine, and put a price on each lash. 'Of them, said Sancho, 'there are three thousand three hundred and odd of these I have given myself five, the rest remain let the five go for the odd ones, and let us take the three thousand three hundred, which at a quarter real apiece (for I will not take less though the whole world should bid me) make three thousand three hundred quarter reals the three thousand are one thousand five hundred half reals, which make seven hundred and fifty reals and the three hundred make a hundred and fifty half reals, which come to seventyfive reals, which added to the seven hundred and fifty make eight hundred and twentyfive reals in all. These I will stop out of what I have belonging to your worship, and I'll return home rich and content, though well whipped, for 'there's no taking trout'but I say no more. 'O blessed Sancho! O dear Sancho! said Don Quixote 'how we shall be bound to serve thee, Dulcinea and I, all the days of our lives that heaven may grant us! If she returns to her lost shape (and it cannot be but that she will) her misfortune will have been good fortune, and my defeat a most happy triumph. But look here, Sancho when wilt thou begin the scourging? For if thou wilt make short work of it, I will give thee a hundred reals over and above. 'When? said Sancho 'this night without fail. Let your worship order it so that we pass it out of doors and in the open air, and I'll scarify myself. Night, longed for by Don Quixote with the greatest anxiety in the world, came at last, though it seemed to him that the wheels of Apollo's car had broken down, and that the day was drawing itself out longer than usual, just as is the case with lovers, who never make the reckoning of their desires agree with time. They made their way at length in among some pleasant trees that stood a little distance from the road, and there vacating Rocinante's saddle and Dapple's packsaddle, they stretched themselves on the green grass and made their supper off Sancho's stores, and he making a powerful and flexible whip out of Dapple's halter and headstall retreated about twenty paces from his master among some beech trees. Don Quixote seeing him march off with such resolution and spirit, said to him, 'Take care, my friend, not to cut thyself to pieces allow the lashes to wait for one another, and do not be in so great a hurry as to run thyself out of breath midway I mean, do not lay on so strenuously as to make thy life fail thee before thou hast reached the desired number and that thou mayest not lose by a card too much or too little, I will station myself apart and count on my rosary here the lashes thou givest thyself. May heaven help thee as thy good intention deserves. ''Pledges don't distress a good payer,' said Sancho 'I mean to lay on in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that, no doubt, lies the essence of this miracle. He then stripped himself from the waist upwards, and snatching up the rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no trifle, and its price very low and holding his hand for a moment, he told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real instead of a quarter. 'Go on, Sancho my friend, and be not disheartened, said Don Quixote 'for I double the stakes as to price. 'In that case, said Sancho, 'in God's hand be it, and let it rain lashes. But the rogue no longer laid them on his shoulders, but laid on to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of himself, and that through Sancho's imprudence he might miss his own object, said to him, 'As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be well to have patience 'Zamora was not won in an hour.' If I have not reckoned wrong thou hast given thyself over a thousand lashes that is enough for the present 'for the ass,' to put it in homely phrase, 'bears the load, but not the overload.' 'No, no, seor, replied Sancho 'it shall never be said of me, 'The money paid, the arms broken' go back a little further, your worship, and let me give myself at any rate a thousand lashes more for in a couple of bouts like this we shall have finished off the lot, and there will be even cloth to spare. 'As thou art in such a willing mood, said Don Quixote, 'may heaven aid thee lay on and I'll retire. Sancho returned to his task with so much resolution that he soon had the bark stripped off several trees, such was the severity with which he whipped himself and one time, raising his voice, and giving a beech a tremendous lash, he cried out, 'Here dies Samson, and all with him! At the sound of his piteous cry and of the stroke of the cruel lash, Don Quixote ran to him at once, and seizing the twisted halter that served him for a courbash, said to him, 'Heaven forbid, Sancho my friend, that to please me thou shouldst lose thy life, which is needed for the support of thy wife and children let Dulcinea wait for a better opportunity, and I will content myself with a hope soon to be realised, and have patience until thou hast gained fresh strength so as to finish off this business to the satisfaction of everybody. 'As your worship will have it so, seor, said Sancho, 'so be it but throw your cloak over my shoulders, for I'm sweating and I don't want to take cold it's a risk that novice disciplinants run. Don Quixote obeyed, and stripping himself covered Sancho, who slept until the sun woke him they then resumed their journey, which for the time being they brought to an end at a village that lay three leagues farther on. They dismounted at a hostelry which Don Quixote recognised as such and did not take to be a castle with moat, turrets, portcullis, and drawbridge for ever since he had been vanquished he talked more rationally about everything, as will be shown presently. They quartered him in a room on the ground floor, where in place of leather hangings there were pieces of painted serge such as they commonly use in villages. On one of them was painted by some very poor hand the Rape of Helen, when the bold guest carried her off from Menelaus, and on the other was the story of Dido and neas, she on a high tower, as though she were making signals with a half sheet to her fugitive guest who was out at sea flying in a frigate or brigantine. He noticed in the two stories that Helen did not go very reluctantly, for she was laughing slyly and roguishly but the fair Dido was shown dropping tears the size of walnuts from her eyes. Don Quixote as he looked at them observed, 'Those two ladies were very unfortunate not to have been born in this age, and I unfortunate above all men not to have been born in theirs. Had I fallen in with those gentlemen, Troy would not have been burned or Carthage destroyed, for it would have been only for me to slay Paris, and all these misfortunes would have been avoided. 'I'll lay a bet, said Sancho, 'that before long there won't be a tavern, roadside inn, hostelry, or barber's shop where the story of our doings won't be painted up but I'd like it painted by the hand of a better painter than painted these. 'Thou art right, Sancho, said Don Quixote, 'for this painter is like Orbaneja, a painter there was at beda, who when they asked him what he was painting, used to say, 'Whatever it may turn out and if he chanced to paint a cock he would write under it, 'This is a cock,' for fear they might think it was a fox. The painter or writer, for it's all the same, who published the history of this new Don Quixote that has come out, must have been one of this sort I think, Sancho, for he painted or wrote 'whatever it might turn out' or perhaps he is like a poet called Mauleon that was about the Court some years ago, who used to answer at haphazard whatever he was asked, and on one asking him what Deum de Deo meant, he replied D donde diere. But, putting this aside, tell me, Sancho, hast thou a mind to have another turn at thyself tonight, and wouldst thou rather have it indoors or in the open air? 'Egad, seor, said Sancho, 'for what I'm going to give myself, it comes all the same to me whether it is in a house or in the fields still I'd like it to be among trees for I think they are company for me and help me to bear my pain wonderfully. 'And yet it must not be, Sancho my friend, said Don Quixote 'but, to enable thee to recover strength, we must keep it for our own village for at the latest we shall get there the day after tomorrow. Sancho said he might do as he pleased but that for his own part he would like to finish off the business quickly before his blood cooled and while he had an appetite, because 'in delay there is apt to be danger very often, and 'praying to God and plying the hammer, and 'one take was better than two I'll give thee's, and 'a sparrow in the hand than a vulture on the wing. 'For God's sake, Sancho, no more proverbs! exclaimed Don Quixote 'it seems to me thou art becoming sicut erat again speak in a plain, simple, straightforward way, as I have often told thee, and thou wilt find the good of it. 'I don't know what bad luck it is of mine, said Sancho, 'but I can't utter a word without a proverb that is not as good as an argument to my mind however, I mean to mend if I can and so for the present the conversation ended. All that day Don Quixote and Sancho remained in the village and inn waiting for night, the one to finish off his task of scourging in the open country, the other to see it accomplished, for therein lay the accomplishment of his wishes. Meanwhile there arrived at the hostelry a traveller on horseback with three or four servants, one of whom said to him who appeared to be the master, 'Here, Seor Don lvaro Tarfe, your worship may take your siesta today the quarters seem clean and cool. When he heard this Don Quixote said to Sancho, 'Look here, Sancho on turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I think I came casually upon this name of Don lvaro Tarfe. 'Very likely, said Sancho 'we had better let him dismount, and byandby we can ask about it. The gentleman dismounted, and the landlady gave him a room on the ground floor opposite Don Quixote's and adorned with painted serge hangings of the same sort. The newly arrived gentleman put on a summer coat, and coming out to the gateway of the hostelry, which was wide and cool, addressing Don Quixote, who was pacing up and down there, he asked, 'In what direction is your worship bound, gentle sir? 'To a village near this which is my own village, replied Don Quixote 'and your worship, where are you bound for? 'I am going to Granada, seor, said the gentleman, 'to my own country. 'And a goodly country, said Don Quixote 'but will your worship do me the favour of telling me your name, for it strikes me it is of more importance to me to know it than I can tell you. 'My name is Don lvaro Tarfe, replied the traveller. To which Don Quixote returned, 'I have no doubt whatever that your worship is that Don lvaro Tarfe who appears in print in the Second Part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, lately printed and published by a new author. 'I am the same, replied the gentleman 'and that same Don Quixote, the principal personage in the said history, was a very great friend of mine, and it was I who took him away from home, or at least induced him to come to some jousts that were to be held at Saragossa, whither I was going myself indeed, I showed him many kindnesses, and saved him from having his shoulders touched up by the executioner because of his extreme rashness. 'Tell me, Seor Don lvaro, said Don Quixote, 'am I at all like that Don Quixote you talk of? 'No indeed, replied the traveller, 'not a bit. 'And that Don Quixote said our one, 'had he with him a squire called Sancho Panza? 'He had, said Don lvaro 'but though he had the name of being very droll, I never heard him say anything that had any drollery in it. 'That I can well believe, said Sancho at this, 'for to come out with drolleries is not in everybody's line and that Sancho your worship speaks of, gentle sir, must be some great scoundrel, dunderhead, and thief, all in one for I am the real Sancho Panza, and I have more drolleries than if it rained them let your worship only try come along with me for a year or so, and you will find they fall from me at every turn, and so rich and so plentiful that though mostly I don't know what I am saying I make everybody that hears me laugh. And the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter of wrongs, the guardian of minors and orphans, the protector of widows, the killer of damsels, he who has for his sole mistress the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman before you, my master all other Don Quixotes and all other Sancho Panzas are dreams and mockeries. 'By God I believe it, said Don lvaro 'for you have uttered more drolleries, my friend, in the few words you have spoken than the other Sancho Panza in all I ever heard from him, and they were not a few. He was more greedy than wellspoken, and more dull than droll and I am convinced that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the Good have been trying to persecute me with Don Quixote the Bad. But I don't know what to say, for I am ready to swear I left him shut up in the Casa del Nuncio at Toledo, and here another Don Quixote turns up, though a very different one from mine. 'I don't know whether I am good, said Don Quixote, 'but I can safely say I am not 'the Bad' and to prove it, let me tell you, Seor Don lvaro Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa so far from that, when it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his falsehood before the face of the world and so I went on straight to Barcelona, the treasurehouse of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I have seen it. In a word, Seor Don lvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship knew. 'That I will do most willingly, replied Don lvaro 'though it amazes me to find two Don Quixotes and two Sancho Panzas at once, as much alike in name as they differ in demeanour and again I say and declare that what I saw I cannot have seen, and that what happened me cannot have happened. 'No doubt your worship is enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, said Sancho 'and would to heaven your disenchantment rested on my giving myself another three thousand and odd lashes like what I'm giving myself for her, for I'd lay them on without looking for anything. 'I don't understand that about the lashes, said Don lvaro. Sancho replied that it was a long story to tell, but he would tell him if they happened to be going the same road. By this dinnertime arrived, and Don Quixote and Don lvaro dined together. The alcalde of the village came by chance into the inn together with a notary, and Don Quixote laid a petition before him, showing that it was requisite for his rights that Don lvaro Tarfe, the gentleman there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know Don Quixote of La Mancha, also there present, and that he was not the one that was in print in a history entitled 'Second Part of Don Quixote of La Mancha, by one Avellaneda of Tordesillas. The alcalde finally put it in legal form, and the declaration was made with all the formalities required in such cases, at which Don Quixote and Sancho were in high delight, as if a declaration of the sort was of any great importance to them, and as if their words and deeds did not plainly show the difference between the two Don Quixotes and the two Sanchos. Many civilities and offers of service were exchanged by Don lvaro and Don Quixote, in the course of which the great Manchegan displayed such good taste that he disabused Don lvaro of the error he was under and he, on his part, felt convinced he must have been enchanted, now that he had been brought in contact with two such opposite Don Quixotes. Evening came, they set out from the village, and after about half a league two roads branched off, one leading to Don Quixote's village, the other the road Don lvaro was to follow. In this short interval Don Quixote told him of his unfortunate defeat, and of Dulcinea's enchantment and the remedy, all which threw Don lvaro into fresh amazement, and embracing Don Quixote and Sancho, he went his way, and Don Quixote went his. That night he passed among trees again in order to give Sancho an opportunity of working out his penance, which he did in the same fashion as the night before, at the expense of the bark of the beech trees much more than of his back, of which he took such good care that the lashes would not have knocked off a fly had there been one there. The duped Don Quixote did not miss a single stroke of the count, and he found that together with those of the night before they made up three thousand and twentynine. The sun apparently had got up early to witness the sacrifice, and with his light they resumed their journey, discussing the deception practised on Don lvaro, and saying how well done it was to have taken his declaration before a magistrate in such an unimpeachable form. That day and night they travelled on, nor did anything worth mention happen to them, unless it was that in the course of the night Sancho finished off his task, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure joyful. He watched for daylight, to see if along the road he should fall in with his already disenchanted lady Dulcinea and as he pursued his journey there was no woman he met that he did not go up to, to see if she was Dulcinea del Toboso, as he held it absolutely certain that Merlin's promises could not lie. Full of these thoughts and anxieties, they ascended a rising ground wherefrom they descried their own village, at the sight of which Sancho fell on his knees exclaiming, 'Open thine eyes, longedfor home, and see how thy son Sancho Panza comes back to thee, if not very rich, very well whipped! Open thine arms and receive, too, thy son Don Quixote, who, if he comes vanquished by the arm of another, comes victor over himself, which, as he himself has told me, is the greatest victory anyone can desire. I'm bringing back money, for if I was well whipped, I went mounted like a gentleman. 'Have done with these fooleries, said Don Quixote 'let us push on straight and get to our own place, where we will give free range to our fancies, and settle our plans for our future pastoral life. With this they descended the slope and directed their steps to their village. At the entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw two boys quarrelling on the village threshingfloor, one of whom said to the other, 'Take it easy, Periquillo thou shalt never see it again as long as thou livest. Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, 'Dost thou not mark, friend, what that boy said, 'Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou livest'? 'Well, said Sancho, 'what does it matter if the boy said so? 'What! said Don Quixote, 'dost thou not see that, applied to the object of my desires, the words mean that I am never to see Dulcinea more? Sancho was about to answer, when his attention was diverted by seeing a hare come flying across the plain pursued by several greyhounds and sportsmen. In its terror it ran to take shelter and hide itself under Dapple. Sancho caught it alive and presented it to Don Quixote, who was saying, 'Malum signum, malum signum! a hare flies, greyhounds chase it, Dulcinea appears not. 'Your worship's a strange man, said Sancho 'let's take it for granted that this hare is Dulcinea, and these greyhounds chasing it the malignant enchanters who turned her into a country wench she flies, and I catch her and put her into your worship's hands, and you hold her in your arms and cherish her what bad sign is that, or what ill omen is there to be found here? The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare, and Sancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He was answered by the one who had said, 'Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou livest, that he had taken a cage full of crickets from the other boy, and did not mean to give it back to him as long as he lived. Sancho took out four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy for the cage, which he placed in Don Quixote's hands, saying, 'There, seor! there are the omens broken and destroyed, and they have no more to do with our affairs, to my thinking, fool as I am, than with last year's clouds and if I remember rightly I have heard the curate of our village say that it does not become Christians or sensible people to give any heed to these silly things and even you yourself said the same to me some time ago, telling me that all Christians who minded omens were fools but there's no need of making words about it let us push on and go into our village. The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixote gave them. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance of the town they came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco busy with their breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by way of a sumptercloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, the buckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at the duke's castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixed the mitre on Dapple's head, the oddest transformation and decoration that ever ass in the world underwent. They were at once recognised by both the curate and the bachelor, who came towards them with open arms. Don Quixote dismounted and received them with a close embrace and the boys, who are lynxes that nothing escapes, spied out the ass's mitre and came running to see it, calling out to one another, 'Come here, boys, and see Sancho Panza's ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote's beast leaner than ever. So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompanied by the curate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into the town, and proceeded to Don Quixote's house, at the door of which they found his housekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival had already reached. It had been brought to Teresa Panza, Sancho's wife, as well, and she with her hair all loose and half naked, dragging Sanchica her daughter by the hand, ran out to meet her husband but seeing him coming in by no means as good case as she thought a governor ought to be, she said to him, 'How is it you come this way, husband? It seems to me you come tramping and footsore, and looking more like a disorderly vagabond than a governor. 'Hold your tongue, Teresa, said Sancho 'often 'where there are pegs there are no flitches' let's go into the house and there you'll hear strange things. I bring money, and that's the main thing, got by my own industry without wronging anybody. 'You bring the money, my good husband, said Teresa, 'and no matter whether it was got this way or that for, however you may have got it, you'll not have brought any new practice into the world. Sanchica embraced her father and asked him if he brought her anything, for she had been looking out for him as for the showers of May and she taking hold of him by the girdle on one side, and his wife by the hand, while the daughter led Dapple, they made for their house, leaving Don Quixote in his, in the hands of his niece and housekeeper, and in the company of the curate and the bachelor. Don Quixote at once, without any regard to time or season, withdrew in private with the bachelor and the curate, and in a few words told them of his defeat, and of the engagement he was under not to quit his village for a year, which he meant to keep to the letter without departing a hair's breadth from it, as became a knighterrant bound by scrupulous good faith and the laws of knighterrantry and of how he thought of turning shepherd for that year, and taking his diversion in the solitude of the fields, where he could with perfect freedom give range to his thoughts of love while he followed the virtuous pastoral calling and he besought them, if they had not a great deal to do and were not prevented by more important business, to consent to be his companions, for he would buy sheep enough to qualify them for shepherds and the most important point of the whole affair, he could tell them, was settled, for he had given them names that would fit them to a T. The curate asked what they were. Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called the shepherd Quixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and the curate the shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino. Both were astounded at Don Quixote's new craze however, lest he should once more make off out of the village from them in pursuit of his chivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might be cured, fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as a bright one, and offered to share the life with him. 'And what's more, said Samson Carrasco, 'I am, as all the world knows, a very famous poet, and I'll be always making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as it may come into my head, to pass away our time in those secluded regions where we shall be roaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is that each of us should choose the name of the shepherdess he means to glorify in his verses, and that we should not leave a tree, be it ever so hard, without writing up and carving her name on it, as is the habit and custom of lovesmitten shepherds. 'That's the very thing, said Don Quixote 'though I am relieved from looking for the name of an imaginary shepherdess, for there's the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the glory of these brooksides, the ornament of these meadows, the mainstay of beauty, the cream of all the graces, and, in a word, the being to whom all praise is appropriate, be it ever so hyperbolical. 'Very true, said the curate 'but we the others must look about for accommodating shepherdesses that will answer our purpose one way or another. 'And, added Samson Carrasco, 'if they fail us, we can call them by the names of the ones in print that the world is filled with, Flidas, Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas for as they sell them in the marketplaces we may fairly buy them and make them our own. If my lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be called Ana, I'll sing her praises under the name of Anarda, and if Francisca, I'll call her Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for it all comes to the same thing and Sancho Panza, if he joins this fraternity, may glorify his wife Teresa Panza as Teresaina. Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name, and the curate bestowed vast praise upon the worthy and honourable resolution he had made, and again offered to bear him company all the time that he could spare from his imperative duties. And so they took their leave of him, recommending and beseeching him to take care of his health and treat himself to a suitable diet. It so happened his niece and the housekeeper overheard all the three of them said and as soon as they were gone they both of them came in to Don Quixote, and said the niece, 'What's this, uncle? Now that we were thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectable life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn 'young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?' Nay! indeed 'the straw is too hard now to make pipes of.' 'And, added the housekeeper, 'will your worship be able to bear, out in the fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter, and the howling of the wolves? Not you for that's a life and a business for hardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from the time they were in swaddlingclothes. Why, to make choice of evils, it's better to be a knighterrant than a shepherd! Look here, seor take my adviceand I'm not giving it to you full of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fifty years upon my headstay at home, look after your affairs, go often to confession, be good to the poor, and upon my soul be it if any evil comes to you. 'Hold your peace, my daughters, said Don Quixote 'I know very well what my duty is help me to bed, for I don't feel very well and rest assured that, knighterrant now or wandering shepherd to be, I shall never fail to have a care for your interests, as you will see in the end. And the good wenches (for that they undoubtedly were), the housekeeper and niece, helped him to bed, where they gave him something to eat and made him as comfortable as possible. As nothing that is man's can last for ever, but all tends ever downwards from its beginning to its end, and above all man's life, and as Don Quixote's enjoyed no special dispensation from heaven to stay its course, its end and close came when he least looked for it. Forwhether it was of the dejection the thought of his defeat produced, or of heaven's will that so ordered ita fever settled upon him and kept him in his bed for six days, during which he was often visited by his friends the curate, the bachelor, and the barber, while his good squire Sancho Panza never quitted his bedside. They, persuaded that it was grief at finding himself vanquished, and the object of his heart, the liberation and disenchantment of Dulcinea, unattained, that kept him in this state, strove by all the means in their power to cheer him up the bachelor bidding him take heart and get up to begin his pastoral life, for which he himself, he said, had already composed an eclogue that would take the shine out of all Sannazaro had ever written, and had bought with his own money two famous dogs to guard the flock, one called Barcino and the other Butron, which a herdsman of Quintanar had sold him. But for all this Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote heard this calmly but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire, who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The doctor's opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up, and in a loud voice exclaimed, 'Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men can neither limit them nor keep them back! The niece listened with attention to her uncle's words, and they struck her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his illness, so she asked, 'What are you saying, seor? Has anything strange occurred? What mercies or what sins of men are you talking of? 'The mercies, niece, said Don Quixote, 'are those that God has this moment shown me, and with him, as I said, my sins are no impediment to them. My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, I feel myself at the point of death, and I would fain meet it in such a way as to show that my life has not been so ill that I should leave behind me the name of a madman for though I have been one, I would not that the fact should be made plainer at my death. Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for I wish to confess and make my will. But his niece was saved the trouble by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he exclaimed, 'Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name of Good. Now am I the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole countless troop of his descendants odious to me now are all the profane stories of knighterrantry now I perceive my folly, and the peril into which reading them brought me now, by God's mercy schooled into my right senses, I loathe them. When the three heard him speak in this way, they had no doubt whatever that some new craze had taken possession of him and said Samson, 'What? Seor Don Quixote! Now that we have intelligence of the lady Dulcinea being disenchanted, are you taking this line now, just as we are on the point of becoming shepherds, to pass our lives singing, like princes, are you thinking of turning hermit? Hush, for heaven's sake, be rational and let's have no more nonsense. 'All that nonsense, said Don Quixote, 'that until now has been a reality to my hurt, my death will, with heaven's help, turn to my good. I feel, sirs, that I am rapidly drawing near death a truce to jesting let me have a confessor to confess me, and a notary to make my will for in extremities like this, man must not trifle with his soul and while the curate is confessing me let someone, I beg, go for the notary. They looked at one another, wondering at Don Quixote's words but, though uncertain, they were inclined to believe him, and one of the signs by which they came to the conclusion he was dying was this so sudden and complete return to his senses after having been mad for to the words already quoted he added much more, so well expressed, so devout, and so rational, as to banish all doubt and convince them that he was sound of mind. The curate turned them all out, and left alone with him confessed him. The bachelor went for the notary and returned shortly afterwards with him and with Sancho, who, having already learned from the bachelor the condition his master was in, and finding the housekeeper and niece weeping, began to blubber and shed tears. The confession over, the curate came out saying, 'Alonso Quixano the Good is indeed dying, and is indeed in his right mind we may now go in to him while he makes his will. This news gave a tremendous impulse to the brimming eyes of the housekeeper, niece, and Sancho Panza his good squire, making the tears burst from their eyes and a host of sighs from their hearts for of a truth, as has been said more than once, whether as plain Alonso Quixano the Good, or as Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was always of a gentle disposition and kindly in all his ways, and hence he was beloved, not only by those of his own house, but by all who knew him. The notary came in with the rest, and as soon as the preamble of the will had been set out and Don Quixote had commended his soul to God with all the devout formalities that are usual, coming to the bequests, he said, 'Item, it is my will that, touching certain moneys in the hands of Sancho Panza (whom in my madness I made my squire), inasmuch as between him and me there have been certain accounts and debits and credits, no claim be made against him, nor any account demanded of him in respect of them but that if anything remain over and above, after he has paid himself what I owe him, the balance, which will be but little, shall be his, and much good may it do him and if, as when I was mad I had a share in giving him the government of an island, so, now that I am in my senses, I could give him that of a kingdom, it should be his, for the simplicity of his character and the fidelity of his conduct deserve it. And then, turning to Sancho, he said, 'Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into, that there were and still are knightserrant in the world. 'Ah! said Sancho weeping, 'don't die, master, but take my advice and live many years for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy's making an end of him. Come, don't be lazy, but get up from your bed and let us take to the fields in shepherd's trim as we agreed. Perhaps behind some bush we shall find the lady Dulcinea disenchanted, as fine as fine can be. If it be that you are dying of vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were overthrown because I had girthed Rocinante badly besides you must have seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for knights to upset one another, and for him who is conquered today to be conqueror tomorrow. 'Very true, said Samson, 'and good Sancho Panza's view of these cases is quite right. 'Sirs, not so fast, said Don Quixote, ''in last year's nests there are no birds this year.' I was mad, now I am in my senses I was Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good and may my repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for me and now let Master Notary proceed. 'Item, I leave all my property absolutely to Antonia Quixana my niece, here present, after all has been deducted from the most available portion of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe for the time my housekeeper has served me, with twenty ducats, over and above, for a gown. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now present, I appoint my executors. 'Item, it is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my niece, desires to marry, she shall marry a man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are and if it should be proved that he does, and if, in spite of this, my niece insists upon marrying him, and does marry him, then that she shall forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall devote to works of charity as they please. 'Item, I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he has written in it for I am leaving the world with a feeling of compunction at having provoked him to write them. With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was all in confusion but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and Sancho Panza enjoyed himself for inheriting property wipes out or softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be expected to leave behind him. At last Don Quixote's end came, after he had received all the sacraments, and had in full and forcible terms expressed his detestation of books of chivalry. The notary was there at the time, and he said that in no book of chivalry had he ever read of any knighterrant dying in his bed so calmly and so like a Christian as Don Quixote, who amid the tears and lamentations of all present yielded up his spirit, that is to say died. On perceiving it the curate begged the notary to bear witness that Alonso Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed away from this present life, and died naturally and said he desired this testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save Cide Hamete Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making interminable stories out of his achievements. Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village Cide Hamete would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended for Homer. The lamentations of Sancho and the niece and housekeeper are omitted here, as well as the new epitaphs upon his tomb Samson Carrasco, however, put the following lines A doughty gentleman lies here A stranger all his life to fear Nor in his death could Death prevail, In that last hour, to make him quail. He for the world but little cared And at his feats the world was scared A crazy man his life he passed, But in his senses died at last. And said most sage Cide Hamete to his pen, 'Rest here, hung up by this brass wire, upon this shelf, O my pen, whether of skilful make or clumsy cut I know not here shalt thou remain long ages hence, unless presumptuous or malignant storytellers take thee down to profane thee. But ere they touch thee warn them, and, as best thou canst, say to them Hold off! ye weaklings hold your hands! Adventure it let none, For this emprise, my lord the king, Was meant for me alone. For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him it was his to act, mine to write we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of that pretended Tordesillesque writer who has ventured or would venture with his great, coarse, illtrimmed ostrich quill to write the achievements of my valiant knightno burden for his shoulders, nor subject for his frozen wit whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary mouldering bones of Don Quixote, and not to attempt to carry him off, in opposition to all the privileges of death, to Old Castile, making him rise from the grave where in reality and truth he lies stretched at full length, powerless to make any third expedition or new sally for the two that he has already made, so much to the enjoyment and approval of everybody to whom they have become known, in this as well as in foreign countries, are quite sufficient for the purpose of turning into ridicule the whole of those made by the whole set of the knightserrant and so doing shalt thou discharge thy Christian calling, giving good counsel to one that bears illwill to thee. And I shall remain satisfied, and proud to have been the first who has ever enjoyed the fruit of his writings as fully as he could desire for my desire has been no other than to deliver over to the detestation of mankind the false and foolish tales of the books of chivalry, which, thanks to that of my true Don Quixote, are even now tottering, and doubtless doomed to fall for ever. Farewell.
CONTENTS TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT PART I CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII PART II CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII PART III CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI PART IV CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI PART V CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V PART VI CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII EPILOGUE A few words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader to understand his work. Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hardworking and deeply religious people, but so poor that they lived with their five children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their evenings in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a serious character. Though always sickly and delicate Dostoevsky came out third in the final examination of the Petersburg school of Engineering. There he had already begun his first work, 'Poor Folk. This story was published by the poet Nekrassov in his review and was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career seemed to open before him, but those hopes were soon dashed. In  he was arrested. Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolutionist, Dostoevsky was one of a little group of young men who met together to read Fourier and Proudhon. He was accused of 'taking part in conversations against the censorship, of reading a letter from Byelinsky to Gogol, and of knowing of the intention to set up a printing press. Under Nicholas I. (that 'stern and just man, as Maurice Baring calls him) this was enough, and he was condemned to death. After eight months' imprisonment he was with twentyone others taken out to the Semyonovsky Square to be shot. Writing to his brother Mihail, Dostoevsky says 'They snapped words over our heads, and they made us put on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes, to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I concluded I had only a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and I contrived to kiss Plestcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo, we were unbound, brought back upon the scaffold, and informed that his Majesty had spared us our lives. The sentence was commuted to hard labour. One of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was untied, and never regained his sanity. The intense suffering of this experience left a lasting stamp on Dostoevsky's mind. Though his religious temper led him in the end to accept every suffering with resignation and to regard it as a blessing in his own case, he constantly recurs to the subject in his writings. He describes the awful agony of the condemned man and insists on the cruelty of inflicting such torture. Then followed four years of penal servitude, spent in the company of common criminals in Siberia, where he began the 'Dead House, and some years of service in a disciplinary battalion. He had shown signs of some obscure nervous disease before his arrest and this now developed into violent attacks of epilepsy, from which he suffered for the rest of his life. The fits occurred three or four times a year and were more frequent in periods of great strain. In  he was allowed to return to Russia. He started a journal'Vremya, which was forbidden by the Censorship through a misunderstanding. In  he lost his first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother's debts. He started another journal'The Epoch, which within a few months was also prohibited. He was weighed down by debt, his brother's family was dependent on him, he was forced to write at heartbreaking speed, and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife. In June  he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow and he was received with extraordinary demonstrations of love and honour. A few months later Dostoevsky died. He was followed to the grave by a vast multitude of mourners, who 'gave the hapless man the funeral of a king. He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. In the words of a Russian critic, who seeks to explain the feeling inspired by Dostoevsky 'He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heart which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his other gifts came to him from nature, this he won for himself and through it he became great. On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, fivestoried house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her. This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lieno, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen. This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears. 'I want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these trifles, he thought, with an odd smile. 'Hm... yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking too much. It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing. I've learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack the Giantkiller. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse myself a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything. The heat in the street was terrible and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summerall worked painfully upon the young man's already overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pothouses, which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man's refined face. He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, wellbuilt, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness of mind he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak for two days he had scarcely tasted food. He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading and working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But there was such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young man's heart, that, in spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least of all in the street. It was a different matter when he met with acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he disliked meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove past 'Hey there, German hatter bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at himthe young man stopped suddenly and clutched tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round hat from Zimmerman's, but completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had overtaken him. 'I knew it, he muttered in confusion, 'I thought so! That's the worst of all! Why, a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail might spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable.... It looks absurd and that makes it noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a cap, any sort of old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered.... What matters is that people would remember it, and that would give them a clue. For this business one should be as little conspicuous as possible.... Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it's just such trifles that always ruin everything.... He had not far to go he knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate of his lodging house exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to look upon them differently, and, in spite of the monologues in which he jeered at his own impotence and indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard this 'hideous dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he still did not realise this himself. He was positively going now for a 'rehearsal of his project, and at every step his excitement grew more and more violent. With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge house which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited by working people of all kindstailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks, etc. There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the two courtyards of the house. Three or four doorkeepers were employed on the building. The young man was very glad to meet none of them, and at once slipped unnoticed through the door on the right, and up the staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar with it already, and knew his way, and he liked all these surroundings in such darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded. 'If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass that I were really going to do it? he could not help asking himself as he reached the fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some porters who were engaged in moving furniture out of a flat. He knew that the flat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil service, and his family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth floor on this staircase would be untenanted except by the old woman. 'That's a good thing anyway, he thought to himself, as he rang the bell of the old woman's flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of tin and not of copper. The little flats in such houses always have bells that ring like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell, and now its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of something and to bring it clearly before him.... He started, his nerves were terribly overstrained by now. In a little while, the door was opened a tiny crack the old woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through the crack, and nothing could be seen but her little eyes, glittering in the darkness. But, seeing a number of people on the landing, she grew bolder, and opened the door wide. The young man stepped into the dark entry, which was partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing him in silence and looking inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, withered up old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which looked like a hen's leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again. 'Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago, the young man made haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be more polite. 'I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here, the old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face. 'And here... I am again on the same errand, Raskolnikov continued, a little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman's mistrust. 'Perhaps she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other time, he thought with an uneasy feeling. The old woman paused, as though hesitating then stepped on one side, and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass in front of her 'Step in, my good sir. The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper on the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was brightly lighted up at that moment by the setting sun. 'So the sun will shine like this then too! flashed as it were by chance through Raskolnikov's mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a dressingtable with a lookingglass fixed on it between the windows, chairs along the walls and two or three halfpenny prints in yellow frames, representing German damsels with birds in their handsthat was all. In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything was very clean the floor and the furniture were brightly polished everything shone. 'Lizaveta's work, thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust to be seen in the whole flat. 'It's in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness, Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in which stood the old woman's bed and chest of drawers and into which he had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole flat. 'What do you want? the old woman said severely, coming into the room and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight in the face. 'I've brought something to pawn here, and he drew out of his pocket an oldfashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a globe the chain was of steel. 'But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day before yesterday. 'I will bring you the interest for another month wait a little. 'But that's for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell your pledge at once. 'How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna? 'You come with such trifles, my good sir, it's scarcely worth anything. I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it quite new at a jeweler's for a rouble and a half. 'Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father's. I shall be getting some money soon. 'A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like! 'A rouble and a half! cried the young man. 'Please yourselfand the old woman handed him back the watch. The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going away but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming. 'Hand it over, he said roughly. The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared behind the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He could hear her unlocking the chest of drawers. 'It must be the top drawer, he reflected. 'So she carries the keys in a pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring.... And there's one key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches that can't be the key of the chest of drawers... then there must be some other chest or strongbox... that's worth knowing. Strongboxes always have keys like that... but how degrading it all is. The old woman came back. 'Here, sir as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take fifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in advance. But for the two roubles I lent you before, you owe me now twenty copecks on the same reckoning in advance. That makes thirtyfive copecks altogether. So I must give you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the watch. Here it is. 'What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now! 'Just so. The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at the old woman, and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was still something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself quite know what. 'I may be bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona Ivanovnaa valuable thingsilvera cigarettebox, as soon as I get it back from a friend... he broke off in confusion. 'Well, we will talk about it then, sir. 'Goodbyeare you always at home alone, your sister is not here with you? He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into the passage. 'What business is she of yours, my good sir? 'Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick.... Goodday, Alyona Ivanovna. Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, 'Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly.... No, it's nonsense, it's rubbish! he added resolutely. 'And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!and for a whole month I've been.... But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passersby, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner ordered some beer, and eagerly drank off the first glassful. At once he felt easier and his thoughts became clear. 'All that's nonsense, he said hopefully, 'and there is nothing in it all to worry about! It's simply physical derangement. Just a glass of beer, a piece of dry breadand in one moment the brain is stronger, the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty it all is! But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of mind was also not normal. There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about five men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, stout man with a grey beard, in a short fullskirted coat. He was very drunk and had dropped asleep on the bench every now and then, he began as though in his sleep, cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the upper part of his body bounding about on the bench, while he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines as these 'His wife a year he fondly loved His wife aa year hefondly loved. Or suddenly waking up again 'Walking along the crowded row He met the one he used to know. But no one shared his enjoyment his silent companion looked with positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired government clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his pot and looking round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some agitation. Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for company. He was so weary after a whole month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a moment, in some other world, whatever it might be and, in spite of the filthiness of the surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern. The master of the establishment was in another room, but he frequently came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with red turnover tops coming into view each time before the rest of his person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin waistcoat, with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil like an iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was wanted. On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black bread, and some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was insufferably close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such an atmosphere might well make a man drunk. There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made on Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who looked like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this impression afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeatedly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into conversation. At the other persons in the room, including the tavernkeeper, the clerk looked as though he were used to their company, and weary of it, showing a shade of condescending contempt for them as persons of station and culture inferior to his own, with whom it would be useless for him to converse. He was a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, of medium height, and stoutly built. His face, bloated from continual drinking, was of a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was something very strange in him there was a light in his eyes as though of intense feelingperhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the same time there was a gleam of something like madness. He was wearing an old and hopelessly ragged black dress coat, with all its buttons missing except one, and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this last trace of respectability. A crumpled shirt front, covered with spots and stains, protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore no beard, nor moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin looked like a stiff greyish brush. And there was something respectable and like an official about his manner too. But he was restless he ruffled up his hair and from time to time let his head drop into his hands dejectedly resting his ragged elbows on the stained and sticky table. At last he looked straight at Raskolnikov, and said loudly and resolutely 'May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite conversation? Forasmuch as, though your exterior would not command respect, my experience admonishes me that you are a man of education and not accustomed to drinking. I have always respected education when in conjunction with genuine sentiments, and I am besides a titular counsellor in rank. Marmeladovsuch is my name titular counsellor. I make bold to inquirehave you been in the service? 'No, I am studying, answered the young man, somewhat surprised at the grandiloquent style of the speaker and also at being so directly addressed. In spite of the momentary desire he had just been feeling for company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately his habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached or attempted to approach him. 'A student then, or formerly a student, cried the clerk. 'Just what I thought! I'm a man of experience, immense experience, sir, and he tapped his forehead with his fingers in selfapproval. 'You've been a student or have attended some learned institution!... But allow me.... He got up, staggered, took up his jug and glass, and sat down beside the young man, facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his sentences and drawling his words. He pounced upon Raskolnikov as greedily as though he too had not spoken to a soul for a month. 'Honoured sir, he began almost with solemnity, 'poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue, and that that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggaryneverno one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself. Hence the pothouse! Honoured sir, a month ago Mr. Lebeziatnikov gave my wife a beating, and my wife is a very different matter from me! Do you understand? Allow me to ask you another question out of simple curiosity have you ever spent a night on a hay barge, on the Neva? 'No, I have not happened to, answered Raskolnikov. 'What do you mean? 'Well, I've just come from one and it's the fifth night I've slept so.... He filled his glass, emptied it and paused. Bits of hay were in fact clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite probable that he had not undressed or washed for the last five days. His hands, particularly, were filthy. They were fat and red, with black nails. His conversation seemed to excite a general though languid interest. The boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down from the upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the 'funny fellow and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity. Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar figure here, and he had most likely acquired his weakness for highflown speeches from the habit of frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order at home. Hence in the company of other drinkers they try to justify themselves and even if possible obtain consideration. 'Funny fellow! pronounced the innkeeper. 'And why don't you work, why aren't you at your duty, if you are in the service? 'Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir, Marmeladov went on, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put that question to him. 'Why am I not at my duty? Does not my heart ache to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago when Mr. Lebeziatnikov beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn't I suffer? Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you... hm... well, to petition hopelessly for a loan? 'Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly? 'Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know beforehand that you will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand with positive certainty that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will on no consideration give you money and indeed I ask you why should he? For he knows of course that I shan't pay it back. From compassion? But Mr. Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas explained the other day that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that's what is done now in England, where there is political economy. Why, I ask you, should he give it to me? And yet though I know beforehand that he won't, I set off to him and... 'Why do you go? put in Raskolnikov. 'Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, then I had to go... (for my daughter has a yellow passport), he added in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man. 'No matter, sir, no matter! he went on hurriedly and with apparent composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed and even the innkeeper smiled'No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of their heads for everyone knows everything about it already, and all that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! 'Behold the man!' Excuse me, young man, can you.... No, to put it more strongly and more distinctly not can you but dare you, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig? The young man did not answer a word. 'Well, the orator began again stolidly and with even increased dignity, after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. 'Well, so be it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an officer's daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet... oh, if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man ought to have at least one place where people feel for him! But Katerina Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust.... And yet, although I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pityfor I repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man, he declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again'but, my God, if she would but once.... But no, no! It's all in vain and it's no use talking! No use talking! For more than once, my wish did come true and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a beast by nature! 'Rather! assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist resolutely on the table. 'Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very stockings for drink? Not her shoesthat would be more or less in the order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink! Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own property, not mine and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till night she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she's been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don't feel it? And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice as much! And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table. 'Young man, he went on, raising his head again, 'in your face I seem to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a laughingstock before these idle listeners, who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a highclass school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal... well, the medal of course was soldlong ago, hm... but the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don't condemn her for it, I don't blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to eat, but won't allow herself to be treated with disrespect. That's why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov's rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and ran away with him from her father's house. She was exceedingly fond of her husband but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he died. He used to beat her at the end and although she paid him back, of which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of him with tears and she throws him up to me and I am glad, I am glad that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having once been happy.... And she was left at his death with three children in a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time and she was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups and downs of all sort, I don't feel equal to describing it even. Her relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively proud.... And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? No, that you don't understand yet.... And for a whole year, I performed my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this (he tapped the jug with his finger), 'for I have feelings. But even so, I could not please her and then I lost my place too, and that through no fault of mine but through changes in the office and then I did touch it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at last after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magnificent capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a situation.... I obtained it and I lost it again. Do you understand? This time it was through my own fault I lost it for my weakness had come out.... We have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel's and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I could not say. There are a lot of people living there besides ourselves. Dirt and disorder, a perfect Bedlam... hm... yes... And meanwhile my daughter by my first wife has grown up and what my daughter has had to put up with from her stepmother whilst she was growing up, I won't speak of. For, though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited lady, irritable and shorttempered.... Yes. But it's no use going over that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I did make an effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we have not even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We stopped at Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she has read other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read with great interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes' Physiologydo you know it?and even recounted extracts from it to us and that's the whole of her education. And now may I venture to address you, honoured sir, on my own account with a private question. Do you suppose that a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special talent and that without putting her work down for an instant! And what's more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellorhave you heard of him?has not to this day paid her for the halfdozen linen shirts she made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry.... And Katerina Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed red, as they always are in that disease 'Here you live with us,' says she, 'you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help.' And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well, what of it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin little face). She said 'Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing like that?' And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very well known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her through the landlady. 'And why not?' said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer, 'you are something mighty precious to be so careful of!' But don't blame her, don't blame her, honoured sir, don't blame her! She was not herself when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying of the hungry children and it was said more to wound her than anything else.... For that's Katerina Ivanovna's character, and when children cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six o'clock I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the room and about nine o'clock she came back. She walked straight up to Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she simply picked up our big green drap de dames shawl (we have a shawl, made of drap de dames), put it over her head and face and lay down on the bed with her face to the wall only her little shoulders and her body kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before.... And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence go up to Sonia's little bed she was on her knees all the evening kissing Sonia's feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell asleep in each other's arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay drunk. Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then he hurriedly filled his glass, drank, and cleared his throat. 'Since then, sir, he went on after a brief pause'Since then, owing to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by evilintentioned personsin all which Darya Frantsovna took a leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with want of respectsince then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take a yellow ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though she had backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too... hm.... All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia's account. At first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of a sudden he stood on his dignity 'how,' said he, 'can a highly educated man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?' And Katerina Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that's how it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark she comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room at the Kapernaumovs' the tailors, she lodges with them Kapernaumov is a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning, and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you know him? No? Well, then, it's a man of God you don't know. He is wax... wax before the face of the Lord even as wax melteth!... His eyes were dim when he heard my story. 'Marmeladov, once already you have deceived my expectations... I'll take you once more on my own responsibility'that's what he said, 'remember,' he said, 'and now you can go.' I kissed the dust at his feetin thought only, for in reality he would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I announced that I'd been taken back into the service and should receive a salary, heavens, what a todo there was!... Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a whole party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the sounds of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven singing 'The Hamlet were heard in the entry. The room was filled with noise. The tavernkeeper and the boys were busy with the newcomers. Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story. He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as he became more and more drunk, he became more and more talkative. The recollection of his recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him, and was positively reflected in a sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov listened attentively. 'That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the kingdom of Heaven. It used to be you can lie like a beast, nothing but abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe, hushing the children. 'Semyon Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!' They made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they managed to get together the money for a decent outfiteleven roubles, fifty copecks, I can't guess. Boots, cotton shirtfrontsmost magnificent, a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven roubles and a half. The first morning I came back from the office I found Katerina Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinnersoup and salt meat with horse radishwhich we had never dreamed of till then. She had not any dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she were going on a visit and not that she'd anything to do it with, she smartened herself up with nothing at all, she'd done her hair nicely, put on a clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different person, she was younger and better looking. Sonia, my little darling, had only helped with money 'for the time,' she said, 'it won't do for me to come and see you too often. After dark maybe when no one can see.' Do you hear, do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do you think though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree with our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a week before, she could not resist then asking her in to coffee. For two hours they were sitting, whispering together. 'Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again, now, and receiving a salary,' says she, 'and he went himself to his excellency and his excellency himself came out to him, made all the others wait and led Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody into his study.' Do you hear, do you hear? 'To be sure,' says he, 'Semyon Zaharovitch, remembering your past services,' says he, 'and in spite of your propensity to that foolish weakness, since you promise now and since moreover we've got on badly without you,' (do you hear, do you hear) 'and so,' says he, 'I rely now on your word as a gentleman.' And all that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for herself, and not simply out of wantonness, for the sake of bragging no, she believes it all herself, she amuses herself with her own fancies, upon my word she does! And I don't blame her for it, no, I don't blame her!... Six days ago when I brought her my first earnings in fulltwentythree roubles forty copecks altogethershe called me her poppet 'poppet,' said she, 'my little poppet.' And when we were by ourselves, you understand? You would not think me a beauty, you would not think much of me as a husband, would you?... Well, she pinched my cheek, 'my little poppet,' said she. Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but suddenly his chin began to twitch. He controlled himself however. The tavern, the degraded appearance of the man, the five nights in the hay barge, and the pot of spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation. He felt vexed that he had come here. 'Honoured sir, honoured sir, cried Marmeladov recovering himself'Oh, sir, perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you, as it does to others, and perhaps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all the trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laughing matter to me. For I can feel it all.... And the whole of that heavenly day of my life and the whole of that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I would arrange it all, and how I would dress all the children, and how I should give her rest, and how I should rescue my own daughter from dishonour and restore her to the bosom of her family.... And a great deal more.... Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) 'well, on the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night, I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was left of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look at me, all of you! It's the fifth day since I left home, and they are looking for me there and it's the end of my employment, and my uniform is lying in a tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the garments I have on... and it's the end of everything! Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said 'This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask her for a pickmeup! Hehehe! 'You don't say she gave it to you? cried one of the newcomers he shouted the words and went off into a guffaw. 'This very quart was bought with her money, Marmeladov declared, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. 'Thirty copecks she gave me with her own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw.... She said nothing, she only looked at me without a word.... Not on earth, but up yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don't blame them, they don't blame them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don't blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she needs them now, eh? What do you think, my dear sir? For now she's got to keep up her appearance. It costs money, that smartness, that special smartness, you know? Do you understand? And there's pomatum, too, you see, she must have things petticoats, starched ones, shoes, too, real jaunty ones to show off her foot when she has to step over a puddle. Do you understand, sir, do you understand what all that smartness means? And here I, her own father, here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have pity on a man like me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or not? Tell me, sir, are you sorry or not? Hehehe! He would have filled his glass, but there was no drink left. The pot was empty. 'What are you to be pitied for? shouted the tavernkeeper who was again near them. Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the oaths came from those who were listening and also from those who had heard nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged government clerk. 'To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied? Marmeladov suddenly declaimed, standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had been only waiting for that question. 'Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be crucified, for it's not merrymaking I seek but tears and tribulation!... Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it but He will pity us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask 'Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive stepmother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?' And He will say, 'Come to me! I have already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....' And he will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek.... And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. 'You too come forth,' He will say, 'Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!' And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, 'Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark but come ye also!' And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, 'Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?' And He will say, 'This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.' And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him... and we shall weep... and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!... and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even... she will understand.... Lord, Thy kingdom come! And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression there was a moment of silence but soon laughter and oaths were heard again. 'That's his notion! 'Talked himself silly! 'A fine clerk he is! And so on, and so on. 'Let us go, sir, said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and addressing Raskolnikov'come along with me... Kozel's house, looking into the yard. I'm going to Katerina Ivanovnatime I did. Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three hundred paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and confusion as they drew nearer the house. 'It's not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now, he muttered in agitation'and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair matter! Bother my hair! That's what I say! Indeed it will be better if she does begin pulling it, that's not what I am afraid of... it's her eyes I am afraid of... yes, her eyes... the red on her cheeks, too, frightens me... and her breathing too.... Have you noticed how people in that disease breathe... when they are excited? I am frightened of the children's crying, too.... For if Sonia has not taken them food... I don't know what's happened! I don't know! But blows I am not afraid of.... Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but even an enjoyment. In fact I can't get on without it.... It's better so. Let her strike me, it relieves her heart... it's better so... There is the house. The house of Kozel, the cabinetmaker... a German, welltodo. Lead the way! They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven o'clock and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was quite dark at the top of the stairs. A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very poorlooking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candleend the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder, littered up with rags of all sorts, especially children's garments. Across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it probably was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs and a sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which stood an old deal kitchentable, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the table stood a smoldering tallowcandle in an iron candlestick. It appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room, but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsel's flat was divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there. Words of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time. Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather tall, slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest her lips were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the candleend playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not notice them coming in. She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing nothing. The room was close, but she had not opened the window a stench rose from the staircase, but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept coughing, but did not close the door. The youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a year older stood crying and shaking in the corner, probably he had just had a beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years old, tall and thin, wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and barely reaching her knees. Her arm, as thin as a stick, was round her brother's neck. She was trying to comfort him, whispering something to him, and doing all she could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her large dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened face, were watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him. The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently facing him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what he had come for. But evidently she decided that he was going into the next room, as he had to pass through hers to get there. Taking no further notice of him, she walked towards the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the doorway. 'Ah! she cried out in a frenzy, 'he has come back! The criminal! the monster!... And where is the money? What's in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money! Speak! And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there. 'Where is the money? she cried'Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all? There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest! and in a fury she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees. 'And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a positive consolation, honoured sir, he called out, shaken to and fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead. The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed to his sister in violent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was shaking like a leaf. 'He's drunk it! he's drunk it all, the poor woman screamed in despair'and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!and wringing her hands she pointed to the children. 'Oh, accursed life! And you, are you not ashamed?she pounced all at once upon Raskolnikov'from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have been drinking with him, too! Go away! The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation to him. They even began to come into the room at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out, Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed his mind and would have gone back. 'What a stupid thing I've done, he thought to himself, 'they have Sonia and I want it myself. But reflecting that it would be impossible to take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging. 'Sonia wants pomatum too, he said as he walked along the street, and he laughed malignantly'such smartness costs money.... Hm! And maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt today, for there is always a risk, hunting big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a crust tomorrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine they've dug there! And they're making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most of it! They've wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel! He sank into thought. 'And what if I am wrong, he cried suddenly after a moment's thought. 'What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankindthen all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be. He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him he waked up bilious, irritable, illtempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a povertystricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so lowpitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room there were three old chairs, rather rickety a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa. It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable. He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell, and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her, though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant, was rather pleased at the lodger's mood and had entirely given up sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into his room with a broom. She waked him up that day. 'Get up, why are you asleep? she called to him. 'It's past nine, I have brought you some tea will you have a cup? I should think you're fairly starving? Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya. 'From the landlady, eh? he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa. 'From the landlady, indeed! She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it. 'Here, Nastasya, take it please, he said, fumbling in his pocket (for he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers'run and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the porkbutcher's. 'The loaf I'll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn't you rather have some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It's capital soup, yesterday's. I saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It's fine soup. When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country peasantwoman and a very talkative one. 'Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you, she said. He scowled. 'To the police? What does she want? 'You don't pay her money and you won't turn out of the room. That's what she wants, to be sure. 'The devil, that's the last straw, he muttered, grinding his teeth, 'no, that would not suit me... just now. She is a fool, he added aloud. 'I'll go and talk to her today. 'Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now? 'I am doing... Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly. 'What are you doing? 'Work... 'What sort of work? 'I am thinking, he answered seriously after a pause. Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill. 'And have you made much money by your thinking? she managed to articulate at last. 'One can't go out to give lessons without boots. And I'm sick of it. 'Don't quarrel with your bread and butter. 'They pay so little for lessons. What's the use of a few coppers? he answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought. 'And you want to get a fortune all at once? He looked at her strangely. 'Yes, I want a fortune, he answered firmly, after a brief pause. 'Don't be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the loaf or not? 'As you please. 'Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out. 'A letter? for me! from whom? 'I can't say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will you pay me back? 'Then bring it to me, for God's sake, bring it, cried Raskolnikov greatly excited'good God! A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it from his mother, from the province of R. He turned pale when he took it. It was a long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also suddenly stabbed his heart. 'Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness' sake here are your three copecks, but for goodness' sake, make haste and go! The letter was quivering in his hand he did not want to open it in her presence he wanted to be left alone with this letter. When Nastasya had gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it then he gazed intently at the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear and familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write. He delayed he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets of note paper were covered with very small handwriting. 'My dear Rodya, wrote his mother'it's two months since I last had a talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my inevitable silence. You know how I love you you are all we have to look to, Dounia and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a kindhearted man and was a friend of your father's too. But having given him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is only just done, so that I've been unable to send you anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I shall be able to send you something more and in fact we may congratulate ourselves on our good fortune now, of which I hasten to inform you. In the first place, would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your sister has been living with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be separated in the future. Thank God, her sufferings are over, but I will tell you everything in order, so that you may know just how everything has happened and all that we have hitherto concealed from you. When you wrote to me two months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a great deal to put up with in the Svidrigalovs' house, when you wrote that and asked me to tell you all about itwhat could I write in answer to you? If I had written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would have thrown up everything and have come to us, even if you had to walk all the way, for I know your character and your feelings, and you would not let your sister be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what could I do? And, besides, I did not know the whole truth myself then. What made it all so difficult was that Dounia received a hundred roubles in advance when she took the place as governess in their family, on condition of part of her salary being deducted every month, and so it was impossible to throw up the situation without repaying the debt. This sum (now I can explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took chiefly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you needed so terribly then and which you received from us last year. We deceived you then, writing that this money came from Dounia's savings, but that was not so, and now I tell you all about it, because, thank God, things have suddenly changed for the better, and that you may know how Dounia loves you and what a heart she has. At first indeed Mr. Svidrigalov treated her very rudely and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at table.... But I don't want to go into all those painful details, so as not to worry you for nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigalov's wife, and all the rest of the household, Dounia had a very hard time, especially when Mr. Svidrigalov, relapsing into his old regimental habits, was under the influence of Bacchus. And how do you think it was all explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had conceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning, but had concealed it under a show of rudeness and contempt. Possibly he was ashamed and horrified himself at his own flighty hopes, considering his years and his being the father of a family and that made him angry with Dounia. And possibly, too, he hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide the truth from others. But at last he lost all control and had the face to make Dounia an open and shameful proposal, promising her all sorts of inducements and offering, besides, to throw up everything and take her to another estate of his, or even abroad. You can imagine all she went through! To leave her situation at once was impossible not only on account of the money debt, but also to spare the feelings of Marfa Petrovna, whose suspicions would have been aroused and then Dounia would have been the cause of a rupture in the family. And it would have meant a terrible scandal for Dounia too that would have been inevitable. There were various other reasons owing to which Dounia could not hope to escape from that awful house for another six weeks. You know Dounia, of course you know how clever she is and what a strong will she has. Dounia can endure a great deal and even in the most difficult cases she has the fortitude to maintain her firmness. She did not even write to me about everything for fear of upsetting me, although we were constantly in communication. It all ended very unexpectedly. Marfa Petrovna accidentally overheard her husband imploring Dounia in the garden, and, putting quite a wrong interpretation on the position, threw the blame upon her, believing her to be the cause of it all. An awful scene took place between them on the spot in the garden Marfa Petrovna went so far as to strike Dounia, refused to hear anything and was shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dounia should be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant's cart, into which they flung all her things, her linen and her clothes, all pellmell, without folding it up and packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too, and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive with a peasant in an open cart all the seventeen versts into town. Only think now what answer could I have sent to the letter I received from you two months ago and what could I have written? I was in despair I dared not write to you the truth because you would have been very unhappy, mortified and indignant, and yet what could you do? You could only perhaps ruin yourself, and, besides, Dounia would not allow it and fill up my letter with trifles when my heart was so full of sorrow, I could not. For a whole month the town was full of gossip about this scandal, and it came to such a pass that Dounia and I dared not even go to church on account of the contemptuous looks, whispers, and even remarks made aloud about us. All our acquaintances avoided us, nobody even bowed to us in the street, and I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were intending to insult us in a shameful way, smearing the gates of our house with pitch, so that the landlord began to tell us we must leave. All this was set going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia and throw dirt at her in every family. She knows everyone in the neighbourhood, and that month she was continually coming into the town, and as she is rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and particularly of complaining to all and each of her husbandwhich is not at all rightso in a short time she had spread her story not only in the town, but over the whole surrounding district. It made me ill, but Dounia bore it better than I did, and if only you could have seen how she endured it all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up! She is an angel! But by God's mercy, our sufferings were cut short Mr. Svidrigalov returned to his senses and repented and, probably feeling sorry for Dounia, he laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and unmistakable proof of Dounia's innocence, in the form of a letter Dounia had been forced to write and give to him, before Marfa Petrovna came upon them in the garden. This letter, which remained in Mr. Svidrigalov's hands after her departure, she had written to refuse personal explanations and secret interviews, for which he was entreating her. In that letter she reproached him with great heat and indignation for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa Petrovna, reminding him that he was the father and head of a family and telling him how infamous it was of him to torment and make unhappy a defenceless girl, unhappy enough already. Indeed, dear Rodya, the letter was so nobly and touchingly written that I sobbed when I read it and to this day I cannot read it without tears. Moreover, the evidence of the servants, too, cleared Dounia's reputation they had seen and known a great deal more than Mr. Svidrigalov had himself supposedas indeed is always the case with servants. Marfa Petrovna was completely taken aback, and 'again crushed' as she said herself to us, but she was completely convinced of Dounia's innocence. The very next day, being Sunday, she went straight to the Cathedral, knelt down and prayed with tears to Our Lady to give her strength to bear this new trial and to do her duty. Then she came straight from the Cathedral to us, told us the whole story, wept bitterly and, fully penitent, she embraced Dounia and besought her to forgive her. The same morning without any delay, she went round to all the houses in the town and everywhere, shedding tears, she asserted in the most flattering terms Dounia's innocence and the nobility of her feelings and her behavior. What was more, she showed and read to everyone the letter in Dounia's own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigalov and even allowed them to take copies of itwhich I must say I think was superfluous. In this way she was busy for several days in driving about the whole town, because some people had taken offence through precedence having been given to others. And therefore they had to take turns, so that in every house she was expected before she arrived, and everyone knew that on such and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be reading the letter in such and such a place and people assembled for every reading of it, even many who had heard it several times already both in their own houses and in other people's. In my opinion a great deal, a very great deal of all this was unnecessary but that's Marfa Petrovna's character. Anyway she succeeded in completely reestablishing Dounia's reputation and the whole ignominy of this affair rested as an indelible disgrace upon her husband, as the only person to blame, so that I really began to feel sorry for him it was really treating the crazy fellow too harshly. Dounia was at once asked to give lessons in several families, but she refused. All of a sudden everyone began to treat her with marked respect and all this did much to bring about the event by which, one may say, our whole fortunes are now transformed. You must know, dear Rodya, that Dounia has a suitor and that she has already consented to marry him. I hasten to tell you all about the matter, and though it has been arranged without asking your consent, I think you will not be aggrieved with me or with your sister on that account, for you will see that we could not wait and put off our decision till we heard from you. And you could not have judged all the facts without being on the spot. This was how it happened. He is already of the rank of a counsellor, Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna, who has been very active in bringing the match about. It began with his expressing through her his desire to make our acquaintance. He was properly received, drank coffee with us and the very next day he sent us a letter in which he very courteously made an offer and begged for a speedy and decided answer. He is a very busy man and is in a great hurry to get to Petersburg, so that every moment is precious to him. At first, of course, we were greatly surprised, as it had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. We thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a welltodo man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in the government and has already made his fortune. It is true that he is fortyfive years old, but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a very respectable and presentable man, only he seems a little morose and somewhat conceited. But possibly that may only be the impression he makes at first sight. And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to Petersburg, as he shortly will do, beware of judging him too hastily and severely, as your way is, if there is anything you do not like in him at first sight. I give you this warning, although I feel sure that he will make a favourable impression upon you. Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards. And Pyotr Petrovitch, judging by many indications, is a thoroughly estimable man. At his first visit, indeed, he told us that he was a practical man, but still he shares, as he expressed it, many of the convictions 'of our most rising generation' and he is an opponent of all prejudices. He said a good deal more, for he seems a little conceited and likes to be listened to, but this is scarcely a vice. I, of course, understood very little of it, but Dounia explained to me that, though he is not a man of great education, he is clever and seems to be goodnatured. You know your sister's character, Rodya. She is a resolute, sensible, patient and generous girl, but she has a passionate heart, as I know very well. Of course, there is no great love either on his side, or on hers, but Dounia is a clever girl and has the heart of an angel, and will make it her duty to make her husband happy who on his side will make her happiness his care. Of that we have no good reason to doubt, though it must be admitted the matter has been arranged in great haste. Besides he is a man of great prudence and he will see, to be sure, of himself, that his own happiness will be the more secure, the happier Dounia is with him. And as for some defects of character, for some habits and even certain differences of opinionwhich indeed are inevitable even in the happiest marriagesDounia has said that, as regards all that, she relies on herself, that there is nothing to be uneasy about, and that she is ready to put up with a great deal, if only their future relationship can be an honourable and straightforward one. He struck me, for instance, at first, as rather abrupt, but that may well come from his being an outspoken man, and that is no doubt how it is. For instance, at his second visit, after he had received Dounia's consent, in the course of conversation, he declared that before making Dounia's acquaintance, he had made up his mind to marry a girl of good reputation, without dowry and, above all, one who had experienced poverty, because, as he explained, a man ought not to be indebted to his wife, but that it is better for a wife to look upon her husband as her benefactor. I must add that he expressed it more nicely and politely than I have done, for I have forgotten his actual phrases and only remember the meaning. And, besides, it was obviously not said of design, but slipped out in the heat of conversation, so that he tried afterwards to correct himself and smooth it over, but all the same it did strike me as somewhat rude, and I said so afterwards to Dounia. But Dounia was vexed, and answered that 'words are not deeds,' and that, of course, is perfectly true. Dounia did not sleep all night before she made up her mind, and, thinking that I was asleep, she got out of bed and was walking up and down the room all night at last she knelt down before the ikon and prayed long and fervently and in the morning she told me that she had decided. 'I have mentioned already that Pyotr Petrovitch is just setting off for Petersburg, where he has a great deal of business, and he wants to open a legal bureau. He has been occupied for many years in conducting civil and commercial litigation, and only the other day he won an important case. He has to be in Petersburg because he has an important case before the Senate. So, Rodya dear, he may be of the greatest use to you, in every way indeed, and Dounia and I have agreed that from this very day you could definitely enter upon your career and might consider that your future is marked out and assured for you. Oh, if only this comes to pass! This would be such a benefit that we could only look upon it as a providential blessing. Dounia is dreaming of nothing else. We have even ventured already to drop a few words on the subject to Pyotr Petrovitch. He was cautious in his answer, and said that, of course, as he could not get on without a secretary, it would be better to be paying a salary to a relation than to a stranger, if only the former were fitted for the duties (as though there could be doubt of your being fitted!) but then he expressed doubts whether your studies at the university would leave you time for work at his office. The matter dropped for the time, but Dounia is thinking of nothing else now. She has been in a sort of fever for the last few days, and has already made a regular plan for your becoming in the end an associate and even a partner in Pyotr Petrovitch's business, which might well be, seeing that you are a student of law. I am in complete agreement with her, Rodya, and share all her plans and hopes, and think there is every probability of realising them. And in spite of Pyotr Petrovitch's evasiveness, very natural at present (since he does not know you), Dounia is firmly persuaded that she will gain everything by her good influence over her future husband this she is reckoning upon. Of course we are careful not to talk of any of these more remote plans to Pyotr Petrovitch, especially of your becoming his partner. He is a practical man and might take this very coldly, it might all seem to him simply a daydream. Nor has either Dounia or I breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have of his helping us to pay for your university studies we have not spoken of it in the first place, because it will come to pass of itself, later on, and he will no doubt without wasting words offer to do it of himself, (as though he could refuse Dounia that) the more readily since you may by your own efforts become his right hand in the office, and receive this assistance not as a charity, but as a salary earned by your own work. Dounia wants to arrange it all like this and I quite agree with her. And we have not spoken of our plans for another reason, that is, because I particularly wanted you to feel on an equal footing when you first meet him. When Dounia spoke to him with enthusiasm about you, he answered that one could never judge of a man without seeing him close, for oneself, and that he looked forward to forming his own opinion when he makes your acquaintance. Do you know, my precious Rodya, I think that perhaps for some reasons (nothing to do with Pyotr Petrovitch though, simply for my own personal, perhaps oldwomanish, fancies) I should do better to go on living by myself, apart, than with them, after the wedding. I am convinced that he will be generous and delicate enough to invite me and to urge me to remain with my daughter for the future, and if he has said nothing about it hitherto, it is simply because it has been taken for granted but I shall refuse. I have noticed more than once in my life that husbands don't quite get on with their mothersinlaw, and I don't want to be the least bit in anyone's way, and for my own sake, too, would rather be quite independent, so long as I have a crust of bread of my own, and such children as you and Dounia. If possible, I would settle somewhere near you, for the most joyful piece of news, dear Rodya, I have kept for the end of my letter know then, my dear boy, that we may, perhaps, be all together in a very short time and may embrace one another again after a separation of almost three years! It is settled for certain that Dounia and I are to set off for Petersburg, exactly when I don't know, but very, very soon, possibly in a week. It all depends on Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us know when he has had time to look round him in Petersburg. To suit his own arrangements he is anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible, even before the fast of Our Lady, if it could be managed, or if that is too soon to be ready, immediately after. Oh, with what happiness I shall press you to my heart! Dounia is all excitement at the joyful thought of seeing you, she said one day in joke that she would be ready to marry Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone. She is an angel! She is not writing anything to you now, and has only told me to write that she has so much, so much to tell you that she is not going to take up her pen now, for a few lines would tell you nothing, and it would only mean upsetting herself she bids me send you her love and innumerable kisses. But although we shall be meeting so soon, perhaps I shall send you as much money as I can in a day or two. Now that everyone has heard that Dounia is to marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my credit has suddenly improved and I know that Afanasy Ivanovitch will trust me now even to seventyfive roubles on the security of my pension, so that perhaps I shall be able to send you twentyfive or even thirty roubles. I would send you more, but I am uneasy about our travelling expenses for though Pyotr Petrovitch has been so kind as to undertake part of the expenses of the journey, that is to say, he has taken upon himself the conveyance of our bags and big trunk (which will be conveyed through some acquaintances of his), we must reckon upon some expense on our arrival in Petersburg, where we can't be left without a halfpenny, at least for the first few days. But we have calculated it all, Dounia and I, to the last penny, and we see that the journey will not cost very much. It is only ninety versts from us to the railway and we have come to an agreement with a driver we know, so as to be in readiness and from there Dounia and I can travel quite comfortably third class. So that I may very likely be able to send to you not twentyfive, but thirty roubles. But enough I have covered two sheets already and there is no space left for more our whole history, but so many events have happened! And now, my precious Rodya, I embrace you and send you a mother's blessing till we meet. Love Dounia your sister, Rodya love her as she loves you and understand that she loves you beyond everything, more than herself. She is an angel and you, Rodya, you are everything to usour one hope, our one consolation. If only you are happy, we shall be happy. Do you still say your prayers, Rodya, and believe in the mercy of our Creator and our Redeemer? I am afraid in my heart that you may have been visited by the new spirit of infidelity that is abroad today If it is so, I pray for you. Remember, dear boy, how in your childhood, when your father was living, you used to lisp your prayers at my knee, and how happy we all were in those days. Goodbye, till we meet thenI embrace you warmly, warmly, with many kisses. 'Yours till death, 'PULCHERIA RASKOLNIKOV. Almost from the first, while he read the letter, Raskolnikov's face was wet with tears but when he finished it, his face was pale and distorted and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid his head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and pondered, pondered a long time. His heart was beating violently, and his brain was in a turmoil. At last he felt cramped and stifled in the little yellow room that was like a cupboard or a box. His eyes and his mind craved for space. He took up his hat and went out, this time without dread of meeting anyone he had forgotten his dread. He turned in the direction of the Vassilyevsky Ostrov, walking along Vassilyevsky Prospect, as though hastening on some business, but he walked, as his habit was, without noticing his way, muttering and even speaking aloud to himself, to the astonishment of the passersby. Many of them took him to be drunk. His mother's letter had been a torture to him, but as regards the chief fact in it, he had felt not one moment's hesitation, even whilst he was reading the letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevocably settled, in his mind 'Never such a marriage while I am alive and Mr. Luzhin be damned! 'The thing is perfectly clear, he muttered to himself, with a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his decision. 'No, mother, no, Dounia, you won't deceive me! and then they apologise for not asking my advice and for taking the decision without me! I dare say! They imagine it is arranged now and can't be broken off but we will see whether it can or not! A magnificent excuse 'Pyotr Petrovitch is such a busy man that even his wedding has to be in posthaste, almost by express.' No, Dounia, I see it all and I know what you want to say to me and I know too what you were thinking about, when you walked up and down all night, and what your prayers were like before the Holy Mother of Kazan who stands in mother's bedroom. Bitter is the ascent to Golgotha.... Hm... so it is finally settled you have determined to marry a sensible business man, Avdotya Romanovna, one who has a fortune (has already made his fortune, that is so much more solid and impressive), a man who holds two government posts and who shares the ideas of our most rising generation, as mother writes, and who seems to be kind, as Dounia herself observes. That seems beats everything! And that very Dounia for that very 'seems' is marrying him! Splendid! splendid! '... But I should like to know why mother has written to me about 'our most rising generation'? Simply as a descriptive touch, or with the idea of prepossessing me in favour of Mr. Luzhin? Oh, the cunning of them! I should like to know one thing more how far they were open with one another that day and night and all this time since? Was it all put into words, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and better not to speak of it. Most likely it was partly like that, from mother's letter it's evident he struck her as rude a little, and mother in her simplicity took her observations to Dounia. And she was sure to be vexed and 'answered her angrily.' I should think so! Who would not be angered when it was quite clear without any nave questions and when it was understood that it was useless to discuss it. And why does she write to me, 'love Dounia, Rodya, and she loves you more than herself'? Has she a secret conscienceprick at sacrificing her daughter to her son? 'You are our one comfort, you are everything to us.' Oh, mother! His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if he had happened to meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment, he might have murdered him. 'Hm... yes, that's true, he continued, pursuing the whirling ideas that chased each other in his brain, 'it is true that 'it needs time and care to get to know a man,' but there is no mistake about Mr. Luzhin. The chief thing is he is 'a man of business and seems kind,' that was something, wasn't it, to send the bags and big box for them! A kind man, no doubt after that! But his bride and her mother are to drive in a peasant's cart covered with sacking (I know, I have been driven in it). No matter! It is only ninety versts and then they can 'travel very comfortably, third class,' for a thousand versts! Quite right, too. One must cut one's coat according to one's cloth, but what about you, Mr. Luzhin? She is your bride.... And you must be aware that her mother has to raise money on her pension for the journey. To be sure it's a matter of business, a partnership for mutual benefit, with equal shares and expensesfood and drink provided, but pay for your tobacco. The business man has got the better of them, too. The luggage will cost less than their fares and very likely go for nothing. How is it that they don't both see all that, or is it that they don't want to see? And they are pleased, pleased! And to think that this is only the first blossoming, and that the real fruits are to come! But what really matters is not the stinginess, is not the meanness, but the tone of the whole thing. For that will be the tone after marriage, it's a foretaste of it. And mother too, why should she be so lavish? What will she have by the time she gets to Petersburg? Three silver roubles or two 'paper ones' as she says.... that old woman... hm. What does she expect to live upon in Petersburg afterwards? She has her reasons already for guessing that she could not live with Dounia after the marriage, even for the first few months. The good man has no doubt let slip something on that subject also, though mother would deny it 'I shall refuse,' says she. On whom is she reckoning then? Is she counting on what is left of her hundred and twenty roubles of pension when Afanasy Ivanovitch's debt is paid? She knits woollen shawls and embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. And all her shawls don't add more than twenty roubles a year to her hundred and twenty, I know that. So she is building all her hopes all the time on Mr. Luzhin's generosity 'he will offer it of himself, he will press it on me.' You may wait a long time for that! That's how it always is with these Schilleresque noble hearts till the last moment every goose is a swan with them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and will see nothing wrong, and although they have an inkling of the other side of the picture, yet they won't face the truth till they are forced to the very thought of it makes them shiver they thrust the truth away with both hands, until the man they deck out in false colours puts a fool's cap on them with his own hands. I should like to know whether Mr. Luzhin has any orders of merit I bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and that he puts it on when he goes to dine with contractors or merchants. He will be sure to have it for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound him! 'Well,... mother I don't wonder at, it's like her, God bless her, but how could Dounia? Dounia darling, as though I did not know you! You were nearly twenty when I saw you last I understood you then. Mother writes that 'Dounia can put up with a great deal.' I know that very well. I knew that two years and a half ago, and for the last two and a half years I have been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that 'Dounia can put up with a great deal.' If she could put up with Mr. Svidrigalov and all the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a great deal. And now mother and she have taken it into their heads that she can put up with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory of the superiority of wives raised from destitution and owing everything to their husband's bountywho propounds it, too, almost at the first interview. Granted that he 'let it slip,' though he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it was not a slip at all, but he meant to make himself clear as soon as possible) but Dounia, Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but she will have to live with the man. Why! she'd live on black bread and water, she would not sell her soul, she would not barter her moral freedom for comfort she would not barter it for all SchleswigHolstein, much less Mr. Luzhin's money. No, Dounia was not that sort when I knew her and... she is still the same, of course! Yes, there's no denying, the Svidrigalovs are a bitter pill! It's a bitter thing to spend one's life a governess in the provinces for two hundred roubles, but I know she would rather be a nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German master than degrade her soul, and her moral dignity, by binding herself for ever to a man whom she does not respect and with whom she has nothing in commonfor her own advantage. And if Mr. Luzhin had been of unalloyed gold, or one huge diamond, she would never have consented to become his legal concubine. Why is she consenting then? What's the point of it? What's the answer? It's clear enough for herself, for her comfort, to save her life she would not sell herself, but for someone else she is doing it! For one she loves, for one she adores, she will sell herself! That's what it all amounts to for her brother, for her mother, she will sell herself! She will sell everything! In such cases, 'we overcome our moral feeling if necessary,' freedom, peace, conscience even, all, all are brought into the market. Let my life go, if only my dear ones may be happy! More than that, we become casuists, we learn to be Jesuitical and for a time maybe we can soothe ourselves, we can persuade ourselves that it is one's duty for a good object. That's just like us, it's as clear as daylight. It's clear that Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov is the central figure in the business, and no one else. Oh, yes, she can ensure his happiness, keep him in the university, make him a partner in the office, make his whole future secure perhaps he may even be a rich man later on, prosperous, respected, and may even end his life a famous man! But my mother? It's all Rodya, precious Rodya, her first born! For such a son who would not sacrifice such a daughter! Oh, loving, overpartial hearts! Why, for his sake we would not shrink even from Sonia's fate. Sonia, Sonia Marmeladov, the eternal victim so long as the world lasts. Have you taken the measure of your sacrifice, both of you? Is it right? Can you bear it? Is it any use? Is there sense in it? And let me tell you, Dounia, Sonia's life is no worse than life with Mr. Luzhin. 'There can be no question of love,' mother writes. And what if there can be no respect either, if on the contrary there is aversion, contempt, repulsion, what then? So you will have to 'keep up your appearance,' too. Is not that so? Do you understand what that smartness means? Do you understand that the Luzhin smartness is just the same thing as Sonia's and may be worse, viler, baser, because in your case, Dounia, it's a bargain for luxuries, after all, but with Sonia it's simply a question of starvation. It has to be paid for, it has to be paid for, Dounia, this smartness. And what if it's more than you can bear afterwards, if you regret it? The bitterness, the misery, the curses, the tears hidden from all the world, for you are not a Marfa Petrovna. And how will your mother feel then? Even now she is uneasy, she is worried, but then, when she sees it all clearly? And I? Yes, indeed, what have you taken me for? I won't have your sacrifice, Dounia, I won't have it, mother! It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it shall not, it shall not! I won't accept it! He suddenly paused in his reflection and stood still. 'It shall not be? But what are you going to do to prevent it? You'll forbid it? And what right have you? What can you promise them on your side to give you such a right? Your whole life, your whole future, you will devote to them when you have finished your studies and obtained a post? Yes, we have heard all that before, and that's all words, but now? Now something must be done, now, do you understand that? And what are you doing now? You are living upon them. They borrow on their hundred roubles pension. They borrow from the Svidrigalovs. How are you going to save them from Svidrigalovs, from Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, oh, future millionaire Zeus who would arrange their lives for them? In another ten years? In another ten years, mother will be blind with knitting shawls, maybe with weeping too. She will be worn to a shadow with fasting and my sister? Imagine for a moment what may have become of your sister in ten years? What may happen to her during those ten years? Can you fancy? So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such questions, and finding a kind of enjoyment in it. And yet all these questions were not new ones suddenly confronting him, they were old familiar aches. It was long since they had first begun to grip and rend his heart. Long, long ago his present anguish had its first beginnings it had waxed and gathered strength, it had matured and concentrated, until it had taken the form of a fearful, frenzied and fantastic question, which tortured his heart and mind, clamouring insistently for an answer. Now his mother's letter had burst on him like a thunderclap. It was clear that he must not now suffer passively, worrying himself over unsolved questions, but that he must do something, do it at once, and do it quickly. Anyway he must decide on something, or else... 'Or throw up life altogether! he cried suddenly, in a frenzy'accept one's lot humbly as it is, once for all and stifle everything in oneself, giving up all claim to activity, life and love! 'Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? Marmeladov's question came suddenly into his mind, 'for every man must have somewhere to turn.... He gave a sudden start another thought, that he had had yesterday, slipped back into his mind. But he did not start at the thought recurring to him, for he knew, he had felt beforehand, that it must come back, he was expecting it besides it was not only yesterday's thought. The difference was that a month ago, yesterday even, the thought was a mere dream but now... now it appeared not a dream at all, it had taken a new menacing and quite unfamiliar shape, and he suddenly became aware of this himself.... He felt a hammering in his head, and there was a darkness before his eyes. He looked round hurriedly, he was searching for something. He wanted to sit down and was looking for a seat he was walking along the K Boulevard. There was a seat about a hundred paces in front of him. He walked towards it as fast he could but on the way he met with a little adventure which absorbed all his attention. Looking for the seat, he had noticed a woman walking some twenty paces in front of him, but at first he took no more notice of her than of other objects that crossed his path. It had happened to him many times going home not to notice the road by which he was going, and he was accustomed to walk like that. But there was at first sight something so strange about the woman in front of him, that gradually his attention was riveted upon her, at first reluctantly and, as it were, resentfully, and then more and more intently. He felt a sudden desire to find out what it was that was so strange about the woman. In the first place, she appeared to be a girl quite young, and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded and with no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in an absurd way. She had on a dress of some light silky material, but put on strangely awry, not properly hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt, close to the waist a great piece was rent and hanging loose. A little kerchief was flung about her bare throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was walking unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from side to side. She drew Raskolnikov's whole attention at last. He overtook the girl at the seat, but, on reaching it, she dropped down on it, in the corner she let her head sink on the back of the seat and closed her eyes, apparently in extreme exhaustion. Looking at her closely, he saw at once that she was completely drunk. It was a strange and shocking sight. He could hardly believe that he was not mistaken. He saw before him the face of a quite young, fairhaired girlsixteen, perhaps not more than fifteen, years old, pretty little face, but flushed and heavy looking and, as it were, swollen. The girl seemed hardly to know what she was doing she crossed one leg over the other, lifting it indecorously, and showed every sign of being unconscious that she was in the street. Raskolnikov did not sit down, but he felt unwilling to leave her, and stood facing her in perplexity. This boulevard was never much frequented and now, at two o'clock, in the stifling heat, it was quite deserted. And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about fifteen paces away, a gentleman was standing on the edge of the pavement. He, too, would apparently have liked to approach the girl with some object of his own. He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and had followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way. He looked angrily at him, though he tried to escape his notice, and stood impatiently biding his time, till the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away. His intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was a plump, thicklyset man, about thirty, fashionably dressed, with a high colour, red lips and moustaches. Raskolnikov felt furious he had a sudden longing to insult this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and walked towards the gentleman. 'Hey! You Svidrigalov! What do you want here? he shouted, clenching his fists and laughing, spluttering with rage. 'What do you mean? the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in haughty astonishment. 'Get away, that's what I mean. 'How dare you, you low fellow! He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without reflecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like himself. But at that instant someone seized him from behind, and a police constable stood between them. 'That's enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in a public place. What do you want? Who are you? he asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his rags. Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straightforward, sensible, soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers. 'You are just the man I want, Raskolnikov cried, catching at his arm. 'I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too, he added, addressing the gentleman, 'come along, I have something to show you. And taking the policeman by the hand he drew him towards the seat. 'Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just come down the boulevard. There is no telling who and what she is, she does not look like a professional. It's more likely she has been given drink and deceived somewhere... for the first time... you understand? and they've put her out into the street like that. Look at the way her dress is torn, and the way it has been put on she has been dressed by somebody, she has not dressed herself, and dressed by unpractised hands, by a man's hands that's evident. And now look there I don't know that dandy with whom I was going to fight, I see him for the first time, but he, too, has seen her on the road, just now, drunk, not knowing what she is doing, and now he is very eager to get hold of her, to get her away somewhere while she is in this state... that's certain, believe me, I am not wrong. I saw him myself watching her and following her, but I prevented him, and he is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has walked away a little, and is standing still, pretending to make a cigarette.... Think how can we keep her out of his hands, and how are we to get her home? The policeman saw it all in a flash. The stout gentleman was easy to understand, he turned to consider the girl. The policeman bent over to examine her more closely, and his face worked with genuine compassion. 'Ah, what a pity! he said, shaking his head'why, she is quite a child! She has been deceived, you can see that at once. Listen, lady, he began addressing her, 'where do you live? The girl opened her weary and sleepylooking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker and waved her hand. 'Here, said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and finding twenty copecks, 'here, call a cab and tell him to drive her to her address. The only thing is to find out her address! 'Missy, missy! the policeman began again, taking the money. 'I'll fetch you a cab and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where do you live? 'Go away! They won't let me alone, the girl muttered, and once more waved her hand. 'Ach, ach, how shocking! It's shameful, missy, it's a shame! He shook his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant. 'It's a difficult job, the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he did so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have seemed a strange figure to him dressed in rags and handing him money! 'Did you meet her far from here? he asked him. 'I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in the boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it. 'Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God have mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She has been deceived, that's a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn too.... Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs to gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that nowadays. She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady, and he bent over her once more. Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, 'looking like ladies and refined with pretensions to gentility and smartness.... 'The chief thing is, Raskolnikov persisted, 'to keep her out of this scoundrel's hands! Why should he outrage her! It's as clear as day what he is after ah, the brute, he is not moving off! Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard him, and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and confined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly another ten paces away and again halted. 'Keep her out of his hands we can, said the constable thoughtfully, 'if only she'd tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey, missy! he bent over her once more. She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in the direction from which she had come. 'Oh shameful wretches, they won't let me alone! she said, waving her hand again. She walked quickly, though staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along another avenue, keeping his eye on her. 'Don't be anxious, I won't let him have her, the policeman said resolutely, and he set off after them. 'Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! he repeated aloud, sighing. At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov in an instant a complete revulsion of feeling came over him. 'Hey, here! he shouted after the policeman. The latter turned round. 'Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse himself. He pointed at the dandy, 'What is it to do with you? The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him openeyed. Raskolnikov laughed. 'Well! ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or something even worse. 'He has carried off my twenty copecks, Raskolnikov murmured angrily when he was left alone. 'Well, let him take as much from the other fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did I want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let them devour each other alivewhat is it to me? How did I dare to give him twenty copecks? Were they mine? In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard to fix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life anew.... 'Poor girl! he said, looking at the empty corner where she had sat'She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find out.... She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and then maybe, turn her out of doors.... And even if she does not, the Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital directly (that's always the luck of those girls with respectable mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then... again the hospital... drink... the taverns... and more hospital, in two or three yearsa wreck, and her life over at eighteen or nineteen.... Have not I seen cases like that? And how have they been brought to it? Why, they've all come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it matter? That's as it should be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words they have they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you've said 'percentage' there's nothing more to worry about. If we had any other word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one of the percentage! Of another one if not that one? 'But where am I going? he thought suddenly. 'Strange, I came out for something. As soon as I had read the letter I came out.... I was going to Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That's what it was... now I remember. What for, though? And what put the idea of going to Razumihin into my head just now? That's curious. He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his old comrades at the university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had hardly any friends at the university he kept aloof from everyone, went to see no one, and did not welcome anyone who came to see him, and indeed everyone soon gave him up. He took no part in the students' gatherings, amusements or conversations. He worked with great intensity without sparing himself, and he was respected for this, but no one liked him. He was very poor, and there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though he were keeping something to himself. He seemed to some of his comrades to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in development, knowledge and convictions, as though their beliefs and interests were beneath him. With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was more unreserved and communicative with him. Indeed it was impossible to be on any other terms with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally goodhumoured and candid youth, goodnatured to the point of simplicity, though both depth and dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his comrades understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely intelligent, though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking appearancetall, thin, blackhaired and always badly shaved. He was sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical strength. One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one blow laid a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no limit to his drinking powers, but he could abstain from drink altogether he sometimes went too far in his pranks but he could do without pranks altogether. Another thing striking about Razumihin, no failure distressed him, and it seemed as though no unfavourable circumstances could crush him. He could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of cold and hunger. He was very poor, and kept himself entirely on what he could earn by work of one sort or another. He knew of no end of resources by which to earn money. He spent one whole winter without lighting his stove, and used to declare that he liked it better, because one slept more soundly in the cold. For the present he, too, had been obliged to give up the university, but it was only for a time, and he was working with all his might to save enough to return to his studies again. Raskolnikov had not been to see him for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even know his address. About two months before, they had met in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side that he might not be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he passed him by, as he did not want to annoy him. 'Of course, I've been meaning lately to go to Razumihin's to ask for work, to ask him to get me lessons or something... Raskolnikov thought, 'but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons... hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I earn? That's not what I want now. It's really absurd for me to go to Razumihin.... The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more than he was himself aware he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister significance in this apparently ordinary action. 'Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by means of Razumihin alone? he asked himself in perplexity. He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic thought came into his head. 'Hm... to Razumihin's, he said all at once, calmly, as though he had reached a final determination. 'I shall go to Razumihin's of course, but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It will be over and everything will begin afresh.... And suddenly he realised what he was thinking. 'After It, he shouted, jumping up from the seat, 'but is It really going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen? He left the seat, and went off almost at a run he meant to turn back, homewards, but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all this had for a month past been growing up in him and he walked on at random. His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel shivering in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his attention but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round, he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted summer villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through the fence, he saw in the distance smartly dressed women on the verandahs and balconies, and children running in the gardens. The flowers especially caught his attention he gazed at them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by luxurious carriages and by men and women on horseback he watched them with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had vanished from his sight. Once he stood still and counted his money he found he had thirty copecks. 'Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must have given fortyseven or fifty to the Marmeladovs yesterday, he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he soon forgot with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket. He recalled it on passing an eatinghouse or tavern, and felt that he was hungry.... Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep. In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truthlike and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system. Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his childhood in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven years old, walking into the country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he remembered it indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than he had done in memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not even a willow near it only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his father. There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse, hideous hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horriblelooking figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to cling close to his father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the tavern the road became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black. It was a winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a stone church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass two or three times a year with his father and mother, when a service was held in memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and whom he had never seen. On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it in the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the oldfashioned, unadorned ikons and the old priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother's grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of his younger brother who had died at six months old. He did not remember him at all, but he had been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited the graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself and to bow down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he was walking with his father past the tavern on the way to the graveyard he was holding his father's hand and looking with dread at the tavern. A peculiar circumstance attracted his attention there seemed to be some kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riffraff of all sorts, all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those big carts usually drawn by heavy carthorses and laden with casks of wine or other heavy goods. He always liked looking at those great carthorses, with their long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along a perfect mountain with no appearance of effort, as though it were easier going with a load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants' nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in a rut. And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of shouting, singing and the balalaka, and from the tavern a number of big and very drunken peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over their shoulders. 'Get in, get in! shouted one of them, a young thicknecked peasant with a fleshy face red as a carrot. 'I'll take you all, get in! But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in the crowd. 'Take us all with a beast like that! 'Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart? 'And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates! 'Get in, I'll take you all, Mikolka shouted again, leaping first into the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. 'The bay has gone with Matvey, he shouted from the cart'and this brute, mates, is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She's just eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I'll make her gallop! She'll gallop! and he picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to flog the little mare. 'Get in! Come along! The crowd laughed. 'D'you hear, she'll gallop! 'Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years! 'She'll jog along! 'Don't you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready! 'All right! Give it to her! They all clambered into Mikolka's cart, laughing and making jokes. Six men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat, rosycheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded headdress and thick leather shoes she was cracking nuts and laughing. The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at a gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips ready to help Mikolka. With the cry of 'now, the mare tugged with all her might, but far from galloping, could scarcely move forward she struggled with her legs, gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three whips which were showered upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed the mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop. 'Let me get in, too, mates, shouted a young man in the crowd whose appetite was aroused. 'Get in, all get in, cried Mikolka, 'she will draw you all. I'll beat her to death! And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself with fury. 'Father, father, he cried, 'father, what are they doing? Father, they are beating the poor horse! 'Come along, come along! said his father. 'They are drunken and foolish, they are in fun come away, don't look! and he tried to draw him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling. 'Beat her to death, cried Mikolka, 'it's come to that. I'll do for her! 'What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil? shouted an old man in the crowd. 'Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a cartload, said another. 'You'll kill her, shouted the third. 'Don't meddle! It's my property, I'll do what I choose. Get in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!... All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything the mare, roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that trying to kick! Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her about the ribs. One ran each side. 'Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes, cried Mikolka. 'Give us a song, mates, shouted someone in the cart and everyone in the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The woman went on cracking nuts and laughing. ... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he rushed up to the greyheaded old man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more. 'I'll teach you to kick, Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a long, thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an effort brandished it over the mare. 'He'll crush her, was shouted round him. 'He'll kill her! 'It's my property, shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with a swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud. 'Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped? shouted voices in the crowd. And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but lurched forward and tugged forward with all her force, tugged first on one side and then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft was raised again and fell upon her a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow. 'She's a tough one, was shouted in the crowd. 'She'll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end of her, said an admiring spectator in the crowd. 'Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off, shouted a third. 'I'll show you! Stand off, Mikolka screamed frantically he threw down the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked up an iron crowbar. 'Look out, he shouted, and with all his might he dealt a stunning blow at the poor mare. The blow fell the mare staggered, sank back, tried to pull, but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on the ground like a log. 'Finish her off, shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside himself, out of the cart. Several young men, also flushed with drink, seized anything they could come acrosswhips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began dealing random blows with the crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died. 'You butchered her, someone shouted in the crowd. 'Why wouldn't she gallop then? 'My property! shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes, brandishing the bar in his hands. He stood as though regretting that he had nothing more to beat. 'No mistake about it, you are not a Christian, many voices were shouting in the crowd. But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming, through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head and kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.... Then he jumped up and flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka. At that instant his father, who had been running after him, snatched him up and carried him out of the crowd. 'Come along, come! Let us go home, he said to him. 'Father! Why did they... kill... the poor horse! he sobbed, but his voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest. 'They are drunk.... They are brutal... it's not our business! said his father. He put his arms round his father but he felt choked, choked. He tried to draw a breath, to cry outand woke up. He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with perspiration, and stood up in terror. 'Thank God, that was only a dream, he said, sitting down under a tree and drawing deep breaths. 'But what is it? Is it some fever coming on? Such a hideous dream! He felt utterly broken darkness and confusion were in his soul. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands. 'Good God! he cried, 'can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble hide, all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it be? He was shaking like a leaf as he said this. 'But why am I going on like this? he continued, sitting up again, as it were in profound amazement. 'I knew that I could never bring myself to it, so what have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday, yesterday, when I went to make that... experiment, yesterday I realised completely that I could never bear to do it.... Why am I going over it again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came down the stairs yesterday, I said myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile... the very thought of it made me feel sick and filled me with horror. 'No, I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it! Granted, granted that there is no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last month is clear as day, true as arithmetic.... My God! Anyway I couldn't bring myself to it! I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it! Why, why then am I still...? He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though surprised at finding himself in this place, and went towards the bridge. He was pale, his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he seemed suddenly to breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful burden that had so long been weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense of relief and peace in his soul. 'Lord, he prayed, 'show me my pathI renounce that accursed... dream of mine. Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the Neva, at the glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he was not conscious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had been forming for a month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom, freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession! Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him during those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was superstitiously impressed by one circumstance, which, though in itself not very exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the predestined turningpoint of his fate. He could never understand and explain to himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would have been more convenient for him to go home by the shortest and most direct way, he had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much so. It is true that it happened to him dozens of times to return home without noticing what streets he passed through. But why, he was always asking himself, why had such an important, such a decisive and at the same time such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay Market (where he had moreover no reason to go) at the very hour, the very minute of his life when he was just in the very mood and in the very circumstances in which that meeting was able to exert the gravest and most decisive influence on his whole destiny? As though it had been lying in wait for him on purpose! It was about nine o'clock when he crossed the Hay Market. At the tables and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, all the market people were closing their establishments or clearing away and packing up their wares and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers and costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the taverns in the dirty and stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov particularly liked this place and the neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aimlessly in the streets. Here his rags did not attract contemptuous attention, and one could walk about in any attire without scandalising people. At the corner of an alley a huckster and his wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread, cotton handkerchiefs, etc. They, too, had got up to go home, but were lingering in conversation with a friend, who had just come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as everyone called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his watch and make his experiment.... He already knew all about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too. She was a single woman of about thirtyfive, tall, clumsy, timid, submissive and almost idiotic. She was a complete slave and went in fear and trembling of her sister, who made her work day and night, and even beat her. She was standing with a bundle before the huckster and his wife, listening earnestly and doubtfully. They were talking of something with special warmth. The moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome by a strange sensation as it were of intense astonishment, though there was nothing astonishing about this meeting. 'You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna, the huckster was saying aloud. 'Come round tomorrow about seven. They will be here too. 'Tomorrow? said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as though unable to make up her mind. 'Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona Ivanovna, gabbled the huckster's wife, a lively little woman. 'I look at you, you are like some little babe. And she is not your own sister eithernothing but a stepsister and what a hand she keeps over you! 'But this time don't say a word to Alyona Ivanovna, her husband interrupted 'that's my advice, but come round to us without asking. It will be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may have a notion. 'Am I to come? 'About seven o'clock tomorrow. And they will be here. You will be able to decide for yourself. 'And we'll have a cup of tea, added his wife. 'All right, I'll come, said Lizaveta, still pondering, and she began slowly moving away. Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He passed softly, unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His first amazement was followed by a thrill of horror, like a shiver running down his spine. He had learnt, he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at seven o'clock Lizaveta, the old woman's sister and only companion, would be away from home and that therefore at seven o'clock precisely the old woman would be left alone. He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in like a man condemned to death. He thought of nothing and was incapable of thinking but he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably decided. Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable opportunity, he could not reckon on a more certain step towards the success of the plan than that which had just presented itself. In any case, it would have been difficult to find out beforehand and with certainty, with greater exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries and investigations, that next day at a certain time an old woman, on whose life an attempt was contemplated, would be at home and entirely alone. Later on Raskolnikov happened to find out why the huckster and his wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a very ordinary matter and there was nothing exceptional about it. A family who had come to the town and been reduced to poverty were selling their household goods and clothes, all women's things. As the things would have fetched little in the market, they were looking for a dealer. This was Lizaveta's business. She undertook such jobs and was frequently employed, as she was very honest and always fixed a fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule little and, as we have said already, she was very submissive and timid. But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late. The traces of superstition remained in him long after, and were almost ineradicable. And in all this he was always afterwards disposed to see something strange and mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar influences and coincidences. In the previous winter a student he knew called Pokorev, who had left for Harkov, had chanced in conversation to give him the address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case he might want to pawn anything. For a long while he did not go to her, for he had lessons and managed to get along somehow. Six weeks ago he had remembered the address he had two articles that could be pawned his father's old silver watch and a little gold ring with three red stones, a present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the ring. When he found the old woman he had felt an insurmountable repulsion for her at the first glance, though he knew nothing special about her. He got two roubles from her and went into a miserable little tavern on his way home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into deep thought. A strange idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very, very much absorbed him. Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a student, whom he did not know and had never seen, and with him a young officer. They had played a game of billiards and began drinking tea. All at once he heard the student mention to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and give him her address. This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov he had just come from her and here at once he heard her name. Of course it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very extraordinary impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking expressly for him the student began telling his friend various details about Alyona Ivanovna. 'She is firstrate, he said. 'You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy.... And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if you were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost how she gave a quarter of the value of an article and took five and even seven percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child, though Lizaveta was at least six feet high. 'There's a phenomenon for you, cried the student and he laughed. They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke about her with a peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the officer listened with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her halfsister, being the child of a different mother. She was thirtyfive. She worked day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job of any kind without her sister's permission. The old woman had already made her will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a farthing nothing but the movables, chairs and so on all the money was left to a monastery in the province of N, that prayers might be said for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister, unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with long feet that looked as if they were bent outwards. She always wore battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student expressed most surprise and amusement about was the fact that Lizaveta was continually with child. 'But you say she is hideous? observed the officer. 'Yes, she is so darkskinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but you know she is not at all hideous. She has such a goodnatured face and eyes. Strikingly so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up with anything, always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is really very sweet. 'You seem to find her attractive yourself, laughed the officer. 'From her queerness. No, I'll tell you what. I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscienceprick, the student added with warmth. The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was! 'Listen, I want to ask you a serious question, the student said hotly. 'I was joking of course, but look here on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You understand? You understand? 'Yes, yes, I understand, answered the officer, watching his excited companion attentively. 'Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman's money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitalsand all with her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchangeit's simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, illnatured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of a blackbeetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of others the other day she bit Lizaveta's finger out of spite it almost had to be amputated. 'Of course she does not deserve to live, remarked the officer, 'but there it is, it's nature. 'Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there would never have been a single great man. They talk of duty, conscienceI don't want to say anything against duty and consciencebut the point is, what do we mean by them? Stay, I have another question to ask you. Listen! 'No, you stay, I'll ask you a question. Listen! 'Well? 'You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the old woman yourself? 'Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it.... It's nothing to do with me.... 'But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there's no justice about it.... Let us have another game. Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain was just conceiving... the very same ideas? And why, just at the moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern had an immense influence on him in his later action as though there had really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint.... On returning from the Hay Market he flung himself on the sofa and sat for a whole hour without stirring. Meanwhile it got dark he had no candle and, indeed, it did not occur to him to light up. He could never recollect whether he had been thinking about anything at that time. At last he was conscious of his former fever and shivering, and he realised with relief that he could lie down on the sofa. Soon heavy, leaden sleep came over him, as it were crushing him. He slept an extraordinarily long time and without dreaming. Nastasya, coming into his room at ten o'clock the next morning, had difficulty in rousing him. She brought him in tea and bread. The tea was again the second brew and again in her own teapot. 'My goodness, how he sleeps! she cried indignantly. 'And he is always asleep. He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood up, took a turn in his garret and sank back on the sofa again. 'Going to sleep again, cried Nastasya. 'Are you ill, eh? He made no reply. 'Do you want some tea? 'Afterwards, he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and turning to the wall. Nastasya stood over him. 'Perhaps he really is ill, she said, turned and went out. She came in again at two o'clock with soup. He was lying as before. The tea stood untouched. Nastasya felt positively offended and began wrathfully rousing him. 'Why are you lying like a log? she shouted, looking at him with repulsion. He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and stared at the floor. 'Are you ill or not? asked Nastasya and again received no answer. 'You'd better go out and get a breath of air, she said after a pause. 'Will you eat it or not? 'Afterwards, he said weakly. 'You can go. And he motioned her out. She remained a little longer, looked at him with compassion and went out. A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked for a long while at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took up a spoon and began to eat. He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as it were mechanically. His head ached less. After his meal he stretched himself on the sofa again, but now he could not sleep he lay without stirring, with his face in the pillow. He was haunted by daydreams and such strange daydreams in one, that kept recurring, he fancied that he was in Africa, in Egypt, in some sort of oasis. The caravan was resting, the camels were peacefully lying down the palms stood all around in a complete circle all the party were at dinner. But he was drinking water from a spring which flowed gurgling close by. And it was so cool, it was wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water running among the particoloured stones and over the clean sand which glistened here and there like gold.... Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started, roused himself, raised his head, looked out of the window, and seeing how late it was, suddenly jumped up wide awake as though someone had pulled him off the sofa. He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began listening on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was quiet on the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to him strange and monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetfulness from the previous day and had done nothing, had prepared nothing yet.... And meanwhile perhaps it had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted haste. But the preparations to be made were few. He concentrated all his energies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing and his heart kept beating and thumping so that he could hardly breathe. First he had to make a noose and sew it into his overcoata work of a moment. He rummaged under his pillow and picked out amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a worn out, old unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple of inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer overcoat of some stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and began sewing the two ends of the rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed outside when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread he had got ready long before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As for the noose, it was a very ingenious device of his own the noose was intended for the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through the street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he would still have had to support it with his hand, which would have been noticeable. Now he had only to put the head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang quietly under his arm on the inside. Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he could hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did not swing and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it could not be seen from outside that he was holding something with the hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a fortnight before. When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a little opening between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the left corner and drew out the pledge, which he had got ready long before and hidden there. This pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth piece of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street. Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and recrossing the thread round them then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first minute that the 'thing was made of wood. All this had been stored by him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out when he heard someone suddenly about in the yard. 'It struck six long ago. 'Long ago! My God! He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the most important thing to doto steal the axe from the kitchen. That the deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a pocket pruningknife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less on his own strength, and so resolved finally on the axe. We may note in passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by him in the matter they had one strange characteristic the more final they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at once became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he never for a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out of his plans. And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point could have been considered and finally settled, and no uncertainty of any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all as something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting the axe, that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier. Nastasya was continually out of the house, especially in the evenings she would run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the door ajar. It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her about. And so, when the time came, he would only have to go quietly into the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later (when everything was over) go in and put it back again. But these were doubtful points. Supposing he returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had come back and was on the spot. He would of course have to go by and wait till she went out again. But supposing she were in the meantime to miss the axe, look for it, make an outcrythat would mean suspicion or at least grounds for suspicion. But those were all trifles which he had not even begun to consider, and indeed he had no time. He was thinking of the chief point, and put off trifling details, until he could believe in it all. But that seemed utterly unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least. He could not imagine, for instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply go there.... Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an attempt at an experiment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say 'come, let us go and try itwhy dream about it!and at once he had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself. Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question, that his analysis was complete his casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he could not find rational objections in himself. But in the last resort he simply ceased to believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though someone were forcing and drawing him to it. At firstlong before indeedhe had been much occupied with one question why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily detected, and why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in his opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material impossibility of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost every criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually and reached its highest point just before the perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The question whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide. When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case there could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will would remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the simple reason that his design was 'not a crime.... We will omit all the process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion we have run too far ahead already.... We may add only that the practical, purely material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary position in his mind. 'One has but to keep all one's willpower and reason to deal with them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business.... But this preparation had never been begun. His final decisions were what he came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly. One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even left the staircase. When he reached the landlady's kitchen, the door of which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in Nastasya's absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out when he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he suddenly saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line. Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at him all the time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked past as though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything he had not the axe! He was overwhelmed. 'What made me think, he reflected, as he went under the gateway, 'what made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that moment! Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly? He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at himself in his anger.... A dull animal rage boiled within him. He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk for appearance' sake was revolting to go back to his room, even more revolting. 'And what a chance I have lost for ever! he muttered, standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite the porter's little dark room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter's room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to the right caught his eye.... He looked about himnobody. He approached the room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called the porter. 'Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though, in the yard, for the door is wide open. He dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it out from under the bench, where it lay between two chunks of wood at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both hands into his pockets and went out of the room no one had noticed him! 'When reason fails, the devil helps! he thought with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily. He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passersby, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. 'Good heavens! I had the money the day before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead! A curse rose from the bottom of his soul. Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from the other side.... When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not very much afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His mind was even occupied by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the building of great fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the summer garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhaps joined to the garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a great benefit to the town. Then he was interested by the question why in all great towns men are not simply driven by necessity, but in some peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the town where there are no gardens nor fountains where there is most dirt and smell and all sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through the Hay Market came back to his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality. 'What nonsense! he thought, 'better think of nothing at all! 'So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at every object that meets them on the way, flashed through his mind, but simply flashed, like lightning he made haste to dismiss this thought.... And by now he was near here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a clock somewhere struck once. 'What! can it be halfpast seven? Impossible, it must be fast! Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very moment, as though expressly for his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had just driven in at the gate, completely screening him as he passed under the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through into the yard, before he had slipped in a flash to the right. On the other side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling but no one noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his headhe had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old woman's room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was already on the stairs.... Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throbbing heart, and once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight, he began softly and cautiously ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the stairs, too, were quite deserted all the doors were shut he met no one. One flat indeed on the first floor was wide open and painters were at work in it, but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought a minute and went on. 'Of course it would be better if they had not been here, but... it's two storeys above them. And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here was the flat opposite, the empty one. The flat underneath the old woman's was apparently empty also the visiting card nailed on the door had been torn offthey had gone away!... He was out of breath. For one instant the thought floated through his mind 'Shall I go back? But he made no answer and began listening at the old woman's door, a dead silence. Then he listened again on the staircase, listened long and intently... then looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together, drew himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. 'Am I very pale? he wondered. 'Am I not evidently agitated? She is mistrustful.... Had I better wait a little longer... till my heart leaves off thumping? But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as though to spite him, it throbbed more and more violently. He could stand it no longer, he slowly put out his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he rang again, more loudly. No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of place. The old woman was, of course, at home, but she was suspicious and alone. He had some knowledge of her habits... and once more he put his ear to the door. Either his senses were peculiarly keen (which it is difficult to suppose), or the sound was really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly heard something like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the rustle of a skirt at the very door. Someone was standing stealthily close to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door.... He moved a little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have the appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly, and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever he could not make out how he had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and he was almost unconscious of his body.... An instant later he heard the latch unfastened. The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost his head and nearly made a great mistake. Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their being alone, and not hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the door and drew it towards him to prevent the old woman from attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back, but she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her out with it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway not allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped back in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and stared with open eyes at him. 'Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna, he began, trying to speak easily, but his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. 'I have come... I have brought something... but we'd better come in... to the light.... And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited. The old woman ran after him her tongue was unloosed. 'Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want? 'Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me... Raskolnikov... here, I brought you the pledge I promised the other day... And he held out the pledge. The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once stared in the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and mistrustfully. A minute passed he even fancied something like a sneer in her eyes, as though she had already guessed everything. He felt that he was losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened that if she were to look like that and not say a word for another half minute, he thought he would have run away from her. 'Why do you look at me as though you did not know me? he said suddenly, also with malice. 'Take it if you like, if not I'll go elsewhere, I am in a hurry. He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor's resolute tone evidently restored her confidence. 'But why, my good sir, all of a minute.... What is it? she asked, looking at the pledge. 'The silver cigarette case I spoke of it last time, you know. She held out her hand. 'But how pale you are, to be sure... and your hands are trembling too? Have you been bathing, or what? 'Fever, he answered abruptly. 'You can't help getting pale... if you've nothing to eat, he added, with difficulty articulating the words. His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the truth the old woman took the pledge. 'What is it? she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov intently, and weighing the pledge in her hand. 'A thing... cigarette case.... Silver.... Look at it. 'It does not seem somehow like silver.... How he has wrapped it up! Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling heat), she left him altogether for some seconds and stood with her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and fall.... A sudden giddiness came over him. 'But what has he tied it up like this for? the old woman cried with vexation and moved towards him. He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once brought the axe down, his strength returned to him. The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat's tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held 'the pledge. Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively. He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)the same righthand pocket from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get smeared with blood.... He pulled out the keys at once, they were all, as before, in one bunch on a steel ring. He ran at once into the bedroom with them. It was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy images. Against the other wall stood a big bed, very clean and covered with a silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of drawers. Strange to say, so soon as he began to fit the keys into the chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed over him. He suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away. But that was only for an instant it was too late to go back. He positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another terrifying idea occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be still alive and might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest, he ran back to the body, snatched up the axe and lifted it once more over the old woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that she was dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw clearly that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side. He was about to feel it with his finger, but drew back his hand and indeed it was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a perfect pool of blood. All at once he noticed a string on her neck he tugged at it, but the string was strong and did not snap and besides, it was soaked with blood. He tried to pull it out from the front of the dress, but something held it and prevented its coming. In his impatience he raised the axe again to cut the string from above on the body, but did not dare, and with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in the blood, after two minutes' hurried effort, he cut the string and took it off without touching the body with the axe he was not mistakenit was a purse. On the string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of copper, and an image in silver filigree, and with them a small greasy chamois leather purse with a steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed very full Raskolnikov thrust it in his pocket without looking at it, flung the crosses on the old woman's body and rushed back into the bedroom, this time taking the axe with him. He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and began trying them again. But he was unsuccessful. They would not fit in the locks. It was not so much that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making mistakes though he saw for instance that a key was not the right one and would not fit, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered and realised that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging there with the small keys could not possibly belong to the chest of drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to some strong box, and that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He left the chest of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old women usually keep boxes under their beds. And so it was there was a goodsized box under the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid covered with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched key fitted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was a coat of red brocade lined with hareskin under it was a silk dress, then a shawl and it seemed as though there was nothing below but clothes. The first thing he did was to wipe his bloodstained hands on the red brocade. 'It's red, and on red blood will be less noticeable, the thought passed through his mind then he suddenly came to himself. 'Good God, am I going out of my senses? he thought with terror. But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped from under the fur coat. He made haste to turn them all over. There turned out to be various articles made of gold among the clothesprobably all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be redeemedbracelets, chains, earrings, pins and such things. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, and tied round with tape. Without any delay, he began filling up the pockets of his trousers and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels and cases but he had not time to take many.... He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman lay. He stopped short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have been his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as though someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for a minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited holding his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of the bedroom. In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her arms. She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing him run out of the bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a shudder ran down her face she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but still did not scream. She began slowly backing away from him into the corner, staring intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no sound, as though she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her with the axe her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies' mouths, when they begin to be frightened, stare intently at what frightens them and are on the point of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so simple and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that she did not even raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face. She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly holding it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his head, snatching up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry. Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even into the room for anything in the world. But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take possession of him at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he bethought him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood. He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the blade and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where there were spots of blood rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen and then he was a long while attentively examining the axe at the window. There was no trace left on it, only the wood was still damp. He carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then as far as was possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he looked over his overcoat, his trousers and his boots. At the first glance there seemed to be nothing but stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the boots. But he knew he was not looking thoroughly, that there might be something quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the middle of the room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas rose in his mindthe idea that he was mad and that at that moment he was incapable of reasoning, of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something utterly different from what he was now doing. 'Good God! he muttered 'I must fly, fly, and he rushed into the entry. But here a shock of terror awaited him such as he had never known before. He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes the door, the outer door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung, was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt, all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall! He dashed to the door and fastened the latch. 'But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away.... He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the staircase. He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the gateway, two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. 'What are they about? He waited patiently. At last all was still, as though suddenly cut off they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. 'How is it they all make such a noise? flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps. The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but he remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the first sound he began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming there, to the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now he had passed the first floor, now he was mounting higher, it was growing more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And now the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to him all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is rooted to the spot and cannot even move one's arms. At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth floor, he suddenly started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back into the flat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and softly, noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The unknown visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing opposite one another, as he had just before been standing with the old woman, when the door divided them and he was listening. The visitor panted several times. 'He must be a big, fat man, thought Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly. As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged violently and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed in horror at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror expected every minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did seem possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the fastening, but he might be aware of it. A giddiness came over him again. 'I shall fall down! flashed through his mind, but the unknown began to speak and he recovered himself at once. 'What's up? Are they asleep or murdered? Ddamn them! he bawled in a thick voice, 'Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey, my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or what? And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at the bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate acquaintance. At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them at first. 'You don't say there's no one at home, the newcomer cried in a cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the first visitor, who still went on pulling the bell. 'Good evening, Koch. 'From his voice he must be quite young, thought Raskolnikov. 'Who the devil can tell? I've almost broken the lock, answered Koch. 'But how do you come to know me? 'Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at billiards at Gambrinus'. 'Oh! 'So they are not at home? That's queer. It's awfully stupid though. Where could the old woman have gone? I've come on business. 'Yes and I have business with her, too. 'Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aieaie! And I was hoping to get some money! cried the young man. 'We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The old witch fixed the time for me to come herself. It's out of my way. And where the devil she can have got to, I can't make out. She sits here from year's end to year's end, the old hag her legs are bad and yet here all of a sudden she is out for a walk! 'Hadn't we better ask the porter? 'What? 'Where she's gone and when she'll be back. 'Hm.... Damn it all!... We might ask.... But you know she never does go anywhere. And he once more tugged at the doorhandle. 'Damn it all. There's nothing to be done, we must go! 'Stay! cried the young man suddenly. 'Do you see how the door shakes if you pull it? 'Well? 'That shows it's not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear how the hook clanks? 'Well? 'Why, don't you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the hook is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at home, don't you see. So there they are sitting inside and don't open the door! 'Well! And so they must be! cried Koch, astonished. 'What are they about in there? And he began furiously shaking the door. 'Stay! cried the young man again. 'Don't pull at it! There must be something wrong.... Here, you've been ringing and pulling at the door and still they don't open! So either they've both fainted or... 'What? 'I tell you what. Let's go fetch the porter, let him wake them up. 'All right. Both were going down. 'Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter. 'What for? 'Well, you'd better. 'All right. 'I'm studying the law you see! It's evident, evident there's something wrong here! the young man cried hotly, and he ran downstairs. Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one tinkle, then gently, as though reflecting and looking about him, began touching the doorhandle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting he bent down and began looking at the keyhole but the key was in the lock on the inside and so nothing could be seen. Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of delirium. He was even making ready to fight when they should come in. While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them, while they could not open the door! 'Only make haste! was the thought that flashed through his mind. 'But what the devil is he about?... Time was passing, one minute, and anotherno one came. Koch began to be restless. 'What the devil? he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping with his heavy boots on the stairs. The steps died away. 'Good heavens! What am I to do? Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the doorthere was no sound. Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the door as thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs. He had gone down three flights when he suddenly heard a loud voice belowwhere could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just going back to the flat. 'Hey there! Catch the brute! Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and rather fell than ran down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice. 'Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him! The shout ended in a shriek the last sounds came from the yard all was still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast began noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. 'Hey! Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling 'come what must! If they stopped himall was lost if they let him passall was lost too they would remember him. They were approaching they were only a flight from himand suddenly deliverance! A few steps from him on the right, there was an empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the second floor where the painters had been at work, and which, as though for his benefit, they had just left. It was they, no doubt, who had just run down, shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the middle of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and brushes. In one instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the wall and only in the nick of time they had already reached the landing. Then they turned and went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs. No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly through the gateway and turned to the left in the street. He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the flat, that they were greatly astonished at finding it unlocked, as the door had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the bodies, that before another minute had passed they would guess and completely realise that the murderer had just been there, and had succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They would guess most likely that he had been in the empty flat, while they were going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace much, though the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away. 'Should he slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an unknown street? No, hopeless! Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab? Hopeless, hopeless! At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than alive. Here he was half way to safety, and he understood it it was less risky because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet. 'My word, he has been going it! someone shouted at him when he came out on the canal bank. He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went the worse it was. He remembered however, that on coming out on to the canal bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and so being more conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though he was almost falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from quite a different direction. He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of his house! He was already on the staircase before he recollected the axe. And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better not to restore the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody's yard. But it all happened fortunately, the door of the porter's room was closed but not locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at home. But he had so completely lost all power of reflection that he walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him, 'What do you want? he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But again the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe back under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood as before. He met no one, not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room the landlady's door was shut. When he was in his room, he flung himself on the sofa just as he washe did not sleep, but sank into blank forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts.... So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion. Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o'clock. They woke him up now. 'Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns, he thought, 'it's past two o'clock, and at once he leaped up, as though someone had pulled him from the sofa. 'What! Past two o'clock! He sat down on the sofaand instantly recollected everything! All at once, in one flash, he recollected everything. For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came over him but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door and began listeningeverything in the house was asleep. With amazement he gazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how he could have come in the night before without fastening the door, and have flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking his hat off. It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow. 'If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I'm drunk but... He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedly looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes were there no traces? But there was no doing it like that shivering with cold, he began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everything over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went through his search three times. But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge of his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed threads. There seemed to be nothing more. Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out of the old woman's box were still in his pockets! He had not thought till then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of them while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushed to take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled out everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there was nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper 'They're in! All out of sight, and the purse too! he thought gleefully, getting up and gazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he shuddered all over with horror 'My God! he whispered in despair 'what's the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide things? He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought of money, and so had not prepared a hidingplace. 'But now, now, what am I glad of? he thought, 'Is that hiding things? My reason's deserting mesimply! He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside him his old student's winter coat, which was still warm though almost in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness. Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumped up a second time, and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again. 'How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes I have not taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that! Such a piece of evidence! He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits among his linen under the pillow. 'Pieces of torn linen couldn't rouse suspicion, whatever happened I think not, I think not, any way! he repeated, standing in the middle of the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about him again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory, and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be an insufferable torture. 'Surely it isn't beginning already! Surely it isn't my punishment coming upon me? It is! The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the floor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see them! 'What is the matter with me! he cried again, like one distraught. Then a strange idea entered his head that, perhaps, all his clothes were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the purse too. 'Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put the wet purse in my pocket! In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!there were traces, stains on the lining of the pocket! 'So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and memory, since I guessed it of myself, he thought triumphantly, with a deep sigh of relief 'it's simply the weakness of fever, a moment's delirium, and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot on the sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He flung off his boots 'traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with blood he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... 'But what am I to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket? He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the room. 'In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away, he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, 'and at once, this minute, without lingering... But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy shivering came over him again he drew his coat over him. And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to 'go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once! Several times he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not. He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door. 'Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here! shouted Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. 'For whole days together he's snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It's past ten. 'Maybe he's not at home, said a man's voice. 'Ha! that's the porter's voice.... What does he want? He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a positive pain. 'Then who can have latched the door? retorted Nastasya. 'He's taken to bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake up! 'What do they want? Why the porter? All's discovered. Resist or open? Come what may!... He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door. His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the bed. Yes the porter and Nastasya were standing there. Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded paper sealed with bottlewax. 'A notice from the office, he announced, as he gave him the paper. 'From what office? 'A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office. 'To the police?... What for?... 'How can I tell? You're sent for, so you go. The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to go away. 'He's downright ill! observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him. The porter turned his head for a moment. 'He's been in a fever since yesterday, she added. Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without opening it. 'Don't you get up then, Nastasya went on compassionately, seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. 'You're ill, and so don't go there's no such hurry. What have you got there? He looked in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his hand and so fallen asleep again. 'Look at the rags he's collected and sleeps with them, as though he has got hold of a treasure... And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle. Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed his eyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational reflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that with a person who was going to be arrested. 'But... the police? 'You'd better have some tea! Yes? I'll bring it, there's some left. 'No... I'm going I'll go at once, he muttered, getting on to his feet. 'Why, you'll never get downstairs! 'Yes, I'll go. 'As you please. She followed the porter out. At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags. 'There are stains, but not very noticeable all covered with dirt, and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed, thank God! Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and began reading he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was an ordinary summons from the district policestation to appear that day at halfpast nine at the office of the district superintendent. 'But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with the police! And why just today? he thought in agonising bewilderment. 'Good God, only get it over soon! He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into laughternot at the idea of prayer, but at himself. He began, hurriedly dressing. 'If I'm lost, I am lost, I don't care! Shall I put the sock on? he suddenly wondered, 'it will get dustier still and the traces will be gone. But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing and horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks, he picked it up and put it on againand again he laughed. 'That's all conventional, that's all relative, merely a way of looking at it, he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his mind, while he was shuddering all over, 'there, I've got it on! I have finished by getting it on! But his laughter was quickly followed by despair. 'No, it's too much for me... he thought. His legs shook. 'From fear, he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. 'It's a trick! They want to decoy me there and confound me over everything, he mused, as he went out on to the stairs'the worst of it is I'm almost lightheaded... I may blurt out something stupid... On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as they were in the hole in the wall, 'and very likely, it's on purpose to search when I'm out, he thought, and stopped short. But he was possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call it, that with a wave of his hand he went on. 'Only to get it over! In the street the heat was insufferable again not a drop of rain had fallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stench from the shops and pothouses, again the drunken men, the Finnish pedlars and halfbrokendown cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes, so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head going roundas a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the street on a bright sunny day. When he reached the turning into the street, in an agony of trepidation he looked down it... at the house... and at once averted his eyes. 'If they question me, perhaps I'll simply tell, he thought, as he drew near the policestation. The policestation was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately been moved to new rooms on the fourth floor of a new house. He had been once for a moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at the gateway, he saw on the right a flight of stairs which a peasant was mounting with a book in his hand. 'A houseporter, no doubt so then, the office is here, and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He did not want to ask questions of anyone. 'I'll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything... he thought, as he reached the fourth floor. The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. The kitchens of the flats opened on to the stairs and stood open almost the whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase was crowded with porters going up and down with their books under their arms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door of the office, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There, too, the heat was stifling and there was a sickening smell of fresh paint and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms. After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room. All the rooms were small and lowpitched. A fearful impatience drew him on and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room some clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather a queerlooking set. He went up to one of them. 'What is it? He showed the notice he had received. 'You are a student? the man asked, glancing at the notice. 'Yes, formerly a student. The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was a particularly unkempt person with the look of a fixed idea in his eye. 'There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has no interest in anything, thought Raskolnikov. 'Go in there to the head clerk, said the clerk, pointing towards the furthest room. He went into that roomthe fourth in order it was a small room and packed full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms. Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at the table opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation. The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplishred, blotchy face, excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as a saucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something. Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glanced at it, said 'Wait a minute, and went on attending to the lady in mourning. He breathed more freely. 'It can't be that! By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept urging himself to have courage and be calm. 'Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself! Hm... it's a pity there's no air here, he added, 'it's stifling.... It makes one's head dizzier than ever... and one's mind too... He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing his selfcontrol he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it, something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through him and guess something from his face. He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobile face that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed and foppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded, and wore a number of rings on his wellscrubbed fingers and a gold chain on his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner who was in the room, and said them fairly correctly. 'Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down, he said casually to the gailydressed, purplefaced lady, who was still standing as though not venturing to sit down, though there was a chair beside her. 'Ich danke, said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sank into the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace floated about the table like an airballoon and filled almost half the room. She smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling half the room and smelling so strongly of scent and though her smile was impudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness. The lady in mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, with some noise, an officer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of his shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table and sat down in an easychair. The small lady positively skipped from her seat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy but the officer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to sit down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. He had a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of his face, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much except a certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly at Raskolnikov he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of his humiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long and direct look on him, so that he felt positively affronted. 'What do you want? he shouted, apparently astonished that such a ragged fellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance. 'I was summoned... by a notice... Raskolnikov faltered. 'For the recovery of money due, from the student, the head clerk interfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. 'Here! and he flung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. 'Read that! 'Money? What money? thought Raskolnikov, 'but... then... it's certainly not that. And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief. A load was lifted from his back. 'And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir? shouted the assistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and more aggrieved. 'You are told to come at nine, and now it's twelve! 'The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago, Raskolnikov answered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grew suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. 'And it's enough that I have come here ill with fever. 'Kindly refrain from shouting! 'I'm not shouting, I'm speaking very quietly, it's you who are shouting at me. I'm a student, and allow no one to shout at me. The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the first minute he could only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat. 'Be silent! You are in a government office. Don't be impudent, sir! 'You're in a government office, too, cried Raskolnikov, 'and you're smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect to all of us. He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this. The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant superintendent was obviously disconcerted. 'That's not your business! he shouted at last with unnatural loudness. 'Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. Alexandr Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don't pay your debts! You're a fine bird! But Raskolnikov was not listening now he had eagerly clutched at the paper, in haste to find an explanation. He read it once, and a second time, and still did not understand. 'What is this? he asked the head clerk. 'It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You must either pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a written declaration when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not to leave the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal your property. The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceed against you according to the law. 'But I... am not in debt to anyone! 'That's not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and fifteen roubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought us for recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, nine months ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov. We therefore summon you, hereupon. 'But she is my landlady! 'And what if she is your landlady? The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of compassion, and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice under fire for the first timeas though he would say 'Well, how do you feel now? But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery! Was that worth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He stood, he read, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions himself, but all mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from overwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that moment without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions or surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instant of full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at that very moment something like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The assistant superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov's disrespect, still fuming and obviously anxious to keep up his wounded dignity, pounced on the unfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he came in with an exceedingly silly smile. 'You shameful hussy! he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. (The lady in mourning had left the office.) 'What was going on at your house last night? Eh! A disgrace again, you're a scandal to the whole street. Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of correction? Why, I have warned you ten times over that I would not let you off the eleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...! The paper fell out of Raskolnikov's hands, and he looked wildly at the smart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what it meant, and at once began to find positive amusement in the scandal. He listened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh... all his nerves were on edge. 'Ilya Petrovitch! the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stopped short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could not be stopped except by force. As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before the storm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive the smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily, and curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in her word and at last she found it. 'There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr. Captain, she pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently, though with a strong German accent, 'and no sort of scandal, and his honour came drunk, and it's the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain, and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he ganz broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the eye and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood in the window, squealing like a little pig it was a disgrace. The idea of squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him! And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true, Mr. Captain, he tore sein rock. And then he shouted that man muss pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, five roubles for sein rock. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused all the scandal. 'I will show you up,' he said, 'for I can write to all the papers about you.' 'Then he was an author? 'Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourable house.... 'Now then! Enough! I have told you already... 'Ilya Petrovitch! the head clerk repeated significantly. The assistant glanced rapidly at him the head clerk slightly shook his head. '... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it you for the last time, the assistant went on. 'If there is a scandal in your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the lockup, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary man, an author took five roubles for his coattail in an 'honourable house'? A nice set, these authors! And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. 'There was a scandal the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and would not pay 'I'll write a satire on you,' says he. And there was another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner's shop the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students, towncriers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear? With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, she stumbled backwards against a goodlooking officer with a fresh, open face and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent of the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made haste to curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, she fluttered out of the office. 'Again thunder and lightninga hurricane! said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya Petrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. 'You are aroused again, you are fuming again! I heard it on the stairs! 'Well, what then! Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly nonchalance and he walked with some papers to another table, with a jaunty swing of his shoulders at each step. 'Here, if you will kindly look an author, or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts, has given an I O U, won't clear out of his room, and complaints are constantly being lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to make a protest against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, and just look at him, please. Here's the gentleman, and very attractive he is! 'Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder, you can't bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something and went too far yourself, continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to Raskolnikov. 'But you were wrong there he is a capital fellow, I assure you, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, fires up, boils over, and no stopping him! And then it's all over! And at the bottom he's a heart of gold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant.... 'And what a regiment it was, too, cried Ilya Petrovitch, much gratified at this agreeable banter, though still sulky. Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasant to them all. 'Excuse me, Captain, he began easily, suddenly addressing Nikodim Fomitch, 'will you enter into my position?... I am ready to ask pardon, if I have been illmannered. I am a poor student, sick and shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am not studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money.... I have a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it to me, and I will pay. My landlady is a goodhearted woman, but she is so exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner... and I don't understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on this I O U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves!... 'But that is not our business, you know, the head clerk was observing. 'Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain... Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be contemptuously oblivious of him. 'Allow me to explain that I have been living with her for nearly three years and at first... at first... for why should I not confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, it was a verbal promise, freely given... she was a girl... indeed, I liked her, though I was not in love with her... a youthful affair in fact... that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in those days, and I led a life of... I was very heedless... 'Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we've no time to waste, Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it exceedingly difficult to speak. 'But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain... how it all happened... In my turn... though I agree with you... it is unnecessary. But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as before, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said to me... and in a friendly way... that she had complete trust in me, but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and fifteen roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that, she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never, neverthose were her own wordsmake use of that I O U till I could pay of myself... and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she takes action against me. What am I to say to that? 'All these affecting details are no business of ours. Ilya Petrovitch interrupted rudely. 'You must give a written undertaking but as for your love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with that. 'Come now... you are harsh, muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down at the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed. 'Write! said the head clerk to Raskolnikov. 'Write what? the latter asked, gruffly. 'I will dictate to you. Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually and contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt completely indifferent to anyone's opinion, and this revulsion took place in a flash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little, he would have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them like that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where had those feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled, not with police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he would not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimental effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter's triumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart. Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these petty vanities, officers, German women, debts, policeoffices? If he had been sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred, would hardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was happening to him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he understood, but he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he could never more appeal to these people in the policeoffice with sentimental effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever and that if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not policeofficers, it would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in any circumstance of life. He had never experienced such a strange and awful sensation. And what was most agonisingit was more a sensation than a conception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all the sensations he had known in his life. The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration, that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, that he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on. 'But you can't write, you can hardly hold the pen, observed the head clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. 'Are you ill? 'Yes, I am giddy. Go on! 'That's all. Sign it. The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others. Raskolnikov gave back the pen but instead of getting up and going away, he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands. He felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea suddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole in the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat to carry it out. 'Hadn't I better think a minute? flashed through his mind. 'No, better cast off the burden without thinking. But all at once he stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly with Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him 'It's impossible, they'll both be released. To begin with, the whole story contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if it had been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No, that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen at the gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walking with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he have asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for Koch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith's below, before he went up to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now just consider... 'But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state themselves that they knocked and the door was locked yet three minutes later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door was unfastened. 'That's just it the murderer must have been there and bolted himself in and they'd have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been an ass and gone to look for the porter too. He must have seized the interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing himself and saying 'If I had been there, he would have jumped out and killed me with his axe.' He is going to have a thanksgiving serviceha, ha! 'And no one saw the murderer? 'They might well not see him the house is a regular Noah's Ark, said the head clerk, who was listening. 'It's clear, quite clear, Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly. 'No, it is anything but clear, Ilya Petrovitch maintained. Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he did not reach it.... When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair, supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was standing on the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water, and Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He got up from the chair. 'What's this? Are you ill? Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply. 'He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing, said the head clerk, settling back in his place, and taking up his work again. 'Have you been ill long? cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look at the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered. 'Since yesterday, muttered Raskolnikov in reply. 'Did you go out yesterday? 'Yes. 'Though you were ill? 'Yes. 'At what time? 'About seven. 'And where did you go, may I ask? 'Along the street. 'Short and clear. Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily, without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch's stare. 'He can scarcely stand upright. And you... Nikodim Fomitch was beginning. 'No matter, Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly. Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but glancing at the head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not speak. There was a sudden silence. It was strange. 'Very well, then, concluded Ilya Petrovitch, 'we will not detain you. Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on his departure, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim Fomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely. 'A searchthere will be a search at once, he repeated to himself, hurrying home. 'The brutes! they suspect. His former terror mastered him completely again. 'And what if there has been a search already? What if I find them in my room? But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it. No one had peeped in. Even Nastasya had not touched it. But heavens! how could he have left all those things in the hole? He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in all two little boxes with earrings or something of the sort, he hardly looked to see then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too, merely wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper, that looked like a decoration.... He put them all in the different pockets of his overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal them as much as possible. He took the purse, too. Then he went out of his room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and though he felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid of pursuit, he was afraid that in another halfhour, another quarter of an hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for his pursuit, and so at all costs, he must hide all traces before then. He must clear everything up while he still had some strength, some reasoning power left him.... Where was he to go? That had long been settled 'Fling them into the canal, and all traces hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end. So he had decided in the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to get up and go away, to make haste, and get rid of it all. But to get rid of it, turned out to be a very difficult task. He wandered along the bank of the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked several times at the steps running down to the water, but he could not think of carrying out his plan either rafts stood at the steps' edge, and women were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and people were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed from the banks on all sides it would look suspicious for a man to go down on purpose, stop, and throw something into the water. And what if the boxes were to float instead of sinking? And of course they would. Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if they had nothing to do but to watch him. 'Why is it, or can it be my fancy? he thought. At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the Neva. There were not so many people there, he would be less observed, and it would be more convenient in every way, above all it was further off. He wondered how he could have been wandering for a good halfhour, worried and anxious in this dangerous past without thinking of it before. And that halfhour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply because he had thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely absent and forgetful and he was aware of it. He certainly must make haste. He walked towards the Neva along V Prospect, but on the way another idea struck him. 'Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and there hide the things in some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot perhaps? And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea seemed to him a sound one. But he was not destined to go there. For coming out of V Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right hand, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a fourstoried house stretched far into the court on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for twenty paces into the court, and then turned sharply to the left. Here was a deserted fencedoff place where rubbish of different sorts was lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low, smutty, stone shed, apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It was probably a carriage builder's or carpenter's shed the whole place from the entrance was black with coal dust. Here would be the place to throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in, and at once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in yards where there are many workmen or cabdrivers and on the hoarding above had been scribbled in chalk the timehonoured witticism, 'Standing here strictly forbidden. This was all the better, for there would be nothing suspicious about his going in. 'Here I could throw it all in a heap and get away! Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the wall was a street. He could hear passersby, always numerous in that part, but he could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need of haste. He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands, and using all his strength turned it over. Under the stone was a small hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it. The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not filled up. Then he seized the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was in the same position again, though it stood a very little higher. But he scraped the earth about it and pressed it at the edges with his foot. Nothing could be noticed. Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense, almost unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in the policeoffice. 'I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of looking under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since the house was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were found, who would think of me? It is all over! No clue! And he laughed. Yes, he remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless laugh, and went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square. But when he reached the K Boulevard where two days before he had come upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas crept into his mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat on which after the girl was gone, he had sat and pondered, and that it would be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered policeman to whom he had given the twenty copecks 'Damn him! He walked, looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas now seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that there really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that pointand for the first time, indeed, during the last two months. 'Damn it all! he thought suddenly, in a fit of ungovernable fury. 'If it has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how stupid it is!... And what lies I told today! How despicably I fawned upon that wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But that is all folly! What do I care for them all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It is not that at all! Suddenly he stopped a new utterly unexpected and exceedingly simple question perplexed and bitterly confounded him. 'If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I really had a certain and definite object, how is it I did not even glance into the purse and don't know what I had there, for which I have undergone these agonies, and have deliberately undertaken this base, filthy degrading business? And here I wanted at once to throw into the water the purse together with all the things which I had not seen either... how's that? Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it all before, and it was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night without hesitation and consideration, as though so it must be, as though it could not possibly be otherwise.... Yes, he had known it all, and understood it all it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewelcases out of it.... Yes, so it was. 'It is because I am very ill, he decided grimly at last, 'I have been worrying and fretting myself, and I don't know what I am doing.... Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been worrying myself.... I shall get well and I shall not worry.... But what if I don't get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all! He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to himhe loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him.... He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva, near the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. 'Why, he lives here, in that house, he thought, 'why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own accord! Here it's the same thing over again.... Very interesting to know, though have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance? Never mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the day after well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go further now. He went up to Razumihin's room on the fifth floor. The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment, and he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressinggown, with slippers on his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise. 'Is it you? he cried. He looked his comrade up and down then after a brief pause, he whistled. 'As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you've cut me out! he added, looking at Raskolnikov's rags. 'Come sit down, you are tired, I'll be bound. And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was in even worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that his visitor was ill. 'Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that? He began feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand. 'Never mind, he said, 'I have come for this I have no lessons.... I wanted,... but I don't really want lessons.... 'But I say! You are delirious, you know! Razumihin observed, watching him carefully. 'No, I am not. Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to Razumihin's, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend face to face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least of all disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the wide world. His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at himself as soon as he crossed Razumihin's threshold. 'Goodbye, he said abruptly, and walked to the door. 'Stop, stop! You queer fish. 'I don't want to, said the other, again pulling away his hand. 'Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this is... almost insulting! I won't let you go like that. 'Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could help... to begin... because you are kinder than anyonecleverer, I mean, and can judge... and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear? Nothing at all... no one's services... no one's sympathy. I am by myself... alone. Come, that's enough. Leave me alone. 'Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don't care about that, but there's a bookseller, Heruvimovand he takes the place of a lesson. I would not exchange him for five lessons. He's doing publishing of a kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am! Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of the German textin my opinion, the crudest charlatanism it discusses the question, 'Is woman a human being?' And, of course, triumphantly proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a contribution to the woman question I am translating it he will expand these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous title half a page long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He pays me six roubles the signature, it works out to about fifteen roubles for the job, and I've had six already in advance. When we have finished this, we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of the dullest scandals out of the second part of Les Confessions we have marked for translation somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau was a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I don't contradict him, hang him! Well, would you like to do the second signature of 'Is woman a human being?' If you would, take the German and pens and paperall those are provided, and take three roubles for as I have had six roubles in advance on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your share. And when you have finished the signature there will be another three roubles for you. And please don't think I am doing you a service quite the contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could help me to begin with, I am weak in spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes utterly adrift in German, so that I make it up as I go along for the most part. The only comfort is, that it's bound to be a change for the better. Though who can tell, maybe it's sometimes for the worse. Will you take it? Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three roubles and without a word went out. Razumihin gazed after him in astonishment. But when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back, mounted the stairs to Razumihin's again and laying on the table the German article and the three roubles, went out again, still without uttering a word. 'Are you raving, or what? Razumihin shouted, roused to fury at last. 'What farce is this? You'll drive me crazy too... what did you come to see me for, damn you? 'I don't want... translation, muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs. 'Then what the devil do you want? shouted Razumihin from above. Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence. 'Hey, there! Where are you living? No answer. 'Well, confound you then! But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street. On the Nikolaevsky Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an unpleasant incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave him a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having almost fallen under his horses' hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the very middle of the bridge in the traffic). He angrily clenched and ground his teeth. He heard laughter, of course. 'Serves him right! 'A pickpocket I dare say. 'Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting under the wheels on purpose and you have to answer for him. 'It's a regular profession, that's what it is. But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered after the retreating carriage, and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly woman in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter, wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol. 'Take it, my good man, in Christ's name. He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar asking alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him. He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it one uneasy and not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of timesgenerally on his way homestood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely cold this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him... so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him nowall his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all.... He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into the water then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment. Evening was coming on when he reached home, so that he must have been walking about six hours. How and where he came back he did not remember. Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay down on the sofa, drew his greatcoat over him, and at once sank into oblivion.... It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful scream. Good God, what a scream! Such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears, blows and curses he had never heard. He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing and cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement he caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make out what she was talking about she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of her assailant was so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost a croak but he, too, was saying something, and just as quickly and indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov trembled he recognised the voiceit was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. Ilya Petrovitch here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging her head against the stepsthat's clear, that can be told from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world topsyturvy? He could hear people running in crowds from all the storeys and all the staircases he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors banging. 'But why, why, and how could it be? he repeated, thinking seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! And they would come to him then next, 'for no doubt... it's all about that... about yesterday.... Good God! He would have fastened his door with the latch, but he could not lift his hand... besides, it would be useless. Terror gripped his heart like ice, tortured him and numbed him.... But at last all this uproar, after continuing about ten minutes, began gradually to subside. The landlady was moaning and groaning Ilya Petrovitch was still uttering threats and curses.... But at last he, too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be heard. 'Can he have gone away? Good Lord! Yes, and now the landlady is going too, still weeping and moaning... and then her door slammed.... Now the crowd was going from the stairs to their rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling to one another, raising their voices to a shout, dropping them to a whisper. There must have been numbers of themalmost all the inmates of the block. 'But, good God, how could it be! And why, why had he come here! Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she had broughtbread, salt, a plate, a spoon. 'You've eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You've been trudging about all day, and you're shaking with fever. 'Nastasya... what were they beating the landlady for? She looked intently at him. 'Who beat the landlady? 'Just now... half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent, on the stairs.... Why was he illtreating her like that, and... why was he here? Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes. 'Nastasya, why don't you speak? he said timidly at last in a weak voice. 'It's the blood, she answered at last softly, as though speaking to herself. 'Blood? What blood? he muttered, growing white and turning towards the wall. Nastasya still looked at him without speaking. 'Nobody has been beating the landlady, she declared at last in a firm, resolute voice. He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe. 'I heard it myself.... I was not asleep... I was sitting up, he said still more timidly. 'I listened a long while. The assistant superintendent came.... Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the flats. 'No one has been here. That's the blood crying in your ears. When there's no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you begin fancying things.... Will you eat something? He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him, watching him. 'Give me something to drink... Nastasya. She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water. He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling some on his neck. Then followed forgetfulness. He was not completely unconscious, however, all the time he was ill he was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half conscious. He remembered a great deal afterwards. Sometimes it seemed as though there were a number of people round him they wanted to take him away somewhere, there was a great deal of squabbling and discussing about him. Then he would be alone in the room they had all gone away afraid of him, and only now and then opened the door a crack to look at him they threatened him, plotted something together, laughed, and mocked at him. He remembered Nastasya often at his bedside he distinguished another person, too, whom he seemed to know very well, though he could not remember who he was, and this fretted him, even made him cry. Sometimes he fancied he had been lying there a month at other times it all seemed part of the same day. But of thatof that he had no recollection, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten something he ought to remember. He worried and tormented himself trying to remember, moaned, flew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable terror. Then he struggled to get up, would have run away, but someone always prevented him by force, and he sank back into impotence and forgetfulness. At last he returned to complete consciousness. It happened at ten o'clock in the morning. On fine days the sun shone into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right wall and the corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside him with another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him very inquisitively. He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full, shortwaisted coat, and looked like a messenger. The landlady was peeping in at the halfopened door. Raskolnikov sat up. 'Who is this, Nastasya? he asked, pointing to the young man. 'I say, he's himself again! she said. 'He is himself, echoed the man. Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed the door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded conversations or discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all badlooking, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, goodnatured from fatness and laziness, and absurdly bashful. 'Who... are you? he went on, addressing the man. But at that moment the door was flung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so tall, Razumihin came in. 'What a cabin it is! he cried. 'I am always knocking my head. You call this a lodging! So you are conscious, brother? I've just heard the news from Pashenka. 'He has just come to, said Nastasya. 'Just come to, echoed the man again, with a smile. 'And who are you? Razumihin asked, suddenly addressing him. 'My name is Vrazumihin, at your service not Razumihin, as I am always called, but Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman and he is my friend. And who are you? 'I am the messenger from our office, from the merchant Shelopaev, and I've come on business. 'Please sit down. Razumihin seated himself on the other side of the table. 'It's a good thing you've come to, brother, he went on to Raskolnikov. 'For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I brought Zossimov to see you twice. You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at once it was nothing serioussomething seemed to have gone to your head. Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says you have not had enough beer and radish, but it's nothing much, it will pass and you will be all right. Zossimov is a firstrate fellow! He is making quite a name. Come, I won't keep you, he said, addressing the man again. 'Will you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya, this is the second time they have sent from the office but it was another man last time, and I talked to him. Who was it came before? 'That was the day before yesterday, I venture to say, if you please, sir. That was Alexey Semyonovitch he is in our office, too. 'He was more intelligent than you, don't you think so? 'Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am. 'Quite so go on. 'At your mamma's request, through Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you from our office, the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. 'If you are in an intelligible condition, I've thirtyfive roubles to remit to you, as Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your mamma's request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions. Do you know him, sir? 'Yes, I remember... Vahrushin, Raskolnikov said dreamily. 'You hear, he knows Vahrushin, cried Razumihin. 'He is in 'an intelligible condition'! And I see you are an intelligent man too. Well, it's always pleasant to hear words of wisdom. 'That's the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy Ivanovitch. And at the request of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in the same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you thirtyfive roubles in the hope of better to come. 'That 'hoping for better to come' is the best thing you've said, though 'your mamma' is not bad either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully conscious, eh? 'That's all right. If only he can sign this little paper. 'He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book? 'Yes, here's the book. 'Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I'll hold you. Take the pen and scribble 'Raskolnikov' for him. For just now, brother, money is sweeter to us than treacle. 'I don't want it, said Raskolnikov, pushing away the pen. 'Not want it? 'I won't sign it. 'How the devil can you do without signing it? 'I don't want... the money. 'Don't want the money! Come, brother, that's nonsense, I bear witness. Don't trouble, please, it's only that he is on his travels again. But that's pretty common with him at all times though.... You are a man of judgment and we will take him in hand, that is, more simply, take his hand and he will sign it. Here. 'But I can come another time. 'No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a man of judgment.... Now, Rodya, don't keep your visitor, you see he is waiting, and he made ready to hold Raskolnikov's hand in earnest. 'Stop, I'll do it alone, said the latter, taking the pen and signing his name. The messenger took out the money and went away. 'Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry? 'Yes, answered Raskolnikov. 'Is there any soup? 'Some of yesterday's, answered Nastasya, who was still standing there. 'With potatoes and rice in it? 'Yes. 'I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea. 'Very well. Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound astonishment and a dull, unreasoning terror. He made up his mind to keep quiet and see what would happen. 'I believe I am not wandering. I believe it's reality, he thought. In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the soup, and announced that the tea would be ready directly. With the soup she brought two spoons, two plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so on. The table was set as it had not been for a long time. The cloth was clean. 'It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya Pavlovna were to send us up a couple of bottles of beer. We could empty them. 'Well, you are a cool hand, muttered Nastasya, and she departed to carry out his orders. Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained attention. Meanwhile Razumihin sat down on the sofa beside him, as clumsily as a bear put his left arm round Raskolnikov's head, although he was able to sit up, and with his right hand gave him a spoonful of soup, blowing on it that it might not burn him. But the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov swallowed one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third. But after giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup, Razumihin suddenly stopped, and said that he must ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more. Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer. 'And will you have tea? 'Yes. 'Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea we may venture on without the faculty. But here is the beer! He moved back to his chair, pulled the soup and meat in front of him, and began eating as though he had not touched food for three days. 'I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every day now, he mumbled with his mouth full of beef, 'and it's all Pashenka, your dear little landlady, who sees to that she loves to do anything for me. I don't ask for it, but, of course, I don't object. And here's Nastasya with the tea. She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my dear, won't you have some beer? 'Get along with your nonsense! 'A cup of tea, then? 'A cup of tea, maybe. 'Pour it out. Stay, I'll pour it out myself. Sit down. He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on the sofa again. As before, he put his left arm round the sick man's head, raised him up and gave him tea in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily and earnestly, as though this process was the principal and most effective means towards his friend's recovery. Raskolnikov said nothing and made no resistance, though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the sofa without support and could not merely have held a cup or a spoon, but even perhaps could have walked about. But from some queer, almost animal, cunning he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and lying low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in full possession of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to find out what was going on. Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance. After sipping a dozen spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head, pushed the spoon away capriciously, and sank back on the pillow. There were actually real pillows under his head now, down pillows in clean cases, he observed that, too, and took note of it. 'Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam today to make him some raspberry tea, said Razumihin, going back to his chair and attacking his soup and beer again. 'And where is she to get raspberries for you? asked Nastasya, balancing a saucer on her five outspread fingers and sipping tea through a lump of sugar. 'She'll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya, all sorts of things have been happening while you have been laid up. When you decamped in that rascally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry that I resolved to find you out and punish you. I set to work that very day. How I ran about making inquiries for you! This lodging of yours I had forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not know it and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at the Five Corners, Harlamov's house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov's house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not Harlamov's, but Buch's. How one muddles up sound sometimes! So I lost my temper, and I went on the chance to the address bureau next day, and only fancy, in two minutes they looked you up! Your name is down there. 'My name! 'I should think so and yet a General Kobelev they could not find while I was there. Well, it's a long story. But as soon as I did land on this place, I soon got to know all your affairsall, all, brother, I know everything Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquaintance of Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and the houseporter and Mr. Zametov, Alexandr Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police office, and, last, but not least, of Pashenka Nastasya here knows.... 'He's got round her, Nastasya murmured, smiling slyly. 'Why don't you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna? 'You are a one! Nastasya cried suddenly, going off into a giggle. 'I am not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna, she added suddenly, recovering from her mirth. 'I'll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a long story short, I was going in for a regular explosion here to uproot all malignant influences in the locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not expected, brother, to find her so... prepossessing. Eh, what do you think? Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his eyes fixed upon him, full of alarm. 'And all that could be wished, indeed, in every respect, Razumihin went on, not at all embarrassed by his silence. 'Ah, the sly dog! Nastasya shrieked again. This conversation afforded her unspeakable delight. 'It's a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in the right way at first. You ought to have approached her differently. She is, so to speak, a most unaccountable character. But we will talk about her character later.... How could you let things come to such a pass that she gave up sending you your dinner? And that I O U? You must have been mad to sign an I O U. And that promise of marriage when her daughter, Natalya Yegorovna, was alive?... I know all about it! But I see that's a delicate matter and I am an ass forgive me. But, talking of foolishness, do you know Praskovya Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as you would think at first sight? 'No, mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but feeling that it was better to keep up the conversation. 'She isn't, is she? cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer out of him. 'But she is not very clever either, eh? She is essentially, essentially an unaccountable character! I am sometimes quite at a loss, I assure you.... She must be forty she says she is thirtysix, and of course she has every right to say so. But I swear I judge her intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point of view there is a sort of symbolism sprung up between us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don't understand it! Well, that's all nonsense. Only, seeing that you are not a student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and that through the young lady's death she has no need to treat you as a relation, she suddenly took fright and as you hid in your den and dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of you. And she's been cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose the I O U, for you assured her yourself that your mother would pay. 'It was base of me to say that.... My mother herself is almost a beggar... and I told a lie to keep my lodging... and be fed, Raskolnikov said loudly and distinctly. 'Yes, you did very sensibly. But the worst of it is that at that point Mr. Tchebarov turns up, a business man. Pashenka would never have thought of doing anything on her own account, she is too retiring but the business man is by no means retiring, and first thing he puts the question, 'Is there any hope of realising the I O U?' Answer there is, because he has a mother who would save her Rodya with her hundred and twentyfive roubles pension, if she has to starve herself and a sister, too, who would go into bondage for his sake. That's what he was building upon.... Why do you start? I know all the ins and outs of your affairs now, my dear boyit's not for nothing that you were so open with Pashenka when you were her prospective soninlaw, and I say all this as a friend.... But I tell you what it is an honest and sensitive man is open and a business man 'listens and goes on eating' you up. Well, then she gave the I O U by way of payment to this Tchebarov, and without hesitation he made a formal demand for payment. When I heard of all this I wanted to blow him up, too, to clear my conscience, but by that time harmony reigned between me and Pashenka, and I insisted on stopping the whole affair, engaging that you would pay. I went security for you, brother. Do you understand? We called Tchebarov, flung him ten roubles and got the I O U back from him, and here I have the honour of presenting it to you. She trusts your word now. Here, take it, you see I have torn it. Razumihin put the note on the table. Raskolnikov looked at him and turned to the wall without uttering a word. Even Razumihin felt a twinge. 'I see, brother, he said a moment later, 'that I have been playing the fool again. I thought I should amuse you with my chatter, and I believe I have only made you cross. 'Was it you I did not recognise when I was delirious? Raskolnikov asked, after a moment's pause without turning his head. 'Yes, and you flew into a rage about it, especially when I brought Zametov one day. 'Zametov? The head clerk? What for? Raskolnikov turned round quickly and fixed his eyes on Razumihin. 'What's the matter with you?... What are you upset about? He wanted to make your acquaintance because I talked to him a lot about you.... How could I have found out so much except from him? He is a capital fellow, brother, firstrate... in his own way, of course. Now we are friendssee each other almost every day. I have moved into this part, you know. I have only just moved. I've been with him to Luise Ivanovna once or twice.... Do you remember Luise, Luise Ivanovna? 'Did I say anything in delirium? 'I should think so! You were beside yourself. 'What did I rave about? 'What next? What did you rave about? What people do rave about.... Well, brother, now I must not lose time. To work. He got up from the table and took up his cap. 'What did I rave about? 'How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out some secret? Don't worry yourself you said nothing about a countess. But you said a lot about a bulldog, and about earrings and chains, and about Krestovsky Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent. And another thing that was of special interest to you was your own sock. You whined, 'Give me my sock.' Zametov hunted all about your room for your socks, and with his own scented, ringbedecked fingers he gave you the rag. And only then were you comforted, and for the next twentyfour hours you held the wretched thing in your hand we could not get it from you. It is most likely somewhere under your quilt at this moment. And then you asked so piteously for fringe for your trousers. We tried to find out what sort of fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to business! Here are thirtyfive roubles I take ten of them, and shall give you an account of them in an hour or two. I will let Zossimov know at the same time, though he ought to have been here long ago, for it is nearly twelve. And you, Nastasya, look in pretty often while I am away, to see whether he wants a drink or anything else. And I will tell Pashenka what is wanted myself. Goodbye! 'He calls her Pashenka! Ah, he's a deep one! said Nastasya as he went out then she opened the door and stood listening, but could not resist running downstairs after him. She was very eager to hear what he would say to the landlady. She was evidently quite fascinated by Razumihin. No sooner had she left the room than the sick man flung off the bedclothes and leapt out of bed like a madman. With burning, twitching impatience he had waited for them to be gone so that he might set to work. But to what work? Now, as though to spite him, it eluded him. 'Good God, only tell me one thing do they know of it yet or not? What if they know it and are only pretending, mocking me while I am laid up, and then they will come in and tell me that it's been discovered long ago and that they have only... What am I to do now? That's what I've forgotten, as though on purpose forgotten it all at once, I remembered a minute ago. He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in miserable bewilderment about him he walked to the door, opened it, listened but that was not what he wanted. Suddenly, as though recalling something, he rushed to the corner where there was a hole under the paper, began examining it, put his hand into the hole, fumbledbut that was not it. He went to the stove, opened it and began rummaging in the ashes the frayed edges of his trousers and the rags cut off his pocket were lying there just as he had thrown them. No one had looked, then! Then he remembered the sock about which Razumihin had just been telling him. Yes, there it lay on the sofa under the quilt, but it was so covered with dust and grime that Zametov could not have seen anything on it. 'Bah, Zametov! The police office! And why am I sent for to the police office? Where's the notice? Bah! I am mixing it up that was then. I looked at my sock then, too, but now... now I have been ill. But what did Zametov come for? Why did Razumihin bring him? he muttered, helplessly sitting on the sofa again. 'What does it mean? Am I still in delirium, or is it real? I believe it is real.... Ah, I remember I must escape! Make haste to escape. Yes, I must, I must escape! Yes... but where? And where are my clothes? I've no boots. They've taken them away! They've hidden them! I understand! Ah, here is my coatthey passed that over! And here is money on the table, thank God! And here's the I O U... I'll take the money and go and take another lodging. They won't find me!... Yes, but the address bureau? They'll find me, Razumihin will find me. Better escape altogether... far away... to America, and let them do their worst! And take the I O U... it would be of use there.... What else shall I take? They think I am ill! They don't know that I can walk, hahaha! I could see by their eyes that they know all about it! If only I could get downstairs! And what if they have set a watch therepolicemen! What's this tea? Ah, and here is beer left, half a bottle, cold! He snatched up the bottle, which still contained a glassful of beer, and gulped it down with relish, as though quenching a flame in his breast. But in another minute the beer had gone to his head, and a faint and even pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He lay down and pulled the quilt over him. His sick and incoherent thoughts grew more and more disconnected, and soon a light, pleasant drowsiness came upon him. With a sense of comfort he nestled his head into the pillow, wrapped more closely about him the soft, wadded quilt which had replaced the old, ragged greatcoat, sighed softly and sank into a deep, sound, refreshing sleep. He woke up, hearing someone come in. He opened his eyes and saw Razumihin standing in the doorway, uncertain whether to come in or not. Raskolnikov sat up quickly on the sofa and gazed at him, as though trying to recall something. 'Ah, you are not asleep! Here I am! Nastasya, bring in the parcel! Razumihin shouted down the stairs. 'You shall have the account directly. 'What time is it? asked Raskolnikov, looking round uneasily. 'Yes, you had a fine sleep, brother, it's almost evening, it will be six o'clock directly. You have slept more than six hours. 'Good heavens! Have I? 'And why not? It will do you good. What's the hurry? A tryst, is it? We've all time before us. I've been waiting for the last three hours for you I've been up twice and found you asleep. I've called on Zossimov twice not at home, only fancy! But no matter, he will turn up. And I've been out on my own business, too. You know I've been moving today, moving with my uncle. I have an uncle living with me now. But that's no matter, to business. Give me the parcel, Nastasya. We will open it directly. And how do you feel now, brother? 'I am quite well, I am not ill. Razumihin, have you been here long? 'I tell you I've been waiting for the last three hours. 'No, before. 'How do you mean? 'How long have you been coming here? 'Why I told you all about it this morning. Don't you remember? Raskolnikov pondered. The morning seemed like a dream to him. He could not remember alone, and looked inquiringly at Razumihin. 'Hm! said the latter, 'he has forgotten. I fancied then that you were not quite yourself. Now you are better for your sleep.... You really look much better. Firstrate! Well, to business. Look here, my dear boy. He began untying the bundle, which evidently interested him. 'Believe me, brother, this is something specially near my heart. For we must make a man of you. Let's begin from the top. Do you see this cap? he said, taking out of the bundle a fairly good though cheap and ordinary cap. 'Let me try it on. 'Presently, afterwards, said Raskolnikov, waving it off pettishly. 'Come, Rodya, my boy, don't oppose it, afterwards will be too late and I shan't sleep all night, for I bought it by guess, without measure. Just right! he cried triumphantly, fitting it on, 'just your size! A proper headcovering is the first thing in dress and a recommendation in its own way. Tolstyakov, a friend of mine, is always obliged to take off his pudding basin when he goes into any public place where other people wear their hats or caps. People think he does it from slavish politeness, but it's simply because he is ashamed of his bird's nest he is such a boastful fellow! Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of headgear this Palmerstonhe took from the corner Raskolnikov's old, battered hat, which for some unknown reason, he called a Palmerston'or this jewel! Guess the price, Rodya, what do you suppose I paid for it, Nastasya! he said, turning to her, seeing that Raskolnikov did not speak. 'Twenty copecks, no more, I dare say, answered Nastasya. 'Twenty copecks, silly! he cried, offended. 'Why, nowadays you would cost more than thateighty copecks! And that only because it has been worn. And it's bought on condition that when's it's worn out, they will give you another next year. Yes, on my word! Well, now let us pass to the United States of America, as they called them at school. I assure you I am proud of these breeches, and he exhibited to Raskolnikov a pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen material. 'No holes, no spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn and a waistcoat to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an improvement, it's softer, smoother.... You see, Rodya, to my thinking, the great thing for getting on in the world is always to keep to the seasons if you don't insist on having asparagus in January, you keep your money in your purse and it's the same with this purchase. It's summer now, so I've been buying summer thingswarmer materials will be wanted for autumn, so you will have to throw these away in any case... especially as they will be done for by then from their own lack of coherence if not your higher standard of luxury. Come, price them! What do you say? Two roubles twentyfive copecks! And remember the condition if you wear these out, you will have another suit for nothing! They only do business on that system at Fedyaev's if you've bought a thing once, you are satisfied for life, for you will never go there again of your own free will. Now for the boots. What do you say? You see that they are a bit worn, but they'll last a couple of months, for it's foreign work and foreign leather the secretary of the English Embassy sold them last weekhe had only worn them six days, but he was very short of cash. Pricea rouble and a half. A bargain? 'But perhaps they won't fit, observed Nastasya. 'Not fit? Just look! and he pulled out of his pocket Raskolnikov's old, broken boot, stiffly coated with dry mud. 'I did not go emptyhandedthey took the size from this monster. We all did our best. And as to your linen, your landlady has seen to that. Here, to begin with are three shirts, hempen but with a fashionable front.... Well now then, eighty copecks the cap, two roubles twentyfive copecks the suittogether three roubles five copecksa rouble and a half for the bootsfor, you see, they are very goodand that makes four roubles fiftyfive copecks five roubles for the underclothesthey were bought in the lotwhich makes exactly nine roubles fiftyfive copecks. Fortyfive copecks change in coppers. Will you take it? And so, Rodya, you are set up with a complete new rigout, for your overcoat will serve, and even has a style of its own. That comes from getting one's clothes from Sharmer's! As for your socks and other things, I leave them to you we've twentyfive roubles left. And as for Pashenka and paying for your lodging, don't you worry. I tell you she'll trust you for anything. And now, brother, let me change your linen, for I daresay you will throw off your illness with your shirt. 'Let me be! I don't want to! Raskolnikov waved him off. He had listened with disgust to Razumihin's efforts to be playful about his purchases. 'Come, brother, don't tell me I've been trudging around for nothing, Razumihin insisted. 'Nastasya, don't be bashful, but help methat's it, and in spite of Raskolnikov's resistance he changed his linen. The latter sank back on the pillows and for a minute or two said nothing. 'It will be long before I get rid of them, he thought. 'What money was all that bought with? he asked at last, gazing at the wall. 'Money? Why, your own, what the messenger brought from Vahrushin, your mother sent it. Have you forgotten that, too? 'I remember now, said Raskolnikov after a long, sullen silence. Razumihin looked at him, frowning and uneasy. The door opened and a tall, stout man whose appearance seemed familiar to Raskolnikov came in. Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, cleanshaven face and straight flaxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on his fat finger. He was twentyseven. He had on a light grey fashionable loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose, fashionable and spick and span his linen was irreproachable, his watchchain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were, nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free and easy he made efforts to conceal his selfimportance, but it was apparent at every instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever at his work. 'I've been to you twice today, brother. You see, he's come to himself, cried Razumihin. 'I see, I see and how do we feel now, eh? said Zossimov to Raskolnikov, watching him carefully and, sitting down at the foot of the sofa, he settled himself as comfortably as he could. 'He is still depressed, Razumihin went on. 'We've just changed his linen and he almost cried. 'That's very natural you might have put it off if he did not wish it.... His pulse is firstrate. Is your head still aching, eh? 'I am well, I am perfectly well! Raskolnikov declared positively and irritably. He raised himself on the sofa and looked at them with glittering eyes, but sank back on to the pillow at once and turned to the wall. Zossimov watched him intently. 'Very good.... Going on all right, he said lazily. 'Has he eaten anything? They told him, and asked what he might have. 'He may have anything... soup, tea... mushrooms and cucumbers, of course, you must not give him he'd better not have meat either, and... but no need to tell you that! Razumihin and he looked at each other. 'No more medicine or anything. I'll look at him again tomorrow. Perhaps, today even... but never mind... 'Tomorrow evening I shall take him for a walk, said Razumihin. 'We are going to the Yusupov garden and then to the Palais de Cristal. 'I would not disturb him tomorrow at all, but I don't know... a little, maybe... but we'll see. 'Ach, what a nuisance! I've got a housewarming party tonight it's only a step from here. Couldn't he come? He could lie on the sofa. You are coming? Razumihin said to Zossimov. 'Don't forget, you promised. 'All right, only rather later. What are you going to do? 'Oh, nothingtea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie... just our friends. 'And who? 'All neighbours here, almost all new friends, except my old uncle, and he is new toohe only arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some business of his. We meet once in five years. 'What is he? 'He's been stagnating all his life as a district postmaster gets a little pension. He is sixtyfivenot worth talking about.... But I am fond of him. Porfiry Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation Department here... But you know him. 'Is he a relation of yours, too? 'A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you quarrelled once, won't you come then? 'I don't care a damn for him. 'So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a government clerk, a musician, an officer and Zametov. 'Do tell me, please, what you or heZossimov nodded at Raskolnikov'can have in common with this Zametov? 'Oh, you particular gentleman! Principles! You are worked by principles, as it were by springs you won't venture to turn round on your own account. If a man is a nice fellow, that's the only principle I go upon. Zametov is a delightful person. 'Though he does take bribes. 'Well, he does! and what of it? I don't care if he does take bribes, Razumihin cried with unnatural irritability. 'I don't praise him for taking bribes. I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one looks at men in all waysare there many good ones left? Why, I am sure I shouldn't be worth a baked onion myself... perhaps with you thrown in. 'That's too little I'd give two for you. 'And I wouldn't give more than one for you. No more of your jokes! Zametov is no more than a boy. I can pull his hair and one must draw him not repel him. You'll never improve a man by repelling him, especially a boy. One has to be twice as careful with a boy. Oh, you progressive dullards! You don't understand. You harm yourselves running another man down.... But if you want to know, we really have something in common. 'I should like to know what. 'Why, it's all about a housepainter.... We are getting him out of a mess! Though indeed there's nothing to fear now. The matter is absolutely selfevident. We only put on steam. 'A painter? 'Why, haven't I told you about it? I only told you the beginning then about the murder of the old pawnbrokerwoman. Well, the painter is mixed up in it... 'Oh, I heard about that murder before and was rather interested in it... partly... for one reason.... I read about it in the papers, too.... 'Lizaveta was murdered, too, Nastasya blurted out, suddenly addressing Raskolnikov. She remained in the room all the time, standing by the door listening. 'Lizaveta, murmured Raskolnikov hardly audibly. 'Lizaveta, who sold old clothes. Didn't you know her? She used to come here. She mended a shirt for you, too. Raskolnikov turned to the wall where in the dirty, yellow paper he picked out one clumsy, white flower with brown lines on it and began examining how many petals there were in it, how many scallops in the petals and how many lines on them. He felt his arms and legs as lifeless as though they had been cut off. He did not attempt to move, but stared obstinately at the flower. 'But what about the painter? Zossimov interrupted Nastasya's chatter with marked displeasure. She sighed and was silent. 'Why, he was accused of the murder, Razumihin went on hotly. 'Was there evidence against him then? 'Evidence, indeed! Evidence that was no evidence, and that's what we have to prove. It was just as they pitched on those fellows, Koch and Pestryakov, at first. Foo! how stupidly it's all done, it makes one sick, though it's not one's business! Pestryakov may be coming tonight.... By the way, Rodya, you've heard about the business already it happened before you were ill, the day before you fainted at the police office while they were talking about it. Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov. He did not stir. 'But I say, Razumihin, I wonder at you. What a busybody you are! Zossimov observed. 'Maybe I am, but we will get him off anyway, shouted Razumihin, bringing his fist down on the table. 'What's the most offensive is not their lyingone can always forgive lyinglying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truthwhat is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.... I respect Porfiry, but... What threw them out at first? The door was locked, and when they came back with the porter it was open. So it followed that Koch and Pestryakov were the murderersthat was their logic! 'But don't excite yourself they simply detained them, they could not help that.... And, by the way, I've met that man Koch. He used to buy unredeemed pledges from the old woman? Eh? 'Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too. He makes a profession of it. But enough of him! Do you know what makes me angry? It's their sickening rotten, petrified routine.... And this case might be the means of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data alone how to get on the track of the real man. 'We have facts,' they say. But facts are not everythingat least half the business lies in how you interpret them! 'Can you interpret them, then? 'Anyway, one can't hold one's tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible feeling, that one might be a help if only.... Eh! Do you know the details of the case? 'I am waiting to hear about the painter. 'Oh, yes! Well, here's the story. Early on the third day after the murder, when they were still dandling Koch and Pestryakovthough they accounted for every step they took and it was as plain as a pikestaffan unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who keeps a dramshop facing the house, brought to the police office a jeweller's case containing some gold earrings, and told a long rigamarole. 'The day before yesterday, just after eight o'clock'mark the day and the hour!'a journeyman housepainter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me already that day, brought me this box of gold earrings and stones, and asked me to give him two roubles for them. When I asked him where he got them, he said that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask him anything more.' I am telling you Dushkin's story. 'I gave him a note'a rouble that is'for I thought if he did not pawn it with me he would with another. It would all come to the same thinghe'd spend it on drink, so the thing had better be with me. The further you hide it the quicker you will find it, and if anything turns up, if I hear any rumours, I'll take it to the police.' Of course, that's all taradiddle he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker and a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat Nikolay out of a thirtyrouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He was simply afraid. But no matter, to return to Dushkin's story. 'I've known this peasant, Nikolay Dementyev, from a child he comes from the same province and district of Zarask, we are both Ryazan men. And though Nikolay is not a drunkard, he drinks, and I knew he had a job in that house, painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same village, too. As soon as he got the rouble he changed it, had a couple of glasses, took his change and went out. But I did not see Dmitri with him then. And the next day I heard that someone had murdered Alyona Ivanovna and her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an axe. I knew them, and I felt suspicious about the earrings at once, for I knew the murdered woman lent money on pledges. I went to the house, and began to make careful inquiries without saying a word to anyone. First of all I asked, 'Is Nikolay here? Dmitri told me that Nikolay had gone off on the spree he had come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the house about ten minutes, and went out again. Dmitri didn't see him again and is finishing the job alone. And their job is on the same staircase as the murder, on the second floor. When I heard all that I did not say a word to anyone'that's Dushkin's tale'but I found out what I could about the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight o'clock this morning'that was the third day, you understand'I saw Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very drunkhe could understand what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and did not speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a man I knew asleep on a bench and our two boys. 'Have you seen Dmitri? said I. 'No, I haven't, said he. 'And you've not been here either? 'Not since the day before yesterday, said he. 'And where did you sleep last night? 'In Peski, with the Kolomensky men. 'And where did you get those earrings? I asked. 'I found them in the street, and the way he said it was a bit queer he did not look at me. 'Did you hear what happened that very evening, at that very hour, on that same staircase? said I. 'No, said he, 'I had not heard, and all the while he was listening, his eyes were staring out of his head and he turned as white as chalk. I told him all about it and he took his hat and began getting up. I wanted to keep him. 'Wait a bit, Nikolay, said I, 'won't you have a drink? And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and I came out from behind the bar but he darted out and down the street to the turning at a run. I have not seen him since. Then my doubts were at an endit was his doing, as clear as could be....' 'I should think so, said Zossimov. 'Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high and low for Nikolay they detained Dushkin and searched his house Dmitri, too, was arrested the Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And the day before yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a tavern at the end of the town. He had gone there, taken the silver cross off his neck and asked for a dram for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes afterwards the woman went to the cowshed, and through a crack in the wall she saw in the stable adjoining he had made a noose of his sash from the beam, stood on a block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in the noose. The woman screeched her hardest people ran in. 'So that's what you are up to!' 'Take me,' he says, 'to suchandsuch a police officer I'll confess everything.' Well, they took him to that police stationthat is herewith a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old he is, 'twentytwo,' and so on. At the question, 'When you were working with Dmitri, didn't you see anyone on the staircase at suchandsuch a time?'answer 'To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did not notice them.' 'And didn't you hear anything, any noise, and so on?' 'We heard nothing special.' 'And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same day Widow Soandso and her sister were murdered and robbed?' 'I never knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from Afanasy Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.' 'And where did you find the earrings?' 'I found them on the pavement.' 'Why didn't you go to work with Dmitri the other day?' 'Because I was drinking.' 'And where were you drinking?' 'Oh, in suchandsuch a place.' 'Why did you run away from Dushkin's?' 'Because I was awfully frightened.' 'What were you frightened of?' 'That I should be accused.' 'How could you be frightened, if you felt free from guilt?' Now, Zossimov, you may not believe me, that question was put literally in those words. I know it for a fact, it was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that? 'Well, anyway, there's the evidence. 'I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that question, of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and squeezed him and he confessed 'I did not find it in the street, but in the flat where I was painting with Dmitri.' 'And how was that?' 'Why, Dmitri and I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go, and Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after him. I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I ran right against the porter and some gentlemenand how many gentlemen were there I don't remember. And the porter swore at me, and the other porter swore, too, and the porter's wife came out, and swore at us, too and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he swore at us, too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold of Dmitri's hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too, caught me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it all not for temper but in a friendly way, for sport. And then Dmitri escaped and ran into the street, and I ran after him but I did not catch him, and went back to the flat alone I had to clear up my things. I began putting them together, expecting Dmitri to come, and there in the passage, in the corner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying there wrapped up in paper. I took off the paper, saw some little hooks, undid them, and in the box were the earrings....' 'Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door? Raskolnikov cried suddenly, staring with a blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he slowly sat up on the sofa, leaning on his hand. 'Yes... why? What's the matter? What's wrong? Razumihin, too, got up from his seat. 'Nothing, Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All were silent for a while. 'He must have waked from a dream, Razumihin said at last, looking inquiringly at Zossimov. The latter slightly shook his head. 'Well, go on, said Zossimov. 'What next? 'What next? As soon as he saw the earrings, forgetting Dmitri and everything, he took up his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got a rouble from him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street, and went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old story about the murder 'I know nothing of it, never heard of it till the day before yesterday.' 'And why didn't you come to the police till now?' 'I was frightened.' 'And why did you try to hang yourself?' 'From anxiety.' 'What anxiety?' 'That I should be accused of it.' Well, that's the whole story. And now what do you suppose they deduced from that? 'Why, there's no supposing. There's a clue, such as it is, a fact. You wouldn't have your painter set free? 'Now they've simply taken him for the murderer. They haven't a shadow of doubt. 'That's nonsense. You are excited. But what about the earrings? You must admit that, if on the very same day and hour earrings from the old woman's box have come into Nikolay's hands, they must have come there somehow. That's a good deal in such a case. 'How did they get there? How did they get there? cried Razumihin. 'How can you, a doctor, whose duty it is to study man and who has more opportunity than anyone else for studying human naturehow can you fail to see the character of the man in the whole story? Don't you see at once that the answers he has given in the examination are the holy truth? They came into his hand precisely as he has told ushe stepped on the box and picked it up. 'The holy truth! But didn't he own himself that he told a lie at first? 'Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who was sitting in the porter's lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady on his arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his hair, beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they 'like children' (the very words of the witnesses) were falling over one another, squealing, fighting and laughing with the funniest faces, and, chasing one another like children, they ran into the street. Now take careful note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you understand, warm when they found them! If they, or Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken open the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you one question do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and childish scuffling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish cunning, robbery? They'd just killed them, not five or ten minutes before, for the bodies were still warm, and at once, leaving the flat open, knowing that people would go there at once, flinging away their booty, they rolled about like children, laughing and attracting general attention. And there are a dozen witnesses to swear to that! 'Of course it is strange! It's impossible, indeed, but... 'No, brother, no buts. And if the earrings being found in Nikolay's hands at the very day and hour of the murder constitutes an important piece of circumstantial evidence against himalthough the explanation given by him accounts for it, and therefore it does not tell seriously against himone must take into consideration the facts which prove him innocent, especially as they are facts that cannot be denied. And do you suppose, from the character of our legal system, that they will accept, or that they are in a position to accept, this factresting simply on a psychological impossibilityas irrefutable and conclusively breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution? No, they won't accept it, they certainly won't, because they found the jewelcase and the man tried to hang himself, 'which he could not have done if he hadn't felt guilty.' That's the point, that's what excites me, you must understand! 'Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to ask you what proof is there that the box came from the old woman? 'That's been proved, said Razumihin with apparent reluctance, frowning. 'Koch recognised the jewelcase and gave the name of the owner, who proved conclusively that it was his. 'That's bad. Now another point. Did anyone see Nikolay at the time that Koch and Pestryakov were going upstairs at first, and is there no evidence about that? 'Nobody did see him, Razumihin answered with vexation. 'That's the worst of it. Even Koch and Pestryakov did not notice them on their way upstairs, though, indeed, their evidence could not have been worth much. They said they saw the flat was open, and that there must be work going on in it, but they took no special notice and could not remember whether there actually were men at work in it. 'Hm!... So the only evidence for the defence is that they were beating one another and laughing. That constitutes a strong presumption, but... How do you explain the facts yourself? 'How do I explain them? What is there to explain? It's clear. At any rate, the direction in which explanation is to be sought is clear, and the jewelcase points to it. The real murderer dropped those earrings. The murderer was upstairs, locked in, when Koch and Pestryakov knocked at the door. Koch, like an ass, did not stay at the door so the murderer popped out and ran down, too for he had no other way of escape. He hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the flat when Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of it. He stopped there while the porter and others were going upstairs, waited till they were out of hearing, and then went calmly downstairs at the very minute when Dmitri and Nikolay ran out into the street and there was no one in the entry possibly he was seen, but not noticed. There are lots of people going in and out. He must have dropped the earrings out of his pocket when he stood behind the door, and did not notice he dropped them, because he had other things to think of. The jewelcase is a conclusive proof that he did stand there.... That's how I explain it. 'Too clever! No, my boy, you're too clever. That beats everything. 'But, why, why? 'Why, because everything fits too well... it's too melodramatic. 'Aach! Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment the door opened and a personage came in who was a stranger to all present. This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly appearance, and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by stopping short in the doorway, staring about him with offensive and undisguised astonishment, as though asking himself what sort of place he had come to. Mistrustfully and with an affectation of being alarmed and almost affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov's low and narrow 'cabin. With the same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with the same deliberation he scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the face without rising from his seat. A constrained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and then, as might be expected, some sceneshifting took place. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs, that he would get nothing in this 'cabin by attempting to overawe them, the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity, emphasising every syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov 'Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student? Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had not Razumihin anticipated him. 'Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want? This familiar 'what do you want seemed to cut the ground from the feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but checked himself in time and turned to Zossimov again. 'This is Raskolnikov, mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he lazily put his hand into his waistcoatpocket, pulled out a huge gold watch in a round hunter's case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly and lazily proceeded to put it back. Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that his face was turned away from the strange flower on the paper, it was extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just undergone an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But the newcomer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder, then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said 'This is Raskolnikov he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but weak and breaking, voice articulated 'Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want? The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively 'Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name is not wholly unknown to you? But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the first time. 'Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no information? asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted. In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into Luzhin's face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment. 'I had presumed and calculated, he faltered, 'that a letter posted more than ten days, if not a fortnight ago... 'I say, why are you standing in the doorway? Razumihin interrupted suddenly. 'If you've something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here's a chair, thread your way in! He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the visitor to 'thread his way in. The minute was so chosen that it was impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at Razumihin. 'No need to be nervous, the latter blurted out. 'Rodya has been ill for the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him. I am a comrade of Rodya's, like him, formerly a student, and now I am nursing him so don't you take any notice of us, but go on with your business. 'Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and conversation? Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov. 'Nno, mumbled Zossimov 'you may amuse him. He yawned again. 'He has been conscious a long time, since the morning, went on Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected goodnature that Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps, because this shabby and impudent person had introduced himself as a student. 'Your mamma, began Luzhin. 'Hm! Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him inquiringly. 'That's all right, go on. Luzhin shrugged his shoulders. 'Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully assured that you were in full possession of the tidings but now, to my astonishment... 'I know, I know! Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation. 'So you are the fianc? I know, and that's enough! There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch's being offended this time, but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all meant. There was a moment's silence. Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something new had struck him he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at him. There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch's whole appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of 'fianc so unceremoniously applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation of his betrotheda perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding, indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the agreeable improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the rle of fianc. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor's and were all right, except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale, if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying them in his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in Pyotr Petrovitch's attire. He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn shade, light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and fine linen, a cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh and even handsome face looked younger than his fortyfive years at all times. His dark, muttonchop whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides, growing thickly upon his shining, cleanshaven chin. Even his hair, touched here and there with grey, though it had been combed and curled at a hairdresser's, did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his weddingday. If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in his rather goodlooking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov smiled malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as before. But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no notice of their oddities. 'I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation, he began, again breaking the silence with an effort. 'If I had been aware of your illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your mamma and sister any minute. Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak his face showed some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing followed, he went on '... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival. 'Where? asked Raskolnikov weakly. 'Very near here, in Bakaleyev's house. 'That's in Voskresensky, put in Razumihin. 'There are two storeys of rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin I've been there. 'Yes, rooms... 'A disgusting placefilthy, stinking and, what's more, of doubtful character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It's cheap, though... 'I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am a stranger in Petersburg myself, Pyotr Petrovitch replied huffily. 'However, the two rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time... I have already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat, he said, addressing Raskolnikov, 'and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am myself cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel it was he who told me of Bakaleyev's house, too... 'Lebeziatnikov? said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something. 'Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you know him? 'Yes... no, Raskolnikov answered. 'Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian.... A very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people one learns new things from them. Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all. 'How do you mean? asked Razumihin. 'In the most serious and essential matters, Pyotr Petrovitch replied, as though delighted at the question. 'You see, it's ten years since I visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg. And it's my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the younger generation. And I confess I am delighted... 'At what? 'Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I find clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality... 'That's true, Zossimov let drop. 'Nonsense! There's no practicality. Razumihin flew at him. 'Practicality is a difficult thing to find it does not drop down from heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting, he said to Pyotr Petrovitch, 'and desire for good exists, though it's in a childish form, and honesty you may find, although there are crowds of brigands. Anyway, there's no practicality. Practicality goes well shod. 'I don't agree with you, Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident enjoyment. 'Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes, but one must have indulgence those mistakes are merely evidence of enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If little has been done, the time has been but short of means I will not speak. It's my personal view, if you care to know, that something has been accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors. Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great thing... 'He's learnt it by heart to show off! Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly. 'What? asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words but he received no reply. 'That's all true, Zossimov hastened to interpose. 'Isn't it so? Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov. 'You must admit, he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of triumph and superciliousnesshe almost added 'young man'that there is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and economic truth... 'A commonplace. 'No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, 'love thy neighbour,' what came of it? Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with excessive haste. 'It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has it, 'Catch several hares and you won't catch one.' Science now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on selfinterest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private affairs are organised in societythe more whole coats, so to saythe firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to pass my neighbour's getting a little more than a torn coat and that not from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it would seem to want very little wit to perceive it... 'Excuse me, I've very little wit myself, Razumihin cut in sharply, 'and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I've grown so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse oneself, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that, by Jove, I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements and I don't blame you, that's quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you are, for so many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive cause of late and have so distorted in their own interests everything they touched, that the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That's enough! 'Excuse me, sir, said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive dignity. 'Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too... 'Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that's enough, Razumihin concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous conversation. Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He made up his mind to take leave in another minute or two. 'I trust our acquaintance, he said, addressing Raskolnikov, 'may, upon your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are aware, become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health... Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began getting up from his chair. 'One of her customers must have killed her, Zossimov declared positively. 'Not a doubt of it, replied Razumihin. 'Porfiry doesn't give his opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges with her there. 'Examining them? Raskolnikov asked aloud. 'Yes. What then? 'Nothing. 'How does he get hold of them? asked Zossimov. 'Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves. 'It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The boldness of it! The coolness! 'That's just what it wasn't! interposed Razumihin. 'That's what throws you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not practised, and probably this was his first crime! The supposition that it was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn't work. Suppose him to have been inexperienced, and it's clear that it was only a chance that saved himand chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets with them, ransacked the old woman's trunks, her ragsand they found fifteen hundred roubles, besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know how to rob he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure you, his first crime he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good counsel! 'You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe? Pyotr Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favourable impression and his vanity overcame his prudence. 'Yes. You've heard of it? 'Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood. 'Do you know the details? 'I can't say that but another circumstance interests me in the casethe whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime has been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere, what strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too, crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a student's robbing the mail on the high road in another place people of good social position forge false banknotes in Moscow of late a whole gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history then our secretary abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class in societyfor peasants don't pawn gold trinketshow are we to explain this demoralisation of the civilised part of our society? 'There are many economic changes, put in Zossimov. 'How are we to explain it? Razumihin caught him up. 'It might be explained by our inveterate impracticality. 'How do you mean? 'What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he was forging notes? 'Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I want to make haste to get rich too.' I don't remember the exact words, but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or working! We've grown used to having everything readymade, to walking on crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour struck, and every man showed himself in his true colours.  The emancipation of the serfs in  is meant.TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 'But morality? And so to speak, principles... 'But why do you worry about it? Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. 'It's in accordance with your theory! 'In accordance with my theory? 'Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, and it follows that people may be killed... 'Upon my word! cried Luzhin. 'No, that's not so, put in Zossimov. Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing painfully. 'There's a measure in all things, Luzhin went on superciliously. 'Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to suppose... 'And is it true, Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, 'is it true that you told your fiance... within an hour of her acceptance, that what pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better to raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor? 'Upon my word, Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with confusion, 'to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say, has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat highflown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed... 'I tell you what, cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, 'I tell you what. 'What? Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face. Silence lasted for some seconds. 'Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my mother... I shall send you flying downstairs! 'What's the matter with you? cried Razumihin. 'So that's how it is? Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. 'Let me tell you, sir, he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself but breathing hard, 'at the first moment I saw you you were illdisposed to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after this... 'I am not ill, cried Raskolnikov. 'So much the worse... 'Go to hell! But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing between the table and the chair Razumihin got up this time to let him pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received. 'How could youhow could you! Razumihin said, shaking his head in perplexity. 'Let me alonelet me alone all of you! Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy. 'Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone, alone, alone! 'Come along, said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin. 'But we can't leave him like this! 'Come along, Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin thought a minute and ran to overtake him. 'It might be worse not to obey him, said Zossimov on the stairs. 'He mustn't be irritated. 'What's the matter with him? 'If only he could get some favourable shock, that's what would do it! At first he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind! Some fixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so he must have! 'Perhaps it's that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a letter about it just before his illness.... 'Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to anything except one point on which he seems excitedthat's the murder? 'Yes, yes, Razumihin agreed, 'I noticed that, too. He is interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police office he fainted. 'Tell me more about that this evening and I'll tell you something afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I'll go and see him again.... There'll be no inflammation though. 'Thanks! And I'll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him through Nastasya.... Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya, but she still lingered. 'Won't you have some tea now? she asked. 'Later! I am sleepy! Leave me. He turned abruptly to the wall Nastasya went out. But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up again and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to have become perfectly calm not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite a firm purpose was evident in them. 'Today, today, he muttered to himself. He understood that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him strength and selfconfidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment's thought put it in his pocket. It was twentyfive roubles. He took also all the copper change from the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes. Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing with her back to him, blowing up the landlady's samovar. She heard nothing. Who would have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A minute later he was in the street. It was nearly eight o'clock, the sun was setting. It was as stifling as before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head felt rather dizzy a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and did not think where he was going, he had one thought only 'that all this must be ended today, once for all, immediately that he would not return home without it, because he would not go on living like that. How, with what to make an end? He had not an idea about it, he did not even want to think of it. He drove away thought thought tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed 'one way or another, he repeated with desperate and immovable selfconfidence and determination. From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay Market. A darkhaired young man with a barrel organ was standing in the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fifteen, who stood on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a mantle and a straw hat with a flamecoloured feather in it, all very old and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five copeck piece and put it in the girl's hand. She broke off abruptly on a sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder 'Come on, and both moved on to the next shop. 'Do you like street music? said Raskolnikov, addressing a middleaged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering. 'I love to hear singing to a street organ, said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject'I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn eveningsthey must be dampwhen all the passersby have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there's no windyou know what I mean?and the street lamps shine through it... 'I don't know.... Excuse me... muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov's strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street. Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta but they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked round and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a corn chandler's shop. 'Isn't there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner? 'All sorts of people keep booths here, answered the young man, glancing superciliously at Raskolnikov. 'What's his name? 'What he was christened. 'Aren't you a Zarasky man, too? Which province? The young man looked at Raskolnikov again. 'It's not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously forgive me, your excellency! 'Is that a tavern at the top there? 'Yes, it's an eatinghouse and there's a billiardroom and you'll find princesses there too.... Lala! Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him they were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and took a turning to the right in the direction of V. He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading from the marketplace to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might feel more so. Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a great block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eatinghouses women were continually running in and out, bareheaded and in their indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement, especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. A crowd of women were thronging round the door some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road, swearing he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man dead drunk was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bareheaded and wore cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some not more than seventeen almost all had blackened eyes. He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping inquisitively in from the pavement. 'Oh, my handsome soldier Don't beat me for nothing, trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that. 'Shall I go in? he thought. 'They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get drunk? 'Won't you come in? one of the women asked him. Her voice was still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not repulsivethe only one of the group. 'Why, she's pretty, he said, drawing himself up and looking at her. She smiled, much pleased at the compliment. 'You're very nice looking yourself, she said. 'Isn't he thin though! observed another woman in a deep bass. 'Have you just come out of a hospital? 'They're all generals' daughters, it seems, but they have all snub noses, interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing a loose coat. 'See how jolly they are. 'Go along with you! 'I'll go, sweetie! And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on. 'I say, sir, the girl shouted after him. 'What is it? She hesitated. 'I'll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there's a nice young man! Raskolnikov gave her what came firstfifteen copecks. 'Ah, what a goodnatured gentleman! 'What's your name? 'Ask for Duclida. 'Well, that's too much, one of the women observed, shaking her head at Duclida. 'I don't know how you can ask like that. I believe I should drop with shame.... Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pockmarked wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made her criticism quietly and earnestly. 'Where is it, thought Raskolnikov. 'Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that, he added a moment later. He went into another street. 'Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he'd read it in the papers. Have you the papers? he asked, going into a very spacious and positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were, however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that distance. 'What if it is? he thought. 'Will you have vodka? asked the waiter. 'Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last five days, and I'll give you something. 'Yes, sir, here's today's. No vodka? The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and began to look through them. 'Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter.... Ah, here it is! He found at last what he was seeking and began to read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the watchchain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and goodhumouredly. His dark face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk. 'What, you here? he began in surprise, speaking as though he'd known him all his life. 'Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were unconscious. How strange! And do you know I've been to see you? Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of irritable impatience was apparent in that smile. 'I know you have, he answered. 'I've heard it. You looked for my sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says you've been with him to Luise Ivanovna'syou know, the woman you tried to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to understandit was quite clear, wasn't it? 'What a hot head he is! 'The explosive one? 'No, your friend Razumihin. 'You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov entrance free to the most agreeable places. Who's been pouring champagne into you just now? 'We've just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring it into me! 'By way of a fee! You profit by everything! Raskolnikov laughed, 'it's all right, my dear boy, he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. 'I am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of the old woman.... 'How do you know about it? 'Perhaps I know more about it than you do. 'How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You oughtn't to have come out. 'Oh, do I seem strange to you? 'Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers? 'Yes. 'There's a lot about the fires. 'No, I am not reading about the fires. Here he looked mysteriously at Zametov his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. 'No, I am not reading about the fires, he went on, winking at Zametov. 'But confess now, my dear fellow, you're awfully anxious to know what I am reading about? 'I am not in the least. Mayn't I ask a question? Why do you keep on...? 'Listen, you are a man of culture and education? 'I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium, said Zametov with some dignity. 'Sixth class! Ah, my cocksparrow! With your parting and your ringsyou are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy! Here Raskolnikov broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov's face. The latter drew back, more amazed than offended. 'Foo! how strange you are! Zametov repeated very seriously. 'I can't help thinking you are still delirious. 'I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cocksparrow! So I am strange? You find me curious, do you? 'Yes, curious. 'Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See what a lot of papers I've made them bring me. Suspicious, eh? 'Well, what is it? 'You prick up your ears? 'How do you mean'prick up my ears'? 'I'll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no, better 'I confess'... No, that's not right either 'I make a deposition and you take it.' I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and searching.... he screwed up his eyes and paused. 'I was searchingand came here on purpose to do itfor news of the murder of the old pawnbroker woman, he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while. 'What if you have been reading about it? he cried at last, perplexed and impatient. 'That's no business of mine! What of it? 'The same old woman, Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, not heeding Zametov's explanation, 'about whom you were talking in the policeoffice, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you understand now? 'What do you mean? Understand... what? Zametov brought out, almost alarmed. Raskolnikov's set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though utterly unable to restrain himself. And in one flash he recalled with extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh! 'You are either mad, or... began Zametov, and he broke off, as though stunned by the idea that had suddenly flashed into his mind. 'Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me! 'Nothing, said Zametov, getting angry, 'it's all nonsense! Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter Raskolnikov became suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten Zametov. The silence lasted for some time. 'Why don't you drink your tea? It's getting cold, said Zametov. 'What! Tea? Oh, yes.... Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment his face resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea. 'There have been a great many of these crimes lately, said Zametov. 'Only the other day I read in the Moscow News that a whole gang of false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society. They used to forge tickets! 'Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago, Raskolnikov answered calmly. 'So you consider them criminals? he added, smiling. 'Of course they are criminals. 'They? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Why, half a hundred people meeting for such an objectwhat an idea! Three would be too many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all collapses. Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the noteswhat a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his life! Better hang oneself at once! And they did not know how to change the notes either the man who changed the notes took five thousand roubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the first four thousand, but did not count the fifth thousandhe was in such a hurry to get the money into his pocket and run away. Of course he roused suspicion. And the whole thing came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible? 'That his hands trembled? observed Zametov, 'yes, that's quite possible. That, I feel quite sure, is possible. Sometimes one can't stand things. 'Can't stand that? 'Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn't. For the sake of a hundred roubles to face such a terrible experience? To go with false notes into a bank where it's their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I should not have the face to do it. Would you? Raskolnikov had an intense desire again 'to put his tongue out. Shivers kept running down his spine. 'I should do it quite differently, Raskolnikov began. 'This is how I would change the notes I'd count the first thousand three or four times backwards and forwards, looking at every note and then I'd set to the second thousand I'd count that halfway through and then hold some fiftyrouble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light againto see whether it was a good one. 'I am afraid,' I would say, 'a relation of mine lost twentyfive roubles the other day through a false note,' and then I'd tell them the whole story. And after I began counting the third, 'No, excuse me,' I would say, 'I fancy I made a mistake in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.' And so I would give up the third thousand and go back to the second and so on to the end. And when I had finished, I'd pick out one from the fifth and one from the second thousand and take them again to the light and ask again, 'Change them, please,' and put the clerk into such a stew that he would not know how to get rid of me. When I'd finished and had gone out, I'd come back, 'No, excuse me,' and ask for some explanation. That's how I'd do it. 'Foo! what terrible things you say! said Zametov, laughing. 'But all that is only talk. I dare say when it came to deeds you'd make a slip. I believe that even a practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on himself, much less you and I. To take an example near homethat old woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by a miraclebut his hands shook, too. He did not succeed in robbing the place, he couldn't stand it. That was clear from the... Raskolnikov seemed offended. 'Clear? Why don't you catch him then? he cried, maliciously gibing at Zametov. 'Well, they will catch him. 'Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? You've a tough job! A great point for you is whether a man is spending money or not. If he had no money and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man. So that any child can mislead you. 'The fact is they always do that, though, answered Zametov. 'A man will commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once he goes drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all as cunning as you are. You wouldn't go to a tavern, of course? Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov. 'You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I should behave in that case, too? he asked with displeasure. 'I should like to, Zametov answered firmly and seriously. Somewhat too much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks. 'Very much? 'Very much! 'All right then. This is how I should behave, Raskolnikov began, again bringing his face close to Zametov's, again staring at him and speaking in a whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. 'This is what I should have done. I should have taken the money and jewels, I should have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen garden or place of that sort. I should have looked out beforehand some stone weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the corner from the time the house was built. I would lift that stonethere would sure to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and money in that hole. Then I'd roll the stone back so that it would look as before, would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year or two, three maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could search! There'd be no trace. 'You are a madman, said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering. He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute he knew what he was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door in another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out. 'And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta? he said suddenly andrealised what he had done. Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His face wore a contorted smile. 'But is it possible? he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked wrathfully at him. 'Own up that you believed it, yes, you did? 'Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now, Zametov cried hastily. 'I've caught my cocksparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you believe less than ever? 'Not at all, cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. 'Have you been frightening me so as to lead up to this? 'You don't believe it then? What were you talking about behind my back when I went out of the policeoffice? And why did the explosive lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there, he shouted to the waiter, getting up and taking his cap, 'how much? 'Thirty copecks, the latter replied, running up. 'And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money! he held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. 'Red notes and blue, twentyfive roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You've crossexamined my landlady, I'll be bound.... Well, that's enough! Assez caus! Till we meet again! He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as after a fit. His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as quickly when the stimulus was removed. Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively. 'Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead, he decided. Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other till they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded, then anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes. 'So here you are! he shouted at the top of his voice'you ran away from your bed! And here I've been looking for you under the sofa! We went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account. And here he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear? 'It means that I'm sick to death of you all and I want to be alone, Raskolnikov answered calmly. 'Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot!... What have you been doing in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once! 'Let me go! said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much for Razumihin he gripped him firmly by the shoulder. 'Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I'll do with you directly? I'll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you home under my arm and lock you up! 'Listen, Razumihin, Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm'can't you see that I don't want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who... curses them, who feels them a burden in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very glad to die. Didn't I tell you plainly enough today that you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my recovery, because it's continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness' sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don't you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God's sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be! He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had been with Luzhin. Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop. 'Well, go to hell then, he said gently and thoughtfully. 'Stay, he roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. 'Listen to me. Let me tell you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you've any little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are plagiarists even in that! There isn't a sign of independent life in you! You are made of spermaceti ointment and you've lymph in your veins instead of blood. I don't believe in anyone of you! In any circumstances the first thing for all of you is to be unlike a human being! Stop! he cried with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making a movement'hear me out! You know I'm having a housewarming this evening, I dare say they've arrived by now, but I left my uncle thereI just ran into receive the guests. And if you weren't a fool, a common fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation... you see, Rodya, I recognise you're a clever fellow, but you're a fool!and if you weren't a fool you'd come round to me this evening instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since you have gone out, there's no help for it! I'd give you a snug easy chair, my landlady has one... a cup of tea, company.... Or you could lie on the sofaany way you would be with us.... Zossimov will be there too. Will you come? 'No. 'Rrubbish! Razumihin shouted, out of patience. 'How do you know? You can't answer for yourself! You don't know anything about it.... Thousands of times I've fought tooth and nail with people and run back to them afterwards.... One feels ashamed and goes back to a man! So remember, Potchinkov's house on the third storey.... 'Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you'd let anybody beat you from sheer benevolence. 'Beat? Whom? Me? I'd twist his nose off at the mere idea! Potchinkov's house, , Babushkin's flat.... 'I shall not come, Razumihin. Raskolnikov turned and walked away. 'I bet you will, Razumihin shouted after him. 'I refuse to know you if you don't! Stay, hey, is Zametov in there? 'Yes. 'Did you see him? 'Yes. 'Talked to him? 'Yes. 'What about? Confound you, don't tell me then. Potchinkov's house, , Babushkin's flat, remember! Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street. Razumihin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand he went into the house but stopped short of the stairs. 'Confound it, he went on almost aloud. 'He talked sensibly but yet... I am a fool! As if madmen didn't talk sensibly! And this was just what Zossimov seemed afraid of. He struck his finger on his forehead. 'What if... how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself.... Ach, what a blunder! I can't. And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned with rapid steps to the Palais de Cristal to question Zametov. Raskolnikov walked straight to X Bridge, stood in the middle, and leaning both elbows on the rail stared into the distance. On parting with Razumihin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach this place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Bending over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink flush of the sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at one distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as though on fire in the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal, and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles flashed before his eyes, the houses seemed moving, the passersby, the canal banks, the carriages, all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started, saved again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and hideous sight. He became aware of someone standing on the right side of him he looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head and legs in the water, her skirt inflated like a balloon over her back. 'A woman drowning! A woman drowning! shouted dozens of voices people ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him. 'Mercy on it! it's our Afrosinya! a woman cried tearfully close by. 'Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out! 'A boat, a boat was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a boat a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his great coat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her she floated within a couple of yards from the steps, he caught hold of her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a comrade held out to him the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon recovered consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing and coughing, stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing. 'She's drunk herself out of her senses, the same woman's voice wailed at her side. 'Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little girl to look after herand here she's in trouble again! A neighbour, gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the end, see yonder.... The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman, someone mentioned the police station.... Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. 'No, that's loathsome... water... it's not good enough, he muttered to himself. 'Nothing will come of it, he added, 'no use to wait. What about the police office...? And why isn't Zametov at the police office? The police office is open till ten o'clock.... He turned his back to the railing and looked about him. 'Very well then! he said resolutely he moved from the bridge and walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out 'to make an end of it all. Complete apathy had succeeded to it. 'Well, it's a way out of it, he thought, walking slowly and listlessly along the canal bank. 'Anyway I'll make an end, for I want to.... But is it a way out? What does it matter! There'll be the square yard of spaceha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or not? Ah... damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie down soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don't care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one's head. To reach the police office he had to go straight forward and take the second turning to the left. It was only a few paces away. But at the first turning he stopped and, after a minute's thought, turned into a side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any object, or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking at the ground suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear he lifted his head and saw that he was standing at the very gate of the house. He had not passed it, he had not been near it since that evening. An overwhelming, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went into the house, passed through the gateway, then into the first entrance on the right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth storey. The narrow, steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each landing and looked round him with curiosity on the first landing the framework of the window had been taken out. 'That wasn't so then, he thought. Here was the flat on the second storey where Nikolay and Dmitri had been working. 'It's shut up and the door newly painted. So it's to let. Then the third storey and the fourth. 'Here! He was perplexed to find the door of the flat wide open. There were men there, he could hear voices he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he mounted the last stairs and went into the flat. It, too, was being done up there were workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him he somehow fancied that he would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the same places on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture it seemed strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the windowsill. There were two workmen, both young fellows, but one much younger than the other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow one. Raskolnikov for some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it all so changed. The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time and now they were hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to go home. They took no notice of Raskolnikov's coming in they were talking. Raskolnikov folded his arms and listened. 'She comes to me in the morning, said the elder to the younger, 'very early, all dressed up. 'Why are you preening and prinking?' says I. 'I am ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!' That's a way of going on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book! 'And what is a fashion book? the younger one asked. He obviously regarded the other as an authority. 'A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how to dress, the male sex as well as the female. They're pictures. The gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies' fluffles, they're beyond anything you can fancy. 'There's nothing you can't find in Petersburg, the younger cried enthusiastically, 'except father and mother, there's everything! 'Except them, there's everything to be found, my boy, the elder declared sententiously. Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong box, the bed, and the chest of drawers had been the room seemed to him very tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same the paper in the corner showed where the case of ikons had stood. He looked at it and went to the window. The elder workman looked at him askance. 'What do you want? he asked suddenly. Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled the bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and a third time he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonisingly fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more satisfaction. 'Well, what do you want? Who are you? the workman shouted, going out to him. Raskolnikov went inside again. 'I want to take a flat, he said. 'I am looking round. 'It's not the time to look at rooms at night! and you ought to come up with the porter. 'The floors have been washed, will they be painted? Raskolnikov went on. 'Is there no blood? 'What blood? 'Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a perfect pool there. 'But who are you? the workman cried, uneasy. 'Who am I? 'Yes. 'You want to know? Come to the police station, I'll tell you. The workmen looked at him in amazement. 'It's time for us to go, we are late. Come along, Alyoshka. We must lock up, said the elder workman. 'Very well, come along, said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going out first, he went slowly downstairs. 'Hey, porter, he cried in the gateway. At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passersby the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few others. Raskolnikov went straight up to them. 'What do you want? asked one of the porters. 'Have you been to the police office? 'I've just been there. What do you want? 'Is it open? 'Of course. 'Is the assistant there? 'He was there for a time. What do you want? Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought. 'He's been to look at the flat, said the elder workman, coming forward. 'Which flat? 'Where we are at work. 'Why have you washed away the blood?' says he. 'There has been a murder here,' says he, 'and I've come to take it.' And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. 'Come to the police station,' says he. 'I'll tell you everything there.' He wouldn't leave us. The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed. 'Who are you? he shouted as impressively as he could. 'I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in Shil's house, not far from here, flat Number , ask the porter, he knows me. Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not turning round, but looking intently into the darkening street. 'Why have you been to the flat? 'To look at it. 'What is there to look at? 'Take him straight to the police station, the man in the long coat jerked in abruptly. Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the same slow, lazy tones 'Come along. 'Yes, take him, the man went on more confidently. 'Why was he going into that, what's in his mind, eh? 'He's not drunk, but God knows what's the matter with him, muttered the workman. 'But what do you want? the porter shouted again, beginning to get angry in earnest'Why are you hanging about? 'You funk the police station then? said Raskolnikov jeeringly. 'How funk it? Why are you hanging about? 'He's a rogue! shouted the peasant woman. 'Why waste time talking to him? cried the other porter, a huge peasant in a full open coat and with keys on his belt. 'Get along! He is a rogue and no mistake. Get along! And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung him into the street. He lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators in silence and walked away. 'Strange man! observed the workman. 'There are strange folks about nowadays, said the woman. 'You should have taken him to the police station all the same, said the man in the long coat. 'Better have nothing to do with him, decided the big porter. 'A regular rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take him up, you won't get rid of him.... We know the sort! 'Shall I go there or not? thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle of the thoroughfare at the crossroads, and he looked about him, as though expecting from someone a decisive word. But no sound came, all was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to him alone.... All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards away, in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts. In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the middle of the street. 'What is it? Raskolnikov turned to the right and went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to the police station and knew that it would all soon be over. An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road with a pair of spirited grey horses there was no one in it, and the coachman had got off his box and stood by the horses were being held by the bridle.... A mass of people had gathered round, the police standing in front. One of them held a lighted lantern which he was turning on something lying close to the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, exclaiming the coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating 'What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfortune! Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could, and succeeded at last in seeing the object of the commotion and interest. On the ground a man who had been run over lay apparently unconscious, and covered with blood he was very badly dressed, but not like a workman. Blood was flowing from his head and face his face was crushed, mutilated and disfigured. He was evidently badly injured. 'Merciful heaven! wailed the coachman, 'what more could I do? If I'd been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly, not in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody else. A drunken man can't walk straight, we all know.... I saw him crossing the street, staggering and almost falling. I shouted again and a second and a third time, then I held the horses in, but he fell straight under their feet! Either he did it on purpose or he was very tipsy.... The horses are young and ready to take fright... they started, he screamed... that made them worse. That's how it happened! 'That's just how it was, a voice in the crowd confirmed. 'He shouted, that's true, he shouted three times, another voice declared. 'Three times it was, we all heard it, shouted a third. But the coachman was not very much distressed and frightened. It was evident that the carriage belonged to a rich and important person who was awaiting it somewhere the police, of course, were in no little anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements. All they had to do was to take the injured man to the police station and the hospital. No one knew his name. Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and stooped closer over him. The lantern suddenly lighted up the unfortunate man's face. He recognised him. 'I know him! I know him! he shouted, pushing to the front. 'It's a government clerk retired from the service, Marmeladov. He lives close by in Kozel's house.... Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see? He pulled money out of his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was in violent agitation. The police were glad that they had found out who the man was. Raskolnikov gave his own name and address, and, as earnestly as if it had been his father, he besought the police to carry the unconscious Marmeladov to his lodging at once. 'Just here, three houses away, he said eagerly, 'the house belongs to Kozel, a rich German. He was going home, no doubt drunk. I know him, he is a drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he has one daughter.... It will take time to take him to the hospital, and there is sure to be a doctor in the house. I'll pay, I'll pay! At least he will be looked after at home... they will help him at once. But he'll die before you get him to the hospital. He managed to slip something unseen into the policeman's hand. But the thing was straightforward and legitimate, and in any case help was closer here. They raised the injured man people volunteered to help. Kozel's house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov walked behind, carefully holding Marmeladov's head and showing the way. 'This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head foremost. Turn round! I'll pay, I'll make it worth your while, he muttered. Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at every free moment, walking to and fro in her little room from window to stove and back again, with her arms folded across her chest, talking to herself and coughing. Of late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest girl, Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much she did not understand, understood very well that her mother needed her, and so always watched her with her big clever eyes and strove her utmost to appear to understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to bed. The boy was waiting for her to take off his shirt, which had to be washed at night. He was sitting straight and motionless on a chair, with a silent, serious face, with his legs stretched out straight before himheels together and toes turned out. He was listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting perfectly still with pouting lips and wideopen eyes, just as all good little boys have to sit when they are undressed to go to bed. A little girl, still younger, dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen, waiting for her turn. The door on to the stairs was open to relieve them a little from the clouds of tobacco smoke which floated in from the other rooms and brought on long terrible fits of coughing in the poor, consumptive woman. Katerina Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner during that week and the hectic flush on her face was brighter than ever. 'You wouldn't believe, you can't imagine, Polenka, she said, walking about the room, 'what a happy luxurious life we had in my papa's house and how this drunkard has brought me, and will bring you all, to ruin! Papa was a civil colonel and only a step from being a governor so that everyone who came to see him said, 'We look upon you, Ivan Mihailovitch, as our governor!' When I... when... she coughed violently, 'oh, cursed life, she cried, clearing her throat and pressing her hands to her breast, 'when I... when at the last ball... at the marshal's... Princess Bezzemelny saw mewho gave me the blessing when your father and I were married, Polenkashe asked at once 'Isn't that the pretty girl who danced the shawl dance at the breakingup?' (You must mend that tear, you must take your needle and darn it as I showed you, or tomorrowcough, cough, coughhe will make the hole bigger, she articulated with effort.) 'Prince Schegolskoy, a kammerjunker, had just come from Petersburg then... he danced the mazurka with me and wanted to make me an offer next day but I thanked him in flattering expressions and told him that my heart had long been another's. That other was your father, Polya papa was fearfully angry.... Is the water ready? Give me the shirt, and the stockings! Lida, said she to the youngest one, 'you must manage without your chemise tonight... and lay your stockings out with it... I'll wash them together.... How is it that drunken vagabond doesn't come in? He has worn his shirt till it looks like a dishclout, he has torn it to rags! I'd do it all together, so as not to have to work two nights running! Oh, dear! (Cough, cough, cough, cough!) Again! What's this? she cried, noticing a crowd in the passage and the men, who were pushing into her room, carrying a burden. 'What is it? What are they bringing? Mercy on us! 'Where are we to put him? asked the policeman, looking round when Marmeladov, unconscious and covered with blood, had been carried in. 'On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his head this way, Raskolnikov showed him. 'Run over in the road! Drunk! someone shouted in the passage. Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasping for breath. The children were terrified. Little Lida screamed, rushed to Polenka and clutched at her, trembling all over. Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov flew to Katerina Ivanovna. 'For God's sake be calm, don't be frightened! he said, speaking quickly, 'he was crossing the road and was run over by a carriage, don't be frightened, he will come to, I told them bring him here... I've been here already, you remember? He will come to I'll pay! 'He's done it this time! Katerina Ivanovna cried despairingly and she rushed to her husband. Raskolnikov noticed at once that she was not one of those women who swoon easily. She instantly placed under the luckless man's head a pillow, which no one had thought of and began undressing and examining him. She kept her head, forgetting herself, biting her trembling lips and stifling the screams which were ready to break from her. Raskolnikov meanwhile induced someone to run for a doctor. There was a doctor, it appeared, next door but one. 'I've sent for a doctor, he kept assuring Katerina Ivanovna, 'don't be uneasy, I'll pay. Haven't you water?... and give me a napkin or a towel, anything, as quick as you can.... He is injured, but not killed, believe me.... We shall see what the doctor says! Katerina Ivanovna ran to the window there, on a broken chair in the corner, a large earthenware basin full of water had been stood, in readiness for washing her children's and husband's linen that night. This washing was done by Katerina Ivanovna at night at least twice a week, if not oftener. For the family had come to such a pass that they were practically without change of linen, and Katerina Ivanovna could not endure uncleanliness and, rather than see dirt in the house, she preferred to wear herself out at night, working beyond her strength when the rest were asleep, so as to get the wet linen hung on a line and dry by the morning. She took up the basin of water at Raskolnikov's request, but almost fell down with her burden. But the latter had already succeeded in finding a towel, wetted it and began washing the blood off Marmeladov's face. Katerina Ivanovna stood by, breathing painfully and pressing her hands to her breast. She was in need of attention herself. Raskolnikov began to realise that he might have made a mistake in having the injured man brought here. The policeman, too, stood in hesitation. 'Polenka, cried Katerina Ivanovna, 'run to Sonia, make haste. If you don't find her at home, leave word that her father has been run over and that she is to come here at once... when she comes in. Run, Polenka! there, put on the shawl. 'Run your fastest! cried the little boy on the chair suddenly, after which he relapsed into the same dumb rigidity, with round eyes, his heels thrust forward and his toes spread out. Meanwhile the room had become so full of people that you couldn't have dropped a pin. The policemen left, all except one, who remained for a time, trying to drive out the people who came in from the stairs. Almost all Madame Lippevechsel's lodgers had streamed in from the inner rooms of the flat at first they were squeezed together in the doorway, but afterwards they overflowed into the room. Katerina Ivanovna flew into a fury. 'You might let him die in peace, at least, she shouted at the crowd, 'is it a spectacle for you to gape at? With cigarettes! (Cough, cough, cough!) You might as well keep your hats on.... And there is one in his hat!... Get away! You should respect the dead, at least! Her cough choked herbut her reproaches were not without result. They evidently stood in some awe of Katerina Ivanovna. The lodgers, one after another, squeezed back into the doorway with that strange inner feeling of satisfaction which may be observed in the presence of a sudden accident, even in those nearest and dearest to the victim, from which no living man is exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sympathy and compassion. Voices outside were heard, however, speaking of the hospital and saying that they'd no business to make a disturbance here. 'No business to die! cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she was rushing to the door to vent her wrath upon them, but in the doorway came face to face with Madame Lippevechsel who had only just heard of the accident and ran in to restore order. She was a particularly quarrelsome and irresponsible German. 'Ah, my God! she cried, clasping her hands, 'your husband drunken horses have trampled! To the hospital with him! I am the landlady! 'Amalia Ludwigovna, I beg you to recollect what you are saying, Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (she always took a haughty tone with the landlady that she might 'remember her place and even now could not deny herself this satisfaction). 'Amalia Ludwigovna... 'I have you once before told that you to call me Amalia Ludwigovna may not dare I am Amalia Ivanovna. 'You are not Amalia Ivanovna, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and as I am not one of your despicable flatterers like Mr. Lebeziatnikov, who's laughing behind the door at this moment (a laugh and a cry of 'they are at it again' was in fact audible at the door) so I shall always call you Amalia Ludwigovna, though I fail to understand why you dislike that name. You can see for yourself what has happened to Semyon Zaharovitch he is dying. I beg you to close that door at once and to admit no one. Let him at least die in peace! Or I warn you the GovernorGeneral, himself, shall be informed of your conduct tomorrow. The prince knew me as a girl he remembers Semyon Zaharovitch well and has often been a benefactor to him. Everyone knows that Semyon Zaharovitch had many friends and protectors, whom he abandoned himself from an honourable pride, knowing his unhappy weakness, but now (she pointed to Raskolnikov) a generous young man has come to our assistance, who has wealth and connections and whom Semyon Zaharovitch has known from a child. You may rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna... All this was uttered with extreme rapidity, getting quicker and quicker, but a cough suddenly cut short Katerina Ivanovna's eloquence. At that instant the dying man recovered consciousness and uttered a groan she ran to him. The injured man opened his eyes and without recognition or understanding gazed at Raskolnikov who was bending over him. He drew deep, slow, painful breaths blood oozed at the corners of his mouth and drops of perspiration came out on his forehead. Not recognising Raskolnikov, he began looking round uneasily. Katerina Ivanovna looked at him with a sad but stern face, and tears trickled from her eyes. 'My God! His whole chest is crushed! How he is bleeding, she said in despair. 'We must take off his clothes. Turn a little, Semyon Zaharovitch, if you can, she cried to him. Marmeladov recognised her. 'A priest, he articulated huskily. Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head against the window frame and exclaimed in despair 'Oh, cursed life! 'A priest, the dying man said again after a moment's silence. 'They've gone for him, Katerina Ivanovna shouted to him, he obeyed her shout and was silent. With sad and timid eyes he looked for her she returned and stood by his pillow. He seemed a little easier but not for long. Soon his eyes rested on little Lida, his favourite, who was shaking in the corner, as though she were in a fit, and staring at him with her wondering childish eyes. 'Aah, he signed towards her uneasily. He wanted to say something. 'What now? cried Katerina Ivanovna. 'Barefoot, barefoot! he muttered, indicating with frenzied eyes the child's bare feet. 'Be silent, Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, 'you know why she is barefooted. 'Thank God, the doctor, exclaimed Raskolnikov, relieved. The doctor came in, a precise little old man, a German, looking about him mistrustfully he went up to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully felt his head and with the help of Katerina Ivanovna he unbuttoned the bloodstained shirt, and bared the injured man's chest. It was gashed, crushed and fractured, several ribs on the right side were broken. On the left side, just over the heart, was a large, sinisterlooking yellowishblack bruisea cruel kick from the horse's hoof. The doctor frowned. The policeman told him that he was caught in the wheel and turned round with it for thirty yards on the road. 'It's wonderful that he has recovered consciousness, the doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov. 'What do you think of him? he asked. 'He will die immediately. 'Is there really no hope? 'Not the faintest! He is at the last gasp.... His head is badly injured, too... Hm... I could bleed him if you like, but... it would be useless. He is bound to die within the next five or ten minutes. 'Better bleed him then. 'If you like.... But I warn you it will be perfectly useless. At that moment other steps were heard the crowd in the passage parted, and the priest, a little, grey old man, appeared in the doorway bearing the sacrament. A policeman had gone for him at the time of the accident. The doctor changed places with him, exchanging glances with him. Raskolnikov begged the doctor to remain a little while. He shrugged his shoulders and remained. All stepped back. The confession was soon over. The dying man probably understood little he could only utter indistinct broken sounds. Katerina Ivanovna took little Lida, lifted the boy from the chair, knelt down in the corner by the stove and made the children kneel in front of her. The little girl was still trembling but the boy, kneeling on his little bare knees, lifted his hand rhythmically, crossing himself with precision and bowed down, touching the floor with his forehead, which seemed to afford him especial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit her lips and held back her tears she prayed, too, now and then pulling straight the boy's shirt, and managed to cover the girl's bare shoulders with a kerchief, which she took from the chest without rising from her knees or ceasing to pray. Meanwhile the door from the inner rooms was opened inquisitively again. In the passage the crowd of spectators from all the flats on the staircase grew denser and denser, but they did not venture beyond the threshold. A single candleend lighted up the scene. At that moment Polenka forced her way through the crowd at the door. She came in panting from running so fast, took off her kerchief, looked for her mother, went up to her and said, 'She's coming, I met her in the street. Her mother made her kneel beside her. Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the crowd, and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of want, rags, death and despair. She, too, was in rags, her attire was all of the cheapest, but decked out in gutter finery of a special stamp, unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose. Sonia stopped short in the doorway and looked about her bewildered, unconscious of everything. She forgot her fourthhand, gaudy silk dress, so unseemly here with its ridiculous long train, and her immense crinoline that filled up the whole doorway, and her lightcoloured shoes, and the parasol she brought with her, though it was no use at night, and the absurd round straw hat with its flaring flamecoloured feather. Under this rakishlytilted hat was a pale, frightened little face with lips parted and eyes staring in terror. Sonia was a small thin girl of eighteen with fair hair, rather pretty, with wonderful blue eyes. She looked intently at the bed and the priest she too was out of breath with running. At last whispers, some words in the crowd probably, reached her. She looked down and took a step forward into the room, still keeping close to the door. The service was over. Katerina Ivanovna went up to her husband again. The priest stepped back and turned to say a few words of admonition and consolation to Katerina Ivanovna on leaving. 'What am I to do with these? she interrupted sharply and irritably, pointing to the little ones. 'God is merciful look to the Most High for succour, the priest began. 'Ach! He is merciful, but not to us. 'That's a sin, a sin, madam, observed the priest, shaking his head. 'And isn't that a sin? cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying man. 'Perhaps those who have involuntarily caused the accident will agree to compensate you, at least for the loss of his earnings. 'You don't understand! cried Katerina Ivanovna angrily waving her hand. 'And why should they compensate me? Why, he was drunk and threw himself under the horses! What earnings? He brought us in nothing but misery. He drank everything away, the drunkard! He robbed us to get drink, he wasted their lives and mine for drink! And thank God he's dying! One less to keep! 'You must forgive in the hour of death, that's a sin, madam, such feelings are a great sin. Katerina Ivanovna was busy with the dying man she was giving him water, wiping the blood and sweat from his head, setting his pillow straight, and had only turned now and then for a moment to address the priest. Now she flew at him almost in a frenzy. 'Ah, father! That's words and only words! Forgive! If he'd not been run over, he'd have come home today drunk and his only shirt dirty and in rags and he'd have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children's and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I should have been darning them. That's how I spend my nights!... What's the use of talking of forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is! A terrible hollow cough interrupted her words. She put her handkerchief to her lips and showed it to the priest, pressing her other hand to her aching chest. The handkerchief was covered with blood. The priest bowed his head and said nothing. Marmeladov was in the last agony he did not take his eyes off the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending over him again. He kept trying to say something to her he began moving his tongue with difficulty and articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, called peremptorily to him 'Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say! And the sick man was silent, but at the same instant his wandering eyes strayed to the doorway and he saw Sonia. Till then he had not noticed her she was standing in the shadow in a corner. 'Who's that? Who's that? he said suddenly in a thick gasping voice, in agitation, turning his eyes in horror towards the door where his daughter was standing, and trying to sit up. 'Lie down! Lie doown! cried Katerina Ivanovna. With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping himself on his elbow. He looked wildly and fixedly for some time on his daughter, as though not recognising her. He had never seen her before in such attire. Suddenly he recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation and gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say goodbye to her dying father. His face showed intense suffering. 'Sonia! Daughter! Forgive! he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on the floor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on the sofa but he was dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained so without moving. He died in her arms. 'He's got what he wanted, Katerina Ivanovna cried, seeing her husband's dead body. 'Well, what's to be done now? How am I to bury him! What can I give them tomorrow to eat? Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna. 'Katerina Ivanovna, he began, 'last week your husband told me all his life and circumstances.... Believe me, he spoke of you with passionate reverence. From that evening, when I learnt how devoted he was to you all and how he loved and respected you especially, Katerina Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness, from that evening we became friends.... Allow me now... to do something... to repay my debt to my dead friend. Here are twenty roubles, I thinkand if that can be of any assistance to you, then... I... in short, I will come again, I will be sure to come again... I shall, perhaps, come again tomorrow.... Goodbye! And he went quickly out of the room, squeezing his way through the crowd to the stairs. But in the crowd he suddenly jostled against Nikodim Fomitch, who had heard of the accident and had come to give instructions in person. They had not met since the scene at the police station, but Nikodim Fomitch knew him instantly. 'Ah, is that you? he asked him. 'He's dead, answered Raskolnikov. 'The doctor and the priest have been, all as it should have been. Don't worry the poor woman too much, she is in consumption as it is. Try and cheer her up, if possible... you are a kindhearted man, I know... he added with a smile, looking straight in his face. 'But you are spattered with blood, observed Nikodim Fomitch, noticing in the lamplight some fresh stains on Raskolnikov's waistcoat. 'Yes... I'm covered with blood, Raskolnikov said with a peculiar air then he smiled, nodded and went downstairs. He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation of life and strength that surged up suddenly within him. This sensation might be compared to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly been pardoned. Halfway down the staircase he was overtaken by the priest on his way home Raskolnikov let him pass, exchanging a silent greeting with him. He was just descending the last steps when he heard rapid footsteps behind him. Someone overtook him it was Polenka. She was running after him, calling 'Wait! wait! He turned round. She was at the bottom of the staircase and stopped short a step above him. A dim light came in from the yard. Raskolnikov could distinguish the child's thin but pretty little face, looking at him with a bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message which she was evidently glad to give. 'Tell me, what is your name?... and where do you live? she said hurriedly in a breathless voice. He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a sort of rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at her, he could not have said why. 'Who sent you? 'Sister Sonia sent me, answered the girl, smiling still more brightly. 'I knew it was sister Sonia sent you. 'Mamma sent me, too... when sister Sonia was sending me, mamma came up, too, and said 'Run fast, Polenka.' 'Do you love sister Sonia? 'I love her more than anyone, Polenka answered with a peculiar earnestness, and her smile became graver. 'And will you love me? By way of answer he saw the little girl's face approaching him, her full lips navely held out to kiss him. Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks held him tightly, her head rested on his shoulder and the little girl wept softly, pressing her face against him. 'I am sorry for father, she said a moment later, raising her tearstained face and brushing away the tears with her hands. 'It's nothing but misfortunes now, she added suddenly with that peculiarly sedate air which children try hard to assume when they want to speak like grownup people. 'Did your father love you? 'He loved Lida most, she went on very seriously without a smile, exactly like grownup people, 'he loved her because she is little and because she is ill, too. And he always used to bring her presents. But he taught us to read and me grammar and scripture, too, she added with dignity. 'And mother never used to say anything, but we knew that she liked it and father knew it, too. And mother wants to teach me French, for it's time my education began. 'And do you know your prayers? 'Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my prayers to myself as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and Lida say them aloud with mother. First they repeat the 'Ave Maria' and then another prayer 'Lord, forgive and bless sister Sonia,' and then another, 'Lord, forgive and bless our second father.' For our elder father is dead and this is another one, but we do pray for the other as well. 'Polenka, my name is Rodion. Pray sometimes for me, too. 'And Thy servant Rodion,' nothing more. 'I'll pray for you all the rest of my life, the little girl declared hotly, and suddenly smiling again she rushed at him and hugged him warmly once more. Raskolnikov told her his name and address and promised to be sure to come next day. The child went away quite enchanted with him. It was past ten when he came out into the street. In five minutes he was standing on the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped in. 'Enough, he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. 'I've done with fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! haven't I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of Heaven to herand now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now for the reign of reason and light... and of will, and of strength... and now we will see! We will try our strength! he added defiantly, as though challenging some power of darkness. 'And I was ready to consent to live in a square of space! 'I am very weak at this moment, but... I believe my illness is all over. I knew it would be over when I went out. By the way, Potchinkov's house is only a few steps away. I certainly must go to Razumihin even if it were not close by... let him win his bet! Let us give him some satisfaction, toono matter! Strength, strength is what one wants, you can get nothing without it, and strength must be won by strengththat's what they don't know, he added proudly and selfconfidently and he walked with flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and selfconfidence grew continually stronger in him he was becoming a different man every moment. What was it had happened to work this revolution in him? He did not know himself like a man catching at a straw, he suddenly felt that he, too, 'could live, that there was still life for him, that his life had not died with the old woman.' Perhaps he was in too great a hurry with his conclusions, but he did not think of that. 'But I did ask her to remember 'Thy servant Rodion' in her prayers, the idea struck him. 'Well, that was... in case of emergency, he added and laughed himself at his boyish sally. He was in the best of spirits. He easily found Razumihin the new lodger was already known at Potchinkov's and the porter at once showed him the way. Halfway upstairs he could hear the noise and animated conversation of a big gathering of people. The door was wide open on the stairs he could hear exclamations and discussion. Razumihin's room was fairly large the company consisted of fifteen people. Raskolnikov stopped in the entry, where two of the landlady's servants were busy behind a screen with two samovars, bottles, plates and dishes of pie and savouries, brought up from the landlady's kitchen. Raskolnikov sent in for Razumihin. He ran out delighted. At the first glance it was apparent that he had had a great deal to drink and, though no amount of liquor made Razumihin quite drunk, this time he was perceptibly affected by it. 'Listen, Raskolnikov hastened to say, 'I've only just come to tell you you've won your bet and that no one really knows what may not happen to him. I can't come in I am so weak that I shall fall down directly. And so good evening and goodbye! Come and see me tomorrow. 'Do you know what? I'll see you home. If you say you're weak yourself, you must... 'And your visitors? Who is the curlyheaded one who has just peeped out? 'He? Goodness only knows! Some friend of uncle's, I expect, or perhaps he has come without being invited... I'll leave uncle with them, he is an invaluable person, pity I can't introduce you to him now. But confound them all now! They won't notice me, and I need a little fresh air, for you've come just in the nick of timeanother two minutes and I should have come to blows! They are talking such a lot of wild stuff... you simply can't imagine what men will say! Though why shouldn't you imagine? Don't we talk nonsense ourselves? And let them... that's the way to learn not to!... Wait a minute, I'll fetch Zossimov. Zossimov pounced upon Raskolnikov almost greedily he showed a special interest in him soon his face brightened. 'You must go to bed at once, he pronounced, examining the patient as far as he could, 'and take something for the night. Will you take it? I got it ready some time ago... a powder. 'Two, if you like, answered Raskolnikov. The powder was taken at once. 'It's a good thing you are taking him home, observed Zossimov to Razumihin'we shall see how he is tomorrow, today he's not at all amissa considerable change since the afternoon. Live and learn... 'Do you know what Zossimov whispered to me when we were coming out? Razumihin blurted out, as soon as they were in the street. 'I won't tell you everything, brother, because they are such fools. Zossimov told me to talk freely to you on the way and get you to talk freely to me, and afterwards I am to tell him about it, for he's got a notion in his head that you are... mad or close on it. Only fancy! In the first place, you've three times the brains he has in the second, if you are not mad, you needn't care a hang that he has got such a wild idea and thirdly, that piece of beef whose specialty is surgery has gone mad on mental diseases, and what's brought him to this conclusion about you was your conversation today with Zametov. 'Zametov told you all about it? 'Yes, and he did well. Now I understand what it all means and so does Zametov.... Well, the fact is, Rodya... the point is... I am a little drunk now.... But that's... no matter... the point is that this idea... you understand? was just being hatched in their brains... you understand? That is, no one ventured to say it aloud, because the idea is too absurd and especially since the arrest of that painter, that bubble's burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the timethat's between ourselves, brother please don't let out a hint that you know of it I've noticed he is a ticklish subject it was at Luise Ivanovna's. But today, today it's all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed of it himself now I know that... Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumihin was drunk enough to talk too freely. 'I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of paint, said Raskolnikov. 'No need to explain that! And it wasn't the paint only the fever had been coming on for a month Zossimov testifies to that! But how crushed that boy is now, you wouldn't believe! 'I am not worth his little finger,' he says. Yours, he means. He has good feelings at times, brother. But the lesson, the lesson you gave him today in the Palais de Cristal, that was too good for anything! You frightened him at first, you know, he nearly went into convulsions! You almost convinced him again of the truth of all that hideous nonsense, and then you suddenlyput out your tongue at him 'There now, what do you make of it?' It was perfect! He is crushed, annihilated now! It was masterly, by Jove, it's what they deserve! Ah, that I wasn't there! He was hoping to see you awfully. Porfiry, too, wants to make your acquaintance... 'Ah!... he too... but why did they put me down as mad? 'Oh, not mad. I must have said too much, brother.... What struck him, you see, was that only that subject seemed to interest you now it's clear why it did interest you knowing all the circumstances... and how that irritated you and worked in with your illness... I am a little drunk, brother, only, confound him, he has some idea of his own... I tell you, he's mad on mental diseases. But don't you mind him... For half a minute both were silent. 'Listen, Razumihin, began Raskolnikov, 'I want to tell you plainly I've just been at a deathbed, a clerk who died... I gave them all my money... and besides I've just been kissed by someone who, if I had killed anyone, would just the same... in fact I saw someone else there... with a flamecoloured feather... but I am talking nonsense I am very weak, support me... we shall be at the stairs directly... 'What's the matter? What's the matter with you? Razumihin asked anxiously. 'I am a little giddy, but that's not the point, I am so sad, so sad... like a woman. Look, what's that? Look, look! 'What is it? 'Don't you see? A light in my room, you see? Through the crack... They were already at the foot of the last flight of stairs, at the level of the landlady's door, and they could, as a fact, see from below that there was a light in Raskolnikov's garret. 'Queer! Nastasya, perhaps, observed Razumihin. 'She is never in my room at this time and she must be in bed long ago, but... I don't care! Goodbye! 'What do you mean? I am coming with you, we'll come in together! 'I know we are going in together, but I want to shake hands here and say goodbye to you here. So give me your hand, goodbye! 'What's the matter with you, Rodya? 'Nothing... come along... you shall be witness. They began mounting the stairs, and the idea struck Razumihin that perhaps Zossimov might be right after all. 'Ah, I've upset him with my chatter! he muttered to himself. When they reached the door they heard voices in the room. 'What is it? cried Razumihin. Raskolnikov was the first to open the door he flung it wide and stood still in the doorway, dumbfoundered. His mother and sister were sitting on his sofa and had been waiting an hour and a half for him. Why had he never expected, never thought of them, though the news that they had started, were on their way and would arrive immediately, had been repeated to him only that day? They had spent that hour and a half plying Nastasya with questions. She was standing before them and had told them everything by now. They were beside themselves with alarm when they heard of his 'running away today, ill and, as they understood from her story, delirious! 'Good Heavens, what had become of him? Both had been weeping, both had been in anguish for that hour and a half. A cry of joy, of ecstasy, greeted Raskolnikov's entrance. Both rushed to him. But he stood like one dead a sudden intolerable sensation struck him like a thunderbolt. He did not lift his arms to embrace them, he could not. His mother and sister clasped him in their arms, kissed him, laughed and cried. He took a step, tottered and fell to the ground, fainting. Anxiety, cries of horror, moans... Razumihin who was standing in the doorway flew into the room, seized the sick man in his strong arms and in a moment had him on the sofa. 'It's nothing, nothing! he cried to the mother and sister'it's only a faint, a mere trifle! Only just now the doctor said he was much better, that he is perfectly well! Water! See, he is coming to himself, he is all right again! And seizing Dounia by the arm so that he almost dislocated it, he made her bend down to see that 'he is all right again. The mother and sister looked on him with emotion and gratitude, as their Providence. They had heard already from Nastasya all that had been done for their Rodya during his illness, by this 'very competent young man, as Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov called him that evening in conversation with Dounia. Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He waved his hand weakly to Razumihin to cut short the flow of warm and incoherent consolations he was addressing to his mother and sister, took them both by the hand and for a minute or two gazed from one to the other without speaking. His mother was alarmed by his expression. It revealed an emotion agonisingly poignant, and at the same time something immovable, almost insane. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry. Avdotya Romanovna was pale her hand trembled in her brother's. 'Go home... with him, he said in a broken voice, pointing to Razumihin, 'goodbye till tomorrow tomorrow everything... Is it long since you arrived? 'This evening, Rodya, answered Pulcheria Alexandrovna, 'the train was awfully late. But, Rodya, nothing would induce me to leave you now! I will spend the night here, near you... 'Don't torture me! he said with a gesture of irritation. 'I will stay with him, cried Razumihin, 'I won't leave him for a moment. Bother all my visitors! Let them rage to their hearts' content! My uncle is presiding there. 'How, how can I thank you! Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning, once more pressing Razumihin's hands, but Raskolnikov interrupted her again. 'I can't have it! I can't have it! he repeated irritably, 'don't worry me! Enough, go away... I can't stand it! 'Come, mamma, come out of the room at least for a minute, Dounia whispered in dismay 'we are distressing him, that's evident. 'Mayn't I look at him after three years? wept Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Stay, he stopped them again, 'you keep interrupting me, and my ideas get muddled.... Have you seen Luzhin? 'No, Rodya, but he knows already of our arrival. We have heard, Rodya, that Pyotr Petrovitch was so kind as to visit you today, Pulcheria Alexandrovna added somewhat timidly. 'Yes... he was so kind... Dounia, I promised Luzhin I'd throw him downstairs and told him to go to hell.... 'Rodya, what are you saying! Surely, you don't mean to tell us... Pulcheria Alexandrovna began in alarm, but she stopped, looking at Dounia. Avdotya Romanovna was looking attentively at her brother, waiting for what would come next. Both of them had heard of the quarrel from Nastasya, so far as she had succeeded in understanding and reporting it, and were in painful perplexity and suspense. 'Dounia, Raskolnikov continued with an effort, 'I don't want that marriage, so at the first opportunity tomorrow you must refuse Luzhin, so that we may never hear his name again. 'Good Heavens! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Brother, think what you are saying! Avdotya Romanovna began impetuously, but immediately checked herself. 'You are not fit to talk now, perhaps you are tired, she added gently. 'You think I am delirious? No... You are marrying Luzhin for my sake. But I won't accept the sacrifice. And so write a letter before tomorrow, to refuse him... Let me read it in the morning and that will be the end of it! 'That I can't do! the girl cried, offended, 'what right have you... 'Dounia, you are hasty, too, be quiet, tomorrow... Don't you see... the mother interposed in dismay. 'Better come away! 'He is raving, Razumihin cried tipsily, 'or how would he dare! Tomorrow all this nonsense will be over... today he certainly did drive him away. That was so. And Luzhin got angry, too.... He made speeches here, wanted to show off his learning and he went out crestfallen.... 'Then it's true? cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Goodbye till tomorrow, brother, said Dounia compassionately'let us go, mother... Goodbye, Rodya. 'Do you hear, sister, he repeated after them, making a last effort, 'I am not delirious this marriage isan infamy. Let me act like a scoundrel, but you mustn't... one is enough... and though I am a scoundrel, I wouldn't own such a sister. It's me or Luzhin! Go now.... 'But you're out of your mind! Despot! roared Razumihin but Raskolnikov did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with interest at Razumihin her black eyes flashed Razumihin positively started at her glance. Pulcheria Alexandrovna stood overwhelmed. 'Nothing would induce me to go, she whispered in despair to Razumihin. 'I will stay somewhere here... escort Dounia home. 'You'll spoil everything, Razumihin answered in the same whisper, losing patience'come out on to the stairs, anyway. Nastasya, show a light! I assure you, he went on in a half whisper on the stairs'that he was almost beating the doctor and me this afternoon! Do you understand? The doctor himself! Even he gave way and left him, so as not to irritate him. I remained downstairs on guard, but he dressed at once and slipped off. And he will slip off again if you irritate him, at this time of night, and will do himself some mischief.... 'What are you saying? 'And Avdotya Romanovna can't possibly be left in those lodgings without you. Just think where you are staying! That blackguard Pyotr Petrovitch couldn't find you better lodgings... But you know I've had a little to drink, and that's what makes me... swear don't mind it.... 'But I'll go to the landlady here, Pulcheria Alexandrovna insisted, 'I'll beseech her to find some corner for Dounia and me for the night. I can't leave him like that, I cannot! This conversation took place on the landing just before the landlady's door. Nastasya lighted them from a step below. Razumihin was in extraordinary excitement. Half an hour earlier, while he was bringing Raskolnikov home, he had indeed talked too freely, but he was aware of it himself, and his head was clear in spite of the vast quantities he had imbibed. Now he was in a state bordering on ecstasy, and all that he had drunk seemed to fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with the two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost every word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was the matter, he drew them all the closer to him. If they'd told him to jump head foremost from the staircase, he would have done it without thought or hesitation in their service. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna felt that the young man was really too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety over her Rodya she looked on his presence as providential, and was unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It was only the unbounded confidence inspired by Nastasya's account of her brother's queer friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from him, and to persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too, that even running away was perhaps impossible now. Ten minutes later, however, she was considerably reassured it was characteristic of Razumihin that he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he might be in, so that people quickly saw the sort of man they had to deal with. 'You can't go to the landlady, that's perfect nonsense! he cried. 'If you stay, though you are his mother, you'll drive him to a frenzy, and then goodness knows what will happen! Listen, I'll tell you what I'll do Nastasya will stay with him now, and I'll conduct you both home, you can't be in the streets alone Petersburg is an awful place in that way.... But no matter! Then I'll run straight back here and a quarter of an hour later, on my word of honour, I'll bring you news how he is, whether he is asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I'll run home in a twinklingI've a lot of friends there, all drunkI'll fetch Zossimovthat's the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too, but he is not drunk he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I'll drag him to Rodya, and then to you, so that you'll get two reports in the hourfrom the doctor, you understand, from the doctor himself, that's a very different thing from my account of him! If there's anything wrong, I swear I'll bring you here myself, but, if it's all right, you go to bed. And I'll spend the night here, in the passage, he won't hear me, and I'll tell Zossimov to sleep at the landlady's, to be at hand. Which is better for him you or the doctor? So come home then! But the landlady is out of the question it's all right for me, but it's out of the question for you she wouldn't take you, for she's... for she's a fool... She'd be jealous on my account of Avdotya Romanovna and of you, too, if you want to know... of Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is an absolutely, absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!... No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do you trust me or not? 'Let us go, mother, said Avdotya Romanovna, 'he will certainly do what he has promised. He has saved Rodya already, and if the doctor really will consent to spend the night here, what could be better? 'You see, you... you... understand me, because you are an angel! Razumihin cried in ecstasy, 'let us go! Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit with him with a light I'll come in a quarter of an hour. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly convinced, she made no further resistance. Razumihin gave an arm to each and drew them down the stairs. He still made her uneasy, as though he was competent and goodnatured, was he capable of carrying out his promise? He seemed in such a condition.... 'Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition! Razumihin broke in upon her thoughts, guessing them, as he strolled along the pavement with huge steps, so that the two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a fact he did not observe, however. 'Nonsense! That is... I am drunk like a fool, but that's not it I am not drunk from wine. It's seeing you has turned my head... But don't mind me! Don't take any notice I am talking nonsense, I am not worthy of you.... I am utterly unworthy of you! The minute I've taken you home, I'll pour a couple of pailfuls of water over my head in the gutter here, and then I shall be all right.... If only you knew how I love you both! Don't laugh, and don't be angry! You may be angry with anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I am your friend, too, I want to be... I had a presentiment... Last year there was a moment... though it wasn't a presentiment really, for you seem to have fallen from heaven. And I expect I shan't sleep all night... Zossimov was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad... that's why he mustn't be irritated. 'What do you say? cried the mother. 'Did the doctor really say that? asked Avdotya Romanovna, alarmed. 'Yes, but it's not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some medicine, a powder, I saw it, and then your coming here.... Ah! It would have been better if you had come tomorrow. It's a good thing we went away. And in an hour Zossimov himself will report to you about everything. He is not drunk! And I shan't be drunk.... And what made me get so tight? Because they got me into an argument, damn them! I've sworn never to argue! They talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I've left my uncle to preside. Would you believe, they insist on complete absence of individualism and that's just what they relish! Not to be themselves, to be as unlike themselves as they can. That's what they regard as the highest point of progress. If only their nonsense were their own, but as it is... 'Listen! Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but it only added fuel to the flames. 'What do you think? shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, 'you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way but we can't even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better than a bird. Truth won't escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people's ideas, it's what we are used to! Am I right, am I right? cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies' hands. 'Oh, mercy, I do not know, cried poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Yes, yes... though I don't agree with you in everything, added Avdotya Romanovna earnestly and at once uttered a cry, for he squeezed her hand so painfully. 'Yes, you say yes... well after that you... you... he cried in a transport, 'you are a fount of goodness, purity, sense... and perfection. Give me your hand... you give me yours, too! I want to kiss your hands here at once, on my knees... and he fell on his knees on the pavement, fortunately at that time deserted. 'Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing? Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, greatly distressed. 'Get up, get up! said Dounia laughing, though she, too, was upset. 'Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands! That's it! Enough! I get up and we'll go on! I am a luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and drunk... and I am ashamed.... I am not worthy to love you, but to do homage to you is the duty of every man who is not a perfect beast! And I've done homage.... Here are your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya was right in driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away.... How dare he! how dare he put you in such lodgings! It's a scandal! Do you know the sort of people they take in here? And you his betrothed! You are his betrothed? Yes? Well, then, I'll tell you, your fianc is a scoundrel. 'Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting... Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning. 'Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am ashamed of it, Razumihin made haste to apologise. 'But... but you can't be angry with me for speaking so! For I speak sincerely and not because... hm, hm! That would be disgraceful in fact not because I'm in... hm! Well, anyway, I won't say why, I daren't.... But we all saw today when he came in that that man is not of our sort. Not because he had his hair curled at the barber's, not because he was in such a hurry to show his wit, but because he is a spy, a speculator, because he is a skinflint and a buffoon. That's evident. Do you think him clever? No, he is a fool, a fool. And is he a match for you? Good heavens! Do you see, ladies? he stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms, 'though all my friends there are drunk, yet they are all honest, and though we do talk a lot of trash, and I do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the truth at last, for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch... is not on the right path. Though I've been calling them all sorts of names just now, I do respect them all... though I don't respect Zametov, I like him, for he is a puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he is an honest man and knows his work. But enough, it's all said and forgiven. Is it forgiven? Well, then, let's go on. I know this corridor, I've been here, there was a scandal here at Number .... Where are you here? Which number? eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the night, then. Don't let anybody in. In a quarter of an hour I'll come back with news, and half an hour later I'll bring Zossimov, you'll see! Goodbye, I'll run. 'Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to happen? said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, addressing her daughter with anxiety and dismay. 'Don't worry yourself, mother, said Dounia, taking off her hat and cape. 'God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from a drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all that he has done for Rodya.... 'Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will come! How could I bring myself to leave Rodya?... And how different, how different I had fancied our meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to see us.... Tears came into her eyes. 'No, it's not that, mother. You didn't see, you were crying all the time. He is quite unhinged by serious illnessthat's the reason. 'Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will happen? And how he talked to you, Dounia! said the mother, looking timidly at her daughter, trying to read her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia's standing up for her brother, which meant that she had already forgiven him. 'I am sure he will think better of it tomorrow, she added, probing her further. 'And I am sure that he will say the same tomorrow... about that, Avdotya Romanovna said finally. And, of course, there was no going beyond that, for this was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was afraid to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother. The latter warmly embraced her without speaking. Then she sat down to wait anxiously for Razumihin's return, timidly watching her daughter who walked up and down the room with her arms folded, lost in thought. This walking up and down when she was thinking was a habit of Avdotya Romanovna's and the mother was always afraid to break in on her daughter's mood at such moments. Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken infatuation for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric condition, many people would have thought it justified if they had seen Avdotya Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking to and fro with folded arms, pensive and melancholy. Avdotya Romanovna was remarkably goodlooking she was tall, strikingly wellproportioned, strong and selfreliantthe latter quality was apparent in every gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace and softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but she might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a little lighter than her brother's there was a proud light in her almost black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was pale, but it was a healthy pallor her face was radiant with freshness and vigour. Her mouth was rather small the full red lower lip projected a little as did her chin it was the only irregularity in her beautiful face, but it gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty expression. Her face was always more serious and thoughtful than gay but how well smiles, how well youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible, laughter suited her face! It was natural enough that a warm, open, simplehearted, honest giant like Razumihin, who had never seen anyone like her and was not quite sober at the time, should lose his head immediately. Besides, as chance would have it, he saw Dounia for the first time transfigured by her love for her brother and her joy at meeting him. Afterwards he saw her lower lip quiver with indignation at her brother's insolent, cruel and ungrateful wordsand his fate was sealed. He had spoken the truth, moreover, when he blurted out in his drunken talk on the stairs that Praskovya Pavlovna, Raskolnikov's eccentric landlady, would be jealous of Pulcheria Alexandrovna as well as of Avdotya Romanovna on his account. Although Pulcheria Alexandrovna was fortythree, her face still retained traces of her former beauty she looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart to old age. We may add in parenthesis that to preserve all this is the only means of retaining beauty to old age. Her hair had begun to grow grey and thin, there had long been little crow's foot wrinkles round her eyes, her cheeks were hollow and sunken from anxiety and grief, and yet it was a handsome face. She was Dounia over again, twenty years older, but without the projecting underlip. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was emotional, but not sentimental, timid and yielding, but only to a certain point. She could give way and accept a great deal even of what was contrary to her convictions, but there was a certain barrier fixed by honesty, principle and the deepest convictions which nothing would induce her to cross. Exactly twenty minutes after Razumihin's departure, there came two subdued but hurried knocks at the door he had come back. 'I won't come in, I haven't time, he hastened to say when the door was opened. 'He sleeps like a top, soundly, quietly, and God grant he may sleep ten hours. Nastasya's with him I told her not to leave till I came. Now I am fetching Zossimov, he will report to you and then you'd better turn in I can see you are too tired to do anything.... And he ran off down the corridor. 'What a very competent and... devoted young man! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna exceedingly delighted. 'He seems a splendid person! Avdotya Romanovna replied with some warmth, resuming her walk up and down the room. It was nearly an hour later when they heard footsteps in the corridor and another knock at the door. Both women waited this time completely relying on Razumihin's promise he actually had succeeded in bringing Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to desert the drinking party to go to Raskolnikov's, but he came reluctantly and with the greatest suspicion to see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his exhilarated condition. But his vanity was at once reassured and flattered he saw that they were really expecting him as an oracle. He stayed just ten minutes and succeeded in completely convincing and comforting Pulcheria Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sympathy, but with the reserve and extreme seriousness of a young doctor at an important consultation. He did not utter a word on any other subject and did not display the slightest desire to enter into more personal relations with the two ladies. Remarking at his first entrance the dazzling beauty of Avdotya Romanovna, he endeavoured not to notice her at all during his visit and addressed himself solely to Pulcheria Alexandrovna. All this gave him extraordinary inward satisfaction. He declared that he thought the invalid at this moment going on very satisfactorily. According to his observations the patient's illness was due partly to his unfortunate material surroundings during the last few months, but it had partly also a moral origin, 'was, so to speak, the product of several material and moral influences, anxieties, apprehensions, troubles, certain ideas... and so on. Noticing stealthily that Avdotya Romanovna was following his words with close attention, Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this theme. On Pulcheria Alexandrovna's anxiously and timidly inquiring as to 'some suspicion of insanity, he replied with a composed and candid smile that his words had been exaggerated that certainly the patient had some fixed idea, something approaching a monomaniahe, Zossimov, was now particularly studying this interesting branch of medicinebut that it must be recollected that until today the patient had been in delirium and... and that no doubt the presence of his family would have a favourable effect on his recovery and distract his mind, 'if only all fresh shocks can be avoided, he added significantly. Then he got up, took leave with an impressive and affable bow, while blessings, warm gratitude, and entreaties were showered upon him, and Avdotya Romanovna spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out exceedingly pleased with his visit and still more so with himself. 'We'll talk tomorrow go to bed at once! Razumihin said in conclusion, following Zossimov out. 'I'll be with you tomorrow morning as early as possible with my report. 'That's a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna, remarked Zossimov, almost licking his lips as they both came out into the street. 'Fetching? You said fetching? roared Razumihin and he flew at Zossimov and seized him by the throat. 'If you ever dare.... Do you understand? Do you understand? he shouted, shaking him by the collar and squeezing him against the wall. 'Do you hear? 'Let me go, you drunken devil, said Zossimov, struggling and when he had let him go, he stared at him and went off into a sudden guffaw. Razumihin stood facing him in gloomy and earnest reflection. 'Of course, I am an ass, he observed, sombre as a storm cloud, 'but still... you are another. 'No, brother, not at all such another. I am not dreaming of any folly. They walked along in silence and only when they were close to Raskolnikov's lodgings, Razumihin broke the silence in considerable anxiety. 'Listen, he said, 'you're a firstrate fellow, but among your other failings, you're a loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you're getting fat and lazy and can't deny yourself anythingand I call that dirty because it leads one straight into the dirt. You've let yourself get so slack that I don't know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. Youa doctorsleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your patients! In another three or four years you won't get up for your patients... But hang it all, that's not the point!... You are going to spend tonight in the landlady's flat here. (Hard work I've had to persuade her!) And I'll be in the kitchen. So here's a chance for you to get to know her better.... It's not as you think! There's not a trace of anything of the sort, brother...! 'But I don't think! 'Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage virtue... and yet she's sighing and melting like wax, simply melting! Save me from her, by all that's unholy! She's most prepossessing... I'll repay you, I'll do anything.... Zossimov laughed more violently than ever. 'Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do with her? 'It won't be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any rot you like to her, as long as you sit by her and talk. You're a doctor, too try curing her of something. I swear you won't regret it. She has a piano, and you know, I strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine Russian one 'I shed hot tears.' She likes the genuine articleand well, it all began with that song Now you're a regular performer, a matre, a Rubinstein.... I assure you, you won't regret it! 'But have you made her some promise? Something signed? A promise of marriage, perhaps? 'Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! Besides she is not that sort at all.... Tchebarov tried that.... 'Well then, drop her! 'But I can't drop her like that! 'Why can't you? 'Well, I can't, that's all about it! There's an element of attraction here, brother. 'Then why have you fascinated her? 'I haven't fascinated her perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly. But she won't care a straw whether it's you or I, so long as somebody sits beside her, sighing.... I can't explain the position, brother... look here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin teaching her the integral calculus upon my soul, I'm not joking, I'm in earnest, it'll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh for a whole year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time about the Prussian House of Lords (for one must talk of something)she just sighed and perspired! And you mustn't talk of loveshe's bashful to hystericsbut just let her see you can't tear yourself awaythat's enough. It's fearfully comfortable you're quite at home, you can read, sit, lie about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you're careful. 'But what do I want with her? 'Ach, I can't make you understand! You see, you are made for each other! I have often been reminded of you!... You'll come to it in the end! So does it matter whether it's sooner or later? There's the featherbed element here, brotherach! and not only that! There's an attraction herehere you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven, the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fishpies, of the evening samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep onas snug as though you were dead, and yet you're alivethe advantages of both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I'm talking, it's bedtime! Listen. I sometimes wake up at night so I'll go in and look at him. But there's no need, it's all right. Don't you worry yourself, yet if you like, you might just look in once, too. But if you notice anythingdelirium or feverwake me at once. But there can't be.... Razumihin waked up next morning at eight o'clock, troubled and serious. He found himself confronted with many new and unlookedfor perplexities. He had never expected that he would ever wake up feeling like that. He remembered every detail of the previous day and he knew that a perfectly novel experience had befallen him, that he had received an impression unlike anything he had known before. At the same time he recognised clearly that the dream which had fired his imagination was hopelessly unattainableso unattainable that he felt positively ashamed of it, and he hastened to pass to the other more practical cares and difficulties bequeathed him by that 'thrice accursed yesterday. The most awful recollection of the previous day was the way he had shown himself 'base and mean, not only because he had been drunk, but because he had taken advantage of the young girl's position to abuse her fianc in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know the character of the lodgings? He was furnishing a flat... Foo! how despicable it all was! And what justification was it that he was drunk? Such a stupid excuse was even more degrading! In wine is truth, and the truth had all come out, 'that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse and envious heart! And would such a dream ever be permissible to him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girlhe, the drunken noisy braggart of last night? Was it possible to imagine so absurd and cynical a juxtaposition? Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea and suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly upon him of how he had said last night on the stairs that the landlady would be jealous of Avdotya Romanovna... that was simply intolerable. He brought his fist down heavily on the kitchen stove, hurt his hand and sent one of the bricks flying. 'Of course, he muttered to himself a minute later with a feeling of selfabasement, 'of course, all these infamies can never be wiped out or smoothed over... and so it's useless even to think of it, and I must go to them in silence and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is lost now! And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more carefully than usual. He hadn't another suitif he had had, perhaps he wouldn't have put it on. 'I would have made a point of not putting it on. But in any case he could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven he had no right to offend the feelings of others, especially when they were in need of his assistance and asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes carefully. His linen was always decent in that respect he was especially clean. He washed that morning scrupulouslyhe got some soap from Nastasyahe washed his hair, his neck and especially his hands. When it came to the question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not (Praskovya Pavlovna had capital razors that had been left by her late husband), the question was angrily answered in the negative. 'Let it stay as it is! What if they think that I shaved on purpose to...? They certainly would think so! Not on any account! 'And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the manners of a pothouse and... and even admitting that he knew he had some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that... and all the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not exactly dishonest, and yet.... And what thoughts he sometimes had hm... and to set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it! Well, he'd make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and he wouldn't care! He'd be worse! He was engaged in such monologues when Zossimov, who had spent the night in Praskovya Pavlovna's parlour, came in. He was going home and was in a hurry to look at the invalid first. Razumihin informed him that Raskolnikov was sleeping like a dormouse. Zossimov gave orders that they shouldn't wake him and promised to see him again about eleven. 'If he is still at home, he added. 'Damn it all! If one can't control one's patients, how is one to cure them? Do you know whether he will go to them, or whether they are coming here? 'They are coming, I think, said Razumihin, understanding the object of the question, 'and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt. I'll be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I. 'But I am not a father confessor I shall come and go away I've plenty to do besides looking after them. 'One thing worries me, interposed Razumihin, frowning. 'On the way home I talked a lot of drunken nonsense to him... all sorts of things... and amongst them that you were afraid that he... might become insane. 'You told the ladies so, too. 'I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like! Did you think so seriously? 'That's nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously? You, yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me to him... and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with your story about the painter it was a nice conversation, when he was, perhaps, mad on that very point! If only I'd known what happened then at the police station and that some wretch... had insulted him with this suspicion! Hm... I would not have allowed that conversation yesterday. These monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a molehill... and see their fancies as solid realities.... As far as I remember, it was Zametov's story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind. Why, I know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat of a little boy of eight, because he couldn't endure the jokes he made every day at table! And in this case his rags, the insolent police officer, the fever and this suspicion! All that working upon a man half frantic with hypochondria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That may well have been the startingpoint of illness. Well, bother it all!... And, by the way, that Zametov certainly is a nice fellow, but hm... he shouldn't have told all that last night. He is an awful chatterbox! 'But whom did he tell it to? You and me? 'And Porfiry. 'What does that matter? 'And, by the way, have you any influence on them, his mother and sister? Tell them to be more careful with him today.... 'They'll get on all right! Razumihin answered reluctantly. 'Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with money and she doesn't seem to dislike him... and they haven't a farthing, I suppose? eh? 'But what business is it of yours? Razumihin cried with annoyance. 'How can I tell whether they've a farthing? Ask them yourself and perhaps you'll find out.... 'Foo! what an ass you are sometimes! Last night's wine has not gone off yet.... Goodbye thank your Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my night's lodging. She locked herself in, made no reply to my bonjour through the door she was up at seven o'clock, the samovar was taken into her from the kitchen. I was not vouchsafed a personal interview.... At nine o'clock precisely Razumihin reached the lodgings at Bakaleyev's house. Both ladies were waiting for him with nervous impatience. They had risen at seven o'clock or earlier. He entered looking as black as night, bowed awkwardly and was at once furious with himself for it. He had reckoned without his host Pulcheria Alexandrovna fairly rushed at him, seized him by both hands and was almost kissing them. He glanced timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but her proud countenance wore at that moment an expression of such gratitude and friendliness, such complete and unlookedfor respect (in place of the sneering looks and illdisguised contempt he had expected), that it threw him into greater confusion than if he had been met with abuse. Fortunately there was a subject for conversation, and he made haste to snatch at it. Hearing that everything was going well and that Rodya had not yet waked, Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared that she was glad to hear it, because 'she had something which it was very, very necessary to talk over beforehand. Then followed an inquiry about breakfast and an invitation to have it with them they had waited to have it with him. Avdotya Romanovna rang the bell it was answered by a ragged dirty waiter, and they asked him to bring tea which was served at last, but in such a dirty and disorderly way that the ladies were ashamed. Razumihin vigorously attacked the lodgings, but, remembering Luzhin, stopped in embarrassment and was greatly relieved by Pulcheria Alexandrovna's questions, which showered in a continual stream upon him. He talked for three quarters of an hour, being constantly interrupted by their questions, and succeeded in describing to them all the most important facts he knew of the last year of Raskolnikov's life, concluding with a circumstantial account of his illness. He omitted, however, many things, which were better omitted, including the scene at the police station with all its consequences. They listened eagerly to his story, and, when he thought he had finished and satisfied his listeners, he found that they considered he had hardly begun. 'Tell me, tell me! What do you think...? Excuse me, I still don't know your name! Pulcheria Alexandrovna put in hastily. 'Dmitri Prokofitch. 'I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri Prokofitch... how he looks... on things in general now, that is, how can I explain, what are his likes and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can, what are his hopes and, so to say, his dreams? Under what influences is he now? In a word, I should like... 'Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once? observed Dounia. 'Good heavens, I had not expected to find him in the least like this, Dmitri Prokofitch! 'Naturally, answered Razumihin. 'I have no mother, but my uncle comes every year and almost every time he can scarcely recognise me, even in appearance, though he is a clever man and your three years' separation means a great deal. What am I to tell you? I have known Rodion for a year and a half he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of lateand perhaps for a long time beforehe has been suspicious and fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but simply cold and inhumanly callous it's as though he were alternating between two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing nothing. He doesn't jeer at things, not because he hasn't the wit, but as though he hadn't time to waste on such trifles. He never listens to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps he is right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most beneficial influence upon him. 'God grant it may, cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by Razumihin's account of her Rodya. And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna at last. He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening attentively, then got up again and began walking to and fro with her arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question, without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not listening to what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon detected signs of extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed like a queen, he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps just because she was poorly dressed and that he noticed all the misery of her surroundings, his heart was filled with dread and he began to be afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which was very trying for a man who already felt diffident. 'You've told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother's character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you were too uncritically devoted to him, observed Avdotya Romanovna with a smile. 'I think you are right that he needs a woman's care, she added thoughtfully. 'I didn't say so but I daresay you are right, only... 'What? 'He loves no one and perhaps he never will, Razumihin declared decisively. 'You mean he is not capable of love? 'Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your brother, in everything, indeed! he blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but remembering at once what he had just before said of her brother, he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya Romanovna couldn't help laughing when she looked at him. 'You may both be mistaken about Rodya, Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked, slightly piqued. 'I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia. What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what you and I have supposed may be mistaken, but you can't imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how moody and, so to say, capricious he is. I never could depend on what he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure that he might do something now that nobody else would think of doing... Well, for instance, do you know how a year and a half ago he astounded me and gave me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had the idea of marrying that girlwhat was her namehis landlady's daughter? 'Did you hear about that affair? asked Avdotya Romanovna. 'Do you suppose Pulcheria Alexandrovna continued warmly. 'Do you suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he would calmly have disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn't that he doesn't love us! 'He has never spoken a word of that affair to me, Razumihin answered cautiously. 'But I did hear something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself, though she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard certainly was rather strange. 'And what did you hear? both the ladies asked at once. 'Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which only failed to take place through the girl's death, was not at all to Praskovya Pavlovna's liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all pretty, in fact I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and queer. But she seems to have had some good qualities. She must have had some good qualities or it's quite inexplicable.... She had no money either and he wouldn't have considered her money.... But it's always difficult to judge in such matters. 'I am sure she was a good girl, Avdotya Romanovna observed briefly. 'God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death. Though I don't know which of them would have caused most misery to the otherhe to her or she to him, Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began tentatively questioning him about the scene on the previous day with Luzhin, hesitating and continually glancing at Dounia, obviously to the latter's annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evidently caused her uneasiness, even consternation. Razumihin described it in detail again, but this time he added his own conclusions he openly blamed Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr Petrovitch, not seeking to excuse him on the score of his illness. 'He had planned it before his illness, he added. 'I think so, too, Pulcheria Alexandrovna agreed with a dejected air. But she was very much surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself so carefully and even with a certain respect about Pyotr Petrovitch. Avdotya Romanovna, too, was struck by it. 'So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch? Pulcheria Alexandrovna could not resist asking. 'I can have no other opinion of your daughter's future husband, Razumihin answered firmly and with warmth, 'and I don't say it simply from vulgar politeness, but because... simply because Avdotya Romanovna has of her own free will deigned to accept this man. If I spoke so rudely of him last night, it was because I was disgustingly drunk and... mad besides yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely... and this morning I am ashamed of it. He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not break the silence. She had not uttered a word from the moment they began to speak of Luzhin. Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna obviously did not know what to do. At last, faltering and continually glancing at her daughter, she confessed that she was exceedingly worried by one circumstance. 'You see, Dmitri Prokofitch, she began. 'I'll be perfectly open with Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia? 'Of course, mother, said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically. 'This is what it is, she began in haste, as though the permission to speak of her trouble lifted a weight off her mind. 'Very early this morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you know instead of that he sent a servant to bring us the address of these lodgings and to show us the way and he sent a message that he would be here himself this morning. But this morning this note came from him. You'd better read it yourself there is one point in it which worries me very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid opinion, Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya's character better than anyone and no one can advise us better than you can. Dounia, I must tell you, made her decision at once, but I still don't feel sure how to act and I... I've been waiting for your opinion. Razumihin opened the note which was dated the previous evening and read as follows 'Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the honour to inform you that owing to unforeseen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet you at the railway station I sent a very competent person with the same object in view. I likewise shall be deprived of the honour of an interview with you tomorrow morning by business in the Senate that does not admit of delay, and also that I may not intrude on your family circle while you are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her brother. I shall have the honour of visiting you and paying you my respects at your lodgings not later than tomorrow evening at eight o'clock precisely, and herewith I venture to present my earnest and, I may add, imperative request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our interviewas he offered me a gross and unprecedented affront on the occasion of my visit to him in his illness yesterday, and, moreover, since I desire from you personally an indispensable and circumstantial explanation upon a certain point, in regard to which I wish to learn your own interpretation. I have the honour to inform you, in anticipation, that if, in spite of my request, I meet Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be compelled to withdraw immediately and then you have only yourself to blame. I write on the assumption that Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so ill at my visit, suddenly recovered two hours later and so, being able to leave the house, may visit you also. I was confirmed in that belief by the testimony of my own eyes in the lodging of a drunken man who was run over and has since died, to whose daughter, a young woman of notorious behaviour, he gave twentyfive roubles on the pretext of the funeral, which gravely surprised me knowing what pains you were at to raise that sum. Herewith expressing my special respect to your estimable daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to accept the respectful homage of 'Your humble servant, 'P. LUZHIN. 'What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch? began Pulcheria Alexandrovna, almost weeping. 'How can I ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted so earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and now we are ordered not to receive Rodya! He will come on purpose if he knows, and... what will happen then? 'Act on Avdotya Romanovna's decision, Razumihin answered calmly at once. 'Oh, dear me! She says... goodness knows what she says, she doesn't explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that it would be best, but that it's absolutely necessary that Rodya should make a point of being here at eight o'clock and that they must meet.... I didn't want even to show him the letter, but to prevent him from coming by some stratagem with your help... because he is so irritable.... Besides I don't understand about that drunkard who died and that daughter, and how he could have given the daughter all the money... which... 'Which cost you such sacrifice, mother, put in Avdotya Romanovna. 'He was not himself yesterday, Razumihin said thoughtfully, 'if you only knew what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there was sense in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home yesterday evening, about a dead man and a girl, but I didn't understand a word.... But last night, I myself... 'The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and there I assure you we shall see at once what's to be done. Besides, it's getting lategood heavens, it's past ten, she cried looking at a splendid gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck on a thin Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of keeping with the rest of her dress. 'A present from her fianc, thought Razumihin. 'We must start, Dounia, we must start, her mother cried in a flutter. 'He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming so late. Merciful heavens! While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her hat and mantle Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were not merely shabby but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always found in people who know how to wear poor clothes. Razumihin looked reverently at Dounia and felt proud of escorting her. 'The queen who mended her stockings in prison, he thought, 'must have looked then every inch a queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets and leves. 'My God! exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna, 'little did I think that I should ever fear seeing my son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid, Dmitri Prokofitch, she added, glancing at him timidly. 'Don't be afraid, mother, said Dounia, kissing her, 'better have faith in him. 'Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven't slept all night, exclaimed the poor woman. They came out into the street. 'Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this morning I dreamed of Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took my hand, and shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she were blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don't know, Dmitri Prokofitch, that Marfa Petrovna's dead! 'No, I didn't know who is Marfa Petrovna? 'She died suddenly and only fancy... 'Afterwards, mamma, put in Dounia. 'He doesn't know who Marfa Petrovna is. 'Ah, you don't know? And I was thinking that you knew all about us. Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I don't know what I am thinking about these last few days. I look upon you really as a providence for us, and so I took it for granted that you knew all about us. I look on you as a relation.... Don't be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what's the matter with your right hand? Have you knocked it? 'Yes, I bruised it, muttered Razumihin overjoyed. 'I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia finds fault with me.... But, dear me, what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder whether he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a room? Listen, you say he does not like to show his feelings, so perhaps I shall annoy him with my... weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how am I to treat him? I feel quite distracted, you know. 'Don't question him too much about anything if you see him frown don't ask him too much about his health he doesn't like that. 'Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the stairs.... What an awful staircase! 'Mother, you are quite pale, don't distress yourself, darling, said Dounia caressing her, then with flashing eyes she added 'He ought to be happy at seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so. 'Wait, I'll peep in and see whether he has waked up. The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went on before, and when they reached the landlady's door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her door was a tiny crack open and that two keen black eyes were watching them from the darkness within. When their eyes met, the door was suddenly shut with such a slam that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried out. 'He is well, quite well! Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered. He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner, fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya managed to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen. Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition the day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical suffering. His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there was a restlessness in his movements. He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother and sister entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering, in place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed in him no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But at the same time he marvelled at the power of controlling himself and hiding his feelings in a patient who the previous day had, like a monomaniac, fallen into a frenzy at the slightest word. 'Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well, said Raskolnikov, giving his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria Alexandrovna radiant at once. 'And I don't say this as I did yesterday, he said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of his hand. 'Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him today, began Zossimov, much delighted at the ladies' entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. 'In another three or four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is, as he was a month ago, or two... or perhaps even three. This has been coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been perhaps your own fault? he added, with a tentative smile, as though still afraid of irritating him. 'It is very possible, answered Raskolnikov coldly. 'I should say, too, continued Zossimov with zest, 'that your complete recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you, I should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your morbid condition in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go from bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don't know, but they must be known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed yourself, of course. I fancy the first stage of your derangement coincides with your leaving the university. You must not be left without occupation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you might, I fancy, be very beneficial. 'Yes, yes you are perfectly right.... I will make haste and return to the university and then everything will go smoothly.... Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect before the ladies, was certainly somewhat mystified, when, glancing at his patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night. 'What! he saw you last night? Raskolnikov asked, as though startled. 'Then you have not slept either after your journey. 'Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o'clock. Dounia and I never go to bed before two at home. 'I don't know how to thank him either, Raskolnikov went on, suddenly frowning and looking down. 'Setting aside the question of paymentforgive me for referring to it (he turned to Zossimov)I really don't know what I have done to deserve such special attention from you! I simply don't understand it... and... and... it weighs upon me, indeed, because I don't understand it. I tell you so candidly. 'Don't be irritated. Zossimov forced himself to laugh. 'Assume that you are my first patientwellwe fellows just beginning to practise love our first patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall in love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients. 'I say nothing about him, added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin, 'though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble. 'What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a sentimental mood today, are you? shouted Razumihin. If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite. But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily watching her brother. 'As for you, mother, I don't dare to speak, he went on, as though repeating a lesson learned by heart. 'It is only today that I have been able to realise a little how distressed you must have been here yesterday, waiting for me to come back. When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister, smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a flash of real unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the first time he had addressed her since their dispute the previous day. The mother's face lighted up with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken reconciliation. 'Yes, that is what I love him for, Razumihin, exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his chair. 'He has these movements. 'And how well he does it all, the mother was thinking to herself. 'What generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end to all the misunderstanding with his sistersimply by holding out his hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what fine eyes he has, and how fine his whole face is!... He is even better looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suithow terribly he's dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch's shop, is better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over himbut I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he's so strange! He's talking kindly, but I'm afraid! Why, what am I afraid of?... 'Oh, Rodya, you wouldn't believe, she began suddenly, in haste to answer his words to her, 'how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now that it's all over and done with and we are quite happy againI can tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace you and that womanah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the streets. You can't imagine how we felt! I couldn't help thinking of the tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father'syou can't remember him, Rodyawho ran out in the same way in a high fever and fell into the well in the courtyard and they couldn't pull him out till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the point of rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were alone, utterly alone, she said plaintively and stopped short, suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr Petrovitch, although 'we are quite happy again. 'Yes, yes.... Of course it's very annoying.... Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed at him in perplexity. 'What else was it I wanted to say? He went on trying to recollect. 'Oh, yes mother, and you too, Dounia, please don't think that I didn't mean to come and see you today and was waiting for you to come first. 'What are you saying, Rodya? cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too, was surprised. 'Is he answering us as a duty? Dounia wondered. 'Is he being reconciled and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite or repeating a lesson? 'I've only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed owing to my clothes I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out the blood... I've only just dressed. 'Blood! What blood? Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm. 'Oh, nothingdon't be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run over... a clerk... 'Delirious? But you remember everything! Razumihin interrupted. 'That's true, Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. 'I remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yetwhy I did that and went there and said that, I can't clearly explain now. 'A familiar phenomenon, interposed Zossimov, 'actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressionsit's like a dream. 'Perhaps it's a good thing really that he should think me almost a madman, thought Raskolnikov. 'Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too, observed Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov. 'There is some truth in your observation, the latter replied. 'In that sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among dozensperhaps hundreds of thousandshardly one is to be met with. At the word 'madman, carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter on his favourite subject, everyone frowned. Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention, plunged in thought with a strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on something. 'Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you! Razumihin cried hastily. 'What? Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. 'Oh... I got spattered with blood helping to carry him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She's a widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children, starving... nothing in the house... there's a daughter, too... perhaps you'd have given it yourself if you'd seen them. But I had no right to do it I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself. To help others one must have the right to do it, or else Crevez, chiens, si vous n'tes pas contents. He laughed, 'That's right, isn't it, Dounia? 'No, it's not, answered Dounia firmly. 'Bah! you, too, have ideals, he muttered, looking at her almost with hatred, and smiling sarcastically. 'I ought to have considered that.... Well, that's praiseworthy, and it's better for you... and if you reach a line you won't overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it, maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that's nonsense, he added irritably, vexed at being carried away. 'I only meant to say that I beg your forgiveness, mother, he concluded, shortly and abruptly. 'That's enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good, said his mother, delighted. 'Don't be too sure, he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile. A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the forgiveness, and all were feeling it. 'It is as though they were afraid of me, Raskolnikov was thinking to himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent. 'Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much, flashed through his mind. 'Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead, Pulcheria Alexandrovna suddenly blurted out. 'What Marfa Petrovna? 'Oh, mercy on usMarfa Petrovna Svidrigalov. I wrote you so much about her. 'Aah! Yes, I remember.... So she's dead! Oh, really? he roused himself suddenly, as if waking up. 'What did she die of? 'Only imagine, quite suddenly, Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. 'On the very day I was sending you that letter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to have been the cause of her death. They say he beat her dreadfully. 'Why, were they on such bad terms? he asked, addressing his sister. 'Not at all. Quite the contrary indeed. With her, he was always very patient, considerate even. In fact, all those seven years of their married life he gave way to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All of a sudden he seems to have lost patience. 'Then he could not have been so awful if he controlled himself for seven years? You seem to be defending him, Dounia? 'No, no, he's an awful man! I can imagine nothing more awful! Dounia answered, almost with a shudder, knitting her brows, and sinking into thought. 'That had happened in the morning, Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on hurriedly. 'And directly afterwards she ordered the horses to be harnessed to drive to the town immediately after dinner. She always used to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good dinner, I am told.... 'After the beating? 'That was always her... habit and immediately after dinner, so as not to be late in starting, she went to the bathhouse.... You see, she was undergoing some treatment with baths. They have a cold spring there, and she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner had she got into the water when she suddenly had a stroke! 'I should think so, said Zossimov. 'And did he beat her badly? 'What does that matter! put in Dounia. 'H'm! But I don't know why you want to tell us such gossip, mother, said Raskolnikov irritably, as it were in spite of himself. 'Ah, my dear, I don't know what to talk about, broke from Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Why, are you all afraid of me? he asked, with a constrained smile. 'That's certainly true, said Dounia, looking directly and sternly at her brother. 'Mother was crossing herself with terror as she came up the stairs. His face worked, as though in convulsion. 'Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don't be angry, please, Rodya.... Why did you say that, Dounia? Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, overwhelmed'You see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in the train, how we should meet, how we should talk over everything together.... And I was so happy, I did not notice the journey! But what am I saying? I am happy now.... You should not, Dounia.... I am happy nowsimply in seeing you, Rodya.... 'Hush, mother, he muttered in confusion, not looking at her, but pressing her hand. 'We shall have time to speak freely of everything! As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and turned pale. Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed with deadly chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to him that he had just told a fearful liethat he would never now be able to speak freely of everythingthat he would never again be able to speak of anything to anyone. The anguish of this thought was such that for a moment he almost forgot himself. He got up from his seat, and not looking at anyone walked towards the door. 'What are you about? cried Razumihin, clutching him by the arm. He sat down again, and began looking about him, in silence. They were all looking at him in perplexity. 'But what are you all so dull for? he shouted, suddenly and quite unexpectedly. 'Do say something! What's the use of sitting like this? Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and sit in silence.... Come, anything! 'Thank God I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning again, said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. 'What is the matter, Rodya? asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully. 'Oh, nothing! I remembered something, he answered, and suddenly laughed. 'Well, if you remembered something that's all right!... I was beginning to think... muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. 'It is time for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can... He made his bows, and went out. 'What an excellent man! observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Yes, excellent, splendid, welleducated, intelligent, Raskolnikov began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he had not shown till then. 'I can't remember where I met him before my illness.... I believe I have met him somewhere... And this is a good man, too, he nodded at Razumihin. 'Do you like him, Dounia? he asked her and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed. 'Very much, answered Dounia. 'Foo!what a pig you are! Razumihin protested, blushing in terrible confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud. 'Where are you off to? 'I must go. 'You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don't go. What's the time? Is it twelve o'clock? What a pretty watch you have got, Dounia. But why are you all silent again? I do all the talking. 'It was a present from Marfa Petrovna, answered Dounia. 'And a very expensive one! added Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Aah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady's. 'I like that sort, said Dounia. 'So it is not a present from her fianc, thought Razumihin, and was unreasonably delighted. 'I thought it was Luzhin's present, observed Raskolnikov. 'No, he has not made Dounia any presents yet. 'Aah! And do you remember, mother, I was in love and wanted to get married? he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was disconcerted by the sudden change of subject and the way he spoke of it. 'Oh, yes, my dear. Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dounia and Razumihin. 'H'm, yes. What shall I tell you? I don't remember much indeed. She was such a sickly girl, he went on, growing dreamy and looking down again. 'Quite an invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and was always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst into tears when she began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don't know what drew me to her thenI think it was because she was always ill. If she had been lame or hunchback, I believe I should have liked her better still, he smiled dreamily. 'Yes, it was a sort of spring delirium. 'No, it was not only spring delirium, said Dounia, with warm feeling. He fixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did not hear or did not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up, went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down. 'You love her even now? said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched. 'Her? Now? Oh, yes.... You ask about her? No... that's all now, as it were, in another world... and so long ago. And indeed everything happening here seems somehow far away. He looked attentively at them. 'You, now... I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles away... but, goodness knows why we are talking of that! And what's the use of asking about it? he added with annoyance, and biting his nails, fell into dreamy silence again. 'What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It's like a tomb, said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. 'I am sure it's quite half through your lodging you have become so melancholy. 'My lodging, he answered, listlessly. 'Yes, the lodging had a great deal to do with it.... I thought that, too.... If only you knew, though, what a strange thing you said just now, mother, he said, laughing strangely. A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister, with him after three years' absence, this intimate tone of conversation, in face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything, would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one urgent matter which must be settled one way or the other that dayso he had decided when he woke. Now he was glad to remember it, as a means of escape. 'Listen, Dounia, he began, gravely and drily, 'of course I beg your pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you again that I do not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I cease at once to look on you as a sister. 'Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again, Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. 'And why do you call yourself a scoundrel? I can't bear it. You said the same yesterday. 'Brother, Dounia answered firmly and with the same dryness. 'In all this there is a mistake on your part. I thought it over at night, and found out the mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at all. I am simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to my family. But that is not the chief motive for my decision.... 'She is lying, he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively. 'Proud creature! She won't admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate.... Oh, how I... hate them all! 'In fact, continued Dounia, 'I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch because of two evils I choose the less. I intend to do honestly all he expects of me, so I am not deceiving him.... Why did you smile just now? She, too, flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes. 'All? he asked, with a malignant grin. 'Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Pyotr Petrovitch's courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too well of himself, but I hope he esteems me, too.... Why are you laughing again? 'And why are you blushing again? You are lying, sister. You are intentionally lying, simply from feminine obstinacy, simply to hold your own against me.... You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and talked with him. So you are selling yourself for money, and so in any case you are acting basely, and I am glad at least that you can blush for it. 'It is not true. I am not lying, cried Dounia, losing her composure. 'I would not marry him if I were not convinced that he esteems me and thinks highly of me. I would not marry him if I were not firmly convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing proof of it this very day... and such a marriage is not a vileness, as you say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a vile action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that? Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It is despotism it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodya, darling, what's the matter? 'Good heavens! You have made him faint, cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'No, no, nonsense! It's nothing. A little giddinessnot fainting. You have fainting on the brain. H'm, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In what way will you get convincing proof today that you can respect him, and that he... esteems you, as you said. I think you said today? 'Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch's letter, said Dounia. With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter. He took it with great interest, but, before opening it, he suddenly looked with a sort of wonder at Dounia. 'It is strange, he said, slowly, as though struck by a new idea. 'What am I making such a fuss for? What is it all about? Marry whom you like! He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for some time at his sister, as though puzzled. He opened the letter at last, still with the same look of strange wonder on his face. Then, slowly and attentively, he began reading, and read it through twice. Pulcheria Alexandrovna showed marked anxiety, and all indeed expected something particular. 'What surprises me, he began, after a short pause, handing the letter to his mother, but not addressing anyone in particular, 'is that he is a business man, a lawyer, and his conversation is pretentious indeed, and yet he writes such an uneducated letter. They all started. They had expected something quite different. 'But they all write like that, you know, Razumihin observed, abruptly. 'Have you read it? 'Yes. 'We showed him, Rodya. We... consulted him just now, Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, embarrassed. 'That's just the jargon of the courts, Razumihin put in. 'Legal documents are written like that to this day. 'Legal? Yes, it's just legalbusiness languagenot so very uneducated, and not quite educatedbusiness language! 'Pyotr Petrovitch makes no secret of the fact that he had a cheap education, he is proud indeed of having made his own way, Avdotya Romanovna observed, somewhat offended by her brother's tone. 'Well, if he's proud of it, he has reason, I don't deny it. You seem to be offended, sister, at my making only such a frivolous criticism on the letter, and to think that I speak of such trifling matters on purpose to annoy you. It is quite the contrary, an observation apropos of the style occurred to me that is by no means irrelevant as things stand. There is one expression, 'blame yourselves' put in very significantly and plainly, and there is besides a threat that he will go away at once if I am present. That threat to go away is equivalent to a threat to abandon you both if you are disobedient, and to abandon you now after summoning you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one resent such an expression from Luzhin, as we should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had written it, or Zossimov, or one of us? 'Nno, answered Dounia, with more animation. 'I saw clearly that it was too navely expressed, and that perhaps he simply has no skill in writing... that is a true criticism, brother. I did not expect, indeed... 'It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser than perhaps he intended. But I must disillusion you a little. There is one expression in the letter, one slander about me, and rather a contemptible one. I gave the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed with trouble, and not 'on the pretext of the funeral,' but simply to pay for the funeral, and not to the daughtera young woman, as he writes, of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night for the first time in my life)but to the widow. In all this I see a too hasty desire to slander me and to raise dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal jargon, that is to say, with a too obvious display of the aim, and with a very nave eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act sensibly, intelligence is not enough. It all shows the man and... I don't think he has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to warn you, because I sincerely wish for your good... Dounia did not reply. Her resolution had been taken. She was only awaiting the evening. 'Then what is your decision, Rodya? asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was more uneasy than ever at the sudden, new businesslike tone of his talk. 'What decision? 'You see Pyotr Petrovitch writes that you are not to be with us this evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you... come? 'That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you first, if you are not offended by such a request and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is not offended. I will do what you think best, he added, drily. 'Dounia has already decided, and I fully agree with her, Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to declare. 'I decided to ask you, Rodya, to urge you not to fail to be with us at this interview, said Dounia. 'Will you come? 'Yes. 'I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o'clock, she said, addressing Razumihin. 'Mother, I am inviting him, too. 'Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have decided, added Pulcheria Alexandrovna, 'so be it. I shall feel easier myself. I do not like concealment and deception. Better let us have the whole truth.... Pyotr Petrovitch may be angry or not, now! At that moment the door was softly opened, and a young girl walked into the room, looking timidly about her. Everyone turned towards her with surprise and curiosity. At first sight, Raskolnikov did not recognise her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov. He had seen her yesterday for the first time, but at such a moment, in such surroundings and in such a dress, that his memory retained a very different image of her. Now she was a modestly and poorlydressed young girl, very young, indeed, almost like a child, with a modest and refined manner, with a candid but somewhat frightenedlooking face. She was wearing a very plain indoor dress, and had on a shabby oldfashioned hat, but she still carried a parasol. Unexpectedly finding the room full of people, she was not so much embarrassed as completely overwhelmed with shyness, like a little child. She was even about to retreat. 'Oh... it's you! said Raskolnikov, extremely astonished, and he, too, was confused. He at once recollected that his mother and sister knew through Luzhin's letter of 'some young woman of notorious behaviour. He had only just been protesting against Luzhin's calumny and declaring that he had seen the girl last night for the first time, and suddenly she had walked in. He remembered, too, that he had not protested against the expression 'of notorious behaviour. All this passed vaguely and fleetingly through his brain, but looking at her more intently, he saw that the humiliated creature was so humiliated that he felt suddenly sorry for her. When she made a movement to retreat in terror, it sent a pang to his heart. 'I did not expect you, he said, hurriedly, with a look that made her stop. 'Please sit down. You come, no doubt, from Katerina Ivanovna. Allow menot there. Sit here.... At Sonia's entrance, Razumihin, who had been sitting on one of Raskolnikov's three chairs, close to the door, got up to allow her to enter. Raskolnikov had at first shown her the place on the sofa where Zossimov had been sitting, but feeling that the sofa which served him as a bed, was too familiar a place, he hurriedly motioned her to Razumihin's chair. 'You sit here, he said to Razumihin, putting him on the sofa. Sonia sat down, almost shaking with terror, and looked timidly at the two ladies. It was evidently almost inconceivable to herself that she could sit down beside them. At the thought of it, she was so frightened that she hurriedly got up again, and in utter confusion addressed Raskolnikov. 'I... I... have come for one minute. Forgive me for disturbing you, she began falteringly. 'I come from Katerina Ivanovna, and she had no one to send. Katerina Ivanovna told me to beg you... to be at the service... in the morning... at Mitrofanievsky... and then... to us... to her... to do her the honour... she told me to beg you... Sonia stammered and ceased speaking. 'I will try, certainly, most certainly, answered Raskolnikov. He, too, stood up, and he, too, faltered and could not finish his sentence. 'Please sit down, he said, suddenly. 'I want to talk to you. You are perhaps in a hurry, but please, be so kind, spare me two minutes, and he drew up a chair for her. Sonia sat down again, and again timidly she took a hurried, frightened look at the two ladies, and dropped her eyes. Raskolnikov's pale face flushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed. 'Mother, he said, firmly and insistently, 'this is Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, the daughter of that unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov, who was run over yesterday before my eyes, and of whom I was just telling you. Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and slightly screwed up her eyes. In spite of her embarrassment before Rodya's urgent and challenging look, she could not deny herself that satisfaction. Dounia gazed gravely and intently into the poor girl's face, and scrutinised her with perplexity. Sonia, hearing herself introduced, tried to raise her eyes again, but was more embarrassed than ever. 'I wanted to ask you, said Raskolnikov, hastily, 'how things were arranged yesterday. You were not worried by the police, for instance? 'No, that was all right... it was too evident, the cause of death... they did not worry us... only the lodgers are angry. 'Why? 'At the body's remaining so long. You see it is hot now. So that, today, they will carry it to the cemetery, into the chapel, until tomorrow. At first Katerina Ivanovna was unwilling, but now she sees herself that it's necessary... 'Today, then? 'She begs you to do us the honour to be in the church tomorrow for the service, and then to be present at the funeral lunch. 'She is giving a funeral lunch? 'Yes... just a little.... She told me to thank you very much for helping us yesterday. But for you, we should have had nothing for the funeral. All at once her lips and chin began trembling, but, with an effort, she controlled herself, looking down again. During the conversation, Raskolnikov watched her carefully. She had a thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but her blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such a kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help being attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed, had another peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked almost a little girlalmost a child. And in some of her gestures, this childishness seemed almost absurd. 'But has Katerina Ivanovna been able to manage with such small means? Does she even mean to have a funeral lunch? Raskolnikov asked, persistently keeping up the conversation. 'The coffin will be plain, of course... and everything will be plain, so it won't cost much. Katerina Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so that there will be enough left... and Katerina Ivanovna was very anxious it should be so. You know one can't... it's a comfort to her... she is like that, you know.... 'I understand, I understand... of course... why do you look at my room like that? My mother has just said it is like a tomb. 'You gave us everything yesterday, Sonia said suddenly, in reply, in a loud rapid whisper and again she looked down in confusion. Her lips and chin were trembling once more. She had been struck at once by Raskolnikov's poor surroundings, and now these words broke out spontaneously. A silence followed. There was a light in Dounia's eyes, and even Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked kindly at Sonia. 'Rodya, she said, getting up, 'we shall have dinner together, of course. Come, Dounia.... And you, Rodya, had better go for a little walk, and then rest and lie down before you come to see us.... I am afraid we have exhausted you.... 'Yes, yes, I'll come, he answered, getting up fussily. 'But I have something to see to. 'But surely you will have dinner together? cried Razumihin, looking in surprise at Raskolnikov. 'What do you mean? 'Yes, yes, I am coming... of course, of course! And you stay a minute. You do not want him just now, do you, mother? Or perhaps I am taking him from you? 'Oh, no, no. And will you, Dmitri Prokofitch, do us the favour of dining with us? 'Please do, added Dounia. Razumihin bowed, positively radiant. For one moment, they were all strangely embarrassed. 'Goodbye, Rodya, that is till we meet. I do not like saying goodbye. Goodbye, Nastasya. Ah, I have said goodbye again. Pulcheria Alexandrovna meant to greet Sonia, too but it somehow failed to come off, and she went in a flutter out of the room. But Avdotya Romanovna seemed to await her turn, and following her mother out, gave Sonia an attentive, courteous bow. Sonia, in confusion, gave a hurried, frightened curtsy. There was a look of poignant discomfort in her face, as though Avdotya Romanovna's courtesy and attention were oppressive and painful to her. 'Dounia, goodbye, called Raskolnikov, in the passage. 'Give me your hand. 'Why, I did give it to you. Have you forgotten? said Dounia, turning warmly and awkwardly to him. 'Never mind, give it to me again. And he squeezed her fingers warmly. Dounia smiled, flushed, pulled her hand away, and went off quite happy. 'Come, that's capital, he said to Sonia, going back and looking brightly at her. 'God give peace to the dead, the living have still to live. That is right, isn't it? Sonia looked surprised at the sudden brightness of his face. He looked at her for some moments in silence. The whole history of the dead father floated before his memory in those moments.... 'Heavens, Dounia, Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, as soon as they were in the street, 'I really feel relieved myself at coming awaymore at ease. How little did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever be glad of that. 'I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don't you see it? Perhaps worrying about us upset him. We must be patient, and much, much can be forgiven. 'Well, you were not very patient! Pulcheria Alexandrovna caught her up, hotly and jealously. 'Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two. You are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You are both melancholy, both morose and hottempered, both haughty and both generous.... Surely he can't be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think of what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks! 'Don't be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be. 'Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr Petrovitch breaks it off? poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously. 'He won't be worth much if he does, answered Dounia, sharply and contemptuously. 'We did well to come away, Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in. 'He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and has a breath of air... it is fearfully close in his room.... But where is one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shutup rooms. Good heavens! what a town!... stay... this side... they will crush youcarrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I declare... how they push!... I am very much afraid of that young woman, too. 'What young woman, mother? 'Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now. 'Why? 'I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief cause of the trouble.... 'Nothing of the sort! cried Dounia, in vexation. 'What nonsense, with your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening before, and he did not know her when she came in. 'Well, you will see.... She worries me but you will see, you will see! I was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I could scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do you remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like that about her, and he introduces her to usto you! So he must think a great deal of her. 'People will write anything. We were talked about and written about, too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that it is all nonsense. 'God grant it may be! 'And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer, Dounia snapped out, suddenly. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed the conversation was not resumed. 'I will tell you what I want with you, said Raskolnikov, drawing Razumihin to the window. 'Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are coming, Sonia said hurriedly, preparing to depart. 'One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no secrets. You are not in our way. I want to have another word or two with you. Listen! he turned suddenly to Razumihin again. 'You know that... what's his name... Porfiry Petrovitch? 'I should think so! He is a relation. Why? added the latter, with interest. 'Is not he managing that case... you know, about that murder?... You were speaking about it yesterday. 'Yes... well? Razumihin's eyes opened wide. 'He was inquiring for people who had pawned things, and I have some pledges there, tootriflesa ring my sister gave me as a keepsake when I left home, and my father's silver watchthey are only worth five or six roubles altogether... but I value them. So what am I to do now? I do not want to lose the things, especially the watch. I was quaking just now, for fear mother would ask to look at it, when we spoke of Dounia's watch. It is the only thing of father's left us. She would be ill if it were lost. You know what women are. So tell me what to do. I know I ought to have given notice at the police station, but would it not be better to go straight to Porfiry? Eh? What do you think? The matter might be settled more quickly. You see, mother may ask for it before dinner. 'Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Porfiry, Razumihin shouted in extraordinary excitement. 'Well, how glad I am. Let us go at once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him. 'Very well, let us go. 'And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that's it! It is all turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna... 'Sofya Semyonovna, corrected Raskolnikov. 'Sofya Semyonovna, this is my friend Razumihin, and he is a good man. 'If you have to go now, Sonia was beginning, not looking at Razumihin at all, and still more embarrassed. 'Let us go, decided Raskolnikov. 'I will come to you today, Sofya Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live. He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her eyes. Sonia gave her address, and flushed as she did so. They all went out together. 'Don't you lock up? asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs. 'Never, answered Raskolnikov. 'I have been meaning to buy a lock for these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks, he said, laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway. 'Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you find me, by the way? he added, as though he wanted to say something quite different. He wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy. 'Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday. 'Polenka? Oh, yes Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister? Did I give her the address? 'Why, had you forgotten? 'No, I remember. 'I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name, and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name, I asked today, 'Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?' I did not know you had only a room too.... Goodbye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna. She was extremely glad to escape at last she went away looking down, hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the twenty steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had she felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world was opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov meant to come to her that day, perhaps at once! 'Only not today, please, not today! she kept muttering with a sinking heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child. 'Mercy! to me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear! She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown gentleman who was watching her and following at her heels. He had accompanied her from the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin, Raskolnikov, and she stood still at parting on the pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing, started on hearing Sonia's words 'and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov lived? He turned a rapid but attentive look upon all three, especially upon Raskolnikov, to whom Sonia was speaking then looked back and noted the house. All this was done in an instant as he passed, and trying not to betray his interest, he walked on more slowly as though waiting for something. He was waiting for Sonia he saw that they were parting, and that Sonia was going home. 'Home? Where? I've seen that face somewhere, he thought. 'I must find out. At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming the same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her on the other side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again, overtook her and kept two or three yards behind her. He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position. He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each step his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face with high cheekbones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg. His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair. His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look his lips were crimson. He was a remarkedly wellpreserved man and looked much younger than his years. When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two persons on the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On reaching the house where she lodged, Sonia turned in at the gate he followed her, seeming rather surprised. In the courtyard she turned to the right corner. 'Bah! muttered the unknown gentleman, and mounted the stairs behind her. Only then Sonia noticed him. She reached the third storey, turned down the passage, and rang at No. . On the door was inscribed in chalk, 'Kapernaumov, Tailor. 'Bah! the stranger repeated again, wondering at the strange coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. . The doors were two or three yards apart. 'You lodge at Kapernaumov's, he said, looking at Sonia and laughing. 'He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at Madame Resslich's. How odd! Sonia looked at him attentively. 'We are neighbours, he went on gaily. 'I only came to town the day before yesterday. Goodbye for the present. Sonia made no reply the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for some reason ashamed and uneasy. On the way to Porfiry's, Razumihin was obviously excited. 'That's capital, brother, he repeated several times, 'and I am glad! I am glad! 'What are you glad about? Raskolnikov thought to himself. 'I didn't know that you pledged things at the old woman's, too. And... was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there? 'What a simplehearted fool he is! 'When was it? Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. 'Two or three days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem the things now, he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous solicitude about the things. 'I've not more than a silver rouble left... after last night's accursed delirium! He laid special emphasis on the delirium. 'Yes, yes, Razumihin hastened to agreewith what was not clear. 'Then that's why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium you were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that's clear, it's all clear now. 'Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it cleared up why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have on all of them! 'Shall we find him? he asked suddenly. 'Oh, yes, Razumihin answered quickly. 'He is a nice fellow, you will see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He is incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method.... But he understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to make your acquaintance! 'On what grounds is he so anxious? 'Oh, it's not exactly... you see, since you've been ill I happen to have mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said, 'What a pity!' And so I concluded... from everything together, not only that yesterday Zametov... you know, Rodya, I talked some nonsense on the way home to you yesterday, when I was drunk... I am afraid, brother, of your exaggerating it, you see. 'What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe they are right, he said with a constrained smile. 'Yes, yes.... That is, pooh, no!... But all that I said (and there was something else too) it was all nonsense, drunken nonsense. 'But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it all! Raskolnikov cried with exaggerated irritability. It was partly assumed, however. 'I know, I know, I understand. Believe me, I understand. One's ashamed to speak of it. 'If you are ashamed, then don't speak of it. Both were silent. Razumihin was more than ecstatic and Raskolnikov perceived it with repulsion. He was alarmed, too, by what Razumihin had just said about Porfiry. 'I shall have to pull a long face with him too, he thought, with a beating heart, and he turned white, 'and do it naturally, too. But the most natural thing would be to do nothing at all. Carefully do nothing at all! No, carefully would not be natural again.... Oh, well, we shall see how it turns out.... We shall see... directly. Is it a good thing to go or not? The butterfly flies to the light. My heart is beating, that's what's bad! 'In this grey house, said Razumihin. 'The most important thing, does Porfiry know that I was at the old hag's flat yesterday... and asked about the blood? I must find that out instantly, as soon as I go in, find out from his face otherwise... I'll find out, if it's my ruin. 'I say, brother, he said suddenly, addressing Razumihin, with a sly smile, 'I have been noticing all day that you seem to be curiously excited. Isn't it so? 'Excited? Not a bit of it, said Razumihin, stung to the quick. 'Yes, brother, I assure you it's noticeable. Why, you sat on your chair in a way you never do sit, on the edge somehow, and you seemed to be writhing all the time. You kept jumping up for nothing. One moment you were angry, and the next your face looked like a sweetmeat. You even blushed especially when you were invited to dinner, you blushed awfully. 'Nothing of the sort, nonsense! What do you mean? 'But why are you wriggling out of it, like a schoolboy? By Jove, there he's blushing again. 'What a pig you are! 'But why are you so shamefaced about it? Romeo! Stay, I'll tell of you today. Hahaha! I'll make mother laugh, and someone else, too... 'Listen, listen, listen, this is serious.... What next, you fiend! Razumihin was utterly overwhelmed, turning cold with horror. 'What will you tell them? Come, brother... foo! what a pig you are! 'You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew how it suits you a Romeo over six foot high! And how you've washed todayyou cleaned your nails, I declare. Eh? That's something unheard of! Why, I do believe you've got pomatum on your hair! Bend down. 'Pig! Raskolnikov laughed as though he could not restrain himself. So laughing, they entered Porfiry Petrovitch's flat. This is what Raskolnikov wanted from within they could be heard laughing as they came in, still guffawing in the passage. 'Not a word here or I'll... brain you! Razumihin whispered furiously, seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder. Raskolnikov was already entering the room. He came in looking as though he had the utmost difficulty not to burst out laughing again. Behind him Razumihin strode in gawky and awkward, shamefaced and red as a peony, with an utterly crestfallen and ferocious expression. His face and whole figure really were ridiculous at that moment and amply justified Raskolnikov's laughter. Raskolnikov, not waiting for an introduction, bowed to Porfiry Petrovitch, who stood in the middle of the room looking inquiringly at them. He held out his hand and shook hands, still apparently making desperate efforts to subdue his mirth and utter a few words to introduce himself. But he had no sooner succeeded in assuming a serious air and muttering something when he suddenly glanced again as though accidentally at Razumihin, and could no longer control himself his stifled laughter broke out the more irresistibly the more he tried to restrain it. The extraordinary ferocity with which Razumihin received this 'spontaneous mirth gave the whole scene the appearance of most genuine fun and naturalness. Razumihin strengthened this impression as though on purpose. 'Fool! You fiend, he roared, waving his arm which at once struck a little round table with an empty teaglass on it. Everything was sent flying and crashing. 'But why break chairs, gentlemen? You know it's a loss to the Crown, Porfiry Petrovitch quoted gaily. Raskolnikov was still laughing, with his hand in Porfiry Petrovitch's, but anxious not to overdo it, awaited the right moment to put a natural end to it. Razumihin, completely put to confusion by upsetting the table and smashing the glass, gazed gloomily at the fragments, cursed and turned sharply to the window where he stood looking out with his back to the company with a fiercely scowling countenance, seeing nothing. Porfiry Petrovitch laughed and was ready to go on laughing, but obviously looked for explanations. Zametov had been sitting in the corner, but he rose at the visitors' entrance and was standing in expectation with a smile on his lips, though he looked with surprise and even it seemed incredulity at the whole scene and at Raskolnikov with a certain embarrassment. Zametov's unexpected presence struck Raskolnikov unpleasantly. 'I've got to think of that, he thought. 'Excuse me, please, he began, affecting extreme embarrassment. 'Raskolnikov. 'Not at all, very pleasant to see you... and how pleasantly you've come in.... Why, won't he even say goodmorning? Porfiry Petrovitch nodded at Razumihin. 'Upon my honour I don't know why he is in such a rage with me. I only told him as we came along that he was like Romeo... and proved it. And that was all, I think! 'Pig! ejaculated Razumihin, without turning round. 'There must have been very grave grounds for it, if he is so furious at the word, Porfiry laughed. 'Oh, you sharp lawyer!... Damn you all! snapped Razumihin, and suddenly bursting out laughing himself, he went up to Porfiry with a more cheerful face as though nothing had happened. 'That'll do! We are all fools. To come to business. This is my friend Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov in the first place he has heard of you and wants to make your acquaintance, and secondly, he has a little matter of business with you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you met before? Have you known each other long? 'What does this mean? thought Raskolnikov uneasily. Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very much so. 'Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday, he said easily. 'Then I have been spared the trouble. All last week he was begging me to introduce him to you. Porfiry and you have sniffed each other out without me. Where is your tobacco? Porfiry Petrovitch was wearing a dressinggown, very clean linen, and troddendown slippers. He was a man of about five and thirty, short, stout even to corpulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut short and had a large round head, particularly prominent at the back. His soft, round, rather snubnosed face was of a sickly yellowish colour, but had a vigorous and rather ironical expression. It would have been goodnatured except for a look in the eyes, which shone with a watery, mawkish light under almost white, blinking eyelashes. The expression of those eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat womanish figure, and gave it something far more serious than could be guessed at first sight. As soon as Porfiry Petrovitch heard that his visitor had a little matter of business with him, he begged him to sit down on the sofa and sat down himself on the other end, waiting for him to explain his business, with that careful and overserious attention which is at once oppressive and embarrassing, especially to a stranger, and especially if what you are discussing is in your opinion of far too little importance for such exceptional solemnity. But in brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov explained his business clearly and exactly, and was so well satisfied with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good look at Porfiry. Porfiry Petrovitch did not once take his eyes off him. Razumihin, sitting opposite at the same table, listened warmly and impatiently, looking from one to the other every moment with rather excessive interest. 'Fool, Raskolnikov swore to himself. 'You have to give information to the police, Porfiry replied, with a most businesslike air, 'that having learnt of this incident, that is of the murder, you beg to inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such and such things belong to you, and that you desire to redeem them... or... but they will write to you. 'That's just the point, that at the present moment, Raskolnikov tried his utmost to feign embarrassment, 'I am not quite in funds... and even this trifling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for the present to declare that the things are mine, and that when I have money.... 'That's no matter, answered Porfiry Petrovitch, receiving his explanation of his pecuniary position coldly, 'but you can, if you prefer, write straight to me, to say, that having been informed of the matter, and claiming such and such as your property, you beg... 'On an ordinary sheet of paper? Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly, again interested in the financial side of the question. 'Oh, the most ordinary, and suddenly Porfiry Petrovitch looked with obvious irony at him, screwing up his eyes and, as it were, winking at him. But perhaps it was Raskolnikov's fancy, for it all lasted but a moment. There was certainly something of the sort, Raskolnikov could have sworn he winked at him, goodness knows why. 'He knows, flashed through his mind like lightning. 'Forgive my troubling you about such trifles, he went on, a little disconcerted, 'the things are only worth five roubles, but I prize them particularly for the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I must confess that I was alarmed when I heard... 'That's why you were so much struck when I mentioned to Zossimov that Porfiry was inquiring for everyone who had pledges! Razumihin put in with obvious intention. This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not help glancing at him with a flash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately recollected himself. 'You seem to be jeering at me, brother? he said to him, with a wellfeigned irritability. 'I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious about such trash but you mustn't think me selfish or grasping for that, and these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you just now that the silver watch, though it's not worth a cent, is the only thing left us of my father's. You may laugh at me, but my mother is here, he turned suddenly to Porfiry, 'and if she knew, he turned again hurriedly to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, 'that the watch was lost, she would be in despair! You know what women are! 'Not a bit of it! I didn't mean that at all! Quite the contrary! shouted Razumihin distressed. 'Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it? Raskolnikov asked himself in a tremor. 'Why did I say that about women? 'Oh, your mother is with you? Porfiry Petrovitch inquired. 'Yes. 'When did she come? 'Last night. Porfiry paused as though reflecting. 'Your things would not in any case be lost, he went on calmly and coldly. 'I have been expecting you here for some time. And as though that was a matter of no importance, he carefully offered the ashtray to Razumihin, who was ruthlessly scattering cigarette ash over the carpet. Raskolnikov shuddered, but Porfiry did not seem to be looking at him, and was still concerned with Razumihin's cigarette. 'What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he had pledges there? cried Razumihin. Porfiry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov. 'Your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped up together, and on the paper your name was legibly written in pencil, together with the date on which you left them with her... 'How observant you are! Raskolnikov smiled awkwardly, doing his very utmost to look him straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly added 'I say that because I suppose there were a great many pledges... that it must be difficult to remember them all.... But you remember them all so clearly, and... and... 'Stupid! Feeble! he thought. 'Why did I add that? 'But we know all who had pledges, and you are the only one who hasn't come forward, Porfiry answered with hardly perceptible irony. 'I haven't been quite well. 'I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in great distress about something. You look pale still. 'I am not pale at all.... No, I am quite well, Raskolnikov snapped out rudely and angrily, completely changing his tone. His anger was mounting, he could not repress it. 'And in my anger I shall betray myself, flashed through his mind again. 'Why are they torturing me? 'Not quite well! Razumihin caught him up. 'What next! He was unconscious and delirious all yesterday. Would you believe, Porfiry, as soon as our backs were turned, he dressed, though he could hardly stand, and gave us the slip and went off on a spree somewhere till midnight, delirious all the time! Would you believe it! Extraordinary! 'Really delirious? You don't say so! Porfiry shook his head in a womanish way. 'Nonsense! Don't you believe it! But you don't believe it anyway, Raskolnikov let slip in his anger. But Porfiry Petrovitch did not seem to catch those strange words. 'But how could you have gone out if you hadn't been delirious? Razumihin got hot suddenly. 'What did you go out for? What was the object of it? And why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you did it? Now that all danger is over I can speak plainly. 'I was awfully sick of them yesterday. Raskolnikov addressed Porfiry suddenly with a smile of insolent defiance, 'I ran away from them to take lodgings where they wouldn't find me, and took a lot of money with me. Mr. Zametov there saw it. I say, Mr. Zametov, was I sensible or delirious yesterday settle our dispute. He could have strangled Zametov at that moment, so hateful were his expression and his silence to him. 'In my opinion you talked sensibly and even artfully, but you were extremely irritable, Zametov pronounced dryly. 'And Nikodim Fomitch was telling me today, put in Porfiry Petrovitch, 'that he met you very late last night in the lodging of a man who had been run over. 'And there, said Razumihin, 'weren't you mad then? You gave your last penny to the widow for the funeral. If you wanted to help, give fifteen or twenty even, but keep three roubles for yourself at least, but he flung away all the twentyfive at once! 'Maybe I found a treasure somewhere and you know nothing of it? So that's why I was liberal yesterday.... Mr. Zametov knows I've found a treasure! Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour with such trivialities, he said, turning to Porfiry Petrovitch, with trembling lips. 'We are boring you, aren't we? 'Oh no, quite the contrary, quite the contrary! If only you knew how you interest me! It's interesting to look on and listen... and I am really glad you have come forward at last. 'But you might give us some tea! My throat's dry, cried Razumihin. 'Capital idea! Perhaps we will all keep you company. Wouldn't you like... something more essential before tea? 'Get along with you! Porfiry Petrovitch went out to order tea. Raskolnikov's thoughts were in a whirl. He was in terrible exasperation. 'The worst of it is they don't disguise it they don't care to stand on ceremony! And how if you didn't know me at all, did you come to talk to Nikodim Fomitch about me? So they don't care to hide that they are tracking me like a pack of dogs. They simply spit in my face. He was shaking with rage. 'Come, strike me openly, don't play with me like a cat with a mouse. It's hardly civil, Porfiry Petrovitch, but perhaps I won't allow it! I shall get up and throw the whole truth in your ugly faces, and you'll see how I despise you. He could hardly breathe. 'And what if it's only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and through inexperience I get angry and don't keep up my nasty part? Perhaps it's all unintentional. All their phrases are the usual ones, but there is something about them.... It all might be said, but there is something. Why did he say bluntly, 'With her'? Why did Zametov add that I spoke artfully? Why do they speak in that tone? Yes, the tone.... Razumihin is sitting here, why does he see nothing? That innocent blockhead never does see anything! Feverish again! Did Porfiry wink at me just now? Of course it's nonsense! What could he wink for? Are they trying to upset my nerves or are they teasing me? Either it's ill fancy or they know! Even Zametov is rude.... Is Zametov rude? Zametov has changed his mind. I foresaw he would change his mind! He is at home here, while it's my first visit. Porfiry does not consider him a visitor sits with his back to him. They're as thick as thieves, no doubt, over me! Not a doubt they were talking about me before we came. Do they know about the flat? If only they'd make haste! When I said that I ran away to take a flat he let it pass.... I put that in cleverly about a flat, it may be of use afterwards.... Delirious, indeed... hahaha! He knows all about last night! He didn't know of my mother's arrival! The hag had written the date on in pencil! You are wrong, you won't catch me! There are no facts... it's all supposition! You produce facts! The flat even isn't a fact but delirium. I know what to say to them.... Do they know about the flat? I won't go without finding out. What did I come for? But my being angry now, maybe is a fact! Fool, how irritable I am! Perhaps that's right to play the invalid.... He is feeling me. He will try to catch me. Why did I come? All this flashed like lightning through his mind. Porfiry Petrovitch returned quickly. He became suddenly more jovial. 'Your party yesterday, brother, has left my head rather.... And I am out of sorts altogether, he began in quite a different tone, laughing to Razumihin. 'Was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point. Who got the best of it? 'Oh, no one, of course. They got on to everlasting questions, floated off into space. 'Only fancy, Rodya, what we got on to yesterday. Whether there is such a thing as crime. I told you that we talked our heads off. 'What is there strange? It's an everyday social question, Raskolnikov answered casually. 'The question wasn't put quite like that, observed Porfiry. 'Not quite, that's true, Razumihin agreed at once, getting warm and hurried as usual. 'Listen, Rodion, and tell us your opinion, I want to hear it. I was fighting tooth and nail with them and wanted you to help me. I told them you were coming.... It began with the socialist doctrine. You know their doctrine crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social organisation and nothing more, and nothing more no other causes admitted!... 'You are wrong there, cried Porfiry Petrovitch he was noticeably animated and kept laughing as he looked at Razumihin, which made him more excited than ever. 'Nothing is admitted, Razumihin interrupted with heat. 'I am not wrong. I'll show you their pamphlets. Everything with them is 'the influence of environment,' and nothing else. Their favourite phrase! From which it follows that, if society is normally organised, all crime will cease at once, since there will be nothing to protest against and all men will become righteous in one instant. Human nature is not taken into account, it is excluded, it's not supposed to exist! They don't recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living process, will become at last a normal society, but they believe that a social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going to organise all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an instant, quicker than any living process! That's why they instinctively dislike history, 'nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,' and they explain it all as stupidity! That's why they so dislike the living process of life they don't want a living soul! The living soul demands life, the soul won't obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what they want though it smells of death and can be made of Indiarubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is servile and won't revolt! And it comes in the end to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalansteryit wants life, it hasn't completed its vital process, it's too soon for the graveyard! You can't skip over nature by logic. Logic presupposes three possibilities, but there are millions! Cut away a million, and reduce it all to the question of comfort! That's the easiest solution of the problem! It's seductively clear and you musn't think about it. That's the great thing, you mustn't think! The whole secret of life in two pages of print! 'Now he is off, beating the drum! Catch hold of him, do! laughed Porfiry. 'Can you imagine, he turned to Raskolnikov, 'six people holding forth like that last night, in one room, with punch as a preliminary! No, brother, you are wrong, environment accounts for a great deal in crime I can assure you of that. 'Oh, I know it does, but just tell me a man of forty violates a child of ten was it environment drove him to it? 'Well, strictly speaking, it did, Porfiry observed with noteworthy gravity 'a crime of that nature may be very well ascribed to the influence of environment. Razumihin was almost in a frenzy. 'Oh, if you like, he roared. 'I'll prove to you that your white eyelashes may very well be ascribed to the Church of Ivan the Great's being two hundred and fifty feet high, and I will prove it clearly, exactly, progressively, and even with a Liberal tendency! I undertake to! Will you bet on it? 'Done! Let's hear, please, how he will prove it! 'He is always humbugging, confound him, cried Razumihin, jumping up and gesticulating. 'What's the use of talking to you? He does all that on purpose you don't know him, Rodion! He took their side yesterday, simply to make fools of them. And the things he said yesterday! And they were delighted! He can keep it up for a fortnight together. Last year he persuaded us that he was going into a monastery he stuck to it for two months. Not long ago he took it into his head to declare he was going to get married, that he had everything ready for the wedding. He ordered new clothes indeed. We all began to congratulate him. There was no bride, nothing, all pure fantasy! 'Ah, you are wrong! I got the clothes before. It was the new clothes in fact that made me think of taking you in. 'Are you such a good dissembler? Raskolnikov asked carelessly. 'You wouldn't have supposed it, eh? Wait a bit, I shall take you in, too. Hahaha! No, I'll tell you the truth. All these questions about crime, environment, children, recall to my mind an article of yours which interested me at the time. 'On Crime'... or something of the sort, I forget the title, I read it with pleasure two months ago in the Periodical Review. 'My article? In the Periodical Review? Raskolnikov asked in astonishment. 'I certainly did write an article upon a book six months ago when I left the university, but I sent it to the Weekly Review. 'But it came out in the Periodical. 'And the Weekly Review ceased to exist, so that's why it wasn't printed at the time. 'That's true but when it ceased to exist, the Weekly Review was amalgamated with the Periodical, and so your article appeared two months ago in the latter. Didn't you know? Raskolnikov had not known. 'Why, you might get some money out of them for the article! What a strange person you are! You lead such a solitary life that you know nothing of matters that concern you directly. It's a fact, I assure you. 'Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either! cried Razumihin. 'I'll run today to the readingroom and ask for the number. Two months ago? What was the date? It doesn't matter though, I will find it. Think of not telling us! 'How did you find out that the article was mine? It's only signed with an initial. 'I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through the editor I know him.... I was very much interested. 'I analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a criminal before and after the crime. 'Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration of a crime is always accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but... it was not that part of your article that interested me so much, but an idea at the end of the article which I regret to say you merely suggested without working it out clearly. There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain persons who can... that is, not precisely are able to, but have a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the law is not for them. Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional distortion of his idea. 'What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not because of the influence of environment? Razumihin inquired with some alarm even. 'No, not exactly because of it, answered Porfiry. 'In his article all men are divided into 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary.' Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don't you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken? 'What do you mean? That can't be right? Razumihin muttered in bewilderment. Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where they wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge. 'That wasn't quite my contention, he began simply and modestly. 'Yet I admit that you have stated it almost correctly perhaps, if you like, perfectly so. (It almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) 'The only difference is that I don't contend that extraordinary people are always bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an 'extraordinary' man has the right... that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep... certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity). You say that my article isn't definite I am ready to make it as clear as I can. Perhaps I am right in thinking you want me to very well. I maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in dutybound... to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I maintain in my article that all... well, legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshedoften of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient lawwere of use to their cause. It's remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminalsmore or less, of course. Otherwise it's hard for them to get out of the common rut and to remain in the common rut is what they can't submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before. As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that it's somewhat arbitrary, but I don't insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, innumerable subdivisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and lawabiding they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that's their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through bloodthat depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It's only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There's no need for such anxiety, however the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with meand vive la guerre ternelletill the New Jerusalem, of course! 'Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you? 'I do, Raskolnikov answered firmly as he said these words and during the whole preceding tirade he kept his eyes on one spot on the carpet. 'And... and do you believe in God? Excuse my curiosity. 'I do, repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Porfiry. 'And... do you believe in Lazarus' rising from the dead? 'I... I do. Why do you ask all this? 'You believe it literally? 'Literally. 'You don't say so.... I asked from curiosity. Excuse me. But let us go back to the question they are not always executed. Some, on the contrary... 'Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain their ends in this life, and then... 'They begin executing other people? 'If it's necessary indeed, for the most part they do. Your remark is very witty. 'Thank you. But tell me this how do you distinguish those extraordinary people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their birth? I feel there ought to be more exactitude, more external definition. Excuse the natural anxiety of a practical lawabiding citizen, but couldn't they adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn't they wear something, be branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a member of one category imagines that he belongs to the other, begins to 'eliminate obstacles' as you so happily expressed it, then... 'Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wittier than the other. 'Thank you. 'No reason to but take note that the mistake can only arise in the first category, that is among the ordinary people (as I perhaps unfortunately called them). In spite of their predisposition to obedience very many of them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people, 'destroyers,' and to push themselves into the 'new movement,' and this quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really new people are very often unobserved by them, or even despised as reactionaries of grovelling tendencies. But I don't think there is any considerable danger here, and you really need not be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course, they might have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away with them and to teach them their place, but no more in fact, even this isn't necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are very conscientious some perform this service for one another and others chastise themselves with their own hands.... They will impose various public acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying effect in fact you've nothing to be uneasy about.... It's a law of nature. 'Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score but there's another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many people who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I am ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it's alarming if there are a great many of them, eh? 'Oh, you needn't worry about that either, Raskolnikov went on in the same tone. 'People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these grades and subdivisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am convinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass of mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhapsI speak roughly, approximatelyis born with some independence, and with still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity, appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I have not peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But there certainly is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of chance. 'Why, are you both joking? Razumihin cried at last. 'There you sit, making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya? Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no reply. And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and discourteous sarcasm of Porfiry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face. 'Well, brother, if you are really serious... You are right, of course, in saying that it's not new, that it's like what we've read and heard a thousand times already but what is really original in all this, and is exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed in the name of conscience, and, excuse my saying so, with such fanaticism.... That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that sanction of bloodshed by conscience is to my mind... more terrible than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed.... 'You are quite right, it is more terrible, Porfiry agreed. 'Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I shall read it. You can't think that! I shall read it. 'All that is not in the article, there's only a hint of it, said Raskolnikov. 'Yes, yes. Porfiry couldn't sit still. 'Your attitude to crime is pretty clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am really ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you've removed my anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahometa future one of courseand suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it... do you see? Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even raise his eyes to him. 'I must admit, he went on calmly, 'that such cases certainly must arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that snare young people especially. 'Yes, you see. Well then? 'What then? Raskolnikov smiled in reply 'that's not my fault. So it is and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin) that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons, banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There's no need to be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief. 'And what if we do catch him? 'Then he gets what he deserves. 'You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience? 'Why do you care about that? 'Simply from humanity. 'If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishmentas well as the prison. 'But the real geniuses, asked Razumihin frowning, 'those who have the right to murder? Oughtn't they to suffer at all even for the blood they've shed? 'Why the word ought? It's not a matter of permission or prohibition. He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth, he added dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation. He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance, and he felt this. Everyone got up. 'Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like, Porfiry Petrovitch began again, 'but I can't resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not forget it. 'Very good, tell me your little notion, Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale and grave before him. 'Well, you see... I really don't know how to express it properly.... It's a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your article, surely you couldn't have helped, hehe! fancying yourself... just a little, an 'extraordinary' man, uttering a new word in your sense.... That's so, isn't it? 'Quite possibly, Raskolnikov answered contemptuously. Razumihin made a movement. 'And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties and hardship or for some service to humanityto overstep obstacles?... For instance, to rob and murder? And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as before. 'If I did I certainly should not tell you, Raskolnikov answered with defiant and haughty contempt. 'No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary point of view... 'Foo! how obvious and insolent that is! Raskolnikov thought with repulsion. 'Allow me to observe, he answered dryly, 'that I don't consider myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and not being one of them I cannot tell you how I should act. 'Oh, come, don't we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia? Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity. Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice. 'Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona Ivanovna last week? Zametov blurted out from the corner. Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intently at Porfiry. Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy silence. Raskolnikov turned to go. 'Are you going already? Porfiry said amiably, holding out his hand with excessive politeness. 'Very, very glad of your acquaintance. As for your request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still, come to me there yourself in a day or two... tomorrow, indeed. I shall be there at eleven o'clock for certain. We'll arrange it all we'll have a talk. As one of the last to be there, you might perhaps be able to tell us something, he added with a most goodnatured expression. 'You want to crossexamine me officially in due form? Raskolnikov asked sharply. 'Oh, why? That's not necessary for the present. You misunderstand me. I lose no opportunity, you see, and... I've talked with all who had pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the last.... Yes, by the way, he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, 'I just remember, what was I thinking of? he turned to Razumihin, 'you were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know very well, he turned to Raskolnikov, 'that the fellow is innocent, but what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point, this is all when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn't it? 'Yes, answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very moment he spoke that he need not have said it. 'Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn't you see in a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn't you notice them? It's very, very important for them. 'Painters? No, I didn't see them, Raskolnikov answered slowly, as though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. 'No, I didn't see them, and I don't think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on the fourth storey (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant) 'I remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona Ivanovna's.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall. But painters... no, I don't remember that there were any painters, and I don't think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn't. 'What do you mean? Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had reflected and realised. 'Why, it was on the day of the murder the painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are you asking? 'Foo! I have muddled it! Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead. 'Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain! he addressed Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. 'It would be such a great thing for us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at the flat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us something.... I quite muddled it. 'Then you should be more careful, Razumihin observed grimly. The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petrovitch saw them to the door with excessive politeness. They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps they did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath. 'I don't believe it, I can't believe it! repeated Razumihin, trying in perplexity to refute Raskolnikov's arguments. They were by now approaching Bakaleyev's lodgings, where Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while. Razumihin kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited by the very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly about it. 'Don't believe it, then! answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless smile. 'You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every word. 'You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... h'm... certainly, I agree, Porfiry's tone was rather strange, and still more that wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about himbut why? Why? 'He has changed his mind since last night. 'Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless. 'If they had had factsI mean, real factsor at least grounds for suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game, in the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirageall ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted it out in his vexationor perhaps he has some plan... he seems an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome explaining it all. Stop! 'And it's insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at lastI am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago, this idea. Of course the merest hint onlyan insinuationbut why an insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only you knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor student, unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe delirious illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence and the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a stifling atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomachhe might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place, Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces, and spit a dozen times in all directions. I'd hit out in all directions, neatly too, and so I'd put an end to it. Damn them! Don't be downhearted. It's a shame! 'He really has put it well, though, Raskolnikov thought. 'Damn them? But the crossexamination again, tomorrow? he said with bitterness. 'Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the restaurant.... 'Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him, as one of the family he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And as for Zametov... 'At last he sees through him! thought Raskolnikov. 'Stay! cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. 'Stay! you were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap? You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had done that, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat... and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if you had seen it. Who would own it against himself? 'If I had done that thing, I should certainly have said that I had seen the workmen and the flat, Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance and obvious disgust. 'But why speak against yourself? 'Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts that can't be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an air of truth, and then make some explanation. 'But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been there two days before, and that therefore you must have been there on the day of the murder at eight o'clock. And so he would have caught you over a detail. 'Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days before. 'But how could you forget it? 'Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you think.... 'He is a knave then, if that is so! Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive, from necessity. 'I am getting a relish for certain aspects! he thought to himself. But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept on increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev's. 'Go in alone! said Raskolnikov suddenly. 'I will be back directly. 'Where are you going? Why, we are just here. 'I can't help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them. 'Say what you like, I will come with you. 'You, too, want to torture me! he screamed, with such bitter irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin's hands dropped. He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence. When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he was breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put the things put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he got up and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of Bakaleyev's, he suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper in which they had been wrapped with the old woman's handwriting on it, might somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and then might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence against him. He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily through the gateway. 'Here he is himself, shouted a loud voice. He raised his head. The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was pointing him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing a long coat and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a woman. He stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From his wrinkled flabby face he looked over fifty his little eyes were lost in fat and they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly. 'What is it? Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter. The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at him attentively, deliberately then he turned slowly and went out of the gate into the street without saying a word. 'What is it? cried Raskolnikov. 'Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned your name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed you out and he went away. It's funny. The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room. Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of him walking along the other side of the street with the same even, deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though in meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind him. At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes again and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a word. 'You were inquiring for me... of the porter? Raskolnikov said at last, but in a curiously quiet voice. The man made no answer he didn't even look at him. Again they were both silent. 'Why do you... come and ask for me... and say nothing.... What's the meaning of it? Raskolnikov's voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the words clearly. The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at Raskolnikov. 'Murderer! he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice. Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence. The man did not look at him. 'What do you mean... what is.... Who is a murderer? muttered Raskolnikov hardly audibly. 'You are a murderer, the man answered still more articulately and emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov's pale face and stricken eyes. They had just reached the crossroads. The man turned to the left without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing after him. He saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at him still standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied that he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and triumph. With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his way back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving. Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour. He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some images without order or coherence floated before his mindfaces of people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he would never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a back staircase quite dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with eggshells, and the Sunday bells floating in from somewhere.... The images followed one another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was even pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too was an almost pleasant sensation. He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya's whisper 'Don't disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later. 'Quite so, answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the door. Another halfhour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on his back again, clasping his hands behind his head. 'Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where was he, what did he see? He has seen it all, that's clear. Where was he then? And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of the earth? And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm... continued Raskolnikov, turning cold and shivering, 'and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the doorwas that possible? A clue? You miss an infinitesimal line and you can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A fly flew by and saw it! Is it possible? He felt with sudden loathing how weak, how physically weak he had become. 'I ought to have known it, he thought with a bitter smile. 'And how dared I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take up an axe and shed blood! I ought to have known beforehand.... Ah, but I did know! he whispered in despair. At times he came to a standstill at some thought. 'No, those men are not made so. The real Master to whom all is permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, forgets an army in Egypt, wastes half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and so all is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of flesh but of bronze! One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the pyramids, Waterloo, and a wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with a red trunk under her bedit's a nice hash for Porfiry Petrovitch to digest! How can they digest it! It's too inartistic. 'A Napoleon creep under an old woman's bed! Ugh, how loathsome! At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish excitement. 'The old woman is of no consequence, he thought, hotly and incoherently. 'The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is not what matters! The old woman was only an illness.... I was in a hurry to overstep.... I didn't kill a human being, but a principle! I killed the principle, but I didn't overstep, I stopped on this side.... I was only capable of killing. And it seems I wasn't even capable of that... Principle? Why was that fool Razumihin abusing the socialists? They are industrious, commercial people 'the happiness of all' is their case. No, life is only given to me once and I shall never have it again I don't want to wait for 'the happiness of all.' I want to live myself, or else better not live at all. I simply couldn't pass by my mother starving, keeping my rouble in my pocket while I waited for the 'happiness of all.' I am putting my little brick into the happiness of all and so my heart is at peace. Haha! Why have you let me slip? I only live once, I too want.... Ech, I am an sthetic louse and nothing more, he added suddenly, laughing like a madman. 'Yes, I am certainly a louse, he went on, clutching at the idea, gloating over it and playing with it with vindictive pleasure. 'In the first place, because I can reason that I am one, and secondly, because for a month past I have been troubling benevolent Providence, calling it to witness that not for my own fleshly lusts did I undertake it, but with a grand and noble objecthaha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying it out as justly as possible, weighing, measuring and calculating. Of all the lice I picked out the most useless one and proposed to take from her only as much as I needed for the first step, no more nor less (so the rest would have gone to a monastery, according to her will, haha!). And what shows that I am utterly a louse, he added, grinding his teeth, 'is that I am perhaps viler and more loathsome than the louse I killed, and I felt beforehand that I should tell myself so after killing her. Can anything be compared with the horror of that? The vulgarity! The abjectness! I understand the 'prophet' with his sabre, on his steed Allah commands and 'trembling' creation must obey! The 'prophet' is right, he is right when he sets a battery across the street and blows up the innocent and the guilty without deigning to explain! It's for you to obey, trembling creation, and not to have desires, for that's not for you!... I shall never, never forgive the old woman! His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips were parched, his eyes were fixed on the ceiling. 'Mother, sisterhow I loved them! Why do I hate them now? Yes, I hate them, I feel a physical hatred for them, I can't bear them near me.... I went up to my mother and kissed her, I remember.... To embrace her and think if she only knew... shall I tell her then? That's just what I might do.... She must be the same as I am, he added, straining himself to think, as it were struggling with delirium. 'Ah, how I hate the old woman now! I feel I should kill her again if she came to life! Poor Lizaveta! Why did she come in?... It's strange though, why is it I scarcely ever think of her, as though I hadn't killed her? Lizaveta! Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes.... Dear women! Why don't they weep? Why don't they moan? They give up everything... their eyes are soft and gentle.... Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia! He lost consciousness it seemed strange to him that he didn't remember how he got into the street. It was late evening. The twilight had fallen and the full moon was shining more and more brightly but there was a peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were crowds of people in the street workmen and business people were making their way home other people had come out for a walk there was a smell of mortar, dust and stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along, mournful and anxious he was distinctly aware of having come out with a purpose, of having to do something in a hurry, but what it was he had forgotten. Suddenly he stood still and saw a man standing on the other side of the street, beckoning to him. He crossed over to him, but at once the man turned and walked away with his head hanging, as though he had made no sign to him. 'Stay, did he really beckon? Raskolnikov wondered, but he tried to overtake him. When he was within ten paces he recognised him and was frightened it was the same man with stooping shoulders in the long coat. Raskolnikov followed him at a distance his heart was beating they went down a turning the man still did not look round. 'Does he know I am following him? thought Raskolnikov. The man went into the gateway of a big house. Raskolnikov hastened to the gate and looked in to see whether he would look round and sign to him. In the courtyard the man did turn round and again seemed to beckon him. Raskolnikov at once followed him into the yard, but the man was gone. He must have gone up the first staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard slow measured steps two flights above. The staircase seemed strangely familiar. He reached the window on the first floor the moon shone through the panes with a melancholy and mysterious light then he reached the second floor. Bah! this is the flat where the painters were at work... but how was it he did not recognise it at once? The steps of the man above had died away. 'So he must have stopped or hidden somewhere. He reached the third storey, should he go on? There was a stillness that was dreadful.... But he went on. The sound of his own footsteps scared and frightened him. How dark it was! The man must be hiding in some corner here. Ah! the flat was standing wide open, he hesitated and went in. It was very dark and empty in the passage, as though everything had been removed he crept on tiptoe into the parlour which was flooded with moonlight. Everything there was as before, the chairs, the lookingglass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the frames. A huge, round, copperred moon looked in at the windows. 'It's the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery, thought Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. 'Why is that cloak here? he thought, 'it wasn't there before.... He went up to it quietly and felt that there was someone hiding behind it. He cautiously moved the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner, the old woman bent double so that he couldn't see her face but it was she. He stood over her. 'She is afraid, he thought. He stealthily took the axe from the noose and struck her one blow, then another on the skull. But strange to say she did not stir, as though she were made of wood. He was frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at her but she, too, bent her head lower. He bent right down to the ground and peeped up into her face from below, he peeped and turned cold with horror the old woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless laughter, doing her utmost that he should not hear it. Suddenly he fancied that the door from the bedroom was opened a little and that there was laughter and whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and he began hitting the old woman on the head with all his force, but at every blow of the axe the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and the old woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was rushing away, but the passage was full of people, the doors of the flats stood open and on the landing, on the stairs and everywhere below there were people, rows of heads, all looking, but huddled together in silence and expectation. Something gripped his heart, his legs were rooted to the spot, they would not move.... He tried to scream and woke up. He drew a deep breathbut his dream seemed strangely to persist his door was flung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in the doorway watching him intently. Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them again. He lay on his back without stirring. 'Is it still a dream? he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly perceptibly the stranger was standing in the same place, still watching him. He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa he put his hat on the floor beside him and leaned his hands on his cane and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to wait indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his stolen glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost whitish beard. Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk. There was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the stairs. Only a big fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane. It was unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the sofa. 'Come, tell me what you want. 'I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending, the stranger answered oddly, laughing calmly. 'Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigalov, allow me to introduce myself.... 'Can this be still a dream? Raskolnikov thought once more. He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unexpected visitor. 'Svidrigalov! What nonsense! It can't be! he said at last aloud in bewilderment. His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this exclamation. 'I've come to you for two reasons. In the first place, I wanted to make your personal acquaintance, as I have already heard a great deal about you that is interesting and flattering secondly, I cherish the hope that you may not refuse to assist me in a matter directly concerning the welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support she might not let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced against me, but with your assistance I reckon on... 'You reckon wrongly, interrupted Raskolnikov. 'They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you? Raskolnikov made no reply. 'It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the day before. Well, let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don't consider it necessary to justify myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly criminal on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice, with common sense? Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence. 'That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless girl and 'insulted her with my infamous proposals'is that it? (I am anticipating you.) But you've only to assume that I, too, am a man et nihil humanum... in a word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was promoting our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you know why, probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone! 'But that's not the point, Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. 'It's simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don't want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out! Svidrigalov broke into a sudden laugh. 'But you're... but there's no getting round you, he said, laughing in the frankest way. 'I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right line at once! 'But you are trying to get round me still! 'What of it? What of it? cried Svidrigalov, laughing openly. 'But this is what the French call bonne guerre, and the most innocent form of deception!... But still you have interrupted me one way or another, I repeat again there would never have been any unpleasantness except for what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna... 'You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say? Raskolnikov interrupted rudely. 'Oh, you've heard that, too, then? You'd be sure to, though.... But as for your question, I really don't know what to say, though my own conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don't suppose that I am in any apprehension about it. All was regular and in order the medical inquiry diagnosed apoplexy due to bathing immediately after a heavy dinner and a bottle of wine, and indeed it could have proved nothing else. But I'll tell you what I have been thinking to myself of late, on my way here in the train, especially didn't I contribute to all that... calamity, morally, in a way, by irritation or something of the sort. But I came to the conclusion that that, too, was quite out of the question. Raskolnikov laughed. 'I wonder you trouble yourself about it! 'But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I struck her just twice with a switchthere were no marks even... don't regard me as a cynic, please I am perfectly aware how atrocious it was of me and all that but I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna was very likely pleased at my, so to say, warmth. The story of your sister had been wrung out to the last drop for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been forced to sit at home she had nothing to show herself with in the town. Besides, she had bored them so with that letter (you heard about her reading the letter). And all of a sudden those two switches fell from heaven! Her first act was to order the carriage to be got out.... Not to speak of the fact that there are cases when women are very, very glad to be insulted in spite of all their show of indignation. There are instances of it with everyone human beings in general, indeed, greatly love to be insulted, have you noticed that? But it's particularly so with women. One might even say it's their only amusement. At one time Raskolnikov thought of getting up and walking out and so finishing the interview. But some curiosity and even a sort of prudence made him linger for a moment. 'You are fond of fighting? he asked carelessly. 'No, not very, Svidrigalov answered, calmly. 'And Marfa Petrovna and I scarcely ever fought. We lived very harmoniously, and she was always pleased with me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven years (not counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous character). The first time, two months after our marriage, immediately after we arrived in the country, and the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did you suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary, such a slave driver? Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion Romanovitch, how a few years ago, in those days of beneficent publicity, a nobleman, I've forgotten his name, was put to shame everywhere, in all the papers, for having thrashed a German woman in the railway train. You remember? It was in those days, that very year I believe, the 'disgraceful action of the Age' took place (you know, 'The Egyptian Nights,' that public reading, you remember? The dark eyes, you know! Ah, the golden days of our youth, where are they?). Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed the German, I feel no sympathy with him, because after all what need is there for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking 'Germans' that I don't believe there is a progressive who could quite answer for himself. No one looked at the subject from that point of view then, but that's the truly humane point of view, I assure you. After saying this, Svidrigalov broke into a sudden laugh again. Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a man with a firm purpose in his mind and able to keep it to himself. 'I expect you've not talked to anyone for some days? he asked. 'Scarcely anyone. I suppose you are wondering at my being such an adaptable man? 'No, I am only wondering at your being too adaptable a man. 'Because I am not offended at the rudeness of your questions? Is that it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered, he replied, with a surprising expression of simplicity. 'You know, there's hardly anything I take interest in, he went on, as it were dreamily, 'especially now, I've nothing to do.... You are quite at liberty to imagine though that I am making up to you with a motive, particularly as I told you I want to see your sister about something. But I'll confess frankly, I am very much bored. The last three days especially, so I am delighted to see you.... Don't be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you seem to be somehow awfully strange yourself. Say what you like, there's something wrong with you, and now, too... not this very minute, I mean, but now, generally.... Well, well, I won't, I won't, don't scowl! I am not such a bear, you know, as you think. Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him. 'You are not a bear, perhaps, at all, he said. 'I fancy indeed that you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to behave like one. 'I am not particularly interested in anyone's opinion, Svidrigalov answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, 'and therefore why not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak for our climate... and especially if one has a natural propensity that way, he added, laughing again. 'But I've heard you have many friends here. You are, as they say, 'not without connections.' What can you want with me, then, unless you've some special object? 'That's true that I have friends here, Svidrigalov admitted, not replying to the chief point. 'I've met some already. I've been lounging about for the last three days, and I've seen them, or they've seen me. That's a matter of course. I am well dressed and reckoned not a poor man the emancipation of the serfs hasn't affected me my property consists chiefly of forests and water meadows. The revenue has not fallen off but... I am not going to see them, I was sick of them long ago. I've been here three days and have called on no one.... What a town it is! How has it come into existence among us, tell me that? A town of officials and students of all sorts. Yes, there's a great deal I didn't notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels.... My only hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is! 'Anatomy? 'But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, maybewell, all that can go on without me, he went on, again without noticing the question. 'Besides, who wants to be a cardsharper? 'Why, have you been a cardsharper then? 'How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best society, eight years ago we had a fine time. And all men of breeding, you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian society the best manners are found among those who've been thrashed, have you noticed that? I've deteriorated in the country. But I did get into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Nezhin. Then Marfa Petrovna turned up she bargained with him and bought me off for thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were united in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the country like a treasure. You know she was five years older than I. She was very fond of me. For seven years I never left the country. And, take note, that all my life she held a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so if I were to elect to be restive about anything I should be trapped at once! And she would have done it! Women find nothing incompatible in that. 'If it hadn't been for that, would you have given her the slip? 'I don't know what to say. It was scarcely the document restrained me. I didn't want to go anywhere else. Marfa Petrovna herself invited me to go abroad, seeing I was bored, but I've been abroad before, and always felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples, the seayou look at them and it makes you sad. What's most revolting is that one is really sad! No, it's better at home. Here at least one blames others for everything and excuses oneself. I should have gone perhaps on an expedition to the North Pole, because j'ai le vin mauvais and hate drinking, and there's nothing left but wine. I have tried it. But, I say, I've been told Berg is going up in a great balloon next Sunday from the Yusupov Garden and will take up passengers at a fee. Is it true? 'Why, would you go up? 'I... No, oh, no, muttered Svidrigalov really seeming to be deep in thought. 'What does he mean? Is he in earnest? Raskolnikov wondered. 'No, the document didn't restrain me, Svidrigalov went on, meditatively. 'It was my own doing, not leaving the country, and nearly a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my nameday and made me a present of a considerable sum of money, too. She had a fortune, you know. 'You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch'that was actually her expression. You don't believe she used it? But do you know I managed the estate quite decently, they know me in the neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Marfa Petrovna at first approved, but afterwards she was afraid of my overstudying. 'You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much? 'Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And, by the way, do you believe in ghosts? 'What ghosts? 'Why, ordinary ghosts. 'Do you believe in them? 'Perhaps not, pour vous plaire.... I wouldn't say no exactly. 'Do you see them, then? Svidrigalov looked at him rather oddly. 'Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me, he said, twisting his mouth into a strange smile. 'How do you mean 'she is pleased to visit you'? 'She has been three times. I saw her first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to come here. The second time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak, on the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone. 'Were you awake? 'Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me for a minute and goes out at the dooralways at the door. I can almost hear her. 'What made me think that something of the sort must be happening to you? Raskolnikov said suddenly. At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much excited. 'What! Did you think so? Svidrigalov asked in astonishment. 'Did you really? Didn't I say that there was something in common between us, eh? 'You never said so! Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat. 'Didn't I? 'No! 'I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes shut, pretending, I said to myself at once, 'Here's the man.' 'What do you mean by 'the man?' What are you talking about? cried Raskolnikov. 'What do I mean? I really don't know.... Svidrigalov muttered ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled. For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other's faces. 'That's all nonsense! Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. 'What does she say when she comes to you? 'She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles andman is a strange creatureit makes me angry. The first time she came in (I was tired you know the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the lunch afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar and began to think), she came in at the door. 'You've been so busy today, Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the diningroom clock,' she said. All those seven years I've wound that clock every week, and if I forgot it she would always remind me. The next day I set off on my way here. I got out at the station at daybreak I'd been asleep, tired out, with my eyes half open, I was drinking some coffee. I looked up and there was suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a pack of cards in her hands. 'Shall I tell your fortune for the journey, Arkady Ivanovitch?' She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never forgive myself for not asking her to. I ran away in a fright, and, besides, the bell rang. I was sitting today, feeling very heavy after a miserable dinner from a cookshop I was sitting smoking, all of a sudden Marfa Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new green silk dress with a long train. 'Good day, Arkady Ivanovitch! How do you like my dress? Aniska can't make like this.' (Aniska was a dressmaker in the country, one of our former serf girls who had been trained in Moscow, a pretty wench.) She stood turning round before me. I looked at the dress, and then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. 'I wonder you trouble to come to me about such trifles, Marfa Petrovna.' 'Good gracious, you won't let one disturb you about anything!' To tease her I said, 'I want to get married, Marfa Petrovna.' 'That's just like you, Arkady Ivanovitch it does you very little credit to come looking for a bride when you've hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a good choice, at least, but I know it won't be for your happiness or hers, you will only be a laughingstock to all good people.' Then she went out and her train seemed to rustle. Isn't it nonsense, eh? 'But perhaps you are telling lies? Raskolnikov put in. 'I rarely lie, answered Svidrigalov thoughtfully, apparently not noticing the rudeness of the question. 'And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before? 'Yyes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had a serf, Filka just after his burial I called out forgetting 'Filka, my pipe!' He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still and thought 'he is doing it out of revenge,' because we had a violent quarrel just before his death. 'How dare you come in with a hole in your elbow?' I said. 'Go away, you scamp!' He turned and went out, and never came again. I didn't tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted to have a service sung for him, but I was ashamed. 'You should go to a doctor. 'I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don't know what's wrong I believe I am five times as strong as you are. I didn't ask you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you believe that they exist. 'No, I won't believe it! Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger. 'What do people generally say? muttered Svidrigalov, as though speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. 'They say, 'You are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.' But that's not strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that they don't exist. 'Nothing of the sort, Raskolnikov insisted irritably. 'No? You don't think so? Svidrigalov went on, looking at him deliberately. 'But what do you say to this argument (help me with it) ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is broken, one begins to realise the possibility of another world and the more seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one's contact with that other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you could believe in that, too. 'I don't believe in a future life, said Raskolnikov. Svidrigalov sat lost in thought. 'And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort, he said suddenly. 'He is a madman, thought Raskolnikov. 'We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it's one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that. 'Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than that? Raskolnikov cried, with a feeling of anguish. 'Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know it's what I would certainly have made it, answered Svidrigalov, with a vague smile. This horrible answer sent a cold chill through Raskolnikov. Svidrigalov raised his head, looked at him, and suddenly began laughing. 'Only think, he cried, 'half an hour ago we had never seen each other, we regarded each other as enemies there is a matter unsettled between us we've thrown it aside, and away we've gone into the abstract! Wasn't I right in saying that we were birds of a feather? 'Kindly allow me, Raskolnikov went on irritably, 'to ask you to explain why you have honoured me with your visit... and... and I am in a hurry, I have no time to waste. I want to go out. 'By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya Romanovna, is going to be married to Mr. Luzhin, Pyotr Petrovitch? 'Can you refrain from any question about my sister and from mentioning her name? I can't understand how you dare utter her name in my presence, if you really are Svidrigalov. 'Why, but I've come here to speak about her how can I avoid mentioning her? 'Very good, speak, but make haste. 'I am sure that you must have formed your own opinion of this Mr. Luzhin, who is a connection of mine through my wife, if you have only seen him for half an hour, or heard any facts about him. He is no match for Avdotya Romanovna. I believe Avdotya Romanovna is sacrificing herself generously and imprudently for the sake of... for the sake of her family. I fancied from all I had heard of you that you would be very glad if the match could be broken off without the sacrifice of worldly advantages. Now I know you personally, I am convinced of it. 'All this is very nave... excuse me, I should have said impudent on your part, said Raskolnikov. 'You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends. Don't be uneasy, Rodion Romanovitch, if I were working for my own advantage, I would not have spoken out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I will confess something psychologically curious about that just now, defending my love for Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself the victim. Well, let me tell you that I've no feeling of love now, not the slightest, so that I wonder myself indeed, for I really did feel something... 'Through idleness and depravity, Raskolnikov put in. 'I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister has such qualities that even I could not help being impressed by them. But that's all nonsense, as I see myself now. 'Have you seen that long? 'I began to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of it the day before yesterday, almost at the moment I arrived in Petersburg. I still fancied in Moscow, though, that I was coming to try to get Avdotya Romanovna's hand and to cut out Mr. Luzhin. 'Excuse me for interrupting you kindly be brief, and come to the object of your visit. I am in a hurry, I want to go out... 'With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and determining on a certain... journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary arrangements. I left my children with an aunt they are well provided for and they have no need of me personally. And a nice father I should make, too! I have taken nothing but what Marfa Petrovna gave me a year ago. That's enough for me. Excuse me, I am just coming to the point. Before the journey which may come off, I want to settle Mr. Luzhin, too. It's not that I detest him so much, but it was through him I quarrelled with Marfa Petrovna when I learned that she had dished up this marriage. I want now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your mediation, and if you like in your presence, to explain to her that in the first place she will never gain anything but harm from Mr. Luzhin. Then, begging her pardon for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten thousand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a rupture to which I believe she is herself not disinclined, if she could see the way to it. 'You are certainly mad, cried Raskolnikov not so much angered as astonished. 'How dare you talk like that! 'I knew you would scream at me but in the first place, though I am not rich, this ten thousand roubles is perfectly free I have absolutely no need for it. If Avdotya Romanovna does not accept it, I shall waste it in some more foolish way. That's the first thing. Secondly, my conscience is perfectly easy I make the offer with no ulterior motive. You may not believe it, but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will know. The point is, that I did actually cause your sister, whom I greatly respect, some trouble and unpleasantness, and so, sincerely regretting it, I wantnot to compensate, not to repay her for the unpleasantness, but simply to do something to her advantage, to show that I am not, after all, privileged to do nothing but harm. If there were a millionth fraction of selfinterest in my offer, I should not have made it so openly and I should not have offered her ten thousand only, when five weeks ago I offered her more, Besides, I may, perhaps, very soon marry a young lady, and that alone ought to prevent suspicion of any design on Avdotya Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that in marrying Mr. Luzhin, she is taking money just the same, only from another man. Don't be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, think it over coolly and quietly. Svidrigalov himself was exceedingly cool and quiet as he was saying this. 'I beg you to say no more, said Raskolnikov. 'In any case this is unpardonable impertinence. 'Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but harm to his neighbour in this world, and is prevented from doing the tiniest bit of good by trivial conventional formalities. That's absurd. If I died, for instance, and left that sum to your sister in my will, surely she wouldn't refuse it? 'Very likely she would. 'Oh, no, indeed. However, if you refuse it, so be it, though ten thousand roubles is a capital thing to have on occasion. In any case I beg you to repeat what I have said to Avdotya Romanovna. 'No, I won't. 'In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be obliged to try and see her myself and worry her by doing so. 'And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her? 'I don't know really what to say. I should like very much to see her once more. 'Don't hope for it. 'I'm sorry. But you don't know me. Perhaps we may become better friends. 'You think we may become friends? 'And why not? Svidrigalov said, smiling. He stood up and took his hat. 'I didn't quite intend to disturb you and I came here without reckoning on it... though I was very much struck by your face this morning. 'Where did you see me this morning? Raskolnikov asked uneasily. 'I saw you by chance.... I kept fancying there is something about you like me.... But don't be uneasy. I am not intrusive I used to get on all right with cardsharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I could write about Raphael's Madonna in Madam Prilukov's album, and I never left Marfa Petrovna's side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at Viazemsky's house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in a balloon with Berg, perhaps. 'Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask? 'What travels? 'Why, on that 'journey' you spoke of it yourself. 'A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that's a wide subject.... if only you knew what you are asking, he added, and gave a sudden, loud, short laugh. 'Perhaps I'll get married instead of the journey. They're making a match for me. 'Here? 'Yes. 'How have you had time for that? 'But I am very anxious to see Avdotya Romanovna once. I earnestly beg it. Well, goodbye for the present. Oh, yes. I have forgotten something. Tell your sister, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna remembered her in her will and left her three thousand roubles. That's absolutely certain. Marfa Petrovna arranged it a week before her death, and it was done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be able to receive the money in two or three weeks. 'Are you telling the truth? 'Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am staying very near you. As he went out, Svidrigalov ran up against Razumihin in the doorway. It was nearly eight o'clock. The two young men hurried to Bakaleyev's, to arrive before Luzhin. 'Why, who was that? asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the street. 'It was Svidrigalov, that landowner in whose house my sister was insulted when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her with his attentions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna. This Marfa Petrovna begged Dounia's forgiveness afterwards, and she's just died suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don't know why I'm afraid of that man. He came here at once after his wife's funeral. He is very strange, and is determined on doing something.... We must guard Dounia from him... that's what I wanted to tell you, do you hear? 'Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya, for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will guard her. Where does he live? 'I don't know. 'Why didn't you ask? What a pity! I'll find out, though. 'Did you see him? asked Raskolnikov after a pause. 'Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well. 'You did really see him? You saw him clearly? Raskolnikov insisted. 'Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand I have a good memory for faces. They were silent again. 'Hm!... that's all right, muttered Raskolnikov. 'Do you know, I fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination. 'What do you mean? I don't understand you. 'Well, you all say, Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a smile, 'that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad, and have only seen a phantom. 'What do you mean? 'Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything that happened all these days may be only imagination. 'Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!... But what did he say, what did he come for? Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute. 'Now let me tell you my story, he began, 'I came to you, you were asleep. Then we had dinner and then I went to Porfiry's, Zametov was still with him. I tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn't speak in the right way. They don't seem to understand and can't understand, but are not a bit ashamed. I drew Porfiry to the window, and began talking to him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At last I shook my fist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I'd brain him. He merely looked at me, I cursed and came away. That was all. It was very stupid. To Zametov I didn't say a word. But, you see, I thought I'd made a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea struck me why should we trouble? Of course if you were in any danger or anything, but why need you care? You needn't care a hang for them. We shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I'd mystify them more than ever. How ashamed they'll be afterwards! Hang them! We can thrash them afterwards, but let's laugh at them now! 'To be sure, answered Raskolnikov. 'But what will you say tomorrow? he thought to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had never occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew. As he thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin's account of his visit to Porfiry had very little interest for him, so much had come and gone since then. In the corridor they came upon Luzhin he had arrived punctually at eight, and was looking for the number, so that all three went in together without greeting or looking at one another. The young men walked in first, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, lingered a little in the passage, taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came forward at once to greet him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming her brother. Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and quite amiably, though with redoubled dignity, bowed to the ladies. He looked, however, as though he were a little put out and could not yet recover himself. Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who seemed also a little embarrassed, hastened to make them all sit down at the round table where a samovar was boiling. Dounia and Luzhin were facing one another on opposite sides of the table. Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumihin was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his sister. A moment's silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch deliberately drew out a cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and blew his nose with an air of a benevolent man who felt himself slighted, and was firmly resolved to insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had occurred to him to keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp and emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of the position. But he could not bring himself to do this. Besides, he could not endure uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation if his request had been so openly disobeyed, there was something behind it, and in that case it was better to find it out beforehand it rested with him to punish them and there would always be time for that. 'I trust you had a favourable journey, he inquired officially of Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch. 'I am gratified to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not overfatigued either? 'I am young and strong, I don't get tired, but it was a great strain for mother, answered Dounia. 'That's unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length. 'Mother Russia,' as they say, is a vast country.... In spite of all my desire to do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all passed off without inconvenience? 'Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly disheartening, Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to declare with peculiar intonation, 'and if Dmitri Prokofitch had not been sent us, I really believe by God Himself, we should have been utterly lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Prokofitch Razumihin, she added, introducing him to Luzhin. 'I had the pleasure... yesterday, muttered Pyotr Petrovitch with a hostile glance sidelong at Razumihin then he scowled and was silent. Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who, directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society. Again all was silent Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya Romanovna was unwilling to open the conversation too soon. Razumihin had nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was anxious again. 'Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard? she began having recourse to her leading item of conversation. 'To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately informed, and I have come to make you acquainted with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigalov set off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his wife's funeral. So at least I have excellent authority for believing. 'To Petersburg? here? Dounia asked in alarm and looked at her mother. 'Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some design, having in view the rapidity of his departure, and all the circumstances preceding it. 'Good heavens! won't he leave Dounia in peace even here? cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya Romanovna have any grounds for uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves desirous of getting into communication with him. For my part I am on my guard, and am now discovering where he is lodging. 'Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what a fright you have given me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on 'I've only seen him twice, but I thought him terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the cause of Marfa Petrovna's death. 'It's impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of events by the moral influence, so to say, of the affront but as to the general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am in agreement with you. I do not know whether he is well off now, and precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him this will be known to me within a very short period but no doubt here in Petersburg, if he has any pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once into his old ways. He is the most depraved, and abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men. I have considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna, who was so unfortunate as to fall in love with him and to pay his debts eight years ago, was of service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions and sacrifices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic and homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to Siberia, was hushed up. That's the sort of man he is, if you care to know. 'Good heavens! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened attentively. 'Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good evidence of this? Dounia asked sternly and emphatically. 'I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa Petrovna. I must observe that from the legal point of view the case was far from clear. There was, and I believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich, a foreigner, who lent small sums of money at interest, and did other commissions, and with this woman Svidrigalov had for a long while close and mysterious relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe, living with her, a deaf and dumb girl of fifteen, or perhaps not more than fourteen. Resslich hated this girl, and grudged her every crust she used to beat her mercilessly. One day the girl was found hanging in the garret. At the inquest the verdict was suicide. After the usual proceedings the matter ended, but, later on, information was given that the child had been... cruelly outraged by Svidrigalov. It is true, this was not clearly established, the information was given by another German woman of loose character whose word could not be trusted no statement was actually made to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna's money and exertions it did not get beyond gossip. And yet the story is a very significant one. You heard, no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were with them the story of the servant Philip who died of ill treatment he received six years ago, before the abolition of serfdom. 'I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip hanged himself. 'Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps disposed him, to suicide was the systematic persecution and severity of Mr. Svidrigalov. 'I don't know that, answered Dounia, dryly. 'I only heard a queer story that Philip was a sort of hypochondriac, a sort of domestic philosopher, the servants used to say, 'he read himself silly,' and that he hanged himself partly on account of Mr. Svidrigalov's mockery of him and not his blows. When I was there he behaved well to the servants, and they were actually fond of him, though they certainly did blame him for Philip's death. 'I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem disposed to undertake his defence all of a sudden, Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into an ambiguous smile, 'there's no doubt that he is an astute man, and insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has been to be of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For my part it's my firm conviction, that he will end in a debtor's prison again. Marfa Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling anything substantial on him, having regard for his children's interests, and, if she left him anything, it would only be the merest sufficiency, something insignificant and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a man of his habits. 'Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you, said Dounia, 'say no more of Mr. Svidrigalov. It makes me miserable. 'He has just been to see me, said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for the first time. There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even Pyotr Petrovitch was roused. 'An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and introduced himself, Raskolnikov continued. 'He was fairly cheerful and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that you can receive the money very shortly. 'Thank God! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. 'Pray for her soul, Dounia! 'It's a fact! broke from Luzhin. 'Tell us, what more? Dounia urged Raskolnikov. 'Then he said that he wasn't rich and all the estate was left to his children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere not far from me, but where, I don't know, I didn't ask.... 'But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia? cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna in a fright. 'Did he tell you? 'Yes. 'What was it? 'I'll tell you afterwards. Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea. Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch. 'I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in your way, he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up. 'Don't go, Pyotr Petrovitch, said Dounia, 'you intended to spend the evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an explanation with mother. 'Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna, Pyotr Petrovitch answered impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. 'I certainly desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon a very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigalov, I, too, do not desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others... of certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty and urgent request has been disregarded.... Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence. 'Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was disregarded solely at my insistance, said Dounia. 'You wrote that you had been insulted by my brother I think that this must be explained at once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you, then he should and will apologise. Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line. 'There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep and when it has been overstepped, there is no return. 'That wasn't what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch, Dounia interrupted with some impatience. 'Please understand that our whole future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at it in any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this business must be ended today, however hard that may be. I repeat that if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness. 'I am surprised at your putting the question like that, said Luzhin, getting more and more irritated. 'Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I cannot accept duties incompatible with... 'Ah, don't be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch, Dounia interrupted with feeling, 'and be the sensible and generous man I have always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I've given you a great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted on his coming to our interview today after your letter, I told him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not reconciled, I must choose between youit must be either you or he. That is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don't want to be mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off with my brother, for my brother's sake I must break off with you. I can find out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to know it and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me, whether you are the husband for me. 'Avdotya Romanovna, Luzhin declared huffily, 'your words are of too much consequence to me I will say more, they are offensive in view of the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to me. You say 'you or he,' showing thereby of how little consequence I am in your eyes... I cannot let this pass considering the relationship and... the obligations existing between us. 'What! cried Dounia, flushing. 'I set your interest beside all that has hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the whole of my life, and here you are offended at my making too little account of you. Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr Petrovitch did not accept the reproof on the contrary, at every word he became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it. 'Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to outweigh your love for your brother, he pronounced sententiously, 'and in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother's presence, nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a necessary explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting my dignity. Your son, he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, 'yesterday in the presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that's it? excuse me I have forgotten your surname, he bowed politely to Razumihin) 'insulted me by misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a private conversation, drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a poor girl who has had experience of trouble is more advantageous from the conjugal point of view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is more profitable for the moral character. Your son intentionally exaggerated the significance of my words and made them ridiculous, accusing me of malicious intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied upon your correspondence with him. I shall consider myself happy, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of an opposite conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let me know in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to Rodion Romanovitch. 'I don't remember, faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'I repeated them as I understood them. I don't know how Rodya repeated them to you, perhaps he exaggerated. 'He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation. 'Pyotr Petrovitch, Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, 'the proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is the fact that we are here. 'Good, mother, said Dounia approvingly. 'Then this is my fault again, said Luzhin, aggrieved. 'Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself have just written what was false about him, Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, gaining courage. 'I don't remember writing anything false. 'You wrote, Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, 'that I gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday). You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you don't know. All that is mean slander. 'Excuse me, sir, said Luzhin, quivering with fury. 'I enlarged upon your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your sister's and mother's inquiries, how I found you, and what impression you made on me. As for what you've alluded to in my letter, be so good as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn't throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in that family, however unfortunate. 'To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones. 'Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and sister? 'I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down today with mother and Dounia. 'Rodya! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm. 'You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna, he said, 'whether it is possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end, once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures of family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets. He got up from his chair and took his hat. 'But in withdrawing, I venture to request that for the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my letter was addressed to you and to no one else. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended. 'You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded, she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show particular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any case in a sense in your hands. 'That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna's legacy, which seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me, he added sarcastically. 'Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were reckoning on our helplessness, Dounia observed irritably. 'But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigalov, which he has entrusted to your brother and which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest for you. 'Good heavens! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Razumihin could not sit still on his chair. 'Aren't you ashamed now, sister? asked Raskolnikov. 'I am ashamed, Rodya, said Dounia. 'Pyotr Petrovitch, go away, she turned to him, white with anger. Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion. He had too much confidence in himself, in his power and in the helplessness of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned pale, and his lips quivered. 'Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken. 'What insolence! cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. 'I don't want you to come back again. 'What! So that's how it stands! cried Luzhin, utterly unable to the last moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of his reckoning now. 'So that's how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, that I might protest? 'What right have you to speak to her like that? Pulcheria Alexandrovna intervened hotly. 'And what can you protest about? What rights have you? Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us altogether! We are to blame for having agreed to a wrong action, and I above all.... 'But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Luzhin stormed in a frenzy, 'by your promise, and now you deny it and... besides... I have been led on account of that into expenses.... This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petrovitch, that Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it, could not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was furious. 'Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the conductor brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound you! What are you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound us, hand and foot, not we! 'Enough, mother, no more please, Avdotya Romanovna implored. 'Pyotr Petrovitch, do be kind and go! 'I am going, but one last word, he said, quite unable to control himself. 'Your mamma seems to have entirely forgotten that I made up my mind to take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had spread all over the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding public opinion for your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly might very well reckon on a fitting return, and might indeed look for gratitude on your part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see myself that I may have acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the universal verdict.... 'Does the fellow want his head smashed? cried Razumihin, jumping up. 'You are a mean and spiteful man! cried Dounia. 'Not a word! Not a movement! cried Raskolnikov, holding Razumihin back then going close up to Luzhin, 'Kindly leave the room! he said quietly and distinctly, 'and not a word more or... Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a pale face that worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man carried away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt against Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case was perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were concerned, all might 'very well indeed be set right again. The fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected such an ending he had been overbearing to the last degree, never dreaming that two destitute and defenceless women could escape from his control. This conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit, a conceit to the point of fatuity. Pyotr Petrovitch, who had made his way up from insignificance, was morbidly given to selfadmiration, had the highest opinion of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even gloated in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and valued above all was the money he had amassed by his labour, and by all sorts of devices that money made him the equal of all who had been his superiors. When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had decided to take her in spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity and had, indeed, felt genuinely indignant at such 'black ingratitude. And yet, when he made Dounia his offer, he was fully aware of the groundlessness of all the gossip. The story had been everywhere contradicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then disbelieved by all the townspeople, who were warm in Dounia'a defence. And he would not have denied that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought highly of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his level and regarded it as something heroic. In speaking of it to Dounia, he had let out the secret feeling he cherished and admired, and he could not understand that others should fail to admire it too. He had called on Raskolnikov with the feelings of a benefactor who is about to reap the fruits of his good deeds and to hear agreeable flattery. And as he went downstairs now, he considered himself most undeservedly injured and unrecognised. Dounia was simply essential to him to do without her was unthinkable. For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of marriage, but he had gone on waiting and amassing money. He brooded with relish, in profound secret, over the image of a girlvirtuous, poor (she must be poor), very young, very pretty, of good birth and education, very timid, one who had suffered much, and was completely humbled before him, one who would all her life look on him as her saviour, worship him, admire him and only him. How many scenes, how many amorous episodes he had imagined on this seductive and playful theme, when his work was over! And, behold, the dream of so many years was all but realised the beauty and education of Avdotya Romanovna had impressed him her helpless position had been a great allurement in her he had found even more than he dreamed of. Here was a girl of pride, character, virtue, of education and breeding superior to his own (he felt that), and this creature would be slavishly grateful all her life for his heroic condescension, and would humble herself in the dust before him, and he would have absolute, unbounded power over her!... Not long before, he had, too, after long reflection and hesitation, made an important change in his career and was now entering on a wider circle of business. With this change his cherished dreams of rising into a higher class of society seemed likely to be realised.... He was, in fact, determined to try his fortune in Petersburg. He knew that women could do a very great deal. The fascination of a charming, virtuous, highly educated woman might make his way easier, might do wonders in attracting people to him, throwing an aureole round him, and now everything was in ruins! This sudden horrible rupture affected him like a clap of thunder it was like a hideous joke, an absurdity. He had only been a tiny bit masterful, had not even time to speak out, had simply made a joke, been carried awayand it had ended so seriously. And, of course, too, he did love Dounia in his own way he already possessed her in his dreamsand all at once! No! The next day, the very next day, it must all be set right, smoothed over, settled. Above all he must crush that conceited milksop who was the cause of it all. With a sick feeling he could not help recalling Razumihin too, but, he soon reassured himself on that score as though a fellow like that could be put on a level with him! The man he really dreaded in earnest was Svidrigalov.... He had, in short, a great deal to attend to.... 'No, I, I am more to blame than anyone! said Dounia, kissing and embracing her mother. 'I was tempted by his money, but on my honour, brother, I had no idea he was such a base man. If I had seen through him before, nothing would have tempted me! Don't blame me, brother! 'God has delivered us! God has delivered us! Pulcheria Alexandrovna muttered, but half consciously, as though scarcely able to realise what had happened. They were all relieved, and in five minutes they were laughing. Only now and then Dounia turned white and frowned, remembering what had passed. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was surprised to find that she, too, was glad she had only that morning thought rupture with Luzhin a terrible misfortune. Razumihin was delighted. He did not yet dare to express his joy fully, but he was in a fever of excitement as though a tonweight had fallen off his heart. Now he had the right to devote his life to them, to serve them.... Anything might happen now! But he felt afraid to think of further possibilities and dared not let his imagination range. But Raskolnikov sat still in the same place, almost sullen and indifferent. Though he had been the most insistent on getting rid of Luzhin, he seemed now the least concerned at what had happened. Dounia could not help thinking that he was still angry with her, and Pulcheria Alexandrovna watched him timidly. 'What did Svidrigalov say to you? said Dounia, approaching him. 'Yes, yes! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov raised his head. 'He wants to make you a present of ten thousand roubles and he desires to see you once in my presence. 'See her! On no account! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'And how dare he offer her money! Then Raskolnikov repeated (rather dryly) his conversation with Svidrigalov, omitting his account of the ghostly visitations of Marfa Petrovna, wishing to avoid all unnecessary talk. 'What answer did you give him? asked Dounia. 'At first I said I would not take any message to you. Then he said that he would do his utmost to obtain an interview with you without my help. He assured me that his passion for you was a passing infatuation, now he has no feeling for you. He doesn't want you to marry Luzhin.... His talk was altogether rather muddled. 'How do you explain him to yourself, Rodya? How did he strike you? 'I must confess I don't quite understand him. He offers you ten thousand, and yet says he is not well off. He says he is going away, and in ten minutes he forgets he has said it. Then he says he is going to be married and has already fixed on the girl.... No doubt he has a motive, and probably a bad one. But it's odd that he should be so clumsy about it if he had any designs against you.... Of course, I refused this money on your account, once for all. Altogether, I thought him very strange.... One might almost think he was mad. But I may be mistaken that may only be the part he assumes. The death of Marfa Petrovna seems to have made a great impression on him. 'God rest her soul, exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. 'I shall always, always pray for her! Where should we be now, Dounia, without this three thousand! It's as though it had fallen from heaven! Why, Rodya, this morning we had only three roubles in our pocket and Dounia and I were just planning to pawn her watch, so as to avoid borrowing from that man until he offered help. Dounia seemed strangely impressed by Svidrigalov's offer. She still stood meditating. 'He has got some terrible plan, she said in a half whisper to herself, almost shuddering. Raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror. 'I fancy I shall have to see him more than once again, he said to Dounia. 'We will watch him! I will track him out! cried Razumihin, vigorously. 'I won't lose sight of him. Rodya has given me leave. He said to me himself just now. 'Take care of my sister.' Will you give me leave, too, Avdotya Romanovna? Dounia smiled and held out her hand, but the look of anxiety did not leave her face. Pulcheria Alexandrovna gazed at her timidly, but the three thousand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her. A quarter of an hour later, they were all engaged in a lively conversation. Even Raskolnikov listened attentively for some time, though he did not talk. Razumihin was the speaker. 'And why, why should you go away? he flowed on ecstatically. 'And what are you to do in a little town? The great thing is, you are all here together and you need one anotheryou do need one another, believe me. For a time, anyway.... Take me into partnership, and I assure you we'll plan a capital enterprise. Listen! I'll explain it all in detail to you, the whole project! It all flashed into my head this morning, before anything had happened... I tell you what I have an uncle, I must introduce him to you (a most accommodating and respectable old man). This uncle has got a capital of a thousand roubles, and he lives on his pension and has no need of that money. For the last two years he has been bothering me to borrow it from him and pay him six per cent. interest. I know what that means he simply wants to help me. Last year I had no need of it, but this year I resolved to borrow it as soon as he arrived. Then you lend me another thousand of your three and we have enough for a start, so we'll go into partnership, and what are we going to do? Then Razumihin began to unfold his project, and he explained at length that almost all our publishers and booksellers know nothing at all of what they are selling, and for that reason they are usually bad publishers, and that any decent publications pay as a rule and give a profit, sometimes a considerable one. Razumihin had, indeed, been dreaming of setting up as a publisher. For the last two years he had been working in publishers' offices, and knew three European languages well, though he had told Raskolnikov six days before that he was 'schwach in German with an object of persuading him to take half his translation and half the payment for it. He had told a lie then, and Raskolnikov knew he was lying. 'Why, why should we let our chance slip when we have one of the chief means of successmoney of our own! cried Razumihin warmly. 'Of course there will be a lot of work, but we will work, you, Avdotya Romanovna, I, Rodion.... You get a splendid profit on some books nowadays! And the great point of the business is that we shall know just what wants translating, and we shall be translating, publishing, learning all at once. I can be of use because I have experience. For nearly two years I've been scuttling about among the publishers, and now I know every detail of their business. You need not be a saint to make pots, believe me! And why, why should we let our chance slip! Why, I knowand I kept the secrettwo or three books which one might get a hundred roubles simply for thinking of translating and publishing. Indeed, and I would not take five hundred for the very idea of one of them. And what do you think? If I were to tell a publisher, I dare say he'd hesitatethey are such blockheads! And as for the business side, printing, paper, selling, you trust to me, I know my way about. We'll begin in a small way and go on to a large. In any case it will get us our living and we shall get back our capital. Dounia's eyes shone. 'I like what you are saying, Dmitri Prokofitch! she said. 'I know nothing about it, of course, put in Pulcheria Alexandrovna, 'it may be a good idea, but again God knows. It's new and untried. Of course, we must remain here at least for a time. She looked at Rodya. 'What do you think, brother? said Dounia. 'I think he's got a very good idea, he answered. 'Of course, it's too soon to dream of a publishing firm, but we certainly might bring out five or six books and be sure of success. I know of one book myself which would be sure to go well. And as for his being able to manage it, there's no doubt about that either. He knows the business.... But we can talk it over later.... 'Hurrah! cried Razumihin. 'Now, stay, there's a flat here in this house, belonging to the same owner. It's a special flat apart, not communicating with these lodgings. It's furnished, rent moderate, three rooms. Suppose you take them to begin with. I'll pawn your watch tomorrow and bring you the money, and everything can be arranged then. You can all three live together, and Rodya will be with you. But where are you off to, Rodya? 'What, Rodya, you are going already? Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in dismay. 'At such a minute? cried Razumihin. Dounia looked at her brother with incredulous wonder. He held his cap in his hand, he was preparing to leave them. 'One would think you were burying me or saying goodbye for ever, he said somewhat oddly. He attempted to smile, but it did not turn out a smile. 'But who knows, perhaps it is the last time we shall see each other... he let slip accidentally. It was what he was thinking, and it somehow was uttered aloud. 'What is the matter with you? cried his mother. 'Where are you going, Rodya? asked Dounia rather strangely. 'Oh, I'm quite obliged to... he answered vaguely, as though hesitating what he would say. But there was a look of sharp determination in his white face. 'I meant to say... as I was coming here... I meant to tell you, mother, and you, Dounia, that it would be better for us to part for a time. I feel ill, I am not at peace.... I will come afterwards, I will come of myself... when it's possible. I remember you and love you.... Leave me, leave me alone. I decided this even before... I'm absolutely resolved on it. Whatever may come to me, whether I come to ruin or not, I want to be alone. Forget me altogether, it's better. Don't inquire about me. When I can, I'll come of myself or... I'll send for you. Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me, give me up... else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.... Goodbye! 'Good God! cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both his mother and his sister were terribly alarmed. Razumihin was also. 'Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as before! cried his poor mother. He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room. Dounia overtook him. 'Brother, what are you doing to mother? she whispered, her eyes flashing with indignation. He looked dully at her. 'No matter, I shall come.... I'm coming, he muttered in an undertone, as though not fully conscious of what he was saying, and he went out of the room. 'Wicked, heartless egoist! cried Dounia. 'He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don't you see it? You're heartless after that! Razumihin whispered in her ear, squeezing her hand tightly. 'I shall be back directly, he shouted to the horrorstricken mother, and he ran out of the room. Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage. 'I knew you would run after me, he said. 'Go back to thembe with them... be with them tomorrow and always.... I... perhaps I shall come... if I can. Goodbye. And without holding out his hand he walked away. 'But where are you going? What are you doing? What's the matter with you? How can you go on like this? Razumihin muttered, at his wits' end. Raskolnikov stopped once more. 'Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell you. Don't come to see me. Maybe I'll come here.... Leave me, but don't leave them. Do you understand me? It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov's burning and intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides.... Razumihin turned pale. 'Do you understand now? said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. 'Go back, go to them, he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went out of the house. I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies, how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come every day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be irritated, that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening Razumihin took his place with them as a son and a brother. Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness, uncertain where to turn for Kapernaumov's door, a door opened three paces from him he mechanically took hold of it. 'Who is there? a woman's voice asked uneasily. 'It's I... come to see you, answered Raskolnikov and he walked into the tiny entry. On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick. 'It's you! Good heavens! cried Sonia weakly, and she stood rooted to the spot. 'Which is your room? This way? and Raskolnikov, trying not to look at her, hastened in. A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him inexpressibly agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected visit. The colour rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into her eyes... She felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov turned away quickly and sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the room in a rapid glance. It was a large but exceedingly lowpitched room, the only one let by the Kapernaumovs, to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on the left. In the opposite side on the right hand wall was another door, always kept locked. That led to the next flat, which formed a separate lodging. Sonia's room looked like a barn it was a very irregular quadrangle and this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner formed a very acute angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light. The other corner was disproportionately obtuse. There was scarcely any furniture in the big room in the corner on the right was a bedstead, beside it, nearest the door, a chair. A plain, deal table covered by a blue cloth stood against the same wall, close to the door into the other flat. Two rushbottom chairs stood by the table. On the opposite wall near the acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers looking, as it were, lost in a desert. That was all there was in the room. The yellow, scratched and shabby wallpaper was black in the corners. It must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There was every sign of poverty even the bedstead had no curtain. Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so attentively and unceremoniously scrutinising her room, and even began at last to tremble with terror, as though she was standing before her judge and the arbiter of her destinies. 'I am late.... It's eleven, isn't it? he asked, still not lifting his eyes. 'Yes, muttered Sonia, 'oh yes, it is, she added, hastily, as though in that lay her means of escape. 'My landlady's clock has just struck... I heard it myself.... 'I've come to you for the last time, Raskolnikov went on gloomily, although this was the first time. 'I may perhaps not see you again... 'Are you... going away? 'I don't know... tomorrow.... 'Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna tomorrow? Sonia's voice shook. 'I don't know. I shall know tomorrow morning.... Never mind that I've come to say one word.... He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he was sitting down while she was all the while standing before him. 'Why are you standing? Sit down, he said in a changed voice, gentle and friendly. She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her. 'How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead hand. He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly. 'I have always been like that, she said. 'Even when you lived at home? 'Yes. 'Of course, you were, he added abruptly and the expression of his face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly. He looked round him once more. 'You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs? 'Yes.... 'They live there, through that door? 'Yes.... They have another room like this. 'All in one room? 'Yes. 'I should be afraid in your room at night, he observed gloomily. 'They are very good people, very kind, answered Sonia, who still seemed bewildered, 'and all the furniture, everything... everything is theirs. And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to see me. 'They all stammer, don't they? 'Yes.... He stammers and he's lame. And his wife, too.... It's not exactly that she stammers, but she can't speak plainly. She is a very kind woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven children... and it's only the eldest one that stammers and the others are simply ill... but they don't stammer.... But where did you hear about them? she added with some surprise. 'Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you went out at six o'clock and came back at nine and how Katerina Ivanovna knelt down by your bed. Sonia was confused. 'I fancied I saw him today, she whispered hesitatingly. 'Whom? 'Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about ten o'clock and he seemed to be walking in front. It looked just like him. I wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna.... 'You were walking in the streets? 'Yes, Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome with confusion and looking down. 'Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I dare say? 'Oh no, what are you saying? No! Sonia looked at him almost with dismay. 'You love her, then? 'Love her? Of course! said Sonia with plaintive emphasis, and she clasped her hands in distress. 'Ah, you don't.... If you only knew! You see, she is quite like a child.... Her mind is quite unhinged, you see... from sorrow. And how clever she used to be... how generous... how kind! Ah, you don't understand, you don't understand! Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in excitement and distress. Her pale cheeks flushed, there was a look of anguish in her eyes. It was clear that she was stirred to the very depths, that she was longing to speak, to champion, to express something. A sort of insatiable compassion, if one may so express it, was reflected in every feature of her face. 'Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me! And if she did beat me, what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it.... She is so unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is seeking righteousness, she is pure. She has such faith that there must be righteousness everywhere and she expects it.... And if you were to torture her, she wouldn't do wrong. She doesn't see that it's impossible for people to be righteous and she is angry at it. Like a child, like a child. She is good! 'And what will happen to you? Sonia looked at him inquiringly. 'They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands before, though.... And your father came to you to beg for drink. Well, how will it be now? 'I don't know, Sonia articulated mournfully. 'Will they stay there? 'I don't know.... They are in debt for the lodging, but the landlady, I hear, said today that she wanted to get rid of them, and Katerina Ivanovna says that she won't stay another minute. 'How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you? 'Oh, no, don't talk like that.... We are one, we live like one. Sonia was agitated again and even angry, as though a canary or some other little bird were to be angry. 'And what could she do? What, what could she do? she persisted, getting hot and excited. 'And how she cried today! Her mind is unhinged, haven't you noticed it? At one minute she is worrying like a child that everything should be right tomorrow, the lunch and all that.... Then she is wringing her hands, spitting blood, weeping, and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the wall, in despair. Then she will be comforted again. She builds all her hopes on you she says that you will help her now and that she will borrow a little money somewhere and go to her native town with me and set up a boarding school for the daughters of gentlemen and take me to superintend it, and we will begin a new splendid life. And she kisses and hugs me, comforts me, and you know she has such faith, such faith in her fancies! One can't contradict her. And all the day long she has been washing, cleaning, mending. She dragged the wash tub into the room with her feeble hands and sank on the bed, gasping for breath. We went this morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and Lida for theirs are quite worn out. Only the money we'd reckoned wasn't enough, not nearly enough. And she picked out such dear little boots, for she has taste, you don't know. And there in the shop she burst out crying before the shopmen because she hadn't enough.... Ah, it was sad to see her.... 'Well, after that I can understand your living like this, Raskolnikov said with a bitter smile. 'And aren't you sorry for them? Aren't you sorry? Sonia flew at him again. 'Why, I know, you gave your last penny yourself, though you'd seen nothing of it, and if you'd seen everything, oh dear! And how often, how often I've brought her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I! Only a week before his death. I was cruel! And how often I've done it! Ah, I've been wretched at the thought of it all day! Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it. 'You were cruel? 'Yes, II. I went to see them, she went on, weeping, 'and father said, 'read me something, Sonia, my head aches, read to me, here's a book.' He had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, he lives there, he always used to get hold of such funny books. And I said, 'I can't stay,' as I didn't want to read, and I'd gone in chiefly to show Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new, embroidered ones. Katerina Ivanovna liked them very much she put them on and looked at herself in the glass and was delighted with them. 'Make me a present of them, Sonia,' she said, 'please do.' 'Please do,' she said, she wanted them so much. And when could she wear them? They just reminded her of her old happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, admired herself, and she has no clothes at all, no things of her own, hasn't had all these years! And she never asks anyone for anything she is proud, she'd sooner give away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I was sorry to give them. 'What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?' I said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She gave me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my refusing her. And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the collars, but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all back, change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it's nothing to you! 'Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar? 'Yes.... Did you know her? Sonia asked with some surprise. 'Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption she will soon die, said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her question. 'Oh, no, no, no! And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though imploring that she should not. 'But it will be better if she does die. 'No, not better, not at all better! Sonia unconsciously repeated in dismay. 'And the children? What can you do except take them to live with you? 'Oh, I don't know, cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her hands to her head. It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her before and he had only roused it again. 'And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get ill and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then? he persisted pitilessly. 'How can you? That cannot be! And Sonia's face worked with awful terror. 'Cannot be? Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. 'You are not insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They will be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her head against some wall, as she did today, and the children will cry.... Then she will fall down, be taken to the police station and to the hospital, she will die, and the children... 'Oh, no.... God will not let it be! broke at last from Sonia's overburdened bosom. She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping her hands in dumb entreaty, as though it all depended upon him. Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the room. A minute passed. Sonia was standing with her hands and her head hanging in terrible dejection. 'And can't you save? Put by for a rainy day? he asked, stopping suddenly before her. 'No, whispered Sonia. 'Of course not. Have you tried? he added almost ironically. 'Yes. 'And it didn't come off! Of course not! No need to ask. And again he paced the room. Another minute passed. 'You don't get money every day? Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face again. 'No, she whispered with a painful effort. 'It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt, he said suddenly. 'No, no! It can't be, no! Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though she had been stabbed. 'God would not allow anything so awful! 'He lets others come to it. 'No, no! God will protect her, God! she repeated beside herself. 'But, perhaps, there is no God at all, Raskolnikov answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her. Sonia's face suddenly changed a tremor passed over it. She looked at him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not speak and broke into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her hands. 'You say Katerina Ivanovna's mind is unhinged your own mind is unhinged, he said after a brief silence. Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down the room in silence, not looking at her. At last he went up to her his eyes glittered. He put his two hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her tearful face. His eyes were hard, feverish and piercing, his lips were twitching. All at once he bent down quickly and dropping to the ground, kissed her foot. Sonia drew back from him as from a madman. And certainly he looked like a madman. 'What are you doing to me? she muttered, turning pale, and a sudden anguish clutched at her heart. He stood up at once. 'I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity, he said wildly and walked away to the window. 'Listen, he added, turning to her a minute later. 'I said just now to an insolent man that he was not worth your little finger... and that I did my sister honour making her sit beside you. 'Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence? cried Sonia, frightened. 'Sit down with me! An honour! Why, I'm... dishonourable.... Ah, why did you say that? 'It was not because of your dishonour and your sin I said that of you, but because of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that's true, he added almost solemnly, 'and your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn't that fearful? Isn't it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loathe so, and at the same time you know yourself (you've only to open your eyes) that you are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything? Tell me, he went on almost in a frenzy, 'how this shame and degradation can exist in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water and end it all! 'But what would become of them? Sonia asked faintly, gazing at him with eyes of anguish, but not seeming surprised at his suggestion. Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all in her face so she must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and earnestly she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so earnestly, that now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion. She had not even noticed the cruelty of his words. (The significance of his reproaches and his peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of course, not noticed either, and that, too, was clear to him.) But he saw how monstrously the thought of her disgraceful, shameful position was torturing her and had long tortured her. 'What, what, he thought, 'could hitherto have hindered her from putting an end to it? Only then he realised what those poor little orphan children and that pitiful halfcrazy Katerina Ivanovna, knocking her head against the wall in her consumption, meant for Sonia. But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her character and the amount of education she had after all received, she could not in any case remain so. He was still confronted by the question, how could she have remained so long in that position without going out of her mind, since she could not bring herself to jump into the water? Of course he knew that Sonia's position was an exceptional case, though unhappily not unique and not infrequent, indeed but that very exceptionalness, her tinge of education, her previous life might, one would have thought, have killed her at the first step on that revolting path. What held her upsurely not depravity? All that infamy had obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her heart he saw that. He saw through her as she stood before him.... 'There are three ways before her, he thought, 'the canal, the madhouse, or... at last to sink into depravity which obscures the mind and turns the heart to stone. The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not help believing that the last end was the most likely. 'But can that be true? he cried to himself. 'Can that creature who has still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciously drawn at last into that sink of filth and iniquity? Can the process already have begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bear it till now, because vice has begun to be less loathsome to her? No, no, that cannot be! he cried, as Sonia had just before. 'No, what has kept her from the canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the children.... And if she has not gone out of her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does? How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she is slipping and refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she expect a miracle? No doubt she does. Doesn't that all mean madness? He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanation indeed better than any other. He began looking more intently at her. 'So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia? he asked her. Sonia did not speak he stood beside her waiting for an answer. 'What should I be without God? she whispered rapidly, forcibly, glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand. 'Ah, so that is it! he thought. 'And what does God do for you? he asked, probing her further. Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her weak chest kept heaving with emotion. 'Be silent! Don't ask! You don't deserve! she cried suddenly, looking sternly and wrathfully at him. 'That's it, that's it, he repeated to himself. 'He does everything, she whispered quickly, looking down again. 'That's the way out! That's the explanation, he decided, scrutinising her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almost morbid feeling. He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular little face, those soft blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, such stern energy, that little body still shaking with indignation and angerand it all seemed to him more and more strange, almost impossible. 'She is a religious maniac! he repeated to himself. There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it every time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and looked at it. It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was bound in leather, old and worn. 'Where did you get that? he called to her across the room. She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the table. 'It was brought me, she answered, as it were unwillingly, not looking at him. 'Who brought it? 'Lizaveta, I asked her for it. 'Lizaveta! strange! he thought. Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger and more wonderful every moment. He carried the book to the candle and began to turn over the pages. 'Where is the story of Lazarus? he asked suddenly. Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and would not answer. She was standing sideways to the table. 'Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia. She stole a glance at him. 'You are not looking in the right place.... It's in the fourth gospel, she whispered sternly, without looking at him. 'Find it and read it to me, he said. He sat down with his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his hand and looked away sullenly, prepared to listen. 'In three weeks' time they'll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be there if I am not in a worse place, he muttered to himself. Sonia heard Raskolnikov's request distrustfully and moved hesitatingly to the table. She took the book however. 'Haven't you read it? she asked, looking up at him across the table. Her voice became sterner and sterner. 'Long ago.... When I was at school. Read! 'And haven't you heard it in church? 'I... haven't been. Do you often go? 'Nno, whispered Sonia. Raskolnikov smiled. 'I understand.... And you won't go to your father's funeral tomorrow? 'Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem service. 'For whom? 'For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe. His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go round. 'Were you friends with Lizaveta? 'Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she couldn't.... We used to read together and... talk. She will see God. The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was something new again the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of themreligious maniacs. 'I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It's infectious! 'Read! he cried irritably and insistently. Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared to read to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the 'unhappy lunatic. 'What for? You don't believe?... she whispered softly and as it were breathlessly. 'Read! I want you to, he persisted. 'You used to read to Lizaveta. Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking, her voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out the first syllable. 'Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany... she forced herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice broke like an overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath. Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and a distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever might come of it!... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St. John. She went on to the nineteenth verse 'And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. 'Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and met Him but Mary sat still in the house. 'Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 'But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee.... Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling that her voice would quiver and break again. 'Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again. 'Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection, at the last day. 'Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live. 'And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this? 'She saith unto Him, (And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read distinctly and forcibly as though she were making a public confession of faith.) 'Yea, Lord I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which should come into the world. She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but controlling herself went on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his elbows on the table and his eyes turned away. She read to the thirtysecond verse. 'Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 'When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, 'And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see. 'Jesus wept. 'Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him! 'And some of them said, could not this Man which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had known it! She was trembling in a real physical fever. He had expected it. She was getting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feeling of immense triumph came over her. Her voice rang out like a bell triumph and joy gave it power. The lines danced before her eyes, but she knew what she was reading by heart. At the last verse 'Could not this Man which opened the eyes of the blind... dropping her voice she passionately reproduced the doubt, the reproach and censure of the blind disbelieving Jews, who in another moment would fall at His feet as though struck by thunder, sobbing and believing.... 'And he, hetoo, is blinded and unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At once, now, was what she was dreaming, and she was quivering with happy anticipation. 'Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. 'Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four days. She laid emphasis on the word four. 'Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? 'Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. 'And I knew that Thou hearest Me always but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me. 'And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 'And he that was dead came forth. (She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy, as though she were seeing it before her eyes.) 'Bound hand and foot with graveclothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go. 'Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed on Him. She could read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair quickly. 'That is all about the raising of Lazarus, she whispered severely and abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candleend was flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the povertystricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely been reading together the eternal book. Five minutes or more passed. 'I came to speak of something, Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He got up and went to Sonia. She lifted her eyes to him in silence. His face was particularly stern and there was a sort of savage determination in it. 'I have abandoned my family today, he said, 'my mother and sister. I am not going to see them. I've broken with them completely. 'What for? asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meeting with his mother and sister had left a great impression which she could not analyse. She heard his news almost with horror. 'I have only you now, he added. 'Let us go together.... I've come to you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together! His eyes glittered 'as though he were mad, Sonia thought, in her turn. 'Go where? she asked in alarm and she involuntarily stepped back. 'How do I know? I only know it's the same road, I know that and nothing more. It's the same goal! She looked at him and understood nothing. She knew only that he was terribly, infinitely unhappy. 'No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you. 'I don't understand, whispered Sonia. 'You'll understand later. Haven't you done the same? You, too, have transgressed... have had the strength to transgress. You have laid hands on yourself, you have destroyed a life... your own (it's all the same!). You might have lived in spirit and understanding, but you'll end in the Hay Market.... But you won't be able to stand it, and if you remain alone you'll go out of your mind like me. You are like a mad creature already. So we must go together on the same road! Let us go! 'What for? What's all this for? said Sonia, strangely and violently agitated by his words. 'What for? Because you can't remain like this, that's why! You must look things straight in the face at last, and not weep like a child and cry that God won't allow it. What will happen, if you should really be taken to the hospital tomorrow? She is mad and in consumption, she'll soon die and the children? Do you mean to tell me Polenka won't come to grief? Haven't you seen children here at the street corners sent out by their mothers to beg? I've found out where those mothers live and in what surroundings. Children can't remain children there! At seven the child is vicious and a thief. Yet children, you know, are the image of Christ 'theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.' He bade us honour and love them, they are the humanity of the future.... 'What's to be done, what's to be done? repeated Sonia, weeping hysterically and wringing her hands. 'What's to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself. What, you don't understand? You'll understand later.... Freedom and power, and above all, power! Over all trembling creation and all the antheap!... That's the goal, remember that! That's my farewell message. Perhaps it's the last time I shall speak to you. If I don't come tomorrow, you'll hear of it all, and then remember these words. And some day later on, in years to come, you'll understand perhaps what they meant. If I come tomorrow, I'll tell you who killed Lizaveta.... Goodbye. Sonia started with terror. 'Why, do you know who killed her? she asked, chilled with horror, looking wildly at him. 'I know and will tell... you, only you. I have chosen you out. I'm not coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I chose you out long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you and when Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Goodbye, don't shake hands. Tomorrow! He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself was like one insane and felt it. Her head was going round. 'Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those words mean? It's awful! But at the same time the idea did not enter her head, not for a moment! 'Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!... He has abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has happened? And what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He had kissed her foot and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he could not live without her.... Oh, merciful heavens! Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up from time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into feverish sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of reading the gospel and him... him with pale face, with burning eyes... kissing her feet, weeping. On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia's room from Madame Resslich's flat, was a room which had long stood empty. A card was fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows over the canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to the room's being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigalov had been standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When Raskolnikov went out he stood still, thought a moment, went on tiptoe to his own room which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and noiselessly carried it to the door that led to Sonia's room. The conversation had struck him as interesting and remarkable, and he had greatly enjoyed itso much so that he brought a chair that he might not in the future, tomorrow, for instance, have to endure the inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but might listen in comfort. When next morning at eleven o'clock punctually Raskolnikov went into the department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his name in to Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept waiting so long it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned. He had expected that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the waitingroom, and people, who apparently had nothing to do with him, were continually passing to and fro before him. In the next room which looked like an office, several clerks were sitting writing and obviously they had no notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He looked uneasily and suspiciously about him to see whether there was not some guard, some mysterious watch being kept on him to prevent his escape. But there was nothing of the sort he saw only the faces of clerks absorbed in petty details, then other people, no one seemed to have any concern with him. He might go where he liked for them. The conviction grew stronger in him that if that enigmatic man of yesterday, that phantom sprung out of the earth, had seen everything, they would not have let him stand and wait like that. And would they have waited till he elected to appear at eleven? Either the man had not yet given information, or... or simply he knew nothing, had seen nothing (and how could he have seen anything?) and so all that had happened to him the day before was again a phantom exaggerated by his sick and overstrained imagination. This conjecture had begun to grow strong the day before, in the midst of all his alarm and despair. Thinking it all over now and preparing for a fresh conflict, he was suddenly aware that he was tremblingand he felt a rush of indignation at the thought that he was trembling with fear at facing that hateful Porfiry Petrovitch. What he dreaded above all was meeting that man again he hated him with an intense, unmitigated hatred and was afraid his hatred might betray him. His indignation was such that he ceased trembling at once he made ready to go in with a cold and arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to keep as silent as possible, to watch and listen and for once at least to control his overstrained nerves. At that moment he was summoned to Porfiry Petrovitch. He found Porfiry Petrovitch alone in his study. His study was a room neither large nor small, furnished with a large writingtable, that stood before a sofa, upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a bookcase in the corner and several chairsall government furniture, of polished yellow wood. In the further wall there was a closed door, beyond it there were no doubt other rooms. On Raskolnikov's entrance Porfiry Petrovitch had at once closed the door by which he had come in and they remained alone. He met his visitor with an apparently genial and goodtempered air, and it was only after a few minutes that Raskolnikov saw signs of a certain awkwardness in him, as though he had been thrown out of his reckoning or caught in something very secret. 'Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are... in our domain... began Porfiry, holding out both hands to him. 'Come, sit down, old man... or perhaps you don't like to be called 'my dear fellow' and 'old man!'tout court? Please don't think it too familiar.... Here, on the sofa. Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes fixed on him. 'In our domain, the apologies for familiarity, the French phrase tout court, were all characteristic signs. 'He held out both hands to me, but he did not give me onehe drew it back in time, struck him suspiciously. Both were watching each other, but when their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away. 'I brought you this paper... about the watch. Here it is. Is it all right or shall I copy it again? 'What? A paper? Yes, yes, don't be uneasy, it's all right, Porfiry Petrovitch said as though in haste, and after he had said it he took the paper and looked at it. 'Yes, it's all right. Nothing more is needed, he declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper on the table. A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from the table and put it on his bureau. 'I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me... formally... about my acquaintance with the murdered woman? Raskolnikov was beginning again. 'Why did I put in 'I believe' passed through his mind in a flash. 'Why am I so uneasy at having put in that 'I believe'? came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his uneasiness at the mere contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at the first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivering, his emotion was increasing. 'It's bad, it's bad! I shall say too much again. 'Yes, yes, yes! There's no hurry, there's no hurry, muttered Porfiry Petrovitch, moving to and fro about the table without any apparent aim, as it were making dashes towards the window, the bureau and the table, at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov's suspicious glance, then again standing still and looking him straight in the face. His fat round little figure looked very strange, like a ball rolling from one side to the other and rebounding back. 'We've plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here, a cigarette! he went on, offering his visitor a cigarette. 'You know I am receiving you here, but my own quarters are through there, you know, my government quarters. But I am living outside for the time, I had to have some repairs done here. It's almost finished now.... Government quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think? 'Yes, a capital thing, answered Raskolnikov, looking at him almost ironically. 'A capital thing, a capital thing, repeated Porfiry Petrovitch, as though he had just thought of something quite different. 'Yes, a capital thing, he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at Raskolnikov and stopping short two steps from him. This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with the serious, brooding and enigmatic glance he turned upon his visitor. But this stirred Raskolnikov's spleen more than ever and he could not resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge. 'Tell me, please, he asked suddenly, looking almost insolently at him and taking a kind of pleasure in his own insolence. 'I believe it's a sort of legal rule, a sort of legal traditionfor all investigating lawyersto begin their attack from afar, with a trivial, or at least an irrelevant subject, so as to encourage, or rather, to divert the man they are crossexamining, to disarm his caution and then all at once to give him an unexpected knockdown blow with some fatal question. Isn't that so? It's a sacred tradition, mentioned, I fancy, in all the manuals of the art? 'Yes, yes.... Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about government quarters... eh? And as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch screwed up his eyes and winked a goodhumoured, crafty look passed over his face. The wrinkles on his forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his features broadened and he suddenly went off into a nervous prolonged laugh, shaking all over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the face. The latter forced himself to laugh, too, but when Porfiry, seeing that he was laughing, broke into such a guffaw that he turned almost crimson, Raskolnikov's repulsion overcame all precaution he left off laughing, scowled and stared with hatred at Porfiry, keeping his eyes fixed on him while his intentionally prolonged laughter lasted. There was lack of precaution on both sides, however, for Porfiry Petrovitch seemed to be laughing in his visitor's face and to be very little disturbed at the annoyance with which the visitor received it. The latter fact was very significant in Raskolnikov's eyes he saw that Porfiry Petrovitch had not been embarrassed just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had perhaps fallen into a trap that there must be something, some motive here unknown to him that, perhaps, everything was in readiness and in another moment would break upon him... He went straight to the point at once, rose from his seat and took his cap. 'Porfiry Petrovitch, he began resolutely, though with considerable irritation, 'yesterday you expressed a desire that I should come to you for some inquiries (he laid special stress on the word 'inquiries). 'I have come and if you have anything to ask me, ask it, and if not, allow me to withdraw. I have no time to spare.... I have to be at the funeral of that man who was run over, of whom you... know also, he added, feeling angry at once at having made this addition and more irritated at his anger. 'I am sick of it all, do you hear? and have long been. It's partly what made me ill. In short, he shouted, feeling that the phrase about his illness was still more out of place, 'in short, kindly examine me or let me go, at once. And if you must examine me, do so in the proper form! I will not allow you to do so otherwise, and so meanwhile, goodbye, as we have evidently nothing to keep us now. 'Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I question you about? cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with a change of tone, instantly leaving off laughing. 'Please don't disturb yourself, he began fidgeting from place to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. 'There's no hurry, there's no hurry, it's all nonsense. Oh, no, I'm very glad you've come to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a visitor. And as for my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion Romanovitch? That is your name?... It's my nerves, you tickled me so with your witty observation I assure you, sometimes I shake with laughter like an indiarubber ball for half an hour at a time.... I'm often afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I shall think you are angry... Raskolnikov did not speak he listened, watching him, still frowning angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap. 'I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, Porfiry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room and again avoiding his visitor's eyes. 'You see, I'm a bachelor, a man of no consequence and not used to society besides, I have nothing before me, I'm set, I'm running to seed and... and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before they can find a subject for conversationthey are dumb, they sit opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has subjects of conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society always have their subjects of conversation, c'est de rigueur, but people of the middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tonguetied and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don't want to deceive one another, I don't know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable... I am so delighted... Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry Petrovitch. 'Does he really want to distract my attention with his silly babble? 'I can't offer you coffee here but why not spend five minutes with a friend? Porfiry pattered on, 'and you know all these official duties... please don't mind my running up and down, excuse it, my dear fellow, I am very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is absolutely indispensable for me. I'm always sitting and so glad to be moving about for five minutes... I suffer from my sedentary life... I always intend to join a gymnasium they say that officials of all ranks, even Privy Councillors, may be seen skipping gaily there there you have it, modern science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties here, inquiries and all such formalities... you mentioned inquiries yourself just now... I assure you these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing for the interrogator than for the interrogated.... You made the observation yourself just now very aptly and wittily. (Raskolnikov had made no observation of the kind.) 'One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle! One keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is to be a reform and we shall be called by a different name, at least, hehehe! And as for our legal tradition, as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly agree with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows that they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so happily put it) and then deal him a knockdown blow, hehehe!your felicitous comparison, hehe! So you really imagined that I meant by 'government quarters'... hehe! You are an ironical person. Come. I won't go on! Ah, by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just now, apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what's the use of formality? In many cases it's nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly chat and gets a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on formality, allow me to assure you. And after all, what does it amount to? An examining lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every step. The work of investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own way, hehehe! Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room, moving his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with his right hand behind his back, while with his left making gesticulations that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop for a moment near the door, as though he were listening. 'Is he expecting anything? 'You are certainly quite right about it, Porfiry began gaily, looking with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled him and instantly put him on his guard) 'certainly quite right in laughing so wittily at our legal forms, hehe! Some of these elaborate psychological methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres too closely to the forms. Yes... I am talking of forms again. Well, if I recognise, or more strictly speaking, if I suspect someone or other to be a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you're reading for the law, of course, Rodion Romanovitch? 'Yes, I was... 'Well, then it is a precedent for you for the futurethough don't suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I worry him prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In one case I may be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be in quite a different position, you know, so why shouldn't I let him walk about the town a bit? hehehe! But I see you don't quite understand, so I'll give you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I may very likely give him, so to speak, moral support, hehe! You're laughing? Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with compressed lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch's. 'Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so different. You say 'evidence'. Well, there may be evidence. But evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining lawyer and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so to say, mathematically clear. I should like to make a chain of evidence such as twice two are four, it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof! And if I shut him up too sooneven though I might be convinced he was the man, I should very likely be depriving myself of the means of getting further evidence against him. And how? By giving him, so to speak, a definite position, I shall put him out of suspense and set his mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his shell. They say that at Sevastopol, soon after Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright that the enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when they saw that the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted, I am told and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at least. You're laughing, you don't believe me again? Of course, you're right, too. You're right, you're right. These are special cases, I admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are intended, for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at all, for the reason that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon as it actually occurs, at once becomes a thoroughly special case and sometimes a case unlike any that's gone before. Very comic cases of that sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite alone, if I don't touch him and don't worry him, but let him know or at least suspect every moment that I know all about it and am watching him day and night, and if he is in continual suspicion and terror, he'll be bound to lose his head. He'll come of himself, or maybe do something which will make it as plain as twice two are fourit's delightful. It may be so with a simple peasant, but with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a certain side, it's a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it's a very important matter to know on what side a man is cultivated. And then there are nerves, there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they are all sick, nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer from spleen! That I assure you is a regular goldmine for us. And it's no anxiety to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk about for a bit! I know well enough that I've caught him and that he won't escape me. Where could he escape to, hehe? Abroad, perhaps? A Pole will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching and have taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country perhaps? But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants. A modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such strangers as our peasants. Hehe! But that's all nonsense, and on the surface. It's not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is psychologically unable to escape me, hehe! What an expression! Through a law of nature he can't escape me if he had anywhere to go. Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That's how he will keep circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He'll begin to brood, he'll weave a tangle round himself, he'll worry himself to death! What's more he will provide me with a mathematical proofif I only give him long enough interval.... And he'll keep circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and thenflop! He'll fly straight into my mouth and I'll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, hehehe! You don't believe me? Raskolnikov made no reply he sat pale and motionless, still gazing with the same intensity into Porfiry's face. 'It's a lesson, he thought, turning cold. 'This is beyond the cat playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can't be showing off his power with no motive... prompting me he is far too clever for that... he must have another object. What is it? It's all nonsense, my friend, you are pretending, to scare me! You've no proofs and the man I saw had no real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won't do it! But why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my friend, you are wrong, you won't do it even though you have some trap for me... let us see what you have in store for me. And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At times he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was what he dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were flecked with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined not to speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for. 'No, I see you don't believe me, you think I am playing a harmless joke on you, Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively, chuckling at every instant and again pacing round the room. 'And to be sure you're right God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in other people a buffoon but let me tell you, and I repeat it, excuse an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so you put intellect above everything, like all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you and that's for all the world like the old Austrian Hofkriegsrath, as far as I can judge of military matters, that is on paper they'd beaten Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered with all his army, hehehe! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are laughing at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history! But I can't help it, it's my weakness. I am fond of military science. And I'm ever so fond of reading all military histories. I've certainly missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my word I ought. I shouldn't have been a Napoleon, but I might have been a major, hehe! Well, I'll tell you the whole truth, my dear fellow, about this special case, I mean actual fact and a man's temperament, my dear sir, are weighty matters and it's astonishing how they sometimes deceive the sharpest calculation! Ilisten to an old manam speaking seriously, Rodion Romanovitch (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who was scarcely fiveandthirty, actually seemed to have grown old even his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) 'Moreover, I'm a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I really am I tell you these things for nothing and don't even expect a reward for it, hehe! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for a poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when he's liable to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a man after all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal's temperament, worse luck for him! But young people carried away by their own wit don't think of that 'when they overstep all obstacles,' as you wittily and cleverly expressed it yesterday. He will liethat is, the man who is a special case, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion you might think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at the most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway he's given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn't reckon on his temperament. That's what betrays him! Another time he will be carried away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who suspects him, he will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead, but his paleness will be too natural, too much like the real thing, again he has given us an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at first, he will think differently next day if he is not a fool, and, of course, it is like that at every step! He puts himself forward where he is not wanted, speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in all sorts of allegorical allusions, hehe! Comes and asks why didn't you take me long ago? hehehe! And that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man, the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament reflects everything like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see! But why are you so pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window? 'Oh, don't trouble, please, cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke into a laugh. 'Please don't trouble. Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too laughed. Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical laughter. 'Porfiry Petrovitch, he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. 'I see clearly at last that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my face and worried... His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain his voice. 'I won't allow it! he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table. 'Do you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won't allow it. 'Good heavens! What does it mean? cried Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently quite frightened. 'Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the matter with you? 'I won't allow it, Raskolnikov shouted again. 'Hush, my dear man! They'll hear and come in. Just think, what could we say to them? Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face close to Raskolnikov's. 'I won't allow it, I won't allow it, Raskolnikov repeated mechanically, but he too spoke in a sudden whisper. Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window. 'Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow. You're ill! and he was running to the door to call for some when he found a decanter of water in the corner. 'Come, drink a little, he whispered, rushing up to him with the decanter. 'It will be sure to do you good. Porfiry Petrovitch's alarm and sympathy were so natural that Raskolnikov was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He did not take the water, however. 'Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you'll drive yourself out of your mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little. He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust. 'Yes, you've had a little attack! You'll bring back your illness again, my dear fellow, Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy, though he still looked rather disconcerted. 'Good heavens, you must take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me yesterdayI know, I know, I've a nasty, ironical temper, but what they made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you'd been. We dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands in despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy's sake, sit down! 'No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went, Raskolnikov answered sharply. 'You knew? 'I knew. What of it? 'Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you I know about everything. I know how you went to take a flat at night when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of it. Yes, I understand your state of mind at that time... but you'll drive yourself mad like that, upon my word! You'll lose your head! You're full of generous indignation at the wrongs you've received, first from destiny, and then from the police officers, and so you rush from one thing to another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all, because you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That's so, isn't it? I have guessed how you feel, haven't I? Only in that way you'll lose your head and Razumihin's, too he's too good a man for such a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your illness is infectious for him... I'll tell you about it when you are more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness' sake. Please rest, you look shocking, do sit down. Raskolnikov sat down he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In amazement he listened with strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch who still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly solicitude. But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a strange inclination to believe. Porfiry's unexpected words about the flat had utterly overwhelmed him. 'How can it be, he knows about the flat then, he thought suddenly, 'and he tells it me himself! 'Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a case of morbid psychology, Porfiry went on quickly. 'A man confessed to murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination he brought forward facts, he imposed upon everyone and why? He had been partly, but only partly, unintentionally the cause of a murder and when he knew that he had given the murderers the opportunity, he sank into dejection, it got on his mind and turned his brain, he began imagining things and he persuaded himself that he was the murderer. But at last the High Court of Appeal went into it and the poor fellow was acquitted and put under proper care. Thanks to the Court of Appeal! Tuttuttut! Why, my dear fellow, you may drive yourself into delirium if you have the impulse to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells at night and asking about blood! I've studied all this morbid psychology in my practice. A man is sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or from a belfry. Just the same with bellringing.... It's all illness, Rodion Romanovitch! You have begun to neglect your illness. You should consult an experienced doctor, what's the good of that fat fellow? You are lightheaded! You were delirious when you did all this! For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round. 'Is it possible, is it possible, flashed through his mind, 'that he is still lying? He can't be, he can't be. He rejected that idea, feeling to what a degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that fury might drive him mad. 'I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing, he cried, straining every faculty to penetrate Porfiry's game, 'I was quite myself, do you hear? 'Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not delirious, you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all you can tell me! Aach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you were actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this damnable business, would you insist that you were not delirious but in full possession of your faculties? And so emphatically and persistently? Would it be possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you had anything on your conscience, you certainly ought to insist that you were delirious. That's so, isn't it? There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back on the sofa as Porfiry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity at him. 'Another thing about Razumihinyou certainly ought to have said that he came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But you don't conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation. Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back. 'You keep telling lies, he said slowly and weakly, twisting his lips into a sickly smile, 'you are trying again to show that you know all my game, that you know all I shall say beforehand, he said, conscious himself that he was not weighing his words as he ought. 'You want to frighten me... or you are simply laughing at me... He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light of intense hatred in his eyes. 'You keep lying, he said. 'You know perfectly well that the best policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as possible... to conceal as little as possible. I don't believe you! 'What a wily person you are! Porfiry tittered, 'there's no catching you you've a perfect monomania. So you don't believe me? But still you do believe me, you believe a quarter I'll soon make you believe the whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely wish you good. Raskolnikov's lips trembled. 'Yes, I do, went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov's arm genially, 'you must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister are here now you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them and you do nothing but frighten them... 'What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is it of yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it? 'Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don't notice that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No, you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit, your suspiciousness makes you lose the commonsense view of things. To return to bellringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have betrayed a precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact worth having), and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the slightest suspicion of you, should I have acted like that? No, I should first have disarmed your suspicions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should have diverted your attention and suddenly have dealt you a knockdown blow (your expression) saying 'And what were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or nearly eleven at the murdered woman's flat and why did you ring the bell and why did you ask about blood? And why did you invite the porters to go with you to the police station, to the lieutenant?' That's how I ought to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to have taken your evidence in due form, searched your lodging and perhaps have arrested you, too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I have not done that! But you can't look at it normally and you see nothing, I say again. Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch could not fail to perceive it. 'You are lying all the while, he cried, 'I don't know your object, but you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and I cannot be mistaken! 'I am lying? Porfiry repeated, apparently incensed, but preserving a goodhumoured and ironical face, as though he were not in the least concerned at Raskolnikov's opinion of him. 'I am lying... but how did I treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting you and giving you every means for your defence illness, I said, delirium, injury, melancholy and the police officers and all the rest of it? Ah! Hehehe! Though, indeed, all those psychological means of defence are not very reliable and cut both ways illness, delirium, I don't rememberthat's all right, but why, my good sir, in your illness and in your delirium were you haunted by just those delusions and not by any others? There may have been others, eh? Hehehe! Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptuously at him. 'Briefly, he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so doing pushing Porfiry back a little, 'briefly, I want to know, do you acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me, Porfiry Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste! 'What a business I'm having with you! cried Porfiry with a perfectly goodhumoured, sly and composed face. 'And why do you want to know, why do you want to know so much, since they haven't begun to worry you? Why, you are like a child asking for matches! And why are you so uneasy? Why do you force yourself upon us, eh? Hehehe! 'I repeat, Raskolnikov cried furiously, 'that I can't put up with it! 'With what? Uncertainty? interrupted Porfiry. 'Don't jeer at me! I won't have it! I tell you I won't have it. I can't and I won't, do you hear, do you hear? he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table again. 'Hush! Hush! They'll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of yourself. I am not joking, Porfiry whispered, but this time there was not the look of old womanish good nature and alarm in his face. Now he was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside all mystification. But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov, bewildered, suddenly fell into actual frenzy, but, strange to say, he again obeyed the command to speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm of fury. 'I will not allow myself to be tortured, he whispered, instantly recognising with hatred that he could not help obeying the command and driven to even greater fury by the thought. 'Arrest me, search me, but kindly act in due form and don't play with me! Don't dare! 'Don't worry about the form, Porfiry interrupted with the same sly smile, as it were, gloating with enjoyment over Raskolnikov. 'I invited you to see me quite in a friendly way. 'I don't want your friendship and I spit on it! Do you hear? And, here, I take my cap and go. What will you say now if you mean to arrest me? He took up his cap and went to the door. 'And won't you see my little surprise? chuckled Porfiry, again taking him by the arm and stopping him at the door. He seemed to become more playful and goodhumoured which maddened Raskolnikov. 'What surprise? he asked, standing still and looking at Porfiry in alarm. 'My little surprise, it's sitting there behind the door, hehehe! (He pointed to the locked door.) 'I locked him in that he should not escape. 'What is it? Where? What?... Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have opened it, but it was locked. 'It's locked, here is the key! And he brought a key out of his pocket. 'You are lying, roared Raskolnikov without restraint, 'you lie, you damned punchinello! and he rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the other door, not at all alarmed. 'I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so that I may betray myself to you... 'Why, you could not betray yourself any further, my dear Rodion Romanovitch. You are in a passion. Don't shout, I shall call the clerks. 'You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill and tried to work me into a frenzy to make me betray myself, that was your object! Produce your facts! I understand it all. You've no evidence, you have only wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov's! You knew my character, you wanted to drive me to fury and then to knock me down with priests and deputies.... Are you waiting for them? eh! What are you waiting for? Where are they? Produce them? 'Why deputies, my good man? What things people will imagine! And to do so would not be acting in form as you say, you don't know the business, my dear fellow.... And there's no escaping form, as you see, Porfiry muttered, listening at the door through which a noise could be heard. 'Ah, they're coming, cried Raskolnikov. 'You've sent for them! You expected them! Well, produce them all your deputies, your witnesses, what you like!... I am ready! But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something so unexpected that neither Raskolnikov nor Porfiry Petrovitch could have looked for such a conclusion to their interview. When he remembered the scene afterwards, this is how Raskolnikov saw it. The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was opened a little. 'What is it? cried Porfiry Petrovitch, annoyed. 'Why, I gave orders... For an instant there was no answer, but it was evident that there were several persons at the door, and that they were apparently pushing somebody back. 'What is it? Porfiry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily. 'The prisoner Nikolay has been brought, someone answered. 'He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What's he doing here? How irregular! cried Porfiry, rushing to the door. 'But he... began the same voice, and suddenly ceased. Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual struggle, then someone gave a violent shove, and then a man, very pale, strode into the room. This man's appearance was at first sight very strange. He stared straight before him, as though seeing nothing. There was a determined gleam in his eyes at the same time there was a deathly pallor in his face, as though he were being led to the scaffold. His white lips were faintly twitching. He was dressed like a workman and was of medium height, very young, slim, his hair cut in round crop, with thin spare features. The man whom he had thrust back followed him into the room and succeeded in seizing him by the shoulder he was a warder but Nikolay pulled his arm away. Several persons crowded inquisitively into the doorway. Some of them tried to get in. All this took place almost instantaneously. 'Go away, it's too soon! Wait till you are sent for!... Why have you brought him so soon? Porfiry Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed, and as it were thrown out of his reckoning. But Nikolay suddenly knelt down. 'What's the matter? cried Porfiry, surprised. 'I am guilty! Mine is the sin! I am the murderer, Nikolay articulated suddenly, rather breathless, but speaking fairly loudly. For ten seconds there was silence as though all had been struck dumb even the warder stepped back, mechanically retreated to the door, and stood immovable. 'What is it? cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering from his momentary stupefaction. 'I... am the murderer, repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause. 'What... you... what... whom did you kill? Porfiry Petrovitch was obviously bewildered. Nikolay again was silent for a moment. 'Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, I... killed... with an axe. Darkness came over me, he added suddenly, and was again silent. He still remained on his knees. Porfiry Petrovitch stood for some moments as though meditating, but suddenly roused himself and waved back the uninvited spectators. They instantly vanished and closed the door. Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who was standing in the corner, staring wildly at Nikolay and moved towards him, but stopped short, looked from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at Nikolay, and seeming unable to restrain himself darted at the latter. 'You're in too great a hurry, he shouted at him, almost angrily. 'I didn't ask you what came over you.... Speak, did you kill them? 'I am the murderer.... I want to give evidence, Nikolay pronounced. 'Ach! What did you kill them with? 'An axe. I had it ready. 'Ach, he is in a hurry! Alone? Nikolay did not understand the question. 'Did you do it alone? 'Yes, alone. And Mitka is not guilty and had no share in it. 'Don't be in a hurry about Mitka! Aach! How was it you ran downstairs like that at the time? The porters met you both! 'It was to put them off the scent... I ran after Mitka, Nikolay replied hurriedly, as though he had prepared the answer. 'I knew it! cried Porfiry, with vexation. 'It's not his own tale he is telling, he muttered as though to himself, and suddenly his eyes rested on Raskolnikov again. He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that for a moment he had forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a little taken aback. 'My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me! he flew up to him, 'this won't do I'm afraid you must go... it's no good your staying... I will... you see, what a surprise!... Goodbye! And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the door. 'I suppose you didn't expect it? said Raskolnikov who, though he had not yet fully grasped the situation, had regained his courage. 'You did not expect it either, my friend. See how your hand is trembling! Hehe! 'You're trembling, too, Porfiry Petrovitch! 'Yes, I am I didn't expect it. They were already at the door Porfiry was impatient for Raskolnikov to be gone. 'And your little surprise, aren't you going to show it to me? Raskolnikov said, sarcastically. 'Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, hehe! You are an ironical person! Come, till we meet! 'I believe we can say goodbye! 'That's in God's hands, muttered Porfiry, with an unnatural smile. As he walked through the office, Raskolnikov noticed that many people were looking at him. Among them he saw the two porters from the house, whom he had invited that night to the police station. They stood there waiting. But he was no sooner on the stairs than he heard the voice of Porfiry Petrovitch behind him. Turning round, he saw the latter running after him, out of breath. 'One word, Rodion Romanovitch as to all the rest, it's in God's hands, but as a matter of form there are some questions I shall have to ask you... so we shall meet again, shan't we? And Porfiry stood still, facing him with a smile. 'Shan't we? he added again. He seemed to want to say something more, but could not speak out. 'You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what has just passed... I lost my temper, began Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his courage that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his coolness. 'Don't mention it, don't mention it, Porfiry replied, almost gleefully. 'I myself, too... I have a wicked temper, I admit it! But we shall meet again. If it's God's will, we may see a great deal of one another. 'And will get to know each other through and through? added Raskolnikov. 'Yes know each other through and through, assented Porfiry Petrovitch, and he screwed up his eyes, looking earnestly at Raskolnikov. 'Now you're going to a birthday party? 'To a funeral. 'Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and get well. 'I don't know what to wish you, said Raskolnikov, who had begun to descend the stairs, but looked back again. 'I should like to wish you success, but your office is such a comical one. 'Why comical? Porfiry Petrovitch had turned to go, but he seemed to prick up his ears at this. 'Why, how you must have been torturing and harassing that poor Nikolay psychologically, after your fashion, till he confessed! You must have been at him day and night, proving to him that he was the murderer, and now that he has confessed, you'll begin vivisecting him again. 'You are lying,' you'll say. 'You are not the murderer! You can't be! It's not your own tale you are telling!' You must admit it's a comical business! 'Hehehe! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay just now that it was not his own tale he was telling? 'How could I help noticing it! 'Hehe! You are quickwitted. You notice everything! You've really a playful mind! And you always fasten on the comic side... hehe! They say that was the marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers. 'Yes, of Gogol. 'Yes, of Gogol.... I shall look forward to meeting you. 'So shall I. Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so muddled and bewildered that on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the sofa, trying to collect his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about Nikolay he was stupefied he felt that his confession was something inexplicable, amazingsomething beyond his understanding. But Nikolay's confession was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact were clear to him at once, its falsehood could not fail to be discovered, and then they would be after him again. Till then, at least, he was free and must do something for himself, for the danger was imminent. But how imminent? His position gradually became clear to him. Remembering, sketchily, the main outlines of his recent scene with Porfiry, he could not help shuddering again with horror. Of course, he did not yet know all Porfiry's aims, he could not see into all his calculations. But he had already partly shown his hand, and no one knew better than Raskolnikov how terrible Porfiry's 'lead had been for him. A little more and he might have given himself away completely, circumstantially. Knowing his nervous temperament and from the first glance seeing through him, Porfiry, though playing a bold game, was bound to win. There's no denying that Raskolnikov had compromised himself seriously, but no facts had come to light as yet there was nothing positive. But was he taking a true view of the position? Wasn't he mistaken? What had Porfiry been trying to get at? Had he really some surprise prepared for him? And what was it? Had he really been expecting something or not? How would they have parted if it had not been for the unexpected appearance of Nikolay? Porfiry had shown almost all his cardsof course, he had risked something in showing themand if he had really had anything up his sleeve (Raskolnikov reflected), he would have shown that, too. What was that 'surprise? Was it a joke? Had it meant anything? Could it have concealed anything like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His yesterday's visitor? What had become of him? Where was he today? If Porfiry really had any evidence, it must be connected with him.... He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. He was still shivering nervously. At last he got up, took his cap, thought a minute, and went to the door. He had a sort of presentiment that for today, at least, he might consider himself out of danger. He had a sudden sense almost of joy he wanted to make haste to Katerina Ivanovna's. He would be too late for the funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the memorial dinner, and there at once he would see Sonia. He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering smile came for a moment on to his lips. 'Today! Today, he repeated to himself. 'Yes, today! So it must be.... But as he was about to open the door, it began opening of itself. He started and moved back. The door opened gently and slowly, and there suddenly appeared a figureyesterday's visitor from underground. The man stood in the doorway, looked at Raskolnikov without speaking, and took a step forward into the room. He was exactly the same as yesterday the same figure, the same dress, but there was a great change in his face he looked dejected and sighed deeply. If he had only put his hand up to his cheek and leaned his head on one side he would have looked exactly like a peasant woman. 'What do you want? asked Raskolnikov, numb with terror. The man was still silent, but suddenly he bowed down almost to the ground, touching it with his finger. 'What is it? cried Raskolnikov. 'I have sinned, the man articulated softly. 'How? 'By evil thoughts. They looked at one another. 'I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink, and bade the porters go to the police station and asked about the blood, I was vexed that they let you go and took you for drunken. I was so vexed that I lost my sleep. And remembering the address we came here yesterday and asked for you.... 'Who came? Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to recollect. 'I did, I've wronged you. 'Then you come from that house? 'I was standing at the gate with them... don't you remember? We have carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed.... And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway came clearly before Raskolnikov's mind he recollected that there had been several people there besides the porters, women among them. He remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the policestation. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and even now he did not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned round and made him some answer.... So this was the solution of yesterday's horror. The most awful thought was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for himself on account of such a trivial circumstance. So this man could tell nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood stains. So Porfiry, too, had nothing but that delirium, no facts but this psychology which cuts both ways, nothing positive. So if no more facts come to light (and they must not, they must not!) then... then what can they do to him? How can they convict him, even if they arrest him? And Porfiry then had only just heard about the flat and had not known about it before. 'Was it you who told Porfiry... that I'd been there? he cried, struck by a sudden idea. 'What Porfiry? 'The head of the detective department? 'Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went. 'Today? 'I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all, how he worried you. 'Where? What? When? 'Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time. 'What? Why, then you were the surprise? But how could it happen? Upon my word! 'I saw that the porters did not want to do what I said, began the man 'for it's too late, said they, and maybe he'll be angry that we did not come at the time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began making inquiries. And finding out yesterday where to go, I went today. The first time I went he wasn't there, when I came an hour later he couldn't see me. I went the third time, and they showed me in. I informed him of everything, just as it happened, and he began skipping about the room and punching himself on the chest. 'What do you scoundrels mean by it? If I'd known about it I should have arrested him!' Then he ran out, called somebody and began talking to him in the corner, then he turned to me, scolding and questioning me. He scolded me a great deal and I told him everything, and I told him that you didn't dare to say a word in answer to me yesterday and that you didn't recognise me. And he fell to running about again and kept hitting himself on the chest, and getting angry and running about, and when you were announced he told me to go into the next room. 'Sit there a bit,' he said. 'Don't move, whatever you may hear.' And he set a chair there for me and locked me in. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'I may call you.' And when Nikolay'd been brought he let me out as soon as you were gone. 'I shall send for you again and question you,' he said. 'And did he question Nikolay while you were there? 'He got rid of me as he did of you, before he spoke to Nikolay. The man stood still, and again suddenly bowed down, touching the ground with his finger. 'Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander. 'May God forgive you, answered Raskolnikov. And as he said this, the man bowed down again, but not to the ground, turned slowly and went out of the room. 'It all cuts both ways, now it all cuts both ways, repeated Raskolnikov, and he went out more confident than ever. 'Now we'll make a fight for it, he said, with a malicious smile, as he went down the stairs. His malice was aimed at himself with shame and contempt he recollected his 'cowardice. The morning that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch immediately looked in the lookingglass. He was afraid that he had jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at his noble, clearskinned countenance which had grown fattish of late, Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively comforted in the conviction that he would find another bride and, perhaps, even a better one. But coming back to the sense of his present position, he turned aside and spat vigorously, which excited a sarcastic smile in Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, the young friend with whom he was staying. That smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it down against his young friend's account. He had set down a good many points against him of late. His anger was redoubled when he reflected that he ought not to have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result of yesterday's interview. That was the second mistake he had made in temper, through impulsiveness and irritability.... Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness followed another. He even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case in the senate. He was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat which had been taken in view of his approaching marriage and was being redecorated at his own expense the owner, a rich German tradesman, would not entertain the idea of breaking the contract which had just been signed and insisted on the full forfeit money, though Pyotr Petrovitch would be giving him back the flat practically redecorated. In the same way the upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the instalment paid for the furniture purchased but not yet removed to the flat. 'Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture? Pyotr Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a gleam of desperate hope. 'Can all that be really so irrevocably over? Is it no use to make another effort? The thought of Dounia sent a voluptuous pang through his heart. He endured anguish at that moment, and if it had been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by wishing it, Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered the wish. 'It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money, he thought, as he returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov's room, 'and why on earth was I such a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them without a penny so that they should turn to me as their providence, and look at them! foo! If I'd spent some fifteen hundred roubles on them for the trousseau and presents, on knickknacks, dressingcases, jewellery, materials, and all that sort of trash from Knopp's and the English shop, my position would have been better and... stronger! They could not have refused me so easily! They are the sort of people that would feel bound to return money and presents if they broke it off and they would find it hard to do it! And their conscience would prick them how can we dismiss a man who has hitherto been so generous and delicate?.... H'm! I've made a blunder. And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a foolbut not aloud, of course. He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The preparations for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna's excited his curiosity as he passed. He had heard about it the day before he fancied, indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his own cares he had paid no attention. Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who was busy laying the table while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair, that all the lodgers had been invited, among them some who had not known the dead man, that even Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in spite of his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna, that he, Pyotr Petrovitch, was not only invited, but was eagerly expected as he was the most important of the lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had been invited with great ceremony in spite of the recent unpleasantness, and so she was very busy with preparations and was taking a positive pleasure in them she was moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new black silk, and she was proud of it. All this suggested an idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he went into his room, or rather Lebeziatnikov's, somewhat thoughtful. He had learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of the guests. Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude of Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps natural. Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he came to stay with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat afraid of him. He had not come to stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from parsimony, though that had been perhaps his chief object. He had heard of Andrey Semyonovitch, who had once been his ward, as a leading young progressive who was taking an important part in certain interesting circles, the doings of which were a legend in the provinces. It had impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful omniscient circles who despised everyone and showed everyone up had long inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had not, of course, been able to form even an approximate notion of what they meant. He, like everyone, had heard that there were, especially in Petersburg, progressives of some sort, nihilists and so on, and, like many people, he exaggerated and distorted the significance of those words to an absurd degree. What for many years past he had feared more than anything was being shown up and this was the chief ground for his continual uneasiness at the thought of transferring his business to Petersburg. He was afraid of this as little children are sometimes panicstricken. Some years before, when he was just entering on his own career, he had come upon two cases in which rather important personages in the province, patrons of his, had been cruelly shown up. One instance had ended in great scandal for the person attacked and the other had very nearly ended in serious trouble. For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the subject as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary, to anticipate contingencies by seeking the favour of 'our younger generation. He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before his visit to Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current phrases. He soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace simpleton, but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he had been certain that all the progressives were fools like him, it would not have allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the systems, with which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no interest for him. He had his own objecthe simply wanted to find out at once what was happening here. Had these people any power or not? Had he anything to fear from them? Would they expose any enterprise of his? And what precisely was now the object of their attacks? Could he somehow make up to them and get round them if they really were powerful? Was this the thing to do or not? Couldn't he gain something through them? In fact hundreds of questions presented themselves. Andrey Semyonovitch was an anmic, scrofulous little man, with strangely flaxen muttonchop whiskers of which he was very proud. He was a clerk and had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He was rather softhearted, but selfconfident and sometimes extremely conceited in speech, which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his little figure. He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia Ivanovna, for he did not get drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid he attached himself to the cause of progress and 'our younger generation from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of halfanimate abortions, conceited, halfeducated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely. Though Lebeziatnikov was so goodnatured, he, too, was beginning to dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously. However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that Pyotr Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that 'he was not the right sort of man. He had tried expounding to him the system of Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he had begun instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no connections of any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply picked things up thirdhand and that very likely he did not even know much about his own work of propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he would be to show anyone up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest praise from Andrey Semyonovitch he had not protested, for instance, when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to the establishment of the new 'commune, or to abstain from christening his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing his own praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they were attributed to him. Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some fivepercent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those bank notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have convinced Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look on the money unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea about him and was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his young friend by reminding him of his inferiority and the great difference between them. He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation of a new special 'commune. The brief remarks that dropped from Pyotr Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning frame betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the 'humane Andrey Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch's illhumour to his recent breach with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that theme. He had something progressive to say on the subject which might console his worthy friend and 'could not fail to promote his development. 'There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the widow's, isn't there? Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage. 'Why, don't you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were talking to her yesterday... 'I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I was surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the wines! Several people are invited. It's beyond everything! continued Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the conversation. 'What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don't remember. But I shan't go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a year's salary as a destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on that account, hasn't she? Hehehe! 'I don't intend to go either, said Lebeziatnikov. 'I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well hesitate, hehe! 'Who thrashed? Whom? cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing. 'Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so yesterday... so that's what your convictions amount to... and the woman question, too, wasn't quite sound, hehehe! and Pyotr Petrovitch, as though comforted, went back to clicking his beads. 'It's all slander and nonsense! cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always afraid of allusions to the subject. 'It was not like that at all, it was quite different. You've heard it wrong it's a libel. I was simply defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled out all my whiskers.... It's permissable for anyone, I should hope, to defend himself and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on principle, for it's an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply pushed her back. 'Hehehe! Luzhin went on laughing maliciously. 'You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But that's nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the woman question! You don't understand I used to think, indeed, that if women are equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I reflected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise, for there ought not to be fighting and in the future society fighting is unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality in fighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there is fighting... there won't be later, but at present there is... confound it! How muddled one gets with you! It's not on that account that I am not going. I am not going on principle, not to take part in the revolting convention of memorial dinners, that's why! Though, of course, one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there won't be any priests at it. I should certainly go if there were. 'Then you would sit down at another man's table and insult it and those who invited you. Eh? 'Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It's a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting them? They might be offended at first, but afterwards they'd see I'd done them a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed because when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to her father and mother that she wouldn't go on living conventionally and was entering on a free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh, that she might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think that's all nonsense and there's no need of softness on the contrary, what's wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a letter 'I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can never forgive you that you have deceived me by concealing from me that there is another organisation of society by means of the communities. I have only lately learned it from a greathearted man to whom I have given myself and with whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly because I consider it dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best. Do not hope to get me back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.' That's how letters like that ought to be written! 'Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage? 'No, it's only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what if it were the fifteenth, that's all nonsense! And if ever I regretted the death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think if my parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I would have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would have astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one! 'To surprise! Hehe! Well, be that as you will, Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted, 'but tell me this do you know the dead man's daughter, the delicatelooking little thing? It's true what they say about her, isn't it? 'What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, distinguons. In our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is compulsory, but in the future society it will be perfectly normal, because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right she was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in the future society there will be no need of assets, but her part will have another significance, rational and in harmony with her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply for it I rejoice indeed when I look at her! 'I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings. Lebeziatnikov was enraged. 'That's another slander, he yelled. 'It was not so at all! That was all Katerina Ivanovna's invention, for she did not understand! And I never made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway! 'Have you asked her to join your community? 'You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell you. You don't understand! There is no such rle in a community. The community is established that there should be no such rles. In a community, such a rle is essentially transformed and what is stupid here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the environment. It's all the environment and man himself is nothing. And I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing. What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I'm still developing Sofya Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character! 'And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? Hehe! 'No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary. 'Oh, on the contrary! Hehehe! A queer thing to say! 'Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself how timid, chaste and modern she is with me! 'And you, of course, are developing her... hehe! trying to prove to her that all that modesty is nonsense? 'Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidlyexcuse me saying soyou misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how... crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that's for her to decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, I should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much but as it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that's all! 'You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never thought of that. 'You don't understand, as I've told you already! Of course, she is in such a position, but it's another question. Quite another question! You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow creature. You don't know what a character she is! I am only sorry that of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution in protestingwhich she has already shown onceshe has little selfreliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about kissing of hands, that is, that it's an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand, because it's a sign of inequality. We had a debate about it and I described it to her. She listened attentively to an account of the workmen's associations in France, too. Now I am explaining the question of coming into the room in the future society. 'And what's that, pray? 'We had a debate lately on the question Has a member of the community the right to enter another member's room, whether man or woman, at any time... and we decided that he has! 'It might be at an inconvenient moment, hehe! Lebeziatnikov was really angry. 'You are always thinking of something unpleasant, he cried with aversion. 'Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It's always a stumblingblock to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I've often maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready to clean out any cesspool you like. And it's not a question of selfsacrifice, it's simply work, honourable, useful work which is as good as any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it is more useful. 'And more honourable, more honourable, hehehe! 'What do you mean by 'more honourable'? I don't understand such expressions to describe human activity. 'More honourable,' 'nobler'all those are oldfashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is of use to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word useful! You can snigger as much as you like, but that's so! Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The 'cesspool question had already been a subject of dispute between them. What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his young friend. 'It's your illluck yesterday that makes you so illhumoured and annoying, blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his 'independence and his 'protests did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years. 'You'd better tell me this, Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with haughty displeasure, 'can you... or rather are you really friendly enough with that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I think they've all come back from the cemetery... I heard the sound of steps... I want to see her, that young person. 'What for? Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise. 'Oh, I want to. I am leaving here today or tomorrow and therefore I wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be present during the interview. It's better you should be, indeed. For there's no knowing what you might imagine. 'I shan't imagine anything. I only asked and, if you've anything to say to her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I'll go directly and you may be sure I won't be in your way. Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in very much surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was always shy in such circumstances and was always afraid of new people, she had been as a child and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch met her 'politely and affably, but with a certain shade of bantering familiarity which in his opinion was suitable for a man of his respectability and weight in dealing with a creature so young and so interesting as she. He hastened to 'reassure her and made her sit down facing him at the table. Sonia sat down, looked about herat Lebeziatnikov, at the notes lying on the table and then again at Pyotr Petrovitch and her eyes remained riveted on him. Lebeziatnikov was moving to the door. Pyotr Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain seated and stopped Lebeziatnikov. 'Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come? he asked him in a whisper. 'Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in.... Why? 'Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to leave me alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words with her, but God knows what they may make of it. I shouldn't like Raskolnikov to repeat anything.... You understand what I mean? 'I understand! Lebeziatnikov saw the point. 'Yes, you are right.... Of course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be uneasy, but... still, you are right. Certainly I'll stay. I'll stand here at the window and not be in your way... I think you are right... Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia, looked attentively at her and assumed an extremely dignified, even severe expression, as much as to say, 'don't you make any mistake, madam. Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment. 'In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to your respected mamma.... That's right, isn't it? Katerina Ivanovna stands in the place of a mother to you? Pyotr Petrovitch began with great dignity, though affably. It was evident that his intentions were friendly. 'Quite so, yes the place of a mother, Sonia answered, timidly and hurriedly. 'Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable circumstances I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the dinner in spite of your mamma's kind invitation. 'Yes... I'll tell her... at once. And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat. 'Wait, that's not all, Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at her simplicity and ignorance of good manners, 'and you know me little, my dear Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to trouble a person like you for a matter of so little consequence affecting myself only. I have another object. Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on the greyandrainbowcoloured notes that remained on the table, but she quickly looked away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it horribly indecorous, especially for her, to look at another person's money. She stared at the gold eyeglass which Pyotr Petrovitch held in his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring with a yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she looked away and, not knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again straight in the face. After a pause of still greater dignity he continued. 'I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was sufficient to enable me to ascertain that she is in a positionpreternatural, if one may so express it. 'Yes... preternatural... Sonia hurriedly assented. 'Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill. 'Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill. 'Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way, foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this povertystricken family depends now entirely on you? 'Allow me to ask, Sonia rose to her feet, 'did you say something to her yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you had undertaken to get her one. Was that true? 'Not in the slightest, and indeed it's an absurdity! I merely hinted at her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an official who had died in the serviceif only she has patronage... but apparently your late parent had not served his full term and had not indeed been in the service at all of late. In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be very ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in that case, far from it.... And she is dreaming of a pension already, hehehe!... A goahead lady! 'Yes, she is. For she is credulous and goodhearted, and she believes everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and she is like that... yes... You must excuse her, said Sonia, and again she got up to go. 'But you haven't heard what I have to say. 'No, I haven't heard, muttered Sonia. 'Then sit down. She was terribly confused she sat down again a third time. 'Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be glad, as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of service, that is, so far as is in my power, not more. One might for instance get up a subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort, such as is always arranged in such cases by friends or even outsiders desirous of assisting people. It was of that I intended to speak to you it might be done. 'Yes, yes... God will repay you for it, faltered Sonia, gazing intently at Pyotr Petrovitch. 'It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it today, we will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to speak. Come to me at seven o'clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But there is one circumstance of which I ought to warn you beforehand and for which I venture to trouble you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In my opinion money cannot be, indeed it's unsafe to put it into Katerina Ivanovna's own hands. The dinner today is a proof of that. Though she has not, so to speak, a crust of bread for tomorrow and... well, boots or shoes, or anything she has bought today Jamaica rum, and even, I believe, Madeira and... and coffee. I saw it as I passed through. Tomorrow it will all fall upon you again, they won't have a crust of bread. It's absurd, really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought to be raised so that the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but only you, for instance. Am I right? 'I don't know... this is only today, once in her life.... She was so anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they will all be... and God will reward... and the orphans... Sonia burst into tears. 'Very well, then, keep it in mind and now will you accept for the benefit of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from me personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be mentioned in connection with it. Here... having so to speak anxieties of my own, I cannot do more... And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a tenrouble note carefully unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, muttered something and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her ceremoniously to the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated and distressed, and returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with confusion. All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked about the room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation when Sonia had gone he walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out his hand. 'I heard and saw everything, he said, laying stress on the last verb. 'That is honourable, I mean to say, it's humane! You wanted to avoid gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate the evil but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action with pleasureyes, yes, I like it. 'That's all nonsense, muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted, looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov. 'No, it's not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and annoyance as you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the misery of others, such a man... even though he is making a social mistakeis still deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of you, Pyotr Petrovitch, especially as according to your ideas... oh, what a drawback your ideas are to you! How distressed you are for instance by your illluck yesterday, cried the simplehearted Lebeziatnikov, who felt a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch. 'And, what do you want with marriage, with legal marriage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do you cling to this legality of marriage? Well, you may beat me if you like, but I am glad, positively glad it hasn't come off, that you are free, that you are not quite lost for humanity.... you see, I've spoken my mind! 'Because I don't want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and to bring up another man's children, that's why I want legal marriage, Luzhin replied in order to make some answer. He seemed preoccupied by something. 'Children? You referred to children, Lebeziatnikov started off like a warhorse at the trumpet call. 'Children are a social question and a question of first importance, I agree but the question of children has another solution. Some refuse to have children altogether, because they suggest the institution of the family. We'll speak of children later, but now as to the question of honour, I confess that's my weak point. That horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the dictionary of the future. What does it mean indeed? It's nonsense, there will be no deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural consequence of a legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a protest. So that indeed it's not humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an absurdity, were to be legally married, I should be positively glad of it. I should say to my wife 'My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now I respect you, for you've shown you can protest!' You laugh! That's because you are incapable of getting away from prejudices. Confound it all! I understand now where the unpleasantness is of being deceived in a legal marriage, but it's simply a despicable consequence of a despicable position in which both are humiliated. When the deception is open, as in a free marriage, then it does not exist, it's unthinkable. Your wife will only prove how she respects you by considering you incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging yourself on her for her new husband. Damn it all! I sometimes dream if I were to be married, pfoo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or not, it's just the same, I should present my wife with a lover if she had not found one for herself. 'My dear,' I should say, 'I love you, but even more than that I desire you to respect me. See!' Am I not right? Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much merriment. He hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with something else and even Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr Petrovitch seemed excited and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov remembered all this and reflected upon it afterwards. It would be difficult to explain exactly what could have originated the idea of that senseless dinner in Katerina Ivanovna's disordered brain. Nearly ten of the twenty roubles, given by Raskolnikov for Marmeladov's funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly Katerina Ivanovna felt obliged to honour the memory of the deceased 'suitably, that all the lodgers, and still more Amalia Ivanovna, might know 'that he was in no way their inferior, and perhaps very much their superior, and that no one had the right 'to turn up his nose at him. Perhaps the chief element was that peculiar 'poor man's pride, which compels many poor people to spend their last savings on some traditional social ceremony, simply in order to do 'like other people, and not to 'be looked down upon. It is very probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna longed on this occasion, at the moment when she seemed to be abandoned by everyone, to show those 'wretched contemptible lodgers that she knew 'how to do things, how to entertain and that she had been brought up 'in a genteel, she might almost say aristocratic colonel's family and had not been meant for sweeping floors and washing the children's rags at night. Even the poorest and most brokenspirited people are sometimes liable to these paroxysms of pride and vanity which take the form of an irresistible nervous craving. And Katerina Ivanovna was not brokenspirited she might have been killed by circumstance, but her spirit could not have been broken, that is, she could not have been intimidated, her will could not be crushed. Moreover Sonia had said with good reason that her mind was unhinged. She could not be said to be insane, but for a year past she had been so harassed that her mind might well be overstrained. The later stages of consumption are apt, doctors tell us, to affect the intellect. There was no great variety of wines, nor was there Madeira but wine there was. There was vodka, rum and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest quality but in sufficient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and honey, there were three or four dishes, one of which consisted of pancakes, all prepared in Amalia Ivanovna's kitchen. Two samovars were boiling, that tea and punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina Ivanovna had herself seen to purchasing the provisions, with the help of one of the lodgers, an unfortunate little Pole who had somehow been stranded at Madame Lippevechsel's. He promptly put himself at Katerina Ivanovna's disposal and had been all that morning and all the day before running about as fast as his legs could carry him, and very anxious that everyone should be aware of it. For every trifle he ran to Katerina Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the bazaar, at every instant called her 'Pani. She was heartily sick of him before the end, though she had declared at first that she could not have got on without this 'serviceable and magnanimous man. It was one of Katerina Ivanovna's characteristics to paint everyone she met in the most glowing colours. Her praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be embarrassing she would invent various circumstances to the credit of her new acquaintance and quite genuinely believe in their reality. Then all of a sudden she would be disillusioned and would rudely and contemptuously repulse the person she had only a few hours before been literally adoring. She was naturally of a gay, lively and peaceloving disposition, but from continual failures and misfortunes she had come to desire so keenly that all should live in peace and joy and should not dare to break the peace, that the slightest jar, the smallest disaster reduced her almost to frenzy, and she would pass in an instant from the brightest hopes and fancies to cursing her fate and raving, and knocking her head against the wall. Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraordinary importance in Katerina Ivanovna's eyes and was treated by her with extraordinary respect, probably only because Amalia Ivanovna had thrown herself heart and soul into the preparations. She had undertaken to lay the table, to provide the linen, crockery, etc., and to cook the dishes in her kitchen, and Katerina Ivanovna had left it all in her hands and gone herself to the cemetery. Everything had been well done. Even the tablecloth was nearly clean the crockery, knives, forks and glasses were, of course, of all shapes and patterns, lent by different lodgers, but the table was properly laid at the time fixed, and Amalia Ivanovna, feeling she had done her work well, had put on a black silk dress and a cap with new mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some pride. This pride, though justifiable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for some reason 'as though the table could not have been laid except by Amalia Ivanovna! She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. 'Could she be stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the house, and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a favour! Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna's father who had been a colonel and almost a governor had sometimes had the table set for forty persons, and then anyone like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna, would not have been allowed into the kitchen. Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing her feelings for the time and contented herself with treating her coldly, though she decided inwardly that she would certainly have to put Amalia Ivanovna down and set her in her proper place, for goodness only knew what she was fancying herself. Katerina Ivanovna was irritated too by the fact that hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the funeral, except the Pole who had just managed to run into the cemetery, while to the memorial dinner the poorest and most insignificant of them had turned up, the wretched creatures, many of them not quite sober. The older and more respectable of them all, as if by common consent, stayed away. Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for instance, who might be said to be the most respectable of all the lodgers, did not appear, though Katerina Ivanovna had the evening before told all the world, that is Amalia Ivanovna, Polenka, Sonia and the Pole, that he was the most generous, noblehearted man with a large property and vast connections, who had been a friend of her first husband's, and a guest in her father's house, and that he had promised to use all his influence to secure her a considerable pension. It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna exalted anyone's connections and fortune, it was without any ulterior motive, quite disinterestedly, for the mere pleasure of adding to the consequence of the person praised. Probably 'taking his cue from Luzhin, 'that contemptible wretch Lebeziatnikov had not turned up either. What did he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness and because he was sharing the same room with Pyotr Petrovitch and was a friend of his, so that it would have been awkward not to invite him. Among those who failed to appear were 'the genteel lady and her oldmaidish daughter, who had only been lodgers in the house for the last fortnight, but had several times complained of the noise and uproar in Katerina Ivanovna's room, especially when Marmeladov had come back drunk. Katerina Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna who, quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to turn the whole family out of doors, had shouted at her that they 'were not worth the foot of the honourable lodgers whom they were disturbing. Katerina Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her daughter, 'whose foot she was not worth, and who had turned away haughtily when she casually met them, so that they might know that 'she was more noble in her thoughts and feelings and did not harbour malice, and might see that she was not accustomed to her way of living. She had proposed to make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to her late father's governorship, and also at the same time to hint that it was exceedingly stupid of them to turn away on meeting her. The fat colonelmajor (he was really a discharged officer of low rank) was also absent, but it appeared that he had been 'not himself for the last two days. The party consisted of the Pole, a wretched looking clerk with a spotty face and a greasy coat, who had not a word to say for himself, and smelt abominably, a deaf and almost blind old man who had once been in the post office and who had been from immemorial ages maintained by someone at Amalia Ivanovna's. A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too he was drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancywas without a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the table without even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person having no suit appeared in his dressinggown, but this was too much, and the efforts of Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in removing him. The Pole brought with him, however, two other Poles who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna's and whom no one had seen here before. All this irritated Katerina Ivanovna intensely. 'For whom had they made all these preparations then? To make room for the visitors the children had not even been laid for at the table but the two little ones were sitting on a bench in the furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box, while Polenka as a big girl had to look after them, feed them, and keep their noses wiped like wellbred children's. Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meeting her guests with increased dignity, and even haughtiness. She stared at some of them with special severity, and loftily invited them to take their seats. Rushing to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must be responsible for those who were absent, she began treating her with extreme nonchalance, which the latter promptly observed and resented. Such a beginning was no good omen for the end. All were seated at last. Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of their return from the cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly delighted to see him, in the first place, because he was the one 'educated visitor, and, as everyone knew, was in two years to take a professorship in the university, and secondly because he immediately and respectfully apologised for having been unable to be at the funeral. She positively pounced upon him, and made him sit on her left hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her right). In spite of her continual anxiety that the dishes should be passed round correctly and that everyone should taste them, in spite of the agonising cough which interrupted her every minute and seemed to have grown worse during the last few days, she hastened to pour out in a half whisper to Raskolnikov all her suppressed feelings and her just indignation at the failure of the dinner, interspersing her remarks with lively and uncontrollable laughter at the expense of her visitors and especially of her landlady. 'It's all that cuckoo's fault! You know whom I mean? Her, her! Katerina Ivanovna nodded towards the landlady. 'Look at her, she's making round eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can't understand. Pfoo, the owl! Haha! (Coughcoughcough.) And what does she put on that cap for? (Coughcoughcough.) Have you noticed that she wants everyone to consider that she is patronising me and doing me an honour by being here? I asked her like a sensible woman to invite people, especially those who knew my late husband, and look at the set of fools she has brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with the spotty face. And those wretched Poles, hahaha! (Coughcoughcough.) Not one of them has ever poked his nose in here, I've never set eyes on them. What have they come here for, I ask you? There they sit in a row. Hey, pan! she cried suddenly to one of them, 'have you tasted the pancakes? Take some more! Have some beer! Won't you have some vodka? Look, he's jumped up and is making his bows, they must be quite starved, poor things. Never mind, let them eat! They don't make a noise, anyway, though I'm really afraid for our landlady's silver spoons... Amalia Ivanovna! she addressed her suddenly, almost aloud, 'if your spoons should happen to be stolen, I won't be responsible, I warn you! Hahaha! She laughed turning to Raskolnikov, and again nodding towards the landlady, in high glee at her sally. 'She didn't understand, she didn't understand again! Look how she sits with her mouth open! An owl, a real owl! An owl in new ribbons, hahaha! Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable fit of coughing that lasted five minutes. Drops of perspiration stood out on her forehead and her handkerchief was stained with blood. She showed Raskolnikov the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her breath began whispering to him again with extreme animation and a hectic flush on her cheeks. 'Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to speak, for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom I am speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that provincial nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the government offices, because at fifty she paints her face (everybody knows it)... a creature like that did not think fit to come, and has not even answered the invitation, which the most ordinary good manners required! I can't understand why Pyotr Petrovitch has not come? But where's Sonia? Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it, Sonia, where have you been? It's odd that even at your father's funeral you should be so unpunctual. Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her beside you. That's your place, Sonia... take what you like. Have some of the cold entre with jelly, that's the best. They'll bring the pancakes directly. Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got everything? (Coughcoughcough.) That's all right. Be a good girl, Lida, and, Kolya, don't fidget with your feet sit like a little gentleman. What are you saying, Sonia? Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch's apologies, trying to speak loud enough for everyone to hear and carefully choosing the most respectful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch. She added that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly told her to say that, as soon as he possibly could, he would come immediately to discuss business alone with her and to consider what could be done for her, etc., etc. Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina Ivanovna, would flatter her and gratify her pride. She sat down beside Raskolnikov she made him a hurried bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the rest of the time she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking to him. She seemed absentminded, though she kept looking at Katerina Ivanovna, trying to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna had been able to get mourning Sonia was wearing dark brown, and Katerina Ivanovna had on her only dress, a dark striped cotton one. The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very successful. Listening to Sonia with dignity, Katerina Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity how Pyotr Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud to Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of Pyotr Petrovitch's position and standing to find himself in such 'extraordinary company, in spite of his devotion to her family and his old friendship with her father. 'That's why I am so grateful to you, Rodion Romanovitch, that you have not disdained my hospitality, even in such surroundings, she added almost aloud. 'But I am sure that it was only your special affection for my poor husband that has made you keep your promise. Then once more with pride and dignity she scanned her visitors, and suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man 'Wouldn't he have some more meat, and had he been given some wine? The old man made no answer and for a long while could not understand what he was asked, though his neighbours amused themselves by poking and shaking him. He simply gazed about him with his mouth open, which only increased the general mirth. 'What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr Petrovitch, I always had confidence in him, Katerina Ivanovna continued, 'and, of course, he is not like... with an extremely stern face she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply and loudly that the latter was quite disconcerted, 'not like your dressed up draggletails whom my father would not have taken as cooks into his kitchen, and my late husband would have done them honour if he had invited them in the goodness of his heart. 'Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did drink! cried the commissariat clerk, gulping down his twelfth glass of vodka. 'My late husband certainly had that weakness, and everyone knows it, Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, 'but he was a kind and honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it was his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people, and he drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe. Would you believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread cock in his pocket he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the children! 'A cock? Did you say a cock? shouted the commissariat clerk. Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in thought. 'No doubt you think, like everyone, that I was too severe with him, she went on, addressing Raskolnikov. 'But that's not so! He respected me, he respected me very much! He was a kindhearted man! And how sorry I was for him sometimes! He would sit in a corner and look at me, I used to feel so sorry for him, I used to want to be kind to him and then would think to myself 'Be kind to him and he will drink again,' it was only by severity that you could keep him within bounds. 'Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often, roared the commissariat clerk again, swallowing another glass of vodka. 'Some fools would be the better for a good drubbing, as well as having their hair pulled. I am not talking of my late husband now! Katerina Ivanovna snapped at him. The flush on her cheeks grew more and more marked, her chest heaved. In another minute she would have been ready to make a scene. Many of the visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They began poking the commissariat clerk and whispering something to him. They were evidently trying to egg him on. 'Allow me to ask what are you alluding to, began the clerk, 'that is to say, whose... about whom... did you say just now... But I don't care! That's nonsense! Widow! I forgive you.... Pass! And he took another drink of vodka. Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust. He only ate from politeness, just tasting the food that Katerina Ivanovna was continually putting on his plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He watched Sonia intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious and distressed she, too, foresaw that the dinner would not end peaceably, and saw with terror Katerina Ivanovna's growing irritation. She knew that she, Sonia, was the chief reason for the 'genteel' ladies' contemptuous treatment of Katerina Ivanovna's invitation. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna that the mother was positively offended at the invitation and had asked the question 'How could she let her daughter sit down beside that young person? Sonia had a feeling that Katerina Ivanovna had already heard this and an insult to Sonia meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than an insult to herself, her children, or her father, Sonia knew that Katerina Ivanovna would not be satisfied now, 'till she had shown those draggletails that they were both... To make matters worse someone passed Sonia, from the other end of the table, a plate with two hearts pierced with an arrow, cut out of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed crimson and at once said aloud across the table that the man who sent it was 'a drunken ass! Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same time deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna's haughtiness, and to restore the goodhumour of the company and raise herself in their esteem she began, apropos of nothing, telling a story about an acquaintance of hers 'Karl from the chemist's, who was driving one night in a cab, and that 'the cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very much begged him not to kill, and wept and clasped hands, and frightened and from fear pierced his heart. Though Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she observed at once that Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian the latter was still more offended, and she retorted that her 'Vater aus Berlin was a very important man, and always went with his hands in pockets. Katerina Ivanovna could not restrain herself and laughed so much that Amalia Ivanovna lost patience and could scarcely control herself. 'Listen to the owl! Katerina Ivanovna whispered at once, her goodhumour almost restored, 'she meant to say he kept his hands in his pockets, but she said he put his hands in people's pockets. (Coughcough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that all these Petersburg foreigners, the Germans especially, are all stupider than we! Can you fancy anyone of us telling how 'Karl from the chemist's' 'pierced his heart from fear' and that the idiot, instead of punishing the cabman, 'clasped his hands and wept, and much begged.' Ah, the fool! And you know she fancies it's very touching and does not suspect how stupid she is! To my thinking that drunken commissariat clerk is a great deal cleverer, anyway one can see that he has addled his brains with drink, but you know, these foreigners are always so well behaved and serious.... Look how she sits glaring! She is angry, haha! (Coughcoughcough.) Regaining her goodhumour, Katerina Ivanovna began at once telling Raskolnikov that when she had obtained her pension, she intended to open a school for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town T. This was the first time she had spoken to him of the project, and she launched out into the most alluring details. It suddenly appeared that Katerina Ivanovna had in her hands the very certificate of honour of which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in the tavern, when he told him that Katerina Ivanovna, his wife, had danced the shawl dance before the governor and other great personages on leaving school. This certificate of honour was obviously intended now to prove Katerina Ivanovna's right to open a boardingschool but she had armed herself with it chiefly with the object of overwhelming 'those two stuckup draggletails if they came to the dinner, and proving incontestably that Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble, 'she might even say aristocratic family, a colonel's daughter and was far superior to certain adventuresses who have been so much to the fore of late. The certificate of honour immediately passed into the hands of the drunken guests, and Katerina Ivanovna did not try to retain it, for it actually contained the statement en toutes lettres, that her father was of the rank of a major, and also a companion of an order, so that she really was almost the daughter of a colonel. Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to enlarge on the peaceful and happy life they would lead in T, on the gymnasium teachers whom she would engage to give lessons in her boardingschool, one a most respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot, who had taught Katerina Ivanovna herself in old days and was still living in T, and would no doubt teach in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of Sonia who would go with her to T and help her in all her plans. At this someone at the further end of the table gave a sudden guffaw. Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be disdainfully unaware of it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with conviction of Sonia's undoubted ability to assist her, of 'her gentleness, patience, devotion, generosity and good education, tapping Sonia on the cheek and kissing her warmly twice. Sonia flushed crimson, and Katerina Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing that she was 'nervous and silly, that she was too much upset, that it was time to finish, and as the dinner was over, it was time to hand round the tea. At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply aggrieved at taking no part in the conversation, and not being listened to, made one last effort, and with secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep and weighty observation, that 'in the future boardingschool she would have to pay particular attention to die Wsche, and that there certainly must be a good dame to look after the linen, and secondly that the young ladies must not novels at night read. Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and very tired, as well as heartily sick of the dinner, at once cut short Amalia Ivanovna, saying 'she knew nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it was the business of the laundry maid, and not of the directress of a highclass boardingschool to look after die Wsche, and as for novelreading, that was simply rudeness, and she begged her to be silent. Amalia Ivanovna fired up and getting angry observed that she only 'meant her good, and that 'she had meant her very good, and that 'it was long since she had paid her gold for the lodgings. Katerina Ivanovna at once 'set her down, saying that it was a lie to say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead husband was lying on the table, she had worried her about the lodgings. To this Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she had invited those ladies, but 'those ladies had not come, because those ladies are ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a lady. Katerina Ivanovna at once pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could not judge what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at once declared that her 'Vater aus Berlin was a very, very important man, and both hands in pockets went, and always used to say 'Poof! poof!' and she leapt up from the table to represent her father, sticking her hands in her pockets, puffing her cheeks, and uttering vague sounds resembling 'poof! poof! amid loud laughter from all the lodgers, who purposely encouraged Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a fight. But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once declared, so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably never had a father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had certainly once been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia Ivanovna turned as red as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina Ivanovna never had a father, 'but she had a Vater aus Berlin and that he wore a long coat and always said poofpoofpoof! Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her family was and that on that very certificate of honour it was stated in print that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna's fatherif she really had onewas probably some Finnish milkman, but that probably she never had a father at all, since it was still uncertain whether her name was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna. At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck the table with her fist, and shrieked that she was Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna, 'that her Vater was named Johann and that he was a burgomeister, and that Katerina Ivanovna's Vater was quite never a burgomeister. Katerina Ivanovna rose from her chair, and with a stern and apparently calm voice (though she was pale and her chest was heaving) observed that 'if she dared for one moment to set her contemptible wretch of a father on a level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna, would tear her cap off her head and trample it under foot. Amalia Ivanovna ran about the room, shouting at the top of her voice, that she was mistress of the house and that Katerina Ivanovna should leave the lodgings that minute then she rushed for some reason to collect the silver spoons from the table. There was a great outcry and uproar, the children began crying. Sonia ran to restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna shouted something about 'the yellow ticket, Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia away, and rushed at the landlady to carry out her threat. At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin appeared on the threshold. He stood scanning the party with severe and vigilant eyes. Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him. 'Pyotr Petrovitch, she cried, 'protect me... you at least! Make this foolish woman understand that she can't behave like this to a lady in misfortune... that there is a law for such things.... I'll go to the governorgeneral himself.... She shall answer for it.... Remembering my father's hospitality protect these orphans. 'Allow me, madam.... Allow me. Pyotr Petrovitch waved her off. 'Your papa as you are well aware I had not the honour of knowing (someone laughed aloud) 'and I do not intend to take part in your everlasting squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna.... I have come here to speak of my own affairs... and I want to have a word with your stepdaughter, Sofya... Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass. Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where Sonia was. Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could deny having enjoyed her father's hospitality. Though she had invented it herself, she believed in it firmly by this time. She was struck too by the businesslike, dry and even contemptuous menacing tone of Pyotr Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his entrance. Not only was this 'serious business man strikingly incongruous with the rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought him and that therefore something was going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing beside Sonia, moved aside to let him pass Pyotr Petrovitch did not seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in the doorway he did not come in, but stood still, listening with marked interest, almost wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed. 'Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it's a matter of some importance, Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company generally. 'I am glad indeed to find other persons present. Amalia Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna, he went on, addressing Sonia, who was very much surprised and already alarmed, 'immediately after your visit I found that a hundredrouble note was missing from my table, in the room of my friend Mr. Lebeziatnikov. If in any way whatever you know and will tell us where it is now, I assure you on my word of honour and call all present to witness that the matter shall end there. In the opposite case I shall be compelled to have recourse to very serious measures and then... you must blame yourself. Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the crying children were still. Sonia stood deadly pale, staring at Luzhin and unable to say a word. She seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed. 'Well, how is it to be then? asked Luzhin, looking intently at her. 'I don't know.... I know nothing about it, Sonia articulated faintly at last. 'No, you know nothing? Luzhin repeated and again he paused for some seconds. 'Think a moment, mademoiselle, he began severely, but still, as it were, admonishing her. 'Reflect, I am prepared to give you time for consideration. Kindly observe this if I were not so entirely convinced I should not, you may be sure, with my experience venture to accuse you so directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation before witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a certain sense be made responsible, I am aware of that. This morning I changed for my own purposes several fivepercent securities for the sum of approximately three thousand roubles. The account is noted down in my pocketbook. On my return home I proceeded to count the moneyas Mr. Lebeziatnikov will bear witnessand after counting two thousand three hundred roubles I put the rest in my pocketbook in my coat pocket. About five hundred roubles remained on the table and among them three notes of a hundred roubles each. At that moment you entered (at my invitation)and all the time you were present you were exceedingly embarrassed so that three times you jumped up in the middle of the conversation and tried to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov can bear witness to this. You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will not refuse to confirm my statement that I invited you through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, solely in order to discuss with you the hopeless and destitute position of your relative, Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I was unable to attend), and the advisability of getting up something of the nature of a subscription, lottery or the like, for her benefit. You thanked me and even shed tears. I describe all this as it took place, primarily to recall it to your mind and secondly to show you that not the slightest detail has escaped my recollection. Then I took a tenrouble note from the table and handed it to you by way of first instalment on my part for the benefit of your relative. Mr. Lebeziatnikov saw all this. Then I accompanied you to the dooryou being still in the same state of embarrassmentafter which, being left alone with Mr. Lebeziatnikov I talked to him for ten minutesthen Mr. Lebeziatnikov went out and I returned to the table with the money lying on it, intending to count it and to put it aside, as I proposed doing before. To my surprise one hundredrouble note had disappeared. Kindly consider the position. Mr. Lebeziatnikov I cannot suspect. I am ashamed to allude to such a supposition. I cannot have made a mistake in my reckoning, for the minute before your entrance I had finished my accounts and found the total correct. You will admit that recollecting your embarrassment, your eagerness to get away and the fact that you kept your hands for some time on the table, and taking into consideration your social position and the habits associated with it, I was, so to say, with horror and positively against my will, compelled to entertain a suspiciona cruel, but justifiable suspicion! I will add further and repeat that in spite of my positive conviction, I realise that I run a certain risk in making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it pass. I have taken action and I will tell you why solely, madam, solely, owing to your black ingratitude! Why! I invite you for the benefit of your destitute relative, I present you with my donation of ten roubles and you, on the spot, repay me for all that with such an action. It is too bad! You need a lesson. Reflect! Moreover, like a true friend I beg youand you could have no better friend at this momentthink what you are doing, otherwise I shall be immovable! Well, what do you say? 'I have taken nothing, Sonia whispered in terror, 'you gave me ten roubles, here it is, take it. Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, untied a corner of it, took out the tenrouble note and gave it to Luzhin. 'And the hundred roubles you do not confess to taking? he insisted reproachfully, not taking the note. Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her with such awful, stern, ironical, hostile eyes. She looked at Raskolnikov... he stood against the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes. 'Good God! broke from Sonia. 'Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and therefore I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter, Luzhin said softly and even kindly. 'Gott der Barmherzige! I knew she was the thief, cried Amalia Ivanovna, throwing up her hands. 'You knew it? Luzhin caught her up, 'then I suppose you had some reason before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses. There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in movement. 'What! cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position, and she rushed at Luzhin. 'What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the wretches, the wretches! And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms round her and held her as in a vise. 'Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl! Give it to me! Give me the ten roubles at oncehere! And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it up and flung it straight into Luzhin's face. It hit him in the eye and fell on the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr Petrovitch lost his temper. 'Hold that mad woman! he shouted. At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov, appeared in the doorway, among them the two ladies. 'What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot! shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. 'You are an idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his money! Sonia a thief! Why, she'd give away her last penny! and Katerina Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. 'Did you ever see such an idiot? she turned from side to side. 'And you too? she suddenly saw the landlady, 'and you too, sausage eater, you declare that she is a thief, you trashy Prussian hen's leg in a crinoline! She hasn't been out of this room she came straight from you, you wretch, and sat down beside me, everyone saw her. She sat here, by Rodion Romanovitch. Search her! Since she's not left the room, the money would have to be on her! Search her, search her! But if you don't find it, then excuse me, my dear fellow, you'll answer for it! I'll go to our Sovereign, to our Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar himself, and throw myself at his feet, today, this minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me in! Do you think they wouldn't? You're wrong, I will get in! I will get in! You reckoned on her meekness! You relied upon that! But I am not so submissive, let me tell you! You've gone too far yourself. Search her, search her! And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him towards Sonia. 'I am ready, I'll be responsible... but calm yourself, madam, calm yourself. I see that you are not so submissive!... Well, well, but as to that... Luzhin muttered, 'that ought to be before the police... though indeed there are witnesses enough as it is.... I am ready.... But in any case it's difficult for a man... on account of her sex.... But with the help of Amalia Ivanovna... though, of course, it's not the way to do things.... How is it to be done? 'As you will! Let anyone who likes search her! cried Katerina Ivanovna. 'Sonia, turn out your pockets! See! Look, monster, the pocket is empty, here was her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look! D'you see, d'you see? And Katerina Ivanovna turnedor rather snatchedboth pockets inside out. But from the right pocket a piece of paper flew out and describing a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin's feet. Everyone saw it, several cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped down, picked up the paper in two fingers, lifted it where all could see it and opened it. It was a hundredrouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch held up the note showing it to everyone. 'Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police! yelled Amalia Ivanovna. 'They must to Siberia be sent! Away! Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was silent, keeping his eyes fixed on Sonia, except for an occasional rapid glance at Luzhin. Sonia stood still, as though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel surprise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks she uttered a cry and hid her face in her hands. 'No, it wasn't I! I didn't take it! I know nothing about it, she cried with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her from all the world. 'Sonia! Sonia! I don't believe it! You see, I don't believe it! she cried in the face of the obvious fact, swaying her to and fro in her arms like a baby, kissing her face continually, then snatching at her hands and kissing them, too, 'you took it! How stupid these people are! Oh dear! You are fools, fools, she cried, addressing the whole room, 'you don't know, you don't know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! She take it, she? She'd sell her last rag, she'd go barefoot to help you if you needed it, that's what she is! She has the yellow passport because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, husband! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you! Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion Romanovitch, why don't you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too? You are not worth her little finger, all of you together! Good God! Defend her now, at least! The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to produce a great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted, consumptive face, the parched bloodstained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained as a child's, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch at any rate was at once moved to compassion. 'Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect upon you! he cried impressively, 'no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being an instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty, so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The first step? You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it.... But how could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen, he addressed the whole company, 'gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to say, commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in spite of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be a lesson to you for the future, he said, addressing Sonia, 'and I will carry the matter no further. Enough! Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the fire in Raskolnikov's seemed ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing and hugging Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were embracing Sonia on all sides, and Polenkathough she did not fully understand what was wrongwas drowned in tears and shaking with sobs, as she hid her pretty little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia's shoulder. 'How vile! a loud voice cried suddenly in the doorway. Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly. 'What vileness! Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring him straight in the face. Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive startall noticed it and recalled it afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode into the room. 'And you dared to call me as witness? he said, going up to Pyotr Petrovitch. 'What do you mean? What are you talking about? muttered Luzhin. 'I mean that you... are a slanderer, that's what my words mean! Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking sternly at him with his shortsighted eyes. He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently at him, as though seizing and weighing each word. Again there was a silence. Pyotr Petrovitch indeed seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment. 'If you mean that for me,... he began, stammering. 'But what's the matter with you? Are you out of your mind? 'I'm in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how vile! I have heard everything. I kept waiting on purpose to understand it, for I must own even now it is not quite logical.... What you have done it all for I can't understand. 'Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in your nonsensical riddles! Or maybe you are drunk! 'You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I am not! I never touch vodka, for it's against my convictions. Would you believe it, he, he himself, with his own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundredrouble noteI saw it, I was a witness, I'll take my oath! He did it, he! repeated Lebeziatnikov, addressing all. 'Are you crazy, milksop? squealed Luzhin. 'She is herself before youshe herself here declared just now before everyone that I gave her only ten roubles. How could I have given it to her? 'I saw it, I saw it, Lebeziatnikov repeated, 'and though it is against my principles, I am ready this very minute to take any oath you like before the court, for I saw how you slipped it in her pocket. Only like a fool I thought you did it out of kindness! When you were saying goodbye to her at the door, while you held her hand in one hand, with the other, the left, you slipped the note into her pocket. I saw it, I saw it! Luzhin turned pale. 'What lies! he cried impudently, 'why, how could you, standing by the window, see the note? You fancied it with your shortsighted eyes. You are raving! 'No, I didn't fancy it. And though I was standing some way off, I saw it all. And though it certainly would be hard to distinguish a note from the windowthat's trueI knew for certain that it was a hundredrouble note, because, when you were going to give Sofya Semyonovna ten roubles, you took up from the table a hundredrouble note (I saw it because I was standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so that I did not forget you had it in your hand). You folded it and kept it in your hand all the time. I didn't think of it again until, when you were getting up, you changed it from your right hand to your left and nearly dropped it! I noticed it because the same idea struck me again, that you meant to do her a kindness without my seeing. You can fancy how I watched you and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her pocket. I saw it, I saw it, I'll take my oath. Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all hands chiefly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone. They all crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to Lebeziatnikov. 'I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her part! She is an orphan. God has sent you! Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her knees before him. 'A pack of nonsense! yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, 'it's all nonsense you've been talking! 'An idea struck you, you didn't think, you noticed'what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this...? 'What for? That's what I can't understand, but that what I am telling you is the fact, that's certain! So far from my being mistaken, you infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing your hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of private benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that you really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps, too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she finds a whole hundredrouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent people are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that way.) Then the idea struck me, too, that you wanted to test her, to see whether, when she found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too, that you wanted to avoid thanks and that, as the saying is, your right hand should not know... something of that sort, in fact. I thought of so many possibilities that I put off considering it, but still thought it indelicate to show you that I knew your secret. But another idea struck me again that Sofya Semyonovna might easily lose the money before she noticed it, that was why I decided to come in here to call her out of the room and to tell her that you put a hundred roubles in her pocket. But on my way I went first to Madame Kobilatnikov's to take them the 'General Treatise on the Positive Method' and especially to recommend Piderit's article (and also Wagner's) then I come on here and what a state of things I find! Now could I, could I, have all these ideas and reflections if I had not seen you put the hundredrouble note in her pocket? When Lebeziatnikov finished his longwinded harangue with the logical deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed from his face. He could not, alas, even express himself correctly in Russian, though he knew no other language, so that he was quite exhausted, almost emaciated after this heroic exploit. But his speech produced a powerful effect. He had spoken with such vehemence, with such conviction that everyone obviously believed him. Pyotr Petrovitch felt that things were going badly with him. 'What is it to do with me if silly ideas did occur to you? he shouted, 'that's no evidence. You may have dreamt it, that's all! And I tell you, you are lying, sir. You are lying and slandering from some spite against me, simply from pique, because I did not agree with your freethinking, godless, social propositions! But this retort did not benefit Pyotr Petrovitch. Murmurs of disapproval were heard on all sides. 'Ah, that's your line now, is it! cried Lebeziatnikov, 'that's nonsense! Call the police and I'll take my oath! There's only one thing I can't understand what made him risk such a contemptible action. Oh, pitiful, despicable man! 'I can explain why he risked such an action, and if necessary, I, too, will swear to it, Raskolnikov said at last in a firm voice, and he stepped forward. He appeared to be firm and composed. Everyone felt clearly, from the very look of him that he really knew about it and that the mystery would be solved. 'Now I can explain it all to myself, said Raskolnikov, addressing Lebeziatnikov. 'From the very beginning of the business, I suspected that there was some scoundrelly intrigue at the bottom of it. I began to suspect it from some special circumstances known to me only, which I will explain at once to everyone they account for everything. Your valuable evidence has finally made everything clear to me. I beg all, all to listen. This gentleman (he pointed to Luzhin) was recently engaged to be married to a young ladymy sister, Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov. But coming to Petersburg he quarrelled with me, the day before yesterday, at our first meeting and I drove him out of my roomI have two witnesses to prove it. He is a very spiteful man.... The day before yesterday I did not know that he was staying here, in your room, and that consequently on the very day we quarrelledthe day before yesterdayhe saw me give Katerina Ivanovna some money for the funeral, as a friend of the late Mr. Marmeladov. He at once wrote a note to my mother and informed her that I had given away all my money, not to Katerina Ivanovna but to Sofya Semyonovna, and referred in a most contemptible way to the... character of Sofya Semyonovna, that is, hinted at the character of my attitude to Sofya Semyonovna. All this you understand was with the object of dividing me from my mother and sister, by insinuating that I was squandering on unworthy objects the money which they had sent me and which was all they had. Yesterday evening, before my mother and sister and in his presence, I declared that I had given the money to Katerina Ivanovna for the funeral and not to Sofya Semyonovna and that I had no acquaintance with Sofya Semyonovna and had never seen her before, indeed. At the same time I added that he, Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, with all his virtues, was not worth Sofya Semyonovna's little finger, though he spoke so ill of her. To his questionwould I let Sofya Semyonovna sit down beside my sister, I answered that I had already done so that day. Irritated that my mother and sister were unwilling to quarrel with me at his insinuations, he gradually began being unpardonably rude to them. A final rupture took place and he was turned out of the house. All this happened yesterday evening. Now I beg your special attention consider if he had now succeeded in proving that Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would have shown to my mother and sister that he was almost right in his suspicions, that he had reason to be angry at my putting my sister on a level with Sofya Semyonovna, that, in attacking me, he was protecting and preserving the honour of my sister, his betrothed. In fact he might even, through all this, have been able to estrange me from my family, and no doubt he hoped to be restored to favour with them to say nothing of revenging himself on me personally, for he has grounds for supposing that the honour and happiness of Sofya Semyonovna are very precious to me. That was what he was working for! That's how I understand it. That's the whole reason for it and there can be no other! It was like this, or somewhat like this, that Raskolnikov wound up his speech which was followed very attentively, though often interrupted by exclamations from his audience. But in spite of interruptions he spoke clearly, calmly, exactly, firmly. His decisive voice, his tone of conviction and his stern face made a great impression on everyone. 'Yes, yes, that's it, Lebeziatnikov assented gleefully, 'that must be it, for he asked me, as soon as Sofya Semyonovna came into our room, whether you were here, whether I had seen you among Katerina Ivanovna's guests. He called me aside to the window and asked me in secret. It was essential for him that you should be here! That's it, that's it! Luzhin smiled contemptuously and did not speak. But he was very pale. He seemed to be deliberating on some means of escape. Perhaps he would have been glad to give up everything and get away, but at the moment this was scarcely possible. It would have implied admitting the truth of the accusations brought against him. Moreover, the company, which had already been excited by drink, was now too much stirred to allow it. The commissariat clerk, though indeed he had not grasped the whole position, was shouting louder than anyone and was making some suggestions very unpleasant to Luzhin. But not all those present were drunk lodgers came in from all the rooms. The three Poles were tremendously excited and were continually shouting at him 'The pan is a lajdak! and muttering threats in Polish. Sonia had been listening with strained attention, though she too seemed unable to grasp it all she seemed as though she had just returned to consciousness. She did not take her eyes off Raskolnikov, feeling that all her safety lay in him. Katerina Ivanovna breathed hard and painfully and seemed fearfully exhausted. Amalia Ivanovna stood looking more stupid than anyone, with her mouth wide open, unable to make out what had happened. She only saw that Pyotr Petrovitch had somehow come to grief. Raskolnikov was attempting to speak again, but they did not let him. Everyone was crowding round Luzhin with threats and shouts of abuse. But Pyotr Petrovitch was not intimidated. Seeing that his accusation of Sonia had completely failed, he had recourse to insolence 'Allow me, gentlemen, allow me! Don't squeeze, let me pass! he said, making his way through the crowd. 'And no threats, if you please! I assure you it will be useless, you will gain nothing by it. On the contrary, you'll have to answer, gentlemen, for violently obstructing the course of justice. The thief has been more than unmasked, and I shall prosecute. Our judges are not so blind and... not so drunk, and will not believe the testimony of two notorious infidels, agitators, and atheists, who accuse me from motives of personal revenge which they are foolish enough to admit.... Yes, allow me to pass! 'Don't let me find a trace of you in my room! Kindly leave at once, and everything is at an end between us! When I think of the trouble I've been taking, the way I've been expounding... all this fortnight! 'I told you myself today that I was going, when you tried to keep me now I will simply add that you are a fool. I advise you to see a doctor for your brains and your short sight. Let me pass, gentlemen! He forced his way through. But the commissariat clerk was unwilling to let him off so easily he picked up a glass from the table, brandished it in the air and flung it at Pyotr Petrovitch but the glass flew straight at Amalia Ivanovna. She screamed, and the clerk, overbalancing, fell heavily under the table. Pyotr Petrovitch made his way to his room and half an hour later had left the house. Sonia, timid by nature, had felt before that day that she could be illtreated more easily than anyone, and that she could be wronged with impunity. Yet till that moment she had fancied that she might escape misfortune by care, gentleness and submissiveness before everyone. Her disappointment was too great. She could, of course, bear with patience and almost without murmur anything, even this. But for the first minute she felt it too bitter. In spite of her triumph and her justificationwhen her first terror and stupefaction had passed and she could understand it all clearlythe feeling of her helplessness and of the wrong done to her made her heart throb with anguish and she was overcome with hysterical weeping. At last, unable to bear any more, she rushed out of the room and ran home, almost immediately after Luzhin's departure. When amidst loud laughter the glass flew at Amalia Ivanovna, it was more than the landlady could endure. With a shriek she rushed like a fury at Katerina Ivanovna, considering her to blame for everything. 'Out of my lodgings! At once! Quick march! And with these words she began snatching up everything she could lay her hands on that belonged to Katerina Ivanovna, and throwing it on the floor. Katerina Ivanovna, pale, almost fainting, and gasping for breath, jumped up from the bed where she had sunk in exhaustion and darted at Amalia Ivanovna. But the battle was too unequal the landlady waved her away like a feather. 'What! As though that godless calumny was not enoughthis vile creature attacks me! What! On the day of my husband's funeral I am turned out of my lodging! After eating my bread and salt she turns me into the street, with my orphans! Where am I to go? wailed the poor woman, sobbing and gasping. 'Good God! she cried with flashing eyes, 'is there no justice upon earth? Whom should you protect if not us orphans? We shall see! There is law and justice on earth, there is, I will find it! Wait a bit, godless creature! Polenka, stay with the children, I'll come back. Wait for me, if you have to wait in the street. We will see whether there is justice on earth! And throwing over her head that green shawl which Marmeladov had mentioned to Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna squeezed her way through the disorderly and drunken crowd of lodgers who still filled the room, and, wailing and tearful, she ran into the streetwith a vague intention of going at once somewhere to find justice. Polenka with the two little ones in her arms crouched, terrified, on the trunk in the corner of the room, where she waited trembling for her mother to come back. Amalia Ivanovna raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting and throwing everything she came across on the floor. The lodgers talked incoherently, some commented to the best of their ability on what had happened, others quarrelled and swore at one another, while others struck up a song.... 'Now it's time for me to go, thought Raskolnikov. 'Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you'll say now! And he set off in the direction of Sonia's lodgings. Raskolnikov had been a vigorous and active champion of Sonia against Luzhin, although he had such a load of horror and anguish in his own heart. But having gone through so much in the morning, he found a sort of relief in a change of sensations, apart from the strong personal feeling which impelled him to defend Sonia. He was agitated too, especially at some moments, by the thought of his approaching interview with Sonia he had to tell her who had killed Lizaveta. He knew the terrible suffering it would be to him and, as it were, brushed away the thought of it. So when he cried as he left Katerina Ivanovna's, 'Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you'll say now! he was still superficially excited, still vigorous and defiant from his triumph over Luzhin. But, strange to say, by the time he reached Sonia's lodging, he felt a sudden impotence and fear. He stood still in hesitation at the door, asking himself the strange question 'Must he tell her who killed Lizaveta? It was a strange question because he felt at the very time not only that he could not help telling her, but also that he could not put off the telling. He did not yet know why it must be so, he only felt it, and the agonising sense of his impotence before the inevitable almost crushed him. To cut short his hesitation and suffering, he quickly opened the door and looked at Sonia from the doorway. She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov she got up at once and came to meet him as though she were expecting him. 'What would have become of me but for you? she said quickly, meeting him in the middle of the room. Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was what she had been waiting for. Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the chair from which she had only just risen. She stood facing him, two steps away, just as she had done the day before. 'Well, Sonia? he said, and felt that his voice was trembling, 'it was all due to 'your social position and the habits associated with it.' Did you understand that just now? Her face showed her distress. 'Only don't talk to me as you did yesterday, she interrupted him. 'Please don't begin it. There is misery enough without that. She made haste to smile, afraid that he might not like the reproach. 'I was silly to come away from there. What is happening there now? I wanted to go back directly, but I kept thinking that... you would come. He told her that Amalia Ivanovna was turning them out of their lodging and that Katerina Ivanovna had run off somewhere 'to seek justice. 'My God! cried Sonia, 'let's go at once.... And she snatched up her cape. 'It's everlastingly the same thing! said Raskolnikov, irritably. 'You've no thought except for them! Stay a little with me. 'But... Katerina Ivanovna? 'You won't lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be sure, she'll come to you herself since she has run out, he added peevishly. 'If she doesn't find you here, you'll be blamed for it.... Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov was silent, gazing at the floor and deliberating. 'This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you, he began, not looking at Sonia, 'but if he had wanted to, if it had suited his plans, he would have sent you to prison if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and me. Ah? 'Yes, she assented in a faint voice. 'Yes, she repeated, preoccupied and distressed. 'But I might easily not have been there. And it was quite an accident Lebeziatnikov's turning up. Sonia was silent. 'And if you'd gone to prison, what then? Do you remember what I said yesterday? Again she did not answer. He waited. 'I thought you would cry out again 'don't speak of it, leave off.' Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a forced one. 'What, silence again? he asked a minute later. 'We must talk about something, you know. It would be interesting for me to know how you would decide a certain 'problem' as Lebeziatnikov would say. (He was beginning to lose the thread.) 'No, really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had known all Luzhin's intentions beforehand. Known, that is, for a fact, that they would be the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children and yourself thrown insince you don't count yourself for anythingPolenka too... for she'll go the same way. Well, if suddenly it all depended on your decision whether he or they should go on living, that is whether Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked things, or Katerina Ivanovna should die? How would you decide which of them was to die? I ask you? Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was something peculiar in this hesitating question, which seemed approaching something in a roundabout way. 'I felt that you were going to ask some question like that, she said, looking inquisitively at him. 'I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered? 'Why do you ask about what could not happen? said Sonia reluctantly. 'Then it would be better for Luzhin to go on living and doing wicked things? You haven't dared to decide even that! 'But I can't know the Divine Providence.... And why do you ask what can't be answered? What's the use of such foolish questions? How could it happen that it should depend on my decisionwho has made me a judge to decide who is to live and who is not to live? 'Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in it, there is no doing anything, Raskolnikov grumbled morosely. 'You'd better say straight out what you want! Sonia cried in distress. 'You are leading up to something again.... Can you have come simply to torture me? She could not control herself and began crying bitterly. He looked at her in gloomy misery. Five minutes passed. 'Of course you're right, Sonia, he said softly at last. He was suddenly changed. His tone of assumed arrogance and helpless defiance was gone. Even his voice was suddenly weak. 'I told you yesterday that I was not coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first thing I've said is to ask forgiveness.... I said that about Luzhin and Providence for my own sake. I was asking forgiveness, Sonia.... He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete in his pale smile. He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands. And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred for Sonia passed through his heart. As it were wondering and frightened of this sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at her but he met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes fixed on him there was love in them his hatred vanished like a phantom. It was not the real feeling he had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant that that minute had come. He hid his face in his hands again and bowed his head. Suddenly he turned pale, got up from his chair, looked at Sonia, and without uttering a word sat down mechanically on her bed. His sensations that moment were terribly like the moment when he had stood over the old woman with the axe in his hand and felt that 'he must not lose another minute. 'What's the matter? asked Sonia, dreadfully frightened. He could not utter a word. This was not at all, not at all the way he had intended to 'tell and he did not understand what was happening to him now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the bed beside him and waited, not taking her eyes off him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It was unendurable he turned his deadly pale face to her. His lips worked, helplessly struggling to utter something. A pang of terror passed through Sonia's heart. 'What's the matter? she repeated, drawing a little away from him. 'Nothing, Sonia, don't be frightened.... It's nonsense. It really is nonsense, if you think of it, he muttered, like a man in delirium. 'Why have I come to torture you? he added suddenly, looking at her. 'Why, really? I keep asking myself that question, Sonia.... He had perhaps been asking himself that question a quarter of an hour before, but now he spoke helplessly, hardly knowing what he said and feeling a continual tremor all over. 'Oh, how you are suffering! she muttered in distress, looking intently at him. 'It's all nonsense.... Listen, Sonia. He suddenly smiled, a pale helpless smile for two seconds. 'You remember what I meant to tell you yesterday? Sonia waited uneasily. 'I said as I went away that perhaps I was saying goodbye for ever, but that if I came today I would tell you who... who killed Lizaveta. She began trembling all over. 'Well, here I've come to tell you. 'Then you really meant it yesterday? she whispered with difficulty. 'How do you know? she asked quickly, as though suddenly regaining her reason. Sonia's face grew paler and paler, and she breathed painfully. 'I know. She paused a minute. 'Have they found him? she asked timidly. 'No. 'Then how do you know about it? she asked again, hardly audibly and again after a minute's pause. He turned to her and looked very intently at her. 'Guess, he said, with the same distorted helpless smile. A shudder passed over her. 'But you... why do you frighten me like this? she said, smiling like a child. 'I must be a great friend of his... since I know, Raskolnikov went on, still gazing into her face, as though he could not turn his eyes away. 'He... did not mean to kill that Lizaveta... he... killed her accidentally.... He meant to kill the old woman when she was alone and he went there... and then Lizaveta came in... he killed her too. Another awful moment passed. Both still gazed at one another. 'You can't guess, then? he asked suddenly, feeling as though he were flinging himself down from a steeple. 'Nno... whispered Sonia. 'Take a good look. As soon as he had said this again, the same familiar sensation froze his heart. He looked at her and all at once seemed to see in her face the face of Lizaveta. He remembered clearly the expression in Lizaveta's face, when he approached her with the axe and she stepped back to the wall, putting out her hand, with childish terror in her face, looking as little children do when they begin to be frightened of something, looking intently and uneasily at what frightens them, shrinking back and holding out their little hands on the point of crying. Almost the same thing happened now to Sonia. With the same helplessness and the same terror, she looked at him for a while and, suddenly putting out her left hand, pressed her fingers faintly against his breast and slowly began to get up from the bed, moving further from him and keeping her eyes fixed even more immovably on him. Her terror infected him. The same fear showed itself on his face. In the same way he stared at her and almost with the same childish smile. 'Have you guessed? he whispered at last. 'Good God! broke in an awful wail from her bosom. She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the pillows, but a moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands and, gripping them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his face again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she tried to look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope there was no doubt remaining it was all true! Later on, indeed, when she recalled that moment, she thought it strange and wondered why she had seen at once that there was no doubt. She could not have said, for instance, that she had foreseen something of the sortand yet now, as soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had really foreseen this very thing. 'Stop, Sonia, enough! don't torture me, he begged her miserably. It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought of telling her, but this is how it happened. She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was doing, and, wringing her hands, walked into the middle of the room but quickly went back and sat down again beside him, her shoulder almost touching his. All of a sudden she started as though she had been stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on her knees before him, she did not know why. 'What have you donewhat have you done to yourself? she said in despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him, and held him tightly. Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a mournful smile. 'You are a strange girl, Soniayou kiss me and hug me when I tell you about that.... You don't think what you are doing. 'There is no oneno one in the whole world now so unhappy as you! she cried in a frenzy, not hearing what he said, and she suddenly broke into violent hysterical weeping. A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes and hung on his eyelashes. 'Then you won't leave me, Sonia? he said, looking at her almost with hope. 'No, no, never, nowhere! cried Sonia. 'I will follow you, I will follow you everywhere. Oh, my God! Oh, how miserable I am!... Why, why didn't I know you before! Why didn't you come before? Oh, dear! 'Here I have come. 'Yes, now! What's to be done now?... Together, together! she repeated as it were unconsciously, and she hugged him again. 'I'll follow you to Siberia! He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost haughty smile came to his lips. 'Perhaps I don't want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia, he said. Sonia looked at him quickly. Again after her first passionate, agonising sympathy for the unhappy man the terrible idea of the murder overwhelmed her. In his changed tone she seemed to hear the murderer speaking. She looked at him bewildered. She knew nothing as yet, why, how, with what object it had been. Now all these questions rushed at once into her mind. And again she could not believe it 'He, he is a murderer! Could it be true? 'What's the meaning of it? Where am I? she said in complete bewilderment, as though still unable to recover herself. 'How could you, you, a man like you.... How could you bring yourself to it?... What does it mean? 'Oh, wellto plunder. Leave off, Sonia, he answered wearily, almost with vexation. Sonia stood as though struck dumb, but suddenly she cried 'You were hungry! It was... to help your mother? Yes? 'No, Sonia, no, he muttered, turning away and hanging his head. 'I was not so hungry.... I certainly did want to help my mother, but... that's not the real thing either.... Don't torture me, Sonia. Sonia clasped her hands. 'Could it, could it all be true? Good God, what a truth! Who could believe it? And how could you give away your last farthing and yet rob and murder! Ah, she cried suddenly, 'that money you gave Katerina Ivanovna... that money.... Can that money... 'No, Sonia, he broke in hurriedly, 'that money was not it. Don't worry yourself! That money my mother sent me and it came when I was ill, the day I gave it to you.... Razumihin saw it... he received it for me.... That money was minemy own. Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her utmost to comprehend. 'And that money.... I don't even know really whether there was any money, he added softly, as though reflecting. 'I took a purse off her neck, made of chamois leather... a purse stuffed full of something... but I didn't look in it I suppose I hadn't time.... And the thingschains and trinketsI buried under a stone with the purse next morning in a yard off the V Prospect. They are all there now.... Sonia strained every nerve to listen. 'Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing? she asked quickly, catching at a straw. 'I don't know.... I haven't yet decided whether to take that money or not, he said, musing again and, seeming to wake up with a start, he gave a brief ironical smile. 'Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh? The thought flashed through Sonia's mind, wasn't he mad? But she dismissed it at once. 'No, it was something else. She could make nothing of it, nothing. 'Do you know, Sonia, he said suddenly with conviction, 'let me tell you if I'd simply killed because I was hungry, laying stress on every word and looking enigmatically but sincerely at her, 'I should be happy now. You must believe that! What would it matter to you, he cried a moment later with a sort of despair, 'what would it matter to you if I were to confess that I did wrong? What do you gain by such a stupid triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I've come to you today? Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak. 'I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all I have left. 'Go where? asked Sonia timidly. 'Not to steal and not to murder, don't be anxious, he smiled bitterly. 'We are so different.... And you know, Sonia, it's only now, only this moment that I understand where I asked you to go with me yesterday! Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I asked you for one thing, I came to you for one thingnot to leave me. You won't leave me, Sonia? She squeezed his hand. 'And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know? he cried a minute later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her. 'Here you expect an explanation from me, Sonia you are sitting and waiting for it, I see that. But what can I tell you? You won't understand and will only suffer misery... on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me again. Why do you do it? Because I couldn't bear my burden and have come to throw it on another you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can you love such a mean wretch? 'But aren't you suffering, too? cried Sonia. Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his heart, and again for an instant softened it. 'Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may explain a great deal. I have come because I am bad. There are men who wouldn't have come. But I am a coward and... a mean wretch. But... never mind! That's not the point. I must speak now, but I don't know how to begin. He paused and sank into thought. 'Ach, we are so different, he cried again, 'we are not alike. And why, why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that. 'No, no, it was a good thing you came, cried Sonia. 'It's better I should know, far better! He looked at her with anguish. 'What if it were really that? he said, as though reaching a conclusion. 'Yes, that's what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her.... Do you understand now? 'Nno, Sonia whispered navely and timidly. 'Only speak, speak, I shall understand, I shall understand in myself! she kept begging him. 'You'll understand? Very well, we shall see! He paused and was for some time lost in meditation. 'It was like this I asked myself one day this questionwhat if Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you understand). Well, would he have brought himself to that if there had been no other means? Wouldn't he have felt a pang at its being so far from monumental and... and sinful, too? Well, I must tell you that I worried myself fearfully over that 'question' so that I was awfully ashamed when I guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it would not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have struck him that it was not monumental... that he would not have seen that there was anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had no other way, he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it! Well, I too... left off thinking about it... murdered her, following his example. And that's exactly how it was! Do you think it funny? Yes, Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps that's just how it was. Sonia did not think it at all funny. 'You had better tell me straight out... without examples, she begged, still more timidly and scarcely audibly. He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her hands. 'You are right again, Sonia. Of course that's all nonsense, it's almost all talk! You see, you know of course that my mother has scarcely anything, my sister happened to have a good education and was condemned to drudge as a governess. All their hopes were centered on me. I was a student, but I couldn't keep myself at the university and was forced for a time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in ten or twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be some sort of teacher or clerk with a salary of a thousand roubles (he repeated it as though it were a lesson) 'and by that time my mother would be worn out with grief and anxiety and I could not succeed in keeping her in comfort while my sister... well, my sister might well have fared worse! And it's a hard thing to pass everything by all one's life, to turn one's back upon everything, to forget one's mother and decorously accept the insults inflicted on one's sister. Why should one? When one has buried them to burden oneself with otherswife and childrenand to leave them again without a farthing? So I resolved to gain possession of the old woman's money and to use it for my first years without worrying my mother, to keep myself at the university and for a little while after leaving itand to do this all on a broad, thorough scale, so as to build up a completely new career and enter upon a new life of independence.... Well... that's all.... Well, of course in killing the old woman I did wrong.... Well, that's enough. He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaustion and let his head sink. 'Oh, that's not it, that's not it, Sonia cried in distress. 'How could one... no, that's not right, not right. 'You see yourself that it's not right. But I've spoken truly, it's the truth. 'As though that could be the truth! Good God! 'I've only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful creature. 'A human beinga louse! 'I too know it wasn't a louse, he answered, looking strangely at her. 'But I am talking nonsense, Sonia, he added. 'I've been talking nonsense a long time.... That's not it, you are right there. There were quite, quite other causes for it! I haven't talked to anyone for so long, Sonia.... My head aches dreadfully now. His eyes shone with feverish brilliance. He was almost delirious an uneasy smile strayed on his lips. His terrible exhaustion could be seen through his excitement. Sonia saw how he was suffering. She too was growing dizzy. And he talked so strangely it seemed somehow comprehensible, but yet... 'But how, how! Good God! And she wrung her hands in despair. 'No, Sonia, that's not it, he began again suddenly, raising his head, as though a new and sudden train of thought had struck and as it were roused him'that's not it! Better... imagineyes, it's certainly betterimagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive and... well, perhaps with a tendency to insanity. (Let's have it all out at once! They've talked of madness already, I noticed.) I told you just now I could not keep myself at the university. But do you know that perhaps I might have done? My mother would have sent me what I needed for the fees and I could have earned enough for clothes, boots and food, no doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rouble. Razumihin works! But I turned sulky and wouldn't. (Yes, sulkiness, that's the right word for it!) I sat in my room like a spider. You've been in my den, you've seen it.... And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind? Ah, how I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn't go out of it! I wouldn't on purpose! I didn't go out for days together, and I wouldn't work, I wouldn't even eat, I just lay there doing nothing. If Nastasya brought me anything, I ate it, if she didn't, I went all day without I wouldn't ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At night I had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn't earn money for candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold my books and the dust lies an inch thick on the notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and thinking. And I kept thinking.... And I had dreams all the time, strange dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only then I began to fancy that... No, that's not it! Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept asking myself then why am I so stupid that if others are stupidand I know they areyet I won't be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for everyone to get wiser it will take too long.... Afterwards I understood that that would never come to pass, that men won't change and that nobody can alter it and that it's not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that's so. That's the law of their nature, Sonia,... that's so!... And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now and so it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it! Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he no longer cared whether she understood or not. The fever had complete hold of him he was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too long without talking to anyone). Sonia felt that his gloomy creed had become his faith and code. 'I divined then, Sonia, he went on eagerly, 'that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful one has only to dare! Then for the first time in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no one had ever thought of before me, no one! I saw clear as daylight how strange it is that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to go straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I... I wanted to have the daring... and I killed her. I only wanted to have the daring, Sonia! That was the whole cause of it! 'Oh hush, hush, cried Sonia, clasping her hands. 'You turned away from God and God has smitten you, has given you over to the devil! 'Then Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark and all this became clear to me, was it a temptation of the devil, eh? 'Hush, don't laugh, blasphemer! You don't understand, you don't understand! Oh God! He won't understand! 'Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush! he repeated with gloomy insistence. 'I know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all over to myself, lying there in the dark.... I've argued it all over with myself, every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how sick I was then of going over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it and make a new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And you don't suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn't suppose that I didn't know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether I had the right to gain powerI certainly hadn't the rightor that if I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn't so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his goal without asking questions.... If I worried myself all those days, wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly of course that I wasn't Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn't to help my mother I did the murderthat's nonsenseI didn't do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn't have cared at that moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right... 'To kill? Have the right to kill? Sonia clasped her hands. 'Ach, Sonia! he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort, but was contemptuously silent. 'Don't interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I've come to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to you? Listen when I went then to the old woman's I only went to try.... You may be sure of that! 'And you murdered her! 'But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.... But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be! he cried in a sudden spasm of agony, 'let me be! He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed his head in his hands as in a vise. 'What suffering! A wail of anguish broke from Sonia. 'Well, what am I to do now? he asked, suddenly raising his head and looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair. 'What are you to do? she cried, jumping up, and her eyes that had been full of tears suddenly began to shine. 'Stand up! (She seized him by the shoulder, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.) 'Go at once, this very minute, stand at the crossroads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, 'I am a murderer!' Then God will send you life again. Will you go, will you go? she asked him, trembling all over, snatching his two hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at him with eyes full of fire. He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy. 'You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up? he asked gloomily. 'Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that's what you must do. 'No! I am not going to them, Sonia! 'But how will you go on living? What will you live for? cried Sonia, 'how is it possible now? Why, how can you talk to your mother? (Oh, what will become of them now?) But what am I saying? You have abandoned your mother and your sister already. He has abandoned them already! Oh, God! she cried, 'why, he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by himself! What will become of you now? 'Don't be a child, Sonia, he said softly. 'What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That's only a phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them. And what should I say to themthat I murdered her, but did not dare to take the money and hid it under a stone? he added with a bitter smile. 'Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not getting it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn't understand and they don't deserve to understand. Why should I go to them? I won't. Don't be a child, Sonia.... 'It will be too much for you to bear, too much! she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing supplication. 'Perhaps I've been unfair to myself, he observed gloomily, pondering, 'perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I've been in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I'll make another fight for it. A haughty smile appeared on his lips. 'What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life! 'I shall get used to it, he said grimly and thoughtfully. 'Listen, he began a minute later, 'stop crying, it's time to talk of the facts I've come to tell you that the police are after me, on my track.... 'Ach! Sonia cried in terror. 'Well, why do you cry out? You want me to go to Siberia and now you are frightened? But let me tell you I shall not give myself up. I shall make a struggle for it and they won't do anything to me. They've no real evidence. Yesterday I was in great danger and believed I was lost but today things are going better. All the facts they know can be explained two ways, that's to say I can turn their accusations to my credit, do you understand? And I shall, for I've learnt my lesson. But they will certainly arrest me. If it had not been for something that happened, they would have done so today for certain perhaps even now they will arrest me today.... But that's no matter, Sonia they'll let me out again... for there isn't any real proof against me, and there won't be, I give you my word for it. And they can't convict a man on what they have against me. Enough.... I only tell you that you may know.... I will try to manage somehow to put it to my mother and sister so that they won't be frightened.... My sister's future is secure, however, now, I believe... and my mother's must be too.... Well, that's all. Be careful, though. Will you come and see me in prison when I am there? 'Oh, I will, I will. They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected, as though they had been cast up by the tempest alone on some deserted shore. He looked at Sonia and felt how great was her love for him, and strange to say he felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so loved. Yes, it was a strange and awful sensation! On his way to see Sonia he had felt that all his hopes rested on her he expected to be rid of at least part of his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned towards him, he suddenly felt that he was immeasurably unhappier than before. 'Sonia, he said, 'you'd better not come and see me when I am in prison. Sonia did not answer, she was crying. Several minutes passed. 'Have you a cross on you? she asked, as though suddenly thinking of it. He did not at first understand the question. 'No, of course not. Here, take this one, of cypress wood. I have another, a copper one that belonged to Lizaveta. I changed with Lizaveta she gave me her cross and I gave her my little ikon. I will wear Lizaveta's now and give you this. Take it... it's mine! It's mine, you know, she begged him. 'We will go to suffer together, and together we will bear our cross! 'Give it me, said Raskolnikov. He did not want to hurt her feelings. But immediately he drew back the hand he held out for the cross. 'Not now, Sonia. Better later, he added to comfort her. 'Yes, yes, better, she repeated with conviction, 'when you go to meet your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I'll put it on you, we will pray and go together. At that moment someone knocked three times at the door. 'Sofya Semyonovna, may I come in? they heard in a very familiar and polite voice. Sonia rushed to the door in a fright. The flaxen head of Mr. Lebeziatnikov appeared at the door. Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed. 'I've come to you, Sofya Semyonovna, he began. 'Excuse me... I thought I should find you, he said, addressing Raskolnikov suddenly, 'that is, I didn't mean anything... of that sort... But I just thought... Katerina Ivanovna has gone out of her mind, he blurted out suddenly, turning from Raskolnikov to Sonia. Sonia screamed. 'At least it seems so. But... we don't know what to do, you see! She came backshe seems to have been turned out somewhere, perhaps beaten.... So it seems at least,... She had run to your father's former chief, she didn't find him at home he was dining at some other general's.... Only fancy, she rushed off there, to the other general's, and, imagine, she was so persistent that she managed to get the chief to see her, had him fetched out from dinner, it seems. You can imagine what happened. She was turned out, of course but, according to her own story, she abused him and threw something at him. One may well believe it.... How it is she wasn't taken up, I can't understand! Now she is telling everyone, including Amalia Ivanovna but it's difficult to understand her, she is screaming and flinging herself about.... Oh yes, she shouts that since everyone has abandoned her, she will take the children and go into the street with a barrelorgan, and the children will sing and dance, and she too, and collect money, and will go every day under the general's window... 'to let everyone see wellborn children, whose father was an official, begging in the street.' She keeps beating the children and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida to sing 'My Village,' the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She is tearing up all the clothes, and making them little caps like actors she means to carry a tin basin and make it tinkle, instead of music.... She won't listen to anything.... Imagine the state of things! It's beyond anything! Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia, who had heard him almost breathless, snatched up her cloak and hat, and ran out of the room, putting on her things as she went. Raskolnikov followed her and Lebeziatnikov came after him. 'She has certainly gone mad! he said to Raskolnikov, as they went out into the street. 'I didn't want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna, so I said 'it seemed like it,' but there isn't a doubt of it. They say that in consumption the tubercles sometimes occur in the brain it's a pity I know nothing of medicine. I did try to persuade her, but she wouldn't listen. 'Did you talk to her about the tubercles? 'Not precisely of the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn't have understood! But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically that he has nothing to cry about, he'll stop crying. That's clear. Is it your conviction that he won't? 'Life would be too easy if it were so, answered Raskolnikov. 'Excuse me, excuse me of course it would be rather difficult for Katerina Ivanovna to understand, but do you know that in Paris they have been conducting serious experiments as to the possibility of curing the insane, simply by logical argument? One professor there, a scientific man of standing, lately dead, believed in the possibility of such treatment. His idea was that there's nothing really wrong with the physical organism of the insane, and that insanity is, so to say, a logical mistake, an error of judgment, an incorrect view of things. He gradually showed the madman his error and, would you believe it, they say he was successful? But as he made use of douches too, how far success was due to that treatment remains uncertain.... So it seems at least. Raskolnikov had long ceased to listen. Reaching the house where he lived, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov and went in at the gate. Lebeziatnikov woke up with a start, looked about him and hurried on. Raskolnikov went into his little room and stood still in the middle of it. Why had he come back here? He looked at the yellow and tattered paper, at the dust, at his sofa.... From the yard came a loud continuous knocking someone seemed to be hammering... He went to the window, rose on tiptoe and looked out into the yard for a long time with an air of absorbed attention. But the yard was empty and he could not see who was hammering. In the house on the left he saw some open windows on the windowsills were pots of sicklylooking geraniums. Linen was hung out of the windows... He knew it all by heart. He turned away and sat down on the sofa. Never, never had he felt himself so fearfully alone! Yes, he felt once more that he would perhaps come to hate Sonia, now that he had made her more miserable. 'Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears? What need had he to poison her life? Oh, the meanness of it! 'I will remain alone, he said resolutely, 'and she shall not come to the prison! Five minutes later he raised his head with a strange smile. That was a strange thought. 'Perhaps it really would be better in Siberia, he thought suddenly. He could not have said how long he sat there with vague thoughts surging through his mind. All at once the door opened and Dounia came in. At first she stood still and looked at him from the doorway, just as he had done at Sonia then she came in and sat down in the same place as yesterday, on the chair facing him. He looked silently and almost vacantly at her. 'Don't be angry, brother I've only come for one minute, said Dounia. Her face looked thoughtful but not stern. Her eyes were bright and soft. He saw that she too had come to him with love. 'Brother, now I know all, all. Dmitri Prokofitch has explained and told me everything. They are worrying and persecuting you through a stupid and contemptible suspicion.... Dmitri Prokofitch told me that there is no danger, and that you are wrong in looking upon it with such horror. I don't think so, and I fully understand how indignant you must be, and that that indignation may have a permanent effect on you. That's what I am afraid of. As for your cutting yourself off from us, I don't judge you, I don't venture to judge you, and forgive me for having blamed you for it. I feel that I too, if I had so great a trouble, should keep away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing of this, but I shall talk about you continually and shall tell her from you that you will come very soon. Don't worry about her I will set her mind at rest but don't you try her too muchcome once at least remember that she is your mother. And now I have come simply to say (Dounia began to get up) 'that if you should need me or should need... all my life or anything... call me, and I'll come. Goodbye! She turned abruptly and went towards the door. 'Dounia! Raskolnikov stopped her and went towards her. 'That Razumihin, Dmitri Prokofitch, is a very good fellow. Dounia flushed slightly. 'Well? she asked, waiting a moment. 'He is competent, hardworking, honest and capable of real love.... Goodbye, Dounia. Dounia flushed crimson, then suddenly she took alarm. 'But what does it mean, brother? Are we really parting for ever that you... give me such a parting message? 'Never mind.... Goodbye. He turned away, and walked to the window. She stood a moment, looked at him uneasily, and went out troubled. No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant (the very last one) when he had longed to take her in his arms and say goodbye to her, and even to tell her, but he had not dared even to touch her hand. 'Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I embraced her, and will feel that I stole her kiss. 'And would she stand that test? he went on a few minutes later to himself. 'No, she wouldn't girls like that can't stand things! They never do. And he thought of Sonia. There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The daylight was fading. He took up his cap and went out. He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill he was. But all this continual anxiety and agony of mind could not but affect him. And if he were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just because this continual inner strain helped to keep him on his legs and in possession of his faculties. But this artificial excitement could not last long. He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity 'on a square yard of space. Towards evening this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily. 'With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, depending on the sunset or something, one can't help doing something stupid! You'll go to Dounia, as well as to Sonia, he muttered bitterly. He heard his name called. He looked round. Lebeziatnikov rushed up to him. 'Only fancy, I've been to your room looking for you. Only fancy, she's carried out her plan, and taken away the children. Sofya Semyonovna and I have had a job to find them. She is rapping on a fryingpan and making the children dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping at the crossroads and in front of shops there's a crowd of fools running after them. Come along! 'And Sonia? Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after Lebeziatnikov. 'Simply frantic. That is, it's not Sofya Semyonovna's frantic, but Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova's frantic too. But Katerina Ivanovna is absolutely frantic. I tell you she is quite mad. They'll be taken to the police. You can fancy what an effect that will have.... They are on the canal bank, near the bridge now, not far from Sofya Semyonovna's, quite close. On the canal bank near the bridge and not two houses away from the one where Sonia lodged, there was a crowd of people, consisting principally of gutter children. The hoarse broken voice of Katerina Ivanovna could be heard from the bridge, and it certainly was a strange spectacle likely to attract a street crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress with the green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a hideous way on one side, was really frantic. She was exhausted and breathless. Her wasted consumptive face looked more suffering than ever, and indeed out of doors in the sunshine a consumptive always looks worse than at home. But her excitement did not flag, and every moment her irritation grew more intense. She rushed at the children, shouted at them, coaxed them, told them before the crowd how to dance and what to sing, began explaining to them why it was necessary, and driven to desperation by their not understanding, beat them.... Then she would make a rush at the crowd if she noticed any decently dressed person stopping to look, she immediately appealed to him to see what these children 'from a genteel, one may say aristocratic, house had been brought to. If she heard laughter or jeering in the crowd, she would rush at once at the scoffers and begin squabbling with them. Some people laughed, others shook their heads, but everyone felt curious at the sight of the madwoman with the frightened children. The fryingpan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken was not there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But instead of rapping on the pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clapping her wasted hands, when she made Lida and Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in the singing, but broke down at the second note with a fearful cough, which made her curse in despair and even shed tears. What made her most furious was the weeping and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort had been made to dress the children up as street singers are dressed. The boy had on a turban made of something red and white to look like a Turk. There had been no costume for Lida she simply had a red knitted cap, or rather a night cap that had belonged to Marmeladov, decorated with a broken piece of white ostrich feather, which had been Katerina Ivanovna's grandmother's and had been preserved as a family possession. Polenka was in her everyday dress she looked in timid perplexity at her mother, and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She dimly realised her mother's condition, and looked uneasily about her. She was terribly frightened of the street and the crowd. Sonia followed Katerina Ivanovna, weeping and beseeching her to return home, but Katerina Ivanovna was not to be persuaded. 'Leave off, Sonia, leave off, she shouted, speaking fast, panting and coughing. 'You don't know what you ask you are like a child! I've told you before that I am not coming back to that drunken German. Let everyone, let all Petersburg see the children begging in the streets, though their father was an honourable man who served all his life in truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service. (Katerina Ivanovna had by now invented this fantastic story and thoroughly believed it.) 'Let that wretch of a general see it! And you are silly, Sonia what have we to eat? Tell me that. We have worried you enough, I won't go on so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you? she cried, seeing Raskolnikov and rushing up to him. 'Explain to this silly girl, please, that nothing better could be done! Even organgrinders earn their living, and everyone will see at once that we are different, that we are an honourable and bereaved family reduced to beggary. And that general will lose his post, you'll see! We shall perform under his windows every day, and if the Tsar drives by, I'll fall on my knees, put the children before me, show them to him, and say 'Defend us father.' He is the father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he'll protect us, you'll see, and that wretch of a general.... Lida, tenez vous droite! Kolya, you'll dance again. Why are you whimpering? Whimpering again! What are you afraid of, stupid? Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion Romanovitch? If you only knew how stupid they are! What's one to do with such children? And she, almost crying herselfwhich did not stop her uninterrupted, rapid flow of talkpointed to the crying children. Raskolnikov tried to persuade her to go home, and even said, hoping to work on her vanity, that it was unseemly for her to be wandering about the streets like an organgrinder, as she was intending to become the principal of a boardingschool. 'A boardingschool, hahaha! A castle in the air, cried Katerina Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a cough. 'No, Rodion Romanovitch, that dream is over! All have forsaken us!... And that general.... You know, Rodion Romanovitch, I threw an inkpot at himit happened to be standing in the waitingroom by the paper where you sign your name. I wrote my name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh, the scoundrels, the scoundrels! But enough of them, now I'll provide for the children myself, I won't bow down to anybody! She has had to bear enough for us! she pointed to Sonia. 'Polenka, how much have you got? Show me! What, only two farthings! Oh, the mean wretches! They give us nothing, only run after us, putting their tongues out. There, what is that blockhead laughing at? (She pointed to a man in the crowd.) 'It's all because Kolya here is so stupid I have such a bother with him. What do you want, Polenka? Tell me in French, parlezmoi franais. Why, I've taught you, you know some phrases. Else how are you to show that you are of good family, well broughtup children, and not at all like other organgrinders? We aren't going to have a Punch and Judy show in the street, but to sing a genteel song.... Ah, yes,... What are we to sing? You keep putting me out, but we... you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch, to find something to sing and get money, something Kolya can dance to.... For, as you can fancy, our performance is all impromptu.... We must talk it over and rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky, where there are far more people of good society, and we shall be noticed at once. Lida knows 'My Village' only, nothing but 'My Village,' and everyone sings that. We must sing something far more genteel.... Well, have you thought of anything, Polenka? If only you'd help your mother! My memory's quite gone, or I should have thought of something. We really can't sing 'An Hussar.' Ah, let us sing in French, 'Cinq sous,' I have taught it you, I have taught it you. And as it is in French, people will see at once that you are children of good family, and that will be much more touching.... You might sing 'Marlborough s'en vaten guerre,' for that's quite a child's song and is sung as a lullaby in all the aristocratic houses. 'Marlborough s'en vaten guerre Ne sait quand reviendra... she began singing. 'But no, better sing 'Cinq sous.' Now, Kolya, your hands on your hips, make haste, and you, Lida, keep turning the other way, and Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands! 'Cinq sous, cinq sous Pour monter notre menage. (Coughcoughcough!) 'Set your dress straight, Polenka, it's slipped down on your shoulders, she observed, panting from coughing. 'Now it's particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may see that you are wellborn children. I said at the time that the bodice should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia, with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite deformed by it.... Why, you're all crying again! What's the matter, stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, make haste! Oh, what an unbearable child! 'Cinq sous, cinq sous. 'A policeman again! What do you want? A policeman was indeed forcing his way through the crowd. But at that moment a gentleman in civilian uniform and an overcoata solidlooking official of about fifty with a decoration on his neck (which delighted Katerina Ivanovna and had its effect on the policeman)approached and without a word handed her a green threerouble note. His face wore a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it and gave him a polite, even ceremonious, bow. 'I thank you, honoured sir, she began loftily. 'The causes that have induced us (take the money, Polenka you see there are generous and honourable people who are ready to help a poor gentlewoman in distress). You see, honoured sir, these orphans of good familyI might even say of aristocratic connectionsand that wretch of a general sat eating grouse... and stamped at my disturbing him. 'Your excellency,' I said, 'protect the orphans, for you knew my late husband, Semyon Zaharovitch, and on the very day of his death the basest of scoundrels slandered his only daughter.'... That policeman again! Protect me, she cried to the official. 'Why is that policeman edging up to me? We have only just run away from one of them. What do you want, fool? 'It's forbidden in the streets. You mustn't make a disturbance. 'It's you're making a disturbance. It's just the same as if I were grinding an organ. What business is it of yours? 'You have to get a licence for an organ, and you haven't got one, and in that way you collect a crowd. Where do you lodge? 'What, a license? wailed Katerina Ivanovna. 'I buried my husband today. What need of a license? 'Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself, began the official. 'Come along I will escort you.... This is no place for you in the crowd. You are ill. 'Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don't know, screamed Katerina Ivanovna. 'We are going to the Nevsky.... Sonia, Sonia! Where is she? She is crying too! What's the matter with you all? Kolya, Lida, where are you going? she cried suddenly in alarm. 'Oh, silly children! Kolya, Lida, where are they off to?... Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the crowd, and their mother's mad pranks, suddenly seized each other by the hand, and ran off at the sight of the policeman who wanted to take them away somewhere. Weeping and wailing, poor Katerina Ivanovna ran after them. She was a piteous and unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping and panting for breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them. 'Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stupid, ungrateful children!... Polenka! catch them.... It's for your sakes I... She stumbled as she ran and fell down. 'She's cut herself, she's bleeding! Oh, dear! cried Sonia, bending over her. All ran up and crowded around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov were the first at her side, the official too hastened up, and behind him the policeman who muttered, 'Bother! with a gesture of impatience, feeling that the job was going to be a troublesome one. 'Pass on! Pass on! he said to the crowd that pressed forward. 'She's dying, someone shouted. 'She's gone out of her mind, said another. 'Lord have mercy upon us, said a woman, crossing herself. 'Have they caught the little girl and the boy? They're being brought back, the elder one's got them.... Ah, the naughty imps! When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they saw that she had not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia thought, but that the blood that stained the pavement red was from her chest. 'I've seen that before, muttered the official to Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov 'that's consumption the blood flows and chokes the patient. I saw the same thing with a relative of my own not long ago... nearly a pint of blood, all in a minute.... What's to be done though? She is dying. 'This way, this way, to my room! Sonia implored. 'I live here!... See, that house, the second from here.... Come to me, make haste, she turned from one to the other. 'Send for the doctor! Oh, dear! Thanks to the official's efforts, this plan was adopted, the policeman even helping to carry Katerina Ivanovna. She was carried to Sonia's room, almost unconscious, and laid on the bed. The blood was still flowing, but she seemed to be coming to herself. Raskolnikov, Lebeziatnikov, and the official accompanied Sonia into the room and were followed by the policeman, who first drove back the crowd which followed to the very door. Polenka came in holding Kolya and Lida, who were trembling and weeping. Several persons came in too from the Kapernaumovs' room the landlord, a lame oneeyed man of strange appearance with whiskers and hair that stood up like a brush, his wife, a woman with an everlastingly scared expression, and several openmouthed children with wonderstruck faces. Among these, Svidrigalov suddenly made his appearance. Raskolnikov looked at him with surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not having noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and priest wore spoken of. The official whispered to Raskolnikov that he thought it was too late now for the doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran himself. Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her breath. The bleeding ceased for a time. She looked with sick but intent and penetrating eyes at Sonia, who stood pale and trembling, wiping the sweat from her brow with a handkerchief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the bed, supporting her on both sides. 'Where are the children? she said in a faint voice. 'You've brought them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you run away.... Och! Once more her parched lips were covered with blood. She moved her eyes, looking about her. 'So that's how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in your room. She looked at her with a face of suffering. 'We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya, come here! Well, here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand them over to you, I've had enough! The ball is over. (Cough!) 'Lay me down, let me die in peace. They laid her back on the pillow. 'What, the priest? I don't want him. You haven't got a rouble to spare. I have no sins. God must forgive me without that. He knows how I have suffered.... And if He won't forgive me, I don't care! She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times she shuddered, turned her eyes from side to side, recognised everyone for a minute, but at once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse and difficult, there was a sort of rattle in her throat. 'I said to him, your excellency, she ejaculated, gasping after each word. 'That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips, make haste! Glissez, glissez! pas de basque! Tap with your heels, be a graceful child! 'Du hast Diamanten und Perlen 'What next? That's the thing to sing. 'Du hast die schnsten Augen Mdchen, was willst du mehr? 'What an idea! Was willst du mehr? What things the fool invents! Ah, yes! 'In the heat of midday in the vale of Dagestan. 'Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distraction, Polenka! Your father, you know, used to sing it when we were engaged.... Oh those days! Oh that's the thing for us to sing! How does it go? I've forgotten. Remind me! How was it? She was violently excited and tried to sit up. At last, in a horribly hoarse, broken voice, she began, shrieking and gasping at every word, with a look of growing terror. 'In the heat of midday!... in the vale!... of Dagestan!... With lead in my breast!... 'Your excellency! she wailed suddenly with a heartrending scream and a flood of tears, 'protect the orphans! You have been their father's guest... one may say aristocratic.... She started, regaining consciousness, and gazed at all with a sort of terror, but at once recognised Sonia. 'Sonia, Sonia! she articulated softly and caressingly, as though surprised to find her there. 'Sonia darling, are you here, too? They lifted her up again. 'Enough! It's over! Farewell, poor thing! I am done for! I am broken! she cried with vindictive despair, and her head fell heavily back on the pillow. She sank into unconsciousness again, but this time it did not last long. Her pale, yellow, wasted face dropped back, her mouth fell open, her leg moved convulsively, she gave a deep, deep sigh and died. Sonia fell upon her, flung her arms about her, and remained motionless with her head pressed to the dead woman's wasted bosom. Polenka threw herself at her mother's feet, kissing them and weeping violently. Though Kolya and Lida did not understand what had happened, they had a feeling that it was something terrible they put their hands on each other's little shoulders, stared straight at one another and both at once opened their mouths and began screaming. They were both still in their fancy dress one in a turban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather. And how did 'the certificate of merit come to be on the bed beside Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by the pillow Raskolnikov saw it. He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov skipped up to him. 'She is dead, he said. 'Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with you, said Svidrigalov, coming up to them. Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and delicately withdrew. Svidrigalov drew Raskolnikov further away. 'I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral and that. You know it's a question of money and, as I told you, I have plenty to spare. I will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good orphan asylum, and I will settle fifteen hundred roubles to be paid to each on coming of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no anxiety about them. And I will pull her out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn't she? So tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spending her ten thousand. 'What is your motive for such benevolence? asked Raskolnikov. 'Ah! you sceptical person! laughed Svidrigalov. 'I told you I had no need of that money. Won't you admit that it's simply done from humanity? She wasn't 'a louse,' you know (he pointed to the corner where the dead woman lay), 'was she, like some old pawnbroker woman? Come, you'll agree, is Luzhin to go on living, and doing wicked things or is she to die? And if I didn't help them, Polenka would go the same way. He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keeping his eyes fixed on Raskolnikov, who turned white and cold, hearing his own phrases, spoken to Sonia. He quickly stepped back and looked wildly at Svidrigalov. 'How do you know? he whispered, hardly able to breathe. 'Why, I lodge here at Madame Resslich's, the other side of the wall. Here is Kapernaumov, and there lives Madame Resslich, an old and devoted friend of mine. I am a neighbour. 'You? 'Yes, continued Svidrigalov, shaking with laughter. 'I assure you on my honour, dear Rodion Romanovitch, that you have interested me enormously. I told you we should become friends, I foretold it. Well, here we have. And you will see what an accommodating person I am. You'll see that you can get on with me! A strange period began for Raskolnikov it was as though a fog had fallen upon him and wrapped him in a dreary solitude from which there was no escape. Recalling that period long after, he believed that his mind had been clouded at times, and that it had continued so, with intervals, till the final catastrophe. He was convinced that he had been mistaken about many things at that time, for instance as to the date of certain events. Anyway, when he tried later on to piece his recollections together, he learnt a great deal about himself from what other people told him. He had mixed up incidents and had explained events as due to circumstances which existed only in his imagination. At times he was a prey to agonies of morbid uneasiness, amounting sometimes to panic. But he remembered, too, moments, hours, perhaps whole days, of complete apathy, which came upon him as a reaction from his previous terror and might be compared with the abnormal insensibility, sometimes seen in the dying. He seemed to be trying in that latter stage to escape from a full and clear understanding of his position. Certain essential facts which required immediate consideration were particularly irksome to him. How glad he would have been to be free from some cares, the neglect of which would have threatened him with complete, inevitable ruin. He was particularly worried about Svidrigalov, he might be said to be permanently thinking of Svidrigalov. From the time of Svidrigalov's too menacing and unmistakable words in Sonia's room at the moment of Katerina Ivanovna's death, the normal working of his mind seemed to break down. But although this new fact caused him extreme uneasiness, Raskolnikov was in no hurry for an explanation of it. At times, finding himself in a solitary and remote part of the town, in some wretched eatinghouse, sitting alone lost in thought, hardly knowing how he had come there, he suddenly thought of Svidrigalov. He recognised suddenly, clearly, and with dismay that he ought at once to come to an understanding with that man and to make what terms he could. Walking outside the city gates one day, he positively fancied that they had fixed a meeting there, that he was waiting for Svidrigalov. Another time he woke up before daybreak lying on the ground under some bushes and could not at first understand how he had come there. But during the two or three days after Katerina Ivanovna's death, he had two or three times met Svidrigalov at Sonia's lodging, where he had gone aimlessly for a moment. They exchanged a few words and made no reference to the vital subject, as though they were tacitly agreed not to speak of it for a time. Katerina Ivanovna's body was still lying in the coffin, Svidrigalov was busy making arrangements for the funeral. Sonia too was very busy. At their last meeting Svidrigalov informed Raskolnikov that he had made an arrangement, and a very satisfactory one, for Katerina Ivanovna's children that he had, through certain connections, succeeded in getting hold of certain personages by whose help the three orphans could be at once placed in very suitable institutions that the money he had settled on them had been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place orphans with some property than destitute ones. He said something too about Sonia and promised to come himself in a day or two to see Raskolnikov, mentioning that 'he would like to consult with him, that there were things they must talk over.... This conversation took place in the passage on the stairs. Svidrigalov looked intently at Raskolnikov and suddenly, after a brief pause, dropping his voice, asked 'But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch you don't seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don't seem to understand. Cheer up! We'll talk things over I am only sorry, I've so much to do of my own business and other people's. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, he added suddenly, 'what all men need is fresh air, fresh air... more than anything! He moved to one side to make way for the priest and server, who were coming up the stairs. They had come for the requiem service. By Svidrigalov's orders it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigalov went his way. Raskolnikov stood still a moment, thought, and followed the priest into Sonia's room. He stood at the door. They began quietly, slowly and mournfully singing the service. From his childhood the thought of death and the presence of death had something oppressive and mysteriously awful and it was long since he had heard the requiem service. And there was something else here as well, too awful and disturbing. He looked at the children they were all kneeling by the coffin Polenka was weeping. Behind them Sonia prayed, softly and, as it were, timidly weeping. 'These last two days she hasn't said a word to me, she hasn't glanced at me, Raskolnikov thought suddenly. The sunlight was bright in the room the incense rose in clouds the priest read, 'Give rest, oh Lord.... Raskolnikov stayed all through the service. As he blessed them and took his leave, the priest looked round strangely. After the service, Raskolnikov went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her head sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly gesture bewildered Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that there was no trace of repugnance, no trace of disgust, no tremor in her hand. It was the furthest limit of selfabnegation, at least so he interpreted it. Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out. He felt very miserable. If it had been possible to escape to some solitude, he would have thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his whole life there. But although he had almost always been by himself of late, he had never been able to feel alone. Sometimes he walked out of the town on to the high road, once he had even reached a little wood, but the lonelier the place was, the more he seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near him. It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so that he made haste to return to the town, to mingle with the crowd, to enter restaurants and taverns, to walk in busy thoroughfares. There he felt easier and even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively enjoyed it. But at last he had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again, as though his conscience smote him. 'Here I sit listening to singing, is that what I ought to be doing? he thought. Yet he felt at once that that was not the only cause of his uneasiness there was something requiring immediate decision, but it was something he could not clearly understand or put into words. It was a hopeless tangle. 'No, better the struggle again! Better Porfiry again... or Svidrigalov.... Better some challenge again... some attack. Yes, yes! he thought. He went out of the tavern and rushed away almost at a run. The thought of Dounia and his mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he woke up before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling all over with fever he walked home, and it was early morning when he arrived. After some hours' sleep the fever left him, but he woke up late, two o'clock in the afternoon. He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna's funeral had been fixed for that day, and was glad that he was not present at it. Nastasya brought him some food he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness. His head was fresher and he was calmer than he had been for the last three days. He even felt a passing wonder at his previous attacks of panic. The door opened and Razumihin came in. 'Ah, he's eating, then he's not ill, said Razumihin. He took a chair and sat down at the table opposite Raskolnikov. He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it. He spoke with evident annoyance, but without hurry or raising his voice. He looked as though he had some special fixed determination. 'Listen, he began resolutely. 'As far as I am concerned, you may all go to hell, but from what I see, it's clear to me that I can't make head or tail of it please don't think I've come to ask you questions. I don't want to know, hang it! If you begin telling me your secrets, I dare say I shouldn't stay to listen, I should go away cursing. I have only come to find out once for all whether it's a fact that you are mad? There is a conviction in the air that you are mad or very nearly so. I admit I've been disposed to that opinion myself, judging from your stupid, repulsive and quite inexplicable actions, and from your recent behavior to your mother and sister. Only a monster or a madman could treat them as you have so you must be mad. 'When did you see them last? 'Just now. Haven't you seen them since then? What have you been doing with yourself? Tell me, please. I've been to you three times already. Your mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had made up her mind to come to you Avdotya Romanovna tried to prevent her she wouldn't hear a word. 'If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who can look after him like his mother?' she said. We all came here together, we couldn't let her come alone all the way. We kept begging her to be calm. We came in, you weren't here she sat down, and stayed ten minutes, while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said 'If he's gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgotten his mother, it's humiliating and unseemly for his mother to stand at his door begging for kindness.' She returned home and took to her bed now she is in a fever. 'I see,' she said, 'that he has time for his girl.' She means by your girl Sofya Semyonovna, your betrothed or your mistress, I don't know. I went at once to Sofya Semyonovna's, for I wanted to know what was going on. I looked round, I saw the coffin, the children crying, and Sofya Semyonovna trying them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I apologised, came away, and reported to Avdotya Romanovna. So that's all nonsense and you haven't got a girl the most likely thing is that you are mad. But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you'd not had a bite for three days. Though as far as that goes, madmen eat too, but though you have not said a word to me yet... you are not mad! That I'd swear! Above all, you are not mad! So you may go to hell, all of you, for there's some mystery, some secret about it, and I don't intend to worry my brains over your secrets. So I've simply come to swear at you, he finished, getting up, 'to relieve my mind. And I know what to do now. 'What do you mean to do now? 'What business is it of yours what I mean to do? 'You are going in for a drinking bout. 'How... how did you know? 'Why, it's pretty plain. Razumihin paused for a minute. 'You always have been a very rational person and you've never been mad, never, he observed suddenly with warmth. 'You're right I shall drink. Goodbye! And he moved to go out. 'I was talking with my sisterthe day before yesterday, I think it wasabout you, Razumihin. 'About me! But... where can you have seen her the day before yesterday? Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale. One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently. 'She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me. 'She did! 'Yes. 'What did you say to her... I mean, about me? 'I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I didn't tell her you love her, because she knows that herself. 'She knows that herself? 'Well, it's pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to me, you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into your keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how you love her, and am convinced of the purity of your heart. I know that she too may love you and perhaps does love you already. Now decide for yourself, as you know best, whether you need go in for a drinking bout or not. 'Rodya! You see... well.... Ach, damn it! But where do you mean to go? Of course, if it's all a secret, never mind.... But I... I shall find out the secret... and I am sure that it must be some ridiculous nonsense and that you've made it all up. Anyway you are a capital fellow, a capital fellow!... 'That was just what I wanted to add, only you interrupted, that that was a very good decision of yours not to find out these secrets. Leave it to time, don't worry about it. You'll know it all in time when it must be. Yesterday a man said to me that what a man needs is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air. I mean to go to him directly to find out what he meant by that. Razumihin stood lost in thought and excitement, making a silent conclusion. 'He's a political conspirator! He must be. And he's on the eve of some desperate step, that's certain. It can only be that! And... and Dounia knows, he thought suddenly. 'So Avdotya Romanovna comes to see you, he said, weighing each syllable, 'and you're going to see a man who says we need more air, and so of course that letter... that too must have something to do with it, he concluded to himself. 'What letter? 'She got a letter today. It upset her very muchvery much indeed. Too much so. I began speaking of you, she begged me not to. Then... then she said that perhaps we should very soon have to part... then she began warmly thanking me for something then she went to her room and locked herself in. 'She got a letter? Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully. 'Yes, and you didn't know? hm... They were both silent. 'Goodbye, Rodion. There was a time, brother, when I.... Never mind, goodbye. You see, there was a time.... Well, goodbye! I must be off too. I am not going to drink. There's no need now.... That's all stuff! He hurried out but when he had almost closed the door behind him, he suddenly opened it again, and said, looking away 'Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder, you know Porfiry's, that old woman? Do you know the murderer has been found, he has confessed and given the proofs. It's one of those very workmen, the painter, only fancy! Do you remember I defended them here? Would you believe it, all that scene of fighting and laughing with his companions on the stairs while the porter and the two witnesses were going up, he got up on purpose to disarm suspicion. The cunning, the presence of mind of the young dog! One can hardly credit it but it's his own explanation, he has confessed it all. And what a fool I was about it! Well, he's simply a genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of the lawyersso there's nothing much to wonder at, I suppose! Of course people like that are always possible. And the fact that he couldn't keep up the character, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side! 'Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it interest you so? Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation. 'What next? You ask me why it interests me!... Well, I heard it from Porfiry, among others... It was from him I heard almost all about it. 'From Porfiry? 'From Porfiry. 'What... what did he say? Raskolnikov asked in dismay. 'He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his fashion. 'He explained it? Explained it himself? 'Yes, yes goodbye. I'll tell you all about it another time, but now I'm busy. There was a time when I fancied... But no matter, another time!... What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Goodbye, I'm going. I'll come again very soon. He went out. 'He's a political conspirator, there's not a doubt about it, Razumihin decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. 'And he's drawn his sister in that's quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna's character. There are interviews between them!... She hinted at it too... So many of her words.... and hints... bear that meaning! And how else can all this tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking... Good heavens, what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude, nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing.... And how clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions... before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy.... But what's the meaning now of that letter? There's something in that, too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must find out! He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart throbbed, and he suddenly broke into a run. As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the window, walked into one corner and then into another, as though forgetting the smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He felt, so to speak, renewed again the struggle, so a means of escape had come. 'Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too stifling, too cramping, the burden had been too agonising. A lethargy had come upon him at times. From the moment of the scene with Nikolay at Porfiry's he had been suffocating, penned in without hope of escape. After Nikolay's confession, on that very day had come the scene with Sonia his behaviour and his last words had been utterly unlike anything he could have imagined beforehand he had grown feebler, instantly and fundamentally! And he had agreed at the time with Sonia, he had agreed in his heart he could not go on living alone with such a thing on his mind! 'And Svidrigalov was a riddle... He worried him, that was true, but somehow not on the same point. He might still have a struggle to come with Svidrigalov. Svidrigalov, too, might be a means of escape but Porfiry was a different matter. 'And so Porfiry himself had explained it to Razumihin, had explained it psychologically. He had begun bringing in his damned psychology again! Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one moment believe that Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before Nikolay's appearance, after that ttette interview, which could have only one explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often recalled passages in that scene with Porfiry he could not bear to let his mind rest on it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between them, they had exchanged such glances, things had been said in such a tone and had reached such a pass, that Nikolay, whom Porfiry had seen through at the first word, at the first gesture, could not have shaken his conviction. 'And to think that even Razumihin had begun to suspect! The scene in the corridor under the lamp had produced its effect then. He had rushed to Porfiry.... But what had induced the latter to receive him like that? What had been his object in putting Razumihin off with Nikolay? He must have some plan there was some design, but what was it? It was true that a long time had passed since that morningtoo long a timeand no sight nor sound of Porfiry. Well, that was a bad sign.... Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the room, still pondering. It was the first time for a long while that he had felt clear in his mind, at least. 'I must settle Svidrigalov, he thought, 'and as soon as possible he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come to him of my own accord. And at that moment there was such a rush of hate in his weary heart that he might have killed either of those twoPorfiry or Svidrigalov. At least he felt that he would be capable of doing it later, if not now. 'We shall see, we shall see, he repeated to himself. But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon Porfiry himself in the passage. He was coming in to see him. Raskolnikov was dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute. Strange to say, he was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry and scarcely afraid of him. He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly, on his guard. 'Perhaps this will mean the end? But how could Porfiry have approached so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing? Could he have been listening at the door? 'You didn't expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch, Porfiry explained, laughing. 'I've been meaning to look in a long time I was passing by and thought why not go in for five minutes. Are you going out? I won't keep you long. Just let me have one cigarette. 'Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down. Raskolnikov gave his visitor a seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it. The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained! So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear. Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry, and looked at him without flinching. Porfiry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a cigarette. 'Speak, speak, seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov's heart. 'Come, why don't you speak? 'Ah these cigarettes! Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having lighted one. 'They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I can't give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and a difficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to Dr. Bn he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He positively laughed looking at me he sounded me 'Tobacco's bad for you,' he said, 'your lungs are affected.' But how am I to give it up? What is there to take its place? I don't drink, that's the mischief, hehehe, that I don't. Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch, everything is relative! 'Why, he's playing his professional tricks again, Raskolnikov thought with disgust. All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon him then. 'I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening you didn't know? Porfiry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room. 'I came into this very room. I was passing by, just as I did today, and I thought I'd return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your servant. Don't you lock your door? Raskolnikov's face grew more and more gloomy. Porfiry seemed to guess his state of mind. 'I've come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow! I owe you an explanation and must give it to you, he continued with a slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov's knee. But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came into his face to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it. He had never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face. 'A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion Romanovitch. Our first interview, too, was a strange one but then... and one thing after another! This is the point I have perhaps acted unfairly to you I feel it. Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were unhinged and your knees were shaking and so were mine. And, you know, our behaviour was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And yet we are gentlemen, above all, in any case, gentlemen that must be understood. Do you remember what we came to?... and it was quite indecorous. 'What is he up to, what does he take me for? Raskolnikov asked himself in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry. 'I've decided openness is better between us, Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. 'Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don't know what we might not have come to. That damned workman was sitting at the time in the next roomcan you realise that? You know that, of course and I am aware that he came to you afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true I had not sent for anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements. You ask why I hadn't? What shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly. I had scarcely sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I dare say). An idea flashed upon me I was firmly convinced at the time, you see, Rodion Romanovitch. Come, I thoughteven if I let one thing slip for a time, I shall get hold of something elseI shan't lose what I want, anyway. You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament it's out of proportion with other qualities of your heart and character, which I flatter myself I have to some extent divined. Of course I did reflect even then that it does not always happen that a man gets up and blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes, if you make a man lose all patience, though even then it's rare. I was capable of realising that. If I only had a fact, I thought, the least little fact to go upon, something I could lay hold of, something tangible, not merely psychological. For if a man is guilty, you must be able to get something substantial out of him one may reckon upon most surprising results indeed. I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion Romanovitch, on your temperament above all things! I had great hopes of you at that time. 'But what are you driving at now? Raskolnikov muttered at last, asking the question without thinking. 'What is he talking about? he wondered distractedly, 'does he really take me to be innocent? 'What am I driving at? I've come to explain myself, I consider it my duty, so to speak. I want to make clear to you how the whole business, the whole misunderstanding arose. I've caused you a great deal of suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud, imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without elements of magnanimity, though I don't agree with all your convictions. I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above all I don't want to deceive you. When I made your acquaintance, I felt attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so. You have a right to. I know you disliked me from the first and indeed you've no reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I desire now to do all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart and conscience. I speak sincerely. Porfiry Petrovitch made a dignified pause. Raskolnikov felt a rush of renewed alarm. The thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent began to make him uneasy. 'It's scarcely necessary to go over everything in detail, Porfiry Petrovitch went on. 'Indeed, I could scarcely attempt it. To begin with there were rumours. Through whom, how, and when those rumours came to me... and how they affected you, I need not go into. My suspicions were aroused by a complete accident, which might just as easily not have happened. What was it? Hm! I believe there is no need to go into that either. Those rumours and that accident led to one idea in my mind. I admit it openlyfor one may as well make a clean breast of itI was the first to pitch on you. The old woman's notes on the pledges and the rest of itthat all came to nothing. Yours was one of a hundred. I happened, too, to hear of the scene at the office, from a man who described it capitally, unconsciously reproducing the scene with great vividness. It was just one thing after another, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow! How could I avoid being brought to certain ideas? From a hundred rabbits you can't make a horse, a hundred suspicions don't make a proof, as the English proverb says, but that's only from the rational point of viewyou can't help being partial, for after all a lawyer is only human. I thought, too, of your article in that journal, do you remember, on your first visit we talked of it? I jeered at you at the time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat, Rodion Romanovitch, you are ill and impatient. That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest and... had felt a great deal I recognised long before. I, too, have felt the same, so that your article seemed familiar to me. It was conceived on sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, full of the heat of youth. There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the mist. Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there's a transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in it. It's a gloomy article, but that's what's fine in it. I read your article and put it aside, thinking as I did so 'that man won't go the common way.' Well, I ask you, after that as a preliminary, how could I help being carried away by what followed? Oh, dear, I am not saying anything, I am not making any statement now. I simply noted it at the time. What is there in it? I reflected. There's nothing in it, that is really nothing and perhaps absolutely nothing. And it's not at all the thing for the prosecutor to let himself be carried away by notions here I have Nikolay on my hands with actual evidence against himyou may think what you like of it, but it's evidence. He brings in his psychology, too one has to consider him, too, for it's a matter of life and death. Why am I explaining this to you? That you may understand, and not blame my malicious behaviour on that occasion. It was not malicious, I assure you, hehe! Do you suppose I didn't come to search your room at the time? I did, I did, hehe! I was here when you were lying ill in bed, not officially, not in my own person, but I was here. Your room was searched to the last thread at the first suspicion but umsonst! I thought to myself, now that man will come, will come of himself and quickly, too if he's guilty, he's sure to come. Another man wouldn't, but he will. And you remember how Mr. Razumihin began discussing the subject with you? We arranged that to excite you, so we purposely spread rumours, that he might discuss the case with you, and Razumihin is not a man to restrain his indignation. Mr. Zametov was tremendously struck by your anger and your open daring. Think of blurting out in a restaurant 'I killed her.' It was too daring, too reckless. I thought so myself, if he is guilty he will be a formidable opponent. That was what I thought at the time. I was expecting you. But you simply bowled Zametov over and... well, you see, it all lies in thisthat this damnable psychology can be taken two ways! Well, I kept expecting you, and so it was, you came! My heart was fairly throbbing. Ach! 'Now, why need you have come? Your laughter, too, as you came in, do you remember? I saw it all plain as daylight, but if I hadn't expected you so specially, I should not have noticed anything in your laughter. You see what influence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin thenah, that stone, that stone under which the things were hidden! I seem to see it somewhere in a kitchen garden. It was in a kitchen garden, you told Zametov and afterwards you repeated that in my office? And when we began picking your article to pieces, how you explained it! One could take every word of yours in two senses, as though there were another meaning hidden. 'So in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached the furthest limit, and knocking my head against a post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what I was about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another sense if you like, and it's more natural so, indeed. I couldn't help admitting it was more natural. I was bothered! 'No, I'd better get hold of some little fact' I said. So when I heard of the bellringing, I held my breath and was all in a tremor. 'Here is my little fact,' thought I, and I didn't think it over, I simply wouldn't. I would have given a thousand roubles at that minute to have seen you with my own eyes, when you walked a hundred paces beside that workman, after he had called you murderer to your face, and you did not dare to ask him a question all the way. And then what about your trembling, what about your bellringing in your illness, in semidelirium? 'And so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder that I played such pranks on you? And what made you come at that very minute? Someone seemed to have sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not parted us... and do you remember Nikolay at the time? Do you remember him clearly? It was a thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didn't believe in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it for yourself and how could I? Even afterwards, when you had gone and he began making very, very plausible answers on certain points, so that I was surprised at him myself, even then I didn't believe his story! You see what it is to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I, Morgenfrh. What has Nikolay got to do with it! 'Razumihin told me just now that you think Nikolay guilty and had yourself assured him of it.... His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through him, went back upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did not believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for something more definite and conclusive. 'Mr. Razumihin! cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. 'Hehehe! But I had to put Mr. Razumihin off two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me with a pale face.... But never mind him, why bring him in? To return to Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I understand him, that is? To begin with, he is still a child and not exactly a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, don't laugh at my describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influence. He has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells stories, they say, so that people come from other villages to hear him. He attends school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a finger to him he will drink himself senselessnot as a regular vice, but at times, when people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then, without knowing it himself, for 'How can it be stealing, if one picks it up?' And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There have been Wanderers in his family, and he was for two years in his village under the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all this from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers. And what's more, he wanted to run into the wilderness! He was full of fervour, prayed at night, read the old books, 'the true' ones, and read himself crazy.  A religious sect.TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 'Petersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and the wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that. I learnt that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go and see him, and now this business came upon him. 'Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How can one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings? The very word 'trial' frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good! Well, in prison, it seems, he remembered the venerable elder the Bible, too, made its appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of the word 'suffering' among some of these people! It's not a question of suffering for someone's benefit, but simply, 'one must suffer.' If they suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in prison always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read himself crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of nothing, he seized a brick and flung it at the governor though he had done him no harm. And the way he threw it too aimed it a yard on one side on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens to a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon. So 'he took his suffering.' 'So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or something of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he doesn't know that I know. What, you don't admit that there are such fantastic people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has begun influencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But he'll come and tell me all himself. You think he'll hold out? Wait a bit, he'll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am studying him in detail. And what do you think? Hehe! He answered me very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some evidence and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at sea, knows nothing and doesn't even suspect that he doesn't know! 'No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn't come in! This is a fantastic, gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of today when the heart of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood 'renews,' when comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, but resolution of a special kind he resolved to do it like jumping over a precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. He committed the murder and couldn't take the money, and what he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn't enough for him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at the door and rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half delirious, to recall the bellringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver over again.... Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that's not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch! All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed. 'Then... who then... is the murderer? he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself. Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question. 'Who is the murderer? he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. 'Why, you, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer, he added, almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction. Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively. 'Your lip is twitching just as it did before, Porfiry Petrovitch observed almost sympathetically. 'You've been misunderstanding me, I think, Rodion Romanovitch, he added after a brief pause, 'that's why you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal openly with you. 'It was not I murdered her, Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened child caught in the act. 'No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else, Porfiry whispered sternly, with conviction. They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his fingers through his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry. 'You are at your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovitch! Your old method again. I wonder you don't get sick of it! 'Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone. You see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a hare. Whether you confess it or not is nothing to me now for myself, I am convinced without it. 'If so, what did you come for? Raskolnikov asked irritably. 'I ask you the same question again if you consider me guilty, why don't you take me to prison? 'Oh, that's your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the first place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest. 'How so? If you are convinced you ought.... 'Ach, what if I am convinced? That's only my dream for the time. Why should I put you in safety? You know that's it, since you ask me to do it. If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him 'were you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be drunk, and you were drunk, too.' Well, what could I answer, especially as your story is a more likely one than his? for there's nothing but psychology to support his evidencethat's almost unseemly with his ugly mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly several times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways and that the second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that apart from that I have as yet nothing against you. And though I shall put you in prison and indeed have comequite contrary to etiquetteto inform you of it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also contrary to etiquette, that it won't be to my advantage. Well, secondly, I've come to you because... 'Yes, yes, secondly? Raskolnikov was listening breathless. 'Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe you an explanation. I don't want you to look upon me as a monster, as I have a genuine liking for you, you may believe me or not. And in the third place I've come to you with a direct and open propositionthat you should surrender and confess. It will be infinitely more to your advantage and to my advantage too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my part or not? Raskolnikov thought a minute. 'Listen, Porfiry Petrovitch. You said just now you have nothing but psychology to go on, yet now you've gone on mathematics. Well, what if you are mistaken yourself, now? 'No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I have a little fact even then, Providence sent it me. 'What little fact? 'I won't tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And in any case, I haven't the right to put it off any longer, I must arrest you. So think it over it makes no difference to me now and so I speak only for your sake. Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch. Raskolnikov smiled malignantly. 'That's not simply ridiculous, it's positively shameless. Why, even if I were guilty, which I don't admit, what reason should I have to confess, when you tell me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison? 'Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don't put too much faith in words, perhaps prison will not be altogether a restful place. That's only theory and my theory, and what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now I am hiding something from you? I can't lay bare everything, hehe! And how can you ask what advantage? Don't you know how it would lessen your sentence? You would be confessing at a moment when another man has taken the crime on himself and so has muddled the whole case. Consider that! I swear before God that I will so arrange that your confession shall come as a complete surprise. We will make a clean sweep of all these psychological points, of a suspicion against you, so that your crime will appear to have been something like an aberration, for in truth it was an aberration. I am an honest man, Rodion Romanovitch, and will keep my word. Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and let his head sink dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his smile was sad and gentle. 'No! he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to keep up appearances with Porfiry, 'it's not worth it, I don't care about lessening the sentence! 'That's just what I was afraid of! Porfiry cried warmly and, as it seemed, involuntarily. 'That's just what I feared, that you wouldn't care about the mitigation of sentence. Raskolnikov looked sadly and expressively at him. 'Ah, don't disdain life! Porfiry went on. 'You have a great deal of it still before you. How can you say you don't want a mitigation of sentence? You are an impatient fellow! 'A great deal of what lies before me? 'Of life. What sort of prophet are you, do you know much about it? Seek and ye shall find. This may be God's means for bringing you to Him. And it's not for ever, the bondage.... 'The time will be shortened, laughed Raskolnikov. 'Why, is it the bourgeois disgrace you are afraid of? It may be that you are afraid of it without knowing it, because you are young! But anyway you shouldn't be afraid of giving yourself up and confessing. 'Ach, hang it! Raskolnikov whispered with loathing and contempt, as though he did not want to speak aloud. He got up again as though he meant to go away, but sat down again in evident despair. 'Hang it, if you like! You've lost faith and you think that I am grossly flattering you but how long has your life been? How much do you understand? You made up a theory and then were ashamed that it broke down and turned out to be not at all original! It turned out something base, that's true, but you are not hopelessly base. By no means so base! At least you didn't deceive yourself for long, you went straight to the furthest point at one bound. How do I regard you? I regard you as one of those men who would stand and smile at their torturer while he cuts their entrails out, if only they have found faith or God. Find it and you will live. You have long needed a change of air. Suffering, too, is a good thing. Suffer! Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting to suffer. I know you don't believe in itbut don't be overwise fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation don't be afraidthe flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again. What bank? How can I tell? I only believe that you have long life before you. I know that you take all my words now for a set speech prepared beforehand, but maybe you will remember them after. They may be of use some time. That's why I speak. It's as well that you only killed the old woman. If you'd invented another theory you might perhaps have done something a thousand times more hideous. You ought to thank God, perhaps. How do you know? Perhaps God is saving you for something. But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you afraid of the great expiation before you? No, it would be shameful to be afraid of it. Since you have taken such a step, you must harden your heart. There is justice in it. You must fulfil the demands of justice. I know that you don't believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air! Raskolnikov positively started. 'But who are you? what prophet are you? From the height of what majestic calm do you proclaim these words of wisdom? 'Who am I? I am a man with nothing to hope for, that's all. A man perhaps of feeling and sympathy, maybe of some knowledge too, but my day is over. But you are a different matter, there is life waiting for you. Though, who knows? maybe your life, too, will pass off in smoke and come to nothing. Come, what does it matter, that you will pass into another class of men? It's not comfort you regret, with your heart! What of it that perhaps no one will see you for so long? It's not time, but yourself that will decide that. Be the sun and all will see you. The sun has before all to be the sun. Why are you smiling again? At my being such a Schiller? I bet you're imagining that I am trying to get round you by flattery. Well, perhaps I am, hehehe! Perhaps you'd better not believe my word, perhaps you'd better never believe it altogetherI'm made that way, I confess it. But let me add, you can judge for yourself, I think, how far I am a base sort of man and how far I am honest. 'When do you mean to arrest me? 'Well, I can let you walk about another day or two. Think it over, my dear fellow, and pray to God. It's more in your interest, believe me. 'And what if I run away? asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile. 'No, you won't run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man's thought, for you've only to show him the end of your little finger and he'll be ready to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you've ceased to believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If you ran away, you'd come back to yourself. You can't get on without us. And if I put you in prisonsay you've been there a month, or two, or threeremember my word, you'll confess of yourself and perhaps to your own surprise. You won't know an hour beforehand that you are coming with a confession. I am convinced that you will decide, 'to take your suffering.' You don't believe my words now, but you'll come to it of yourself. For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never mind my having grown fat, I know all the same. Don't laugh at it, there's an idea in suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won't run away, Rodion Romanovitch. Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Porfiry Petrovitch also rose. 'Are you going for a walk? The evening will be fine, if only we don't have a storm. Though it would be a good thing to freshen the air. He, too, took his cap. 'Porfiry Petrovitch, please don't take up the notion that I have confessed to you today, Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen insistence. 'You're a strange man and I have listened to you from simple curiosity. But I have admitted nothing, remember that! 'Oh, I know that, I'll remember. Look at him, he's trembling! Don't be uneasy, my dear fellow, have it your own way. Walk about a bit, you won't be able to walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request to make of you, he added, dropping his voice. 'It's an awkward one, but important. If anything were to happen (though indeed I don't believe in it and think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were taken during these forty or fifty hours with the notion of putting an end to the business in some other way, in some fantastic fashionlaying hands on yourself(it's an absurd proposition, but you must forgive me for it) do leave a brief but precise note, only two lines, and mention the stone. It will be more generous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and sound decisions to you! Porfiry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at Raskolnikov. The latter went to the window and waited with irritable impatience till he calculated that Porfiry had reached the street and moved away. Then he too went hurriedly out of the room. He hurried to Svidrigalov's. What he had to hope from that man he did not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having once recognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come. On the way, one question particularly worried him had Svidrigalov been to Porfiry's? As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. He pondered again and again, went over Porfiry's visit no, he hadn't been, of course he hadn't. But if he had not been yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present he fancied he couldn't. Why? He could not have explained, but if he could, he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety tormented himit concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way. Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was working better that morning than it had done of late. And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend with these new trivial difficulties? Was it worth while, for instance, to manoeuvre that Svidrigalov should not go to Porfiry's? Was it worth while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyone like Svidrigalov? Oh, how sick he was of it all! And yet he was hastening to Svidrigalov could he be expecting something new from him, information, or means of escape? Men will catch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together? Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair perhaps it was not Svidrigalov but some other whom he needed, and Svidrigalov had simply presented himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To beg her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him as an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that moment especially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not be better to try Svidrigalov? And he could not help inwardly owning that he had long felt that he must see him for some reason. But what could they have in common? Their very evildoing could not be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina Ivanovna's children, but who could tell with what motive and what it meant? The man always had some design, some project. There was another thought which had been continually hovering of late about Raskolnikov's mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was so painful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes thought that Svidrigalov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigalov had found out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had them still? Wasn't it practically certain that he had? And what if, having learnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use it as a weapon against Dounia? This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigalov. The very thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would transform everything, even his own position he would have at once to confess his secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhaps to prevent Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning Dounia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It's true Razumihin was there to protect her, but Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his duty to tell Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance. In any case he must see Svidrigalov as soon as possible, he decided finally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of little consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter but if Svidrigalov were capable... if he were intriguing against Douniathen... Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that month that he could only decide such questions in one way 'then I shall kill him, he thought in cold despair. A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle of the street and began looking about to see where he was and which way he was going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces from the Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey of the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wide open judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms were full to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet and violin, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women shrieking. He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to the X. Prospect, when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw Svidrigalov, sitting at a teatable right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth. Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigalov was silently watching and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikov at once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away unobserved. Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking absentmindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye. His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident that Svidrigalov did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was on the point of concealing himself, but as he got up and moved back his chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seen him, and was watching him. What had passed between them was much the same as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov's room. A sly smile came into Svidrigalov's face and grew broader and broader. Each knew that he was seen and watched by the other. At last Svidrigalov broke into a loud laugh. 'Well, well, come in if you want me I am here! he shouted from the window. Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigalov in a tiny back room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and numbers of people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard balls could be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigalov stood an open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he found also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthylooking redcheeked girl of eighteen, wearing a tuckedup striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some servants' hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of the organ. 'Come, that's enough, Svidrigalov stopped her at Raskolnikov's entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully. She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful expression in her face. 'Hey, Philip, a glass! shouted Svidrigalov. 'I won't drink anything, said Raskolnikov. 'As you like, I didn't mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don't want anything more today, you can go. He poured her out a full glass, and laid down a yellow note. Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it down, in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigalov's hand, which he allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailed after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street. Svidrigalov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about him was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing the waiter, Philip, was by now an old friend and very obsequious. The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigalov was at home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was dirty and wretched, not even secondrate. 'I was going to see you and looking for you, Raskolnikov began, 'but I don't know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospect just now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the Hay Market. And this isn't the way to you. I simply turned and here you are. It is strange! 'Why don't you say at once 'it's a miracle'? 'Because it may be only chance. 'Oh, that's the way with all you folk, laughed Svidrigalov. 'You won't admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say that it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about having an opinion of their own, you can't fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I don't mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to have it. That's how it was you attracted my curiosity. 'Nothing else? 'Well, that's enough, you know, Svidrigalov was obviously exhilarated, but only slightly so, he had not had more than half a glass of wine. 'I fancy you came to see me before you knew that I was capable of having what you call an opinion of my own, observed Raskolnikov. 'Oh, well, it was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. And apropos of the miracle let me tell you that I think you have been asleep for the last two or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, there is no miracle in your coming straight here. I explained the way myself, told you where it was, and the hours you could find me here. Do you remember? 'I don't remember, answered Raskolnikov with surprise. 'I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stamped mechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and yet precisely according to the direction, though you are not aware of it. When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You give yourself away too much, Rodion Romanovitch. And another thing, I'm convinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselves as they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scientific men, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make most valuable investigations in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few places where there are so many gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soul of man as in Petersburg. The mere influences of climate mean so much. And it's the administrative centre of all Russia and its character must be reflected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor there now. The point is that I have several times watched you. You walk out of your householding your head hightwenty paces from home you let it sink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and evidently see nothing before nor beside you. At last you begin moving your lips and talking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and declaim, and at last stand still in the middle of the road. That's not at all the thing. Someone may be watching you besides me, and it won't do you any good. It's nothing really to do with me and I can't cure you, but, of course, you understand me. 'Do you know that I am being followed? asked Raskolnikov, looking inquisitively at him. 'No, I know nothing about it, said Svidrigalov, seeming surprised. 'Well, then, let us leave me alone, Raskolnikov muttered, frowning. 'Very good, let us leave you alone. 'You had better tell me, if you come here to drink, and directed me twice to come here to you, why did you hide, and try to get away just now when I looked at the window from the street? I saw it. 'Hehe! And why was it you lay on your sofa with closed eyes and pretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in your doorway? I saw it. 'I may have had... reasons. You know that yourself. 'And I may have had my reasons, though you don't know them. Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the table, leaned his chin in the fingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigalov. For a full minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. It was a strange face, like a mask white and red, with bright red lips, with a flaxen beard, and still thick flaxen hair. His eyes were somehow too blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There was something awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so wonderfully young for his age. Svidrigalov was smartly dressed in light summer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a huge ring with a precious stone in it. 'Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now? said Raskolnikov suddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. 'Even though perhaps you are the most dangerous man if you care to injure me, I don't want to put myself out any more. I will show you at once that I don't prize myself as you probably think I do. I've come to tell you at once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister and if you think to derive any benefit in that direction from what has been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up. You can reckon on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the second place if you want to tell me anythingfor I keep fancying all this time that you have something to tell memake haste and tell it, for time is precious and very likely it will soon be too late. 'Why in such haste? asked Svidrigalov, looking at him curiously. 'Everyone has his plans, Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently. 'You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the first question you refuse to answer, Svidrigalov observed with a smile. 'You keep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with suspicion. Of course it's perfectly natural in your position. But though I should like to be friends with you, I shan't trouble myself to convince you of the contrary. The game isn't worth the candle and I wasn't intending to talk to you about anything special. 'What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging about me. 'Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the fantastic nature of your positionthat's what it was! Besides you are the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that person I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I gathered that you had a great influence over her isn't that enough? Hahaha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex, and is difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me not only for a definite object, but for the sake of hearing something new. Isn't that so? Isn't that so? persisted Svidrigalov with a sly smile. 'Well, can't you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in the train was reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on my making some profit out of you! You see what rich men we are! 'What profit could you make? 'How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in what a tavern I spend all my time and it's my enjoyment, that's to say it's no great enjoyment, but one must sit somewhere that poor Katia nowyou saw her?... If only I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this. He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a terriblelooking beefsteak and potatoes lay on a tin dish. 'Have you dined, by the way? I've had something and want nothing more. I don't drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never touch anything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and even that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind myself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in a peculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe, he pulled out his watch, 'I can spend an hour with you. It's halfpast four now. If only I'd been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry officer, a photographer, a journalist... I am nothing, no specialty, and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me something new. 'But what are you, and why have you come here? 'What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography! 'You are a gambler, I believe? 'No, a poor sort of gambler. A cardsharpernot a gambler. 'You have been a cardsharper then? 'Yes, I've been a cardsharper too. 'Didn't you get thrashed sometimes? 'It did happen. Why? 'Why, you might have challenged them... altogether it must have been lively. 'I won't contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. I confess that I hastened here for the sake of the women. 'As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna? 'Quite so, Svidrigalov smiled with engaging candour. 'What of it? You seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women? 'You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice? 'Vice! Oh, that's what you are after! But I'll answer you in order, first about women in general you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have a passion for them? It's an occupation, anyway. 'So you hope for nothing here but vice? 'Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something permanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy, something present in the blood like an everburning ember, for ever setting one on fire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, even with years. You'll agree it's an occupation of a sort. 'That's nothing to rejoice at, it's a disease and a dangerous one. 'Oh, that's what you think, is it! I agree, that it is a disease like everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one must exceed moderation. But in the first place, everybody does so in one way or another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderate and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn't this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent man ought to put up with being bored, but yet... 'And could you shoot yourself? 'Oh, come! Svidrigalov parried with disgust. 'Please don't speak of it, he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shown in all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. 'I admit it's an unpardonable weakness, but I can't help it. I am afraid of death and I dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extent a mystic? 'Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting you? 'Oh, don't talk of them there have been no more in Petersburg, confound them! he cried with an air of irritation. 'Let's rather talk of that... though... H'm! I have not much time, and can't stay long with you, it's a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you. 'What's your engagement, a woman? 'Yes, a woman, a casual incident.... No, that's not what I want to talk of. 'And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn't that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself? 'And do you pretend to strength, too? Hehehe! You surprised me just now, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be so. You preach to me about vice and sthetics! Youa Schiller, youan idealist! Of course that's all as it should be and it would be surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange in reality.... Ah, what a pity I have no time, for you're a most interesting type! And, bytheway, are you fond of Schiller? I am awfully fond of him. 'But what a braggart you are, Raskolnikov said with some disgust. 'Upon my word, I am not, answered Svidrigalov laughing. 'However, I won't dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like youintelligent and highly interestingI am simply glad to talk and, besides, I've drunk that halfglass of champagne and it's gone to my head a little. And besides, there's a certain fact that has wound me up tremendously, but about that I... will keep quiet. Where are you off to? he asked in alarm. Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt oppressed and stifled and, as it were, ill at ease at having come here. He felt convinced that Svidrigalov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth. 'Aach! Sit down, stay a little! Svidrigalov begged. 'Let them bring you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won't talk nonsense, about myself, I mean. I'll tell you something. If you like I'll tell you how a woman tried 'to save' me, as you would call it? It will be an answer to your first question indeed, for the woman was your sister. May I tell you? It will help to spend the time. 'Tell me, but I trust that you... 'Oh, don't be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless low fellow like me, Avdotya Romanovna can only excite the deepest respect. 'You know perhapsyes, I told you myself, began Svidrigalov, 'that I was in the debtors' prison here, for an immense sum, and had not any expectation of being able to pay it. There's no need to go into particulars how Marfa Petrovna bought me out do you know to what a point of insanity a woman can sometimes love? She was an honest woman, and very sensible, although completely uneducated. Would you believe that this honest and jealous woman, after many scenes of hysterics and reproaches, condescended to enter into a kind of contract with me which she kept throughout our married life? She was considerably older than I, and besides, she always kept a clove or something in her mouth. There was so much swinishness in my soul and honesty too, of a sort, as to tell her straight out that I couldn't be absolutely faithful to her. This confession drove her to frenzy, but yet she seems in a way to have liked my brutal frankness. She thought it showed I was unwilling to deceive her if I warned her like this beforehand and for a jealous woman, you know, that's the first consideration. After many tears an unwritten contract was drawn up between us first, that I would never leave Marfa Petrovna and would always be her husband secondly, that I would never absent myself without her permission thirdly, that I would never set up a permanent mistress fourthly, in return for this, Marfa Petrovna gave me a free hand with the maidservants, but only with her secret knowledge fifthly, God forbid my falling in love with a woman of our class sixthly, in case Iwhich God forbidshould be visited by a great serious passion I was bound to reveal it to Marfa Petrovna. On this last score, however, Marfa Petrovna was fairly at ease. She was a sensible woman and so she could not help looking upon me as a dissolute profligate incapable of real love. But a sensible woman and a jealous woman are two very different things, and that's where the trouble came in. But to judge some people impartially we must renounce certain preconceived opinions and our habitual attitude to the ordinary people about us. I have reason to have faith in your judgment rather than in anyone's. Perhaps you have already heard a great deal that was ridiculous and absurd about Marfa Petrovna. She certainly had some very ridiculous ways, but I tell you frankly that I feel really sorry for the innumerable woes of which I was the cause. Well, and that's enough, I think, by way of a decorous oraison funbre for the most tender wife of a most tender husband. When we quarrelled, I usually held my tongue and did not irritate her and that gentlemanly conduct rarely failed to attain its object, it influenced her, it pleased her, indeed. These were times when she was positively proud of me. But your sister she couldn't put up with, anyway. And however she came to risk taking such a beautiful creature into her house as a governess. My explanation is that Marfa Petrovna was an ardent and impressionable woman and simply fell in love herselfliterally fell in lovewith your sister. Well, little wonderlook at Avdotya Romanovna! I saw the danger at the first glance and what do you think, I resolved not to look at her even. But Avdotya Romanovna herself made the first step, would you believe it? Would you believe it too that Marfa Petrovna was positively angry with me at first for my persistent silence about your sister, for my careless reception of her continual adoring praises of Avdotya Romanovna. I don't know what it was she wanted! Well, of course, Marfa Petrovna told Avdotya Romanovna every detail about me. She had the unfortunate habit of telling literally everyone all our family secrets and continually complaining of me how could she fail to confide in such a delightful new friend? I expect they talked of nothing else but me and no doubt Avdotya Romanovna heard all those dark mysterious rumours that were current about me.... I don't mind betting that you too have heard something of the sort already? 'I have. Luzhin charged you with having caused the death of a child. Is that true? 'Don't refer to those vulgar tales, I beg, said Svidrigalov with disgust and annoyance. 'If you insist on wanting to know about all that idiocy, I will tell you one day, but now... 'I was told too about some footman of yours in the country whom you treated badly. 'I beg you to drop the subject, Svidrigalov interrupted again with obvious impatience. 'Was that the footman who came to you after death to fill your pipe?... you told me about it yourself. Raskolnikov felt more and more irritated. Svidrigalov looked at him attentively and Raskolnikov fancied he caught a flash of spiteful mockery in that look. But Svidrigalov restrained himself and answered very civilly 'Yes, it was. I see that you, too, are extremely interested and shall feel it my duty to satisfy your curiosity at the first opportunity. Upon my soul! I see that I really might pass for a romantic figure with some people. Judge how grateful I must be to Marfa Petrovna for having repeated to Avdotya Romanovna such mysterious and interesting gossip about me. I dare not guess what impression it made on her, but in any case it worked in my interests. With all Avdotya Romanovna's natural aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspectshe did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a girl's heart is moved to pity, it's more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to 'save him,' to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulnesswell, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There's no need. As you know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn't your sister's fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or proconsul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and if she can't get her torture, she'll throw herself out of a window. I've heard something of a Mr. Razumihinhe's said to be a sensible fellow his surname suggests it, indeed. He's probably a divinity student. Well, he'd better look after your sister! I believe I understand her, and I am proud of it. But at the beginning of an acquaintance, as you know, one is apt to be more heedless and stupid. One doesn't see clearly. Hang it all, why is she so handsome? It's not my fault. In fact, it began on my side with a most irresistible physical desire. Avdotya Romanovna is awfully chaste, incredibly and phenomenally so. Take note, I tell you this about your sister as a fact. She is almost morbidly chaste, in spite of her broad intelligence, and it will stand in her way. There happened to be a girl in the house then, Parasha, a blackeyed wench, whom I had never seen beforeshe had just come from another villagevery pretty, but incredibly stupid she burst into tears, wailed so that she could be heard all over the place and caused scandal. One day after dinner Avdotya Romanovna followed me into an avenue in the garden and with flashing eyes insisted on my leaving poor Parasha alone. It was almost our first conversation by ourselves. I, of course, was only too pleased to obey her wishes, tried to appear disconcerted, embarrassed, in fact played my part not badly. Then came interviews, mysterious conversations, exhortations, entreaties, supplications, even tearswould you believe it, even tears? Think what the passion for propaganda will bring some girls to! I, of course, threw it all on my destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for light, and finally resorted to the most powerful weapon in the subjection of the female heart, a weapon which never fails one. It's the wellknown resourceflattery. Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there's the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That's so for all stages of development and classes of society. A vestal virgin might be seduced by flattery. I can never remember without laughter how I once seduced a lady who was devoted to her husband, her children, and her principles. What fun it was and how little trouble! And the lady really had principlesof her own, anyway. All my tactics lay in simply being utterly annihilated and prostrate before her purity. I flattered her shamelessly, and as soon as I succeeded in getting a pressure of the hand, even a glance from her, I would reproach myself for having snatched it by force, and would declare that she had resisted, so that I could never have gained anything but for my being so unprincipled. I maintained that she was so innocent that she could not foresee my treachery, and yielded to me unconsciously, unawares, and so on. In fact, I triumphed, while my lady remained firmly convinced that she was innocent, chaste, and faithful to all her duties and obligations and had succumbed quite by accident. And how angry she was with me when I explained to her at last that it was my sincere conviction that she was just as eager as I. Poor Marfa Petrovna was awfully weak on the side of flattery, and if I had only cared to, I might have had all her property settled on me during her lifetime. (I am drinking an awful lot of wine now and talking too much.) I hope you won't be angry if I mention now that I was beginning to produce the same effect on Avdotya Romanovna. But I was stupid and impatient and spoiled it all. Avdotya Romanovna had several timesand one time in particularbeen greatly displeased by the expression of my eyes, would you believe it? There was sometimes a light in them which frightened her and grew stronger and stronger and more unguarded till it was hateful to her. No need to go into detail, but we parted. There I acted stupidly again. I fell to jeering in the coarsest way at all such propaganda and efforts to convert me Parasha came on to the scene again, and not she alone in fact there was a tremendous todo. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, if you could only see how your sister's eyes can flash sometimes! Never mind my being drunk at this moment and having had a whole glass of wine. I am speaking the truth. I assure you that this glance has haunted my dreams the very rustle of her dress was more than I could stand at last. I really began to think that I might become epileptic. I could never have believed that I could be moved to such a frenzy. It was essential, indeed, to be reconciled, but by then it was impossible. And imagine what I did then! To what a pitch of stupidity a man can be brought by frenzy! Never undertake anything in a frenzy, Rodion Romanovitch. I reflected that Avdotya Romanovna was after all a beggar (ach, excuse me, that's not the word... but does it matter if it expresses the meaning?), that she lived by her work, that she had her mother and you to keep (ach, hang it, you are frowning again), and I resolved to offer her all my moneythirty thousand roubles I could have realised thenif she would run away with me here, to Petersburg. Of course I should have vowed eternal love, rapture, and so on. Do you know, I was so wild about her at that time that if she had told me to poison Marfa Petrovna or to cut her throat and to marry herself, it would have been done at once! But it ended in the catastrophe of which you know already. You can fancy how frantic I was when I heard that Marfa Petrovna had got hold of that scoundrelly attorney, Luzhin, and had almost made a match between themwhich would really have been just the same thing as I was proposing. Wouldn't it? Wouldn't it? I notice that you've begun to be very attentive... you interesting young man.... Svidrigalov struck the table with his fist impatiently. He was flushed. Raskolnikov saw clearly that the glass or glass and a half of champagne that he had sipped almost unconsciously was affecting himand he resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. He felt very suspicious of Svidrigalov. 'Well, after what you have said, I am fully convinced that you have come to Petersburg with designs on my sister, he said directly to Svidrigalov, in order to irritate him further. 'Oh, nonsense, said Svidrigalov, seeming to rouse himself. 'Why, I told you... besides your sister can't endure me. 'Yes, I am certain that she can't, but that's not the point. 'Are you so sure that she can't? Svidrigalov screwed up his eyes and smiled mockingly. 'You are right, she doesn't love me, but you can never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and mistress. There's always a little corner which remains a secret to the world and is only known to those two. Will you answer for it that Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion? 'From some words you've dropped, I notice that you still have designsand of course evil oneson Dounia and mean to carry them out promptly. 'What, have I dropped words like that? Svidrigalov asked in nave dismay, taking not the slightest notice of the epithet bestowed on his designs. 'Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are you so frightened? What are you so afraid of now? 'Meafraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be afraid of me, cher ami. But what nonsense.... I've drunk too much though, I see that. I was almost saying too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there, water! He snatched up the champagne bottle and flung it without ceremony out of the window. Philip brought the water. 'That's all nonsense! said Svidrigalov, wetting a towel and putting it to his head. 'But I can answer you in one word and annihilate all your suspicions. Do you know that I am going to get married? 'You told me so before. 'Did I? I've forgotten. But I couldn't have told you so for certain for I had not even seen my betrothed I only meant to. But now I really have a betrothed and it's a settled thing, and if it weren't that I have business that can't be put off, I would have taken you to see them at once, for I should like to ask your advice. Ach, hang it, only ten minutes left! See, look at the watch. But I must tell you, for it's an interesting story, my marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to? Going again? 'No, I'm not going away now. 'Not at all? We shall see. I'll take you there, I'll show you my betrothed, only not now. For you'll soon have to be off. You have to go to the right and I to the left. Do you know that Madame Resslich, the woman I am lodging with now, eh? I know what you're thinking, that she's the woman whose girl they say drowned herself in the winter. Come, are you listening? She arranged it all for me. You're bored, she said, you want something to fill up your time. For, you know, I am a gloomy, depressed person. Do you think I'm lighthearted? No, I'm gloomy. I do no harm, but sit in a corner without speaking a word for three days at a time. And that Resslich is a sly hussy, I tell you. I know what she has got in her mind she thinks I shall get sick of it, abandon my wife and depart, and she'll get hold of her and make a profit out of herin our class, of course, or higher. She told me the father was a brokendown retired official, who has been sitting in a chair for the last three years with his legs paralysed. The mamma, she said, was a sensible woman. There is a son serving in the provinces, but he doesn't help there is a daughter, who is married, but she doesn't visit them. And they've two little nephews on their hands, as though their own children were not enough, and they've taken from school their youngest daughter, a girl who'll be sixteen in another month, so that then she can be married. She was for me. We went there. How funny it was! I present myselfa landowner, a widower, of a wellknown name, with connections, with a fortune. What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen? Who thinks of that? But it's fascinating, isn't it? It is fascinating, haha! You should have seen how I talked to the papa and mamma. It was worth paying to have seen me at that moment. She comes in, curtseys, you can fancy, still in a short frockan unopened bud! Flushing like a sunsetshe had been told, no doubt. I don't know how you feel about female faces, but to my mind these sixteen years, these childish eyes, shyness and tears of bashfulness are better than beauty and she is a perfect little picture, too. Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb's, full little rosy lips, tiny feet, a charmer!... Well, we made friends. I told them I was in a hurry owing to domestic circumstances, and the next day, that is the day before yesterday, we were betrothed. When I go now I take her on my knee at once and keep her there.... Well, she flushes like a sunset and I kiss her every minute. Her mamma of course impresses on her that this is her husband and that this must be so. It's simply delicious! The present betrothed condition is perhaps better than marriage. Here you have what is called la nature et la vrit, haha! I've talked to her twice, she is far from a fool. Sometimes she steals a look at me that positively scorches me. Her face is like Raphael's Madonna. You know, the Sistine Madonna's face has something fantastic in it, the face of mournful religious ecstasy. Haven't you noticed it? Well, she's something in that line. The day after we'd been betrothed, I bought her presents to the value of fifteen hundred roublesa set of diamonds and another of pearls and a silver dressingcase as large as this, with all sorts of things in it, so that even my Madonna's face glowed. I sat her on my knee, yesterday, and I suppose rather too unceremoniouslyshe flushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn't want to show it. We were left alone, she suddenly flung herself on my neck (for the first time of her own accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good wife, would make me happy, would devote all her life, every minute of her life, would sacrifice everything, everything, and that all she asks in return is my respect, and that she wants 'nothing, nothing more from me, no presents.' You'll admit that to hear such a confession, alone, from an angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with little curls, with a flush of maiden shyness in her cheeks and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is rather fascinating! Isn't it fascinating? It's worth paying for, isn't it? Well... listen, we'll go to see my betrothed, only not just now! 'The fact is this monstrous difference in age and development excites your sensuality! Will you really make such a marriage? 'Why, of course. Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. Haha! But why are you so keen about virtue? Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful man. Hahaha! 'But you have provided for the children of Katerina Ivanovna. Though... though you had your own reasons.... I understand it all now. 'I am always fond of children, very fond of them, laughed Svidrigalov. 'I can tell you one curious instance of it. The first day I came here I visited various haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at them. You probably notice that I am not in a hurry to renew acquaintance with my old friends. I shall do without them as long as I can. Do you know, when I was with Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was haunted by the thought of these places where anyone who knows his way about can find a great deal. Yes, upon my soul! The peasants have vodka, the educated young people, shut out from activity, waste themselves in impossible dreams and visions and are crippled by theories Jews have sprung up and are amassing money, and all the rest give themselves up to debauchery. From the first hour the town reeked of its familiar odours. I chanced to be in a frightful denI like my dens dirtyit was a dance, so called, and there was a cancan such as I never saw in my day. Yes, there you have progress. All of a sudden I saw a little girl of thirteen, nicely dressed, dancing with a specialist in that line, with another one visvis. Her mother was sitting on a chair by the wall. You can't fancy what a cancan that was! The girl was ashamed, blushed, at last felt insulted, and began to cry. Her partner seized her and began whirling her round and performing before her everyone laughed andI like your public, even the cancan publicthey laughed and shouted, 'Serves her rightserves her right! Shouldn't bring children!' Well, it's not my business whether that consoling reflection was logical or not. I at once fixed on my plan, sat down by the mother, and began by saying that I too was a stranger and that people here were illbred and that they couldn't distinguish decent folks and treat them with respect, gave her to understand that I had plenty of money, offered to take them home in my carriage. I took them home and got to know them. They were lodging in a miserable little hole and had only just arrived from the country. She told me that she and her daughter could only regard my acquaintance as an honour. I found out that they had nothing of their own and had come to town upon some legal business. I proffered my services and money. I learnt that they had gone to the dancing saloon by mistake, believing that it was a genuine dancing class. I offered to assist in the young girl's education in French and dancing. My offer was accepted with enthusiasm as an honourand we are still friendly.... If you like, we'll go and see them, only not just now. 'Stop! Enough of your vile, nasty anecdotes, depraved vile, sensual man! 'Schiller, you are a regular Schiller! O la vertu vatelle se nicher? But you know I shall tell you these things on purpose, for the pleasure of hearing your outcries! 'I dare say. I can see I am ridiculous myself, muttered Raskolnikov angrily. Svidrigalov laughed heartily finally he called Philip, paid his bill, and began getting up. 'I say, but I am drunk, assez caus, he said. 'It's been a pleasure. 'I should rather think it must be a pleasure! cried Raskolnikov, getting up. 'No doubt it is a pleasure for a wornout profligate to describe such adventures with a monstrous project of the same sort in his mindespecially under such circumstances and to such a man as me.... It's stimulating! 'Well, if you come to that, Svidrigalov answered, scrutinising Raskolnikov with some surprise, 'if you come to that, you are a thorough cynic yourself. You've plenty to make you so, anyway. You can understand a great deal... and you can do a great deal too. But enough. I sincerely regret not having had more talk with you, but I shan't lose sight of you.... Only wait a bit. Svidrigalov walked out of the restaurant. Raskolnikov walked out after him. Svidrigalov was not however very drunk, the wine had affected him for a moment, but it was passing off every minute. He was preoccupied with something of importance and was frowning. He was apparently excited and uneasy in anticipation of something. His manner to Raskolnikov had changed during the last few minutes, and he was ruder and more sneering every moment. Raskolnikov noticed all this, and he too was uneasy. He became very suspicious of Svidrigalov and resolved to follow him. They came out on to the pavement. 'You go to the right, and I to the left, or if you like, the other way. Only adieu, mon plaisir, may we meet again. And he walked to the right towards the Hay Market. Raskolnikov walked after him. 'What's this? cried Svidrigalov turning round, 'I thought I said... 'It means that I am not going to lose sight of you now. 'What? Both stood still and gazed at one another, as though measuring their strength. 'From all your half tipsy stories, Raskolnikov observed harshly, 'I am positive that you have not given up your designs on my sister, but are pursuing them more actively than ever. I have learnt that my sister received a letter this morning. You have hardly been able to sit still all this time.... You may have unearthed a wife on the way, but that means nothing. I should like to make certain myself. Raskolnikov could hardly have said himself what he wanted and of what he wished to make certain. 'Upon my word! I'll call the police! 'Call away! Again they stood for a minute facing each other. At last Svidrigalov's face changed. Having satisfied himself that Raskolnikov was not frightened at his threat, he assumed a mirthful and friendly air. 'What a fellow! I purposely refrained from referring to your affair, though I am devoured by curiosity. It's a fantastic affair. I've put it off till another time, but you're enough to rouse the dead.... Well, let us go, only I warn you beforehand I am only going home for a moment, to get some money then I shall lock up the flat, take a cab and go to spend the evening at the Islands. Now, now are you going to follow me? 'I'm coming to your lodgings, not to see you but Sofya Semyonovna, to say I'm sorry not to have been at the funeral. 'That's as you like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. She has taken the three children to an old lady of high rank, the patroness of some orphan asylums, whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the old lady by depositing a sum of money with her to provide for the three children of Katerina Ivanovna and subscribing to the institution as well. I told her too the story of Sofya Semyonovna in full detail, suppressing nothing. It produced an indescribable effect on her. That's why Sofya Semyonovna has been invited to call today at the X. Hotel where the lady is staying for the time. 'No matter, I'll come all the same. 'As you like, it's nothing to me, but I won't come with you here we are at home. By the way, I am convinced that you regard me with suspicion just because I have shown such delicacy and have not so far troubled you with questions... you understand? It struck you as extraordinary I don't mind betting it's that. Well, it teaches one to show delicacy! 'And to listen at doors! 'Ah, that's it, is it? laughed Svidrigalov. 'Yes, I should have been surprised if you had let that pass after all that has happened. Haha! Though I did understand something of the pranks you had been up to and were telling Sofya Semyonovna about, what was the meaning of it? Perhaps I am quite behind the times and can't understand. For goodness' sake, explain it, my dear boy. Expound the latest theories! 'You couldn't have heard anything. You're making it all up! 'But I'm not talking about that (though I did hear something). No, I'm talking of the way you keep sighing and groaning now. The Schiller in you is in revolt every moment, and now you tell me not to listen at doors. If that's how you feel, go and inform the police that you had this mischance you made a little mistake in your theory. But if you are convinced that one mustn't listen at doors, but one may murder old women at one's pleasure, you'd better be off to America and make haste. Run, young man! There may still be time. I'm speaking sincerely. Haven't you the money? I'll give you the fare. 'I'm not thinking of that at all, Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. 'I understand (but don't put yourself out, don't discuss it if you don't want to). I understand the questions you are worrying overmoral ones, aren't they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside. They are nothing to you now, haha! You'll say you are still a man and a citizen. If so you ought not to have got into this coil. It's no use taking up a job you are not fit for. Well, you'd better shoot yourself, or don't you want to? 'You seem trying to enrage me, to make me leave you. 'What a queer fellow! But here we are. Welcome to the staircase. You see, that's the way to Sofya Semyonovna. Look, there is no one at home. Don't you believe me? Ask Kapernaumov. She leaves the key with him. Here is Madame de Kapernaumov herself. Hey, what? She is rather deaf. Has she gone out? Where? Did you hear? She is not in and won't be till late in the evening probably. Well, come to my room you wanted to come and see me, didn't you? Here we are. Madame Resslich's not at home. She is a woman who is always busy, an excellent woman I assure you.... She might have been of use to you if you had been a little more sensible. Now, see! I take this fivepercent bond out of the bureausee what a lot I've got of them stillthis one will be turned into cash today. I mustn't waste any more time. The bureau is locked, the flat is locked, and here we are again on the stairs. Shall we take a cab? I'm going to the Islands. Would you like a lift? I'll take this carriage. Ah, you refuse? You are tired of it! Come for a drive! I believe it will come on to rain. Never mind, we'll put down the hood.... Svidrigalov was already in the carriage. Raskolnikov decided that his suspicions were at least for that moment unjust. Without answering a word he turned and walked back towards the Hay Market. If he had only turned round on his way he might have seen Svidrigalov get out not a hundred paces off, dismiss the cab and walk along the pavement. But he had turned the corner and could see nothing. Intense disgust drew him away from Svidrigalov. 'To think that I could for one instant have looked for help from that coarse brute, that depraved sensualist and blackguard! he cried. Raskolnikov's judgment was uttered too lightly and hastily there was something about Svidrigalov which gave him a certain original, even a mysterious character. As concerned his sister, Raskolnikov was convinced that Svidrigalov would not leave her in peace. But it was too tiresome and unbearable to go on thinking and thinking about this. When he was alone, he had not gone twenty paces before he sank, as usual, into deep thought. On the bridge he stood by the railing and began gazing at the water. And his sister was standing close by him. He met her at the entrance to the bridge, but passed by without seeing her. Dounia had never met him like this in the street before and was struck with dismay. She stood still and did not know whether to call to him or not. Suddenly she saw Svidrigalov coming quickly from the direction of the Hay Market. He seemed to be approaching cautiously. He did not go on to the bridge, but stood aside on the pavement, doing all he could to avoid Raskolnikov's seeing him. He had observed Dounia for some time and had been making signs to her. She fancied he was signalling to beg her not to speak to her brother, but to come to him. That was what Dounia did. She stole by her brother and went up to Svidrigalov. 'Let us make haste away, Svidrigalov whispered to her, 'I don't want Rodion Romanovitch to know of our meeting. I must tell you I've been sitting with him in the restaurant close by, where he looked me up and I had great difficulty in getting rid of him. He has somehow heard of my letter to you and suspects something. It wasn't you who told him, of course, but if not you, who then? 'Well, we've turned the corner now, Dounia interrupted, 'and my brother won't see us. I have to tell you that I am going no further with you. Speak to me here. You can tell it all in the street. 'In the first place, I can't say it in the street secondly, you must hear Sofya Semyonovna too and, thirdly, I will show you some papers.... Oh well, if you won't agree to come with me, I shall refuse to give any explanation and go away at once. But I beg you not to forget that a very curious secret of your beloved brother's is entirely in my keeping. Dounia stood still, hesitating, and looked at Svidrigalov with searching eyes. 'What are you afraid of? he observed quietly. 'The town is not the country. And even in the country you did me more harm than I did you. 'Have you prepared Sofya Semyonovna? 'No, I have not said a word to her and am not quite certain whether she is at home now. But most likely she is. She has buried her stepmother today she is not likely to go visiting on such a day. For the time I don't want to speak to anyone about it and I half regret having spoken to you. The slightest indiscretion is as bad as betrayal in a thing like this. I live there in that house, we are coming to it. That's the porter of our househe knows me very well you see, he's bowing he sees I'm coming with a lady and no doubt he has noticed your face already and you will be glad of that if you are afraid of me and suspicious. Excuse my putting things so coarsely. I haven't a flat to myself Sofya Semyonovna's room is next to mineshe lodges in the next flat. The whole floor is let out in lodgings. Why are you frightened like a child? Am I really so terrible? Svidrigalov's lips were twisted in a condescending smile but he was in no smiling mood. His heart was throbbing and he could scarcely breathe. He spoke rather loud to cover his growing excitement. But Dounia did not notice this peculiar excitement, she was so irritated by his remark that she was frightened of him like a child and that he was so terrible to her. 'Though I know that you are not a man... of honour, I am not in the least afraid of you. Lead the way, she said with apparent composure, but her face was very pale. Svidrigalov stopped at Sonia's room. 'Allow me to inquire whether she is at home.... She is not. How unfortunate! But I know she may come quite soon. If she's gone out, it can only be to see a lady about the orphans. Their mother is dead.... I've been meddling and making arrangements for them. If Sofya Semyonovna does not come back in ten minutes, I will send her to you, today if you like. This is my flat. These are my two rooms. Madame Resslich, my landlady, has the next room. Now, look this way. I will show you my chief piece of evidence this door from my bedroom leads into two perfectly empty rooms, which are to let. Here they are... You must look into them with some attention. Svidrigalov occupied two fairly large furnished rooms. Dounia was looking about her mistrustfully, but saw nothing special in the furniture or position of the rooms. Yet there was something to observe, for instance, that Svidrigalov's flat was exactly between two sets of almost uninhabited apartments. His rooms were not entered directly from the passage, but through the landlady's two almost empty rooms. Unlocking a door leading out of his bedroom, Svidrigalov showed Dounia the two empty rooms that were to let. Dounia stopped in the doorway, not knowing what she was called to look upon, but Svidrigalov hastened to explain. 'Look here, at this second large room. Notice that door, it's locked. By the door stands a chair, the only one in the two rooms. I brought it from my rooms so as to listen more conveniently. Just the other side of the door is Sofya Semyonovna's table she sat there talking to Rodion Romanovitch. And I sat here listening on two successive evenings, for two hours each timeand of course I was able to learn something, what do you think? 'You listened? 'Yes, I did. Now come back to my room we can't sit down here. He brought Avdotya Romanovna back into his sittingroom and offered her a chair. He sat down at the opposite side of the table, at least seven feet from her, but probably there was the same glow in his eyes which had once frightened Dounia so much. She shuddered and once more looked about her distrustfully. It was an involuntary gesture she evidently did not wish to betray her uneasiness. But the secluded position of Svidrigalov's lodging had suddenly struck her. She wanted to ask whether his landlady at least were at home, but pride kept her from asking. Moreover, she had another trouble in her heart incomparably greater than fear for herself. She was in great distress. 'Here is your letter, she said, laying it on the table. 'Can it be true what you write? You hint at a crime committed, you say, by my brother. You hint at it too clearly you daren't deny it now. I must tell you that I'd heard of this stupid story before you wrote and don't believe a word of it. It's a disgusting and ridiculous suspicion. I know the story and why and how it was invented. You can have no proofs. You promised to prove it. Speak! But let me warn you that I don't believe you! I don't believe you! Dounia said this, speaking hurriedly, and for an instant the colour rushed to her face. 'If you didn't believe it, how could you risk coming alone to my rooms? Why have you come? Simply from curiosity? 'Don't torment me. Speak, speak! 'There's no denying that you are a brave girl. Upon my word, I thought you would have asked Mr. Razumihin to escort you here. But he was not with you nor anywhere near. I was on the lookout. It's spirited of you, it proves you wanted to spare Rodion Romanovitch. But everything is divine in you.... About your brother, what am I to say to you? You've just seen him yourself. What did you think of him? 'Surely that's not the only thing you are building on? 'No, not on that, but on his own words. He came here on two successive evenings to see Sofya Semyonovna. I've shown you where they sat. He made a full confession to her. He is a murderer. He killed an old woman, a pawnbroker, with whom he had pawned things himself. He killed her sister too, a pedlar woman called Lizaveta, who happened to come in while he was murdering her sister. He killed them with an axe he brought with him. He murdered them to rob them and he did rob them. He took money and various things.... He told all this, word for word, to Sofya Semyonovna, the only person who knows his secret. But she has had no share by word or deed in the murder she was as horrified at it as you are now. Don't be anxious, she won't betray him. 'It cannot be, muttered Dounia, with white lips. She gasped for breath. 'It cannot be. There was not the slightest cause, no sort of ground.... It's a lie, a lie! 'He robbed her, that was the cause, he took money and things. It's true that by his own admission he made no use of the money or things, but hid them under a stone, where they are now. But that was because he dared not make use of them. 'But how could he steal, rob? How could he dream of it? cried Dounia, and she jumped up from the chair. 'Why, you know him, and you've seen him, can he be a thief? She seemed to be imploring Svidrigalov she had entirely forgotten her fear. 'There are thousands and millions of combinations and possibilities, Avdotya Romanovna. A thief steals and knows he is a scoundrel, but I've heard of a gentleman who broke open the mail. Who knows, very likely he thought he was doing a gentlemanly thing! Of course I should not have believed it myself if I'd been told of it as you have, but I believe my own ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sofya Semyonovna too, but she did not believe her ears at first, yet she believed her own eyes at last. 'What... were the causes? 'It's a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here's... how shall I tell you?A theory of a sort, the same one by which I for instance consider that a single misdeed is permissible if the principal aim is right, a solitary wrongdoing and hundreds of good deeds! It's galling too, of course, for a young man of gifts and overweening pride to know that if he had, for instance, a paltry three thousand, his whole career, his whole future would be differently shaped and yet not to have that three thousand. Add to that, nervous irritability from hunger, from lodging in a hole, from rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social position and his sister's and mother's position too. Above all, vanity, pride and vanity, though goodness knows he may have good qualities too.... I am not blaming him, please don't think it besides, it's not my business. A special little theory came in tooa theory of a sortdividing mankind, you see, into material and superior persons, that is persons to whom the law does not apply owing to their superiority, who make laws for the rest of mankind, the material, that is. It's all right as a theory, une thorie comme une autre. Napoleon attracted him tremendously, that is, what affected him was that a great many men of genius have not hesitated at wrongdoing, but have overstepped the law without thinking about it. He seems to have fancied that he was a genius toothat is, he was convinced of it for a time. He has suffered a great deal and is still suffering from the idea that he could make a theory, but was incapable of boldly overstepping the law, and so he is not a man of genius. And that's humiliating for a young man of any pride, in our day especially.... 'But remorse? You deny him any moral feeling then? Is he like that? 'Ah, Avdotya Romanovna, everything is in a muddle now not that it was ever in very good order. Russians in general are broad in their ideas, Avdotya Romanovna, broad like their land and exceedingly disposed to the fantastic, the chaotic. But it's a misfortune to be broad without a special genius. Do you remember what a lot of talk we had together on this subject, sitting in the evenings on the terrace after supper? Why, you used to reproach me with breadth! Who knows, perhaps we were talking at the very time when he was lying here thinking over his plan. There are no sacred traditions amongst us, especially in the educated class, Avdotya Romanovna. At the best someone will make them up somehow for himself out of books or from some old chronicle. But those are for the most part the learned and all old fogeys, so that it would be almost illbred in a man of society. You know my opinions in general, though. I never blame anyone. I do nothing at all, I persevere in that. But we've talked of this more than once before. I was so happy indeed as to interest you in my opinions.... You are very pale, Avdotya Romanovna. 'I know his theory. I read that article of his about men to whom all is permitted. Razumihin brought it to me. 'Mr. Razumihin? Your brother's article? In a magazine? Is there such an article? I didn't know. It must be interesting. But where are you going, Avdotya Romanovna? 'I want to see Sofya Semyonovna, Dounia articulated faintly. 'How do I go to her? She has come in, perhaps. I must see her at once. Perhaps she... Avdotya Romanovna could not finish. Her breath literally failed her. 'Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at least I believe not. She was to have been back at once, but if not, then she will not be in till quite late. 'Ah, then you are lying! I see... you were lying... lying all the time.... I don't believe you! I don't believe you! cried Dounia, completely losing her head. Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which Svidrigalov made haste to give her. 'Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself! Here is some water. Drink a little.... He sprinkled some water over her. Dounia shuddered and came to herself. 'It has acted violently, Svidrigalov muttered to himself, frowning. 'Avdotya Romanovna, calm yourself! Believe me, he has friends. We will save him. Would you like me to take him abroad? I have money, I can get a ticket in three days. And as for the murder, he will do all sorts of good deeds yet, to atone for it. Calm yourself. He may become a great man yet. Well, how are you? How do you feel? 'Cruel man! To be able to jeer at it! Let me go... 'Where are you going? 'To him. Where is he? Do you know? Why is this door locked? We came in at that door and now it is locked. When did you manage to lock it? 'We couldn't be shouting all over the flat on such a subject. I am far from jeering it's simply that I'm sick of talking like this. But how can you go in such a state? Do you want to betray him? You will drive him to fury, and he will give himself up. Let me tell you, he is already being watched they are already on his track. You will simply be giving him away. Wait a little I saw him and was talking to him just now. He can still be saved. Wait a bit, sit down let us think it over together. I asked you to come in order to discuss it alone with you and to consider it thoroughly. But do sit down! 'How can you save him? Can he really be saved? Dounia sat down. Svidrigalov sat down beside her. 'It all depends on you, on you, on you alone, he began with glowing eyes, almost in a whisper and hardly able to utter the words for emotion. Dounia drew back from him in alarm. He too was trembling all over. 'You... one word from you, and he is saved. I... I'll save him. I have money and friends. I'll send him away at once. I'll get a passport, two passports, one for him and one for me. I have friends... capable people.... If you like, I'll take a passport for you... for your mother.... What do you want with Razumihin? I love you too.... I love you beyond everything.... Let me kiss the hem of your dress, let me, let me.... The very rustle of it is too much for me. Tell me, 'do that,' and I'll do it. I'll do everything. I will do the impossible. What you believe, I will believe. I'll do anythinganything! Don't, don't look at me like that. Do you know that you are killing me?... He was almost beginning to rave.... Something seemed suddenly to go to his head. Dounia jumped up and rushed to the door. 'Open it! Open it! she called, shaking the door. 'Open it! Is there no one there? Svidrigalov got up and came to himself. His still trembling lips slowly broke into an angry mocking smile. 'There is no one at home, he said quietly and emphatically. 'The landlady has gone out, and it's waste of time to shout like that. You are only exciting yourself uselessly. 'Where is the key? Open the door at once, at once, base man! 'I have lost the key and cannot find it. 'This is an outrage, cried Dounia, turning pale as death. She rushed to the furthest corner, where she made haste to barricade herself with a little table. She did not scream, but she fixed her eyes on her tormentor and watched every movement he made. Svidrigalov remained standing at the other end of the room facing her. He was positively composed, at least in appearance, but his face was pale as before. The mocking smile did not leave his face. 'You spoke of outrage just now, Avdotya Romanovna. In that case you may be sure I've taken measures. Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. The Kapernaumovs are far awaythere are five locked rooms between. I am at least twice as strong as you are and I have nothing to fear, besides. For you could not complain afterwards. You surely would not be willing actually to betray your brother? Besides, no one would believe you. How should a girl have come alone to visit a solitary man in his lodgings? So that even if you do sacrifice your brother, you could prove nothing. It is very difficult to prove an assault, Avdotya Romanovna. 'Scoundrel! whispered Dounia indignantly. 'As you like, but observe I was only speaking by way of a general proposition. It's my personal conviction that you are perfectly rightviolence is hateful. I only spoke to show you that you need have no remorse even if... you were willing to save your brother of your own accord, as I suggest to you. You would be simply submitting to circumstances, to violence, in fact, if we must use that word. Think about it. Your brother's and your mother's fate are in your hands. I will be your slave... all my life... I will wait here. Svidrigalov sat down on the sofa about eight steps from Dounia. She had not the slightest doubt now of his unbending determination. Besides, she knew him. Suddenly she pulled out of her pocket a revolver, cocked it and laid it in her hand on the table. Svidrigalov jumped up. 'Aha! So that's it, is it? he cried, surprised but smiling maliciously. 'Well, that completely alters the aspect of affairs. You've made things wonderfully easier for me, Avdotya Romanovna. But where did you get the revolver? Was it Mr. Razumihin? Why, it's my revolver, an old friend! And how I've hunted for it! The shooting lessons I've given you in the country have not been thrown away. 'It's not your revolver, it belonged to Marfa Petrovna, whom you killed, wretch! There was nothing of yours in her house. I took it when I began to suspect what you were capable of. If you dare to advance one step, I swear I'll kill you. She was frantic. 'But your brother? I ask from curiosity, said Svidrigalov, still standing where he was. 'Inform, if you want to! Don't stir! Don't come nearer! I'll shoot! You poisoned your wife, I know you are a murderer yourself! She held the revolver ready. 'Are you so positive I poisoned Marfa Petrovna? 'You did! You hinted it yourself you talked to me of poison.... I know you went to get it... you had it in readiness.... It was your doing.... It must have been your doing.... Scoundrel! 'Even if that were true, it would have been for your sake... you would have been the cause. 'You are lying! I hated you always, always.... 'Oho, Avdotya Romanovna! You seem to have forgotten how you softened to me in the heat of propaganda. I saw it in your eyes. Do you remember that moonlight night, when the nightingale was singing? 'That's a lie, there was a flash of fury in Dounia's eyes, 'that's a lie and a libel! 'A lie? Well, if you like, it's a lie. I made it up. Women ought not to be reminded of such things, he smiled. 'I know you will shoot, you pretty wild creature. Well, shoot away! Dounia raised the revolver, and deadly pale, gazed at him, measuring the distance and awaiting the first movement on his part. Her lower lip was white and quivering and her big black eyes flashed like fire. He had never seen her so handsome. The fire glowing in her eyes at the moment she raised the revolver seemed to kindle him and there was a pang of anguish in his heart. He took a step forward and a shot rang out. The bullet grazed his hair and flew into the wall behind. He stood still and laughed softly. 'The wasp has stung me. She aimed straight at my head. What's this? Blood? he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the blood, which flowed in a thin stream down his right temple. The bullet seemed to have just grazed the skin. Dounia lowered the revolver and looked at Svidrigalov not so much in terror as in a sort of wild amazement. She seemed not to understand what she was doing and what was going on. 'Well, you missed! Fire again, I'll wait, said Svidrigalov softly, still smiling, but gloomily. 'If you go on like that, I shall have time to seize you before you cock again. Dounia started, quickly cocked the pistol and again raised it. 'Let me be, she cried in despair. 'I swear I'll shoot again. I... I'll kill you. 'Well... at three paces you can hardly help it. But if you don't... then. His eyes flashed and he took two steps forward. Dounia shot again it missed fire. 'You haven't loaded it properly. Never mind, you have another charge there. Get it ready, I'll wait. He stood facing her, two paces away, waiting and gazing at her with wild determination, with feverishly passionate, stubborn, set eyes. Dounia saw that he would sooner die than let her go. 'And... now, of course she would kill him, at two paces! Suddenly she flung away the revolver. 'She's dropped it! said Svidrigalov with surprise, and he drew a deep breath. A weight seemed to have rolled from his heartperhaps not only the fear of death indeed he may scarcely have felt it at that moment. It was the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter, which he could not himself have defined. He went to Dounia and gently put his arm round her waist. She did not resist, but, trembling like a leaf, looked at him with suppliant eyes. He tried to say something, but his lips moved without being able to utter a sound. 'Let me go, Dounia implored. Svidrigalov shuddered. Her voice now was quite different. 'Then you don't love me? he asked softly. Dounia shook her head. 'And... and you can't? Never? he whispered in despair. 'Never! There followed a moment of terrible, dumb struggle in the heart of Svidrigalov. He looked at her with an indescribable gaze. Suddenly he withdrew his arm, turned quickly to the window and stood facing it. Another moment passed. 'Here's the key. He took it out of the left pocket of his coat and laid it on the table behind him, without turning or looking at Dounia. 'Take it! Make haste! He looked stubbornly out of the window. Dounia went up to the table to take the key. 'Make haste! Make haste! repeated Svidrigalov, still without turning or moving. But there seemed a terrible significance in the tone of that 'make haste. Dounia understood it, snatched up the key, flew to the door, unlocked it quickly and rushed out of the room. A minute later, beside herself, she ran out on to the canal bank in the direction of X. Bridge. Svidrigalov remained three minutes standing at the window. At last he slowly turned, looked about him and passed his hand over his forehead. A strange smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a smile of despair. The blood, which was already getting dry, smeared his hand. He looked angrily at it, then wetted a towel and washed his temple. The revolver which Dounia had flung away lay near the door and suddenly caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it. It was a little pocket threebarrel revolver of oldfashioned construction. There were still two charges and one capsule left in it. It could be fired again. He thought a little, put the revolver in his pocket, took his hat and went out. He spent that evening till ten o'clock going from one low haunt to another. Katia too turned up and sang another gutter song, how a certain 'villain and tyrant, 'began kissing Katia. Svidrigalov treated Katia and the organgrinder and some singers and the waiters and two little clerks. He was particularly drawn to these clerks by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to the left and the other to the right. They took him finally to a pleasure garden, where he paid for their entrance. There was one lanky threeyearold pinetree and three bushes in the garden, besides a 'Vauxhall, which was in reality a drinkingbar where tea too was served, and there were a few green tables and chairs standing round it. A chorus of wretched singers and a drunken but exceedingly depressed German clown from Munich with a red nose entertained the public. The clerks quarrelled with some other clerks and a fight seemed imminent. Svidrigalov was chosen to decide the dispute. He listened to them for a quarter of an hour, but they shouted so loud that there was no possibility of understanding them. The only fact that seemed certain was that one of them had stolen something and had even succeeded in selling it on the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with his companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen object was a teaspoon belonging to the Vauxhall. It was missed and the affair began to seem troublesome. Svidrigalov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of the garden. It was about six o'clock. He had not drunk a drop of wine all this time and had ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than anything. It was a dark and stifling evening. Threatening stormclouds came over the sky about ten o'clock. There was a clap of thunder, and the rain came down like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat on the earth in streams. There were flashes of lightning every minute and each flash lasted while one could count five. Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked himself in, opened the bureau, took out all his money and tore up two or three papers. Then, putting the money in his pocket, he was about to change his clothes, but, looking out of the window and listening to the thunder and the rain, he gave up the idea, took up his hat and went out of the room without locking the door. He went straight to Sonia. She was at home. She was not alone the four Kapernaumov children were with her. She was giving them tea. She received Svidrigalov in respectful silence, looking wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all ran away at once in indescribable terror. Svidrigalov sat down at the table and asked Sonia to sit beside him. She timidly prepared to listen. 'I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna, said Svidrigalov, 'and as I am probably seeing you for the last time, I have come to make some arrangements. Well, did you see the lady today? I know what she said to you, you need not tell me. (Sonia made a movement and blushed.) 'Those people have their own way of doing things. As to your sisters and your brother, they are really provided for and the money assigned to them I've put into safe keeping and have received acknowledgments. You had better take charge of the receipts, in case anything happens. Here, take them! Well now, that's settled. Here are three percent bonds to the value of three thousand roubles. Take those for yourself, entirely for yourself, and let that be strictly between ourselves, so that no one knows of it, whatever you hear. You will need the money, for to go on living in the old way, Sofya Semyonovna, is bad, and besides there is no need for it now. 'I am so much indebted to you, and so are the children and my stepmother, said Sonia hurriedly, 'and if I've said so little... please don't consider... 'That's enough! that's enough! 'But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you, but I don't need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don't think me ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money.... 'It's for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don't waste words over it. I haven't time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch has two alternatives a bullet in the brain or Siberia. (Sonia looked wildly at him, and started.) 'Don't be uneasy, I know all about it from himself and I am not a gossip I won't tell anyone. It was good advice when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and you will follow him. That's so, isn't it? And if so, you'll need money. You'll need it for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same as my giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay what's owing. I heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna's debt and not yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman. You can't get through the world like that. If you are ever questioned about metomorrow or the day after you will be askeddon't say anything about my coming to see you now and don't show the money to anyone or say a word about it. Well, now goodbye. (He got up.) 'My greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you'd better put the money for the present in Mr. Razumihin's keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of course you do. He's not a bad fellow. Take it to him tomorrow or... when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully. Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigalov. She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she did not dare and did not know how to begin. 'How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain? 'Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Goodbye, Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him. Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigalov sends his greetings. Be sure to. He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague apprehension. It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven, he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused great perturbation but Svidrigalov could be very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigalov had probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigalov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she were obliged to ascertain somethingfor instance, when Svidrigalov would like to have the weddingshe would begin by interested and almost eager questions about Paris and the court life there, and only by degrees brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other occasions this had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared. Svidrigalov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her fifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from him, as he had long been intending to make her this trifling present before their wedding. The logical connection of the present with his immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went off very well even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret, the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the other hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced by tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigalov got up, laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon come back, and noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a sort of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought that his present would be immediately locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He went away, leaving them all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but the tender mamma, speaking quietly in a half whisper, settled some of the most important of their doubts, concluding that Svidrigalov was a great man, a man of great affairs and connections and of great wealththere was no knowing what he had in his mind. He would start off on a journey and give away money just as the fancy took him, so that there was nothing surprising about it. Of course it was strange that he was wet through, but Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccentric, and all these people of high society didn't think of what was said of them and didn't stand on ceremony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that on purpose to show that he was not afraid of anyone. Above all, not a word should be said about it, for God knows what might come of it, and the money must be locked up, and it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the cook, had not left the kitchen. And above all not a word must be said to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and so on and so on. They sat up whispering till two o'clock, but the girl went to bed much earlier, amazed and rather sorrowful. Svidrigalov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on the way back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a roaring wind. He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the black waters of the Little Neva with a look of special interest, even inquiry. But he soon felt it very cold, standing by the water he turned and went towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a long time, almost half an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on the wooden pavement, but continually looking for something on the right side of the street. He had noticed passing through this street lately that there was a hotel somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but fairly large, and its name he remembered was something like Adrianople. He was not mistaken the hotel was so conspicuous in that Godforsaken place that he could not fail to see it even in the dark. It was a long, blackened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour there were lights in the windows and signs of life within. He went in and asked a ragged fellow who met him in the corridor for a room. The latter, scanning Svidrigalov, pulled himself together and led him at once to a close and tiny room in the distance, at the end of the corridor, under the stairs. There was no other, all were occupied. The ragged fellow looked inquiringly. 'Is there tea? asked Svidrigalov. 'Yes, sir. 'What else is there? 'Veal, vodka, savouries. 'Bring me tea and veal. 'And you want nothing else? he asked with apparent surprise. 'Nothing, nothing. The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned. 'It must be a nice place, thought Svidrigalov. 'How was it I didn't know it? I expect I look as if I came from a caf chantant and have had some adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed here? He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a room so lowpitched that Svidrigalov could only just stand up in it it had one window the bed, which was very dirty, and the plainstained chair and table almost filled it up. The walls looked as though they were made of planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty that the pattern was indistinguishable, though the general colouryellowcould still be made out. One of the walls was cut short by the sloping ceiling, though the room was not an attic but just under the stairs. Svidrigalov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a shout in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not ceased from the moment he entered the room. He listened someone was upbraiding and almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one voice. Svidrigalov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw light through a crack in the wall he went up and peeped through. The room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of them, a very curlyheaded man with a red inflamed face, was standing in the pose of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to preserve his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached the other with being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He declared that he had taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn him out when he liked, and that only the finger of Providence sees it all. The object of his reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the air of a man who wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can't. He sometimes turned sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not the slightest idea what he was talking about and scarcely heard it. A candle was burning down on the table there were wineglasses, a nearly empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber, and glasses with the dregs of stale tea. After gazing attentively at this, Svidrigalov turned away indifferently and sat down on the bed. The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking him again whether he didn't want anything more, and again receiving a negative reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigalov made haste to drink a glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began to feel feverish. He took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the blanket, lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. 'It would have been better to be well for the occasion, he thought with a smile. The room was close, the candle burnt dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard a mouse scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice and of leather. He lay in a sort of reverie one thought followed another. He felt a longing to fix his imagination on something. 'It must be a garden under the window, he thought. 'There's a sound of trees. How I dislike the sound of trees on a stormy night, in the dark! They give one a horrid feeling. He remembered how he had disliked it when he passed Petrovsky Park just now. This reminded him of the bridge over the Little Neva and he felt cold again as he had when standing there. 'I never have liked water, he thought, 'even in a landscape, and he suddenly smiled again at a strange idea 'Surely now all these questions of taste and comfort ought not to matter, but I've become more particular, like an animal that picks out a special place... for such an occasion. I ought to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I suppose it seemed dark, cold, haha! As though I were seeking pleasant sensations!... By the way, why haven't I put out the candle? he blew it out. 'They've gone to bed next door, he thought, not seeing the light at the crack. 'Well, now, Marfa Petrovna, now is the time for you to turn up it's dark, and the very time and place for you. But now you won't come! He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin's keeping. 'I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to tease myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He's gone through a good deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he's got over his nonsense. But now he's too eager for life. These young men are contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please himself, it's nothing to do with me. He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia's image rose before him, and a shudder ran over him. 'No, I must give up all that now, he thought, rousing himself. 'I must think of something else. It's queer and funny. I never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly desired to avenge myself even, and that's a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad sign. I never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temperthat's a bad sign too. And the promises I made her just now, tooDamnation! Butwho knows?perhaps she would have made a new man of me somehow.... He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia's image rose before him, just as she was when, after shooting the first time, she had lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so that he might have seized her twice over and she would not have lifted a hand to defend herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled how at that instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang at his heart... 'Ae! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away! He was dozing off the feverish shiver had ceased, when suddenly something seemed to run over his arm and leg under the bedclothes. He started. 'Ugh! hang it! I believe it's a mouse, he thought, 'that's the veal I left on the table. He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the blanket, get up, get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over his leg again. He pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle. Shaking with feverish chill he bent down to examine the bed there was nothing. He shook the blanket and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet. He tried to catch it, but the mouse ran to and fro in zigzags without leaving the bed, slipped between his fingers, ran over his hand and suddenly darted under the pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one instant felt something leap on his chest and dart over his body and down his back under his shirt. He trembled nervously and woke up. The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and wrapped up in the blanket as before. The wind was howling under the window. 'How disgusting, he thought with annoyance. He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. 'It's better not to sleep at all, he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holidayTrinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawingroom and again everywhereat the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itselfwere flowers. The floors were strewn with freshlycut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigalov knew that girl there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin no sound of prayers the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled.... Svidrigalov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the window. He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind lashed furiously into the little room and stung his face and his chest, only covered with his shirt, as though with frost. Under the window there must have been something like a garden, and apparently a pleasure garden. There, too, probably there were teatables and singing in the daytime. Now drops of rain flew in at the window from the trees and bushes it was dark as in a cellar, so that he could only just make out some dark blurs of objects. Svidrigalov, bending down with elbows on the windowsill, gazed for five minutes into the darkness the boom of a cannon, followed by a second one, resounded in the darkness of the night. 'Ah, the signal! The river is overflowing, he thought. 'By morning it will be swirling down the street in the lower parts, flooding the basements and cellars. The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the rain and wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is it now? And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck three. 'Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I'll go out at once straight to the park. I'll choose a great bush there drenched with rain, so that as soon as one's shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on one's head. He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle, into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep somewhere in the midst of candleends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay him for the room and leave the hotel. 'It's the best minute I couldn't choose a better. He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor without finding anyone and was just going to call out, when suddenly in a dark corner between an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a strange object which seemed to be alive. He bent down with the candle and saw a little girl, not more than five years old, shivering and crying, with her clothes as wet as a soaking houseflannel. She did not seem afraid of Svidrigalov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of her big black eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children do when they have been crying a long time, but are beginning to be comforted. The child's face was pale and tired, she was numb with cold. 'How can she have come here? She must have hidden here and not slept all night. He began questioning her. The child suddenly becoming animated, chattered away in her baby language, something about 'mammy and that 'mammy would beat her, and about some cup that she had 'bwoken. The child chattered on without stopping. He could only guess from what she said that she was a neglected child, whose mother, probably a drunken cook, in the service of the hotel, whipped and frightened her that the child had broken a cup of her mother's and was so frightened that she had run away the evening before, had hidden for a long while somewhere outside in the rain, at last had made her way in here, hidden behind the cupboard and spent the night there, crying and trembling from the damp, the darkness and the fear that she would be badly beaten for it. He took her in his arms, went back to his room, sat her on the bed, and began undressing her. The torn shoes which she had on her stockingless feet were as wet as if they had been standing in a puddle all night. When he had undressed her, he put her on the bed, covered her up and wrapped her in the blanket from her head downwards. She fell asleep at once. Then he sank into dreary musing again. 'What folly to trouble myself, he decided suddenly with an oppressive feeling of annoyance. 'What idiocy! In vexation he took up the candle to go and look for the ragged attendant again and make haste to go away. 'Damn the child! he thought as he opened the door, but he turned again to see whether the child was asleep. He raised the blanket carefully. The child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm under the blanket, and her pale cheeks were flushed. But strange to say that flush seemed brighter and coarser than the rosy cheeks of childhood. 'It's a flush of fever, thought Svidrigalov. It was like the flush from drinking, as though she had been given a full glass to drink. Her crimson lips were hot and glowing but what was this? He suddenly fancied that her long black eyelashes were quivering, as though the lids were opening and a sly crafty eye peeped out with an unchildlike wink, as though the little girl were not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so. Her lips parted in a smile. The corners of her mouth quivered, as though she were trying to control them. But now she quite gave up all effort, now it was a grin, a broad grin there was something shameless, provocative in that quite unchildish face it was depravity, it was the face of a harlot, the shameless face of a French harlot. Now both eyes opened wide they turned a glowing, shameless glance upon him they laughed, invited him.... There was something infinitely hideous and shocking in that laugh, in those eyes, in such nastiness in the face of a child. 'What, at five years old? Svidrigalov muttered in genuine horror. 'What does it mean? And now she turned to him, her little face all aglow, holding out her arms.... 'Accursed child! Svidrigalov cried, raising his hand to strike her, but at that moment he woke up. He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blanket. The candle had not been lighted, and daylight was streaming in at the windows. 'I've had nightmare all night! He got up angrily, feeling utterly shattered his bones ached. There was a thick mist outside and he could see nothing. It was nearly five. He had overslept himself! He got up, put on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the revolver in his pocket, he took it out and then he sat down, took a notebook out of his pocket and in the most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few lines in large letters. Reading them over, he sank into thought with his elbows on the table. The revolver and the notebook lay beside him. Some flies woke up and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on the table. He stared at them and at last with his free right hand began trying to catch one. He tried till he was tired, but could not catch it. At last, realising that he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he started, got up and walked resolutely out of the room. A minute later he was in the street. A thick milky mist hung over the town. Svidrigalov walked along the slippery dirty wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. He was picturing the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night, Petrovsky Island, the wet paths, the wet grass, the wet trees and bushes and at last the bush.... He began illhumouredly staring at the houses, trying to think of something else. There was not a cabman or a passerby in the street. The bright yellow, wooden, little houses looked dirty and dejected with their closed shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his whole body and he began to shiver. From time to time he came across shop signs and read each carefully. At last he reached the end of the wooden pavement and came to a big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog crossed his path with its tail between its legs. A man in a greatcoat lay face downwards dead drunk, across the pavement. He looked at him and went on. A high tower stood up on the left. 'Bah! he shouted, 'here is a place. Why should it be Petrovsky? It will be in the presence of an official witness anyway.... He almost smiled at this new thought and turned into the street where there was the big house with the tower. At the great closed gates of the house, a little man stood with his shoulder leaning against them, wrapped in a grey soldier's coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigalov. His face wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both, Svidrigalov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as irregular for a man not drunk to be standing three steps from him, staring and not saying a word. 'What do you want here? he said, without moving or changing his position. 'Nothing, brother, good morning, answered Svidrigalov. 'This isn't the place. 'I am going to foreign parts, brother. 'To foreign parts? 'To America. 'America. Svidrigalov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his eyebrows. 'I say, this is not the place for such jokes! 'Why shouldn't it be the place? 'Because it isn't. 'Well, brother, I don't mind that. It's a good place. When you are asked, you just say he was going, he said, to America. He put the revolver to his right temple. 'You can't do it here, it's not the place, cried Achilles, rousing himself, his eyes growing bigger and bigger. Svidrigalov pulled the trigger. The same day, about seven o'clock in the evening, Raskolnikov was on his way to his mother's and sister's lodgingthe lodging in Bakaleyev's house which Razumihin had found for them. The stairs went up from the street. Raskolnikov walked with lagging steps, as though still hesitating whether to go or not. But nothing would have turned him back his decision was taken. 'Besides, it doesn't matter, they still know nothing, he thought, 'and they are used to thinking of me as eccentric. He was appallingly dressed his clothes torn and dirty, soaked with a night's rain. His face was almost distorted from fatigue, exposure, the inward conflict that had lasted for twentyfour hours. He had spent all the previous night alone, God knows where. But anyway he had reached a decision. He knocked at the door which was opened by his mother. Dounia was not at home. Even the servant happened to be out. At first Pulcheria Alexandrovna was speechless with joy and surprise then she took him by the hand and drew him into the room. 'Here you are! she began, faltering with joy. 'Don't be angry with me, Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears I am laughing not crying. Did you think I was crying? No, I am delighted, but I've got into such a stupid habit of shedding tears. I've been like that ever since your father's death. I cry for anything. Sit down, dear boy, you must be tired I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are. 'I was in the rain yesterday, mother.... Raskolnikov began. 'No, no, Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly interrupted, 'you thought I was going to crossquestion you in the womanish way I used to don't be anxious, I understand, I understand it all now I've learned the ways here and truly I see for myself that they are better. I've made up my mind once for all how could I understand your plans and expect you to give an account of them? God knows what concerns and plans you may have, or what ideas you are hatching so it's not for me to keep nudging your elbow, asking you what you are thinking about? But, my goodness! why am I running to and fro as though I were crazy...? I am reading your article in the magazine for the third time, Rodya. Dmitri Prokofitch brought it to me. Directly I saw it I cried out to myself 'There, foolish one,' I thought, 'that's what he is busy about that's the solution of the mystery! Learned people are always like that. He may have some new ideas in his head just now he is thinking them over and I worry him and upset him.' I read it, my dear, and of course there was a great deal I did not understand but that's only naturalhow should I? 'Show me, mother. Raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his article. Incongruous as it was with his mood and his circumstances, he felt that strange and bitter sweet sensation that every author experiences the first time he sees himself in print besides, he was only twentythree. It lasted only a moment. After reading a few lines he frowned and his heart throbbed with anguish. He recalled all the inward conflict of the preceding months. He flung the article on the table with disgust and anger. 'But, however foolish I may be, Rodya, I can see for myself that you will very soon be one of the leadingif not the leading manin the world of Russian thought. And they dared to think you were mad! You don't know, but they really thought that. Ah, the despicable creatures, how could they understand genius! And Dounia, Dounia was all but believing itwhat do you say to that? Your father sent twice to magazinesthe first time poems (I've got the manuscript and will show you) and the second time a whole novel (I begged him to let me copy it out) and how we prayed that they should be takenthey weren't! I was breaking my heart, Rodya, six or seven days ago over your food and your clothes and the way you are living. But now I see again how foolish I was, for you can attain any position you like by your intellect and talent. No doubt you don't care about that for the present and you are occupied with much more important matters.... 'Dounia's not at home, mother? 'No, Rodya. I often don't see her she leaves me alone. Dmitri Prokofitch comes to see me, it's so good of him, and he always talks about you. He loves you and respects you, my dear. I don't say that Dounia is very wanting in consideration. I am not complaining. She has her ways and I have mine she seems to have got some secrets of late and I never have any secrets from you two. Of course, I am sure that Dounia has far too much sense, and besides she loves you and me... but I don't know what it will all lead to. You've made me so happy by coming now, Rodya, but she has missed you by going out when she comes in I'll tell her 'Your brother came in while you were out. Where have you been all this time?' You mustn't spoil me, Rodya, you know come when you can, but if you can't, it doesn't matter, I can wait. I shall know, anyway, that you are fond of me, that will be enough for me. I shall read what you write, I shall hear about you from everyone, and sometimes you'll come yourself to see me. What could be better? Here you've come now to comfort your mother, I see that. Here Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry. 'Here I am again! Don't mind my foolishness. My goodness, why am I sitting here? she cried, jumping up. 'There is coffee and I don't offer you any. Ah, that's the selfishness of old age. I'll get it at once! 'Mother, don't trouble, I am going at once. I haven't come for that. Please listen to me. Pulcheria Alexandrovna went up to him timidly. 'Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever you are told about me, will you always love me as you do now? he asked suddenly from the fullness of his heart, as though not thinking of his words and not weighing them. 'Rodya, Rodya, what is the matter? How can you ask me such a question? Why, who will tell me anything about you? Besides, I shouldn't believe anyone, I should refuse to listen. 'I've come to assure you that I've always loved you and I am glad that we are alone, even glad Dounia is out, he went on with the same impulse. 'I have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you must believe that your son loves you now more than himself, and that all you thought about me, that I was cruel and didn't care about you, was all a mistake. I shall never cease to love you.... Well, that's enough I thought I must do this and begin with this.... Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence, pressing him to her bosom and weeping gently. 'I don't know what is wrong with you, Rodya, she said at last. 'I've been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now I see that there is a great sorrow in store for you, and that's why you are miserable. I've foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive me for speaking about it. I keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights. Your sister lay talking in her sleep all last night, talking of nothing but you. I caught something, but I couldn't make it out. I felt all the morning as though I were going to be hanged, waiting for something, expecting something, and now it has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You are going away somewhere? 'Yes. 'That's what I thought! I can come with you, you know, if you need me. And Dounia, too she loves you, she loves you dearlyand Sofya Semyonovna may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to look upon her as a daughter even... Dmitri Prokofitch will help us to go together. But... where... are you going? 'Goodbye, mother. 'What, today? she cried, as though losing him for ever. 'I can't stay, I must go now.... 'And can't I come with you? 'No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your prayer perhaps will reach Him. 'Let me bless you and sign you with the cross. That's right, that's right. Oh, God, what are we doing? Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no one there, that he was alone with his mother. For the first time after all those awful months his heart was softened. He fell down before her, he kissed her feet and both wept, embracing. And she was not surprised and did not question him this time. For some days she had realised that something awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had come for him. 'Rodya, my darling, my first born, she said sobbing, 'now you are just as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me. When your father was living and we were poor, you comforted us simply by being with us and when I buried your father, how often we wept together at his grave and embraced, as now. And if I've been crying lately, it's that my mother's heart had a foreboding of trouble. The first time I saw you, that evening, you remember, as soon as we arrived here, I guessed simply from your eyes. My heart sank at once, and today when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought the fatal hour had come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not going away today? 'No! 'You'll come again? 'Yes... I'll come. 'Rodya, don't be angry, I don't dare to question you. I know I mustn't. Only say two words to meis it far where you are going? 'Very far. 'What is awaiting you there? Some post or career for you? 'What God sends... only pray for me. Raskolnikov went to the door, but she clutched him and gazed despairingly into his eyes. Her face worked with terror. 'Enough, mother, said Raskolnikov, deeply regretting that he had come. 'Not for ever, it's not yet for ever? You'll come, you'll come tomorrow? 'I will, I will, goodbye. He tore himself away at last. It was a warm, fresh, bright evening it had cleared up in the morning. Raskolnikov went to his lodgings he made haste. He wanted to finish all before sunset. He did not want to meet anyone till then. Going up the stairs he noticed that Nastasya rushed from the samovar to watch him intently. 'Can anyone have come to see me? he wondered. He had a disgusted vision of Porfiry. But opening his door he saw Dounia. She was sitting alone, plunged in deep thought, and looked as though she had been waiting a long time. He stopped short in the doorway. She rose from the sofa in dismay and stood up facing him. Her eyes, fixed upon him, betrayed horror and infinite grief. And from those eyes alone he saw at once that she knew. 'Am I to come in or go away? he asked uncertainly. 'I've been all day with Sofya Semyonovna. We were both waiting for you. We thought that you would be sure to come there. Raskolnikov went into the room and sank exhausted on a chair. 'I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired and I should have liked at this moment to be able to control myself. He glanced at her mistrustfully. 'Where were you all night? 'I don't remember clearly. You see, sister, I wanted to make up my mind once for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember that I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn't make up my mind, he whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again. 'Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonovna and I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank God! Raskolnikov smiled bitterly. 'I haven't faith, but I have just been weeping in mother's arms I haven't faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don't know how it is, Dounia, I don't understand it. 'Have you been at mother's? Have you told her? cried Dounia, horrorstricken. 'Surely you haven't done that? 'No, I didn't tell her... in words but she understood a great deal. She heard you talking in your sleep. I am sure she half understands it already. Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don't know why I did go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia. 'A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering! You are, aren't you? 'Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the disgrace I thought of drowning myself, Dounia, but as I looked into the water, I thought that if I had considered myself strong till now I'd better not be afraid of disgrace, he said, hurrying on. 'It's pride, Dounia. 'Pride, Rodya. There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes he seemed to be glad to think that he was still proud. 'You don't think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water? he asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile. 'Oh, Rodya, hush! cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for two minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on the floor Dounia stood at the other end of the table and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got up. 'It's late, it's time to go! I am going at once to give myself up. But I don't know why I am going to give myself up. Big tears fell down her cheeks. 'You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to me? 'You doubted it? She threw her arms round him. 'Aren't you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering? she cried, holding him close and kissing him. 'Crime? What crime? he cried in sudden fury. 'That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? 'A crime! a crime!' Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It's simply because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested! 'Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood? cried Dounia in despair. 'Which all men shed, he put in almost frantically, 'which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I too wanted to do good to men and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.) By that stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an independent position, to take the first step, to obtain means, and then everything would have been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison.... But I... I couldn't carry out even the first step, because I am contemptible, that's what's the matter! And yet I won't look at it as you do. If I had succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I'm trapped. 'But that's not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying? 'Ah, it's not picturesque, not sthetically attractive! I fail to understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable. The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. I've never, never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am further than ever from seeing that what I did was a crime. I've never, never been stronger and more convinced than now. The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia's eyes and he saw such anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that he had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was, anyway, the cause... 'Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven if I am guilty). Goodbye! We won't dispute. It's time, high time to go. Don't follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It's my last request of you. Don't leave her at all I left her in a state of anxiety, that she is not fit to bear she will die or go out of her mind. Be with her! Razumihin will be with you. I've been talking to him.... Don't cry about me I'll try to be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a murderer. Perhaps I shall some day make a name. I won't disgrace you, you will see I'll still show.... Now goodbye for the present, he concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange expression in Dounia's eyes at his last words and promises. 'Why are you crying? Don't cry, don't cry we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I'd forgotten! He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took from between the pages a little watercolour portrait on ivory. It was the portrait of his landlady's daughter, who had died of fever, that strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave it to Dounia. 'I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her, he said thoughtfully. 'To her heart I confided much of what has since been so hideously realised. Don't be uneasy, he returned to Dounia, 'she was as much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is gone. The great point is that everything now is going to be different, is going to be broken in two, he cried, suddenly returning to his dejection. 'Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do I want it myself? They say it is necessary for me to suffer! What's the object of these senseless sufferings? shall I know any better what they are for, when I am crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old man after twenty years' penal servitude? And what shall I have to live for then? Why am I consenting to that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible when I stood looking at the Neva at daybreak today! At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia, but she loved him. She walked away, but after going fifty paces she turned round to look at him again. He was still in sight. At the corner he too turned and for the last time their eyes met but noticing that she was looking at him, he motioned her away with impatience and even vexation, and turned the corner abruptly. 'I am wicked, I see that, he thought to himself, feeling ashamed a moment later of his angry gesture to Dounia. 'But why are they so fond of me if I don't deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved me and I too had never loved anyone! Nothing of all this would have happened. But I wonder shall I in those fifteen or twenty years grow so meek that I shall humble myself before people and whimper at every word that I am a criminal? Yes, that's it, that's it, that's what they are sending me there for, that's what they want. Look at them running to and fro about the streets, every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at heart and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and they'd be wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I hate them all! He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he could be humbled before all of them, indiscriminatelyhumbled by conviction. And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of continual bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And why, why should he live after that? Why should he go now when he knew that it would be so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked himself that question since the previous evening, but still he went. When he went into Sonia's room, it was already getting dark. All day Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering Svidrigalov's words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became. Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with his confession he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not ask, but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence and at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at Dounia. Dounia's gracious image when she had bowed to her so attentively and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov's room had remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life. Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her brother's room to await him there she kept thinking that he would come there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the dread of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had spent the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and both were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they parted, each thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how Svidrigalov had said to her the day before that Raskolnikov had two alternativesSiberia or... Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his lack of faith. 'Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to make him live? she thought at last in despair. Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to feel sure of his deathhe walked into the room. She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned pale. 'Yes, said Raskolnikov, smiling. 'I have come for your cross, Sonia. It was you told me to go to the crossroads why is it you are frightened now it's come to that? Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her a cold shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid meeting her eyes. 'You see, Sonia, I've decided that it will be better so. There is one fact.... But it's a long story and there's no need to discuss it. But do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid questions, which I shall have to answerthey'll point their fingers at me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I'd rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant how I shall surprise him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler I've become too irritable of late. You know I was nearly shaking my fist at my sister just now, because she turned to take a last look at me. It's a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the crosses? He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still or concentrate his attention on anything his ideas seemed to gallop after one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly. Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of cypress wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck. 'It's the symbol of my taking up the cross, he laughed. 'As though I had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant one the copper one, that is Lizaveta'syou will wear yourself, show me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old woman's neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what matters I'm somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you, Sonia, so that you might know... that's allthat's all I came for. But I thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I am going to prison and you'll have your wish. Well, what are you crying for? You too? Don't. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all! But his feeling was stirred his heart ached, as he looked at her. 'Why is she grieving too? he thought to himself. 'What am I to her? Why does she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She'll be my nurse. 'Cross yourself, say at least one prayer, Sonia begged in a timid broken voice. 'Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely.... But he wanted to say something quite different. He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put it over her head. It was the green drap de dames shawl of which Marmeladov had spoken, 'the family shawl. Raskolnikov thought of that looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia meant to go with him. 'What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I'll go alone, he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved towards the door. 'What's the use of going in procession? he muttered going out. Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said goodbye to her he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt surged in his heart. 'Was it right, was it right, all this? he thought again as he went down the stairs. 'Couldn't he stop and retract it all... and not go? But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn't ask himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he had not said goodbye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike him then. 'Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told heron business on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was going but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I've sunk! No, I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible! He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it went to the Hay Market. He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and could not fix his attention on anything everything slipped away. 'In another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember this! slipped into his mind. 'Look at this sign! How shall I read those letters then? It's written here 'Campany,' that's a thing to remember, that letter a, and to look at it again in a monthhow shall I look at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be interesting... in its way... (Hahaha! What am I thinking about?) I am becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself why am I ashamed? Foo! how people shove! that fat mana German he must bewho pushed against me, does he know whom he pushed? There's a peasant woman with a baby, begging. It's curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here's a five copeck piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my good woman! 'God bless you, the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice. He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would have given anything in the world to be alone but he knew himself that he would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and disorderly in the crowd he kept trying to dance and falling down. There was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd, stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him, though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he was but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly came over him, overwhelming him body and mind. He suddenly recalled Sonia's words, 'Go to the crossroads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say aloud to the whole world, 'I am a murderer.' He trembled, remembering that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time, especially of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete sensation. It came over him like a fit it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot.... He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth, and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed down a second time. 'He's boozed, a youth near him observed. There was a roar of laughter. 'He's going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying goodbye to his children and his country. He's bowing down to all the world and kissing the great city of St. Petersburg and its pavement, added a workman who was a little drunk. 'Quite a young man, too! observed a third. 'And a gentleman, someone observed soberly. 'There's no knowing who's a gentleman and who isn't nowadays. These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words, 'I am a murderer, which were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips, died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and, without looking round, he turned down a street leading to the police office. He had a glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise him he had felt that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in the Hay Market he saw, standing fifty paces from him on the left, Sonia. She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the marketplace. She had followed him then on his painful way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his heart... but he was just reaching the fatal place. He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third storey. 'I shall be some time going up, he thought. He felt as though the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time left for consideration. Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to collect himself, so as to enter like a man. 'But why? what for? he wondered, reflecting. 'If I must drink the cup what difference does it make? The more revolting the better. He imagined for an instant the figure of the 'explosive lieutenant, Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually going to him? Couldn't he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch? Couldn't he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch's lodgings? At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the 'explosive lieutenant! If he must drink it, drink it off at once. Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office. There were very few people in it this timeonly a house porter and a peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen. Raskolnikov walked into the next room. 'Perhaps I still need not speak, passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch. 'No one in? Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau. 'Whom do you want? 'Aah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I've forgotten! 'At your service!' a familiar voice cried suddenly. Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He had just come in from the third room. 'It is the hand of fate, thought Raskolnikov. 'Why is he here? 'You've come to see us? What about? cried Ilya Petrovitch. He was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle exhilarated. 'If it's on business you are rather early. It's only a chance that I am here... however I'll do what I can. I must admit, I... what is it, what is it? Excuse me....  Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after sunset, and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the police office at two in the afternoon he was reproached for coming too late.TRANSLATOR. 'Raskolnikov. 'Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn't imagine I'd forgotten? Don't think I am like that... Rodion RoRoRodionovitch, that's it, isn't it? 'Rodion Romanovitch. 'Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I made many inquiries about you. I assure you I've been genuinely grieved since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and so to say the first steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scientific man does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have the greatest respect for literature, in my wife it's a genuine passion! Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hatwell, what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun but what's under the hat, what the hat covers, I can't buy that! I was even meaning to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you'd... But I am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your family have come? 'Yes, my mother and sister. 'I've even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sistera highly cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting fitthat affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism! I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging on account of your family's arriving? 'No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should find Zametov here. 'Oh, yes! Of course, you've made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is not here. Yes, we've lost Zametov. He's not been here since yesterday... he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a featherheaded youngster, that's all one might have expected something from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant young men. He wanted to go in for some examination, but it's only to talk and boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it's a very different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your career is an intellectual one and you won't be deterred by failure. For you, one may say, all the attractions of life nihil estyou are an ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned researchthat's where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself.... Have you read Livingstone's Travels? 'No. 'Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you know, and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are they? I ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course? Answer me openly, openly! 'Nno... 'Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself! Official duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say friendship is quite another? No, you're wrong! It's not friendship, but the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of love for the Almighty. I may be an official, but I am always bound to feel myself a man and a citizen.... You were asking about Zametov. Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a house of bad reputation, over a glass of champagne... that's all your Zametov is good for! While I'm perhaps, so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a post! I am married and have children, I fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen, but who is he, may I ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by education... Then these midwives, too, have become extraordinarily numerous. Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end. 'I mean those cropheaded wenches, the talkative Ilya Petrovitch continued. 'Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very satisfactory one, haha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill, am I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do you say? Haha! Ilya Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own wit. 'It's an immoderate zeal for education, but once you're educated, that's enough. Why abuse it? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how common they are, you can't fancy! People spend their last halfpenny and kill themselves, boys and girls and old people. Only this morning we heard about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil Pavlitch, I say, what was the name of that gentleman who shot himself? 'Svidrigalov, someone answered from the other room with drowsy listlessness. Raskolnikov started. 'Svidrigalov! Svidrigalov has shot himself! he cried. 'What, do you know Svidrigalov? 'Yes... I knew him.... He hadn't been here long. 'Yes, that's so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless habits and all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking way.... He left in his notebook a few words that he dies in full possession of his faculties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they say. How did you come to know him? 'I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family. 'Bahbahbah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him. You had no suspicion? 'I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine I knew nothing. Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was stifling him. 'You've turned pale again. It's so stuffy here... 'Yes, I must go, muttered Raskolnikov. 'Excuse my troubling you.... 'Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It's a pleasure to see you and I am glad to say so. Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand. 'I only wanted... I came to see Zametov. 'I understand, I understand, and it's a pleasure to see you. 'I... am very glad... goodbye, Raskolnikov smiled. He went out he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not know what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting himself with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter pushed past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog in the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung a rollingpin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard. There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horrorstricken. She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned and went back to the police office. Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some papers. Before him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the stairs. 'Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What's the matter? Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer. He walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say something, but could not only incoherent sounds were audible. 'You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water! Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes fixed on the face of Ilya Petrovitch, which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought. 'It was I... began Raskolnikov. 'Drink some water. Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and brokenly, but distinctly said 'It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them. Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides. Raskolnikov repeated his statement. Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of the administrative centres of Russia in the town there is a fortress, in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the secondclass convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a year and a half has passed since his crime. There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal adhered exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not confuse nor misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit the smallest detail. He explained every incident of the murder, the secret of the pledge (the piece of wood with a strip of metal) which was found in the murdered woman's hand. He described minutely how he had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the chest and its contents he explained the mystery of Lizaveta's murder described how Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had said to one another how he afterwards had run downstairs and heard Nikolay and Dmitri shouting how he had hidden in the empty flat and afterwards gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the yard off the Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse and the trinkets were found. The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the judges were very much struck, among other things, by the fact that he had hidden the trinkets and the purse under a stone, without making use of them, and that, what was more, he did not now remember what the trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The fact that he had never opened the purse and did not even know how much was in it seemed incredible. There turned out to be in the purse three hundred and seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being so long under the stone, some of the most valuable notes lying uppermost had suffered from the damp. They were a long while trying to discover why the accused man should tell a lie about this, when about everything else he had made a truthful and straightforward confession. Finally some of the lawyers more versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he had really not looked into the purse, and so didn't know what was in it when he hid it under the stone. But they immediately drew the deduction that the crime could only have been committed through temporary mental derangement, through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover Raskolnikov's hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant. All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not quite like an ordinary murderer and robber, but that there was another element in the case. To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive question as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery, he answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause was his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his desire to provide for his first steps in life by the help of the three thousand roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the murder through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess, he answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was almost coarse.... The sentence however was more merciful than could have been expected, perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify himself, but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the strange and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into consideration. There could be no doubt of the abnormal and povertystricken condition of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had made no use of what he had stolen was put down partly to the effect of remorse, partly to his abnormal mental condition at the time of the crime. Incidentally the murder of Lizaveta served indeed to confirm the last hypothesis a man commits two murders and forgets that the door is open! Finally, the confession, at the very moment when the case was hopelessly muddled by the false evidence given by Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism, and when, moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch fully kept his word)all this did much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner's favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow discovered and proved that while Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a poor consumptive fellow student and had spent his last penny on supporting him for six months, and when this student died, leaving a decrepit old father whom he had maintained almost from his thirteenth year, Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital and paid for his funeral when he died. Raskolnikov's landlady bore witness, too, that when they had lived in another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two little children from a house on fire and was burnt in doing so. This was investigated and fairly well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts made an impression in his favour. And in the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a term of eight years only. At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov's mother fell ill. Dounia and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from Petersburg, so as to be able to follow every step of the trial and at the same time to see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna's illness was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a partial derangement of her intellect. When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her mother's questions about Raskolnikov and made up a complete story for her mother's benefit of his having to go away to a distant part of Russia on a business commission, which would bring him in the end money and reputation. But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On the contrary, she had her own version of her son's sudden departure she told them with tears how he had come to say goodbye to her, hinting that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that Rodya had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary for him to be in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt that it would be brilliant when certain sinister influences could be removed. She assured Razumihin that her son would be one day a great statesman, that his article and brilliant literary talent proved it. This article she was continually reading, she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the subject was obviously avoided by the others, which might have been enough to awaken her suspicions. They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna's strange silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance, complain of getting no letters from him, though in previous years she had only lived on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This was the cause of great uneasiness to Dounia the idea occurred to her that her mother suspected that there was something terrible in her son's fate and was afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more awful. In any case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of her faculties. It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving unsatisfactory and suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and silent, and this mood lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it was hard to deceive her and came to the conclusion that it was better to be absolutely silent on certain points but it became more and more evident that the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia remembered her brother's telling her that her mother had overheard her talking in her sleep on the night after her interview with Svidrigalov and before the fatal day of the confession had not she made out something from that? Sometimes days and even weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be succeeded by a period of hysterical animation, and the invalid would begin to talk almost incessantly of her son, of her hopes of his future.... Her fancies were sometimes very strange. They humoured her, pretended to agree with her (she saw perhaps that they were pretending), but she still went on talking. Five months after Raskolnikov's confession, he was sentenced. Razumihin and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible. At last the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that the separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same. Razumihin, in his youthful ardour, had firmly resolved to lay the foundations at least of a secure livelihood during the next three or four years, and saving up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a country rich in every natural resource and in need of workers, active men and capital. There they would settle in the town where Rodya was and all together would begin a new life. They all wept at parting. Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a great deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He worried so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard about his mother's illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was particularly reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to her by Svidrigalov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia. Not a word passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it would be so. At the final leavetaking he smiled strangely at his sister's and Razumihin's fervent anticipations of their happy future together when he should come out of prison. He predicted that their mother's illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at last set off. Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet and sorrowful wedding Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited however. During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute determination. Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans and indeed she could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare strength of will. Among other things he began attending university lectures again in order to take his degree. They were continually making plans for the future both counted on settling in Siberia within five years at least. Till then they rested their hopes on Sonia. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dounia's marriage with Razumihin but after the marriage she became even more melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin told her how Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his decrepit father and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in rescuing two little children from a fire. These two pieces of news excited Pulcheria Alexandrovna's disordered imagination almost to ecstasy. She was continually talking about them, even entering into conversation with strangers in the street, though Dounia always accompanied her. In public conveyances and shops, wherever she could capture a listener, she would begin the discourse about her son, his article, how he had helped the student, how he had been burnt at the fire, and so on! Dounia did not know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of her morbid excitement, there was the risk of someone's recalling Raskolnikov's name and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria Alexandrovna found out the address of the mother of the two children her son had saved and insisted on going to see her. At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would sometimes begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly delirious. One morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought soon to be home, that she remembered when he said goodbye to her he said that they must expect him back in nine months. She began to prepare for his coming, began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, to wash and put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was anxious, but said nothing and helped her to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in continual fancies, in joyful daydreams and tears, Pulcheria Alexandrovna was taken ill in the night and by morning she was feverish and delirious. It was brain fever. She died within a fortnight. In her delirium she dropped words which showed that she knew a great deal more about her son's terrible fate than they had supposed. For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother's death, though a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time he reached Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote every month to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing regularity. At first they found Sonia's letters dry and unsatisfactory, but later on they came to the conclusion that the letters could not be better, for from these letters they received a complete picture of their unfortunate brother's life. Sonia's letters were full of the most matteroffact detail, the simplest and clearest description of all Raskolnikov's surroundings as a convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no conjecture as to the future, no description of her feelings. Instead of any attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the simple factsthat is, his own words, an exact account of his health, what he asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her and so on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness and precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but facts. But Dounia and her husband could get little comfort out of the news, especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at last of her death, she was surprised to find that he did not seem greatly affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them that, although he seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were, shut himself off from everyonehe took a very direct and simple view of his new life that he understood his position, expected nothing better for the time, had no illfounded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so unlike anything he had known before. She wrote that his health was satisfactory he did his work without shirking or seeking to do more he was almost indifferent about food, but except on Sundays and holidays the food was so bad that at last he had been glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else, declaring that all this fuss about him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote further that in prison he shared the same room with the rest, that she had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that they were crowded, miserable and unhealthy that he slept on a plank bed with a rug under him and was unwilling to make any other arrangement. But that he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan or design, but simply from inattention and indifference. Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her visits, had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to talk and rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a habit and almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively distressed when she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She used to see him on holidays at the prison gates or in the guardroom, to which he was brought for a few minutes to see her. On working days she would go to see him at work either at the workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the sheds on the banks of the Irtish. About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there was scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that the authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov that his task was lightened and so on. At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone, that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of the hospital. He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not the hard labour, the bad food, the shaven head, or the patched clothes that crushed him. What did he care for all those trials and hardships! he was even glad of the hard work. Physically exhausted, he could at least reckon on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what was the food to himthe thin cabbage soup with beetles floating in it? In the past as a student he had often not had even that. His clothes were warm and suited to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed of his shaven head and particoloured coat? Before whom? Before Sonia? Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before her? And yet he was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it with his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his shaven head and his fetters he was ashamed of his pride had been stung to the quick. It was wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his past, except a simple blunder which might happen to anyone. He was ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov, had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief through some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to 'the idiocy of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace. Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a continual sacrifice leading to nothingthat was all that lay before him. And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he would only be thirtytwo and able to begin a new life! What had he to live for? What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live in order to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy. Mere existence had always been too little for him he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others. And if only fate would have sent him repentanceburning repentance that would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would at least have been life. But he did not repent of his crime. At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he had raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison. But now in prison, in freedom, he thought over and criticised all his actions again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque as they had seemed at the fatal time. 'In what way, he asked himself, 'was my theory stupider than others that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One has only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so... strange. Oh, sceptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt halfway! 'Why does my action strike them as so horrible? he said to himself. 'Is it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is at rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the law... and that's enough. Of course, in that case many of the benefactors of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of inheriting it ought to have been punished at their first steps. But those men succeeded and so they were right, and I didn't, and so I had no right to have taken that step. It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it. He suffered too from the question why had he not killed himself? Why had he stood looking at the river and preferred to confess? Was the desire to live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it? Had not Svidrigalov overcome it, although he was afraid of death? In misery he asked himself this question, and could not understand that, at the very time he had been standing looking into the river, he had perhaps been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in himself and his convictions. He didn't understand that that consciousness might be the promise of a future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future resurrection. He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct which he could not step over, again through weakness and meanness. He looked at his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life and prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in prison than in freedom. What terrible agonies and privations some of them, the tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so much for a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden away in some unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years before, and longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart, dreaming of the green grass round it and the bird singing in the bush? As he went on he saw still more inexplicable examples. In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and did not want to see he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It was loathsome and unbearable for him to look. But in the end there was much that surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily, to notice much that he had not suspected before. What surprised him most of all was the terrible impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest. They seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at him with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons of his isolation, but he would never have admitted till then that those reasons were so deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political prisoners, among them. They simply looked down upon all the rest as ignorant churls but Raskolnikov could not look upon them like that. He saw that these ignorant men were in many respects far wiser than the Poles. There were some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a former officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly. He was disliked and avoided by everyone they even began to hate him at lastwhy, he could not tell. Men who had been far more guilty despised and laughed at his crime. 'You're a gentleman, they used to say. 'You shouldn't hack about with an axe that's not a gentleman's work. The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with his gang. He went to church and prayed with the others. A quarrel broke out one day, he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury. 'You're an infidel! You don't believe in God, they shouted. 'You ought to be killed. He had never talked to them about God nor his belief, but they wanted to kill him as an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at him in a perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and silently his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not flinch. The guard succeeded in intervening between him and his assailant, or there would have been bloodshed. There was another question he could not decide why were they all so fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour she rarely met them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And yet everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow him, knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did them no particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up between them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to their relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they all took off their hats to her. 'Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you are our dear, good little mother, coarse branded criminals said to that frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and turned round to watch her walking they admired her too for being so little, and, in fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They even came to her for help in their illnesses. He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices. Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his memory so miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted so long. The second week after Easter had come. There were warm bright spring days in the prison ward the grating windows under which the sentinel paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit him twice during his illness each time she had to obtain permission, and it was difficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard, especially in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look up at the windows of the ward. One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep. On waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in the distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone. Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He shuddered and moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the day after he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At last he was discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out. He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her he soon learnt that her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her, Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better, that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it. Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o'clock, he went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound alabaster and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the fortress to fetch a tool the other began getting the wood ready and laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened before him, the sound of singing floated faintly audible from the other bank. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black specks, the nomads' tents. There there was freedom, there other men were living, utterly unlike those here there time itself seemed to stand still, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed. Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into daydreams, into contemplation he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him she had come up noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early the morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the green shawl her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time. How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and that at last the moment had come.... They wanted to speak, but could not tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other. They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his being, while sheshe only lived in his life. On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked, Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even fancied that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him differently he had even entered into talk with them and they answered him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought it was bound to be so. Wasn't everything now bound to be changed? He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had tormented her and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and thin little face. But these recollections scarcely troubled him now he knew with what infinite love he would now repay all her sufferings. And what were all, all the agonies of the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of feeling an external, strange fact with which he had no concern. But he could not think for long together of anything that evening, and he could not have analysed anything consciously he was simply feeling. Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind. Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically. The book belonged to Sonia it was the one from which she had read the raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without a word. Till now he had not opened it. He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind 'Can her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at least.... She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken ill again. But she was so happyand so unexpectedly happythat she was almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, only seven years! At the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new storythe story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.
I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December, . Marley's Ghost Ghosts of Departed Usurers Mr. Fezziwig's Ball Scrooge Extinguishes the Firstof the Three Spirits Scrooge's Third Visitor Ignorance and Want The Last of the Spirits Scrooge and Bob Cratchit Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffinnail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middleaged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spotsay Saint Paul's Churchyard for instanceliterally to astonish his son's weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him. Oh! But he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire secret, and selfcontained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him he iced his office in the dogdays and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me? No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts and then would wag their tails as though they said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master! But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts to Scrooge. Once upon a timeof all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eveold Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse. It was cold, bleak, biting weather foggy withal and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark alreadyit had not been light all dayand candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. The door of Scrooge's countinghouse was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coalbox in his own room and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed. 'A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. 'Bah! said Scrooge, 'Humbug! He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow his face was ruddy and handsome his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. 'Christmas a humbug, uncle! said Scrooge's nephew. 'You don't mean that, I am sure? 'I do, said Scrooge. 'Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough. 'Come, then, returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough. Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, 'Bah! again and followed it up with 'Humbug. 'Don't be cross, uncle! said the nephew. 'What else can I be, returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! 'Uncle! pleaded the nephew. 'Nephew! returned the uncle sternly, 'keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. 'Keep it! repeated Scrooge's nephew. 'But you don't keep it. 'Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge. 'Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you! 'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come roundapart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from thatas a good time a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shutup hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellowpassengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good and I say, God bless it! The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever. 'Let me hear another sound from you, said Scrooge, 'and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir, he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder you don't go into Parliament. 'Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow. Scrooge said that he would see himyes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first. 'But why? cried Scrooge's nephew. 'Why? 'Why did you get married? said Scrooge. 'Because I fell in love. 'Because you fell in love! growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. 'Good afternoon! 'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now? 'Good afternoon, said Scrooge. 'I want nothing from you I ask nothing of you why cannot we be friends? 'Good afternoon, said Scrooge. 'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle! 'Good afternoon! said Scrooge. 'And A Happy New Year! 'Good afternoon! said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge for he returned them cordially. 'There's another fellow, muttered Scrooge who overheard him 'my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam. This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. 'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe, said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley? 'Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied. 'He died seven years ago, this very night. 'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner, said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. It certainly was for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word 'liberality, Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back. 'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir. 'Are there no prisons? asked Scrooge. 'Plenty of prisons, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. 'And the Union workhouses? demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation? 'They are. Still, returned the gentleman, 'I wish I could say they were not. 'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? said Scrooge. 'Both very busy, sir. 'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course, said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to hear it. 'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude, returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for? 'Nothing! Scrooge replied. 'You wish to be anonymous? 'I wish to be left alone, said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentionedthey cost enough and those who are badly off must go there. 'Many can't go there and many would rather die. 'If they would rather die, said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besidesexcuse meI don't know that. 'But you might know it, observed the gentleman. 'It's not my business, Scrooge returned. 'It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen! Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him. Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gaspipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The waterplug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef. Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol but at the first sound of Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost. At length the hour of shutting up the countinghouse arrived. With an illwill Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat. 'You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose? said Scrooge. 'If quite convenient, sir. 'It's not convenient, said Scrooge, 'and it's not fair. If I was to stop halfacrown for it, you'd think yourself illused, I'll be bound? The clerk smiled faintly. 'And yet, said Scrooge, 'you don't think me illused, when I pay a day's wages for no work. The clerk observed that it was only once a year. 'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twentyfifth of December! said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin. 'But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning. The clerk promised that he would and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no greatcoat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman'sbuff. Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker'sbook, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hideandseek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even includingwhich is a bold wordthe corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of changenot a knocker, but Marley's face. Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said 'Pooh, pooh! and closed it with a bang. The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the winemerchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs slowly too trimming his candle as he went. You may talk vaguely about driving a coachandsix up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinterbar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Halfadozen gaslamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip. Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. Sittingroom, bedroom, lumberroom. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa a small fire in the grate spoon and basin ready and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed nobody in the closet nobody in his dressinggown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumberroom as usual. Old fireguard, old shoes, two fishbaskets, washingstand on three legs, and a poker. Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in doublelocked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat put on his dressinggown and slippers, and his nightcap and sat down before the fire to take his gruel. It was a very low fire indeed nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like featherbeds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butterboats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one. 'Humbug! said Scrooge and walked across the room. After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the winemerchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. The cellardoor flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below then coming up the stairs then coming straight towards his door. 'It's humbug still! said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it. His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I know him Marley's Ghost! and fell again. The same face the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coatskirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him though he felt the chilling influence of its deathcold eyes and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. 'How now! said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you want with me? 'Much!Marley's voice, no doubt about it. 'Who are you? 'Ask me who I was. 'Who were you then? said Scrooge, raising his voice. 'You're particular, for a shade. He was going to say 'to a shade, but substituted this, as more appropriate. 'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley. 'Can youcan you sit down? asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. 'I can. 'Do it, then. Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. 'You don't believe in me, observed the Ghost. 'I don't, said Scrooge. 'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses? 'I don't know, said Scrooge. 'Why do you doubt your senses? 'Because, said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are! Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. 'You see this toothpick? said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. 'I do, replied the Ghost. 'You are not looking at it, said Scrooge. 'But I see it, said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding. 'Well! returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug! At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face. 'Mercy! he said. 'Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? 'Man of the worldly mind! replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me or not? 'I do, said Scrooge. 'I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me? 'It is required of every man, the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the worldoh, woe is me!and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness! Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands. 'You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why? 'I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and yard by yard I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Scrooge trembled more and more. 'Or would you know, pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain! Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable but he could see nothing. 'Jacob, he said, imploringly. 'Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob! 'I have none to give, the Ghost replied. 'It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our countinghousemark me!in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our moneychanging hole and weary journeys lie before me! It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. 'You must have been very slow about it, Jacob, Scrooge observed, in a businesslike manner, though with humility and deference. 'Slow! the Ghost repeated. 'Seven years dead, mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time! 'The whole time, said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse. 'You travel fast? said Scrooge. 'On the wings of the wind, replied the Ghost. 'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years, said Scrooge. The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. 'Oh! captive, bound, and doubleironed, cried the phantom, 'not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I! 'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. 'Business! cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again. 'At this time of the rolling year, the spectre said, 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellowbeings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me! Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. 'Hear me! cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone. 'I will, said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray! 'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day. It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow. 'That is no light part of my penance, pursued the Ghost. 'I am here tonight to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer. 'You were always a good friend to me, said Scrooge. 'Thank'ee! 'You will be haunted, resumed the Ghost, 'by Three Spirits. Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done. 'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob? he demanded, in a faltering voice. 'It is. 'II think I'd rather not, said Scrooge. 'Without their visits, said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One. 'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob? hinted Scrooge. 'Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us! When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm. The apparition walked backward from him and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and selfaccusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. Scrooge followed to the window desperate in his curiosity. He looked out. The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever. Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together and the night became as it had been when he walked home. Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was doublelocked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Humbug! but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant. When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour. To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve! He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve and stopped. 'Why, it isn't possible, said Scrooge, 'that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon! The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressinggown before he could see anything and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because 'three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order, and so forth, would have become a mere United States' security if there were no days to count by. Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, 'Was it a dream or not? Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power. The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear. 'Ding, dong! 'A quarter past, said Scrooge, counting. 'Ding, dong! 'Halfpast! said Scrooge. 'Ding, dong! 'A quarter to it, said Scrooge. 'Ding, dong! 'The hour itself, said Scrooge, triumphantly, 'and nothing else! He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside and Scrooge, starting up into a halfrecumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. It was a strange figurelike a child yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again distinct and clear as ever. 'Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me? asked Scrooge. 'I am! The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. 'Who, and what are you? Scrooge demanded. 'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. 'Long Past? inquired Scrooge observant of its dwarfish stature. 'No. Your past. Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap and begged him to be covered. 'What! exclaimed the Ghost, 'would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow! Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully 'bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. 'Your welfare! said the Ghost. Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately 'Your reclamation, then. Take heed! It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. 'Rise! and walk with me! It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressinggown, and nightcap and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication. 'I am a mortal, Scrooge remonstrated, 'and liable to fall. 'Bear but a touch of my hand there, said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, 'and you shall be upheld in more than this! As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground. 'Good Heaven! said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. 'I was bred in this place. I was a boy here! The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten! 'Your lip is trembling, said the Ghost. 'And what is that upon your cheek? Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would. 'You recollect the way? inquired the Spirit. 'Remember it! cried Scrooge with fervour 'I could walk it blindfold. 'Strange to have forgotten it for so many years! observed the Ghost. 'Let us go on. They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree until a little markettown appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it! 'These are but shadows of the things that have been, said the Ghost. 'They have no consciousness of us. The jocund travellers came on and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at crossroads and byeways, for their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? 'The school is not quite deserted, said the Ghost. 'A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still. Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. They left the highroad, by a wellremembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercocksurmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables and the coachhouses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candlelight, and not too much to eat. They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be. Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the halfthawed waterspout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments wonderfully real and distinct to look at stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. 'Why, it's Ali Baba! Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine, said Scrooge, 'and his wild brother, Orson there they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus don't you see him! And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess! To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying and to see his heightened and excited face would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed. 'There's the Parrot! cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo! Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, 'Poor boy! and cried again. 'I wish, Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff 'but it's too late now. 'What is the matter? asked the Spirit. 'Nothing, said Scrooge. 'Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something that's all. The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand saying as it did so, 'Let us see another Christmas! Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct that everything had happened so that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. It opened and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her 'Dear, dear brother. 'I have come to bring you home, dear brother! said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 'To bring you home, home, home! 'Home, little Fan? returned the boy. 'Yes! said the child, brimful of glee. 'Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home and he said Yes, you should and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're to be a man! said the child, opening her eyes, 'and are never to come back here but first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world. 'You are quite a woman, little Fan! exclaimed the boy. She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her. A terrible voice in the hall cried, 'Bring down Master Scrooge's box, there! and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering bestparlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of 'something to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster goodbye right willingly and getting into it, drove gaily down the gardensweep the quick wheels dashing the hoarfrost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. 'Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered, said the Ghost. 'But she had a large heart! 'So she had, cried Scrooge. 'You're right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid! 'She died a woman, said the Ghost, 'and had, as I think, children. 'One child, Scrooge returned. 'True, said the Ghost. 'Your nephew! Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind and answered briefly, 'Yes. Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up. The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it. 'Know it! said Scrooge. 'Was I apprenticed here! They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement 'Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart it's Fezziwig alive again! Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands adjusted his capacious waistcoat laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice 'Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick! Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow'prentice. 'Dick Wilkins, to be sure! said Scrooge to the Ghost. 'Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear! 'Yo ho, my boys! said Fezziwig. 'No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up, cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say Jack Robinson! You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shuttersone, two, threehad 'em up in their placesfour, five, sixbarred 'em and pinned 'emseven, eight, nineand came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like racehorses. 'Hilliho! cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. 'Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilliho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer! Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ballroom, as you would desire to see upon a winter's night. In came a fiddler with a musicbook, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomachaches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once hands half round and back again the other way down the middle and up again round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping old top couple always turning up in the wrong place new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, 'Well done! and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a brannew man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mincepies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them three or four and twenty pair of partners people who were not to be trifled with people who would dance, and had no notion of walking. But if they had been twice as manyah, four timesold Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, threadtheneedle, and back again to your place Fezziwig 'cutcut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger. When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds which were under a counter in the backshop. During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. 'A small matter, said the Ghost, 'to make these silly folks so full of gratitude. 'Small! echoed Scrooge. The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig and when he had done so, said, 'Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise? 'It isn't that, said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. 'It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy to make our service light or burdensome a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune. He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. 'What is the matter? asked the Ghost. 'Nothing particular, said Scrooge. 'Something, I think? the Ghost insisted. 'No, said Scrooge, 'No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all. His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air. 'My time grows short, observed the Spirit. 'Quick! This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourningdress in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. 'It matters little, she said, softly. 'To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve. 'What Idol has displaced you? he rejoined. 'A golden one. 'This is the evenhanded dealing of the world! he said. 'There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth! 'You fear the world too much, she answered, gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the masterpassion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not? 'What then? he retorted. 'Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you. She shook her head. 'Am I? 'Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man. 'I was a boy, he said impatiently. 'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are, she returned. 'I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you. 'Have I ever sought release? 'In words. No. Never. 'In what, then? 'In a changed nature in an altered spirit in another atmosphere of life another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him 'tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no! He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, 'You think not. 'I would gladly think otherwise if I could, she answered, 'Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girlyou who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were. He was about to speak but with her head turned from him, she resumed. 'You maythe memory of what is past half makes me hope you willhave pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen! She left him, and they parted. 'Spirit! said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me? 'One shadow more! exclaimed the Ghost. 'No more! cried Scrooge. 'No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more! But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next. They were in another scene and place a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief but no one seemed to care on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips to have questioned her, that she might have opened them to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brownpaper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's fryingpan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house where they went to bed, and so subsided. And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a springtime in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. 'Belle, said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, 'I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon. 'Who was it? 'Guess! 'How can I? Tut, don't I know? she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. 'Mr. Scrooge. 'Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe. 'Spirit! said Scrooge in a broken voice, 'remove me from this place. 'I told you these were shadows of the things that have been, said the Ghost. 'That they are what they are, do not blame me! 'Remove me! Scrooge exclaimed, 'I cannot bear it! He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. 'Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer! In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguishercap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground. He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep. Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands and lying down again, established a sharp lookout all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous. Gentlemen of the freeandeasy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the timeofday, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitchandtoss to manslaughter between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to thinkas you or I would have thought at first for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it tooat last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, suckingpigs, long wreaths of sausages, mincepies, plumpuddings, barrels of oysters, redhot chestnuts, cherrycheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfthcakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door. 'Come in! exclaimed the Ghost. 'Come in! and know me better, man! Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. 'I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, said the Spirit. 'Look upon me! Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. 'You have never seen the like of me before! exclaimed the Spirit. 'Never, Scrooge made answer to it. 'Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years? pursued the Phantom. 'I don't think I have, said Scrooge. 'I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit? 'More than eighteen hundred, said the Ghost. 'A tremendous family to provide for! muttered Scrooge. The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. 'Spirit, said Scrooge submissively, 'conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it. 'Touch my robe! Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms. The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowballbetternatured missile far than many a wordy jestlaughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, potbellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brownfaced, broadgirthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hungup mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnantblooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookerson feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highlydecorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose. But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of byestreets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinnercarriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was! In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. 'Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch? asked Scrooge. 'There is. My own. 'Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day? asked Scrooge. 'To any kindly given. To a poor one most. 'Why to a poor one most? asked Scrooge. 'Because it needs it most. 'Spirit, said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, 'I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment. 'I! cried the Spirit. 'You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all, said Scrooge. 'Wouldn't you? 'I! cried the Spirit. 'You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day? said Scrooge. 'And it comes to the same thing. 'I seek! exclaimed the Spirit. 'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family, said Scrooge. 'There are some upon this earth of yours, returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, illwill, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us. Scrooge promised that he would and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall. And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen 'Bob aweek himself he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his fourroomed house! Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twiceturned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepanlid to be let out and peeled. 'What has ever got your precious father then? said Mrs. Cratchit. 'And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by halfanhour? 'Here's Martha, mother! said a girl, appearing as she spoke. 'Here's Martha, mother! cried the two young Cratchits. 'Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha! 'Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are! said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. 'We'd a deal of work to finish up last night, replied the girl, 'and had to clear away this morning, mother! 'Well! Never mind so long as you are come, said Mrs. Cratchit. 'Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye! 'No, no! There's father coming, cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. 'Hide, Martha, hide! So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! 'Why, where's our Martha? cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. 'Not coming, said Mrs. Cratchit. 'Not coming! said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. 'Not coming upon Christmas Day! Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the washhouse, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. 'And how did little Tim behave? asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content. 'As good as gold, said Bob, 'and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see. Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire and while Bob, turning up his cuffsas if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabbycompounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of courseand in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour Miss Belinda sweetened up the applesauce Martha dusted the hot plates Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carvingknife, prepared to plunge it in the breast but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah! There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by applesauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alonetoo nervous to bear witnessesto take the pudding up and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goosea supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed. Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washingday! That was the cloth. A smell like an eatinghouse and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit enteredflushed, but smiling proudlywith the pudding, like a speckled cannonball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of halfaquartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelfull of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custardcup without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed 'A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us! Which all the family reechoed. 'God bless us every one! said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. 'Spirit, said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, 'tell me if Tiny Tim will live. 'I see a vacant seat, replied the Ghost, 'in the poor chimneycorner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die. 'No, no, said Scrooge. 'Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared. 'If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race, returned the Ghost, 'will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. 'Man, said the Ghost, 'if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust! Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name. 'Mr. Scrooge! said Bob 'I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast! 'The Founder of the Feast indeed! cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. 'I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it. 'My dear, said Bob, 'the children! Christmas Day. 'It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, said she, 'on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow! 'My dear, was Bob's mild answer, 'Christmas Day. 'I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's, said Mrs. Cratchit, 'not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt! The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full fiveandsixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed tomorrow morning for a good long rest tomorrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord 'was much about as tall as Peter at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round and byandbye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family they were not well dressed their shoes were far from being waterproof their clothes were scanty and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the windowblind of guests assembling and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and furbooted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house where, woe upon the single man who saw them enterartful witches, well they knew itin a glow! But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires halfchimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas! And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burialplace of giants and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. 'What place is this? asked Scrooge. 'A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth, returned the Spirit. 'But they know me. See! A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas songit had been a very old song when he was a boyand from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again. The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, spedwhither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and stormbirdsborn of the wind one might suppose, as seaweed of the waterrose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog and one of them the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figurehead of an old ship might be struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself. Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving seaon, onuntil, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the officers who had the watch dark, ghostly figures in their several stations but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year and had shared to some extent in its festivities and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability! 'Ha, ha! laughed Scrooge's nephew. 'Ha, ha, ha! If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. It is a fair, evenhanded, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and goodhumour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. 'Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 'He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live! cried Scrooge's nephew. 'He believed it too! 'More shame for him, Fred! said Scrooge's niece, indignantly. Bless those women they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest. She was very pretty exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprisedlooking, capital face a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissedas no doubt it was all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory. 'He's a comical old fellow, said Scrooge's nephew, 'that's the truth and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him. 'I'm sure he is very rich, Fred, hinted Scrooge's niece. 'At least you always tell me so. 'What of that, my dear! said Scrooge's nephew. 'His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinkingha, ha, ha!that he is ever going to benefit US with it. 'I have no patience with him, observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion. 'Oh, I have! said Scrooge's nephew. 'I am sorry for him I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner. 'Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner, interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. 'Well! I'm very glad to hear it, said Scrooge's nephew, 'because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper? Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sisterthe plump one with the lace tucker not the one with the rosesblushed. 'Do go on, Fred, said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. 'He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow! Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar his example was unanimously followed. 'I was only going to say, said Scrooge's nephew, 'that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of itI defy himif he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something and I think I shook him yesterday. It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly goodnatured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously. After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boardingschool, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind he softened more and more and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley. But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blindman's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fireirons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her his pretending that it was necessary to touch her headdress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blindman being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains. Scrooge's niece was not one of the blindman's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge blunt as he took it in his head to be. The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done. 'Here is a new game, said Scrooge. 'One half hour, Spirit, only one! It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out 'I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is! 'What is it? cried Fred. 'It's your Uncle Scroooooge! Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to 'Is it a bear? ought to have been 'Yes inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. 'He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, 'and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment and I say, 'Uncle Scrooge!'  'Well! Uncle Scrooge! they cried. 'A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is! said Scrooge's nephew. 'He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge! Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful on foreign lands, and they were close at home by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. It was a long night, if it were only a night but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. 'Are spirits' lives so short? asked Scrooge. 'My life upon this globe, is very brief, replied the Ghost. 'It ends tonight. 'Tonight! cried Scrooge. 'Tonight at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near. The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment. 'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask, said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, 'but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw? 'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it, was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here. From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. 'Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here! exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 'Spirit! are they yours? Scrooge could say no more. 'They are Man's, said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it! cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end! 'Have they no refuge or resource? cried Scrooge. 'Are there no prisons? said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses? The bell struck twelve. Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded. He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. 'I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come? said Scrooge. The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. 'You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us, Scrooge pursued. 'Is that so, Spirit? The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received. Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black. 'Ghost of the Future! he exclaimed, 'I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me? It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. 'Lead on! said Scrooge. 'Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit! The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. They scarcely seemed to enter the city for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it on 'Change, amongst the merchants who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. 'No, said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, 'I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's dead. 'When did he die? inquired another. 'Last night, I believe. 'Why, what was the matter with him? asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuffbox. 'I thought he'd never die. 'God knows, said the first, with a yawn. 'What has he done with his money? asked a redfaced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkeycock. 'I haven't heard, said the man with the large chin, yawning again. 'Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know. This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 'It's likely to be a very cheap funeral, said the same speaker 'for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer? 'I don't mind going if a lunch is provided, observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. 'But I must be fed, if I make one. Another laugh. 'Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all, said the first speaker, 'for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye! Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here. He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem in a business point of view, that is strictly in a business point of view. 'How are you? said one. 'How are you? returned the other. 'Well! said the first. 'Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey? 'So I am told, returned the second. 'Cold, isn't it? 'Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I suppose? 'No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning! Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting. Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy. He looked about in that very place for his own image but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his newborn resolutions carried out in this. Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold. They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow the shops and houses wretched the people halfnaked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery. Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a lowbrowed, beetling shop, below a penthouse roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a greyhaired rascal, nearly seventy years of age who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. 'Let the charwoman alone to be the first! cried she who had entered first. 'Let the laundress alone to be the second and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it! 'You couldn't have met in a better place, said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. 'Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe and I'm sure there's no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour. The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stairrod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. 'What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber? said the woman. 'Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did. 'That's true, indeed! said the laundress. 'No man more so. 'Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose? 'No, indeed! said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 'We should hope not. 'Very well, then! cried the woman. 'That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose. 'No, indeed, said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. 'If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw, pursued the woman, 'why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself. 'It's the truest word that ever was spoke, said Mrs. Dilber. 'It's a judgment on him. 'I wish it was a little heavier judgment, replied the woman 'and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe. But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencilcase, a pair of sleevebuttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come. 'That's your account, said Joe, 'and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next? Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two oldfashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugartongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner. 'I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself, said old Joe. 'That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock off halfacrown. 'And now undo my bundle, Joe, said the first woman. Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff. 'What do you call this? said Joe. 'Bedcurtains! 'Ah! returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. 'Bedcurtains! 'You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying there? said Joe. 'Yes I do, replied the woman. 'Why not? 'You were born to make your fortune, said Joe, 'and you'll certainly do it. 'I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe, returned the woman coolly. 'Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now. 'His blankets? asked Joe. 'Whose else's do you think? replied the woman. 'He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say. 'I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh? said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. 'Don't you be afraid of that, returned the woman. 'I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me. 'What do you call wasting of it? asked old Joe. 'Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure, replied the woman with a laugh. 'Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that one. Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. 'Ha, ha! laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. 'This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha! 'Spirit! said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. 'I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this! He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed a bare, uncurtained bed on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man. Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side. Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released it is not that the heart and pulse are still but that the hand was open, generous, and true the heart brave, warm, and tender and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, harddealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearthstone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think. 'Spirit! he said, 'this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go! Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. 'I understand you, Scrooge returned, 'and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power. Again it seemed to look upon him. 'If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man's death, said Scrooge quite agonised, 'show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you! The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness for she walked up and down the room started at every sound looked out from the window glanced at the clock tried, but in vain, to work with her needle and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play. At length the longexpected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer. 'Is it good? she said, 'or bad?to help him. 'Bad, he answered. 'We are quite ruined? 'No. There is hope yet, Caroline. 'If he relents, she said, amazed, 'there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened. 'He is past relenting, said her husband. 'He is dead. She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry but the first was the emotion of her heart. 'What the halfdrunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then. 'To whom will our debt be transferred? 'I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep tonight with light hearts, Caroline! Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter and it was a happier house for this man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. 'Let me see some tenderness connected with a death, said Scrooge 'or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me. The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house the dwelling he had visited before and found the mother and the children seated round the fire. Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet! ' 'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'  Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on? The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face. 'The colour hurts my eyes, she said. The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! 'They're better now again, said Cratchit's wife. 'It makes them weak by candlelight and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time. 'Past it rather, Peter answered, shutting up his book. 'But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother. They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once 'I have known him walk withI have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed. 'And so have I, cried Peter. 'Often. 'And so have I, exclaimed another. So had all. 'But he was very light to carry, she resumed, intent upon her work, 'and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble no trouble. And there is your father at the door! She hurried out to meet him and little Bob in his comforterhe had need of it, poor fellowcame in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, 'Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved! Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said. 'Sunday! You went today, then, Robert? said his wife. 'Yes, my dear, returned Bob. 'I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child! cried Bob. 'My little child! He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were. He left the room, and went upstairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy. They drew about the fire, and talked the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little'just a little down you know, said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. 'On which, said Bob, 'for he is the pleasantestspoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know. 'Knew what, my dear? 'Why, that you were a good wife, replied Bob. 'Everybody knows that! said Peter. 'Very well observed, my boy! cried Bob. 'I hope they do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it wasn't, cried Bob, 'for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us. 'I'm sure he's a good soul! said Mrs. Cratchit. 'You would be surer of it, my dear, returned Bob, 'if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprisedmark what I say!if he got Peter a better situation. 'Only hear that, Peter, said Mrs. Cratchit. 'And then, cried one of the girls, 'Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself. 'Get along with you! retorted Peter, grinning. 'It's just as likely as not, said Bob, 'one of these days though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Timshall weor this first parting that there was among us? 'Never, father! cried they all. 'And I know, said Bob, 'I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was although he was a little, little child we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it. 'No, never, father! they all cried again. 'I am very happy, said little Bob, 'I am very happy! Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God! 'Spectre, said Scrooge, 'something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead? The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as beforethough at a different time, he thought indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Futureinto the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. 'This court, said Scrooge, 'through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come! The Spirit stopped the hand was pointed elsewhere. 'The house is yonder, Scrooge exclaimed. 'Why do you point away? The inexorable finger underwent no change. Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. A churchyard. Here, then the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life choked up with too much burying fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place! The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. 'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, said Scrooge, 'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only? Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. 'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead, said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me! The Spirit was immovable as ever. Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. 'Am I that man who lay upon the bed? he cried, upon his knees. The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. 'No, Spirit! Oh no, no! The finger still was there. 'Spirit! he cried, tight clutching at its robe, 'hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope! For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 'Good Spirit, he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it 'Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! The kind hand trembled. 'I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone! In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! 'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob on my knees! He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. 'They are not torn down, cried Scrooge, folding one of his bedcurtains in his arms, 'they are not torn down, rings and all. They are hereI am herethe shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will! His hands were busy with his garments all this time turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance. 'I don't know what to do! cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath and making a perfect Laocon of himself with his stockings. 'I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo! He had frisked into the sittingroom, and was now standing there perfectly winded. 'There's the saucepan that the gruel was in! cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. 'There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha! Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs! 'I don't know what day of the month it is! said Scrooge. 'I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here! He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious! Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold cold, piping for the blood to dance to Golden sunlight Heavenly sky sweet fresh air merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious! 'What's today! cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him. 'Eh? returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. 'What's today, my fine fellow? said Scrooge. 'Today! replied the boy. 'Why, Christmas Day. 'It's Christmas Day! said Scrooge to himself. 'I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow! 'Hallo! returned the boy. 'Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner? Scrooge inquired. 'I should hope I did, replied the lad. 'An intelligent boy! said Scrooge. 'A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?Not the little prize Turkey the big one? 'What, the one as big as me? returned the boy. 'What a delightful boy! said Scrooge. 'It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck! 'It's hanging there now, replied the boy. 'Is it? said Scrooge. 'Go and buy it. 'Walker! exclaimed the boy. 'No, no, said Scrooge, 'I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I'll give you halfacrown! The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. 'I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's! whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. 'He sha'n't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be! The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye. 'I shall love it, as long as I live! cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. 'I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!Here's the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas! It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealingwax. 'Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town, said Scrooge. 'You must have a cab. The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried. Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of stickingplaister over it, and been quite satisfied. He dressed himself 'all in his best, and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four goodhumoured fellows said, 'Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you! And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his countinghouse the day before, and said, 'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe? It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. 'My dear sir, said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands. 'How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir! 'Mr. Scrooge? 'Yes, said Scrooge. 'That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodnesshere Scrooge whispered in his ear. 'Lord bless me! cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. 'My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious? 'If you please, said Scrooge. 'Not a farthing less. A great many backpayments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour? 'My dear sir, said the other, shaking hands with him. 'I don't know what to say to such munifi 'Don't say anything, please, retorted Scrooge. 'Come and see me. Will you come and see me? 'I will! cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it. 'Thank'ee, said Scrooge. 'I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you! He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walkthat anythingcould give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house. He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it 'Is your master at home, my dear? said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very. 'Yes, sir. 'Where is he, my love? said Scrooge. 'He's in the diningroom, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you upstairs, if you please. 'Thank'ee. He knows me, said Scrooge, with his hand already on the diningroom lock. 'I'll go in here, my dear. He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array) for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right. 'Fred! said Scrooge. Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, on any account. 'Why bless my soul! cried Fred, 'who's that? 'It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred? Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness! But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon. And he did it yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. His hat was off, before he opened the door his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. 'Hallo! growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. 'What do you mean by coming here at this time of day? 'I am very sorry, sir, said Bob. 'I am behind my time. 'You are? repeated Scrooge. 'Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please. 'It's only once a year, sir, pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. 'It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir. 'Now, I'll tell you what, my friend, said Scrooge, 'I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore, he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again 'and therefore I am about to raise your salary! Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a straitwaistcoat. 'A merry Christmas, Bob! said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. 'A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coalscuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit! Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
The following is a reprint of the Helen Zimmern translation from German into English of 'Beyond Good and Evil,' as published in The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (). Some adaptations from the original text were made to format it into an etext. Italics in the original book are capitalized in this etext, except for most foreign language phrases that were italicized. Original footnotes are put in brackets   at the points where they are cited in the text. Some spellings were altered. 'Today' and 'Tomorrow' are spelled 'today' and 'tomorrow.' Some words containing the letters 'ise' in the original text, such as 'idealise,' had these letters changed to 'ize,' such as 'idealize.' 'Sceptic' was changed to 'skeptic.' PREFACE FROM THE HEIGHTS SUPPOSING that Truth is a womanwhat then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand womenthat the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won and at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mienIF, indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, that all dogma lies on the groundnay more, that it is at its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism and tyronism and probably the time is at hand when it will be once and again understood WHAT has actually sufficed for the basis of such imposing and absolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists have hitherto reared perhaps some popular superstition of immemorial time (such as the soulsuperstition, which, in the form of subject and egosuperstition, has not yet ceased doing mischief) perhaps some play upon words, a deception on the part of grammar, or an audacious generalization of very restricted, very personal, very humanalltoohuman facts. The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any actual science hitherto we owe to it, and to its 'superterrestrial' pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enormous and aweinspiring caricatures dogmatic philosophy has been a caricature of this kindfor instance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although it must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist errornamely, Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself. But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthiersleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVEthe fundamental conditionof life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them indeed one might ask, as a physician 'How did such a malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock?' But the struggle against Plato, orto speak plainer, and for the 'people'the struggle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR CHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE 'PEOPLE'), produced in Europe a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere previously with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the furthest goals. As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as a state of distress, and twice attempts have been made in grand style to unbend the bow once by means of Jesuitism, and the second time by means of democratic enlightenmentwhich, with the aid of liberty of the press and newspaperreading, might, in fact, bring it about that the spirit would not so easily find itself in 'distress'! (The Germans invented gunpowderall credit to them! but they again made things squarethey invented printing.) But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free spiritswe have it still, all the distress of spirit and all the tension of its bow! And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT.... Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, . . The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long story yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this 'Will to Truth' in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of this Willuntil at last we came to an absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before usor was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk. . 'HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sunbright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR ownin this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'ThinginitselfTHERE must be their source, and nowhere else!'This mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the back of all their logical procedure through this 'belief' of theirs, they exert themselves for their 'knowledge,' for something that is in the end solemnly christened 'the Truth.' The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most necessary) though they had made a solemn vow, 'DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM.' For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all and secondly, whether the popular valuations and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from below'frog perspectives,' as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed thingsperhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous 'Perhapses'! For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalentphilosophers of the dangerous 'Perhaps' in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning to appear. . Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking one has here to learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and 'innateness.' As little as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process and procedure of heredity, just as little is 'beingconscious' OPPOSED to the instinctive in any decisive sense the greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than 'truth' such valuations, in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding be only superficial valuations, special kinds of niaiserie, such as may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not just the 'measure of things.' . The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is lifefurthering, lifepreserving, speciespreserving, perhaps speciesrearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not livethat the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. . That which causes philosophers to be regarded halfdistrustfully and halfmockingly, is not the oftrepeated discovery how innocent they arehow often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in short, how childish and childlike they are,but that there is not enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the selfevolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of 'inspiration'), whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or 'suggestion,' which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub 'truths,'and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and selfridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic byways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his 'categorical imperative'makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers. Or, still more so, the hocuspocus in mathematical form, by means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and maskin fact, the 'love of HIS wisdom,' to translate the term fairly and squarelyin order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that Pallas Athenehow much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray! . It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted ofnamely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself 'What morality do they (or does he) aim at?' Accordingly, I do not believe that an 'impulse to knowledge' is the father of philosophy but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise'better,' if you will there there may really be such a thing as an 'impulse to knowledge,' some kind of small, independent clockwork, which, when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual 'interests' of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another directionin the family, perhaps, or in moneymaking, or in politics it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist he is not CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other. . How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies 'Flatterers of Dionysius'consequently, tyrants' accessories and lickspittles besides this, however, it is as much as to say, 'They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them' (for Dionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were mastersof which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old schoolteacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the gardengod Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out? . There is a point in every philosophy at which the 'conviction' of the philosopher appears on the scene or, to put it in the words of an ancient mystery Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. . You desire to LIVE 'according to Nature'? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a powerhow COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To liveis not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, 'living according to Nature,' means actually the same as 'living according to life'how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stageplayers and selfdeluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein you insist that it shall be Nature 'according to the Stoa,' and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwiseand to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselvesStoicism is selftyrannyNature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting story what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image it cannot do otherwise philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to 'creation of the world,' the will to the causa prima. . The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which the problem of 'the real and the apparent world' is dealt with at present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention and he who hears only a 'Will to Truth' in the background, and nothing else, cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Trutha certain extravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysician's ambition of the forlorn hopehas participated therein that which in the end always prefers a handful of 'certainty' to a whole cartload of beautiful possibilities there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of 'perspective,' in that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence that 'the earth stands still,' and thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than in one's body?),who knows if they are not really trying to win back something which was formerly an even securer possession, something of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the 'immortal soul,' perhaps 'the old God,' in short, ideas by which they could live better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by 'modern ideas'? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, a disbelief in all that has been constructed yesterday and today there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety and scorn, which can no longer endure the BRICABRAC of ideas of the most varied origin, such as socalled Positivism at present throws on the market a disgust of the more refined taste at the villagefair motleyness and patchiness of all these realityphilosophasters, in whom there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical antirealists and knowledgemicroscopists of the present day their instinct, which repels them from MODERN reality, is unrefuted... what do their retrograde bypaths concern us! The main thing about them is NOT that they wish to go 'back,' but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MORE strength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFFand not back! . It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of Categories with it in his hand he said 'This is the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics.' Let us only understand this 'could be'! He was proud of having DISCOVERED a new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting that he deceived himself in this matter the development and rapid flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his pride, and on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible somethingat all events 'new faculties'of which to be still prouder!But let us reflect for a momentit is high time to do so. 'How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE?' Kant asks himselfand what is really his answer? 'BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)'but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in manfor at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the 'Politics of hard fact.' Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the Tubingen institution went immediately into the grovesall seeking for 'faculties.' And what did they not findin that innocent, rich, and still youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish between 'finding' and 'inventing'! Above all a faculty for the 'transcendental' Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally piousinclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. Enough, howeverthe world grew older, and the dream vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremostold Kant. 'By means of a means (faculty)'he had said, or at least meant to say. But, is thatan answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? 'By means of a means (faculty),' namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere, But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time to replace the Kantian question, 'How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI possible?' by another question, 'Why is belief in such judgments necessary?'in effect, it is high time that we should understand that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the preservation of creatures like ourselves though they still might naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken, and roughly and readilysynthetic judgments a priori should not 'be possible' at all we have no right to them in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as plausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view of life. And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which 'German philosophy'I hope you understand its right to inverted commas (goosefeet)?has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it thanks to German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, the mystics, the artiste, the threefourths Christians, and the political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still overwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into this, in short'sensus assoupire.'... . As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the bestrefuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious signification to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an abbreviation of the means of expression)thanks chiefly to the Pole Boscovich he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest and most successful opponents of ocular evidence. For while Copernicus has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the last thing that 'stood fast' of the earththe belief in 'substance,' in 'matter,' in the earthresiduum, and particleatom it is the greatest triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One must, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war to the knife, against the 'atomistic requirements' which still lead a dangerous afterlife in places where no one suspects them, like the more celebrated 'metaphysical requirements' one must also above all give the finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which Christianity has taught best and longest, the SOULATOMISM. Let it be permitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as an atomon this belief ought to be expelled from science! Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of 'the soul' thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypothesesas happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open for new acceptations and refinements of the soulhypothesis and such conceptions as 'mortal soul,' and 'soul of subjective multiplicity,' and 'soul as social structure of the instincts and passions,' want henceforth to have legitimate rights in science. In that the NEW psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert and a new distrustit is possible that the older psychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time of it eventually, however, he finds that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENTand, who knows? perhaps to DISCOVER the new. . Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of selfpreservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strengthlife itself is WILL TO POWER selfpreservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!one of which is the instinct of selfpreservation (we owe it to Spinoza's inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must be essentially economy of principles. . It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural philosophy is only a worldexposition and worldarrangement (according to us, if I may say so!) and NOT a worldexplanation but in so far as it is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a long time to come must be regarded as morenamely, as an explanation. It has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and palpableness of its own this operates fascinatingly, persuasively, and CONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastesin fact, it follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism. What is clear, what is 'explained'? Only that which can be seen and feltone must pursue every problem thus far. Obversely, however, the charm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, consisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvious senseevidenceperhaps among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our contemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining masters of them and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptional networks which they threw over the motley whirl of the sensesthe mob of the senses, as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and interpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was an ENJOYMENT different from that which the physicists of today offer usand likewise the Darwinists and antiteleologists among the physiological workers, with their principle of the 'smallest possible effort,' and the greatest possible blunder. 'Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there is also nothing more for men to do'that is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right imperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridgebuilders of the future, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform. . To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on the fact that the senseorgans are not phenomena in the sense of the idealistic philosophy as such they certainly could not be causes! Sensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as heuristic principle. What? And others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs? . There are still harmless selfobservers who believe that there are 'immediate certainties' for instance, 'I think,' or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, 'I will' as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as 'the thing in itself,' without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that 'immediate certainty,' as well as 'absolute knowledge' and the 'thing in itself,' involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself 'When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinkingthat I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me.'In place of the 'immediate certainty' in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit 'Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?' He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, 'I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain'will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. 'Sir,' the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, 'it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?' . With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by these credulous mindsnamely, that a thought comes when 'it' wishes, and not when 'I' wish so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the case to say that the subject 'I' is the condition of the predicate 'think.' ONE thinks but that this 'one' is precisely the famous old 'ego,' is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an 'immediate certainty.' After all, one has even gone too far with this 'one thinks'even the 'one' contains an INTERPRETATION of the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here according to the usual grammatical formula'To think is an activity every activity requires an agency that is active consequently'... It was pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besides the operating 'power,' the material particle wherein it resides and out of which it operatesthe atom. More rigorous minds, however, learnt at last to get along without this 'earthresiduum,' and perhaps some day we shall accustom ourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to get along without the little 'one' (to which the worthy old 'ego' has refined itself). . It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundredtimesrefuted theory of the 'free will' owes its persistence to this charm alone some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it. . Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as though it were the bestknown thing in the world indeed, Schopenhauer has given us to understand that the will alone is really known to us, absolutely and completely known, without deduction or addition. But it again and again seems to me that in this case Schopenhauer also only did what philosophers are in the habit of doinghe seems to have adopted a POPULAR PREJUDICE and exaggerated it. Willing seems to me to be above all something COMPLICATED, something that is a unity only in nameand it is precisely in a name that popular prejudice lurks, which has got the mastery over the inadequate precautions of philosophers in all ages. So let us for once be more cautious, let us be 'unphilosophical' let us say that in all willing there is firstly a plurality of sensations, namely, the sensation of the condition 'AWAY FROM WHICH we go,' the sensation of the condition 'TOWARDS WHICH we go,' the sensation of this 'FROM' and 'TOWARDS' itself, and then besides, an accompanying muscular sensation, which, even without our putting in motion 'arms and legs,' commences its action by force of habit, directly we 'will' anything. Therefore, just as sensations (and indeed many kinds of sensations) are to be recognized as ingredients of the will, so, in the second place, thinking is also to be recognized in every act of the will there is a ruling thoughtand let us not imagine it possible to sever this thought from the 'willing,' as if the will would then remain over! In the third place, the will is not only a complex of sensation and thinking, but it is above all an EMOTION, and in fact the emotion of the command. That which is termed 'freedom of the will' is essentially the emotion of supremacy in respect to him who must obey 'I am free, 'he' must obey'this consciousness is inherent in every will and equally so the straining of the attention, the straight look which fixes itself exclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that 'this and nothing else is necessary now,' the inward certainty that obedience will be renderedand whatever else pertains to the position of the commander. A man who WILLS commands something within himself which renders obedience, or which he believes renders obedience. But now let us notice what is the strangest thing about the will,this affair so extremely complex, for which the people have only one name. Inasmuch as in the given circumstances we are at the same time the commanding AND the obeying parties, and as the obeying party we know the sensations of constraint, impulsion, pressure, resistance, and motion, which usually commence immediately after the act of will inasmuch as, on the other hand, we are accustomed to disregard this duality, and to deceive ourselves about it by means of the synthetic term 'I' a whole series of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of false judgments about the will itself, has become attached to the act of willingto such a degree that he who wills believes firmly that willing SUFFICES for action. Since in the majority of cases there has only been exercise of will when the effect of the commandconsequently obedience, and therefore actionwas to be EXPECTED, the APPEARANCE has translated itself into the sentiment, as if there were a NECESSITY OF EFFECT in a word, he who wills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are somehow one he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation of power which accompanies all success. 'Freedom of Will'that is the expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising volition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with the executor of the orderwho, as such, enjoys also the triumph over obstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will that overcame them. In this way the person exercising volition adds the feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful 'underwills' or undersoulsindeed, our body is but a social structure composed of many soulsto his feelings of delight as commander. L'EFFET C'EST MOI. what happens here is what happens in every wellconstructed and happy commonwealth, namely, that the governing class identifies itself with the successes of the commonwealth. In all willing it is absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as already said, of a social structure composed of many 'souls', on which account a philosopher should claim the right to include willingassuch within the sphere of moralsregarded as the doctrine of the relations of supremacy under which the phenomenon of 'life' manifests itself. . That the separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with each other, that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear in the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to a system as the collective members of the fauna of a Continentis betrayed in the end by the circumstance how unfailingly the most diverse philosophers always fill in again a definite fundamental scheme of POSSIBLE philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve once more in the same orbit, however independent of each other they may feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something within them leads them, something impels them in definite order the one after the otherto wit, the innate methodology and relationship of their ideas. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a rerecognizing, a remembering, a return and a homecoming to a faroff, ancient commonhousehold of the soul, out of which those ideas formerly grew philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highest order. The wonderful family resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German philosophizing is easily enough explained. In fact, where there is affinity of language, owing to the common philosophy of grammarI mean owing to the unconscious domination and guidance of similar grammatical functionsit cannot but be that everything is prepared at the outset for a similar development and succession of philosophical systems, just as the way seems barred against certain other possibilities of worldinterpretation. It is highly probable that philosophers within the domain of the UralAltaic languages (where the conception of the subject is least developed) look otherwise 'into the world,' and will be found on paths of thought different from those of the IndoGermans and Mussulmans, the spell of certain grammatical functions is ultimately also the spell of PHYSIOLOGICAL valuations and racial conditions.So much by way of rejecting Locke's superficiality with regard to the origin of ideas. . The CAUSA SUI is the best selfcontradiction that has yet been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this very folly. The desire for 'freedom of will' in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the halfeducated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less than to be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any one should find out in this manner the crass stupidity of the celebrated conception of 'free will' and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his 'enlightenment' a step further, and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of 'free will' I mean 'nonfree will,' which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One should not wrongly MATERIALISE 'cause' and 'effect,' as the natural philosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at present), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it 'effects' its end one should use 'cause' and 'effect' only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual understanding,NOT for explanation. In 'beinginitself' there is nothing of 'casualconnection,' of 'necessity,' or of 'psychological nonfreedom' there the effect does NOT follow the cause, there 'law' does not obtain. It is WE alone who have devised cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose and when we interpret and intermix this symbolworld, as 'beinginitself,' with things, we act once more as we have always actedMYTHOLOGICALLY. The 'nonfree will' is mythology in real life it is only a question of STRONG and WEAK wills.It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every 'causalconnection' and 'psychological necessity,' manifests something of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness, oppression, and nonfreedom it is suspicious to have such feelingsthe person betrays himself. And in general, if I have observed correctly, the 'nonfreedom of the will' is regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but always in a profoundly PERSONAL manner some will not give up their 'responsibility,' their belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to THEIR merits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class) others on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed for anything, and owing to an inward selfcontempt, seek to GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS, no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are in the habit at present of taking the side of criminals a sort of socialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as a matter of fact, the fatalism of the weakwilled embellishes itself surprisingly when it can pose as 'la religion de la souffrance humaine' that is ITS 'good taste.' . Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from the mischief of putting his finger on bad modes of interpretation, but 'Nature's conformity to law,' of which you physicists talk so proudly, as thoughwhy, it exists only owing to your interpretation and bad 'philology.' It is no matter of fact, no 'text,' but rather just a naively humanitarian adjustment and perversion of meaning, with which you make abundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the modern soul! 'Everywhere equality before the lawNature is not different in that respect, nor better than we' a fine instance of secret motive, in which the vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and autocraticlikewise a second and more refined atheismis once more disguised. 'Ni dieu, ni maitre'that, also, is what you want and therefore 'Cheers for natural law!'is it not so? But, as has been said, that is interpretation, not text and somebody might come along, who, with opposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could read out of the same 'Nature,' and with regard to the same phenomena, just the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement of the claims of poweran interpreter who should so place the unexceptionalness and unconditionalness of all 'Will to Power' before your eyes, that almost every word, and the word 'tyranny' itself, would eventually seem unsuitable, or like a weakening and softening metaphoras being too human and who should, nevertheless, end by asserting the same about this world as you do, namely, that it has a 'necessary' and 'calculable' course, NOT, however, because laws obtain in it, but because they are absolutely LACKING, and every power effects its ultimate consequences every moment. Granted that this also is only interpretationand you will be eager enough to make this objection?well, so much the better. . All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and timidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written, evidence of that which has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if nobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology and DEVELOPMENTDOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it. The power of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply into the most intellectual world, the world apparently most indifferent and unprejudiced, and has obviously operated in an injurious, obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner. A proper physiopsychology has to contend with unconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator, it has 'the heart' against it even a doctrine of the reciprocal conditionalness of the 'good' and the 'bad' impulses, causes (as refined immorality) distress and aversion in a still strong and manly consciencestill more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good impulses from bad ones. If, however, a person should regard even the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness as lifeconditioning emotions, as factors which must be present, fundamentally and essentially, in the general economy of life (which must, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further developed), he will suffer from such a view of things as from seasickness. And yet this hypothesis is far from being the strangest and most painful in this immense and almost new domain of dangerous knowledge, and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why every one should keep away from it who CAN do so! On the other hand, if one has once drifted hither with one's bark, well! very good! now let us set our teeth firmly! let us open our eyes and keep our hand fast on the helm! We sail away right OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhaps the remains of our own morality by daring to make our voyage thitherbut what do WE matter. Never yet did a PROFOUNDER world of insight reveal itself to daring travelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who thus 'makes a sacrifice'it is not the sacrifizio dell' intelletto, on the contrary!will at least be entitled to demand in return that psychology shall once more be recognized as the queen of the sciences, for whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology is once more the path to the fundamental problems. . O sancta simplicitas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple! how we have been able to give our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike desire for wanton pranks and wrong inferences!how from the beginning, we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness, and gaietyin order to enjoy life! And only on this solidified, granitelike foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its opposite, butas its refinement! It is to be hoped, indeed, that LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that it will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees and many refinements of gradation it is equally to be hoped that the incarnated Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to our unconquerable 'flesh and blood,' will turn the words round in the mouths of us discerning ones. Here and there we understand it, and laugh at the way in which precisely the best knowledge seeks most to retain us in this SIMPLIFIED, thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, and suitably falsified world at the way in which, whether it will or not, it loves error, because, as living itself, it loves life! . After such a cheerful commencement, a serious word would fain be heard it appeals to the most serious minds. Take care, ye philosophers and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering 'for the truth's sake'! even in your own defense! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience it makes you headstrong against objections and red rags it stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes, when in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even worse consequences of enmity, ye have at last to play your last card as protectors of truth upon earthas though 'the Truth' were such an innocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors! and you of all people, ye knights of the sorrowful countenance, Messrs Loafers and Cobwebspinners of the spirit! Finally, ye know sufficiently well that it cannot be of any consequence if YE just carry your point ye know that hitherto no philosopher has carried his point, and that there might be a more laudable truthfulness in every little interrogative mark which you place after your special words and favourite doctrines (and occasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn pantomime and trumping games before accusers and lawcourts! Rather go out of the way! Flee into concealment! And have your masks and your ruses, that ye may be mistaken for what you are, or somewhat feared! And pray, don't forget the garden, the garden with golden trelliswork! And have people around you who are as a gardenor as music on the waters at eventide, when already the day becomes a memory. Choose the GOOD solitude, the free, wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still to remain good in any sense whatsoever! How poisonous, how crafty, how bad, does every long war make one, which cannot be waged openly by means of force! How PERSONAL does a long fear make one, a long watching of enemies, of possible enemies! These pariahs of society, these longpursued, badlypersecuted onesalso the compulsory recluses, the Spinozas or Giordano Brunosalways become in the end, even under the most intellectual masquerade, and perhaps without being themselves aware of it, refined vengeanceseekers and poisonBrewers (just lay bare the foundation of Spinoza's ethics and theology!), not to speak of the stupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing sign in a philosopher that the sense of philosophical humour has left him. The martyrdom of the philosopher, his 'sacrifice for the sake of truth,' forces into the light whatever of the agitator and actor lurks in him and if one has hitherto contemplated him only with artistic curiosity, with regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous desire to see him also in his deterioration (deteriorated into a 'martyr,' into a stageandtribunebawler). Only, that it is necessary with such a desire to be clear WHAT spectacle one will see in any casemerely a satyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the continued proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT AN END, supposing that every philosophy has been a long tragedy in its origin. . Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majoritywhere he may forget 'men who are the rule,' as their exceptionexclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself 'The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exceptionthan myself, the exception!' And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go 'inside.' The long and serious study of the AVERAGE manand consequently much disguise, selfovercoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals)that constitutes a necessary part of the lifehistory of every philosopher perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task I mean socalled cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and 'the rule' in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSESsometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dunghill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgustnamely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billygoat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his centuryhe was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions in short, when any one speaks 'badly'and not even 'ill'of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and selfsatisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man. . It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati Footnote Like the river Ganges presto. among those only who think and live otherwisenamely, kurmagati Footnote Like the tortoise lento., or at best 'froglike,' mandeikagati Footnote Like the frog staccato. (I do everything to be 'difficultly understood' myself!)and one should be heartily grateful for the good will to some refinement of interpretation. As regards 'the good friends,' however, who are always too easygoing, and think that as friends they have a right to ease, one does well at the very first to grant them a playground and rompingplace for misunderstandingone can thus laugh still or get rid of them altogether, these good friendsand laugh then also! . What is most difficult to render from one language into another is the TEMPO of its style, which has its basis in the character of the race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average TEMPO of the assimilation of its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations, which, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the original, merely because its lively and merry TEMPO (which overleaps and obviates all dangers in word and expression) could not also be rendered. A German is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in his language consequently also, as may be reasonably inferred, for many of the most delightful and daring NUANCES of free, freespirited thought. And just as the buffoon and satyr are foreign to him in body and conscience, so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything ponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all longwinded and wearying species of style, are developed in profuse variety among Germanspardon me for stating the fact that even Goethe's prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the 'good old time' to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a time when there was still a 'German taste,' which was a rococotaste in moribus et artibus. Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic nature, which understood much, and was versed in many things he who was not the translator of Bayle to no purpose, who took refuge willingly in the shadow of Diderot and Voltaire, and still more willingly among the Roman comedywritersLessing loved also freespiritism in the TEMPO, and flight out of Germany. But how could the German language, even in the prose of Lessing, imitate the TEMPO of Machiavelli, who in his 'Principe' makes us breathe the dry, fine air of Florence, and cannot help presenting the most serious events in a boisterous allegrissimo, perhaps not without a malicious artistic sense of the contrast he ventures to presentlong, heavy, difficult, dangerous thoughts, and a TEMPO of the gallop, and of the best, wantonest humour? Finally, who would venture on a German translation of Petronius, who, more than any great musician hitherto, was a master of PRESTO in invention, ideas, and words? What matter in the end about the swamps of the sick, evil world, or of the 'ancient world,' when like him, one has the feet of a wind, the rush, the breath, the emancipating scorn of a wind, which makes everything healthy, by making everything RUN! And with regard to Aristophanesthat transfiguring, complementary genius, for whose sake one PARDONS all Hellenism for having existed, provided one has understood in its full profundity ALL that there requires pardon and transfiguration there is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on PLATO'S secrecy and sphinxlike nature, than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his deathbed there was found no 'Bible,' nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonicbut a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured lifea Greek life which he repudiatedwithout an Aristophanes! . It is the business of the very few to be independent it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men! . Our deepest insights mustand shouldappear as follies, and under certain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to the ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them. The exoteric and the esoteric, as they were formerly distinguished by philosophersamong the Indians, as among the Greeks, Persians, and Mussulmans, in short, wherever people believed in gradations of rank and NOT in equality and equal rightsare not so much in contradistinction to one another in respect to the exoteric class, standing without, and viewing, estimating, measuring, and judging from the outside, and not from the inside the more essential distinction is that the class in question views things from below upwardswhile the esoteric class views things FROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS. There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically and if all the woe in the world were taken together, who would dare to decide whether the sight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and thus to a doubling of the woe?... That which serves the higher class of men for nourishment or refreshment, must be almost poison to an entirely different and lower order of human beings. The virtues of the common man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a philosopher it might be possible for a highly developed man, supposing him to degenerate and go to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, for the sake of which he would have to be honoured as a saint in the lower world into which he had sunk. There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and the health according as the inferior soul and the lower vitality, or the higher and more powerful, make use of them. In the former case they are dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter case they are heraldcalls which summon the bravest to THEIR bravery. Books for the general reader are always illsmelling books, the odour of paltry people clings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if one wishes to breathe PURE air. . In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of NUANCE, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay. Everything is so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTE FOR THE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled and abused, until a man learns to introduce a little art into his sentiments, and prefers to try conclusions with the artificial, as do the real artists of life. The angry and reverent spirit peculiar to youth appears to allow itself no peace, until it has suitably falsified men and things, to be able to vent its passion upon them youth in itself even, is something falsifying and deceptive. Later on, when the young soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itselfstill ardent and savage even in its suspicion and remorse of conscience how it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges itself for its long selfblinding, as though it had been a voluntary blindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one's sentiments one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the good conscience to be a danger, as if it were the selfconcealment and lassitude of a more refined uprightness and above all, one espouses upon principle the cause AGAINST 'youth.'A decade later, and one comprehends that all this was also stillyouth! . Throughout the longest period of human historyone calls it the prehistoric periodthe value or nonvalue of an action was inferred from its CONSEQUENCES the action in itself was not taken into consideration, any more than its origin but pretty much as in China at present, where the distinction or disgrace of a child redounds to its parents, the retrooperating power of success or failure was what induced men to think well or ill of an action. Let us call this period the PREMORAL period of mankind the imperative, 'Know thyself!' was then still unknown.In the last ten thousand years, on the other hand, on certain large portions of the earth, one has gradually got so far, that one no longer lets the consequences of an action, but its origin, decide with regard to its worth a great achievement as a whole, an important refinement of vision and of criterion, the unconscious effect of the supremacy of aristocratic values and of the belief in 'origin,' the mark of a period which may be designated in the narrower sense as the MORAL one the first attempt at selfknowledge is thereby made. Instead of the consequences, the originwhat an inversion of perspective! And assuredly an inversion effected only after long struggle and wavering! To be sure, an ominous new superstition, a peculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained supremacy precisely thereby the origin of an action was interpreted in the most definite sense possible, as origin out of an INTENTION people were agreed in the belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention. The intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action under the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been bestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the present day.Is it not possible, however, that the necessity may now have arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing and fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new selfconsciousness and acuteness in manis it not possible that we may be standing on the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished negatively as ULTRAMORAL nowadays when, at least among us immoralists, the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, and that all its intentionalness, all that is seen, sensible, or 'sensed' in it, belongs to its surface or skinwhich, like every skin, betrays something, but CONCEALS still more? In short, we believe that the intention is only a sign or symptom, which first requires an explanationa sign, moreover, which has too many interpretations, and consequently hardly any meaning in itself alone that morality, in the sense in which it has been understood hitherto, as intentionmorality, has been a prejudice, perhaps a prematureness or preliminariness, probably something of the same rank as astrology and alchemy, but in any case something which must be surmounted. The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the selfmounting of moralitylet that be the name for the longsecret labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright, and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones of the soul. . It cannot be helped the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for one's neighbour, and all selfrenunciationmorality, must be mercilessly called to account, and brought to judgment just as the aesthetics of 'disinterested contemplation,' under which the emasculation of art nowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a good conscience. There is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments 'for others' and 'NOT for myself,' for one not needing to be doubly distrustful here, and for one asking promptly 'Are they not perhapsDECEPTIONS?'That they PLEASEhim who has them, and him who enjoys their fruit, and also the mere spectatorthat is still no argument in their FAVOUR, but just calls for caution. Let us therefore be cautious! . At whatever standpoint of philosophy one may place oneself nowadays, seen from every position, the ERRONEOUSNESS of the world in which we think we live is the surest and most certain thing our eyes can light upon we find proof after proof thereof, which would fain allure us into surmises concerning a deceptive principle in the 'nature of things.' He, however, who makes thinking itself, and consequently 'the spirit,' responsible for the falseness of the worldan honourable exit, which every conscious or unconscious advocatus dei avails himself ofhe who regards this world, including space, time, form, and movement, as falsely DEDUCED, would have at least good reason in the end to become distrustful also of all thinking has it not hitherto been playing upon us the worst of scurvy tricks? and what guarantee would it give that it would not continue to do what it has always been doing? In all seriousness, the innocence of thinkers has something touching and respectinspiring in it, which even nowadays permits them to wait upon consciousness with the request that it will give them HONEST answers for example, whether it be 'real' or not, and why it keeps the outer world so resolutely at a distance, and other questions of the same description. The belief in 'immediate certainties' is a MORAL NAIVETE which does honour to us philosophers butwe have now to cease being 'MERELY moral' men! Apart from morality, such belief is a folly which does little honour to us! If in middleclass life an everready distrust is regarded as the sign of a 'bad character,' and consequently as an imprudence, here among us, beyond the middleclass world and its Yeas and Nays, what should prevent our being imprudent and saying the philosopher has at length a RIGHT to 'bad character,' as the being who has hitherto been most befooled on earthhe is now under OBLIGATION to distrustfulness, to the wickedest squinting out of every abyss of suspicion.Forgive me the joke of this gloomy grimace and turn of expression for I myself have long ago learned to think and estimate differently with regard to deceiving and being deceived, and I keep at least a couple of pokes in the ribs ready for the blind rage with which philosophers struggle against being deceived. Why NOT? It is nothing more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than semblance it is, in fact, the worst proved supposition in the world. So much must be conceded there could have been no life at all except upon the basis of perspective estimates and semblances and if, with the virtuous enthusiasm and stupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do away altogether with the 'seeming world'well, granted that YOU could do that,at least nothing of your 'truth' would thereby remain! Indeed, what is it that forces us in general to the supposition that there is an essential opposition of 'true' and 'false'? Is it not enough to suppose degrees of seemingness, and as it were lighter and darker shades and tones of semblancedifferent valeurs, as the painters say? Why might not the world WHICH CONCERNS USbe a fiction? And to any one who suggested 'But to a fiction belongs an originator?'might it not be bluntly replied WHY? May not this 'belong' also belong to the fiction? Is it not at length permitted to be a little ironical towards the subject, just as towards the predicate and object? Might not the philosopher elevate himself above faith in grammar? All respect to governesses, but is it not time that philosophy should renounce governessfaith? . O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in 'the truth,' and in the SEARCH for the truth and if man goes about it too humanely'il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien'I wager he finds nothing! . Supposing that nothing else is 'given' as real but our world of desires and passions, that we cannot sink or rise to any other 'reality' but just that of our impulsesfor thinking is only a relation of these impulses to one anotherare we not permitted to make the attempt and to ask the question whether this which is 'given' does not SUFFICE, by means of our counterparts, for the understanding even of the socalled mechanical (or 'material') world? I do not mean as an illusion, a 'semblance,' a 'representation' (in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhauerian sense), but as possessing the same degree of reality as our emotions themselvesas a more primitive form of the world of emotions, in which everything still lies locked in a mighty unity, which afterwards branches off and develops itself in organic processes (naturally also, refines and debilitates)as a kind of instinctive life in which all organic functions, including selfregulation, assimilation, nutrition, secretion, and change of matter, are still synthetically united with one anotheras a PRIMARY FORM of life?In the end, it is not only permitted to make this attempt, it is commanded by the conscience of LOGICAL METHOD. Not to assume several kinds of causality, so long as the attempt to get along with a single one has not been pushed to its furthest extent (to absurdity, if I may be allowed to say so) that is a morality of method which one may not repudiate nowadaysit follows 'from its definition,' as mathematicians say. The question is ultimately whether we really recognize the will as OPERATING, whether we believe in the causality of the will if we do soand fundamentally our belief IN THIS is just our belief in causality itselfwe MUST make the attempt to posit hypothetically the causality of the will as the only causality. 'Will' can naturally only operate on 'will'and not on 'matter' (not on 'nerves,' for instance) in short, the hypothesis must be hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever 'effects' are recognizedand whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power operates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will. Granted, finally, that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of willnamely, the Will to Power, as my thesis puts it granted that all organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and that the solution of the problem of generation and nutritionit is one problemcould also be found therein one would thus have acquired the right to define ALL active force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER. The world seen from within, the world defined and designated according to its 'intelligible character'it would simply be 'Will to Power,' and nothing else. . 'What? Does not that mean in popular language God is disproved, but not the devil?'On the contrary! On the contrary, my friends! And who the devil also compels you to speak popularly! . As happened finally in all the enlightenment of modern times with the French Revolution (that terrible farce, quite superfluous when judged close at hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary spectators of all Europe have interpreted from a distance their own indignation and enthusiasm so long and passionately, UNTIL THE TEXT HAS DISAPPEARED UNDER THE INTERPRETATION), so a noble posterity might once more misunderstand the whole of the past, and perhaps only thereby make ITS aspect endurable.Or rather, has not this already happened? Have not we ourselves beenthat 'noble posterity'? And, in so far as we now comprehend this, is it notthereby already past? . Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because it makes people happy or virtuousexcepting, perhaps, the amiable 'Idealists,' who are enthusiastic about the good, true, and beautiful, and let all kinds of motley, coarse, and goodnatured desirabilities swim about promiscuously in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as little counterarguments. A thing could be TRUE, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full knowledge of itso that the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of 'truth' it could endureor to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified. But there is no doubt that for the discovery of certain PORTIONS of truth the wicked and unfortunate are more favourably situated and have a greater likelihood of success not to speak of the wicked who are happya species about whom moralists are silent. Perhaps severity and craft are more favourable conditions for the development of strong, independent spirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined, yielding goodnature, and habit of taking things easily, which are prized, and rightly prized in a learned man. Presupposing always, to begin with, that the term 'philosopher' be not confined to the philosopher who writes books, or even introduces HIS philosophy into books!Stendhal furnishes a last feature of the portrait of the freespirited philosopher, which for the sake of German taste I will not omit to underlinefor it is OPPOSED to German taste. 'Pour etre bon philosophe,' says this last great psychologist, 'il faut etre sec, clair, sans illusion. Un banquier, qui a fait fortune, a une partie du caractere requis pour faire des decouvertes en philosophie, c'estadire pour voir clair dans ce qui est.' . Everything that is profound loves the mask the profoundest things have a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the CONTRARY only be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? A question worth asking!it would be strange if some mystic has not already ventured on the same kind of thing. There are proceedings of such a delicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with coarseness and make them unrecognizable there are actions of love and of an extravagant magnanimity after which nothing can be wiser than to take a stick and thrash the witness soundly one thereby obscures his recollection. Many a one is able to obscure and abuse his own memory, in order at least to have vengeance on this sole party in the secret shame is inventive. They are not the worst things of which one is most ashamed there is not only deceit behind a maskthere is so much goodness in craft. I could imagine that a man with something costly and fragile to conceal, would roll through life clumsily and rotundly like an old, green, heavilyhooped winecask the refinement of his shame requiring it to be so. A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach, and with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate friends may be ignorant his mortal danger conceals itself from their eyes, and equally so his regained security. Such a hidden nature, which instinctively employs speech for silence and concealment, and is inexhaustible in evasion of communication, DESIRES and insists that a mask of himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his friends and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes will some day be opened to the fact that there is nevertheless a mask of him thereand that it is well to be so. Every profound spirit needs a mask nay, more, around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to the constantly false, that is to say, SUPERFICIAL interpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he manifests. . One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves and before no other judge. Not to cleave to any person, be it even the dearestevery person is a prison and also a recess. Not to cleave to a fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitousit is even less difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar torture and helplessness chance has given us an insight. Not to cleave to a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries, apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own liberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which always flies further aloft in order always to see more under itthe danger of the flier. Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as a whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our 'hospitality' for instance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed and wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with themselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes a vice. One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELFthe best test of independence. . A new order of philosophers is appearing I shall venture to baptize them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far as they allow themselves to be understoodfor it is their nature to WISH to remain something of a puzzlethese philosophers of the future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as 'tempters.' This name itself is after all only an attempt, or, if it be preferred, a temptation. . Will they be new friends of 'truth,' these coming philosophers? Very probably, for all philosophers hitherto have loved their truths. But assuredly they will not be dogmatists. It must be contrary to their pride, and also contrary to their taste, that their truth should still be truth for every onethat which has hitherto been the secret wish and ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts. 'My opinion is MY opinion another person has not easily a right to it'such a philosopher of the future will say, perhaps. One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree with many people. 'Good' is no longer good when one's neighbour takes it into his mouth. And how could there be a 'common good'! The expression contradicts itself that which can be common is always of small value. In the end things must be as they are and have always beenthe great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare. . Need I say expressly after all this that they will be free, VERY free spirits, these philosophers of the futureas certainly also they will not be merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different, which does not wish to be misunderstood and mistaken? But while I say this, I feel under OBLIGATION almost as much to them as to ourselves (we free spirits who are their heralds and forerunners), to sweep away from ourselves altogether a stupid old prejudice and misunderstanding, which, like a fog, has too long made the conception of 'free spirit' obscure. In every country of Europe, and the same in America, there is at present something which makes an abuse of this name a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits, who desire almost the opposite of what our intentions and instincts promptnot to mention that in respect to the NEW philosophers who are appearing, they must still more be closed windows and bolted doors. Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the LEVELLERS, these wrongly named 'free spirits'as glibtongued and scribefingered slaves of the democratic taste and its 'modern ideas' all of them men without solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied, only, they are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost ALL human misery and failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existeda notion which happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attain with all their strength, is the universal, greenmeadow happiness of the herd, together with security, safety, comfort, and alleviation of life for every one, their two most frequently chanted songs and doctrines are called 'Equality of Rights' and 'Sympathy with All Sufferers'and suffering itself is looked upon by them as something which must be DONE AWAY WITH. We opposite ones, however, who have opened our eye and conscience to the question how and where the plant 'man' has hitherto grown most vigorously, believe that this has always taken place under the opposite conditions, that for this end the dangerousness of his situation had to be increased enormously, his inventive faculty and dissembling power (his 'spirit') had to develop into subtlety and daring under long oppression and compulsion, and his Will to Life had to be increased to the unconditioned Will to Powerwe believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind,that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its oppositewe do not even say enough when we only say THIS MUCH, and in any case we find ourselves here, both with our speech and our silence, at the OTHER extreme of all modern ideology and gregarious desirability, as their antipodes perhaps? What wonder that we 'free spirits' are not exactly the most communicative spirits? that we do not wish to betray in every respect WHAT a spirit can free itself from, and WHERE perhaps it will then be driven? And as to the import of the dangerous formula, 'Beyond Good and Evil,' with which we at least avoid confusion, we ARE something else than 'librespenseurs,' 'liben pensatori' 'freethinkers,' and whatever these honest advocates of 'modern ideas' like to call themselves. Having been at home, or at least guests, in many realms of the spirit, having escaped again and again from the gloomy, agreeable nooks in which preferences and prejudices, youth, origin, the accident of men and books, or even the weariness of travel seemed to confine us, full of malice against the seductions of dependency which he concealed in honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, grateful even for distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free us from some rule, and its 'prejudice,' grateful to the God, devil, sheep, and worm in us, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the point of cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with teeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, owing to an excess of 'free will', with anterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till night, misers of our wealth and our fullcrammed drawers, economical in learning and forgetting, inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes nightowls of work even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrowsand it is necessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as we are the born, sworn, jealous friends of SOLITUDE, of our own profoundest midnight and midday solitudesuch kind of men are we, we free spirits! And perhaps ye are also something of the same kind, ye coming ones? ye NEW philosophers? . The human soul and its limits, the range of man's inner experiences hitherto attained, the heights, depths, and distances of these experiences, the entire history of the soul UP TO THE PRESENT TIME, and its still unexhausted possibilities this is the preordained huntingdomain for a born psychologist and lover of a 'big hunt'. But how often must he say despairingly to himself 'A single individual! alas, only a single individual! and this great forest, this virgin forest!' So he would like to have some hundreds of hunting assistants, and fine trained hounds, that he could send into the history of the human soul, to drive HIS game together. In vain again and again he experiences, profoundly and bitterly, how difficult it is to find assistants and dogs for all the things that directly excite his curiosity. The evil of sending scholars into new and dangerous huntingdomains, where courage, sagacity, and subtlety in every sense are required, is that they are no longer serviceable just when the 'BIG hunt,' and also the great danger commences,it is precisely then that they lose their keen eye and nose. In order, for instance, to divine and determine what sort of history the problem of KNOWLEDGE AND CONSCIENCE has hitherto had in the souls of homines religiosi, a person would perhaps himself have to possess as profound, as bruised, as immense an experience as the intellectual conscience of Pascal and then he would still require that widespread heaven of clear, wicked spirituality, which, from above, would be able to oversee, arrange, and effectively formulize this mass of dangerous and painful experiences.But who could do me this service! And who would have time to wait for such servants!they evidently appear too rarely, they are so improbable at all times! Eventually one must do everything ONESELF in order to know something which means that one has MUCH to do!But a curiosity like mine is once for all the most agreeable of vicespardon me! I mean to say that the love of truth has its reward in heaven, and already upon earth. . Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and not infrequently achieved in the midst of a skeptical and southernly freespirited world, which had centuries of struggle between philosophical schools behind it and in it, counting besides the education in tolerance which the Imperium Romanum gavethis faith is NOT that sincere, austere slavefaith by which perhaps a Luther or a Cromwell, or some other northern barbarian of the spirit remained attached to his God and Christianity, it is much rather the faith of Pascal, which resembles in a terrible manner a continuous suicide of reasona tough, longlived, wormlike reason, which is not to be slain at once and with a single blow. The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all selfconfidence of spirit, it is at the same time subjection, selfderision, and selfmutilation. There is cruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith, which is adapted to a tender, manysided, and very fastidious conscience, it takes for granted that the subjection of the spirit is indescribably PAINFUL, that all the past and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum, in the form of which 'faith' comes to it. Modern men, with their obtuseness as regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula, 'God on the Cross'. Hitherto there had never and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula it promised a transvaluation of all ancient valuesIt was the Orient, the PROFOUND Orient, it was the Oriental slave who thus took revenge on Rome and its noble, lightminded toleration, on the Roman 'Catholicism' of nonfaith, and it was always not the faith, but the freedom from the faith, the halfstoical and smiling indifference to the seriousness of the faith, which made the slaves indignant at their masters and revolt against them. 'Enlightenment' causes revolt, for the slave desires the unconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals, he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point of pain, to the point of sicknesshis many HIDDEN sufferings make him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the last great slaveinsurrection which began with the French Revolution. . Wherever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far, we find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinencebut without its being possible to determine with certainty which is cause and which is effect, or IF any relation at all of cause and effect exists there. This latter doubt is justified by the fact that one of the most regular symptoms among savage as well as among civilized peoples is the most sudden and excessive sensuality, which then with equal suddenness transforms into penitential paroxysms, worldrenunciation, and willrenunciation, both symptoms perhaps explainable as disguised epilepsy? But nowhere is it MORE obligatory to put aside explanations around no other type has there grown such a mass of absurdity and superstition, no other type seems to have been more interesting to men and even to philosophersperhaps it is time to become just a little indifferent here, to learn caution, or, better still, to look AWAY, TO GO AWAYYet in the background of the most recent philosophy, that of Schopenhauer, we find almost as the problem in itself, this terrible note of interrogation of the religious crisis and awakening. How is the negation of will POSSIBLE? how is the saint possible?that seems to have been the very question with which Schopenhauer made a start and became a philosopher. And thus it was a genuine Schopenhauerian consequence, that his most convinced adherent (perhaps also his last, as far as Germany is concerned), namely, Richard Wagner, should bring his own lifework to an end just here, and should finally put that terrible and eternal type upon the stage as Kundry, type vecu, and as it loved and lived, at the very time that the maddoctors in almost all European countries had an opportunity to study the type close at hand, wherever the religious neurosisor as I call it, 'the religious mood'made its latest epidemical outbreak and display as the 'Salvation Army'If it be a question, however, as to what has been so extremely interesting to men of all sorts in all ages, and even to philosophers, in the whole phenomenon of the saint, it is undoubtedly the appearance of the miraculous thereinnamely, the immediate SUCCESSION OF OPPOSITES, of states of the soul regarded as morally antithetical it was believed here to be selfevident that a 'bad man' was all at once turned into a 'saint,' a good man. The hitherto existing psychology was wrecked at this point, is it not possible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed itself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED in oppositions of moral values, and saw, read, and INTERPRETED these oppositions into the text and facts of the case? What? 'Miracle' only an error of interpretation? A lack of philology? . It seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their Catholicism than we Northerners are to Christianity generally, and that consequently unbelief in Catholic countries means something quite different from what it does among Protestantsnamely, a sort of revolt against the spirit of the race, while with us it is rather a return to the spirit (or nonspirit) of the race. We Northerners undoubtedly derive our origin from barbarous races, even as regards our talents for religionwe have POOR talents for it. One may make an exception in the case of the Celts, who have theretofore furnished also the best soil for Christian infection in the North the Christian ideal blossomed forth in France as much as ever the pale sun of the north would allow it. How strangely pious for our taste are still these later French skeptics, whenever there is any Celtic blood in their origin! How Catholic, how unGerman does Auguste Comte's Sociology seem to us, with the Roman logic of its instincts! How Jesuitical, that amiable and shrewd cicerone of Port Royal, SainteBeuve, in spite of all his hostility to Jesuits! And even Ernest Renan how inaccessible to us Northerners does the language of such a Renan appear, in whom every instant the merest touch of religious thrill throws his refined voluptuous and comfortably couching soul off its balance! Let us repeat after him these fine sentencesand what wickedness and haughtiness is immediately aroused by way of answer in our probably less beautiful but harder souls, that is to say, in our more German souls!'DISONS DONC HARDIMENT QUE LA RELIGION EST UN PRODUIT DE L'HOMME NORMAL, QUE L'HOMME EST LE PLUS DANS LE VRAI QUANT IL EST LE PLUS RELIGIEUX ET LE PLUS ASSURE D'UNE DESTINEE INFINIE.... C'EST QUAND IL EST BON QU'IL VEUT QUE LA VIRTU CORRESPONDE A UN ORDER ETERNAL, C'EST QUAND IL CONTEMPLE LES CHOSES D'UNE MANIERE DESINTERESSEE QU'IL TROUVE LA MORT REVOLTANTE ET ABSURDE. COMMENT NE PAS SUPPOSER QUE C'EST DANS CES MOMENTSLA, QUE L'HOMME VOIT LE MIEUX?'... These sentences are so extremely ANTIPODAL to my ears and habits of thought, that in my first impulse of rage on finding them, I wrote on the margin, 'LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR EXCELLENCE!'until in my later rage I even took a fancy to them, these sentences with their truth absolutely inverted! It is so nice and such a distinction to have one's own antipodes! . That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient Greeks is the irrestrainable stream of GRATITUDE which it pours forthit is a very superior kind of man who takes SUCH an attitude towards nature and life.Later on, when the populace got the upper hand in Greece, FEAR became rampant also in religion and Christianity was preparing itself. . The passion for God there are churlish, honesthearted, and importunate kinds of it, like that of Lutherthe whole of Protestantism lacks the southern DELICATEZZA. There is an Oriental exaltation of the mind in it, like that of an undeservedly favoured or elevated slave, as in the case of St. Augustine, for instance, who lacks in an offensive manner, all nobility in bearing and desires. There is a feminine tenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and unconsciously longs for a UNIO MYSTICA ET PHYSICA, as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In many cases it appears, curiously enough, as the disguise of a girl's or youth's puberty here and there even as the hysteria of an old maid, also as her last ambition. The Church has frequently canonized the woman in such a case. . The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before the saint, as the enigma of selfsubjugation and utter voluntary privationwhy did they thus bow? They divined in himand as it were behind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearancethe superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation the strength of will, in which they recognized their own strength and love of power, and knew how to honour it they honoured something in themselves when they honoured the saint. In addition to this, the contemplation of the saint suggested to them a suspicion such an enormity of selfnegation and antinaturalness will not have been coveted for nothingthey have said, inquiringly. There is perhaps a reason for it, some very great danger, about which the ascetic might wish to be more accurately informed through his secret interlocutors and visitors? In a word, the mighty ones of the world learned to have a new fear before him, they divined a new power, a strange, still unconquered enemyit was the 'Will to Power' which obliged them to halt before the saint. They had to question him. . In the Jewish 'Old Testament,' the book of divine justice, there are men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian literature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with fear and reverence before those stupendous remains of what man was formerly, and one has sad thoughts about old Asia and its little outpushed peninsula Europe, which would like, by all means, to figure before Asia as the 'Progress of Mankind.' To be sure, he who is himself only a slender, tame houseanimal, and knows only the wants of a houseanimal (like our cultured people of today, including the Christians of 'cultured' Christianity), need neither be amazed nor even sad amid those ruinsthe taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone with respect to 'great' and 'small' perhaps he will find that the New Testament, the book of grace, still appeals more to his heart (there is much of the odour of the genuine, tender, stupid beadsman and petty soul in it). To have bound up this New Testament (a kind of ROCOCO of taste in every respect) along with the Old Testament into one book, as the 'Bible,' as 'The Book in Itself,' is perhaps the greatest audacity and 'sin against the Spirit' which literary Europe has upon its conscience. . Why Atheism nowadays? 'The father' in God is thoroughly refuted equally so 'the judge,' 'the rewarder.' Also his 'free will' he does not hearand even if he did, he would not know how to help. The worst is that he seems incapable of communicating himself clearly is he uncertain?This is what I have made out (by questioning and listening at a variety of conversations) to be the cause of the decline of European theism it appears to me that though the religious instinct is in vigorous growth,it rejects the theistic satisfaction with profound distrust. . What does all modern philosophy mainly do? Since Descartesand indeed more in defiance of him than on the basis of his procedurean ATTENTAT has been made on the part of all philosophers on the old conception of the soul, under the guise of a criticism of the subject and predicate conceptionthat is to say, an ATTENTAT on the fundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine. Modern philosophy, as epistemological skepticism, is secretly or openly ANTICHRISTIAN, although (for keener ears, be it said) by no means antireligious. Formerly, in effect, one believed in 'the soul' as one believed in grammar and the grammatical subject one said, 'I' is the condition, 'think' is the predicate and is conditionedto think is an activity for which one MUST suppose a subject as cause. The attempt was then made, with marvelous tenacity and subtlety, to see if one could not get out of this net,to see if the opposite was not perhaps true 'think' the condition, and 'I' the conditioned 'I,' therefore, only a synthesis which has been MADE by thinking itself. KANT really wished to prove that, starting from the subject, the subject could not be provednor the object either the possibility of an APPARENT EXISTENCE of the subject, and therefore of 'the soul,' may not always have been strange to him,the thought which once had an immense power on earth as the Vedanta philosophy. . There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rounds but three of these are the most important. Once on a time men sacrificed human beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved the bestto this category belong the firstling sacrifices of all primitive religions, and also the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in the MithraGrotto on the Island of Capri, that most terrible of all Roman anachronisms. Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, they sacrificed to their God the strongest instincts they possessed, their 'nature' THIS festal joy shines in the cruel glances of ascetics and 'antinatural' fanatics. Finally, what still remained to be sacrificed? Was it not necessary in the end for men to sacrifice everything comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in future blessedness and justice? Was it not necessary to sacrifice God himself, and out of cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingnessthis paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the rising generation we all know something thereof already. . Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has long endeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it from the halfChristian, halfGerman narrowness and stupidity in which it has finally presented itself to this century, namely, in the form of Schopenhauer's philosophy whoever, with an Asiatic and superAsiatic eye, has actually looked inside, and into the most worldrenouncing of all possible modes of thoughtbeyond good and evil, and no longer like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the dominion and delusion of morality,whoever has done this, has perhaps just thereby, without really desiring it, opened his eyes to behold the opposite ideal the ideal of the most worldapproving, exuberant, and vivacious man, who has not only learnt to compromise and arrange with that which was and is, but wishes to have it again AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity, insatiably calling out da capo, not only to himself, but to the whole piece and play and not only the play, but actually to him who requires the playand makes it necessary because he always requires himself anewand makes himself necessary.What? And this would not becirculus vitiosus deus? . The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the strength of his intellectual vision and insight his world becomes profounder new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into view. Perhaps everything on which the intellectual eye has exercised its acuteness and profundity has just been an occasion for its exercise, something of a game, something for children and childish minds. Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the conceptions 'God' and 'sin,' will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to an old manand perhaps another plaything and another pain will then be necessary once more for 'the old man'always childish enough, an eternal child! . Has it been observed to what extent outward idleness, or semiidleness, is necessary to a real religious life (alike for its favourite microscopic labour of selfexamination, and for its soft placidity called 'prayer,' the state of perpetual readiness for the 'coming of God'), I mean the idleness with a good conscience, the idleness of olden times and of blood, to which the aristocratic sentiment that work is DISHONOURINGthat it vulgarizes body and soulis not quite unfamiliar? And that consequently the modern, noisy, timeengrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness educates and prepares for 'unbelief' more than anything else? Among these, for instance, who are at present living apart from religion in Germany, I find 'freethinkers' of diversified species and origin, but above all a majority of those in whom laboriousness from generation to generation has dissolved the religious instincts so that they no longer know what purpose religions serve, and only note their existence in the world with a kind of dull astonishment. They feel themselves already fully occupied, these good people, be it by their business or by their pleasures, not to mention the 'Fatherland,' and the newspapers, and their 'family duties' it seems that they have no time whatever left for religion and above all, it is not obvious to them whether it is a question of a new business or a new pleasurefor it is impossible, they say to themselves, that people should go to church merely to spoil their tempers. They are by no means enemies of religious customs should certain circumstances, State affairs perhaps, require their participation in such customs, they do what is required, as so many things are donewith a patient and unassuming seriousness, and without much curiosity or discomfortthey live too much apart and outside to feel even the necessity for a FOR or AGAINST in such matters. Among those indifferent persons may be reckoned nowadays the majority of German Protestants of the middle classes, especially in the great laborious centres of trade and commerce also the majority of laborious scholars, and the entire University personnel (with the exception of the theologians, whose existence and possibility there always gives psychologists new and more subtle puzzles to solve). On the part of pious, or merely churchgoing people, there is seldom any idea of HOW MUCH goodwill, one might say arbitrary will, is now necessary for a German scholar to take the problem of religion seriously his whole profession (and as I have said, his whole workmanlike laboriousness, to which he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a lofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is occasionally mingled a slight disdain for the 'uncleanliness' of spirit which he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong to the Church. It is only with the help of history (NOT through his own personal experience, therefore) that the scholar succeeds in bringing himself to a respectful seriousness, and to a certain timid deference in presence of religions but even when his sentiments have reached the stage of gratitude towards them, he has not personally advanced one step nearer to that which still maintains itself as Church or as piety perhaps even the contrary. The practical indifference to religious matters in the midst of which he has been born and brought up, usually sublimates itself in his case into circumspection and cleanliness, which shuns contact with religious men and things and it may be just the depth of his tolerance and humanity which prompts him to avoid the delicate trouble which tolerance itself brings with it.Every age has its own divine type of naivete, for the discovery of which other ages may envy it and how much naiveteadorable, childlike, and boundlessly foolish naivete is involved in this belief of the scholar in his superiority, in the good conscience of his tolerance, in the unsuspecting, simple certainty with which his instinct treats the religious man as a lower and less valuable type, beyond, before, and ABOVE which he himself has developedhe, the little arrogant dwarf and mobman, the sedulously alert, headandhand drudge of 'ideas,' of 'modern ideas'! . Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration of 'pure forms' in philosophers as well as in artists it is not to be doubted that whoever has NEED of the cult of the superficial to that extent, has at one time or another made an unlucky dive BENEATH it. Perhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to those burnt children, the born artists who find the enjoyment of life only in trying to FALSIFY its image (as if taking wearisome revenge on it), one might guess to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which they wish to see its image falsified, attenuated, ultrified, and deified,one might reckon the homines religiosi among the artists, as their HIGHEST rank. It is the profound, suspicious fear of an incurable pessimism which compels whole centuries to fasten their teeth into a religious interpretation of existence the fear of the instinct which divines that truth might be attained TOO soon, before man has become strong enough, hard enough, artist enough.... Piety, the 'Life in God,' regarded in this light, would appear as the most elaborate and ultimate product of the FEAR of truth, as artistadoration and artistintoxication in presence of the most logical of all falsifications, as the will to the inversion of truth, to untruth at any price. Perhaps there has hitherto been no more effective means of beautifying man than piety, by means of it man can become so artful, so superficial, so iridescent, and so good, that his appearance no longer offends. . To love mankind FOR GOD'S SAKEthis has so far been the noblest and remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. That love to mankind, without any redeeming intention in the background, is only an ADDITIONAL folly and brutishness, that the inclination to this love has first to get its proportion, its delicacy, its gram of salt and sprinkling of ambergris from a higher inclinationwhoever first perceived and 'experienced' this, however his tongue may have stammered as it attempted to express such a delicate matter, let him for all time be holy and respected, as the man who has so far flown highest and gone astray in the finest fashion! . The philosopher, as WE free spirits understand himas the man of the greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general development of mankind,will use religion for his disciplining and educating work, just as he will use the contemporary political and economic conditions. The selecting and disciplining influencedestructive, as well as creative and fashioningwhich can be exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the sort of people placed under its spell and protection. For those who are strong and independent, destined and trained to command, in whom the judgment and skill of a ruling race is incorporated, religion is an additional means for overcoming resistance in the exercise of authorityas a bond which binds rulers and subjects in common, betraying and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter, their inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. And in the case of the unique natures of noble origin, if by virtue of superior spirituality they should incline to a more retired and contemplative life, reserving to themselves only the more refined forms of government (over chosen disciples or members of an order), religion itself may be used as a means for obtaining peace from the noise and trouble of managing GROSSER affairs, and for securing immunity from the UNAVOIDABLE filth of all political agitation. The Brahmins, for instance, understood this fact. With the help of a religious organization, they secured to themselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their sentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher and superregal mission. At the same time religion gives inducement and opportunity to some of the subjects to qualify themselves for future ruling and commanding the slowly ascending ranks and classes, in which, through fortunate marriage customs, volitional power and delight in selfcontrol are on the increase. To them religion offers sufficient incentives and temptations to aspire to higher intellectuality, and to experience the sentiments of authoritative selfcontrol, of silence, and of solitude. Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary baseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy. And finally, to ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy, with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all the semianimal poverty of their souls. Religion, together with the religious significance of life, sheds sunshine over such perpetually harassed men, and makes even their own aspect endurable to them, it operates upon them as the Epicurean philosophy usually operates upon sufferers of a higher order, in a refreshing and refining manner, almost TURNING suffering TO ACCOUNT, and in the end even hallowing and vindicating it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it difficult enough to livethis very difficulty being necessary. . To be sureto make also the bad counterreckoning against such religions, and to bring to light their secret dangersthe cost is always excessive and terrible when religions do NOT operate as an educational and disciplinary medium in the hands of the philosopher, but rule voluntarily and PARAMOUNTLY, when they wish to be the final end, and not a means along with other means. Among men, as among all other animals, there is a surplus of defective, diseased, degenerating, infirm, and necessarily suffering individuals the successful cases, among men also, are always the exception and in view of the fact that man is THE ANIMAL NOT YET PROPERLY ADAPTED TO HIS ENVIRONMENT, the rare exception. But worse still. The higher the type a man represents, the greater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED the accidental, the law of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests itself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of men, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult to determine. What, then, is the attitude of the two greatest religions abovementioned to the SURPLUS of failures in life? They endeavour to preserve and keep alive whatever can be preserved in fact, as the religions FOR SUFFERERS, they take the part of these upon principle they are always in favour of those who suffer from life as from a disease, and they would fain treat every other experience of life as false and impossible. However highly we may esteem this indulgent and preservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has applied, and applies also to the highest and usually the most suffering type of man), the hitherto PARAMOUNT religionsto give a general appreciation of themare among the principal causes which have kept the type of 'man' upon a lower levelthey have preserved too much THAT WHICH SHOULD HAVE PERISHED. One has to thank them for invaluable services and who is sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation of all that the 'spiritual men' of Christianity have done for Europe hitherto! But when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the helpless, and when they had allured from society into convents and spiritual penitentiaries the brokenhearted and distracted what else had they to do in order to work systematically in that fashion, and with a good conscience, for the preservation of all the sick and suffering, which means, in deed and in truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE EUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of valueTHAT is what they had to do! And to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast suspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous, manly, conquering, and imperiousall instincts which are natural to the highest and most successful type of 'man'into uncertainty, distress of conscience, and selfdestruction forsooth, to invert all love of the earthly and of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and earthly thingsTHAT is the task the Church imposed on itself, and was obliged to impose, until, according to its standard of value, 'unworldliness,' 'unsensuousness,' and 'higher man' fused into one sentiment. If one could observe the strangely painful, equally coarse and refined comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and impartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one would never cease marvelling and laughing does it not actually seem that some single will has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME ABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite requirements (no longer Epicurean) and with some divine hammer in his hand, could approach this almost voluntary degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in the European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he not have to cry aloud with rage, pity, and horror 'Oh, you bunglers, presumptuous pitiful bunglers, what have you done! Was that a work for your hands? How you have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you presumed to do!'I should say that Christianity has hitherto been the most portentous of presumptions. Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning MAN men, not sufficiently strong and farsighted to ALLOW, with sublime selfconstraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures and perishings to prevail men, not sufficiently noble to see the radically different grades of rank and intervals of rank that separate man from manSUCH men, with their 'equality before God,' have hitherto swayed the destiny of Europe until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day. . He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriouslyand even himselfonly in relation to his pupils. . 'Knowledge for its own sake'that is the last snare laid by morality we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. . The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has to be overcome on the way to it. A. We are most dishonourable towards our God he is not PERMITTED to sin. . The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed, deceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men. . Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense of all others. Love to God also! . 'I did that,' says my memory. 'I could not have done that,' says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventuallythe memory yields. . One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand thatkills with leniency. . If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs. . THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.So long as thou feelest the stars as an 'above thee,' thou lackest the eye of the discerning one. . It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men. . He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eyeand calls it his pride. . A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things besides gratitude and purity. . The degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest altitudes of his spirit. . Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself. . With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify, or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits two men with the same principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith. . He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a despiser. . A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love, betrays its sediment its dregs come up. . A thing that is explained ceases to concern usWhat did the God mean who gave the advice, 'Know thyself!' Did it perhaps imply 'Cease to be concerned about thyself! become objective!'And Socrates?And the 'scientific man'? . It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you should so salt your truth that it will no longerquench thirst? . 'Sympathy for all'would be harshness and tyranny for THEE, my good neighbour. . INSTINCTWhen the house is on fire one forgets even the dinnerYes, but one recovers it from among the ashes. . Woman learns how to hate in proportion as sheforgets how to charm. . The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different TEMPO, on that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other. . In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves have still their impersonal scornfor 'woman'. . FETTERED HEART, FREE SPIRITWhen one firmly fetters one's heart and keeps it prisoner, one can allow one's spirit many liberties I said this once before But people do not believe it when I say so, unless they know it already. . One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become embarrassed. . Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them is not something dreadful also. . Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their surface, precisely by that which makes others heavyby hatred and love. . So cold, so icy, that one burns one's finger at the touch of him! Every hand that lays hold of him shrinks back!And for that very reason many think him redhot. . Who has not, at one time or anothersacrificed himself for the sake of his good name? . In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that account a great deal too much contempt of men. . The maturity of manthat means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play. . To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end of which one is ashamed also of one's morality. . One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaablessing it rather than in love with it. . What? A great man? I always see merely the playactor of his own ideal. . When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites. . THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS'I listened for the echo and I heard only praise.' . We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus relax ourselves away from our fellows. . A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalization of God. . Discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with regard to the beloved. 'What! She is modest enough to love even you? Or stupid enough? Oror' . THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS.'Everything now turns out best for me, I now love every fatewho would like to be my fate?' . Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents the Christians of todayburning us. . The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the 'piety') of the free spirit (the 'pious man of knowledge') than the impia fraus. Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church, characteristic of the type 'free spirit'as ITS nonfreedom. . By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves. . A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been taken, to shut the ear even to the best counterarguments. Occasionally, therefore, a will to stupidity. . There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. . The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed he extenuates and maligns it. . The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer. . Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been wounded. . To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive he guards against them. . 'You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be embarrassed before him.' . The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset. . Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is mediocre. . The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to rebaptize our badness as the best in us. . The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, emotions. . There is an innocence of admiration it is possessed by him to whom it has not yet occurred that he himself may be admired some day. . Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning ourselves'justifying' ourselves. . Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its root remains weak, and is easily torn up. . It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn authorand that he did not learn it better. . To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness of heartand the very opposite of vanity of spirit. . Even concubinage has been corruptedby marriage. . He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over pain, but because of the fact that he does not feel pain where he expected it. A parable. . When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us. . A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great men.Yes, and then to get round them. . In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of shame. They feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with itor worse still! under their dress and finery. . The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it. . The devil has the most extensive perspectives for God on that account he keeps so far away from himthe devil, in effect, as the oldest friend of knowledge. . What a person IS begins to betray itself when his talent decreases,when he ceases to show what he CAN do. Talent is also an adornment an adornment is also a concealment. . The sexes deceive themselves about each other the reason is that in reality they honour and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable but in fact woman is ESSENTIALLY unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she may have assumed the peaceable demeanour. . One is punished best for one's virtues. . He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives more frivolously and shamelessly than the man without an ideal. . From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all evidence of truth. . Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man a considerable part of it is rather an essential condition of being good. . The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks some one whom he can assist a good conversation thus originates. . In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes of opposite kinds in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds a mediocre man and often, even in a mediocre artist, one finds a very remarkable man. . We do the same when awake as when dreaming we only invent and imagine him with whom we have intercourseand forget it immediately. . In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man. . ADVICE AS A RIDDLE.'If the band is not to break, bite it firstsecure to make!' . The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a God. . The chastest utterance I ever heard 'Dans le veritable amour c'est l'ame qui enveloppe le corps.' . Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is most difficult to us.Concerning the origin of many systems of morals. . When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain virility of taste man, indeed, if I may say so, is 'the barren animal.' . Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the SECONDARY role. . He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. . From old Florentine novelsmoreover, from life Buona femmina e mala femmina vuol bastone.Sacchetti, Nov. . . To seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion, and afterwards to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbourwho can do this conjuring trick so well as women? . That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered goodthe atavism of an old ideal. . Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy around the demigod everything becomes a satyrplay and around God everything becomeswhat? perhaps a 'world'? . It is not enough to possess a talent one must also have your permission to possess iteh, my friends? . 'Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise' so say the most ancient and the most modern serpents. . What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. . Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health everything absolute belongs to pathology. . The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness. . Insanity in individuals is something rarebut in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. . The thought of suicide is a great consolation by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night. . Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our strongest impulsethe tyrant in us. . One MUST repay good and ill but why just to the person who did us good or ill? . One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has communicated it. . Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences they exploit them. . 'Our fellowcreature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour's neighbour'so thinks every nation. . Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a loverhis rare and exceptional traits it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his normal character. . Jesus said to his Jews 'The law was for servantslove God as I love him, as his Son! What have we Sons of God to do with morals!' . IN SIGHT OF EVERY PARTY.A shepherd has always need of a bellwetheror he has himself to be a wether occasionally. . One may indeed lie with the mouth but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth. . To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shameand something precious. . Christianity gave Eros poison to drink he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice. . To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing oneself. . In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame. . Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like tender hands on a Cyclops. . One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind (because one cannot embrace all) but this is what one must never confess to the individual. . One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one esteems equal or superior. . Ye Utilitariansye, too, love the UTILE only as a VEHICLE for your inclinations,ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels insupportable! . One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired. . The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity. . With regard to what 'truthfulness' is, perhaps nobody has ever been sufficiently truthful. . One does not believe in the follies of clever men what a forfeiture of the rights of man! . The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile 'reformed.' . There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause. . It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed. . The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be returned. . 'I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.' . There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of wickedness. . 'I dislike him.'Why?'I am not a match for him.'Did any one ever answer so? . The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle, belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the 'Science of Morals' belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarsefingeredan interesting contrast, which sometimes becomes incarnate and obvious in the very person of a moralist. Indeed, the expression, 'Science of Morals' is, in respect to what is designated thereby, far too presumptuous and counter to GOOD taste,which is always a foretaste of more modest expressions. One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT is still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for the present namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth, and distinctions of worth, which live, grow, propagate, and perishand perhaps attempts to give a clear idea of the recurring and more common forms of these living crystallizationsas preparation for a THEORY OF TYPES of morality. To be sure, people have not hitherto been so modest. All the philosophers, with a pedantic and ridiculous seriousness, demanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science they wanted to GIVE A BASIC to moralityand every philosopher hitherto has believed that he has given it a basis morality itself, however, has been regarded as something 'given.' How far from their awkward pride was the seemingly insignificant problemleft in dust and decayof a description of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands and senses could hardly be fine enough for it! It was precisely owing to moral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly, in an arbitrary epitome, or an accidental abridgementperhaps as the morality of their environment, their position, their church, their Zeitgeist, their climate and zoneit was precisely because they were badly instructed with regard to nations, eras, and past ages, and were by no means eager to know about these matters, that they did not even come in sight of the real problems of moralsproblems which only disclose themselves by a comparison of MANY kinds of morality. In every 'Science of Morals' hitherto, strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself has been OMITTED there has been no suspicion that there was anything problematic there! That which philosophers called 'giving a basis to morality,' and endeavoured to realize, has, when seen in a right light, proved merely a learned form of good FAITH in prevailing morality, a new means of its EXPRESSION, consequently just a matteroffact within the sphere of a definite morality, yea, in its ultimate motive, a sort of denial that it is LAWFUL for this morality to be called in questionand in any case the reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and vivisecting of this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what innocencealmost worthy of honourSchopenhauer represents his own task, and draw your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a 'Science' whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and old wives 'The principle,' he says (page  of the Grundprobleme der Ethik), Footnote Pages  of Schopenhauer's Basis of Morality, translated by Arthur B. Bullock, M.A. (). 'the axiom about the purport of which all moralists are PRACTICALLY agreed neminem laede, immo omnes quantum potes juvais REALLY the proposition which all moral teachers strive to establish, ... the REAL basis of ethics which has been sought, like the philosopher's stone, for centuries.'The difficulty of establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be greatit is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his efforts and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, ACTUALLYplayed the flute... daily after dinner one may read about the matter in his biography. A question by the way a pessimist, a repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at moralitywho assents to morality, and plays the flute to laedeneminem morals, what? Is that reallya pessimist? . Apart from the value of such assertions as 'there is a categorical imperative in us,' one can always ask What does such an assertion indicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which are meant to justify their author in the eyes of other people other systems of morals are meant to tranquilize him, and make him selfsatisfied with other systems he wants to crucify and humble himself, with others he wishes to take revenge, with others to conceal himself, with others to glorify himself and gave superiority and distinction,this system of morals helps its author to forget, that system makes him, or something of him, forgotten, many a moralist would like to exercise power and creative arbitrariness over mankind, many another, perhaps, Kant especially, gives us to understand by his morals that 'what is estimable in me, is that I know how to obeyand with you it SHALL not be otherwise than with me!' In short, systems of morals are only a SIGNLANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS. . In contrast to laisseraller, every system of morals is a sort of tyranny against 'nature' and also against 'reason', that is, however, no objection, unless one should again decree by some system of morals, that all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a long constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal, or Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every language has attained to strength and freedomthe metrical constraint, the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and orators of every nation given themselves!not excepting some of the prose writers of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable conscientiousness'for the sake of a folly,' as utilitarian bunglers say, and thereby deem themselves wise'from submission to arbitrary laws,' as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves 'free,' even freespirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself, or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary law, and in all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely this is 'nature' and 'natural'and not laisseraller! Every artist knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his 'most natural' condition, the free arranging, locating, disposing, and constructing in the moments of 'inspiration'and how strictly and delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which, by their very rigidness and precision, defy all formulation by means of ideas (even the most stable idea has, in comparison therewith, something floating, manifold, and ambiguous in it). The essential thing 'in heaven and in earth' is, apparently (to repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE in the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living for instance, virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spiritualityanything whatever that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine. The long bondage of the spirit, the distrustful constraint in the communicability of ideas, the discipline which the thinker imposed on himself to think in accordance with the rules of a church or a court, or conformable to Aristotelian premises, the persistent spiritual will to interpret everything that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian Godall this violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and unreasonableness, has proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has attained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility granted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be stifled, suffocated, and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere, 'nature' shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT magnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble). That for centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove somethingnowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every thinker who 'wishes to prove something'that it was always settled beforehand what WAS TO BE the result of their strictest thinking, as it was perhaps in the Asiatic astrology of former times, or as it is still at the present day in the innocent, Christianmoral explanation of immediate personal events 'for the glory of God,' or 'for the good of the soul'this tyranny, this arbitrariness, this severe and magnificent stupidity, has EDUCATED the spirit slavery, both in the coarser and the finer sense, is apparently an indispensable means even of spiritual education and discipline. One may look at every system of morals in this light it is 'nature' therein which teaches to hate the laisseraller, the too great freedom, and implants the need for limited horizons, for immediate dutiesit teaches the NARROWING OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in a certain sense, that stupidity is a condition of life and development. 'Thou must obey some one, and for a long time OTHERWISE thou wilt come to grief, and lose all respect for thyself'this seems to me to be the moral imperative of nature, which is certainly neither 'categorical,' as old Kant wished (consequently the 'otherwise'), nor does it address itself to the individual (what does nature care for the individual!), but to nations, races, ages, and ranks above all, however, to the animal 'man' generally, to MANKIND. . Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle it was a master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such an extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his weekand workday againas a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated FAST, such as is also frequently found in the ancient world (although, as is appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect to work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary and wherever powerful influences and habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary days are appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to hunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole generations and epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism, seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during which an impulse learns to humble and submit itselfat the same time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself certain philosophical sects likewise admit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst of Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with Aphrodisiacal odours).Here also is a hint for the explanation of the paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments, that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amourpassion). . There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might say, in spite of him namely, Socratism, for which he himself was too noble. 'No one desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done unwittingly. The evil man inflicts injury on himself he would not do so, however, if he knew that evil is evil. The evil man, therefore, is only evil through error if one free him from error one will necessarily make himgood.'This mode of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who perceive only the unpleasant consequences of evildoing, and practically judge that 'it is STUPID to do wrong' while they accept 'good' as identical with 'useful and pleasant,' without further thought. As regards every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it has the same origin, and follow the scent one will seldom err.Plato did all he could to interpret something refined and noble into the tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret himself into themhe, the most daring of all interpreters, who lifted the entire Socrates out of the street, as a popular theme and song, to exhibit him in endless and impossible modificationsnamely, in all his own disguises and multiplicities. In jest, and in Homeric language as well, what is the Platonic Socrates, if notGreek words inserted here. . The old theological problem of 'Faith' and 'Knowledge,' or more plainly, of instinct and reasonthe question whether, in respect to the valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality, which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to a 'Why,' that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utilityit is always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of Socrates, and had divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates himself, following, of course, the taste of his talentthat of a surpassing dialecticiantook first the side of reason and, in fact, what did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward incapacity of the noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions? In the end, however, though silently and secretly, he laughed also at himself with his finer conscience and introspection, he found in himself the same difficulty and incapacity. 'But why'he said to himself'should one on that account separate oneself from the instincts! One must set them right, and the reason ALSOone must follow the instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support them with good arguments.' This was the real FALSENESS of that great and mysterious ironist he brought his conscience up to the point that he was satisfied with a kind of selfoutwitting in fact, he perceived the irrationality in the moral judgment.Plato, more innocent in such matters, and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wished to prove to himself, at the expenditure of all his strengththe greatest strength a philosopher had ever expendedthat reason and instinct lead spontaneously to one goal, to the good, to 'God' and since Plato, all theologians and philosophers have followed the same pathwhich means that in matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it, 'Faith,' or as I call it, 'the herd') has hitherto triumphed. Unless one should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who recognized only the authority of reason but reason is only a tool, and Descartes was superficial. . Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest processes of all 'knowledge and cognizance' there, as here, the premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to 'belief,' and the lack of distrust and patience are first developedour senses learn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and cautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes find it easier on a given occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon the divergence and novelty of an impression the latter requires more force, more 'morality.' It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything new we hear strange music badly. When we hear another language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds into words with which we are more familiar and conversantit was thus, for example, that the Germans modified the spoken word ARCUBALISTA into ARMBRUST (crossbow). Our senses are also hostile and averse to the new and generally, even in the 'simplest' processes of sensation, the emotions DOMINATEsuch as fear, love, hatred, and the passive emotion of indolence.As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words (not to speak of syllables) of a pagehe rather takes about five out of every twenty words at random, and 'guesses' the probably appropriate sense to themjust as little do we see a tree correctly and completely in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape we find it so much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same we fabricate the greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate any event, EXCEPT as 'inventors' thereof. All this goes to prove that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have beenACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantlyone is much more of an artist than one is aware of.In an animated conversation, I often see the face of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the STRENGTH of my visual facultythe delicacy of the play of the muscles and of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me. Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all. . Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit but also contrariwise. What we experience in dreams, provided we experience it often, pertains at last just as much to the general belongings of our soul as anything 'actually' experienced by virtue thereof we are richer or poorer, we have a requirement more or less, and finally, in broad daylight, and even in the brightest moments of our waking life, we are ruled to some extent by the nature of our dreams. Supposing that someone has often flown in his dreams, and that at last, as soon as he dreams, he is conscious of the power and art of flying as his privilege and his peculiarly enviable happiness such a person, who believes that on the slightest impulse, he can actualize all sorts of curves and angles, who knows the sensation of a certain divine levity, an 'upwards' without effort or constraint, a 'downwards' without descending or loweringwithout TROUBLE!how could the man with such dreamexperiences and dreamhabits fail to find 'happiness' differently coloured and defined, even in his waking hours! How could he failto long DIFFERENTLY for happiness? 'Flight,' such as is described by poets, must, when compared with his own 'flying,' be far too earthly, muscular, violent, far too 'troublesome' for him. . The difference among men does not manifest itself only in the difference of their lists of desirable thingsin their regarding different good things as worth striving for, and being disagreed as to the greater or less value, the order of rank, of the commonly recognized desirable thingsit manifests itself much more in what they regard as actually HAVING and POSSESSING a desirable thing. As regards a woman, for instance, the control over her body and her sexual gratification serves as an amply sufficient sign of ownership and possession to the more modest man another with a more suspicious and ambitious thirst for possession, sees the 'questionableness,' the mere apparentness of such ownership, and wishes to have finer tests in order to know especially whether the woman not only gives herself to him, but also gives up for his sake what she has or would like to haveonly THEN does he look upon her as 'possessed.' A third, however, has not even here got to the limit of his distrust and his desire for possession he asks himself whether the woman, when she gives up everything for him, does not perhaps do so for a phantom of him he wishes first to be thoroughly, indeed, profoundly well known in order to be loved at all he ventures to let himself be found out. Only then does he feel the beloved one fully in his possession, when she no longer deceives herself about him, when she loves him just as much for the sake of his devilry and concealed insatiability, as for his goodness, patience, and spirituality. One man would like to possess a nation, and he finds all the higher arts of Cagliostro and Catalina suitable for his purpose. Another, with a more refined thirst for possession, says to himself 'One may not deceive where one desires to possess'he is irritated and impatient at the idea that a mask of him should rule in the hearts of the people 'I must, therefore, MAKE myself known, and first of all learn to know myself!' Among helpful and charitable people, one almost always finds the awkward craftiness which first gets up suitably him who has to be helped, as though, for instance, he should 'merit' help, seek just THEIR help, and would show himself deeply grateful, attached, and subservient to them for all help. With these conceits, they take control of the needy as a property, just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a desire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed or forestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make something like themselves out of their childrenthey call that 'education' no mother doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN ideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it right to use their discretion concerning the life or death of the newly born (as among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the teacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new individual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession. The consequence is... . The Jewsa people 'born for slavery,' as Tacitus and the whole ancient world say of them 'the chosen people among the nations,' as they themselves say and believethe Jews performed the miracle of the inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused into one the expressions 'rich,' 'godless,' 'wicked,' 'violent,' 'sensual,' and for the first time coined the word 'world' as a term of reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included the use of the word 'poor' as synonymous with 'saint' and 'friend') the significance of the Jewish people is to be found it is with THEM that the SLAVEINSURRECTION IN MORALS commences. . It is to be INFERRED that there are countless dark bodies near the sunsuch as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this is an allegory and the psychologist of morals reads the whole starwriting merely as an allegorical and symbolic language in which much may be unexpressed. . The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Caesar Borgia) are fundamentally misunderstood, 'nature' is misunderstood, so long as one seeks a 'morbidness' in the constitution of these healthiest of all tropical monsters and growths, or even an innate 'hell' in themas almost all moralists have done hitherto. Does it not seem that there is a hatred of the virgin forest and of the tropics among moralists? And that the 'tropical man' must be discredited at all costs, whether as disease and deterioration of mankind, or as his own hell and selftorture? And why? In favour of the 'temperate zones'? In favour of the temperate men? The 'moral'? The mediocre?This for the chapter 'Morals as Timidity.' . All the systems of morals which address themselves with a view to their 'happiness,' as it is calledwhat else are they but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of DANGER from themselves in which the individuals live recipes for their passions, their good and bad propensities, insofar as such have the Will to Power and would like to play the master small and great expediencies and elaborations, permeated with the musty odour of old family medicines and oldwife wisdom all of them grotesque and absurd in their formbecause they address themselves to 'all,' because they generalize where generalization is not authorized all of them speaking unconditionally, and taking themselves unconditionally all of them flavoured not merely with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and sometimes even seductive, when they are overspiced and begin to smell dangerously, especially of 'the other world.' That is all of little value when estimated intellectually, and is far from being 'science,' much less 'wisdom' but, repeated once more, and three times repeated, it is expediency, expediency, expediency, mixed with stupidity, stupidity, stupiditywhether it be the indifference and statuesque coldness towards the heated folly of the emotions, which the Stoics advised and fostered or the nomorelaughing and nomoreweeping of Spinoza, the destruction of the emotions by their analysis and vivisection, which he recommended so naively or the lowering of the emotions to an innocent mean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals or even morality as the enjoyment of the emotions in a voluntary attenuation and spiritualization by the symbolism of art, perhaps as music, or as love of God, and of mankind for God's sakefor in religion the passions are once more enfranchised, provided that... or, finally, even the complaisant and wanton surrender to the emotions, as has been taught by Hafis and Goethe, the bold lettinggo of the reins, the spiritual and corporeal licentia morum in the exceptional cases of wise old codgers and drunkards, with whom it 'no longer has much danger.'This also for the chapter 'Morals as Timidity.' . Inasmuch as in all ages, as long as mankind has existed, there have also been human herds (family alliances, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches), and always a great number who obey in proportion to the small number who commandin view, therefore, of the fact that obedience has been most practiced and fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that, generally speaking, the need thereof is now innate in every one, as a kind of FORMAL CONSCIENCE which gives the command 'Thou shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally refrain from something', in short, 'Thou shalt'. This need tries to satisfy itself and to fill its form with a content, according to its strength, impatience, and eagerness, it at once seizes as an omnivorous appetite with little selection, and accepts whatever is shouted into its ear by all sorts of commandersparents, teachers, laws, class prejudices, or public opinion. The extraordinary limitation of human development, the hesitation, protractedness, frequent retrogression, and turning thereof, is attributable to the fact that the herdinstinct of obedience is transmitted best, and at the cost of the art of command. If one imagine this instinct increasing to its greatest extent, commanders and independent individuals will finally be lacking altogether, or they will suffer inwardly from a bad conscience, and will have to impose a deception on themselves in the first place in order to be able to command just as if they also were only obeying. This condition of things actually exists in Europe at presentI call it the moral hypocrisy of the commanding class. They know no other way of protecting themselves from their bad conscience than by playing the role of executors of older and higher orders (of predecessors, of the constitution, of justice, of the law, or of God himself), or they even justify themselves by maxims from the current opinions of the herd, as 'first servants of their people,' or 'instruments of the public weal'. On the other hand, the gregarious European man nowadays assumes an air as if he were the only kind of man that is allowable, he glorifies his qualities, such as public spirit, kindness, deference, industry, temperance, modesty, indulgence, sympathy, by virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and useful to the herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. In cases, however, where it is believed that the leader and bellwether cannot be dispensed with, attempt after attempt is made nowadays to replace commanders by the summing together of clever gregarious men all representative constitutions, for example, are of this origin. In spite of all, what a blessing, what a deliverance from a weight becoming unendurable, is the appearance of an absolute ruler for these gregarious Europeansof this fact the effect of the appearance of Napoleon was the last great proof the history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its worthiest individuals and periods. . The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races with one another, who has the inheritance of a diversified descent in his bodythat is to say, contrary, and often not only contrary, instincts and standards of value, which struggle with one another and are seldom at peacesuch a man of late culture and broken lights, will, on an average, be a weak man. His fundamental desire is that the war which is IN HIM should come to an end happiness appears to him in the character of a soothing medicine and mode of thought (for instance, Epicurean or Christian) it is above all things the happiness of repose, of undisturbedness, of repletion, of final unityit is the 'Sabbath of Sabbaths,' to use the expression of the holy rhetorician, St. Augustine, who was himself such a man.Should, however, the contrariety and conflict in such natures operate as an ADDITIONAL incentive and stimulus to lifeand if, on the other hand, in addition to their powerful and irreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited and indoctrinated into them a proper mastery and subtlety for carrying on the conflict with themselves (that is to say, the faculty of selfcontrol and selfdeception), there then arise those marvelously incomprehensible and inexplicable beings, those enigmatical men, predestined for conquering and circumventing others, the finest examples of which are Alcibiades and Caesar (with whom I should like to associate the FIRST of Europeans according to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second), and among artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear precisely in the same periods when that weaker type, with its longing for repose, comes to the front the two types are complementary to each other, and spring from the same causes. . As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in what seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can be no 'morality of love to one's neighbour.' Granted even that there is already a little constant exercise of consideration, sympathy, fairness, gentleness, and mutual assistance, granted that even in this condition of society all those instincts are already active which are latterly distinguished by honourable names as 'virtues,' and eventually almost coincide with the conception 'morality' in that period they do not as yet belong to the domain of moral valuationsthey are still ULTRAMORAL. A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither called good nor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans and should it be praised, a sort of resentful disdain is compatible with this praise, even at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared with one which contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES PUBLICA. After all, 'love to our neighbour' is always a secondary matter, partly conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to our FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR. After the fabric of society seems on the whole established and secured against external dangers, it is this fear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity, and love of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the point of view of general utilityunder other names, of course, than those here givenbut had to be fostered and cultivated (because they were perpetually required in the common danger against the common enemies), are now felt in their dangerousness to be doubly strongwhen the outlets for them are lackingand are gradually branded as immoral and given over to calumny. The contrary instincts and inclinations now attain to moral honour, the gregarious instinct gradually draws its conclusions. How much or how little dangerousness to the community or to equality is contained in an opinion, a condition, an emotion, a disposition, or an endowmentthat is now the moral perspective, here again fear is the mother of morals. It is by the loftiest and strongest instincts, when they break out passionately and carry the individual far above and beyond the average, and the low level of the gregarious conscience, that the selfreliance of the community is destroyed, its belief in itself, its backbone, as it were, breaks, consequently these very instincts will be most branded and defamed. The lofty independent spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called EVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, selfadapting, selfequalizing disposition, the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and honour. Finally, under very peaceful circumstances, there is always less opportunity and necessity for training the feelings to severity and rigour, and now every form of severity, even in justice, begins to disturb the conscience, a lofty and rigorous nobleness and selfresponsibility almost offends, and awakens distrust, 'the lamb,' and still more 'the sheep,' wins respect. There is a point of diseased mellowness and effeminacy in the history of society, at which society itself takes the part of him who injures it, the part of the CRIMINAL, and does so, in fact, seriously and honestly. To punish, appears to it to be somehow unfairit is certain that the idea of 'punishment' and 'the obligation to punish' are then painful and alarming to people. 'Is it not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS? Why should we still punish? Punishment itself is terrible!'with these questions gregarious morality, the morality of fear, draws its ultimate conclusion. If one could at all do away with danger, the cause of fear, one would have done away with this morality at the same time, it would no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer necessary!Whoever examines the conscience of the presentday European, will always elicit the same imperative from its thousand moral folds and hidden recesses, the imperative of the timidity of the herd 'we wish that some time or other there may be NOTHING MORE TO FEAR!' Some time or otherthe will and the way THERETO is nowadays called 'progress' all over Europe. . Let us at once say again what we have already said a hundred times, for people's ears nowadays are unwilling to hear such truthsOUR truths. We know well enough how offensive it sounds when any one plainly, and without metaphor, counts man among the animals, but it will be accounted to us almost a CRIME, that it is precisely in respect to men of 'modern ideas' that we have constantly applied the terms 'herd,' 'herdinstincts,' and such like expressions. What avail is it? We cannot do otherwise, for it is precisely here that our new insight is. We have found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become unanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence prevails in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he did not know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to teachthey 'know' today what is good and evil. It must then sound hard and be distasteful to the ear, when we always insist that that which here thinks it knows, that which here glorifies itself with praise and blame, and calls itself good, is the instinct of the herding human animal, the instinct which has come and is ever coming more and more to the front, to preponderance and supremacy over other instincts, according to the increasing physiological approximation and resemblance of which it is the symptom. MORALITY IN EUROPE AT PRESENT IS HERDINGANIMAL MORALITY, and therefore, as we understand the matter, only one kind of human morality, beside which, before which, and after which many other moralities, and above all HIGHER moralities, are or should be possible. Against such a 'possibility,' against such a 'should be,' however, this morality defends itself with all its strength, it says obstinately and inexorably 'I am morality itself and nothing else is morality!' Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured and flattered the sublimest desires of the herdinganimal, things have reached such a point that we always find a more visible expression of this morality even in political and social arrangements the DEMOCRATIC movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. That its TEMPO, however, is much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones, for those who are sick and distracted by the herdinginstinct, is indicated by the increasingly furious howling, and always less disguised teethgnashing of the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the highways of European culture. Apparently in opposition to the peacefully industrious democrats and Revolutionideologues, and still more so to the awkward philosophasters and fraternityvisionaries who call themselves Socialists and want a 'free society,' those are really at one with them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every form of society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of repudiating the notions 'master' and 'servant'ni dieu ni maitre, says a socialist formula) at one in their tenacious opposition to every special claim, every special right and privilege (this means ultimately opposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no one needs 'rights' any longer) at one in their distrust of punitive justice (as though it were a violation of the weak, unfair to the NECESSARY consequences of all former society) but equally at one in their religion of sympathy, in their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the very animals, up even to 'God'the extravagance of 'sympathy for God' belongs to a democratic age) altogether at one in the cry and impatience of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or ALLOWING it at one in their involuntary beglooming and heartsoftening, under the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new Buddhism at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL sympathy, as though it were morality in itself, the climax, the ATTAINED climax of mankind, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of the present, the great discharge from all the obligations of the past altogether at one in their belief in the community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and therefore in 'themselves.' . We, who hold a different beliefwe, who regard the democratic movement, not only as a degenerating form of political organization, but as equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involving his mediocrising and depreciation where have WE to fix our hopes? In NEW PHILOSOPHERSthere is no other alternative in minds strong and original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue and invert 'eternal valuations' in forerunners, in men of the future, who in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which will compel millenniums to take NEW paths. To teach man the future of humanity as his WILL, as depending on human will, and to make preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of 'history' (the folly of the 'greatest number' is only its last form)for that purpose a new type of philosopher and commander will some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and dwarfed. The image of such leaders hovers before OUR eyesis it lawful for me to say it aloud, ye free spirits? The conditions which one would partly have to create and partly utilize for their genesis the presumptive methods and tests by virtue of which a soul should grow up to such an elevation and power as to feel a CONSTRAINT to these tasks a transvaluation of values, under the new pressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled and a heart transformed into brass, so as to bear the weight of such responsibility and on the other hand the necessity for such leaders, the dreadful danger that they might be lacking, or miscarry and degeneratethese are OUR real anxieties and glooms, ye know it well, ye free spirits! these are the heavy distant thoughts and storms which sweep across the heaven of OUR life. There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated but he who has the rare eye for the universal danger of 'man' himself DETERIORATING, he who like us has recognized the extraordinary fortuitousness which has hitherto played its game in respect to the future of mankinda game in which neither the hand, nor even a 'finger of God' has participated!he who divines the fate that is hidden under the idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of 'modern ideas,' and still more under the whole of ChristoEuropean moralitysuffers from an anguish with which no other is to be compared. He sees at a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through a favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and arrangements he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction how unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities, and how often in the past the type man has stood in presence of mysterious decisions and new pathshe knows still better from his painfulest recollections on what wretched obstacles promising developments of the highest rank have hitherto usually gone to pieces, broken down, sunk, and become contemptible. The UNIVERSAL DEGENERACY OF MANKIND to the level of the 'man of the future'as idealized by the socialistic fools and shallowpatesthis degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely gregarious animal (or as they call it, to a man of 'free society'), this brutalizing of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is undoubtedly POSSIBLE! He who has thought out this possibility to its ultimate conclusion knows ANOTHER loathing unknown to the rest of mankindand perhaps also a new MISSION! . At the risk that moralizing may also reveal itself here as that which it has always beennamely, resolutely MONTRER SES PLAIES, according to BalzacI would venture to protest against an improper and injurious alteration of rank, which quite unnoticed, and as if with the best conscience, threatens nowadays to establish itself in the relations of science and philosophy. I mean to say that one must have the right out of one's own EXPERIENCEexperience, as it seems to me, always implies unfortunate experience?to treat of such an important question of rank, so as not to speak of colour like the blind, or AGAINST science like women and artists ('Ah! this dreadful science!' sigh their instinct and their shame, 'it always FINDS THINGS OUT!'). The declaration of independence of the scientific man, his emancipation from philosophy, is one of the subtler aftereffects of democratic organization and disorganization the selfglorification and selfconceitedness of the learned man is now everywhere in full bloom, and in its best springtimewhich does not mean to imply that in this case selfpraise smells sweet. Here also the instinct of the populace cries, 'Freedom from all masters!' and after science has, with the happiest results, resisted theology, whose 'handmaid' it had been too long, it now proposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for philosophy, and in its turn to play the 'master'what am I saying! to play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account. My memorythe memory of a scientific man, if you please!teems with the naivetes of insolence which I have heard about philosophy and philosophers from young naturalists and old physicians (not to mention the most cultured and most conceited of all learned men, the philologists and schoolmasters, who are both the one and the other by profession). On one occasion it was the specialist and the Jack Horner who instinctively stood on the defensive against all synthetic tasks and capabilities at another time it was the industrious worker who had got a scent of OTIUM and refined luxuriousness in the internal economy of the philosopher, and felt himself aggrieved and belittled thereby. On another occasion it was the colourblindness of the utilitarian, who sees nothing in philosophy but a series of REFUTED systems, and an extravagant expenditure which 'does nobody any good'. At another time the fear of disguised mysticism and of the boundaryadjustment of knowledge became conspicuous, at another time the disregard of individual philosophers, which had involuntarily extended to disregard of philosophy generally. In fine, I found most frequently, behind the proud disdain of philosophy in young scholars, the evil aftereffect of some particular philosopher, to whom on the whole obedience had been foresworn, without, however, the spell of his scornful estimates of other philosophers having been got rid ofthe result being a general illwill to all philosophy. (Such seems to me, for instance, the aftereffect of Schopenhauer on the most modern Germany by his unintelligent rage against Hegel, he has succeeded in severing the whole of the last generation of Germans from its connection with German culture, which culture, all things considered, has been an elevation and a divining refinement of the HISTORICAL SENSE, but precisely at this point Schopenhauer himself was poor, irreceptive, and unGerman to the extent of ingeniousness.) On the whole, speaking generally, it may just have been the humanness, alltoohumanness of the modern philosophers themselves, in short, their contemptibleness, which has injured most radically the reverence for philosophy and opened the doors to the instinct of the populace. Let it but be acknowledged to what an extent our modern world diverges from the whole style of the world of Heraclitus, Plato, Empedocles, and whatever else all the royal and magnificent anchorites of the spirit were called, and with what justice an honest man of science MAY feel himself of a better family and origin, in view of such representatives of philosophy, who, owing to the fashion of the present day, are just as much aloft as they are down belowin Germany, for instance, the two lions of Berlin, the anarchist Eugen Duhring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann. It is especially the sight of those hotchpotch philosophers, who call themselves 'realists,' or 'positivists,' which is calculated to implant a dangerous distrust in the soul of a young and ambitious scholar those philosophers, at the best, are themselves but scholars and specialists, that is very evident! All of them are persons who have been vanquished and BROUGHT BACK AGAIN under the dominion of science, who at one time or another claimed more from themselves, without having a right to the 'more' and its responsibilityand who now, creditably, rancorously, and vindictively, represent in word and deed, DISBELIEF in the mastertask and supremacy of philosophy After all, how could it be otherwise? Science flourishes nowadays and has the good conscience clearly visible on its countenance, while that to which the entire modern philosophy has gradually sunk, the remnant of philosophy of the present day, excites distrust and displeasure, if not scorn and pity Philosophy reduced to a 'theory of knowledge,' no more in fact than a diffident science of epochs and doctrine of forbearance a philosophy that never even gets beyond the threshold, and rigorously DENIES itself the right to enterthat is philosophy in its last throes, an end, an agony, something that awakens pity. How could such a philosophyRULE! . The dangers that beset the evolution of the philosopher are, in fact, so manifold nowadays, that one might doubt whether this fruit could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the sciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach himself somewhere and 'specialize' so that he will no longer attain to his elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection, and his DESPECTION. Or he gets aloft too late, when the best of his maturity and strength is past, or when he is impaired, coarsened, and deteriorated, so that his view, his general estimate of things, is no longer of much importance. It is perhaps just the refinement of his intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the way, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost his selfrespect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should aspire to become a great playactor, a philosophical Cagliostro and spiritual ratcatcherin short, a misleader. This is in the last instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of conscience. To double once more the philosopher's difficulties, there is also the fact that he demands from himself a verdict, a Yea or Nay, not concerning science, but concerning life and the worth of lifehe learns unwillingly to believe that it is his right and even his duty to obtain this verdict, and he has to seek his way to the right and the belief only through the most extensive (perhaps disturbing and destroying) experiences, often hesitating, doubting, and dumbfounded. In fact, the philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and Godintoxicated man and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives 'wisely,' or 'as a philosopher,' it hardly means anything more than 'prudently and apart.' Wisdom that seems to the populace to be a kind of flight, a means and artifice for withdrawing successfully from a bad game but the GENUINE philosopherdoes it not seem so to US, my friends?lives 'unphilosophically' and 'unwisely,' above all, IMPRUDENTLY, and feels the obligation and burden of a hundred attempts and temptations of lifehe risks HIMSELF constantly, he plays THIS bad game. . In relation to the genius, that is to say, a being who either ENGENDERS or PRODUCESboth words understood in their fullest sensethe man of learning, the scientific average man, has always something of the old maid about him for, like her, he is not conversant with the two principal functions of man. To both, of course, to the scholar and to the old maid, one concedes respectability, as if by way of indemnificationin these cases one emphasizes the respectabilityand yet, in the compulsion of this concession, one has the same admixture of vexation. Let us examine more closely what is the scientific man? Firstly, a commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues that is to say, a nonruling, nonauthoritative, and nonselfsufficient type of man he possesses industry, patient adaptableness to rank and file, equability and moderation in capacity and requirement he has the instinct for people like himself, and for that which they requirefor instance the portion of independence and green meadow without which there is no rest from labour, the claim to honour and consideration (which first and foremost presupposes recognition and recognisability), the sunshine of a good name, the perpetual ratification of his value and usefulness, with which the inward DISTRUST which lies at the bottom of the heart of all dependent men and gregarious animals, has again and again to be overcome. The learned man, as is appropriate, has also maladies and faults of an ignoble kind he is full of petty envy, and has a lynxeye for the weak points in those natures to whose elevations he cannot attain. He is confiding, yet only as one who lets himself go, but does not FLOW and precisely before the man of the great current he stands all the colder and more reservedhis eye is then like a smooth and irresponsive lake, which is no longer moved by rapture or sympathy. The worst and most dangerous thing of which a scholar is capable results from the instinct of mediocrity of his type, from the Jesuitism of mediocrity, which labours instinctively for the destruction of the exceptional man, and endeavours to breakor still better, to relaxevery bent bow To relax, of course, with consideration, and naturally with an indulgent handto RELAX with confiding sympathy that is the real art of Jesuitism, which has always understood how to introduce itself as the religion of sympathy. . However gratefully one may welcome the OBJECTIVE spiritand who has not been sick to death of all subjectivity and its confounded IPSISIMOSITY!in the end, however, one must learn caution even with regard to one's gratitude, and put a stop to the exaggeration with which the unselfing and depersonalizing of the spirit has recently been celebrated, as if it were the goal in itself, as if it were salvation and glorificationas is especially accustomed to happen in the pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the highest honours to 'disinterested knowledge' The objective man, who no longer curses and scolds like the pessimist, the IDEAL man of learning in whom the scientific instinct blossoms forth fully after a thousand complete and partial failures, is assuredly one of the most costly instruments that exist, but his place is in the hand of one who is more powerful He is only an instrument, we may say, he is a MIRRORhe is no 'purpose in himself' The objective man is in truth a mirror accustomed to prostration before everything that wants to be known, with such desires only as knowing or 'reflecting' implieshe waits until something comes, and then expands himself sensitively, so that even the light footsteps and glidingpast of spiritual beings may not be lost on his surface and film Whatever 'personality' he still possesses seems to him accidental, arbitrary, or still oftener, disturbing, so much has he come to regard himself as the passage and reflection of outside forms and events He calls up the recollection of 'himself' with an effort, and not infrequently wrongly, he readily confounds himself with other persons, he makes mistakes with regard to his own needs, and here only is he unrefined and negligent Perhaps he is troubled about the health, or the pettiness and confined atmosphere of wife and friend, or the lack of companions and societyindeed, he sets himself to reflect on his suffering, but in vain! His thoughts already rove away to the MORE GENERAL case, and tomorrow he knows as little as he knew yesterday how to help himself He does not now take himself seriously and devote time to himself he is serene, NOT from lack of trouble, but from lack of capacity for grasping and dealing with HIS trouble The habitual complaisance with respect to all objects and experiences, the radiant and impartial hospitality with which he receives everything that comes his way, his habit of inconsiderate goodnature, of dangerous indifference as to Yea and Nay alas! there are enough of cases in which he has to atone for these virtues of his!and as man generally, he becomes far too easily the CAPUT MORTUUM of such virtues. Should one wish love or hatred from himI mean love and hatred as God, woman, and animal understand themhe will do what he can, and furnish what he can. But one must not be surprised if it should not be muchif he should show himself just at this point to be false, fragile, questionable, and deteriorated. His love is constrained, his hatred is artificial, and rather UN TOUR DE FORCE, a slight ostentation and exaggeration. He is only genuine so far as he can be objective only in his serene totality is he still 'nature' and 'natural.' His mirroring and eternally selfpolishing soul no longer knows how to affirm, no longer how to deny he does not command neither does he destroy. 'JE NE MEPRISE PRESQUE RIEN'he says, with Leibniz let us not overlook nor undervalue the PRESQUE! Neither is he a model man he does not go in advance of any one, nor after, either he places himself generally too far off to have any reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil. If he has been so long confounded with the PHILOSOPHER, with the Caesarian trainer and dictator of civilization, he has had far too much honour, and what is more essential in him has been overlookedhe is an instrument, something of a slave, though certainly the sublimest sort of slave, but nothing in himselfPRESQUE RIEN! The objective man is an instrument, a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected but he is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the REST of existence justifies itself, no terminationand still less a commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful, selfcentred, that wants to be master but rather only a soft, inflated, delicate, movable potter'sform, that must wait for some kind of content and frame to 'shape' itself theretofor the most part a man without frame and content, a 'selfless' man. Consequently, also, nothing for women, IN PARENTHESI. . When a philosopher nowadays makes known that he is not a skepticI hope that has been gathered from the foregoing description of the objective spirit?people all hear it impatiently they regard him on that account with some apprehension, they would like to ask so many, many questions... indeed among timid hearers, of whom there are now so many, he is henceforth said to be dangerous. With his repudiation of skepticism, it seems to them as if they heard some evilthreatening sound in the distance, as if a new kind of explosive were being tried somewhere, a dynamite of the spirit, perhaps a newly discovered Russian NIHILINE, a pessimism BONAE VOLUNTATIS, that not only denies, means denial, butdreadful thought! PRACTISES denial. Against this kind of 'goodwill'a will to the veritable, actual negation of lifethere is, as is generally acknowledged nowadays, no better soporific and sedative than skepticism, the mild, pleasing, lulling poppy of skepticism and Hamlet himself is now prescribed by the doctors of the day as an antidote to the 'spirit,' and its underground noises. 'Are not our ears already full of bad sounds?' say the skeptics, as lovers of repose, and almost as a kind of safety police 'this subterranean Nay is terrible! Be still, ye pessimistic moles!' The skeptic, in effect, that delicate creature, is far too easily frightened his conscience is schooled so as to start at every Nay, and even at that sharp, decided Yea, and feels something like a bite thereby. Yea! and Nay!they seem to him opposed to morality he loves, on the contrary, to make a festival to his virtue by a noble aloofness, while perhaps he says with Montaigne 'What do I know?' Or with Socrates 'I know that I know nothing.' Or 'Here I do not trust myself, no door is open to me.' Or 'Even if the door were open, why should I enter immediately?' Or 'What is the use of any hasty hypotheses? It might quite well be in good taste to make no hypotheses at all. Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is crooked? to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum? Is there not time enough for that? Has not the time leisure? Oh, ye demons, can ye not at all WAIT? The uncertain also has its charms, the Sphinx, too, is a Circe, and Circe, too, was a philosopher.'Thus does a skeptic console himself and in truth he needs some consolation. For skepticism is the most spiritual expression of a certain manysided physiological temperament, which in ordinary language is called nervous debility and sickliness it arises whenever races or classes which have been long separated, decisively and suddenly blend with one another. In the new generation, which has inherited as it were different standards and valuations in its blood, everything is disquiet, derangement, doubt, and tentativeness the best powers operate restrictively, the very virtues prevent each other growing and becoming strong, equilibrium, ballast, and perpendicular stability are lacking in body and soul. That, however, which is most diseased and degenerated in such nondescripts is the WILL they are no longer familiar with independence of decision, or the courageous feeling of pleasure in willingthey are doubtful of the 'freedom of the will' even in their dreams Our presentday Europe, the scene of a senseless, precipitate attempt at a radical blending of classes, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its heights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which springs impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with gloomy aspect, like a cloud overcharged with interrogative signsand often sick unto death of its will! Paralysis of will, where do we not find this cripple sitting nowadays! And yet how bedecked oftentimes' How seductively ornamented! There are the finest gala dresses and disguises for this disease, and that, for instance, most of what places itself nowadays in the showcases as 'objectiveness,' 'the scientific spirit,' 'L'ART POUR L'ART,' and 'pure voluntary knowledge,' is only deckedout skepticism and paralysis of willI am ready to answer for this diagnosis of the European diseaseThe disease of the will is diffused unequally over Europe, it is worst and most varied where civilization has longest prevailed, it decreases according as 'the barbarian' stillor againasserts his claims under the loose drapery of Western culture It is therefore in the France of today, as can be readily disclosed and comprehended, that the will is most infirm, and France, which has always had a masterly aptitude for converting even the portentous crises of its spirit into something charming and seductive, now manifests emphatically its intellectual ascendancy over Europe, by being the school and exhibition of all the charms of skepticism The power to will and to persist, moreover, in a resolution, is already somewhat stronger in Germany, and again in the North of Germany it is stronger than in Central Germany, it is considerably stronger in England, Spain, and Corsica, associated with phlegm in the former and with hard skulls in the latternot to mention Italy, which is too young yet to know what it wants, and must first show whether it can exercise will, but it is strongest and most surprising of all in that immense middle empire where Europe as it were flows back to Asianamely, in Russia There the power to will has been long stored up and accumulated, there the willuncertain whether to be negative or affirmativewaits threateningly to be discharged (to borrow their pet phrase from our physicists) Perhaps not only Indian wars and complications in Asia would be necessary to free Europe from its greatest danger, but also internal subversion, the shattering of the empire into small states, and above all the introduction of parliamentary imbecility, together with the obligation of every one to read his newspaper at breakfast I do not say this as one who desires it, in my heart I should rather prefer the contraryI mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of Russia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally threateningnamely, TO ACQUIRE ONE WILL, by means of a new caste to rule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that can set its aims thousands of years ahead so that the long spunout comedy of its pettystatism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic manywilledness, might finally be brought to a close. The time for petty politics is past the next century will bring the struggle for the dominion of the worldthe COMPULSION to great politics. . As to how far the new warlike age on which we Europeans have evidently entered may perhaps favour the growth of another and stronger kind of skepticism, I should like to express myself preliminarily merely by a parable, which the lovers of German history will already understand. That unscrupulous enthusiast for big, handsome grenadiers (who, as King of Prussia, brought into being a military and skeptical geniusand therewith, in reality, the new and now triumphantly emerged type of German), the problematic, crazy father of Frederick the Great, had on one point the very knack and lucky grasp of the genius he knew what was then lacking in Germany, the want of which was a hundred times more alarming and serious than any lack of culture and social formhis illwill to the young Frederick resulted from the anxiety of a profound instinct. MEN WERE LACKING and he suspected, to his bitterest regret, that his own son was not man enough. There, however, he deceived himself but who would not have deceived himself in his place? He saw his son lapsed to atheism, to the ESPRIT, to the pleasant frivolity of clever Frenchmenhe saw in the background the great bloodsucker, the spider skepticism he suspected the incurable wretchedness of a heart no longer hard enough either for evil or good, and of a broken will that no longer commands, is no longer ABLE to command. Meanwhile, however, there grew up in his son that new kind of harder and more dangerous skepticismwho knows TO WHAT EXTENT it was encouraged just by his father's hatred and the icy melancholy of a will condemned to solitude?the skepticism of daring manliness, which is closely related to the genius for war and conquest, and made its first entrance into Germany in the person of the great Frederick. This skepticism despises and nevertheless grasps it undermines and takes possession it does not believe, but it does not thereby lose itself it gives the spirit a dangerous liberty, but it keeps strict guard over the heart. It is the GERMAN form of skepticism, which, as a continued Fredericianism, risen to the highest spirituality, has kept Europe for a considerable time under the dominion of the German spirit and its critical and historical distrust Owing to the insuperably strong and tough masculine character of the great German philologists and historical critics (who, rightly estimated, were also all of them artists of destruction and dissolution), a NEW conception of the German spirit gradually established itselfin spite of all Romanticism in music and philosophyin which the leaning towards masculine skepticism was decidedly prominent whether, for instance, as fearlessness of gaze, as courage and sternness of the dissecting hand, or as resolute will to dangerous voyages of discovery, to spiritualized North Pole expeditions under barren and dangerous skies. There may be good grounds for it when warmblooded and superficial humanitarians cross themselves before this spirit, CET ESPRIT FATALISTE, IRONIQUE, MEPHISTOPHELIQUE, as Michelet calls it, not without a shudder. But if one would realize how characteristic is this fear of the 'man' in the German spirit which awakened Europe out of its 'dogmatic slumber,' let us call to mind the former conception which had to be overcome by this new oneand that it is not so very long ago that a masculinized woman could dare, with unbridled presumption, to recommend the Germans to the interest of Europe as gentle, goodhearted, weakwilled, and poetical fools. Finally, let us only understand profoundly enough Napoleon's astonishment when he saw Goethe it reveals what had been regarded for centuries as the 'German spirit' 'VOILA UN HOMME!'that was as much as to say 'But this is a MAN! And I only expected to see a German!' . Supposing, then, that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be skeptics in the lastmentioned sense, something in them would only be designated therebyand not they themselves. With equal right they might call themselves critics, and assuredly they will be men of experiments. By the name with which I ventured to baptize them, I have already expressly emphasized their attempting and their love of attempting is this because, as critics in body and soul, they will love to make use of experiments in a new, and perhaps wider and more dangerous sense? In their passion for knowledge, will they have to go further in daring and painful attempts than the sensitive and pampered taste of a democratic century can approve of?There is no doubt these coming ones will be least able to dispense with the serious and not unscrupulous qualities which distinguish the critic from the skeptic I mean the certainty as to standards of worth, the conscious employment of a unity of method, the wary courage, the standingalone, and the capacity for selfresponsibility, indeed, they will avow among themselves a DELIGHT in denial and dissection, and a certain considerate cruelty, which knows how to handle the knife surely and deftly, even when the heart bleeds They will be STERNER (and perhaps not always towards themselves only) than humane people may desire, they will not deal with the 'truth' in order that it may 'please' them, or 'elevate' and 'inspire' themthey will rather have little faith in 'TRUTH' bringing with it such revels for the feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one says in their presence 'That thought elevates me, why should it not be true?' or 'That work enchants me, why should it not be beautiful?' or 'That artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?' Perhaps they will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus rapturous, idealistic, feminine, and hermaphroditic, and if any one could look into their inmost hearts, he would not easily find therein the intention to reconcile 'Christian sentiments' with 'antique taste,' or even with 'modern parliamentarism' (the kind of reconciliation necessarily found even among philosophers in our very uncertain and consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters, will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of the future, they may even make a display thereof as their special adornmentnevertheless they will not want to be called critics on that account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that 'philosophy itself is criticism and critical scienceand nothing else whatever!' Though this estimate of philosophy may enjoy the approval of all the Positivists of France and Germany (and possibly it even flattered the heart and taste of KANT let us call to mind the titles of his principal works), our new philosophers will say, notwithstanding, that critics are instruments of the philosopher, and just on that account, as instruments, they are far from being philosophers themselves! Even the great Chinaman of Konigsberg was only a great critic. . I insist upon it that people finally cease confounding philosophical workers, and in general scientific men, with philosophersthat precisely here one should strictly give 'each his own,' and not give those far too much, these far too little. It may be necessary for the education of the real philosopher that he himself should have once stood upon all those steps upon which his servants, the scientific workers of philosophy, remain standing, and MUST remain standing he himself must perhaps have been critic, and dogmatist, and historian, and besides, poet, and collector, and traveler, and riddlereader, and moralist, and seer, and 'free spirit,' and almost everything, in order to traverse the whole range of human values and estimations, and that he may BE ABLE with a variety of eyes and consciences to look from a height to any distance, from a depth up to any height, from a nook into any expanse. But all these are only preliminary conditions for his task this task itself demands something elseit requires him TO CREATE VALUES. The philosophical workers, after the excellent pattern of Kant and Hegel, have to fix and formalize some great existing body of valuationsthat is to say, former DETERMINATIONS OF VALUE, creations of value, which have become prevalent, and are for a time called 'truths'whether in the domain of the LOGICAL, the POLITICAL (moral), or the ARTISTIC. It is for these investigators to make whatever has happened and been esteemed hitherto, conspicuous, conceivable, intelligible, and manageable, to shorten everything long, even 'time' itself, and to SUBJUGATE the entire past an immense and wonderful task, in the carrying out of which all refined pride, all tenacious will, can surely find satisfaction. THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAWGIVERS they say 'Thus SHALL it be!' They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the pastthey grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their 'knowing' is CREATING, their creating is a lawgiving, their will to truth isWILL TO POWER.Are there at present such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST there not be such philosophers some day? ... . It is always more obvious to me that the philosopher, as a man INDISPENSABLE for the morrow and the day after the morrow, has ever found himself, and HAS BEEN OBLIGED to find himself, in contradiction to the day in which he lives his enemy has always been the ideal of his day. Hitherto all those extraordinary furtherers of humanity whom one calls philosopherswho rarely regarded themselves as lovers of wisdom, but rather as disagreeable fools and dangerous interrogatorshave found their mission, their hard, involuntary, imperative mission (in the end, however, the greatness of their mission), in being the bad conscience of their age. In putting the vivisector's knife to the breast of the very VIRTUES OF THEIR AGE, they have betrayed their own secret it has been for the sake of a NEW greatness of man, a new untrodden path to his aggrandizement. They have always disclosed how much hypocrisy, indolence, selfindulgence, and selfneglect, how much falsehood was concealed under the most venerated types of contemporary morality, how much virtue was OUTLIVED, they have always said 'We must remove hence to where YOU are least at home' In the face of a world of 'modern ideas,' which would like to confine every one in a corner, in a 'specialty,' a philosopher, if there could be philosophers nowadays, would be compelled to place the greatness of man, the conception of 'greatness,' precisely in his comprehensiveness and multifariousness, in his allroundness, he would even determine worth and rank according to the amount and variety of that which a man could bear and take upon himself, according to the EXTENT to which a man could stretch his responsibility Nowadays the taste and virtue of the age weaken and attenuate the will, nothing is so adapted to the spirit of the age as weakness of will consequently, in the ideal of the philosopher, strength of will, sternness, and capacity for prolonged resolution, must specially be included in the conception of 'greatness', with as good a right as the opposite doctrine, with its ideal of a silly, renouncing, humble, selfless humanity, was suited to an opposite agesuch as the sixteenth century, which suffered from its accumulated energy of will, and from the wildest torrents and floods of selfishness In the time of Socrates, among men only of wornout instincts, old conservative Athenians who let themselves go'for the sake of happiness,' as they said, for the sake of pleasure, as their conduct indicatedand who had continually on their lips the old pompous words to which they had long forfeited the right by the life they led, IRONY was perhaps necessary for greatness of soul, the wicked Socratic assurance of the old physician and plebeian, who cut ruthlessly into his own flesh, as into the flesh and heart of the 'noble,' with a look that said plainly enough 'Do not dissemble before me! herewe are equal!' At present, on the contrary, when throughout Europe the herdinganimal alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when 'equality of right' can too readily be transformed into equality in wrongI mean to say into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordlinessat present it belongs to the conception of 'greatness' to be noble, to wish to be apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live by personal initiative, and the philosopher will betray something of his own ideal when he asserts 'He shall be the greatest who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, and of superabundance of will precisely this shall be called GREATNESS as diversified as can be entire, as ample as can be full.' And to ask once more the question Is greatness POSSIBLEnowadays? . It is difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot be taught one must 'know' it by experienceor one should have the pride NOT to know it. The fact that at present people all talk of things of which they CANNOT have any experience, is true more especially and unfortunately as concerns the philosopher and philosophical mattersthe very few know them, are permitted to know them, and all popular ideas about them are false. Thus, for instance, the truly philosophical combination of a bold, exuberant spirituality which runs at presto pace, and a dialectic rigour and necessity which makes no false step, is unknown to most thinkers and scholars from their own experience, and therefore, should any one speak of it in their presence, it is incredible to them. They conceive of every necessity as troublesome, as a painful compulsory obedience and state of constraint thinking itself is regarded by them as something slow and hesitating, almost as a trouble, and often enough as 'worthy of the SWEAT of the noble'but not at all as something easy and divine, closely related to dancing and exuberance! 'To think' and to take a matter 'seriously,' 'arduously'that is one and the same thing to them such only has been their 'experience.'Artists have here perhaps a finer intuition they who know only too well that precisely when they no longer do anything 'arbitrarily,' and everything of necessity, their feeling of freedom, of subtlety, of power, of creatively fixing, disposing, and shaping, reaches its climaxin short, that necessity and 'freedom of will' are then the same thing with them. There is, in fine, a gradation of rank in psychical states, to which the gradation of rank in the problems corresponds and the highest problems repel ruthlessly every one who ventures too near them, without being predestined for their solution by the loftiness and power of his spirituality. Of what use is it for nimble, everyday intellects, or clumsy, honest mechanics and empiricists to press, in their plebeian ambition, close to such problems, and as it were into this 'holy of holies'as so often happens nowadays! But coarse feet must never tread upon such carpets this is provided for in the primary law of things the doors remain closed to those intruders, though they may dash and break their heads thereon. People have always to be born to a high station, or, more definitely, they have to be BRED for it a person has only a right to philosophytaking the word in its higher significancein virtue of his descent the ancestors, the 'blood,' decide here also. Many generations must have prepared the way for the coming of the philosopher each of his virtues must have been separately acquired, nurtured, transmitted, and embodied not only the bold, easy, delicate course and current of his thoughts, but above all the readiness for great responsibilities, the majesty of ruling glance and contemning look, the feeling of separation from the multitude with their duties and virtues, the kindly patronage and defense of whatever is misunderstood and calumniated, be it God or devil, the delight and practice of supreme justice, the art of commanding, the amplitude of will, the lingering eye which rarely admires, rarely looks up, rarely loves.... . OUR Virtues?It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues, although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on account of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at a little distance from us. We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we firstlings of the twentieth centurywith all our dangerous curiosity, our multifariousness and art of disguising, our mellow and seemingly sweetened cruelty in sense and spiritwe shall presumably, IF we must have virtues, have those only which have come to agreement with our most secret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most ardent requirements well, then, let us look for them in our labyrinths!where, as we know, so many things lose themselves, so many things get quite lost! And is there anything finer than to SEARCH for one's own virtues? Is it not almost to BELIEVE in one's own virtues? But this 'believing in one's own virtues'is it not practically the same as what was formerly called one's 'good conscience,' that long, respectable pigtail of an idea, which our grandfathers used to hang behind their heads, and often enough also behind their understandings? It seems, therefore, that however little we may imagine ourselves to be oldfashioned and grandfatherly respectable in other respects, in one thing we are nevertheless the worthy grandchildren of our grandfathers, we last Europeans with good consciences we also still wear their pigtail.Ah! if you only knew how soon, so very soonit will be different! . As in the stellar firmament there are sometimes two suns which determine the path of one planet, and in certain cases suns of different colours shine around a single planet, now with red light, now with green, and then simultaneously illumine and flood it with motley colours so we modern men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our 'firmament,' are determined by DIFFERENT moralities our actions shine alternately in different colours, and are seldom unequivocaland there are often cases, also, in which our actions are MOTLEYCOLOURED. . To love one's enemies? I think that has been well learnt it takes place thousands of times at present on a large and small scale indeed, at times the higher and sublimer thing takes placewe learn to DESPISE when we love, and precisely when we love best all of it, however, unconsciously, without noise, without ostentation, with the shame and secrecy of goodness, which forbids the utterance of the pompous word and the formula of virtue. Morality as attitudeis opposed to our taste nowadays. This is ALSO an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste, including the enmity and Voltairean bitterness against religion (and all that formerly belonged to freethinkerpantomime). It is the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral sermons, and goodygoodness won't chime. . Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance to being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment! They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us (or even with REGARD to us)they inevitably become our instinctive calumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our 'friends.'Blessed are the forgetful for they 'get the better' even of their blunders. . The psychologists of Franceand where else are there still psychologists nowadays?have never yet exhausted their bitter and manifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise, just as though... in short, they betray something thereby. Flaubert, for instance, the honest citizen of Rouen, neither saw, heard, nor tasted anything else in the end it was his mode of selftorment and refined cruelty. As this is growing wearisome, I would now recommend for a change something else for a pleasurenamely, the unconscious astuteness with which good, fat, honest mediocrity always behaves towards loftier spirits and the tasks they have to perform, the subtle, barbed, Jesuitical astuteness, which is a thousand times subtler than the taste and understanding of the middleclass in its best momentssubtler even than the understanding of its victimsa repeated proof that 'instinct' is the most intelligent of all kinds of intelligence which have hitherto been discovered. In short, you psychologists, study the philosophy of the 'rule' in its struggle with the 'exception' there you have a spectacle fit for Gods and godlike malignity! Or, in plainer words, practise vivisection on 'good people,' on the 'homo bonae voluntatis,' ON YOURSELVES! . The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is also a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature, and finally, it is an opportunity for acquiring spirit and BECOMING subtlemalice spiritualises. They are glad in their inmost heart that there is a standard according to which those who are overendowed with intellectual goods and privileges, are equal to them, they contend for the 'equality of all before God,' and almost NEED the belief in God for this purpose. It is among them that the most powerful antagonists of atheism are found. If any one were to say to them 'A lofty spirituality is beyond all comparison with the honesty and respectability of a merely moral man'it would make them furious, I shall take care not to say so. I would rather flatter them with my theory that lofty spirituality itself exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it is a synthesis of all qualities attributed to the 'merely moral' man, after they have been acquired singly through long training and practice, perhaps during a whole series of generations, that lofty spirituality is precisely the spiritualising of justice, and the beneficent severity which knows that it is authorized to maintain GRADATIONS OF RANK in the world, even among thingsand not only among men. . Now that the praise of the 'disinterested person' is so popular one mustprobably not without some dangerget an idea of WHAT people actually take an interest in, and what are the things generally which fundamentally and profoundly concern ordinary menincluding the cultured, even the learned, and perhaps philosophers also, if appearances do not deceive. The fact thereby becomes obvious that the greater part of what interests and charms higher natures, and more refined and fastidious tastes, seems absolutely 'uninteresting' to the average manif, notwithstanding, he perceive devotion to these interests, he calls it desinteresse, and wonders how it is possible to act 'disinterestedly.' There have been philosophers who could give this popular astonishment a seductive and mystical, otherworldly expression (perhaps because they did not know the higher nature by experience?), instead of stating the naked and candidly reasonable truth that 'disinterested' action is very interesting and 'interested' action, provided that... 'And love?'What! Even an action for love's sake shall be 'unegoistic'? But you fools! 'And the praise of the selfsacrificer?'But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained something for itperhaps something from himself for something from himself that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself 'more.' But this is a realm of questions and answers in which a more fastidious spirit does not like to stay for here truth has to stifle her yawns so much when she is obliged to answer. And after all, truth is a woman one must not use force with her. . 'It sometimes happens,' said a moralistic pedant and trifleretailer, 'that I honour and respect an unselfish man not, however, because he is unselfish, but because I think he has a right to be useful to another man at his own expense. In short, the question is always who HE is, and who THE OTHER is. For instance, in a person created and destined for command, selfdenial and modest retirement, instead of being virtues, would be the waste of virtues so it seems to me. Every system of unegoistic morality which takes itself unconditionally and appeals to every one, not only sins against good taste, but is also an incentive to sins of omission, an ADDITIONAL seduction under the mask of philanthropyand precisely a seduction and injury to the higher, rarer, and more privileged types of men. Moral systems must be compelled first of all to bow before the GRADATIONS OF RANK their presumption must be driven home to their conscienceuntil they thoroughly understand at last that it is IMMORAL to say that 'what is right for one is proper for another.''So said my moralistic pedant and bonhomme. Did he perhaps deserve to be laughed at when he thus exhorted systems of morals to practise morality? But one should not be too much in the right if one wishes to have the laughers on ONE'S OWN side a grain of wrong pertains even to good taste. . Wherever sympathy (fellowsuffering) is preached nowadaysand, if I gather rightly, no other religion is any longer preachedlet the psychologist have his ears open through all the vanity, through all the noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of SELFCONTEMPT. It belongs to the overshadowing and uglifying of Europe, which has been on the increase for a century (the first symptoms of which are already specified documentarily in a thoughtful letter of Galiani to Madame d'Epinay)IF IT IS NOT REALLY THE CAUSE THEREOF! The man of 'modern ideas,' the conceited ape, is excessively dissatisfied with himselfthis is perfectly certain. He suffers, and his vanity wants him only 'to suffer with his fellows.' . The hybrid Europeana tolerably ugly plebeian, taken all in allabsolutely requires a costume he needs history as a storeroom of costumes. To be sure, he notices that none of the costumes fit him properlyhe changes and changes. Let us look at the nineteenth century with respect to these hasty preferences and changes in its masquerades of style, and also with respect to its moments of desperation on account of 'nothing suiting' us. It is in vain to get ourselves up as romantic, or classical, or Christian, or Florentine, or barocco, or 'national,' in moribus et artibus it does not 'clothe us'! But the 'spirit,' especially the 'historical spirit,' profits even by this desperation once and again a new sample of the past or of the foreign is tested, put on, taken off, packed up, and above all studiedwe are the first studious age in puncto of 'costumes,' I mean as concerns morals, articles of belief, artistic tastes, and religions we are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the grand style, for the most spiritual festivallaughter and arrogance, for the transcendental height of supreme folly and Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps we are still discovering the domain of our invention just here, the domain where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of the world's history and as God's MerryAndrews,perhaps, though nothing else of the present have a future, our laughter itself may have a future! . The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly the order of rank of the valuations according to which a people, a community, or an individual has lived, the 'divining instinct' for the relationships of these valuations, for the relation of the authority of the valuations to the authority of the operating forces),this historical sense, which we Europeans claim as our specialty, has come to us in the train of the enchanting and mad semibarbarity into which Europe has been plunged by the democratic mingling of classes and racesit is only the nineteenth century that has recognized this faculty as its sixth sense. Owing to this mingling, the past of every form and mode of life, and of cultures which were formerly closely contiguous and superimposed on one another, flows forth into us 'modern souls' our instincts now run back in all directions, we ourselves are a kind of chaos in the end, as we have said, the spirit perceives its advantage therein. By means of our semibarbarity in body and in desire, we have secret access everywhere, such as a noble age never had we have access above all to the labyrinth of imperfect civilizations, and to every form of semibarbarity that has at any time existed on earth and in so far as the most considerable part of human civilization hitherto has just been semibarbarity, the 'historical sense' implies almost the sense and instinct for everything, the taste and tongue for everything whereby it immediately proves itself to be an IGNOBLE sense. For instance, we enjoy Homer once more it is perhaps our happiest acquisition that we know how to appreciate Homer, whom men of distinguished culture (as the French of the seventeenth century, like SaintEvremond, who reproached him for his ESPRIT VASTE, and even Voltaire, the last echo of the century) cannot and could not so easily appropriatewhom they scarcely permitted themselves to enjoy. The very decided Yea and Nay of their palate, their promptly ready disgust, their hesitating reluctance with regard to everything strange, their horror of the bad taste even of lively curiosity, and in general the averseness of every distinguished and selfsufficing culture to avow a new desire, a dissatisfaction with its own condition, or an admiration of what is strange all this determines and disposes them unfavourably even towards the best things of the world which are not their property or could not become their preyand no faculty is more unintelligible to such men than just this historical sense, with its truckling, plebeian curiosity. The case is not different with Shakespeare, that marvelous SpanishMoorishSaxon synthesis of taste, over whom an ancient Athenian of the circle of AEschylus would have halfkilled himself with laughter or irritation but weaccept precisely this wild motleyness, this medley of the most delicate, the most coarse, and the most artificial, with a secret confidence and cordiality we enjoy it as a refinement of art reserved expressly for us, and allow ourselves to be as little disturbed by the repulsive fumes and the proximity of the English populace in which Shakespeare's art and taste lives, as perhaps on the Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our senses awake, we go our way, enchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the drainodour of the lower quarters of the town. That as men of the 'historical sense' we have our virtues, is not to be disputedwe are unpretentious, unselfish, modest, brave, habituated to selfcontrol and selfrenunciation, very grateful, very patient, very complaisantbut with all this we are perhaps not very 'tasteful.' Let us finally confess it, that what is most difficult for us men of the 'historical sense' to grasp, feel, taste, and love, what finds us fundamentally prejudiced and almost hostile, is precisely the perfection and ultimate maturity in every culture and art, the essentially noble in works and men, their moment of smooth sea and halcyon selfsufficiency, the goldenness and coldness which all things show that have perfected themselves. Perhaps our great virtue of the historical sense is in necessary contrast to GOOD taste, at least to the very bad taste and we can only evoke in ourselves imperfectly, hesitatingly, and with compulsion the small, short, and happy godsends and glorifications of human life as they shine here and there those moments and marvelous experiences when a great power has voluntarily come to a halt before the boundless and infinite,when a superabundance of refined delight has been enjoyed by a sudden checking and petrifying, by standing firmly and planting oneself fixedly on still trembling ground. PROPORTIONATENESS is strange to us, let us confess it to ourselves our itching is really the itching for the infinite, the immeasurable. Like the rider on his forward panting horse, we let the reins fall before the infinite, we modern men, we semibarbariansand are only in OUR highest bliss when weARE IN MOST DANGER. . Whether it be hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, or eudaemonism, all those modes of thinking which measure the worth of things according to PLEASURE and PAIN, that is, according to accompanying circumstances and secondary considerations, are plausible modes of thought and naivetes, which every one conscious of CREATIVE powers and an artist's conscience will look down upon with scorn, though not without sympathy. Sympathy for you!to be sure, that is not sympathy as you understand it it is not sympathy for social 'distress,' for 'society' with its sick and misfortuned, for the hereditarily vicious and defective who lie on the ground around us still less is it sympathy for the grumbling, vexed, revolutionary slaveclasses who strive after powerthey call it 'freedom.' OUR sympathy is a loftier and furthersighted sympathywe see how MAN dwarfs himself, how YOU dwarf him! and there are moments when we view YOUR sympathy with an indescribable anguish, when we resist it,when we regard your seriousness as more dangerous than any kind of levity. You want, if possibleand there is not a more foolish 'if possible'TO DO AWAY WITH SUFFERING and we?it really seems that WE would rather have it increased and made worse than it has ever been! Wellbeing, as you understand itis certainly not a goal it seems to us an END a condition which at once renders man ludicrous and contemptibleand makes his destruction DESIRABLE! The discipline of suffering, of GREAT sufferingknow ye not that it is only THIS discipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto? The tension of soul in misfortune which communicates to it its energy, its shuddering in view of rack and ruin, its inventiveness and bravery in undergoing, enduring, interpreting, and exploiting misfortune, and whatever depth, mystery, disguise, spirit, artifice, or greatness has been bestowed upon the soulhas it not been bestowed through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? In man CREATURE and CREATOR are united in man there is not only matter, shred, excess, clay, mire, folly, chaos but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh daydo ye understand this contrast? And that YOUR sympathy for the 'creature in man' applies to that which has to be fashioned, bruised, forged, stretched, roasted, annealed, refinedto that which must necessarily SUFFER, and IS MEANT to suffer? And our sympathydo ye not understand what our REVERSE sympathy applies to, when it resists your sympathy as the worst of all pampering and enervation?So it is sympathy AGAINST sympathy!But to repeat it once more, there are higher problems than the problems of pleasure and pain and sympathy and all systems of philosophy which deal only with these are naivetes. . WE IMMORALISTS.This world with which WE are concerned, in which we have to fear and love, this almost invisible, inaudible world of delicate command and delicate obedience, a world of 'almost' in every respect, captious, insidious, sharp, and tenderyes, it is well protected from clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity! We are woven into a strong net and garment of duties, and CANNOT disengage ourselvesprecisely here, we are 'men of duty,' even we! Occasionally, it is true, we dance in our 'chains' and betwixt our 'swords' it is none the less true that more often we gnash our teeth under the circumstances, and are impatient at the secret hardship of our lot. But do what we will, fools and appearances say of us 'These are men WITHOUT duty,'we have always fools and appearances against us! . Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid ourselves, we free spiritswell, we will labour at it with all our perversity and love, and not tire of 'perfecting' ourselves in OUR virtue, which alone remains may its glance some day overspread like a gilded, blue, mocking twilight this aging civilization with its dull gloomy seriousness! And if, nevertheless, our honesty should one day grow weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too hard, and would fain have it pleasanter, easier, and gentler, like an agreeable vice, let us remain HARD, we latest Stoics, and let us send to its help whatever devilry we have in usour disgust at the clumsy and undefined, our 'NITIMUR IN VETITUM,' our love of adventure, our sharpened and fastidious curiosity, our most subtle, disguised, intellectual Will to Power and universal conquest, which rambles and roves avidiously around all the realms of the futurelet us go with all our 'devils' to the help of our 'God'! It is probable that people will misunderstand and mistake us on that account what does it matter! They will say 'Their 'honesty'that is their devilry, and nothing else!' What does it matter! And even if they were righthave not all Gods hitherto been such sanctified, rebaptized devils? And after all, what do we know of ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants TO BE CALLED? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we harbour? Our honesty, we free spiritslet us be careful lest it become our vanity, our ornament and ostentation, our limitation, our stupidity! Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue 'stupid to the point of sanctity,' they say in Russia,let us be careful lest out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores! Is not life a hundred times too short for usto bore ourselves? One would have to believe in eternal life in order to... . I hope to be forgiven for discovering that all moral philosophy hitherto has been tedious and has belonged to the soporific appliancesand that 'virtue,' in my opinion, has been MORE injured by the TEDIOUSNESS of its advocates than by anything else at the same time, however, I would not wish to overlook their general usefulness. It is desirable that as few people as possible should reflect upon morals, and consequently it is very desirable that morals should not some day become interesting! But let us not be afraid! Things still remain today as they have always been I see no one in Europe who has (or DISCLOSES) an idea of the fact that philosophizing concerning morals might be conducted in a dangerous, captious, and ensnaring mannerthat CALAMITY might be involved therein. Observe, for example, the indefatigable, inevitable English utilitarians how ponderously and respectably they stalk on, stalk along (a Homeric metaphor expresses it better) in the footsteps of Bentham, just as he had already stalked in the footsteps of the respectable Helvetius! (no, he was not a dangerous man, Helvetius, CE SENATEUR POCOCURANTE, to use an expression of Galiani). No new thought, nothing of the nature of a finer turning or better expression of an old thought, not even a proper history of what has been previously thought on the subject an IMPOSSIBLE literature, taking it all in all, unless one knows how to leaven it with some mischief. In effect, the old English vice called CANT, which is MORAL TARTUFFISM, has insinuated itself also into these moralists (whom one must certainly read with an eye to their motives if one MUST read them), concealed this time under the new form of the scientific spirit moreover, there is not absent from them a secret struggle with the pangs of conscience, from which a race of former Puritans must naturally suffer, in all their scientific tinkering with morals. (Is not a moralist the opposite of a Puritan? That is to say, as a thinker who regards morality as questionable, as worthy of interrogation, in short, as a problem? Is moralizing notimmoral?) In the end, they all want English morality to be recognized as authoritative, inasmuch as mankind, or the 'general utility,' or 'the happiness of the greatest number,'no! the happiness of ENGLAND, will be best served thereby. They would like, by all means, to convince themselves that the striving after English happiness, I mean after COMFORT and FASHION (and in the highest instance, a seat in Parliament), is at the same time the true path of virtue in fact, that in so far as there has been virtue in the world hitherto, it has just consisted in such striving. Not one of those ponderous, consciencestricken herdinganimals (who undertake to advocate the cause of egoism as conducive to the general welfare) wants to have any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the 'general welfare' is no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a nostrum,that what is fair to one MAY NOT at all be fair to another, that the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to higher men, in short, that there is a DISTINCTION OF RANK between man and man, and consequently between morality and morality. They are an unassuming and fundamentally mediocre species of men, these utilitarian Englishmen, and, as already remarked, in so far as they are tedious, one cannot think highly enough of their utility. One ought even to ENCOURAGE them, as has been partially attempted in the following rhymes . In these later ages, which may be proud of their humanity, there still remains so much fear, so much SUPERSTITION of the fear, of the 'cruel wild beast,' the mastering of which constitutes the very pride of these humaner agesthat even obvious truths, as if by the agreement of centuries, have long remained unuttered, because they have the appearance of helping the finally slain wild beast back to life again. I perhaps risk something when I allow such a truth to escape let others capture it again and give it so much 'milk of pious sentiment' FOOTNOTE An expression from Schiller's William Tell, Act IV, Scene . to drink, that it will lie down quiet and forgotten, in its old corner.One ought to learn anew about cruelty, and open one's eyes one ought at last to learn impatience, in order that such immodest gross errorsas, for instance, have been fostered by ancient and modern philosophers with regard to tragedymay no longer wander about virtuously and boldly. Almost everything that we call 'higher culture' is based upon the spiritualising and intensifying of CRUELTYthis is my thesis the 'wild beast' has not been slain at all, it lives, it flourishes, it has only beentransfigured. That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty that which operates agreeably in socalled tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. What the Roman enjoys in the arena, the Christian in the ecstasies of the cross, the Spaniard at the sight of the faggot and stake, or of the bullfight, the presentday Japanese who presses his way to the tragedy, the workman of the Parisian suburbs who has a homesickness for bloody revolutions, the Wagnerienne who, with unhinged will, 'undergoes' the performance of 'Tristan and Isolde'what all these enjoy, and strive with mysterious ardour to drink in, is the philtre of the great Circe 'cruelty.' Here, to be sure, we must put aside entirely the blundering psychology of former times, which could only teach with regard to cruelty that it originated at the sight of the suffering of OTHERS there is an abundant, superabundant enjoyment even in one's own suffering, in causing one's own sufferingand wherever man has allowed himself to be persuaded to selfdenial in the RELIGIOUS sense, or to selfmutilation, as among the Phoenicians and ascetics, or in general, to desensualisation, decarnalisation, and contrition, to Puritanical repentancespasms, to vivisection of conscience and to Pascallike SACRIFIZIA DELL' INTELLETO, he is secretly allured and impelled forwards by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrill of cruelty TOWARDS HIMSELF.Finally, let us consider that even the seeker of knowledge operates as an artist and glorifier of cruelty, in that he compels his spirit to perceive AGAINST its own inclination, and often enough against the wishes of his hearthe forces it to say Nay, where he would like to affirm, love, and adore indeed, every instance of taking a thing profoundly and fundamentally, is a violation, an intentional injuring of the fundamental will of the spirit, which instinctively aims at appearance and superficiality,even in every desire for knowledge there is a drop of cruelty. . Perhaps what I have said here about a 'fundamental will of the spirit' may not be understood without further details I may be allowed a word of explanation.That imperious something which is popularly called 'the spirit,' wishes to be master internally and externally, and to feel itself master it has the will of a multiplicity for a simplicity, a binding, taming, imperious, and essentially ruling will. Its requirements and capacities here, are the same as those assigned by physiologists to everything that lives, grows, and multiplies. The power of the spirit to appropriate foreign elements reveals itself in a strong tendency to assimilate the new to the old, to simplify the manifold, to overlook or repudiate the absolutely contradictory just as it arbitrarily reunderlines, makes prominent, and falsifies for itself certain traits and lines in the foreign elements, in every portion of the 'outside world.' Its object thereby is the incorporation of new 'experiences,' the assortment of new things in the old arrangementsin short, growth or more properly, the FEELING of growth, the feeling of increased poweris its object. This same will has at its service an apparently opposed impulse of the spirit, a suddenly adopted preference of ignorance, of arbitrary shutting out, a closing of windows, an inner denial of this or that, a prohibition to approach, a sort of defensive attitude against much that is knowable, a contentment with obscurity, with the shuttingin horizon, an acceptance and approval of ignorance as that which is all necessary according to the degree of its appropriating power, its 'digestive power,' to speak figuratively (and in fact 'the spirit' resembles a stomach more than anything else). Here also belong an occasional propensity of the spirit to let itself be deceived (perhaps with a waggish suspicion that it is NOT so and so, but is only allowed to pass as such), a delight in uncertainty and ambiguity, an exulting enjoyment of arbitrary, outoftheway narrowness and mystery, of the toonear, of the foreground, of the magnified, the diminished, the misshapen, the beautifiedan enjoyment of the arbitrariness of all these manifestations of power. Finally, in this connection, there is the not unscrupulous readiness of the spirit to deceive other spirits and dissemble before themthe constant pressing and straining of a creating, shaping, changeable power the spirit enjoys therein its craftiness and its variety of disguises, it enjoys also its feeling of security thereinit is precisely by its Protean arts that it is best protected and concealed!COUNTER TO this propensity for appearance, for simplification, for a disguise, for a cloak, in short, for an outsidefor every outside is a cloakthere operates the sublime tendency of the man of knowledge, which takes, and INSISTS on taking things profoundly, variously, and thoroughly as a kind of cruelty of the intellectual conscience and taste, which every courageous thinker will acknowledge in himself, provided, as it ought to be, that he has sharpened and hardened his eye sufficiently long for introspection, and is accustomed to severe discipline and even severe words. He will say 'There is something cruel in the tendency of my spirit' let the virtuous and amiable try to convince him that it is not so! In fact, it would sound nicer, if, instead of our cruelty, perhaps our 'extravagant honesty' were talked about, whispered about, and glorifiedwe free, VERY free spiritsand some day perhaps SUCH will actually be ourposthumous glory! Meanwhilefor there is plenty of time until thenwe should be least inclined to deck ourselves out in such florid and fringed moral verbiage our whole former work has just made us sick of this taste and its sprightly exuberance. They are beautiful, glistening, jingling, festive words honesty, love of truth, love of wisdom, sacrifice for knowledge, heroism of the truthfulthere is something in them that makes one's heart swell with pride. But we anchorites and marmots have long ago persuaded ourselves in all the secrecy of an anchorite's conscience, that this worthy parade of verbiage also belongs to the old false adornment, frippery, and golddust of unconscious human vanity, and that even under such flattering colour and repainting, the terrible original text HOMO NATURA must again be recognized. In effect, to translate man back again into nature to master the many vain and visionary interpretations and subordinate meanings which have hitherto been scratched and daubed over the eternal original text, HOMO NATURA to bring it about that man shall henceforth stand before man as he now, hardened by the discipline of science, stands before the OTHER forms of nature, with fearless Oedipuseyes, and stopped Ulyssesears, deaf to the enticements of old metaphysical birdcatchers, who have piped to him far too long 'Thou art more! thou art higher! thou hast a different origin!'this may be a strange and foolish task, but that it is a TASK, who can deny! Why did we choose it, this foolish task? Or, to put the question differently 'Why knowledge at all?' Every one will ask us about this. And thus pressed, we, who have asked ourselves the question a hundred times, have not found and cannot find any better answer.... . Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not merely 'conserve'as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of our souls, quite 'down below,' there is certainly something unteachable, a granite of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to predetermined, chosen questions. In each cardinal problem there speaks an unchangeable 'I am this' a thinker cannot learn anew about man and woman, for instance, but can only learn fullyhe can only follow to the end what is 'fixed' about them in himself. Occasionally we find certain solutions of problems which make strong beliefs for us perhaps they are henceforth called 'convictions.' Later onone sees in them only footsteps to selfknowledge, guideposts to the problem which we ourselves AREor more correctly to the great stupidity which we embody, our spiritual fate, the UNTEACHABLE in us, quite 'down below.'In view of this liberal compliment which I have just paid myself, permission will perhaps be more readily allowed me to utter some truths about 'woman as she is,' provided that it is known at the outset how literally they are merelyMY truths. . Woman wishes to be independent, and therefore she begins to enlighten men about 'woman as she is'THIS is one of the worst developments of the general UGLIFYING of Europe. For what must these clumsy attempts of feminine scientificality and selfexposure bring to light! Woman has so much cause for shame in woman there is so much pedantry, superficiality, schoolmasterliness, petty presumption, unbridledness, and indiscretion concealedstudy only woman's behaviour towards children!which has really been best restrained and dominated hitherto by the FEAR of man. Alas, if ever the 'eternally tedious in woman'she has plenty of it!is allowed to venture forth! if she begins radically and on principle to unlearn her wisdom and artof charming, of playing, of frightening away sorrow, of alleviating and taking easily if she forgets her delicate aptitude for agreeable desires! Female voices are already raised, which, by Saint Aristophanes! make one afraidwith medical explicitness it is stated in a threatening manner what woman first and last REQUIRES from man. Is it not in the very worst taste that woman thus sets herself up to be scientific? Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair, men's giftwe remained therewith 'among ourselves' and in the end, in view of all that women write about 'woman,' we may well have considerable doubt as to whether woman really DESIRES enlightenment about herselfand CAN desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a new ORNAMENT for herselfI believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally feminine?why, then, she wishes to make herself feared perhaps she thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not want truthwhat does woman care for truth? From the very first, nothing is more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truthher great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. Let us confess it, we men we honour and love this very art and this very instinct in woman we who have the hard task, and for our recreation gladly seek the company of beings under whose hands, glances, and delicate follies, our seriousness, our gravity, and profundity appear almost like follies to us. Finally, I ask the question Did a woman herself ever acknowledge profundity in a woman's mind, or justice in a woman's heart? And is it not true that on the whole 'woman' has hitherto been most despised by woman herself, and not at all by us?We men desire that woman should not continue to compromise herself by enlightening us just as it was man's care and the consideration for woman, when the church decreed mulier taceat in ecclesia. It was to the benefit of woman when Napoleon gave the too eloquent Madame de Stael to understand mulier taceat in politicis!and in my opinion, he is a true friend of woman who calls out to women today mulier taceat de mulierel. . It betrays corruption of the instinctsapart from the fact that it betrays bad tastewhen a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de Stael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby in favour of 'woman as she is.' Among men, these are the three comical women as they arenothing more!and just the best involuntary counterarguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy. . Stupidity in the kitchen woman as cook the terrible thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is managed! Woman does not understand what food means, and she insists on being cook! If woman had been a thinking creature, she should certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession of the healing art! Through bad female cooksthrough the entire lack of reason in the kitchenthe development of mankind has been longest retarded and most interfered with even today matters are very little better. A word to High School girls. . There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences, little handfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society suddenly crystallises itself. Among these is the incidental remark of Madame de Lambert to her son 'MON AMI, NE VOUS PERMETTEZ JAMAIS QUE DES FOLIES, QUI VOUS FERONT GRAND PLAISIR'the motherliest and wisest remark, by the way, that was ever addressed to a son. . I have no doubt that every noble woman will oppose what Dante and Goethe believed about womanthe former when he sang, 'ELLA GUARDAVA SUSO, ED IO IN LEI,' and the latter when he interpreted it, 'the eternally feminine draws us ALOFT' for THIS is just what she believes of the eternally masculine. . SEVEN APOPHTHEGMS FOR WOMEN How the longest ennui flees, When a man comes to our knees! Age, alas! and science staid, Furnish even weak virtue aid. Sombre garb and silence meet Dress for every damediscreet. Whom I thank when in my bliss? God!and my good tailoress! Young, a flowerdecked cavern home Old, a dragon thence doth roam. Noble title, leg that's fine, Man as well Oh, were HE mine! Speech in brief and sense in massSlippery for the jennyass! A. Woman has hitherto been treated by men like birds, which, losing their way, have come down among them from an elevation as something delicate, fragile, wild, strange, sweet, and animatingbut as something also which must be cooped up to prevent it flying away. . To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of 'man and woman,' to deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations that is a TYPICAL sign of shallowmindedness and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at this dangerous spotshallow in instinct!may generally be regarded as suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered he will probably prove too 'short' for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as present, and will be unable to descend into ANY of the depths. On the other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and harshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as ORIENTALS do he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her mission thereinhe must take his stand in this matter upon the immense rationality of Asia, upon the superiority of the instinct of Asia, as the Greeks did formerly those best heirs and scholars of Asiawho, as is well known, with their INCREASING culture and amplitude of power, from Homer to the time of Pericles, became gradually STRICTER towards woman, in short, more Oriental. HOW necessary, HOW logical, even HOW humanely desirable this was, let us consider for ourselves! . The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men as at presentthis belongs to the tendency and fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old agewhat wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of respect is at last felt to be wellnigh galling rivalry for rights, indeed actual strife itself, would be preferred in a word, woman is losing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing taste. She is unlearning to FEAR man but the woman who 'unlearns to fear' sacrifices her most womanly instincts. That woman should venture forward when the fearinspiring quality in manor more definitely, the MAN in manis no longer either desired or fully developed, is reasonable enough and also intelligible enough what is more difficult to understand is that precisely therebywoman deteriorates. This is what is happening nowadays let us not deceive ourselves about it! Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal independence of a clerk 'woman as clerkess' is inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be 'master,' and inscribes 'progress' of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises itself with terrible obviousness WOMAN RETROGRADES. Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has DECLINED in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims and the 'emancipation of woman,' insofar as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and not only by masculine shallowpates), thus proves to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly instincts. There is STUPIDITY in this movement, an almost masculine stupidity, of which a wellreared womanwho is always a sensible womanmight be heartily ashamed. To lose the intuition as to the ground upon which she can most surely achieve victory to neglect exercise in the use of her proper weapons to letherselfgo before man, perhaps even 'to the book,' where formerly she kept herself in control and in refined, artful humility to neutralize with her virtuous audacity man's faith in a VEILED, fundamentally different ideal in woman, something eternally, necessarily feminine to emphatically and loquaciously dissuade man from the idea that woman must be preserved, cared for, protected, and indulged, like some delicate, strangely wild, and often pleasant domestic animal the clumsy and indignant collection of everything of the nature of servitude and bondage which the position of woman in the hitherto existing order of society has entailed and still entails (as though slavery were a counterargument, and not rather a condition of every higher culture, of every elevation of culture)what does all this betoken, if not a disintegration of womanly instincts, a defeminising? Certainly, there are enough of idiotic friends and corrupters of woman among the learned asses of the masculine sex, who advise woman to defeminize herself in this manner, and to imitate all the stupidities from which 'man' in Europe, European 'manliness,' suffers,who would like to lower woman to 'general culture,' indeed even to newspaper reading and meddling with politics. Here and there they wish even to make women into free spirits and literary workers as though a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious or ludicrous to a profound and godless manalmost everywhere her nerves are being ruined by the most morbid and dangerous kind of music (our latest German music), and she is daily being made more hysterical and more incapable of fulfilling her first and last function, that of bearing robust children. They wish to 'cultivate' her in general still more, and intend, as they say, to make the 'weaker sex' STRONG by culture as if history did not teach in the most emphatic manner that the 'cultivating' of mankind and his weakeningthat is to say, the weakening, dissipating, and languishing of his FORCE OF WILLhave always kept pace with one another, and that the most powerful and influential women in the world (and lastly, the mother of Napoleon) had just to thank their force of willand not their schoolmastersfor their power and ascendancy over men. That which inspires respect in woman, and often enough fear also, is her NATURE, which is more 'natural' than that of man, her genuine, carnivoralike, cunning flexibility, her tigerclaws beneath the glove, her NAIVETE in egoism, her untrainableness and innate wildness, the incomprehensibleness, extent, and deviation of her desires and virtues. That which, in spite of fear, excites one's sympathy for the dangerous and beautiful cat, 'woman,' is that she seems more afflicted, more vulnerable, more necessitous of love, and more condemned to disillusionment than any other creature. Fear and sympathy it is with these feelings that man has hitherto stood in the presence of woman, always with one foot already in tragedy, which rends while it delightsWhat? And all that is now to be at an end? And the DISENCHANTMENT of woman is in progress? The tediousness of woman is slowly evolving? Oh Europe! Europe! We know the horned animal which was always most attractive to thee, from which danger is ever again threatening thee! Thy old fable might once more become 'history'an immense stupidity might once again overmaster thee and carry thee away! And no God concealed beneath itno! only an 'idea,' a 'modern idea'! . I HEARD, once again for the first time, Richard Wagner's overture to the Mastersinger it is a piece of magnificent, gorgeous, heavy, latterday art, which has the pride to presuppose two centuries of music as still living, in order that it may be understoodit is an honour to Germans that such a pride did not miscalculate! What flavours and forces, what seasons and climes do we not find mingled in it! It impresses us at one time as ancient, at another time as foreign, bitter, and too modern, it is as arbitrary as it is pompously traditional, it is not infrequently roguish, still oftener rough and coarseit has fire and courage, and at the same time the loose, duncoloured skin of fruits which ripen too late. It flows broad and full and suddenly there is a moment of inexplicable hesitation, like a gap that opens between cause and effect, an oppression that makes us dream, almost a nightmare but already it broadens and widens anew, the old stream of delightthe most manifold delight,of old and new happiness including ESPECIALLY the joy of the artist in himself, which he refuses to conceal, his astonished, happy cognizance of his mastery of the expedients here employed, the new, newly acquired, imperfectly tested expedients of art which he apparently betrays to us. All in all, however, no beauty, no South, nothing of the delicate southern clearness of the sky, nothing of grace, no dance, hardly a will to logic a certain clumsiness even, which is also emphasized, as though the artist wished to say to us 'It is part of my intention' a cumbersome drapery, something arbitrarily barbaric and ceremonious, a flirring of learned and venerable conceits and witticisms something German in the best and worst sense of the word, something in the German style, manifold, formless, and inexhaustible a certain German potency and superplenitude of soul, which is not afraid to hide itself under the RAFFINEMENTS of decadencewhich, perhaps, feels itself most at ease there a real, genuine token of the German soul, which is at the same time young and aged, too ripe and yet still too rich in futurity. This kind of music expresses best what I think of the Germans they belong to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrowTHEY HAVE AS YET NO TODAY. . We 'good Europeans,' we also have hours when we allow ourselves a warmhearted patriotism, a plunge and relapse into old loves and narrow viewsI have just given an example of ithours of national excitement, of patriotic anguish, and all other sorts of oldfashioned floods of sentiment. Duller spirits may perhaps only get done with what confines its operations in us to hours and plays itself out in hoursin a considerable time some in half a year, others in half a lifetime, according to the speed and strength with which they digest and 'change their material.' Indeed, I could think of sluggish, hesitating races, which even in our rapidly moving Europe, would require half a century ere they could surmount such atavistic attacks of patriotism and soilattachment, and return once more to reason, that is to say, to 'good Europeanism.' And while digressing on this possibility, I happen to become an earwitness of a conversation between two old patriotsthey were evidently both hard of hearing and consequently spoke all the louder. 'HE has as much, and knows as much, philosophy as a peasant or a corpsstudent,' said the one'he is still innocent. But what does that matter nowadays! It is the age of the masses they lie on their belly before everything that is massive. And so also in politicis. A statesman who rears up for them a new Tower of Babel, some monstrosity of empire and power, they call 'great'what does it matter that we more prudent and conservative ones do not meanwhile give up the old belief that it is only the great thought that gives greatness to an action or affair. Supposing a statesman were to bring his people into the position of being obliged henceforth to practise 'high politics,' for which they were by nature badly endowed and prepared, so that they would have to sacrifice their old and reliable virtues, out of love to a new and doubtful mediocritysupposing a statesman were to condemn his people generally to 'practise politics,' when they have hitherto had something better to do and think about, and when in the depths of their souls they have been unable to free themselves from a prudent loathing of the restlessness, emptiness, and noisy wranglings of the essentially politicspractising nationssupposing such a statesman were to stimulate the slumbering passions and avidities of his people, were to make a stigma out of their former diffidence and delight in aloofness, an offence out of their exoticism and hidden permanency, were to depreciate their most radical proclivities, subvert their consciences, make their minds narrow, and their tastes 'national'what! a statesman who should do all this, which his people would have to do penance for throughout their whole future, if they had a future, such a statesman would be GREAT, would he?''Undoubtedly!' replied the other old patriot vehemently, 'otherwise he COULD NOT have done it! It was mad perhaps to wish such a thing! But perhaps everything great has been just as mad at its commencement!''Misuse of words!' cried his interlocutor, contradictorily'strong! strong! Strong and mad! NOT great!'The old men had obviously become heated as they thus shouted their 'truths' in each other's faces, but I, in my happiness and apartness, considered how soon a stronger one may become master of the strong, and also that there is a compensation for the intellectual superficialising of a nationnamely, in the deepening of another. . Whether we call it 'civilization,' or 'humanising,' or 'progress,' which now distinguishes the European, whether we call it simply, without praise or blame, by the political formula the DEMOCRATIC movement in Europebehind all the moral and political foregrounds pointed to by such formulas, an immense PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESS goes on, which is ever extending the process of the assimilation of Europeans, their increasing detachment from the conditions under which, climatically and hereditarily, united races originate, their increasing independence of every definite milieu, that for centuries would fain inscribe itself with equal demands on soul and body,that is to say, the slow emergence of an essentially SUPERNATIONAL and nomadic species of man, who possesses, physiologically speaking, a maximum of the art and power of adaptation as his typical distinction. This process of the EVOLVING EUROPEAN, which can be retarded in its TEMPO by great relapses, but will perhaps just gain and grow thereby in vehemence and depththe stillraging storm and stress of 'national sentiment' pertains to it, and also the anarchism which is appearing at presentthis process will probably arrive at results on which its naive propagators and panegyrists, the apostles of 'modern ideas,' would least care to reckon. The same new conditions under which on an average a levelling and mediocrising of man will take placea useful, industrious, variously serviceable, and clever gregarious manare in the highest degree suitable to give rise to exceptional men of the most dangerous and attractive qualities. For, while the capacity for adaptation, which is every day trying changing conditions, and begins a new work with every generation, almost with every decade, makes the POWERFULNESS of the type impossible while the collective impression of such future Europeans will probably be that of numerous, talkative, weakwilled, and very handy workmen who REQUIRE a master, a commander, as they require their daily bread while, therefore, the democratising of Europe will tend to the production of a type prepared for SLAVERY in the most subtle sense of the term the STRONG man will necessarily in individual and exceptional cases, become stronger and richer than he has perhaps ever been beforeowing to the unprejudicedness of his schooling, owing to the immense variety of practice, art, and disguise. I meant to say that the democratising of Europe is at the same time an involuntary arrangement for the rearing of TYRANTStaking the word in all its meanings, even in its most spiritual sense. . I hear with pleasure that our sun is moving rapidly towards the constellation Hercules and I hope that the men on this earth will do like the sun. And we foremost, we good Europeans! . There was a time when it was customary to call Germans 'deep' by way of distinction but now that the most successful type of new Germanism is covetous of quite other honours, and perhaps misses 'smartness' in all that has depth, it is almost opportune and patriotic to doubt whether we did not formerly deceive ourselves with that commendation in short, whether German depth is not at bottom something different and worseand something from which, thank God, we are on the point of successfully ridding ourselves. Let us try, then, to relearn with regard to German depth the only thing necessary for the purpose is a little vivisection of the German soul.The German soul is above all manifold, varied in its source, aggregated and superimposed, rather than actually built this is owing to its origin. A German who would embolden himself to assert 'Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast,' would make a bad guess at the truth, or, more correctly, he would come far short of the truth about the number of souls. As a people made up of the most extraordinary mixing and mingling of races, perhaps even with a preponderance of the preAryan element as the 'people of the centre' in every sense of the term, the Germans are more intangible, more ample, more contradictory, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising, and even more terrifying than other peoples are to themselvesthey escape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone the despair of the French. It IS characteristic of the Germans that the question 'What is German?' never dies out among them. Kotzebue certainly knew his Germans well enough 'We are known,' they cried jubilantly to himbut Sand also thought he knew them. Jean Paul knew what he was doing when he declared himself incensed at Fichte's lying but patriotic flatteries and exaggerations,but it is probable that Goethe thought differently about Germans from Jean Paul, even though he acknowledged him to be right with regard to Fichte. It is a question what Goethe really thought about the Germans?But about many things around him he never spoke explicitly, and all his life he knew how to keep an astute silenceprobably he had good reason for it. It is certain that it was not the 'Wars of Independence' that made him look up more joyfully, any more than it was the French Revolution,the event on account of which he RECONSTRUCTED his 'Faust,' and indeed the whole problem of 'man,' was the appearance of Napoleon. There are words of Goethe in which he condemns with impatient severity, as from a foreign land, that which Germans take a pride in, he once defined the famous German turn of mind as 'Indulgence towards its own and others' weaknesses.' Was he wrong? it is characteristic of Germans that one is seldom entirely wrong about them. The German soul has passages and galleries in it, there are caves, hidingplaces, and dungeons therein, its disorder has much of the charm of the mysterious, the German is well acquainted with the bypaths to chaos. And as everything loves its symbol, so the German loves the clouds and all that is obscure, evolving, crepuscular, damp, and shrouded, it seems to him that everything uncertain, undeveloped, selfdisplacing, and growing is 'deep'. The German himself does not EXIST, he is BECOMING, he is 'developing himself'. 'Development' is therefore the essentially German discovery and hit in the great domain of philosophical formulas,a ruling idea, which, together with German beer and German music, is labouring to Germanise all Europe. Foreigners are astonished and attracted by the riddles which the conflicting nature at the basis of the German soul propounds to them (riddles which Hegel systematised and Richard Wagner has in the end set to music). 'Goodnatured and spiteful'such a juxtaposition, preposterous in the case of every other people, is unfortunately only too often justified in Germany one has only to live for a while among Swabians to know this! The clumsiness of the German scholar and his social distastefulness agree alarmingly well with his physical ropedancing and nimble boldness, of which all the Gods have learnt to be afraid. If any one wishes to see the 'German soul' demonstrated ad oculos, let him only look at German taste, at German arts and manners what boorish indifference to 'taste'! How the noblest and the commonest stand there in juxtaposition! How disorderly and how rich is the whole constitution of this soul! The German DRAGS at his soul, he drags at everything he experiences. He digests his events badly he never gets 'done' with them and German depth is often only a difficult, hesitating 'digestion.' And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics like what is convenient, so the German loves 'frankness' and 'honesty' it is so CONVENIENT to be frank and honest!This confidingness, this complaisance, this showingthecards of German HONESTY, is probably the most dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to nowadays it is his proper Mephistophelean art with this he can 'still achieve much'! The German lets himself go, and thereby gazes with faithful, blue, empty German eyesand other countries immediately confound him with his dressinggown!I meant to say that, let 'German depth' be what it willamong ourselves alone we perhaps take the liberty to laugh at itwe shall do well to continue henceforth to honour its appearance and good name, and not barter away too cheaply our old reputation as a people of depth for Prussian 'smartness,' and Berlin wit and sand. It is wise for a people to pose, and LET itself be regarded, as profound, clumsy, goodnatured, honest, and foolish it might even beprofound to do so! Finally, we should do honour to our namewe are not called the 'TIUSCHE VOLK' (deceptive people) for nothing.... . The 'good old' time is past, it sang itself out in Mozarthow happy are WE that his ROCOCO still speaks to us, that his 'good company,' his tender enthusiasm, his childish delight in the Chinese and its flourishes, his courtesy of heart, his longing for the elegant, the amorous, the tripping, the tearful, and his belief in the South, can still appeal to SOMETHING LEFT in us! Ah, some time or other it will be over with it!but who can doubt that it will be over still sooner with the intelligence and taste for Beethoven! For he was only the last echo of a break and transition in style, and NOT, like Mozart, the last echo of a great European taste which had existed for centuries. Beethoven is the intermediate event between an old mellow soul that is constantly breaking down, and a future overyoung soul that is always COMING there is spread over his music the twilight of eternal loss and eternal extravagant hope,the same light in which Europe was bathed when it dreamed with Rousseau, when it danced round the Tree of Liberty of the Revolution, and finally almost fell down in adoration before Napoleon. But how rapidly does THIS very sentiment now pale, how difficult nowadays is even the APPREHENSION of this sentiment, how strangely does the language of Rousseau, Schiller, Shelley, and Byron sound to our ear, in whom COLLECTIVELY the same fate of Europe was able to SPEAK, which knew how to SING in Beethoven!Whatever German music came afterwards, belongs to Romanticism, that is to say, to a movement which, historically considered, was still shorter, more fleeting, and more superficial than that great interlude, the transition of Europe from Rousseau to Napoleon, and to the rise of democracy. Weberbut what do WE care nowadays for 'Freischutz' and 'Oberon'! Or Marschner's 'Hans Heiling' and 'Vampyre'! Or even Wagner's 'Tannhauser'! That is extinct, although not yet forgotten music. This whole music of Romanticism, besides, was not noble enough, was not musical enough, to maintain its position anywhere but in the theatre and before the masses from the beginning it was secondrate music, which was little thought of by genuine musicians. It was different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon master, who, on account of his lighter, purer, happier soul, quickly acquired admiration, and was equally quickly forgotten as the beautiful EPISODE of German music. But with regard to Robert Schumann, who took things seriously, and has been taken seriously from the firsthe was the last that founded a school,do we not now regard it as a satisfaction, a relief, a deliverance, that this very Romanticism of Schumann's has been surmounted? Schumann, fleeing into the 'Saxon Switzerland' of his soul, with a half Wertherlike, half JeanPaullike nature (assuredly not like Beethoven! assuredly not like Byron!)his MANFRED music is a mistake and a misunderstanding to the extent of injustice Schumann, with his taste, which was fundamentally a PETTY taste (that is to say, a dangerous propensitydoubly dangerous among Germansfor quiet lyricism and intoxication of the feelings), going constantly apart, timidly withdrawing and retiring, a noble weakling who revelled in nothing but anonymous joy and sorrow, from the beginning a sort of girl and NOLI ME TANGEREthis Schumann was already merely a GERMAN event in music, and no longer a European event, as Beethoven had been, as in a still greater degree Mozart had been with Schumann German music was threatened with its greatest danger, that of LOSING THE VOICE FOR THE SOUL OF EUROPE and sinking into a merely national affair. . What a torture are books written in German to a reader who has a THIRD ear! How indignantly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp of sounds without tune and rhythms without dance, which Germans call a 'book'! And even the German who READS books! How lazily, how reluctantly, how badly he reads! How many Germans know, and consider it obligatory to know, that there is ART in every good sentenceart which must be divined, if the sentence is to be understood! If there is a misunderstanding about its TEMPO, for instance, the sentence itself is misunderstood! That one must not be doubtful about the rhythmdetermining syllables, that one should feel the breaking of the toorigid symmetry as intentional and as a charm, that one should lend a fine and patient ear to every STACCATO and every RUBATO, that one should divine the sense in the sequence of the vowels and diphthongs, and how delicately and richly they can be tinted and retinted in the order of their arrangementwho among bookreading Germans is complaisant enough to recognize such duties and requirements, and to listen to so much art and intention in language? After all, one just 'has no ear for it' and so the most marked contrasts of style are not heard, and the most delicate artistry is as it were SQUANDERED on the deaf.These were my thoughts when I noticed how clumsily and unintuitively two masters in the art of prosewriting have been confounded one, whose words drop down hesitatingly and coldly, as from the roof of a damp cavehe counts on their dull sound and echo and another who manipulates his language like a flexible sword, and from his arm down into his toes feels the dangerous bliss of the quivering, oversharp blade, which wishes to bite, hiss, and cut. . How little the German style has to do with harmony and with the ear, is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians themselves write badly. The German does not read aloud, he does not read for the ear, but only with his eyes he has put his ears away in the drawer for the time. In antiquity when a man readwhich was seldom enoughhe read something to himself, and in a loud voice they were surprised when any one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it. In a loud voice that is to say, with all the swellings, inflections, and variations of key and changes of TEMPO, in which the ancient PUBLIC world took delight. The laws of the written style were then the same as those of the spoken style and these laws depended partly on the surprising development and refined requirements of the ear and larynx partly on the strength, endurance, and power of the ancient lungs. In the ancient sense, a period is above all a physiological whole, inasmuch as it is comprised in one breath. Such periods as occur in Demosthenes and Cicero, swelling twice and sinking twice, and all in one breath, were pleasures to the men of ANTIQUITY, who knew by their own schooling how to appreciate the virtue therein, the rareness and the difficulty in the deliverance of such a periodWE have really no right to the BIG period, we modern men, who are short of breath in every sense! Those ancients, indeed, were all of them dilettanti in speaking, consequently connoisseurs, consequently criticsthey thus brought their orators to the highest pitch in the same manner as in the last century, when all Italian ladies and gentlemen knew how to sing, the virtuosoship of song (and with it also the art of melody) reached its elevation. In Germany, however (until quite recently when a kind of platform eloquence began shyly and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was properly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical discoursethat delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one in Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or a word, in what manner a sentence strikes, springs, rushes, flows, and comes to a close he alone had a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience for reasons are not lacking why proficiency in oratory should be especially seldom attained by a German, or almost always too late. The masterpiece of German prose is therefore with good reason the masterpiece of its greatest preacher the BIBLE has hitherto been the best German book. Compared with Luther's Bible, almost everything else is merely 'literature'something which has not grown in Germany, and therefore has not taken and does not take root in German hearts, as the Bible has done. . There are two kinds of geniuses one which above all engenders and seeks to engender, and another which willingly lets itself be fructified and brings forth. And similarly, among the gifted nations, there are those on whom the woman's problem of pregnancy has devolved, and the secret task of forming, maturing, and perfectingthe Greeks, for instance, were a nation of this kind, and so are the French and others which have to fructify and become the cause of new modes of lifelike the Jews, the Romans, and, in all modesty be it asked like the Germans?nations tortured and enraptured by unknown fevers and irresistibly forced out of themselves, amorous and longing for foreign races (for such as 'let themselves be fructified'), and withal imperious, like everything conscious of being full of generative force, and consequently empowered 'by the grace of God.' These two kinds of geniuses seek each other like man and woman but they also misunderstand each otherlike man and woman. . Every nation has its own 'Tartuffery,' and calls that its virtue.One does not knowcannot know, the best that is in one. . What Europe owes to the Jews?Many things, good and bad, and above all one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst the grand style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite demands, of infinite significations, the whole Romanticism and sublimity of moral questionablenessand consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring, and exquisite element in those iridescences and allurements to life, in the aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening sky, now glowsperhaps glows out. For this, we artists among the spectators and philosophers, aregrateful to the Jews. . It must be taken into the bargain, if various clouds and disturbancesin short, slight attacks of stupiditypass over the spirit of a people that suffers and WANTS to suffer from national nervous fever and political ambition for instance, among presentday Germans there is alternately the antiFrench folly, the antiSemitic folly, the antiPolish folly, the Christianromantic folly, the Wagnerian folly, the Teutonic folly, the Prussian folly (just look at those poor historians, the Sybels and Treitschkes, and their closely bandaged heads), and whatever else these little obscurations of the German spirit and conscience may be called. May it be forgiven me that I, too, when on a short daring sojourn on very infected ground, did not remain wholly exempt from the disease, but like every one else, began to entertain thoughts about matters which did not concern methe first symptom of political infection. About the Jews, for instance, listen to the followingI have never yet met a German who was favourably inclined to the Jews and however decided the repudiation of actual antiSemitism may be on the part of all prudent and political men, this prudence and policy is not perhaps directed against the nature of the sentiment itself, but only against its dangerous excess, and especially against the distasteful and infamous expression of this excess of sentimenton this point we must not deceive ourselves. That Germany has amply SUFFICIENT Jews, that the German stomach, the German blood, has difficulty (and will long have difficulty) in disposing only of this quantity of 'Jew'as the Italian, the Frenchman, and the Englishman have done by means of a stronger digestionthat is the unmistakable declaration and language of a general instinct, to which one must listen and according to which one must act. 'Let no more Jews come in! And shut the doors, especially towards the East (also towards Austria)!'thus commands the instinct of a people whose nature is still feeble and uncertain, so that it could be easily wiped out, easily extinguished, by a stronger race. The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like nowadays to label as vicesowing above all to a resolute faith which does not need to be ashamed before 'modern ideas', they alter only, WHEN they do alter, in the same way that the Russian Empire makes its conquestas an empire that has plenty of time and is not of yesterdaynamely, according to the principle, 'as slowly as possible'! A thinker who has the future of Europe at heart, will, in all his perspectives concerning the future, calculate upon the Jews, as he will calculate upon the Russians, as above all the surest and likeliest factors in the great play and battle of forces. That which is at present called a 'nation' in Europe, and is really rather a RES FACTA than NATA (indeed, sometimes confusingly similar to a RES FICTA ET PICTA), is in every case something evolving, young, easily displaced, and not yet a race, much less such a race AERE PERENNUS, as the Jews are such 'nations' should most carefully avoid all hotheaded rivalry and hostility! It is certain that the Jews, if they desiredor if they were driven to it, as the antiSemites seem to wishCOULD now have the ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe, that they are NOT working and planning for that end is equally certain. Meanwhile, they rather wish and desire, even somewhat importunely, to be insorbed and absorbed by Europe, they long to be finally settled, authorized, and respected somewhere, and wish to put an end to the nomadic life, to the 'wandering Jew',and one should certainly take account of this impulse and tendency, and MAKE ADVANCES to it (it possibly betokens a mitigation of the Jewish instincts) for which purpose it would perhaps be useful and fair to banish the antiSemitic bawlers out of the country. One should make advances with all prudence, and with selection, pretty much as the English nobility do It stands to reason that the more powerful and strongly marked types of new Germanism could enter into relation with the Jews with the least hesitation, for instance, the nobleman officer from the Prussian border it would be interesting in many ways to see whether the genius for money and patience (and especially some intellect and intellectualitysadly lacking in the place referred to) could not in addition be annexed and trained to the hereditary art of commanding and obeyingfor both of which the country in question has now a classic reputation But here it is expedient to break off my festal discourse and my sprightly Teutonomania for I have already reached my SERIOUS TOPIC, the 'European problem,' as I understand it, the rearing of a new ruling caste for Europe. . They are not a philosophical racethe English Bacon represents an ATTACK on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, an abasement, and a depreciation of the idea of a 'philosopher' for more than a century. It was AGAINST Hume that Kant uprose and raised himself it was Locke of whom Schelling RIGHTLY said, 'JE MEPRISE LOCKE' in the struggle against the English mechanical stultification of the world, Hegel and Schopenhauer (along with Goethe) were of one accord the two hostile brothergeniuses in philosophy, who pushed in different directions towards the opposite poles of German thought, and thereby wronged each other as only brothers will do.What is lacking in England, and has always been lacking, that halfactor and rhetorician knew well enough, the absurd muddlehead, Carlyle, who sought to conceal under passionate grimaces what he knew about himself namely, what was LACKING in Carlylereal POWER of intellect, real DEPTH of intellectual perception, in short, philosophy. It is characteristic of such an unphilosophical race to hold on firmly to Christianitythey NEED its discipline for 'moralizing' and humanizing. The Englishman, more gloomy, sensual, headstrong, and brutal than the Germanis for that very reason, as the baser of the two, also the most pious he has all the MORE NEED of Christianity. To finer nostrils, this English Christianity itself has still a characteristic English taint of spleen and alcoholic excess, for which, owing to good reasons, it is used as an antidotethe finer poison to neutralize the coarser a finer form of poisoning is in fact a step in advance with coarsemannered people, a step towards spiritualization. The English coarseness and rustic demureness is still most satisfactorily disguised by Christian pantomime, and by praying and psalmsinging (or, more correctly, it is thereby explained and differently expressed) and for the herd of drunkards and rakes who formerly learned moral grunting under the influence of Methodism (and more recently as the 'Salvation Army'), a penitential fit may really be the relatively highest manifestation of 'humanity' to which they can be elevated so much may reasonably be admitted. That, however, which offends even in the humanest Englishman is his lack of music, to speak figuratively (and also literally) he has neither rhythm nor dance in the movements of his soul and body indeed, not even the desire for rhythm and dance, for 'music.' Listen to him speaking look at the most beautiful Englishwoman WALKINGin no country on earth are there more beautiful doves and swans finally, listen to them singing! But I ask too much... . There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre minds, because they are best adapted for them, there are truths which only possess charms and seductive power for mediocre spiritsone is pushed to this probably unpleasant conclusion, now that the influence of respectable but mediocre EnglishmenI may mention Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencerbegins to gain the ascendancy in the middleclass region of European taste. Indeed, who could doubt that it is a useful thing for SUCH minds to have the ascendancy for a time? It would be an error to consider the highly developed and independently soaring minds as specially qualified for determining and collecting many little common facts, and deducing conclusions from them as exceptions, they are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards those who are 'the rules.' After all, they have more to do than merely to perceivein effect, they have to BE something new, they have to SIGNIFY something new, they have to REPRESENT new values! The gulf between knowledge and capacity is perhaps greater, and also more mysterious, than one thinks the capable man in the grand style, the creator, will possibly have to be an ignorant personwhile on the other hand, for scientific discoveries like those of Darwin, a certain narrowness, aridity, and industrious carefulness (in short, something English) may not be unfavourable for arriving at them.Finally, let it not be forgotten that the English, with their profound mediocrity, brought about once before a general depression of European intelligence. What is called 'modern ideas,' or 'the ideas of the eighteenth century,' or 'French ideas'that, consequently, against which the GERMAN mind rose up with profound disgustis of English origin, there is no doubt about it. The French were only the apes and actors of these ideas, their best soldiers, and likewise, alas! their first and profoundest VICTIMS for owing to the diabolical Anglomania of 'modern ideas,' the AME FRANCAIS has in the end become so thin and emaciated, that at present one recalls its sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its profound, passionate strength, its inventive excellency, almost with disbelief. One must, however, maintain this verdict of historical justice in a determined manner, and defend it against present prejudices and appearances the European NOBLESSEof sentiment, taste, and manners, taking the word in every high senseis the work and invention of FRANCE the European ignobleness, the plebeianism of modern ideasis ENGLAND'S work and invention. . Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual and refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste but one must know how to find this 'France of taste.' He who belongs to it keeps himself well concealedthey may be a small number in whom it lives and is embodied, besides perhaps being men who do not stand upon the strongest legs, in part fatalists, hypochondriacs, invalids, in part persons overindulged, overrefined, such as have the AMBITION to conceal themselves. They have all something in common they keep their ears closed in presence of the delirious folly and noisy spouting of the democratic BOURGEOIS. In fact, a besotted and brutalized France at present sprawls in the foregroundit recently celebrated a veritable orgy of bad taste, and at the same time of selfadmiration, at the funeral of Victor Hugo. There is also something else common to them a predilection to resist intellectual Germanizingand a still greater inability to do so! In this France of intellect, which is also a France of pessimism, Schopenhauer has perhaps become more at home, and more indigenous than he has ever been in Germany not to speak of Heinrich Heine, who has long ago been reincarnated in the more refined and fastidious lyrists of Paris or of Hegel, who at present, in the form of Tainethe FIRST of living historiansexercises an almost tyrannical influence. As regards Richard Wagner, however, the more French music learns to adapt itself to the actual needs of the AME MODERNE, the more will it 'Wagnerite' one can safely predict that beforehand,it is already taking place sufficiently! There are, however, three things which the French can still boast of with pride as their heritage and possession, and as indelible tokens of their ancient intellectual superiority in Europe, in spite of all voluntary or involuntary Germanizing and vulgarizing of taste. FIRSTLY, the capacity for artistic emotion, for devotion to 'form,' for which the expression, L'ART POUR L'ART, along with numerous others, has been inventedsuch capacity has not been lacking in France for three centuries and owing to its reverence for the 'small number,' it has again and again made a sort of chamber music of literature possible, which is sought for in vain elsewhere in Europe.The SECOND thing whereby the French can lay claim to a superiority over Europe is their ancient, manysided, MORALISTIC culture, owing to which one finds on an average, even in the petty ROMANCIERS of the newspapers and chance BOULEVARDIERS DE PARIS, a psychological sensitiveness and curiosity, of which, for example, one has no conception (to say nothing of the thing itself!) in Germany. The Germans lack a couple of centuries of the moralistic work requisite thereto, which, as we have said, France has not grudged those who call the Germans 'naive' on that account give them commendation for a defect. (As the opposite of the German inexperience and innocence IN VOLUPTATE PSYCHOLOGICA, which is not too remotely associated with the tediousness of German intercourse,and as the most successful expression of genuine French curiosity and inventive talent in this domain of delicate thrills, Henri Beyle may be noted that remarkable anticipatory and forerunning man, who, with a Napoleonic TEMPO, traversed HIS Europe, in fact, several centuries of the European soul, as a surveyor and discoverer thereofit has required two generations to OVERTAKE him one way or other, to divine long afterwards some of the riddles that perplexed and enraptured himthis strange Epicurean and man of interrogation, the last great psychologist of France).There is yet a THIRD claim to superiority in the French character there is a successful halfway synthesis of the North and South, which makes them comprehend many things, and enjoins upon them other things, which an Englishman can never comprehend. Their temperament, turned alternately to and from the South, in which from time to time the Provencal and Ligurian blood froths over, preserves them from the dreadful, northern greyingrey, from sunless conceptualspectrism and from poverty of bloodour GERMAN infirmity of taste, for the excessive prevalence of which at the present moment, blood and iron, that is to say 'high politics,' has with great resolution been prescribed (according to a dangerous healing art, which bids me wait and wait, but not yet hope).There is also still in France a preunderstanding and ready welcome for those rarer and rarely gratified men, who are too comprehensive to find satisfaction in any kind of fatherlandism, and know how to love the South when in the North and the North when in the Souththe born Midlanders, the 'good Europeans.' For them BIZET has made music, this latest genius, who has seen a new beauty and seduction,who has discovered a piece of the SOUTH IN MUSIC. . I hold that many precautions should be taken against German music. Suppose a person loves the South as I love itas a great school of recovery for the most spiritual and the most sensuous ills, as a boundless solar profusion and effulgence which o'erspreads a sovereign existence believing in itselfwell, such a person will learn to be somewhat on his guard against German music, because, in injuring his taste anew, it will also injure his health anew. Such a Southerner, a Southerner not by origin but by BELIEF, if he should dream of the future of music, must also dream of it being freed from the influence of the North and must have in his ears the prelude to a deeper, mightier, and perhaps more perverse and mysterious music, a superGerman music, which does not fade, pale, and die away, as all German music does, at the sight of the blue, wanton sea and the Mediterranean clearness of skya superEuropean music, which holds its own even in presence of the brown sunsets of the desert, whose soul is akin to the palmtree, and can be at home and can roam with big, beautiful, lonely beasts of prey... I could imagine a music of which the rarest charm would be that it knew nothing more of good and evil only that here and there perhaps some sailor's homesickness, some golden shadows and tender weaknesses might sweep lightly over it an art which, from the far distance, would see the colours of a sinking and almost incomprehensible MORAL world fleeing towards it, and would be hospitable enough and profound enough to receive such belated fugitives. . Owing to the morbid estrangement which the nationalitycraze has induced and still induces among the nations of Europe, owing also to the shortsighted and hastyhanded politicians, who with the help of this craze, are at present in power, and do not suspect to what extent the disintegrating policy they pursue must necessarily be only an interlude policyowing to all this and much else that is altogether unmentionable at present, the most unmistakable signs that EUROPE WISHES TO BE ONE, are now overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. With all the more profound and largeminded men of this century, the real general tendency of the mysterious labour of their souls was to prepare the way for that new SYNTHESIS, and tentatively to anticipate the European of the future only in their simulations, or in their weaker moments, in old age perhaps, did they belong to the 'fatherlands'they only rested from themselves when they became 'patriots.' I think of such men as Napoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine, Schopenhauer it must not be taken amiss if I also count Richard Wagner among them, about whom one must not let oneself be deceived by his own misunderstandings (geniuses like him have seldom the right to understand themselves), still less, of course, by the unseemly noise with which he is now resisted and opposed in France the fact remains, nevertheless, that Richard Wagner and the LATER FRENCH ROMANTICISM of the forties, are most closely and intimately related to one another. They are akin, fundamentally akin, in all the heights and depths of their requirements it is Europe, the ONE Europe, whose soul presses urgently and longingly, outwards and upwards, in their multifarious and boisterous artwhither? into a new light? towards a new sun? But who would attempt to express accurately what all these masters of new modes of speech could not express distinctly? It is certain that the same storm and stress tormented them, that they SOUGHT in the same manner, these last great seekers! All of them steeped in literature to their eyes and earsthe first artists of universal literary culturefor the most part even themselves writers, poets, intermediaries and blenders of the arts and the senses (Wagner, as musician is reckoned among painters, as poet among musicians, as artist generally among actors) all of them fanatics for EXPRESSION 'at any cost'I specially mention Delacroix, the nearest related to Wagner all of them great discoverers in the realm of the sublime, also of the loathsome and dreadful, still greater discoverers in effect, in display, in the art of the showshop all of them talented far beyond their genius, out and out VIRTUOSI, with mysterious accesses to all that seduces, allures, constrains, and upsets born enemies of logic and of the straight line, hankering after the strange, the exotic, the monstrous, the crooked, and the selfcontradictory as men, Tantaluses of the will, plebeian parvenus, who knew themselves to be incapable of a noble TEMPO or of a LENTO in life and actionthink of Balzac, for instance,unrestrained workers, almost destroying themselves by work antinomians and rebels in manners, ambitious and insatiable, without equilibrium and enjoyment all of them finally shattering and sinking down at the Christian cross (and with right and reason, for who of them would have been sufficiently profound and sufficiently original for an ANTICHRISTIAN philosophy?)on the whole, a boldly daring, splendidly overbearing, highflying, and aloftupdragging class of higher men, who had first to teach their centuryand it is the century of the MASSESthe conception 'higher man.'... Let the German friends of Richard Wagner advise together as to whether there is anything purely German in the Wagnerian art, or whether its distinction does not consist precisely in coming from SUPERGERMAN sources and impulses in which connection it may not be underrated how indispensable Paris was to the development of his type, which the strength of his instincts made him long to visit at the most decisive timeand how the whole style of his proceedings, of his selfapostolate, could only perfect itself in sight of the French socialistic original. On a more subtle comparison it will perhaps be found, to the honour of Richard Wagner's German nature, that he has acted in everything with more strength, daring, severity, and elevation than a nineteenthcentury Frenchman could have doneowing to the circumstance that we Germans are as yet nearer to barbarism than the Frenchperhaps even the most remarkable creation of Richard Wagner is not only at present, but for ever inaccessible, incomprehensible, and inimitable to the whole latterday Latin race the figure of Siegfried, that VERY FREE man, who is probably far too free, too hard, too cheerful, too healthy, too ANTICATHOLIC for the taste of old and mellow civilized nations. He may even have been a sin against Romanticism, this antiLatin Siegfried well, Wagner atoned amply for this sin in his old sad days, whenanticipating a taste which has meanwhile passed into politicshe began, with the religious vehemence peculiar to him, to preach, at least, THE WAY TO ROME, if not to walk therein.That these last words may not be misunderstood, I will call to my aid a few powerful rhymes, which will even betray to less delicate ears what I meanwhat I mean COUNTER TO the 'last Wagner' and his Parsifal music Is this our mode?From German heart came this vexed ululating? From German body, this selflacerating? Is ours this priestly handdilation, This incensefuming exaltation? Is ours this faltering, falling, shambling, This quite uncertain dingdongdangling? This sly nunogling, Avehourbell ringing, This wholly false enraptured heaveno'erspringing?Is this our mode?Think well!ye still wait for admissionFor what ye hear is ROMEROME'S FAITH BY INTUITION! . EVERY elevation of the type 'man,' has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will always bea society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS OF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant outlooking and downlooking of the ruling caste on subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a distancethat other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type 'man,' the continued 'selfsurmounting of man,' to use a moral formula in a supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for the elevation of the type 'man') the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge unprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED! Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattlerearing communities), or upon old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the barbarian caste their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical powerthey were more COMPLETE men (which at every point also implies the same as 'more complete beasts'). . Corruptionas the indication that anarchy threatens to break out among the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called 'life,' is convulsedis something radically different according to the organization in which it manifests itself. When, for instance, an aristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution, flung away its privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself to an excess of its moral sentiments, it was corruptionit was really only the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries, by virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its lordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in the end even to its decoration and paradedress). The essential thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the SIGNIFICANCE and highest justification thereofthat it should therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher EXISTENCE like those sunseeking climbing plants in Javathey are called Sipo Matador,which encircle an oak so long and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but supported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and exhibit their happiness. . To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one's will on a par with that of others this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their corelation within one organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if possible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really isnamely, a Will to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitationbut why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed, the individuals treat each other as equalit takes place in every healthy aristocracymust itself, if it be a living and not a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancynot owing to any morality or immorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which 'the exploiting character' is to be absentthat sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions. 'Exploitation' does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to LifeGranting that as a theory this is a noveltyas a reality it is the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards ourselves! . In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light. There is MASTERMORALITY and SLAVEMORALITY,I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close juxtapositioneven in the same man, within one soul. The distinctions of moral values have either originated in a ruling caste, pleasantly conscious of being different from the ruledor among the ruled class, the slaves and dependents of all sorts. In the first case, when it is the rulers who determine the conception 'good,' it is the exalted, proud disposition which is regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that which determines the order of rank. The noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted that in this first kind of morality the antithesis 'good' and 'bad' means practically the same as 'noble' and 'despicable',the antithesis 'good' and 'EVIL' is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised moreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the selfabasing, the doglike kind of men who let themselves be abused, the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liarsit is a fundamental belief of all aristocrats that the common people are untruthful. 'We truthful ones'the nobility in ancient Greece called themselves. It is obvious that everywhere the designations of moral value were at first applied to MEN and were only derivatively and at a later period applied to ACTIONS it is a gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals start with questions like, 'Why have sympathetic actions been praised?' The noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values he does not require to be approved of he passes the judgment 'What is injurious to me is injurious in itself' he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things he is a CREATOR OF VALUES. He honours whatever he recognizes in himself such morality equals selfglorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestowthe noble man also helps the unfortunate, but notor scarcelyout of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the superabundance of power. The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard. 'Wotan placed a hard heart in my breast,' says an old Scandinavian Saga it is thus rightly expressed from the soul of a proud Viking. Such a type of man is even proud of not being made for sympathy the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly 'He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one.' The noble and brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality which sees precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others, or in DESINTERESSEMENT, the characteristic of the moral faith in oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards 'selflessness,' belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a careless scorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the 'warm heart.'It is the powerful who KNOW how to honour, it is their art, their domain for invention. The profound reverence for age and for traditionall law rests on this double reverence,the belief and prejudice in favour of ancestors and unfavourable to newcomers, is typical in the morality of the powerful and if, reversely, men of 'modern ideas' believe almost instinctively in 'progress' and the 'future,' and are more and more lacking in respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these 'ideas' has complacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling class, however, is more especially foreign and irritating to presentday taste in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one's equals that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or 'as the heart desires,' and in any case 'beyond good and evil' it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments can have a place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revengeboth only within the circle of equals,artfulness in retaliation, RAFFINEMENT of the idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogancein fact, in order to be a good FRIEND) all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the morality of 'modern ideas,' and is therefore at present difficult to realize, and also to unearth and disclose.It is otherwise with the second type of morality, SLAVEMORALITY. Supposing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should moralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates? Probably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with his situation. The slave has an unfavourable eye for the virtues of the powerful he has a skepticism and distrust, a REFINEMENT of distrust of everything 'good' that is there honouredhe would fain persuade himself that the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, THOSE qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are brought into prominence and flooded with light it is here that sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness attain to honour for here these are the most useful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of existence. Slavemorality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis 'good' and 'evil'power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being despised. According to slavemorality, therefore, the 'evil' man arouses fear according to mastermorality, it is precisely the 'good' man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slavemorality, a shade of depreciationit may be slight and wellintentionedat last attaches itself to the 'good' man of this morality because, according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the SAFE man he is goodnatured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slavemorality gains the ascendancy, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words 'good' and 'stupid.'A last fundamental difference the desire for FREEDOM, the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slavemorals and morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.Hence we can understand without further detail why love AS A PASSIONit is our European specialtymust absolutely be of noble origin as is well known, its invention is due to the Provencal poetcavaliers, those brilliant, ingenious men of the 'gai saber,' to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself. . Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for a noble man to understand he will be tempted to deny it, where another kind of man thinks he sees it selfevidently. The problem for him is to represent to his mind beings who seek to arouse a good opinion of themselves which they themselves do not possessand consequently also do not 'deserve,'and who yet BELIEVE in this good opinion afterwards. This seems to him on the one hand such bad taste and so selfdisrespectful, and on the other hand so grotesquely unreasonable, that he would like to consider vanity an exception, and is doubtful about it in most cases when it is spoken of. He will say, for instance 'I may be mistaken about my value, and on the other hand may nevertheless demand that my value should be acknowledged by others precisely as I rate itthat, however, is not vanity (but selfconceit, or, in most cases, that which is called 'humility,' and also 'modesty').' Or he will even say 'For many reasons I can delight in the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour them, and rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their good opinion endorses and strengthens my belief in my own good opinion, perhaps because the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share it, is useful to me, or gives promise of usefulnessall this, however, is not vanity.' The man of noble character must first bring it home forcibly to his mind, especially with the aid of history, that, from time immemorial, in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary man WAS only that which he PASSED FORnot being at all accustomed to fix values, he did not assign even to himself any other value than that which his master assigned to him (it is the peculiar RIGHT OF MASTERS to create values). It may be looked upon as the result of an extraordinary atavism, that the ordinary man, even at present, is still always WAITING for an opinion about himself, and then instinctively submitting himself to it yet by no means only to a 'good' opinion, but also to a bad and unjust one (think, for instance, of the greater part of the selfappreciations and selfdepreciations which believing women learn from their confessors, and which in general the believing Christian learns from his Church). In fact, conformably to the slow rise of the democratic social order (and its cause, the blending of the blood of masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse of the masters to assign a value to themselves and to 'think well' of themselves, will now be more and more encouraged and extended but it has at all times an older, ampler, and more radically ingrained propensity opposed to itand in the phenomenon of 'vanity' this older propensity overmasters the younger. The vain person rejoices over EVERY good opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from the point of view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of its truth or falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion for he subjects himself to both, he feels himself subjected to both, by that oldest instinct of subjection which breaks forth in him.It is 'the slave' in the vain man's blood, the remains of the slave's craftinessand how much of the 'slave' is still left in woman, for instance!which seeks to SEDUCE to good opinions of itself it is the slave, too, who immediately afterwards falls prostrate himself before these opinions, as though he had not called them forth.And to repeat it again vanity is an atavism. . A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes established and strong in the long struggle with essentially constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species which receive superabundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in monstrous vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say an ancient Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or involuntary contrivance for the purpose of REARING human beings there are there men beside one another, thrown upon their own resources, who want to make their species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail, or else run the terrible danger of being exterminated. The favour, the superabundance, the protection are there lacking under which variations are fostered the species needs itself as species, as something which, precisely by virtue of its hardness, its uniformity, and simplicity of structure, can in general prevail and make itself permanent in constant struggle with its neighbours, or with rebellious or rebellionthreatening vassals. The most varied experience teaches it what are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that it still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been victorious these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone it develops to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires severity every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the education of youth, in the control of women, in the marriage customs, in the relations of old and young, in the penal laws (which have an eye only for the degenerating) it counts intolerance itself among the virtues, under the name of 'justice.' A type with few, but very marked features, a species of severe, warlike, wisely silent, reserved, and reticent men (and as such, with the most delicate sensibility for the charm and nuances of society) is thus established, unaffected by the vicissitudes of generations the constant struggle with uniform UNFAVOURABLE conditions is, as already remarked, the cause of a type becoming stable and hard. Finally, however, a happy state of things results, the enormous tension is relaxed there are perhaps no more enemies among the neighbouring peoples, and the means of life, even of the enjoyment of life, are present in superabundance. With one stroke the bond and constraint of the old discipline severs it is no longer regarded as necessary, as a condition of existenceif it would continue, it can only do so as a form of LUXURY, as an archaizing TASTE. Variations, whether they be deviations (into the higher, finer, and rarer), or deteriorations and monstrosities, appear suddenly on the scene in the greatest exuberance and splendour the individual dares to be individual and detach himself. At this turningpoint of history there manifest themselves, side by side, and often mixed and entangled together, a magnificent, manifold, virginforestlike upgrowth and upstriving, a kind of TROPICAL TEMPO in the rivalry of growth, and an extraordinary decay and selfdestruction, owing to the savagely opposing and seemingly exploding egoisms, which strive with one another 'for sun and light,' and can no longer assign any limit, restraint, or forbearance for themselves by means of the hitherto existing morality. It was this morality itself which piled up the strength so enormously, which bent the bow in so threatening a mannerit is now 'out of date,' it is getting 'out of date.' The dangerous and disquieting point has been reached when the greater, more manifold, more comprehensive life IS LIVED BEYOND the old morality the 'individual' stands out, and is obliged to have recourse to his own lawgiving, his own arts and artifices for selfpreservation, selfelevation, and selfdeliverance. Nothing but new 'Whys,' nothing but new 'Hows,' no common formulas any longer, misunderstanding and disregard in league with each other, decay, deterioration, and the loftiest desires frightfully entangled, the genius of the race overflowing from all the cornucopias of good and bad, a portentous simultaneousness of Spring and Autumn, full of new charms and mysteries peculiar to the fresh, still inexhausted, still unwearied corruption. Danger is again present, the mother of morality, great danger this time shifted into the individual, into the neighbour and friend, into the street, into their own child, into their own heart, into all the most personal and secret recesses of their desires and volitions. What will the moral philosophers who appear at this time have to preach? They discover, these sharp onlookers and loafers, that the end is quickly approaching, that everything around them decays and produces decay, that nothing will endure until the day after tomorrow, except one species of man, the incurably MEDIOCRE. The mediocre alone have a prospect of continuing and propagating themselvesthey will be the men of the future, the sole survivors 'be like them! become mediocre!' is now the only morality which has still a significance, which still obtains a hearing.But it is difficult to preach this morality of mediocrity! it can never avow what it is and what it desires! it has to talk of moderation and dignity and duty and brotherly loveit will have difficulty IN CONCEALING ITS IRONY! . There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which more than anything else is already the sign of a HIGH rank there is a DELIGHT in the NUANCES of reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits. The refinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put to a perilous test when something passes by that is of the highest rank, but is not yet protected by the awe of authority from obtrusive touches and incivilities something that goes its way like a living touchstone, undistinguished, undiscovered, and tentative, perhaps voluntarily veiled and disguised. He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls, will avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which it belongs he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE ENGENDRE HAINE the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any book bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it while on the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the eye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul FEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect. The way in which, on the whole, the reverence for the BIBLE has hitherto been maintained in Europe, is perhaps the best example of discipline and refinement of manners which Europe owes to Christianity books of such profoundness and supreme significance require for their protection an external tyranny of authority, in order to acquire the PERIOD of thousands of years which is necessary to exhaust and unriddle them. Much has been achieved when the sentiment has been at last instilled into the masses (the shallowpates and the boobies of every kind) that they are not allowed to touch everything, that there are holy experiences before which they must take off their shoes and keep away the unclean handit is almost their highest advance towards humanity. On the contrary, in the socalled cultured classes, the believers in 'modern ideas,' nothing is perhaps so repulsive as their lack of shame, the easy insolence of eye and hand with which they touch, taste, and finger everything and it is possible that even yet there is more RELATIVE nobility of taste, and more tact for reverence among the people, among the lower classes of the people, especially among peasants, than among the newspaperreading DEMIMONDE of intellect, the cultured class. . It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have preferably and most constantly done whether they were perhaps diligent economizers attached to a desk and a cashbox, modest and citizenlike in their desires, modest also in their virtues or whether they were accustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond of rude pleasures and probably of still ruder duties and responsibilities or whether, finally, at one time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of birth and possession, in order to live wholly for their faithfor their 'God,'as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which blushes at every compromise. It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his constitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is the problem of race. Granted that one knows something of the parents, it is admissible to draw a conclusion about the child any kind of offensive incontinence, any kind of sordid envy, or of clumsy selfvauntingthe three things which together have constituted the genuine plebeian type in all timessuch must pass over to the child, as surely as bad blood and with the help of the best education and culture one will only succeed in DECEIVING with regard to such heredity.And what else does education and culture try to do nowadays! In our very democratic, or rather, very plebeian age, 'education' and 'culture' MUST be essentially the art of deceivingdeceiving with regard to origin, with regard to the inherited plebeianism in body and soul. An educator who nowadays preached truthfulness above everything else, and called out constantly to his pupils 'Be true! Be natural! Show yourselves as you are!'even such a virtuous and sincere ass would learn in a short time to have recourse to the FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE with what results? 'Plebeianism' USQUE RECURRET. FOOTNOTE Horace's 'Epistles,' I. x. . . At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as 'we,' other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts the fact of his egoism without question, and also without consciousness of harshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something that may have its basis in the primary law of thingsif he sought a designation for it he would say 'It is justice itself.' He acknowledges under certain circumstances, which made him hesitate at first, that there are other equally privileged ones as soon as he has settled this question of rank, he moves among those equals and equally privileged ones with the same assurance, as regards modesty and delicate respect, which he enjoys in intercourse with himselfin accordance with an innate heavenly mechanism which all the stars understand. It is an ADDITIONAL instance of his egoism, this artfulness and selflimitation in intercourse with his equalsevery star is a similar egoist he honours HIMSELF in them, and in the rights which he concedes to them, he has no doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as the ESSENCE of all intercourse, belongs also to the natural condition of things. The noble soul gives as he takes, prompted by the passionate and sensitive instinct of requital, which is at the root of his nature. The notion of 'favour' has, INTER PARES, neither significance nor good repute there may be a sublime way of letting gifts as it were light upon one from above, and of drinking them thirstily like dewdrops but for those arts and displays the noble soul has no aptitude. His egoism hinders him here in general, he looks 'aloft' unwillinglyhe looks either FORWARD, horizontally and deliberately, or downwardsHE KNOWS THAT HE IS ON A HEIGHT. . 'One can only truly esteem him who does not LOOK OUT FOR himself.'Goethe to Rath Schlosser. . The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children 'SIAOSIN' ('MAKE THY HEART SMALL'). This is the essentially fundamental tendency in latterday civilizations. I have no doubt that an ancient Greek, also, would first of all remark the selfdwarfing in us Europeans of todayin this respect alone we should immediately be 'distasteful' to him. . What, after all, is ignobleness?Words are vocal symbols for ideas ideas, however, are more or less definite mental symbols for frequently returning and concurring sensations, for groups of sensations. It is not sufficient to use the same words in order to understand one another we must also employ the same words for the same kind of internal experiences, we must in the end have experiences IN COMMON. On this account the people of one nation understand one another better than those belonging to different nations, even when they use the same language or rather, when people have lived long together under similar conditions (of climate, soil, danger, requirement, toil) there ORIGINATES therefrom an entity that 'understands itself'namely, a nation. In all souls a like number of frequently recurring experiences have gained the upper hand over those occurring more rarely about these matters people understand one another rapidly and always more rapidlythe history of language is the history of a process of abbreviation on the basis of this quick comprehension people always unite closer and closer. The greater the danger, the greater is the need of agreeing quickly and readily about what is necessary not to misunderstand one another in dangerthat is what cannot at all be dispensed with in intercourse. Also in all loves and friendships one has the experience that nothing of the kind continues when the discovery has been made that in using the same words, one of the two parties has feelings, thoughts, intuitions, wishes, or fears different from those of the other. (The fear of the 'eternal misunderstanding' that is the good genius which so often keeps persons of different sexes from too hasty attachments, to which sense and heart prompt themand NOT some Schopenhauerian 'genius of the species'!) Whichever groups of sensations within a soul awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of commandthese decide as to the general order of rank of its values, and determine ultimately its list of desirable things. A man's estimates of value betray something of the STRUCTURE of his soul, and wherein it sees its conditions of life, its intrinsic needs. Supposing now that necessity has from all time drawn together only such men as could express similar requirements and similar experiences by similar symbols, it results on the whole that the easy COMMUNICABILITY of need, which implies ultimately the undergoing only of average and COMMON experiences, must have been the most potent of all the forces which have hitherto operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary people, have always had and are still having the advantage the more select, more refined, more unique, and difficultly comprehensible, are liable to stand alone they succumb to accidents in their isolation, and seldom propagate themselves. One must appeal to immense opposing forces, in order to thwart this natural, alltoonatural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE, the evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the gregariousto the IGNOBLE! . The more a psychologista born, an unavoidable psychologist and souldivinerturns his attention to the more select cases and individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy he NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other man. For the corruption, the ruination of higher men, of the more unusually constituted souls, is in fact, the rule it is dreadful to have such a rule always before one's eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist who has discovered this ruination, who discovers once, and then discovers ALMOST repeatedly throughout all history, this universal inner 'desperateness' of higher men, this eternal 'too late!' in every sensemay perhaps one day be the cause of his turning with bitterness against his own lot, and of his making an attempt at selfdestructionof his 'going to ruin' himself. One may perceive in almost every psychologist a telltale inclination for delightful intercourse with commonplace and wellordered men the fact is thereby disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and incisivenessfrom what his 'business'has laid upon his conscience. The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the judgment of others he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour, admire, love, and glorify, where he has PERCEIVEDor he even conceals his silence by expressly assenting to some plausible opinion. Perhaps the paradox of his situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely where he has learnt GREAT SYMPATHY, together with great CONTEMPT, the multitude, the educated, and the visionaries, have on their part learnt great reverencereverence for 'great men' and marvelous animals, for the sake of whom one blesses and honours the fatherland, the earth, the dignity of mankind, and one's own self, to whom one points the young, and in view of whom one educates them. And who knows but in all great instances hitherto just the same happened that the multitude worshipped a God, and that the 'God' was only a poor sacrificial animal! SUCCESS has always been the greatest liarand the 'work' itself is a success the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in their creations until they are unrecognizable the 'work' of the artist, of the philosopher, only invents him who has created it, is REPUTED to have created it the 'great men,' as they are reverenced, are poor little fictions composed afterwards in the world of historical values spurious coinage PREVAILS. Those great poets, for example, such as Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not venture to mention much greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and were perhaps obliged to be men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous, and childish, lightminded and impulsive in their trust and distrust with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed often taking revenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking forgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost in the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the Willo'theWisps around the swamps, and PRETEND TO BE starsthe people then call them idealists,often struggling with protracted disgust, with an everreappearing phantom of disbelief, which makes them cold, and obliges them to languish for GLORIA and devour 'faith as it is' out of the hands of intoxicated adulatorswhat a TORMENT these great artists are and the socalled higher men in general, to him who has once found them out! It is thus conceivable that it is just from womanwho is clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and also unfortunately eager to help and save to an extent far beyond her powersthat THEY have learnt so readily those outbreaks of boundless devoted SYMPATHY, which the multitude, above all the reverent multitude, do not understand, and overwhelm with prying and selfgratifying interpretations. This sympathizing invariably deceives itself as to its power woman would like to believe that love can do EVERYTHINGit is the SUPERSTITION peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love ishe finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!It is possible that under the holy fable and travesty of the life of Jesus there is hidden one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE the martyrdom of the most innocent and most craving heart, that never had enough of any human love, that DEMANDED love, that demanded inexorably and frantically to be loved and nothing else, with terrible outbursts against those who refused him their love the story of a poor soul insatiated and insatiable in love, that had to invent hell to send thither those who WOULD NOT love himand that at last, enlightened about human love, had to invent a God who is entire love, entire CAPACITY for lovewho takes pity on human love, because it is so paltry, so ignorant! He who has such sentiments, he who has such KNOWLEDGE about loveSEEKS for death!But why should one deal with such painful matters? Provided, of course, that one is not obliged to do so. . The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who has suffered deeplyit almost determines the order of rank HOW deeply men can sufferthe chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly imbued and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he KNOWS MORE than the shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with, and 'at home' in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which 'YOU know nothing'!this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the 'initiated,' of the almost sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from contact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble it separates.One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism, along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that is sorrowful and profound. They are 'gay men' who make use of gaiety, because they are misunderstood on account of itthey WISH to be misunderstood. There are 'scientific minds' who make use of science, because it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to the conclusion that a person is superficialthey WISH to mislead to a false conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would fain conceal and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of Hamletthe case of Galiani) and occasionally folly itself is the mask of an unfortunate OVERASSURED knowledge.From which it follows that it is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence 'for the mask,' and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place. . That which separates two men most profoundly is a different sense and grade of purity. What does it matter about all their honesty and reciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all their mutual goodwill the fact still remainsthey 'cannot smell each other!' The highest instinct for purity places him who is affected with it in the most extraordinary and dangerous isolation, as a saint for it is just holinessthe highest spiritualization of the instinct in question. Any kind of cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath, any kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out of night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of 'affliction' into clearness, brightness, depth, and refinementjust as much as such a tendency DISTINGUISHESit is a noble tendencyit also SEPARATES.The pity of the saint is pity for the FILTH of the human, alltoohuman. And there are grades and heights where pity itself is regarded by him as impurity, as filth. . Signs of nobility never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, among our DUTIES. . A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindranceor as a temporary restingplace. His peculiar lofty BOUNTY to his fellowmen is only possible when he attains his elevation and dominates. Impatience, and the consciousness of being always condemned to comedy up to that timefor even strife is a comedy, and conceals the end, as every means doesspoil all intercourse for him this kind of man is acquainted with solitude, and what is most poisonous in it. . THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.Happy chances are necessary, and many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or 'break forth,' as one might sayat the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen and in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who hardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they wait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too latethe chance which gives 'permission' to take actionwhen their best youth, and strength for action have been used up in sitting still and how many a one, just as he 'sprang up,' has found with horror that his limbs are benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! 'It is too late,' he has said to himselfand has become selfdistrustful and henceforth for ever useless.In the domain of genius, may not the 'Raphael without hands' (taking the expression in its widest sense) perhaps not be the exception, but the rule?Perhaps genius is by no means so rare but rather the five hundred HANDS which it requires in order to tyrannize over the GREEK INSERTED HERE, 'the right time'in order to take chance by the forelock! . He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all the more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foregroundand thereby betrays himself. . In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is better off than the nobler soul the dangers of the latter must be greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its existence.In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost not so in man. . It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something which he OUGHT absolutely to have known before hebegan to build. The eternal, fatal 'Too late!' The melancholia of everything COMPLETED! .Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn, without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has returned to the light insatiated out of every depthwhat did it seek down there?with a bosom that never sighs, with lips that conceal their loathing, with a hand which only slowly grasps who art thou? what hast thou done? Rest thee here this place has hospitality for every onerefresh thyself! And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases thee? What will serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have I offer thee! 'To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one, what sayest thou! But give me, I pray thee' What? what? Speak out! 'Another mask! A second mask!' . Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousyah, they know only too well that it will flee from them! . 'Bad! Bad! What? Does he notgo back?' Yes! But you misunderstand him when you complain about it. He goes back like every one who is about to make a great spring. .'Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it of me I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about myself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always without delight in 'the subject,' ready to digress from 'myself,' and always without faith in the result, owing to an unconquerable distrust of the POSSIBILITY of selfknowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which theorists allow themselvesthis matter of fact is almost the most certain thing I know about myself. There must be a sort of repugnance in me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself.Is there perhaps some enigma therein? Probably but fortunately nothing for my own teeth.Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?but not to myself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me.' .'But what has happened to you?''I do not know,' he said, hesitatingly 'perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table.'It sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves, and shocks everybodyand finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at himselfwhither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with his memories?To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul, and only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger will always be greatnowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so. Thrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does not like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger and thirstor, should he nevertheless finally 'fall to,' of sudden nausea.We have probably all sat at tables to which we did not belong and precisely the most spiritual of us, who are most difficult to nourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which originates from a sudden insight and disillusionment about our food and our messmatesthe AFTERDINNER NAUSEA. . If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble selfcontrol, to praise only where one DOES NOT agreeotherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary to good tastea selfcontrol, to be sure, which offers excellent opportunity and provocation to constant MISUNDERSTANDING. To be able to allow oneself this veritable luxury of taste and morality, one must not live among intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose misunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinementor one will have to pay dearly for it!'He praises me, THEREFORE he acknowledges me to be right'this asinine method of inference spoils half of the life of us recluses, for it brings the asses into our neighbourhood and friendship. . To live in a vast and proud tranquility always beyond... To have, or not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against, according to choice to lower oneself to them for hours to SEAT oneself on them as upon horses, and often as upon assesfor one must know how to make use of their stupidity as well as of their fire. To conserve one's three hundred foregrounds also one's black spectacles for there are circumstances when nobody must look into our eyes, still less into our 'motives.' And to choose for company that roguish and cheerful vice, politeness. And to remain master of one's four virtues, courage, insight, sympathy, and solitude. For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of man and man'in society'it must be unavoidably impure. All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime'commonplace.' . The greatest events and thoughtsthe greatest thoughts, however, are the greatest eventsare longest in being comprehended the generations which are contemporary with them do not EXPERIENCE such eventsthey live past them. Something happens there as in the realm of stars. The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man and before it has arrived man DENIESthat there are stars there. 'How many centuries does a mind require to be understood?'that is also a standard, one also makes a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith, such as is necessary for mind and for star. . 'Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted.' FOOTNOTE Goethe's 'Faust,' Part II, Act V. The words of Dr. Marianus.But there is a reverse kind of man, who is also upon a height, and has also a free prospectbut looks DOWNWARDS. . What is noble? What does the word 'noble' still mean for us nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which everything is rendered opaque and leaden?It is not his actions which establish his claimactions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable neither is it his 'works.' One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness impels them but this very NEED of nobleness is radically different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of rankto employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaningit is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF. . There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them turn and twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands before their treacherous eyesas though the hand were not a betrayer it always comes out at last that they have something which they hidenamely, intellect. One of the subtlest means of deceiving, at least as long as possible, and of successfully representing oneself to be stupider than one really iswhich in everyday life is often as desirable as an umbrella,is called ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for instance, virtue. For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it VERTU EST ENTHOUSIASME. . In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance of solitude in his strongest words, even in his cry itself, there sounds a new and more dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. He who has sat day and night, from year's end to year's end, alone with his soul in familiar discord and discourse, he who has become a cavebear, or a treasureseeker, or a treasureguardian and dragon in his caveit may be a labyrinth, but can also be a goldminehis ideas themselves eventually acquire a twilightcolour of their own, and an odour, as much of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive, which blows chilly upon every passerby. The recluse does not believe that a philosophersupposing that a philosopher has always in the first place been a recluseever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have 'ultimate and actual' opinions at all whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave an ampler, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every 'foundation.' Every philosophy is a foreground philosophythis is a recluse's verdict 'There is something arbitrary in the fact that the PHILOSOPHER came to a stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around that he HERE laid his spade aside and did not dig any deeperthere is also something suspicious in it.' Every philosophy also CONCEALS a philosophy every opinion is also a LURKINGPLACE, every word is also a MASK. . Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says 'Ah, why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?' . Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his soul as something SIMPLE and the whole of morality is a long, audacious falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of the soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much more in the conception of 'art' than is generally believed. . A philosopher that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things who is struck by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and below, as a species of events and lightningflashes PECULIAR TO HIM who is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings a portentous man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and something uncanny going on. A philosopher alas, a being who often runs away from himself, is often afraid of himselfbut whose curiosity always makes him 'come to himself' again. . A man who says 'I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to guard and protect it from every one' a man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence a man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and naturally belong in short, a man who is a MASTER by naturewhen such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has value! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of those even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain, and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing, which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks to deck itself out as something superiorthere is a regular cult of suffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called 'sympathy' by such groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that strikes the eye.One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest form of bad taste and finally I wish people to put the good amulet, 'GAI SABER' ('gay science,' in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as a protection against it. . THE OLYMPIAN VICE.Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking minds'Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every thinking mind will strive to overcome' (Hobbes),I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their laughingup to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. And supposing that Gods also philosophize, which I am strongly inclined to believe, owing to many reasonsI have no doubt that they also know how to laugh thereby in an overmanlike and new fashionand at the expense of all serious things! Gods are fond of ridicule it seems that they cannot refrain from laughter even in holy matters. . The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one possesses it, the temptergod and born ratcatcher of consciences, whose voice can descend into the netherworld of every soul, who neither speaks a word nor casts a glance in which there may not be some motive or touch of allurement, to whose perfection it pertains that he knows how to appear,not as he is, but in a guise which acts as an ADDITIONAL constraint on his followers to press ever closer to him, to follow him more cordially and thoroughlythe genius of the heart, which imposes silence and attention on everything loud and selfconceited, which smoothes rough souls and makes them taste a new longingto lie placid as a mirror, that the deep heavens may be reflected in themthe genius of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too hasty hand to hesitate, and to grasp more delicately which scents the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick dark ice, and is a diviningrod for every grain of gold, long buried and imprisoned in mud and sand the genius of the heart, from contact with which every one goes away richer not favoured or surprised, not as though gratified and oppressed by the good things of others but richer in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded by a thawing wind more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will and current, full of a new illwill and countercurrent... but what am I doing, my friends? Of whom am I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself so far that I have not even told you his name? Unless it be that you have already divined of your own accord who this questionable God and spirit is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it happens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on his legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my path many strange and dangerous spirits above all, however, and again and again, the one of whom I have just spoken in fact, no less a personage than the God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and tempter, to whom, as you know, I once offered in all secrecy and reverence my firstfruitsthe last, as it seems to me, who has offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I have found no one who could understand what I was then doing. In the meantime, however, I have learned much, far too much, about the philosophy of this God, and, as I said, from mouth to mouthI, the last disciple and initiate of the God Dionysus and perhaps I might at last begin to give you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of this philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly for it has to do with much that is secret, new, strange, wonderful, and uncanny. The very fact that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that therefore Gods also philosophize, seems to me a novelty which is not unensnaring, and might perhaps arouse suspicion precisely among philosophersamong you, my friends, there is less to be said against it, except that it comes too late and not at the right time for, as it has been disclosed to me, you are loth nowadays to believe in God and gods. It may happen, too, that in the frankness of my story I must go further than is agreeable to the strict usages of your ears? Certainly the God in question went further, very much further, in such dialogues, and was always many paces ahead of me... Indeed, if it were allowed, I should have to give him, according to human usage, fine ceremonious tides of lustre and merit, I should have to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his fearless honesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such a God does not know what to do with all that respectable trumpery and pomp. 'Keep that,' he would say, 'for thyself and those like thee, and whoever else require it! Ihave no reason to cover my nakedness!' One suspects that this kind of divinity and philosopher perhaps lacks shame?He once said 'Under certain circumstances I love mankind'and referred thereby to Ariadne, who was present 'in my opinion man is an agreeable, brave, inventive animal, that has not his equal upon earth, he makes his way even through all labyrinths. I like man, and often think how I can still further advance him, and make him stronger, more evil, and more profound.''Stronger, more evil, and more profound?' I asked in horror. 'Yes,' he said again, 'stronger, more evil, and more profound also more beautiful'and thereby the temptergod smiled with his halcyon smile, as though he had just paid some charming compliment. One here sees at once that it is not only shame that this divinity lacksand in general there are good grounds for supposing that in some things the Gods could all of them come to us men for instruction. We men aremore human. . Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laughand now? You have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint, we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas, only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas, only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be captured with the handwith OUR hand! We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it is only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and redsbut nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, belovedEVIL thoughts!
Happy families are all alike every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her the mancook had walked off the day before just at dinner time the kitchenmaid, and the coachman had given warning. Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch OblonskyStiva, as he was called in the fashionable worldwoke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o'clock in the morning, not in his wife's bedroom, but on the leathercovered sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, wellcaredfor person on the springy sofa, as though he would sink into a long sleep again he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and buried his face in it but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes. 'Yes, yes, how was it now? he thought, going over his dream. 'Now, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il mio tesoronot Il mio tesoro though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too, he remembered. Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. 'Yes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words, or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake. And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on goldcolored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressinggown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's room, but in his study, and why the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows. 'Ah, ah, ah! Oo!... he muttered, recalling everything that had happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault. 'Yes, she won't forgive me, and she can't forgive me. And the most awful thing about it is that it's all my faultall my fault, though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole situation, he reflected. 'Oh, oh, oh! he kept repeating in despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused him by this quarrel. Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming, happy and goodhumored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawingroom, to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand. She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of horror, despair, and indignation. 'What's this? this? she asked, pointing to the letter. And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had met his wife's words. There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent evenanything would have been better than what he did dohis face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)utterly involuntarily assumed its habitual, goodhumored, and therefore idiotic smile. This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the room. Since then she had refused to see her husband. 'It's that idiotic smile that's to blame for it all, thought Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'But what's to be done? What's to be done? he said to himself in despair, and found no answer. Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirtyfour, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself. All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly thought out the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a wornout woman no longer young or goodlooking, and in no way remarkable or interesting, merely a good mother, ought from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out quite the other way. 'Oh, it's awful! oh dear, oh dear! awful! Stepan Arkadyevitch kept repeating to himself, and he could think of nothing to be done. 'And how well things were going up till now! how well we got on! She was contented and happy in her children I never interfered with her in anything I let her manage the children and the house just as she liked. It's true it's bad her having been a governess in our house. That's bad! There's something common, vulgar, in flirting with one's governess. But what a governess! (He vividly recalled the roguish black eyes of Mlle. Roland and her smile.) 'But after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand. And the worst of it all is that she's already ... it seems as if illluck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is to be done? There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is one must live in the needs of the daythat is, forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanterwomen so he must forget himself in the dream of daily life. 'Then we shall see, Stepan Arkadyevitch said to himself, and getting up he put on a gray dressinggown lined with blue silk, tied the tassels in a knot, and, drawing a deep breath of air into his broad, bare chest, he walked to the window with his usual confident step, turning out his feet that carried his full frame so easily. He pulled up the blind and rang the bell loudly. It was at once answered by the appearance of an old friend, his valet, Matvey, carrying his clothes, his boots, and a telegram. Matvey was followed by the barber with all the necessaries for shaving. 'Are there any papers from the office? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, taking the telegram and seating himself at the lookingglass. 'On the table, replied Matvey, glancing with inquiring sympathy at his master and, after a short pause, he added with a sly smile, 'They've sent from the carriagejobbers. Stepan Arkadyevitch made no reply, he merely glanced at Matvey in the lookingglass. In the glance, in which their eyes met in the lookingglass, it was clear that they understood one another. Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes asked 'Why do you tell me that? don't you know? Matvey put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out one leg, and gazed silently, goodhumoredly, with a faint smile, at his master. 'I told them to come on Sunday, and till then not to trouble you or themselves for nothing, he said. He had obviously prepared the sentence beforehand. Stepan Arkadyevitch saw Matvey wanted to make a joke and attract attention to himself. Tearing open the telegram, he read it through, guessing at the words, misspelt as they always are in telegrams, and his face brightened. 'Matvey, my sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here tomorrow, he said, checking for a minute the sleek, plump hand of the barber, cutting a pink path through his long, curly whiskers. 'Thank God! said Matvey, showing by this response that he, like his master, realized the significance of this arrivalthat is, that Anna Arkadyevna, the sister he was so fond of, might bring about a reconciliation between husband and wife. 'Alone, or with her husband? inquired Matvey. Stepan Arkadyevitch could not answer, as the barber was at work on his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvey nodded at the lookingglass. 'Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs? 'Inform Darya Alexandrovna where she orders. 'Darya Alexandrovna? Matvey repeated, as though in doubt. 'Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram give it to her, and then do what she tells you. 'You want to try it on, Matvey understood, but he only said, 'Yes, sir. Stepan Arkadyevitch was already washed and combed and ready to be dressed, when Matvey, stepping deliberately in his creaky boots, came back into the room with the telegram in his hand. The barber had gone. 'Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is going away. Let him dothat is youas he likes, he said, laughing only with his eyes, and putting his hands in his pockets, he watched his master with his head on one side. Stepan Arkadyevitch was silent a minute. Then a goodhumored and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his handsome face. 'Eh, Matvey? he said, shaking his head. 'It's all right, sir she will come round, said Matvey. 'Come round? 'Yes, sir. 'Do you think so? Who's there? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, hearing the rustle of a woman's dress at the door. 'It's I, said a firm, pleasant, woman's voice, and the stern, pockmarked face of Matrona Philimonovna, the nurse, was thrust in at the doorway. 'Well, what is it, Matrona? queried Stepan Arkadyevitch, going up to her at the door. Although Stepan Arkadyevitch was completely in the wrong as regards his wife, and was conscious of this himself, almost everyone in the house (even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna's chief ally) was on his side. 'Well, what now? he asked disconsolately. 'Go to her, sir own your fault again. Maybe God will aid you. She is suffering so, it's sad to see her and besides, everything in the house is topsyturvy. You must have pity, sir, on the children. Beg her forgiveness, sir. There's no help for it! One must take the consequences.... 'But she won't see me. 'You do your part. God is merciful pray to God, sir, pray to God. 'Come, that'll do, you can go, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, blushing suddenly. 'Well now, do dress me. He turned to Matvey and threw off his dressinggown decisively. Matvey was already holding up the shirt like a horse's collar, and, blowing off some invisible speck, he slipped it with obvious pleasure over the wellgroomed body of his master. When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled some scent on himself, pulled down his shirtcuffs, distributed into his pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook, matches, and watch with its double chain and seals, and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease, in spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight swing on each leg into the diningroom, where coffee was already waiting for him, and beside the coffee, letters and papers from the office. He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant who was buying a forest on his wife's property. To sell this forest was absolutely essential but at present, until he was reconciled with his wife, the subject could not be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interests should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation with his wife. And the idea that he might be led on by his interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the forestthat idea hurt him. When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch moved the officepapers close to him, rapidly looked through two pieces of business, made a few notes with a big pencil, and pushing away the papers, turned to his coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he opened a still damp morning paper, and began reading it. Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed themor, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him. Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain societyowing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activityto have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life. The liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check the barbarous classes of the people and Stepan Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and highflown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world. And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder of his familythe monkey. And so Liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, in which it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements, and that the government ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary hydra that, on the contrary, 'in our opinion the danger lies not in that fantastic revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism clogging progress, etc., etc. He read another article, too, a financial one, which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his characteristic quickwittedness he caught the drift of each innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what ground it was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by Matrona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of the household. He read, too, that Count Beist was rumored to have left for Wiesbaden, and that one need have no more gray hair, and of the sale of a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a situation but these items of information did not give him, as usual, a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up, shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat and, squaring his broad chest, he smiled joyously not because there was anything particularly agreeable in his mindthe joyous smile was evoked by a good digestion. But this joyous smile at once recalled everything to him, and he grew thoughtful. Two childish voices (Stepan Arkadyevitch recognized the voices of Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his eldest girl) were heard outside the door. They were carrying something, and dropped it. 'I told you not to sit passengers on the roof, said the little girl in English 'there, pick them up! 'Everything's in confusion, thought Stepan Arkadyevitch 'there are the children running about by themselves. And going to the door, he called them. They threw down the box, that represented a train, and came in to their father. The little girl, her father's favorite, ran up boldly, embraced him, and hung laughingly on his neck, enjoying as she always did the smell of scent that came from his whiskers. At last the little girl kissed his face, which was flushed from his stooping posture and beaming with tenderness, loosed her hands, and was about to run away again but her father held her back. 'How is mamma? he asked, passing his hand over his daughter's smooth, soft little neck. 'Good morning, he said, smiling to the boy, who had come up to greet him. He was conscious that he loved the boy less, and always tried to be fair but the boy felt it, and did not respond with a smile to his father's chilly smile. 'Mamma? She is up, answered the girl. Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed. 'That means that she's not slept again all night, he thought. 'Well, is she cheerful? The little girl knew that there was a quarrel between her father and mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that her father must be aware of this, and that he was pretending when he asked about it so lightly. And she blushed for her father. He at once perceived it, and blushed too. 'I don't know, she said. 'She did not say we must do our lessons, but she said we were to go for a walk with Miss Hoole to grandmamma's. 'Well, go, Tanya, my darling. Oh, wait a minute, though, he said, still holding her and stroking her soft little hand. He took off the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, a little box of sweets, and gave her two, picking out her favorites, a chocolate and a fondant. 'For Grisha? said the little girl, pointing to the chocolate. 'Yes, yes. And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed her on the roots of her hair and neck, and let her go. 'The carriage is ready, said Matvey 'but there's someone to see you with a petition. 'Been here long? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Half an hour. 'How many times have I told you to tell me at once? 'One must let you drink your coffee in peace, at least, said Matvey, in the affectionately gruff tone with which it was impossible to be angry. 'Well, show the person up at once, said Oblonsky, frowning with vexation. The petitioner, the widow of a staff captain Kalinin, came with a request impossible and unreasonable but Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he generally did, made her sit down, heard her to the end attentively without interrupting her, and gave her detailed advice as to how and to whom to apply, and even wrote her, in his large, sprawling, good and legible hand, a confident and fluent little note to a personage who might be of use to her. Having got rid of the staff captain's widow, Stepan Arkadyevitch took his hat and stopped to recollect whether he had forgotten anything. It appeared that he had forgotten nothing except what he wanted to forgethis wife. 'Ah, yes! He bowed his head, and his handsome face assumed a harassed expression. 'To go, or not to go! he said to himself and an inner voice told him he must not go, that nothing could come of it but falsity that to amend, to set right their relations was impossible, because it was impossible to make her attractive again and able to inspire love, or to make him an old man, not susceptible to love. Except deceit and lying nothing could come of it now and deceit and lying were opposed to his nature. 'It must be some time, though it can't go on like this, he said, trying to give himself courage. He squared his chest, took out a cigarette, took two whiffs at it, flung it into a motherofpearl ashtray, and with rapid steps walked through the drawingroom, and opened the other door into his wife's bedroom. Darya Alexandrovna, in a dressing jacket, and with her now scanty, once luxuriant and beautiful hair fastened up with hairpins on the nape of her neck, with a sunken, thin face and large, startled eyes, which looked prominent from the thinness of her face, was standing among a litter of all sorts of things scattered all over the room, before an open bureau, from which she was taking something. Hearing her husband's steps, she stopped, looking towards the door, and trying assiduously to give her features a severe and contemptuous expression. She felt she was afraid of him, and afraid of the coming interview. She was just attempting to do what she had attempted to do ten times already in these last three daysto sort out the children's things and her own, so as to take them to her mother'sand again she could not bring herself to do this but now again, as each time before, she kept saying to herself, 'that things cannot go on like this, that she must take some step to punish him, put him to shame, avenge on him some little part at least of the suffering he had caused her. She still continued to tell herself that she should leave him, but she was conscious that this was impossible it was impossible because she could not get out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and loving him. Besides this, she realized that if even here in her own house she could hardly manage to look after her five children properly, they would be still worse off where she was going with them all. As it was, even in the course of these three days, the youngest was unwell from being given unwholesome soup, and the others had almost gone without their dinner the day before. She was conscious that it was impossible to go away but, cheating herself, she went on all the same sorting out her things and pretending she was going. Seeing her husband, she dropped her hands into the drawer of the bureau as though looking for something, and only looked round at him when he had come quite up to her. But her face, to which she tried to give a severe and resolute expression, betrayed bewilderment and suffering. 'Dolly! he said in a subdued and timid voice. He bent his head towards his shoulder and tried to look pitiful and humble, but for all that he was radiant with freshness and health. In a rapid glance she scanned his figure that beamed with health and freshness. 'Yes, he is happy and content! she thought 'while I.... And that disgusting good nature, which everyone likes him for and praisesI hate that good nature of his, she thought. Her mouth stiffened, the muscles of the cheek contracted on the right side of her pale, nervous face. 'What do you want? she said in a rapid, deep, unnatural voice. 'Dolly! he repeated, with a quiver in his voice. 'Anna is coming today. 'Well, what is that to me? I can't see her! she cried. 'But you must, really, Dolly.... 'Go away, go away, go away! she shrieked, not looking at him, as though this shriek were called up by physical pain. Stepan Arkadyevitch could be calm when he thought of his wife, he could hope that she would come round, as Matvey expressed it, and could quietly go on reading his paper and drinking his coffee but when he saw her tortured, suffering face, heard the tone of her voice, submissive to fate and full of despair, there was a catch in his breath and a lump in his throat, and his eyes began to shine with tears. 'My God! what have I done? Dolly! For God's sake!... You know.... He could not go on there was a sob in his throat. She shut the bureau with a slam, and glanced at him. 'Dolly, what can I say?... One thing forgive.... Remember, cannot nine years of my life atone for an instant.... She dropped her eyes and listened, expecting what he would say, as it were beseeching him in some way or other to make her believe differently. 'instant of passion? he said, and would have gone on, but at that word, as at a pang of physical pain, her lips stiffened again, and again the muscles of her right cheek worked. 'Go away, go out of the room! she shrieked still more shrilly, 'and don't talk to me of your passion and your loathsomeness. She tried to go out, but tottered, and clung to the back of a chair to support herself. His face relaxed, his lips swelled, his eyes were swimming with tears. 'Dolly! he said, sobbing now 'for mercy's sake, think of the children they are not to blame! I am to blame, and punish me, make me expiate my fault. Anything I can do, I am ready to do anything! I am to blame, no words can express how much I am to blame! But, Dolly, forgive me! She sat down. He listened to her hard, heavy breathing, and he was unutterably sorry for her. She tried several times to begin to speak, but could not. He waited. 'You remember the children, Stiva, to play with them but I remember them, and know that this means their ruin, she saidobviously one of the phrases she had more than once repeated to herself in the course of the last few days. She had called him 'Stiva, and he glanced at her with gratitude, and moved to take her hand, but she drew back from him with aversion. 'I think of the children, and for that reason I would do anything in the world to save them, but I don't myself know how to save them. By taking them away from their father, or by leaving them with a vicious fatheryes, a vicious father.... Tell me, after what ... has happened, can we live together? Is that possible? Tell me, eh, is it possible? she repeated, raising her voice, 'after my husband, the father of my children, enters into a love affair with his own children's governess? 'But what could I do? what could I do? he kept saying in a pitiful voice, not knowing what he was saying, as his head sank lower and lower. 'You are loathsome to me, repulsive! she shrieked, getting more and more heated. 'Your tears mean nothing! You have never loved me you have neither heart nor honorable feeling! You are hateful to me, disgusting, a strangeryes, a complete stranger! With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible to herselfstranger. He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and amazed him. He did not understand how his pity for her exasperated her. She saw in him sympathy for her, but not love. 'No, she hates me. She will not forgive me, he thought. 'It is awful! awful! he said. At that moment in the next room a child began to cry probably it had fallen down. Darya Alexandrovna listened, and her face suddenly softened. She seemed to be pulling herself together for a few seconds, as though she did not know where she was, and what she was doing, and getting up rapidly, she moved towards the door. 'Well, she loves my child, he thought, noticing the change of her face at the child's cry, 'my child how can she hate me? 'Dolly, one word more, he said, following her. 'If you come near me, I will call in the servants, the children! They may all know you are a scoundrel! I am going away at once, and you may live here with your mistress! And she went out, slamming the door. Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, wiped his face, and with a subdued tread walked out of the room. 'Matvey says she will come round but how? I don't see the least chance of it. Ah, oh, how horrible it is! And how vulgarly she shouted, he said to himself, remembering her shriek and the words'scoundrel and 'mistress. 'And very likely the maids were listening! Horribly vulgar! horrible! Stepan Arkadyevitch stood a few seconds alone, wiped his face, squared his chest, and walked out of the room. It was Friday, and in the diningroom the German watchmaker was winding up the clock. Stepan Arkadyevitch remembered his joke about this punctual, bald watchmaker, 'that the German was wound up for a whole lifetime himself, to wind up watches, and he smiled. Stepan Arkadyevitch was fond of a joke 'And maybe she will come round! That's a good expression, 'come round,' he thought. 'I must repeat that. 'Matvey! he shouted. 'Arrange everything with Darya in the sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna, he said to Matvey when he came in. 'Yes, sir. Stepan Arkadyevitch put on his fur coat and went out onto the steps. 'You won't dine at home? said Matvey, seeing him off. 'That's as it happens. But here's for the housekeeping, he said, taking ten roubles from his pocketbook. 'That'll be enough. 'Enough or not enough, we must make it do, said Matvey, slamming the carriage door and stepping back onto the steps. Darya Alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the child, and knowing from the sound of the carriage that he had gone off, went back again to her bedroom. It was her solitary refuge from the household cares which crowded upon her directly she went out from it. Even now, in the short time she had been in the nursery, the English governess and Matrona Philimonovna had succeeded in putting several questions to her, which did not admit of delay, and which only she could answer 'What were the children to put on for their walk? Should they have any milk? Should not a new cook be sent for? 'Ah, let me alone, let me alone! she said, and going back to her bedroom she sat down in the same place as she had sat when talking to her husband, clasping tightly her thin hands with the rings that slipped down on her bony fingers, and fell to going over in her memory all the conversation. 'He has gone! But has he broken it off with her? she thought. 'Can it be he sees her? Why didn't I ask him! No, no, reconciliation is impossible. Even if we remain in the same house, we are strangersstrangers forever! She repeated again with special significance the word so dreadful to her. 'And how I loved him! my God, how I loved him!... How I loved him! And now don't I love him? Don't I love him more than before? The most horrible thing is, she began, but did not finish her thought, because Matrona Philimonovna put her head in at the door. 'Let us send for my brother, she said 'he can get a dinner anyway, or we shall have the children getting nothing to eat till six again, like yesterday. 'Very well, I will come directly and see about it. But did you send for some new milk? And Darya Alexandrovna plunged into the duties of the day, and drowned her grief in them for a time. Stepan Arkadyevitch had learned easily at school, thanks to his excellent abilities, but he had been idle and mischievous, and therefore was one of the lowest in his class. But in spite of his habitually dissipated mode of life, his inferior grade in the service, and his comparative youth, he occupied the honorable and lucrative position of president of one of the government boards at Moscow. This post he had received through his sister Anna's husband, Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin, who held one of the most important positions in the ministry to whose department the Moscow office belonged. But if Karenin had not got his brotherinlaw this berth, then through a hundred other personagesbrothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and auntsStiva Oblonsky would have received this post, or some other similar one, together with the salary of six thousand absolutely needful for him, as his affairs, in spite of his wife's considerable property, were in an embarrassed condition. Half Moscow and Petersburg were friends and relations of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He was born in the midst of those who had been and are the powerful ones of this world. Onethird of the men in the government, the older men, had been friends of his father's, and had known him in petticoats another third were his intimate chums, and the remainder were friendly acquaintances. Consequently the distributors of earthly blessings in the shape of places, rents, shares, and such, were all his friends, and could not overlook one of their own set and Oblonsky had no need to make any special exertion to get a lucrative post. He had only not to refuse things, not to show jealousy, not to be quarrelsome or take offense, all of which from his characteristic good nature he never did. It would have struck him as absurd if he had been told that he would not get a position with the salary he required, especially as he expected nothing out of the way he only wanted what the men of his own age and standing did get, and he was no worse qualified for performing duties of the kind than any other man. Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely liked by all who knew him for his good humor, but for his bright disposition, and his unquestionable honesty. In him, in his handsome, radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and the white and red of his face, there was something which produced a physical effect of kindliness and good humor on the people who met him. 'Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is! was almost always said with a smile of delight on meeting him. Even though it happened at times that after a conversation with him it seemed that nothing particularly delightful had happened, the next day, and the next, everyone was just as delighted at meeting him again. After filling for three years the post of president of one of the government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevitch had won the respect, as well as the liking, of his fellowofficials, subordinates, and superiors, and all who had had business with him. The principal qualities in Stepan Arkadyevitch which had gained him this universal respect in the service consisted, in the first place, of his extreme indulgence for others, founded on a consciousness of his own shortcomings secondly, of his perfect liberalismnot the liberalism he read of in the papers, but the liberalism that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated all men perfectly equally and exactly the same, whatever their fortune or calling might be and thirdlythe most important pointhis complete indifference to the business in which he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never carried away, and never made mistakes. On reaching the offices of the board, Stepan Arkadyevitch, escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into his little private room, put on his uniform, and went into the boardroom. The clerks and copyists all rose, greeting him with goodhumored deference. Stepan Arkadyevitch moved quickly, as ever, to his place, shook hands with his colleagues, and sat down. He made a joke or two, and talked just as much as was consistent with due decorum, and began work. No one knew better than Stepan Arkadyevitch how to hit on the exact line between freedom, simplicity, and official stiffness necessary for the agreeable conduct of business. A secretary, with the goodhumored deference common to everyone in Stepan Arkadyevitch's office, came up with papers, and began to speak in the familiar and easy tone which had been introduced by Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'We have succeeded in getting the information from the government department of Penza. Here, would you care?... 'You've got them at last? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laying his finger on the paper. 'Now, gentlemen.... And the sitting of the board began. 'If they knew, he thought, bending his head with a significant air as he listened to the report, 'what a guilty little boy their president was half an hour ago. And his eyes were laughing during the reading of the report. Till two o'clock the sitting would go on without a break, and at two o'clock there would be an interval and luncheon. It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the boardroom suddenly opened and someone came in. All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait of the Tsar and the eagle, delighted at any distraction, looked round at the door but the doorkeeper standing at the door at once drove out the intruder, and closed the glass door after him. When the case had been read through, Stepan Arkadyevitch got up and stretched, and by way of tribute to the liberalism of the times took out a cigarette in the boardroom and went into his private room. Two of the members of the board, the old veteran in the service, Nikitin, and the Kammerjunker Grinevitch, went in with him. 'We shall have time to finish after lunch, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'To be sure we shall! said Nikitin. 'A pretty sharp fellow this Fomin must be, said Grinevitch of one of the persons taking part in the case they were examining. Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned at Grinevitch's words, giving him thereby to understand that it was improper to pass judgment prematurely, and made him no reply. 'Who was that came in? he asked the doorkeeper. 'Someone, your excellency, crept in without permission directly my back was turned. He was asking for you. I told him when the members come out, then.... 'Where is he? 'Maybe he's gone into the passage, but here he comes anyway. That is he, said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built, broadshouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and rapidly up the worn steps of the stone staircase. One of the members going downa lean official with a portfoliostood out of his way and looked disapprovingly at the legs of the stranger, then glanced inquiringly at Oblonsky. Stepan Arkadyevitch was standing at the top of the stairs. His goodnaturedly beaming face above the embroidered collar of his uniform beamed more than ever when he recognized the man coming up. 'Why, it's actually you, Levin, at last! he said with a friendly mocking smile, scanning Levin as he approached. 'How is it you have deigned to look me up in this den? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and not content with shaking hands, he kissed his friend. 'Have you been here long? 'I have just come, and very much wanted to see you, said Levin, looking shyly and at the same time angrily and uneasily around. 'Well, let's go into my room, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who knew his friend's sensitive and irritable shyness, and, taking his arm, he drew him along, as though guiding him through dangers. Stepan Arkadyevitch was on familiar terms with almost all his acquaintances, and called almost all of them by their Christian names old men of sixty, boys of twenty, actors, ministers, merchants, and adjutantgenerals, so that many of his intimate chums were to be found at the extreme ends of the social ladder, and would have been very much surprised to learn that they had, through the medium of Oblonsky, something in common. He was the familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of champagne, and he took a glass of champagne with everyone, and when in consequence he met any of his disreputable chums, as he used in joke to call many of his friends, in the presence of his subordinates, he well knew how, with his characteristic tact, to diminish the disagreeable impression made on them. Levin was not a disreputable chum, but Oblonsky, with his ready tact, felt that Levin fancied he might not care to show his intimacy with him before his subordinates, and so he made haste to take him off into his room. Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky their intimacy did not rest merely on champagne. Levin had been the friend and companion of his early youth. They were fond of one another in spite of the difference of their characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one another who have been together in early youth. But in spite of this, each of themas is often the way with men who have selected careers of different kindsthough in discussion he would even justify the other's career, in his heart despised it. It seemed to each of them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm. Oblonsky could not restrain a slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often he had seen him come up to Moscow from the country where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan Arkadyevitch could never quite make out, and indeed he took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new, unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at, and regarded as trifling. But the difference was that Oblonsky, as he was doing the same as everyone did, laughed complacently and goodhumoredly, while Levin laughed without complacency and sometimes angrily. 'We have long been expecting you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, going into his room and letting Levin's hand go as though to show that here all danger was over. 'I am very, very glad to see you, he went on. 'Well, how are you? Eh? When did you come? Levin was silent, looking at the unknown faces of Oblonsky's two companions, and especially at the hand of the elegant Grinevitch, which had such long white fingers, such long yellow filbertshaped nails, and such huge shining studs on the shirtcuff, that apparently they absorbed all his attention, and allowed him no freedom of thought. Oblonsky noticed this at once, and smiled. 'Ah, to be sure, let me introduce you, he said. 'My colleagues Philip Ivanitch Nikitin, Mihail Stanislavitch Grinevitchand turning to Levin'a district councilor, a modern district councilman, a gymnast who lifts thirteen stone with one hand, a cattlebreeder and sportsman, and my friend, Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin, the brother of Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev. 'Delighted, said the veteran. 'I have the honor of knowing your brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, said Grinevitch, holding out his slender hand with its long nails. Levin frowned, shook hands coldly, and at once turned to Oblonsky. Though he had a great respect for his halfbrother, an author well known to all Russia, he could not endure it when people treated him not as Konstantin Levin, but as the brother of the celebrated Koznishev. 'No, I am no longer a district councilor. I have quarreled with them all, and don't go to the meetings any more, he said, turning to Oblonsky. 'You've been quick about it! said Oblonsky with a smile. 'But how? why? 'It's a long story. I will tell you some time, said Levin, but he began telling him at once. 'Well, to put it shortly, I was convinced that nothing was really done by the district councils, or ever could be, he began, as though someone had just insulted him. 'On one side it's a plaything they play at being a parliament, and I'm neither young enough nor old enough to find amusement in playthings and on the other side (he stammered) 'it's a means for the coterie of the district to make money. Formerly they had wardships, courts of justice, now they have the district councilnot in the form of bribes, but in the form of unearned salary, he said, as hotly as though someone of those present had opposed his opinion. 'Aha! You're in a new phase again, I seea conservative, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'However, we can go into that later. 'Yes, later. But I wanted to see you, said Levin, looking with hatred at Grinevitch's hand. Stepan Arkadyevitch gave a scarcely perceptible smile. 'How was it you used to say you would never wear European dress again? he said, scanning his new suit, obviously cut by a French tailor. 'Ah! I see a new phase. Levin suddenly blushed, not as grown men blush, slightly, without being themselves aware of it, but as boys blush, feeling that they are ridiculous through their shyness, and consequently ashamed of it and blushing still more, almost to the point of tears. And it was so strange to see this sensible, manly face in such a childish plight, that Oblonsky left off looking at him. 'Oh, where shall we meet? You know I want very much to talk to you, said Levin. Oblonsky seemed to ponder. 'I'll tell you what let's go to Gurin's to lunch, and there we can talk. I am free till three. 'No, answered Levin, after an instant's thought, 'I have got to go on somewhere else. 'All right, then, let's dine together. 'Dine together? But I have nothing very particular, only a few words to say, and a question I want to ask you, and we can have a talk afterwards. 'Well, say the few words, then, at once, and we'll gossip after dinner. 'Well, it's this, said Levin 'but it's of no importance, though. His face all at once took an expression of anger from the effort he was making to surmount his shyness. 'What are the Shtcherbatskys doing? Everything as it used to be? he said. Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had long known that Levin was in love with his sisterinlaw, Kitty, gave a hardly perceptible smile, and his eyes sparkled merrily. 'You said a few words, but I can't answer in a few words, because.... Excuse me a minute.... A secretary came in, with respectful familiarity and the modest consciousness, characteristic of every secretary, of superiority to his chief in the knowledge of their business he went up to Oblonsky with some papers, and began, under pretense of asking a question, to explain some objection. Stepan Arkadyevitch, without hearing him out, laid his hand genially on the secretary's sleeve. 'No, you do as I told you, he said, softening his words with a smile, and with a brief explanation of his view of the matter he turned away from the papers, and said 'So do it that way, if you please, Zahar Nikititch. The secretary retired in confusion. During the consultation with the secretary Levin had completely recovered from his embarrassment. He was standing with his elbows on the back of a chair, and on his face was a look of ironical attention. 'I don't understand it, I don't understand it, he said. 'What don't you understand? said Oblonsky, smiling as brightly as ever, and picking up a cigarette. He expected some queer outburst from Levin. 'I don't understand what you are doing, said Levin, shrugging his shoulders. 'How can you do it seriously? 'Why not? 'Why, because there's nothing in it. 'You think so, but we're overwhelmed with work. 'On paper. But, there, you've a gift for it, added Levin. 'That's to say, you think there's a lack of something in me? 'Perhaps so, said Levin. 'But all the same I admire your grandeur, and am proud that I've a friend in such a great person. You've not answered my question, though, he went on, with a desperate effort looking Oblonsky straight in the face. 'Oh, that's all very well. You wait a bit, and you'll come to this yourself. It's very nice for you to have over six thousand acres in the Karazinsky district, and such muscles, and the freshness of a girl of twelve still you'll be one of us one day. Yes, as to your question, there is no change, but it's a pity you've been away so long. 'Oh, why so? Levin queried, panicstricken. 'Oh, nothing, responded Oblonsky. 'We'll talk it over. But what's brought you up to town? 'Oh, we'll talk about that, too, later on, said Levin, reddening again up to his ears. 'All right. I see, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I should ask you to come to us, you know, but my wife's not quite the thing. But I tell you what if you want to see them, they're sure now to be at the Zoological Gardens from four to five. Kitty skates. You drive along there, and I'll come and fetch you, and we'll go and dine somewhere together. 'Capital. So goodbye till then. 'Now mind, you'll forget, I know you, or rush off home to the country! Stepan Arkadyevitch called out laughing. 'No, truly! And Levin went out of the room, only when he was in the doorway remembering that he had forgotten to take leave of Oblonsky's colleagues. 'That gentleman must be a man of great energy, said Grinevitch, when Levin had gone away. 'Yes, my dear boy, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, nodding his head, 'he's a lucky fellow! Over six thousand acres in the Karazinsky district everything before him and what youth and vigor! Not like some of us. 'You have a great deal to complain of, haven't you, Stepan Arkadyevitch? 'Ah, yes, I'm in a poor way, a bad way, said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a heavy sigh. When Oblonsky asked Levin what had brought him to town, Levin blushed, and was furious with himself for blushing, because he could not answer, 'I have come to make your sisterinlaw an offer, though that was precisely what he had come for. The families of the Levins and the Shtcherbatskys were old, noble Moscow families, and had always been on intimate and friendly terms. This intimacy had grown still closer during Levin's student days. He had both prepared for the university with the young Prince Shtcherbatsky, the brother of Kitty and Dolly, and had entered at the same time with him. In those days Levin used often to be in the Shtcherbatskys' house, and he was in love with the Shtcherbatsky household. Strange as it may appear, it was with the household, the family, that Konstantin Levin was in love, especially with the feminine half of the household. Levin did not remember his own mother, and his only sister was older than he was, so that it was in the Shtcherbatskys' house that he saw for the first time that inner life of an old, noble, cultivated, and honorable family of which he had been deprived by the death of his father and mother. All the members of that family, especially the feminine half, were pictured by him, as it were, wrapped about with a mysterious poetical veil, and he not only perceived no defects whatever in them, but under the poetical veil that shrouded them he assumed the existence of the loftiest sentiments and every possible perfection. Why it was the three young ladies had one day to speak French, and the next English why it was that at certain hours they played by turns on the piano, the sounds of which were audible in their brother's room above, where the students used to work why they were visited by those professors of French literature, of music, of drawing, of dancing why at certain hours all the three young ladies, with Mademoiselle Linon, drove in the coach to the Tversky boulevard, dressed in their satin cloaks, Dolly in a long one, Natalia in a halflong one, and Kitty in one so short that her shapely legs in tightlydrawn red stockings were visible to all beholders why it was they had to walk about the Tversky boulevard escorted by a footman with a gold cockade in his hatall this and much more that was done in their mysterious world he did not understand, but he was sure that everything that was done there was very good, and he was in love precisely with the mystery of the proceedings. In his student days he had all but been in love with the eldest, Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky. Then he began being in love with the second. He felt, as it were, that he had to be in love with one of the sisters, only he could not quite make out which. But Natalia, too, had hardly made her appearance in the world when she married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a child when Levin left the university. Young Shtcherbatsky went into the navy, was drowned in the Baltic, and Levin's relations with the Shtcherbatskys, in spite of his friendship with Oblonsky, became less intimate. But when early in the winter of this year Levin came to Moscow, after a year in the country, and saw the Shtcherbatskys, he realized which of the three sisters he was indeed destined to love. One would have thought that nothing could be simpler than for him, a man of good family, rather rich than poor, and thirtytwo years old, to make the young Princess Shtcherbatskaya an offer of marriage in all likelihood he would at once have been looked upon as a good match. But Levin was in love, and so it seemed to him that Kitty was so perfect in every respect that she was a creature far above everything earthly and that he was a creature so low and so earthly that it could not even be conceived that other people and she herself could regard him as worthy of her. After spending two months in Moscow in a state of enchantment, seeing Kitty almost every day in society, into which he went so as to meet her, he abruptly decided that it could not be, and went back to the country. Levin's conviction that it could not be was founded on the idea that in the eyes of her family he was a disadvantageous and worthless match for the charming Kitty, and that Kitty herself could not love him. In her family's eyes he had no ordinary, definite career and position in society, while his contemporaries by this time, when he was thirtytwo, were already, one a colonel, and another a professor, another director of a bank and railways, or president of a board like Oblonsky. But he (he knew very well how he must appear to others) was a country gentleman, occupied in breeding cattle, shooting game, and building barns in other words, a fellow of no ability, who had not turned out well, and who was doing just what, according to the ideas of the world, is done by people fit for nothing else. The mysterious, enchanting Kitty herself could not love such an ugly person as he conceived himself to be, and, above all, such an ordinary, in no way striking person. Moreover, his attitude to Kitty in the pastthe attitude of a grownup person to a child, arising from his friendship with her brotherseemed to him yet another obstacle to love. An ugly, goodnatured man, as he considered himself, might, he supposed, be liked as a friend but to be loved with such a love as that with which he loved Kitty, one would need to be a handsome and, still more, a distinguished man. He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women. But after spending two months alone in the country, he was convinced that this was not one of those passions of which he had had experience in his early youth that this feeling gave him not an instant's rest that he could not live without deciding the question, would she or would she not be his wife, and that his despair had arisen only from his own imaginings, that he had no sort of proof that he would be rejected. And he had now come to Moscow with a firm determination to make an offer, and get married if he were accepted. Or ... he could not conceive what would become of him if he were rejected. On arriving in Moscow by a morning train, Levin had put up at the house of his elder halfbrother, Koznishev. After changing his clothes he went down to his brother's study, intending to talk to him at once about the object of his visit, and to ask his advice but his brother was not alone. With him there was a wellknown professor of philosophy, who had come from Harkov expressly to clear up a difference that had arisen between them on a very important philosophical question. The professor was carrying on a hot crusade against materialists. Sergey Koznishev had been following this crusade with interest, and after reading the professor's last article, he had written him a letter stating his objections. He accused the professor of making too great concessions to the materialists. And the professor had promptly appeared to argue the matter out. The point in discussion was the question then in vogue Is there a line to be drawn between psychological and physiological phenomena in man? and if so, where? Sergey Ivanovitch met his brother with the smile of chilly friendliness he always had for everyone, and introducing him to the professor, went on with the conversation. A little man in spectacles, with a narrow forehead, tore himself from the discussion for an instant to greet Levin, and then went on talking without paying any further attention to him. Levin sat down to wait till the professor should go, but he soon began to get interested in the subject under discussion. Levin had come across the magazine articles about which they were disputing, and had read them, interested in them as a development of the first principles of science, familiar to him as a natural science student at the university. But he had never connected these scientific deductions as to the origin of man as an animal, as to reflex action, biology, and sociology, with those questions as to the meaning of life and death to himself, which had of late been more and more often in his mind. As he listened to his brother's argument with the professor, he noticed that they connected these scientific questions with those spiritual problems, that at times they almost touched on the latter but every time they were close upon what seemed to him the chief point, they promptly beat a hasty retreat, and plunged again into a sea of subtle distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions, and appeals to authorities, and it was with difficulty that he understood what they were talking about. 'I cannot admit it, said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his habitual clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of phrase. 'I cannot in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of the external world has been derived from perceptions. The most fundamental idea, the idea of existence, has not been received by me through sensation indeed, there is no special senseorgan for the transmission of such an idea. 'Yes, but theyWurt, and Knaust, and Pripasovwould answer that your consciousness of existence is derived from the conjunction of all your sensations, that that consciousness of existence is the result of your sensations. Wurt, indeed, says plainly that, assuming there are no sensations, it follows that there is no idea of existence. 'I maintain the contrary, began Sergey Ivanovitch. But here it seemed to Levin that just as they were close upon the real point of the matter, they were again retreating, and he made up his mind to put a question to the professor. 'According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my body is dead, I can have no existence of any sort? he queried. The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering at the interruption, looked round at the strange inquirer, more like a bargeman than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon Sergey Ivanovitch, as though to ask What's one to say to him? But Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been talking with far less heat and onesidedness than the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to answer the professor, and at the same time to comprehend the simple and natural point of view from which the question was put, smiled and said 'That question we have no right to answer as yet. 'We have not the requisite data, chimed in the professor, and he went back to his argument. 'No, he said 'I would point out the fact that if, as Pripasov directly asserts, perception is based on sensation, then we are bound to distinguish sharply between these two conceptions. Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to go. When the professor had gone, Sergey Ivanovitch turned to his brother. 'Delighted that you've come. For some time, is it? How's your farming getting on? Levin knew that his elder brother took little interest in farming, and only put the question in deference to him, and so he only told him about the sale of his wheat and money matters. Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination to get married, and to ask his advice he had indeed firmly resolved to do so. But after seeing his brother, listening to his conversation with the professor, hearing afterwards the unconsciously patronizing tone in which his brother questioned him about agricultural matters (their mother's property had not been divided, and Levin took charge of both their shares), Levin felt that he could not for some reason begin to talk to him of his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother would not look at it as he would have wished him to. 'Well, how is your district council doing? asked Sergey Ivanovitch, who was greatly interested in these local boards and attached great importance to them. 'I really don't know. 'What! Why, surely you're a member of the board? 'No, I'm not a member now I've resigned, answered Levin, 'and I no longer attend the meetings. 'What a pity! commented Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning. Levin in selfdefense began to describe what took place in the meetings in his district. 'That's how it always is! Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him. 'We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it's our strong point, really, the faculty of seeing our own shortcomings but we overdo it, we comfort ourselves with irony which we always have on the tip of our tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our local selfgovernment to any other European peoplewhy, the Germans or the English would have worked their way to freedom from them, while we simply turn them into ridicule. 'But how can it be helped? said Levin penitently. 'It was my last effort. And I did try with all my soul. I can't. I'm no good at it. 'It's not that you're no good at it, said Sergey Ivanovitch 'it is that you don't look at it as you should. 'Perhaps not, Levin answered dejectedly. 'Oh! do you know brother Nikolay's turned up again? This brother Nikolay was the elder brother of Konstantin Levin, and halfbrother of Sergey Ivanovitch a man utterly ruined, who had dissipated the greater part of his fortune, was living in the strangest and lowest company, and had quarreled with his brothers. 'What did you say? Levin cried with horror. 'How do you know? 'Prokofy saw him in the street. 'Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know? Levin got up from his chair, as though on the point of starting off at once. 'I am sorry I told you, said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head at his younger brother's excitement. 'I sent to find out where he is living, and sent him his IOU to Trubin, which I paid. This is the answer he sent me. And Sergey Ivanovitch took a note from under a paperweight and handed it to his brother. Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting 'I humbly beg you to leave me in peace. That's the only favor I ask of my gracious brothers.Nikolay Levin. Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note in his hands opposite Sergey Ivanovitch. There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to forget his unhappy brother for the time, and the consciousness that it would be base to do so. 'He obviously wants to offend me, pursued Sergey Ivanovitch 'but he cannot offend me, and I should have wished with all my heart to assist him, but I know it's impossible to do that. 'Yes, yes, repeated Levin. 'I understand and appreciate your attitude to him but I shall go and see him. 'If you want to, do but I shouldn't advise it, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'As regards myself, I have no fear of your doing so he will not make you quarrel with me but for your own sake, I should say you would do better not to go. You can't do him any good still, do as you please. 'Very likely I can't do any good, but I feelespecially at such a momentbut that's another thingI feel I could not be at peace. 'Well, that I don't understand, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'One thing I do understand, he added 'it's a lesson in humility. I have come to look very differently and more charitably on what is called infamous since brother Nikolay has become what he is ... you know what he did.... 'Oh, it's awful, awful! repeated Levin. After obtaining his brother's address from Sergey Ivanovitch's footman, Levin was on the point of setting off at once to see him, but on second thought he decided to put off his visit till the evening. The first thing to do to set his heart at rest was to accomplish what he had come to Moscow for. From his brother's Levin went to Oblonsky's office, and on getting news of the Shtcherbatskys from him, he drove to the place where he had been told he might find Kitty. At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped out of a hired sledge at the Zoological Gardens, and turned along the path to the frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing that he would certainly find her there, as he had seen the Shtcherbatskys' carriage at the entrance. It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sledges, drivers, and policemen were standing in the approach. Crowds of welldressed people, with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about the entrance and along the wellswept little paths between the little houses adorned with carving in the Russian style. The old curly birches of the gardens, all their twigs laden with snow, looked as though freshly decked in sacred vestments. He walked along the path towards the skatingground, and kept saying to himself'You mustn't be excited, you must be calm. What's the matter with you? What do you want? Be quiet, stupid, he conjured his heart. And the more he tried to compose himself, the more breathless he found himself. An acquaintance met him and called him by his name, but Levin did not even recognize him. He went towards the mounds, whence came the clank of the chains of sledges as they slipped down or were dragged up, the rumble of the sliding sledges, and the sounds of merry voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skatingground lay open before his eyes, and at once, amidst all the skaters, he knew her. He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light on all round her. 'Is it possible I can go over there on the ice, go up to her? he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking. On that day of the week and at that time of day people of one set, all acquainted with one another, used to meet on the ice. There were crack skaters there, showing off their skill, and learners clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, boys, and elderly people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to Levin an elect band of blissful beings because they were here, near her. All the skaters, it seemed, with perfect selfpossession, skated towards her, skated by her, even spoke to her, and were happy, quite apart from her, enjoying the capital ice and the fine weather. Nikolay Shtcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and tight trousers, was sitting on a garden seat with his skates on. Seeing Levin, he shouted to him 'Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? Firstrate icedo put your skates on. 'I haven't got my skates, Levin answered, marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and looking towards Levin, whom she had recognized, she smiled at him, and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn, she gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to Levin. She was more splendid than he had imagined her. When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and good humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realized. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood. 'Have you been here long? she said, giving him her hand. 'Thank you, she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her muff. 'I? I've not long ... yesterday ... I mean today ... I arrived, answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her question. 'I was meaning to come and see you, he said and then, recollecting with what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly overcome with confusion and blushed. 'I didn't know you could skate, and skate so well. She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the cause of his confusion. 'Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you are the best of skaters, she said, with her little blackgloved hand brushing a grain of hoarfrost off her muff. 'Yes, I used once to skate with passion I wanted to reach perfection. 'You do everything with passion, I think, she said smiling. 'I should so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us skate together. 'Skate together! Can that be possible? thought Levin, gazing at her. 'I'll put them on directly, he said. And he went off to get skates. 'It's a long while since we've seen you here, sir, said the attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. 'Except you, there's none of the gentlemen firstrate skaters. Will that be all right? said he, tightening the strap. 'Oh, yes, yes make haste, please, answered Levin, with difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which would overspread his face. 'Yes, he thought, 'this now is life, this is happiness! Together, she said let us skate together! Speak to her now? But that's just why I'm afraid to speakbecause I'm happy now, happy in hope, anyway.... And then?... But I must! I must! I must! Away with weakness! Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and scurrying over the rough ice round the hut, came out on the smooth ice and skated without effort, as it were, by simple exercise of will, increasing and slackening speed and turning his course. He approached with timidity, but again her smile reassured him. She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she grasped his hand. 'With you I should soon learn I somehow feel confidence in you, she said to him. 'And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me, he said, but was at once panicstricken at what he had said, and blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when all at once, like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its friendliness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted the working of thought a crease showed on her smooth brow. 'Is there anything troubling you?though I've no right to ask such a question, he added hurriedly. 'Oh, why so?... No, I have nothing to trouble me, she responded coldly and she added immediately 'You haven't seen Mlle. Linon, have you? 'Not yet. 'Go and speak to her, she likes you so much. 'What's wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me! thought Levin, and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray ringlets, who was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth, she greeted him as an old friend. 'Yes, you see we're growing up, she said to him, glancing towards Kitty, 'and growing old. Tiny bear has grown big now! pursued the Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the three young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the English nursery tale. 'Do you remember that's what you used to call them? He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at the joke for ten years now, and was fond of it. 'Now, go and skate, go and skate. Our Kitty has learned to skate nicely, hasn't she? When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern her eyes looked at him with the same sincerity and friendliness, but Levin fancied that in her friendliness there was a certain note of deliberate composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a little of her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him about his life. 'Surely you must be dull in the country in the winter, aren't you? she said. 'No, I'm not dull, I am very busy, he said, feeling that she was holding him in check by her composed tone, which he would not have the force to break through, just as it had been at the beginning of the winter. 'Are you going to stay in town long? Kitty questioned him. 'I don't know, he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The thought that if he were held in check by her tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without deciding anything came into his mind, and he resolved to make a struggle against it. 'How is it you don't know? 'I don't know. It depends upon you, he said, and was immediately horrorstricken at his own words. Whether it was that she had heard his words, or that she did not want to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out, and hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said something to her, and went towards the pavilion where the ladies took off their skates. 'My God! what have I done! Merciful God! help me, guide me, said Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a need of violent exercise, he skated about describing inner and outer circles. At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of the day, came out of the coffeehouse in his skates, with a cigarette in his mouth. Taking a run, he dashed down the steps in his skates, crashing and bounding up and down. He flew down, and without even changing the position of his hands, skated away over the ice. 'Ah, that's a new trick! said Levin, and he promptly ran up to the top to do this new trick. 'Don't break your neck! it needs practice! Nikolay Shtcherbatsky shouted after him. Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with his hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice with his hand, with a violent effort recovered himself, and skated off, laughing. 'How splendid, how nice he is! Kitty was thinking at that time, as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon, and looked towards him with a smile of quiet affection, as though he were a favorite brother. 'And can it be my fault, can I have done anything wrong? They talk of flirtation. I know it's not he that I love but still I am happy with him, and he's so jolly. Only, why did he say that?... she mused. Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and daughter at the entrance of the gardens. 'Delighted to see you, said Princess Shtcherbatskaya. 'On Thursdays we are home, as always. 'Today, then? 'We shall be pleased to see you, the princess said stiffly. This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned her head, and with a smile said 'Goodbye till this evening. At that moment Stepan Arkadyevitch, his hat cocked on one side, with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a conquering hero. But as he approached his motherinlaw, he responded in a mournful and crestfallen tone to her inquiries about Dolly's health. After a little subdued and dejected conversation with his motherinlaw, he threw out his chest again, and put his arm in Levin's. 'Well, shall we set off? he asked. 'I've been thinking about you all this time, and I'm very, very glad you've come, he said, looking him in the face with a significant air. 'Yes, come along, answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly the sound of that voice saying, 'Goodbye till this evening, and seeing the smile with which it was said. 'To the England or the Hermitage? 'I don't mind which. 'All right, then, the England, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, selecting that restaurant because he owed more there than at the Hermitage, and consequently considered it mean to avoid it. 'Have you got a sledge? That's firstrate, for I sent my carriage home. The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what that change in Kitty's expression had meant, and alternately assuring himself that there was hope, and falling into despair, seeing clearly that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while he felt himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had been before her smile and those words, 'Goodbye till this evening. Stepan Arkadyevitch was absorbed during the drive in composing the menu of the dinner. 'You like turbot, don't you? he said to Levin as they were arriving. 'Eh? responded Levin. 'Turbot? Yes, I'm awfully fond of turbot. When Levin went into the restaurant with Oblonsky, he could not help noticing a certain peculiarity of expression, as it were, a restrained radiance, about the face and whole figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch. Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat over one ear walked into the diningroom, giving directions to the Tatar waiters, who were clustered about him in evening coats, bearing napkins. Bowing to right and left to the people he met, and here as everywhere joyously greeting acquaintances, he went up to the sideboard for a preliminary appetizer of fish and vodka, and said to the painted Frenchwoman decked in ribbons, lace, and ringlets, behind the counter, something so amusing that even that Frenchwoman was moved to genuine laughter. Levin for his part refrained from taking any vodka simply because he felt such a loathing of that Frenchwoman, all made up, it seemed, of false hair, poudre de riz, and vinaigre de toilette. He made haste to move away from her, as from a dirty place. His whole soul was filled with memories of Kitty, and there was a smile of triumph and happiness shining in his eyes. 'This way, your excellency, please. Your excellency won't be disturbed here, said a particularly pertinacious, whiteheaded old Tatar with immense hips and coattails gaping widely behind. 'Walk in, your excellency, he said to Levin by way of showing his respect to Stepan Arkadyevitch, being attentive to his guest as well. Instantly flinging a fresh cloth over the round table under the bronze chandelier, though it already had a table cloth on it, he pushed up velvet chairs, and came to a standstill before Stepan Arkadyevitch with a napkin and a bill of fare in his hands, awaiting his commands. 'If you prefer it, your excellency, a private room will be free directly Prince Golistin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come in. 'Ah! oysters. Stepan Arkadyevitch became thoughtful. 'How if we were to change our program, Levin? he said, keeping his finger on the bill of fare. And his face expressed serious hesitation. 'Are the oysters good? Mind now. 'They're Flensburg, your excellency. We've no Ostend. 'Flensburg will do, but are they fresh? 'Only arrived yesterday. 'Well, then, how if we were to begin with oysters, and so change the whole program? Eh? 'It's all the same to me. I should like cabbage soup and porridge better than anything but of course there's nothing like that here. 'Porridge  la Russe, your honor would like? said the Tatar, bending down to Levin, like a nurse speaking to a child. 'No, joking apart, whatever you choose is sure to be good. I've been skating, and I'm hungry. And don't imagine, he added, detecting a look of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, 'that I shan't appreciate your choice. I am fond of good things. 'I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of life, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well, then, my friend, you give us twoor better say threedozen oysters, clear soup with vegetables.... 'Printanire, prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevitch apparently did not care to allow him the satisfaction of giving the French names of the dishes. 'With vegetables in it, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce, then ... roast beef and mind it's good. Yes, and capons, perhaps, and then sweets. The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevitch's way not to call the dishes by the names in the French bill of fare, did not repeat them after him, but could not resist rehearsing the whole menu to himself according to the bill'Soupe printanire, turbot, sauce Beaumarchais, poulard  l'estragon, macdoine de fruits ... etc., and then instantly, as though worked by springs, laying down one bound bill of fare, he took up another, the list of wines, and submitted it to Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'What shall we drink? 'What you like, only not too much. Champagne, said Levin. 'What! to start with? You're right though, I dare say. Do you like the white seal? 'Cachet blanc, prompted the Tatar. 'Very well, then, give us that brand with the oysters, and then we'll see. 'Yes, sir. And what table wine? 'You can give us Nuits. Oh, no, better the classic Chablis. 'Yes, sir. And your cheese, your excellency? 'Oh, yes, Parmesan. Or would you like another? 'No, it's all the same to me, said Levin, unable to suppress a smile. And the Tatar ran off with flying coattails, and in five minutes darted in with a dish of opened oysters on motherofpearl shells, and a bottle between his fingers. Stepan Arkadyevitch crushed the starchy napkin, tucked it into his waistcoat, and settling his arms comfortably, started on the oysters. 'Not bad, he said, stripping the oysters from the pearly shell with a silver fork, and swallowing them one after another. 'Not bad, he repeated, turning his dewy, brilliant eyes from Levin to the Tatar. Levin ate the oysters indeed, though white bread and cheese would have pleased him better. But he was admiring Oblonsky. Even the Tatar, uncorking the bottle and pouring the sparkling wine into the delicate glasses, glanced at Stepan Arkadyevitch, and settled his white cravat with a perceptible smile of satisfaction. 'You don't care much for oysters, do you? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, emptying his wineglass, 'or you're worried about something. Eh? He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But it was not that Levin was not in good spirits he was ill at ease. With what he had in his soul, he felt sore and uncomfortable in the restaurant, in the midst of private rooms where men were dining with ladies, in all this fuss and bustle the surroundings of bronzes, lookingglasses, gas, and waitersall of it was offensive to him. He was afraid of sullying what his soul was brimful of. 'I? Yes, I am but besides, all this bothers me, he said. 'You can't conceive how queer it all seems to a country person like me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your place.... 'Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevitch's nails, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing. 'It's too much for me, responded Levin. 'Do try, now, and put yourself in my place, take the point of view of a country person. We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails sometimes we turn up our sleeves. And here people purposely let their nails grow as long as they will, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with their hands. Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled gaily. 'Oh, yes, that's just a sign that he has no need to do coarse work. His work is with the mind.... 'Maybe. But still it's queer to me, just as at this moment it seems queer to me that we country folks try to get our meals over as soon as we can, so as to be ready for our work, while here are we trying to drag out our meal as long as possible, and with that object eating oysters.... 'Why, of course, objected Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'But that's just the aim of civilizationto make everything a source of enjoyment. 'Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage. 'And so you are a savage. All you Levins are savages. Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolay, and felt ashamed and sore, and he scowled but Oblonsky began speaking of a subject which at once drew his attention. 'Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people, the Shtcherbatskys', I mean? he said, his eyes sparkling significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese towards him. 'Yes, I shall certainly go, replied Levin 'though I fancied the princess was not very warm in her invitation. 'What nonsense! That's her manner.... Come, boy, the soup!... That's her mannergrande dame, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I'm coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonina's rehearsal. Come, isn't it true that you're a savage? How do you explain the sudden way in which you vanished from Moscow? The Shtcherbatskys were continually asking me about you, as though I ought to know. The only thing I know is that you always do what no one else does. 'Yes, said Levin, slowly and with emotion, 'you're right. I am a savage. Only, my savageness is not in having gone away, but in coming now. Now I have come.... 'Oh, what a lucky fellow you are! broke in Stepan Arkadyevitch, looking into Levin's eyes. 'Why? ''I know a gallant steed by tokens sure, And by his eyes I know a youth in love,' declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Everything is before you. 'Why, is it over for you already? 'No not over exactly, but the future is yours, and the present is mine, and the presentwell, it's not all that it might be. 'How so? 'Oh, things go wrong. But I don't want to talk of myself, and besides I can't explain it all, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?... Hi! take away! he called to the Tatar. 'You guess? responded Levin, his eyes like deep wells of light fixed on Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I guess, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see by that whether I guess right or wrong, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, gazing at Levin with a subtle smile. 'Well, and what have you to say to me? said Levin in a quivering voice, feeling that all the muscles of his face were quivering too. 'How do you look at the question? Stepan Arkadyevitch slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never taking his eyes off Levin. 'I? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'there's nothing I desire so much as thatnothing! It would be the best thing that could be. 'But you're not making a mistake? You know what we're speaking of? said Levin, piercing him with his eyes. 'You think it's possible? 'I think it's possible. Why not possible? 'No! do you really think it's possible? No, tell me all you think! Oh, but if ... if refusal's in store for me!... Indeed I feel sure.... 'Why should you think that? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling at his excitement. 'It seems so to me sometimes. That will be awful for me, and for her too. 'Oh, well, anyway there's nothing awful in it for a girl. Every girl's proud of an offer. 'Yes, every girl, but not she. Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He so well knew that feeling of Levin's, that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two classes one classall the girls in the world except her, and those girls with all sorts of human weaknesses, and very ordinary girls the other classshe alone, having no weaknesses of any sort and higher than all humanity. 'Stay, take some sauce, he said, holding back Levin's hand as it pushed away the sauce. Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let Stepan Arkadyevitch go on with his dinner. 'No, stop a minute, stop a minute, he said. 'You must understand that it's a question of life and death for me. I have never spoken to anyone of this. And there's no one I could speak of it to, except you. You know we're utterly unlike each other, different tastes and views and everything but I know you're fond of me and understand me, and that's why I like you awfully. But for God's sake, be quite straightforward with me. 'I tell you what I think, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. 'But I'll say more my wife is a wonderful woman.... Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, remembering his position with his wife, and, after a moment's silence, resumed'She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right through people but that's not all she knows what will come to pass, especially in the way of marriages. She foretold, for instance, that Princess Shahovskaya would marry Brenteln. No one would believe it, but it came to pass. And she's on your side. 'How do you mean? 'It's not only that she likes youshe says that Kitty is certain to be your wife. At these words Levin's face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a smile not far from tears of emotion. 'She says that! cried Levin. 'I always said she was exquisite, your wife. There, that's enough, enough said about it, he said, getting up from his seat. 'All right, but do sit down. But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twice up and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids that his tears might not fall, and only then sat down to the table. 'You must understand, said he, 'it's not love. I've been in love, but it's not that. It's not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me has taken possession of me. I went away, you see, because I made up my mind that it could never be, you understand, as a happiness that does not come on earth but I've struggled with myself, I see there's no living without it. And it must be settled. 'What did you go away for? 'Ah, stop a minute! Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one! The questions one must ask oneself! Listen. You can't imagine what you've done for me by what you said. I'm so happy that I've become positively hateful I've forgotten everything. I heard today that my brother Nikolay ... you know, he's here ... I had even forgotten him. It seems to me that he's happy too. It's a sort of madness. But one thing's awful.... Here, you've been married, you know the feeling ... it's awful that weoldwith a past ... not of love, but of sins ... are brought all at once so near to a creature pure and innocent it's loathsome, and that's why one can't help feeling oneself unworthy. 'Oh, well, you've not many sins on your conscience. 'Alas! all the same, said Levin, 'when with loathing I go over my life, I shudder and curse and bitterly regret it.... Yes. 'What would you have? The world's made so, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'The one comfort is like that prayer, which I always liked 'Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to Thy lovingkindness.' That's the only way she can forgive me. Levin emptied his glass, and they were silent for a while. 'There's one other thing I ought to tell you. Do you know Vronsky? Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Levin. 'No, I don't. Why do you ask? 'Give us another bottle, Stepan Arkadyevitch directed the Tatar, who was filling up their glasses and fidgeting round them just when he was not wanted. 'Why you ought to know Vronsky is that he's one of your rivals. 'Who's Vronsky? said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had just been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression. 'Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Petersburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver when I was there on official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aidedecamp, and with all that a very nice, goodnatured fellow. But he's more than simply a goodnatured fellow, as I've found out herehe's a cultivated man, too, and very intelligent he's a man who'll make his mark. Levin scowled and was dumb. 'Well, he turned up here soon after you'd gone, and as I can see, he's over head and ears in love with Kitty, and you know that her mother.... 'Excuse me, but I know nothing, said Levin, frowning gloomily. And immediately he recollected his brother Nikolay and how hateful he was to have been able to forget him. 'You wait a bit, wait a bit, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling and touching his hand. 'I've told you what I know, and I repeat that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor. Levin dropped back in his chair his face was pale. 'But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as may be, pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass. 'No, thanks, I can't drink any more, said Levin, pushing away his glass. 'I shall be drunk.... Come, tell me how are you getting on? he went on, obviously anxious to change the conversation. 'One word more in any case I advise you to settle the question soon. Tonight I don't advise you to speak, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Go round tomorrow morning, make an offer in due form, and God bless you.... 'Oh, do you still think of coming to me for some shooting? Come next spring, do, said Levin. Now his whole soul was full of remorse that he had begun this conversation with Stepan Arkadyevitch. A feeling such as his was profaned by talk of the rivalry of some Petersburg officer, of the suppositions and the counsels of Stepan Arkadyevitch. Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He knew what was passing in Levin's soul. 'I'll come some day, he said. 'But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now, he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass 'give me your advice. 'Why, what is it? 'I'll tell you. Suppose you're married, you love your wife, but you're fascinated by another woman.... 'Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how ... just as I can't comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight to a baker's shop and steal a roll. Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes sparkled more than usual. 'Why not? A roll will sometimes smell so good one can't resist it. 'Himmlisch ist's, wenn ich bezwungen Meine irdische Begier Aber doch wenn's nich gelungen Hatt' ich auch recht hbsch Plaisir! As he said this, Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled subtly. Levin, too, could not help smiling. 'Yes, but joking apart, resumed Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'you must understand that the woman is a sweet, gentle loving creature, poor and lonely, and has sacrificed everything. Now, when the thing's done, don't you see, can one possibly cast her off? Even supposing one parts from her, so as not to break up one's family life, still, can one help feeling for her, setting her on her feet, softening her lot? 'Well, you must excuse me there. You know to me all women are divided into two classes ... at least no ... truer to say there are women and there are ... I've never seen exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are the same. 'But the Magdalen? 'Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered. However, I'm not saying so much what I think, as what I feel. I have a loathing for fallen women. You're afraid of spiders, and I of these vermin. Most likely you've not made a study of spiders and don't know their character and so it is with me. 'It's very well for you to talk like that it's very much like that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all difficult questions over his right shoulder. But to deny the facts is no answer. What's to be doneyou tell me that, what's to be done? Your wife gets older, while you're full of life. Before you've time to look round, you feel that you can't love your wife with love, however much you may esteem her. And then all at once love turns up, and you're done for, done for, Stepan Arkadyevitch said with weary despair. Levin half smiled. 'Yes, you're done for, resumed Oblonsky. 'But what's to be done? 'Don't steal rolls. Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed outright. 'Oh, moralist! But you must understand, there are two women one insists only on her rights, and those rights are your love, which you can't give her and the other sacrifices everything for you and asks for nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act? There's a fearful tragedy in it. 'If you care for my profession of faith as regards that, I'll tell you that I don't believe there was any tragedy about it. And this is why. To my mind, love ... both the sorts of love, which you remember Plato defines in his Banquet, served as the test of men. Some men only understand one sort, and some only the other. And those who only know the nonplatonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of tragedy. 'I'm much obliged for the gratification, my humble respects'that's all the tragedy. And in platonic love there can be no tragedy, because in that love all is clear and pure, because.... At that instant Levin recollected his own sins and the inner conflict he had lived through. And he added unexpectedly 'But perhaps you are right. Very likely ... I don't know, I don't know. 'It's this, don't you see, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'you're very much all of a piece. That's your strong point and your failing. You have a character that's all of a piece, and you want the whole of life to be of a piece toobut that's not how it is. You despise public official work because you want the reality to be invariably corresponding all the while with the aimand that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too, always to have a defined aim, and love and family life always to be undividedand that's not how it is. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow. Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of his own affairs, and did not hear Oblonsky. And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends, though they had been dining and drinking together, which should have drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs, and they had nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky had more than once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness, instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and he knew what to do in such cases. 'Bill! he called, and he went into the next room where he promptly came across an aidedecamp of his acquaintance and dropped into conversation with him about an actress and her protector. And at once in the conversation with the aidedecamp Oblonsky had a sense of relaxation and relief after the conversation with Levin, which always put him to too great a mental and spiritual strain. When the Tatar appeared with a bill for twentysix roubles and odd kopecks, besides a tip for himself, Levin, who would another time have been horrified, like anyone from the country, at his share of fourteen roubles, did not notice it, paid, and set off homewards to dress and go to the Shtcherbatskys' there to decide his fate. The young Princess Kitty Shtcherbatskaya was eighteen. It was the first winter that she had been out in the world. Her success in society had been greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and greater even than her mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the young men who danced at the Moscow balls being almost all in love with Kitty, two serious suitors had already this first winter made their appearance Levin, and immediately after his departure, Count Vronsky. Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits, and evident love for Kitty, had led to the first serious conversations between Kitty's parents as to her future, and to disputes between them. The prince was on Levin's side he said he wished for nothing better for Kitty. The princess for her part, going round the question in the manner peculiar to women, maintained that Kitty was too young, that Levin had done nothing to prove that he had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great attraction to him, and other side issues but she did not state the principal point, which was that she looked for a better match for her daughter, and that Levin was not to her liking, and she did not understand him. When Levin had abruptly departed, the princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly 'You see I was right. When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was to make not simply a good, but a brilliant match. In the mother's eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky and Levin. She disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising opinions and his shyness in society, founded, as she supposed, on his pride and his queer sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed in cattle and peasants. She did not very much like it that he, who was in love with her daughter, had kept coming to the house for six weeks, as though he were waiting for something, inspecting, as though he were afraid he might be doing them too great an honor by making an offer, and did not realize that a man, who continually visits at a house where there is a young unmarried girl, is bound to make his intentions clear. And suddenly, without doing so, he disappeared. 'It's as well he's not attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen in love with him, thought the mother. Vronsky satisfied all the mother's desires. Very wealthy, clever, of aristocratic family, on the highroad to a brilliant career in the army and at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished for. Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at balls, danced with her, and came continually to the house, consequently there could be no doubt of the seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother had spent the whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and agitation. Princess Shtcherbatskaya had herself been married thirty years ago, her aunt arranging the match. Her husband, about whom everything was well known beforehand, had come, looked at his future bride, and been looked at. The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their mutual impression. That impression had been favorable. Afterwards, on a day fixed beforehand, the expected offer was made to her parents, and accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed, at least, to the princess. But over her own daughters she had felt how far from simple and easy is the business, apparently so commonplace, of marrying off one's daughters. The panics that had been lived through, the thoughts that had been brooded over, the money that had been wasted, and the disputes with her husband over marrying the two elder girls, Darya and Natalia! Now, since the youngest had come out, she was going through the same terrors, the same doubts, and still more violent quarrels with her husband than she had over the elder girls. The old prince, like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on the score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was irrationally jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite. At every turn he had scenes with the princess for compromising her daughter. The princess had grown accustomed to this already with her other daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the prince's touchiness. She saw that of late years much was changed in the manners of society, that a mother's duties had become still more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty's age formed some sort of clubs, went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men's society drove about the streets alone, many of them did not curtsey, and, what was the most important thing, all the girls were firmly convinced that to choose their husbands was their own affair, and not their parents'. 'Marriages aren't made nowadays as they used to be, was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their elders. But how marriages were made now, the princess could not learn from anyone. The French fashionof the parents arranging their children's futurewas not accepted it was condemned. The English fashion of the complete independence of girls was also not accepted, and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion of matchmaking by the offices of intermediate persons was for some reason considered unseemly it was ridiculed by everyone, and by the princess herself. But how girls were to be married, and how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone with whom the princess had chanced to discuss the matter said the same thing 'Mercy on us, it's high time in our day to cast off all that oldfashioned business. It's the young people have to marry and not their parents and so we ought to leave the young people to arrange it as they choose. It was very easy for anyone to say that who had no daughters, but the princess realized that in the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her or who was quite unfit to be her husband. And, however much it was instilled into the princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable playthings for children five years old ought to be loaded pistols. And so the princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over her elder sisters. Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply flirting with her daughter. She saw that her daughter was in love with him, but tried to comfort herself with the thought that he was an honorable man, and would not do this. But at the same time she knew how easy it is, with the freedom of manners of today, to turn a girl's head, and how lightly men generally regard such a crime. The week before, Kitty had told her mother of a conversation she had with Vronsky during a mazurka. This conversation had partly reassured the princess but perfectly at ease she could not be. Vronsky had told Kitty that both he and his brother were so used to obeying their mother that they never made up their minds to any important undertaking without consulting her. 'And just now, I am impatiently awaiting my mother's arrival from Petersburg, as peculiarly fortunate, he told her. Kitty had repeated this without attaching any significance to the words. But her mother saw them in a different light. She knew that the old lady was expected from day to day, that she would be pleased at her son's choice, and she felt it strange that he should not make his offer through fear of vexing his mother. However, she was so anxious for the marriage itself, and still more for relief from her fears, that she believed it was so. Bitter as it was for the princess to see the unhappiness of her eldest daughter, Dolly, on the point of leaving her husband, her anxiety over the decision of her youngest daughter's fate engrossed all her feelings. Today, with Levin's reappearance, a fresh source of anxiety arose. She was afraid that her daughter, who had at one time, as she fancied, a feeling for Levin, might, from extreme sense of honor, refuse Vronsky, and that Levin's arrival might generally complicate and delay the affair so near being concluded. 'Why, has he been here long? the princess asked about Levin, as they returned home. 'He came today, mamma. 'There's one thing I want to say.... began the princess, and from her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would be. 'Mamma, she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to her, 'please, please don't say anything about that. I know, I know all about it. She wished for what her mother wished for, but the motives of her mother's wishes wounded her. 'I only want to say that to raise hopes.... 'Mamma, darling, for goodness' sake, don't talk about it. It's so horrible to talk about it. 'I won't, said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter's eyes 'but one thing, my love you promised me you would have no secrets from me. You won't? 'Never, mamma, none, answered Kitty, flushing a little, and looking her mother straight in the face, 'but there's no use in my telling you anything, and I ... I ... if I wanted to, I don't know what to say or how.... I don't know.... 'No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes, thought the mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The princess smiled that what was taking place just now in her soul seemed to the poor child so immense and so important. After dinner, and till the beginning of the evening, Kitty was feeling a sensation akin to the sensation of a young man before a battle. Her heart throbbed violently, and her thoughts would not rest on anything. She felt that this evening, when they would both meet for the first time, would be a turning point in her life. And she was continually picturing them to herself, at one moment each separately, and then both together. When she mused on the past, she dwelt with pleasure, with tenderness, on the memories of her relations with Levin. The memories of childhood and of Levin's friendship with her dead brother gave a special poetic charm to her relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt certain, was flattering and delightful to her and it was pleasant for her to think of Levin. In her memories of Vronsky there always entered a certain element of awkwardness, though he was in the highest degree wellbred and at ease, as though there were some false notenot in Vronsky, he was very simple and nice, but in herself, while with Levin she felt perfectly simple and clear. But, on the other hand, directly she thought of the future with Vronsky, there arose before her a perspective of brilliant happiness with Levin the future seemed misty. When she went upstairs to dress, and looked into the lookingglass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her good days, and that she was in complete possession of all her forces,she needed this so for what lay before her she was conscious of external composure and free grace in her movements. At halfpast seven she had only just gone down into the drawingroom, when the footman announced, 'Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin. The princess was still in her room, and the prince had not come in. 'So it is to be, thought Kitty, and all the blood seemed to rush to her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she glanced into the lookingglass. At that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early on purpose to find her alone and to make her an offer. And only then for the first time the whole thing presented itself in a new, different aspect only then she realized that the question did not affect her onlywith whom she would be happy, and whom she lovedbut that she would have that moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound him cruelly. What for? Because he, dear fellow, loved her, was in love with her. But there was no help for it, so it must be, so it would have to be. 'My God! shall I myself really have to say it to him? she thought. 'Can I tell him I don't love him? That will be a lie. What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that's impossible. I'm going away, I'm going away. She had reached the door, when she heard his step. 'No! it's not honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be ill at ease. Here he is, she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand. 'It's not time yet I think I'm too early, he said glancing round the empty drawingroom. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became gloomy. 'Oh, no, said Kitty, and sat down at the table. 'But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone, he began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage. 'Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired.... Yesterday.... She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him. He glanced at her she blushed, and ceased speaking. 'I told you I did not know whether I should be here long ... that it depended on you.... She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming. 'That it depended on you, he repeated. 'I meant to say ... I meant to say ... I came for this ... to be my wife! he brought out, not knowing what he was saying but feeling that the most terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked at her.... She was breathing heavily, not looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never anticipated that the utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and seeing his desperate face, she answered hastily 'That cannot be ... forgive me. A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had become now! 'It was bound to be so, he said, not looking at her. He bowed, and was meaning to retreat. But at that very moment the princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she saw them alone, and their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty did not speak nor lift her eyes. 'Thank God, she has refused him, thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in the country. He sat down again, waiting for other visitors to arrive, in order to retreat unnoticed. Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty's, married the preceding winter, Countess Nordston. She was a thin, sallow, sickly, and nervous woman, with brilliant black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in the desire to make a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married happiness she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at the Shtcherbatskys' early in the winter, and she had always disliked him. Her invariable and favorite pursuit, when they met, consisted in making fun of him. 'I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his learned conversation with me because I'm a fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so to see him condescending! I am so glad he can't bear me, she used to say of him. She was right, for Levin actually could not bear her, and despised her for what she was proud of and regarded as a fine characteristicher nervousness, her delicate contempt and indifference for everything coarse and earthly. The Countess Nordston and Levin got into that relation with one another not seldom seen in society, when two persons, who remain externally on friendly terms, despise each other to such a degree that they cannot even take each other seriously, and cannot even be offended by each other. The Countess Nordston pounced upon Levin at once. 'Ah, Konstantin Dmitrievitch! So you've come back to our corrupt Babylon, she said, giving him her tiny, yellow hand, and recalling what he had chanced to say early in the winter, that Moscow was a Babylon. 'Come, is Babylon reformed, or have you degenerated? she added, glancing with a simper at Kitty. 'It's very flattering for me, countess, that you remember my words so well, responded Levin, who had succeeded in recovering his composure, and at once from habit dropped into his tone of joking hostility to the Countess Nordston. 'They must certainly make a great impression on you. 'Oh, I should think so! I always note them all down. Well, Kitty, have you been skating again?... And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to withdraw now, it would still have been easier for him to perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then and avoided his eyes. He was on the point of getting up, when the princess, noticing that he was silent, addressed him. 'Shall you be long in Moscow? You're busy with the district council, though, aren't you, and can't be away for long? 'No, princess, I'm no longer a member of the council, he said. 'I have come up for a few days. 'There's something the matter with him, thought Countess Nordston, glancing at his stern, serious face. 'He isn't in his old argumentative mood. But I'll draw him out. I do love making a fool of him before Kitty, and I'll do it. 'Konstantin Dmitrievitch, she said to him, 'do explain to me, please, what's the meaning of it. You know all about such things. At home in our village of Kaluga all the peasants and all the women have drunk up all they possessed, and now they can't pay us any rent. What's the meaning of that? You always praise the peasants so. At that instant another lady came into the room, and Levin got up. 'Excuse me, countess, but I really know nothing about it, and can't tell you anything, he said, and looked round at the officer who came in behind the lady. 'That must be Vronsky, thought Levin, and, to be sure of it, glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to look at Vronsky, and looked round at Levin. And simply from the look in her eyes, that grew unconsciously brighter, Levin knew that she loved that man, knew it as surely as if she had told him so in words. But what sort of a man was he? Now, whether for good or for ill, Levin could not choose but remain he must find out what the man was like whom she loved. There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good. Levin belonged to the second class. But he had no difficulty in finding what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It was apparent at the first glance. Vronsky was a squarely built, dark man, not very tall, with a goodhumored, handsome, and exceedingly calm and resolute face. Everything about his face and figure, from his shortcropped black hair and freshly shaven chin down to his loosely fitting, brandnew uniform, was simple and at the same time elegant. Making way for the lady who had come in, Vronsky went up to the princess and then to Kitty. As he approached her, his beautiful eyes shone with a specially tender light, and with a faint, happy, and modestly triumphant smile (so it seemed to Levin), bowing carefully and respectfully over her, he held out his small broad hand to her. Greeting and saying a few words to everyone, he sat down without once glancing at Levin, who had never taken his eyes off him. 'Let me introduce you, said the princess, indicating Levin. 'Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin, Count Alexey Kirillovitch Vronsky. Vronsky got up and, looking cordially at Levin, shook hands with him. 'I believe I was to have dined with you this winter, he said, smiling his simple and open smile 'but you had unexpectedly left for the country. 'Konstantin Dmitrievitch despises and hates town and us townspeople, said Countess Nordston. 'My words must make a deep impression on you, since you remember them so well, said Levin, and, suddenly conscious that he had said just the same thing before, he reddened. Vronsky looked at Levin and Countess Nordston, and smiled. 'Are you always in the country? he inquired. 'I should think it must be dull in the winter. 'It's not dull if one has work to do besides, one's not dull by oneself, Levin replied abruptly. 'I am fond of the country, said Vronsky, noticing, and affecting not to notice, Levin's tone. 'But I hope, count, you would not consent to live in the country always, said Countess Nordston. 'I don't know I have never tried for long. I experienced a queer feeling once, he went on. 'I never longed so for the country, Russian country, with bast shoes and peasants, as when I was spending a winter with my mother in Nice. Nice itself is dull enough, you know. And indeed, Naples and Sorrento are only pleasant for a short time. And it's just there that Russia comes back to me most vividly, and especially the country. It's as though.... He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning his serene, friendly eyes from one to the other, and saying obviously just what came into his head. Noticing that Countess Nordston wanted to say something, he stopped short without finishing what he had begun, and listened attentively to her. The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a subject should be lacking, two heavy gunsthe relative advantages of classical and of modern education, and universal military servicehad not to move out either of them, while Countess Nordston had not a chance of chaffing Levin. Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the general conversation saying to himself every instant, 'Now go, he still did not go, as though waiting for something. The conversation fell upon tableturning and spirits, and Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism, began to describe the marvels she had seen. 'Ah, countess, you really must take me, for pity's sake do take me to see them! I have never seen anything extraordinary, though I am always on the lookout for it everywhere, said Vronsky, smiling. 'Very well, next Saturday, answered Countess Nordston. 'But you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, do you believe in it? she asked Levin. 'Why do you ask me? You know what I shall say. 'But I want to hear your opinion. 'My opinion, answered Levin, 'is only that this tableturning simply proves that educated societyso calledis no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye, and in witchcraft and omens, while we.... 'Oh, then you don't believe in it? 'I can't believe in it, countess. 'But if I've seen it myself? 'The peasant women too tell us they have seen goblins. 'Then you think I tell a lie? And she laughed a mirthless laugh. 'Oh, no, Masha, Konstantin Dmitrievitch said he could not believe in it, said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin saw this, and, still more exasperated, would have answered, but Vronsky with his bright frank smile rushed to the support of the conversation, which was threatening to become disagreeable. 'You do not admit the conceivability at all? he queried. 'But why not? We admit the existence of electricity, of which we know nothing. Why should there not be some new force, still unknown to us, which.... 'When electricity was discovered, Levin interrupted hurriedly, 'it was only the phenomenon that was discovered, and it was unknown from what it proceeded and what were its effects, and ages passed before its applications were conceived. But the spiritualists have begun with tables writing for them, and spirits appearing to them, and have only later started saying that it is an unknown force. Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did listen, obviously interested in his words. 'Yes, but the spiritualists say we don't know at present what this force is, but there is a force, and these are the conditions in which it acts. Let the scientific men find out what the force consists in. No, I don't see why there should not be a new force, if it.... 'Why, because with electricity, Levin interrupted again, 'every time you rub tar against wool, a recognized phenomenon is manifested, but in this case it does not happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural phenomenon. Feeling probably that the conversation was taking a tone too serious for a drawingroom, Vronsky made no rejoinder, but by way of trying to change the conversation, he smiled brightly, and turned to the ladies. 'Do let us try at once, countess, he said but Levin would finish saying what he thought. 'I think, he went on, 'that this attempt of the spiritualists to explain their marvels as some sort of new natural force is most futile. They boldly talk of spiritual force, and then try to subject it to material experiment. Everyone was waiting for him to finish, and he felt it. 'And I think you would be a firstrate medium, said Countess Nordston 'there's something enthusiastic in you. Levin opened his mouth, was about to say something, reddened, and said nothing. 'Do let us try tableturning at once, please, said Vronsky. 'Princess, will you allow it? And Vronsky stood up, looking for a little table. Kitty got up to fetch a table, and as she passed, her eyes met Levin's. She felt for him with her whole heart, the more because she was pitying him for suffering of which she was herself the cause. 'If you can forgive me, forgive me, said her eyes, 'I am so happy. 'I hate them all, and you, and myself, his eyes responded, and he took up his hat. But he was not destined to escape. Just as they were arranging themselves round the table, and Levin was on the point of retiring, the old prince came in, and after greeting the ladies, addressed Levin. 'Ah! he began joyously. 'Been here long, my boy? I didn't even know you were in town. Very glad to see you. The old prince embraced Levin, and talking to him did not observe Vronsky, who had risen, and was serenely waiting till the prince should turn to him. Kitty felt how distasteful her father's warmth was to Levin after what had happened. She saw, too, how coldly her father responded at last to Vronsky's bow, and how Vronsky looked with amiable perplexity at her father, as though trying and failing to understand how and why anyone could be hostilely disposed towards him, and she flushed. 'Prince, let us have Konstantin Dmitrievitch, said Countess Nordston 'we want to try an experiment. 'What experiment? Tableturning? Well, you must excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but to my mind it is better fun to play the ring game, said the old prince, looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been his suggestion. 'There's some sense in that, anyway. Vronsky looked wonderingly at the prince with his resolute eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately talking to Countess Nordston of the great ball that was to come off next week. 'I hope you will be there? he said to Kitty. As soon as the old prince turned away from him, Levin went out unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with him of that evening was the smiling, happy face of Kitty answering Vronsky's inquiry about the ball. At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt for Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had received an offer. She had no doubt that she had acted rightly. But after she had gone to bed, for a long while she could not sleep. One impression pursued her relentlessly. It was Levin's face, with his scowling brows, and his kind eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at Vronsky. And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for whom she had given him up. She vividly recalled his manly, resolute face, his noble selfpossession, and the good nature conspicuous in everything towards everyone. She remembered the love for her of the man she loved, and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on the pillow, smiling with happiness. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry but what could I do? It's not my fault, she said to herself but an inner voice told her something else. Whether she felt remorse at having won Levin's love, or at having refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was poisoned by doubts. 'Lord, have pity on us Lord, have pity on us Lord, have pity on us! she repeated to herself, till she fell asleep. Meanwhile there took place below, in the prince's little library, one of the scenes so often repeated between the parents on account of their favorite daughter. 'What? I'll tell you what! shouted the prince, waving his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrellined dressinggown round him again. 'That you've no pride, no dignity that you're disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid matchmaking! 'But, really, for mercy's sake, prince, what have I done? said the princess, almost crying. She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her daughter, had gone to the prince to say goodnight as usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of Levin's offer and Kitty's refusal, still she hinted to her husband that she fancied things were practically settled with Vronsky, and that he would declare himself so soon as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the prince had all at once flown into a passion, and began to use unseemly language. 'What have you done? I'll tell you what. First of all, you're trying to catch an eligible gentleman, and all Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you have evening parties, invite everyone, don't pick out the possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano player, and let them dance, and not as you do things nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick, sick to see it, and you've gone on till you've turned the poor wench's head. Levin's a thousand times the better man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they're turned out by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish. But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need not run after anyone. 'But what have I done? 'Why, you've.... The prince was crying wrathfully. 'I know if one were to listen to you, interrupted the princess, 'we should never marry our daughter. If it's to be so, we'd better go into the country. 'Well, and we had better. 'But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I don't try to catch them in the least. A young man, and a very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I fancy.... 'Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love, and he's no more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh, that I should live to see it! Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah! the ball! And the prince, imagining that he was mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsey at each word. 'And this is how we're preparing wretchedness for Kitty and she's really got the notion into her head.... 'But what makes you suppose so? 'I don't suppose I know. We have eyes for such things, though womenfolk haven't. I see a man who has serious intentions, that's Levin and I see a peacock, like this featherhead, who's only amusing himself. 'Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your head!... 'Well, you'll remember my words, but too late, just as with Dolly. 'Well, well, we won't talk of it, the princess stopped him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly. 'By all means, and goodnight! And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife parted with a kiss, feeling that they each remained of their own opinion. The princess had at first been quite certain that that evening had settled Kitty's future, and that there could be no doubt of Vronsky's intentions, but her husband's words had disturbed her. And returning to her own room, in terror before the unknown future, she, too, like Kitty, repeated several times in her heart, 'Lord, have pity Lord, have pity Lord, have pity. Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother had been in her youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her married life, and still more afterwards, many love affairs notorious in the whole fashionable world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had been educated in the Corps of Pages. Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he had at once got into the circle of wealthy Petersburg army men. Although he did go more or less into Petersburg society, his love affairs had always hitherto been outside it. In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his luxurious and coarse life at Petersburg, all the charm of intimacy with a sweet and innocent girl of his own rank, who cared for him. It never even entered his head that there could be any harm in his relations with Kitty. At balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant visitor at their house. He talked to her as people commonly do talk in societyall sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that his mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite character, that it is courting young girls with no intention of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil actions common among brilliant young men such as he was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his discovery. If he could have heard what her parents were saying that evening, if he could have put himself at the point of view of the family and have heard that Kitty would be unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He could not believe that what gave such great and delicate pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong. Still less could he have believed that he ought to marry. Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband was, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, conceived as something alien, repellant, and, above all, ridiculous. But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shtcherbatskys' that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken. But what step could and ought to be taken he could not imagine. 'What is so exquisite, he thought, as he returned from the Shtcherbatskys', carrying away with him, as he always did, a delicious feeling of purity and freshness, arising partly from the fact that he had not been smoking for a whole evening, and with it a new feeling of tenderness at her love for him'what is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, but we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me. And how secretly, simply, and most of all, how trustfully! I feel myself better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is a great deal of good in me. Those sweet, loving eyes! When she said 'Indeed I do....' 'Well, what then? Oh, nothing. It's good for me, and good for her. And he began wondering where to finish the evening. He passed in review of the places he might go to. 'Club? a game of bezique, champagne with Ignatov? No, I'm not going. Chteau des Fleurs there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I'm sick of it. That's why I like the Shtcherbatskys', that I'm growing better. I'll go home. He went straight to his room at Dussots' Hotel, ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, fell into a sound sleep. Next day at eleven o'clock in the morning Vronsky drove to the station of the Petersburg railway to meet his mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister by the same train. 'Ah! your excellency! cried Oblonsky, 'whom are you meeting? 'My mother, Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky. He shook hands with him, and together they ascended the steps. 'She is to be here from Petersburg today. 'I was looking out for you till two o'clock last night. Where did you go after the Shtcherbatskys'? 'Home, answered Vronsky. 'I must own I felt so well content yesterday after the Shtcherbatskys' that I didn't care to go anywhere. 'I know a gallant steed by tokens sure, And by his eyes I know a youth in love, declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch, just as he had done before to Levin. Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject. 'And whom are you meeting? he asked. 'I? I've come to meet a pretty woman, said Oblonsky. 'You don't say so! 'Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna. 'Ah! that's Madame Karenina, said Vronsky. 'You know her, no doubt? 'I think I do. Or perhaps not ... I really am not sure, Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff and tedious evoked by the name Karenina. 'But Alexey Alexandrovitch, my celebrated brotherinlaw, you surely must know. All the world knows him. 'I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever, learned, religious somewhat.... But you know that's not ... not in my line, said Vronsky in English. 'Yes, he's a very remarkable man rather a conservative, but a splendid man, observed Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'a splendid man. 'Oh, well, so much the better for him, said Vronsky smiling. 'Oh, you've come, he said, addressing a tall old footman of his mother's, standing at the door 'come here. Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky had felt of late specially drawn to him by the fact that in his imagination he was associated with Kitty. 'Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for the diva? he said to him with a smile, taking his arm. 'Of course. I'm collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Yes but he left rather early. 'He's a capital fellow, pursued Oblonsky. 'Isn't he? 'I don't know why it is, responded Vronsky, 'in all Moscow peoplepresent company of course excepted, he put in jestingly, 'there's something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something.... 'Yes, that's true, it is so, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing goodhumoredly. 'Will the train soon be in? Vronsky asked a railway official. 'The train's signaled, answered the man. The approach of the train was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of porters, the movement of policemen and attendants, and people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen workmen in short sheepskins and soft felt boots crossing the rails of the curving line. The hiss of the boiler could be heard on the distant rails, and the rumble of something heavy. 'No, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin's intentions in regard to Kitty. 'No, you've not got a true impression of Levin. He's a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it's true, but then he is often very nice. He's such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons, pursued Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a meaning smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. 'Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy. Vronsky stood still and asked directly 'How so? Do you mean he made your bellesur an offer yesterday? 'Maybe, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, it must mean it.... He's been so long in love, and I'm very sorry for him. 'So that's it! I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match, said Vronsky, drawing himself up and walking about again, 'though I don't know him, of course, he added. 'Yes, that is a hateful position! That's why most fellows prefer to have to do with Klaras. If you don't succeed with them it only proves that you've not enough cash, but in this case one's dignity's at stake. But here's the train. The engine had already whistled in the distance. A few instants later the platform was quivering, and with puffs of steam hanging low in the air from the frost, the engine rolled up, with the lever of the middle wheel rhythmically moving up and down, and the stooping figure of the enginedriver covered with frost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages rolled in, oscillating before coming to a standstill. A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down an officer of the guards, holding himself erect, and looking severely about him a nimble little merchant with a satchel, smiling gaily a peasant with a sack over his shoulder. Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he arched his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror. 'Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment, said the smart guard, going up to Vronsky. The guard's words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart respect his mother, and without acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own education, he could not have conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful his behavior, the less in his heart he respected and loved her. Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting out. With the insight of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady's appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more not that she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining gray eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that against her will it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile. Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a driedup old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her maid a bag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek. 'You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God. 'You had a good journey? said her son, sitting down beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman's voice outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door. 'All the same I don't agree with you, said the lady's voice. 'It's the Petersburg view, madame. 'Not Petersburg, but simply feminine, she responded. 'Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand. 'Goodbye, Ivan Petrovitch. And could you see if my brother is here, and send him to me? said the lady in the doorway, and stepped back again into the compartment. 'Well, have you found your brother? said Countess Vronskaya, addressing the lady. Vronsky understood now that this was Madame Karenina. 'Your brother is here, he said, standing up. 'Excuse me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance was so slight, said Vronsky, bowing, 'that no doubt you do not remember me. 'Oh, no, said she, 'I should have known you because your mother and I have been talking, I think, of nothing but you all the way. As she spoke she let the eagerness that would insist on coming out show itself in her smile. 'And still no sign of my brother. 'Do call him, Alexey, said the old countess. Vronsky stepped out onto the platform and shouted 'Oblonsky! Here! Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with her light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly. Vronsky gazed, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled, he could not have said why. But recollecting that his mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the carriage. 'She's very sweet, isn't she? said the countess of Madame Karenina. 'Her husband put her with me, and I was delighted to have her. We've been talking all the way. And so you, I hear ... vous filez le parfait amour. Tant mieux, mon cher, tant mieux. 'I don't know what you are referring to, maman, he answered coldly. 'Come, maman, let us go. Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say goodbye to the countess. 'Well, countess, you have met your son, and I my brother, she said. 'And all my gossip is exhausted. I should have nothing more to tell you. 'Oh, no, said the countess, taking her hand. 'I could go all around the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those delightful women in whose company it's sweet to be silent as well as to talk. Now please don't fret over your son you can't expect never to be parted. Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and her eyes were smiling. 'Anna Arkadyevna, the countess said in explanation to her son, 'has a little son eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him. 'Yes, the countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of hers, said Madame Karenina, and again a smile lighted up her face, a caressing smile intended for him. 'I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored, he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old countess. 'Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly. Goodbye, countess. 'Goodbye, my love, answered the countess. 'Let me have a kiss of your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I tell you simply that I've lost my heart to you. Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed, bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the countess's lips, drew herself up again, and with the same smile fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and was delighted, as though at something special, by the energetic squeeze with which she freely and vigorously shook his hand. She went out with the rapid step which bore her rather fullydeveloped figure with such strange lightness. 'Very charming, said the countess. That was just what her son was thinking. His eyes followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and then the smile remained on his face. He saw out of the window how she went up to her brother, put her arm in his, and began telling him something eagerly, obviously something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and at that he felt annoyed. 'Well, maman, are you perfectly well? he repeated, turning to his mother. 'Everything has been delightful. Alexander has been very good, and Marie has grown very pretty. She's very interesting. And she began telling him again of what interested her mostthe christening of her grandson, for which she had been staying in Petersburg, and the special favor shown her elder son by the Tsar. 'Here's Lavrenty, said Vronsky, looking out of the window 'now we can go, if you like. The old butler, who had traveled with the countess, came to the carriage to announce that everything was ready, and the countess got up to go. 'Come there's not such a crowd now, said Vronsky. The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler and a porter the other baggage. Vronsky gave his mother his arm but just as they were getting out of the carriage several men ran suddenly by with panicstricken faces. The stationmaster, too, ran by in his extraordinary colored cap. Obviously something unusual had happened. The crowd who had left the train were running back again. 'What?... What?... Where?... Flung himself!... Crushed!... was heard among the crowd. Stepan Arkadyevitch, with his sister on his arm, turned back. They too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door to avoid the crowd. The ladies got in, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch followed the crowd to find out details of the disaster. A guard, either drunk or too much muffled up in the bitter frost, had not heard the train moving back, and had been crushed. Before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back the ladies heard the facts from the butler. Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mutilated corpse. Oblonsky was evidently upset. He frowned and seemed ready to cry. 'Ah, how awful! Ah, Anna, if you had seen it! Ah, how awful! he said. Vronsky did not speak his handsome face was serious, but perfectly composed. 'Oh, if you had seen it, countess, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'And his wife was there.... It was awful to see her!... She flung herself on the body. They say he was the only support of an immense family. How awful! 'Couldn't one do anything for her? said Madame Karenina in an agitated whisper. Vronsky glanced at her, and immediately got out of the carriage. 'I'll be back directly, maman, he remarked, turning round in the doorway. When he came back a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyevitch was already in conversation with the countess about the new singer, while the countess was impatiently looking towards the door, waiting for her son. 'Now let us be off, said Vronsky, coming in. They went out together. Vronsky was in front with his mother. Behind walked Madame Karenina with her brother. Just as they were going out of the station the stationmaster overtook Vronsky. 'You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you kindly explain for whose benefit you intend them? 'For the widow, said Vronsky, shrugging his shoulders. 'I should have thought there was no need to ask. 'You gave that? cried Oblonsky, behind, and, pressing his sister's hand, he added 'Very nice, very nice! Isn't he a splendid fellow? Goodbye, countess. And he and his sister stood still, looking for her maid. When they went out the Vronsky's carriage had already driven away. People coming in were still talking of what happened. 'What a horrible death! said a gentleman, passing by. 'They say he was cut in two pieces. 'On the contrary, I think it's the easiestinstantaneous, observed another. 'How is it they don't take proper precautions? said a third. Madame Karenina seated herself in the carriage, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw with surprise that her lips were quivering, and she was with difficulty restraining her tears. 'What is it, Anna? he asked, when they had driven a few hundred yards. 'It's an omen of evil, she said. 'What nonsense! said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'You've come, that's the chief thing. You can't conceive how I'm resting my hopes on you. 'Have you known Vronsky long? she asked. 'Yes. You know we're hoping he will marry Kitty. 'Yes? said Anna softly. 'Come now, let us talk of you, she added, tossing her head, as though she would physically shake off something superfluous oppressing her. 'Let us talk of your affairs. I got your letter, and here I am. 'Yes, all my hopes are in you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well, tell me all about it. And Stepan Arkadyevitch began to tell his story. On reaching home Oblonsky helped his sister out, sighed, pressed her hand, and set off to his office. When Anna went into the room, Dolly was sitting in the little drawingroom with a whiteheaded fat little boy, already like his father, giving him a lesson in French reading. As the boy read, he kept twisting and trying to tear off a button that was nearly off his jacket. His mother had several times taken his hand from it, but the fat little hand went back to the button again. His mother pulled the button off and put it in her pocket. 'Keep your hands still, Grisha, she said, and she took up her work, a coverlet she had long been making. She always set to work on it at depressed moments, and now she knitted at it nervously, twitching her fingers and counting the stitches. Though she had sent word the day before to her husband that it was nothing to her whether his sister came or not, she had made everything ready for her arrival, and was expecting her sisterinlaw with emotion. Dolly was crushed by her sorrow, utterly swallowed up by it. Still she did not forget that Anna, her sisterinlaw, was the wife of one of the most important personages in Petersburg, and was a Petersburg grande dame. And, thanks to this circumstance, she did not carry out her threat to her husbandthat is to say, she remembered that her sisterinlaw was coming. 'And, after all, Anna is in no wise to blame, thought Dolly. 'I know nothing of her except the very best, and I have seen nothing but kindness and affection from her towards myself. It was true that as far as she could recall her impressions at Petersburg at the Karenins', she did not like their household itself there was something artificial in the whole framework of their family life. 'But why should I not receive her? If only she doesn't take it into her head to console me! thought Dolly. 'All consolation and counsel and Christian forgiveness, all that I have thought over a thousand times, and it's all no use. All these days Dolly had been alone with her children. She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters. She knew that in one way or another she would tell Anna everything, and she was alternately glad at the thought of speaking freely, and angry at the necessity of speaking of her humiliation with her, his sister, and of hearing her readymade phrases of good advice and comfort. She had been on the lookout for her, glancing at her watch every minute, and, as so often happens, let slip just that minute when her visitor arrived, so that she did not hear the bell. Catching a sound of skirts and light steps at the door, she looked round, and her careworn face unconsciously expressed not gladness, but wonder. She got up and embraced her sisterinlaw. 'What, here already! she said as she kissed her. 'Dolly, how glad I am to see you! 'I am glad, too, said Dolly, faintly smiling, and trying by the expression of Anna's face to find out whether she knew. 'Most likely she knows, she thought, noticing the sympathy in Anna's face. 'Well, come along, I'll take you to your room, she went on, trying to defer as long as possible the moment of confidences. 'Is this Grisha? Heavens, how he's grown! said Anna and kissing him, never taking her eyes off Dolly, she stood still and flushed a little. 'No, please, let us stay here. She took off her kerchief and her hat, and catching it in a lock of her black hair, which was a mass of curls, she tossed her head and shook her hair down. 'You are radiant with health and happiness! said Dolly, almost with envy. 'I?... Yes, said Anna. 'Merciful heavens, Tanya! You're the same age as my Seryozha, she added, addressing the little girl as she ran in. She took her in her arms and kissed her. 'Delightful child, delightful! Show me them all. She mentioned them, not only remembering the names, but the years, months, characters, illnesses of all the children, and Dolly could not but appreciate that. 'Very well, we will go to them, she said. 'It's a pity Vassya's asleep. After seeing the children, they sat down, alone now, in the drawingroom, to coffee. Anna took the tray, and then pushed it away from her. 'Dolly, she said, 'he has told me. Dolly looked coldly at Anna she was waiting now for phrases of conventional sympathy, but Anna said nothing of the sort. 'Dolly, dear, she said, 'I don't want to speak for him to you, nor to try to comfort you that's impossible. But, darling, I'm simply sorry, sorry from my heart for you! Under the thick lashes of her shining eyes tears suddenly glittered. She moved nearer to her sisterinlaw and took her hand in her vigorous little hand. Dolly did not shrink away, but her face did not lose its frigid expression. She said 'To comfort me's impossible. Everything's lost after what has happened, everything's over! And directly she had said this, her face suddenly softened. Anna lifted the wasted, thin hand of Dolly, kissed it and said 'But, Dolly, what's to be done, what's to be done? How is it best to act in this awful positionthat's what you must think of. 'All's over, and there's nothing more, said Dolly. 'And the worst of all is, you see, that I can't cast him off there are the children, I am tied. And I can't live with him! it's a torture to me to see him. 'Dolly, darling, he has spoken to me, but I want to hear it from you tell me about it. Dolly looked at her inquiringly. Sympathy and love unfeigned were visible on Anna's face. 'Very well, she said all at once. 'But I will tell you it from the beginning. You know how I was married. With the education mamma gave us I was more than innocent, I was stupid. I knew nothing. I know they say men tell their wives of their former lives, but Stivashe corrected herself'Stepan Arkadyevitch told me nothing. You'll hardly believe it, but till now I imagined that I was the only woman he had known. So I lived eight years. You must understand that I was so far from suspecting infidelity, I regarded it as impossible, and thentry to imagine itwith such ideas, to find out suddenly all the horror, all the loathsomeness.... You must try and understand me. To be fully convinced of one's happiness, and all at once.... continued Dolly, holding back her sobs, 'to get a letter ... his letter to his mistress, my governess. No, it's too awful! She hastily pulled out her handkerchief and hid her face in it. 'I can understand being carried away by feeling, she went on after a brief silence, 'but deliberately, slyly deceiving me ... and with whom?... To go on being my husband together with her ... it's awful! You can't understand.... 'Oh, yes, I understand! I understand! Dolly, dearest, I do understand, said Anna, pressing her hand. 'And do you imagine he realizes all the awfulness of my position? Dolly resumed. 'Not the slightest! He's happy and contented. 'Oh, no! Anna interposed quickly. 'He's to be pitied, he's weighed down by remorse.... 'Is he capable of remorse? Dolly interrupted, gazing intently into her sisterinlaw's face. 'Yes. I know him. I could not look at him without feeling sorry for him. We both know him. He's goodhearted, but he's proud, and now he's so humiliated. What touched me most.... (and here Anna guessed what would touch Dolly most) 'he's tortured by two things that he's ashamed for the children's sake, and that, loving youyes, yes, loving you beyond everything on earth, she hurriedly interrupted Dolly, who would have answered'he has hurt you, pierced you to the heart. 'No, no, she cannot forgive me,' he keeps saying. Dolly looked dreamily away beyond her sisterinlaw as she listened to her words. 'Yes, I can see that his position is awful it's worse for the guilty than the innocent, she said, 'if he feels that all the misery comes from his fault. But how am I to forgive him, how am I to be his wife again after her? For me to live with him now would be torture, just because I love my past love for him.... And sobs cut short her words. But as though of set design, each time she was softened she began to speak again of what exasperated her. 'She's young, you see, she's pretty, she went on. 'Do you know, Anna, my youth and my beauty are gone, taken by whom? By him and his children. I have worked for him, and all I had has gone in his service, and now of course any fresh, vulgar creature has more charm for him. No doubt they talked of me together, or, worse still, they were silent. Do you understand? Again her eyes glowed with hatred. 'And after that he will tell me.... What! can I believe him? Never! No, everything is over, everything that once made my comfort, the reward of my work, and my sufferings.... Would you believe it, I was teaching Grisha just now once this was a joy to me, now it is a torture. What have I to strive and toil for? Why are the children here? What's so awful is that all at once my heart's turned, and instead of love and tenderness, I have nothing but hatred for him yes, hatred. I could kill him. 'Darling Dolly, I understand, but don't torture yourself. You are so distressed, so overwrought, that you look at many things mistakenly. Dolly grew calmer, and for two minutes both were silent. 'What's to be done? Think for me, Anna, help me. I have thought over everything, and I see nothing. Anna could think of nothing, but her heart responded instantly to each word, to each change of expression of her sisterinlaw. 'One thing I would say, began Anna. 'I am his sister, I know his character, that faculty of forgetting everything, everything (she waved her hand before her forehead), 'that faculty for being completely carried away, but for completely repenting too. He cannot believe it, he cannot comprehend now how he can have acted as he did. 'No he understands, he understood! Dolly broke in. 'But I ... you are forgetting me ... does it make it easier for me? 'Wait a minute. When he told me, I will own I did not realize all the awfulness of your position. I saw nothing but him, and that the family was broken up. I felt sorry for him, but after talking to you, I see it, as a woman, quite differently. I see your agony, and I can't tell you how sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, I fully realize your sufferings, only there is one thing I don't know I don't know ... I don't know how much love there is still in your heart for him. That you knowwhether there is enough for you to be able to forgive him. If there is, forgive him! 'No, Dolly was beginning, but Anna cut her short, kissing her hand once more. 'I know more of the world than you do, she said. 'I know how men like Stiva look at it. You speak of his talking of you with her. That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their home and wife are sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their feeling for their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be crossed between them and their families. I don't understand it, but it is so. 'Yes, but he has kissed her.... 'Dolly, hush, darling. I saw Stiva when he was in love with you. I remember the time when he came to me and cried, talking of you, and all the poetry and loftiness of his feeling for you, and I know that the longer he has lived with you the loftier you have been in his eyes. You know we have sometimes laughed at him for putting in at every word 'Dolly's a marvelous woman.' You have always been a divinity for him, and you are that still, and this has not been an infidelity of the heart.... 'But if it is repeated? 'It cannot be, as I understand it.... 'Yes, but could you forgive it? 'I don't know, I can't judge.... Yes, I can, said Anna, thinking a moment and grasping the position in her thought and weighing it in her inner balance, she added 'Yes, I can, I can, I can. Yes, I could forgive it. I could not be the same, no but I could forgive it, and forgive it as though it had never been, never been at all.... 'Oh, of course, Dolly interposed quickly, as though saying what she had more than once thought, 'else it would not be forgiveness. If one forgives, it must be completely, completely. Come, let us go I'll take you to your room, she said, getting up, and on the way she embraced Anna. 'My dear, how glad I am you came. It has made things better, ever so much better. The whole of that day Anna spent at home, that's to say at the Oblonskys', and received no one, though some of her acquaintances had already heard of her arrival, and came to call the same day. Anna spent the whole morning with Dolly and the children. She merely sent a brief note to her brother to tell him that he must not fail to dine at home. 'Come, God is merciful, she wrote. Oblonsky did dine at home the conversation was general, and his wife, speaking to him, addressed him as 'Stiva, as she had not done before. In the relations of the husband and wife the same estrangement still remained, but there was no talk now of separation, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw the possibility of explanation and reconciliation. Immediately after dinner Kitty came in. She knew Anna Arkadyevna, but only very slightly, and she came now to her sister's with some trepidation, at the prospect of meeting this fashionable Petersburg lady, whom everyone spoke so highly of. But she made a favorable impression on Anna Arkadyevnashe saw that at once. Anna was unmistakably admiring her loveliness and her youth before Kitty knew where she was she found herself not merely under Anna's sway, but in love with her, as young girls do fall in love with older and married women. Anna was not like a fashionable lady, nor the mother of a boy of eight years old. In the elasticity of her movements, the freshness and the unflagging eagerness which persisted in her face, and broke out in her smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and at times mournful look in her eyes, which struck and attracted Kitty. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly simple and was concealing nothing, but that she had another higher world of interests inaccessible to her, complex and poetic. After dinner, when Dolly went away to her own room, Anna rose quickly and went up to her brother, who was just lighting a cigar. 'Stiva, she said to him, winking gaily, crossing him and glancing towards the door, 'go, and God help you. He threw down the cigar, understanding her, and departed through the doorway. When Stepan Arkadyevitch had disappeared, she went back to the sofa where she had been sitting, surrounded by the children. Either because the children saw that their mother was fond of this aunt, or that they felt a special charm in her themselves, the two elder ones, and the younger following their lead, as children so often do, had clung about their new aunt since before dinner, and would not leave her side. And it had become a sort of game among them to sit as close as possible to their aunt, to touch her, hold her little hand, kiss it, play with her ring, or even touch the flounce of her skirt. 'Come, come, as we were sitting before, said Anna Arkadyevna, sitting down in her place. And again Grisha poked his little face under her arm, and nestled with his head on her gown, beaming with pride and happiness. 'And when is your next ball? she asked Kitty. 'Next week, and a splendid ball. One of those balls where one always enjoys oneself. 'Why, are there balls where one always enjoys oneself? Anna said, with tender irony. 'It's strange, but there are. At the Bobrishtchevs' one always enjoys oneself, and at the Nikitins' too, while at the Mezhkovs' it's always dull. Haven't you noticed it? 'No, my dear, for me there are no balls now where one enjoys oneself, said Anna, and Kitty detected in her eyes that mysterious world which was not open to her. 'For me there are some less dull and tiresome. 'How can you be dull at a ball? 'Why should not I be dull at a ball? inquired Anna. Kitty perceived that Anna knew what answer would follow. 'Because you always look nicer than anyone. Anna had the faculty of blushing. She blushed a little, and said 'In the first place it's never so and secondly, if it were, what difference would it make to me? 'Are you coming to this ball? asked Kitty. 'I imagine it won't be possible to avoid going. Here, take it, she said to Tanya, who was pulling the looselyfitting ring off her white, slendertipped finger. 'I shall be so glad if you go. I should so like to see you at a ball. 'Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the thought that it's a pleasure to you ... Grisha, don't pull my hair. It's untidy enough without that, she said, putting up a straying lock, which Grisha had been playing with. 'I imagine you at the ball in lilac. 'And why in lilac precisely? asked Anna, smiling. 'Now, children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss Hoole is calling you to tea, she said, tearing the children from her, and sending them off to the diningroom. 'I know why you press me to come to the ball. You expect a great deal of this ball, and you want everyone to be there to take part in it. 'How do you know? Yes. 'Oh! what a happy time you are at, pursued Anna. 'I remember, and I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is.... Who has not been through it? Kitty smiled without speaking. 'But how did she go through it? How I should like to know all her love story! thought Kitty, recalling the unromantic appearance of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her husband. 'I know something. Stiva told me, and I congratulate you. I liked him so much, Anna continued. 'I met Vronsky at the railway station. 'Oh, was he there? asked Kitty, blushing. 'What was it Stiva told you? 'Stiva gossiped about it all. And I should be so glad ... I traveled yesterday with Vronsky's mother, she went on 'and his mother talked without a pause of him, he's her favorite. I know mothers are partial, but.... 'What did his mother tell you? 'Oh, a great deal! And I know that he's her favorite still one can see how chivalrous he is.... Well, for instance, she told me that he had wanted to give up all his property to his brother, that he had done something extraordinary when he was quite a child, saved a woman out of the water. He's a hero, in fact, said Anna, smiling and recollecting the two hundred roubles he had given at the station. But she did not tell Kitty about the two hundred roubles. For some reason it was disagreeable to her to think of it. She felt that there was something that had to do with her in it, and something that ought not to have been. 'She pressed me very much to go and see her, Anna went on 'and I shall be glad to go to see her tomorrow. Stiva is staying a long while in Dolly's room, thank God, Anna added, changing the subject, and getting up, Kitty fancied, displeased with something. 'No, I'm first! No, I! screamed the children, who had finished tea, running up to their Aunt Anna. 'All together, said Anna, and she ran laughing to meet them, and embraced and swung round all the throng of swarming children, shrieking with delight. Dolly came out of her room to the tea of the grownup people. Stepan Arkadyevitch did not come out. He must have left his wife's room by the other door. 'I am afraid you'll be cold upstairs, observed Dolly, addressing Anna 'I want to move you downstairs, and we shall be nearer. 'Oh, please, don't trouble about me, answered Anna, looking intently into Dolly's face, trying to make out whether there had been a reconciliation or not. 'It will be lighter for you here, answered her sisterinlaw. 'I assure you that I sleep everywhere, and always like a marmot. 'What's the question? inquired Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming out of his room and addressing his wife. From his tone both Kitty and Anna knew that a reconciliation had taken place. 'I want to move Anna downstairs, but we must hang up blinds. No one knows how to do it I must see to it myself, answered Dolly addressing him. 'God knows whether they are fully reconciled, thought Anna, hearing her tone, cold and composed. 'Oh, nonsense, Dolly, always making difficulties, answered her husband. 'Come, I'll do it all, if you like.... 'Yes, they must be reconciled, thought Anna. 'I know how you do everything, answered Dolly. 'You tell Matvey to do what can't be done, and go away yourself, leaving him to make a muddle of everything, and her habitual, mocking smile curved the corners of Dolly's lips as she spoke. 'Full, full reconciliation, full, thought Anna 'thank God! and rejoicing that she was the cause of it, she went up to Dolly and kissed her. 'Not at all. Why do you always look down on me and Matvey? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling hardly perceptibly, and addressing his wife. The whole evening Dolly was, as always, a little mocking in her tone to her husband, while Stepan Arkadyevitch was happy and cheerful, but not so as to seem as though, having been forgiven, he had forgotten his offense. At halfpast nine o'clock a particularly joyful and pleasant family conversation over the teatable at the Oblonskys' was broken up by an apparently simple incident. But this simple incident for some reason struck everyone as strange. Talking about common acquaintances in Petersburg, Anna got up quickly. 'She is in my album, she said 'and, by the way, I'll show you my Seryozha, she added, with a mother's smile of pride. Towards ten o'clock, when she usually said goodnight to her son, and often before going to a ball put him to bed herself, she felt depressed at being so far from him and whatever she was talking about, she kept coming back in thought to her curlyheaded Seryozha. She longed to look at his photograph and talk of him. Seizing the first pretext, she got up, and with her light, resolute step went for her album. The stairs up to her room came out on the landing of the great warm main staircase. Just as she was leaving the drawingroom, a ring was heard in the hall. 'Who can that be? said Dolly. 'It's early for me to be fetched, and for anyone else it's late, observed Kitty. 'Sure to be someone with papers for me, put in Stepan Arkadyevitch. When Anna was passing the top of the staircase, a servant was running up to announce the visitor, while the visitor himself was standing under a lamp. Anna glancing down at once recognized Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure and at the same time of dread of something stirred in her heart. He was standing still, not taking off his coat, pulling something out of his pocket. At the instant when she was just facing the stairs, he raised his eyes, caught sight of her, and into the expression of his face there passed a shade of embarrassment and dismay. With a slight inclination of her head she passed, hearing behind her Stepan Arkadyevitch's loud voice calling him to come up, and the quiet, soft, and composed voice of Vronsky refusing. When Anna returned with the album, he was already gone, and Stepan Arkadyevitch was telling them that he had called to inquire about the dinner they were giving next day to a celebrity who had just arrived. 'And nothing would induce him to come up. What a queer fellow he is! added Stepan Arkadyevitch. Kitty blushed. She thought that she was the only person who knew why he had come, and why he would not come up. 'He has been at home, she thought, 'and didn't find me, and thought I should be here, but he did not come up because he thought it late, and Anna's here. All of them looked at each other, saying nothing, and began to look at Anna's album. There was nothing either exceptional or strange in a man's calling at halfpast nine on a friend to inquire details of a proposed dinner party and not coming in, but it seemed strange to all of them. Above all, it seemed strange and not right to Anna. The ball was only just beginning as Kitty and her mother walked up the great staircase, flooded with light, and lined with flowers and footmen in powder and red coats. From the rooms came a constant, steady hum, as from a hive, and the rustle of movement and while on the landing between trees they gave last touches to their hair and dresses before the mirror, they heard from the ballroom the careful, distinct notes of the fiddles of the orchestra beginning the first waltz. A little old man in civilian dress, arranging his gray curls before another mirror, and diffusing an odor of scent, stumbled against them on the stairs, and stood aside, evidently admiring Kitty, whom he did not know. A beardless youth, one of those society youths whom the old Prince Shtcherbatsky called 'young bucks, in an exceedingly open waistcoat, straightening his white tie as he went, bowed to them, and after running by, came back to ask Kitty for a quadrille. As the first quadrille had already been given to Vronsky, she had to promise this youth the second. An officer, buttoning his glove, stood aside in the doorway, and stroking his mustache, admired rosy Kitty. Although her dress, her coiffure, and all the preparations for the ball had cost Kitty great trouble and consideration, at this moment she walked into the ballroom in her elaborate tulle dress over a pink slip as easily and simply as though all the rosettes and lace, all the minute details of her attire, had not cost her or her family a moment's attention, as though she had been born in that tulle and lace, with her hair done up high on her head, and a rose and two leaves on the top of it. When, just before entering the ballroom, the princess, her mother, tried to turn right side out of the ribbon of her sash, Kitty had drawn back a little. She felt that everything must be right of itself, and graceful, and nothing could need setting straight. It was one of Kitty's best days. Her dress was not uncomfortable anywhere her lace berthe did not droop anywhere her rosettes were not crushed nor torn off her pink slippers with high, hollowedout heels did not pinch, but gladdened her feet and the thick rolls of fair chignon kept up on her head as if they were her own hair. All the three buttons buttoned up without tearing on the long glove that covered her hand without concealing its lines. The black velvet of her locket nestled with special softness round her neck. That velvet was delicious at home, looking at her neck in the lookingglass, Kitty had felt that that velvet was speaking. About all the rest there might be a doubt, but the velvet was delicious. Kitty smiled here too, at the ball, when she glanced at it in the glass. Her bare shoulders and arms gave Kitty a sense of chill marble, a feeling she particularly liked. Her eyes sparkled, and her rosy lips could not keep from smiling from the consciousness of her own attractiveness. She had scarcely entered the ballroom and reached the throng of ladies, all tulle, ribbons, lace, and flowers, waiting to be asked to danceKitty was never one of that throngwhen she was asked for a waltz, and asked by the best partner, the first star in the hierarchy of the ballroom, a renowned director of dances, a married man, handsome and wellbuilt, Yegorushka Korsunsky. He had only just left the Countess Bonina, with whom he had danced the first half of the waltz, and, scanning his kingdomthat is to say, a few couples who had started dancinghe caught sight of Kitty, entering, and flew up to her with that peculiar, easy amble which is confined to directors of balls. Without even asking her if she cared to dance, he put out his arm to encircle her slender waist. She looked round for someone to give her fan to, and their hostess, smiling to her, took it. 'How nice you've come in good time, he said to her, embracing her waist 'such a bad habit to be late. Bending her left hand, she laid it on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink slippers began swiftly, lightly, and rhythmically moving over the slippery floor in time to the music. 'It's a rest to waltz with you, he said to her, as they fell into the first slow steps of the waltz. 'It's exquisitesuch lightness, precision. He said to her the same thing he said to almost all his partners whom he knew well. She smiled at his praise, and continued to look about the room over his shoulder. She was not like a girl at her first ball, for whom all faces in the ballroom melt into one vision of fairyland. And she was not a girl who had gone the stale round of balls till every face in the ballroom was familiar and tiresome. But she was in the middle stage between these two she was excited, and at the same time she had sufficient selfpossession to be able to observe. In the left corner of the ballroom she saw the cream of society gathered together. Thereincredibly nakedwas the beauty Lidi, Korsunsky's wife there was the lady of the house there shone the bald head of Krivin, always to be found where the best people were. In that direction gazed the young men, not venturing to approach. There, too, she descried Stiva, and there she saw the exquisite figure and head of Anna in a black velvet gown. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since the evening she refused Levin. With her longsighted eyes, she knew him at once, and was even aware that he was looking at her. 'Another turn, eh? You're not tired? said Korsunsky, a little out of breath. 'No, thank you! 'Where shall I take you? 'Madame Karenina's here, I think ... take me to her. 'Wherever you command. And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight towards the group in the left corner, continually saying, 'Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames and steering his course through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned his partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in light transparent stockings, were exposed to view, and her train floated out in fan shape and covered Krivin's knees. Korsunsky bowed, set straight his open shirt front, and gave her his arm to conduct her to Anna Arkadyevna. Kitty, flushed, took her train from Krivin's knees, and, a little giddy, looked round, seeking Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as Kitty had so urgently wished, but in a black, lowcut, velvet gown, showing her full throat and shoulders, that looked as though carved in old ivory, and her rounded arms, with tiny, slender wrists. The whole gown was trimmed with Venetian guipure. On her head, among her black hairher own, with no false additionswas a little wreath of pansies, and a bouquet of the same in the black ribbon of her sash among white lace. Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable was the little wilful tendrils of her curly hair that would always break free about her neck and temples. Round her wellcut, strong neck was a thread of pearls. Kitty had been seeing Anna every day she adored her, and had pictured her invariably in lilac. But now seeing her in black, she felt that she had not fully seen her charm. She saw her now as someone quite new and surprising to her. Now she understood that Anna could not have been in lilac, and that her charm was just that she always stood out against her attire, that her dress could never be noticeable on her. And her black dress, with its sumptuous lace, was not noticeable on her it was only the frame, and all that was seen was shesimple, natural, elegant, and at the same time gay and eager. She was standing holding herself, as always, very erect, and when Kitty drew near the group she was speaking to the master of the house, her head slightly turned towards him. 'No, I don't throw stones, she was saying, in answer to something, 'though I can't understand it, she went on, shrugging her shoulders, and she turned at once with a soft smile of protection towards Kitty. With a flying, feminine glance she scanned her attire, and made a movement of her head, hardly perceptible, but understood by Kitty, signifying approval of her dress and her looks. 'You came into the room dancing, she added. 'This is one of my most faithful supporters, said Korsunsky, bowing to Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not yet seen. 'The princess helps to make balls happy and successful. Anna Arkadyevna, a waltz? he said, bending down to her. 'Why, have you met? inquired their host. 'Is there anyone we have not met? My wife and I are like white wolveseveryone knows us, answered Korsunsky. 'A waltz, Anna Arkadyevna? 'I don't dance when it's possible not to dance, she said. 'But tonight it's impossible, answered Korsunsky. At that instant Vronsky came up. 'Well, since it's impossible tonight, let us start, she said, not noticing Vronsky's bow, and she hastily put her hand on Korsunsky's shoulder. 'What is she vexed with him about? thought Kitty, discerning that Anna had intentionally not responded to Vronsky's bow. Vronsky went up to Kitty reminding her of the first quadrille, and expressing his regret that he had not seen her all this time. Kitty gazed in admiration at Anna waltzing, and listened to him. She expected him to ask her for a waltz, but he did not, and she glanced wonderingly at him. He flushed slightly, and hurriedly asked her to waltz, but he had only just put his arm round her waist and taken the first step when the music suddenly stopped. Kitty looked into his face, which was so close to her own, and long afterwardsfor several years afterthat look, full of love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with an agony of shame. 'Pardon! pardon! Waltz! waltz! shouted Korsunsky from the other side of the room, and seizing the first young lady he came across he began dancing himself. Vronsky and Kitty waltzed several times round the room. After the first waltz Kitty went to her mother, and she had hardly time to say a few words to Countess Nordston when Vronsky came up again for the first quadrille. During the quadrille nothing of any significance was said there was disjointed talk between them of the Korsunskys, husband and wife, whom he described very amusingly, as delightful children at forty, and of the future town theater and only once the conversation touched her to the quick, when he asked her about Levin, whether he was here, and added that he liked him so much. But Kitty did not expect much from the quadrille. She looked forward with a thrill at her heart to the mazurka. She fancied that in the mazurka everything must be decided. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance the mazurka with him as she had done at former balls, and refused five young men, saying she was engaged for the mazurka. The whole ball up to the last quadrille was for Kitty an enchanted vision of delightful colors, sounds, and motions. She only sat down when she felt too tired and begged for a rest. But as she was dancing the last quadrille with one of the tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she chanced to be visvis with Vronsky and Anna. She had not been near Anna again since the beginning of the evening, and now again she saw her suddenly quite new and surprising. She saw in her the signs of that excitement of success she knew so well in herself she saw that she was intoxicated with the delighted admiration she was exciting. She knew that feeling and knew its signs, and saw them in Anna saw the quivering, flashing light in her eyes, and the smile of happiness and excitement unconsciously playing on her lips, and the deliberate grace, precision, and lightness of her movements. 'Who? she asked herself. 'All or one? And not assisting the harassed young man she was dancing with in the conversation, the thread of which he had lost and could not pick up again, she obeyed with external liveliness the peremptory shouts of Korsunsky starting them all into the grand rond, and then into the chane, and at the same time she kept watch with a growing pang at her heart. 'No, it's not the admiration of the crowd has intoxicated her, but the adoration of one. And that one? can it be he? Every time he spoke to Anna the joyous light flashed into her eyes, and the smile of happiness curved her red lips. She seemed to make an effort to control herself, to try not to show these signs of delight, but they came out on her face of themselves. 'But what of him? Kitty looked at him and was filled with terror. What was pictured so clearly to Kitty in the mirror of Anna's face she saw in him. What had become of his always selfpossessed resolute manner, and the carelessly serene expression of his face? Now every time he turned to her, he bent his head, as though he would have fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but humble submission and dread. 'I would not offend you, his eyes seemed every time to be saying, 'but I want to save myself, and I don't know how. On his face was a look such as Kitty had never seen before. They were speaking of common acquaintances, keeping up the most trivial conversation, but to Kitty it seemed that every word they said was determining their fate and hers. And strange it was that they were actually talking of how absurd Ivan Ivanovitch was with his French, and how the Eletsky girl might have made a better match, yet these words had all the while consequence for them, and they were feeling just as Kitty did. The whole ball, the whole world, everything seemed lost in fog in Kitty's soul. Nothing but the stern discipline of her bringingup supported her and forced her to do what was expected of her, that is, to dance, to answer questions, to talk, even to smile. But before the mazurka, when they were beginning to rearrange the chairs and a few couples moved out of the smaller rooms into the big room, a moment of despair and horror came for Kitty. She had refused five partners, and now she was not dancing the mazurka. She had not even a hope of being asked for it, because she was so successful in society that the idea would never occur to anyone that she had remained disengaged till now. She would have to tell her mother she felt ill and go home, but she had not the strength to do this. She felt crushed. She went to the furthest end of the little drawingroom and sank into a low chair. Her light, transparent skirts rose like a cloud about her slender waist one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly, was lost in the folds of her pink tunic in the other she held her fan, and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face. But while she looked like a butterfly, clinging to a blade of grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her heart ached with a horrible despair. 'But perhaps I am wrong, perhaps it was not so? And again she recalled all she had seen. 'Kitty, what is it? said Countess Nordston, stepping noiselessly over the carpet towards her. 'I don't understand it. Kitty's lower lip began to quiver she got up quickly. 'Kitty, you're not dancing the mazurka? 'No, no, said Kitty in a voice shaking with tears. 'He asked her for the mazurka before me, said Countess Nordston, knowing Kitty would understand who were 'he and 'her. 'She said 'Why, aren't you going to dance it with Princess Shtcherbatskaya?' 'Oh, I don't care! answered Kitty. No one but she herself understood her position no one knew that she had just refused the man whom perhaps she loved, and refused him because she had put her faith in another. Countess Nordston found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty. Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not to talk, because Korsunsky was all the time running about directing the figure. Vronsky and Anna sat almost opposite her. She saw them with her longsighted eyes, and saw them, too, close by, when they met in the figures, and the more she saw of them the more convinced was she that her unhappiness was complete. She saw that they felt themselves alone in that crowded room. And on Vronsky's face, always so firm and independent, she saw that look that had struck her, of bewilderment and humble submissiveness, like the expression of an intelligent dog when it has done wrong. Anna smiled, and her smile was reflected by him. She grew thoughtful, and he became serious. Some supernatural force drew Kitty's eyes to Anna's face. She was fascinating in her simple black dress, fascinating were her round arms with their bracelets, fascinating was her firm neck with its thread of pearls, fascinating the straying curls of her loose hair, fascinating the graceful, light movements of her little feet and hands, fascinating was that lovely face in its eagerness, but there was something terrible and cruel in her fascination. Kitty admired her more than ever, and more and more acute was her suffering. Kitty felt overwhelmed, and her face showed it. When Vronsky saw her, coming across her in the mazurka, he did not at once recognize her, she was so changed. 'Delightful ball! he said to her, for the sake of saying something. 'Yes, she answered. In the middle of the mazurka, repeating a complicated figure, newly invented by Korsunsky, Anna came forward into the center of the circle, chose two gentlemen, and summoned a lady and Kitty. Kitty gazed at her in dismay as she went up. Anna looked at her with drooping eyelids, and smiled, pressing her hand. But, noticing that Kitty only responded to her smile by a look of despair and amazement, she turned away from her, and began gaily talking to the other lady. 'Yes, there is something uncanny, devilish and fascinating in her, Kitty said to herself. Anna did not mean to stay to supper, but the master of the house began to press her to do so. 'Nonsense, Anna Arkadyevna, said Korsunsky, drawing her bare arm under the sleeve of his dress coat, 'I've such an idea for a cotillion! Un bijou! And he moved gradually on, trying to draw her along with him. Their host smiled approvingly. 'No, I am not going to stay, answered Anna, smiling, but in spite of her smile, both Korsunsky and the master of the house saw from her resolute tone that she would not stay. 'No why, as it is, I have danced more at your ball in Moscow than I have all the winter in Petersburg, said Anna, looking round at Vronsky, who stood near her. 'I must rest a little before my journey. 'Are you certainly going tomorrow then? asked Vronsky. 'Yes, I suppose so, answered Anna, as it were wondering at the boldness of his question but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it. Anna Arkadyevna did not stay to supper, but went home. 'Yes, there is something in me hateful, repulsive, thought Levin, as he came away from the Shtcherbatskys', and walked in the direction of his brother's lodgings. 'And I don't get on with other people. Pride, they say. No, I have no pride. If I had any pride, I should not have put myself in such a position. And he pictured to himself Vronsky, happy, goodnatured, clever, and selfpossessed, certainly never placed in the awful position in which he had been that evening. 'Yes, she was bound to choose him. So it had to be, and I cannot complain of anyone or anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I to imagine she would care to join her life to mine? Who am I and what am I? A nobody, not wanted by anyone, nor of use to anybody. And he recalled his brother Nikolay, and dwelt with pleasure on the thought of him. 'Isn't he right that everything in the world is base and loathsome? And are we fair in our judgment of brother Nikolay? Of course, from the point of view of Prokofy, seeing him in a torn cloak and tipsy, he's a despicable person. But I know him differently. I know his soul, and know that we are like him. And I, instead of going to seek him out, went out to dinner, and came here. Levin walked up to a lamppost, read his brother's address, which was in his pocketbook, and called a sledge. All the long way to his brother's, Levin vividly recalled all the facts familiar to him of his brother Nikolay's life. He remembered how his brother, while at the university, and for a year afterwards, had, in spite of the jeers of his companions, lived like a monk, strictly observing all religious rites, services, and fasts, and avoiding every sort of pleasure, especially women. And afterwards, how he had all at once broken out he had associated with the most horrible people, and rushed into the most senseless debauchery. He remembered later the scandal over a boy, whom he had taken from the country to bring up, and, in a fit of rage, had so violently beaten that proceedings were brought against him for unlawfully wounding. Then he recalled the scandal with a sharper, to whom he had lost money, and given a promissory note, and against whom he had himself lodged a complaint, asserting that he had cheated him. (This was the money Sergey Ivanovitch had paid.) Then he remembered how he had spent a night in the lockup for disorderly conduct in the street. He remembered the shameful proceedings he had tried to get up against his brother Sergey Ivanovitch, accusing him of not having paid him his share of his mother's fortune, and the last scandal, when he had gone to a western province in an official capacity, and there had got into trouble for assaulting a village elder.... It was all horribly disgusting, yet to Levin it appeared not at all in the same disgusting light as it inevitably would to those who did not know Nikolay, did not know all his story, did not know his heart. Levin remembered that when Nikolay had been in the devout stage, the period of fasts and monks and church services, when he was seeking in religion a support and a curb for his passionate temperament, everyone, far from encouraging him, had jeered at him, and he, too, with the others. They had teased him, called him Noah, and monk and, when he had broken out, no one had helped him, but everyone had turned away from him with horror and disgust. Levin felt that, in spite of all the ugliness of his life, his brother Nikolay, in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, was no more in the wrong than the people who despised him. He was not to blame for having been born with his unbridled temperament and his somehow limited intelligence. But he had always wanted to be good. 'I will tell him everything, without reserve, and I will make him speak without reserve, too, and I'll show him that I love him, and so understand him, Levin resolved to himself, as, towards eleven o'clock, he reached the hotel of which he had the address. 'At the top,  and , the porter answered Levin's inquiry. 'At home? 'Sure to be at home. The door of No.  was half open, and there came out into the streak of light thick fumes of cheap, poor tobacco, and the sound of a voice, unknown to Levin but he knew at once that his brother was there he heard his cough. As he went in the door, the unknown voice was saying 'It all depends with how much judgment and knowledge the thing's done. Konstantin Levin looked in at the door, and saw that the speaker was a young man with an immense shock of hair, wearing a Russian jerkin, and that a pockmarked woman in a woolen gown, without collar or cuffs, was sitting on the sofa. His brother was not to be seen. Konstantin felt a sharp pang at his heart at the thought of the strange company in which his brother spent his life. No one had heard him, and Konstantin, taking off his galoshes, listened to what the gentleman in the jerkin was saying. He was speaking of some enterprise. 'Well, the devil flay them, the privileged classes, his brother's voice responded, with a cough. 'Masha! get us some supper and some wine if there's any left or else go and get some. The woman rose, came out from behind the screen, and saw Konstantin. 'There's some gentleman, Nikolay Dmitrievitch, she said. 'Whom do you want? said the voice of Nikolay Levin, angrily. 'It's I, answered Konstantin Levin, coming forward into the light. 'Who's I? Nikolay's voice said again, still more angrily. He could be heard getting up hurriedly, stumbling against something, and Levin saw, facing him in the doorway, the big, scared eyes, and the huge, thin, stooping figure of his brother, so familiar, and yet astonishing in its weirdness and sickliness. He was even thinner than three years before, when Konstantin Levin had seen him last. He was wearing a short coat, and his hands and big bones seemed huger than ever. His hair had grown thinner, the same straight mustaches hid his lips, the same eyes gazed strangely and navely at his visitor. 'Ah, Kostya! he exclaimed suddenly, recognizing his brother, and his eyes lit up with joy. But the same second he looked round at the young man, and gave the nervous jerk of his head and neck that Konstantin knew so well, as if his neckband hurt him and a quite different expression, wild, suffering, and cruel, rested on his emaciated face. 'I wrote to you and Sergey Ivanovitch both that I don't know you and don't want to know you. What is it you want? He was not at all the same as Konstantin had been fancying him. The worst and most tiresome part of his character, what made all relations with him so difficult, had been forgotten by Konstantin Levin when he thought of him, and now, when he saw his face, and especially that nervous twitching of his head, he remembered it all. 'I didn't want to see you for anything, he answered timidly. 'I've simply come to see you. His brother's timidity obviously softened Nikolay. His lips twitched. 'Oh, so that's it? he said. 'Well, come in sit down. Like some supper? Masha, bring supper for three. No, stop a minute. Do you know who this is? he said, addressing his brother, and indicating the gentleman in the jerkin 'This is Mr. Kritsky, my friend from Kiev, a very remarkable man. He's persecuted by the police, of course, because he's not a scoundrel. And he looked round in the way he always did at everyone in the room. Seeing that the woman standing in the doorway was moving to go, he shouted to her, 'Wait a minute, I said. And with the inability to express himself, the incoherence that Konstantin knew so well, he began, with another look round at everyone, to tell his brother Kritsky's story how he had been expelled from the university for starting a benefit society for the poor students and Sunday schools and how he had afterwards been a teacher in a peasant school, and how he had been driven out of that too, and had afterwards been condemned for something. 'You're of the Kiev university? said Konstantin Levin to Kritsky, to break the awkward silence that followed. 'Yes, I was of Kiev, Kritsky replied angrily, his face darkening. 'And this woman, Nikolay Levin interrupted him, pointing to her, 'is the partner of my life, Marya Nikolaevna. I took her out of a bad house, and he jerked his neck saying this 'but I love her and respect her, and anyone who wants to know me, he added, raising his voice and knitting his brows, 'I beg to love her and respect her. She's just the same as my wife, just the same. So now you know whom you've to do with. And if you think you're lowering yourself, well, here's the floor, there's the door. And again his eyes traveled inquiringly over all of them. 'Why I should be lowering myself, I don't understand. 'Then, Masha, tell them to bring supper three portions, spirits and wine.... No, wait a minute.... No, it doesn't matter.... Go along. 'So you see, pursued Nikolay Levin, painfully wrinkling his forehead and twitching. It was obviously difficult for him to think of what to say and do. 'Here, do you see?... He pointed to some sort of iron bars, fastened together with strings, lying in a corner of the room. 'Do you see that? That's the beginning of a new thing we're going into. It's a productive association.... Konstantin scarcely heard him. He looked into his sickly, consumptive face, and he was more and more sorry for him, and he could not force himself to listen to what his brother was telling him about the association. He saw that this association was a mere anchor to save him from selfcontempt. Nikolay Levin went on talking 'You know that capital oppresses the laborer. The laborers with us, the peasants, bear all the burden of labor, and are so placed that however much they work they can't escape from their position of beasts of burden. All the profits of labor, on which they might improve their position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after that education, all the surplus values are taken from them by the capitalists. And society's so constituted that the harder they work, the greater the profit of the merchants and landowners, while they stay beasts of burden to the end. And that state of things must be changed, he finished up, and he looked questioningly at his brother. 'Yes, of course, said Konstantin, looking at the patch of red that had come out on his brother's projecting cheekbones. 'And so we're founding a locksmiths' association, where all the production and profit and the chief instruments of production will be in common. 'Where is the association to be? asked Konstantin Levin. 'In the village of Vozdrem, Kazan government. 'But why in a village? In the villages, I think, there is plenty of work as it is. Why a locksmiths' association in a village? 'Why? Because the peasants are just as much slaves as they ever were, and that's why you and Sergey Ivanovitch don't like people to try and get them out of their slavery, said Nikolay Levin, exasperated by the objection. Konstantin Levin sighed, looking meanwhile about the cheerless and dirty room. This sigh seemed to exasperate Nikolay still more. 'I know your and Sergey Ivanovitch's aristocratic views. I know that he applies all the power of his intellect to justify existing evils. 'No and what do you talk of Sergey Ivanovitch for? said Levin, smiling. 'Sergey Ivanovitch? I'll tell you what for! Nikolay Levin shrieked suddenly at the name of Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I'll tell you what for.... But what's the use of talking? There's only one thing.... What did you come to me for? You look down on this, and you're welcome to,and go away, in God's name go away! he shrieked, getting up from his chair. 'And go away, and go away! 'I don't look down on it at all, said Konstantin Levin timidly. 'I don't even dispute it. At that instant Marya Nikolaevna came back. Nikolay Levin looked round angrily at her. She went quickly to him, and whispered something. 'I'm not well I've grown irritable, said Nikolay Levin, getting calmer and breathing painfully 'and then you talk to me of Sergey Ivanovitch and his article. It's such rubbish, such lying, such selfdeception. What can a man write of justice who knows nothing of it? Have you read his article? he asked Kritsky, sitting down again at the table, and moving back off half of it the scattered cigarettes, so as to clear a space. 'I've not read it, Kritsky responded gloomily, obviously not desiring to enter into the conversation. 'Why not? said Nikolay Levin, now turning with exasperation upon Kritsky. 'Because I didn't see the use of wasting my time over it. 'Oh, but excuse me, how did you know it would be wasting your time? That article's too deep for many peoplethat's to say it's over their heads. But with me, it's another thing I see through his ideas, and I know where its weakness lies. Everyone was mute. Kritsky got up deliberately and reached his cap. 'Won't you have supper? All right, goodbye! Come round tomorrow with the locksmith. Kritsky had hardly gone out when Nikolay Levin smiled and winked. 'He's no good either, he said. 'I see, of course.... But at that instant Kritsky, at the door, called him.... 'What do you want now? he said, and went out to him in the passage. Left alone with Marya Nikolaevna, Levin turned to her. 'Have you been long with my brother? he said to her. 'Yes, more than a year. Nikolay Dmitrievitch's health has become very poor. Nikolay Dmitrievitch drinks a great deal, she said. 'That is ... how does he drink? 'Drinks vodka, and it's bad for him. 'And a great deal? whispered Levin. 'Yes, she said, looking timidly towards the doorway, where Nikolay Levin had reappeared. 'What were you talking about? he said, knitting his brows, and turning his scared eyes from one to the other. 'What was it? 'Oh, nothing, Konstantin answered in confusion. 'Oh, if you don't want to say, don't. Only it's no good your talking to her. She's a wench, and you're a gentleman, he said with a jerk of the neck. 'You understand everything, I see, and have taken stock of everything, and look with commiseration on my shortcomings, he began again, raising his voice. 'Nikolay Dmitrievitch, Nikolay Dmitrievitch, whispered Marya Nikolaevna, again going up to him. 'Oh, very well, very well!... But where's the supper? Ah, here it is, he said, seeing a waiter with a tray. 'Here, set it here, he added angrily, and promptly seizing the vodka, he poured out a glassful and drank it greedily. 'Like a drink? he turned to his brother, and at once became better humored. 'Well, enough of Sergey Ivanovitch. I'm glad to see you, anyway. After all's said and done, we're not strangers. Come, have a drink. Tell me what you're doing, he went on, greedily munching a piece of bread, and pouring out another glassful. 'How are you living? 'I live alone in the country, as I used to. I'm busy looking after the land, answered Konstantin, watching with horror the greediness with which his brother ate and drank, and trying to conceal that he noticed it. 'Why don't you get married? 'It hasn't happened so, Konstantin answered, reddening a little. 'Why not? For me now ... everything's at an end! I've made a mess of my life. But this I've said, and I say still, that if my share had been given me when I needed it, my whole life would have been different. Konstantin made haste to change the conversation. 'Do you know your little Vanya's with me, a clerk in the countinghouse at Pokrovskoe. Nikolay jerked his neck, and sank into thought. 'Yes, tell me what's going on at Pokrovskoe. Is the house standing still, and the birch trees, and our schoolroom? And Philip the gardener, is he living? How I remember the arbor and the seat! Now mind and don't alter anything in the house, but make haste and get married, and make everything as it used to be again. Then I'll come and see you, if your wife is nice. 'But come to me now, said Levin. 'How nicely we would arrange it! 'I'd come and see you if I were sure I should not find Sergey Ivanovitch. 'You wouldn't find him there. I live quite independently of him. 'Yes, but say what you like, you will have to choose between me and him, he said, looking timidly into his brother's face. This timidity touched Konstantin. 'If you want to hear my confession of faith on the subject, I tell you that in your quarrel with Sergey Ivanovitch I take neither side. You're both wrong. You're more wrong externally, and he inwardly. 'Ah, ah! You see that, you see that! Nikolay shouted joyfully. 'But I personally value friendly relations with you more because.... 'Why, why? Konstantin could not say that he valued it more because Nikolay was unhappy, and needed affection. But Nikolay knew that this was just what he meant to say, and scowling he took up the vodka again. 'Enough, Nikolay Dmitrievitch! said Marya Nikolaevna, stretching out her plump, bare arm towards the decanter. 'Let it be! Don't insist! I'll beat you! he shouted. Marya Nikolaevna smiled a sweet and goodhumored smile, which was at once reflected on Nikolay's face, and she took the bottle. 'And do you suppose she understands nothing? said Nikolay. 'She understands it all better than any of us. Isn't it true there's something good and sweet in her? 'Were you never before in Moscow? Konstantin said to her, for the sake of saying something. 'Only you mustn't be polite and stiff with her. It frightens her. No one ever spoke to her so but the justices of the peace who tried her for trying to get out of a house of illfame. Mercy on us, the senselessness in the world! he cried suddenly. 'These new institutions, these justices of the peace, rural councils, what hideousness it all is! And he began to enlarge on his encounters with the new institutions. Konstantin Levin heard him, and the disbelief in the sense of all public institutions, which he shared with him, and often expressed, was distasteful to him now from his brother's lips. 'In another world we shall understand it all, he said lightly. 'In another world! Ah, I don't like that other world! I don't like it, he said, letting his scared eyes rest on his brother's eyes. 'Here one would think that to get out of all the baseness and the mess, one's own and other people's, would be a good thing, and yet I'm afraid of death, awfully afraid of death. He shuddered. 'But do drink something. Would you like some champagne? Or shall we go somewhere? Let's go to the Gypsies! Do you know I have got so fond of the Gypsies and Russian songs. His speech had begun to falter, and he passed abruptly from one subject to another. Konstantin with the help of Masha persuaded him not to go out anywhere, and got him to bed hopelessly drunk. Masha promised to write to Konstantin in case of need, and to persuade Nikolay Levin to go and stay with his brother. In the morning Konstantin Levin left Moscow, and towards evening he reached home. On the journey in the train he talked to his neighbors about politics and the new railways, and, just as in Moscow, he was overcome by a sense of confusion of ideas, dissatisfaction with himself, shame of something or other. But when he got out at his own station, when he saw his oneeyed coachman, Ignat, with the collar of his coat turned up when, in the dim light reflected by the station fires, he saw his own sledge, his own horses with their tails tied up, in their harness trimmed with rings and tassels when the coachman Ignat, as he put in his luggage, told him the village news, that the contractor had arrived, and that Pava had calved,he felt that little by little the confusion was clearing up, and the shame and selfdissatisfaction were passing away. He felt this at the mere sight of Ignat and the horses but when he had put on the sheepskin brought for him, had sat down wrapped up in the sledge, and had driven off pondering on the work that lay before him in the village, and staring at the sidehorse, that had been his saddlehorse, past his prime now, but a spirited beast from the Don, he began to see what had happened to him in quite a different light. He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better than before. In the first place he resolved that from that day he would give up hoping for any extraordinary happiness, such as marriage must have given him, and consequently he would not so disdain what he really had. Secondly, he would never again let himself give way to low passion, the memory of which had so tortured him when he had been making up his mind to make an offer. Then remembering his brother Nikolay, he resolved to himself that he would never allow himself to forget him, that he would follow him up, and not lose sight of him, so as to be ready to help when things should go ill with him. And that would be soon, he felt. Then, too, his brother's talk of communism, which he had treated so lightly at the time, now made him think. He considered a revolution in economic conditions nonsense. But he always felt the injustice of his own abundance in comparison with the poverty of the peasants, and now he determined that so as to feel quite in the right, though he had worked hard and lived by no means luxuriously before, he would now work still harder, and would allow himself even less luxury. And all this seemed to him so easy a conquest over himself that he spent the whole drive in the pleasantest daydreams. With a resolute feeling of hope in a new, better life, he reached home before nine o'clock at night. The snow of the little quadrangle before the house was lit up by a light in the bedroom windows of his old nurse, Agafea Mihalovna, who performed the duties of housekeeper in his house. She was not yet asleep. Kouzma, waked up by her, came sidling sleepily out onto the steps. A setter bitch, Laska, ran out too, almost upsetting Kouzma, and whining, turned round about Levin's knees, jumping up and longing, but not daring, to put her forepaws on his chest. 'You're soon back again, sir, said Agafea Mihalovna. 'I got tired of it, Agafea Mihalovna. With friends, one is well but at home, one is better, he answered, and went into his study. The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out the stag's horns, the bookshelves, the lookingglass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ashtray, a manuscript book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him 'No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as you've always been with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you. This the things said to him, but another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself. And hearing that voice, he went into the corner where stood his two heavy dumbbells, and began brandishing them like a gymnast, trying to restore his confident temper. There was a creak of steps at the door. He hastily put down the dumbbells. The bailiff came in, and said everything, thank God, was doing well but informed him that the buckwheat in the new drying machine had been a little scorched. This piece of news irritated Levin. The new drying machine had been constructed and partly invented by Levin. The bailiff had always been against the drying machine, and now it was with suppressed triumph that he announced that the buckwheat had been scorched. Levin was firmly convinced that if the buckwheat had been scorched, it was only because the precautions had not been taken, for which he had hundreds of times given orders. He was annoyed, and reprimanded the bailiff. But there had been an important and joyful event Pava, his best cow, an expensive beast, bought at a show, had calved. 'Kouzma, give me my sheepskin. And you tell them to take a lantern. I'll come and look at her, he said to the bailiff. The cowhouse for the more valuable cows was just behind the house. Walking across the yard, passing a snowdrift by the lilac tree, he went into the cowhouse. There was the warm, steamy smell of dung when the frozen door was opened, and the cows, astonished at the unfamiliar light of the lantern, stirred on the fresh straw. He caught a glimpse of the broad, smooth, black and piebald back of Hollandka. Berkoot, the bull, was lying down with his ring in his lip, and seemed about to get up, but thought better of it, and only gave two snorts as they passed by him. Pava, a perfect beauty, huge as a hippopotamus, with her back turned to them, prevented their seeing the calf, as she sniffed her all over. Levin went into the pen, looked Pava over, and lifted the red and spotted calf onto her long, tottering legs. Pava, uneasy, began lowing, but when Levin put the calf close to her she was soothed, and, sighing heavily, began licking her with her rough tongue. The calf, fumbling, poked her nose under her mother's udder, and stiffened her tail out straight. 'Here, bring the light, Fyodor, this way, said Levin, examining the calf. 'Like the mother! though the color takes after the father but that's nothing. Very good. Long and broad in the haunch. Vassily Fedorovitch, isn't she splendid? he said to the bailiff, quite forgiving him for the buckwheat under the influence of his delight in the calf. 'How could she fail to be? Oh, Semyon the contractor came the day after you left. You must settle with him, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, said the bailiff. 'I did inform you about the machine. This question was enough to take Levin back to all the details of his work on the estate, which was on a large scale, and complicated. He went straight from the cowhouse to the counting house, and after a little conversation with the bailiff and Semyon the contractor, he went back to the house and straight upstairs to the drawingroom. The house was big and oldfashioned, and Levin, though he lived alone, had the whole house heated and used. He knew that this was stupid, he knew that it was positively not right, and contrary to his present new plans, but this house was a whole world to Levin. It was the world in which his father and mother had lived and died. They had lived just the life that to Levin seemed the ideal of perfection, and that he had dreamed of beginning with his wife, his family. Levin scarcely remembered his mother. His conception of her was for him a sacred memory, and his future wife was bound to be in his imagination a repetition of that exquisite, holy ideal of a woman that his mother had been. He was so far from conceiving of love for woman apart from marriage that he positively pictured to himself first the family, and only secondarily the woman who would give him a family. His ideas of marriage were, consequently, quite unlike those of the great majority of his acquaintances, for whom getting married was one of the numerous facts of social life. For Levin it was the chief affair of life, on which its whole happiness turned. And now he had to give up that. When he had gone into the little drawingroom, where he always had tea, and had settled himself in his armchair with a book, and Agafea Mihalovna had brought him tea, and with her usual, 'Well, I'll stay a while, sir, had taken a chair in the window, he felt that, however strange it might be, he had not parted from his daydreams, and that he could not live without them. Whether with her, or with another, still it would be. He was reading a book, and thinking of what he was reading, and stopping to listen to Agafea Mihalovna, who gossiped away without flagging, and yet with all that, all sorts of pictures of family life and work in the future rose disconnectedly before his imagination. He felt that in the depth of his soul something had been put in its place, settled down, and laid to rest. He heard Agafea Mihalovna talking of how Prohor had forgotten his duty to God, and with the money Levin had given him to buy a horse, had been drinking without stopping, and had beaten his wife till he'd half killed her. He listened, and read his book, and recalled the whole train of ideas suggested by his reading. It was Tyndall's Treatise on Heat. He recalled his own criticisms of Tyndall of his complacent satisfaction in the cleverness of his experiments, and for his lack of philosophic insight. And suddenly there floated into his mind the joyful thought 'In two years' time I shall have two Dutch cows Pava herself will perhaps still be alive, a dozen young daughters of Berkoot and the three othershow lovely! He took up his book again. 'Very good, electricity and heat are the same thing but is it possible to substitute the one quantity for the other in the equation for the solution of any problem? No. Well, then what of it? The connection between all the forces of nature is felt instinctively.... It's particulary nice if Pava's daughter should be a redspotted cow, and all the herd will take after her, and the other three, too! Splendid! To go out with my wife and visitors to meet the herd.... My wife says, 'Kostya and I looked after that calf like a child.' 'How can it interest you so much?' says a visitor. 'Everything that interests him, interests me.' But who will she be? And he remembered what had happened at Moscow.... 'Well, there's nothing to be done.... It's not my fault. But now everything shall go on in a new way. It's nonsense to pretend that life won't let one, that the past won't let one. One must struggle to live better, much better.... He raised his head, and fell to dreaming. Old Laska, who had not yet fully digested her delight at his return, and had run out into the yard to bark, came back wagging her tail, and crept up to him, bringing in the scent of fresh air, put her head under his hand, and whined plaintively, asking to be stroked. 'There, who'd have thought it? said Agafea Mihalovna. 'The dog now ... why, she understands that her master's come home, and that he's lowspirited. 'Why lowspirited? 'Do you suppose I don't see it, sir? It's high time I should know the gentry. Why, I've grown up from a little thing with them. It's nothing, sir, so long as there's health and a clear conscience. Levin looked intently at her, surprised at how well she knew his thought. 'Shall I fetch you another cup? said she, and taking his cup she went out. Laska kept poking her head under his hand. He stroked her, and she promptly curled up at his feet, laying her head on a hindpaw. And in token of all now being well and satisfactory, she opened her mouth a little, smacked her lips, and settling her sticky lips more comfortably about her old teeth, she sank into blissful repose. Levin watched all her movements attentively. 'That's what I'll do, he said to himself 'that's what I'll do! Nothing's amiss.... All's well. After the ball, early next morning, Anna Arkadyevna sent her husband a telegram that she was leaving Moscow the same day. 'No, I must go, I must go she explained to her sisterinlaw the change in her plans in a tone that suggested that she had to remember so many things that there was no enumerating them 'no, it had really better be today! Stepan Arkadyevitch was not dining at home, but he promised to come and see his sister off at seven o'clock. Kitty, too, did not come, sending a note that she had a headache. Dolly and Anna dined alone with the children and the English governess. Whether it was that the children were fickle, or that they had acute senses, and felt that Anna was quite different that day from what she had been when they had taken such a fancy to her, that she was not now interested in them,but they had abruptly dropped their play with their aunt, and their love for her, and were quite indifferent that she was going away. Anna was absorbed the whole morning in preparations for her departure. She wrote notes to her Moscow acquaintances, put down her accounts, and packed. Altogether Dolly fancied she was not in a placid state of mind, but in that worried mood, which Dolly knew well with herself, and which does not come without cause, and for the most part covers dissatisfaction with self. After dinner, Anna went up to her room to dress, and Dolly followed her. 'How queer you are today! Dolly said to her. 'I? Do you think so? I'm not queer, but I'm nasty. I am like that sometimes. I keep feeling as if I could cry. It's very stupid, but it'll pass off, said Anna quickly, and she bent her flushed face over a tiny bag in which she was packing a nightcap and some cambric handkerchiefs. Her eyes were particularly bright, and were continually swimming with tears. 'In the same way I didn't want to leave Petersburg, and now I don't want to go away from here. 'You came here and did a good deed, said Dolly, looking intently at her. Anna looked at her with eyes wet with tears. 'Don't say that, Dolly. I've done nothing, and could do nothing. I often wonder why people are all in league to spoil me. What have I done, and what could I do? In your heart there was found love enough to forgive.... 'If it had not been for you, God knows what would have happened! How happy you are, Anna! said Dolly. 'Everything is clear and good in your heart. 'Every heart has its own skeletons, as the English say. 'You have no sort of skeleton, have you? Everything is so clear in you. 'I have! said Anna suddenly, and, unexpectedly after her tears, a sly, ironical smile curved her lips. 'Come, he's amusing, anyway, your skeleton, and not depressing, said Dolly, smiling. 'No, he's depressing. Do you know why I'm going today instead of tomorrow? It's a confession that weighs on me I want to make it to you, said Anna, letting herself drop definitely into an armchair, and looking straight into Dolly's face. And to her surprise Dolly saw that Anna was blushing up to her ears, up to the curly black ringlets on her neck. 'Yes, Anna went on. 'Do you know why Kitty didn't come to dinner? She's jealous of me. I have spoiled ... I've been the cause of that ball being a torture to her instead of a pleasure. But truly, truly, it's not my fault, or only my fault a little bit, she said, daintily drawling the words 'a little bit. 'Oh, how like Stiva you said that! said Dolly, laughing. Anna was hurt. 'Oh no, oh no! I'm not Stiva, she said, knitting her brows. 'That's why I'm telling you, just because I could never let myself doubt myself for an instant, said Anna. But at the very moment she was uttering the words, she felt that they were not true. She was not merely doubting herself, she felt emotion at the thought of Vronsky, and was going away sooner than she had meant, simply to avoid meeting him. 'Yes, Stiva told me you danced the mazurka with him, and that he.... 'You can't imagine how absurdly it all came about. I only meant to be matchmaking, and all at once it turned out quite differently. Possibly against my own will.... She crimsoned and stopped. 'Oh, they feel it directly? said Dolly. 'But I should be in despair if there were anything serious in it on his side, Anna interrupted her. 'And I am certain it will all be forgotten, and Kitty will leave off hating me. 'All the same, Anna, to tell you the truth, I'm not very anxious for this marriage for Kitty. And it's better it should come to nothing, if he, Vronsky, is capable of falling in love with you in a single day. 'Oh, heavens, that would be too silly! said Anna, and again a deep flush of pleasure came out on her face, when she heard the idea, that absorbed her, put into words. 'And so here I am going away, having made an enemy of Kitty, whom I liked so much! Ah, how sweet she is! But you'll make it right, Dolly? Eh? Dolly could scarcely suppress a smile. She loved Anna, but she enjoyed seeing that she too had her weaknesses. 'An enemy? That can't be. 'I did so want you all to care for me, as I do for you, and now I care for you more than ever, said Anna, with tears in her eyes. 'Ah, how silly I am today! She passed her handkerchief over her face and began dressing. At the very moment of starting Stepan Arkadyevitch arrived, late, rosy and goodhumored, smelling of wine and cigars. Anna's emotionalism infected Dolly, and when she embraced her sisterinlaw for the last time, she whispered 'Remember, Anna, what you've done for meI shall never forget. And remember that I love you, and shall always love you as my dearest friend! 'I don't know why, said Anna, kissing her and hiding her tears. 'You understood me, and you understand. Goodbye, my darling! 'Come, it's all over, and thank God! was the first thought that came to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said goodbye for the last time to her brother, who had stood blocking up the entrance to the carriage till the third bell rang. She sat down on her lounge beside Annushka, and looked about her in the twilight of the sleepingcarriage. 'Thank God! tomorrow I shall see Seryozha and Alexey Alexandrovitch, and my life will go on in the old way, all nice and as usual. Still in the same anxious frame of mind, as she had been all that day, Anna took pleasure in arranging herself for the journey with great care. With her little deft hands she opened and shut her little red bag, took out a cushion, laid it on her knees, and carefully wrapping up her feet, settled herself comfortably. An invalid lady had already lain down to sleep. Two other ladies began talking to Anna, and a stout elderly lady tucked up her feet, and made observations about the heating of the train. Anna answered a few words, but not foreseeing any entertainment from the conversation, she asked Annushka to get a lamp, hooked it onto the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paperknife and an English novel. At first her reading made no progress. The fuss and bustle were disturbing then when the train had started, she could not help listening to the noises then the snow beating on the left window and sticking to the pane, and the sight of the muffled guard passing by, covered with snow on one side, and the conversations about the terrible snowstorm raging outside, distracted her attention. Farther on, it was continually the same again and again the same shaking and rattling, the same snow on the window, the same rapid transitions from steaming heat to cold, and back again to heat, the same passing glimpses of the same figures in the twilight, and the same voices, and Anna began to read and to understand what she read. Annushka was already dozing, the red bag on her lap, clutched by her broad hands, in gloves, of which one was torn. Anna Arkadyevna read and understood, but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a sick man if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she longed to be delivering the speech if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sisterinlaw, and had surprised everyone by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything and twisting the smooth paperknife in her little hands, she forced herself to read. The hero of the novel was already almost reaching his English happiness, a baronetcy and an estate, and Anna was feeling a desire to go with him to the estate, when she suddenly felt that he ought to feel ashamed, and that she was ashamed of the same thing. But what had he to be ashamed of? 'What have I to be ashamed of? she asked herself in injured surprise. She laid down the book and sank against the back of the chair, tightly gripping the papercutter in both hands. There was nothing. She went over all her Moscow recollections. All were good, pleasant. She remembered the ball, remembered Vronsky and his face of slavish adoration, remembered all her conduct with him there was nothing shameful. And for all that, at the same point in her memories, the feeling of shame was intensified, as though some inner voice, just at the point when she thought of Vronsky, were saying to her, 'Warm, very warm, hot. 'Well, what is it? she said to herself resolutely, shifting her seat in the lounge. 'What does it mean? Am I afraid to look it straight in the face? Why, what is it? Can it be that between me and this officer boy there exist, or can exist, any other relations than such as are common with every acquaintance? She laughed contemptuously and took up her book again but now she was definitely unable to follow what she read. She passed the paperknife over the window pane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and almost laughed aloud at the feeling of delight that all at once without cause came over her. She felt as though her nerves were strings being strained tighter and tighter on some sort of screwing peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously, something within oppressing her breathing, while all shapes and sounds seemed in the uncertain halflight to strike her with unaccustomed vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when she was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or were standing still altogether whether it were Annushka at her side or a stranger. 'What's that on the arm of the chair, a fur cloak or some beast? And what am I myself? Myself or some other woman? She was afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of her warm dress. For a moment she regained her selfpossession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come in wearing a long overcoat, with buttons missing from it, was the stoveheater, that he was looking at the thermometer, that it was the wind and snow bursting in after him at the door but then everything grew blurred again.... That peasant with the long waist seemed to be gnawing something on the wall, the old lady began stretching her legs the whole length of the carriage, and filling it with a black cloud then there was a fearful shrieking and banging, as though someone were being torn to pieces then there was a blinding dazzle of red fire before her eyes and a wall seemed to rise up and hide everything. Anna felt as though she were sinking down. But it was not terrible, but delightful. The voice of a man muffled up and covered with snow shouted something in her ear. She got up and pulled herself together she realized that they had reached a station and that this was the guard. She asked Annushka to hand her the cape she had taken off and her shawl, put them on and moved towards the door. 'Do you wish to get out? asked Annushka. 'Yes, I want a little air. It's very hot in here. And she opened the door. The driving snow and the wind rushed to meet her and struggled with her over the door. But she enjoyed the struggle. She opened the door and went out. The wind seemed as though lying in wait for her with gleeful whistle it tried to snatch her up and bear her off, but she clung to the cold door post, and holding her skirt got down onto the platform and under the shelter of the carriages. The wind had been powerful on the steps, but on the platform, under the lee of the carriages, there was a lull. With enjoyment she drew deep breaths of the frozen, snowy air, and standing near the carriage looked about the platform and the lighted station. The raging tempest rushed whistling between the wheels of the carriages, about the scaffolding, and round the corner of the station. The carriages, posts, people, everything that was to be seen was covered with snow on one side, and was getting more and more thickly covered. For a moment there would come a lull in the storm, but then it would swoop down again with such onslaughts that it seemed impossible to stand against it. Meanwhile men ran to and fro, talking merrily together, their steps crackling on the platform as they continually opened and closed the big doors. The bent shadow of a man glided by at her feet, and she heard sounds of a hammer upon iron. 'Hand over that telegram! came an angry voice out of the stormy darkness on the other side. 'This way! No. ! several different voices shouted again, and muffled figures ran by covered with snow. Two gentlemen with lighted cigarettes passed by her. She drew one more deep breath of the fresh air, and had just put her hand out of her muff to take hold of the door post and get back into the carriage, when another man in a military overcoat, quite close beside her, stepped between her and the flickering light of the lamp post. She looked round, and the same instant recognized Vronsky's face. Putting his hand to the peak of his cap, he bowed to her and asked, Was there anything she wanted? Could he be of any service to her? She gazed rather a long while at him without answering, and, in spite of the shadow in which he was standing, she saw, or fancied she saw, both the expression of his face and his eyes. It was again that expression of reverential ecstasy which had so worked upon her the day before. More than once she had told herself during the past few days, and again only a few moments before, that Vronsky was for her only one of the hundreds of young men, forever exactly the same, that are met everywhere, that she would never allow herself to bestow a thought upon him. But now at the first instant of meeting him, she was seized by a feeling of joyful pride. She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was. 'I didn't know you were going. What are you coming for? she said, letting fall the hand with which she had grasped the door post. And irrepressible delight and eagerness shone in her face. 'What am I coming for? he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. 'You know that I have come to be where you are, he said 'I can't help it. At that moment the wind, as it were, surmounting all obstacles, sent the snow flying from the carriage roofs, and clanked some sheet of iron it had torn off, while the hoarse whistle of the engine roared in front, plaintively and gloomily. All the awfulness of the storm seemed to her more splendid now. He had said what her soul longed to hear, though she feared it with her reason. She made no answer, and in her face he saw conflict. 'Forgive me, if you dislike what I said, he said humbly. He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, so stubbornly, that for a long while she could make no answer. 'It's wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you're a good man, to forget what you've said, as I forget it, she said at last. 'Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget.... 'Enough, enough! she cried trying assiduously to give a stern expression to her face, into which he was gazing greedily. And clutching at the cold door post, she clambered up the steps and got rapidly into the corridor of the carriage. But in the little corridor she paused, going over in her imagination what had happened. Though she could not recall her own words or his, she realized instinctively that the momentary conversation had brought them fearfully closer and she was panicstricken and blissful at it. After standing still a few seconds, she went into the carriage and sat down in her place. The overstrained condition which had tormented her before did not only come back, but was intensified, and reached such a pitch that she was afraid every minute that something would snap within her from the excessive tension. She did not sleep all night. But in that nervous tension, and in the visions that filled her imagination, there was nothing disagreeable or gloomy on the contrary there was something blissful, glowing, and exhilarating. Towards morning Anna sank into a doze, sitting in her place, and when she waked it was daylight and the train was near Petersburg. At once thoughts of home, of husband and of son, and the details of that day and the following came upon her. At Petersburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first person that attracted her attention was her husband. 'Oh, mercy! why do his ears look like that? she thought, looking at his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears that struck her at the moment as propping up the brim of his round hat. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, his lips falling into their habitual sarcastic smile, and his big, tired eyes looking straight at her. An unpleasant sensation gripped at her heart when she met his obstinate and weary glance, as though she had expected to see him different. She was especially struck by the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself that she experienced on meeting him. That feeling was an intimate, familiar feeling, like a consciousness of hypocrisy, which she experienced in her relations with her husband. But hitherto she had not taken note of the feeling, now she was clearly and painfully aware of it. 'Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as the first year after marriage, burned with impatience to see you, he said in his deliberate, highpitched voice, and in that tone which he almost always took with her, a tone of jeering at anyone who should say in earnest what he said. 'Is Seryozha quite well? she asked. 'And is this all the reward, said he, 'for my ardor? He's quite well.... Vronsky had not even tried to sleep all that night. He sat in his armchair, looking straight before him or scanning the people who got in and out. If he had indeed on previous occasions struck and impressed people who did not know him by his air of unhesitating composure, he seemed now more haughty and selfpossessed than ever. He looked at people as if they were things. A nervous young man, a clerk in a law court, sitting opposite him, hated him for that look. The young man asked him for a light, and entered into conversation with him, and even pushed against him, to make him feel that he was not a thing, but a person. But Vronsky gazed at him exactly as he did at the lamp, and the young man made a wry face, feeling that he was losing his selfpossession under the oppression of this refusal to recognize him as a person. Vronsky saw nothing and no one. He felt himself a king, not because he believed that he had made an impression on Annahe did not yet believe that,but because the impression she had made on him gave him happiness and pride. What would come of it all he did not know, he did not even think. He felt that all his forces, hitherto dissipated, wasted, were centered on one thing, and bent with fearful energy on one blissful goal. And he was happy at it. He knew only that he had told her the truth, that he had come where she was, that all the happiness of his life, the only meaning in life for him, now lay in seeing and hearing her. And when he got out of the carriage at Bologova to get some seltzer water, and caught sight of Anna, involuntarily his first word had told her just what he thought. And he was glad he had told her it, that she knew it now and was thinking of it. He did not sleep all night. When he was back in the carriage, he kept unceasingly going over every position in which he had seen her, every word she had uttered, and before his fancy, making his heart faint with emotion, floated pictures of a possible future. When he got out of the train at Petersburg, he felt after his sleepless night as keen and fresh as after a cold bath. He paused near his compartment, waiting for her to get out. 'Once more, he said to himself, smiling unconsciously, 'once more I shall see her walk, her face she will say something, turn her head, glance, smile, maybe. But before he caught sight of her, he saw her husband, whom the stationmaster was deferentially escorting through the crowd. 'Ah, yes! The husband. Only now for the first time did Vronsky realize clearly the fact that there was a person attached to her, a husband. He knew that she had a husband, but had hardly believed in his existence, and only now fully believed in him, with his head and shoulders, and his legs clad in black trousers especially when he saw this husband calmly take her arm with a sense of property. Seeing Alexey Alexandrovitch with his Petersburg face and severely selfconfident figure, in his round hat, with his rather prominent spine, he believed in him, and was aware of a disagreeable sensation, such as a man might feel tortured by thirst, who, on reaching a spring, should find a dog, a sheep, or a pig, who has drunk of it and muddied the water. Alexey Alexandrovitch's manner of walking, with a swing of the hips and flat feet, particularly annoyed Vronsky. He could recognize in no one but himself an indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same, and the sight of her affected him the same way, physically reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him from the second class, to take his things and go on, and he himself went up to her. He saw the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted with a lover's insight the signs of slight reserve with which she spoke to her husband. 'No, she does not love him and cannot love him, he decided to himself. At the moment when he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna he noticed too with joy that she was conscious of his being near, and looked round, and seeing him, turned again to her husband. 'Have you passed a good night? he asked, bowing to her and her husband together, and leaving it up to Alexey Alexandrovitch to accept the bow on his own account, and to recognize it or not, as he might see fit. 'Thank you, very good, she answered. Her face looked weary, and there was not that play of eagerness in it, peeping out in her smile and her eyes but for a single instant, as she glanced at him, there was a flash of something in her eyes, and although the flash died away at once, he was happy for that moment. She glanced at her husband to find out whether he knew Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at Vronsky with displeasure, vaguely recalling who this was. Vronsky's composure and selfconfidence here struck, like a scythe against a stone, upon the cold selfconfidence of Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Count Vronsky, said Anna. 'Ah! We are acquainted, I believe, said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, giving his hand. 'You set off with the mother and you return with the son, he said, articulating each syllable, as though each were a separate favor he was bestowing. 'You're back from leave, I suppose? he said, and without waiting for a reply, he turned to his wife in his jesting tone 'Well, were a great many tears shed at Moscow at parting? By addressing his wife like this he gave Vronsky to understand that he wished to be left alone, and, turning slightly towards him, he touched his hat but Vronsky turned to Anna Arkadyevna. 'I hope I may have the honor of calling on you, he said. Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced with his weary eyes at Vronsky. 'Delighted, he said coldly. 'On Mondays we're at home. Most fortunate, he said to his wife, dismissing Vronsky altogether, 'that I should just have half an hour to meet you, so that I can prove my devotion, he went on in the same jesting tone. 'You lay too much stress on your devotion for me to value it much, she responded in the same jesting tone, involuntarily listening to the sound of Vronsky's steps behind them. 'But what has it to do with me? she said to herself, and she began asking her husband how Seryozha had got on without her. 'Oh, capitally! Mariette says he has been very good, And ... I must disappoint you ... but he has not missed you as your husband has. But once more merci, my dear, for giving me a day. Our dear Samovar will be delighted. (He used to call the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, well known in society, a samovar, because she was always bubbling over with excitement.) 'She has been continually asking after you. And, do you know, if I may venture to advise you, you should go and see her today. You know how she takes everything to heart. Just now, with all her own cares, she's anxious about the Oblonskys being brought together. The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a friend of her husband's, and the center of that one of the coteries of the Petersburg world with which Anna was, through her husband, in the closest relations. 'But you know I wrote to her? 'Still she'll want to hear details. Go and see her, if you're not too tired, my dear. Well, Kondraty will take you in the carriage, while I go to my committee. I shall not be alone at dinner again, Alexey Alexandrovitch went on, no longer in a sarcastic tone. 'You wouldn't believe how I've missed.... And with a long pressure of her hand and a meaning smile, he put her in her carriage. The first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He dashed down the stairs to her, in spite of the governess's call, and with desperate joy shrieked 'Mother! mother! Running up to her, he hung on her neck. 'I told you it was mother! he shouted to the governess. 'I knew! And her son, like her husband, aroused in Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. She had imagined him better than he was in reality. She had to let herself drop down to the reality to enjoy him as he really was. But even as he was, he was charming, with his fair curls, his blue eyes, and his plump, graceful little legs in tightly pulledup stockings. Anna experienced almost physical pleasure in the sensation of his nearness, and his caresses, and moral soothing, when she met his simple, confiding, and loving glance, and heard his nave questions. Anna took out the presents Dolly's children had sent him, and told her son what sort of little girl was Tanya at Moscow, and how Tanya could read, and even taught the other children. 'Why, am I not so nice as she? asked Seryozha. 'To me you're nicer than anyone in the world. 'I know that, said Seryozha, smiling. Anna had not had time to drink her coffee when the Countess Lidia Ivanovna was announced. The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a tall, stout woman, with an unhealthily sallow face and splendid, pensive black eyes. Anna liked her, but today she seemed to be seeing her for the first time with all her defects. 'Well, my dear, so you took the olive branch? inquired Countess Lidia Ivanovna, as soon as she came into the room. 'Yes, it's all over, but it was all much less serious than we had supposed, answered Anna. 'My bellesur is in general too hasty. But Countess Lidia Ivanovna, though she was interested in everything that did not concern her, had a habit of never listening to what interested her she interrupted Anna 'Yes, there's plenty of sorrow and evil in the world. I am so worried today. 'Oh, why? asked Anna, trying to suppress a smile. 'I'm beginning to be weary of fruitlessly championing the truth, and sometimes I'm quite unhinged by it. The Society of the Little Sisters (this was a religiouslypatriotic, philanthropic institution) 'was going splendidly, but with these gentlemen it's impossible to do anything, added Countess Lidia Ivanovna in a tone of ironical submission to destiny. 'They pounce on the idea, and distort it, and then work it out so pettily and unworthily. Two or three people, your husband among them, understand all the importance of the thing, but the others simply drag it down. Yesterday Pravdin wrote to me.... Pravdin was a wellknown Panslavist abroad, and Countess Lidia Ivanovna described the purport of his letter. Then the countess told her of more disagreements and intrigues against the work of the unification of the churches, and departed in haste, as she had that day to be at the meeting of some society and also at the Slavonic committee. 'It was all the same before, of course but why was it I didn't notice it before? Anna asked herself. 'Or has she been very much irritated today? It's really ludicrous her object is doing good she a Christian, yet she's always angry and she always has enemies, and always enemies in the name of Christianity and doing good. After Countess Lidia Ivanovna another friend came, the wife of a chief secretary, who told her all the news of the town. At three o'clock she too went away, promising to come to dinner. Alexey Alexandrovitch was at the ministry. Anna, left alone, spent the time till dinner in assisting at her son's dinner (he dined apart from his parents) and in putting her things in order, and in reading and answering the notes and letters which had accumulated on her table. The feeling of causeless shame, which she had felt on the journey, and her excitement, too, had completely vanished. In the habitual conditions of her life she felt again resolute and irreproachable. She recalled with wonder her state of mind on the previous day. 'What was it? Nothing. Vronsky said something silly, which it was easy to put a stop to, and I answered as I ought to have done. To speak of it to my husband would be unnecessary and out of the question. To speak of it would be to attach importance to what has no importance. She remembered how she had told her husband of what was almost a declaration made her at Petersburg by a young man, one of her husband's subordinates, and how Alexey Alexandrovitch had answered that every woman living in the world was exposed to such incidents, but that he had the fullest confidence in her tact, and could never lower her and himself by jealousy. 'So then there's no reason to speak of it? And indeed, thank God, there's nothing to speak of, she told herself. Alexey Alexandrovitch came back from the meeting of the ministers at four o'clock, but as often happened, he had not time to come in to her. He went into his study to see the people waiting for him with petitions, and to sign some papers brought him by his chief secretary. At dinner time (there were always a few people dining with the Karenins) there arrived an old lady, a cousin of Alexey Alexandrovitch, the chief secretary of the department and his wife, and a young man who had been recommended to Alexey Alexandrovitch for the service. Anna went into the drawingroom to receive these guests. Precisely at five o'clock, before the bronze Peter the First clock had struck the fifth stroke, Alexey Alexandrovitch came in, wearing a white tie and evening coat with two stars, as he had to go out directly after dinner. Every minute of Alexey Alexandrovitch's life was portioned out and occupied. And to make time to get through all that lay before him every day, he adhered to the strictest punctuality. 'Unhasting and unresting, was his motto. He came into the dining hall, greeted everyone, and hurriedly sat down, smiling to his wife. 'Yes, my solitude is over. You wouldn't believe how uncomfortable (he laid stress on the word uncomfortable) 'it is to dine alone. At dinner he talked a little to his wife about Moscow matters, and, with a sarcastic smile, asked her after Stepan Arkadyevitch but the conversation was for the most part general, dealing with Petersburg official and public news. After dinner he spent half an hour with his guests, and again, with a smile, pressed his wife's hand, withdrew, and drove off to the council. Anna did not go out that evening either to the Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who, hearing of her return, had invited her, nor to the theater, where she had a box for that evening. She did not go out principally because the dress she had reckoned upon was not ready. Altogether, Anna, on turning, after the departure of her guests, to the consideration of her attire, was very much annoyed. She was generally a mistress of the art of dressing well without great expense, and before leaving Moscow she had given her dressmaker three dresses to transform. The dresses had to be altered so that they could not be recognized, and they ought to have been ready three days before. It appeared that two dresses had not been done at all, while the other one had not been altered as Anna had intended. The dressmaker came to explain, declaring that it would be better as she had done it, and Anna was so furious that she felt ashamed when she thought of it afterwards. To regain her serenity completely she went into the nursery, and spent the whole evening with her son, put him to bed herself, signed him with the cross, and tucked him up. She was glad she had not gone out anywhere, and had spent the evening so well. She felt so lighthearted and serene, she saw so clearly that all that had seemed to her so important on her railway journey was only one of the common trivial incidents of fashionable life, and that she had no reason to feel ashamed before anyone else or before herself. Anna sat down at the hearth with an English novel and waited for her husband. Exactly at halfpast nine she heard his ring, and he came into the room. 'Here you are at last! she observed, holding out her hand to him. He kissed her hand and sat down beside her. 'Altogether then, I see your visit was a success, he said to her. 'Oh, yes, she said, and she began telling him about everything from the beginning her journey with Countess Vronskaya, her arrival, the accident at the station. Then she described the pity she had felt, first for her brother, and afterwards for Dolly. 'I imagine one cannot exonerate such a man from blame, though he is your brother, said Alexey Alexandrovitch severely. Anna smiled. She knew that he said that simply to show that family considerations could not prevent him from expressing his genuine opinion. She knew that characteristic in her husband, and liked it. 'I am glad it has all ended so satisfactorily, and that you are back again, he went on. 'Come, what do they say about the new act I have got passed in the council? Anna had heard nothing of this act, and she felt consciencestricken at having been able so readily to forget what was to him of such importance. 'Here, on the other hand, it has made a great sensation, he said, with a complacent smile. She saw that Alexey Alexandrovitch wanted to tell her something pleasant to him about it, and she brought him by questions to telling it. With the same complacent smile he told her of the ovations he had received in consequence of the act he had passed. 'I was very, very glad. It shows that at last a reasonable and steady view of the matter is becoming prevalent among us. Having drunk his second cup of tea with cream, and bread, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and was going towards his study. 'And you've not been anywhere this evening? You've been dull, I expect? he said. 'Oh, no! she answered, getting up after him and accompanying him across the room to his study. 'What are you reading now? she asked. 'Just now I'm reading Duc de Lille, Posie des Enfers, he answered. 'A very remarkable book. Anna smiled, as people smile at the weaknesses of those they love, and, putting her hand under his, she escorted him to the door of the study. She knew his habit, that had grown into a necessity, of reading in the evening. She knew, too, that in spite of his official duties, which swallowed up almost the whole of his time, he considered it his duty to keep up with everything of note that appeared in the intellectual world. She knew, too, that he was really interested in books dealing with politics, philosophy, and theology, that art was utterly foreign to his nature but, in spite of this, or rather, in consequence of it, Alexey Alexandrovitch never passed over anything in the world of art, but made it his duty to read everything. She knew that in politics, in philosophy, in theology, Alexey Alexandrovitch often had doubts, and made investigations but on questions of art and poetry, and, above all, of music, of which he was totally devoid of understanding, he had the most distinct and decided opinions. He was fond of talking about Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, of the significance of new schools of poetry and music, all of which were classified by him with very conspicuous consistency. 'Well, God be with you, she said at the door of the study, where a shaded candle and a decanter of water were already put by his armchair. 'And I'll write to Moscow. He pressed her hand, and again kissed it. 'All the same he's a good man truthful, goodhearted, and remarkable in his own line, Anna said to herself going back to her room, as though she were defending him to someone who had attacked him and said that one could not love him. 'But why is it his ears stick out so strangely? Or has he had his hair cut? Precisely at twelve o'clock, when Anna was still sitting at her writingtable, finishing a letter to Dolly, she heard the sound of measured steps in slippers, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, freshly washed and combed, with a book under his arm, came in to her. 'It's time, it's time, said he, with a meaning smile, and he went into their bedroom. 'And what right had he to look at him like that? thought Anna, recalling Vronsky's glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch. Undressing, she went into the bedroom but her face had none of the eagerness which, during her stay in Moscow, had fairly flashed from her eyes and her smile on the contrary, now the fire seemed quenched in her, hidden somewhere far away. When Vronsky went to Moscow from Petersburg, he had left his large set of rooms in Morskaia to his friend and favorite comrade Petritsky. Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly wellconnected, and not merely not wealthy, but always hopelessly in debt. Towards evening he was always drunk, and he had often been locked up after all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful scandals, but he was a favorite both of his comrades and his superior officers. On arriving at twelve o'clock from the station at his flat, Vronsky saw, at the outer door, a hired carriage familiar to him. While still outside his own door, as he rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a feminine voice, and Petritsky's voice. 'If that's one of the villains, don't let him in! Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped quietly into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxen hair, resplendent in a lilac satin gown, and filling the whole room, like a canary, with her Parisian chatter, sat at the round table making coffee. Petritsky, in his overcoat, and the cavalry captain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come from duty, were sitting each side of her. 'Bravo! Vronsky! shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his chair. 'Our host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of the new coffee pot. Why, we didn't expect you! Hope you're satisfied with the ornament of your study, he said, indicating the baroness. 'You know each other, of course? 'I should think so, said Vronsky, with a bright smile, pressing the baroness's little hand. 'What next! I'm an old friend. 'You're home after a journey, said the baroness, 'so I'm flying. Oh, I'll be off this minute, if I'm in the way. 'You're home, wherever you are, baroness, said Vronsky. 'How do you do, Kamerovsky? he added, coldly shaking hands with Kamerovsky. 'There, you never know how to say such pretty things, said the baroness, turning to Petritsky. 'No what's that for? After dinner I say things quite as good. 'After dinner there's no credit in them? Well, then, I'll make you some coffee, so go and wash and get ready, said the baroness, sitting down again, and anxiously turning the screw in the new coffee pot. 'Pierre, give me the coffee, she said, addressing Petritsky, whom she called Pierre as a contraction of his surname, making no secret of her relations with him. 'I'll put it in. 'You'll spoil it! 'No, I won't spoil it! Well, and your wife? said the baroness suddenly, interrupting Vronsky's conversation with his comrade. 'We've been marrying you here. Have you brought your wife? 'No, baroness. I was born a Bohemian, and a Bohemian I shall die. 'So much the better, so much the better. Shake hands on it. And the baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him, with many jokes, about her last new plans of life, asking his advice. 'He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am I to do? (He was her husband.) 'Now I want to begin a suit against him. What do you advise? Kamerovsky, look after the coffee it's boiling over. You see, I'm engrossed with business! I want a lawsuit, because I must have my property. Do you understand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my being unfaithful to him, she said contemptuously, 'he wants to get the benefit of my fortune. Vronsky heard with pleasure this lighthearted prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her, gave her halfjoking counsel, and altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, selfcontrolled, and strong that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts and various similar absurdities. This was the class of oldfashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else. For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled after the impression of a quite different world that he had brought with him from Moscow. But immediately as though slipping his feet into old slippers, he dropped back into the lighthearted, pleasant world he had always lived in. The coffee was never really made, but spluttered over everyone, and boiled away, doing just what was required of itthat is, providing much cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the baroness's gown. 'Well now, goodbye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So you would advise a knife to his throat? 'To be sure, and manage that your hand may not be far from his lips. He'll kiss your hand, and all will end satisfactorily, answered Vronsky. 'So at the Franais! and, with a rustle of her skirts, she vanished. Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, not waiting for him to go, shook hands and went off to his dressingroom. While he was washing, Petritsky described to him in brief outlines his position, as far as it had changed since Vronsky had left Petersburg. No money at all. His father said he wouldn't give him any and pay his debts. His tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was threatening to get him locked up. The colonel of the regiment had announced that if these scandals did not cease he would have to leave. As for the baroness, he was sick to death of her, especially since she'd taken to offering continually to lend him money. But he had found a girlhe'd show her to Vronskya marvel, exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, 'genre of the slave Rebecca, don't you know. He'd had a row, too, with Berkoshov, and was going to send seconds to him, but of course it would come to nothing. Altogether everything was supremely amusing and jolly. And, not letting his comrade enter into further details of his position, Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As he listened to Petritsky's familiar stories in the familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last three years in, Vronsky felt a delightful sense of coming back to the careless Petersburg life that he was used to. 'Impossible! he cried, letting down the pedal of the washing basin in which he had been sousing his healthy red neck. 'Impossible! he cried, at the news that Laura had flung over Fertinghof and had made up to Mileev. 'And is he as stupid and pleased as ever? Well, and how's Buzulukov? 'Oh, there is a tale about Buzulukovsimply lovely! cried Petritsky. 'You know his weakness for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. He went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very nice, lighter. Well, so he's standing.... No, I say, do listen. 'I am listening, answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a rough towel. 'Up comes the Grand Duchess with some ambassador or other, and, as illluck would have it, she begins talking to him about the new helmets. The Grand Duchess positively wanted to show the new helmet to the ambassador. They see our friend standing there. (Petritsky mimicked how he was standing with the helmet.) 'The Grand Duchess asked him to give her the helmet he doesn't give it to her. What do you think of that? Well, everyone's winking at him, nodding, frowninggive it to her, do! He doesn't give it to her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it!... Well, the ... what's his name, whatever he was ... tries to take the helmet from him ... he won't give it up!... He pulls it from him, and hands it to the Grand Duchess. 'Here, your Highness,' says he, 'is the new helmet.' She turned the helmet the other side up, Andjust picture it!plop went a pear and sweetmeats out of it, two pounds of sweetmeats!... He'd been storing them up, the darling! Vronsky burst into roars of laughter. And long afterwards, when he was talking of other things, he broke out into his healthy laugh, showing his strong, close rows of teeth, when he thought of the helmet. Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his valet, got into his uniform, and went off to report himself. He intended, when he had done that, to drive to his brother's and to Betsy's and to pay several visits with a view to beginning to go into that society where he might meet Madame Karenina. As he always did in Petersburg, he left home not meaning to return till late at night. At the end of the winter, in the Shtcherbatskys' house, a consultation was being held, which was to pronounce on the state of Kitty's health and the measures to be taken to restore her failing strength. She had been ill, and as spring came on she grew worse. The family doctor gave her cod liver oil, then iron, then nitrate of silver, but as the first and the second and the third were alike in doing no good, and as his advice when spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in. The celebrated physician, a very handsome man, still youngish, asked to examine the patient. He maintained, with peculiar satisfaction, it seemed, that maiden modesty is a mere relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man still youngish to handle a young girl naked. He thought it natural because he did it every day, and felt and thought, as it seemed to him, no harm as he did it and consequently he considered modesty in the girl not merely as a relic of barbarism, but also as an insult to himself. There was nothing for it but to submit, since, although all the doctors had studied in the same school, had read the same books, and learned the same science, and though some people said this celebrated doctor was a bad doctor, in the princess's household and circle it was for some reason accepted that this celebrated doctor alone had some special knowledge, and that he alone could save Kitty. After a careful examination and sounding of the bewildered patient, dazed with shame, the celebrated doctor, having scrupulously washed his hands, was standing in the drawingroom talking to the prince. The prince frowned and coughed, listening to the doctor. As a man who had seen something of life, and neither a fool nor an invalid, he had no faith in medicine, and in his heart was furious at the whole farce, specially as he was perhaps the only one who fully comprehended the cause of Kitty's illness. 'Conceited blockhead! he thought, as he listened to the celebrated doctor's chatter about his daughter's symptoms. The doctor was meantime with difficulty restraining the expression of his contempt for this old gentleman, and with difficulty condescending to the level of his intelligence. He perceived that it was no good talking to the old man, and that the principal person in the house was the mother. Before her he decided to scatter his pearls. At that instant the princess came into the drawingroom with the family doctor. The prince withdrew, trying not to show how ridiculous he thought the whole performance. The princess was distracted, and did not know what to do. She felt she had sinned against Kitty. 'Well, doctor, decide our fate, said the princess. 'Tell me everything. 'Is there hope? she meant to say, but her lips quivered, and she could not utter the question. 'Well, doctor? 'Immediately, princess. I will talk it over with my colleague, and then I will have the honor of laying my opinion before you. 'So we had better leave you? 'As you please. The princess went out with a sigh. When the doctors were left alone, the family doctor began timidly explaining his opinion, that there was a commencement of tuberculous trouble, but ... and so on. The celebrated doctor listened to him, and in the middle of his sentence looked at his big gold watch. 'Yes, said he. 'But.... The family doctor respectfully ceased in the middle of his observations. 'The commencement of the tuberculous process we are not, as you are aware, able to define till there are cavities, there is nothing definite. But we may suspect it. And there are indications malnutrition, nervous excitability, and so on. The question stands thus in presence of indications of tuberculous process, what is to be done to maintain nutrition? 'But, you know, there are always moral, spiritual causes at the back in these cases, the family doctor permitted himself to interpolate with a subtle smile. 'Yes, that's an understood thing, responded the celebrated physician, again glancing at his watch. 'Beg pardon, is the Yausky bridge done yet, or shall I have to drive around? he asked. 'Ah! it is. Oh, well, then I can do it in twenty minutes. So we were saying the problem may be put thus to maintain nutrition and to give tone to the nerves. The one is in close connection with the other, one must attack both sides at once. 'And how about a tour abroad? asked the family doctor. 'I've no liking for foreign tours. And take note if there is an early stage of tuberculous process, of which we cannot be certain, a foreign tour will be of no use. What is wanted is means of improving nutrition, and not for lowering it. And the celebrated doctor expounded his plan of treatment with Soden waters, a remedy obviously prescribed primarily on the ground that they could do no harm. The family doctor listened attentively and respectfully. 'But in favor of foreign travel I would urge the change of habits, the removal from conditions calling up reminiscences. And then the mother wishes it, he added. 'Ah! Well, in that case, to be sure, let them go. Only, those German quacks are mischievous.... They ought to be persuaded.... Well, let them go then. He glanced once more at his watch. 'Oh! time's up already, And he went to the door. The celebrated doctor announced to the princess (a feeling of what was due from him dictated his doing so) that he ought to see the patient once more. 'What! another examination! cried the mother, with horror. 'Oh, no, only a few details, princess. 'Come this way. And the mother, accompanied by the doctor, went into the drawingroom to Kitty. Wasted and flushed, with a peculiar glitter in her eyes, left there by the agony of shame she had been put through, Kitty stood in the middle of the room. When the doctor came in she flushed crimson, and her eyes filled with tears. All her illness and treatment struck her as a thing so stupid, ludicrous even! Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders? But she could not grieve her mother, especially as her mother considered herself to blame. 'May I trouble you to sit down, princess? the celebrated doctor said to her. He sat down with a smile, facing her, felt her pulse, and again began asking her tiresome questions. She answered him, and all at once got up, furious. 'Excuse me, doctor, but there is really no object in this. This is the third time you've asked me the same thing. The celebrated doctor did not take offense. 'Nervous irritability, he said to the princess, when Kitty had left the room. 'However, I had finished.... And the doctor began scientifically explaining to the princess, as an exceptionally intelligent woman, the condition of the young princess, and concluded by insisting on the drinking of the waters, which were certainly harmless. At the question Should they go abroad? the doctor plunged into deep meditation, as though resolving a weighty problem. Finally his decision was pronounced they were to go abroad, but to put no faith in foreign quacks, and to apply to him in any need. It seemed as though some piece of good fortune had come to pass after the doctor had gone. The mother was much more cheerful when she went back to her daughter, and Kitty pretended to be more cheerful. She had often, almost always, to be pretending now. 'Really, I'm quite well, mamma. But if you want to go abroad, let's go! she said, and trying to appear interested in the proposed tour, she began talking of the preparations for the journey. Soon after the doctor, Dolly had arrived. She knew that there was to be a consultation that day, and though she was only just up after her confinement (she had another baby, a little girl, born at the end of the winter), though she had trouble and anxiety enough of her own, she had left her tiny baby and a sick child, to come and hear Kitty's fate, which was to be decided that day. 'Well, well? she said, coming into the drawingroom, without taking off her hat. 'You're all in good spirits. Good news, then? They tried to tell her what the doctor had said, but it appeared that though the doctor had talked distinctly enough and at great length, it was utterly impossible to report what he had said. The only point of interest was that it was settled they should go abroad. Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister, was going away. And her life was not a cheerful one. Her relations with Stepan Arkadyevitch after their reconciliation had become humiliating. The union Anna had cemented turned out to be of no solid character, and family harmony was breaking down again at the same point. There had been nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyevitch was hardly ever at home money, too, was hardly ever forthcoming, and Dolly was continually tortured by suspicions of infidelity, which she tried to dismiss, dreading the agonies of jealousy she had been through already. The first onslaught of jealousy, once lived through, could never come back again, and even the discovery of infidelities could never now affect her as it had the first time. Such a discovery now would only mean breaking up family habits, and she let herself be deceived, despising him and still more herself, for the weakness. Besides this, the care of her large family was a constant worry to her first, the nursing of her young baby did not go well, then the nurse had gone away, now one of the children had fallen ill. 'Well, how are all of you? asked her mother. 'Ah, mamma, we have plenty of troubles of our own. Lili is ill, and I'm afraid it's scarlatina. I have come here now to hear about Kitty, and then I shall shut myself up entirely, ifGod forbidit should be scarlatina. The old prince too had come in from his study after the doctor's departure, and after presenting his cheek to Dolly, and saying a few words to her, he turned to his wife 'How have you settled it? you're going? Well, and what do you mean to do with me? 'I suppose you had better stay here, Alexander, said his wife. 'That's as you like. 'Mamma, why shouldn't father come with us? said Kitty. 'It would be nicer for him and for us too. The old prince got up and stroked Kitty's hair. She lifted her head and looked at him with a forced smile. It always seemed to her that he understood her better than anyone in the family, though he did not say much about her. Being the youngest, she was her father's favorite, and she fancied that his love gave him insight. When now her glance met his blue kindly eyes looking intently at her, it seemed to her that he saw right through her, and understood all that was not good that was passing within her. Reddening, she stretched out towards him expecting a kiss, but he only patted her hair and said 'These stupid chignons! There's no getting at the real daughter. One simply strokes the bristles of dead women. Well, Dolinka, he turned to his elder daughter, 'what's your young buck about, hey? 'Nothing, father, answered Dolly, understanding that her husband was meant. 'He's always out I scarcely ever see him, she could not resist adding with a sarcastic smile. 'Why, hasn't he gone into the country yetto see about selling that forest? 'No, he's still getting ready for the journey. 'Oh, that's it! said the prince. 'And so am I to be getting ready for a journey too? At your service, he said to his wife, sitting down. 'And I tell you what, Katia, he went on to his younger daughter, 'you must wake up one fine day and say to yourself Why, I'm quite well, and merry, and going out again with father for an early morning walk in the frost. Hey? What her father said seemed simple enough, yet at these words Kitty became confused and overcome like a detected criminal. 'Yes, he sees it all, he understands it all, and in these words he's telling me that though I'm ashamed, I must get over my shame. She could not pluck up spirit to make any answer. She tried to begin, and all at once burst into tears, and rushed out of the room. 'See what comes of your jokes! the princess pounced down on her husband. 'You're always.... she began a string of reproaches. The prince listened to the princess's scolding rather a long while without speaking, but his face was more and more frowning. 'She's so much to be pitied, poor child, so much to be pitied, and you don't feel how it hurts her to hear the slightest reference to the cause of it. Ah! to be so mistaken in people! said the princess, and by the change in her tone both Dolly and the prince knew she was speaking of Vronsky. 'I don't know why there aren't laws against such base, dishonorable people. 'Ah, I can't bear to hear you! said the prince gloomily, getting up from his low chair, and seeming anxious to get away, yet stopping in the doorway. 'There are laws, madam, and since you've challenged me to it, I'll tell you who's to blame for it all you and you, you and nobody else. Laws against such young gallants there have always been, and there still are! Yes, if there has been nothing that ought not to have been, old as I am, I'd have called him out to the barrier, the young dandy. Yes, and now you physic her and call in these quacks. The prince apparently had plenty more to say, but as soon as the princess heard his tone she subsided at once, and became penitent, as she always did on serious occasions. 'Alexander, Alexander, she whispered, moving to him and beginning to weep. As soon as she began to cry the prince too calmed down. He went up to her. 'There, that's enough, that's enough! You're wretched too, I know. It can't be helped. There's no great harm done. God is merciful ... thanks.... he said, not knowing what he was saying, as he responded to the tearful kiss of the princess that he felt on his hand. And the prince went out of the room. Before this, as soon as Kitty went out of the room in tears, Dolly, with her motherly, family instincts, had promptly perceived that here a woman's work lay before her, and she prepared to do it. She took off her hat, and, morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and prepared for action. While her mother was attacking her father, she tried to restrain her mother, so far as filial reverence would allow. During the prince's outburst she was silent she felt ashamed for her mother, and tender towards her father for so quickly being kind again. But when her father left them she made ready for what was the chief thing needfulto go to Kitty and console her. 'I'd been meaning to tell you something for a long while, mamma did you know that Levin meant to make Kitty an offer when he was here the last time? He told Stiva so. 'Well, what then? I don't understand.... 'So did Kitty perhaps refuse him?... She didn't tell you so? 'No, she has said nothing to me either of one or the other she's too proud. But I know it's all on account of the other. 'Yes, but suppose she has refused Levin, and she wouldn't have refused him if it hadn't been for the other, I know. And then, he has deceived her so horribly. It was too terrible for the princess to think how she had sinned against her daughter, and she broke out angrily. 'Oh, I really don't understand! Nowadays they will all go their own way, and mothers haven't a word to say in anything, and then.... 'Mamma, I'll go up to her. 'Well, do. Did I tell you not to? said her mother. When she went into Kitty's little room, a pretty, pink little room, full of knickknacks in vieux saxe, as fresh, and pink, and white, and gay as Kitty herself had been two months ago, Dolly remembered how they had decorated the room the year before together, with what love and gaiety. Her heart turned cold when she saw Kitty sitting on a low chair near the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a corner of the rug. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold, rather illtempered expression of her face did not change. 'I'm just going now, and I shall have to keep in and you won't be able to come to see me, said Dolly, sitting down beside her. 'I want to talk to you. 'What about? Kitty asked swiftly, lifting her head in dismay. 'What should it be, but your trouble? 'I have no trouble. 'Nonsense, Kitty. Do you suppose I could help knowing? I know all about it. And believe me, it's of so little consequence.... We've all been through it. Kitty did not speak, and her face had a stern expression. 'He's not worth your grieving over him, pursued Darya Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point. 'No, because he has treated me with contempt, said Kitty, in a breaking voice. 'Don't talk of it! Please, don't talk of it! 'But who can have told you so? No one has said that. I'm certain he was in love with you, and would still be in love with you, if it hadn't.... 'Oh, the most awful thing of all for me is this sympathizing! shrieked Kitty, suddenly flying into a passion. She turned round on her chair, flushed crimson, and rapidly moving her fingers, pinched the clasp of her belt first with one hand and then with the other. Dolly knew this trick her sister had of clenching her hands when she was much excited she knew, too, that in moments of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much, and Dolly would have soothed her, but it was too late. 'What, what is it you want to make me feel, eh? said Kitty quickly. 'That I've been in love with a man who didn't care a straw for me, and that I'm dying of love for him? And this is said to me by my own sister, who imagines that ... that ... that she's sympathizing with me!... I don't want these condolences and humbug! 'Kitty, you're unjust. 'Why are you tormenting me? 'But I ... quite the contrary ... I see you're unhappy.... But Kitty in her fury did not hear her. 'I've nothing to grieve over and be comforted about. I am too proud ever to allow myself to care for a man who does not love me. 'Yes, I don't say so either.... Only one thing. Tell me the truth, said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand 'tell me, did Levin speak to you?... The mention of Levin's name seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of selfcontrol. She leaped up from her chair, and flinging her clasp on the ground, she gesticulated rapidly with her hands and said 'Why bring Levin in too? I can't understand what you want to torment me for. I've told you, and I say it again, that I have some pride, and never, never would I do as you're doinggo back to a man who's deceived you, who has cared for another woman. I can't understand it! You may, but I can't! And saying these words she glanced at her sister, and seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty, instead of running out of the room as she had meant to do, sat down near the door, and hid her face in her handkerchief. The silence lasted for two minutes Dolly was thinking of herself. That humiliation of which she was always conscious came back to her with a peculiar bitterness when her sister reminded her of it. She had not looked for such cruelty in her sister, and she was angry with her. But suddenly she heard the rustle of a skirt, and with it the sound of heartrending, smothered sobbing, and felt arms about her neck. Kitty was on her knees before her. 'Dolinka, I am so, so wretched! she whispered penitently. And the sweet face covered with tears hid itself in Darya Alexandrovna's skirt. As though tears were the indispensable oil, without which the machinery of mutual confidence could not run smoothly between the two sisters, the sisters after their tears talked, not of what was uppermost in their minds, but, though they talked of outside matters, they understood each other. Kitty knew that the words she had uttered in anger about her husband's infidelity and her humiliating position had cut her poor sister to the heart, but that she had forgiven her. Dolly for her part knew all she had wanted to find out. She felt certain that her surmises were correct that Kitty's misery, her inconsolable misery, was due precisely to the fact that Levin had made her an offer and she had refused him, and Vronsky had deceived her, and that she was fully prepared to love Levin and to detest Vronsky. Kitty said not a word of that she talked of nothing but her spiritual condition. 'I have nothing to make me miserable, she said, getting calmer 'but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything. 'Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have? asked Dolly, smiling. 'The most utterly loathsome and coarse I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. Come, how am I to tell you? she went on, seeing the puzzled look in her sister's eyes. 'Father began saying something to me just now.... It seems to me he thinks all I want is to be married. Mother takes me to a ball it seems to me she only takes me to get me married off as soon as may be, and be rid of me. I know it's not the truth, but I can't drive away such thoughts. Eligible suitors, as they call themI can't bear to see them. It seems to me they're taking stock of me and summing me up. In old days to go anywhere in a ball dress was a simple joy to me, I admired myself now I feel ashamed and awkward. And then! The doctor.... Then.... Kitty hesitated she wanted to say further that ever since this change had taken place in her, Stepan Arkadyevitch had become insufferably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him without the grossest and most hideous conceptions rising before her imagination. 'Oh, well, everything presents itself to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome light, she went on. 'That's my illness. Perhaps it will pass off. 'But you mustn't think about it. 'I can't help it. I'm never happy except with the children at your house. 'What a pity you can't be with me! 'Oh, yes, I'm coming. I've had scarlatina, and I'll persuade mamma to let me. Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her sister's and nursed the children all through the scarlatina, for scarlatina it turned out to be. The two sisters brought all the six children successfully through it, but Kitty was no better in health, and in Lent the Shtcherbatskys went abroad. The highest Petersburg society is essentially one in it everyone knows everyone else, everyone even visits everyone else. But this great set has its subdivisions. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and close ties in three different circles of this highest society. One circle was her husband's government official set, consisting of his colleagues and subordinates, brought together in the most various and capricious manner, and belonging to different social strata. Anna found it difficult now to recall the feeling of almost awestricken reverence which she had at first entertained for these persons. Now she knew all of them as people know one another in a country town she knew their habits and weaknesses, and where the shoe pinched each one of them. She knew their relations with one another and with the head authorities, knew who was for whom, and how each one maintained his position, and where they agreed and disagreed. But the circle of political, masculine interests had never interested her, in spite of countess Lidia Ivanovna's influence, and she avoided it. Another little set with which Anna was in close relations was the one by means of which Alexey Alexandrovitch had made his career. The center of this circle was the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. It was a set made up of elderly, ugly, benevolent, and godly women, and clever, learned, and ambitious men. One of the clever people belonging to the set had called it 'the conscience of Petersburg society. Alexey Alexandrovitch had the highest esteem for this circle, and Anna with her special gift for getting on with everyone, had in the early days of her life in Petersburg made friends in this circle also. Now, since her return from Moscow, she had come to feel this set insufferable. It seemed to her that both she and all of them were insincere, and she felt so bored and ill at ease in that world that she went to see the Countess Lidia Ivanovna as little as possible. The third circle with which Anna had ties was preeminently the fashionable worldthe world of balls, of dinners, of sumptuous dresses, the world that hung on to the court with one hand, so as to avoid sinking to the level of the demimonde. For the demimonde the members of that fashionable world believed that they despised, though their tastes were not merely similar, but in fact identical. Her connection with this circle was kept up through Princess Betsy Tverskaya, her cousin's wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand roubles, and who had taken a great fancy to Anna ever since she first came out, showed her much attention, and drew her into her set, making fun of Countess Lidia Ivanovna's coterie. 'When I'm old and ugly I'll be the same, Betsy used to say 'but for a pretty young woman like you it's early days for that house of charity. Anna had at first avoided as far as she could Princess Tverskaya's world, because it necessitated an expenditure beyond her means, and besides in her heart she preferred the first circle. But since her visit to Moscow she had done quite the contrary. She avoided her seriousminded friends, and went out into the fashionable world. There she met Vronsky, and experienced an agitating joy at those meetings. She met Vronsky specially often at Betsy's for Betsy was a Vronsky by birth and his cousin. Vronsky was everywhere where he had any chance of meeting Anna, and speaking to her, when he could, of his love. She gave him no encouragement, but every time she met him there surged up in her heart that same feeling of quickened life that had come upon her that day in the railway carriage when she saw him for the first time. She was conscious herself that her delight sparkled in her eyes and curved her lips into a smile, and she could not quench the expression of this delight. At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him for daring to pursue her. Soon after her return from Moscow, on arriving at a soire where she had expected to meet him, and not finding him there, she realized distinctly from the rush of disappointment that she had been deceiving herself, and that this pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it made the whole interest of her life. The celebrated singer was singing for the second time, and all the fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his cousin from his stall in the front row, did not wait till the entr'acte, but went to her box. 'Why didn't you come to dinner? she said to him. 'I marvel at the second sight of lovers, she added with a smile, so that no one but he could hear 'she wasn't there. But come after the opera. Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her by a smile, and sat down beside her. 'But how I remember your jeers! continued Princess Betsy, who took a peculiar pleasure in following up this passion to a successful issue. 'What's become of all that? You're caught, my dear boy. 'That's my one desire, to be caught, answered Vronsky, with his serene, goodhumored smile. 'If I complain of anything it's only that I'm not caught enough, to tell the truth. I begin to lose hope. 'Why, whatever hope can you have? said Betsy, offended on behalf of her friend. 'Entendons nous.... But in her eyes there were gleams of light that betrayed that she understood perfectly and precisely as he did what hope he might have. 'None whatever, said Vronsky, laughing and showing his even rows of teeth. 'Excuse me, he added, taking an operaglass out of her hand, and proceeding to scrutinize, over her bare shoulder, the row of boxes facing them. 'I'm afraid I'm becoming ridiculous. He was very well aware that he ran no risk of being ridiculous in the eyes of Betsy or any other fashionable people. He was very well aware that in their eyes the position of an unsuccessful lover of a girl, or of any woman free to marry, might be ridiculous. But the position of a man pursuing a married woman, and, regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into adultery, has something fine and grand about it, and can never be ridiculous and so it was with a proud and gay smile under his mustaches that he lowered the operaglass and looked at his cousin. 'But why was it you didn't come to dinner? she said, admiring him. 'I must tell you about that. I was busily employed, and doing what, do you suppose? I'll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand ... you'd never guess. I've been reconciling a husband with a man who'd insulted his wife. Yes, really! 'Well, did you succeed? 'Almost. 'You really must tell me about it, she said, getting up. 'Come to me in the next entr'acte. 'I can't I'm going to the French theater. 'From Nilsson? Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nilsson's voice from any chorus girl's. 'Can't help it. I've an appointment there, all to do with my mission of peace. ''Blessed are the peacemakers theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' said Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from someone. 'Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it's all about. And she sat down again. 'This is rather indiscreet, but it's so good it's an awful temptation to tell the story, said Vronsky, looking at her with his laughing eyes. 'I'm not going to mention any names. 'But I shall guess, so much the better. 'Well, listen two festive young men were driving 'Officers of your regiment, of course? 'I didn't say they were officers,two young men who had been lunching. 'In other words, drinking. 'Possibly. They were driving on their way to dinner with a friend in the most festive state of mind. And they beheld a pretty woman in a hired sledge she overtakes them, looks round at them, and, so they fancy anyway, nods to them and laughs. They, of course, follow her. They gallop at full speed. To their amazement, the fair one alights at the entrance of the very house to which they were going. The fair one darts upstairs to the top story. They get a glimpse of red lips under a short veil, and exquisite little feet. 'You describe it with such feeling that I fancy you must be one of the two. 'And after what you said, just now! Well, the young men go in to their comrade's he was giving a farewell dinner. There they certainly did drink a little too much, as one always does at farewell dinners. And at dinner they inquire who lives at the top in that house. No one knows only their host's valet, in answer to their inquiry whether any 'young ladies' are living on the top floor, answered that there were a great many of them about there. After dinner the two young men go into their host's study, and write a letter to the unknown fair one. They compose an ardent epistle, a declaration in fact, and they carry the letter upstairs themselves, so as to elucidate whatever might appear not perfectly intelligible in the letter. 'Why are you telling me these horrible stories? Well? 'They ring. A maidservant opens the door, they hand her the letter, and assure the maid that they're both so in love that they'll die on the spot at the door. The maid, stupefied, carries in their messages. All at once a gentleman appears with whiskers like sausages, as red as a lobster, announces that there is no one living in the flat except his wife, and sends them both about their business. 'How do you know he had whiskers like sausages, as you say? 'Ah, you shall hear. I've just been to make peace between them. 'Well, and what then? 'That's the most interesting part of the story. It appears that it's a happy couple, a government clerk and his lady. The government clerk lodges a complaint, and I became a mediator, and such a mediator!... I assure you Talleyrand couldn't hold a candle to me. 'Why, where was the difficulty? 'Ah, you shall hear.... We apologize in due form we are in despair, we entreat forgiveness for the unfortunate misunderstanding. The government clerk with the sausages begins to melt, but he, too, desires to express his sentiments, and as soon as ever he begins to express them, he begins to get hot and say nasty things, and again I'm obliged to trot out all my diplomatic talents. I allowed that their conduct was bad, but I urged him to take into consideration their heedlessness, their youth then, too, the young men had only just been lunching together. 'You understand. They regret it deeply, and beg you to overlook their misbehavior.' The government clerk was softened once more. 'I consent, count, and am ready to overlook it but you perceive that my wifemy wife's a respectable womanhas been exposed to the persecution, and insults, and effrontery of young upstarts, scoundrels....' And you must understand, the young upstarts are present all the while, and I have to keep the peace between them. Again I call out all my diplomacy, and again as soon as the thing was about at an end, our friend the government clerk gets hot and red, and his sausages stand on end with wrath, and once more I launch out into diplomatic wiles. 'Ah, he must tell you this story! said Betsy, laughing, to a lady who came into her box. 'He has been making me laugh so. 'Well, bonne chance! she added, giving Vronsky one finger of the hand in which she held her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders she twitched down the bodice of her gown that had worked up, so as to be duly naked as she moved forward towards the footlights into the light of the gas, and the sight of all eyes. Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see the colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance there. He wanted to see him, to report on the result of his mediation, which had occupied and amused him for the last three days. Petritsky, whom he liked, was implicated in the affair, and the other culprit was a capital fellow and firstrate comrade, who had lately joined the regiment, the young Prince Kedrov. And what was most important, the interests of the regiment were involved in it too. Both the young men were in Vronsky's company. The colonel of the regiment was waited upon by the government clerk, Venden, with a complaint against his officers, who had insulted his wife. His young wife, so Venden told the storyhe had been married half a yearwas at church with her mother, and suddenly overcome by indisposition, arising from her interesting condition, she could not remain standing, she drove home in the first sledge, a smartlooking one, she came across. On the spot the officers set off in pursuit of her she was alarmed, and feeling still more unwell, ran up the staircase home. Venden himself, on returning from his office, heard a ring at their bell and voices, went out, and seeing the intoxicated officers with a letter, he had turned them out. He asked for exemplary punishment. 'Yes, it's all very well, said the colonel to Vronsky, whom he had invited to come and see him. 'Petritsky's becoming impossible. Not a week goes by without some scandal. This government clerk won't let it drop, he'll go on with the thing. Vronsky saw all the thanklessness of the business, and that there could be no question of a duel in it, that everything must be done to soften the government clerk, and hush the matter up. The colonel had called in Vronsky just because he knew him to be an honorable and intelligent man, and, more than all, a man who cared for the honor of the regiment. They talked it over, and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov must go with Vronsky to Venden's to apologize. The colonel and Vronsky were both fully aware that Vronsky's name and rank would be sure to contribute greatly to the softening of the injured husband's feelings. And these two influences were not in fact without effect though the result remained, as Vronsky had described, uncertain. On reaching the French theater, Vronsky retired to the foyer with the colonel, and reported to him his success, or nonsuccess. The colonel, thinking it all over, made up his mind not to pursue the matter further, but then for his own satisfaction proceeded to crossexamine Vronsky about his interview and it was a long while before he could restrain his laughter, as Vronsky described how the government clerk, after subsiding for a while, would suddenly flare up again, as he recalled the details, and how Vronsky, at the last half word of conciliation, skillfully manuvered a retreat, shoving Petritsky out before him. 'It's a disgraceful story, but killing. Kedrov really can't fight the gentleman! Was he so awfully hot? he commented, laughing. 'But what do you say to Claire today? She's marvelous, he went on, speaking of a new French actress. 'However often you see her, every day she's different. It's only the French who can do that. Princess Betsy drove home from the theater, without waiting for the end of the last act. She had only just time to go into her dressingroom, sprinkle her long, pale face with powder, rub it, set her dress to rights, and order tea in the big drawingroom, when one after another carriages drove up to her huge house in Bolshaia Morskaia. Her guests stepped out at the wide entrance, and the stout porter, who used to read the newspapers in the mornings behind the glass door, to the edification of the passersby, noiselessly opened the immense door, letting the visitors pass by him into the house. Almost at the same instant the hostess, with freshly arranged coiffure and freshened face, walked in at one door and her guests at the other door of the drawingroom, a large room with dark walls, downy rugs, and a brightly lighted table, gleaming with the light of candles, white cloth, silver samovar, and transparent china teathings. The hostess sat down at the table and took off her gloves. Chairs were set with the aid of footmen, moving almost imperceptibly about the room the party settled itself, divided into two groups one round the samovar near the hostess, the other at the opposite end of the drawingroom, round the handsome wife of an ambassador, in black velvet, with sharply defined black eyebrows. In both groups conversation wavered, as it always does, for the first few minutes, broken up by meetings, greetings, offers of tea, and as it were, feeling about for something to rest upon. 'She's exceptionally good as an actress one can see she's studied Kaulbach, said a diplomatic attach in the group round the ambassador's wife. 'Did you notice how she fell down?... 'Oh, please, don't let us talk about Nilsson! No one can possibly say anything new about her, said a fat, redfaced, flaxenheaded lady, without eyebrows and chignon, wearing an old silk dress. This was Princess Myakaya, noted for her simplicity and the roughness of her manners, and nicknamed enfant terrible. Princess Myakaya, sitting in the middle between the two groups, and listening to both, took part in the conversation first of one and then of the other. 'Three people have used that very phrase about Kaulbach to me today already, just as though they had made a compact about it. And I can't see why they liked that remark so. The conversation was cut short by this observation, and a new subject had to be thought of again. 'Do tell me something amusing but not spiteful, said the ambassador's wife, a great proficient in the art of that elegant conversation called by the English small talk. She addressed the attach, who was at a loss now what to begin upon. 'They say that that's a difficult task, that nothing's amusing that isn't spiteful, he began with a smile. 'But I'll try. Get me a subject. It all lies in the subject. If a subject's given me, it's easy to spin something round it. I often think that the celebrated talkers of the last century would have found it difficult to talk cleverly now. Everything clever is so stale.... 'That has been said long ago, the ambassador's wife interrupted him, laughing. The conversation began amiably, but just because it was too amiable, it came to a stop again. They had to have recourse to the sure, neverfailing topicgossip. 'Don't you think there's something Louis Quinze about Tushkevitch? he said, glancing towards a handsome, fairhaired young man, standing at the table. 'Oh, yes! He's in the same style as the drawingroom and that's why it is he's so often here. This conversation was maintained, since it rested on allusions to what could not be talked of in that roomthat is to say, of the relations of Tushkevitch with their hostess. Round the samovar and the hostess the conversation had been meanwhile vacillating in just the same way between three inevitable topics the latest piece of public news, the theater, and scandal. It, too, came finally to rest on the last topic, that is, illnatured gossip. 'Have you heard the Maltishtcheva womanthe mother, not the daughterhas ordered a costume in diable rose color? 'Nonsense! No, that's too lovely! 'I wonder that with her sensefor she's not a fool, you knowthat she doesn't see how funny she is. Everyone had something to say in censure or ridicule of the luckless Madame Maltishtcheva, and the conversation crackled merrily, like a burning faggotstack. The husband of Princess Betsy, a goodnatured fat man, an ardent collector of engravings, hearing that his wife had visitors, came into the drawingroom before going to his club. Stepping noiselessly over the thick rugs, he went up to Princess Myakaya. 'How did you like Nilsson? he asked. 'Oh, how can you steal upon anyone like that! How you startled me! she responded. 'Please don't talk to me about the opera you know nothing about music. I'd better meet you on your own ground, and talk about your majolica and engravings. Come now, what treasure have you been buying lately at the old curiosity shops? 'Would you like me to show you? But you don't understand such things. 'Oh, do show me! I've been learning about them at thosewhat's their names?... the bankers ... they've some splendid engravings. They showed them to us. 'Why, have you been at the Schtzburgs? asked the hostess from the samovar. 'Yes, ma chre. They asked my husband and me to dinner, and told us the sauce at that dinner cost a hundred pounds, Princess Myakaya said, speaking loudly, and conscious everyone was listening 'and very nasty sauce it was, some green mess. We had to ask them, and I made them sauce for eighteen pence, and everybody was very much pleased with it. I can't run to hundredpound sauces. 'She's unique! said the lady of the house. 'Marvelous! said someone. The sensation produced by Princess Myakaya's speeches was always unique, and the secret of the sensation she produced lay in the fact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she said simple things with some sense in them. In the society in which she lived such plain statements produced the effect of the wittiest epigram. Princess Myakaya could never see why it had that effect, but she knew it had, and took advantage of it. As everyone had been listening while Princess Myakaya spoke, and so the conversation around the ambassador's wife had dropped, Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together, and turned to the ambassador's wife. 'Will you really not have tea? You should come over here by us. 'No, we're very happy here, the ambassador's wife responded with a smile, and she went on with the conversation that had been begun. It was a very agreeable conversation. They were criticizing the Karenins, husband and wife. 'Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow. There's something strange about her, said her friend. 'The great change is that she brought back with her the shadow of Alexey Vronsky, said the ambassador's wife. 'Well, what of it? There's a fable of Grimm's about a man without a shadow, a man who's lost his shadow. And that's his punishment for something. I never could understand how it was a punishment. But a woman must dislike being without a shadow. 'Yes, but women with a shadow usually come to a bad end, said Anna's friend. 'Bad luck to your tongue! said Princess Myakaya suddenly. 'Madame Karenina's a splendid woman. I don't like her husband, but I like her very much. 'Why don't you like her husband? He's such a remarkable man, said the ambassador's wife. 'My husband says there are few statesmen like him in Europe. 'And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it, said Princess Myakaya. 'If our husbands didn't talk to us, we should see the facts as they are. Alexey Alexandrovitch, to my thinking, is simply a fool. I say it in a whisper ... but doesn't it really make everything clear? Before, when I was told to consider him clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thought myself a fool for not seeing it but directly I said, he's a fool, though only in a whisper, everything's explained, isn't it? 'How spiteful you are today! 'Not a bit. I'd no other way out of it. One of the two had to be a fool. And, well, you know one can't say that of oneself. ''No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit.' The attach repeated the French saying. 'That's just it, just it, Princess Myakaya turned to him. 'But the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies. She's so nice, so charming. How can she help it if they're all in love with her, and follow her about like shadows? 'Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it, Anna's friend said in selfdefense. 'If no one follows us about like a shadow, that's no proof that we've any right to blame her. And having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Myakaya got up, and together with the ambassador's wife, joined the group at the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king of Prussia. 'What wicked gossip were you talking over there? asked Betsy. 'About the Karenins. The princess gave us a sketch of Alexey Alexandrovitch, said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as she sat down at the table. 'Pity we didn't hear it! said Princess Betsy, glancing towards the door. 'Ah, here you are at last! she said, turning with a smile to Vronsky, as he came in. Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he was meeting here he saw them all every day and so he came in with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people from whom one has only just parted. 'Where do I come from? he said, in answer to a question from the ambassador's wife. 'Well, there's no help for it, I must confess. From the opera bouffe. I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite! I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, and I sit out the opera bouffe to the last minute, and enjoy it. This evening.... He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell something about her but the ambassador's wife, with playful horror, cut him short. 'Please don't tell us about that horror. 'All right, I won't especially as everyone knows those horrors. 'And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct thing, like the opera, chimed in Princess Myakaya. Steps were heard at the door, and Princess Betsy, knowing it was Madame Karenina, glanced at Vronsky. He was looking towards the door, and his face wore a strange new expression. Joyfully, intently, and at the same time timidly, he gazed at the approaching figure, and slowly he rose to his feet. Anna walked into the drawingroom. Holding herself extremely erect, as always, looking straight before her, and moving with her swift, resolute, and light step, that distinguished her from all other society women, she crossed the short space to her hostess, shook hands with her, smiled, and with the same smile looked around at Vronsky. Vronsky bowed low and pushed a chair up for her. She acknowledged this only by a slight nod, flushed a little, and frowned. But immediately, while rapidly greeting her acquaintances, and shaking the hands proffered to her, she addressed Princess Betsy 'I have been at Countess Lidia's, and meant to have come here earlier, but I stayed on. Sir John was there. He's very interesting. 'Oh, that's this missionary? 'Yes he told us about the life in India, most interesting things. The conversation, interrupted by her coming in, flickered up again like the light of a lamp being blown out. 'Sir John! Yes, Sir John I've seen him. He speaks well. The Vlassieva girl's quite in love with him. 'And is it true the younger Vlassieva girl's to marry Topov? 'Yes, they say it's quite a settled thing. 'I wonder at the parents! They say it's a marriage for love. 'For love? What antediluvian notions you have! Can one talk of love in these days? said the ambassador's wife. 'What's to be done? It's a foolish old fashion that's kept up still, said Vronsky. 'So much the worse for those who keep up the fashion. The only happy marriages I know are marriages of prudence. 'Yes, but then how often the happiness of these prudent marriages flies away like dust just because that passion turns up that they have refused to recognize, said Vronsky. 'But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which both parties have sown their wild oats already. That's like scarlatinaone has to go through it and get it over. 'Then they ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox. 'I was in love in my young days with a deacon, said the Princess Myakaya. 'I don't know that it did me any good. 'No I imagine, joking apart, that to know love, one must make mistakes and then correct them, said Princess Betsy. 'Even after marriage? said the ambassador's wife playfully. ''It's never too late to mend.' The attach repeated the English proverb. 'Just so, Betsy agreed 'one must make mistakes and correct them. What do you think about it? she turned to Anna, who, with a faintly perceptible resolute smile on her lips, was listening in silence to the conversation. 'I think, said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, 'I think ... of so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love. Vronsky was gazing at Anna, and with a fainting heart waiting for what she would say. He sighed as after a danger escaped when she uttered these words. Anna suddenly turned to him. 'Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that Kitty Shtcherbatskaya's very ill. 'Really? said Vronsky, knitting his brows. Anna looked sternly at him. 'That doesn't interest you? 'On the contrary, it does, very much. What was it exactly they told you, if I may know? he questioned. Anna got up and went to Betsy. 'Give me a cup of tea, she said, standing at her table. While Betsy was pouring out the tea, Vronsky went up to Anna. 'What is it they write to you? he repeated. 'I often think men have no understanding of what's not honorable though they're always talking of it, said Anna, without answering him. 'I've wanted to tell you so a long while, she added, and moving a few steps away, she sat down at a table in a corner covered with albums. 'I don't quite understand the meaning of your words, he said, handing her the cup. She glanced towards the sofa beside her, and he instantly sat down. 'Yes, I have been wanting to tell you, she said, not looking at him. 'You behaved wrongly, very wrongly. 'Do you suppose I don't know that I've acted wrongly? But who was the cause of my doing so? 'What do you say that to me for? she said, glancing severely at him. 'You know what for, he answered boldly and joyfully, meeting her glance and not dropping his eyes. Not he, but she, was confused. 'That only shows you have no heart, she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him. 'What you spoke of just now was a mistake, and not love. 'Remember that I have forbidden you to utter that word, that hateful word, said Anna, with a shudder. But at once she felt that by that very word 'forbidden she had shown that she acknowledged certain rights over him, and by that very fact was encouraging him to speak of love. 'I have long meant to tell you this, she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, and hot all over from the burning flush on her cheeks. 'I've come on purpose this evening, knowing I should meet you. I have come to tell you that this must end. I have never blushed before anyone, and you force me to feel to blame for something. He looked at her and was struck by a new spiritual beauty in her face. 'What do you wish of me? he said simply and seriously. 'I want you to go to Moscow and ask for Kitty's forgiveness, she said. 'You don't wish that? he said. He saw she was saying what she forced herself to say, not what she wanted to say. 'If you love me, as you say, she whispered, 'do so that I may be at peace. His face grew radiant. 'Don't you know that you're all my life to me? But I know no peace, and I can't give it to you all myselfand love ... yes. I can't think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me. And I see no chance before us of peace for me or for you. I see a chance of despair, of wretchedness ... or I see a chance of bliss, what bliss!... Can it be there's no chance of it? he murmured with his lips but she heard. She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to be said. But instead of that she let her eyes rest on him, full of love, and made no answer. 'It's come! he thought in ecstasy. 'When I was beginning to despair, and it seemed there would be no endit's come! She loves me! She owns it! 'Then do this for me never say such things to me, and let us be friends, she said in words but her eyes spoke quite differently. 'Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of peoplethat's in your hands. She would have said something, but he interrupted her. 'I ask one thing only I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you. 'I don't want to drive you away. 'Only don't change anything, leave everything as it is, he said in a shaky voice. 'Here's your husband. At that instant Alexey Alexandrovitch did in fact walk into the room with his calm, awkward gait. Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the house, and sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his deliberate, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter, ridiculing someone. 'Your Rambouillet is in full conclave, he said, looking round at all the party 'the graces and the muses. But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his'sneering, as she called it, using the English word, and like a skillful hostess she at once brought him into a serious conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexey Alexandrovitch was immediately interested in the subject, and began seriously defending the new imperial decree against Princess Betsy, who had attacked it. Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table. 'This is getting indecorous, whispered one lady, with an expressive glance at Madame Karenina, Vronsky, and her husband. 'What did I tell you? said Anna's friend. But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even the Princess Myakaya and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch was the only person who did not once look in that direction, and was not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon. Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to listen to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and went up to Anna. 'I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your husband's language, she said. 'The most transcendental ideas seem to be within my grasp when he's speaking. 'Oh, yes! said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not understanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to the big table and took part in the general conversation. Alexey Alexandrovitch, after staying half an hour, went up to his wife and suggested that they should go home together. But she answered, not looking at him, that she was staying to supper. Alexey Alexandrovitch made his bows and withdrew. The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina's coachman, was with difficulty holding one of her pair of grays, chilled with the cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood opening the carriage door. The hallporter stood holding open the great door of the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with her quick little hand, was unfastening the lace of her sleeve, caught in the hook of her fur cloak, and with bent head listening to the words Vronsky murmured as he escorted her down. 'You've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing, he was saying 'but you know that friendship's not what I want that there's only one happiness in life for me, that word that you dislike so ... yes, love!... 'Love, she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at the very instant she unhooked the lace, she added, 'Why I don't like the word is that it means too much to me, far more than you can understand, and she glanced into his face. 'Au revoir! She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed by the porter and vanished into the carriage. Her glance, the touch of her hand, set him aflame. He kissed the palm of his hand where she had touched it, and went home, happy in the sense that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims that evening than during the last two months. Alexey Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest of the party this appeared something striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to be improper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his wife. On reaching home Alexey Alexandrovitch went to his study, as he usually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on the Papacy at the place where he had laid the paperknife in it, and read till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from time to time he rubbed his high forehead and shook his head, as though to drive away something. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under his arm he went upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual thoughts and meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife and something disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down the rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first to think thoroughly over the position that had just arisen. When Alexey Alexandrovitch had made up his mind that he must talk to his wife about it, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult. Alexey Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according to his notions was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have confidencethat is to say, complete conviction that his young wife would always love himhe did not ask himself. But he had no experience of lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and irrational, and did not know what was to be done. Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself. All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it. He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread over the resounding parquet of the diningroom, where one lamp was burning, over the carpet of the dark drawingroom, in which the light was reflected on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa, and across her boudoir, where two candles burned, lighting up the portraits of her parents and woman friends, and the pretty knickknacks of her writingtable, that he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom door, and turned back again. At each turn in his walk, especially at the parquet of the lighted diningroom, he halted and said to himself, 'Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to I must express my view of it and my decision. And he turned back again. 'But express whatwhat decision? he said to himself in the drawingroom, and he found no reply. 'But after all, he asked himself before turning into the boudoir, 'what has occurred? Nothing. She was talking a long while with him. But what of that? Surely women in society can talk to whom they please. And then, jealousy means lowering both myself and her, he told himself as he went into her boudoir but this dictum, which had always had such weight with him before, had now no weight and no meaning at all. And from the bedroom door he turned back again but as he entered the dark drawingroom some inner voice told him that it was not so, and that if others noticed it that showed that there was something. And he said to himself again in the diningroom, 'Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it, and express my view of it.... And again at the turn in the drawingroom he asked himself, 'Decide how? And again he asked himself, 'What had occurred? and answered, 'Nothing, and recollected that jealousy was a feeling insulting to his wife but again in the drawingroom he was convinced that something had happened. His thoughts, like his body, went round a complete circle, without coming upon anything new. He noticed this, rubbed his forehead, and sat down in her boudoir. There, looking at her table, with the malachite blotting case lying at the top and an unfinished letter, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think of her, of what she was thinking and feeling. For the first time he pictured vividly to himself her personal life, her ideas, her desires, and the idea that she could and should have a separate life of her own seemed to him so alarming that he made haste to dispel it. It was the chasm which he was afraid to peep into. To put himself in thought and feeling in another person's place was a spiritual exercise not natural to Alexey Alexandrovitch. He looked on this spiritual exercise as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy. 'And the worst of it all, thought he, 'is that just now, at the very moment when my great work is approaching completion (he was thinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time), 'when I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies, just now this stupid worry should fall foul of me. But what's to be done? I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force of character to face them. 'I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind, he said aloud. 'The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be passing in her soul, that's not my affair that's the affair of her conscience, and falls under the head of religion, he said to himself, feeling consolation in the sense that he had found to which division of regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly referred. 'And so, Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, 'questions as to her feelings, and so on, are questions for her conscience, with which I can have nothing to do. My duty is clearly defined. As the head of the family, I am a person bound in duty to guide her, and consequently, in part the person responsible I am bound to point out the danger I perceive, to warn her, even to use my authority. I ought to speak plainly to her. And everything that he would say tonight to his wife took clear shape in Alexey Alexandrovitch's head. Thinking over what he would say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mental powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it, but, in spite of that, the form and contents of the speech before him shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial report. 'I must say and express fully the following points first, exposition of the value to be attached to public opinion and to decorum secondly, exposition of religious significance of marriage thirdly, if need be, reference to the calamity possibly ensuing to our son fourthly, reference to the unhappiness likely to result to herself. And, interlacing his fingers, Alexey Alexandrovitch stretched them, and the joints of the fingers cracked. This trick, a bad habit, the cracking of his fingers, always soothed him, and gave precision to his thoughts, so needful to him at this juncture. There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door. Alexey Alexandrovitch halted in the middle of the room. A woman's step was heard mounting the stairs. Alexey Alexandrovitch, ready for his speech, stood compressing his crossed fingers, waiting to see if the crack would not come again. One joint cracked. Already, from the sound of light steps on the stairs, he was aware that she was close, and though he was satisfied with his speech, he felt frightened of the explanation confronting him.... Anna came in with hanging head, playing with the tassels of her hood. Her face was brilliant and glowing but this glow was not one of brightness it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night. On seeing her husband, Anna raised her head and smiled, as though she had just waked up. 'You're not in bed? What a wonder! she said, letting fall her hood, and without stopping, she went on into the dressingroom. 'It's late, Alexey Alexandrovitch, she said, when she had gone through the doorway. 'Anna, it's necessary for me to have a talk with you. 'With me? she said, wonderingly. She came out from behind the door of the dressingroom, and looked at him. 'Why, what is it? What about? she asked, sitting down. 'Well, let's talk, if it's so necessary. But it would be better to get to sleep. Anna said what came to her lips, and marveled, hearing herself, at her own capacity for lying. How simple and natural were her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy! She felt herself clad in an impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some unseen force had come to her aid and was supporting her. 'Anna, I must warn you, he began. 'Warn me? she said. 'Of what? She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything unnatural, either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to him, knowing her, knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual, she noticed it, and asked him the reason to him, knowing that every joy, every pleasure and pain that she felt she communicated to him at once to him, now to see that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not care to say a word about herself, meant a great deal. He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul, that had always hitherto lain open before him, were closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she was not even perturbed at that, but as it were said straight out to him 'Yes, it's shut up, and so it must be, and will be in future. Now he experienced a feeling such as a man might have, returning home and finding his own house locked up. 'But perhaps the key may yet be found, thought Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'I want to warn you, he said in a low voice, 'that through thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause yourself to be talked about in society. Your too animated conversation this evening with Count Vronsky (he enunciated the name firmly and with deliberate emphasis) 'attracted attention. He talked and looked at her laughing eyes, which frightened him now with their impenetrable look, and, as he talked, he felt all the uselessness and idleness of his words. 'You're always like that, she answered, as though completely misapprehending him, and of all he had said only taking in the last phrase. 'One time you don't like my being dull, and another time you don't like my being lively. I wasn't dull. Does that offend you? Alexey Alexandrovitch shivered, and bent his hands to make the joints crack. 'Oh, please, don't do that, I do so dislike it, she said. 'Anna, is this you? said Alexey Alexandrovitch, quietly making an effort over himself, and restraining the motion of his fingers. 'But what is it all about? she said, with such genuine and droll wonder. 'What do you want of me? Alexey Alexandrovitch paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. He saw that instead of doing as he had intendedthat is to say, warning his wife against a mistake in the eyes of the worldhe had unconsciously become agitated over what was the affair of her conscience, and was struggling against the barrier he fancied between them. 'This is what I meant to say to you, he went on coldly and composedly, 'and I beg you to listen to it. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be influenced by it but there are certain rules of decorum which cannot be disregarded with impunity. This evening it was not I observed it, but judging by the impression made on the company, everyone observed that your conduct and deportment were not altogether what could be desired. 'I positively don't understand, said Anna, shrugging her shoulders'He doesn't care, she thought. 'But other people noticed it, and that's what upsets him.'You're not well, Alexey Alexandrovitch, she added, and she got up, and would have gone towards the door but he moved forward as though he would stop her. His face was ugly and forbidding, as Anna had never seen him. She stopped, and bending her head back and on one side, began with her rapid hand taking out her hairpins. 'Well, I'm listening to what's to come, she said, calmly and ironically 'and indeed I listen with interest, for I should like to understand what's the matter. She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm, and natural tone in which she was speaking, and the choice of the words she used. 'To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right, and besides, I regard that as useless and even harmful, began Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Ferreting in one's soul, one often ferrets out something that might have lain there unnoticed. Your feelings are an affair of your own conscience but I am in duty bound to you, to myself, and to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement. 'I don't understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I am, unluckily, she said, rapidly passing her hand through her hair, feeling for the remaining hairpins. 'Anna, for God's sake don't speak like that! he said gently. 'Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, what I say, I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband, and I love you. For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died away but the word love threw her into revolt again. She thought 'Love? Can he love? If he hadn't heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn't even know what love is. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, really I don't understand, she said. 'Define what it is you find.... 'Pardon, let me say all I have to say. I love you. But I am not speaking of myself the most important persons in this matter are our son and yourself. It may very well be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly unnecessary and out of place it may be that they are called forth by my mistaken impression. In that case, I beg you to forgive me. But if you are conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for them, then I beg you to think a little, and if your heart prompts you, to speak out to me.... Alexey Alexandrovitch was unconsciously saying something utterly unlike what he had prepared. 'I have nothing to say. And besides, she said hurriedly, with difficulty repressing a smile, 'it's really time to be in bed. Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, and, without saying more, went into the bedroom. When she came into the bedroom, he was already in bed. His lips were sternly compressed, and his eyes looked away from her. Anna got into her bed, and lay expecting every minute that he would begin to speak to her again. She both feared his speaking and wished for it. But he was silent. She waited for a long while without moving, and had forgotten about him. She thought of that other she pictured him, and felt how her heart was flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought of him. Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore. For the first instant Alexey Alexandrovitch seemed, as it were, appalled at his own snoring, and ceased but after an interval of two breathings the snore sounded again, with a new tranquil rhythm. 'It's late, it's late, she whispered with a smile. A long while she lay, not moving, with open eyes, whose brilliance she almost fancied she could herself see in the darkness. From that time a new life began for Alexey Alexandrovitch and for his wife. Nothing special happened. Anna went out into society, as she had always done, was particularly often at Princess Betsy's, and met Vronsky everywhere. Alexey Alexandrovitch saw this, but could do nothing. All his efforts to draw her into open discussion she confronted with a barrier which he could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused perplexity. Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed. Alexey Alexandrovitch, a man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this. Like an ox with head bent, submissively he awaited the blow which he felt was lifted over him. Every time he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more, that by kindness, tenderness, and persuasion there was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he made ready to talk to her. But every time he began talking to her, he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her, had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that in which he had meant to talk. Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of jeering at anyone who should say what he was saying. And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her. That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires that which for Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and even for that reason more entrancing dream of bliss, that desire had been fulfilled. He stood before her, pale, his lower jaw quivering, and besought her to be calm, not knowing how or why. 'Anna! Anna! he said with a choking voice, 'Anna, for pity's sake!... But the louder he spoke, the lower she dropped her once proud and gay, now shamestricken head, and she bowed down and sank from the sofa where she was sitting, down on the floor, at his feet she would have fallen on the carpet if he had not held her. 'My God! Forgive me! she said, sobbing, pressing his hands to her bosom. She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left her but to humiliate herself and beg forgiveness and as now there was no one in her life but him, to him she addressed her prayer for forgiveness. Looking at him, she had a physical sense of her humiliation, and she could say nothing more. He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him. But in spite of all the murderer's horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what he has gained by his murder. And with fury, as it were with passion, the murderer falls on the body, and drags it and hacks at it so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses. She held his hand, and did not stir. 'Yes, these kissesthat is what has been bought by this shame. Yes, and one hand, which will always be minethe hand of my accomplice. She lifted up that hand and kissed it. He sank on his knees and tried to see her face but she hid it, and said nothing. At last, as though making an effort over herself, she got up and pushed him away. Her face was still as beautiful, but it was only the more pitiful for that. 'All is over, she said 'I have nothing but you. Remember that. 'I can never forget what is my whole life. For one instant of this happiness.... 'Happiness! she said with horror and loathing and her horror unconsciously infected him. 'For pity's sake, not a word, not a word more. She rose quickly and moved away from him. 'Not a word more, she repeated, and with a look of chill despair, incomprehensible to him, she parted from him. She felt that at that moment she could not put into words the sense of shame, of rapture, and of horror at this stepping into a new life, and she did not want to speak of it, to vulgarize this feeling by inappropriate words. But later too, and the next day and the third day, she still found no words in which she could express the complexity of her feelings indeed, she could not even find thoughts in which she could clearly think out all that was in her soul. She said to herself 'No, just now I can't think of it, later on, when I am calmer. But this calm for thought never came every time the thought rose of what she had done and what would happen to her, and what she ought to do, a horror came over her and she drove those thoughts away. 'Later, later, she said'when I am calmer. But in dreams, when she had no control over her thoughts, her position presented itself to her in all its hideous nakedness. One dream haunted her almost every night. She dreamed that both were her husbands at once, that both were lavishing caresses on her. Alexey Alexandrovitch was weeping, kissing her hands, and saying, 'How happy we are now! And Alexey Vronsky was there too, and he too was her husband. And she was marveling that it had once seemed impossible to her, was explaining to them, laughing, that this was ever so much simpler, and that now both of them were happy and contented. But this dream weighed on her like a nightmare, and she awoke from it in terror. In the early days after his return from Moscow, whenever Levin shuddered and grew red, remembering the disgrace of his rejection, he said to himself 'This was just how I used to shudder and blush, thinking myself utterly lost, when I was plucked in physics and did not get my remove and how I thought myself utterly ruined after I had mismanaged that affair of my sister's that was entrusted to me. And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing too with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either. But three months had passed and he had not left off minding about it and it was as painful for him to think of it as it had been those first days. He could not be at peace because after dreaming so long of family life, and feeling himself so ripe for it, he was still not married, and was further than ever from marriage. He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his years it is not well for man to be alone. He remembered how before starting for Moscow he had once said to his cowman Nikolay, a simplehearted peasant, whom he liked talking to 'Well, Nikolay! I mean to get married, and how Nikolay had promptly answered, as of a matter on which there could be no possible doubt 'And high time too, Konstantin Dmitrievitch. But marriage had now become further off than ever. The place was taken, and whenever he tried to imagine any of the girls he knew in that place, he felt that it was utterly impossible. Moreover, the recollection of the rejection and the part he had played in the affair tortured him with shame. However often he told himself that he was in no wise to blame in it, that recollection, like other humiliating reminiscences of a similar kind, made him twinge and blush. There had been in his past, as in every man's, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him but the memory of these evil actions was far from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences. These wounds never healed. And with these memories was now ranged his rejection and the pitiful position in which he must have appeared to others that evening. But time and work did their part. Bitter memories were more and more covered up by the incidentspaltry in his eyes, but really importantof his country life. Every week he thought less often of Kitty. He was impatiently looking forward to the news that she was married, or just going to be married, hoping that such news would, like having a tooth out, completely cure him. Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and treacheries of spring,one of those rare springs in which plants, beasts, and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused Levin still more, and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past and building up his lonely life firmly and independently. Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been carried out, still his most important resolutionthat of purityhad been kept by him. He was free from that shame, which had usually harassed him after a fall and he could look everyone straight in the face. In February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolay's health was getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter Levin went to Moscow to his brother's and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor and to go to a wateringplace abroad. He succeeded so well in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in that matter. In addition to his farming, which called for special attention in spring, and in addition to reading, Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan of which turned on taking into account the character of the laborer on the land as one of the unalterable data of the question, like the climate and the soil, and consequently deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not simply from the data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate, and a certain unalterable character of the laborer. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full. Only rarely he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate his stray ideas to someone besides Agafea Mihalovna. With her indeed he not infrequently fell into discussion upon physics, the theory of agriculture, and especially philosophy philosophy was Agafea Mihalovna's favorite subject. Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks it had been steadily fine frosty weather. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but at night there were even seven degrees of frost. There was such a frozen surface on the snow that they drove the wagons anywhere off the roads. Easter came in the snow. Then all of a sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds swooped down, and for three days and three nights the warm, driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a thick gray fog brooded over the land as though hiding the mysteries of the transformations that were being wrought in nature. Behind the fog there was the flowing of water, the cracking and floating of ice, the swift rush of turbid, foaming torrents and on the following Monday, in the evening, the fog parted, the storm clouds split up into little curling crests of cloud, the sky cleared, and the real spring had come. In the morning the sun rose brilliant and quickly wore away the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and all the warm air was quivering with the steam that rose up from the quickened earth. The old grass looked greener, and the young grass thrust up its tiny blades the buds of the guelderrose and of the currant and the sticky birchbuds were swollen with sap, and an exploring bee was humming about the golden blossoms that studded the willow. Larks trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the icecovered stubbleland peewits wailed over the low lands and marshes flooded by the pools cranes and wild geese flew high across the sky uttering their spring calls. The cattle, bald in patches where the new hair had not grown yet, lowed in the pastures the bowlegged lambs frisked round their bleating mothers. Nimble children ran about the drying paths, covered with the prints of bare feet. There was a merry chatter of peasant women over their linen at the pond, and the ring of axes in the yard, where the peasants were repairing ploughs and harrows. The real spring had come. Levin put on his big boots, and, for the first time, a cloth jacket, instead of his fur cloak, and went out to look after his farm, stepping over streams of water that flashed in the sunshine and dazzled his eyes, and treading one minute on ice and the next into sticky mud. Spring is the time of plans and projects. And, as he came out into the farmyard, Levin, like a tree in spring that knows not what form will be taken by the young shoots and twigs imprisoned in its swelling buds, hardly knew what undertakings he was going to begin upon now in the farm work that was so dear to him. But he felt that he was full of the most splendid plans and projects. First of all he went to the cattle. The cows had been let out into their paddock, and their smooth sides were already shining with their new, sleek, spring coats they basked in the sunshine and lowed to go to the meadow. Levin gazed admiringly at the cows he knew so intimately to the minutest detail of their condition, and gave orders for them to be driven out into the meadow, and the calves to be let into the paddock. The herdsman ran gaily to get ready for the meadow. The cowherd girls, picking up their petticoats, ran splashing through the mud with bare legs, still white, not yet brown from the sun, waving brush wood in their hands, chasing the calves that frolicked in the mirth of spring. After admiring the young ones of that year, who were particularly finethe early calves were the size of a peasant's cow, and Pava's daughter, at three months old, was as big as a yearlingLevin gave orders for a trough to be brought out and for them to be fed in the paddock. But it appeared that as the paddock had not been used during the winter, the hurdles made in the autumn for it were broken. He sent for the carpenter, who, according to his orders, ought to have been at work at the thrashing machine. But it appeared that the carpenter was repairing the harrows, which ought to have been repaired before Lent. This was very annoying to Levin. It was annoying to come upon that everlasting slovenliness in the farm work against which he had been striving with all his might for so many years. The hurdles, as he ascertained, being not wanted in winter, had been carried to the carthorses' stable and there broken, as they were of light construction, only meant for feeding calves. Moreover, it was apparent also that the harrows and all the agricultural implements, which he had directed to be looked over and repaired in the winter, for which very purpose he had hired three carpenters, had not been put into repair, and the harrows were being repaired when they ought to have been harrowing the field. Levin sent for his bailiff, but immediately went off himself to look for him. The bailiff, beaming all over, like everyone that day, in a sheepskin bordered with astrachan, came out of the barn, twisting a bit of straw in his hands. 'Why isn't the carpenter at the thrashing machine? 'Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday, the harrows want repairing. Here it's time they got to work in the fields. 'But what were they doing in the winter, then? 'But what did you want the carpenter for? 'Where are the hurdles for the calves' paddock? 'I ordered them to be got ready. What would you have with those peasants! said the bailiff, with a wave of his hand. 'It's not those peasants but this bailiff! said Levin, getting angry. 'Why, what do I keep you for? he cried. But, bethinking himself that this would not help matters, he stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and merely sighed. 'Well, what do you say? Can sowing begin? he asked, after a pause. 'Behind Turkin tomorrow or the next day they might begin. 'And the clover? 'I've sent Vassily and Mishka they're sowing. Only I don't know if they'll manage to get through it's so slushy. 'How many acres? 'About fifteen. 'Why not sow all? cried Levin. That they were only sowing the clover on fifteen acres, not on all the fortyfive, was still more annoying to him. Clover, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was sown as early as possible, almost in the snow. And yet Levin could never get this done. 'There's no one to send. What would you have with such a set of peasants? Three haven't turned up. And there's Semyon.... 'Well, you should have taken some men from the thatching. 'And so I have, as it is. 'Where are the peasants, then? 'Five are making compte (which meant compost), 'four are shifting the oats for fear of a touch of mildew, Konstantin Dmitrievitch. Levin knew very well that 'a touch of mildew meant that his English seed oats were already ruined. Again they had not done as he had ordered. 'Why, but I told you during Lent to put in pipes, he cried. 'Don't put yourself out we shall get it all done in time. Levin waved his hand angrily, went into the granary to glance at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled. But the peasants were carrying the oats in spades when they might simply let them slide down into the lower granary and arranging for this to be done, and taking two workmen from there for sowing clover, Levin got over his vexation with the bailiff. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that one could not be angry. 'Ignat! he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up, was washing the carriage wheels, 'saddle me.... 'Which, sir? 'Well, let it be Kolpik. 'Yes, sir. While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called up the bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it up with him, and began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his plans for the farm. The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all done before the early mowing. And the ploughing of the further land to go on without a break so as to let it ripen lying fallow. And the mowing to be all done by hired labor, not on halfprofits. The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his employer's projects. But still he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That look said 'That's all very well, but as God wills. Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone. But it was the tone common to all the bailiffs he had ever had. They had all taken up that attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but mortified, and felt all the more roused to struggle against this, as it seemed, elemental force continually ranged against him, for which he could find no other expression than 'as God wills. 'If we can manage it, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, said the bailiff. 'Why ever shouldn't you manage it? 'We positively must have another fifteen laborers. And they don't turn up. There were some here today asking seventy roubles for the summer. Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that opposing force. He knew that however much they tried, they could not hire more than fortythirtyseven perhaps or thirtyeightlaborers for a reasonable sum. Some forty had been taken on, and there were no more. But still he could not help struggling against it. 'Send to Sury, to Tchefirovka if they don't come we must look for them. 'Oh, I'll send, to be sure, said Vassily Fedorovitch despondently. 'But there are the horses, too, they're not good for much. 'We'll get some more. I know, of course, Levin added laughing, 'you always want to do with as little and as poor quality as possible but this year I'm not going to let you have things your own way. I'll see to everything myself. 'Why, I don't think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up to work under the master's eye.... 'So they're sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I'll go and have a look at them, he said, getting on to the little bay cob, Kolpik, who was led up by the coachman. 'You can't get across the streams, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, the coachman shouted. 'All right, I'll go by the forest. And Levin rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and out into the open country, his good little horse, after his long inactivity, stepping out gallantly, snorting over the pools, and asking, as it were, for guidance. If Levin had felt happy before in the cattle pens and farmyard, he felt happier yet in the open country. Swaying rhythmically with the ambling paces of his good little cob, drinking in the warm yet fresh scent of the snow and the air, as he rode through his forest over the crumbling, wasted snow, still left in parts, and covered with dissolving tracks, he rejoiced over every tree, with the moss reviving on its bark and the buds swelling on its shoots. When he came out of the forest, in the immense plain before him, his grass fields stretched in an unbroken carpet of green, without one bare place or swamp, only spotted here and there in the hollows with patches of melting snow. He was not put out of temper even by the sight of the peasants' horses and colts trampling down his young grass (he told a peasant he met to drive them out), nor by the sarcastic and stupid reply of the peasant Ipat, whom he met on the way, and asked, 'Well, Ipat, shall we soon be sowing? 'We must get the ploughing done first, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, answered Ipat. The further he rode, the happier he became, and plans for the land rose to his mind each better than the last to plant all his fields with hedges along the southern borders, so that the snow should not lie under them to divide them up into six fields of arable and three of pasture and hay to build a cattle yard at the further end of the estate, and to dig a pond and to construct movable pens for the cattle as a means of manuring the land. And then eight hundred acres of wheat, three hundred of potatoes, and four hundred of clover, and not one acre exhausted. Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse by the hedges, so as not to trample his young crops, he rode up to the laborers who had been sent to sow clover. A cart with the seed in it was standing, not at the edge, but in the middle of the crop, and the winter corn had been torn up by the wheels and trampled by the horse. Both the laborers were sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a pipe together. The earth in the cart, with which the seed was mixed, was not crushed to powder, but crusted together or adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the laborer, Vassily, went towards the cart, while Mishka set to work sowing. This was not as it should be, but with the laborers Levin seldom lost his temper. When Vassily came up, Levin told him to lead the horse to the hedge. 'It's all right, sir, it'll spring up again, responded Vassily. 'Please don't argue, said Levin, 'but do as you're told. 'Yes, sir, answered Vassily, and he took the horse's head. 'What a sowing, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, he said, hesitating 'first rate. Only it's a work to get about! You drag a ton of earth on your shoes. 'Why is it you have earth that's not sifted? said Levin. 'Well, we crumble it up, answered Vassily, taking up some seed and rolling the earth in his palms. Vassily was not to blame for their having filled up his cart with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying. Levin had more than once already tried a way he knew for stifling his anger, and turning all that seemed dark right again, and he tried that way now. He watched how Mishka strode along, swinging the huge clods of earth that clung to each foot and getting off his horse, he took the sieve from Vassily and started sowing himself. 'Where did you stop? Vassily pointed to the mark with his foot, and Levin went forward as best he could, scattering the seed on the land. Walking was as difficult as on a bog, and by the time Levin had ended the row he was in a great heat, and he stopped and gave up the sieve to Vassily. 'Well, master, when summer's here, mind you don't scold me for these rows, said Vassily. 'Eh? said Levin cheerily, already feeling the effect of his method. 'Why, you'll see in the summer time. It'll look different. Look you where I sowed last spring. How I did work at it! I do my best, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, d'ye see, as I would for my own father. I don't like bad work myself, nor would I let another man do it. What's good for the master's good for us too. To look out yonder now, said Vassily, pointing, 'it does one's heart good. 'It's a lovely spring, Vassily. 'Why, it's a spring such as the old men don't remember the like of. I was up home an old man up there has sown wheat too, about an acre of it. He was saying you wouldn't know it from rye. 'Have you been sowing wheat long? 'Why, sir, it was you taught us the year before last. You gave me two measures. We sold about eight bushels and sowed a rood. 'Well, mind you crumble up the clods, said Levin, going towards his horse, 'and keep an eye on Mishka. And if there's a good crop you shall have half a rouble for every acre. 'Humbly thankful. We are very well content, sir, as it is. Levin got on his horse and rode towards the field where was last year's clover, and the one which was ploughed ready for the spring corn. The crop of clover coming up in the stubble was magnificent. It had survived everything, and stood up vividly green through the broken stalks of last year's wheat. The horse sank in up to the pasterns, and he drew each hoof with a sucking sound out of the halfthawed ground. Over the ploughland riding was utterly impossible the horse could only keep a foothold where there was ice, and in the thawing furrows he sank deep in at each step. The ploughland was in splendid condition in a couple of days it would be fit for harrowing and sowing. Everything was capital, everything was cheering. Levin rode back across the streams, hoping the water would have gone down. And he did in fact get across, and startled two ducks. 'There must be snipe too, he thought, and just as he reached the turning homewards he met the forest keeper, who confirmed his theory about the snipe. Levin went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner and get his gun ready for the evening. As he rode up to the house in the happiest frame of mind, Levin heard the bell ring at the side of the principal entrance of the house. 'Yes, that's someone from the railway station, he thought, 'just the time to be here from the Moscow train ... Who could it be? What if it's brother Nikolay? He did say 'Maybe I'll go to the waters, or maybe I'll come down to you.' He felt dismayed and vexed for the first minute, that his brother Nikolay's presence should come to disturb his happy mood of spring. But he felt ashamed of the feeling, and at once he opened, as it were, the arms of his soul, and with a softened feeling of joy and expectation, now he hoped with all his heart that it was his brother. He pricked up his horse, and riding out from behind the acacias he saw a hired threehorse sledge from the railway station, and a gentleman in a fur coat. It was not his brother. 'Oh, if it were only some nice person one could talk to a little! he thought. 'Ah, cried Levin joyfully, flinging up both his hands. 'Here's a delightful visitor! Ah, how glad I am to see you! he shouted, recognizing Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I shall find out for certain whether she's married, or when she's going to be married, he thought. And on that delicious spring day he felt that the thought of her did not hurt him at all. 'Well, you didn't expect me, eh? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting out of the sledge, splashed with mud on the bridge of his nose, on his cheek, and on his eyebrows, but radiant with health and good spirits. 'I've come to see you in the first place, he said, embracing and kissing him, 'to have some standshooting second, and to sell the forest at Ergushovo third. 'Delightful! What a spring we're having! How ever did you get along in a sledge? 'In a cart it would have been worse still, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, answered the driver, who knew him. 'Well, I'm very, very glad to see you, said Levin, with a genuine smile of childlike delight. Levin led his friend to the room set apart for visitors, where Stepan Arkadyevitch's things were carried alsoa bag, a gun in a case, a satchel for cigars. Leaving him there to wash and change his clothes, Levin went off to the counting house to speak about the ploughing and clover. Agafea Mihalovna, always very anxious for the credit of the house, met him in the hall with inquiries about dinner. 'Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible, he said, and went to the bailiff. When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevitch, washed and combed, came out of his room with a beaming smile, and they went upstairs together. 'Well, I am glad I managed to get away to you! Now I shall understand what the mysterious business is that you are always absorbed in here. No, really, I envy you. What a house, how nice it all is! So bright, so cheerful! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgetting that it was not always spring and fine weather like that day. 'And your nurse is simply charming! A pretty maid in an apron might be even more agreeable, perhaps but for your severe monastic style it does very well. Stepan Arkadyevitch told him many interesting pieces of news especially interesting to Levin was the news that his brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, was intending to pay him a visit in the summer. Not one word did Stepan Arkadyevitch say in reference to Kitty and the Shtcherbatskys he merely gave him greetings from his wife. Levin was grateful to him for his delicacy and was very glad of his visitor. As always happened with him during his solitude, a mass of ideas and feelings had been accumulating within him, which he could not communicate to those about him. And now he poured out upon Stepan Arkadyevitch his poetic joy in the spring, and his failures and plans for the land, and his thoughts and criticisms on the books he had been reading, and the idea of his own book, the basis of which really was, though he was unaware of it himself, a criticism of all the old books on agriculture. Stepan Arkadyevitch, always charming, understanding everything at the slightest reference, was particularly charming on this visit, and Levin noticed in him a special tenderness, as it were, and a new tone of respect that flattered him. The efforts of Agafea Mihalovna and the cook, that the dinner should be particularly good, only ended in the two famished friends attacking the preliminary course, eating a great deal of bread and butter, salt goose and salted mushrooms, and in Levin's finally ordering the soup to be served without the accompaniment of little pies, with which the cook had particularly meant to impress their visitor. But though Stepan Arkadyevitch was accustomed to very different dinners, he thought everything excellent the herb brandy, and the bread, and the butter, and above all the salt goose and the mushrooms, and the nettle soup, and the chicken in white sauce, and the white Crimean wineeverything was superb and delicious. 'Splendid, splendid! he said, lighting a fat cigar after the roast. 'I feel as if, coming to you, I had landed on a peaceful shore after the noise and jolting of a steamer. And so you maintain that the laborer himself is an element to be studied and to regulate the choice of methods in agriculture. Of course, I'm an ignorant outsider but I should fancy theory and its application will have its influence on the laborer too. 'Yes, but wait a bit. I'm not talking of political economy, I'm talking of the science of agriculture. It ought to be like the natural sciences, and to observe given phenomena and the laborer in his economic, ethnographical.... At that instant Agafea Mihalovna came in with jam. 'Oh, Agafea Mihalovna, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, kissing the tips of his plump fingers, 'what salt goose, what herb brandy!... What do you think, isn't it time to start, Kostya? he added. Levin looked out of the window at the sun sinking behind the bare treetops of the forest. 'Yes, it's time, he said. 'Kouzma, get ready the trap, and he ran downstairs. Stepan Arkadyevitch, going down, carefully took the canvas cover off his varnished gun case with his own hands, and opening it, began to get ready his expensive newfashioned gun. Kouzma, who already scented a big tip, never left Stepan Arkadyevitch's side, and put on him both his stockings and boots, a task which Stepan Arkadyevitch readily left him. 'Kostya, give orders that if the merchant Ryabinin comes ... I told him to come today, he's to be brought in and to wait for me.... 'Why, do you mean to say you're selling the forest to Ryabinin? 'Yes. Do you know him? 'To be sure I do. I have had to do business with him, 'positively and conclusively.' Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed. 'Positively and conclusively were the merchant's favorite words. 'Yes, it's wonderfully funny the way he talks. She knows where her master's going! he added, patting Laska, who hung about Levin, whining and licking his hands, his boots, and his gun. The trap was already at the steps when they went out. 'I told them to bring the trap round or would you rather walk? 'No, we'd better drive, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting into the trap. He sat down, tucked the tigerskin rug round him, and lighted a cigar. 'How is it you don't smoke? A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of pleasure. Come, this is life! How splendid it is! This is how I should like to live! 'Why, who prevents you? said Levin, smiling. 'No, you're a lucky man! You've got everything you like. You like horsesand you have them dogsyou have them shootingyou have it farmingyou have it. 'Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for what I haven't, said Levin, thinking of Kitty. Stepan Arkadyevitch comprehended, looked at him, but said nothing. Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing, with his neverfailing tact, that he dreaded conversation about the Shtcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But now Levin was longing to find out what was tormenting him so, yet he had not the courage to begin. 'Come, tell me how things are going with you, said Levin, bethinking himself that it was not nice of him to think only of himself. Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes sparkled merrily. 'You don't admit, I know, that one can be fond of new rolls when one has had one's rations of breadto your mind it's a crime but I don't count life as life without love, he said, taking Levin's question his own way. 'What am I to do? I'm made that way. And really, one does so little harm to anyone, and gives oneself so much pleasure.... 'What! is there something new, then? queried Levin. 'Yes, my boy, there is! There, do you see, you know the type of Ossian's women.... Women, such as one sees in dreams.... Well, these women are sometimes to be met in reality ... and these women are terrible. Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that however much you study it, it's always perfectly new. 'Well, then, it would be better not to study it. 'No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding it. Levin listened in silence, and in spite of all the efforts he made, he could not in the least enter into the feelings of his friend and understand his sentiments and the charm of studying such women. The place fixed on for the standshooting was not far above a stream in a little aspen copse. On reaching the copse, Levin got out of the trap and led Oblonsky to a corner of a mossy, swampy glade, already quite free from snow. He went back himself to a double birch tree on the other side, and leaning his gun on the fork of a dead lower branch, he took off his full overcoat, fastened his belt again, and worked his arms to see if they were free. Gray old Laska, who had followed them, sat down warily opposite him and pricked up her ears. The sun was setting behind a thick forest, and in the glow of sunset the birch trees, dotted about in the aspen copse, stood out clearly with their hanging twigs, and their buds swollen almost to bursting. From the thickest parts of the copse, where the snow still remained, came the faint sound of narrow winding threads of water running away. Tiny birds twittered, and now and then fluttered from tree to tree. In the pauses of complete stillness there came the rustle of last year's leaves, stirred by the thawing of the earth and the growth of the grass. 'Imagine! One can hear and see the grass growing! Levin said to himself, noticing a wet, slatecolored aspen leaf moving beside a blade of young grass. He stood, listened, and gazed sometimes down at the wet mossy ground, sometimes at Laska listening all alert, sometimes at the sea of bare tree tops that stretched on the slope below him, sometimes at the darkening sky, covered with white streaks of cloud. A hawk flew high over a forest far away with slow sweep of its wings another flew with exactly the same motion in the same direction and vanished. The birds twittered more and more loudly and busily in the thicket. An owl hooted not far off, and Laska, starting, stepped cautiously a few steps forward, and putting her head on one side, began to listen intently. Beyond the stream was heard the cuckoo. Twice she uttered her usual cuckoo call, and then gave a hoarse, hurried call and broke down. 'Imagine! the cuckoo already! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming out from behind a bush. 'Yes, I hear it, answered Levin, reluctantly breaking the stillness with his voice, which sounded disagreeable to himself. 'Now it's coming! Stepan Arkadyevitch's figure again went behind the bush, and Levin saw nothing but the bright flash of a match, followed by the red glow and blue smoke of a cigarette. 'Tchk! tchk! came the snapping sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch cocking his gun. 'What's that cry? asked Oblonsky, drawing Levin's attention to a prolonged cry, as though a colt were whinnying in a high voice, in play. 'Oh, don't you know it? That's the hare. But enough talking! Listen, it's flying! almost shrieked Levin, cocking his gun. They heard a shrill whistle in the distance, and in the exact time, so well known to the sportsman, two seconds lateranother, a third, and after the third whistle the hoarse, guttural cry could be heard. Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just facing him against the dusky blue sky above the confused mass of tender shoots of the aspens, he saw the flying bird. It was flying straight towards him the guttural cry, like the even tearing of some strong stuff, sounded close to his ear the long beak and neck of the bird could be seen, and at the very instant when Levin was taking aim, behind the bush where Oblonsky stood, there was a flash of red lightning the bird dropped like an arrow, and darted upwards again. Again came the red flash and the sound of a blow, and fluttering its wings as though trying to keep up in the air, the bird halted, stopped still an instant, and fell with a heavy splash on the slushy ground. 'Can I have missed it? shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch, who could not see for the smoke. 'Here it is! said Levin, pointing to Laska, who with one ear raised, wagging the end of her shaggy tail, came slowly back as though she would prolong the pleasure, and as it were smiling, brought the dead bird to her master. 'Well, I'm glad you were successful, said Levin, who, at the same time, had a sense of envy that he had not succeeded in shooting the snipe. 'It was a bad shot from the right barrel, responded Stepan Arkadyevitch, loading his gun. 'Sh... it's flying! The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were heard again. Two snipe, playing and chasing one another, and only whistling, not crying, flew straight at the very heads of the sportsmen. There was the report of four shots, and like swallows the snipe turned swift somersaults in the air and vanished from sight. The standshooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevitch shot two more birds and Levin two, of which one was not found. It began to get dark. Venus, bright and silvery, shone with her soft light low down in the west behind the birch trees, and high up in the east twinkled the red lights of Arcturus. Over his head Levin made out the stars of the Great Bear and lost them again. The snipe had ceased flying but Levin resolved to stay a little longer, till Venus, which he saw below a branch of birch, should be above it, and the stars of the Great Bear should be perfectly plain. Venus had risen above the branch, and the ear of the Great Bear with its shaft was now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky, yet still he waited. 'Isn't it time to go home? said Stepan Arkadyevitch. It was quite still now in the copse, and not a bird was stirring. 'Let's stay a little while, answered Levin. 'As you like. They were standing now about fifteen paces from one another. 'Stiva! said Levin unexpectedly 'how is it you don't tell me whether your sisterinlaw's married yet, or when she's going to be? Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer, he fancied, could affect him. But he had never dreamed of what Stepan Arkadyevitch replied. 'She's never thought of being married, and isn't thinking of it but she's very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They're positively afraid she may not live. 'What! cried Levin. 'Very ill? What is wrong with her? How has she...? While they were saying this, Laska, with ears pricked up, was looking upwards at the sky, and reproachfully at them. 'They have chosen a time to talk, she was thinking. 'It's on the wing.... Here it is, yes, it is. They'll miss it, thought Laska. But at that very instant both suddenly heard a shrill whistle which, as it were, smote on their ears, and both suddenly seized their guns and two flashes gleamed, and two bangs sounded at the very same instant. The snipe flying high above instantly folded its wings and fell into a thicket, bending down the delicate shoots. 'Splendid! Together! cried Levin, and he ran with Laska into the thicket to look for the snipe. 'Oh, yes, what was it that was unpleasant? he wondered. 'Yes, Kitty's ill.... Well, it can't be helped I'm very sorry, he thought. 'She's found it! Isn't she a clever thing? he said, taking the warm bird from Laska's mouth and packing it into the almost full game bag. 'I've got it, Stiva! he shouted. On the way home Levin asked all details of Kitty's illness and the Shtcherbatskys' plans, and though he would have been ashamed to admit it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that there was still hope, and still more pleased that she should be suffering who had made him suffer so much. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch began to speak of the causes of Kitty's illness, and mentioned Vronsky's name, Levin cut him short. 'I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the truth, no interest in them either. Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled hardly perceptibly, catching the instantaneous change he knew so well in Levin's face, which had become as gloomy as it had been bright a minute before. 'Have you quite settled about the forest with Ryabinin? asked Levin. 'Yes, it's settled. The price is magnificent thirtyeight thousand. Eight straight away, and the rest in six years. I've been bothering about it for ever so long. No one would give more. 'Then you've as good as given away your forest for nothing, said Levin gloomily. 'How do you mean for nothing? said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a goodhumored smile, knowing that nothing would be right in Levin's eyes now. 'Because the forest is worth at least a hundred and fifty roubles the acre, answered Levin. 'Oh, these farmers! said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. 'Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out, he said, 'and the forest is fetching a very good priceso much so that I'm afraid of this fellow's crying off, in fact. You know it's not 'timber,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, hoping by this distinction to convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts. 'And it won't run to more than twentyfive yards of fagots per acre, and he's giving me at the rate of seventy roubles the acre. Levin smiled contemptuously. 'I know, he thought, 'that fashion not only in him, but in all city people, who, after being twice in ten years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in season and out of season, firmly persuaded that they know all about it. 'Timber, run to so many yards the acre.' He says those words without understanding them himself. 'I wouldn't attempt to teach you what you write about in your office, said he, 'and if need arose, I should come to you to ask about it. But you're so positive you know all the lore of the forest. It's difficult. Have you counted the trees? 'How count the trees? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing, still trying to draw his friend out of his illtemper. 'Count the sands of the sea, number the stars. Some higher power might do it. 'Oh, well, the higher power of Ryabinin can. Not a single merchant ever buys a forest without counting the trees, unless they get it given them for nothing, as you're doing now. I know your forest. I go there every year shooting, and your forest's worth a hundred and fifty roubles an acre paid down, while he's giving you sixty by installments. So that in fact you're making him a present of thirty thousand. 'Come, don't let your imagination run away with you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch piteously. 'Why was it none would give it, then? 'Why, because he has an understanding with the merchants he's bought them off. I've had to do with all of them I know them. They're not merchants, you know they're speculators. He wouldn't look at a bargain that gave him ten, fifteen per cent. profit, but holds back to buy a rouble's worth for twenty kopecks. 'Well, enough of it! You're out of temper. 'Not the least, said Levin gloomily, as they drove up to the house. At the steps there stood a trap tightly covered with iron and leather, with a sleek horse tightly harnessed with broad collarstraps. In the trap sat the chubby, tightly belted clerk who served Ryabinin as coachman. Ryabinin himself was already in the house, and met the friends in the hall. Ryabinin was a tall, thinnish, middleaged man, with mustache and a projecting cleanshaven chin, and prominent muddylooking eyes. He was dressed in a longskirted blue coat, with buttons below the waist at the back, and wore high boots wrinkled over the ankles and straight over the calf, with big galoshes drawn over them. He rubbed his face with his handkerchief, and wrapping round him his coat, which sat extremely well as it was, he greeted them with a smile, holding out his hand to Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though he wanted to catch something. 'So here you are, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, giving him his hand. 'That's capital. 'I did not venture to disregard your excellency's commands, though the road was extremely bad. I positively walked the whole way, but I am here at my time. Konstantin Dmitrievitch, my respects he turned to Levin, trying to seize his hand too. But Levin, scowling, made as though he did not notice his hand, and took out the snipe. 'Your honors have been diverting yourselves with the chase? What kind of bird may it be, pray? added Ryabinin, looking contemptuously at the snipe 'a great delicacy, I suppose. And he shook his head disapprovingly, as though he had grave doubts whether this game were worth the candle. 'Would you like to go into my study? Levin said in French to Stepan Arkadyevitch, scowling morosely. 'Go into my study you can talk there. 'Quite so, where you please, said Ryabinin with contemptuous dignity, as though wishing to make it felt that others might be in difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any difficulty about anything. On entering the study Ryabinin looked about, as his habit was, as though seeking the holy picture, but when he had found it, he did not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe, he smiled contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though by no means willing to allow that this game were worth the candle. 'Well, have you brought the money? asked Oblonsky. 'Sit down. 'Oh, don't trouble about the money. I've come to see you to talk it over. 'What is there to talk over? But do sit down. 'I don't mind if I do, said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning his elbows on the back of his chair in a position of the intensest discomfort to himself. 'You must knock it down a bit, prince. It would be too bad. The money is ready conclusively to the last farthing. As to paying the money down, there'll be no hitch there. Levin, who had meanwhile been putting his gun away in the cupboard, was just going out of the door, but catching the merchant's words, he stopped. 'Why, you've got the forest for nothing as it is, he said. 'He came to me too late, or I'd have fixed the price for him. Ryabinin got up, and in silence, with a smile, he looked Levin down and up. 'Very close about money is Konstantin Dmitrievitch, he said with a smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyevitch 'there's positively no dealing with him. I was bargaining for some wheat of him, and a pretty price I offered too. 'Why should I give you my goods for nothing? I didn't pick it up on the ground, nor steal it either. 'Mercy on us! nowadays there's no chance at all of stealing. With the open courts and everything done in style, nowadays there's no question of stealing. We are just talking things over like gentlemen. His excellency's asking too much for the forest. I can't make both ends meet over it. I must ask for a little concession. 'But is the thing settled between you or not? If it's settled, it's useless haggling but if it's not, said Levin, 'I'll buy the forest. The smile vanished at once from Ryabinin's face. A hawklike, greedy, cruel expression was left upon it. With rapid, bony fingers he unbuttoned his coat, revealing a shirt, bronze waistcoat buttons, and a watch chain, and quickly pulled out a fat old pocketbook. 'Here you are, the forest is mine, he said, crossing himself quickly, and holding out his hand. 'Take the money it's my forest. That's Ryabinin's way of doing business he doesn't haggle over every halfpenny, he added, scowling and waving the pocketbook. 'I wouldn't be in a hurry if I were you, said Levin. 'Come, really, said Oblonsky in surprise. 'I've given my word, you know. Levin went out of the room, slamming the door. Ryabinin looked towards the door and shook his head with a smile. 'It's all youthfulnesspositively nothing but boyishness. Why, I'm buying it, upon my honor, simply, believe me, for the glory of it, that Ryabinin, and no one else, should have bought the copse of Oblonsky. And as to the profits, why, I must make what God gives. In God's name. If you would kindly sign the titledeed.... Within an hour the merchant, stroking his big overcoat neatly down, and hooking up his jacket, with the agreement in his pocket, seated himself in his tightly covered trap, and drove homewards. 'Ugh, these gentlefolks! he said to the clerk. 'Theythey're a nice lot! 'That's so, responded the clerk, handing him the reins and buttoning the leather apron. 'But I can congratulate you on the purchase, Mihail Ignatitch? 'Well, well.... Stepan Arkadyevitch went upstairs with his pocket bulging with notes, which the merchant had paid him for three months in advance. The business of the forest was over, the money in his pocket their shooting had been excellent, and Stepan Arkadyevitch was in the happiest frame of mind, and so he felt specially anxious to dissipate the illhumor that had come upon Levin. He wanted to finish the day at supper as pleasantly as it had been begun. Levin certainly was out of humor, and in spite of all his desire to be affectionate and cordial to his charming visitor, he could not control his mood. The intoxication of the news that Kitty was not married had gradually begun to work upon him. Kitty was not married, but ill, and ill from love for a man who had slighted her. This slight, as it were, rebounded upon him. Vronsky had slighted her, and she had slighted him, Levin. Consequently Vronsky had the right to despise Levin, and therefore he was his enemy. But all this Levin did not think out. He vaguely felt that there was something in it insulting to him, and he was not angry now at what had disturbed him, but he fell foul of everything that presented itself. The stupid sale of the forest, the fraud practiced upon Oblonsky and concluded in his house, exasperated him. 'Well, finished? he said, meeting Stepan Arkadyevitch upstairs. 'Would you like supper? 'Well, I wouldn't say no to it. What an appetite I get in the country! Wonderful! Why didn't you offer Ryabinin something? 'Oh, damn him! 'Still, how you do treat him! said Oblonsky. 'You didn't even shake hands with him. Why not shake hands with him? 'Because I don't shake hands with a waiter, and a waiter's a hundred times better than he is. 'What a reactionist you are, really! What about the amalgamation of classes? said Oblonsky. 'Anyone who likes amalgamating is welcome to it, but it sickens me. 'You're a regular reactionist, I see. 'Really, I have never considered what I am. I am Konstantin Levin, and nothing else. 'And Konstantin Levin very much out of temper, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. 'Yes, I am out of temper, and do you know why? Becauseexcuse meof your stupid sale.... Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned goodhumoredly, like one who feels himself teased and attacked for no fault of his own. 'Come, enough about it! he said. 'When did anybody ever sell anything without being told immediately after the sale, 'It was worth much more'? But when one wants to sell, no one will give anything.... No, I see you've a grudge against that unlucky Ryabinin. 'Maybe I have. And do you know why? You'll say again that I'm a reactionist, or some other terrible word but all the same it does annoy and anger me to see on all sides the impoverishing of the nobility to which I belong, and, in spite of the amalgamation of classes, I'm glad to belong. And their impoverishment is not due to extravagancethat would be nothing living in good stylethat's the proper thing for noblemen it's only the nobles who know how to do it. Now the peasants about us buy land, and I don't mind that. The gentleman does nothing, while the peasant works and supplants the idle man. That's as it ought to be. And I'm very glad for the peasant. But I do mind seeing the process of impoverishment from a sort ofI don't know what to call itinnocence. Here a Polish speculator bought for half its value a magnificent estate from a young lady who lives in Nice. And there a merchant will get three acres of land, worth ten roubles, as security for the loan of one rouble. Here, for no kind of reason, you've made that rascal a present of thirty thousand roubles. 'Well, what should I have done? Counted every tree? 'Of course, they must be counted. You didn't count them, but Ryabinin did. Ryabinin's children will have means of livelihood and education, while yours maybe will not! 'Well, you must excuse me, but there's something mean in this counting. We have our business and they have theirs, and they must make their profit. Anyway, the thing's done, and there's an end of it. And here come some poached eggs, my favorite dish. And Agafea Mihalovna will give us that marvelous herbbrandy.... Stepan Arkadyevitch sat down at the table and began joking with Agafea Mihalovna, assuring her that it was long since he had tasted such a dinner and such a supper. 'Well, you do praise it, anyway, said Agafea Mihalovna, 'but Konstantin Dmitrievitch, give him what you willa crust of breadhe'll eat it and walk away. Though Levin tried to control himself, he was gloomy and silent. He wanted to put one question to Stepan Arkadyevitch, but he could not bring himself to the point, and could not find the words or the moment in which to put it. Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down to his room, undressed, again washed, and attired in a nightshirt with goffered frills, he had got into bed, but Levin still lingered in his room, talking of various trifling matters, and not daring to ask what he wanted to know. 'How wonderfully they make this soap, he said gazing at a piece of soap he was handling, which Agafea Mihalovna had put ready for the visitor but Oblonsky had not used. 'Only look why, it's a work of art. 'Yes, everything's brought to such a pitch of perfection nowadays, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a moist and blissful yawn. 'The theater, for instance, and the entertainments ... aaa! he yawned. 'The electric light everywhere ... aaa! 'Yes, the electric light, said Levin. 'Yes. Oh, and where's Vronsky now? he asked suddenly, laying down the soap. 'Vronsky? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, checking his yawn 'he's in Petersburg. He left soon after you did, and he's not once been in Moscow since. And do you know, Kostya, I'll tell you the truth, he went on, leaning his elbow on the table, and propping on his hand his handsome ruddy face, in which his moist, goodnatured, sleepy eyes shone like stars. 'It's your own fault. You took fright at the sight of your rival. But, as I told you at the time, I couldn't say which had the better chance. Why didn't you fight it out? I told you at the time that.... He yawned inwardly, without opening his mouth. 'Does he know, or doesn't he, that I did make an offer? Levin wondered, gazing at him. 'Yes, there's something humbugging, diplomatic in his face, and feeling he was blushing, he looked Stepan Arkadyevitch straight in the face without speaking. 'If there was anything on her side at the time, it was nothing but a superficial attraction, pursued Oblonsky. 'His being such a perfect aristocrat, don't you know, and his future position in society, had an influence not with her, but with her mother. Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the heart, as though it were a fresh wound he had only just received. But he was at home, and the walls of home are a support. 'Stay, stay, he began, interrupting Oblonsky. 'You talk of his being an aristocrat. But allow me to ask what it consists in, that aristocracy of Vronsky or of anybody else, beside which I can be looked down upon? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don't. A man whose father crawled up from nothing at all by intrigue, and whose motherGod knows whom she wasn't mixed up with.... No, excuse me, but I consider myself aristocratic, and people like me, who can point back in the past to three or four honorable generations of their family, of the highest degree of breeding (talent and intellect, of course that's another matter), and have never curried favor with anyone, never depended on anyone for anything, like my father and my grandfather. And I know many such. You think it mean of me to count the trees in my forest, while you make Ryabinin a present of thirty thousand but you get rents from your lands and I don't know what, while I don't and so I prize what's come to me from my ancestors or been won by hard work.... We are aristocrats, and not those who can only exist by favor of the powerful of this world, and who can be bought for twopence halfpenny. 'Well, but whom are you attacking? I agree with you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, sincerely and genially though he was aware that in the class of those who could be bought for twopence halfpenny Levin was reckoning him too. Levin's warmth gave him genuine pleasure. 'Whom are you attacking? Though a good deal is not true that you say about Vronsky, but I won't talk about that. I tell you straight out, if I were you, I should go back with me to Moscow, and.... 'No I don't know whether you know it or not, but I don't care. And I tell youI did make an offer and was rejected, and Katerina Alexandrovna is nothing now to me but a painful and humiliating reminiscence. 'What ever for? What nonsense! 'But we won't talk about it. Please forgive me, if I've been nasty, said Levin. Now that he had opened his heart, he became as he had been in the morning. 'You're not angry with me, Stiva? Please don't be angry, he said, and smiling, he took his hand. 'Of course not not a bit, and no reason to be. I'm glad we've spoken openly. And do you know, standshooting in the morning is unusually goodwhy not go? I couldn't sleep the night anyway, but I might go straight from shooting to the station. 'Capital. Although all Vronsky's inner life was absorbed in his passion, his external life unalterably and inevitably followed along the old accustomed lines of his social and regimental ties and interests. The interests of his regiment took an important place in Vronsky's life, both because he was fond of the regiment, and because the regiment was fond of him. They were not only fond of Vronsky in his regiment, they respected him too, and were proud of him proud that this man, with his immense wealth, his brilliant education and abilities, and the path open before him to every kind of success, distinction, and ambition, had disregarded all that, and of all the interests of life had the interests of his regiment and his comrades nearest to his heart. Vronsky was aware of his comrades' view of him, and in addition to his liking for the life, he felt bound to keep up that reputation. It need not be said that he did not speak of his love to any of his comrades, nor did he betray his secret even in the wildest drinking bouts (though indeed he was never so drunk as to lose all control of himself). And he shut up any of his thoughtless comrades who attempted to allude to his connection. But in spite of that, his love was known to all the town everyone guessed with more or less confidence at his relations with Madame Karenina. The majority of the younger men envied him for just what was the most irksome factor in his lovethe exalted position of Karenin, and the consequent publicity of their connection in society. The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of hearing her called virtuous, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of mud to fling at her when the right moment arrived. The greater number of the middleaged people and certain great personages were displeased at the prospect of the impending scandal in society. Vronsky's mother, on hearing of his connection, was at first pleased at it, because nothing to her mind gave such a finishing touch to a brilliant young man as a liaison in the highest society she was pleased, too, that Madame Karenina, who had so taken her fancy, and had talked so much of her son, was, after all, just like all other pretty and wellbred women,at least according to the Countess Vronskaya's ideas. But she had heard of late that her son had refused a position offered him of great importance to his career, simply in order to remain in the regiment, where he could be constantly seeing Madame Karenina. She learned that great personages were displeased with him on this account, and she changed her opinion. She was vexed, too, that from all she could learn of this connection it was not that brilliant, graceful, worldly liaison which she would have welcomed, but a sort of Wertherish, desperate passion, so she was told, which might well lead him into imprudence. She had not seen him since his abrupt departure from Moscow, and she sent her elder son to bid him come to see her. This elder son, too, was displeased with his younger brother. He did not distinguish what sort of love his might be, big or little, passionate or passionless, lasting or passing (he kept a ballet girl himself, though he was the father of a family, so he was lenient in these matters), but he knew that this love affair was viewed with displeasure by those whom it was necessary to please, and therefore he did not approve of his brother's conduct. Besides the service and society, Vronsky had another great interesthorses he was passionately fond of horses. That year races and a steeplechase had been arranged for the officers. Vronsky had put his name down, bought a thoroughbred English mare, and in spite of his love affair, he was looking forward to the races with intense, though reserved, excitement.... These two passions did not interfere with one another. On the contrary, he needed occupation and distraction quite apart from his love, so as to recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that agitated him. On the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come earlier than usual to eat beefsteak in the common messroom of the regiment. He had no need to be strict with himself, as he had very quickly been brought down to the required light weight but still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and so he eschewed farinaceous and sweet dishes. He sat with his coat unbuttoned over a white waistcoat, resting both elbows on the table, and while waiting for the steak he had ordered he looked at a French novel that lay open on his plate. He was only looking at the book to avoid conversation with the officers coming in and out he was thinking. He was thinking of Anna's promise to see him that day after the races. But he had not seen her for three days, and as her husband had just returned from abroad, he did not know whether she would be able to meet him today or not, and he did not know how to find out. He had had his last interview with her at his cousin Betsy's summer villa. He visited the Karenins' summer villa as rarely as possible. Now he wanted to go there, and he pondered the question how to do it. 'Of course I shall say Betsy has sent me to ask whether she's coming to the races. Of course, I'll go, he decided, lifting his head from the book. And as he vividly pictured the happiness of seeing her, his face lighted up. 'Send to my house, and tell them to have out the carriage and three horses as quick as they can, he said to the servant, who handed him the steak on a hot silver dish, and moving the dish up he began eating. From the billiard room next door came the sound of balls knocking, of talk and laughter. Two officers appeared at the entrancedoor one, a young fellow, with a feeble, delicate face, who had lately joined the regiment from the Corps of Pages the other, a plump, elderly officer, with a bracelet on his wrist, and little eyes, lost in fat. Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and looking down at his book as though he had not noticed them, he proceeded to eat and read at the same time. 'What? Fortifying yourself for your work? said the plump officer, sitting down beside him. 'As you see, responded Vronsky, knitting his brows, wiping his mouth, and not looking at the officer. 'So you're not afraid of getting fat? said the latter, turning a chair round for the young officer. 'What? said Vronsky angrily, making a wry face of disgust, and showing his even teeth. 'You're not afraid of getting fat? 'Waiter, sherry! said Vronsky, without replying, and moving the book to the other side of him, he went on reading. The plump officer took up the list of wines and turned to the young officer. 'You choose what we're to drink, he said, handing him the card, and looking at him. 'Rhine wine, please, said the young officer, stealing a timid glance at Vronsky, and trying to pull his scarcely visible mustache. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn round, the young officer got up. 'Let's go into the billiard room, he said. The plump officer rose submissively, and they moved towards the door. At that moment there walked into the room the tall and wellbuilt Captain Yashvin. Nodding with an air of lofty contempt to the two officers, he went up to Vronsky. 'Ah! here he is! he cried, bringing his big hand down heavily on his epaulet. Vronsky looked round angrily, but his face lighted up immediately with his characteristic expression of genial and manly serenity. 'That's it, Alexey, said the captain, in his loud baritone. 'You must just eat a mouthful, now, and drink only one tiny glass. 'Oh, I'm not hungry. 'There go the inseparables, Yashvin dropped, glancing sarcastically at the two officers who were at that instant leaving the room. And he bent his long legs, swathed in tight riding breeches, and sat down in the chair, too low for him, so that his knees were cramped up in a sharp angle. 'Why didn't you turn up at the Red Theater yesterday? Numerova wasn't at all bad. Where were you? 'I was late at the Tverskoys', said Vronsky. 'Ah! responded Yashvin. Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral principles, but of immoral principles, Yashvin was Vronsky's greatest friend in the regiment. Vronsky liked him both for his exceptional physical strength, which he showed for the most part by being able to drink like a fish, and do without sleep without being in the slightest degree affected by it and for his great strength of character, which he showed in his relations with his comrades and superior officers, commanding both fear and respect, and also at cards, when he would play for tens of thousands and however much he might have drunk, always with such skill and decision that he was reckoned the best player in the English Club. Vronsky respected and liked Yashvin particularly because he felt Yashvin liked him, not for his name and his money, but for himself. And of all men he was the only one with whom Vronsky would have liked to speak of his love. He felt that Yashvin, in spite of his apparent contempt for every sort of feeling, was the only man who could, so he fancied, comprehend the intense passion which now filled his whole life. Moreover, he felt certain that Yashvin, as it was, took no delight in gossip and scandal, and interpreted his feeling rightly, that is to say, knew and believed that this passion was not a jest, not a pastime, but something more serious and important. Vronsky had never spoken to him of his passion, but he was aware that he knew all about it, and that he put the right interpretation on it, and he was glad to see that in his eyes. 'Ah! yes, he said, to the announcement that Vronsky had been at the Tverskoys' and his black eyes shining, he plucked at his left mustache, and began twisting it into his mouth, a bad habit he had. 'Well, and what did you do yesterday? Win anything? asked Vronsky. 'Eight thousand. But three don't count he won't pay up. 'Oh, then you can afford to lose over me, said Vronsky, laughing. (Yashvin had bet heavily on Vronsky in the races.) 'No chance of my losing. Mahotin's the only one that's risky. And the conversation passed to forecasts of the coming race, the only thing Vronsky could think of just now. 'Come along, I've finished, said Vronsky, and getting up he went to the door. Yashvin got up too, stretching his long legs and his long back. 'It's too early for me to dine, but I must have a drink. I'll come along directly. Hi, wine! he shouted, in his rich voice, that always rang out so loudly at drill, and set the windows shaking now. 'No, all right, he shouted again immediately after. 'You're going home, so I'll go with you. And he walked out with Vronsky. Vronsky was staying in a roomy, clean, Finnish hut, divided into two by a partition. Petritsky lived with him in camp too. Petritsky was asleep when Vronsky and Yashvin came into the hut. 'Get up, don't go on sleeping, said Yashvin, going behind the partition and giving Petritsky, who was lying with ruffled hair and with his nose in the pillow, a prod on the shoulder. Petritsky jumped up suddenly onto his knees and looked round. 'Your brother's been here, he said to Vronsky. 'He waked me up, damn him, and said he'd look in again. And pulling up the rug he flung himself back on the pillow. 'Oh, do shut up, Yashvin! he said, getting furious with Yashvin, who was pulling the rug off him. 'Shut up! He turned over and opened his eyes. 'You'd better tell me what to drink such a nasty taste in my mouth, that.... 'Brandy's better than anything, boomed Yashvin. 'Tereshtchenko! brandy for your master and cucumbers, he shouted, obviously taking pleasure in the sound of his own voice. 'Brandy, do you think? Eh? queried Petritsky, blinking and rubbing his eyes. 'And you'll drink something? All right then, we'll have a drink together! Vronsky, have a drink? said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping the tigerskin rug round him. He went to the door of the partition wall, raised his hands, and hummed in French, 'There was a king in Thule. 'Vronsky, will you have a drink? 'Go along, said Vronsky, putting on the coat his valet handed to him. 'Where are you off to? asked Yashvin. 'Oh, here are your three horses, he added, seeing the carriage drive up. 'To the stables, and I've got to see Bryansky, too, about the horses, said Vronsky. Vronsky had as a fact promised to call at Bryansky's, some eight miles from Peterhof, and to bring him some money owing for some horses and he hoped to have time to get that in too. But his comrades were at once aware that he was not only going there. Petritsky, still humming, winked and made a pout with his lips, as though he would say 'Oh, yes, we know your Bryansky. 'Mind you're not late! was Yashvin's only comment and to change the conversation 'How's my roan? is he doing all right? he inquired, looking out of the window at the middle one of the three horses, which he had sold Vronsky. 'Stop! cried Petritsky to Vronsky as he was just going out. 'Your brother left a letter and a note for you. Wait a bit where are they? Vronsky stopped. 'Well, where are they? 'Where are they? That's just the question! said Petritsky solemnly, moving his forefinger upwards from his nose. 'Come, tell me this is silly! said Vronsky smiling. 'I have not lighted the fire. Here somewhere about. 'Come, enough fooling! Where is the letter? 'No, I've forgotten really. Or was it a dream? Wait a bit, wait a bit! But what's the use of getting in a rage. If you'd drunk four bottles yesterday as I did you'd forget where you were lying. Wait a bit, I'll remember! Petritsky went behind the partition and lay down on his bed. 'Wait a bit! This was how I was lying, and this was how he was standing. Yesyesyes.... Here it is!and Petritsky pulled a letter out from under the mattress, where he had hidden it. Vronsky took the letter and his brother's note. It was the letter he was expectingfrom his mother, reproaching him for not having been to see herand the note was from his brother to say that he must have a little talk with him. Vronsky knew that it was all about the same thing. 'What business is it of theirs! thought Vronsky, and crumpling up the letters he thrust them between the buttons of his coat so as to read them carefully on the road. In the porch of the hut he was met by two officers one of his regiment and one of another. Vronsky's quarters were always a meeting place for all the officers. 'Where are you off to? 'I must go to Peterhof. 'Has the mare come from Tsarskoe? 'Yes, but I've not seen her yet. 'They say Mahotin's Gladiator's lame. 'Nonsense! But however are you going to race in this mud? said the other. 'Here are my saviors! cried Petritsky, seeing them come in. Before him stood the orderly with a tray of brandy and salted cucumbers. 'Here's Yashvin ordering me to drink a pickmeup. 'Well, you did give it to us yesterday, said one of those who had come in 'you didn't let us get a wink of sleep all night. 'Oh, didn't we make a pretty finish! said Petritsky. 'Volkov climbed onto the roof and began telling us how sad he was. I said 'Let's have music, the funeral march!' He fairly dropped asleep on the roof over the funeral march. 'Drink it up you positively must drink the brandy, and then seltzer water and a lot of lemon, said Yashvin, standing over Petritsky like a mother making a child take medicine, 'and then a little champagnejust a small bottle. 'Come, there's some sense in that. Stop a bit, Vronsky. We'll all have a drink. 'No goodbye all of you. I'm not going to drink today. 'Why, are you gaining weight? All right, then we must have it alone. Give us the seltzer water and lemon. 'Vronsky! shouted someone when he was already outside. 'Well? 'You'd better get your hair cut, it'll weigh you down, especially at the top. Vronsky was in fact beginning, prematurely, to get a little bald. He laughed gaily, showing his even teeth, and pulling his cap over the thin place, went out and got into his carriage. 'To the stables! he said, and was just pulling out the letters to read them through, but he thought better of it, and put off reading them so as not to distract his attention before looking at the mare. 'Later! The temporary stable, a wooden shed, had been put up close to the race course, and there his mare was to have been taken the previous day. He had not yet seen her there. During the last few days he had not ridden her out for exercise himself, but had put her in the charge of the trainer, and so now he positively did not know in what condition his mare had arrived yesterday and was today. He had scarcely got out of his carriage when his groom, the socalled 'stable boy, recognizing the carriage some way off, called the trainer. A drylooking Englishman, in high boots and a short jacket, cleanshaven, except for a tuft below his chin, came to meet him, walking with the uncouth gait of jockey, turning his elbows out and swaying from side to side. 'Well, how's FrouFrou? Vronsky asked in English. 'All right, sir, the Englishman's voice responded somewhere in the inside of his throat. 'Better not go in, he added, touching his hat. 'I've put a muzzle on her, and the mare's fidgety. Better not go in, it'll excite the mare. 'No, I'm going in. I want to look at her. 'Come along, then, said the Englishman, frowning, and speaking with his mouth shut, and, with swinging elbows, he went on in front with his disjointed gait. They went into the little yard in front of the shed. A stable boy, spruce and smart in his holiday attire, met them with a broom in his hand, and followed them. In the shed there were five horses in their separate stalls, and Vronsky knew that his chief rival, Gladiator, a very tall chestnut horse, had been brought there, and must be standing among them. Even more than his mare, Vronsky longed to see Gladiator, whom he had never seen. But he knew that by the etiquette of the race course it was not merely impossible for him to see the horse, but improper even to ask questions about him. Just as he was passing along the passage, the boy opened the door into the second horsebox on the left, and Vronsky caught a glimpse of a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew that this was Gladiator, but, with the feeling of a man turning away from the sight of another man's open letter, he turned round and went into FrouFrou's stall. 'The horse is here belonging to Mak... Mak... I never can say the name, said the Englishman, over his shoulder, pointing his big finger and dirty nail towards Gladiator's stall. 'Mahotin? Yes, he's my most serious rival, said Vronsky. 'If you were riding him, said the Englishman, 'I'd bet on you. 'FrouFrou's more nervous he's stronger, said Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding. 'In a steeplechase it all depends on riding and on pluck, said the Englishman. Of pluckthat is, energy and courageVronsky did not merely feel that he had enough what was of far more importance, he was firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more of this 'pluck than he had. 'Don't you think I want more thinning down? 'Oh, no, answered the Englishman. 'Please, don't speak loud. The mare's fidgety, he added, nodding towards the horsebox, before which they were standing, and from which came the sound of restless stamping in the straw. He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horsebox, dimly lighted by one little window. In the horsebox stood a dark bay mare, with a muzzle on, picking at the fresh straw with her hoofs. Looking round him in the twilight of the horsebox, Vronsky unconsciously took in once more in a comprehensive glance all the points of his favorite mare. FrouFrou was a beast of medium size, not altogether free from reproach, from a breeder's point of view. She was smallboned all over though her chest was extremely prominent in front, it was narrow. Her hindquarters were a little drooping, and in her forelegs, and still more in her hindlegs, there was a noticeable curvature. The muscles of both hind and forelegs were not very thick but across her shoulders the mare was exceptionally broad, a peculiarity specially striking now that she was lean from training. The bones of her legs below the knees looked no thicker than a finger from in front, but were extraordinarily thick seen from the side. She looked altogether, except across the shoulders, as it were, pinched in at the sides and pressed out in depth. But she had in the highest degree the quality that makes all defects forgotten that quality was blood, the blood that tells, as the English expression has it. The muscles stood up sharply under the network of sinews, covered with the delicate, mobile skin, soft as satin, and they were hard as bone. Her cleancut head, with prominent, bright, spirited eyes, broadened out at the open nostrils, that showed the red blood in the cartilage within. About all her figure, and especially her head, there was a certain expression of energy, and, at the same time, of softness. She was one of those creatures which seem only not to speak because the mechanism of their mouth does not allow them to. To Vronsky, at any rate, it seemed that she understood all he felt at that moment, looking at her. Directly Vronsky went towards her, she drew in a deep breath, and, turning back her prominent eye till the white looked bloodshot, she started at the approaching figures from the opposite side, shaking her muzzle, and shifting lightly from one leg to the other. 'There, you see how fidgety she is, said the Englishman. 'There, darling! There! said Vronsky, going up to the mare and speaking soothingly to her. But the nearer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he stood by her head, she was suddenly quieter, while the muscles quivered under her soft, delicate coat. Vronsky patted her strong neck, straightened over her sharp withers a stray lock of her mane that had fallen on the other side, and moved his face near her dilated nostrils, transparent as a bat's wing. She drew a loud breath and snorted out through her tense nostrils, started, pricked up her sharp ear, and put out her strong, black lip towards Vronsky, as though she would nip hold of his sleeve. But remembering the muzzle, she shook it and again began restlessly stamping one after the other her shapely legs. 'Quiet, darling, quiet! he said, patting her again over her hindquarters and with a glad sense that his mare was in the best possible condition, he went out of the horsebox. The mare's excitement had infected Vronsky. He felt that his heart was throbbing, and that he, too, like the mare, longed to move, to bite it was both dreadful and delicious. 'Well, I rely on you, then, he said to the Englishman 'halfpast six on the ground. 'All right, said the Englishman. 'Oh, where are you going, my lord? he asked suddenly, using the title 'my lord, which he had scarcely ever used before. Vronsky in amazement raised his head, and stared, as he knew how to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes, but at his forehead, astounded at the impertinence of his question. But realizing that in asking this the Englishman had been looking at him not as an employer, but as a jockey, he answered 'I've got to go to Bryansky's I shall be home within an hour. 'How often I'm asked that question today! he said to himself, and he blushed, a thing which rarely happened to him. The Englishman looked gravely at him and, as though he, too, knew where Vronsky was going, he added 'The great thing's to keep quiet before a race, said he 'don't get out of temper or upset about anything. 'All right, answered Vronsky, smiling and jumping into his carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof. Before he had driven many paces away, the dark clouds that had been threatening rain all day broke, and there was a heavy downpour of rain. 'What a pity! thought Vronsky, putting up the roof of the carriage. 'It was muddy before, now it will be a perfect swamp. As he sat in solitude in the closed carriage, he took out his mother's letter and his brother's note, and read them through. Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. Everyone, his mother, his brother, everyone thought fit to interfere in the affairs of his heart. This interference aroused in him a feeling of angry hatreda feeling he had rarely known before. 'What business is it of theirs? Why does everybody feel called upon to concern himself about me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see that this is something they can't understand. If it were a common, vulgar, worldly intrigue, they would have left me alone. They feel that this is something different, that this is not a mere pastime, that this woman is dearer to me than life. And this is incomprehensible, and that's why it annoys them. Whatever our destiny is or may be, we have made it ourselves, and we do not complain of it, he said, in the word we linking himself with Anna. 'No, they must needs teach us how to live. They haven't an idea of what happiness is they don't know that without our love, for us there is neither happiness nor unhappinessno life at all, he thought. He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he felt in his soul that they, all these people, were right. He felt that the love that bound him to Anna was not a momentary impulse, which would pass, as worldly intrigues do pass, leaving no other traces in the life of either but pleasant or unpleasant memories. He felt all the torture of his own and her position, all the difficulty there was for them, conspicuous as they were in the eye of all the world, in concealing their love, in lying and deceiving and in lying, deceiving, feigning, and continually thinking of others, when the passion that united them was so intense that they were both oblivious of everything else but their love. He vividly recalled all the constantly recurring instances of inevitable necessity for lying and deceit, which were so against his natural bent. He recalled particularly vividly the shame he had more than once detected in her at this necessity for lying and deceit. And he experienced the strange feeling that had sometimes come upon him since his secret love for Anna. This was a feeling of loathing for somethingwhether for Alexey Alexandrovitch, or for himself, or for the whole world, he could not have said. But he always drove away this strange feeling. Now, too, he shook it off and continued the thread of his thoughts. 'Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace and now she cannot be at peace and feel secure in her dignity, though she does not show it. Yes, we must put an end to it, he decided. And for the first time the idea clearly presented itself that it was essential to put an end to this false position, and the sooner the better. 'Throw up everything, she and I, and hide ourselves somewhere alone with our love, he said to himself. The rain did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his shafthorse trotting at full speed and dragging the tracehorses galloping through the mud, with their reins hanging loose, the sun had peeped out again, the roofs of the summer villas and the old limetrees in the gardens on both sides of the principal streets sparkled with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip and from the roofs rushing streams of water. He thought no more of the shower spoiling the race course, but was rejoicing now thatthanks to the rainhe would be sure to find her at home and alone, as he knew that Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had lately returned from a foreign watering place, had not moved from Petersburg. Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to avoid attracting attention, before crossing the bridge, and walked to the house. He did not go up the steps to the street door, but went into the court. 'Has your master come? he asked a gardener. 'No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the front door there are servants there, the gardener answered. 'They'll open the door. 'No, I'll go in from the garden. And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her by surprise, since he had not promised to be there today, and she would certainly not expect him to come before the races, he walked, holding his sword and stepping cautiously over the sandy path, bordered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon the garden. Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships and difficulties of their position. He thought of nothing but that he would see her directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as she was in reality. He was just going in, stepping on his whole foot so as not to creak, up the worn steps of the terrace, when he suddenly remembered what he always forgot, and what caused the most torturing side of his relations with her, her son with his questioninghostile, as he fanciedeyes. This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their freedom. When he was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not merely avoid speaking of anything that they could not have repeated before everyone they did not even allow themselves to refer by hints to anything the boy did not understand. They had made no agreement about this, it had settled itself. They would have felt it wounding themselves to deceive the child. In his presence they talked like acquaintances. But in spite of this caution, Vronsky often saw the child's intent, bewildered glance fixed upon him, and a strange shyness, uncertainty, at one time friendliness, at another, coldness and reserve, in the boy's manner to him as though the child felt that between this man and his mother there existed some important bond, the significance of which he could not understand. As a fact, the boy did feel that he could not understand this relation, and he tried painfully, and was not able to make clear to himself what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a child's keen instinct for every manifestation of feeling, he saw distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse,all did not merely dislike Vronsky, but looked on him with horror and aversion, though they never said anything about him, while his mother looked on him as her greatest friend. 'What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I don't know, it's my fault either I'm stupid or a naughty boy, thought the child. And this was what caused his dubious, inquiring, sometimes hostile, expression, and the shyness and uncertainty which Vronsky found so irksome. This child's presence always and infallibly called up in Vronsky that strange feeling of inexplicable loathing which he had experienced of late. This child's presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling akin to the feeling of a sailor who sees by the compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to arrest his motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him further and further away, and that to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is the same as admitting his certain ruin. This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass that showed them the point to which they had departed from what they knew, but did not want to know. This time Seryozha was not at home, and she was completely alone. She was sitting on the terrace waiting for the return of her son, who had gone out for his walk and been caught in the rain. She had sent a manservant and a maid out to look for him. Dressed in a white gown, deeply embroidered, she was sitting in a corner of the terrace behind some flowers, and did not hear him. Bending her curly black head, she pressed her forehead against a cool watering pot that stood on the parapet, and both her lovely hands, with the rings he knew so well, clasped the pot. The beauty of her whole figure, her head, her neck, her hands, struck Vronsky every time as something new and unexpected. He stood still, gazing at her in ecstasy. But, directly he would have made a step to come nearer to her, she was aware of his presence, pushed away the watering pot, and turned her flushed face towards him. 'What's the matter? You are ill? he said to her in French, going up to her. He would have run to her, but remembering that there might be spectators, he looked round towards the balcony door, and reddened a little, as he always reddened, feeling that he had to be afraid and be on his guard. 'No, I'm quite well, she said, getting up and pressing his outstretched hand tightly. 'I did not expect ... thee. 'Mercy! what cold hands! he said. 'You startled me, she said. 'I'm alone, and expecting Seryozha he's out for a walk they'll come in from this side. But, in spite of her efforts to be calm, her lips were quivering. 'Forgive me for coming, but I couldn't pass the day without seeing you, he went on, speaking French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously intimate singular. 'Forgive you? I'm so glad! 'But you're ill or worried, he went on, not letting go her hands and bending over her. 'What were you thinking of? 'Always the same thing, she said, with a smile. She spoke the truth. If ever at any moment she had been asked what she was thinking of, she could have answered truly of the same thing, of her happiness and her unhappiness. She was thinking, just when he came upon her, of this why was it, she wondered, that to others, to Betsy (she knew of her secret connection with Tushkevitch) it was all easy, while to her it was such torture? Today this thought gained special poignancy from certain other considerations. She asked him about the races. He answered her questions, and, seeing that she was agitated, trying to calm her, he began telling her in the simplest tone the details of his preparations for the races. 'Tell him or not tell him? she thought, looking into his quiet, affectionate eyes. 'He is so happy, so absorbed in his races that he won't understand as he ought, he won't understand all the gravity of this fact to us. 'But you haven't told me what you were thinking of when I came in, he said, interrupting his narrative 'please tell me! She did not answer, and, bending her head a little, she looked inquiringly at him from under her brows, her eyes shining under their long lashes. Her hand shook as it played with a leaf she had picked. He saw it, and his face expressed that utter subjection, that slavish devotion, which had done so much to win her. 'I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace, knowing you have a trouble I am not sharing? Tell me, for God's sake, he repeated imploringly. 'Yes, I shan't be able to forgive him if he does not realize all the gravity of it. Better not tell why put him to the proof? she thought, still staring at him in the same way, and feeling the hand that held the leaf was trembling more and more. 'For God's sake! he repeated, taking her hand. 'Shall I tell you? 'Yes, yes, yes.... 'I'm with child, she said, softly and deliberately. The leaf in her hand shook more violently, but she did not take her eyes off him, watching how he would take it. He turned white, would have said something, but stopped he dropped her hand, and his head sank on his breast. 'Yes, he realizes all the gravity of it, she thought, and gratefully she pressed his hand. But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the gravity of the fact as she, a woman, realized it. On hearing it, he felt come upon him with tenfold intensity that strange feeling of loathing of someone. But at the same time, he felt that the turningpoint he had been longing for had come now that it was impossible to go on concealing things from her husband, and it was inevitable in one way or another that they should soon put an end to their unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion physically affected him in the same way. He looked at her with a look of submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got up, and, in silence, paced up and down the terrace. 'Yes, he said, going up to her resolutely. 'Neither you nor I have looked on our relations as a passing amusement, and now our fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an endhe looked round as he spoke'to the deception in which we are living. 'Put an end? How put an end, Alexey? she said softly. She was calmer now, and her face lighted up with a tender smile. 'Leave your husband and make our life one. 'It is one as it is, she answered, scarcely audibly. 'Yes, but altogether altogether. 'But how, Alexey, tell me how? she said in melancholy mockery at the hopelessness of her own position. 'Is there any way out of such a position? Am I not the wife of my husband? 'There is a way out of every position. We must take our line, he said. 'Anything's better than the position in which you're living. Of course, I see how you torture yourself over everythingthe world and your son and your husband. 'Oh, not over my husband, she said, with a quiet smile. 'I don't know him, I don't think of him. He doesn't exist. 'You're not speaking sincerely. I know you. You worry about him too. 'Oh, he doesn't even know, she said, and suddenly a hot flush came over her face her cheeks, her brow, her neck crimsoned, and tears of shame came into her eyes. 'But we won't talk of him. Vronsky had several times already, though not so resolutely as now, tried to bring her to consider their position, and every time he had been confronted by the same superficiality and triviality with which she met his appeal now. It was as though there were something in this which she could not or would not face, as though directly she began to speak of this, she, the real Anna, retreated somehow into herself, and another strange and unaccountable woman came out, whom he did not love, and whom he feared, and who was in opposition to him. But today he was resolved to have it out. 'Whether he knows or not, said Vronsky, in his usual quiet and resolute tone, 'that's nothing to do with us. We cannot ... you cannot stay like this, especially now. 'What's to be done, according to you? she asked with the same frivolous irony. She who had so feared he would take her condition too lightly was now vexed with him for deducing from it the necessity of taking some step. 'Tell him everything, and leave him. 'Very well, let us suppose I do that, she said. 'Do you know what the result of that would be? I can tell you it all beforehand, and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, that had been so soft a minute before. ''Eh, you love another man, and have entered into criminal intrigues with him?' (Mimicking her husband, she threw an emphasis on the word 'criminal, as Alexey Alexandrovitch did.) ''I warned you of the results in the religious, the civil, and the domestic relation. You have not listened to me. Now I cannot let you disgrace my name,' 'and my son, she had meant to say, but about her son she could not jest,''disgrace my name, and'and more in the same style, she added. 'In general terms, he'll say in his official manner, and with all distinctness and precision, that he cannot let me go, but will take all measures in his power to prevent scandal. And he will calmly and punctually act in accordance with his words. That's what will happen. He's not a man, but a machine, and a spiteful machine when he's angry, she added, recalling Alexey Alexandrovitch as she spoke, with all the peculiarities of his figure and manner of speaking, and reckoning against him every defect she could find in him, softening nothing for the great wrong she herself was doing him. 'But, Anna, said Vronsky, in a soft and persuasive voice, trying to soothe her, 'we absolutely must, anyway, tell him, and then be guided by the line he takes. 'What, run away? 'And why not run away? I don't see how we can keep on like this. And not for my sakeI see that you suffer. 'Yes, run away, and become your mistress, she said angrily. 'Anna, he said, with reproachful tenderness. 'Yes, she went on, 'become your mistress, and complete the ruin of.... Again she would have said 'my son, but she could not utter that word. Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong and truthful nature, could endure this state of deceit, and not long to get out of it. But he did not suspect that the chief cause of it was the wordson, which she could not bring herself to pronounce. When she thought of her son, and his future attitude to his mother, who had abandoned his father, she felt such terror at what she had done, that she could not face it but, like a woman, could only try to comfort herself with lying assurances that everything would remain as it always had been, and that it was possible to forget the fearful question of how it would be with her son. 'I beg you, I entreat you, she said suddenly, taking his hand, and speaking in quite a different tone, sincere and tender, 'never speak to me of that! 'But, Anna.... 'Never. Leave it to me. I know all the baseness, all the horror of my position but it's not so easy to arrange as you think. And leave it to me, and do what I say. Never speak to me of it. Do you promise me?... No, no, promise!... 'I promise everything, but I can't be at peace, especially after what you have told me. I can't be at peace, when you can't be at peace.... 'I? she repeated. 'Yes, I am worried sometimes but that will pass, if you will never talk about this. When you talk about itit's only then it worries me. 'I don't understand, he said. 'I know, she interrupted him, 'how hard it is for your truthful nature to lie, and I grieve for you. I often think that you have ruined your whole life for me. 'I was just thinking the very same thing, he said 'how could you sacrifice everything for my sake? I can't forgive myself that you're unhappy! 'I unhappy? she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him with an ecstatic smile of love. 'I am like a hungry man who has been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my unhappiness.... She could hear the sound of her son's voice coming towards them, and glancing swiftly round the terrace, she got up impulsively. Her eyes glowed with the fire he knew so well with a rapid movement she raised her lovely hands, covered with rings, took his head, looked a long look into his face, and, putting up her face with smiling, parted lips, swiftly kissed his mouth and both eyes, and pushed him away. She would have gone, but he held her back. 'When? he murmured in a whisper, gazing in ecstasy at her. 'Tonight, at one o'clock, she whispered, and, with a heavy sigh, she walked with her light, swift step to meet her son. Seryozha had been caught by the rain in the big garden, and he and his nurse had taken shelter in an arbor. 'Well, au revoir, she said to Vronsky. 'I must soon be getting ready for the races. Betsy promised to fetch me. Vronsky, looking at his watch, went away hurriedly. When Vronsky looked at his watch on the Karenins' balcony, he was so greatly agitated and lost in his thoughts that he saw the figures on the watch's face, but could not take in what time it was. He came out on to the highroad and walked, picking his way carefully through the mud, to his carriage. He was so completely absorbed in his feeling for Anna, that he did not even think what o'clock it was, and whether he had time to go to Bryansky's. He had left him, as often happens, only the external faculty of memory, that points out each step one has to take, one after the other. He went up to his coachman, who was dozing on the box in the shadow, already lengthening, of a thick limetree he admired the shifting clouds of midges circling over the hot horses, and, waking the coachman, he jumped into the carriage, and told him to drive to Bryansky's. It was only after driving nearly five miles that he had sufficiently recovered himself to look at his watch, and realize that it was halfpast five, and he was late. There were several races fixed for that day the Mounted Guards' race, then the officers' mileandahalf race, then the threemile race, and then the race for which he was entered. He could still be in time for his race, but if he went to Bryansky's he could only just be in time, and he would arrive when the whole of the court would be in their places. That would be a pity. But he had promised Bryansky to come, and so he decided to drive on, telling the coachman not to spare the horses. He reached Bryansky's, spent five minutes there, and galloped back. This rapid drive calmed him. All that was painful in his relations with Anna, all the feeling of indefiniteness left by their conversation, had slipped out of his mind. He was thinking now with pleasure and excitement of the race, of his being anyhow, in time, and now and then the thought of the blissful interview awaiting him that night flashed across his imagination like a flaming light. The excitement of the approaching race gained upon him as he drove further and further into the atmosphere of the races, overtaking carriages driving up from the summer villas or out of Petersburg. At his quarters no one was left at home all were at the races, and his valet was looking out for him at the gate. While he was changing his clothes, his valet told him that the second race had begun already, that a lot of gentlemen had been to ask for him, and a boy had twice run up from the stables. Dressing without hurry (he never hurried himself, and never lost his selfpossession), Vronsky drove to the sheds. From the sheds he could see a perfect sea of carriages, and people on foot, soldiers surrounding the race course, and pavilions swarming with people. The second race was apparently going on, for just as he went into the sheds he heard a bell ringing. Going towards the stable, he met the whitelegged chestnut, Mahotin's Gladiator, being led to the racecourse in a blue forage horsecloth, with what looked like huge ears edged with blue. 'Where's Cord? he asked the stableboy. 'In the stable, putting on the saddle. In the open horsebox stood FrouFrou, saddled ready. They were just going to lead her out. 'I'm not too late? 'All right! All right! said the Englishman 'don't upset yourself! Vronsky once more took in in one glance the exquisite lines of his favorite mare who was quivering all over, and with an effort he tore himself from the sight of her, and went out of the stable. He went towards the pavilions at the most favorable moment for escaping attention. The mileandahalf race was just finishing, and all eyes were fixed on the horseguard in front and the light hussar behind, urging their horses on with a last effort close to the winning post. From the center and outside of the ring all were crowding to the winning post, and a group of soldiers and officers of the horseguards were shouting loudly their delight at the expected triumph of their officer and comrade. Vronsky moved into the middle of the crowd unnoticed, almost at the very moment when the bell rang at the finish of the race, and the tall, mudspattered horseguard who came in first, bending over the saddle, let go the reins of his panting gray horse that looked dark with sweat. The horse, stiffening out its legs, with an effort stopped its rapid course, and the officer of the horseguards looked round him like a man waking up from a heavy sleep, and just managed to smile. A crowd of friends and outsiders pressed round him. Vronsky intentionally avoided that select crowd of the upper world, which was moving and talking with discreet freedom before the pavilions. He knew that Madame Karenina was there, and Betsy, and his brother's wife, and he purposely did not go near them for fear of something distracting his attention. But he was continually met and stopped by acquaintances, who told him about the previous races, and kept asking him why he was so late. At the time when the racers had to go to the pavilion to receive the prizes, and all attention was directed to that point, Vronsky's elder brother, Alexander, a colonel with heavy fringed epaulets, came up to him. He was not tall, though as broadly built as Alexey, and handsomer and rosier than he he had a red nose, and an open, drunkenlooking face. 'Did you get my note? he said. 'There's never any finding you. Alexander Vronsky, in spite of the dissolute life, and in especial the drunken habits, for which he was notorious, was quite one of the court circle. Now, as he talked to his brother of a matter bound to be exceedingly disagreeable to him, knowing that the eyes of many people might be fixed upon him, he kept a smiling countenance, as though he were jesting with his brother about something of little moment. 'I got it, and I really can't make out what you are worrying yourself about, said Alexey. 'I'm worrying myself because the remark has just been made to me that you weren't here, and that you were seen in Peterhof on Monday. 'There are matters which only concern those directly interested in them, and the matter you are so worried about is.... 'Yes, but if so, you may as well cut the service.... 'I beg you not to meddle, and that's all I have to say. Alexey Vronsky's frowning face turned white, and his prominent lower jaw quivered, which happened rarely with him. Being a man of very warm heart, he was seldom angry but when he was angry, and when his chin quivered, then, as Alexander Vronsky knew, he was dangerous. Alexander Vronsky smiled gaily. 'I only wanted to give you Mother's letter. Answer it, and don't worry about anything just before the race. Bonne chance, he added, smiling and he moved away from him. But after him another friendly greeting brought Vronsky to a standstill. 'So you won't recognize your friends! How are you, mon cher? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, as conspicuously brilliant in the midst of all the Petersburg brilliance as he was in Moscow, his face rosy, and his whiskers sleek and glossy. 'I came up yesterday, and I'm delighted that I shall see your triumph. When shall we meet? 'Come tomorrow to the messroom, said Vronsky, and squeezing him by the sleeve of his coat, with apologies, he moved away to the center of the race course, where the horses were being led for the great steeplechase. The horses who had run in the last race were being led home, steaming and exhausted, by the stableboys, and one after another the fresh horses for the coming race made their appearance, for the most part English racers, wearing horsecloths, and looking with their drawnup bellies like strange, huge birds. On the right was led in FrouFrou, lean and beautiful, lifting up her elastic, rather long pasterns, as though moved by springs. Not far from her they were taking the rug off the lopeared Gladiator. The strong, exquisite, perfectly correct lines of the stallion, with his superb hindquarters and excessively short pasterns almost over his hoofs, attracted Vronsky's attention in spite of himself. He would have gone up to his mare, but he was again detained by an acquaintance. 'Oh, there's Karenin! said the acquaintance with whom he was chatting. 'He's looking for his wife, and she's in the middle of the pavilion. Didn't you see her? 'No, answered Vronsky, and without even glancing round towards the pavilion where his friend was pointing out Madame Karenina, he went up to his mare. Vronsky had not had time to look at the saddle, about which he had to give some direction, when the competitors were summoned to the pavilion to receive their numbers and places in the row at starting. Seventeen officers, looking serious and severe, many with pale faces, met together in the pavilion and drew the numbers. Vronsky drew the number seven. The cry was heard 'Mount! Feeling that with the others riding in the race, he was the center upon which all eyes were fastened, Vronsky walked up to his mare in that state of nervous tension in which he usually became deliberate and composed in his movements. Cord, in honor of the races, had put on his best clothes, a black coat buttoned up, a stiffly starched collar, which propped up his cheeks, a round black hat, and top boots. He was calm and dignified as ever, and was with his own hands holding FrouFrou by both reins, standing straight in front of her. FrouFrou was still trembling as though in a fever. Her eye, full of fire, glanced sideways at Vronsky. Vronsky slipped his finger under the saddlegirth. The mare glanced aslant at him, drew up her lip, and twitched her ear. The Englishman puckered up his lips, intending to indicate a smile that anyone should verify his saddling. 'Get up you won't feel so excited. Vronsky looked round for the last time at his rivals. He knew that he would not see them during the race. Two were already riding forward to the point from which they were to start. Galtsin, a friend of Vronsky's and one of his more formidable rivals, was moving round a bay horse that would not let him mount. A little light hussar in tight riding breeches rode off at a gallop, crouched up like a cat on the saddle, in imitation of English jockeys. Prince Kuzovlev sat with a white face on his thoroughbred mare from the Grabovsky stud, while an English groom led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of 'weak nerves and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, afraid of riding a spirited horse. But now, just because it was terrible, because people broke their necks, and there was a doctor standing at each obstacle, and an ambulance with a cross on it, and a sister of mercy, he had made up his mind to take part in the race. Their eyes met, and Vronsky gave him a friendly and encouraging nod. Only one he did not see, his chief rival, Mahotin on Gladiator. 'Don't be in a hurry, said Cord to Vronsky, 'and remember one thing don't hold her in at the fences, and don't urge her on let her go as she likes. 'All right, all right, said Vronsky, taking the reins. 'If you can, lead the race but don't lose heart till the last minute, even if you're behind. Before the mare had time to move, Vronsky stepped with an agile, vigorous movement into the steeltoothed stirrup, and lightly and firmly seated himself on the creaking leather of the saddle. Getting his right foot in the stirrup, he smoothed the double reins, as he always did, between his fingers, and Cord let go. As though she did not know which foot to put first, FrouFrou started, dragging at the reins with her long neck, and as though she were on springs, shaking her rider from side to side. Cord quickened his step, following him. The excited mare, trying to shake off her rider first on one side and then the other, pulled at the reins, and Vronsky tried in vain with voice and hand to soothe her. They were just reaching the dammedup stream on their way to the starting point. Several of the riders were in front and several behind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a horse galloping in the mud behind him, and he was overtaken by Mahotin on his whitelegged, lopeared Gladiator. Mahotin smiled, showing his long teeth, but Vronsky looked angrily at him. He did not like him, and regarded him now as his most formidable rival. He was angry with him for galloping past and exciting his mare. FrouFrou started into a gallop, her left foot forward, made two bounds, and fretting at the tightened reins, passed into a jolting trot, bumping her rider up and down. Cord, too, scowled, and followed Vronsky almost at a trot. There were seventeen officers in all riding in this race. The race course was a large threemile ring of the form of an ellipse in front of the pavilion. On this course nine obstacles had been arranged the stream, a big and solid barrier five feet high, just before the pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a precipitous slope, an Irish barricade (one of the most difficult obstacles, consisting of a mound fenced with brushwood, beyond which was a ditch out of sight for the horses, so that the horse had to clear both obstacles or might be killed) then two more ditches filled with water, and one dry one and the end of the race was just facing the pavilion. But the race began not in the ring, but two hundred yards away from it, and in that part of the course was the first obstacle, a dammedup stream, seven feet in breadth, which the racers could leap or wade through as they preferred. Three times they were ranged ready to start, but each time some horse thrust itself out of line, and they had to begin again. The umpire who was starting them, Colonel Sestrin, was beginning to lose his temper, when at last for the fourth time he shouted 'Away! and the racers started. Every eye, every operaglass, was turned on the brightly colored group of riders at the moment they were in line to start. 'They're off! They're starting! was heard on all sides after the hush of expectation. And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute the close group of horsemen drew out, and it could be seen that they were approaching the stream in twos and threes and one behind another. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously, but to the racers there were seconds of difference that had great value to them. FrouFrou, excited and overnervous, had lost the first moment, and several horses had started before her, but before reaching the stream, Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his force as she tugged at the bridle, easily overtook three, and there were left in front of him Mahotin's chestnut Gladiator, whose hindquarters were moving lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky, and in front of all, the dainty mare Diana bearing Kuzovlev more dead than alive. For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or his mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he could not guide the motions of his mare. Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same instant simultaneously they rose above the stream and flew across to the other side FrouFrou darted after them, as if flying but at the very moment when Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw almost under his mare's hoofs Kuzovlev, who was floundering with Diana on the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he took the leap, and the mare had sent him flying over her head.) Those details Vronsky learned later at the moment all he saw was that just under him, where FrouFrou must alight, Diana's legs or head might be in the way. But FrouFrou drew up her legs and back in the very act of leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing the other mare, alighted beyond her. 'O the darling! thought Vronsky. After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his mare, and began holding her in, intending to cross the great barrier behind Mahotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear ground of about five hundred yards that followed it. The great barrier stood just in front of the imperial pavilion. The Tsar and the whole court and crowds of people were all gazing at themat him, and Mahotin a length ahead of him, as they drew near the 'devil, as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was aware of those eyes fastened upon him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the ears and neck of his own mare, the ground racing to meet him, and the back and white legs of Gladiator beating time swiftly before him, and keeping always the same distance ahead. Gladiator rose, with no sound of knocking against anything. With a wave of his short tail he disappeared from Vronsky's sight. 'Bravo! cried a voice. At the same instant, under Vronsky's eyes, right before him flashed the palings of the barrier. Without the slightest change in her action his mare flew over it the palings vanished, and he heard only a crash behind him. The mare, excited by Gladiator's keeping ahead, had risen too soon before the barrier, and grazed it with her hind hoofs. But her pace never changed, and Vronsky, feeling a spatter of mud in his face, realized that he was once more the same distance from Gladiator. Once more he perceived in front of him the same back and short tail, and again the same swiftly moving white legs that got no further away. At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time to overtake Mahotin, FrouFrou herself, understanding his thoughts, without any incitement on his part, gained ground considerably, and began getting alongside of Mahotin on the most favorable side, close to the inner cord. Mahotin would not let her pass that side. Vronsky had hardly formed the thought that he could perhaps pass on the outer side, when FrouFrou shifted her pace and began overtaking him on the other side. FrouFrou's shoulder, beginning by now to be dark with sweat, was even with Gladiator's back. For a few lengths they moved evenly. But before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky began working at the reins, anxious to avoid having to take the outer circle, and swiftly passed Mahotin just upon the declivity. He caught a glimpse of his mudstained face as he flashed by. He even fancied that he smiled. Vronsky passed Mahotin, but he was immediately aware of him close upon him, and he never ceased hearing the eventhudding hoofs and the rapid and still quite fresh breathing of Gladiator. The next two obstacles, the water course and the barrier, were easily crossed, but Vronsky began to hear the snorting and thud of Gladiator closer upon him. He urged on his mare, and to his delight felt that she easily quickened her pace, and the thud of Gladiator's hoofs was again heard at the same distance away. Vronsky was at the head of the race, just as he wanted to be and as Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of being the winner. His excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for FrouFrou grew keener and keener. He longed to look round again, but he did not dare do this, and tried to be cool and not to urge on his mare so to keep the same reserve of force in her as he felt that Gladiator still kept. There remained only one obstacle, the most difficult if he could cross it ahead of the others he would come in first. He was flying towards the Irish barricade, FrouFrou and he both together saw the barricade in the distance, and both the man and the mare had a moment's hesitation. He saw the uncertainty in the mare's ears and lifted the whip, but at the same time felt that his fears were groundless the mare knew what was wanted. She quickened her pace and rose smoothly, just as he had fancied she would, and as she left the ground gave herself up to the force of her rush, which carried her far beyond the ditch and with the same rhythm, without effort, with the same leg forward, FrouFrou fell back into her pace again. 'Bravo, Vronsky! he heard shouts from a knot of menhe knew they were his friends in the regimentwho were standing at the obstacle. He could not fail to recognize Yashvin's voice though he did not see him. 'O my sweet! he said inwardly to FrouFrou, as he listened for what was happening behind. 'He's cleared it! he thought, catching the thud of Gladiator's hoofs behind him. There remained only the last ditch, filled with water and five feet wide. Vronsky did not even look at it, but anxious to get in a long way first began sawing away at the reins, lifting the mare's head and letting it go in time with her paces. He felt that the mare was at her very last reserve of strength not her neck and shoulders merely were wet, but the sweat was standing in drops on her mane, her head, her sharp ears, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. But he knew that she had strength left more than enough for the remaining five hundred yards. It was only from feeling himself nearer the ground and from the peculiar smoothness of his motion that Vronsky knew how greatly the mare had quickened her pace. She flew over the ditch as though not noticing it. She flew over it like a bird but at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that he had failed to keep up with the mare's pace, that he had, he did not know how, made a fearful, unpardonable mistake, in recovering his seat in the saddle. All at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Mahotin passed at a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just had time to free his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain efforts to rise with her delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Mahotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and FrouFrou lay gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eyes. Still unable to realize what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and her shoulders setting the saddle heaving, she rose on her front legs but unable to lift her back, she quivered all over and again fell on her side. With a face hideous with passion, his lower jaw trembling, and his cheeks white, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but thrusting her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her speaking eyes. 'Aaa! groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. 'Ah! what have I done! he cried. 'The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable! And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah! what have I done! A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his cap that had fallen off, walked away from the race course, not knowing where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault. Yashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour later Vronsky had regained his selfpossession. But the memory of that race remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory of his life. The external relations of Alexey Alexandrovitch and his wife had remained unchanged. The sole difference lay in the fact that he was more busily occupied than ever. As in former years, at the beginning of the spring he had gone to a foreign wateringplace for the sake of his health, deranged by the winter's work that every year grew heavier. And just as always he returned in July and at once fell to work as usual with increased energy. As usual, too, his wife had moved for the summer to a villa out of town, while he remained in Petersburg. From the date of their conversation after the party at Princess Tverskaya's he had never spoken again to Anna of his suspicions and his jealousies, and that habitual tone of his bantering mimicry was the most convenient tone possible for his present attitude to his wife. He was a little colder to his wife. He simply seemed to be slightly displeased with her for that first midnight conversation, which she had repelled. In his attitude to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more. 'You would not be open with me, he seemed to say, mentally addressing her 'so much the worse for you. Now you may beg as you please, but I won't be open with you. So much the worse for you! he said mentally, like a man who, after vainly attempting to extinguish a fire, should fly in a rage with his vain efforts and say, 'Oh, very well then! you shall burn for this! This man, so subtle and astute in official life, did not realize all the senselessness of such an attitude to his wife. He did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked and sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his feelings towards his family, that is, his wife and son. He who had been such a careful father, had from the end of that winter become peculiarly frigid to his son, and adopted to him just the same bantering tone he used with his wife. 'Aha, young man! was the greeting with which he met him. Alexey Alexandrovitch asserted and believed that he had never in any previous year had so much official business as that year. But he was not aware that he sought work for himself that year, that this was one of the means for keeping shut that secret place where lay hid his feelings towards his wife and son and his thoughts about them, which became more terrible the longer they lay there. If anyone had had the right to ask Alexey Alexandrovitch what he thought of his wife's behavior, the mild and peaceable Alexey Alexandrovitch would have made no answer, but he would have been greatly angered with any man who should question him on that subject. For this reason there positively came into Alexey Alexandrovitch's face a look of haughtiness and severity whenever anyone inquired after his wife's health. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not want to think at all about his wife's behavior, and he actually succeeded in not thinking about it at all. Alexey Alexandrovitch's permanent summer villa was in Peterhof, and the Countess Lidia Ivanovna used as a rule to spend the summer there, close to Anna, and constantly seeing her. That year Countess Lidia Ivanovna declined to settle in Peterhof, was not once at Anna Arkadyevna's, and in conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch hinted at the unsuitability of Anna's close intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch sternly cut her short, roundly declaring his wife to be above suspicion, and from that time began to avoid Countess Lidia Ivanovna. He did not want to see, and did not see, that many people in society cast dubious glances on his wife he did not want to understand, and did not understand, why his wife had so particularly insisted on staying at Tsarskoe, where Betsy was staying, and not far from the camp of Vronsky's regiment. He did not allow himself to think about it, and he did not think about it but all the same though he never admitted it to himself, and had no proofs, not even suspicious evidence, in the bottom of his heart he knew beyond all doubt that he was a deceived husband, and he was profoundly miserable about it. How often during those eight years of happy life with his wife Alexey Alexandrovitch had looked at other men's faithless wives and other deceived husbands and asked himself 'How can people descend to that? how is it they don't put an end to such a hideous position? But now, when the misfortune had come upon himself, he was so far from thinking of putting an end to the position that he would not recognize it at all, would not recognize it just because it was too awful, too unnatural. Since his return from abroad Alexey Alexandrovitch had twice been at their country villa. Once he dined there, another time he spent the evening there with a party of friends, but he had not once stayed the night there, as it had been his habit to do in previous years. The day of the races had been a very busy day for Alexey Alexandrovitch but when mentally sketching out the day in the morning, he made up his mind to go to their country house to see his wife immediately after dinner, and from there to the races, which all the Court were to witness, and at which he was bound to be present. He was going to see his wife, because he had determined to see her once a week to keep up appearances. And besides, on that day, as it was the fifteenth, he had to give his wife some money for her expenses, according to their usual arrangement. With his habitual control over his thoughts, though he thought all this about his wife, he did not let his thoughts stray further in regard to her. That morning was a very full one for Alexey Alexandrovitch. The evening before, Countess Lidia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet by a celebrated traveler in China, who was staying in Petersburg, and with it she enclosed a note begging him to see the traveler himself, as he was an extremely interesting person from various points of view, and likely to be useful. Alexey Alexandrovitch had not had time to read the pamphlet through in the evening, and finished it in the morning. Then people began arriving with petitions, and there came the reports, interviews, appointments, dismissals, apportionment of rewards, pensions, grants, notes, the workaday round, as Alexey Alexandrovitch called it, that always took up so much time. Then there was private business of his own, a visit from the doctor and the steward who managed his property. The steward did not take up much time. He simply gave Alexey Alexandrovitch the money he needed together with a brief statement of the position of his affairs, which was not altogether satisfactory, as it had happened that during that year, owing to increased expenses, more had been paid out than usual, and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated Petersburg doctor, who was an intimate acquaintance of Alexey Alexandrovitch, took up a great deal of time. Alexey Alexandrovitch had not expected him that day, and was surprised at his visit, and still more so when the doctor questioned him very carefully about his health, listened to his breathing, and tapped at his liver. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not know that his friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as well as usual that year, had begged the doctor to go and examine him. 'Do this for my sake, the Countess Lidia Ivanovna had said to him. 'I will do it for the sake of Russia, countess, replied the doctor. 'A priceless man! said the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. The doctor was extremely dissatisfied with Alexey Alexandrovitch. He found the liver considerably enlarged, and the digestive powers weakened, while the course of mineral waters had been quite without effect. He prescribed more physical exercise as far as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and above all no worryin other words, just what was as much out of Alexey Alexandrovitch's power as abstaining from breathing. Then he withdrew, leaving in Alexey Alexandrovitch an unpleasant sense that something was wrong with him, and that there was no chance of curing it. As he was coming away, the doctor chanced to meet on the staircase an acquaintance of his, Sludin, who was secretary of Alexey Alexandrovitch's department. They had been comrades at the university, and though they rarely met, they thought highly of each other and were excellent friends, and so there was no one to whom the doctor would have given his opinion of a patient so freely as to Sludin. 'How glad I am you've been seeing him! said Sludin. 'He's not well, and I fancy.... Well, what do you think of him? 'I'll tell you, said the doctor, beckoning over Sludin's head to his coachman to bring the carriage round. 'It's just this, said the doctor, taking a finger of his kid glove in his white hands and pulling it, 'if you don't strain the strings, and then try to break them, you'll find it a difficult job but strain a string to its very utmost, and the mere weight of one finger on the strained string will snap it. And with his close assiduity, his conscientious devotion to his work, he's strained to the utmost and there's some outside burden weighing on him, and not a light one, concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly. 'Will you be at the races? he added, as he sank into his seat in the carriage. 'Yes, yes, to be sure it does waste a lot of time, the doctor responded vaguely to some reply of Sludin's he had not caught. Directly after the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came the celebrated traveler, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, by means of the pamphlet he had only just finished reading and his previous acquaintance with the subject, impressed the traveler by the depth of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth and enlightenment of his view of it. At the same time as the traveler there was announced a provincial marshal of nobility on a visit to Petersburg, with whom Alexey Alexandrovitch had to have some conversation. After his departure, he had to finish the daily routine of business with his secretary, and then he still had to drive round to call on a certain great personage on a matter of grave and serious import. Alexey Alexandrovitch only just managed to be back by five o'clock, his dinnerhour, and after dining with his secretary, he invited him to drive with him to his country villa and to the races. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, Alexey Alexandrovitch always tried nowadays to secure the presence of a third person in his interviews with his wife. Anna was upstairs, standing before the lookingglass, and, with Annushka's assistance, pinning the last ribbon on her gown when she heard carriage wheels crunching the gravel at the entrance. 'It's too early for Betsy, she thought, and glancing out of the window she caught sight of the carriage and the black hat of Alexey Alexandrovitch, and the ears that she knew so well sticking up each side of it. 'How unlucky! Can he be going to stay the night? she wondered, and the thought of all that might come of such a chance struck her as so awful and terrible that, without dwelling on it for a moment, she went down to meet him with a bright and radiant face and conscious of the presence of that spirit of falsehood and deceit in herself that she had come to know of late, she abandoned herself to that spirit and began talking, hardly knowing what she was saying. 'Ah, how nice of you! she said, giving her husband her hand, and greeting Sludin, who was like one of the family, with a smile. 'You're staying the night, I hope? was the first word the spirit of falsehood prompted her to utter 'and now we'll go together. Only it's a pity I've promised Betsy. She's coming for me. Alexey Alexandrovitch knit his brows at Betsy's name. 'Oh, I'm not going to separate the inseparables, he said in his usual bantering tone. 'I'm going with Mihail Vassilievitch. I'm ordered exercise by the doctors too. I'll walk, and fancy myself at the springs again. 'There's no hurry, said Anna. 'Would you like tea? She rang. 'Bring in tea, and tell Seryozha that Alexey Alexandrovitch is here. Well, tell me, how have you been? Mihail Vassilievitch, you've not been to see me before. Look how lovely it is out on the terrace, she said, turning first to one and then to the other. She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She was the more aware of this from noticing in the inquisitive look Mihail Vassilievitch turned on her that he was, as it were, keeping watch on her. Mihail Vassilievitch promptly went out on the terrace. She sat down beside her husband. 'You don't look quite well, she said. 'Yes, he said 'the doctor's been with me today and wasted an hour of my time. I feel that someone of our friends must have sent him my health's so precious, it seems. 'No what did he say? She questioned him about his health and what he had been doing, and tried to persuade him to take a rest and come out to her. All this she said brightly, rapidly, and with a peculiar brilliance in her eyes. But Alexey Alexandrovitch did not now attach any special significance to this tone of hers. He heard only her words and gave them only the direct sense they bore. And he answered simply, though jestingly. There was nothing remarkable in all this conversation, but never after could Anna recall this brief scene without an agonizing pang of shame. Seryozha came in preceded by his governess. If Alexey Alexandrovitch had allowed himself to observe he would have noticed the timid and bewildered eyes with which Seryozha glanced first at his father and then at his mother. But he would not see anything, and he did not see it. 'Ah, the young man! He's grown. Really, he's getting quite a man. How are you, young man? And he gave his hand to the scared child. Seryozha had been shy of his father before, and now, ever since Alexey Alexandrovitch had taken to calling him young man, and since that insoluble question had occurred to him whether Vronsky were a friend or a foe, he avoided his father. He looked round towards his mother as though seeking shelter. It was only with his mother that he was at ease. Meanwhile, Alexey Alexandrovitch was holding his son by the shoulder while he was speaking to the governess, and Seryozha was so miserably uncomfortable that Anna saw he was on the point of tears. Anna, who had flushed a little the instant her son came in, noticing that Seryozha was uncomfortable, got up hurriedly, took Alexey Alexandrovitch's hand from her son's shoulder, and kissing the boy, led him out onto the terrace, and quickly came back. 'It's time to start, though, said she, glancing at her watch. 'How is it Betsy doesn't come?... 'Yes, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, and getting up, he folded his hands and cracked his fingers. 'I've come to bring you some money, too, for nightingales, we know, can't live on fairy tales, he said. 'You want it, I expect? 'No, I don't ... yes, I do, she said, not looking at him, and crimsoning to the roots of her hair. 'But you'll come back here after the races, I suppose? 'Oh, yes! answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'And here's the glory of Peterhof, Princess Tverskaya, he added, looking out of the window at the elegant English carriage with the tiny seats placed extremely high. 'What elegance! Charming! Well, let us be starting too, then. Princess Tverskaya did not get out of her carriage, but her groom, in high boots, a cape, and black hat, darted out at the entrance. 'I'm going goodbye! said Anna, and kissing her son, she went up to Alexey Alexandrovitch and held out her hand to him. 'It was ever so nice of you to come. Alexey Alexandrovitch kissed her hand. 'Well, au revoir, then! You'll come back for some tea that's delightful! she said, and went out, gay and radiant. But as soon as she no longer saw him, she was aware of the spot on her hand that his lips had touched, and she shuddered with repulsion. When Alexey Alexandrovitch reached the racecourse, Anna was already sitting in the pavilion beside Betsy, in that pavilion where all the highest society had gathered. She caught sight of her husband in the distance. Two men, her husband and her lover, were the two centers of her existence, and unaided by her external senses she was aware of their nearness. She was aware of her husband approaching a long way off, and she could not help following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress towards the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and taking off his big round hat that squeezed the tips of his ears. All these ways of his she knew, and all were hateful to her. 'Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that's all there is in his soul, she thought 'as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on. From his glances towards the ladies' pavilion (he was staring straight at her, but did not distinguish his wife in the sea of muslin, ribbons, feathers, parasols and flowers) she saw that he was looking for her, but she purposely avoided noticing him. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch! Princess Betsy called to him 'I'm sure you don't see your wife here she is. He smiled his chilly smile. 'There's so much splendor here that one's eyes are dazzled, he said, and he went into the pavilion. He smiled to his wife as a man should smile on meeting his wife after only just parting from her, and greeted the princess and other acquaintances, giving to each what was duethat is to say, jesting with the ladies and dealing out friendly greetings among the men. Below, near the pavilion, was standing an adjutantgeneral of whom Alexey Alexandrovitch had a high opinion, noted for his intelligence and culture. Alexey Alexandrovitch entered into conversation with him. There was an interval between the races, and so nothing hindered conversation. The adjutantgeneral expressed his disapproval of races. Alexey Alexandrovitch replied defending them. Anna heard his high, measured tones, not losing one word, and every word struck her as false, and stabbed her ears with pain. When the threemile steeplechase was beginning, she bent forward and gazed with fixed eyes at Vronsky as he went up to his horse and mounted, and at the same time she heard that loathsome, neverceasing voice of her husband. She was in an agony of terror for Vronsky, but a still greater agony was the neverceasing, as it seemed to her, stream of her husband's shrill voice with its familiar intonations. 'I'm a wicked woman, a lost woman, she thought 'but I don't like lying, I can't endure falsehood, while as for him (her husband) it's the breath of his lifefalsehood. He knows all about it, he sees it all what does he care if he can talk so calmly? If he were to kill me, if he were to kill Vronsky, I might respect him. No, all he wants is falsehood and propriety, Anna said to herself, not considering exactly what it was she wanted of her husband, and how she would have liked to see him behave. She did not understand either that Alexey Alexandrovitch's peculiar loquacity that day, so exasperating to her, was merely the expression of his inward distress and uneasiness. As a child that has been hurt skips about, putting all his muscles into movement to drown the pain, in the same way Alexey Alexandrovitch needed mental exercise to drown the thoughts of his wife that in her presence and in Vronsky's, and with the continual iteration of his name, would force themselves on his attention. And it was as natural for him to talk well and cleverly, as it is natural for a child to skip about. He was saying 'Danger in the races of officers, of cavalry men, is an essential element in the race. If England can point to the most brilliant feats of cavalry in military history, it is simply owing to the fact that she has historically developed this force both in beasts and in men. Sport has, in my opinion, a great value, and as is always the case, we see nothing but what is most superficial. 'It's not superficial, said Princess Tverskaya. 'One of the officers, they say, has broken two ribs. Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled his smile, which uncovered his teeth, but revealed nothing more. 'We'll admit, princess, that that's not superficial, he said, 'but internal. But that's not the point, and he turned again to the general with whom he was talking seriously 'we mustn't forget that those who are taking part in the race are military men, who have chosen that career, and one must allow that every calling has its disagreeable side. It forms an integral part of the duties of an officer. Low sports, such as prizefighting or Spanish bullfights, are a sign of barbarity. But specialized trials of skill are a sign of development. 'No, I shan't come another time it's too upsetting, said Princess Betsy. 'Isn't it, Anna? 'It is upsetting, but one can't tear oneself away, said another lady. 'If I'd been a Roman woman I should never have missed a single circus. Anna said nothing, and keeping her operaglass up, gazed always at the same spot. At that moment a tall general walked through the pavilion. Breaking off what he was saying, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up hurriedly, though with dignity, and bowed low to the general. 'You're not racing? the officer asked, chaffing him. 'My race is a harder one, Alexey Alexandrovitch responded deferentially. And though the answer meant nothing, the general looked as though he had heard a witty remark from a witty man, and fully relished la pointe de la sauce. 'There are two aspects, Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed 'those who take part and those who look on and love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of development in the spectator, I admit, but.... 'Princess, bets! sounded Stepan Arkadyevitch's voice from below, addressing Betsy. 'Who's your favorite? 'Anna and I are for Kuzovlev, replied Betsy. 'I'm for Vronsky. A pair of gloves? 'Done! 'But it is a pretty sight, isn't it? Alexey Alexandrovitch paused while there was talking about him, but he began again directly. 'I admit that manly sports do not.... he was continuing. But at that moment the racers started, and all conversation ceased. Alexey Alexandrovitch too was silent, and everyone stood up and turned towards the stream. Alexey Alexandrovitch took no interest in the race, and so he did not watch the racers, but fell listlessly to scanning the spectators with his weary eyes. His eyes rested upon Anna. Her face was white and set. She was obviously seeing nothing and no one but one man. Her hand had convulsively clutched her fan, and she held her breath. He looked at her and hastily turned away, scrutinizing other faces. 'But here's this lady too, and others very much moved as well it's very natural, Alexey Alexandrovitch told himself. He tried not to look at her, but unconsciously his eyes were drawn to her. He examined that face again, trying not to read what was so plainly written on it, and against his own will, with horror read on it what he did not want to know. The first fallKuzovlev's, at the streamagitated everyone, but Alexey Alexandrovitch saw distinctly on Anna's pale, triumphant face that the man she was watching had not fallen. When, after Mahotin and Vronsky had cleared the worst barrier, the next officer had been thrown straight on his head at it and fatally injured, and a shudder of horror passed over the whole public, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that Anna did not even notice it, and had some difficulty in realizing what they were talking of about her. But more and more often, and with greater persistence, he watched her. Anna, wholly engrossed as she was with the race, became aware of her husband's cold eyes fixed upon her from one side. She glanced round for an instant, looked inquiringly at him, and with a slight frown turned away again. 'Ah, I don't care! she seemed to say to him, and she did not once glance at him again. The race was an unlucky one, and of the seventeen officers who rode in it more than half were thrown and hurt. Towards the end of the race everyone was in a state of agitation, which was intensified by the fact that the Tsar was displeased. Everyone was loudly expressing disapprobation, everyone was repeating a phrase someone had uttered'The lions and gladiators will be the next thing, and everyone was feeling horrified so that when Vronsky fell to the ground, and Anna moaned aloud, there was nothing very out of the way in it. But afterwards a change came over Anna's face which really was beyond decorum. She utterly lost her head. She began fluttering like a caged bird, at one moment would have got up and moved away, at the next turned to Betsy. 'Let us go, let us go! she said. But Betsy did not hear her. She was bending down, talking to a general who had come up to her. Alexey Alexandrovitch went up to Anna and courteously offered her his arm. 'Let us go, if you like, he said in French, but Anna was listening to the general and did not notice her husband. 'He's broken his leg too, so they say, the general was saying. 'This is beyond everything. Without answering her husband, Anna lifted her operaglass and gazed towards the place where Vronsky had fallen but it was so far off, and there was such a crowd of people about it, that she could make out nothing. She laid down the operaglass, and would have moved away, but at that moment an officer galloped up and made some announcement to the Tsar. Anna craned forward, listening. 'Stiva! Stiva! she cried to her brother. But her brother did not hear her. Again she would have moved away. 'Once more I offer you my arm if you want to be going, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, reaching towards her hand. She drew back from him with aversion, and without looking in his face answered 'No, no, let me be, I'll stay. She saw now that from the place of Vronsky's accident an officer was running across the course towards the pavilion. Betsy waved her handkerchief to him. The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but the horse had broken its back. On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan. Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that she was weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom. Alexey Alexandrovitch stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself. 'For the third time I offer you my arm, he said to her after a little time, turning to her. Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say. Princess Betsy came to her rescue. 'No, Alexey Alexandrovitch I brought Anna and I promised to take her home, put in Betsy. 'Excuse me, princess, he said, smiling courteously but looking her very firmly in the face, 'but I see that Anna's not very well, and I wish her to come home with me. Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband's arm. 'I'll send to him and find out, and let you know, Betsy whispered to her. As they left the pavilion, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband's arm as though in a dream. 'Is he killed or not? Is it true? Will he come or not? Shall I see him today? she was thinking. She took her seat in her husband's carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the crowd of carriages. In spite of all he had seen, Alexey Alexandrovitch still did not allow himself to consider his wife's real condition. He merely saw the outward symptoms. He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her so. But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that. He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different. 'What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles, he said. 'I observe.... 'Eh? I don't understand, said Anna contemptuously. He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say. 'I am obliged to tell you, he began. 'So now we are to have it out, she thought, and she felt frightened. 'I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today, he said to her in French. 'In what way has my behavior been unbecoming? she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling. 'Mind, he said, pointing to the open window opposite the coachman. He got up and pulled up the window. 'What did you consider unbecoming? she repeated. 'The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of the riders. He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight before her. 'I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your external attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not to occur again. She did not hear half of what he was saying she felt panicstricken before him, and was thinking whether it was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking when they said the rider was unhurt, but the horse had broken its back? She merely smiled with a pretense of irony when he finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun to speak boldly, but as he realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange misapprehension came over him. 'She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly what she told me before that there is no foundation for my suspicions, that it's absurd. At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless. So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception. 'Possibly I was mistaken, said he. 'If so, I beg your pardon. 'No, you were not mistaken, she said deliberately, looking desperately into his cold face. 'You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his mistress I can't bear you I'm afraid of you, and I hate you.... You can do what you like to me. And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept looking straight before him. But his whole face suddenly bore the solemn rigidity of the dead, and his expression did not change during the whole time of the drive home. On reaching the house he turned his head to her, still with the same expression. 'Very well! But I expect a strict observance of the external forms of propriety till such timehis voice shook'as I may take measures to secure my honor and communicate them to you. He got out first and helped her to get out. Before the servants he pressed her hand, took his seat in the carriage, and drove back to Petersburg. Immediately afterwards a footman came from Princess Betsy and brought Anna a note. 'I sent to Alexey to find out how he is, and he writes me he is quite well and unhurt, but in despair. 'So he will be here, she thought. 'What a good thing I told him all! She glanced at her watch. She had still three hours to wait, and the memories of their last meeting set her blood in flame. 'My God, how light it is! It's dreadful, but I do love to see his face, and I do love this fantastic light.... My husband! Oh! yes.... Well, thank God! everything's over with him. In the little German wateringplace to which the Shtcherbatskys had betaken themselves, as in all places indeed where people are gathered together, the usual process, as it were, of the crystallization of society went on, assigning to each member of that society a definite and unalterable place. Just as the particle of water in frost, definitely and unalterably, takes the special form of the crystal of snow, so each new person that arrived at the springs was at once placed in his special place. Frst Shtcherbatsky, sammt Gemahlin und Tochter, by the apartments they took, and from their name and from the friends they made, were immediately crystallized into a definite place marked out for them. There was visiting the wateringplace that year a real German Frstin, in consequence of which the crystallizing process went on more vigorously than ever. Princess Shtcherbatskaya wished, above everything, to present her daughter to this German princess, and the day after their arrival she duly performed this rite. Kitty made a low and graceful curtsey in the very simple, that is to say, very elegant frock that had been ordered her from Paris. The German princess said, 'I hope the roses will soon come back to this pretty little face, and for the Shtcherbatskys certain definite lines of existence were at once laid down from which there was no departing. The Shtcherbatskys made the acquaintance too of the family of an English Lady Somebody, and of a German countess and her son, wounded in the last war, and of a learned Swede, and of M. Canut and his sister. But yet inevitably the Shtcherbatskys were thrown most into the society of a Moscow lady, Marya Yevgenyevna Rtishtcheva and her daughter, whom Kitty disliked, because she had fallen ill, like herself, over a love affair, and a Moscow colonel, whom Kitty had known from childhood, and always seen in uniform and epaulets, and who now, with his little eyes and his open neck and flowered cravat, was uncommonly ridiculous and tedious, because there was no getting rid of him. When all this was so firmly established, Kitty began to be very much bored, especially as the prince went away to Carlsbad and she was left alone with her mother. She took no interest in the people she knew, feeling that nothing fresh would come of them. Her chief mental interest in the wateringplace consisted in watching and making theories about the people she did not know. It was characteristic of Kitty that she always imagined everything in people in the most favorable light possible, especially so in those she did not know. And now as she made surmises as to who people were, what were their relations to one another, and what they were like, Kitty endowed them with the most marvelous and noble characters, and found confirmation of her idea in her observations. Of these people the one that attracted her most was a Russian girl who had come to the wateringplace with an invalid Russian lady, Madame Stahl, as everyone called her. Madame Stahl belonged to the highest society, but she was so ill that she could not walk, and only on exceptionally fine days made her appearance at the springs in an invalid carriage. But it was not so much from illhealth as from prideso Princess Shtcherbatskaya interpreted itthat Madame Stahl had not made the acquaintance of anyone among the Russians there. The Russian girl looked after Madame Stahl, and besides that, she was, as Kitty observed, on friendly terms with all the invalids who were seriously ill, and there were many of them at the springs, and looked after them in the most natural way. This Russian girl was not, as Kitty gathered, related to Madame Stahl, nor was she a paid attendant. Madame Stahl called her Varenka, and other people called her 'Mademoiselle Varenka. Apart from the interest Kitty took in this girl's relations with Madame Stahl and with other unknown persons, Kitty, as often happened, felt an inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle Varenka, and was aware when their eyes met that she too liked her. Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she had passed her first youth, but she was, as it were, a creature without youth she might have been taken for nineteen or for thirty. If her features were criticized separately, she was handsome rather than plain, in spite of the sickly hue of her face. She would have been a good figure, too, if it had not been for her extreme thinness and the size of her head, which was too large for her medium height. But she was not likely to be attractive to men. She was like a fine flower, already past its bloom and without fragrance, though the petals were still unwithered. Moreover, she would have been unattractive to men also from the lack of just what Kitty had too much ofof the suppressed fire of vitality, and the consciousness of her own attractiveness. She always seemed absorbed in work about which there could be no doubt, and so it seemed she could not take interest in anything outside it. It was just this contrast with her own position that was for Kitty the great attraction of Mademoiselle Varenka. Kitty felt that in her, in her manner of life, she would find an example of what she was now so painfully seeking interest in life, a dignity in lifeapart from the worldly relations of girls with men, which so revolted Kitty, and appeared to her now as a shameful hawking about of goods in search of a purchaser. The more attentively Kitty watched her unknown friend, the more convinced she was this girl was the perfect creature she fancied her, and the more eagerly she wished to make her acquaintance. The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they met, Kitty's eyes said 'Who are you? What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness' sake don't suppose, her eyes added, 'that I would force my acquaintance on you, I simply admire you and like you. 'I like you too, and you're very, very sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time, answered the eyes of the unknown girl. Kitty saw indeed, that she was always busy. Either she was taking the children of a Russian family home from the springs, or fetching a shawl for a sick lady, and wrapping her up in it, or trying to interest an irritable invalid, or selecting and buying cakes for tea for someone. Soon after the arrival of the Shtcherbatskys there appeared in the morning crowd at the springs two persons who attracted universal and unfavorable attention. These were a tall man with a stooping figure, and huge hands, in an old coat too short for him, with black, simple, and yet terrible eyes, and a pockmarked, kindlooking woman, very badly and tastelessly dressed. Recognizing these persons as Russians, Kitty had already in her imagination begun constructing a delightful and touching romance about them. But the princess, having ascertained from the visitors' list that this was Nikolay Levin and Marya Nikolaevna, explained to Kitty what a bad man this Levin was, and all her fancies about these two people vanished. Not so much from what her mother told her, as from the fact that it was Konstantin's brother, this pair suddenly seemed to Kitty intensely unpleasant. This Levin, with his continual twitching of his head, aroused in her now an irrepressible feeling of disgust. It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which persistently pursued her, expressed a feeling of hatred and contempt, and she tried to avoid meeting him. It was a wet day it had been raining all the morning, and the invalids, with their parasols, had flocked into the arcades. Kitty was walking there with her mother and the Moscow colonel, smart and jaunty in his European coat, bought readymade at Frankfort. They were walking on one side of the arcade, trying to avoid Levin, who was walking on the other side. Varenka, in her dark dress, in a black hat with a turndown brim, was walking up and down the whole length of the arcade with a blind Frenchwoman, and, every time she met Kitty, they exchanged friendly glances. 'Mamma, couldn't I speak to her? said Kitty, watching her unknown friend, and noticing that she was going up to the spring, and that they might come there together. 'Oh, if you want to so much, I'll find out about her first and make her acquaintance myself, answered her mother. 'What do you see in her out of the way? A companion, she must be. If you like, I'll make acquaintance with Madame Stahl I used to know her bellesur, added the princess, lifting her head haughtily. Kitty knew that the princess was offended that Madame Stahl had seemed to avoid making her acquaintance. Kitty did not insist. 'How wonderfully sweet she is! she said, gazing at Varenka just as she handed a glass to the Frenchwoman. 'Look how natural and sweet it all is. 'It's so funny to see your engouements, said the princess. 'No, we'd better go back, she added, noticing Levin coming towards them with his companion and a German doctor, to whom he was talking very noisily and angrily. They turned to go back, when suddenly they heard, not noisy talk, but shouting. Levin, stopping short, was shouting at the doctor, and the doctor, too, was excited. A crowd gathered about them. The princess and Kitty beat a hasty retreat, while the colonel joined the crowd to find out what was the matter. A few minutes later the colonel overtook them. 'What was it? inquired the princess. 'Scandalous and disgraceful! answered the colonel. 'The one thing to be dreaded is meeting Russians abroad. That tall gentleman was abusing the doctor, flinging all sorts of insults at him because he wasn't treating him quite as he liked, and he began waving his stick at him. It's simply a scandal! 'Oh, how unpleasant! said the princess. 'Well, and how did it end? 'Luckily at that point that ... the one in the mushroom hat ... intervened. A Russian lady, I think she is, said the colonel. 'Mademoiselle Varenka? asked Kitty. 'Yes, yes. She came to the rescue before anyone she took the man by the arm and led him away. 'There, mamma, said Kitty 'you wonder that I'm enthusiastic about her. The next day, as she watched her unknown friend, Kitty noticed that Mademoiselle Varenka was already on the same terms with Levin and his companion as with her other protgs. She went up to them, entered into conversation with them, and served as interpreter for the woman, who could not speak any foreign language. Kitty began to entreat her mother still more urgently to let her make friends with Varenka. And, disagreeable as it was to the princess to seem to take the first step in wishing to make the acquaintance of Madame Stahl, who thought fit to give herself airs, she made inquiries about Varenka, and, having ascertained particulars about her tending to prove that there could be no harm though little good in the acquaintance, she herself approached Varenka and made acquaintance with her. Choosing a time when her daughter had gone to the spring, while Varenka had stopped outside the baker's, the princess went up to her. 'Allow me to make your acquaintance, she said, with her dignified smile. 'My daughter has lost her heart to you, she said. 'Possibly you do not know me. I am.... 'That feeling is more than reciprocal, princess, Varenka answered hurriedly. 'What a good deed you did yesterday to our poor compatriot! said the princess. Varenka flushed a little. 'I don't remember. I don't think I did anything, she said. 'Why, you saved that Levin from disagreeable consequences. 'Yes, sa compagne called me, and I tried to pacify him, he's very ill, and was dissatisfied with the doctor. I'm used to looking after such invalids. 'Yes, I've heard you live at Mentone with your auntI thinkMadame Stahl I used to know her bellesur. 'No, she's not my aunt. I call her mamma, but I am not related to her I was brought up by her, answered Varenka, flushing a little again. This was so simply said, and so sweet was the truthful and candid expression of her face, that the princess saw why Kitty had taken such a fancy to Varenka. 'Well, and what's this Levin going to do? asked the princess. 'He's going away, answered Varenka. At that instant Kitty came up from the spring beaming with delight that her mother had become acquainted with her unknown friend. 'Well, see, Kitty, your intense desire to make friends with Mademoiselle.... 'Varenka, Varenka put in smiling, 'that's what everyone calls me. Kitty blushed with pleasure, and slowly, without speaking, pressed her new friend's hand, which did not respond to her pressure, but lay motionless in her hand. The hand did not respond to her pressure, but the face of Mademoiselle Varenka glowed with a soft, glad, though rather mournful smile, that showed large but handsome teeth. 'I have long wished for this too, she said. 'But you are so busy. 'Oh, no, I'm not at all busy, answered Varenka, but at that moment she had to leave her new friends because two little Russian girls, children of an invalid, ran up to her. 'Varenka, mamma's calling! they cried. And Varenka went after them. The particulars which the princess had learned in regard to Varenka's past and her relations with Madame Stahl were as follows Madame Stahl, of whom some people said that she had worried her husband out of his life, while others said it was he who had made her wretched by his immoral behavior, had always been a woman of weak health and enthusiastic temperament. When, after her separation from her husband, she gave birth to her only child, the child had died almost immediately, and the family of Madame Stahl, knowing her sensibility, and fearing the news would kill her, had substituted another child, a baby born the same night and in the same house in Petersburg, the daughter of the chief cook of the Imperial Household. This was Varenka. Madame Stahl learned later on that Varenka was not her own child, but she went on bringing her up, especially as very soon afterwards Varenka had not a relation of her own living. Madame Stahl had now been living more than ten years continuously abroad, in the south, never leaving her couch. And some people said that Madame Stahl had made her social position as a philanthropic, highly religious woman other people said she really was at heart the highly ethical being, living for nothing but the good of her fellow creatures, which she represented herself to be. No one knew what her faith wasCatholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. But one fact was indubitableshe was in amicable relations with the highest dignitaries of all the churches and sects. Varenka lived with her all the while abroad, and everyone who knew Madame Stahl knew and liked Mademoiselle Varenka, as everyone called her. Having learned all these facts, the princess found nothing to object to in her daughter's intimacy with Varenka, more especially as Varenka's breeding and education were of the bestshe spoke French and English extremely welland what was of the most weight, brought a message from Madame Stahl expressing her regret that she was prevented by her ill health from making the acquaintance of the princess. After getting to know Varenka, Kitty became more and more fascinated by her friend, and every day she discovered new virtues in her. The princess, hearing that Varenka had a good voice, asked her to come and sing to them in the evening. 'Kitty plays, and we have a piano not a good one, it's true, but you will give us so much pleasure, said the princess with her affected smile, which Kitty disliked particularly just then, because she noticed that Varenka had no inclination to sing. Varenka came, however, in the evening and brought a roll of music with her. The princess had invited Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter and the colonel. Varenka seemed quite unaffected by there being persons present she did not know, and she went directly to the piano. She could not accompany herself, but she could sing music at sight very well. Kitty, who played well, accompanied her. 'You have an extraordinary talent, the princess said to her after Varenka had sung the first song extremely well. Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter expressed their thanks and admiration. 'Look, said the colonel, looking out of the window, 'what an audience has collected to listen to you. There actually was quite a considerable crowd under the windows. 'I am very glad it gives you pleasure, Varenka answered simply. Kitty looked with pride at her friend. She was enchanted by her talent, and her voice, and her face, but most of all by her manner, by the way Varenka obviously thought nothing of her singing and was quite unmoved by their praises. She seemed only to be asking 'Am I to sing again, or is that enough? 'If it had been I, thought Kitty, 'how proud I should have been! How delighted I should have been to see that crowd under the windows! But she's utterly unmoved by it. Her only motive is to avoid refusing and to please mamma. What is there in her? What is it gives her the power to look down on everything, to be calm independently of everything? How I should like to know it and to learn it of her! thought Kitty, gazing into her serene face. The princess asked Varenka to sing again, and Varenka sang another song, also smoothly, distinctly, and well, standing erect at the piano and beating time on it with her thin, darkskinned hand. The next song in the book was an Italian one. Kitty played the opening bars, and looked round at Varenka. 'Let's skip that, said Varenka, flushing a little. Kitty let her eyes rest on Varenka's face, with a look of dismay and inquiry. 'Very well, the next one, she said hurriedly, turning over the pages, and at once feeling that there was something connected with the song. 'No, answered Varenka with a smile, laying her hand on the music, 'no, let's have that one. And she sang it just as quietly, as coolly, and as well as the others. When she had finished, they all thanked her again, and went off to tea. Kitty and Varenka went out into the little garden that adjoined the house. 'Am I right, that you have some reminiscences connected with that song? said Kitty. 'Don't tell me, she added hastily, 'only say if I'm right. 'No, why not? I'll tell you simply, said Varenka, and, without waiting for a reply, she went on 'Yes, it brings up memories, once painful ones. I cared for someone once, and I used to sing him that song. Kitty with big, wideopen eyes gazed silently, sympathetically at Varenka. 'I cared for him, and he cared for me but his mother did not wish it, and he married another girl. He's living now not far from us, and I see him sometimes. You didn't think I had a love story too, she said, and there was a faint gleam in her handsome face of that fire which Kitty felt must once have glowed all over her. 'I didn't think so? Why, if I were a man, I could never care for anyone else after knowing you. Only I can't understand how he could, to please his mother, forget you and make you unhappy he had no heart. 'Oh, no, he's a very good man, and I'm not unhappy quite the contrary, I'm very happy. Well, so we shan't be singing any more now, she added, turning towards the house. 'How good you are! how good you are! cried Kitty, and stopping her, she kissed her. 'If I could only be even a little like you! 'Why should you be like anyone? You're nice as you are, said Varenka, smiling her gentle, weary smile. 'No, I'm not nice at all. Come, tell me.... Stop a minute, let's sit down, said Kitty, making her sit down again beside her. 'Tell me, isn't it humiliating to think that a man has disdained your love, that he hasn't cared for it?... 'But he didn't disdain it I believe he cared for me, but he was a dutiful son.... 'Yes, but if it hadn't been on account of his mother, if it had been his own doing?... said Kitty, feeling she was giving away her secret, and that her face, burning with the flush of shame, had betrayed her already. 'In that case he would have done wrong, and I should not have regretted him, answered Varenka, evidently realizing that they were now talking not of her, but of Kitty. 'But the humiliation, said Kitty, 'the humiliation one can never forget, can never forget, she said, remembering her look at the last ball during the pause in the music. 'Where is the humiliation? Why, you did nothing wrong? 'Worse than wrongshameful. Varenka shook her head and laid her hand on Kitty's hand. 'Why, what is there shameful? she said. 'You didn't tell a man, who didn't care for you, that you loved him, did you? 'Of course not I never said a word, but he knew it. No, no, there are looks, there are ways I can't forget it, if I live a hundred years. 'Why so? I don't understand. The whole point is whether you love him now or not, said Varenka, who called everything by its name. 'I hate him I can't forgive myself. 'Why, what for? 'The shame, the humiliation! 'Oh! if everyone were as sensitive as you are! said Varenka. 'There isn't a girl who hasn't been through the same. And it's all so unimportant. 'Why, what is important? said Kitty, looking into her face with inquisitive wonder. 'Oh, there's so much that's important, said Varenka, smiling. 'Why, what? 'Oh, so much that's more important, answered Varenka, not knowing what to say. But at that instant they heard the princess's voice from the window. 'Kitty, it's cold! Either get a shawl, or come indoors. 'It really is time to go in! said Varenka, getting up. 'I have to go on to Madame Berthe's she asked me to. Kitty held her by the hand, and with passionate curiosity and entreaty her eyes asked her 'What is it, what is this of such importance that gives you such tranquillity? You know, tell me! But Varenka did not even know what Kitty's eyes were asking her. She merely thought that she had to go to see Madame Berthe too that evening, and to make haste home in time for maman's tea at twelve o'clock. She went indoors, collected her music, and saying goodbye to everyone, was about to go. 'Allow me to see you home, said the colonel. 'Yes, how can you go alone at night like this? chimed in the princess. 'Anyway, I'll send Parasha. Kitty saw that Varenka could hardly restrain a smile at the idea that she needed an escort. 'No, I always go about alone and nothing ever happens to me, she said, taking her hat. And kissing Kitty once more, without saying what was important, she stepped out courageously with the music under her arm and vanished into the twilight of the summer night, bearing away with her her secret of what was important and what gave her the calm and dignity so much to be envied. Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and allnight services at the Widow's Home, where one might meet one's friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was told to, which one could love. Kitty found all this out not from words. Madame Stahl talked to Kitty as to a charming child that one looks on with pleasure as on the memory of one's youth, and only once she said in passing that in all human sorrows nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no sorrow is triflingand immediately talked of other things. But in every gesture of Madame Stahl, in every word, in every heavenlyas Kitty called itlook, and above all in the whole story of her life, which she heard from Varenka, Kitty recognized that something 'that was important, of which, till then, she had known nothing. Yet, elevated as Madame Stahl's character was, touching as was her story, and exalted and moving as was her speech, Kitty could not help detecting in her some traits which perplexed her. She noticed that when questioning her about her family, Madame Stahl had smiled contemptuously, which was not in accord with Christian meekness. She noticed, too, that when she had found a Catholic priest with her, Madame Stahl had studiously kept her face in the shadow of the lampshade and had smiled in a peculiar way. Trivial as these two observations were, they perplexed her, and she had her doubts as to Madame Stahl. But on the other hand Varenka, alone in the world, without friends or relations, with a melancholy disappointment in the past, desiring nothing, regretting nothing, was just that perfection of which Kitty dared hardly dream. In Varenka she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble. And that was what Kitty longed to be. Seeing now clearly what was the most important, Kitty was not satisfied with being enthusiastic over it she at once gave herself up with her whole soul to the new life that was opening to her. From Varenka's accounts of the doings of Madame Stahl and other people whom she mentioned, Kitty had already constructed the plan of her own future life. She would, like Madame Stahl's niece, Aline, of whom Varenka had talked to her a great deal, seek out those who were in trouble, wherever she might be living, help them as far as she could, give them the Gospel, read the Gospel to the sick, to criminals, to the dying. The idea of reading the Gospel to criminals, as Aline did, particularly fascinated Kitty. But all these were secret dreams, of which Kitty did not talk either to her mother or to Varenka. While awaiting the time for carrying out her plans on a large scale, however, Kitty, even then at the springs, where there were so many people ill and unhappy, readily found a chance for practicing her new principles in imitation of Varenka. At first the princess noticed nothing but that Kitty was much under the influence of her engouement, as she called it, for Madame Stahl, and still more for Varenka. She saw that Kitty did not merely imitate Varenka in her conduct, but unconsciously imitated her in her manner of walking, of talking, of blinking her eyes. But later on the princess noticed that, apart from this adoration, some kind of serious spiritual change was taking place in her daughter. The princess saw that in the evenings Kitty read a French testament that Madame Stahl had given hera thing she had never done before that she avoided society acquaintances and associated with the sick people who were under Varenka's protection, and especially one poor family, that of a sick painter, Petrov. Kitty was unmistakably proud of playing the part of a sister of mercy in that family. All this was well enough, and the princess had nothing to say against it, especially as Petrov's wife was a perfectly nice sort of woman, and that the German princess, noticing Kitty's devotion, praised her, calling her an angel of consolation. All this would have been very well, if there had been no exaggeration. But the princess saw that her daughter was rushing into extremes, and so indeed she told her. 'Il ne faut jamais rien outrer, she said to her. Her daughter made her no reply, only in her heart she thought that one could not talk about exaggeration where Christianity was concerned. What exaggeration could there be in the practice of a doctrine wherein one was bidden to turn the other cheek when one was smitten, and give one's cloak if one's coat were taken? But the princess disliked this exaggeration, and disliked even more the fact that she felt her daughter did not care to show her all her heart. Kitty did in fact conceal her new views and feelings from her mother. She concealed them not because she did not respect or did not love her mother, but simply because she was her mother. She would have revealed them to anyone sooner than to her mother. 'How is it Anna Pavlovna's not been to see us for so long? the princess said one day of Madame Petrova. 'I've asked her, but she seems put out about something. 'No, I've not noticed it, maman, said Kitty, flushing hotly. 'Is it long since you went to see them? 'We're meaning to make an expedition to the mountains tomorrow, answered Kitty. 'Well, you can go, answered the princess, gazing at her daughter's embarrassed face and trying to guess the cause of her embarrassment. That day Varenka came to dinner and told them that Anna Pavlovna had changed her mind and given up the expedition for the morrow. And the princess noticed again that Kitty reddened. 'Kitty, haven't you had some misunderstanding with the Petrovs? said the princess, when they were left alone. 'Why has she given up sending the children and coming to see us? Kitty answered that nothing had happened between them, and that she could not tell why Anna Pavlovna seemed displeased with her. Kitty answered perfectly truly. She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna had changed to her, but she guessed it. She guessed at something which she could not tell her mother, which she did not put into words to herself. It was one of those things which one knows but which one can never speak of even to oneself, so terrible and shameful would it be to be mistaken. Again and again she went over in her memory all her relations with the family. She remembered the simple delight expressed on the round, goodhumored face of Anna Pavlovna at their meetings she remembered their secret confabulations about the invalid, their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden him, and to get him outofdoors the devotion of the youngest boy, who used to call her 'my Kitty, and would not go to bed without her. How nice it all was! Then she recalled the thin, terribly thin figure of Petrov, with his long neck, in his brown coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were so terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem hearty and lively in her presence. She recalled the efforts she had made at first to overcome the repugnance she felt for him, as for all consumptive people, and the pains it had cost her to think of things to say to him. She recalled the timid, softened look with which he gazed at her, and the strange feeling of compassion and awkwardness, and later of a sense of her own goodness, which she had felt at it. How nice it all was! But all that was at first. Now, a few days ago, everything was suddenly spoiled. Anna Pavlovna had met Kitty with affected cordiality, and had kept continual watch on her and on her husband. Could that touching pleasure he showed when she came near be the cause of Anna Pavlovna's coolness? 'Yes, she mused, 'there was something unnatural about Anna Pavlovna, and utterly unlike her good nature, when she said angrily the day before yesterday 'There, he will keep waiting for you he wouldn't drink his coffee without you, though he's grown so dreadfully weak.' 'Yes, perhaps, too, she didn't like it when I gave him the rug. It was all so simple, but he took it so awkwardly, and was so long thanking me, that I felt awkward too. And then that portrait of me he did so well. And most of all that look of confusion and tenderness! Yes, yes, that's it! Kitty repeated to herself with horror. 'No, it can't be, it oughtn't to be! He's so much to be pitied! she said to herself directly after. This doubt poisoned the charm of her new life. Before the end of the course of drinking the waters, Prince Shtcherbatsky, who had gone on from Carlsbad to Baden and Kissingen to Russian friendsto get a breath of Russian air, as he saidcame back to his wife and daughter. The views of the prince and of the princess on life abroad were completely opposed. The princess thought everything delightful, and in spite of her established position in Russian society, she tried abroad to be like a European fashionable lady, which she was notfor the simple reason that she was a typical Russian gentlewoman and so she was affected, which did not altogether suit her. The prince, on the contrary, thought everything foreign detestable, got sick of European life, kept to his Russian habits, and purposely tried to show himself abroad less European than he was in reality. The prince returned thinner, with the skin hanging in loose bags on his cheeks, but in the most cheerful frame of mind. His good humor was even greater when he saw Kitty completely recovered. The news of Kitty's friendship with Madame Stahl and Varenka, and the reports the princess gave him of some kind of change she had noticed in Kitty, troubled the prince and aroused his habitual feeling of jealousy of everything that drew his daughter away from him, and a dread that his daughter might have got out of the reach of his influence into regions inaccessible to him. But these unpleasant matters were all drowned in the sea of kindliness and good humor which was always within him, and more so than ever since his course of Carlsbad waters. The day after his arrival the prince, in his long overcoat, with his Russian wrinkles and baggy cheeks propped up by a starched collar, set off with his daughter to the spring in the greatest good humor. It was a lovely morning the bright, cheerful houses with their little gardens, the sight of the redfaced, redarmed, beerdrinking German waitresses, working away merrily, did the heart good. But the nearer they got to the springs the oftener they met sick people and their appearance seemed more pitiable than ever among the everyday conditions of prosperous German life. Kitty was no longer struck by this contrast. The bright sun, the brilliant green of the foliage, the strains of the music were for her the natural setting of all these familiar faces, with their changes to greater emaciation or to convalescence, for which she watched. But to the prince the brightness and gaiety of the June morning, and the sound of the orchestra playing a gay waltz then in fashion, and above all, the appearance of the healthy attendants, seemed something unseemly and monstrous, in conjunction with these slowly moving, dying figures gathered together from all parts of Europe. In spite of his feeling of pride and, as it were, of the return of youth, with his favorite daughter on his arm, he felt awkward, and almost ashamed of his vigorous step and his sturdy, stout limbs. He felt almost like a man not dressed in a crowd. 'Present me to your new friends, he said to his daughter, squeezing her hand with his elbow. 'I like even your horrid Soden for making you so well again. Only it's melancholy, very melancholy here. Who's that? Kitty mentioned the names of all the people they met, with some of whom she was acquainted and some not. At the entrance of the garden they met the blind lady, Madame Berthe, with her guide, and the prince was delighted to see the old Frenchwoman's face light up when she heard Kitty's voice. She at once began talking to him with French exaggerated politeness, applauding him for having such a delightful daughter, extolling Kitty to the skies before her face, and calling her a treasure, a pearl, and a consoling angel. 'Well, she's the second angel, then, said the prince, smiling. 'she calls Mademoiselle Varenka angel number one. 'Oh! Mademoiselle Varenka, she's a real angel, allez, Madame Berthe assented. In the arcade they met Varenka herself. She was walking rapidly towards them carrying an elegant red bag. 'Here is papa come, Kitty said to her. Varenka madesimply and naturally as she did everythinga movement between a bow and a curtsey, and immediately began talking to the prince, without shyness, naturally, as she talked to everyone. 'Of course I know you I know you very well, the prince said to her with a smile, in which Kitty detected with joy that her father liked her friend. 'Where are you off to in such haste? 'Maman's here, she said, turning to Kitty. 'She has not slept all night, and the doctor advised her to go out. I'm taking her her work. 'So that's angel number one? said the prince when Varenka had gone on. Kitty saw that her father had meant to make fun of Varenka, but that he could not do it because he liked her. 'Come, so we shall see all your friends, he went on, 'even Madame Stahl, if she deigns to recognize me. 'Why, did you know her, papa? Kitty asked apprehensively, catching the gleam of irony that kindled in the prince's eyes at the mention of Madame Stahl. 'I used to know her husband, and her too a little, before she'd joined the Pietists. 'What is a Pietist, papa? asked Kitty, dismayed to find that what she prized so highly in Madame Stahl had a name. 'I don't quite know myself. I only know that she thanks God for everything, for every misfortune, and thanks God too that her husband died. And that's rather droll, as they didn't get on together. 'Who's that? What a piteous face! he asked, noticing a sick man of medium height sitting on a bench, wearing a brown overcoat and white trousers that fell in strange folds about his long, fleshless legs. This man lifted his straw hat, showed his scanty curly hair and high forehead, painfully reddened by the pressure of the hat. 'That's Petrov, an artist, answered Kitty, blushing. 'And that's his wife, she added, indicating Anna Pavlovna, who, as though on purpose, at the very instant they approached walked away after a child that had run off along a path. 'Poor fellow! and what a nice face he has! said the prince. 'Why don't you go up to him? He wanted to speak to you. 'Well, let us go, then, said Kitty, turning round resolutely. 'How are you feeling today? she asked Petrov. Petrov got up, leaning on his stick, and looked shyly at the prince. 'This is my daughter, said the prince. 'Let me introduce myself. The painter bowed and smiled, showing his strangely dazzling white teeth. 'We expected you yesterday, princess, he said to Kitty. He staggered as he said this, and then repeated the motion, trying to make it seem as if it had been intentional. 'I meant to come, but Varenka said that Anna Pavlovna sent word you were not going. 'Not going! said Petrov, blushing, and immediately beginning to cough, and his eyes sought his wife. 'Anita! Anita! he said loudly, and the swollen veins stood out like cords on his thin white neck. Anna Pavlovna came up. 'So you sent word to the princess that we weren't going! he whispered to her angrily, losing his voice. 'Good morning, princess, said Anna Pavlovna, with an assumed smile utterly unlike her former manner. 'Very glad to make your acquaintance, she said to the prince. 'You've long been expected, prince. 'What did you send word to the princess that we weren't going for? the artist whispered hoarsely once more, still more angrily, obviously exasperated that his voice failed him so that he could not give his words the expression he would have liked to. 'Oh, mercy on us! I thought we weren't going, his wife answered crossly. 'What, when.... He coughed and waved his hand. The prince took off his hat and moved away with his daughter. 'Ah! ah! he sighed deeply. 'Oh, poor things! 'Yes, papa, answered Kitty. 'And you must know they've three children, no servant, and scarcely any means. He gets something from the Academy, she went on briskly, trying to drown the distress that the queer change in Anna Pavlovna's manner to her had aroused in her. 'Oh, here's Madame Stahl, said Kitty, indicating an invalid carriage, where, propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying under a sunshade. This was Madame Stahl. Behind her stood the gloomy, healthylooking German workman who pushed the carriage. Close by was standing a flaxenheaded Swedish count, whom Kitty knew by name. Several invalids were lingering near the low carriage, staring at the lady as though she were some curiosity. The prince went up to her, and Kitty detected that disconcerting gleam of irony in his eyes. He went up to Madame Stahl, and addressed her with extreme courtesy and affability in that excellent French that so few speak nowadays. 'I don't know if you remember me, but I must recall myself to thank you for your kindness to my daughter, he said, taking off his hat and not putting it on again. 'Prince Alexander Shtcherbatsky, said Madame Stahl, lifting upon him her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty discerned a look of annoyance. 'Delighted! I have taken a great fancy to your daughter. 'You are still in weak health? 'Yes I'm used to it, said Madame Stahl, and she introduced the prince to the Swedish count. 'You are scarcely changed at all, the prince said to her. 'It's ten or eleven years since I had the honor of seeing you. 'Yes God sends the cross and sends the strength to bear it. Often one wonders what is the goal of this life?... The other side! she said angrily to Varenka, who had rearranged the rug over her feet not to her satisfaction. 'To do good, probably, said the prince with a twinkle in his eye. 'That is not for us to judge, said Madame Stahl, perceiving the shade of expression on the prince's face. 'So you will send me that book, dear count? I'm very grateful to you, she said to the young Swede. 'Ah! cried the prince, catching sight of the Moscow colonel standing near, and with a bow to Madame Stahl he walked away with his daughter and the Moscow colonel, who joined them. 'That's our aristocracy, prince! the Moscow colonel said with ironical intention. He cherished a grudge against Madame Stahl for not making his acquaintance. 'She's just the same, replied the prince. 'Did you know her before her illness, princethat's to say before she took to her bed? 'Yes. She took to her bed before my eyes, said the prince. 'They say it's ten years since she has stood on her feet. 'She doesn't stand up because her legs are too short. She's a very bad figure. 'Papa, it's not possible! cried Kitty. 'That's what wicked tongues say, my darling. And your Varenka catches it too, he added. 'Oh, these invalid ladies! 'Oh, no, papa! Kitty objected warmly. 'Varenka worships her. And then she does so much good! Ask anyone! Everyone knows her and Aline Stahl. 'Perhaps so, said the prince, squeezing her hand with his elbow 'but it's better when one does good so that you may ask everyone and no one knows. Kitty did not answer, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not care to reveal her secret thoughts even to her father. But, strange to say, although she had so made up her mind not to be influenced by her father's views, not to let him into her inmost sanctuary, she felt that the heavenly image of Madame Stahl, which she had carried for a whole month in her heart, had vanished, never to return, just as the fantastic figure made up of some clothes thrown down at random vanishes when one sees that it is only some garment lying there. All that was left was a woman with short legs, who lay down because she had a bad figure, and worried patient Varenka for not arranging her rug to her liking. And by no effort of the imagination could Kitty bring back the former Madame Stahl. The prince communicated his good humor to his own family and his friends, and even to the German landlord in whose rooms the Shtcherbatskys were staying. On coming back with Kitty from the springs, the prince, who had asked the colonel, and Marya Yevgenyevna, and Varenka all to come and have coffee with them, gave orders for a table and chairs to be taken into the garden under the chestnut tree, and lunch to be laid there. The landlord and the servants, too, grew brisker under the influence of his good spirits. They knew his openhandedness and half an hour later the invalid doctor from Hamburg, who lived on the top floor, looked enviously out of the window at the merry party of healthy Russians assembled under the chestnut tree. In the trembling circles of shadow cast by the leaves, at a table, covered with a white cloth, and set with coffeepot, breadandbutter, cheese, and cold game, sat the princess in a high cap with lilac ribbons, distributing cups and breadandbutter. At the other end sat the prince, eating heartily, and talking loudly and merrily. The prince had spread out near him his purchases, carved boxes, and knickknacks, paperknives of all sorts, of which he bought a heap at every wateringplace, and bestowed them upon everyone, including Lieschen, the servant girl, and the landlord, with whom he jested in his comically bad German, assuring him that it was not the water had cured Kitty, but his splendid cookery, especially his plum soup. The princess laughed at her husband for his Russian ways, but she was more lively and goodhumored than she had been all the while she had been at the waters. The colonel smiled, as he always did, at the prince's jokes, but as far as regards Europe, of which he believed himself to be making a careful study, he took the princess's side. The simplehearted Marya Yevgenyevna simply roared with laughter at everything absurd the prince said, and his jokes made Varenka helpless with feeble but infectious laughter, which was something Kitty had never seen before. Kitty was glad of all this, but she could not be lighthearted. She could not solve the problem her father had unconsciously set her by his goodhumored view of her friends, and of the life that had so attracted her. To this doubt there was joined the change in her relations with the Petrovs, which had been so conspicuously and unpleasantly marked that morning. Everyone was goodhumored, but Kitty could not feel goodhumored, and this increased her distress. She felt a feeling such as she had known in childhood, when she had been shut in her room as a punishment, and had heard her sisters' merry laughter outside. 'Well, but what did you buy this mass of things for? said the princess, smiling, and handing her husband a cup of coffee. 'One goes for a walk, one looks in a shop, and they ask you to buy. 'Erlaucht, Durchlaucht?' Directly they say 'Durchlaucht,' I can't hold out. I lose ten thalers. 'It's simply from boredom, said the princess. 'Of course it is. Such boredom, my dear, that one doesn't know what to do with oneself. 'How can you be bored, prince? There's so much that's interesting now in Germany, said Marya Yevgenyevna. 'But I know everything that's interesting the plum soup I know, and the pea sausages I know. I know everything. 'No, you may say what you like, prince, there's the interest of their institutions, said the colonel. 'But what is there interesting about it? They're all as pleased as brass halfpence. They've conquered everybody, and why am I to be pleased at that? I haven't conquered anyone and I'm obliged to take off my own boots, yes, and put them away too in the morning, get up and dress at once, and go to the diningroom to drink bad tea! How different it is at home! You get up in no haste, you get cross, grumble a little, and come round again. You've time to think things over, and no hurry. 'But time's money, you forget that, said the colonel. 'Time, indeed, that depends! Why, there's time one would give a month of for sixpence, and time you wouldn't give half an hour of for any money. Isn't that so, Katinka? What is it? why are you so depressed? 'I'm not depressed. 'Where are you off to? Stay a little longer, he said to Varenka. 'I must be going home, said Varenka, getting up, and again she went off into a giggle. When she had recovered, she said goodbye, and went into the house to get her hat. Kitty followed her. Even Varenka struck her as different. She was not worse, but different from what she had fancied her before. 'Oh, dear! it's a long while since I've laughed so much! said Varenka, gathering up her parasol and her bag. 'How nice he is, your father! Kitty did not speak. 'When shall I see you again? asked Varenka. 'Mamma meant to go and see the Petrovs. Won't you be there? said Kitty, to try Varenka. 'Yes, answered Varenka. 'They're getting ready to go away, so I promised to help them pack. 'Well, I'll come too, then. 'No, why should you? 'Why not? why not? why not? said Kitty, opening her eyes wide, and clutching at Varenka's parasol, so as not to let her go. 'No, wait a minute why not? 'Oh, nothing your father has come, and besides, they will feel awkward at your helping. 'No, tell me why you don't want me to be often at the Petrovs'. You don't want me towhy not? 'I didn't say that, said Varenka quietly. 'No, please tell me! 'Tell you everything? asked Varenka. 'Everything, everything! Kitty assented. 'Well, there's really nothing of any consequence only that Mihail Alexeyevitch (that was the artist's name) 'had meant to leave earlier, and now he doesn't want to go away, said Varenka, smiling. 'Well, well! Kitty urged impatiently, looking darkly at Varenka. 'Well, and for some reason Anna Pavlovna told him that he didn't want to go because you are here. Of course, that was nonsense but there was a dispute over itover you. You know how irritable these sick people are. Kitty, scowling more than ever, kept silent, and Varenka went on speaking alone, trying to soften or soothe her, and seeing a storm comingshe did not know whether of tears or of words. 'So you'd better not go.... You understand you won't be offended?... 'And it serves me right! And it serves me right! Kitty cried quickly, snatching the parasol out of Varenka's hand, and looking past her friend's face. Varenka felt inclined to smile, looking at her childish fury, but she was afraid of wounding her. 'How does it serve you right? I don't understand, she said. 'It serves me right, because it was all sham because it was all done on purpose, and not from the heart. What business had I to interfere with outsiders? And so it's come about that I'm a cause of quarrel, and that I've done what nobody asked me to do. Because it was all a sham! a sham! a sham!... 'A sham! with what object? said Varenka gently. 'Oh, it's so idiotic! so hateful! There was no need whatever for me.... Nothing but sham! she said, opening and shutting the parasol. 'But with what object? 'To seem better to people, to myself, to God to deceive everyone. No! now I won't descend to that. I'll be bad but anyway not a liar, a cheat. 'But who is a cheat? said Varenka reproachfully. 'You speak as if.... But Kitty was in one of her gusts of fury, and she would not let her finish. 'I don't talk about you, not about you at all. You're perfection. Yes, yes, I know you're all perfection but what am I to do if I'm bad? This would never have been if I weren't bad. So let me be what I am. I won't be a sham. What have I to do with Anna Pavlovna? Let them go their way, and me go mine. I can't be different.... And yet it's not that, it's not that. 'What is not that? asked Varenka in bewilderment. 'Everything. I can't act except from the heart, and you act from principle. I liked you simply, but you most likely only wanted to save me, to improve me. 'You are unjust, said Varenka. 'But I'm not speaking of other people, I'm speaking of myself. 'Kitty, they heard her mother's voice, 'come here, show papa your necklace. Kitty, with a haughty air, without making peace with her friend, took the necklace in a little box from the table and went to her mother. 'What's the matter? Why are you so red? her mother and father said to her with one voice. 'Nothing, she answered. 'I'll be back directly, and she ran back. 'She's still here, she thought. 'What am I to say to her? Oh, dear! what have I done, what have I said? Why was I rude to her? What am I to do? What am I to say to her? thought Kitty, and she stopped in the doorway. Varenka in her hat and with the parasol in her hands was sitting at the table examining the spring which Kitty had broken. She lifted her head. 'Varenka, forgive me, do forgive me, whispered Kitty, going up to her. 'I don't remember what I said. I.... 'I really didn't mean to hurt you, said Varenka, smiling. Peace was made. But with her father's coming all the world in which she had been living was transformed for Kitty. She did not give up everything she had learned, but she became aware that she had deceived herself in supposing she could be what she wanted to be. Her eyes were, it seemed, opened she felt all the difficulty of maintaining herself without hypocrisy and selfconceit on the pinnacle to which she had wished to mount. Moreover, she became aware of all the dreariness of the world of sorrow, of sick and dying people, in which she had been living. The efforts she had made to like it seemed to her intolerable, and she felt a longing to get back quickly into the fresh air, to Russia, to Ergushovo, where, as she knew from letters, her sister Dolly had already gone with her children. But her affection for Varenka did not wane. As she said goodbye, Kitty begged her to come to them in Russia. 'I'll come when you get married, said Varenka. 'I shall never marry. 'Well, then, I shall never come. 'Well, then, I shall be married simply for that. Mind now, remember your promise, said Kitty. The doctor's prediction was fulfilled. Kitty returned home to Russia cured. She was not so gay and thoughtless as before, but she was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her. Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev wanted a rest from mental work, and instead of going abroad as he usually did, he came towards the end of May to stay in the country with his brother. In his judgment the best sort of life was a country life. He had come now to enjoy such a life at his brother's. Konstantin Levin was very glad to have him, especially as he did not expect his brother Nikolay that summer. But in spite of his affection and respect for Sergey Ivanovitch, Konstantin Levin was uncomfortable with his brother in the country. It made him uncomfortable, and it positively annoyed him to see his brother's attitude to the country. To Konstantin Levin the country was the background of life, that is of pleasures, endeavors, labor. To Sergey Ivanovitch the country meant on one hand rest from work, on the other a valuable antidote to the corrupt influences of town, which he took with satisfaction and a sense of its utility. To Konstantin Levin the country was good first because it afforded a field for labor, of the usefulness of which there could be no doubt. To Sergey Ivanovitch the country was particularly good, because there it was possible and fitting to do nothing. Moreover, Sergey Ivanovitch's attitude to the peasants rather piqued Konstantin. Sergey Ivanovitch used to say that he knew and liked the peasantry, and he often talked to the peasants, which he knew how to do without affectation or condescension, and from every such conversation he would deduce general conclusions in favor of the peasantry and in confirmation of his knowing them. Konstantin Levin did not like such an attitude to the peasants. To Konstantin the peasant was simply the chief partner in their common labor, and in spite of all the respect and the love, almost like that of kinship, he had for the peasantsucked in probably, as he said himself, with the milk of his peasant nursestill as a fellowworker with him, while sometimes enthusiastic over the vigor, gentleness, and justice of these men, he was very often, when their common labors called for other qualities, exasperated with the peasant for his carelessness, lack of method, drunkenness, and lying. If he had been asked whether he liked or didn't like the peasants, Konstantin Levin would have been absolutely at a loss what to reply. He liked and did not like the peasants, just as he liked and did not like men in general. Of course, being a goodhearted man, he liked men rather than he disliked them, and so too with the peasants. But like or dislike 'the people as something apart he could not, not only because he lived with 'the people, and all his interests were bound up with theirs, but also because he regarded himself as a part of 'the people, did not see any special qualities or failings distinguishing himself and 'the people, and could not contrast himself with them. Moreover, although he had lived so long in the closest relations with the peasants, as farmer and arbitrator, and what was more, as adviser (the peasants trusted him, and for thirty miles round they would come to ask his advice), he had no definite views of 'the people, and would have been as much at a loss to answer the question whether he knew 'the people as the question whether he liked them. For him to say he knew the peasantry would have been the same as to say he knew men. He was continually watching and getting to know people of all sorts, and among them peasants, whom he regarded as good and interesting people, and he was continually observing new points in them, altering his former views of them and forming new ones. With Sergey Ivanovitch it was quite the contrary. Just as he liked and praised a country life in comparison with the life he did not like, so too he liked the peasantry in contradistinction to the class of men he did not like, and so too he knew the peasantry as something distinct from and opposed to men generally. In his methodical brain there were distinctly formulated certain aspects of peasant life, deduced partly from that life itself, but chiefly from contrast with other modes of life. He never changed his opinion of the peasantry and his sympathetic attitude towards them. In the discussions that arose between the brothers on their views of the peasantry, Sergey Ivanovitch always got the better of his brother, precisely because Sergey Ivanovitch had definite ideas about the peasanthis character, his qualities, and his tastes. Konstantin Levin had no definite and unalterable idea on the subject, and so in their arguments Konstantin was readily convicted of contradicting himself. In Sergey Ivanovitch's eyes his younger brother was a capital fellow, with his heart in the right place (as he expressed it in French), but with a mind which, though fairly quick, was too much influenced by the impressions of the moment, and consequently filled with contradictions. With all the condescension of an elder brother he sometimes explained to him the true import of things, but he derived little satisfaction from arguing with him because he got the better of him too easily. Konstantin Levin regarded his brother as a man of immense intellect and culture, as generous in the highest sense of the word, and possessed of a special faculty for working for the public good. But in the depths of his heart, the older he became, and the more intimately he knew his brother, the more and more frequently the thought struck him that this faculty of working for the public good, of which he felt himself utterly devoid, was possibly not so much a quality as a lack of somethingnot a lack of good, honest, noble desires and tastes, but a lack of vital force, of what is called heart, of that impulse which drives a man to choose someone out of the innumerable paths of life, and to care only for that one. The better he knew his brother, the more he noticed that Sergey Ivanovitch, and many other people who worked for the public welfare, were not led by an impulse of the heart to care for the public good, but reasoned from intellectual considerations that it was a right thing to take interest in public affairs, and consequently took interest in them. Levin was confirmed in this generalization by observing that his brother did not take questions affecting the public welfare or the question of the immortality of the soul a bit more to heart than he did chess problems, or the ingenious construction of a new machine. Besides this, Konstantin Levin was not at his ease with his brother, because in summer in the country Levin was continually busy with work on the land, and the long summer day was not long enough for him to get through all he had to do, while Sergey Ivanovitch was taking a holiday. But though he was taking a holiday now, that is to say, he was doing no writing, he was so used to intellectual activity that he liked to put into concise and eloquent shape the ideas that occurred to him, and liked to have someone to listen to him. His most usual and natural listener was his brother. And so in spite of the friendliness and directness of their relations, Konstantin felt an awkwardness in leaving him alone. Sergey Ivanovitch liked to stretch himself on the grass in the sun, and to lie so, basking and chatting lazily. 'You wouldn't believe, he would say to his brother, 'what a pleasure this rural laziness is to me. Not an idea in one's brain, as empty as a drum! But Konstantin Levin found it dull sitting and listening to him, especially when he knew that while he was away they would be carting dung onto the fields not ploughed ready for it, and heaping it all up anyhow and would not screw the shares in the ploughs, but would let them come off and then say that the new ploughs were a silly invention, and there was nothing like the old Andreevna plough, and so on. 'Come, you've done enough trudging about in the heat, Sergey Ivanovitch would say to him. 'No, I must just run round to the countinghouse for a minute, Levin would answer, and he would run off to the fields. Early in June it happened that Agafea Mihalovna, the old nurse and housekeeper, in carrying to the cellar a jar of mushrooms she had just pickled, slipped, fell, and sprained her wrist. The district doctor, a talkative young medical student, who had just finished his studies, came to see her. He examined the wrist, said it was not broken, was delighted at a chance of talking to the celebrated Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev, and to show his advanced views of things told him all the scandal of the district, complaining of the poor state into which the district council had fallen. Sergey Ivanovitch listened attentively, asked him questions, and, roused by a new listener, he talked fluently, uttered a few keen and weighty observations, respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and was soon in that eager frame of mind his brother knew so well, which always, with him, followed a brilliant and eager conversation. After the departure of the doctor, he wanted to go with a fishing rod to the river. Sergey Ivanovitch was fond of angling, and was, it seemed, proud of being able to care for such a stupid occupation. Konstantin Levin, whose presence was needed in the plough land and meadows, had come to take his brother in the trap. It was that time of the year, the turningpoint of summer, when the crops of the present year are a certainty, when one begins to think of the sowing for next year, and the mowing is at hand when the rye is all in ear, though its ears are still light, not yet full, and it waves in graygreen billows in the wind when the green oats, with tufts of yellow grass scattered here and there among it, droop irregularly over the latesown fields when the early buckwheat is already out and hiding the ground when the fallow lands, trodden hard as stone by the cattle, are half ploughed over, with paths left untouched by the plough when from the dry dungheaps carted onto the fields there comes at sunset a smell of manure mixed with meadowsweet, and on the lowlying lands the riverside meadows are a thick sea of grass waiting for the mowing, with blackened heaps of the stalks of sorrel among it. It was the time when there comes a brief pause in the toil of the fields before the beginning of the labors of harvestevery year recurring, every year straining every nerve of the peasants. The crop was a splendid one, and bright, hot summer days had set in with short, dewy nights. The brothers had to drive through the woods to reach the meadows. Sergey Ivanovitch was all the while admiring the beauty of the woods, which were a tangled mass of leaves, pointing out to his brother now an old lime tree on the point of flowering, dark on the shady side, and brightly spotted with yellow stipules, now the young shoots of this year's saplings brilliant with emerald. Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw. He assented to what his brother said, but he could not help beginning to think of other things. When they came out of the woods, all his attention was engrossed by the view of the fallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts trampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges of dung, and in parts even ploughed. A string of carts was moving across it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased that all that were wanted had been brought, and at the sight of the meadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always felt something special moving him to the quick at the haymaking. On reaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse. The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of the grass, and that he might not get his feet wet, Sergey Ivanovitch asked his brother to drive him in the trap up to the willow tree from which the carp was caught. Sorry as Konstantin Levin was to crush down his mowing grass, he drove him into the meadow. The high grass softly turned about the wheels and the horse's legs, leaving its seeds clinging to the wet axles and spokes of the wheels. His brother seated himself under a bush, arranging his tackle, while Levin led the horse away, fastened him up, and walked into the vast graygreen sea of grass unstirred by the wind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds came almost to his waist in the dampest spots. Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out onto the road, and met an old man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on his shoulder. 'What? taken a stray swarm, Fomitch? he asked. 'No, indeed, Konstantin Dmitrich! All we can do to keep our own! This is the second swarm that has flown away.... Luckily the lads caught them. They were ploughing your field. They unyoked the horses and galloped after them. 'Well, what do you say, Fomitchstart mowing or wait a bit? 'Eh, well. Our way's to wait till St. Peter's Day. But you always mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God, the hay's good. There'll be plenty for the beasts. 'What do you think about the weather? 'That's in God's hands. Maybe it will be fine. Levin went up to his brother. Sergey Ivanovitch had caught nothing, but he was not bored, and seemed in the most cheerful frame of mind. Levin saw that, stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted to talk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get home as soon as possible to give orders about getting together the mowers for next day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing, which greatly absorbed him. 'Well, let's be going, he said. 'Why be in such a hurry? Let's stay a little. But how wet you are! Even though one catches nothing, it's nice. That's the best thing about every part of sport, that one has to do with nature. How exquisite this steely water is! said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'These riverside banks always remind me of the riddledo you know it? 'The grass says to the water we quiver and we quiver.' 'I don't know the riddle, answered Levin wearily. 'Do you know, I've been thinking about you, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'It's beyond everything what's being done in the district, according to what this doctor tells me. He's a very intelligent fellow. And as I've told you before, I tell you again it's not right for you not to go to the meetings, and altogether to keep out of the district business. If decent people won't go into it, of course it's bound to go all wrong. We pay the money, and it all goes in salaries, and there are no schools, nor district nurses, nor midwives, nor drugstoresnothing. 'Well, I did try, you know, Levin said slowly and unwillingly. 'I can't! and so there's no help for it. 'But why can't you? I must own I can't make it out. Indifference, incapacityI won't admit surely it's not simply laziness? 'None of those things. I've tried, and I see I can do nothing, said Levin. He had hardly grasped what his brother was saying. Looking towards the plough land across the river, he made out something black, but he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the bailiff on horseback. 'Why is it you can do nothing? You made an attempt and didn't succeed, as you think, and you give in. How can you have so little selfrespect? 'Selfrespect! said Levin, stung to the quick by his brother's words 'I don't understand. If they'd told me at college that other people understood the integral calculus, and I didn't, then pride would have come in. But in this case one wants first to be convinced that one has certain qualifications for this sort of business, and especially that all this business is of great importance. 'What! do you mean to say it's not of importance? said Sergey Ivanovitch, stung to the quick too at his brother's considering anything of no importance that interested him, and still more at his obviously paying little attention to what he was saying. 'I don't think it important it does not take hold of me, I can't help it, answered Levin, making out that what he saw was the bailiff, and that the bailiff seemed to be letting the peasants go off the ploughed land. They were turning the plough over. 'Can they have finished ploughing? he wondered. 'Come, really though, said the elder brother, with a frown on his handsome, clever face, 'there's a limit to everything. It's very well to be original and genuine, and to dislike everything conventionalI know all about that but really, what you're saying either has no meaning, or it has a very wrong meaning. How can you think it a matter of no importance whether the peasant, whom you love as you assert.... 'I never did assert it, thought Konstantin Levin. '...dies without help? The ignorant peasantwomen starve the children, and the people stagnate in darkness, and are helpless in the hands of every village clerk, while you have at your disposal a means of helping them, and don't help them because to your mind it's of no importance. And Sergey Ivanovitch put before him the alternative either you are so undeveloped that you can't see all that you can do, or you won't sacrifice your ease, your vanity, or whatever it is, to do it. Konstantin Levin felt that there was no course open to him but to submit, or to confess to a lack of zeal for the public good. And this mortified him and hurt his feelings. 'It's both, he said resolutely 'I don't see that it was possible.... 'What! was it impossible, if the money were properly laid out, to provide medical aid? 'Impossible, as it seems to me.... For the three thousand square miles of our district, what with our thaws, and the storms, and the work in the fields, I don't see how it is possible to provide medical aid all over. And besides, I don't believe in medicine. 'Oh, well, that's unfair ... I can quote to you thousands of instances.... But the schools, anyway. 'Why have schools? 'What do you mean? Can there be two opinions of the advantage of education? If it's a good thing for you, it's a good thing for everyone. Konstantin Levin felt himself morally pinned against a wall, and so he got hot, and unconsciously blurted out the chief cause of his indifference to public business. 'Perhaps it may all be very good but why should I worry myself about establishing dispensaries which I shall never make use of, and schools to which I shall never send my children, to which even the peasants don't want to send their children, and to which I've no very firm faith that they ought to send them? said he. Sergey Ivanovitch was for a minute surprised at this unexpected view of the subject but he promptly made a new plan of attack. He was silent for a little, drew out a hook, threw it in again, and turned to his brother smiling. 'Come, now.... In the first place, the dispensary is needed. We ourselves sent for the district doctor for Agafea Mihalovna. 'Oh, well, but I fancy her wrist will never be straight again. 'That remains to be proved.... Next, the peasant who can read and write is as a workman of more use and value to you. 'No, you can ask anyone you like, Konstantin Levin answered with decision, 'the man that can read and write is much inferior as a workman. And mending the highroads is an impossibility and as soon as they put up bridges they're stolen. 'Still, that's not the point, said Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning. He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply. 'Do you admit that education is a benefit for the people? 'Yes, I admit it, said Levin without thinking, and he was conscious immediately that he had said what he did not think. He felt that if he admitted that, it would be proved that he had been talking meaningless rubbish. How it would be proved he could not tell, but he knew that this would inevitably be logically proved to him, and he awaited the proofs. The argument turned out to be far simpler than he had expected. 'If you admit that it is a benefit, said Sergey Ivanovitch, 'then, as an honest man, you cannot help caring about it and sympathizing with the movement, and so wishing to work for it. 'But I still do not admit this movement to be just, said Konstantin Levin, reddening a little. 'What! But you said just now.... 'That's to say, I don't admit it's being either good or possible. 'That you can't tell without making the trial. 'Well, supposing that's so, said Levin, though he did not suppose so at all, 'supposing that is so, still I don't see, all the same, what I'm to worry myself about it for. 'How so? 'No since we are talking, explain it to me from the philosophical point of view, said Levin. 'I can't see where philosophy comes in, said Sergey Ivanovitch, in a tone, Levin fancied, as though he did not admit his brother's right to talk about philosophy. And that irritated Levin. 'I'll tell you, then, he said with heat, 'I imagine the mainspring of all our actions is, after all, selfinterest. Now in the local institutions I, as a nobleman, see nothing that could conduce to my prosperity, and the roads are not better and could not be better my horses carry me well enough over bad ones. Doctors and dispensaries are no use to me. An arbitrator of disputes is no use to me. I never appeal to him, and never shall appeal to him. The schools are no good to me, but positively harmful, as I told you. For me the district institutions simply mean the liability to pay fourpence halfpenny for every three acres, to drive into the town, sleep with bugs, and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness, and selfinterest offers me no inducement. 'Excuse me, Sergey Ivanovitch interposed with a smile, 'selfinterest did not induce us to work for the emancipation of the serfs, but we did work for it. 'No! Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat 'the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter. There selfinterest did come in. One longed to throw off that yoke that crushed us, all decent people among us. But to be a town councilor and discuss how many dustmen are needed, and how chimneys shall be constructed in the town in which I don't liveto serve on a jury and try a peasant who's stolen a flitch of bacon, and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the counsel for the defense and the prosecution, and the president crossexamining my old halfwitted Alioshka, 'Do you admit, prisoner in the dock, the fact of the removal of the bacon?' 'Eh?' Konstantin Levin had warmed to his subject, and began mimicking the president and the halfwitted Alioshka it seemed to him that it was all to the point. But Sergey Ivanovitch shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, what do you mean to say, then? 'I simply mean to say that those rights that touch me ... my interest, I shall always defend to the best of my ability that when they made raids on us students, and the police read our letters, I was ready to defend those rights to the utmost, to defend my rights to education and freedom. I can understand compulsory military service, which affects my children, my brothers, and myself, I am ready to deliberate on what concerns me but deliberating on how to spend forty thousand roubles of district council money, or judging the halfwitted AlioshkaI don't understand, and I can't do it. Konstantin Levin spoke as though the floodgates of his speech had burst open. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled. 'But tomorrow it'll be your turn to be tried would it have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old criminal tribunal? 'I'm not going to be tried. I shan't murder anybody, and I've no need of it. Well, I tell you what, he went on, flying off again to a subject quite beside the point, 'our district selfgovernment and all the rest of itit's just like the birch branches we stick in the ground on Trinity Day, for instance, to look like a copse which has grown up of itself in Europe, and I can't gush over these birch branches and believe in them. Sergey Ivanovitch merely shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his wonder how the birch branches had come into their argument at that point, though he did really understand at once what his brother meant. 'Excuse me, but you know one really can't argue in that way, he observed. But Konstantin Levin wanted to justify himself for the failing, of which he was conscious, of lack of zeal for the public welfare, and he went on. 'I imagine, he said, 'that no sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on selfinterest, that's a universal principle, a philosophical principle, he said, repeating the word 'philosophical with determination, as though wishing to show that he had as much right as anyone else to talk of philosophy. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled. 'He too has a philosophy of his own at the service of his natural tendencies, he thought. 'Come, you'd better let philosophy alone, he said. 'The chief problem of the philosophy of all ages consists just in finding the indispensable connection which exists between individual and social interests. But that's not to the point what is to the point is a correction I must make in your comparison. The birches are not simply stuck in, but some are sown and some are planted, and one must deal carefully with them. It's only those peoples that have an intuitive sense of what's of importance and significance in their institutions, and know how to value them, that have a future before themit's only those peoples that one can truly call historical. And Sergey Ivanovitch carried the subject into the regions of philosophical history where Konstantin Levin could not follow him, and showed him all the incorrectness of his view. 'As for your dislike of it, excuse my saying so, that's simply our Russian sloth and old serfowner's ways, and I'm convinced that in you it's a temporary error and will pass. Konstantin was silent. He felt himself vanquished on all sides, but he felt at the same time that what he wanted to say was unintelligible to his brother. Only he could not make up his mind whether it was unintelligible because he was not capable of expressing his meaning clearly, or because his brother would not or could not understand him. But he did not pursue the speculation, and without replying, he fell to musing on a quite different and personal matter. Sergey Ivanovitch wound up the last line, untied the horse, and they drove off. The personal matter that absorbed Levin during his conversation with his brother was this. Once in a previous year he had gone to look at the mowing, and being made very angry by the bailiff he had recourse to his favorite means for regaining his temper,he took a scythe from a peasant and began mowing. He liked the work so much that he had several times tried his hand at mowing since. He had cut the whole of the meadow in front of his house, and this year ever since the early spring he had cherished a plan for mowing for whole days together with the peasants. Ever since his brother's arrival, he had been in doubt whether to mow or not. He was loath to leave his brother alone all day long, and he was afraid his brother would laugh at him about it. But as he drove into the meadow, and recalled the sensations of mowing, he came near deciding that he would go mowing. After the irritating discussion with his brother, he pondered over this intention again. 'I must have physical exercise, or my temper'll certainly be ruined, he thought, and he determined he would go mowing, however awkward he might feel about it with his brother or the peasants. Towards evening Konstantin Levin went to his counting house, gave directions as to the work to be done, and sent about the village to summon the mowers for the morrow, to cut the hay in Kalinov meadow, the largest and best of his grass lands. 'And send my scythe, please, to Tit, for him to set it, and bring it round tomorrow. I shall maybe do some mowing myself too, he said, trying not to be embarrassed. The bailiff smiled and said 'Yes, sir. At tea the same evening Levin said to his brother 'I fancy the fine weather will last. Tomorrow I shall start mowing. 'I'm so fond of that form of field labor, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I'm awfully fond of it. I sometimes mow myself with the peasants, and tomorrow I want to try mowing the whole day. Sergey Ivanovitch lifted his head, and looked with interest at his brother. 'How do you mean? Just like one of the peasants, all day long? 'Yes, it's very pleasant, said Levin. 'It's splendid as exercise, only you'll hardly be able to stand it, said Sergey Ivanovitch, without a shade of irony. 'I've tried it. It's hard work at first, but you get into it. I dare say I shall manage to keep it up.... 'Really! what an idea! But tell me, how do the peasants look at it? I suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their master's being such a queer fish? 'No, I don't think so but it's so delightful, and at the same time such hard work, that one has no time to think about it. 'But how will you do about dining with them? To send you a bottle of Lafitte and roast turkey out there would be a little awkward. 'No, I'll simply come home at the time of their noonday rest. Next morning Konstantin Levin got up earlier than usual, but he was detained giving directions on the farm, and when he reached the mowing grass the mowers were already at their second row. From the uplands he could get a view of the shaded cut part of the meadow below, with its grayish ridges of cut grass, and the black heaps of coats, taken off by the mowers at the place from which they had started cutting. Gradually, as he rode towards the meadow, the peasants came into sight, some in coats, some in their shirts mowing, one behind another in a long string, swinging their scythes differently. He counted fortytwo of them. They were mowing slowly over the uneven, lowlying parts of the meadow, where there had been an old dam. Levin recognized some of his own men. Here was old Yermil in a very long white smock, bending forward to swing a scythe there was a young fellow, Vaska, who had been a coachman of Levin's, taking every row with a wide sweep. Here, too, was Tit, Levin's preceptor in the art of mowing, a thin little peasant. He was in front of all, and cut his wide row without bending, as though playing with the scythe. Levin got off his mare, and fastening her up by the roadside went to meet Tit, who took a second scythe out of a bush and gave it to him. 'It's ready, sir it's like a razor, cuts of itself, said Tit, taking off his cap with a smile and giving him the scythe. Levin took the scythe, and began trying it. As they finished their rows, the mowers, hot and goodhumored, came out into the road one after another, and, laughing a little, greeted the master. They all stared at him, but no one made any remark, till a tall old man, with a wrinkled, beardless face, wearing a short sheepskin jacket, came out into the road and accosted him. 'Look'ee now, master, once take hold of the rope there's no letting it go! he said, and Levin heard smothered laughter among the mowers. 'I'll try not to let it go, he said, taking his stand behind Tit, and waiting for the time to begin. 'Mind'ee, repeated the old man. Tit made room, and Levin started behind him. The grass was short close to the road, and Levin, who had not done any mowing for a long while, and was disconcerted by the eyes fastened upon him, cut badly for the first moments, though he swung his scythe vigorously. Behind him he heard voices 'It's not set right handle's too high see how he has to stoop to it, said one. 'Press more on the heel, said another. 'Never mind, he'll get on all right, the old man resumed. 'He's made a start.... You swing it too wide, you'll tire yourself out.... The master, sure, does his best for himself! But see the grass missed out! For such work us fellows would catch it! The grass became softer, and Levin, listening without answering, followed Tit, trying to do the best he could. They moved a hundred paces. Tit kept moving on, without stopping, not showing the slightest weariness, but Levin was already beginning to be afraid he would not be able to keep it up he was so tired. He felt as he swung his scythe that he was at the very end of his strength, and was making up his mind to ask Tit to stop. But at that very moment Tit stopped of his own accord, and stooping down picked up some grass, rubbed his scythe, and began whetting it. Levin straightened himself, and drawing a deep breath looked round. Behind him came a peasant, and he too was evidently tired, for he stopped at once without waiting to mow up to Levin, and began whetting his scythe. Tit sharpened his scythe and Levin's, and they went on. The next time it was just the same. Tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his scythe, not stopping nor showing signs of weariness. Levin followed him, trying not to get left behind, and he found it harder and harder the moment came when he felt he had no strength left, but at that very moment Tit stopped and whetted the scythes. So they mowed the first row. And this long row seemed particularly hard work to Levin but when the end was reached and Tit, shouldering his scythe, began with deliberate stride returning on the tracks left by his heels in the cut grass, and Levin walked back in the same way over the space he had cut, in spite of the sweat that ran in streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose, and drenched his back as though he had been soaked in water, he felt very happy. What delighted him particularly was that now he knew he would be able to hold out. His pleasure was only disturbed by his row not being well cut. 'I will swing less with my arm and more with my whole body, he thought, comparing Tit's row, which looked as if it had been cut with a line, with his own unevenly and irregularly lying grass. The first row, as Levin noticed, Tit had mowed specially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to the test, and the row happened to be a long one. The next rows were easier, but still Levin had to strain every nerve not to drop behind the peasants. He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as possible. He heard nothing but the swish of scythes, and saw before him Tit's upright figure mowing away, the crescentshaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the row, where would come the rest. Suddenly, in the midst of his toil, without understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes. A heavy, lowering storm cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on othersjust like Levin himselfmerely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant coolness of it. Another row, and yet another row, followedlong rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown. On finishing yet another row he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but Tit stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him. They both looked at the sun. 'What are they talking about, and why doesn't he go back? thought Levin, not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and it was time for their lunch. 'Lunch, sir, said the old man. 'Is it really time? That's right lunch, then. Levin gave his scythe to Tit, and together with the peasants, who were crossing the long stretch of mown grass, slightly sprinkled with rain, to get their bread from the heap of coats, he went towards his house. Only then he suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been wrong about the weather and the rain was drenching his hay. 'The hay will be spoiled, he said. 'Not a bit of it, sir mow in the rain, and you'll rake in fine weather! said the old man. Levin untied his horse and rode home to his coffee. Sergey Ivanovitch was only just getting up. When he had drunk his coffee, Levin rode back again to the mowing before Sergey Ivanovitch had had time to dress and come down to the diningroom. After lunch Levin was not in the same place in the string of mowers as before, but stood between the old man who had accosted him jocosely, and now invited him to be his neighbor, and a young peasant, who had only been married in the autumn, and who was mowing this summer for the first time. The old man, holding himself erect, moved in front, with his feet turned out, taking long, regular strides, and with a precise and regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging one's arms in walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the high, even row of grass. It was as though it were not he but the sharp scythe of itself swishing through the juicy grass. Behind Levin came the lad Mishka. His pretty, boyish face, with a twist of fresh grass bound round his hair, was all working with effort but whenever anyone looked at him he smiled. He would clearly have died sooner than own it was hard work for him. Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing did not seem such hard work to him. The perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor and more and more often now came those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to think what one was doing. The scythe cut of itself. These were happy moments. Still more delightful were the moments when they reached the stream where the rows ended, and the old man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in the fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a tin dipper, and offered Levin a drink. 'What do you say to my homebrew, eh? Good, eh? said he, winking. And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm water with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from the tin dipper. And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long string of mowers and at what was happening around in the forest and the country. The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and wellfinished of itself. These were the most blissful moments. It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think when he had to mow round a hillock or a tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a hillock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the hillock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it away. For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of position were difficult. Both of them, repeating over and over again the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of toil, and were incapable of shifting their position and at the same time watching what was before them. Levin did not notice how time was passing. If he had been asked how long he had been working he would have said half an hourand it was getting on for dinner time. As they were walking back over the cut grass, the old man called Levin's attention to the little girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly visible through the long grass, and along the road towards the mowers, carrying sacks of bread dragging at their little hands and pitchers of the sour ryebeer, with cloths wrapped round them. 'Look'ee, the little emmets crawling! he said, pointing to them, and he shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the sun. They mowed two more rows the old man stopped. 'Come, master, dinner time! he said briskly. And on reaching the stream the mowers moved off across the lines of cut grass towards their pile of coats, where the children who had brought their dinners were sitting waiting for them. The peasants gathered into groupsthose further away under a cart, those nearer under a willow bush. Levin sat down by them he felt disinclined to go away. All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago. The peasants got ready for dinner. Some washed, the young lads bathed in the stream, others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of bread, and uncovered the pitchers of ryebeer. The old man crumbled up some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of a spoon, poured water on it from the dipper, broke up some more bread, and having seasoned it with salt, he turned to the east to say his prayer. 'Come, master, taste my sop, said he, kneeling down before the cup. The sop was so good that Levin gave up the idea of going home. He dined with the old man, and talked to him about his family affairs, taking the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs and all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man. He felt much nearer to him than to his brother, and could not help smiling at the affection he felt for this man. When the old man got up again, said his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his head for a pillow, Levin did the same, and in spite of the clinging flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that tickled his hot face and body, he fell asleep at once and only waked when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush and reached him. The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting the scythes of the younger lads. Levin looked about him and hardly recognized the place, everything was so changed. The immense stretch of meadow had been mown and was sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already sweetsmelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun. And the bushes about the river had been cut down, and the river itself, not visible before, now gleaming like steel in its bends, and the moving, ascending, peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmown part of the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the stripped meadowall was perfectly new. Raising himself, Levin began considering how much had been cut and how much more could still be done that day. The work done was exceptionally much for fortytwo men. They had cut the whole of the big meadow, which had, in the years of serf labor, taken thirty scythes two days to mow. Only the corners remained to do, where the rows were short. But Levin felt a longing to get as much mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed with the sun sinking so quickly in the sky. He felt no weariness all he wanted was to get his work done more and more quickly and as much done as possible. 'Could you cut Mashkin Upland too?what do you think? he said to the old man. 'As God wills, the sun's not high. A little vodka for the lads? At the afternoon rest, when they were sitting down again, and those who smoked had lighted their pipes, the old man told the men that 'Mashkin Upland's to be cutthere'll be some vodka. 'Why not cut it? Come on, Tit! We'll look sharp! We can eat at night. Come on! cried voices, and eating up their bread, the mowers went back to work. 'Come, lads, keep it up! said Tit, and ran on ahead almost at a trot. 'Get along, get along! said the old man, hurrying after him and easily overtaking him, 'I'll mow you down, look out! And young and old mowed away, as though they were racing with one another. But however fast they worked, they did not spoil the grass, and the rows were laid just as neatly and exactly. The little piece left uncut in the corner was mown in five minutes. The last of the mowers were just ending their rows while the foremost snatched up their coats onto their shoulders, and crossed the road towards Mashkin Upland. The sun was already sinking into the trees when they went with their jingling dippers into the wooded ravine of Mashkin Upland. The grass was up to their waists in the middle of the hollow, soft, tender, and feathery, spotted here and there among the trees with wild heart'sease. After a brief consultationwhether to take the rows lengthwise or diagonallyProhor Yermilin, also a renowned mower, a huge, blackhaired peasant, went on ahead. He went up to the top, turned back again and started mowing, and they all proceeded to form in line behind him, going downhill through the hollow and uphill right up to the edge of the forest. The sun sank behind the forest. The dew was falling by now the mowers were in the sun only on the hillside, but below, where a mist was rising, and on the opposite side, they mowed into the fresh, dewy shade. The work went rapidly. The grass cut with a juicy sound, and was at once laid in high, fragrant rows. The mowers from all sides, brought closer together in the short row, kept urging one another on to the sound of jingling dippers and clanging scythes, and the hiss of the whetstones sharpening them, and goodhumored shouts. Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man. The old man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as goodhumored, jocose, and free in his movements. Among the trees they were continually cutting with their scythes the socalled 'birch mushrooms, swollen fat in the succulent grass. But the old man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up and put it in his bosom. 'Another present for my old woman, he said as he did so. Easy as it was to mow the wet, soft grass, it was hard work going up and down the steep sides of the ravine. But this did not trouble the old man. Swinging his scythe just as ever, and moving his feet in their big, plaited shoes with firm, little steps, he climbed slowly up the steep place, and though his breeches hanging out below his smock, and his whole frame trembled with effort, he did not miss one blade of grass or one mushroom on his way, and kept making jokes with the peasants and Levin. Levin walked after him and often thought he must fall, as he climbed with a scythe up a steep cliff where it would have been hard work to clamber without anything. But he climbed up and did what he had to do. He felt as though some external force were moving him. Mashkin Upland was mown, the last row finished, the peasants had put on their coats and were gaily trudging home. Levin got on his horse and, parting regretfully from the peasants, rode homewards. On the hillside he looked back he could not see them in the mist that had risen from the valley he could only hear rough, goodhumored voices, laughter, and the sound of clanking scythes. Sergey Ivanovitch had long ago finished dinner, and was drinking iced lemon and water in his own room, looking through the reviews and papers which he had only just received by post, when Levin rushed into the room, talking merrily, with his wet and matted hair sticking to his forehead, and his back and chest grimed and moist. 'We mowed the whole meadow! Oh, it is nice, delicious! And how have you been getting on? said Levin, completely forgetting the disagreeable conversation of the previous day. 'Mercy! what do you look like! said Sergey Ivanovitch, for the first moment looking round with some dissatisfaction. 'And the door, do shut the door! he cried. 'You must have let in a dozen at least. Sergey Ivanovitch could not endure flies, and in his own room he never opened the window except at night, and carefully kept the door shut. 'Not one, on my honor. But if I have, I'll catch them. You wouldn't believe what a pleasure it is! How have you spent the day? 'Very well. But have you really been mowing the whole day? I expect you're as hungry as a wolf. Kouzma has got everything ready for you. 'No, I don't feel hungry even. I had something to eat there. But I'll go and wash. 'Yes, go along, go along, and I'll come to you directly, said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head as he looked at his brother. 'Go along, make haste, he added smiling, and gathering up his books, he prepared to go too. He, too, felt suddenly goodhumored and disinclined to leave his brother's side. 'But what did you do while it was raining? 'Rain? Why, there was scarcely a drop. I'll come directly. So you had a nice day too? That's firstrate. And Levin went off to change his clothes. Five minutes later the brothers met in the diningroom. Although it seemed to Levin that he was not hungry, and he sat down to dinner simply so as not to hurt Kouzma's feelings, yet when he began to eat the dinner struck him as extraordinarily good. Sergey Ivanovitch watched him with a smile. 'Oh, by the way, there's a letter for you, said he. 'Kouzma, bring it down, please. And mind you shut the doors. The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky wrote to him from Petersburg 'I have had a letter from Dolly she's at Ergushovo, and everything seems going wrong there. Do ride over and see her, please help her with advice you know all about it. She will be so glad to see you. She's quite alone, poor thing. My motherinlaw and all of them are still abroad. 'That's capital! I will certainly ride over to her, said Levin. 'Or we'll go together. She's such a splendid woman, isn't she? 'They're not far from here, then? 'Twentyfive miles. Or perhaps it is thirty. But a capital road. Capital, we'll drive over. 'I shall be delighted, said Sergey Ivanovitch, still smiling. The sight of his younger brother's appearance had immediately put him in a good humor. 'Well, you have an appetite! he said, looking at his darkred, sunburnt face and neck bent over the plate. 'Splendid! You can't imagine what an effectual remedy it is for every sort of foolishness. I want to enrich medicine with a new word Arbeitskur. 'Well, but you don't need it, I should fancy. 'No, but for all sorts of nervous invalids. 'Yes, it ought to be tried. I had meant to come to the mowing to look at you, but it was so unbearably hot that I got no further than the forest. I sat there a little, and went on by the forest to the village, met your old nurse, and sounded her as to the peasants' view of you. As far as I can make out, they don't approve of this. She said 'It's not a gentleman's work.' Altogether, I fancy that in the people's ideas there are very clear and definite notions of certain, as they call it, 'gentlemanly' lines of action. And they don't sanction the gentry's moving outside bounds clearly laid down in their ideas. 'Maybe so but anyway it's a pleasure such as I have never known in my life. And there's no harm in it, you know. Is there? answered Levin. 'I can't help it if they don't like it. Though I do believe it's all right. Eh? 'Altogether, pursued Sergey Ivanovitch, 'you're satisfied with your day? 'Quite satisfied. We cut the whole meadow. And such a splendid old man I made friends with there! You can't fancy how delightful he was! 'Well, so you're content with your day. And so am I. First, I solved two chess problems, and one a very pretty onea pawn opening. I'll show it you. And thenI thought over our conversation yesterday. 'Eh! our conversation yesterday? said Levin, blissfully dropping his eyelids and drawing deep breaths after finishing his dinner, and absolutely incapable of recalling what their conversation yesterday was about. 'I think you are partly right. Our difference of opinion amounts to this, that you make the mainspring selfinterest, while I suppose that interest in the common weal is bound to exist in every man of a certain degree of advancement. Possibly you are right too, that action founded on material interest would be more desirable. You are altogether, as the French say, too primesautire a nature you must have intense, energetic action, or nothing. Levin listened to his brother and did not understand a single word, and did not want to understand. He was only afraid his brother might ask him some question which would make it evident he had not heard. 'So that's what I think it is, my dear boy, said Sergey Ivanovitch, touching him on the shoulder. 'Yes, of course. But, do you know? I won't stand up for my view, answered Levin, with a guilty, childlike smile. 'Whatever was it I was disputing about? he wondered. 'Of course, I'm right, and he's right, and it's all firstrate. Only I must go round to the counting house and see to things. He got up, stretching and smiling. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled too. 'If you want to go out, let's go together, he said, disinclined to be parted from his brother, who seemed positively breathing out freshness and energy. 'Come, we'll go to the counting house, if you have to go there. 'Oh, heavens! shouted Levin, so loudly that Sergey Ivanovitch was quite frightened. 'What, what is the matter? 'How's Agafea Mihalovna's hand? said Levin, slapping himself on the head. 'I'd positively forgotten her even. 'It's much better. 'Well, anyway I'll run down to her. Before you've time to get your hat on, I'll be back. And he ran downstairs, clattering with his heels like a springrattle. Stephan Arkadyevitch had gone to Petersburg to perform the most natural and essential official dutyso familiar to everyone in the government service, though incomprehensible to outsidersthat duty, but for which one could hardly be in government service, of reminding the ministry of his existenceand having, for the due performance of this rite, taken all the available cash from home, was gaily and agreeably spending his days at the races and in the summer villas. Meanwhile Dolly and the children had moved into the country, to cut down expenses as much as possible. She had gone to Ergushovo, the estate that had been her dowry, and the one where in spring the forest had been sold. It was nearly forty miles from Levin's Pokrovskoe. The big, old house at Ergushovo had been pulled down long ago, and the old prince had had the lodge done up and built on to. Twenty years before, when Dolly was a child, the lodge had been roomy and comfortable, though, like all lodges, it stood sideways to the entrance avenue, and faced the south. But by now this lodge was old and dilapidated. When Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down in the spring to sell the forest, Dolly had begged him to look over the house and order what repairs might be needed. Stepan Arkadyevitch, like all unfaithful husbands indeed, was very solicitous for his wife's comfort, and he had himself looked over the house, and given instructions about everything that he considered necessary. What he considered necessary was to cover all the furniture with cretonne, to put up curtains, to weed the garden, to make a little bridge on the pond, and to plant flowers. But he forgot many other essential matters, the want of which greatly distressed Darya Alexandrovna later on. In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children. He had bachelor tastes, and it was in accordance with them that he shaped his life. On his return to Moscow he informed his wife with pride that everything was ready, that the house would be a little paradise, and that he advised her most certainly to go. His wife's staying away in the country was very agreeable to Stepan Arkadyevitch from every point of view it did the children good, it decreased expenses, and it left him more at liberty. Darya Alexandrovna regarded staying in the country for the summer as essential for the children, especially for the little girl, who had not succeeded in regaining her strength after the scarlatina, and also as a means of escaping the petty humiliations, the little bills owing to the woodmerchant, the fishmonger, the shoemaker, which made her miserable. Besides this, she was pleased to go away to the country because she was dreaming of getting her sister Kitty to stay with her there. Kitty was to be back from abroad in the middle of the summer, and bathing had been prescribed for her. Kitty wrote that no prospect was so alluring as to spend the summer with Dolly at Ergushovo, full of childish associations for both of them. The first days of her existence in the country were very hard for Dolly. She used to stay in the country as a child, and the impression she had retained of it was that the country was a refuge from all the unpleasantness of the town, that life there, though not luxuriousDolly could easily make up her mind to thatwas cheap and comfortable that there was plenty of everything, everything was cheap, everything could be got, and children were happy. But now coming to the country as the head of a family, she perceived that it was all utterly unlike what she had fancied. The day after their arrival there was a heavy fall of rain, and in the night the water came through in the corridor and in the nursery, so that the beds had to be carried into the drawingroom. There was no kitchen maid to be found of the nine cows, it appeared from the words of the cowherdwoman that some were about to calve, others had just calved, others were old, and others again harduddered there was not butter nor milk enough even for the children. There were no eggs. They could get no fowls old, purplish, stringy cocks were all they had for roasting and boiling. Impossible to get women to scrub the floorsall were potatohoeing. Driving was out of the question, because one of the horses was restive, and bolted in the shafts. There was no place where they could bathe the whole of the riverbank was trampled by the cattle and open to the road even walks were impossible, for the cattle strayed into the garden through a gap in the hedge, and there was one terrible bull, who bellowed, and therefore might be expected to gore somebody. There were no proper cupboards for their clothes what cupboards there were either would not close at all, or burst open whenever anyone passed by them. There were no pots and pans there was no copper in the washhouse, nor even an ironingboard in the maids' room. Finding instead of peace and rest all these, from her point of view, fearful calamities, Darya Alexandrovna was at first in despair. She exerted herself to the utmost, felt the hopelessness of the position, and was every instant suppressing the tears that started into her eyes. The bailiff, a retired quartermaster, whom Stepan Arkadyevitch had taken a fancy to and had appointed bailiff on account of his handsome and respectful appearance as a hallporter, showed no sympathy for Darya Alexandrovna's woes. He said respectfully, 'nothing can be done, the peasants are such a wretched lot, and did nothing to help her. The position seemed hopeless. But in the Oblonskys' household, as in all families indeed, there was one inconspicuous but most valuable and useful person, Marya Philimonovna. She soothed her mistress, assured her that everything would come round (it was her expression, and Matvey had borrowed it from her), and without fuss or hurry proceeded to set to work herself. She had immediately made friends with the bailiff's wife, and on the very first day she drank tea with her and the bailiff under the acacias, and reviewed all the circumstances of the position. Very soon Marya Philimonovna had established her club, so to say, under the acacias, and there it was, in this club, consisting of the bailiff's wife, the village elder, and the countinghouse clerk, that the difficulties of existence were gradually smoothed away, and in a week's time everything actually had come round. The roof was mended, a kitchen maid was founda crony of the village elder'shens were bought, the cows began giving milk, the garden hedge was stopped up with stakes, the carpenter made a mangle, hooks were put in the cupboards, and they ceased to burst open spontaneously, and an ironingboard covered with army cloth was placed across from the arm of a chair to the chest of drawers, and there was a smell of flatirons in the maids' room. 'Just see, now, and you were quite in despair, said Marya Philimonovna, pointing to the ironingboard. They even rigged up a bathingshed of straw hurdles. Lily began to bathe, and Darya Alexandrovna began to realize, if only in part, her expectations, if not of a peaceful, at least of a comfortable, life in the country. Peaceful with six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be. One would fall ill, another might easily become so, a third would be without something necessary, a fourth would show symptoms of a bad disposition, and so on. Rare indeed were the brief periods of peace. But these cares and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the sole happiness possible. Had it not been for them, she would have been left alone to brood over her husband who did not love her. And besides, hard though it was for the mother to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in her childrenthe children themselves were even now repaying her in small joys for her sufferings. Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold. Now in the solitude of the country, she began to be more and more frequently aware of those joys. Often, looking at them, she would make every possible effort to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she as a mother was partial to her children. All the same, she could not help saying to herself that she had charming children, all six of them in different ways, but a set of children such as is not often to be met with, and she was happy in them, and proud of them. Towards the end of May, when everything had been more or less satisfactorily arranged, she received her husband's answer to her complaints of the disorganized state of things in the country. He wrote begging her forgiveness for not having thought of everything before, and promised to come down at the first chance. This chance did not present itself, and till the beginning of June Darya Alexandrovna stayed alone in the country. On the Sunday in St. Peter's week Darya Alexandrovna drove to mass for all her children to take the sacrament. Darya Alexandrovna in her intimate, philosophical talks with her sister, her mother, and her friends very often astonished them by the freedom of her views in regard to religion. She had a strange religion of transmigration of souls all her own, in which she had firm faith, troubling herself little about the dogmas of the Church. But in her family she was strict in carrying out all that was required by the Churchand not merely in order to set an example, but with all her heart in it. The fact that the children had not been at the sacrament for nearly a year worried her extremely, and with the full approval and sympathy of Marya Philimonovna she decided that this should take place now in the summer. For several days before, Darya Alexandrovna was busily deliberating on how to dress all the children. Frocks were made or altered and washed, seams and flounces were let out, buttons were sewn on, and ribbons got ready. One dress, Tanya's, which the English governess had undertaken, cost Darya Alexandrovna much loss of temper. The English governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place, had taken up the sleeves too much, and altogether spoilt the dress. It was so narrow on Tanya's shoulders that it was quite painful to look at her. But Marya Philimonovna had the happy thought of putting in gussets, and adding a little shouldercape. The dress was set right, but there was nearly a quarrel with the English governess. On the morning, however, all was happily arranged, and towards ten o'clockthe time at which they had asked the priest to wait for them for the massthe children in their new dresses, with beaming faces, stood on the step before the carriage waiting for their mother. To the carriage, instead of the restive Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations of Marya Philimonovna, the bailiff's horse, Brownie, and Darya Alexandrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire, came out and got in, dressed in a white muslin gown. Darya Alexandrovna had done her hair, and dressed with care and excitement. In the old days she had dressed for her own sake to look pretty and be admired. Later on, as she got older, dress became more and more distasteful to her. She saw that she was losing her good looks. But now she began to feel pleasure and interest in dress again. Now she did not dress for her own sake, not for the sake of her own beauty, but simply that as the mother of those exquisite creatures she might not spoil the general effect. And looking at herself for the last time in the lookingglass she was satisfied with herself. She looked nice. Not nice as she would have wished to look nice in old days at a ball, but nice for the object which she now had in view. In the church there was no one but the peasants, the servants and their womenfolk. But Darya Alexandrovna saw, or fancied she saw, the sensation produced by her children and her. The children were not only beautiful to look at in their smart little dresses, but they were charming in the way they behaved. Aliosha, it is true, did not stand quite correctly he kept turning round, trying to look at his little jacket from behind but all the same he was wonderfully sweet. Tanya behaved like a grownup person, and looked after the little ones. And the smallest, Lily, was bewitching in her nave astonishment at everything, and it was difficult not to smile when, after taking the sacrament, she said in English, 'Please, some more. On the way home the children felt that something solemn had happened, and were very sedate. Everything went happily at home too but at lunch Grisha began whistling, and, what was worse, was disobedient to the English governess, and was forbidden to have any tart. Darya Alexandrovna would not have let things go so far on such a day had she been present but she had to support the English governess's authority, and she upheld her decision that Grisha should have no tart. This rather spoiled the general good humor. Grisha cried, declaring that Nikolinka had whistled too, and he was not punished, and that he wasn't crying for the tarthe didn't carebut at being unjustly treated. This was really too tragic, and Darya Alexandrovna made up her mind to persuade the English governess to forgive Grisha, and she went to speak to her. But on the way, as she passed the drawingroom, she beheld a scene, filling her heart with such pleasure that the tears came into her eyes, and she forgave the delinquent herself. The culprit was sitting at the window in the corner of the drawingroom beside him was standing Tanya with a plate. On the pretext of wanting to give some dinner to her dolls, she had asked the governess's permission to take her share of tart to the nursery, and had taken it instead to her brother. While still weeping over the injustice of his punishment, he was eating the tart, and kept saying through his sobs, 'Eat yourself let's eat it together ... together. Tanya had at first been under the influence of her pity for Grisha, then of a sense of her noble action, and tears were standing in her eyes too but she did not refuse, and ate her share. On catching sight of their mother they were dismayed, but, looking into her face, they saw they were not doing wrong. They burst out laughing, and, with their mouths full of tart, they began wiping their smiling lips with their hands, and smearing their radiant faces all over with tears and jam. 'Mercy! Your new white frock! Tanya! Grisha! said their mother, trying to save the frock, but with tears in her eyes, smiling a blissful, rapturous smile. The new frocks were taken off, and orders were given for the little girls to have their blouses put on, and the boys their old jackets, and the wagonette to be harnessed with Brownie, to the bailiff's annoyance, again in the shafts, to drive out for mushroom picking and bathing. A roar of delighted shrieks arose in the nursery, and never ceased till they had set off for the bathingplace. They gathered a whole basketful of mushrooms even Lily found a birch mushroom. It had always happened before that Miss Hoole found them and pointed them out to her but this time she found a big one quite of herself, and there was a general scream of delight, 'Lily has found a mushroom! Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch trees, and went to the bathingplace. The coachman, Terenty, fastened the horses, who kept whisking away the flies, to a tree, and, treading down the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch and smoked his shag, while the neverceasing shrieks of delight of the children floated across to him from the bathingplace. Though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their wild pranks, though it was difficult too to keep in one's head and not mix up all the stockings, little breeches, and shoes for the different legs, and to undo and to do up again all the tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always liked bathing herself, and believed it to be very good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the children. To go over all those fat little legs, pulling on their stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies, and to hear their screams of delight and alarm, to see the breathless faces with wideopen, scared, and happy eyes of all her splashing cherubs, was a great pleasure to her. When half the children had been dressed, some peasant women in holiday dress, out picking herbs, came up to the bathingshed and stopped shyly. Marya Philimonovna called one of them and handed her a sheet and a shirt that had dropped into the water for her to dry them, and Darya Alexandrovna began to talk to the women. At first they laughed behind their hands and did not understand her questions, but soon they grew bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna's heart at once by the genuine admiration of the children that they showed. 'My, what a beauty! as white as sugar, said one, admiring Tanitchka, and shaking her head 'but thin.... 'Yes, she has been ill. 'And so they've been bathing you too, said another to the baby. 'No he's only three months old, answered Darya Alexandrovna with pride. 'You don't say so! 'And have you any children? 'I've had four I've two livinga boy and a girl. I weaned her last carnival. 'How old is she? 'Why, two years old. 'Why did you nurse her so long? 'It's our custom for three fasts.... And the conversation became most interesting to Darya Alexandrovna. What sort of time did she have? What was the matter with the boy? Where was her husband? Did it often happen? Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women, so interesting to her was their conversation, so completely identical were all their interests. What pleased her most of all was that she saw clearly what all the women admired more than anything was her having so many children, and such fine ones. The peasant women even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended the English governess, because she was the cause of the laughter she did not understand. One of the younger women kept staring at the Englishwoman, who was dressing after all the rest, and when she put on her third petticoat she could not refrain from the remark, 'My, she keeps putting on and putting on, and she'll never have done! she said, and they all went off into roars. On the drive home, as Darya Alexandrovna, with all her children round her, their heads still wet from their bath, and a kerchief tied over her own head, was getting near the house, the coachman said, 'There's some gentleman coming the master of Pokrovskoe, I do believe. Darya Alexandrovna peeped out in front, and was delighted when she recognized in the gray hat and gray coat the familiar figure of Levin walking to meet them. She was glad to see him at any time, but at this moment she was specially glad he should see her in all her glory. No one was better able to appreciate her grandeur than Levin. Seeing her, he found himself face to face with one of the pictures of his daydream of family life. 'You're like a hen with your chickens, Darya Alexandrovna. 'Ah, how glad I am to see you! she said, holding out her hand to him. 'Glad to see me, but you didn't let me know. My brother's staying with me. I got a note from Stiva that you were here. 'From Stiva? Darya Alexandrovna asked with surprise. 'Yes he writes that you are here, and that he thinks you might allow me to be of use to you, said Levin, and as he said it he became suddenly embarrassed, and, stopping abruptly, he walked on in silence by the wagonette, snapping off the buds of the lime trees and nibbling them. He was embarrassed through a sense that Darya Alexandrovna would be annoyed by receiving from an outsider help that should by rights have come from her own husband. Darya Alexandrovna certainly did not like this little way of Stepan Arkadyevitch's of foisting his domestic duties on others. And she was at once aware that Levin was aware of this. It was just for this fineness of perception, for this delicacy, that Darya Alexandrovna liked Levin. 'I know, of course, said Levin, 'that that simply means that you would like to see me, and I'm exceedingly glad. Though I can fancy that, used to town housekeeping as you are, you must feel in the wilds here, and if there's anything wanted, I'm altogether at your disposal. 'Oh, no! said Dolly. 'At first things were rather uncomfortable, but now we've settled everything capitallythanks to my old nurse, she said, indicating Marya Philimonovna, who, seeing that they were speaking of her, smiled brightly and cordially to Levin. She knew him, and knew that he would be a good match for her young lady, and was very keen to see the matter settled. 'Won't you get in, sir, we'll make room this side! she said to him. 'No, I'll walk. Children, who'd like to race the horses with me? The children knew Levin very little, and could not remember when they had seen him, but they experienced in regard to him none of that strange feeling of shyness and hostility which children so often experience towards hypocritical, grownup people, and for which they are so often and miserably punished. Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wideawake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. Whatever faults Levin had, there was not a trace of hypocrisy in him, and so the children showed him the same friendliness that they saw in their mother's face. On his invitation, the two elder ones at once jumped out to him and ran with him as simply as they would have done with their nurse or Miss Hoole or their mother. Lily, too, began begging to go to him, and her mother handed her to him he sat her on his shoulder and ran along with her. 'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Darya Alexandrovna! he said, smiling goodhumoredly to the mother 'there's no chance of my hurting or dropping her. And, looking at his strong, agile, assiduously careful and needlessly wary movements, the mother felt her mind at rest, and smiled gaily and approvingly as she watched him. Here, in the country, with children, and with Darya Alexandrovna, with whom he was in sympathy, Levin was in a mood not infrequent with him, of childlike lightheartedness that she particularly liked in him. As he ran with the children, he taught them gymnastic feats, set Miss Hoole laughing with his queer English accent, and talked to Darya Alexandrovna of his pursuits in the country. After dinner, Darya Alexandrovna, sitting alone with him on the balcony, began to speak of Kitty. 'You know, Kitty's coming here, and is going to spend the summer with me. 'Really, he said, flushing, and at once, to change the conversation, he said 'Then I'll send you two cows, shall I? If you insist on a bill you shall pay me five roubles a month but it's really too bad of you. 'No, thank you. We can manage very well now. 'Oh, well, then, I'll have a look at your cows, and if you'll allow me, I'll give directions about their food. Everything depends on their food. And Levin, to turn the conversation, explained to Darya Alexandrovna the theory of cowkeeping, based on the principle that the cow is simply a machine for the transformation of food into milk, and so on. He talked of this, and passionately longed to hear more of Kitty, and, at the same time, was afraid of hearing it. He dreaded the breaking up of the inward peace he had gained with such effort. 'Yes, but still all this has to be looked after, and who is there to look after it? Darya Alexandrovna responded, without interest. She had by now got her household matters so satisfactorily arranged, thanks to Marya Philimonovna, that she was disinclined to make any change in them besides, she had no faith in Levin's knowledge of farming. General principles, as to the cow being a machine for the production of milk, she looked on with suspicion. It seemed to her that such principles could only be a hindrance in farm management. It all seemed to her a far simpler matter all that was needed, as Marya Philimonovna had explained, was to give Brindle and Whitebreast more food and drink, and not to let the cook carry all the kitchen slops to the laundry maid's cow. That was clear. But general propositions as to feeding on meal and on grass were doubtful and obscure. And, what was most important, she wanted to talk about Kitty. 'Kitty writes to me that there's nothing she longs for so much as quiet and solitude, Dolly said after the silence that had followed. 'And how is shebetter? Levin asked in agitation. 'Thank God, she's quite well again. I never believed her lungs were affected. 'Oh, I'm very glad! said Levin, and Dolly fancied she saw something touching, helpless, in his face as he said this and looked silently into her face. 'Let me ask you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling her kindly and rather mocking smile, 'why is it you are angry with Kitty? 'I? I'm not angry with her, said Levin. 'Yes, you are angry. Why was it you did not come to see us nor them when you were in Moscow? 'Darya Alexandrovna, he said, blushing up to the roots of his hair, 'I wonder really that with your kind heart you don't feel this. How it is you feel no pity for me, if nothing else, when you know.... 'What do I know? 'You know I made an offer and that I was refused, said Levin, and all the tenderness he had been feeling for Kitty a minute before was replaced by a feeling of anger for the slight he had suffered. 'What makes you suppose I know? 'Because everybody knows it.... 'That's just where you are mistaken I did not know it, though I had guessed it was so. 'Well, now you know it. 'All I knew was that something had happened that made her dreadfully miserable, and that she begged me never to speak of it. And if she would not tell me, she would certainly not speak of it to anyone else. But what did pass between you? Tell me. 'I have told you. 'When was it? 'When I was at their house the last time. 'Do you know that, said Darya Alexandrovna, 'I am awfully, awfully sorry for her. You suffer only from pride.... 'Perhaps so, said Levin, 'but.... She interrupted him. 'But she, poor girl ... I am awfully, awfully sorry for her. Now I see it all. 'Well, Darya Alexandrovna, you must excuse me, he said, getting up. 'Goodbye, Darya Alexandrovna, till we meet again. 'No, wait a minute, she said, clutching him by the sleeve. 'Wait a minute, sit down. 'Please, please, don't let us talk of this, he said, sitting down, and at the same time feeling rise up and stir within his heart a hope he had believed to be buried. 'If I did not like you, she said, and tears came into her eyes 'if I did not know you, as I do know you.... The feeling that had seemed dead revived more and more, rose up and took possession of Levin's heart. 'Yes, I understand it all now, said Darya Alexandrovna. 'You can't understand it for you men, who are free and make your own choice, it's always clear whom you love. But a girl's in a position of suspense, with all a woman's or maiden's modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust,a girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that she cannot tell what to say. 'Yes, if the heart does not speak.... 'No, the heart does speak but just consider you men have views about a girl, you come to the house, you make friends, you criticize, you wait to see if you have found what you love, and then, when you are sure you love her, you make an offer.... 'Well, that's not quite it. 'Anyway you make an offer, when your love is ripe or when the balance has completely turned between the two you are choosing from. But a girl is not asked. She is expected to make her choice, and yet she cannot choose, she can only answer 'yes' or 'no.' 'Yes, to choose between me and Vronsky, thought Levin, and the dead thing that had come to life within him died again, and only weighed on his heart and set it aching. 'Darya Alexandrovna, he said, 'that's how one chooses a new dress or some purchase or other, not love. The choice has been made, and so much the better.... And there can be no repeating it. 'Ah, pride, pride! said Darya Alexandrovna, as though despising him for the baseness of this feeling in comparison with that other feeling which only women know. 'At the time when you made Kitty an offer she was just in a position in which she could not answer. She was in doubt. Doubt between you and Vronsky. Him she was seeing every day, and you she had not seen for a long while. Supposing she had been older ... I, for instance, in her place could have felt no doubt. I always disliked him, and so it has turned out. Levin recalled Kitty's answer. She had said 'No, that cannot be.... 'Darya Alexandrovna, he said dryly, 'I appreciate your confidence in me I believe you are making a mistake. But whether I am right or wrong, that pride you so despise makes any thought of Katerina Alexandrovna out of the question for me,you understand, utterly out of the question. 'I will only say one thing more you know that I am speaking of my sister, whom I love as I love my own children. I don't say she cared for you, all I meant to say is that her refusal at that moment proves nothing. 'I don't know! said Levin, jumping up. 'If you only knew how you are hurting me. It's just as if a child of yours were dead, and they were to say to you He would have been like this and like that, and he might have lived, and how happy you would have been in him. But he's dead, dead, dead!... 'How absurd you are! said Darya Alexandrovna, looking with mournful tenderness at Levin's excitement. 'Yes, I see it all more and more clearly, she went on musingly. 'So you won't come to see us, then, when Kitty's here? 'No, I shan't come. Of course I won't avoid meeting Katerina Alexandrovna, but as far as I can, I will try to save her the annoyance of my presence. 'You are very, very absurd, repeated Darya Alexandrovna, looking with tenderness into his face. 'Very well then, let it be as though we had not spoken of this. What have you come for, Tanya? she said in French to the little girl who had come in. 'Where's my spade, mamma? 'I speak French, and you must too. The little girl tried to say it in French, but could not remember the French for spade the mother prompted her, and then told her in French where to look for the spade. And this made a disagreeable impression on Levin. Everything in Darya Alexandrovna's house and children struck him now as by no means so charming as a little while before. 'And what does she talk French with the children for? he thought 'how unnatural and false it is! And the children feel it so Learning French and unlearning sincerity, he thought to himself, unaware that Darya Alexandrovna had thought all that over twenty times already, and yet, even at the cost of some loss of sincerity, believed it necessary to teach her children French in that way. 'But why are you going? Do stay a little. Levin stayed to tea but his goodhumor had vanished, and he felt ill at ease. After tea he went out into the hall to order his horses to be put in, and, when he came back, he found Darya Alexandrovna greatly disturbed, with a troubled face, and tears in her eyes. While Levin had been outside, an incident had occurred which had utterly shattered all the happiness she had been feeling that day, and her pride in her children. Grisha and Tanya had been fighting over a ball. Darya Alexandrovna, hearing a scream in the nursery, ran in and saw a terrible sight. Tanya was pulling Grisha's hair, while he, with a face hideous with rage, was beating her with his fists wherever he could get at her. Something snapped in Darya Alexandrovna's heart when she saw this. It was as if darkness had swooped down upon her life she felt that these children of hers, that she was so proud of, were not merely most ordinary, but positively bad, illbred children, with coarse, brutal propensitieswicked children. She could not talk or think of anything else, and she could not speak to Levin of her misery. Levin saw she was unhappy and tried to comfort her, saying that it showed nothing bad, that all children fight but, even as he said it, he was thinking in his heart 'No, I won't be artificial and talk French with my children but my children won't be like that. All one has to do is not spoil children, not to distort their nature, and they'll be delightful. No, my children won't be like that. He said goodbye and drove away, and she did not try to keep him. In the middle of July the elder of the village on Levin's sister's estate, about fifteen miles from Pokrovskoe, came to Levin to report on how things were going there and on the hay. The chief source of income on his sister's estate was from the riverside meadows. In former years the hay had been bought by the peasants for twenty roubles the three acres. When Levin took over the management of the estate, he thought on examining the grasslands that they were worth more, and he fixed the price at twentyfive roubles the three acres. The peasants would not give that price, and, as Levin suspected, kept off other purchasers. Then Levin had driven over himself, and arranged to have the grass cut, partly by hired labor, partly at a payment of a certain proportion of the crop. His own peasants put every hindrance they could in the way of this new arrangement, but it was carried out, and the first year the meadows had yielded a profit almost double. The previous yearwhich was the third yearthe peasants had maintained the same opposition to the arrangement, and the hay had been cut on the same system. This year the peasants were doing all the mowing for a third of the hay crop, and the village elder had come now to announce that the hay had been cut, and that, fearing rain, they had invited the countinghouse clerk over, had divided the crop in his presence, and had raked together eleven stacks as the owner's share. From the vague answers to his question how much hay had been cut on the principal meadow, from the hurry of the village elder who had made the division, not asking leave, from the whole tone of the peasant, Levin perceived that there was something wrong in the division of the hay, and made up his mind to drive over himself to look into the matter. Arriving for dinner at the village, and leaving his horse at the cottage of an old friend of his, the husband of his brother's wetnurse, Levin went to see the old man in his beehouse, wanting to find out from him the truth about the hay. Parmenitch, a talkative, comely old man, gave Levin a very warm welcome, showed him all he was doing, told him everything about his bees and the swarms of that year but gave vague and unwilling answers to Levin's inquiries about the mowing. This confirmed Levin still more in his suspicions. He went to the hay fields and examined the stacks. The haystacks could not possibly contain fifty wagonloads each, and to convict the peasants Levin ordered the wagons that had carried the hay to be brought up directly, to lift one stack, and carry it into the barn. There turned out to be only thirtytwo loads in the stack. In spite of the village elder's assertions about the compressibility of hay, and its having settled down in the stacks, and his swearing that everything had been done in the fear of God, Levin stuck to his point that the hay had been divided without his orders, and that, therefore, he would not accept that hay as fifty loads to a stack. After a prolonged dispute the matter was decided by the peasants taking these eleven stacks, reckoning them as fifty loads each. The arguments and the division of the haycocks lasted the whole afternoon. When the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, intrusting the superintendence of the rest to the countinghouse clerk, sat down on a haycock marked off by a stake of willow, and looked admiringly at the meadow swarming with peasants. In front of him, in the bend of the river beyond the marsh, moved a brightcolored line of peasant women, and the scattered hay was being rapidly formed into gray winding rows over the pale green stubble. After the women came the men with pitchforks, and from the gray rows there were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks. To the left, carts were rumbling over the meadow that had been already cleared, and one after another the haycocks vanished, flung up in huge forkfuls, and in their place there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay hanging over the horses' hindquarters. 'What weather for haying! What hay it'll be! said an old man, squatting down beside Levin. 'It's tea, not hay! It's like scattering grain to the ducks, the way they pick it up! he added, pointing to the growing haycocks. 'Since dinner time they've carried a good half of it. 'The last load, eh? he shouted to a young peasant, who drove by, standing in the front of an empty cart, shaking the cord reins. 'The last, dad! the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse, and, smiling, he looked round at a bright, rosychecked peasant girl who sat in the cart smiling too, and drove on. 'Who's that? Your son? asked Levin. 'My baby, said the old man with a tender smile. 'What a fine fellow! 'The lad's all right. 'Married already? 'Yes, it's two years last St. Philip's day. 'Any children? 'Children indeed! Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe himself, and bashful too, answered the old man. 'Well, the hay! It's as fragrant as tea! he repeated, wishing to change the subject. Levin looked more attentively at Ivan Parmenov and his wife. They were loading a haycock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and dexterously. The closepacked hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leaned the whole weight of her body on it, and at once with a bend of her back under the red belt she drew herself up, and arching her full bosom under the white smock, with a smart turn swung the fork in her arms, and flung the bundle of hay high onto the cart. Ivan, obviously doing his best to save her every minute of unnecessary labor, made haste, opening his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in the cart. As she raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the bits of hay that had fallen on her neck, and straightening the red kerchief that had dropped forward over her white brow, not browned like her face by the sun, she crept under the cart to tie up the load. Ivan directed her how to fasten the cord to the crosspiece, and at something she said he laughed aloud. In the expressions of both faces was to be seen vigorous, young, freshly awakened love. The load was tied on. Ivan jumped down and took the quiet, sleek horse by the bridle. The young wife flung the rake up on the load, and with a bold step, swinging her arms, she went to join the women, who were forming a ring for the haymakers' dance. Ivan drove off to the road and fell into line with the other loaded carts. The peasant women, with their rakes on their shoulders, gay with bright flowers, and chattering with ringing, merry voices, walked behind the hay cart. One wild untrained female voice broke into a song, and sang it alone through a verse, and then the same verse was taken up and repeated by half a hundred strong healthy voices, of all sorts, coarse and fine, singing in unison. The women, all singing, began to come close to Levin, and he felt as though a storm were swooping down upon him with a thunder of merriment. The storm swooped down, enveloped him and the haycock on which he was lying, and the other haycocks, and the wagonloads, and the whole meadow and distant fields all seemed to be shaking and singing to the measures of this wild merry song with its shouts and whistles and clapping. Levin felt envious of this health and mirthfulness he longed to take part in the expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and had to lie and look on and listen. When the peasants, with their singing, had vanished out of sight and hearing, a weary feeling of despondency at his own isolation, his physical inactivity, his alienation from this world, came over Levin. Some of the very peasants who had been most active in wrangling with him over the hay, some whom he had treated with contumely, and who had tried to cheat him, those very peasants had greeted him goodhumoredly, and evidently had not, were incapable of having any feeling of rancor against him, any regret, any recollection even of having tried to deceive him. All that was drowned in a sea of merry common labor. God gave the day, God gave the strength. And the day and the strength were consecrated to labor, and that labor was its own reward. For whom the labor? What would be its fruits? These were idle considerationsbeside the point. Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life but today for the first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young wife, the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial, idle, and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious, pure, and socially delightful life. The old man who had been sitting beside him had long ago gone home the people had all separated. Those who lived near had gone home, while those who came from far were gathered into a group for supper, and to spend the night in the meadow. Levin, unobserved by the peasants, still lay on the haycock, and still looked on and listened and mused. The peasants who remained for the night in the meadow scarcely slept all the short summer night. At first there was the sound of merry talk and laughing all together over the supper, then singing again and laughter. All the long day of toil had left no trace in them but lightness of heart. Before the early dawn all was hushed. Nothing was to be heard but the night sounds of the frogs that never ceased in the marsh, and the horses snorting in the mist that rose over the meadow before the morning. Rousing himself, Levin got up from the haycock, and looking at the stars, he saw that the night was over. 'Well, what am I going to do? How am I to set about it? he said to himself, trying to express to himself all the thoughts and feelings he had passed through in that brief night. All the thoughts and feelings he had passed through fell into three separate trains of thought. One was the renunciation of his old life, of his utterly useless education. This renunciation gave him satisfaction, and was easy and simple. Another series of thoughts and mental images related to the life he longed to live now. The simplicity, the purity, the sanity of this life he felt clearly, and he was convinced he would find in it the content, the peace, and the dignity, of the lack of which he was so miserably conscious. But a third series of ideas turned upon the question how to effect this transition from the old life to the new. And there nothing took clear shape for him. 'Have a wife? Have work and the necessity of work? Leave Pokrovskoe? Buy land? Become a member of a peasant community? Marry a peasant girl? How am I to set about it? he asked himself again, and could not find an answer. 'I haven't slept all night, though, and I can't think it out clearly, he said to himself. 'I'll work it out later. One thing's certain, this night has decided my fate. All my old dreams of home life were absurd, not the real thing, he told himself. 'It's all ever so much simpler and better.... 'How beautiful! he thought, looking at the strange, as it were, motherofpearl shell of white fleecy cloudlets resting right over his head in the middle of the sky. 'How exquisite it all is in this exquisite night! And when was there time for that cloudshell to form? Just now I looked at the sky, and there was nothing in itonly two white streaks. Yes, and so imperceptibly too my views of life changed! He went out of the meadow and walked along the highroad towards the village. A slight wind arose, and the sky looked gray and sullen. The gloomy moment had come that usually precedes the dawn, the full triumph of light over darkness. Shrinking from the cold, Levin walked rapidly, looking at the ground. 'What's that? Someone coming, he thought, catching the tinkle of bells, and lifting his head. Forty paces from him a carriage with four horses harnessed abreast was driving towards him along the grassy road on which he was walking. The shafthorses were tilted against the shafts by the ruts, but the dexterous driver sitting on the box held the shaft over the ruts, so that the wheels ran on the smooth part of the road. This was all Levin noticed, and without wondering who it could be, he gazed absently at the coach. In the coach was an old lady dozing in one corner, and at the window, evidently only just awake, sat a young girl holding in both hands the ribbons of a white cap. With a face full of light and thought, full of a subtle, complex inner life, that was remote from Levin, she was gazing beyond him at the glow of the sunrise. At the very instant when this apparition was vanishing, the truthful eyes glanced at him. She recognized him, and her face lighted up with wondering delight. He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world that could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty. He understood that she was driving to Ergushovo from the railway station. And everything that had been stirring Levin during that sleepless night, all the resolutions he had made, all vanished at once. He recalled with horror his dreams of marrying a peasant girl. There only, in the carriage that had crossed over to the other side of the road, and was rapidly disappearing, there only could he find the solution of the riddle of his life, which had weighed so agonizingly upon him of late. She did not look out again. The sound of the carriagesprings was no longer audible, the bells could scarcely be heard. The barking of dogs showed the carriage had reached the village, and all that was left was the empty fields all round, the village in front, and he himself isolated and apart from it all, wandering lonely along the deserted highroad. He glanced at the sky, expecting to find there the cloud shell he had been admiring and taking as the symbol of the ideas and feelings of that night. There was nothing in the sky in the least like a shell. There, in the remote heights above, a mysterious change had been accomplished. There was no trace of shell, and there was stretched over fully half the sky an even cover of tiny and ever tinier cloudlets. The sky had grown blue and bright and with the same softness, but with the same remoteness, it met his questioning gaze. 'No, he said to himself, 'however good that life of simplicity and toil may be, I cannot go back to it. I love her. None but those who were most intimate with Alexey Alexandrovitch knew that, while on the surface the coldest and most reasonable of men, he had one weakness quite opposed to the general trend of his character. Alexey Alexandrovitch could not hear or see a child or woman crying without being moved. The sight of tears threw him into a state of nervous agitation, and he utterly lost all power of reflection. The chief secretary of his department and his private secretary were aware of this, and used to warn women who came with petitions on no account to give way to tears, if they did not want to ruin their chances. 'He will get angry, and will not listen to you, they used to say. And as a fact, in such cases the emotional disturbance set up in Alexey Alexandrovitch by the sight of tears found expression in hasty anger. 'I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room! he would commonly cry in such cases. When returning from the races Anna had informed him of her relations with Vronsky, and immediately afterwards had burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands, Alexey Alexandrovitch, for all the fury aroused in him against her, was aware at the same time of a rush of that emotional disturbance always produced in him by tears. Conscious of it, and conscious that any expression of his feelings at that minute would be out of keeping with the position, he tried to suppress every manifestation of life in himself, and so neither stirred nor looked at her. This was what had caused that strange expression of deathlike rigidity in his face which had so impressed Anna. When they reached the house he helped her to get out of the carriage, and making an effort to master himself, took leave of her with his usual urbanity, and uttered that phrase that bound him to nothing he said that tomorrow he would let her know his decision. His wife's words, confirming his worst suspicions, had sent a cruel pang to the heart of Alexey Alexandrovitch. That pang was intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity for her set up by her tears. But when he was all alone in the carriage Alexey Alexandrovitch, to his surprise and delight, felt complete relief both from this pity and from the doubts and agonies of jealousy. He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out after suffering long from toothache. After a fearful agony and a sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn out of his jaw, the sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own good luck, feels all at once that what has so long poisoned his existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that he can live and think again, and take interest in other things besides his tooth. This feeling Alexey Alexandrovitch was experiencing. The agony had been strange and terrible, but now it was over he felt that he could live again and think of something other than his wife. 'No honor, no heart, no religion a corrupt woman. I always knew it and always saw it, though I tried to deceive myself to spare her, he said to himself. And it actually seemed to him that he always had seen it he recalled incidents of their past life, in which he had never seen anything wrong beforenow these incidents proved clearly that she had always been a corrupt woman. 'I made a mistake in linking my life to hers but there was nothing wrong in my mistake, and so I cannot be unhappy. It's not I that am to blame, he told himself, 'but she. But I have nothing to do with her. She does not exist for me.... Everything relating to her and her son, towards whom his sentiments were as much changed as towards her, ceased to interest him. The only thing that interested him now was the question of in what way he could best, with most propriety and comfort for himself, and thus with most justice, extricate himself from the mud with which she had spattered him in her fall, and then proceed along his path of active, honorable, and useful existence. 'I cannot be made unhappy by the fact that a contemptible woman has committed a crime. I have only to find the best way out of the difficult position in which she has placed me. And I shall find it, he said to himself, frowning more and more. 'I'm not the first nor the last. And to say nothing of historical instances dating from the 'Fair Helen of Menelaus, recently revived in the memory of all, a whole list of contemporary examples of husbands with unfaithful wives in the highest society rose before Alexey Alexandrovitch's imagination. 'Daryalov, Poltavsky, Prince Karibanov, Count Paskudin, Dram.... Yes, even Dram, such an honest, capable fellow ... Semyonov, Tchagin, Sigonin, Alexey Alexandrovitch remembered. 'Admitting that a certain quite irrational ridicule falls to the lot of these men, yet I never saw anything but a misfortune in it, and always felt sympathy for it, Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, though indeed this was not the fact, and he had never felt sympathy for misfortunes of that kind, but the more frequently he had heard of instances of unfaithful wives betraying their husbands, the more highly he had thought of himself. 'It is a misfortune which may befall anyone. And this misfortune has befallen me. The only thing to be done is to make the best of the position. And he began passing in review the methods of proceeding of men who had been in the same position that he was in. 'Daryalov fought a duel.... The duel had particularly fascinated the thoughts of Alexey Alexandrovitch in his youth, just because he was physically a coward, and was himself well aware of the fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch could not without horror contemplate the idea of a pistol aimed at himself, and had never made use of any weapon in his life. This horror had in his youth set him pondering on dueling, and picturing himself in a position in which he would have to expose his life to danger. Having attained success and an established position in the world, he had long ago forgotten this feeling but the habitual bent of feeling reasserted itself, and dread of his own cowardice proved even now so strong that Alexey Alexandrovitch spent a long while thinking over the question of dueling in all its aspects, and hugging the idea of a duel, though he was fully aware beforehand that he would never under any circumstances fight one. 'There's no doubt our society is still so barbarous (it's not the same in England) that very manyand among these were those whose opinion Alexey Alexandrovitch particularly valued'look favorably on the duel but what result is attained by it? Suppose I call him out, Alexey Alexandrovitch went on to himself, and vividly picturing the night he would spend after the challenge, and the pistol aimed at him, he shuddered, and knew that he never would do it'suppose I call him out. Suppose I am taught, he went on musing, 'to shoot I press the trigger, he said to himself, closing his eyes, 'and it turns out I have killed him, Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, and he shook his head as though to dispel such silly ideas. 'What sense is there in murdering a man in order to define one's relation to a guilty wife and son? I should still just as much have to decide what I ought to do with her. But what is more probable and what would doubtless occurI should be killed or wounded. I, the innocent person, should be the victimkilled or wounded. It's even more senseless. But apart from that, a challenge to fight would be an act hardly honest on my side. Don't I know perfectly well that my friends would never allow me to fight a duelwould never allow the life of a statesman, needed by Russia, to be exposed to danger? Knowing perfectly well beforehand that the matter would never come to real danger, it would amount to my simply trying to gain a certain sham reputation by such a challenge. That would be dishonest, that would be false, that would be deceiving myself and others. A duel is quite irrational, and no one expects it of me. My aim is simply to safeguard my reputation, which is essential for the uninterrupted pursuit of my public duties. Official duties, which had always been of great consequence in Alexey Alexandrovitch's eyes, seemed of special importance to his mind at this moment. Considering and rejecting the duel, Alexey Alexandrovitch turned to divorceanother solution selected by several of the husbands he remembered. Passing in mental review all the instances he knew of divorces (there were plenty of them in the very highest society with which he was very familiar), Alexey Alexandrovitch could not find a single example in which the object of divorce was that which he had in view. In all these instances the husband had practically ceded or sold his unfaithful wife, and the very party which, being in fault, had not the right to contract a fresh marriage, had formed counterfeit, pseudomatrimonial ties with a selfstyled husband. In his own case, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that a legal divorce, that is to say, one in which only the guilty wife would be repudiated, was impossible of attainment. He saw that the complex conditions of the life they led made the coarse proofs of his wife's guilt, required by the law, out of the question he saw that a certain refinement in that life would not admit of such proofs being brought forward, even if he had them, and that to bring forward such proofs would damage him in the public estimation more than it would her. An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal, which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to define the position with the least amount of disturbance possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce, it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch still had one feeling left in regard to hera disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place in the carriage, and for a long while after, he sat with scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy rug. 'Apart from formal divorce, One might still do like Karibanov, Paskudin, and that good fellow Dramthat is, separate from one's wife, he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure. But this step too presented the same drawback of public scandal as a divorce, and what was more, a separation, quite as much as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. 'No, it's out of the question, out of the question! he said again, twisting his rug about him again. 'I cannot be unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be happy. The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period of uncertainty, had passed away at the instant when the tooth had been with agony extracted by his wife's words. But that feeling had been replaced by another, the desire, not merely that she should not be triumphant, but that she should get due punishment for her crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the bottom of his heart he longed for her to suffer for having destroyed his peace of mindhis honor. And going once again over the conditions inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a separation, and once again rejecting them, Alexey Alexandrovitch felt convinced that there was only one solution,to keep her with him, concealing what had happened from the world, and using every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still morethough this he did not admit to himselfto punish her. 'I must inform her of my conclusion, that thinking over the terrible position in which she has placed her family, all other solutions will be worse for both sides than an external status quo, and that such I agree to retain, on the strict condition of obedience on her part to my wishes, that is to say, cessation of all intercourse with her lover. When this decision had been finally adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexey Alexandrovitch in support of it. 'By such a course only shall I be acting in accordance with the dictates of religion, he told himself. 'In adopting this course, I am not casting off a guilty wife, but giving her a chance of amendment and, indeed, difficult as the task will be to me, I shall devote part of my energies to her reformation and salvation. Though Alexey Alexandrovitch was perfectly aware that he could not exert any moral influence over his wife, that such an attempt at reformation could lead to nothing but falsity though in passing through these difficult moments he had not once thought of seeking guidance in religion, yet now, when his conclusion corresponded, as it seemed to him, with the requirements of religion, this religious sanction to his decision gave him complete satisfaction, and to some extent restored his peace of mind. He was pleased to think that, even in such an important crisis in life, no one would be able to say that he had not acted in accordance with the principles of that religion whose banner he had always held aloft amid the general coolness and indifference. As he pondered over subsequent developments, Alexey Alexandrovitch did not see, indeed, why his relations with his wife should not remain practically the same as before. No doubt, she could never regain his esteem, but there was not, and there could not be, any sort of reason that his existence should be troubled, and that he should suffer because she was a bad and faithless wife. 'Yes, time will pass time, which arranges all things, and the old relations will be reestablished, Alexey Alexandrovitch told himself 'so far reestablished, that is, that I shall not be sensible of a break in the continuity of my life. She is bound to be unhappy, but I am not to blame, and so I cannot be unhappy. As he neared Petersburg, Alexey Alexandrovitch not only adhered entirely to his decision, but was even composing in his head the letter he would write to his wife. Going into the porter's room, Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at the letters and papers brought from his office, and directed that they should be brought to him in his study. 'The horses can be taken out and I will see no one, he said in answer to the porter, with a certain pleasure, indicative of his agreeable frame of mind, emphasizing the words, 'see no one. In his study Alexey Alexandrovitch walked up and down twice, and stopped at an immense writingtable, on which six candles had already been lighted by the valet who had preceded him. He cracked his knuckles and sat down, sorting out his writing appurtenances. Putting his elbows on the table, he bent his head on one side, thought a minute, and began to write, without pausing for a second. He wrote without using any form of address to her, and wrote in French, making use of the plural 'vous, which has not the same note of coldness as the corresponding Russian form. 'At our last conversation, I notified you of my intention to communicate to you my decision in regard to the subject of that conversation. Having carefully considered everything, I am writing now with the object of fulfilling that promise. My decision is as follows. Whatever your conduct may have been, I do not consider myself justified in breaking the ties in which we are bound by a Higher Power. The family cannot be broken up by a whim, a caprice, or even by the sin of one of the partners in the marriage, and our life must go on as it has done in the past. This is essential for me, for you, and for our son. I am fully persuaded that you have repented and do repent of what has called forth the present letter, and that you will cooperate with me in eradicating the cause of our estrangement, and forgetting the past. In the contrary event, you can conjecture what awaits you and your son. All this I hope to discuss more in detail in a personal interview. As the season is drawing to a close, I would beg you to return to Petersburg as quickly as possible, not later than Tuesday. All necessary preparations shall be made for your arrival here. I beg you to note that I attach particular significance to compliance with this request. A. Karenin 'P.S.I enclose the money which may be needed for your expenses. He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and especially that he had remembered to enclose money there was not a harsh word, not a reproach in it, nor was there undue indulgence. Most of all, it was a golden bridge for return. Folding the letter and smoothing it with a massive ivory knife, and putting it in an envelope with the money, he rang the bell with the gratification it always afforded him to use the well arranged appointments of his writingtable. 'Give this to the courier to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna tomorrow at the summer villa, he said, getting up. 'Certainly, your excellency tea to be served in the study? Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be brought to the study, and playing with the massive paperknife, he moved to his easy chair, near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the French work on Egyptian hieroglyphics that he had begun. Over the easy chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a fine painting by a celebrated artist. Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed ironically and insolently at him. Insufferably insolent and challenging was the effect in Alexey Alexandrovitch's eyes of the black lace about the head, admirably touched in by the painter, the black hair and handsome white hand with one finger lifted, covered with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered so that his lips quivered and he uttered the sound 'brrr, and turned away. He made haste to sit down in his easy chair and opened the book. He tried to read, but he could not revive the very vivid interest he had felt before in Egyptian hieroglyphics. He looked at the book and thought of something else. He thought not of his wife, but of a complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt that he had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had originated a leading ideahe could say it without selfflatterycalculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the government. Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up and went to the writingtable. Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of selfsatisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report relating to the present complication. The complication was of this nature Alexey Alexandrovitch's characteristic quality as a politician, that special individual qualification that every rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and with his selfconfidence had made his career, was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexey Alexandrovitch's department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of Alexey Alexandrovitch's predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually been spent and were still being spent on this business, and utterly unproductively, and the whole business could obviously lead to nothing whatever. Alexey Alexandrovitch had perceived this at once on entering office, and would have liked to lay hands on the Board of Irrigation. But at first, when he did not yet feel secure in his position, he knew it would affect too many interests, and would be injudicious. Later on he had been engrossed in other questions, and had simply forgotten the Board of Irrigation. It went of itself, like all such boards, by the mere force of inertia. (Many people gained their livelihood by the Board of Irrigation, especially one highly conscientious and musical family all the daughters played on stringed instruments, and Alexey Alexandrovitch knew the family and had stood godfather to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of this question by a hostile department was in Alexey Alexandrovitch's opinion a dishonorable proceeding, seeing that in every department there were things similar and worse, which no one inquired into, for wellknown reasons of official etiquette. However, now that the glove had been thrown down to him, he had boldly picked it up and demanded the appointment of a special commission to investigate and verify the working of the Board of Irrigation of the lands in the Zaraisky province. But in compensation he gave no quarter to the enemy either. He demanded the appointment of another special commission to inquire into the question of the Native Tribes Organization Committee. The question of the Native Tribes had been brought up incidentally in the Commission of the nd of June, and had been pressed forward actively by Alexey Alexandrovitch as one admitting of no delay on account of the deplorable condition of the native tribes. In the commission this question had been a ground of contention between several departments. The department hostile to Alexey Alexandrovitch proved that the condition of the native tribes was exceedingly flourishing, that the proposed reconstruction might be the ruin of their prosperity, and that if there were anything wrong, it arose mainly from the failure on the part of Alexey Alexandrovitch's department to carry out the measures prescribed by law. Now Alexey Alexandrovitch intended to demand First, that a new commission should be formed which should be empowered to investigate the condition of the native tribes on the spot secondly, if it should appear that the condition of the native tribes actually was such as it appeared to be from the official documents in the hands of the committee, that another new scientific commission should be appointed to investigate the deplorable condition of the native tribes from the() political, () administrative, () economic, () ethnographical, () material, and () religious points of view thirdly, that evidence should be required from the rival department of the measures that had been taken during the last ten years by that department for averting the disastrous conditions in which the native tribes were now placed and fourthly and finally, that that department explain why it had, as appeared from the evidence before the committee, from No. , and ,, from December , , and June , , acted in direct contravention of the intent of the law T... Act , and the note to Act . A flash of eagerness suffused the face of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he rapidly wrote out a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit. Having filled a sheet of paper, he got up, rang, and sent a note to the chief secretary of his department to look up certain necessary facts for him. Getting up and walking about the room, he glanced again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously. After reading a little more of the book on Egyptian hieroglyphics, and renewing his interest in it, Alexey Alexandrovitch went to bed at eleven o'clock, and recollecting as he lay in bed the incident with his wife, he saw it now in by no means such a gloomy light. Though Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted Vronsky when he told her their position was impossible, at the bottom of her heart she regarded her own position as false and dishonorable, and she longed with her whole soul to change it. On the way home from the races she had told her husband the truth in a moment of excitement, and in spite of the agony she had suffered in doing so, she was glad of it. After her husband had left her, she told herself that she was glad, that now everything was made clear, and at least there would be no more lying and deception. It seemed to her beyond doubt that her position was now made clear forever. It might be bad, this new position, but it would be clear there would be no indefiniteness or falsehood about it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being made clear, she thought. That evening she saw Vronsky, but she did not tell him of what had passed between her and her husband, though, to make the position definite, it was necessary to tell him. When she woke up next morning the first thing that rose to her mind was what she had said to her husband, and those words seemed to her so awful that she could not conceive now how she could have brought herself to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not imagine what would come of it. But the words were spoken, and Alexey Alexandrovitch had gone away without saying anything. 'I saw Vronsky and did not tell him. At the very instant he was going away I would have turned him back and told him, but I changed my mind, because it was strange that I had not told him the first minute. Why was it I wanted to tell him and did not tell him? And in answer to this question a burning blush of shame spread over her face. She knew what had kept her from it, she knew that she had been ashamed. Her position, which had seemed to her simplified the night before, suddenly struck her now as not only not simple, but as absolutely hopeless. She felt terrified at the disgrace, of which she had not ever thought before. Directly she thought of what her husband would do, the most terrible ideas came to her mind. She had a vision of being turned out of the house, of her shame being proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself where she should go when she was turned out of the house, and she could not find an answer. When she thought of Vronsky, it seemed to her that he did not love her, that he was already beginning to be tired of her, that she could not offer herself to him, and she felt bitter against him for it. It seemed to her that the words that she had spoken to her husband, and had continually repeated in her imagination, she had said to everyone, and everyone had heard them. She could not bring herself to look those of her own household in the face. She could not bring herself to call her maid, and still less go downstairs and see her son and his governess. The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while, came into her room of her own accord. Anna glanced inquiringly into her face, and blushed with a scared look. The maid begged her pardon for coming in, saying that she had fancied the bell rang. She brought her clothes and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy reminded her that Liza Merkalova and Baroness Shtoltz were coming to play croquet with her that morning with their adorers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov. 'Come, if only as a study in morals. I shall expect you, she finished. Anna read the note and heaved a deep sigh. 'Nothing, I need nothing, she said to Annushka, who was rearranging the bottles and brushes on the dressing table. 'You can go. I'll dress at once and come down. I need nothing. Annushka went out, but Anna did not begin dressing, and sat in the same position, her head and hands hanging listlessly, and every now and then she shivered all over, seemed as though she would make some gesture, utter some word, and sank back into lifelessness again. She repeated continually, 'My God! my God! But neither 'God nor 'my had any meaning to her. The idea of seeking help in her difficulty in religion was as remote from her as seeking help from Alexey Alexandrovitch himself, although she had never had doubts of the faith in which she had been brought up. She knew that the support of religion was possible only upon condition of renouncing what made up for her the whole meaning of life. She was not simply miserable, she began to feel alarm at the new spiritual condition, never experienced before, in which she found herself. She felt as though everything were beginning to be double in her soul, just as objects sometimes appear double to overtired eyes. She hardly knew at times what it was she feared, and what she hoped for. Whether she feared or desired what had happened, or what was going to happen, and exactly what she longed for, she could not have said. 'Ah, what am I doing! she said to herself, feeling a sudden thrill of pain in both sides of her head. When she came to herself, she saw that she was holding her hair in both hands, each side of her temples, and pulling it. She jumped up, and began walking about. 'The coffee is ready, and mademoiselle and Seryozha are waiting, said Annushka, coming back again and finding Anna in the same position. 'Seryozha? What about Seryozha? Anna asked, with sudden eagerness, recollecting her son's existence for the first time that morning. 'He's been naughty, I think, answered Annushka with a smile. 'In what way? 'Some peaches were lying on the table in the corner room. I think he slipped in and ate one of them on the sly. The recollection of her son suddenly roused Anna from the helpless condition in which she found herself. She recalled the partly sincere, though greatly exaggerated, rle of the mother living for her child, which she had taken up of late years, and she felt with joy that in the plight in which she found herself she had a support, quite apart from her relation to her husband or to Vronsky. This support was her son. In whatever position she might be placed, she could not lose her son. Her husband might put her to shame and turn her out, Vronsky might grow cold to her and go on living his own life apart (she thought of him again with bitterness and reproach) she could not leave her son. She had an aim in life. And she must act act to secure this relation to her son, so that he might not be taken from her. Quickly indeed, as quickly as possible, she must take action before he was taken from her. She must take her son and go away. Here was the one thing she had to do now. She needed consolation. She must be calm, and get out of this insufferable position. The thought of immediate action binding her to her son, of going away somewhere with him, gave her this consolation. She dressed quickly, went downstairs, and with resolute steps walked into the drawingroom, where she found, as usual, waiting for her, the coffee, Seryozha, and his governess. Seryozha, all in white, with his back and head bent, was standing at a table under a lookingglass, and with an expression of intense concentration which she knew well, and in which he resembled his father, he was doing something to the flowers he carried. The governess had a particularly severe expression. Seryozha screamed shrilly, as he often did, 'Ah, mamma! and stopped, hesitating whether to go to greet his mother and put down the flowers, or to finish making the wreath and go with the flowers. The governess, after saying goodmorning, began a long and detailed account of Seryozha's naughtiness, but Anna did not hear her she was considering whether she would take her with her or not. 'No, I won't take her, she decided. 'I'll go alone with my child. 'Yes, it's very wrong, said Anna, and taking her son by the shoulder she looked at him, not severely, but with a timid glance that bewildered and delighted the boy, and she kissed him. 'Leave him to me, she said to the astonished governess, and not letting go of her son, she sat down at the table, where coffee was set ready for her. 'Mamma! I ... I ... didn't.... he said, trying to make out from her expression what was in store for him in regard to the peaches. 'Seryozha, she said, as soon as the governess had left the room, 'that was wrong, but you'll never do it again, will you?... You love me? She felt that the tears were coming into her eyes. 'Can I help loving him? she said to herself, looking deeply into his scared and at the same time delighted eyes. 'And can he ever join his father in punishing me? Is it possible he will not feel for me? Tears were already flowing down her face, and to hide them she got up abruptly and almost ran out on to the terrace. After the thunder showers of the last few days, cold, bright weather had set in. The air was cold in the bright sun that filtered through the freshly washed leaves. She shivered, both from the cold and from the inward horror which had clutched her with fresh force in the open air. 'Run along, run along to Mariette, she said to Seryozha, who had followed her out, and she began walking up and down on the straw matting of the terrace. 'Can it be that they won't forgive me, won't understand how it all couldn't be helped? she said to herself. Standing still, and looking at the tops of the aspen trees waving in the wind, with their freshly washed, brightly shining leaves in the cold sunshine, she knew that they would not forgive her, that everyone and everything would be merciless to her now as was that sky, that green. And again she felt that everything was split in two in her soul. 'I mustn't, mustn't think, she said to herself. 'I must get ready. To go where? When? Whom to take with me? Yes, to Moscow by the evening train. Annushka and Seryozha, and only the most necessary things. But first I must write to them both. She went quickly indoors into her boudoir, sat down at the table, and wrote to her husband'After what has happened, I cannot remain any longer in your house. I am going away, and taking my son with me. I don't know the law, and so I don't know with which of the parents the son should remain but I take him with me because I cannot live without him. Be generous, leave him to me. Up to this point she wrote rapidly and naturally, but the appeal to his generosity, a quality she did not recognize in him, and the necessity of winding up the letter with something touching, pulled her up. 'Of my fault and my remorse I cannot speak, because.... She stopped again, finding no connection in her ideas. 'No, she said to herself, 'there's no need of anything, and tearing up the letter, she wrote it again, leaving out the allusion to generosity, and sealed it up. Another letter had to be written to Vronsky. 'I have told my husband, she wrote, and she sat a long while unable to write more. It was so coarse, so unfeminine. 'And what more am I to write to him? she said to herself. Again a flush of shame spread over her face she recalled his composure, and a feeling of anger against him impelled her to tear the sheet with the phrase she had written into tiny bits. 'No need of anything, she said to herself, and closing her blottingcase she went upstairs, told the governess and the servants that she was going that day to Moscow, and at once set to work to pack up her things. All the rooms of the summer villa were full of porters, gardeners, and footmen going to and fro carrying out things. Cupboards and chests were open twice they had sent to the shop for cord pieces of newspaper were tossing about on the floor. Two trunks, some bags and strappedup rugs, had been carried down into the hall. The carriage and two hired cabs were waiting at the steps. Anna, forgetting her inward agitation in the work of packing, was standing at a table in her boudoir, packing her traveling bag, when Annushka called her attention to the rattle of some carriage driving up. Anna looked out of the window and saw Alexey Alexandrovitch's courier on the steps, ringing at the front door bell. 'Run and find out what it is, she said, and with a calm sense of being prepared for anything, she sat down in a low chair, folding her hands on her knees. A footman brought in a thick packet directed in Alexey Alexandrovitch's hand. 'The courier has orders to wait for an answer, he said. 'Very well, she said, and as soon as he had left the room she tore open the letter with trembling fingers. A roll of unfolded notes done up in a wrapper fell out of it. She disengaged the letter and began reading it at the end. 'Preparations shall be made for your arrival here ... I attach particular significance to compliance.... she read. She ran on, then back, read it all through, and once more read the letter all through again from the beginning. When she had finished, she felt that she was cold all over, and that a fearful calamity, such as she had not expected, had burst upon her. In the morning she had regretted that she had spoken to her husband, and wished for nothing so much as that those words could be unspoken. And here this letter regarded them as unspoken, and gave her what she had wanted. But now this letter seemed to her more awful than anything she had been able to conceive. 'He's right! she said 'of course, he's always right he's a Christian, he's generous! Yes, vile, base creature! And no one understands it except me, and no one ever will and I can't explain it. They say he's so religious, so highprincipled, so upright, so clever but they don't see what I've seen. They don't know how he has crushed my life for eight years, crushed everything that was living in mehe has not once even thought that I'm a live woman who must have love. They don't know how at every step he's humiliated me, and been just as pleased with himself. Haven't I striven, striven with all my strength, to find something to give meaning to my life? Haven't I struggled to love him, to love my son when I could not love my husband? But the time came when I knew that I couldn't cheat myself any longer, that I was alive, that I was not to blame, that God has made me so that I must love and live. And now what does he do? If he'd killed me, if he'd killed him, I could have borne anything, I could have forgiven anything but, no, he.... How was it I didn't guess what he would do? He's doing just what's characteristic of his mean character. He'll keep himself in the right, while me, in my ruin, he'll drive still lower to worse ruin yet.... She recalled the words from the letter. 'You can conjecture what awaits you and your son.... 'That's a threat to take away my child, and most likely by their stupid law he can. But I know very well why he says it. He doesn't believe even in my love for my child, or he despises it (just as he always used to ridicule it). He despises that feeling in me, but he knows that I won't abandon my child, that I can't abandon my child, that there could be no life for me without my child, even with him whom I love but that if I abandoned my child and ran away from him, I should be acting like the most infamous, basest of women. He knows that, and knows that I am incapable of doing that. She recalled another sentence in the letter. 'Our life must go on as it has done in the past.... 'That life was miserable enough in the old days it has been awful of late. What will it be now? And he knows all that he knows that I can't repent that I breathe, that I love he knows that it can lead to nothing but lying and deceit but he wants to go on torturing me. I know him I know that he's at home and is happy in deceit, like a fish swimming in the water. No, I won't give him that happiness. I'll break through the spiderweb of lies in which he wants to catch me, come what may. Anything's better than lying and deceit. 'But how? My God! my God! Was ever a woman so miserable as I am?... 'No I will break through it, I will break through it! she cried, jumping up and keeping back her tears. And she went to the writingtable to write him another letter. But at the bottom of her heart she felt that she was not strong enough to break through anything, that she was not strong enough to get out of her old position, however false and dishonorable it might be. She sat down at the writingtable, but instead of writing she clasped her hands on the table, and, laying her head on them, burst into tears, with sobs and heaving breast like a child crying. She was weeping that her dream of her position being made clear and definite had been annihilated forever. She knew beforehand that everything would go on in the old way, and far worse, indeed, than in the old way. She felt that the position in the world that she enjoyed, and that had seemed to her of so little consequence in the morning, that this position was precious to her, that she would not have the strength to exchange it for the shameful position of a woman who has abandoned husband and child to join her lover that however much she might struggle, she could not be stronger than herself. She would never know freedom in love, but would remain forever a guilty wife, with the menace of detection hanging over her at every instant deceiving her husband for the sake of a shameful connection with a man living apart and away from her, whose life she could never share. She knew that this was how it would be, and at the same time it was so awful that she could not even conceive what it would end in. And she cried without restraint, as children cry when they are punished. The sound of the footman's steps forced her to rouse herself, and, hiding her face from him, she pretended to be writing. 'The courier asks if there's an answer, the footman announced. 'An answer? Yes, said Anna. 'Let him wait. I'll ring. 'What can I write? she thought. 'What can I decide upon alone? What do I know? What do I want? What is there I care for? Again she felt that her soul was beginning to be split in two. She was terrified again at this feeling, and clutched at the first pretext for doing something which might divert her thoughts from herself. 'I ought to see Alexey (so she called Vronsky in her thoughts) 'no one but he can tell me what I ought to do. I'll go to Betsy's, perhaps I shall see him there, she said to herself, completely forgetting that when she had told him the day before that she was not going to Princess Tverskaya's, he had said that in that case he should not go either. She went up to the table, wrote to her husband, 'I have received your letter.A. and, ringing the bell, gave it to the footman. 'We are not going, she said to Annushka, as she came in. 'Not going at all? 'No don't unpack till tomorrow, and let the carriage wait. I'm going to the princess's. 'Which dress am I to get ready? The croquet party to which the Princess Tverskaya had invited Anna was to consist of two ladies and their adorers. These two ladies were the chief representatives of a select new Petersburg circle, nicknamed, in imitation of some imitation, les sept merveilles du monde. These ladies belonged to a circle which, though of the highest society, was utterly hostile to that in which Anna moved. Moreover, Stremov, one of the most influential people in Petersburg, and the elderly admirer of Liza Merkalova, was Alexey Alexandrovitch's enemy in the political world. From all these considerations Anna had not meant to go, and the hints in Princess Tverskaya's note referred to her refusal. But now Anna was eager to go, in the hope of seeing Vronsky. Anna arrived at Princess Tverskaya's earlier than the other guests. At the same moment as she entered, Vronsky's footman, with sidewhiskers combed out like a Kammerjunker, went in too. He stopped at the door, and, taking off his cap, let her pass. Anna recognized him, and only then recalled that Vronsky had told her the day before that he would not come. Most likely he was sending a note to say so. As she took off her outer garment in the hall, she heard the footman, pronouncing his 'r's even like a Kammerjunker, say, 'From the count for the princess, and hand the note. She longed to question him as to where his master was. She longed to turn back and send him a letter to come and see her, or to go herself to see him. But neither the first nor the second nor the third course was possible. Already she heard bells ringing to announce her arrival ahead of her, and Princess Tverskaya's footman was standing at the open door waiting for her to go forward into the inner rooms. 'The princess is in the garden they will inform her immediately. Would you be pleased to walk into the garden? announced another footman in another room. The position of uncertainty, of indecision, was still the same as at homeworse, in fact, since it was impossible to take any step, impossible to see Vronsky, and she had to remain here among outsiders, in company so uncongenial to her present mood. But she was wearing a dress that she knew suited her. She was not alone all around was that luxurious setting of idleness that she was used to, and she felt less wretched than at home. She was not forced to think what she was to do. Everything would be done of itself. On meeting Betsy coming towards her in a white gown that struck her by its elegance, Anna smiled at her just as she always did. Princess Tverskaya was walking with Tushkevitch and a young lady, a relation, who, to the great joy of her parents in the provinces, was spending the summer with the fashionable princess. There was probably something unusual about Anna, for Betsy noticed it at once. 'I slept badly, answered Anna, looking intently at the footman who came to meet them, and, as she supposed, brought Vronsky's note. 'How glad I am you've come! said Betsy. 'I'm tired, and was just longing to have some tea before they come. You might goshe turned to Tushkevitch'with Masha, and try the croquet ground over there where they've been cutting it. We shall have time to talk a little over tea we'll have a cozy chat, eh? she said in English to Anna, with a smile, pressing the hand with which she held a parasol. 'Yes, especially as I can't stay very long with you. I'm forced to go on to old Madame Vrede. I've been promising to go for a century, said Anna, to whom lying, alien as it was to her nature, had become not merely simple and natural in society, but a positive source of satisfaction. Why she said this, which she had not thought of a second before, she could not have explained. She had said it simply from the reflection that as Vronsky would not be here, she had better secure her own freedom, and try to see him somehow. But why she had spoken of old Madame Vrede, whom she had to go and see, as she had to see many other people, she could not have explained and yet, as it afterwards turned out, had she contrived the most cunning devices to meet Vronsky, she could have thought of nothing better. 'No. I'm not going to let you go for anything, answered Betsy, looking intently into Anna's face. 'Really, if I were not fond of you, I should feel offended. One would think you were afraid my society would compromise you. Tea in the little diningroom, please, she said, half closing her eyes, as she always did when addressing the footman. Taking the note from him, she read it. 'Alexey's playing us false, she said in French 'he writes that he can't come, she added in a tone as simple and natural as though it could never enter her head that Vronsky could mean anything more to Anna than a game of croquet. Anna knew that Betsy knew everything, but, hearing how she spoke of Vronsky before her, she almost felt persuaded for a minute that she knew nothing. 'Ah! said Anna indifferently, as though not greatly interested in the matter, and she went on smiling 'How can you or your friends compromise anyone? This playing with words, this hiding of a secret, had a great fascination for Anna, as, indeed, it has for all women. And it was not the necessity of concealment, not the aim with which the concealment was contrived, but the process of concealment itself which attracted her. 'I can't be more Catholic than the Pope, she said. 'Stremov and Liza Merkalova, why, they're the cream of the cream of society. Besides, they're received everywhere, and Ishe laid special stress on the I'have never been strict and intolerant. It's simply that I haven't the time. 'No you don't care, perhaps, to meet Stremov? Let him and Alexey Alexandrovitch tilt at each other in the committeethat's no affair of ours. But in the world, he's the most amiable man I know, and a devoted croquet player. You shall see. And, in spite of his absurd position as Liza's lovesick swain at his age, you ought to see how he carries off the absurd position. He's very nice. Sappho Shtoltz you don't know? Oh, that's a new type, quite new. Betsy said all this, and, at the same time, from her goodhumored, shrewd glance, Anna felt that she partly guessed her plight, and was hatching something for her benefit. They were in the little boudoir. 'I must write to Alexey though, and Betsy sat down to the table, scribbled a few lines, and put the note in an envelope. 'I'm telling him to come to dinner. I've one lady extra to dinner with me, and no man to take her in. Look what I've said, will that persuade him? Excuse me, I must leave you for a minute. Would you seal it up, please, and send it off? she said from the door 'I have to give some directions. Without a moment's thought, Anna sat down to the table with Betsy's letter, and, without reading it, wrote below 'It's essential for me to see you. Come to the Vrede garden. I shall be there at six o'clock. She sealed it up, and, Betsy coming back, in her presence handed the note to be taken. At tea, which was brought them on a little teatable in the cool little drawingroom, the cozy chat promised by Princess Tverskaya before the arrival of her visitors really did come off between the two women. They criticized the people they were expecting, and the conversation fell upon Liza Merkalova. 'She's very sweet, and I always liked her, said Anna. 'You ought to like her. She raves about you. Yesterday she came up to me after the races and was in despair at not finding you. She says you're a real heroine of romance, and that if she were a man she would do all sorts of mad things for your sake. Stremov says she does that as it is. 'But do tell me, please, I never could make it out, said Anna, after being silent for some time, speaking in a tone that showed she was not asking an idle question, but that what she was asking was of more importance to her than it should have been 'do tell me, please, what are her relations with Prince Kaluzhsky, Mishka, as he's called? I've met them so little. What does it mean? Betsy smiled with her eyes, and looked intently at Anna. 'It's a new manner, she said. 'They've all adopted that manner. They've flung their caps over the windmills. But there are ways and ways of flinging them. 'Yes, but what are her relations precisely with Kaluzhsky? Betsy broke into unexpectedly mirthful and irrepressible laughter, a thing which rarely happened with her. 'You're encroaching on Princess Myakaya's special domain now. That's the question of an enfant terrible, and Betsy obviously tried to restrain herself, but could not, and went off into peals of that infectious laughter that people laugh who do not laugh often. 'You'd better ask them, she brought out, between tears of laughter. 'No you laugh, said Anna, laughing too in spite of herself, 'but I never could understand it. I can't understand the husband's rle in it. 'The husband? Liza Merkalova's husband carries her shawl, and is always ready to be of use. But anything more than that in reality, no one cares to inquire. You know in decent society one doesn't talk or think even of certain details of the toilet. That's how it is with this. 'Will you be at Madame Rolandak's fte? asked Anna, to change the conversation. 'I don't think so, answered Betsy, and, without looking at her friend, she began filling the little transparent cups with fragrant tea. Putting a cup before Anna, she took out a cigarette, and, fitting it into a silver holder, she lighted it. 'It's like this, you see I'm in a fortunate position, she began, quite serious now, as she took up her cup. 'I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those nave natures that, like children, don't know what's good and what's bad. Anyway, she didn't comprehend it when she was very young. And now she's aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn't know on purpose, said Betsy, with a subtle smile. 'But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically. 'How I should like to know other people just as I know myself! said Anna, seriously and dreamily. 'Am I worse than other people, or better? I think I'm worse. 'Enfant terrible, enfant terrible! repeated Betsy. 'But here they are. They heard the sound of steps and a man's voice, then a woman's voice and laughter, and immediately thereafter there walked in the expected guests Sappho Shtoltz, and a young man beaming with excess of health, the socalled Vaska. It was evident that ample supplies of beefsteak, truffles, and Burgundy never failed to reach him at the fitting hour. Vaska bowed to the two ladies, and glanced at them, but only for one second. He walked after Sappho into the drawingroom, and followed her about as though he were chained to her, keeping his sparkling eyes fixed on her as though he wanted to eat her. Sappho Shtoltz was a blonde beauty with black eyes. She walked with smart little steps in highheeled shoes, and shook hands with the ladies vigorously like a man. Anna had never met this new star of fashion, and was struck by her beauty, the exaggerated extreme to which her dress was carried, and the boldness of her manners. On her head there was such a superstructure of soft, golden hairher own and false mixedthat her head was equal in size to the elegantly rounded bust, of which so much was exposed in front. The impulsive abruptness of her movements was such that at every step the lines of her knees and the upper part of her legs were distinctly marked under her dress, and the question involuntarily rose to the mind where in the undulating, piledup mountain of material at the back the real body of the woman, so small and slender, so naked in front, and so hidden behind and below, really came to an end. Betsy made haste to introduce her to Anna. 'Only fancy, we all but ran over two soldiers, she began telling them at once, using her eyes, smiling and twitching away her tail, which she flung back at one stroke all on one side. 'I drove here with Vaska.... Ah, to be sure, you don't know each other. And mentioning his surname she introduced the young man, and reddening a little, broke into a ringing laugh at her mistakethat is, at her having called him Vaska to a stranger. Vaska bowed once more to Anna, but he said nothing to her. He addressed Sappho 'You've lost your bet. We got here first. Pay up, said he, smiling. Sappho laughed still more festively. 'Not just now, said she. 'Oh, all right, I'll have it later. 'Very well, very well. Oh, yes. She turned suddenly to Princess Betsy 'I am a nice person ... I positively forgot it ... I've brought you a visitor. And here he comes. The unexpected young visitor, whom Sappho had invited, and whom she had forgotten, was, however, a personage of such consequence that, in spite of his youth, both the ladies rose on his entrance. He was a new admirer of Sappho's. He now dogged her footsteps, like Vaska. Soon after Prince Kaluzhsky arrived, and Liza Merkalova with Stremov. Liza Merkalova was a thin brunette, with an Oriental, languid type of face, andas everyone used to sayexquisite enigmatic eyes. The tone of her dark dress (Anna immediately observed and appreciated the fact) was in perfect harmony with her style of beauty. Liza was as soft and enervated as Sappho was smart and abrupt. But to Anna's taste Liza was far more attractive. Betsy had said to Anna that she had adopted the pose of an innocent child, but when Anna saw her, she felt that this was not the truth. She really was both innocent and corrupt, but a sweet and passive woman. It is true that her tone was the same as Sappho's that like Sappho, she had two men, one young and one old, tacked onto her, and devouring her with their eyes. But there was something in her higher than what surrounded her. There was in her the glow of the real diamond among glass imitations. This glow shone out in her exquisite, truly enigmatic eyes. The weary, and at the same time passionate, glance of those eyes, encircled by dark rings, impressed one by its perfect sincerity. Everyone looking into those eyes fancied he knew her wholly, and knowing her, could not but love her. At the sight of Anna, her whole face lighted up at once with a smile of delight. 'Ah, how glad I am to see you! she said, going up to her. 'Yesterday at the races all I wanted was to get to you, but you'd gone away. I did so want to see you, yesterday especially. Wasn't it awful? she said, looking at Anna with eyes that seemed to lay bare all her soul. 'Yes I had no idea it would be so thrilling, said Anna, blushing. The company got up at this moment to go into the garden. 'I'm not going, said Liza, smiling and settling herself close to Anna. 'You won't go either, will you? Who wants to play croquet? 'Oh, I like it, said Anna. 'There, how do you manage never to be bored by things? It's delightful to look at you. You're alive, but I'm bored. 'How can you be bored? Why, you live in the liveliest set in Petersburg, said Anna. 'Possibly the people who are not of our set are even more bored but weI certainlyare not happy, but awfully, awfully bored. Sappho smoking a cigarette went off into the garden with the two young men. Betsy and Stremov remained at the teatable. 'What, bored! said Betsy. 'Sappho says they did enjoy themselves tremendously at your house last night. 'Ah, how dreary it all was! said Liza Merkalova. 'We all drove back to my place after the races. And always the same people, always the same. Always the same thing. We lounged about on sofas all the evening. What is there to enjoy in that? No do tell me how you manage never to be bored? she said, addressing Anna again. 'One has but to look at you and one sees, here's a woman who may be happy or unhappy, but isn't bored. Tell me how you do it? 'I do nothing, answered Anna, blushing at these searching questions. 'That's the best way, Stremov put in. Stremov was a man of fifty, partly gray, but still vigorouslooking, very ugly, but with a characteristic and intelligent face. Liza Merkalova was his wife's niece, and he spent all his leisure hours with her. On meeting Anna Karenina, as he was Alexey Alexandrovitch's enemy in the government, he tried, like a shrewd man and a man of the world, to be particularly cordial with her, the wife of his enemy. ''Nothing,' he put in with a subtle smile, 'that's the very best way. I told you long ago, he said, turning to Liza Merkalova, 'that if you don't want to be bored, you mustn't think you're going to be bored. It's just as you mustn't be afraid of not being able to fall asleep, if you're afraid of sleeplessness. That's just what Anna Arkadyevna has just said. 'I should be very glad if I had said it, for it's not only clever but true, said Anna, smiling. 'No, do tell me why it is one can't go to sleep, and one can't help being bored? 'To sleep well one ought to work, and to enjoy oneself one ought to work too. 'What am I to work for when my work is no use to anybody? And I can't and won't knowingly make a pretense about it. 'You're incorrigible, said Stremov, not looking at her, and he spoke again to Anna. As he rarely met Anna, he could say nothing but commonplaces to her, but he said those commonplaces as to when she was returning to Petersburg, and how fond Countess Lidia Ivanovna was of her, with an expression which suggested that he longed with his whole soul to please her and show his regard for her and even more than that. Tushkevitch came in, announcing that the party were awaiting the other players to begin croquet. 'No, don't go away, please don't, pleaded Liza Merkalova, hearing that Anna was going. Stremov joined in her entreaties. 'It's too violent a transition, he said, 'to go from such company to old Madame Vrede. And besides, you will only give her a chance for talking scandal, while here you arouse none but such different feelings of the highest and most opposite kind, he said to her. Anna pondered for an instant in uncertainty. This shrewd man's flattering words, the nave, childlike affection shown her by Liza Merkalova, and all the social atmosphere she was used to,it was all so easy, and what was in store for her was so difficult, that she was for a minute in uncertainty whether to remain, whether to put off a little longer the painful moment of explanation. But remembering what was in store for her alone at home, if she did not come to some decision, remembering that gestureterrible even in memorywhen she had clutched her hair in both handsshe said goodbye and went away. In spite of Vronsky's apparently frivolous life in society, he was a man who hated irregularity. In early youth in the Corps of Pages, he had experienced the humiliation of a refusal, when he had tried, being in difficulties, to borrow money, and since then he had never once put himself in the same position again. In order to keep his affairs in some sort of order, he used about five times a year (more or less frequently, according to circumstances) to shut himself up alone and put all his affairs into definite shape. This he used to call his day of reckoning or faire la lessive. On waking up the day after the races, Vronsky put on a white linen coat, and without shaving or taking his bath, he distributed about the table moneys, bills, and letters, and set to work. Petritsky, who knew he was illtempered on such occasions, on waking up and seeing his comrade at the writingtable, quietly dressed and went out without getting in his way. Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is. So indeed it seemed to Vronsky. And not without inward pride, and not without reason, he thought that any other man would long ago have been in difficulties, would have been forced to some dishonorable course, if he had found himself in such a difficult position. But Vronsky felt that now especially it was essential for him to clear up and define his position if he were to avoid getting into difficulties. What Vronsky attacked first as being the easiest was his pecuniary position. Writing out on note paper in his minute hand all that he owed, he added up the amount and found that his debts amounted to seventeen thousand and some odd hundreds, which he left out for the sake of clearness. Reckoning up his money and his bank book, he found that he had left one thousand eight hundred roubles, and nothing coming in before the New Year. Reckoning over again his list of debts, Vronsky copied it, dividing it into three classes. In the first class he put the debts which he would have to pay at once, or for which he must in any case have the money ready so that on demand for payment there could not be a moment's delay in paying. Such debts amounted to about four thousand one thousand five hundred for a horse, and two thousand five hundred as surety for a young comrade, Venovsky, who had lost that sum to a cardsharper in Vronsky's presence. Vronsky had wanted to pay the money at the time (he had that amount then), but Venovsky and Yashvin had insisted that they would pay and not Vronsky, who had not played. That was so far well, but Vronsky knew that in this dirty business, though his only share in it was undertaking by word of mouth to be surety for Venovsky, it was absolutely necessary for him to have the two thousand five hundred roubles so as to be able to fling it at the swindler, and have no more words with him. And so for this first and most important division he must have four thousand roubles. The second classeight thousand roublesconsisted of less important debts. These were principally accounts owing in connection with his race horses, to the purveyor of oats and hay, the English saddler, and so on. He would have to pay some two thousand roubles on these debts too, in order to be quite free from anxiety. The last class of debtsto shops, to hotels, to his tailorwere such as need not be considered. So that he needed at least six thousand roubles for current expenses, and he only had one thousand eight hundred. For a man with one hundred thousand roubles of revenue, which was what everyone fixed as Vronsky's income, such debts, one would suppose, could hardly be embarrassing but the fact was that he was far from having one hundred thousand. His father's immense property, which alone yielded a yearly income of two hundred thousand, was left undivided between the brothers. At the time when the elder brother, with a mass of debts, married Princess Varya Tchirkova, the daughter of a Decembrist without any fortune whatever, Alexey had given up to his elder brother almost the whole income from his father's estate, reserving for himself only twentyfive thousand a year from it. Alexey had said at the time to his brother that that sum would be sufficient for him until he married, which he probably never would do. And his brother, who was in command of one of the most expensive regiments, and was only just married, could not decline the gift. His mother, who had her own separate property, had allowed Alexey every year twenty thousand in addition to the twentyfive thousand he had reserved, and Alexey had spent it all. Of late his mother, incensed with him on account of his love affair and his leaving Moscow, had given up sending him the money. And in consequence of this, Vronsky, who had been in the habit of living on the scale of fortyfive thousand a year, having only received twenty thousand that year, found himself now in difficulties. To get out of these difficulties, he could not apply to his mother for money. Her last letter, which he had received the day before, had particularly exasperated him by the hints in it that she was quite ready to help him to succeed in the world and in the army, but not to lead a life which was a scandal to all good society. His mother's attempt to buy him stung him to the quick and made him feel colder than ever to her. But he could not draw back from the generous word when it was once uttered, even though he felt now, vaguely foreseeing certain eventualities in his intrigue with Madame Karenina, that this generous word had been spoken thoughtlessly, and that even though he were not married he might need all the hundred thousand of income. But it was impossible to draw back. He had only to recall his brother's wife, to remember how that sweet, delightful Varya sought, at every convenient opportunity, to remind him that she remembered his generosity and appreciated it, to grasp the impossibility of taking back his gift. It was as impossible as beating a woman, stealing, or lying. One thing only could and ought to be done, and Vronsky determined upon it without an instant's hesitation to borrow money from a moneylender, ten thousand roubles, a proceeding which presented no difficulty, to cut down his expenses generally, and to sell his race horses. Resolving on this, he promptly wrote a note to Rolandak, who had more than once sent to him with offers to buy horses from him. Then he sent for the Englishman and the moneylender, and divided what money he had according to the accounts he intended to pay. Having finished this business, he wrote a cold and cutting answer to his mother. Then he took out of his notebook three notes of Anna's, read them again, burned them, and remembering their conversation on the previous day, he sank into meditation. Vronsky's life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment's hesitation about doing what he ought to do. These principles laid down as invariable rules that one must pay a cardsharper, but need not pay a tailor that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up. Only quite lately in regard to his relations with Anna, Vronsky had begun to feel that his code of principles did not fully cover all possible contingencies, and to foresee in the future difficulties and perplexities for which he could find no guiding clue. His present relation to Anna and to her husband was to his mind clear and simple. It was clearly and precisely defined in the code of principles by which he was guided. She was an honorable woman who had bestowed her love upon him, and he loved her, and therefore she was in his eyes a woman who had a right to the same, or even more, respect than a lawful wife. He would have had his hand chopped off before he would have allowed himself by a word, by a hint, to humiliate her, or even to fall short of the fullest respect a woman could look for. His attitude to society, too, was clear. Everyone might know, might suspect it, but no one might dare to speak of it. If any did so, he was ready to force all who might speak to be silent and to respect the nonexistent honor of the woman he loved. His attitude to the husband was the clearest of all. From the moment that Anna loved Vronsky, he had regarded his own right over her as the one thing unassailable. Her husband was simply a superfluous and tiresome person. No doubt he was in a pitiable position, but how could that be helped? The one thing the husband had a right to was to demand satisfaction with a weapon in his hand, and Vronsky was prepared for this at any minute. But of late new inner relations had arisen between him and her, which frightened Vronsky by their indefiniteness. Only the day before she had told him that she was with child. And he felt that this fact and what she expected of him called for something not fully defined in that code of principles by which he had hitherto steered his course in life. And he had been indeed caught unawares, and at the first moment when she spoke to him of her position, his heart had prompted him to beg her to leave her husband. He had said that, but now thinking things over he saw clearly that it would be better to manage to avoid that and at the same time, as he told himself so, he was afraid whether it was not wrong. 'If I told her to leave her husband, that must mean uniting her life with mine am I prepared for that? How can I take her away now, when I have no money? Supposing I could arrange.... But how can I take her away while I'm in the service? If I say thatI ought to be prepared to do it, that is, I ought to have the money and to retire from the army. And he grew thoughtful. The question whether to retire from the service or not brought him to the other and perhaps the chief though hidden interest of his life, of which none knew but he. Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so strong that now this passion was even doing battle with his love. His first steps in the world and in the service had been successful, but two years before he had made a great mistake. Anxious to show his independence and to advance, he had refused a post that had been offered him, hoping that this refusal would heighten his value but it turned out that he had been too bold, and he was passed over. And having, whether he liked or not, taken up for himself the position of an independent man, he carried it off with great tact and good sense, behaving as though he bore no grudge against anyone, did not regard himself as injured in any way, and cared for nothing but to be left alone since he was enjoying himself. In reality he had ceased to enjoy himself as long ago as the year before, when he went away to Moscow. He felt that this independent attitude of a man who might have done anything, but cared to do nothing, was already beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to fancy that he was not really capable of anything but being a straightforward, goodnatured fellow. His connection with Madame Karenina, by creating so much sensation and attracting general attention, had given him a fresh distinction which soothed his gnawing worm of ambition for a while, but a week before that worm had been roused up again with fresh force. The friend of his childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his comrade in the Corps of Pages, Serpuhovskoy, who had left school with him and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their scrapes and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days before from Central Asia, where he had gained two steps up in rank, and an order rarely bestowed upon generals so young. As soon as he arrived in Petersburg, people began to talk about him as a newly risen star of the first magnitude. A schoolfellow of Vronsky's and of the same age, he was a general and was expecting a command, which might have influence on the course of political events while Vronsky, independent and brilliant and beloved by a charming woman though he was, was simply a cavalry captain who was readily allowed to be as independent as ever he liked. 'Of course I don't envy Serpuhovskoy and never could envy him but his advancement shows me that one has only to watch one's opportunity, and the career of a man like me may be very rapidly made. Three years ago he was in just the same position as I am. If I retire, I burn my ships. If I remain in the army, I lose nothing. She said herself she did not wish to change her position. And with her love I cannot feel envious of Serpuhovskoy. And slowly twirling his mustaches, he got up from the table and walked about the room. His eyes shone particularly brightly, and he felt in that confident, calm, and happy frame of mind which always came after he had thoroughly faced his position. Everything was straight and clear, just as after former days of reckoning. He shaved, took a cold bath, dressed and went out. 'We've come to fetch you. Your lessive lasted a good time today, said Petritsky. 'Well, is it over? 'It is over, answered Vronsky, smiling with his eyes only, and twirling the tips of his mustaches as circumspectly as though after the perfect order into which his affairs had been brought any overbold or rapid movement might disturb it. 'You're always just as if you'd come out of a bath after it, said Petritsky. 'I've come from Gritsky's (that was what they called the colonel) 'they're expecting you. Vronsky, without answering, looked at his comrade, thinking of something else. 'Yes is that music at his place? he said, listening to the familiar sounds of polkas and waltzes floating across to him. 'What's the fte? 'Serpuhovskoy's come. 'Aha! said Vronsky, 'why, I didn't know. The smile in his eyes gleamed more brightly than ever. Having once made up his mind that he was happy in his love, that he sacrificed his ambition to ithaving anyway taken up this position, Vronsky was incapable of feeling either envious of Serpuhovskoy or hurt with him for not coming first to him when he came to the regiment. Serpuhovskoy was a good friend, and he was delighted he had come. 'Ah, I'm very glad! The colonel, Demin, had taken a large country house. The whole party were in the wide lower balcony. In the courtyard the first objects that met Vronsky's eyes were a band of singers in white linen coats, standing near a barrel of vodka, and the robust, goodhumored figure of the colonel surrounded by officers. He had gone out as far as the first step of the balcony and was loudly shouting across the band that played Offenbach's quadrille, waving his arms and giving some orders to a few soldiers standing on one side. A group of soldiers, a quartermaster, and several subalterns came up to the balcony with Vronsky. The colonel returned to the table, went out again onto the steps with a tumbler in his hand, and proposed the toast, 'To the health of our former comrade, the gallant general, Prince Serpuhovskoy. Hurrah! The colonel was followed by Serpuhovskoy, who came out onto the steps smiling, with a glass in his hand. 'You always get younger, Bondarenko, he said to the rosychecked, smartlooking quartermaster standing just before him, still youngish looking though doing his second term of service. It was three years since Vronsky had seen Serpuhovskoy. He looked more robust, had let his whiskers grow, but was still the same graceful creature, whose face and figure were even more striking from their softness and nobility than their beauty. The only change Vronsky detected in him was that subdued, continual radiance of beaming content which settles on the faces of men who are successful and are sure of the recognition of their success by everyone. Vronsky knew that radiant air, and immediately observed it in Serpuhovskoy. As Serpuhovskoy came down the steps he saw Vronsky. A smile of pleasure lighted up his face. He tossed his head upwards and waved the glass in his hand, greeting Vronsky, and showing him by the gesture that he could not come to him before the quartermaster, who stood craning forward his lips ready to be kissed. 'Here he is! shouted the colonel. 'Yashvin told me you were in one of your gloomy tempers. Serpuhovskoy kissed the moist, fresh lips of the gallantlooking quartermaster, and wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, went up to Vronsky. 'How glad I am! he said, squeezing his hand and drawing him on one side. 'You look after him, the colonel shouted to Yashvin, pointing to Vronsky and he went down below to the soldiers. 'Why weren't you at the races yesterday? I expected to see you there, said Vronsky, scrutinizing Serpuhovskoy. 'I did go, but late. I beg your pardon, he added, and he turned to the adjutant 'Please have this divided from me, each man as much as it runs to. And he hurriedly took notes for three hundred roubles from his pocketbook, blushing a little. 'Vronsky! Have anything to eat or drink? asked Yashvin. 'Hi, something for the count to eat! Ah, here it is have a glass! The fte at the colonel's lasted a long while. There was a great deal of drinking. They tossed Serpuhovskoy in the air and caught him again several times. Then they did the same to the colonel. Then, to the accompaniment of the band, the colonel himself danced with Petritsky. Then the colonel, who began to show signs of feebleness, sat down on a bench in the courtyard and began demonstrating to Yashvin the superiority of Russia over Prussia, especially in cavalry attack, and there was a lull in the revelry for a moment. Serpuhovskoy went into the house to the bathroom to wash his hands and found Vronsky there Vronsky was drenching his head with water. He had taken off his coat and put his sunburnt, hairy neck under the tap, and was rubbing it and his head with his hands. When he had finished, Vronsky sat down by Serpuhovskoy. They both sat down in the bathroom on a lounge, and a conversation began which was very interesting to both of them. 'I've always been hearing about you through my wife, said Serpuhovskoy. 'I'm glad you've been seeing her pretty often. 'She's friendly with Varya, and they're the only women in Petersburg I care about seeing, answered Vronsky, smiling. He smiled because he foresaw the topic the conversation would turn on, and he was glad of it. 'The only ones? Serpuhovskoy queried, smiling. 'Yes and I heard news of you, but not only through your wife, said Vronsky, checking his hint by a stern expression of face. 'I was greatly delighted to hear of your success, but not a bit surprised. I expected even more. Serpuhovskoy smiled. Such an opinion of him was obviously agreeable to him, and he did not think it necessary to conceal it. 'Well, I on the contrary expected lessI'll own frankly. But I'm glad, very glad. I'm ambitious that's my weakness, and I confess to it. 'Perhaps you wouldn't confess to it if you hadn't been successful, said Vronsky. 'I don't suppose so, said Serpuhovskoy, smiling again. 'I won't say life wouldn't be worth living without it, but it would be dull. Of course I may be mistaken, but I fancy I have a certain capacity for the line I've chosen, and that power of any sort in my hands, if it is to be, will be better than in the hands of a good many people I know, said Serpuhovskoy, with beaming consciousness of success 'and so the nearer I get to it, the better pleased I am. 'Perhaps that is true for you, but not for everyone. I used to think so too, but here I live and think life worth living not only for that. 'There it's out! here it comes! said Serpuhovskoy, laughing. 'Ever since I heard about you, about your refusal, I began.... Of course, I approved of what you did. But there are ways of doing everything. And I think your action was good in itself, but you didn't do it quite in the way you ought to have done. 'What's done can't be undone, and you know I never go back on what I've done. And besides, I'm very well off. 'Very well offfor the time. But you're not satisfied with that. I wouldn't say this to your brother. He's a nice child, like our host here. There he goes! he added, listening to the roar of 'hurrah!'and he's happy, but that does not satisfy you. 'I didn't say it did satisfy me. 'Yes, but that's not the only thing. Such men as you are wanted. 'By whom? 'By whom? By society, by Russia. Russia needs men she needs a party, or else everything goes and will go to the dogs. 'How do you mean? Bertenev's party against the Russian communists? 'No, said Serpuhovskoy, frowning with vexation at being suspected of such an absurdity. 'Tout a est une blague. That's always been and always will be. There are no communists. But intriguing people have to invent a noxious, dangerous party. It's an old trick. No, what's wanted is a powerful party of independent men like you and me. 'But why so? Vronsky mentioned a few men who were in power. 'Why aren't they independent men? 'Simply because they have not, or have not had from birth, an independent fortune they've not had a name, they've not been close to the sun and center as we have. They can be bought either by money or by favor. And they have to find a support for themselves in inventing a policy. And they bring forward some notion, some policy that they don't believe in, that does harm and the whole policy is really only a means to a government house and so much income. Cela n'est pas plus fin que a, when you get a peep at their cards. I may be inferior to them, stupider perhaps, though I don't see why I should be inferior to them. But you and I have one important advantage over them for certain, in being more difficult to buy. And such men are more needed than ever. Vronsky listened attentively, but he was not so much interested by the meaning of the words as by the attitude of Serpuhovskoy who was already contemplating a struggle with the existing powers, and already had his likes and dislikes in that higher world, while his own interest in the governing world did not go beyond the interests of his regiment. Vronsky felt, too, how powerful Serpuhovskoy might become through his unmistakable faculty for thinking things out and for taking things in, through his intelligence and gift of words, so rarely met with in the world in which he moved. And, ashamed as he was of the feeling, he felt envious. 'Still I haven't the one thing of most importance for that, he answered 'I haven't the desire for power. I had it once, but it's gone. 'Excuse me, that's not true, said Serpuhovskoy, smiling. 'Yes, it is true, it is true ... now! Vronsky added, to be truthful. 'Yes, it's true now, that's another thing but that now won't last forever. 'Perhaps, answered Vronsky. 'You say perhaps, Serpuhovskoy went on, as though guessing his thoughts, 'but I say for certain. And that's what I wanted to see you for. Your action was just what it should have been. I see that, but you ought not to keep it up. I only ask you to give me carte blanche. I'm not going to offer you my protection ... though, indeed, why shouldn't I protect you?you've protected me often enough! I should hope our friendship rises above all that sort of thing. Yes, he said, smiling to him as tenderly as a woman, 'give me carte blanche, retire from the regiment, and I'll draw you upwards imperceptibly. 'But you must understand that I want nothing, said Vronsky, 'except that all should be as it is. Serpuhovskoy got up and stood facing him. 'You say that all should be as it is. I understand what that means. But listen we're the same age, you've known a greater number of women perhaps than I have. Serpohovskoy's smile and gestures told Vronsky that he mustn't be afraid, that he would be tender and careful in touching the sore place. 'But I'm married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one's wife, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them. 'We're coming directly! Vronsky shouted to an officer, who looked into the room and called them to the colonel. Vronsky was longing now to hear to the end and know what Serpuhovskey would say to him. 'And here's my opinion for you. Women are the chief stumbling block in a man's career. It's hard to love a woman and do anything. There's only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrancethat's marriage. How, how am I to tell you what I mean? said Serpuhovskoy, who liked similes. 'Wait a minute, wait a minute! Yes, just as you can only carry a fardeau and do something with your hands, when the fardeau is tied on your back, and that's marriage. And that's what I felt when I was married. My hands were suddenly set free. But to drag that fardeau about with you without marriage, your hands will always be so full that you can do nothing. Look at Mazankov, at Krupov. They've ruined their careers for the sake of women. 'What women! said Vronsky, recalling the Frenchwoman and the actress with whom the two men he had mentioned were connected. 'The firmer the woman's footing in society, the worse it is. That's much the same asnot merely carrying the fardeau in your armsbut tearing it away from someone else. 'You have never loved, Vronsky said softly, looking straight before him and thinking of Anna. 'Perhaps. But you remember what I've said to you. And another thing, women are all more materialistic than men. We make something immense out of love, but they are always terreterre. 'Directly, directly! he cried to a footman who came in. But the footman had not come to call them again, as he supposed. The footman brought Vronsky a note. 'A man brought it from Princess Tverskaya. Vronsky opened the letter, and flushed crimson. 'My head's begun to ache I'm going home, he said to Serpuhovskoy. 'Oh, goodbye then. You give me carte blanche! 'We'll talk about it later on I'll look you up in Petersburg. It was six o'clock already, and so, in order to be there quickly, and at the same time not to drive with his own horses, known to everyone, Vronsky got into Yashvin's hired fly, and told the driver to drive as quickly as possible. It was a roomy, oldfashioned fly, with seats for four. He sat in one corner, stretched his legs out on the front seat, and sank into meditation. A vague sense of the order into which his affairs had been brought, a vague recollection of the friendliness and flattery of Serpuhovskoy, who had considered him a man that was needed, and most of all, the anticipation of the interview before himall blended into a general, joyous sense of life. This feeling was so strong that he could not help smiling. He dropped his legs, crossed one leg over the other knee, and taking it in his hand, felt the springy muscle of the calf, where it had been grazed the day before by his fall, and leaning back he drew several deep breaths. 'I'm happy, very happy! he said to himself. He had often before had this sense of physical joy in his own body, but he had never felt so fond of himself, of his own body, as at that moment. He enjoyed the slight ache in his strong leg, he enjoyed the muscular sensation of movement in his chest as he breathed. The bright, cold August day, which had made Anna feel so hopeless, seemed to him keenly stimulating, and refreshed his face and neck that still tingled from the cold water. The scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particularly pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage window, everything in that cold pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was as fresh, and gay, and strong as he was himself the roofs of the houses shining in the rays of the setting sun, the sharp outlines of fences and angles of buildings, the figures of passersby, the carriages that met him now and then, the motionless green of the trees and grass, the fields with evenly drawn furrows of potatoes, and the slanting shadows that fell from the houses, and trees, and bushes, and even from the rows of potatoeseverything was bright like a pretty landscape just finished and freshly varnished. 'Get on, get on! he said to the driver, putting his head out of the window, and pulling a threerouble note out of his pocket he handed it to the man as he looked round. The driver's hand fumbled with something at the lamp, the whip cracked, and the carriage rolled rapidly along the smooth highroad. 'I want nothing, nothing but this happiness, he thought, staring at the bone button of the bell in the space between the windows, and picturing to himself Anna just as he had seen her last time. 'And as I go on, I love her more and more. Here's the garden of the Vrede Villa. Whereabouts will she be? Where? How? Why did she fix on this place to meet me, and why does she write in Betsy's letter? he thought, wondering now for the first time at it. But there was now no time for wonder. He called to the driver to stop before reaching the avenue, and opening the door, jumped out of the carriage as it was moving, and went into the avenue that led up to the house. There was no one in the avenue but looking round to the right he caught sight of her. Her face was hidden by a veil, but he drank in with glad eyes the special movement in walking, peculiar to her alone, the slope of the shoulders, and the setting of the head, and at once a sort of electric shock ran all over him. With fresh force, he felt conscious of himself from the springy motions of his legs to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and something set his lips twitching. Joining him, she pressed his hand tightly. 'You're not angry that I sent for you? I absolutely had to see you, she said and the serious and set line of her lips, which he saw under the veil, transformed his mood at once. 'I angry! But how have you come, where from? 'Never mind, she said, laying her hand on his, 'come along, I must talk to you. He saw that something had happened, and that the interview would not be a joyous one. In her presence he had no will of his own without knowing the grounds of her distress, he already felt the same distress unconsciously passing over him. 'What is it? what? he asked her, squeezing her hand with his elbow, and trying to read her thoughts in her face. She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her courage then suddenly she stopped. 'I did not tell you yesterday, she began, breathing quickly and painfully, 'that coming home with Alexey Alexandrovitch I told him everything ... told him I could not be his wife, that ... and told him everything. He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her as though hoping in this way to soften the hardness of her position for her. But directly she had said this he suddenly drew himself up, and a proud and hard expression came over his face. 'Yes, yes, that's better, a thousand times better! I know how painful it was, he said. But she was not listening to his words, she was reading his thoughts from the expression of his face. She could not guess that that expression arose from the first idea that presented itself to Vronskythat a duel was now inevitable. The idea of a duel had never crossed her mind, and so she put a different interpretation on this passing expression of hardness. When she got her husband's letter, she knew then at the bottom of her heart that everything would go on in the old way, that she would not have the strength of will to forego her position, to abandon her son, and to join her lover. The morning spent at Princess Tverskaya's had confirmed her still more in this. But this interview was still of the utmost gravity for her. She hoped that this interview would transform her position, and save her. If on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely, passionately, without an instant's wavering 'Throw up everything and come with me! she would give up her son and go away with him. But this news had not produced what she had expected in him he simply seemed as though he were resenting some affront. 'It was not in the least painful to me. It happened of itself, she said irritably 'and see.... she pulled her husband's letter out of her glove. 'I understand, I understand, he interrupted her, taking the letter, but not reading it, and trying to soothe her. 'The one thing I longed for, the one thing I prayed for, was to cut short this position, so as to devote my life to your happiness. 'Why do you tell me that? she said. 'Do you suppose I can doubt it? If I doubted.... 'Who's that coming? said Vronsky suddenly, pointing to two ladies walking towards them. 'Perhaps they know us! and he hurriedly turned off, drawing her after him into a side path. 'Oh, I don't care! she said. Her lips were quivering. And he fancied that her eyes looked with strange fury at him from under the veil. 'I tell you that's not the pointI can't doubt that but see what he writes to me. Read it. She stood still again. Again, just as at the first moment of hearing of her rupture with her husband, Vronsky, on reading the letter, was unconsciously carried away by the natural sensation aroused in him by his own relation to the betrayed husband. Now while he held his letter in his hands, he could not help picturing the challenge, which he would most likely find at home today or tomorrow, and the duel itself, in which, with the same cold and haughty expression that his face was assuming at this moment he would await the injured husband's shot, after having himself fired into the air. And at that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what Serpuhovskoy had just said to him, and what he had himself been thinking in the morningthat it was better not to bind himselfand he knew that this thought he could not tell her. Having read the letter, he raised his eyes to her, and there was no determination in them. She saw at once that he had been thinking about it before by himself. She knew that whatever he might say to her, he would not say all he thought. And she knew that her last hope had failed her. This was not what she had been reckoning on. 'You see the sort of man he is, she said, with a shaking voice 'he.... 'Forgive me, but I rejoice at it, Vronsky interrupted. 'For God's sake, let me finish! he added, his eyes imploring her to give him time to explain his words. 'I rejoice, because things cannot, cannot possibly remain as he supposes. 'Why can't they? Anna said, restraining her tears, and obviously attaching no sort of consequence to what he said. She felt that her fate was sealed. Vronsky meant that after the duelinevitable, he thoughtthings could not go on as before, but he said something different. 'It can't go on. I hope that now you will leave him. I hopehe was confused, and reddened'that you will let me arrange and plan our life. Tomorrow.... he was beginning. She did not let him go on. 'But my child! she shrieked. 'You see what he writes! I should have to leave him, and I can't and won't do that. 'But, for God's sake, which is better?leave your child, or keep up this degrading position? 'To whom is it degrading? 'To all, and most of all to you. 'You say degrading ... don't say that. Those words have no meaning for me, she said in a shaking voice. She did not want him now to say what was untrue. She had nothing left her but his love, and she wanted to love him. 'Don't you understand that from the day I loved you everything has changed for me? For me there is one thing, and one thing onlyyour love. If that's mine, I feel so exalted, so strong, that nothing can be humiliating to me. I am proud of my position, because ... proud of being ... proud.... She could not say what she was proud of. Tears of shame and despair choked her utterance. She stood still and sobbed. He felt, too, something swelling in his throat and twitching in his nose, and for the first time in his life he felt on the point of weeping. He could not have said exactly what it was touched him so. He felt sorry for her, and he felt he could not help her, and with that he knew that he was to blame for her wretchedness, and that he had done something wrong. 'Is not a divorce possible? he said feebly. She shook her head, not answering. 'Couldn't you take your son, and still leave him? 'Yes but it all depends on him. Now I must go to him, she said shortly. Her presentiment that all would again go on in the old way had not deceived her. 'On Tuesday I shall be in Petersburg, and everything can be settled. 'Yes, she said. 'But don't let us talk any more of it. Anna's carriage, which she had sent away, and ordered to come back to the little gate of the Vrede garden, drove up. Anna said goodbye to Vronsky, and drove home. On Monday there was the usual sitting of the Commission of the nd of June. Alexey Alexandrovitch walked into the hall where the sitting was held, greeted the members and the president, as usual, and sat down in his place, putting his hand on the papers laid ready before him. Among these papers lay the necessary evidence and a rough outline of the speech he intended to make. But he did not really need these documents. He remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go over in his memory what he would say. He knew that when the time came, and when he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to assume an expression of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare it now. He felt that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word of it would have weight. Meantime, as he listened to the usual report, he had the most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at his white hands, with their swollen veins and long fingers, so softly stroking the edges of the white paper that lay before him, and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side, would have suspected that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and attacking one another, and force the president to call for order. When the report was over, Alexey Alexandrovitch announced in his subdued, delicate voice that he had several points to bring before the meeting in regard to the Commission for the Reorganization of the Native Tribes. All attention was turned upon him. Alexey Alexandrovitch cleared his throat, and not looking at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did while he was delivering his speeches, the first person sitting opposite him, an inoffensive little old man, who never had an opinion of any sort in the Commission, began to expound his views. When he reached the point about the fundamental and radical law, his opponent jumped up and began to protest. Stremov, who was also a member of the Commission, and also stung to the quick, began defending himself, and altogether a stormy sitting followed but Alexey Alexandrovitch triumphed, and his motion was carried, three new commissions were appointed, and the next day in a certain Petersburg circle nothing else was talked of but this sitting. Alexey Alexandrovitch's success had been even greater than he had anticipated. Next morning, Tuesday, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on waking up, recollected with pleasure his triumph of the previous day, and he could not help smiling, though he tried to appear indifferent, when the chief secretary of his department, anxious to flatter him, informed him of the rumors that had reached him concerning what had happened in the Commission. Absorbed in business with the chief secretary, Alexey Alexandrovitch had completely forgotten that it was Tuesday, the day fixed by him for the return of Anna Arkadyevna, and he was surprised and received a shock of annoyance when a servant came in to inform him of her arrival. Anna had arrived in Petersburg early in the morning the carriage had been sent to meet her in accordance with her telegram, and so Alexey Alexandrovitch might have known of her arrival. But when she arrived, he did not meet her. She was told that he had not yet gone out, but was busy with his secretary. She sent word to her husband that she had come, went to her own room, and occupied herself in sorting out her things, expecting he would come to her. But an hour passed he did not come. She went into the diningroom on the pretext of giving some directions, and spoke loudly on purpose, expecting him to come out there but he did not come, though she heard him go to the door of his study as he parted from the chief secretary. She knew that he usually went out quickly to his office, and she wanted to see him before that, so that their attitude to one another might be defined. She walked across the drawingroom and went resolutely to him. When she went into his study he was in official uniform, obviously ready to go out, sitting at a little table on which he rested his elbows, looking dejectedly before him. She saw him before he saw her, and she saw that he was thinking of her. On seeing her, he would have risen, but changed his mind, then his face flushed hotlya thing Anna had never seen before, and he got up quickly and went to meet her, looking not at her eyes, but above them at her forehead and hair. He went up to her, took her by the hand, and asked her to sit down. 'I am very glad you have come, he said, sitting down beside her, and obviously wishing to say something, he stuttered. Several times he tried to begin to speak, but stopped. In spite of the fact that, preparing herself for meeting him, she had schooled herself to despise and reproach him, she did not know what to say to him, and she felt sorry for him. And so the silence lasted for some time. 'Is Seryozha quite well? he said, and not waiting for an answer, he added 'I shan't be dining at home today, and I have got to go out directly. 'I had thought of going to Moscow, she said. 'No, you did quite, quite right to come, he said, and was silent again. Seeing that he was powerless to begin the conversation, she began herself. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, she said, looking at him and not dropping her eyes under his persistent gaze at her hair, 'I'm a guilty woman, I'm a bad woman, but I am the same as I was, as I told you then, and I have come to tell you that I can change nothing. 'I have asked you no question about that, he said, all at once, resolutely and with hatred looking her straight in the face 'that was as I had supposed. Under the influence of anger he apparently regained complete possession of all his faculties. 'But as I told you then, and have written to you, he said in a thin, shrill voice, 'I repeat now, that I am not bound to know this. I ignore it. Not all wives are so kind as you, to be in such a hurry to communicate such agreeable news to their husbands. He laid special emphasis on the word 'agreeable. 'I shall ignore it so long as the world knows nothing of it, so long as my name is not disgraced. And so I simply inform you that our relations must be just as they have always been, and that only in the event of your compromising me I shall be obliged to take steps to secure my honor. 'But our relations cannot be the same as always, Anna began in a timid voice, looking at him with dismay. When she saw once more those composed gestures, heard that shrill, childish, and sarcastic voice, her aversion for him extinguished her pity for him, and she felt only afraid, but at all costs she wanted to make clear her position. 'I cannot be your wife while I.... she began. He laughed a cold and malignant laugh. 'The manner of life you have chosen is reflected, I suppose, in your ideas. I have too much respect or contempt, or both ... I respect your past and despise your present ... that I was far from the interpretation you put on my words. Anna sighed and bowed her head. 'Though indeed I fail to comprehend how, with the independence you show, he went on, getting hot, 'announcing your infidelity to your husband and seeing nothing reprehensible in it, apparentlyyou can see anything reprehensible in performing a wife's duties in relation to your husband. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch! What is it you want of me? 'I want you not to meet that man here, and to conduct yourself so that neither the world nor the servants can reproach you ... not to see him. That's not much, I think. And in return you will enjoy all the privileges of a faithful wife without fulfilling her duties. That's all I have to say to you. Now it's time for me to go. I'm not dining at home. He got up and moved towards the door. Anna got up too. Bowing in silence, he let her pass before him. The night spent by Levin on the haycock did not pass without result for him. The way in which he had been managing his land revolted him and had lost all attraction for him. In spite of the magnificent harvest, never had there been, or, at least, never it seemed to him, had there been so many hindrances and so many quarrels between him and the peasants as that year, and the origin of these failures and this hostility was now perfectly comprehensible to him. The delight he had experienced in the work itself, and the consequent greater intimacy with the peasants, the envy he felt of them, of their life, the desire to adopt that life, which had been to him that night not a dream but an intention, the execution of which he had thought out in detailall this had so transformed his view of the farming of the land as he had managed it, that he could not take his former interest in it, and could not help seeing that unpleasant relation between him and the workpeople which was the foundation of it all. The herd of improved cows such as Pava, the whole land ploughed over and enriched, the nine level fields surrounded with hedges, the two hundred and forty acres heavily manured, the seed sown in drills, and all the rest of itit was all splendid if only the work had been done for themselves, or for themselves and comradespeople in sympathy with them. But he saw clearly now (his work on a book of agriculture, in which the chief element in husbandry was to have been the laborer, greatly assisted him in this) that the sort of farming he was carrying on was nothing but a cruel and stubborn struggle between him and the laborers, in which there was on one sidehis sidea continual intense effort to change everything to a pattern he considered better on the other side, the natural order of things. And in this struggle he saw that with immense expenditure of force on his side, and with no effort or even intention on the other side, all that was attained was that the work did not go to the liking of either side, and that splendid tools, splendid cattle and land were spoiled with no good to anyone. Worst of all, the energy expended on this work was not simply wasted. He could not help feeling now, since the meaning of this system had become clear to him, that the aim of his energy was a most unworthy one. In reality, what was the struggle about? He was struggling for every farthing of his share (and he could not help it, for he had only to relax his efforts, and he would not have had the money to pay his laborers' wages), while they were only struggling to be able to do their work easily and agreeably, that is to say, as they were used to doing it. It was for his interests that every laborer should work as hard as possible, and that while doing so he should keep his wits about him, so as to try not to break the winnowing machines, the horse rakes, the thrashing machines, that he should attend to what he was doing. What the laborer wanted was to work as pleasantly as possible, with rests, and above all, carelessly and heedlessly, without thinking. That summer Levin saw this at every step. He sent the men to mow some clover for hay, picking out the worst patches where the clover was overgrown with grass and weeds and of no use for seed again and again they mowed the best acres of clover, justifying themselves by the pretense that the bailiff had told them to, and trying to pacify him with the assurance that it would be splendid hay but he knew that it was owing to those acres being so much easier to mow. He sent out a hay machine for pitching the hayit was broken at the first row because it was dull work for a peasant to sit on the seat in front with the great wings waving above him. And he was told, 'Don't trouble, your honor, sure, the womenfolks will pitch it quick enough. The ploughs were practically useless, because it never occurred to the laborer to raise the share when he turned the plough, and forcing it round, he strained the horses and tore up the ground, and Levin was begged not to mind about it. The horses were allowed to stray into the wheat because not a single laborer would consent to be nightwatchman, and in spite of orders to the contrary, the laborers insisted on taking turns for night duty, and Ivan, after working all day long, fell asleep, and was very penitent for his fault, saying, 'Do what you will to me, your honor. They killed three of the best calves by letting them into the clover aftermath without care as to their drinking, and nothing would make the men believe that they had been blown out by the clover, but they told him, by way of consolation, that one of his neighbors had lost a hundred and twelve head of cattle in three days. All this happened, not because anyone felt illwill to Levin or his farm on the contrary, he knew that they liked him, thought him a simple gentleman (their highest praise) but it happened simply because all they wanted was to work merrily and carelessly, and his interests were not only remote and incomprehensible to them, but fatally opposed to their most just claims. Long before, Levin had felt dissatisfaction with his own position in regard to the land. He saw where his boat leaked, but he did not look for the leak, perhaps purposely deceiving himself. (Nothing would be left him if he lost faith in it.) But now he could deceive himself no longer. The farming of the land, as he was managing it, had become not merely unattractive but revolting to him, and he could take no further interest in it. To this now was joined the presence, only twentyfive miles off, of Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, whom he longed to see and could not see. Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya had invited him, when he was over there, to come to come with the object of renewing his offer to her sister, who would, so she gave him to understand, accept him now. Levin himself had felt on seeing Kitty Shtcherbatskaya that he had never ceased to love her but he could not go over to the Oblonskys', knowing she was there. The fact that he had made her an offer, and she had refused him, had placed an insuperable barrier between her and him. 'I can't ask her to be my wife merely because she can't be the wife of the man she wanted to marry, he said to himself. The thought of this made him cold and hostile to her. 'I should not be able to speak to her without a feeling of reproach I could not look at her without resentment and she will only hate me all the more, as she's bound to. And besides, how can I now, after what Darya Alexandrovna told me, go to see them? Can I help showing that I know what she told me? And me to go magnanimously to forgive her, and have pity on her! Me go through a performance before her of forgiving, and deigning to bestow my love on her!... What induced Darya Alexandrovna to tell me that? By chance I might have seen her, then everything would have happened of itself but, as it is, it's out of the question, out of the question! Darya Alexandrovna sent him a letter, asking him for a sidesaddle for Kitty's use. 'I'm told you have a sidesaddle, she wrote to him 'I hope you will bring it over yourself. This was more than he could stand. How could a woman of any intelligence, of any delicacy, put her sister in such a humiliating position! He wrote ten notes, and tore them all up, and sent the saddle without any reply. To write that he would go was impossible, because he could not go to write that he could not come because something prevented him, or that he would be away, that was still worse. He sent the saddle without an answer, and with a sense of having done something shameful he handed over all the now revolting business of the estate to the bailiff, and set off next day to a remote district to see his friend Sviazhsky, who had splendid marshes for grouse in his neighborhood, and had lately written to ask him to keep a longstanding promise to stay with him. The grousemarsh, in the Surovsky district, had long tempted Levin, but he had continually put off this visit on account of his work on the estate. Now he was glad to get away from the neighborhood of the Shtcherbatskys, and still more from his farm work, especially on a shooting expedition, which always in trouble served as the best consolation. In the Surovsky district there was no railway nor service of post horses, and Levin drove there with his own horses in his big, oldfashioned carriage. He stopped halfway at a welltodo peasant's to feed his horses. A bald, wellpreserved old man, with a broad, red beard, gray on his cheeks, opened the gate, squeezing against the gatepost to let the three horses pass. Directing the coachman to a place under the shed in the big, clean, tidy yard, with charred, oldfashioned ploughs in it, the old man asked Levin to come into the parlor. A cleanly dressed young woman, with clogs on her bare feet, was scrubbing the floor in the new outer room. She was frightened of the dog, that ran in after Levin, and uttered a shriek, but began laughing at her own fright at once when she was told the dog would not hurt her. Pointing Levin with her bare arm to the door into the parlor, she bent down again, hiding her handsome face, and went on scrubbing. 'Would you like the samovar? she asked. 'Yes, please. The parlor was a big room, with a Dutch stove, and a screen dividing it into two. Under the holy pictures stood a table painted in patterns, a bench, and two chairs. Near the entrance was a dresser full of crockery. The shutters were closed, there were few flies, and it was so clean that Levin was anxious that Laska, who had been running along the road and bathing in puddles, should not muddy the floor, and ordered her to a place in the corner by the door. After looking round the parlor, Levin went out in the back yard. The goodlooking young woman in clogs, swinging the empty pails on the yoke, ran on before him to the well for water. 'Look sharp, my girl! the old man shouted after her, goodhumoredly, and he went up to Levin. 'Well, sir, are you going to Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky? His honor comes to us too, he began, chatting, leaning his elbows on the railing of the steps. In the middle of the old man's account of his acquaintance with Sviazhsky, the gates creaked again, and laborers came into the yard from the fields, with wooden ploughs and harrows. The horses harnessed to the ploughs and harrows were sleek and fat. The laborers were obviously of the household two were young men in cotton shirts and caps, the two others were hired laborers in homespun shirts, one an old man, the other a young fellow. Moving off from the steps, the old man went up to the horses and began unharnessing them. 'What have they been ploughing? asked Levin. 'Ploughing up the potatoes. We rent a bit of land too. Fedot, don't let out the gelding, but take it to the trough, and we'll put the other in harness. 'Oh, father, the ploughshares I ordered, has he brought them along? asked the big, healthylooking fellow, obviously the old man's son. 'There ... in the outer room, answered the old man, bundling together the harness he had taken off, and flinging it on the ground. 'You can put them on, while they have dinner. The goodlooking young woman came into the outer room with the full pails dragging at her shoulders. More women came on the scene from somewhere, young and handsome, middleaged, old and ugly, with children and without children. The samovar was beginning to sing the laborers and the family, having disposed of the horses, came in to dinner. Levin, getting his provisions out of his carriage, invited the old man to take tea with him. 'Well, I have had some today already, said the old man, obviously accepting the invitation with pleasure. 'But just a glass for company. Over their tea Levin heard all about the old man's farming. Ten years before, the old man had rented three hundred acres from the lady who owned them, and a year ago he had bought them and rented another three hundred from a neighboring landowner. A small part of the landthe worst parthe let out for rent, while a hundred acres of arable land he cultivated himself with his family and two hired laborers. The old man complained that things were doing badly. But Levin saw that he simply did so from a feeling of propriety, and that his farm was in a flourishing condition. If it had been unsuccessful he would not have bought land at thirtyfive roubles the acre, he would not have married his three sons and a nephew, he would not have rebuilt twice after fires, and each time on a larger scale. In spite of the old man's complaints, it was evident that he was proud, and justly proud, of his prosperity, proud of his sons, his nephew, his sons' wives, his horses and his cows, and especially of the fact that he was keeping all this farming going. From his conversation with the old man, Levin thought he was not averse to new methods either. He had planted a great many potatoes, and his potatoes, as Levin had seen driving past, were already past flowering and beginning to die down, while Levin's were only just coming into flower. He earthed up his potatoes with a modern plough borrowed from a neighboring landowner. He sowed wheat. The trifling fact that, thinning out his rye, the old man used the rye he thinned out for his horses, specially struck Levin. How many times had Levin seen this splendid fodder wasted, and tried to get it saved but always it had turned out to be impossible. The peasant got this done, and he could not say enough in praise of it as food for the beasts. 'What have the wenches to do? They carry it out in bundles to the roadside, and the cart brings it away. 'Well, we landowners can't manage well with our laborers, said Levin, handing him a glass of tea. 'Thank you, said the old man, and he took the glass, but refused sugar, pointing to a lump he had left. 'They're simple destruction, said he. 'Look at Sviazhsky's, for instance. We know what the land's likefirstrate, yet there's not much of a crop to boast of. It's not looked after enoughthat's all it is! 'But you work your land with hired laborers? 'We're all peasants together. We go into everything ourselves. If a man's no use, he can go, and we can manage by ourselves. 'Father, Finogen wants some tar, said the young woman in the clogs, coming in. 'Yes, yes, that's how it is, sir! said the old man, getting up, and crossing himself deliberately, he thanked Levin and went out. When Levin went into the kitchen to call his coachman he saw the whole family at dinner. The women were standing up waiting on them. The young, sturdylooking son was telling something funny with his mouth full of pudding, and they were all laughing, the woman in the clogs, who was pouring cabbage soup into a bowl, laughing most merrily of all. Very probably the goodlooking face of the young woman in the clogs had a good deal to do with the impression of wellbeing this peasant household made upon Levin, but the impression was so strong that Levin could never get rid of it. And all the way from the old peasant's to Sviazhsky's he kept recalling this peasant farm as though there were something in this impression that demanded his special attention. Sviazhsky was the marshal of his district. He was five years older than Levin, and had long been married. His sisterinlaw, a young girl Levin liked very much, lived in his house and Levin knew that Sviazhsky and his wife would have greatly liked to marry the girl to him. He knew this with certainty, as socalled eligible young men always know it, though he could never have brought himself to speak of it to anyone and he knew too that, although he wanted to get married, and although by every token this very attractive girl would make an excellent wife, he could no more have married her, even if he had not been in love with Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, than he could have flown up to the sky. And this knowledge poisoned the pleasure he had hoped to find in the visit to Sviazhsky. On getting Sviazhsky's letter with the invitation for shooting, Levin had immediately thought of this but in spite of it he had made up his mind that Sviazhsky's having such views for him was simply his own groundless supposition, and so he would go, all the same. Besides, at the bottom of his heart he had a desire to try himself, put himself to the test in regard to this girl. The Sviazhskys' homelife was exceedingly pleasant, and Sviazhsky himself, the best type of man taking part in local affairs that Levin knew, was very interesting to him. Sviazhsky was one of those people, always a source of wonder to Levin, whose convictions, very logical though never original, go one way by themselves, while their life, exceedingly definite and firm in its direction, goes its way quite apart and almost always in direct contradiction to their convictions. Sviazhsky was an extremely advanced man. He despised the nobility, and believed the mass of the nobility to be secretly in favor of serfdom, and only concealing their views from cowardice. He regarded Russia as a ruined country, rather after the style of Turkey, and the government of Russia as so bad that he never permitted himself to criticize its doings seriously, and yet he was a functionary of that government and a model marshal of nobility, and when he drove about he always wore the cockade of office and the cap with the red band. He considered human life only tolerable abroad, and went abroad to stay at every opportunity, and at the same time he carried on a complex and improved system of agriculture in Russia, and with extreme interest followed everything and knew everything that was being done in Russia. He considered the Russian peasant as occupying a stage of development intermediate between the ape and the man, and at the same time in the local assemblies no one was readier to shake hands with the peasants and listen to their opinion. He believed neither in God nor the devil, but was much concerned about the question of the improvement of the clergy and the maintenance of their revenues, and took special trouble to keep up the church in his village. On the woman question he was on the side of the extreme advocates of complete liberty for women, and especially their right to labor. But he lived with his wife on such terms that their affectionate childless home life was the admiration of everyone, and arranged his wife's life so that she did nothing and could do nothing but share her husband's efforts that her time should pass as happily and as agreeably as possible. If it had not been a characteristic of Levin's to put the most favorable interpretation on people, Sviazhsky's character would have presented no doubt or difficulty to him he would have said to himself, 'a fool or a knave, and everything would have seemed clear. But he could not say 'a fool, because Sviazhsky was unmistakably clever, and moreover, a highly cultivated man, who was exceptionally modest over his culture. There was not a subject he knew nothing of. But he did not display his knowledge except when he was compelled to do so. Still less could Levin say that he was a knave, as Sviazhsky was unmistakably an honest, goodhearted, sensible man, who worked goodhumoredly, keenly, and perseveringly at his work he was held in high honor by everyone about him, and certainly he had never consciously done, and was indeed incapable of doing, anything base. Levin tried to understand him, and could not understand him, and looked at him and his life as at a living enigma. Levin and he were very friendly, and so Levin used to venture to sound Sviazhsky, to try to get at the very foundation of his view of life but it was always in vain. Every time Levin tried to penetrate beyond the outer chambers of Sviazhsky's mind, which were hospitably open to all, he noticed that Sviazhsky was slightly disconcerted faint signs of alarm were visible in his eyes, as though he were afraid Levin would understand him, and he would give him a kindly, goodhumored repulse. Just now, since his disenchantment with farming, Levin was particularly glad to stay with Sviazhsky. Apart from the fact that the sight of this happy and affectionate couple, so pleased with themselves and everyone else, and their wellordered home had always a cheering effect on Levin, he felt a longing, now that he was so dissatisfied with his own life, to get at that secret in Sviazhsky that gave him such clearness, definiteness, and good courage in life. Moreover, Levin knew that at Sviazhsky's he should meet the landowners of the neighborhood, and it was particularly interesting for him just now to hear and take part in those rural conversations concerning crops, laborers' wages, and so on, which, he was aware, are conventionally regarded as something very low, but which seemed to him just now to constitute the one subject of importance. 'It was not, perhaps, of importance in the days of serfdom, and it may not be of importance in England. In both cases the conditions of agriculture are firmly established but among us now, when everything has been turned upside down and is only just taking shape, the question what form these conditions will take is the one question of importance in Russia, thought Levin. The shooting turned out to be worse than Levin had expected. The marsh was dry and there were no grouse at all. He walked about the whole day and only brought back three birds, but to make up for thathe brought back, as he always did from shooting, an excellent appetite, excellent spirits, and that keen, intellectual mood which with him always accompanied violent physical exertion. And while out shooting, when he seemed to be thinking of nothing at all, suddenly the old man and his family kept coming back to his mind, and the impression of them seemed to claim not merely his attention, but the solution of some question connected with them. In the evening at tea, two landowners who had come about some business connected with a wardship were of the party, and the interesting conversation Levin had been looking forward to sprang up. Levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table, and was obliged to keep up a conversation with her and her sister, who was sitting opposite him. Madame Sviazhskaya was a roundfaced, fairhaired, rather short woman, all smiles and dimples. Levin tried through her to get a solution of the weighty enigma her husband presented to his mind but he had not complete freedom of ideas, because he was in an agony of embarrassment. This agony of embarrassment was due to the fact that the sisterinlaw was sitting opposite to him, in a dress, specially put on, as he fancied, for his benefit, cut particularly open, in the shape of a trapeze, on her white bosom. This quadrangular opening, in spite of the bosom's being very white, or just because it was very white, deprived Levin of the full use of his faculties. He imagined, probably mistakenly, that this lownecked bodice had been made on his account, and felt that he had no right to look at it, and tried not to look at it but he felt that he was to blame for the very fact of the lownecked bodice having been made. It seemed to Levin that he had deceived someone, that he ought to explain something, but that to explain it was impossible, and for that reason he was continually blushing, was ill at ease and awkward. His awkwardness infected the pretty sisterinlaw too. But their hostess appeared not to observe this, and kept purposely drawing her into the conversation. 'You say, she said, pursuing the subject that had been started, 'that my husband cannot be interested in what's Russian. It's quite the contrary he is always in cheerful spirits abroad, but not as he is here. Here, he feels in his proper place. He has so much to do, and he has the faculty of interesting himself in everything. Oh, you've not been to see our school, have you? 'I've seen it.... The little house covered with ivy, isn't it? 'Yes that's Nastia's work, she said, indicating her sister. 'You teach in it yourself? asked Levin, trying to look above the open neck, but feeling that wherever he looked in that direction he should see it. 'Yes I used to teach in it myself, and do teach still, but we have a firstrate schoolmistress now. And we've started gymnastic exercises. 'No, thank you, I won't have any more tea, said Levin, and conscious of doing a rude thing, but incapable of continuing the conversation, he got up, blushing. 'I hear a very interesting conversation, he added, and walked to the other end of the table, where Sviazhsky was sitting with the two gentlemen of the neighborhood. Sviazhsky was sitting sideways, with one elbow on the table, and a cup in one hand, while with the other hand he gathered up his beard, held it to his nose and let it drop again, as though he were smelling it. His brilliant black eyes were looking straight at the excited country gentleman with gray whiskers, and apparently he derived amusement from his remarks. The gentleman was complaining of the peasants. It was evident to Levin that Sviazhsky knew an answer to this gentleman's complaints, which would at once demolish his whole contention, but that in his position he could not give utterance to this answer, and listened, not without pleasure, to the landowner's comic speeches. The gentleman with the gray whiskers was obviously an inveterate adherent of serfdom and a devoted agriculturist, who had lived all his life in the country. Levin saw proofs of this in his dress, in the oldfashioned threadbare coat, obviously not his everyday attire, in his shrewd, deepset eyes, in his idiomatic, fluent Russian, in the imperious tone that had become habitual from long use, and in the resolute gestures of his large, red, sunburnt hands, with an old betrothal ring on the little finger. 'If I'd only the heart to throw up what's been set going ... such a lot of trouble wasted ... I'd turn my back on the whole business, sell up, go off like Nikolay Ivanovitch ... to hear La Belle Hlne, said the landowner, a pleasant smile lighting up his shrewd old face. 'But you see you don't throw it up, said Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky 'so there must be something gained. 'The only gain is that I live in my own house, neither bought nor hired. Besides, one keeps hoping the people will learn sense. Though, instead of that, you'd never believe itthe drunkenness, the immorality! They keep chopping and changing their bits of land. Not a sight of a horse or a cow. The peasant's dying of hunger, but just go and take him on as a laborer, he'll do his best to do you a mischief, and then bring you up before the justice of the peace. 'But then you make complaints to the justice too, said Sviazhsky. 'I lodge complaints? Not for anything in the world! Such a talking, and such a todo, that one would have cause to regret it. At the works, for instance, they pocketed the advancemoney and made off. What did the justice do? Why, acquitted them. Nothing keeps them in order but their own communal court and their village elder. He'll flog them in the good old style! But for that there'd be nothing for it but to give it all up and run away. Obviously the landowner was chaffing Sviazhsky, who, far from resenting it, was apparently amused by it. 'But you see we manage our land without such extreme measures, said he, smiling 'Levin and I and this gentleman. He indicated the other landowner. 'Yes, the thing's done at Mihail Petrovitch's, but ask him how it's done. Do you call that a rational system? said the landowner, obviously rather proud of the word 'rational. 'My system's very simple, said Mihail Petrovitch, 'thank God. All my management rests on getting the money ready for the autumn taxes, and the peasants come to me, 'Father, master, help us!' Well, the peasants are all one's neighbors one feels for them. So one advances them a third, but one says 'Remember, lads, I have helped you, and you must help me when I need itwhether it's the sowing of the oats, or the haycutting, or the harvest' and well, one agrees, so much for each taxpayerthough there are dishonest ones among them too, it's true. Levin, who had long been familiar with these patriarchal methods, exchanged glances with Sviazhsky and interrupted Mihail Petrovitch, turning again to the gentleman with the gray whiskers. 'Then what do you think? he asked 'what system is one to adopt nowadays? 'Why, manage like Mihail Petrovitch, or let the land for half the crop or for rent to the peasants that one can doonly that's just how the general prosperity of the country is being ruined. Where the land with serflabor and good management gave a yield of nine to one, on the halfcrop system it yields three to one. Russia has been ruined by the emancipation! Sviazhsky looked with smiling eyes at Levin, and even made a faint gesture of irony to him but Levin did not think the landowner's words absurd, he understood them better than he did Sviazhsky. A great deal more of what the gentleman with the gray whiskers said to show in what way Russia was ruined by the emancipation struck him indeed as very true, new to him, and quite incontestable. The landowner unmistakably spoke his own individual thoughta thing that very rarely happensand a thought to which he had been brought not by a desire of finding some exercise for an idle brain, but a thought which had grown up out of the conditions of his life, which he had brooded over in the solitude of his village, and had considered in every aspect. 'The point is, don't you see, that progress of every sort is only made by the use of authority, he said, evidently wishing to show he was not without culture. 'Take the reforms of Peter, of Catherine, of Alexander. Take European history. And progress in agriculture more than anything elsethe potato, for instance, that was introduced among us by force. The wooden plough too wasn't always used. It was introduced maybe in the days before the Empire, but it was probably brought in by force. Now, in our own day, we landowners in the serf times used various improvements in our husbandry drying machines and thrashing machines, and carting manure and all the modern implementsall that we brought into use by our authority, and the peasants opposed it at first, and ended by imitating us. Now, by the abolition of serfdom we have been deprived of our authority and so our husbandry, where it had been raised to a high level, is bound to sink to the most savage primitive condition. That's how I see it. 'But why so? If it's rational, you'll be able to keep up the same system with hired labor, said Sviazhsky. 'We've no power over them. With whom am I going to work the system, allow me to ask? 'There it isthe labor forcethe chief element in agriculture, thought Levin. 'With laborers. 'The laborers won't work well, and won't work with good implements. Our laborer can do nothing but get drunk like a pig, and when he's drunk he ruins everything you give him. He makes the horses ill with too much water, cuts good harness, barters the tires of the wheels for drink, drops bits of iron into the thrashing machine, so as to break it. He loathes the sight of anything that's not after his fashion. And that's how it is the whole level of husbandry has fallen. Lands gone out of cultivation, overgrown with weeds, or divided among the peasants, and where millions of bushels were raised you get a hundred thousand the wealth of the country has decreased. If the same thing had been done, but with care that.... And he proceeded to unfold his own scheme of emancipation by means of which these drawbacks might have been avoided. This did not interest Levin, but when he had finished, Levin went back to his first position, and, addressing Sviazhsky, and trying to draw him into expressing his serious opinion 'That the standard of culture is falling, and that with our present relations to the peasants there is no possibility of farming on a rational system to yield a profitthat's perfectly true, said he. 'I don't believe it, Sviazhsky replied quite seriously 'all I see is that we don't know how to cultivate the land, and that our system of agriculture in the serf days was by no means too high, but too low. We have no machines, no good stock, no efficient supervision we don't even know how to keep accounts. Ask any landowner he won't be able to tell you what crop's profitable, and what's not. 'Italian bookkeeping, said the gentleman of the gray whiskers ironically. 'You may keep your books as you like, but if they spoil everything for you, there won't be any profit. 'Why do they spoil things? A poor thrashing machine, or your Russian presser, they will break, but my steam press they don't break. A wretched Russian nag they'll ruin, but keep good drayhorsesthey won't ruin them. And so it is all round. We must raise our farming to a higher level. 'Oh, if one only had the means to do it, Nikolay Ivanovitch! It's all very well for you but for me, with a son to keep at the university, lads to be educated at the high schoolhow am I going to buy these drayhorses? 'Well, that's what the land banks are for. 'To get what's left me sold by auction? No, thank you. 'I don't agree that it's necessary or possible to raise the level of agriculture still higher, said Levin. 'I devote myself to it, and I have means, but I can do nothing. As to the banks, I don't know to whom they're any good. For my part, anyway, whatever I've spent money on in the way of husbandry, it has been a loss stocka loss, machinerya loss. 'That's true enough, the gentleman with the gray whiskers chimed in, positively laughing with satisfaction. 'And I'm not the only one, pursued Levin. 'I mix with all the neighboring landowners, who are cultivating their land on a rational system they all, with rare exceptions, are doing so at a loss. Come, tell us how does your land dodoes it pay? said Levin, and at once in Sviazhsky's eyes he detected that fleeting expression of alarm which he had noticed whenever he had tried to penetrate beyond the outer chambers of Sviazhsky's mind. Moreover, this question on Levin's part was not quite in good faith. Madame Sviazhskaya had just told him at tea that they had that summer invited a German expert in bookkeeping from Moscow, who for a consideration of five hundred roubles had investigated the management of their property, and found that it was costing them a loss of three thousand odd roubles. She did not remember the precise sum, but it appeared that the German had worked it out to the fraction of a farthing. The graywhiskered landowner smiled at the mention of the profits of Sviazhsky's famling, obviously aware how much gain his neighbor and marshal was likely to be making. 'Possibly it does not pay, answered Sviazhsky. 'That merely proves either that I'm a bad manager, or that I've sunk my capital for the increase of my rents. 'Oh, rent! Levin cried with horror. 'Rent there may be in Europe, where land has been improved by the labor put into it, but with us all the land is deteriorating from the labor put into itin other words they're working it out so there's no question of rent. 'How no rent? It's a law. 'Then we're outside the law rent explains nothing for us, but simply muddles us. No, tell me how there can be a theory of rent?... 'Will you have some junket? Masha, pass us some junket or raspberries. He turned to his wife. 'Extraordinarily late the raspberries are lasting this year. And in the happiest frame of mind Sviazhsky got up and walked off, apparently supposing the conversation to have ended at the very point when to Levin it seemed that it was only just beginning. Having lost his antagonist, Levin continued the conversation with the graywhiskered landowner, trying to prove to him that all the difficulty arises from the fact that we don't find out the peculiarities and habits of our laborer but the landowner, like all men who think independently and in isolation, was slow in taking in any other person's idea, and particularly partial to his own. He stuck to it that the Russian peasant is a swine and likes swinishness, and that to get him out of his swinishness one must have authority, and there is none one must have the stick, and we have become so liberal that we have all of a sudden replaced the stick that served us for a thousand years by lawyers and model prisons, where the worthless, stinking peasant is fed on good soup and has a fixed allowance of cubic feet of air. 'What makes you think, said Levin, trying to get back to the question, 'that it's impossible to find some relation to the laborer in which the labor would become productive? 'That never could be so with the Russian peasantry we've no power over them, answered the landowner. 'How can new conditions be found? said Sviazhsky. Having eaten some junket and lighted a cigarette, he came back to the discussion. 'All possible relations to the labor force have been defined and studied, he said. 'The relic of barbarism, the primitive commune with each guarantee for all, will disappear of itself serfdom has been abolishedthere remains nothing but free labor, and its forms are fixed and ready made, and must be adopted. Permanent hands, daylaborers, rammersyou can't get out of those forms. 'But Europe is dissatisfied with these forms. 'Dissatisfied, and seeking new ones. And will find them, in all probability. 'That's just what I was meaning, answered Levin. 'Why shouldn't we seek them for ourselves? 'Because it would be just like inventing afresh the means for constructing railways. They are ready, invented. 'But if they don't do for us, if they're stupid? said Levin. And again he detected the expression of alarm in the eyes of Sviazhsky. 'Oh, yes we'll bury the world under our caps! We've found the secret Europe was seeking for! I've heard all that but, excuse me, do you know all that's been done in Europe on the question of the organization of labor? 'No, very little. 'That question is now absorbing the best minds in Europe. The SchulzeDelitsch movement.... And then all this enormous literature of the labor question, the most liberal Lassalle movement ... the Mulhausen experiment? That's a fact by now, as you're probably aware. 'I have some idea of it, but very vague. 'No, you only say that no doubt you know all about it as well as I do. I'm not a professor of sociology, of course, but it interested me, and really, if it interests you, you ought to study it. 'But what conclusion have they come to? 'Excuse me.... The two neighbors had risen, and Sviazhsky, once more checking Levin in his inconvenient habit of peeping into what was beyond the outer chambers of his mind, went to see his guests out. Levin was insufferably bored that evening with the ladies he was stirred as he had never been before by the idea that the dissatisfaction he was feeling with his system of managing his land was not an exceptional case, but the general condition of things in Russia that the organization of some relation of the laborers to the soil in which they would work, as with the peasant he had met halfway to the Sviazhskys', was not a dream, but a problem which must be solved. And it seemed to him that the problem could be solved, and that he ought to try and solve it. After saying goodnight to the ladies, and promising to stay the whole of the next day, so as to make an expedition on horseback with them to see an interesting ruin in the crown forest, Levin went, before going to bed, into his host's study to get the books on the labor question that Sviazhsky had offered him. Sviazhsky's study was a huge room, surrounded by bookcases and with two tables in itone a massive writingtable, standing in the middle of the room, and the other a round table, covered with recent numbers of reviews and journals in different languages, ranged like the rays of a star round the lamp. On the writingtable was a stand of drawers marked with gold lettering, and full of papers of various sorts. Sviazhsky took out the books, and sat down in a rockingchair. 'What are you looking at there? he said to Levin, who was standing at the round table looking through the reviews. 'Oh, yes, there's a very interesting article here, said Sviazhsky of the review Levin was holding in his hand. 'It appears, he went on, with eager interest, 'that Friedrich was not, after all, the person chiefly responsible for the partition of Poland. It is proved.... And with his characteristic clearness, he summed up those new, very important, and interesting revelations. Although Levin was engrossed at the moment by his ideas about the problem of the land, he wondered, as he heard Sviazhsky 'What is there inside of him? And why, why is he interested in the partition of Poland? When Sviazhsky had finished, Levin could not help asking 'Well, and what then? But there was nothing to follow. It was simply interesting that it had been proved to be so and so. But Sviazhsky did not explain, and saw no need to explain why it was interesting to him. 'Yes, but I was very much interested by your irritable neighbor, said Levin, sighing. 'He's a clever fellow, and said a lot that was true. 'Oh, get along with you! An inveterate supporter of serfdom at heart, like all of them! said Sviazhsky. 'Whose marshal you are. 'Yes, only I marshal them in the other direction, said Sviazhsky, laughing. 'I'll tell you what interests me very much, said Levin. 'He's right that our system, that's to say of rational farming, doesn't answer, that the only thing that answers is the moneylender system, like that meeklooking gentleman's, or else the very simplest.... Whose fault is it? 'Our own, of course. Besides, it's not true that it doesn't answer. It answers with Vassiltchikov. 'A factory.... 'But I really don't know what it is you are surprised at. The people are at such a low stage of rational and moral development, that it's obvious they're bound to oppose everything that's strange to them. In Europe, a rational system answers because the people are educated it follows that we must educate the peoplethat's all. 'But how are we to educate the people? 'To educate the people three things are needed schools, and schools, and schools. 'But you said yourself the people are at such a low stage of material development what help are schools for that? 'Do you know, you remind me of the story of the advice given to the sick manYou should try purgative medicine. Taken worse. Try leeches. Tried them worse. Well, then, there's nothing left but to pray to God. Tried it worse. That's just how it is with us. I say political economy you sayworse. I say socialism worse. Education worse. 'But how do schools help matters? 'They give the peasant fresh wants. 'Well, that's a thing I've never understood, Levin replied with heat. 'In what way are schools going to help the people to improve their material position? You say schools, education, will give them fresh wants. So much the worse, since they won't be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of addition and subtraction and the catechism is going to improve their material condition, I never could make out. The day before yesterday, I met a peasant woman in the evening with a little baby, and asked her where she was going. She said she was going to the wise woman her boy had screaming fits, so she was taking him to be doctored. I asked, 'Why, how does the wise woman cure screaming fits?' 'She puts the child on the henroost and repeats some charm....' 'Well, you're saying it yourself! What's wanted to prevent her taking her child to the henroost to cure it of screaming fits is just.... Sviazhsky said, smiling goodhumoredly. 'Oh, no! said Levin with annoyance 'that method of doctoring I merely meant as a simile for doctoring the people with schools. The people are poor and ignorantthat we see as surely as the peasant woman sees the baby is ill because it screams. But in what way this trouble of poverty and ignorance is to be cured by schools is as incomprehensible as how the henroost affects the screaming. What has to be cured is what makes him poor. 'Well, in that, at least, you're in agreement with Spencer, whom you dislike so much. He says, too, that education may be the consequence of greater prosperity and comfort, of more frequent washing, as he says, but not of being able to read and write.... 'Well, then, I'm very glador the contrary, very sorry, that I'm in agreement with Spencer only I've known it a long while. Schools can do no good what will do good is an economic organization in which the people will become richer, will have more leisureand then there will be schools. 'Still, all over Europe now schools are obligatory. 'And how far do you agree with Spencer yourself about it? asked Levin. But there was a gleam of alarm in Sviazhsky's eyes, and he said smiling 'No that screaming story is positively capital! Did you really hear it yourself? Levin saw that he was not to discover the connection between this man's life and his thoughts. Obviously he did not care in the least what his reasoning led him to all he wanted was the process of reasoning. And he did not like it when the process of reasoning brought him into a blind alley. That was the only thing he disliked, and avoided by changing the conversation to something agreeable and amusing. All the impressions of the day, beginning with the impression made by the old peasant, which served, as it were, as the fundamental basis of all the conceptions and ideas of the day, threw Levin into violent excitement. This dear good Sviazhsky, keeping a stock of ideas simply for social purposes, and obviously having some other principles hidden from Levin, while with the crowd, whose name is legion, he guided public opinion by ideas he did not share that irascible country gentleman, perfectly correct in the conclusions that he had been worried into by life, but wrong in his exasperation against a whole class, and that the best class in Russia his own dissatisfaction with the work he had been doing, and the vague hope of finding a remedy for all thisall was blended in a sense of inward turmoil, and anticipation of some solution near at hand. Left alone in the room assigned him, lying on a spring mattress that yielded unexpectedly at every movement of his arm or his leg, Levin did not fall asleep for a long while. Not one conversation with Sviazhsky, though he had said a great deal that was clever, had interested Levin but the conclusions of the irascible landowner required consideration. Levin could not help recalling every word he had said, and in imagination amending his own replies. 'Yes, I ought to have said to him You say that our husbandry does not answer because the peasant hates improvements, and that they must be forced on him by authority. If no system of husbandry answered at all without these improvements, you would be quite right. But the only system that does answer is where laborer is working in accordance with his habits, just as on the old peasant's land halfway here. Your and our general dissatisfaction with the system shows that either we are to blame or the laborers. We have gone our waythe European waya long while, without asking ourselves about the qualities of our labor force. Let us try to look upon the labor force not as an abstract force, but as the Russian peasant with his instincts, and we shall arrange our system of culture in accordance with that. Imagine, I ought to have said to him, that you have the same system as the old peasant has, that you have found means of making your laborers take an interest in the success of the work, and have found the happy mean in the way of improvements which they will admit, and you will, without exhausting the soil, get twice or three times the yield you got before. Divide it in halves, give half as the share of labor, the surplus left you will be greater, and the share of labor will be greater too. And to do this one must lower the standard of husbandry and interest the laborers in its success. How to do this?that's a matter of detail but undoubtedly it can be done. This idea threw Levin into a great excitement. He did not sleep half the night, thinking over in detail the putting of his idea into practice. He had not intended to go away next day, but he now determined to go home early in the morning. Besides, the sisterinlaw with her lownecked bodice aroused in him a feeling akin to shame and remorse for some utterly base action. Most important of allhe must get back without delay he would have to make haste to put his new project to the peasants before the sowing of the winter wheat, so that the sowing might be undertaken on a new basis. He had made up his mind to revolutionize his whole system. The carrying out of Levin's plan presented many difficulties but he struggled on, doing his utmost, and attained a result which, though not what he desired, was enough to enable him, without selfdeception, to believe that the attempt was worth the trouble. One of the chief difficulties was that the process of cultivating the land was in full swing, that it was impossible to stop everything and begin it all again from the beginning, and the machine had to be mended while in motion. When on the evening that he arrived home he informed the bailiff of his plans, the latter with visible pleasure agreed with what he said so long as he was pointing out that all that had been done up to that time was stupid and useless. The bailiff said that he had said so a long while ago, but no heed had been paid him. But as for the proposal made by Levinto take a part as shareholder with his laborers in each agricultural undertakingat this the bailiff simply expressed a profound despondency, and offered no definite opinion, but began immediately talking of the urgent necessity of carrying the remaining sheaves of rye the next day, and of sending the men out for the second ploughing, so that Levin felt that this was not the time for discussing it. On beginning to talk to the peasants about it, and making a proposition to cede them the land on new terms, he came into collision with the same great difficulty that they were so much absorbed by the current work of the day, that they had not time to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed scheme. The simplehearted Ivan, the cowherd, seemed completely to grasp Levin's proposalthat he should with his family take a share of the profits of the cattleyardand he was in complete sympathy with the plan. But when Levin hinted at the future advantages, Ivan's face expressed alarm and regret that he could not hear all he had to say, and he made haste to find himself some task that would admit of no delay he either snatched up the fork to pitch the hay out of the pens, or ran to get water or to clear out the dung. Another difficulty lay in the invincible disbelief of the peasant that a landowner's object could be anything else than a desire to squeeze all he could out of them. They were firmly convinced that his real aim (whatever he might say to them) would always be in what he did not say to them. And they themselves, in giving their opinion, said a great deal but never said what was their real object. Moreover (Levin felt that the irascible landowner had been right) the peasants made their first and unalterable condition of any agreement whatever that they should not be forced to any new methods of tillage of any kind, nor to use new implements. They agreed that the modern plough ploughed better, that the scarifier did the work more quickly, but they found thousands of reasons that made it out of the question for them to use either of them and though he had accepted the conviction that he would have to lower the standard of cultivation, he felt sorry to give up improved methods, the advantages of which were so obvious. But in spite of all these difficulties he got his way, and by autumn the system was working, or at least so it seemed to him. At first Levin had thought of giving up the whole farming of the land just as it was to the peasants, the laborers, and the bailiff on new conditions of partnership but he was very soon convinced that this was impossible, and determined to divide it up. The cattleyard, the garden, hay fields, and arable land, divided into several parts, had to be made into separate lots. The simplehearted cowherd, Ivan, who, Levin fancied, understood the matter better than any of them, collecting together a gang of workers to help him, principally of his own family, became a partner in the cattleyard. A distant part of the estate, a tract of waste land that had lain fallow for eight years, was with the help of the clever carpenter, Fyodor Ryezunov, taken by six families of peasants on new conditions of partnership, and the peasant Shuraev took the management of all the vegetable gardens on the same terms. The remainder of the land was still worked on the old system, but these three associated partnerships were the first step to a new organization of the whole, and they completely took up Levin's time. It is true that in the cattleyard things went no better than before, and Ivan strenuously opposed warm housing for the cows and butter made of fresh cream, affirming that cows require less food if kept cold, and that butter is more profitable made from sour cream, and he asked for wages just as under the old system, and took not the slightest interest in the fact that the money he received was not wages but an advance out of his future share in the profits. It is true that Fyodor Ryezunov's company did not plough over the ground twice before sowing, as had been agreed, justifying themselves on the plea that the time was too short. It is true that the peasants of the same company, though they had agreed to work the land on new conditions, always spoke of the land, not as held in partnership, but as rented for half the crop, and more than once the peasants and Ryezunov himself said to Levin, 'If you would take a rent for the land, it would save you trouble, and we should be more free. Moreover the same peasants kept putting off, on various excuses, the building of a cattleyard and barn on the land as agreed upon, and delayed doing it till the winter. It is true that Shuraev would have liked to let out the kitchen gardens he had undertaken in small lots to the peasants. He evidently quite misunderstood, and apparently intentionally misunderstood, the conditions upon which the land had been given to him. Often, too, talking to the peasants and explaining to them all the advantages of the plan, Levin felt that the peasants heard nothing but the sound of his voice, and were firmly resolved, whatever he might say, not to let themselves be taken in. He felt this especially when he talked to the cleverest of the peasants, Ryezunov, and detected the gleam in Ryezunov's eyes which showed so plainly both ironical amusement at Levin, and the firm conviction that, if anyone were to be taken in, it would not be he, Ryezunov. But in spite of all this Levin thought the system worked, and that by keeping accounts strictly and insisting on his own way, he would prove to them in the future the advantages of the arrangement, and then the system would go of itself. These matters, together with the management of the land still left on his hands, and the indoor work over his book, so engrossed Levin the whole summer that he scarcely ever went out shooting. At the end of August he heard that the Oblonskys had gone away to Moscow, from their servant who brought back the sidesaddle. He felt that in not answering Darya Alexandrovna's letter he had by his rudeness, of which he could not think without a flush of shame, burned his ships, and that he would never go and see them again. He had been just as rude with the Sviazhskys, leaving them without saying goodbye. But he would never go to see them again either. He did not care about that now. The business of reorganizing the farming of his land absorbed him as completely as though there would never be anything else in his life. He read the books lent him by Sviazhsky, and copying out what he had not got, he read both the economic and socialistic books on the subject, but, as he had anticipated, found nothing bearing on the scheme he had undertaken. In the books on political economyin Mill, for instance, whom he studied first with great ardor, hoping every minute to find an answer to the questions that were engrossing himhe found laws deduced from the condition of land culture in Europe but he did not see why these laws, which did not apply in Russia, must be general. He saw just the same thing in the socialistic books either they were the beautiful but impracticable fantasies which had fascinated him when he was a student, or they were attempts at improving, rectifying the economic position in which Europe was placed, with which the system of land tenure in Russia had nothing in common. Political economy told him that the laws by which the wealth of Europe had been developed, and was developing, were universal and unvarying. Socialism told him that development along these lines leads to ruin. And neither of them gave an answer, or even a hint, in reply to the question what he, Levin, and all the Russian peasants and landowners, were to do with their millions of hands and millions of acres, to make them as productive as possible for the common weal. Having once taken the subject up, he read conscientiously everything bearing on it, and intended in the autumn to go abroad to study land systems on the spot, in order that he might not on this question be confronted with what so often met him on various subjects. Often, just as he was beginning to understand the idea in the mind of anyone he was talking to, and was beginning to explain his own, he would suddenly be told 'But Kauffmann, but Jones, but Dubois, but Michelli? You haven't read them they've thrashed that question out thoroughly. He saw now distinctly that Kauffmann and Michelli had nothing to tell him. He knew what he wanted. He saw that Russia has splendid land, splendid laborers, and that in certain cases, as at the peasant's on the way to Sviazhsky's, the produce raised by the laborers and the land is greatin the majority of cases when capital is applied in the European way the produce is small, and that this simply arises from the fact that the laborers want to work and work well only in their own peculiar way, and that this antagonism is not incidental but invariable, and has its roots in the national spirit. He thought that the Russian people whose task it was to colonize and cultivate vast tracts of unoccupied land, consciously adhered, till all their land was occupied, to the methods suitable to their purpose, and that their methods were by no means so bad as was generally supposed. And he wanted to prove this theoretically in his book and practically on his land. At the end of September the timber had been carted for building the cattleyard on the land that had been allotted to the association of peasants, and the butter from the cows was sold and the profits divided. In practice the system worked capitally, or, at least, so it seemed to Levin. In order to work out the whole subject theoretically and to complete his book, which, in Levin's daydreams, was not merely to effect a revolution in political economy, but to annihilate that science entirely and to lay the foundation of a new science of the relation of the people to the soil, all that was left to do was to make a tour abroad, and to study on the spot all that had been done in the same direction, and to collect conclusive evidence that all that had been done there was not what was wanted. Levin was only waiting for the delivery of his wheat to receive the money for it and go abroad. But the rains began, preventing the harvesting of the corn and potatoes left in the fields, and putting a stop to all work, even to the delivery of the wheat. The mud was impassable along the roads two mills were carried away, and the weather got worse and worse. On the th of September the sun came out in the morning, and hoping for fine weather, Levin began making final preparations for his journey. He gave orders for the wheat to be delivered, sent the bailiff to the merchant to get the money owing him, and went out himself to give some final directions on the estate before setting off. Having finished all his business, soaked through with the streams of water which kept running down the leather behind his neck and his gaiters, but in the keenest and most confident temper, Levin returned homewards in the evening. The weather had become worse than ever towards evening the hail lashed the drenched mare so cruelly that she went along sideways, shaking her head and ears but Levin was all right under his hood, and he looked cheerfully about him at the muddy streams running under the wheels, at the drops hanging on every bare twig, at the whiteness of the patch of unmelted hailstones on the planks of the bridge, at the thick layer of still juicy, fleshy leaves that lay heaped up about the stripped elmtree. In spite of the gloominess of nature around him, he felt peculiarly eager. The talks he had been having with the peasants in the further village had shown that they were beginning to get used to their new position. The old servant to whose hut he had gone to get dry evidently approved of Levin's plan, and of his own accord proposed to enter the partnership by the purchase of cattle. 'I have only to go stubbornly on towards my aim, and I shall attain my end, thought Levin 'and it's something to work and take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually the question of the public welfare comes into it. The whole system of culture, the chief element in the condition of the people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty, general prosperity and content instead of hostility, harmony and unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning in the little circle of our district, then the province, then Russia, the whole world. Because a just idea cannot but be fruitful. Yes, it's an aim worth working for. And its being me, Kostya Levin, who went to a ball in a black tie, and was refused by the Shtcherbatskaya girl, and who was intrinsically such a pitiful, worthless creaturethat proves nothing I feel sure Franklin felt just as worthless, and he too had no faith in himself, thinking of himself as a whole. That means nothing. And he too, most likely, had an Agafea Mihalovna to whom he confided his secrets. Musing on such thoughts Levin reached home in the darkness. The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come back and brought part of the money for the wheat. An agreement had been made with the old servant, and on the road the bailiff had learned that everywhere the corn was still standing in the fields, so that his one hundred and sixty shocks that had not been carried were nothing in comparison with the losses of others. After dinner Levin was sitting, as he usually did, in an easy chair with a book, and as he read he went on thinking of the journey before him in connection with his book. Today all the significance of his book rose before him with special distinctness, and whole periods ranged themselves in his mind in illustration of his theories. 'I must write that down, he thought. 'That ought to form a brief introduction, which I thought unnecessary before. He got up to go to his writingtable, and Laska, lying at his feet, got up too, stretching and looking at him as though to inquire where to go. But he had not time to write it down, for the head peasants had come round, and Levin went out into the hall to them. After his levee, that is to say, giving directions about the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who had business with him, Levin went back to his study and sat down to work. Laska lay under the table Agafea Mihalovna settled herself in her place with her stocking. After writing for a little while, Levin suddenly thought with exceptional vividness of Kitty, her refusal, and their last meeting. He got up and began walking about the room. 'What's the use of being dreary? said Agafea Mihalovna. 'Come, why do you stay on at home? You ought to go to some warm springs, especially now you're ready for the journey. 'Well, I am going away the day after tomorrow, Agafea Mihalovna I must finish my work. 'There, there, your work, you say! As if you hadn't done enough for the peasants! Why, as 'tis, they're saying, 'Your master will be getting some honor from the Tsar for it.' Indeed and it is a strange thing why need you worry about the peasants? 'I'm not worrying about them I'm doing it for my own good. Agafea Mihalovna knew every detail of Levin's plans for his land. Levin often put his views before her in all their complexity, and not uncommonly he argued with her and did not agree with her comments. But on this occasion she entirely misinterpreted what he had said. 'Of one's soul's salvation we all know and must think before all else, she said with a sigh. 'Parfen Denisitch now, for all he was no scholar, he died a death that God grant everyone of us the like, she said, referring to a servant who had died recently. 'Took the sacrament and all. 'That's not what I mean, said he. 'I mean that I'm acting for my own advantage. It's all the better for me if the peasants do their work better. 'Well, whatever you do, if he's a lazy goodfornought, everything'll be at sixes and sevens. If he has a conscience, he'll work, and if not, there's no doing anything. 'Oh, come, you say yourself Ivan has begun looking after the cattle better. 'All I say is, answered Agafea Mihalovna, evidently not speaking at random, but in strict sequence of idea, 'that you ought to get married, that's what I say. Agafea Mihalovna's allusion to the very subject he had only just been thinking about, hurt and stung him. Levin scowled, and without answering her, he sat down again to his work, repeating to himself all that he had been thinking of the real significance of that work. Only at intervals he listened in the stillness to the click of Agafea Mihalovna's needles, and recollecting what he did not want to remember, he frowned again. At nine o'clock they heard the bell and the faint vibration of a carriage over the mud. 'Well, here's visitors come to us, and you won't be dull, said Agafea Mihalovna, getting up and going to the door. But Levin overtook her. His work was not going well now, and he was glad of a visitor, whoever it might be. Running halfway down the staircase, Levin caught a sound he knew, a familiar cough in the hall. But he heard it indistinctly through the sound of his own footsteps, and hoped he was mistaken. Then he caught sight of a long, bony, familiar figure, and now it seemed there was no possibility of mistake and yet he still went on hoping that this tall man taking off his fur cloak and coughing was not his brother Nikolay. Levin loved his brother, but being with him was always a torture. Just now, when Levin, under the influence of the thoughts that had come to him, and Agafea Mihalovna's hint, was in a troubled and uncertain humor, the meeting with his brother that he had to face seemed particularly difficult. Instead of a lively, healthy visitor, some outsider who would, he hoped, cheer him up in his uncertain humor, he had to see his brother, who knew him through and through, who would call forth all the thoughts nearest his heart, would force him to show himself fully. And that he was not disposed to do. Angry with himself for so base a feeling, Levin ran into the hall as soon as he had seen his brother close, this feeling of selfish disappointment vanished instantly and was replaced by pity. Terrible as his brother Nikolay had been before in his emaciation and sickliness, now he looked still more emaciated, still more wasted. He was a skeleton covered with skin. He stood in the hall, jerking his long thin neck, and pulling the scarf off it, and smiled a strange and pitiful smile. When he saw that smile, submissive and humble, Levin felt something clutching at his throat. 'You see, I've come to you, said Nikolay in a thick voice, never for one second taking his eyes off his brother's face. 'I've been meaning to a long while, but I've been unwell all the time. Now I'm ever so much better, he said, rubbing his beard with his big thin hands. 'Yes, yes! answered Levin. And he felt still more frightened when, kissing him, he felt with his lips the dryness of his brother's skin and saw close to him his big eyes, full of a strange light. A few weeks before, Konstantin Levin had written to his brother that through the sale of the small part of the property, that had remained undivided, there was a sum of about two thousand roubles to come to him as his share. Nikolay said that he had come now to take this money and, what was more important, to stay a while in the old nest, to get in touch with the earth, so as to renew his strength like the heroes of old for the work that lay before him. In spite of his exaggerated stoop, and the emaciation that was so striking from his height, his movements were as rapid and abrupt as ever. Levin led him into his study. His brother dressed with particular carea thing he never used to docombed his scanty, lank hair, and, smiling, went upstairs. He was in the most affectionate and goodhumored mood, just as Levin often remembered him in childhood. He even referred to Sergey Ivanovitch without rancor. When he saw Agafea Mihalovna, he made jokes with her and asked after the old servants. The news of the death of Parfen Denisitch made a painful impression on him. A look of fear crossed his face, but he regained his serenity immediately. 'Of course he was quite old, he said, and changed the subject. 'Well, I'll spend a month or two with you, and then I'm off to Moscow. Do you know, Myakov has promised me a place there, and I'm going into the service. Now I'm going to arrange my life quite differently, he went on. 'You know I got rid of that woman. 'Marya Nikolaevna? Why, what for? 'Oh, she was a horrid woman! She caused me all sorts of worries. But he did not say what the annoyances were. He could not say that he had cast off Marya Nikolaevna because the tea was weak, and, above all, because she would look after him, as though he were an invalid. 'Besides, I want to turn over a new leaf completely now. I've done silly things, of course, like everyone else, but money's the last consideration I don't regret it. So long as there's health, and my health, thank God, is quite restored. Levin listened and racked his brains, but could think of nothing to say. Nikolay probably felt the same he began questioning his brother about his affairs and Levin was glad to talk about himself, because then he could speak without hypocrisy. He told his brother of his plans and his doings. His brother listened, but evidently he was not interested by it. These two men were so akin, so near each other, that the slightest gesture, the tone of voice, told both more than could be said in words. Both of them now had only one thoughtthe illness of Nikolay and the nearness of his deathwhich stifled all else. But neither of them dared to speak of it, and so whatever they saidnot uttering the one thought that filled their mindswas all falsehood. Never had Levin been so glad when the evening was over and it was time to go to bed. Never with any outside person, never on any official visit had he been so unnatural and false as he was that evening. And the consciousness of this unnaturalness, and the remorse he felt at it, made him even more unnatural. He wanted to weep over his dying, dearly loved brother, and he had to listen and keep on talking of how he meant to live. As the house was damp, and only one bedroom had been kept heated, Levin put his brother to sleep in his own bedroom behind a screen. His brother got into bed, and whether he slept or did not sleep, tossed about like a sick man, coughed, and when he could not get his throat clear, mumbled something. Sometimes when his breathing was painful, he said, 'Oh, my God! Sometimes when he was choking he muttered angrily, 'Ah, the devil! Levin could not sleep for a long while, hearing him. His thoughts were of the most various, but the end of all his thoughts was the samedeath. Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first time presented itself to him with irresistible force. And death, which was here in this loved brother, groaning half asleep and from habit calling without distinction on God and the devil, was not so remote as it had hitherto seemed to him. It was in himself too, he felt that. If not today, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, in thirty years, wasn't it all the same! And what was this inevitable deathhe did not know, had never thought about it, and what was more, had not the power, had not the courage to think about it. 'I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end I had forgottendeath. He sat on his bed in the darkness, crouched up, hugging his knees, and holding his breath from the strain of thought, he pondered. But the more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably so, that in reality, looking upon life, he had forgotten one little factthat death will come, and all ends that nothing was even worth beginning, and that there was no helping it anyway. Yes, it was awful, but it was so. 'But I am alive still. Now what's to be done? what's to be done? he said in despair. He lighted a candle, got up cautiously and went to the lookingglass, and began looking at his face and hair. Yes, there were gray hairs about his temples. He opened his mouth. His back teeth were beginning to decay. He bared his muscular arms. Yes, there was strength in them. But Nikolay, who lay there breathing with what was left of lungs, had had a strong, healthy body too. And suddenly he recalled how they used to go to bed together as children, and how they only waited till Fyodor Bogdanitch was out of the room to fling pillows at each other and laugh, laugh irrepressibly, so that even their awe of Fyodor Bogdanitch could not check the effervescing, overbrimming sense of life and happiness. 'And now that bent, hollow chest ... and I, not knowing what will become of me, or wherefore.... 'K...ha! K...ha! Damnation! Why do you keep fidgeting, why don't you go to sleep? his brother's voice called to him. 'Oh, I don't know, I'm not sleepy. 'I have had a good sleep, I'm not in a sweat now. Just see, feel my shirt it's not wet, is it? Levin felt, withdrew behind the screen, and put out the candle, but for a long while he could not sleep. The question how to live had hardly begun to grow a little clearer to him, when a new, insoluble question presented itselfdeath. 'Why, he's dyingyes, he'll die in the spring, and how help him? What can I say to him? What do I know about it? I'd even forgotten that it was at all. Levin had long before made the observation that when one is uncomfortable with people from their being excessively amenable and meek, one is apt very soon after to find things intolerable from their touchiness and irritability. He felt that this was how it would be with his brother. And his brother Nikolay's gentleness did in fact not last out for long. The very next morning he began to be irritable, and seemed doing his best to find fault with his brother, attacking him on his tenderest points. Levin felt himself to blame, and could not set things right. He felt that if they had both not kept up appearances, but had spoken, as it is called, from the heartthat is to say, had said only just what they were thinking and feelingthey would simply have looked into each other's faces, and Konstantin could only have said, 'You're dying, you're dying! and Nikolay could only have answered, 'I know I'm dying, but I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid! And they could have said nothing more, if they had said only what was in their hearts. But life like that was impossible, and so Konstantin tried to do what he had been trying to do all his life, and never could learn to do, though, as far as he could observe, many people knew so well how to do it, and without it there was no living at all. He tried to say what he was not thinking, but he felt continually that it had a ring of falsehood, that his brother detected him in it, and was exasperated at it. The third day Nikolay induced his brother to explain his plan to him again, and began not merely attacking it, but intentionally confounding it with communism. 'You've simply borrowed an idea that's not your own, but you've distorted it, and are trying to apply it where it's not applicable. 'But I tell you it's nothing to do with it. They deny the justice of property, of capital, of inheritance, while I do not deny this chief stimulus. (Levin felt disgusted himself at using such expressions, but ever since he had been engrossed by his work, he had unconsciously come more and more frequently to use words not Russian.) 'All I want is to regulate labor. 'Which means, you've borrowed an idea, stripped it of all that gave it its force, and want to make believe that it's something new, said Nikolay, angrily tugging at his necktie. 'But my idea has nothing in common.... 'That, anyway, said Nikolay Levin, with an ironical smile, his eyes flashing malignantly, 'has the charm ofwhat's one to call it?geometrical symmetry, of clearness, of definiteness. It may be a Utopia. But if once one allows the possibility of making of all the past a tabula rasano property, no familythen labor would organize itself. But you gain nothing.... 'Why do you mix things up? I've never been a communist. 'But I have, and I consider it's premature, but rational, and it has a future, just like Christianity in its first ages. 'All that I maintain is that the labor force ought to be investigated from the point of view of natural science that is to say, it ought to be studied, its qualities ascertained.... 'But that's utter waste of time. That force finds a certain form of activity of itself, according to the stage of its development. There have been slaves first everywhere, then metayers and we have the halfcrop system, rent, and day laborers. What are you trying to find? Levin suddenly lost his temper at these words, because at the bottom of his heart he was afraid that it was truetrue that he was trying to hold the balance even between communism and the familiar forms, and that this was hardly possible. 'I am trying to find means of working productively for myself and for the laborers. I want to organize.... he answered hotly. 'You don't want to organize anything it's simply just as you've been all your life, that you want to be original to pose as not exploiting the peasants simply, but with some idea in view. 'Oh, all right, that's what you thinkand let me alone! answered Levin, feeling the muscles of his left cheek twitching uncontrollably. 'You've never had, and never have, convictions all you want is to please your vanity. 'Oh, very well then let me alone! 'And I will let you alone! and it's high time I did, and go to the devil with you! and I'm very sorry I ever came! In spite of all Levin's efforts to soothe his brother afterwards, Nikolay would listen to nothing he said, declaring that it was better to part, and Konstantin saw that it simply was that life was unbearable to him. Nikolay was just getting ready to go, when Konstantin went in to him again and begged him, rather unnaturally, to forgive him if he had hurt his feelings in any way. 'Ah, generosity! said Nikolay, and he smiled. 'If you want to be right, I can give you that satisfaction. You're in the right but I'm going all the same. It was only just at parting that Nikolay kissed him, and said, looking with sudden strangeness and seriousness at his brother 'Anyway, don't remember evil against me, Kostya! and his voice quivered. These were the only words that had been spoken sincerely between them. Levin knew that those words meant, 'You see, and you know, that I'm in a bad way, and maybe we shall not see each other again. Levin knew this, and the tears gushed from his eyes. He kissed his brother once more, but he could not speak, and knew not what to say. Three days after his brother's departure, Levin too set off for his foreign tour. Happening to meet Shtcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in the railway train, Levin greatly astonished him by his depression. 'What's the matter with you? Shtcherbatsky asked him. 'Oh, nothing there's not much happiness in life. 'Not much? You come with me to Paris instead of to Mulhausen. You shall see how to be happy. 'No, I've done with it all. It's time I was dead. 'Well, that's a good one! said Shtcherbatsky, laughing 'why, I'm only just getting ready to begin. 'Yes, I thought the same not long ago, but now I know I shall soon be dead. Levin said what he had genuinely been thinking of late. He saw nothing but death or the advance towards death in everything. But his cherished scheme only engrossed him the more. Life had to be got through somehow till death did come. Darkness had fallen upon everything for him but just because of this darkness he felt that the one guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it and clung to it with all his strength. The Karenins, husband and wife, continued living in the same house, met every day, but were complete strangers to one another. Alexey Alexandrovitch made it a rule to see his wife every day, so that the servants might have no grounds for suppositions, but avoided dining at home. Vronsky was never at Alexey Alexandrovitch's house, but Anna saw him away from home, and her husband was aware of it. The position was one of misery for all three and not one of them would have been equal to enduring this position for a single day, if it had not been for the expectation that it would change, that it was merely a temporary painful ordeal which would pass over. Alexey Alexandrovitch hoped that this passion would pass, as everything does pass, that everyone would forget about it, and his name would remain unsullied. Anna, on whom the position depended, and for whom it was more miserable than for anyone, endured it because she not merely hoped, but firmly believed, that it would all very soon be settled and come right. She had not the least idea what would settle the position, but she firmly believed that something would very soon turn up now. Vronsky, against his own will or wishes, followed her lead, hoped too that something, apart from his own action, would be sure to solve all difficulties. In the middle of the winter Vronsky spent a very tiresome week. A foreign prince, who had come on a visit to Petersburg, was put under his charge, and he had to show him the sights worth seeing. Vronsky was of distinguished appearance he possessed, moreover, the art of behaving with respectful dignity, and was used to having to do with such grand personagesthat was how he came to be put in charge of the prince. But he felt his duties very irksome. The prince was anxious to miss nothing of which he would be asked at home, had he seen that in Russia? And on his own account he was anxious to enjoy to the utmost all Russian forms of amusement. Vronsky was obliged to be his guide in satisfying both these inclinations. The mornings they spent driving to look at places of interest the evenings they passed enjoying the national entertainments. The prince rejoiced in health exceptional even among princes. By gymnastics and careful attention to his health he had brought himself to such a point that in spite of his excess in pleasure he looked as fresh as a big glossy green Dutch cucumber. The prince had traveled a great deal, and considered one of the chief advantages of modern facilities of communication was the accessibility of the pleasures of all nations. He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in serenades and had made friends with a Spanish girl who played the mandolin. In Switzerland he had killed chamois. In England he had galloped in a red coat over hedges and killed two hundred pheasants for a bet. In Turkey he had got into a harem in India he had hunted on an elephant, and now in Russia he wished to taste all the specially Russian forms of pleasure. Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the ceremonies to him, was at great pains to arrange all the Russian amusements suggested by various persons to the prince. They had race horses, and Russian pancakes and bear hunts and threehorse sledges, and gypsies and drinking feasts, with the Russian accompaniment of broken crockery. And the prince with surprising ease fell in with the Russian spirit, smashed trays full of crockery, sat with a gypsy girl on his knee, and seemed to be askingwhat more, and does the whole Russian spirit consist in just this? In reality, of all the Russian entertainments the prince liked best French actresses and ballet dancers and whiteseal champagne. Vronsky was used to princes, but, either because he had himself changed of late, or that he was in too close proximity to the prince, that week seemed fearfully wearisome to him. The whole of that week he experienced a sensation such as a man might have set in charge of a dangerous madman, afraid of the madman, and at the same time, from being with him, fearing for his own reason. Vronsky was continually conscious of the necessity of never for a second relaxing the tone of stern official respectfulness, that he might not himself be insulted. The prince's manner of treating the very people who, to Vronsky's surprise, were ready to descend to any depths to provide him with Russian amusements, was contemptuous. His criticisms of Russian women, whom he wished to study, more than once made Vronsky crimson with indignation. The chief reason why the prince was so particularly disagreeable to Vronsky was that he could not help seeing himself in him. And what he saw in this mirror did not gratify his selfesteem. He was a very stupid and very selfsatisfied and very healthy and very wellwashed man, and nothing else. He was a gentlemanthat was true, and Vronsky could not deny it. He was equable and not cringing with his superiors, was free and ingratiating in his behavior with his equals, and was contemptuously indulgent with his inferiors. Vronsky was himself the same, and regarded it as a great merit to be so. But for this prince he was an inferior, and his contemptuous and indulgent attitude to him revolted him. 'Brainless beef! can I be like that? he thought. Be that as it might, when, on the seventh day, he parted from the prince, who was starting for Moscow, and received his thanks, he was happy to be rid of his uncomfortable position and the unpleasant reflection of himself. He said goodbye to him at the station on their return from a bear hunt, at which they had had a display of Russian prowess kept up all night. When he got home, Vronsky found there a note from Anna. She wrote, 'I am ill and unhappy. I cannot come out, but I cannot go on longer without seeing you. Come in this evening. Alexey Alexandrovitch goes to the council at seven and will be there till ten. Thinking for an instant of the strangeness of her bidding him come straight to her, in spite of her husband's insisting on her not receiving him, he decided to go. Vronsky had that winter got his promotion, was now a colonel, had left the regimental quarters, and was living alone. After having some lunch, he lay down on the sofa immediately, and in five minutes memories of the hideous scenes he had witnessed during the last few days were confused together and joined on to a mental image of Anna and of the peasant who had played an important part in the bear hunt, and Vronsky fell asleep. He waked up in the dark, trembling with horror, and made haste to light a candle. 'What was it? What? What was the dreadful thing I dreamed? Yes, yes I think a little dirty man with a disheveled beard was stooping down doing something, and all of a sudden he began saying some strange words in French. Yes, there was nothing else in the dream, he said to himself. 'But why was it so awful? He vividly recalled the peasant again and those incomprehensible French words the peasant had uttered, and a chill of horror ran down his spine. 'What nonsense! thought Vronsky, and glanced at his watch. It was halfpast eight already. He rang up his servant, dressed in haste, and went out onto the steps, completely forgetting the dream and only worried at being late. As he drove up to the Karenins' entrance he looked at his watch and saw it was ten minutes to nine. A high, narrow carriage with a pair of grays was standing at the entrance. He recognized Anna's carriage. 'She is coming to me, thought Vronsky, 'and better she should. I don't like going into that house. But no matter I can't hide myself, he thought, and with that manner peculiar to him from childhood, as of a man who has nothing to be ashamed of, Vronsky got out of his sledge and went to the door. The door opened, and the hallporter with a rug on his arm called the carriage. Vronsky, though he did not usually notice details, noticed at this moment the amazed expression with which the porter glanced at him. In the very doorway Vronsky almost ran up against Alexey Alexandrovitch. The gas jet threw its full light on the bloodless, sunken face under the black hat and on the white cravat, brilliant against the beaver of the coat. Karenin's fixed, dull eyes were fastened upon Vronsky's face. Vronsky bowed, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, chewing his lips, lifted his hand to his hat and went on. Vronsky saw him without looking round get into the carriage, pick up the rug and the operaglass at the window and disappear. Vronsky went into the hall. His brows were scowling, and his eyes gleamed with a proud and angry light in them. 'What a position! he thought. 'If he would fight, would stand up for his honor, I could act, could express my feelings but this weakness or baseness.... He puts me in the position of playing false, which I never meant and never mean to do. Vronsky's ideas had changed since the day of his conversation with Anna in the Vrede garden. Unconsciously yielding to the weakness of Annawho had surrendered herself up to him utterly, and simply looked to him to decide her fate, ready to submit to anythinghe had long ceased to think that their tie might end as he had thought then. His ambitious plans had retreated into the background again, and feeling that he had got out of that circle of activity in which everything was definite, he had given himself entirely to his passion, and that passion was binding him more and more closely to her. He was still in the hall when he caught the sound of her retreating footsteps. He knew she had been expecting him, had listened for him, and was now going back to the drawingroom. 'No, she cried, on seeing him, and at the first sound of her voice the tears came into her eyes. 'No if things are to go on like this, the end will come much, much too soon. 'What is it, dear one? 'What? I've been waiting in agony for an hour, two hours ... No, I won't ... I can't quarrel with you. Of course you couldn't come. No, I won't. She laid her two hands on his shoulders, and looked a long while at him with a profound, passionate, and at the same time searching look. She was studying his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She was, every time she saw him, making the picture of him in her imagination (incomparably superior, impossible in reality) fit with him as he really was. 'You met him? she asked, when they had sat down at the table in the lamplight. 'You're punished, you see, for being late. 'Yes but how was it? Wasn't he to be at the council? 'He had been and come back, and was going out somewhere again. But that's no matter. Don't talk about it. Where have you been? With the prince still? She knew every detail of his existence. He was going to say that he had been up all night and had dropped asleep, but looking at her thrilled and rapturous face, he was ashamed. And he said he had had to go to report on the prince's departure. 'But it's over now? He is gone? 'Thank God it's over! You wouldn't believe how insufferable it's been for me. 'Why so? Isn't it the life all of you, all young men, always lead? she said, knitting her brows and taking up the crochet work that was lying on the table, she began drawing the hook out of it, without looking at Vronsky. 'I gave that life up long ago, said he, wondering at the change in her face, and trying to divine its meaning. 'And I confess, he said, with a smile, showing his thick, white teeth, 'this week I've been, as it were, looking at myself in a glass, seeing that life, and I didn't like it. She held the work in her hands, but did not crochet, and looked at him with strange, shining, and hostile eyes. 'This morning Liza came to see methey're not afraid to call on me, in spite of the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, she put in'and she told me about your Athenian evening. How loathsome! 'I was just going to say.... She interrupted him. 'It was that Thrse you used to know? 'I was just saying.... 'How disgusting you are, you men! How is it you can't understand that a woman can never forget that, she said, getting more and more angry, and so letting him see the cause of her irritation, 'especially a woman who cannot know your life? What do I know? What have I ever known? she said, 'what you tell me. And how do I know whether you tell me the truth?... 'Anna, you hurt me. Don't you trust me? Haven't I told you that I haven't a thought I wouldn't lay bare to you? 'Yes, yes, she said, evidently trying to suppress her jealous thoughts. 'But if only you knew how wretched I am! I believe you, I believe you.... What were you saying? But he could not at once recall what he had been going to say. These fits of jealousy, which of late had been more and more frequent with her, horrified him, and however much he tried to disguise the fact, made him feel cold to her, although he knew the cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he had told himself that her love was happiness and now she loved him as a woman can love when love has outweighed for her all the good things of lifeand he was much further from happiness than when he had followed her from Moscow. Then he had thought himself unhappy, but happiness was before him now he felt that the best happiness was already left behind. She was utterly unlike what she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse. She had broadened out all over, and in her face at the time when she was speaking of the actress there was an evil expression of hatred that distorted it. He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart but now, when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken. 'Well, well, what was it you were going to say about the prince? I have driven away the fiend, she added. The fiend was the name they had given her jealousy. 'What did you begin to tell me about the prince? Why did you find it so tiresome? 'Oh, it was intolerable! he said, trying to pick up the thread of his interrupted thought. 'He does not improve on closer acquaintance. If you want him defined, here he is a prime, wellfed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more, he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her. 'No how so? she replied. 'He's seen a great deal, anyway he's cultured? 'It's an utterly different culturetheir culture. He's cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything but animal pleasures. 'But don't you all care for these animal pleasures? she said, and again he noticed a dark look in her eyes that avoided him. 'How is it you're defending him? he said, smiling. 'I'm not defending him, it's nothing to me but I imagine, if you had not cared for those pleasures yourself, you might have got out of them. But if it affords you satisfaction to gaze at Thrse in the attire of Eve.... 'Again, the devil again, Vronsky said, taking the hand she had laid on the table and kissing it. 'Yes but I can't help it. You don't know what I have suffered waiting for you. I believe I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous I believe you when you're here but when you're away somewhere leading your life, so incomprehensible to me.... She turned away from him, pulled the hook at last out of the crochet work, and rapidly, with the help of her forefinger, began working loop after loop of the wool that was dazzling white in the lamplight, while the slender wrist moved swiftly, nervously in the embroidered cuff. 'How was it, then? Where did you meet Alexey Alexandrovitch? Her voice sounded in an unnatural and jarring tone. 'We ran up against each other in the doorway. 'And he bowed to you like this? She drew a long face, and halfclosing her eyes, quickly transformed her expression, folded her hands, and Vronsky suddenly saw in her beautiful face the very expression with which Alexey Alexandrovitch had bowed to him. He smiled, while she laughed gaily, with that sweet, deep laugh, which was one of her greatest charms. 'I don't understand him in the least, said Vronsky. 'If after your avowal to him at your country house he had broken with you, if he had called me outbut this I can't understand. How can he put up with such a position? He feels it, that's evident. 'He? she said sneeringly. 'He's perfectly satisfied. 'What are we all miserable for, when everything might be so happy? 'Only not he. Don't I know him, the falsity in which he's utterly steeped?... Could one, with any feeling, live as he is living with me? He understands nothing, and feels nothing. Could a man of any feeling live in the same house with his unfaithful wife? Could he talk to her, call her 'my dear'? And again she could not help mimicking him ''Anna, ma chre Anna, dear!' 'He's not a man, not a human beinghe's a doll! No one knows him but I know him. Oh, if I'd been in his place, I'd long ago have killed, have torn to pieces a wife like me. I wouldn't have said, 'Anna, ma chre'! He's not a man, he's an official machine. He doesn't understand that I'm your wife, that he's outside, that he's superfluous.... Don't let's talk of him!... 'You're unfair, very unfair, dearest, said Vronsky, trying to soothe her. 'But never mind, don't let's talk of him. Tell me what you've been doing? What is the matter? What has been wrong with you, and what did the doctor say? She looked at him with mocking amusement. Evidently she had hit on other absurd and grotesque aspects in her husband and was awaiting the moment to give expression to them. But he went on 'I imagine that it's not illness, but your condition. When will it be? The ironical light died away in her eyes, but a different smile, a consciousness of something, he did not know what, and of quiet melancholy, came over her face. 'Soon, soon. You say that our position is miserable, that we must put an end to it. If you knew how terrible it is to me, what I would give to be able to love you freely and boldly! I should not torture myself and torture you with my jealousy.... And it will come soon, but not as we expect. And at the thought of how it would come, she seemed so pitiable to herself that tears came into her eyes, and she could not go on. She laid her hand on his sleeve, dazzling and white with its rings in the lamplight. 'It won't come as we suppose. I didn't mean to say this to you, but you've made me. Soon, soon, all will be over, and we shall all, all be at peace, and suffer no more. 'I don't understand, he said, understanding her. 'You asked when? Soon. And I shan't live through it. Don't interrupt me! and she made haste to speak. 'I know it I know for certain. I shall die and I'm very glad I shall die, and release myself and you. Tears dropped from her eyes he bent down over her hand and began kissing it, trying to hide his emotion, which, he knew, had no sort of grounds, though he could not control it. 'Yes, it's better so, she said, tightly gripping his hand. 'That's the only way, the only way left us. He had recovered himself, and lifted his head. 'How absurd! What absurd nonsense you are talking! 'No, it's the truth. 'What, what's the truth? 'That I shall die. I have had a dream. 'A dream? repeated Vronsky, and instantly he recalled the peasant of his dream. 'Yes, a dream, she said. 'It's a long while since I dreamed it. I dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I had to get something there, to find out something you know how it is in dreams, she said, her eyes wide with horror 'and in the bedroom, in the corner, stood something. 'Oh, what nonsense! How can you believe.... But she would not let him interrupt her. What she was saying was too important to her. 'And the something turned round, and I saw it was a peasant with a disheveled beard, little, and dreadful looking. I wanted to run away, but he bent down over a sack, and was fumbling there with his hands.... She showed how he had moved his hands. There was terror in her face. And Vronsky, remembering his dream, felt the same terror filling his soul. 'He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, you know Il faut le battre, le fer, le broyer, le ptrir.... And in my horror I tried to wake up, and woke up ... but woke up in the dream. And I began asking myself what it meant. And Korney said to me 'In childbirth you'll die, ma'am, you'll die....' And I woke up. 'What nonsense, what nonsense! said Vronsky but he felt himself that there was no conviction in his voice. 'But don't let's talk of it. Ring the bell, I'll have tea. And stay a little now it's not long I shall.... But all at once she stopped. The expression of her face instantaneously changed. Horror and excitement were suddenly replaced by a look of soft, solemn, blissful attention. He could not comprehend the meaning of the change. She was listening to the stirring of the new life within her. Alexey Alexandrovitch, after meeting Vronsky on his own steps, drove, as he had intended, to the Italian opera. He sat through two acts there, and saw everyone he had wanted to see. On returning home, he carefully scrutinized the hat stand, and noticing that there was not a military overcoat there, he went, as usual, to his own room. But, contrary to his usual habit, he did not go to bed, he walked up and down his study till three o'clock in the morning. The feeling of furious anger with his wife, who would not observe the proprieties and keep to the one stipulation he had laid on her, not to receive her lover in her own home, gave him no peace. She had not complied with his request, and he was bound to punish her and carry out his threatobtain a divorce and take away his son. He knew all the difficulties connected with this course, but he had said he would do it, and now he must carry out his threat. Countess Lidia Ivanovna had hinted that this was the best way out of his position, and of late the obtaining of divorces had been brought to such perfection that Alexey Alexandrovitch saw a possibility of overcoming the formal difficulties. Misfortunes never come singly, and the affairs of the reorganization of the native tribes, and of the irrigation of the lands of the Zaraisky province, had brought such official worries upon Alexey Alexandrovitch that he had been of late in a continual condition of extreme irritability. He did not sleep the whole night, and his fury, growing in a sort of vast, arithmetical progression, reached its highest limits in the morning. He dressed in haste, and as though carrying his cup full of wrath, and fearing to spill any over, fearing to lose with his wrath the energy necessary for the interview with his wife, he went into her room directly he heard she was up. Anna, who had thought she knew her husband so well, was amazed at his appearance when he went in to her. His brow was lowering, and his eyes stared darkly before him, avoiding her eyes his mouth was tightly and contemptuously shut. In his walk, in his gestures, in the sound of his voice there was a determination and firmness such as his wife had never seen in him. He went into her room, and without greeting her, walked straight up to her writingtable, and taking her keys, opened a drawer. 'What do you want? she cried. 'Your lover's letters, he said. 'They're not here, she said, shutting the drawer but from that action he saw he had guessed right, and roughly pushing away her hand, he quickly snatched a portfolio in which he knew she used to put her most important papers. She tried to pull the portfolio away, but he pushed her back. 'Sit down! I have to speak to you, he said, putting the portfolio under his arm, and squeezing it so tightly with his elbow that his shoulder stood up. Amazed and intimidated, she gazed at him in silence. 'I told you that I would not allow you to receive your lover in this house. 'I had to see him to.... She stopped, not finding a reason. 'I do not enter into the details of why a woman wants to see her lover. 'I meant, I only.... she said, flushing hotly. This coarseness of his angered her, and gave her courage. 'Surely you must feel how easy it is for you to insult me? she said. 'An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a thief he's a thief is simply la constatation d'un fait. 'This cruelty is something new I did not know in you. 'You call it cruelty for a husband to give his wife liberty, giving her the honorable protection of his name, simply on the condition of observing the proprieties is that cruelty? 'It's worse than cruelit's base, if you want to know! Anna cried, in a rush of hatred, and getting up, she was going away. 'No! he shrieked, in his shrill voice, which pitched a note higher than usual even, and his big hands clutching her by the arm so violently that red marks were left from the bracelet he was squeezing, he forcibly sat her down in her place. 'Base! If you care to use that word, what is base is to forsake husband and child for a lover, while you eat your husband's bread! She bowed her head. She did not say what she had said the evening before to her lover, that he was her husband, and her husband was superfluous she did not even think that. She felt all the justice of his words, and only said softly 'You cannot describe my position as worse than I feel it to be myself but what are you saying all this for? 'What am I saying it for? what for? he went on, as angrily. 'That you may know that since you have not carried out my wishes in regard to observing outward decorum, I will take measures to put an end to this state of things. 'Soon, very soon, it will end, anyway, she said and again, at the thought of death near at hand and now desired, tears came into her eyes. 'It will end sooner than you and your lover have planned! If you must have the satisfaction of animal passion.... 'Alexey Alexandrovitch! I won't say it's not generous, but it's not like a gentleman to strike anyone who's down. 'Yes, you only think of yourself! But the sufferings of a man who was your husband have no interest for you. You don't care that his whole life is ruined, that he is thuff ... thuff.... Alexey Alexandrovitch was speaking so quickly that he stammered, and was utterly unable to articulate the word 'suffering. In the end he pronounced it 'thuffering. She wanted to laugh, and was immediately ashamed that anything could amuse her at such a moment. And for the first time, for an instant, she felt for him, put herself in his place, and was sorry for him. But what could she say or do? Her head sank, and she sat silent. He too was silent for some time, and then began speaking in a frigid, less shrill voice, emphasizing random words that had no special significance. 'I came to tell you.... he said. She glanced at him. 'No, it was my fancy, she thought, recalling the expression of his face when he stumbled over the word 'suffering. 'No can a man with those dull eyes, with that selfsatisfied complacency, feel anything? 'I cannot change anything, she whispered. 'I have come to tell you that I am going tomorrow to Moscow, and shall not return again to this house, and you will receive notice of what I decide through the lawyer into whose hands I shall intrust the task of getting a divorce. My son is going to my sister's, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, with an effort recalling what he had meant to say about his son. 'You take Seryozha to hurt me, she said, looking at him from under her brows. 'You do not love him.... Leave me Seryozha! 'Yes, I have lost even my affection for my son, because he is associated with the repulsion I feel for you. But still I shall take him. Goodbye! And he was going away, but now she detained him. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, leave me Seryozha! she whispered once more. 'I have nothing else to say. Leave Seryozha till my ... I shall soon be confined leave him! Alexey Alexandrovitch flew into a rage, and, snatching his hand from her, he went out of the room without a word. The waitingroom of the celebrated Petersburg lawyer was full when Alexey Alexandrovitch entered it. Three ladiesan old lady, a young lady, and a merchant's wifeand three gentlemenone a German banker with a ring on his finger, the second a merchant with a beard, and the third a wrathfullooking government clerk in official uniform, with a cross on his neckhad obviously been waiting a long while already. Two clerks were writing at tables with scratching pens. The appurtenances of the writingtables, about which Alexey Alexandrovitch was himself very fastidious, were exceptionally good. He could not help observing this. One of the clerks, without getting up, turned wrathfully to Alexey Alexandrovitch, half closing his eyes. 'What are you wanting? He replied that he had to see the lawyer on some business. 'He is engaged, the clerk responded severely, and he pointed with his pen at the persons waiting, and went on writing. 'Can't he spare time to see me? said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'He has no time free he is always busy. Kindly wait your turn. 'Then I must trouble you to give him my card, Alexey Alexandrovitch said with dignity, seeing the impossibility of preserving his incognito. The clerk took the card and, obviously not approving of what he read on it, went to the door. Alexey Alexandrovitch was in principle in favor of the publicity of legal proceedings, though for some higher official considerations he disliked the application of the principle in Russia, and disapproved of it, as far as he could disapprove of anything instituted by authority of the Emperor. His whole life had been spent in administrative work, and consequently, when he did not approve of anything, his disapproval was softened by the recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of reform in every department. In the new public law courts he disliked the restrictions laid on the lawyers conducting cases. But till then he had had nothing to do with the law courts, and so had disapproved of their publicity simply in theory now his disapprobation was strengthened by the unpleasant impression made on him in the lawyer's waiting room. 'Coming immediately, said the clerk and two minutes later there did actually appear in the doorway the large figure of an old solicitor who had been consulting with the lawyer himself. The lawyer was a little, squat, bald man, with a dark, reddish beard, lightcolored long eyebrows, and an overhanging brow. He was attired as though for a wedding, from his cravat to his double watchchain and varnished boots. His face was clever and manly, but his dress was dandified and in bad taste. 'Pray walk in, said the lawyer, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch and, gloomily ushering Karenin in before him, he closed the door. 'Won't you sit down? He indicated an armchair at a writingtable covered with papers. He sat down himself, and, rubbing his little hands with short fingers covered with white hairs, he bent his head on one side. But as soon as he was settled in this position a moth flew over the table. The lawyer, with a swiftness that could never have been expected of him, opened his hands, caught the moth, and resumed his former attitude. 'Before beginning to speak of my business, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, following the lawyer's movements with wondering eyes, 'I ought to observe that the business about which I have to speak to you is to be strictly private. The lawyer's overhanging reddish mustaches were parted in a scarcely perceptible smile. 'I should not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets confided to me. But if you would like proof.... Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at his face, and saw that the shrewd, gray eyes were laughing, and seemed to know all about it already. 'You know my name? Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed. 'I know you and the goodagain he caught a moth'work you are doing, like every Russian, said the lawyer, bowing. Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, plucking up his courage. But having once made up his mind he went on in his shrill voice, without timidityor hesitation, accentuating here and there a word. 'I have the misfortune, Alexey Alexandrovitch began, 'to have been deceived in my married life, and I desire to break off all relations with my wife by legal meansthat is, to be divorced, but to do this so that my son may not remain with his mother. The lawyer's gray eyes tried not to laugh, but they were dancing with irrepressible glee, and Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that it was not simply the delight of a man who has just got a profitable job there was triumph and joy, there was a gleam like the malignant gleam he saw in his wife's eyes. 'You desire my assistance in securing a divorce? 'Yes, precisely so but I ought to warn you that I may be wasting your time and attention. I have come simply to consult you as a preliminary step. I want a divorce, but the form in which it is possible is of great consequence to me. It is very possible that if that form does not correspond with my requirements I may give up a legal divorce. 'Oh, that's always the case, said the lawyer, 'and that's always for you to decide. He let his eyes rest on Alexey Alexandrovitch's feet, feeling that he might offend his client by the sight of his irrepressible amusement. He looked at a moth that flew before his nose, and moved his hands, but did not catch it from regard for Alexey Alexandrovitch's position. 'Though in their general features our laws on this subject are known to me, pursued Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'I should be glad to have an idea of the forms in which such things are done in practice. 'You would be glad, the lawyer, without lifting his eyes, responded, adopting, with a certain satisfaction, the tone of his client's remarks, 'for me to lay before you all the methods by which you could secure what you desire? And on receiving an assuring nod from Alexey Alexandrovitch, he went on, stealing a glance now and then at Alexey Alexandrovitch's face, which was growing red in patches. 'Divorce by our laws, he said, with a slight shade of disapprobation of our laws, 'is possible, as you are aware, in the following cases.... Wait a little! he called to a clerk who put his head in at the door, but he got up all the same, said a few words to him, and sat down again. '... In the following cases physical defect in the married parties, desertion without communication for five years, he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair, 'adultery (this word he pronounced with obvious satisfaction), 'subdivided as follows (he continued to crook his fat fingers, though the three cases and their subdivisions could obviously not be classified together) 'physical defect of the husband or of the wife, adultery of the husband or of the wife. As by now all his fingers were used up, he uncrooked all his fingers and went on 'This is the theoretical view but I imagine you have done me the honor to apply to me in order to learn its application in practice. And therefore, guided by precedents, I must inform you that in practice cases of divorce may all be reduced to the followingthere's no physical defect, I may assume, nor desertion?... Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed his head in assent. 'May be reduced to the following adultery of one of the married parties, and the detection in the fact of the guilty party by mutual agreement, and failing such agreement, accidental detection. It must be admitted that the latter case is rarely met with in practice, said the lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch he paused, as a man selling pistols, after enlarging on the advantages of each weapon, might await his customer's choice. But Alexey Alexandrovitch said nothing, and therefore the lawyer went on 'The most usual and simple, the sensible course, I consider, is adultery by mutual consent. I should not permit myself to express it so, speaking with a man of no education, he said, 'but I imagine that to you this is comprehensible. Alexey Alexandrovitch was, however, so perturbed that he did not immediately comprehend all the good sense of adultery by mutual consent, and his eyes expressed this uncertainty but the lawyer promptly came to his assistance. 'People cannot go on living togetherhere you have a fact. And if both are agreed about it, the details and formalities become a matter of no importance. And at the same time this is the simplest and most certain method. Alexey Alexandrovitch fully understood now. But he had religious scruples, which hindered the execution of such a plan. 'That is out of the question in the present case, he said. 'Only one alternative is possible undesigned detection, supported by letters which I have. At the mention of letters the lawyer pursed up his lips, and gave utterance to a thin little compassionate and contemptuous sound. 'Kindly consider, he began, 'cases of that kind are, as you are aware, under ecclesiastical jurisdiction the reverend fathers are fond of going into the minutest details in cases of that kind, he said with a smile, which betrayed his sympathy with the reverend fathers' taste. 'Letters may, of course, be a partial confirmation but detection in the fact there must be of the most direct kind, that is, by eyewitnesses. In fact, if you do me the honor to intrust your confidence to me, you will do well to leave me the choice of the measures to be employed. If one wants the result, one must admit the means. 'If it is so.... Alexey Alexandrovitch began, suddenly turning white but at that moment the lawyer rose and again went to the door to speak to the intruding clerk. 'Tell her we don't haggle over fees! he said, and returned to Alexey Alexandrovitch. On his way back he caught unobserved another moth. 'Nice state my rep curtains will be in by the summer! he thought, frowning. 'And so you were saying?... he said. 'I will communicate my decision to you by letter, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, getting up, and he clutched at the table. After standing a moment in silence, he said 'From your words I may consequently conclude that a divorce may be obtained? I would ask you to let me know what are your terms. 'It may be obtained if you give me complete liberty of action, said the lawyer, not answering his question. 'When can I reckon on receiving information from you? he asked, moving towards the door, his eyes and his varnished boots shining. 'In a week's time. Your answer as to whether you will undertake to conduct the case, and on what terms, you will be so good as to communicate to me. 'Very good. The lawyer bowed respectfully, let his client out of the door, and, left alone, gave himself up to his sense of amusement. He felt so mirthful that, contrary to his rules, he made a reduction in his terms to the haggling lady, and gave up catching moths, finally deciding that next winter he must have the furniture covered with velvet, like Sigonin's. Alexey Alexandrovitch had gained a brilliant victory at the sitting of the Commission of the th of August, but in the sequel this victory cut the ground from under his feet. The new commission for the inquiry into the condition of the native tribes in all its branches had been formed and despatched to its destination with an unusual speed and energy inspired by Alexey Alexandrovitch. Within three months a report was presented. The condition of the native tribes was investigated in its political, administrative, economic, ethnographic, material, and religious aspects. To all these questions there were answers admirably stated, and answers admitting no shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error, but were all the product of official activity. The answers were all based on official data furnished by governors and heads of churches, and founded on the reports of district magistrates and ecclesiastical superintendents, founded in their turn on the reports of parochial overseers and parish priests and so all of these answers were unhesitating and certain. All such questions as, for instance, of the cause of failure of crops, of the adherence of certain tribes to their ancient beliefs, etc.questions which, but for the convenient intervention of the official machine, are not, and cannot be solved for agesreceived full, unhesitating solution. And this solution was in favor of Alexey Alexandrovitch's contention. But Stremov, who had felt stung to the quick at the last sitting, had, on the reception of the commission's report, resorted to tactics which Alexey Alexandrovitch had not anticipated. Stremov, carrying with him several members, went over to Alexey Alexandrovitch's side, and not contenting himself with warmly defending the measure proposed by Karenin, proposed other more extreme measures in the same direction. These measures, still further exaggerated in opposition to what was Alexey Alexandrovitch's fundamental idea, were passed by the commission, and then the aim of Stremov's tactics became apparent. Carried to an extreme, the measures seemed at once to be so absurd that the highest authorities, and public opinion, and intellectual ladies, and the newspapers, all at the same time fell foul of them, expressing their indignation both with the measures and their nominal father, Alexey Alexandrovitch. Stremov drew back, affecting to have blindly followed Karenin, and to be astounded and distressed at what had been done. This meant the defeat of Alexey Alexandrovitch. But in spite of failing health, in spite of his domestic griefs, he did not give in. There was a split in the commission. Some members, with Stremov at their head, justified their mistake on the ground that they had put faith in the commission of revision, instituted by Alexey Alexandrovitch, and maintained that the report of the commission was rubbish, and simply so much waste paper. Alexey Alexandrovitch, with a following of those who saw the danger of so revolutionary an attitude to official documents, persisted in upholding the statements obtained by the revising commission. In consequence of this, in the higher spheres, and even in society, all was chaos, and although everyone was interested, no one could tell whether the native tribes really were becoming impoverished and ruined, or whether they were in a flourishing condition. The position of Alexey Alexandrovitch, owing to this, and partly owing to the contempt lavished on him for his wife's infidelity, became very precarious. And in this position he took an important resolution. To the astonishment of the commission, he announced that he should ask permission to go himself to investigate the question on the spot. And having obtained permission, Alexey Alexandrovitch prepared to set off to these remote provinces. Alexey Alexandrovitch's departure made a great sensation, the more so as just before he started he officially returned the postingfares allowed him for twelve horses, to drive to his destination. 'I think it very noble, Betsy said about this to the Princess Myakaya. 'Why take money for postinghorses when everyone knows that there are railways everywhere now? But Princess Myakaya did not agree, and the Princess Tverskaya's opinion annoyed her indeed. 'It's all very well for you to talk, said she, 'when you have I don't know how many millions but I am very glad when my husband goes on a revising tour in the summer. It's very good for him and pleasant traveling about, and it's a settled arrangement for me to keep a carriage and coachman on the money. On his way to the remote provinces Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped for three days at Moscow. The day after his arrival he was driving back from calling on the governorgeneral. At the crossroads by Gazetoy Place, where there are always crowds of carriages and sledges, Alexey Alexandrovitch suddenly heard his name called out in such a loud and cheerful voice that he could not help looking round. At the corner of the pavement, in a short, stylish overcoat and a lowcrowned fashionable hat, jauntily askew, with a smile that showed a gleam of white teeth and red lips, stood Stepan Arkadyevitch, radiant, young, and beaming. He called him vigorously and urgently, and insisted on his stopping. He had one arm on the window of a carriage that was stopping at the corner, and out of the window were thrust the heads of a lady in a velvet hat, and two children. Stepan Arkadyevitch was smiling and beckoning to his brotherinlaw. The lady smiled a kindly smile too, and she too waved her hand to Alexey Alexandrovitch. It was Dolly with her children. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not want to see anyone in Moscow, and least of all his wife's brother. He raised his hat and would have driven on, but Stepan Arkadyevitch told his coachman to stop, and ran across the snow to him. 'Well, what a shame not to have let us know! Been here long? I was at Dussots' yesterday and saw 'Karenin' on the visitors' list, but it never entered my head that it was you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, sticking his head in at the window of the carriage, 'or I should have looked you up. I am glad to see you! he said, knocking one foot against the other to shake the snow off. 'What a shame of you not to let us know! he repeated. 'I had no time I am very busy, Alexey Alexandrovitch responded dryly. 'Come to my wife, she does so want to see you. Alexey Alexandrovitch unfolded the rug in which his frozen feet were wrapped, and getting out of his carriage made his way over the snow to Darya Alexandrovna. 'Why, Alexey Alexandrovitch, what are you cutting us like this for? said Dolly, smiling. 'I was very busy. Delighted to see you! he said in a tone clearly indicating that he was annoyed by it. 'How are you? 'Tell me, how is my darling Anna? Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled something and would have gone on. But Stepan Arkadyevitch stopped him. 'I tell you what we'll do tomorrow. Dolly, ask him to dinner. We'll ask Koznishev and Pestsov, so as to entertain him with our Moscow celebrities. 'Yes, please, do come, said Dolly 'we will expect you at five, or six o'clock, if you like. How is my darling Anna? How long.... 'She is quite well, Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled, frowning. 'Delighted! and he moved away towards his carriage. 'You will come? Dolly called after him. Alexey Alexandrovitch said something which Dolly could not catch in the noise of the moving carriages. 'I shall come round tomorrow! Stepan Arkadyevitch shouted to him. Alexey Alexandrovitch got into his carriage, and buried himself in it so as neither to see nor be seen. 'Queer fish! said Stepan Arkadyevitch to his wife, and glancing at his watch, he made a motion of his hand before his face, indicating a caress to his wife and children, and walked jauntily along the pavement. 'Stiva! Stiva! Dolly called, reddening. He turned round. 'I must get coats, you know, for Grisha and Tanya. Give me the money. 'Never mind you tell them I'll pay the bill! and he vanished, nodding genially to an acquaintance who drove by. The next day was Sunday. Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the Grand Theater to a rehearsal of the ballet, and gave Masha Tchibisova, a pretty dancinggirl whom he had just taken under his protection, the coral necklace he had promised her the evening before, and behind the scenes in the dim daylight of the theater, managed to kiss her pretty little face, radiant over her present. Besides the gift of the necklace he wanted to arrange with her about meeting after the ballet. After explaining that he could not come at the beginning of the ballet, he promised he would come for the last act and take her to supper. From the theater Stepan Arkadyevitch drove to Ohotny Row, selected himself the fish and asparagus for dinner, and by twelve o'clock was at Dussots', where he had to see three people, luckily all staying at the same hotel Levin, who had recently come back from abroad and was staying there the new head of his department, who had just been promoted to that position, and had come on a tour of revision to Moscow and his brotherinlaw, Karenin, whom he must see, so as to be sure of bringing him to dinner. Stepan Arkadyevitch liked dining, but still better he liked to give a dinner, small, but very choice, both as regards the food and drink and as regards the selection of guests. He particularly liked the program of that day's dinner. There would be fresh perch, asparagus, and la pice de resistancefirstrate, but quite plain, roast beef, and wines to suit so much for the eating and drinking. Kitty and Levin would be of the party, and that this might not be obtrusively evident, there would be a girl cousin too, and young Shtcherbatsky, and la pice de resistance among the guestsSergey Koznishev and Alexey Alexandrovitch. Sergey Ivanovitch was a Moscow man, and a philosopher Alexey Alexandrovitch a Petersburger, and a practical politician. He was asking, too, the wellknown eccentric enthusiast, Pestsov, a liberal, a great talker, a musician, an historian, and the most delightfully youthful person of fifty, who would be a sauce or garnish for Koznishev and Karenin. He would provoke them and set them off. The second installment for the forest had been received from the merchant and was not yet exhausted Dolly had been very amiable and goodhumored of late, and the idea of the dinner pleased Stepan Arkadyevitch from every point of view. He was in the most lighthearted mood. There were two circumstances a little unpleasant, but these two circumstances were drowned in the sea of goodhumored gaiety which flooded the soul of Stepan Arkadyevitch. These two circumstances were first, that on meeting Alexey Alexandrovitch the day before in the street he had noticed that he was cold and reserved with him, and putting the expression of Alexey Alexandrovitch's face and the fact that he had not come to see them or let them know of his arrival with the rumors he had heard about Anna and Vronsky, Stepan Arkadyevitch guessed that something was wrong between the husband and wife. That was one disagreeable thing. The other slightly disagreeable fact was that the new head of his department, like all new heads, had the reputation already of a terrible person, who got up at six o'clock in the morning, worked like a horse, and insisted on his subordinates working in the same way. Moreover, this new head had the further reputation of being a bear in his manners, and was, according to all reports, a man of a class in all respects the opposite of that to which his predecessor had belonged, and to which Stepan Arkadyevitch had hitherto belonged himself. On the previous day Stepan Arkadyevitch had appeared at the office in a uniform, and the new chief had been very affable and had talked to him as to an acquaintance. Consequently Stepan Arkadyevitch deemed it his duty to call upon him in his nonofficial dress. The thought that the new chief might not tender him a warm reception was the other unpleasant thing. But Stepan Arkadyevitch instinctively felt that everything would come round all right. 'They're all people, all men, like us poor sinners why be nasty and quarrelsome? he thought as he went into the hotel. 'Goodday, Vassily, he said, walking into the corridor with his hat cocked on one side, and addressing a footman he knew 'why, you've let your whiskers grow! Levin, number seven, eh? Take me up, please. And find out whether Count Anitchkin (this was the new head) 'is receiving. 'Yes, sir, Vassily responded, smiling. 'You've not been to see us for a long while. 'I was here yesterday, but at the other entrance. Is this number seven? Levin was standing with a peasant from Tver in the middle of the room, measuring a fresh bearskin, when Stepan Arkadyevitch went in. 'What! you killed him? cried Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well done! A shebear? How are you, Arhip! He shook hands with the peasant and sat down on the edge of a chair, without taking off his coat and hat. 'Come, take off your coat and stay a little, said Levin, taking his hat. 'No, I haven't time I've only looked in for a tiny second, answered Stepan Arkadyevitch. He threw open his coat, but afterwards did take it off, and sat on for a whole hour, talking to Levin about hunting and the most intimate subjects. 'Come, tell me, please, what you did abroad? Where have you been? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, when the peasant had gone. 'Oh, I stayed in Germany, in Prussia, in France, and in Englandnot in the capitals, but in the manufacturing towns, and saw a great deal that was new to me. And I'm glad I went. 'Yes, I knew your idea of the solution of the labor question. 'Not a bit in Russia there can be no labor question. In Russia the question is that of the relation of the working people to the land though the question exists there toobut there it's a matter of repairing what's been ruined, while with us.... Stepan Arkadyevitch listened attentively to Levin. 'Yes, yes! he said, 'it's very possible you're right. But I'm glad you're in good spirits, and are hunting bears, and working, and interested. Shtcherbatsky told me another storyhe met youthat you were in such a depressed state, talking of nothing but death.... 'Well, what of it? I've not given up thinking of death, said Levin. 'It's true that it's high time I was dead and that all this is nonsense. It's the truth I'm telling you. I do value my idea and my work awfully but in reality only consider this all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can have something greatideas, workit's all dust and ashes. 'But all that's as old as the hills, my boy! 'It is old but do you know, when you grasp this fully, then somehow everything becomes of no consequence. When you understand that you will die tomorrow, if not today, and nothing will be left, then everything is so unimportant! And I consider my idea very important, but it turns out really to be as unimportant too, even if it were carried out, as doing for that bear. So one goes on living, amusing oneself with hunting, with workanything so as not to think of death! Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled a subtle affectionate smile as he listened to Levin. 'Well, of course! Here you've come round to my point. Do you remember you attacked me for seeking enjoyment in life? Don't be so severe, O moralist! 'No all the same, what's fine in life is.... Levin hesitated'oh, I don't know. All I know is that we shall soon be dead. 'Why so soon? 'And do you know, there's less charm in life, when one thinks of death, but there's more peace. 'On the contrary, the finish is always the best. But I must be going, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up for the tenth time. 'Oh, no, stay a bit! said Levin, keeping him. 'Now, when shall we see each other again? I'm going tomorrow. 'I'm a nice person! Why, that's just what I came for! You simply must come to dinner with us today. Your brother's coming, and Karenin, my brotherinlaw. 'You don't mean to say he's here? said Levin, and he wanted to inquire about Kitty. He had heard at the beginning of the winter that she was at Petersburg with her sister, the wife of the diplomat, and he did not know whether she had come back or not but he changed his mind and did not ask. 'Whether she's coming or not, I don't care, he said to himself. 'So you'll come? 'Of course. 'At five o'clock, then, and not evening dress. And Stepan Arkadyevitch got up and went down below to the new head of his department. Instinct had not misled Stepan Arkadyevitch. The terrible new head turned out to be an extremely amenable person, and Stepan Arkadyevitch lunched with him and stayed on, so that it was four o'clock before he got to Alexey Alexandrovitch. Alexey Alexandrovitch, on coming back from church service, had spent the whole morning indoors. He had two pieces of business before him that morning first, to receive and send on a deputation from the native tribes which was on its way to Petersburg, and now at Moscow secondly, to write the promised letter to the lawyer. The deputation, though it had been summoned at Alexey Alexandrovitch's instigation, was not without its discomforting and even dangerous aspect, and he was glad he had found it in Moscow. The members of this deputation had not the slightest conception of their duty and the part they were to play. They navely believed that it was their business to lay before the commission their needs and the actual condition of things, and to ask assistance of the government, and utterly failed to grasp that some of their statements and requests supported the contention of the enemy's side, and so spoiled the whole business. Alexey Alexandrovitch was busily engaged with them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to Petersburg for the guidance of the deputation. He had his chief support in this affair in the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. She was a specialist in the matter of deputations, and no one knew better than she how to manage them, and put them in the way they should go. Having completed this task, Alexey Alexandrovitch wrote the letter to the lawyer. Without the slightest hesitation he gave him permission to act as he might judge best. In the letter he enclosed three of Vronsky's notes to Anna, which were in the portfolio he had taken away. Since Alexey Alexandrovitch had left home with the intention of not returning to his family again, and since he had been at the lawyer's and had spoken, though only to one man, of his intention, since especially he had translated the matter from the world of real life to the world of ink and paper, he had grown more and more used to his own intention, and by now distinctly perceived the feasibility of its execution. He was sealing the envelope to the lawyer, when he heard the loud tones of Stepan Arkadyevitch's voice. Stepan Arkadyevitch was disputing with Alexey Alexandrovitch's servant, and insisting on being announced. 'No matter, thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'so much the better. I will inform him at once of my position in regard to his sister, and explain why it is I can't dine with him. 'Come in! he said aloud, collecting his papers, and putting them in the blottingpaper. 'There, you see, you're talking nonsense, and he's at home! responded Stepan Arkadyevitch's voice, addressing the servant, who had refused to let him in, and taking off his coat as he went, Oblonsky walked into the room. 'Well, I'm awfully glad I've found you! So I hope.... Stepan Arkadyevitch began cheerfully. 'I cannot come, Alexey Alexandrovitch said coldly, standing and not asking his visitor to sit down. Alexey Alexandrovitch had thought to pass at once into those frigid relations in which he ought to stand with the brother of a wife against whom he was beginning a suit for divorce. But he had not taken into account the ocean of kindliness brimming over in the heart of Stepan Arkadyevitch. Stepan Arkadyevitch opened wide his clear, shining eyes. 'Why can't you? What do you mean? he asked in perplexity, speaking in French. 'Oh, but it's a promise. And we're all counting on you. 'I want to tell you that I can't dine at your house, because the terms of relationship which have existed between us must cease. 'How? How do you mean? What for? said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a smile. 'Because I am beginning an action for divorce against your sister, my wife. I ought to have.... But, before Alexey Alexandrovitch had time to finish his sentence, Stepan Arkadyevitch was behaving not at all as he had expected. He groaned and sank into an armchair. 'No, Alexey Alexandrovitch! What are you saying? cried Oblonsky, and his suffering was apparent in his face. 'It is so. 'Excuse me, I can't, I can't believe it! Alexey Alexandrovitch sat down, feeling that his words had not had the effect he anticipated, and that it would be unavoidable for him to explain his position, and that, whatever explanations he might make, his relations with his brotherinlaw would remain unchanged. 'Yes, I am brought to the painful necessity of seeking a divorce, he said. 'I will say one thing, Alexey Alexandrovitch. I know you for an excellent, upright man I know Annaexcuse me, I can't change my opinion of herfor a good, an excellent woman and so, excuse me, I cannot believe it. There is some misunderstanding, said he. 'Oh, if it were merely a misunderstanding!... 'Pardon, I understand, interposed Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'But of course.... One thing you must not act in haste. You must not, you must not act in haste! 'I am not acting in haste, Alexey Alexandrovitch said coldly, 'but one cannot ask advice of anyone in such a matter. I have quite made up my mind. 'This is awful! said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I would do one thing, Alexey Alexandrovitch. I beseech you, do it! he said. 'No action has yet been taken, if I understand rightly. Before you take advice, see my wife, talk to her. She loves Anna like a sister, she loves you, and she's a wonderful woman. For God's sake, talk to her! Do me that favor, I beseech you! Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, and Stepan Arkadyevitch looked at him sympathetically, without interrupting his silence. 'You will go to see her? 'I don't know. That was just why I have not been to see you. I imagine our relations must change. 'Why so? I don't see that. Allow me to believe that apart from our connection you have for me, at least in part, the same friendly feeling I have always had for you ... and sincere esteem, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing his hand. 'Even if your worst suppositions were correct, I don'tand never wouldtake on myself to judge either side, and I see no reason why our relations should be affected. But now, do this, come and see my wife. 'Well, we look at the matter differently, said Alexey Alexandrovitch coldly. 'However, we won't discuss it. 'No why shouldn't you come today to dine, anyway? My wife's expecting you. Please, do come. And, above all, talk it over with her. She's a wonderful woman. For God's sake, on my knees, I implore you! 'If you so much wish it, I will come, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, sighing. And, anxious to change the conversation, he inquired about what interested them boththe new head of Stepan Arkadyevitch's department, a man not yet old, who had suddenly been promoted to so high a position. Alexey Alexandrovitch had previously felt no liking for Count Anitchkin, and had always differed from him in his opinions. But now, from a feeling readily comprehensible to officialsthat hatred felt by one who has suffered a defeat in the service for one who has received a promotion, he could not endure him. 'Well, have you seen him? said Alexey Alexandrovitch with a malignant smile. 'Of course he was at our sitting yesterday. He seems to know his work capitally, and to be very energetic. 'Yes, but what is his energy directed to? said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Is he aiming at doing anything, or simply undoing what's been done? It's the great misfortune of our governmentthis paper administration, of which he's a worthy representative. 'Really, I don't know what fault one could find with him. His policy I don't know, but one thinghe's a very nice fellow, answered Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I've just been seeing him, and he's really a capital fellow. We lunched together, and I taught him how to make, you know that drink, wine and oranges. It's so cooling. And it's a wonder he didn't know it. He liked it awfully. No, really he's a capital fellow. Stepan Arkadyevitch glanced at his watch. 'Why, good heavens, it's four already, and I've still to go to Dolgovushin's! So please come round to dinner. You can't imagine how you will grieve my wife and me. The way in which Alexey Alexandrovitch saw his brotherinlaw out was very different from the manner in which he had met him. 'I've promised, and I'll come, he answered wearily. 'Believe me, I appreciate it, and I hope you won't regret it, answered Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. And, putting on his coat as he went, he patted the footman on the head, chuckled, and went out. 'At five o'clock, and not evening dress, please, he shouted once more, turning at the door. It was past five, and several guests had already arrived, before the host himself got home. He went in together with Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev and Pestsov, who had reached the street door at the same moment. These were the two leading representatives of the Moscow intellectuals, as Oblonsky had called them. Both were men respected for their character and their intelligence. They respected each other, but were in complete and hopeless disagreement upon almost every subject, not because they belonged to opposite parties, but precisely because they were of the same party (their enemies refused to see any distinction between their views) but, in that party, each had his own special shade of opinion. And since no difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semiabstract questions, they never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been accustomed to jeer without anger, each at the other's incorrigible aberrations. They were just going in at the door, talking of the weather, when Stepan Arkadyevitch overtook them. In the drawingroom there were already sitting Prince Alexander Dmitrievitch Shtcherbatsky, young Shtcherbatsky, Turovtsin, Kitty, and Karenin. Stepan Arkadyevitch saw immediately that things were not going well in the drawingroom without him. Darya Alexandrovna, in her best gray silk gown, obviously worried about the children, who were to have their dinner by themselves in the nursery, and by her husband's absence, was not equal to the task of making the party mix without him. All were sitting like so many priests' wives on a visit (so the old prince expressed it), obviously wondering why they were there, and pumping up remarks simply to avoid being silent. Turovtsingood, simple manfelt unmistakably a fish out of water, and the smile with which his thick lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch said, as plainly as words 'Well, old boy, you have popped me down in a learned set! A drinking party now, or the Chteau des Fleurs, would be more in my line! The old prince sat in silence, his bright little eyes watching Karenin from one side, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw that he had already formed a phrase to sum up that politician of whom guests were invited to partake as though he were a sturgeon. Kitty was looking at the door, calling up all her energies to keep her from blushing at the entrance of Konstantin Levin. Young Shtcherbatsky, who had not been introduced to Karenin, was trying to look as though he were not in the least conscious of it. Karenin himself had followed the Petersburg fashion for a dinner with ladies and was wearing evening dress and a white tie. Stepan Arkadyevitch saw by his face that he had come simply to keep his promise, and was performing a disagreeable duty in being present at this gathering. He was indeed the person chiefly responsible for the chill benumbing all the guests before Stepan Arkadyevitch came in. On entering the drawingroom Stepan Arkadyevitch apologized, explaining that he had been detained by that prince, who was always the scapegoat for all his absences and unpunctualities, and in one moment he had made all the guests acquainted with each other, and, bringing together Alexey Alexandrovitch and Sergey Koznishev, started them on a discussion of the Russification of Poland, into which they immediately plunged with Pestsov. Slapping Turovtsin on the shoulder, he whispered something comic in his ear, and set him down by his wife and the old prince. Then he told Kitty she was looking very pretty that evening, and presented Shtcherbatsky to Karenin. In a moment he had so kneaded together the social dough that the drawingroom became very lively, and there was a merry buzz of voices. Konstantin Levin was the only person who had not arrived. But this was so much the better, as going into the diningroom, Stepan Arkadyevitch found to his horror that the port and sherry had been procured from Depr, and not from Levy, and, directing that the coachman should be sent off as speedily as possible to Levy's, he was going back to the drawingroom. In the diningroom he was met by Konstantin Levin. 'I'm not late? 'You can never help being late! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, taking his arm. 'Have you a lot of people? Who's here? asked Levin, unable to help blushing, as he knocked the snow off his cap with his glove. 'All our own set. Kitty's here. Come along, I'll introduce you to Karenin. Stepan Arkadyevitch, for all his liberal views, was well aware that to meet Karenin was sure to be felt a flattering distinction, and so treated his best friends to this honor. But at that instant Konstantin Levin was not in a condition to feel all the gratification of making such an acquaintance. He had not seen Kitty since that memorable evening when he met Vronsky, not counting, that is, the moment when he had had a glimpse of her on the highroad. He had known at the bottom of his heart that he would see her here today. But to keep his thoughts free, he had tried to persuade himself that he did not know it. Now when he heard that she was here, he was suddenly conscious of such delight, and at the same time of such dread, that his breath failed him and he could not utter what he wanted to say. 'What is she like, what is she like? Like what she used to be, or like what she was in the carriage? What if Darya Alexandrovna told the truth? Why shouldn't it be the truth? he thought. 'Oh, please, introduce me to Karenin, he brought out with an effort, and with a desperately determined step he walked into the drawingroom and beheld her. She was not the same as she used to be, nor was she as she had been in the carriage she was quite different. She was scared, shy, shamefaced, and still more charming from it. She saw him the very instant he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and would begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white, crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. He went up to her, bowed, and held out his hand without speaking. Except for the slight quiver of her lips and the moisture in her eyes that made them brighter, her smile was almost calm as she said 'How long it is since we've seen each other! and with desperate determination she pressed his hand with her cold hand. 'You've not seen me, but I've seen you, said Levin, with a radiant smile of happiness. 'I saw you when you were driving from the railway station to Ergushovo. 'When? she asked, wondering. 'You were driving to Ergushovo, said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding his heart. 'And how dared I associate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature? And, yes, I do believe it's true what Darya Alexandrovna told me, he thought. Stepan Arkadyevitch took him by the arm and led him away to Karenin. 'Let me introduce you. He mentioned their names. 'Very glad to meet you again, said Alexey Alexandrovitch coldly, shaking hands with Levin. 'You are acquainted? Stepan Arkadyevitch asked in surprise. 'We spent three hours together in the train, said Levin smiling, 'but got out, just as in a masquerade, quite mystifiedat least I was. 'Nonsense! Come along, please, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing in the direction of the diningroom. The men went into the diningroom and went up to a table, laid with six sorts of spirits and as many kinds of cheese, some with little silver spades and some without, caviar, herrings, preserves of various kinds, and plates with slices of French bread. The men stood round the strongsmelling spirits and salt delicacies, and the discussion of the Russification of Poland between Koznishev, Karenin, and Pestsov died down in anticipation of dinner. Sergey Ivanovitch was unequaled in his skill in winding up the most heated and serious argument by some unexpected pinch of Attic salt that changed the disposition of his opponent. He did this now. Alexey Alexandrovitch had been maintaining that the Russification of Poland could only be accomplished as a result of larger measures which ought to be introduced by the Russian government. Pestsov insisted that one country can only absorb another when it is the more densely populated. Koznishev admitted both points, but with limitations. As they were going out of the drawingroom to conclude the argument, Koznishev said, smiling 'So, then, for the Russification of our foreign populations there is but one methodto bring up as many children as one can. My brother and I are terribly in fault, I see. You married men, especially you, Stepan Arkadyevitch, are the real patriots what number have you reached? he said, smiling genially at their host and holding out a tiny wineglass to him. Everyone laughed, and Stepan Arkadyevitch with particular good humor. 'Oh, yes, that's the best method! he said, munching cheese and filling the wineglass with a special sort of spirit. The conversation dropped at the jest. 'This cheese is not bad. Shall I give you some? said the master of the house. 'Why, have you been going in for gymnastics again? he asked Levin, pinching his muscle with his left hand. Levin smiled, bent his arm, and under Stepan Arkadyevitch's fingers the muscles swelled up like a sound cheese, hard as a knob of iron, through the fine cloth of the coat. 'What biceps! A perfect Samson! 'I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears, observed Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had the mistiest notions about the chase. He cut off and spread with cheese a wafer of bread fine as a spiderweb. Levin smiled. 'Not at all. Quite the contrary a child can kill a bear, he said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies, who were approaching the table. 'You have killed a bear, I've been told! said Kitty, trying assiduously to catch with her fork a perverse mushroom that would slip away, and setting the lace quivering over her white arm. 'Are there bears on your place? she added, turning her charming little head to him and smiling. There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what she said, but what unutterable meaning there was for him in every sound, in every turn of her lips, her eyes, her hand as she said it! There was entreaty for forgiveness, and trust in him, and tendernesssoft, timid tendernessand promise and hope and love for him, which he could not but believe in and which choked him with happiness. 'No, we've been hunting in the Tver province. It was coming back from there that I met your beaufrre in the train, or your beaufrre's brotherinlaw, he said with a smile. 'It was an amusing meeting. And he began telling with droll goodhumor how, after not sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old furlined, fullskirted coat, got into Alexey Alexandrovitch's compartment. 'The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have chucked me out on account of my attire but thereupon I began expressing my feelings in elevated language, and ... you, too, he said, addressing Karenin and forgetting his name, 'at first would have ejected me on the ground of the old coat, but afterwards you took my part, for which I am extremely grateful. 'The rights of passengers generally to choose their seats are too illdefined, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his handkerchief. 'I saw you were in uncertainty about me, said Levin, smiling goodnaturedly, 'but I made haste to plunge into intellectual conversation to smooth over the defects of my attire. Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation with their hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced askance at him. 'What is the matter with him today? Why such a conquering hero? he thought. He did not know that Levin was feeling as though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his words and that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the only thing that interested him. Not in that room only, but in the whole world, there existed for him only himself, with enormously increased importance and dignity in his own eyes, and she. He felt himself on a pinnacle that made him giddy, and far away down below were all those nice excellent Karenins, Oblonskys, and all the world. Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as though there were no other places left, Stepan Arkadyevitch put Levin and Kitty side by side. 'Oh, you may as well sit there, he said to Levin. The dinner was as choice as the china, in which Stepan Arkadyevitch was a connoisseur. The soupe MarieLouise was a splendid success the tiny pies eaten with it melted in the mouth and were irreproachable. The two footmen and Matvey, in white cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines unobtrusively, quietly, and swiftly. On the material side the dinner was a success it was no less so on the immaterial. The conversation, at times general and at times between individuals, never paused, and towards the end the company was so lively that the men rose from the table, without stopping speaking, and even Alexey Alexandrovitch thawed. Pestsov liked thrashing an argument out to the end, and was not satisfied with Sergey Ivanovitch's words, especially as he felt the injustice of his view. 'I did not mean, he said over the soup, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'mere density of population alone, but in conjunction with fundamental ideas, and not by means of principles. 'It seems to me, Alexey Alexandrovitch said languidly, and with no haste, 'that that's the same thing. In my opinion, influence over another people is only possible to the people which has the higher development, which.... 'But that's just the question, Pestsov broke in in his bass. He was always in a hurry to speak, and seemed always to put his whole soul into what he was saying. 'In what are we to make higher development consist? The English, the French, the Germans, which is at the highest stage of development? Which of them will nationalize the other? We see the Rhine provinces have been turned French, but the Germans are not at a lower stage! he shouted. 'There is another law at work there. 'I fancy that the greater influence is always on the side of true civilization, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, slightly lifting his eyebrows. 'But what are we to lay down as the outward signs of true civilization? said Pestsov. 'I imagine such signs are generally very well known, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'But are they fully known? Sergey Ivanovitch put in with a subtle smile. 'It is the accepted view now that real culture must be purely classical but we see most intense disputes on each side of the question, and there is no denying that the opposite camp has strong points in its favor. 'You are for classics, Sergey Ivanovitch. Will you take red wine? said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I am not expressing my own opinion of either form of culture, Sergey Ivanovitch said, holding out his glass with a smile of condescension, as to a child. 'I only say that both sides have strong arguments to support them, he went on, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'My sympathies are classical from education, but in this discussion I am personally unable to arrive at a conclusion. I see no distinct grounds for classical studies being given a preeminence over scientific studies. 'The natural sciences have just as great an educational value, put in Pestsov. 'Take astronomy, take botany, or zoology with its system of general principles. 'I cannot quite agree with that, responded Alexey Alexandrovitch 'It seems to me that one must admit that the very process of studying the forms of language has a peculiarly favorable influence on intellectual development. Moreover, it cannot be denied that the influence of the classical authors is in the highest degree moral, while, unfortunately, with the study of the natural sciences are associated the false and noxious doctrines which are the curse of our day. Sergey Ivanovitch would have said something, but Pestsov interrupted him in his rich bass. He began warmly contesting the justice of this view. Sergey Ivanovitch waited serenely to speak, obviously with a convincing reply ready. 'But, said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling subtly, and addressing Karenin, 'One must allow that to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages of classical and scientific studies is a difficult task, and the question which form of education was to be preferred would not have been so quickly and conclusively decided if there had not been in favor of classical education, as you expressed it just now, its moraldisons le motantinihilist influence. 'Undoubtedly. 'If it had not been for the distinctive property of antinihilistic influence on the side of classical studies, we should have considered the subject more, have weighed the arguments on both sides, said Sergey Ivanovitch with a subtle smile, 'we should have given elbowroom to both tendencies. But now we know that these little pills of classical learning possess the medicinal property of antinihilism, and we boldly prescribe them to our patients.... But what if they had no such medicinal property? he wound up humorously. At Sergey Ivanovitch's little pills, everyone laughed Turovtsin in especial roared loudly and jovially, glad at last to have found something to laugh at, all he ever looked for in listening to conversation. Stepan Arkadyevitch had not made a mistake in inviting Pestsov. With Pestsov intellectual conversation never flagged for an instant. Directly Sergey Ivanovitch had concluded the conversation with his jest, Pestsov promptly started a new one. 'I can't agree even, said he, 'that the government had that aim. The government obviously is guided by abstract considerations, and remains indifferent to the influence its measures may exercise. The education of women, for instance, would naturally be regarded as likely to be harmful, but the government opens schools and universities for women. And the conversation at once passed to the new subject of the education of women. Alexey Alexandrovitch expressed the idea that the education of women is apt to be confounded with the emancipation of women, and that it is only so that it can be considered dangerous. 'I consider, on the contrary, that the two questions are inseparably connected together, said Pestsov 'it is a vicious circle. Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the absence of rights. We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such ages back that we are often unwilling to recognize the gulf that separates them from us, said he. 'You said rights, said Sergey Ivanovitch, waiting till Pestsov had finished, 'meaning the right of sitting on juries, of voting, of presiding at official meetings, the right of entering the civil service, of sitting in parliament.... 'Undoubtedly. 'But if women, as a rare exception, can occupy such positions, it seems to me you are wrong in using the expression 'rights.' It would be more correct to say duties. Every man will agree that in doing the duty of a juryman, a witness, a telegraph clerk, we feel we are performing duties. And therefore it would be correct to say that women are seeking duties, and quite legitimately. And one can but sympathize with this desire to assist in the general labor of man. 'Quite so, Alexey Alexandrovitch assented. 'The question, I imagine, is simply whether they are fitted for such duties. 'They will most likely be perfectly fitted, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'when education has become general among them. We see this.... 'How about the proverb? said the prince, who had a long while been intent on the conversation, his little comical eyes twinkling. 'I can say it before my daughter her hair is long, because her wit is.... 'Just what they thought of the negroes before their emancipation! said Pestsov angrily. 'What seems strange to me is that women should seek fresh duties, said Sergey Ivanovitch, 'while we see, unhappily, that men usually try to avoid them. 'Duties are bound up with rightspower, money, honor those are what women are seeking, said Pestsov. 'Just as though I should seek the right to be a wetnurse and feel injured because women are paid for the work, while no one will take me, said the old prince. Turovtsin exploded in a loud roar of laughter and Sergey Ivanovitch regretted that he had not made this comparison. Even Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled. 'Yes, but a man can't nurse a baby, said Pestsov, 'while a woman.... 'No, there was an Englishman who did suckle his baby on board ship, said the old prince, feeling this freedom in conversation permissible before his own daughters. 'There are as many such Englishmen as there would be women officials, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Yes, but what is a girl to do who has no family? put in Stepan Arkadyevitch, thinking of Masha Tchibisova, whom he had had in his mind all along, in sympathizing with Pestsov and supporting him. 'If the story of such a girl were thoroughly sifted, you would find she had abandoned a familyher own or a sister's, where she might have found a woman's duties, Darya Alexandrovna broke in unexpectedly in a tone of exasperation, probably suspecting what sort of girl Stepan Arkadyevitch was thinking of. 'But we take our stand on principle as the ideal, replied Pestsov in his mellow bass. 'Woman desires to have rights, to be independent, educated. She is oppressed, humiliated by the consciousness of her disabilities. 'And I'm oppressed and humiliated that they won't engage me at the Foundling, the old prince said again, to the huge delight of Turovtsin, who in his mirth dropped his asparagus with the thick end in the sauce. Everyone took part in the conversation except Kitty and Levin. At first, when they were talking of the influence that one people has on another, there rose to Levin's mind what he had to say on the subject. But these ideas, once of such importance in his eyes, seemed to come into his brain as in a dream, and had now not the slightest interest for him. It even struck him as strange that they should be so eager to talk of what was of no use to anyone. Kitty, too, should, one would have supposed, have been interested in what they were saying of the rights and education of women. How often she had mused on the subject, thinking of her friend abroad, Varenka, of her painful state of dependence, how often she had wondered about herself what would become of her if she did not marry, and how often she had argued with her sister about it! But it did not interest her at all. She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but some sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering. At first Levin, in answer to Kitty's question how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been coming home from the mowing along the highroad and had met her. 'It was very, very early in the morning. You were probably only just awake. Your mother was asleep in the corner. It was an exquisite morning. I was walking along wondering who it could be in a fourinhand? It was a splendid set of four horses with bells, and in a second you flashed by, and I saw you at the windowyou were sitting like this, holding the strings of your cap in both hands, and thinking awfully deeply about something, he said, smiling. 'How I should like to know what you were thinking about then! Something important? 'Wasn't I dreadfully untidy? she wondered, but seeing the smile of ecstasy these reminiscences called up, she felt that the impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and laughed with delight 'Really I don't remember. 'How nicely Turovtsin laughs! said Levin, admiring his moist eyes and shaking chest. 'Have you known him long? asked Kitty. 'Oh, everyone knows him! 'And I see you think he's a horrid man? 'Not horrid, but nothing in him. 'Oh, you're wrong! And you must give up thinking so directly! said Kitty. 'I used to have a very poor opinion of him too, but he, he's an awfully nice and wonderfully goodhearted man. He has a heart of gold. 'How could you find out what sort of heart he has? 'We are great friends. I know him very well. Last winter, soon after ... you came to see us, she said, with a guilty and at the same time confiding smile, 'all Dolly's children had scarlet fever, and he happened to come and see her. And only fancy, she said in a whisper, 'he felt so sorry for her that he stayed and began to help her look after the children. Yes, and for three weeks he stopped with them, and looked after the children like a nurse. 'I am telling Konstantin Dmitrievitch about Turovtsin in the scarlet fever, she said, bending over to her sister. 'Yes, it was wonderful, noble! said Dolly, glancing towards Turovtsin, who had become aware they were talking of him, and smiling gently to him. Levin glanced once more at Turovtsin, and wondered how it was he had not realized all this man's goodness before. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'll never think ill of people again! he said gaily, genuinely expressing what he felt at the moment. Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights of women there were certain questions as to the inequality of rights in marriage improper to discuss before the ladies. Pestsov had several times during dinner touched upon these questions, but Sergey Ivanovitch and Stepan Arkadyevitch carefully drew him off them. When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out, Pestsov did not follow them, but addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, began to expound the chief ground of inequality. The inequality in marriage, in his opinion, lay in the fact that the infidelity of the wife and the infidelity of the husband are punished unequally, both by the law and by public opinion. Stepan Arkadyevitch went hurriedly up to Alexey Alexandrovitch and offered him a cigar. 'No, I don't smoke, Alexey Alexandrovitch answered calmly, and as though purposely wishing to show that he was not afraid of the subject, he turned to Pestsov with a chilly smile. 'I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature of things, he said, and would have gone on to the drawingroom. But at this point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into the conversation, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov? said Turovtsin, warmed up by the champagne he had drunk, and long waiting for an opportunity to break the silence that had weighed on him. 'Vasya Pryatchnikov, he said, with a goodnatured smile on his damp, red lips, addressing himself principally to the most important guest, Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'they told me today he fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him. Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so Stepan Arkadyevitch felt now that the conversation would by ill luck fall every moment on Alexey Alexandrovitch's sore spot. He would again have got his brotherinlaw away, but Alexey Alexandrovitch himself inquired, with curiosity 'What did Pryatchnikov fight about? 'His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him! 'Ah! said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and lifting his eyebrows, he went into the drawingroom. 'How glad I am you have come, Dolly said with a frightened smile, meeting him in the outer drawingroom. 'I must talk to you. Let's sit here. Alexey Alexandrovitch, with the same expression of indifference, given him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya Alexandrovna, and smiled affectedly. 'It's fortunate, said he, 'especially as I was meaning to ask you to excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start tomorrow. Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna's innocence, and she felt herself growing pale and her lips quivering with anger at this frigid, unfeeling man, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent friend. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, she said, with desperate resolution looking him in the face, 'I asked you about Anna, you made me no answer. How is she? 'She is, I believe, quite well, Darya Alexandrovna, replied Alexey Alexandrovitch, not looking at her. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, forgive me, I have no right ... but I love Anna as a sister, and esteem her I beg, I beseech you to tell me what is wrong between you? what fault do you find with her? Alexey Alexandrovitch frowned, and almost closing his eyes, dropped his head. 'I presume that your husband has told you the grounds on which I consider it necessary to change my attitude to Anna Arkadyevna? he said, not looking her in the face, but eyeing with displeasure Shtcherbatsky, who was walking across the drawingroom. 'I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I can't believe it! Dolly said, clasping her bony hands before her with a vigorous gesture. She rose quickly, and laid her hand on Alexey Alexandrovitch's sleeve. 'We shall be disturbed here. Come this way, please. Dolly's agitation had an effect on Alexey Alexandrovitch. He got up and submissively followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down to a table covered with an oilcloth cut in slits by penknives. 'I don't, I don't believe it! Dolly said, trying to catch his glance that avoided her. 'One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna, said he, with an emphasis on the word 'facts. 'But what has she done? said Darya Alexandrovna. 'What precisely has she done? 'She has forsaken her duty, and deceived her husband. That's what she has done, said he. 'No, no, it can't be! No, for God's sake, you are mistaken, said Dolly, putting her hands to her temples and closing her eyes. Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled coldly, with his lips alone, meaning to signify to her and to himself the firmness of his conviction but this warm defense, though it could not shake him, reopened his wound. He began to speak with greater heat. 'It is extremely difficult to be mistaken when a wife herself informs her husband of the factinforms him that eight years of her life, and a son, all that's a mistake, and that she wants to begin life again, he said angrily, with a snort. 'Anna and sinI cannot connect them, I cannot believe it! 'Darya Alexandrovna, he said, now looking straight into Dolly's kindly, troubled face, and feeling that his tongue was being loosened in spite of himself, 'I would give a great deal for doubt to be still possible. When I doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now. When I doubted, I had hope but now there is no hope, and still I doubt of everything. I am in such doubt of everything that I even hate my son, and sometimes do not believe he is my son. I am very unhappy. He had no need to say that. Darya Alexandrovna had seen that as soon as he glanced into her face and she felt sorry for him, and her faith in the innocence of her friend began to totter. 'Oh, this is awful, awful! But can it be true that you are resolved on a divorce? 'I am resolved on extreme measures. There is nothing else for me to do. 'Nothing else to do, nothing else to do.... she replied, with tears in her eyes. 'Oh no, don't say nothing else to do! she said. 'What is horrible in a trouble of this kind is that one cannot, as in any otherin loss, in deathbear one's trouble in peace, but that one must act, said he, as though guessing her thought. 'One must get out of the humiliating position in which one is placed one can't live  trois. 'I understand, I quite understand that, said Dolly, and her head sank. She was silent for a little, thinking of herself, of her own grief in her family, and all at once, with an impulsive movement, she raised her head and clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. 'But wait a little! You are a Christian. Think of her! What will become of her, if you cast her off? 'I have thought, Darya Alexandrovna, I have thought a great deal, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. His face turned red in patches, and his dim eyes looked straight before him. Darya Alexandrovna at that moment pitied him with all her heart. 'That was what I did indeed when she herself made known to me my humiliation I left everything as of old. I gave her a chance to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She would not regard the slightest requestthat she should observe decorum, he said, getting heated. 'One may save anyone who does not want to be ruined but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to be her salvation, what's to be done? 'Anything, only not divorce! answered Darya Alexandrovna 'But what is anything? 'No, it is awful! She will be no one's wife, she will be lost! 'What can I do? said Alexey Alexandrovitch, raising his shoulders and his eyebrows. The recollection of his wife's last act had so incensed him that he had become frigid, as at the beginning of the conversation. 'I am very grateful for your sympathy, but I must be going, he said, getting up. 'No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me in anger and jealousy, I would have thrown up everything, I would myself.... But I came to myself again and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on.... I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive! Alexey Alexandrovitch heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill, loud voice 'Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong. I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is akin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me! he said, with tones of hatred in his voice. 'Love those that hate you.... Darya Alexandrovna whispered timorously. Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled contemptuously. That he knew long ago, but it could not be applied to his case. 'Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible. Forgive me for having troubled you. Everyone has enough to bear in his own grief! And regaining his selfpossession, Alexey Alexandrovitch quietly took leave and went away. When they rose from table, Levin would have liked to follow Kitty into the drawingroom but he was afraid she might dislike this, as too obviously paying her attention. He remained in the little ring of men, taking part in the general conversation, and without looking at Kitty, he was aware of her movements, her looks, and the place where she was in the drawingroom. He did at once, and without the smallest effort, keep the promise he had made heralways to think well of all men, and to like everyone always. The conversation fell on the village commune, in which Pestsov saw a sort of special principle, called by him the 'choral principle. Levin did not agree with Pestsov, nor with his brother, who had a special attitude of his own, both admitting and not admitting the significance of the Russian commune. But he talked to them, simply trying to reconcile and soften their differences. He was not in the least interested in what he said himself, and even less so in what they said all he wanted was that they and everyone should be happy and contented. He knew now the one thing of importance and that one thing was at first there, in the drawingroom, and then began moving across and came to a standstill at the door. Without turning round he felt the eyes fixed on him, and the smile, and he could not help turning round. She was standing in the doorway with Shtcherbatsky, looking at him. 'I thought you were going towards the piano, said he, going up to her. 'That's something I miss in the countrymusic. 'No we only came to fetch you and thank you, she said, rewarding him with a smile that was like a gift, 'for coming. What do they want to argue for? No one ever convinces anyone, you know. 'Yes that's true, said Levin 'it generally happens that one argues warmly simply because one can't make out what one's opponent wants to prove. Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at being aware that what they had so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly in a discussion grasping what it was his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what he liked himself, which he was devising arguments to defend, and, chancing to express it well and genuinely, he had found his opponent at once agreeing and ceasing to dispute his position. He tried to say this. She knitted her brow, trying to understand. But directly he began to illustrate his meaning, she understood at once. 'I know one must find out what he is arguing for, what is precious to him, then one can.... She had completely guessed and expressed his badly expressed idea. Levin smiled joyfully he was struck by this transition from the confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this laconic, clear, almost wordless communication of the most complex ideas. Shtcherbatsky moved away from them, and Kitty, going up to a cardtable, sat down, and, taking up the chalk, began drawing diverging circles over the new green cloth. They began again on the subject that had been started at dinnerthe liberty and occupations of women. Levin was of the opinion of Darya Alexandrovna that a girl who did not marry should find a woman's duties in a family. He supported this view by the fact that no family can get on without women to help that in every family, poor or rich, there are and must be nurses, either relations or hired. 'No, said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more boldly with her truthful eyes 'a girl may be so circumstanced that she cannot live in the family without humiliation, while she herself.... At the hint he understood her. 'Oh, yes, he said. 'Yes, yes, yesyou're right you're right! And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner of the liberty of woman, simply from getting a glimpse of the terror of an old maid's existence and its humiliation in Kitty's heart and loving her, he felt that terror and humiliation, and at once gave up his arguments. A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness. 'Ah! I've scribbled all over the table! she said, and, laying down the chalk, she made a movement as though to get up. 'What! shall I be left alonewithout her? he thought with horror, and he took the chalk. 'Wait a minute, he said, sitting down to the table. 'I've long wanted to ask you one thing. He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes. 'Please, ask it. 'Here, he said and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, 'When you told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then? There seemed no likelihood that she could make out this complicated sentence but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding the words. She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, 'Is it what I think? 'I understand, she said, flushing a little. 'What is this word? he said, pointing to the n that stood for never. 'It means never, she said 'but that's not true! He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n, a, d. Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch when she caught sight of the two figures Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile looking upwards at Levin, and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant he had understood. It meant, 'Then I could not answer differently. He glanced at her questioningly, timidly. 'Only then? 'Yes, her smile answered. 'And n... and now? he asked. 'Well, read this. I'll tell you what I should likeshould like so much! she wrote the initial letters, i, y, c, f, a, f, w, h. This meant, 'If you could forget and forgive what happened. He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, 'I have nothing to forget and to forgive I have never ceased to love you. She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver. 'I understand, she said in a whisper. He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, 'Is it this? took the chalk and at once answered. For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He was stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the word she had meant but in her charming eyes, beaming with happiness, he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing when she read them over her arm, and herself finished and wrote the answer, 'Yes. 'You're playing secrtaire? said the old prince. 'But we must really be getting along if you want to be in time at the theater. Levin got up and escorted Kitty to the door. In their conversation everything had been said it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning. When Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such uneasiness without her, and such an impatient longing to get as quickly, as quickly as possible, to tomorrow morning, when he would see her again and be plighted to her forever, that he felt afraid, as though of death, of those fourteen hours that he had to get through without her. It was essential for him to be with someone to talk to, so as not to be left alone, to kill time. Stepan Arkadyevitch would have been the companion most congenial to him, but he was going out, he said, to a soire, in reality to the ballet. Levin only had time to tell him he was happy, and that he loved him, and would never, never forget what he had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevitch showed Levin that he comprehended that feeling fittingly. 'Oh, so it's not time to die yet? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing Levin's hand with emotion. 'Nnno! said Levin. Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said goodbye to him, gave him a sort of congratulation, saying, 'How glad I am you have met Kitty again! One must value old friends. Levin did not like these words of Darya Alexandrovna's. She could not understand how lofty and beyond her it all was, and she ought not to have dared to allude to it. Levin said goodbye to them, but, not to be left alone, he attached himself to his brother. 'Where are you going? 'I'm going to a meeting. 'Well, I'll come with you. May I? 'What for? Yes, come along, said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling. 'What is the matter with you today? 'With me? Happiness is the matter with me! said Levin, letting down the window of the carriage they were driving in. 'You don't mind?it's so stifling. It's happiness is the matter with me! Why is it you have never married? Sergey Ivanovitch smiled. 'I am very glad, she seems a nice gi.... Sergey Ivanovitch was beginning. 'Don't say it! don't say it! shouted Levin, clutching at the collar of his fur coat with both hands, and muffling him up in it. 'She's a nice girl were such simple, humble words, so out of harmony with his feeling. Sergey Ivanovitch laughed outright a merry laugh, which was rare with him. 'Well, anyway, I may say that I'm very glad of it. 'That you may do tomorrow, tomorrow and nothing more! Nothing, nothing, silence, said Levin, and muffling him once more in his fur coat, he added 'I do like you so! Well, is it possible for me to be present at the meeting? 'Of course it is. 'What is your discussion about today? asked Levin, never ceasing smiling. They arrived at the meeting. Levin heard the secretary hesitatingly read the minutes which he obviously did not himself understand but Levin saw from this secretary's face what a good, nice, kindhearted person he was. This was evident from his confusion and embarrassment in reading the minutes. Then the discussion began. They were disputing about the misappropriation of certain sums and the laying of certain pipes, and Sergey Ivanovitch was very cutting to two members, and said something at great length with an air of triumph and another member, scribbling something on a bit of paper, began timidly at first, but afterwards answered him very viciously and delightfully. And then Sviazhsky (he was there too) said something too, very handsomely and nobly. Levin listened to them, and saw clearly that these missing sums and these pipes were not anything real, and that they were not at all angry, but were all the nicest, kindest people, and everything was as happy and charming as possible among them. They did no harm to anyone, and were all enjoying it. What struck Levin was that he could see through them all today, and from little, almost imperceptible signs knew the soul of each, and saw distinctly that they were all good at heart. And Levin himself in particular they were all extremely fond of that day. That was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the friendly, affectionate way even those he did not know looked at him. 'Well, did you like it? Sergey Ivanovitch asked him. 'Very much. I never supposed it was so interesting! Capital! Splendid! Sviazhsky went up to Levin and invited him to come round to tea with him. Levin was utterly at a loss to comprehend or recall what it was he had disliked in Sviazhsky, what he had failed to find in him. He was a clever and wonderfully goodhearted man. 'Most delighted, he said, and asked after his wife and sisterinlaw. And from a queer association of ideas, because in his imagination the idea of Sviazhsky's sisterinlaw was connected with marriage, it occurred to him that there was no one to whom he could more suitably speak of his happiness, and he was very glad to go and see them. Sviazhsky questioned him about his improvements on his estate, presupposing, as he always did, that there was no possibility of doing anything not done already in Europe, and now this did not in the least annoy Levin. On the contrary, he felt that Sviazhsky was right, that the whole business was of little value, and he saw the wonderful softness and consideration with which Sviazhsky avoided fully expressing his correct view. The ladies of the Sviazhsky household were particularly delightful. It seemed to Levin that they knew all about it already and sympathized with him, saying nothing merely from delicacy. He stayed with them one hour, two, three, talking of all sorts of subjects but the one thing that filled his heart, and did not observe that he was boring them dreadfully, and that it was long past their bedtime. Sviazhsky went with him into the hall, yawning and wondering at the strange humor his friend was in. It was past one o'clock. Levin went back to his hotel, and was dismayed at the thought that all alone now with his impatience he had ten hours still left to get through. The servant, whose turn it was to be up all night, lighted his candles, and would have gone away, but Levin stopped him. This servant, Yegor, whom Levin had noticed before, struck him as a very intelligent, excellent, and, above all, goodhearted man. 'Well, Yegor, it's hard work not sleeping, isn't it? 'One's got to put up with it! It's part of our work, you see. In a gentleman's house it's easier but then here one makes more. It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a daughter, a sempstress, whom he wanted to marry to a cashier in a saddler's shop. Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his opinion, in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself. Yegor listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin's idea, but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin's surprise, the observation that when he had lived with good masters he had always been satisfied with his masters, and now was perfectly satisfied with his employer, though he was a Frenchman. 'Wonderfully goodhearted fellow! thought Levin. 'Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you love your wife? 'Ay! and why not? responded Yegor. And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and intending to express all his most heartfelt emotions. 'My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up.... he was beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin's enthusiasm, just as people catch yawning. But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had refused tea and supper at Sviazhsky's, but he was incapable of thinking of supper. He had not slept the previous night, but was incapable of thinking of sleep either. His room was cold, but he was oppressed by heat. He opened both the movable panes in his window and sat down to the table opposite the open panes. Over the snowcovered roofs could be seen a decorated cross with chains, and above it the rising triangle of Charles's Wain with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross, then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that flowed evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream the images and memories that rose in his imagination. At four o'clock he heard steps in the passage and peeped out at the door. It was the gambler Myaskin, whom he knew, coming from the club. He walked gloomily, frowning and coughing. 'Poor, unlucky fellow! thought Levin, and tears came into his eyes from love and pity for this man. He would have talked with him, and tried to comfort him, but remembering that he had nothing but his shirt on, he changed his mind and sat down again at the open pane to bathe in the cold air and gaze at the exquisite lines of the cross, silent, but full of meaning for him, and the mounting lurid yellow star. At seven o'clock there was a noise of people polishing the floors, and bells ringing in some servants' department, and Levin felt that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the pane, washed, dressed, and went out into the street. The streets were still empty. Levin went to the house of the Shtcherbatskys. The visitors' doors were closed and everything was asleep. He walked back, went into his room again, and asked for coffee. The day servant, not Yegor this time, brought it to him. Levin would have entered into conversation with him, but a bell rang for the servant, and he went out. Levin tried to drink coffee and put some roll in his mouth, but his mouth was quite at a loss what to do with the roll. Levin, rejecting the roll, put on his coat and went out again for a walk. It was nine o'clock when he reached the Shtcherbatskys' steps the second time. In the house they were only just up, and the cook came out to go marketing. He had to get through at least two hours more. All that night and morning Levin lived perfectly unconsciously, and felt perfectly lifted out of the conditions of material life. He had eaten nothing for a whole day, he had not slept for two nights, had spent several hours undressed in the frozen air, and felt not simply fresher and stronger than ever, but felt utterly independent of his body he moved without muscular effort, and felt as if he could do anything. He was convinced he could fly upwards or lift the corner of the house, if need be. He spent the remainder of the time in the street, incessantly looking at his watch and gazing about him. And what he saw then, he never saw again after. The children especially going to school, the bluish doves flying down from the roofs to the pavement, and the little loaves covered with flour, thrust out by an unseen hand, touched him. Those loaves, those doves, and those two boys were not earthly creatures. It all happened at the same time a boy ran towards a dove and glanced smiling at Levin the dove, with a whir of her wings, darted away, flashing in the sun, amid grains of snow that quivered in the air, while from a little window there came a smell of freshbaked bread, and the loaves were put out. All of this together was so extraordinarily nice that Levin laughed and cried with delight. Going a long way round by Gazetny Place and Kislovka, he went back again to the hotel, and putting his watch before him, he sat down to wait for twelve o'clock. In the next room they were talking about some sort of machines, and swindling, and coughing their morning coughs. They did not realize that the hand was near twelve. The hand reached it. Levin went out onto the steps. The sledgedrivers clearly knew all about it. They crowded round Levin with happy faces, quarreling among themselves, and offering their services. Trying not to offend the other sledge drivers, and promising to drive with them too, Levin took one and told him to drive to the Shtcherbatskys'. The sledgedriver was splendid in a white shirtcollar sticking out over his overcoat and into his strong, fullblooded red neck. The sledge was high and comfortable, and altogether such a one as Levin never drove in after, and the horse was a good one, and tried to gallop but didn't seem to move. The driver knew the Shtcherbatskys' house, and drew up at the entrance with a curve of his arm and a 'Wo! especially indicative of respect for his fare. The Shtcherbatskys' hallporter certainly knew all about it. This was evident from the smile in his eyes and the way he said 'Well, it's a long while since you've been to see us, Konstantin Dmitrievitch! Not only he knew all about it, but he was unmistakably delighted and making efforts to conceal his joy. Looking into his kindly old eyes, Levin realized even something new in his happiness. 'Are they up? 'Pray walk in! Leave it here, said he, smiling, as Levin would have come back to take his hat. That meant something. 'To whom shall I announce your honor? asked the footman. The footman, though a young man, and one of the new school of footmen, a dandy, was a very kindhearted, good fellow, and he too knew all about it. 'The princess ... the prince ... the young princess.... said Levin. The first person he saw was Mademoiselle Linon. She walked across the room, and her ringlets and her face were beaming. He had only just spoken to her, when suddenly he heard the rustle of a skirt at the door, and Mademoiselle Linon vanished from Levin's eyes, and a joyful terror came over him at the nearness of his happiness. Mademoiselle Linon was in great haste, and leaving him, went out at the other door. Directly she had gone out, swift, swift light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himselfwhat was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed forwas quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk, but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him. He saw nothing but her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by the same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped still close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped onto his shoulders. She had done all she couldshe had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shy and happy. He put his arms round her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss. She too had not slept all night, and had been expecting him all the morning. Her mother and father had consented without demur, and were happy in her happiness. She had been waiting for him. She wanted to be the first to tell him her happiness and his. She had got ready to see him alone, and had been delighted at the idea, and had been shy and ashamed, and did not know herself what she was doing. She had heard his steps and voice, and had waited at the door for Mademoiselle Linon to go. Mademoiselle Linon had gone away. Without thinking, without asking herself how and what, she had gone up to him, and did as she was doing. 'Let us go to mamma! she said, taking him by the hand. For a long while he could say nothing, not so much because he was afraid of desecrating the loftiness of his emotion by a word, as that every time he tried to say something, instead of words he felt that tears of happiness were welling up. He took her hand and kissed it. 'Can it be true? he said at last in a choked voice. 'I can't believe you love me, dear! She smiled at that 'dear, and at the timidity with which he glanced at her. 'Yes! she said significantly, deliberately. 'I am so happy! Not letting go his hands, she went into the drawingroom. The princess, seeing them, breathed quickly, and immediately began to cry and then immediately began to laugh, and with a vigorous step Levin had not expected, ran up to him, and hugging his head, kissed him, wetting his cheeks with her tears. 'So it is all settled! I am glad. Love her. I am glad.... Kitty! 'You've not been long settling things, said the old prince, trying to seem unmoved but Levin noticed that his eyes were wet when he turned to him. 'I've long, always wished for this! said the prince, taking Levin by the arm and drawing him towards himself. 'Even when this little featherhead fancied.... 'Papa! shrieked Kitty, and shut his mouth with her hands. 'Well, I won't! he said. 'I'm very, very ... plea... Oh, what a fool I am.... He embraced Kitty, kissed her face, her hand, her face again, and made the sign of the cross over her. And there came over Levin a new feeling of love for this man, till then so little known to him, when he saw how slowly and tenderly Kitty kissed his muscular hand. The princess sat in her armchair, silent and smiling the prince sat down beside her. Kitty stood by her father's chair, still holding his hand. All were silent. The princess was the first to put everything into words, and to translate all thoughts and feelings into practical questions. And all equally felt this strange and painful for the first minute. 'When is it to be? We must have the benediction and announcement. And when's the wedding to be? What do you think, Alexander? 'Here he is, said the old prince, pointing to Levin'he's the principal person in the matter. 'When? said Levin blushing. 'Tomorrow. If you ask me, I should say, the benediction today and the wedding tomorrow. 'Come, mon cher, that's nonsense! 'Well, in a week. 'He's quite mad. 'No, why so? 'Well, upon my word! said the mother, smiling, delighted at this haste. 'How about the trousseau? 'Will there really be a trousseau and all that? Levin thought with horror. 'But can the trousseau and the benediction and all thatcan it spoil my happiness? Nothing can spoil it! He glanced at Kitty, and noticed that she was not in the least, not in the very least, disturbed by the idea of the trousseau. 'Then it must be all right, he thought. 'Oh, I know nothing about it I only said what I should like, he said apologetically. 'We'll talk it over, then. The benediction and announcement can take place now. That's very well. The princess went up to her husband, kissed him, and would have gone away, but he kept her, embraced her, and, tenderly as a young lover, kissed her several times, smiling. The old people were obviously muddled for a moment, and did not quite know whether it was they who were in love again or their daughter. When the prince and the princess had gone, Levin went up to his betrothed and took her hand. He was selfpossessed now and could speak, and he had a great deal he wanted to tell her. But he said not at all what he had to say. 'How I knew it would be so! I never hoped for it and yet in my heart I was always sure, he said. 'I believe that it was ordained. 'And I! she said. 'Even when.... She stopped and went on again, looking at him resolutely with her truthful eyes, 'Even when I thrust from me my happiness. I always loved you alone, but I was carried away. I ought to tell you.... Can you forgive that? 'Perhaps it was for the best. You will have to forgive me so much. I ought to tell you.... This was one of the things he had meant to speak about. He had resolved from the first to tell her two thingsthat he was not chaste as she was, and that he was not a believer. It was agonizing, but he considered he ought to tell her both these facts. 'No, not now, later! he said. 'Very well, later, but you must certainly tell me. I'm not afraid of anything. I want to know everything. Now it is settled. He added 'Settled that you'll take me whatever I may beyou won't give me up? Yes? 'Yes, yes. Their conversation was interrupted by Mademoiselle Linon, who with an affected but tender smile came to congratulate her favorite pupil. Before she had gone, the servants came in with their congratulations. Then relations arrived, and there began that state of blissful absurdity from which Levin did not emerge till the day after his wedding. Levin was in a continual state of awkwardness and discomfort, but the intensity of his happiness went on all the while increasing. He felt continually that a great deal was being expected of himwhat, he did not know and he did everything he was told, and it all gave him happiness. He had thought his engagement would have nothing about it like others, that the ordinary conditions of engaged couples would spoil his special happiness but it ended in his doing exactly as other people did, and his happiness being only increased thereby and becoming more and more special, more and more unlike anything that had ever happened. 'Now we shall have sweetmeats to eat, said Mademoiselle Linonand Levin drove off to buy sweetmeats. 'Well, I'm very glad, said Sviazhsky. 'I advise you to get the bouquets from Fomin's. 'Oh, are they wanted? And he drove to Fomin's. His brother offered to lend him money, as he would have so many expenses, presents to give.... 'Oh, are presents wanted? And he galloped to Foulde's. And at the confectioner's, and at Fomin's, and at Foulde's he saw that he was expected that they were pleased to see him, and prided themselves on his happiness, just as everyone whom he had to do with during those days. What was extraordinary was that everyone not only liked him, but even people previously unsympathetic, cold, and callous, were enthusiastic over him, gave way to him in everything, treated his feeling with tenderness and delicacy, and shared his conviction that he was the happiest man in the world because his betrothed was beyond perfection. Kitty too felt the same thing. When Countess Nordston ventured to hint that she had hoped for something better, Kitty was so angry and proved so conclusively that nothing in the world could be better than Levin, that Countess Nordston had to admit it, and in Kitty's presence never met Levin without a smile of ecstatic admiration. The confession he had promised was the one painful incident of this time. He consulted the old prince, and with his sanction gave Kitty his diary, in which there was written the confession that tortured him. He had written this diary at the time with a view to his future wife. Two things caused him anguish his lack of purity and his lack of faith. His confession of unbelief passed unnoticed. She was religious, had never doubted the truths of religion, but his external unbelief did not affect her in the least. Through love she knew all his soul, and in his soul she saw what she wanted, and that such a state of soul should be called unbelieving was to her a matter of no account. The other confession set her weeping bitterly. Levin, not without an inner struggle, handed her his diary. He knew that between him and her there could not be, and should not be, secrets, and so he had decided that so it must be. But he had not realized what an effect it would have on her, he had not put himself in her place. It was only when the same evening he came to their house before the theater, went into her room and saw her tearstained, pitiful, sweet face, miserable with suffering he had caused and nothing could undo, he felt the abyss that separated his shameful past from her dovelike purity, and was appalled at what he had done. 'Take them, take these dreadful books! she said, pushing away the notebooks lying before her on the table. 'Why did you give them me? No, it was better anyway, she added, touched by his despairing face. 'But it's awful, awful! His head sank, and he was silent. He could say nothing. 'You can't forgive me, he whispered. 'Yes, I forgive you but it's terrible! But his happiness was so immense that this confession did not shatter it, it only added another shade to it. She forgave him but from that time more than ever he considered himself unworthy of her, morally bowed down lower than ever before her, and prized more highly than ever his undeserved happiness. Unconsciously going over in his memory the conversations that had taken place during and after dinner, Alexey Alexandrovitch returned to his solitary room. Darya Alexandrovna's words about forgiveness had aroused in him nothing but annoyance. The applicability or nonapplicability of the Christian precept to his own case was too difficult a question to be discussed lightly, and this question had long ago been answered by Alexey Alexandrovitch in the negative. Of all that had been said, what stuck most in his memory was the phrase of stupid, goodnatured Turovtsin'Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot him! Everyone had apparently shared this feeling, though from politeness they had not expressed it. 'But the matter is settled, it's useless thinking about it, Alexey Alexandrovitch told himself. And thinking of nothing but the journey before him, and the revision work he had to do, he went into his room and asked the porter who escorted him where his man was. The porter said that the man had only just gone out. Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be sent him, sat down to the table, and taking the guidebook, began considering the route of his journey. 'Two telegrams, said his manservant, coming into the room. 'I beg your pardon, your excellency I'd only just that minute gone out. Alexey Alexandrovitch took the telegrams and opened them. The first telegram was the announcement of Stremov's appointment to the very post Karenin had coveted. Alexey Alexandrovitch flung the telegram down, and flushing a little, got up and began to pace up and down the room. 'Quos vult perdere dementat, he said, meaning by quos the persons responsible for this appointment. He was not so much annoyed that he had not received the post, that he had been conspicuously passed over but it was incomprehensible, amazing to him that they did not see that the wordy phrasemonger Stremov was the last man fit for it. How could they fail to see how they were ruining themselves, lowering their prestige by this appointment? 'Something else in the same line, he said to himself bitterly, opening the second telegram. The telegram was from his wife. Her name, written in blue pencil, 'Anna, was the first thing that caught his eye. 'I am dying I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness, he read. He smiled contemptuously, and flung down the telegram. That this was a trick and a fraud, of that, he thought for the first minute, there could be no doubt. 'There is no deceit she would stick at. She was near her confinement. Perhaps it is the confinement. But what can be their aim? To legitimize the child, to compromise me, and prevent a divorce, he thought. 'But something was said in it I am dying.... He read the telegram again, and suddenly the plain meaning of what was said in it struck him. 'And if it is true? he said to himself. 'If it is true that in the moment of agony and nearness to death she is genuinely penitent, and I, taking it for a trick, refuse to go? That would not only be cruel, and everyone would blame me, but it would be stupid on my part. 'Piotr, call a coach I am going to Petersburg, he said to his servant. Alexey Alexandrovitch decided that he would go to Petersburg and see his wife. If her illness was a trick, he would say nothing and go away again. If she was really in danger, and wished to see him before her death, he would forgive her if he found her alive, and pay her the last duties if he came too late. All the way he thought no more of what he ought to do. With a sense of weariness and uncleanness from the night spent in the train, in the early fog of Petersburg Alexey Alexandrovitch drove through the deserted Nevsky and stared straight before him, not thinking of what was awaiting him. He could not think about it, because in picturing what would happen, he could not drive away the reflection that her death would at once remove all the difficulty of his position. Bakers, closed shops, nightcabmen, porters sweeping the pavements flashed past his eyes, and he watched it all, trying to smother the thought of what was awaiting him, and what he dared not hope for, and yet was hoping for. He drove up to the steps. A sledge and a carriage with the coachman asleep stood at the entrance. As he went into the entry, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as it were, got out his resolution from the remotest corner of his brain, and mastered it thoroughly. Its meaning ran 'If it's a trick, then calm contempt and departure. If truth, do what is proper. The porter opened the door before Alexey Alexandrovitch rang. The porter, Kapitonitch, looked queer in an old coat, without a tie, and in slippers. 'How is your mistress? 'A successful confinement yesterday. Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped short and turned white. He felt distinctly now how intensely he had longed for her death. 'And how is she? Korney in his morning apron ran downstairs. 'Very ill, he answered. 'There was a consultation yesterday, and the doctor's here now. 'Take my things, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, and feeling some relief at the news that there was still hope of her death, he went into the hall. On the hatstand there was a military overcoat. Alexey Alexandrovitch noticed it and asked 'Who is here? 'The doctor, the midwife, and Count Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the inner rooms. In the drawingroom there was no one at the sound of his steps there came out of her boudoir the midwife in a cap with lilac ribbons. She went up to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and with the familiarity given by the approach of death took him by the arm and drew him towards the bedroom. 'Thank God you've come! She keeps on about you and nothing but you, she said. 'Make haste with the ice! the doctor's peremptory voice said from the bedroom. Alexey Alexandrovitch went into her boudoir. At the table, sitting sideways in a low chair, was Vronsky, his face hidden in his hands, weeping. He jumped up at the doctor's voice, took his hands from his face, and saw Alexey Alexandrovitch. Seeing the husband, he was so overwhelmed that he sat down again, drawing his head down to his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear but he made an effort over himself, got up and said 'She is dying. The doctors say there is no hope. I am entirely in your power, only let me be here ... though I am at your disposal. I.... Alexey Alexandrovitch, seeing Vronsky's tears, felt a rush of that nervous emotion always produced in him by the sight of other people's suffering, and turning away his face, he moved hurriedly to the door, without hearing the rest of his words. From the bedroom came the sound of Anna's voice saying something. Her voice was lively, eager, with exceedingly distinct intonations. Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the bedroom, and went up to the bed. She was lying turned with her face towards him. Her cheeks were flushed crimson, her eyes glittered, her little white hands thrust out from the sleeves of her dressing gown were playing with the quilt, twisting it about. It seemed as though she were not only well and blooming, but in the happiest frame of mind. She was talking rapidly, musically, and with exceptionally correct articulation and expressive intonation. 'For AlexeyI am speaking of Alexey Alexandrovitch (what a strange and awful thing that both are Alexey, isn't it?)Alexey would not refuse me. I should forget, he would forgive.... But why doesn't he come? He's so good he doesn't know himself how good he is. Ah, my God, what agony! Give me some water, quick! Oh, that will be bad for her, my little girl! Oh, very well then, give her to a nurse. Yes, I agree, it's better in fact. He'll be coming it will hurt him to see her. Give her to the nurse. 'Anna Arkadyevna, he has come. Here he is! said the midwife, trying to attract her attention to Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Oh, what nonsense! Anna went on, not seeing her husband. 'No, give her to me give me my little one! He has not come yet. You say he won't forgive me, because you don't know him. No one knows him. I'm the only one, and it was hard for me even. His eyes I ought to knowSeryozha has just the same eyesand I can't bear to see them because of it. Has Seryozha had his dinner? I know everyone will forget him. He would not forget. Seryozha must be moved into the corner room, and Mariette must be asked to sleep with him. All of a sudden she shrank back, was silent and in terror, as though expecting a blow, as though to defend herself, she raised her hands to her face. She had seen her husband. 'No, no! she began. 'I am not afraid of him I am afraid of death. Alexey, come here. I am in a hurry, because I've no time, I've not long left to live the fever will begin directly and I shall understand nothing more. Now I understand, I understand it all, I see it all! Alexey Alexandrovitch's wrinkled face wore an expression of agony he took her by the hand and tried to say something, but he could not utter it his lower lip quivered, but he still went on struggling with his emotion, and only now and then glanced at her. And each time he glanced at her, he saw her eyes gazing at him with such passionate and triumphant tenderness as he had never seen in them. 'Wait a minute, you don't know ... stay a little, stay!... She stopped, as though collecting her ideas. 'Yes, she began 'yes, yes, yes. This is what I wanted to say. Don't be surprised at me. I'm still the same.... But there is another woman in me, I'm afraid of her she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to be. I'm not that woman. Now I'm my real self, all myself. I'm dying now, I know I shall die, ask him. Even now I feelsee here, the weights on my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingerssee how huge they are! But this will soon all be over.... Only one thing I want forgive me, forgive me quite. I'm terrible, but my nurse used to tell me the holy martyrwhat was her name? She was worse. And I'll go to Rome there's a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to anyone, only I'll take Seryozha and the little one.... No, you can't forgive me! I know, it can't be forgiven! No, no, go away, you're too good! She held his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the other. The nervous agitation of Alexey Alexandrovitch kept increasing, and had by now reached such a point that he ceased to struggle with it. He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was on the contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Christian law that he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to forgive and love his enemies but a glad feeling of love and forgiveness for his enemies filled his heart. He knelt down, and laying his head in the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through the sleeve, he sobbed like a little child. She put her arm around his head, moved towards him, and with defiant pride lifted up her eyes. 'That is he. I knew him! Now, forgive me, everyone, forgive me!... They've come again why don't they go away?... Oh, take these cloaks off me! The doctor unloosed her hands, carefully laying her on the pillow, and covered her up to the shoulders. She lay back submissively, and looked before her with beaming eyes. 'Remember one thing, that I needed nothing but forgiveness, and I want nothing more.... Why doesn't he come? she said, turning to the door towards Vronsky. 'Do come, do come! Give him your hand. Vronsky came to the side of the bed, and seeing Anna, again hid his face in his hands. 'Uncover your facelook at him! He's a saint, she said. 'Oh! uncover your face, do uncover it! she said angrily. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, do uncover his face! I want to see him. Alexey Alexandrovitch took Vronsky's hands and drew them away from his face, which was awful with the expression of agony and shame upon it. 'Give him your hand. Forgive him. Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, not attempting to restrain the tears that streamed from his eyes. 'Thank God, thank God! she said, 'now everything is ready. Only to stretch my legs a little. There, that's capital. How badly these flowers are donenot a bit like a violet, she said, pointing to the hangings. 'My God, my God! when will it end? Give me some morphine. Doctor, give me some morphine! Oh, my God, my God! And she tossed about on the bed. The doctors said that it was puerperal fever, and that it was ninetynine chances in a hundred it would end in death. The whole day long there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness. At midnight the patient lay without consciousness, and almost without pulse. The end was expected every minute. Vronsky had gone home, but in the morning he came to inquire, and Alexey Alexandrovitch meeting him in the hall, said 'Better stay, she might ask for you, and himself led him to his wife's boudoir. Towards morning, there was a return again of excitement, rapid thought and talk, and again it ended in unconsciousness. On the third day it was the same thing, and the doctors said there was hope. That day Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and closing the door sat down opposite him. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of the position was coming, 'I can't speak, I can't understand. Spare me! However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me. He would have risen but Alexey Alexandrovitch took him by the hand and said 'I beg you to hear me out it is necessary. I must explain my feelings, the feelings that have guided me and will guide me, so that you may not be in error regarding me. You know I had resolved on a divorce, and had even begun to take proceedings. I won't conceal from you that in beginning this I was in uncertainty, I was in misery I will confess that I was pursued by a desire to revenge myself on you and on her. When I got the telegram, I came here with the same feelings I will say more, I longed for her death. But.... He paused, pondering whether to disclose or not to disclose his feeling to him. 'But I saw her and forgave her. And the happiness of forgiveness has revealed to me my duty. I forgive completely. I would offer the other cheek, I would give my cloak if my coat be taken. I pray to God only not to take from me the bliss of forgiveness! Tears stood in his eyes, and the luminous, serene look in them impressed Vronsky. 'This is my position you can trample me in the mud, make me the laughingstock of the world, I will not abandon her, and I will never utter a word of reproach to you, Alexey Alexandrovitch went on. 'My duty is clearly marked for me I ought to be with her, and I will be. If she wishes to see you, I will let you know, but now I suppose it would be better for you to go away. He got up, and sobs cut short his words. Vronsky too was getting up, and in a stooping, not yet erect posture, looked up at him from under his brows. He did not understand Alexey Alexandrovitch's feeling, but he felt that it was something higher and even unattainable for him with his view of life. After the conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch, Vronsky went out onto the steps of the Karenins' house and stood still, with difficulty remembering where he was, and where he ought to walk or drive. He felt disgraced, humiliated, guilty, and deprived of all possibility of washing away his humiliation. He felt thrust out of the beaten track along which he had so proudly and lightly walked till then. All the habits and rules of his life that had seemed so firm, had turned out suddenly false and inapplicable. The betrayed husband, who had figured till that time as a pitiful creature, an incidental and somewhat ludicrous obstacle to his happiness, had suddenly been summoned by her herself, elevated to an aweinspiring pinnacle, and on the pinnacle that husband had shown himself, not malignant, not false, not ludicrous, but kind and straightforward and large. Vronsky could not but feel this, and the parts were suddenly reversed. Vronsky felt his elevation and his own abasement, his truth and his own falsehood. He felt that the husband was magnanimous even in his sorrow, while he had been base and petty in his deceit. But this sense of his own humiliation before the man he had unjustly despised made up only a small part of his misery. He felt unutterably wretched now, for his passion for Anna, which had seemed to him of late to be growing cooler, now that he knew he had lost her forever, was stronger than ever it had been. He had seen all of her in her illness, had come to know her very soul, and it seemed to him that he had never loved her till then. And now when he had learned to know her, to love her as she should be loved, he had been humiliated before her, and had lost her forever, leaving with her nothing of himself but a shameful memory. Most terrible of all had been his ludicrous, shameful position when Alexey Alexandrovitch had pulled his hands away from his humiliated face. He stood on the steps of the Karenins' house like one distraught, and did not know what to do. 'A sledge, sir? asked the porter. 'Yes, a sledge. On getting home, after three sleepless nights, Vronsky, without undressing, lay down flat on the sofa, clasping his hands and laying his head on them. His head was heavy. Images, memories, and ideas of the strangest description followed one another with extraordinary rapidity and vividness. First it was the medicine he had poured out for the patient and spilt over the spoon, then the midwife's white hands, then the queer posture of Alexey Alexandrovitch on the floor beside the bed. 'To sleep! To forget! he said to himself with the serene confidence of a healthy man that if he is tired and sleepy, he will go to sleep at once. And the same instant his head did begin to feel drowsy and he began to drop off into forgetfulness. The waves of the sea of unconsciousness had begun to meet over his head, when all at onceit was as though a violent shock of electricity had passed over him. He started so that he leaped up on the springs of the sofa, and leaning on his arms got in a panic onto his knees. His eyes were wide open as though he had never been asleep. The heaviness in his head and the weariness in his limbs that he had felt a minute before had suddenly gone. 'You may trample me in the mud, he heard Alexey Alexandrovitch's words and saw him standing before him, and saw Anna's face with its burning flush and glittering eyes, gazing with love and tenderness not at him but at Alexey Alexandrovitch he saw his own, as he fancied, foolish and ludicrous figure when Alexey Alexandrovitch took his hands away from his face. He stretched out his legs again and flung himself on the sofa in the same position and shut his eyes. 'To sleep! To forget! he repeated to himself. But with his eyes shut he saw more distinctly than ever Anna's face as it had been on the memorable evening before the races. 'That is not and will not be, and she wants to wipe it out of her memory. But I cannot live without it. How can we be reconciled? how can we be reconciled? he said aloud, and unconsciously began to repeat these words. This repetition checked the rising up of fresh images and memories, which he felt were thronging in his brain. But repeating words did not check his imagination for long. Again in extraordinarily rapid succession his best moments rose before his mind, and then his recent humiliation. 'Take away his hands, Anna's voice says. He takes away his hands and feels the shamestruck and idiotic expression of his face. He still lay down, trying to sleep, though he felt there was not the smallest hope of it, and kept repeating stray words from some chain of thought, trying by this to check the rising flood of fresh images. He listened, and heard in a strange, mad whisper words repeated 'I did not appreciate it, did not make enough of it. I did not appreciate it, did not make enough of it. 'What's this? Am I going out of my mind? he said to himself. 'Perhaps. What makes men go out of their minds what makes men shoot themselves? he answered himself, and opening his eyes, he saw with wonder an embroidered cushion beside him, worked by Varya, his brother's wife. He touched the tassel of the cushion, and tried to think of Varya, of when he had seen her last. But to think of anything extraneous was an agonizing effort. 'No, I must sleep! He moved the cushion up, and pressed his head into it, but he had to make an effort to keep his eyes shut. He jumped up and sat down. 'That's all over for me, he said to himself. 'I must think what to do. What is left? His mind rapidly ran through his life apart from his love of Anna. 'Ambition? Serpuhovskoy? Society? The court? He could not come to a pause anywhere. All of it had had meaning before, but now there was no reality in it. He got up from the sofa, took off his coat, undid his belt, and uncovering his hairy chest to breathe more freely, walked up and down the room. 'This is how people go mad, he repeated, 'and how they shoot themselves ... to escape humiliation, he added slowly. He went to the door and closed it, then with fixed eyes and clenched teeth he went up to the table, took a revolver, looked round him, turned it to a loaded barrel, and sank into thought. For two minutes, his head bent forward with an expression of an intense effort of thought, he stood with the revolver in his hand, motionless, thinking. 'Of course, he said to himself, as though a logical, continuous, and clear chain of reasoning had brought him to an indubitable conclusion. In reality this 'of course, that seemed convincing to him, was simply the result of exactly the same circle of memories and images through which he had passed ten times already during the last hourmemories of happiness lost forever. There was the same conception of the senselessness of everything to come in life, the same consciousness of humiliation. Even the sequence of these images and emotions was the same. 'Of course, he repeated, when for the third time his thought passed again round the same spellbound circle of memories and images, and pulling the revolver to the left side of his chest, and clutching it vigorously with his whole hand, as it were, squeezing it in his fist, he pulled the trigger. He did not hear the sound of the shot, but a violent blow on his chest sent him reeling. He tried to clutch at the edge of the table, dropped the revolver, staggered, and sat down on the ground, looking about him in astonishment. He did not recognize his room, looking up from the ground, at the bent legs of the table, at the wastepaper basket, and the tigerskin rug. The hurried, creaking steps of his servant coming through the drawingroom brought him to his senses. He made an effort at thought, and was aware that he was on the floor and seeing blood on the tigerskin rug and on his arm, he knew he had shot himself. 'Idiotic! Missed! he said, fumbling after the revolver. The revolver was close beside himhe sought further off. Still feeling for it, he stretched out to the other side, and not being strong enough to keep his balance, fell over, streaming with blood. The elegant, whiskered manservant, who used to be continually complaining to his acquaintances of the delicacy of his nerves, was so panicstricken on seeing his master lying on the floor, that he left him losing blood while he ran for assistance. An hour later Varya, his brother's wife, had arrived, and with the assistance of three doctors, whom she had sent for in all directions, and who all appeared at the same moment, she got the wounded man to bed, and remained to nurse him. The mistake made by Alexey Alexandrovitch in that, when preparing for seeing his wife, he had overlooked the possibility that her repentance might be sincere, and he might forgive her, and she might not diethis mistake was two months after his return from Moscow brought home to him in all its significance. But the mistake made by him had arisen not simply from his having overlooked that contingency, but also from the fact that until that day of his interview with his dying wife, he had not known his own heart. At his sick wife's bedside he had for the first time in his life given way to that feeling of sympathetic suffering always roused in him by the sufferings of others, and hitherto looked on by him with shame as a harmful weakness. And pity for her, and remorse for having desired her death, and most of all, the joy of forgiveness, made him at once conscious, not simply of the relief of his own sufferings, but of a spiritual peace he had never experienced before. He suddenly felt that the very thing that was the source of his sufferings had become the source of his spiritual joy that what had seemed insoluble while he was judging, blaming, and hating, had become clear and simple when he forgave and loved. He forgave his wife and pitied her for her sufferings and her remorse. He forgave Vronsky, and pitied him, especially after reports reached him of his despairing action. He felt more for his son than before. And he blamed himself now for having taken too little interest in him. But for the little newborn baby he felt a quite peculiar sentiment, not of pity, only, but of tenderness. At first, from a feeling of compassion alone, he had been interested in the delicate little creature, who was not his child, and who was cast on one side during her mother's illness, and would certainly have died if he had not troubled about her, and he did not himself observe how fond he became of her. He would go into the nursery several times a day, and sit there for a long while, so that the nurses, who were at first afraid of him, got quite used to his presence. Sometimes for half an hour at a stretch he would sit silently gazing at the saffronred, downy, wrinkled face of the sleeping baby, watching the movements of the frowning brows, and the fat little hands, with clenched fingers, that rubbed the little eyes and nose. At such moments particularly, Alexey Alexandrovitch had a sense of perfect peace and inward harmony, and saw nothing extraordinary in his position, nothing that ought to be changed. But as time went on, he saw more and more distinctly that however natural the position now seemed to him, he would not long be allowed to remain in it. He felt that besides the blessed spiritual force controlling his soul, there was another, a brutal force, as powerful, or more powerful, which controlled his life, and that this force would not allow him that humble peace he longed for. He felt that everyone was looking at him with inquiring wonder, that he was not understood, and that something was expected of him. Above all, he felt the instability and unnaturalness of his relations with his wife. When the softening effect of the near approach of death had passed away, Alexey Alexandrovitch began to notice that Anna was afraid of him, ill at ease with him, and could not look him straight in the face. She seemed to be wanting, and not daring, to tell him something and as though foreseeing their present relations could not continue, she seemed to be expecting something from him. Towards the end of February it happened that Anna's baby daughter, who had been named Anna too, fell ill. Alexey Alexandrovitch was in the nursery in the morning, and leaving orders for the doctor to be sent for, he went to his office. On finishing his work, he returned home at four. Going into the hall he saw a handsome groom, in a braided livery and a bear fur cape, holding a white fur cloak. 'Who is here? asked Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Princess Elizaveta Federovna Tverskaya, the groom answered, and it seemed to Alexey Alexandrovitch that he grinned. During all this difficult time Alexey Alexandrovitch had noticed that his worldly acquaintances, especially women, took a peculiar interest in him and his wife. All these acquaintances he observed with difficulty concealing their mirth at something the same mirth that he had perceived in the lawyer's eyes, and just now in the eyes of this groom. Everyone seemed, somehow, hugely delighted, as though they had just been at a wedding. When they met him, with illdisguised enjoyment they inquired after his wife's health. The presence of Princess Tverskaya was unpleasant to Alexey Alexandrovitch from the memories associated with her, and also because he disliked her, and he went straight to the nursery. In the day nursery Seryozha, leaning on the table with his legs on a chair, was drawing and chatting away merrily. The English governess, who had during Anna's illness replaced the French one, was sitting near the boy knitting a shawl. She hurriedly got up, curtseyed, and pulled Seryozha. Alexey Alexandrovitch stroked his son's hair, answered the governess's inquiries about his wife, and asked what the doctor had said of the baby. 'The doctor said it was nothing serious, and he ordered a bath, sir. 'But she is still in pain, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, listening to the baby's screaming in the next room. 'I think it's the wetnurse, sir, the Englishwoman said firmly. 'What makes you think so? he asked, stopping short. 'It's just as it was at Countess Paul's, sir. They gave the baby medicine, and it turned out that the baby was simply hungry the nurse had no milk, sir. Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, and after standing still a few seconds he went in at the other door. The baby was lying with its head thrown back, stiffening itself in the nurse's arms, and would not take the plump breast offered it and it never ceased screaming in spite of the double hushing of the wetnurse and the other nurse, who was bending over her. 'Still no better? said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'She's very restless, answered the nurse in a whisper. 'Miss Edwarde says that perhaps the wetnurse has no milk, he said. 'I think so too, Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Then why didn't you say so? 'Who's one to say it to? Anna Arkadyevna still ill.... said the nurse discontentedly. The nurse was an old servant of the family. And in her simple words there seemed to Alexey Alexandrovitch an allusion to his position. The baby screamed louder than ever, struggling and sobbing. The nurse, with a gesture of despair, went to it, took it from the wetnurse's arms, and began walking up and down, rocking it. 'You must ask the doctor to examine the wetnurse, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. The smartly dressed and healthylooking nurse, frightened at the idea of losing her place, muttered something to herself, and covering her bosom, smiled contemptuously at the idea of doubts being cast on her abundance of milk. In that smile, too, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw a sneer at his position. 'Luckless child! said the nurse, hushing the baby, and still walking up and down with it. Alexey Alexandrovitch sat down, and with a despondent and suffering face watched the nurse walking to and fro. When the child at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow, had left her, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and walking awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby. For a minute he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at the baby but all at once a smile, that moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went as softly out of the room. In the diningroom he rang the bell, and told the servant who came in to send again for the doctor. He felt vexed with his wife for not being anxious about this exquisite baby, and in this vexed humor he had no wish to go to her he had no wish, either, to see Princess Betsy. But his wife might wonder why he did not go to her as usual and so, overcoming his disinclination, he went towards the bedroom. As he walked over the soft rug towards the door, he could not help overhearing a conversation he did not want to hear. 'If he hadn't been going away, I could have understood your answer and his too. But your husband ought to be above that, Betsy was saying. 'It's not for my husband for myself I don't wish it. Don't say that! answered Anna's excited voice. 'Yes, but you must care to say goodbye to a man who has shot himself on your account.... 'That's just why I don't want to. With a dismayed and guilty expression, Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped and would have gone back unobserved. But reflecting that this would be undignified, he turned back again, and clearing his throat, he went up to the bedroom. The voices were silent, and he went in. Anna, in a gray dressing gown, with a crop of short clustering black curls on her round head, was sitting on a settee. The eagerness died out of her face, as it always did, at the sight of her husband she dropped her head and looked round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed in the height of the latest fashion, in a hat that towered somewhere over her head like a shade on a lamp, in a blue dress with violet crossway stripes slanting one way on the bodice and the other way on the skirt, was sitting beside Anna, her tall flat figure held erect. Bowing her head, she greeted Alexey Alexandrovitch with an ironical smile. 'Ah! she said, as though surprised. 'I'm very glad you're at home. You never put in an appearance anywhere, and I haven't seen you ever since Anna has been ill. I have heard all about ityour anxiety. Yes, you're a wonderful husband! she said, with a meaning and affable air, as though she were bestowing an order of magnanimity on him for his conduct to his wife. Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed frigidly, and kissing his wife's hand, asked how she was. 'Better, I think, she said, avoiding his eyes. 'But you've rather a feverishlooking color, he said, laying stress on the word 'feverish. 'We've been talking too much, said Betsy. 'I feel it's selfishness on my part, and I am going away. She got up, but Anna, suddenly flushing, quickly caught at her hand. 'No, wait a minute, please. I must tell you ... no, you. she turned to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and her neck and brow were suffused with crimson. 'I won't and can't keep anything secret from you, she said. Alexey Alexandrovitch cracked his fingers and bowed his head. 'Betsy's been telling me that Count Vronsky wants to come here to say goodbye before his departure for Tashkend. She did not look at her husband, and was evidently in haste to have everything out, however hard it might be for her. 'I told her I could not receive him. 'You said, my dear, that it would depend on Alexey Alexandrovitch, Betsy corrected her. 'Oh, no, I can't receive him and what object would there.... She stopped suddenly, and glanced inquiringly at her husband (he did not look at her). 'In short, I don't wish it.... Alexey Alexandrovitch advanced and would have taken her hand. Her first impulse was to jerk back her hand from the damp hand with big swollen veins that sought hers, but with an obvious effort to control herself she pressed his hand. 'I am very grateful to you for your confidence, but.... he said, feeling with confusion and annoyance that what he could decide easily and clearly by himself, he could not discuss before Princess Tverskaya, who to him stood for the incarnation of that brute force which would inevitably control him in the life he led in the eyes of the world, and hinder him from giving way to his feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped short, looking at Princess Tverskaya. 'Well, goodbye, my darling, said Betsy, getting up. She kissed Anna, and went out. Alexey Alexandrovitch escorted her out. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch! I know you are a truly magnanimous man, said Betsy, stopping in the little drawingroom, and with special warmth shaking hands with him once more. 'I am an outsider, but I so love her and respect you that I venture to advise. Receive him. Alexey Vronsky is the soul of honor, and he is going away to Tashkend. 'Thank you, princess, for your sympathy and advice. But the question of whether my wife can or cannot see anyone she must decide herself. He said this from habit, lifting his brows with dignity, and reflected immediately that whatever his words might be, there could be no dignity in his position. And he saw this by the suppressed, malicious, and ironical smile with which Betsy glanced at him after this phrase. Alexey Alexandrovitch took leave of Betsy in the drawingroom, and went to his wife. She was lying down, but hearing his steps she sat up hastily in her former attitude, and looked in a scared way at him. He saw she had been crying. 'I am very grateful for your confidence in me. He repeated gently in Russian the phrase he had said in Betsy's presence in French, and sat down beside her. When he spoke to her in Russian, using the Russian 'thou of intimacy and affection, it was insufferably irritating to Anna. 'And I am very grateful for your decision. I, too, imagine that since he is going away, there is no sort of necessity for Count Vronsky to come here. However, if.... 'But I've said so already, so why repeat it? Anna suddenly interrupted him with an irritation she could not succeed in repressing. 'No sort of necessity, she thought, 'for a man to come and say goodbye to the woman he loves, for whom he was ready to ruin himself, and has ruined himself, and who cannot live without him. No sort of necessity! she compressed her lips, and dropped her burning eyes to his hands with their swollen veins. They were rubbing each other. 'Let us never speak of it, she added more calmly. 'I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very glad to see.... Alexey Alexandrovitch was beginning. 'That my wish coincides with your own, she finished quickly, exasperated at his talking so slowly while she knew beforehand all he would say. 'Yes, he assented 'and Princess Tverskaya's interference in the most difficult private affairs is utterly uncalled for. She especially.... 'I don't believe a word of what's said about her, said Anna quickly. 'I know she really cares for me. Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed and said nothing. She played nervously with the tassel of her dressinggown, glancing at him with that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which she blamed herself, though she could not control it. Her only desire now was to be rid of his oppressive presence. 'I have just sent for the doctor, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'I am very well what do I want the doctor for? 'No, the little one cries, and they say the nurse hasn't enough milk. 'Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway (Alexey Alexandrovitch knew what was meant by that 'anyway), 'she's a baby, and they're killing her. She rang the bell and ordered the baby to be brought her. 'I begged to nurse her, I wasn't allowed to, and now I'm blamed for it. 'I don't blame.... 'Yes, you do blame me! My God! why didn't I die! And she broke into sobs. 'Forgive me, I'm nervous, I'm unjust, she said, controlling herself, 'but do go away.... 'No, it can't go on like this, Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself decidedly as he left his wife's room. Never had the impossibility of his position in the world's eyes, and his wife's hatred of him, and altogether the might of that mysterious brutal force that guided his life against his spiritual inclinations, and exacted conformity with its decrees and change in his attitude to his wife, been presented to him with such distinctness as that day. He saw clearly that all the world and his wife expected of him something, but what exactly, he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soul a feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and of all the good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herself it would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky but if they all thought this out of the question, he was even ready to allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the children were not disgraced, and he was not deprived of them nor forced to change his position. Bad as this might be, it was anyway better than a rupture, which would put her in a hopeless and shameful position, and deprive him of everything he cared for. But he felt helpless he knew beforehand that everyone was against him, and that he would not be allowed to do what seemed to him now so natural and right, but would be forced to do what was wrong, though it seemed the proper thing to them. Before Betsy had time to walk out of the drawingroom, she was met in the doorway by Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just come from Yeliseev's, where a consignment of fresh oysters had been received. 'Ah! princess! what a delightful meeting! he began. 'I've been to see you. 'A meeting for one minute, for I'm going, said Betsy, smiling and putting on her glove. 'Don't put on your glove yet, princess let me kiss your hand. There's nothing I'm so thankful to the revival of the old fashions for as the kissing the hand. He kissed Betsy's hand. 'When shall we see each other? 'You don't deserve it, answered Betsy, smiling. 'Oh, yes, I deserve a great deal, for I've become a most serious person. I don't only manage my own affairs, but other people's too, he said, with a significant expression. 'Oh, I'm so glad! answered Betsy, at once understanding that he was speaking of Anna. And going back into the drawingroom, they stood in a corner. 'He's killing her, said Betsy in a whisper full of meaning. 'It's impossible, impossible.... 'I'm so glad you think so, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, shaking his head with a serious and sympathetically distressed expression, 'that's what I've come to Petersburg for. 'The whole town's talking of it, she said. 'It's an impossible position. She pines and pines away. He doesn't understand that she's one of those women who can't trifle with their feelings. One of two things either let him take her away, act with energy, or give her a divorce. This is stifling her. 'Yes, yes ... just so.... Oblonsky said, sighing. 'That's what I've come for. At least not solely for that ... I've been made a Kammerherr of course, one has to say thank you. But the chief thing was having to settle this. 'Well, God help you! said Betsy. After accompanying Betsy to the outside hall, once more kissing her hand above the glove, at the point where the pulse beats, and murmuring to her such unseemly nonsense that she did not know whether to laugh or be angry, Stepan Arkadyevitch went to his sister. He found her in tears. Although he happened to be bubbling over with good spirits, Stepan Arkadyevitch immediately and quite naturally fell into the sympathetic, poetically emotional tone which harmonized with her mood. He asked her how she was, and how she had spent the morning. 'Very, very miserably. Today and this morning and all past days and days to come, she said. 'I think you're giving way to pessimism. You must rouse yourself, you must look life in the face. I know it's hard, but.... 'I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices, Anna began suddenly, 'but I hate him for his virtues. I can't live with him. Do you understand? the sight of him has a physical effect on me, it makes me beside myself. I can't, I can't live with him. What am I to do? I have been unhappy, and used to think one couldn't be more unhappy, but the awful state of things I am going through now, I could never have conceived. Would you believe it, that knowing he's a good man, a splendid man, that I'm not worth his little finger, still I hate him. I hate him for his generosity. And there's nothing left for me but.... She would have said death, but Stepan Arkadyevitch would not let her finish. 'You are ill and overwrought, he said 'believe me, you're exaggerating dreadfully. There's nothing so terrible in it. And Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. No one else in Stepan Arkadyevitch's place, having to do with such despair, would have ventured to smile (the smile would have seemed brutal) but in his smile there was so much of sweetness and almost feminine tenderness that his smile did not wound, but softened and soothed. His gentle, soothing words and smiles were as soothing and softening as almond oil. And Anna soon felt this. 'No, Stiva, she said, 'I'm lost, lost! worse than lost! I can't say yet that all is over on the contrary, I feel that it's not over. I'm an overstrained string that must snap. But it's not ended yet ... and it will have a fearful end. 'No matter, we must let the string be loosened, little by little. There's no position from which there is no way of escape. 'I have thought, and thought. Only one.... Again he knew from her terrified eyes that this one way of escape in her thought was death, and he would not let her say it. 'Not at all, he said. 'Listen to me. You can't see your own position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my opinion. Again he smiled discreetly his almondoil smile. 'I'll begin from the beginning. You married a man twenty years older than yourself. You married him without love and not knowing what love was. It was a mistake, let's admit. 'A fearful mistake! said Anna. 'But I repeat, it's an accomplished fact. Then you had, let us say, the misfortune to love a man not your husband. That was a misfortune but that, too, is an accomplished fact. And your husband knew it and forgave it. He stopped at each sentence, waiting for her to object, but she made no answer. 'That's so. Now the question is can you go on living with your husband? Do you wish it? Does he wish it? 'I know nothing, nothing. 'But you said yourself that you can't endure him. 'No, I didn't say so. I deny it. I can't tell, I don't know anything about it. 'Yes, but let.... 'You can't understand. I feel I'm lying head downwards in a sort of pit, but I ought not to save myself. And I can't.... 'Never mind, we'll slip something under and pull you out. I understand you I understand that you can't take it on yourself to express your wishes, your feelings. 'There's nothing, nothing I wish ... except for it to be all over. 'But he sees this and knows it. And do you suppose it weighs on him any less than on you? You're wretched, he's wretched, and what good can come of it? while divorce would solve the difficulty completely. With some effort Stepan Arkadyevitch brought out his central idea, and looked significantly at her. She said nothing, and shook her cropped head in dissent. But from the look in her face, that suddenly brightened into its old beauty, he saw that if she did not desire this, it was simply because it seemed to her unattainable happiness. 'I'm awfully sorry for you! And how happy I should be if I could arrange things! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling more boldly. 'Don't speak, don't say a word! God grant only that I may speak as I feel. I'm going to him. Anna looked at him with dreamy, shining eyes, and said nothing. Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the same somewhat solemn expression with which he used to take his presidential chair at his board, walked into Alexey Alexandrovitch's room. Alexey Alexandrovitch was walking about his room with his hands behind his back, thinking of just what Stepan Arkadyevitch had been discussing with his wife. 'I'm not interrupting you? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, on the sight of his brotherinlaw becoming suddenly aware of a sense of embarrassment unusual with him. To conceal this embarrassment he took out a cigarette case he had just bought that opened in a new way, and sniffing the leather, took a cigarette out of it. 'No. Do you want anything? Alexey Alexandrovitch asked without eagerness. 'Yes, I wished ... I wanted ... yes, I wanted to talk to you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with surprise aware of an unaccustomed timidity. This feeling was so unexpected and so strange that he did not believe it was the voice of conscience telling him that what he was meaning to do was wrong. Stepan Arkadyevitch made an effort and struggled with the timidity that had come over him. 'I hope you believe in my love for my sister and my sincere affection and respect for you, he said, reddening. Alexey Alexandrovitch stood still and said nothing, but his face struck Stepan Arkadyevitch by its expression of an unresisting sacrifice. 'I intended ... I wanted to have a little talk with you about my sister and your mutual position, he said, still struggling with an unaccustomed constraint. Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled mournfully, looked at his brotherinlaw, and without answering went up to the table, took from it an unfinished letter, and handed it to his brotherinlaw. 'I think unceasingly of the same thing. And here is what I had begun writing, thinking I could say it better by letter, and that my presence irritates her, he said, as he gave him the letter. Stepan Arkadyevitch took the letter, looked with incredulous surprise at the lusterless eyes fixed so immovably on him, and began to read. 'I see that my presence is irksome to you. Painful as it is to me to believe it, I see that it is so, and cannot be otherwise. I don't blame you, and God is my witness that on seeing you at the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget all that had passed between us and to begin a new life. I do not regret, and shall never regret, what I have done but I have desired one thingyour good, the good of your souland now I see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what will give you true happiness and peace to your soul. I put myself entirely in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what's right. Stepan Arkadyevitch handed back the letter, and with the same surprise continued looking at his brotherinlaw, not knowing what to say. This silence was so awkward for both of them that Stepan Arkadyevitch's lips began twitching nervously, while he still gazed without speaking at Karenin's face. 'That's what I wanted to say to her, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, turning away. 'Yes, yes.... said Stepan Arkadyevitch, not able to answer for the tears that were choking him. 'Yes, yes, I understand you, he brought out at last. 'I want to know what she would like, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'I am afraid she does not understand her own position. She is not a judge, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, recovering himself. 'She is crushed, simply crushed by your generosity. If she were to read this letter, she would be incapable of saying anything, she would only hang her head lower than ever. 'Yes, but what's to be done in that case? how explain, how find out her wishes? 'If you will allow me to give my opinion, I think that it lies with you to point out directly the steps you consider necessary to end the position. 'So you consider it must be ended? Alexey Alexandrovitch interrupted him. 'But how? he added, with a gesture of his hands before his eyes not usual with him. 'I see no possible way out of it. 'There is some way of getting out of every position, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, standing up and becoming more cheerful. 'There was a time when you thought of breaking off.... If you are convinced now that you cannot make each other happy.... 'Happiness may be variously understood. But suppose that I agree to everything, that I want nothing what way is there of getting out of our position? 'If you care to know my opinion, said Stepan Arkadyevitch with the same smile of softening, almondoil tenderness with which he had been talking to Anna. His kindly smile was so winning that Alexey Alexandrovitch, feeling his own weakness and unconsciously swayed by it, was ready to believe what Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying. 'She will never speak out about it. But one thing is possible, one thing she might desire, he went on, 'that is the cessation of your relations and all memories associated with them. To my thinking, in your position what's essential is the formation of a new attitude to one another. And that can only rest on a basis of freedom on both sides. 'Divorce, Alexey Alexandrovitch interrupted, in a tone of aversion. 'Yes, I imagine that divorceyes, divorce, Stepan Arkadyevitch repeated, reddening. 'That is from every point of view the most rational course for married people who find themselves in the position you are in. What can be done if married people find that life is impossible for them together? That may always happen. Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed heavily and closed his eyes. 'There's only one point to be considered is either of the parties desirous of forming new ties? If not, it is very simple, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, feeling more and more free from constraint. Alexey Alexandrovitch, scowling with emotion, muttered something to himself, and made no answer. All that seemed so simple to Stepan Arkadyevitch, Alexey Alexandrovitch had thought over thousands of times. And, so far from being simple, it all seemed to him utterly impossible. Divorce, the details of which he knew by this time, seemed to him now out of the question, because the sense of his own dignity and respect for religion forbade his taking upon himself a fictitious charge of adultery, and still more suffering his wife, pardoned and beloved by him, to be caught in the fact and put to public shame. Divorce appeared to him impossible also on other still more weighty grounds. What would become of his son in case of a divorce? To leave him with his mother was out of the question. The divorced mother would have her own illegitimate family, in which his position as a stepson and his education would not be good. Keep him with him? He knew that would be an act of vengeance on his part, and that he did not want. But apart from this, what more than all made divorce seem impossible to Alexey Alexandrovitch was, that by consenting to a divorce he would be completely ruining Anna. The saying of Darya Alexandrovna at Moscow, that in deciding on a divorce he was thinking of himself, and not considering that by this he would be ruining her irrevocably, had sunk into his heart. And connecting this saying with his forgiveness of her, with his devotion to the children, he understood it now in his own way. To consent to a divorce, to give her her freedom, meant in his thoughts to take from himself the last tie that bound him to lifethe children whom he loved and to take from her the last prop that stayed her on the path of right, to thrust her down to her ruin. If she were divorced, he knew she would join her life to Vronsky's, and their tie would be an illegitimate and criminal one, since a wife, by the interpretation of the ecclesiastical law, could not marry while her husband was living. 'She will join him, and in a year or two he will throw her over, or she will form a new tie, thought Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'And I, by agreeing to an unlawful divorce, shall be to blame for her ruin. He had thought it all over hundreds of times, and was convinced that a divorce was not at all simple, as Stepan Arkadyevitch had said, but was utterly impossible. He did not believe a single word Stepan Arkadyevitch said to him to every word he had a thousand objections to make, but he listened to him, feeling that his words were the expression of that mighty brutal force which controlled his life and to which he would have to submit. 'The only question is on what terms you agree to give her a divorce. She does not want anything, does not dare ask you for anything, she leaves it all to your generosity. 'My God, my God! what for? thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, remembering the details of divorce proceedings in which the husband took the blame on himself, and with just the same gesture with which Vronsky had done the same, he hid his face for shame in his hands. 'You are distressed, I understand that. But if you think it over.... 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also and if any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also, thought Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Yes, yes! he cried in a shrill voice. 'I will take the disgrace on myself, I will give up even my son, but ... but wouldn't it be better to let it alone? Still you may do as you like.... And turning away so that his brotherinlaw could not see him, he sat down on a chair at the window. There was bitterness, there was shame in his heart, but with bitterness and shame he felt joy and emotion at the height of his own meekness. Stepan Arkadyevitch was touched. He was silent for a space. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, believe me, she appreciates your generosity, he said. 'But it seems it was the will of God, he added, and as he said it felt how foolish a remark it was, and with difficulty repressed a smile at his own foolishness. Alexey Alexandrovitch would have made some reply, but tears stopped him. 'This is an unhappy fatality, and one must accept it as such. I accept the calamity as an accomplished fact, and am doing my best to help both her and you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. When he went out of his brotherinlaw's room he was touched, but that did not prevent him from being glad he had successfully brought the matter to a conclusion, for he felt certain Alexey Alexandrovitch would not go back on his words. To this satisfaction was added the fact that an idea had just struck him for a riddle turning on his successful achievement, that when the affair was over he would ask his wife and most intimate friends. He put this riddle into two or three different ways. 'But I'll work it out better than that, he said to himself with a smile. Vronsky's wound had been a dangerous one, though it did not touch the heart, and for several days he had lain between life and death. The first time he was able to speak, Varya, his brother's wife, was alone in the room. 'Varya, he said, looking sternly at her, 'I shot myself by accident. And please never speak of it, and tell everyone so. Or else it's too ridiculous. Without answering his words, Varya bent over him, and with a delighted smile gazed into his face. His eyes were clear, not feverish but their expression was stern. 'Thank God! she said. 'You're not in pain? 'A little here. He pointed to his breast. 'Then let me change your bandages. In silence, stiffening his broad jaws, he looked at her while she bandaged him up. When she had finished he said 'I'm not delirious. Please manage that there may be no talk of my having shot myself on purpose. 'No one does say so. Only I hope you won't shoot yourself by accident any more, she said, with a questioning smile. 'Of course I won't, but it would have been better.... And he smiled gloomily. In spite of these words and this smile, which so frightened Varya, when the inflammation was over and he began to recover, he felt that he was completely free from one part of his misery. By his action he had, as it were, washed away the shame and humiliation he had felt before. He could now think calmly of Alexey Alexandrovitch. He recognized all his magnanimity, but he did not now feel himself humiliated by it. Besides, he got back again into the beaten track of his life. He saw the possibility of looking men in the face again without shame, and he could live in accordance with his own habits. One thing he could not pluck out of his heart, though he never ceased struggling with it, was the regret, amounting to despair, that he had lost her forever. That now, having expiated his sin against the husband, he was bound to renounce her, and never in future to stand between her with her repentance and her husband, he had firmly decided in his heart but he could not tear out of his heart his regret at the loss of her love, he could not erase from his memory those moments of happiness that he had so little prized at the time, and that haunted him in all their charm. Serpuhovskoy had planned his appointment at Tashkend, and Vronsky agreed to the proposition without the slightest hesitation. But the nearer the time of departure came, the bitterer was the sacrifice he was making to what he thought his duty. His wound had healed, and he was driving about making preparations for his departure for Tashkend. 'To see her once and then to bury myself, to die, he thought, and as he was paying farewell visits, he uttered this thought to Betsy. Charged with this commission, Betsy had gone to Anna, and brought him back a negative reply. 'So much the better, thought Vronsky, when he received the news. 'It was a weakness, which would have shattered what strength I have left. Next day Betsy herself came to him in the morning, and announced that she had heard through Oblonsky as a positive fact that Alexey Alexandrovitch had agreed to a divorce, and that therefore Vronsky could see Anna. Without even troubling himself to see Betsy out of his flat, forgetting all his resolutions, without asking when he could see her, where her husband was, Vronsky drove straight to the Karenins'. He ran up the stairs seeing no one and nothing, and with a rapid step, almost breaking into a run, he went into her room. And without considering, without noticing whether there was anyone in the room or not, he flung his arms round her, and began to cover her face, her hands, her neck with kisses. Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying anything of it his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing. 'Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours, she said at last, pressing his hands to her bosom. 'So it had to be, he said. 'So long as we live, it must be so. I know it now. 'That's true, she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing his head. 'Still there is something terrible in it after all that has happened. 'It will all pass, it will all pass we shall be so happy. Our love, if it could be stronger, will be strengthened by there being something terrible in it, he said, lifting his head and parting his strong teeth in a smile. And she could not but respond with a smilenot to his words, but to the love in his eyes. She took his hand and stroked her chilled cheeks and cropped head with it. 'I don't know you with this short hair. You've grown so pretty. A boy. But how pale you are! 'Yes, I'm very weak, she said, smiling. And her lips began trembling again. 'We'll go to Italy you will get strong, he said. 'Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, your family with you? she said, looking close into his eyes. 'It only seems strange to me that it can ever have been otherwise. 'Stiva says that he has agreed to everything, but I can't accept his generosity, she said, looking dreamily past Vronsky's face. 'I don't want a divorce it's all the same to me now. Only I don't know what he will decide about Seryozha. He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could remember and think of her son, of divorce. What did it all matter? 'Don't speak of that, don't think of it, he said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to him but still she did not look at him. 'Oh, why didn't I die! it would have been better, she said, and silent tears flowed down both her cheeks but she tried to smile, so as not to wound him. To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would have been, Vronsky had till then considered, disgraceful and impossible. But now, without an instant's consideration, he declined it, and observing dissatisfaction in the most exalted quarters at this step, he immediately retired from the army. A month later Alexey Alexandrovitch was left alone with his son in his house at Petersburg, while Anna and Vronsky had gone abroad, not having obtained a divorce, but having absolutely declined all idea of one. Princess Shtcherbatskaya considered that it was out of the question for the wedding to take place before Lent, just five weeks off, since not half the trousseau could possibly be ready by that time. But she could not but agree with Levin that to fix it for after Lent would be putting it off too late, as an old aunt of Prince Shtcherbatsky's was seriously ill and might die, and then the mourning would delay the wedding still longer. And therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two partsa larger and smaller trousseauthe princess consented to have the wedding before Lent. She determined that she would get the smaller part of the trousseau all ready now, and the larger part should be made later, and she was much vexed with Levin because he was incapable of giving her a serious answer to the question whether he agreed to this arrangement or not. The arrangement was the more suitable as, immediately after the wedding, the young people were to go to the country, where the more important part of the trousseau would not be wanted. Levin still continued in the same delirious condition in which it seemed to him that he and his happiness constituted the chief and sole aim of all existence, and that he need not now think or care about anything, that everything was being done and would be done for him by others. He had not even plans and aims for the future, he left its arrangement to others, knowing that everything would be delightful. His brother Sergey Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, and the princess guided him in doing what he had to do. All he did was to agree entirely with everything suggested to him. His brother raised money for him, the princess advised him to leave Moscow after the wedding. Stepan Arkadyevitch advised him to go abroad. He agreed to everything. 'Do what you choose, if it amuses you. I'm happy, and my happiness can be no greater and no less for anything you do, he thought. When he told Kitty of Stepan Arkadyevitch's advice that they should go abroad, he was much surprised that she did not agree to this, and had some definite requirements of her own in regard to their future. She knew Levin had work he loved in the country. She did not, as he saw, understand this work, she did not even care to understand it. But that did not prevent her from regarding it as a matter of great importance. And then she knew their home would be in the country, and she wanted to go, not abroad where she was not going to live, but to the place where their home would be. This definitely expressed purpose astonished Levin. But since he did not care either way, he immediately asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though it were his duty, to go down to the country and to arrange everything there to the best of his ability with the taste of which he had so much. 'But I say, Stepan Arkadyevitch said to him one day after he had come back from the country, where he had got everything ready for the young people's arrival, 'have you a certificate of having been at confession? 'No. But what of it? 'You can't be married without it. 'Ae, ae, ae! cried Levin. 'Why, I believe it's nine years since I've taken the sacrament! I never thought of it. 'You're a pretty fellow! said Stepan Arkadyevitch laughing, 'and you call me a Nihilist! But this won't do, you know. You must take the sacrament. 'When? There are four days left now. Stepan Arkadyevitch arranged this also, and Levin had to go to confession. To Levin, as to any unbeliever who respects the beliefs of others, it was exceedingly disagreeable to be present at and take part in church ceremonies. At this moment, in his present softened state of feeling, sensitive to everything, this inevitable act of hypocrisy was not merely painful to Levin, it seemed to him utterly impossible. Now, in the heyday of his highest glory, his fullest flower, he would have to be a liar or a scoffer. He felt incapable of being either. But though he repeatedly plied Stepan Arkadyevitch with questions as to the possibility of obtaining a certificate without actually communicating, Stepan Arkadyevitch maintained that it was out of the question. 'Besides, what is it to youtwo days? And he's an awfully nice clever old fellow. He'll pull the tooth out for you so gently, you won't notice it. Standing at the first litany, Levin attempted to revive in himself his youthful recollections of the intense religious emotion he had passed through between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. But he was at once convinced that it was utterly impossible to him. He attempted to look at it all as an empty custom, having no sort of meaning, like the custom of paying calls. But he felt that he could not do that either. Levin found himself, like the majority of his contemporaries, in the vaguest position in regard to religion. Believe he could not, and at the same time he had no firm conviction that it was all wrong. And consequently, not being able to believe in the significance of what he was doing nor to regard it with indifference as an empty formality, during the whole period of preparing for the sacrament he was conscious of a feeling of discomfort and shame at doing what he did not himself understand, and what, as an inner voice told him, was therefore false and wrong. During the service he would first listen to the prayers, trying to attach some meaning to them not discordant with his own views then feeling that he could not understand and must condemn them, he tried not to listen to them, but to attend to the thoughts, observations, and memories which floated through his brain with extreme vividness during this idle time of standing in church. He had stood through the litany, the evening service and the midnight service, and the next day he got up earlier than usual, and without having tea went at eight o'clock in the morning to the church for the morning service and the confession. There was no one in the church but a beggar soldier, two old women, and the church officials. A young deacon, whose long back showed in two distinct halves through his thin undercassock, met him, and at once going to a little table at the wall read the exhortation. During the reading, especially at the frequent and rapid repetition of the same words, 'Lord, have mercy on us! which resounded with an echo, Levin felt that thought was shut and sealed up, and that it must not be touched or stirred now or confusion would be the result and so standing behind the deacon he went on thinking of his own affairs, neither listening nor examining what was said. 'It's wonderful what expression there is in her hand, he thought, remembering how they had been sitting the day before at a corner table. They had nothing to talk about, as was almost always the case at this time, and laying her hand on the table she kept opening and shutting it, and laughed herself as she watched her action. He remembered how he had kissed it and then had examined the lines on the pink palm. 'Have mercy on us again! thought Levin, crossing himself, bowing, and looking at the supple spring of the deacon's back bowing before him. 'She took my hand then and examined the lines. 'You've got a splendid hand,' she said. And he looked at his own hand and the short hand of the deacon. 'Yes, now it will soon be over, he thought. 'No, it seems to be beginning again, he thought, listening to the prayers. 'No, it's just ending there he is bowing down to the ground. That's always at the end. The deacon's hand in a plush cuff accepted a threerouble note unobtrusively, and the deacon said he would put it down in the register, and his new boots creaking jauntily over the flagstones of the empty church, he went to the altar. A moment later he peeped out thence and beckoned to Levin. Thought, till then locked up, began to stir in Levin's head, but he made haste to drive it away. 'It will come right somehow, he thought, and went towards the altarrails. He went up the steps, and turning to the right saw the priest. The priest, a little old man with a scanty grizzled beard and weary, goodnatured eyes, was standing at the altarrails, turning over the pages of a missal. With a slight bow to Levin he began immediately reading prayers in the official voice. When he had finished them he bowed down to the ground and turned, facing Levin. 'Christ is present here unseen, receiving your confession, he said, pointing to the crucifix. 'Do you believe in all the doctrines of the Holy Apostolic Church? the priest went on, turning his eyes away from Levin's face and folding his hands under his stole. 'I have doubted, I doubt everything, said Levin in a voice that jarred on himself, and he ceased speaking. The priest waited a few seconds to see if he would not say more, and closing his eyes he said quickly, with a broad, Vladimirsky accent 'Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind, but we must pray that God in His mercy will strengthen us. What are your special sins? he added, without the slightest interval, as though anxious not to waste time. 'My chief sin is doubt. I have doubts of everything, and for the most part I am in doubt. 'Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind, the priest repeated the same words. 'What do you doubt about principally? 'I doubt of everything. I sometimes even have doubts of the existence of God, Levin could not help saying, and he was horrified at the impropriety of what he was saying. But Levin's words did not, it seemed, make much impression on the priest. 'What sort of doubt can there be of the existence of God? he said hurriedly, with a just perceptible smile. Levin did not speak. 'What doubt can you have of the Creator when you behold His creation? the priest went on in the rapid customary jargon. 'Who has decked the heavenly firmament with its lights? Who has clothed the earth in its beauty? How explain it without the Creator? he said, looking inquiringly at Levin. Levin felt that it would be improper to enter upon a metaphysical discussion with the priest, and so he said in reply merely what was a direct answer to the question. 'I don't know, he said. 'You don't know! Then how can you doubt that God created all? the priest said, with goodhumored perplexity. 'I don't understand it at all, said Levin, blushing, and feeling that his words were stupid, and that they could not be anything but stupid in such a position. 'Pray to God and beseech Him. Even the holy fathers had doubts, and prayed to God to strengthen their faith. The devil has great power, and we must resist him. Pray to God, beseech Him. Pray to God, he repeated hurriedly. The priest paused for some time, as though meditating. 'You're about, I hear, to marry the daughter of my parishioner and son in the spirit, Prince Shtcherbatsky? he resumed, with a smile. 'An excellent young lady. 'Yes, answered Levin, blushing for the priest. 'What does he want to ask me about this at confession for? he thought. And, as though answering his thought, the priest said to him 'You are about to enter into holy matrimony, and God may bless you with offspring. Well, what sort of bringingup can you give your babes if you do not overcome the temptation of the devil, enticing you to infidelity? he said, with gentle reproachfulness. 'If you love your child as a good father, you will not desire only wealth, luxury, honor for your infant you will be anxious for his salvation, his spiritual enlightenment with the light of truth. Eh? What answer will you make him when the innocent babe asks you 'Papa! who made all that enchants me in this worldthe earth, the waters, the sun, the flowers, the grass?' Can you say to him 'I don't know'? You cannot but know, since the Lord God in His infinite mercy has revealed it to us. Or your child will ask you 'What awaits me in the life beyond the tomb?' What will you say to him when you know nothing? How will you answer him? Will you leave him to the allurements of the world and the devil? That's not right, he said, and he stopped, putting his head on one side and looking at Levin with his kindly, gentle eyes. Levin made no answer this time, not because he did not want to enter upon a discussion with the priest, but because, so far, no one had ever asked him such questions, and when his babes did ask him those questions, it would be time enough to think about answering them. 'You are entering upon a time of life, pursued the priest, 'when you must choose your path and keep to it. Pray to God that He may in His mercy aid you and have mercy on you! he concluded. 'Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, in the abundance and riches of His lovingkindness, forgives this child.... and, finishing the prayer of absolution, the priest blessed him and dismissed him. On getting home that day, Levin had a delightful sense of relief at the awkward position being over and having been got through without his having to tell a lie. Apart from this, there remained a vague memory that what the kind, nice old fellow had said had not been at all so stupid as he had fancied at first, and that there was something in it that must be cleared up. 'Of course, not now, thought Levin, 'but some day later on. Levin felt more than ever now that there was something not clear and not clean in his soul, and that, in regard to religion, he was in the same position which he perceived so clearly and disliked in others, and for which he blamed his friend Sviazhsky. Levin spent that evening with his betrothed at Dolly's, and was in very high spirits. To explain to Stepan Arkadyevitch the state of excitement in which he found himself, he said that he was happy like a dog being trained to jump through a hoop, who, having at last caught the idea, and done what was required of him, whines and wags its tail, and jumps up to the table and the windows in its delight. On the day of the wedding, according to the Russian custom (the princess and Darya Alexandrovna insisted on strictly keeping all the customs), Levin did not see his betrothed, and dined at his hotel with three bachelor friends, casually brought together at his rooms. These were Sergey Ivanovitch, Katavasov, a university friend, now professor of natural science, whom Levin had met in the street and insisted on taking home with him, and Tchirikov, his best man, a Moscow conciliationboard judge, Levin's companion in his bearhunts. The dinner was a very merry one Sergey Ivanovitch was in his happiest mood, and was much amused by Katavasov's originality. Katavasov, feeling his originality was appreciated and understood, made the most of it. Tchirikov always gave a lively and goodhumored support to conversation of any sort. 'See, now, said Katavasov, drawling his words from a habit acquired in the lectureroom, 'what a capable fellow was our friend Konstantin Dmitrievitch. I'm not speaking of present company, for he's absent. At the time he left the university he was fond of science, took an interest in humanity now onehalf of his abilities is devoted to deceiving himself, and the other to justifying the deceit. 'A more determined enemy of matrimony than you I never saw, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Oh, no, I'm not an enemy of matrimony. I'm in favor of division of labor. People who can do nothing else ought to rear people while the rest work for their happiness and enlightenment. That's how I look at it. To muddle up two trades is the error of the amateur I'm not one of their number. 'How happy I shall be when I hear that you're in love! said Levin. 'Please invite me to the wedding. 'I'm in love now. 'Yes, with a cuttlefish! You know, Levin turned to his brother, 'Mihail Semyonovitch is writing a work on the digestive organs of the.... 'Now, make a muddle of it! It doesn't matter what about. And the fact is, I certainly do love cuttlefish. 'But that's no hindrance to your loving your wife. 'The cuttlefish is no hindrance. The wife is the hindrance. 'Why so? 'Oh, you'll see! You care about farming, hunting,well, you'd better look out! 'Arhip was here today he said there were a lot of elks in Prudno, and two bears, said Tchirikov. 'Well, you must go and get them without me. 'Ah, that's the truth, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'And you may say goodbye to bearhunting for the futureyour wife won't allow it! Levin smiled. The picture of his wife not letting him go was so pleasant that he was ready to renounce the delights of looking upon bears forever. 'Still, it's a pity they should get those two bears without you. Do you remember last time at Hapilovo? That was a delightful hunt! said Tchirikov. Levin had not the heart to disillusion him of the notion that there could be something delightful apart from her, and so said nothing. 'There's some sense in this custom of saying goodbye to bachelor life, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'However happy you may be, you must regret your freedom. 'And confess there is a feeling that you want to jump out of the window, like Gogol's bridegroom? 'Of course there is, but it isn't confessed, said Katavasov, and he broke into loud laughter. 'Oh, well, the window's open. Let's start off this instant to Tver! There's a big shebear one can go right up to the lair. Seriously, let's go by the five o'clock! And here let them do what they like, said Tchirikov, smiling. 'Well, now, on my honor, said Levin, smiling, 'I can't find in my heart that feeling of regret for my freedom. 'Yes, there's such a chaos in your heart just now that you can't find anything there, said Katavasov. 'Wait a bit, when you set it to rights a little, you'll find it! 'No if so, I should have felt a little, apart from my feeling (he could not say love before them) 'and happiness, a certain regret at losing my freedom.... On the contrary, I am glad at the very loss of my freedom. 'Awful! It's a hopeless case! said Katavasov. 'Well, let's drink to his recovery, or wish that a hundredth part of his dreams may be realizedand that would be happiness such as never has been seen on earth! Soon after dinner the guests went away to be in time to be dressed for the wedding. When he was left alone, and recalled the conversation of these bachelor friends, Levin asked himself had he in his heart that regret for his freedom of which they had spoken? He smiled at the question. 'Freedom! What is freedom for? Happiness is only in loving and wishing her wishes, thinking her thoughts, that is to say, not freedom at allthat's happiness! 'But do I know her ideas, her wishes, her feelings? some voice suddenly whispered to him. The smile died away from his face, and he grew thoughtful. And suddenly a strange feeling came upon him. There came over him a dread and doubtdoubt of everything. 'What if she does not love me? What if she's marrying me simply to be married? What if she doesn't see herself what she's doing? he asked himself. 'She may come to her senses, and only when she is being married realize that she does not and cannot love me. And strange, most evil thoughts of her began to come to him. He was jealous of Vronsky, as he had been a year ago, as though the evening he had seen her with Vronsky had been yesterday. He suspected she had not told him everything. He jumped up quickly. 'No, this can't go on! he said to himself in despair. 'I'll go to her I'll ask her I'll say for the last time we are free, and hadn't we better stay so? Anything's better than endless misery, disgrace, unfaithfulness! With despair in his heart and bitter anger against all men, against himself, against her, he went out of the hotel and drove to her house. He found her in one of the back rooms. She was sitting on a chest and making some arrangements with her maid, sorting over heaps of dresses of different colors, spread on the backs of chairs and on the floor. 'Ah! she cried, seeing him, and beaming with delight. 'Kostya! Konstantin Dmitrievitch! (These latter days she used these names almost alternately.) 'I didn't expect you! I'm going through my wardrobe to see what's for whom.... 'Oh! that's very nice! he said gloomily, looking at the maid. 'You can go, Dunyasha, I'll call you presently, said Kitty. 'Kostya, what's the matter? she asked, definitely adopting this familiar name as soon as the maid had gone out. She noticed his strange face, agitated and gloomy, and a panic came over her. 'Kitty! I'm in torture. I can't suffer alone, he said with despair in his voice, standing before her and looking imploringly into her eyes. He saw already from her loving, truthful face, that nothing could come of what he had meant to say, but yet he wanted her to reassure him herself. 'I've come to say that there's still time. This can all be stopped and set right. 'What? I don't understand. What is the matter? 'What I have said a thousand times over, and can't help thinking ... that I'm not worthy of you. You couldn't consent to marry me. Think a little. You've made a mistake. Think it over thoroughly. You can't love me.... If ... better say so, he said, not looking at her. 'I shall be wretched. Let people say what they like anything's better than misery.... Far better now while there's still time.... 'I don't understand, she answered, panicstricken 'you mean you want to give it up ... don't want it? 'Yes, if you don't love me. 'You're out of your mind! she cried, turning crimson with vexation. But his face was so piteous, that she restrained her vexation, and flinging some clothes off an armchair, she sat down beside him. 'What are you thinking? tell me all. 'I am thinking you can't love me. What can you love me for? 'My God! what can I do?... she said, and burst into tears. 'Oh! what have I done? he cried, and kneeling before her, he fell to kissing her hands. When the princess came into the room five minutes later, she found them completely reconciled. Kitty had not simply assured him that she loved him, but had gone so farin answer to his question, what she loved him foras to explain what for. She told him that she loved him because she understood him completely, because she knew what he would like, and because everything he liked was good. And this seemed to him perfectly clear. When the princess came to them, they were sitting side by side on the chest, sorting the dresses and disputing over Kitty's wanting to give Dunyasha the brown dress she had been wearing when Levin proposed to her, while he insisted that that dress must never be given away, but Dunyasha must have the blue one. 'How is it you don't see? She's a brunette, and it won't suit her.... I've worked it all out. Hearing why he had come, the princess was half humorously, half seriously angry with him, and sent him home to dress and not to hinder Kitty's hairdressing, as Charles the hairdresser was just coming. 'As it is, she's been eating nothing lately and is losing her looks, and then you must come and upset her with your nonsense, she said to him. 'Get along with you, my dear! Levin, guilty and shamefaced, but pacified, went back to his hotel. His brother, Darya Alexandrovna, and Stepan Arkadyevitch, all in full dress, were waiting for him to bless him with the holy picture. There was no time to lose. Darya Alexandrovna had to drive home again to fetch her curled and pomaded son, who was to carry the holy pictures after the bride. Then a carriage had to be sent for the best man, and another that would take Sergey Ivanovitch away would have to be sent back.... Altogether there were a great many most complicated matters to be considered and arranged. One thing was unmistakable, that there must be no delay, as it was already halfpast six. Nothing special happened at the ceremony of benediction with the holy picture. Stepan Arkadyevitch stood in a comically solemn pose beside his wife, took the holy picture, and telling Levin to bow down to the ground, he blessed him with his kindly, ironical smile, and kissed him three times Darya Alexandrovna did the same, and immediately was in a hurry to get off, and again plunged into the intricate question of the destinations of the various carriages. 'Come, I'll tell you how we'll manage you drive in our carriage to fetch him, and Sergey Ivanovitch, if he'll be so good, will drive there and then send his carriage. 'Of course I shall be delighted. 'We'll come on directly with him. Are your things sent off? said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Yes, answered Levin, and he told Kouzma to put out his clothes for him to dress. A crowd of people, principally women, was thronging round the church lighted up for the wedding. Those who had not succeeded in getting into the main entrance were crowding about the windows, pushing, wrangling, and peeping through the gratings. More than twenty carriages had already been drawn up in ranks along the street by the police. A police officer, regardless of the frost, stood at the entrance, gorgeous in his uniform. More carriages were continually driving up, and ladies wearing flowers and carrying their trains, and men taking off their helmets or black hats kept walking into the church. Inside the church both lusters were already lighted, and all the candles before the holy pictures. The gilt on the red ground of the holy picturestand, and the gilt relief on the pictures, and the silver of the lusters and candlesticks, and the stones of the floor, and the rugs, and the banners above in the choir, and the steps of the altar, and the old blackened books, and the cassocks and surplicesall were flooded with light. On the right side of the warm church, in the crowd of frock coats and white ties, uniforms and broadcloth, velvet, satin, hair and flowers, bare shoulders and arms and long gloves, there was discreet but lively conversation that echoed strangely in the high cupola. Every time there was heard the creak of the opened door the conversation in the crowd died away, and everybody looked round expecting to see the bride and bridegroom come in. But the door had opened more than ten times, and each time it was either a belated guest or guests, who joined the circle of the invited on the right, or a spectator, who had eluded or softened the police officer, and went to join the crowd of outsiders on the left. Both the guests and the outside public had by now passed through all the phases of anticipation. At first they imagined that the bride and bridegroom would arrive immediately, and attached no importance at all to their being late. Then they began to look more and more often towards the door, and to talk of whether anything could have happened. Then the long delay began to be positively discomforting, and relations and guests tried to look as if they were not thinking of the bridegroom but were engrossed in conversation. The head deacon, as though to remind them of the value of his time, coughed impatiently, making the windowpanes quiver in their frames. In the choir the bored choristers could be heard trying their voices and blowing their noses. The priest was continually sending first the beadle and then the deacon to find out whether the bridegroom had not come, more and more often he went himself, in a lilac vestment and an embroidered sash, to the side door, expecting to see the bridegroom. At last one of the ladies, glancing at her watch, said, 'It really is strange, though! and all the guests became uneasy and began loudly expressing their wonder and dissatisfaction. One of the bridegroom's best men went to find out what had happened. Kitty meanwhile had long ago been quite ready, and in her white dress and long veil and wreath of orange blossoms she was standing in the drawingroom of the Shtcherbatskys' house with her sister, Madame Lvova, who was her bridalmother. She was looking out of the window, and had been for over half an hour anxiously expecting to hear from the best man that her bridegroom was at the church. Levin meanwhile, in his trousers, but without his coat and waistcoat, was walking to and fro in his room at the hotel, continually putting his head out of the door and looking up and down the corridor. But in the corridor there was no sign of the person he was looking for and he came back in despair, and frantically waving his hands addressed Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was smoking serenely. 'Was ever a man in such a fearful fool's position? he said. 'Yes, it is stupid, Stepan Arkadyevitch assented, smiling soothingly. 'But don't worry, it'll be brought directly. 'No, what is to be done! said Levin, with smothered fury. 'And these fools of open waistcoats! Out of the question! he said, looking at the crumpled front of his shirt. 'And what if the things have been taken on to the railway station! he roared in desperation. 'Then you must put on mine. 'I ought to have done so long ago, if at all. 'It's not nice to look ridiculous.... Wait a bit! it will come round. The point was that when Levin asked for his evening suit, Kouzma, his old servant, had brought him the coat, waistcoat, and everything that was wanted. 'But the shirt! cried Levin. 'You've got a shirt on, Kouzma answered, with a placid smile. Kouzma had not thought of leaving out a clean shirt, and on receiving instructions to pack up everything and send it round to the Shtcherbatskys' house, from which the young people were to set out the same evening, he had done so, packing everything but the dress suit. The shirt worn since the morning was crumpled and out of the question with the fashionable open waistcoat. It was a long way to send to the Shtcherbatskys'. They sent out to buy a shirt. The servant came back everything was shut upit was Sunday. They sent to Stepan Arkadyevitch's and brought a shirtit was impossibly wide and short. They sent finally to the Shtcherbatskys' to unpack the things. The bridegroom was expected at the church while he was pacing up and down his room like a wild beast in a cage, peeping out into the corridor, and with horror and despair recalling what absurd things he had said to Kitty and what she might be thinking now. At last the guilty Kouzma flew panting into the room with the shirt. 'Only just in time. They were just lifting it into the van, said Kouzma. Three minutes later Levin ran full speed into the corridor, not looking at his watch for fear of aggravating his sufferings. 'You won't help matters like this, said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a smile, hurrying with more deliberation after him. 'It will come round, it will come round ... I tell you. 'They've come! 'Here he is! 'Which one? 'Rather young, eh? 'Why, my dear soul, she looks more dead than alive! were the comments in the crowd, when Levin, meeting his bride in the entrance, walked with her into the church. Stepan Arkadyevitch told his wife the cause of the delay, and the guests were whispering it with smiles to one another. Levin saw nothing and no one he did not take his eyes off his bride. Everyone said she had lost her looks dreadfully of late, and was not nearly so pretty on her wedding day as usual but Levin did not think so. He looked at her hair done up high, with the long white veil and white flowers and the high, standup, scalloped collar, that in such a maidenly fashion hid her long neck at the sides and only showed it in front, her strikingly slender figure, and it seemed to him that she looked better than evernot because these flowers, this veil, this gown from Paris added anything to her beauty but because, in spite of the elaborate sumptuousness of her attire, the expression of her sweet face, of her eyes, of her lips was still her own characteristic expression of guileless truthfulness. 'I was beginning to think you meant to run away, she said, and smiled to him. 'It's so stupid, what happened to me, I'm ashamed to speak of it! he said, reddening, and he was obliged to turn to Sergey Ivanovitch, who came up to him. 'This is a pretty story of yours about the shirt! said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head and smiling. 'Yes, yes! answered Levin, without an idea of what they were talking about. 'Now, Kostya, you have to decide, said Stepan Arkadyevitch with an air of mock dismay, 'a weighty question. You are at this moment just in the humor to appreciate all its gravity. They ask me, are they to light the candles that have been lighted before or candles that have never been lighted? It's a matter of ten roubles, he added, relaxing his lips into a smile. 'I have decided, but I was afraid you might not agree. Levin saw it was a joke, but he could not smile. 'Well, how's it to be then?unlighted or lighted candles? that's the question. 'Yes, yes, unlighted. 'Oh, I'm very glad. The question's decided! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. 'How silly men are, though, in this position, he said to Tchirikov, when Levin, after looking absently at him, had moved back to his bride. 'Kitty, mind you're the first to step on the carpet, said Countess Nordston, coming up. 'You're a nice person! she said to Levin. 'Aren't you frightened, eh? said Marya Dmitrievna, an old aunt. 'Are you cold? You're pale. Stop a minute, stoop down, said Kitty's sister, Madame Lvova, and with her plump, handsome arms she smilingly set straight the flowers on her head. Dolly came up, tried to say something, but could not speak, cried, and then laughed unnaturally. Kitty looked at all of them with the same absent eyes as Levin. Meanwhile the officiating clergy had got into their vestments, and the priest and deacon came out to the lectern, which stood in the forepart of the church. The priest turned to Levin saying something. Levin did not hear what the priest said. 'Take the bride's hand and lead her up, the best man said to Levin. It was a long while before Levin could make out what was expected of him. For a long time they tried to set him right and made him begin againbecause he kept taking Kitty by the wrong arm or with the wrong armtill he understood at last that what he had to do was, without changing his position, to take her right hand in his right hand. When at last he had taken the bride's hand in the correct way, the priest walked a few paces in front of them and stopped at the lectern. The crowd of friends and relations moved after them, with a buzz of talk and a rustle of skirts. Someone stooped down and pulled out the bride's train. The church became so still that the drops of wax could be heard falling from the candles. The little old priest in his ecclesiastical cap, with his long silverygray locks of hair parted behind his ears, was fumbling with something at the lectern, putting out his little old hands from under the heavy silver vestment with the gold cross on the back of it. Stepan Arkadyevitch approached him cautiously, whispered something, and making a sign to Levin, walked back again. The priest lighted two candles, wreathed with flowers, and holding them sideways so that the wax dropped slowly from them he turned, facing the bridal pair. The priest was the same old man that had confessed Levin. He looked with weary and melancholy eyes at the bride and bridegroom, sighed, and putting his right hand out from his vestment, blessed the bridegroom with it, and also with a shade of solicitous tenderness laid the crossed fingers on the bowed head of Kitty. Then he gave them the candles, and taking the censer, moved slowly away from them. 'Can it be true? thought Levin, and he looked round at his bride. Looking down at her he saw her face in profile, and from the scarcely perceptible quiver of her lips and eyelashes he knew she was aware of his eyes upon her. She did not look round, but the high scalloped collar, that reached her little pink ear, trembled faintly. He saw that a sigh was held back in her throat, and the little hand in the long glove shook as it held the candle. All the fuss of the shirt, of being late, all the talk of friends and relations, their annoyance, his ludicrous positionall suddenly passed away and he was filled with joy and dread. The handsome, stately headdeacon wearing a silver robe and his curly locks standing out at each side of his head, stepped smartly forward, and lifting his stole on two fingers, stood opposite the priest. 'Blessed be the name of the Lord, the solemn syllables rang out slowly one after another, setting the air quivering with waves of sound. 'Blessed is the name of our God, from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, the little old priest answered in a submissive, piping voice, still fingering something at the lectern. And the full chorus of the unseen choir rose up, filling the whole church, from the windows to the vaulted roof, with broad waves of melody. It grew stronger, rested for an instant, and slowly died away. They prayed, as they always do, for peace from on high and for salvation, for the Holy Synod, and for the Tsar they prayed, too, for the servants of God, Konstantin and Ekaterina, now plighting their troth. 'Vouchsafe to them love made perfect, peace and help, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the whole church seemed to breathe with the voice of the head deacon. Levin heard the words, and they impressed him. 'How did they guess that it is help, just help that one wants? he thought, recalling all his fears and doubts of late. 'What do I know? what can I do in this fearful business, he thought, 'without help? Yes, it is help I want now. When the deacon had finished the prayer for the Imperial family, the priest turned to the bridal pair with a book 'Eternal God, that joinest together in love them that were separate, he read in a gentle, piping voice 'who hast ordained the union of holy wedlock that cannot be set asunder, Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and their descendants, according to Thy Holy Covenant bless Thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina, leading them in the path of all good works. For gracious and merciful art Thou, our Lord, and glory be to Thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and ever shall be. 'Amen! the unseen choir sent rolling again upon the air. ''Joinest together in love them that were separate.' What deep meaning in those words, and how they correspond with what one feels at this moment, thought Levin. 'Is she feeling the same as I? And looking round, he met her eyes, and from their expression he concluded that she was understanding it just as he was. But this was a mistake she almost completely missed the meaning of the words of the service she had not heard them, in fact. She could not listen to them and take them in, so strong was the one feeling that filled her breast and grew stronger and stronger. That feeling was joy at the completion of the process that for the last month and a half had been going on in her soul, and had during those six weeks been a joy and a torture to her. On the day when in the drawingroom of the house in Arbaty Street she had gone up to him in her brown dress, and given herself to him without a wordon that day, at that hour, there took place in her heart a complete severance from all her old life, and a quite different, new, utterly strange life had begun for her, while the old life was actually going on as before. Those six weeks had for her been a time of the utmost bliss and the utmost misery. All her life, all her desires and hopes were concentrated on this one man, still uncomprehended by her, to whom she was bound by a feeling of alternate attraction and repulsion, even less comprehended than the man himself, and all the while she was going on living in the outward conditions of her old life. Living the old life, she was horrified at herself, at her utter insurmountable callousness to all her own past, to things, to habits, to the people she had loved, who loved herto her mother, who was wounded by her indifference, to her kind, tender father, till then dearer than all the world. At one moment she was horrified at this indifference, at another she rejoiced at what had brought her to this indifference. She could not frame a thought, not a wish apart from life with this man but this new life was not yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was only anticipation, the dread and joy of the new and the unknown. And now beholdanticipation and uncertainty and remorse at the abandonment of the old lifeall was ending, and the new was beginning. This new life could not but have terrors for her inexperience but, terrible or not, the change had been wrought six weeks before in her soul, and this was merely the final sanction of what had long been completed in her heart. Turning again to the lectern, the priest with some difficulty took Kitty's little ring, and asking Levin for his hand, put it on the first joint of his finger. 'The servant of God, Konstantin, plights his troth to the servant of God, Ekaterina. And putting his big ring on Kitty's touchingly weak, pink little finger, the priest said the same thing. And the bridal pair tried several times to understand what they had to do, and each time made some mistake and were corrected by the priest in a whisper. At last, having duly performed the ceremony, having signed the rings with the cross, the priest handed Kitty the big ring, and Levin the little one. Again they were puzzled, and passed the rings from hand to hand, still without doing what was expected. Dolly, Tchirikov, and Stepan Arkadyevitch stepped forward to set them right. There was an interval of hesitation, whispering, and smiles but the expression of solemn emotion on the faces of the betrothed pair did not change on the contrary, in their perplexity over their hands they looked more grave and deeply moved than before, and the smile with which Stepan Arkadyevitch whispered to them that now they would each put on their own ring died away on his lips. He had a feeling that any smile would jar on them. 'Thou who didst from the beginning create male and female, the priest read after the exchange of rings, 'from Thee woman was given to man to be a helpmeet to him, and for the procreation of children. O Lord, our God, who hast poured down the blessings of Thy Truth according to Thy Holy Covenant upon Thy chosen servants, our fathers, from generation to generation, bless Thy servants Konstantin and Ekaterina, and make their troth fast in faith, and union of hearts, and truth, and love.... Levin felt more and more that all his ideas of marriage, all his dreams of how he would order his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood hitherto, and now understood less than ever, though it was being performed upon him. The lump in his throat rose higher and higher, tears that would not be checked came into his eyes. In the church there was all Moscow, all the friends and relations and during the ceremony of plighting troth, in the brilliantly lighted church, there was an incessant flow of discreetly subdued talk in the circle of gaily dressed women and girls, and men in white ties, frockcoats, and uniforms. The talk was principally kept up by the men, while the women were absorbed in watching every detail of the ceremony, which always means so much to them. In the little group nearest to the bride were her two sisters Dolly, and the other one, the selfpossessed beauty, Madame Lvova, who had just arrived from abroad. 'Why is it Marie's in lilac, as bad as black, at a wedding? said Madame Korsunskaya. 'With her complexion, it's the one salvation, responded Madame Trubetskaya. 'I wonder why they had the wedding in the evening? It's like shoppeople.... 'So much prettier. I was married in the evening too.... answered Madame Korsunskaya, and she sighed, remembering how charming she had been that day, and how absurdly in love her husband was, and how different it all was now. 'They say if anyone's best man more than ten times, he'll never be married. I wanted to be for the tenth time, but the post was taken, said Count Siniavin to the pretty Princess Tcharskaya, who had designs on him. Princess Tcharskaya only answered with a smile. She looked at Kitty, thinking how and when she would stand with Count Siniavin in Kitty's place, and how she would remind him then of his joke today. Shtcherbatsky told the old maid of honor, Madame Nikolaeva, that he meant to put the crown on Kitty's chignon for luck. 'She ought not to have worn a chignon, answered Madame Nikolaeva, who had long ago made up her mind that if the elderly widower she was angling for married her, the wedding should be of the simplest. 'I don't like such grandeur. Sergey Ivanovitch was talking to Darya Dmitrievna, jestingly assuring her that the custom of going away after the wedding was becoming common because newly married people always felt a little ashamed of themselves. 'Your brother may feel proud of himself. She's a marvel of sweetness. I believe you're envious. 'Oh, I've got over that, Darya Dmitrievna, he answered, and a melancholy and serious expression suddenly came over his face. Stepan Arkadyevitch was telling his sisterinlaw his joke about divorce. 'The wreath wants setting straight, she answered, not hearing him. 'What a pity she's lost her looks so, Countess Nordston said to Madame Lvova. 'Still he's not worth her little finger, is he? 'Oh, I like him sonot because he's my future beaufrre, answered Madame Lvova. 'And how well he's behaving! It's so difficult, too, to look well in such a position, not to be ridiculous. And he's not ridiculous, and not affected one can see he's moved. 'You expected it, I suppose? 'Almost. She always cared for him. 'Well, we shall see which of them will step on the rug first. I warned Kitty. 'It will make no difference, said Madame Lvova 'we're all obedient wives it's in our family. 'Oh, I stepped on the rug before Vassily on purpose. And you, Dolly? Dolly stood beside them she heard them, but she did not answer. She was deeply moved. The tears stood in her eyes, and she could not have spoken without crying. She was rejoicing over Kitty and Levin going back in thought to her own wedding, she glanced at the radiant figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgot all the present, and remembered only her own innocent love. She recalled not herself only, but all her womenfriends and acquaintances. She thought of them on the one day of their triumph, when they had stood like Kitty under the wedding crown, with love and hope and dread in their hearts, renouncing the past, and stepping forward into the mysterious future. Among the brides that came back to her memory, she thought too of her darling Anna, of whose proposed divorce she had just been hearing. And she had stood just as innocent in orange flowers and bridal veil. And now? 'It's terribly strange, she said to herself. It was not merely the sisters, the womenfriends and female relations of the bride who were following every detail of the ceremony. Women who were quite strangers, mere spectators, were watching it excitedly, holding their breath, in fear of losing a single movement or expression of the bride and bridegroom, and angrily not answering, often not hearing, the remarks of the callous men, who kept making joking or irrelevant observations. 'Why has she been crying? Is she being married against her will? 'Against her will to a fine fellow like that? A prince, isn't he? 'Is that her sister in the white satin? Just listen how the deacon booms out, 'And fearing her husband.' 'Are the choristers from Tchudovo? 'No, from the Synod. 'I asked the footman. He says he's going to take her home to his country place at once. Awfully rich, they say. That's why she's being married to him. 'No, they're a wellmatched pair. 'I say, Marya Vassilievna, you were making out those flyaway crinolines were not being worn. Just look at her in the puce dressan ambassador's wife they say she ishow her skirt bounces out from side to side! 'What a pretty dear the bride islike a lamb decked with flowers! Well, say what you will, we women feel for our sister. Such were the comments in the crowd of gazing women who had succeeded in slipping in at the church doors. When the ceremony of plighting troth was over, the beadle spread before the lectern in the middle of the church a piece of pink silken stuff, the choir sang a complicated and elaborate psalm, in which the bass and tenor sang responses to one another, and the priest turning round pointed the bridal pair to the pink silk rug. Though both had often heard a great deal about the saying that the one who steps first on the rug will be the head of the house, neither Levin nor Kitty were capable of recollecting it, as they took the few steps towards it. They did not hear the loud remarks and disputes that followed, some maintaining he had stepped on first, and others that both had stepped on together. After the customary questions, whether they desired to enter upon matrimony, and whether they were pledged to anyone else, and their answers, which sounded strange to themselves, a new ceremony began. Kitty listened to the words of the prayer, trying to make out their meaning, but she could not. The feeling of triumph and radiant happiness flooded her soul more and more as the ceremony went on, and deprived her of all power of attention. They prayed 'Endow them with continence and fruitfulness, and vouchsafe that their hearts may rejoice looking upon their sons and daughters. They alluded to God's creation of a wife from Adam's rib 'and for this cause a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh, and that 'this is a great mystery they prayed that God would make them fruitful and bless them, like Isaac and Rebecca, Joseph, Moses and Zipporah, and that they might look upon their children's children. 'That's all splendid, thought Kitty, catching the words, 'all that's just as it should be, and a smile of happiness, unconsciously reflected in everyone who looked at her, beamed on her radiant face. 'Put it on quite, voices were heard urging when the priest had put on the wedding crowns and Shtcherbatsky, his hand shaking in its threebutton glove, held the crown high above her head. 'Put it on! she whispered, smiling. Levin looked round at her, and was struck by the joyful radiance on her face, and unconsciously her feeling infected him. He too, like her felt glad and happy. They enjoyed hearing the epistle read, and the roll of the head deacon's voice at the last verse, awaited with such impatience by the outside public. They enjoyed drinking out of the shallow cup of warm red wine and water, and they were still more pleased when the priest, flinging back his stole and taking both their hands in his, led them round the lectern to the accompaniment of bass voices chanting 'Glory to God. Shtcherbatsky and Tchirikov, supporting the crowns and stumbling over the bride's train, smiling too and seeming delighted at something, were at one moment left behind, at the next treading on the bridal pair as the priest came to a halt. The spark of joy kindled in Kitty seemed to have infected everyone in the church. It seemed to Levin that the priest and the deacon too wanted to smile just as he did. Taking the crowns off their heads the priest read the last prayer and congratulated the young people. Levin looked at Kitty, and he had never before seen her look as she did. She was charming with the new radiance of happiness in her face. Levin longed to say something to her, but he did not know whether it was all over. The priest got him out of his difficulty. He smiled his kindly smile and said gently, 'Kiss your wife, and you kiss your husband, and took the candles out of their hands. Levin kissed her smiling lips with timid care, gave her his arm, and with a new strange sense of closeness, walked out of the church. He did not believe, he could not believe, that it was true. It was only when their wondering and timid eyes met that he believed in it, because he felt that they were one. After supper, the same night, the young people left for the country. Vronsky and Anna had been traveling for three months together in Europe. They had visited Venice, Rome, and Naples, and had just arrived at a small Italian town where they meant to stay some time. A handsome head waiter, with thick pomaded hair parted from the neck upwards, an evening coat, a broad white cambric shirt front, and a bunch of trinkets hanging above his rounded stomach, stood with his hands in the full curve of his pockets, looking contemptuously from under his eyelids while he gave some frigid reply to a gentleman who had stopped him. Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the entry towards the staircase, the head waiter turned round, and seeing the Russian count, who had taken their best rooms, he took his hands out of his pockets deferentially, and with a bow informed him that a courier had been, and that the business about the palazzo had been arranged. The steward was prepared to sign the agreement. 'Ah! I'm glad to hear it, said Vronsky. 'Is madame at home or not? 'Madame has been out for a walk but has returned now, answered the waiter. Vronsky took off his soft, widebrimmed hat and passed his handkerchief over his heated brow and hair, which had grown half over his ears, and was brushed back covering the bald patch on his head. And glancing casually at the gentleman, who still stood there gazing intently at him, he would have gone on. 'This gentleman is a Russian, and was inquiring after you, said the head waiter. With mingled feelings of annoyance at never being able to get away from acquaintances anywhere, and longing to find some sort of diversion from the monotony of his life, Vronsky looked once more at the gentleman, who had retreated and stood still again, and at the same moment a light came into the eyes of both. 'Golenishtchev! 'Vronsky! It really was Golenishtchev, a comrade of Vronsky's in the Corps of Pages. In the corps Golenishtchev had belonged to the liberal party he left the corps without entering the army, and had never taken office under the government. Vronsky and he had gone completely different ways on leaving the corps, and had only met once since. At that meeting Vronsky perceived that Golenishtchev had taken up a sort of lofty, intellectually liberal line, and was consequently disposed to look down upon Vronsky's interests and calling in life. Hence Vronsky had met him with the chilling and haughty manner he so well knew how to assume, the meaning of which was 'You may like or dislike my way of life, that's a matter of the most perfect indifference to me you will have to treat me with respect if you want to know me. Golenishtchev had been contemptuously indifferent to the tone taken by Vronsky. This second meeting might have been expected, one would have supposed, to estrange them still more. But now they beamed and exclaimed with delight on recognizing one another. Vronsky would never have expected to be so pleased to see Golenishtchev, but probably he was not himself aware how bored he was. He forgot the disagreeable impression of their last meeting, and with a face of frank delight held out his hand to his old comrade. The same expression of delight replaced the look of uneasiness on Golenishtchev's face. 'How glad I am to meet you! said Vronsky, showing his strong white teeth in a friendly smile. 'I heard the name Vronsky, but I didn't know which one. I'm very, very glad! 'Let's go in. Come, tell me what you're doing. 'I've been living here for two years. I'm working. 'Ah! said Vronsky, with sympathy 'let's go in. And with the habit common with Russians, instead of saying in Russian what he wanted to keep from the servants, he began to speak in French. 'Do you know Madame Karenina? We are traveling together. I am going to see her now, he said in French, carefully scrutinizing Golenishtchev's face. 'Ah! I did not know (though he did know), Golenishtchev answered carelessly. 'Have you been here long? he added. 'Four days, Vronsky answered, once more scrutinizing his friend's face intently. 'Yes, he's a decent fellow, and will look at the thing properly, Vronsky said to himself, catching the significance of Golenishtchev's face and the change of subject. 'I can introduce him to Anna, he looks at it properly. During those three months that Vronsky had spent abroad with Anna, he had always on meeting new people asked himself how the new person would look at his relations with Anna, and for the most part, in men, he had met with the 'proper way of looking at it. But if he had been asked, and those who looked at it 'properly had been asked, exactly how they did look at it, both he and they would have been greatly puzzled to answer. In reality, those who in Vronsky's opinion had the 'proper view had no sort of view at all, but behaved in general as wellbred persons do behave in regard to all the complex and insoluble problems with which life is encompassed on all sides they behaved with propriety, avoiding allusions and unpleasant questions. They assumed an air of fully comprehending the import and force of the situation, of accepting and even approving of it, but of considering it superfluous and uncalled for to put all this into words. Vronsky at once divined that Golenishtchev was of this class, and therefore was doubly pleased to see him. And in fact, Golenishtchev's manner to Madame Karenina, when he was taken to call on her, was all that Vronsky could have desired. Obviously without the slightest effort he steered clear of all subjects which might lead to embarrassment. He had never met Anna before, and was struck by her beauty, and still more by the frankness with which she accepted her position. She blushed when Vronsky brought in Golenishtchev, and he was extremely charmed by this childish blush overspreading her candid and handsome face. But what he liked particularly was the way in which at once, as though on purpose that there might be no misunderstanding with an outsider, she called Vronsky simply Alexey, and said they were moving into a house they had just taken, what was here called a palazzo. Golenishtchev liked this direct and simple attitude to her own position. Looking at Anna's manner of simplehearted, spirited gaiety, and knowing Alexey Alexandrovitch and Vronsky, Golenishtchev fancied that he understood her perfectly. He fancied that he understood what she was utterly unable to understand how it was that, having made her husband wretched, having abandoned him and her son and lost her good name, she yet felt full of spirits, gaiety, and happiness. 'It's in the guidebook, said Golenishtchev, referring to the palazzo Vronsky had taken. 'There's a firstrate Tintoretto there. One of his latest period. 'I tell you what it's a lovely day, let's go and have another look at it, said Vronsky, addressing Anna. 'I shall be very glad to I'll go and put on my hat. Would you say it's hot? she said, stopping short in the doorway and looking inquiringly at Vronsky. And again a vivid flush overspread her face. Vronsky saw from her eyes that she did not know on what terms he cared to be with Golenishtchev, and so was afraid of not behaving as he would wish. He looked a long, tender look at her. 'No, not very, he said. And it seemed to her that she understood everything, most of all, that he was pleased with her and smiling to him, she walked with her rapid step out at the door. The friends glanced at one another, and a look of hesitation came into both faces, as though Golenishtchev, unmistakably admiring her, would have liked to say something about her, and could not find the right thing to say, while Vronsky desired and dreaded his doing so. 'Well then, Vronsky began to start a conversation of some sort 'so you're settled here? You're still at the same work, then? he went on, recalling that he had been told Golenishtchev was writing something. 'Yes, I'm writing the second part of the Two Elements, said Golenishtchev, coloring with pleasure at the question'that is, to be exact, I am not writing it yet I am preparing, collecting materials. It will be of far wider scope, and will touch on almost all questions. We in Russia refuse to see that we are the heirs of Byzantium, and he launched into a long and heated explanation of his views. Vronsky at the first moment felt embarrassed at not even knowing of the first part of the Two Elements, of which the author spoke as something well known. But as Golenishtchev began to lay down his opinions and Vronsky was able to follow them even without knowing the Two Elements, he listened to him with some interest, for Golenishtchev spoke well. But Vronsky was startled and annoyed by the nervous irascibility with which Golenishtchev talked of the subject that engrossed him. As he went on talking, his eyes glittered more and more angrily he was more and more hurried in his replies to imaginary opponents, and his face grew more and more excited and worried. Remembering Golenishtchev, a thin, lively, goodnatured and wellbred boy, always at the head of the class, Vronsky could not make out the reason of his irritability, and he did not like it. What he particularly disliked was that Golenishtchev, a man belonging to a good set, should put himself on a level with some scribbling fellows, with whom he was irritated and angry. Was it worth it? Vronsky disliked it, yet he felt that Golenishtchev was unhappy, and was sorry for him. Unhappiness, almost mental derangement, was visible on his mobile, rather handsome face, while without even noticing Anna's coming in, he went on hurriedly and hotly expressing his views. When Anna came in in her hat and cape, and her lovely hand rapidly swinging her parasol, and stood beside him, it was with a feeling of relief that Vronsky broke away from the plaintive eyes of Golenishtchev which fastened persistently upon him, and with a fresh rush of love looked at his charming companion, full of life and happiness. Golenishtchev recovered himself with an effort, and at first was dejected and gloomy, but Anna, disposed to feel friendly with everyone as she was at that time, soon revived his spirits by her direct and lively manner. After trying various subjects of conversation, she got him upon painting, of which he talked very well, and she listened to him attentively. They walked to the house they had taken, and looked over it. 'I am very glad of one thing, said Anna to Golenishtchev when they were on their way back, 'Alexey will have a capital atelier. You must certainly take that room, she said to Vronsky in Russian, using the affectionately familiar form as though she saw that Golenishtchev would become intimate with them in their isolation, and that there was no need of reserve before him. 'Do you paint? said Golenishtchev, turning round quickly to Vronsky. 'Yes, I used to study long ago, and now I have begun to do a little, said Vronsky, reddening. 'He has great talent, said Anna with a delighted smile. 'I'm no judge, of course. But good judges have said the same. Anna, in that first period of her emancipation and rapid return to health, felt herself unpardonably happy and full of the joy of life. The thought of her husband's unhappiness did not poison her happiness. On one side that memory was too awful to be thought of. On the other side her husband's unhappiness had given her too much happiness to be regretted. The memory of all that had happened after her illness her reconciliation with her husband, its breakdown, the news of Vronsky's wound, his visit, the preparations for divorce, the departure from her husband's house, the parting from her sonall that seemed to her like a delirious dream, from which she had waked up alone with Vronsky abroad. The thought of the harm caused to her husband aroused in her a feeling like repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel who has shaken off another man clinging to him. That man did drown. It was an evil action, of course, but it was the sole means of escape, and better not to brood over these fearful facts. One consolatory reflection upon her conduct had occurred to her at the first moment of the final rupture, and when now she recalled all the past, she remembered that one reflection. 'I have inevitably made that man wretched, she thought 'but I don't want to profit by his misery. I too am suffering, and shall suffer I am losing what I prized above everythingI am losing my good name and my son. I have done wrong, and so I don't want happiness, I don't want a divorce, and shall suffer from my shame and the separation from my child. But, however sincerely Anna had meant to suffer, she was not suffering. Shame there was not. With the tact of which both had such a large share, they had succeeded in avoiding Russian ladies abroad, and so had never placed themselves in a false position, and everywhere they had met people who pretended that they perfectly understood their position, far better indeed than they did themselves. Separation from the son she lovedeven that did not cause her anguish in these early days. The baby girlhis childwas so sweet, and had so won Anna's heart, since she was all that was left her, that Anna rarely thought of her son. The desire for life, waxing stronger with recovered health, was so intense, and the conditions of life were so new and pleasant, that Anna felt unpardonably happy. The more she got to know Vronsky, the more she loved him. She loved him for himself, and for his love for her. Her complete ownership of him was a continual joy to her. His presence was always sweet to her. All the traits of his character, which she learned to know better and better, were unutterably dear to her. His appearance, changed by his civilian dress, was as fascinating to her as though she were some young girl in love. In everything he said, thought, and did, she saw something particularly noble and elevated. Her adoration of him alarmed her indeed she sought and could not find in him anything not fine. She dared not show him her sense of her own insignificance beside him. It seemed to her that, knowing this, he might sooner cease to love her and she dreaded nothing now so much as losing his love, though she had no grounds for fearing it. But she could not help being grateful to him for his attitude to her, and showing that she appreciated it. He, who had in her opinion such a marked aptitude for a political career, in which he would have been certain to play a leading parthe had sacrificed his ambition for her sake, and never betrayed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful to her than ever, and the constant care that she should not feel the awkwardness of her position never deserted him for a single instant. He, so manly a man, never opposed her, had indeed, with her, no will of his own, and was anxious, it seemed, for nothing but to anticipate her wishes. And she could not but appreciate this, even though the very intensity of his solicitude for her, the atmosphere of care with which he surrounded her, sometimes weighed upon her. Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom in his love,and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desiresennui. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire and an object. Sixteen hours of the day must be occupied in some way, since they were living abroad in complete freedom, outside the conditions of social life which filled up time in Petersburg. As for the amusements of bachelor existence, which had provided Vronsky with entertainment on previous tours abroad, they could not be thought of, since the sole attempt of the sort had led to a sudden attack of depression in Anna, quite out of proportion with the causea late supper with bachelor friends. Relations with the society of the placeforeign and Russianwere equally out of the question owing to the irregularity of their position. The inspection of objects of interest, apart from the fact that everything had been seen already, had not for Vronsky, a Russian and a sensible man, the immense significance Englishmen are able to attach to that pursuit. And just as the hungry stomach eagerly accepts every object it can get, hoping to find nourishment in it, Vronsky quite unconsciously clutched first at politics, then at new books, and then at pictures. As he had from a child a taste for painting, and as, not knowing what to spend his money on, he had begun collecting engravings, he came to a stop at painting, began to take interest in it, and concentrated upon it the unoccupied mass of desires which demanded satisfaction. He had a ready appreciation of art, and probably, with a taste for imitating art, he supposed himself to have the real thing essential for an artist, and after hesitating for some time which style of painting to selectreligious, historical, realistic, or genre paintinghe set to work to paint. He appreciated all kinds, and could have felt inspired by anyone of them but he had no conception of the possibility of knowing nothing at all of any school of painting, and of being inspired directly by what is within the soul, without caring whether what is painted will belong to any recognized school. Since he knew nothing of this, and drew his inspiration, not directly from life, but indirectly from life embodied in art, his inspiration came very quickly and easily, and as quickly and easily came his success in painting something very similar to the sort of painting he was trying to imitate. More than any other style he liked the Frenchgraceful and effectiveand in that style he began to paint Anna's portrait in Italian costume, and the portrait seemed to him, and to everyone who saw it, extremely successful. The old neglected palazzo, with its lofty carved ceilings and frescoes on the walls, with its floors of mosaic, with its heavy yellow stuff curtains on the windows, with its vases on pedestals, and its open fireplaces, its carved doors and gloomy reception rooms, hung with picturesthis palazzo did much, by its very appearance after they had moved into it, to confirm in Vronsky the agreeable illusion that he was not so much a Russian country gentleman, a retired army officer, as an enlightened amateur and patron of the arts, himself a modest artist who had renounced the world, his connections, and his ambition for the sake of the woman he loved. The pose chosen by Vronsky with their removal into the palazzo was completely successful, and having, through Golenishtchev, made acquaintance with a few interesting people, for a time he was satisfied. He painted studies from nature under the guidance of an Italian professor of painting, and studied medival Italian life. Medival Italian life so fascinated Vronsky that he even wore a hat and flung a cloak over his shoulder in the medival style, which, indeed, was extremely becoming to him. 'Here we live, and know nothing of what's going on, Vronsky said to Golenishtchev as he came to see him one morning. 'Have you seen Mihailov's picture? he said, handing him a Russian gazette he had received that morning, and pointing to an article on a Russian artist, living in the very same town, and just finishing a picture which had long been talked about, and had been bought beforehand. The article reproached the government and the academy for letting so remarkable an artist be left without encouragement and support. 'I've seen it, answered Golenishtchev. 'Of course, he's not without talent, but it's all in a wrong direction. It's all the IvanovStraussRenan attitude to Christ and to religious painting. 'What is the subject of the picture? asked Anna. 'Christ before Pilate. Christ is represented as a Jew with all the realism of the new school. And the question of the subject of the picture having brought him to one of his favorite theories, Golenishtchev launched forth into a disquisition on it. 'I can't understand how they can fall into such a gross mistake. Christ always has His definite embodiment in the art of the great masters. And therefore, if they want to depict, not God, but a revolutionist or a sage, let them take from history a Socrates, a Franklin, a Charlotte Corday, but not Christ. They take the very figure which cannot be taken for their art, and then.... 'And is it true that this Mihailov is in such poverty? asked Vronsky, thinking that, as a Russian Mcenas, it was his duty to assist the artist regardless of whether the picture were good or bad. 'I should say not. He's a remarkable portraitpainter. Have you ever seen his portrait of Madame Vassiltchikova? But I believe he doesn't care about painting any more portraits, and so very likely he is in want. I maintain that.... 'Couldn't we ask him to paint a portrait of Anna Arkadyevna? said Vronsky. 'Why mine? said Anna. 'After yours I don't want another portrait. Better have one of Annie (so she called her baby girl). 'Here she is, she added, looking out of the window at the handsome Italian nurse, who was carrying the child out into the garden, and immediately glancing unnoticed at Vronsky. The handsome nurse, from whom Vronsky was painting a head for his picture, was the one hidden grief in Anna's life. He painted with her as his model, admired her beauty and medivalism, and Anna dared not confess to herself that she was afraid of becoming jealous of this nurse, and was for that reason particularly gracious and condescending both to her and her little son. Vronsky, too, glanced out of the window and into Anna's eyes, and, turning at once to Golenishtchev, he said 'Do you know this Mihailov? 'I have met him. But he's a queer fish, and quite without breeding. You know, one of those uncouth new people one's so often coming across nowadays, one of those freethinkers you know, who are reared d'emble in theories of atheism, scepticism, and materialism. In former days, said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, 'in former days the freethinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came to freethought but now there has sprung up a new type of born freethinkers who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages. Well, he's of that class. He's the son, it appears, of some Moscow butler, and has never had any sort of bringingup. When he got into the academy and made his reputation he tried, as he's no fool, to educate himself. And he turned to what seemed to him the very source of culturethe magazines. In old times, you see, a man who wanted to educate himselfa Frenchman, for instancewould have set to work to study all the classics and theologians and tragedians and historians and philosophers, and, you know, all the intellectual work that came in his way. But in our day he goes straight for the literature of negation, very quickly assimilates all the extracts of the science of negation, and he's ready. And that's not alltwenty years ago he would have found in that literature traces of conflict with authorities, with the creeds of the ages he would have perceived from this conflict that there was something else but now he comes at once upon a literature in which the old creeds do not even furnish matter for discussion, but it is stated baldly that there is nothing elseevolution, natural selection, struggle for existenceand that's all. In my article I've.... 'I tell you what, said Anna, who had for a long while been exchanging wary glances with Vronsky, and knew that he was not in the least interested in the education of this artist, but was simply absorbed by the idea of assisting him, and ordering a portrait of him 'I tell you what, she said, resolutely interrupting Golenishtchev, who was still talking away, 'let's go and see him! Golenishtchev recovered his selfpossession and readily agreed. But as the artist lived in a remote suburb, it was decided to take the carriage. An hour later Anna, with Golenishtchev by her side and Vronsky on the front seat of the carriage, facing them, drove up to a new ugly house in the remote suburb. On learning from the porter's wife, who came out to them, that Mihailov saw visitors at his studio, but that at that moment he was in his lodging only a couple of steps off, they sent her to him with their cards, asking permission to see his picture. The artist Mihailov was, as always, at work when the cards of Count Vronsky and Golenishtchev were brought to him. In the morning he had been working in his studio at his big picture. On getting home he flew into a rage with his wife for not having managed to put off the landlady, who had been asking for money. 'I've said it to you twenty times, don't enter into details. You're fool enough at all times, and when you start explaining things in Italian you're a fool three times as foolish, he said after a long dispute. 'Don't let it run so long it's not my fault. If I had the money.... 'Leave me in peace, for God's sake! Mihailov shrieked, with tears in his voice, and, stopping his ears, he went off into his working room, the other side of a partition wall, and closed the door after him. 'Idiotic woman! he said to himself, sat down to the table, and, opening a portfolio, he set to work at once with peculiar fervor at a sketch he had begun. Never did he work with such fervor and success as when things went ill with him, and especially when he quarreled with his wife. 'Oh! damn them all! he thought as he went on working. He was making a sketch for the figure of a man in a violent rage. A sketch had been made before, but he was dissatisfied with it. 'No, that one was better ... where is it? He went back to his wife, and scowling, and not looking at her, asked his eldest little girl, where was that piece of paper he had given them? The paper with the discarded sketch on it was found, but it was dirty, and spotted with candlegrease. Still, he took the sketch, laid it on his table, and, moving a little away, screwing up his eyes, he fell to gazing at it. All at once he smiled and gesticulated gleefully. 'That's it! that's it! he said, and, at once picking up the pencil, he began rapidly drawing. The spot of tallow had given the man a new pose. He had sketched this new pose, when all at once he recalled the face of a shopkeeper of whom he had bought cigars, a vigorous face with a prominent chin, and he sketched this very face, this chin on to the figure of the man. He laughed aloud with delight. The figure from a lifeless imagined thing had become living, and such that it could never be changed. That figure lived, and was clearly and unmistakably defined. The sketch might be corrected in accordance with the requirements of the figure, the legs, indeed, could and must be put differently, and the position of the left hand must be quite altered the hair too might be thrown back. But in making these corrections he was not altering the figure but simply getting rid of what concealed the figure. He was, as it were, stripping off the wrappings which hindered it from being distinctly seen. Each new feature only brought out the whole figure in all its force and vigor, as it had suddenly come to him from the spot of tallow. He was carefully finishing the figure when the cards were brought him. 'Coming, coming! He went in to his wife. 'Come, Sasha, don't be cross! he said, smiling timidly and affectionately at her. 'You were to blame. I was to blame. I'll make it all right. And having made peace with his wife he put on an olivegreen overcoat with a velvet collar and a hat, and went towards his studio. The successful figure he had already forgotten. Now he was delighted and excited at the visit of these people of consequence, Russians, who had come in their carriage. Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at the bottom of his heart one convictionthat no one had ever painted a picture like it. He did not believe that his picture was better than all the pictures of Raphael, but he knew that what he tried to convey in that picture, no one ever had conveyed. This he knew positively, and had known a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it. But other people's criticisms, whatever they might be, had yet immense consequence in his eyes, and they agitated him to the depths of his soul. Any remark, the most insignificant, that showed that the critic saw even the tiniest part of what he saw in the picture, agitated him to the depths of his soul. He always attributed to his critics a more profound comprehension than he had himself, and always expected from them something he did not himself see in the picture. And often in their criticisms he fancied that he had found this. He walked rapidly to the door of his studio, and in spite of his excitement he was struck by the soft light on Anna's figure as she stood in the shade of the entrance listening to Golenishtchev, who was eagerly telling her something, while she evidently wanted to look round at the artist. He was himself unconscious how, as he approached them, he seized on this impression and absorbed it, as he had the chin of the shopkeeper who had sold him the cigars, and put it away somewhere to be brought out when he wanted it. The visitors, not agreeably impressed beforehand by Golenishtchev's account of the artist, were still less so by his personal appearance. Thickset and of middle height, with nimble movements, with his brown hat, olivegreen coat and narrow trousersthough wide trousers had been a long while in fashion,most of all, with the ordinariness of his broad face, and the combined expression of timidity and anxiety to keep up his dignity, Mihailov made an unpleasant impression. 'Please step in, he said, trying to look indifferent, and going into the passage he took a key out of his pocket and opened the door. On entering the studio, Mihailov once more scanned his visitors and noted down in his imagination Vronsky's expression too, and especially his jaws. Although his artistic sense was unceasingly at work collecting materials, although he felt a continually increasing excitement as the moment of criticizing his work drew nearer, he rapidly and subtly formed, from imperceptible signs, a mental image of these three persons. That fellow (Golenishtchev) was a Russian living here. Mihailov did not remember his surname nor where he had met him, nor what he had said to him. He only remembered his face as he remembered all the faces he had ever seen but he remembered, too, that it was one of the faces laid by in his memory in the immense class of the falsely consequential and poor in expression. The abundant hair and very open forehead gave an appearance of consequence to the face, which had only one expressiona petty, childish, peevish expression, concentrated just above the bridge of the narrow nose. Vronsky and Madame Karenina must be, Mihailov supposed, distinguished and wealthy Russians, knowing nothing about art, like all those wealthy Russians, but posing as amateurs and connoisseurs. 'Most likely they've already looked at all the antiques, and now they're making the round of the studios of the new people, the German humbug, and the cracked PreRaphaelite English fellow, and have only come to me to make the point of view complete, he thought. He was well acquainted with the way dilettanti have (the cleverer they were the worse he found them) of looking at the works of contemporary artists with the sole object of being in a position to say that art is a thing of the past, and that the more one sees of the new men the more one sees how inimitable the works of the great old masters have remained. He expected all this he saw it all in their faces, he saw it in the careless indifference with which they talked among themselves, stared at the lay figures and busts, and walked about in leisurely fashion, waiting for him to uncover his picture. But in spite of this, while he was turning over his studies, pulling up the blinds and taking off the sheet, he was in intense excitement, especially as, in spite of his conviction that all distinguished and wealthy Russians were certain to be beasts and fools, he liked Vronsky, and still more Anna. 'Here, if you please, he said, moving on one side with his nimble gait and pointing to his picture, 'it's the exhortation to Pilate. Matthew, chapter xxvii, he said, feeling his lips were beginning to tremble with emotion. He moved away and stood behind them. For the few seconds during which the visitors were gazing at the picture in silence Mihailov too gazed at it with the indifferent eye of an outsider. For those few seconds he was sure in anticipation that a higher, juster criticism would be uttered by them, by those very visitors whom he had been so despising a moment before. He forgot all he had thought about his picture before during the three years he had been painting it he forgot all its qualities which had been absolutely certain to himhe saw the picture with their indifferent, new, outside eyes, and saw nothing good in it. He saw in the foreground Pilate's irritated face and the serene face of Christ, and in the background the figures of Pilate's retinue and the face of John watching what was happening. Every face that, with such agony, such blunders and corrections had grown up within him with its special character, every face that had given him such torments and such raptures, and all these faces so many times transposed for the sake of the harmony of the whole, all the shades of color and tones that he had attained with such laborall of this together seemed to him now, looking at it with their eyes, the merest vulgarity, something that had been done a thousand times over. The face dearest to him, the face of Christ, the center of the picture, which had given him such ecstasy as it unfolded itself to him, was utterly lost to him when he glanced at the picture with their eyes. He saw a wellpainted (no, not even thathe distinctly saw now a mass of defects) repetition of those endless Christs of Titian, Raphael, Rubens, and the same soldiers and Pilate. It was all common, poor, and stale, and positively badly paintedweak and unequal. They would be justified in repeating hypocritically civil speeches in the presence of the painter, and pitying him and laughing at him when they were alone again. The silence (though it lasted no more than a minute) became too intolerable to him. To break it, and to show he was not agitated, he made an effort and addressed Golenishtchev. 'I think I've had the pleasure of meeting you, he said, looking uneasily first at Anna, then at Vronsky, in fear of losing any shade of their expression. 'To be sure! We met at Rossi's, do you remember, at that soire when that Italian lady recitedthe new Rachel? Golenishtchev answered easily, removing his eyes without the slightest regret from the picture and turning to the artist. Noticing, however, that Mihailov was expecting a criticism of the picture, he said 'Your picture has got on a great deal since I saw it last time and what strikes me particularly now, as it did then, is the figure of Pilate. One so knows the man a goodnatured, capital fellow, but an official through and through, who does not know what it is he's doing. But I fancy.... All Mihailov's mobile face beamed at once his eyes sparkled. He tried to say something, but he could not speak for excitement, and pretended to be coughing. Low as was his opinion of Golenishtchev's capacity for understanding art, trifling as was the true remark upon the fidelity of the expression of Pilate as an official, and offensive as might have seemed the utterance of so unimportant an observation while nothing was said of more serious points, Mihailov was in an ecstasy of delight at this observation. He had himself thought about Pilate's figure just what Golenishtchev said. The fact that this reflection was but one of millions of reflections, which as Mihailov knew for certain would be true, did not diminish for him the significance of Golenishtchev's remark. His heart warmed to Golenishtchev for this remark, and from a state of depression he suddenly passed to ecstasy. At once the whole of his picture lived before him in all the indescribable complexity of everything living. Mihailov again tried to say that that was how he understood Pilate, but his lips quivered intractably, and he could not pronounce the words. Vronsky and Anna too said something in that subdued voice in which, partly to avoid hurting the artist's feelings and partly to avoid saying out loud something sillyso easily said when talking of artpeople usually speak at exhibitions of pictures. Mihailov fancied that the picture had made an impression on them too. He went up to them. 'How marvelous Christ's expression is! said Anna. Of all she saw she liked that expression most of all, and she felt that it was the center of the picture, and so praise of it would be pleasant to the artist. 'One can see that He is pitying Pilate. This again was one of the million true reflections that could be found in his picture and in the figure of Christ. She said that He was pitying Pilate. In Christ's expression there ought to be indeed an expression of pity, since there is an expression of love, of heavenly peace, of readiness for death, and a sense of the vanity of words. Of course there is the expression of an official in Pilate and of pity in Christ, seeing that one is the incarnation of the fleshly and the other of the spiritual life. All this and much more flashed into Mihailov's thoughts. 'Yes, and how that figure is donewhat atmosphere! One can walk round it, said Golenishtchev, unmistakably betraying by this remark that he did not approve of the meaning and idea of the figure. 'Yes, there's a wonderful mastery! said Vronsky. 'How those figures in the background stand out! There you have technique, he said, addressing Golenishtchev, alluding to a conversation between them about Vronsky's despair of attaining this technique. 'Yes, yes, marvelous! Golenishtchev and Anna assented. In spite of the excited condition in which he was, the sentence about technique had sent a pang to Mihailov's heart, and looking angrily at Vronsky he suddenly scowled. He had often heard this word technique, and was utterly unable to understand what was understood by it. He knew that by this term was understood a mechanical facility for painting or drawing, entirely apart from its subject. He had noticed often that even in actual praise technique was opposed to essential quality, as though one could paint well something that was bad. He knew that a great deal of attention and care was necessary in taking off the coverings, to avoid injuring the creation itself, and to take off all the coverings but there was no art of paintingno technique of any sortabout it. If to a little child or to his cook were revealed what he saw, it or she would have been able to peel the wrappings off what was seen. And the most experienced and adroit painter could not by mere mechanical facility paint anything if the lines of the subject were not revealed to him first. Besides, he saw that if it came to talking about technique, it was impossible to praise him for it. In all he had painted and repainted he saw faults that hurt his eyes, coming from want of care in taking off the wrappingsfaults he could not correct now without spoiling the whole. And in almost all the figures and faces he saw, too, remnants of the wrappings not perfectly removed that spoiled the picture. 'One thing might be said, if you will allow me to make the remark.... observed Golenishtchev. 'Oh, I shall be delighted, I beg you, said Mihailov with a forced smile. 'That is, that you make Him the mangod, and not the Godman. But I know that was what you meant to do. 'I cannot paint a Christ that is not in my heart, said Mihailov gloomily. 'Yes but in that case, if you will allow me to say what I think.... Your picture is so fine that my observation cannot detract from it, and, besides, it is only my personal opinion. With you it is different. Your very motive is different. But let us take Ivanov. I imagine that if Christ is brought down to the level of an historical character, it would have been better for Ivanov to select some other historical subject, fresh, untouched. 'But if this is the greatest subject presented to art? 'If one looked one would find others. But the point is that art cannot suffer doubt and discussion. And before the picture of Ivanov the question arises for the believer and the unbeliever alike, 'Is it God, or is it not God?' and the unity of the impression is destroyed. 'Why so? I think that for educated people, said Mihailov, 'the question cannot exist. Golenishtchev did not agree with this, and confounded Mihailov by his support of his first idea of the unity of the impression being essential to art. Mihailov was greatly perturbed, but he could say nothing in defense of his own idea. Anna and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances, regretting their friend's flow of cleverness. At last Vronsky, without waiting for the artist, walked away to another small picture. 'Oh, how exquisite! What a lovely thing! A gem! How exquisite! they cried with one voice. 'What is it they're so pleased with? thought Mihailov. He had positively forgotten that picture he had painted three years ago. He had forgotten all the agonies and the ecstasies he had lived through with that picture when for several months it had been the one thought haunting him day and night. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, the pictures he had finished. He did not even like to look at it, and had only brought it out because he was expecting an Englishman who wanted to buy it. 'Oh, that's only an old study, he said. 'How fine! said Golenishtchev, he too, with unmistakable sincerity, falling under the spell of the picture. Two boys were angling in the shade of a willowtree. The elder had just dropped in the hook, and was carefully pulling the float from behind a bush, entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The other, a little younger, was lying in the grass leaning on his elbows, with his tangled, flaxen head in his hands, staring at the water with his dreamy blue eyes. What was he thinking of? The enthusiasm over this picture stirred some of the old feeling for it in Mihailov, but he feared and disliked this waste of feeling for things past, and so, even though this praise was grateful to him, he tried to draw his visitors away to a third picture. But Vronsky asked whether the picture was for sale. To Mihailov at that moment, excited by visitors, it was extremely distasteful to speak of money matters. 'It is put up there to be sold, he answered, scowling gloomily. When the visitors had gone, Mihailov sat down opposite the picture of Pilate and Christ, and in his mind went over what had been said, and what, though not said, had been implied by those visitors. And, strange to say, what had had such weight with him, while they were there and while he mentally put himself at their point of view, suddenly lost all importance for him. He began to look at his picture with all his own full artist vision, and was soon in that mood of conviction of the perfectibility, and so of the significance, of his picturea conviction essential to the most intense fervor, excluding all other interestsin which alone he could work. Christ's foreshortened leg was not right, though. He took his palette and began to work. As he corrected the leg he looked continually at the figure of John in the background, which his visitors had not even noticed, but which he knew was beyond perfection. When he had finished the leg he wanted to touch that figure, but he felt too much excited for it. He was equally unable to work when he was cold and when he was too much affected and saw everything too much. There was only one stage in the transition from coldness to inspiration, at which work was possible. Today he was too much agitated. He would have covered the picture, but he stopped, holding the cloth in his hand, and, smiling blissfully, gazed a long while at the figure of John. At last, as it were regretfully tearing himself away, he dropped the cloth, and, exhausted but happy, went home. Vronsky, Anna, and Golenishtchev, on their way home, were particularly lively and cheerful. They talked of Mihailov and his pictures. The word talent, by which they meant an inborn, almost physical, aptitude apart from brain and heart, and in which they tried to find an expression for all the artist had gained from life, recurred particularly often in their talk, as though it were necessary for them to sum up what they had no conception of, though they wanted to talk of it. They said that there was no denying his talent, but that his talent could not develop for want of educationthe common defect of our Russian artists. But the picture of the boys had imprinted itself on their memories, and they were continually coming back to it. 'What an exquisite thing! How he has succeeded in it, and how simply! He doesn't even comprehend how good it is. Yes, I mustn't let it slip I must buy it, said Vronsky. Mihailov sold Vronsky his picture, and agreed to paint a portrait of Anna. On the day fixed he came and began the work. From the fifth sitting the portrait impressed everyone, especially Vronsky, not only by its resemblance, but by its characteristic beauty. It was strange how Mihailov could have discovered just her characteristic beauty. 'One needs to know and love her as I have loved her to discover the very sweetest expression of her soul, Vronsky thought, though it was only from this portrait that he had himself learned this sweetest expression of her soul. But the expression was so true that he, and others too, fancied they had long known it. 'I have been struggling on for ever so long without doing anything, he said of his own portrait of her, 'and he just looked and painted it. That's where technique comes in. 'That will come, was the consoling reassurance given him by Golenishtchev, in whose view Vronsky had both talent, and what was most important, culture, giving him a wider outlook on art. Golenishtchev's faith in Vronsky's talent was propped up by his own need of Vronsky's sympathy and approval for his own articles and ideas, and he felt that the praise and support must be mutual. In another man's house, and especially in Vronsky's palazzo, Mihailov was quite a different man from what he was in his studio. He behaved with hostile courtesy, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people he did not respect. He called Vronsky 'your excellency, and notwithstanding Anna's and Vronsky's invitations, he would never stay to dinner, nor come except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to him than to other people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than cordial with him, and was obviously interested to know the artist's opinion of his picture. Golenishtchev never let slip an opportunity of instilling sound ideas about art into Mihailov. But Mihailov remained equally chilly to all of them. Anna was aware from his eyes that he liked looking at her, but he avoided conversation with her. Vronsky's talk about his painting he met with stubborn silence, and he was as stubbornly silent when he was shown Vronsky's picture. He was unmistakably bored by Golenishtchev's conversation, and he did not attempt to oppose him. Altogether Mihailov, with his reserved and disagreeable, as it were, hostile attitude, was quite disliked by them as they got to know him better and they were glad when the sittings were over, and they were left with a magnificent portrait in their possession, and he gave up coming. Golenishtchev was the first to give expression to an idea that had occurred to all of them, which was that Mihailov was simply jealous of Vronsky. 'Not envious, let us say, since he has talent but it annoys him that a wealthy man of the highest society, and a count, too (you know they all detest a title), can, without any particular trouble, do as well, if not better, than he who has devoted all his life to it. And more than all, it's a question of culture, which he is without. Vronsky defended Mihailov, but at the bottom of his heart he believed it, because in his view a man of a different, lower world would be sure to be envious. Anna's portraitthe same subject painted from nature both by him and by Mihailovought to have shown Vronsky the difference between him and Mihailov but he did not see it. Only after Mihailov's portrait was painted he left off painting his portrait of Anna, deciding that it was now not needed. His picture of medival life he went on with. And he himself, and Golenishtchev, and still more Anna, thought it very good, because it was far more like the celebrated pictures they knew than Mihailov's picture. Mihailov meanwhile, although Anna's portrait greatly fascinated him, was even more glad than they were when the sittings were over, and he had no longer to listen to Golenishtchev's disquisitions upon art, and could forget about Vronsky's painting. He knew that Vronsky could not be prevented from amusing himself with painting he knew that he and all dilettanti had a perfect right to paint what they liked, but it was distasteful to him. A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mihailov felt at the sight of Vronsky's painting he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive. Vronsky's interest in painting and the Middle Ages did not last long. He had enough taste for painting to be unable to finish his picture. The picture came to a standstill. He was vaguely aware that its defects, inconspicuous at first, would be glaring if he were to go on with it. The same experience befell him as Golenishtchev, who felt that he had nothing to say, and continually deceived himself with the theory that his idea was not yet mature, that he was working it out and collecting materials. This exasperated and tortured Golenishtchev, but Vronsky was incapable of deceiving and torturing himself, and even more incapable of exasperation. With his characteristic decision, without explanation or apology, he simply ceased working at painting. But without this occupation, the life of Vronsky and of Anna, who wondered at his loss of interest in it, struck them as intolerably tedious in an Italian town. The palazzo suddenly seemed so obtrusively old and dirty, the spots on the curtains, the cracks in the floors, the broken plaster on the cornices became so disagreeably obvious, and the everlasting sameness of Golenishtchev, and the Italian professor and the German traveler became so wearisome, that they had to make some change. They resolved to go to Russia, to the country. In Petersburg Vronsky intended to arrange a partition of the land with his brother, while Anna meant to see her son. The summer they intended to spend on Vronsky's great family estate. Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found his former dreams disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises of happiness. He was happy but on entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly that one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was floating and that there was water under one, and that one must row and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore and that it was only to look at it that was easy but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult. As a bachelor, when he had watched other people's married life, seen the petty cares, the squabbles, the jealousy, he had only smiled contemptuously in his heart. In his future married life there could be, he was convinced, nothing of that sort even the external forms, indeed, he fancied, must be utterly unlike the life of others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead of his life with his wife being made on an individual pattern, it was, on the contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details, which he had so despised before, but which now, by no will of his own, had gained an extraordinary importance that it was useless to contend against. And Levin saw that the organization of all these details was by no means so easy as he had fancied before. Although Levin believed himself to have the most exact conceptions of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, he pictured domestic life as the happiest enjoyment of love, with nothing to hinder and no petty cares to distract. He ought, as he conceived the position, to do his work, and to find repose from it in the happiness of love. She ought to be beloved, and nothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too would want work. And he was surprised that she, his poetic, exquisite Kitty, could, not merely in the first weeks, but even in the first days of their married life, think, remember, and busy herself about tablecloths, and furniture, about mattresses for visitors, about a tray, about the cook, and the dinner, and so on. While they were still engaged, he had been struck by the definiteness with which she had declined the tour abroad and decided to go into the country, as though she knew of something she wanted, and could still think of something outside her love. This had jarred upon him then, and now her trivial cares and anxieties jarred upon him several times. But he saw that this was essential for her. And, loving her as he did, though he did not understand the reason of them, and jeered at these domestic pursuits, he could not help admiring them. He jeered at the way in which she arranged the furniture they had brought from Moscow rearranged their room hung up curtains prepared rooms for visitors a room for Dolly saw after an abode for her new maid ordered dinner of the old cook came into collision with Agafea Mihalovna, taking from her the charge of the stores. He saw how the old cook smiled, admiring her, and listening to her inexperienced, impossible orders, how mournfully and tenderly Agafea Mihalovna shook her head over the young mistress's new arrangements. He saw that Kitty was extraordinarily sweet when, laughing and crying, she came to tell him that her maid, Masha, was used to looking upon her as her young lady, and so no one obeyed her. It seemed to him sweet, but strange, and he thought it would have been better without this. He did not know how great a sense of change she was experiencing she, who at home had sometimes wanted some favorite dish, or sweets, without the possibility of getting either, now could order what she liked, buy pounds of sweets, spend as much money as she liked, and order any puddings she pleased. She was dreaming with delight now of Dolly's coming to them with her children, especially because she would order for the children their favorite puddings and Dolly would appreciate all her new housekeeping. She did not know herself why and wherefore, but the arranging of her house had an irresistible attraction for her. Instinctively feeling the approach of spring, and knowing that there would be days of rough weather too, she built her nest as best she could, and was in haste at the same time to build it and to learn how to do it. This care for domestic details in Kitty, so opposed to Levin's ideal of exalted happiness, was at first one of the disappointments and this sweet care of her household, the aim of which he did not understand, but could not help loving, was one of the new happy surprises. Another disappointment and happy surprise came in their quarrels. Levin could never have conceived that between him and his wife any relations could arise other than tender, respectful and loving, and all at once in the very early days they quarreled, so that she said he did not care for her, that he cared for no one but himself, burst into tears, and wrung her arms. This first quarrel arose from Levin's having gone out to a new farmhouse and having been away half an hour too long, because he had tried to get home by a short cut and had lost his way. He drove home thinking of nothing but her, of her love, of his own happiness, and the nearer he drew to home, the warmer was his tenderness for her. He ran into the room with the same feeling, with an even stronger feeling than he had had when he reached the Shtcherbatskys' house to make his offer. And suddenly he was met by a lowering expression he had never seen in her. He would have kissed her she pushed him away. 'What is it? 'You've been enjoying yourself, she began, trying to be calm and spiteful. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a stream of reproach, of senseless jealousy, of all that had been torturing her during that half hour which she had spent sitting motionless at the window, burst from her. It was only then, for the first time, that he clearly understood what he had not understood when he led her out of the church after the wedding. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensation of division that he experienced at that instant. He was offended for the first instant, but the very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was himself. He felt for the first moment as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it is he himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with, and that he must put up with and try to soothe the pain. Never afterwards did he feel it with such intensity, but this first time he could not for a long while get over it. His natural feeling urged him to defend himself, to prove to her she was wrong but to prove her wrong would mean irritating her still more and making the rupture greater that was the cause of all his suffering. One habitual feeling impelled him to get rid of the blame and to pass it on to her. Another feeling, even stronger, impelled him as quickly as possible to smooth over the rupture without letting it grow greater. To remain under such undeserved reproach was wretched, but to make her suffer by justifying himself was worse still. Like a man halfawake in an agony of pain, he wanted to tear out, to fling away the aching place, and coming to his senses, he felt that the aching place was himself. He could do nothing but try to help the aching place to bear it, and this he tried to do. They made peace. She, recognizing that she was wrong, though she did not say so, became tenderer to him, and they experienced new, redoubled happiness in their love. But that did not prevent such quarrels from happening again, and exceedingly often too, on the most unexpected and trivial grounds. These quarrels frequently arose from the fact that they did not yet know what was of importance to each other and that all this early period they were both often in a bad temper. When one was in a good temper, and the other in a bad temper, the peace was not broken but when both happened to be in an illhumor, quarrels sprang up from such incomprehensibly trifling causes, that they could never remember afterwards what they had quarreled about. It is true that when they were both in a good temper their enjoyment of life was redoubled. But still this first period of their married life was a difficult time for them. During all this early time they had a peculiarly vivid sense of tension, as it were, a tugging in opposite directions of the chain by which they were bound. Altogether their honeymoonthat is to say, the month after their weddingfrom which from tradition Levin expected so much, was not merely not a time of sweetness, but remained in the memories of both as the bitterest and most humiliating period in their lives. They both alike tried in later life to blot out from their memories all the monstrous, shameful incidents of that morbid period, when both were rarely in a normal frame of mind, both were rarely quite themselves. It was only in the third month of their married life, after their return from Moscow, where they had been staying for a month, that their life began to go more smoothly. They had just come back from Moscow, and were glad to be alone. He was sitting at the writingtable in his study, writing. She, wearing the dark lilac dress she had worn during the first days of their married life, and put on again today, a dress particularly remembered and loved by him, was sitting on the sofa, the same oldfashioned leather sofa which had always stood in the study in Levin's father's and grandfather's days. She was sewing at broderie anglaise. He thought and wrote, never losing the happy consciousness of her presence. His work, both on the land and on the book, in which the principles of the new land system were to be laid down, had not been abandoned but just as formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed to him petty and trivial in comparison with the darkness that overspread all life, now they seemed as unimportant and petty in comparison with the life that lay before him suffused with the brilliant light of happiness. He went on with his work, but he felt now that the center of gravity of his attention had passed to something else, and that consequently he looked at his work quite differently and more clearly. Formerly this work had been for him an escape from life. Formerly he had felt that without this work his life would be too gloomy. Now these pursuits were necessary for him that life might not be too uniformly bright. Taking up his manuscript, reading through what he had written, he found with pleasure that the work was worth his working at. Many of his old ideas seemed to him superfluous and extreme, but many blanks became distinct to him when he reviewed the whole thing in his memory. He was writing now a new chapter on the causes of the present disastrous condition of agriculture in Russia. He maintained that the poverty of Russia arises not merely from the anomalous distribution of landed property and misdirected reforms, but that what had contributed of late years to this result was the civilization from without abnormally grafted upon Russia, especially facilities of communication, as railways, leading to centralization in towns, the development of luxury, and the consequent development of manufactures, credit and its accompaniment of speculationall to the detriment of agriculture. It seemed to him that in a normal development of wealth in a state all these phenomena would arise only when a considerable amount of labor had been put into agriculture, when it had come under regular, or at least definite, conditions that the wealth of a country ought to increase proportionally, and especially in such a way that other sources of wealth should not outstrip agriculture that in harmony with a certain stage of agriculture there should be means of communication corresponding to it, and that in our unsettled condition of the land, railways, called into being by political and not by economic needs, were premature, and instead of promoting agriculture, as was expected of them, they were competing with agriculture and promoting the development of manufactures and credit, and so arresting its progress and that just as the onesided and premature development of one organ in an animal would hinder its general development, so in the general development of wealth in Russia, credit, facilities of communication, manufacturing activity, indubitably necessary in Europe, where they had arisen in their proper time, had with us only done harm, by throwing into the background the chief question calling for settlementthe question of the organization of agriculture. While he was writing his ideas she was thinking how unnaturally cordial her husband had been to young Prince Tcharsky, who had, with great want of tact, flirted with her the day before they left Moscow. 'He's jealous, she thought. 'Goodness! how sweet and silly he is! He's jealous of me! If he knew that I think no more of them than of Piotr the cook, she thought, looking at his head and red neck with a feeling of possession strange to herself. 'Though it's a pity to take him from his work (but he has plenty of time!), I must look at his face will he feel I'm looking at him? I wish he'd turn round ... I'll will him to! and she opened her eyes wide, as though to intensify the influence of her gaze. 'Yes, they draw away all the sap and give a false appearance of prosperity, he muttered, stopping to write, and, feeling that she was looking at him and smiling, he looked round. 'Well? he queried, smiling, and getting up. 'He looked round, she thought. 'It's nothing I wanted you to look round, she said, watching him, and trying to guess whether he was vexed at being interrupted or not. 'How happy we are alone together!I am, that is, he said, going up to her with a radiant smile of happiness. 'I'm just as happy. I'll never go anywhere, especially not to Moscow. 'And what were you thinking about? 'I? I was thinking.... No, no, go along, go on writing don't break off, she said, pursing up her lips, 'and I must cut out these little holes now, do you see? She took up her scissors and began cutting them out. 'No tell me, what was it? he said, sitting down beside her and watching the tiny scissors moving round. 'Oh! what was I thinking about? I was thinking about Moscow, about the back of your head. 'Why should I, of all people, have such happiness! It's unnatural, too good, he said, kissing her hand. 'I feel quite the opposite the better things are, the more natural it seems to me. 'And you've got a little curl loose, he said, carefully turning her head round. 'A little curl, oh yes. No, no, we are busy at our work! Work did not progress further, and they darted apart from one another like culprits when Kouzma came in to announce that tea was ready. 'Have they come from the town? Levin asked Kouzma. 'They've just come they're unpacking the things. 'Come quickly, she said to him as she went out of the study, 'or else I shall read your letters without you. Left alone, after putting his manuscripts together in the new portfolio bought by her, he washed his hands at the new washstand with the elegant fittings, that had all made their appearance with her. Levin smiled at his own thoughts, and shook his head disapprovingly at those thoughts a feeling akin to remorse fretted him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan, as he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. 'It's not right to go on like this, he thought. 'It'll soon be three months, and I'm doing next to nothing. Today, almost for the first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did nothing but begin and throw it aside. Even my ordinary pursuits I have almost given up. On the land I scarcely walk or drive about at all to look after things. Either I am loath to leave her, or I see she's dull alone. And I used to think that, before marriage, life was nothing much, somehow didn't count, but that after marriage, life began in earnest. And here almost three months have passed, and I have spent my time so idly and unprofitably. No, this won't do I must begin. Of course, it's not her fault. She's not to blame in any way. I ought myself to be firmer, to maintain my masculine independence of action or else I shall get into such ways, and she'll get used to them too.... Of course she's not to blame, he told himself. But it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame someone else, and especially the person nearest of all to him, for the ground of his dissatisfaction. And it vaguely came into Levin's mind that she herself was not to blame (she could not be to blame for anything), but what was to blame was her education, too superficial and frivolous. ('That fool Tcharsky she wanted, I know, to stop him, but didn't know how to.) 'Yes, apart from her interest in the house (that she has), apart from dress and broderie anglaise, she has no serious interests. No interest in her work, in the estate, in the peasants, nor in music, though she's rather good at it, nor in reading. She does nothing, and is perfectly satisfied. Levin, in his heart, censured this, and did not as yet understand that she was preparing for that period of activity which was to come for her when she would at once be the wife of her husband and mistress of the house, and would bear, and nurse, and bring up children. He knew not that she was instinctively aware of this, and preparing herself for this time of terrible toil, did not reproach herself for the moments of carelessness and happiness in her love that she enjoyed now while gaily building her nest for the future. When Levin went upstairs, his wife was sitting near the new silver samovar behind the new tea service, and, having settled old Agafea Mihalovna at a little table with a full cup of tea, was reading a letter from Dolly, with whom they were in continual and frequent correspondence. 'You see, your good lady's settled me here, told me to sit a bit with her, said Agafea Mihalovna, smiling affectionately at Kitty. In these words of Agafea Mihalovna, Levin read the final act of the drama which had been enacted of late between her and Kitty. He saw that, in spite of Agafea Mihalovna's feelings being hurt by a new mistress taking the reins of government out of her hands, Kitty had yet conquered her and made her love her. 'Here, I opened your letter too, said Kitty, handing him an illiterate letter. 'It's from that woman, I think, your brother's.... she said. 'I did not read it through. This is from my people and from Dolly. Fancy! Dolly took Tanya and Grisha to a children's ball at the Sarmatskys' Tanya was a French marquise. But Levin did not hear her. Flushing, he took the letter from Marya Nikolaevna, his brother's former mistress, and began to read it. This was the second letter he had received from Marya Nikolaevna. In the first letter, Marya Nikolaevna wrote that his brother had sent her away for no fault of hers, and, with touching simplicity, added that though she was in want again, she asked for nothing, and wished for nothing, but was only tormented by the thought that Nikolay Dmitrievitch would come to grief without her, owing to the weak state of his health, and begged his brother to look after him. Now she wrote quite differently. She had found Nikolay Dmitrievitch, had again made it up with him in Moscow, and had moved with him to a provincial town, where he had received a post in the government service. But that he had quarreled with the head official, and was on his way back to Moscow, only he had been taken so ill on the road that it was doubtful if he would ever leave his bed again, she wrote. 'It's always of you he has talked, and, besides, he has no more money left. 'Read this Dolly writes about you, Kitty was beginning, with a smile but she stopped suddenly, noticing the changed expression on her husband's face. 'What is it? What's the matter? 'She writes to me that Nikolay, my brother, is at death's door. I shall go to him. Kitty's face changed at once. Thoughts of Tanya as a marquise, of Dolly, all had vanished. 'When are you going? she said. 'Tomorrow. 'And I will go with you, can I? she said. 'Kitty! What are you thinking of? he said reproachfully. 'How do you mean? offended that he should seem to take her suggestion unwillingly and with vexation. 'Why shouldn't I go? I shan't be in your way. I.... 'I'm going because my brother is dying, said Levin. 'Why should you.... 'Why? For the same reason as you. 'And, at a moment of such gravity for me, she only thinks of her being dull by herself, thought Levin. And this lack of candor in a matter of such gravity infuriated him. 'It's out of the question, he said sternly. Agafea Mihalovna, seeing that it was coming to a quarrel, gently put down her cup and withdrew. Kitty did not even notice her. The tone in which her husband had said the last words wounded her, especially because he evidently did not believe what she had said. 'I tell you, that if you go, I shall come with you I shall certainly come, she said hastily and wrathfully. 'Why out of the question? Why do you say it's out of the question? 'Because it'll be going God knows where, by all sorts of roads and to all sorts of hotels. You would be a hindrance to me, said Levin, trying to be cool. 'Not at all. I don't want anything. Where you can go, I can.... 'Well, for one thing then, because this woman's there whom you can't meet. 'I don't know and don't care to know who's there and what. I know that my husband's brother is dying and my husband is going to him, and I go with my husband too.... 'Kitty! Don't get angry. But just think a little this is a matter of such importance that I can't bear to think that you should bring in a feeling of weakness, of dislike to being left alone. Come, you'll be dull alone, so go and stay at Moscow a little. 'There, you always ascribe base, vile motives to me, she said with tears of wounded pride and fury. 'I didn't mean, it wasn't weakness, it wasn't ... I feel that it's my duty to be with my husband when he's in trouble, but you try on purpose to hurt me, you try on purpose not to understand.... 'No this is awful! To be such a slave! cried Levin, getting up, and unable to restrain his anger any longer. But at the same second he felt that he was beating himself. 'Then why did you marry? You could have been free. Why did you, if you regret it? she said, getting up and running away into the drawingroom. When he went to her, she was sobbing. He began to speak, trying to find words not to dissuade but simply to soothe her. But she did not heed him, and would not agree to anything. He bent down to her and took her hand, which resisted him. He kissed her hand, kissed her hair, kissed her hand againstill she was silent. But when he took her face in both his hands and said 'Kitty! she suddenly recovered herself, and began to cry, and they were reconciled. It was decided that they should go together the next day. Levin told his wife that he believed she wanted to go simply in order to be of use, agreed that Marya Nikolaevna's being with his brother did not make her going improper, but he set off at the bottom of his heart dissatisfied both with her and with himself. He was dissatisfied with her for being unable to make up her mind to let him go when it was necessary (and how strange it was for him to think that he, so lately hardly daring to believe in such happiness as that she could love himnow was unhappy because she loved him too much!), and he was dissatisfied with himself for not showing more strength of will. Even greater was the feeling of disagreement at the bottom of his heart as to her not needing to consider the woman who was with his brother, and he thought with horror of all the contingencies they might meet with. The mere idea of his wife, his Kitty, being in the same room with a common wench, set him shuddering with horror and loathing. The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolay Levin was lying ill was one of those provincial hotels which are constructed on the newest model of modern improvements, with the best intentions of cleanliness, comfort, and even elegance, but owing to the public that patronizes them, are with astounding rapidity transformed into filthy taverns with a pretension of modern improvement that only makes them worse than the oldfashioned, honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already reached that stage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform smoking in the entry, supposed to stand for a hallporter, and the castiron, slippery, dark, and disagreeable staircase, and the free and easy waiter in a filthy frock coat, and the common diningroom with a dusty bouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust, and disorder everywhere, and at the same time the sort of modern uptodate selfcomplacent railway uneasiness of this hotel, aroused a most painful feeling in Levin after their fresh young life, especially because the impression of falsity made by the hotel was so out of keeping with what awaited them. As is invariably the case, after they had been asked at what price they wanted rooms, it appeared that there was not one decent room for them one decent room had been taken by the inspector of railroads, another by a lawyer from Moscow, a third by Princess Astafieva from the country. There remained only one filthy room, next to which they promised that another should be empty by the evening. Feeling angry with his wife because what he had expected had come to pass, which was that at the moment of arrival, when his heart throbbed with emotion and anxiety to know how his brother was getting on, he should have to be seeing after her, instead of rushing straight to his brother, Levin conducted her to the room assigned them. 'Go, do go! she said, looking at him with timid and guilty eyes. He went out of the door without a word, and at once stumbled over Marya Nikolaevna, who had heard of his arrival and had not dared to go in to see him. She was just the same as when he saw her in Moscow the same woolen gown, and bare arms and neck, and the same goodnaturedly stupid, pockmarked face, only a little plumper. 'Well, how is he? how is he? 'Very bad. He can't get up. He has kept expecting you. He.... Are you ... with your wife? Levin did not for the first moment understand what it was confused her, but she immediately enlightened him. 'I'll go away. I'll go down to the kitchen, she brought out. 'Nikolay Dmitrievitch will be delighted. He heard about it, and knows your lady, and remembers her abroad. Levin realized that she meant his wife, and did not know what answer to make. 'Come along, come along to him! he said. But as soon as he moved, the door of his room opened and Kitty peeped out. Levin crimsoned both from shame and anger with his wife, who had put herself and him in such a difficult position but Marya Nikolaevna crimsoned still more. She positively shrank together and flushed to the point of tears, and clutching the ends of her apron in both hands, twisted them in her red fingers without knowing what to say and what to do. For the first instant Levin saw an expression of eager curiosity in the eyes with which Kitty looked at this awful woman, so incomprehensible to her but it lasted only a single instant. 'Well! how is he? she turned to her husband and then to her. 'But one can't go on talking in the passage like this! Levin said, looking angrily at a gentleman who walked jauntily at that instant across the corridor, as though about his affairs. 'Well then, come in, said Kitty, turning to Marya Nikolaevna, who had recovered herself, but noticing her husband's face of dismay, 'or go on go, and then come for me, she said, and went back into the room. Levin went to his brother's room. He had not in the least expected what he saw and felt in his brother's room. He had expected to find him in the same state of selfdeception which he had heard was so frequent with the consumptive, and which had struck him so much during his brother's visit in the autumn. He had expected to find the physical signs of the approach of death more markedgreater weakness, greater emaciation, but still almost the same condition of things. He had expected himself to feel the same distress at the loss of the brother he loved and the same horror in face of death as he had felt then, only in a greater degree. And he had prepared himself for this but he found something utterly different. In a little dirty room with the painted panels of its walls filthy with spittle, and conversation audible through the thin partition from the next room, in a stifling atmosphere saturated with impurities, on a bedstead moved away from the wall, there lay covered with a quilt, a body. One arm of this body was above the quilt, and the wrist, huge as a rakehandle, was attached, inconceivably it seemed, to the thin, long bone of the arm smooth from the beginning to the middle. The head lay sideways on the pillow. Levin could see the scanty locks wet with sweat on the temples and tense, transparentlooking forehead. 'It cannot be that that fearful body was my brother Nikolay? thought Levin. But he went closer, saw the face, and doubt became impossible. In spite of the terrible change in the face, Levin had only to glance at those eager eyes raised at his approach, only to catch the faint movement of the mouth under the sticky mustache, to realize the terrible truth that this deathlike body was his living brother. The glittering eyes looked sternly and reproachfully at his brother as he drew near. And immediately this glance established a living relationship between living men. Levin immediately felt the reproach in the eyes fixed on him, and felt remorse at his own happiness. When Konstantin took him by the hand, Nikolay smiled. The smile was faint, scarcely perceptible, and in spite of the smile the stern expression of the eyes was unchanged. 'You did not expect to find me like this, he articulated with effort. 'Yes ... no, said Levin, hesitating over his words. 'How was it you didn't let me know before, that is, at the time of my wedding? I made inquiries in all directions. He had to talk so as not to be silent, and he did not know what to say, especially as his brother made no reply, and simply stared without dropping his eyes, and evidently penetrated to the inner meaning of each word. Levin told his brother that his wife had come with him. Nikolay expressed pleasure, but said he was afraid of frightening her by his condition. A silence followed. Suddenly Nikolay stirred, and began to say something. Levin expected something of peculiar gravity and importance from the expression of his face, but Nikolay began speaking of his health. He found fault with the doctor, regretting he had not a celebrated Moscow doctor. Levin saw that he still hoped. Seizing the first moment of silence, Levin got up, anxious to escape, if only for an instant, from his agonizing emotion, and said that he would go and fetch his wife. 'Very well, and I'll tell her to tidy up here. It's dirty and stinking here, I expect. Marya! clear up the room, the sick man said with effort. 'Oh, and when you've cleared up, go away yourself, he added, looking inquiringly at his brother. Levin made no answer. Going out into the corridor, he stopped short. He had said he would fetch his wife, but now, taking stock of the emotion he was feeling, he decided that he would try on the contrary to persuade her not to go in to the sick man. 'Why should she suffer as I am suffering? he thought. 'Well, how is he? Kitty asked with a frightened face. 'Oh, it's awful, it's awful! What did you come for? said Levin. Kitty was silent for a few seconds, looking timidly and ruefully at her husband then she went up and took him by the elbow with both hands. 'Kostya! take me to him it will be easier for us to bear it together. You only take me, take me to him, please, and go away, she said. 'You must understand that for me to see you, and not to see him, is far more painful. There I might be a help to you and to him. Please, let me! she besought her husband, as though the happiness of her life depended on it. Levin was obliged to agree, and regaining his composure, and completely forgetting about Marya Nikolaevna by now, he went again in to his brother with Kitty. Stepping lightly, and continually glancing at her husband, showing him a valorous and sympathetic face, Kitty went into the sickroom, and, turning without haste, noiselessly closed the door. With inaudible steps she went quickly to the sick man's bedside, and going up so that he had not to turn his head, she immediately clasped in her fresh young hand the skeleton of his huge hand, pressed it, and began speaking with that soft eagerness, sympathetic and not jarring, which is peculiar to women. 'We have met, though we were not acquainted, at Soden, she said. 'You never thought I was to be your sister? 'You would not have recognized me? he said, with a radiant smile at her entrance. 'Yes, I should. What a good thing you let us know! Not a day has passed that Kostya has not mentioned you, and been anxious. But the sick man's interest did not last long. Before she had finished speaking, there had come back into his face the stern, reproachful expression of the dying man's envy of the living. 'I am afraid you are not quite comfortable here, she said, turning away from his fixed stare, and looking about the room. 'We must ask about another room, she said to her husband, 'so that we might be nearer. Levin could not look calmly at his brother he could not himself be natural and calm in his presence. When he went in to the sick man, his eyes and his attention were unconsciously dimmed, and he did not see and did not distinguish the details of his brother's position. He smelt the awful odor, saw the dirt, disorder, and miserable condition, and heard the groans, and felt that nothing could be done to help. It never entered his head to analyze the details of the sick man's situation, to consider how that body was lying under the quilt, how those emaciated legs and thighs and spine were lying huddled up, and whether they could not be made more comfortable, whether anything could not be done to make things, if not better, at least less bad. It made his blood run cold when he began to think of all these details. He was absolutely convinced that nothing could be done to prolong his brother's life or to relieve his suffering. But a sense of his regarding all aid as out of the question was felt by the sick man, and exasperated him. And this made it still more painful for Levin. To be in the sickroom was agony to him, not to be there still worse. And he was continually, on various pretexts, going out of the room, and coming in again, because he was unable to remain alone. But Kitty thought, and felt, and acted quite differently. On seeing the sick man, she pitied him. And pity in her womanly heart did not arouse at all that feeling of horror and loathing that it aroused in her husband, but a desire to act, to find out all the details of his state, and to remedy them. And since she had not the slightest doubt that it was her duty to help him, she had no doubt either that it was possible, and immediately set to work. The very details, the mere thought of which reduced her husband to terror, immediately engaged her attention. She sent for the doctor, sent to the chemist's, set the maid who had come with her and Marya Nikolaevna to sweep and dust and scrub she herself washed up something, washed out something else, laid something under the quilt. Something was by her directions brought into the sickroom, something else was carried out. She herself went several times to her room, regardless of the men she met in the corridor, got out and brought in sheets, pillow cases, towels, and shirts. The waiter, who was busy with a party of engineers dining in the dining hall, came several times with an irate countenance in answer to her summons, and could not avoid carrying out her orders, as she gave them with such gracious insistence that there was no evading her. Levin did not approve of all this he did not believe it would be of any good to the patient. Above all, he feared the patient would be angry at it. But the sick man, though he seemed and was indifferent about it, was not angry, but only abashed, and on the whole as it were interested in what she was doing with him. Coming back from the doctor to whom Kitty had sent him, Levin, on opening the door, came upon the sick man at the instant when, by Kitty's directions, they were changing his linen. The long white ridge of his spine, with the huge, prominent shoulder blades and jutting ribs and vertebrae, was bare, and Marya Nikolaevna and the waiter were struggling with the sleeve of the night shirt, and could not get the long, limp arm into it. Kitty, hurriedly closing the door after Levin, was not looking that way but the sick man groaned, and she moved rapidly towards him. 'Make haste, she said. 'Oh, don't you come, said the sick man angrily. 'I'll do it my myself.... 'What say? queried Marya Nikolaevna. But Kitty heard and saw he was ashamed and uncomfortable at being naked before her. 'I'm not looking, I'm not looking! she said, putting the arm in. 'Marya Nikolaevna, you come this side, you do it, she added. 'Please go for me, there's a little bottle in my small bag, she said, turning to her husband, 'you know, in the side pocket bring it, please, and meanwhile they'll finish clearing up here. Returning with the bottle, Levin found the sick man settled comfortably and everything about him completely changed. The heavy smell was replaced by the smell of aromatic vinegar, which Kitty with pouting lips and puffedout, rosy cheeks was squirting through a little pipe. There was no dust visible anywhere, a rug was laid by the bedside. On the table stood medicine bottles and decanters tidily arranged, and the linen needed was folded up there, and Kitty's broderie anglaise. On the other table by the patient's bed there were candles and drink and powders. The sick man himself, washed and combed, lay in clean sheets on high raised pillows, in a clean nightshirt with a white collar about his astoundingly thin neck, and with a new expression of hope looked fixedly at Kitty. The doctor brought by Levin, and found by him at the club, was not the one who had been attending Nikolay Levin, as the patient was dissatisfied with him. The new doctor took up a stethoscope and sounded the patient, shook his head, prescribed medicine, and with extreme minuteness explained first how to take the medicine and then what diet was to be kept to. He advised eggs, raw or hardly cooked, and seltzer water, with warm milk at a certain temperature. When the doctor had gone away the sick man said something to his brother, of which Levin could distinguish only the last words 'Your Katya. By the expression with which he gazed at her, Levin saw that he was praising her. He called indeed to Katya, as he called her. 'I'm much better already, he said. 'Why, with you I should have got well long ago. How nice it is! he took her hand and drew it towards his lips, but as though afraid she would dislike it he changed his mind, let it go, and only stroked it. Kitty took his hand in both hers and pressed it. 'Now turn me over on the left side and go to bed, he said. No one could make out what he said but Kitty she alone understood. She understood because she was all the while mentally keeping watch on what he needed. 'On the other side, she said to her husband, 'he always sleeps on that side. Turn him over, it's so disagreeable calling the servants. I'm not strong enough. Can you? she said to Marya Nikolaevna. 'I'm afraid not, answered Marya Nikolaevna. Terrible as it was to Levin to put his arms round that terrible body, to take hold of that under the quilt, of which he preferred to know nothing, under his wife's influence he made his resolute face that she knew so well, and putting his arms into the bed took hold of the body, but in spite of his own strength he was struck by the strange heaviness of those powerless limbs. While he was turning him over, conscious of the huge emaciated arm about his neck, Kitty swiftly and noiselessly turned the pillow, beat it up and settled in it the sick man's head, smoothing back his hair, which was sticking again to his moist brow. The sick man kept his brother's hand in his own. Levin felt that he meant to do something with his hand and was pulling it somewhere. Levin yielded with a sinking heart yes, he drew it to his mouth and kissed it. Levin, shaking with sobs and unable to articulate a word, went out of the room. 'Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. So Levin thought about his wife as he talked to her that evening. Levin thought of the text, not because he considered himself 'wise and prudent. He did not so consider himself, but he could not help knowing that he had more intellect than his wife and Agafea Mihalovna, and he could not help knowing that when he thought of death, he thought with all the force of his intellect. He knew too that the brains of many great men, whose thoughts he had read, had brooded over death and yet knew not a hundredth part of what his wife and Agafea Mihalovna knew about it. Different as those two women were, Agafea Mihalovna and Katya, as his brother Nikolay had called her, and as Levin particularly liked to call her now, they were quite alike in this. Both knew, without a shade of doubt, what sort of thing life was and what was death, and though neither of them could have answered, and would even not have understood the questions that presented themselves to Levin, both had no doubt of the significance of this event, and were precisely alike in their way of looking at it, which they shared with millions of people. The proof that they knew for a certainty the nature of death lay in the fact that they knew without a second of hesitation how to deal with the dying, and were not frightened of them. Levin and other men like him, though they could have said a great deal about death, obviously did not know this since they were afraid of death, and were absolutely at a loss what to do when people were dying. If Levin had been alone now with his brother Nikolay, he would have looked at him with terror, and with still greater terror waited, and would not have known what else to do. More than that, he did not know what to say, how to look, how to move. To talk of outside things seemed to him shocking, impossible, to talk of death and depressing subjectsalso impossible. To be silent, also impossible. 'If I look at him he will think I am studying him, I am afraid if I don't look at him, he'll think I'm thinking of other things. If I walk on tiptoe, he will be vexed to tread firmly, I'm ashamed. Kitty evidently did not think of herself, and had no time to think about herself she was thinking about him because she knew something, and all went well. She told him about herself even and about her wedding, and smiled and sympathized with him and petted him, and talked of cases of recovery and all went well so then she must know. The proof that her behavior and Agafea Mihalovna's was not instinctive, animal, irrational, was that apart from the physical treatment, the relief of suffering, both Agafea Mihalovna and Kitty required for the dying man something else more important than the physical treatment, and something which had nothing in common with physical conditions. Agafea Mihalovna, speaking of the man just dead, had said 'Well, thank God, he took the sacrament and received absolution God grant each one of us such a death. Katya in just the same way, besides all her care about linen, bedsores, drink, found time the very first day to persuade the sick man of the necessity of taking the sacrament and receiving absolution. On getting back from the sickroom to their own two rooms for the night, Levin sat with hanging head not knowing what to do. Not to speak of supper, of preparing for bed, of considering what they were going to do, he could not even talk to his wife he was ashamed to. Kitty, on the contrary, was more active than usual. She was even livelier than usual. She ordered supper to be brought, herself unpacked their things, and herself helped to make the beds, and did not even forget to sprinkle them with Persian powder. She showed that alertness, that swiftness of reflection which comes out in men before a battle, in conflict, in the dangerous and decisive moments of lifethose moments when a man shows once and for all his value, and that all his past has not been wasted but has been a preparation for these moments. Everything went rapidly in her hands, and before it was twelve o'clock all their things were arranged cleanly and tidily in her rooms, in such a way that the hotel rooms seemed like home the beds were made, brushes, combs, lookingglasses were put out, table napkins were spread. Levin felt that it was unpardonable to eat, to sleep, to talk even now, and it seemed to him that every movement he made was unseemly. She arranged the brushes, but she did it all so that there was nothing shocking in it. They could neither of them eat, however, and for a long while they could not sleep, and did not even go to bed. 'I am very glad I persuaded him to receive extreme unction tomorrow, she said, sitting in her dressing jacket before her folding lookingglass, combing her soft, fragrant hair with a fine comb. 'I have never seen it, but I know, mamma has told me, there are prayers said for recovery. 'Do you suppose he can possibly recover? said Levin, watching a slender tress at the back of her round little head that was continually hidden when she passed the comb through the front. 'I asked the doctor he said he couldn't live more than three days. But can they be sure? I'm very glad, anyway, that I persuaded him, she said, looking askance at her husband through her hair. 'Anything is possible, she added with that peculiar, rather sly expression that was always in her face when she spoke of religion. Since their conversation about religion when they were engaged neither of them had ever started a discussion of the subject, but she performed all the ceremonies of going to church, saying her prayers, and so on, always with the unvarying conviction that this ought to be so. In spite of his assertion to the contrary, she was firmly persuaded that he was as much a Christian as she, and indeed a far better one and all that he said about it was simply one of his absurd masculine freaks, just as he would say about her broderie anglaise that good people patch holes, but that she cut them on purpose, and so on. 'Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not know how to manage all this, said Levin. 'And ... I must own I'm very, very glad you came. You are such purity that.... He took her hand and did not kiss it (to kiss her hand in such closeness to death seemed to him improper) he merely squeezed it with a penitent air, looking at her brightening eyes. 'It would have been miserable for you to be alone, she said, and lifting her hands which hid her cheeks flushing with pleasure, twisted her coil of hair on the nape of her neck and pinned it there. 'No, she went on, 'she did not know how.... Luckily, I learned a lot at Soden. 'Surely there are not people there so ill? 'Worse. 'What's so awful to me is that I can't see him as he was when he was young. You would not believe how charming he was as a youth, but I did not understand him then. 'I can quite, quite believe it. How I feel that we might have been friends! she said and, distressed at what she had said, she looked round at her husband, and tears came into her eyes. 'Yes, might have been, he said mournfully. 'He's just one of those people of whom they say they're not for this world. 'But we have many days before us we must go to bed, said Kitty, glancing at her tiny watch. The next day the sick man received the sacrament and extreme unction. During the ceremony Nikolay Levin prayed fervently. His great eyes, fastened on the holy image that was set out on a cardtable covered with a colored napkin, expressed such passionate prayer and hope that it was awful to Levin to see it. Levin knew that this passionate prayer and hope would only make him feel more bitterly parting from the life he so loved. Levin knew his brother and the workings of his intellect he knew that his unbelief came not from life being easier for him without faith, but had grown up because step by step the contemporary scientific interpretation of natural phenomena crushed out the possibility of faith and so he knew that his present return was not a legitimate one, brought about by way of the same working of his intellect, but simply a temporary, interested return to faith in a desperate hope of recovery. Levin knew too that Kitty had strengthened his hope by accounts of the marvelous recoveries she had heard of. Levin knew all this and it was agonizingly painful to him to behold the supplicating, hopeful eyes and the emaciated wrist, lifted with difficulty, making the sign of the cross on the tense brow, and the prominent shoulders and hollow, gasping chest, which one could not feel consistent with the life the sick man was praying for. During the sacrament Levin did what he, an unbeliever, had done a thousand times. He said, addressing God, 'If Thou dost exist, make this man to recover (of course this same thing has been repeated many times), 'and Thou wilt save him and me. After extreme unction the sick man became suddenly much better. He did not cough once in the course of an hour, smiled, kissed Kitty's hand, thanking her with tears, and said he was comfortable, free from pain, and that he felt strong and had an appetite. He even raised himself when his soup was brought, and asked for a cutlet as well. Hopelessly ill as he was, obvious as it was at the first glance that he could not recover, Levin and Kitty were for that hour both in the same state of excitement, happy, though fearful of being mistaken. 'Is he better? 'Yes, much. 'It's wonderful. 'There's nothing wonderful in it. 'Anyway, he's better, they said in a whisper, smiling to one another. This selfdeception was not of long duration. The sick man fell into a quiet sleep, but he was waked up half an hour later by his cough. And all at once every hope vanished in those about him and in himself. The reality of his suffering crushed all hopes in Levin and Kitty and in the sick man himself, leaving no doubt, no memory even of past hopes. Without referring to what he had believed in half an hour before, as though ashamed even to recall it, he asked for iodine to inhale in a bottle covered with perforated paper. Levin gave him the bottle, and the same look of passionate hope with which he had taken the sacrament was now fastened on his brother, demanding from him the confirmation of the doctor's words that inhaling iodine worked wonders. 'Is Katya not here? he gasped, looking round while Levin reluctantly assented to the doctor's words. 'No so I can say it.... It was for her sake I went through that farce. She's so sweet but you and I can't deceive ourselves. This is what I believe in, he said, and, squeezing the bottle in his bony hand, he began breathing over it. At eight o'clock in the evening Levin and his wife were drinking tea in their room when Marya Nikolaevna ran in to them breathlessly. She was pale, and her lips were quivering. 'He is dying! she whispered. 'I'm afraid will die this minute. Both of them ran to him. He was sitting raised up with one elbow on the bed, his long back bent, and his head hanging low. 'How do you feel? Levin asked in a whisper, after a silence. 'I feel I'm setting off, Nikolay said with difficulty, but with extreme distinctness, screwing the words out of himself. He did not raise his head, but simply turned his eyes upwards, without their reaching his brother's face. 'Katya, go away! he added. Levin jumped up, and with a peremptory whisper made her go out. 'I'm setting off, he said again. 'Why do you think so? said Levin, so as to say something. 'Because I'm setting off, he repeated, as though he had a liking for the phrase. 'It's the end. Marya Nikolaevna went up to him. 'You had better lie down you'd be easier, she said. 'I shall lie down soon enough, he pronounced slowly, 'when I'm dead, he said sarcastically, wrathfully. 'Well, you can lay me down if you like. Levin laid his brother on his back, sat down beside him, and gazed at his face, holding his breath. The dying man lay with closed eyes, but the muscles twitched from time to time on his forehead, as with one thinking deeply and intensely. Levin involuntarily thought with him of what it was that was happening to him now, but in spite of all his mental efforts to go along with him he saw by the expression of that calm, stern face that for the dying man all was growing clearer and clearer that was still as dark as ever for Levin. 'Yes, yes, so, the dying man articulated slowly at intervals. 'Wait a little. He was silent. 'Right! he pronounced all at once reassuringly, as though all were solved for him. 'O Lord! he murmured, and sighed deeply. Marya Nikolaevna felt his feet. 'They're getting cold, she whispered. For a long while, a very long while it seemed to Levin, the sick man lay motionless. But he was still alive, and from time to time he sighed. Levin by now was exhausted from mental strain. He felt that, with no mental effort, could he understand what it was that was right. He could not even think of the problem of death itself, but with no will of his own thoughts kept coming to him of what he had to do next closing the dead man's eyes, dressing him, ordering the coffin. And, strange to say, he felt utterly cold, and was not conscious of sorrow nor of loss, less still of pity for his brother. If he had any feeling for his brother at that moment, it was envy for the knowledge the dying man had now that he could not have. A long time more he sat over him so, continually expecting the end. But the end did not come. The door opened and Kitty appeared. Levin got up to stop her. But at the moment he was getting up, he caught the sound of the dying man stirring. 'Don't go away, said Nikolay and held out his hand. Levin gave him his, and angrily waved to his wife to go away. With the dying man's hand in his hand, he sat for half an hour, an hour, another hour. He did not think of death at all now. He wondered what Kitty was doing who lived in the next room whether the doctor lived in a house of his own. He longed for food and for sleep. He cautiously drew away his hand and felt the feet. The feet were cold, but the sick man was still breathing. Levin tried again to move away on tiptoe, but the sick man stirred again and said 'Don't go. The dawn came the sick man's condition was unchanged. Levin stealthily withdrew his hand, and without looking at the dying man, went off to his own room and went to sleep. When he woke up, instead of news of his brother's death which he expected, he learned that the sick man had returned to his earlier condition. He had begun sitting up again, coughing, had begun eating again, talking again, and again had ceased to talk of death, again had begun to express hope of his recovery, and had become more irritable and more gloomy than ever. No one, neither his brother nor Kitty, could soothe him. He was angry with everyone, and said nasty things to everyone, reproached everyone for his sufferings, and insisted that they should get him a celebrated doctor from Moscow. To all inquiries made him as to how he felt, he made the same answer with an expression of vindictive reproachfulness, 'I'm suffering horribly, intolerably! The sick man was suffering more and more, especially from bedsores, which it was impossible now to remedy, and grew more and more angry with everyone about him, blaming them for everything, and especially for not having brought him a doctor from Moscow. Kitty tried in every possible way to relieve him, to soothe him but it was all in vain, and Levin saw that she herself was exhausted both physically and morally, though she would not admit it. The sense of death, which had been evoked in all by his taking leave of life on the night when he had sent for his brother, was broken up. Everyone knew that he must inevitably die soon, that he was half dead already. Everyone wished for nothing but that he should die as soon as possible, and everyone, concealing this, gave him medicines, tried to find remedies and doctors, and deceived him and themselves and each other. All this was falsehood, disgusting, irreverent deceit. And owing to the bent of his character, and because he loved the dying man more than anyone else did, Levin was most painfully conscious of this deceit. Levin, who had long been possessed by the idea of reconciling his brothers, at least in face of death, had written to his brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, and having received an answer from him, he read this letter to the sick man. Sergey Ivanovitch wrote that he could not come himself, and in touching terms he begged his brother's forgiveness. The sick man said nothing. 'What am I to write to him? said Levin. 'I hope you are not angry with him? 'No, not the least! Nikolay answered, vexed at the question. 'Tell him to send me a doctor. Three more days of agony followed the sick man was still in the same condition. The sense of longing for his death was felt by everyone now at the mere sight of him, by the waiters and the hotelkeeper and all the people staying in the hotel, and the doctor and Marya Nikolaevna and Levin and Kitty. The sick man alone did not express this feeling, but on the contrary was furious at their not getting him doctors, and went on taking medicine and talking of life. Only at rare moments, when the opium gave him an instant's relief from the neverceasing pain, he would sometimes, half asleep, utter what was ever more intense in his heart than in all the others 'Oh, if it were only the end! or 'When will it be over? His sufferings, steadily growing more intense, did their work and prepared him for death. There was no position in which he was not in pain, there was not a minute in which he was unconscious of it, not a limb, not a part of his body that did not ache and cause him agony. Even the memories, the impressions, the thoughts of this body awakened in him now the same aversion as the body itself. The sight of other people, their remarks, his own reminiscences, everything was for him a source of agony. Those about him felt this, and instinctively did not allow themselves to move freely, to talk, to express their wishes before him. All his life was merged in the one feeling of suffering and desire to be rid of it. There was evidently coming over him that revulsion that would make him look upon death as the goal of his desires, as happiness. Hitherto each individual desire, aroused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by some bodily function giving pleasure. But now no physical craving or suffering received relief, and the effort to relieve them only caused fresh suffering. And so all desires were merged in onethe desire to be rid of all his sufferings and their source, the body. But he had no words to express this desire of deliverance, and so he did not speak of it, and from habit asked for the satisfaction of desires which could not now be satisfied. 'Turn me over on the other side, he would say, and immediately after he would ask to be turned back again as before. 'Give me some broth. Take away the broth. Talk of something why are you silent? And directly they began to talk he would close his eyes, and would show weariness, indifference, and loathing. On the tenth day from their arrival at the town, Kitty was unwell. She suffered from headache and sickness, and she could not get up all the morning. The doctor opined that the indisposition arose from fatigue and excitement, and prescribed rest. After dinner, however, Kitty got up and went as usual with her work to the sick man. He looked at her sternly when she came in, and smiled contemptuously when she said she had been unwell. That day he was continually blowing his nose, and groaning piteously. 'How do you feel? she asked him. 'Worse, he articulated with difficulty. 'In pain! 'In pain, where? 'Everywhere. 'It will be over today, you will see, said Marya Nikolaevna. Though it was said in a whisper, the sick man, whose hearing Levin had noticed was very keen, must have heard. Levin said hush to her, and looked round at the sick man. Nikolay had heard but these words produced no effect on him. His eyes had still the same intense, reproachful look. 'Why do you think so? Levin asked her, when she had followed him into the corridor. 'He has begun picking at himself, said Marya Nikolaevna. 'How do you mean? 'Like this, she said, tugging at the folds of her woolen skirt. Levin noticed, indeed, that all that day the patient pulled at himself, as it were, trying to snatch something away. Marya Nikolaevna's prediction came true. Towards night the sick man was not able to lift his hands, and could only gaze before him with the same intensely concentrated expression in his eyes. Even when his brother or Kitty bent over him, so that he could see them, he looked just the same. Kitty sent for the priest to read the prayer for the dying. While the priest was reading it, the dying man did not show any sign of life his eyes were closed. Levin, Kitty, and Marya Nikolaevna stood at the bedside. The priest had not quite finished reading the prayer when the dying man stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes. The priest, on finishing the prayer, put the cross to the cold forehead, then slowly returned it to the stand, and after standing for two minutes more in silence, he touched the huge, bloodless hand that was turning cold. 'He is gone, said the priest, and would have moved away but suddenly there was a faint stir in the mustaches of the dead man that seemed glued together, and quite distinctly in the hush they heard from the bottom of the chest the sharply defined sounds 'Not quite ... soon. And a minute later the face brightened, a smile came out under the mustaches, and the women who had gathered round began carefully laying out the corpse. The sight of his brother, and the nearness of death, revived in Levin that sense of horror in face of the insoluble enigma, together with the nearness and inevitability of death, that had come upon him that autumn evening when his brother had come to him. This feeling was now even stronger than before even less than before did he feel capable of apprehending the meaning of death, and its inevitability rose up before him more terrible than ever. But now, thanks to his wife's presence, that feeling did not reduce him to despair. In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life. The doctor confirmed his suppositions in regard to Kitty. Her indisposition was a symptom that she was with child. From the moment when Alexey Alexandrovitch understood from his interviews with Betsy and with Stepan Arkadyevitch that all that was expected of him was to leave his wife in peace, without burdening her with his presence, and that his wife herself desired this, he felt so distraught that he could come to no decision of himself he did not know himself what he wanted now, and putting himself in the hands of those who were so pleased to interest themselves in his affairs, he met everything with unqualified assent. It was only when Anna had left his house, and the English governess sent to ask him whether she should dine with him or separately, that for the first time he clearly comprehended his position, and was appalled by it. Most difficult of all in this position was the fact that he could not in any way connect and reconcile his past with what was now. It was not the past when he had lived happily with his wife that troubled him. The transition from that past to a knowledge of his wife's unfaithfulness he had lived through miserably already that state was painful, but he could understand it. If his wife had then, on declaring to him her unfaithfulness, left him, he would have been wounded, unhappy, but he would not have been in the hopeless positionincomprehensible to himselfin which he felt himself now. He could not now reconcile his immediate past, his tenderness, his love for his sick wife, and for the other man's child with what was now the case, that is with the fact that, as it were, in return for all this he now found himself alone, put to shame, a laughingstock, needed by no one, and despised by everyone. For the first two days after his wife's departure Alexey Alexandrovitch received applicants for assistance and his chief secretary, drove to the committee, and went down to dinner in the diningroom as usual. Without giving himself a reason for what he was doing, he strained every nerve of his being for those two days, simply to preserve an appearance of composure, and even of indifference. Answering inquiries about the disposition of Anna Arkadyevna's rooms and belongings, he had exercised immense selfcontrol to appear like a man in whose eyes what had occurred was not unforeseen nor out of the ordinary course of events, and he attained his aim no one could have detected in him signs of despair. But on the second day after her departure, when Korney gave him a bill from a fashionable draper's shop, which Anna had forgotten to pay, and announced that the clerk from the shop was waiting, Alexey Alexandrovitch told him to show the clerk up. 'Excuse me, your excellency, for venturing to trouble you. But if you direct us to apply to her excellency, would you graciously oblige us with her address? Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, as it seemed to the clerk, and all at once, turning round, he sat down at the table. Letting his head sink into his hands, he sat for a long while in that position, several times attempted to speak and stopped short. Korney, perceiving his master's emotion, asked the clerk to call another time. Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch recognized that he had not the strength to keep up the line of firmness and composure any longer. He gave orders for the carriage that was awaiting him to be taken back, and for no one to be admitted, and he did not go down to dinner. He felt that he could not endure the weight of universal contempt and exasperation, which he had distinctly seen in the face of the clerk and of Korney, and of everyone, without exception, whom he had met during those two days. He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but from his being shamefully and repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was torn with grief, they would be merciless to him. He felt that men would crush him as dogs strangle a torn dog yelping with pain. He knew that his sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them, and instinctively he tried to do this for two days, but now he felt incapable of keeping up the unequal struggle. His despair was even intensified by the consciousness that he was utterly alone in his sorrow. In all Petersburg there was not a human being to whom he could express what he was feeling, who would feel for him, not as a high official, not as a member of society, but simply as a suffering man indeed he had not such a one in the whole world. Alexey Alexandrovitch grew up an orphan. There were two brothers. They did not remember their father, and their mother died when Alexey Alexandrovitch was ten years old. The property was a small one. Their uncle, Karenin, a government official of high standing, at one time a favorite of the late Tsar, had brought them up. On completing his high school and university courses with medals, Alexey Alexandrovitch had, with his uncle's aid, immediately started in a prominent position in the service, and from that time forward he had devoted himself exclusively to political ambition. In the high school and the university, and afterwards in the service, Alexey Alexandrovitch had never formed a close friendship with anyone. His brother had been the person nearest to his heart, but he had a post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was always abroad, where he had died shortly after Alexey Alexandrovitch's marriage. While he was governor of a province, Anna's aunt, a wealthy provincial lady, had thrown himmiddleaged as he was, though young for a governorwith her niece, and had succeeded in putting him in such a position that he had either to declare himself or to leave the town. Alexey Alexandrovitch was not long in hesitation. There were at the time as many reasons for the step as against it, and there was no overbalancing consideration to outweigh his invariable rule of abstaining when in doubt. But Anna's aunt had through a common acquaintance insinuated that he had already compromised the girl, and that he was in honor bound to make her an offer. He made the offer, and concentrated on his betrothed and his wife all the feeling of which he was capable. The attachment he felt to Anna precluded in his heart every need of intimate relations with others. And now among all his acquaintances he had not one friend. He had plenty of socalled connections, but no friendships. Alexey Alexandrovitch had plenty of people whom he could invite to dinner, to whose sympathy he could appeal in any public affair he was concerned about, whose interest he could reckon upon for anyone he wished to help, with whom he could candidly discuss other people's business and affairs of state. But his relations with these people were confined to one clearly defined channel, and had a certain routine from which it was impossible to depart. There was one man, a comrade of his at the university, with whom he had made friends later, and with whom he could have spoken of a personal sorrow but this friend had a post in the Department of Education in a remote part of Russia. Of the people in Petersburg the most intimate and most possible were his chief secretary and his doctor. Mihail Vassilievitch Sludin, the chief secretary, was a straightforward, intelligent, goodhearted, and conscientious man, and Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware of his personal goodwill. But their five years of official work together seemed to have put a barrier between them that cut off warmer relations. After signing the papers brought him, Alexey Alexandrovitch had sat for a long while in silence, glancing at Mihail Vassilievitch, and several times he attempted to speak, but could not. He had already prepared the phrase 'You have heard of my trouble? But he ended by saying, as usual 'So you'll get this ready for me? and with that dismissed him. The other person was the doctor, who had also a kindly feeling for him but there had long existed a taciturn understanding between them that both were weighed down by work, and always in a hurry. Of his women friends, foremost amongst them Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Alexey Alexandrovitch never thought. All women, simply as women, were terrible and distasteful to him. Alexey Alexandrovitch had forgotten the Countess Lidia Ivanovna, but she had not forgotten him. At the bitterest moment of his lonely despair she came to him, and without waiting to be announced, walked straight into his study. She found him as he was sitting with his head in both hands. 'J'ai forc la consigne, she said, walking in with rapid steps and breathing hard with excitement and rapid exercise. 'I have heard all! Alexey Alexandrovitch! Dear friend! she went on, warmly squeezing his hand in both of hers and gazing with her fine pensive eyes into his. Alexey Alexandrovitch, frowning, got up, and disengaging his hand, moved her a chair. 'Won't you sit down, countess? I'm seeing no one because I'm unwell, countess, he said, and his lips twitched. 'Dear friend! repeated Countess Lidia Ivanovna, never taking her eyes off his, and suddenly her eyebrows rose at the inner corners, describing a triangle on her forehead, her ugly yellow face became still uglier, but Alexey Alexandrovitch felt that she was sorry for him and was preparing to cry. And he too was softened he snatched her plump hand and proceeded to kiss it. 'Dear friend! she said in a voice breaking with emotion. 'You ought not to give way to grief. Your sorrow is a great one, but you ought to find consolation. 'I am crushed, I am annihilated, I am no longer a man! said Alexey Alexandrovitch, letting go her hand, but still gazing into her brimming eyes. 'My position is so awful because I can find nowhere, I cannot find within me strength to support me. 'You will find support seek itnot in me, though I beseech you to believe in my friendship, she said, with a sigh. 'Our support is love, that love that He has vouchsafed us. His burden is light, she said, with the look of ecstasy Alexey Alexandrovitch knew so well. 'He will be your support and your succor. Although there was in these words a flavor of that sentimental emotion at her own lofty feelings, and that new mystical fervor which had lately gained ground in Petersburg, and which seemed to Alexey Alexandrovitch disproportionate, still it was pleasant to him to hear this now. 'I am weak. I am crushed. I foresaw nothing, and now I understand nothing. 'Dear friend, repeated Lidia Ivanovna. 'It's not the loss of what I have not now, it's not that! pursued Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'I do not grieve for that. But I cannot help feeling humiliated before other people for the position I am placed in. It is wrong, but I can't help it, I can't help it. 'Not you it was performed that noble act of forgiveness, at which I was moved to ecstasy, and everyone else too, but He, working within your heart, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, raising her eyes rapturously, 'and so you cannot be ashamed of your act. Alexey Alexandrovitch knitted his brows, and crooking his hands, he cracked his fingers. 'One must know all the facts, he said in his thin voice. 'A man's strength has its limits, countess, and I have reached my limits. The whole day I have had to be making arrangements, arrangements about household matters arising (he emphasized the word arising) 'from my new, solitary position. The servants, the governess, the accounts.... These pinpricks have stabbed me to the heart, and I have not the strength to bear it. At dinner ... yesterday, I was almost getting up from the dinnertable. I could not bear the way my son looked at me. He did not ask me the meaning of it all, but he wanted to ask, and I could not bear the look in his eyes. He was afraid to look at me, but that is not all.... Alexey Alexandrovitch would have referred to the bill that had been brought him, but his voice shook, and he stopped. That bill on blue paper, for a hat and ribbons, he could not recall without a rush of selfpity. 'I understand, dear friend, said Lidia Ivanovna. 'I understand it all. Succor and comfort you will find not in me, though I have come only to aid you if I can. If I could take from off you all these petty, humiliating cares ... I understand that a woman's word, a woman's superintendence is needed. You will intrust it to me? Silently and gratefully Alexey Alexandrovitch pressed her hand. 'Together we will take care of Seryozha. Practical affairs are not my strong point. But I will set to work. I will be your housekeeper. Don't thank me. I do it not from myself.... 'I cannot help thanking you. 'But, dear friend, do not give way to the feeling of which you spokebeing ashamed of what is the Christian's highest glory he who humbles himself shall be exalted. And you cannot thank me. You must thank Him, and pray to Him for succor. In Him alone we find peace, consolation, salvation, and love, she said, and turning her eyes heavenwards, she began praying, as Alexey Alexandrovitch gathered from her silence. Alexey Alexandrovitch listened to her now, and those expressions which had seemed to him, if not distasteful, at least exaggerated, now seemed to him natural and consolatory. Alexey Alexandrovitch had disliked this new enthusiastic fervor. He was a believer, who was interested in religion primarily in its political aspect, and the new doctrine which ventured upon several new interpretations, just because it paved the way to discussion and analysis, was in principle disagreeable to him. He had hitherto taken up a cold and even antagonistic attitude to this new doctrine, and with Countess Lidia Ivanovna, who had been carried away by it, he had never argued, but by silence had assiduously parried her attempts to provoke him into argument. Now for the first time he heard her words with pleasure, and did not inwardly oppose them. 'I am very, very grateful to you, both for your deeds and for your words, he said, when she had finished praying. Countess Lidia Ivanovna once more pressed both her friend's hands. 'Now I will enter upon my duties, she said with a smile after a pause, as she wiped away the traces of tears. 'I am going to Seryozha. Only in the last extremity shall I apply to you. And she got up and went out. Countess Lidia Ivanovna went into Seryozha's part of the house, and dropping tears on the scared child's cheeks, she told him that his father was a saint and his mother was dead. Countess Lidia Ivanovna kept her promise. She did actually take upon herself the care of the organization and management of Alexey Alexandrovitch's household. But she had not overstated the case when saying that practical affairs were not her strong point. All her arrangements had to be modified because they could not be carried out, and they were modified by Korney, Alexey Alexandrovitch's valet, who, though no one was aware of the fact, now managed Karenin's household, and quietly and discreetly reported to his master while he was dressing all it was necessary for him to know. But Lidia Ivanovna's help was none the less real she gave Alexey Alexandrovitch moral support in the consciousness of her love and respect for him, and still more, as it was soothing to her to believe, in that she almost turned him to Christianitythat is, from an indifferent and apathetic believer she turned him into an ardent and steadfast adherent of the new interpretation of Christian doctrine, which had been gaining ground of late in Petersburg. It was easy for Alexey Alexandrovitch to believe in this teaching. Alexey Alexandrovitch, like Lidia Ivanovna indeed, and others who shared their views, was completely devoid of vividness of imagination, that spiritual faculty in virtue of which the conceptions evoked by the imagination become so vivid that they must needs be in harmony with other conceptions, and with actual fact. He saw nothing impossible and inconceivable in the idea that death, though existing for unbelievers, did not exist for him, and that, as he was possessed of the most perfect faith, of the measure of which he was himself the judge, therefore there was no sin in his soul, and he was experiencing complete salvation here on earth. It is true that the erroneousness and shallowness of this conception of his faith was dimly perceptible to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and he knew that when, without the slightest idea that his forgiveness was the action of a higher power, he had surrendered directly to the feeling of forgiveness, he had felt more happiness than now when he was thinking every instant that Christ was in his heart, and that in signing official papers he was doing His will. But for Alexey Alexandrovitch it was a necessity to think in that way it was such a necessity for him in his humiliation to have some elevated standpoint, however imaginary, from which, looked down upon by all, he could look down on others, that he clung, as to his one salvation, to his delusion of salvation. The Countess Lidia Ivanovna had, as a very young and sentimental girl, been married to a wealthy man of high rank, an extremely goodnatured, jovial, and extremely dissipated rake. Two months after marriage her husband abandoned her, and her impassioned protestations of affection he met with a sarcasm and even hostility that people knowing the count's good heart, and seeing no defects in the sentimental Lidia, were at a loss to explain. Though they were divorced and lived apart, yet whenever the husband met the wife, he invariably behaved to her with the same malignant irony, the cause of which was incomprehensible. Countess Lidia Ivanovna had long given up being in love with her husband, but from that time she had never given up being in love with someone. She was in love with several people at once, both men and women she had been in love with almost everyone who had been particularly distinguished in any way. She was in love with all the new princes and princesses who married into the imperial family she had been in love with a high dignitary of the Church, a vicar, and a parish priest she had been in love with a journalist, three Slavophiles, with Komissarov, with a minister, a doctor, an English missionary and Karenin. All these passions constantly waning or growing more ardent, did not prevent her from keeping up the most extended and complicated relations with the court and fashionable society. But from the time that after Karenin's trouble she took him under her special protection, from the time that she set to work in Karenin's household looking after his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments were not the real thing, and that she was now genuinely in love, and with no one but Karenin. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed to her stronger than any of her former feelings. Analyzing her feeling, and comparing it with former passions, she distinctly perceived that she would not have been in love with Komissarov if he had not saved the life of the Tsar, that she would not have been in love with RistitchKudzhitsky if there had been no Slavonic question, but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, uncomprehended soul, for the sweetto herhigh notes of his voice, for his drawling intonation, his weary eyes, his character, and his soft white hands with their swollen veins. She was not simply overjoyed at meeting him, but she sought in his face signs of the impression she was making on him. She tried to please him, not by her words only, but in her whole person. For his sake it was that she now lavished more care on her dress than before. She caught herself in reveries on what might have been, if she had not been married and he had been free. She blushed with emotion when he came into the room, she could not repress a smile of rapture when he said anything amiable to her. For several days now Countess Lidia Ivanovna had been in a state of intense excitement. She had learned that Anna and Vronsky were in Petersburg. Alexey Alexandrovitch must be saved from seeing her, he must be saved even from the torturing knowledge that that awful woman was in the same town with him, and that he might meet her any minute. Lidia Ivanovna made inquiries through her friends as to what those infamous people, as she called Anna and Vronsky, intended doing, and she endeavored so to guide every movement of her friend during those days that he could not come across them. The young adjutant, an acquaintance of Vronsky, through whom she obtained her information, and who hoped through Countess Lidia Ivanovna to obtain a concession, told her that they had finished their business and were going away next day. Lidia Ivanovna had already begun to calm down, when the next morning a note was brought her, the handwriting of which she recognized with horror. It was the handwriting of Anna Karenina. The envelope was of paper as thick as bark on the oblong yellow paper there was a huge monogram, and the letter smelt of agreeable scent. 'Who brought it? 'A commissionaire from the hotel. It was some time before Countess Lidia Ivanovna could sit down to read the letter. Her excitement brought on an attack of asthma, to which she was subject. When she had recovered her composure, she read the following letter in French 'Madame la Comtesse, 'The Christian feelings with which your heart is filled give me the, I feel, unpardonable boldness to write to you. I am miserable at being separated from my son. I entreat permission to see him once before my departure. Forgive me for recalling myself to your memory. I apply to you and not to Alexey Alexandrovitch, simply because I do not wish to cause that generous man to suffer in remembering me. Knowing your friendship for him, I know you will understand me. Could you send Seryozha to me, or should I come to the house at some fixed hour, or will you let me know when and where I could see him away from home? I do not anticipate a refusal, knowing the magnanimity of him with whom it rests. You cannot conceive the craving I have to see him, and so cannot conceive the gratitude your help will arouse in me. 'Anna. Everything in this letter exasperated Countess Lidia Ivanovna its contents and the allusion to magnanimity, and especially its free and easyas she consideredtone. 'Say that there is no answer, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, and immediately opening her blottingbook, she wrote to Alexey Alexandrovitch that she hoped to see him at one o'clock at the levee. 'I must talk with you of a grave and painful subject. There we will arrange where to meet. Best of all at my house, where I will order tea as you like it. Urgent. He lays the cross, but He gives the strength to bear it, she added, so as to give him some slight preparation. Countess Lidia Ivanovna usually wrote some two or three letters a day to Alexey Alexandrovitch. She enjoyed that form of communication, which gave opportunity for a refinement and air of mystery not afforded by their personal interviews. The levee was drawing to a close. People met as they were going away, and gossiped of the latest news, of the newly bestowed honors and the changes in the positions of the higher functionaries. 'If only Countess Marya Borissovna were Minister of War, and Princess Vatkovskaya were CommanderinChief, said a grayheaded, little old man in a goldembroidered uniform, addressing a tall, handsome maid of honor who had questioned him about the new appointments. 'And me among the adjutants, said the maid of honor, smiling. 'You have an appointment already. You're over the ecclesiastical department. And your assistant's Karenin. 'Goodday, prince! said the little old man to a man who came up to him. 'What were you saying of Karenin? said the prince. 'He and Putyatov have received the Alexander Nevsky. 'I thought he had it already. 'No. Just look at him, said the little old man, pointing with his embroidered hat to Karenin in a court uniform with the new red ribbon across his shoulders, standing in the doorway of the hall with an influential member of the Imperial Council. 'Pleased and happy as a brass farthing, he added, stopping to shake hands with a handsome gentleman of the bedchamber of colossal proportions. 'No he's looking older, said the gentleman of the bedchamber. 'From overwork. He's always drawing up projects nowadays. He won't let a poor devil go nowadays till he's explained it all to him under heads. 'Looking older, did you say? Il fait des passions. I believe Countess Lidia Ivanovna's jealous now of his wife. 'Oh, come now, please don't say any harm of Countess Lidia Ivanovna. 'Why, is there any harm in her being in love with Karenin? 'But is it true Madame Karenina's here? 'Well, not here in the palace, but in Petersburg. I met her yesterday with Alexey Vronsky, bras dessous, bras dessous, in the Morsky. 'C'est un homme qui n'a pas,... the gentleman of the bedchamber was beginning, but he stopped to make room, bowing, for a member of the Imperial family to pass. Thus people talked incessantly of Alexey Alexandrovitch, finding fault with him and laughing at him, while he, blocking up the way of the member of the Imperial Council he had captured, was explaining to him point by point his new financial project, never interrupting his discourse for an instant for fear he should escape. Almost at the same time that his wife left Alexey Alexandrovitch there had come to him that bitterest moment in the life of an officialthe moment when his upward career comes to a full stop. This full stop had arrived and everyone perceived it, but Alexey Alexandrovitch himself was not yet aware that his career was over. Whether it was due to his feud with Stremov, or his misfortune with his wife, or simply that Alexey Alexandrovitch had reached his destined limits, it had become evident to everyone in the course of that year that his career was at an end. He still filled a position of consequence, he sat on many commissions and committees, but he was a man whose day was over, and from whom nothing was expected. Whatever he said, whatever he proposed, was heard as though it were something long familiar, and the very thing that was not needed. But Alexey Alexandrovitch was not aware of this, and, on the contrary, being cut off from direct participation in governmental activity, he saw more clearly than ever the errors and defects in the action of others, and thought it his duty to point out means for their correction. Shortly after his separation from his wife, he began writing his first note on the new judicial procedure, the first of the endless series of notes he was destined to write in the future. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not merely fail to observe his hopeless position in the official world, he was not merely free from anxiety on this head, he was positively more satisfied than ever with his own activity. 'He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife, says the Apostle Paul, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, who was now guided in every action by Scripture, often recalled this text. It seemed to him that ever since he had been left without a wife, he had in these very projects of reform been serving the Lord more zealously than before. The unmistakable impatience of the member of the Council trying to get away from him did not trouble Alexey Alexandrovitch he gave up his exposition only when the member of the Council, seizing his chance when one of the Imperial family was passing, slipped away from him. Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch looked down, collecting his thoughts, then looked casually about him and walked towards the door, where he hoped to meet Countess Lidia Ivanovna. 'And how strong they all are, how sound physically, thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, looking at the powerfully built gentleman of the bedchamber with his wellcombed, perfumed whiskers, and at the red neck of the prince, pinched by his tight uniform. He had to pass them on his way. 'Truly is it said that all the world is evil, he thought, with another sidelong glance at the calves of the gentleman of the bedchamber. Moving forward deliberately, Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed with his customary air of weariness and dignity to the gentleman who had been talking about him, and looking towards the door, his eyes sought Countess Lidia Ivanovna. 'Ah! Alexey Alexandrovitch! said the little old man, with a malicious light in his eyes, at the moment when Karenin was on a level with them, and was nodding with a frigid gesture, 'I haven't congratulated you yet, said the old man, pointing to his newly received ribbon. 'Thank you, answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'What an exquisite day today, he added, laying emphasis in his peculiar way on the word exquisite. That they laughed at him he was well aware, but he did not expect anything but hostility from them he was used to that by now. Catching sight of the yellow shoulders of Lidia Ivanovna jutting out above her corset, and her fine pensive eyes bidding him to her, Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled, revealing untarnished white teeth, and went towards her. Lidia Ivanovna's dress had cost her great pains, as indeed all her dresses had done of late. Her aim in dress was now quite the reverse of that she had pursued thirty years before. Then her desire had been to adorn herself with something, and the more adorned the better. Now, on the contrary, she was perforce decked out in a way so inconsistent with her age and her figure, that her one anxiety was to contrive that the contrast between these adornments and her own exterior should not be too appalling. And as far as Alexey Alexandrovitch was concerned she succeeded, and was in his eyes attractive. For him she was the one island not only of goodwill to him, but of love in the midst of the sea of hostility and jeering that surrounded him. Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturally to her loving glance as a plant to the sun. 'I congratulate you, she said to him, her eyes on his ribbon. Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders, closing his eyes, as though to say that that could not be a source of joy to him. Countess Lidia Ivanovna was very well aware that it was one of his chief sources of satisfaction, though he never admitted it. 'How is our angel? said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, meaning Seryozha. 'I can't say I was quite pleased with him, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes. 'And Sitnikov is not satisfied with him. (Sitnikov was the tutor to whom Seryozha's secular education had been intrusted.) 'As I have mentioned to you, there's a sort of coldness in him towards the most important questions which ought to touch the heart of every man and every child.... Alexey Alexandrovitch began expounding his views on the sole question that interested him besides the servicethe education of his son. When Alexey Alexandrovitch with Lidia Ivanovna's help had been brought back anew to life and activity, he felt it his duty to undertake the education of the son left on his hands. Having never before taken any interest in educational questions, Alexey Alexandrovitch devoted some time to the theoretical study of the subject. After reading several books on anthropology, education, and didactics, Alexey Alexandrovitch drew up a plan of education, and engaging the best tutor in Petersburg to superintend it, he set to work, and the subject continually absorbed him. 'Yes, but the heart. I see in him his father's heart, and with such a heart a child cannot go far wrong, said Lidia Ivanovna with enthusiasm. 'Yes, perhaps.... As for me, I do my duty. It's all I can do. 'You're coming to me, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after a pause 'we have to speak of a subject painful for you. I would give anything to have spared you certain memories, but others are not of the same mind. I have received a letter from her. She is here in Petersburg. Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered at the allusion to his wife, but immediately his face assumed the deathlike rigidity which expressed utter helplessness in the matter. 'I was expecting it, he said. Countess Lidia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and tears of rapture at the greatness of his soul came into her eyes. When Alexey Alexandrovitch came into the Countess Lidia Ivanovna's snug little boudoir, decorated with old china and hung with portraits, the lady herself had not yet made her appearance. She was changing her dress. A cloth was laid on a round table, and on it stood a china tea service and a silver spiritlamp and tea kettle. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked idly about at the endless familiar portraits which adorned the room, and sitting down to the table, he opened a New Testament lying upon it. The rustle of the countess's silk skirt drew his attention off. 'Well now, we can sit quietly, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, slipping hurriedly with an agitated smile between the table and the sofa, 'and talk over our tea. After some words of preparation, Countess Lidia Ivanovna, breathing hard and flushing crimson, gave into Alexey Alexandrovitch's hands the letter she had received. After reading the letter, he sat a long while in silence. 'I don't think I have the right to refuse her, he said, timidly lifting his eyes. 'Dear friend, you never see evil in anyone! 'On the contrary, I see that all is evil. But whether it is just.... His face showed irresolution, and a seeking for counsel, support, and guidance in a matter he did not understand. 'No, Countess Lidia Ivanovna interrupted him 'there are limits to everything. I can understand immorality, she said, not quite truthfully, since she never could understand that which leads women to immorality 'but I don't understand cruelty to whom? to you! How can she stay in the town where you are? No, the longer one lives the more one learns. And I'm learning to understand your loftiness and her baseness. 'Who is to throw a stone? said Alexey Alexandrovitch, unmistakably pleased with the part he had to play. 'I have forgiven all, and so I cannot deprive her of what is exacted by love in herby her love for her son.... 'But is that love, my friend? Is it sincere? Admitting that you have forgiventhat you forgivehave we the right to work on the feelings of that angel? He looks on her as dead. He prays for her, and beseeches God to have mercy on her sins. And it is better so. But now what will he think? 'I had not thought of that, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, evidently agreeing. Countess Lidia Ivanovna hid her face in her hands and was silent. She was praying. 'If you ask my advice, she said, having finished her prayer and uncovered her face, 'I do not advise you to do this. Do you suppose I don't see how you are suffering, how this has torn open your wounds? But supposing that, as always, you don't think of yourself, what can it lead to?to fresh suffering for you, to torture for the child. If there were a trace of humanity left in her, she ought not to wish for it herself. No, I have no hesitation in saying I advise not, and if you will intrust it to me, I will write to her. And Alexey Alexandrovitch consented, and Countess Lidia Ivanovna sent the following letter in French 'Dear Madame, 'To be reminded of you might have results for your son in leading to questions on his part which could not be answered without implanting in the child's soul a spirit of censure towards what should be for him sacred, and therefore I beg you to interpret your husband's refusal in the spirit of Christian love. I pray to Almighty God to have mercy on you. 'Countess Lidia. This letter attained the secret object which Countess Lidia Ivanovna had concealed from herself. It wounded Anna to the quick. For his part, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on returning home from Lidia Ivanovna's, could not all that day concentrate himself on his usual pursuits, and find that spiritual peace of one saved and believing which he had felt of late. The thought of his wife, who had so greatly sinned against him, and towards whom he had been so saintly, as Countess Lidia Ivanovna had so justly told him, ought not to have troubled him but he was not easy he could not understand the book he was reading he could not drive away harassing recollections of his relations with her, of the mistake which, as it now seemed, he had made in regard to her. The memory of how he had received her confession of infidelity on their way home from the races (especially that he had insisted only on the observance of external decorum, and had not sent a challenge) tortured him like a remorse. He was tortured too by the thought of the letter he had written her and most of all, his forgiveness, which nobody wanted, and his care of the other man's child made his heart burn with shame and remorse. And just the same feeling of shame and regret he felt now, as he reviewed all his past with her, recalling the awkward words in which, after long wavering, he had made her an offer. 'But how have I been to blame? he said to himself. And this question always excited another question in himwhether they felt differently, did their loving and marrying differently, these Vronskys and Oblonskys ... these gentlemen of the bedchamber, with their fine calves. And there passed before his mind a whole series of these mettlesome, vigorous, selfconfident men, who always and everywhere drew his inquisitive attention in spite of himself. He tried to dispel these thoughts, he tried to persuade himself that he was not living for this transient life, but for the life of eternity, and that there was peace and love in his heart. But the fact that he had in this transient, trivial life made, as it seemed to him, a few trivial mistakes tortured him as though the eternal salvation in which he believed had no existence. But this temptation did not last long, and soon there was reestablished once more in Alexey Alexandrovitch's soul the peace and the elevation by virtue of which he could forget what he did not want to remember. 'Well, Kapitonitch? said Seryozha, coming back rosy and goodhumored from his walk the day before his birthday, and giving his overcoat to the tall old hallporter, who smiled down at the little person from the height of his long figure. 'Well, has the bandaged clerk been here today? Did papa see him? 'He saw him. The minute the chief secretary came out, I announced him, said the hallporter with a goodhumored wink. 'Here, I'll take it off. 'Seryozha! said the tutor, stopping in the doorway leading to the inner rooms. 'Take it off yourself. But Seryozha, though he heard his tutor's feeble voice, did not pay attention to it. He stood keeping hold of the hallporter's belt, and gazing into his face. 'Well, and did papa do what he wanted for him? The hallporter nodded his head affirmatively. The clerk with his face tied up, who had already been seven times to ask some favor of Alexey Alexandrovitch, interested both Seryozha and the hallporter. Seryozha had come upon him in the hall, and had heard him plaintively beg the hallporter to announce him, saying that he and his children had death staring them in the face. Since then Seryozha, having met him a second time in the hall, took great interest in him. 'Well, was he very glad? he asked. 'Glad? I should think so! Almost dancing as he walked away. 'And has anything been left? asked Seryozha, after a pause. 'Come, sir, said the hallporter then with a shake of his head he whispered, 'Something from the countess. Seryozha understood at once that what the hallporter was speaking of was a present from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for his birthday. 'What do you say? Where? 'Korney took it to your papa. A fine plaything it must be too! 'How big? Like this? 'Rather small, but a fine thing. 'A book. 'No, a thing. Run along, run along, Vassily Lukitch is calling you, said the porter, hearing the tutor's steps approaching, and carefully taking away from his belt the little hand in the glove half pulled off, he signed with his head towards the tutor. 'Vassily Lukitch, in a tiny minute! answered Seryozha with that gay and loving smile which always won over the conscientious Vassily Lukitch. Seryozha was too happy, everything was too delightful for him to be able to help sharing with his friend the porter the family good fortune of which he had heard during his walk in the public gardens from Lidia Ivanovna's niece. This piece of good news seemed to him particularly important from its coming at the same time with the gladness of the bandaged clerk and his own gladness at toys having come for him. It seemed to Seryozha that this was a day on which everyone ought to be glad and happy. 'You know papa's received the Alexander Nevsky today? 'To be sure I do! People have been already to congratulate him. 'And is he glad? 'Glad at the Tsar's gracious favor! I should think so! It's a proof he's deserved it, said the porter severely and seriously. Seryozha fell to dreaming, gazing up at the face of the porter, which he had thoroughly studied in every detail, especially the chin that hung down between the gray whiskers, never seen by anyone but Seryozha, who saw him only from below. 'Well, and has your daughter been to see you lately? The porter's daughter was a ballet dancer. 'When is she to come on weekdays? They've their lessons to learn too. And you've your lesson, sir run along. On coming into the room, Seryozha, instead of sitting down to his lessons, told his tutor of his supposition that what had been brought him must be a machine. 'What do you think? he inquired. But Vassily Lukitch was thinking of nothing but the necessity of learning the grammar lesson for the teacher, who was coming at two. 'No, do just tell me, Vassily Lukitch, he asked suddenly, when he was seated at their work table with the book in his hands, 'what is greater than the Alexander Nevsky? You know papa's received the Alexander Nevsky? Vassily Lukitch replied that the Vladimir was greater than the Alexander Nevsky. 'And higher still? 'Well, highest of all is the Andrey Pervozvanny. 'And higher than the Andrey? 'I don't know. 'What, you don't know? and Seryozha, leaning on his elbows, sank into deep meditation. His meditations were of the most complex and diverse character. He imagined his father's having suddenly been presented with both the Vladimir and the Andrey today, and in consequence being much better tempered at his lesson, and dreamed how, when he was grown up, he would himself receive all the orders, and what they might invent higher than the Andrey. Directly any higher order were invented, he would win it. They would make a higher one still, and he would immediately win that too. The time passed in such meditations, and when the teacher came, the lesson about the adverbs of place and time and manner of action was not ready, and the teacher was not only displeased, but hurt. This touched Seryozha. He felt he was not to blame for not having learned the lesson however much he tried, he was utterly unable to do that. As long as the teacher was explaining to him, he believed him and seemed to comprehend, but as soon as he was left alone, he was positively unable to recollect and to understand that the short and familiar word 'suddenly is an adverb of manner of action. Still he was sorry that he had disappointed the teacher. He chose a moment when the teacher was looking in silence at the book. 'Mihail Ivanitch, when is your birthday? he asked all, of a sudden. 'You'd much better be thinking about your work. Birthdays are of no importance to a rational being. It's a day like any other on which one has to do one's work. Seryozha looked intently at the teacher, at his scanty beard, at his spectacles, which had slipped down below the ridge on his nose, and fell into so deep a reverie that he heard nothing of what the teacher was explaining to him. He knew that the teacher did not think what he said he felt it from the tone in which it was said. 'But why have they all agreed to speak just in the same manner always the dreariest and most useless stuff? Why does he keep me off why doesn't he love me? he asked himself mournfully, and could not think of an answer. After the lesson with the grammar teacher came his father's lesson. While waiting for his father, Seryozha sat at the table playing with a penknife, and fell to dreaming. Among Seryozha's favorite occupations was searching for his mother during his walks. He did not believe in death generally, and in her death in particular, in spite of what Lidia Ivanovna had told him and his father had confirmed, and it was just because of that, and after he had been told she was dead, that he had begun looking for her when out for a walk. Every woman of full, graceful figure with dark hair was his mother. At the sight of such a woman such a feeling of tenderness was stirred within him that his breath failed him, and tears came into his eyes. And he was on the tiptoe of expectation that she would come up to him, would lift her veil. All her face would be visible, she would smile, she would hug him, he would sniff her fragrance, feel the softness of her arms, and cry with happiness, just as he had one evening lain on her lap while she tickled him, and he laughed and bit her white, ringcovered fingers. Later, when he accidentally learned from his old nurse that his mother was not dead, and his father and Lidia Ivanovna had explained to him that she was dead to him because she was wicked (which he could not possibly believe, because he loved her), he went on seeking her and expecting her in the same way. That day in the public gardens there had been a lady in a lilac veil, whom he had watched with a throbbing heart, believing it to be she as she came towards them along the path. The lady had not come up to them, but had disappeared somewhere. That day, more intensely than ever, Seryozha felt a rush of love for her, and now, waiting for his father, he forgot everything, and cut all round the edge of the table with his penknife, staring straight before him with sparkling eyes and dreaming of her. 'Here is your papa! said Vassily Lukitch, rousing him. Seryozha jumped up and went up to his father, and kissing his hand, looked at him intently, trying to discover signs of his joy at receiving the Alexander Nevsky. 'Did you have a nice walk? said Alexey Alexandrovitch, sitting down in his easy chair, pulling the volume of the Old Testament to him and opening it. Although Alexey Alexandrovitch had more than once told Seryozha that every Christian ought to know Scripture history thoroughly, he often referred to the Bible himself during the lesson, and Seryozha observed this. 'Yes, it was very nice indeed, papa, said Seryozha, sitting sideways on his chair and rocking it, which was forbidden. 'I saw Nadinka (Nadinka was a niece of Lidia Ivanovna's who was being brought up in her house). 'She told me you'd been given a new star. Are you glad, papa? 'First of all, don't rock your chair, please, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'And secondly, it's not the reward that's precious, but the work itself. And I could have wished you understood that. If you now are going to work, to study in order to win a reward, then the work will seem hard to you but when you work (Alexey Alexandrovitch, as he spoke, thought of how he had been sustained by a sense of duty through the wearisome labor of the morning, consisting of signing one hundred and eighty papers), 'loving your work, you will find your reward in it. Seryozha's eyes, that had been shining with gaiety and tenderness, grew dull and dropped before his father's gaze. This was the same longfamiliar tone his father always took with him, and Seryozha had learned by now to fall in with it. His father always talked to himso Seryozha feltas though he were addressing some boy of his own imagination, one of those boys that exist in books, utterly unlike himself. And Seryozha always tried with his father to act being the storybook boy. 'You understand that, I hope? said his father. 'Yes, papa, answered Seryozha, acting the part of the imaginary boy. The lesson consisted of learning by heart several verses out of the Gospel and the repetition of the beginning of the Old Testament. The verses from the Gospel Seryozha knew fairly well, but at the moment when he was saying them he became so absorbed in watching the sharply protruding, bony knobbiness of his father's forehead, that he lost the thread, and he transposed the end of one verse and the beginning of another. So it was evident to Alexey Alexandrovitch that he did not understand what he was saying, and that irritated him. He frowned, and began explaining what Seryozha had heard many times before and never could remember, because he understood it too well, just as that 'suddenly is an adverb of manner of action. Seryozha looked with scared eyes at his father, and could think of nothing but whether his father would make him repeat what he had said, as he sometimes did. And this thought so alarmed Seryozha that he now understood nothing. But his father did not make him repeat it, and passed on to the lesson out of the Old Testament. Seryozha recounted the events themselves well enough, but when he had to answer questions as to what certain events prefigured, he knew nothing, though he had already been punished over this lesson. The passage at which he was utterly unable to say anything, and began fidgeting and cutting the table and swinging his chair, was where he had to repeat the patriarchs before the Flood. He did not know one of them, except Enoch, who had been taken up alive to heaven. Last time he had remembered their names, but now he had forgotten them utterly, chiefly because Enoch was the personage he liked best in the whole of the Old Testament, and Enoch's translation to heaven was connected in his mind with a whole long train of thought, in which he became absorbed now while he gazed with fascinated eyes at his father's watchchain and a halfunbuttoned button on his waistcoat. In death, of which they talked to him so often, Seryozha disbelieved entirely. He did not believe that those he loved could die, above all that he himself would die. That was to him something utterly inconceivable and impossible. But he had been told that all men die he had asked people, indeed, whom he trusted, and they too, had confirmed it his old nurse, too, said the same, though reluctantly. But Enoch had not died, and so it followed that everyone did not die. 'And why cannot anyone else so serve God and be taken alive to heaven? thought Seryozha. Bad people, that is those Seryozha did not like, they might die, but the good might all be like Enoch. 'Well, what are the names of the patriarchs? 'Enoch, Enos 'But you have said that already. This is bad, Seryozha, very bad. If you don't try to learn what is more necessary than anything for a Christian, said his father, getting up, 'whatever can interest you? I am displeased with you, and Piotr Ignatitch (this was the most important of his teachers) 'is displeased with you.... I shall have to punish you. His father and his teacher were both displeased with Seryozha, and he certainly did learn his lessons very badly. But still it could not be said he was a stupid boy. On the contrary, he was far cleverer than the boys his teacher held up as examples to Seryozha. In his father's opinion, he did not want to learn what he was taught. In reality he could not learn that. He could not, because the claims of his own soul were more binding on him than those claims his father and his teacher made upon him. Those claims were in opposition, and he was in direct conflict with his education. He was nine years old he was a child but he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul. His teachers complained that he would not learn, while his soul was brimming over with thirst for knowledge. And he learned from Kapitonitch, from his nurse, from Nadinka, from Vassily Lukitch, but not from his teachers. The spring his father and his teachers reckoned upon to turn their millwheels had long dried up at the source, but its waters did their work in another channel. His father punished Seryozha by not letting him go to see Nadinka, Lidia Ivanovna's niece but this punishment turned out happily for Seryozha. Vassily Lukitch was in a good humor, and showed him how to make windmills. The whole evening passed over this work and in dreaming how to make a windmill on which he could turn himselfclutching at the sails or tying himself on and whirling round. Of his mother Seryozha did not think all the evening, but when he had gone to bed, he suddenly remembered her, and prayed in his own words that his mother tomorrow for his birthday might leave off hiding herself and come to him. 'Vassily Lukitch, do you know what I prayed for tonight extra besides the regular things? 'That you might learn your lessons better? 'No. 'Toys? 'No. You'll never guess. A splendid thing but it's a secret! When it comes to pass I'll tell you. Can't you guess! 'No, I can't guess. You tell me, said Vassily Lukitch with a smile, which was rare with him. 'Come, lie down, I'm putting out the candle. 'Without the candle I can see better what I see and what I prayed for. There! I was almost telling the secret! said Seryozha, laughing gaily. When the candle was taken away, Seryozha heard and felt his mother. She stood over him, and with loving eyes caressed him. But then came windmills, a knife, everything began to be mixed up, and he fell asleep. On arriving in Petersburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed at one of the best hotels Vronsky apart in a lower story, Anna above with her child, its nurse, and her maid, in a large suite of four rooms. On the day of his arrival Vronsky went to his brother's. There he found his mother, who had come from Moscow on business. His mother and sisterinlaw greeted him as usual they asked him about his stay abroad, and talked of their common acquaintances, but did not let drop a single word in allusion to his connection with Anna. His brother came the next morning to see Vronsky, and of his own accord asked him about her, and Alexey Vronsky told him directly that he looked upon his connection with Madame Karenina as marriage that he hoped to arrange a divorce, and then to marry her, and until then he considered her as much a wife as any other wife, and he begged him to tell their mother and his wife so. 'If the world disapproves, I don't care, said Vronsky 'but if my relations want to be on terms of relationship with me, they will have to be on the same terms with my wife. The elder brother, who had always a respect for his younger brother's judgment, could not well tell whether he was right or not till the world had decided the question for his part he had nothing against it, and with Alexey he went up to see Anna. Before his brother, as before everyone, Vronsky addressed Anna with a certain formality, treating her as he might a very intimate friend, but it was understood that his brother knew their real relations, and they talked about Anna's going to Vronsky's estate. In spite of all his social experience Vronsky was, in consequence of the new position in which he was placed, laboring under a strange misapprehension. One would have thought he must have understood that society was closed for him and Anna but now some vague ideas had sprung up in his brain that this was only the case in oldfashioned days, and that now with the rapidity of modern progress (he had unconsciously become by now a partisan of every sort of progress) the views of society had changed, and that the question whether they would be received in society was not a foregone conclusion. 'Of course, he thought, 'she would not be received at court, but intimate friends can and must look at it in the proper light. One may sit for several hours at a stretch with one's legs crossed in the same position, if one knows that there's nothing to prevent one's changing one's position but if a man knows that he must remain sitting so with crossed legs, then cramps come on, the legs begin to twitch and to strain towards the spot to which one would like to draw them. This was what Vronsky was experiencing in regard to the world. Though at the bottom of his heart he knew that the world was shut on them, he put it to the test whether the world had not changed by now and would not receive them. But he very quickly perceived that though the world was open for him personally, it was closed for Anna. Just as in the game of cat and mouse, the hands raised for him were dropped to bar the way for Anna. One of the first ladies of Petersburg society whom Vronsky saw was his cousin Betsy. 'At last! she greeted him joyfully. 'And Anna? How glad I am! Where are you stopping? I can fancy after your delightful travels you must find our poor Petersburg horrid. I can fancy your honeymoon in Rome. How about the divorce? Is that all over? Vronsky noticed that Betsy's enthusiasm waned when she learned that no divorce had as yet taken place. 'People will throw stones at me, I know, she said, 'but I shall come and see Anna yes, I shall certainly come. You won't be here long, I suppose? And she did certainly come to see Anna the same day, but her tone was not at all the same as in former days. She unmistakably prided herself on her courage, and wished Anna to appreciate the fidelity of her friendship. She only stayed ten minutes, talking of society gossip, and on leaving she said 'You've never told me when the divorce is to be? Supposing I'm ready to fling my cap over the mill, other starchy people will give you the cold shoulder until you're married. And that's so simple nowadays. a se fait. So you're going on Friday? Sorry we shan't see each other again. From Betsy's tone Vronsky might have grasped what he had to expect from the world but he made another effort in his own family. His mother he did not reckon upon. He knew that his mother, who had been so enthusiastic over Anna at their first acquaintance, would have no mercy on her now for having ruined her son's career. But he had more hope of Varya, his brother's wife. He fancied she would not throw stones, and would go simply and directly to see Anna, and would receive her in her own house. The day after his arrival Vronsky went to her, and finding her alone, expressed his wishes directly. 'You know, Alexey, she said after hearing him, 'how fond I am of you, and how ready I am to do anything for you but I have not spoken, because I knew I could be of no use to you and to Anna Arkadyevna, she said, articulating the name 'Anna Arkadyevna with particular care. 'Don't suppose, please, that I judge her. Never perhaps in her place I should have done the same. I don't and can't enter into that, she said, glancing timidly at his gloomy face. 'But one must call things by their names. You want me to go and see her, to ask her here, and to rehabilitate her in society but do understand that I cannot do so. I have daughters growing up, and I must live in the world for my husband's sake. Well, I'm ready to come and see Anna Arkadyevna she will understand that I can't ask her here, or I should have to do so in such a way that she would not meet people who look at things differently that would offend her. I can't raise her.... 'Oh, I don't regard her as fallen more than hundreds of women you do receive! Vronsky interrupted her still more gloomily, and he got up in silence, understanding that his sisterinlaw's decision was not to be shaken. 'Alexey! don't be angry with me. Please understand that I'm not to blame, began Varya, looking at him with a timid smile. 'I'm not angry with you, he said still as gloomily 'but I'm sorry in two ways. I'm sorry, too, that this means breaking up our friendshipif not breaking up, at least weakening it. You will understand that for me, too, it cannot be otherwise. And with that he left her. Vronsky knew that further efforts were useless, and that he had to spend these few days in Petersburg as though in a strange town, avoiding every sort of relation with his own old circle in order not to be exposed to the annoyances and humiliations which were so intolerable to him. One of the most unpleasant features of his position in Petersburg was that Alexey Alexandrovitch and his name seemed to meet him everywhere. He could not begin to talk of anything without the conversation turning on Alexey Alexandrovitch he could not go anywhere without risk of meeting him. So at least it seemed to Vronsky, just as it seems to a man with a sore finger that he is continually, as though on purpose, grazing his sore finger on everything. Their stay in Petersburg was the more painful to Vronsky that he perceived all the time a sort of new mood that he could not understand in Anna. At one time she would seem in love with him, and then she would become cold, irritable, and impenetrable. She was worrying over something, and keeping something back from him, and did not seem to notice the humiliations which poisoned his existence, and for her, with her delicate intuition, must have been still more unbearable. One of Anna's objects in coming back to Russia had been to see her son. From the day she left Italy the thought of it had never ceased to agitate her. And as she got nearer to Petersburg, the delight and importance of this meeting grew ever greater in her imagination. She did not even put to herself the question how to arrange it. It seemed to her natural and simple to see her son when she should be in the same town with him. But on her arrival in Petersburg she was suddenly made distinctly aware of her present position in society, and she grasped the fact that to arrange this meeting was no easy matter. She had now been two days in Petersburg. The thought of her son never left her for a single instant, but she had not yet seen him. To go straight to the house, where she might meet Alexey Alexandrovitch, that she felt she had no right to do. She might be refused admittance and insulted. To write and so enter into relations with her husbandthat it made her miserable to think of doing she could only be at peace when she did not think of her husband. To get a glimpse of her son out walking, finding out where and when he went out, was not enough for her she had so looked forward to this meeting, she had so much she must say to him, she so longed to embrace him, to kiss him. Seryozha's old nurse might be a help to her and show her what to do. But the nurse was not now living in Alexey Alexandrovitch's house. In this uncertainty, and in efforts to find the nurse, two days had slipped by. Hearing of the close intimacy between Alexey Alexandrovitch and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Anna decided on the third day to write to her a letter, which cost her great pains, and in which she intentionally said that permission to see her son must depend on her husband's generosity. She knew that if the letter were shown to her husband, he would keep up his character of magnanimity, and would not refuse her request. The commissionaire who took the letter had brought her back the most cruel and unexpected answer, that there was no answer. She had never felt so humiliated as at the moment when, sending for the commissionaire, she heard from him the exact account of how he had waited, and how afterwards he had been told there was no answer. Anna felt humiliated, insulted, but she saw that from her point of view Countess Lidia Ivanovna was right. Her suffering was the more poignant that she had to bear it in solitude. She could not and would not share it with Vronsky. She knew that to him, although he was the primary cause of her distress, the question of her seeing her son would seem a matter of very little consequence. She knew that he would never be capable of understanding all the depth of her suffering, that for his cool tone at any allusion to it she would begin to hate him. And she dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so she hid from him everything that related to her son. Spending the whole day at home she considered ways of seeing her son, and had reached a decision to write to her husband. She was just composing this letter when she was handed the letter from Lidia Ivanovna. The countess's silence had subdued and depressed her, but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, so exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turned against other people and left off blaming herself. 'This coldnessthis pretense of feeling! she said to herself. 'They must needs insult me and torture the child, and I am to submit to it! Not on any consideration! She is worse than I am. I don't lie, anyway. And she decided on the spot that next day, Seryozha's birthday, she would go straight to her husband's house, bribe or deceive the servants, but at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous deception with which they were encompassing the unhappy child. She went to a toy shop, bought toys and thought over a plan of action. She would go early in the morning at eight o'clock, when Alexey Alexandrovitch would be certain not to be up. She would have money in her hand to give the hallporter and the footman, so that they should let her in, and not raising her veil, she would say that she had come from Seryozha's godfather to congratulate him, and that she had been charged to leave the toys at his bedside. She had prepared everything but the words she should say to her son. Often as she had dreamed of it, she could never think of anything. The next day, at eight o'clock in the morning, Anna got out of a hired sledge and rang at the front entrance of her former home. 'Run and see what's wanted. Some lady, said Kapitonitch, who, not yet dressed, in his overcoat and galoshes, had peeped out of the window and seen a lady in a veil standing close up to the door. His assistant, a lad Anna did not know, had no sooner opened the door to her than she came in, and pulling a threerouble note out of her muff put it hurriedly into his hand. 'SeryozhaSergey Alexeitch, she said, and was going on. Scrutinizing the note, the porter's assistant stopped her at the second glass door. 'Whom do you want? he asked. She did not hear his words and made no answer. Noticing the embarrassment of the unknown lady, Kapitonitch went out to her, opened the second door for her, and asked her what she was pleased to want. 'From Prince Skorodumov for Sergey Alexeitch, she said. 'His honor's not up yet, said the porter, looking at her attentively. Anna had not anticipated that the absolutely unchanged hall of the house where she had lived for nine years would so greatly affect her. Memories sweet and painful rose one after another in her heart, and for a moment she forgot what she was here for. 'Would you kindly wait? said Kapitonitch, taking off her fur cloak. As he took off the cloak, Kapitonitch glanced at her face, recognized her, and made her a low bow in silence. 'Please walk in, your excellency, he said to her. She tried to say something, but her voice refused to utter any sound with a guilty and imploring glance at the old man she went with light, swift steps up the stairs. Bent double, and his galoshes catching in the steps, Kapitonitch ran after her, trying to overtake her. 'The tutor's there maybe he's not dressed. I'll let him know. Anna still mounted the familiar staircase, not understanding what the old man was saying. 'This way, to the left, if you please. Excuse its not being tidy. His honor's in the old parlor now, the hallporter said, panting. 'Excuse me, wait a little, your excellency I'll just see, he said, and overtaking her, he opened the high door and disappeared behind it. Anna stood still waiting. 'He's only just awake, said the hallporter, coming out. And at the very instant the porter said this, Anna caught the sound of a childish yawn. From the sound of this yawn alone she knew her son and seemed to see him living before her eyes. 'Let me in go away! she said, and went in through the high doorway. On the right of the door stood a bed, and sitting up in the bed was the boy. His little body bent forward with his nightshirt unbuttoned, he was stretching and still yawning. The instant his lips came together they curved into a blissfully sleepy smile, and with that smile he slowly and deliciously rolled back again. 'Seryozha! she whispered, going noiselessly up to him. When she was parted from him, and all this latter time when she had been feeling a fresh rush of love for him, she had pictured him as he was at four years old, when she had loved him most of all. Now he was not even the same as when she had left him he was still further from the fouryearold baby, more grown and thinner. How thin his face was, how short his hair was! What long hands! How he had changed since she left him! But it was he with his head, his lips, his soft neck and broad little shoulders. 'Seryozha! she repeated just in the child's ear. He raised himself again on his elbow, turned his tangled head from side to side as though looking for something, and opened his eyes. Slowly and inquiringly he looked for several seconds at his mother standing motionless before him, then all at once he smiled a blissful smile, and shutting his eyes, rolled not backwards but towards her into her arms. 'Seryozha! my darling boy! she said, breathing hard and putting her arms round his plump little body. 'Mother! he said, wriggling about in her arms so as to touch her hands with different parts of him. Smiling sleepily still with closed eyes, he flung fat little arms round her shoulders, rolled towards her, with the delicious sleepy warmth and fragrance that is only found in children, and began rubbing his face against her neck and shoulders. 'I know, he said, opening his eyes 'it's my birthday today. I knew you'd come. I'll get up directly. And saying that he dropped asleep. Anna looked at him hungrily she saw how he had grown and changed in her absence. She knew, and did not know, the bare legs so long now, that were thrust out below the quilt, those shortcropped curls on his neck in which she had so often kissed him. She touched all this and could say nothing tears choked her. 'What are you crying for, mother? he said, waking completely up. 'Mother, what are you crying for? he cried in a tearful voice. 'I won't cry ... I'm crying for joy. It's so long since I've seen you. I won't, I won't, she said, gulping down her tears and turning away. 'Come, it's time for you to dress now, she added, after a pause, and, never letting go his hands, she sat down by his bedside on the chair, where his clothes were put ready for him. 'How do you dress without me? How.... she tried to begin talking simply and cheerfully, but she could not, and again she turned away. 'I don't have a cold bath, papa didn't order it. And you've not seen Vassily Lukitch? He'll come in soon. Why, you're sitting on my clothes! And Seryozha went off into a peal of laughter. She looked at him and smiled. 'Mother, darling, sweet one! he shouted, flinging himself on her again and hugging her. It was as though only now, on seeing her smile, he fully grasped what had happened. 'I don't want that on, he said, taking off her hat. And as it were, seeing her afresh without her hat, he fell to kissing her again. 'But what did you think about me? You didn't think I was dead? 'I never believed it. 'You didn't believe it, my sweet? 'I knew, I knew! he repeated his favorite phrase, and snatching the hand that was stroking his hair, he pressed the open palm to his mouth and kissed it. Meanwhile Vassily Lukitch had not at first understood who this lady was, and had learned from their conversation that it was no other person than the mother who had left her husband, and whom he had not seen, as he had entered the house after her departure. He was in doubt whether to go in or not, or whether to communicate with Alexey Alexandrovitch. Reflecting finally that his duty was to get Seryozha up at the hour fixed, and that it was therefore not his business to consider who was there, the mother or anyone else, but simply to do his duty, he finished dressing, went to the door and opened it. But the embraces of the mother and child, the sound of their voices, and what they were saying, made him change his mind. He shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. 'I'll wait another ten minutes, he said to himself, clearing his throat and wiping away tears. Among the servants of the household there was intense excitement all this time. All had heard that their mistress had come, and that Kapitonitch had let her in, and that she was even now in the nursery, and that their master always went in person to the nursery at nine o'clock, and everyone fully comprehended that it was impossible for the husband and wife to meet, and that they must prevent it. Korney, the valet, going down to the hallporter's room, asked who had let her in, and how it was he had done so, and ascertaining that Kapitonitch had admitted her and shown her up, he gave the old man a talkingto. The hallporter was doggedly silent, but when Korney told him he ought to be sent away, Kapitonitch darted up to him, and waving his hands in Korney's face, began 'Oh yes, to be sure you'd not have let her in! After ten years' service, and never a word but of kindness, and there you'd up and say, 'Be off, go along, get away with you!' Oh yes, you're a shrewd one at politics, I dare say! You don't need to be taught how to swindle the master, and to filch fur coats! 'Soldier! said Korney contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse who was coming in. 'Here, what do you think, Marya Efimovna he let her in without a word to anyone, Korney said addressing her. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch will be down immediatelyand go into the nursery! 'A pretty business, a pretty business! said the nurse. 'You, Korney Vassilievitch, you'd best keep him some way or other, the master, while I'll run and get her away somehow. A pretty business! When the nurse went into the nursery, Seryozha was telling his mother how he and Nadinka had had a fall in sledging downhill, and had turned over three times. She was listening to the sound of his voice, watching his face and the play of expression on it, touching his hand, but she did not follow what he was saying. She must go, she must leave him,this was the only thing she was thinking and feeling. She heard the steps of Vassily Lukitch coming up to the door and coughing she heard, too, the steps of the nurse as she came near but she sat like one turned to stone, incapable of beginning to speak or to get up. 'Mistress, darling! began the nurse, going up to Anna and kissing her hands and shoulders. 'God has brought joy indeed to our boy on his birthday. You aren't changed one bit. 'Oh, nurse dear, I didn't know you were in the house, said Anna, rousing herself for a moment. 'I'm not living here, I'm living with my daughter. I came for the birthday, Anna Arkadyevna, darling! The nurse suddenly burst into tears, and began kissing her hand again. Seryozha, with radiant eyes and smiles, holding his mother by one hand and his nurse by the other, pattered on the rug with his fat little bare feet. The tenderness shown by his beloved nurse to his mother threw him into an ecstasy. 'Mother! She often comes to see me, and when she comes.... he was beginning, but he stopped, noticing that the nurse was saying something in a whisper to his mother, and that in his mother's face there was a look of dread and something like shame, which was so strangely unbecoming to her. She went up to him. 'My sweet! she said. She could not say goodbye, but the expression on her face said it, and he understood. 'Darling, darling Kootik! she used the name by which she had called him when he was little, 'you won't forget me? You.... but she could not say more. How often afterwards she thought of words she might have said. But now she did not know how to say it, and could say nothing. But Seryozha knew all she wanted to say to him. He understood that she was unhappy and loved him. He understood even what the nurse had whispered. He had caught the words 'always at nine o'clock, and he knew that this was said of his father, and that his father and mother could not meet. That he understood, but one thing he could not understandwhy there should be a look of dread and shame in her face?... She was not in fault, but she was afraid of him and ashamed of something. He would have liked to put a question that would have set at rest this doubt, but he did not dare he saw that she was miserable, and he felt for her. Silently he pressed close to her and whispered, 'Don't go yet. He won't come just yet. The mother held him away from her to see what he was thinking, what to say to him, and in his frightened face she read not only that he was speaking of his father, but, as it were, asking her what he ought to think about his father. 'Seryozha, my darling, she said, 'love him he's better and kinder than I am, and I have done him wrong. When you grow up you will judge. 'There's no one better than you!... he cried in despair through his tears, and, clutching her by the shoulders, he began squeezing her with all his force to him, his arms trembling with the strain. 'My sweet, my little one! said Anna, and she cried as weakly and childishly as he. At that moment the door opened. Vassily Lukitch came in. At the other door there was the sound of steps, and the nurse in a scared whisper said, 'He's coming, and gave Anna her hat. Seryozha sank onto the bed and sobbed, hiding his face in his hands. Anna removed his hands, once more kissed his wet face, and with rapid steps went to the door. Alexey Alexandrovitch walked in, meeting her. Seeing her, he stopped short and bowed his head. Although she had just said he was better and kinder than she, in the rapid glance she flung at him, taking in his whole figure in all its details, feelings of repulsion and hatred for him and jealousy over her son took possession of her. With a swift gesture she put down her veil, and, quickening her pace, almost ran out of the room. She had not time to undo, and so carried back with her, the parcel of toys she had chosen the day before in a toy shop with such love and sorrow. As intensely as Anna had longed to see her son, and long as she had been thinking of it and preparing herself for it, she had not in the least expected that seeing him would affect her so deeply. On getting back to her lonely rooms in the hotel she could not for a long while understand why she was there. 'Yes, it's all over, and I am again alone, she said to herself, and without taking off her hat she sat down in a low chair by the hearth. Fixing her eyes on a bronze clock standing on a table between the windows, she tried to think. The French maid brought from abroad came in to suggest she should dress. She gazed at her wonderingly and said, 'Presently. A footman offered her coffee. 'Later on, she said. The Italian nurse, after having taken the baby out in her best, came in with her, and brought her to Anna. The plump, wellfed little baby, on seeing her mother, as she always did, held out her fat little hands, and with a smile on her toothless mouth, began, like a fish with a float, bobbing her fingers up and down the starched folds of her embroidered skirt, making them rustle. It was impossible not to smile, not to kiss the baby, impossible not to hold out a finger for her to clutch, crowing and prancing all over impossible not to offer her a lip which she sucked into her little mouth by way of a kiss. And all this Anna did, and took her in her arms and made her dance, and kissed her fresh little cheek and bare little elbows but at the sight of this child it was plainer than ever to her that the feeling she had for her could not be called love in comparison with what she felt for Seryozha. Everything in this baby was charming, but for some reason all this did not go deep to her heart. On her first child, though the child of an unloved father, had been concentrated all the love that had never found satisfaction. Her baby girl had been born in the most painful circumstances and had not had a hundredth part of the care and thought which had been concentrated on her first child. Besides, in the little girl everything was still in the future, while Seryozha was by now almost a personality, and a personality dearly loved. In him there was a conflict of thought and feeling he understood her, he loved her, he judged her, she thought, recalling his words and his eyes. And she was forevernot physically only but spirituallydivided from him, and it was impossible to set this right. She gave the baby back to the nurse, let her go, and opened the locket in which there was Seryozha's portrait when he was almost of the same age as the girl. She got up, and, taking off her hat, took up from a little table an album in which there were photographs of her son at different ages. She wanted to compare them, and began taking them out of the album. She took them all out except one, the latest and best photograph. In it he was in a white smock, sitting astride a chair, with frowning eyes and smiling lips. It was his best, most characteristic expression. With her little supple hands, her white, delicate fingers, that moved with a peculiar intensity today, she pulled at a corner of the photograph, but the photograph had caught somewhere, and she could not get it out. There was no paperknife on the table, and so, pulling out the photograph that was next to her son's (it was a photograph of Vronsky taken at Rome in a round hat and with long hair), she used it to push out her son's photograph. 'Oh, here is he! she said, glancing at the portrait of Vronsky, and she suddenly recalled that he was the cause of her present misery. She had not once thought of him all the morning. But now, coming all at once upon that manly, noble face, so familiar and so dear to her, she felt a sudden rush of love for him. 'But where is he? How is it he leaves me alone in my misery? she thought all at once with a feeling of reproach, forgetting she had herself kept from him everything concerning her son. She sent to ask him to come to her immediately with a throbbing heart she awaited him, rehearsing to herself the words in which she would tell him all, and the expressions of love with which he would console her. The messenger returned with the answer that he had a visitor with him, but that he would come immediately, and that he asked whether she would let him bring with him Prince Yashvin, who had just arrived in Petersburg. 'He's not coming alone, and since dinner yesterday he has not seen me, she thought 'he's not coming so that I could tell him everything, but coming with Yashvin. And all at once a strange idea came to her what if he had ceased to love her? And going over the events of the last few days, it seemed to her that she saw in everything a confirmation of this terrible idea. The fact that he had not dined at home yesterday, and the fact that he had insisted on their taking separate sets of rooms in Petersburg, and that even now he was not coming to her alone, as though he were trying to avoid meeting her face to face. 'But he ought to tell me so. I must know that it is so. If I knew it, then I know what I should do, she said to herself, utterly unable to picture to herself the position she would be in if she were convinced of his not caring for her. She thought he had ceased to love her, she felt close upon despair, and consequently she felt exceptionally alert. She rang for her maid and went to her dressingroom. As she dressed, she took more care over her appearance than she had done all those days, as though he might, if he had grown cold to her, fall in love with her again because she had dressed and arranged her hair in the way most becoming to her. She heard the bell ring before she was ready. When she went into the drawingroom it was not he, but Yashvin, who met her eyes. Vronsky was looking through the photographs of her son, which she had forgotten on the table, and he made no haste to look round at her. 'We have met already, she said, putting her little hand into the huge hand of Yashvin, whose bashfulness was so queerly out of keeping with his immense frame and coarse face. 'We met last year at the races. Give them to me, she said, with a rapid movement snatching from Vronsky the photographs of her son, and glancing significantly at him with flashing eyes. 'Were the races good this year? Instead of them I saw the races in the Corso in Rome. But you don't care for life abroad, she said with a cordial smile. 'I know you and all your tastes, though I have seen so little of you. 'I'm awfully sorry for that, for my tastes are mostly bad, said Yashvin, gnawing at his left mustache. Having talked a little while, and noticing that Vronsky glanced at the clock, Yashvin asked her whether she would be staying much longer in Petersburg, and unbending his huge figure reached after his cap. 'Not long, I think, she said hesitatingly, glancing at Vronsky. 'So then we shan't meet again? 'Come and dine with me, said Anna resolutely, angry it seemed with herself for her embarrassment, but flushing as she always did when she defined her position before a fresh person. 'The dinner here is not good, but at least you will see him. There is no one of his old friends in the regiment Alexey cares for as he does for you. 'Delighted, said Yashvin with a smile, from which Vronsky could see that he liked Anna very much. Yashvin said goodbye and went away Vronsky stayed behind. 'Are you going too? she said to him. 'I'm late already, he answered. 'Run along! I'll catch you up in a moment, he called to Yashvin. She took him by the hand, and without taking her eyes off him, gazed at him while she ransacked her mind for the words to say that would keep him. 'Wait a minute, there's something I want to say to you, and taking his broad hand she pressed it on her neck. 'Oh, was it right my asking him to dinner? 'You did quite right, he said with a serene smile that showed his even teeth, and he kissed her hand. 'Alexey, you have not changed to me? she said, pressing his hand in both of hers. 'Alexey, I am miserable here. When are we going away? 'Soon, soon. You wouldn't believe how disagreeable our way of living here is to me too, he said, and he drew away his hand. 'Well, go, go! she said in a tone of offense, and she walked quickly away from him. When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home. Soon after he had left, some lady, so they told him, had come to see her, and she had gone out with her. That she had gone out without leaving word where she was going, that she had not yet come back, and that all the morning she had been going about somewhere without a word to himall this, together with the strange look of excitement in her face in the morning, and the recollection of the hostile tone with which she had before Yashvin almost snatched her son's photographs out of his hands, made him serious. He decided he absolutely must speak openly with her. And he waited for her in her drawingroom. But Anna did not return alone, but brought with her her old unmarried aunt, Princess Oblonskaya. This was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom Anna had gone out shopping. Anna appeared not to notice Vronsky's worried and inquiring expression, and began a lively account of her morning's shopping. He saw that there was something working within her in her flashing eyes, when they rested for a moment on him, there was an intense concentration, and in her words and movements there was that nervous rapidity and grace which, during the early period of their intimacy, had so fascinated him, but which now so disturbed and alarmed him. The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered together and about to go into the little diningroom when Tushkevitch made his appearance with a message from Princess Betsy. Princess Betsy begged her to excuse her not having come to say goodbye she had been indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her between halfpast six and nine o'clock. Vronsky glanced at Anna at the precise limit of time, so suggestive of steps having been taken that she should meet no one but Anna appeared not to notice it. 'Very sorry that I can't come just between halfpast six and nine, she said with a faint smile. 'The princess will be very sorry. 'And so am I. 'You're going, no doubt, to hear Patti? said Tushkevitch. 'Patti? You suggest the idea to me. I would go if it were possible to get a box. 'I can get one, Tushkevitch offered his services. 'I should be very, very grateful to you, said Anna. 'But won't you dine with us? Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug. He was at a complete loss to understand what Anna was about. What had she brought the old Princess Oblonskaya home for, what had she made Tushkevitch stay to dinner for, and, most amazing of all, why was she sending him for a box? Could she possibly think in her position of going to Patti's benefit, where all the circle of her acquaintances would be? He looked at her with serious eyes, but she responded with that defiant, halfmirthful, halfdesperate look, the meaning of which he could not comprehend. At dinner Anna was in aggressively high spiritsshe almost flirted both with Tushkevitch and with Yashvin. When they got up from dinner and Tushkevitch had gone to get a box at the opera, Yashvin went to smoke, and Vronsky went down with him to his own rooms. After sitting there for some time he ran upstairs. Anna was already dressed in a lownecked gown of light silk and velvet that she had had made in Paris, and with costly white lace on her head, framing her face, and particularly becoming, showing up her dazzling beauty. 'Are you really going to the theater? he said, trying not to look at her. 'Why do you ask with such alarm? she said, wounded again at his not looking at her. 'Why shouldn't I go? She appeared not to understand the motive of his words. 'Oh, of course, there's no reason whatever, he said, frowning. 'That's just what I say, she said, willfully refusing to see the irony of his tone, and quietly turning back her long, perfumed glove. 'Anna, for God's sake! what is the matter with you? he said, appealing to her exactly as once her husband had done. 'I don't understand what you are asking. 'You know that it's out of the question to go. 'Why so? I'm not going alone. Princess Varvara has gone to dress, she is going with me. He shrugged his shoulders with an air of perplexity and despair. 'But do you mean to say you don't know?... he began. 'But I don't care to know! she almost shrieked. 'I don't care to. Do I regret what I have done? No, no, no! If it were all to do again from the beginning, it would be the same. For us, for you and for me, there is only one thing that matters, whether we love each other. Other people we need not consider. Why are we living here apart and not seeing each other? Why can't I go? I love you, and I don't care for anything, she said in Russian, glancing at him with a peculiar gleam in her eyes that he could not understand. 'If you have not changed to me, why don't you look at me? He looked at her. He saw all the beauty of her face and full dress, always so becoming to her. But now her beauty and elegance were just what irritated him. 'My feeling cannot change, you know, but I beg you, I entreat you, he said again in French, with a note of tender supplication in his voice, but with coldness in his eyes. She did not hear his words, but she saw the coldness of his eyes, and answered with irritation 'And I beg you to explain why I should not go. 'Because it might cause you.... he hesitated. 'I don't understand. Yashvin n'est pas compromettant, and Princess Varvara is no worse than others. Oh, here she is! Vronsky for the first time experienced a feeling of anger against Anna, almost a hatred for her willfully refusing to understand her own position. This feeling was aggravated by his being unable to tell her plainly the cause of his anger. If he had told her directly what he was thinking, he would have said 'In that dress, with a princess only too well known to everyone, to show yourself at the theater is equivalent not merely to acknowledging your position as a fallen woman, but is flinging down a challenge to society, that is to say, cutting yourself off from it forever. He could not say that to her. 'But how can she fail to see it, and what is going on in her? he said to himself. He felt at the same time that his respect for her was diminished while his sense of her beauty was intensified. He went back scowling to his rooms, and sitting down beside Yashvin, who, with his long legs stretched out on a chair, was drinking brandy and seltzer water, he ordered a glass of the same for himself. 'You were talking of Lankovsky's Powerful. That's a fine horse, and I would advise you to buy him, said Yashvin, glancing at his comrade's gloomy face. 'His hindquarters aren't quite firstrate, but the legs and headone couldn't wish for anything better. 'I think I will take him, answered Vronsky. Their conversation about horses interested him, but he did not for an instant forget Anna, and could not help listening to the sound of steps in the corridor and looking at the clock on the chimney piece. 'Anna Arkadyevna gave orders to announce that she has gone to the theater. Yashvin, tipping another glass of brandy into the bubbling water, drank it and got up, buttoning his coat. 'Well, let's go, he said, faintly smiling under his mustache, and showing by this smile that he knew the cause of Vronsky's gloominess, and did not attach any significance to it. 'I'm not going, Vronsky answered gloomily. 'Well, I must, I promised to. Goodbye, then. If you do, come to the stalls you can take Kruzin's stall, added Yashvin as he went out. 'No, I'm busy. 'A wife is a care, but it's worse when she's not a wife, thought Yashvin, as he walked out of the hotel. Vronsky, left alone, got up from his chair and began pacing up and down the room. 'And what's today? The fourth night.... Yegor and his wife are there, and my mother, most likely. Of course all Petersburg's there. Now she's gone in, taken off her cloak and come into the light. Tushkevitch, Yashvin, Princess Varvara, he pictured them to himself.... 'What about me? Either that I'm frightened or have given up to Tushkevitch the right to protect her? From every point of viewstupid, stupid!... And why is she putting me in such a position? he said with a gesture of despair. With that gesture he knocked against the table, on which there was standing the seltzer water and the decanter of brandy, and almost upset it. He tried to catch it, let it slip, and angrily kicked the table over and rang. 'If you care to be in my service, he said to the valet who came in, 'you had better remember your duties. This shouldn't be here. You ought to have cleared away. The valet, conscious of his own innocence, would have defended himself, but glancing at his master, he saw from his face that the only thing to do was to be silent, and hurriedly threading his way in and out, dropped down on the carpet and began gathering up the whole and broken glasses and bottles. 'That's not your duty send the waiter to clear away, and get my dress coat out. Vronsky went into the theater at halfpast eight. The performance was in full swing. The little old boxkeeper, recognizing Vronsky as he helped him off with his fur coat, called him 'Your Excellency, and suggested he should not take a number but should simply call Fyodor. In the brightly lighted corridor there was no one but the boxopener and two attendants with fur cloaks on their arms listening at the doors. Through the closed doors came the sounds of the discreet staccato accompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voice rendering distinctly a musical phrase. The door opened to let the boxopener slip through, and the phrase drawing to the end reached Vronsky's hearing clearly. But the doors were closed again at once, and Vronsky did not hear the end of the phrase and the cadence of the accompaniment, though he knew from the thunder of applause that it was over. When he entered the hall, brilliantly lighted with chandeliers and gas jets, the noise was still going on. On the stage the singer, bowing and smiling, with bare shoulders flashing with diamonds, was, with the help of the tenor who had given her his arm, gathering up the bouquets that were flying awkwardly over the footlights. Then she went up to a gentleman with glossy pomaded hair parted down the center, who was stretching across the footlights holding out something to her, and all the public in the stalls as well as in the boxes was in excitement, craning forward, shouting and clapping. The conductor in his high chair assisted in passing the offering, and straightened his white tie. Vronsky walked into the middle of the stalls, and, standing still, began looking about him. That day less than ever was his attention turned upon the familiar, habitual surroundings, the stage, the noise, all the familiar, uninteresting, particolored herd of spectators in the packed theater. There were, as always, the same ladies of some sort with officers of some sort in the back of the boxes the same gaily dressed womenGod knows whoand uniforms and black coats the same dirty crowd in the upper gallery and among the crowd, in the boxes and in the front rows, were some forty of the real people. And to those oases Vronsky at once directed his attention, and with them he entered at once into relation. The act was over when he went in, and so he did not go straight to his brother's box, but going up to the first row of stalls stopped at the footlights with Serpuhovskoy, who, standing with one knee raised and his heel on the footlights, caught sight of him in the distance and beckoned to him, smiling. Vronsky had not yet seen Anna. He purposely avoided looking in her direction. But he knew by the direction of people's eyes where she was. He looked round discreetly, but he was not seeking her expecting the worst, his eyes sought for Alexey Alexandrovitch. To his relief Alexey Alexandrovitch was not in the theater that evening. 'How little of the military man there is left in you! Serpuhovskoy was saying to him. 'A diplomat, an artist, something of that sort, one would say. 'Yes, it was like going back home when I put on a black coat, answered Vronsky, smiling and slowly taking out his operaglass. 'Well, I'll own I envy you there. When I come back from abroad and put on this, he touched his epaulets, 'I regret my freedom. Serpuhovskoy had long given up all hope of Vronsky's career, but he liked him as before, and was now particularly cordial to him. 'What a pity you were not in time for the first act! Vronsky, listening with one ear, moved his operaglass from the stalls and scanned the boxes. Near a lady in a turban and a bald old man, who seemed to wave angrily in the moving operaglass, Vronsky suddenly caught sight of Anna's head, proud, strikingly beautiful, and smiling in the frame of lace. She was in the fifth box, twenty paces from him. She was sitting in front, and slightly turning, was saying something to Yashvin. The setting of her head on her handsome, broad shoulders, and the restrained excitement and brilliance of her eyes and her whole face reminded him of her just as he had seen her at the ball in Moscow. But he felt utterly different towards her beauty now. In his feeling for her now there was no element of mystery, and so her beauty, though it attracted him even more intensely than before, gave him now a sense of injury. She was not looking in his direction, but Vronsky felt that she had seen him already. When Vronsky turned the operaglass again in that direction, he noticed that Princess Varvara was particularly red, and kept laughing unnaturally and looking round at the next box. Anna, folding her fan and tapping it on the red velvet, was gazing away and did not see, and obviously did not wish to see, what was taking place in the next box. Yashvin's face wore the expression which was common when he was losing at cards. Scowling, he sucked the left end of his mustache further and further into his mouth, and cast sidelong glances at the next box. In that box on the left were the Kartasovs. Vronsky knew them, and knew that Anna was acquainted with them. Madame Kartasova, a thin little woman, was standing up in her box, and, her back turned upon Anna, she was putting on a mantle that her husband was holding for her. Her face was pale and angry, and she was talking excitedly. Kartasov, a fat, bald man, was continually looking round at Anna, while he attempted to soothe his wife. When the wife had gone out, the husband lingered a long while, and tried to catch Anna's eye, obviously anxious to bow to her. But Anna, with unmistakable intention, avoided noticing him, and talked to Yashvin, whose cropped head was bent down to her. Kartasov went out without making his salutation, and the box was left empty. Vronsky could not understand exactly what had passed between the Kartasovs and Anna, but he saw that something humiliating for Anna had happened. He knew this both from what he had seen, and most of all from the face of Anna, who, he could see, was taxing every nerve to carry through the part she had taken up. And in maintaining this attitude of external composure she was completely successful. Anyone who did not know her and her circle, who had not heard all the utterances of the women expressive of commiseration, indignation, and amazement, that she should show herself in society, and show herself so conspicuously with her lace and her beauty, would have admired the serenity and loveliness of this woman without a suspicion that she was undergoing the sensations of a man in the stocks. Knowing that something had happened, but not knowing precisely what, Vronsky felt a thrill of agonizing anxiety, and hoping to find out something, he went towards his brother's box. Purposely choosing the way round furthest from Anna's box, he jostled as he came out against the colonel of his old regiment talking to two acquaintances. Vronsky heard the name of Madame Karenina, and noticed how the colonel hastened to address Vronsky loudly by name, with a meaning glance at his companions. 'Ah, Vronsky! When are you coming to the regiment? We can't let you off without a supper. You're one of the old set, said the colonel of his regiment. 'I can't stop, awfully sorry, another time, said Vronsky, and he ran upstairs towards his brother's box. The old countess, Vronsky's mother, with her steelgray curls, was in his brother's box. Varya with the young Princess Sorokina met him in the corridor. Leaving the Princess Sorokina with her mother, Varya held out her hand to her brotherinlaw, and began immediately to speak of what interested him. She was more excited than he had ever seen her. 'I think it's mean and hateful, and Madame Kartasova had no right to do it. Madame Karenina.... she began. 'But what is it? I don't know. 'What? you've not heard? 'You know I should be the last person to hear of it. 'There isn't a more spiteful creature than that Madame Kartasova! 'But what did she do? 'My husband told me.... She has insulted Madame Karenina. Her husband began talking to her across the box, and Madame Kartasova made a scene. She said something aloud, he says, something insulting, and went away. 'Count, your maman is asking for you, said the young Princess Sorokina, peeping out of the door of the box. 'I've been expecting you all the while, said his mother, smiling sarcastically. 'You were nowhere to be seen. Her son saw that she could not suppress a smile of delight. 'Good evening, maman. I have come to you, he said coldly. 'Why aren't you going to faire la cour  Madame Karenina? she went on, when Princess Sorokina had moved away. 'Elle fait sensation. On oublie la Patti pour elle. 'Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that, he answered, scowling. 'I'm only saying what everyone's saying. Vronsky made no reply, and saying a few words to Princess Sorokina, he went away. At the door he met his brother. 'Ah, Alexey! said his brother. 'How disgusting! Idiot of a woman, nothing else.... I wanted to go straight to her. Let's go together. Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs he felt that he must do something, but he did not know what. Anger with her for having put herself and him in such a false position, together with pity for her suffering, filled his heart. He went down, and made straight for Anna's box. At her box stood Stremov, talking to her. 'There are no more tenors. Le moule en est bris! Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to greet Stremov. 'You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song, Anna said to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he thought, at him. 'I am a poor judge of music, he said, looking sternly at her. 'Like Prince Yashvin, she said smiling, 'who considers that Patti sings too loud. 'Thank you, she said, her little hand in its long glove taking the playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant her lovely face quivered. She got up and went into the interior of the box. Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky, rousing indignant 'hushes in the silent audience, went out in the middle of a solo and drove home. Anna was already at home. When Vronsky went up to her, she was in the same dress as she had worn at the theater. She was sitting in the first armchair against the wall, looking straight before her. She looked at him, and at once resumed her former position. 'Anna, he said. 'You, you are to blame for everything! she cried, with tears of despair and hatred in her voice, getting up. 'I begged, I implored you not to go, I knew it would be unpleasant.... 'Unpleasant! she cried'hideous! As long as I live I shall never forget it. She said it was a disgrace to sit beside me. 'A silly woman's chatter, he said 'but why risk it, why provoke?... 'I hate your calm. You ought not to have brought me to this. If you had loved me.... 'Anna! How does the question of my love come in? 'Oh, if you loved me, as I love, if you were tortured as I am!... she said, looking at him with an expression of terror. He was sorry for her, and angry notwithstanding. He assured her of his love because he saw that this was the only means of soothing her, and he did not reproach her in words, but in his heart he reproached her. And the asseverations of his love, which seemed to him so vulgar that he was ashamed to utter them, she drank in eagerly, and gradually became calmer. The next day, completely reconciled, they left for the country. Darya Alexandrovna spent the summer with her children at Pokrovskoe, at her sister Kitty Levin's. The house on her own estate was quite in ruins, and Levin and his wife had persuaded her to spend the summer with them. Stepan Arkadyevitch greatly approved of the arrangement. He said he was very sorry his official duties prevented him from spending the summer in the country with his family, which would have been the greatest happiness for him and remaining in Moscow, he came down to the country from time to time for a day or two. Besides the Oblonskys, with all their children and their governess, the old princess too came to stay that summer with the Levins, as she considered it her duty to watch over her inexperienced daughter in her interesting condition. Moreover, Varenka, Kitty's friend abroad, kept her promise to come to Kitty when she was married, and stayed with her friend. All of these were friends or relations of Levin's wife. And though he liked them all, he rather regretted his own Levin world and ways, which was smothered by this influx of the 'Shtcherbatsky element, as he called it to himself. Of his own relations there stayed with him only Sergey Ivanovitch, but he too was a man of the Koznishev and not the Levin stamp, so that the Levin spirit was utterly obliterated. In the Levins' house, so long deserted, there were now so many people that almost all the rooms were occupied, and almost every day it happened that the old princess, sitting down to table, counted them all over, and put the thirteenth grandson or granddaughter at a separate table. And Kitty, with her careful housekeeping, had no little trouble to get all the chickens, turkeys, and geese, of which so many were needed to satisfy the summer appetites of the visitors and children. The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly's children, with their governess and Varenka, were making plans for going to look for mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch, who was looked up to by all the party for his intellect and learning, with a respect that almost amounted to awe, surprised everyone by joining in the conversation about mushrooms. 'Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms, he said, looking at Varenka 'I think it's a very nice occupation. 'Oh, we shall be delighted, answered Varenka, coloring a little. Kitty exchanged meaningful glances with Dolly. The proposal of the learned and intellectual Sergey Ivanovitch to go looking for mushrooms with Varenka confirmed certain theories of Kitty's with which her mind had been very busy of late. She made haste to address some remark to her mother, so that her look should not be noticed. After dinner Sergey Ivanovitch sat with his cup of coffee at the drawingroom window, and while he took part in a conversation he had begun with his brother, he watched the door through which the children would start on the mushroompicking expedition. Levin was sitting in the window near his brother. Kitty stood beside her husband, evidently awaiting the end of a conversation that had no interest for her, in order to tell him something. 'You have changed in many respects since your marriage, and for the better, said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling to Kitty, and obviously little interested in the conversation, 'but you have remained true to your passion for defending the most paradoxical theories. 'Katya, it's not good for you to stand, her husband said to her, putting a chair for her and looking significantly at her. 'Oh, and there's no time either, added Sergey Ivanovitch, seeing the children running out. At the head of them all Tanya galloped sideways, in her tightlydrawn stockings, and waving a basket and Sergey Ivanovitch's hat, she ran straight up to him. Boldly running up to Sergey Ivanovitch with shining eyes, so like her father's fine eyes, she handed him his hat and made as though she would put it on for him, softening her freedom by a shy and friendly smile. 'Varenka's waiting, she said, carefully putting his hat on, seeing from Sergey Ivanovitch's smile that she might do so. Varenka was standing at the door, dressed in a yellow print gown, with a white kerchief on her head. 'I'm coming, I'm coming, Varvara Andreevna, said Sergey Ivanovitch, finishing his cup of coffee, and putting into their separate pockets his handkerchief and cigarcase. 'And how sweet my Varenka is! eh? said Kitty to her husband, as soon as Sergey Ivanovitch rose. She spoke so that Sergey Ivanovitch could hear, and it was clear that she meant him to do so. 'And how goodlooking she issuch a refined beauty! Varenka! Kitty shouted. 'Shall you be in the mill copse? We'll come out to you. 'You certainly forget your condition, Kitty, said the old princess, hurriedly coming out at the door. 'You mustn't shout like that. Varenka, hearing Kitty's voice and her mother's reprimand, went with light, rapid steps up to Kitty. The rapidity of her movement, her flushed and eager face, everything betrayed that something out of the common was going on in her. Kitty knew what this was, and had been watching her intently. She called Varenka at that moment merely in order mentally to give her a blessing for the important event which, as Kitty fancied, was bound to come to pass that day after dinner in the wood. 'Varenka, I should be very happy if a certain something were to happen, she whispered as she kissed her. 'And are you coming with us? Varenka said to Levin in confusion, pretending not to have heard what had been said. 'I am coming, but only as far as the threshingfloor, and there I shall stop. 'Why, what do you want there? said Kitty. 'I must go to have a look at the new wagons, and to check the invoice, said Levin 'and where will you be? 'On the terrace. On the terrace were assembled all the ladies of the party. They always liked sitting there after dinner, and that day they had work to do there too. Besides the sewing and knitting of baby clothes, with which all of them were busy, that afternoon jam was being made on the terrace by a method new to Agafea Mihalovna, without the addition of water. Kitty had introduced this new method, which had been in use in her home. Agafea Mihalovna, to whom the task of jammaking had always been intrusted, considering that what had been done in the Levin household could not be amiss, had nevertheless put water with the strawberries, maintaining that the jam could not be made without it. She had been caught in the act, and was now making jam before everyone, and it was to be proved to her conclusively that jam could be very well made without water. Agafea Mihalovna, her face heated and angry, her hair untidy, and her thin arms bare to the elbows, was turning the preservingpan over the charcoal stove, looking darkly at the raspberries and devoutly hoping they would stick and not cook properly. The princess, conscious that Agafea Mihalovna's wrath must be chiefly directed against her, as the person responsible for the raspberry jammaking, tried to appear to be absorbed in other things and not interested in the jam, talked of other matters, but cast stealthy glances in the direction of the stove. 'I always buy my maids' dresses myself, of some cheap material, the princess said, continuing the previous conversation. 'Isn't it time to skim it, my dear? she added, addressing Agafea Mihalovna. 'There's not the slightest need for you to do it, and it's hot for you, she said, stopping Kitty. 'I'll do it, said Dolly, and getting up, she carefully passed the spoon over the frothing sugar, and from time to time shook off the clinging jam from the spoon by knocking it on a plate that was covered with yellowred scum and bloodcolored syrup. 'How they'll enjoy this at teatime! she thought of her children, remembering how she herself as a child had wondered how it was the grownup people did not eat what was best of allthe scum of the jam. 'Stiva says it's much better to give money. Dolly took up meanwhile the weighty subject under discussion, what presents should be made to servants. 'But.... 'Money's out of the question! the princess and Kitty exclaimed with one voice. 'They appreciate a present.... 'Well, last year, for instance, I bought our Matrona Semyenovna, not a poplin, but something of that sort, said the princess. 'I remember she was wearing it on your nameday. 'A charming patternso simple and refined,I should have liked it myself, if she hadn't had it. Something like Varenka's. So pretty and inexpensive. 'Well, now I think it's done, said Dolly, dropping the syrup from the spoon. 'When it sets as it drops, it's ready. Cook it a little longer, Agafea Mihalovna. 'The flies! said Agafea Mihalovna angrily. 'It'll be just the same, she added. 'Ah! how sweet it is! don't frighten it! Kitty said suddenly, looking at a sparrow that had settled on the step and was pecking at the center of a raspberry. 'Yes, but you keep a little further from the stove, said her mother. ' propos de Varenka, said Kitty, speaking in French, as they had been doing all the while, so that Agafea Mihalovna should not understand them, 'you know, mamma, I somehow expect things to be settled today. You know what I mean. How splendid it would be! 'But what a famous matchmaker she is! said Dolly. 'How carefully and cleverly she throws them together!... 'No tell me, mamma, what do you think? 'Why, what is one to think? He (he meant Sergey Ivanovitch) 'might at any time have been a match for anyone in Russia now, of course, he's not quite a young man, still I know ever so many girls would be glad to marry him even now.... She's a very nice girl, but he might.... 'Oh, no, mamma, do understand why, for him and for her too, nothing better could be imagined. In the first place, she's charming! said Kitty, crooking one of her fingers. 'He thinks her very attractive, that's certain, assented Dolly. 'Then he occupies such a position in society that he has no need to look for either fortune or position in his wife. All he needs is a good, sweet wifea restful one. 'Well, with her he would certainly be restful, Dolly assented. 'Thirdly, that she should love him. And so it is ... that is, it would be so splendid!... I look forward to seeing them coming out of the forestand everything settled. I shall see at once by their eyes. I should be so delighted! What do you think, Dolly? 'But don't excite yourself. It's not at all the thing for you to be excited, said her mother. 'Oh, I'm not excited, mamma. I fancy he will make her an offer today. 'Ah, that's so strange, how and when a man makes an offer!... There is a sort of barrier, and all at once it's broken down, said Dolly, smiling pensively and recalling her past with Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Mamma, how did papa make you an offer? Kitty asked suddenly. 'There was nothing out of the way, it was very simple, answered the princess, but her face beamed all over at the recollection. 'Oh, but how was it? You loved him, anyway, before you were allowed to speak? Kitty felt a peculiar pleasure in being able now to talk to her mother on equal terms about those questions of such paramount interest in a woman's life. 'Of course I did he had come to stay with us in the country. 'But how was it settled between you, mamma? 'You imagine, I dare say, that you invented something quite new? It's always just the same it was settled by the eyes, by smiles.... 'How nicely you said that, mamma! It's just by the eyes, by smiles that it's done, Dolly assented. 'But what words did he say? 'What did Kostya say to you? 'He wrote it in chalk. It was wonderful.... How long ago it seems! she said. And the three women all fell to musing on the same thing. Kitty was the first to break the silence. She remembered all that last winter before her marriage, and her passion for Vronsky. 'There's one thing ... that old love affair of Varenka's, she said, a natural chain of ideas bringing her to this point. 'I should have liked to say something to Sergey Ivanovitch, to prepare him. They're allall men, I mean, she added, 'awfully jealous over our past. 'Not all, said Dolly. 'You judge by your own husband. It makes him miserable even now to remember Vronsky. Eh? that's true, isn't it? 'Yes, Kitty answered, a pensive smile in her eyes. 'But I really don't know, the mother put in in defense of her motherly care of her daughter, 'what there was in your past that could worry him? That Vronsky paid you attentionsthat happens to every girl. 'Oh, yes, but we didn't mean that, Kitty said, flushing a little. 'No, let me speak, her mother went on, 'why, you yourself would not let me have a talk to Vronsky. Don't you remember? 'Oh, mamma! said Kitty, with an expression of suffering. 'There's no keeping you young people in check nowadays.... Your friendship could not have gone beyond what was suitable. I should myself have called upon him to explain himself. But, my darling, it's not right for you to be agitated. Please remember that, and calm yourself. 'I'm perfectly calm, maman. 'How happy it was for Kitty that Anna came then, said Dolly, 'and how unhappy for her. It turned out quite the opposite, she said, struck by her own ideas. 'Then Anna was so happy, and Kitty thought herself unhappy. Now it is just the opposite. I often think of her. 'A nice person to think about! Horrid, repulsive womanno heart, said her mother, who could not forget that Kitty had married not Vronsky, but Levin. 'What do you want to talk of it for? Kitty said with annoyance. 'I never think about it, and I don't want to think of it.... And I don't want to think of it, she said, catching the sound of her husband's wellknown step on the steps of the terrace. 'What's that you don't want to think about? inquired Levin, coming onto the terrace. But no one answered him, and he did not repeat the question. 'I'm sorry I've broken in on your feminine parliament, he said, looking round on everyone discontentedly, and perceiving that they had been talking of something which they would not talk about before him. For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of Agafea Mihalovna, vexation at their making jam without water, and altogether at the outside Shtcherbatsky element. He smiled, however, and went up to Kitty. 'Well, how are you? he asked her, looking at her with the expression with which everyone looked at her now. 'Oh, very well, said Kitty, smiling, 'and how have things gone with you? 'The wagons held three times as much as the old carts did. Well, are we going for the children? I've ordered the horses to be put in. 'What! you want to take Kitty in the wagonette? her mother said reproachfully. 'Yes, at a walking pace, princess. Levin never called the princess 'maman as men often do call their mothersinlaw, and the princess disliked his not doing so. But though he liked and respected the princess, Levin could not call her so without a sense of profaning his feeling for his dead mother. 'Come with us, maman, said Kitty. 'I don't like to see such imprudence. 'Well, I'll walk then, I'm so well. Kitty got up and went to her husband and took his hand. 'You may be well, but everything in moderation, said the princess. 'Well, Agafea Mihalovna, is the jam done? said Levin, smiling to Agafea Mihalovna, and trying to cheer her up. 'Is it all right in the new way? 'I suppose it's all right. For our notions it's boiled too long. 'It'll be all the better, Agafea Mihalovna, it won't mildew, even though our ice has begun to thaw already, so that we've no cool cellar to store it, said Kitty, at once divining her husband's motive, and addressing the old housekeeper with the same feeling 'but your pickle's so good, that mamma says she never tasted any like it, she added, smiling, and putting her kerchief straight. Agafea Mihalovna looked angrily at Kitty. 'You needn't try to console me, mistress. I need only to look at you with him, and I feel happy, she said, and something in the rough familiarity of that with him touched Kitty. 'Come along with us to look for mushrooms, you will show us the best places. Agafea Mihalovna smiled and shook her head, as though to say 'I should like to be angry with you too, but I can't. 'Do it, please, by my receipt, said the princess 'put some paper over the jam, and moisten it with a little rum, and without even ice, it will never go mildewy. Kitty was particularly glad of a chance of being alone with her husband, for she had noticed the shade of mortification that had passed over his facealways so quick to reflect every feelingat the moment when he had come onto the terrace and asked what they were talking of, and had got no answer. When they had set off on foot ahead of the others, and had come out of sight of the house onto the beaten dusty road, marked with rusty wheels and sprinkled with grains of corn, she clung faster to his arm and pressed it closer to her. He had quite forgotten the momentary unpleasant impression, and alone with her he felt, now that the thought of her approaching motherhood was never for a moment absent from his mind, a new and delicious bliss, quite pure from all alloy of sense, in the being near to the woman he loved. There was no need of speech, yet he longed to hear the sound of her voice, which like her eyes had changed since she had been with child. In her voice, as in her eyes, there was that softness and gravity which is found in people continually concentrated on some cherished pursuit. 'So you're not tired? Lean more on me, said he. 'No, I'm so glad of a chance of being alone with you, and I must own, though I'm happy with them, I do regret our winter evenings alone. 'That was good, but this is even better. Both are better, he said, squeezing her hand. 'Do you know what we were talking about when you came in? 'About jam? 'Oh, yes, about jam too but afterwards, about how men make offers. 'Ah! said Levin, listening more to the sound of her voice than to the words she was saying, and all the while paying attention to the road, which passed now through the forest, and avoiding places where she might make a false step. 'And about Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka. You've noticed?... I'm very anxious for it, she went on. 'What do you think about it? And she peeped into his face. 'I don't know what to think, Levin answered, smiling. 'Sergey seems very strange to me in that way. I told you, you know.... 'Yes, that he was in love with that girl who died.... 'That was when I was a child I know about it from hearsay and tradition. I remember him then. He was wonderfully sweet. But I've watched him since with women he is friendly, some of them he likes, but one feels that to him they're simply people, not women. 'Yes, but now with Varenka ... I fancy there's something.... 'Perhaps there is.... But one has to know him.... He's a peculiar, wonderful person. He lives a spiritual life only. He's too pure, too exalted a nature. 'Why? Would this lower him, then? 'No, but he's so used to a spiritual life that he can't reconcile himself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all fact. Levin had grown used by now to uttering his thought boldly, without taking the trouble of clothing it in exact language. He knew that his wife, in such moments of loving tenderness as now, would understand what he meant to say from a hint, and she did understand him. 'Yes, but there's not so much of that actual fact about her as about me. I can see that he would never have cared for me. She is altogether spiritual. 'Oh, no, he is so fond of you, and I am always so glad when my people like you.... 'Yes, he's very nice to me but.... 'It's not as it was with poor Nikolay ... you really cared for each other, Levin finished. 'Why not speak of him? he added. 'I sometimes blame myself for not it ends in one's forgetting. Ah, how terrible and dear he was!... Yes, what were we talking about? Levin said, after a pause. 'You think he can't fall in love, said Kitty, translating into her own language. 'It's not so much that he can't fall in love, Levin said, smiling, 'but he has not the weakness necessary.... I've always envied him, and even now, when I'm so happy, I still envy him. 'You envy him for not being able to fall in love? 'I envy him for being better than I, said Levin. 'He does not live for himself. His whole life is subordinated to his duty. And that's why he can be calm and contented. 'And you? Kitty asked, with an ironical and loving smile. She could never have explained the chain of thought that made her smile but the last link in it was that her husband, in exalting his brother and abasing himself, was not quite sincere. Kitty knew that this insincerity came from his love for his brother, from his sense of shame at being too happy, and above all from his unflagging craving to be bettershe loved it in him, and so she smiled. 'And you? What are you dissatisfied with? she asked, with the same smile. Her disbelief in his selfdissatisfaction delighted him, and unconsciously he tried to draw her into giving utterance to the grounds of her disbelief. 'I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself.... he said. 'Why, how can you be dissatisfied with yourself if you are happy? 'Well, how shall I say?... In my heart I really care for nothing whatever but that you should not stumblesee? Oh, but really you mustn't skip about like that! he cried, breaking off to scold her for too agile a movement in stepping over a branch that lay in the path. 'But when I think about myself, and compare myself with others, especially with my brother, I feel I'm a poor creature. 'But in what way? Kitty pursued with the same smile. 'Don't you too work for others? What about your cooperative settlement, and your work on the estate, and your book?... 'Oh, but I feel, and particularly just nowit's your fault, he said, pressing her hand'that all that doesn't count. I do it in a way halfheartedly. If I could care for all that as I care for you!... Instead of that, I do it in these days like a task that is set me. 'Well, what would you say about papa? asked Kitty. 'Is he a poor creature then, as he does nothing for the public good? 'He?no! But then one must have the simplicity, the straightforwardness, the goodness of your father and I haven't got that. I do nothing, and I fret about it. It's all your doing. Before there was youand this too, he added with a glance towards her waist that she understood'I put all my energies into work now I can't, and I'm ashamed I do it just as though it were a task set me, I'm pretending.... 'Well, but would you like to change this minute with Sergey Ivanovitch? said Kitty. 'Would you like to do this work for the general good, and to love the task set you, as he does, and nothing else? 'Of course not, said Levin. 'But I'm so happy that I don't understand anything. So you think he'll make her an offer today? he added after a brief silence. 'I think so, and I don't think so. Only, I'm awfully anxious for it. Here, wait a minute. She stooped down and picked a wild camomile at the edge of the path. 'Come, count he does propose, he doesn't, she said, giving him the flower. 'He does, he doesn't, said Levin, tearing off the white petals. 'No, no! Kitty, snatching at his hand, stopped him. She had been watching his fingers with interest. 'You picked off two. 'Oh, but see, this little one shan't count to make up, said Levin, tearing off a little halfgrown petal. 'Here's the wagonette overtaking us. 'Aren't you tired, Kitty? called the princess. 'Not in the least. 'If you are you can get in, as the horses are quiet and walking. But it was not worth while to get in, they were quite near the place, and all walked on together. Varenka, with her white kerchief on her black hair, surrounded by the children, gaily and goodhumoredly looking after them, and at the same time visibly excited at the possibility of receiving a declaration from the man she cared for, was very attractive. Sergey Ivanovitch walked beside her, and never left off admiring her. Looking at her, he recalled all the delightful things he had heard from her lips, all the good he knew about her, and became more and more conscious that the feeling he had for her was something special that he had felt long, long ago, and only once, in his early youth. The feeling of happiness in being near her continually grew, and at last reached such a point that, as he put a huge, slenderstalked agaric fungus in her basket, he looked straight into her face, and noticing the flush of glad and alarmed excitement that overspread her face, he was confused himself, and smiled to her in silence a smile that said too much. 'If so, he said to himself, 'I ought to think it over and make up my mind, and not give way like a boy to the impulse of a moment. 'I'm going to pick by myself apart from all the rest, or else my efforts will make no show, he said, and he left the edge of the forest where they were walking on low silky grass between old birch trees standing far apart, and went more into the heart of the wood, where between the white birch trunks there were gray trunks of aspen and dark bushes of hazel. Walking some forty paces away, Sergey Ivanovitch, knowing he was out of sight, stood still behind a bushy spindletree in full flower with its rosy red catkins. It was perfectly still all round him. Only overhead in the birches under which he stood, the flies, like a swarm of bees, buzzed unceasingly, and from time to time the children's voices were floated across to him. All at once he heard, not far from the edge of the wood, the sound of Varenka's contralto voice, calling Grisha, and a smile of delight passed over Sergey Ivanovitch's face. Conscious of this smile, he shook his head disapprovingly at his own condition, and taking out a cigar, he began lighting it. For a long while he could not get a match to light against the trunk of a birch tree. The soft scales of the white bark rubbed off the phosphorus, and the light went out. At last one of the matches burned, and the fragrant cigar smoke, hovering uncertainly in flat, wide coils, stretched away forwards and upwards over a bush under the overhanging branches of a birch tree. Watching the streak of smoke, Sergey Ivanovitch walked gently on, deliberating on his position. 'Why not? he thought. 'If it were only a passing fancy or a passion, if it were only this attractionthis mutual attraction (I can call it a mutual attraction), but if I felt that it was in contradiction with the whole bent of my lifeif I felt that in giving way to this attraction I should be false to my vocation and my duty ... but it's not so. The only thing I can say against it is that, when I lost Marie, I said to myself that I would remain faithful to her memory. That's the only thing I can say against my feeling.... That's a great thing, Sergey Ivanovitch said to himself, feeling at the same time that this consideration had not the slightest importance for him personally, but would only perhaps detract from his romantic character in the eyes of others. 'But apart from that, however much I searched, I should never find anything to say against my feeling. If I were choosing by considerations of suitability alone, I could not have found anything better. However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he could not think of a girl who united to such a degree all, positively all, the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had all the charm and freshness of youth, but she was not a child and if she loved him, she loved him consciously as a woman ought to love that was one thing. Another point she was not only far from being worldly, but had an unmistakable distaste for worldly society, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all the ways of a woman of the best society, which were absolutely essential to Sergey Ivanovitch's conception of the woman who was to share his life. Thirdly she was religious, and not like a child, unconsciously religious and good, as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even in trifling matters, Sergey Ivanovitch found in her all that he wanted in his wife she was poor and alone in the world, so she would not bring with her a mass of relations and their influence into her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case. She would owe everything to her husband, which was what he had always desired too for his future family life. And this girl, who united all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, but he could not help seeing it. And he loved her. There was one consideration against ithis age. But he came of a longlived family, he had not a single gray hair, no one would have taken him for forty, and he remembered Varenka's saying that it was only in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty considers himself dans la force de l'ge, while a man of forty is un jeune homme. But what did the mere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as he felt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the wood he saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the gracious figure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walking lightly by the trunk of an old birch tree, and when this impression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously with the beauty of the view, of the yellow oatfield lying bathed in the slanting sunshine, and beyond it the distant ancient forest flecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance? His heart throbbed joyously. A softened feeling came over him. He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had just crouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement and looked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergey Ivanovitch advanced with resolute steps towards her. 'Varvara Andreevna, when I was very young, I set before myself the ideal of the woman I loved and should be happy to call my wife. I have lived through a long life, and now for the first time I have met what I soughtin you. I love you, and offer you my hand. Sergey Ivanovitch was saying this to himself while he was ten paces from Varvara. Kneeling down, with her hands over the mushrooms to guard them from Grisha, she was calling little Masha. 'Come here, little ones! There are so many! she was saying in her sweet, deep voice. Seeing Sergey Ivanovitch approaching, she did not get up and did not change her position, but everything told him that she felt his presence and was glad of it. 'Well, did you find some? she asked from under the white kerchief, turning her handsome, gently smiling face to him. 'Not one, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Did you? She did not answer, busy with the children who thronged about her. 'That one too, near the twig, she pointed out to little Masha a little fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by the dry grass from under which it thrust itself. Varenka got up while Masha picked the fungus, breaking it into two white halves. 'This brings back my childhood, she added, moving apart from the children beside Sergey Ivanovitch. They walked on for some steps in silence. Varenka saw that he wanted to speak she guessed of what, and felt faint with joy and panic. They had walked so far away that no one could hear them now, but still he did not begin to speak. It would have been better for Varenka to be silent. After a silence it would have been easier for them to say what they wanted to say than after talking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it were accidentally, Varenka said 'So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there are always fewer, though. Sergey Ivanovitch sighed and made no answer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms. He wanted to bring her back to the first words she had uttered about her childhood but after a pause of some length, as though against his own will, he made an observation in response to her last words. 'I have heard that the white edible funguses are found principally at the edge of the wood, though I can't tell them apart. Some minutes more passed, they moved still further away from the children, and were quite alone. Varenka's heart throbbed so that she heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red and pale and red again. To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position with Madame Stahl, was to her imagination the height of happiness. Besides, she was almost certain that she was in love with him. And this moment it would have to be decided. She felt frightened. She dreaded both his speaking and his not speaking. Now or never it must be saidthat Sergey Ivanovitch felt too. Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks and the downcast eyes of Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergey Ivanovitch saw it and felt sorry for her. He felt even that to say nothing now would be a slight to her. Rapidly in his own mind he ran over all the arguments in support of his decision. He even said over to himself the words in which he meant to put his offer, but instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that occurred to him made him ask 'What is the difference between the 'birch' mushroom and the 'white' mushroom? Varenka's lips quivered with emotion as she answered 'In the top part there is scarcely any difference, it's in the stalk. And as soon as these words were uttered, both he and she felt that it was over, that what was to have been said would not be said and their emotion, which had up to then been continually growing more intense, began to subside. 'The birch mushroom's stalk suggests a dark man's chin after two days without shaving, said Sergey Ivanovitch, speaking quite calmly now. 'Yes, that's true, answered Varenka smiling, and unconsciously the direction of their walk changed. They began to turn towards the children. Varenka felt both sore and ashamed at the same time she had a sense of relief. When he had got home again and went over the whole subject, Sergey Ivanovitch thought his previous decision had been a mistaken one. He could not be false to the memory of Marie. 'Gently, children, gently! Levin shouted quite angrily to the children, standing before his wife to protect her when the crowd of children flew with shrieks of delight to meet them. Behind the children Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka walked out of the wood. Kitty had no need to ask Varenka she saw from the calm and somewhat crestfallen faces of both that her plans had not come off. 'Well? her husband questioned her as they were going home again. 'It doesn't bite, said Kitty, her smile and manner of speaking recalling her father, a likeness Levin often noticed with pleasure. 'How doesn't bite? 'I'll show you, she said, taking her husband's hand, lifting it to her mouth, and just faintly brushing it with closed lips. 'Like a kiss on a priest's hand. 'Which didn't it bite with? he said, laughing. 'Both. But it should have been like this.... 'There are some peasants coming.... 'Oh, they didn't see. During the time of the children's tea the grownup people sat in the balcony and talked as though nothing had happened, though they all, especially Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka, were very well aware that there had happened an event which, though negative, was of very great importance. They both had the same feeling, rather like that of a schoolboy after an examination, which has left him in the same class or shut him out of the school forever. Everyone present, feeling too that something had happened, talked eagerly about extraneous subjects. Levin and Kitty were particularly happy and conscious of their love that evening. And their happiness in their love seemed to imply a disagreeable slur on those who would have liked to feel the same and could notand they felt a prick of conscience. 'Mark my words, Alexander will not come, said the old princess. That evening they were expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch to come down by train, and the old prince had written that possibly he might come too. 'And I know why, the princess went on 'he says that young people ought to be left alone for a while at first. 'But papa has left us alone. We've never seen him, said Kitty. 'Besides, we're not young people!we're old, married people by now. 'Only if he doesn't come, I shall say goodbye to you children, said the princess, sighing mournfully. 'What nonsense, mamma! both the daughters fell upon her at once. 'How do you suppose he is feeling? Why, now.... And suddenly there was an unexpected quiver in the princess's voice. Her daughters were silent, and looked at one another. 'Maman always finds something to be miserable about, they said in that glance. They did not know that happy as the princess was in her daughter's house, and useful as she felt herself to be there, she had been extremely miserable, both on her own account and her husband's, ever since they had married their last and favorite daughter, and the old home had been left empty. 'What is it, Agafea Mihalovna? Kitty asked suddenly of Agafea Mihalovna, who was standing with a mysterious air, and a face full of meaning. 'About supper. 'Well, that's right, said Dolly 'you go and arrange about it, and I'll go and hear Grisha repeat his lesson, or else he will have nothing done all day. 'That's my lesson! No, Dolly, I'm going, said Levin, jumping up. Grisha, who was by now at a high school, had to go over the lessons of the term in the summer holidays. Darya Alexandrovna, who had been studying Latin with her son in Moscow before, had made it a rule on coming to the Levins' to go over with him, at least once a day, the most difficult lessons of Latin and arithmetic. Levin had offered to take her place, but the mother, having once overheard Levin's lesson, and noticing that it was not given exactly as the teacher in Moscow had given it, said resolutely, though with much embarrassment and anxiety not to mortify Levin, that they must keep strictly to the book as the teacher had done, and that she had better undertake it again herself. Levin was amazed both at Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, by neglecting his duty, threw upon the mother the supervision of studies of which she had no comprehension, and at the teachers for teaching the children so badly. But he promised his sisterinlaw to give the lessons exactly as she wished. And he went on teaching Grisha, not in his own way, but by the book, and so took little interest in it, and often forgot the hour of the lesson. So it had been today. 'No, I'm going, Dolly, you sit still, he said. 'We'll do it all properly, like the book. Only when Stiva comes, and we go out shooting, then we shall have to miss it. And Levin went to Grisha. Varenka was saying the same thing to Kitty. Even in the happy, wellordered household of the Levins Varenka had succeeded in making herself useful. 'I'll see to the supper, you sit still, she said, and got up to go to Agafea Mihalovna. 'Yes, yes, most likely they've not been able to get chickens. If so, ours.... 'Agafea Mihalovna and I will see about it, and Varenka vanished with her. 'What a nice girl! said the princess. 'Not nice, maman she's an exquisite girl there's no one else like her. 'So you are expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch today? said Sergey Ivanovitch, evidently not disposed to pursue the conversation about Varenka. 'It would be difficult to find two sonsinlaw more unlike than yours, he said with a subtle smile. 'One all movement, only living in society, like a fish in water the other our Kostya, lively, alert, quick in everything, but as soon as he is in society, he either sinks into apathy, or struggles helplessly like a fish on land. 'Yes, he's very heedless, said the princess, addressing Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I've been meaning, indeed, to ask you to tell him that it's out of the question for her (she indicated Kitty) 'to stay here that she positively must come to Moscow. He talks of getting a doctor down.... 'Maman, he'll do everything he has agreed to everything, Kitty said, angry with her mother for appealing to Sergey Ivanovitch to judge in such a matter. In the middle of their conversation they heard the snorting of horses and the sound of wheels on the gravel. Dolly had not time to get up to go and meet her husband, when from the window of the room below, where Grisha was having his lesson, Levin leaped out and helped Grisha out after him. 'It's Stiva! Levin shouted from under the balcony. 'We've finished, Dolly, don't be afraid! he added, and started running like a boy to meet the carriage. 'Is ea id, ejus, ejus, ejus! shouted Grisha, skipping along the avenue. 'And someone else too! Papa, of course! cried Levin, stopping at the entrance of the avenue. 'Kitty, don't come down the steep staircase, go round. But Levin had been mistaken in taking the person sitting in the carriage for the old prince. As he got nearer to the carriage he saw beside Stepan Arkadyevitch not the prince but a handsome, stout young man in a Scotch cap, with long ends of ribbon behind. This was Vassenka Veslovsky, a distant cousin of the Shtcherbatskys, a brilliant young gentleman in Petersburg and Moscow society. 'A capital fellow, and a keen sportsman, as Stepan Arkadyevitch said, introducing him. Not a whit abashed by the disappointment caused by his having come in place of the old prince, Veslovsky greeted Levin gaily, claiming acquaintance with him in the past, and snatching up Grisha into the carriage, lifted him over the pointer that Stepan Arkadyevitch had brought with him. Levin did not get into the carriage, but walked behind. He was rather vexed at the nonarrival of the old prince, whom he liked more and more the more he saw of him, and also at the arrival of this Vassenka Veslovsky, a quite uncongenial and superfluous person. He seemed to him still more uncongenial and superfluous when, on approaching the steps where the whole party, children and grownup, were gathered together in much excitement, Levin saw Vassenka Veslovsky, with a particularly warm and gallant air, kissing Kitty's hand. 'Your wife and I are cousins and very old friends, said Vassenka Veslovsky, once more shaking Levin's hand with great warmth. 'Well, are there plenty of birds? Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Levin, hardly leaving time for everyone to utter their greetings. 'We've come with the most savage intentions. Why, maman, they've not been in Moscow since! Look, Tanya, here's something for you! Get it, please, it's in the carriage, behind! he talked in all directions. 'How pretty you've grown, Dolly, he said to his wife, once more kissing her hand, holding it in one of his, and patting it with the other. Levin, who a minute before had been in the happiest frame of mind, now looked darkly at everyone, and everything displeased him. 'Who was it he kissed yesterday with those lips? he thought, looking at Stepan Arkadyevitch's tender demonstrations to his wife. He looked at Dolly, and he did not like her either. 'She doesn't believe in his love. So what is she so pleased about? Revolting! thought Levin. He looked at the princess, who had been so dear to him a minute before, and he did not like the manner in which she welcomed this Vassenka, with his ribbons, just as though she were in her own house. Even Sergey Ivanovitch, who had come out too onto the steps, seemed to him unpleasant with the show of cordiality with which he met Stepan Arkadyevitch, though Levin knew that his brother neither liked nor respected Oblonsky. And Varenka, even she seemed hateful, with her air sainte nitouche making the acquaintance of this gentleman, while all the while she was thinking of nothing but getting married. And more hateful than anyone was Kitty for falling in with the tone of gaiety with which this gentleman regarded his visit in the country, as though it were a holiday for himself and everyone else. And, above all, unpleasant was that particular smile with which she responded to his smile. Noisily talking, they all went into the house but as soon as they were all seated, Levin turned and went out. Kitty saw something was wrong with her husband. She tried to seize a moment to speak to him alone, but he made haste to get away from her, saying he was wanted at the countinghouse. It was long since his own work on the estate had seemed to him so important as at that moment. 'It's all holiday for them, he thought 'but these are no holiday matters, they won't wait, and there's no living without them. Levin came back to the house only when they sent to summon him to supper. On the stairs were standing Kitty and Agafea Mihalovna, consulting about wines for supper. 'But why are you making all this fuss? Have what we usually do. 'No, Stiva doesn't drink ... Kostya, stop, what's the matter? Kitty began, hurrying after him, but he strode ruthlessly away to the diningroom without waiting for her, and at once joined in the lively general conversation which was being maintained there by Vassenka Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well, what do you say, are we going shooting tomorrow? said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Please, do let's go, said Veslovsky, moving to another chair, where he sat down sideways, with one fat leg crossed under him. 'I shall be delighted, we will go. And have you had any shooting yet this year? said Levin to Veslovsky, looking intently at his leg, but speaking with that forced amiability that Kitty knew so well in him, and that was so out of keeping with him. 'I can't answer for our finding grouse, but there are plenty of snipe. Only we ought to start early. You're not tired? Aren't you tired, Stiva? 'Me tired? I've never been tired yet. Suppose we stay up all night. Let's go for a walk! 'Yes, really, let's not go to bed at all! Capital! Veslovsky chimed in. 'Oh, we all know you can do without sleep, and keep other people up too, Dolly said to her husband, with that faint note of irony in her voice which she almost always had now with her husband. 'But to my thinking, it's time for bed now.... I'm going, I don't want supper. 'No, do stay a little, Dolly, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, going round to her side behind the table where they were having supper. 'I've so much still to tell you. 'Nothing really, I suppose. 'Do you know Veslovsky has been at Anna's, and he's going to them again? You know they're hardly fifty miles from you, and I too must certainly go over there. Veslovsky, come here! Vassenka crossed over to the ladies, and sat down beside Kitty. 'Ah, do tell me, please you have stayed with her? How was she? Darya Alexandrovna appealed to him. Levin was left at the other end of the table, and though never pausing in his conversation with the princess and Varenka, he saw that there was an eager and mysterious conversation going on between Stepan Arkadyevitch, Dolly, Kitty, and Veslovsky. And that was not all. He saw on his wife's face an expression of real feeling as she gazed with fixed eyes on the handsome face of Vassenka, who was telling them something with great animation. 'It's exceedingly nice at their place, Veslovsky was telling them about Vronsky and Anna. 'I can't, of course, take it upon myself to judge, but in their house you feel the real feeling of home. 'What do they intend doing? 'I believe they think of going to Moscow. 'How jolly it would be for us all to go over to them together! When are you going there? Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Vassenka. 'I'm spending July there. 'Will you go? Stepan Arkadyevitch said to his wife. 'I've been wanting to a long while I shall certainly go, said Dolly. 'I am sorry for her, and I know her. She's a splendid woman. I will go alone, when you go back, and then I shall be in no one's way. And it will be better indeed without you. 'To be sure, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'And you, Kitty? 'I? Why should I go? Kitty said, flushing all over, and she glanced round at her husband. 'Do you know Anna Arkadyevna, then? Veslovsky asked her. 'She's a very fascinating woman. 'Yes, she answered Veslovsky, crimsoning still more. She got up and walked across to her husband. 'Are you going shooting, then, tomorrow? she said. His jealousy had in these few moments, especially at the flush that had overspread her cheeks while she was talking to Veslovsky, gone far indeed. Now as he heard her words, he construed them in his own fashion. Strange as it was to him afterwards to recall it, it seemed to him at the moment clear that in asking whether he was going shooting, all she cared to know was whether he would give that pleasure to Vassenka Veslovsky, with whom, as he fancied, she was in love. 'Yes, I'm going, he answered her in an unnatural voice, disagreeable to himself. 'No, better spend the day here tomorrow, or Dolly won't see anything of her husband, and set off the day after, said Kitty. The motive of Kitty's words was interpreted by Levin thus 'Don't separate me from him. I don't care about your going, but do let me enjoy the society of this delightful young man. 'Oh, if you wish, we'll stay here tomorrow, Levin answered, with peculiar amiability. Vassenka meanwhile, utterly unsuspecting the misery his presence had occasioned, got up from the table after Kitty, and watching her with smiling and admiring eyes, he followed her. Levin saw that look. He turned white, and for a minute he could hardly breathe. 'How dare he look at my wife like that! was the feeling that boiled within him. 'Tomorrow, then? Do, please, let us go, said Vassenka, sitting down on a chair, and again crossing his leg as his habit was. Levin's jealousy went further still. Already he saw himself a deceived husband, looked upon by his wife and her lover as simply necessary to provide them with the conveniences and pleasures of life.... But in spite of that he made polite and hospitable inquiries of Vassenka about his shooting, his gun, and his boots, and agreed to go shooting next day. Happily for Levin, the old princess cut short his agonies by getting up herself and advising Kitty to go to bed. But even at this point Levin could not escape another agony. As he said goodnight to his hostess, Vassenka would again have kissed her hand, but Kitty, reddening, drew back her hand and said with a nave bluntness, for which the old princess scolded her afterwards 'We don't like that fashion. In Levin's eyes she was to blame for having allowed such relations to arise, and still more to blame for showing so awkwardly that she did not like them. 'Why, how can one want to go to bed! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, after drinking several glasses of wine at supper, was now in his most charming and sentimental humor. 'Look, Kitty, he said, pointing to the moon, which had just risen behind the lime trees'how exquisite! Veslovsky, this is the time for a serenade. You know, he has a splendid voice we practiced songs together along the road. He has brought some lovely songs with him, two new ones. Varvara Andreevna and he must sing some duets. When the party had broken up, Stepan Arkadyevitch walked a long while about the avenue with Veslovsky their voices could be heard singing one of the new songs. Levin hearing these voices sat scowling in an easychair in his wife's bedroom, and maintained an obstinate silence when she asked him what was wrong. But when at last with a timid glance she hazarded the question 'Was there perhaps something you disliked about Veslovsky?it all burst out, and he told her all. He was humiliated himself at what he was saying, and that exasperated him all the more. He stood facing her with his eyes glittering menacingly under his scowling brows, and he squeezed his strong arms across his chest, as though he were straining every nerve to hold himself in. The expression of his face would have been grim, and even cruel, if it had not at the same time had a look of suffering which touched her. His jaws were twitching, and his voice kept breaking. 'You must understand that I'm not jealous, that's a nasty word. I can't be jealous, and believe that.... I can't say what I feel, but this is awful.... I'm not jealous, but I'm wounded, humiliated that anybody dare think, that anybody dare look at you with eyes like that. 'Eyes like what? said Kitty, trying as conscientiously as possible to recall every word and gesture of that evening and every shade implied in them. At the very bottom of her heart she did think there had been something precisely at the moment when he had crossed over after her to the other end of the table but she dared not own it even to herself, and would have been even more unable to bring herself to say so to him, and so increase his suffering. 'And what can there possibly be attractive about me as I am now?... 'Ah! he cried, clutching at his head, 'you shouldn't say that!... If you had been attractive then.... 'Oh, no, Kostya, oh, wait a minute, oh, do listen! she said, looking at him with an expression of pained commiseration. 'Why, what can you be thinking about! When for me there's no one in the world, no one, no one!... Would you like me never to see anyone? For the first minute she had been offended at his jealousy she was angry that the slightest amusement, even the most innocent, should be forbidden her but now she would readily have sacrificed, not merely such trifles, but everything, for his peace of mind, to save him from the agony he was suffering. 'You must understand the horror and comedy of my position, he went on in a desperate whisper 'that he's in my house, that he's done nothing improper positively except his free and easy airs and the way he sits on his legs. He thinks it's the best possible form, and so I'm obliged to be civil to him. 'But, Kostya, you're exaggerating, said Kitty, at the bottom of her heart rejoicing at the depth of his love for her, shown now in his jealousy. 'The most awful part of it all is that you're just as you always are, and especially now when to me you're something sacred, and we're so happy, so particularly happyand all of a sudden a little wretch.... He's not a little wretch why should I abuse him? I have nothing to do with him. But why should my, and your, happiness.... 'Do you know, I understand now what it's all come from, Kitty was beginning. 'Well, what? what? 'I saw how you looked while we were talking at supper. 'Well, well! Levin said in dismay. She told him what they had been talking about. And as she told him, she was breathless with emotion. Levin was silent for a space, then he scanned her pale and distressed face, and suddenly he clutched at his head. 'Katya, I've been worrying you! Darling, forgive me! It's madness! Katya, I'm a criminal. And how could you be so distressed at such idiocy? 'Oh, I was sorry for you. 'For me? for me? How mad I am!... But why make you miserable? It's awful to think that any outsider can shatter our happiness. 'It's humiliating too, of course. 'Oh, then I'll keep him here all the summer, and will overwhelm him with civility, said Levin, kissing her hands. 'You shall see. Tomorrow.... Oh, yes, we are going tomorrow. Next day, before the ladies were up, the wagonette and a trap for the shooting party were at the door, and Laska, aware since early morning that they were going shooting, after much whining and darting to and fro, had sat herself down in the wagonette beside the coachman, and, disapproving of the delay, was excitedly watching the door from which the sportsmen still did not come out. The first to come out was Vassenka Veslovsky, in new high boots that reached halfway up his thick thighs, in a green blouse, with a new Russian leather cartridgebelt, and in his Scotch cap with ribbons, with a brandnew English gun without a sling. Laska flew up to him, welcomed him, and jumping up, asked him in her own way whether the others were coming soon, but getting no answer from him, she returned to her post of observation and sank into repose again, her head on one side, and one ear pricked up to listen. At last the door opened with a creak, and Stepan Arkadyevitch's spotandtan pointer Krak flew out, running round and round and turning over in the air. Stepan Arkadyevitch himself followed with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. 'Good dog, good dog, Krak! he cried encouragingly to the dog, who put his paws up on his chest, catching at his game bag. Stepan Arkadyevitch was dressed in rough leggings and spats, in torn trousers and a short coat. On his head there was a wreck of a hat of indefinite form, but his gun of a new patent was a perfect gem, and his game bag and cartridge belt, though worn, were of the very best quality. Vassenka Veslovsky had had no notion before that it was truly chic for a sportsman to be in tatters, but to have his shooting outfit of the best quality. He saw it now as he looked at Stepan Arkadyevitch, radiant in his rags, graceful, wellfed, and joyous, a typical Russian nobleman. And he made up his mind that next time he went shooting he would certainly adopt the same getup. 'Well, and what about our host? he asked. 'A young wife, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. 'Yes, and such a charming one! 'He came down dressed. No doubt he's run up to her again. Stepan Arkadyevitch guessed right. Levin had run up again to his wife to ask her once more if she forgave him for his idiocy yesterday, and, moreover, to beg her for Christ's sake to be more careful. The great thing was for her to keep away from the childrenthey might any minute push against her. Then he had once more to hear her declare that she was not angry with him for going away for two days, and to beg her to be sure to send him a note next morning by a servant on horseback, to write him, if it were but two words only, to let him know that all was well with her. Kitty was distressed, as she always was, at parting for a couple of days from her husband, but when she saw his eager figure, looking big and strong in his shootingboots and his white blouse, and a sort of sportsman elation and excitement incomprehensible to her, she forgot her own chagrin for the sake of his pleasure, and said goodbye to him cheerfully. 'Pardon, gentlemen! he said, running out onto the steps. 'Have you put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, it doesn't matter. Laska, down go and lie down! 'Put it with the herd of oxen, he said to the herdsman, who was waiting for him at the steps with some question. 'Excuse me, here comes another villain. Levin jumped out of the wagonette, in which he had already taken his seat, to meet the carpenter, who came towards the steps with a rule in his hand. 'You didn't come to the counting house yesterday, and now you're detaining me. Well, what is it? 'Would your honor let me make another turning? It's only three steps to add. And we make it just fit at the same time. It will be much more convenient. 'You should have listened to me, Levin answered with annoyance. 'I said Put the lines and then fit in the steps. Now there's no setting it right. Do as I told you, and make a new staircase. The point was that in the lodge that was being built the carpenter had spoiled the staircase, fitting it together without calculating the space it was to fill, so that the steps were all sloping when it was put in place. Now the carpenter wanted, keeping the same staircase, to add three steps. 'It will be much better. 'But where's your staircase coming out with its three steps? 'Why, upon my word, sir, the carpenter said with a contemptuous smile. 'It comes out right at the very spot. It starts, so to speak, he said, with a persuasive gesture 'it comes down, and comes down, and comes out. 'But three steps will add to the length too ... where is it to come out? 'Why, to be sure, it'll start from the bottom and go up and go up, and come out so, the carpenter said obstinately and convincingly. 'It'll reach the ceiling and the wall. 'Upon my word! Why, it'll go up, and up, and come out like this. Levin took out a ramrod and began sketching him the staircase in the dust. 'There, do you see? 'As your honor likes, said the carpenter, with a sudden gleam in his eyes, obviously understanding the thing at last. 'It seems it'll be best to make a new one. 'Well, then, do it as you're told, Levin shouted, seating himself in the wagonette. 'Down! Hold the dogs, Philip! Levin felt now at leaving behind all his family and household cares such an eager sense of joy in life and expectation that he was not disposed to talk. Besides that, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that every sportsman experiences as he approaches the scene of action. If he had anything on his mind at that moment, it was only the doubt whether they would start anything in the Kolpensky marsh, whether Laska would show to advantage in comparison with Krak, and whether he would shoot well that day himself. Not to disgrace himself before a new spectatornot to be outdone by Oblonskythat too was a thought that crossed his brain. Oblonsky was feeling the same, and he too was not talkative. Vassenka Veslovsky kept up alone a ceaseless flow of cheerful chatter. As he listened to him now, Levin felt ashamed to think how unfair he had been to him the day before. Vassenka was really a nice fellow, simple, goodhearted, and very goodhumored. If Levin had met him before he was married, he would have made friends with him. Levin rather disliked his holiday attitude to life and a sort of free and easy assumption of elegance. It was as though he assumed a high degree of importance in himself that could not be disputed, because he had long nails and a stylish cap, and everything else to correspond but this could be forgiven for the sake of his good nature and good breeding. Levin liked him for his good education, for speaking French and English with such an excellent accent, and for being a man of his world. Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left horse, a horse of the Don Steppes. He kept praising him enthusiastically. 'How fine it must be galloping over the steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? isn't it? he said. He had imagined riding on a steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it turned out nothing of the sort. But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile, and the grace of his movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was trying to atone for his sins of the previous evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him, anyway he liked his society. After they had driven over two miles from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a cigar and his pocketbook, and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. In the pocketbook there were thirtyseven pounds, and so the matter could not be left in uncertainty. 'Do you know what, Levin, I'll gallop home on that left tracehorse. That will be splendid. Eh? he said, preparing to get out. 'No, why should you? answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly weigh less than seventeen stone. 'I'll send the coachman. The coachman rode back on the tracehorse, and Levin himself drove the remaining pair. 'Well, now what's our plan of campaign? Tell us all about it, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Our plan is this. Now we're driving to Gvozdyov. In Gvozdyov there's a grouse marsh on this side, and beyond Gvozdyov come some magnificent snipe marshes where there are grouse too. It's hot now, and we'll get thereit's fifteen miles or sotowards evening and have some evening shooting we'll spend the night there and go on tomorrow to the bigger moors. 'And is there nothing on the way? 'Yes but we'll reserve ourselves besides it's hot. There are two nice little places, but I doubt there being anything to shoot. Levin would himself have liked to go into these little places, but they were near home he could shoot them over any time, and they were only little placesthere would hardly be room for three to shoot. And so, with some insincerity, he said that he doubted there being anything to shoot. When they reached a little marsh Levin would have driven by, but Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the experienced eye of a sportsman, at once detected reeds visible from the road. 'Shan't we try that? he said, pointing to the little marsh. 'Levin, do, please! how delightful! Vassenka Veslovsky began begging, and Levin could but consent. Before they had time to stop, the dogs had flown one before the other into the marsh. 'Krak! Laska!... The dogs came back. 'There won't be room for three. I'll stay here, said Levin, hoping they would find nothing but peewits, who had been startled by the dogs, and turning over in their flight, were plaintively wailing over the marsh. 'No! Come along, Levin, let's go together! Veslovsky called. 'Really, there's not room. Laska, back, Laska! You won't want another dog, will you? Levin remained with the wagonette, and looked enviously at the sportsmen. They walked right across the marsh. Except little birds and peewits, of which Vassenka killed one, there was nothing in the marsh. 'Come, you see now that it was not that I grudged the marsh, said Levin, 'only it's wasting time. 'Oh, no, it was jolly all the same. Did you see us? said Vassenka Veslovsky, clambering awkwardly into the wagonette with his gun and his peewit in his hands. 'How splendidly I shot this bird! Didn't I? Well, shall we soon be getting to the real place? The horses started off suddenly, Levin knocked his head against the stock of someone's gun, and there was the report of a shot. The gun did actually go off first, but that was how it seemed to Levin. It appeared that Vassenka Veslovsky had pulled only one trigger, and had left the other hammer still cocked. The charge flew into the ground without doing harm to anyone. Stepan Arkadyevitch shook his head and laughed reprovingly at Veslovsky. But Levin had not the heart to reprove him. In the first place, any reproach would have seemed to be called forth by the danger he had incurred and the bump that had come up on Levin's forehead. And besides, Veslovsky was at first so navely distressed, and then laughed so goodhumoredly and infectiously at their general dismay, that one could not but laugh with him. When they reached the second marsh, which was fairly large, and would inevitably take some time to shoot over, Levin tried to persuade them to pass it by. But Veslovsky again overpersuaded him. Again, as the marsh was narrow, Levin, like a good host, remained with the carriage. Krak made straight for some clumps of sedge. Vassenka Veslovsky was the first to run after the dog. Before Stepan Arkadyevitch had time to come up, a grouse flew out. Veslovsky missed it and it flew into an unmown meadow. This grouse was left for Veslovsky to follow up. Krak found it again and pointed, and Veslovsky shot it and went back to the carriage. 'Now you go and I'll stay with the horses, he said. Levin had begun to feel the pangs of a sportsman's envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into the marsh. Laska, who had been plaintively whining and fretting against the injustice of her treatment, flew straight ahead to a hopeful place that Levin knew well, and that Krak had not yet come upon. 'Why don't you stop her? shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'She won't scare them, answered Levin, sympathizing with his bitch's pleasure and hurrying after her. As she came nearer and nearer to the familiar breeding places there was more and more earnestness in Laska's exploration. A little marsh bird did not divert her attention for more than an instant. She made one circuit round the clump of reeds, was beginning a second, and suddenly quivered with excitement and became motionless. 'Come, come, Stiva! shouted Levin, feeling his heart beginning to beat more violently and all of a sudden, as though some sort of shutter had been drawn back from his straining ears, all sounds, confused but loud, began to beat on his hearing, losing all sense of distance. He heard the steps of Stepan Arkadyevitch, mistaking them for the tramp of the horses in the distance he heard the brittle sound of the twigs on which he had trodden, taking this sound for the flying of a grouse. He heard too, not far behind him, a splashing in the water, which he could not explain to himself. Picking his steps, he moved up to the dog. 'Fetch it! Not a grouse but a snipe flew up from beside the dog. Levin had lifted his gun, but at the very instant when he was taking aim, the sound of splashing grew louder, came closer, and was joined with the sound of Veslovsky's voice, shouting something with strange loudness. Levin saw he had his gun pointed behind the snipe, but still he fired. When he had made sure he had missed, Levin looked round and saw the horses and the wagonette not on the road but in the marsh. Veslovsky, eager to see the shooting, had driven into the marsh, and got the horses stuck in the mud. 'Damn the fellow! Levin said to himself, as he went back to the carriage that had sunk in the mire. 'What did you drive in for? he said to him dryly, and calling the coachman, he began pulling the horses out. Levin was vexed both at being hindered from shooting and at his horses getting stuck in the mud, and still more at the fact that neither Stepan Arkadyevitch nor Veslovsky helped him and the coachman to unharness the horses and get them out, since neither of them had the slightest notion of harnessing. Without vouchsafing a syllable in reply to Vassenka's protestations that it had been quite dry there, Levin worked in silence with the coachman at extricating the horses. But then, as he got warm at the work and saw how assiduously Veslovsky was tugging at the wagonette by one of the mudguards, so that he broke it indeed, Levin blamed himself for having under the influence of yesterday's feelings been too cold to Veslovsky, and tried to be particularly genial so as to smooth over his chilliness. When everything had been put right, and the carriage had been brought back to the road, Levin had the lunch served. 'Bon apptitbonne conscience! Ce poulet va tomber jusqu'au fond de mes bottes, Vassenka, who had recovered his spirits, quoted the French saying as he finished his second chicken. 'Well, now our troubles are over, now everything's going to go well. Only, to atone for my sins, I'm bound to sit on the box. That's so? eh? No, no! I'll be your Automedon. You shall see how I'll get you along, he answered, not letting go the rein, when Levin begged him to let the coachman drive. 'No, I must atone for my sins, and I'm very comfortable on the box. And he drove. Levin was a little afraid he would exhaust the horses, especially the chestnut, whom he did not know how to hold in but unconsciously he fell under the influence of his gaiety and listened to the songs he sang all the way on the box, or the descriptions and representations he gave of driving in the English fashion, fourinhand and it was in the very best of spirits that after lunch they drove to the Gvozdyov marsh. Vassenka drove the horses so smartly that they reached the marsh too early, while it was still hot. As they drew near this more important marsh, the chief aim of their expedition, Levin could not help considering how he could get rid of Vassenka and be free in his movements. Stepan Arkadyevitch evidently had the same desire, and on his face Levin saw the look of anxiety always present in a true sportsman when beginning shooting, together with a certain goodhumored slyness peculiar to him. 'How shall we go? It's a splendid marsh, I see, and there are hawks, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing to two great birds hovering over the reeds. 'Where there are hawks, there is sure to be game. 'Now, gentlemen, said Levin, pulling up his boots and examining the lock of his gun with rather a gloomy expression, 'do you see those reeds? He pointed to an oasis of blackish green in the huge halfmown wet meadow that stretched along the right bank of the river. 'The marsh begins here, straight in front of us, do you seewhere it is greener? From here it runs to the right where the horses are there are breeding places there, and grouse, and all round those reeds as far as that alder, and right up to the mill. Over there, do you see, where the pools are? That's the best place. There I once shot seventeen snipe. We'll separate with the dogs and go in different directions, and then meet over there at the mill. 'Well, which shall go to left and which to right? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'It's wider to the right you two go that way and I'll take the left, he said with apparent carelessness. 'Capital! we'll make the bigger bag! Yes, come along, come along! Vassenka exclaimed. Levin could do nothing but agree, and they divided. As soon as they entered the marsh, the two dogs began hunting about together and made towards the green, slimecovered pool. Levin knew Laska's method, wary and indefinite he knew the place too and expected a whole covey of snipe. 'Veslovsky, beside me, walk beside me! he said in a faint voice to his companion splashing in the water behind him. Levin could not help feeling an interest in the direction his gun was pointed, after that casual shot near the Kolpensky marsh. 'Oh, I won't get in your way, don't trouble about me. But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty's words at parting 'Mind you don't shoot one another. The dogs came nearer and nearer, passed each other, each pursuing its own scent. The expectation of snipe was so intense that to Levin the squelching sound of his own heel, as he drew it up out of the mire, seemed to be the call of a snipe, and he clutched and pressed the lock of his gun. 'Bang! bang! sounded almost in his ear. Vassenka had fired at a flock of ducks which was hovering over the marsh and flying at that moment towards the sportsmen, far out of range. Before Levin had time to look round, there was the whir of one snipe, another, a third, and some eight more rose one after another. Stepan Arkadyevitch hit one at the very moment when it was beginning its zigzag movements, and the snipe fell in a heap into the mud. Oblonsky aimed deliberately at another, still flying low in the reeds, and together with the report of the shot, that snipe too fell, and it could be seen fluttering out where the sedge had been cut, its unhurt wing showing white beneath. Levin was not so lucky he aimed at his first bird too low, and missed he aimed at it again, just as it was rising, but at that instant another snipe flew up at his very feet, distracting him so that he missed again. While they were loading their guns, another snipe rose, and Veslovsky, who had had time to load again, sent two charges of smallshot into the water. Stepan Arkadyevitch picked up his snipe, and with sparkling eyes looked at Levin. 'Well, now let us separate, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and limping on his left foot, holding his gun in readiness and whistling to his dog, he walked off in one direction. Levin and Veslovsky walked in the other. It always happened with Levin that when his first shots were a failure he got hot and out of temper, and shot badly the whole day. So it was that day. The snipe showed themselves in numbers. They kept flying up from just under the dogs, from under the sportsmen's legs, and Levin might have retrieved his ill luck. But the more he shot, the more he felt disgraced in the eyes of Veslovsky, who kept popping away merrily and indiscriminately, killing nothing, and not in the slightest abashed by his ill success. Levin, in feverish haste, could not restrain himself, got more and more out of temper, and ended by shooting almost without a hope of hitting. Laska, indeed, seemed to understand this. She began looking more languidly, and gazed back at the sportsmen, as it were, with perplexity or reproach in her eyes. Shots followed shots in rapid succession. The smoke of the powder hung about the sportsmen, while in the great roomy net of the game bag there were only three light little snipe. And of these one had been killed by Veslovsky alone, and one by both of them together. Meanwhile from the other side of the marsh came the sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch's shots, not frequent, but, as Levin fancied, welldirected, for almost after each they heard 'Krak, Krak, apporte! This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides the snipe that had risen first and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries over the marsh. After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and Veslovsky reached the place where the peasants' mowinggrass was divided into long strips reaching to the reeds, marked off in one place by the trampled grass, in another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips had already been mown. Though there was not so much hope of finding birds in the uncut part as the cut part, Levin had promised Stepan Arkadyevitch to meet him, and so he walked on with his companion through the cut and uncut patches. 'Hi, sportsmen! shouted one of a group of peasants, sitting on an unharnessed cart 'come and have some lunch with us! Have a drop of wine! Levin looked round. 'Come along, it's all right! shouted a goodhumoredlooking bearded peasant with a red face, showing his white teeth in a grin, and holding up a greenish bottle that flashed in the sunlight. 'Qu'estce qu'ils disent? asked Veslovsky. 'They invite you to have some vodka. Most likely they've been dividing the meadow into lots. I should have some, said Levin, not without some guile, hoping Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka, and would go away to them. 'Why do they offer it? 'Oh, they're merrymaking. Really, you should join them. You would be interested. 'Allons, c'est curieux. 'You go, you go, you'll find the way to the mill! cried Levin, and looking round he perceived with satisfaction that Veslovsky, bent and stumbling with weariness, holding his gun out at arm's length, was making his way out of the marsh towards the peasants. 'You come too! the peasants shouted to Levin. 'Never fear! You taste our cake! Levin felt a strong inclination to drink a little vodka and to eat some bread. He was exhausted, and felt it a great effort to drag his staggering legs out of the mire, and for a minute he hesitated. But Laska was setting. And immediately all his weariness vanished, and he walked lightly through the swamp towards the dog. A snipe flew up at his feet he fired and killed it. Laska still pointed.'Fetch it! Another bird flew up close to the dog. Levin fired. But it was an unlucky day for him he missed it, and when he went to look for the one he had shot, he could not find that either. He wandered all about the reeds, but Laska did not believe he had shot it, and when he sent her to find it, she pretended to hunt for it, but did not really. And in the absence of Vassenka, on whom Levin threw the blame of his failure, things went no better. There were plenty of snipe still, but Levin made one miss after another. The slanting rays of the sun were still hot his clothes, soaked through with perspiration, stuck to his body his left boot full of water weighed heavily on his leg and squeaked at every step the sweat ran in drops down his powdergrimed face, his mouth was full of the bitter taste, his nose of the smell of powder and stagnant water, his ears were ringing with the incessant whir of the snipe he could not touch the stock of his gun, it was so hot his heart beat with short, rapid throbs his hands shook with excitement, and his weary legs stumbled and staggered over the hillocks and in the swamp, but still he walked on and still he shot. At last, after a disgraceful miss, he flung his gun and his hat on the ground. 'No, I must control myself, he said to himself. Picking up his gun and his hat, he called Laska, and went out of the swamp. When he got on to dry ground he sat down, pulled off his boot and emptied it, then walked to the marsh, drank some stagnanttasting water, moistened his burning hot gun, and washed his face and hands. Feeling refreshed, he went back to the spot where a snipe had settled, firmly resolved to keep cool. He tried to be calm, but it was the same again. His finger pressed the cock before he had taken a good aim at the bird. It got worse and worse. He had only five birds in his gamebag when he walked out of the marsh towards the alders where he was to rejoin Stepan Arkadyevitch. Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevitch he saw his dog. Krak darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, black all over with the stinking mire of the marsh, and with the air of a conqueror sniffed at Laska. Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder tree the shapely figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He came to meet him, red and perspiring, with unbuttoned neckband, still limping in the same way. 'Well? You have been popping away! he said, smiling goodhumoredly. 'How have you got on? queried Levin. But there was no need to ask, for he had already seen the full game bag. 'Oh, pretty fair. He had fourteen birds. 'A splendid marsh! I've no doubt Veslovsky got in your way. It's awkward too, shooting with one dog, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, to soften his triumph. When Levin and Stepan Arkadyevitch reached the peasant's hut where Levin always used to stay, Veslovsky was already there. He was sitting in the middle of the hut, clinging with both hands to the bench from which he was being pulled by a soldier, the brother of the peasant's wife, who was helping him off with his miry boots. Veslovsky was laughing his infectious, goodhumored laugh. 'I've only just come. Ils ont t charmants. Just fancy, they gave me drink, fed me! Such bread, it was exquisite! Dlicieux! And the vodka, I never tasted any better. And they would not take a penny for anything. And they kept saying 'Excuse our homely ways.' 'What should they take anything for? They were entertaining you, to be sure. Do you suppose they keep vodka for sale? said the soldier, succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off the blackened stocking. In spite of the dirtiness of the hut, which was all muddied by their boots and the filthy dogs licking themselves clean, and the smell of marsh mud and powder that filled the room, and the absence of knives and forks, the party drank their tea and ate their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen. Washed and clean, they went into a haybarn swept ready for them, where the coachman had been making up beds for the gentlemen. Though it was dusk, not one of them wanted to go to sleep. After wavering among reminiscences and anecdotes of guns, of dogs, and of former shooting parties, the conversation rested on a topic that interested all of them. After Vassenka had several times over expressed his appreciation of this delightful sleeping place among the fragrant hay, this delightful broken cart (he supposed it to be broken because the shafts had been taken out), of the good nature of the peasants that had treated him to vodka, of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective masters, Oblonsky began telling them of a delightful shooting party at Malthus's, where he had stayed the previous summer. Malthus was a wellknown capitalist, who had made his money by speculation in railway shares. Stepan Arkadyevitch described what grouse moors this Malthus had bought in the Tver province, and how they were preserved, and of the carriages and dogcarts in which the shooting party had been driven, and the luncheon pavilion that had been rigged up at the marsh. 'I don't understand you, said Levin, sitting up in the hay 'how is it such people don't disgust you? I can understand a lunch with Lafitte is all very pleasant, but don't you dislike just that very sumptuousness? All these people, just like our spirit monopolists in old days, get their money in a way that gains them the contempt of everyone. They don't care for their contempt, and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt they have deserved. 'Perfectly true! chimed in Vassenka Veslovsky. 'Perfectly! Oblonsky, of course, goes out of bonhomie, but other people say 'Well, Oblonsky stays with them.'... 'Not a bit of it. Levin could hear that Oblonsky was smiling as he spoke. 'I simply don't consider him more dishonest than any other wealthy merchant or nobleman. They've all made their money alikeby their work and their intelligence. 'Oh, by what work? Do you call it work to get hold of concessions and speculate with them? 'Of course it's work. Work in this sense, that if it were not for him and others like him, there would have been no railways. 'But that's not work, like the work of a peasant or a learned profession. 'Granted, but it's work in the sense that his activity produces a resultthe railways. But of course you think the railways useless. 'No, that's another question I am prepared to admit that they're useful. But all profit that is out of proportion to the labor expended is dishonest. 'But who is to define what is proportionate? 'Making profit by dishonest means, by trickery, said Levin, conscious that he could not draw a distinct line between honesty and dishonesty. 'Such as banking, for instance, he went on. 'It's an evilthe amassing of huge fortunes without labor, just the same thing as with the spirit monopolies, it's only the form that's changed. Le roi est mort, vive le roi. No sooner were the spirit monopolies abolished than the railways came up, and banking companies that, too, is profit without work. 'Yes, that may all be very true and clever.... Lie down, Krak! Stepan Arkadyevitch called to his dog, who was scratching and turning over all the hay. He was obviously convinced of the correctness of his position, and so talked serenely and without haste. 'But you have not drawn the line between honest and dishonest work. That I receive a bigger salary than my chief clerk, though he knows more about the work than I dothat's dishonest, I suppose? 'I can't say. 'Well, but I can tell you your receiving some five thousand, let's say, for your work on the land, while our host, the peasant here, however hard he works, can never get more than fifty roubles, is just as dishonest as my earning more than my chief clerk, and Malthus getting more than a stationmaster. No, quite the contrary I see that society takes up a sort of antagonistic attitude to these people, which is utterly baseless, and I fancy there's envy at the bottom of it.... 'No, that's unfair, said Veslovsky 'how could envy come in? There is something not nice about that sort of business. 'You say, Levin went on, 'that it's unjust for me to receive five thousand, while the peasant has fifty that's true. It is unfair, and I feel it, but.... 'It really is. Why is it we spend our time riding, drinking, shooting, doing nothing, while they are forever at work? said Vassenka Veslovsky, obviously for the first time in his life reflecting on the question, and consequently considering it with perfect sincerity. 'Yes, you feel it, but you don't give him your property, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, intentionally, as it seemed, provoking Levin. There had arisen of late something like a secret antagonism between the two brothersinlaw as though, since they had married sisters, a kind of rivalry had sprung up between them as to which was ordering his life best, and now this hostility showed itself in the conversation, as it began to take a personal note. 'I don't give it away, because no one demands that from me, and if I wanted to, I could not give it away, answered Levin, 'and have no one to give it to. 'Give it to this peasant, he would not refuse it. 'Yes, but how am I to give it up? Am I to go to him and make a deed of conveyance? 'I don't know but if you are convinced that you have no right.... 'I'm not at all convinced. On the contrary, I feel I have no right to give it up, that I have duties both to the land and to my family. 'No, excuse me, but if you consider this inequality is unjust, why is it you don't act accordingly?... 'Well, I do act negatively on that idea, so far as not trying to increase the difference of position existing between him and me. 'No, excuse me, that's a paradox. 'Yes, there's something of a sophistry about that, Veslovsky agreed. 'Ah! our host so you're not asleep yet? he said to the peasant who came into the barn, opening the creaking door. 'How is it you're not asleep? 'No, how's one to sleep! I thought our gentlemen would be asleep, but I heard them chattering. I want to get a hook from here. She won't bite? he added, stepping cautiously with his bare feet. 'And where are you going to sleep? 'We are going out for the night with the beasts. 'Ah, what a night! said Veslovsky, looking out at the edge of the hut and the unharnessed wagonette that could be seen in the faint light of the evening glow in the great frame of the open doors. 'But listen, there are women's voices singing, and, on my word, not badly too. Who's that singing, my friend? 'That's the maids from hard by here. 'Let's go, let's have a walk! We shan't go to sleep, you know. Oblonsky, come along! 'If one could only do both, lie here and go, answered Oblonsky, stretching. 'It's capital lying here. 'Well, I shall go by myself, said Veslovsky, getting up eagerly, and putting on his shoes and stockings. 'Goodbye, gentlemen. If it's fun, I'll fetch you. You've treated me to some good sport, and I won't forget you. 'He really is a capital fellow, isn't he? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, when Veslovsky had gone out and the peasant had closed the door after him. 'Yes, capital, answered Levin, still thinking of the subject of their conversation just before. It seemed to him that he had clearly expressed his thoughts and feelings to the best of his capacity, and yet both of them, straightforward men and not fools, had said with one voice that he was comforting himself with sophistries. This disconcerted him. 'It's just this, my dear boy. One must do one of two things either admit that the existing order of society is just, and then stick up for one's rights in it or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as I do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied. 'No, if it were unjust, you could not enjoy these advantages and be satisfiedat least I could not. The great thing for me is to feel that I'm not to blame. 'What do you say, why not go after all? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, evidently weary of the strain of thought. 'We shan't go to sleep, you know. Come, let's go! Levin did not answer. What they had said in the conversation, that he acted justly only in a negative sense, absorbed his thoughts. 'Can it be that it's only possible to be just negatively? he was asking himself. 'How strong the smell of the fresh hay is, though, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up. 'There's not a chance of sleeping. Vassenka has been getting up some fun there. Do you hear the laughing and his voice? Hadn't we better go? Come along! 'No, I'm not coming, answered Levin. 'Surely that's not a matter of principle too, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as he felt about in the dark for his cap. 'It's not a matter of principle, but why should I go? 'But do you know you are preparing trouble for yourself, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, finding his cap and getting up. 'How so? 'Do you suppose I don't see the line you've taken up with your wife? I heard how it's a question of the greatest consequence, whether or not you're to be away for a couple of days' shooting. That's all very well as an idyllic episode, but for your whole life that won't answer. A man must be independent he has his masculine interests. A man has to be manly, said Oblonsky, opening the door. 'In what way? To go running after servant girls? said Levin. 'Why not, if it amuses him? a ne tire pas  consquence. It won't do my wife any harm, and it'll amuse me. The great thing is to respect the sanctity of the home. There should be nothing in the home. But don't tie your own hands. 'Perhaps so, said Levin dryly, and he turned on his side. 'Tomorrow, early, I want to go shooting, and I won't wake anyone, and shall set off at daybreak. 'Messieurs, venez vite! they heard the voice of Veslovsky coming back. 'Charmante! I've made such a discovery. Charmante! a perfect Gretchen, and I've already made friends with her. Really, exceedingly pretty, he declared in a tone of approval, as though she had been made pretty entirely on his account, and he was expressing his satisfaction with the entertainment that had been provided for him. Levin pretended to be asleep, while Oblonsky, putting on his slippers, and lighting a cigar, walked out of the barn, and soon their voices were lost. For a long while Levin could not get to sleep. He heard the horses munching hay, then he heard the peasant and his elder boy getting ready for the night, and going off for the night watch with the beasts, then he heard the soldier arranging his bed on the other side of the barn, with his nephew, the younger son of their peasant host. He heard the boy in his shrill little voice telling his uncle what he thought about the dogs, who seemed to him huge and terrible creatures, and asking what the dogs were going to hunt next day, and the soldier in a husky, sleepy voice, telling him the sportsmen were going in the morning to the marsh, and would shoot with their guns and then, to check the boy's questions, he said, 'Go to sleep, Vaska go to sleep, or you'll catch it, and soon after he began snoring himself, and everything was still. He could only hear the snort of the horses, and the guttural cry of a snipe. 'Is it really only negative? he repeated to himself. 'Well, what of it? It's not my fault. And he began thinking about the next day. 'Tomorrow I'll go out early, and I'll make a point of keeping cool. There are lots of snipe and there are grouse too. When I come back there'll be the note from Kitty. Yes, Stiva may be right, I'm not manly with her, I'm tied to her apronstrings.... Well, it can't be helped! Negative again.... Half asleep, he heard the laughter and mirthful talk of Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch. For an instant he opened his eyes the moon was up, and in the open doorway, brightly lighted up by the moonlight, they were standing talking. Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying something of the freshness of one girl, comparing her to a freshly peeled nut, and Veslovsky with his infectious laugh was repeating some words, probably said to him by a peasant 'Ah, you do your best to get round her! Levin, half asleep, said 'Gentlemen, tomorrow before daylight! and fell asleep. Waking up at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his companions. Vassenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg in a stocking thrust out, was sleeping so soundly that he could elicit no response. Oblonsky, half asleep, declined to get up so early. Even Laska, who was asleep, curled up in the hay, got up unwillingly, and lazily stretched out and straightened her hind legs one after the other. Getting on his boots and stockings, taking his gun, and carefully opening the creaking door of the barn, Levin went out into the road. The coachmen were sleeping in their carriages, the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily eating oats, dipping its nose into the manger. It was still gray outofdoors. 'Why are you up so early, my dear? the old woman, their hostess, said, coming out of the hut and addressing him affectionately as an old friend. 'Going shooting, granny. Do I go this way to the marsh? 'Straight out at the back by our threshing floor, my dear, and hemp patches there's a little footpath. Stepping carefully with her sunburnt, bare feet, the old woman conducted Levin, and moved back the fence for him by the threshing floor. 'Straight on and you'll come to the marsh. Our lads drove the cattle there yesterday evening. Laska ran eagerly forward along the little path. Levin followed her with a light, rapid step, continually looking at the sky. He hoped the sun would not be up before he reached the marsh. But the sun did not delay. The moon, which had been bright when he went out, by now shone only like a crescent of quicksilver. The pink flush of dawn, which one could not help seeing before, now had to be sought to be discerned at all. What were before undefined, vague blurs in the distant countryside could now be distinctly seen. They were sheaves of rye. The dew, not visible till the sun was up, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above his belt in the high growing, fragrant hemp patch, from which the pollen had already fallen out. In the transparent stillness of morning the smallest sounds were audible. A bee flew by Levin's ear with the whizzing sound of a bullet. He looked carefully, and saw a second and a third. They were all flying from the beehives behind the hedge, and they disappeared over the hemp patch in the direction of the marsh. The path led straight to the marsh. The marsh could be recognized by the mist which rose from it, thicker in one place and thinner in another, so that the reeds and willow bushes swayed like islands in this mist. At the edge of the marsh and the road, peasant boys and men, who had been herding for the night, were lying, and in the dawn all were asleep under their coats. Not far from them were three hobbled horses. One of them clanked a chain. Laska walked beside her master, pressing a little forward and looking round. Passing the sleeping peasants and reaching the first reeds, Levin examined his pistols and let his dog off. One of the horses, a sleek, darkbrown threeyearold, seeing the dog, started away, switched its tail and snorted. The other horses too were frightened, and splashing through the water with their hobbled legs, and drawing their hoofs out of the thick mud with a squelching sound, they bounded out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looking ironically at the horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, and whistled as a sign that she might begin. Laska ran joyfully and anxiously through the slush that swayed under her. Running into the marsh among the familiar scents of roots, marsh plants, and slime, and the extraneous smell of horse dung, Laska detected at once a smell that pervaded the whole marsh, the scent of that strongsmelling bird that always excited her more than any other. Here and there among the moss and marsh plants this scent was very strong, but it was impossible to determine in which direction it grew stronger or fainter. To find the direction, she had to go farther away from the wind. Not feeling the motion of her legs, Laska bounded with a stiff gallop, so that at each bound she could stop short, to the right, away from the wind that blew from the east before sunrise, and turned facing the wind. Sniffing in the air with dilated nostrils, she felt at once that not their tracks only but they themselves were here before her, and not one, but many. Laska slackened her speed. They were here, but where precisely she could not yet determine. To find the very spot, she began to make a circle, when suddenly her master's voice drew her off. 'Laska! here? he asked, pointing her to a different direction. She stopped, asking him if she had better not go on doing as she had begun. But he repeated his command in an angry voice, pointing to a spot covered with water, where there could not be anything. She obeyed him, pretending she was looking, so as to please him, went round it, and went back to her former position, and was at once aware of the scent again. Now when he was not hindering her, she knew what to do, and without looking at what was under her feet, and to her vexation stumbling over a high stump into the water, but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she began making the circle which was to make all clear to her. The scent of them reached her, stronger and stronger, and more and more defined, and all at once it became perfectly clear to her that one of them was here, behind this tuft of reeds, five paces in front of her she stopped, and her whole body was still and rigid. On her short legs she could see nothing in front of her, but by the scent she knew it was sitting not more than five paces off. She stood still, feeling more and more conscious of it, and enjoying it in anticipation. Her tail was stretched straight and tense, and only wagging at the extreme end. Her mouth was slightly open, her ears raised. One ear had been turned wrong side out as she ran up, and she breathed heavily but warily, and still more warily looked round, but more with her eyes than her head, to her master. He was coming along with the face she knew so well, though the eyes were always terrible to her. He stumbled over the stump as he came, and moved, as she thought, extraordinarily slowly. She thought he came slowly, but he was running. Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground, as it were, scratching big prints with her hind paws, and with her mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at grouse, and with an inward prayer for luck, especially with the first bird, he ran up to her. Coming quite close up to her, he could from his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes what she was seeing with her nose. In a space between two little thickets, at a couple of yards' distance, he could see a grouse. Turning its head, it was listening. Then lightly preening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a corner with a clumsy wag of its tail. 'Fetch it, fetch it! shouted Levin, giving Laska a shove from behind. 'But I can't go, thought Laska. 'Where am I to go? From here I feel them, but if I move forward I shall know nothing of where they are or who they are. But then he shoved her with his knee, and in an excited whisper said, 'Fetch it, Laska. 'Well, if that's what he wishes, I'll do it, but I can't answer for myself now, she thought, and darted forward as fast as her legs would carry her between the thick bushes. She scented nothing now she could only see and hear, without understanding anything. Ten paces from her former place a grouse rose with a guttural cry and the peculiar round sound of its wings. And immediately after the shot it splashed heavily with its white breast on the wet mire. Another bird did not linger, but rose behind Levin without the dog. When Levin turned towards it, it was already some way off. But his shot caught it. Flying twenty paces further, the second grouse rose upwards, and whirling round like a ball, dropped heavily on a dry place. 'Come, this is going to be some good! thought Levin, packing the warm and fat grouse into his game bag. 'Eh, Laska, will it be good? When Levin, after loading his gun, moved on, the sun had fully risen, though unseen behind the stormclouds. The moon had lost all of its luster, and was like a white cloud in the sky. Not a single star could be seen. The sedge, silvery with dew before, now shone like gold. The stagnant pools were all like amber. The blue of the grass had changed to yellowgreen. The marsh birds twittered and swarmed about the brook and upon the bushes that glittered with dew and cast long shadows. A hawk woke up and settled on a haycock, turning its head from side to side and looking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying about the field, and a barelegged boy was driving the horses to an old man, who had got up from under his long coat and was combing his hair. The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green of the grass. One of the boys ran up to Levin. 'Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday! he shouted to him, and he walked a little way off behind him. And Levin was doubly pleased, in sight of the boy, who expressed his approval, at killing three snipe, one after another, straight off. The sportsman's saying, that if the first beast or the first bird is not missed, the day will be lucky, turned out correct. At ten o'clock Levin, weary, hungry, and happy after a tramp of twenty miles, returned to his night's lodging with nineteen head of fine game and one duck, which he tied to his belt, as it would not go into the game bag. His companions had long been awake, and had had time to get hungry and have breakfast. 'Wait a bit, wait a bit, I know there are nineteen, said Levin, counting a second time over the grouse and snipe, that looked so much less important now, bent and dry and bloodstained, with heads crooked aside, than they did when they were flying. The number was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevitch's envy pleased Levin. He was pleased too on returning to find the man sent by Kitty with a note was already there. 'I am perfectly well and happy. If you were uneasy about me, you can feel easier than ever. I've a new bodyguard, Marya Vlasyevna,this was the midwife, a new and important personage in Levin's domestic life. 'She has come to have a look at me. She found me perfectly well, and we have kept her till you are back. All are happy and well, and please, don't be in a hurry to come back, but, if the sport is good, stay another day. These two pleasures, his lucky shooting and the letter from his wife, were so great that two slightly disagreeable incidents passed lightly over Levin. One was that the chestnut trace horse, who had been unmistakably overworked on the previous day, was off his feed and out of sorts. The coachman said he was 'Overdriven yesterday, Konstantin Dmitrievitch. Yes, indeed! driven ten miles with no sense! The other unpleasant incident, which for the first minute destroyed his good humor, though later he laughed at it a great deal, was to find that of all the provisions Kitty had provided in such abundance that one would have thought there was enough for a week, nothing was left. On his way back, tired and hungry from shooting, Levin had so distinct a vision of meatpies that as he approached the hut he seemed to smell and taste them, as Laska had smelt the game, and he immediately told Philip to give him some. It appeared that there were no pies left, nor even any chicken. 'Well, this fellow's appetite! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing and pointing at Vassenka Veslovsky. 'I never suffer from loss of appetite, but he's really marvelous!... 'Well, it can't be helped, said Levin, looking gloomily at Veslovsky. 'Well, Philip, give me some beef, then. 'The beef's been eaten, and the bones given to the dogs, answered Philip. Levin was so hurt that he said, in a tone of vexation, 'You might have left me something! and he felt ready to cry. 'Then put away the game, he said in a shaking voice to Philip, trying not to look at Vassenka, 'and cover them with some nettles. And you might at least ask for some milk for me. But when he had drunk some milk, he felt ashamed immediately at having shown his annoyance to a stranger, and he began to laugh at his hungry mortification. In the evening they went shooting again, and Veslovsky had several successful shots, and in the night they drove home. Their homeward journey was as lively as their drive out had been. Veslovsky sang songs and related with enjoyment his adventures with the peasants, who had regaled him with vodka, and said to him, 'Excuse our homely ways, and his night's adventures with kissinthering and the servantgirl and the peasant, who had asked him was he married, and on learning that he was not, said to him, 'Well, mind you don't run after other men's wivesyou'd better get one of your own. These words had particularly amused Veslovsky. 'Altogether, I've enjoyed our outing awfully. And you, Levin? 'I have, very much, Levin said quite sincerely. It was particularly delightful to him to have got rid of the hostility he had been feeling towards Vassenka Veslovsky at home, and to feel instead the most friendly disposition to him. Next day at ten o'clock Levin, who had already gone his rounds, knocked at the room where Vassenka had been put for the night. 'Entrez! Veslovsky called to him. 'Excuse me, I've only just finished my ablutions, he said, smiling, standing before him in his underclothes only. 'Don't mind me, please. Levin sat down in the window. 'Have you slept well? 'Like the dead. What sort of day is it for shooting? 'What will you take, tea or coffee? 'Neither. I'll wait till lunch. I'm really ashamed. I suppose the ladies are down? A walk now would be capital. You show me your horses. After walking about the garden, visiting the stable, and even doing some gymnastic exercises together on the parallel bars, Levin returned to the house with his guest, and went with him into the drawingroom. 'We had splendid shooting, and so many delightful experiences! said Veslovsky, going up to Kitty, who was sitting at the samovar. 'What a pity ladies are cut off from these delights! 'Well, I suppose he must say something to the lady of the house, Levin said to himself. Again he fancied something in the smile, in the allconquering air with which their guest addressed Kitty.... The princess, sitting on the other side of the table with Marya Vlasyevna and Stepan Arkadyevitch, called Levin to her side, and began to talk to him about moving to Moscow for Kitty's confinement, and getting ready rooms for them. Just as Levin had disliked all the trivial preparations for his wedding, as derogatory to the grandeur of the event, now he felt still more offensive the preparations for the approaching birth, the date of which they reckoned, it seemed, on their fingers. He tried to turn a deaf ear to these discussions of the best patterns of long clothes for the coming baby tried to turn away and avoid seeing the mysterious, endless strips of knitting, the triangles of linen, and so on, to which Dolly attached special importance. The birth of a son (he was certain it would be a son) which was promised him, but which he still could not believe inso marvelous it seemedpresented itself to his mind, on one hand, as a happiness so immense, and therefore so incredible on the other, as an event so mysterious, that this assumption of a definite knowledge of what would be, and consequent preparation for it, as for something ordinary that did happen to people, jarred on him as confusing and humiliating. But the princess did not understand his feelings, and put down his reluctance to think and talk about it to carelessness and indifference, and so she gave him no peace. She had commissioned Stepan Arkadyevitch to look at a flat, and now she called Levin up. 'I know nothing about it, princess. Do as you think fit, he said. 'You must decide when you will move. 'I really don't know. I know millions of children are born away from Moscow, and doctors ... why.... 'But if so.... 'Oh, no, as Kitty wishes. 'We can't talk to Kitty about it! Do you want me to frighten her? Why, this spring Natalia Golitzina died from having an ignorant doctor. 'I will do just what you say, he said gloomily. The princess began talking to him, but he did not hear her. Though the conversation with the princess had indeed jarred upon him, he was gloomy, not on account of that conversation, but from what he saw at the samovar. 'No, it's impossible, he thought, glancing now and then at Vassenka bending over Kitty, telling her something with his charming smile, and at her, flushed and disturbed. There was something not nice in Vassenka's attitude, in his eyes, in his smile. Levin even saw something not nice in Kitty's attitude and look. And again the light died away in his eyes. Again, as before, all of a sudden, without the slightest transition, he felt cast down from a pinnacle of happiness, peace, and dignity, into an abyss of despair, rage, and humiliation. Again everything and everyone had become hateful to him. 'You do just as you think best, princess, he said again, looking round. 'Heavy is the cap of Monomach, Stepan Arkadyevitch said playfully, hinting, evidently, not simply at the princess's conversation, but at the cause of Levin's agitation, which he had noticed. 'How late you are today, Dolly! Everyone got up to greet Darya Alexandrovna. Vassenka only rose for an instant, and with the lack of courtesy to ladies characteristic of the modern young man, he scarcely bowed, and resumed his conversation again, laughing at something. 'I've been worried about Masha. She did not sleep well, and is dreadfully tiresome today, said Dolly. The conversation Vassenka had started with Kitty was running on the same lines as on the previous evening, discussing Anna, and whether love is to be put higher than worldly considerations. Kitty disliked the conversation, and she was disturbed both by the subject and the tone in which it was conducted, and also by the knowledge of the effect it would have on her husband. But she was too simple and innocent to know how to cut short this conversation, or even to conceal the superficial pleasure afforded her by the young man's very obvious admiration. She wanted to stop it, but she did not know what to do. Whatever she did she knew would be observed by her husband, and the worst interpretation put on it. And, in fact, when she asked Dolly what was wrong with Masha, and Vassenka, waiting till this uninteresting conversation was over, began to gaze indifferently at Dolly, the question struck Levin as an unnatural and disgusting piece of hypocrisy. 'What do you say, shall we go and look for mushrooms today? said Dolly. 'By all means, please, and I shall come too, said Kitty, and she blushed. She wanted from politeness to ask Vassenka whether he would come, and she did not ask him. 'Where are you going, Kostya? she asked her husband with a guilty face, as he passed by her with a resolute step. This guilty air confirmed all his suspicions. 'The mechanician came when I was away I haven't seen him yet, he said, not looking at her. He went downstairs, but before he had time to leave his study he heard his wife's familiar footsteps running with reckless speed to him. 'What do you want? he said to her shortly. 'We are busy. 'I beg your pardon, she said to the German mechanician 'I want a few words with my husband. The German would have left the room, but Levin said to him 'Don't disturb yourself. 'The train is at three? queried the German. 'I mustn't be late. Levin did not answer him, but walked out himself with his wife. 'Well, what have you to say to me? he said to her in French. He did not look her in the face, and did not care to see that she in her condition was trembling all over, and had a piteous, crushed look. 'I ... I want to say that we can't go on like this that this is misery.... she said. 'The servants are here at the sideboard, he said angrily 'don't make a scene. 'Well, let's go in here! They were standing in the passage. Kitty would have gone into the next room, but there the English governess was giving Tanya a lesson. 'Well, come into the garden. In the garden they came upon a peasant weeding the path. And no longer considering that the peasant could see her tearstained and his agitated face, that they looked like people fleeing from some disaster, they went on with rapid steps, feeling that they must speak out and clear up misunderstandings, must be alone together, and so get rid of the misery they were both feeling. 'We can't go on like this! It's misery! I am wretched you are wretched. What for? she said, when they had at last reached a solitary garden seat at a turn in the lime tree avenue. 'But tell me one thing was there in his tone anything unseemly, not nice, humiliatingly horrible? he said, standing before her again in the same position with his clenched fists on his chest, as he had stood before her that night. 'Yes, she said in a shaking voice 'but, Kostya, surely you see I'm not to blame? All the morning I've been trying to take a tone ... but such people.... Why did he come? How happy we were! she said, breathless with the sobs that shook her. Although nothing had been pursuing them, and there was nothing to run away from, and they could not possibly have found anything very delightful on that garden seat, the gardener saw with astonishment that they passed him on their way home with comforted and radiant faces. After escorting his wife upstairs, Levin went to Dolly's part of the house. Darya Alexandrovna, for her part, was in great distress too that day. She was walking about the room, talking angrily to a little girl, who stood in the corner roaring. 'And you shall stand all day in the corner, and have your dinner all alone, and not see one of your dolls, and I won't make you a new frock, she said, not knowing how to punish her. 'Oh, she is a disgusting child! she turned to Levin. 'Where does she get such wicked propensities? 'Why, what has she done? Levin said without much interest, for he had wanted to ask her advice, and so was annoyed that he had come at an unlucky moment. 'Grisha and she went into the raspberries, and there ... I can't tell you really what she did. It's a thousand pities Miss Elliot's not with us. This one sees to nothingshe's a machine.... Figurezvous que la petite?... And Darya Alexandrovna described Masha's crime. 'That proves nothing it's not a question of evil propensities at all, it's simply mischief, Levin assured her. 'But you are upset about something? What have you come for? asked Dolly. 'What's going on there? And in the tone of her question Levin heard that it would be easy for him to say what he had meant to say. 'I've not been in there, I've been alone in the garden with Kitty. We've had a quarrel for the second time since ... Stiva came. Dolly looked at him with her shrewd, comprehending eyes. 'Come, tell me, honor bright, has there been ... not in Kitty, but in that gentleman's behavior, a tone which might be unpleasantnot unpleasant, but horrible, offensive to a husband? 'You mean, how shall I say.... Stay, stay in the corner! she said to Masha, who, detecting a faint smile in her mother's face, had been turning round. 'The opinion of the world would be that he is behaving as young men do behave. Il fait la cour  une jeune et jolie femme, and a husband who's a man of the world should only be flattered by it. 'Yes, yes, said Levin gloomily 'but you noticed it? 'Not only I, but Stiva noticed it. Just after breakfast he said to me in so many words, Je crois que Veslovsky fait un petit brin de cour  Kitty. 'Well, that's all right then now I'm satisfied. I'll send him away, said Levin. 'What do you mean! Are you crazy? Dolly cried in horror 'nonsense, Kostya, only think! she said, laughing. 'You can go now to Fanny, she said to Masha. 'No, if you wish it, I'll speak to Stiva. He'll take him away. He can say you're expecting visitors. Altogether he doesn't fit into the house. 'No, no, I'll do it myself. 'But you'll quarrel with him? 'Not a bit. I shall so enjoy it, Levin said, his eyes flashing with real enjoyment. 'Come, forgive her, Dolly, she won't do it again, he said of the little sinner, who had not gone to Fanny, but was standing irresolutely before her mother, waiting and looking up from under her brows to catch her mother's eye. The mother glanced at her. The child broke into sobs, hid her face on her mother's lap, and Dolly laid her thin, tender hand on her head. 'And what is there in common between us and him? thought Levin, and he went off to look for Veslovsky. As he passed through the passage he gave orders for the carriage to be got ready to drive to the station. 'The spring was broken yesterday, said the footman. 'Well, the covered trap, then, and make haste. Where's the visitor? 'The gentleman's gone to his room. Levin came upon Veslovsky at the moment when the latter, having unpacked his things from his trunk, and laid out some new songs, was putting on his gaiters to go out riding. Whether there was something exceptional in Levin's face, or that Vassenka was himself conscious that ce petit brin de cour he was making was out of place in this family, but he was somewhat (as much as a young man in society can be) disconcerted at Levin's entrance. 'You ride in gaiters? 'Yes, it's much cleaner, said Vassenka, putting his fat leg on a chair, fastening the bottom hook, and smiling with simplehearted good humor. He was undoubtedly a goodnatured fellow, and Levin felt sorry for him and ashamed of himself, as his host, when he saw the shy look on Vassenka's face. On the table lay a piece of stick which they had broken together that morning, trying their strength. Levin took the fragment in his hands and began smashing it up, breaking bits off the stick, not knowing how to begin. 'I wanted.... He paused, but suddenly, remembering Kitty and everything that had happened, he said, looking him resolutely in the face 'I have ordered the horses to be putto for you. 'How so? Vassenka began in surprise. 'To drive where? 'For you to drive to the station, Levin said gloomily. 'Are you going away, or has something happened? 'It happens that I expect visitors, said Levin, his strong fingers more and more rapidly breaking off the ends of the split stick. 'And I'm not expecting visitors, and nothing has happened, but I beg you to go away. You can explain my rudeness as you like. Vassenka drew himself up. 'I beg you to explain.... he said with dignity, understanding at last. 'I can't explain, Levin said softly and deliberately, trying to control the trembling of his jaw 'and you'd better not ask. And as the split ends were all broken off, Levin clutched the thick ends in his finger, broke the stick in two, and carefully caught the end as it fell. Probably the sight of those nervous fingers, of the muscles he had proved that morning at gymnastics, of the glittering eyes, the soft voice, and quivering jaws, convinced Vassenka better than any words. He bowed, shrugging his shoulders, and smiling contemptuously. 'Can I not see Oblonsky? The shrug and the smile did not irritate Levin. 'What else was there for him to do? he thought. 'I'll send him to you at once. 'What madness is this? Stepan Arkadyevitch said when, after hearing from his friend that he was being turned out of the house, he found Levin in the garden, where he was walking about waiting for his guest's departure. 'Mais c'est ridicule! What fly has stung you? Mais c'est du dernier ridicule! What did you think, if a young man.... But the place where Levin had been stung was evidently still sore, for he turned pale again, when Stepan Arkadyevitch would have enlarged on the reason, and he himself cut him short. 'Please don't go into it! I can't help it. I feel ashamed of how I'm treating you and him. But it won't be, I imagine, a great grief to him to go, and his presence was distasteful to me and to my wife. 'But it's insulting to him! Et puis c'est ridicule. 'And to me it's both insulting and distressing! And I'm not at fault in any way, and there's no need for me to suffer. 'Well, this I didn't expect of you! On peut tre jaloux, mais  ce point, c'est du dernier ridicule! Levin turned quickly, and walked away from him into the depths of the avenue, and he went on walking up and down alone. Soon he heard the rumble of the trap, and saw from behind the trees how Vassenka, sitting in the hay (unluckily there was no seat in the trap) in his Scotch cap, was driven along the avenue, jolting up and down over the ruts. 'What's this? Levin thought, when a footman ran out of the house and stopped the trap. It was the mechanician, whom Levin had totally forgotten. The mechanician, bowing low, said something to Veslovsky, then clambered into the trap, and they drove off together. Stepan Arkadyevitch and the princess were much upset by Levin's action. And he himself felt not only in the highest degree ridicule, but also utterly guilty and disgraced. But remembering what sufferings he and his wife had been through, when he asked himself how he should act another time, he answered that he should do just the same again. In spite of all this, towards the end of that day, everyone except the princess, who could not pardon Levin's action, became extraordinarily lively and goodhumored, like children after a punishment or grownup people after a dreary, ceremonious reception, so that by the evening Vassenka's dismissal was spoken of, in the absence of the princess, as though it were some remote event. And Dolly, who had inherited her father's gift of humorous storytelling, made Varenka helpless with laughter as she related for the third and fourth time, always with fresh humorous additions, how she had only just put on her new shoes for the benefit of the visitor, and on going into the drawingroom, heard suddenly the rumble of the trap. And who should be in the trap but Vassenka himself, with his Scotch cap, and his songs and his gaiters, and all, sitting in the hay. 'If only you'd ordered out the carriage! But no! and then I hear 'Stop!' Oh, I thought they've relented. I look out, and behold a fat German being sat down by him and driving away.... And my new shoes all for nothing!... Darya Alexandrovna carried out her intention and went to see Anna. She was sorry to annoy her sister and to do anything Levin disliked. She quite understood how right the Levins were in not wishing to have anything to do with Vronsky. But she felt she must go and see Anna, and show her that her feelings could not be changed, in spite of the change in her position. That she might be independent of the Levins in this expedition, Darya Alexandrovna sent to the village to hire horses for the drive but Levin learning of it went to her to protest. 'What makes you suppose that I dislike your going? But, even if I did dislike it, I should still more dislike your not taking my horses, he said. 'You never told me that you were going for certain. Hiring horses in the village is disagreeable to me, and, what's of more importance, they'll undertake the job and never get you there. I have horses. And if you don't want to wound me, you'll take mine. Darya Alexandrovna had to consent, and on the day fixed Levin had ready for his sisterinlaw a set of four horses and relays, getting them together from the farm and saddlehorsesnot at all a smartlooking set, but capable of taking Darya Alexandrovna the whole distance in a single day. At that moment, when horses were wanted for the princess, who was going, and for the midwife, it was a difficult matter for Levin to make up the number, but the duties of hospitality would not let him allow Darya Alexandrovna to hire horses when staying in his house. Moreover, he was well aware that the twenty roubles that would be asked for the journey were a serious matter for her Darya Alexandrovna's pecuniary affairs, which were in a very unsatisfactory state, were taken to heart by the Levins as if they were their own. Darya Alexandrovna, by Levin's advice, started before daybreak. The road was good, the carriage comfortable, the horses trotted along merrily, and on the box, besides the coachman, sat the countinghouse clerk, whom Levin was sending instead of a groom for greater security. Darya Alexandrovna dozed and waked up only on reaching the inn where the horses were to be changed. After drinking tea at the same welltodo peasant's with whom Levin had stayed on the way to Sviazhsky's, and chatting with the women about their children, and with the old man about Count Vronsky, whom the latter praised very highly, Darya Alexandrovna, at ten o'clock, went on again. At home, looking after her children, she had no time to think. So now, after this journey of four hours, all the thoughts she had suppressed before rushed swarming into her brain, and she thought over all her life as she never had before, and from the most different points of view. Her thoughts seemed strange even to herself. At first she thought about the children, about whom she was uneasy, although the princess and Kitty (she reckoned more upon her) had promised to look after them. 'If only Masha does not begin her naughty tricks, if Grisha isn't kicked by a horse, and Lily's stomach isn't upset again! she thought. But these questions of the present were succeeded by questions of the immediate future. She began thinking how she had to get a new flat in Moscow for the coming winter, to renew the drawingroom furniture, and to make her elder girl a cloak. Then questions of the more remote future occurred to her how she was to place her children in the world. 'The girls are all right, she thought 'but the boys? 'It's very well that I'm teaching Grisha, but of course that's only because I am free myself now, I'm not with child. Stiva, of course, there's no counting on. And with the help of goodnatured friends I can bring them up but if there's another baby coming?... And the thought struck her how untruly it was said that the curse laid on woman was that in sorrow she should bring forth children. 'The birth itself, that's nothing but the months of carrying the childthat's what's so intolerable, she thought, picturing to herself her last pregnancy, and the death of the last baby. And she recalled the conversation she had just had with the young woman at the inn. On being asked whether she had any children, the handsome young woman had answered cheerfully 'I had a girl baby, but God set me free I buried her last Lent. 'Well, did you grieve very much for her? asked Darya Alexandrovna. 'Why grieve? The old man has grandchildren enough as it is. It was only a trouble. No working, nor nothing. Only a tie. This answer had struck Darya Alexandrovna as revolting in spite of the goodnatured and pleasing face of the young woman but now she could not help recalling these words. In those cynical words there was indeed a grain of truth. 'Yes, altogether, thought Darya Alexandrovna, looking back over her whole existence during those fifteen years of her married life, 'pregnancy, sickness, mental incapacity, indifference to everything, and most of allhideousness. Kitty, young and pretty as she is, even Kitty has lost her looks and I when I'm with child become hideous, I know it. The birth, the agony, the hideous agonies, that last moment ... then the nursing, the sleepless nights, the fearful pains.... Darya Alexandrovna shuddered at the mere recollection of the pain from sore breasts which she had suffered with almost every child. 'Then the children's illnesses, that everlasting apprehension then bringing them up evil propensities (she thought of little Masha's crime among the raspberries), 'education, Latinit's all so incomprehensible and difficult. And on the top of it all, the death of these children. And there rose again before her imagination the cruel memory, that always tore her mother's heart, of the death of her last little baby, who had died of croup his funeral, the callous indifference of all at the little pink coffin, and her own torn heart, and her lonely anguish at the sight of the pale little brow with its projecting temples, and the open, wondering little mouth seen in the coffin at the moment when it was being covered with the little pink lid with a cross braided on it. 'And all this, what's it for? What is to come of it all? That I'm wasting my life, never having a moment's peace, either with child, or nursing a child, forever irritable, peevish, wretched myself and worrying others, repulsive to my husband, while the children are growing up unhappy, badly educated, and penniless. Even now, if it weren't for spending the summer at the Levins', I don't know how we should be managing to live. Of course Kostya and Kitty have so much tact that we don't feel it but it can't go on. They'll have children, they won't be able to keep us it's a drag on them as it is. How is papa, who has hardly anything left for himself, to help us? So that I can't even bring the children up by myself, and may find it hard with the help of other people, at the cost of humiliation. Why, even if we suppose the greatest good luck, that the children don't die, and I bring them up somehow. At the very best they'll simply be decent people. That's all I can hope for. And to gain simply thatwhat agonies, what toil!... One's whole life ruined! Again she recalled what the young peasant woman had said, and again she was revolted at the thought but she could not help admitting that there was a grain of brutal truth in the words. 'Is it far now, Mihail? Darya Alexandrovna asked the countinghouse clerk, to turn her mind from thoughts that were frightening her. 'From this village, they say, it's five miles. The carriage drove along the village street and onto a bridge. On the bridge was a crowd of peasant women with coils of ties for the sheaves on their shoulders, gaily and noisily chattering. They stood still on the bridge, staring inquisitively at the carriage. All the faces turned to Darya Alexandrovna looked to her healthy and happy, making her envious of their enjoyment of life. 'They're all living, they're all enjoying life, Darya Alexandrovna still mused when she had passed the peasant women and was driving uphill again at a trot, seated comfortably on the soft springs of the old carriage, 'while I, let out, as it were from prison, from the world of worries that fret me to death, am only looking about me now for an instant. They all live those peasant women and my sister Natalia and Varenka and Anna, whom I am going to seeall, but not I. 'And they attack Anna. What for? am I any better? I have, anyway, a husband I lovenot as I should like to love him, still I do love him, while Anna never loved hers. How is she to blame? She wants to live. God has put that in our hearts. Very likely I should have done the same. Even to this day I don't feel sure I did right in listening to her at that terrible time when she came to me in Moscow. I ought then to have cast off my husband and have begun my life fresh. I might have loved and have been loved in reality. And is it any better as it is? I don't respect him. He's necessary to me, she thought about her husband, 'and I put up with him. Is that any better? At that time I could still have been admired, I had beauty left me still, Darya Alexandrovna pursued her thoughts, and she would have liked to look at herself in the lookingglass. She had a traveling lookingglass in her handbag, and she wanted to take it out but looking at the backs of the coachman and the swaying countinghouse clerk, she felt that she would be ashamed if either of them were to look round, and she did not take out the glass. But without looking in the glass, she thought that even now it was not too late and she thought of Sergey Ivanovitch, who was always particularly attentive to her, of Stiva's goodhearted friend, Turovtsin, who had helped her nurse her children through the scarlatina, and was in love with her. And there was someone else, a quite young man, whoher husband had told her it as a jokethought her more beautiful than either of her sisters. And the most passionate and impossible romances rose before Darya Alexandrovna's imagination. 'Anna did quite right, and certainly I shall never reproach her for it. She is happy, she makes another person happy, and she's not broken down as I am, but most likely just as she always was, bright, clever, open to every impression, thought Darya Alexandrovna,and a sly smile curved her lips, for, as she pondered on Anna's love affair, Darya Alexandrovna constructed on parallel lines an almost identical love affair for herself, with an imaginary composite figure, the ideal man who was in love with her. She, like Anna, confessed the whole affair to her husband. And the amazement and perplexity of Stepan Arkadyevitch at this avowal made her smile. In such daydreams she reached the turning of the highroad that led to Vozdvizhenskoe. The coachman pulled up his four horses and looked round to the right, to a field of rye, where some peasants were sitting on a cart. The countinghouse clerk was just going to jump down, but on second thoughts he shouted peremptorily to the peasants instead, and beckoned to them to come up. The wind, that seemed to blow as they drove, dropped when the carriage stood still gadflies settled on the steaming horses that angrily shook them off. The metallic clank of a whetstone against a scythe, that came to them from the cart, ceased. One of the peasants got up and came towards the carriage. 'Well, you are slow! the countinghouse clerk shouted angrily to the peasant who was stepping slowly with his bare feet over the ruts of the rough dry road. 'Come along, do! A curlyheaded old man with a bit of bast tied round his hair, and his bent back dark with perspiration, came towards the carriage, quickening his steps, and took hold of the mudguard with his sunburnt hand. 'Vozdvizhenskoe, the manor house? the count's? he repeated 'go on to the end of this track. Then turn to the left. Straight along the avenue and you'll come right upon it. But whom do you want? The count himself? 'Well, are they at home, my good man? Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not knowing how to ask about Anna, even of this peasant. 'At home for sure, said the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other, and leaving a distinct print of five toes and a heel in the dust. 'Sure to be at home, he repeated, evidently eager to talk. 'Only yesterday visitors arrived. There's a sight of visitors come. What do you want? He turned round and called to a lad, who was shouting something to him from the cart. 'Oh! They all rode by here not long since, to look at a reaping machine. They'll be home by now. And who will you be belonging to?... 'We've come a long way, said the coachman, climbing onto the box. 'So it's not far? 'I tell you, it's just here. As soon as you get out.... he said, keeping hold all the while of the carriage. A healthylooking, broadshouldered young fellow came up too. 'What, is it laborers they want for the harvest? he asked. 'I don't know, my boy. 'So you keep to the left, and you'll come right on it, said the peasant, unmistakably loth to let the travelers go, and eager to converse. The coachman started the horses, but they were only just turning off when the peasant shouted 'Stop! Hi, friend! Stop! called the two voices. The coachman stopped. 'They're coming! They're yonder! shouted the peasant. 'See what a turnout! he said, pointing to four persons on horseback, and two in a charbanc, coming along the road. They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviazhsky in the charbanc. They had gone out to look at the working of a new reaping machine. When the carriage stopped, the party on horseback were coming at a walking pace. Anna was in front beside Veslovsky. Anna, quietly walking her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped mane and short tail, her beautiful head with her black hair straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in her black riding habit, and all the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly. For the first minute it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The conception of riding on horseback for a lady was, in Darya Alexandrovna's mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which, in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna's position. But when she had scrutinized her, seeing her closer, she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet, and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of Anna, that nothing could have been more natural. Beside Anna, on a hotlooking gray cavalry horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in his Scotch cap with floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched out in front, obviously pleased with his own appearance. Darya Alexandrovna could not suppress a goodhumored smile as she recognized him. Behind rode Vronsky on a dark bay mare, obviously heated from galloping. He was holding her in, pulling at the reins. After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviazhsky and Princess Varvara in a new charbanc with a big, ravenblack trotting horse, overtook the party on horseback. Anna's face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little figure huddled in a corner of the old carriage, she recognized Dolly. She uttered a cry, started in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. On reaching the carriage she jumped off without assistance, and holding up her riding habit, she ran up to greet Dolly. 'I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You can't fancy how glad I am! she said, at one moment pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and at the next holding her off and examining her with a smile. 'Here's a delightful surprise, Alexey! she said, looking round at Vronsky, who had dismounted, and was walking towards them. Vronsky, taking off his tall gray hat, went up to Dolly. 'You wouldn't believe how glad we are to see you, he said, giving peculiar significance to the words, and showing his strong white teeth in a smile. Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the visitor by gleefully waving the ribbons over his head. 'That's Princess Varvara, Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly as the charbanc drove up. 'Ah! said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction. Princess Varvara was her husband's aunt, and she had long known her, and did not respect her. She knew that Princess Varvara had passed her whole life toadying on her rich relations, but that she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man who was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her husband. Anna noticed Dolly's expression, and was disconcerted by it. She blushed, dropped her riding habit, and stumbled over it. Darya Alexandrovna went up to the charbanc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. Sviazhsky too she knew. He inquired how his queer friend with the young wife was, and running his eyes over the illmatched horses and the carriage with its patched mudguards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the charbanc. 'And I'll get into this vehicle, he said. 'The horse is quiet, and the princess drives capitally. 'No, stay as you were, said Anna, coming up, 'and we'll go in the carriage, and taking Dolly's arm, she drew her away. Darya Alexandrovna's eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern she had never seen before, the splendid horses, and the elegant and gorgeous people surrounding her. But what struck her most of all was the change that had taken place in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less close observer, not knowing Anna before, or not having thought as Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the road, would not have noticed anything special in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty, which is only found in women during the moments of love, and which she saw now in Anna's face. Everything in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips, the smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and rapidity of her movements, the fulness of the notes of her voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when he asked permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right leg foremostit was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if she were herself aware of it, and rejoicing in it. When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came over both of them. Anna was disconcerted by the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her. Dolly was embarrassed because after Sviazhsky's phrase about 'this vehicle, she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which Anna was sitting with her. The coachman Philip and the countinghouse clerk were experiencing the same sensation. The countinghouse clerk, to conceal his confusion, busied himself settling the ladies, but Philip the coachman became sullen, and was bracing himself not to be overawed in future by this external superiority. He smiled ironically, looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own mind that this smart trotter in the charbanc was only good for promenage, and wouldn't do thirty miles straight off in the heat. The peasants had all got up from the cart and were inquisitively and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the friends, making their comments on it. 'They're pleased, too haven't seen each other for a long while, said the curlyheaded old man with the bast round his hair. 'I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn, that 'ud be quick work! 'Lookee! Is that a woman in breeches? said one of them, pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a side saddle. 'Nay, a man! See how smartly he's going it! 'Eh, lads! seems we're not going to sleep, then? 'What chance of sleep today! said the old man, with a sidelong look at the sun. 'Midday's past, lookee! Get your hooks, and come along! Anna looked at Dolly's thin, careworn face, with its wrinkles filled with dust from the road, and she was on the point of saying what she was thinking, that is, that Dolly had got thinner. But, conscious that she herself had grown handsomer, and that Dolly's eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began to speak about herself. 'You are looking at me, she said, 'and wondering how I can be happy in my position? Well! it's shameful to confess, but I ... I'm inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me, like a dream, when you're frightened, panicstricken, and all of a sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have waked up. I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now for a long while past, especially since we've been here, I've been so happy!... she said, with a timid smile of inquiry looking at Dolly. 'How glad I am! said Dolly smiling, involuntarily speaking more coldly than she wanted to. 'I'm very glad for you. Why haven't you written to me? 'Why?... Because I hadn't the courage.... You forget my position.... 'To me? Hadn't the courage? If you knew how I ... I look at.... Darya Alexandrovna wanted to express her thoughts of the morning, but for some reason it seemed to her now out of place to do so. 'But of that we'll talk later. What's this, what are all these buildings? she asked, wanting to change the conversation and pointing to the red and green roofs that came into view behind the green hedges of acacia and lilac. 'Quite a little town. But Anna did not answer. 'No, no! How do you look at my position, what do you think of it? she asked. 'I consider.... Darya Alexandrovna was beginning, but at that instant Vassenka Veslovsky, having brought the cob to gallop with the right leg foremost, galloped past them, bumping heavily up and down in his short jacket on the chamois leather of the side saddle. 'He's doing it, Anna Arkadyevna! he shouted. Anna did not even glance at him but again it seemed to Darya Alexandrovna out of place to enter upon such a long conversation in the carriage, and so she cut short her thought. 'I don't think anything, she said, 'but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be.... Anna, taking her eyes off her friend's face and dropping her eyelids (this was a new habit Dolly had not seen in her before), pondered, trying to penetrate the full significance of the words. And obviously interpreting them as she would have wished, she glanced at Dolly. 'If you had any sins, she said, 'they would all be forgiven you for your coming to see me and these words. And Dolly saw that tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna's hand in silence. 'Well, what are these buildings? How many there are of them! After a moment's silence she repeated her question. 'These are the servants' houses, barns, and stables, answered Anna. 'And there the park begins. It had all gone to ruin, but Alexey had everything renewed. He is very fond of this place, and, what I never expected, he has become intensely interested in looking after it. But his is such a rich nature! Whatever he takes up, he does splendidly. So far from being bored by it, he works with passionate interest. Hewith his temperament as I know ithe has become careful and businesslike, a firstrate manager, he positively reckons every penny in his management of the land. But only in that. When it's a question of tens of thousands, he doesn't think of money. She spoke with that gleefully sly smile with which women often talk of the secret characteristics only known to themof those they love. 'Do you see that big building? that's the new hospital. I believe it will cost over a hundred thousand that's his hobby just now. And do you know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for some meadowland, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused, and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it was not really because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money. C'est une petitesse, if you like, but I love him all the more for it. And now you'll see the house in a moment. It was his grandfather's house, and he has had nothing changed outside. 'How beautiful! said Dolly, looking with involuntary admiration at the handsome house with columns, standing out among the differentcolored greens of the old trees in the garden. 'Isn't it fine? And from the house, from the top, the view is wonderful. They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and bright with flowers, in which two laborers were at work putting an edging of stones round the light mould of a flower bed, and drew up in a covered entry. 'Ah, they're here already! said Anna, looking at the saddle horses, which were just being led away from the steps. 'It is a nice horse, isn't it? It's my cob my favorite. Lead him here and bring me some sugar. Where is the count? she inquired of two smart footmen who darted out. 'Ah, there he is! she said, seeing Vronsky coming to meet her with Veslovsky. 'Where are you going to put the princess? said Vronsky in French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for a reply, he once more greeted Darya Alexandrovna, and this time he kissed her hand. 'I think the big balcony room. 'Oh, no, that's too far off! Better in the corner room, we shall see each other more. Come, let's go up, said Anna, as she gave her favorite horse the sugar the footman had brought her. 'Et vous oubliez votre devoir, she said to Veslovsky, who came out too on the steps. 'Pardon, j'en ai tout plein les poches, he answered, smiling, putting his fingers in his waistcoat pocket. 'Mais vous venez trop tard, she said, rubbing her handkerchief on her hand, which the horse had made wet in taking the sugar. Anna turned to Dolly. 'You can stay some time? For one day only? That's impossible! 'I promised to be back, and the children.... said Dolly, feeling embarrassed both because she had to get her bag out of the carriage, and because she knew her face must be covered with dust. 'No, Dolly, darling!... Well, we'll see. Come along, come along! and Anna led Dolly to her room. That room was not the smart guest chamber Vronsky had suggested, but the one of which Anna had said that Dolly would excuse it. And this room, for which excuse was needed, was more full of luxury than any in which Dolly had ever stayed, a luxury that reminded her of the best hotels abroad. 'Well, darling, how happy I am! Anna said, sitting down in her riding habit for a moment beside Dolly. 'Tell me about all of you. Stiva I had only a glimpse of, and he cannot tell one about the children. How is my favorite, Tanya? Quite a big girl, I expect? 'Yes, she's very tall, Darya Alexandrovna answered shortly, surprised herself that she should respond so coolly about her children. 'We are having a delightful stay at the Levins', she added. 'Oh, if I had known, said Anna, 'that you do not despise me!... You might have all come to us. Stiva's an old friend and a great friend of Alexey's, you know, she added, and suddenly she blushed. 'Yes, but we are all.... Dolly answered in confusion. 'But in my delight I'm talking nonsense. The one thing, darling, is that I am so glad to have you! said Anna, kissing her again. 'You haven't told me yet how and what you think about me, and I keep wanting to know. But I'm glad you will see me as I am. The chief thing I shouldn't like would be for people to imagine I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I? But it is a big subject, and we'll talk over everything properly later. Now I'll go and dress and send a maid to you. Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna, with a good housewife's eye, scanned her room. All she had seen in entering the house and walking through it, and all she saw now in her room, gave her an impression of wealth and sumptuousness and of that modern European luxury of which she had only read in English novels, but had never seen in Russia and in the country. Everything was new from the new French hangings on the walls to the carpet which covered the whole floor. The bed had a spring mattress, and a special sort of bolster and silk pillowcases on the little pillows. The marble washstand, the dressing table, the little sofa, the tables, the bronze clock on the chimney piece, the window curtains, and the portires were all new and expensive. The smart maid, who came in to offer her services, with her hair done up high, and a gown more fashionable than Dolly's, was as new and expensive as the whole room. Darya Alexandrovna liked her neatness, her deferential and obliging manners, but she felt ill at ease with her. She felt ashamed of her seeing the patched dressing jacket that had unluckily been packed by mistake for her. She was ashamed of the very patches and darned places of which she had been so proud at home. At home it had been so clear that for six dressing jackets there would be needed twentyfour yards of nainsook at sixteen pence the yard, which was a matter of thirty shillings besides the cuttingout and making, and these thirty shillings had been saved. But before the maid she felt, if not exactly ashamed, at least uncomfortable. Darya Alexandrovna had a great sense of relief when Annushka, whom she had known for years, walked in. The smart maid was sent for to go to her mistress, and Annushka remained with Darya Alexandrovna. Annushka was obviously much pleased at that lady's arrival, and began to chatter away without a pause. Dolly observed that she was longing to express her opinion in regard to her mistress's position, especially as to the love and devotion of the count to Anna Arkadyevna, but Dolly carefully interrupted her whenever she began to speak about this. 'I grew up with Anna Arkadyevna my lady's dearer to me than anything. Well, it's not for us to judge. And, to be sure, there seems so much love.... 'Kindly pour out the water for me to wash now, please, Darya Alexandrovna cut her short. 'Certainly. We've two women kept specially for washing small things, but most of the linen's done by machinery. The count goes into everything himself. Ah, what a husband!... Dolly was glad when Anna came in, and by her entrance put a stop to Annushka's gossip. Anna had put on a very simple batiste gown. Dolly scrutinized that simple gown attentively. She knew what it meant, and the price at which such simplicity was obtained. 'An old friend, said Anna of Annushka. Anna was not embarrassed now. She was perfectly composed and at ease. Dolly saw that she had now completely recovered from the impression her arrival had made on her, and had assumed that superficial, careless tone which, as it were, closed the door on that compartment in which her deeper feelings and ideas were kept. 'Well, Anna, and how is your little girl? asked Dolly. 'Annie? (This was what she called her little daughter Anna.) 'Very well. She has got on wonderfully. Would you like to see her? Come, I'll show her to you. We had a terrible bother, she began telling her, 'over nurses. We had an Italian wetnurse. A good creature, but so stupid! We wanted to get rid of her, but the baby is so used to her that we've gone on keeping her still. 'But how have you managed?... Dolly was beginning a question as to what name the little girl would have but noticing a sudden frown on Anna's face, she changed the drift of her question. 'How did you manage? have you weaned her yet? But Anna had understood. 'You didn't mean to ask that? You meant to ask about her surname. Yes? That worries Alexey. She has no namethat is, she's a Karenina, said Anna, dropping her eyelids till nothing could be seen but the eyelashes meeting. 'But we'll talk about all that later, her face suddenly brightening. 'Come, I'll show you her. Elle est trs gentille. She crawls now. In the nursery the luxury which had impressed Dolly in the whole house struck her still more. There were little gocarts ordered from England, and appliances for learning to walk, and a sofa after the fashion of a billiard table, purposely constructed for crawling, and swings and baths, all of special pattern, and modern. They were all English, solid, and of good make, and obviously very expensive. The room was large, and very light and lofty. When they went in, the baby, with nothing on but her little smock, was sitting in a little elbow chair at the table, having her dinner of broth, which she was spilling all over her little chest. The baby was being fed, and the Russian nursery maid was evidently sharing her meal. Neither the wetnurse nor the headnurse were there they were in the next room, from which came the sound of their conversation in the queer French which was their only means of communication. Hearing Anna's voice, a smart, tall, English nurse with a disagreeable face and a dissolute expression walked in at the door, hurriedly shaking her fair curls, and immediately began to defend herself though Anna had not found fault with her. At every word Anna said, the English nurse said hurriedly several times, 'Yes, my lady. The rosy baby with her black eyebrows and hair, her sturdy red little body with tight gooseflesh skin, delighted Darya Alexandrovna in spite of the cross expression with which she stared at the stranger. She positively envied the baby's healthy appearance. She was delighted, too, at the baby's crawling. Not one of her own children had crawled like that. When the baby was put on the carpet and its little dress tucked up behind, it was wonderfully charming. Looking round like some little wild animal at the grownup big people with her bright black eyes, she smiled, unmistakably pleased at their admiring her, and holding her legs sideways, she pressed vigorously on her arms, and rapidly drew her whole back up after, and then made another step forward with her little arms. But the whole atmosphere of the nursery, and especially the English nurse, Darya Alexandrovna did not like at all. It was only on the supposition that no good nurse would have entered so irregular a household as Anna's that Darya Alexandrovna could explain to herself how Anna with her insight into people could take such an unprepossessing, disreputablelooking woman as nurse to her child. Besides, from a few words that were dropped, Darya Alexandrovna saw at once that Anna, the two nurses, and the child had no common existence, and that the mother's visit was something exceptional. Anna wanted to get the baby her plaything, and could not find it. Most amazing of all was the fact that on being asked how many teeth the baby had, Anna answered wrong, and knew nothing about the two last teeth. 'I sometimes feel sorry I'm so superfluous here, said Anna, going out of the nursery and holding up her skirt so as to escape the plaything standing in the doorway. 'It was very different with my first child. 'I expected it to be the other way, said Darya Alexandrovna shyly. 'Oh, no! By the way, do you know I saw Seryozha? said Anna, screwing up her eyes, as though looking at something far away. 'But we'll talk about that later. You wouldn't believe it, I'm like a hungry beggar woman when a full dinner is set before her, and she does not know what to begin on first. The dinner is you, and the talks I have before me with you, which I could never have with anyone else and I don't know which subject to begin upon first. Mais je ne vous ferai grce de rien. I must have everything out with you. 'Oh, I ought to give you a sketch of the company you will meet with us, she went on. 'I'll begin with the ladies. Princess Varvarayou know her, and I know your opinion and Stiva's about her. Stiva says the whole aim of her existence is to prove her superiority over Auntie Katerina Pavlovna that's all true but she's a goodnatured woman, and I am so grateful to her. In Petersburg there was a moment when a chaperon was absolutely essential for me. Then she turned up. But really she is goodnatured. She did a great deal to alleviate my position. I see you don't understand all the difficulty of my position ... there in Petersburg, she added. 'Here I'm perfectly at ease and happy. Well, of that later on, though. Then Sviazhskyhe's the marshal of the district, and he's a very good sort of a man, but he wants to get something out of Alexey. You understand, with his property, now that we are settled in the country, Alexey can exercise great influence. Then there's Tushkevitchyou have seen him, you knowBetsy's admirer. Now he's been thrown over and he's come to see us. As Alexey says, he's one of those people who are very pleasant if one accepts them for what they try to appear to be, et puis il est comme il faut, as Princess Varvara says. Then Veslovsky ... you know him. A very nice boy, she said, and a sly smile curved her lips. 'What's this wild story about him and the Levins? Veslovsky told Alexey about it, and we don't believe it. Il est trs gentil et naf, she said again with the same smile. 'Men need occupation, and Alexey needs a circle, so I value all these people. We have to have the house lively and gay, so that Alexey may not long for any novelty. Then you'll see the stewarda German, a very good fellow, and he understands his work. Alexey has a very high opinion of him. Then the doctor, a young man, not quite a Nihilist perhaps, but you know, eats with his knife ... but a very good doctor. Then the architect.... Une petite cour! 'Here's Dolly for you, princess, you were so anxious to see her, said Anna, coming out with Darya Alexandrovna onto the stone terrace where Princess Varvara was sitting in the shade at an embroidery frame, working at a cover for Count Alexey Kirillovitch's easy chair. 'She says she doesn't want anything before dinner, but please order some lunch for her, and I'll go and look for Alexey and bring them all in. Princess Varvara gave Dolly a cordial and rather patronizing reception, and began at once explaining to her that she was living with Anna because she had always cared more for her than her sister Katerina Pavlovna, the aunt that had brought Anna up, and that now, when everyone had abandoned Anna, she thought it her duty to help her in this most difficult period of transition. 'Her husband will give her a divorce, and then I shall go back to my solitude but now I can be of use, and I am doing my duty, however difficult it may be for menot like some other people. And how sweet it is of you, how right of you to have come! They live like the best of married couples it's for God to judge them, not for us. And didn't Biryuzovsky and Madame Avenieva ... and Sam Nikandrov, and Vassiliev and Madame Mamonova, and Liza Neptunova.... Did no one say anything about them? And it has ended by their being received by everyone. And then, c'est un intrieur si joli, si comme il faut. Toutfait  l'anglaise. On se runit le matin au breakfast, et puis on se spare. Everyone does as he pleases till dinner time. Dinner at seven o'clock. Stiva did very rightly to send you. He needs their support. You know that through his mother and brother he can do anything. And then they do so much good. He didn't tell you about his hospital? Ce sera admirableeverything from Paris. Their conversation was interrupted by Anna, who had found the men of the party in the billiard room, and returned with them to the terrace. There was still a long time before the dinnerhour, it was exquisite weather, and so several different methods of spending the next two hours were proposed. There were very many methods of passing the time at Vozdvizhenskoe, and these were all unlike those in use at Pokrovskoe. 'Une partie de lawntennis, Veslovsky proposed, with his handsome smile. 'We'll be partners again, Anna Arkadyevna. 'No, it's too hot better stroll about the garden and have a row in the boat, show Darya Alexandrovna the river banks. Vronsky proposed. 'I agree to anything, said Sviazhsky. 'I imagine that what Dolly would like best would be a strollwouldn't you? And then the boat, perhaps, said Anna. So it was decided. Veslovsky and Tushkevitch went off to the bathing place, promising to get the boat ready and to wait there for them. They walked along the path in two couples, Anna with Sviazhsky, and Dolly with Vronsky. Dolly was a little embarrassed and anxious in the new surroundings in which she found herself. Abstractly, theoretically, she did not merely justify, she positively approved of Anna's conduct. As is indeed not unfrequent with women of unimpeachable virtue, weary of the monotony of respectable existence, at a distance she not only excused illicit love, she positively envied it. Besides, she loved Anna with all her heart. But seeing Anna in actual life among these strangers, with this fashionable tone that was so new to Darya Alexandrovna, she felt ill at ease. What she disliked particularly was seeing Princess Varvara ready to overlook everything for the sake of the comforts she enjoyed. As a general principle, abstractly, Dolly approved of Anna's action but to see the man for whose sake her action had been taken was disagreeable to her. Moreover, she had never liked Vronsky. She thought him very proud, and saw nothing in him of which he could be proud except his wealth. But against her own will, here in his own house, he overawed her more than ever, and she could not be at ease with him. She felt with him the same feeling she had had with the maid about her dressing jacket. Just as with the maid she had felt not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at her darns, so she felt with him not exactly ashamed, but embarrassed at herself. Dolly was ill at ease, and tried to find a subject of conversation. Even though she supposed that, through his pride, praise of his house and garden would be sure to be disagreeable to him, she did all the same tell him how much she liked his house. 'Yes, it's a very fine building, and in the good oldfashioned style, he said. 'I like so much the court in front of the steps. Was that always so? 'Oh, no! he said, and his face beamed with pleasure. 'If you could only have seen that court last spring! And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more carried away by the subject as he went on, to draw her attention to the various details of the decoration of his house and garden. It was evident that, having devoted a great deal of trouble to improve and beautify his home, Vronsky felt a need to show off the improvements to a new person, and was genuinely delighted at Darya Alexandrovna's praise. 'If you would care to look at the hospital, and are not tired, indeed, it's not far. Shall we go? he said, glancing into her face to convince himself that she was not bored. 'Are you coming, Anna? he turned to her. 'We will come, won't we? she said, addressing Sviazhsky. 'Mais il ne faut pas laisser le pauvre Veslovsky et Tushkevitch se morfondre l dans le bateau. We must send and tell them. 'Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here, said Anna, turning to Dolly with that sly smile of comprehension with which she had previously talked about the hospital. 'Oh, it's a work of real importance! said Sviazhsky. But to show he was not trying to ingratiate himself with Vronsky, he promptly added some slightly critical remarks. 'I wonder, though, count, he said, 'that while you do so much for the health of the peasants, you take so little interest in the schools. 'C'est devenu tellement commun les coles, said Vronsky. 'You understand it's not on that account, but it just happens so, my interest has been diverted elsewhere. This way then to the hospital, he said to Darya Alexandrovna, pointing to a turning out of the avenue. The ladies put up their parasols and turned into the side path. After going down several turnings, and going through a little gate, Darya Alexandrovna saw standing on rising ground before her a large pretentiouslooking red building, almost finished. The iron roof, which was not yet painted, shone with dazzling brightness in the sunshine. Beside the finished building another had been begun, surrounded by scaffolding. Workmen in aprons, standing on scaffolds, were laying bricks, pouring mortar out of vats, and smoothing it with trowels. 'How quickly work gets done with you! said Sviazhsky. 'When I was here last time the roof was not on. 'By the autumn it will all be ready. Inside almost everything is done, said Anna. 'And what's this new building? 'That's the house for the doctor and the dispensary, answered Vronsky, seeing the architect in a short jacket coming towards him and excusing himself to the ladies, he went to meet him. Going round a hole where the workmen were slaking lime, he stood still with the architect and began talking rather warmly. 'The front is still too low, he said to Anna, who had asked what was the matter. 'I said the foundation ought to be raised, said Anna. 'Yes, of course it would have been much better, Anna Arkadyevna, said the architect, 'but now it's too late. 'Yes, I take a great interest in it, Anna answered Sviazhsky, who was expressing his surprise at her knowledge of architecture. 'This new building ought to have been in harmony with the hospital. It was an afterthought, and was begun without a plan. Vronsky, having finished his talk with the architect, joined the ladies, and led them inside the hospital. Although they were still at work on the cornices outside and were painting on the ground floor, upstairs almost all the rooms were finished. Going up the broad castiron staircase to the landing, they walked into the first large room. The walls were stuccoed to look like marble, the huge plateglass windows were already in, only the parquet floor was not yet finished, and the carpenters, who were planing a block of it, left their work, taking off the bands that fastened their hair, to greet the gentry. 'This is the reception room, said Vronsky. 'Here there will be a desk, tables, and benches, and nothing more. 'This way let us go in here. Don't go near the window, said Anna, trying the paint to see if it were dry. 'Alexey, the paint's dry already, she added. From the reception room they went into the corridor. Here Vronsky showed them the mechanism for ventilation on a novel system. Then he showed them marble baths, and beds with extraordinary springs. Then he showed them the wards one after another, the storeroom, the linen room, then the heating stove of a new pattern, then the trolleys, which would make no noise as they carried everything needed along the corridors, and many other things. Sviazhsky, as a connoisseur in the latest mechanical improvements, appreciated everything fully. Dolly simply wondered at all she had not seen before, and, anxious to understand it all, made minute inquiries about everything, which gave Vronsky great satisfaction. 'Yes, I imagine that this will be the solitary example of a properly fitted hospital in Russia, said Sviazhsky. 'And won't you have a lyingin ward? asked Dolly. 'That's so much needed in the country. I have often.... In spite of his usual courtesy, Vronsky interrupted her. 'This is not a lyingin home, but a hospital for the sick, and is intended for all diseases, except infectious complaints, he said. 'Ah! look at this, and he rolled up to Darya Alexandrovna an invalid chair that had just been ordered for the convalescents. 'Look. He sat down in the chair and began moving it. 'The patient can't walkstill too weak, perhaps, or something wrong with his legs, but he must have air, and he moves, rolls himself along.... Darya Alexandrovna was interested by everything. She liked everything very much, but most of all she liked Vronsky himself with his natural, simplehearted eagerness. 'Yes, he's a very nice, good man, she thought several times, not hearing what he said, but looking at him and penetrating into his expression, while she mentally put herself in Anna's place. She liked him so much just now with his eager interest that she saw how Anna could be in love with him. 'No, I think the princess is tired, and horses don't interest her, Vronsky said to Anna, who wanted to go on to the stables, where Sviazhsky wished to see the new stallion. 'You go on, while I escort the princess home, and we'll have a little talk, he said, 'if you would like that? he added, turning to her. 'I know nothing about horses, and I shall be delighted, answered Darya Alexandrovna, rather astonished. She saw by Vronsky's face that he wanted something from her. She was not mistaken. As soon as they had passed through the little gate back into the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had taken, and having made sure that she could neither hear nor see them, he began 'You guess that I have something I want to say to you, he said, looking at her with laughing eyes. 'I am not wrong in believing you to be a friend of Anna's. He took off his hat, and taking out his handkerchief, wiped his head, which was growing bald. Darya Alexandrovna made no answer, and merely stared at him with dismay. When she was left alone with him, she suddenly felt afraid his laughing eyes and stern expression scared her. The most diverse suppositions as to what he was about to speak of to her flashed into her brain. 'He is going to beg me to come to stay with them with the children, and I shall have to refuse or to create a set that will receive Anna in Moscow.... Or isn't it Vassenka Veslovsky and his relations with Anna? Or perhaps about Kitty, that he feels he was to blame? All her conjectures were unpleasant, but she did not guess what he really wanted to talk about to her. 'You have so much influence with Anna, she is so fond of you, he said 'do help me. Darya Alexandrovna looked with timid inquiry into his energetic face, which under the limetrees was continually being lighted up in patches by the sunshine, and then passing into complete shadow again. She waited for him to say more, but he walked in silence beside her, scratching with his cane in the gravel. 'You have come to see us, you, the only woman of Anna's former friendsI don't count Princess Varvarabut I know that you have done this not because you regard our position as normal, but because, understanding all the difficulty of the position, you still love her and want to be a help to her. Have I understood you rightly? he asked, looking round at her. 'Oh, yes, answered Darya Alexandrovna, putting down her sunshade, 'but.... 'No, he broke in, and unconsciously, oblivious of the awkward position into which he was putting his companion, he stopped abruptly, so that she had to stop short too. 'No one feels more deeply and intensely than I do all the difficulty of Anna's position and that you may well understand, if you do me the honor of supposing I have any heart. I am to blame for that position, and that is why I feel it. 'I understand, said Darya Alexandrovna, involuntarily admiring the sincerity and firmness with which he said this. 'But just because you feel yourself responsible, you exaggerate it, I am afraid, she said. 'Her position in the world is difficult, I can well understand. 'In the world it is hell! he brought out quickly, frowning darkly. 'You can't imagine moral sufferings greater than what she went through in Petersburg in that fortnight ... and I beg you to believe it. 'Yes, but here, so long as neither Anna ... nor you miss society.... 'Society! he said contemptuously, 'how could I miss society? 'So farand it may be so alwaysyou are happy and at peace. I see in Anna that she is happy, perfectly happy, she has had time to tell me so much already, said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling and involuntarily, as she said this, at the same moment a doubt entered her mind whether Anna really were happy. But Vronsky, it appeared, had no doubts on that score. 'Yes, yes, he said, 'I know that she has revived after all her sufferings she is happy. She is happy in the present. But I?... I am afraid of what is before us ... I beg your pardon, you would like to walk on? 'No, I don't mind. 'Well, then, let us sit here. Darya Alexandrovna sat down on a garden seat in a corner of the avenue. He stood up facing her. 'I see that she is happy, he repeated, and the doubt whether she were happy sank more deeply into Darya Alexandrovna's mind. 'But can it last? Whether we have acted rightly or wrongly is another question, but the die is cast, he said, passing from Russian to French, 'and we are bound together for life. We are united by all the ties of love that we hold most sacred. We have a child, we may have other children. But the law and all the conditions of our position are such that thousands of complications arise which she does not see and does not want to see. And that one can well understand. But I can't help seeing them. My daughter is by law not my daughter, but Karenin's. I cannot bear this falsity! he said, with a vigorous gesture of refusal, and he looked with gloomy inquiry towards Darya Alexandrovna. She made no answer, but simply gazed at him. He went on 'One day a son may be born, my son, and he will be legally a Karenin he will not be the heir of my name nor of my property, and however happy we may be in our home life and however many children we may have, there will be no real tie between us. They will be Karenins. You can understand the bitterness and horror of this position! I have tried to speak of this to Anna. It irritates her. She does not understand, and to her I cannot speak plainly of all this. Now look at another side. I am happy, happy in her love, but I must have occupation. I have found occupation, and am proud of what I am doing and consider it nobler than the pursuits of my former companions at court and in the army. And most certainly I would not change the work I am doing for theirs. I am working here, settled in my own place, and I am happy and contented, and we need nothing more to make us happy. I love my work here. Ce n'est pas un pisaller, on the contrary.... Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his explanation he grew confused, and she did not quite understand this digression, but she felt that having once begun to speak of matters near his heart, of which he could not speak to Anna, he was now making a clean breast of everything, and that the question of his pursuits in the country fell into the same category of matters near his heart, as the question of his relations with Anna. 'Well, I will go on, he said, collecting himself. 'The great thing is that as I work I want to have a conviction that what I am doing will not die with me, that I shall have heirs to come after me,and this I have not. Conceive the position of a man who knows that his children, the children of the woman he loves, will not be his, but will belong to someone who hates them and cares nothing about them! It is awful! He paused, evidently much moved. 'Yes, indeed, I see that. But what can Anna do? queried Darya Alexandrovna. 'Yes, that brings me to the object of my conversation, he said, calming himself with an effort. 'Anna can, it depends on her.... Even to petition the Tsar for legitimization, a divorce is essential. And that depends on Anna. Her husband agreed to a divorceat that time your husband had arranged it completely. And now, I know, he would not refuse it. It is only a matter of writing to him. He said plainly at that time that if she expressed the desire, he would not refuse. Of course, he said gloomily, 'it is one of those Pharisaical cruelties of which only such heartless men are capable. He knows what agony any recollection of him must give her, and knowing her, he must have a letter from her. I can understand that it is agony to her. But the matter is of such importance, that one must passer pardessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment. Il y va du bonheur et de l'existence d'Anne et de ses enfants. I won't speak of myself, though it's hard for me, very hard, he said, with an expression as though he were threatening someone for its being hard for him. 'And so it is, princess, that I am shamelessly clutching at you as an anchor of salvation. Help me to persuade her to write to him and ask for a divorce. 'Yes, of course, Darya Alexandrovna said dreamily, as she vividly recalled her last interview with Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Yes, of course, she repeated with decision, thinking of Anna. 'Use your influence with her, make her write. I don't likeI'm almost unable to speak about this to her. 'Very well, I will talk to her. But how is it she does not think of it herself? said Darya Alexandrovna, and for some reason she suddenly at that point recalled Anna's strange new habit of halfclosing her eyes. And she remembered that Anna drooped her eyelids just when the deeper questions of life were touched upon. 'Just as though she halfshut her eyes to her own life, so as not to see everything, thought Dolly. 'Yes, indeed, for my own sake and for hers I will talk to her, Dolly said in reply to his look of gratitude. They got up and walked to the house. When Anna found Dolly at home before her, she looked intently in her eyes, as though questioning her about the talk she had had with Vronsky, but she made no inquiry in words. 'I believe it's dinner time, she said. 'We've not seen each other at all yet. I am reckoning on the evening. Now I want to go and dress. I expect you do too we all got splashed at the buildings. Dolly went to her room and she felt amused. To change her dress was impossible, for she had already put on her best dress. But in order to signify in some way her preparation for dinner, she asked the maid to brush her dress, changed her cuffs and tie, and put some lace on her head. 'This is all I can do, she said with a smile to Anna, who came in to her in a third dress, again of extreme simplicity. 'Yes, we are too formal here, she said, as it were apologizing for her magnificence. 'Alexey is delighted at your visit, as he rarely is at anything. He has completely lost his heart to you, she added. 'You're not tired? There was no time for talking about anything before dinner. Going into the drawingroom they found Princess Varvara already there, and the gentlemen of the party in black frockcoats. The architect wore a swallowtail coat. Vronsky presented the doctor and the steward to his guest. The architect he had already introduced to her at the hospital. A stout butler, resplendent with a smoothly shaven round chin and a starched white cravat, announced that dinner was ready, and the ladies got up. Vronsky asked Sviazhsky to take in Anna Arkadyevna, and himself offered his arm to Dolly. Veslovsky was before Tushkevitch in offering his arm to Princess Varvara, so that Tushkevitch with the steward and the doctor walked in alone. The dinner, the diningroom, the service, the waiting at table, the wine, and the food, were not simply in keeping with the general tone of modern luxury throughout all the house, but seemed even more sumptuous and modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched this luxury which was novel to her, and as a good housekeeper used to managing a householdalthough she never dreamed of adapting anything she saw to her own household, as it was all in a style of luxury far above her own manner of livingshe could not help scrutinizing every detail, and wondering how and by whom it was all done. Vassenka Veslovsky, her husband, and even Sviazhsky, and many other people she knew, would never have considered this question, and would have readily believed what every wellbred host tries to make his guests feel, that is, that all that is wellordered in his house has cost him, the host, no trouble whatever, but comes of itself. Darya Alexandrovna was well aware that even porridge for the children's breakfast does not come of itself, and that therefore, where so complicated and magnificent a style of luxury was maintained, someone must give earnest attention to its organization. And from the glance with which Alexey Kirillovitch scanned the table, from the way he nodded to the butler, and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice between cold soup and hot soup, she saw that it was all organized and maintained by the care of the master of the house himself. It was evident that it all rested no more upon Anna than upon Veslovsky. She, Sviazhsky, the princess, and Veslovsky, were equally guests, with light hearts enjoying what had been arranged for them. Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The conversation was a difficult one for the lady of the house at a small table with persons present, like the steward and the architect, belonging to a completely different world, struggling not to be overawed by an elegance to which they were unaccustomed, and unable to sustain a large share in the general conversation. But this difficult conversation Anna directed with her usual tact and naturalness, and indeed she did so with actual enjoyment, as Darya Alexandrovna observed. The conversation began about the row Tushkevitch and Veslovsky had taken alone together in the boat, and Tushkevitch began describing the last boat races in Petersburg at the Yacht Club. But Anna, seizing the first pause, at once turned to the architect to draw him out of his silence. 'Nikolay Ivanitch was struck, she said, meaning Sviazhsky, 'at the progress the new building had made since he was here last but I am there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at which it grows. 'It's firstrate working with his excellency, said the architect with a smile (he was respectful and composed, though with a sense of his own dignity). 'It's a very different matter to have to do with the district authorities. Where one would have to write out sheaves of papers, here I call upon the count, and in three words we settle the business. 'The American way of doing business, said Sviazhsky, with a smile. 'Yes, there they build in a rational fashion.... The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the United States, but Anna quickly brought it round to another topic, so as to draw the steward into talk. 'Have you ever seen a reaping machine? she said, addressing Darya Alexandrovna. 'We had just ridden over to look at one when we met. It's the first time I ever saw one. 'How do they work? asked Dolly. 'Exactly like little scissors. A plank and a lot of little scissors. Like this. Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful white hands covered with rings, and began showing how the machine worked. It was clear that she saw nothing would be understood from her explanation but aware that her talk was pleasant and her hands beautiful she went on explaining. 'More like little penknives, Veslovsky said playfully, never taking his eyes off her. Anna gave a just perceptible smile, but made no answer. 'Isn't it true, Karl Fedoritch, that it's just like little scissors? she said to the steward. 'Oh, ja, answered the German. 'Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding, and he began to explain the construction of the machine. 'It's a pity it doesn't bind too. I saw one at the Vienna exhibition, which binds with a wire, said Sviazhsky. 'They would be more profitable in use. 'Es kommt drauf an.... Der Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden. And the German, roused from his taciturnity, turned to Vronsky. 'Das lsst sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht. The German was just feeling in the pocket where were his pencil and the notebook he always wrote in, but recollecting that he was at a dinner, and observing Vronsky's chilly glance, he checked himself. 'Zu compliziert, macht zu viel Klopot, he concluded. 'Wnscht man Dochots, so hat man auch Klopots, said Vassenka Veslovsky, mimicking the German. 'J'adore l'allemand, he addressed Anna again with the same smile. 'Cessez, she said with playful severity. 'We expected to find you in the fields, Vassily Semyonitch, she said to the doctor, a sicklylooking man 'have you been there? 'I went there, but I had taken flight, the doctor answered with gloomy jocoseness. 'Then you've taken a good constitutional? 'Splendid! 'Well, and how was the old woman? I hope it's not typhus? 'Typhus it is not, but it's taking a bad turn. 'What a pity! said Anna, and having thus paid the dues of civility to her domestic circle, she turned to her own friends. 'It would be a hard task, though, to construct a machine from your description, Anna Arkadyevna, Sviazhsky said jestingly. 'Oh, no, why so? said Anna with a smile that betrayed that she knew there was something charming in her disquisitions upon the machine that had been noticed by Sviazhsky. This new trait of girlish coquettishness made an unpleasant impression on Dolly. 'But Anna Arkadyevna's knowledge of architecture is marvelous, said Tushkevitch. 'To be sure, I heard Anna Arkadyevna talking yesterday about plinths and dampcourses, said Veslovsky. 'Have I got it right? 'There's nothing marvelous about it, when one sees and hears so much of it, said Anna. 'But, I dare say, you don't even know what houses are made of? Darya Alexandrovna saw that Anna disliked the tone of raillery that existed between her and Veslovsky, but fell in with it against her will. Vronsky acted in this matter quite differently from Levin. He obviously attached no significance to Veslovsky's chattering on the contrary, he encouraged his jests. 'Come now, tell us, Veslovsky, how are the stones held together? 'By cement, of course. 'Bravo! And what is cement? 'Oh, some sort of paste ... no, putty, said Veslovsky, raising a general laugh. The company at dinner, with the exception of the doctor, the architect, and the steward, who remained plunged in gloomy silence, kept up a conversation that never paused, glancing off one subject, fastening on another, and at times stinging one or the other to the quick. Once Darya Alexandrovna felt wounded to the quick, and got so hot that she positively flushed and wondered afterwards whether she had said anything extreme or unpleasant. Sviazhsky began talking of Levin, describing his strange view that machinery is simply pernicious in its effects on Russian agriculture. 'I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin, Vronsky said, smiling, 'but most likely he has never seen the machines he condemns or if he has seen and tried any, it must have been after a queer fashion, some Russian imitation, not a machine from abroad. What sort of views can anyone have on such a subject? 'Turkish views, in general, Veslovsky said, turning to Anna with a smile. 'I can't defend his opinions, Darya Alexandrovna said, firing up 'but I can say that he's a highly cultivated man, and if he were here he would know very well how to answer you, though I am not capable of doing so. 'I like him extremely, and we are great friends, Sviazhsky said, smiling goodnaturedly. 'Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toqu he maintains, for instance, that district councils and arbitration boards are all of no use, and he is unwilling to take part in anything. 'It's our Russian apathy, said Vronsky, pouring water from an iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem 'we've no sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we refuse to recognize these duties. 'I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties, said Darya Alexandrovna, irritated by Vronsky's tone of superiority. 'For my part, pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some reason or other keenly affected by this conversation, 'such as I am, I am, on the contrary, extremely grateful for the honor they have done me, thanks to Nikolay Ivanitch (he indicated Sviazhsky), 'in electing me a justice of the peace. I consider that for me the duty of being present at the session, of judging some peasants' quarrel about a horse, is as important as anything I can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they elect me for the district council. It's only in that way I can pay for the advantages I enjoy as a landowner. Unluckily they don't understand the weight that the big landowners ought to have in the state. It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely confident he was of being right at his own table. She thought how Levin, who believed the opposite, was just as positive in his opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin, and so she was on his side. 'So we can reckon upon you, count, for the coming elections? said Sviazhsky. 'But you must come a little beforehand, so as to be on the spot by the eighth. If you would do me the honor to stop with me. 'I rather agree with your beaufrre, said Anna, 'though not quite on the same ground as he, she added with a smile. 'I'm afraid that we have too many of these public duties in these latter days. Just as in old days there were so many government functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every single thing, so now everyone's doing some sort of public duty. Alexey has been here now six months, and he's a member, I do believe, of five or six different public bodies. Du train que cela va, the whole time will be wasted on it. And I'm afraid that with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they'll end in being a mere form. How many are you a member of, Nikolay Ivanitch? she turned to Sviazhsky'over twenty, I fancy. Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her tone. Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and Vronsky attentively, detected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke Vronsky's face had immediately taken a serious and obstinate expression. Noticing this, and that Princess Varvara at once made haste to change the conversation by talking of Petersburg acquaintances, and remembering what Vronsky had without apparent connection said in the garden of his work in the country, Dolly surmised that this question of public activity was connected with some deep private disagreement between Anna and Vronsky. The dinner, the wine, the decoration of the table were all very good but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had seen at formal dinners and balls which of late years had become quite unfamiliar to her it all had the same impersonal and constrained character, and so on an ordinary day and in a little circle of friends it made a disagreeable impression on her. After dinner they sat on the terrace, then they proceeded to play lawn tennis. The players, divided into two parties, stood on opposite sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles on the carefully leveled and rolled croquetground. Darya Alexandrovna made an attempt to play, but it was a long time before she could understand the game, and by the time she did understand it, she was so tired that she sat down with Princess Varvara and simply looked on at the players. Her partner, Tushkevitch, gave up playing too, but the others kept the game up for a long time. Sviazhsky and Vronsky both played very well and seriously. They kept a sharp lookout on the balls served to them, and without haste or getting in each other's way, they ran adroitly up to them, waited for the rebound, and neatly and accurately returned them over the net. Veslovsky played worse than the others. He was too eager, but he kept the players lively with his high spirits. His laughter and outcries never paused. Like the other men of the party, with the ladies' permission, he took off his coat, and his solid, comely figure in his white shirtsleeves, with his red perspiring face and his impulsive movements, made a picture that imprinted itself vividly on the memory. When Darya Alexandrovna lay in bed that night, as soon as she closed her eyes, she saw Vassenka Veslovsky flying about the croquet ground. During the game Darya Alexandrovna was not enjoying herself. She did not like the light tone of raillery that was kept up all the time between Vassenka Veslovsky and Anna, and the unnaturalness altogether of grownup people, all alone without children, playing at a child's game. But to avoid breaking up the party and to get through the time somehow, after a rest she joined the game again, and pretended to be enjoying it. All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole performance. She had come with the intention of staying two days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game, she made up her mind that she would go home next day. The maternal cares and worries, which she had so hated on the way, now, after a day spent without them, struck her in quite another light, and tempted her back to them. When, after evening tea and a row by night in the boat, Darya Alexandrovna went alone to her room, took off her dress, and began arranging her thin hair for the night, she had a great sense of relief. It was positively disagreeable to her to think that Anna was coming to see her immediately. She longed to be alone with her own thoughts. Dolly was wanting to go to bed when Anna came in to see her, attired for the night. In the course of the day Anna had several times begun to speak of matters near her heart, and every time after a few words she had stopped 'Afterwards, by ourselves, we'll talk about everything. I've got so much I want to tell you, she said. Now they were by themselves, and Anna did not know what to talk about. She sat in the window looking at Dolly, and going over in her own mind all the stores of intimate talk which had seemed so inexhaustible beforehand, and she found nothing. At that moment it seemed to her that everything had been said already. 'Well, what of Kitty? she said with a heavy sigh, looking penitently at Dolly. 'Tell me the truth, Dolly isn't she angry with me? 'Angry? Oh, no! said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling. 'But she hates me, despises me? 'Oh, no! But you know that sort of thing isn't forgiven. 'Yes, yes, said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. 'But I was not to blame. And who is to blame? What's the meaning of being to blame? Could it have been otherwise? What do you think? Could it possibly have happened that you didn't become the wife of Stiva? 'Really, I don't know. But this is what I want you to tell me.... 'Yes, yes, but we've not finished about Kitty. Is she happy? He's a very nice man, they say. 'He's much more than very nice. I don't know a better man. 'Ah, how glad I am! I'm so glad! Much more than very nice, she repeated. Dolly smiled. 'But tell me about yourself. We've a great deal to talk about. And I've had a talk with.... Dolly did not know what to call him. She felt it awkward to call him either the count or Alexey Kirillovitch. 'With Alexey, said Anna, 'I know what you talked about. But I wanted to ask you directly what you think of me, of my life? 'How am I to say like that straight off? I really don't know. 'No, tell me all the same.... You see my life. But you mustn't forget that you're seeing us in the summer, when you have come to us and we are not alone.... But we came here early in the spring, lived quite alone, and shall be alone again, and I desire nothing better. But imagine me living alone without him, alone, and that will be ... I see by everything that it will often be repeated, that he will be half the time away from home, she said, getting up and sitting down close by Dolly. 'Of course, she interrupted Dolly, who would have answered, 'of course I won't try to keep him by force. I don't keep him indeed. The races are just coming, his horses are running, he will go. I'm very glad. But think of me, fancy my position.... But what's the use of talking about it? She smiled. 'Well, what did he talk about with you? 'He spoke of what I want to speak about of myself, and it's easy for me to be his advocate of whether there is not a possibility ... whether you could not.... (Darya Alexandrovna hesitated) 'correct, improve your position.... You know how I look at it.... But all the same, if possible, you should get married.... 'Divorce, you mean? said Anna. 'Do you know, the only woman who came to see me in Petersburg was Betsy Tverskaya? You know her, of course? Au fond, c'est la femme la plus deprave qui existe. She had an intrigue with Tushkevitch, deceiving her husband in the basest way. And she told me that she did not care to know me so long as my position was irregular. Don't imagine I would compare ... I know you, darling. But I could not help remembering.... Well, so what did he say to you? she repeated. 'He said that he was unhappy on your account and his own. Perhaps you will say that it's egoism, but what a legitimate and noble egoism. He wants first of all to legitimize his daughter, and to be your husband, to have a legal right to you. 'What wife, what slave can be so utterly a slave as I, in my position? she put in gloomily. 'The chief thing he desires ... he desires that you should not suffer. 'That's impossible. Well? 'Well, and the most legitimate desirehe wishes that your children should have a name. 'What children? Anna said, not looking at Dolly, and half closing her eyes. 'Annie and those to come.... 'He need not trouble on that score I shall have no more children. 'How can you tell that you won't? 'I shall not, because I don't wish it. And, in spite of all her emotion, Anna smiled, as she caught the nave expression of curiosity, wonder, and horror on Dolly's face. 'The doctor told me after my illness.... 'Impossible! said Dolly, opening her eyes wide. For her this was one of those discoveries the consequences and deductions from which are so immense that all that one feels for the first instant is that it is impossible to take it all in, and that one will have to reflect a great, great deal upon it. This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those families of one or two children, which had hitherto been so incomprehensible to her, aroused so many ideas, reflections, and contradictory emotions, that she had nothing to say, and simply gazed with wideopen eyes of wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had been dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too complicated a problem. 'N'estce pas immoral? was all she said, after a brief pause. 'Why so? Think, I have a choice between two alternatives either to be with child, that is an invalid, or to be the friend and companion of my husbandpractically my husband, Anna said in a tone intentionally superficial and frivolous. 'Yes, yes, said Darya Alexandrovna, hearing the very arguments she had used to herself, and not finding the same force in them as before. 'For you, for other people, said Anna, as though divining her thoughts, 'there may be reason to hesitate but for me.... You must consider, I am not his wife he loves me as long as he loves me. And how am I to keep his love? Not like this! She moved her white hands in a curve before her waist with extraordinary rapidity, as happens during moments of excitement ideas and memories rushed into Darya Alexandrovna's head. 'I, she thought, 'did not keep my attraction for Stiva he left me for others, and the first woman for whom he betrayed me did not keep him by being always pretty and lively. He deserted her and took another. And can Anna attract and keep Count Vronsky in that way? If that is what he looks for, he will find dresses and manners still more attractive and charming. And however white and beautiful her bare arms are, however beautiful her full figure and her eager face under her black curls, he will find something better still, just as my disgusting, pitiful, and charming husband does. Dolly made no answer, she merely sighed. Anna noticed this sigh, indicating dissent, and she went on. In her armory she had other arguments so strong that no answer could be made to them. 'Do you say that it's not right? But you must consider, she went on 'you forget my position. How can I desire children? I'm not speaking of the suffering, I'm not afraid of that. Think only, what are my children to be? Illfated children, who will have to bear a stranger's name. For the very fact of their birth they will be forced to be ashamed of their mother, their father, their birth. 'But that is just why a divorce is necessary. But Anna did not hear her. She longed to give utterance to all the arguments with which she had so many times convinced herself. 'What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the world! She looked at Dolly, but without waiting for a reply she went on 'I should always feel I had wronged these unhappy children, she said. 'If they are not, at any rate they are not unhappy while if they are unhappy, I alone should be to blame for it. These were the very arguments Darya Alexandrovna had used in her own reflections but she heard them without understanding them. 'How can one wrong creatures that don't exist? she thought. And all at once the idea struck her could it possibly, under any circumstances, have been better for her favorite Grisha if he had never existed? And this seemed to her so wild, so strange, that she shook her head to drive away this tangle of whirling, mad ideas. 'No, I don't know it's not right, was all she said, with an expression of disgust on her face. 'Yes, but you mustn't forget that you and I.... And besides that, added Anna, in spite of the wealth of her arguments and the poverty of Dolly's objections, seeming still to admit that it was not right, 'don't forget the chief point, that I am not now in the same position as you. For you the question is do you desire not to have any more children while for me it is do I desire to have them? And that's a great difference. You must see that I can't desire it in my position. Darya Alexandrovna made no reply. She suddenly felt that she had got far away from Anna that there lay between them a barrier of questions on which they could never agree, and about which it was better not to speak. 'Then there is all the more reason for you to legalize your position, if possible, said Dolly. 'Yes, if possible, said Anna, speaking all at once in an utterly different tone, subdued and mournful. 'Surely you don't mean a divorce is impossible? I was told your husband had consented to it. 'Dolly, I don't want to talk about that. 'Oh, we won't then, Darya Alexandrovna hastened to say, noticing the expression of suffering on Anna's face. 'All I see is that you take too gloomy a view of things. 'I? Not at all! I'm always bright and happy. You see, je fais des passions. Veslovsky.... 'Yes, to tell the truth, I don't like Veslovsky's tone, said Darya Alexandrovna, anxious to change the subject. 'Oh, that's nonsense! It amuses Alexey, and that's all but he's a boy, and quite under my control. You know, I turn him as I please. It's just as it might be with your Grisha.... Dolly!she suddenly changed the subject'you say I take too gloomy a view of things. You can't understand. It's too awful! I try not to take any view of it at all. 'But I think you ought to. You ought to do all you can. 'But what can I do? Nothing. You tell me to marry Alexey, and say I don't think about it. I don't think about it! she repeated, and a flush rose into her face. She got up, straightening her chest, and sighed heavily. With her light step she began pacing up and down the room, stopping now and then. 'I don't think of it? Not a day, not an hour passes that I don't think of it, and blame myself for thinking of it ... because thinking of that may drive me mad. Drive me mad! she repeated. 'When I think of it, I can't sleep without morphine. But never mind. Let us talk quietly. They tell me, divorce. In the first place, he won't give me a divorce. He's under the influence of Countess Lidia Ivanovna now. Darya Alexandrovna, sitting erect on a chair, turned her head, following Anna with a face of sympathetic suffering. 'You ought to make the attempt, she said softly. 'Suppose I make the attempt. What does it mean? she said, evidently giving utterance to a thought, a thousand times thought over and learned by heart. 'It means that I, hating him, but still recognizing that I have wronged himand I consider him magnanimousthat I humiliate myself to write to him.... Well, suppose I make the effort I do it. Either I receive a humiliating refusal or consent.... Well, I have received his consent, say.... Anna was at that moment at the furthest end of the room, and she stopped there, doing something to the curtain at the window. 'I receive his consent, but my ... my son? They won't give him up to me. He will grow up despising me, with his father, whom I've abandoned. Do you see, I love ... equally, I think, but both more than myselftwo creatures, Seryozha and Alexey. She came out into the middle of the room and stood facing Dolly, with her arms pressed tightly across her chest. In her white dressing gown her figure seemed more than usually grand and broad. She bent her head, and with shining, wet eyes looked from under her brows at Dolly, a thin little pitiful figure in her patched dressing jacket and nightcap, shaking all over with emotion. 'It is only those two creatures that I love, and one excludes the other. I can't have them together, and that's the only thing I want. And since I can't have that, I don't care about the rest. I don't care about anything, anything. And it will end one way or another, and so I can't, I don't like to talk of it. So don't blame me, don't judge me for anything. You can't with your pure heart understand all that I'm suffering. She went up, sat down beside Dolly, and with a guilty look, peeped into her face and took her hand. 'What are you thinking? What are you thinking about me? Don't despise me. I don't deserve contempt. I'm simply unhappy. If anyone is unhappy, I am, she articulated, and turning away, she burst into tears. Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna said her prayers and went to bed. She had felt for Anna with all her heart while she was speaking to her, but now she could not force herself to think of her. The memories of home and of her children rose up in her imagination with a peculiar charm quite new to her, with a sort of new brilliance. That world of her own seemed to her now so sweet and precious that she would not on any account spend an extra day outside it, and she made up her mind that she would certainly go back next day. Anna meantime went back to her boudoir, took a wineglass and dropped into it several drops of a medicine, of which the principal ingredient was morphine. After drinking it off and sitting still a little while, she went into her bedroom in a soothed and more cheerful frame of mind. When she went into the bedroom, Vronsky looked intently at her. He was looking for traces of the conversation which he knew that, staying so long in Dolly's room, she must have had with her. But in her expression of restrained excitement, and of a sort of reserve, he could find nothing but the beauty that always bewitched him afresh though he was used to it, the consciousness of it, and the desire that it should affect him. He did not want to ask her what they had been talking of, but he hoped that she would tell him something of her own accord. But she only said 'I am so glad you like Dolly. You do, don't you? 'Oh, I've known her a long while, you know. She's very goodhearted, I suppose, mais excessivement terreterre. Still, I'm very glad to see her. He took Anna's hand and looked inquiringly into her eyes. Misinterpreting the look, she smiled to him. Next morning, in spite of the protests of her hosts, Darya Alexandrovna prepared for her homeward journey. Levin's coachman, in his by no means new coat and shabby hat, with his illmatched horses and his coach with the patched mudguards, drove with gloomy determination into the covered gravel approach. Darya Alexandrovna disliked taking leave of Princess Varvara and the gentlemen of the party. After a day spent together, both she and her hosts were distinctly aware that they did not get on together, and that it was better for them not to meet. Only Anna was sad. She knew that now, from Dolly's departure, no one again would stir up within her soul the feelings that had been roused by their conversation. It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading. As she drove out into the open country, Darya Alexandrovna had a delightful sense of relief, and she felt tempted to ask the two men how they had liked being at Vronsky's, when suddenly the coachman, Philip, expressed himself unasked 'Rolling in wealth they may be, but three pots of oats was all they gave us. Everything cleared up till there wasn't a grain left by cockcrow. What are three pots? A mere mouthful! And oats now down to fortyfive kopecks. At our place, no fear, all comers may have as much as they can eat. 'The master's a screw, put in the countinghouse clerk. 'Well, did you like their horses? asked Dolly. 'The horses!there's no two opinions about them. And the food was good. But it seemed to me sort of dreary there, Darya Alexandrovna. I don't know what you thought, he said, turning his handsome, goodnatured face to her. 'I thought so too. Well, shall we get home by evening? 'Eh, we must! On reaching home and finding everyone entirely satisfactory and particularly charming, Darya Alexandrovna began with great liveliness telling them how she had arrived, how warmly they had received her, of the luxury and good taste in which the Vronskys lived, and of their recreations, and she would not allow a word to be said against them. 'One has to know Anna and VronskyI have got to know him better nowto see how nice they are, and how touching, she said, speaking now with perfect sincerity, and forgetting the vague feeling of dissatisfaction and awkwardness she had experienced there. Vronsky and Anna spent the whole summer and part of the winter in the country, living in just the same condition, and still taking no steps to obtain a divorce. It was an understood thing between them that they should not go away anywhere but both felt, the longer they lived alone, especially in the autumn, without guests in the house, that they could not stand this existence, and that they would have to alter it. Their life was apparently such that nothing better could be desired. They had the fullest abundance of everything they had a child, and both had occupation. Anna devoted just as much care to her appearance when they had no visitors, and she did a great deal of reading, both of novels and of what serious literature was in fashion. She ordered all the books that were praised in the foreign papers and reviews she received, and read them with that concentrated attention which is only given to what is read in seclusion. Moreover, every subject that was of interest to Vronsky, she studied in books and special journals, so that he often went straight to her with questions relating to agriculture or architecture, sometimes even with questions relating to horsebreeding or sport. He was amazed at her knowledge, her memory, and at first was disposed to doubt it, to ask for confirmation of her facts and she would find what he asked for in some book, and show it to him. The building of the hospital, too, interested her. She did not merely assist, but planned and suggested a great deal herself. But her chief thought was still of herselfhow far she was dear to Vronsky, how far she could make up to him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated this desire not only to please, but to serve him, which had become the sole aim of her existence, but at the same time he wearied of the loving snares in which she tried to hold him fast. As time went on, and he saw himself more and more often held fast in these snares, he had an ever growing desire, not so much to escape from them, as to try whether they hindered his freedom. Had it not been for this growing desire to be free, not to have scenes every time he wanted to go to the town to a meeting or a race, Vronsky would have been perfectly satisfied with his life. The rle he had taken up, the rle of a wealthy landowner, one of that class which ought to be the very heart of the Russian aristocracy, was entirely to his taste and now, after spending six months in that character, he derived even greater satisfaction from it. And his management of his estate, which occupied and absorbed him more and more, was most successful. In spite of the immense sums cost him by the hospital, by machinery, by cows ordered from Switzerland, and many other things, he was convinced that he was not wasting, but increasing his substance. In all matters affecting income, the sales of timber, wheat, and wool, the letting of lands, Vronsky was hard as a rock, and knew well how to keep up prices. In all operations on a large scale on this and his other estates, he kept to the simplest methods involving no risk, and in trifling details he was careful and exacting to an extreme degree. In spite of all the cunning and ingenuity of the German steward, who would try to tempt him into purchases by making his original estimate always far larger than really required, and then representing to Vronsky that he might get the thing cheaper, and so make a profit, Vronsky did not give in. He listened to his steward, crossexamined him, and only agreed to his suggestions when the implement to be ordered or constructed was the very newest, not yet known in Russia, and likely to excite wonder. Apart from such exceptions, he resolved upon an increased outlay only where there was a surplus, and in making such an outlay he went into the minutest details, and insisted on getting the very best for his money so that by the method on which he managed his affairs, it was clear that he was not wasting, but increasing his substance. In October there were the provincial elections in the Kashinsky province, where were the estates of Vronsky, Sviazhsky, Koznishev, Oblonsky, and a small part of Levin's land. These elections were attracting public attention from several circumstances connected with them, and also from the people taking part in them. There had been a great deal of talk about them, and great preparations were being made for them. Persons who never attended the elections were coming from Moscow, from Petersburg, and from abroad to attend these. Vronsky had long before promised Sviazhsky to go to them. Before the elections Sviazhsky, who often visited Vozdvizhenskoe, drove over to fetch Vronsky. On the day before there had been almost a quarrel between Vronsky and Anna over this proposed expedition. It was the very dullest autumn weather, which is so dreary in the country, and so, preparing himself for a struggle, Vronsky, with a hard and cold expression, informed Anna of his departure as he had never spoken to her before. But, to his surprise, Anna accepted the information with great composure, and merely asked when he would be back. He looked intently at her, at a loss to explain this composure. She smiled at his look. He knew that way she had of withdrawing into herself, and knew that it only happened when she had determined upon something without letting him know her plans. He was afraid of this but he was so anxious to avoid a scene that he kept up appearances, and half sincerely believed in what he longed to believe inher reasonableness. 'I hope you won't be dull? 'I hope not, said Anna. 'I got a box of books yesterday from Gautier's. No, I shan't be dull. 'She's trying to take that tone, and so much the better, he thought, 'or else it would be the same thing over and over again. And he set off for the elections without appealing to her for a candid explanation. It was the first time since the beginning of their intimacy that he had parted from her without a full explanation. From one point of view this troubled him, but on the other side he felt that it was better so. 'At first there will be, as this time, something undefined kept back, and then she will get used to it. In any case I can give up anything for her, but not my masculine independence, he thought. In September Levin moved to Moscow for Kitty's confinement. He had spent a whole month in Moscow with nothing to do, when Sergey Ivanovitch, who had property in the Kashinsky province, and took great interest in the question of the approaching elections, made ready to set off to the elections. He invited his brother, who had a vote in the Seleznevsky district, to come with him. Levin had, moreover, to transact in Kashin some extremely important business relating to the wardship of land and to the receiving of certain redemption money for his sister, who was abroad. Levin still hesitated, but Kitty, who saw that he was bored in Moscow, and urged him to go, on her own authority ordered him the proper nobleman's uniform, costing seven pounds. And that seven pounds paid for the uniform was the chief cause that finally decided Levin to go. He went to Kashin.... Levin had been six days in Kashin, visiting the assembly each day, and busily engaged about his sister's business, which still dragged on. The district marshals of nobility were all occupied with the elections, and it was impossible to get the simplest thing done that depended upon the court of wardship. The other matter, the payment of the sums due, was met too by difficulties. After long negotiations over the legal details, the money was at last ready to be paid but the notary, a most obliging person, could not hand over the order, because it must have the signature of the president, and the president, though he had not given over his duties to a deputy, was at the elections. All these worrying negotiations, this endless going from place to place, and talking with pleasant and excellent people, who quite saw the unpleasantness of the petitioner's position, but were powerless to assist himall these efforts that yielded no result, led to a feeling of misery in Levin akin to the mortifying helplessness one experiences in dreams when one tries to use physical force. He felt this frequently as he talked to his most goodnatured solicitor. This solicitor did, it seemed, everything possible, and strained every nerve to get him out of his difficulties. 'I tell you what you might try, he said more than once 'go to soandso and soandso, and the solicitor drew up a regular plan for getting round the fatal point that hindered everything. But he would add immediately, 'It'll mean some delay, anyway, but you might try it. And Levin did try, and did go. Everyone was kind and civil, but the point evaded seemed to crop up again in the end, and again to bar the way. What was particularly trying, was that Levin could not make out with whom he was struggling, to whose interest it was that his business should not be done. That no one seemed to know the solicitor certainly did not know. If Levin could have understood why, just as he saw why one can only approach the booking office of a railway station in single file, it would not have been so vexatious and tiresome to him. But with the hindrances that confronted him in his business, no one could explain why they existed. But Levin had changed a good deal since his marriage he was patient, and if he could not see why it was all arranged like this, he told himself that he could not judge without knowing all about it, and that most likely it must be so, and he tried not to fret. In attending the elections, too, and taking part in them, he tried now not to judge, not to fall foul of them, but to comprehend as fully as he could the question which was so earnestly and ardently absorbing honest and excellent men whom he respected. Since his marriage there had been revealed to Levin so many new and serious aspects of life that had previously, through his frivolous attitude to them, seemed of no importance, that in the question of the elections too he assumed and tried to find some serious significance. Sergey Ivanovitch explained to him the meaning and object of the proposed revolution at the elections. The marshal of the province in whose hands the law had placed the control of so many important public functionsthe guardianship of wards (the very department which was giving Levin so much trouble just now), the disposal of large sums subscribed by the nobility of the province, the high schools, female, male, and military, and popular instruction on the new model, and finally, the district councilthe marshal of the province, Snetkov, was a nobleman of the old school,dissipating an immense fortune, a goodhearted man, honest after his own fashion, but utterly without any comprehension of the needs of modern days. He always took, in every question, the side of the nobility he was positively antagonistic to the spread of popular education, and he succeeded in giving a purely party character to the district council which ought by rights to be of such an immense importance. What was needed was to put in his place a fresh, capable, perfectly modern man, of contemporary ideas, and to frame their policy so as from the rights conferred upon the nobles, not as the nobility, but as an element of the district council, to extract all the powers of selfgovernment that could possibly be derived from them. In the wealthy Kashinsky province, which always took the lead of other provinces in everything, there was now such a preponderance of forces that this policy, once carried through properly there, might serve as a model for other provinces for all Russia. And hence the whole question was of the greatest importance. It was proposed to elect as marshal in place of Snetkov either Sviazhsky, or, better still, Nevyedovsky, a former university professor, a man of remarkable intelligence and a great friend of Sergey Ivanovitch. The meeting was opened by the governor, who made a speech to the nobles, urging them to elect the public functionaries, not from regard for persons, but for the service and welfare of their fatherland, and hoping that the honorable nobility of the Kashinsky province would, as at all former elections, hold their duty as sacred, and vindicate the exalted confidence of the monarch. When he had finished with his speech, the governor walked out of the hall, and the noblemen noisily and eagerlysome even enthusiasticallyfollowed him and thronged round him while he put on his fur coat and conversed amicably with the marshal of the province. Levin, anxious to see into everything and not to miss anything, stood there too in the crowd, and heard the governor say 'Please tell Marya Ivanovna my wife is very sorry she couldn't come to the Home. And thereupon the nobles in high goodhumor sorted out their fur coats and all drove off to the cathedral. In the cathedral Levin, lifting his hand like the rest and repeating the words of the archdeacon, swore with most terrible oaths to do all the governor had hoped they would do. Church services always affected Levin, and as he uttered the words 'I kiss the cross, and glanced round at the crowd of young and old men repeating the same, he felt touched. On the second and third days there was business relating to the finances of the nobility and the female high school, of no importance whatever, as Sergey Ivanovitch explained, and Levin, busy seeing after his own affairs, did not attend the meetings. On the fourth day the auditing of the marshal's accounts took place at the high table of the marshal of the province. And then there occurred the first skirmish between the new party and the old. The committee who had been deputed to verify the accounts reported to the meeting that all was in order. The marshal of the province got up, thanked the nobility for their confidence, and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud welcome, and shook hands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of Sergey Ivanovitch's party said that he had heard that the committee had not verified the accounts, considering such a verification an insult to the marshal of the province. One of the members of the committee incautiously admitted this. Then a small gentleman, very younglooking but very malignant, began to say that it would probably be agreeable to the marshal of the province to give an account of his expenditures of the public moneys, and that the misplaced delicacy of the members of the committee was depriving him of this moral satisfaction. Then the members of the committee tried to withdraw their admission, and Sergey Ivanovitch began to prove that they must logically admit either that they had verified the accounts or that they had not, and he developed this dilemma in detail. Sergey Ivanovitch was answered by the spokesman of the opposite party. Then Sviazhsky spoke, and then the malignant gentleman again. The discussion lasted a long time and ended in nothing. Levin was surprised that they should dispute upon this subject so long, especially as, when he asked Sergey Ivanovitch whether he supposed that money had been misappropriated, Sergey Ivanovitch answered 'Oh, no! He's an honest man. But those oldfashioned methods of paternal family arrangements in the management of provincial affairs must be broken down. On the fifth day came the elections of the district marshals. It was rather a stormy day in several districts. In the Seleznevsky district Sviazhsky was elected unanimously without a ballot, and he gave a dinner that evening. The sixth day was fixed for the election of the marshal of the province. The rooms, large and small, were full of noblemen in all sorts of uniforms. Many had come only for that day. Men who had not seen each other for years, some from the Crimea, some from Petersburg, some from abroad, met in the rooms of the Hall of Nobility. There was much discussion around the governor's table under the portrait of the Tsar. The nobles, both in the larger and the smaller rooms, grouped themselves in camps, and from their hostile and suspicious glances, from the silence that fell upon them when outsiders approached a group, and from the way that some, whispering together, retreated to the farther corridor, it was evident that each side had secrets from the other. In appearance the noblemen were sharply divided into two classes the old and the new. The old were for the most part either in old uniforms of the nobility, buttoned up closely, with spurs and hats, or in their own special naval, cavalry, infantry, or official uniforms. The uniforms of the older men were embroidered in the oldfashioned way with epaulets on their shoulders they were unmistakably tight and short in the waist, as though their wearers had grown out of them. The younger men wore the uniform of the nobility with long waists and broad shoulders, unbuttoned over white waistcoats, or uniforms with black collars and with the embroidered badges of justices of the peace. To the younger men belonged the court uniforms that here and there brightened up the crowd. But the division into young and old did not correspond with the division of parties. Some of the young men, as Levin observed, belonged to the old party and some of the very oldest noblemen, on the contrary, were whispering with Sviazhsky, and were evidently ardent partisans of the new party. Levin stood in the smaller room, where they were smoking and taking light refreshments, close to his own friends, and listening to what they were saying, he conscientiously exerted all his intelligence trying to understand what was said. Sergey Ivanovitch was the center round which the others grouped themselves. He was listening at that moment to Sviazhsky and Hliustov, the marshal of another district, who belonged to their party. Hliustov would not agree to go with his district to ask Snetkov to stand, while Sviazhsky was persuading him to do so, and Sergey Ivanovitch was approving of the plan. Levin could not make out why the opposition was to ask the marshal to stand whom they wanted to supersede. Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just been drinking and taking some lunch, came up to them in his uniform of a gentleman of the bedchamber, wiping his lips with a perfumed handkerchief of bordered batiste. 'We are placing our forces, he said, pulling out his whiskers, 'Sergey Ivanovitch! And listening to the conversation, he supported Sviazhsky's contention. 'One district's enough, and Sviazhsky's obviously of the opposition, he said, words evidently intelligible to all except Levin. 'Why, Kostya, you here too! I suppose you're converted, eh? he added, turning to Levin and drawing his arm through his. Levin would have been glad indeed to be converted, but could not make out what the point was, and retreating a few steps from the speakers, he explained to Stepan Arkadyevitch his inability to understand why the marshal of the province should be asked to stand. 'O sancta simplicitas! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and briefly and clearly he explained it to Levin. If, as at previous elections, all the districts asked the marshal of the province to stand, then he would be elected without a ballot. That must not be. Now eight districts had agreed to call upon him if two refused to do so, Snetkov might decline to stand at all and then the old party might choose another of their party, which would throw them completely out in their reckoning. But if only one district, Sviazhsky's, did not call upon him to stand, Snetkov would let himself be balloted for. They were even, some of them, going to vote for him, and purposely to let him get a good many votes, so that the enemy might be thrown off the scent, and when a candidate of the other side was put up, they too might give him some votes. Levin understood to some extent, but not fully, and would have put a few more questions, when suddenly everyone began talking and making a noise and they moved towards the big room. 'What is it? eh? whom? 'No guarantee? whose? what? 'They won't pass him? 'No guarantee? 'They won't let Flerov in? 'Eh, because of the charge against him? 'Why, at this rate, they won't admit anyone. It's a swindle! 'The law! Levin heard exclamations on all sides, and he moved into the big room together with the others, all hurrying somewhere and afraid of missing something. Squeezed by the crowding noblemen, he drew near the high table where the marshal of the province, Sviazhsky, and the other leaders were hotly disputing about something. Levin was standing rather far off. A nobleman breathing heavily and hoarsely at his side, and another whose thick boots were creaking, prevented him from hearing distinctly. He could only hear the soft voice of the marshal faintly, then the shrill voice of the malignant gentleman, and then the voice of Sviazhsky. They were disputing, as far as he could make out, as to the interpretation to be put on the act and the exact meaning of the words 'liable to be called up for trial. The crowd parted to make way for Sergey Ivanovitch approaching the table. Sergey Ivanovitch, waiting till the malignant gentleman had finished speaking, said that he thought the best solution would be to refer to the act itself, and asked the secretary to find the act. The act said that in case of difference of opinion, there must be a ballot. Sergey Ivanovitch read the act and began to explain its meaning, but at that point a tall, stout, roundshouldered landowner, with dyed whiskers, in a tight uniform that cut the back of his neck, interrupted him. He went up to the table, and striking it with his finger ring, he shouted loudly 'A ballot! Put it to the vote! No need for more talking! Then several voices began to talk all at once, and the tall nobleman with the ring, getting more and more exasperated, shouted more and more loudly. But it was impossible to make out what he said. He was shouting for the very course Sergey Ivanovitch had proposed but it was evident that he hated him and all his party, and this feeling of hatred spread through the whole party and roused in opposition to it the same vindictiveness, though in a more seemly form, on the other side. Shouts were raised, and for a moment all was confusion, so that the marshal of the province had to call for order. 'A ballot! A ballot! Every nobleman sees it! We shed our blood for our country!... The confidence of the monarch.... No checking the accounts of the marshal he's not a cashier.... But that's not the point.... Votes, please! Beastly!... shouted furious and violent voices on all sides. Looks and faces were even more violent and furious than their words. They expressed the most implacable hatred. Levin did not in the least understand what was the matter, and he marveled at the passion with which it was disputed whether or not the decision about Flerov should be put to the vote. He forgot, as Sergey Ivanovitch explained to him afterwards, this syllogism that it was necessary for the public good to get rid of the marshal of the province that to get rid of the marshal it was necessary to have a majority of votes that to get a majority of votes it was necessary to secure Flerov's right to vote that to secure the recognition of Flerov's right to vote they must decide on the interpretation to be put on the act. 'And one vote may decide the whole question, and one must be serious and consecutive, if one wants to be of use in public life, concluded Sergey Ivanovitch. But Levin forgot all that, and it was painful to him to see all these excellent persons, for whom he had a respect, in such an unpleasant and vicious state of excitement. To escape from this painful feeling he went away into the other room where there was nobody except the waiters at the refreshment bar. Seeing the waiters busy over washing up the crockery and setting in order their plates and wineglasses, seeing their calm and cheerful faces, Levin felt an unexpected sense of relief as though he had come out of a stuffy room into the fresh air. He began walking up and down, looking with pleasure at the waiters. He particularly liked the way one graywhiskered waiter, who showed his scorn for the other younger ones and was jeered at by them, was teaching them how to fold up napkins properly. Levin was just about to enter into conversation with the old waiter, when the secretary of the court of wardship, a little old man whose specialty it was to know all the noblemen of the province by name and patronymic, drew him away. 'Please come, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, he said, 'your brother's looking for you. They are voting on the legal point. Levin walked into the room, received a white ball, and followed his brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, to the table where Sviazhsky was standing with a significant and ironical face, holding his beard in his fist and sniffing at it. Sergey Ivanovitch put his hand into the box, put the ball somewhere, and making room for Levin, stopped. Levin advanced, but utterly forgetting what he was to do, and much embarrassed, he turned to Sergey Ivanovitch with the question, 'Where am I to put it? He asked this softly, at a moment when there was talking going on near, so that he had hoped his question would not be overheard. But the persons speaking paused, and his improper question was overheard. Sergey Ivanovitch frowned. 'That is a matter for each man's own decision, he said severely. Several people smiled. Levin crimsoned, hurriedly thrust his hand under the cloth, and put the ball to the right as it was in his right hand. Having put it in, he recollected that he ought to have thrust his left hand too, and so he thrust it in though too late, and, still more overcome with confusion, he beat a hasty retreat into the background. 'A hundred and twentysix for admission! Ninetyeight against! sang out the voice of the secretary, who could not pronounce the letter r. Then there was a laugh a button and two nuts were found in the box. The nobleman was allowed the right to vote, and the new party had conquered. But the old party did not consider themselves conquered. Levin heard that they were asking Snetkov to stand, and he saw that a crowd of noblemen was surrounding the marshal, who was saying something. Levin went nearer. In reply Snetkov spoke of the trust the noblemen of the province had placed in him, the affection they had shown him, which he did not deserve, as his only merit had been his attachment to the nobility, to whom he had devoted twelve years of service. Several times he repeated the words 'I have served to the best of my powers with truth and good faith, I value your goodness and thank you, and suddenly he stopped short from the tears that choked him, and went out of the room. Whether these tears came from a sense of the injustice being done him, from his love for the nobility, or from the strain of the position he was placed in, feeling himself surrounded by enemies, his emotion infected the assembly, the majority were touched, and Levin felt a tenderness for Snetkov. In the doorway the marshal of the province jostled against Levin. 'Beg pardon, excuse me, please, he said as to a stranger, but recognizing Levin, he smiled timidly. It seemed to Levin that he would have liked to say something, but could not speak for emotion. His face and his whole figure in his uniform with the crosses, and white trousers striped with braid, as he moved hurriedly along, reminded Levin of some hunted beast who sees that he is in evil case. This expression in the marshal's face was particularly touching to Levin, because, only the day before, he had been at his house about his trustee business and had seen him in all his grandeur, a kindhearted, fatherly man. The big house with the old family furniture the rather dirty, far from stylish, but respectful footmen, unmistakably old house serfs who had stuck to their master the stout, goodnatured wife in a cap with lace and a Turkish shawl, petting her pretty grandchild, her daughter's daughter the young son, a sixth form high school boy, coming home from school, and greeting his father, kissing his big hand the genuine, cordial words and gestures of the old manall this had the day before roused an instinctive feeling of respect and sympathy in Levin. This old man was a touching and pathetic figure to Levin now, and he longed to say something pleasant to him. 'So you're sure to be our marshal again, he said. 'It's not likely, said the marshal, looking round with a scared expression. 'I'm worn out, I'm old. If there are men younger and more deserving than I, let them serve. And the marshal disappeared through a side door. The most solemn moment was at hand. They were to proceed immediately to the election. The leaders of both parties were reckoning white and black on their fingers. The discussion upon Flerov had given the new party not only Flerov's vote, but had also gained time for them, so that they could send to fetch three noblemen who had been rendered unable to take part in the elections by the wiles of the other party. Two noble gentlemen, who had a weakness for strong drink, had been made drunk by the partisans of Snetkov, and a third had been robbed of his uniform. On learning this, the new party had made haste, during the dispute about Flerov, to send some of their men in a sledge to clothe the stripped gentleman, and to bring along one of the intoxicated to the meeting. 'I've brought one, drenched him with water, said the landowner, who had gone on this errand, to Sviazhsky. 'He's all right? he'll do. 'Not too drunk, he won't fall down? said Sviazhsky, shaking his head. 'No, he's firstrate. If only they don't give him any more here.... I've told the waiter not to give him anything on any account. The narrow room, in which they were smoking and taking refreshments, was full of noblemen. The excitement grew more intense, and every face betrayed some uneasiness. The excitement was specially keen for the leaders of each party, who knew every detail, and had reckoned up every vote. They were the generals organizing the approaching battle. The rest, like the rank and file before an engagement, though they were getting ready for the fight, sought for other distractions in the interval. Some were lunching, standing at the bar, or sitting at the table others were walking up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes, and talking with friends whom they had not seen for a long while. Levin did not care to eat, and he was not smoking he did not want to join his own friends, that is Sergey Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, Sviazhsky and the rest, because Vronsky in his equerry's uniform was standing with them in eager conversation. Levin had seen him already at the meeting on the previous day, and he had studiously avoided him, not caring to greet him. He went to the window and sat down, scanning the groups, and listening to what was being said around him. He felt depressed, especially because everyone else was, as he saw, eager, anxious, and interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little man with mumbling lips wearing a naval uniform, sitting beside him, had no interest in it and nothing to do. 'He's such a blackguard! I have told him so, but it makes no difference. Only think of it! He couldn't collect it in three years! he heard vigorously uttered by a roundshouldered, short, country gentleman, who had pomaded hair hanging on his embroidered collar, and new boots obviously put on for the occasion, with heels that tapped energetically as he spoke. Casting a displeased glance at Levin, this gentleman sharply turned his back. 'Yes, it's a dirty business, there's no denying, a small gentleman assented in a high voice. Next, a whole crowd of country gentlemen, surrounding a stout general, hurriedly came near Levin. These persons were unmistakably seeking a place where they could talk without being overheard. 'How dare he say I had his breeches stolen! Pawned them for drink, I expect. Damn the fellow, prince indeed! He'd better not say it, the beast! 'But excuse me! They take their stand on the act, was being said in another group 'the wife must be registered as noble. 'Oh, damn your acts! I speak from my heart. We're all gentlemen, aren't we? Above suspicion. 'Shall we go on, your excellency, fine champagne? Another group was following a nobleman, who was shouting something in a loud voice it was one of the three intoxicated gentlemen. 'I always advised Marya Semyonovna to let for a fair rent, for she can never save a profit, he heard a pleasant voice say. The speaker was a country gentleman with gray whiskers, wearing the regimental uniform of an old general staffofficer. It was the very landowner Levin had met at Sviazhsky's. He knew him at once. The landowner too stared at Levin, and they exchanged greetings. 'Very glad to see you! To be sure! I remember you very well. Last year at our district marshal, Nikolay Ivanovitch's. 'Well, and how is your land doing? asked Levin. 'Oh, still just the same, always at a loss, the landowner answered with a resigned smile, but with an expression of serenity and conviction that so it must be. 'And how do you come to be in our province? he asked. 'Come to take part in our coup d'tat? he said, confidently pronouncing the French words with a bad accent. 'All Russia's heregentlemen of the bedchamber, and everything short of the ministry. He pointed to the imposing figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch in white trousers and his court uniform, walking by with a general. 'I ought to own that I don't very well understand the drift of the provincial elections, said Levin. The landowner looked at him. 'Why, what is there to understand? There's no meaning in it at all. It's a decaying institution that goes on running only by the force of inertia. Just look, the very uniforms tell you that it's an assembly of justices of the peace, permanent members of the court, and so on, but not of noblemen. 'Then why do you come? asked Levin. 'From habit, nothing else. Then, too, one must keep up connections. It's a moral obligation of a sort. And then, to tell the truth, there's one's own interests. My soninlaw wants to stand as a permanent member they're not rich people, and he must be brought forward. These gentlemen, now, what do they come for? he said, pointing to the malignant gentleman, who was talking at the high table. 'That's the new generation of nobility. 'New it may be, but nobility it isn't. They're proprietors of a sort, but we're the landowners. As noblemen, they're cutting their own throats. 'But you say it's an institution that's served its time. 'That it may be, but still it ought to be treated a little more respectfully. Snetkov, now.... We may be of use, or we may not, but we're the growth of a thousand years. If we're laying out a garden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you've a tree that's stood for centuries in the very spot.... Old and gnarled it may be, and yet you don't cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to take advantage of the tree. You won't grow him again in a year, he said cautiously, and he immediately changed the conversation. 'Well, and how is your land doing? 'Oh, not very well. I make five per cent. 'Yes, but you don't reckon your own work. Aren't you worth something too? I'll tell you my own case. Before I took to seeing after the land, I had a salary of three hundred pounds from the service. Now I do more work than I did in the service, and like you I get five per cent. on the land, and thank God for that. But one's work is thrown in for nothing. 'Then why do you do it, if it's a clear loss? 'Oh, well, one does it! What would you have? It's habit, and one knows it's how it should be. And what's more, the landowner went on, leaning his elbows on the window and chatting on, 'my son, I must tell you, has no taste for it. There's no doubt he'll be a scientific man. So there'll be no one to keep it up. And yet one does it. Here this year I've planted an orchard. 'Yes, yes, said Levin, 'that's perfectly true. I always feel there's no real balance of gain in my work on the land, and yet one does it.... It's a sort of duty one feels to the land. 'But I tell you what, the landowner pursued 'a neighbor of mine, a merchant, was at my place. We walked about the fields and the garden. 'No,' said he, 'Stepan Vassilievitch, everything's well looked after, but your garden's neglected.' But, as a fact, it's well kept up. 'To my thinking, I'd cut down that limetree. Here you've thousands of limes, and each would make two good bundles of bark. And nowadays that bark's worth something. I'd cut down the lot.' 'And with what he made he'd increase his stock, or buy some land for a trifle, and let it out in lots to the peasants, Levin added, smiling. He had evidently more than once come across those commercial calculations. 'And he'd make his fortune. But you and I must thank God if we keep what we've got and leave it to our children. 'You're married, I've heard? said the landowner. 'Yes, Levin answered, with proud satisfaction. 'Yes, it's rather strange, he went on. 'So we live without making anything, as though we were ancient vestals set to keep in a fire. The landowner chuckled under his white mustaches. 'There are some among us, too, like our friend Nikolay Ivanovitch, or Count Vronsky, that's settled here lately, who try to carry on their husbandry as though it were a factory but so far it leads to nothing but making away with capital on it. 'But why is it we don't do like the merchants? Why don't we cut down our parks for timber? said Levin, returning to a thought that had struck him. 'Why, as you said, to keep the fire in. Besides that's not work for a nobleman. And our work as noblemen isn't done here at the elections, but yonder, each in our corner. There's a class instinct, too, of what one ought and oughtn't to do. There's the peasants, too, I wonder at them sometimes any good peasant tries to take all the land he can. However bad the land is, he'll work it. Without a return too. At a simple loss. 'Just as we do, said Levin. 'Very, very glad to have met you, he added, seeing Sviazhsky approaching him. 'And here we've met for the first time since we met at your place, said the landowner to Sviazhsky, 'and we've had a good talk too. 'Well, have you been attacking the new order of things? said Sviazhsky with a smile. 'That we're bound to do. 'You've relieved your feelings? Sviazhsky took Levin's arm, and went with him to his own friends. This time there was no avoiding Vronsky. He was standing with Stepan Arkadyevitch and Sergey Ivanovitch, and looking straight at Levin as he drew near. 'Delighted! I believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you ... at Princess Shtcherbatskaya's, he said, giving Levin his hand. 'Yes, I quite remember our meeting, said Levin, and blushing crimson, he turned away immediately, and began talking to his brother. With a slight smile Vronsky went on talking to Sviazhsky, obviously without the slightest inclination to enter into conversation with Levin. But Levin, as he talked to his brother, was continually looking round at Vronsky, trying to think of something to say to him to gloss over his rudeness. 'What are we waiting for now? asked Levin, looking at Sviazhsky and Vronsky. 'For Snetkov. He has to refuse or to consent to stand, answered Sviazhsky. 'Well, and what has he done, consented or not? 'That's the point, that he's done neither, said Vronsky. 'And if he refuses, who will stand then? asked Levin, looking at Vronsky. 'Whoever chooses to, said Sviazhsky. 'Shall you? asked Levin. 'Certainly not I, said Sviazhsky, looking confused, and turning an alarmed glance at the malignant gentleman, who was standing beside Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Who then? Nevyedovsky? said Levin, feeling he was putting his foot into it. But this was worse still. Nevyedovsky and Sviazhsky were the two candidates. 'I certainly shall not, under any circumstances, answered the malignant gentleman. This was Nevyedovsky himself. Sviazhsky introduced him to Levin. 'Well, you find it exciting too? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, winking at Vronsky. 'It's something like a race. One might bet on it. 'Yes, it is keenly exciting, said Vronsky. 'And once taking the thing up, one's eager to see it through. It's a fight! he said, scowling and setting his powerful jaws. 'What a capable fellow Sviazhsky is! Sees it all so clearly. 'Oh, yes! Vronsky assented indifferently. A silence followed, during which Vronskysince he had to look at somethinglooked at Levin, at his feet, at his uniform, then at his face, and noticing his gloomy eyes fixed upon him, he said, in order to say something 'How is it that you, living constantly in the country, are not a justice of the peace? You are not in the uniform of one. 'It's because I consider that the justice of the peace is a silly institution, Levin answered gloomily. He had been all the time looking for an opportunity to enter into conversation with Vronsky, so as to smooth over his rudeness at their first meeting. 'I don't think so, quite the contrary, Vronsky said, with quiet surprise. 'It's a plaything, Levin cut him short. 'We don't want justices of the peace. I've never had a single thing to do with them during eight years. And what I have had was decided wrongly by them. The justice of the peace is over thirty miles from me. For some matter of two roubles I should have to send a lawyer, who costs me fifteen. And he related how a peasant had stolen some flour from the miller, and when the miller told him of it, had lodged a complaint for slander. All this was utterly uncalled for and stupid, and Levin felt it himself as he said it. 'Oh, this is such an original fellow! said Stepan Arkadyevitch with his most soothing, almondoil smile. 'But come along I think they're voting.... And they separated. 'I can't understand, said Sergey Ivanovitch, who had observed his brother's clumsiness, 'I can't understand how anyone can be so absolutely devoid of political tact. That's where we Russians are so deficient. The marshal of the province is our opponent, and with him you're ami cochon, and you beg him to stand. Count Vronsky, now ... I'm not making a friend of him he's asked me to dinner, and I'm not going but he's one of our sidewhy make an enemy of him? Then you ask Nevyedovsky if he's going to stand. That's not a thing to do. 'Oh, I don't understand it at all! And it's all such nonsense, Levin answered gloomily. 'You say it's all such nonsense, but as soon as you have anything to do with it, you make a muddle. Levin did not answer, and they walked together into the big room. The marshal of the province, though he was vaguely conscious in the air of some trap being prepared for him, and though he had not been called upon by all to stand, had still made up his mind to stand. All was silence in the room. The secretary announced in a loud voice that the captain of the guards, Mihail Stepanovitch Snetkov, would now be balloted for as marshal of the province. The district marshals walked carrying plates, on which were balls, from their tables to the high table, and the election began. 'Put it in the right side, whispered Stepan Arkadyevitch, as with his brother Levin followed the marshal of his district to the table. But Levin had forgotten by now the calculations that had been explained to him, and was afraid Stepan Arkadyevitch might be mistaken in saying 'the right side. Surely Snetkov was the enemy. As he went up, he held the ball in his right hand, but thinking he was wrong, just at the box he changed to the left hand, and undoubtedly put the ball to the left. An adept in the business, standing at the box and seeing by the mere action of the elbow where each put his ball, scowled with annoyance. It was no good for him to use his insight. Everything was still, and the counting of the balls was heard. Then a single voice rose and proclaimed the numbers for and against. The marshal had been voted for by a considerable majority. All was noise and eager movement towards the doors. Snetkov came in, and the nobles thronged round him, congratulating him. 'Well, now is it over? Levin asked Sergey Ivanovitch. 'It's only just beginning, Sviazhsky said, replying for Sergey Ivanovitch with a smile. 'Some other candidate may receive more votes than the marshal. Levin had quite forgotten about that. Now he could only remember that there was some sort of trickery in it, but he was too bored to think what it was exactly. He felt depressed, and longed to get out of the crowd. As no one was paying any attention to him, and no one apparently needed him, he quietly slipped away into the little room where the refreshments were, and again had a great sense of comfort when he saw the waiters. The little old waiter pressed him to have something, and Levin agreed. After eating a cutlet with beans and talking to the waiters of their former masters, Levin, not wishing to go back to the hall, where it was all so distasteful to him, proceeded to walk through the galleries. The galleries were full of fashionably dressed ladies, leaning over the balustrade and trying not to lose a single word of what was being said below. With the ladies were sitting and standing smart lawyers, high school teachers in spectacles, and officers. Everywhere they were talking of the election, and of how worried the marshal was, and how splendid the discussions had been. In one group Levin heard his brother's praises. One lady was telling a lawyer 'How glad I am I heard Koznishev! It's worth losing one's dinner. He's exquisite! So clear and distinct all of it! There's not one of you in the law courts that speaks like that. The only one is Meidel, and he's not so eloquent by a long way. Finding a free place, Levin leaned over the balustrade and began looking and listening. All the noblemen were sitting railed off behind barriers according to their districts. In the middle of the room stood a man in a uniform, who shouted in a loud, high voice 'As a candidate for the marshalship of the nobility of the province we call upon staffcaptain Yevgeney Ivanovitch Apuhtin! A dead silence followed, and then a weak old voice was heard 'Declined! 'We call upon the privy councilor Pyotr Petrovitch Bol, the voice began again. 'Declined! a high boyish voice replied. Again it began, and again 'Declined. And so it went on for about an hour. Levin, with his elbows on the balustrade, looked and listened. At first he wondered and wanted to know what it meant then feeling sure that he could not make it out he began to be bored. Then recalling all the excitement and vindictiveness he had seen on all the faces, he felt sad he made up his mind to go, and went downstairs. As he passed through the entry to the galleries he met a dejected high school boy walking up and down with tiredlooking eyes. On the stairs he met a couplea lady running quickly on her high heels and the jaunty deputy prosecutor. 'I told you you weren't late, the deputy prosecutor was saying at the moment when Levin moved aside to let the lady pass. Levin was on the stairs to the way out, and was just feeling in his waistcoat pocket for the number of his overcoat, when the secretary overtook him. 'This way, please, Konstantin Dmitrievitch they are voting. The candidate who was being voted on was Nevyedovsky, who had so stoutly denied all idea of standing. Levin went up to the door of the room it was locked. The secretary knocked, the door opened, and Levin was met by two redfaced gentlemen, who darted out. 'I can't stand any more of it, said one redfaced gentleman. After them the face of the marshal of the province was poked out. His face was dreadfullooking from exhaustion and dismay. 'I told you not to let anyone out! he cried to the doorkeeper. 'I let someone in, your excellency! 'Mercy on us! and with a heavy sigh the marshal of the province walked with downcast head to the high table in the middle of the room, his legs staggering in his white trousers. Nevyedovsky had scored a higher majority, as they had planned, and he was the new marshal of the province. Many people were amused, many were pleased and happy, many were in ecstasies, many were disgusted and unhappy. The former marshal of the province was in a state of despair, which he could not conceal. When Nevyedovsky went out of the room, the crowd thronged round him and followed him enthusiastically, just as they had followed the governor who had opened the meetings, and just as they had followed Snetkov when he was elected. The newly elected marshal and many of the successful party dined that day with Vronsky. Vronsky had come to the elections partly because he was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his right to independence, and also to repay Sviazhsky by his support at the election for all the trouble he had taken for Vronsky at the district council election, but chiefly in order strictly to perform all those duties of a nobleman and landowner which he had taken upon himself. But he had not in the least expected that the election would so interest him, so keenly excite him, and that he would be so good at this kind of thing. He was quite a new man in the circle of the nobility of the province, but his success was unmistakable, and he was not wrong in supposing that he had already obtained a certain influence. This influence was due to his wealth and reputation, the capital house in the town lent him by his old friend Shirkov, who had a post in the department of finances and was director of a flourishing bank in Kashin the excellent cook Vronsky had brought from the country, and his friendship with the governor, who was a schoolfellow of Vronsky'sa schoolfellow he had patronized and protected indeed. But what contributed more than all to his success was his direct, equable manner with everyone, which very quickly made the majority of the noblemen reverse the current opinion of his supposed haughtiness. He was himself conscious that, except that whimsical gentleman married to Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, who had  propos de bottes poured out a stream of irrelevant absurdities with such spiteful fury, every nobleman with whom he had made acquaintance had become his adherent. He saw clearly, and other people recognized it, too, that he had done a great deal to secure the success of Nevyedovsky. And now at his own table, celebrating Nevyedovsky's election, he was experiencing an agreeable sense of triumph over the success of his candidate. The election itself had so fascinated him that, if he could succeed in getting married during the next three years, he began to think of standing himselfmuch as after winning a race ridden by a jockey, he had longed to ride a race himself. Today he was celebrating the success of his jockey. Vronsky sat at the head of the table, on his right hand sat the young governor, a general of high rank. To all the rest he was the chief man in the province, who had solemnly opened the elections with his speech, and aroused a feeling of respect and even of awe in many people, as Vronsky saw to Vronsky he was little Katka Maslovthat had been his nickname in the Pages' Corpswhom he felt to be shy and tried to mettre  son aise. On the left hand sat Nevyedovsky with his youthful, stubborn, and malignant face. With him Vronsky was simple and deferential. Sviazhsky took his failure very lightheartedly. It was indeed no failure in his eyes, as he said himself, turning, glass in hand, to Nevyedovsky they could not have found a better representative of the new movement, which the nobility ought to follow. And so every honest person, as he said, was on the side of today's success and was rejoicing over it. Stepan Arkadyevitch was glad, too, that he was having a good time, and that everyone was pleased. The episode of the elections served as a good occasion for a capital dinner. Sviazhsky comically imitated the tearful discourse of the marshal, and observed, addressing Nevyedovsky, that his excellency would have to select another more complicated method of auditing the accounts than tears. Another nobleman jocosely described how footmen in stockings had been ordered for the marshal's ball, and how now they would have to be sent back unless the new marshal would give a ball with footmen in stockings. Continually during dinner they said of Nevyedovsky 'our marshal, and 'your excellency. This was said with the same pleasure with which a bride is called 'Madame and her husband's name. Nevyedovsky affected to be not merely indifferent but scornful of this appellation, but it was obvious that he was highly delighted, and had to keep a curb on himself not to betray the triumph which was unsuitable to their new liberal tone. After dinner several telegrams were sent to people interested in the result of the election. And Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was in high good humor, sent Darya Alexandrovna a telegram 'Nevyedovsky elected by twenty votes. Congratulations. Tell people. He dictated it aloud, saying 'We must let them share our rejoicing. Darya Alexandrovna, getting the message, simply sighed over the rouble wasted on it, and understood that it was an afterdinner affair. She knew Stiva had a weakness after dining for faire jouer le tlgraphe. Everything, together with the excellent dinner and the wine, not from Russian merchants, but imported direct from abroad, was extremely dignified, simple, and enjoyable. The partysome twentyhad been selected by Sviazhsky from among the more active new liberals, all of the same way of thinking, who were at the same time clever and well bred. They drank, also half in jest, to the health of the new marshal of the province, of the governor, of the bank director, and of 'our amiable host. Vronsky was satisfied. He had never expected to find so pleasant a tone in the provinces. Towards the end of dinner it was still more lively. The governor asked Vronsky to come to a concert for the benefit of the Servians which his wife, who was anxious to make his acquaintance, had been getting up. 'There'll be a ball, and you'll see the belle of the province. Worth seeing, really. 'Not in my line, Vronsky answered. He liked that English phrase. But he smiled, and promised to come. Before they rose from the table, when all of them were smoking, Vronsky's valet went up to him with a letter on a tray. 'From Vozdvizhenskoe by special messenger, he said with a significant expression. 'Astonishing! how like he is to the deputy prosecutor Sventitsky, said one of the guests in French of the valet, while Vronsky, frowning, read the letter. The letter was from Anna. Before he read the letter, he knew its contents. Expecting the elections to be over in five days, he had promised to be back on Friday. Today was Saturday, and he knew that the letter contained reproaches for not being back at the time fixed. The letter he had sent the previous evening had probably not reached her yet. The letter was what he had expected, but the form of it was unexpected, and particularly disagreeable to him. 'Annie is very ill, the doctor says it may be inflammation. I am losing my head all alone. Princess Varvara is no help, but a hindrance. I expected you the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and now I am sending to find out where you are and what you are doing. I wanted to come myself, but thought better of it, knowing you would dislike it. Send some answer, that I may know what to do. The child ill, yet she had thought of coming herself. Their daughter ill, and this hostile tone. The innocent festivities over the election, and this gloomy, burdensome love to which he had to return struck Vronsky by their contrast. But he had to go, and by the first train that night he set off home. Before Vronsky's departure for the elections, Anna had reflected that the scenes constantly repeated between them each time he left home, might only make him cold to her instead of attaching him to her, and resolved to do all she could to control herself so as to bear the parting with composure. But the cold, severe glance with which he had looked at her when he came to tell her he was going had wounded her, and before he had started her peace of mind was destroyed. In solitude afterwards, thinking over that glance which had expressed his right to freedom, she came, as she always did, to the same pointthe sense of her own humiliation. 'He has the right to go away when and where he chooses. Not simply to go away, but to leave me. He has every right, and I have none. But knowing that, he ought not to do it. What has he done, though?... He looked at me with a cold, severe expression. Of course that is something indefinable, impalpable, but it has never been so before, and that glance means a great deal, she thought. 'That glance shows the beginning of indifference. And though she felt sure that a coldness was beginning, there was nothing she could do, she could not in any way alter her relations to him. Just as before, only by love and by charm could she keep him. And so, just as before, only by occupation in the day, by morphine at night, could she stifle the fearful thought of what would be if he ceased to love her. It is true there was still one means not to keep himfor that she wanted nothing more than his lovebut to be nearer to him, to be in such a position that he would not leave her. That means was divorce and marriage. And she began to long for that, and made up her mind to agree to it the first time he or Stiva approached her on the subject. Absorbed in such thoughts, she passed five days without him, the five days that he was to be at the elections. Walks, conversation with Princess Varvara, visits to the hospital, and, most of all, readingreading of one book after anotherfilled up her time. But on the sixth day, when the coachman came back without him, she felt that now she was utterly incapable of stifling the thought of him and of what he was doing there, just at that time her little girl was taken ill. Anna began to look after her, but even that did not distract her mind, especially as the illness was not serious. However hard she tried, she could not love this little child, and to feign love was beyond her powers. Towards the evening of that day, still alone, Anna was in such a panic about him that she decided to start for the town, but on second thoughts wrote him the contradictory letter that Vronsky received, and without reading it through, sent it off by a special messenger. The next morning she received his letter and regretted her own. She dreaded a repetition of the severe look he had flung at her at parting, especially when he knew that the baby was not dangerously ill. But still she was glad she had written to him. At this moment Anna was positively admitting to herself that she was a burden to him, that he would relinquish his freedom regretfully to return to her, and in spite of that she was glad he was coming. Let him weary of her, but he would be here with her, so that she would see him, would know of every action he took. She was sitting in the drawingroom near a lamp, with a new volume of Taine, and as she read, listening to the sound of the wind outside, and every minute expecting the carriage to arrive. Several times she had fancied she heard the sound of wheels, but she had been mistaken. At last she heard not the sound of wheels, but the coachman's shout and the dull rumble in the covered entry. Even Princess Varvara, playing patience, confirmed this, and Anna, flushing hotly, got up but instead of going down, as she had done twice before, she stood still. She suddenly felt ashamed of her duplicity, but even more she dreaded how he might meet her. All feeling of wounded pride had passed now she was only afraid of the expression of his displeasure. She remembered that her child had been perfectly well again for the last two days. She felt positively vexed with her for getting better from the very moment her letter was sent off. Then she thought of him, that he was here, all of him, with his hands, his eyes. She heard his voice. And forgetting everything, she ran joyfully to meet him. 'Well, how is Annie? he said timidly from below, looking up to Anna as she ran down to him. He was sitting on a chair, and a footman was pulling off his warm overboot. 'Oh, she is better. 'And you? he said, shaking himself. She took his hand in both of hers, and drew it to her waist, never taking her eyes off him. 'Well, I'm glad, he said, coldly scanning her, her hair, her dress, which he knew she had put on for him. All was charming, but how many times it had charmed him! And the stern, stony expression that she so dreaded settled upon his face. 'Well, I'm glad. And are you well? he said, wiping his damp beard with his handkerchief and kissing her hand. 'Never mind, she thought, 'only let him be here, and so long as he's here he cannot, he dare not, cease to love me. The evening was spent happily and gaily in the presence of Princess Varvara, who complained to him that Anna had been taking morphine in his absence. 'What am I to do? I couldn't sleep.... My thoughts prevented me. When he's here I never take ithardly ever. He told her about the election, and Anna knew how by adroit questions to bring him to what gave him most pleasurehis own success. She told him of everything that interested him at home and all that she told him was of the most cheerful description. But late in the evening, when they were alone, Anna, seeing that she had regained complete possession of him, wanted to erase the painful impression of the glance he had given her for her letter. She said 'Tell me frankly, you were vexed at getting my letter, and you didn't believe me? As soon as she had said it, she felt that however warm his feelings were to her, he had not forgiven her for that. 'Yes, he said, 'the letter was so strange. First, Annie ill, and then you thought of coming yourself. 'It was all the truth. 'Oh, I don't doubt it. 'Yes, you do doubt it. You are vexed, I see. 'Not for one moment. I'm only vexed, that's true, that you seem somehow unwilling to admit that there are duties.... 'The duty of going to a concert.... 'But we won't talk about it, he said. 'Why not talk about it? she said. 'I only meant to say that matters of real importance may turn up. Now, for instance, I shall have to go to Moscow to arrange about the house.... Oh, Anna, why are you so irritable? Don't you know that I can't live without you? 'If so, said Anna, her voice suddenly changing, 'it means that you are sick of this life.... Yes, you will come for a day and go away, as men do.... 'Anna, that's cruel. I am ready to give up my whole life. But she did not hear him. 'If you go to Moscow, I will go too. I will not stay here. Either we must separate or else live together. 'Why, you know, that's my one desire. But for that.... 'We must get a divorce. I will write to him. I see I cannot go on like this.... But I will come with you to Moscow. 'You talk as if you were threatening me. But I desire nothing so much as never to be parted from you, said Vronsky, smiling. But as he said these words there gleamed in his eyes not merely a cold look, but the vindictive look of a man persecuted and made cruel. She saw the look and correctly divined its meaning. 'If so, it's a calamity! that glance told her. It was a moment's impression, but she never forgot it. Anna wrote to her husband asking him about a divorce, and towards the end of November, taking leave of Princess Varvara, who wanted to go to Petersburg, she went with Vronsky to Moscow. Expecting every day an answer from Alexey Alexandrovitch, and after that the divorce, they now established themselves together like married people. The Levins had been three months in Moscow. The date had long passed on which, according to the most trustworthy calculations of people learned in such matters, Kitty should have been confined. But she was still about, and there was nothing to show that her time was any nearer than two months ago. The doctor, the monthly nurse, and Dolly and her mother, and most of all Levin, who could not think of the approaching event without terror, began to be impatient and uneasy. Kitty was the only person who felt perfectly calm and happy. She was distinctly conscious now of the birth of a new feeling of love for the future child, for her to some extent actually existing already, and she brooded blissfully over this feeling. He was not by now altogether a part of herself, but sometimes lived his own life independently of her. Often this separate being gave her pain, but at the same time she wanted to laugh with a strange new joy. All the people she loved were with her, and all were so good to her, so attentively caring for her, so entirely pleasant was everything presented to her, that if she had not known and felt that it must all soon be over, she could not have wished for a better and pleasanter life. The only thing that spoiled the charm of this manner of life was that her husband was not here as she loved him to be, and as he was in the country. She liked his serene, friendly, and hospitable manner in the country. In the town he seemed continually uneasy and on his guard, as though he were afraid someone would be rude to him, and still more to her. At home in the country, knowing himself distinctly to be in his right place, he was never in haste to be off elsewhere. He was never unoccupied. Here in town he was in a continual hurry, as though afraid of missing something, and yet he had nothing to do. And she felt sorry for him. To others, she knew, he did not appear an object of pity. On the contrary, when Kitty looked at him in society, as one sometimes looks at those one loves, trying to see him as if he were a stranger, so as to catch the impression he must make on others, she saw with a panic even of jealous fear that he was far indeed from being a pitiable figure, that he was very attractive with his fine breeding, his rather oldfashioned, reserved courtesy with women, his powerful figure, and striking, as she thought, and expressive face. But she saw him not from without, but from within she saw that here he was not himself that was the only way she could define his condition to herself. Sometimes she inwardly reproached him for his inability to live in the town sometimes she recognized that it was really hard for him to order his life here so that he could be satisfied with it. What had he to do, indeed? He did not care for cards he did not go to a club. Spending the time with jovial gentlemen of Oblonsky's typeshe knew now what that meant ... it meant drinking and going somewhere after drinking. She could not think without horror of where men went on such occasions. Was he to go into society? But she knew he could only find satisfaction in that if he took pleasure in the society of young women, and that she could not wish for. Should he stay at home with her, her mother and her sisters? But much as she liked and enjoyed their conversations forever on the same subjects'AlineNadine, as the old prince called the sisters' talksshe knew it must bore him. What was there left for him to do? To go on writing at his book he had indeed attempted, and at first he used to go to the library and make extracts and look up references for his book. But, as he told her, the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything. And besides, he complained that he had talked too much about his book here, and that consequently all his ideas about it were muddled and had lost their interest for him. One advantage in this town life was that quarrels hardly ever happened between them here in town. Whether it was that their conditions were different, or that they had both become more careful and sensible in that respect, they had no quarrels in Moscow from jealousy, which they had so dreaded when they moved from the country. One event, an event of great importance to both from that point of view, did indeed happenthat was Kitty's meeting with Vronsky. The old Princess Marya Borissovna, Kitty's godmother, who had always been very fond of her, had insisted on seeing her. Kitty, though she did not go into society at all on account of her condition, went with her father to see the venerable old lady, and there met Vronsky. The only thing Kitty could reproach herself for at this meeting was that at the instant when she recognized in his civilian dress the features once so familiar to her, her breath failed her, the blood rushed to her heart, and a vivid blushshe felt itoverspread her face. But this lasted only a few seconds. Before her father, who purposely began talking in a loud voice to Vronsky, had finished, she was perfectly ready to look at Vronsky, to speak to him, if necessary, exactly as she spoke to Princess Marya Borissovna, and more than that, to do so in such a way that everything to the faintest intonation and smile would have been approved by her husband, whose unseen presence she seemed to feel about her at that instant. She said a few words to him, even smiled serenely at his joke about the elections, which he called 'our parliament. (She had to smile to show she saw the joke.) But she turned away immediately to Princess Marya Borissovna, and did not once glance at him till he got up to go then she looked at him, but evidently only because it would be uncivil not to look at a man when he is saying goodbye. She was grateful to her father for saying nothing to her about their meeting Vronsky, but she saw by his special warmth to her after the visit during their usual walk that he was pleased with her. She was pleased with herself. She had not expected she would have had the power, while keeping somewhere in the bottom of her heart all the memories of her old feeling for Vronsky, not only to seem but to be perfectly indifferent and composed with him. Levin flushed a great deal more than she when she told him she had met Vronsky at Princess Marya Borissovna's. It was very hard for her to tell him this, but still harder to go on speaking of the details of the meeting, as he did not question her, but simply gazed at her with a frown. 'I am very sorry you weren't there, she said. 'Not that you weren't in the room ... I couldn't have been so natural in your presence ... I am blushing now much more, much, much more, she said, blushing till the tears came into her eyes. 'But that you couldn't see through a crack. The truthful eyes told Levin that she was satisfied with herself, and in spite of her blushing he was quickly reassured and began questioning her, which was all she wanted. When he had heard everything, even to the detail that for the first second she could not help flushing, but that afterwards she was just as direct and as much at her ease as with any chance acquaintance, Levin was quite happy again and said he was glad of it, and would not now behave as stupidly as he had done at the election, but would try the first time he met Vronsky to be as friendly as possible. 'It's so wretched to feel that there's a man almost an enemy whom it's painful to meet, said Levin. 'I'm very, very glad. 'Go, please, go then and call on the Bols, Kitty said to her husband, when he came in to see her at eleven o'clock before going out. 'I know you are dining at the club papa put down your name. But what are you going to do in the morning? 'I am only going to Katavasov, answered Levin. 'Why so early? 'He promised to introduce me to Metrov. I wanted to talk to him about my work. He's a distinguished scientific man from Petersburg, said Levin. 'Yes wasn't it his article you were praising so? Well, and after that? said Kitty. 'I shall go to the court, perhaps, about my sister's business. 'And the concert? she queried. 'I shan't go there all alone. 'No? do go there are going to be some new things.... That interested you so. I should certainly go. 'Well, anyway, I shall come home before dinner, he said, looking at his watch. 'Put on your frock coat, so that you can go straight to call on Countess Bola. 'But is it absolutely necessary? 'Oh, absolutely! He has been to see us. Come, what is it? You go in, sit down, talk for five minutes of the weather, get up and go away. 'Oh, you wouldn't believe it! I've got so out of the way of all this that it makes me feel positively ashamed. It's such a horrible thing to do! A complete outsider walks in, sits down, stays on with nothing to do, wastes their time and worries himself, and walks away! Kitty laughed. 'Why, I suppose you used to pay calls before you were married, didn't you? 'Yes, I did, but I always felt ashamed, and now I'm so out of the way of it that, by Jove! I'd sooner go two days running without my dinner than pay this call! One's so ashamed! I feel all the while that they're annoyed, that they're saying, 'What has he come for?' 'No, they won't. I'll answer for that, said Kitty, looking into his face with a laugh. She took his hand. 'Well, goodbye.... Do go, please. He was just going out after kissing his wife's hand, when she stopped him. 'Kostya, do you know I've only fifty roubles left? 'Oh, all right, I'll go to the bank and get some. How much? he said, with the expression of dissatisfaction she knew so well. 'No, wait a minute. She held his hand. 'Let's talk about it, it worries me. I seem to spend nothing unnecessary, but money seems to fly away simply. We don't manage well, somehow. 'Oh, it's all right, he said with a little cough, looking at her from under his brows. That cough she knew well. It was a sign of intense dissatisfaction, not with her, but with himself. He certainly was displeased not at so much money being spent, but at being reminded of what he, knowing something was unsatisfactory, wanted to forget. 'I have told Sokolov to sell the wheat, and to borrow an advance on the mill. We shall have money enough in any case. 'Yes, but I'm afraid that altogether.... 'Oh, it's all right, all right, he repeated. 'Well, goodbye, darling. 'No, I'm really sorry sometimes that I listened to mamma. How nice it would have been in the country! As it is, I'm worrying you all, and we're wasting our money. 'Not at all, not at all. Not once since I've been married have I said that things could have been better than they are.... 'Truly? she said, looking into his eyes. He had said it without thinking, simply to console her. But when he glanced at her and saw those sweet truthful eyes fastened questioningly on him, he repeated it with his whole heart. 'I was positively forgetting her, he thought. And he remembered what was before them, so soon to come. 'Will it be soon? How do you feel? he whispered, taking her two hands. 'I have so often thought so, that now I don't think about it or know anything about it. 'And you're not frightened? She smiled contemptuously. 'Not the least little bit, she said. 'Well, if anything happens, I shall be at Katavasov's. 'No, nothing will happen, and don't think about it. I'm going for a walk on the boulevard with papa. We're going to see Dolly. I shall expect you before dinner. Oh, yes! Do you know that Dolly's position is becoming utterly impossible? She's in debt all round she hasn't a penny. We were talking yesterday with mamma and Arseny (this was her sister's husband Lvov), 'and we determined to send you with him to talk to Stiva. It's really unbearable. One can't speak to papa about it.... But if you and he.... 'Why, what can we do? said Levin. 'You'll be at Arseny's, anyway talk to him, he will tell what we decided. 'Oh, I agree to everything Arseny thinks beforehand. I'll go and see him. By the way, if I do go to the concert, I'll go with Natalia. Well, goodbye. On the steps Levin was stopped by his old servant Kouzma, who had been with him before his marriage, and now looked after their household in town. 'Beauty (that was the left shafthorse brought up from the country) 'has been badly shod and is quite lame, he said. 'What does your honor wish to be done? During the first part of their stay in Moscow, Levin had used his own horses brought up from the country. He had tried to arrange this part of their expenses in the best and cheapest way possible but it appeared that their own horses came dearer than hired horses, and they still hired too. 'Send for the veterinary, there may be a bruise. 'And for Katerina Alexandrovna? asked Kouzma. Levin was not by now struck as he had been at first by the fact that to get from one end of Moscow to the other he had to have two powerful horses put into a heavy carriage, to take the carriage three miles through the snowy slush and to keep it standing there four hours, paying five roubles every time. Now it seemed quite natural. 'Hire a pair for our carriage from the jobmaster, said he. 'Yes, sir. And so, simply and easily, thanks to the facilities of town life, Levin settled a question which, in the country, would have called for so much personal trouble and exertion, and going out onto the steps, he called a sledge, sat down, and drove to Nikitsky. On the way he thought no more of money, but mused on the introduction that awaited him to the Petersburg savant, a writer on sociology, and what he would say to him about his book. Only during the first days of his stay in Moscow Levin had been struck by the expenditure, strange to one living in the country, unproductive but inevitable, that was expected of him on every side. But by now he had grown used to it. That had happened to him in this matter which is said to happen to drunkardsthe first glass sticks in the throat, the second flies down like a hawk, but after the third they're like tiny little birds. When Levin had changed his first hundredrouble note to pay for liveries for his footmen and hallporter he could not help reflecting that these liveries were of no use to anyonebut they were indubitably necessary, to judge by the amazement of the princess and Kitty when he suggested that they might do without liveries,that these liveries would cost the wages of two laborers for the summer, that is, would pay for about three hundred working days from Easter to Ash Wednesday, and each a day of hard work from early morning to late eveningand that hundredrouble note did stick in his throat. But the next note, changed to pay for providing a dinner for their relations, that cost twentyeight roubles, though it did excite in Levin the reflection that twentyeight roubles meant nine measures of oats, which men would with groans and sweat have reaped and bound and thrashed and winnowed and sifted and sown,this next one he parted with more easily. And now the notes he changed no longer aroused such reflections, and they flew off like little birds. Whether the labor devoted to obtaining the money corresponded to the pleasure given by what was bought with it, was a consideration he had long ago dismissed. His business calculation that there was a certain price below which he could not sell certain grain was forgotten too. The rye, for the price of which he had so long held out, had been sold for fifty kopecks a measure cheaper than it had been fetching a month ago. Even the consideration that with such an expenditure he could not go on living for a year without debt, that even had no force. Only one thing was essential to have money in the bank, without inquiring where it came from, so as to know that one had the wherewithal to buy meat for tomorrow. And this condition had hitherto been fulfilled he had always had the money in the bank. But now the money in the bank had gone, and he could not quite tell where to get the next installment. And this it was which, at the moment when Kitty had mentioned money, had disturbed him but he had no time to think about it. He drove off, thinking of Katavasov and the meeting with Metrov that was before him. Levin had on this visit to town seen a great deal of his old friend at the university, Professor Katavasov, whom he had not seen since his marriage. He liked in Katavasov the clearness and simplicity of his conception of life. Levin thought that the clearness of Katavasov's conception of life was due to the poverty of his nature Katavasov thought that the disconnectedness of Levin's ideas was due to his lack of intellectual discipline but Levin enjoyed Katavasov's clearness, and Katavasov enjoyed the abundance of Levin's untrained ideas, and they liked to meet and to discuss. Levin had read Katavasov some parts of his book, and he had liked them. On the previous day Katavasov had met Levin at a public lecture and told him that the celebrated Metrov, whose article Levin had so much liked, was in Moscow, that he had been much interested by what Katavasov had told him about Levin's work, and that he was coming to see him tomorrow at eleven, and would be very glad to make Levin's acquaintance. 'You're positively a reformed character, I'm glad to see, said Katavasov, meeting Levin in the little drawingroom. 'I heard the bell and thought Impossible that it can be he at the exact time!... Well, what do you say to the Montenegrins now? They're a race of warriors. 'Why, what's happened? asked Levin. Katavasov in a few words told him the last piece of news from the war, and going into his study, introduced Levin to a short, thickset man of pleasant appearance. This was Metrov. The conversation touched for a brief space on politics and on how recent events were looked at in the higher spheres in Petersburg. Metrov repeated a saying that had reached him through a most trustworthy source, reported as having been uttered on this subject by the Tsar and one of the ministers. Katavasov had heard also on excellent authority that the Tsar had said something quite different. Levin tried to imagine circumstances in which both sayings might have been uttered, and the conversation on that topic dropped. 'Yes, here he's written almost a book on the natural conditions of the laborer in relation to the land, said Katavasov 'I'm not a specialist, but I, as a natural science man, was pleased at his not taking mankind as something outside biological laws but, on the contrary, seeing his dependence on his surroundings, and in that dependence seeking the laws of his development. 'That's very interesting, said Metrov. 'What I began precisely was to write a book on agriculture but studying the chief instrument of agriculture, the laborer, said Levin, reddening, 'I could not help coming to quite unexpected results. And Levin began carefully, as it were, feeling his ground, to expound his views. He knew Metrov had written an article against the generally accepted theory of political economy, but to what extent he could reckon on his sympathy with his own new views he did not know and could not guess from the clever and serene face of the learned man. 'But in what do you see the special characteristics of the Russian laborer? said Metrov 'in his biological characteristics, so to speak, or in the condition in which he is placed? Levin saw that there was an idea underlying this question with which he did not agree. But he went on explaining his own idea that the Russian laborer has a quite special view of the land, different from that of other people and to support this proposition he made haste to add that in his opinion this attitude of the Russian peasant was due to the consciousness of his vocation to people vast unoccupied expanses in the East. 'One may easily be led into error in basing any conclusion on the general vocation of a people, said Metrov, interrupting Levin. 'The condition of the laborer will always depend on his relation to the land and to capital. And without letting Levin finish explaining his idea, Metrov began expounding to him the special point of his own theory. In what the point of his theory lay, Levin did not understand, because he did not take the trouble to understand. He saw that Metrov, like other people, in spite of his own article, in which he had attacked the current theory of political economy, looked at the position of the Russian peasant simply from the point of view of capital, wages, and rent. He would indeed have been obliged to admit that in the easternmuch the largerpart of Russia rent was as yet nil, that for ninetenths of the eighty millions of the Russian peasants wages took the form simply of food provided for themselves, and that capital does not so far exist except in the form of the most primitive tools. Yet it was only from that point of view that he considered every laborer, though in many points he differed from the economists and had his own theory of the wagefund, which he expounded to Levin. Levin listened reluctantly, and at first made objections. He would have liked to interrupt Metrov, to explain his own thought, which in his opinion would have rendered further exposition of Metrov's theories superfluous. But later on, feeling convinced that they looked at the matter so differently, that they could never understand one another, he did not even oppose his statements, but simply listened. Although what Metrov was saying was by now utterly devoid of interest for him, he yet experienced a certain satisfaction in listening to him. It flattered his vanity that such a learned man should explain his ideas to him so eagerly, with such intensity and confidence in Levin's understanding of the subject, sometimes with a mere hint referring him to a whole aspect of the subject. He put this down to his own credit, unaware that Metrov, who had already discussed his theory over and over again with all his intimate friends, talked of it with special eagerness to every new person, and in general was eager to talk to anyone of any subject that interested him, even if still obscure to himself. 'We are late though, said Katavasov, looking at his watch directly Metrov had finished his discourse. 'Yes, there's a meeting of the Society of Amateurs today in commemoration of the jubilee of Svintitch, said Katavasov in answer to Levin's inquiry. 'Pyotr Ivanovitch and I were going. I've promised to deliver an address on his labors in zoology. Come along with us, it's very interesting. 'Yes, and indeed it's time to start, said Metrov. 'Come with us, and from there, if you care to, come to my place. I should very much like to hear your work. 'Oh, no! It's no good yet, it's unfinished. But I shall be very glad to go to the meeting. 'I say, friends, have you heard? He has handed in the separate report, Katavasov called from the other room, where he was putting on his frock coat. And a conversation sprang up upon the university question, which was a very important event that winter in Moscow. Three old professors in the council had not accepted the opinion of the younger professors. The young ones had registered a separate resolution. This, in the judgment of some people, was monstrous, in the judgment of others it was the simplest and most just thing to do, and the professors were split up into two parties. One party, to which Katavasov belonged, saw in the opposite party a scoundrelly betrayal and treachery, while the opposite party saw in them childishness and lack of respect for the authorities. Levin, though he did not belong to the university, had several times already during his stay in Moscow heard and talked about this matter, and had his own opinion on the subject. He took part in the conversation that was continued in the street, as they all three walked to the buildings of the old university. The meeting had already begun. Round the clothcovered table, at which Katavasov and Metrov seated themselves, there were some halfdozen persons, and one of these was bending close over a manuscript, reading something aloud. Levin sat down in one of the empty chairs that were standing round the table, and in a whisper asked a student sitting near what was being read. The student, eyeing Levin with displeasure, said 'Biography. Though Levin was not interested in the biography, he could not help listening, and learned some new and interesting facts about the life of the distinguished man of science. When the reader had finished, the chairman thanked him and read some verses of the poet Ment sent him on the jubilee, and said a few words by way of thanks to the poet. Then Katavasov in his loud, ringing voice read his address on the scientific labors of the man whose jubilee was being kept. When Katavasov had finished, Levin looked at his watch, saw it was past one, and thought that there would not be time before the concert to read Metrov his book, and indeed, he did not now care to do so. During the reading he had thought over their conversation. He saw distinctly now that though Metrov's ideas might perhaps have value, his own ideas had a value too, and their ideas could only be made clear and lead to something if each worked separately in his chosen path, and that nothing would be gained by putting their ideas together. And having made up his mind to refuse Metrov's invitation, Levin went up to him at the end of the meeting. Metrov introduced Levin to the chairman, with whom he was talking of the political news. Metrov told the chairman what he had already told Levin, and Levin made the same remarks on his news that he had already made that morning, but for the sake of variety he expressed also a new opinion which had only just struck him. After that the conversation turned again on the university question. As Levin had already heard it all, he made haste to tell Metrov that he was sorry he could not take advantage of his invitation, took leave, and drove to Lvov's. Lvov, the husband of Natalia, Kitty's sister, had spent all his life in foreign capitals, where he had been educated, and had been in the diplomatic service. During the previous year he had left the diplomatic service, not owing to any 'unpleasantness (he never had any 'unpleasantness with anyone), and was transferred to the department of the court of the palace in Moscow, in order to give his two boys the best education possible. In spite of the striking contrast in their habits and views and the fact that Lvov was older than Levin, they had seen a great deal of one another that winter, and had taken a great liking to each other. Lvov was at home, and Levin went in to him unannounced. Lvov, in a house coat with a belt and in chamois leather shoes, was sitting in an armchair, and with a pincenez with blue glasses he was reading a book that stood on a reading desk, while in his beautiful hand he held a halfburned cigarette daintily away from him. His handsome, delicate, and still youthfullooking face, to which his curly, glistening silvery hair gave a still more aristocratic air, lighted up with a smile when he saw Levin. 'Capital! I was meaning to send to you. How's Kitty? Sit here, it's more comfortable. He got up and pushed up a rocking chair. 'Have you read the last circular in the Journal de St. Ptersbourg? I think it's excellent, he said, with a slight French accent. Levin told him what he had heard from Katavasov was being said in Petersburg, and after talking a little about politics, he told him of his interview with Metrov, and the learned society's meeting. To Lvov it was very interesting. 'That's what I envy you, that you are able to mix in these interesting scientific circles, he said. And as he talked, he passed as usual into French, which was easier to him. 'It's true I haven't the time for it. My official work and the children leave me no time and then I'm not ashamed to own that my education has been too defective. 'That I don't believe, said Levin with a smile, feeling, as he always did, touched at Lvov's low opinion of himself, which was not in the least put on from a desire to seem or to be modest, but was absolutely sincere. 'Oh, yes, indeed! I feel now how badly educated I am. To educate my children I positively have to look up a great deal, and in fact simply to study myself. For it's not enough to have teachers, there must be someone to look after them, just as on your land you want laborers and an overseer. See what I'm readinghe pointed to Buslaev's Grammar on the desk'it's expected of Misha, and it's so difficult.... Come, explain to me.... Here he says.... Levin tried to explain to him that it couldn't be understood, but that it had to be taught but Lvov would not agree with him. 'Oh, you're laughing at it! 'On the contrary, you can't imagine how, when I look at you, I'm always learning the task that lies before me, that is the education of one's children. 'Well, there's nothing for you to learn, said Lvov. 'All I know, said Levin, 'is that I have never seen better broughtup children than yours, and I wouldn't wish for children better than yours. Lvov visibly tried to restrain the expression of his delight, but he was positively radiant with smiles. 'If only they're better than I! That's all I desire. You don't know yet all the work, he said, 'with boys who've been left like mine to run wild abroad. 'You'll catch all that up. They're such clever children. The great thing is the education of character. That's what I learn when I look at your children. 'You talk of the education of character. You can't imagine how difficult that is! You have hardly succeeded in combating one tendency when others crop up, and the struggle begins again. If one had not a support in religionyou remember we talked about thatno father could bring children up relying on his own strength alone without that help. This subject, which always interested Levin, was cut short by the entrance of the beauty Natalia Alexandrovna, dressed to go out. 'I didn't know you were here, she said, unmistakably feeling no regret, but a positive pleasure, in interrupting this conversation on a topic she had heard so much of that she was by now weary of it. 'Well, how is Kitty? I am dining with you today. I tell you what, Arseny, she turned to her husband, 'you take the carriage. And the husband and wife began to discuss their arrangements for the day. As the husband had to drive to meet someone on official business, while the wife had to go to the concert and some public meeting of a committee on the Eastern Question, there was a great deal to consider and settle. Levin had to take part in their plans as one of themselves. It was settled that Levin should go with Natalia to the concert and the meeting, and that from there they should send the carriage to the office for Arseny, and he should call for her and take her to Kitty's or that, if he had not finished his work, he should send the carriage back and Levin would go with her. 'He's spoiling me, Lvov said to his wife 'he assures me that our children are splendid, when I know how much that's bad there is in them. 'Arseny goes to extremes, I always say, said his wife. 'If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it's true, as papa says,that when we were brought up there was one extremewe were kept in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms now it's just the other waythe parents are in the wash house, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children. 'Well, what if they like it better? Lvov said, with his beautiful smile, touching her hand. 'Anyone who didn't know you would think you were a stepmother, not a true mother. 'No, extremes are not good in anything, Natalia said serenely, putting his paperknife straight in its proper place on the table. 'Well, come here, you perfect children, Lvov said to the two handsome boys who came in, and after bowing to Levin, went up to their father, obviously wishing to ask him about something. Levin would have liked to talk to them, to hear what they would say to their father, but Natalia began talking to him, and then Lvov's colleague in the service, Mahotin, walked in, wearing his court uniform, to go with him to meet someone, and a conversation was kept up without a break upon Herzegovina, Princess Korzinskaya, the town council, and the sudden death of Madame Apraksina. Levin even forgot the commission intrusted to him. He recollected it as he was going into the hall. 'Oh, Kitty told me to talk to you about Oblonsky, he said, as Lvov was standing on the stairs, seeing his wife and Levin off. 'Yes, yes, maman wants us, les beauxfrres, to attack him, he said, blushing. 'But why should I? 'Well, then, I will attack him, said Madame Lvova, with a smile, standing in her white sheepskin cape, waiting till they had finished speaking. 'Come, let us go. At the concert in the afternoon two very interesting things were performed. One was a fantasia, King Lear the other was a quartette dedicated to the memory of Bach. Both were new and in the new style, and Levin was eager to form an opinion of them. After escorting his sisterinlaw to her stall, he stood against a column and tried to listen as attentively and conscientiously as possible. He tried not to let his attention be distracted, and not to spoil his impression by looking at the conductor in a white tie, waving his arms, which always disturbed his enjoyment of music so much, or the ladies in bonnets, with strings carefully tied over their ears, and all these people either thinking of nothing at all or thinking of all sorts of things except the music. He tried to avoid meeting musical connoisseurs or talkative acquaintances, and stood looking at the floor straight before him, listening. But the more he listened to the fantasia of King Lear the further he felt from forming any definite opinion of it. There was, as it were, a continual beginning, a preparation of the musical expression of some feeling, but it fell to pieces again directly, breaking into new musical motives, or simply nothing but the whims of the composer, exceedingly complex but disconnected sounds. And these fragmentary musical expressions, though sometimes beautiful, were disagreeable, because they were utterly unexpected and not led up to by anything. Gaiety and grief and despair and tenderness and triumph followed one another without any connection, like the emotions of a madman. And those emotions, like a madman's, sprang up quite unexpectedly. During the whole of the performance Levin felt like a deaf man watching people dancing, and was in a state of complete bewilderment when the fantasia was over, and felt a great weariness from the fruitless strain on his attention. Loud applause resounded on all sides. Everyone got up, moved about, and began talking. Anxious to throw some light on his own perplexity from the impressions of others, Levin began to walk about, looking for connoisseurs, and was glad to see a wellknown musical amateur in conversation with Pestsov, whom he knew. 'Marvelous! Pestsov was saying in his mellow bass. 'How are you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch? Particularly sculpturesque and plastic, so to say, and richly colored is that passage where you feel Cordelia's approach, where woman, das ewig Weibliche, enters into conflict with fate. Isn't it? 'You mean ... what has Cordelia to do with it? Levin asked timidly, forgetting that the fantasia was supposed to represent King Lear. 'Cordelia comes in ... see here! said Pestsov, tapping his finger on the satiny surface of the program he held in his hand and passing it to Levin. Only then Levin recollected the title of the fantasia, and made haste to read in the Russian translation the lines from Shakespeare that were printed on the back of the program. 'You can't follow it without that, said Pestsov, addressing Levin, as the person he had been speaking to had gone away, and he had no one to talk to. In the entr'acte Levin and Pestsov fell into an argument upon the merits and defects of music of the Wagner school. Levin maintained that the mistake of Wagner and all his followers lay in their trying to take music into the sphere of another art, just as poetry goes wrong when it tries to paint a face as the art of painting ought to do, and as an instance of this mistake he cited the sculptor who carved in marble certain poetic phantasms flitting round the figure of the poet on the pedestal. 'These phantoms were so far from being phantoms that they were positively clinging on the ladder, said Levin. The comparison pleased him, but he could not remember whether he had not used the same phrase before, and to Pestsov, too, and as he said it he felt confused. Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attain its highest manifestations only by conjunction with all kinds of art. The second piece that was performed Levin could not hear. Pestsov, who was standing beside him, was talking to him almost all the time, condemning the music for its excessive affected assumption of simplicity, and comparing it with the simplicity of the PreRaphaelites in painting. As he went out Levin met many more acquaintances, with whom he talked of politics, of music, and of common acquaintances. Among others he met Count Bol, whom he had utterly forgotten to call upon. 'Well, go at once then, Madame Lvova said, when he told her 'perhaps they'll not be at home, and then you can come to the meeting to fetch me. You'll find me still there. 'Perhaps they're not at home? said Levin, as he went into the hall of Countess Bola's house. 'At home please walk in, said the porter, resolutely removing his overcoat. 'How annoying! thought Levin with a sigh, taking off one glove and stroking his hat. 'What did I come for? What have I to say to them? As he passed through the first drawingroom Levin met in the doorway Countess Bola, giving some order to a servant with a careworn and severe face. On seeing Levin she smiled, and asked him to come into the little drawingroom, where he heard voices. In this room there were sitting in armchairs the two daughters of the countess, and a Moscow colonel, whom Levin knew. Levin went up, greeted them, and sat down beside the sofa with his hat on his knees. 'How is your wife? Have you been at the concert? We couldn't go. Mamma had to be at the funeral service. 'Yes, I heard.... What a sudden death! said Levin. The countess came in, sat down on the sofa, and she too asked after his wife and inquired about the concert. Levin answered, and repeated an inquiry about Madame Apraksina's sudden death. 'But she was always in weak health. 'Were you at the opera yesterday? 'Yes, I was. 'Lucca was very good. 'Yes, very good, he said, and as it was utterly of no consequence to him what they thought of him, he began repeating what they had heard a hundred times about the characteristics of the singer's talent. Countess Bola pretended to be listening. Then, when he had said enough and paused, the colonel, who had been silent till then, began to talk. The colonel too talked of the opera, and about culture. At last, after speaking of the proposed folle journe at Turin's, the colonel laughed, got up noisily, and went away. Levin too rose, but he saw by the face of the countess that it was not yet time for him to go. He must stay two minutes longer. He sat down. But as he was thinking all the while how stupid it was, he could not find a subject for conversation, and sat silent. 'You are not going to the public meeting? They say it will be very interesting, began the countess. 'No, I promised my bellesur to fetch her from it, said Levin. A silence followed. The mother once more exchanged glances with a daughter. 'Well, now I think the time has come, thought Levin, and he got up. The ladies shook hands with him, and begged him to say mille choses to his wife for them. The porter asked him, as he gave him his coat, 'Where is your honor staying? and immediately wrote down his address in a big handsomely bound book. 'Of course I don't care, but still I feel ashamed and awfully stupid, thought Levin, consoling himself with the reflection that everyone does it. He drove to the public meeting, where he was to find his sisterinlaw, so as to drive home with her. At the public meeting of the committee there were a great many people, and almost all the highest society. Levin was in time for the report which, as everyone said, was very interesting. When the reading of the report was over, people moved about, and Levin met Sviazhsky, who invited him very pressingly to come that evening to a meeting of the Society of Agriculture, where a celebrated lecture was to be delivered, and Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had only just come from the races, and many other acquaintances and Levin heard and uttered various criticisms on the meeting, on the new fantasia, and on a public trial. But, probably from the mental fatigue he was beginning to feel, he made a blunder in speaking of the trial, and this blunder he recalled several times with vexation. Speaking of the sentence upon a foreigner who had been condemned in Russia, and of how unfair it would be to punish him by exile abroad, Levin repeated what he had heard the day before in conversation from an acquaintance. 'I think sending him abroad is much the same as punishing a carp by putting it into the water, said Levin. Then he recollected that this idea, which he had heard from an acquaintance and uttered as his own, came from a fable of Krilov's, and that the acquaintance had picked it up from a newspaper article. After driving home with his sisterinlaw, and finding Kitty in good spirits and quite well, Levin drove to the club. Levin reached the club just at the right time. Members and visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had not been at the club for a very long whilenot since he lived in Moscow, when he was leaving the university and going into society. He remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but he had completely forgotten the impression it had made on him in old days. But as soon as, driving into the wide semicircular court and getting out of the sledge, he mounted the steps, and the hallporter, adorned with a crossway scarf, noiselessly opened the door to him with a bow as soon as he saw in the porter's room the cloaks and galoshes of members who thought it less trouble to take them off downstairs as soon as he heard the mysterious ringing bell that preceded him as he ascended the easy, carpeted staircase, and saw the statue on the landing, and the third porter at the top doors, a familiar figure grown older, in the club livery, opening the door without haste or delay, and scanning the visitors as they passed inLevin felt the old impression of the club come back in a rush, an impression of repose, comfort, and propriety. 'Your hat, please, the porter said to Levin, who forgot the club rule to leave his hat in the porter's room. 'Long time since you've been. The prince put your name down yesterday. Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch is not here yet. The porter did not only know Levin, but also all his ties and relationships, and so immediately mentioned his intimate friends. Passing through the outer hall, divided up by screens, and the room partitioned on the right, where a man sits at the fruit buffet, Levin overtook an old man walking slowly in, and entered the diningroom full of noise and people. He walked along the tables, almost all full, and looked at the visitors. He saw people of all sorts, old and young some he knew a little, some intimate friends. There was not a single cross or worriedlooking face. All seemed to have left their cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material blessings of life. Sviazhsky was here and Shtcherbatsky, Nevyedovsky and the old prince, and Vronsky and Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Ah! why are you late? the prince said smiling, and giving him his hand over his own shoulder. 'How's Kitty? he added, smoothing out the napkin he had tucked in at his waistcoat buttons. 'All right they are dining at home, all the three of them. 'Ah, 'AlineNadine,' to be sure! There's no room with us. Go to that table, and make haste and take a seat, said the prince, and turning away he carefully took a plate of eel soup. 'Levin, this way! a goodnatured voice shouted a little farther on. It was Turovtsin. He was sitting with a young officer, and beside them were two chairs turned upside down. Levin gladly went up to them. He had always liked the goodhearted rake, Turovtsinhe was associated in his mind with memories of his courtshipand at that moment, after the strain of intellectual conversation, the sight of Turovtsin's goodnatured face was particularly welcome. 'For you and Oblonsky. He'll be here directly. The young man, holding himself very erect, with eyes forever twinkling with enjoyment, was an officer from Petersburg, Gagin. Turovtsin introduced them. 'Oblonsky's always late. 'Ah, here he is! 'Have you only just come? said Oblonsky, coming quickly towards them. 'Good day. Had some vodka? Well, come along then. Levin got up and went with him to the big table spread with spirits and appetizers of the most various kinds. One would have thought that out of two dozen delicacies one might find something to one's taste, but Stepan Arkadyevitch asked for something special, and one of the liveried waiters standing by immediately brought what was required. They drank a wineglassful and returned to their table. At once, while they were still at the soup, Gagin was served with champagne, and told the waiter to fill four glasses. Levin did not refuse the wine, and asked for a second bottle. He was very hungry, and ate and drank with great enjoyment, and with still greater enjoyment took part in the lively and simple conversation of his companions. Gagin, dropping his voice, told the last good story from Petersburg, and the story, though improper and stupid, was so ludicrous that Levin broke into roars of laughter so loud that those near looked round. 'That's in the same style as, 'that's a thing I can't endure!' You know the story? said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Ah, that's exquisite! Another bottle, he said to the waiter, and he began to relate his good story. 'Pyotr Illyitch Vinovsky invites you to drink with him, a little old waiter interrupted Stepan Arkadyevitch, bringing two delicate glasses of sparkling champagne, and addressing Stepan Arkadyevitch and Levin. Stepan Arkadyevitch took the glass, and looking towards a bald man with red mustaches at the other end of the table, he nodded to him, smiling. 'Who's that? asked Levin. 'You met him once at my place, don't you remember? A goodnatured fellow. Levin did the same as Stepan Arkadyevitch and took the glass. Stepan Arkadyevitch's anecdote too was very amusing. Levin told his story, and that too was successful. Then they talked of horses, of the races, of what they had been doing that day, and of how smartly Vronsky's Atlas had won the first prize. Levin did not notice how the time passed at dinner. 'Ah! and here they are! Stepan Arkadyevitch said towards the end of dinner, leaning over the back of his chair and holding out his hand to Vronsky, who came up with a tall officer of the Guards. Vronsky's face too beamed with the look of goodhumored enjoyment that was general in the club. He propped his elbow playfully on Stepan Arkadyevitch's shoulder, whispering something to him, and he held out his hand to Levin with the same goodhumored smile. 'Very glad to meet you, he said. 'I looked out for you at the election, but I was told you had gone away. 'Yes, I left the same day. We've just been talking of your horse. I congratulate you, said Levin. 'It was very rapidly run. 'Yes you've race horses too, haven't you? 'No, my father had but I remember and know something about it. 'Where have you dined? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'We were at the second table, behind the columns. 'We've been celebrating his success, said the tall colonel. 'It's his second Imperial prize. I wish I might have the luck at cards he has with horses. Well, why waste the precious time? I'm going to the 'infernal regions,' added the colonel, and he walked away. 'That's Yashvin, Vronsky said in answer to Turovtsin, and he sat down in the vacated seat beside them. He drank the glass offered him, and ordered a bottle of wine. Under the influence of the club atmosphere or the wine he had drunk, Levin chatted away to Vronsky of the best breeds of cattle, and was very glad not to feel the slightest hostility to this man. He even told him, among other things, that he had heard from his wife that she had met him at Princess Marya Borissovna's. 'Ah, Princess Marya Borissovna, she's exquisite! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and he told an anecdote about her which set them all laughing. Vronsky particularly laughed with such simplehearted amusement that Levin felt quite reconciled to him. 'Well, have we finished? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up with a smile. 'Let us go. Getting up from the table, Levin walked with Gagin through the lofty room to the billiard room, feeling his arms swing as he walked with a peculiar lightness and ease. As he crossed the big room, he came upon his fatherinlaw. 'Well, how do you like our Temple of Indolence? said the prince, taking his arm. 'Come along, come along! 'Yes, I wanted to walk about and look at everything. It's interesting. 'Yes, it's interesting for you. But its interest for me is quite different. You look at those little old men now, he said, pointing to a club member with bent back and projecting lip, shuffling towards them in his soft boots, 'and imagine that they were shlupiks like that from their birth up. 'How shlupiks? 'I see you don't know that name. That's our club designation. You know the game of rolling eggs when one's rolled a long while it becomes a shlupik. So it is with us one goes on coming and coming to the club, and ends by becoming a shlupik. Ah, you laugh! but we look out, for fear of dropping into it ourselves. You know Prince Tchetchensky? inquired the prince and Levin saw by his face that he was just going to relate something funny. 'No, I don't know him. 'You don't say so! Well, Prince Tchetchensky is a wellknown figure. No matter, though. He's always playing billiards here. Only three years ago he was not a shlupik and kept up his spirits and even used to call other people shlupiks. But one day he turns up, and our porter ... you know Vassily? Why, that fat one he's famous for his bon mots. And so Prince Tchetchensky asks him, 'Come, Vassily, who's here? Any shlupiks here yet?' And he says, 'You're the third.' Yes, my dear boy, that he did! Talking and greeting the friends they met, Levin and the prince walked through all the rooms the great room where tables had already been set, and the usual partners were playing for small stakes the divan room, where they were playing chess, and Sergey Ivanovitch was sitting talking to somebody the billiard room, where, about a sofa in a recess, there was a lively party drinking champagneGagin was one of them. They peeped into the 'infernal regions, where a good many men were crowding round one table, at which Yashvin was sitting. Trying not to make a noise, they walked into the dark reading room, where under the shaded lamps there sat a young man with a wrathful countenance, turning over one journal after another, and a bald general buried in a book. They went, too, into what the prince called the intellectual room, where three gentlemen were engaged in a heated discussion of the latest political news. 'Prince, please come, we're ready, said one of his card party, who had come to look for him, and the prince went off. Levin sat down and listened, but recalling all the conversation of the morning he felt all of a sudden fearfully bored. He got up hurriedly, and went to look for Oblonsky and Turovtsin, with whom it had been so pleasant. Turovtsin was one of the circle drinking in the billiard room, and Stepan Arkadyevitch was talking with Vronsky near the door at the farther corner of the room. 'It's not that she's dull but this undefined, this unsettled position, Levin caught, and he was hurrying away, but Stepan Arkadyevitch called to him. 'Levin, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and Levin noticed that his eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist, which always happened when he had been drinking, or when he was touched. Just now it was due to both causes. 'Levin, don't go, he said, and he warmly squeezed his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all wishing to let him go. 'This is a true friend of minealmost my greatest friend, he said to Vronsky. 'You have become even closer and dearer to me. And I want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great friends, because you're both splendid fellows. 'Well, there's nothing for us now but to kiss and be friends, Vronsky said, with goodnatured playfulness, holding out his hand. Levin quickly took the offered hand, and pressed it warmly. 'I'm very, very glad, said Levin. 'Waiter, a bottle of champagne, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'And I'm very glad, said Vronsky. But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's desire, and their own desire, they had nothing to talk about, and both felt it. 'Do you know, he has never met Anna? Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Vronsky. 'And I want above everything to take him to see her. Let us go, Levin! 'Really? said Vronsky. 'She will be very glad to see you. I should be going home at once, he added, 'but I'm worried about Yashvin, and I want to stay on till he finishes. 'Why, is he losing? 'He keeps losing, and I'm the only friend that can restrain him. 'Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play? Capital! said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Get the table ready, he said to the marker. 'It has been ready a long while, answered the marker, who had already set the balls in a triangle, and was knocking the red one about for his own diversion. 'Well, let us begin. After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gagin's table, and at Stepan Arkadyevitch's suggestion Levin took a hand in the game. Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends, who were incessantly coming up to him. Every now and then he went to the 'infernal to keep an eye on Yashvin. Levin was enjoying a delightful sense of repose after the mental fatigue of the morning. He was glad that all hostility was at an end with Vronsky, and the sense of peace, decorum, and comfort never left him. When the game was over, Stepan Arkadyevitch took Levin's arm. 'Well, let us go to Anna's, then. At once? Eh? She is at home. I promised her long ago to bring you. Where were you meaning to spend the evening? 'Oh, nowhere specially. I promised Sviazhsky to go to the Society of Agriculture. By all means, let us go, said Levin. 'Very good come along. Find out if my carriage is here, Stepan Arkadyevitch said to the waiter. Levin went up to the table, paid the forty roubles he had lost paid his bill, the amount of which was in some mysterious way ascertained by the little old waiter who stood at the counter, and swinging his arms he walked through all the rooms to the way out. 'Oblonsky's carriage! the porter shouted in an angry bass. The carriage drove up and both got in. It was only for the first few moments, while the carriage was driving out of the clubhouse gates, that Levin was still under the influence of the club atmosphere of repose, comfort, and unimpeachable good form. But as soon as the carriage drove out into the street, and he felt it jolting over the uneven road, heard the angry shout of a sledge driver coming towards them, saw in the uncertain light the red blind of a tavern and the shops, this impression was dissipated, and he began to think over his actions, and to wonder whether he was doing right in going to see Anna. What would Kitty say? But Stepan Arkadyevitch gave him no time for reflection, and, as though divining his doubts, he scattered them. 'How glad I am, he said, 'that you should know her! You know Dolly has long wished for it. And Lvov's been to see her, and often goes. Though she is my sister, Stepan Arkadyevitch pursued, 'I don't hesitate to say that she's a remarkable woman. But you will see. Her position is very painful, especially now. 'Why especially now? 'We are carrying on negotiations with her husband about a divorce. And he's agreed but there are difficulties in regard to the son, and the business, which ought to have been arranged long ago, has been dragging on for three months past. As soon as the divorce is over, she will marry Vronsky. How stupid these old ceremonies are, that no one believes in, and which only prevent people being comfortable! Stepan Arkadyevitch put in. 'Well, then their position will be as regular as mine, as yours. 'What is the difficulty? said Levin. 'Oh, it's a long and tedious story! The whole business is in such an anomalous position with us. But the point is she has been for three months in Moscow, where everyone knows her, waiting for the divorce she goes out nowhere, sees no woman except Dolly, because, do you understand, she doesn't care to have people come as a favor. That fool Princess Varvara, even she has left her, considering this a breach of propriety. Well, you see, in such a position any other woman would not have found resources in herself. But you'll see how she has arranged her lifehow calm, how dignified she is. To the left, in the crescent opposite the church! shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch, leaning out of the window. 'Phew! how hot it is! he said, in spite of twelve degrees of frost, flinging his open overcoat still wider open. 'But she has a daughter no doubt she's busy looking after her? said Levin. 'I believe you picture every woman simply as a female, une couveuse, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'If she's occupied, it must be with her children. No, she brings her up capitally, I believe, but one doesn't hear about her. She's busy, in the first place, with what she writes. I see you're smiling ironically, but you're wrong. She's writing a children's book, and doesn't talk about it to anyone, but she read it to me and I gave the manuscript to Vorkuev ... you know the publisher ... and he's an author himself too, I fancy. He understands those things, and he says it's a remarkable piece of work. But are you fancying she's an authoress?not a bit of it. She's a woman with a heart, before everything, but you'll see. Now she has a little English girl with her, and a whole family she's looking after. 'Oh, something in a philanthropic way? 'Why, you will look at everything in the worst light. It's not from philanthropy, it's from the heart. Theythat is, Vronskyhad a trainer, an Englishman, firstrate in his own line, but a drunkard. He's completely given up to drinkdelirium tremensand the family were cast on the world. She saw them, helped them, got more and more interested in them, and now the whole family is on her hands. But not by way of patronage, you know, helping with money she's herself preparing the boys in Russian for the high school, and she's taken the little girl to live with her. But you'll see her for yourself. The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Stepan Arkadyevitch rang loudly at the entrance where sledges were standing. And without asking the servant who opened the door whether the lady were at home, Stepan Arkadyevitch walked into the hall. Levin followed him, more and more doubtful whether he was doing right or wrong. Looking at himself in the glass, Levin noticed that he was red in the face, but he felt certain he was not drunk, and he followed Stepan Arkadyevitch up the carpeted stairs. At the top Stepan Arkadyevitch inquired of the footman, who bowed to him as to an intimate friend, who was with Anna Arkadyevna, and received the answer that it was M. Vorkuev. 'Where are they? 'In the study. Passing through the diningroom, a room not very large, with dark, paneled walls, Stepan Arkadyevitch and Levin walked over the soft carpet to the halfdark study, lighted up by a single lamp with a big dark shade. Another lamp with a reflector was hanging on the wall, lighting up a big fulllength portrait of a woman, which Levin could not help looking at. It was the portrait of Anna, painted in Italy by Mihailov. While Stepan Arkadyevitch went behind the treillage, and the man's voice which had been speaking paused, Levin gazed at the portrait, which stood out from the frame in the brilliant light thrown on it, and he could not tear himself away from it. He positively forgot where he was, and not even hearing what was said, he could not take his eyes off the marvelous portrait. It was not a picture, but a living, charming woman, with black curling hair, with bare arms and shoulders, with a pensive smile on the lips, covered with soft down triumphantly and softly she looked at him with eyes that baffled him. She was not living only because she was more beautiful than a living woman can be. 'I am delighted! He heard suddenly near him a voice, unmistakably addressing him, the voice of the very woman he had been admiring in the portrait. Anna had come from behind the treillage to meet him, and Levin saw in the dim light of the study the very woman of the portrait, in a dark blue shot gown, not in the same position nor with the same expression, but with the same perfection of beauty which the artist had caught in the portrait. She was less dazzling in reality, but, on the other hand, there was something fresh and seductive in the living woman which was not in the portrait. She had risen to meet him, not concealing her pleasure at seeing him and in the quiet ease with which she held out her little vigorous hand, introduced him to Vorkuev and indicated a redhaired, pretty little girl who was sitting at work, calling her her pupil, Levin recognized and liked the manners of a woman of the great world, always selfpossessed and natural. 'I am delighted, delighted, she repeated, and on her lips these simple words took for Levin's ears a special significance. 'I have known you and liked you for a long while, both from your friendship with Stiva and for your wife's sake.... I knew her for a very short time, but she left on me the impression of an exquisite flower, simply a flower. And to think she will soon be a mother! She spoke easily and without haste, looking now and then from Levin to her brother, and Levin felt that the impression he was making was good, and he felt immediately at home, simple and happy with her, as though he had known her from childhood. 'Ivan Petrovitch and I settled in Alexey's study, she said in answer to Stepan Arkadyevitch's question whether he might smoke, 'just so as to be able to smokeand glancing at Levin, instead of asking whether he would smoke, she pulled closer a tortoiseshell cigarcase and took a cigarette. 'How are you feeling today? her brother asked her. 'Oh, nothing. Nerves, as usual. 'Yes, isn't it extraordinarily fine? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, noticing that Levin was scrutinizing the picture. 'I have never seen a better portrait. 'And extraordinarily like, isn't it? said Vorkuev. Levin looked from the portrait to the original. A peculiar brilliance lighted up Anna's face when she felt his eyes on her. Levin flushed, and to cover his confusion would have asked whether she had seen Darya Alexandrovna lately but at that moment Anna spoke. 'We were just talking, Ivan Petrovitch and I, of Vashtchenkov's last pictures. Have you seen them? 'Yes, I have seen them, answered Levin. 'But, I beg your pardon, I interrupted you ... you were saying?... Levin asked if she had seen Dolly lately. 'She was here yesterday. She was very indignant with the high school people on Grisha's account. The Latin teacher, it seems, had been unfair to him. 'Yes, I have seen his pictures. I didn't care for them very much, Levin went back to the subject she had started. Levin talked now not at all with that purely businesslike attitude to the subject with which he had been talking all the morning. Every word in his conversation with her had a special significance. And talking to her was pleasant still pleasanter it was to listen to her. Anna talked not merely naturally and cleverly, but cleverly and carelessly, attaching no value to her own ideas and giving great weight to the ideas of the person she was talking to. The conversation turned on the new movement in art, on the new illustrations of the Bible by a French artist. Vorkuev attacked the artist for a realism carried to the point of coarseness. Levin said that the French had carried conventionality further than anyone, and that consequently they see a great merit in the return to realism. In the fact of not lying they see poetry. Never had anything clever said by Levin given him so much pleasure as this remark. Anna's face lighted up at once, as at once she appreciated the thought. She laughed. 'I laugh, she said, 'as one laughs when one sees a very true portrait. What you said so perfectly hits off French art now, painting and literature too, indeedZola, Daudet. But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and thenall the combinaisons madethey are tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures. 'That's perfectly true, said Vorknev. 'So you've been at the club? she said to her brother. 'Yes, yes, this is a woman! Levin thought, forgetting himself and staring persistently at her lovely, mobile face, which at that moment was all at once completely transformed. Levin did not hear what she was talking of as she leaned over to her brother, but he was struck by the change of her expression. Her faceso handsome a moment before in its reposesuddenly wore a look of strange curiosity, anger, and pride. But this lasted only an instant. She dropped her eyelids, as though recollecting something. 'Oh, well, but that's of no interest to anyone, she said, and she turned to the English girl. 'Please order the tea in the drawingroom, she said in English. The girl got up and went out. 'Well, how did she get through her examination? asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Splendidly! She's a very gifted child and a sweet character. 'It will end in your loving her more than your own. 'There a man speaks. In love there's no more nor less. I love my daughter with one love, and her with another. 'I was just telling Anna Arkadyevna, said Vorkuev, 'that if she were to put a hundredth part of the energy she devotes to this English girl to the public question of the education of Russian children, she would be doing a great and useful work. 'Yes, but I can't help it I couldn't do it. Count Alexey Kirillovitch urged me very much (as she uttered the words Count Alexey Kirillovitch she glanced with appealing timidity at Levin, and he unconsciously responded with a respectful and reassuring look) 'he urged me to take up the school in the village. I visited it several times. The children were very nice, but I could not feel drawn to the work. You speak of energy. Energy rests upon love and come as it will, there's no forcing it. I took to this childI could not myself say why. And she glanced again at Levin. And her smile and her glanceall told him that it was to him only she was addressing her words, valuing his good opinion, and at the same time sure beforehand that they understood each other. 'I quite understand that, Levin answered. 'It's impossible to give one's heart to a school or such institutions in general, and I believe that's just why philanthropic institutions always give such poor results. She was silent for a while, then she smiled. 'Yes, yes, she agreed 'I never could. Je n'ai pas le cur assez large to love a whole asylum of horrid little girls. Cela ne m'a jamais russi. There are so many women who have made themselves une position sociale in that way. And now more than ever, she said with a mournful, confiding expression, ostensibly addressing her brother, but unmistakably intending her words only for Levin, 'now when I have such need of some occupation, I cannot. And suddenly frowning (Levin saw that she was frowning at herself for talking about herself) she changed the subject. 'I know about you, she said to Levin 'that you're not a publicspirited citizen, and I have defended you to the best of my ability. 'How have you defended me? 'Oh, according to the attacks made on you. But won't you have some tea? She rose and took up a book bound in morocco. 'Give it to me, Anna Arkadyevna, said Vorkuev, indicating the book. 'It's well worth taking up. 'Oh, no, it's all so sketchy. 'I told him about it, Stepan Arkadyevitch said to his sister, nodding at Levin. 'You shouldn't have. My writing is something after the fashion of those little baskets and carving which Liza Mertsalova used to sell me from the prisons. She had the direction of the prison department in that society, she turned to Levin 'and they were miracles of patience, the work of those poor wretches. And Levin saw a new trait in this woman, who attracted him so extraordinarily. Besides wit, grace, and beauty, she had truth. She had no wish to hide from him all the bitterness of her position. As she said that she sighed, and her face suddenly taking a hard expression, looked as it were turned to stone. With that expression on her face she was more beautiful than ever but the expression was new it was utterly unlike that expression, radiant with happiness and creating happiness, which had been caught by the painter in her portrait. Levin looked more than once at the portrait and at her figure, as taking her brother's arm she walked with him to the high doors and he felt for her a tenderness and pity at which he wondered himself. She asked Levin and Vorkuev to go into the drawingroom, while she stayed behind to say a few words to her brother. 'About her divorce, about Vronsky, and what he's doing at the club, about me? wondered Levin. And he was so keenly interested by the question of what she was saying to Stepan Arkadyevitch, that he scarcely heard what Vorkuev was telling him of the qualities of the story for children Anna Arkadyevna had written. At tea the same pleasant sort of talk, full of interesting matter, continued. There was not a single instant when a subject for conversation was to seek on the contrary, it was felt that one had hardly time to say what one had to say, and eagerly held back to hear what the others were saying. And all that was said, not only by her, but by Vorkuev and Stepan Arkadyevitchall, so it seemed to Levin, gained peculiar significance from her appreciation and her criticism. While he followed this interesting conversation, Levin was all the time admiring herher beauty, her intelligence, her culture, and at the same time her directness and genuine depth of feeling. He listened and talked, and all the while he was thinking of her inner life, trying to divine her feelings. And though he had judged her so severely hitherto, now by some strange chain of reasoning he was justifying her and was also sorry for her, and afraid that Vronsky did not fully understand her. At eleven o'clock, when Stepan Arkadyevitch got up to go (Vorkuev had left earlier), it seemed to Levin that he had only just come. Regretfully Levin too rose. 'Goodbye, she said, holding his hand and glancing into his face with a winning look. 'I am very glad que la glace est rompue. She dropped his hand, and half closed her eyes. 'Tell your wife that I love her as before, and that if she cannot pardon me my position, then my wish for her is that she may never pardon it. To pardon it, one must go through what I have gone through, and may God spare her that. 'Certainly, yes, I will tell her.... Levin said, blushing. 'What a marvelous, sweet and unhappy woman! he was thinking, as he stepped out into the frosty air with Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well, didn't I tell you? said Stepan Arkadyevitch, seeing that Levin had been completely won over. 'Yes, said Levin dreamily, 'an extraordinary woman! It's not her cleverness, but she has such wonderful depth of feeling. I'm awfully sorry for her! 'Now, please God, everything will soon be settled. Well, well, don't be hard on people in future, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, opening the carriage door. 'Goodbye we don't go the same way. Still thinking of Anna, of everything, even the simplest phrase in their conversation with her, and recalling the minutest changes in her expression, entering more and more into her position, and feeling sympathy for her, Levin reached home. At home Kouzma told Levin that Katerina Alexandrovna was quite well, and that her sisters had not long been gone, and he handed him two letters. Levin read them at once in the hall, that he might not overlook them later. One was from Sokolov, his bailiff. Sokolov wrote that the corn could not be sold, that it was fetching only five and a half roubles, and that more than that could not be got for it. The other letter was from his sister. She scolded him for her business being still unsettled. 'Well, we must sell it at five and a half if we can't get more, Levin decided the first question, which had always before seemed such a weighty one, with extraordinary facility on the spot. 'It's extraordinary how all one's time is taken up here, he thought, considering the second letter. He felt himself to blame for not having got done what his sister had asked him to do for her. 'Today, again, I've not been to the court, but today I've certainly not had time. And resolving that he would not fail to do it next day, he went up to his wife. As he went in, Levin rapidly ran through mentally the day he had spent. All the events of the day were conversations, conversations he had heard and taken part in. All the conversations were upon subjects which, if he had been alone at home, he would never have taken up, but here they were very interesting. And all these conversations were right enough, only in two places there was something not quite right. One was what he had said about the carp, the other was something not 'quite the thing in the tender sympathy he was feeling for Anna. Levin found his wife lowspirited and dull. The dinner of the three sisters had gone off very well, but then they had waited and waited for him, all of them had felt dull, the sisters had departed, and she had been left alone. 'Well, and what have you been doing? she asked him, looking straight into his eyes, which shone with rather a suspicious brightness. But that she might not prevent his telling her everything, she concealed her close scrutiny of him, and with an approving smile listened to his account of how he had spent the evening. 'Well, I'm very glad I met Vronsky. I felt quite at ease and natural with him. You understand, I shall try not to see him, but I'm glad that this awkwardness is all over, he said, and remembering that by way of trying not to see him, he had immediately gone to call on Anna, he blushed. 'We talk about the peasants drinking I don't know which drinks most, the peasantry or our own class the peasants do on holidays, but.... But Kitty took not the slightest interest in discussing the drinking habits of the peasants. She saw that he blushed, and she wanted to know why. 'Well, and then where did you go? 'Stiva urged me awfully to go and see Anna Arkadyevna. And as he said this, Levin blushed even more, and his doubts as to whether he had done right in going to see Anna were settled once for all. He knew now that he ought not to have done so. Kitty's eyes opened in a curious way and gleamed at Anna's name, but controlling herself with an effort, she concealed her emotion and deceived him. 'Oh! was all she said. 'I'm sure you won't be angry at my going. Stiva begged me to, and Dolly wished it, Levin went on. 'Oh, no! she said, but he saw in her eyes a constraint that boded him no good. 'She is a very sweet, very, very unhappy, good woman, he said, telling her about Anna, her occupations, and what she had told him to say to her. 'Yes, of course, she is very much to be pitied, said Kitty, when he had finished. 'Whom was your letter from? He told her, and believing in her calm tone, he went to change his coat. Coming back, he found Kitty in the same easy chair. When he went up to her, she glanced at him and broke into sobs. 'What? what is it? he asked, knowing beforehand what. 'You're in love with that hateful woman she has bewitched you! I saw it in your eyes. Yes, yes! What can it all lead to? You were drinking at the club, drinking and gambling, and then you went ... to her of all people! No, we must go away.... I shall go away tomorrow. It was a long while before Levin could soothe his wife. At last he succeeded in calming her, only by confessing that a feeling of pity, in conjunction with the wine he had drunk, had been too much for him, that he had succumbed to Anna's artful influence, and that he would avoid her. One thing he did with more sincerity confess to was that living so long in Moscow, a life of nothing but conversation, eating and drinking, he was degenerating. They talked till three o'clock in the morning. Only at three o'clock were they sufficiently reconciled to be able to go to sleep. After taking leave of her guests, Anna did not sit down, but began walking up and down the room. She had unconsciously the whole evening done her utmost to arouse in Levin a feeling of loveas of late she had fallen into doing with all young menand she knew she had attained her aim, as far as was possible in one evening, with a married and conscientious man. She liked him indeed extremely, and, in spite of the striking difference, from the masculine point of view, between Vronsky and Levin, as a woman she saw something they had in common, which had made Kitty able to love both. Yet as soon as he was out of the room, she ceased to think of him. One thought, and one only, pursued her in different forms, and refused to be shaken off. 'If I have so much effect on others, on this man, who loves his home and his wife, why is it he is so cold to me?... not cold exactly, he loves me, I know that! But something new is drawing us apart now. Why wasn't he here all the evening? He told Stiva to say he could not leave Yashvin, and must watch over his play. Is Yashvin a child? But supposing it's true. He never tells a lie. But there's something else in it if it's true. He is glad of an opportunity of showing me that he has other duties I know that, I submit to that. But why prove that to me? He wants to show me that his love for me is not to interfere with his freedom. But I need no proofs, I need love. He ought to understand all the bitterness of this life for me here in Moscow. Is this life? I am not living, but waiting for an event, which is continually put off and put off. No answer again! And Stiva says he cannot go to Alexey Alexandrovitch. And I can't write again. I can do nothing, can begin nothing, can alter nothing I hold myself in, I wait, inventing amusements for myselfthe English family, writing, readingbut it's all nothing but a sham, it's all the same as morphine. He ought to feel for me, she said, feeling tears of selfpity coming into her eyes. She heard Vronsky's abrupt ring and hurriedly dried her tearsnot only dried her tears, but sat down by a lamp and opened a book, affecting composure. She wanted to show him that she was displeased that he had not come home as he had promiseddispleased only, and not on any account to let him see her distress, and least of all, her selfpity. She might pity herself, but he must not pity her. She did not want strife, she blamed him for wanting to quarrel, but unconsciously put herself into an attitude of antagonism. 'Well, you've not been dull? he said, eagerly and goodhumoredly, going up to her. 'What a terrible passion it isgambling! 'No, I've not been dull I've learned long ago not to be dull. Stiva has been here and Levin. 'Yes, they meant to come and see you. Well, how did you like Levin? he said, sitting down beside her. 'Very much. They have not long been gone. What was Yashvin doing? 'He was winningseventeen thousand. I got him away. He had really started home, but he went back again, and now he's losing. 'Then what did you stay for? she asked, suddenly lifting her eyes to him. The expression of her face was cold and ungracious. 'You told Stiva you were staying on to get Yashvin away. And you have left him there. The same expression of cold readiness for the conflict appeared on his face too. 'In the first place, I did not ask him to give you any message and secondly, I never tell lies. But what's the chief point, I wanted to stay, and I stayed, he said, frowning. 'Anna, what is it for, why will you? he said after a moment's silence, bending over towards her, and he opened his hand, hoping she would lay hers in it. She was glad of this appeal for tenderness. But some strange force of evil would not let her give herself up to her feelings, as though the rules of warfare would not permit her to surrender. 'Of course you wanted to stay, and you stayed. You do everything you want to. But what do you tell me that for? With what object? she said, getting more and more excited. 'Does anyone contest your rights? But you want to be right, and you're welcome to be right. His hand closed, he turned away, and his face wore a still more obstinate expression. 'For you it's a matter of obstinacy, she said, watching him intently and suddenly finding the right word for that expression that irritated her, 'simply obstinacy. For you it's a question of whether you keep the upper hand of me, while for me.... Again she felt sorry for herself, and she almost burst into tears. 'If you knew what it is for me! When I feel as I do now that you are hostile, yes, hostile to me, if you knew what this means for me! If you knew how I feel on the brink of calamity at this instant, how afraid I am of myself! And she turned away, hiding her sobs. 'But what are you talking about? he said, horrified at her expression of despair, and again bending over her, he took her hand and kissed it. 'What is it for? Do I seek amusements outside our home? Don't I avoid the society of women? 'Well, yes! If that were all! she said. 'Come, tell me what I ought to do to give you peace of mind? I am ready to do anything to make you happy, he said, touched by her expression of despair 'what wouldn't I do to save you from distress of any sort, as now, Anna! he said. 'It's nothing, nothing! she said. 'I don't know myself whether it's the solitary life, my nerves.... Come, don't let us talk of it. What about the race? You haven't told me! she inquired, trying to conceal her triumph at the victory, which had anyway been on her side. He asked for supper, and began telling her about the races but in his tone, in his eyes, which became more and more cold, she saw that he did not forgive her for her victory, that the feeling of obstinacy with which she had been struggling had asserted itself again in him. He was colder to her than before, as though he were regretting his surrender. And she, remembering the words that had given her the victory, 'how I feel on the brink of calamity, how afraid I am of myself, saw that this weapon was a dangerous one, and that it could not be used a second time. And she felt that beside the love that bound them together there had grown up between them some evil spirit of strife, which she could not exorcise from his, and still less from her own heart. There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way. Levin could not have believed three months before that he could have gone quietly to sleep in the condition in which he was that day, that leading an aimless, irrational life, living too beyond his means, after drinking to excess (he could not call what happened at the club anything else), forming inappropriately friendly relations with a man with whom his wife had once been in love, and a still more inappropriate call upon a woman who could only be called a lost woman, after being fascinated by that woman and causing his wife distresshe could still go quietly to sleep. But under the influence of fatigue, a sleepless night, and the wine he had drunk, his sleep was sound and untroubled. At five o'clock the creak of a door opening waked him. He jumped up and looked round. Kitty was not in bed beside him. But there was a light moving behind the screen, and he heard her steps. 'What is it?... what is it? he said, halfasleep. 'Kitty! What is it? 'Nothing, she said, coming from behind the screen with a candle in her hand. 'I felt unwell, she said, smiling a particularly sweet and meaning smile. 'What? has it begun? he said in terror. 'We ought to send.... and hurriedly he reached after his clothes. 'No, no, she said, smiling and holding his hand. 'It's sure to be nothing. I was rather unwell, only a little. It's all over now. And getting into bed, she blew out the candle, lay down and was still. Though he thought her stillness suspicious, as though she were holding her breath, and still more suspicious the expression of peculiar tenderness and excitement with which, as she came from behind the screen, she said 'nothing, he was so sleepy that he fell asleep at once. Only later he remembered the stillness of her breathing, and understood all that must have been passing in her sweet, precious heart while she lay beside him, not stirring, in anticipation of the greatest event in a woman's life. At seven o'clock he was waked by the touch of her hand on his shoulder, and a gentle whisper. She seemed struggling between regret at waking him, and the desire to talk to him. 'Kostya, don't be frightened. It's all right. But I fancy.... We ought to send for Lizaveta Petrovna. The candle was lighted again. She was sitting up in bed, holding some knitting, which she had been busy upon during the last few days. 'Please, don't be frightened, it's all right. I'm not a bit afraid, she said, seeing his scared face, and she pressed his hand to her bosom and then to her lips. He hurriedly jumped up, hardly awake, and kept his eyes fixed on her, as he put on his dressing gown then he stopped, still looking at her. He had to go, but he could not tear himself from her eyes. He thought he loved her face, knew her expression, her eyes, but never had he seen it like this. How hateful and horrible he seemed to himself, thinking of the distress he had caused her yesterday. Her flushed face, fringed with soft curling hair under her night cap, was radiant with joy and courage. Though there was so little that was complex or artificial in Kitty's character in general, Levin was struck by what was revealed now, when suddenly all disguises were thrown off and the very kernel of her soul shone in her eyes. And in this simplicity and nakedness of her soul, she, the very woman he loved in her, was more manifest than ever. She looked at him, smiling but all at once her brows twitched, she threw up her head, and going quickly up to him, clutched his hand and pressed close up to him, breathing her hot breath upon him. She was in pain and was, as it were, complaining to him of her suffering. And for the first minute, from habit, it seemed to him that he was to blame. But in her eyes there was a tenderness that told him that she was far from reproaching him, that she loved him for her sufferings. 'If not I, who is to blame for it? he thought unconsciously, seeking someone responsible for this suffering for him to punish but there was no one responsible. She was suffering, complaining, and triumphing in her sufferings, and rejoicing in them, and loving them. He saw that something sublime was being accomplished in her soul, but what? He could not make it out. It was beyond his understanding. 'I have sent to mamma. You go quickly to fetch Lizaveta Petrovna ... Kostya!... Nothing, it's over. She moved away from him and rang the bell. 'Well, go now Pasha's coming. I am all right. And Levin saw with astonishment that she had taken up the knitting she had brought in in the night and begun working at it again. As Levin was going out of one door, he heard the maidservant come in at the other. He stood at the door and heard Kitty giving exact directions to the maid, and beginning to help her move the bedstead. He dressed, and while they were putting in his horses, as a hired sledge was not to be seen yet, he ran again up to the bedroom, not on tiptoe, it seemed to him, but on wings. Two maidservants were carefully moving something in the bedroom. Kitty was walking about knitting rapidly and giving directions. 'I'm going for the doctor. They have sent for Lizaveta Petrovna, but I'll go on there too. Isn't there anything wanted? Yes, shall I go to Dolly's? She looked at him, obviously not hearing what he was saying. 'Yes, yes. Do go, she said quickly, frowning and waving her hand to him. He had just gone into the drawingroom, when suddenly a plaintive moan sounded from the bedroom, smothered instantly. He stood still, and for a long while he could not understand. 'Yes, that is she, he said to himself, and clutching at his head he ran downstairs. 'Lord have mercy on us! pardon us! aid us! he repeated the words that for some reason came suddenly to his lips. And he, an unbeliever, repeated these words not with his lips only. At that instant he knew that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. All of that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself, his soul, and his love? The horse was not yet ready, but feeling a peculiar concentration of his physical forces and his intellect on what he had to do, he started off on foot without waiting for the horse, and told Kouzma to overtake him. At the corner he met a night cabman driving hurriedly. In the little sledge, wrapped in a velvet cloak, sat Lizaveta Petrovna with a kerchief round her head. 'Thank God! thank God! he said, overjoyed to recognize her little fair face which wore a peculiarly serious, even stern expression. Telling the driver not to stop, he ran along beside her. 'For two hours, then? Not more? she inquired. 'You should let Pyotr Dmitrievitch know, but don't hurry him. And get some opium at the chemist's. 'So you think that it may go on well? Lord have mercy on us and help us! Levin said, seeing his own horse driving out of the gate. Jumping into the sledge beside Kouzma, he told him to drive to the doctor's. The doctor was not yet up, and the footman said that 'he had been up late, and had given orders not to be waked, but would get up soon. The footman was cleaning the lampchimneys, and seemed very busy about them. This concentration of the footman upon his lamps, and his indifference to what was passing in Levin, at first astounded him, but immediately on considering the question he realized that no one knew or was bound to know his feelings, and that it was all the more necessary to act calmly, sensibly, and resolutely to get through this wall of indifference and attain his aim. 'Don't be in a hurry or let anything slip, Levin said to himself, feeling a greater and greater flow of physical energy and attention to all that lay before him to do. Having ascertained that the doctor was not getting up, Levin considered various plans, and decided on the following one that Kouzma should go for another doctor, while he himself should go to the chemist's for opium, and if when he came back the doctor had not yet begun to get up, he would either by tipping the footman, or by force, wake the doctor at all hazards. At the chemist's the lank shopman sealed up a packet of powders for a coachman who stood waiting, and refused him opium with the same callousness with which the doctor's footman had cleaned his lamp chimneys. Trying not to get flurried or out of temper, Levin mentioned the names of the doctor and midwife, and explaining what the opium was needed for, tried to persuade him. The assistant inquired in German whether he should give it, and receiving an affirmative reply from behind the partition, he took out a bottle and a funnel, deliberately poured the opium from a bigger bottle into a little one, stuck on a label, sealed it up, in spite of Levin's request that he would not do so, and was about to wrap it up too. This was more than Levin could stand he took the bottle firmly out of his hands, and ran to the big glass doors. The doctor was not even now getting up, and the footman, busy now in putting down the rugs, refused to wake him. Levin deliberately took out a ten rouble note, and, careful to speak slowly, though losing no time over the business, he handed him the note, and explained that Pyotr Dmitrievitch (what a great and important personage he seemed to Levin now, this Pyotr Dmitrievitch, who had been of so little consequence in his eyes before!) had promised to come at any time that he would certainly not be angry! and that he must therefore wake him at once. The footman agreed, and went upstairs, taking Levin into the waiting room. Levin could hear through the door the doctor coughing, moving about, washing, and saying something. Three minutes passed it seemed to Levin that more than an hour had gone by. He could not wait any longer. 'Pyotr Dmitrievitch, Pyotr Dmitrievitch! he said in an imploring voice at the open door. 'For God's sake, forgive me! See me as you are. It's been going on more than two hours already. 'In a minute in a minute! answered a voice, and to his amazement Levin heard that the doctor was smiling as he spoke. 'For one instant. 'In a minute. Two minutes more passed while the doctor was putting on his boots, and two minutes more while the doctor put on his coat and combed his hair. 'Pyotr Dmitrievitch! Levin was beginning again in a plaintive voice, just as the doctor came in dressed and ready. 'These people have no conscience, thought Levin. 'Combing his hair, while we're dying! 'Good morning! the doctor said to him, shaking hands, and, as it were, teasing him with his composure. 'There's no hurry. Well now? Trying to be as accurate as possible, Levin began to tell him every unnecessary detail of his wife's condition, interrupting his account repeatedly with entreaties that the doctor would come with him at once. 'Oh, you needn't be in any hurry. You don't understand, you know. I'm certain I'm not wanted, still I've promised, and if you like, I'll come. But there's no hurry. Please sit down won't you have some coffee? Levin stared at him with eyes that asked whether he was laughing at him but the doctor had no notion of making fun of him. 'I know, I know, the doctor said, smiling 'I'm a married man myself and at these moments we husbands are very much to be pitied. I've a patient whose husband always takes refuge in the stables on such occasions. 'But what do you think, Pyotr Dmitrievitch? Do you suppose it may go all right? 'Everything points to a favorable issue. 'So you'll come immediately? said Levin, looking wrathfully at the servant who was bringing in the coffee. 'In an hour's time. 'Oh, for mercy's sake! 'Well, let me drink my coffee, anyway. The doctor started upon his coffee. Both were silent. 'The Turks are really getting beaten, though. Did you read yesterday's telegrams? said the doctor, munching some roll. 'No, I can't stand it! said Levin, jumping up. 'So you'll be with us in a quarter of an hour. 'In half an hour. 'On your honor? When Levin got home, he drove up at the same time as the princess, and they went up to the bedroom door together. The princess had tears in her eyes, and her hands were shaking. Seeing Levin, she embraced him, and burst into tears. 'Well, my dear Lizaveta Petrovna? she queried, clasping the hand of the midwife, who came out to meet them with a beaming and anxious face. 'She's going on well, she said 'persuade her to lie down. She will be easier so. From the moment when he had waked up and understood what was going on, Levin had prepared his mind to bear resolutely what was before him, and without considering or anticipating anything, to avoid upsetting his wife, and on the contrary to soothe her and keep up her courage. Without allowing himself even to think of what was to come, of how it would end, judging from his inquiries as to the usual duration of these ordeals, Levin had in his imagination braced himself to bear up and to keep a tight rein on his feelings for five hours, and it had seemed to him he could do this. But when he came back from the doctor's and saw her sufferings again, he fell to repeating more and more frequently 'Lord, have mercy on us, and succor us! He sighed, and flung his head up, and began to feel afraid he could not bear it, that he would burst into tears or run away. Such agony it was to him. And only one hour had passed. But after that hour there passed another hour, two hours, three, the full five hours he had fixed as the furthest limit of his sufferings, and the position was still unchanged and he was still bearing it because there was nothing to be done but bear it every instant feeling that he had reached the utmost limits of his endurance, and that his heart would break with sympathy and pain. But still the minutes passed by and the hours, and still hours more, and his misery and horror grew and were more and more intense. All the ordinary conditions of life, without which one can form no conception of anything, had ceased to exist for Levin. He lost all sense of time. Minutesthose minutes when she sent for him and he held her moist hand, that would squeeze his hand with extraordinary violence and then push it awayseemed to him hours, and hours seemed to him minutes. He was surprised when Lizaveta Petrovna asked him to light a candle behind a screen, and he found that it was five o'clock in the afternoon. If he had been told it was only ten o'clock in the morning, he would not have been more surprised. Where he was all this time, he knew as little as the time of anything. He saw her swollen face, sometimes bewildered and in agony, sometimes smiling and trying to reassure him. He saw the old princess too, flushed and overwrought, with her gray curls in disorder, forcing herself to gulp down her tears, biting her lips he saw Dolly too and the doctor, smoking fat cigarettes, and Lizaveta Petrovna with a firm, resolute, reassuring face, and the old prince walking up and down the hall with a frowning face. But why they came in and went out, where they were, he did not know. The princess was with the doctor in the bedroom, then in the study, where a table set for dinner suddenly appeared then she was not there, but Dolly was. Then Levin remembered he had been sent somewhere. Once he had been sent to move a table and sofa. He had done this eagerly, thinking it had to be done for her sake, and only later on he found it was his own bed he had been getting ready. Then he had been sent to the study to ask the doctor something. The doctor had answered and then had said something about the irregularities in the municipal council. Then he had been sent to the bedroom to help the old princess to move the holy picture in its silver and gold setting, and with the princess's old waiting maid he had clambered on a shelf to reach it and had broken the little lamp, and the old servant had tried to reassure him about the lamp and about his wife, and he carried the holy picture and set it at Kitty's head, carefully tucking it in behind the pillow. But where, when, and why all this had happened, he could not tell. He did not understand why the old princess took his hand, and looking compassionately at him, begged him not to worry himself, and Dolly persuaded him to eat something and led him out of the room, and even the doctor looked seriously and with commiseration at him and offered him a drop of something. All he knew and felt was that what was happening was what had happened nearly a year before in the hotel of the country town at the deathbed of his brother Nikolay. But that had been griefthis was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it. 'Lord, have mercy on us, and succor us! he repeated to himself incessantly, feeling, in spite of his long and, as it seemed, complete alienation from religion, that he turned to God just as trustfully and simply as he had in his childhood and first youth. All this time he had two distinct spiritual conditions. One was away from her, with the doctor, who kept smoking one fat cigarette after another and extinguishing them on the edge of a full ashtray, with Dolly, and with the old prince, where there was talk about dinner, about politics, about Marya Petrovna's illness, and where Levin suddenly forgot for a minute what was happening, and felt as though he had waked up from sleep the other was in her presence, at her pillow, where his heart seemed breaking and still did not break from sympathetic suffering, and he prayed to God without ceasing. And every time he was brought back from a moment of oblivion by a scream reaching him from the bedroom, he fell into the same strange terror that had come upon him the first minute. Every time he heard a shriek, he jumped up, ran to justify himself, remembered on the way that he was not to blame, and he longed to defend her, to help her. But as he looked at her, he saw again that help was impossible, and he was filled with terror and prayed 'Lord, have mercy on us, and help us! And as time went on, both these conditions became more intense the calmer he became away from her, completely forgetting her, the more agonizing became both her sufferings and his feeling of helplessness before them. He jumped up, would have liked to run away, but ran to her. Sometimes, when again and again she called upon him, he blamed her but seeing her patient, smiling face, and hearing the words, 'I am worrying you, he threw the blame on God but thinking of God, at once he fell to beseeching God to forgive him and have mercy. He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles had all burned out. Dolly had just been in the study and had suggested to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin sat listening to the doctor's stories of a quack mesmerizer and looking at the ashes of his cigarette. There had been a period of repose, and he had sunk into oblivion. He had completely forgotten what was going on now. He heard the doctor's chat and understood it. Suddenly there came an unearthly shriek. The shriek was so awful that Levin did not even jump up, but holding his breath, gazed in terrified inquiry at the doctor. The doctor put his head on one side, listened, and smiled approvingly. Everything was so extraordinary that nothing could strike Levin as strange. 'I suppose it must be so, he thought, and still sat where he was. Whose scream was this? He jumped up, ran on tiptoe to the bedroom, edged round Lizaveta Petrovna and the princess, and took up his position at Kitty's pillow. The scream had subsided, but there was some change now. What it was he did not see and did not comprehend, and he had no wish to see or comprehend. But he saw it by the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. Lizaveta Petrovna's face was stern and pale, and still as resolute, though her jaws were twitching, and her eyes were fixed intently on Kitty. Kitty's swollen and agonized face, a tress of hair clinging to her moist brow, was turned to him and sought his eyes. Her lifted hands asked for his hands. Clutching his chill hands in her moist ones, she began squeezing them to her face. 'Don't go, don't go! I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid! she said rapidly. 'Mamma, take my earrings. They bother me. You're not afraid? Quick, quick, Lizaveta Petrovna.... She spoke quickly, very quickly, and tried to smile. But suddenly her face was drawn, she pushed him away. 'Oh, this is awful! I'm dying, I'm dying! Go away! she shrieked, and again he heard that unearthly scream. Levin clutched at his head and ran out of the room. 'It's nothing, it's nothing, it's all right, Dolly called after him. But they might say what they liked, he knew now that all was over. He stood in the next room, his head leaning against the door post, and heard shrieks, howls such as he had never heard before, and he knew that what had been Kitty was uttering these shrieks. He had long ago ceased to wish for the child. By now he loathed this child. He did not even wish for her life now, all he longed for was the end of this awful anguish. 'Doctor! What is it? What is it? By God! he said, snatching at the doctor's hand as he came up. 'It's the end, said the doctor. And the doctor's face was so grave as he said it that Levin took the end as meaning her death. Beside himself, he ran into the bedroom. The first thing he saw was the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. It was even more frowning and stern. Kitty's face he did not know. In the place where it had been was something that was fearful in its strained distortion and in the sounds that came from it. He fell down with his head on the wooden framework of the bed, feeling that his heart was bursting. The awful scream never paused, it became still more awful, and as though it had reached the utmost limit of terror, suddenly it ceased. Levin could not believe his ears, but there could be no doubt the scream had ceased and he heard a subdued stir and bustle, and hurried breathing, and her voice, gasping, alive, tender, and blissful, uttered softly, 'It's over! He lifted his head. With her hands hanging exhausted on the quilt, looking extraordinarily lovely and serene, she looked at him in silence and tried to smile, and could not. And suddenly, from the mysterious and awful faraway world in which he had been living for the last twentytwo hours, Levin felt himself all in an instant borne back to the old everyday world, glorified though now, by such a radiance of happiness that he could not bear it. The strained chords snapped, sobs and tears of joy which he had never foreseen rose up with such violence that his whole body shook, that for long they prevented him from speaking. Falling on his knees before the bed, he held his wife's hand before his lips and kissed it, and the hand, with a weak movement of the fingers, responded to his kiss. And meanwhile, there at the foot of the bed, in the deft hands of Lizaveta Petrovna, like a flickering light in a lamp, lay the life of a human creature, which had never existed before, and which would now with the same right, with the same importance to itself, live and create in its own image. 'Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest! Levin heard Lizaveta Petrovna saying, as she slapped the baby's back with a shaking hand. 'Mamma, is it true? said Kitty's voice. The princess's sobs were all the answers she could make. And in the midst of the silence there came in unmistakable reply to the mother's question, a voice quite unlike the subdued voices speaking in the room. It was the bold, clamorous, selfassertive squall of the new human being, who had so incomprehensibly appeared. If Levin had been told before that Kitty was dead, and that he had died with her, and that their children were angels, and that God was standing before him, he would have been surprised at nothing. But now, coming back to the world of reality, he had to make great mental efforts to take in that she was alive and well, and that the creature squalling so desperately was his son. Kitty was alive, her agony was over. And he was unutterably happy. That he understood he was completely happy in it. But the baby? Whence, why, who was he?... He could not get used to the idea. It seemed to him something extraneous, superfluous, to which he could not accustom himself. At ten o'clock the old prince, Sergey Ivanovitch, and Stepan Arkadyevitch were sitting at Levin's. Having inquired after Kitty, they had dropped into conversation upon other subjects. Levin heard them, and unconsciously, as they talked, going over the past, over what had been up to that morning, he thought of himself as he had been yesterday till that point. It was as though a hundred years had passed since then. He felt himself exalted to unattainable heights, from which he studiously lowered himself so as not to wound the people he was talking to. He talked, and was all the time thinking of his wife, of her condition now, of his son, in whose existence he tried to school himself into believing. The whole world of woman, which had taken for him since his marriage a new value he had never suspected before, was now so exalted that he could not take it in in his imagination. He heard them talk of yesterday's dinner at the club, and thought 'What is happening with her now? Is she asleep? How is she? What is she thinking of? Is he crying, my son Dmitri? And in the middle of the conversation, in the middle of a sentence, he jumped up and went out of the room. 'Send me word if I can see her, said the prince. 'Very well, in a minute, answered Levin, and without stopping, he went to her room. She was not asleep, she was talking gently with her mother, making plans about the christening. Carefully set to rights, with hair wellbrushed, in a smart little cap with some blue in it, her arms out on the quilt, she was lying on her back. Meeting his eyes, her eyes drew him to her. Her face, bright before, brightened still more as he drew near her. There was the same change in it from earthly to unearthly that is seen in the face of the dead. But then it means farewell, here it meant welcome. Again a rush of emotion, such as he had felt at the moment of the child's birth, flooded his heart. She took his hand and asked him if he had slept. He could not answer, and turned away, struggling with his weakness. 'I have had a nap, Kostya! she said to him 'and I am so comfortable now. She looked at him, but suddenly her expression changed. 'Give him to me, she said, hearing the baby's cry. 'Give him to me, Lizaveta Petrovna, and he shall look at him. 'To be sure, his papa shall look at him, said Lizaveta Petrovna, getting up and bringing something red, and queer, and wriggling. 'Wait a minute, we'll make him tidy first, and Lizaveta Petrovna laid the red wobbling thing on the bed, began untrussing and trussing up the baby, lifting it up and turning it over with one finger and powdering it with something. Levin, looking at the tiny, pitiful creature, made strenuous efforts to discover in his heart some traces of fatherly feeling for it. He felt nothing towards it but disgust. But when it was undressed and he caught a glimpse of wee, wee, little hands, little feet, saffroncolored, with little toes, too, and positively with a little big toe different from the rest, and when he saw Lizaveta Petrovna closing the wideopen little hands, as though they were soft springs, and putting them into linen garments, such pity for the little creature came upon him, and such terror that she would hurt it, that he held her hand back. Lizaveta Petrovna laughed. 'Don't be frightened, don't be frightened! When the baby had been put to rights and transformed into a firm doll, Lizaveta Petrovna dandled it as though proud of her handiwork, and stood a little away so that Levin might see his son in all his glory. Kitty looked sideways in the same direction, never taking her eyes off the baby. 'Give him to me! give him to me! she said, and even made as though she would sit up. 'What are you thinking of, Katerina Alexandrovna, you mustn't move like that! Wait a minute. I'll give him to you. Here we're showing papa what a fine fellow we are! And Lizaveta Petrovna, with one hand supporting the wobbling head, lifted up on the other arm the strange, limp, red creature, whose head was lost in its swaddling clothes. But it had a nose, too, and slanting eyes and smacking lips. 'A splendid baby! said Lizaveta Petrovna. Levin sighed with mortification. This splendid baby excited in him no feeling but disgust and compassion. It was not at all the feeling he had looked forward to. He turned away while Lizaveta Petrovna put the baby to the unaccustomed breast. Suddenly laughter made him look round. The baby had taken the breast. 'Come, that's enough, that's enough! said Lizaveta Petrovna, but Kitty would not let the baby go. He fell asleep in her arms. 'Look, now, said Kitty, turning the baby so that he could see it. The agedlooking little face suddenly puckered up still more and the baby sneezed. Smiling, hardly able to restrain his tears, Levin kissed his wife and went out of the dark room. What he felt towards this little creature was utterly unlike what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful and joyous in the feeling on the contrary, it was a new torture of apprehension. It was the consciousness of a new sphere of liability to pain. And this sense was so painful at first, the apprehension lest this helpless creature should suffer was so intense, that it prevented him from noticing the strange thrill of senseless joy and even pride that he had felt when the baby sneezed. Stepan Arkadyevitch's affairs were in a very bad way. The money for twothirds of the forest had all been spent already, and he had borrowed from the merchant in advance at ten per cent discount, almost all the remaining third. The merchant would not give more, especially as Darya Alexandrovna, for the first time that winter insisting on her right to her own property, had refused to sign the receipt for the payment of the last third of the forest. All his salary went on household expenses and in payment of petty debts that could not be put off. There was positively no money. This was unpleasant and awkward, and in Stepan Arkadyevitch's opinion things could not go on like this. The explanation of the position was, in his view, to be found in the fact that his salary was too small. The post he filled had been unmistakably very good five years ago, but it was so no longer. Petrov, the bank director, had twelve thousand Sventitsky, a company director, had seventeen thousand Mitin, who had founded a bank, received fifty thousand. 'Clearly I've been napping, and they've overlooked me, Stepan Arkadyevitch thought about himself. And he began keeping his eyes and ears open, and towards the end of the winter he had discovered a very good berth and had formed a plan of attack upon it, at first from Moscow through aunts, uncles, and friends, and then, when the matter was well advanced, in the spring, he went himself to Petersburg. It was one of those snug, lucrative berths of which there are so many more nowadays than there used to be, with incomes ranging from one thousand to fifty thousand roubles. It was the post of secretary of the committee of the amalgamated agency of the southern railways, and of certain banking companies. This position, like all such appointments, called for such immense energy and such varied qualifications, that it was difficult for them to be found united in any one man. And since a man combining all the qualifications was not to be found, it was at least better that the post be filled by an honest than by a dishonest man. And Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely an honest manunemphaticallyin the common acceptation of the words, he was an honest manemphaticallyin that special sense which the word has in Moscow, when they talk of an 'honest politician, an 'honest writer, an 'honest newspaper, an 'honest institution, an 'honest tendency, meaning not simply that the man or the institution is not dishonest, but that they are capable on occasion of taking a line of their own in opposition to the authorities. Stepan Arkadyevitch moved in those circles in Moscow in which that expression had come into use, was regarded there as an honest man, and so had more right to this appointment than others. The appointment yielded an income of from seven to ten thousand a year, and Oblonsky could fill it without giving up his government position. It was in the hands of two ministers, one lady, and two Jews, and all these people, though the way had been paved already with them, Stepan Arkadyevitch had to see in Petersburg. Besides this business, Stepan Arkadyevitch had promised his sister Anna to obtain from Karenin a definite answer on the question of divorce. And begging fifty roubles from Dolly, he set off for Petersburg. Stepan Arkadyevitch sat in Karenin's study listening to his report on the causes of the unsatisfactory position of Russian finance, and only waiting for the moment when he would finish to speak about his own business or about Anna. 'Yes, that's very true, he said, when Alexey Alexandrovitch took off the pincenez, without which he could not read now, and looked inquiringly at his former brotherinlaw, 'that's very true in particular cases, but still the principle of our day is freedom. 'Yes, but I lay down another principle, embracing the principle of freedom, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, with emphasis on the word 'embracing, and he put on his pincenez again, so as to read the passage in which this statement was made. And turning over the beautifully written, widemargined manuscript, Alexey Alexandrovitch read aloud over again the conclusive passage. 'I don't advocate protection for the sake of private interests, but for the public weal, and for the lower and upper classes equally, he said, looking over his pincenez at Oblonsky. 'But they cannot grasp that, they are taken up now with personal interests, and carried away by phrases. Stepan Arkadyevitch knew that when Karenin began to talk of what they were doing and thinking, the persons who would not accept his report and were the cause of everything wrong in Russia, that it was coming near the end. And so now he eagerly abandoned the principle of freetrade, and fully agreed. Alexey Alexandrovitch paused, thoughtfully turning over the pages of his manuscript. 'Oh, by the way, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'I wanted to ask you, some time when you see Pomorsky, to drop him a hint that I should be very glad to get that new appointment of secretary of the committee of the amalgamated agency of the southern railways and banking companies. Stepan Arkadyevitch was familiar by now with the title of the post he coveted, and he brought it out rapidly without mistake. Alexey Alexandrovitch questioned him as to the duties of this new committee, and pondered. He was considering whether the new committee would not be acting in some way contrary to the views he had been advocating. But as the influence of the new committee was of a very complex nature, and his views were of very wide application, he could not decide this straight off, and taking off his pincenez, he said 'Of course, I can mention it to him but what is your reason precisely for wishing to obtain the appointment? 'It's a good salary, rising to nine thousand, and my means.... 'Nine thousand! repeated Alexey Alexandrovitch, and he frowned. The high figure of the salary made him reflect that on that side Stepan Arkadyevitch's proposed position ran counter to the main tendency of his own projects of reform, which always leaned towards economy. 'I consider, and I have embodied my views in a note on the subject, that in our day these immense salaries are evidence of the unsound economic assiette of our finances. 'But what's to be done? said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Suppose a bank director gets ten thousandwell, he's worth it or an engineer gets twenty thousandafter all, it's a growing thing, you know! 'I assume that a salary is the price paid for a commodity, and it ought to conform with the law of supply and demand. If the salary is fixed without any regard for that law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together, both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other is satisfied with two or when I see lawyers and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed directors of banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the salary is not fixed in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but simply through personal interest. And this is an abuse of great gravity in itself, and one that reacts injuriously on the government service. I consider.... Stepan Arkadyevitch made haste to interrupt his brotherinlaw. 'Yes but you must agree that it's a new institution of undoubted utility that's being started. After all, you know, it's a growing thing! What they lay particular stress on is the thing being carried on honestly, said Stepan Arkadyevitch with emphasis. But the Moscow significance of the word 'honest was lost on Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Honesty is only a negative qualification, he said. 'Well, you'll do me a great service, anyway, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, 'by putting in a word to Pomorskyjust in the way of conversation.... 'But I fancy it's more in Volgarinov's hands, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Volgarinov has fully assented, as far as he's concerned, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, turning red. Stepan Arkadyevitch reddened at the mention of that name, because he had been that morning at the Jew Volgarinov's, and the visit had left an unpleasant recollection. Stepan Arkadyevitch believed most positively that the committee in which he was trying to get an appointment was a new, genuine, and honest public body, but that morning when Volgarinov hadintentionally, beyond a doubtkept him two hours waiting with other petitioners in his waiting room, he had suddenly felt uneasy. Whether he was uncomfortable that he, a descendant of Rurik, Prince Oblonsky, had been kept for two hours waiting to see a Jew, or that for the first time in his life he was not following the example of his ancestors in serving the government, but was turning off into a new career, anyway he was very uncomfortable. During those two hours in Volgarinov's waiting room Stepan Arkadyevitch, stepping jauntily about the room, pulling his whiskers, entering into conversation with the other petitioners, and inventing an epigram on his position, assiduously concealed from others, and even from himself, the feeling he was experiencing. But all the time he was uncomfortable and angry, he could not have said whywhether because he could not get his epigram just right, or from some other reason. When at last Volgarinov had received him with exaggerated politeness and unmistakable triumph at his humiliation, and had all but refused the favor asked of him, Stepan Arkadyevitch had made haste to forget it all as soon as possible. And now, at the mere recollection, he blushed. 'Now there is something I want to talk about, and you know what it is. About Anna, Stepan Arkadyevitch said, pausing for a brief space, and shaking off the unpleasant impression. As soon as Oblonsky uttered Anna's name, the face of Alexey Alexandrovitch was completely transformed all the life was gone out of it, and it looked weary and dead. 'What is it exactly that you want from me? he said, moving in his chair and snapping his pincenez. 'A definite settlement, Alexey Alexandrovitch, some settlement of the position. I'm appealing to you ('not as an injured husband, Stepan Arkadyevitch was going to say, but afraid of wrecking his negotiation by this, he changed the words) 'not as a statesman (which did not sound  propos), 'but simply as a man, and a goodhearted man and a Christian. You must have pity on her, he said. 'That is, in what way precisely? Karenin said softly. 'Yes, pity on her. If you had seen her as I have!I have been spending all the winter with heryou would have pity on her. Her position is awful, simply awful! 'I had imagined, answered Alexey Alexandrovitch in a higher, almost shrill voice, 'that Anna Arkadyevna had everything she had desired for herself. 'Oh, Alexey Alexandrovitch, for heaven's sake, don't let us indulge in recriminations! What is past is past, and you know what she wants and is waiting fordivorce. 'But I believe Anna Arkadyevna refuses a divorce, if I make it a condition to leave me my son. I replied in that sense, and supposed that the matter was ended. I consider it at an end, shrieked Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'But, for heaven's sake, don't get hot! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, touching his brotherinlaw's knee. 'The matter is not ended. If you will allow me to recapitulate, it was like this when you parted, you were as magnanimous as could possibly be you were ready to give her everythingfreedom, divorce even. She appreciated that. No, don't think that. She did appreciate itto such a degree that at the first moment, feeling how she had wronged you, she did not consider and could not consider everything. She gave up everything. But experience, time, have shown that her position is unbearable, impossible. 'The life of Anna Arkadyevna can have no interest for me, Alexey Alexandrovitch put in, lifting his eyebrows. 'Allow me to disbelieve that, Stepan Arkadyevitch replied gently. 'Her position is intolerable for her, and of no benefit to anyone whatever. She has deserved it, you will say. She knows that and asks you for nothing she says plainly that she dare not ask you. But I, all of us, her relatives, all who love her, beg you, entreat you. Why should she suffer? Who is any the better for it? 'Excuse me, you seem to put me in the position of the guilty party, observed Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Oh, no, oh, no, not at all! please understand me, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, touching his hand again, as though feeling sure this physical contact would soften his brotherinlaw. 'All I say is this her position is intolerable, and it might be alleviated by you, and you will lose nothing by it. I will arrange it all for you, so that you'll not notice it. You did promise it, you know. 'The promise was given before. And I had supposed that the question of my son had settled the matter. Besides, I had hoped that Anna Arkadyevna had enough generosity.... Alexey Alexandrovitch articulated with difficulty, his lips twitching and his face white. 'She leaves it all to your generosity. She begs, she implores one thing of youto extricate her from the impossible position in which she is placed. She does not ask for her son now. Alexey Alexandrovitch, you are a good man. Put yourself in her position for a minute. The question of divorce for her in her position is a question of life and death. If you had not promised it once, she would have reconciled herself to her position, she would have gone on living in the country. But you promised it, and she wrote to you, and moved to Moscow. And here she's been for six months in Moscow, where every chance meeting cuts her to the heart, every day expecting an answer. Why, it's like keeping a condemned criminal for six months with the rope round his neck, promising him perhaps death, perhaps mercy. Have pity on her, and I will undertake to arrange everything. Vos scrupules.... 'I am not talking about that, about that.... Alexey Alexandrovitch interrupted with disgust. 'But, perhaps, I promised what I had no right to promise. 'So you go back from your promise? 'I have never refused to do all that is possible, but I want time to consider how much of what I promised is possible. 'No, Alexey Alexandrovitch! cried Oblonsky, jumping up, 'I won't believe that! She's unhappy as only an unhappy woman can be, and you cannot refuse in such.... 'As much of what I promised as is possible. Vous professez d'tre libre penseur. But I as a believer cannot, in a matter of such gravity, act in opposition to the Christian law. 'But in Christian societies and among us, as far as I'm aware, divorce is allowed, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Divorce is sanctioned even by our church. And we see.... 'It is allowed, but not in the sense.... 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, you are not like yourself, said Oblonsky, after a brief pause. 'Wasn't it you (and didn't we all appreciate it in you?) who forgave everything, and moved simply by Christian feeling was ready to make any sacrifice? You said yourself if a man take thy coat, give him thy cloak also, and now.... 'I beg, said Alexey Alexandrovitch shrilly, getting suddenly onto his feet, his face white and his jaws twitching, 'I beg you to drop this ... to drop ... this subject! 'Oh, no! Oh, forgive me, forgive me if I have wounded you, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, holding out his hand with a smile of embarrassment 'but like a messenger I have simply performed the commission given me. Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, pondered a little, and said 'I must think it over and seek for guidance. The day after tomorrow I will give you a final answer, he said, after considering a moment. Stepan Arkadyevitch was about to go away when Korney came in to announce 'Sergey Alexyevitch! 'Who's Sergey Alexyevitch? Stepan Arkadyevitch was beginning, but he remembered immediately. 'Ah, Seryozha! he said aloud. 'Sergey Alexyevitch! I thought it was the director of a department. Anna asked me to see him too, he thought. And he recalled the timid, piteous expression with which Anna had said to him at parting 'Anyway, you will see him. Find out exactly where he is, who is looking after him. And Stiva ... if it were possible! Could it be possible? Stepan Arkadyevitch knew what was meant by that 'if it were possible,if it were possible to arrange the divorce so as to let her have her son.... Stepan Arkadyevitch saw now that it was no good to dream of that, but still he was glad to see his nephew. Alexey Alexandrovitch reminded his brotherinlaw that they never spoke to the boy of his mother, and he begged him not to mention a single word about her. 'He was very ill after that interview with his mother, which we had not foreseen, said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Indeed, we feared for his life. But with rational treatment, and seabathing in the summer, he regained his strength, and now, by the doctor's advice, I have let him go to school. And certainly the companionship of school has had a good effect on him, and he is perfectly well, and making good progress. 'What a fine fellow he's grown! He's not Seryozha now, but quite fullfledged Sergey Alexyevitch! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as he looked at the handsome, broadshouldered lad in blue coat and long trousers, who walked in alertly and confidently. The boy looked healthy and goodhumored. He bowed to his uncle as to a stranger, but recognizing him, he blushed and turned hurriedly away from him, as though offended and irritated at something. The boy went up to his father and handed him a note of the marks he had gained in school. 'Well, that's very fair, said his father, 'you can go. 'He's thinner and taller, and has grown out of being a child into a boy I like that, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Do you remember me? The boy looked back quickly at his uncle. 'Yes, mon oncle, he answered, glancing at his father, and again he looked downcast. His uncle called him to him, and took his hand. 'Well, and how are you getting on? he said, wanting to talk to him, and not knowing what to say. The boy, blushing and making no answer, cautiously drew his hand away. As soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch let go his hand, he glanced doubtfully at his father, and like a bird set free, he darted out of the room. A year had passed since the last time Seryozha had seen his mother. Since then he had heard nothing more of her. And in the course of that year he had gone to school, and made friends among his schoolfellows. The dreams and memories of his mother, which had made him ill after seeing her, did not occupy his thoughts now. When they came back to him, he studiously drove them away, regarding them as shameful and girlish, below the dignity of a boy and a schoolboy. He knew that his father and mother were separated by some quarrel, he knew that he had to remain with his father, and he tried to get used to that idea. He disliked seeing his uncle, so like his mother, for it called up those memories of which he was ashamed. He disliked it all the more as from some words he had caught as he waited at the study door, and still more from the faces of his father and uncle, he guessed that they must have been talking of his mother. And to avoid condemning the father with whom he lived and on whom he was dependent, and, above all, to avoid giving way to sentimentality, which he considered so degrading, Seryozha tried not to look at his uncle who had come to disturb his peace of mind, and not to think of what he recalled to him. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch, going out after him, saw him on the stairs, and calling to him, asked him how he spent his playtime at school, Seryozha talked more freely to him away from his father's presence. 'We have a railway now, he said in answer to his uncle's question. 'It's like this, do you see two sit on a benchthey're the passengers and one stands up straight on the bench. And all are harnessed to it by their arms or by their belts, and they run through all the roomsthe doors are left open beforehand. Well, and it's pretty hard work being the conductor! 'That's the one that stands? Stepan Arkadyevitch inquired, smiling. 'Yes, you want pluck for it, and cleverness too, especially when they stop all of a sudden, or someone falls down. 'Yes, that must be a serious matter, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, watching with mournful interest the eager eyes, like his mother's not childish nowno longer fully innocent. And though he had promised Alexey Alexandrovitch not to speak of Anna, he could not restrain himself. 'Do you remember your mother? he asked suddenly. 'No, I don't, Seryozha said quickly. He blushed crimson, and his face clouded over. And his uncle could get nothing more out of him. His tutor found his pupil on the staircase half an hour later, and for a long while he could not make out whether he was illtempered or crying. 'What is it? I expect you hurt yourself when you fell down? said the tutor. 'I told you it was a dangerous game. And we shall have to speak to the director. 'If I had hurt myself, nobody should have found it out, that's certain. 'Well, what is it, then? 'Leave me alone! If I remember, or if I don't remember?... what business is it of his? Why should I remember? Leave me in peace! he said, addressing not his tutor, but the whole world. Stepan Arkadyevitch, as usual, did not waste his time in Petersburg. In Petersburg, besides business, his sister's divorce, and his coveted appointment, he wanted, as he always did, to freshen himself up, as he said, after the mustiness of Moscow. In spite of its cafs chantants and its omnibuses, Moscow was yet a stagnant bog. Stepan Arkadyevitch always felt it. After living for some time in Moscow, especially in close relations with his family, he was conscious of a depression of spirits. After being a long time in Moscow without a change, he reached a point when he positively began to be worrying himself over his wife's illhumor and reproaches, over his children's health and education, and the petty details of his official work even the fact of being in debt worried him. But he had only to go and stay a little while in Petersburg, in the circle there in which he moved, where people livedreally livedinstead of vegetating as in Moscow, and all such ideas vanished and melted away at once, like wax before the fire. His wife?... Only that day he had been talking to Prince Tchetchensky. Prince Tchetchensky had a wife and family, grownup pages in the corps, ... and he had another illegitimate family of children also. Though the first family was very nice too, Prince Tchetchensky felt happier in his second family and he used to take his eldest son with him to his second family, and told Stepan Arkadyevitch that he thought it good for his son, enlarging his ideas. What would have been said to that in Moscow? His children? In Petersburg children did not prevent their parents from enjoying life. The children were brought up in schools, and there was no trace of the wild idea that prevailed in Moscow, in Lvov's household, for instance, that all the luxuries of life were for the children, while the parents have nothing but work and anxiety. Here people understood that a man is in duty bound to live for himself, as every man of culture should live. His official duties? Official work here was not the stiff, hopeless drudgery that it was in Moscow. Here there was some interest in official life. A chance meeting, a service rendered, a happy phrase, a knack of facetious mimicry, and a man's career might be made in a trice. So it had been with Bryantsev, whom Stepan Arkadyevitch had met the previous day, and who was one of the highest functionaries in government now. There was some interest in official work like that. The Petersburg attitude on pecuniary matters had an especially soothing effect on Stepan Arkadyevitch. Bartnyansky, who must spend at least fifty thousand to judge by the style he lived in, had made an interesting comment the day before on that subject. As they were talking before dinner, Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Bartnyansky 'You're friendly, I fancy, with Mordvinsky you might do me a favor say a word to him, please, for me. There's an appointment I should like to getsecretary of the agency.... 'Oh, I shan't remember all that, if you tell it to me.... But what possesses you to have to do with railways and Jews?... Take it as you will, it's a low business. Stepan Arkadyevitch did not say to Bartnyansky that it was a 'growing thingBartnyansky would not have understood that. 'I want the money, I've nothing to live on. 'You're living, aren't you? 'Yes, but in debt. 'Are you, though? Heavily? said Bartnyansky sympathetically. 'Very heavily twenty thousand. Bartnyansky broke into goodhumored laughter. 'Oh, lucky fellow! said he. 'My debts mount up to a million and a half, and I've nothing, and still I can live, as you see! And Stepan Arkadyevitch saw the correctness of this view not in words only but in actual fact. Zhivahov owed three hundred thousand, and hadn't a farthing to bless himself with, and he lived, and in style too! Count Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses. Petrovsky had run through five millions, and still lived in just the same style, and was even a manager in the financial department with a salary of twenty thousand. But besides this, Petersburg had physically an agreeable effect on Stepan Arkadyevitch. It made him younger. In Moscow he sometimes found a gray hair in his head, dropped asleep after dinner, stretched, walked slowly upstairs, breathing heavily, was bored by the society of young women, and did not dance at balls. In Petersburg he always felt ten years younger. His experience in Petersburg was exactly what had been described to him on the previous day by Prince Pyotr Oblonsky, a man of sixty, who had just come back from abroad 'We don't know the way to live here, said Pyotr Oblonsky. 'I spent the summer in Baden, and you wouldn't believe it, I felt quite a young man. At a glimpse of a pretty woman, my thoughts.... One dines and drinks a glass of wine, and feels strong and ready for anything. I came home to Russiahad to see my wife, and, what's more, go to my country place and there, you'd hardly believe it, in a fortnight I'd got into a dressing gown and given up dressing for dinner. Needn't say I had no thoughts left for pretty women. I became quite an old gentleman. There was nothing left for me but to think of my eternal salvation. I went off to ParisI was as right as could be at once. Stepan Arkadyevitch felt exactly the difference that Pyotr Oblonsky described. In Moscow he degenerated so much that if he had had to be there for long together, he might in good earnest have come to considering his salvation in Petersburg he felt himself a man of the world again. Between Princess Betsy Tverskaya and Stepan Arkadyevitch there had long existed rather curious relations. Stepan Arkadyevitch always flirted with her in jest, and used to say to her, also in jest, the most unseemly things, knowing that nothing delighted her so much. The day after his conversation with Karenin, Stepan Arkadyevitch went to see her, and felt so youthful that in this jesting flirtation and nonsense he recklessly went so far that he did not know how to extricate himself, as unluckily he was so far from being attracted by her that he thought her positively disagreeable. What made it hard to change the conversation was the fact that he was very attractive to her. So that he was considerably relieved at the arrival of Princess Myakaya, which cut short their ttette. 'Ah, so you're here! said she when she saw him. 'Well, and what news of your poor sister? You needn't look at me like that, she added. 'Ever since they've all turned against her, all those who're a thousand times worse than she, I've thought she did a very fine thing. I can't forgive Vronsky for not letting me know when she was in Petersburg. I'd have gone to see her and gone about with her everywhere. Please give her my love. Come, tell me about her. 'Yes, her position is very difficult she.... began Stepan Arkadyevitch, in the simplicity of his heart accepting as sterling coin Princess Myakaya's words 'tell me about her. Princess Myakaya interrupted him immediately, as she always did, and began talking herself. 'She's done what they all do, except meonly they hide it. But she wouldn't be deceitful, and she did a fine thing. And she did better still in throwing up that crazy brotherinlaw of yours. You must excuse me. Everybody used to say he was so clever, so very clever I was the only one that said he was a fool. Now that he's so thick with Lidia Ivanovna and Landau, they all say he's crazy, and I should prefer not to agree with everybody, but this time I can't help it. 'Oh, do please explain, said Stepan Arkadyevitch 'what does it mean? Yesterday I was seeing him on my sister's behalf, and I asked him to give me a final answer. He gave me no answer, and said he would think it over. But this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for this evening. 'Ah, so that's it, that's it! said Princess Myakaya gleefully, 'they're going to ask Landau what he's to say. 'Ask Landau? What for? Who or what's Landau? 'What! you don't know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He's crazy too, but on him your sister's fate depends. See what comes of living in the provincesyou know nothing about anything. Landau, do you see, was a commis in a shop in Paris, and he went to a doctor's and in the doctor's waiting room he fell asleep, and in his sleep he began giving advice to all the patients. And wonderful advice it was! Then the wife of Yury Meledinskyyou know, the invalid?heard of this Landau, and had him to see her husband. And he cured her husband, though I can't say that I see he did him much good, for he's just as feeble a creature as ever he was, but they believed in him, and took him along with them and brought him to Russia. Here there's been a general rush to him, and he's begun doctoring everyone. He cured Countess Bezzubova, and she took such a fancy to him that she adopted him. 'Adopted him? 'Yes, as her son. He's not Landau any more now, but Count Bezzubov. That's neither here nor there, though but LidiaI'm very fond of her, but she has a screw loose somewherehas lost her heart to this Landau now, and nothing is settled now in her house or Alexey Alexandrovitch's without him, and so your sister's fate is now in the hands of Landau, alias Count Bezzubov. After a capital dinner and a great deal of cognac drunk at Bartnyansky's, Stepan Arkadyevitch, only a little later than the appointed time, went in to Countess Lidia Ivanovna's. 'Who else is with the countess?a Frenchman? Stepan Arkadyevitch asked the hallporter, as he glanced at the familiar overcoat of Alexey Alexandrovitch and a queer, rather artlesslooking overcoat with clasps. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin and Count Bezzubov, the porter answered severely. 'Princess Myakaya guessed right, thought Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he went upstairs. 'Curious! It would be quite as well, though, to get on friendly terms with her. She has immense influence. If she would say a word to Pomorsky, the thing would be a certainty. It was still quite light outofdoors, but in Countess Lidia Ivanovna's little drawingroom the blinds were drawn and the lamps lighted. At a round table under a lamp sat the countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch, talking softly. A short, thinnish man, very pale and handsome, with feminine hips and knockkneed legs, with fine brilliant eyes and long hair lying on the collar of his coat, was standing at the end of the room gazing at the portraits on the wall. After greeting the lady of the house and Alexey Alexandrovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch could not resist glancing once more at the unknown man. 'Monsieur Landau! the countess addressed him with a softness and caution that impressed Oblonsky. And she introduced them. Landau looked round hurriedly, came up, and smiling, laid his moist, lifeless hand in Stepan Arkadyevitch's outstretched hand and immediately walked away and fell to gazing at the portraits again. The countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at each other significantly. 'I am very glad to see you, particularly today, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, pointing Stepan Arkadyevitch to a seat beside Karenin. 'I introduced you to him as Landau, she said in a soft voice, glancing at the Frenchman and again immediately after at Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'but he is really Count Bezzubov, as you're probably aware. Only he does not like the title. 'Yes, I heard so, answered Stepan Arkadyevitch 'they say he completely cured Countess Bezzubova. 'She was here today, poor thing! the countess said, turning to Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'This separation is awful for her. It's such a blow to her! 'And he positively is going? queried Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'Yes, he's going to Paris. He heard a voice yesterday, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, looking at Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Ah, a voice! repeated Oblonsky, feeling that he must be as circumspect as he possibly could in this society, where something peculiar was going on, or was to go on, to which he had not the key. A moment's silence followed, after which Countess Lidia Ivanovna, as though approaching the main topic of conversation, said with a fine smile to Oblonsky 'I've known you for a long while, and am very glad to make a closer acquaintance with you. Les amis de nos amis sont nos amis. But to be a true friend, one must enter into the spiritual state of one's friend, and I fear that you are not doing so in the case of Alexey Alexandrovitch. You understand what I mean? she said, lifting her fine pensive eyes. 'In part, countess, I understand the position of Alexey Alexandrovitch.... said Oblonsky. Having no clear idea what they were talking about, he wanted to confine himself to generalities. 'The change is not in his external position, Countess Lidia Ivanovna said sternly, following with eyes of love the figure of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he got up and crossed over to Landau 'his heart is changed, a new heart has been vouchsafed him, and I fear you don't fully apprehend the change that has taken place in him. 'Oh, well, in general outlines I can conceive the change. We have always been friendly, and now.... said Stepan Arkadyevitch, responding with a sympathetic glance to the expression of the countess, and mentally balancing the question with which of the two ministers she was most intimate, so as to know about which to ask her to speak for him. 'The change that has taken place in him cannot lessen his love for his neighbors on the contrary, that change can only intensify love in his heart. But I am afraid you do not understand me. Won't you have some tea? she said, with her eyes indicating the footman, who was handing round tea on a tray. 'Not quite, countess. Of course, his misfortune.... 'Yes, a misfortune which has proved the highest happiness, when his heart was made new, was filled full of it, she said, gazing with eyes full of love at Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'I do believe I might ask her to speak to both of them, thought Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Oh, of course, countess, he said 'but I imagine such changes are a matter so private that no one, even the most intimate friend, would care to speak of them. 'On the contrary! We ought to speak freely and help one another. 'Yes, undoubtedly so, but there is such a difference of convictions, and besides.... said Oblonsky with a soft smile. 'There can be no difference where it is a question of holy truth. 'Oh, no, of course but.... and Stepan Arkadyevitch paused in confusion. He understood at last that they were talking of religion. 'I fancy he will fall asleep immediately, said Alexey Alexandrovitch in a whisper full of meaning, going up to Lidia Ivanovna. Stepan Arkadyevitch looked round. Landau was sitting at the window, leaning on his elbow and the back of his chair, his head drooping. Noticing that all eyes were turned on him he raised his head and smiled a smile of childlike artlessness. 'Don't take any notice, said Lidia Ivanovna, and she lightly moved a chair up for Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'I have observed.... she was beginning, when a footman came into the room with a letter. Lidia Ivanovna rapidly ran her eyes over the note, and excusing herself, wrote an answer with extraordinary rapidity, handed it to the man, and came back to the table. 'I have observed, she went on, 'that Moscow people, especially the men, are more indifferent to religion than anyone. 'Oh, no, countess, I thought Moscow people had the reputation of being the firmest in the faith, answered Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'But as far as I can make out, you are unfortunately one of the indifferent ones, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, turning to him with a weary smile. 'How anyone can be indifferent! said Lidia Ivanovna. 'I am not so much indifferent on that subject as I am waiting in suspense, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with his most deprecating smile. 'I hardly think that the time for such questions has come yet for me. Alexey Alexandrovitch and Lidia Ivanovna looked at each other. 'We can never tell whether the time has come for us or not, said Alexey Alexandrovitch severely. 'We ought not to think whether we are ready or not ready. God's grace is not guided by human considerations sometimes it comes not to those that strive for it, and comes to those that are unprepared, like Saul. 'No, I believe it won't be just yet, said Lidia Ivanovna, who had been meanwhile watching the movements of the Frenchman. Landau got up and came to them. 'Do you allow me to listen? he asked. 'Oh, yes I did not want to disturb you, said Lidia Ivanovna, gazing tenderly at him 'sit here with us. 'One has only not to close one's eyes to shut out the light, Alexey Alexandrovitch went on. 'Ah, if you knew the happiness we know, feeling His presence ever in our hearts! said Countess Lidia Ivanovna with a rapturous smile. 'But a man may feel himself unworthy sometimes to rise to that height, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, conscious of hypocrisy in admitting this religious height, but at the same time unable to bring himself to acknowledge his freethinking views before a person who, by a single word to Pomorsky, might procure him the coveted appointment. 'That is, you mean that sin keeps him back? said Lidia Ivanovna. 'But that is a false idea. There is no sin for believers, their sin has been atoned for. Pardon, she added, looking at the footman, who came in again with another letter. She read it and gave a verbal answer 'Tomorrow at the Grand Duchess's, say. 'For the believer sin is not, she went on. 'Yes, but faith without works is dead, said Stepan Arkadyevitch, recalling the phrase from the catechism, and only by his smile clinging to his independence. 'There you have itfrom the epistle of St. James, said Alexey Alexandrovitch, addressing Lidia Ivanovna, with a certain reproachfulness in his tone. It was unmistakably a subject they had discussed more than once before. 'What harm has been done by the false interpretation of that passage! Nothing holds men back from belief like that misinterpretation. 'I have not works, so I cannot believe,' though all the while that is not said. But the very opposite is said. 'Striving for God, saving the soul by fasting, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with disgusted contempt, 'those are the crude ideas of our monks.... Yet that is nowhere said. It is far simpler and easier, she added, looking at Oblonsky with the same encouraging smile with which at court she encouraged youthful maids of honor, disconcerted by the new surroundings of the court. 'We are saved by Christ who suffered for us. We are saved by faith, Alexey Alexandrovitch chimed in, with a glance of approval at her words. 'Vous comprenez l'anglais? asked Lidia Ivanovna, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, she got up and began looking through a shelf of books. 'I want to read him 'Safe and Happy,' or 'Under the Wing,' she said, looking inquiringly at Karenin. And finding the book, and sitting down again in her place, she opened it. 'It's very short. In it is described the way by which faith can be reached, and the happiness, above all earthly bliss, with which it fills the soul. The believer cannot be unhappy because he is not alone. But you will see. She was just settling herself to read when the footman came in again. 'Madame Borozdina? Tell her, tomorrow at two o'clock. Yes, she said, putting her finger in the place in the book, and gazing before her with her fine pensive eyes, 'that is how true faith acts. You know Marie Sanina? You know about her trouble? She lost her only child. She was in despair. And what happened? She found this comforter, and she thanks God now for the death of her child. Such is the happiness faith brings! 'Oh, yes, that is most.... said Stepan Arkadyevitch, glad they were going to read, and let him have a chance to collect his faculties. 'No, I see I'd better not ask her about anything today, he thought. 'If only I can get out of this without putting my foot in it! 'It will be dull for you, said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, addressing Landau 'you don't know English, but it's short. 'Oh, I shall understand, said Landau, with the same smile, and he closed his eyes. Alexey Alexandrovitch and Lidia Ivanovna exchanged meaningful glances, and the reading began. Stepan Arkadyevitch felt completely nonplussed by the strange talk which he was hearing for the first time. The complexity of Petersburg, as a rule, had a stimulating effect on him, rousing him out of his Moscow stagnation. But he liked these complications, and understood them only in the circles he knew and was at home in. In these unfamiliar surroundings he was puzzled and disconcerted, and could not get his bearings. As he listened to Countess Lidia Ivanovna, aware of the beautiful, artlessor perhaps artful, he could not decide whicheyes of Landau fixed upon him, Stepan Arkadyevitch began to be conscious of a peculiar heaviness in his head. The most incongruous ideas were in confusion in his head. 'Marie Sanina is glad her child's dead.... How good a smoke would be now!... To be saved, one need only believe, and the monks don't know how the thing's to be done, but Countess Lidia Ivanovna does know.... And why is my head so heavy? Is it the cognac, or all this being so queer? Anyway, I fancy I've done nothing unsuitable so far. But anyway, it won't do to ask her now. They say they make one say one's prayers. I only hope they won't make me! That'll be too imbecile. And what stuff it is she's reading! but she has a good accent. LandauBezzubovwhat's he Bezzubov for? All at once Stepan Arkadyevitch became aware that his lower jaw was uncontrollably forming a yawn. He pulled his whiskers to cover the yawn, and shook himself together. But soon after he became aware that he was dropping asleep and on the very point of snoring. He recovered himself at the very moment when the voice of Countess Lidia Ivanovna was saying 'he's asleep. Stepan Arkadyevitch started with dismay, feeling guilty and caught. But he was reassured at once by seeing that the words 'he's asleep referred not to him, but to Landau. The Frenchman was asleep as well as Stepan Arkadyevitch. But Stepan Arkadyevitch's being asleep would have offended them, as he thought (though even this, he thought, might not be so, as everything seemed so queer), while Landau's being asleep delighted them extremely, especially Countess Lidia Ivanovna. 'Mon ami, said Lidia Ivanovna, carefully holding the folds of her silk gown so as not to rustle, and in her excitement calling Karenin not Alexey Alexandrovitch, but 'mon ami, 'donnezlui la main. Vous voyez? Sh! she hissed at the footman as he came in again. 'Not at home. The Frenchman was asleep, or pretending to be asleep, with his head on the back of his chair, and his moist hand, as it lay on his knee, made faint movements, as though trying to catch something. Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, tried to move carefully, but stumbled against the table, went up and laid his hand in the Frenchman's hand. Stepan Arkadyevitch got up too, and opening his eyes wide, trying to wake himself up if he were asleep, he looked first at one and then at the other. It was all real. Stepan Arkadyevitch felt that his head was getting worse and worse. 'Que la personne qui est arrive la dernire, celle qui demande, qu'elle sorte! Qu'elle sorte! articulated the Frenchman, without opening his eyes. 'Vous m'excuserez, mais vous voyez.... Revenez vers dix heures, encore mieux demain. 'Qu'elle sorte! repeated the Frenchman impatiently. 'C'est moi, n'estce pas? And receiving an answer in the affirmative, Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgetting the favor he had meant to ask of Lidia Ivanovna, and forgetting his sister's affairs, caring for nothing, but filled with the sole desire to get away as soon as possible, went out on tiptoe and ran out into the street as though from a plaguestricken house. For a long while he chatted and joked with his cabdriver, trying to recover his spirits. At the French theater where he arrived for the last act, and afterwards at the Tatar restaurant after his champagne, Stepan Arkadyevitch felt a little refreshed in the atmosphere he was used to. But still he felt quite unlike himself all that evening. On getting home to Pyotr Oblonsky's, where he was staying, Stepan Arkadyevitch found a note from Betsy. She wrote to him that she was very anxious to finish their interrupted conversation, and begged him to come next day. He had scarcely read this note, and frowned at its contents, when he heard below the ponderous tramp of the servants, carrying something heavy. Stepan Arkadyevitch went out to look. It was the rejuvenated Pyotr Oblonsky. He was so drunk that he could not walk upstairs but he told them to set him on his legs when he saw Stepan Arkadyevitch, and clinging to him, walked with him into his room and there began telling him how he had spent the evening, and fell asleep doing so. Stepan Arkadyevitch was in very low spirits, which happened rarely with him, and for a long while he could not go to sleep. Everything he could recall to his mind, everything was disgusting but most disgusting of all, as if it were something shameful, was the memory of the evening he had spent at Countess Lidia Ivanovna's. Next day he received from Alexey Alexandrovitch a final answer, refusing to grant Anna's divorce, and he understood that this decision was based on what the Frenchman had said in his real or pretended trance. In order to carry through any undertaking in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between the husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and neither one thing nor the other, no sort of enterprise can be undertaken. Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them. Both Vronsky and Anna felt life in Moscow insupportable in the heat and dust, when the spring sunshine was followed by the glare of summer, and all the trees in the boulevards had long since been in full leaf, and the leaves were covered with dust. But they did not go back to Vozdvizhenskoe, as they had arranged to do long before they went on staying in Moscow, though they both loathed it, because of late there had been no agreement between them. The irritability that kept them apart had no external cause, and all efforts to come to an understanding intensified it, instead of removing it. It was an inner irritation, grounded in her mind on the conviction that his love had grown less in his, on regret that he had put himself for her sake in a difficult position, which she, instead of lightening, made still more difficult. Neither of them gave full utterance to their sense of grievance, but they considered each other in the wrong, and tried on every pretext to prove this to one another. In her eyes the whole of him, with all his habits, ideas, desires, with all his spiritual and physical temperament, was one thinglove for women, and that love, she felt, ought to be entirely concentrated on her alone. That love was less consequently, as she reasoned, he must have transferred part of his love to other women or to another womanand she was jealous. She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having got an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another. At one time she was jealous of those low women with whom he might so easily renew his old bachelor ties then she was jealous of the society women he might meet then she was jealous of the imaginary girl whom he might want to marry, for whose sake he would break with her. And this last form of jealousy tortured her most of all, especially as he had unwarily told her, in a moment of frankness, that his mother knew him so little that she had had the audacity to try and persuade him to marry the young Princess Sorokina. And being jealous of him, Anna was indignant against him and found grounds for indignation in everything. For everything that was difficult in her position she blamed him. The agonizing condition of suspense she had passed in Moscow, the tardiness and indecision of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her solitudeshe put it all down to him. If he had loved her he would have seen all the bitterness of her position, and would have rescued her from it. For her being in Moscow and not in the country, he was to blame too. He could not live buried in the country as she would have liked to do. He must have society, and he had put her in this awful position, the bitterness of which he would not see. And again, it was his fault that she was forever separated from her son. Even the rare moments of tenderness that came from time to time did not soothe her in his tenderness now she saw a shade of complacency, of selfconfidence, which had not been of old, and which exasperated her. It was dusk. Anna was alone, and waiting for him to come back from a bachelor dinner. She walked up and down in his study (the room where the noise from the street was least heard), and thought over every detail of their yesterday's quarrel. Going back from the wellremembered, offensive words of the quarrel to what had been the ground of it, she arrived at last at its origin. For a long while she could hardly believe that their dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so little moment to either. But so it actually had been. It all arose from his laughing at the girls' high schools, declaring they were useless, while she defended them. He had spoken slightingly of women's education in general, and had said that Hannah, Anna's English protge, had not the slightest need to know anything of physics. This irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him back for the pain he had given her. 'I don't expect you to understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but simple delicacy I did expect, she said. And he had actually flushed with vexation, and had said something unpleasant. She could not recall her answer, but at that point, with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said 'I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that's true, because I see it's unnatural. The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up for herself so laboriously to enable her to endure her hard life, the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, of artificiality, aroused her. 'I am very sorry that nothing but what's coarse and material is comprehensible and natural to you, she said and walked out of the room. When he had come in to her yesterday evening, they had not referred to the quarrel, but both felt that the quarrel had been smoothed over, but was not at an end. Today he had not been at home all day, and she felt so lonely and wretched in being on bad terms with him that she wanted to forget it all, to forgive him, and be reconciled with him she wanted to throw the blame on herself and to justify him. 'I am myself to blame. I'm irritable, I'm insanely jealous. I will make it up with him, and we'll go away to the country there I shall be more at peace. 'Unnatural! She suddenly recalled the word that had stung her most of all, not so much the word itself as the intent to wound her with which it was said. 'I know what he meant he meantunnatural, not loving my own daughter, to love another person's child. What does he know of love for children, of my love for Seryozha, whom I've sacrificed for him? But that wish to wound me! No, he loves another woman, it must be so. And perceiving that, while trying to regain her peace of mind, she had gone round the same circle that she had been round so often before, and had come back to her former state of exasperation, she was horrified at herself. 'Can it be impossible? Can it be beyond me to control myself? she said to herself, and began again from the beginning. 'He's truthful, he's honest, he loves me. I love him, and in a few days the divorce will come. What more do I want? I want peace of mind and trust, and I will take the blame on myself. Yes, now when he comes in, I will tell him I was wrong, though I was not wrong, and we will go away tomorrow. And to escape thinking any more, and being overcome by irritability, she rang, and ordered the boxes to be brought up for packing their things for the country. At ten o'clock Vronsky came in. 'Well, was it nice? she asked, coming out to meet him with a penitent and meek expression. 'Just as usual, he answered, seeing at a glance that she was in one of her good moods. He was used by now to these transitions, and he was particularly glad to see it today, as he was in a specially good humor himself. 'What do I see? Come, that's good! he said, pointing to the boxes in the passage. 'Yes, we must go. I went out for a drive, and it was so fine I longed to be in the country. There's nothing to keep you, is there? 'It's the one thing I desire. I'll be back directly, and we'll talk it over I only want to change my coat. Order some tea. And he went into his room. There was something mortifying in the way he had said 'Come, that's good, as one says to a child when it leaves off being naughty, and still more mortifying was the contrast between her penitent and his selfconfident tone and for one instant she felt the lust of strife rising up in her again, but making an effort she conquered it, and met Vronsky as goodhumoredly as before. When he came in she told him, partly repeating phrases she had prepared beforehand, how she had spent the day, and her plans for going away. 'You know it came to me almost like an inspiration, she said. 'Why wait here for the divorce? Won't it be just the same in the country? I can't wait any longer! I don't want to go on hoping, I don't want to hear anything about the divorce. I have made up my mind it shall not have any more influence on my life. Do you agree? 'Oh, yes! he said, glancing uneasily at her excited face. 'What did you do? Who was there? she said, after a pause. Vronsky mentioned the names of the guests. 'The dinner was first rate, and the boat race, and it was all pleasant enough, but in Moscow they can never do anything without something ridicule. A lady of a sort appeared on the scene, teacher of swimming to the Queen of Sweden, and gave us an exhibition of her skill. 'How? did she swim? asked Anna, frowning. 'In an absurd red costume de natation she was old and hideous too. So when shall we go? 'What an absurd fancy! Why, did she swim in some special way, then? said Anna, not answering. 'There was absolutely nothing in it. That's just what I say, it was awfully stupid. Well, then, when do you think of going? Anna shook her head as though trying to drive away some unpleasant idea. 'When? Why, the sooner the better! By tomorrow we shan't be ready. The day after tomorrow. 'Yes ... oh, no, wait a minute! The day after tomorrow's Sunday, I have to be at maman's, said Vronsky, embarrassed, because as soon as he uttered his mother's name he was aware of her intent, suspicious eyes. His embarrassment confirmed her suspicion. She flushed hotly and drew away from him. It was now not the Queen of Sweden's swimmingmistress who filled Anna's imagination, but the young Princess Sorokina. She was staying in a village near Moscow with Countess Vronskaya. 'Can't you go tomorrow? she said. 'Well, no! The deeds and the money for the business I'm going there for I can't get by tomorrow, he answered. 'If so, we won't go at all. 'But why so? 'I shall not go later. Monday or never! 'What for? said Vronsky, as though in amazement. 'Why, there's no meaning in it! 'There's no meaning in it to you, because you care nothing for me. You don't care to understand my life. The one thing that I cared for here was Hannah. You say it's affectation. Why, you said yesterday that I don't love my daughter, that I love this English girl, that it's unnatural. I should like to know what life there is for me that could be natural! For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and was horrified at how she had fallen away from her resolution. But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not restrain herself, could not keep herself from proving to him that he was wrong, could not give way to him. 'I never said that I said I did not sympathize with this sudden passion. 'How is it, though you boast of your straightforwardness, you don't tell the truth? 'I never boast, and I never tell lies, he said slowly, restraining his rising anger. 'It's a great pity if you can't respect.... 'Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. And if you don't love me any more, it would be better and more honest to say so. 'No, this is becoming unbearable! cried Vronsky, getting up from his chair and stopping short, facing her, he said, speaking deliberately 'What do you try my patience for? looking as though he might have said much more, but was restraining himself. 'It has limits. 'What do you mean by that? she cried, looking with terror at the undisguised hatred in his whole face, and especially in his cruel, menacing eyes. 'I mean to say.... he was beginning, but he checked himself. 'I must ask what it is you want of me? 'What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing, she said, understanding all he had not uttered. 'But that I don't want that's secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over. She turned towards the door. 'Stop! stoop! said Vronsky, with no change in the gloomy lines of his brows, though he held her by the hand. 'What is it all about? I said that we must put off going for three days, and on that you told me I was lying, that I was not an honorable man. 'Yes, and I repeat that the man who reproaches me with having sacrificed everything for me, she said, recalling the words of a still earlier quarrel, 'that he's worse than a dishonorable manhe's a heartless man. 'Oh, there are limits to endurance! he cried, and hastily let go her hand. 'He hates me, that's clear, she thought, and in silence, without looking round, she walked with faltering steps out of the room. 'He loves another woman, that's even clearer, she said to herself as she went into her own room. 'I want love, and there is none. So, then, all is over. She repeated the words she had said, 'and it must be ended. 'But how? she asked herself, and she sat down in a low chair before the lookingglass. Thoughts of where she would go now, whether to the aunt who had brought her up, to Dolly, or simply alone abroad, and of what he was doing now alone in his study whether this was the final quarrel, or whether reconciliation were still possible and of what all her old friends at Petersburg would say of her now and of how Alexey Alexandrovitch would look at it, and many other ideas of what would happen now after this rupture, came into her head but she did not give herself up to them with all her heart. At the bottom of her heart was some obscure idea that alone interested her, but she could not get clear sight of it. Thinking once more of Alexey Alexandrovitch, she recalled the time of her illness after her confinement, and the feeling which never left her at that time. 'Why didn't I die? and the words and the feeling of that time came back to her. And all at once she knew what was in her soul. Yes, it was that idea which alone solved all. 'Yes, to die!... And the shame and disgrace of Alexey Alexandrovitch and of Seryozha, and my awful shame, it will all be saved by death. To die! and he will feel remorse will be sorry will love me he will suffer on my account. With the trace of a smile of commiseration for herself she sat down in the armchair, taking off and putting on the rings on her left hand, vividly picturing from different sides his feelings after her death. Approaching footstepshis stepsdistracted her attention. As though absorbed in the arrangement of her rings, she did not even turn to him. He went up to her, and taking her by the hand, said softly 'Anna, we'll go the day after tomorrow, if you like. I agree to everything. She did not speak. 'What is it? he urged. 'You know, she said, and at the same instant, unable to restrain herself any longer, she burst into sobs. 'Cast me off! she articulated between her sobs. 'I'll go away tomorrow ... I'll do more. What am I? An immoral woman! A stone round your neck. I don't want to make you wretched, I don't want to! I'll set you free. You don't love me you love someone else! Vronsky besought her to be calm, and declared that there was no trace of foundation for her jealousy that he had never ceased, and never would cease, to love her that he loved her more than ever. 'Anna, why distress yourself and me so? he said to her, kissing her hands. There was tenderness now in his face, and she fancied she caught the sound of tears in his voice, and she felt them wet on her hand. And instantly Anna's despairing jealousy changed to a despairing passion of tenderness. She put her arms round him, and covered with kisses his head, his neck, his hands. Feeling that the reconciliation was complete, Anna set eagerly to work in the morning preparing for their departure. Though it was not settled whether they should go on Monday or Tuesday, as they had each given way to the other, Anna packed busily, feeling absolutely indifferent whether they went a day earlier or later. She was standing in her room over an open box, taking things out of it, when he came in to see her earlier than usual, dressed to go out. 'I'm going off at once to see maman she can send me the money by Yegorov. And I shall be ready to go tomorrow, he said. Though she was in such a good mood, the thought of his visit to his mother's gave her a pang. 'No, I shan't be ready by then myself, she said and at once reflected, 'so then it was possible to arrange to do as I wished. 'No, do as you meant to do. Go into the diningroom, I'm coming directly. It's only to turn out those things that aren't wanted, she said, putting something more on the heap of frippery that lay in Annushka's arms. Vronsky was eating his beefsteak when she came into the diningroom. 'You wouldn't believe how distasteful these rooms have become to me, she said, sitting down beside him to her coffee. 'There's nothing more awful than these chambres garnies. There's no individuality in them, no soul. These clocks, and curtains, and, worst of all, the wallpapersthey're a nightmare. I think of Vozdvizhenskoe as the promised land. You're not sending the horses off yet? 'No, they will come after us. Where are you going to? 'I wanted to go to Wilson's to take some dresses to her. So it's really to be tomorrow? she said in a cheerful voice but suddenly her face changed. Vronsky's valet came in to ask him to sign a receipt for a telegram from Petersburg. There was nothing out of the way in Vronsky's getting a telegram, but he said, as though anxious to conceal something from her, that the receipt was in his study, and he turned hurriedly to her. 'By tomorrow, without fail, I will finish it all. 'From whom is the telegram? she asked, not hearing him. 'From Stiva, he answered reluctantly. 'Why didn't you show it to me? What secret can there be between Stiva and me? Vronsky called the valet back, and told him to bring the telegram. 'I didn't want to show it to you, because Stiva has such a passion for telegraphing why telegraph when nothing is settled? 'About the divorce? 'Yes but he says he has not been able to come at anything yet. He has promised a decisive answer in a day or two. But here it is read it. With trembling hands Anna took the telegram, and read what Vronsky had told her. At the end was added 'Little hope but I will do everything possible and impossible. 'I said yesterday that it's absolutely nothing to me when I get, or whether I never get, a divorce, she said, flushing crimson. 'There was not the slightest necessity to hide it from me. 'So he may hide and does hide his correspondence with women from me, she thought. 'Yashvin meant to come this morning with Voytov, said Vronsky 'I believe he's won from Pyevtsov all and more than he can pay, about sixty thousand. 'No, she said, irritated by his so obviously showing by this change of subject that he was irritated, 'why did you suppose that this news would affect me so, that you must even try to hide it? I said I don't want to consider it, and I should have liked you to care as little about it as I do. 'I care about it because I like definiteness, he said. 'Definiteness is not in the form but the love, she said, more and more irritated, not by his words, but by the tone of cool composure in which he spoke. 'What do you want it for? 'My God! love again, he thought, frowning. 'Oh, you know what for for your sake and your children's in the future. 'There won't be children in the future. 'That's a great pity, he said. 'You want it for the children's sake, but you don't think of me? she said, quite forgetting or not having heard that he had said, 'For your sake and the children's. The question of the possibility of having children had long been a subject of dispute and irritation to her. His desire to have children she interpreted as a proof he did not prize her beauty. 'Oh, I said for your sake. Above all for your sake, he repeated, frowning as though in pain, 'because I am certain that the greater part of your irritability comes from the indefiniteness of the position. 'Yes, now he has laid aside all pretense, and all his cold hatred for me is apparent, she thought, not hearing his words, but watching with terror the cold, cruel judge who looked mocking her out of his eyes. 'The cause is not that, she said, 'and, indeed, I don't see how the cause of my irritability, as you call it, can be that I am completely in your power. What indefiniteness is there in the position? on the contrary.... 'I am very sorry that you don't care to understand, he interrupted, obstinately anxious to give utterance to his thought. 'The indefiniteness consists in your imagining that I am free. 'On that score you can set your mind quite at rest, she said, and turning away from him, she began drinking her coffee. She lifted her cup, with her little finger held apart, and put it to her lips. After drinking a few sips she glanced at him, and by his expression, she saw clearly that he was repelled by her hand, and her gesture, and the sound made by her lips. 'I don't care in the least what your mother thinks, and what match she wants to make for you, she said, putting the cup down with a shaking hand. 'But we are not talking about that. 'Yes, that's just what we are talking about. And let me tell you that a heartless woman, whether she's old or not old, your mother or anyone else, is of no consequence to me, and I would not consent to know her. 'Anna, I beg you not to speak disrespectfully of my mother. 'A woman whose heart does not tell her where her son's happiness and honor lie has no heart. 'I repeat my request that you will not speak disrespectfully of my mother, whom I respect, he said, raising his voice and looking sternly at her. She did not answer. Looking intently at him, at his face, his hands, she recalled all the details of their reconciliation the previous day, and his passionate caresses. 'There, just such caresses he has lavished, and will lavish, and longs to lavish on other women! she thought. 'You don't love your mother. That's all talk, and talk, and talk! she said, looking at him with hatred in her eyes. 'Even if so, you must.... 'Must decide, and I have decided, she said, and she would have gone away, but at that moment Yashvin walked into the room. Anna greeted him and remained. Why, when there was a tempest in her soul, and she felt she was standing at a turning point in her life, which might have fearful consequenceswhy, at that minute, she had to keep up appearances before an outsider, who sooner or later must know it allshe did not know. But at once quelling the storm within her, she sat down and began talking to their guest. 'Well, how are you getting on? Has your debt been paid you? she asked Yashvin. 'Oh, pretty fair I fancy I shan't get it all, but I shall get a good half. And when are you off? said Yashvin, looking at Vronsky, and unmistakably guessing at a quarrel. 'The day after tomorrow, I think, said Vronsky. 'You've been meaning to go so long, though. 'But now it's quite decided, said Anna, looking Vronsky straight in the face with a look which told him not to dream of the possibility of reconciliation. 'Don't you feel sorry for that unlucky Pyevtsov? she went on, talking to Yashvin. 'I've never asked myself the question, Anna Arkadyevna, whether I'm sorry for him or not. You see, all my fortune's herehe touched his breast pocket'and just now I'm a wealthy man. But today I'm going to the club, and I may come out a beggar. You see, whoever sits down to play with mehe wants to leave me without a shirt to my back, and so do I him. And so we fight it out, and that's the pleasure of it. 'Well, but suppose you were married, said Anna, 'how would it be for your wife? Yashvin laughed. 'That's why I'm not married, and never mean to be. 'And Helsingfors? said Vronsky, entering into the conversation and glancing at Anna's smiling face. Meeting his eyes, Anna's face instantly took a coldly severe expression as though she were saying to him 'It's not forgotten. It's all the same. 'Were you really in love? she said to Yashvin. 'Oh heavens! ever so many times! But you see, some men can play but only so that they can always lay down their cards when the hour of a rendezvous comes, while I can take up love, but only so as not to be late for my cards in the evening. That's how I manage things. 'No, I didn't mean that, but the real thing. She would have said Helsingfors, but would not repeat the word used by Vronsky. Voytov, who was buying the horse, came in. Anna got up and went out of the room. Before leaving the house, Vronsky went into her room. She would have pretended to be looking for something on the table, but ashamed of making a pretense, she looked straight in his face with cold eyes. 'What do you want? she asked in French. 'To get the guarantee for Gambetta, I've sold him, he said, in a tone which said more clearly than words, 'I've no time for discussing things, and it would lead to nothing. 'I'm not to blame in any way, he thought. 'If she will punish herself, tant pis pour elle. But as he was going he fancied that she said something, and his heart suddenly ached with pity for her. 'Eh, Anna? he queried. 'I said nothing, she answered just as coldly and calmly. 'Oh, nothing, tant pis then, he thought, feeling cold again, and he turned and went out. As he was going out he caught a glimpse in the lookingglass of her face, white, with quivering lips. He even wanted to stop and to say some comforting word to her, but his legs carried him out of the room before he could think what to say. The whole of that day he spent away from home, and when he came in late in the evening the maid told him that Anna Arkadyevna had a headache and begged him not to go in to her. Never before had a day been passed in quarrel. Today was the first time. And this was not a quarrel. It was the open acknowledgment of complete coldness. Was it possible to glance at her as he had glanced when he came into the room for the guarantee?to look at her, see her heart was breaking with despair, and go out without a word with that face of callous composure? He was not merely cold to her, he hated her because he loved another womanthat was clear. And remembering all the cruel words he had said, Anna supplied, too, the words that he had unmistakably wished to say and could have said to her, and she grew more and more exasperated. 'I won't prevent you, he might say. 'You can go where you like. You were unwilling to be divorced from your husband, no doubt so that you might go back to him. Go back to him. If you want money, I'll give it to you. How many roubles do you want? All the most cruel words that a brutal man could say, he said to her in her imagination, and she could not forgive him for them, as though he had actually said them. 'But didn't he only yesterday swear he loved me, he, a truthful and sincere man? Haven't I despaired for nothing many times already? she said to herself afterwards. All that day, except for the visit to Wilson's, which occupied two hours, Anna spent in doubts whether everything were over or whether there were still hope of reconciliation, whether she should go away at once or see him once more. She was expecting him the whole day, and in the evening, as she went to her own room, leaving a message for him that her head ached, she said to herself, 'If he comes in spite of what the maid says, it means that he loves me still. If not, it means that all is over, and then I will decide what I'm to do!... In the evening she heard the rumbling of his carriage stop at the entrance, his ring, his steps and his conversation with the servant he believed what was told him, did not care to find out more, and went to his own room. So then everything was over. And death rose clearly and vividly before her mind as the sole means of bringing back love for her in his heart, of punishing him and of gaining the victory in that strife which the evil spirit in possession of her heart was waging with him. Now nothing mattered going or not going to Vozdvizhenskoe, getting or not getting a divorce from her husbandall that did not matter. The one thing that mattered was punishing him. When she poured herself out her usual dose of opium, and thought that she had only to drink off the whole bottle to die, it seemed to her so simple and easy, that she began musing with enjoyment on how he would suffer, and repent and love her memory when it would be too late. She lay in bed with open eyes, by the light of a single burneddown candle, gazing at the carved cornice of the ceiling and at the shadow of the screen that covered part of it, while she vividly pictured to herself how he would feel when she would be no more, when she would be only a memory to him. 'How could I say such cruel things to her? he would say. 'How could I go out of the room without saying anything to her? But now she is no more. She has gone away from us forever. She is.... Suddenly the shadow of the screen wavered, pounced on the whole cornice, the whole ceiling other shadows from the other side swooped to meet it, for an instant the shadows flitted back, but then with fresh swiftness they darted forward, wavered, commingled, and all was darkness. 'Death! she thought. And such horror came upon her that for a long while she could not realize where she was, and for a long while her trembling hands could not find the matches and light another candle, instead of the one that had burned down and gone out. 'No, anythingonly to live! Why, I love him! Why, he loves me! This has been before and will pass, she said, feeling that tears of joy at the return to life were trickling down her cheeks. And to escape from her panic she went hurriedly to his room. He was asleep there, and sleeping soundly. She went up to him, and holding the light above his face, she gazed a long while at him. Now when he was asleep, she loved him so that at the sight of him she could not keep back tears of tenderness. But she knew that if he waked up he would look at her with cold eyes, convinced that he was right, and that before telling him of her love, she would have to prove to him that he had been wrong in his treatment of her. Without waking him, she went back, and after a second dose of opium she fell towards morning into a heavy, incomplete sleep, during which she never quite lost consciousness. In the morning she was waked by a horrible nightmare, which had recurred several times in her dreams, even before her connection with Vronsky. A little old man with unkempt beard was doing something bent down over some iron, muttering meaningless French words, and she, as she always did in this nightmare (it was what made the horror of it), felt that this peasant was taking no notice of her, but was doing something horrible with the ironover her. And she waked up in a cold sweat. When she got up, the previous day came back to her as though veiled in mist. 'There was a quarrel. Just what has happened several times. I said I had a headache, and he did not come in to see me. Tomorrow we're going away I must see him and get ready for the journey, she said to herself. And learning that he was in his study, she went down to him. As she passed through the drawingroom she heard a carriage stop at the entrance, and looking out of the window she saw the carriage, from which a young girl in a lilac hat was leaning out giving some direction to the footman ringing the bell. After a parley in the hall, someone came upstairs, and Vronsky's steps could be heard passing the drawingroom. He went rapidly downstairs. Anna went again to the window. She saw him come out onto the steps without his hat and go up to the carriage. The young girl in the lilac hat handed him a parcel. Vronsky, smiling, said something to her. The carriage drove away, he ran rapidly upstairs again. The mists that had shrouded everything in her soul parted suddenly. The feelings of yesterday pierced the sick heart with a fresh pang. She could not understand now how she could have lowered herself by spending a whole day with him in his house. She went into his room to announce her determination. 'That was Madame Sorokina and her daughter. They came and brought me the money and the deeds from maman. I couldn't get them yesterday. How is your head, better? he said quietly, not wishing to see and to understand the gloomy and solemn expression of her face. She looked silently, intently at him, standing in the middle of the room. He glanced at her, frowned for a moment, and went on reading a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the room. He still might have turned her back, but she had reached the door, he was still silent, and the only sound audible was the rustling of the note paper as he turned it. 'Oh, by the way, he said at the very moment she was in the doorway, 'we're going tomorrow for certain, aren't we? 'You, but not I, she said, turning round to him. 'Anna, we can't go on like this.... 'You, but not I, she repeated. 'This is getting unbearable! 'You ... you will be sorry for this, she said, and went out. Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words were uttered, he jumped up and would have run after her, but on second thoughts he sat down and scowled, setting his teeth. This vulgaras he thought itthreat of something vague exasperated him. 'I've tried everything, he thought 'the only thing left is not to pay attention, and he began to get ready to drive into town, and again to his mother's to get her signature to the deeds. She heard the sound of his steps about the study and the diningroom. At the drawingroom he stood still. But he did not turn in to see her, he merely gave an order that the horse should be given to Voytov if he came while he was away. Then she heard the carriage brought round, the door opened, and he came out again. But he went back into the porch again, and someone was running upstairs. It was the valet running up for his gloves that had been forgotten. She went to the window and saw him take the gloves without looking, and touching the coachman on the back he said something to him. Then without looking up at the window he settled himself in his usual attitude in the carriage, with his legs crossed, and drawing on his gloves he vanished round the corner. 'He has gone! It is over! Anna said to herself, standing at the window and in answer to this statement the impression of the darkness when the candle had flickered out, and of her fearful dream mingling into one, filled her heart with cold terror. 'No, that cannot be! she cried, and crossing the room she rang the bell. She was so afraid now of being alone, that without waiting for the servant to come in, she went out to meet him. 'Inquire where the count has gone, she said. The servant answered that the count had gone to the stable. 'His honor left word that if you cared to drive out, the carriage would be back immediately. 'Very good. Wait a minute. I'll write a note at once. Send Mihail with the note to the stables. Make haste. She sat down and wrote 'I was wrong. Come back home I must explain. For God's sake come! I'm afraid. She sealed it up and gave it to the servant. She was afraid of being left alone now she followed the servant out of the room, and went to the nursery. 'Why, this isn't it, this isn't he! Where are his blue eyes, his sweet, shy smile? was her first thought when she saw her chubby, rosy little girl with her black, curly hair instead of Seryozha, whom in the tangle of her ideas she had expected to see in the nursery. The little girl sitting at the table was obstinately and violently battering on it with a cork, and staring aimlessly at her mother with her pitchblack eyes. Answering the English nurse that she was quite well, and that she was going to the country tomorrow, Anna sat down by the little girl and began spinning the cork to show her. But the child's loud, ringing laugh, and the motion of her eyebrows, recalled Vronsky so vividly that she got up hurriedly, restraining her sobs, and went away. 'Can it be all over? No, it cannot be! she thought. 'He will come back. But how can he explain that smile, that excitement after he had been talking to her? But even if he doesn't explain, I will believe. If I don't believe, there's only one thing left for me, and I can't. She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes had passed. 'By now he has received the note and is coming back. Not long, ten minutes more.... But what if he doesn't come? No, that cannot be. He mustn't see me with tearstained eyes. I'll go and wash. Yes, yes did I do my hair or not? she asked herself. And she could not remember. She felt her head with her hand. 'Yes, my hair has been done, but when I did it I can't in the least remember. She could not believe the evidence of her hand, and went up to the pierglass to see whether she really had done her hair. She certainly had, but she could not think when she had done it. 'Who's that? she thought, looking in the lookingglass at the swollen face with strangely glittering eyes, that looked in a scared way at her. 'Why, it's I! she suddenly understood, and looking round, she seemed all at once to feel his kisses on her, and twitched her shoulders, shuddering. Then she lifted her hand to her lips and kissed it. 'What is it? Why, I'm going out of my mind! and she went into her bedroom, where Annushka was tidying the room. 'Annushka, she said, coming to a standstill before her, and she stared at the maid, not knowing what to say to her. 'You meant to go and see Darya Alexandrovna, said the girl, as though she understood. 'Darya Alexandrovna? Yes, I'll go. 'Fifteen minutes there, fifteen minutes back. He's coming, he'll be here soon. She took out her watch and looked at it. 'But how could he go away, leaving me in such a state? How can he live, without making it up with me? She went to the window and began looking into the street. Judging by the time, he might be back now. But her calculations might be wrong, and she began once more to recall when he had started and to count the minutes. At the moment when she had moved away to the big clock to compare it with her watch, someone drove up. Glancing out of the window, she saw his carriage. But no one came upstairs, and voices could be heard below. It was the messenger who had come back in the carriage. She went down to him. 'We didn't catch the count. The count had driven off on the lower city road. 'What do you say? What!... she said to the rosy, goodhumored Mihail, as he handed her back her note. 'Why, then, he has never received it! she thought. 'Go with this note to Countess Vronskaya's place, you know? and bring an answer back immediately, she said to the messenger. 'And I, what am I going to do? she thought. 'Yes, I'm going to Dolly's, that's true or else I shall go out of my mind. Yes, and I can telegraph, too. And she wrote a telegram. 'I absolutely must talk to you come at once. After sending off the telegram, she went to dress. When she was dressed and in her hat, she glanced again into the eyes of the plump, comfortablelooking Annushka. There was unmistakable sympathy in those goodnatured little gray eyes. 'Annushka, dear, what am I to do? said Anna, sobbing and sinking helplessly into a chair. 'Why fret yourself so, Anna Arkadyevna? Why, there's nothing out of the way. You drive out a little, and it'll cheer you up, said the maid. 'Yes, I'm going, said Anna, rousing herself and getting up. 'And if there's a telegram while I'm away, send it on to Darya Alexandrovna's ... but no, I shall be back myself. 'Yes, I mustn't think, I must do something, drive somewhere, and most of all, get out of this house, she said, feeling with terror the strange turmoil going on in her own heart, and she made haste to go out and get into the carriage. 'Where to? asked Pyotr before getting onto the box. 'To Znamenka, the Oblonskys'. It was bright and sunny. A fine rain had been falling all the morning, and now it had not long cleared up. The iron roofs, the flags of the roads, the flints of the pavements, the wheels and leather, the brass and the tinplate of the carriagesall glistened brightly in the May sunshine. It was three o'clock, and the very liveliest time in the streets. As she sat in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly swayed on its supple springs, while the grays trotted swiftly, in the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing impressions in the pure air, Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her position quite differently from how it had seemed at home. Now the thought of death seemed no longer so terrible and so clear to her, and death itself no longer seemed so inevitable. Now she blamed herself for the humiliation to which she had lowered herself. 'I entreat him to forgive me. I have given in to him. I have owned myself in fault. What for? Can't I live without him? And leaving unanswered the question how she was going to live without him, she fell to reading the signs on the shops. 'Office and warehouse. Dental surgeon. Yes, I'll tell Dolly all about it. She doesn't like Vronsky. I shall be sick and ashamed, but I'll tell her. She loves me, and I'll follow her advice. I won't give in to him I won't let him train me as he pleases. Filippov, bun shop. They say they send their dough to Petersburg. The Moscow water is so good for it. Ah, the springs at Mitishtchen, and the pancakes! And she remembered how, long, long ago, when she was a girl of seventeen, she had gone with her aunt to Troitsa. 'Riding, too. Was that really me, with red hands? How much that seemed to me then splendid and out of reach has become worthless, while what I had then has gone out of my reach forever! Could I ever have believed then that I could come to such humiliation? How conceited and selfsatisfied he will be when he gets my note! But I will show him.... How horrid that paint smells! Why is it they're always painting and building? Modes et robes, she read. A man bowed to her. It was Annushka's husband. 'Our parasites she remembered how Vronsky had said that. 'Our? Why our? What's so awful is that one can't tear up the past by its roots. One can't tear it out, but one can hide one's memory of it. And I'll hide it. And then she thought of her past with Alexey Alexandrovitch, of how she had blotted the memory of it out of her life. 'Dolly will think I'm leaving my second husband, and so I certainly must be in the wrong. As if I cared to be right! I can't help it! she said, and she wanted to cry. But at once she fell to wondering what those two girls could be smiling about. 'Love, most likely. They don't know how dreary it is, how low.... The boulevard and the children. Three boys running, playing at horses. Seryozha! And I'm losing everything and not getting him back. Yes, I'm losing everything, if he doesn't return. Perhaps he was late for the train and has come back by now. Longing for humiliation again! she said to herself. 'No, I'll go to Dolly, and say straight out to her, I'm unhappy, I deserve this, I'm to blame, but still I'm unhappy, help me. These horses, this carriagehow loathsome I am to myself in this carriageall his but I won't see them again. Thinking over the words in which she would tell Dolly, and mentally working her heart up to great bitterness, Anna went upstairs. 'Is there anyone with her? she asked in the hall. 'Katerina Alexandrovna Levin, answered the footman. 'Kitty! Kitty, whom Vronsky was in love with! thought Anna, 'the girl he thinks of with love. He's sorry he didn't marry her. But me he thinks of with hatred, and is sorry he had anything to do with me. The sisters were having a consultation about nursing when Anna called. Dolly went down alone to see the visitor who had interrupted their conversation. 'Well, so you've not gone away yet? I meant to have come to you, she said 'I had a letter from Stiva today. 'We had a telegram too, answered Anna, looking round for Kitty. 'He writes that he can't make out quite what Alexey Alexandrovitch wants, but he won't go away without a decisive answer. 'I thought you had someone with you. Can I see the letter? 'Yes Kitty, said Dolly, embarrassed. 'She stayed in the nursery. She has been very ill. 'So I heard. May I see the letter? 'I'll get it directly. But he doesn't refuse on the contrary, Stiva has hopes, said Dolly, stopping in the doorway. 'I haven't, and indeed I don't wish it, said Anna. 'What's this? Does Kitty consider it degrading to meet me? thought Anna when she was alone. 'Perhaps she's right, too. But it's not for her, the girl who was in love with Vronsky, it's not for her to show me that, even if it is true. I know that in my position I can't be received by any decent woman. I knew that from the first moment I sacrificed everything to him. And this is my reward! Oh, how I hate him! And what did I come here for? I'm worse here, more miserable. She heard from the next room the sisters' voices in consultation. 'And what am I going to say to Dolly now? Amuse Kitty by the sight of my wretchedness, submit to her patronizing? No and besides, Dolly wouldn't understand. And it would be no good my telling her. It would only be interesting to see Kitty, to show her how I despise everyone and everything, how nothing matters to me now. Dolly came in with the letter. Anna read it and handed it back in silence. 'I knew all that, she said, 'and it doesn't interest me in the least. 'Oh, why so? On the contrary, I have hopes, said Dolly, looking inquisitively at Anna. She had never seen her in such a strangely irritable condition. 'When are you going away? she asked. Anna, halfclosing her eyes, looked straight before her and did not answer. 'Why does Kitty shrink from me? she said, looking at the door and flushing red. 'Oh, what nonsense! She's nursing, and things aren't going right with her, and I've been advising her.... She's delighted. She'll be here in a minute, said Dolly awkwardly, not clever at lying. 'Yes, here she is. Hearing that Anna had called, Kitty had wanted not to appear, but Dolly persuaded her. Rallying her forces, Kitty went in, walked up to her, blushing, and shook hands. 'I am so glad to see you, she said with a trembling voice. Kitty had been thrown into confusion by the inward conflict between her antagonism to this bad woman and her desire to be nice to her. But as soon as she saw Anna's lovely and attractive face, all feeling of antagonism disappeared. 'I should not have been surprised if you had not cared to meet me. I'm used to everything. You have been ill? Yes, you are changed, said Anna. Kitty felt that Anna was looking at her with hostile eyes. She ascribed this hostility to the awkward position in which Anna, who had once patronized her, must feel with her now, and she felt sorry for her. They talked of Kitty's illness, of the baby, of Stiva, but it was obvious that nothing interested Anna. 'I came to say goodbye to you, she said, getting up. 'Oh, when are you going? But again not answering, Anna turned to Kitty. 'Yes, I am very glad to have seen you, she said with a smile. 'I have heard so much of you from everyone, even from your husband. He came to see me, and I liked him exceedingly, she said, unmistakably with malicious intent. 'Where is he? 'He has gone back to the country, said Kitty, blushing. 'Remember me to him, be sure you do. 'I'll be sure to! Kitty said navely, looking compassionately into her eyes. 'So goodbye, Dolly. And kissing Dolly and shaking hands with Kitty, Anna went out hurriedly. 'She's just the same and just as charming! She's very lovely! said Kitty, when she was alone with her sister. 'But there's something piteous about her. Awfully piteous! 'Yes, there's something unusual about her today, said Dolly. 'When I went with her into the hall, I fancied she was almost crying. Anna got into the carriage again in an even worse frame of mind than when she set out from home. To her previous tortures was added now that sense of mortification and of being an outcast which she had felt so distinctly on meeting Kitty. 'Where to? Home? asked Pyotr. 'Yes, home, she said, not even thinking now where she was going. 'How they looked at me as something dreadful, incomprehensible, and curious! What can he be telling the other with such warmth? she thought, staring at two men who walked by. 'Can one ever tell anyone what one is feeling? I meant to tell Dolly, and it's a good thing I didn't tell her. How pleased she would have been at my misery! She would have concealed it, but her chief feeling would have been delight at my being punished for the happiness she envied me for. Kitty, she would have been even more pleased. How I can see through her! She knows I was more than usually sweet to her husband. And she's jealous and hates me. And she despises me. In her eyes I'm an immoral woman. If I were an immoral woman I could have made her husband fall in love with me ... if I'd cared to. And, indeed, I did care to. There's someone who's pleased with himself, she thought, as she saw a fat, rubicund gentleman coming towards her. He took her for an acquaintance, and lifted his glossy hat above his bald, glossy head, and then perceived his mistake. 'He thought he knew me. Well, he knows me as well as anyone in the world knows me. I don't know myself. I know my appetites, as the French say. They want that dirty ice cream, that they do know for certain, she thought, looking at two boys stopping an ice cream seller, who took a barrel off his head and began wiping his perspiring face with a towel. 'We all want what is sweet and nice. If not sweetmeats, then a dirty ice. And Kitty's the sameif not Vronsky, then Levin. And she envies me, and hates me. And we all hate each other. I Kitty, Kitty me. Yes, that's the truth. 'Tiutkin, coiffeur.' Je me fais coiffer par Tiutkin.... I'll tell him that when he comes, she thought and smiled. But the same instant she remembered that she had no one now to tell anything amusing to. 'And there's nothing amusing, nothing mirthful, really. It's all hateful. They're singing for vespers, and how carefully that merchant crosses himself! as if he were afraid of missing something. Why these churches and this singing and this humbug? Simply to conceal that we all hate each other like these cab drivers who are abusing each other so angrily. Yashvin says, 'He wants to strip me of my shirt, and I him of his.' Yes, that's the truth! She was plunged in these thoughts, which so engrossed her that she left off thinking of her own position, when the carriage drew up at the steps of her house. It was only when she saw the porter running out to meet her that she remembered she had sent the note and the telegram. 'Is there an answer? she inquired. 'I'll see this minute, answered the porter, and glancing into his room, he took out and gave her the thin square envelope of a telegram. 'I can't come before ten o'clock.Vronsky, she read. 'And hasn't the messenger come back? 'No, answered the porter. 'Then, since it's so, I know what I must do, she said, and feeling a vague fury and craving for revenge rising up within her, she ran upstairs. 'I'll go to him myself. Before going away forever, I'll tell him all. Never have I hated anyone as I hate that man! she thought. Seeing his hat on the rack, she shuddered with aversion. She did not consider that his telegram was an answer to her telegram and that he had not yet received her note. She pictured him to herself as talking calmly to his mother and Princess Sorokina and rejoicing at her sufferings. 'Yes, I must go quickly, she said, not knowing yet where she was going. She longed to get away as quickly as possible from the feelings she had gone through in that awful house. The servants, the walls, the things in that houseall aroused repulsion and hatred in her and lay like a weight upon her. 'Yes, I must go to the railway station, and if he's not there, then go there and catch him. Anna looked at the railway timetable in the newspapers. An evening train went at two minutes past eight. 'Yes, I shall be in time. She gave orders for the other horses to be put in the carriage, and packed in a travelingbag the things needed for a few days. She knew she would never come back here again. Among the plans that came into her head she vaguely determined that after what would happen at the station or at the countess's house, she would go as far as the first town on the Nizhni road and stop there. Dinner was on the table she went up, but the smell of the bread and cheese was enough to make her feel that all food was disgusting. She ordered the carriage and went out. The house threw a shadow now right across the street, but it was a bright evening and still warm in the sunshine. Annushka, who came down with her things, and Pyotr, who put the things in the carriage, and the coachman, evidently out of humor, were all hateful to her, and irritated her by their words and actions. 'I don't want you, Pyotr. 'But how about the ticket? 'Well, as you like, it doesn't matter, she said crossly. Pyotr jumped on the box, and putting his arms akimbo, told the coachman to drive to the bookingoffice. 'Here it is again! Again I understand it all! Anna said to herself, as soon as the carriage had started and swaying lightly, rumbled over the tiny cobbles of the paved road, and again one impression followed rapidly upon another. 'Yes what was the last thing I thought of so clearly? she tried to recall it. ''Tiutkin, coiffeur?'no, not that. Yes, of what Yashvin says, the struggle for existence and hatred is the one thing that holds men together. No, it's a useless journey you're making, she said, mentally addressing a party in a coach and four, evidently going for an excursion into the country. 'And the dog you're taking with you will be no help to you. You can't get away from yourselves. Turning her eyes in the direction Pyotr had turned to look, she saw a factoryhand almost deaddrunk, with hanging head, being led away by a policeman. 'Come, he's found a quicker way, she thought. 'Count Vronsky and I did not find that happiness either, though we expected so much from it. And now for the first time Anna turned that glaring light in which she was seeing everything on to her relations with him, which she had hitherto avoided thinking about. 'What was it he sought in me? Not love so much as the satisfaction of vanity. She remembered his words, the expression of his face, that recalled an abject setterdog, in the early days of their connection. And everything now confirmed this. 'Yes, there was the triumph of success in him. Of course there was love too, but the chief element was the pride of success. He boasted of me. Now that's over. There's nothing to be proud of. Not to be proud of, but to be ashamed of. He has taken from me all he could, and now I am no use to him. He is weary of me and is trying not to be dishonorable in his behavior to me. He let that out yesterdayhe wants divorce and marriage so as to burn his ships. He loves me, but how? The zest is gone, as the English say. That fellow wants everyone to admire him and is very much pleased with himself, she thought, looking at a redfaced clerk, riding on a ridingschool horse. 'Yes, there's not the same flavor about me for him now. If I go away from him, at the bottom of his heart he will be glad. This was not mere supposition, she saw it distinctly in the piercing light, which revealed to her now the meaning of life and human relations. 'My love keeps growing more passionate and egoistic, while his is waning and waning, and that's why we're drifting apart. She went on musing. 'And there's no help for it. He is everything for me, and I want him more and more to give himself up to me entirely. And he wants more and more to get away from me. We walked to meet each other up to the time of our love, and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions. And there's no altering that. He tells me I'm insanely jealous, and I have told myself that I am insanely jealous but it's not true. I'm not jealous, but I'm unsatisfied. But.... she opened her lips, and shifted her place in the carriage in the excitement, aroused by the thought that suddenly struck her. 'If I could be anything but a mistress, passionately caring for nothing but his caresses but I can't and I don't care to be anything else. And by that desire I rouse aversion in him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different. Don't I know that he wouldn't deceive me, that he has no schemes about Princess Sorokina, that he's not in love with Kitty, that he won't desert me! I know all that, but it makes it no better for me. If without loving me, from duty he'll be good and kind to me, without what I want, that's a thousand times worse than unkindness! That'shell! And that's just how it is. For a long while now he hasn't loved me. And where love ends, hate begins. I don't know these streets at all. Hills it seems, and still houses, and houses.... And in the houses always people and people.... How many of them, no end, and all hating each other! Come, let me try and think what I want, to make me happy. Well? Suppose I am divorced, and Alexey Alexandrovitch lets me have Seryozha, and I marry Vronsky. Thinking of Alexey Alexandrovitch, she at once pictured him with extraordinary vividness as though he were alive before her, with his mild, lifeless, dull eyes, the blue veins in his white hands, his intonations and the cracking of his fingers, and remembering the feeling which had existed between them, and which was also called love, she shuddered with loathing. 'Well, I'm divorced, and become Vronsky's wife. Well, will Kitty cease looking at me as she looked at me today? No. And will Seryozha leave off asking and wondering about my two husbands? And is there any new feeling I can awaken between Vronsky and me? Is there possible, if not happiness, some sort of ease from misery? No, no! she answered now without the slightest hesitation. 'Impossible! We are drawn apart by life, and I make his unhappiness, and he mine, and there's no altering him or me. Every attempt has been made, the screw has come unscrewed. Oh, a beggar woman with a baby. She thinks I'm sorry for her. Aren't we all flung into the world only to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and each other? Schoolboys cominglaughing Seryozha? she thought. 'I thought, too, that I loved him, and used to be touched by my own tenderness. But I have lived without him, I gave him up for another love, and did not regret the exchange till that love was satisfied. And with loathing she thought of what she meant by that love. And the clearness with which she saw life now, her own and all men's, was a pleasure to her. 'It's so with me and Pyotr, and the coachman, Fyodor, and that merchant, and all the people living along the Volga, where those placards invite one to go, and everywhere and always, she thought when she had driven under the lowpitched roof of the Nizhigorod station, and the porters ran to meet her. 'A ticket to Obiralovka? said Pyotr. She had utterly forgotten where and why she was going, and only by a great effort she understood the question. 'Yes, she said, handing him her purse, and taking a little red bag in her hand, she got out of the carriage. Making her way through the crowd to the firstclass waitingroom, she gradually recollected all the details of her position, and the plans between which she was hesitating. And again at the old sore places, hope and then despair poisoned the wounds of her tortured, fearfully throbbing heart. As she sat on the starshaped sofa waiting for the train, she gazed with aversion at the people coming and going (they were all hateful to her), and thought how she would arrive at the station, would write him a note, and what she would write to him, and how he was at this moment complaining to his mother of his position, not understanding her sufferings, and how she would go into the room, and what she would say to him. Then she thought that life might still be happy, and how miserably she loved and hated him, and how fearfully her heart was beating. A bell rang, some young men, ugly and impudent, and at the same time careful of the impression they were making, hurried by. Pyotr, too, crossed the room in his livery and topboots, with his dull, animal face, and came up to her to take her to the train. Some noisy men were quiet as she passed them on the platform, and one whispered something about her to anothersomething vile, no doubt. She stepped up on the high step, and sat down in a carriage by herself on a dirty seat that had been white. Her bag lay beside her, shaken up and down by the springiness of the seat. With a foolish smile Pyotr raised his hat, with its colored band, at the window, in token of farewell an impudent conductor slammed the door and the latch. A grotesquelooking lady wearing a bustle (Anna mentally undressed the woman, and was appalled at her hideousness), and a little girl laughing affectedly ran down the platform. 'Katerina Andreevna, she's got them all, ma tante! cried the girl. 'Even the child's hideous and affected, thought Anna. To avoid seeing anyone, she got up quickly and seated herself at the opposite window of the empty carriage. A misshapenlooking peasant covered with dirt, in a cap from which his tangled hair stuck out all round, passed by that window, stooping down to the carriage wheels. 'There's something familiar about that hideous peasant, thought Anna. And remembering her dream, she moved away to the opposite door, shaking with terror. The conductor opened the door and let in a man and his wife. 'Do you wish to get out? Anna made no answer. The conductor and her two fellowpassengers did not notice under her veil her panicstricken face. She went back to her corner and sat down. The couple seated themselves on the opposite side, and intently but surreptitiously scrutinized her clothes. Both husband and wife seemed repulsive to Anna. The husband asked, would she allow him to smoke, obviously not with a view to smoking but to getting into conversation with her. Receiving her assent, he said to his wife in French something about caring less to smoke than to talk. They made inane and affected remarks to one another, entirely for her benefit. Anna saw clearly that they were sick of each other, and hated each other. And no one could have helped hating such miserable monstrosities. A second bell sounded, and was followed by moving of luggage, noise, shouting and laughter. It was so clear to Anna that there was nothing for anyone to be glad of, that this laughter irritated her agonizingly, and she would have liked to stop up her ears not to hear it. At last the third bell rang, there was a whistle and a hiss of steam, and a clank of chains, and the man in her carriage crossed himself. 'It would be interesting to ask him what meaning he attaches to that, thought Anna, looking angrily at him. She looked past the lady out of the window at the people who seemed whirling by as they ran beside the train or stood on the platform. The train, jerking at regular intervals at the junctions of the rails, rolled by the platform, past a stone wall, a signalbox, past other trains the wheels, moving more smoothly and evenly, resounded with a slight clang on the rails. The window was lighted up by the bright evening sun, and a slight breeze fluttered the curtain. Anna forgot her fellow passengers, and to the light swaying of the train she fell to thinking again, as she breathed the fresh air. 'Yes, what did I stop at? That I couldn't conceive a position in which life would not be a misery, that we are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do? 'That's what reason is given man for, to escape from what worries him, said the lady in French, lisping affectedly, and obviously pleased with her phrase. The words seemed an answer to Anna's thoughts. 'To escape from what worries him, repeated Anna. And glancing at the redcheeked husband and the thin wife, she saw that the sickly wife considered herself misunderstood, and the husband deceived her and encouraged her in that idea of herself. Anna seemed to see all their history and all the crannies of their souls, as it were turning a light upon them. But there was nothing interesting in them, and she pursued her thought. 'Yes, I'm very much worried, and that's what reason was given me for, to escape so then one must escape why not put out the light when there's nothing more to look at, when it's sickening to look at it all? But how? Why did the conductor run along the footboard, why are they shrieking, those young men in that train? why are they talking, why are they laughing? It's all falsehood, all lying, all humbug, all cruelty!... When the train came into the station, Anna got out into the crowd of passengers, and moving apart from them as if they were lepers, she stood on the platform, trying to think what she had come here for, and what she meant to do. Everything that had seemed to her possible before was now so difficult to consider, especially in this noisy crowd of hideous people who would not leave her alone. One moment porters ran up to her proffering their services, then young men, clacking their heels on the planks of the platform and talking loudly, stared at her people meeting her dodged past on the wrong side. Remembering that she had meant to go on further if there were no answer, she stopped a porter and asked if her coachman were not here with a note from Count Vronsky. 'Count Vronsky? They sent up here from the Vronskys just this minute, to meet Princess Sorokina and her daughter. And what is the coachman like? Just as she was talking to the porter, the coachman Mihail, red and cheerful in his smart blue coat and chain, evidently proud of having so successfully performed his commission, came up to her and gave her a letter. She broke it open, and her heart ached before she had read it. 'I am very sorry your note did not reach me. I will be home at ten, Vronsky had written carelessly.... 'Yes, that's what I expected! she said to herself with an evil smile. 'Very good, you can go home then, she said softly, addressing Mihail. She spoke softly because the rapidity of her heart's beating hindered her breathing. 'No, I won't let you make me miserable, she thought menacingly, addressing not him, not herself, but the power that made her suffer, and she walked along the platform. Two maidservants walking along the platform turned their heads, staring at her and making some remarks about her dress. 'Real, they said of the lace she was wearing. The young men would not leave her in peace. Again they passed by, peering into her face, and with a laugh shouting something in an unnatural voice. The stationmaster coming up asked her whether she was going by train. A boy selling kvas never took his eyes off her. 'My God! where am I to go? she thought, going farther and farther along the platform. At the end she stopped. Some ladies and children, who had come to meet a gentleman in spectacles, paused in their loud laughter and talking, and stared at her as she reached them. She quickened her pace and walked away from them to the edge of the platform. A luggage train was coming in. The platform began to sway, and she fancied she was in the train again. And all at once she thought of the man crushed by the train the day she had first met Vronsky, and she knew what she had to do. With a rapid, light step she went down the steps that led from the tank to the rails and stopped quite near the approaching train. She looked at the lower part of the carriages, at the screws and chains and the tall castiron wheel of the first carriage slowly moving up, and trying to measure the middle between the front and back wheels, and the very minute when that middle point would be opposite her. 'There, she said to herself, looking into the shadow of the carriage, at the sand and coal dust which covered the sleepers'there, in the very middle, and I will punish him and escape from everyone and from myself. She tried to fling herself below the wheels of the first carriage as it reached her but the red bag which she tried to drop out of her hand delayed her, and she was too late she missed the moment. She had to wait for the next carriage. A feeling such as she had known when about to take the first plunge in bathing came upon her, and she crossed herself. That familiar gesture brought back into her soul a whole series of girlish and childish memories, and suddenly the darkness that had covered everything for her was torn apart, and life rose up before her for an instant with all its bright past joys. But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second carriage. And exactly at the moment when the space between the wheels came opposite her, she dropped the red bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the carriage, and lightly, as though she would rise again at once, dropped on to her knees. And at the same instant she was terrorstricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What for? She tried to get up, to drop backwards but something huge and merciless struck her on the head and rolled her on her back. 'Lord, forgive me all! she said, feeling it impossible to struggle. A peasant muttering something was working at the iron above her. And the light by which she had read the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever. Almost two months had passed. The hot summer was half over, but Sergey Ivanovitch was only just preparing to leave Moscow. Sergey Ivanovitch's life had not been uneventful during this time. A year ago he had finished his book, the fruit of six years' labor, 'Sketch of a Survey of the Principles and Forms of Government in Europe and Russia. Several sections of this book and its introduction had appeared in periodical publications, and other parts had been read by Sergey Ivanovitch to persons of his circle, so that the leading ideas of the work could not be completely novel to the public. But still Sergey Ivanovitch had expected that on its appearance his book would be sure to make a serious impression on society, and if it did not cause a revolution in social science it would, at any rate, make a great stir in the scientific world. After the most conscientious revision the book had last year been published, and had been distributed among the booksellers. Though he asked no one about it, reluctantly and with feigned indifference answered his friends' inquiries as to how the book was going, and did not even inquire of the booksellers how the book was selling, Sergey Ivanovitch was all on the alert, with strained attention, watching for the first impression his book would make in the world and in literature. But a week passed, a second, a third, and in society no impression whatever could be detected. His friends who were specialists and savants, occasionallyunmistakably from politenessalluded to it. The rest of his acquaintances, not interested in a book on a learned subject, did not talk of it at all. And society generallyjust now especially absorbed in other thingswas absolutely indifferent. In the press, too, for a whole month there was not a word about his book. Sergey Ivanovitch had calculated to a nicety the time necessary for writing a review, but a month passed, and a second, and still there was silence. Only in the Northern Beetle, in a comic article on the singer Drabanti, who had lost his voice, there was a contemptuous allusion to Koznishev's book, suggesting that the book had been long ago seen through by everyone, and was a subject of general ridicule. At last in the third month a critical article appeared in a serious review. Sergey Ivanovitch knew the author of the article. He had met him once at Golubtsov's. The author of the article was a young man, an invalid, very bold as a writer, but extremely deficient in breeding and shy in personal relations. In spite of his absolute contempt for the author, it was with complete respect that Sergey Ivanovitch set about reading the article. The article was awful. The critic had undoubtedly put an interpretation upon the book which could not possibly be put on it. But he had selected quotations so adroitly that for people who had not read the book (and obviously scarcely anyone had read it) it seemed absolutely clear that the whole book was nothing but a medley of highflown phrases, not evenas suggested by marks of interrogationused appropriately, and that the author of the book was a person absolutely without knowledge of the subject. And all this was so wittily done that Sergey Ivanovitch would not have disowned such wit himself. But that was just what was so awful. In spite of the scrupulous conscientiousness with which Sergey Ivanovitch verified the correctness of the critic's arguments, he did not for a minute stop to ponder over the faults and mistakes which were ridiculed but unconsciously he began immediately trying to recall every detail of his meeting and conversation with the author of the article. 'Didn't I offend him in some way? Sergey Ivanovitch wondered. And remembering that when they met he had corrected the young man about something he had said that betrayed ignorance, Sergey Ivanovitch found the clue to explain the article. This article was followed by a deadly silence about the book both in the press and in conversation, and Sergey Ivanovitch saw that his six years' task, toiled at with such love and labor, had gone, leaving no trace. Sergey Ivanovitch's position was still more difficult from the fact that, since he had finished his book, he had had no more literary work to do, such as had hitherto occupied the greater part of his time. Sergey Ivanovitch was clever, cultivated, healthy, and energetic, and he did not know what use to make of his energy. Conversations in drawingrooms, in meetings, assemblies, and committeeseverywhere where talk was possibletook up part of his time. But being used for years to town life, he did not waste all his energies in talk, as his less experienced younger brother did, when he was in Moscow. He had a great deal of leisure and intellectual energy still to dispose of. Fortunately for him, at this period so difficult for him from the failure of his book, the various public questions of the dissenting sects, of the American alliance, of the Samara famine, of exhibitions, and of spiritualism, were definitely replaced in public interest by the Slavonic question, which had hitherto rather languidly interested society, and Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been one of the first to raise this subject, threw himself into it heart and soul. In the circle to which Sergey Ivanovitch belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the Servian War. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the Slavonic States. Balls, concerts, dinners, matchboxes, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurantseverything testified to sympathy with the Slavonic peoples. From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergey Ivanovitch differed on various points. He saw that the Slavonic question had become one of those fashionable distractions which succeed one another in providing society with an object and an occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up the subject from motives of selfinterest and selfadvertisement. He recognized that the newspapers published a great deal that was superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting attention and outbidding one another. He saw that in this general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting under a sense of injurygenerals without armies, ministers not in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders without followers. He saw that there was a great deal in it that was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognized an unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which it was impossible not to sympathize. The massacre of men who were fellow Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing to help their brothers not in word but in deed. But in this there was another aspect that rejoiced Sergey Ivanovitch. That was the manifestation of public opinion. The public had definitely expressed its desire. The soul of the people had, as Sergey Ivanovitch said, found expression. And the more he worked in this cause, the more incontestable it seemed to him that it was a cause destined to assume vast dimensions, to create an epoch. He threw himself heart and soul into the service of this great cause, and forgot to think about his book. His whole time now was engrossed by it, so that he could scarcely manage to answer all the letters and appeals addressed to him. He worked the whole spring and part of the summer, and it was only in July that he prepared to go away to his brother's in the country. He was going both to rest for a fortnight, and in the very heart of the people, in the farthest wilds of the country, to enjoy the sight of that uplifting of the spirit of the people, of which, like all residents in the capital and big towns, he was fully persuaded. Katavasov had long been meaning to carry out his promise to stay with Levin, and so he was going with him. Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had only just reached the station of the Kursk line, which was particularly busy and full of people that day, when, looking round for the groom who was following with their things, they saw a party of volunteers driving up in four cabs. Ladies met them with bouquets of flowers, and followed by the rushing crowd they went into the station. One of the ladies, who had met the volunteers, came out of the hall and addressed Sergey Ivanovitch. 'You too come to see them off? she asked in French. 'No, I'm going away myself, princess. To my brother's for a holiday. Do you always see them off? said Sergey Ivanovitch with a hardly perceptible smile. 'Oh, that would be impossible! answered the princess. 'Is it true that eight hundred have been sent from us already? Malvinsky wouldn't believe me. 'More than eight hundred. If you reckon those who have been sent not directly from Moscow, over a thousand, answered Sergey Ivanovitch. 'There! That's just what I said! exclaimed the lady. 'And it's true too, I suppose, that more than a million has been subscribed? 'Yes, princess. 'What do you say to today's telegram? Beaten the Turks again. 'Yes, so I saw, answered Sergey Ivanovitch. They were speaking of the last telegram stating that the Turks had been for three days in succession beaten at all points and put to flight, and that tomorrow a decisive engagement was expected. 'Ah, by the way, a splendid young fellow has asked leave to go, and they've made some difficulty, I don't know why. I meant to ask you I know him please write a note about his case. He's being sent by Countess Lidia Ivanovna. Sergey Ivanovitch asked for all the details the princess knew about the young man, and going into the firstclass waitingroom, wrote a note to the person on whom the granting of leave of absence depended, and handed it to the princess. 'You know Count Vronsky, the notorious one ... is going by this train? said the princess with a smile full of triumph and meaning, when he found her again and gave her the letter. 'I had heard he was going, but I did not know when. By this train? 'I've seen him. He's here there's only his mother seeing him off. It's the best thing, anyway, that he could do. 'Oh, yes, of course. While they were talking the crowd streamed by them into the diningroom. They went forward too, and heard a gentleman with a glass in his hand delivering a loud discourse to the volunteers. 'In the service of religion, humanity, and our brothers, the gentleman said, his voice growing louder and louder 'to this great cause mother Moscow dedicates you with her blessing. Jivio! he concluded, loudly and tearfully. Everyone shouted Jivio! and a fresh crowd dashed into the hall, almost carrying the princess off her legs. 'Ah, princess! that was something like! said Stepan Arkadyevitch, suddenly appearing in the middle of the crowd and beaming upon them with a delighted smile. 'Capitally, warmly said, wasn't it? Bravo! And Sergey Ivanovitch! Why, you ought to have said somethingjust a few words, you know, to encourage them you do that so well, he added with a soft, respectful, and discreet smile, moving Sergey Ivanovitch forward a little by the arm. 'No, I'm just off. 'Where to? 'To the country, to my brother's, answered Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Then you'll see my wife. I've written to her, but you'll see her first. Please tell her that they've seen me and that it's 'all right,' as the English say. She'll understand. Oh, and be so good as to tell her I'm appointed secretary of the committee.... But she'll understand! You know, les petites misres de la vie humaine, he said, as it were apologizing to the princess. 'And Princess Myakayanot Liza, but Bibishis sending a thousand guns and twelve nurses. Did I tell you? 'Yes, I heard so, answered Koznishev indifferently. 'It's a pity you're going away, said Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Tomorrow we're giving a dinner to two who're setting offDimerBartnyansky from Petersburg and our Veslovsky, Grisha. They're both going. Veslovsky's only lately married. There's a fine fellow for you! Eh, princess? he turned to the lady. The princess looked at Koznishev without replying. But the fact that Sergey Ivanovitch and the princess seemed anxious to get rid of him did not in the least disconcert Stepan Arkadyevitch. Smiling, he stared at the feather in the princess's hat, and then about him as though he were going to pick something up. Seeing a lady approaching with a collecting box, he beckoned her up and put in a fiverouble note. 'I can never see these collecting boxes unmoved while I've money in my pocket, he said. 'And how about today's telegram? Fine chaps those Montenegrins! 'You don't say so! he cried, when the princess told him that Vronsky was going by this train. For an instant Stepan Arkadyevitch's face looked sad, but a minute later, when, stroking his mustaches and swinging as he walked, he went into the hall where Vronsky was, he had completely forgotten his own despairing sobs over his sister's corpse, and he saw in Vronsky only a hero and an old friend. 'With all his faults one can't refuse to do him justice, said the princess to Sergey Ivanovitch as soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch had left them. 'What a typically Russian, Slav nature! Only, I'm afraid it won't be pleasant for Vronsky to see him. Say what you will, I'm touched by that man's fate. Do talk to him a little on the way, said the princess. 'Yes, perhaps, if it happens so. 'I never liked him. But this atones for a great deal. He's not merely going himself, he's taking a squadron at his own expense. 'Yes, so I heard. A bell sounded. Everyone crowded to the doors. 'Here he is! said the princess, indicating Vronsky, who with his mother on his arm walked by, wearing a long overcoat and widebrimmed black hat. Oblonsky was walking beside him, talking eagerly of something. Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him, as though he did not hear what Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying. Probably on Oblonsky's pointing them out, he looked round in the direction where the princess and Sergey Ivanovitch were standing, and without speaking lifted his hat. His face, aged and worn by suffering, looked stony. Going onto the platform, Vronsky left his mother and disappeared into a compartment. On the platform there rang out 'God save the Tsar, then shouts of 'hurrah! and 'jivio! One of the volunteers, a tall, very young man with a hollow chest, was particularly conspicuous, bowing and waving his felt hat and a nosegay over his head. Then two officers emerged, bowing too, and a stout man with a big beard, wearing a greasy forage cap. Saying goodbye to the princess, Sergey Ivanovitch was joined by Katavasov together they got into a carriage full to overflowing, and the train started. At Tsaritsino station the train was met by a chorus of young men singing 'Hail to Thee! Again the volunteers bowed and poked their heads out, but Sergey Ivanovitch paid no attention to them. He had had so much to do with the volunteers that the type was familiar to him and did not interest him. Katavasov, whose scientific work had prevented his having a chance of observing them hitherto, was very much interested in them and questioned Sergey Ivanovitch. Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to go into the secondclass and talk to them himself. At the next station Katavasov acted on this suggestion. At the first stop he moved into the secondclass and made the acquaintance of the volunteers. They were sitting in a corner of the carriage, talking loudly and obviously aware that the attention of the passengers and Katavasov as he got in was concentrated upon them. More loudly than all talked the tall, hollowchested young man. He was unmistakably tipsy, and was relating some story that had occurred at his school. Facing him sat a middleaged officer in the Austrian military jacket of the Guards uniform. He was listening with a smile to the hollowchested youth, and occasionally pulling him up. The third, in an artillery uniform, was sitting on a box beside them. A fourth was asleep. Entering into conversation with the youth, Katavasov learned that he was a wealthy Moscow merchant who had run through a large fortune before he was twoandtwenty. Katavasov did not like him, because he was unmanly and effeminate and sickly. He was obviously convinced, especially now after drinking, that he was performing a heroic action, and he bragged of it in the most unpleasant way. The second, the retired officer, made an unpleasant impression too upon Katavasov. He was, it seemed, a man who had tried everything. He had been on a railway, had been a landsteward, and had started factories, and he talked, quite without necessity, of all he had done, and used learned expressions quite inappropriately. The third, the artilleryman, on the contrary, struck Katavasov very favorably. He was a quiet, modest fellow, unmistakably impressed by the knowledge of the officer and the heroic selfsacrifice of the merchant and saying nothing about himself. When Katavasov asked him what had impelled him to go to Servia, he answered modestly 'Oh, well, everyone's going. The Servians want help, too. I'm sorry for them. 'Yes, you artillerymen especially are scarce there, said Katavasov. 'Oh, I wasn't long in the artillery, maybe they'll put me into the infantry or the cavalry. 'Into the infantry when they need artillery more than anything? said Katavasov, fancying from the artilleryman's apparent age that he must have reached a fairly high grade. 'I wasn't long in the artillery I'm a cadet retired, he said, and he began to explain how he had failed in his examination. All of this together made a disagreeable impression on Katavasov, and when the volunteers got out at a station for a drink, Katavasov would have liked to compare his unfavorable impression in conversation with someone. There was an old man in the carriage, wearing a military overcoat, who had been listening all the while to Katavasov's conversation with the volunteers. When they were left alone, Katavasov addressed him. 'What different positions they come from, all those fellows who are going off there, Katavasov said vaguely, not wishing to express his own opinion, and at the same time anxious to find out the old man's views. The old man was an officer who had served on two campaigns. He knew what makes a soldier, and judging by the appearance and the talk of those persons, by the swagger with which they had recourse to the bottle on the journey, he considered them poor soldiers. Moreover, he lived in a district town, and he was longing to tell how one soldier had volunteered from his town, a drunkard and a thief whom no one would employ as a laborer. But knowing by experience that in the present condition of the public temper it was dangerous to express an opinion opposed to the general one, and especially to criticize the volunteers unfavorably, he too watched Katavasov without committing himself. 'Well, men are wanted there, he said, laughing with his eyes. And they fell to talking of the last war news, and each concealed from the other his perplexity as to the engagement expected next day, since the Turks had been beaten, according to the latest news, at all points. And so they parted, neither giving expression to his opinion. Katavasov went back to his own carriage, and with reluctant hypocrisy reported to Sergey Ivanovitch his observations of the volunteers, from which it would appear that they were capital fellows. At a big station at a town the volunteers were again greeted with shouts and singing, again men and women with collecting boxes appeared, and provincial ladies brought bouquets to the volunteers and followed them into the refreshment room but all this was on a much smaller and feebler scale than in Moscow. While the train was stopping at the provincial town, Sergey Ivanovitch did not go to the refreshment room, but walked up and down the platform. The first time he passed Vronsky's compartment he noticed that the curtain was drawn over the window but as he passed it the second time he saw the old countess at the window. She beckoned to Koznishev. 'I'm going, you see, taking him as far as Kursk, she said. 'Yes, so I heard, said Sergey Ivanovitch, standing at her window and peeping in. 'What a noble act on his part! he added, noticing that Vronsky was not in the compartment. 'Yes, after his misfortune, what was there for him to do? 'What a terrible thing it was! said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'Ah, what I have been through! But do get in.... Ah, what I have been through! she repeated, when Sergey Ivanovitch had got in and sat down beside her. 'You can't conceive it! For six weeks he did not speak to anyone, and would not touch food except when I implored him. And not for one minute could we leave him alone. We took away everything he could have used against himself. We lived on the ground floor, but there was no reckoning on anything. You know, of course, that he had shot himself once already on her account, she said, and the old lady's eyelashes twitched at the recollection. 'Yes, hers was the fitting end for such a woman. Even the death she chose was low and vulgar. 'It's not for us to judge, countess, said Sergey Ivanovitch 'but I can understand that it has been very hard for you. 'Ah, don't speak of it! I was staying on my estate, and he was with me. A note was brought him. He wrote an answer and sent it off. We hadn't an idea that she was close by at the station. In the evening I had only just gone to my room, when my Mary told me a lady had thrown herself under the train. Something seemed to strike me at once. I knew it was she. The first thing I said was, he was not to be told. But they'd told him already. His coachman was there and saw it all. When I ran into his room, he was beside himselfit was fearful to see him. He didn't say a word, but galloped off there. I don't know to this day what happened there, but he was brought back at death's door. I shouldn't have known him. Prostration complte, the doctor said. And that was followed almost by madness. Oh, why talk of it! said the countess with a wave of her hand. 'It was an awful time! No, say what you will, she was a bad woman. Why, what is the meaning of such desperate passions? It was all to show herself something out of the way. Well, and that she did do. She brought herself to ruin and two good menher husband and my unhappy son. 'And what did her husband do? asked Sergey Ivanovitch. 'He has taken her daughter. Alexey was ready to agree to anything at first. Now it worries him terribly that he should have given his own child away to another man. But he can't take back his word. Karenin came to the funeral. But we tried to prevent his meeting Alexey. For him, for her husband, it was easier, anyway. She had set him free. But my poor son was utterly given up to her. He had thrown up everything, his career, me, and even then she had no mercy on him, but of set purpose she made his ruin complete. No, say what you will, her very death was the death of a vile woman, of no religious feeling. God forgive me, but I can't help hating the memory of her, when I look at my son's misery! 'But how is he now? 'It was a blessing from Providence for usthis Servian war. I'm old, and I don't understand the rights and wrongs of it, but it's come as a providential blessing to him. Of course for me, as his mother, it's terrible and what's worse, they say, ce n'est pas trs bien vu  Ptersbourg. But it can't be helped! It was the one thing that could rouse him. Yashvina friend of hishe had lost all he had at cards and he was going to Servia. He came to see him and persuaded him to go. Now it's an interest for him. Do please talk to him a little. I want to distract his mind. He's so lowspirited. And as bad luck would have it, he has toothache too. But he'll be delighted to see you. Please do talk to him he's walking up and down on that side. Sergey Ivanovitch said he would be very glad to, and crossed over to the other side of the station. In the slanting evening shadows cast by the baggage piled up on the platform, Vronsky in his long overcoat and slouch hat, with his hands in his pockets, strode up and down, like a wild beast in a cage, turning sharply after twenty paces. Sergey Ivanovitch fancied, as he approached him, that Vronsky saw him but was pretending not to see. This did not affect Sergey Ivanovitch in the slightest. He was above all personal considerations with Vronsky. At that moment Sergey Ivanovitch looked upon Vronsky as a man taking an important part in a great cause, and Koznishev thought it his duty to encourage him and express his approval. He went up to him. Vronsky stood still, looked intently at him, recognized him, and going a few steps forward to meet him, shook hands with him very warmly. 'Possibly you didn't wish to see me, said Sergey Ivanovitch, 'but couldn't I be of use to you? 'There's no one I should less dislike seeing than you, said Vronsky. 'Excuse me and there's nothing in life for me to like. 'I quite understand, and I merely meant to offer you my services, said Sergey Ivanovitch, scanning Vronsky's face, full of unmistakable suffering. 'Wouldn't it be of use to you to have a letter to Ristitchto Milan? 'Oh, no! Vronsky said, seeming to understand him with difficulty. 'If you don't mind, let's walk on. It's so stuffy among the carriages. A letter? No, thank you to meet death one needs no letters of introduction. Nor for the Turks.... he said, with a smile that was merely of the lips. His eyes still kept their look of angry suffering. 'Yes but you might find it easier to get into relations, which are after all essential, with anyone prepared to see you. But that's as you like. I was very glad to hear of your intention. There have been so many attacks made on the volunteers, and a man like you raises them in public estimation. 'My use as a man, said Vronsky, 'is that life's worth nothing to me. And that I've enough bodily energy to cut my way into their ranks, and to trample on them or fallI know that. I'm glad there's something to give my life for, for it's not simply useless but loathsome to me. Anyone's welcome to it. And his jaw twitched impatiently from the incessant gnawing toothache, that prevented him from even speaking with a natural expression. 'You will become another man, I predict, said Sergey Ivanovitch, feeling touched. 'To deliver one's brothermen from bondage is an aim worth death and life. God grant you success outwardlyand inwardly peace, he added, and he held out his hand. Vronsky warmly pressed his outstretched hand. 'Yes, as a weapon I may be of some use. But as a man, I'm a wreck, he jerked out. He could hardly speak for the throbbing ache in his strong teeth, that were like rows of ivory in his mouth. He was silent, and his eyes rested on the wheels of the tender, slowly and smoothly rolling along the rails. And all at once a different pain, not an ache, but an inner trouble, that set his whole being in anguish, made him for an instant forget his toothache. As he glanced at the tender and the rails, under the influence of the conversation with a friend he had not met since his misfortune, he suddenly recalled herthat is, what was left of her when he had run like one distraught into the cloak room of the railway stationon the table, shamelessly sprawling out among strangers, the bloodstained body so lately full of life the head unhurt dropping back with its weight of hair, and the curling tresses about the temples, and the exquisite face, with red, halfopened mouth, the strange, fixed expression, piteous on the lips and awful in the still open eyes, that seemed to utter that fearful phrasethat he would be sorry for itthat she had said when they were quarreling. And he tried to think of her as she was when he met her the first time, at a railway station too, mysterious, exquisite, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly revengeful as he remembered her on that last moment. He tried to recall his best moments with her, but those moments were poisoned forever. He could only think of her as triumphant, successful in her menace of a wholly useless remorse never to be effaced. He lost all consciousness of toothache, and his face worked with sobs. Passing twice up and down beside the baggage in silence and regaining his selfpossession, he addressed Sergey Ivanovitch calmly 'You have had no telegrams since yesterday's? Yes, driven back for a third time, but a decisive engagement expected for tomorrow. And after talking a little more of King Milan's proclamation, and the immense effect it might have, they parted, going to their carriages on hearing the second bell. Sergey Ivanovitch had not telegraphed to his brother to send to meet him, as he did not know when he should be able to leave Moscow. Levin was not at home when Katavasov and Sergey Ivanovitch in a fly hired at the station drove up to the steps of the Pokrovskoe house, as black as Moors from the dust of the road. Kitty, sitting on the balcony with her father and sister, recognized her brotherinlaw, and ran down to meet him. 'What a shame not to have let us know, she said, giving her hand to Sergey Ivanovitch, and putting her forehead up for him to kiss. 'We drove here capitally, and have not put you out, answered Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I'm so dirty. I'm afraid to touch you. I've been so busy, I didn't know when I should be able to tear myself away. And so you're still as ever enjoying your peaceful, quiet happiness, he said, smiling, 'out of the reach of the current in your peaceful backwater. Here's our friend Fyodor Vassilievitch who has succeeded in getting here at last. 'But I'm not a negro, I shall look like a human being when I wash, said Katavasov in his jesting fashion, and he shook hands and smiled, his teeth flashing white in his black face. 'Kostya will be delighted. He has gone to his settlement. It's time he should be home. 'Busy as ever with his farming. It really is a peaceful backwater, said Katavasov 'while we in town think of nothing but the Servian war. Well, how does our friend look at it? He's sure not to think like other people. 'Oh, I don't know, like everybody else, Kitty answered, a little embarrassed, looking round at Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I'll send to fetch him. Papa's staying with us. He's only just come home from abroad. And making arrangements to send for Levin and for the guests to wash, one in his room and the other in what had been Dolly's, and giving orders for their luncheon, Kitty ran out onto the balcony, enjoying the freedom, and rapidity of movement, of which she had been deprived during the months of her pregnancy. 'It's Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov, a professor, she said. 'Oh, that's a bore in this heat, said the prince. 'No, papa, he's very nice, and Kostya's very fond of him, Kitty said, with a deprecating smile, noticing the irony on her father's face. 'Oh, I didn't say anything. 'You go to them, darling, said Kitty to her sister, 'and entertain them. They saw Stiva at the station he was quite well. And I must run to Mitya. As illluck would have it, I haven't fed him since tea. He's awake now, and sure to be screaming. And feeling a rush of milk, she hurried to the nursery. This was not a mere guess her connection with the child was still so close, that she could gauge by the flow of her milk his need of food, and knew for certain he was hungry. She knew he was crying before she reached the nursery. And he was indeed crying. She heard him and hastened. But the faster she went, the louder he screamed. It was a fine healthy scream, hungry and impatient. 'Has he been screaming long, nurse, very long? said Kitty hurriedly, seating herself on a chair, and preparing to give the baby the breast. 'But give me him quickly. Oh, nurse, how tiresome you are! There, tie the cap afterwards, do! The baby's greedy scream was passing into sobs. 'But you can't manage so, ma'am, said Agafea Mihalovna, who was almost always to be found in the nursery. 'He must be put straight. Aoo! aoo! she chanted over him, paying no attention to the mother. The nurse brought the baby to his mother. Agafea Mihalovna followed him with a face dissolving with tenderness. 'He knows me, he knows me. In God's faith, Katerina Alexandrovna, ma'am, he knew me! Agafea Mihalovna cried above the baby's screams. But Kitty did not hear her words. Her impatience kept growing, like the baby's. Their impatience hindered things for a while. The baby could not get hold of the breast right, and was furious. At last, after despairing, breathless screaming, and vain sucking, things went right, and mother and child felt simultaneously soothed, and both subsided into calm. 'But poor darling, he's all in perspiration! said Kitty in a whisper, touching the baby. 'What makes you think he knows you? she added, with a sidelong glance at the baby's eyes, that peered roguishly, as she fancied, from under his cap, at his rhythmically puffing cheeks, and the little redpalmed hand he was waving. 'Impossible! If he knew anyone, he would have known me, said Kitty, in response to Agafea Mihalovna's statement, and she smiled. She smiled because, though she said he could not know her, in her heart she was sure that he knew not merely Agafea Mihalovna, but that he knew and understood everything, and knew and understood a great deal too that no one else knew, and that she, his mother, had learned and come to understand only through him. To Agafea Mihalovna, to the nurse, to his grandfather, to his father even, Mitya was a living being, requiring only material care, but for his mother he had long been a mortal being, with whom there had been a whole series of spiritual relations already. 'When he wakes up, please God, you shall see for yourself. Then when I do like this, he simply beams on me, the darling! Simply beams like a sunny day! said Agafea Mihalovna. 'Well, well then we shall see, whispered Kitty. 'But now go away, he's going to sleep. Agafea Mihalovna went out on tiptoe the nurse let down the blind, chased a fly out from under the muslin canopy of the crib, and a bumblebee struggling on the windowframe, and sat down waving a faded branch of birch over the mother and the baby. 'How hot it is! if God would send a drop of rain, she said. 'Yes, yes, shshsh was all Kitty answered, rocking a little, and tenderly squeezing the plump little arm, with rolls of fat at the wrist, which Mitya still waved feebly as he opened and shut his eyes. That hand worried Kitty she longed to kiss the little hand, but was afraid to for fear of waking the baby. At last the little hand ceased waving, and the eyes closed. Only from time to time, as he went on sucking, the baby raised his long, curly eyelashes and peeped at his mother with wet eyes, that looked black in the twilight. The nurse had left off fanning, and was dozing. From above came the peals of the old prince's voice, and the chuckle of Katavasov. 'They have got into talk without me, thought Kitty, 'but still it's vexing that Kostya's out. He's sure to have gone to the beehouse again. Though it's a pity he's there so often, still I'm glad. It distracts his mind. He's become altogether happier and better now than in the spring. He used to be so gloomy and worried that I felt frightened for him. And how absurd he is! she whispered, smiling. She knew what worried her husband. It was his unbelief. Although, if she had been asked whether she supposed that in the future life, if he did not believe, he would be damned, she would have had to admit that he would be damned, his unbelief did not cause her unhappiness. And she, confessing that for an unbeliever there can be no salvation, and loving her husband's soul more than anything in the world, thought with a smile of his unbelief, and told herself that he was absurd. 'What does he keep reading philosophy of some sort for all this year? she wondered. 'If it's all written in those books, he can understand them. If it's all wrong, why does he read them? He says himself that he would like to believe. Then why is it he doesn't believe? Surely from his thinking so much? And he thinks so much from being solitary. He's always alone, alone. He can't talk about it all to us. I fancy he'll be glad of these visitors, especially Katavasov. He likes discussions with them, she thought, and passed instantly to the consideration of where it would be more convenient to put Katavasov, to sleep alone or to share Sergey Ivanovitch's room. And then an idea suddenly struck her, which made her shudder and even disturb Mitya, who glanced severely at her. 'I do believe the laundress hasn't sent the washing yet, and all the best sheets are in use. If I don't see to it, Agafea Mihalovna will give Sergey Ivanovitch the wrong sheets, and at the very idea of this the blood rushed to Kitty's face. 'Yes, I will arrange it, she decided, and going back to her former thoughts, she remembered that some spiritual question of importance had been interrupted, and she began to recall what. 'Yes, Kostya, an unbeliever, she thought again with a smile. 'Well, an unbeliever then! Better let him always be one than like Madame Stahl, or what I tried to be in those days abroad. No, he won't ever sham anything. And a recent instance of his goodness rose vividly to her mind. A fortnight ago a penitent letter had come from Stepan Arkadyevitch to Dolly. He besought her to save his honor, to sell her estate to pay his debts. Dolly was in despair, she detested her husband, despised him, pitied him, resolved on a separation, resolved to refuse, but ended by agreeing to sell part of her property. After that, with an irrepressible smile of tenderness, Kitty recalled her husband's shamefaced embarrassment, his repeated awkward efforts to approach the subject, and how at last, having thought of the one means of helping Dolly without wounding her pride, he had suggested to Kittywhat had not occurred to her beforethat she should give up her share of the property. 'He an unbeliever indeed! With his heart, his dread of offending anyone, even a child! Everything for others, nothing for himself. Sergey Ivanovitch simply considers it as Kostya's duty to be his steward. And it's the same with his sister. Now Dolly and her children are under his guardianship all these peasants who come to him every day, as though he were bound to be at their service. 'Yes, only be like your father, only like him, she said, handing Mitya over to the nurse, and putting her lips to his cheek. Ever since, by his beloved brother's deathbed, Levin had first glanced into the questions of life and death in the light of these new convictions, as he called them, which had during the period from his twentieth to his thirtyfourth year imperceptibly replaced his childish and youthful beliefshe had been stricken with horror, not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and what it was. The physical organization, its decay, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, evolution, were the words which usurped the place of his old belief. These words and the ideas associated with them were very well for intellectual purposes. But for life they yielded nothing, and Levin felt suddenly like a man who has changed his warm fur cloak for a muslin garment, and going for the first time into the frost is immediately convinced, not by reason, but by his whole nature that he is as good as naked, and that he must infallibly perish miserably. From that moment, though he did not distinctly face it, and still went on living as before, Levin had never lost this sense of terror at his lack of knowledge. He vaguely felt, too, that what he called his new convictions were not merely lack of knowledge, but that they were part of a whole order of ideas, in which no knowledge of what he needed was possible. At first, marriage, with the new joys and duties bound up with it, had completely crowded out these thoughts. But of late, while he was staying in Moscow after his wife's confinement, with nothing to do, the question that clamored for solution had more and more often, more and more insistently, haunted Levin's mind. The question was summed up for him thus 'If I do not accept the answers Christianity gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept? And in the whole arsenal of his convictions, so far from finding any satisfactory answers, he was utterly unable to find anything at all like an answer. He was in the position of a man seeking food in toy shops and tool shops. Instinctively, unconsciously, with every book, with every conversation, with every man he met, he was on the lookout for light on these questions and their solution. What puzzled and distracted him above everything was that the majority of men of his age and circle had, like him, exchanged their old beliefs for the same new convictions, and yet saw nothing to lament in this, and were perfectly satisfied and serene. So that, apart from the principal question, Levin was tortured by other questions too. Were these people sincere? he asked himself, or were they playing a part? or was it that they understood the answers science gave to these problems in some different, clearer sense than he did? And he assiduously studied both these men's opinions and the books which treated of these scientific explanations. One fact he had found out since these questions had engrossed his mind, was that he had been quite wrong in supposing from the recollections of the circle of his young days at college, that religion had outlived its day, and that it was now practically nonexistent. All the people nearest to him who were good in their lives were believers. The old prince, and Lvov, whom he liked so much, and Sergey Ivanovitch, and all the women believed, and his wife believed as simply as he had believed in his earliest childhood, and ninetynine hundredths of the Russian people, all the working people for whose life he felt the deepest respect, believed. Another fact of which he became convinced, after reading many scientific books, was that the men who shared his views had no other construction to put on them, and that they gave no explanation of the questions which he felt he could not live without answering, but simply ignored their existence and attempted to explain other questions of no possible interest to him, such as the evolution of organisms, the materialistic theory of consciousness, and so forth. Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that moment fit into the rest of his life. He could not admit that at that moment he knew the truth, and that now he was wrong for as soon as he began thinking calmly about it, it all fell to pieces. He could not admit that he was mistaken then, for his spiritual condition then was precious to him, and to admit that it was a proof of weakness would have been to desecrate those moments. He was miserably divided against himself, and strained all his spiritual forces to the utmost to escape from this condition. These doubts fretted and harassed him, growing weaker or stronger from time to time, but never leaving him. He read and thought, and the more he read and the more he thought, the further he felt from the aim he was pursuing. Of late in Moscow and in the country, since he had become convinced that he would find no solution in the materialists, he had read and reread thoroughly Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, the philosophers who gave a nonmaterialistic explanation of life. Their ideas seemed to him fruitful when he was reading or was himself seeking arguments to refute other theories, especially those of the materialists but as soon as he began to read or sought for himself a solution of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he followed the fixed definition of obscure words such as spirit, will, freedom, essence, purposely letting himself go into the snare of words the philosophers set for him, he seemed to comprehend something. But he had only to forget the artificial train of reasoning, and to turn from life itself to what had satisfied him while thinking in accordance with the fixed definitions, and all this artificial edifice fell to pieces at once like a house of cards, and it became clear that the edifice had been built up out of those transposed words, apart from anything in life more important than reason. At one time, reading Schopenhauer, he put in place of his will the word love, and for a couple of days this new philosophy charmed him, till he removed a little away from it. But then, when he turned from life itself to glance at it again, it fell away too, and proved to be the same muslin garment with no warmth in it. His brother Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to read the theological works of Homiakov. Levin read the second volume of Homiakov's works, and in spite of the elegant, epigrammatic, argumentative style which at first repelled him, he was impressed by the doctrine of the church he found in them. He was struck at first by the idea that the apprehension of divine truths had not been vouchsafed to man, but to a corporation of men bound together by loveto the church. What delighted him was the thought how much easier it was to believe in a still existing living church, embracing all the beliefs of men, and having God at its head, and therefore holy and infallible, and from it to accept the faith in God, in the creation, the fall, the redemption, than to begin with God, a mysterious, faraway God, the creation, etc. But afterwards, on reading a Catholic writer's history of the church, and then a Greek orthodox writer's history of the church, and seeing that the two churches, in their very conception infallible, each deny the authority of the other, Homiakov's doctrine of the church lost all its charm for him, and this edifice crumbled into dust like the philosophers' edifices. All that spring he was not himself, and went through fearful moments of horror. 'Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible and that I can't know, and so I can't live, Levin said to himself. 'In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubbleorganism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is Me. It was an agonizing error, but it was the sole logical result of ages of human thought in that direction. This was the ultimate belief on which all the systems elaborated by human thought in almost all their ramifications rested. It was the prevalent conviction, and of all other explanations Levin had unconsciously, not knowing when or how, chosen it, as anyway the clearest, and made it his own. But it was not merely a falsehood, it was the cruel jeer of some wicked power, some evil, hateful power, to whom one could not submit. He must escape from this power. And the means of escape every man had in his own hands. He had but to cut short this dependence on evil. And there was one meansdeath. And Levin, a happy father and husband, in perfect health, was several times so near suicide that he hid the cord that he might not be tempted to hang himself, and was afraid to go out with his gun for fear of shooting himself. But Levin did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself he went on living. When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair, but he left off questioning himself about it. It seemed as though he knew both what he was and for what he was living, for he acted and lived resolutely and without hesitation. Indeed, in these latter days he was far more decided and unhesitating in life than he had ever been. When he went back to the country at the beginning of June, he went back also to his usual pursuits. The management of the estate, his relations with the peasants and the neighbors, the care of his household, the management of his sister's and brother's property, of which he had the direction, his relations with his wife and kindred, the care of his child, and the new beekeeping hobby he had taken up that spring, filled all his time. These things occupied him now, not because he justified them to himself by any sort of general principles, as he had done in former days on the contrary, disappointed by the failure of his former efforts for the general welfare, and too much occupied with his own thought and the mass of business with which he was burdened from all sides, he had completely given up thinking of the general good, and he busied himself with all this work simply because it seemed to him that he must do what he was doingthat he could not do otherwise. In former daysalmost from childhood, and increasingly up to full manhoodwhen he had tried to do anything that would be good for all, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the idea of it had been pleasant, but the work itself had always been incoherent, that then he had never had a full conviction of its absolute necessity, and that the work that had begun by seeming so great, had grown less and less, till it vanished into nothing. But now, since his marriage, when he had begun to confine himself more and more to living for himself, though he experienced no delight at all at the thought of the work he was doing, he felt a complete conviction of its necessity, saw that it succeeded far better than in old days, and that it kept on growing more and more. Now, involuntarily it seemed, he cut more and more deeply into the soil like a plough, so that he could not be drawn out without turning aside the furrow. To live the same family life as his father and forefathersthat is, in the same condition of cultureand to bring up his children in the same, was incontestably necessary. It was as necessary as dining when one was hungry. And to do this, just as it was necessary to cook dinner, it was necessary to keep the mechanism of agriculture at Pokrovskoe going so as to yield an income. Just as incontestably as it was necessary to repay a debt was it necessary to keep the property in such a condition that his son, when he received it as a heritage, would say 'thank you to his father as Levin had said 'thank you to his grandfather for all he built and planted. And to do this it was necessary to look after the land himself, not to let it, and to breed cattle, manure the fields, and plant timber. It was impossible not to look after the affairs of Sergey Ivanovitch, of his sister, of the peasants who came to him for advice and were accustomed to do soas impossible as to fling down a child one is carrying in one's arms. It was necessary to look after the comfort of his sisterinlaw and her children, and of his wife and baby, and it was impossible not to spend with them at least a short time each day. And all this, together with shooting and his new beekeeping, filled up the whole of Levin's life, which had no meaning at all for him, when he began to think. But besides knowing thoroughly what he had to do, Levin knew in just the same way how he had to do it all, and what was more important than the rest. He knew he must hire laborers as cheaply as possible but to hire men under bond, paying them in advance at less than the current rate of wages, was what he must not do, even though it was very profitable. Selling straw to the peasants in times of scarcity of provender was what he might do, even though he felt sorry for them but the tavern and the pothouse must be put down, though they were a source of income. Felling timber must be punished as severely as possible, but he could not exact forfeits for cattle being driven onto his fields and though it annoyed the keeper and made the peasants not afraid to graze their cattle on his land, he could not keep their cattle as a punishment. To Pyotr, who was paying a moneylender ten per cent. a month, he must lend a sum of money to set him free. But he could not let off peasants who did not pay their rent, nor let them fall into arrears. It was impossible to overlook the bailiff's not having mown the meadows and letting the hay spoil and it was equally impossible to mow those acres where a young copse had been planted. It was impossible to excuse a laborer who had gone home in the busy season because his father was dying, however sorry he might feel for him, and he must subtract from his pay those costly months of idleness. But it was impossible not to allow monthly rations to the old servants who were of no use for anything. Levin knew that when he got home he must first of all go to his wife, who was unwell, and that the peasants who had been waiting for three hours to see him could wait a little longer. He knew too that, regardless of all the pleasure he felt in taking a swarm, he must forego that pleasure, and leave the old man to see to the bees alone, while he talked to the peasants who had come after him to the beehouse. Whether he were acting rightly or wrongly he did not know, and far from trying to prove that he was, nowadays he avoided all thought or talk about it. Reasoning had brought him to doubt, and prevented him from seeing what he ought to do and what he ought not. When he did not think, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge in his soul, determining which of two possible courses of action was the better and which was the worse, and as soon as he did not act rightly, he was at once aware of it. So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and what he was living for, and harassed at this lack of knowledge to such a point that he was afraid of suicide, and yet firmly laying down his own individual definite path in life. The day on which Sergey Ivanovitch came to Pokrovskoe was one of Levin's most painful days. It was the very busiest working time, when all the peasantry show an extraordinary intensity of selfsacrifice in labor, such as is never shown in any other conditions of life, and would be highly esteemed if the men who showed these qualities themselves thought highly of them, and if it were not repeated every year, and if the results of this intense labor were not so simple. To reap and bind the rye and oats and to carry it, to mow the meadows, turn over the fallows, thrash the seed and sow the winter cornall this seems so simple and ordinary but to succeed in getting through it all everyone in the village, from the old man to the young child, must toil incessantly for three or four weeks, three times as hard as usual, living on ryebeer, onions, and black bread, thrashing and carrying the sheaves at night, and not giving more than two or three hours in the twentyfour to sleep. And every year this is done all over Russia. Having lived the greater part of his life in the country and in the closest relations with the peasants, Levin always felt in this busy time that he was infected by this general quickening of energy in the people. In the early morning he rode over to the first sowing of the rye, and to the oats, which were being carried to the stacks, and returning home at the time his wife and sisterinlaw were getting up, he drank coffee with them and walked to the farm, where a new thrashing machine was to be set working to get ready the seedcorn. He was standing in the cool granary, still fragrant with the leaves of the hazel branches interlaced on the freshly peeled aspen beams of the new thatch roof. He gazed through the open door in which the dry bitter dust of the thrashing whirled and played, at the grass of the thrashing floor in the sunlight and the fresh straw that had been brought in from the barn, then at the specklyheaded, whitebreasted swallows that flew chirping in under the roof and, fluttering their wings, settled in the crevices of the doorway, then at the peasants bustling in the dark, dusty barn, and he thought strange thoughts. 'Why is it all being done? he thought. 'Why am I standing here, making them work? What are they all so busy for, trying to show their zeal before me? What is that old Matrona, my old friend, toiling for? (I doctored her, when the beam fell on her in the fire) he thought, looking at a thin old woman who was raking up the grain, moving painfully with her bare, sunblackened feet over the uneven, rough floor. 'Then she recovered, but today or tomorrow or in ten years she won't they'll bury her, and nothing will be left either of her or of that smart girl in the red jacket, who with that skillful, soft action shakes the ears out of their husks. They'll bury her and this piebald horse, and very soon too, he thought, gazing at the heavily moving, panting horse that kept walking up the wheel that turned under him. 'And they will bury her and Fyodor the thrasher with his curly beard full of chaff and his shirt torn on his white shouldersthey will bury him. He's untying the sheaves, and giving orders, and shouting to the women, and quickly setting straight the strap on the moving wheel. And what's more, it's not them aloneme they'll bury too, and nothing will be left. What for? He thought this, and at the same time looked at his watch to reckon how much they thrashed in an hour. He wanted to know this so as to judge by it the task to set for the day. 'It'll soon be one, and they're only beginning the third sheaf, thought Levin. He went up to the man that was feeding the machine, and shouting over the roar of the machine he told him to put it in more slowly. 'You put in too much at a time, Fyodor. Do you seeit gets choked, that's why it isn't getting on. Do it evenly. Fyodor, black with the dust that clung to his moist face, shouted something in response, but still went on doing it as Levin did not want him to. Levin, going up to the machine, moved Fyodor aside, and began feeding the corn in himself. Working on till the peasants' dinner hour, which was not long in coming, he went out of the barn with Fyodor and fell into talk with him, stopping beside a neat yellow sheaf of rye laid on the thrashing floor for seed. Fyodor came from a village at some distance from the one in which Levin had once allotted land to his cooperative association. Now it had been let to a former house porter. Levin talked to Fyodor about this land and asked whether Platon, a welltodo peasant of good character belonging to the same village, would not take the land for the coming year. 'It's a high rent it wouldn't pay Platon, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, answered the peasant, picking the ears off his sweatdrenched shirt. 'But how does Kirillov make it pay? 'Mituh! (so the peasant called the house porter, in a tone of contempt), 'you may be sure he'll make it pay, Konstantin Dmitrievitch! He'll get his share, however he has to squeeze to get it! He's no mercy on a Christian. But Uncle Fokanitch (so he called the old peasant Platon), 'do you suppose he'd flay the skin off a man? Where there's debt, he'll let anyone off. And he'll not wring the last penny out. He's a man too. 'But why will he let anyone off? 'Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else, like Mituh, he only thinks of filling his belly, but Fokanitch is a righteous man. He lives for his soul. He does not forget God. 'How thinks of God? How does he live for his soul? Levin almost shouted. 'Why, to be sure, in truth, in God's way. Folks are different. Take you now, you wouldn't wrong a man.... 'Yes, yes, goodbye! said Levin, breathless with excitement, and turning round he took his stick and walked quickly away towards home. At the peasant's words that Fokanitch lived for his soul, in truth, in God's way, undefined but significant ideas seemed to burst out as though they had been locked up, and all striving towards one goal, they thronged whirling through his head, blinding him with their light. Levin strode along the highroad, absorbed not so much in his thoughts (he could not yet disentangle them) as in his spiritual condition, unlike anything he had experienced before. The words uttered by the peasant had acted on his soul like an electric shock, suddenly transforming and combining into a single whole the whole swarm of disjointed, impotent, separate thoughts that incessantly occupied his mind. These thoughts had unconsciously been in his mind even when he was talking about the land. He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested this new thing, not yet knowing what it was. 'Not living for his own wants, but for God? For what God? And could one say anything more senseless than what he said? He said that one must not live for one's own wants, that is, that one must not live for what we understand, what we are attracted by, what we desire, but must live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one can understand nor even define. What of it? Didn't I understand those senseless words of Fyodor's? And understanding them, did I doubt of their truth? Did I think them stupid, obscure, inexact? No, I understood him, and exactly as he understands the words. I understood them more fully and clearly than I understand anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted nor can I doubt about it. And not only I, but everyone, the whole world understands nothing fully but this, and about this only they have no doubt and are always agreed. 'And I looked out for miracles, complained that I did not see a miracle which would convince me. A material miracle would have persuaded me. And here is a miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it! 'Fyodor says that Kirillov lives for his belly. That's comprehensible and rational. All of us as rational beings can't do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a sudden the same Fyodor says that one mustn't live for one's belly, but must live for truth, for God, and at a hint I understand him! And I and millions of men, men who lived ages ago and men living nowpeasants, the poor in spirit and the learned, who have thought and written about it, in their obscure words saying the same thingwe are all agreed about this one thing what we must live for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm, incontestable, clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by the reasonit is outside it, and has no causes and can have no effects. 'If goodness has causes, it is not goodness if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect. 'And yet I know it, and we all know it. 'What could be a greater miracle than that? 'Can I have found the solution of it all? can my sufferings be over? thought Levin, striding along the dusty road, not noticing the heat nor his weariness, and experiencing a sense of relief from prolonged suffering. This feeling was so delicious that it seemed to him incredible. He was breathless with emotion and incapable of going farther he turned off the road into the forest and lay down in the shade of an aspen on the uncut grass. He took his hat off his hot head and lay propped on his elbow in the lush, feathery, woodland grass. 'Yes, I must make it clear to myself and understand, he thought, looking intently at the untrampled grass before him, and following the movements of a green beetle, advancing along a blade of couchgrass and lifting up in its progress a leaf of goatweed. 'What have I discovered? he asked himself, bending aside the leaf of goatweed out of the beetle's way and twisting another blade of grass above for the beetle to cross over onto it. 'What is it makes me glad? What have I discovered? 'I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master. 'Of old I used to say that in my body, that in the body of this grass and of this beetle (there, she didn't care for the grass, she's opened her wings and flown away), there was going on a transformation of matter in accordance with physical, chemical, and physiological laws. And in all of us, as well as in the aspens and the clouds and the misty patches, there was a process of evolution. Evolution from what? into what?Eternal evolution and struggle.... As though there could be any sort of tendency and struggle in the eternal! And I was astonished that in spite of the utmost effort of thought along that road I could not discover the meaning of life, the meaning of my impulses and yearnings. Now I say that I know the meaning of my life 'To live for God, for my soul.' And this meaning, in spite of its clearness, is mysterious and marvelous. Such, indeed, is the meaning of everything existing. Yes, pride, he said to himself, turning over on his stomach and beginning to tie a noose of blades of grass, trying not to break them. 'And not merely pride of intellect, but dulness of intellect. And most of all, the deceitfulness yes, the deceitfulness of intellect. The cheating knavishness of intellect, that's it, he said to himself. And he briefly went through, mentally, the whole course of his ideas during the last two years, the beginning of which was the clear confronting of death at the sight of his dear brother hopelessly ill. Then, for the first time, grasping that for every man, and himself too, there was nothing in store but suffering, death, and forgetfulness, he had made up his mind that life was impossible like that, and that he must either interpret life so that it would not present itself to him as the evil jest of some devil, or shoot himself. But he had not done either, but had gone on living, thinking, and feeling, and had even at that very time married, and had had many joys and had been happy, when he was not thinking of the meaning of his life. What did this mean? It meant that he had been living rightly, but thinking wrongly. He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with his mother's milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but studiously ignoring them. Now it was clear to him that he could only live by virtue of the beliefs in which he had been brought up. 'What should I have been, and how should I have spent my life, if I had not had these beliefs, if I had not known that I must live for God and not for my own desires? I should have robbed and lied and killed. Nothing of what makes the chief happiness of my life would have existed for me. And with the utmost stretch of imagination he could not conceive the brutal creature he would have been himself, if he had not known what he was living for. 'I looked for an answer to my question. And thought could not give an answer to my questionit is incommensurable with my question. The answer has been given me by life itself, in my knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. And that knowledge I did not arrive at in any way, it was given to me as to all men, given, because I could not have got it from anywhere. 'Where could I have got it? By reason could I have arrived at knowing that I must love my neighbor and not oppress him? I was told that in my childhood, and I believed it gladly, for they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason. But loving one's neighbor reason could never discover, because it's irrational. And Levin remembered a scene he had lately witnessed between Dolly and her children. The children, left to themselves, had begun cooking raspberries over the candles and squirting milk into each other's mouths with a syringe. Their mother, catching them at these pranks, began reminding them in Levin's presence of the trouble their mischief gave to the grownup people, and that this trouble was all for their sake, and that if they smashed the cups they would have nothing to drink their tea out of, and that if they wasted the milk, they would have nothing to eat, and die of hunger. And Levin had been struck by the passive, weary incredulity with which the children heard what their mother said to them. They were simply annoyed that their amusing play had been interrupted, and did not believe a word of what their mother was saying. They could not believe it indeed, for they could not take in the immensity of all they habitually enjoyed, and so could not conceive that what they were destroying was the very thing they lived by. 'That all comes of itself, they thought, 'and there's nothing interesting or important about it because it has always been so, and always will be so. And it's all always the same. We've no need to think about that, it's all ready. But we want to invent something of our own, and new. So we thought of putting raspberries in a cup, and cooking them over a candle, and squirting milk straight into each other's mouths. That's fun, and something new, and not a bit worse than drinking out of cups. 'Isn't it just the same that we do, that I did, searching by the aid of reason for the significance of the forces of nature and the meaning of the life of man? he thought. 'And don't all the theories of philosophy do the same, trying by the path of thought, which is strange and not natural to man, to bring him to a knowledge of what he has known long ago, and knows so certainly that he could not live at all without it? Isn't it distinctly to be seen in the development of each philosopher's theory, that he knows what is the chief significance of life beforehand, just as positively as the peasant Fyodor, and not a bit more clearly than he, and is simply trying by a dubious intellectual path to come back to what everyone knows? 'Now then, leave the children to themselves to get things alone and make their crockery, get the milk from the cows, and so on. Would they be naughty then? Why, they'd die of hunger! Well, then, leave us with our passions and thoughts, without any idea of the one God, of the Creator, or without any idea of what is right, without any idea of moral evil. 'Just try and build up anything without those ideas! 'We only try to destroy them, because we're spiritually provided for. Exactly like the children! 'Whence have I that joyful knowledge, shared with the peasant, that alone gives peace to my soul? Whence did I get it? 'Brought up with an idea of God, a Christian, my whole life filled with the spiritual blessings Christianity has given me, full of them, and living on those blessings, like the children I did not understand them, and destroy, that is try to destroy, what I live by. And as soon as an important moment of life comes, like the children when they are cold and hungry, I turn to Him, and even less than the children when their mother scolds them for their childish mischief, do I feel that my childish efforts at wanton madness are reckoned against me. 'Yes, what I know, I know not by reason, but it has been given to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, by faith in the chief thing taught by the church. 'The church! the church! Levin repeated to himself. He turned over on the other side, and leaning on his elbow, fell to gazing into the distance at a herd of cattle crossing over to the river. 'But can I believe in all the church teaches? he thought, trying himself, and thinking of everything that could destroy his present peace of mind. Intentionally he recalled all those doctrines of the church which had always seemed most strange and had always been a stumbling block to him. 'The Creation? But how did I explain existence? By existence? By nothing? The devil and sin. But how do I explain evil?... The atonement?... 'But I know nothing, nothing, and I can know nothing but what has been told to me and all men. And it seemed to him that there was not a single article of faith of the church which could destroy the chief thingfaith in God, in goodness, as the one goal of man's destiny. Under every article of faith of the church could be put the faith in the service of truth instead of one's desires. And each doctrine did not simply leave that faith unshaken, each doctrine seemed essential to complete that great miracle, continually manifest upon earth, that made it possible for each man and millions of different sorts of men, wise men and imbeciles, old men and childrenall men, peasants, Lvov, Kitty, beggars and kings to understand perfectly the same one thing, and to build up thereby that life of the soul which alone is worth living, and which alone is precious to us. Lying on his back, he gazed up now into the high, cloudless sky. 'Do I not know that that is infinite space, and that it is not a round arch? But, however I screw up my eyes and strain my sight, I cannot see it not round and not bounded, and in spite of my knowing about infinite space, I am incontestably right when I see a solid blue dome, and more right than when I strain my eyes to see beyond it. Levin ceased thinking, and only, as it were, listened to mysterious voices that seemed talking joyfully and earnestly within him. 'Can this be faith? he thought, afraid to believe in his happiness. 'My God, I thank Thee! he said, gulping down his sobs, and with both hands brushing away the tears that filled his eyes. Levin looked before him and saw a herd of cattle, then he caught sight of his trap with Raven in the shafts, and the coachman, who, driving up to the herd, said something to the herdsman. Then he heard the rattle of the wheels and the snort of the sleek horse close by him. But he was so buried in his thoughts that he did not even wonder why the coachman had come for him. He only thought of that when the coachman had driven quite up to him and shouted to him. 'The mistress sent me. Your brother has come, and some gentleman with him. Levin got into the trap and took the reins. As though just roused out of sleep, for a long while Levin could not collect his faculties. He stared at the sleek horse flecked with lather between his haunches and on his neck, where the harness rubbed, stared at Ivan the coachman sitting beside him, and remembered that he was expecting his brother, thought that his wife was most likely uneasy at his long absence, and tried to guess who was the visitor who had come with his brother. And his brother and his wife and the unknown guest seemed to him now quite different from before. He fancied that now his relations with all men would be different. 'With my brother there will be none of that aloofness there always used to be between us, there will be no disputes with Kitty there shall never be quarrels with the visitor, whoever he may be, I will be friendly and nice with the servants, with Ivan, it will all be different. Pulling the stiff rein and holding in the good horse that snorted with impatience and seemed begging to be let go, Levin looked round at Ivan sitting beside him, not knowing what to do with his unoccupied hand, continually pressing down his shirt as it puffed out, and he tried to find something to start a conversation about with him. He would have said that Ivan had pulled the saddlegirth up too high, but that was like blame, and he longed for friendly, warm talk. Nothing else occurred to him. 'Your honor must keep to the right and mind that stump, said the coachman, pulling the rein Levin held. 'Please don't touch and don't teach me! said Levin, angered by this interference. Now, as always, interference made him angry, and he felt sorrowfully at once how mistaken had been his supposition that his spiritual condition could immediately change him in contact with reality. He was not a quarter of a mile from home when he saw Grisha and Tanya running to meet him. 'Uncle Kostya! mamma's coming, and grandfather, and Sergey Ivanovitch, and someone else, they said, clambering up into the trap. 'Who is he? 'An awfully terrible person! And he does like this with his arms, said Tanya, getting up in the trap and mimicking Katavasov. 'Old or young? asked Levin, laughing, reminded of someone, he did not know whom, by Tanya's performance. 'Oh, I hope it's not a tiresome person! thought Levin. As soon as he turned, at a bend in the road, and saw the party coming, Levin recognized Katavasov in a straw hat, walking along swinging his arms just as Tanya had shown him. Katavasov was very fond of discussing metaphysics, having derived his notions from natural science writers who had never studied metaphysics, and in Moscow Levin had had many arguments with him of late. And one of these arguments, in which Katavasov had obviously considered that he came off victorious, was the first thing Levin thought of as he recognized him. 'No, whatever I do, I won't argue and give utterance to my ideas lightly, he thought. Getting out of the trap and greeting his brother and Katavasov, Levin asked about his wife. 'She has taken Mitya to Kolok (a copse near the house). 'She meant to have him out there because it's so hot indoors, said Dolly. Levin had always advised his wife not to take the baby to the wood, thinking it unsafe, and he was not pleased to hear this. 'She rushes about from place to place with him, said the prince, smiling. 'I advised her to try putting him in the ice cellar. 'She meant to come to the beehouse. She thought you would be there. We are going there, said Dolly. 'Well, and what are you doing? said Sergey Ivanovitch, falling back from the rest and walking beside him. 'Oh, nothing special. Busy as usual with the land, answered Levin. 'Well, and what about you? Come for long? We have been expecting you for such a long time. 'Only for a fortnight. I've a great deal to do in Moscow. At these words the brothers' eyes met, and Levin, in spite of the desire he always had, stronger than ever just now, to be on affectionate and still more open terms with his brother, felt an awkwardness in looking at him. He dropped his eyes and did not know what to say. Casting over the subjects of conversation that would be pleasant to Sergey Ivanovitch, and would keep him off the subject of the Servian war and the Slavonic question, at which he had hinted by the allusion to what he had to do in Moscow, Levin began to talk of Sergey Ivanovitch's book. 'Well, have there been reviews of your book? he asked. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled at the intentional character of the question. 'No one is interested in that now, and I less than anyone, he said. 'Just look, Darya Alexandrovna, we shall have a shower, he added, pointing with a sunshade at the white rain clouds that showed above the aspen treetops. And these words were enough to reestablish again between the brothers that tonehardly hostile, but chillywhich Levin had been so longing to avoid. Levin went up to Katavasov. 'It was jolly of you to make up your mind to come, he said to him. 'I've been meaning to a long while. Now we shall have some discussion, we'll see to that. Have you been reading Spencer? 'No, I've not finished reading him, said Levin. 'But I don't need him now. 'How's that? that's interesting. Why so? 'I mean that I'm fully convinced that the solution of the problems that interest me I shall never find in him and his like. Now.... But Katavasov's serene and goodhumored expression suddenly struck him, and he felt such tenderness for his own happy mood, which he was unmistakably disturbing by this conversation, that he remembered his resolution and stopped short. 'But we'll talk later on, he added. 'If we're going to the beehouse, it's this way, along this little path, he said, addressing them all. Going along the narrow path to a little uncut meadow covered on one side with thick clumps of brilliant heart'sease among which stood up here and there tall, dark green tufts of hellebore, Levin settled his guests in the dense, cool shade of the young aspens on a bench and some stumps purposely put there for visitors to the beehouse who might be afraid of the bees, and he went off himself to the hut to get bread, cucumbers, and fresh honey, to regale them with. Trying to make his movements as deliberate as possible, and listening to the bees that buzzed more and more frequently past him, he walked along the little path to the hut. In the very entry one bee hummed angrily, caught in his beard, but he carefully extricated it. Going into the shady outer room, he took down from the wall his veil, that hung on a peg, and putting it on, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the fencedin beegarden, where there stood in the midst of a closely mown space in regular rows, fastened with bast on posts, all the hives he knew so well, the old stocks, each with its own history, and along the fences the younger swarms hived that year. In front of the openings of the hives, it made his eyes giddy to watch the bees and drones whirling round and round about the same spot, while among them the working bees flew in and out with spoils or in search of them, always in the same direction into the wood to the flowering lime trees and back to the hives. His ears were filled with the incessant hum in various notes, now the busy hum of the working bee flying quickly off, then the blaring of the lazy drone, and the excited buzz of the bees on guard protecting their property from the enemy and preparing to sting. On the farther side of the fence the old beekeeper was shaving a hoop for a tub, and he did not see Levin. Levin stood still in the midst of the beehives and did not call him. He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence of ordinary actual life, which had already depressed his happy mood. He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper with Ivan, to show coolness to his brother, and to talk flippantly with Katavasov. 'Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and leave no trace? he thought. But the same instant, going back to his mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had happened to him. Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual peace he had found, but it was still untouched within him. Just as the bees, whirling round him, now menacing him and distracting his attention, prevented him from enjoying complete physical peace, forced him to restrain his movements to avoid them, so had the petty cares that had swarmed about him from the moment he got into the trap restricted his spiritual freedom but that lasted only so long as he was among them. Just as his bodily strength was still unaffected, in spite of the bees, so too was the spiritual strength that he had just become aware of. 'Do you know, Kostya, with whom Sergey Ivanovitch traveled on his way here? said Dolly, doling out cucumbers and honey to the children 'with Vronsky! He's going to Servia. 'And not alone he's taking a squadron out with him at his own expense, said Katavasov. 'That's the right thing for him, said Levin. 'Are volunteers still going out then? he added, glancing at Sergey Ivanovitch. Sergey Ivanovitch did not answer. He was carefully with a blunt knife getting a live bee covered with sticky honey out of a cup full of white honeycomb. 'I should think so! You should have seen what was going on at the station yesterday! said Katavasov, biting with a juicy sound into a cucumber. 'Well, what is one to make of it? For mercy's sake, do explain to me, Sergey Ivanovitch, where are all those volunteers going, whom are they fighting with? asked the old prince, unmistakably taking up a conversation that had sprung up in Levin's absence. 'With the Turks, Sergey Ivanovitch answered, smiling serenely, as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly kicking, and put it with the knife on a stout aspen leaf. 'But who has declared war on the Turks?Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by Madame Stahl? 'No one has declared war, but people sympathize with their neighbors' sufferings and are eager to help them, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'But the prince is not speaking of help, said Levin, coming to the assistance of his fatherinlaw, 'but of war. The prince says that private persons cannot take part in war without the permission of the government. 'Kostya, mind, that's a bee! Really, they'll sting us! said Dolly, waving away a wasp. 'But that's not a bee, it's a wasp, said Levin. 'Well now, well, what's your own theory? Katavasov said to Levin with a smile, distinctly challenging him to a discussion. 'Why have not private persons the right to do so? 'Oh, my theory's this war is on one side such a beastly, cruel, and awful thing, that no one man, not to speak of a Christian, can individually take upon himself the responsibility of beginning wars that can only be done by a government, which is called upon to do this, and is driven inevitably into war. On the other hand, both political science and common sense teach us that in matters of state, and especially in the matter of war, private citizens must forego their personal individual will. Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had their replies ready, and both began speaking at the same time. 'But the point is, my dear fellow, that there may be cases when the government does not carry out the will of the citizens and then the public asserts its will, said Katavasov. But evidently Sergey Ivanovitch did not approve of this answer. His brows contracted at Katavasov's words and he said something else. 'You don't put the matter in its true light. There is no question here of a declaration of war, but simply the expression of a human Christian feeling. Our brothers, one with us in religion and in race, are being massacred. Even supposing they were not our brothers nor fellowChristians, but simply children, women, old people, feeling is aroused and Russians go eagerly to help in stopping these atrocities. Fancy, if you were going along the street and saw drunken men beating a woman or a childI imagine you would not stop to inquire whether war had been declared on the men, but would throw yourself on them, and protect the victim. 'But I should not kill them, said Levin. 'Yes, you would kill them. 'I don't know. If I saw that, I might give way to my impulse of the moment, but I can't say beforehand. And such a momentary impulse there is not, and there cannot be, in the case of the oppression of the Slavonic peoples. 'Possibly for you there is not but for others there is, said Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning with displeasure. 'There are traditions still extant among the people of Slavs of the true faith suffering under the yoke of the 'unclean sons of Hagar.' The people have heard of the sufferings of their brethren and have spoken. 'Perhaps so, said Levin evasively 'but I don't see it. I'm one of the people myself, and I don't feel it. 'Here am I too, said the old prince. 'I've been staying abroad and reading the papers, and I must own, up to the time of the Bulgarian atrocities, I couldn't make out why it was all the Russians were all of a sudden so fond of their Slavonic brethren, while I didn't feel the slightest affection for them. I was very much upset, thought I was a monster, or that it was the influence of Carlsbad on me. But since I have been here, my mind's been set at rest. I see that there are people besides me who're only interested in Russia, and not in their Slavonic brethren. Here's Konstantin too. 'Personal opinions mean nothing in such a case, said Sergey Ivanovitch 'it's not a matter of personal opinions when all Russiathe whole peoplehas expressed its will. 'But excuse me, I don't see that. The people don't know anything about it, if you come to that, said the old prince. 'Oh, papa!... how can you say that? And last Sunday in church? said Dolly, listening to the conversation. 'Please give me a cloth, she said to the old man, who was looking at the children with a smile. 'Why, it's not possible that all.... 'But what was it in church on Sunday? The priest had been told to read that. He read it. They didn't understand a word of it. Then they were told that there was to be a collection for a pious object in church well, they pulled out their halfpence and gave them, but what for they couldn't say. 'The people cannot help knowing the sense of their own destinies is always in the people, and at such moments as the present that sense finds utterance, said Sergey Ivanovitch with conviction, glancing at the old beekeeper. The handsome old man, with black grizzled beard and thick silvery hair, stood motionless, holding a cup of honey, looking down from the height of his tall figure with friendly serenity at the gentlefolk, obviously understanding nothing of their conversation and not caring to understand it. 'That's so, no doubt, he said, with a significant shake of his head at Sergey Ivanovitch's words. 'Here, then, ask him. He knows nothing about it and thinks nothing, said Levin. 'Have you heard about the war, Mihalitch? he said, turning to him. 'What they read in the church? What do you think about it? Ought we to fight for the Christians? 'What should we think? Alexander Nikolaevitch our Emperor has thought for us he thinks for us indeed in all things. It's clearer for him to see. Shall I bring a bit more bread? Give the little lad some more? he said addressing Darya Alexandrovna and pointing to Grisha, who had finished his crust. 'I don't need to ask, said Sergey Ivanovitch, 'we have seen and are seeing hundreds and hundreds of people who give up everything to serve a just cause, come from every part of Russia, and directly and clearly express their thought and aim. They bring their halfpence or go themselves and say directly what for. What does it mean? 'It means, to my thinking, said Levin, who was beginning to get warm, 'that among eighty millions of people there can always be found not hundreds, as now, but tens of thousands of people who have lost caste, ne'erdowells, who are always ready to go anywhereto Pogatchev's bands, to Khiva, to Servia.... 'I tell you that it's not a case of hundreds or of ne'erdowells, but the best representatives of the people! said Sergey Ivanovitch, with as much irritation as if he were defending the last penny of his fortune. 'And what of the subscriptions? In this case it is a whole people directly expressing their will. 'That word 'people' is so vague, said Levin. 'Parish clerks, teachers, and one in a thousand of the peasants, maybe, know what it's all about. The rest of the eighty millions, like Mihalitch, far from expressing their will, haven't the faintest idea what there is for them to express their will about. What right have we to say that this is the people's will? Sergey Ivanovitch, being practiced in argument, did not reply, but at once turned the conversation to another aspect of the subject. 'Oh, if you want to learn the spirit of the people by arithmetical computation, of course it's very difficult to arrive at it. And voting has not been introduced among us and cannot be introduced, for it does not express the will of the people but there are other ways of reaching that. It is felt in the air, it is felt by the heart. I won't speak of those deep currents which are astir in the still ocean of the people, and which are evident to every unprejudiced man let us look at society in the narrow sense. All the most diverse sections of the educated public, hostile before, are merged in one. Every division is at an end, all the public organs say the same thing over and over again, all feel the mighty torrent that has overtaken them and is carrying them in one direction. 'Yes, all the newspapers do say the same thing, said the prince. 'That's true. But so it is the same thing that all the frogs croak before a storm. One can hear nothing for them. 'Frogs or no frogs, I'm not the editor of a paper and I don't want to defend them but I am speaking of the unanimity in the intellectual world, said Sergey Ivanovitch, addressing his brother. Levin would have answered, but the old prince interrupted him. 'Well, about that unanimity, that's another thing, one may say, said the prince. 'There's my soninlaw, Stepan Arkadyevitch, you know him. He's got a place now on the committee of a commission and something or other, I don't remember. Only there's nothing to do in itwhy, Dolly, it's no secret!and a salary of eight thousand. You try asking him whether his post is of use, he'll prove to you that it's most necessary. And he's a truthful man too, but there's no refusing to believe in the utility of eight thousand roubles. 'Yes, he asked me to give a message to Darya Alexandrovna about the post, said Sergey Ivanovitch reluctantly, feeling the prince's remark to be illtimed. 'So it is with the unanimity of the press. That's been explained to me as soon as there's war their incomes are doubled. How can they help believing in the destinies of the people and the Slavonic races ... and all that? 'I don't care for many of the papers, but that's unjust, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I would only make one condition, pursued the old prince. 'Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the war with Prussia 'You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advanceguards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!' 'A nice lot the editors would make! said Katavasov, with a loud roar, as he pictured the editors he knew in this picked legion. 'But they'd run, said Dolly, 'they'd only be in the way. 'Oh, if they ran away, then we'd have grapeshot or Cossacks with whips behind them, said the prince. 'But that's a joke, and a poor one too, if you'll excuse my saying so, prince, said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I don't see that it was a joke, that.... Levin was beginning, but Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him. 'Every member of society is called upon to do his own special work, said he. 'And men of thought are doing their work when they express public opinion. And the singlehearted and full expression of public opinion is the service of the press and a phenomenon to rejoice us at the same time. Twenty years ago we should have been silent, but now we have heard the voice of the Russian people, which is ready to rise as one man and ready to sacrifice itself for its oppressed brethren that is a great step and a proof of strength. 'But it's not only making a sacrifice, but killing Turks, said Levin timidly. 'The people make sacrifices and are ready to make sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder, he added, instinctively connecting the conversation with the ideas that had been absorbing his mind. 'For their soul? That's a most puzzling expression for a natural science man, do you understand? What sort of thing is the soul? said Katavasov, smiling. 'Oh, you know! 'No, by God, I haven't the faintest idea! said Katavasov with a loud roar of laughter. ''I bring not peace, but a sword,' says Christ, Sergey Ivanovitch rejoined for his part, quoting as simply as though it were the easiest thing to understand the very passage that had always puzzled Levin most. 'That's so, no doubt, the old man repeated again. He was standing near them and responded to a chance glance turned in his direction. 'Ah, my dear fellow, you're defeated, utterly defeated! cried Katavasov goodhumoredly. Levin reddened with vexation, not at being defeated, but at having failed to control himself and being drawn into argument. 'No, I can't argue with them, he thought 'they wear impenetrable armor, while I'm naked. He saw that it was impossible to convince his brother and Katavasov, and he saw even less possibility of himself agreeing with them. What they advocated was the very pride of intellect that had almost been his ruin. He could not admit that some dozens of men, among them his brother, had the right, on the ground of what they were told by some hundreds of glib volunteers swarming to the capital, to say that they and the newspapers were expressing the will and feeling of the people, and a feeling which was expressed in vengeance and murder. He could not admit this, because he neither saw the expression of such feelings in the people among whom he was living, nor found them in himself (and he could not but consider himself one of the persons making up the Russian people), and most of all because he, like the people, did not know and could not know what is for the general good, though he knew beyond a doubt that this general good could be attained only by the strict observance of that law of right and wrong which has been revealed to every man, and therefore he could not wish for war or advocate war for any general objects whatever. He said as Mihalitch did and the people, who had expressed their feeling in the traditional invitations of the Varyagi 'Be princes and rule over us. Gladly we promise complete submission. All the labor, all humiliations, all sacrifices we take upon ourselves but we will not judge and decide. And now, according to Sergey Ivanovitch's account, the people had foregone this privilege they had bought at such a costly price. He wanted to say too that if public opinion were an infallible guide, then why were not revolutions and the commune as lawful as the movement in favor of the Slavonic peoples? But these were merely thoughts that could settle nothing. One thing could be seen beyond doubtthat was that at the actual moment the discussion was irritating Sergey Ivanovitch, and so it was wrong to continue it. And Levin ceased speaking and then called the attention of his guests to the fact that the storm clouds were gathering, and that they had better be going home before it rained. The old prince and Sergey Ivanovitch got into the trap and drove off the rest of the party hastened homewards on foot. But the stormclouds, turning white and then black, moved down so quickly that they had to quicken their pace to get home before the rain. The foremost clouds, lowering and black as sootladen smoke, rushed with extraordinary swiftness over the sky. They were still two hundred paces from home and a gust of wind had already blown up, and every second the downpour might be looked for. The children ran ahead with frightened and gleeful shrieks. Darya Alexandrovna, struggling painfully with her skirts that clung round her legs, was not walking, but running, her eyes fixed on the children. The men of the party, holding their hats on, strode with long steps beside her. They were just at the steps when a big drop fell splashing on the edge of the iron guttering. The children and their elders after them ran into the shelter of the house, talking merrily. 'Katerina Alexandrovna? Levin asked of Agafea Mihalovna, who met them with kerchiefs and rugs in the hall. 'We thought she was with you, she said. 'And Mitya? 'In the copse, he must be, and the nurse with him. Levin snatched up the rugs and ran towards the copse. In that brief interval of time the storm clouds had moved on, covering the sun so completely that it was dark as an eclipse. Stubbornly, as though insisting on its rights, the wind stopped Levin, and tearing the leaves and flowers off the lime trees and stripping the white birch branches into strange unseemly nakedness, it twisted everything on one sideacacias, flowers, burdocks, long grass, and tall treetops. The peasant girls working in the garden ran shrieking into shelter in the servants' quarters. The streaming rain had already flung its white veil over all the distant forest and half the fields close by, and was rapidly swooping down upon the copse. The wet of the rain spurting up in tiny drops could be smelt in the air. Holding his head bent down before him, and struggling with the wind that strove to tear the wraps away from him, Levin was moving up to the copse and had just caught sight of something white behind the oak tree, when there was a sudden flash, the whole earth seemed on fire, and the vault of heaven seemed crashing overhead. Opening his blinded eyes, Levin gazed through the thick veil of rain that separated him now from the copse, and to his horror the first thing he saw was the green crest of the familiar oaktree in the middle of the copse uncannily changing its position. 'Can it have been struck? Levin hardly had time to think when, moving more and more rapidly, the oak tree vanished behind the other trees, and he heard the crash of the great tree falling upon the others. The flash of lightning, the crash of thunder, and the instantaneous chill that ran through him were all merged for Levin in one sense of terror. 'My God! my God! not on them! he said. And though he thought at once how senseless was his prayer that they should not have been killed by the oak which had fallen now, he repeated it, knowing that he could do nothing better than utter this senseless prayer. Running up to the place where they usually went, he did not find them there. They were at the other end of the copse under an old limetree they were calling him. Two figures in dark dresses (they had been light summer dresses when they started out) were standing bending over something. It was Kitty with the nurse. The rain was already ceasing, and it was beginning to get light when Levin reached them. The nurse was not wet on the lower part of her dress, but Kitty was drenched through, and her soaked clothes clung to her. Though the rain was over, they still stood in the same position in which they had been standing when the storm broke. Both stood bending over a perambulator with a green umbrella. 'Alive? Unhurt? Thank God! he said, splashing with his soaked boots through the standing water and running up to them. Kitty's rosy wet face was turned towards him, and she smiled timidly under her shapeless sopped hat. 'Aren't you ashamed of yourself? I can't think how you can be so reckless! he said angrily to his wife. 'It wasn't my fault, really. We were just meaning to go, when he made such a todo that we had to change him. We were just.... Kitty began defending herself. Mitya was unharmed, dry, and still fast asleep. 'Well, thank God! I don't know what I'm saying! They gathered up the baby's wet belongings the nurse picked up the baby and carried it. Levin walked beside his wife, and, penitent for having been angry, he squeezed her hand when the nurse was not looking. During the whole of that day, in the extremely different conversations in which he took part, only as it were with the top layer of his mind, in spite of the disappointment of not finding the change he expected in himself, Levin had been all the while joyfully conscious of the fulness of his heart. After the rain it was too wet to go for a walk besides, the storm clouds still hung about the horizon, and gathered here and there, black and thundery, on the rim of the sky. The whole party spent the rest of the day in the house. No more discussions sprang up on the contrary, after dinner everyone was in the most amiable frame of mind. At first Katavasov amused the ladies by his original jokes, which always pleased people on their first acquaintance with him. Then Sergey Ivanovitch induced him to tell them about the very interesting observations he had made on the habits and characteristics of common houseflies, and their life. Sergey Ivanovitch, too, was in good spirits, and at tea his brother drew him on to explain his views of the future of the Eastern question, and he spoke so simply and so well, that everyone listened eagerly. Kitty was the only one who did not hear it allshe was summoned to give Mitya his bath. A few minutes after Kitty had left the room she sent for Levin to come to the nursery. Leaving his tea, and regretfully interrupting the interesting conversation, and at the same time uneasily wondering why he had been sent for, as this only happened on important occasions, Levin went to the nursery. Although he had been much interested by Sergey Ivanovitch's views of the new epoch in history that would be created by the emancipation of forty millions of men of Slavonic race acting with Russia, a conception quite new to him, and although he was disturbed by uneasy wonder at being sent for by Kitty, as soon as he came out of the drawingroom and was alone, his mind reverted at once to the thoughts of the morning. And all the theories of the significance of the Slav element in the history of the world seemed to him so trivial compared with what was passing in his own soul, that he instantly forgot it all and dropped back into the same frame of mind that he had been in that morning. He did not, as he had done at other times, recall the whole train of thoughtthat he did not need. He fell back at once into the feeling which had guided him, which was connected with those thoughts, and he found that feeling in his soul even stronger and more definite than before. He did not, as he had had to do with previous attempts to find comforting arguments, need to revive a whole chain of thought to find the feeling. Now, on the contrary, the feeling of joy and peace was keener than ever, and thought could not keep pace with feeling. He walked across the terrace and looked at two stars that had come out in the darkening sky, and suddenly he remembered. 'Yes, looking at the sky, I thought that the dome that I see is not a deception, and then I thought something, I shirked facing something, he mused. 'But whatever it was, there can be no disproving it! I have but to think, and all will come clear! Just as he was going into the nursery he remembered what it was he had shirked facing. It was that if the chief proof of the Divinity was His revelation of what is right, how is it this revelation is confined to the Christian church alone? What relation to this revelation have the beliefs of the Buddhists, Mohammedans, who preached and did good too? It seemed to him that he had an answer to this question but he had not time to formulate it to himself before he went into the nursery. Kitty was standing with her sleeves tucked up over the baby in the bath. Hearing her husband's footstep, she turned towards him, summoning him to her with her smile. With one hand she was supporting the fat baby that lay floating and sprawling on its back, while with the other she squeezed the sponge over him. 'Come, look, look! she said, when her husband came up to her. 'Agafea Mihalovna's right. He knows us! Mitya had on that day given unmistakable, incontestable signs of recognizing all his friends. As soon as Levin approached the bath, the experiment was tried, and it was completely successful. The cook, sent for with this object, bent over the baby. He frowned and shook his head disapprovingly. Kitty bent down to him, he gave her a beaming smile, propped his little hands on the sponge and chirruped, making such a queer little contented sound with his lips, that Kitty and the nurse were not alone in their admiration. Levin, too, was surprised and delighted. The baby was taken out of the bath, drenched with water, wrapped in towels, dried, and after a piercing scream, handed to his mother. 'Well, I am glad you are beginning to love him, said Kitty to her husband, when she had settled herself comfortably in her usual place, with the baby at her breast. 'I am so glad! It had begun to distress me. You said you had no feeling for him. 'No did I say that? I only said I was disappointed. 'What! disappointed in him? 'Not disappointed in him, but in my own feeling I had expected more. I had expected a rush of new delightful emotion to come as a surprise. And then instead of thatdisgust, pity.... She listened attentively, looking at him over the baby, while she put back on her slender fingers the rings she had taken off while giving Mitya his bath. 'And most of all, at there being far more apprehension and pity than pleasure. Today, after that fright during the storm, I understand how I love him. Kitty's smile was radiant. 'Were you very much frightened? she said. 'So was I too, but I feel it more now that it's over. I'm going to look at the oak. How nice Katavasov is! And what a happy day we've had altogether. And you're so nice with Sergey Ivanovitch, when you care to be.... Well, go back to them. It's always so hot and steamy here after the bath. Going out of the nursery and being again alone, Levin went back at once to the thought, in which there was something not clear. Instead of going into the drawingroom, where he heard voices, he stopped on the terrace, and leaning his elbows on the parapet, he gazed up at the sky. It was quite dark now, and in the south, where he was looking, there were no clouds. The storm had drifted on to the opposite side of the sky, and there were flashes of lightning and distant thunder from that quarter. Levin listened to the monotonous drip from the lime trees in the garden, and looked at the triangle of stars he knew so well, and the Milky Way with its branches that ran through its midst. At each flash of lightning the Milky Way, and even the bright stars, vanished, but as soon as the lightning died away, they reappeared in their places as though some hand had flung them back with careful aim. 'Well, what is it perplexes me? Levin said to himself, feeling beforehand that the solution of his difficulties was ready in his soul, though he did not know it yet. 'Yes, the one unmistakable, incontestable manifestation of the Divinity is the law of right and wrong, which has come into the world by revelation, and which I feel in myself, and in the recognition of whichI don't make myself, but whether I will or notI am made one with other men in one body of believers, which is called the church. Well, but the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Confucians, the Buddhistswhat of them? he put to himself the question he had feared to face. 'Can these hundreds of millions of men be deprived of that highest blessing without which life has no meaning? He pondered a moment, but immediately corrected himself. 'But what am I questioning? he said to himself. 'I am questioning the relation to Divinity of all the different religions of all mankind. I am questioning the universal manifestation of God to all the world with all those misty blurs. What am I about? To me individually, to my heart has been revealed a knowledge beyond all doubt, and unattainable by reason, and here I am obstinately trying to express that knowledge in reason and words. 'Don't I know that the stars don't move? he asked himself, gazing at the bright planet which had shifted its position up to the topmost twig of the birchtree. 'But looking at the movements of the stars, I can't picture to myself the rotation of the earth, and I'm right in saying that the stars move. 'And could the astronomers have understood and calculated anything, if they had taken into account all the complicated and varied motions of the earth? All the marvelous conclusions they have reached about the distances, weights, movements, and deflections of the heavenly bodies are only founded on the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies about a stationary earth, on that very motion I see before me now, which has been so for millions of men during long ages, and was and will be always alike, and can always be trusted. And just as the conclusions of the astronomers would have been vain and uncertain if not founded on observations of the seen heavens, in relation to a single meridian and a single horizon, so would my conclusions be vain and uncertain if not founded on that conception of right, which has been and will be always alike for all men, which has been revealed to me as a Christian, and which can always be trusted in my soul. The question of other religions and their relations to Divinity I have no right to decide, and no possibility of deciding. 'Oh, you haven't gone in then? he heard Kitty's voice all at once, as she came by the same way to the drawingroom. 'What is it? you're not worried about anything? she said, looking intently at his face in the starlight. But she could not have seen his face if a flash of lightning had not hidden the stars and revealed it. In that flash she saw his face distinctly, and seeing him calm and happy, she smiled at him. 'She understands, he thought 'she knows what I'm thinking about. Shall I tell her or not? Yes, I'll tell her. But at the moment he was about to speak, she began speaking. 'Kostya! do something for me, she said 'go into the corner room and see if they've made it all right for Sergey Ivanovitch. I can't very well. See if they've put the new wash stand in it. 'Very well, I'll go directly, said Levin, standing up and kissing her. 'No, I'd better not speak of it, he thought, when she had gone in before him. 'It is a secret for me alone, of vital importance for me, and not to be put into words. 'This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and enlightened all of a sudden, as I had dreamed, just like the feeling for my child. There was no surprise in this either. Faithor not faithI don't know what it isbut this feeling has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken firm root in my soul. 'I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife I shall still go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observerexcellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own highpower lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory. I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the homecentred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion. One nightit was on the twentieth of March, I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the wellremembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drugcreated dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own. His manner was not effusive. It seldom was but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion. 'Wedlock suits you, he remarked. 'I think, Watson, that you have put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you. 'Seven! I answered. 'Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me that you intended to go into harness. 'Then, how do you know? 'I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl? 'My dear Holmes, said I, 'this is too much. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out. He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together. 'It is simplicity itself, said he 'my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant bootslitting specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his tophat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession. I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. 'When I hear you give your reasons, I remarked, 'the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours. 'Quite so, he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. 'You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room. 'Frequently. 'How often? 'Well, some hundreds of times. 'Then how many are there? 'How many? I don't know. 'Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this. He threw over a sheet of thick, pinktinted notepaper which had been lying open upon the table. 'It came by the last post, said he. 'Read it aloud. The note was undated, and without either signature or address. 'There will call upon you tonight, at a quarter to eight o'clock, it said, 'a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask. 'This is indeed a mystery, I remarked. 'What do you imagine that it means? 'I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from it? I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written. 'The man who wrote it was presumably well to do, I remarked, endeavouring to imitate my companion's processes. 'Such paper could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff. 'Peculiarthat is the very word, said Holmes. 'It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to the light. I did so, and saw a large 'E with a small 'g, a 'P, and a large 'G with a small 't woven into the texture of the paper. 'What do you make of that? asked Holmes. 'The name of the maker, no doubt or his monogram, rather. 'Not at all. The 'G' with the small 't' stands for 'Gesellschaft,' which is the German for 'Company.' It is a customary contraction like our 'Co.' 'P,' of course, stands for 'Papier.' Now for the 'Eg.' Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer. He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. 'Eglow, Eglonitzhere we are, Egria. It is in a Germanspeaking countryin Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. 'Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glassfactories and papermills.' Ha, ha, my boy, what do you make of that? His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette. 'The paper was made in Bohemia, I said. 'Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence'This account of you we have from all quarters received.' A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts. As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes whistled. 'A pair, by the sound, said he. 'Yes, he continued, glancing out of the window. 'A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There's money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else. 'I think that I had better go, Holmes. 'Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it. 'But your client 'Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best attention. A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap. 'Come in! said Holmes. A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his doublebreasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flamecoloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. He carried a broadbrimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered. From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy. 'You had my note? he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. 'I told you that I would call. He looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address. 'Pray take a seat, said Holmes. 'This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases. Whom have I the honour to address? 'You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate with you alone. I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my chair. 'It is both, or none, said he. 'You may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me. The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Then I must begin, said he, 'by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence upon European history. 'I promise, said Holmes. 'And I. 'You will excuse this mask, continued our strange visitor. 'The august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have just called myself is not exactly my own. 'I was aware of it, said Holmes dryly. 'The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia. 'I was also aware of that, murmured Holmes, settling himself down in his armchair and closing his eyes. Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him as the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic client. 'If your Majesty would condescend to state your case, he remarked, 'I should be better able to advise you. The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. 'You are right, he cried 'I am the King. Why should I attempt to conceal it? 'Why, indeed? murmured Holmes. 'Your Majesty had not spoken before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of CasselFelstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia. 'But you can understand, said our strange visitor, sitting down once more and passing his hand over his high white forehead, 'you can understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in my own person. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting you. 'Then, pray consult, said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more. 'The facts are briefly these Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the wellknown adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you. 'Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor, murmured Holmes without opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish information. In this case I found her biography sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a staffcommander who had written a monograph upon the deepsea fishes. 'Let me see! said Holmes. 'Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year . Contraltohum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsawyes! Retired from operatic stageha! Living in Londonquite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting those letters back. 'Precisely so. But how 'Was there a secret marriage? 'None. 'No legal papers or certificates? 'None. 'Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to prove their authenticity? 'There is the writing. 'Pooh, pooh! Forgery. 'My private notepaper. 'Stolen. 'My own seal. 'Imitated. 'My photograph. 'Bought. 'We were both in the photograph. 'Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an indiscretion. 'I was madinsane. 'You have compromised yourself seriously. 'I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now. 'It must be recovered. 'We have tried and failed. 'Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought. 'She will not sell. 'Stolen, then. 'Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice she has been waylaid. There has been no result. 'No sign of it? 'Absolutely none. Holmes laughed. 'It is quite a pretty little problem, said he. 'But a very serious one to me, returned the King reproachfully. 'Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph? 'To ruin me. 'But how? 'I am about to be married. 'So I have heard. 'To Clotilde Lothman von SaxeMeningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her family. She is herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to an end. 'And Irene Adler? 'Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should marry another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not gonone. 'You are sure that she has not sent it yet? 'I am sure. 'And why? 'Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday. 'Oh, then we have three days yet, said Holmes with a yawn. 'That is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London for the present? 'Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the Count Von Kramm. 'Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress. 'Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety. 'Then, as to money? 'You have carte blanche. 'Absolutely? 'I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to have that photograph. 'And for present expenses? The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid it on the table. 'There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes, he said. Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his notebook and handed it to him. 'And Mademoiselle's address? he asked. 'Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John's Wood. Holmes took a note of it. 'One other question, said he. 'Was the photograph a cabinet? 'It was. 'Then, goodnight, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have some good news for you. And goodnight, Watson, he added, as the wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. 'If you will be good enough to call tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock I should like to chat this little matter over with you. At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house shortly after eight o'clock in the morning. I sat down beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he might be. I was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his invariable success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head. It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunkenlooking groom, illkempt and sidewhiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he. With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes tweedsuited and respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes. 'Well, really! he cried, and then he choked and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair. 'What is it? 'It's quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended by doing. 'I can't imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler. 'Quite so but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however. I left the house a little after eight o'clock this morning in the character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them, and you will know all that there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large sittingroom on the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open. Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from the top of the coachhouse. I walked round it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without noting anything else of interest. 'I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that there was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. I lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and received in exchange twopence, a glass of halfandhalf, two fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood in whom I was not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to listen to. 'And what of Irene Adler? I asked. 'Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the Serpentinemews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner. Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings. Has only one male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, handsome, and dashing, never calls less than once a day, and often twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple. See the advantages of a cabman as a confidant. They had driven him home a dozen times from Serpentinemews, and knew all about him. When I had listened to all they had to tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan of campaign. 'This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter. He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the relation between them, and what the object of his repeated visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If the former, she had probably transferred the photograph to his keeping. If the latter, it was less likely. On the issue of this question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony Lodge, or turn my attention to the gentleman's chambers in the Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the field of my inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation. 'I am following you closely, I answered. 'I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustachedevidently the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed past the maid who opened the door with the air of a man who was thoroughly at home. 'He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch glimpses of him in the windows of the sittingroom, pacing up and down, talking excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see nothing. Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried than before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and looked at it earnestly, 'Drive like the devil,' he shouted, 'first to Gross  Hankey's in Regent Street, and then to the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if you do it in twenty minutes!' 'Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do well to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau, the coachman with his coat only halfbuttoned, and his tie under his ear, while all the tags of his harness were sticking out of the buckles. It hadn't pulled up before she shot out of the hall door and into it. I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for. ''The Church of St. Monica, John,' she cried, 'and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.' 'This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing whether I should run for it, or whether I should perch behind her landau when a cab came through the street. The driver looked twice at such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could object. 'The Church of St. Monica,' said I, 'and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.' It was twentyfive minutes to twelve, and of course it was clear enough what was in the wind. 'My cabby drove fast. I don't think I ever drove faster, but the others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their steaming horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there save the two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three standing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up the side aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a church. Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced round to me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could towards me. ''Thank God,' he cried. 'You'll do. Come! Come!' ''What then?' I asked. ''Come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won't be legal.' 'I was halfdragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me in front. It was the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just now. It seems that there had been some informality about their license, that the clergyman absolutely refused to marry them without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in search of a best man. The bride gave me a sovereign, and I mean to wear it on my watch chain in memory of the occasion. 'This is a very unexpected turn of affairs, said I 'and what then? 'Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if the pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very prompt and energetic measures on my part. At the church door, however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and she to her own house. 'I shall drive out in the park at five as usual,' she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove away in different directions, and I went off to make my own arrangements. 'Which are? 'Some cold beef and a glass of beer, he answered, ringing the bell. 'I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to be busier still this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation. 'I shall be delighted. 'You don't mind breaking the law? 'Not in the least. 'Nor running a chance of arrest? 'Not in a good cause. 'Oh, the cause is excellent! 'Then I am your man. 'I was sure that I might rely on you. 'But what is it you wish? 'When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to you. Now, he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our landlady had provided, 'I must discuss it while I eat, for I have not much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must be on the scene of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns from her drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her. 'And what then? 'You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to occur. There is only one point on which I must insist. You must not interfere, come what may. You understand? 'I am to be neutral? 'To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being conveyed into the house. Four or five minutes afterwards the sittingroom window will open. You are to station yourself close to that open window. 'Yes. 'You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you. 'Yes. 'And when I raise my handsoyou will throw into the room what I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite follow me? 'Entirely. 'It is nothing very formidable, he said, taking a long cigarshaped roll from his pocket. 'It is an ordinary plumber's smokerocket, fitted with a cap at either end to make it selflighting. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear? 'I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street. 'Precisely. 'Then you may entirely rely on me. 'That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepare for the new role I have to play. He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simpleminded Nonconformist clergyman. His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime. It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in Serpentine Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant. The house was just such as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes' succinct description, but the locality appeared to be less private than I expected. On the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighbourhood, it was remarkably animated. There was a group of shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissorsgrinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a nursegirl, and several welldressed young men who were lounging up and down with cigars in their mouths. 'You see, remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the house, 'this marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph becomes a doubleedged weapon now. The chances are that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his princess. Now the question is, Where are we to find the photograph? 'Where, indeed? 'It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is cabinet size. Too large for easy concealment about a woman's dress. She knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid and searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We may take it, then, that she does not carry it about with her. 'Where, then? 'Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But I am inclined to think neither. Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it over to anyone else? She could trust her own guardianship, but she could not tell what indirect or political influence might be brought to bear upon a business man. Besides, remember that she had resolved to use it within a few days. It must be where she can lay her hands upon it. It must be in her own house. 'But it has twice been burgled. 'Pshaw! They did not know how to look. 'But how will you look? 'I will not look. 'What then? 'I will get her to show me. 'But she will refuse. 'She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is her carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter. As he spoke the gleam of the sidelights of a carriage came round the curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which rattled up to the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of the loafing men at the corner dashed forward to open the door in the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by another loafer, who had rushed up with the same intention. A fierce quarrel broke out, which was increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissorsgrinder, who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady but, just as he reached her, he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood running freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen took to their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while a number of better dressed people, who had watched the scuffle without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady and to attend to the injured man. Irene Adler, as I will still call her, had hurried up the steps but she stood at the top with her superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking back into the street. 'Is the poor gentleman much hurt? she asked. 'He is dead, cried several voices. 'No, no, there's life in him! shouted another. 'But he'll be gone before you can get him to hospital. 'He's a brave fellow, said a woman. 'They would have had the lady's purse and watch if it hadn't been for him. They were a gang, and a rough one, too. Ah, he's breathing now. 'He can't lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm? 'Surely. Bring him into the sittingroom. There is a comfortable sofa. This way, please! Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out in the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my post by the window. The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smokerocket from under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are but preventing her from injuring another. Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the window. At the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of 'Fire! The word was no sooner out of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and illgentlemen, ostlers, and servant maidsjoined in a general shriek of 'Fire! Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window. I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the Edgeware Road. 'You did it very nicely, Doctor, he remarked. 'Nothing could have been better. It is all right. 'You have the photograph? 'I know where it is. 'And how did you find out? 'She showed me, as I told you she would. 'I am still in the dark. 'I do not wish to make a mystery, said he, laughing. 'The matter was perfectly simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the street was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening. 'I guessed as much. 'Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick. 'That also I could fathom. 'Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else could she do? And into her sittingroom, which was the very room which I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, and I was determined to see which. They laid me on a couch, I motioned for air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your chance. 'How did that help you? 'It was allimportant. When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it. In the case of the Darlington Substitution Scandal it was of use to me, and also in the Arnsworth Castle business. A married woman grabs at her baby an unmarried one reaches for her jewelbox. Now it was clear to me that our lady of today had nothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest of. She would rush to secure it. The alarm of fire was admirably done. The smoke and shouting were enough to shake nerves of steel. She responded beautifully. The photograph is in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the right bellpull. She was there in an instant, and I caught a glimpse of it as she half drew it out. When I cried out that it was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the rocket, rushed from the room, and I have not seen her since. I rose, and, making my excuses, escaped from the house. I hesitated whether to attempt to secure the photograph at once but the coachman had come in, and as he was watching me narrowly, it seemed safer to wait. A little overprecipitance may ruin all. 'And now? I asked. 'Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the King tomorrow, and with you, if you care to come with us. We will be shown into the sittingroom to wait for the lady, but it is probable that when she comes she may find neither us nor the photograph. It might be a satisfaction to his Majesty to regain it with his own hands. 'And when will you call? 'At eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall have a clear field. Besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage may mean a complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to the King without delay. We had reached Baker Street and had stopped at the door. He was searching his pockets for the key when someone passing said 'Goodnight, Mister Sherlock Holmes. There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the greeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had hurried by. 'I've heard that voice before, said Holmes, staring down the dimly lit street. 'Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been. I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed into the room. 'You have really got it! he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by either shoulder and looking eagerly into his face. 'Not yet. 'But you have hopes? 'I have hopes. 'Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone. 'We must have a cab. 'No, my brougham is waiting. 'Then that will simplify matters. We descended and started off once more for Briony Lodge. 'Irene Adler is married, remarked Holmes. 'Married! When? 'Yesterday. 'But to whom? 'To an English lawyer named Norton. 'But she could not love him. 'I am in hopes that she does. 'And why in hopes? 'Because it would spare your Majesty all fear of future annoyance. If the lady loves her husband, she does not love your Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason why she should interfere with your Majesty's plan. 'It is true. And yet! Well! I wish she had been of my own station! What a queen she would have made! He relapsed into a moody silence, which was not broken until we drew up in Serpentine Avenue. The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon the steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the brougham. 'Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe? said she. 'I am Mr. Holmes, answered my companion, looking at her with a questioning and rather startled gaze. 'Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She left this morning with her husband by the  train from Charing Cross for the Continent. 'What! Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and surprise. 'Do you mean that she has left England? 'Never to return. 'And the papers? asked the King hoarsely. 'All is lost. 'We shall see. He pushed past the servant and rushed into the drawingroom, followed by the King and myself. The furniture was scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before her flight. Holmes rushed at the bellpull, tore back a small sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to 'Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for. My friend tore it open, and we all three read it together. It was dated at midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way 'MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that, if the King employed an agent, it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran upstairs, got into my walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed. 'Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you goodnight, and started for the Temple to see my husband. 'We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by so formidable an antagonist so you will find the nest empty when you call tomorrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, 'Very truly yours, 'IRENE NORTON, ne ADLER. 'What a womanoh, what a woman! cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. 'Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level? 'From what I have seen of the lady, she seems, indeed, to be on a very different level to your Majesty, said Holmes coldly. 'I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business to a more successful conclusion. 'On the contrary, my dear sir, cried the King 'nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire. 'I am glad to hear your Majesty say so. 'I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand. 'Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly, said Holmes. 'You have but to name it. 'This photograph! The King stared at him in amazement. 'Irene's photograph! he cried. 'Certainly, if you wish it. 'I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good morning. He bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the King had stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers. And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman. I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, floridfaced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me. 'You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson, he said cordially. 'I was afraid that you were engaged. 'So I am. Very much so. 'Then I can wait in the next room. 'Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also. The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small fatencircled eyes. 'Try the settee, said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair and putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods. 'I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures. 'Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me, I observed. 'You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination. 'A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting. 'You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard, it is impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you not merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique. The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some little pride and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the inside pocket of his greatcoat. As he glanced down the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man and endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance. I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey shepherd's check trousers, a not overclean black frockcoat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed tophat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features. Sherlock Holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. 'Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else. Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion. 'How, in the name of goodfortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes? he asked. 'How did you know, for example, that I did manual labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter. 'Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed. 'Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry? 'I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arcandcompass breastpin. 'Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing? 'What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk? 'Well, but China? 'The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watchchain, the matter becomes even more simple. Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. 'Well, I never! said he. 'I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all. 'I begin to think, Watson, said Holmes, 'that I make a mistake in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson? 'Yes, I have got it now, he answered with his thick red finger planted halfway down the column. 'Here it is. This is what began it all. You just read it for yourself, sir. I took the paper from him and read as follows 'TO THE REDHEADED LEAGUE On account of the bequest of the late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., there is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of   a week for purely nominal services. All redheaded men who are sound in body and mind and above the age of twentyone years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League,  Pope's Court, Fleet Street. 'What on earth does this mean? I ejaculated after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement. Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high spirits. 'It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it? said he. 'And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, Doctor, of the paper and the date. 'It is The Morning Chronicle of April , . Just two months ago. 'Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson? 'Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead 'I have a small pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one and I would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come for half wages so as to learn the business. 'What is the name of this obliging youth? asked Sherlock Holmes. 'His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth, either. It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr. Holmes and I know very well that he could better himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head? 'Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employ who comes under the full market price. It is not a common experience among employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is not as remarkable as your advertisement. 'Oh, he has his faults, too, said Mr. Wilson. 'Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault, but on the whole he's a good worker. There's no vice in him. 'He is still with you, I presume? 'Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple cooking and keeps the place cleanthat's all I have in the house, for I am a widower and never had any family. We live very quietly, sir, the three of us and we keep a roof over our heads and pay our debts, if we do nothing more. 'The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says ''I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a redheaded man.' ''Why that?' I asks. ''Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the Redheaded Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits' end what to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour, here's a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.' ''Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very stayathome man, and as my business came to me instead of my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the doormat. In that way I didn't know much of what was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news. ''Have you never heard of the League of the Redheaded Men?' he asked with his eyes open. ''Never.' ''Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the vacancies.' ''And what are they worth?' I asked. ''Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and it need not interfere very much with one's other occupations.' 'Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for the business has not been over good for some years, and an extra couple of hundred would have been very handy. ''Tell me all about it,' said I. ''Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself redheaded, and he had a great sympathy for all redheaded men so, when he died, it was found that he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay and very little to do.' ''But,' said I, 'there would be millions of redheaded men who would apply.' ''Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good turn. Then, again, I have heard it is no use your applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in but perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.' 'Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that if there was to be any competition in the matter I stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day and to come right away with me. He was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the business up and started off for the address that was given us in the advertisement. 'I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet Street was choked with redheaded folk, and Pope's Court looked like a coster's orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they werestraw, lemon, orange, brick, Irishsetter, liver, clay but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flamecoloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair but Spaulding would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found ourselves in the office. 'Your experience has been a most entertaining one, remarked Holmes as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of snuff. 'Pray continue your very interesting statement. 'There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a deal table, behind which sat a small man with a head that was even redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came up, and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy matter, after all. However, when our turn came the little man was much more favourable to me than to any of the others, and he closed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us. ''This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is willing to fill a vacancy in the League.' ''And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.' He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success. ''It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, however, I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he as he released me. 'I perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which would disgust you with human nature.' He stepped over to the window and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions until there was not a redhead to be seen except my own and that of the manager. ''My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?' 'I answered that I had not. 'His face fell immediately. ''Dear me!' he said gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the propagation and spread of the redheads as well as for their maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.' 'My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was not to have the vacancy after all but after thinking it over for a few minutes he said that it would be all right. ''In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be fatal, but we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a head of hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?' ''Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' said I. ''Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. 'I should be able to look after that for you.' ''What would be the hours?' I asked. ''Ten to two.' 'Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before payday so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that he would see to anything that turned up. ''That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?' ''Is   a week.' ''And the work?' ''Is purely nominal.' ''What do you call purely nominal?' ''Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You don't comply with the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.' ''It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' said I. ''No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross 'neither sickness nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your billet.' ''And the work?' ''Is to copy out the Encyclopdia Britannica. There is the first volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and blottingpaper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready tomorrow?' ''Certainly,' I answered. ''Then, goodbye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune. 'Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits again for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the Encyclopdia Britannica. Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quillpen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I started off for Pope's Court. 'Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off upon the letter A, and then he left me but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he bade me goodday, complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and locked the door of the office after me. 'This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. It was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk the loss of it. 'Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B's before very long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end. 'To an end? 'Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself. He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of notepaper. It read in this fashion 'THE REDHEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED. October , . Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter. 'I cannot see that there is anything very funny, cried our client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. 'If you can do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere. 'No, no, cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he had half risen. 'I really wouldn't miss your case for the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take when you found the card upon the door? 'I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of the Redheaded League. He said that he had never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the name was new to him. ''Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. .' ''What, the redheaded man?' ''Yes.' ''Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.' ''Where could I find him?' ''Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes,  King Edward Street, near St. Paul's.' 'I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a manufactory of artificial kneecaps, and no one in it had ever heard of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross. 'And what did you do then? asked Holmes. 'I went home to SaxeCoburg Square, and I took the advice of my assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to you. 'And you did very wisely, said Holmes. 'Your case is an exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear. 'Grave enough! said Mr. Jabez Wilson. 'Why, I have lost four pound a week. 'As far as you are personally concerned, remarked Holmes, 'I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some  , to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them. 'No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prankif it was a prankupon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty pounds. 'We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called your attention to the advertisementhow long had he been with you? 'About a month then. 'How did he come? 'In answer to an advertisement. 'Was he the only applicant? 'No, I had a dozen. 'Why did you pick him? 'Because he was handy and would come cheap. 'At half wages, in fact. 'Yes. 'What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding? 'Small, stoutbuilt, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead. Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. 'I thought as much, said he. 'Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings? 'Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a lad. 'Hum! said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. 'He is still with you? 'Oh, yes, sir I have only just left him. 'And has your business been attended to in your absence? 'Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a morning. 'That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. Today is Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion. 'Well, Watson, said Holmes when our visitor had left us, 'what do you make of it all? 'I make nothing of it, I answered frankly. 'It is a most mysterious business. 'As a rule, said Holmes, 'the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter. 'What are you going to do, then? I asked. 'To smoke, he answered. 'It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes. He curled himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawklike nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece. 'Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon, he remarked. 'What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours? 'I have nothing to do today. My practice is never very absorbing. 'Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along! We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate and a short walk took us to SaxeCoburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabbygenteel place, where four lines of dingy twostoried brick houses looked out into a small railedin enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard fight against a smokeladen and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with 'JABEZ WILSON in white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where our redheaded client carried on his business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally he returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a brightlooking, cleanshaven young fellow, who asked him to step in. 'Thank you, said Holmes, 'I only wished to ask you how you would go from here to the Strand. 'Third right, fourth left, answered the assistant promptly, closing the door. 'Smart fellow, that, observed Holmes as we walked away. 'He is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something of him before. 'Evidently, said I, 'Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal in this mystery of the Redheaded League. I am sure that you inquired your way merely in order that you might see him. 'Not him. 'What then? 'The knees of his trousers. 'And what did you see? 'What I expected to see. 'Why did you beat the pavement? 'My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in an enemy's country. We know something of SaxeCoburg Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it. The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner from the retired SaxeCoburg Square presented as great a contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realise as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted. 'Let me see, said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along the line, 'I should like just to remember the order of the houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriagebuilding depot. That carries us right on to the other block. And now, Doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violinland, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no redheaded clients to vex us with their conundrums. My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuthhound, Holmes the relentless, keenwitted, readyhanded criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy and, as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his blackletter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down. 'You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor, he remarked as we emerged. 'Yes, it would be as well. 'And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This business at Coburg Square is serious. 'Why serious? 'A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But today being Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help tonight. 'At what time? 'Ten will be early enough. 'I shall be at Baker Street at ten. 'Very well. And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket. He waved his hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd. I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the redheaded copier of the Encyclopdia down to the visit to SaxeCoburg Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smoothfaced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable mana man who might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and set the matter aside until night should bring an explanation. It was a quarterpast nine when I started from home and made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered the passage I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room, I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognised as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the other was a long, thin, sadfaced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frockcoat. 'Ha! Our party is complete, said Holmes, buttoning up his peajacket and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. 'Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in tonight's adventure. 'We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see, said Jones in his consequential way. 'Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running down. 'I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase, observed Mr. Merryweather gloomily. 'You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir, said the police agent loftily. 'He has his own little methods, which are, if he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the official force. 'Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right, said the stranger with deference. 'Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for sevenandtwenty years that I have not had my rubber. 'I think you will find, said Sherlock Holmes, 'that you will play for a higher stake tonight than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be some  , and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you wish to lay your hands. 'John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London. He's a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a royal duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. I've been on his track for years and have never set eyes on him yet. 'I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you tonight. I've had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the second. Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gaslit streets until we emerged into Farrington Street. 'We are close there now, my friend remarked. 'This fellow Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are waiting for us. We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and through a side door, which he opened for us. Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earthsmelling passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes. 'You are not very vulnerable from above, Holmes remarked as he held up the lantern and gazed about him. 'Nor from below, said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the flags which lined the floor. 'Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow! he remarked, looking up in surprise. 'I must really ask you to be a little more quiet! said Holmes severely. 'You have already imperilled the whole success of our expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere? The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees upon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again and put his glass in his pocket. 'We have at least an hour before us, he remarked, 'for they can hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present, Doctoras no doubt you have divinedin the cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at present. 'It is our French gold, whispered the director. 'We have had several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it. 'Your French gold? 'Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources and borrowed for that purpose , napoleons from the Bank of France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit contains , napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject. 'Which were very well justified, observed Holmes. 'And now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour matters will come to a head. In the meantime Mr. Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern. 'And sit in the dark? 'I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I thought that, as we were a partie carre, you might have your rubber after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of all, we must choose our positions. These are daring men, and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them down. I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern and left us in pitch darknesssuch an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault. 'They have but one retreat, whispered Holmes. 'That is back through the house into SaxeCoburg Square. I hope that you have done what I asked you, Jones? 'I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door. 'Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and wait. What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier inbreath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director. From my position I could look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light. At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark which marked a chink between the stones. Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a cleancut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulderhigh and waisthigh, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the hole and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair. 'It's all clear, he whispered. 'Have you the chisel and the bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it! Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes' hunting crop came down on the man's wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor. 'It's no use, John Clay, said Holmes blandly. 'You have no chance at all. 'So I see, the other answered with the utmost coolness. 'I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coattails. 'There are three men waiting for him at the door, said Holmes. 'Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must compliment you. 'And I you, Holmes answered. 'Your redheaded idea was very new and effective. 'You'll see your pal again presently, said Jones. 'He's quicker at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the derbies. 'I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands, remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. 'You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness, also, when you address me always to say 'sir' and 'please.' 'All right, said Jones with a stare and a snigger. 'Well, would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your Highness to the policestation? 'That is better, said John Clay serenely. He made a sweeping bow to the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the detective. 'Really, Mr. Holmes, said Mr. Merryweather as we followed them from the cellar, 'I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you. There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience. 'I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John Clay, said Holmes. 'I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Redheaded League. 'You see, Watson, he explained in the early hours of the morning as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, 'it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the Encyclopdia, must be to get this not overbright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by the colour of his accomplice's hair. The   a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for securing the situation. 'But how could you guess what the motive was? 'Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man's business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellarsomething which took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel to some other building. 'So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw the City and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland Yard and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you have seen. 'And how could you tell that they would make their attempt tonight? I asked. 'Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presencein other words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons I expected them to come tonight. 'You reasoned it out beautifully, I exclaimed in unfeigned admiration. 'It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true. 'It saved me from ennui, he answered, yawning. 'Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so. 'And you are a benefactor of the race, said I. He shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use, he remarked. ''L'homme c'est rienl'uvre c'est tout,' as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand. 'My dear fellow, said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, 'life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the crosspurposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outr results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable. 'And yet I am not convinced of it, I answered. 'The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic. 'A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect, remarked Holmes. 'This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace. I smiled and shook my head. 'I can quite understand your thinking so, I said. 'Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout three continents, you are brought in contact with all that is strange and bizarre. But hereI picked up the morning paper from the ground'let us put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading upon which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his wife.' There is half a column of print, but I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers could invent nothing more crude. 'Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument, said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. 'This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average storyteller. Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example. He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it. 'Ah, said he, 'I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers. 'And the ring? I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which sparkled upon his finger. 'It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little problems. 'And have you any on hand just now? I asked with interest. 'Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of interest. They are important, you understand, without being interesting. Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however, that I may have something better before very many minutes are over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken. He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted blinds gazing down into the dull neutraltinted London street. Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broadbrimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell. 'I have seen those symptoms before, said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. 'Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de cur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts. As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind his small black figure like a fullsailed merchantman behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him. 'Do you not find, he said, 'that with your short sight it is a little trying to do so much typewriting? 'I did at first, she answered, 'but now I know where the letters are without looking. Then, suddenly realising the full purport of his words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and astonishment upon her broad, goodhumoured face. 'You've heard about me, Mr. Holmes, she cried, 'else how could you know all that? 'Never mind, said Holmes, laughing 'it is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why should you come to consult me? 'I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had given him up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel. 'Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry? asked Sherlock Holmes, with his fingertips together and his eyes to the ceiling. Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary Sutherland. 'Yes, I did bang out of the house, she said, 'for it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibankthat is, my fathertook it all. He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing and kept on saying that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away to you. 'Your father, said Holmes, 'your stepfather, surely, since the name is different. 'Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself. 'And your mother is alive? 'Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she married again so soon after father's death, and a man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman but when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the business, for he was very superior, being a traveller in wines. They got   for the goodwill and interest, which wasn't near as much as father could have got if he had been alive. I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest concentration of attention. 'Your own little income, he asked, 'does it come out of the business? 'Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying  per cent. Two thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the interest. 'You interest me extremely, said Holmes. 'And since you draw so large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in every way. I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of about  . 'I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand that as long as I live at home I don't wish to be a burden to them, and so they have the use of the money just while I am staying with them. Of course, that is only just for the time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest every quarter and pays it over to mother, and I find that I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewriting. It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day. 'You have made your position very clear to me, said Holmes. 'This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel. A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously at the fringe of her jacket. 'I met him first at the gasfitters' ball, she said. 'They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sundayschool treat. But this time I was set on going, and I would go for what right had he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all father's friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much as taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel. 'I suppose, said Holmes, 'that when Mr. Windibank came back from France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball. 'Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to a woman, for she would have her way. 'I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel. 'Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had got home all safe, and after that we met himthat is to say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more. 'No? 'Well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. He wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got mine yet. 'But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you? 'Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for father to know. 'Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time? 'Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we took. HosmerMr. Angelwas a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Streetand 'What office? 'That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don't know. 'Where did he live, then? 'He slept on the premises. 'And you don't know his address? 'Noexcept that it was Leadenhall Street. 'Where did you address your letters, then? 'To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn't have that, for he said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that the machine had come between us. That will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that he would think of. 'It was most suggestive, said Holmes. 'It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Can you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel? 'He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare. 'Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather, returned to France? 'Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest and made me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his favour from the first and was even fonder of him than I was. Then, when they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about father but they both said never to mind about father, but just to tell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with him. I didn't quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I should ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me but I didn't want to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on the very morning of the wedding. 'It missed him, then? 'Yes, sir for he had started to England just before it arrived. 'Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for the Friday. Was it to be in church? 'Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near King's Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St. Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a fourwheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the church first, and when the fourwheeler drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box and looked there was no one there! The cabman said that he could not imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him. 'It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated, said Holmes. 'Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all the morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be true and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed strange talk for a weddingmorning, but what has happened since gives a meaning to it. 'Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him? 'Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened. 'But you have no notion as to what it could have been? 'None. 'One more question. How did your mother take the matter? 'She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter again. 'And your father? Did you tell him? 'Yes and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened, and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on him, there might be some reason, but Hosmer was very independent about money and never would look at a shilling of mine. And yet, what could have happened? And why could he not write? Oh, it drives me halfmad to think of it, and I can't sleep a wink at night. She pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob heavily into it. 'I shall glance into the case for you, said Holmes, rising, 'and I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life. 'Then you don't think I'll see him again? 'I fear not. 'Then what has happened to him? 'You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate description of him and any letters of his which you can spare. 'I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle, said she. 'Here is the slip and here are four letters from him. 'Thank you. And your address? 'No.  Lyon Place, Camberwell. 'Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your father's place of business? 'He travels for Westhouse  Marbank, the great claret importers of Fenchurch Street. 'Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will leave the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given you. Let the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect your life. 'You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be true to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back. For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our respect. She laid her little bundle of papers upon the table and went her way, with a promise to come again whenever she might be summoned. Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloudwreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face. 'Quite an interesting study, that maiden, he observed. 'I found her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in Andover in ', and there was something of the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however, there were one or two details which were new to me. But the maiden herself was most instructive. 'You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible to me, I remarked. 'Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumbnails, or the great issues that may hang from a bootlace. Now, what did you gather from that woman's appearance? Describe it. 'Well, she had a slatecoloured, broadbrimmed straw hat, with a feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn't observe. She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly welltodo in a vulgar, comfortable, easygoing way. Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled. ''Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined. The sewingmachine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face, and, observing the dint of a pincenez at either side of her nose, I ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to surprise her. 'It surprised me. 'But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones the one having a slightly decorated toecap, and the other a plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, halfbuttoned, it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry. 'And what else? I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my friend's incisive reasoning. 'I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson. Would you mind reading me the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer Angel? I held the little printed slip to the light. 'Missing, it said, 'on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black sidewhiskers and moustache tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frockcoat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and grey Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elasticsided boots. Known to have been employed in an office in Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing, c, c. 'That will do, said Holmes. 'As to the letters, he continued, glancing over them, 'they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clue in them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is one remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you. 'They are typewritten, I remarked. 'Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the neat little 'Hosmer Angel' at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The point about the signature is very suggestivein fact, we may call it conclusive. 'Of what? 'My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears upon the case? 'I cannot say that I do unless it were that he wished to be able to deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were instituted. 'No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters, which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the other is to the young lady's stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him whether he could meet us here at six o'clock tomorrow evening. It is just as well that we should do business with the male relatives. And now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letters come, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the interim. I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers of reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanour with which he treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph but when I looked back to the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel. I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland. A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own attention at the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at the bedside of the sufferer. It was not until close upon six o'clock that I found myself free and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too late to assist at the dnouement of the little mystery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his armchair. A formidable array of bottles and testtubes, with the pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him. 'Well, have you solved it? I asked as I entered. 'Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta. 'No, no, the mystery! I cried. 'Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. There was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said yesterday, some of the details are of interest. The only drawback is that there is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel. 'Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss Sutherland? The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the passage and a tap at the door. 'This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank, said Holmes. 'He has written to me to say that he would be here at six. Come in! The man who entered was a sturdy, middlesized fellow, some thirty years of age, cleanshaven, and sallowskinned, with a bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his shiny tophat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down into the nearest chair. 'Goodevening, Mr. James Windibank, said Holmes. 'I think that this typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an appointment with me for six o'clock? 'Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled you about this little matter, for I think it is far better not to wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has made up her mind on a point. Of course, I did not mind you so much, as you are not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel? 'On the contrary, said Holmes quietly 'I have every reason to believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel. Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. 'I am delighted to hear it, he said. 'It is a curious thing, remarked Holmes, 'that a typewriter has really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and a slight defect in the tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other characteristics, but those are the more obvious. 'We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no doubt it is a little worn, our visitor answered, glancing keenly at Holmes with his bright little eyes. 'And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr. Windibank, Holmes continued. 'I think of writing another little monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some little attention. I have here four letters which purport to come from the missing man. They are all typewritten. In each case, not only are the 'e's' slurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will observe, if you care to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to which I have alluded are there as well. Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. 'I cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes, he said. 'If you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know when you have done it. 'Certainly, said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in the door. 'I let you know, then, that I have caught him! 'What! where? shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips and glancing about him like a rat in a trap. 'Oh, it won't doreally it won't, said Holmes suavely. 'There is no possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that it was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. That's right! Sit down and let us talk it over. Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a glitter of moisture on his brow. 'Itit's not actionable, he stammered. 'I am very much afraid that it is not. But between ourselves, Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever came before me. Now, let me just run over the course of events, and you will contradict me if I go wrong. The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his breast, like one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us. 'The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money, said he, 'and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it. The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warmhearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her stepfather do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of keeping her at home and forbidding her to seek the company of people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not answer forever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl's short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off other lovers by making love himself. 'It was only a joke at first, groaned our visitor. 'We never thought that she would have been so carried away. 'Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the gentleman's attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go if a real effect were to be produced. There were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the girl's affections from turning towards anyone else. But the deception could not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys to France were rather cumbrous. The thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady's mind and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening on the very morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not listen to another man. As far as the church door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a fourwheeler and out at the other. I think that was the chain of events, Mr. Windibank! Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon his pale face. 'It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes, said he, 'but if you are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who are breaking the law now, and not me. I have done nothing actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that door locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal constraint. 'The law cannot, as you say, touch you, said Holmes, unlocking and throwing open the door, 'yet there never was a man who deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders. By Jove! he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man's face, 'it is not part of my duties to my client, but here's a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat myself to He took two swift steps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr. James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the road. 'There's a coldblooded scoundrel! said Holmes, laughing, as he threw himself down into his chair once more. 'That fellow will rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a gallows. The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest. 'I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning, I remarked. 'Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the stepfather. Then the fact that the two men were never together, but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in typewriting his signature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognise even the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated facts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same direction. 'And how did you verify them? 'Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I knew the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed description. I eliminated everything from it which could be the result of a disguisethe whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their travellers. I had already noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and I wrote to the man himself at his business address asking him if he would come here. As I expected, his reply was typewritten and revealed the same trivial but characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from Westhouse  Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description tallied in every respect with that of their employ, James Windibank. Voil tout! 'And Miss Sutherland? 'If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.' There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world. We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way 'Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. Leave Paddington by the . 'What do you say, dear? said my wife, looking across at me. 'Will you go? 'I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at present. 'Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes' cases. 'I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through one of them, I answered. 'But if I am to go, I must pack at once, for I have only half an hour. My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the effect of making me a prompt and ready traveller. My wants were few and simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a cab with my valise, rattling away to Paddington Station. Sherlock Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even gaunter and taller by his long grey travellingcloak and closefitting cloth cap. 'It is really very good of you to come, Watson, said he. 'It makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either worthless or else biassed. If you will keep the two corner seats I shall get the tickets. We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he rummaged and read, with intervals of notetaking and of meditation, until we were past Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a gigantic ball and tossed them up onto the rack. 'Have you heard anything of the case? he asked. 'Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days. 'The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just been looking through all the recent papers in order to master the particulars. It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those simple cases which are so extremely difficult. 'That sounds a little paradoxical. 'But it is profoundly true. Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they have established a very serious case against the son of the murdered man. 'It is a murder, then? 'Well, it is conjectured to be so. I shall take nothing for granted until I have the opportunity of looking personally into it. I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have been able to understand it, in a very few words. 'Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in Herefordshire. The largest landed proprietor in that part is a Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned some years ago to the old country. One of the farms which he held, that of Hatherley, was let to Mr. Charles McCarthy, who was also an exAustralian. The men had known each other in the colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they came to settle down they should do so as near each other as possible. Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy became his tenant but still remained, it seems, upon terms of perfect equality, as they were frequently together. McCarthy had one son, a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of the same age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear to have avoided the society of the neighbouring English families and to have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys were fond of sport and were frequently seen at the racemeetings of the neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servantsa man and a girl. Turner had a considerable household, some halfdozen at the least. That is as much as I have been able to gather about the families. Now for the facts. 'On June rd, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at Hatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down to the Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been out with his servingman in the morning at Ross, and he had told the man that he must hurry, as he had an appointment of importance to keep at three. From that appointment he never came back alive. 'From Hatherley Farmhouse to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. One was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was William Crowder, a gamekeeper in the employ of Mr. Turner. Both these witnesses depose that Mr. McCarthy was walking alone. The gamekeeper adds that within a few minutes of his seeing Mr. McCarthy pass he had seen his son, Mr. James McCarthy, going the same way with a gun under his arm. To the best of his belief, the father was actually in sight at the time, and the son was following him. He thought no more of the matter until he heard in the evening of the tragedy that had occurred. 'The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, the gamekeeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the lodgekeeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder using very strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their violence that she ran away and told her mother when she reached home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy came running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead in the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodgekeeper. He was much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as might very well have been inflicted by the buttend of his son's gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out before the coroner and the policecourt. 'I could hardly imagine a more damning case, I remarked. 'If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so here. 'Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing, answered Holmes thoughtfully. 'It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different. It must be confessed, however, that the case looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very possible that he is indeed the culprit. There are several people in the neighbourhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the daughter of the neighbouring landowner, who believe in his innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with the Study in Scarlet, to work out the case in his interest. Lestrade, being rather puzzled, has referred the case to me, and hence it is that two middleaged gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an hour instead of quietly digesting their breakfasts at home. 'I am afraid, said I, 'that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case. 'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact, he answered, laughing. 'Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of understanding. To take the first example to hand, I very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the righthand side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would have noted even so selfevident a thing as that. 'How on earth 'My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military neatness which characterises you. You shave every morning, and in this season you shave by the sunlight but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get farther back on the left side, until it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less illuminated than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an equal light and being satisfied with such a result. I only quote this as a trivial example of observation and inference. Therein lies my mtier, and it is just possible that it may be of some service in the investigation which lies before us. There are one or two minor points which were brought out in the inquest, and which are worth considering. 'What are they? 'It appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after the return to Hatherley Farm. On the inspector of constabulary informing him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts. This observation of his had the natural effect of removing any traces of doubt which might have remained in the minds of the coroner's jury. 'It was a confession, I ejaculated. 'No, for it was followed by a protestation of innocence. 'Coming on the top of such a damning series of events, it was at least a most suspicious remark. 'On the contrary, said Holmes, 'it is the brightest rift which I can at present see in the clouds. However innocent he might be, he could not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the circumstances were very black against him. Had he appeared surprised at his own arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I should have looked upon it as highly suspicious, because such surprise or anger would not be natural under the circumstances, and yet might appear to be the best policy to a scheming man. His frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable selfrestraint and firmness. As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead body of his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very day so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and even, according to the little girl whose evidence is so important, to raise his hand as if to strike him. The selfreproach and contrition which are displayed in his remark appear to me to be the signs of a healthy mind rather than of a guilty one. I shook my head. 'Many men have been hanged on far slighter evidence, I remarked. 'So they have. And many men have been wrongfully hanged. 'What is the young man's own account of the matter? 'It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, though there are one or two points in it which are suggestive. You will find it here, and may read it for yourself. He picked out from his bundle a copy of the local Herefordshire paper, and having turned down the sheet he pointed out the paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own statement of what had occurred. I settled myself down in the corner of the carriage and read it very carefully. It ran in this way 'Mr. James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called and gave evidence as follows 'I had been away from home for three days at Bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last Monday, the rd. My father was absent from home at the time of my arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he had driven over to Ross with John Cobb, the groom. Shortly after my return I heard the wheels of his trap in the yard, and, looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he was going. I then took my gun and strolled out in the direction of the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting the rabbit warren which is upon the other side. On my way I saw William Crowder, the gamekeeper, as he had stated in his evidence but he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father. I had no idea that he was in front of me. When about a hundred yards from the pool I heard a cry of 'Cooee! which was a usual signal between my father and myself. I then hurried forward, and found him standing by the pool. He appeared to be much surprised at seeing me and asked me rather roughly what I was doing there. A conversation ensued which led to high words and almost to blows, for my father was a man of a very violent temper. Seeing that his passion was becoming ungovernable, I left him and returned towards Hatherley Farm. I had not gone more than  yards, however, when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me to run back again. I found my father expiring upon the ground, with his head terribly injured. I dropped my gun and held him in my arms, but he almost instantly expired. I knelt beside him for some minutes, and then made my way to Mr. Turner's lodgekeeper, his house being the nearest, to ask for assistance. I saw no one near my father when I returned, and I have no idea how he came by his injuries. He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as I know, no active enemies. I know nothing further of the matter.' 'The Coroner Did your father make any statement to you before he died? 'Witness He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some allusion to a rat. 'The Coroner What did you understand by that? 'Witness It conveyed no meaning to me. I thought that he was delirious. 'The Coroner What was the point upon which you and your father had this final quarrel? 'Witness I should prefer not to answer. 'The Coroner I am afraid that I must press it. 'Witness It is really impossible for me to tell you. I can assure you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which followed. 'The Coroner That is for the court to decide. I need not point out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case considerably in any future proceedings which may arise. 'Witness I must still refuse. 'The Coroner I understand that the cry of 'Cooee' was a common signal between you and your father? 'Witness It was. 'The Coroner How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you, and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol? 'Witness (with considerable confusion) I do not know. 'A Juryman Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when you returned on hearing the cry and found your father fatally injured? 'Witness Nothing definite. 'The Coroner What do you mean? 'Witness I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet I have a vague impression that as I ran forward something lay upon the ground to the left of me. It seemed to me to be something grey in colour, a coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps. When I rose from my father I looked round for it, but it was gone. ''Do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?' ''Yes, it was gone.' ' 'You cannot say what it was?' ''No, I had a feeling something was there.' ''How far from the body?' ''A dozen yards or so.' ''And how far from the edge of the wood?' ''About the same.' ''Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen yards of it?' ''Yes, but with my back towards it.' 'This concluded the examination of the witness. 'I see, said I as I glanced down the column, 'that the coroner in his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy. He calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to give details of his conversation with his father, and his singular account of his father's dying words. They are all, as he remarks, very much against the son. Holmes laughed softly to himself and stretched himself out upon the cushioned seat. 'Both you and the coroner have been at some pains, said he, 'to single out the very strongest points in the young man's favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him credit for having too much imagination and too little? Too little, if he could not invent a cause of quarrel which would give him the sympathy of the jury too much, if he evolved from his own inner consciousness anything so outr as a dying reference to a rat, and the incident of the vanishing cloth. No, sir, I shall approach this case from the point of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the scene of action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall be there in twenty minutes. It was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, found ourselves at the pretty little countrytown of Ross. A lean, ferretlike man, furtive and slylooking, was waiting for us upon the platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leatherleggings which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of Scotland Yard. With him we drove to the Hereford Arms where a room had already been engaged for us. 'I have ordered a carriage, said Lestrade as we sat over a cup of tea. 'I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy until you had been on the scene of the crime. 'It was very nice and complimentary of you, Holmes answered. 'It is entirely a question of barometric pressure. Lestrade looked startled. 'I do not quite follow, he said. 'How is the glass? Twentynine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud in the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I shall use the carriage tonight. Lestrade laughed indulgently. 'You have, no doubt, already formed your conclusions from the newspapers, he said. 'The case is as plain as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes. Still, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a very positive one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my soul! here is her carriage at the door. He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement and concern. 'Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes! she cried, glancing from one to the other of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, fastening upon my companion, 'I am so glad that you have come. I have driven down to tell you so. I know that James didn't do it. I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, too. Never let yourself doubt upon that point. We have known each other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no one else does but he is too tenderhearted to hurt a fly. Such a charge is absurd to anyone who really knows him. 'I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner, said Sherlock Holmes. 'You may rely upon my doing all that I can. 'But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? Do you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that he is innocent? 'I think that it is very probable. 'There, now! she cried, throwing back her head and looking defiantly at Lestrade. 'You hear! He gives me hopes. Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. 'I am afraid that my colleague has been a little quick in forming his conclusions, he said. 'But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did it. And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was concerned in it. 'In what way? asked Holmes. 'It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had many disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that there should be a marriage between us. James and I have always loved each other as brother and sister but of course he is young and has seen very little of life yet, andandwell, he naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet. So there were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them. 'And your father? asked Holmes. 'Was he in favour of such a union? 'No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favour of it. A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot one of his keen, questioning glances at her. 'Thank you for this information, said he. 'May I see your father if I call tomorrow? 'I am afraid the doctor won't allow it. 'The doctor? 'Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his nervous system is shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had known dad in the old days in Victoria. 'Ha! In Victoria! That is important. 'Yes, at the mines. 'Quite so at the goldmines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner made his money. 'Yes, certainly. 'Thank you, Miss Turner. You have been of material assistance to me. 'You will tell me if you have any news tomorrow. No doubt you will go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do tell him that I know him to be innocent. 'I will, Miss Turner. 'I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if I leave him. Goodbye, and God help you in your undertaking. She hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street. 'I am ashamed of you, Holmes, said Lestrade with dignity after a few minutes' silence. 'Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound to disappoint? I am not overtender of heart, but I call it cruel. 'I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy, said Holmes. 'Have you an order to see him in prison? 'Yes, but only for you and me. 'Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have still time to take a train to Hereford and see him tonight? 'Ample. 'Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very slow, but I shall only be away a couple of hours. I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellowbacked novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the action to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room and gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day. Supposing that this unhappy young man's story were absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what absolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred between the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when, drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was something terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the nature of the injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim account of the inquest. In the surgeon's deposition it was stated that the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half of the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt weapon. I marked the spot upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must have been struck from behind. That was to some extent in favour of the accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father. Still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth while to call Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how he met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my brains to find some possible explanation. And then the incident of the grey cloth seen by young McCarthy. If that were true the murderer must have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off. What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! I did not wonder at Lestrade's opinion, and yet I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes' insight that I could not lose hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction of young McCarthy's innocence. It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone, for Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town. 'The glass still keeps very high, he remarked as he sat down. 'It is of importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy. 'And what did you learn from him? 'Nothing. 'Could he throw no light? 'None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that he is as puzzled as everyone else. He is not a very quickwitted youth, though comely to look at and, I should think, sound at heart. 'I cannot admire his taste, I remarked, 'if it is indeed a fact that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this Miss Turner. 'Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly, insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at a boardingschool, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registry office? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth. It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them. I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered. 'But if he is innocent, who has done it? 'Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry 'Cooee!' before he knew that his son had returned. Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends. And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until tomorrow. There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke bright and cloudless. At nine o'clock Lestrade called for us with the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool. 'There is serious news this morning, Lestrade observed. 'It is said that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired of. 'An elderly man, I presume? said Holmes. 'About sixty but his constitution has been shattered by his life abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend of McCarthy's, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free. 'Indeed! That is interesting, said Holmes. 'Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody about here speaks of his kindness to him. 'Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his son to Turner's daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would follow? It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce something from that? 'We have got to the deductions and the inferences, said Lestrade, winking at me. 'I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies. 'You are right, said Holmes demurely 'you do find it very hard to tackle the facts. 'Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to get hold of, replied Lestrade with some warmth. 'And that is 'That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine. 'Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog, said Holmes, laughing. 'But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon the left. 'Yes, that is it. It was a widespread, comfortablelooking building, twostoried, slateroofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay heavy upon it. We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes' request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the son's, though not the pair which he had then had. Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes desired to be led to the courtyard, from which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool. Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a little detour into the meadow. Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end. The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reedgirt sheet of water some fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner. Above the woods which lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting pinnacles which marked the site of the rich landowner's dwelling. On the Hatherley side of the pool the woods grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking up a scent, and then turned upon my companion. 'What did you go into the pool for? he asked. 'I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon or other trace. But how on earth 'Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its inward twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and there it vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo and wallowed all over it. Here is where the party with the lodgekeeper came, and they have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body. But here are three separate tracks of the same feet. He drew out a lens and lay down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to himself than to us. 'These are young McCarthy's feet. Twice he was walking, and once he ran swiftly, so that the soles are deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are the father's feet as he paced up and down. What is this, then? It is the buttend of the gun as the son stood listening. And this? Ha, ha! What have we here? Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too, quite unusual boots! They come, they go, they come againof course that was for the cloak. Now where did they come from? He ran up and down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we were well within the edge of the wood and under the shadow of a great beech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. Holmes traced his way to the farther side of this and lay down once more upon his face with a little cry of satisfaction. For a long time he remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope and examining with his lens not only the ground but even the bark of the tree as far as he could reach. A jagged stone was lying among the moss, and this also he carefully examined and retained. Then he followed a pathway through the wood until he came to the highroad, where all traces were lost. 'It has been a case of considerable interest, he remarked, returning to his natural manner. 'I fancy that this grey house on the right must be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a word with Moran, and perhaps write a little note. Having done that, we may drive back to our luncheon. You may walk to the cab, and I shall be with you presently. It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab and drove back into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had picked up in the wood. 'This may interest you, Lestrade, he remarked, holding it out. 'The murder was done with it. 'I see no marks. 'There are none. 'How do you know, then? 'The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few days. There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It corresponds with the injuries. There is no sign of any other weapon. 'And the murderer? 'Is a tall man, lefthanded, limps with the right leg, wears thicksoled shootingboots and a grey cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigarholder, and carries a blunt penknife in his pocket. There are several other indications, but these may be enough to aid us in our search. Lestrade laughed. 'I am afraid that I am still a sceptic, he said. 'Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a hardheaded British jury. 'Nous verrons, answered Holmes calmly. 'You work your own method, and I shall work mine. I shall be busy this afternoon, and shall probably return to London by the evening train. 'And leave your case unfinished? 'No, finished. 'But the mystery? 'It is solved. 'Who was the criminal, then? 'The gentleman I describe. 'But who is he? 'Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a populous neighbourhood. Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. 'I am a practical man, he said, 'and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a lefthanded gentleman with a game leg. I should become the laughingstock of Scotland Yard. 'All right, said Holmes quietly. 'I have given you the chance. Here are your lodgings. Goodbye. I shall drop you a line before I leave. Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where we found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in thought with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a perplexing position. 'Look here, Watson, he said when the cloth was cleared 'just sit down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don't know quite what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a cigar and let me expound. 'Pray do so. 'Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young McCarthy's narrative which struck us both instantly, although they impressed me in his favour and you against him. One was the fact that his father should, according to his account, cry 'Cooee!' before seeing him. The other was his singular dying reference to a rat. He mumbled several words, you understand, but that was all that caught the son's ear. Now from this double point our research must commence, and we will begin it by presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true. 'What of this 'Cooee!' then? 'Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The son, as far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that he was within earshot. The 'Cooee!' was meant to attract the attention of whoever it was that he had the appointment with. But 'Cooee' is a distinctly Australian cry, and one which is used between Australians. There is a strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet him at Boscombe Pool was someone who had been in Australia. 'What of the rat, then? Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it out on the table. 'This is a map of the Colony of Victoria, he said. 'I wired to Bristol for it last night. He put his hand over part of the map. 'What do you read? 'ARAT, I read. 'And now? He raised his hand. 'BALLARAT. 'Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son only caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter the name of his murderer. So and so, of Ballarat. 'It is wonderful! I exclaimed. 'It is obvious. And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down considerably. The possession of a grey garment was a third point which, granting the son's statement to be correct, was a certainty. We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a grey cloak. 'Certainly. 'And one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only be approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly wander. 'Quite so. 'Then comes our expedition of today. By an examination of the ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal. 'But how did you gain them? 'You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles. 'His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length of his stride. His boots, too, might be told from their traces. 'Yes, they were peculiar boots. 'But his lameness? 'The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limpedhe was lame. 'But his lefthandedness. 'You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can that be unless it were by a lefthanded man? He had stood behind that tree during the interview between the father and son. He had even smoked there. I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of  different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam. 'And the cigarholder? 'I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt penknife. 'Holmes, I said, 'you have drawn a net round this man from which he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as if you had cut the cord which was hanging him. I see the direction in which all this points. The culprit is 'Mr. John Turner, cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our sittingroom, and ushering in a visitor. The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His slow, limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude, and yet his hard, deeplined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of character. His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding, drooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease. 'Pray sit down on the sofa, said Holmes gently. 'You had my note? 'Yes, the lodgekeeper brought it up. You said that you wished to see me here to avoid scandal. 'I thought people would talk if I went to the Hall. 'And why did you wish to see me? He looked across at my companion with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already answered. 'Yes, said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words. 'It is so. I know all about McCarthy. The old man sank his face in his hands. 'God help me! he cried. 'But I would not have let the young man come to harm. I give you my word that I would have spoken out if it went against him at the Assizes. 'I am glad to hear you say so, said Holmes gravely. 'I would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl. It would break her heartit will break her heart when she hears that I am arrested. 'It may not come to that, said Holmes. 'What? 'I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests. Young McCarthy must be got off, however. 'I am a dying man, said old Turner. 'I have had diabetes for years. My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a month. Yet I would rather die under my own roof than in a gaol. Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a bundle of paper before him. 'Just tell us the truth, he said. 'I shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and Watson here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the last extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall not use it unless it is absolutely needed. 'It's as well, said the old man 'it's a question whether I shall live to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I should wish to spare Alice the shock. And now I will make the thing clear to you it has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell. 'You didn't know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil incarnate. I tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my life. I'll tell you first how I came to be in his power. 'It was in the early ''s at the diggings. I was a young chap then, hotblooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a highway robber. There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings. Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang. 'One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and we lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles at the first volley. Three of our boys were killed, however, before we got the swag. I put my pistol to the head of the wagondriver, who was this very man McCarthy. I wish to the Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every feature. We got away with the gold, became wealthy men, and made our way over to England without being suspected. There I parted from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money, to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too, and though my wife died young she left me my dear little Alice. Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done. In a word, I turned over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. All was going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me. 'I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in Regent Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot. ''Here we are, Jack,' says he, touching me on the arm 'we'll be as good as a family to you. There's two of us, me and my son, and you can have the keeping of us. If you don'tit's a fine, lawabiding country is England, and there's always a policeman within hail.' 'Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice. 'His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that his lad should step into the whole property. But there I was firm. I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine not that I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough. I stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do his worst. We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over. 'When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a man as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my girl! Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought back his son but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my flight. That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred. 'Well, it is not for me to judge you, said Holmes as the old man signed the statement which had been drawn out. 'I pray that we may never be exposed to such a temptation. 'I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do? 'In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is condemned I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us. 'Farewell, then, said the old man solemnly. 'Your own deathbeds, when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which you have given to mine. Tottering and shaking in all his giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room. 'God help us! said Holmes after a long silence. 'Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.' James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and submitted to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven months after our interview, but he is now dead and there is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their past. When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ' and ', I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up. The year ' furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British barque Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that timea deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe. It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, handmade London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace crossindexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine seastories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street. 'Why, said I, glancing up at my companion, 'that was surely the bell. Who could come tonight? Some friend of yours, perhaps? 'Except yourself I have none, he answered. 'I do not encourage visitors. 'A client, then? 'If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be some crony of the landlady's. Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit. 'Come in! said he. The man who entered was young, some twoandtwenty at the outside, wellgroomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety. 'I owe you an apology, he said, raising his golden pincenez to his eyes. 'I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber. 'Give me your coat and umbrella, said Holmes. 'They may rest here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the southwest, I see. 'Yes, from Horsham. 'That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite distinctive. 'I have come for advice. 'That is easily got. 'And help. 'That is not always so easy. 'I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal. 'Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards. 'He said that you could solve anything. 'He said too much. 'That you are never beaten. 'I have been beaten four timesthree times by men, and once by a woman. 'But what is that compared with the number of your successes? 'It is true that I have been generally successful. 'Then you may be so with me. 'I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me with some details as to your case. 'It is no ordinary one. 'None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal. 'And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family. 'You fill me with interest, said Holmes. 'Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important. The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards the blaze. 'My name, said he, 'is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is a hereditary matter so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair. 'You must know that my grandfather had two sonsmy uncle Elias and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome competence. 'My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four years. About  or  he came back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and quicktempered, very foulmouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any friends, not even his own brother. 'He didn't mind me in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be in the year , after he had been eight or nine years in England. He begged my father to let me live with him and he was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would make me his representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumberroom up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such a room. 'One dayit was in March, a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!' ''What is it, uncle?' I cried. ''Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his overpowering terror? I left the breakfasttable, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other. ''They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,' said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room today, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.' 'I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope. ''I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am sorry to give you such a twoedged thing, but I can't say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.' 'I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever, and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil. When these hot fits were over, however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin. 'Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little greenscummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and of some  ,, which lay to his credit at the bank. 'One moment, Holmes interposed, 'your statement is, I foresee, one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of his supposed suicide. 'The letter arrived on March , . His death was seven weeks later, upon the night of May nd. 'Thank you. Pray proceed. 'When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and 'Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register' written beneath. These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many scattered papers and notebooks bearing upon my uncle's life in America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that he had done his duty well and had borne the repute of a brave soldier. Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpetbag politicians who had been sent down from the North. 'Well, it was the beginning of ' when my father came to live at Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January of '. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfasttable. There he was, sitting with a newly opened envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one. He had always laughed at what he called my cockandbull story about the colonel, but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon himself. ''Why, what on earth does this mean, John?' he stammered. 'My heart had turned to lead. 'It is K. K. K.,' said I. 'He looked inside the envelope. 'So it is,' he cried. 'Here are the very letters. But what is this written above them?' ''Put the papers on the sundial,' I read, peeping over his shoulder. ''What papers? What sundial?' he asked. ''The sundial in the garden. There is no other,' said I 'but the papers must be those that are destroyed.' ''Pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does the thing come from?' ''From Dundee,' I answered, glancing at the postmark. ''Some preposterous practical joke,' said he. 'What have I to do with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such nonsense.' ''I should certainly speak to the police,' I said. ''And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.' ''Then let me do so?' ''No, I forbid you. I won't have a fuss made about such nonsense.' 'It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. I went about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings. 'On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was away from home. In that, however, I was in error. Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram from the major, imploring me to come at once. My father had fallen over one of the deep chalkpits which abound in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull. I hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recovered his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him, and the chalkpit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict of 'death from accidental causes.' Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder. There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was wellnigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him. 'In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle's life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in another. 'It was in January, ', that my poor father met his end, and two years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, however yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had come upon my father. The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips. 'This is the envelope, he continued. 'The postmark is Londoneastern division. Within are the very words which were upon my father's last message 'K. K. K.' and then 'Put the papers on the sundial.' 'What have you done? asked Holmes. 'Nothing. 'Nothing? 'To tell the truthhe sank his face into his thin, white hands'I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can guard against. 'Tut! tut! cried Sherlock Holmes. 'You must act, man, or you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair. 'I have seen the police. 'Ah! 'But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings. Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. 'Incredible imbecility! he cried. 'They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the house with me. 'Has he come with you tonight? 'No. His orders were to stay in the house. Again Holmes raved in the air. 'Why did you come to me? he said, 'and, above all, why did you not come at once? 'I did not know. It was only today that I spoke to Major Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come to you. 'It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which you have placed before usno suggestive detail which might help us? 'There is one thing, said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, bluetinted paper, he laid it out upon the table. 'I have some remembrance, said he, 'that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this particular colour. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle's. Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, 'March, , and beneath were the following enigmatical notices 'th. Hudson came. Same old platform. 'th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine. 'th. McCauley cleared. 'th. John Swain cleared. 'th. Visited Paramore. All well. 'Thank you! said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to our visitor. 'And now you must on no account lose another instant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You must get home instantly and act. 'What shall I do? 'There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which you have described. You must also put in a note to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in such words as will carry conviction with them. Having done this, you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand? 'Entirely. 'Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I think that we may gain that by means of the law but we have our web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties. 'I thank you, said the young man, rising and pulling on his overcoat. 'You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainly do as you advise. 'Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go back? 'By train from Waterloo. 'It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely. 'I am armed. 'That is well. Tomorrow I shall set to work upon your case. 'I shall see you at Horsham, then? 'No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it. 'Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every particular. He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outside the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad elementsblown in upon us like a sheet of seaweed in a galeand now to have been reabsorbed by them once more. Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smokerings as they chased each other up to the ceiling. 'I think, Watson, he remarked at last, 'that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this. 'Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four. 'Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the Sholtos. 'But have you, I asked, 'formed any definite conception as to what these perils are? 'There can be no question as to their nature, he answered. 'Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue this unhappy family? Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his fingertips together. 'The ideal reasoner, he remarked, 'would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilise all the facts which have come to his knowledge and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopdias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeavoured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion. 'Yes, I answered, laughing. 'It was a singular document. Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mudstains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violinplayer, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and selfpoisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis. Holmes grinned at the last item. 'Well, he said, 'I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brainattic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumberroom of his library, where he can get it if he wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to us tonight, we need certainly to muster all our resources. Kindly hand me down the letter K of the American Encyclopdia which stands upon the shelf beside you. Thank you. Now let us consider the situation and see what may be deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all their habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town. His extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was fear of someone or something which drove him from America. As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which were received by himself and his successors. Did you remark the postmarks of those letters? 'The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the third from London. 'From East London. What do you deduce from that? 'They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship. 'Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that the probabilitythe strong probabilityis that the writer was on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its fulfilment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days. Does that suggest anything? 'A greater distance to travel. 'But the letter had also a greater distance to come. 'Then I do not see the point. 'There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or men are is a sailingship. It looks as if they always send their singular warning or token before them when starting upon their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter. But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those seven weeks represented the difference between the mailboat which brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought the writer. 'It is possible. 'More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay. 'Good God! I cried. 'What can it mean, this relentless persecution? 'The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance to the person or persons in the sailingship. I think that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a coroner's jury. There must have been several in it, and they must have been men of resource and determination. Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it may. In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be the initials of an individual and becomes the badge of a society. 'But of what society? 'Have you never said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking his voice'have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan? 'I never have. Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. 'Here it is, said he presently ''Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was formed by some exConfederate soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the terrorising of the negro voters and the murdering and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic but generally recognised shapea sprig of oakleaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country. If he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organisation of the society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators. For some years the organisation flourished in spite of the efforts of the United States government and of the better classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year , the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.' 'You will observe, said Holmes, laying down the volume, 'that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he and his family have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track. You can understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered. 'Then the page we have seen 'Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, 'sent the pips to A, B, and C'that is, sent the society's warning to them. Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some light into this dark place, and I believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have told him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellow men. It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came down. 'You will excuse me for not waiting for you, said he 'I have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young Openshaw's. 'What steps will you take? I asked. 'It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. I may have to go down to Horsham, after all. 'You will not go there first? 'No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and the maid will bring up your coffee. As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a chill to my heart. 'Holmes, I cried, 'you are too late. 'Ah! said he, laying down his cup, 'I feared as much. How was it done? He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved. 'My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading 'Tragedy Near Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account ''Between nine and ten last night PoliceConstable Cook, of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passersby, it was quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of the waterpolice, the body was eventually recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge of one of the small landingplaces for river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside landingstages.' We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken than I had ever seen him. 'That hurts my pride, Watson, he said at last. 'It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death! He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin hands. 'They must be cunning devils, he exclaimed at last. 'How could they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going out now! 'To the police? 'No I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may take the flies, but not before. All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o'clock before he entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water. 'You are hungry, I remarked. 'Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since breakfast. 'Nothing? 'Not a bite. I had no time to think of it. 'And how have you succeeded? 'Well. 'You have a clue? 'I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish trademark upon them. It is well thought of! 'What do you mean? He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote 'S. H. for J. O. Then he sealed it and addressed it to 'Captain James Calhoun, Barque Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia. 'That will await him when he enters port, said he, chuckling. 'It may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him. 'And who is this Captain Calhoun? 'The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first. 'How did you trace it, then? He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with dates and names. 'I have spent the whole day, said he, 'over Lloyd's registers and files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in '. There were thirtysix ships of fair tonnage which were reported there during those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the states of the Union. 'Texas, I think. 'I was not and am not sure which but I knew that the ship must have an American origin. 'What then? 'I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque Lone Star was there in January, ', my suspicion became a certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of London. 'Yes? 'The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight. 'What will you do, then? 'Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I learn, the only nativeborn Americans in the ship. The others are Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailingship reaches Savannah the mailboat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder. There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered sternpost of a boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters 'L. S. carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star. Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college for having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pinpoint pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man. One nightit was in June, 'there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needlework down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment. 'A patient! said she. 'You'll have to go out. I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day. We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some darkcoloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room. 'You will excuse my calling so late, she began, and then, suddenly losing her selfcontrol, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. 'Oh, I'm in such trouble! she cried 'I do so want a little help. 'Why, said my wife, pulling up her veil, 'it is Kate Whitney. How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came in. 'I didn't know what to do, so I came straight to you. That was always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a lighthouse. 'It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed? 'Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about him! It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband's trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion. We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her? It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him eightandforty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him? There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it. Might I not escort her to this place? And then, as a second thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney's medical adviser, and as such I had influence over him. I could manage it better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given me. And so in ten minutes I had left my armchair and cheery sittingroom behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to be. But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure. Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge. Between a slopshop and a ginshop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search. Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet and by the light of a flickering oillamp above the door I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship. Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lacklustre eye turned upon the newcomer. Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes. The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At the farther end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside which on a threelegged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire. As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth. 'Thank you. I have not come to stay, said I. 'There is a friend of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him. There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and peering through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring out at me. 'My God! It's Watson, said he. He was in a pitiable state of reaction, with every nerve in a twitter. 'I say, Watson, what o'clock is it? 'Nearly eleven. 'Of what day? 'Of Friday, June th. 'Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What d'you want to frighten a chap for? He sank his face onto his arms and began to sob in a high treble key. 'I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting this two days for you. You should be ashamed of yourself! 'So I am. But you've got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a few hours, three pipes, four pipesI forget how many. But I'll go home with you. I wouldn't frighten Katepoor little Kate. Give me your hand! Have you a cab? 'Yes, I have one waiting. 'Then I shall go in it. But I must owe something. Find what I owe, Watson. I am all off colour. I can do nothing for myself. I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug, and looking about for the manager. As I passed the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice whispered, 'Walk past me, and then look back at me. The words fell quite distinctly upon my ear. I glanced down. They could only have come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back. It took all my selfcontrol to prevent me from breaking out into a cry of astonishment. He had turned his back so that none could see him but I. His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided into a doddering, looselipped senility. 'Holmes! I whispered, 'what on earth are you doing in this den? 'As low as you can, he answered 'I have excellent ears. If you would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you. 'I have a cab outside. 'Then pray send him home in it. You may safely trust him, for he appears to be too limp to get into any mischief. I should recommend you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you have thrown in your lot with me. If you will wait outside, I shall be with you in five minutes. It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes' requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of mastery. I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab my mission was practically accomplished and for the rest, I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence. In a few minutes I had written my note, paid Whitney's bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him driven through the darkness. In a very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den, and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two streets he shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain foot. Then, glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter. 'I suppose, Watson, said he, 'that you imagine that I have added opiumsmoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical views. 'I was certainly surprised to find you there. 'But not more so than I to find you. 'I came to find a friend. 'And I to find an enemy. 'An enemy? 'Yes one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey. Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clue in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I been recognised in that den my life would not have been worth an hour's purchase for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me. There is a trapdoor at the back of that building, near the corner of Paul's Wharf, which could tell some strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless nights. 'What! You do not mean bodies? 'Ay, bodies, Watson. We should be rich men if we had   for every poor devil who has been done to death in that den. It is the vilest murdertrap on the whole riverside, and I fear that Neville St. Clair has entered it never to leave it more. But our trap should be here. He put his two forefingers between his teeth and whistled shrillya signal which was answered by a similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the rattle of wheels and the clink of horses' hoofs. 'Now, Watson, said Holmes, as a tall dogcart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. 'You'll come with me, won't you? 'If I can be of use. 'Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use and a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a doublebedded one. 'The Cedars? 'Yes that is Mr. St. Clair's house. I am staying there while I conduct the inquiry. 'Where is it, then? 'Near Lee, in Kent. We have a sevenmile drive before us. 'But I am all in the dark. 'Of course you are. You'll know all about it presently. Jump up here. All right, John we shall not need you. Here's half a crown. Look out for me tomorrow, about eleven. Give her her head. So long, then! He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us. Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought, while I sat beside him, curious to learn what this new quest might be which seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to break in upon the current of his thoughts. We had driven several miles, and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of suburban villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that he is acting for the best. 'You have a grand gift of silence, Watson, said he. 'It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not overpleasant. I was wondering what I should say to this dear little woman tonight when she meets me at the door. 'You forget that I know nothing about it. 'I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can get nothing to go upon. There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can't get the end of it into my hand. Now, I'll state the case clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a spark where all is dark to me. 'Proceed, then. 'Some years agoto be definite, in May, there came to Lee a gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of money. He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and lived generally in good style. By degrees he made friends in the neighbourhood, and in  he married the daughter of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children. He had no occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into town as a rule in the morning, returning by the  from Cannon Street every night. Mr. St. Clair is now thirtyseven years of age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know him. I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to   s., while he has   standing to his credit in the Capital and Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think that money troubles have been weighing upon his mind. 'Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier than usual, remarking before he started that he had two important commissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy home a box of bricks. Now, by the merest chance, his wife received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after his departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable value which she had been expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the Aberdeen Shipping Company. Now, if you are well up in your London, you will know that the office of the company is in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where you found me tonight. Mrs. St. Clair had her lunch, started for the City, did some shopping, proceeded to the company's office, got her packet, and found herself at exactly  walking through Swandam Lane on her way back to the station. Have you followed me so far? 'It is very clear. 'If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St. Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as she did not like the neighbourhood in which she found herself. While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning to her from a secondfloor window. The window was open, and she distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly agitated. He waved his hands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind. One singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie. 'Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the stepsfor the house was none other than the opium den in which you found me tonightand running through the front room she attempted to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor. At the foot of the stairs, however, she met this Lascar scoundrel of whom I have spoken, who thrust her back and, aided by a Dane, who acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street. Filled with the most maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the lane and, by rare goodfortune, met in Fresno Street a number of constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The inspector and two men accompanied her back, and in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no sign of him there. In fact, in the whole of that floor there was no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who, it seems, made his home there. Both he and the Lascar stoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had been deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table and tore the lid from it. Out there fell a cascade of children's bricks. It was the toy which he had promised to bring home. 'This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed, made the inspector realise that the matter was serious. The rooms were carefully examined, and results all pointed to an abominable crime. The front room was plainly furnished as a sittingroom and led into a small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the wharves. Between the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide but is covered at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water. The bedroom window was a broad one and opened from below. On examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the windowsill, and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of the bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all the clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of his coat. His boots, his socks, his hat, and his watchall were there. There were no signs of violence upon any of these garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St. Clair. Out of the window he must apparently have gone for no other exit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon the sill gave little promise that he could save himself by swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of the tragedy. 'And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in the matter. The Lascar was known to be a man of the vilest antecedents, but as, by Mrs. St. Clair's story, he was known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he could hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime. His defence was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way for the presence of the missing gentleman's clothes. 'So much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St. Clair. His name is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which is familiar to every man who goes much to the City. He is a professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police regulations he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas. Some little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the lefthand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the wall. Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat, crosslegged with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and as he is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends into the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him. I have watched the fellow more than once before ever I thought of making his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which he has reaped in a short time. His appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him without observing him. A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from amid the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the passersby. This is the man whom we now learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest. 'But a cripple! said I. 'What could he have done singlehanded against a man in the prime of life? 'He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp but in other respects he appears to be a powerful and wellnurtured man. Surely your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others. 'Pray continue your narrative. 'Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her presence could be of no help to them in their investigations. Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful examination of the premises, but without finding anything which threw any light upon the matter. One mistake had been made in not arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which he might have communicated with his friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything being found which could incriminate him. There were, it is true, some bloodstains upon his right shirtsleeve, but he pointed to his ringfinger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from the same source. He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr. Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes in his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. As to Mrs. St. Clair's assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the window, he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming. He was removed, loudly protesting, to the policestation, while the inspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue. 'And it did, though they hardly found upon the mudbank what they had feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair's coat, and not Neville St. Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And what do you think they found in the pockets? 'I cannot imagine. 'No, I don't think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with pennies and halfpennies pennies and  halfpennies. It was no wonder that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a human body is a different matter. There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the house. It seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked away into the river. 'But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room. Would the body be dressed in a coat alone? 'No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed. What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of the telltale garments. He would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim and not sink. He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle downstairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street. There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. He throws it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the police appeared. 'It certainly sounds feasible. 'Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against him. He had for years been known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to be solvedwhat Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearanceare all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so simple and yet which presented such difficulties. While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us. Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows. 'We are on the outskirts of Lee, said my companion. 'We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet. 'But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street? I asked. 'Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa! We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own grounds. A stableboy had run out to the horse's head, and springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding graveldrive which led to the house. As we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck and wrists. She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one halfraised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question. 'Well? she cried, 'well? And then, seeing that there were two of us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. 'No good news? 'None. 'No bad? 'No. 'Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have had a long day. 'This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this investigation. 'I am delighted to see you, said she, pressing my hand warmly. 'You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us. 'My dear madam, said I, 'I am an old campaigner, and if I were not I can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy. 'Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, said the lady as we entered a welllit diningroom, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, 'I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer. 'Certainly, madam. 'Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion. 'Upon what point? 'In your heart of hearts, do you think that Neville is alive? Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. 'Frankly, now! she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basketchair. 'Frankly, then, madam, I do not. 'You think that he is dead? 'I do. 'Murdered? 'I don't say that. Perhaps. 'And on what day did he meet his death? 'On Monday. 'Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is that I have received a letter from him today. Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanised. 'What! he roared. 'Yes, today. She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in the air. 'May I see it? 'Certainly. He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. I had left my chair and was gazing at it over his shoulder. The envelope was a very coarse one and was stamped with the Gravesend postmark and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight. 'Coarse writing, murmured Holmes. 'Surely this is not your husband's writing, madam. 'No, but the enclosure is. 'I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and inquire as to the address. 'How can you tell that? 'The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself. The rest is of the greyish colour, which shows that blottingpaper has been used. If it had been written straight off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. This man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it. It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha! there has been an enclosure here! 'Yes, there was a ring. His signetring. 'And you are sure that this is your husband's hand? 'One of his hands. 'One? 'His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual writing, and yet I know it well. ''Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a huge error which it may take some little time to rectify. Wait in patience.NEVILLE.' Written in pencil upon the flyleaf of a book, octavo size, no watermark. Hum! Posted today in Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco. And you have no doubt that it is your husband's hand, madam? 'None. Neville wrote those words. 'And they were posted today at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair, the clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the danger is over. 'But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes. 'Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. The ring, after all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from him. 'No, no it is, it is his very own writing! 'Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday and only posted today. 'That is possible. 'If so, much may have happened between. 'Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is well with him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if evil came upon him. On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the diningroom rushed upstairs instantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened. Do you think that I would respond to such a trifle and yet be ignorant of his death? 'I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. And in this letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to corroborate your view. But if your husband is alive and able to write letters, why should he remain away from you? 'I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable. 'And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you? 'No. 'And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane? 'Very much so. 'Was the window open? 'Yes. 'Then he might have called to you? 'He might. 'He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry? 'Yes. 'A call for help, you thought? 'Yes. He waved his hands. 'But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands? 'It is possible. 'And you thought he was pulled back? 'He disappeared so suddenly. 'He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the room? 'No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs. 'Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary clothes on? 'But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat. 'Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane? 'Never. 'Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium? 'Never. 'Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day tomorrow. A large and comfortable doublebedded room had been placed at our disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing for an allnight sitting. He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressinggown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself crosslegged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strongset aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night. 'Awake, Watson? he asked. 'Yes. 'Game for a morning drive? 'Certainly. 'Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stableboy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out. He chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night. As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was stirring. It was twentyfive minutes past four. I had hardly finished when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the horse. 'I want to test a little theory of mine, said he, pulling on his boots. 'I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the key of the affair now. 'And where is it? I asked, smiling. 'In the bathroom, he answered. 'Oh, yes, I am not joking, he continued, seeing my look of incredulity. 'I have just been there, and I have taken it out, and I have got it in this Gladstone bag. Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will not fit the lock. We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with the halfclad stableboy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few country carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a dream. 'It has been in some points a singular case, said Holmes, flicking the horse on into a gallop. 'I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all. In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side. Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the right and found ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock Holmes was well known to the force, and the two constables at the door saluted him. One of them held the horse's head while the other led us in. 'Who is on duty? asked Holmes. 'Inspector Bradstreet, sir. 'Ah, Bradstreet, how are you? A tall, stout official had come down the stoneflagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket. 'I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet. 'Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here. It was a small, officelike room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a telephone projecting from the wall. The inspector sat down at his desk. 'What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes? 'I called about that beggarman, Boonethe one who was charged with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee. 'Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries. 'So I heard. You have him here? 'In the cells. 'Is he quiet? 'Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel. 'Dirty? 'Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is as black as a tinker's. Well, when once his case has been settled, he will have a regular prison bath and I think, if you saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it. 'I should like to see him very much. 'Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can leave your bag. 'No, I think that I'll take it. 'Very good. Come this way, if you please. He led us down a passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side. 'The third on the right is his, said the inspector. 'Here it is! He quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced through. 'He is asleep, said he. 'You can see him very well. We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily. He was a middlesized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over his eyes and forehead. 'He's a beauty, isn't he? said the inspector. 'He certainly needs a wash, remarked Holmes. 'I had an idea that he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me. He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very large bathsponge. 'He! he! You are a funny one, chuckled the inspector. 'Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure. 'Well, I don't know why not, said the inspector. 'He doesn't look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he? He slipped his key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber. Holmes stooped to the waterjug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner's face. 'Let me introduce you, he shouted, 'to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee, in the county of Kent. Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sadfaced, refinedlooking man, blackhaired and smoothskinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a scream and threw himself down with his face to the pillow. 'Great heavens! cried the inspector, 'it is, indeed, the missing man. I know him from the photograph. The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to his destiny. 'Be it so, said he. 'And pray what am I charged with? 'With making away with Mr. Neville St. Oh, come, you can't be charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it, said the inspector with a grin. 'Well, I have been twentyseven years in the force, but this really takes the cake. 'If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained. 'No crime, but a very great error has been committed, said Holmes. 'You would have done better to have trusted your wife. 'It was not the wife it was the children, groaned the prisoner. 'God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God! What an exposure! What can I do? Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on the shoulder. 'If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up, said he, 'of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers. Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case would then never go into court at all. 'God bless you! cried the prisoner passionately. 'I would have endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my miserable secret as a family blot to my children. 'You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a schoolmaster in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One day my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point from which all my adventures started. It was only by trying begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to base my articles. When an actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had been famous in the greenroom for my skill. I took advantage now of my attainments. I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a small slip of fleshcoloured plaster. Then with a red head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business part of the city, ostensibly as a matchseller but really as a beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned home in the evening I found to my surprise that I had received no less than s. d. 'I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until, some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served upon me for  . I was at my wit's end where to get the money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise. In ten days I had the money and had paid the debt. 'Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work at   a week when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground, and sitting still. It was a long fight between my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets with coppers. Only one man knew my secret. He was the keeper of a low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the evenings transform myself into a welldressed man about town. This fellow, a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that my secret was safe in his possession. 'Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn   a yearwhich is less than my average takingsbut I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by practice and made me quite a recognised character in the City. All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take  . 'As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had business in the City. She little knew what. 'Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my room above the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw, to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street, with her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone from coming up to me. I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew that she could not ascend. Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig. Even a wife's eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But then it occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopening by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of the window, and it disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr. Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer. 'I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife would be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me, together with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear. 'That note only reached her yesterday, said Holmes. 'Good God! What a week she must have spent! 'The police have watched this Lascar, said Inspector Bradstreet, 'and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor customer of his, who forgot all about it for some days. 'That was it, said Holmes, nodding approvingly 'I have no doubt of it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging? 'Many times but what was a fine to me? 'It must stop here, however, said Bradstreet. 'If the police are to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone. 'I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take. 'In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out. I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your results. 'I reached this one, said my friend, 'by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast. I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressinggown, a piperack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hardfelt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the purpose of examination. 'You are engaged, said I 'perhaps I interrupt you. 'Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my results. The matter is a perfectly trivial onehe jerked his thumb in the direction of the old hat'but there are points in connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of instruction. I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice crystals. 'I suppose, I remarked, 'that, homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to itthat it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of some mystery and the punishment of some crime. 'No, no. No crime, said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. 'Only one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have already had experience of such. 'So much so, I remarked, 'that of the last six cases which I have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime. 'Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the adventure of the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt that this small matter will fall into the same innocent category. You know Peterson, the commissionaire? 'Yes. 'It is to him that this trophy belongs. 'It is his hat. 'No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's fire. The facts are these about four o'clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small jollification and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him. Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and seeing an officiallooking person in uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose. 'Which surely he restored to their owner? 'My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that 'For Mrs. Henry Baker' was printed upon a small card which was tied to the bird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'H. B.' are legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any one of them. 'What, then, did Peterson do? 'He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning, knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain the hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner. 'Did he not advertise? 'No. 'Then, what clue could you have as to his identity? 'Only as much as we can deduce. 'From his hat? 'Precisely. 'But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered felt? 'Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this article? I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape, hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker's name but, as Holmes had remarked, the initials 'H. B. were scrawled upon one side. It was pierced in the brim for a hatsecurer, but the elastic was missing. For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the discoloured patches by smearing them with ink. 'I can see nothing, said I, handing it back to my friend. 'On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences. 'Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat? He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion which was characteristic of him. 'It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been, he remarked, 'and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly welltodo within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him. 'My dear Holmes! 'He has, however, retained some degree of selfrespect, he continued, disregarding my remonstrance. 'He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middleaged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with limecream. These are the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his house. 'You are certainly joking, Holmes. 'Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you these results, you are unable to see how they are attained? 'I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I am unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man was intellectual? For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. 'It is a question of cubic capacity, said he 'a man with so large a brain must have something in it. 'The decline of his fortunes, then? 'This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge came in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the band of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world. 'Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the foresight and the moral retrogression? Sherlock Holmes laughed. 'Here is the foresight, said he putting his finger upon the little disc and loop of the hatsecurer. 'They are never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take this precaution against the wind. But since we see that he has broken the elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he has less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature. On the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal some of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not entirely lost his selfrespect. 'Your reasoning is certainly plausible. 'The further points, that he is middleaged, that his hair is grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses limecream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the lower part of the lining. The lens discloses a large number of hairends, clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all appear to be adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of limecream. This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty, grey dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the time, while the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the wearer perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be in the best of training. 'But his wifeyou said that she had ceased to love him. 'This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's affection. 'But he might be a bachelor. 'Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peaceoffering to his wife. Remember the card upon the bird's leg. 'You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce that the gas is not laid on in his house? 'One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance but when I see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning tallowwalks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallowstains from a gasjet. Are you satisfied? 'Well, it is very ingenious, said I, laughing 'but since, as you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of energy. Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment. 'The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir! he gasped. 'Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through the kitchen window? Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face. 'See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop! He held out his hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in the dark hollow of his hand. Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. 'By Jove, Peterson! said he, 'this is treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you have got? 'A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though it were putty. 'It's more than a precious stone. It is the precious stone. 'Not the Countess of Morcar's blue carbuncle! I ejaculated. 'Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I have read the advertisement about it in The Times every day lately. It is absolutely unique, and its value can only be conjectured, but the reward offered of   is certainly not within a twentieth part of the market price. 'A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy! The commissionaire plumped down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us. 'That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are sentimental considerations in the background which would induce the Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but recover the gem. 'It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan, I remarked. 'Precisely so, on December nd, just five days ago. John Horner, a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady's jewelcase. The evidence against him was so strong that the case has been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the matter here, I believe. He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the following paragraph 'Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, , plumber, was brought up upon the charge of having upon the nd inst., abstracted from the jewelcase of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, upperattendant at the hotel, gave his evidence to the effect that he had shown Horner up to the dressingroom of the Countess of Morcar upon the day of the robbery in order that he might solder the second bar of the grate, which was loose. He had remained with Horner some little time, but had finally been called away. On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared, that the bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco casket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the Countess was accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the dressingtable. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was arrested the same evening but the stone could not be found either upon his person or in his rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to the Countess, deposed to having heard Ryder's cry of dismay on discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room, where she found matters as described by the last witness. Inspector Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest of Horner, who struggled frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest terms. Evidence of a previous conviction for robbery having been given against the prisoner, the magistrate refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred it to the Assizes. Horner, who had shown signs of intense emotion during the proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion and was carried out of court. 'Hum! So much for the policecourt, said Holmes thoughtfully, tossing aside the paper. 'The question for us now to solve is the sequence of events leading from a rifled jewelcase at one end to the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more important and less innocent aspect. Here is the stone the stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other characteristics with which I have bored you. So now we must set ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To do this, we must try the simplest means first, and these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the evening papers. If this fail, I shall have recourse to other methods. 'What will you say? 'Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then 'Found at the corner of Goodge Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr. Henry Baker can have the same by applying at  this evening at B, Baker Street.' That is clear and concise. 'Very. But will he see it? 'Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man, the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his mischance in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his bird. Then, again, the introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for everyone who knows him will direct his attention to it. Here you are, Peterson, run down to the advertising agency and have this put in the evening papers. 'In which, sir? 'Oh, in the Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James's Gazette, Evening News, Standard, Echo, and any others that occur to you. 'Very well, sir. And this stone? 'Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, Peterson, just buy a goose on your way back and leave it here with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place of the one which your family is now devouring. When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. 'It's a bonny thing, said he. 'Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in southern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriolthrowing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this fortygrain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? I'll lock it up in my strong box now and drop a line to the Countess to say that we have it. 'Do you think that this man Horner is innocent? 'I cannot tell. 'Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had anything to do with the matter? 'It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an absolutely innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was of considerably more value than if it were made of solid gold. That, however, I shall determine by a very simple test if we have an answer to our advertisement. 'And you can do nothing until then? 'Nothing. 'In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall come back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I should like to see the solution of so tangled a business. 'Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I believe. By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I ought to ask Mrs. Hudson to examine its crop. I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after halfpast six when I found myself in Baker Street once more. As I approached the house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight. Just as I arrived the door was opened, and we were shown up together to Holmes' room. 'Mr. Henry Baker, I believe, said he, rising from his armchair and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so readily assume. 'Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have just come at the right time. Is that your hat, Mr. Baker? 'Yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat. He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled brown. A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes' surmise as to his habits. His rusty black frockcoat was buttoned right up in front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a slow staccato fashion, choosing his words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had illusage at the hands of fortune. 'We have retained these things for some days, said Holmes, 'because we expected to see an advertisement from you giving your address. I am at a loss to know now why you did not advertise. Our visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. 'Shillings have not been so plentiful with me as they once were, he remarked. 'I had no doubt that the gang of roughs who assaulted me had carried off both my hat and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a hopeless attempt at recovering them. 'Very naturally. By the way, about the bird, we were compelled to eat it. 'To eat it! Our visitor half rose from his chair in his excitement. 'Yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so. But I presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is about the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your purpose equally well? 'Oh, certainly, certainly, answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of relief. 'Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of your own bird, so if you wish The man burst into a hearty laugh. 'They might be useful to me as relics of my adventure, said he, 'but beyond that I can hardly see what use the disjecta membra of my late acquaintance are going to be to me. No, sir, I think that, with your permission, I will confine my attentions to the excellent bird which I perceive upon the sideboard. Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug of his shoulders. 'There is your hat, then, and there your bird, said he. 'By the way, would it bore you to tell me where you got the other one from? I am somewhat of a fowl fancier, and I have seldom seen a better grown goose. 'Certainly, sir, said Baker, who had risen and tucked his newly gained property under his arm. 'There are a few of us who frequent the Alpha Inn, near the Museumwe are to be found in the Museum itself during the day, you understand. This year our good host, Windigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which, on consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the rest is familiar to you. I am much indebted to you, sir, for a Scotch bonnet is fitted neither to my years nor my gravity. With a comical pomposity of manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and strode off upon his way. 'So much for Mr. Henry Baker, said Holmes when he had closed the door behind him. 'It is quite certain that he knows nothing whatever about the matter. Are you hungry, Watson? 'Not particularly. 'Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow up this clue while it is still hot. 'By all means. It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped cravats about our throats. Outside, the stars were shining coldly in a cloudless sky, and the breath of the passersby blew out into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors' quarter, Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street. In a quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at the Alpha Inn, which is a small publichouse at the corner of one of the streets which runs down into Holborn. Holmes pushed open the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer from the ruddyfaced, whiteaproned landlord. 'Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese, said he. 'My geese! The man seemed surprised. 'Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker, who was a member of your goose club. 'Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them's not our geese. 'Indeed! Whose, then? 'Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden. 'Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it? 'Breckinridge is his name. 'Ah! I don't know him. Well, here's your good health landlord, and prosperity to your house. Goodnight. 'Now for Mr. Breckinridge, he continued, buttoning up his coat as we came out into the frosty air. 'Remember, Watson that though we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years' penal servitude unless we can establish his innocence. It is possible that our inquiry may but confirm his guilt but, in any case, we have a line of investigation which has been missed by the police, and which a singular chance has placed in our hands. Let us follow it out to the bitter end. Faces to the south, then, and quick march! We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a zigzag of slums to Covent Garden Market. One of the largest stalls bore the name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor a horseylooking man, with a sharp face and trim sidewhiskers was helping a boy to put up the shutters. 'Goodevening. It's a cold night, said Holmes. The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my companion. 'Sold out of geese, I see, continued Holmes, pointing at the bare slabs of marble. 'Let you have five hundred tomorrow morning. 'That's no good. 'Well, there are some on the stall with the gasflare. 'Ah, but I was recommended to you. 'Who by? 'The landlord of the Alpha. 'Oh, yes I sent him a couple of dozen. 'Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from? To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the salesman. 'Now, then, mister, said he, with his head cocked and his arms akimbo, 'what are you driving at? Let's have it straight, now. 'It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the geese which you supplied to the Alpha. 'Well then, I shan't tell you. So now! 'Oh, it is a matter of no importance but I don't know why you should be so warm over such a trifle. 'Warm! You'd be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am. When I pay good money for a good article there should be an end of the business but it's 'Where are the geese?' and 'Who did you sell the geese to?' and 'What will you take for the geese?' One would think they were the only geese in the world, to hear the fuss that is made over them. 'Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been making inquiries, said Holmes carelessly. 'If you won't tell us the bet is off, that is all. But I'm always ready to back my opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the bird I ate is country bred. 'Well, then, you've lost your fiver, for it's town bred, snapped the salesman. 'It's nothing of the kind. 'I say it is. 'I don't believe it. 'D'you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that went to the Alpha were town bred. 'You'll never persuade me to believe that. 'Will you bet, then? 'It's merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But I'll have a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be obstinate. The salesman chuckled grimly. 'Bring me the books, Bill, said he. The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great greasybacked one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp. 'Now then, Mr. Cocksure, said the salesman, 'I thought that I was out of geese, but before I finish you'll find that there is still one left in my shop. You see this little book? 'Well? 'That's the list of the folk from whom I buy. D'you see? Well, then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger. Now, then! You see this other page in red ink? Well, that is a list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just read it out to me. 'Mrs. Oakshott, , Brixton Road, read Holmes. 'Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger. Holmes turned to the page indicated. 'Here you are, 'Mrs. Oakshott, , Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.' 'Now, then, what's the last entry? ''December nd. Twentyfour geese at s. d.' 'Quite so. There you are. And underneath? ''Sold to Mr. Windigate of the Alpha, at s.' 'What have you to say now? Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off he stopped under a lamppost and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him. 'When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'Pink 'un' protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet, said he. 'I daresay that if I had put   down in front of him, that man would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a wager. Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is whether we should go on to this Mrs. Oakshott tonight, or whether we should reserve it for tomorrow. It is clear from what that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves who are anxious about the matter, and I should His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out from the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a little ratfaced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure. 'I've had enough of you and your geese, he shouted. 'I wish you were all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more with your silly talk I'll set the dog at you. You bring Mrs. Oakshott here and I'll answer her, but what have you to do with it? Did I buy the geese off you? 'No but one of them was mine all the same, whined the little man. 'Well, then, ask Mrs. Oakshott for it. 'She told me to ask you. 'Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I've had enough of it. Get out of this! He rushed fiercely forward, and the inquirer flitted away into the darkness. 'Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road, whispered Holmes. 'Come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this fellow. Striding through the scattered knots of people who lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang round, and I could see in the gaslight that every vestige of colour had been driven from his face. 'Who are you, then? What do you want? he asked in a quavering voice. 'You will excuse me, said Holmes blandly, 'but I could not help overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I think that I could be of assistance to you. 'You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter? 'My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know. 'But you can know nothing of this? 'Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to trace some geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. Windigate, of the Alpha, and by him to his club, of which Mr. Henry Baker is a member. 'Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet, cried the little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. 'I can hardly explain to you how interested I am in this matter. Sherlock Holmes hailed a fourwheeler which was passing. 'In that case we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this windswept marketplace, said he. 'But pray tell me, before we go farther, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting. The man hesitated for an instant. 'My name is John Robinson, he answered with a sidelong glance. 'No, no the real name, said Holmes sweetly. 'It is always awkward doing business with an alias. A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. 'Well then, said he, 'my real name is James Ryder. 'Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray step into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you everything which you would wish to know. The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with halffrightened, halfhopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in the sittingroom at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him. 'Here we are! said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. 'The fire looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold, Mr. Ryder. Pray take the basketchair. I will just put on my slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! You want to know what became of those geese? 'Yes, sir. 'Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine in which you were interestedwhite, with a black bar across the tail. Ryder quivered with emotion. 'Oh, sir, he cried, 'can you tell me where it went to? 'It came here. 'Here? 'Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don't wonder that you should take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was deadthe bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. I have it here in my museum. Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece with his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strongbox and held up the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant, manypointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a drawn face, uncertain whether to claim or to disown it. 'The game's up, Ryder, said Holmes quietly. 'Hold up, man, or you'll be into the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair, Watson. He's not got blood enough to go in for felony with impunity. Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure! For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring with frightened eyes at his accuser. 'I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me. Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the Countess of Morcar's? 'It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it, said he in a crackling voice. 'I seeher ladyship's waitingmaid. Well, the temptation of sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for better men before you but you were not very scrupulous in the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the making of a very pretty villain in you. You knew that this man Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon him. What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady's roomyou and your confederate Cusackand you managed that he should be the man sent for. Then, when he had left, you rifled the jewelcase, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man arrested. You then Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion's knees. 'For God's sake, have mercy! he shrieked. 'Think of my father! Of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don't bring it into court! For Christ's sake, don't! 'Get back into your chair! said Holmes sternly. 'It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing. 'I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the charge against him will break down. 'Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety. Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. 'I will tell you it just as it happened, sir, said he. 'When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister's house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it would be best to do. 'I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him so I made up my mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived. 'My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birdsa fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others. ''Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?' says she. ''Well,' said I, 'you said you'd give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.' ''Oh,' says she, 'we've set yours aside for youJem's bird, we call it. It's the big white one over yonder. There's twentysix of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.' ''Thank you, Maggie,' says I 'but if it is all the same to you, I'd rather have that one I was handling just now.' ''The other is a good three pound heavier,' said she, 'and we fattened it expressly for you.' ''Never mind. I'll have the other, and I'll take it now,' said I. ''Oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'Which is it you want, then?' ''That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.' ''Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.' 'Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my sister's, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there. ''Where are they all, Maggie?' I cried. ''Gone to the dealer's, Jem.' ''Which dealer's?' ''Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.' ''But was there another with a barred tail?' I asked, 'the same as the one I chose?' ''Yes, Jem there were two barredtailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.' 'Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge but he had sold the lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone. You heard him yourselves tonight. Well, he has always answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And nowand now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me! He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands. There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes' fingertips upon the edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door. 'Get out! said he. 'What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you! 'No more words. Get out! And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street. 'After all, Watson, said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, 'I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and you make him a gaolbird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief feature. On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the wellknown Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth. It was early in April in the year ' that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarterpast seven, I blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits. 'Very sorry to knock you up, Watson, said he, 'but it's the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you. 'What is it, thena fire? 'No a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is waiting now in the sittingroom. Now, when young ladies wander about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rate, that I should call you and give you the chance. 'My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything. I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sittingroom. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered. 'Goodmorning, madam, said Holmes cheerily. 'My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering. 'It is not cold which makes me shiver, said the woman in a low voice, changing her seat as requested. 'What, then? 'It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror. She raised her veil as she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, allcomprehensive glances. 'You must not fear, said he soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. 'We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see. 'You know me, then? 'No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dogcart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station. The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my companion. 'There is no mystery, my dear madam, said he, smiling. 'The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dogcart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the lefthand side of the driver. 'Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct, said she. 'I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this strain no longer I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to turn tonone, save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful. Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small casebook, which he consulted. 'Farintosh, said he. 'Ah yes, I recall the case it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As to reward, my profession is its own reward but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the matter. 'Alas! replied our visitor, 'the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me. 'I am all attention, madam. 'My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey. Holmes nodded his head. 'The name is familiar to me, said he. 'The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the twohundredyearold house, which is itself crushed under a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper but his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment and afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man. 'When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young widow of MajorGeneral Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother's remarriage. She had a considerable sum of moneynot less than   a yearand this she bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him, with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my mother diedshe was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice in London and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness. 'But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time. Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the policecourt, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger. 'Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramblecovered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds and are feared by the villagers almost as much as their master. 'You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia and I had no great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with us, and for a long time we did all the work of the house. She was but thirty at the time of her death, and yet her hair had already begun to whiten, even as mine has. 'Your sister is dead, then? 'She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish to speak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I have described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age and position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden sister, Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady's house. Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there a halfpay major of marines, to whom she became engaged. My stepfather learned of the engagement when my sister returned and offered no objection to the marriage but within a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event occurred which has deprived me of my only companion. Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his lids now and glanced across at his visitor. 'Pray be precise as to details, said he. 'It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is seared into my memory. The manorhouse is, as I have already said, very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sittingrooms being in the central block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms the first is Dr. Roylott's, the second my sister's, and the third my own. There is no communication between them, but they all open out into the same corridor. Do I make myself plain? 'Perfectly so. 'The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time, chatting about her approaching wedding. At eleven o'clock she rose to leave me, but she paused at the door and looked back. ''Tell me, Helen,' said she, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle in the dead of the night?' ''Never,' said I. ''I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your sleep?' ''Certainly not. But why?' ''Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in the morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came fromperhaps from the next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would just ask you whether you had heard it.' ''No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the plantation.' ''Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you did not hear it also.' ''Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.' ''Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.' She smiled back at me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her key turn in the lock. 'Indeed, said Holmes. 'Was it your custom always to lock yourselves in at night? 'Always. 'And why? 'I think that I mentioned to you that the Doctor kept a cheetah and a baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were locked. 'Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement. 'I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending misfortune impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman. I knew that it was my sister's voice. I sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen. As I ran down the passage, my sister's door was unlocked, and revolved slowly upon its hinges. I stared at it horrorstricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it. By the light of the corridorlamp I saw my sister appear at the opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands groping for help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a drunkard. I ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground. She writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were dreadfully convulsed. At first I thought that she had not recognised me, but as I bent over her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, 'Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!' There was something else which she would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into the air in the direction of the Doctor's room, but a fresh convulsion seized her and choked her words. I rushed out, calling loudly for my stepfather, and I met him hastening from his room in his dressinggown. When he reached my sister's side she was unconscious, and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent for medical aid from the village, all efforts were in vain, for she slowly sank and died without having recovered her consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of my beloved sister. 'One moment, said Holmes, 'are you sure about this whistle and metallic sound? Could you swear to it? 'That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is my strong impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of the gale and the creaking of an old house, I may possibly have been deceived. 'Was your sister dressed? 'No, she was in her nightdress. In her right hand was found the charred stump of a match, and in her left a matchbox. 'Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when the alarm took place. That is important. And what conclusions did the coroner come to? 'He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott's conduct had long been notorious in the county, but he was unable to find any satisfactory cause of death. My evidence showed that the door had been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows were blocked by oldfashioned shutters with broad iron bars, which were secured every night. The walls were carefully sounded, and were shown to be quite solid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly examined, with the same result. The chimney is wide, but is barred up by four large staples. It is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met her end. Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon her. 'How about poison? 'The doctors examined her for it, but without success. 'What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then? 'It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, though what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine. 'Were there gipsies in the plantation at the time? 'Yes, there are nearly always some there. 'Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a banda speckled band? 'Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people, perhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation. I do not know whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear over their heads might have suggested the strange adjective which she used. Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied. 'These are very deep waters, said he 'pray go on with your narrative. 'Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until lately lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have known for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in marriage. His name is ArmitagePercy Armitagethe second son of Mr. Armitage, of Crane Water, near Reading. My stepfather has offered no opposition to the match, and we are to be married in the course of the spring. Two days ago some repairs were started in the west wing of the building, and my bedroom wall has been pierced, so that I have had to move into the chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in the very bed in which she slept. Imagine, then, my thrill of terror when last night, as I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which had been the herald of her own death. I sprang up and lit the lamp, but nothing was to be seen in the room. I was too shaken to go to bed again, however, so I dressed, and as soon as it was daylight I slipped down, got a dogcart at the Crown Inn, which is opposite, and drove to Leatherhead, from whence I have come on this morning with the one object of seeing you and asking your advice. 'You have done wisely, said my friend. 'But have you told me all? 'Yes, all. 'Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather. 'Why, what do you mean? For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed the hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. Five little livid spots, the marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed upon the white wrist. 'You have been cruelly used, said Holmes. The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. 'He is a hard man, she said, 'and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength. There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon his hands and stared into the crackling fire. 'This is a very deep business, he said at last. 'There are a thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If we were to come to Stoke Moran today, would it be possible for us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your stepfather? 'As it happens, he spoke of coming into town today upon some most important business. It is probable that he will be away all day, and that there would be nothing to disturb you. We have a housekeeper now, but she is old and foolish, and I could easily get her out of the way. 'Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson? 'By no means. 'Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself? 'I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am in town. But I shall return by the twelve o'clock train, so as to be there in time for your coming. 'And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some small business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and breakfast? 'No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have confided my trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you again this afternoon. She dropped her thick black veil over her face and glided from the room. 'And what do you think of it all, Watson? asked Sherlock Holmes, leaning back in his chair. 'It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business. 'Dark enough and sinister enough. 'Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then her sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her mysterious end. 'What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the very peculiar words of the dying woman? 'I cannot think. 'When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an interest in preventing his stepdaughter's marriage, the dying allusion to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those metal bars that secured the shutters falling back into its place, I think that there is good ground to think that the mystery may be cleared along those lines. 'But what, then, did the gipsies do? 'I cannot imagine. 'I see many objections to any such theory. 'And so do I. It is precisely for that reason that we are going to Stoke Moran this day. I want to see whether the objections are fatal, or if they may be explained away. But what in the name of the devil! The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a black tophat, a long frockcoat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a huntingcrop swinging in his hand. So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to side. A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deepset, bileshot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey. 'Which of you is Holmes? asked this apparition. 'My name, sir but you have the advantage of me, said my companion quietly. 'I am Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran. 'Indeed, Doctor, said Holmes blandly. 'Pray take a seat. 'I will do nothing of the kind. My stepdaughter has been here. I have traced her. What has she been saying to you? 'It is a little cold for the time of the year, said Holmes. 'What has she been saying to you? screamed the old man furiously. 'But I have heard that the crocuses promise well, continued my companion imperturbably. 'Ha! You put me off, do you? said our new visitor, taking a step forward and shaking his huntingcrop. 'I know you, you scoundrel! I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler. My friend smiled. 'Holmes, the busybody! His smile broadened. 'Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jackinoffice! Holmes chuckled heartily. 'Your conversation is most entertaining, said he. 'When you go out close the door, for there is a decided draught. 'I will go when I have had my say. Don't you dare to meddle with my affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here. I traced her! I am a dangerous man to fall foul of! See here. He stepped swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands. 'See that you keep yourself out of my grip, he snarled, and hurling the twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the room. 'He seems a very amiable person, said Holmes, laughing. 'I am not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him that my grip was not much more feeble than his own. As he spoke he picked up the steel poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again. 'Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation, however, and I only trust that our little friend will not suffer from her imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her. And now, Watson, we shall order breakfast, and afterwards I shall walk down to Doctors' Commons, where I hope to get some data which may help us in this matter. It was nearly one o'clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his excursion. He held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled over with notes and figures. 'I have seen the will of the deceased wife, said he. 'To determine its exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the present prices of the investments with which it is concerned. The total income, which at the time of the wife's death was little short of  ,, is now, through the fall in agricultural prices, not more than  . Each daughter can claim an income of  , in case of marriage. It is evident, therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to a very serious extent. My morning's work has not been wasted, since it has proved that he has the very strongest motives for standing in the way of anything of the sort. And now, Watson, this is too serious for dawdling, especially as the old man is aware that we are interesting ourselves in his affairs so if you are ready, we shall call a cab and drive to Waterloo. I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley's No.  is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a toothbrush are, I think, all that we need. At Waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for Leatherhead, where we hired a trap at the station inn and drove for four or five miles through the lovely Surrey lanes. It was a perfect day, with a bright sun and a few fleecy clouds in the heavens. The trees and wayside hedges were just throwing out their first green shoots, and the air was full of the pleasant smell of the moist earth. To me at least there was a strange contrast between the sweet promise of the spring and this sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My companion sat in the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat pulled down over his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the deepest thought. Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed over the meadows. 'Look there! said he. A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, thickening into a grove at the highest point. From amid the branches there jutted out the grey gables and high rooftree of a very old mansion. 'Stoke Moran? said he. 'Yes, sir, that be the house of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, remarked the driver. 'There is some building going on there, said Holmes 'that is where we are going. 'There's the village, said the driver, pointing to a cluster of roofs some distance to the left 'but if you want to get to the house, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by the footpath over the fields. There it is, where the lady is walking. 'And the lady, I fancy, is Miss Stoner, observed Holmes, shading his eyes. 'Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest. We got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way to Leatherhead. 'I thought it as well, said Holmes as we climbed the stile, 'that this fellow should think we had come here as architects, or on some definite business. It may stop his gossip. Goodafternoon, Miss Stoner. You see that we have been as good as our word. Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a face which spoke her joy. 'I have been waiting so eagerly for you, she cried, shaking hands with us warmly. 'All has turned out splendidly. Dr. Roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely that he will be back before evening. 'We have had the pleasure of making the Doctor's acquaintance, said Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had occurred. Miss Stoner turned white to the lips as she listened. 'Good heavens! she cried, 'he has followed me, then. 'So it appears. 'He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What will he say when he returns? 'He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone more cunning than himself upon his track. You must lock yourself up from him tonight. If he is violent, we shall take you away to your aunt's at Harrow. Now, we must make the best use of our time, so kindly take us at once to the rooms which we are to examine. The building was of grey, lichenblotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin. The central portion was in little better repair, but the righthand block was comparatively modern, and the blinds in the windows, with the blue smoke curling up from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided. Some scaffolding had been erected against the end wall, and the stonework had been broken into, but there were no signs of any workmen at the moment of our visit. Holmes walked slowly up and down the illtrimmed lawn and examined with deep attention the outsides of the windows. 'This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep, the centre one to your sister's, and the one next to the main building to Dr. Roylott's chamber? 'Exactly so. But I am now sleeping in the middle one. 'Pending the alterations, as I understand. By the way, there does not seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end wall. 'There were none. I believe that it was an excuse to move me from my room. 'Ah! that is suggestive. Now, on the other side of this narrow wing runs the corridor from which these three rooms open. There are windows in it, of course? 'Yes, but very small ones. Too narrow for anyone to pass through. 'As you both locked your doors at night, your rooms were unapproachable from that side. Now, would you have the kindness to go into your room and bar your shutters? Miss Stoner did so, and Holmes, after a careful examination through the open window, endeavoured in every way to force the shutter open, but without success. There was no slit through which a knife could be passed to raise the bar. Then with his lens he tested the hinges, but they were of solid iron, built firmly into the massive masonry. 'Hum! said he, scratching his chin in some perplexity, 'my theory certainly presents some difficulties. No one could pass these shutters if they were bolted. Well, we shall see if the inside throws any light upon the matter. A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which the three bedrooms opened. Holmes refused to examine the third chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss Stoner was now sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her fate. It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a gaping fireplace, after the fashion of old countryhouses. A brown chest of drawers stood in one corner, a narrow whitecounterpaned bed in another, and a dressingtable on the lefthand side of the window. These articles, with two small wickerwork chairs, made up all the furniture in the room save for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards round and the panelling of the walls were of brown, wormeaten oak, so old and discoloured that it may have dated from the original building of the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down, taking in every detail of the apartment. 'Where does that bell communicate with? he asked at last pointing to a thick bellrope which hung down beside the bed, the tassel actually lying upon the pillow. 'It goes to the housekeeper's room. 'It looks newer than the other things? 'Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago. 'Your sister asked for it, I suppose? 'No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we wanted for ourselves. 'Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bellpull there. You will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to this floor. He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining minutely the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with the woodwork with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he walked over to the bed and spent some time in staring at it and in running his eye up and down the wall. Finally he took the bellrope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug. 'Why, it's a dummy, said he. 'Won't it ring? 'No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting. You can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little opening for the ventilator is. 'How very absurd! I never noticed that before. 'Very strange! muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. 'There are one or two very singular points about this room. For example, what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air! 'That is also quite modern, said the lady. 'Done about the same time as the bellrope? remarked Holmes. 'Yes, there were several little changes carried out about that time. 'They seem to have been of a most interesting characterdummy bellropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate. With your permission, Miss Stoner, we shall now carry our researches into the inner apartment. Dr. Grimesby Roylott's chamber was larger than that of his stepdaughter, but was as plainly furnished. A campbed, a small wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an armchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things which met the eye. Holmes walked slowly round and examined each and all of them with the keenest interest. 'What's in here? he asked, tapping the safe. 'My stepfather's business papers. 'Oh! you have seen inside, then? 'Only once, some years ago. I remember that it was full of papers. 'There isn't a cat in it, for example? 'No. What a strange idea! 'Well, look at this! He took up a small saucer of milk which stood on the top of it. 'No we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon. 'Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I daresay. There is one point which I should wish to determine. He squatted down in front of the wooden chair and examined the seat of it with the greatest attention. 'Thank you. That is quite settled, said he, rising and putting his lens in his pocket. 'Hullo! Here is something interesting! The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on one corner of the bed. The lash, however, was curled upon itself and tied so as to make a loop of whipcord. 'What do you make of that, Watson? 'It's a common enough lash. But I don't know why it should be tied. 'That is not quite so common, is it? Ah, me! it's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all. I think that I have seen enough now, Miss Stoner, and with your permission we shall walk out upon the lawn. I had never seen my friend's face so grim or his brow so dark as it was when we turned from the scene of this investigation. We had walked several times up and down the lawn, neither Miss Stoner nor myself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he roused himself from his reverie. 'It is very essential, Miss Stoner, said he, 'that you should absolutely follow my advice in every respect. 'I shall most certainly do so. 'The matter is too serious for any hesitation. Your life may depend upon your compliance. 'I assure you that I am in your hands. 'In the first place, both my friend and I must spend the night in your room. Both Miss Stoner and I gazed at him in astonishment. 'Yes, it must be so. Let me explain. I believe that that is the village inn over there? 'Yes, that is the Crown. 'Very good. Your windows would be visible from there? 'Certainly. 'You must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a headache, when your stepfather comes back. Then when you hear him retire for the night, you must open the shutters of your window, undo the hasp, put your lamp there as a signal to us, and then withdraw quietly with everything which you are likely to want into the room which you used to occupy. I have no doubt that, in spite of the repairs, you could manage there for one night. 'Oh, yes, easily. 'The rest you will leave in our hands. 'But what will you do? 'We shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate the cause of this noise which has disturbed you. 'I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have already made up your mind, said Miss Stoner, laying her hand upon my companion's sleeve. 'Perhaps I have. 'Then, for pity's sake, tell me what was the cause of my sister's death. 'I should prefer to have clearer proofs before I speak. 'You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and if she died from some sudden fright. 'No, I do not think so. I think that there was probably some more tangible cause. And now, Miss Stoner, we must leave you for if Dr. Roylott returned and saw us our journey would be in vain. Goodbye, and be brave, for if you will do what I have told you, you may rest assured that we shall soon drive away the dangers that threaten you. Sherlock Holmes and I had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and sittingroom at the Crown Inn. They were on the upper floor, and from our window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and of the inhabited wing of Stoke Moran Manor House. At dusk we saw Dr. Grimesby Roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside the little figure of the lad who drove him. The boy had some slight difficulty in undoing the heavy iron gates, and we heard the hoarse roar of the Doctor's voice and saw the fury with which he shook his clinched fists at him. The trap drove on, and a few minutes later we saw a sudden light spring up among the trees as the lamp was lit in one of the sittingrooms. 'Do you know, Watson, said Holmes as we sat together in the gathering darkness, 'I have really some scruples as to taking you tonight. There is a distinct element of danger. 'Can I be of assistance? 'Your presence might be invaluable. 'Then I shall certainly come. 'It is very kind of you. 'You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms than was visible to me. 'No, but I fancy that I may have deduced a little more. I imagine that you saw all that I did. 'I saw nothing remarkable save the bellrope, and what purpose that could answer I confess is more than I can imagine. 'You saw the ventilator, too? 'Yes, but I do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to have a small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a rat could hardly pass through. 'I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to Stoke Moran. 'My dear Holmes! 'Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course that suggested at once that there must be a communication between the two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been remarked upon at the coroner's inquiry. I deduced a ventilator. 'But what harm can there be in that? 'Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A ventilator is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the bed dies. Does not that strike you? 'I cannot as yet see any connection. 'Did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed? 'No. 'It was clamped to the floor. Did you ever see a bed fastened like that before? 'I cannot say that I have. 'The lady could not move her bed. It must always be in the same relative position to the ventilator and to the ropeor so we may call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bellpull. 'Holmes, I cried, 'I seem to see dimly what you are hinting at. We are only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible crime. 'Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. Palmer and Pritchard were among the heads of their profession. This man strikes even deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall be able to strike deeper still. But we shall have horrors enough before the night is over for goodness' sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds for a few hours to something more cheerful. About nine o'clock the light among the trees was extinguished, and all was dark in the direction of the Manor House. Two hours passed slowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of eleven, a single bright light shone out right in front of us. 'That is our signal, said Holmes, springing to his feet 'it comes from the middle window. As we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord, explaining that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance, and that it was possible that we might spend the night there. A moment later we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing in our faces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us through the gloom to guide us on our sombre errand. There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for unrepaired breaches gaped in the old park wall. Making our way among the trees, we reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about to enter through the window when out from a clump of laurel bushes there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs and then ran swiftly across the lawn into the darkness. 'My God! I whispered 'did you see it? Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like a vice upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low laugh and put his lips to my ear. 'It is a nice household, he murmured. 'That is the baboon. I had forgotten the strange pets which the Doctor affected. There was a cheetah, too perhaps we might find it upon our shoulders at any moment. I confess that I felt easier in my mind when, after following Holmes' example and slipping off my shoes, I found myself inside the bedroom. My companion noiselessly closed the shutters, moved the lamp onto the table, and cast his eyes round the room. All was as we had seen it in the daytime. Then creeping up to me and making a trumpet of his hand, he whispered into my ear again so gently that it was all that I could do to distinguish the words 'The least sound would be fatal to our plans. I nodded to show that I had heard. 'We must sit without light. He would see it through the ventilator. I nodded again. 'Do not go asleep your very life may depend upon it. Have your pistol ready in case we should need it. I will sit on the side of the bed, and you in that chair. I took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table. Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon the bed beside him. By it he laid the box of matches and the stump of a candle. Then he turned down the lamp, and we were left in darkness. How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat openeyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut off the least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness. From outside came the occasional cry of a nightbird, and once at our very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that the cheetah was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall. Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. Someone in the next room had lit a darklantern. I heard a gentle sound of movement, and then all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger. For half an hour I sat with straining ears. Then suddenly another sound became audiblea very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continually from a kettle. The instant that we heard it, Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with his cane at the bellpull. 'You see it, Watson? he yelled. 'You see it? But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I heard a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my weary eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend lashed so savagely. I could, however, see that his face was deadly pale and filled with horror and loathing. He had ceased to strike and was gazing up at the ventilator when suddenly there broke from the silence of the night the most horrible cry to which I have ever listened. It swelled up louder and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all mingled in the one dreadful shriek. They say that away down in the village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry raised the sleepers from their beds. It struck cold to our hearts, and I stood gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it had died away into the silence from which it rose. 'What can it mean? I gasped. 'It means that it is all over, Holmes answered. 'And perhaps, after all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we will enter Dr. Roylott's room. With a grave face he lit the lamp and led the way down the corridor. Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply from within. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his heels, with the cocked pistol in my hand. It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a darklantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott clad in a long grey dressinggown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. Across his lap lay the short stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day. His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion. 'The band! the speckled band! whispered Holmes. I took a step forward. In an instant his strange headgear began to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat diamondshaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent. 'It is a swamp adder! cried Holmes 'the deadliest snake in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another. Let us thrust this creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to some place of shelter and let the county police know what has happened. As he spoke he drew the dogwhip swiftly from the dead man's lap, and throwing the noose round the reptile's neck he drew it from its horrid perch and, carrying it at arm's length, threw it into the iron safe, which he closed upon it. Such are the true facts of the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran. It is not necessary that I should prolong a narrative which has already run to too great a length by telling how we broke the sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed her by the morning train to the care of her good aunt at Harrow, of how the slow process of official inquiry came to the conclusion that the doctor met his fate while indiscreetly playing with a dangerous pet. The little which I had yet to learn of the case was told me by Sherlock Holmes as we travelled back next day. 'I had, said he, 'come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of the word 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the door. My attention was speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this ventilator, and to the bellrope which hung down to the bed. The discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I was probably on the right track. The idea of using a form of poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity with which such a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be an advantage. It would be a sharpeyed coroner, indeed, who could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the whistle. Of course he must recall the snake before the morning light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned. He would put it through this ventilator at the hour that he thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner or later she must fall a victim. 'I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his room. An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary in order that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant. Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in order to put the matter to the proof. I heard the creature hiss as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit the light and attacked it. 'With the result of driving it through the ventilator. 'And also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master at the other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott's death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience. Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his noticethat of Mr. Hatherley's thumb, and that of Colonel Warburton's madness. Of these the latter may have afforded a finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results. The story has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but, like all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth en bloc in a single halfcolumn of print than when the facts slowly evolve before your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth. At the time the circumstances made a deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly served to weaken the effect. It was in the summer of ', not long after my marriage, that the events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned to civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street rooms, although I continually visited him and occasionally even persuaded him to forgo his Bohemian habits so far as to come and visit us. My practice had steadily increased, and as I happened to live at no very great distance from Paddington Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of these, whom I had cured of a painful and lingering disease, was never weary of advertising my virtues and of endeavouring to send me on every sufferer over whom he might have any influence. One morning, at a little before seven o'clock, I was awakened by the maid tapping at the door to announce that two men had come from Paddington and were waiting in the consultingroom. I dressed hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases were seldom trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I descended, my old ally, the guard, came out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him. 'I've got him here, he whispered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder 'he's all right. 'What is it, then? I asked, for his manner suggested that it was some strange creature which he had caged up in my room. 'It's a new patient, he whispered. 'I thought I'd bring him round myself then he couldn't slip away. There he is, all safe and sound. I must go now, Doctor I have my dooties, just the same as you. And off he went, this trusty tout, without even giving me time to thank him. I entered my consultingroom and found a gentleman seated by the table. He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a soft cloth cap which he had laid down upon my books. Round one of his hands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all over with bloodstains. He was young, not more than fiveandtwenty, I should say, with a strong, masculine face but he was exceedingly pale and gave me the impression of a man who was suffering from some strong agitation, which it took all his strength of mind to control. 'I am sorry to knock you up so early, Doctor, said he, 'but I have had a very serious accident during the night. I came in by train this morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I might find a doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me here. I gave the maid a card, but I see that she has left it upon the sidetable. I took it up and glanced at it. 'Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic engineer, A, Victoria Street (rd floor). That was the name, style, and abode of my morning visitor. 'I regret that I have kept you waiting, said I, sitting down in my librarychair. 'You are fresh from a night journey, I understand, which is in itself a monotonous occupation. 'Oh, my night could not be called monotonous, said he, and laughed. He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides. All my medical instincts rose up against that laugh. 'Stop it! I cried 'pull yourself together! and I poured out some water from a caraffe. It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is over and gone. Presently he came to himself once more, very weary and palelooking. 'I have been making a fool of myself, he gasped. 'Not at all. Drink this. I dashed some brandy into the water, and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks. 'That's better! said he. 'And now, Doctor, perhaps you would kindly attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to be. He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been. It had been hacked or torn right out from the roots. 'Good heavens! I cried, 'this is a terrible injury. It must have bled considerably. 'Yes, it did. I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must have been senseless for a long time. When I came to I found that it was still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly round the wrist and braced it up with a twig. 'Excellent! You should have been a surgeon. 'It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own province. 'This has been done, said I, examining the wound, 'by a very heavy and sharp instrument. 'A thing like a cleaver, said he. 'An accident, I presume? 'By no means. 'What! a murderous attack? 'Very murderous indeed. 'You horrify me. I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it over with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. He lay back without wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time. 'How is that? I asked when I had finished. 'Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man. I was very weak, but I have had a good deal to go through. 'Perhaps you had better not speak of the matter. It is evidently trying to your nerves. 'Oh, no, not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police but, between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this wound of mine, I should be surprised if they believed my statement, for it is a very extraordinary one, and I have not much in the way of proof with which to back it up and, even if they believe me, the clues which I can give them are so vague that it is a question whether justice will be done. 'Ha! cried I, 'if it is anything in the nature of a problem which you desire to see solved, I should strongly recommend you to come to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, before you go to the official police. 'Oh, I have heard of that fellow, answered my visitor, 'and I should be very glad if he would take the matter up, though of course I must use the official police as well. Would you give me an introduction to him? 'I'll do better. I'll take you round to him myself. 'I should be immensely obliged to you. 'We'll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to have a little breakfast with him. Do you feel equal to it? 'Yes I shall not feel easy until I have told my story. 'Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an instant. I rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my wife, and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my new acquaintance to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his sittingroom in his dressinggown, reading the agony column of The Times and smoking his beforebreakfast pipe, which was composed of all the plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece. He received us in his quietly genial fashion, ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal. When it was concluded he settled our new acquaintance upon the sofa, placed a pillow beneath his head, and laid a glass of brandy and water within his reach. 'It is easy to see that your experience has been no common one, Mr. Hatherley, said he. 'Pray, lie down there and make yourself absolutely at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are tired and keep up your strength with a little stimulant. 'Thank you, said my patient, 'but I have felt another man since the doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has completed the cure. I shall take up as little of your valuable time as possible, so I shall start at once upon my peculiar experiences. Holmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavylidded expression which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat opposite to him, and we listened in silence to the strange story which our visitor detailed to us. 'You must know, said he, 'that I am an orphan and a bachelor, residing alone in lodgings in London. By profession I am a hydraulic engineer, and I have had considerable experience of my work during the seven years that I was apprenticed to Venner  Matheson, the wellknown firm, of Greenwich. Two years ago, having served my time, and having also come into a fair sum of money through my poor father's death, I determined to start in business for myself and took professional chambers in Victoria Street. 'I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in business a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so. During two years I have had three consultations and one small job, and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought me. My gross takings amount to   s. Every day, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, I waited in my little den, until at last my heart began to sink, and I came to believe that I should never have any practice at all. 'Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the office, my clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see me upon business. He brought up a card, too, with the name of 'Colonel Lysander Stark' engraved upon it. Close at his heels came the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an exceeding thinness. I do not think that I have ever seen so thin a man. His whole face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured. He was plainly but neatly dressed, and his age, I should judge, would be nearer forty than thirty. ''Mr. Hatherley?' said he, with something of a German accent. 'You have been recommended to me, Mr. Hatherley, as being a man who is not only proficient in his profession but is also discreet and capable of preserving a secret.' 'I bowed, feeling as flattered as any young man would at such an address. 'May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?' ''Well, perhaps it is better that I should not tell you that just at this moment. I have it from the same source that you are both an orphan and a bachelor and are residing alone in London.' ''That is quite correct,' I answered 'but you will excuse me if I say that I cannot see how all this bears upon my professional qualifications. I understand that it was on a professional matter that you wished to speak to me?' ''Undoubtedly so. But you will find that all I say is really to the point. I have a professional commission for you, but absolute secrecy is quite essentialabsolute secrecy, you understand, and of course we may expect that more from a man who is alone than from one who lives in the bosom of his family.' ''If I promise to keep a secret,' said I, 'you may absolutely depend upon my doing so.' 'He looked very hard at me as I spoke, and it seemed to me that I had never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye. ''Do you promise, then?' said he at last. ''Yes, I promise.' ''Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No reference to the matter at all, either in word or writing?' ''I have already given you my word.' ''Very good.' He suddenly sprang up, and darting like lightning across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was empty. ''That's all right,' said he, coming back. 'I know that clerks are sometimes curious as to their master's affairs. Now we can talk in safety.' He drew up his chair very close to mine and began to stare at me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look. 'A feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun to rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man. Even my dread of losing a client could not restrain me from showing my impatience. ''I beg that you will state your business, sir,' said I 'my time is of value.' Heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the words came to my lips. ''How would fifty guineas for a night's work suit you?' he asked. ''Most admirably.' ''I say a night's work, but an hour's would be nearer the mark. I simply want your opinion about a hydraulic stamping machine which has got out of gear. If you show us what is wrong we shall soon set it right ourselves. What do you think of such a commission as that?' ''The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.' ''Precisely so. We shall want you to come tonight by the last train.' ''Where to?' ''To Eyford, in Berkshire. It is a little place near the borders of Oxfordshire, and within seven miles of Reading. There is a train from Paddington which would bring you there at about .' ''Very good.' ''I shall come down in a carriage to meet you.' ''There is a drive, then?' ''Yes, our little place is quite out in the country. It is a good seven miles from Eyford Station.' ''Then we can hardly get there before midnight. I suppose there would be no chance of a train back. I should be compelled to stop the night.' ''Yes, we could easily give you a shakedown.' ''That is very awkward. Could I not come at some more convenient hour?' ''We have judged it best that you should come late. It is to recompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the very heads of your profession. Still, of course, if you would like to draw out of the business, there is plenty of time to do so.' 'I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they would be to me. 'Not at all,' said I, 'I shall be very happy to accommodate myself to your wishes. I should like, however, to understand a little more clearly what it is that you wish me to do.' ''Quite so. It is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which we have exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity. I have no wish to commit you to anything without your having it all laid before you. I suppose that we are absolutely safe from eavesdroppers?' ''Entirely.' ''Then the matter stands thus. You are probably aware that fuller'searth is a valuable product, and that it is only found in one or two places in England?' ''I have heard so.' ''Some little time ago I bought a small placea very small placewithin ten miles of Reading. I was fortunate enough to discover that there was a deposit of fuller'searth in one of my fields. On examining it, however, I found that this deposit was a comparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two very much larger ones upon the right and leftboth of them, however, in the grounds of my neighbours. These good people were absolutely ignorant that their land contained that which was quite as valuable as a goldmine. Naturally, it was to my interest to buy their land before they discovered its true value, but unfortunately I had no capital by which I could do this. I took a few of my friends into the secret, however, and they suggested that we should quietly and secretly work our own little deposit and that in this way we should earn the money which would enable us to buy the neighbouring fields. This we have now been doing for some time, and in order to help us in our operations we erected a hydraulic press. This press, as I have already explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon the subject. We guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts came out, it would be goodbye to any chance of getting these fields and carrying out our plans. That is why I have made you promise me that you will not tell a human being that you are going to Eyford tonight. I hope that I make it all plain?' ''I quite follow you,' said I. 'The only point which I could not quite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press in excavating fuller'searth, which, as I understand, is dug out like gravel from a pit.' ''Ah!' said he carelessly, 'we have our own process. We compress the earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing what they are. But that is a mere detail. I have taken you fully into my confidence now, Mr. Hatherley, and I have shown you how I trust you.' He rose as he spoke. 'I shall expect you, then, at Eyford at .' ''I shall certainly be there.' ''And not a word to a soul.' He looked at me with a last long, questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp, he hurried from the room. 'Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very much astonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission which had been intrusted to me. On the one hand, of course, I was glad, for the fee was at least tenfold what I should have asked had I set a price upon my own services, and it was possible that this order might lead to other ones. On the other hand, the face and manner of my patron had made an unpleasant impression upon me, and I could not think that his explanation of the fuller'searth was sufficient to explain the necessity for my coming at midnight, and his extreme anxiety lest I should tell anyone of my errand. However, I threw all fears to the winds, ate a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and started off, having obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding my tongue. 'At Reading I had to change not only my carriage but my station. However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I reached the little dimlit station after eleven o'clock. I was the only passenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the platform save a single sleepy porter with a lantern. As I passed out through the wicket gate, however, I found my acquaintance of the morning waiting in the shadow upon the other side. Without a word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door of which was standing open. He drew up the windows on either side, tapped on the woodwork, and away we went as fast as the horse could go. 'One horse? interjected Holmes. 'Yes, only one. 'Did you observe the colour? 'Yes, I saw it by the sidelights when I was stepping into the carriage. It was a chestnut. 'Tiredlooking or fresh? 'Oh, fresh and glossy. 'Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue your most interesting statement. 'Away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. Colonel Lysander Stark had said that it was only seven miles, but I should think, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the time that we took, that it must have been nearer twelve. He sat at my side in silence all the time, and I was aware, more than once when I glanced in his direction, that he was looking at me with great intensity. The country roads seem to be not very good in that part of the world, for we lurched and jolted terribly. I tried to look out of the windows to see something of where we were, but they were made of frosted glass, and I could make out nothing save the occasional bright blur of a passing light. Now and then I hazarded some remark to break the monotony of the journey, but the colonel answered only in monosyllables, and the conversation soon flagged. At last, however, the bumping of the road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a graveldrive, and the carriage came to a stand. Colonel Lysander Stark sprang out, and, as I followed after him, pulled me swiftly into a porch which gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were, right out of the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to catch the most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The instant that I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us, and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage drove away. 'It was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled about looking for matches and muttering under his breath. Suddenly a door opened at the other end of the passage, and a long, golden bar of light shot out in our direction. It grew broader, and a woman appeared with a lamp in her hand, which she held above her head, pushing her face forward and peering at us. I could see that she was pretty, and from the gloss with which the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it was a rich material. She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a tone as though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the room from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with the lamp in his hand. ''Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a few minutes,' said he, throwing open another door. It was a quiet, little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on which several German books were scattered. Colonel Stark laid down the lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the door. 'I shall not keep you waiting an instant,' said he, and vanished into the darkness. 'I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my ignorance of German I could see that two of them were treatises on science, the others being volumes of poetry. Then I walked across to the window, hoping that I might catch some glimpse of the countryside, but an oak shutter, heavily barred, was folded across it. It was a wonderfully silent house. There was an old clock ticking loudly somewhere in the passage, but otherwise everything was deadly still. A vague feeling of uneasiness began to steal over me. Who were these German people, and what were they doing living in this strange, outoftheway place? And where was the place? I was ten miles or so from Eyford, that was all I knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no idea. For that matter, Reading, and possibly other large towns, were within that radius, so the place might not be so secluded, after all. Yet it was quite certain, from the absolute stillness, that we were in the country. I paced up and down the room, humming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits and feeling that I was thoroughly earning my fiftyguinea fee. 'Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the utter stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. The woman was standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind her, the yellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and beautiful face. I could see at a glance that she was sick with fear, and the sight sent a chill to my own heart. She held up one shaking finger to warn me to be silent, and she shot a few whispered words of broken English at me, her eyes glancing back, like those of a frightened horse, into the gloom behind her. ''I would go,' said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to speak calmly 'I would go. I should not stay here. There is no good for you to do.' ''But, madam,' said I, 'I have not yet done what I came for. I cannot possibly leave until I have seen the machine.' ''It is not worth your while to wait,' she went on. 'You can pass through the door no one hinders.' And then, seeing that I smiled and shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and made a step forward, with her hands wrung together. 'For the love of Heaven!' she whispered, 'get away from here before it is too late!' 'But I am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to engage in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. I thought of my fiftyguinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of the unpleasant night which seemed to be before me. Was it all to go for nothing? Why should I slink away without having carried out my commission, and without the payment which was my due? This woman might, for all I knew, be a monomaniac. With a stout bearing, therefore, though her manner had shaken me more than I cared to confess, I still shook my head and declared my intention of remaining where I was. She was about to renew her entreaties when a door slammed overhead, and the sound of several footsteps was heard upon the stairs. She listened for an instant, threw up her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and as noiselessly as she had come. 'The newcomers were Colonel Lysander Stark and a short thick man with a chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double chin, who was introduced to me as Mr. Ferguson. ''This is my secretary and manager,' said the colonel. 'By the way, I was under the impression that I left this door shut just now. I fear that you have felt the draught.' ''On the contrary,' said I, 'I opened the door myself because I felt the room to be a little close.' 'He shot one of his suspicious looks at me. 'Perhaps we had better proceed to business, then,' said he. 'Mr. Ferguson and I will take you up to see the machine.' ''I had better put my hat on, I suppose.' ''Oh, no, it is in the house.' ''What, you dig fuller'searth in the house?' ''No, no. This is only where we compress it. But never mind that. All we wish you to do is to examine the machine and to let us know what is wrong with it.' 'We went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the fat manager and I behind him. It was a labyrinth of an old house, with corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little low doors, the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the generations who had crossed them. There were no carpets and no signs of any furniture above the ground floor, while the plaster was peeling off the walls, and the damp was breaking through in green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put on as unconcerned an air as possible, but I had not forgotten the warnings of the lady, even though I disregarded them, and I kept a keen eye upon my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent man, but I could see from the little that he said that he was at least a fellowcountryman. 'Colonel Lysander Stark stopped at last before a low door, which he unlocked. Within was a small, square room, in which the three of us could hardly get at one time. Ferguson remained outside, and the colonel ushered me in. ''We are now,' said he, 'actually within the hydraulic press, and it would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were to turn it on. The ceiling of this small chamber is really the end of the descending piston, and it comes down with the force of many tons upon this metal floor. There are small lateral columns of water outside which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it in the manner which is familiar to you. The machine goes readily enough, but there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has lost a little of its force. Perhaps you will have the goodness to look it over and to show us how we can set it right.' 'I took the lamp from him, and I examined the machine very thoroughly. It was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of exercising enormous pressure. When I passed outside, however, and pressed down the levers which controlled it, I knew at once by the whishing sound that there was a slight leakage, which allowed a regurgitation of water through one of the side cylinders. An examination showed that one of the indiarubber bands which was round the head of a drivingrod had shrunk so as not quite to fill the socket along which it worked. This was clearly the cause of the loss of power, and I pointed it out to my companions, who followed my remarks very carefully and asked several practical questions as to how they should proceed to set it right. When I had made it clear to them, I returned to the main chamber of the machine and took a good look at it to satisfy my own curiosity. It was obvious at a glance that the story of the fuller'searth was the merest fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose that so powerful an engine could be designed for so inadequate a purpose. The walls were of wood, but the floor consisted of a large iron trough, and when I came to examine it I could see a crust of metallic deposit all over it. I had stooped and was scraping at this to see exactly what it was when I heard a muttered exclamation in German and saw the cadaverous face of the colonel looking down at me. ''What are you doing there?' he asked. 'I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as that which he had told me. 'I was admiring your fuller'searth,' said I 'I think that I should be better able to advise you as to your machine if I knew what the exact purpose was for which it was used.' 'The instant that I uttered the words I regretted the rashness of my speech. His face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in his grey eyes. ''Very well,' said he, 'you shall know all about the machine.' He took a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key in the lock. I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it was quite secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and shoves. 'Hullo!' I yelled. 'Hullo! Colonel! Let me out!' 'And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my heart into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish of the leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp still stood upon the floor where I had placed it when examining the trough. By its light I saw that the black ceiling was coming down upon me, slowly, jerkily, but, as none knew better than myself, with a force which must within a minute grind me to a shapeless pulp. I threw myself, screaming, against the door, and dragged with my nails at the lock. I implored the colonel to let me out, but the remorseless clanking of the levers drowned my cries. The ceiling was only a foot or two above my head, and with my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface. Then it flashed through my mind that the pain of my death would depend very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my face the weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to think of that dreadful snap. Easier the other way, perhaps and yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly black shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand erect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope back to my heart. 'I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the walls were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw a thin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened and broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For an instant I could hardly believe that here was indeed a door which led away from death. The next instant I threw myself through, and lay halffainting upon the other side. The panel had closed again behind me, but the crash of the lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two slabs of metal, told me how narrow had been my escape. 'I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and I found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she held a candle in her right. It was the same good friend whose warning I had so foolishly rejected. ''Come! come!' she cried breathlessly. 'They will be here in a moment. They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste the soprecious time, but come!' 'This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to my feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding stair. The latter led to another broad passage, and just as we reached it we heard the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one answering the other from the floor on which we were and from the one beneath. My guide stopped and looked about her like one who is at her wit's end. Then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom, through the window of which the moon was shining brightly. ''It is your only chance,' said she. 'It is high, but it may be that you can jump it.' 'As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher's cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom, flung open the window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who pursued me. If she were illused, then at any risks I was determined to go back to her assistance. The thought had hardly flashed through my mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her but she threw her arms round him and tried to hold him back. ''Fritz! Fritz!' she cried in English, 'remember your promise after the last time. You said it should not be again. He will be silent! Oh, he will be silent!' ''You are mad, Elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from her. 'You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me pass, I say!' He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and was hanging by the hands to the sill, when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull pain, my grip loosened, and I fell into the garden below. 'I was shaken but not hurt by the fall so I picked myself up and rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the rosebushes. 'How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with dew, and my coatsleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb. The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the highroad, and just a little lower down was a long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream. 'Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning train. There would be one to Reading in less than an hour. The same porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I arrived. I inquired of him whether he had ever heard of Colonel Lysander Stark. The name was strange to him. Had he observed a carriage the night before waiting for me? No, he had not. Was there a policestation anywhere near? There was one about three miles off. 'It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined to wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the police. It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first to have my wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along here. I put the case into your hands and shall do exactly what you advise. We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to this extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down from the shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his cuttings. 'Here is an advertisement which will interest you, said he. 'It appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this 'Lost, on the th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twentysix, a hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, and has not been heard of since. Was dressed in,' etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I fancy. 'Good heavens! cried my patient. 'Then that explains what the girl said. 'Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should stand in the way of his little game, like those outandout pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford. Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together, bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard, a plainclothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre. 'There you are, said he. 'That circle is drawn at a radius of ten miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere near that line. You said ten miles, I think, sir. 'It was an hour's good drive. 'And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were unconscious? 'They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having been lifted and conveyed somewhere. 'What I cannot understand, said I, 'is why they should have spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the villain was softened by the woman's entreaties. 'I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face in my life. 'Oh, we shall soon clear up all that, said Bradstreet. 'Well, I have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk that we are in search of are to be found. 'I think I could lay my finger on it, said Holmes quietly. 'Really, now! cried the inspector, 'you have formed your opinion! Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is south, for the country is more deserted there. 'And I say east, said my patient. 'I am for west, remarked the plainclothes man. 'There are several quiet little villages up there. 'And I am for north, said I, 'because there are no hills there, and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any. 'Come, cried the inspector, laughing 'it's a very pretty diversity of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your casting vote to? 'You are all wrong. 'But we can't all be. 'Oh, yes, you can. This is my point. He placed his finger in the centre of the circle. 'This is where we shall find them. 'But the twelvemile drive? gasped Hatherley. 'Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the horse was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that if it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads? 'Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough, observed Bradstreet thoughtfully. 'Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of this gang. 'None at all, said Holmes. 'They are coiners on a large scale, and have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place of silver. 'We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work, said the inspector. 'They have been turning out halfcrowns by the thousand. We even traced them as far as Reading, but could get no farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this lucky chance, I think that we have got them right enough. But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape. 'A house on fire? asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off again on its way. 'Yes, sir! said the stationmaster. 'When did it break out? 'I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, and the whole place is in a blaze. 'Whose house is it? 'Dr. Becher's. 'Tell me, broke in the engineer, 'is Dr. Becher a German, very thin, with a long, sharp nose? The stationmaster laughed heartily. 'No, sir, Dr. Becher is an Englishman, and there isn't a man in the parish who has a betterlined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, a patient, as I understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as if a little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm. The stationmaster had not finished his speech before we were all hastening in the direction of the fire. The road topped a low hill, and there was a great widespread whitewashed building in front of us, spouting fire at every chink and window, while in the garden in front three fireengines were vainly striving to keep the flames under. 'That's it! cried Hatherley, in intense excitement. 'There is the graveldrive, and there are the rosebushes where I lay. That second window is the one that I jumped from. 'Well, at least, said Holmes, 'you have had your revenge upon them. There can be no question that it was your oillamp which, when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the time. Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for your friends of last night, though I very much fear that they are a good hundred miles off by now. And Holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes' ingenuity failed ever to discover the least clue as to their whereabouts. The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly severed human thumb upon a windowsill of the second floor. About sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and they subdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, and the whole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save some twisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of the machinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so dearly. Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored in an outhouse, but no coins were to be found, which may have explained the presence of those bulky boxes which have been already referred to. How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain tale. He had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones. On the whole, it was most probable that the silent Englishman, being less bold or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out of the way of danger. 'Well, said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once more to London, 'it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fiftyguinea fee, and what have I gained? 'Experience, said Holmes, laughing. 'Indirectly it may be of value, you know you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence. The Lord St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this fouryearold drama. As I have reason to believe, however, that the full facts have never been revealed to the general public, and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a considerable share in clearing the matter up, I feel that no memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of this remarkable episode. It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence. With my body in one easychair and my legs upon another, I had surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last, saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend's noble correspondent could be. 'Here is a very fashionable epistle, I remarked as he entered. 'Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a fishmonger and a tidewaiter. 'Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, he answered, smiling, 'and the humbler are usually the more interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie. He broke the seal and glanced over the contents. 'Oh, come, it may prove to be something of interest, after all. 'Not social, then? 'No, distinctly professional. 'And from a noble client? 'One of the highest in England. 'My dear fellow, I congratulate you. 'I assure you, Watson, without affectation, that the status of my client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his case. It is just possible, however, that that also may not be wanting in this new investigation. You have been reading the papers diligently of late, have you not? 'It looks like it, said I ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in the corner. 'I have had nothing else to do. 'It is fortunate, for you will perhaps be able to post me up. I read nothing except the criminal news and the agony column. The latter is always instructive. But if you have followed recent events so closely you must have read about Lord St. Simon and his wedding? 'Oh, yes, with the deepest interest. 'That is well. The letter which I hold in my hand is from Lord St. Simon. I will read it to you, and in return you must turn over these papers and let me have whatever bears upon the matter. This is what he says ''MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,Lord Backwater tells me that I may place implicit reliance upon your judgment and discretion. I have determined, therefore, to call upon you and to consult you in reference to the very painful event which has occurred in connection with my wedding. Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, is acting already in the matter, but he assures me that he sees no objection to your cooperation, and that he even thinks that it might be of some assistance. I will call at four o'clock in the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement at that time, I hope that you will postpone it, as this matter is of paramount importance. Yours faithfully, ''ROBERT ST. SIMON.' 'It is dated from Grosvenor Mansions, written with a quill pen, and the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink upon the outer side of his right little finger, remarked Holmes as he folded up the epistle. 'He says four o'clock. It is three now. He will be here in an hour. 'Then I have just time, with your assistance, to get clear upon the subject. Turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in their order of time, while I take a glance as to who our client is. He picked a redcovered volume from a line of books of reference beside the mantelpiece. 'Here he is, said he, sitting down and flattening it out upon his knee. ''Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral.' Hum! 'Arms Azure, three caltrops in chief over a fess sable. Born in .' He's fortyone years of age, which is mature for marriage. Was UnderSecretary for the colonies in a late administration. The Duke, his father, was at one time Secretary for Foreign Affairs. They inherit Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on the distaff side. Ha! Well, there is nothing very instructive in all this. I think that I must turn to you Watson, for something more solid. 'I have very little difficulty in finding what I want, said I, 'for the facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as remarkable. I feared to refer them to you, however, as I knew that you had an inquiry on hand and that you disliked the intrusion of other matters. 'Oh, you mean the little problem of the Grosvenor Square furniture van. That is quite cleared up nowthough, indeed, it was obvious from the first. Pray give me the results of your newspaper selections. 'Here is the first notice which I can find. It is in the personal column of the Morning Post, and dates, as you see, some weeks back 'A marriage has been arranged,' it says, 'and will, if rumour is correct, very shortly take place, between Lord Robert St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral, and Miss Hatty Doran, the only daughter of Aloysius Doran. Esq., of San Francisco, Cal., U.S.A.' That is all. 'Terse and to the point, remarked Holmes, stretching his long, thin legs towards the fire. 'There was a paragraph amplifying this in one of the society papers of the same week. Ah, here it is 'There will soon be a call for protection in the marriage market, for the present freetrade principle appears to tell heavily against our home product. One by one the management of the noble houses of Great Britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from across the Atlantic. An important addition has been made during the last week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by these charming invaders. Lord St. Simon, who has shown himself for over twenty years proof against the little god's arrows, has now definitely announced his approaching marriage with Miss Hatty Doran, the fascinating daughter of a California millionaire. Miss Doran, whose graceful figure and striking face attracted much attention at the Westbury House festivities, is an only child, and it is currently reported that her dowry will run to considerably over the six figures, with expectancies for the future. As it is an open secret that the Duke of Balmoral has been compelled to sell his pictures within the last few years, and as Lord St. Simon has no property of his own save the small estate of Birchmoor, it is obvious that the Californian heiress is not the only gainer by an alliance which will enable her to make the easy and common transition from a Republican lady to a British peeress.' 'Anything else? asked Holmes, yawning. 'Oh, yes plenty. Then there is another note in the Morning Post to say that the marriage would be an absolutely quiet one, that it would be at St. George's, Hanover Square, that only half a dozen intimate friends would be invited, and that the party would return to the furnished house at Lancaster Gate which has been taken by Mr. Aloysius Doran. Two days laterthat is, on Wednesday lastthere is a curt announcement that the wedding had taken place, and that the honeymoon would be passed at Lord Backwater's place, near Petersfield. Those are all the notices which appeared before the disappearance of the bride. 'Before the what? asked Holmes with a start. 'The vanishing of the lady. 'When did she vanish, then? 'At the wedding breakfast. 'Indeed. This is more interesting than it promised to be quite dramatic, in fact. 'Yes it struck me as being a little out of the common. 'They often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during the honeymoon but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt as this. Pray let me have the details. 'I warn you that they are very incomplete. 'Perhaps we may make them less so. 'Such as they are, they are set forth in a single article of a morning paper of yesterday, which I will read to you. It is headed, 'Singular Occurrence at a Fashionable Wedding' ''The family of Lord Robert St. Simon has been thrown into the greatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which have taken place in connection with his wedding. The ceremony, as shortly announced in the papers of yesterday, occurred on the previous morning but it is only now that it has been possible to confirm the strange rumours which have been so persistently floating about. In spite of the attempts of the friends to hush the matter up, so much public attention has now been drawn to it that no good purpose can be served by affecting to disregard what is a common subject for conversation. ''The ceremony, which was performed at St. George's, Hanover Square, was a very quiet one, no one being present save the father of the bride, Mr. Aloysius Doran, the Duchess of Balmoral, Lord Backwater, Lord Eustace and Lady Clara St. Simon (the younger brother and sister of the bridegroom), and Lady Alicia Whittington. The whole party proceeded afterwards to the house of Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster Gate, where breakfast had been prepared. It appears that some little trouble was caused by a woman, whose name has not been ascertained, who endeavoured to force her way into the house after the bridal party, alleging that she had some claim upon Lord St. Simon. It was only after a painful and prolonged scene that she was ejected by the butler and the footman. The bride, who had fortunately entered the house before this unpleasant interruption, had sat down to breakfast with the rest, when she complained of a sudden indisposition and retired to her room. Her prolonged absence having caused some comment, her father followed her, but learned from her maid that she had only come up to her chamber for an instant, caught up an ulster and bonnet, and hurried down to the passage. One of the footmen declared that he had seen a lady leave the house thus apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress, believing her to be with the company. On ascertaining that his daughter had disappeared, Mr. Aloysius Doran, in conjunction with the bridegroom, instantly put themselves in communication with the police, and very energetic inquiries are being made, which will probably result in a speedy clearing up of this very singular business. Up to a late hour last night, however, nothing had transpired as to the whereabouts of the missing lady. There are rumours of foul play in the matter, and it is said that the police have caused the arrest of the woman who had caused the original disturbance, in the belief that, from jealousy or some other motive, she may have been concerned in the strange disappearance of the bride.' 'And is that all? 'Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is a suggestive one. 'And it is 'That Miss Flora Millar, the lady who had caused the disturbance, has actually been arrested. It appears that she was formerly a danseuse at the Allegro, and that she has known the bridegroom for some years. There are no further particulars, and the whole case is in your hands nowso far as it has been set forth in the public press. 'And an exceedingly interesting case it appears to be. I would not have missed it for worlds. But there is a ring at the bell, Watson, and as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, I have no doubt that this will prove to be our noble client. Do not dream of going, Watson, for I very much prefer having a witness, if only as a check to my own memory. 'Lord Robert St. Simon, announced our pageboy, throwing open the door. A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, highnosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and with the steady, wellopened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. His manner was brisk, and yet his general appearance gave an undue impression of age, for he had a slight forward stoop and a little bend of the knees as he walked. His hair, too, as he swept off his very curlybrimmed hat, was grizzled round the edges and thin upon the top. As to his dress, it was careful to the verge of foppishness, with high collar, black frockcoat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, patentleather shoes, and lightcoloured gaiters. He advanced slowly into the room, turning his head from left to right, and swinging in his right hand the cord which held his golden eyeglasses. 'Goodday, Lord St. Simon, said Holmes, rising and bowing. 'Pray take the basketchair. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson. Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this matter over. 'A most painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine, Mr. Holmes. I have been cut to the quick. I understand that you have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, though I presume that they were hardly from the same class of society. 'No, I am descending. 'I beg pardon. 'My last client of the sort was a king. 'Oh, really! I had no idea. And which king? 'The King of Scandinavia. 'What! Had he lost his wife? 'You can understand, said Holmes suavely, 'that I extend to the affairs of my other clients the same secrecy which I promise to you in yours. 'Of course! Very right! very right! I'm sure I beg pardon. As to my own case, I am ready to give you any information which may assist you in forming an opinion. 'Thank you. I have already learned all that is in the public prints, nothing more. I presume that I may take it as correctthis article, for example, as to the disappearance of the bride. Lord St. Simon glanced over it. 'Yes, it is correct, as far as it goes. 'But it needs a great deal of supplementing before anyone could offer an opinion. I think that I may arrive at my facts most directly by questioning you. 'Pray do so. 'When did you first meet Miss Hatty Doran? 'In San Francisco, a year ago. 'You were travelling in the States? 'Yes. 'Did you become engaged then? 'No. 'But you were on a friendly footing? 'I was amused by her society, and she could see that I was amused. 'Her father is very rich? 'He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope. 'And how did he make his money? 'In mining. He had nothing a few years ago. Then he struck gold, invested it, and came up by leaps and bounds. 'Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady'syour wife's character? The nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down into the fire. 'You see, Mr. Holmes, said he, 'my wife was twenty before her father became a rich man. During that time she ran free in a mining camp and wandered through woods or mountains, so that her education has come from Nature rather than from the schoolmaster. She is what we call in England a tomboy, with a strong nature, wild and free, unfettered by any sort of traditions. She is impetuousvolcanic, I was about to say. She is swift in making up her mind and fearless in carrying out her resolutions. On the other hand, I would not have given her the name which I have the honour to bearhe gave a little stately cough'had I not thought her to be at bottom a noble woman. I believe that she is capable of heroic selfsacrifice and that anything dishonourable would be repugnant to her. 'Have you her photograph? 'I brought this with me. He opened a locket and showed us the full face of a very lovely woman. It was not a photograph but an ivory miniature, and the artist had brought out the full effect of the lustrous black hair, the large dark eyes, and the exquisite mouth. Holmes gazed long and earnestly at it. Then he closed the locket and handed it back to Lord St. Simon. 'The young lady came to London, then, and you renewed your acquaintance? 'Yes, her father brought her over for this last London season. I met her several times, became engaged to her, and have now married her. 'She brought, I understand, a considerable dowry? 'A fair dowry. Not more than is usual in my family. 'And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a fait accompli? 'I really have made no inquiries on the subject. 'Very naturally not. Did you see Miss Doran on the day before the wedding? 'Yes. 'Was she in good spirits? 'Never better. She kept talking of what we should do in our future lives. 'Indeed! That is very interesting. And on the morning of the wedding? 'She was as bright as possibleat least until after the ceremony. 'And did you observe any change in her then? 'Well, to tell the truth, I saw then the first signs that I had ever seen that her temper was just a little sharp. The incident however, was too trivial to relate and can have no possible bearing upon the case. 'Pray let us have it, for all that. 'Oh, it is childish. She dropped her bouquet as we went towards the vestry. She was passing the front pew at the time, and it fell over into the pew. There was a moment's delay, but the gentleman in the pew handed it up to her again, and it did not appear to be the worse for the fall. Yet when I spoke to her of the matter, she answered me abruptly and in the carriage, on our way home, she seemed absurdly agitated over this trifling cause. 'Indeed! You say that there was a gentleman in the pew. Some of the general public were present, then? 'Oh, yes. It is impossible to exclude them when the church is open. 'This gentleman was not one of your wife's friends? 'No, no I call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a commonlooking person. I hardly noticed his appearance. But really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point. 'Lady St. Simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less cheerful frame of mind than she had gone to it. What did she do on reentering her father's house? 'I saw her in conversation with her maid. 'And who is her maid? 'Alice is her name. She is an American and came from California with her. 'A confidential servant? 'A little too much so. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed her to take great liberties. Still, of course, in America they look upon these things in a different way. 'How long did she speak to this Alice? 'Oh, a few minutes. I had something else to think of. 'You did not overhear what they said? 'Lady St. Simon said something about 'jumping a claim.' She was accustomed to use slang of the kind. I have no idea what she meant. 'American slang is very expressive sometimes. And what did your wife do when she finished speaking to her maid? 'She walked into the breakfastroom. 'On your arm? 'No, alone. She was very independent in little matters like that. Then, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose hurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. She never came back. 'But this maid, Alice, as I understand, deposes that she went to her room, covered her bride's dress with a long ulster, put on a bonnet, and went out. 'Quite so. And she was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in company with Flora Millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who had already made a disturbance at Mr. Doran's house that morning. 'Ah, yes. I should like a few particulars as to this young lady, and your relations to her. Lord St. Simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. 'We have been on a friendly footing for some yearsI may say on a very friendly footing. She used to be at the Allegro. I have not treated her ungenerously, and she had no just cause of complaint against me, but you know what women are, Mr. Holmes. Flora was a dear little thing, but exceedingly hotheaded and devotedly attached to me. She wrote me dreadful letters when she heard that I was about to be married, and, to tell the truth, the reason why I had the marriage celebrated so quietly was that I feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to Mr. Doran's door just after we returned, and she endeavoured to push her way in, uttering very abusive expressions towards my wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out again. She was quiet when she saw that there was no good in making a row. 'Did your wife hear all this? 'No, thank goodness, she did not. 'And she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards? 'Yes. That is what Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, looks upon as so serious. It is thought that Flora decoyed my wife out and laid some terrible trap for her. 'Well, it is a possible supposition. 'You think so, too? 'I did not say a probable one. But you do not yourself look upon this as likely? 'I do not think Flora would hurt a fly. 'Still, jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. Pray what is your own theory as to what took place? 'Well, really, I came to seek a theory, not to propound one. I have given you all the facts. Since you ask me, however, I may say that it has occurred to me as possible that the excitement of this affair, the consciousness that she had made so immense a social stride, had the effect of causing some little nervous disturbance in my wife. 'In short, that she had become suddenly deranged? 'Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her backI will not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to without successI can hardly explain it in any other fashion. 'Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis, said Holmes, smiling. 'And now, Lord St. Simon, I think that I have nearly all my data. May I ask whether you were seated at the breakfasttable so that you could see out of the window? 'We could see the other side of the road and the Park. 'Quite so. Then I do not think that I need to detain you longer. I shall communicate with you. 'Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem, said our client, rising. 'I have solved it. 'Eh? What was that? 'I say that I have solved it. 'Where, then, is my wife? 'That is a detail which I shall speedily supply. Lord St. Simon shook his head. 'I am afraid that it will take wiser heads than yours or mine, he remarked, and bowing in a stately, oldfashioned manner he departed. 'It is very good of Lord St. Simon to honour my head by putting it on a level with his own, said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. 'I think that I shall have a whisky and soda and a cigar after all this crossquestioning. I had formed my conclusions as to the case before our client came into the room. 'My dear Holmes! 'I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination served to turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example. 'But I have heard all that you have heard. 'Without, however, the knowledge of preexisting cases which serves me so well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich the year after the FrancoPrussian War. It is one of these casesbut, hullo, here is Lestrade! Goodafternoon, Lestrade! You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are cigars in the box. The official detective was attired in a peajacket and cravat, which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black canvas bag in his hand. With a short greeting he seated himself and lit the cigar which had been offered to him. 'What's up, then? asked Holmes with a twinkle in his eye. 'You look dissatisfied. 'And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage case. I can make neither head nor tail of the business. 'Really! You surprise me. 'Who ever heard of such a mixed affair? Every clue seems to slip through my fingers. I have been at work upon it all day. 'And very wet it seems to have made you, said Holmes laying his hand upon the arm of the peajacket. 'Yes, I have been dragging the Serpentine. 'In Heaven's name, what for? 'In search of the body of Lady St. Simon. Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. 'Have you dragged the basin of Trafalgar Square fountain? he asked. 'Why? What do you mean? 'Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in the one as in the other. Lestrade shot an angry glance at my companion. 'I suppose you know all about it, he snarled. 'Well, I have only just heard the facts, but my mind is made up. 'Oh, indeed! Then you think that the Serpentine plays no part in the matter? 'I think it very unlikely. 'Then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found this in it? He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the floor a weddingdress of watered silk, a pair of white satin shoes and a bride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked in water. 'There, said he, putting a new weddingring upon the top of the pile. 'There is a little nut for you to crack, Master Holmes. 'Oh, indeed! said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air. 'You dragged them from the Serpentine? 'No. They were found floating near the margin by a parkkeeper. They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me that if the clothes were there the body would not be far off. 'By the same brilliant reasoning, every man's body is to be found in the neighbourhood of his wardrobe. And pray what did you hope to arrive at through this? 'At some evidence implicating Flora Millar in the disappearance. 'I am afraid that you will find it difficult. 'Are you, indeed, now? cried Lestrade with some bitterness. 'I am afraid, Holmes, that you are not very practical with your deductions and your inferences. You have made two blunders in as many minutes. This dress does implicate Miss Flora Millar. 'And how? 'In the dress is a pocket. In the pocket is a cardcase. In the cardcase is a note. And here is the very note. He slapped it down upon the table in front of him. 'Listen to this 'You will see me when all is ready. Come at once. F. H. M.' Now my theory all along has been that Lady St. Simon was decoyed away by Flora Millar, and that she, with confederates, no doubt, was responsible for her disappearance. Here, signed with her initials, is the very note which was no doubt quietly slipped into her hand at the door and which lured her within their reach. 'Very good, Lestrade, said Holmes, laughing. 'You really are very fine indeed. Let me see it. He took up the paper in a listless way, but his attention instantly became riveted, and he gave a little cry of satisfaction. 'This is indeed important, said he. 'Ha! you find it so? 'Extremely so. I congratulate you warmly. Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. 'Why, he shrieked, 'you're looking at the wrong side! 'On the contrary, this is the right side. 'The right side? You're mad! Here is the note written in pencil over here. 'And over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel bill, which interests me deeply. 'There's nothing in it. I looked at it before, said Lestrade. ''Oct. th, rooms s., breakfast s. d., cocktail s., lunch s. d., glass sherry, d.' I see nothing in that. 'Very likely not. It is most important, all the same. As to the note, it is important also, or at least the initials are, so I congratulate you again. 'I've wasted time enough, said Lestrade, rising. 'I believe in hard work and not in sitting by the fire spinning fine theories. Goodday, Mr. Holmes, and we shall see which gets to the bottom of the matter first. He gathered up the garments, thrust them into the bag, and made for the door. 'Just one hint to you, Lestrade, drawled Holmes before his rival vanished 'I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady St. Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any such person. Lestrade looked sadly at my companion. Then he turned to me, tapped his forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and hurried away. He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on his overcoat. 'There is something in what the fellow says about outdoor work, he remarked, 'so I think, Watson, that I must leave you to your papers for a little. It was after five o'clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a confectioner's man with a very large flat box. This he unpacked with the help of a youth whom he had brought with him, and presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble lodginghouse mahogany. There were a couple of brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a pt de foie gras pie with a group of ancient and cobwebby bottles. Having laid out all these luxuries, my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been paid for and were ordered to this address. Just before nine o'clock Sherlock Holmes stepped briskly into the room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed in his conclusions. 'They have laid the supper, then, he said, rubbing his hands. 'You seem to expect company. They have laid for five. 'Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in, said he. 'I am surprised that Lord St. Simon has not already arrived. Ha! I fancy that I hear his step now upon the stairs. It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in, dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features. 'My messenger reached you, then? asked Holmes. 'Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond measure. Have you good authority for what you say? 'The best possible. Lord St. Simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his forehead. 'What will the Duke say, he murmured, 'when he hears that one of the family has been subjected to such humiliation? 'It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any humiliation. 'Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint. 'I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she had no one to advise her at such a crisis. 'It was a slight, sir, a public slight, said Lord St. Simon, tapping his fingers upon the table. 'You must make allowance for this poor girl, placed in so unprecedented a position. 'I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed, and I have been shamefully used. 'I think that I heard a ring, said Holmes. 'Yes, there are steps on the landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view of the matter, Lord St. Simon, I have brought an advocate here who may be more successful. He opened the door and ushered in a lady and gentleman. 'Lord St. Simon, said he 'allow me to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton. The lady, I think, you have already met. At the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from his seat and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand thrust into the breast of his frockcoat, a picture of offended dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out her hand to him, but he still refused to raise his eyes. It was as well for his resolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was one which it was hard to resist. 'You're angry, Robert, said she. 'Well, I guess you have every cause to be. 'Pray make no apology to me, said Lord St. Simon bitterly. 'Oh, yes, I know that I have treated you real bad and that I should have spoken to you before I went but I was kind of rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just didn't know what I was doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't fall down and do a faint right there before the altar. 'Perhaps, Mrs. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave the room while you explain this matter? 'If I may give an opinion, remarked the strange gentleman, 'we've had just a little too much secrecy over this business already. For my part, I should like all Europe and America to hear the rights of it. He was a small, wiry, sunburnt man, cleanshaven, with a sharp face and alert manner. 'Then I'll tell our story right away, said the lady. 'Frank here and I met in ', in McQuire's camp, near the Rockies, where Pa was working a claim. We were engaged to each other, Frank and I but then one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor Frank here had a claim that petered out and came to nothing. The richer Pa grew the poorer was Frank so at last Pa wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and he took me away to 'Frisco. Frank wouldn't throw up his hand, though so he followed me there, and he saw me without Pa knowing anything about it. It would only have made him mad to know, so we just fixed it all up for ourselves. Frank said that he would go and make his pile, too, and never come back to claim me until he had as much as Pa. So then I promised to wait for him to the end of time and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while he lived. 'Why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said he, 'and then I will feel sure of you and I won't claim to be your husband until I come back?' Well, we talked it over, and he had fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, that we just did it right there and then Frank went off to seek his fortune, and I went back to Pa. 'The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New Mexico. After that came a long newspaper story about how a miners' camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was my Frank's name among the killed. I fainted dead away, and I was very sick for months after. Pa thought I had a decline and took me to half the doctors in 'Frisco. Not a word of news came for a year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really dead. Then Lord St. Simon came to 'Frisco, and we came to London, and a marriage was arranged, and Pa was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no man on this earth would ever take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor Frank. 'Still, if I had married Lord St. Simon, of course I'd have done my duty by him. We can't command our love, but we can our actions. I went to the altar with him with the intention to make him just as good a wife as it was in me to be. But you may imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of the first pew. I thought it was his ghost at first but when I looked again there he was still, with a kind of question in his eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I wonder I didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to tell me to be still. Then I saw him scribble on a piece of paper, and I knew that he was writing me a note. As I passed his pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped the note into my hand when he returned me the flowers. It was only a line asking me to join him when he made the sign to me to do so. Of course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to him, and I determined to do just whatever he might direct. 'When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California, and had always been his friend. I ordered her to say nothing, but to get a few things packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to have spoken to Lord St. Simon, but it was dreadful hard before his mother and all those great people. I just made up my mind to run away and explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten minutes before I saw Frank out of the window at the other side of the road. He beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. I slipped out, put on my things, and followed him. Some woman came talking something or other about Lord St. Simon to meseemed to me from the little I heard as if he had a little secret of his own before marriage alsobut I managed to get away from her and soon overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, and away we drove to some lodgings he had taken in Gordon Square, and that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to 'Frisco, found that I had given him up for dead and had gone to England, followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the very morning of my second wedding. 'I saw it in a paper, explained the American. 'It gave the name and the church but not where the lady lived. 'Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Frank was all for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I should like to vanish away and never see any of them againjust sending a line to Pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting round that breakfasttable and waiting for me to come back. So Frank took my weddingclothes and things and made a bundle of them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away somewhere where no one could find them. It is likely that we should have gone on to Paris tomorrow, only that this good gentleman, Mr. Holmes, came round to us this evening, though how he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Frank was right, and that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so secret. Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to Lord St. Simon alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at once. Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very meanly of me. Lord St. Simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this long narrative. 'Excuse me, he said, 'but it is not my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner. 'Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before I go? 'Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure. He put out his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him. 'I had hoped, suggested Holmes, 'that you would have joined us in a friendly supper. 'I think that there you ask a little too much, responded his Lordship. 'I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them. I think that with your permission I will now wish you all a very goodnight. He included us all in a sweeping bow and stalked out of the room. 'Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your company, said Sherlock Holmes. 'It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in fargone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same worldwide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. 'The case has been an interesting one, remarked Holmes when our visitors had left us, 'because it serves to show very clearly how simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems to be almost inexplicable. Nothing could be more natural than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger than the result when viewed, for instance, by Mr. Lestrade of Scotland Yard. 'You were not yourself at fault at all, then? 'From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, the other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning home. Obviously something had occurred during the morning, then, to cause her to change her mind. What could that something be? She could not have spoken to anyone when she was out, for she had been in the company of the bridegroom. Had she seen someone, then? If she had, it must be someone from America because she had spent so short a time in this country that she could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence over her that the mere sight of him would induce her to change her plans so completely. You see we have already arrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that she might have seen an American. Then who could this American be, and why should he possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover it might be a husband. Her young womanhood had, I knew, been spent in rough scenes and under strange conditions. So far I had got before I ever heard Lord St. Simon's narrative. When he told us of a man in a pew, of the change in the bride's manner, of so transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her confidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to claimjumpingwhich in miners' parlance means taking possession of that which another person has a prior claim tothe whole situation became absolutely clear. She had gone off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a previous husbandthe chances being in favour of the latter. 'And how in the world did you find them? 'It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held information in his hands the value of which he did not himself know. The initials were, of course, of the highest importance, but more valuable still was it to know that within a week he had settled his bill at one of the most select London hotels. 'How did you deduce the select? 'By the select prices. Eight shillings for a bed and eightpence for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels. There are not many in London which charge at that rate. In the second one which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H. Moulton, an American gentleman, had left only the day before, and on looking over the entries against him, I came upon the very items which I had seen in the duplicate bill. His letters were to be forwarded to  Gordon Square so thither I travelled, and being fortunate enough to find the loving couple at home, I ventured to give them some paternal advice and to point out to them that it would be better in every way that they should make their position a little clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in particular. I invited them to meet him here, and, as you see, I made him keep the appointment. 'But with no very good result, I remarked. 'His conduct was certainly not very gracious. 'Ah, Watson, said Holmes, smiling, 'perhaps you would not be very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of fortune. I think that we may judge Lord St. Simon very mercifully and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in the same position. Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings. 'Holmes, said I as I stood one morning in our bowwindow looking down the street, 'here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone. My friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with his hands in the pockets of his dressinggown, looking over my shoulder. It was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun. Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heapedup edges of the footpaths it still lay as white as when it fell. The grey pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but was still dangerously slippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual. Indeed, from the direction of the Metropolitan Station no one was coming save the single gentleman whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention. He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frockcoat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and wellcut pearlgrey trousers. Yet his actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon his legs. As he ran he jerked his hands up and down, waggled his head, and writhed his face into the most extraordinary contortions. 'What on earth can be the matter with him? I asked. 'He is looking up at the numbers of the houses. 'I believe that he is coming here, said Holmes, rubbing his hands. 'Here? 'Yes I rather think he is coming to consult me professionally. I think that I recognise the symptoms. Ha! did I not tell you? As he spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and pulled at our bell until the whole house resounded with the clanging. A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in his eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and pity. For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme limits of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre of the room. Sherlock Holmes pushed him down into the easychair and, sitting beside him, patted his hand and chatted with him in the easy, soothing tones which he knew so well how to employ. 'You have come to me to tell your story, have you not? said he. 'You are fatigued with your haste. Pray wait until you have recovered yourself, and then I shall be most happy to look into any little problem which you may submit to me. The man sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting against his emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his brow, set his lips tight, and turned his face towards us. 'No doubt you think me mad? said he. 'I see that you have had some great trouble, responded Holmes. 'God knows I have!a trouble which is enough to unseat my reason, so sudden and so terrible is it. Public disgrace I might have faced, although I am a man whose character has never yet borne a stain. Private affliction also is the lot of every man but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake my very soul. Besides, it is not I alone. The very noblest in the land may suffer unless some way be found out of this horrible affair. 'Pray compose yourself, sir, said Holmes, 'and let me have a clear account of who you are and what it is that has befallen you. 'My name, answered our visitor, 'is probably familiar to your ears. I am Alexander Holder, of the banking firm of Holder  Stevenson, of Threadneedle Street. The name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior partner in the second largest private banking concern in the City of London. What could have happened, then, to bring one of the foremost citizens of London to this most pitiable pass? We waited, all curiosity, until with another effort he braced himself to tell his story. 'I feel that time is of value, said he 'that is why I hastened here when the police inspector suggested that I should secure your cooperation. I came to Baker Street by the Underground and hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who takes very little exercise. I feel better now, and I will put the facts before you as shortly and yet as clearly as I can. 'It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking business as much depends upon our being able to find remunerative investments for our funds as upon our increasing our connection and the number of our depositors. One of our most lucrative means of laying out money is in the shape of loans, where the security is unimpeachable. We have done a good deal in this direction during the last few years, and there are many noble families to whom we have advanced large sums upon the security of their pictures, libraries, or plate. 'Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a card was brought in to me by one of the clerks. I started when I saw the name, for it was that of none other thanwell, perhaps even to you I had better say no more than that it was a name which is a household word all over the earthone of the highest, noblest, most exalted names in England. I was overwhelmed by the honour and attempted, when he entered, to say so, but he plunged at once into business with the air of a man who wishes to hurry quickly through a disagreeable task. ''Mr. Holder,' said he, 'I have been informed that you are in the habit of advancing money.' ''The firm does so when the security is good.' I answered. ''It is absolutely essential to me,' said he, 'that I should have  , at once. I could, of course, borrow so trifling a sum ten times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it a matter of business and to carry out that business myself. In my position you can readily understand that it is unwise to place one's self under obligations.' ''For how long, may I ask, do you want this sum?' I asked. ''Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you think it right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the money should be paid at once.' ''I should be happy to advance it without further parley from my own private purse,' said I, 'were it not that the strain would be rather more than it could bear. If, on the other hand, I am to do it in the name of the firm, then in justice to my partner I must insist that, even in your case, every businesslike precaution should be taken.' ''I should much prefer to have it so,' said he, raising up a square, black morocco case which he had laid beside his chair. 'You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?' ''One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,' said I. ''Precisely.' He opened the case, and there, imbedded in soft, fleshcoloured velvet, lay the magnificent piece of jewellery which he had named. 'There are thirtynine enormous beryls,' said he, 'and the price of the gold chasing is incalculable. The lowest estimate would put the worth of the coronet at double the sum which I have asked. I am prepared to leave it with you as my security.' 'I took the precious case into my hands and looked in some perplexity from it to my illustrious client. ''You doubt its value?' he asked. ''Not at all. I only doubt' ''The propriety of my leaving it. You may set your mind at rest about that. I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it. It is a pure matter of form. Is the security sufficient?' ''Ample.' ''You understand, Mr. Holder, that I am giving you a strong proof of the confidence which I have in you, founded upon all that I have heard of you. I rely upon you not only to be discreet and to refrain from all gossip upon the matter but, above all, to preserve this coronet with every possible precaution because I need not say that a great public scandal would be caused if any harm were to befall it. Any injury to it would be almost as serious as its complete loss, for there are no beryls in the world to match these, and it would be impossible to replace them. I leave it with you, however, with every confidence, and I shall call for it in person on Monday morning.' 'Seeing that my client was anxious to leave, I said no more but, calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty   notes. When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not but think with some misgivings of the immense responsibility which it entailed upon me. There could be no doubt that, as it was a national possession, a horrible scandal would ensue if any misfortune should occur to it. I already regretted having ever consented to take charge of it. However, it was too late to alter the matter now, so I locked it up in my private safe and turned once more to my work. 'When evening came I felt that it would be an imprudence to leave so precious a thing in the office behind me. Bankers' safes had been forced before now, and why should not mine be? If so, how terrible would be the position in which I should find myself! I determined, therefore, that for the next few days I would always carry the case backward and forward with me, so that it might never be really out of my reach. With this intention, I called a cab and drove out to my house at Streatham, carrying the jewel with me. I did not breathe freely until I had taken it upstairs and locked it in the bureau of my dressingroom. 'And now a word as to my household, Mr. Holmes, for I wish you to thoroughly understand the situation. My groom and my page sleep out of the house, and may be set aside altogether. I have three maidservants who have been with me a number of years and whose absolute reliability is quite above suspicion. Another, Lucy Parr, the second waitingmaid, has only been in my service a few months. She came with an excellent character, however, and has always given me satisfaction. She is a very pretty girl and has attracted admirers who have occasionally hung about the place. That is the only drawback which we have found to her, but we believe her to be a thoroughly good girl in every way. 'So much for the servants. My family itself is so small that it will not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an only son, Arthur. He has been a disappointment to me, Mr. Holmesa grievous disappointment. I have no doubt that I am myself to blame. People tell me that I have spoiled him. Very likely I have. When my dear wife died I felt that he was all I had to love. I could not bear to see the smile fade even for a moment from his face. I have never denied him a wish. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us had I been sterner, but I meant it for the best. 'It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my business, but he was not of a business turn. He was wild, wayward, and, to speak the truth, I could not trust him in the handling of large sums of money. When he was young he became a member of an aristocratic club, and there, having charming manners, he was soon the intimate of a number of men with long purses and expensive habits. He learned to play heavily at cards and to squander money on the turf, until he had again and again to come to me and implore me to give him an advance upon his allowance, that he might settle his debts of honour. He tried more than once to break away from the dangerous company which he was keeping, but each time the influence of his friend, Sir George Burnwell, was enough to draw him back again. 'And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for he has frequently brought him to my house, and I have found myself that I could hardly resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than Arthur, a man of the world to his fingertips, one who had been everywhere, seen everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of great personal beauty. Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far away from the glamour of his presence, I am convinced from his cynical speech and the look which I have caught in his eyes that he is one who should be deeply distrusted. So I think, and so, too, thinks my little Mary, who has a woman's quick insight into character. 'And now there is only she to be described. She is my niece but when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the world I adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my daughter. She is a sunbeam in my housesweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a woman could be. She is my right hand. I do not know what I could do without her. In only one matter has she ever gone against my wishes. Twice my boy has asked her to marry him, for he loves her devotedly, but each time she has refused him. I think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his whole life but now, alas! it is too lateforever too late! 'Now, Mr. Holmes, you know the people who live under my roof, and I shall continue with my miserable story. 'When we were taking coffee in the drawingroom that night after dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name of my client. Lucy Parr, who had brought in the coffee, had, I am sure, left the room but I cannot swear that the door was closed. Mary and Arthur were much interested and wished to see the famous coronet, but I thought it better not to disturb it. ''Where have you put it?' asked Arthur. ''In my own bureau.' ''Well, I hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the night.' said he. ''It is locked up,' I answered. ''Oh, any old key will fit that bureau. When I was a youngster I have opened it myself with the key of the boxroom cupboard.' 'He often had a wild way of talking, so that I thought little of what he said. He followed me to my room, however, that night with a very grave face. ''Look here, dad,' said he with his eyes cast down, 'can you let me have  ?' ''No, I cannot!' I answered sharply. 'I have been far too generous with you in money matters.' ''You have been very kind,' said he, 'but I must have this money, or else I can never show my face inside the club again.' ''And a very good thing, too!' I cried. ''Yes, but you would not have me leave it a dishonoured man,' said he. 'I could not bear the disgrace. I must raise the money in some way, and if you will not let me have it, then I must try other means.' 'I was very angry, for this was the third demand during the month. 'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which he bowed and left the room without another word. 'When he was gone I unlocked my bureau, made sure that my treasure was safe, and locked it again. Then I started to go round the house to see that all was securea duty which I usually leave to Mary but which I thought it well to perform myself that night. As I came down the stairs I saw Mary herself at the side window of the hall, which she closed and fastened as I approached. ''Tell me, dad,' said she, looking, I thought, a little disturbed, 'did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out tonight?' ''Certainly not.' ''She came in just now by the back door. I have no doubt that she has only been to the side gate to see someone, but I think that it is hardly safe and should be stopped.' ''You must speak to her in the morning, or I will if you prefer it. Are you sure that everything is fastened?' ''Quite sure, dad.' ''Then, goodnight.' I kissed her and went up to my bedroom again, where I was soon asleep. 'I am endeavouring to tell you everything, Mr. Holmes, which may have any bearing upon the case, but I beg that you will question me upon any point which I do not make clear. 'On the contrary, your statement is singularly lucid. 'I come to a part of my story now in which I should wish to be particularly so. I am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety in my mind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual. About two in the morning, then, I was awakened by some sound in the house. It had ceased ere I was wide awake, but it had left an impression behind it as though a window had gently closed somewhere. I lay listening with all my ears. Suddenly, to my horror, there was a distinct sound of footsteps moving softly in the next room. I slipped out of bed, all palpitating with fear, and peeped round the corner of my dressingroom door. ''Arthur!' I screamed, 'you villain! you thief! How dare you touch that coronet?' 'The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, dressed only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the light, holding the coronet in his hands. He appeared to be wrenching at it, or bending it with all his strength. At my cry he dropped it from his grasp and turned as pale as death. I snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with three of the beryls in it, was missing. ''You blackguard!' I shouted, beside myself with rage. 'You have destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the jewels which you have stolen?' ''Stolen!' he cried. ''Yes, thief!' I roared, shaking him by the shoulder. ''There are none missing. There cannot be any missing,' said he. ''There are three missing. And you know where they are. Must I call you a liar as well as a thief? Did I not see you trying to tear off another piece?' ''You have called me names enough,' said he, 'I will not stand it any longer. I shall not say another word about this business, since you have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in the morning and make my own way in the world.' ''You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried halfmad with grief and rage. 'I shall have this matter probed to the bottom.' ''You shall learn nothing from me,' said he with a passion such as I should not have thought was in his nature. 'If you choose to call the police, let the police find what they can.' 'By this time the whole house was astir, for I had raised my voice in my anger. Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the whole story and, with a scream, fell down senseless on the ground. I sent the housemaid for the police and put the investigation into their hands at once. When the inspector and a constable entered the house, Arthur, who had stood sullenly with his arms folded, asked me whether it was my intention to charge him with theft. I answered that it had ceased to be a private matter, but had become a public one, since the ruined coronet was national property. I was determined that the law should have its way in everything. ''At least,' said he, 'you will not have me arrested at once. It would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the house for five minutes.' ''That you may get away, or perhaps that you may conceal what you have stolen,' said I. And then, realising the dreadful position in which I was placed, I implored him to remember that not only my honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at stake and that he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the nation. He might avert it all if he would but tell me what he had done with the three missing stones. ''You may as well face the matter,' said I 'you have been caught in the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous. If you but make such reparation as is in your power, by telling us where the beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.' ''Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered, turning away from me with a sneer. I saw that he was too hardened for any words of mine to influence him. There was but one way for it. I called in the inspector and gave him into custody. A search was made at once not only of his person but of his room and of every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems but no trace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his mouth for all our persuasions and our threats. This morning he was removed to a cell, and I, after going through all the police formalities, have hurried round to you to implore you to use your skill in unravelling the matter. The police have openly confessed that they can at present make nothing of it. You may go to any expense which you think necessary. I have already offered a reward of  . My God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and my son in one night. Oh, what shall I do! He put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to and fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got beyond words. Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire. 'Do you receive much company? he asked. 'None save my partner with his family and an occasional friend of Arthur's. Sir George Burnwell has been several times lately. No one else, I think. 'Do you go out much in society? 'Arthur does. Mary and I stay at home. We neither of us care for it. 'That is unusual in a young girl. 'She is of a quiet nature. Besides, she is not so very young. She is fourandtwenty. 'This matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to her also. 'Terrible! She is even more affected than I. 'You have neither of you any doubt as to your son's guilt? 'How can we have when I saw him with my own eyes with the coronet in his hands. 'I hardly consider that a conclusive proof. Was the remainder of the coronet at all injured? 'Yes, it was twisted. 'Do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to straighten it? 'God bless you! You are doing what you can for him and for me. But it is too heavy a task. What was he doing there at all? If his purpose were innocent, why did he not say so? 'Precisely. And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie? His silence appears to me to cut both ways. There are several singular points about the case. What did the police think of the noise which awoke you from your sleep? 'They considered that it might be caused by Arthur's closing his bedroom door. 'A likely story! As if a man bent on felony would slam his door so as to wake a household. What did they say, then, of the disappearance of these gems? 'They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture in the hope of finding them. 'Have they thought of looking outside the house? 'Yes, they have shown extraordinary energy. The whole garden has already been minutely examined. 'Now, my dear sir, said Holmes, 'is it not obvious to you now that this matter really strikes very much deeper than either you or the police were at first inclined to think? It appeared to you to be a simple case to me it seems exceedingly complex. Consider what is involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came down from his bed, went, at great risk, to your dressingroom, opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it, went off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the thirtynine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then returned with the other thirtysix into the room in which he exposed himself to the greatest danger of being discovered. I ask you now, is such a theory tenable? 'But what other is there? cried the banker with a gesture of despair. 'If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain them? 'It is our task to find that out, replied Holmes 'so now, if you please, Mr. Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, and devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into details. My friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition, which I was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy were deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. I confess that the guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be as obvious as it did to his unhappy father, but still I had such faith in Holmes' judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation. He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his chin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the deepest thought. Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A short railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest residence of the great financier. Fairbank was a goodsized square house of white stone, standing back a little from the road. A double carriagesweep, with a snowclad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen's entrance. On the left ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within the grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare. Holmes left us standing at the door and walked slowly all round the house, across the front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by the garden behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr. Holder and I went into the diningroom and waited by the fire until he should return. We were sitting there in silence when the door opened and a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense capacity for selfrestraint. Disregarding my presence, she went straight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet womanly caress. 'You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you not, dad? she asked. 'No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom. 'But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will be sorry for having acted so harshly. 'Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent? 'Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect him. 'How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with the coronet in his hand? 'Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take my word for it that he is innocent. Let the matter drop and say no more. It is so dreadful to think of our dear Arthur in prison! 'I shall never let it drop until the gems are foundnever, Mary! Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences to me. Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman down from London to inquire more deeply into it. 'This gentleman? she asked, facing round to me. 'No, his friend. He wished us to leave him alone. He is round in the stable lane now. 'The stable lane? She raised her dark eyebrows. 'What can he hope to find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, that you will succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, that my cousin Arthur is innocent of this crime. 'I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may prove it, returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the snow from his shoes. 'I believe I have the honour of addressing Miss Mary Holder. Might I ask you a question or two? 'Pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up. 'You heard nothing yourself last night? 'Nothing, until my uncle here began to speak loudly. I heard that, and I came down. 'You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you fasten all the windows? 'Yes. 'Were they all fastened this morning? 'Yes. 'You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked to your uncle last night that she had been out to see him? 'Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawingroom, and who may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet. 'I see. You infer that she may have gone out to tell her sweetheart, and that the two may have planned the robbery. 'But what is the good of all these vague theories, cried the banker impatiently, 'when I have told you that I saw Arthur with the coronet in his hands? 'Wait a little, Mr. Holder. We must come back to that. About this girl, Miss Holder. You saw her return by the kitchen door, I presume? 'Yes when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I met her slipping in. I saw the man, too, in the gloom. 'Do you know him? 'Oh, yes! he is the greengrocer who brings our vegetables round. His name is Francis Prosper. 'He stood, said Holmes, 'to the left of the doorthat is to say, farther up the path than is necessary to reach the door? 'Yes, he did. 'And he is a man with a wooden leg? Something like fear sprang up in the young lady's expressive black eyes. 'Why, you are like a magician, said she. 'How do you know that? She smiled, but there was no answering smile in Holmes' thin, eager face. 'I should be very glad now to go upstairs, said he. 'I shall probably wish to go over the outside of the house again. Perhaps I had better take a look at the lower windows before I go up. He walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at the large one which looked from the hall onto the stable lane. This he opened and made a very careful examination of the sill with his powerful magnifying lens. 'Now we shall go upstairs, said he at last. The banker's dressingroom was a plainly furnished little chamber, with a grey carpet, a large bureau, and a long mirror. Holmes went to the bureau first and looked hard at the lock. 'Which key was used to open it? he asked. 'That which my son himself indicatedthat of the cupboard of the lumberroom. 'Have you it here? 'That is it on the dressingtable. Sherlock Holmes took it up and opened the bureau. 'It is a noiseless lock, said he. 'It is no wonder that it did not wake you. This case, I presume, contains the coronet. We must have a look at it. He opened the case, and taking out the diadem he laid it upon the table. It was a magnificent specimen of the jeweller's art, and the thirtysix stones were the finest that I have ever seen. At one side of the coronet was a cracked edge, where a corner holding three gems had been torn away. 'Now, Mr. Holder, said Holmes, 'here is the corner which corresponds to that which has been so unfortunately lost. Might I beg that you will break it off. The banker recoiled in horror. 'I should not dream of trying, said he. 'Then I will. Holmes suddenly bent his strength upon it, but without result. 'I feel it give a little, said he 'but, though I am exceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my time to break it. An ordinary man could not do it. Now, what do you think would happen if I did break it, Mr. Holder? There would be a noise like a pistol shot. Do you tell me that all this happened within a few yards of your bed and that you heard nothing of it? 'I do not know what to think. It is all dark to me. 'But perhaps it may grow lighter as we go. What do you think, Miss Holder? 'I confess that I still share my uncle's perplexity. 'Your son had no shoes or slippers on when you saw him? 'He had nothing on save only his trousers and shirt. 'Thank you. We have certainly been favoured with extraordinary luck during this inquiry, and it will be entirely our own fault if we do not succeed in clearing the matter up. With your permission, Mr. Holder, I shall now continue my investigations outside. He went alone, at his own request, for he explained that any unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. For an hour or more he was at work, returning at last with his feet heavy with snow and his features as inscrutable as ever. 'I think that I have seen now all that there is to see, Mr. Holder, said he 'I can serve you best by returning to my rooms. 'But the gems, Mr. Holmes. Where are they? 'I cannot tell. The banker wrung his hands. 'I shall never see them again! he cried. 'And my son? You give me hopes? 'My opinion is in no way altered. 'Then, for God's sake, what was this dark business which was acted in my house last night? 'If you can call upon me at my Baker Street rooms tomorrow morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to make it clearer. I understand that you give me carte blanche to act for you, provided only that I get back the gems, and that you place no limit on the sum I may draw. 'I would give my fortune to have them back. 'Very good. I shall look into the matter between this and then. Goodbye it is just possible that I may have to come over here again before evening. It was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now made up about the case, although what his conclusions were was more than I could even dimly imagine. Several times during our homeward journey I endeavoured to sound him upon the point, but he always glided away to some other topic, until at last I gave it over in despair. It was not yet three when we found ourselves in our rooms once more. He hurried to his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class. 'I think that this should do, said he, glancing into the glass above the fireplace. 'I only wish that you could come with me, Watson, but I fear that it won't do. I may be on the trail in this matter, or I may be following a willo'thewisp, but I shall soon know which it is. I hope that I may be back in a few hours. He cut a slice of beef from the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds of bread, and thrusting this rude meal into his pocket he started off upon his expedition. I had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in excellent spirits, swinging an old elasticsided boot in his hand. He chucked it down into a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea. 'I only looked in as I passed, said he. 'I am going right on. 'Where to? 'Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time before I get back. Don't wait up for me in case I should be late. 'How are you getting on? 'Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham since I saw you last, but I did not call at the house. It is a very sweet little problem, and I would not have missed it for a good deal. However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get these disreputable clothes off and return to my highly respectable self. I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for satisfaction than his words alone would imply. His eyes twinkled, and there was even a touch of colour upon his sallow cheeks. He hastened upstairs, and a few minutes later I heard the slam of the hall door, which told me that he was off once more upon his congenial hunt. I waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so I retired to my room. It was no uncommon thing for him to be away for days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that his lateness caused me no surprise. I do not know at what hour he came in, but when I came down to breakfast in the morning there he was with a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the other, as fresh and trim as possible. 'You will excuse my beginning without you, Watson, said he, 'but you remember that our client has rather an early appointment this morning. 'Why, it is after nine now, I answered. 'I should not be surprised if that were he. I thought I heard a ring. It was, indeed, our friend the financier. I was shocked by the change which had come over him, for his face which was naturally of a broad and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, while his hair seemed to me at least a shade whiter. He entered with a weariness and lethargy which was even more painful than his violence of the morning before, and he dropped heavily into the armchair which I pushed forward for him. 'I do not know what I have done to be so severely tried, said he. 'Only two days ago I was a happy and prosperous man, without a care in the world. Now I am left to a lonely and dishonoured age. One sorrow comes close upon the heels of another. My niece, Mary, has deserted me. 'Deserted you? 'Yes. Her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was empty, and a note for me lay upon the hall table. I had said to her last night, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had married my boy all might have been well with him. Perhaps it was thoughtless of me to say so. It is to that remark that she refers in this note ''MY DEAREST UNCLE,I feel that I have brought trouble upon you, and that if I had acted differently this terrible misfortune might never have occurred. I cannot, with this thought in my mind, ever again be happy under your roof, and I feel that I must leave you forever. Do not worry about my future, for that is provided for and, above all, do not search for me, for it will be fruitless labour and an illservice to me. In life or in death, I am ever your loving, ''MARY.' 'What could she mean by that note, Mr. Holmes? Do you think it points to suicide? 'No, no, nothing of the kind. It is perhaps the best possible solution. I trust, Mr. Holder, that you are nearing the end of your troubles. 'Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes you have learned something! Where are the gems? 'You would not think   apiece an excessive sum for them? 'I would pay ten. 'That would be unnecessary. Three thousand will cover the matter. And there is a little reward, I fancy. Have you your chequebook? Here is a pen. Better make it out for  . With a dazed face the banker made out the required check. Holmes walked over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of gold with three gems in it, and threw it down upon the table. With a shriek of joy our client clutched it up. 'You have it! he gasped. 'I am saved! I am saved! The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and he hugged his recovered gems to his bosom. 'There is one other thing you owe, Mr. Holder, said Sherlock Holmes rather sternly. 'Owe! He caught up a pen. 'Name the sum, and I will pay it. 'No, the debt is not to me. You owe a very humble apology to that noble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I should be proud to see my own son do, should I ever chance to have one. 'Then it was not Arthur who took them? 'I told you yesterday, and I repeat today, that it was not. 'You are sure of it! Then let us hurry to him at once to let him know that the truth is known. 'He knows it already. When I had cleared it all up I had an interview with him, and finding that he would not tell me the story, I told it to him, on which he had to confess that I was right and to add the very few details which were not yet quite clear to me. Your news of this morning, however, may open his lips. 'For Heaven's sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary mystery! 'I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached it. And let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me to say and for you to hear there has been an understanding between Sir George Burnwell and your niece Mary. They have now fled together. 'My Mary? Impossible! 'It is unfortunately more than possible it is certain. Neither you nor your son knew the true character of this man when you admitted him into your family circle. He is one of the most dangerous men in Englanda ruined gambler, an absolutely desperate villain, a man without heart or conscience. Your niece knew nothing of such men. When he breathed his vows to her, as he had done to a hundred before her, she flattered herself that she alone had touched his heart. The devil knows best what he said, but at least she became his tool and was in the habit of seeing him nearly every evening. 'I cannot, and I will not, believe it! cried the banker with an ashen face. 'I will tell you, then, what occurred in your house last night. Your niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, slipped down and talked to her lover through the window which leads into the stable lane. His footmarks had pressed right through the snow, so long had he stood there. She told him of the coronet. His wicked lust for gold kindled at the news, and he bent her to his will. I have no doubt that she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one. She had hardly listened to his instructions when she saw you coming downstairs, on which she closed the window rapidly and told you about one of the servants' escapade with her woodenlegged lover, which was all perfectly true. 'Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you but he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. In the middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, so he rose and, looking out, was surprised to see his cousin walking very stealthily along the passage until she disappeared into your dressingroom. Petrified with astonishment, the lad slipped on some clothes and waited there in the dark to see what would come of this strange affair. Presently she emerged from the room again, and in the light of the passagelamp your son saw that she carried the precious coronet in her hands. She passed down the stairs, and he, thrilling with horror, ran along and slipped behind the curtain near your door, whence he could see what passed in the hall beneath. He saw her stealthily open the window, hand out the coronet to someone in the gloom, and then closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing quite close to where he stood hid behind the curtain. 'As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action without a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the instant that she was gone he realised how crushing a misfortune this would be for you, and how allimportant it was to set it right. He rushed down, just as he was, in his bare feet, opened the window, sprang out into the snow, and ran down the lane, where he could see a dark figure in the moonlight. Sir George Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught him, and there was a struggle between them, your lad tugging at one side of the coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the scuffle, your son struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then something suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your room, and had just observed that the coronet had been twisted in the struggle and was endeavouring to straighten it when you appeared upon the scene. 'Is it possible? gasped the banker. 'You then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when he felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. He could not explain the true state of affairs without betraying one who certainly deserved little enough consideration at his hands. He took the more chivalrous view, however, and preserved her secret. 'And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the coronet, cried Mr. Holder. 'Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have been! And his asking to be allowed to go out for five minutes! The dear fellow wanted to see if the missing piece were at the scene of the struggle. How cruelly I have misjudged him! 'When I arrived at the house, continued Holmes, 'I at once went very carefully round it to observe if there were any traces in the snow which might help me. I knew that none had fallen since the evening before, and also that there had been a strong frost to preserve impressions. I passed along the tradesmen's path, but found it all trampled down and indistinguishable. Just beyond it, however, at the far side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood and talked with a man, whose round impressions on one side showed that he had a wooden leg. I could even tell that they had been disturbed, for the woman had run back swiftly to the door, as was shown by the deep toe and light heel marks, while Woodenleg had waited a little, and then had gone away. I thought at the time that this might be the maid and her sweetheart, of whom you had already spoken to me, and inquiry showed it was so. I passed round the garden without seeing anything more than random tracks, which I took to be the police but when I got into the stable lane a very long and complex story was written in the snow in front of me. 'There was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second double line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked feet. I was at once convinced from what you had told me that the latter was your son. The first had walked both ways, but the other had run swiftly, and as his tread was marked in places over the depression of the boot, it was obvious that he had passed after the other. I followed them up and found they led to the hall window, where Boots had worn all the snow away while waiting. Then I walked to the other end, which was a hundred yards or more down the lane. I saw where Boots had faced round, where the snow was cut up as though there had been a struggle, and, finally, where a few drops of blood had fallen, to show me that I was not mistaken. Boots had then run down the lane, and another little smudge of blood showed that it was he who had been hurt. When he came to the highroad at the other end, I found that the pavement had been cleared, so there was an end to that clue. 'On entering the house, however, I examined, as you remember, the sill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could at once see that someone had passed out. I could distinguish the outline of an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming in. I was then beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what had occurred. A man had waited outside the window someone had brought the gems the deed had been overseen by your son he had pursued the thief had struggled with him they had each tugged at the coronet, their united strength causing injuries which neither alone could have effected. He had returned with the prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of his opponent. So far I was clear. The question now was, who was the man and who was it brought him the coronet? 'It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Now, I knew that it was not you who had brought it down, so there only remained your niece and the maids. But if it were the maids, why should your son allow himself to be accused in their place? There could be no possible reason. As he loved his cousin, however, there was an excellent explanation why he should retain her secretthe more so as the secret was a disgraceful one. When I remembered that you had seen her at that window, and how she had fainted on seeing the coronet again, my conjecture became a certainty. 'And who could it be who was her confederate? A lover evidently, for who else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must feel to you? I knew that you went out little, and that your circle of friends was a very limited one. But among them was Sir George Burnwell. I had heard of him before as being a man of evil reputation among women. It must have been he who wore those boots and retained the missing gems. Even though he knew that Arthur had discovered him, he might still flatter himself that he was safe, for the lad could not say a word without compromising his own family. 'Well, your own good sense will suggest what measures I took next. I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George's house, managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his castoff shoes. With these I journeyed down to Streatham and saw that they exactly fitted the tracks. 'I saw an illdressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening, said Mr. Holder. 'Precisely. It was I. I found that I had my man, so I came home and changed my clothes. It was a delicate part which I had to play then, for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a lifepreserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give him a price for the stones he held  apiece. That brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown. 'Why, dash it all!' said he, 'I've let them go at six hundred for the three!' I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had them, on promising him that there would be no prosecution. Off I set to him, and after much chaffering I got our stones at   apiece. Then I looked in upon your son, told him that all was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o'clock, after what I may call a really hard day's work. 'A day which has saved England from a great public scandal, said the banker, rising. 'Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but you shall not find me ungrateful for what you have done. Your skill has indeed exceeded all that I have heard of it. And now I must fly to my dear boy to apologise to him for the wrong which I have done him. As to what you tell me of poor Mary, it goes to my very heart. Not even your skill can inform me where she is now. 'I think that we may safely say, returned Holmes, 'that she is wherever Sir George Burnwell is. It is equally certain, too, that whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient punishment. 'To the man who loves art for its own sake, remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of The Daily Telegraph, 'it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes clbres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province. 'And yet, said I, smiling, 'I cannot quite hold myself absolved from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my records. 'You have erred, perhaps, he observed, taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherrywood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood'you have erred perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing. 'It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter, I remarked with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend's singular character. 'No, it is not selfishness or conceit, said he, answering, as was his wont, my thoughts rather than my words. 'If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thinga thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales. It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after breakfast on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at Baker Street. A thick fog rolled down between the lines of duncoloured houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the heavy yellow wreaths. Our gas was lit and shone on the white cloth and glimmer of china and metal, for the table had not been cleared yet. Sherlock Holmes had been silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers until at last, having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings. 'At the same time, he remarked after a pause, during which he had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, 'you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. The small matter in which I endeavoured to help the King of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I fear that you may have bordered on the trivial. 'The end may have been so, I answered, 'but the methods I hold to have been novel and of interest. 'Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction! But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you, for the days of the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boardingschools. I think that I have touched bottom at last, however. This note I had this morning marks my zeropoint, I fancy. Read it! He tossed a crumpled letter across to me. It was dated from Montague Place upon the preceding evening, and ran thus 'DEAR MR. HOLMES,I am very anxious to consult you as to whether I should or should not accept a situation which has been offered to me as governess. I shall call at halfpast ten tomorrow if I do not inconvenience you. Yours faithfully, 'VIOLET HUNTER. 'Do you know the young lady? I asked. 'Not I. 'It is halfpast ten now. 'Yes, and I have no doubt that is her ring. 'It may turn out to be of more interest than you think. You remember that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to be a mere whim at first, developed into a serious investigation. It may be so in this case, also. 'Well, let us hope so. But our doubts will very soon be solved, for here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question. As he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room. She was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled like a plover's egg, and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had her own way to make in the world. 'You will excuse my troubling you, I am sure, said she, as my companion rose to greet her, 'but I have had a very strange experience, and as I have no parents or relations of any sort from whom I could ask advice, I thought that perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me what I should do. 'Pray take a seat, Miss Hunter. I shall be happy to do anything that I can to serve you. I could see that Holmes was favourably impressed by the manner and speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his fingertips together, to listen to her story. 'I have been a governess for five years, said she, 'in the family of Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the colonel received an appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his children over to America with him, so that I found myself without a situation. I advertised, and I answered advertisements, but without success. At last the little money which I had saved began to run short, and I was at my wit's end as to what I should do. 'There is a wellknown agency for governesses in the West End called Westaway's, and there I used to call about once a week in order to see whether anything had turned up which might suit me. Westaway was the name of the founder of the business, but it is really managed by Miss Stoper. She sits in her own little office, and the ladies who are seeking employment wait in an anteroom, and are then shown in one by one, when she consults her ledgers and sees whether she has anything which would suit them. 'Well, when I called last week I was shown into the little office as usual, but I found that Miss Stoper was not alone. A prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at her elbow with a pair of glasses on his nose, looking very earnestly at the ladies who entered. As I came in he gave quite a jump in his chair and turned quickly to Miss Stoper. ''That will do,' said he 'I could not ask for anything better. Capital! capital!' He seemed quite enthusiastic and rubbed his hands together in the most genial fashion. He was such a comfortablelooking man that it was quite a pleasure to look at him. ''You are looking for a situation, miss?' he asked. ''Yes, sir.' ''As governess?' ''Yes, sir.' ''And what salary do you ask?' ''I had   a month in my last place with Colonel Spence Munro.' ''Oh, tut, tut! sweatingrank sweating!' he cried, throwing his fat hands out into the air like a man who is in a boiling passion. 'How could anyone offer so pitiful a sum to a lady with such attractions and accomplishments?' ''My accomplishments, sir, may be less than you imagine,' said I. 'A little French, a little German, music, and drawing' ''Tut, tut!' he cried. 'This is all quite beside the question. The point is, have you or have you not the bearing and deportment of a lady? There it is in a nutshell. If you have not, you are not fitted for the rearing of a child who may some day play a considerable part in the history of the country. But if you have why, then, how could any gentleman ask you to condescend to accept anything under the three figures? Your salary with me, madam, would commence at   a year.' 'You may imagine, Mr. Holmes, that to me, destitute as I was, such an offer seemed almost too good to be true. The gentleman, however, seeing perhaps the look of incredulity upon my face, opened a pocketbook and took out a note. ''It is also my custom,' said he, smiling in the most pleasant fashion until his eyes were just two little shining slits amid the white creases of his face, 'to advance to my young ladies half their salary beforehand, so that they may meet any little expenses of their journey and their wardrobe.' 'It seemed to me that I had never met so fascinating and so thoughtful a man. As I was already in debt to my tradesmen, the advance was a great convenience, and yet there was something unnatural about the whole transaction which made me wish to know a little more before I quite committed myself. ''May I ask where you live, sir?' said I. ''Hampshire. Charming rural place. The Copper Beeches, five miles on the far side of Winchester. It is the most lovely country, my dear young lady, and the dearest old countryhouse.' ''And my duties, sir? I should be glad to know what they would be.' ''One childone dear little romper just six years old. Oh, if you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! smack! smack! Three gone before you could wink!' He leaned back in his chair and laughed his eyes into his head again. 'I was a little startled at the nature of the child's amusement, but the father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was joking. ''My sole duties, then,' I asked, 'are to take charge of a single child?' ''No, no, not the sole, not the sole, my dear young lady,' he cried. 'Your duty would be, as I am sure your good sense would suggest, to obey any little commands my wife might give, provided always that they were such commands as a lady might with propriety obey. You see no difficulty, heh?' ''I should be happy to make myself useful.' ''Quite so. In dress now, for example. We are faddy people, you knowfaddy but kindhearted. If you were asked to wear any dress which we might give you, you would not object to our little whim. Heh?' ''No,' said I, considerably astonished at his words. ''Or to sit here, or sit there, that would not be offensive to you?' ''Oh, no.' ''Or to cut your hair quite short before you come to us?' 'I could hardly believe my ears. As you may observe, Mr. Holmes, my hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of sacrificing it in this offhand fashion. ''I am afraid that that is quite impossible,' said I. He had been watching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and I could see a shadow pass over his face as I spoke. ''I am afraid that it is quite essential,' said he. 'It is a little fancy of my wife's, and ladies' fancies, you know, madam, ladies' fancies must be consulted. And so you won't cut your hair?' ''No, sir, I really could not,' I answered firmly. ''Ah, very well then that quite settles the matter. It is a pity, because in other respects you would really have done very nicely. In that case, Miss Stoper, I had best inspect a few more of your young ladies.' 'The manageress had sat all this while busy with her papers without a word to either of us, but she glanced at me now with so much annoyance upon her face that I could not help suspecting that she had lost a handsome commission through my refusal. ''Do you desire your name to be kept upon the books?' she asked. ''If you please, Miss Stoper.' ''Well, really, it seems rather useless, since you refuse the most excellent offers in this fashion,' said she sharply. 'You can hardly expect us to exert ourselves to find another such opening for you. Goodday to you, Miss Hunter.' She struck a gong upon the table, and I was shown out by the page. 'Well, Mr. Holmes, when I got back to my lodgings and found little enough in the cupboard, and two or three bills upon the table, I began to ask myself whether I had not done a very foolish thing. After all, if these people had strange fads and expected obedience on the most extraordinary matters, they were at least ready to pay for their eccentricity. Very few governesses in England are getting   a year. Besides, what use was my hair to me? Many people are improved by wearing it short and perhaps I should be among the number. Next day I was inclined to think that I had made a mistake, and by the day after I was sure of it. I had almost overcome my pride so far as to go back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open when I received this letter from the gentleman himself. I have it here and I will read it to you ''The Copper Beeches, near Winchester. ''DEAR MISS HUNTER,Miss Stoper has very kindly given me your address, and I write from here to ask you whether you have reconsidered your decision. My wife is very anxious that you should come, for she has been much attracted by my description of you. We are willing to give   a quarter, or   a year, so as to recompense you for any little inconvenience which our fads may cause you. They are not very exacting, after all. My wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and would like you to wear such a dress indoors in the morning. You need not, however, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one belonging to my dear daughter Alice (now in Philadelphia), which would, I should think, fit you very well. Then, as to sitting here or there, or amusing yourself in any manner indicated, that need cause you no inconvenience. As regards your hair, it is no doubt a pity, especially as I could not help remarking its beauty during our short interview, but I am afraid that I must remain firm upon this point, and I only hope that the increased salary may recompense you for the loss. Your duties, as far as the child is concerned, are very light. Now do try to come, and I shall meet you with the dogcart at Winchester. Let me know your train. Yours faithfully, ''JEPHRO RUCASTLE.' 'That is the letter which I have just received, Mr. Holmes, and my mind is made up that I will accept it. I thought, however, that before taking the final step I should like to submit the whole matter to your consideration. 'Well, Miss Hunter, if your mind is made up, that settles the question, said Holmes, smiling. 'But you would not advise me to refuse? 'I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to see a sister of mine apply for. 'What is the meaning of it all, Mr. Holmes? 'Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell. Perhaps you have yourself formed some opinion? 'Well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. Mr. Rucastle seemed to be a very kind, goodnatured man. Is it not possible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the matter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that he humours her fancies in every way in order to prevent an outbreak? 'That is a possible solutionin fact, as matters stand, it is the most probable one. But in any case it does not seem to be a nice household for a young lady. 'But the money, Mr. Holmes, the money! 'Well, yes, of course the pay is goodtoo good. That is what makes me uneasy. Why should they give you   a year, when they could have their pick for  ? There must be some strong reason behind. 'I thought that if I told you the circumstances you would understand afterwards if I wanted your help. I should feel so much stronger if I felt that you were at the back of me. 'Oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. I assure you that your little problem promises to be the most interesting which has come my way for some months. There is something distinctly novel about some of the features. If you should find yourself in doubt or in danger 'Danger! What danger do you foresee? Holmes shook his head gravely. 'It would cease to be a danger if we could define it, said he. 'But at any time, day or night, a telegram would bring me down to your help. 'That is enough. She rose briskly from her chair with the anxiety all swept from her face. 'I shall go down to Hampshire quite easy in my mind now. I shall write to Mr. Rucastle at once, sacrifice my poor hair tonight, and start for Winchester tomorrow. With a few grateful words to Holmes she bade us both goodnight and bustled off upon her way. 'At least, said I as we heard her quick, firm steps descending the stairs, 'she seems to be a young lady who is very well able to take care of herself. 'And she would need to be, said Holmes gravely. 'I am much mistaken if we do not hear from her before many days are past. It was not very long before my friend's prediction was fulfilled. A fortnight went by, during which I frequently found my thoughts turning in her direction and wondering what strange sidealley of human experience this lonely woman had strayed into. The unusual salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond my powers to determine. As to Holmes, I observed that he sat frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of his hand when I mentioned it. 'Data! data! data! he cried impatiently. 'I can't make bricks without clay. And yet he would always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever have accepted such a situation. The telegram which we eventually received came late one night just as I was thinking of turning in and Holmes was settling down to one of those allnight chemical researches which he frequently indulged in, when I would leave him stooping over a retort and a testtube at night and find him in the same position when I came down to breakfast in the morning. He opened the yellow envelope, and then, glancing at the message, threw it across to me. 'Just look up the trains in Bradshaw, said he, and turned back to his chemical studies. The summons was a brief and urgent one. 'Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday tomorrow, it said. 'Do come! I am at my wit's end. 'HUNTER. 'Will you come with me? asked Holmes, glancing up. 'I should wish to. 'Just look it up, then. 'There is a train at halfpast nine, said I, glancing over my Bradshaw. 'It is due at Winchester at . 'That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the morning. By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farmsteadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage. 'Are they not fresh and beautiful? I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. But Holmes shook his head gravely. 'Do you know, Watson, said he, 'that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there. 'Good heavens! I cried. 'Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads? 'They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. 'You horrify me! 'But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger. Still, it is clear that she is not personally threatened. 'No. If she can come to Winchester to meet us she can get away. 'Quite so. She has her freedom. 'What can be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation? 'I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no doubt find waiting for us. Well, there is the tower of the cathedral, and we shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has to tell. The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street, at no distance from the station, and there we found the young lady waiting for us. She had engaged a sittingroom, and our lunch awaited us upon the table. 'I am so delighted that you have come, she said earnestly. 'It is so very kind of you both but indeed I do not know what I should do. Your advice will be altogether invaluable to me. 'Pray tell us what has happened to you. 'I will do so, and I must be quick, for I have promised Mr. Rucastle to be back before three. I got his leave to come into town this morning, though he little knew for what purpose. 'Let us have everything in its due order. Holmes thrust his long thin legs out towards the fire and composed himself to listen. 'In the first place, I may say that I have met, on the whole, with no actual illtreatment from Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle. It is only fair to them to say that. But I cannot understand them, and I am not easy in my mind about them. 'What can you not understand? 'Their reasons for their conduct. But you shall have it all just as it occurred. When I came down, Mr. Rucastle met me here and drove me in his dogcart to the Copper Beeches. It is, as he said, beautifully situated, but it is not beautiful in itself, for it is a large square block of a house, whitewashed, but all stained and streaked with damp and bad weather. There are grounds round it, woods on three sides, and on the fourth a field which slopes down to the Southampton highroad, which curves past about a hundred yards from the front door. This ground in front belongs to the house, but the woods all round are part of Lord Southerton's preserves. A clump of copper beeches immediately in front of the hall door has given its name to the place. 'I was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever, and was introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child. There was no truth, Mr. Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to us to be probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is not mad. I found her to be a silent, palefaced woman, much younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think, while he can hardly be less than fortyfive. From their conversation I have gathered that they have been married about seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr. Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother. As the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with her father's young wife. 'Mrs. Rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as in feature. She impressed me neither favourably nor the reverse. She was a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately devoted both to her husband and to her little son. Her light grey eyes wandered continually from one to the other, noting every little want and forestalling it if possible. He was kind to her also in his bluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they seemed to be a happy couple. And yet she had some secret sorrow, this woman. She would often be lost in deep thought, with the saddest look upon her face. More than once I have surprised her in tears. I have thought sometimes that it was the disposition of her child which weighed upon her mind, for I have never met so utterly spoiled and so illnatured a little creature. He is small for his age, with a head which is quite disproportionately large. His whole life appears to be spent in an alternation between savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of sulking. Giving pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be his one idea of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in planning the capture of mice, little birds, and insects. But I would rather not talk about the creature, Mr. Holmes, and, indeed, he has little to do with my story. 'I am glad of all details, remarked my friend, 'whether they seem to you to be relevant or not. 'I shall try not to miss anything of importance. The one unpleasant thing about the house, which struck me at once, was the appearance and conduct of the servants. There are only two, a man and his wife. Toller, for that is his name, is a rough, uncouth man, with grizzled hair and whiskers, and a perpetual smell of drink. Twice since I have been with them he has been quite drunk, and yet Mr. Rucastle seemed to take no notice of it. His wife is a very tall and strong woman with a sour face, as silent as Mrs. Rucastle and much less amiable. They are a most unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of my time in the nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one corner of the building. 'For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life was very quiet on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after breakfast and whispered something to her husband. ''Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electricblue dress will become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely obliged.' 'The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it bore unmistakable signs of having been worn before. It could not have been a better fit if I had been measured for it. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which seemed quite exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for me in the drawingroom, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire front of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the floor. A chair had been placed close to the central window, with its back turned towards it. In this I was asked to sit, and then Mr. Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs. Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humour, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad, anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr. Rucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in the nursery. 'Two days later this same performance was gone through under exactly similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I sat in the window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny stories of which my employer had an immense rpertoire, and which he told inimitably. Then he handed me a yellowbacked novel, and moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for about ten minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and to change my dress. 'You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to what the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly be. They were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face away from the window, so that I became consumed with the desire to see what was going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be impossible, but I soon devised a means. My handmirror had been broken, so a happy thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of the glass in my handkerchief. On the next occasion, in the midst of my laughter, I put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able with a little management to see all that there was behind me. I confess that I was disappointed. There was nothing. At least that was my first impression. At the second glance, however, I perceived that there was a man standing in the Southampton Road, a small bearded man in a grey suit, who seemed to be looking in my direction. The road is an important highway, and there are usually people there. This man, however, was leaning against the railings which bordered our field and was looking earnestly up. I lowered my handkerchief and glanced at Mrs. Rucastle to find her eyes fixed upon me with a most searching gaze. She said nothing, but I am convinced that she had divined that I had a mirror in my hand and had seen what was behind me. She rose at once. ''Jephro,' said she, 'there is an impertinent fellow upon the road there who stares up at Miss Hunter.' ''No friend of yours, Miss Hunter?' he asked. ''No, I know no one in these parts.' ''Dear me! How very impertinent! Kindly turn round and motion to him to go away.' ''Surely it would be better to take no notice.' ''No, no, we should have him loitering here always. Kindly turn round and wave him away like that.' 'I did as I was told, and at the same instant Mrs. Rucastle drew down the blind. That was a week ago, and from that time I have not sat again in the window, nor have I worn the blue dress, nor seen the man in the road. 'Pray continue, said Holmes. 'Your narrative promises to be a most interesting one. 'You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may prove to be little relation between the different incidents of which I speak. On the very first day that I was at the Copper Beeches, Mr. Rucastle took me to a small outhouse which stands near the kitchen door. As we approached it I heard the sharp rattling of a chain, and the sound as of a large animal moving about. ''Look in here!' said Mr. Rucastle, showing me a slit between two planks. 'Is he not a beauty?' 'I looked through and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a vague figure huddled up in the darkness. ''Don't be frightened,' said my employer, laughing at the start which I had given. 'It's only Carlo, my mastiff. I call him mine, but really old Toller, my groom, is the only man who can do anything with him. We feed him once a day, and not too much then, so that he is always as keen as mustard. Toller lets him loose every night, and God help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs upon. For goodness' sake don't you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at night, for it's as much as your life is worth.' 'The warning was no idle one, for two nights later I happened to look out of my bedroom window about two o'clock in the morning. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the house was silvered over and almost as bright as day. I was standing, rapt in the peaceful beauty of the scene, when I was aware that something was moving under the shadow of the copper beeches. As it emerged into the moonshine I saw what it was. It was a giant dog, as large as a calf, tawny tinted, with hanging jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting bones. It walked slowly across the lawn and vanished into the shadow upon the other side. That dreadful sentinel sent a chill to my heart which I do not think that any burglar could have done. 'And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as you know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a great coil at the bottom of my trunk. One evening, after the child was in bed, I began to amuse myself by examining the furniture of my room and by rearranging my own little things. There was an old chest of drawers in the room, the two upper ones empty and open, the lower one locked. I had filled the first two with my linen, and as I had still much to pack away I was naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third drawer. It struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere oversight, so I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it. The very first key fitted to perfection, and I drew the drawer open. There was only one thing in it, but I am sure that you would never guess what it was. It was my coil of hair. 'I took it up and examined it. It was of the same peculiar tint, and the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing obtruded itself upon me. How could my hair have been locked in the drawer? With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the contents, and drew from the bottom my own hair. I laid the two tresses together, and I assure you that they were identical. Was it not extraordinary? Puzzle as I would, I could make nothing at all of what it meant. I returned the strange hair to the drawer, and I said nothing of the matter to the Rucastles as I felt that I had put myself in the wrong by opening a drawer which they had locked. 'I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes, and I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. There was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. A door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. One day, however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle coming out through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which made him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom I was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion. He locked the door and hurried past me without a word or a look. 'This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four of them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I strolled up and down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle came out to me, looking as merry and jovial as ever. ''Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you without a word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with business matters.' 'I assured him that I was not offended. 'By the way,' said I, 'you seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them has the shutters up.' 'He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled at my remark. ''Photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'I have made my dark room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we have come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever believed it?' He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as he looked at me. I read suspicion there and annoyance, but no jest. 'Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, I was all on fire to go over them. It was not mere curiosity, though I have my share of that. It was more a feeling of dutya feeling that some good might come from my penetrating to this place. They talk of woman's instinct perhaps it was woman's instinct which gave me that feeling. At any rate, it was there, and I was keenly on the lookout for any chance to pass the forbidden door. 'It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that, besides Mr. Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to do in these deserted rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large black linen bag with him through the door. Recently he has been drinking hard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk and when I came upstairs there was the key in the door. I have no doubt at all that he had left it there. Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle were both downstairs, and the child was with them, so that I had an admirable opportunity. I turned the key gently in the lock, opened the door, and slipped through. 'There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and uncarpeted, which turned at a right angle at the farther end. Round this corner were three doors in a line, the first and third of which were open. They each led into an empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two windows in the one and one in the other, so thick with dirt that the evening light glimmered dimly through them. The centre door was closed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one of the broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the wall, and fastened at the other with stout cord. The door itself was locked as well, and the key was not there. This barricaded door corresponded clearly with the shuttered window outside, and yet I could see by the glimmer from beneath it that the room was not in darkness. Evidently there was a skylight which let in light from above. As I stood in the passage gazing at the sinister door and wondering what secret it might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of steps within the room and saw a shadow pass backward and forward against the little slit of dim light which shone out from under the door. A mad, unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr. Holmes. My overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and ranran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door, and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting outside. ''So,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. I thought that it must be when I saw the door open.' ''Oh, I am so frightened!' I panted. ''My dear young lady! my dear young lady!'you cannot think how caressing and soothing his manner was'and what has frightened you, my dear young lady?' 'But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I was keenly on my guard against him. ''I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,' I answered. 'But it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was frightened and ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in there!' ''Only that?' said he, looking at me keenly. ''Why, what did you think?' I asked. ''Why do you think that I lock this door?' ''I am sure that I do not know.' ''It is to keep people out who have no business there. Do you see?' He was still smiling in the most amiable manner. ''I am sure if I had known' ''Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over that threshold again'here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon'I'll throw you to the mastiff.' 'I was so terrified that I do not know what I did. I suppose that I must have rushed past him into my room. I remember nothing until I found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I thought of you, Mr. Holmes. I could not live there longer without some advice. I was frightened of the house, of the man, of the woman, of the servants, even of the child. They were all horrible to me. If I could only bring you down all would be well. Of course I might have fled from the house, but my curiosity was almost as strong as my fears. My mind was soon made up. I would send you a wire. I put on my hat and cloak, went down to the office, which is about half a mile from the house, and then returned, feeling very much easier. A horrible doubt came into my mind as I approached the door lest the dog might be loose, but I remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of insensibility that evening, and I knew that he was the only one in the household who had any influence with the savage creature, or who would venture to set him free. I slipped in in safety and lay awake half the night in my joy at the thought of seeing you. I had no difficulty in getting leave to come into Winchester this morning, but I must be back before three o'clock, for Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle are going on a visit, and will be away all the evening, so that I must look after the child. Now I have told you all my adventures, Mr. Holmes, and I should be very glad if you could tell me what it all means, and, above all, what I should do. Holmes and I had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story. My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon his face. 'Is Toller still drunk? he asked. 'Yes. I heard his wife tell Mrs. Rucastle that she could do nothing with him. 'That is well. And the Rucastles go out tonight? 'Yes. 'Is there a cellar with a good strong lock? 'Yes, the winecellar. 'You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter. Do you think that you could perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not think you a quite exceptional woman. 'I will try. What is it? 'We shall be at the Copper Beeches by seven o'clock, my friend and I. The Rucastles will be gone by that time, and Toller will, we hope, be incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might give the alarm. If you could send her into the cellar on some errand, and then turn the key upon her, you would facilitate matters immensely. 'I will do it. 'Excellent! We shall then look thoroughly into the affair. Of course there is only one feasible explanation. You have been brought there to personate someone, and the real person is imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious. As to who this prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to America. You were chosen, doubtless, as resembling her in height, figure, and the colour of your hair. Hers had been cut off, very possibly in some illness through which she has passed, and so, of course, yours had to be sacrificed also. By a curious chance you came upon her tresses. The man in the road was undoubtedly some friend of herspossibly her fiancand no doubt, as you wore the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced from your laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your gesture, that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no longer desired his attentions. The dog is let loose at night to prevent him from endeavouring to communicate with her. So much is fairly clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition of the child. 'What on earth has that to do with it? I ejaculated. 'My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children. This child's disposition is abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty's sake, and whether he derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their power. 'I am sure that you are right, Mr. Holmes, cried our client. 'A thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you have hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to this poor creature. 'We must be circumspect, for we are dealing with a very cunning man. We can do nothing until seven o'clock. At that hour we shall be with you, and it will not be long before we solve the mystery. We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we reached the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside publichouse. The group of trees, with their dark leaves shining like burnished metal in the light of the setting sun, were sufficient to mark the house even had Miss Hunter not been standing smiling on the doorstep. 'Have you managed it? asked Holmes. A loud thudding noise came from somewhere downstairs. 'That is Mrs. Toller in the cellar, said she. 'Her husband lies snoring on the kitchen rug. Here are his keys, which are the duplicates of Mr. Rucastle's. 'You have done well indeed! cried Holmes with enthusiasm. 'Now lead the way, and we shall soon see the end of this black business. We passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a passage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which Miss Hunter had described. Holmes cut the cord and removed the transverse bar. Then he tried the various keys in the lock, but without success. No sound came from within, and at the silence Holmes' face clouded over. 'I trust that we are not too late, said he. 'I think, Miss Hunter, that we had better go in without you. Now, Watson, put your shoulder to it, and we shall see whether we cannot make our way in. It was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united strength. Together we rushed into the room. It was empty. There was no furniture save a little pallet bed, a small table, and a basketful of linen. The skylight above was open, and the prisoner gone. 'There has been some villainy here, said Holmes 'this beauty has guessed Miss Hunter's intentions and has carried his victim off. 'But how? 'Through the skylight. We shall soon see how he managed it. He swung himself up onto the roof. 'Ah, yes, he cried, 'here's the end of a long light ladder against the eaves. That is how he did it. 'But it is impossible, said Miss Hunter 'the ladder was not there when the Rucastles went away. 'He has come back and done it. I tell you that he is a clever and dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were he whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it would be as well for you to have your pistol ready. The words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at the door of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy stick in his hand. Miss Hunter screamed and shrunk against the wall at the sight of him, but Sherlock Holmes sprang forward and confronted him. 'You villain! said he, 'where's your daughter? The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open skylight. 'It is for me to ask you that, he shrieked, 'you thieves! Spies and thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power. I'll serve you! He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he could go. 'He's gone for the dog! cried Miss Hunter. 'I have my revolver, said I. 'Better close the front door, cried Holmes, and we all rushed down the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we heard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a horrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. An elderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out at a side door. 'My God! he cried. 'Someone has loosed the dog. It's not been fed for two days. Quick, quick, or it'll be too late! Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with Toller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its black muzzle buried in Rucastle's throat, while he writhed and screamed upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, and it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great creases of his neck. With much labour we separated them and carried him, living but horribly mangled, into the house. We laid him upon the drawingroom sofa, and having dispatched the sobered Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to relieve his pain. We were all assembled round him when the door opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room. 'Mrs. Toller! cried Miss Hunter. 'Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before he went up to you. Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me know what you were planning, for I would have told you that your pains were wasted. 'Ha! said Holmes, looking keenly at her. 'It is clear that Mrs. Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else. 'Yes, sir, I do, and I am ready enough to tell what I know. 'Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark. 'I will soon make it clear to you, said she 'and I'd have done so before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's policecourt business over this, you'll remember that I was the one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend too. 'She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the time that her father married again. She was slighted like and had no say in anything, but it never really became bad for her until after she met Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I could learn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them but just left everything in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he was safe with her but when there was a chance of a husband coming forward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, then her father thought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her to sign a paper, so that whether she married or not, he could use her money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on worrying her until she got brainfever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Then she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her beautiful hair cut off but that didn't make no change in her young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be. 'Ah, said Holmes, 'I think that what you have been good enough to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this system of imprisonment? 'Yes, sir. 'And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler. 'That was it, sir. 'But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your interests were the same as his. 'Mr. Fowler was a very kindspoken, freehanded gentleman, said Mrs. Toller serenely. 'And in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your master had gone out. 'You have it, sir, just as it happened. 'I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller, said Holmes, 'for you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think, Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a questionable one. And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their flight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.
CHAPTER I. Civilizing Huck.Miss Watson.Tom Sawyer Waits. CHAPTER II. The Boys Escape Jim.Torn Sawyer's Gang.Deeplaid Plans. CHAPTER III. A Good Goingover.Grace Triumphant.'One of Tom Sawyers's Lies. CHAPTER IV. Huck and the Judge.Superstition. CHAPTER V. Huck's Father.The Fond Parent.Reform. CHAPTER VI. He Went for Judge Thatcher.Huck Decided to Leave.Political Economy.Thrashing Around. CHAPTER VII. Laying for Him.Locked in the Cabin.Sinking the Body.Resting. CHAPTER VIII. Sleeping in the Woods.Raising the Dead.Exploring the Island.Finding Jim.Jim's Escape.Signs.Balum. CHAPTER IX. The Cave.The Floating House. CHAPTER X. The Find.Old Hank Bunker.In Disguise. CHAPTER XI. Huck and the Woman.The Search.Prevarication.Going to Goshen. CHAPTER XII. Slow Navigation.Borrowing Things.Boarding the Wreck.The Plotters.Hunting for the Boat. CHAPTER XIII. Escaping from the Wreck.The Watchman.Sinking. CHAPTER XIV. A General Good Time.The Harem.French. CHAPTER XV. Huck Loses the Raft.In the Fog.Huck Finds the Raft.Trash. CHAPTER XVI. Expectation.A White Lie.Floating Currency.Running by Cairo.Swimming Ashore. CHAPTER XVII. An Evening Call.The Farm in Arkansaw.Interior Decorations.Stephen Dowling Bots.Poetical Effusions. CHAPTER XVIII. Col. Grangerford.Aristocracy.Feuds.The Testament.Recovering the Raft.The Woodpile.Pork and Cabbage. CHAPTER XIX. Tying Up Daytimes.An Astronomical Theory.Running a Temperance Revival.The Duke of Bridgewater.The Troubles of Royalty. CHAPTER XX. Huck Explains.Laying Out a Campaign.Working the Campmeeting.A Pirate at the Campmeeting.The Duke as a Printer. CHAPTER XXI. Sword Exercise.Hamlet's Soliloquy.They Loafed Around Town.A Lazy Town.Old Boggs.Dead. CHAPTER XXII. Sherburn.Attending the Circus.Intoxication in the Ring.The Thrilling Tragedy. CHAPTER XXIII. Sold.Royal Comparisons.Jim Gets Homesick. CHAPTER XXIV. Jim in Royal Robes.They Take a Passenger.Getting Information.Family Grief. CHAPTER XXV. Is It Them?Singing the 'Doxologer.Awful SquareFuneral Orgies.A Bad Investment . CHAPTER XXVI. A Pious King.The King's Clergy.She Asked His Pardon.Hiding in the Room.Huck Takes the Money. CHAPTER XXVII. The Funeral.Satisfying Curiosity.Suspicious of Huck,Quick Sales and Small. CHAPTER XXVIII. The Trip to England.'The Brute!Mary Jane Decides to Leave.Huck Parting with Mary Jane.Mumps.The Opposition Line. CHAPTER XXIX. Contested Relationship.The King Explains the Loss.A Question of Handwriting.Digging up the Corpse.Huck Escapes. CHAPTER XXX. The King Went for Him.A Royal Row.Powerful Mellow. CHAPTER XXXI. Ominous Plans.News from Jim.Old Recollections.A Sheep Story.Valuable Information. CHAPTER XXXII. Still and Sundaylike.Mistaken Identity.Up a Stump.In a Dilemma. CHAPTER XXXIII. A Nigger Stealer.Southern Hospitality.A Pretty Long Blessing.Tar and Feathers. CHAPTER XXXIV. The Hut by the Ash Hopper.Outrageous.Climbing the Lightning Rod.Troubled with Witches. CHAPTER XXXV. Escaping Properly.Dark Schemes.Discrimination in Stealing.A Deep Hole. CHAPTER XXXVI. The Lightning Rod.His Level Best.A Bequest to Posterity.A High Figure. CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last Shirt.Mooning Around.Sailing Orders.The Witch Pie. CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Coat of Arms.A Skilled Superintendent.Unpleasant Glory.A Tearful Subject. CHAPTER XXXIX. Rats.Lively Bedfellows.The Straw Dummy. CHAPTER XL. Fishing.The Vigilance Committee.A Lively Run.Jim Advises a Doctor. CHAPTER XLI. The Doctor.Uncle Silas.Sister Hotchkiss.Aunt Sally in Trouble. CHAPTER XLII. Tom Sawyer Wounded.The Doctor's Story.Tom Confesses.Aunt Polly Arrives.Hand Out Them Letters. CHAPTER THE LAST. Out of Bondage.Paying the Captive.Yours Truly, Huck Finn. The Widows Moses and the 'Bulrushers Miss Watson Huck Stealing Away They Tiptoed Along Jim Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers Huck Creeps into his Window Miss Watson's Lecture The Robbers Dispersed Rubbing the Lamp ! ! ! ! Judge Thatcher surprised Jim Listening 'Pap Huck and his Father Reforming the Drunkard Falling from Grace Getting out of the Way Solid Comfort Thinking it Over Raising a Howl 'Git Up The Shanty Shooting the Pig Taking a Rest In the Woods Watching the Boat Discovering the Camp Fire Jim and the Ghost Misto Bradish's Nigger Exploring the Cave In the Cave Jim sees a Dead Man They Found Eight Dollars Jim and the Snake Old Hank Bunker 'A Fair Fit 'Come In 'Him and another Man She puts up a Snack 'Hump Yourself On the Raft He sometimes Lifted a Chicken 'Please don't, Bill 'It ain't Good Morals 'Oh! Lordy, Lordy! In a Fix 'Hello, What's Up? The Wreck We turned in and Slept Turning over the Truck Solomon and his Million Wives The story of 'Sollermun 'We Would Sell the Raft Among the Snags Asleep on the Raft 'Something being Raftsman 'Boy, that's a Lie 'Here I is, Huck Climbing up the Bank 'Who's There? 'Buck 'It made Her look Spidery 'They got him out and emptied Him The House Col. Grangerford Young Harney Shepherdson Miss Charlotte 'And asked me if I Liked Her 'Behind the Woodpile Hiding Daytimes 'And Dogs aComing 'By rights I am a Duke! 'I am the Late Dauphin Tail Piece On the Raft The King as Juliet 'Courting on the Sly 'A Pirate for Thirty Years Another little Job Practizing Hamlet's Soliloquy 'Gimme a Chaw A Little Monthly Drunk The Death of Boggs Sherburn steps out A Dead Head He shed Seventeen Suits Tragedy Their Pockets Bulged Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor Harmless Adolphus He fairly emptied that Young Fellow 'Alas, our Poor Brother 'You Bet it is Leaking Making up the 'Deffisit Going for him The Doctor The Bag of Money The Cubby Supper with the HareLip Honest Injun The Duke looks under the Bed Huck takes the Money A Crack in the Diningroom Door The Undertaker 'He had a Rat! 'Was you in my Room? Jawing In Trouble Indignation How to Find Them He Wrote Hannah with the Mumps The Auction The True Brothers The Doctor leads Huck The Duke Wrote 'Gentlemen, Gentlemen! 'Jim Lit Out The King shakes Huck The Duke went for Him Spanish Moss 'Who Nailed Him? Thinking He gave him Ten Cents Striking for the Back Country Still and Sundaylike She hugged him tight 'Who do you reckon it is? 'It was Tom Sawyer 'Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume? A pretty long Blessing Traveling By Rail Vittles A Simple Job Witches Getting Wood One of the Best Authorities The BreakfastHorn Smouching the Knives Going down the LightningRod Stealing spoons Tom advises a Witch Pie The RubbagePile 'Missus, dey's a Sheet Gone In a Tearing Way One of his Ancestors Jim's Coat of Arms A Tough Job Buttons on their Tails Irrigation Keeping off Dull Times Sawdust Diet Trouble is Brewing Fishing Every one had a Gun Tom caught on a Splinter Jim advises a Doctor The Doctor Uncle Silas in Danger Old Mrs. Hotchkiss Aunt Sally talks to Huck Tom Sawyer wounded The Doctor speaks for Jim Tom rose square up in Bed 'Hand out them Letters Out of Bondage Tom's Liberality Yours Truly EXPLANATORY In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit the Missouri negro dialect the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect the ordinary 'Pike County dialect and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. THE AUTHOR. Scene The Mississippi Valley Time Forty to fifty years ago CHAPTER I. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt PollyTom's Aunt Polly, she isand Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before. Now the way that the book winds up is this Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apieceall gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year roundmore than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugarhogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better. After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was abothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too of course that was all right, because she done it herself. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spellingbook. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, 'Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry and 'Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberryset up straight and pretty soon she would say, 'Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberrywhy don't you try to behave? Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said said she wouldn't say it for the whole world she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful and I heard an owl, away off, whowhooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so downhearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider. I set down again, ashaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boomboomboomtwelve licks and all still againstiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the treessomething was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a 'meyow! meyow! down there. That was good! Says I, 'meyow! meyow! as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me. CHAPTER II. We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says 'Who dah? He listened some more then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it and then my ear begun to itch and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepyif you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says 'Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin. So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy next he begun to snoreand then I was pretty soon comfortable again. Tom he made a sign to mekind of a little noise with his mouthand we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddleboils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, 'Hm! What you know 'bout witches? and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that fivecenter piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that fivecenter piece but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says 'Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood. Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of piratebooks and robberbooks, and every gang that was hightoned had it. Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says 'Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family what you going to do 'bout him? 'Well, hain't he got a father? says Tom Sawyer. 'Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more. They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to doeverybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watsonthey could kill her. Everybody said 'Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in. Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper. 'Now, says Ben Rogers, 'what's the line of business of this Gang? 'Nothing only robbery and murder, Tom said. 'But who are we going to rob?houses, or cattle, or 'Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery it's burglary, says Tom Sawyer. 'We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money. 'Must we always kill the people? 'Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill themexcept some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed. 'Ransomed? What's that? 'I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books and so of course that's what we've got to do. 'But how can we do it if we don't know what it is? 'Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up? 'Oh, that's all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them?that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is? 'Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead. 'Now, that's something like. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death and a bothersome lot they'll be, tooeating up everything, and always trying to get loose. 'How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg? 'A guard! Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here? 'Because it ain't in the books sothat's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don't you?that's the idea. Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can learn 'em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way. 'All right. I don't mind but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too? 'Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more. 'Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say. Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any more. So they all made fun of him, and called him crybaby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people. Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home. I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dogtired. CHAPTER III. Well, I got a good goingover in the morning from old Miss Watson on account of my clothes but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fishline, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way. I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was 'spiritual gifts. This was too many for me, but she told me what she meantI must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about itexcept for the other people so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was agoing to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of lowdown and ornery. Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he wouldn't. We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hogdrivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs 'ingots, and he called the turnips and stuff 'julery, and we would go to the cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich Arabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand 'sumter mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a turnipcart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and Arabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and Arabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It warn't anything but a Sundayschool picnic, and only a primerclass at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymnbook and a tract and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway and he said there was Arabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sundayschool, just out of spite. I said, all right then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull. 'Why, said he, 'a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church. 'Well, I says, 's'pose we got some genies to help uscan't we lick the other crowd then? 'How you going to get them? 'I don't know. How do they get them? 'Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning aripping around and the smoke arolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shottower up by the roots, and belting a Sundayschool superintendent over the head with itor any other man. 'Who makes them tear around so? 'Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full of chewinggum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do itand they've got to do it before sunup next morning, too. And more they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand. 'Well, says I, 'I think they are a pack of flatheads for not keeping the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's moreif I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp. 'How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not. 'What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then I would come but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country. 'Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to know anything, somehowperfect saphead. I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it but it warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the Arabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a Sundayschool. CHAPTER IV. Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirtyfive, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway. At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me. One morning I happened to turn over the saltcellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, 'Take your hands away, Huckleberry what a mess you are always making! The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along lowspirited and on the watchout. I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left bootheel made with big nails, to keep off the devil. I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said 'Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest? 'No, sir, I says 'is there some for me? 'Oh, yes, a halfyearly is in last nightover a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it. 'No, sir, I says, 'I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at allnor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it I want to give it to youthe six thousand and all. He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says 'Why, what can you mean, my boy? I says, 'Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take itwon't you? He says 'Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter? 'Please take it, says I, 'and don't ask me nothingthen I won't have to tell no lies. He studied a while, and then he says 'Ohoo! I think I see. You want to sell all your property to menot give it. That's the correct idea. Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says 'There you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it. So I signed it, and left. Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hairball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hairball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hairball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hairball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hairball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it. Jim put the quarter under the hairball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hairball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hairball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says 'Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's agwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick but every time you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung. When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his own self! CHAPTER V. I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too but in a minute I see I was mistakenthat is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothring about. He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray so was his long, mixedup whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed it was white not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawla treetoad white, a fishbelly white. As for his clothesjust rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the flooran old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid. I stood alooking at him he set there alooking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept alooking me all over. By and by he says 'Starchy clothesvery. You think you're a good deal of a bigbug, don't you? 'Maybe I am, maybe I ain't, I says. 'Don't you give me none o' your lip, says he. 'You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they saycan read and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?who told you you could? 'The widow. She told me. 'The widow, hey?and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business? 'Nobody never told her. 'Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky hereyou drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't before they died. I can't and here you're aswelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand ityou hear? Say, lemme hear you read. I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says 'It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son. He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says 'What's this? 'It's something they give me for learning my lessons good. He tore it up, and says 'I'll give you something betterI'll give you a cowhide. He set there amumbling and agrowling a minute, and then he says 'Ain't you a sweetscented dandy, though? A bed and bedclothes and a look'n'glass and a piece of carpet on the floorand your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airsthey say you're rich. Hey?how's that? 'They liethat's how. 'Looky heremind how you talk to me I'm astanding about all I can stand nowso don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money tomorrowI want it. 'I hain't got no money. 'It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it. 'I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher he'll tell you the same. 'All right. I'll ask him and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it. 'I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to 'It don't make no difference what you want it foryou just shell it out. He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that. Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him. The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man so he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business. That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went ablowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him. When he got out the new judge said he was agoing to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life but now he was agoing to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him for them words so he cried, and his wife she cried again pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so so they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says 'Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all take ahold of it shake it. There's a hand that was the hand of a hog but it ain't so no more it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before he'll go back. You mark them wordsdon't forget I said them. It's a clean hand now shake itdon't be afeard. So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledgemade his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porchroof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of fortyrod, and clumb back again and had a good old time and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sunup. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it. The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way. CHAPTER VI. Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a slow businessappeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money he got drunk and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suitedthis kind of thing was right in his line. He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn't he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was. He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked itall but the cowhide part. It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing, because the widow didn't like it but now I took to it again because pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around. But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't ever going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it big enough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly it was too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this time I found something at last I found an old rusty woodsaw without any handle it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horseblanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log outbig enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in. Pap warn't in a good humorso he was his natural self. He said he was down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them what'shisname when he got to them, and went right along with his cussing. He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that chance. The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got. There was a fiftypound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon, ammunition, and a fourgallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded. I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adamhe was just all mud. Whenever his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says 'Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law astanding ready to take a man's son away from hima man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call that govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law does The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I told 'em so I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come anear it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hatif you call it a hatbut the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o' stovepipe. Look at it, says Isuch a hat for me to wearone of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights. 'Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohioa mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silverheaded canethe awfulest old grayheaded nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could vote when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country acoming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said they all heard me and the country may rot for all meI'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that niggerwhy, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold?that's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, nowthat's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stockstill for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, whiteshirted free nigger, and Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of languagemostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe. After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets by and by but luck didn't run my way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning. I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheekbut I couldn't see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering 'Take him off! take him off! he's biting me on the neck! I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils ahold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low 'Tramptramptramp that's the dead tramptramptramp they're coming after me but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch medon't! hands offthey're cold let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone! Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still abegging and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket. By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a claspknife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged, and told him I was only Huck but he laughed such a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone but I slid out of the jacket quick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who. So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old splitbottom chair and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did drag along. CHAPTER VII. 'Git up! What you 'bout? I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It was after sunup, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me looking sour and sick, too. He says 'What you doin' with this gun? I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says 'Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him. 'Why didn't you roust me out? 'Well, I tried to, but I couldn't I couldn't budge you. 'Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a minute. He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the riverbank. I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be always luck for me because as soon as that rise begins here comes cordwood floating down, and pieces of log raftssometimes a dozen logs together so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the woodyards and the sawmill. I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck. I shot headfirst off of the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It was a driftcanoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees thisshe's worth ten dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows, I struck another idea I judged I'd hide her good, and then, 'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot. It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time but I got her hid and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen anything. When he got along I was hard at it taking up a 'trot line. He abused me a little for being so slow but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines and went home. While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no way for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water, and he says 'Another time a man comes aprowling round here you roust me out, you hear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you roust me out, you hear? Then he dropped down and went to sleep again but what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody won't think of following me. About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By and by along comes part of a log raftnine logs fast together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs was enough for one time he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about halfpast three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log again. Before he was t'other side of the river I was out of the hole him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder. I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in then I done the same with the side of bacon then the whiskyjug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition I took the wadding I took the bucket and gourd I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffeepot. I took fishlines and matches and other thingseverything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done. I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice it and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there. It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp. I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it considerable adoing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down on the ground to bleed I say ground because it was groundhard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in itall I could dragand I started it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that. Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the placepap done everything with his claspknife about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushesand ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again. It was about dark now so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All right I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place. I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs that went aslipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late. You know what I meanI don't know the words to put it in. I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peeped out through the willow branches, and there it wasa skiff, away across the water. I couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept acoming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it. Think's I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me with the current, and by and by he came aswinging up shore in the easy water, and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him. Well, it was pap, sure enoughand sober, too, by the way he laid his oars. I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was aspinning down stream soft but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, tooevery word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T'other one said this warn't one of the short ones, he reckonedand then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh he ripped out something brisk, and said let him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his old womanshe would think it was pretty good but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further away, and I couldn't make out the words any more but I could hear the mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off. I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy timbered and standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar at the headit was all under water now. It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about I had to part the willow branches to get in and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe from the outside. I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A monstrous big lumberraft was about a mile up stream, coming along down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, 'Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard! I heard that just as plain as if the man was by my side. There was a little gray in the sky now so I stepped into the woods, and laid down for a nap before breakfast. CHAPTER VIII. The sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly. I was powerful lazy and comfortabledidn't want to get up and cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep sound of 'boom! away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow and listens pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways upabout abreast the ferry. And there was the ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the matter now. 'Boom! I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carcass come to the top. I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the cannonsmoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morningso I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the shoreI knowed enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was 'baker's breadwhat the quality eat none of your lowdown cornpone. I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching the bread and watching the ferryboat, and very well satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thingthat is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind. I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the log forked I could peep through. By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says 'Look sharp, now the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so, anyway. I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see them firstrate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out 'Stand away! and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. The island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town. I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come ahunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast. When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome you can't stay so, you soon get over it. And so for three days and nights. No differencejust the same thing. But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I was boss of it it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime and green summer grapes, and green razberries and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They would all come handy by and by, I judged. Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing it was for protection thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a goodsized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking. My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened again and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in my craw but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree. I reckon I was up in the tree two hours but I didn't see nothing, I didn't hear nothingI only thought I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast. By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois bankabout a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all night when I hear a plunketyplunk, plunketyplunk, and says to myself, horses coming and next I hear people's voices. I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I hear a man say 'We better camp here if we can find a good place the horses is about beat out. Let's look around. I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe. I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't do me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way I'm agoing to find out who it is that's here on the island with me I'll find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off. So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her nose to shore then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck somehow I couldn't seem to find the place. But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fantods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes, in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says 'Hello, Jim! and skipped out. He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees, and puts his hands together and says 'Doan' hurt medon't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz awluz yo' fren'. Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn't lonesome now. I told him I warn't afraid of him telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only set there and looked at me never said nothing. Then I says 'It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast. Make up your camp fire good. 'What's de use er makin' up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich truck? But you got a gun, hain't you? Den we kin git sumfn better den strawbries. 'Strawberries and such truck, I says. 'Is that what you live on? 'I couldn' git nuffn else, he says. 'Why, how long you been on the island, Jim? 'I come heah de night arter you's killed. 'What, all that time? 'Yesindeedy. 'And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat? 'No, sahnuffn else. 'Well, you must be most starved, ain't you? 'I reck'n I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de islan'? 'Since the night I got killed. 'No! W'y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a gun. Dat's good. Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire. So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and coffee, and coffeepot and fryingpan, and sugar and tin cups, and the nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with his knife, and fried him. When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By and by Jim says 'But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it warn't you? Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says 'How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here? He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he says 'Maybe I better not tell. 'Why, Jim? 'Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I uz to tell you, would you, Huck? 'Blamed if I would, Jim. 'Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. II run off. 'Jim! 'But mind, you said you wouldn' tellyou know you said you wouldn' tell, Huck. 'Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest injun, I will. People would call me a lowdown Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mumbut that don't make no difference. I ain't agoing to tell, and I ain't agoing back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about it. 'Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole missusdat's Miss Watsonshe pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you. 'I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people astirring yit, so I hid in de ole tumbledown coopershop on de bank to wait for everybody to go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time. 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er nine every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over to de town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en genlmen agoin' over for to see de place. Sometimes dey'd pull up at de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to know all 'bout de killin'. I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain't no mo' now. 'I laid dah under de shavin's all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't afeard bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to de campmeet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de evenin'. De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en take holiday soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way. 'Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine 'bout what I's agwyne to do. You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot, de dogs 'ud track me ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de yuther side, en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's arter it doan' make no track. 'I see a light acomin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove' a log ahead o' me en swum more'n half way acrost de river, en got in 'mongst de driftwood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck aholt. It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while. So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz arisin', en dey wuz a good current so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd be twentyfive mile down de river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo' daylight en swim asho', en take to de woods on de Illinois side. 'But I didn' have no luck. When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de islan' a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn't no use fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan'. Well, I had a notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but I couldn'tbank too bluff. I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I found' a good place. I went into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey move de lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er dogleg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right. 'And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why didn't you get mudturkles? 'How you gwyne to git 'm? You can't slip up on um en grab um en how's a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night? En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime. 'Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon? 'Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heahwatched um thoo de bushes. Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did. And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the tablecloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sunup next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots but I didn't believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me. I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them. Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if there warn't any goodluck signs. He says 'Mighty fewan' dey ain't no use to a body. What you want to know when good luck's acomin' for? Want to keep it off? And he said 'Ef you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's agwyne to be rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat, 'kase it's so fur ahead. You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust, en so you might git discourage' en kill yo'sef 'f you didn' know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby. 'Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim? 'What's de use to ax dat question? Don't you see I has? 'Well, are you rich? 'No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out. 'What did you speculate in, Jim? 'Well, fust I tackled stock. 'What kind of stock? 'Why, live stockcattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I ain' gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock. De cow up 'n' died on my han's. 'So you lost the ten dollars. 'No, I didn't lose it all. I on'y los' 'bout nine of it. I sole de hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents. 'You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more? 'Yes. You know that onelaigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar would git fo' dollars mo' at de en' er de year. Well, all de niggers went in, but dey didn't have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd start a bank mysef. Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er de business, bekase he says dey warn't business 'nough for two banks, so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirtyfive at de en' er de year. 'So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirtyfive dollars right off en keep things amovin'. Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had ketched a woodflat, en his marster didn' know it en I bought it off'n him en told him to take de thirtyfive dollars when de en' er de year come but somebody stole de woodflat dat night, en nex day de onelaigged nigger say de bank's busted. So dey didn' none uv us git no money. 'What did you do with the ten cents, Jim? 'Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me to give it to a nigger name' BalumBalum's Ass dey call him for short he's one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he's lucky, dey say, en I see I warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po' len' to de Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd times. So Balum he tuck en give de ten cents to de po', en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to come of it. 'Well, what did come of it, Jim? 'Nuffn never come of it. I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way en Balum he couldn'. I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de security. Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says! Ef I could git de ten cents back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de chanst. 'Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again some time or other. 'Yes en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'. CHAPTER IX. I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I'd found when I was exploring so we started and soon got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time. Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet? So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner. The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner. We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten so the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blueblack outside, and lovely and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spiderwebby and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackestFST! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of treetops aplunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairswhere it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know. 'Jim, this is nice, I says. 'I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot cornbread. 'Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile. The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old distance acrossa half a milebecause the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs. Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old brokendown tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to but not the snakes and turtlesthey would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them. We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them. One night we catched a little section of a lumber raftnice pine planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood above water six or seven inchesa solid, level floor. We could see sawlogs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go we didn't show ourselves in daylight. Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here comes a framehouse down, on the west side. She was a twostory, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got aboardclumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight. The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says 'Hello, you! But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says 'De man ain't asleephe's dead. You hold stillI'll go en see. He went, and bent down and looked, and says 'It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy naked, too. He's ben shot in de back. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his faceit's too gashly. I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he needn't done it I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal. There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sunbonnet, and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoeit might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account. The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff. We got an old tin lantern, and a butcherknife without any handle, and a brannew Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dogcollar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good currycomb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddlebow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the other one, though we hunted all around. And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. We got home all safe. CHAPTER X. After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad luck and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go aha'nting around than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more but I couldn't keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for. We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I reckoned they killed him, too but Jim didn't want to talk about that. I says 'Now you think it's bad luck but what did you say when I fetched in the snakeskin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snakeskin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim. 'Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart. It's acomin'. Mind I tell you, it's acomin'. It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him. He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whiskyjug and begun to pour it down. He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too. He said that that would help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes for I warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it. Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky. Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take aholt of a snakeskin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snakeskin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snakeskin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shottower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool. Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course he would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the markethouse there everybody buys some of him his meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry. Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouserlegs to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the sunbonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stovepipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britchespocket. I took notice, and done better. I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark. I started across to the town from a little below the ferrylanding, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I tied up and started along the bank. There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know her face she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know. Now this was lucky, because I was weakening I was getting afraid I had come people might know my voice and find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to know so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl. CHAPTER XI. 'Come in, says the woman, and I did. She says 'Take a cheer. I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says 'What might your name be? 'Sarah Williams. 'Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?' 'No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've walked all the way and I'm all tired out. 'Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something. 'No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below here at a farm so I ain't hungry no more. It's what makes me so late. My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him? 'No but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet. 'No, I says 'I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't afeared of the dark. She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting well aloneand so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in the town but by and by she dropped on to pap and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says 'Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on down in Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn. 'Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that'd like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself. 'Nois that so? 'Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim. 'Why he I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never noticed I had put in at all 'The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a reward out for himthree hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for old Finn, tootwo hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boohooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hardlooking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he don't come back for a year he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on him, you know everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing. 'Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody quit thinking the nigger done it? 'Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him. 'Why, are they after him yet? 'Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain't far from here. I'm one of thembut I hain't talked it around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't anybody live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there anyway, says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him but husband's going over to seehim and another man. He was gone up the river but he got back today, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago. I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my hands so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interestedand I was, tooand says 'Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get it. Is your husband going over there tonight? 'Oh, yes. He went uptown with the man I was telling you of, to get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over after midnight. 'Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime? 'Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight he'll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one. 'I didn't think of that. The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says, 'What did you say your name was, honey? 'MMary Williams. Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't look upseemed to me I said it was Sarah so I felt sort of cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would say something more the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But now she says 'Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in? 'Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary. 'Oh, that's the way of it? 'Yes'm. I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I couldn't look up yet. Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged away at a rat but she missed him wide, and said 'Ouch! it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was firstrate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off to say 'Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap, handy. So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very pleasant, and says 'Come, now, what's your real name? 'Whwhat, mum? 'What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?or what is it? I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do. But I says 'Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the way here, I'll 'No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your secret, and trust me. I'll keep it and, what's more, I'll help you. So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway 'prentice, that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it. You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good boy. So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had aplenty. I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen. 'Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen? 'Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen. 'He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong. 'Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight. 'Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it. So she put me up a snack, and says 'Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer up prompt nowdon't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first? 'The hind end, mum. 'Well, then, a horse? 'The for'rard end, mum. 'Which side of a tree does the moss grow on? 'North side. 'If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction? 'The whole fifteen, mum. 'Well, I reckon you have lived in the country. I thought maybe you was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now? 'George Peters, mum. 'Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it hold the needle still and poke the thread at it that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiffarmed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon. I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went upstream far enough to make the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the sunbonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens the sound come faint over the water but cleareleven. When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started a good fire there on a high and dry spot. Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on the ground. I roused him out and says 'Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're after us! Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word but the way he worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By that time everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a candle outside after that. I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look but if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows ain't good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the shade, past the foot of the island dead stillnever saying a word. CHAPTER XII. It must a been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to come along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois shore and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever thought to put the gun in the canoe, or a fishingline, or anything to eat. We was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things. It warn't good judgment to put everything on the raft. If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp fire I built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn't no fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could. When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there had been a cavein in the bank there. A towhead is a sandbar that has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrowteeth. We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there all day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and upbound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman and Jim said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she wouldn't set down and watch a camp fireno, sir, she'd fetch a dog. Well, then, I said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog? Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he believed they must a gone uptown to get a dog and so they lost all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen mile below the villageno, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again. So I said I didn't care what was the reason they didn't get us as long as they didn't. When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across nothing in sight so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for to hold it to its place this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steeringoar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming downstream, to keep from getting run over but we wouldn't have to light it for upstream boats unless we see we was in what they call a 'crossing for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water so upbound boats didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy water. This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughedonly a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at allthat night, nor the next, nor the next. Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. There warn't a sound there everybody was asleep. Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway. Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time but the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any morethen he reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. We warn't feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet. We shot a waterfowl now and then that got up too early in the morning or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we lived pretty high. The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight, with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself. When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight river ahead, and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By and by says I, 'Hello, Jim, looky yonder! It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed her very distinct. She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck above water, and you could see every little chimblyguy clean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it, when the flashes come. Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so mysteriouslike, I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I see that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and see what there was there. So I says 'Le's land on her, Jim. But Jim was dead against it at first. He says 'I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame' well, en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like as not dey's a watchman on dat wrack. 'Watchman your grandmother, I says 'there ain't nothing to watch but the texas and the pilothouse and do you reckon anybody's going to resk his life for a texas and a pilothouse such a night as this, when it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute? Jim couldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try. 'And besides, I says, 'we might borrow something worth having out of the captain's stateroom. Seegars, I bet youand cost five cents apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and they don't care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in your pocket I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an adventurethat's what he'd call it and he'd land on that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style into it?wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing? Why, you'd think it was Christopher C'lumbus discovering KingdomCome. I wish Tom Sawyer was here. Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning showed us the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, and made fast there. The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it to labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with our feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the forward end of the skylight, and clumb on to it and the next step fetched us in front of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away down through the texashall we see a light! and all in the same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder! Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to come along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft but just then I heard a voice wail out and say 'Oh, please don't, boys I swear I won't ever tell! Another voice said, pretty loud 'It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always want more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because you've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've said it jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest hound in this country. By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just abiling with curiosity and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and so I won't either I'm agoing to see what's going on here. So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the crosshall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and saying 'I'd like to! And I orter, tooa mean skunk! The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, 'Oh, please don't, Bill I hain't ever goin' to tell. And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say ''Deed you ain't! You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet you. And once he said 'Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the best of him and tied him he'd a killed us both. And what for? Jist for noth'n. Jist because we stood on our rightsthat's what for. But I lay you ain't agoin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put up that pistol, Bill. Bill says 'I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' himand didn't he kill old Hatfield jist the same wayand don't he deserve it? 'But I don't want him killed, and I've got my reasons for it. 'Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit you long's I live! says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering. Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good time so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The man came apawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my stateroom, he says 'Herecome in here. And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd been having. I was glad I didn't drink whisky but it wouldn't made much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed me because I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body couldn't breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says 'He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to him now it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way we've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence now you hear me. I'm for putting him out of his troubles. 'So'm I, says Packard, very quiet. 'Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that's all right. Le's go and do it. 'Hold on a minute I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me. Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's got to be done. But what I say is this it ain't good sense to go court'n around after a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that's jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks. Ain't that so? 'You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time? 'Well, my idea is this we'll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't agoin' to be more'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n killin' of him. I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right? 'Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she don't break up and wash off? 'Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we? 'All right, then come along. So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, 'Jim! and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says 'Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put all of 'em in a bad fixfor the sheriff 'll get 'em. Quickhurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and 'Oh, my lordy, lordy! raf''? Dey ain' no raf' no mo' she done broke loose en gone Ien here we is! CHAPTER XIII. Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd got to find that boat nowhad to have it for ourselves. So we went aquaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, tooseemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any furtherso scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the crosshall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone but he jerked it in again, and says 'Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill! He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got in. Packard says, in a low voice 'All readyshove off! I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says 'Hold on'd you go through him? 'No. Didn't you? 'No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet. 'Well, then, come along no use to take truck and leave money. 'Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to? 'Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along. So they got out and went in. The door slammed to because it was on the careened side and in a half second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went! We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the paddlebox, and past the stern then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it. When we was three or four hundred yards downstream we see the lantern show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was. Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the menI reckon I hadn't had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like it? So says I to Jim 'The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where it's a good hidingplace for you and the skiff, and then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes. But that idea was a failure for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering, and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we made for it. It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or four more showedup on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a doublehull ferryboat. I skimmed around for the watchman, awondering whereabouts he slept and by and by I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry. He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way but when he see it was only me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says 'Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble? I says 'Pap, and mam, and sis, and Then I broke down. He says 'Oh, dang it now, don't take on so we all has to have our troubles, and this 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em? 'They'rethey'reare you the watchman of the boat? 'Yes, he says, kind of prettywellsatisfied like. 'I'm the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deckhand and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'd live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I I broke in and says 'They're in an awful peck of trouble, and 'Who is? 'Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker and if you'd take your ferryboat and go up there 'Up where? Where are they? 'On the wreck. 'What wreck? 'Why, there ain't but one. 'What, you don't mean the Walter Scott? 'Yes. 'Good land! what are they doin' there, for gracious sakes? 'Well, they didn't go there apurpose. 'I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever git into such a scrape? 'Easy enough. Miss Hooker was avisiting up there to the town 'Yes, Booth's Landinggo on. 'She was avisiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horseferry to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss Whatyoumaycallher I disremember her nameand they lost their steeringoar, and swung around and went afloating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddlebaggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our tradingscow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it and so we saddlebaggsed but all of us was saved but Bill Whippleand oh, he was the best cretur!I most wish 't it had been me, I do. 'My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did you all do? 'Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current? There ain't no sense in it go for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll go and 'By Jackson, I'd like to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will but who in the dingnation's agoing' to pay for it? Do you reckon your pap 'Why that's all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, particular, that her uncle Hornback 'Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over yonderway, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern tell 'em to dart you out to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool around any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now I'm agoing up around the corner here to roust out my engineer. I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some woodboats for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in. Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer all dead still. I felt a little bit heavyhearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it I could. Then here comes the ferryboat so I shoved for the middle of the river on a long downstream slant and when I judged I was out of eyereach I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle Hornback would want them and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went abooming down the river. It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up and when it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people. CHAPTER XIV. By and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures but he said he didn't want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died, because he judged it was all up with him anyway it could be fixed for if he didn't get saved he would get drownded and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right he was most always right he had an uncommon level head for a nigger. I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead of mister and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says 'I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a pack er k'yards. How much do a king git? 'Get? I says 'why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it they can have just as much as they want everything belongs to them. 'Ain'' dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck? 'They don't do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around. 'No is dat so? 'Of course it is. They just set aroundexcept, maybe, when there's a war then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around or go hawkingjust hawking and spSh!d' you hear a noise? We skipped out and looked but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point so we come back. 'Yes, says I, 'and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem. 'Roun' de which? 'Harem. 'What's de harem? 'The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem? Solomon had one he had about a million wives. 'Why, yes, dat's so II'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'nhouse, I reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de wives quarrels considable en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat. Bekase why would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a blimblammin' all de time? No'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take en buil' a bilerfactry en den he could shet down de bilerfactry when he want to res'. 'Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway because the widow she told me so, her own self. 'I doan k'yer what de widder say, he warn't no wise man nuther. He had some er de dadfetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two? 'Yes, the widow told me all about it. 'Well, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dahdat's one er de women heah's youdat's de yuther one I's Sollermun en dish yer dollar bill's de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun' mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill do b'long to, en han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No I take en whack de bill in two, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you what's de use er dat half a bill?can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um. 'But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the pointblame it, you've missed it a thousand mile. 'Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I knows sense when I sees it en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat. De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back. 'But I tell you you don't get the point. 'Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furderit's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen is dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't he can't 'ford it. He know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him! I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France long time ago and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there. 'Po' little chap. 'But some says he got out and got away, and come to America. 'Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesomedey ain' no kings here, is dey, Huck? 'No. 'Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do? 'Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French. 'Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does? 'No, Jim you couldn't understand a word they saidnot a single word. 'Well, now, I be dingbusted! How do dat come? 'I don't know but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Pollyvoofranzywhat would you think? 'I wouldn' think nuff'n I'd take en bust him over de headdat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat. 'Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French? 'Well, den, why couldn't he say it? 'Why, he is asaying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it. 'Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it. 'Looky here, Jim does a cat talk like we do? 'No, a cat don't. 'Well, does a cow? 'No, a cow don't, nuther. 'Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat? 'No, dey don't. 'It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't it? 'Course. 'And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us? 'Why, mos' sholy it is. 'Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that. 'Is a cat a man, Huck? 'No. 'Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man?er is a cow a cat? 'No, she ain't either of them. 'Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man? 'Yes. 'Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat! I see it warn't no use wasting wordsyou can't learn a nigger to argue. So I quit. CHAPTER XV. We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble. Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to meand then there warn't no raft in sight you couldn't see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a hurry I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them. As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I was going than a dead man. Thinks I, it won't do to paddle first I know I'll run into the bank or a towhead or something I got to set still and float, and yet it's mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to the left of itand not gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that and t'other, but it was going straight ahead all the time. I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around. I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again it was behind me yet, but in a different place it kept coming, and kept changing its place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head downstream, and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't look natural nor sound natural in a fog. The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come abooming down on a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift. In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn't draw a breath while it thumped a hundred. I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an island, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it. It warn't no towhead that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a regular island it might be five or six miles long and more than half a mile wide. I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour but you don't ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying dead still on the water and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't think to yourself how fast you're going, but you catch your breath and think, my! how that snag's tearing along. If you think it ain't dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it onceyou'll see. Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then at last I hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do it, and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of mesometimes just a narrow channel between, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was there because I'd hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down amongst the towheads and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jacko'lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much. I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river and so I judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearingit was floating a little faster than what I was. Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn't hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't want to go to sleep, of course but I was so sleepy I couldn't help it so I thought I would take jest one little catnap. But I reckon it was more than a catnap, for when I waked up the stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was I thought I was dreaming and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up dim out of last week. It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind of timber on both banks just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked away downstream, and seen a black speck on the water. I took after it but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft. When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steeringoar. The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time. I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says 'Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up? 'Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' deadyou ain' drowndedyou's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain' dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huckde same ole Huck, thanks to goodness! 'What's the matter with you, Jim? You been adrinking? 'Drinkin'? Has I ben adrinkin'? Has I had a chance to be adrinkin'? 'Well, then, what makes you talk so wild? 'How does I talk wild? 'How? Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all that stuff, as if I'd been gone away? 'HuckHuck Finn, you look me in de eye look me in de eye. Hain't you ben gone away? 'Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been gone anywheres. Where would I go to? 'Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat's what I wants to know. 'Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a tangleheaded old fool, Jim. 'I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis Didn't you tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas' to de towhead? 'No, I didn't. What towhead? I hain't see no towhead. 'You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en de raf' go ahummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog? 'What fog? 'Why, de fog!de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop, en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us got los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time en mos' git drownded? Now ain' dat so, bossain't it so? You answer me dat. 'Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of course you've been dreaming. 'Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes? 'Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it happen. 'But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as 'It don't make no difference how plain it is there ain't nothing in it. I know, because I've been here all the time. Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying over it. Then he says 'Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck but dog my cats ef it ain't de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat's tired me like dis one. 'Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream tell me all about it, Jim. So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start in and ''terpret it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn't try hard to make out to understand them they'd just take us into bad luck, 'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more trouble. It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was clearing up again now. 'Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim, I says 'but what does these things stand for? It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You could see them firstrate now. Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn't seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says 'What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me en de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun', de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' foot, I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed. Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back. It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way. CHAPTER XVI. We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flagpole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that. We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jimand me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a tradingscow, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited. There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it, because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says 'Dah she is? But it warn't. It was Jacko'lanterns, or lightning bugs so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most freeand who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, 'But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody. That was soI couldn't get around that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, 'What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That's what she done. I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every time he danced around and says, 'Dah's Cairo! it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness. Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them. It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, 'Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell. Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flatfooted and saying he would steal his childrenchildren that belonged to a man I didn't even know a man that hadn't ever done me no harm. I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, 'Let up on meit ain't too late yetI'll paddle ashore at the first light and tell. I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By and by one showed. Jim sings out 'We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels! Dat's de good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it! I says 'I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know. He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle and as I shoved off, he says 'Pooty soon I'll be ashout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on accounts o' Huck I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn' ben for Huck Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had en you's de only fren' ole Jim's got now. I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along slow then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says 'Dah you goes, de ole true Huck de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim. Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do itI can't get out of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says 'What's that yonder? 'A piece of a raft, I says. 'Do you belong on it? 'Yes, sir. 'Any men on it? 'Only one, sir. 'Well, there's five niggers run off tonight up yonder, above the head of the bend. Is your man white or black? I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't man enoughhadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening so I just give up trying, and up and says 'He's white. 'I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves. 'I wish you would, says I, 'because it's pap that's there, and maybe you'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He's sickand so is mam and Mary Ann. 'Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I s'pose we've got to. Come, buckle to your paddle, and let's get along. I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a stroke or two, I says 'Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't do it by myself. 'Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what's the matter with your father? 'It's theathewell, it ain't anything much. They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little ways to the raft now. One says 'Boy, that's a lie. What is the matter with your pap? Answer up square now, and it'll be the better for you. 'I will, sir, I will, honestbut don't leave us, please. It's thetheGentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the headline, you won't have to come anear the raftplease do. 'Set her back, John, set her back! says one. They backed water. 'Keep away, boykeep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has blowed it to us. Your pap's got the smallpox, and you know it precious well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all over? 'Well, says I, ablubbering, 'I've told everybody before, and they just went away and left us. 'Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry for you, but wewell, hang it, we don't want the smallpox, you see. Look here, I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by yourself, or you'll smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty miles, and you'll come to a town on the lefthand side of the river. It will be long after sunup then, and when you ask for help you tell them your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool again, and let people guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do you a kindness so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good boy. It wouldn't do any good to land yonder where the light isit's only a woodyard. Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's in pretty hard luck. Here, I'll put a twentydollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you but my kingdom! it won't do to fool with smallpox, don't you see? 'Hold on, Parker, says the other man, 'here's a twenty to put on the board for me. Goodbye, boy you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll be all right. 'That's so, my boygoodbye, goodbye. If you see any runaway niggers you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it. 'Goodbye, sir, says I 'I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I can help it. They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to do right a body that don't get started right when he's little ain't got no showwhen the pinch comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel badI'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time. I went into the wigwam Jim warn't there. I looked all around he warn't anywhere. I says 'Jim! 'Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud. He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says 'I was alistenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyne to shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to de raf' agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck! Dat wuz de smartes' dodge! I tell you, chile, I'spec it save' ole Jimole Jim ain't going to forgit you for dat, honey. Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raisetwenty dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free States. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he wished we was already there. Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about hiding the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles, and getting all ready to quit rafting. That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away down in a lefthand bend. I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man out in the river with a skiff, setting a trotline. I ranged up and says 'Mister, is that town Cairo? 'Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool. 'What town is it, mister? 'If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin' around me for about a half a minute longer you'll get something you won't want. I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned. We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again but it was high ground, so I didn't go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead tolerable close to the lefthand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did Jim. I says 'Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night. He says 'Doan' le's talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck. I awluz 'spected dat rattlesnakeskin warn't done wid its work. 'I wish I'd never seen that snakeskin, JimI do wish I'd never laid eyes on it. 'It ain't yo' fault, Huck you didn' know. Don't you blame yo'self 'bout it. When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with Cairo. We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore we couldn't take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn't no way but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So we slept all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to be fresh for the work, and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone! We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to say. We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattlesnakeskin so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luckand keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still. By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn't no way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy a canoe to go back in. We warn't going to borrow it when there warn't anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people after us. So we shoved out after dark on the raft. Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to handle a snakeskin, after all that that snakeskin done for us, will believe it now if they read on and see what more it done for us. The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we didn't see no rafts laying up so we went along during three hours and more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and you can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then along comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she would see it. Upstream boats didn't generly come close to us they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs but nights like this they bull right up the channel against the whole river. We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see how close they can come without touching sometimes the wheel bites off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks he's mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to try and shave us but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit. She was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with rows of glowworms around it but all of a sudden she bulged out, big and scary, with a long row of wideopen furnace doors shining like redhot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steamand as Jim went overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight through the raft. I divedand I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirtyfoot wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I could always stay under water a minute this time I reckon I stayed under a minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current and of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen so now she was churning along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though I could hear her. I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was 'treading water, and struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see that the drift of the current was towards the lefthand shore, which meant that I was in a crossing so I changed off and went that way. It was one of these long, slanting, twomile crossings so I was a good long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up the bank. I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a big oldfashioned double loghouse before I noticed it. I was going to rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg. CHAPTER XVII. In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his head out, and says 'Be done, boys! Who's there? I says 'It's me. 'Who's me? 'George Jackson, sir. 'What do you want? 'I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs won't let me. 'What are you prowling around here this time of night forhey? 'I warn't prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat. 'Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you say your name was? 'George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy. 'Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't be afraidnobody'll hurt you. But don't try to budge stand right where you are. Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is there anybody with you? 'No, sir, nobody. I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light. The man sung out 'Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old foolain't you got any sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom are ready, take your places. 'All ready. 'Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons? 'No, sir I never heard of them. 'Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all ready. Step forward, George Jackson. And mind, don't you hurrycome mighty slow. If there's anybody with you, let him keep backif he shows himself he'll be shot. Come along now. Come slow push the door open yourselfjust enough to squeeze in, d' you hear? I didn't hurry I couldn't if I'd a wanted to. I took one slow step at a time and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart. The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and pushed it a little and a little more till somebody said, 'There, that's enoughput your head in. I done it, but I judged they would take it off. The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute Three big men with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you the oldest, gray and about sixty, the other two thirty or moreall of them fine and handsomeand the sweetest old grayheaded lady, and back of her two young women which I couldn't see right well. The old gentleman says 'There I reckon it's all right. Come in. As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor, and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front windowsthere warn't none on the side. They held the candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, 'Why, he ain't a Shepherdsonno, there ain't any Shepherdson about him. Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by itit was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself but the old lady says 'Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be and don't you reckon it may be he's hungry? 'True for you, RachelI forgot. So the old lady says 'Betsy (this was a nigger woman), 'you fly around and get him something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing and one of you girls go and wake up Buck and tell himoh, here he is himself. Buck, take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some of yours that's dry. Buck looked about as old as methirteen or fourteen or along there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a shirt, and he was very frowzyheaded. He came in gaping and digging one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one. He says 'Ain't they no Shepherdsons around? They said, no, 'twas a false alarm. 'Well, he says, 'if they'd a ben some, I reckon I'd a got one. They all laughed, and Bob says 'Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow in coming. 'Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right I'm always kept down I don't get no show. 'Never mind, Buck, my boy, says the old man, 'you'll have show enough, all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you now, and do as your mother told you. When we got upstairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I didn't know I hadn't heard about it before, no way. 'Well, guess, he says. 'How'm I going to guess, says I, 'when I never heard tell of it before? 'But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy. 'Which candle? I says. 'Why, any candle, he says. 'I don't know where he was, says I 'where was he? 'Why, he was in the dark! That's where he was! 'Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for? 'Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming timesthey don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got a dogand he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet I don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon I'd better put 'em on, but I'd ruther not, it's so warm. Are you all ready? All right. Come along, old hoss. Cold cornpone, cold cornbeef, butter and buttermilkthat is what they had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that ever I've come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts around them, and their hair down their backs. They all asked me questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann run off and got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn't heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died, and then there warn't nobody but just me and pap left, and he was just trimmed down to nothing, on account of his troubles so when he died I took what there was left, because the farm didn't belong to us, and started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard and that was how I come to be here. So they said I could have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most daylight and everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck, and when I waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when Buck waked up I says 'Can you spell, Buck? 'Yes, he says. 'I bet you can't spell my name, says I. 'I bet you what you dare I can, says he. 'All right, says I, 'go ahead. 'George Jaxonthere now, he says. 'Well, says I, 'you done it, but I didn't think you could. It ain't no slouch of a name to spellright off without studying. I set it down, private, because somebody might want me to spell it next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was used to it. It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick sometimes they wash them over with red waterpaint that they call Spanishbrown, same as they do in town. They had big brass dogirons that could hold up a sawlog. There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock tick and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in good shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she got tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her. Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't open their mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked through underneath. There was a couple of big wildturkeywing fans spread out behind those things. On the table in the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it, which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is, but they warn't real because you could see where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk, or whatever it was, underneath. This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and blue spreadeagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. It come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books, too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim's Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another was Friendship's Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry but I didn't read the poetry. Another was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead. There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books. And there was nice splitbottom chairs, and perfectly sound, toonot bagged down in the middle and busted, like an old basket. They had pictures hung on the wallsmainly Washingtons and Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called 'Signing the Declaration. There was some that they called crayons, which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see beforeblacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoopshovel bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said 'Shall I Never See Thee More Alas. Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted there in front of a comb like a chairback, and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said 'I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas. There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down her cheeks and she had an open letter in one hand with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath the picture it said 'And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas. These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the fantods. Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time in the graveyard. She was at work on what they said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young woman in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with the tears running down her face, and she had two arms folded across her breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two more reaching up towards the moonand the idea was to see which pair would look best, and then scratch out all the other arms but, as I was saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they kept this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time her birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with a little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery, seemed to me. This young girl kept a scrapbook when she was alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry? No such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots Though sad hearts round him thickened, 'Twas not from sickness' shots. No whoopingcough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots. Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots. O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul did from this cold world fly By falling down a well. They got him out and emptied him Alas it was too late His spirit was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great. If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by. Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her 'tribute before he was cold. She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undertakerthe undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same after that she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the time I made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrapbook and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn't going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her now she was gone so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there mostly. Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on the windows white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing 'The Last Link is Broken and play 'The Battle of Prague on it. The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside. It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn't be better. And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it too! CHAPTER XVIII. Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town and pap he always said it, too, though he warn't no more quality than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkishpaly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it and on Sundays he wore a blue tailcoat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it. There warn't no frivolishness about him, not a bit, and he warn't ever loud. He was as kind as he could beyou could feel that, you know, and so you had confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see but when he straightened himself up like a libertypole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their mannerseverybody was always goodmannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around, too he was sunshine most alwaysI mean he made it seem like good weather. When he turned into a cloudbank it was awful dark for half a minute, and that was enough there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week. When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got up out of their chairs and give them goodday, and didn't set down again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and then they bowed and said, 'Our duty to you, sir, and madam and they bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people too. Bob was the oldest and Tom nexttall, beautiful men with very broad shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and wore broad Panama hats. Then there was Miss Charlotte she was twentyfive, and tall and proud and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up but when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks, like her father. She was beautiful. So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty. Each person had their own nigger to wait on themBuck too. My nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody do anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time. This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be morethree sons they got killed and Emmeline that died. The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you. There was another clan of aristocracy around therefive or six familiesmostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as hightoned and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which was about two mile above our house so sometimes when I went up there with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their fine horses. One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says 'Quick! Jump for the woods! We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty soon a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from his head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run. The woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun and then he rode away the way he cometo get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't see. We never stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's eyes blazed a minute'twas pleasure, mainly, I judgedthen his face sort of smoothed down, and he says, kind of gentle 'I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you step into the road, my boy? 'The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage. Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale, but the color come back when she found the man warn't hurt. Soon as I could get Buck down by the corncribs under the trees by ourselves, I says 'Did you want to kill him, Buck? 'Well, I bet I did. 'What did he do to you? 'Him? He never done nothing to me. 'Well, then, what did you want to kill him for? 'Why, nothingonly it's on account of the feud. 'What's a feud? 'Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is? 'Never heard of it beforetell me about it. 'Well, says Buck, 'a feud is this way A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him then that other man's brother kills him then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another then the cousins chip inand by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time. 'Has this one been going on long, Buck? 'Well, I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along there. There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle it and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suitwhich he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would. 'What was the trouble about, Buck?land? 'I reckon maybeI don't know. 'Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson? 'Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago. 'Don't anybody know? 'Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people but they don't know now what the row was about in the first place. 'Has there been many killed, Buck? 'Yes right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill. Pa's got a few buckshot in him but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh much, anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's been hurt once or twice. 'Has anybody been killed this year, Buck? 'Yes we got one and they got one. 'Bout three months ago my cousin Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t'other side of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame' foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse acoming behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson alinkin' after him with his gun in his hand and his white hair aflying in the wind and 'stead of jumping off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could outrun him so they had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man againing all the time so at last Bud seen it warn't any use, so he stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old man he rode up and shot him down. But he didn't git much chance to enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid him out. 'I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck. 'I reckon he warn't a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't a coward amongst them Shepherdsonsnot a one. And there ain't no cowards amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was all ahorseback he lit off of his horse and got behind a little woodpile, and kep' his horse before him to stop the bullets but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around the old man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords had to be fetched homeand one of 'em was dead, and another died the next day. No, sir if a body's out hunting for cowards he don't want to fool away any time amongst them Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that kind. Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody ahorseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preachingall about brotherly love, and suchlike tiresomeness but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet. About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked her, and I said I did and she asked me if I would do something for her and not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said she'd forgot her Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two other books, and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summertime because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to but a hog is different. Says I to myself, something's up it ain't natural for a girl to be in such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops a little piece of paper with 'HALFPAST TWO wrote on it with a pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me. She pulled me in and shut the door then she looked in the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad and before a body could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody. She was mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing, and I told her 'no, only coarsehand, and then she said the paper warn't anything but a bookmark to keep her place, and I might go and play now. I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was out of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes arunning, and says 'Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole stack o' watermoccasins. Thinks I, that's mighty curious he said that yesterday. He oughter know a body don't love watermoccasins enough to go around hunting for them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says 'All right trot ahead. I followed a half a mile then he struck out over the swamp, and waded ankle deep as much as another halfmile. We come to a little flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines, and he says 'You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge dah's whah dey is. I's seed 'm befo' I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'. Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hid him. I poked into the place aways and come to a little open patch as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying there asleepand, by jings, it was my old Jim! I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad, but he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn't want nobody to pick him up and take him into slavery again. Says he 'I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable ways behine you towards de las' when you landed I reck'ned I could ketch up wid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I see dat house I begin to go slow. I 'uz off too fur to hear what dey say to youI wuz 'fraid o' de dogs but when it 'uz all quiet agin I knowed you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't track me on accounts o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how you's agitt'n along. 'Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim? 'Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfnbut we's all right now. I ben abuyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got a chanst, en apatchin' up de raf' nights when 'What raft, Jim? 'Our ole raf'. 'You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders? 'No, she warn't. She was tore up a good dealone en' of her was but dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef we hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn' ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich punkinheads, as de sayin' is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new, en we's got a new lot o' stuff, in de place o' what 'uz los'. 'Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jimdid you catch her? 'How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No some er de niggers foun' her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a crick 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout which un 'um she b'long to de mos' dat I come to heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups en settles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv um, but to you en me en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to grab a young white genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin 'm ten cents apiece, en dey 'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud come along en make 'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to me, dese niggers is, en whatever I wants 'm to do fur me I doan' have to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat Jack's a good nigger, en pooty smart. 'Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here told me to come, and he'd show me a lot of watermoccasins. If anything happens he ain't mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it 'll be the truth. I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut it pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was agoing to turn over and go to sleep again when I noticed how still it wasdidn't seem to be anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up, awondering, and goes down stairsnobody around everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the woodpile I comes across my Jack, and says 'What's it all about? Says he 'Don't you know, Mars Jawge? 'No, says I, 'I don't. 'Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in de night some timenobody don't know jis' when run off to get married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you knowleastways, so dey 'spec. De fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour agomaybe a little mo'en' I tell you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another hurryin' up guns en hosses you never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo' he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty rough times. 'Buck went off 'thout waking me up. 'Well, I reck'n he did! Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en you bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst. I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin to hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store and the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a woodrank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I was going to hide behind that but maybe it was luckier I didn't. There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the woodrank alongside of the steamboat landing but they couldn't come it. Every time one of them showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at. The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could watch both ways. By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started riding towards the store then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady bead over the woodrank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started to carry him to the store and that minute the two boys started on the run. They got half way to the tree I was in before the men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out after them. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys had too good a start they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about nineteen years old. The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what to make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men come in sight again said they was up to some devilment or otherwouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relationsthe Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across the river and was safe. I was glad of that but the way Buck did take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at himI hain't ever heard anything like it. All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four gunsthe men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their horses! The boys jumped for the riverboth of them hurtand as they swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing out, 'Kill them, kill them! It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain't agoing to tell all that happenedit would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of themlots of times I dream about them. I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns so I reckoned the trouble was still agoing on. I was mighty downhearted so I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at halfpast two and run off and I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess wouldn't ever happened. When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I got them ashore then I covered up their faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me. It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows, redhot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not twentyfive foot from me says 'Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise. It was Jim's voicenothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad to see me. He says 'Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin. Jack's been heah he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home no mo' so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you is dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git you back again, honey. I says 'All rightthat's mighty good they won't find me, and they'll think I've been killed, and floated down the riverthere's something up there that 'll help them think soso don't you lose no time, Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can. I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corndodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greensthere ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked rightand whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. CHAPTER XIX. Two or three days and nights went by I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down theresometimes a mile and a half wide we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied upnearly always in the dead water under a towhead and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheresperfectly stilljust like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs acluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull linethat was the woods on t'other side you couldn't make nothing else out then a pale place in the sky then more paleness spreading around then the river softened up away off, and warn't black any more, but gray you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far awaytrading scows, and such things and long black streaksrafts sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a logcabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank and next you've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the songbirds just going it! A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along upstream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a sternwheel or sidewheel then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to seejust solid lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're most always doing it on a raft you'd see the axe flash and come downyou don't hear nothing you see that axe go up again, and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear the k'chunk!it had took all that time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and laughingheard them plain but we couldn't see no sign of them it made you feel crawly it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits but I says 'No spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.' Soon as it was night out we shoved when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted her to then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of thingswe was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let usthe new clothes Buck's folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on clothes, nohow. Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water and maybe a sparkwhich was a candle in a cabin window and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or twoon a raft or a scow, you know and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest. Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off and leave the river still again and by and by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long, except maybe frogs or something. After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or three hours the shores was blackno more sparks in the cabin windows. These sparks was our clockthe first one that showed again meant morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away. One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to the main shoreit was only two hundred yardsand paddled about a mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody I judged it was meor maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me to save their livessaid they hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased for itsaid there was men and dogs acoming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says 'Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet you've got time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways then you take to the water and wade down to me and get inthat'll throw the dogs off the scent. They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't see them they seemed to stop and fool around a while then, as we got further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at all by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid in the cottonwoods and was safe. One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head and very gray whiskers. He had an old batteredup slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boottops, and homeknit gallusesno, he only had one. He had an old longtailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over his arm, and both of them had big, fat, rattylooking carpetbags. The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didn't know one another. 'What got you into trouble? says the baldhead to t'other chap. 'Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teethand it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with itbut I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out with you. That's the whole yarnwhat's yourn? 'Well, I'd ben arunning' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week, and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin' as much as five or six dollars a nightten cents a head, children and niggers freeand business agrowin' all the time, when somehow or another a little report got around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told me the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down if they could and if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfastI warn't hungry. 'Old man, said the young one, 'I reckon we might doubleteam it together what do you think? 'I ain't undisposed. What's your linemainly? 'Jour printer by trade do a little in patent medicines theateractortragedy, you know take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's a chance teach singinggeography school for a change sling a lecture sometimesoh, I do lots of thingsmost anything that comes handy, so it ain't work. What's your lay? 'I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o' hands is my best holtfor cancer and paralysis, and sich things and I k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too, and workin' campmeetin's, and missionaryin' around. Nobody never said anything for a while then the young man hove a sigh and says 'Alas! 'What 're you alassin' about? says the baldhead. 'To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded down into such company. And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag. 'Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you? says the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish. 'Yes, it is good enough for me it's as good as I deserve for who fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame you, gentlemenfar from it I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let the cold world do its worst one thing I knowthere's a grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everything from meloved ones, property, everything but it can't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest. He went on awiping. 'Drot your pore broken heart, says the baldhead 'what are you heaving your pore broken heart at us f'r? we hain't done nothing. 'No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought myself downyes, I did it myself. It's right I should sufferperfectly rightI don't make any moan. 'Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from? 'Ah, you would not believe me the world never believeslet it pass'tis no matter. The secret of my birth 'The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say 'Gentlemen, says the young man, very solemn, 'I will reveal it to you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke! Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that and I reckon mine did, too. Then the baldhead says 'No! you can't mean it? 'Yes. My greatgrandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure air of freedom married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the titles and estatesthe infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal descendant of that infantI am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater and here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heartbroken, and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft! Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted said if we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything else so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say 'Your Grace, or 'My Lord, or 'Your Lordshipand he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain 'Bridgewater, which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done. Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood around and waited on him, and says, 'Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or some o' dat? and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to him. But the old man got pretty silent by and bydidn't have much to say, and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along in the afternoon, he says 'Looky here, Bilgewater, he says, 'I'm nation sorry for you, but you ain't the only person that's had troubles like that. 'No? 'No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down wrongfully out'n a high place. 'Alas! 'No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth. And, by jings, he begins to cry. 'Hold! What do you mean? 'Bilgewater, kin I trust you? says the old man, still sort of sobbing. 'To the bitter death! He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it, and says, 'That secret of your being speak! 'Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin! You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says 'You are what? 'Yes, my friend, it is too trueyour eyes is lookin' at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette. 'You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least. 'Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampledon, and sufferin' rightful King of France. Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to do, we was so sorryand so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort him. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any good though he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him 'Your Majesty, and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with the way things was going still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the duke's greatgrandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father, and was allowed to come to the palace considerable but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by and by the king says 'Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this hyer raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain't your fault you warn't born a kingso what's the use to worry? Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says Ithat's my motto. This ain't no bad thing that we've struck hereplenty grub and an easy lifecome, give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends. The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others. It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just lowdown humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on kept it to myself it's the best way then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way. CHAPTER XX. They asked us considerable many questions wanted to know what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of runningwas Jim a runaway nigger? Says I 'Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run south? No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so I says 'My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little onehorse place on the river, fortyfour mile below Orleans. Pa was pretty poor, and had some debts so when he'd squared up there warn't nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn't enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way. Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day he ketched this piece of a raft so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it. Pa's luck didn't hold out a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years old, so they never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two we had considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runaway nigger. We don't run daytimes no more now nights they don't bother us. The duke says 'Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we want to. I'll think the thing overI'll invent a plan that'll fix it. We'll let it alone for today, because of course we don't want to go by that town yonder in daylightit mightn't be healthy. Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain the heat lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was beginning to shiverit was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, which was a cornshuck tick there's always cobs around about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt and when you roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves it makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke allowed he would take my bed but the king allowed he wouldn't. He says 'I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you that a cornshuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your Grace 'll take the shuck bed yourself. Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was going to be some more trouble amongst them so we was pretty glad when the duke says ''Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit I yield, I submit 'tis my fate. I am alone in the worldlet me suffer can bear it. We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch of lights by and bythat was the town, you knowand slid by, about a half a mile out, all right. When we was threequarters of a mile below we hoisted up our signal lantern and about ten o'clock it come on to rain and blow and thunder and lighten like everything so the king told us to both stay on watch till the weather got better then him and the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed, because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the whitecaps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind then comes a HWHACK!bum! bum! bumbleumbleumbumbumbumbumand the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quitand then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble about snags the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or that and miss them. I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time, so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me he was always mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for me so I laid outsideI didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and the waves warn't running so high now. About two they come up again, though, and Jim was going to call me but he changed his mind, because he reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm but he was mistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim alaughing. He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway. I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away and by and by the storm let up for good and all and the first cabinlight that showed I rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day. The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him and the duke played sevenup a while, five cents a game. Then they got tired of it, and allowed they would 'lay out a campaign, as they called it. The duke went down into his carpetbag, and fetched up a lot of little printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said, 'The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris, would 'lecture on the Science of Phrenology at such and such a place, on the blank day of blank, at ten cents admission, and 'furnish charts of character at twentyfive cents apiece. The duke said that was him. In another bill he was the 'worldrenowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane, London. In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a 'diviningrod, 'dissipating witch spells, and so on. By and by he says 'But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the boards, Royalty? 'No, says the king. 'You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur, says the duke. 'The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do the sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. How does that strike you? 'I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater but, you see, I don't know nothing about playactin', and hain't ever seen much of it. I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace. Do you reckon you can learn me? 'Easy! 'All right. I'm jist afreezn' for something fresh, anyway. Le's commence right away. So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, and said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet. 'But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe. 'No, don't you worry these country jakes won't ever think of that. Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all the difference in the world Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight before she goes to bed, and she's got on her nightgown and her ruffled nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts. He got out two or three curtaincalico suits, which he said was meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was satisfied so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the most splendid spreadeagle way, prancing around and acting at the same time, to show how it had got to be done then he give the book to the king and told him to get his part by heart. There was a little onehorse town about three mile down the bend, and after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim so he allowed he would go down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he would go, too, and see if he couldn't strike something. We was out of coffee, so Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some. When we got there there warn't nobody stirring streets empty, and perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunning himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or too sick or too old was gone to campmeeting, about two mile back in the woods. The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work that campmeeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too. The duke said what he was after was a printingoffice. We found it a little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shopcarpenters and printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty, litteredup place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shed his coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out for the campmeeting. We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a most awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched everywheres, feeding out of the wagontroughs and stomping to keep off the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of watermelons and green corn and suchlike truck. The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on sunbonnets and some had linseywoolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones had on calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a towlinen shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on the sly. The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it, there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way then he lined out two more for them to singand so on. The people woke up more and more, and sung louder and louder and towards the end some begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to preach, and begun in earnest, too and went weaving first to one side of the platform and then the other, and then aleaning down over the front of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out with all his might and every now and then he would hold up his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting, 'It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look upon it and live! And people would shout out, 'Glory!Aamen! And so he went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying amen 'Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (Amen!) come, sick and sore! (Amen!) come, lame and halt and blind! (Amen!) come, pore and needy, sunk in shame! (AAMen!) come, all that's worn and soiled and suffering!come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands openoh, enter in and be at rest! (AAMen! Glory, Glory Hallelujah!) And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' bench, with the tears running down their faces and when all the mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild. Well, the first I knowed the king got agoing, and you could hear him over everybody and next he went acharging up on to the platform, and the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He told them he was a piratebeen a pirate for thirty years out in the Indian Oceanand his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat without a cent, and he was glad of it it was the blessedest thing that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for the first time in his life and, poor as he was, he was going to start right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path for he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in that ocean and though it would take him a long time to get there without money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he would say to him, 'Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville campmeeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever had! And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody sings out, 'Take up a collection for him, take up a collection! Well, a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, 'Let him pass the hat around! Then everybody said it, the preacher too. So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes, and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being so good to the poor pirates away off there and every little while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by and he always done it and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six timesand he was invited to stay a week and everybody wanted him to live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor but he said as this was the last day of the campmeeting he couldn't do no good, and besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to work on the pirates. When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had collected eightyseven dollars and seventyfive cents. And then he had fetched away a threegallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionarying line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a campmeeting with. The duke was thinking he'd been doing pretty well till the king come to show up, but after that he didn't think so so much. He had set up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printingofficehorse billsand took the money, four dollars. And he had got in ten dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advanceso they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them paying him in advance they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as usual, but he said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the price as low as he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash. He set up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own headthree verseskind of sweet and saddishthe name of it was, 'Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heartand he left that all set up and ready to print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. Well, he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty square day's work for it. Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and ' reward under it. The reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said he run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans, last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send him back he could have the reward and expenses. 'Now, says the duke, 'after tonight we can run in the daytime if we want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thingwe must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards. We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no trouble about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough that night to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in the printing office was going to make in that little town then we could boom right along if we wanted to. We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten o'clock then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it. When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says 'Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis trip? 'No, I says, 'I reckon not. 'Well, says he, 'dat's all right, den. I doan' mine one er two kings, but dat's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much better. I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hear what it was like but he said he had been in this country so long, and had so much trouble, he'd forgot it. CHAPTER XXI. It was after sunup now, but we went right on and didn't tie up. The king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty but after they'd jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft, and pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had got it pretty good him and the duke begun to practice it together. The duke had to learn him over and over again how to say every speech and he made him sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done it pretty well 'only, he says, 'you mustn't bellow out Romeo! that way, like a bullyou must say it soft and sick and languishy, soRoomeo! that is the idea for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass. Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out of oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fightthe duke called himself Richard III. and the way they laid on and pranced around the raft was grand to see. But by and by the king tripped and fell overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river. After dinner the duke says 'Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a firstclass show, you know, so I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to answer encores with, anyway. 'What's onkores, Bilgewater? The duke told him, and then says 'I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe and youwell, let me seeoh, I've got ityou can do Hamlet's soliloquy. 'Hamlet's which? 'Hamlet's soliloquy, you know the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I haven't got it in the bookI've only got one volumebut I reckon I can piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call it back from recollection's vaults. So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible every now and then then he would hoist up his eyebrows next he would squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful to see him. By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky and then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth and after that, all through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before. This is the speechI learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king To be, or not to be that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of. There's the respect must give us pause Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take. In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, Breathes forth contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care. And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops, With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws. But get thee to a nunnerygo! Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it and when he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off. The first chance we got, the duke he had some show bills printed and after that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a most uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but swordfighting and rehearsingas the duke called itgoing on all the time. One morning, when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come in sight of a little onehorse town in a big bend so we tied up about threequarters of a mile above it, in the mouth of a crick which was shut in like a tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our show. We struck it mighty lucky there was going to be a circus there that afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he hired the court house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They read like this Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses was most all old shackly driedup frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted they was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but jimpson weeds, and sunflowers, and ashpiles, and old curledup boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and playedout tinware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on at different times and they leaned every whichway, and had gates that didn't generly have but one hingea leather one. Some of the fences had been whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke said it was in Clumbus's time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the garden, and people driving them out. All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awningposts. There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives and chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretchinga mighty ornery lot. They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, but didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill, and Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and used considerable many cuss words. There was as many as one loafer leaning up against every awningpost, and he most always had his hands in his britchespockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw of tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them all the time was 'Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank. 'Cain't I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask Bill. Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw maybe he lies and says he ain't got none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by borrowing they say to a fellow, 'I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I hadwhich is a lie pretty much everytime it don't fool nobody but a stranger but Jack ain't no stranger, so he says 'You give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back intrust, nuther. 'Well, I did pay you back some of it wunst. 'Yes, you did'bout six chaws. You borry'd store tobacker and paid back niggerhead. Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when it's handed back, and says, sarcastic 'Here, gimme the chaw, and you take the plug. All the streets and lanes was just mud they warn't nothing else but mudmud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two or three inches deep in all the places. The hogs loafed and grunted around everywheres. You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the way, where folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out and shut her eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as happy as if she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer sing out, 'Hi! so boy! sick him, Tige! and away the sow would go, squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and three or four dozen more acoming and then you would see all the loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look grateful for the noise. Then they'd settle back again till there was a dog fight. There couldn't anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over, like a dog fightunless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death. On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank, and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The people had moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back, and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing at it. The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time. Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them in the wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I seen three fights. By and by somebody sings out 'Here comes old Boggs!in from the country for his little old monthly drunk here he comes, boys! All the loafers looked glad I reckoned they was used to having fun out of Boggs. One of them says 'Wonder who he's agwyne to chaw up this time. If he'd achawed up all the men he's ben agwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have considerable ruputation now. Another one says, 'I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd know I warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year. Boggs comes atearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an Injun, and singing out 'Cler the track, thar. I'm on the wawpath, and the price uv coffins is agwyne to raise. He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle he was over fifty year old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, 'Meat first, and spoon vittles to top off on. He see me, and rode up and says 'Whar'd you come f'm, boy? You prepared to die? Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says 'He don't mean nothing he's always acarryin' on like that when he's drunk. He's the best naturedest old fool in Arkansawnever hurt nobody, drunk nor sober. Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells 'Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you've swindled. You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm agwyne to have you, too! And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and going on. By and by a proudlooking man about fiftyfiveand he was a heap the best dressed man in that town, toosteps out of the store, and the crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs, mighty ca'm and slowhe says 'I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one o'clock. Till one o'clock, mindno longer. If you open your mouth against me only once after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you. Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober nobody stirred, and there warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't they told him it would be one o'clock in about fifteen minutes, and so he must go homehe must go right away. But it didn't do no good. He cussed away with all his might, and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went araging down the street again, with his gray hair aflying. Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up and get him sober but it warn't no useup the street he would tear again, and give Sherburn another cussing. By and by somebody says 'Go for his daughter!quick, go for his daughter sometimes he'll listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can. So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways and stopped. In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his horse. He was areeling across the street towards me, bareheaded, with a friend on both sides of him aholt of his arms and hurrying him along. He was quiet, and looked uneasy and he warn't hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out 'Boggs! I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol raised in his right handnot aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a young girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned round to see who called him, and when they see the pistol the men jumped to one side, and the pistolbarrel come down slow and steady to a levelboth barrels cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, 'O Lord, don't shoot! Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing at the airbang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out. That young girl screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on her father, crying, and saying, 'Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him! The crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to shove them back and shouting, 'Back, back! give him air, give him air! Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and turned around on his heels and walked off. They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another one and spread it on his breast but they tore open his shirt first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it outand after that he laid still he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him, screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and very sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared. Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people that had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was saying all the time, 'Say, now, you've looked enough, you fellows 'tain't right and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the time, and never give nobody a chance other folks has their rights as well as you. There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows, stretching their necks and listening. One long, lanky man, with long hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a crookedhandled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from one place to t'other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his cane and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had stood, frowning and having his hatbrim down over his eyes, and sung out, 'Boggs! and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says 'Bang! staggered backwards, says 'Bang! again, and fell down flat on his back. The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect said it was just exactly the way it all happened. Then as much as a dozen people got out their bottles and treated him. Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying it so away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothesline they come to to do the hanging with. CHAPTER XXII. They swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, awhooping and raging like Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way and every window along the road was full of women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence and as soon as the mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death. They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings as thick as they could jam together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little twentyfoot yard. Some sung out 'Tear down the fence! tear down the fence! Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to roll in like a wave. Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch, with a doublebarrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly ca'm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back. Sherburn never said a wordjust stood there, looking down. The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye slow along the crowd and wherever it struck the people tried a little to outgaze him, but they couldn't they dropped their eyes and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed not the pleasant kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread that's got sand in it. Then he says, slow and scornful 'The idea of you lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless castout women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kindas long as it's daytime and you're not behind him. 'Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the North so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other peoplewhereas you're just as brave, and no braver. Why don't your juries hang murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in the back, in the darkand it's just what they would do. 'So they always acquit and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you didn't bring a man with you that's one mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought part of a manBuck Harkness, thereand if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing. 'You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger. But if only half a manlike Buck Harkness, thereshouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back downafraid you'll be found out to be what you arecowardsand so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that halfaman's coattail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob that's what an army isa mob they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leaveand take your halfaman with youtossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this. The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twentydollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from home and amongst strangers that way. You can't be too careful. I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them. It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and lady, side by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and comfortablethere must a been twenty of themand every lady with a lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang of real sureenough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful fine sight I never see anything so lovely. And then one by one they got up and stood, and went aweaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the tentroof, and every lady's roseleafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, and she looking like the most loveliest parasol. And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the centerpole, cracking his whip and shouting 'Hi!hi! and the clown cracking jokes behind him and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And so one after the other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and went just about wild. Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him but he was back at him quick as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said and how he ever could think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I couldn't noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought of them in a year. And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ringsaid he wanted to ride said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and the whole show come to a standstill. Then the people begun to holler at him and make fun of him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear so that stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of the benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, 'Knock him down! throw him out! and one or two women begun to scream. So, then, the ringmaster he made a little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance, and if the man would promise he wouldn't make no more trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse. So everybody laughed and said all right, and the man got on. The minute he was on, the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing till tears rolled down. And at last, sure enough, all the circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like the very nation, round and round the ring, with that sot laying down on him and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging most to the ground on one side, and then t'other one on t'other side, and the people just crazy. It warn't funny to me, though I was all of a tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle and grabbed the bridle, areeling this way and that and the next minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse agoing like a house afire too. He just stood up there, asailing around as easy and comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his lifeand then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he shed seventeen suits. And, then, there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly humand finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to the dressingroom, and everybody just ahowling with pleasure and astonishment. Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he was the sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't a been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars. I don't know there may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough for me and wherever I run across it, it can have all of my custom every time. Well, that night we had our show but there warn't only about twelve people therejust enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare what they wanted was low comedyand maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said AT THE COURT HOUSE! FOR  NIGHTS ONLY! The WorldRenowned Tragedians DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER! AND EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER! Of the London and Continental Theatres, In their Thrilling Tragedy of THE KING'S CAMELOPARD OR THE ROYAL NONESUCH!!! Admission  cents. Then at the bottom was the biggest line of allwhich said LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED. 'There, says he, 'if that line don't fetch them, I dont know Arkansaw! CHAPTER XXIII. Well, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage and a curtain and a row of candles for footlights and that night the house was jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn't hold no more, the duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and come on to the stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech, and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrillingest one that ever was and so he went on abragging about the tragedy, and about Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main principal part in it and at last when he'd got everybody's expectations up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come aprancing out on all fours, naked and he was painted all over, ringstreakedandstriped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. Andbut never mind the rest of his outfit it was just wild, but it was awful funny. The people most killed themselves laughing and when the king got done capering and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and hawhawed till he come back and done it over again, and after that they made him do it another time. Well, it would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut. Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold already for it in Drury Lane and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will be deeply obleeged if they will mention it to their friends and get them to come and see it. Twenty people sings out 'What, is it over? Is that all? The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings out, 'Sold! and rose up mad, and was agoing for that stage and them tragedians. But a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts 'Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen. They stopped to listen. 'We are soldmighty badly sold. But we don't want to be the laughing stock of this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long as we live. No. What we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk this show up, and sell the rest of the town! Then we'll all be in the same boat. Ain't that sensible? ('You bet it is!the jedge is right! everybody sings out.) 'All right, thennot a word about any sell. Go along home, and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy. Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid that show was. House was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the raft we all had a supper and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river, and fetch her in and hide her about two mile below town. The third night the house was crammed againand they warn't newcomers this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coatand I see it warn't no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixtyfour of them went in. I shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various for me I couldn't stand it. Well, when the place couldn't hold no more people the duke he give a fellow a quarter and told him to tend door for him a minute, and then he started around for the stage door, I after him but the minute we turned the corner and was in the dark he says 'Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the raft like the dickens was after you! I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same time, and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all dark and still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the audience, but nothing of the sort pretty soon he crawls out from under the wigwam, and says 'Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, duke? He hadn't been uptown at all. We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village. Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly laughed their bones loose over the way they'd served them people. The duke says 'Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house would keep mum and let the rest of the town get roped in and I knew they'd lay for us the third night, and consider it was their turn now. Well, it is their turn, and I'd give something to know how much they'd take for it. I would just like to know how they're putting in their opportunity. They can turn it into a picnic if they want tothey brought plenty provisions. Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixtyfive dollars in that three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagonload like that before. By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says 'Don't it s'prise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck? 'No, I says, 'it don't. 'Why don't it, Huck? 'Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all alike. 'But, Huck, dese kings o' ourn is reglar rapscallions dat's jist what dey is dey's reglar rapscallions. 'Well, that's what I'm asaying all kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out. 'Is dat so? 'You read about them onceyou'll see. Look at Henry the Eight this 'n 's a Sundayschool Superintendent to him. And look at Charles Second, and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward Second, and Richard Third, and forty more besides all them Saxon heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her head'and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Bookwhich was a good name and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at itgive notice?give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his stylehe never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? Nodrownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying around where he waswhat did he do? He collared it. S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he done itwhat did he do? He always done the other thing. S'pose he opened his mouthwhat then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts but they ain't nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised. 'But dis one do smell so like de nation, Huck. 'Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a king smells history don't tell no way. 'Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man in some ways. 'Yes, a duke's different. But not very different. This one's a middling hard lot for a duke. When he's drunk there ain't no nearsighted man could tell him from a king. 'Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck. Dese is all I kin stan'. 'It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on our hands, and we got to remember what they are, and make allowances. Sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that's out of kings. What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings and dukes? It wouldn't a done no good and, besides, it was just as I said you couldn't tell them from the real kind. I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He often done that. When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying, 'Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's mighty hard I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'! He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was. But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young ones and by and by he says 'What makes me feel so bad dis time 'uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time I treat my little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout fo' year ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had a powful rough spell but she got well, en one day she was astannin' aroun', en I says to her, I says ''Shet de do'.' 'She never done it jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up at me. It make me mad en I says agin, mighty loud, I says ''Doan' you hear me? Shet de do'!' 'She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I was abilin'! I says ''I lay I make you mine!' 'En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sont her asprawlin'. Den I went into de yuther room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes en when I come back dah was dat do' astannin' open yit, en dat chile stannin' mos' right in it, alookin' down and mournin', en de tears runnin' down. My, but I wuz mad! I was agwyne for de chile, but jis' denit was a do' dat open innerdsjis' den, 'long come de wind en slam it to, behine de chile, kerBLAM!en my lan', de chile never move'! My breff mos' hop outer me en I feel sosoI doan' know HOW I feel. I crope out, all atremblin', en crope aroun' en open de do' easy en slow, en poke my head in behine de chile, sof' en still, en all uv a sudden I says POW! jis' as loud as I could yell. She never budge! Oh, Huck, I bust out acryin' en grab her up in my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing! De Lord God Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as long's he live!' Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumben I'd ben atreat'n her so! CHAPTER XXIV. Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow towhead out in the middle, where there was a village on each side of the river, and the duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn't take but a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we left him all alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to him all by himself and not tied it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway nigger, you know. So the duke said it was kind of hard to have to lay roped all day, and he'd cipher out some way to get around it. He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He dressed Jim up in King Lear's outfitit was a long curtaincalico gown, and a white horsehair wig and whiskers and then he took his theater paint and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a man that's been drownded nine days. Blamed if he warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so Sick Arabbut harmless when not out of his head. And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a sight better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all over every time there was a sound. The duke told him to make himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around, he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment but you take the average man, and he wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't only look like he was dead, he looked considerable more than that. These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the news might a worked along down by this time. They couldn't hit no project that suited exactly so at last the duke said he reckoned he'd lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up something on the Arkansaw village and the king he allowed he would drop over to t'other village without any plan, but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable waymeaning the devil, I reckon. We had all bought store clothes where we stopped last and now the king put his'n on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The king's duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I never knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he looked like the orneriest old rip that ever was but now, when he'd take off his new white beaver and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand and good and pious that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up under the point, about three mile above the townbeen there a couple of hours, taking on freight. Says the king 'Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat, Huckleberry we'll come down to the village on her. I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to a nice innocentlooking young country jake setting on a log swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather and he had a couple of big carpetbags by him. 'Run her nose in shore, says the king. I done it. 'Wher' you bound for, young man? 'For the steamboat going to Orleans. 'Git aboard, says the king. 'Hold on a minute, my servant 'll he'p you with them bags. Jump out and he'p the gentleman, Adolphusmeaning me, I see. I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was mighty thankful said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him he'd come down the river and landed at the other village this morning, and now he was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up there. The young fellow says 'When I first see you I says to myself, 'It's Mr. Wilks, sure, and he come mighty near getting here in time.' But then I says again, 'No, I reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river.' You ain't him, are you? 'No, my name's BlodgettElexander BlodgettReverend Elexander Blodgett, I s'pose I must say, as I'm one o' the Lord's poor servants. But still I'm jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving in time, all the same, if he's missed anything by itwhich I hope he hasn't. 'Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that all right but he's missed seeing his brother Peter diewhich he mayn't mind, nobody can tell as to thatbut his brother would a give anything in this world to see him before he died never talked about nothing else all these three weeks hadn't seen him since they was boys togetherand hadn't ever seen his brother William at allthat's the deef and dumb oneWilliam ain't more than thirty or thirtyfive. Peter and George were the only ones that come out here George was the married brother him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and William's the only ones that's left now and, as I was saying, they haven't got here in time. 'Did anybody send 'em word? 'Oh, yes a month or two ago, when Peter was first took because Peter said then that he sorter felt like he warn't going to get well this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too young to be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the redheaded one and so he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn't seem to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see Harveyand William, too, for that matterbecause he was one of them kind that can't bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he'd told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the property divided up so George's g'yirls would be all rightfor George didn't leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him to put a pen to. 'Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher' does he live? 'Oh, he lives in EnglandSheffieldpreaches therehasn't ever been in this country. He hasn't had any too much timeand besides he mightn't a got the letter at all, you know. 'Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his brothers, poor soul. You going to Orleans, you say? 'Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship, next Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives. 'It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely wisht I was agoing. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others? 'Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about fourteenthat's the one that gives herself to good works and has a harelip. 'Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so. 'Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain't going to let them come to no harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis' preacher and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley, andwell, there's a lot of them but these are the ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when he wrote home so Harvey 'll know where to look for friends when he gets here. Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied that young fellow. Blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody and everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses and about Peter's businesswhich was a tanner and about George'swhich was a carpenter and about Harvey'swhich was a dissentering minister and so on, and so on. Then he says 'What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for? 'Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn't stop there. When they're deep they won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat will, but this is a St. Louis one. 'Was Peter Wilks well off? 'Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned he left three or four thousand in cash hid up som'ers. 'When did you say he died? 'I didn't say, but it was last night. 'Funeral tomorrow, likely? 'Yes, 'bout the middle of the day. 'Well, it's all terrible sad but we've all got to go, one time or another. So what we want to do is to be prepared then we're all right. 'Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say that. When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says 'Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new carpetbags. And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there and git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now. I see what he was up to but I never said nothing, of course. When I got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had said itevery last word of it. And all the time he was adoing it he tried to talk like an Englishman and he done it pretty well, too, for a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't agoing to try to but he really done it pretty good. Then he says 'How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater? The duke said, leave him alone for that said he had played a deef and dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a steamboat. About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along, but they didn't come from high enough up the river but at last there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm. He says 'If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it? So they softened down and said it was all right and when we got to the village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when they see the yawl acoming, and when the king says 'Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter Wilks lives? they give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, 'What d' I tell you? Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle 'I'm sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did live yesterday evening. Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and fell up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says 'Alas, alas, our poor brothergone, and we never got to see him oh, it's too, too hard! Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a carpetbag and bust out acrying. If they warn't the beatenest lot, them two frauds, that ever I struck. Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpetbags up the hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about his brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner like they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race. CHAPTER XXV. The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and dooryards was full and every minute somebody would say, over a fence 'Is it them? And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say 'You bet it is. When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was redheaded, but that don't make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the harelip jumped for the duke, and there they had it! Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such good times. Then the king he hunched the duke privateI see him do itand then he looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs so then him and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoulder, and t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping, people saying 'Sh! and all the men taking their hats off and drooping their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall. And when they got there they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight, and then they bust out acrying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most and then they put their arms around each other's necks, and hung their chins over each other's shoulders and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I never see two men leak the way they done. And, mind you, everybody was doing the same and the place was that damp I never see anything like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t'other on t'other side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray all to themselves. Well, when it come to that it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loudthe poor girls, too and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so disgusting. Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long journey of four thousand mile, but it's a trial that's sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out of their mouths they can't, words being too weak and cold, and all that kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening and then he blubbers out a pious goodygoody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to crying fit to bust. And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out. Music is a good thing and after all that soulbutter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully. Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up with the ashes of the diseased and says if his poor brother laying yonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters and so he will name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.Rev. Mr. Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley. Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town ahunting togetherthat is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t'other world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him and then they shook hands with the duke and didn't say nothing, but just kept asmiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands and said 'Googoogoogoogoo all the time, like a baby that can't talk. So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to George's family, or to Peter. And he always let on that Peter wrote him the things but that was a lie he got every blessed one of them out of that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat. Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwellinghouse and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls and it give the tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid down cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up, and have everything square and aboveboard and told me to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them yallerboys. My, the way the king's eyes did shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder and says 'Oh, this ain't bully nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, bully, it beats the Nonesuch, don't it? The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yallerboys, and sifted them through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor and the king says 'It ain't no use talkin' bein' brothers to a rich dead man and representatives of furrin heirs that's got left is the line for you and me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best way, in the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better way. Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on trust but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king 'Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen dollars? They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it. Then the duke says 'Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistakeI reckon that's the way of it. The best way's to let it go, and keep still about it. We can spare it. 'Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout thatit's the count I'm thinkin' about. We want to be awful square and open and aboveboard here, you know. We want to lug this hyer money up stairs and count it before everybodythen ther' ain't noth'n suspicious. But when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you know, we don't want to 'Hold on, says the duke. 'Le's make up the deffisit, and he begun to haul out yallerboys out of his pocket. 'It's a most amaz'n' good idea, dukeyou have got a rattlin' clever head on you, says the king. 'Blest if the old Nonesuch ain't a heppin' us out agin, and he begun to haul out yallerjackets and stack them up. It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear. 'Say, says the duke, 'I got another idea. Le's go up stairs and count this money, and then take and give it to the girls. 'Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most dazzling idea 'at ever a man struck. You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it. Let 'em fetch along their suspicions now if they want tothis 'll lay 'em out. When we got upstairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a piletwenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech. He says 'Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he would a done more generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' his dear William and me. Now, wouldn't he? Ther' ain't no question 'bout it in my mind. Well, then, what kind o' brothers would it be that 'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles would it be that 'd robyes, robsech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved so at sech a time? If I know Williamand I think I dohewell, I'll jest ask him. He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and leatherheaded a while then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, googooing with all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king says, 'I knowed it I reckon that 'll convince anybody the way he feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the moneytake it all. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful. Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the harelip went for the duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time 'You dear good souls!how lovely!how could you! Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that and before long a big ironjawed man worked himself in there from outside, and stood alistening and looking, and not saying anything and nobody saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they was all busy listening. The king was sayingin the middle of something he'd started in on 'they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why they're invited here this evenin' but tomorrow we want all to comeeverybody for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitten that his funeral orgies sh'd be public. And so he went amooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke he couldn't stand it no more so he writes on a little scrap of paper, 'Obsequies, you old fool, and folds it up, and goes to googooing and reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he reads it and puts it in his pocket, and says 'Poor William, afflicted as he is, his heart's aluz right. Asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeralwants me to make 'em all welcome. But he needn't a worriedit was jest what I was at. Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And when he done it the third time he says 'I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain'tobsequies bein' the common termbut because orgies is the right term. Obsequies ain't used in England no more nowit's gone out. We say orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing you're after more exact. It's a word that's made up out'n the Greek orgo, outside, open, abroad and the Hebrew jeesum, to plant, cover up hence inter. So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public funeral. He was the worst I ever struck. Well, the ironjawed man he laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, 'Why, doctor! and Abner Shackleford says 'Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks. The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says 'Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I 'Keep your hands off of me! says the doctor. 'You talk like an Englishman, don't you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. You Peter Wilks's brother! You're a fraud, that's what you are! Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and knowed everybody by name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings, and all that. But it warn't no use he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what he did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and crying and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them. He says 'I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend and I warn you as a friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostorhas come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs, and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me turn this pitiful rascal outI beg you to do it. Will you? Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She says 'Here is my answer. She hove up the bag of money and put it in the king's hands, and says, 'Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us no receipt for it. Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the harelip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his head and smiled proud. The doctor says 'All right I wash my hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a time 's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this day. And away he went. 'All right, doctor, says the king, kinder mocking him 'we'll try and get 'em to send for you which made them all laugh, and they said it was a prime good hit. CHAPTER XXVI. Well, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his valleymeaning me. So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitarbox in another, and all sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room with. The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The duke's room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby. That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there, and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens wasand all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said sosaid 'How do you get biscuits to brown so nice? and 'Where, for the land's sake, did you get these amaz'n pickles? and all that kind of humbug talkytalk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know. And when it was all done me and the harelip had supper in the kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up the things. The harelip she got to pumping me about England, and blest if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says 'Did you ever see the king? 'Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I havehe goes to our church. I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes to our church, she says 'Whatregular? 'Yesregular. His pew's right over opposite ournon t'other side the pulpit. 'I thought he lived in London? 'Well, he does. Where would he live? 'But I thought you lived in Sheffield? I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says 'I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths. 'Why, how you talkSheffield ain't on the sea. 'Well, who said it was? 'Why, you did. 'I didn't nuther. 'You did! 'I didn't. 'You did. 'I never said nothing of the kind. 'Well, what did you say, then? 'Said he come to take the sea bathsthat's what I said. 'Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the sea? 'Looky here, I says 'did you ever see any Congresswater? 'Yes. 'Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it? 'Why, no. 'Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea bath. 'How does he get it, then? 'Gets it the way people down here gets Congresswaterin barrels. There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his water hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea. They haven't got no conveniences for it. 'Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved time. When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was comfortable and glad. Next, she says 'Do you go to church, too? 'Yesregular. 'Where do you set? 'Why, in our pew. 'Whose pew? 'Why, ournyour Uncle Harvey's. 'His'n? What does he want with a pew? 'Wants it to set in. What did you reckon he wanted with it? 'Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit. Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says 'Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church? 'Why, what do they want with more? 'What!to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you. They don't have no less than seventeen. 'Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, not if I never got to glory. It must take 'em a week. 'Shucks, they don't all of 'em preach the same dayonly one of 'em. 'Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do? 'Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plateand one thing or another. But mainly they don't do nothing. 'Well, then, what are they for? 'Why, they're for style. Don't you know nothing? 'Well, I don't want to know no such foolishness as that. How is servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our niggers? 'No! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs. 'Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's week, and Fourth of July? 'Oh, just listen! A body could tell you hain't ever been to England by that. Why, Harelwhy, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's end to year's end never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor nowheres. 'Nor church? 'Nor church. 'But you always went to church. Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was different from a common servant and had to go to church whether he wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the law. But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn't satisfied. She says 'Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies? 'Honest injun, says I. 'None of it at all? 'None of it at all. Not a lie in it, says I. 'Lay your hand on this book and say it. I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says 'Well, then, I'll believe some of it but I hope to gracious if I'll believe the rest. 'What is it you won't believe, Joe? says Mary Jane, stepping in with Susan behind her. 'It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be treated so? 'That's always your way, Maimalways sailing in to help somebody before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all and that's every bit and grain I did say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that, can't he? 'I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big he's here in our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you was in his place it would make you feel ashamed and so you oughtn't to say a thing to another person that will make them feel ashamed. 'Why, Mam, he said 'It don't make no difference what he saidthat ain't the thing. The thing is for you to treat him kind, and not be saying things to make him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks. I says to myself, this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptile rob her of her money! Then Susan she waltzed in and if you'll believe me, she did give Harelip hark from the tomb! Says I to myself, and this is another one that I'm letting him rob her of her money! Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely againwhich was her way but when she got done there warn't hardly anything left o' poor Harelip. So she hollered. 'All right, then, says the other girls 'you just ask his pardon. She done it, too and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful it was good to hear and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she could do it again. I says to myself, this is another one that I'm letting him rob her of her money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up I'll hive that money for them or bust. So then I lit outfor bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself, shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds? Nothat won't do. He might tell who told him then the king and the duke would make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? NoI dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint, sure they've got the money, and they'd slide right out and get away with it. If she was to fetch in help I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with, I judge. No there ain't no good way but one. I got to steal that money, somehow and I got to steal it some way that they won't suspicion that I done it. They've got a good thing here, and they ain't agoing to leave till they've played this family and this town for all they're worth, so I'll find a chance time enough. I'll steal it and hide it and by and by, when I'm away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it's hid. But I better hive it tonight if I can, because the doctor maybe hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has he might scare them out of here yet. So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall was dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it with my hands but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let anybody else take care of that money but his own self so then I went to his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I couldn't do nothing without a candle, and I dasn't light one, of course. So I judged I'd got to do the other thinglay for them and eavesdrop. About that time I hears their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed I reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought it would be but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in amongst the gowns, and stood there perfectly still. They come in and shut the door and the first thing the duke done was to get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found the bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to hide under the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets down then, and the king says 'Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, because it's better for us to be down there awhoopin' up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em a chance to talk us over. 'Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy I ain't comfortable. That doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a notion, and I think it's a sound one. 'What is it, duke? 'That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we got it so easygiven back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for knocking off and lighting out. That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would a been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed, The king rips out and says 'What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like a passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o' property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?and all good, salable stuff, too. The duke he grumbled said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't want to go no deeperdidn't want to rob a lot of orphans of everything they had. 'Why, how you talk! says the king. 'We sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at all but jest this money. The people that buys the property is the suff'rers because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own itwhich won't be long after we've slidthe sale won't be valid, and it 'll all go back to the estate. These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin, and that's enough for them they're young and spry, and k'n easy earn a livin'. they ain't agoin to suffer. Why, jest thinkthere's thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, they ain't got noth'n' to complain of. Well, the king he talked him blind so at last he give in, and said all right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that doctor hanging over them. But the king says 'Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for him? Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town? So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says 'I don't think we put that money in a good place. That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of no kind to help me. The king says 'Why? 'Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out and first you know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put 'em away and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and not borrow some of it? 'Your head's level agin, duke, says the king and he comes afumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery and I wondered what them fellows would say to me if they catched me and I tried to think what I'd better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag before I could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned I was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick that was under the featherbed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only makes up the featherbed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now. But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was halfway down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good ransacking I knowed that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes all on but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such a sweat to get through with the business. By and by I heard the king and the duke come up so I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to happen. But nothing did. So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't begun yet and then I slipped down the ladder. CHAPTER XXVII. I crept to their doors and listened they was snoring. So I tiptoed along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the diningroom door, and see the men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open but I see there warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter so I shoved on by but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked the moneybag in under the lid, just down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the door. The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and kneeled down and looked in then she put up her handkerchief, and I see she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the diningroom I thought I'd make sure them watchers hadn't seen me so I looked through the crack, and everything was all right. They hadn't stirred. I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right because when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it but that ain't the thing that's going to happen the thing that's going to happen is, the money 'll be found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the king 'll get it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I wanted to slide down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute it was getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin to stir, and I might get catchedcatched with six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that, I says to myself. When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell. Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the diningroom was full. I see the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with folks around. Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a little. There warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor and blowing nosesbecause people always blows them more at a funeral than they do at other places except church. When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last touches, and getting people and things all shipshape and comfortable, and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke he moved people around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done it with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his place over against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see and there warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham. They had borrowed a melodeuma sick one and when everything was ready a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk and straight off the most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard it was only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right along the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and waityou couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and nobody didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see that longlegged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say, 'Don't you worryjust depend on me. Then he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people's heads. So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and more outrageous all the time and at last, when he had gone around two sides of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall again and so he glided and glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, 'He had a rat! Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than what that undertaker was. Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the coffin with his screwdriver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never meddled at all just slid the lid along as soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?now how do I know whether to write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all the thing's awful mixed now trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole business! They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces againI couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come of it the faces didn't tell me nothing. The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up, and made himself ever so friendly and he give out the idea that his congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody they wished he could stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done. And he said of course him and William would take the girls home with them and that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed and amongst their own relations and it pleased the girls, tootickled them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world and told him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and change the general tune. Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all the property for auction straight offsale two days after the funeral but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to. So the next day after the funeral, along about noontime, the girls' joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for threeday drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two. The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way. It injured the frauds some but the old fool he bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy. Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look that there was trouble. The king says 'Was you in my room night before last? 'No, your majestywhich was the way I always called him when nobody but our gang warn't around. 'Was you in there yisterday er last night? 'No, your majesty. 'Honor bright, nowno lies. 'Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been anear your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it to you. The duke says 'Have you seen anybody else go in there? 'No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe. 'Stop and think. I studied awhile and see my chance then I says 'Well, I see the niggers go in there several times. Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever expected it, and then like they had. Then the duke says 'What, all of them? 'Noleastways, not all at oncethat is, I don't think I ever see them all come out at once but just one time. 'Hello! When was that? 'It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early, because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see them. 'Well, go on, go on! What did they do? How'd they act? 'They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I see. They tiptoed away so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up and found you warn't up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up. 'Great guns, this is a go! says the king and both of them looked pretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there athinking and scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says 'It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on to be sorry they was going out of this region! And I believed they was sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell me any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why, the way they played that thing it would fool anybody. In my opinion, there's a fortune in 'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better layout than thatand here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where is that songthat draft? 'In the bank for to be collected. Where would it be? 'Well, that's all right then, thank goodness. Says I, kind of timidlike 'Is something gone wrong? The king whirls on me and rips out 'None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own affairsif you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit thatyou hear? Then he says to the duke, 'We got to jest swaller it and say noth'n' mum's the word for us. As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and says 'Quick sales and small profits! It's a good businessyes. The king snarls around on him and says 'I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick. If the profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn? 'Well, they'd be in this house yet and we wouldn't if I could a got my advice listened to. The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped around and lit into me again. He give me down the banks for not coming and telling him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that waysaid any fool would a knowed something was up. And then waltzed in and cussed himself awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off ajawing and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it. CHAPTER XXVIII. By and by it was gettingup time. So I come down the ladder and started for downstairs but as I come to the girls' room the door was open, and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd been packing things in itgetting ready to go to England. But she had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it of course anybody would. I went in there and says 'Miss Mary Jane, you can't abear to see people in trouble, and I can'tmost always. Tell me about it. So she done it. And it was the niggersI just expected it. She said the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her she didn't know how she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and the children warn't ever going to see each other no moreand then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says 'Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't ever going to see each other any more! 'But they willand inside of two weeksand I know it! says I. Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge she throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it again, say it again, say it again! I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close place. I asked her to let me think a minute and she set there, very impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and easedup, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no experience, and can't say for certain but it looks so to me, anyway and yet here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth is better and actuly safer than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I'm agoing to chance it I'll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you'll go to. Then I says 'Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you could go and stay three or four days? 'Yes Mr. Lothrop's. Why? 'Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see each other again inside of two weekshere in this houseand prove how I know itwill you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days? 'Four days! she says 'I'll stay a year! 'All right, I says, 'I don't want nothing more out of you than just your wordI druther have it than another man's kisstheBible. She smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, 'If you don't mind it, I'll shut the doorand bolt it. Then I come back and set down again, and says 'Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all they're a couple of fraudsregular deadbeats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand the rest middling easy. It jolted her up like everything, of course but I was over the shoal water now, so I went right along, her eyes ablazing higher and higher all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she flung herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen timesand then up she jumps, with her face afire like sunset, and says 'The brute! Come, don't waste a minutenot a secondwe'll have them tarred and feathered, and flung in the river! Says I 'Cert'nly. But do you mean before you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or 'Oh, she says, 'what am I thinking about! she says, and set right down again. 'Don't mind what I saidplease don'tyou won't, now, will you? Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I would die first. 'I never thought, I was so stirred up, she says 'now go on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you say I'll do it. 'Well, I says, 'it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or notI druther not tell you why and if you was to blow on them this town would get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right but there'd be another person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got to save him, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them. Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could get me and Jim rid of the frauds get them jailed here, and then leave. But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard to answer questions but me so I didn't want the plan to begin working till pretty late tonight. I says 'Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it? 'A little short of four milesright out in the country, back here. 'Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till nine or halfpast tonight, and then get them to fetch you home againtell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait till eleven, and then if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats jailed. 'Good, she says, 'I'll do it. 'And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and you must stand by me all you can. 'Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head! she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said it, too. 'If I get away I sha'n't be here, I says, 'to prove these rapscallions ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I was here. I could swear they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something. Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There'Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesseswhy, you'll have that entire town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come abiling, too. I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says 'Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they get that money and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count, and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with the niggersit warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before long. Why, they can't collect the money for the niggers yetthey're in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary. 'Well, she says, 'I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start straight for Mr. Lothrop's. ''Deed, that ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane, I says, 'by no manner of means go before breakfast. 'Why? 'What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary? 'Well, I never thoughtand come to think, I don't know. What was it? 'Why, it's because you ain't one of these leatherface people. I don't want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles when they come to kiss you goodmorning, and never 'There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfastI'll be glad to. And leave my sisters with them? 'Yes never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town if a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend, and you'll be back tonight or early in the morning. 'Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to them. 'Well, then, it sha'n't be. It was well enough to tell her sono harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble and it's the little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I says 'There's one more thingthat bag of money. 'Well, they've got that and it makes me feel pretty silly to think how they got it. 'No, you're out, there. They hain't got it. 'Why, who's got it? 'I wish I knowed, but I don't. I had it, because I stole it from them and I stole it to give to you and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as sorry as I can be but I done the best I could I did honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come to, and runand it warn't a good place. 'Oh, stop blaming yourselfit's too bad to do it, and I won't allow ityou couldn't help it it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it? I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again and I couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So for a minute I didn't say nothing then I says 'I'd ruther not tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't mind letting me off but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you reckon that 'll do? 'Oh, yes. So I wrote 'I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane. It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own roof, shaming her and robbing her and when I folded it up and give it to her I see the water come into her eyes, too and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says 'Goodbye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me and if I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of you a many and a many a time, and I'll pray for you, too!and she was gone. Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the sameshe was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notionthere warn't no backdown to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beautyand goodness, tooshe lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust. Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon because nobody see her go. When I struck Susan and the harelip, I says 'What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes? They says 'There's several but it's the Proctors, mainly. 'That's the name, I says 'I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurryone of them's sick. 'Which one? 'I don't know leastways, I kinder forget but I thinks it's 'Sakes alive, I hope it ain't Hanner? 'I'm sorry to say it, I says, 'but Hanner's the very one. 'My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad? 'It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours. 'Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her? I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says 'Mumps. 'Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps. 'They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with these mumps. These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said. 'How's it a new kind? 'Because it's mixed up with other things. 'What other things? 'Well, measles, and whoopingcough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and yaller janders, and brainfever, and I don't know what all. 'My land! And they call it the mumps? 'That's what Miss Mary Jane said. 'Well, what in the nation do they call it the mumps for? 'Why, because it is the mumps. That's what it starts with. 'Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his toe.' Would ther' be any sense in that? No. And ther' ain't no sense in this, nuther. Is it ketching? 'Is it ketching? Why, how you talk. Is a harrow catchingin the dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you may sayand it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it hitched on good. 'Well, it's awful, I think, says the harelip. 'I'll go to Uncle Harvey and 'Oh, yes, I says, 'I would. Of course I would. I wouldn't lose no time. 'Well, why wouldn't you? 'Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by yourselves? you know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then is a preacher going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a ship clerk?so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now you know he ain't. What will he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way they can for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribusunum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey 'Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins. 'Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors. 'Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you see that they'd go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell anybody at all. 'Well, maybe you're rightyes, I judge you are right. 'But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her? 'Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over the river to see Mr.'Mr.what is the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?I mean the one that 'Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it? 'Of course bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than anybody else and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home and if she is, she'll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorpswhich 'll be perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their buying the house I know it, because she told me so herself. 'All right, they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message. Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because they wanted to go to England and the king and the duke would ruther Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Doctor Robinson. I felt very good I judged I had done it pretty neatI reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course he would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not being brung up to it. Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old man he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a little goodygoody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around googooing for sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly. But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was soldeverything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd got to work that offI never see such a girafft as the king was for wanting to swallow everything. Well, whilst they was at it a steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd awhooping and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing out 'Here's your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old Peter Wilksand you pays your money and you takes your choice! CHAPTER XXIX. They was fetching a very nicelooking old gentleman along, and a nicelooking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls, how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn't see no joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king some to see any. I reckoned they'd turn pale. But no, nary a pale did they turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just went a googooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's googling out buttermilk and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed down sorrowful on them newcomers like it give him the stomachache in his very heart to think there could be such frauds and rascals in the world. Oh, he done it admirable. Lots of the principal people gethered around the king, to let him see they was on his side. That old gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to death. Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I see straight off he pronounced like an Englishmannot the king's way, though the king's was pretty good for an imitation. I can't give the old gent's words, nor I can't imitate him but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this 'This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for and I'll acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it and answer it for my brother and me has had misfortunes he's broke his arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks' brother Harvey, and this is his brother William, which can't hear nor speakand can't even make signs to amount to much, now't he's only got one hand to work them with. We are who we say we are and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove it. But up till then I won't say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait. So him and the new dummy started off and the king he laughs, and blethers out 'Broke his armvery likely, ain't it?and very convenient, too, for a fraud that's got to make signs, and ain't learnt how. Lost their baggage! That's mighty good!and mighty ingeniousunder the circumstances! So he laughed again and so did everybody else, except three or four, or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor another one was a sharplooking gentleman, with a carpetbag of the oldfashioned kind made out of carpetstuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now and then and nodding their headsit was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville and another one was a big rough husky that come along and listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the king now. And when the king got done this husky up and says 'Say, looky here if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to this town? 'The day before the funeral, friend, says the king. 'But what time o' day? 'In the evenin''bout an hour er two before sundown. 'How'd you come? 'I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati. 'Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the mornin'in a canoe? 'I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'. 'It's a lie. Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an old man and a preacher. 'Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint that mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and he was up there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy. The doctor he up and says 'Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines? 'I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know him perfectly easy. It was me he pointed at. The doctor says 'Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not but if these two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I think it's our duty to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked into this thing. Come along, Hines come along, the rest of you. We'll take these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple, and I reckon we'll find out something before we get through. It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's friends so we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me along by the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my hand. We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says 'I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they're frauds, and they may have complices that we don't know nothing about. If they have, won't the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It ain't unlikely. If these men ain't frauds, they won't object to sending for that money and letting us keep it till they prove they're all rightain't that so? Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a pretty tight place right at the outstart. But the king he only looked sorrowful, and says 'Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain't got no disposition to throw anything in the way of a fair, open, outandout investigation o' this misable business but, alas, the money ain't there you k'n send and see, if you want to. 'Where is it, then? 'Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and hid it inside o' the straw tick o' my bed, not wishin' to bank it for the few days we'd be here, and considerin' the bed a safe place, we not bein' used to niggers, and suppos'n' 'em honest, like servants in England. The niggers stole it the very next mornin' after I had went down stairs and when I sold 'em I hadn't missed the money yit, so they got clean away with it. My servant here k'n tell you 'bout it, gentlemen. The doctor and several said 'Shucks! and I see nobody didn't altogether believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers steal it. I said no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling away, and I never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid they had waked up my master and was trying to get away before he made trouble with them. That was all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me and says 'Are you English, too? I says yes and him and some others laughed, and said, 'Stuff! Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about supper, nor ever seemed to think about itand so they kept it up, and kept it up and it was the worst mixedup thing you ever see. They made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a seen that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies. And by and by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a lefthanded look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side. I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all about the English Wilkses, and so on but I didn't get pretty fur till the doctor begun to laugh and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says 'Set down, my boy I wouldn't strain myself if I was you. I reckon you ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy what you want is practice. You do it pretty awkward. I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let off, anyway. The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says 'If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell The king broke in and reached out his hand, and says 'Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's wrote so often about? The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked pleased, and they talked right along awhile, and then got to one side and talked low and at last the lawyer speaks up and says 'That 'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it, along with your brother's, and then they'll know it's all right. So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something and then they give the pen to the dukeand then for the first time the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote. So then the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman and says 'You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names. The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The lawyer looked powerful astonished, and says 'Well, it beats meand snaked a lot of old letters out of his pocket, and examined them, and then examined the old man's writing, and then them again and then says 'These old letters is from Harvey Wilks and here's these two handwritings, and anybody can see they didn't write them (the king and the duke looked sold and foolish, I tell you, to see how the lawyer had took them in), 'and here's this old gentleman's hand writing, and anybody can tell, easy enough, he didn't write themfact is, the scratches he makes ain't properly writing at all. Now, here's some letters from The new old gentleman says 'If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but my brother thereso he copies for me. It's his hand you've got there, not mine. 'Well! says the lawyer, 'this is a state of things. I've got some of William's letters, too so if you'll get him to write a line or so we can com 'He can't write with his left hand, says the old gentleman. 'If he could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own letters and mine too. Look at both, pleasethey're by the same hand. The lawyer done it, and says 'I believe it's soand if it ain't so, there's a heap stronger resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway. Well, well, well! I thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it's gone to grass, partly. But anyway, one thing is provedthese two ain't either of 'em Wilksesand he wagged his head towards the king and the duke. Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old fool wouldn't give in then! Indeed he wouldn't. Said it warn't no fair test. Said his brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn't tried to writehe see William was going to play one of his jokes the minute he put the pen to paper. And so he warmed up and went warbling and warbling right along till he was actuly beginning to believe what he was saying himself but pretty soon the new gentleman broke in, and says 'I've thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to lay out my brhelped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying? 'Yes, says somebody, 'me and Ab Turner done it. We're both here. Then the old man turns towards the king, and says 'Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast? Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or he'd a squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it took him so sudden and, mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to make most anybody sqush to get fetched such a solid one as that without any notice, because how was he going to know what was tattooed on the man? He whitened a little he couldn't help it and it was mighty still in there, and everybody bending a little forwards and gazing at him. Says I to myself, now he'll throw up the spongethere ain't no more use. Well, did he? A body can't hardly believe it, but he didn't. I reckon he thought he'd keep the thing up till he tired them people out, so they'd thin out, and him and the duke could break loose and get away. Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile, and says 'Mf! It's a very tough question, ain't it! yes, sir, I k'n tell you what's tattooed on his breast. It's jest a small, thin, blue arrowthat's what it is and if you don't look clost, you can't see it. now what do you sayhey? Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean outandout cheek. The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and his eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king this time, and says 'Thereyou've heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter Wilks' breast? Both of them spoke up and says 'We didn't see no such mark. 'Good! says the old gentleman. 'Now, what you did see on his breast was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was young), and a W, with dashes between them, so PBWand he marked them that way on a piece of paper. 'Come, ain't that what you saw? Both of them spoke up again, and says 'No, we didn't. We never seen any marks at all. Well, everybody was in a state of mind now, and they sings out 'The whole bilin' of 'm 's frauds! Le's duck 'em! le's drown 'em! le's ride 'em on a rail! and everybody was whooping at once, and there was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells, and says 'Gentlemengentlemen! Hear me just a wordjust a single wordif you please! There's one way yetlet's go and dig up the corpse and look. That took them. 'Hooray! they all shouted, and was starting right off but the lawyer and the doctor sung out 'Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and fetch them along, too! 'We'll do it! they all shouted 'and if we don't find them marks we'll lynch the whole gang! I was scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no getting away, you know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for the graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in the evening. As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out of town because now if I could tip her the wink she'd light out and save me, and blow on our deadbeats. Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like wildcats and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most dangersome I ever was in and I was kinder stunned everything was going so different from what I had allowed for stead of being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the closefit come, here was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoomarks. If they didn't find them I couldn't bear to think about it and yet, somehow, I couldn't think about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful time to give the crowd the slip but that big husky had me by the wristHinesand a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip. He dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep up. When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they found they had about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn't thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway by the flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a mile off, to borrow one. So they dug and dug like everything and it got awful dark, and the rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the lightning come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed but them people never took no notice of it, they was so full of this business and one minute you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the dark wiped it all out, and you couldn't see nothing at all. At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to scrouge in and get a sight, you never see and in the dark, that way, it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so, and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and panting. All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare, and somebody sings out 'By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast! Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell. I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flewleastways, I had it all to myself except the solid dark, and the nowandthen glares, and the buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting of the thunder and sure as you are born I did clip it along! When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the storm, so I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the main one and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and set it. No light there the house all darkwhich made me feel sorry and disappointed, I didn't know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by, flash comes the light in Mary Jane's window! and my heart swelled up sudden, like to bust and the same second the house and all was behind me in the dark, and wasn't ever going to be before me no more in this world. She was the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand. The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first time the lightning showed me one that wasn't chained I snatched it and shoved. It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with nothing but a rope. The towhead was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the middle of the river, but I didn't lose no time and when I struck the raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But I didn't. As I sprung aboard I sung out 'Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we're shut of them! Jim lit out, and was acoming for me with both arms spread, he was so full of joy but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up in my mouth and I went overboard backwards for I forgot he was old King Lear and a drownded Arab all in one, and it most scared the livers and lights out of me. But Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the king and the duke, but I says 'Not now have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and let her slide! So in two seconds away we went asliding down the river, and it did seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and crack my heels a few timesI couldn't help it but about the third crack I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and held my breath and listened and waited and sure enough, when the next flash busted out over the water, here they come!and just alaying to their oars and making their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke. So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up and it was all I could do to keep from crying. CHAPTER XXX. When they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar, and says 'Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company, hey? I says 'No, your majesty, we warn'tplease don't, your majesty! 'Quick, then, and tell us what was your idea, or I'll shake the insides out o' you! 'Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty. The man that had aholt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous fix and when they was all took by surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets go of me and whispers, 'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I lit out. It didn't seem no good for me to stayI couldn't do nothing, and I didn't want to be hung if I could get away. So I never stopped running till I found the canoe and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, or they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you and the duke wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we see you coming you may ask Jim if I didn't. Jim said it was so and the king told him to shut up, and said, 'Oh, yes, it's mighty likely! and shook me up again, and said he reckoned he'd drownd me. But the duke says 'Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would you a done any different? Did you inquire around for him when you got loose? I don't remember it. So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in it. But the duke says 'You better a blame' sight give yourself a good cussing, for you're the one that's entitled to it most. You hain't done a thing from the start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky with that imaginary bluearrow mark. That was brightit was right down bully and it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn't been for that they'd a jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage comeand thenthe penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness for if the excited fools hadn't let go all holts and made that rush to get a look we'd a slept in our cravats tonightcravats warranted to wear, toolonger than we'd need 'em. They was still a minutethinking then the king says, kind of absentminded like 'Mf! And we reckoned the niggers stole it! That made me squirm! 'Yes, says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, 'we did. After about a half a minute the king drawls out 'Leastways, I did. The duke says, the same way 'On the contrary, I did. The king kind of ruffles up, and says 'Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to? The duke says, pretty brisk 'When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was you referring to? 'Shucks! says the king, very sarcastic 'but I don't knowmaybe you was asleep, and didn't know what you was about. The duke bristles up now, and says 'Oh, let up on this cussed nonsense do you take me for a blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin? 'Yes, sir! I know you do know, because you done it yourself! 'It's a lie!and the duke went for him. The king sings out 'Take y'r hands off!leggo my throat!I take it all back! The duke says 'Well, you just own up, first, that you did hide that money there, intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it all to yourself. 'Wait jest a minute, dukeanswer me this one question, honest and fair if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything I said. 'You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now! 'Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one morenow don't git mad didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide it? The duke never said nothing for a little bit then he says 'Well, I don't care if I did, I didn't do it, anyway. But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you done it. 'I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I was but youI mean somebodygot in ahead o' me. 'It's a lie! You done it, and you got to say you done it, or The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out ''Nough!I own up! I was very glad to hear him say that it made me feel much more easier than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says 'If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's well for you to set there and blubber like a babyit's fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everythingand I atrusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to believe that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisityou wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it all! The king says, timid, and still asnuffling 'Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit it warn't me. 'Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you! says the duke. 'And now you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, and all of ourn but a shekel or two besides. G'long to bed, and don't you deffersit me no more deffersits, long 's you live! So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle and so in about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off asnoring in each other's arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the moneybag again. That made me feel easy and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything. CHAPTER XXXI. We dasn't stop again at any town for days and days kept right along down the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work the villages again. First they done a lecture on temperance but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancingschool but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of everything but they couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate. And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeitmoney business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ('House to rob, you mean, says I to myself 'and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raftand you'll have to take it out in wondering.) And he said if he warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along. So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem to do nothing right he found fault with every little thing. Something was abrewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and no king we could have a change, anywayand maybe a chance for the change on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he acussing and athreatening with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out 'Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now! But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shoutand then anotherand then another one and run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching but it warn't no useold Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried I couldn't help it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says 'Yes. 'Whereabouts? says I. 'Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him? 'You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers outand told me to lay down and stay where I was and I done it. Been there ever since afeard to come out. 'Well, he says, 'you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him. He run off f'm down South, som'ers. 'It's a good job they got him. 'Well, I reckon! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's like picking up money out'n the road. 'Yes, it isand I could a had it if I'd been big enough I see him first. Who nailed him? 'It was an old fellowa strangerand he sold out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think o' that, now! You bet I'd wait, if it was seven year. 'That's me, every time, says I. 'But maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight about it. 'But it is, thoughstraight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It tells all about him, to a dotpaints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's frum, below Newrleans. Nosirreebob, they ain't no trouble 'bout that speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye? I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars. Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way a person does a lowdown thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and lowdown and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't agoing to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame but something inside of me kept saying, 'There was the Sundayschool, you could a gone to it and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire. It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right it was because I warn't square it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lieI found that out. So I was full of trouble, full as I could be and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea and I says, I'll go and write the letterand then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn. I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinkingthinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river and I see Jim before me all the time in the day and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we afloating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was and suchlike times and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now and then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was atrembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself 'All right, then, I'll go to helland tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog. Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some considerable many ways in my mind and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank. Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it, 'Phelps's Sawmill, and when I come to the farmhouses, two or three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yetI only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuchthreenight performancelike that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says 'Hello! Where'd you come from? Then he says, kind of glad and eager, 'Where's the raft?got her in a good place? I says 'Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace. Then he didn't look so joyful, and says 'What was your idea for asking me? he says. 'Well, I says, 'when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says to myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer so I went aloafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along but when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me aholt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to leave and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living' so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what did become of the raft, then?and Jimpoor Jim! 'Blamed if I knowthat is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the loafers had matched halfdollars with him and got every cent but what he'd spent for whisky and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.' 'I wouldn't shake my nigger, would I?the only nigger I had in the world, and the only property. 'We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him our nigger yes, we did consider him sogoodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powderhorn. Where's that ten cents? Give it here. I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says 'Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done that! 'How can he blow? Hain't he run off? 'No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's gone. 'Sold him? I says, and begun to cry 'why, he was my nigger, and that was my money. Where is he?I want my nigger. 'Well, you can't get your nigger, that's allso dry up your blubbering. Looky heredo you think you'd venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you was to blow on us He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on awhimpering, and says 'I don't want to blow on nobody and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger. He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says 'I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him. So I promised, and he says 'A farmer by the name of Silas Ph and then he stopped. You see, he started to tell me the truth but when he stopped that way, and begun to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he was. He wouldn't trust me he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says 'The man that bought him is named Abram FosterAbram G. Fosterand he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette. 'All right, I says, 'I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this very afternoon. 'No you wont, you'll start now and don't you lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with us, d'ye hear? That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans. 'So clear out, he says 'and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim is your niggersome idiots don't require documentsleastways I've heard there's such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to but mind you don't work your jaw any between here and there. So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I stopped then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them. CHAPTER XXXII. When I got there it was all still and Sundaylike, and hot and sunshiny the hands was gone to the fields and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whisperingspirits that's been dead ever so many yearsand you always think they're talking about you. As a general thing it makes a body wish he was dead, too, and done with it all. Phelps' was one of these little onehorse cotton plantations, and they all look alike. A rail fence round a twoacre yard a stile made out of logs sawed off and upended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse some sickly grasspatches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off big double loghouse for the white folkshewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mudstripes been whitewashed some time or another roundlog kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house log smokehouse back of the kitchen three little log niggercabins in a row t'other side the smokehouse one little hut all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side ashhopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd hound asleep there in the sun more hounds asleep round about about three shade trees away off in a corner some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods. I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ashhopper, and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of a spinningwheel wailing along up and sinking along down again and then I knowed for certain I wished I was deadfor that is the lonesomest sound in the whole world. I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone. When I got halfway, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may sayspokes made out of dogscircle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, abarking and howling and more acoming you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres. A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rollingpin in her hand, singing out, 'Begone you Tige! you Spot! begone sah! and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, and then the rest followed and the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow. And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger boys without anything on but towlinen shirts, and they hung on to their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about fortyfive or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinningstick in her hand and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was doing. She was smiling all over so she could hardly standand says 'It's you, at last!ain't it? I out with a 'Yes'm before I thought. She grabbed me and hugged me tight and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, 'You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would but law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!tell him howdy. But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on 'Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right awayor did you get your breakfast on the boat? I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a splitbottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says 'Now I can have a good look at you and, lawsame, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' you?boat get aground? 'Yes'mshe 'Don't say yes'msay Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground? I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct and my instinct said she would be coming upfrom down towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground onorNow I struck an idea, and fetched it out 'It warn't the groundingthat didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinderhead. 'Good gracious! anybody hurt? 'No'm. Killed a nigger. 'Well, it's lucky because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinderhead and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortificationthat was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't you?oldish man, with a 'No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharfboat and went looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too soon and so I come down the back way. 'Who'd you give the baggage to? 'Nobody. 'Why, child, it 'll be stole! 'Not where I hid it I reckon it won't, I says. 'How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat? It was kinder thin ice, but I says 'The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something to eat before I went ashore so he took me in the texas to the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted. I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the children all the time I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says 'But here we're arunning on this way, and you hain't told me a word about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn just tell me everythingtell me all about 'm all every one of 'm and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told you to tell me and every last thing you can think of. Well, I see I was up a stumpand up it good. Providence had stood by me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go aheadI'd got to throw up my hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and says 'Here he comes! Stick your head down lowerthere, that'll do you can't be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him. Children, don't you say a word. I see I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to worry there warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning struck. I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says 'Has he come? 'No, says her husband. 'Goodness gracious! she says, 'what in the warld can have become of him? 'I can't imagine, says the old gentleman 'and I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy. 'Uneasy! she says 'I'm ready to go distracted! He must a come and you've missed him along the road. I know it's sosomething tells me so. 'Why, Sally, I couldn't miss him along the roadyou know that. 'But oh, dear, dear, what will Sis say! He must a come! You must a missed him. He 'Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's come for he couldn't come and me miss him. Sally, it's terriblejust terriblesomething's happened to the boat, sure! 'Why, Silas! Look yonder!up the road!ain't that somebody coming? He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and give me a pull, and out I come and when he turned back from the window there she stood, abeaming and asmiling like a house afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and says 'Why, who's that? 'Who do you reckon 't is? 'I hain't no idea. Who is it? 'It's Tom Sawyer! By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to swap knives the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on shaking and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and cry and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary, and the rest of the tribe. But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was for it was like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze to me for two hours and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more about my familyI mean the Sawyer familythan ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinderhead at the mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, and worked firstrate because they didn't know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done just as well. Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep quiet? Well, I couldn't have it that way it wouldn't do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me. CHAPTER XXXIII. So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was halfway I see a wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till he come along. I says 'Hold on! and it stopped alongside, and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so and he swallowed two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says 'I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you want to come back and ha'nt me for? I says 'I hain't come backI hain't been gone. When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite satisfied yet. He says 'Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun now, you ain't a ghost? 'Honest injun, I ain't, I says. 'WellIIwell, that ought to settle it, of course but I can't somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever murdered at all? 'No. I warn't ever murdered at allI played it on them. You come in here and feel of me if you don't believe me. So he done it and it satisfied him and he was that glad to see me again he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says 'It's all right I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on it's your'n and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the time you ought to and I'll go towards town a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you and you needn't let on to know me at first. I says 'All right but wait a minute. There's one more thinga thing that nobody don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that I'm atrying to steal out of slavery, and his name is Jimold Miss Watson's Jim. He says 'What! Why, Jim is He stopped and went to studying. I says 'I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, lowdown business but what if it is? I'm low down and I'm agoing to steal him, and I want you keep mum and not let on. Will you? His eye lit up, and he says 'I'll help you steal him! Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heardand I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a niggerstealer! 'Oh, shucks! I says 'you're joking. 'I ain't joking, either. 'Well, then, I says, 'joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that you don't know nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him. Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking so I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and he says 'Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hairnot a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse nowI wouldn't, honest and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth. That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little onehorse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmerpreachers like that, and done the same way, down South. In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty yards, and says 'Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy (that's one of the children) 'run and tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner. Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger don't come every year, and so he lays over the yallerfever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the house the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an audienceand that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep no, he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got afront of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and says 'Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume? 'No, my boy, says the old gentleman, 'I'm sorry to say 't your driver has deceived you Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come in. Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, 'Too latehe's out of sight. 'Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's. 'Oh, I can't make you so much trouble I couldn't think of it. I'll walkI don't mind the distance. 'But we won't let you walkit wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it. Come right in. 'Oh, do, says Aunt Sally 'it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't let you walk. And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on another plate when I see you coming so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in and make yourself at home. So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded, and come in and when he was in he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompsonand he made another bow. Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says 'You owdacious puppy! He looked kind of hurt, and says 'I'm surprised at you, m'am. 'You're s'rpWhy, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to take andSay, what do you mean by kissing me? He looked kind of humble, and says 'I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. IIthought you'd like it. 'Why, you born fool! She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. 'What made you think I'd like it? 'Well, I don't know. Only, theytheytold me you would. 'They told you I would. Whoever told you's another lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's they? 'Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am. It was all she could do to hold in and her eyes snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him and she says 'Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot short. He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says 'I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her and said she'd like it. They all said itevery one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no moreI won't, honest. 'You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd reckon you won't! 'No'm, I'm honest about it I won't ever do it againtill you ask me. 'Till I ask you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I lay you'll be the Methusalemnumskull of creation before ever I ask youor the likes of you. 'Well, he says, 'it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, 'Didn't you think she'd like me to kiss her, sir? 'Why, no IIwell, no, I b'lieve I didn't. Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says 'Tom, didn't you think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid Sawyer' 'My land! she says, breaking in and jumping for him, 'you impudent young rascal, to fool a body so and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says 'No, not till you've asked me first. So she didn't lose no time, but asked him and hugged him and kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says 'Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for you at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him. 'It's because it warn't intended for any of us to come but Tom, he says 'but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come, too so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a firstrate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come. 'Nonot impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed I hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I don't mind the termsI'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack. We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the kitchen and there was things enough on that table for seven familiesand all hot, too none of your flabby, tough meat that's laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long blessing over it, but it was worth it and it didn't cool it a bit, neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times. There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time but it warn't no use, they didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the little boys says 'Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show? 'No, says the old man, 'I reckon there ain't going to be any and you couldn't go if there was because the runaway nigger told Burton and me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the people so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loafers out of town before this time. So there it was!but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in the same room and bed so, being tired, we bid goodnight and went up to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the lightningrod, and shoved for the town for I didn't believe anybody was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn't hurry up and give them one they'd get into trouble sure. On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away and I told Tom all about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage as I had time to and as we struck into the town and up through the the middle of itit was as much as halfafter eight, thenhere comes a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns and we jumped to one side to let them go by and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a railthat is, I knowed it was the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that was humanjust looked like a couple of monstrous big soldierplumes. Well, it made me sick to see it and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another. We see we was too latecouldn't do no good. We asked some stragglers about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very innocent and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the middle of his cavortings on the stage then somebody give a signal, and the house rose up and went for them. So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehowthough I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same. CHAPTER XXXIV. We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By and by Tom says 'Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I bet I know where Jim is. 'No! Where? 'In that hut down by the ashhopper. Why, looky here. When we was at dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles? 'Yes. 'What did you think the vittles was for? 'For a dog. 'So 'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog. 'Why? 'Because part of it was watermelon. 'So it wasI noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never thought about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and don't see at the same time. 'Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked it again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about the time we got up from tablesame key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows prisoner and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little plantation, and where the people's all so kind and good. Jim's the prisoner. All rightI'm glad we found it out detective fashion I wouldn't give shucks for any other way. Now you work your mind, and study out a plan to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too and we'll take the one we like the best. What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer's head I wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan, but only just to be doing something I knowed very well where the right plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says 'Ready? 'Yes, I says. 'All rightbring it out. 'My plan is this, I says. 'We can easy find out if it's Jim in there. Then get up my canoe tomorrow night, and fetch my raft over from the island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and Jim used to do before. Wouldn't that plan work? 'Work? Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats afighting. But it's too blame' simple there ain't nothing to it. What's the good of a plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goosemilk. Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory. I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different but I knowed mighty well that whenever he got his plan ready it wouldn't have none of them objections to it. And it didn't. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it. I needn't tell what it was here, because I knowed it wouldn't stay the way, it was. I knowed he would be changing it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new bullinesses wherever he got a chance. And that is what he done. Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of slavery. That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy that was respectable and well brung up and had a character to lose and folks at home that had characters and he was bright and not leatherheaded and knowing and not ignorant and not mean, but kind and yet here he was, without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to this business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame, before everybody. I couldn't understand it no way at all. It was outrageous, and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so and so be his true friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself. And I did start to tell him but he shut me up, and says 'Don't you reckon I know what I'm about? Don't I generly know what I'm about? 'Yes. 'Didn't I say I was going to help steal the nigger? 'Yes. 'Well, then. That's all he said, and that's all I said. It warn't no use to say any more because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But I couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing so I just let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to have it so, I couldn't help it. When we got home the house was all dark and still so we went on down to the hut by the ashhopper for to examine it. We went through the yard so as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed us, and didn't make no more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything comes by in the night. When we got to the cabin we took a look at the front and the two sides and on the side I warn't acquainted withwhich was the north sidewe found a square windowhole, up tolerable high, with just one stout board nailed across it. I says 'Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we wrench off the board. Tom says 'It's as simple as tittattoe, threeinarow, and as easy as playing hooky. I should hope we can find a way that's a little more complicated than that, Huck Finn. 'Well, then, I says, 'how 'll it do to saw him out, the way I done before I was murdered that time? 'That's more like, he says. 'It's real mysterious, and troublesome, and good, he says 'but I bet we can find a way that's twice as long. There ain't no hurry le's keep on looking around. Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a leanto that joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long as the hut, but narrowonly about six foot wide. The door to it was at the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the soapkettle and searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid with so he took it and prized out one of the staples. The chain fell down, and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck a match, and see the shed was only built against a cabin and hadn't no connection with it and there warn't no floor to the shed, nor nothing in it but some old rusty playedout hoes and spades and picks and a crippled plow. The match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the staple again, and the door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful. He says 'Now we're all right. We'll dig him out. It 'll take about a week! Then we started for the house, and I went in the back dooryou only have to pull a buckskin latchstring, they don't fasten the doorsbut that warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer no way would do him but he must climb up the lightningrod. But after he got up half way about three times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last time most busted his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up but after he was rested he allowed he would give her one more turn for luck, and this time he made the trip. In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jimif it was Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through breakfast and starting for the fields and Jim's nigger was piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things and whilst the others was leaving, the key come from the house. This nigger had a goodnatured, chuckleheaded face, and his wool was all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep witches off. He said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of strange words and noises, and he didn't believe he was ever witched so long before in his life. He got so worked up, and got to running on so about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd been agoing to do. So Tom says 'What's the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs? The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you heave a brickbat in a mudpuddle, and he says 'Yes, Mars Sid, A dog. Cur'us dog, too. Does you want to go en look at 'im? 'Yes. I hunched Tom, and whispers 'You going, right here in the daybreak? that warn't the plan. 'No, it warn't but it's the plan now. So, drat him, we went along, but I didn't like it much. When we got in we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark but Jim was there, sure enough, and could see us and he sings out 'Why, Huck! En good lan'! ain' dat Misto Tom? I just knowed how it would be I just expected it. I didn't know nothing to do and if I had I couldn't a done it, because that nigger busted in and says 'Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen? We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and kind of wondering, and says 'Does who know us? 'Why, disyer runaway nigger. 'I don't reckon he does but what put that into your head? 'What put it dar? Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed you? Tom says, in a puzzledup kind of way 'Well, that's mighty curious. Who sung out? when did he sing out? what did he sing out? And turns to me, perfectly ca'm, and says, 'Did you hear anybody sing out? Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing so I says 'No I ain't heard nobody say nothing. Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before, and says 'Did you sing out? 'No, sah, says Jim 'I hain't said nothing, sah. 'Not a word? 'No, sah, I hain't said a word. 'Did you ever see us before? 'No, sah not as I knows on. So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and says, kind of severe 'What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway? What made you think somebody sung out? 'Oh, it's de dadblame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do. Dey's awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so. Please to don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll scole me 'kase he say dey ain't no witches. I jis' wish to goodness he was heah nowden what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn' fine no way to git aroun' it dis time. But it's awluz jis' so people dat's sot, stays sot dey won't look into noth'n'en fine it out f'r deyselves, en when you fine it out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan' b'lieve you. Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody and told him to buy some more thread to tie up his wool with and then looks at Jim, and says 'I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give him up, I'd hang him. And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim and says 'Don't ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going on nights, it's us we're going to set you free. Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it then the nigger come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the nigger wanted us to and he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because the witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good to have folks around then. CHAPTER XXXV. It would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down into the woods because Tom said we got to have some light to see how to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called foxfire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied 'Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be. And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan. There ain't no watchman to be druggednow there ought to be a watchman. There ain't even a dog to give a sleepingmixture to. And there's Jim chained by one leg, with a tenfoot chain, to the leg of his bed why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody sends the key to the punkinheaded nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could a got out of that windowhole before this, only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel with a tenfoot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You got to invent all the difficulties. Well, we can't help it we got to do the best we can with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's one thingthere's more honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and dangers, where there warn't one of them furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all out of your own head. Now look at just that one thing of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we simply got to let on that a lantern's resky. Why, we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe. Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we get. 'What do we want of a saw? 'What do we want of it? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed off, so as to get the chain loose? 'Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain off. 'Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You can get up the infantschooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read any books at all?Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an oldmaidy way as that? No the way all the best authorities does is to saw the bedleg in two, and leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see no sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bedleg is perfectly sound. Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moatbecause a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you knowand there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one. I says 'What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under the cabin? But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head then sighs again, and says 'No, it wouldn't dothere ain't necessity enough for it. 'For what? I says. 'Why, to saw Jim's leg off, he says. 'Good land! I says 'why, there ain't no necessity for it. And what would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway? 'Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity enough in this case and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe so we'll let it go. But there's one thinghe can have a rope ladder we can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we can send it to him in a pie it's mostly done that way. And I've et worse pies. 'Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk, I says 'Jim ain't got no use for a rope ladder. 'He has got use for it. How you talk, you better say you don't know nothing about it. He's got to have a rope ladder they all do. 'What in the nation can he do with it? 'Do with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they all do and he's got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do anything that's regular you want to be starting something fresh all the time. S'pose he don't do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews? Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a pretty howdydo, wouldn't it! I never heard of such a thing. 'Well, I says, 'if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it, all right, let him have it because I don't wish to go back on no regulations but there's one thing, Tom Sawyerif we go to tearing up our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at it, a hickrybark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag ladder you can start and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so he don't care what kind of a 'Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep stillthat's what I'd do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a hickrybark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous. 'Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way but if you'll take my advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline. He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says 'Borrow a shirt, too. 'What do we want of a shirt, Tom? 'Want it for Jim to keep a journal on. 'Journal your grannyJim can't write. 'S'pose he can't writehe can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron barrelhoop? 'Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better one and quicker, too. 'Prisoners don't have geese running around the donjonkeep to pull pens out of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of the hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like that they can get their hands on and it takes them weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They wouldn't use a goosequill if they had it. It ain't regular. 'Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of? 'Many makes it out of ironrust and tears but that's the common sort and women the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too. 'Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan. 'That ain't nothing we can get him some. 'Can't nobody read his plates. 'That ain't got anything to do with it, Huck Finn. All he's got to do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't have to be able to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else. 'Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates? 'Why, blame it all, it ain't the prisoner's plates. 'But it's somebody's plates, ain't it? 'Well, spos'n it is? What does the prisoner care whose He broke off there, because we heard the breakfasthorn blowing. So we cleared out for the house. Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the clothesline and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went down and got the foxfire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing, because that was what pap always called it but Tom said it warn't borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners and prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said it's his right and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the niggerpatch and eat it and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out of prison with there's where the difference was. He said if I'd a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of goldleaf distinctions like that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon. Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard then Tom he carried the sack into the leanto whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile to talk. He says 'Everything's all right now except tools and that's easy fixed. 'Tools? I says. 'Yes. 'Tools for what? 'Why, to dig with. We ain't agoing to gnaw him out, are we? 'Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a nigger out with? I says. He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says 'Huck Finn, did you ever hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now I want to ask youif you got any reasonableness in you at allwhat kind of a show would that give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and shovelswhy, they wouldn't furnish 'em to a king. 'Well, then, I says, 'if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do we want? 'A couple of caseknives. 'To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with? 'Yes. 'Confound it, it's foolish, Tom. 'It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the right wayand it's the regular way. And there ain't no other way, that ever I heard of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig out with a caseknifeand not through dirt, mind you generly it's through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that way how long was he at it, you reckon? 'I don't know. 'Well, guess. 'I don't know. A month and a half. 'Thirtyseven yearand he come out in China. That's the kind. I wish the bottom of this fortress was solid rock. 'Jim don't know nobody in China. 'What's that got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But you're always awandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to the main point? 'All rightI don't care where he comes out, so he comes out and Jim don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anywayJim's too old to be dug out with a caseknife. He won't last. 'Yes he will last, too. You don't reckon it's going to take thirtyseven years to dig out through a dirt foundation, do you? 'How long will it take, Tom? 'Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He'll hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim, or something like that. So we can't resk being as long digging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years but we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this that we really dig right in, as quick as we can and after that, we can let on, to ourselves, that we was at it thirtyseven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon that 'll be the best way. 'Now, there's sense in that, I says. 'Letting on don't cost nothing letting on ain't no trouble and if it's any object, I don't mind letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none, after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of caseknives. 'Smouch three, he says 'we want one to make a saw out of. 'Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it, I says, 'there's an old rusty sawblade around yonder sticking under the weatherboarding behind the smokehouse. He looked kind of weary and discouragedlike, and says 'It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smouch the knivesthree of them. So I done it. CHAPTER XXXVI. As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the lightningrod, and shut ourselves up in the leanto, and got out our pile of foxfire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said he was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole there, because Jim's counterpin hung down most to the ground, and you'd have to raise it up and look under to see the hole. So we dug and dug with the caseknives till most midnight and then we was dogtired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see we'd done anything hardly. At last I says 'This ain't no thirtyseven year job this is a thirtyeight year job, Tom Sawyer. He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking. Then he says 'It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't agoing to work. If we was prisoners it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be done. But we can't fool along we got to rush we ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night this way we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get wellcouldn't touch a caseknife with them sooner. 'Well, then, what we going to do, Tom? 'I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like it to get out but there ain't only just the one way we got to dig him out with the picks, and let on it's caseknives. 'Now you're talking! I says 'your head gets leveler and leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer, I says. 'Picks is the thing, moral or no moral and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sundayschool book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done. What I want is my nigger or what I want is my watermelon or what I want is my Sundayschool book and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing I'm agoing to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sundayschool book out with and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther. 'Well, he says, 'there's excuse for picks and lettingon in a case like this if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by and see the rules brokebecause right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better. It might answer for you to dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting on, because you don't know no better but it wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a caseknife. He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and says 'Gimme a caseknife. I didn't know just what to dobut then I thought. I scratched around amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took it and went to work, and never said a word. He was always just that particular. Full of principle. So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as long as we could stand up but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it. When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing his level best with the lightningrod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was so sore. At last he says 'It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do? Can't you think of no way? 'Yes, I says, 'but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and let on it's a lightningrod. So he done it. Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house, for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles and I hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin plates. Tom says it wasn't enough but I said nobody wouldn't ever see the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dogfennel and jimpson weeds under the windowholethen we could tote them back and he could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says 'Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim. 'Take them in through the hole, I says, 'when we get it done. He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By and by he said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first. That night we went down the lightningrod a little after ten, and took one of the candles along, and listened under the windowhole, and heard Jim snoring so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half the job was done. We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile, and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried and called us honey, and all the pet names he could think of and was for having us hunt up a coldchisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away, and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he showed him how unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm and not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, sure. So Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and talked over old times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as they could be, Tom says 'Now I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them. I said, 'Don't do nothing of the kind it's one of the most jackass ideas I ever struck but he never paid no attention to me went right on. It was his way when he'd got his plans set. So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the ropeladder pie and other large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them and we would put small things in uncle's coatpockets and he must steal them out and we would tie things to aunt's apronstrings or put them in her apronpocket, if we got a chance and told him what they would be and what they was for. And told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with his blood, and all that. He told him everything. Jim he couldn't see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as Tom said. Jim had plenty corncob pipes and tobacco so we had a right down good sociable time then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed, with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most intellectural and said if he only could see his way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the more he got used to it. He said that in that way it could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the best time on record. And he said it would make us all celebrated that had a hand in it. In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a cornpone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how it would work, and it just worked noble when Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth out and there warn't ever anything could a worked better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only just a piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into bread, you know but after that he never bit into nothing but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first. And whilst we was astanding there in the dimmish light, here comes a couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed and they kept on piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that leanto door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered 'Witches once, and keeled over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again. He raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says 'Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese tracks. I did, mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I felt umI felt um, sah dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one er dem witches jis' wunston'y jis' wunstit's all I'd ast. But mos'ly I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does. Tom says 'Well, I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at this runaway nigger's breakfasttime? It's because they're hungry that's the reason. You make them a witch pie that's the thing for you to do. 'But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie? I doan' know how to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'. 'Well, then, I'll have to make it myself. 'Will you do it, honey?will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot, I will! 'All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When we come around, you turn your back and then whatever we've put in the pan, don't you let on you see it at all. And don't you look when Jim unloads the pansomething might happen, I don't know what. And above all, don't you handle the witchthings. 'Hannel 'M, Mars Sid? What is you atalkin' 'bout? I wouldn' lay de weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion dollars, I wouldn't. CHAPTER XXXVII. That was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the rubbagepile in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces of bottles, and woreout tin things, and all such truck, and scratched around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it full of flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shinglenails that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt Sally's apronpocket which was hanging on a chair, and t'other we stuck in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger's house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coatpocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet, so we had to wait a little while. And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly wait for the blessing and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one hand and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with the other, and says 'I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what has become of your other shirt. My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard piece of corncrust started down my throat after it and got met on the road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the children in the eye and curled him up like a fishingworm, and let a cry out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out for half price if there was a bidder. But after that we was all right againit was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he says 'It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it. I know perfectly well I took it off, because 'Because you hain't got but one on. Just listen at the man! I know you took it off, and know it by a better way than your woolgethering memory, too, because it was on the clo'sline yesterdayI see it there myself. But it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and you'll just have to change to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make a new one. And it 'll be the third I've made in two years. It just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in shirts and whatever you do manage to do with 'm all is more'n I can make out. A body 'd think you would learn to take some sort of care of 'em at your time of life. 'I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn't to be altogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have nothing to do with them except when they're on me and I don't believe I've ever lost one of them off of me. 'Well, it ain't your fault if you haven't, Silas you'd a done it if you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther. Ther's a spoon gone and that ain't all. There was ten, and now ther's only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon, that's certain. 'Why, what else is gone, Sally? 'Ther's six candles gonethat's what. The rats could a got the candles, and I reckon they did I wonder they don't walk off with the whole place, the way you're always going to stop their holes and don't do it and if they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair, Silasyou'd never find it out but you can't lay the spoon on the rats, and that I know. 'Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it I've been remiss but I won't let tomorrow go by without stopping up them holes. 'Oh, I wouldn't hurry next year 'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta Phelps! Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the sugarbowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps on to the passage, and says 'Missus, dey's a sheet gone. 'A sheet gone! Well, for the land's sake! 'I'll stop up them holes today, says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful. 'Oh, do shet up!s'pose the rats took the sheet? where's it gone, Lize? 'Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally. She wuz on de clo'sline yistiddy, but she done gone she ain' dah no mo' now. 'I reckon the world is coming to an end. I never see the beat of it in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can 'Missus, comes a young yaller wench, 'dey's a brass cannelstick miss'n. 'Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye! Well, she was just abiling. I begun to lay for a chance I reckoned I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She kept araging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and everybody else mighty meek and quiet and at last Uncle Silas, looking kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She stopped, with her mouth open and her hands up and as for me, I wished I was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says 'It's just as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time and like as not you've got the other things there, too. How'd it get there? 'I reely don't know, Sally, he says, kind of apologizing, 'or you know I would tell. I was astudying over my text in Acts Seventeen before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put my Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in but I'll go and see and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know I didn't put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down and took up the spoon, and 'Oh, for the land's sake! Give a body a rest! Go 'long now, the whole kit and biling of ye and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my peace of mind. I'd a heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it out and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. As we was passing through the settingroom the old man he took up his hat, and the shinglenail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and laid it on the mantelshelf, and never said nothing, and went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says 'Well, it ain't no use to send things by him no more, he ain't reliable. Then he says 'But he done us a good turn with the spoon, anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without him knowing itstop up his ratholes. There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid and here comes the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other, looking as absentminded as year before last. He went a mooning around, first to one rathole and then another, till he'd been to them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallowdrip off of his candle and thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, saying 'Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. I could show her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. But never mindlet it go. I reckon it wouldn't do no good. And so he went on amumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a mighty nice old man. And always is. Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said we'd got to have it so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out he told me how we was to do then we went and waited around the spoonbasket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and Tom says 'Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons yet. She says 'Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me. I know better, I counted 'm myself. 'Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine. She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to countanybody would. 'I declare to gracious ther' ain't but nine! she says. 'Why, what in the worldplague take the things, I'll count 'm again. So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she says 'Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther's ten now! and she looked huffy and bothered both. But Tom says 'Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten. 'You numskull, didn't you see me count 'm? 'I know, but 'Well, I'll count 'm again. So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time. Well, she was in a tearing wayjust atrembling all over, she was so mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes and so, three times they come out right, and three times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the cat galleywest and she said cle'r out and let her have some peace, and if we come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skin us. So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apronpocket whilst she was agiving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, along with her shingle nail, before noon. We was very well satisfied with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took, because he said now she couldn't ever count them spoons twice alike again to save her life and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right if she did and said that after she'd about counted her head off for the next three days he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them any more. So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of her closet and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a couple of days till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more, and she didn't care, and warn't agoing to bullyrag the rest of her soul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life she druther die first. So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixedup counting and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it would blow over by and by. But that pie was a job we had no end of trouble with that pie. We fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there and we got it done at last, and very satisfactory, too but not all in one day and we had to use up three washpans full of flour before we got through, and we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out with the smoke because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust, and we couldn't prop it up right, and she would always cave in. But of course we thought of the right way at lastwhich was to cook the ladder, too, in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore up the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together, and long before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could a hung a person with. We let on it took nine months to make it. And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope enough for forty pies if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could a had a whole dinner. But we didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and so we throwed the rest away. We didn't cook none of the pies in the washpanafraid the solder would melt but Uncle Silas he had a noble brass warmingpan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and things that was valuable, not on account of being any account, because they warn't, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the first pies, because we didn't know how, but she come up smiling on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, and loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the long handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it would want to fetch a couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn't cramp him down to business I don't know nothing what I'm talking about, and lay him in enough stomachache to last him till next time, too. Nat didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan and we put the three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles and so Jim got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the windowhole. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Making them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw and Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That's the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to have it Tom said he'd got to there warn't no case of a state prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms. 'Look at Lady Jane Grey, he says 'look at Gilford Dudley look at old Northumberland! Why, Huck, s'pose it is considerble trouble?what you going to do?how you going to get around it? Jim's got to do his inscription and coat of arms. They all do. Jim says 'Why, Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arm I hain't got nuffn but dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat. 'Oh, you don't understand, Jim a coat of arms is very different. 'Well, I says, 'Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no coat of arms, because he hain't. 'I reckon I knowed that, Tom says, 'but you bet he'll have one before he goes out of thisbecause he's going out right, and there ain't going to be no flaws in his record. So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim amaking his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms. By and by he said he'd struck so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there was one which he reckoned he'd decide on. He says 'On the scutcheon we'll have a bend or in the dexter base, a saltire murrey in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron vert in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field azure, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented crest, a runaway nigger, sable, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me motto, Maggiore Fretta, Minore Otto. Got it out of a bookmeans the more haste the less speed. 'Geewhillikins, I says, 'but what does the rest of it mean? 'We ain't got no time to bother over that, he says 'we got to dig in like all gitout. 'Well, anyway, I says, 'what's some of it? What's a fess? 'A fessa fess isyou don't need to know what a fess is. I'll show him how to make it when he gets to it. 'Shucks, Tom, I says, 'I think you might tell a person. What's a bar sinister? 'Oh, I don't know. But he's got to have it. All the nobility does. That was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you, he wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make no difference. He'd got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a mournful inscriptionsaid Jim got to have one, like they all done. He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so . Here a captive heart busted. . Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. . Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirtyseven years of solitary captivity. . Here, homeless and friendless, after thirtyseven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV. Tom's voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down. When he got done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for Jim to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good but at last he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail, and he didn't know how to make letters, besides but Tom said he would block them out for him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says 'Come to think, the logs ain't agoing to do they don't have log walls in a dungeon we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We'll fetch a rock. Jim said the rock was worse than the logs he said it would take him such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out. But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was most pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn't give my hands no show to get well of the sores, and we didn't seem to make no headway, hardly so Tom says 'I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock. There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too. It warn't no slouch of an idea and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone nuther but we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite midnight yet, so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep her from falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got through. We got her half way and then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat. We see it warn't no use we got to go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the bedleg, and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing and Tom superintended. He could outsuperintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything. Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone through but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the leanto for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped him fix his chain back on the bedleg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says 'You got any spiders in here, Jim? 'No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom. 'All right, we'll get you some. 'But bless you, honey, I doan' want none. I's afeard un um. I jis' 's soon have rattlesnakes aroun'. Tom thought a minute or two, and says 'It's a good idea. And I reckon it's been done. It must a been done it stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep it? 'Keep what, Mars Tom? 'Why, a rattlesnake. 'De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to come in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid my head. 'Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little. You could tame it. 'Tame it! 'Yeseasy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting, and they wouldn't think of hurting a person that pets them. Any book will tell you that. You trythat's all I ask just try for two or three days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that he'll love you and sleep with you and won't stay away from you a minute and will let you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth. 'Please, Mars Tomdoan' talk so! I can't stan' it! He'd let me shove his head in my mouffer a favor, hain't it? I lay he'd wait a pow'ful long time 'fo' I ast him. En mo' en dat, I doan' want him to sleep wid me. 'Jim, don't act so foolish. A prisoner's got to have some kind of a dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other way you could ever think of to save your life. 'Why, Mars Tom, I doan' want no sich glory. Snake take 'n bite Jim's chin off, den whah is de glory? No, sah, I doan' want no sich doin's. 'Blame it, can't you try? I only want you to tryyou needn't keep it up if it don't work. 'But de trouble all done ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin' him. Mars Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable, but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's gwyne to leave, dat's shore. 'Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bullheaded about it. We can get you some gartersnakes, and you can tie some buttons on their tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have to do. 'I k'n stan' dem, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b'fo' 't was so much bother and trouble to be a prisoner. 'Well, it always is when it's done right. You got any rats around here? 'No, sah, I hain't seed none. 'Well, we'll get you some rats. 'Why, Mars Tom, I doan' want no rats. Dey's de dadblamedest creturs to 'sturb a body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet, when he's tryin' to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g'yartersnakes, 'f I's got to have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats I hain' got no use f'r um, skasely. 'But, Jim, you got to have 'emthey all do. So don't make no more fuss about it. Prisoners ain't ever without rats. There ain't no instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play music to them. You got anything to play music on? 'I ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a juiceharp but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juiceharp. 'Yes they would they don't care what kind of music 'tis. A jewsharp's plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like musicin a prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music and you can't get no other kind out of a jewsharp. It always interests them they come out to see what's the matter with you. Yes, you're all right you're fixed very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep, and early in the mornings, and play your jewsharp play 'The Last Link is Broken'that's the thing that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n anything else and when you've played about two minutes you'll see all the rats, and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And they'll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good time. 'Yes, dey will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is Jim havin'? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I'll do it ef I got to. I reck'n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de house. Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else and pretty soon he says 'Oh, there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you reckon? 'I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom but it's tolable dark in heah, en I ain' got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful sight o' trouble. 'Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it. 'One er dem big cattaillookin' mullenstalks would grow in heah, Mars Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd coss. 'Don't you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it in the corner over there, and raise it. And don't call it mullen, call it Pitchiolathat's its right name when it's in a prison. And you want to water it with your tears. 'Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom. 'You don't want spring water you want to water it with your tears. It's the way they always do. 'Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullenstalks twyste wid spring water whiles another man's a start'n one wid tears. 'That ain't the idea. You got to do it with tears. 'She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will kase I doan' skasely ever cry. So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's coffeepot, in the morning. Jim said he would 'jis' 's soon have tobacker in his coffee and found so much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising the mullen, and jewsharping the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed. CHAPTER XXXIX. In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rattrap and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rathole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones and then we took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was astanding on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for her. So she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was. We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and caterpillars, and one thing or another and we like to got a hornet's nest, but we didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it right up, but stayed with them as long as we could because we allowed we'd tire them out or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it. Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right again, but couldn't set down convenient. And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and housesnakes, and put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was suppertime, and a rattling good honest day's work and hungry?oh, no, I reckon not! And there warn't a blessed snake up there when we went backwe didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left. But it didn't matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres. So we judged we could get some of them again. No, there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell. You'd see them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then and they generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most of the time where you didn't want them. Well, they was handsome and striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of them but that never made no difference to Aunt Sally she despised snakes, be the breed what they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it and every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what she was doing, she would just lay that work down and light out. I never see such a woman. And you could hear her whoop to Jericho. You couldn't get her to take aholt of one of them with the tongs. And if she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think the house was afire. She disturbed the old man so that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes created. Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet she warn't near over it when she was setting thinking about something you could touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all women was just so. He said they was made that way for some reason or other. We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up the place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, because they didn't amount to nothing but I minded the trouble we had to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in, and all the other things and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim and so they'd lay for him, and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely and when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he said, because they never all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary. Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape. The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the grindstone the bedleg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomachache. We reckoned we was all going to die, but didn't. It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see and Tom said the same. But as I was saying, we'd got all the work done now, at last and we was all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such plantation so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters. 'What's them? I says. 'Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going to light out of the Tooleries, a servantgirl done it. It's a very good way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And it's usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in, and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too. 'But looky here, Tom, what do we want to warn anybody for that something's up? Let them find it out for themselvesit's their lookout. 'Yes, I know but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted from the very startleft us to do everything. They're so confiding and mulletheaded they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we don't give them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go off perfectly flat won't amount to nothingwon't be nothing to it. 'Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like. 'Shucks! he says, and looked disgusted. So I says 'But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits me. What you going to do about the servantgirl? 'You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller girl's frock. 'Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning because, of course, she prob'bly hain't got any but that one. 'I know but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door. 'All right, then, I'll do it but I could carry it just as handy in my own togs. 'You wouldn't look like a servantgirl then, would you? 'No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, anyway. 'That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it or not. Hain't you got no principle at all? 'All right, I ain't saying nothing I'm the servantgirl. Who's Jim's mother? 'I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally. 'Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves. 'Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When a prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion. It's always called so when a king escapes, f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son it don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one. So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the way Tom told me to. It said Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. Unknown Friend. Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and crossbones on the front door and next night another one of a coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn't a been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said 'ouch! if anything fell, she jumped and said 'ouch! if you happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she done the same she couldn't face noway and be satisfied, because she allowed there was something behind her every timeso she was always awhirling around sudden, and saying 'ouch, and before she'd got twothirds around she'd whirl back again, and say it again and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the thing was working very well, Tom said he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right. So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the lightningrod to spy around and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This letter said Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang of cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway nigger tonight, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang, but have got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will betray the helish design. They will sneak down from northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger but stead of that I will baa like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all then whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at your leasure. Don't do anything but just the way I am telling you, if you do they will suspicion something and raise whoopjamboreehoo. I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing. Unknown Friend. CHAPTER XL. We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went over the river afishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper, and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about halfpast eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and was going to start with the lunch, but says 'Where's the butter? 'I laid out a hunk of it, I says, 'on a piece of a cornpone. 'Well, you left it laid out, thenit ain't here. 'We can get along without it, I says. 'We can get along with it, too, he says 'just you slide down cellar and fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightningrod and come along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to baa like a sheep and shove soon as you get there. So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of cornpone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me and she says 'You been down cellar? 'Yes'm. 'What you been doing down there? 'Noth'n. 'Noth'n! 'No'm. 'Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night? 'I don't know 'm. 'You don't know? Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what you been doing down there. 'I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I have. I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would but I s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat about every little thing that warn't yardstick straight so she says, very decided 'You just march into that settingroom and stay there till I come. You been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it is before I'M done with you. So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the settingroom. My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down. They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats, and putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with their buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off, all the same. I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this thing, and what a thundering hornet'snest we'd got ourselves into, so we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of patience and come for us. At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I couldn't answer them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up because these men was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheepsignal and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me ashaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears and pretty soon, when one of them says, 'I'M for going and getting in the cabin first and right now, and catching them when they come, I most dropped and a streak of butter come atrickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says 'For the land's sake, what is the matter with the child? He's got the brainfever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out! And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me, and says 'Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain't no worse for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color and all it was just like your brains would be ifDear, dear, whyd'nt you tell me that was what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Now cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of you till morning! I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightningrod in another one, and shinning through the dark for the leanto. I couldn't hardly get my words out, I was so anxious but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now, and not a minute to losethe house full of men, yonder, with guns! His eyes just blazed and he says 'No!is that so? ain't it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till 'Hurry! Hurry! I says. 'Where's Jim? 'Right at your elbow if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He's dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the sheepsignal. But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to fumble with the padlock, and heard a man say 'I told you we'd be too soon they haven't comethe door is locked. Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the dark and kill 'em when they come and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen if you can hear 'em coming. So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right, and out through the hole, swift but softJim first, me next, and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the leanto, and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door, and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make out nothing, it was so dark and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, and him last. So he set his ear to the crack and listened, and listened, and listened, and the steps ascraping around out there all the time and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it but Tom's britches catched fast on a splinter on the top rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which snapped the splinter and made a noise and as he dropped in our tracks and started somebody sings out 'Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot! But we didn't answer we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there was a rush, and a Bang, Bang, Bang! and the bullets fairly whizzed around us! We heard them sing out 'Here they are! They've broke for the river! After 'em, boys, and turn loose the dogs! So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was in the path to the mill and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind them. They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the robbers but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here they come, making powwow enough for a million but they was our dogs so we stopped in our tracks till they catched up and when they see it warn't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering and then we upsteam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the river, but didn't make no more noise than we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was and we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the bank, till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out. And when we stepped on to the raft I says 'Now, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a slave no more. 'En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en it 'uz done beautiful en dey ain't nobody kin git up a plan dat's mo' mixedup en splendid den what dat one wuz. We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg. When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding so we laid him in the wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he says 'Gimme the rags I can do it myself. Don't stop now don't fool around here, and the evasion booming along so handsome man the sweeps, and set her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!'deed we did. I wish we'd a had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!' wrote down in his biography no, sir, we'd a whooped him over the borderthat's what we'd a done with himand done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweepsman the sweeps! But me and Jim was consultingand thinking. And after we'd thought a minute, I says 'Say it, Jim. So he says 'Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat 'uz bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn't! well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sahI doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout a doctor, not if it's forty year! I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did sayso it was all right now, and I told Tom I was agoing for a doctor. He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't budge so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself but we wouldn't let him. Then he give us a piece of his mind, but it didn't do no good. So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says 'Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take his chalk away from him, and don't give it back to him till you get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again. It's the way they all do. So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see the doctor coming till he was gone again. CHAPTER XLI. The doctor was an old man a very nice, kindlooking old man when I got him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks. 'Who is your folks? he says. 'The Phelpses, down yonder. 'Oh, he says. And after a minute, he says 'How'd you say he got shot? 'He had a dream, I says, 'and it shot him. 'Singular dream, he says. So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddlebags, and we started. But when he sees the canoe he didn't like the look of hersaid she was big enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says 'Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy enough. 'What three? 'Why, me and Sid, andandand the guns that's what I mean. 'Oh, he says. But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head, and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one. But they was all locked and chained so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to. But I said I didn't so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he started. I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is? spos'n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir I know what I'll do. I'll wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to go any more I'll get down there, too, if I swim and we'll take and tie him, and keep him, and shove out down the river and when Tom's done with him we'll give him what it's worth, or all we got, and then let him get ashore. So then I crept into a lumberpile to get some sleep and next time I waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the doctor's house, but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time or other, and warn't back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I'll dig out for the island right off. So away I shoved, and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's stomach! He says 'Why, Tom! Where you been all this time, you rascal? 'I hain't been nowheres, I says, 'only just hunting for the runaway niggerme and Sid. 'Why, where ever did you go? he says. 'Your aunt's been mighty uneasy. 'She needn't, I says, 'because we was all right. We followed the men and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them but we thought we heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over, but couldn't find nothing of them so we cruised along upshore till we got kind of tired and beat out and tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago then we paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid's at the postoffice to see what he can hear, and I'm abranching out to get something to eat for us, and then we're going home. So then we went to the postoffice to get 'Sid but just as I suspicioned, he warn't there so the old man he got a letter out of the office, and we waited awhile longer, but Sid didn't come so the old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he got done fooling aroundbut we would ride. I couldn't get him to let me stay and wait for Sid and he said there warn't no use in it, and I must come along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right. When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern that don't amount to shucks, and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come. And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers' wives, to dinner and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the worst her tongue was agoing all the time. She says 'Well, Sister Phelps, I've ransacked thatair cabin over, an' I b'lieve the nigger was crazy. I says to Sister Damrelldidn't I, Sister Damrell?s'I, he's crazy, s'Ithem's the very words I said. You all hearn me he's crazy, s'I everything shows it, s'I. Look at thatair grindstone, s'I want to tell me't any cretur 't's in his right mind 's a goin' to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s'I? Here sich 'n' sich a person busted his heart 'n' here so 'n' so pegged along for thirtyseven year, 'n' all thatnatcherl son o' Louis somebody, 'n' sich everlast'n rubbage. He's plumb crazy, s'I it's what I says in the fust place, it's what I says in the middle, 'n' it's what I says last 'n' all the timethe nigger's crazycrazy 's Nebokoodneezer, s'I. 'An' look at thatair ladder made out'n rags, Sister Hotchkiss, says old Mrs. Damrell 'what in the name o' goodness could he ever want of 'The very words I was asayin' no longer ago th'n this minute to Sister Utterback, 'n' she'll tell you so herself. Shshe, look at thatair rag ladder, shshe 'n' s'I, yes, look at it, s'Iwhat could he awanted of it, s'I. Shshe, Sister Hotchkiss, shshe 'But how in the nation'd they ever git that grindstone in there, anyway? 'n' who dug thatair hole? 'n' who 'My very words, Brer Penrod! I was asayin'pass thatair sasser o' m'lasses, won't ye?I was asayin' to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute, how did they git that grindstone in there, s'I. Without help, mind you'thout help! that's wher 'tis. Don't tell me, s'I there wuz help, s'I 'n' ther' wuz a plenty help, too, s'I ther's ben a dozen ahelpin' that nigger, 'n' I lay I'd skin every last nigger on this place but I'd find out who done it, s'I 'n' moreover, s'I 'A dozen says you!forty couldn't a done every thing that's been done. Look at them caseknife saws and things, how tedious they've been made look at that bedleg sawed off with 'm, a week's work for six men look at that nigger made out'n straw on the bed and look at 'You may well say it, Brer Hightower! It's jist as I was asayin' to Brer Phelps, his own self. S'e, what do you think of it, Sister Hotchkiss, s'e? Think o' what, Brer Phelps, s'I? Think o' that bedleg sawed off that a way, s'e? think of it, s'I? I lay it never sawed itself off, s'Isomebody sawed it, s'I that's my opinion, take it or leave it, it mayn't be no 'count, s'I, but sich as 't is, it's my opinion, s'I, 'n' if any body k'n start a better one, s'I, let him do it, s'I, that's all. I says to Sister Dunlap, s'I 'Why, dog my cats, they must a ben a housefull o' niggers in there every night for four weeks to a done all that work, Sister Phelps. Look at that shirtevery last inch of it kivered over with secret African writ'n done with blood! Must a ben a raft uv 'm at it right along, all the time, amost. Why, I'd give two dollars to have it read to me 'n' as for the niggers that wrote it, I 'low I'd take 'n' lash 'm t'll 'People to help him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you'd think so if you'd a been in this house for a while back. Why, they've stole everything they could lay their hands onand we awatching all the time, mind you. They stole that shirt right off o' the line! and as for that sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther' ain't no telling how many times they didn't steal that and flour, and candles, and candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warmingpan, and most a thousand things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day and night, as I was atelling you, and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them and here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they slides right in under our noses and fools us, and not only fools us but the Injun Territory robbers too, and actuly gets away with that nigger safe and sound, and that with sixteen men and twentytwo dogs right on their very heels at that very time! I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever heard of. Why, sperits couldn't a done better and been no smarter. And I reckon they must a been speritsbecause, you know our dogs, and ther' ain't no better well, them dogs never even got on the track of 'm once! You explain that to me if you can!any of you! 'Well, it does beat 'Laws alive, I never 'So help me, I wouldn't a be 'Housethieves as well as 'Goodnessgracioussakes, I'd a ben afeard to live in sich a ''Fraid to live!why, I was that scared I dasn't hardly go to bed, or get up, or lay down, or set down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they'd steal the verywhy, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night. I hope to gracious if I warn't afraid they'd steal some o' the family! I was just to that pass I didn't have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough now, in the daytime but I says to myself, there's my two poor boys asleep, 'way up stairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy 't I crep' up there and locked 'em in! I did. And anybody would. Because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, and your wits gets to addling, and you get to doing all sorts o' wild things, and by and by you think to yourself, spos'n I was a boy, and was away up there, and the door ain't locked, and you She stopped, looking kind of wondering, and then she turned her head around slow, and when her eye lit on meI got up and took a walk. Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little. So I done it. But I dasn't go fur, or she'd a sent for me. And when it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and told her the noise and shooting waked up me and 'Sid, and the door was locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightningrod, and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn't never want to try that no more. And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before and then she said she'd forgive us, and maybe it was all right enough anyway, and about what a body might expect of boys, for all boys was a pretty harumscarum lot as fur as she could see and so, as long as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she had us still, stead of fretting over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and patted me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a brown study and pretty soon jumps up, and says 'Why, lawsamercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet! What has become of that boy? I see my chance so I skips up and says 'I'll run right up to town and get him, I says. 'No you won't, she says. 'You'll stay right wher' you are one's enough to be lost at a time. If he ain't here to supper, your uncle 'll go. Well, he warn't there to supper so right after supper uncle went. He come back about ten a little bit uneasy hadn't run across Tom's track. Aunt Sally was a good deal uneasy but Uncle Silas he said there warn't no occasion to beboys will be boys, he said, and you'll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had to be satisfied. But she said she'd set up for him a while anyway, and keep a light burning so he could see it. And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I couldn't look her in the face and she set down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn't seem to want to ever stop talking about him and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the morning, sure and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she was going away she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and says 'The door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and the rod but you'll be good, won't you? And you won't go? For my sake. Laws knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go but after that I wouldn't a went, not for kingdoms. But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn't, only to swear that I wouldn't never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep. CHAPTER XLII. The old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no track of Tom and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says 'Did I give you the letter? 'What letter? 'The one I got yesterday out of the postoffice. 'No, you didn't give me no letter. 'Well, I must a forgot it. So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says 'Why, it's from St. Petersburgit's from Sis. I allowed another walk would do me good but I couldn't stir. But before she could break it open she dropped it and runfor she see something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress and that old doctor and Jim, in her calico dress, with his hands tied behind him and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says 'Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead! And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other, which showed he warn't in his right mind then she flung up her hands, and says 'He's alive, thank God! And that's enough! and she snatched a kiss of him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue could go, every jump of the way. I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim and the old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the others said, don't do it, it wouldn't answer at all he ain't our nigger, and his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled them down a little, because the people that's always the most anxious for to hang a nigger that hain't done just right is always the very ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out of him. They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to no bedleg this time, but to a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and both legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because he didn't come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime and about this time they was through with the job and was tapering off with a kind of generl goodbye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes a look, and says 'Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't a bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut the bullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for me to leave to go and get help and he got a little worse and a little worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let me come anigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do anything at all with him so I says, I got to have help somehow and the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says he'll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I was! and there I had to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd of liked to run up to town and see them, but I dasn't, because the nigger might get away, and then I'd be to blame and yet never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight this morning and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollarsand kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at homebetter, maybe, because it was so quiet but there I was, with both of 'm on my hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen that's what I think about him. Somebody says 'Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say. Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn and I was glad it was according to my judgment of him, too because I thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right out and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more. Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water but they didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of meexplanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger. But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sickroom all day and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged him. Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sickroom, and if I found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too and pale, not firefaced the way he was when he come. So I set down and laid for him to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still, and set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful now, because all the symptoms was firstrate, and he'd been sleeping like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuller all the time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind. So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says 'Hello!why, I'm at home! How's that? Where's the raft? 'It's all right, I says. 'And Jim? 'The same, I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash. But he never noticed, but says 'Good! Splendid! Now we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty? I was going to say yes but she chipped in and says 'About what, Sid? 'Why, about the way the whole thing was done. 'What whole thing? 'Why, the whole thing. There ain't but one how we set the runaway nigger freeme and Tom. 'Good land! Set the runWhat is the child talking about! Dear, dear, out of his head again! 'No, I ain't out of my head I know all what I'm talking about. We did set him freeme and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we done it. And we done it elegant, too. He'd got a start, and she never checked him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and I see it warn't no use for me to put in. 'Why, Aunty, it cost us a power of workweeks of ithours and hours, every night, whilst you was all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and caseknives, and the warmingpan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things, and you can't think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can't think half the fun it was. And we had to make up the pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous letters from the robbers, and get up and down the lightningrod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket 'Mercy sakes! 'and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for Jim and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and wasn't it bully, Aunty! 'Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was you, you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble, and turned everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to death. I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out o' you this very minute. To think, here I've been, night after night, ayou just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old Harry out o' both o' ye! But Tom, he was so proud and joyful, he just couldn't hold in, and his tongue just went itshe achipping in, and spitting fire all along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention and she says 'Well, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it now, for mind I tell you if I catch you meddling with him again 'Meddling with who? Tom says, dropping his smile and looking surprised. 'With who? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon? Tom looks at me very grave, and says 'Tom, didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away? 'Him? says Aunt Sally 'the runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't. They've got him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, on bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or sold! Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening and shutting like gills, and sings out to me 'They hain't no right to shut him up! SHOVE!and don't you lose a minute. Turn him loose! he ain't no slave he's as free as any cretur that walks this earth! 'What does the child mean? 'I mean every word I say, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, I'll go. I've knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so and she set him free in her will. 'Then what on earth did you want to set him free for, seeing he was already free? 'Well, that is a question, I must say and just like women! Why, I wanted the adventure of it and I'd a waded neckdeep in blood togoodness alive, Aunt Polly! If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never! Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me. And I peeped out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacleskind of grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says 'Yes, you better turn y'r head awayI would if I was you, Tom. 'Oh, deary me! says Aunt Sally 'Is he changed so? Why, that ain't Tom, it's Sid Tom'sTom'swhy, where is Tom? He was here a minute ago. 'You mean where's Huck Finnthat's what you mean! I reckon I hain't raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I see him. That would be a pretty howdydo. Come out from under that bed, Huck Finn. So I done it. But not feeling brash. Aunt Sally she was one of the mixedupestlooking persons I ever seeexcept one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn't know nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a prayermeeting sermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation, because the oldest man in the world couldn't a understood it. So Tom's Aunt Polly, she told all about who I was, and what and I had to up and tell how I was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom Sawyershe chipped in and says, 'Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I'm used to it now, and 'tain't no need to changethat when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand itthere warn't no other way, and I knowed he wouldn't mind, because it would be nuts for him, being a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly satisfied. And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid, and made things as soft as he could for me. And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting Jim free in her will and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn't ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how he could help a body set a nigger free with his bringingup. Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and Sid had come all right and safe, she says to herself 'Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that creetur's up to this time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about it. 'Why, I never heard nothing from you, says Aunt Sally. 'Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean by Sid being here. 'Well, I never got 'em, Sis. Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says 'You, Tom! 'Wellwhat? he says, kind of pettish. 'Don't you what me, you impudent thinghand out them letters. 'What letters? 'Them letters. I be bound, if I have to take aholt of you I'll 'They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I hain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you warn't in no hurry, I'd 'Well, you do need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming and I s'pose he 'No, it come yesterday I hain't read it yet, but it's all right, I've got that one. I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing. CHAPTER THE LAST The first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea, time of the evasion?what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brassband, and then he would be a hero, and so would we. But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was. We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had him up to the sickroom, and had a high talk and Tom give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says 'Dah, now, Huck, what I tell you?what I tell you up dah on Jackson islan'? I tole you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it en I tole you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich agin en it's come true en heah she is! dah, now! doan' talk to mesigns is signs, mine I tell you en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter be rich agin as I's astannin' heah dis minute! And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le's all three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a couple of weeks or two and I says, all right, that suits me, but I ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get none from home, because it's likely pap's been back before now, and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up. 'No, he hain't, Tom says 'it's all there yetsix thousand dollars and more and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come away, anyhow. Jim says, kind of solemn 'He ain't acomin' back no mo', Huck. I says 'Why, Jim? 'Nemmine why, Huckbut he ain't comin' back no mo. But I kept at him so at last he says 'Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you come in? Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase dat wuz him. Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watchguard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before. THE END. YOURS TRULY, HUCK FINN.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book, thought Alice 'without pictures or conversations? So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisychain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late! (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural) but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoatpocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoatpocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbithole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again. The rabbithole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE, but to her great disappointment it was empty she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it. 'Well! thought Alice to herself, 'after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house! (Which was very likely true.) Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? 'I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time? she said aloud. 'I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see that would be four thousand miles down, I think (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) 'yes, that's about the right distancebut then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to? (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.) Presently she began again. 'I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) 'but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia? (and she tried to curtsey as she spokefancy curtseying as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) 'And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere. Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. 'Dinah'll miss me very much tonight, I should think! (Dinah was the cat.) 'I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at teatime. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder? And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? and sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats? for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, 'Now, Dinah, tell me the truth did you ever eat a bat? when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over. Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment she looked up, but it was all dark overhead before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, 'Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting! She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again. Suddenly she came upon a little threelegged table, all made of solid glass there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rathole she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway 'and even if my head would go through, thought poor Alice, 'it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin. For, you see, so many outoftheway things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes this time she found a little bottle on it, ('which certainly was not here before, said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words 'DRINK ME, beautifully printed on it in large letters. It was all very well to say 'Drink me, but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first, she said, 'and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them such as, that a redhot poker will burn you if you hold it too long and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison, it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. However, this bottle was not marked 'poison, so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherrytart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.                     'What a curious feeling! said Alice 'I must be shutting up like a telescope. And so it was indeed she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further she felt a little nervous about this 'for it might end, you know, said Alice to herself, 'in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then? And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried. 'Come, there's no use in crying like that! said Alice to herself, rather sharply 'I advise you to leave off this minute! She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. 'But it's no use now, thought poor Alice, 'to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person! Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words 'EAT ME were beautifully marked in currants. 'Well, I'll eat it, said Alice, 'and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens! She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, 'Which way? Which way?, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but outoftheway things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way. So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.                     'Curiouser and curiouser! cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English) 'now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet! (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). 'Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I shan't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you you must manage the best way you canbut I must be kind to them, thought Alice, 'or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas. And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. 'They must go by the carrier, she thought 'and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will look! Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking! Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door. Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye but to get through was more hopeless than ever she sat down and began to cry again. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, said Alice, 'a great girl like you, (she might well say this), 'to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you! But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, 'Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting! Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, 'If you please, sir The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking 'Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle! And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. 'I'm sure I'm not Ada, she said, 'for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she's she, and I'm I, andoh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven isoh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't signify let's try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Romeno, that's all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I'll try and say 'How doth the little' and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do 'How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! 'How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws! 'I'm sure those are not the right words, said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, 'I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying 'Come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say 'Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else'but, oh dear! cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, 'I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here! As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking. 'How can I have done that? she thought. 'I must be growing small again. She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. 'That was a narrow escape! said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence 'and now for the garden! and she ran with all speed back to the little door but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, 'and things are worse than ever, thought the poor child, 'for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is! As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, 'and in that case I can go back by railway, she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. 'I wish I hadn't cried so much! said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. 'I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer today. Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself. 'Would it be of any use, now, thought Alice, 'to speak to this mouse? Everything is so outoftheway down here, that I should think very likely it can talk at any rate, there's no harm in trying. So she began 'O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse! (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouseof a mouseto a mousea mouseO mouse!) The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. 'Perhaps it doesn't understand English, thought Alice 'I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror. (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again 'O est ma chatte? which was the first sentence in her French lessonbook. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. 'Oh, I beg your pardon! cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. 'I quite forgot you didn't like cats. 'Not like cats! cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. 'Would you like cats if you were me? 'Well, perhaps not, said Alice in a soothing tone 'don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing, Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, 'and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her faceand she is such a nice soft thing to nurseand she's such a capital one for catching miceoh, I beg your pardon! cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. 'We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not. 'We indeed! cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. 'As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always hated cats nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again! 'I won't indeed! said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. 'Are youare you fondofof dogs? The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly 'There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little brighteyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of thingsI can't remember half of themand it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats andoh dear! cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, 'I'm afraid I've offended it again! For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. So she called softly after it, 'Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't like them! When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, 'Let us get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs. It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. They were indeed a queerlooking party that assembled on the bankthe birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry again they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, 'I am older than you, and must know better and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said. At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, 'Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry enough! They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. 'Ahem! said the Mouse with an important air, 'are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! 'William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria' 'Ugh! said the Lory, with a shiver. 'I beg your pardon! said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely 'Did you speak? 'Not I! said the Lory hastily. 'I thought you did, said the Mouse. 'I proceed. 'Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable' 'Found what? said the Duck. 'Found it, the Mouse replied rather crossly 'of course you know what 'it' means. 'I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing, said the Duck 'it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find? The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, ''found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William's conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans' How are you getting on now, my dear? it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke. 'As wet as ever, said Alice in a melancholy tone 'it doesn't seem to dry me at all. 'In that case, said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, 'I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies 'Speak English! said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either! And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile some of the other birds tittered audibly. 'What I was going to say, said the Dodo in an offended tone, 'was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucusrace. 'What is a Caucusrace? said Alice not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. 'Why, said the Dodo, 'the best way to explain it is to do it. (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.) First it marked out a racecourse, in a sort of circle, ('the exact shape doesn't matter, it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away, but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out 'The race is over! and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, 'But who has won? This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, 'Everybody has won, and all must have prizes. 'But who is to give the prizes? quite a chorus of voices asked. 'Why, she, of course, said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, 'Prizes! Prizes! Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one apiece, all round. 'But she must have a prize herself, you know, said the Mouse. 'Of course, the Dodo replied very gravely. 'What else have you got in your pocket? he went on, turning to Alice. 'Only a thimble, said Alice sadly. 'Hand it over here, said the Dodo. Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying 'We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered. Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could. The next thing was to eat the comfits this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more. 'You promised to tell me your history, you know, said Alice, 'and why it is you hateC and D, she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again. 'Mine is a long and a sad tale! said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. 'It is a long tail, certainly, said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail 'but why do you call it sad? And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this 'You are not attending! said the Mouse to Alice severely. 'What are you thinking of? 'I beg your pardon, said Alice very humbly 'you had got to the fifth bend, I think? 'I had not! cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. 'A knot! said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. 'Oh, do let me help to undo it! 'I shall do nothing of the sort, said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. 'You insult me by talking such nonsense! 'I didn't mean it! pleaded poor Alice. 'But you're so easily offended, you know! The Mouse only growled in reply. 'Please come back and finish your story! Alice called after it and the others all joined in chorus, 'Yes, please do! but the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker. 'What a pity it wouldn't stay! sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter 'Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper! 'Hold your tongue, Ma! said the young Crab, a little snappishly. 'You're enough to try the patience of an oyster! 'I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do! said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular. 'She'd soon fetch it back! 'And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question? said the Lory. Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet 'Dinah's our cat. And she's such a capital one for catching mice you can't think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look at it! This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, 'I really must be getting home the nightair doesn't suit my throat! and a Canary called out in a trembling voice to its children, 'Come away, my dears! It's high time you were all in bed! On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone. 'I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah! she said to herself in a melancholy tone. 'Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm sure she's the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more! And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and lowspirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to finish his story. It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something and she heard it muttering to itself 'The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder? Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very goodnaturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seeneverything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely. Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone, 'Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now! And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made. 'He took me for his housemaid, she said to herself as she ran. 'How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan and glovesthat is, if I can find them. As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name 'W. RABBIT, engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves. 'How queer it seems, Alice said to herself, 'to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on messages next! And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen ''Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!' 'Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see that the mouse doesn't get out.' Only I don't think, Alice went on, 'that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that! By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the lookingglass. There was no label this time with the words 'DRINK ME, but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. 'I know something interesting is sure to happen, she said to herself, 'whenever I eat or drink anything so I'll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing! It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself 'That's quite enoughI hope I shan't grow any moreAs it is, I can't get out at the doorI do wish I hadn't drunk quite so much! Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself 'Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me? Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew no larger still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy. 'It was much pleasanter at home, thought poor Alice, 'when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbitholeand yetand yetit's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairytales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write onebut I'm grown up now, she added in a sorrowful tone 'at least there's no room to grow up any more here. 'But then, thought Alice, 'shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one waynever to be an old womanbut thenalways to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like that! 'Oh, you foolish Alice! she answered herself. 'How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lessonbooks! And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. 'Mary Ann! Mary Ann! said the voice. 'Fetch me my gloves this moment! Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself 'Then I'll go round and get in at the window. 'That you won't! thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumberframe, or something of the sort. Next came an angry voicethe Rabbit's'Pat! Pat! Where are you? And then a voice she had never heard before, 'Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour! 'Digging for apples, indeed! said the Rabbit angrily. 'Here! Come and help me out of this! (Sounds of more broken glass.) 'Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window? 'Sure, it's an arm, yer honour! (He pronounced it 'arrum.) 'An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window! 'Sure, it does, yer honour but it's an arm for all that. 'Well, it's got no business there, at any rate go and take it away! There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then such as, 'Sure, I don't like it, yer honour, at all, at all! 'Do as I tell you, you coward! and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. 'What a number of cucumberframes there must be! thought Alice. 'I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer! She waited for some time without hearing anything more at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together she made out the words 'Where's the other ladder?Why, I hadn't to bring but one Bill's got the otherBill! fetch it here, lad!Here, put 'em up at this cornerNo, tie 'em together firstthey don't reach half high enough yetOh! they'll do well enough don't be particularHere, Bill! catch hold of this ropeWill the roof bear?Mind that loose slateOh, it's coming down! Heads below! (a loud crash)'Now, who did that?It was Bill, I fancyWho's to go down the chimney?Nay, I shan't! You do it!That I won't, then!Bill's to go downHere, Bill! the master says you're to go down the chimney! 'Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he? said Alice to herself. 'Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal this fireplace is narrow, to be sure but I think I can kick a little! She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her then, saying to herself 'This is Bill, she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next. The first thing she heard was a general chorus of 'There goes Bill! then the Rabbit's voice along'Catch him, you by the hedge! then silence, and then another confusion of voices'Hold up his headBrandy nowDon't choke himHow was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell us all about it! Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, ('That's Bill, thought Alice,) 'Well, I hardly knowNo more, thank ye I'm better nowbut I'm a deal too flustered to tell youall I know is, something comes at me like a Jackinthebox, and up I goes like a skyrocket! 'So you did, old fellow! said the others. 'We must burn the house down! said the Rabbit's voice and Alice called out as loud as she could, 'If you do, I'll set Dinah at you! There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, 'I wonder what they will do next! If they had any sense, they'd take the roof off. After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, 'A barrowful will do, to begin with. 'A barrowful of what? thought Alice but she had not long to doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face. 'I'll put a stop to this, she said to herself, and shouted out, 'You'd better not do that again! which produced another dead silence. Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. 'If I eat one of these cakes, she thought, 'it's sure to make some change in my size and as it can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose. So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guineapigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood. 'The first thing I've got to do, said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, 'is to grow to my right size again and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan. It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it and while she was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry. An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. 'Poor little thing! said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing. Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a carthorse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the distance. 'And yet what a dear little puppy it was! said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves 'I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, ifif I'd only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let me seehow is it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other but the great question is, what? The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it. She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. 'Who are you? said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, 'II hardly know, sir, just at presentat least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then. 'What do you mean by that? said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself! 'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir, said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see. 'I don't see, said the Caterpillar. 'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly, Alice replied very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing. 'It isn't, said the Caterpillar. 'Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet, said Alice 'but when you have to turn into a chrysalisyou will some day, you knowand then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you? 'Not a bit, said the Caterpillar. 'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different, said Alice 'all I know is, it would feel very queer to me. 'You! said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 'Who are you? Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, 'I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first. 'Why? said the Caterpillar. Here was another puzzling question and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. 'Come back! the Caterpillar called after her. 'I've something important to say! This sounded promising, certainly Alice turned and came back again. 'Keep your temper, said the Caterpillar. 'Is that all? said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could. 'No, said the Caterpillar. Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, 'So you think you're changed, do you? 'I'm afraid I am, sir, said Alice 'I can't remember things as I usedand I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together! 'Can't remember what things? said the Caterpillar. 'Well, I've tried to say 'How doth the little busy bee, but it all came different! Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. 'Repeat, 'You are old, Father William,' said the Caterpillar. Alice folded her hands, and began 'You are old, Father William, the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white And yet you incessantly stand on your head Do you think, at your age, it is right? 'In my youth, Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again. 'You are old, said the youth, 'as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat Yet you turned a backsomersault in at the door Pray, what is the reason of that? 'In my youth, said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, 'I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointmentone shilling the box Allow me to sell you a couple? 'You are old, said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak Pray, how did you manage to do it? 'In my youth, said his father, 'I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life. 'You are old, said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose What made you so awfully clever? 'I have answered three questions, and that is enough, Said his father 'don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs! 'That is not said right, said the Caterpillar. 'Not quite right, I'm afraid, said Alice, timidly 'some of the words have got altered. 'It is wrong from beginning to end, said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes. The Caterpillar was the first to speak. 'What size do you want to be? it asked. 'Oh, I'm not particular as to size, Alice hastily replied 'only one doesn't like changing so often, you know. 'I don't know, said the Caterpillar. Alice said nothing she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. 'Are you content now? said the Caterpillar. 'Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind, said Alice 'three inches is such a wretched height to be. 'It is a very good height indeed! said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). 'But I'm not used to it! pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought of herself, 'I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended! 'You'll get used to it in time, said the Caterpillar and it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again. This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, 'One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter. 'One side of what? The other side of what? thought Alice to herself. 'Of the mushroom, said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud and in another moment it was out of sight. Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand. 'And now which is which? she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the righthand bit to try the effect the next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin it had struck her foot! She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her mouth but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.                     'Come, my head's free at last! said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her. 'What can all that green stuff be? said Alice. 'And where have my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can't see you? She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the distant green leaves. As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her violently with its wings. 'Serpent! screamed the Pigeon. 'I'm not a serpent! said Alice indignantly. 'Let me alone! 'Serpent, I say again! repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, 'I've tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them! 'I haven't the least idea what you're talking about, said Alice. 'I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges, the Pigeon went on, without attending to her 'but those serpents! There's no pleasing them! Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. 'As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs, said the Pigeon 'but I must be on the lookout for serpents night and day! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks! 'I'm very sorry you've been annoyed, said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning. 'And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood, continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, 'and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent! 'But I'm not a serpent, I tell you! said Alice. 'I'm aI'm a 'Well! What are you? said the Pigeon. 'I can see you're trying to invent something! 'II'm a little girl, said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day. 'A likely story indeed! said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. 'I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent and there's no use denying it. I suppose you'll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg! 'I have tasted eggs, certainly, said Alice, who was a very truthful child 'but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know. 'I don't believe it, said the Pigeon 'but if they do, why then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say. This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, 'You're looking for eggs, I know that well enough and what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a serpent? 'It matters a good deal to me, said Alice hastily 'but I'm not looking for eggs, as it happens and if I was, I shouldn't want yours I don't like them raw. 'Well, be off, then! said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it felt quite strange at first but she got used to it in a few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual. 'Come, there's half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another! However, I've got back to my right size the next thing is, to get into that beautiful gardenhow is that to be done, I wonder? As she said this, she came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. 'Whoever lives there, thought Alice, 'it'll never do to come upon them this size why, I should frighten them out of their wits! So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high. For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. The FishFootman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, 'For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet. The FrogFootman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the words a little, 'From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet. Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood for fear of their hearing her and when she next peeped out the FishFootman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky. Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked. 'There's no sort of use in knocking, said the Footman, 'and that for two reasons. First, because I'm on the same side of the door as you are secondly, because they're making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you. And certainly there was a most extraordinary noise going on withina constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces. 'Please, then, said Alice, 'how am I to get in? 'There might be some sense in your knocking, the Footman went on without attending to her, 'if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were inside, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know. He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. 'But perhaps he can't help it, she said to herself 'his eyes are so very nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.How am I to get in? she repeated, aloud. 'I shall sit here, the Footman remarked, 'till tomorrow At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him. 'or next day, maybe, the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened. 'How am I to get in? asked Alice again, in a louder tone. 'Are you to get in at all? said the Footman. 'That's the first question, you know. It was, no doubt only Alice did not like to be told so. 'It's really dreadful, she muttered to herself, 'the way all the creatures argue. It's enough to drive one crazy! The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. 'I shall sit here, he said, 'on and off, for days and days. 'But what am I to do? said Alice. 'Anything you like, said the Footman, and began whistling. 'Oh, there's no use in talking to him, said Alice desperately 'he's perfectly idiotic! And she opened the door and went in. The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other the Duchess was sitting on a threelegged stool in the middle, nursing a baby the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. 'There's certainly too much pepper in that soup! Alice said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing. There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. 'Please would you tell me, said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, 'why your cat grins like that? 'It's a Cheshire cat, said the Duchess, 'and that's why. Pig! She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again 'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned in fact, I didn't know that cats could grin. 'They all can, said the Duchess 'and most of 'em do. 'I don't know of any that do, Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation. 'You don't know much, said the Duchess 'and that's a fact. Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the babythe fireirons came first then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her and the baby was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. 'Oh, please mind what you're doing! cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror. 'Oh, there goes his precious nose! as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off. 'If everybody minded their own business, the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, 'the world would go round a deal faster than it does. 'Which would not be an advantage, said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. 'Just think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twentyfour hours to turn round on its axis 'Talking of axes, said the Duchess, 'chop off her head! Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take the hint but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to be listening, so she went on again 'Twentyfour hours, I think or is it twelve? I 'Oh, don't bother me, said the Duchess 'I never could abide figures! And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line 'Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it teases. CHORUS. (In which the cook and the baby joined) 'Wow! wow! wow! While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words 'I speak severely to my boy, I beat him when he sneezes For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases! CHORUS. 'Wow! wow! wow! 'Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like! the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. 'I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen, and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a fryingpan after her as she went out, but it just missed her. Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queershaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, 'just like a starfish, thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting like a steamengine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. 'If I don't take this child away with me, thought Alice, 'they're sure to kill it in a day or two wouldn't it be murder to leave it behind? She said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). 'Don't grunt, said Alice 'that's not at all a proper way of expressing yourself. The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very turnup nose, much more like a snout than a real nose also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. 'But perhaps it was only sobbing, she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears. No, there were no tears. 'If you're going to turn into a pig, my dear, said Alice, seriously, 'I'll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now! The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. Alice was just beginning to think to herself, 'Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home? when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further. So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. 'If it had grown up, she said to herself, 'it would have made a dreadfully ugly child but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think. And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, 'if one only knew the right way to change them when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked goodnatured, she thought still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect. 'Cheshire Puss, she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far, thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat. 'I don't much care where said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter which way you go, said the Cat. 'so long as I get somewhere, Alice added as an explanation. 'Oh, you're sure to do that, said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough. Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. 'What sort of people live about here? 'In that direction, the Cat said, waving its right paw round, 'lives a Hatter and in that direction, waving the other paw, 'lives a March Hare. Visit either you like they're both mad. 'But I don't want to go among mad people, Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that, said the Cat 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. 'How do you know I'm mad? said Alice. 'You must be, said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here. Alice didn't think that proved it at all however, she went on 'And how do you know that you're mad? 'To begin with, said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that? 'I suppose so, said Alice. 'Well, then, the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad. 'I call it purring, not growling, said Alice. 'Call it what you like, said the Cat. 'Do you play croquet with the Queen today? 'I should like it very much, said Alice, 'but I haven't been invited yet. 'You'll see me there, said the Cat, and vanished. Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again. 'Bythebye, what became of the baby? said the Cat. 'I'd nearly forgotten to ask. 'It turned into a pig, Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way. 'I thought it would, said the Cat, and vanished again. Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. 'I've seen hatters before, she said to herself 'the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving madat least not so mad as it was in March. As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree. 'Did you say pig, or fig? said the Cat. 'I said pig, replied Alice 'and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly you make one quite giddy. 'All right, said the Cat and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. 'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin, thought Alice 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life! She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself 'Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I'd gone to see the Hatter instead! There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. 'Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse, thought Alice 'only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind. The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it 'No room! No room! they cried out when they saw Alice coming. 'There's plenty of room! said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large armchair at one end of the table. 'Have some wine, the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. 'I don't see any wine, she remarked. 'There isn't any, said the March Hare. 'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it, said Alice angrily. 'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited, said the March Hare. 'I didn't know it was your table, said Alice 'it's laid for a great many more than three. 'Your hair wants cutting, said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. 'You should learn not to make personal remarks, Alice said with some severity 'it's very rude. The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this but all he said was, 'Why is a raven like a writingdesk? 'Come, we shall have some fun now! thought Alice. 'I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.I believe I can guess that, she added aloud. 'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it? said the March Hare. 'Exactly so, said Alice. 'Then you should say what you mean, the March Hare went on. 'I do, Alice hastily replied 'at leastat least I mean what I saythat's the same thing, you know. 'Not the same thing a bit! said the Hatter. 'You might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'! 'You might just as well say, added the March Hare, 'that 'I like what I get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like'! 'You might just as well say, added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, 'that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe'! 'It is the same thing with you, said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writingdesks, which wasn't much. The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 'What day of the month is it? he said, turning to Alice he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear. Alice considered a little, and then said 'The fourth. 'Two days wrong! sighed the Hatter. 'I told you butter wouldn't suit the works! he added looking angrily at the March Hare. 'It was the best butter, the March Hare meekly replied. 'Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well, the Hatter grumbled 'you shouldn't have put it in with the breadknife. The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, 'It was the best butter, you know. Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. 'What a funny watch! she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is! 'Why should it? muttered the Hatter. 'Does your watch tell you what year it is? 'Of course not, Alice replied very readily 'but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together. 'Which is just the case with mine, said the Hatter. Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. 'I don't quite understand you, she said, as politely as she could. 'The Dormouse is asleep again, said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose. The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, 'Of course, of course just what I was going to remark myself. 'Have you guessed the riddle yet? the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. 'No, I give it up, Alice replied 'what's the answer? 'I haven't the slightest idea, said the Hatter. 'Nor I, said the March Hare. Alice sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the time, she said, 'than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers. 'If you knew Time as well as I do, said the Hatter, 'you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him. 'I don't know what you mean, said Alice. 'Of course you don't! the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. 'I dare say you never even spoke to Time! 'Perhaps not, Alice cautiously replied 'but I know I have to beat time when I learn music. 'Ah! that accounts for it, said the Hatter. 'He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Halfpast one, time for dinner! ('I only wish it was, the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) 'That would be grand, certainly, said Alice thoughtfully 'but thenI shouldn't be hungry for it, you know. 'Not at first, perhaps, said the Hatter 'but you could keep it to halfpast one as long as you liked. 'Is that the way you manage? Alice asked. The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 'Not I! he replied. 'We quarrelled last Marchjust before he went mad, you know (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) 'it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing 'Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!' You know the song, perhaps? 'I've heard something like it, said Alice. 'It goes on, you know, the Hatter continued, 'in this way 'Up above the world you fly, Like a teatray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle' Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep 'Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop. 'Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse, said the Hatter, 'when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, 'He's murdering the time! Off with his head!' 'How dreadfully savage! exclaimed Alice. 'And ever since that, the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, 'he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now. A bright idea came into Alice's head. 'Is that the reason so many teathings are put out here? she asked. 'Yes, that's it, said the Hatter with a sigh 'it's always teatime, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles. 'Then you keep moving round, I suppose? said Alice. 'Exactly so, said the Hatter 'as the things get used up. 'But what happens when you come to the beginning again? Alice ventured to ask. 'Suppose we change the subject, the March Hare interrupted, yawning. 'I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story. 'I'm afraid I don't know one, said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal. 'Then the Dormouse shall! they both cried. 'Wake up, Dormouse! And they pinched it on both sides at once. The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. 'I wasn't asleep, he said in a hoarse, feeble voice 'I heard every word you fellows were saying. 'Tell us a story! said the March Hare. 'Yes, please do! pleaded Alice. 'And be quick about it, added the Hatter, 'or you'll be asleep again before it's done. 'Once upon a time there were three little sisters, the Dormouse began in a great hurry 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie and they lived at the bottom of a well 'What did they live on? said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. 'They lived on treacle, said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. 'They couldn't have done that, you know, Alice gently remarked 'they'd have been ill. 'So they were, said the Dormouse 'very ill. Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on 'But why did they live at the bottom of a well? 'Take some more tea, the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. 'I've had nothing yet, Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more. 'You mean you can't take less, said the Hatter 'it's very easy to take more than nothing. 'Nobody asked your opinion, said Alice. 'Who's making personal remarks now? the Hatter asked triumphantly. Alice did not quite know what to say to this so she helped herself to some tea and breadandbutter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. 'Why did they live at the bottom of a well? The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, 'It was a treaclewell. 'There's no such thing! Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went 'Sh! sh! and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, 'If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for yourself. 'No, please go on! Alice said very humbly 'I won't interrupt again. I dare say there may be one. 'One, indeed! said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. 'And so these three little sistersthey were learning to draw, you know 'What did they draw? said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. 'Treacle, said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. 'I want a clean cup, interrupted the Hatter 'let's all move one place on. He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him the March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milkjug into his plate. Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously 'But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle from? 'You can draw water out of a waterwell, said the Hatter 'so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treaclewelleh, stupid? 'But they were in the well, Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark. 'Of course they were, said the Dormouse 'well in. This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it. 'They were learning to draw, the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy 'and they drew all manner of thingseverything that begins with an M 'Why with an M? said Alice. 'Why not? said the March Hare. Alice was silent. The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on 'that begins with an M, such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchnessyou know you say things are 'much of a muchnessdid you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness? 'Really, now you ask me, said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't think 'Then you shouldn't talk, said the Hatter. This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear she got up in great disgust, and walked off the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot. 'At any rate I'll never go there again! said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest teaparty I ever was at in all my life! Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. 'That's very curious! she thought. 'But everything's curious today. I think I may as well go in at once. And in she went. Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. 'Now, I'll manage better this time, she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high then she walked down the little passage and thenshe found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flowerbeds and the cool fountains. A large rosetree stood near the entrance of the garden the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, 'Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like that! 'I couldn't help it, said Five, in a sulky tone 'Seven jogged my elbow. On which Seven looked up and said, 'That's right, Five! Always lay the blame on others! 'You'd better not talk! said Five. 'I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded! 'What for? said the one who had spoken first. 'That's none of your business, Two! said Seven. 'Yes, it is his business! said Five, 'and I'll tell himit was for bringing the cook tuliproots instead of onions. Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun 'Well, of all the unjust things when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low. 'Would you tell me, said Alice, a little timidly, 'why you are painting those roses? Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, 'Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rosetree, and we put a white one in by mistake and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out 'The Queen! The Queen! and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. First came ten soldiers carrying clubs these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners next the ten courtiers these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal children there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit it was talking in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion and, last of all this grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS. Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a rule at processions 'and besides, what would be the use of a procession, thought she, 'if people had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn't see it? So she stood still where she was, and waited. When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely 'Who is this? She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply. 'Idiot! said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently and, turning to Alice, she went on, 'What's your name, child? 'My name is Alice, so please your Majesty, said Alice very politely but she added, to herself, 'Why, they're only a pack of cards, after all. I needn't be afraid of them! 'And who are these? said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rosetree for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children. 'How should I know? said Alice, surprised at her own courage. 'It's no business of mine. The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed 'Off with her head! Off 'Nonsense! said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent. The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said 'Consider, my dear she is only a child! The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave 'Turn them over! The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot. 'Get up! said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else. 'Leave off that! screamed the Queen. 'You make me giddy. And then, turning to the rosetree, she went on, 'What have you been doing here? 'May it please your Majesty, said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, 'we were trying 'I see! said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. 'Off with their heads! and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection. 'You shan't be beheaded! said Alice, and she put them into a large flowerpot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others. 'Are their heads off? shouted the Queen. 'Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty! the soldiers shouted in reply. 'That's right! shouted the Queen. 'Can you play croquet? The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her. 'Yes! shouted Alice. 'Come on, then! roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next. 'It'sit's a very fine day! said a timid voice at her side. She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. 'Very, said Alice 'where's the Duchess? 'Hush! Hush! said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered 'She's under sentence of execution. 'What for? said Alice. 'Did you say 'What a pity!'? the Rabbit asked. 'No, I didn't, said Alice 'I don't think it's at all a pity. I said 'What for?' 'She boxed the Queen's ears the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. 'Oh, hush! the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. 'The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen said 'Get to your places! shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquetground in her life it was all ridges and furrows the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubledup soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting 'Off with his head! or 'Off with her head! about once in a minute. Alice began to feel very uneasy to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, 'and then, thought she, 'what would become of me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive! She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself 'It's the Cheshire Cat now I shall have somebody to talk to. 'How are you getting on? said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with. Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. 'It's no use speaking to it, she thought, 'till its ears have come, or at least one of them. In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared. 'I don't think they play at all fairly, Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, 'and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speakand they don't seem to have any rules in particular at least, if there are, nobody attends to themand you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next walking about at the other end of the groundand I should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming! 'How do you like the Queen? said the Cat in a low voice. 'Not at all, said Alice 'she's so extremely Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening so she went on, 'likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game. The Queen smiled and passed on. 'Who are you talking to? said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity. 'It's a friend of minea Cheshire Cat, said Alice 'allow me to introduce it. 'I don't like the look of it at all, said the King 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes. 'I'd rather not, the Cat remarked. 'Don't be impertinent, said the King, 'and don't look at me like that! He got behind Alice as he spoke. 'A cat may look at a king, said Alice. 'I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where. 'Well, it must be removed, said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, 'My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed! The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head! she said, without even looking round. 'I'll fetch the executioner myself, said the King eagerly, and he hurried off. Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight 'but it doesn't matter much, thought Alice, 'as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground. So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend. When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said. The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at his time of life. The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense. The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.) Alice could think of nothing else to say but 'It belongs to the Duchess you'd better ask her about it. 'She's in prison, the Queen said to the executioner 'fetch her here. And the executioner went off like an arrow. The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game. 'You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing! said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's, and they walked off together. Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when they met in the kitchen. 'When I'm a Duchess, she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone though), 'I won't have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does very well withoutMaybe it's always pepper that makes people hottempered, she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, 'and vinegar that makes them sourand camomile that makes them bitterandand barleysugar and such things that make children sweettempered. I only wish people knew that then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you know She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. 'You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit. 'Perhaps it hasn't one, Alice ventured to remark. 'Tut, tut, child! said the Duchess. 'Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it. And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke. Alice did not much like keeping so close to her first, because the Duchess was very ugly and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could. 'The game's going on rather better now, she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little. ''Tis so, said the Duchess 'and the moral of that is'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!' 'Somebody said, Alice whispered, 'that it's done by everybody minding their own business! 'Ah, well! It means much the same thing, said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added, 'and the moral of that is'Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.' 'How fond she is of finding morals in things! Alice thought to herself. 'I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your waist, the Duchess said after a pause 'the reason is, that I'm doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment? 'He might bite, Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious to have the experiment tried. 'Very true, said the Duchess 'flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is'Birds of a feather flock together.' 'Only mustard isn't a bird, Alice remarked. 'Right, as usual, said the Duchess 'what a clear way you have of putting things! 'It's a mineral, I think, said Alice. 'Of course it is, said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said 'there's a large mustardmine near here. And the moral of that is'The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.' 'Oh, I know! exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, 'it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it is. 'I quite agree with you, said the Duchess 'and the moral of that is'Be what you would seem to be'or if you'd like it put more simply'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.' 'I think I should understand that better, Alice said very politely, 'if I had it written down but I can't quite follow it as you say it. 'That's nothing to what I could say if I chose, the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone. 'Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that, said Alice. 'Oh, don't talk about trouble! said the Duchess. 'I make you a present of everything I've said as yet. 'A cheap sort of present! thought Alice. 'I'm glad they don't give birthday presents like that! But she did not venture to say it out loud. 'Thinking again? the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin. 'I've a right to think, said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried. 'Just about as much right, said the Duchess, 'as pigs have to fly and the m But here, to Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's voice died away, even in the middle of her favourite word 'moral,' and the arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a thunderstorm. 'A fine day, your Majesty! the Duchess began in a low, weak voice. 'Now, I give you fair warning, shouted the Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke 'either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice! The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment. 'Let's go on with the game, the Queen said to Alice and Alice was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the croquetground. The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen's absence, and were resting in the shade however, the moment they saw her, they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment's delay would cost them their lives. All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling with the other players, and shouting 'Off with his head! or 'Off with her head! Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of execution. Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, 'Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet? 'No, said Alice. 'I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is. 'It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from, said the Queen. 'I never saw one, or heard of one, said Alice. 'Come on, then, said the Queen, 'and he shall tell you his history, As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, 'You are all pardoned. 'Come, that's a good thing! she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered. They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) 'Up, lazy thing! said the Queen, 'and take this young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some executions I have ordered and she walked off, leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage Queen so she waited. The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes then it watched the Queen till she was out of sight then it chuckled. 'What fun! said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice. 'What is the fun? said Alice. 'Why, she, said the Gryphon. 'It's all her fancy, that they never executes nobody, you know. Come on! 'Everybody says 'come on!' here, thought Alice, as she went slowly after it 'I never was so ordered about in all my life, never! They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him deeply. 'What is his sorrow? she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, 'It's all his fancy, that he hasn't got no sorrow, you know. Come on! So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing. 'This here young lady, said the Gryphon, 'she wants for to know your history, she do. 'I'll tell it her, said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone 'sit down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've finished. So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, 'I don't see how he can ever finish, if he doesn't begin. But she waited patiently. 'Once, said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, 'I was a real Turtle. These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of 'Hjckrrh! from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, 'Thank you, sir, for your interesting story, but she could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing. 'When we were little, the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, 'we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtlewe used to call him Tortoise 'Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one? Alice asked. 'We called him Tortoise because he taught us, said the Mock Turtle angrily 'really you are very dull! 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question, added the Gryphon and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, 'Drive on, old fellow! Don't be all day about it! and he went on in these words 'Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe it 'I never said I didn't! interrupted Alice. 'You did, said the Mock Turtle. 'Hold your tongue! added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on. 'We had the best of educationsin fact, we went to school every day 'I've been to a dayschool, too, said Alice 'you needn't be so proud as all that. 'With extras? asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously. 'Yes, said Alice, 'we learned French and music. 'And washing? said the Mock Turtle. 'Certainly not! said Alice indignantly. 'Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school, said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. 'Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, 'French, music, and washingextra.' 'You couldn't have wanted it much, said Alice 'living at the bottom of the sea. 'I couldn't afford to learn it. said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. 'I only took the regular course. 'What was that? inquired Alice. 'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, the Mock Turtle replied 'and then the different branches of ArithmeticAmbition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. 'I never heard of 'Uglification,' Alice ventured to say. 'What is it? The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. 'What! Never heard of uglifying! it exclaimed. 'You know what to beautify is, I suppose? 'Yes, said Alice doubtfully 'it meanstomakeanythingprettier. 'Well, then, the Gryphon went on, 'if you don't know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton. Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said 'What else had you to learn? 'Well, there was Mystery, the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, 'Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography then Drawlingthe Drawlingmaster was an old congereel, that used to come once a week he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils. 'What was that like? said Alice. 'Well, I can't show it you myself, the Mock Turtle said 'I'm too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it. 'Hadn't time, said the Gryphon 'I went to the Classics master, though. He was an old crab, he was. 'I never went to him, the Mock Turtle said with a sigh 'he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say. 'So he did, so he did, said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn and both creatures hid their faces in their paws. 'And how many hours a day did you do lessons? said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject. 'Ten hours the first day, said the Mock Turtle 'nine the next, and so on. 'What a curious plan! exclaimed Alice. 'That's the reason they're called lessons, the Gryphon remarked 'because they lessen from day to day. This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. 'Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday? 'Of course it was, said the Mock Turtle. 'And how did you manage on the twelfth? Alice went on eagerly. 'That's enough about lessons, the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone 'tell her something about the games now. The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or two sobs choked his voice. 'Same as if he had a bone in his throat, said the Gryphon and it set to work shaking him and punching him in the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on again 'You may not have lived much under the sea ('I haven't, said Alice)'and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster (Alice began to say 'I once tasted but checked herself hastily, and said 'No, never) 'so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is! 'No, indeed, said Alice. 'What sort of a dance is it? 'Why, said the Gryphon, 'you first form into a line along the seashore 'Two lines! cried the Mock Turtle. 'Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on then, when you've cleared all the jellyfish out of the way 'That generally takes some time, interrupted the Gryphon. 'you advance twice 'Each with a lobster as a partner! cried the Gryphon. 'Of course, the Mock Turtle said 'advance twice, set to partners 'change lobsters, and retire in same order, continued the Gryphon. 'Then, you know, the Mock Turtle went on, 'you throw the 'The lobsters! shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air. 'as far out to sea as you can 'Swim after them! screamed the Gryphon. 'Turn a somersault in the sea! cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about. 'Change lobsters again! yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice. 'Back to land again, and that's all the first figure, said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice. 'It must be a very pretty dance, said Alice timidly. 'Would you like to see a little of it? said the Mock Turtle. 'Very much indeed, said Alice. 'Come, let's try the first figure! said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. 'We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing? 'Oh, you sing, said the Gryphon. 'I've forgotten the words. So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly 'Will you walk a little faster? said a whiting to a snail. 'There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shinglewill you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance? 'You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea! But the snail replied 'Too far, too far! and gave a look askance Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. 'What matters it how far we go? his scaly friend replied. 'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance? 'Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch, said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last 'and I do so like that curious song about the whiting! 'Oh, as to the whiting, said the Mock Turtle, 'theyyou've seen them, of course? 'Yes, said Alice, 'I've often seen them at dinn she checked herself hastily. 'I don't know where Dinn may be, said the Mock Turtle, 'but if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're like. 'I believe so, Alice replied thoughtfully. 'They have their tails in their mouthsand they're all over crumbs. 'You're wrong about the crumbs, said the Mock Turtle 'crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they have their tails in their mouths and the reason is here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.'Tell her about the reason and all that, he said to the Gryphon. 'The reason is, said the Gryphon, 'that they would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all. 'Thank you, said Alice, 'it's very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before. 'I can tell you more than that, if you like, said the Gryphon. 'Do you know why it's called a whiting? 'I never thought about it, said Alice. 'Why? 'It does the boots and shoes, the Gryphon replied very solemnly. Alice was thoroughly puzzled. 'Does the boots and shoes! she repeated in a wondering tone. 'Why, what are your shoes done with? said the Gryphon. 'I mean, what makes them so shiny? Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. 'They're done with blacking, I believe. 'Boots and shoes under the sea, the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, 'are done with a whiting. Now you know. 'And what are they made of? Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. 'Soles and eels, of course, the Gryphon replied rather impatiently 'any shrimp could have told you that. 'If I'd been the whiting, said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, 'I'd have said to the porpoise, 'Keep back, please we don't want you with us!' 'They were obliged to have him with them, the Mock Turtle said 'no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise. 'Wouldn't it really? said Alice in a tone of great surprise. 'Of course not, said the Mock Turtle 'why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say 'With what porpoise?' 'Don't you mean 'purpose'? said Alice. 'I mean what I say, the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added 'Come, let's hear some of your adventures. 'I could tell you my adventuresbeginning from this morning, said Alice a little timidly 'but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. 'Explain all that, said the Mock Turtle. 'No, no! The adventures first, said the Gryphon in an impatient tone 'explanations take such a dreadful time. So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so very wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating 'You are old, Father William, to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said 'That's very curious. 'It's all about as curious as it can be, said the Gryphon. 'It all came different! the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. 'I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin. He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. 'Stand up and repeat ''Tis the voice of the sluggard,' said the Gryphon. 'How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons! thought Alice 'I might as well be at school at once. However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed ''Tis the voice of the Lobster I heard him declare, 'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair. As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. later editions continued as follows When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound. 'That's different from what I used to say when I was a child, said the Gryphon. 'Well, I never heard it before, said the Mock Turtle 'but it sounds uncommon nonsense. Alice said nothing she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again. 'I should like to have it explained, said the Mock Turtle. 'She can't explain it, said the Gryphon hastily. 'Go on with the next verse. 'But about his toes? the Mock Turtle persisted. 'How could he turn them out with his nose, you know? 'It's the first position in dancing. Alice said but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. 'Go on with the next verse, the Gryphon repeated impatiently 'it begins 'I passed by his garden.' Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice 'I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie later editions continued as follows The Panther took piecrust, and gravy, and meat, While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, And concluded the banquet 'What is the use of repeating all that stuff, the Mock Turtle interrupted, 'if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing I ever heard! 'Yes, I think you'd better leave off, said the Gryphon and Alice was only too glad to do so. 'Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille? the Gryphon went on. 'Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song? 'Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind, Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, 'Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her 'Turtle Soup,' will you, old fellow? The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this 'Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Beauootiful Soooop! Beauootiful Soooop! Soooop of the eeevening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup! 'Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, Game, or any other dish? Who would not give all else for two p ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Beauootiful Soooop! Beauootiful Soooop! Soooop of the eeevening, Beautiful, beautiFUL SOUP! 'Chorus again! cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of 'The trial's beginning! was heard in the distance. 'Come on! cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song. 'What trial is it? Alice panted as she ran but the Gryphon only answered 'Come on! and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words 'Soooop of the eeevening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup! The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about themall sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them'I wish they'd get the trial done, she thought, 'and hand round the refreshments! But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time. Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. 'That's the judge, she said to herself, 'because of his great wig. The judge, by the way, was the King and as he wore his crown over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. 'And that's the jurybox, thought Alice, 'and those twelve creatures, (she was obliged to say 'creatures, you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds,) 'I suppose they are the jurors. She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, 'jurymen would have done just as well. The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. 'What are they doing? Alice whispered to the Gryphon. 'They can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun. 'They're putting down their names, the Gryphon whispered in reply, 'for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial. 'Stupid things! Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, 'Silence in the court! and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking. Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down 'stupid things! on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn't know how to spell 'stupid, and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. 'A nice muddle their slates'll be in before the trial's over! thought Alice. One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate. 'Herald, read the accusation! said the King. On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows 'The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer day The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, And took them quite away! 'Consider your verdict, the King said to the jury. 'Not yet, not yet! the Rabbit hastily interrupted. 'There's a great deal to come before that! 'Call the first witness, said the King and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, 'First witness! The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of breadandbutter in the other. 'I beg pardon, your Majesty, he began, 'for bringing these in but I hadn't quite finished my tea when I was sent for. 'You ought to have finished, said the King. 'When did you begin? The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arminarm with the Dormouse. 'Fourteenth of March, I think it was, he said. 'Fifteenth, said the March Hare. 'Sixteenth, added the Dormouse. 'Write that down, the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence. 'Take off your hat, the King said to the Hatter. 'It isn't mine, said the Hatter. 'Stolen! the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact. 'I keep them to sell, the Hatter added as an explanation 'I've none of my own. I'm a hatter. Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted. 'Give your evidence, said the King 'and don't be nervous, or I'll have you executed on the spot. This did not seem to encourage the witness at all he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the breadandbutter. Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her. 'I wish you wouldn't squeeze so. said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. 'I can hardly breathe. 'I can't help it, said Alice very meekly 'I'm growing. 'You've no right to grow here, said the Dormouse. 'Don't talk nonsense, said Alice more boldly 'you know you're growing too. 'Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace, said the Dormouse 'not in that ridiculous fashion. And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court. All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, 'Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert! on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off. 'Give your evidence, the King repeated angrily, 'or I'll have you executed, whether you're nervous or not. 'I'm a poor man, your Majesty, the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, 'and I hadn't begun my teanot above a week or soand what with the breadandbutter getting so thinand the twinkling of the tea 'The twinkling of the what? said the King. 'It began with the tea, the Hatter replied. 'Of course twinkling begins with a T! said the King sharply. 'Do you take me for a dunce? Go on! 'I'm a poor man, the Hatter went on, 'and most things twinkled after thatonly the March Hare said 'I didn't! the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. 'You did! said the Hatter. 'I deny it! said the March Hare. 'He denies it, said the King 'leave out that part. 'Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep. 'After that, continued the Hatter, 'I cut some more breadandbutter 'But what did the Dormouse say? one of the jury asked. 'That I can't remember, said the Hatter. 'You must remember, remarked the King, 'or I'll have you executed. The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and breadandbutter, and went down on one knee. 'I'm a poor man, your Majesty, he began. 'You're a very poor speaker, said the King. Here one of the guineapigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings into this they slipped the guineapig, head first, and then sat upon it.) 'I'm glad I've seen that done, thought Alice. 'I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, 'There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court, and I never understood what it meant till now. 'If that's all you know about it, you may stand down, continued the King. 'I can't go no lower, said the Hatter 'I'm on the floor, as it is. 'Then you may sit down, the King replied. Here the other guineapig cheered, and was suppressed. 'Come, that finished the guineapigs! thought Alice. 'Now we shall get on better. 'I'd rather finish my tea, said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. 'You may go, said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. 'and just take his head off outside, the Queen added to one of the officers but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door. 'Call the next witness! said the King. The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepperbox in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. 'Give your evidence, said the King. 'Shan't, said the cook. The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, 'Your Majesty must crossexamine this witness. 'Well, if I must, I must, the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, 'What are tarts made of? 'Pepper, mostly, said the cook. 'Treacle, said a sleepy voice behind her. 'Collar that Dormouse, the Queen shrieked out. 'Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers! For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared. 'Never mind! said the King, with an air of great relief. 'Call the next witness. And he added in an undertone to the Queen, 'Really, my dear, you must crossexamine the next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache! Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like, 'for they haven't got much evidence yet, she said to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name 'Alice! 'Here! cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jurybox with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. 'Oh, I beg your pardon! she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the jurybox, or they would die. 'The trial cannot proceed, said the King in a very grave voice, 'until all the jurymen are back in their proper placesall, he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so. Alice looked at the jurybox, and saw that, in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon got it out again, and put it right 'not that it signifies much, she said to herself 'I should think it would be quite as much use in the trial one way up as the other. As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the court. 'What do you know about this business? the King said to Alice. 'Nothing, said Alice. 'Nothing whatever? persisted the King. 'Nothing whatever, said Alice. 'That's very important, the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted 'Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course, he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke. 'Unimportant, of course, I meant, the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, 'importantunimportantunimportantimportant as if he were trying which word sounded best. Some of the jury wrote it down 'important, and some 'unimportant. Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates 'but it doesn't matter a bit, she thought to herself. At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his notebook, cackled out 'Silence! and read out from his book, 'Rule Fortytwo. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court. Everybody looked at Alice. 'I'm not a mile high, said Alice. 'You are, said the King. 'Nearly two miles high, added the Queen. 'Well, I shan't go, at any rate, said Alice 'besides, that's not a regular rule you invented it just now. 'It's the oldest rule in the book, said the King. 'Then it ought to be Number One, said Alice. The King turned pale, and shut his notebook hastily. 'Consider your verdict, he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice. 'There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty, said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry 'this paper has just been picked up. 'What's in it? said the Queen. 'I haven't opened it yet, said the White Rabbit, 'but it seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner toto somebody. 'It must have been that, said the King, 'unless it was written to nobody, which isn't usual, you know. 'Who is it directed to? said one of the jurymen. 'It isn't directed at all, said the White Rabbit 'in fact, there's nothing written on the outside. He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and added 'It isn't a letter, after all it's a set of verses. 'Are they in the prisoner's handwriting? asked another of the jurymen. 'No, they're not, said the White Rabbit, 'and that's the queerest thing about it. (The jury all looked puzzled.) 'He must have imitated somebody else's hand, said the King. (The jury all brightened up again.) 'Please your Majesty, said the Knave, 'I didn't write it, and they can't prove I did there's no name signed at the end. 'If you didn't sign it, said the King, 'that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you'd have signed your name like an honest man. There was a general clapping of hands at this it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day. 'That proves his guilt, said the Queen. 'It proves nothing of the sort! said Alice. 'Why, you don't even know what they're about! 'Read them, said the King. The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty? he asked. 'Begin at the beginning, the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end then stop. These were the verses the White Rabbit read 'They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to him She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true) If she should push the matter on, What would become of you? I gave her one, they gave him two, You gave us three or more They all returned from him to you, Though they were mine before. If I or she should chance to be Involved in this affair, He trusts to you to set them free, Exactly as we were. My notion was that you had been (Before she had this fit) An obstacle that came between Him, and ourselves, and it. Don't let him know she liked them best, For this must ever be A secret, kept from all the rest, Between yourself and me. 'That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet, said the King, rubbing his hands 'so now let the jury 'If any one of them can explain it, said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit afraid of interrupting him,) 'I'll give him sixpence. I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it. The jury all wrote down on their slates, 'She doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it, but none of them attempted to explain the paper. 'If there's no meaning in it, said the King, 'that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. And yet I don't know, he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye 'I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. 'said I could not swim you can't swim, can you? he added, turning to the Knave. The Knave shook his head sadly. 'Do I look like it? he said. (Which he certainly did not, being made entirely of cardboard.) 'All right, so far, said the King, and he went on muttering over the verses to himself ''We know it to be true' that's the jury, of course'I gave her one, they gave him two' why, that must be what he did with the tarts, you know 'But, it goes on 'they all returned from him to you,' said Alice. 'Why, there they are! said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. 'Nothing can be clearer than that. Then again'before she had this fit' you never had fits, my dear, I think? he said to the Queen. 'Never! said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.) 'Then the words don't fit you, said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence. 'It's a pun! the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, 'Let the jury consider their verdict, the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. 'No, no! said the Queen. 'Sentence firstverdict afterwards. 'Stuff and nonsense! said Alice loudly. 'The idea of having the sentence first! 'Hold your tongue! said the Queen, turning purple. 'I won't! said Alice. 'Off with her head! the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. 'Who cares for you? said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) 'You're nothing but a pack of cards! At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. 'Wake up, Alice dear! said her sister 'Why, what a long sleep you've had! 'Oh, I've had such a curious dream! said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, 'It was a curious dream, dear, certainly but now run in to your tea it's getting late. So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been. But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking up into hersshe could hear the very tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair that would always get into her eyesand still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the strange creatures of her little sister's dream. The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried bythe frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring poolshe could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their neverending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to executiononce more the pigbaby was sneezing on the Duchess's knee, while plates and dishes crashed around itonce more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard's slatepencil, and the choking of the suppressed guineapigs, filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock Turtle. So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull realitythe grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reedsthe rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheepbells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boyand the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farmyardwhile the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs. Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the aftertime, be herself a grown woman and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own childlife, and the happy summer days.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other wayin short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her fiveandtwentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cocklane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cocklane brood. France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellowtradesman whom he stopped in his character of 'the Captain, gallantly shot him through the head and rode away the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, 'in consequence of the failure of his ammunition after which the mail was robbed in peace that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawingrooms musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall today, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and tomorrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence. All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creaturesthe creatures of this chronicle among the restalong the roads that lay before them. It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty. With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary 'Woho! sohothen! the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon itlike an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coachlamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all. Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jackboots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every postinghouse and alehouse could produce somebody in 'the Captain's pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable nondescript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the armchest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horsepistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass. The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey. 'Woho! said the coachman. 'So, then! One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it!Joe! 'Halloa! the guard replied. 'What o'clock do you make it, Joe? 'Ten minutes, good, past eleven. 'My blood! ejaculated the vexed coachman, 'and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you! The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jackboots of its passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman. The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coachdoor to let the passengers in. 'Tst! Joe! cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his box. 'What do you say, Tom? They both listened. 'I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe. 'I say a horse at a gallop, Tom, returned the guard, leaving his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. 'Gentlemen! In the king's name, all of you! With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive. The passenger booked by this history, was on the coachstep, getting in the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard but at any rate, the quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. 'Soho! the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. 'Yo there! Stand! I shall fire! The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man's voice called from the mist, 'Is that the Dover mail? 'Never you mind what it is! the guard retorted. 'What are you? 'Is that the Dover mail? 'Why do you want to know? 'I want a passenger, if it is. 'What passenger? 'Mr. Jarvis Lorry. Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully. 'Keep where you are, the guard called to the voice in the mist, 'because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight. 'What is the matter? asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. 'Who wants me? Is it Jerry? ('I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry, growled the guard to himself. 'He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.) 'Yes, Mr. Lorry. 'What is the matter? 'A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co. 'I know this messenger, guard, said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the roadassisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. 'He may come close there's nothing wrong. 'I hope there ain't, but I can't make so 'Nation sure of that, said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. 'Hallo you! 'Well! And hallo you! said Jerry, more hoarsely than before. 'Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let's look at you. The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown, and both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man. 'Guard! said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence. The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered curtly, 'Sir. 'There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read this? 'If so be as you're quick, sir. He opened it in the light of the coachlamp on that side, and readfirst to himself and then aloud ''Wait at Dover for Mam'selle.' It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, Recalled to life. Jerry started in his saddle. 'That's a Blazing strange answer, too, said he, at his hoarsest. 'Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night. With those words the passenger opened the coachdoor and got in not at all assisted by his fellowpassengers, who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action. The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his armchest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinderbox. For he was furnished with that completeness that if the coachlamps had been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky) in five minutes. 'Tom! softly over the coach roof. 'Hallo, Joe. 'Did you hear the message? 'I did, Joe. 'What did you make of it, Tom? 'Nothing at all, Joe. 'That's a coincidence, too, the guard mused, 'for I made the same of it myself. Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hatbrim, which might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his heavilysplashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill. 'After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trust your forelegs till I get you on the level, said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. ''Recalled to life.' That's a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry! A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In any of the burialplaces of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them? As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail coach they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the breadth of a county between him and the next. The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at alehouses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or form, and much too near togetheras if they were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cockedhat like a threecornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. When he stopped for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with his right as soon as that was done, he muffled again. 'No, Jerry, no! said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode. 'It wouldn't do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, it wouldn't suit your line of business! Recalled! Bust me if I don't think he'd been a drinking! His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leapfrog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over. While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson's Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of her private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. What time, the mailcoach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellowinscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested. Tellson's Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passengerwith an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special joltnodded in his place, with halfshut eyes, the little coachwindows, and the coachlamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson's, with all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strongrooms underground, at Tellson's, with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys and the feeblyburning candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them. But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was always with him, there was another current of impression that never ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave. Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did not indicate but they were all the faces of a man of fiveandforty by years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this spectre 'Buried how long? The answer was always the same 'Almost eighteen years. 'You had abandoned all hope of being dug out? 'Long ago. 'You know that you are recalled to life? 'They tell me so. 'I hope you care to live? 'I can't say. 'Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her? The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, 'Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon. Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, 'Take me to her. Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, 'I don't know her. I don't understand. After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, and dig, dignow with a spade, now with a great key, now with his handsto dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of mist and rain on his cheek. Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real Bankinghouse by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again. 'Buried how long? 'Almost eighteen years. 'I hope you care to live? 'I can't say. Digdigdiguntil an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave. 'Buried how long? 'Almost eighteen years. 'You had abandoned all hope of being dug out? 'Long ago. The words were still in his hearing as just spokendistinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his lifewhen the weary passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the shadows of the night were gone. He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked beyond, a quiet coppicewood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. 'Eighteen years! said the passenger, looking at the sun. 'Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years! When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coachdoor as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon. By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left be congratulated for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dogkennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. 'There will be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer? 'Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, sir? 'I shall not go to bed till night but I want a bedroom, and a barber. 'And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will find a fine seacoal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord! The Concord bedchamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all loitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concord and the coffeeroom, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast. The coffeeroom had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His breakfasttable was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for his portrait. Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people and perhaps secondhand cares, like secondhand clothes, come easily off and on. Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it 'I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time today. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Please to let me know. 'Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir? 'Yes. 'Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company's House. 'Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one. 'Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, sir? 'Not of late years. It is fifteen years since wesince Icame last from France. 'Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir. 'I believe so. 'But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen years ago? 'You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth. 'Indeed, sir! Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages. When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter. As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffeeroom fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals. A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled into the innyard. He set down his glass untouched. 'This is Mam'selle! said he. In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman from Tellson's. 'So soon? Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience. The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf as if they were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out. The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking his way over the wellworn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a ridingcloak, and still holding her straw travellinghat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, though it included all the four expressionsas his eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the surface of the gaunt pierglass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine genderand he made his formal bow to Miss Manette. 'Pray take a seat, sir. In a very clear and pleasant young voice a little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed. 'I kiss your hand, miss, said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat. 'I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that some intelligenceor discovery 'The word is not material, miss either word will do. 'respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I never sawso long dead Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if they had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets! 'rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for the purpose. 'Myself. 'As I was prepared to hear, sir. She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she. He made her another bow. 'I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman's protection. The gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the favour of his waiting for me here. 'I was happy, said Mr. Lorry, 'to be entrusted with the charge. I shall be more happy to execute it. 'Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a strong and eager interest to know what they are. 'Naturally, said Mr. Lorry. 'YesI After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears, 'It is very difficult to begin. He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The young forehead lifted itself into that singular expressionbut it was pretty and characteristic, besides being singularand she raised her hand, as if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayed some passing shadow. 'Are you quite a stranger to me, sir? 'Am I not? Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards with an argumentative smile. Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line of which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expression deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which she had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and the moment she raised her eyes again, went on 'In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address you as a young English lady, Miss Manette? 'If you please, sir. 'Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don't heed me any more than if I was a speaking machinetruly, I am not much else. I will, with your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our customers. 'Story! He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, in a hurry, 'Yes, customers in the banking business we usually call our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman a scientific gentleman a man of great acquirementsa Doctor. 'Not of Beauvais? 'Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there. Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at that time in our French House, and had beenoh! twenty years. 'At that timeI may ask, at what time, sir? 'I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He marriedan English ladyand I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many other French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson's hands. In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or other for scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the course of my business day in short, I have no feelings I am a mere machine. To go on 'But this is my father's story, sir and I begin to thinkthe curiously roughened forehead was very intent upon him'that when I was left an orphan through my mother's surviving my father only two years, it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure it was you. Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He then conducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holding the chairback with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood looking down into her face while she sat looking up into his. 'Miss Manette, it was I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I hold with my fellowcreatures are mere business relations, when you reflect that I have never seen you since. No you have been the ward of Tellson's House since, and I have been busy with the other business of Tellson's House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance of them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary Mangle. After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was most unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was before), and resumed his former attitude. 'So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your father had not died when he didDon't be frightened! How you start! She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands. 'Pray, said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand from the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that clasped him in so violent a tremble 'pray control your agitationa matter of business. As I was saying Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and began anew 'As I was saying if Monsieur Manette had not died if he had suddenly and silently disappeared if he had been spirited away if it had not been difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art could trace him if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid to speak of in a whisper, across the water there for instance, the privilege of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one to the oblivion of a prison for any length of time if his wife had implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings of him, and all quite in vainthen the history of your father would have been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais. 'I entreat you to tell me more, sir. 'I will. I am going to. You can bear it? 'I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this moment. 'You speak collectedly, and youare collected. That's good! (Though his manner was less satisfied than his words.) 'A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of businessbusiness that must be done. Now if this doctor's wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child was born 'The little child was a daughter, sir. 'A daughter. Aamatter of businessdon't be distressed. Miss, if the poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was born, that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by rearing her in the belief that her father was deadNo, don't kneel! In Heaven's name why should you kneel to me! 'For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth! 'Aa matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact business if I am confused? Let us be clearheaded. If you could kindly mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how many shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be so much more at my ease about your state of mind. Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had very gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp his wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that she communicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 'That's right, that's right. Courage! Business! You have business before you useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course with you. And when she diedI believe brokenheartedhaving never slackened her unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years old, to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering years. As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the flowing golden hair as if he pictured to himself that it might have been already tinged with grey. 'You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what they had was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no new discovery, of money, or of any other property but He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the forehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and which was now immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror. 'But he has beenbeen found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too probable almost a wreck, it is possible though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and we are going there I, to identify him if I can you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort. A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in a low, distinct, awestricken voice, as if she were saying it in a dream, 'I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghostnot him! Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. 'There, there, there! See now, see now! The best and the worst are known to you, now. You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon at his dear side. She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, 'I have been free, I have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me! 'Only one thing more, said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a wholesome means of enforcing her attention 'he has been found under another name his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be worse than useless now to inquire which worse than useless to seek to know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove himfor a while at all eventsout of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even Tellson's, important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly referring to it. This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, 'Recalled to Life' which may mean anything. But what is the matter! She doesn't notice a word! Miss Manette! Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she sat under his hand, utterly insensible with her eyes open and fixed upon him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved or branded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that he feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her therefore he called out loudly for assistance without moving. A wildlooking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed to be all of a red colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed in some extraordinary tightfitting fashion, and to have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too, or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of the inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him flying back against the nearest wall. ('I really think this must be a man! was Mr. Lorry's breathless reflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.) 'Why, look at you all! bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants. 'Why don't you go and fetch things, instead of standing there staring at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don't you go and fetch things? I'll let you know, if you don't bring smellingsalts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will. There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and gentleness calling her 'my precious! and 'my bird! and spreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and care. 'And you in brown! she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry 'couldn't you tell her what you had to tell her, without frightening her to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. Do you call that being a Banker? Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the inn servants under the mysterious penalty of 'letting them know something not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head upon her shoulder. 'I hope she will do well now, said Mr. Lorry. 'No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty! 'I hope, said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy and humility, 'that you accompany Miss Manette to France? 'A likely thing, too! replied the strong woman. 'If it was ever intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island? This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew to consider it. A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wineshop, shattered like a walnutshell. All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women's heads, which were squeezed dry into infants' mouths others made small mudembankments, to stem the wine as it ran others, directed by lookerson up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions others devoted themselves to the sodden and leedyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister winerotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voicesvoices of men, women, and childrenresounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighterhearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridironpattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again the women who had left on a doorstep the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine. The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wineleesblood. The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the streetstones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavycold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presencenobles of great power all of them but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old the children had ancient faces and grave voices and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread at the sausageshop, in every deaddog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil. Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wildbeast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallowsrope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wineshops, croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing condition, save tools and weapons but, the cutler's knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith's hammers were heavy, and the gunmaker's stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down the middle of the streetwhen it ran at all which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition. But, the time was not come yet and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning. The wineshop was a corner shop, better than most others in its appearance and degree, and the master of the wineshop had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. 'It's not my affair, said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. 'The people from the market did it. Let them bring another. There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, he called to him across the way 'Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there? The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as is often the way with his tribe too. 'What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital? said the wineshop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. 'Why do you write in the public streets? Is theretell me thouis there no other place to write such words in? In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker's heart. The joker rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly practical character, he looked, under those circumstances. 'Put it on, put it on, said the other. 'Call wine, wine and finish there. With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker's dress, such as it wasquite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on his account and then recrossed the road and entered the wineshop. This wineshop keeper was a bullnecked, martiallooking man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisplycurling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Goodhumoured looking on the whole, but implacablelooking, too evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn the man. Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way. The wineshop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, 'This is our man. 'What the devil do you do in that galley there? said Monsieur Defarge to himself 'I don't know you. But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter. 'How goes it, Jacques? said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. 'Is all the spilt wine swallowed? 'Every drop, Jacques, answered Monsieur Defarge. When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. 'It is not often, said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, 'that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques? 'It is so, Jacques, Monsieur Defarge returned. At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips. 'Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques? 'You are right, Jacques, was the response of Monsieur Defarge. This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat. 'Hold then! True! muttered her husband. 'Gentlemenmy wife! The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wineshop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. 'Gentlemen, said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her, 'good day. The chamber, furnished bachelorfashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here, pointing with his hand, 'near to the window of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu! They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word. 'Willingly, sir, said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to the door. Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing. Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wineshop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own company just before. It opened from a stinking little black courtyard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomy tilepaved entry to the gloomy tilepaved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently done a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no goodhumour in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man. 'It is very high it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly. Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began ascending the stairs. 'Is he alone? the latter whispered. 'Alone! God help him, who should be with him! said the other, in the same low voice. 'Is he always alone, then? 'Yes. 'Of his own desire? 'Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril be discreetas he was then, so he is now. 'He is greatly changed? 'Changed! The keeper of the wineshop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry's spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher and higher. Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high buildingthat is to say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircaseleft its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities the two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young companion's agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of the two great towers of NotreDame, had any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations. At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the wineshop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key. 'The door is locked then, my friend? said Mr. Lorry, surprised. 'Ay. Yes, was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. 'You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired? 'I think it necessary to turn the key. Monsieur Defarge whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. 'Why? 'Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be frightenedravetear himself to piecesdiecome to I know not what harmif his door was left open. 'Is it possible! exclaimed Mr. Lorry. 'Is it possible! repeated Defarge, bitterly. 'Yes. And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but donedone, see you!under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on. This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word of it had reached the young lady's ears. But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance. 'Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment it is but passing the roomdoor, and the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. That's well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business! They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the wineshop. 'I forgot them in the surprise of your visit, explained Monsieur Defarge. 'Leave us, good boys we have business here. The three glided by, and went silently down. There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of the wineshop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger 'Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette? 'I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few. 'Is that well? 'I think it is well. 'Who are the few? How do you choose them? 'I choose them as real men, of my nameJacques is my nameto whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough you are English that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment. With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the doorevidently with no other object than to make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned it as heavily as he could. The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side. He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter's waist, and held her for he felt that she was sinking. 'Aaabusiness, business! he urged, with a moisture that was not of business shining on his cheek. 'Come in, come in! 'I am afraid of it, she answered, shuddering. 'Of it? What? 'I mean of him. Of my father. Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him. Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round. The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim and dark for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from the street unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half of this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret for, with his back towards the door, and his face towards the window where the keeper of the wineshop stood looking at him, a whitehaired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. Good day! said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head that bent low over the shoemaking. It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the salutation, as if it were at a distance 'Good day! 'You are still hard at work, I see? After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the voice replied, 'YesI am working. This time, a pair of haggard eyes had looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped again. The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveller, wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die. Some minutes of silent work had passed and the haggard eyes had looked up again not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull mechanical perception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor they were aware of had stood, was not yet empty. 'I want, said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker, 'to let in a little more light here. You can bear a little more? The shoemaker stopped his work looked with a vacant air of listening, at the floor on one side of him then similarly, at the floor on the other side of him then, upward at the speaker. 'What did you say? 'You can bear a little more light? 'I must bear it, if you let it in. (Laying the palest shadow of a stress upon the second word.) The opened halfdoor was opened a little further, and secured at that angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had been really otherwise but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light and air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchmentyellow, that it would have been hard to say which was which. He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, without first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit of associating place with sound he never spoke, without first wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak. 'Are you going to finish that pair of shoes today? asked Defarge, motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward. 'What did you say? 'Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes today? 'I can't say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don't know. But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it again. Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it (his lips and his nails were of the same pale leadcolour), and then the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the shoe. The look and the action had occupied but an instant. 'You have a visitor, you see, said Monsieur Defarge. 'What did you say? 'Here is a visitor. The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from his work. 'Come! said Defarge. 'Here is monsieur, who knows a wellmade shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. Take it, monsieur. Mr. Lorry took it in his hand. 'Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker's name. There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied 'I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say? 'I said, couldn't you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur's information? 'It is a lady's shoe. It is a young lady's walkingshoe. It is in the present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my hand. He glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride. 'And the maker's name? said Defarge. Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment's intermission. The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fastdying man. 'Did you ask me for my name? 'Assuredly I did. 'One Hundred and Five, North Tower. 'Is that all? 'One Hundred and Five, North Tower. With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work again, until the silence was again broken. 'You are not a shoemaker by trade? said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastly at him. His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the question to him but as no help came from that quarter, they turned back on the questioner when they had sought the ground. 'I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. II learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on his hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face from which they had wandered when they rested on it, he started, and resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of last night. 'I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after a long while, and I have made shoes ever since. As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face 'Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me? The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at the questioner. 'Monsieur Manette Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge's arm 'do you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there no old banker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your mind, Monsieur Manette? As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone but they had been there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hopeso exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from him to her. Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he took the shoe up, and resumed his work. 'Have you recognised him, monsieur? asked Defarge in a whisper. 'Yes for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I have unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush! She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on which he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped over his labour. Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work. It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument in his hand, for his shoemaker's knife. It lay on that side of him which was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and was stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators started forward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his striking at her with the knife, though they had. He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began to form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say 'What is this? With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her lips, and kissed them to him then clasped them on her breast, as if she laid his ruined head there. 'You are not the gaoler's daughter? She sighed 'No. 'Who are you? Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A strange thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame he laid the knife down softly, as he sat staring at her. Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by little and little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at his shoemaking. But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained a very little quantity of hair not more than one or two long golden hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off upon his finger. He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. 'It is the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it! As the concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed to become conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to the light, and looked at her. 'She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned outshe had a fear of my going, though I had noneand when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. 'You will leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.' Those were the words I said. I remember them very well. He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it. But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to him coherently, though slowly. 'How was this?Was it you? Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with a frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, and only said, in a low voice, 'I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come near us, do not speak, do not move! 'Hark! he exclaimed. 'Whose voice was that? His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his white hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything but his shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet and tried to secure it in his breast but he still looked at her, and gloomily shook his head. 'No, no, no you are too young, too blooming. It can't be. See what the prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not the face she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She wasand He wasbefore the slow years of the North Towerages ago. What is your name, my gentle angel? Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her knees before him, with her appealing hands upon his breast. 'O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, hard history. But I cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All that I may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear! His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him. 'If you hear in my voiceI don't know that it is so, but I hope it isif you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it! She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like a child. 'If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for having never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God! He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast a sight so touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces. When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all stormsemblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the storm called Life must hush at lastthey came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his head might lie upon her arm and her hair drooping over him curtained him from the light. 'If, without disturbing him, she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry as he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, 'all could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the very door, he could be taken away 'But, consider. Is he fit for the journey? asked Mr. Lorry. 'More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful to him. 'It is true, said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. 'More than that Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of France. Say, shall I hire a carriage and posthorses? 'That's business, said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice his methodical manners 'and if business is to be done, I had better do it. 'Then be so kind, urged Miss Manette, 'as to leave us here. You see how composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secure us from interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, as quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take care of him until you return, and then we will remove him straight. Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and in favour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only carriage and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers and as time pressed, for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastily dividing the business that was necessary to be done, and hurrying away to do it. Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on the hard ground close at the father's side, and watched him. The darkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a light gleamed through the chinks in the wall. Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, and had brought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers, bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker's bench (there was nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and assisted him to his feet. No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in the scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what had happened, whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether he knew that he was free, were questions which no sagacity could have solved. They tried speaking to him but, he was so confused, and so very slow to answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed for the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had not been seen in him before yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his daughter's voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke. In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on the cloak and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily responded to his daughter's drawing her arm through his, and tookand kepther hand in both his own. They began to descend Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof and round at the walls. 'You remember the place, my father? You remember coming up here? 'What did you say? But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if she had repeated it. 'Remember? No, I don't remember. It was so very long ago. That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his prison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter, 'One Hundred and Five, North Tower and when he looked about him, it evidently was for the strong fortresswalls which had long encompassed him. On their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge and when there was no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street, he dropped his daughter's hand and clasped his head again. No crowd was about the door no people were discernible at any of the many windows not even a chance passerby was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defargewho leaned against the doorpost, knitting, and saw nothing. The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed him, when Mr. Lorry's feet were arrested on the step by his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. She quickly brought them down and handed them inand immediately afterwards leaned against the doorpost, knitting, and saw nothing. Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word 'To the Barrier! The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the feeble overswinging lamps. Under the overswinging lampsswinging ever brighter in the better streets, and ever dimmer in the worseand by lighted shops, gay crowds, illuminated coffeehouses, and theatredoors, to one of the city gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guardhouse there. 'Your papers, travellers! 'See here then, Monsieur the Officer, said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, 'these are the papers of monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with him, at the He dropped his voice, there was a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected with the arm looked, not an every day or an every night look, at monsieur with the white head. 'It is well. Forward! from the uniform. 'Adieu! from Defarge. And so, under a short grove of feebler and feebler overswinging lamps, out under the great grove of stars. Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights some, so remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything is suffered or done the shadows of the night were broad and black. All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, they once more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorrysitting opposite the buried man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and what were capable of restorationthe old inquiry 'I hope you care to be recalled to life? And the old answer 'I can't say. The end of the first book. Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar was an oldfashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an oldfashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson's (they said) wanted no elbowroom, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might but Tellson's, thank Heaven! Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much on a par with the Country which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable. Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under a showerbath of mud from Fleetstreet, and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing 'the House, you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when they were opened and shut. Your banknotes had a musty odour, as if they were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strongrooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their parchments into the bankinghouse air. Your lighter boxes of family papers went upstairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great diningtable in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of Abyssinia or Ashantee. But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's. Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death the utterer of a bad note was put to Death the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death the holder of a horse at Tellson's door, who made off with it, was put to Death the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death the sounders of threefourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of preventionit might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reversebut, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business, its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the ground floor had, in a rather significant manner. Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and bluemould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment. Outside Tellson'snever by any means in it, unless called inwas an oddjobman, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son a grisly urchin of twelve, who was his express image. People understood that Tellson's, in a stately way, tolerated the oddjobman. The house had always tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he had received the added appellation of Jerry. The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging in Hangingswordalley, Whitefriars the time, halfpast seven of the clock on a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in it might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed was already scrubbed throughout and between the cups and saucers arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth was spread. Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation 'Bust me, if she ain't at it agin! A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was the person referred to. 'What! said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. 'You're at it agin, are you? After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy, that, whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he often got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay. 'What, said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his mark'what are you up to, Aggerawayter? 'I was only saying my prayers. 'Saying your prayers! You're a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me? 'I was not praying against you I was praying for you. 'You weren't. And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with. Here! your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin your father's prosperity. You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy going and flopping herself down, and praying that the breadandbutter may be snatched out of the mouth of her only child. Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personal board. 'And what do you suppose, you conceited female, said Mr. Cruncher, with unconscious inconsistency, 'that the worth of your prayers may be? Name the price that you put your prayers at! 'They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than that. 'Worth no more than that, repeated Mr. Cruncher. 'They ain't worth much, then. Whether or no, I won't be prayed agin, I tell you. I can't afford it. I'm not a going to be made unlucky by your sneaking. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and child, and not in opposition to 'em. If I had had any but a unnat'ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat'ral mother, I might have made some money last week instead of being counterprayed and countermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck. Buuust me! said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, 'if I ain't, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I tell you, here he addressed his wife once more, 'I won't be gone agin, in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackneycoach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I'm none the better for it in pocket and it's my suspicion that you've been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now! Growling, in addition, such phrases as 'Ah! yes! You're religious, too. You wouldn't put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you! and throwing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to his bootcleaning and his general preparation for business. In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes, and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father's did, kept the required watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he made his toilet, with a suppressed cry of 'You are going to flop, mother. Halloa, father! and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in again with an undutiful grin. Mr. Cruncher's temper was not at all improved when he came to his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher's saying grace with particular animosity. 'Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again? His wife explained that she had merely 'asked a blessing. 'Don't do it! said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife's petitions. 'I ain't a going to be blest out of house and home. I won't have my wittles blest off my table. Keep still! Exceedingly redeyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party which had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any fourfooted inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect, and, presenting as respectable and businesslike an exterior as he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation of the day. It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite description of himself as 'a honest tradesman. His stock consisted of a wooden stool, made out of a brokenbacked chair cut down, which stool, young Jerry, walking at his father's side, carried every morning to beneath the bankinghouse window that was nearest Temple Bar where, with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the oddjobman's feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleetstreet and the Temple, as the Bar itself,and was almost as inlooking. Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his threecornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson's, Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry standing by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic in Fleetstreet, with their two heads as near to one another as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else in Fleetstreet. The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson's establishment was put through the door, and the word was given 'Porter wanted! 'Hooray, father! Here's an early job to begin with! Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father had been chewing, and cogitated. 'Always rusty! His fingers is always rusty! muttered young Jerry. 'Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don't get no iron rust here! You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt? said one of the oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger. 'Yees, sir, returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. 'I do know the Bailey. 'Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry. 'I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better, said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment in question, 'than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey. 'Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the doorkeeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in. 'Into the court, sir? 'Into the court. Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to interchange the inquiry, 'What do you think of this? 'Am I to wait in the court, sir? he asked, as the result of that conference. 'I am going to tell you. The doorkeeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain there until he wants you. 'Is that all, sir? 'That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him you are there. As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the blottingpaper stage, remarked 'I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries this morning? 'Treason! 'That's quartering, said Jerry. 'Barbarous! 'It is the law, remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised spectacles upon him. 'It is the law. 'It's hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It's hard enough to kill him, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir. 'Not at all, retained the ancient clerk. 'Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care of itself. I give you that advice. 'It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice, said Jerry. 'I leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is. 'Well, well, said the old clerk 'we all have our various ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry ways. Here is the letter. Go along. Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal deference than he made an outward show of, 'You are a lean old one, too, made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, and went his way. They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly innyard, from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent also, for the whippingpost, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action also, for extensive transactions in bloodmoney, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that 'Whatever is is right an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlamonly the former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey doors were well guardedexcept, indeed, the social doors by which the criminals got there, and those were always left wide open. After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into court. 'What's on? he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next to. 'Nothing yet. 'What's coming on? 'The Treason case. 'The quartering one, eh? 'Ah! returned the man, with a relish 'he'll be drawn on a hurdle to be half hanged, and then he'll be taken down and sliced before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, and then his head will be chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters. That's the sentence. 'If he's found Guilty, you mean to say? Jerry added, by way of proviso. 'Oh! they'll find him guilty, said the other. 'Don't you be afraid of that. Mr. Cruncher's attention was here diverted to the doorkeeper, whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs not far from a wigged gentleman, the prisoner's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers before him and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again. 'What's he got to do with the case? asked the man he had spoken with. 'Blest if I know, said Jerry. 'What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire? 'Blest if I know that either, said Jerry. The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him people on the floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of himstood atiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him in an impure mist and rain. The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about fiveandtwenty, wellgrown and welllooking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck more to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite selfpossessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet. The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less horrible sentencehad there been a chance of any one of its savage details being sparedby just so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight the immortal creature that was to be so butchered and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and powers of selfdeceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish. Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise eviladverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial that the jury were swearing in and that Mr. AttorneyGeneral was making ready to speak. The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and attentive watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest and stood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever. Over the prisoner's head there was a mirror, to throw the light down upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in it, and had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position making him conscious of a bar of light across his face, he looked up and when he saw the glass his face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs away. It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court which was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat, in that corner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look immediately rested so immediately, and so much to the changing of his aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them. The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father a man of a very remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair, and a certain indescribable intensity of face not of an active kind, but pondering and selfcommuning. When this expression was upon him, he looked as if he were old but when it was stirred and broken upas it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughterhe became a handsome man, not past the prime of life. His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who had had no pity for him were touched by her and the whisper went about, 'Who are they? Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back at last it got to Jerry 'Witnesses. 'For which side? 'Against. 'Against what side? 'The prisoner's. The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. AttorneyGeneral rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. Mr. AttorneyGeneral had to inform the jury, that the prisoner before them, though young in years, was old in the treasonable practices which claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence with the public enemy was not a correspondence of today, or of yesterday, or even of last year, or of the year before. That, it was certain the prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and repassing between France and England, on secret business of which he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature of traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the real wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained undiscovered. That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a person who was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the nature of the prisoner's schemes, and, struck with horror, to disclose them to his Majesty's Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council. That, this patriot would be produced before them. That, his position and attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had been the prisoner's friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil hour detecting his infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor he could no longer cherish in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. That, if statues were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public benefactors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue, as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he well knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues whereat the jury's countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious more especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country. That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witness for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, had communicated itself to the prisoner's servant, and had engendered in him a holy determination to examine his master's tabledrawers and pockets, and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. AttorneyGeneral) was prepared to hear some disparagement attempted of this admirable servant but that, in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. AttorneyGeneral's) brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his (Mr. AttorneyGeneral's) father and mother. That, he called with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the evidence of these two witnesses, coupled with the documents of their discovering that would be produced, would show the prisoner to have been furnished with lists of his Majesty's forces, and of their disposition and preparation, both by sea and land, and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed such information to a hostile power. That, these lists could not be proved to be in the prisoner's handwriting but that it was all the same that, indeed, it was rather the better for the prosecution, as showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the proof would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged in these pernicious missions, within a few weeks before the date of the very first action fought between the British troops and the Americans. That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they were), and being a responsible jury (as they knew they were), must positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows that, they never could endure the notion of their children laying their heads upon their pillows in short, that there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner's head was taken off. That head Mr. AttorneyGeneral concluded by demanding of them, in the name of everything he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as good as dead and gone. When the AttorneyGeneral ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if a cloud of great blueflies were swarming about the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witnessbox. Mr. SolicitorGeneral then, following his leader's lead, examined the patriot John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul was exactly what Mr. AttorneyGeneral had described it to beperhaps, if it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble bosom of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr. Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court. Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn't precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody's. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors' prison? Didn't see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors' prison?Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No. Had not procured them himself, for instance? No. Expect to get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular government pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheer patriotism? None whatever. The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith and simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him. He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of charitynever thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In arranging his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists to these in the prisoner's pockets, over and over again. He had taken these lists from the drawer of the prisoner's desk. He had not put them there first. He had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French gentlemen at Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and Boulogne. He loved his country, and couldn't bear it, and had given information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver teapot he had been maligned respecting a mustardpot, but it turned out to be only a plated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight years that was merely a coincidence. He didn't call it a particularly curious coincidence most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it a curious coincidence that true patriotism was his only motive too. He was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him. The blueflies buzzed again, and Mr. AttorneyGeneral called Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 'Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson's bank? 'I am. 'On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive, did business occasion you to travel between London and Dover by the mail? 'It did. 'Were there any other passengers in the mail? 'Two. 'Did they alight on the road in the course of the night? 'They did. 'Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers? 'I cannot undertake to say that he was. 'Does he resemble either of these two passengers? 'Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that. 'Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them? 'No. 'You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them? 'No. 'So at least you say he may have been one of them? 'Yes. Except that I remember them both to have beenlike myselftimorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous air. 'Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry? 'I certainly have seen that. 'Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your certain knowledge, before? 'I have. 'When? 'I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the prisoner came on board the packetship in which I returned, and made the voyage with me. 'At what hour did he come on board? 'At a little after midnight. 'In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board at that untimely hour? 'He happened to be the only one. 'Never mind about 'happening,' Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger who came on board in the dead of the night? 'He was. 'Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion? 'With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here. 'They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner? 'Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore. 'Miss Manette! The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm. 'Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner. To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden and his efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again. 'Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before? 'Yes, sir. 'Where? 'On board of the packetship just now referred to, sir, and on the same occasion. 'You are the young lady just now referred to? 'O! most unhappily, I am! The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice of the Judge, as he said something fiercely 'Answer the questions put to you, and make no remark upon them. 'Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passage across the Channel? 'Yes, sir. 'Recall it. In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began 'When the gentleman came on board 'Do you mean the prisoner? inquired the Judge, knitting his brows. 'Yes, my Lord. 'Then say the prisoner. 'When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father, turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, 'was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than I had done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my father's state, and I am sure he felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together. 'Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone? 'No. 'How many were with him? 'Two French gentlemen. 'Had they conferred together? 'They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat. 'Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists? 'Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don't know what papers. 'Like these in shape and size? 'Possibly, but indeed I don't know, although they stood whispering very near to me because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging there it was a dull lamp, and they spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that they looked at papers. 'Now, to the prisoner's conversation, Miss Manette. 'The prisoner was as open in his confidence with mewhich arose out of my helpless situationas he was kind, and good, and useful to my father. I hope, bursting into tears, 'I may not repay him by doing him harm today. Buzzing from the blueflies. 'Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you give the evidence which it is your duty to givewhich you must giveand which you cannot escape from givingwith great unwillingness, he is the only person present in that condition. Please to go on. 'He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals, take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long time to come. 'Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular. 'He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on England's part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this it was said laughingly, and to beguile the time. Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon the counsel for and against. Among the lookerson there was the same expression in all quarters of the court insomuch, that a great majority of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous heresy about George Washington. Mr. AttorneyGeneral now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady's father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly. 'Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before? 'Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or three years and a half ago. 'Can you identify him as your fellowpassenger on board the packet, or speak to his conversation with your daughter? 'Sir, I can do neither. 'Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do either? He answered, in a low voice, 'There is. 'Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette? He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, 'A long imprisonment. 'Were you newly released on the occasion in question? 'They tell me so. 'Have you no remembrance of the occasion? 'None. My mind is a blank, from some timeI cannot even say what timewhen I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process. Mr. AttorneyGeneral sat down, and the father and daughter sat down together. A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellowplotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did not remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information a witness was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required, in the coffeeroom of an hotel in that garrisonanddockyard town, waiting for another person. The prisoner's counsel was crossexamining this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great attention and curiosity at the prisoner. 'You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner? The witness was quite sure. 'Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner? Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken. 'Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there, pointing to him who had tossed the paper over, 'and then look well upon the prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other? Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner's counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no but he would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might happen twice whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so confident, having seen it and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to useless lumber. Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner's case on the jury, like a compact suit of clothes showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judaswhich he certainly did look rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and was worthy to be how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his making those passages across the Channelthough what those affairs were, a consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbade him, even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman and young lady so thrown togetherwith the exception of that reference to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this attempt to practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr. AttorneyGeneral had made the most of it how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the State Trials of this country were full. But, there my Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions. Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next to attend while Mr. AttorneyGeneral turned the whole suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into graveclothes for the prisoner. And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again. Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury while all the spectators moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it had happened to light on his head after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookerson, taking note of him now, said to one another they would hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the observation to his next neighbour, and added, 'I'd hold half a guinea that he don't get no lawwork to do. Don't look like the sort of one to get any, do he? Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he appeared to take in for now, when Miss Manette's head dropped upon her father's breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly 'Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out. Don't you see she will fall! There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress to him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering or brooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a heavy cloud, ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a moment, spoke, through their foreman. They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with George Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that they were not agreed, but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward, and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumoured that the jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the dock, and sat down. Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry who, in the slackened interest, could easily get near him. 'Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don't be a moment behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You are the quickest messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long before I can. Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in acknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton came up at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm. 'How is the young lady? 'She is greatly distressed but her father is comforting her, and she feels the better for being out of court. 'I'll tell the prisoner so. It won't do for a respectable bank gentleman like you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know. Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar. The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, all eyes, ears, and spikes. 'Mr. Darnay! The prisoner came forward directly. 'You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She will do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation. 'I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so for me, with my fervent acknowledgments? 'Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it. Mr. Carton's manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against the bar. 'I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks. 'What, said Carton, still only half turned towards him, 'do you expect, Mr. Darnay? 'The worst. 'It's the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their withdrawing is in your favour. Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no more but left themso like each other in feature, so unlike each other in mannerstanding side by side, both reflected in the glass above them. An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thiefandrascal crowded passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale. The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after taking that refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along with them. 'Jerry! Jerry! Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he got there. 'Here, sir! It's a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir! Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. 'Quick! Have you got it? 'Yes, sir. Hastily written on the paper was the word 'Acquitted. 'If you had sent the message, 'Recalled to Life,' again, muttered Jerry, as he turned, 'I should have known what you meant, this time. He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey for, the crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz swept into the street as if the baffled blueflies were dispersing in search of other carrion. From the dimlylighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles Darnayjust releasedcongratulating him on his escape from death. It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him twice, without looking again even though the opportunity of observation had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long lingering agony, would alwaysas on the trialevoke this condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three hundred miles away. Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery and the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed but they were few and slight, and she believed them over. Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life. He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean out of the group 'I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr. Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous but not the less likely to succeed on that account. 'You have laid me under an obligation to you for lifein two senses, said his late client, taking his hand. 'I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay and my best is as good as another man's, I believe. It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, 'Much better, Mr. Lorry said it perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again. 'You think so? said Mr. Stryver. 'Well! you have been present all day, and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too. 'And as such, quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered him out of it'as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out. 'Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry, said Stryver 'I have a night's work to do yet. Speak for yourself. 'I speak for myself, answered Mr. Lorry, 'and for Mr. Darnay, and for Miss Lucie, andMiss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for us all? He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father. His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at Darnay an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his thoughts had wandered away. 'My father, said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. 'Shall we go home, my father? With a long breath, he answered 'Yes. The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the impressionwhich he himself had originatedthat he would not be released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until tomorrow morning's interest of gallows, pillory, whippingpost, and brandingiron, should repeople it. Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into the open air. A hackneycoach was called, and the father and daughter departed in it. Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back to the robingroom. Another person, who had not joined the group, or interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement. 'So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now? Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton's part in the day's proceedings nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and was none the better for it in appearance. 'If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the business mind is divided between goodnatured impulse and business appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay. Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, 'You have mentioned that before, sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We have to think of the House more than ourselves. 'I know, I know, rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. 'Don't be nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt better, I dare say. 'And indeed, sir, pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, 'I really don't know what you have to do with the matter. If you'll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, I really don't know that it is your business. 'Business! Bless you, I have no business, said Mr. Carton. 'It is a pity you have not, sir. 'I think so, too. 'If you had, pursued Mr. Lorry, 'perhaps you would attend to it. 'Lord love you, no!I shouldn't, said Mr. Carton. 'Well, sir! cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, 'business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir! I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy life.Chair there! Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson's. Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed then, and turned to Darnay 'This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on these street stones? 'I hardly seem yet, returned Charles Darnay, 'to belong to this world again. 'I don't wonder at it it's not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly. 'I begin to think I am faint. 'Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined, myself, while those numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong tothis, or some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at. Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgatehill to Fleetstreet, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, they were shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his fully halfinsolent manner upon him. 'Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay? 'I am frightfully confused regarding time and place but I am so far mended as to feel that. 'It must be an immense satisfaction! He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again which was a large one. 'As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it. It has no good in it for meexcept wine like thisnor I for it. So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are not much alike in any particular, you and I. Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer finally, answered not at all. 'Now your dinner is done, Carton presently said, 'why don't you call a health, Mr. Darnay why don't you give your toast? 'What health? What toast? 'Why, it's on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I'll swear it's there. 'Miss Manette, then! 'Miss Manette, then! Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered to pieces then, rang the bell, and ordered in another. 'That's a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay! he said, filling his new goblet. A slight frown and a laconic 'Yes, were the answer. 'That's a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one's life, to be the object of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay? Again Darnay answered not a word. 'She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Not that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was. The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him for it. 'I neither want any thanks, nor merit any, was the careless rejoinder. 'It was nothing to do, in the first place and I don't know why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question. 'Willingly, and a small return for your good offices. 'Do you think I particularly like you? 'Really, Mr. Carton, returned the other, oddly disconcerted, 'I have not asked myself the question. 'But ask yourself the question now. 'You have acted as if you do but I don't think you do. 'I don't think I do, said Carton. 'I begin to have a very good opinion of your understanding. 'Nevertheless, pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, 'there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our parting without illblood on either side. Carton rejoining, 'Nothing in life! Darnay rang. 'Do you call the whole reckoning? said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative, 'Then bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at ten. The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of a threat of defiance in his manner, and said, 'A last word, Mr. Darnay you think I am drunk? 'I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton. 'Think? You know I have been drinking. 'Since I must say so, I know it. 'Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me. 'Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better. 'May be so, Mr. Darnay may be not. Don't let your sober face elate you, however you don't know what it may come to. Good night! When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in it. 'Do you particularly like the man? he muttered, at his own image 'why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow. He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the table, and a long windingsheet in the candle dripping down upon him. Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the drier parts of the legal race. A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite, specially, to their longing arms and shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rank gardenfull of flaring companions. It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is among the most striking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments. But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at its pith and marrow and however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney Carton, he always had his points at his fingers' ends in the morning. Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's great ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas, might have floated a king's ship. Stryver never had a case in hand, anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ceiling of the court they went the same Circuit, and even there they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get about, among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. 'Ten o'clock, sir, said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to wake him'ten o'clock, sir. 'What's the matter? 'Ten o'clock, sir. 'What do you mean? Ten o'clock at night? 'Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you. 'Oh! I remember. Very well, very well. After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King's Benchwalk and Paperbuildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on, and a loose bedgown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. 'You are a little late, Memory, said Stryver. 'About the usual time it may be a quarter of an hour later. They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons. 'You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney. 'Two tonight, I think. I have been dining with the day's client or seeing him dineit's all one! 'That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon the identification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you? 'I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should have been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck. Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch. 'You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work. Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a towel or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing them out, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down at the table, and said, 'Now I am ready! 'Not much boiling down to be done tonight, Memory, said Mr. Stryver, gaily, as he looked among his papers. 'How much? 'Only two sets of them. 'Give me the worst first. 'There they are, Sydney. Fire away! The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the drinkingtable, while the jackal sat at his own paperbestrewn table proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand. Both resorted to the drinkingtable without stint, but each in a different way the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some lighter document the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he stretched out for his glasswhich often groped about, for a minute or more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times, the matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on him to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp headgear as no words can describe which were made the more ludicrous by his anxious gravity. At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three in the morning. 'And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch, said Mr. Stryver. The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. 'You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses today. Every question told. 'I always am sound am I not? 'I don't gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to it and smooth it again. With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. 'The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School, said Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, 'the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next now in spirits and now in despondency! 'Ah! returned the other, sighing 'yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own. 'And why not? 'God knows. It was my way, I suppose. He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before him, looking at the fire. 'Carton, said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, as if the firegrate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour was forged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, 'your way is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look at me. 'Oh, botheration! returned Sydney, with a lighter and more goodhumoured laugh, 'don't you be moral! 'How have I done what I have done? said Stryver 'how do I do what I do? 'Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it's not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it what you want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind. 'I had to get into the front rank I was not born there, was I? 'I was not present at the ceremony but my opinion is you were, said Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed. 'Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury, pursued Carton, 'you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellowstudents in the StudentQuarter of Paris, picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we didn't get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I was always nowhere. 'And whose fault was that? 'Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always driving and riving and shouldering and passing, to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It's a gloomy thing, however, to talk about one's own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some other direction before I go. 'Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness, said Stryver, holding up his glass. 'Are you turned in a pleasant direction? Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. 'Pretty witness, he muttered, looking down into his glass. 'I have had enough of witnesses today and tonight who's your pretty witness? 'The picturesque doctor's daughter, Miss Manette. 'She pretty? 'Is she not? 'No. 'Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court! 'Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge of beauty? She was a goldenhaired doll! 'Do you know, Sydney, said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes, and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face 'do you know, I rather thought, at the time, that you sympathised with the goldenhaired doll, and were quick to see what happened to the goldenhaired doll? 'Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within a yard or two of a man's nose, he can see it without a perspectiveglass. I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I'll have no more drink I'll get to bed. When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desertsand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, selfdenial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. Sadly, sadly, the sun rose it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet streetcorner not far from Sohosquare. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason, and carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses into businessabsorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor's friend, and the quiet streetcorner was the sunny part of his life. On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window, and generally getting through the day thirdly, because he happened to have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the Doctor's household pointed to that time as a likely time for solving them. A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows of the Doctor's lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxfordroad, and foresttrees flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers without a settlement and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which the peaches ripened in their season. The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part of the day but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets. There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house, where several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof little was audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night. In a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a planetree rustled its green leaves, churchorgans claimed to be made, and silver to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hallas if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live upstairs, or of a dim coachtrimming maker asserted to have a countinghouse below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across the courtyard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the planetree behind the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way from Sunday morning unto Saturday night. Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conducting ingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and he earned as much as he wanted. These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry's knowledge, thoughts, and notice, when he rang the doorbell of the tranquil house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon. 'Doctor Manette at home? Expected home. 'Miss Lucie at home? Expected home. 'Miss Pross at home? Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the fact. 'As I am at home myself, said Mr. Lorry, 'I'll go upstairs. Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from the largest object to the least the arrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this time, whether he approved? There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they communicated being put open that the air might pass freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first was the best room, and in it were Lucie's birds, and flowers, and books, and desk, and worktable, and box of watercolours the second was the Doctor's consultingroom, used also as the diningroom the third, changingly speckled by the rustle of the planetree in the yard, was the Doctor's bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker's bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by the wineshop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris. 'I wonder, said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, 'that he keeps that reminder of his sufferings about him! 'And why wonder at that? was the abrupt inquiry that made him start. It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and had since improved. 'I should have thought Mr. Lorry began. 'Pooh! You'd have thought! said Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry left off. 'How do you do? inquired that lady thensharply, and yet as if to express that she bore him no malice. 'I am pretty well, I thank you, answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness 'how are you? 'Nothing to boast of, said Miss Pross. 'Indeed? 'Ah! indeed! said Miss Pross. 'I am very much put out about my Ladybird. 'Indeed? 'For gracious sake say something else besides 'indeed,' or you'll fidget me to death, said Miss Pross whose character (dissociated from stature) was shortness. 'Really, then? said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment. 'Really, is bad enough, returned Miss Pross, 'but better. Yes, I am very much put out. 'May I ask the cause? 'I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking after her, said Miss Pross. 'Do dozens come for that purpose? 'Hundreds, said Miss Pross. It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her time and since) that whenever her original proposition was questioned, she exaggerated it. 'Dear me! said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of. 'I have lived with the darlingor the darling has lived with me, and paid me for it which she certainly should never have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself or her for nothingsince she was ten years old. And it's really very hard, said Miss Pross. Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would fit anything. 'All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, are always turning up, said Miss Pross. 'When you began it 'I began it, Miss Pross? 'Didn't you? Who brought her father to life? 'Oh! If that was beginning it said Mr. Lorry. 'It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard enough not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under any circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him), to take Ladybird's affections away from me. Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creaturesfound only among womenwho will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own mindwe all make such arrangements, more or lesshe stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances at Tellson's. 'There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird, said Miss Pross 'and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn't made a mistake in life. Here again Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history had established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her. 'As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of business, he said, when they had got back to the drawingroom and had sat down there in friendly relations, 'let me ask youdoes the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time, yet? 'Never. 'And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him? 'Ah! returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. 'But I don't say he don't refer to it within himself. 'Do you believe that he thinks of it much? 'I do, said Miss Pross. 'Do you imagine Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him up short with 'Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all. 'I stand corrected do you supposeyou go so far as to suppose, sometimes? 'Now and then, said Miss Pross. 'Do you suppose, Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, 'that Doctor Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed perhaps, even to the name of his oppressor? 'I don't suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me. 'And that is? 'That she thinks he has. 'Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions because I am a mere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business. 'Dull? Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, 'No, no, no. Surely not. To return to businessIs it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now intimate I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don't approach the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest. 'Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tell me, said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, 'he is afraid of the whole subject. 'Afraid? 'It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's a dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn't make the subject pleasant, I should think. It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. 'True, said he, 'and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence. 'Can't be helped, said Miss Pross, shaking her head. 'Touch that string, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, he gets up in the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead there, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, in his old prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, until he is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down together, walking up and down together, till her love and company have brought him to himself. Notwithstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there was a perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea, in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified to her possessing such a thing. The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had set it going. 'Here they are! said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference 'and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon! It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied they would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as though the steps had gone but, echoes of other steps that never came would be heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them. Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking off her darling's bonnet when she came upstairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against her taking so much trouble for herwhich last she only dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for the fulfilment of Miss Pross's prediction. Dinnertime, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of the little household, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be better. Miss Pross's friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and halfcrowns, would impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, or Cinderella's Godmother who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she pleased. On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's table, but on other days persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the second floora blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly so the dinner was very pleasant, too. It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the wine should be carried out under the planetree, and they should sit there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about her, they went out under the planetree, and she carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry's cupbearer and while they sat under the planetree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the planetree whispered to them in its own way above their heads. Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnay presented himself while they were sitting under the planetree, but he was only One. Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, 'a fit of the jerks. The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he resting his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace the likeness. He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual vivacity. 'Pray, Doctor Manette, said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under the planetreeand he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to be the old buildings of London'have you seen much of the Tower? 'Lucie and I have been there but only casually. We have seen enough of it, to know that it teems with interest little more. 'I have been there, as you remember, said Darnay, with a smile, though reddening a little angrily, 'in another character, and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a curious thing when I was there. 'What was that? Lucie asked. 'In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by prisonersdates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read as D. I. C. but, on being more carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The floor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but he had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler. 'My father, exclaimed Lucie, 'you are ill! He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and his look quite terrified them all. 'No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they made me start. We had better go in. He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large drops, and he showed the back of his hand with raindrops on it. But, he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House. He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), and that the rain had startled him. Teatime, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he made only Two. The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the teatable was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father Darnay sat beside her Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of the thundergusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. 'The raindrops are still falling, large, heavy, and few, said Doctor Manette. 'It comes slowly. 'It comes surely, said Carton. They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do. There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke the wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there. 'A multitude of people, and yet a solitude! said Darnay, when they had listened for a while. 'Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay? asked Lucie. 'Sometimes, I have sat here of an evening, until I have fanciedbut even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder tonight, when all is so black and solemn 'Let us shudder too. We may know what it is. 'It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we originate them, I think they are not to be communicated. I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming byandbye into our lives. 'There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so, Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and reechoed with the tread of feet some, as it seemed, under the windows some, as it seemed, in the room some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether all in the distant streets, and not one within sight. 'Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them among us? 'I don't know, Mr. Darnay I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come into my life, and my father's. 'I take them into mine! said Carton. 'I ask no questions and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, and I see themby the Lightning. He added the last words, after there had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. 'And I hear them! he added again, after a peal of thunder. 'Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious! It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment's interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at midnight. The great bell of Saint Paul's was striking one in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, highbooted and bearing a lantern, set forth on his returnpassage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of footpads, always retained Jerry for this service though it was usually performed a good two hours earlier. 'What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry, said Mr. Lorry, 'to bring the dead out of their graves. 'I never see the night myself, masternor yet I don't expect towhat would do that, answered Jerry. 'Good night, Mr. Carton, said the man of business. 'Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together! Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too. Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France but, his morning's chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook. Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips. One lacquey carried the chocolatepot into the sacred presence a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function a third, presented the favoured napkin a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men he must have died of two. Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it. Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything go on in its own way of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his waytend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran 'The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur. Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public and he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a FarmerGeneral. As to finances public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and must consequently let them out to somebody who could as to finances private, because FarmerGenerals were rich, and Monseigneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich FarmerGeneral, poor in family. Which FarmerGeneral, carrying an appropriate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer rooms, much prostrated before by mankindalways excepting superior mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt. A sumptuous man was the FarmerGeneral. Thirty horses stood in his stables, twentyfour male domestics sat in his halls, six bodywomen waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he could, the FarmerGeneralhowsoever his matrimonial relations conduced to social moralitywas at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day. For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable businessif that could have been anybody's business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers destitute of military knowledge naval officers with no idea of a ship civil officers without a notion of affairs brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything was to be got these were to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the antechambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and making cardtowers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable timeand has been sinceto be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneurforming a goodly half of the polite companywould have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this worldwhich does not go far towards the realisation of the name of motherthere was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty. The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, half of the halfdozen had become members of a fantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the spotthereby setting up a highly intelligible fingerpost to the Future, for Monseigneur's guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon about 'the Centre of Truth holding that Man had got out of the Centre of Truthwhich did not need much demonstrationbut had not got out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went onand it did a world of good which never became manifest. But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved these golden fetters rang like precious little bells and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away. Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate 'frizzled, powdered, in a goldlaced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings. At the gallows and the wheelthe axe was a rarityMonsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, goldlaced, pumped, and whitesilk stockinged, would see the very stars out! Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heavenwhich may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never troubled it. Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and was seen no more. The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuffbox in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out. 'I devote you, said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, 'to the Devil! With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs. He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness every feature in it clearly defined one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could. With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles. 'What has gone wrong? said Monsieur, calmly looking out. A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. 'Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis! said a ragged and submissive man, 'it is a child. 'Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child? 'Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquisit is a pityyes. The fountain was a little removed for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his swordhilt. 'Killed! shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. 'Dead! The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse. 'It is extraordinary to me, said he, 'that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that. He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, 'Dead! He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men. 'I know all, I know all, said the last comer. 'Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily? 'You are a philosopher, you there, said the Marquis, smiling. 'How do they call you? 'They call me Defarge. 'Of what trade? 'Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine. 'Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine, said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, 'and spend it as you will. The horses there are they right? Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor. 'Hold! said Monsieur the Marquis. 'Hold the horses! Who threw that? He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. 'You dogs! said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose 'I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels. So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word 'Go on! He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession the Minister, the StateProjector, the FarmerGeneral, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and bidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ballwhen the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course. A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillinglya dejected disposition to give up, and wither away. Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been lighter), conducted by four posthorses and two postilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding it was not from within it was occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his controlthe setting sun. The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when it gained the hilltop, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. 'It will die out, said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, 'directly. In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed quickly the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was taken off. But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a churchtower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with a fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was coming near home. The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stableyard for relays of posthorses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, were not wanting the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospectLife on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag. Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions' whips, which twined snakelike about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage at the postinghouse gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down of miseryworn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the truth through the best part of a hundred years. Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before Monseigneur of the Courtonly the difference was, that these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiatewhen a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group. 'Bring me hither that fellow! said the Marquis to the courier. The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain. 'I passed you on the road? 'Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road. 'Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both? 'Monseigneur, it is true. 'What did you look at, so fixedly? 'Monseigneur, I looked at the man. He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. 'What man, pig? And why look there? 'Pardon, Monseigneur he swung by the chain of the shoethe drag. 'Who? demanded the traveller. 'Monseigneur, the man. 'May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he? 'Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him. 'Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated? 'With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. His head hanging overlike this! He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. 'What was he like? 'Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre! The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on his conscience. 'Truly, you did well, said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, 'to see a thief accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle! Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary united he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an official manner. 'Bah! Go aside! said Monsieur Gabelle. 'Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village tonight, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle. 'Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders. 'Did he run away, fellow?where is that Accursed? The accursed was already under the carriage with some halfdozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some halfdozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. 'Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag? 'Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hillside, head first, as a person plunges into the river. 'See to it, Gabelle. Go on! The halfdozen who were peering at the chain were still among the wheels, like sheep the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky to save their skins and bones they had very little else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate. The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the rise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips the valet walked by the horses the courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance. At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burialground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the lifehis own life, maybefor it was dreadfully spare and thin. To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriagedoor. 'It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition. With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, Monseigneur looked out. 'How, then! What is it? Always petitions! 'Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester. 'What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He cannot pay something? 'He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead. 'Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you? 'Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poor grass. 'Well? 'Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass? 'Again, well? She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate grief by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriagedoortenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the appealing touch. 'Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of want so many die of want so many more will die of want. 'Again, well? Can I feed them? 'Monseigneur, the good God knows but I don't ask it. My petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur! Monseigneur! The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and his chateau. The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toilworn group at the fountain not far away to whom the mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished. The shadow of a large highroofed house, and of many overhanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau was opened to him. 'Monsieur Charles, whom I expect is he arrived from England? 'Monseigneur, not yet. It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon's head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries ago. Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead of being in the open nightair. Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again. The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed a hall grim with certain old boarspears, swords, and knives of the chase grimmer with certain heavy ridingrods and ridingwhips, of which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry. Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeaubearer going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, admitted him to his own private apartment of three rooms his bedchamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to breakthe fourteenth Louiswas conspicuous in their rich furniture but, it was diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France. A suppertable was laid for two, in the third of the rooms a round room, in one of the chateau's four extinguishertopped towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousieblinds closed, so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad lines of stone colour. 'My nephew, said the Marquis, glancing at the supper preparation 'they said he was not arrived. Nor was he but, he had been expected with Monseigneur. 'Ah! It is not probable he will arrive tonight nevertheless, leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour. In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it down. 'What is that? he calmly asked, looking with attention at the horizontal lines of black and stone colour. 'Monseigneur? That? 'Outside the blinds. Open the blinds. It was done. 'Well? 'Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all that are here. The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood with that blank behind him, looking round for instructions. 'Good, said the imperturbable master. 'Close them again. That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He was half way through it, when he again stopped with his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up to the front of the chateau. 'Ask who is arrived. It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on the road. He had heard of Monseigneur, at the postinghouses, as being before him. He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while he came. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did not shake hands. 'You left Paris yesterday, sir? he said to Monseigneur, as he took his seat at table. 'Yesterday. And you? 'I come direct. 'From London? 'Yes. 'You have been a long time coming, said the Marquis, with a smile. 'On the contrary I come direct. 'Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey a long time intending the journey. 'I have been detained bythe nephew stopped a moment in his answer'various business. 'Without doubt, said the polished uncle. So long as a servant was present, no other words passed between them. When coffee had been served and they were alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like a fine mask, opened a conversation. 'I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would have sustained me. 'Not to death, said the uncle 'it is not necessary to say, to death. 'I doubt, sir, returned the nephew, 'whether, if it had carried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there. The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring. 'Indeed, sir, pursued the nephew, 'for anything I know, you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded me. 'No, no, no, said the uncle, pleasantly. 'But, however that may be, resumed the nephew, glancing at him with deep distrust, 'I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to means. 'My friend, I told you so, said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in the two marks. 'Do me the favour to recall that I told you so, long ago. 'I recall it. 'Thank you, said the Marquisvery sweetly indeed. His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical instrument. 'In effect, sir, pursued the nephew, 'I believe it to be at once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of a prison in France here. 'I do not quite understand, returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. 'Dare I ask you to explain? 'I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely. 'It is possible, said the uncle, with great calmness. 'For the honour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. Pray excuse me! 'I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one, observed the nephew. 'I would not say happily, my friend, returned the uncle, with refined politeness 'I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged in the next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughterhis daughter? We have lost many privileges a new philosophy has become the mode and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad! The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration. 'We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also, said the nephew, gloomily, 'that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France. 'Let us hope so, said the uncle. 'Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low. 'There is not, pursued the nephew, in his former tone, 'a face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery. 'A compliment, said the Marquis, 'to the grandeur of the family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. Hah! And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly crossed his legs. But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer's assumption of indifference. 'Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, observed the Marquis, 'will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof, looking up to it, 'shuts out the sky. That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shown to him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, firecharred, plunderwrecked rains. As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found that shutting out the sky in a new wayto wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. 'Meanwhile, said the Marquis, 'I will preserve the honour and repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night? 'A moment more. 'An hour, if you please. 'Sir, said the nephew, 'we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits of wrong. 'We have done wrong? repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself. 'Our family our honourable family, whose honour is of so much account to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my father's time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father's time, when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father's twinbrother, joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself? 'Death has done that! said the Marquis. 'And has left me, answered the nephew, 'bound to a system that is frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother's lips, and obey the last look of my dear mother's eyes, which implored me to have mercy and to redress and tortured by seeking assistance and power in vain. 'Seeking them from me, my nephew, said the Marquis, touching him on the breast with his forefingerthey were now standing by the hearth'you will for ever seek them in vain, be assured. Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking quietly at his nephew, with his snuffbox in his hand. Once again he touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine point of a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through the body, and said, 'My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived. When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put his box in his pocket. 'Better to be a rational creature, he added then, after ringing a small bell on the table, 'and accept your natural destiny. But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see. 'This property and France are lost to me, said the nephew, sadly 'I renounce them. 'Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning but, is it yet? 'I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed to me from you, tomorrow 'Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable. 'or twenty years hence 'You do me too much honour, said the Marquis 'still, I prefer that supposition. 'I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin! 'Hah! said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room. 'To the eye it is fair enough, here but seen in its integrity, under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering. 'Hah! said the Marquis again, in a wellsatisfied manner. 'If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannot leave it and who have been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less but it is not for me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land. 'And you? said the uncle. 'Forgive my curiosity do you, under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live? 'I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at their backs, may have to do some daywork. 'In England, for example? 'Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country. The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other. The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of communication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of his valet. 'England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have prospered there, he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew with a smile. 'I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge. 'They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor? 'Yes. 'With a daughter? 'Yes. 'Yes, said the Marquis. 'You are fatigued. Good night! As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic. 'Yes, repeated the Marquis. 'A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good night! It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door. 'Good night! said the uncle. 'I look to the pleasure of seeing you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my nephew to his chamber there!And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if you will, he added to himself, before he rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom. The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamberrobe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softlyslippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tigerlooked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on. He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at the scraps of the day's journey that came unbidden into his mind the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, 'Dead! 'I am cool now, said Monsieur the Marquis, 'and may go to bed. So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night for three heavy hours for three heavy hours, the horses in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by menpoets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set down for them. For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. The burialplace had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one another the figure on the Cross might have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and freed. The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheardboth melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the spring of Timethrough three dark hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the weatherbeaten sill of the great window of the bedchamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open mouth and dropped underjaw, looked awestricken. Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth shiveringchilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, to the fountain some, to the fields men and women here, to dig and delve men and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two attendant on the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot. The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and surely. First, the lonely boarspears and knives of the chase had been reddened as of old then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at irongrated windows, dogs pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed. All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs nor the hurried figures on the terrace nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away? What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hilltop beyond the village, with his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill, kneehigh in dust, and never stopped till he got to the fountain. All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the postinghouse, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoistingup of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (doubleladen though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad of Leonora? It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau. The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years. It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled 'Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques. More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he would have been a Professor in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in sound English, and render them into sound English. Such masters were not at that time easily found Princes that had been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson's ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the student's way unusually pleasant and profitable, and as an elegant translator who brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, moreover, with the circumstances of his country, and those were of evergrowing interest. So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered. In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses if he had had any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted. A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek and Latin through the Customhouse. The rest of his time he passed in London. Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one wayCharles Darnay's waythe way of the love of a woman. He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject the assassination at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long, long, dusty roadsthe solid stone chateau which had itself become the mere mist of a dreamhad been done a year, and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. He found the Doctor reading in his armchair at a window. The energy which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the exercise of his other recovered faculties but, this had never been frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare. He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand. 'Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due. 'I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter, he answered, a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor. 'Miss Manette 'Is well, said the Doctor, as he stopped short, 'and your return will delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but will soon be home. 'Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you. There was a blank silence. 'Yes? said the Doctor, with evident constraint. 'Bring your chair here, and speak on. He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less easy. 'I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here, so he at length began, 'for some year and a half, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch may not He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to stop him. When he had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back 'Is Lucie the topic? 'She is. 'It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay. 'It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette! he said deferentially. There was another blank silence before her father rejoined 'I believe it. I do you justice I believe it. His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles Darnay hesitated. 'Shall I go on, sir? Another blank. 'Yes, go on. 'You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself let your old love speak for me! The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried 'Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that! His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles Darnay's ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and remained silent. 'I ask your pardon, said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some moments. 'I do not doubt your loving Lucie you may be satisfied of it. He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair overshadowed his face 'Have you spoken to Lucie? 'No. 'Nor written? 'Never. 'It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your selfdenial is to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks you. He offered his hand but his eyes did not go with it. 'I know, said Darnay, respectfully, 'how can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, Doctor Manettehow can I fail to knowthat, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character than that in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother brokenhearted, loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I have known this, night and day, since I have known you in your home. Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a little quickened but he repressed all other signs of agitation. 'Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even now feel, that to bring my loveeven minebetween you, is to touch your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. Heaven is my witness that I love her! 'I believe it, answered her father, mournfully. 'I have thought so before now. I believe it. 'But, do not believe, said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound, 'that if my fortune were so cast as that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at a remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my heartif it ever had been thereif it ever could be thereI could not now touch this honoured hand. He laid his own upon it as he spoke. 'No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France like you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries like you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and trusting in a happier future I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be. His touch still lingered on her father's hand. Answering the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the conference. A struggle was evidently in his face a struggle with that occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread. 'You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heartor nearly so. Have you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you? 'None. As yet, none. 'Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once ascertain that, with my knowledge? 'Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness tomorrow. 'Do you seek any guidance from me? 'I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some. 'Do you seek any promise from me? 'I do seek that. 'What is it? 'I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her innocent heartdo not think I have the presumption to assume so muchI could retain no place in it against her love for her father. 'If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it? 'I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor's favour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason, Doctor Manette, said Darnay, modestly but firmly, 'I would not ask that word, to save my life. 'I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as well as out of wide division in the former case, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me I can make no guess at the state of her heart. 'May I ask, sir, if you think she is As he hesitated, her father supplied the rest. 'Is sought by any other suitor? 'It is what I meant to say. Her father considered a little before he answered 'You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these. 'Or both, said Darnay. 'I had not thought of both I should not think either, likely. You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is. 'It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing more of my stake in this this is what I ask. The condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to require, I will observe immediately. 'I give the promise, said the Doctor, 'without any condition. I believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. If there wereCharles Darnay, if there were The young man had taken his hand gratefully their hands were joined as the Doctor spoke 'any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new or old, against the man she really lovedthe direct responsibility thereof not lying on his headthey should all be obliterated for her sake. She is everything to me more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more to meWell! This is idle talk. So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it. 'You said something to me, said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. 'What was it you said to me? He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered 'Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my part. My present name, though but slightly changed from my mother's, is not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what that is, and why I am in England. 'Stop! said the Doctor of Beauvais. 'I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no secret from you. 'Stop! For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears for another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay's lips. 'Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you promise? 'Willingly. 'Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she should not see us together tonight. Go! God bless you! It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home she hurried into the room alonefor Miss Pross had gone straight upstairsand was surprised to find his readingchair empty. 'My father! she called to him. 'Father dear! Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled, 'What shall I do! What shall I do! Her uncertainty lasted but a moment she hurried back, and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down together for a long time. She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished work, were all as usual. Sydney, said Mr. Stryver, on that selfsame night, or morning, to his jackal 'mix another bowl of punch I have something to say to you. Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before, and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver's papers before the setting in of the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last the Stryver arrears were handsomely fetched up everything was got rid of until November should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, and bring grist to the mill again. Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much application. It had taken a deal of extra wettowelling to pull him through the night a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded the towelling and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals for the last six hours. 'Are you mixing that other bowl of punch? said Stryver the portly, with his hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he lay on his back. 'I am. 'Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry. 'Do you? 'Yes. And not for money. What do you say now? 'I don't feel disposed to say much. Who is she? 'Guess. 'Do I know her? 'Guess. 'I am not going to guess, at five o'clock in the morning, with my brains frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you must ask me to dinner. 'Well then, I'll tell you, said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. 'Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you are such an insensible dog. 'And you, returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, 'are such a sensitive and poetical spirit 'Come! rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, 'though I don't prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), still I am a tenderer sort of fellow than you. 'You are a luckier, if you mean that. 'I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of moremore 'Say gallantry, while you are about it, suggested Carton. 'Well! I'll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man, said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, 'who cares more to be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better how to be agreeable, in a woman's society, than you do. 'Go on, said Sydney Carton. 'No but before I go on, said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullying way, 'I'll have this out with you. You've been at Doctor Manette's house as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your moroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and hangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you, Sydney! 'It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to be ashamed of anything, returned Sydney 'you ought to be much obliged to me. 'You shall not get off in that way, rejoined Stryver, shouldering the rejoinder at him 'no, Sydney, it's my duty to tell youand I tell you to your face to do you goodthat you are a devilish illconditioned fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow. Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed. 'Look at me! said Stryver, squaring himself 'I have less need to make myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances. Why do I do it? 'I never saw you do it yet, muttered Carton. 'I do it because it's politic I do it on principle. And look at me! I get on. 'You don't get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions, answered Carton, with a careless air 'I wish you would keep to that. As to mewill you never understand that I am incorrigible? He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. 'You have no business to be incorrigible, was his friend's answer, delivered in no very soothing tone. 'I have no business to be, at all, that I know of, said Sydney Carton. 'Who is the lady? 'Now, don't let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, Sydney, said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, 'because I know you don't mean half you say and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I make this little preface, because you once mentioned the young lady to me in slighting terms. 'I did? 'Certainly and in these chambers. Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend. 'You made mention of the young lady as a goldenhaired doll. The young lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been a little resentful of your employing such a designation but you are not. You want that sense altogether therefore I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music. Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate drank it by bumpers, looking at his friend. 'Now you know all about it, Syd, said Mr. Stryver. 'I don't care about fortune she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished? Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, 'Why should I be astonished? 'You approve? Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, 'Why should I not approve? 'Well! said his friend Stryver, 'you take it more easily than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you would be though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn't, he can stay away), and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do me credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to you about your prospects. You are in a bad way, you know you really are in a bad way. You don't know the value of money, you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor you really ought to think about a nurse. The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as big as he was, and four times as offensive. 'Now, let me recommend you, pursued Stryver, 'to look it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some respectable woman with a little propertysomebody in the landlady way, or lodgingletting wayand marry her, against a rainy day. That's the kind of thing for you. Now think of it, Sydney. 'I'll think of it, said Sydney. Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary. As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly groundsthe only grounds ever worth taking into accountit was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be. Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens that failing, to Ranelagh that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind. Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation's infancy was still upon it. Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was yet on Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his fullblown way along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have seen how safe and strong he was. His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum. 'Halloa! said Mr. Stryver. 'How do you do? I hope you are well! It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the faroff perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would recommend under the circumstances, 'How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir? and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a selfabnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. 'Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver? asked Mr. Lorry, in his business character. 'Why, no, thank you this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry I have come for a private word. 'Oh indeed! said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed to the House afar off. 'I am going, said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the desk whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him 'I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry. 'Oh dear me! cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his visitor dubiously. 'Oh dear me, sir? repeated Stryver, drawing back. 'Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry? 'My meaning, answered the man of business, 'is, of course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, andin short, my meaning is everything you could desire. Butreally, you know, Mr. Stryver Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, 'you know there really is so much too much of you! 'Well! said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, 'if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I'll be hanged! Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen. 'Dn it all, sir! said Stryver, staring at him, 'am I not eligible? 'Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible! said Mr. Lorry. 'If you say eligible, you are eligible. 'Am I not prosperous? asked Stryver. 'Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous, said Mr. Lorry. 'And advancing? 'If you come to advancing you know, said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be able to make another admission, 'nobody can doubt that. 'Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry? demanded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen. 'Well! IWere you going there now? asked Mr. Lorry. 'Straight! said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. 'Then I think I wouldn't, if I was you. 'Why? said Stryver. 'Now, I'll put you in a corner, forensically shaking a forefinger at him. 'You are a man of business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go? 'Because, said Mr. Lorry, 'I wouldn't go on such an object without having some cause to believe that I should succeed. 'Dn me! cried Stryver, 'but this beats everything. Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry Stryver. 'Here's a man of businessa man of yearsa man of experiencein a Bank, said Stryver 'and having summed up three leading reasons for complete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with his head on! Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. 'When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady and when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young lady, my good sir, said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, 'the young lady. The young lady goes before all. 'Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry, said Stryver, squaring his elbows, 'that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at present in question is a mincing Fool? 'Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver, said Mr. Lorry, reddening, 'that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady from any lips and that if I knew any manwhich I hope I do notwhose taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at this desk, not even Tellson's should prevent my giving him a piece of my mind. The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver's bloodvessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry Mr. Lorry's veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in no better state now it was his turn. 'That is what I mean to tell you, sir, said Mr. Lorry. 'Pray let there be no mistake about it. Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him the toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying 'This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not to go up to Soho and offer myselfmyself, Stryver of the King's Bench bar? 'Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver? 'Yes, I do. 'Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly. 'And all I can say of it is, laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, 'that thisha, ha!beats everything past, present, and to come. 'Now understand me, pursued Mr. Lorry. 'As a man of business, I am not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man of business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and of her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I may not be right? 'Not I! said Stryver, whistling. 'I can't undertake to find third parties in common sense I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters you suppose mincing breadandbutter nonsense. It's new to me, but you are right, I dare say. 'What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myselfAnd understand me, sir, said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, 'I will notnot even at Tellson'shave it characterised for me by any gentleman breathing. 'There! I beg your pardon! said Stryver. 'Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to sayit might be painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You know the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand with the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a little new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear upon it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its soundness for yourself if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is best spared. What do you say? 'How long would you keep me in town? 'Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers afterwards. 'Then I say yes, said Stryver 'I won't go up there now, I am not so hot upon it as that comes to I say yes, and I shall expect you to look in tonight. Good morning. Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in the empty office until they bowed another customer in. The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to swallow, he got it down. 'And now, said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, 'my way out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong. It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found great relief. 'You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady, said Mr. Stryver 'I'll do that for you. Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o'clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was altogether in an absent and preoccupied state. 'Well! said that goodnatured emissary, after a full halfhour of bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. 'I have been to Soho. 'To Soho? repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. 'Oh, to be sure! What am I thinking of! 'And I have no doubt, said Mr. Lorry, 'that I was right in the conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my advice. 'I assure you, returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, 'that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father's account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family let us say no more about it. 'I don't understand you, said Mr. Lorry. 'I dare say not, rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and final way 'no matter, no matter. 'But it does matter, Mr. Lorry urged. 'No it doesn't I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view in a selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of viewit is hardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and giddinesses of emptyheaded girls you must not expect to do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice you know the young lady better than I do you were right, it never would have done. Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head. 'Make the best of it, my dear sir, said Stryver 'say no more about it thank you again for allowing me to sound you good night! Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling. If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year, and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he cared to talk, he talked well but, the cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him. And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no transitory gladness to him many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known him more scantily than ever and often when he had thrown himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that neighbourhood. On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal that 'he had thought better of that marrying matter) had carried his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, they took him to the Doctor's door. He was shown upstairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some little embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at his face in the interchange of the first few commonplaces, she observed a change in it. 'I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton! 'No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What is to be expected of, or by, such profligates? 'Is it notforgive me I have begun the question on my lipsa pity to live no better life? 'God knows it is a shame! 'Then why not change it? Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as he answered 'It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse. He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The table trembled in the silence that followed. She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to be so, without looking at her, and said 'Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will you hear me? 'If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, it would make me very glad! 'God bless you for your sweet compassion! He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. 'Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have been. 'No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself. 'Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know betteralthough in the mystery of my own wretched heart I know betterI shall never forget it! She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could have been holden. 'If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the love of the man you see before yourselfflung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to behe would have been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have no tenderness for me I ask for none I am even thankful that it cannot be. 'Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall youforgive me again!to a better course? Can I in no way repay your confidence? I know this is a confidence, she modestly said, after a little hesitation, and in earnest tears, 'I know you would say this to no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton? He shook his head. 'To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it. 'Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again! 'No, Miss Manette all through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into firea fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away. 'Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy than you were before you knew me 'Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse. 'Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events, attributable to some influence of minethis is what I mean, if I can make it plaincan I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for good, with you, at all? 'The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world and that there was something left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity. 'Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton! 'Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and I know better. I distress you I draw fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one? 'If that will be a consolation to you, yes. 'Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you? 'Mr. Carton, she answered, after an agitated pause, 'the secret is yours, not mine and I promise to respect it. 'Thank you. And again, God bless you. He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. 'Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembranceand shall thank and bless you for itthat my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy! He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her. 'Be comforted! he said, 'I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me. 'I will, Mr. Carton. 'My last supplication of all, is this and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about youties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adornthe dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you! He said, 'Farewell! said a last 'God bless you! and left her. To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleetstreet with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit upon anything in Fleetstreet during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes down! With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty watching one streamsaving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from Tellson's side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed. Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been 'flopping in some pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down Fleetstreet westward, attracted his attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to this funeral, which engendered uproar. 'Young Jerry, said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, 'it's a buryin'. 'Hooroar, father! cried Young Jerry. The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear. 'What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for me! said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. 'Him and his hooroars! Don't let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D'ye hear? 'I warn't doing no harm, Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. 'Drop it then, said Mr. Cruncher 'I won't have none of your no harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd. His son obeyed, and the crowd approached they were bawling and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential to the dignity of the position. The position appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and incessantly groaning and calling out 'Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies! with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat. Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher he always pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passed Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him 'What is it, brother? What's it about? 'I don't know, said the man. 'Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies! He asked another man. 'Who is it? 'I don't know, returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the greatest ardour, 'Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spiies! At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled against him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly. 'Was he a spy? asked Mr. Cruncher. 'Old Bailey spy, returned his informant. 'Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old Bailey Spiiies! 'Why, to be sure! exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had assisted. 'I've seen him. Dead, is he? 'Dead as mutton, returned the other, 'and can't be too dead. Have 'em out, there! Spies! Pull 'em out, there! Spies! The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the suggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out by himself and was in their hands for a moment but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another moment he was scouring away up a byestreet, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pockethandkerchief, and other symbolical tears. These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourning coach. The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in the ceremonies but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimneysweep driving the hearseadvised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for the purposeand with a pieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bearleader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as an additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked. Thus, with beerdrinking, pipesmoking, songroaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course of time insisted on pouring into the burialground finally, accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own satisfaction. The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual passersby, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of windowbreaking, and thence to the plundering of publichouses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summerhouses had been pulled down, and some arearailings had been torn up, to arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of a mob. Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a neighbouring publichouse, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot. 'Jerry, said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, 'you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that he was a young 'un and a straight made 'un. Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his station at Tellson's. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched his liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical advisera distinguished surgeonon his way back. Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea. 'Now, I tell you where it is! said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on entering. 'If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong tonight, I shall make sure that you've been praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it. The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. 'Why, you're at it afore my face! said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry apprehension. 'I am saying nothing. 'Well, then don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether. 'Yes, Jerry. 'Yes, Jerry, repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. 'Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say yes, Jerry. Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction. 'You and your yes, Jerry, said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his breadandbutter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. 'Ah! I think so. I believe you. 'You are going out tonight? asked his decent wife, when he took another bite. 'Yes, I am. 'May I go with you, father? asked his son, briskly. 'No, you mayn't. I'm a goingas your mother knowsa fishing. That's where I'm going to. Going a fishing. 'Your fishingrod gets rayther rusty don't it, father? 'Never you mind. 'Shall you bring any fish home, father? 'If I don't, you'll have short commons, tomorrow, returned that gentleman, shaking his head 'that's questions enough for you I ain't a going out, till you've been long abed. He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. 'And mind you! said Mr. Cruncher. 'No games tomorrow! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don't. I'm your Rome, you know. Then he began grumbling again 'With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don't know how scarce you mayn't make the wittles and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy he is your'n, ain't he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know that a mother's first duty is to blow her boy out? This touched Young Jerry on a tender place who adjured his mother to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent. Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out. Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar all night. Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his father's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged on together. Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up hereand that so silently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself into two. The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wallthere, risen to some eight or ten feet highformed one side. Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a littlelistening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands and knees. It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate which he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and looking in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass! and all the gravestones in the churchyardit was a large churchyard that they were inlooking on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to fish. They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his father's. But, his longcherished desire to know more about these matters, not only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for the second time but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what it would be but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more. He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen was running after him and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at his sideperhaps taking his armit was a pursuer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them like a dropsical boy's kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep. From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him at least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head against the headboard of the bed. 'I told you I would, said Mr. Cruncher, 'and I did. 'Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! his wife implored. 'You oppose yourself to the profit of the business, said Jerry, 'and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey why the devil don't you? 'I try to be a good wife, Jerry, the poor woman protested, with tears. 'Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business? Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business? 'You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry. 'It's enough for you, retorted Mr. Cruncher, 'to be the wife of a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeying wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you're a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have no more nat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you. The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in the honest tradesman's kicking off his claysoiled boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell asleep again. There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron potlid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible calling. Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father's side along sunny and crowded Fleetstreet, was a very different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone with the nightin which particulars it is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleetstreet and the City of London, that fine morning. 'Father, said Young Jerry, as they walked along taking care to keep at arm's length and to have the stool well between them 'what's a ResurrectionMan? Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, 'How should I know? 'I thought you knowed everything, father, said the artless boy. 'Hem! Well, returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, 'he's a tradesman. 'What's his goods, father? asked the brisk Young Jerry. 'His goods, said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, 'is a branch of Scientific goods. 'Persons' bodies, ain't it, father? asked the lively boy. 'I believe it is something of that sort, said Mr. Cruncher. 'Oh, father, I should so like to be a ResurrectionMan when I'm quite growed up! Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. 'It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and there's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit for. As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself 'Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother! There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wineshop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o'clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it. This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been early drinking at the wineshop of Monsieur Defarge. It had begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early brooding than drinking for, many men had listened and whispered and slunk about there from the time of the opening of the door, who could not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine and they glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedy looks. Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wineshop was not visible. He was not missed for, nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come. A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wineshop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the king's palace to the criminal's gaol. Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick, and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible a long way off. Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It was high noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets and under his swinging lamps of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge the other a mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered the wineshop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the wineshop, though the eyes of every man there were turned upon them. 'Good day, gentlemen! said Monsieur Defarge. It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited an answering chorus of 'Good day! 'It is bad weather, gentlemen, said Defarge, shaking his head. Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then all cast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went out. 'My wife, said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge 'I have travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called Jacques. I met himby accidenta day and half's journey out of Paris. He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Give him to drink, my wife! A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to the company, and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark bread he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near Madame Defarge's counter. A third man got up and went out. Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of winebut, he took less than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was no rarityand stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast. He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him not even Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work. 'Have you finished your repast, friend? he asked, in due season. 'Yes, thank you. 'Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel. Out of the wineshop into the street, out of the street into a courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the staircase into a garretformerly the garret where a whitehaired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. No whitehaired man was there now but, the three men were there who had gone out of the wineshop singly. And between them and the whitehaired man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once looked in at him through the chinks in the wall. Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice 'Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Five! The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with it, and said, 'Where shall I commence, monsieur? 'Commence, was Monsieur Defarge's not unreasonable reply, 'at the commencement. 'I saw him then, messieurs, began the mender of roads, 'a year ago this running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanging by the chainlike this. Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance in which he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village during a whole year. Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before? 'Never, answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular. Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then? 'By his tall figure, said the mender of roads, softly, and with his finger at his nose. 'When Monsieur the Marquis demands that evening, 'Say, what is he like?' I make response, 'Tall as a spectre.' 'You should have said, short as a dwarf, returned Jacques Two. 'But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither did he confide in me. Observe! Under those circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing near our little fountain, and says, 'To me! Bring that rascal!' My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing. 'He is right there, Jacques, murmured Defarge, to him who had interrupted. 'Go on! 'Good! said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. 'The tall man is lost, and he is soughthow many months? Nine, ten, eleven? 'No matter, the number, said Defarge. 'He is well hidden, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on! 'I am again at work upon the hillside, and the sun is again about to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in the village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms boundtied to his sideslike this! With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were knotted behind him. 'I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sightexcept on the side of the sun going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would be well content to precipitate himself over the hillside once again, as on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot! He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it vividly perhaps he had not seen much in his life. 'I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. 'Come on!' says the chief of that company, pointing to the village, 'bring him fast to his tomb!' and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him with their gunslike this! He imitated the action of a man's being impelled forward by the buttends of muskets. 'As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into the village all the village runs to look they take him past the mill, and up to the prison all the village sees the prison gate open in the darkness of the night, and swallow himlike this! He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, 'Go on, Jacques. 'All the village, pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low voice, 'withdraws all the village whispers by the fountain all the village sleeps all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me I dare not call to him he regards me like a dead man. Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the countryman's story the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal Jacques One and Two sitting on the old palletbed, each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the roadmender Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him to them, and from them to him. 'Go on, Jacques, said Defarge. 'He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag and in the evening, when the work of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards the postinghouse now, they are turned towards the prison. They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death he will not be executed they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child they say that a petition has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. 'Listen then, Jacques, Number One of that name sternly interposed. 'Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, with the petition in his hand. 'And once again listen, Jacques! said the kneeling Number Three his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for somethingthat was neither food nor drink 'the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, and struck him blows. You hear? 'I hear, messieurs. 'Go on then, said Defarge. 'Again on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain, resumed the countryman, 'that he is brought down into our country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenantsserfswhat you willhe will be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur finally, that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar. 'Listen once again then, Jacques! said the man with the restless hand and the craving air. 'The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris and nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager attention to the lastto the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was donewhy, how old are you? 'Thirtyfive, said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. 'It was done when you were more than ten years old you might have seen it. 'Enough! said Defarge, with grim impatience. 'Long live the Devil! Go on. 'Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that they speak of nothing else even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing in the morning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water. The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky. 'All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gagtied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he laughed. He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his mouth to his ears. 'On the top of the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged there forty feet highand is left hanging, poisoning the water. They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, on which the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled the spectacle. 'It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children draw water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, across the mill, across the prisonseemed to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it! The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him. 'That's all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I was warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now riding and now walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. And here you see me! After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, 'Good! You have acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside the door? 'Very willingly, said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned. The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came back to the garret. 'How say you, Jacques? demanded Number One. 'To be registered? 'To be registered, as doomed to destruction, returned Defarge. 'Magnificent! croaked the man with the craving. 'The chateau, and all the race? inquired the first. 'The chateau and all the race, returned Defarge. 'Extermination. The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, 'Magnificent! and began gnawing another finger. 'Are you sure, asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, 'that no embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it but shall we always be able to decipher itor, I ought to say, will she? 'Jacques, returned Defarge, drawing himself up, 'if madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of itnot a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge. There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man who hungered, asked 'Is this rustic to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is very simple is he not a little dangerous? 'He knows nothing, said Defarge 'at least nothing more than would easily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I charge myself with him let him remain with me I will take care of him, and set him on his road. He wishes to see the fine worldthe King, the Queen, and Court let him see them on Sunday. 'What? exclaimed the hungry man, staring. 'Is it a good sign, that he wishes to see Royalty and Nobility? 'Jacques, said Defarge 'judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day. Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the palletbed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was soon asleep. Worse quarters than Defarge's wineshop, could easily have been found in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. Saving for a mysterious dread of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was very new and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next and he felt assured that if she should take it into her brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play was played out. Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted (though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the carriage of the King and Queen. 'You work hard, madame, said a man near her. 'Yes, answered Madame Defarge 'I have a good deal to do. 'What do you make, madame? 'Many things. 'For instance 'For instance, returned Madame Defarge, composedly, 'shrouds. The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the mender of roads fanned himself with his blue cap feeling it mightily close and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he was fortunate in having his remedy at hand for, soon the largefaced King and the fairfaced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the shining Bull's Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing ladies and fine lords and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terraces, fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull's Eye, more lords and ladies, more Long live they all! until he absolutely wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental company, and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to pieces. 'Bravo! said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like a patron 'you are a good boy! The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations but no. 'You are the fellow we want, said Defarge, in his ear 'you make these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are the more insolent, and it is the nearer ended. 'Hey! cried the mender of roads, reflectively 'that's true. 'These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath tells them. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer it cannot deceive them too much. Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in confirmation. 'As to you, said she, 'you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not? 'Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment. 'If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not? 'Truly yes, madame. 'Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers would you not? 'It is true, madame. 'You have seen both dolls and birds today, said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent 'now, go home! Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the villagehad a faint and bare existence there, as its people hadthat when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bedchamber where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find a living there. Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village wellthousands of acres of landa whole province of Franceall France itselflay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hairbreadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight, in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier guardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted knowing one or two of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate with, and affectionately embraced. When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint's boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband 'Say then, my friend what did Jacques of the police tell thee? 'Very little tonight, but all he knows. There is another spy commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he can say, but he knows of one. 'Eh well! said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool business air. 'It is necessary to register him. How do they call that man? 'He is English. 'So much the better. His name? 'Barsad, said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with perfect correctness. 'Barsad, repeated madame. 'Good. Christian name? 'John. 'John Barsad, repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself. 'Good. His appearance is it known? 'Age, about forty years height, about five feet nine black hair complexion dark generally, rather handsome visage eyes dark, face thin, long, and sallow nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek expression, therefore, sinister. 'Eh my faith. It is a portrait! said madame, laughing. 'He shall be registered tomorrow. They turned into the wineshop, which was closed (for it was midnight), and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl of money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering in which condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, he walked up and down through life. The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a neighbourhood, was illsmelling. Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down his smokedout pipe. 'You are fatigued, said madame, raising her glance as she knotted the money. 'There are only the usual odours. 'I am a little tired, her husband acknowledged. 'You are a little depressed, too, said madame, whose quick eyes had never been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or two for him. 'Oh, the men, the men! 'But my dear! began Defarge. 'But my dear! repeated madame, nodding firmly 'but my dear! You are faint of heart tonight, my dear! 'Well, then, said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his breast, 'it is a long time. 'It is a long time, repeated his wife 'and when is it not a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time it is the rule. 'It does not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning, said Defarge. 'How long, demanded madame, composedly, 'does it take to make and store the lightning? Tell me. Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that too. 'It does not take a long time, said madame, 'for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake? 'A long time, I suppose, said Defarge. 'But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it. She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. 'I tell thee, said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis, 'that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock you. 'My brave wife, returned Defarge, standing before her with his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, 'I do not question all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possibleyou know well, my wife, it is possiblethat it may not come, during our lives. 'Eh well! How then? demanded madame, tying another knot, as if there were another enemy strangled. 'Well! said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic shrug. 'We shall not see the triumph. 'We shall have helped it, returned madame, with her extended hand in strong action. 'Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I would Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed. 'Hold! cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged with cowardice 'I too, my dear, will stop at nothing. 'Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chainednot shownyet always ready. Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed. Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the wineshop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!perhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny summer day. A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began to pin her rose in her headdress, before she looked at the figure. It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, the customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the wineshop. 'Good day, madame, said the newcomer. 'Good day, monsieur. She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting 'Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister expression! Good day, one and all! 'Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a mouthful of cool fresh water, madame. Madame complied with a polite air. 'Marvellous cognac this, madame! It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and Madame Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The visitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity of observing the place in general. 'You knit with great skill, madame. 'I am accustomed to it. 'A pretty pattern too! 'You think so? said madame, looking at him with a smile. 'Decidedly. May one ask what it is for? 'Pastime, said madame, still looking at him with a smile while her fingers moved nimbly. 'Not for use? 'That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I doWell, said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of coquetry, 'I'll use it! It was remarkable but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the headdress of Madame Defarge. Two men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence of looking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away. Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was there one left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a povertystricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and unimpeachable. 'John, thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. 'Stay long enough, and I shall knit 'barsad' before you go. 'You have a husband, madame? 'I have. 'Children? 'No children. 'Business seems bad? 'Business is very bad the people are so poor. 'Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, tooas you say. 'As you say, madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an extra something into his name that boded him no good. 'Pardon me certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. Of course. 'I think? returned madame, in a high voice. 'I and my husband have enough to do to keep this wineshop open, without thinking. All we think, here, is how to live. That is the subject we think of, and it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, without embarrassing our heads concerning others. I think for others? No, no. The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, did not allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face but, stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame Defarge's little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac. 'A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard's execution. Ah! the poor Gaspard! With a sigh of great compassion. 'My faith! returned madame, coolly and lightly, 'if people use knives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was he has paid the price. 'I believe, said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face 'I believe there is much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, touching the poor fellow? Between ourselves. 'Is there? asked madame, vacantly. 'Is there not? 'Here is my husband! said Madame Defarge. As the keeper of the wineshop entered at the door, the spy saluted him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, 'Good day, Jacques! Defarge stopped short, and stared at him. 'Good day, Jacques! the spy repeated with not quite so much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. 'You deceive yourself, monsieur, returned the keeper of the wineshop. 'You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am Ernest Defarge. 'It is all the same, said the spy, airily, but discomfited too 'good day! 'Good day! answered Defarge, drily. 'I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting when you entered, that they tell me there isand no wonder!much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard. 'No one has told me so, said Defarge, shaking his head. 'I know nothing of it. Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his hand on the back of his wife's chair, looking over that barrier at the person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them would have shot with the greatest satisfaction. The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over it. 'You seem to know this quarter well that is to say, better than I do? observed Defarge. 'Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants. 'Hah! muttered Defarge. 'The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me, pursued the spy, 'that I have the honour of cherishing some interesting associations with your name. 'Indeed! said Defarge, with much indifference. 'Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. You see I am informed of the circumstances? 'Such is the fact, certainly, said Defarge. He had had it conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife's elbow as she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. 'It was to you, said the spy, 'that his daughter came and it was from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brown monsieur how is he called?in a little wigLorryof the bank of Tellson and Companyover to England. 'Such is the fact, repeated Defarge. 'Very interesting remembrances! said the spy. 'I have known Doctor Manette and his daughter, in England. 'Yes? said Defarge. 'You don't hear much about them now? said the spy. 'No, said Defarge. 'In effect, madame struck in, looking up from her work and her little song, 'we never hear about them. We received the news of their safe arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two but, since then, they have gradually taken their road in lifewe, oursand we have held no correspondence. 'Perfectly so, madame, replied the spy. 'She is going to be married. 'Going? echoed madame. 'She was pretty enough to have been married long ago. You English are cold, it seems to me. 'Oh! You know I am English. 'I perceive your tongue is, returned madame 'and what the tongue is, I suppose the man is. He did not take the identification as a compliment but he made the best of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to the end, he added 'Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman to one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet in other words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there he is Mr. Charles Darnay. D'Aulnais is the name of his mother's family. Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable effect upon her husband. Do what he would, behind the little counter, as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was troubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been no spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave taking occasion to say, in a genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he should come back. 'Can it be true, said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wife as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair 'what he has said of Ma'amselle Manette? 'As he has said it, returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, 'it is probably false. But it may be true. 'If it is Defarge began, and stopped. 'If it is? repeated his wife. 'And if it does come, while we live to see it triumphI hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France. 'Her husband's destiny, said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure, 'will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end that is to end him. That is all I know. 'But it is very strangenow, at least, is it not very strangesaid Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it, 'that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her husband's name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal dog's who has just left us? 'Stranger things than that will happen when it does come, answered madame. 'I have them both here, of a certainty and they are both here for their merits that is enough. She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionable decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its disappearance howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and the wineshop recovered its habitual aspect. In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned himself inside out, and sat on doorsteps and windowledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group a Missionarythere were many like hersuch as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women knitted. They knitted worthless things but, the mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking the hands moved for the jaws and the digestive apparatus if the bony fingers had been still, the stomachs would have been more faminepinched. But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left behind. Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. 'A great woman, said he, 'a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman! Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads. Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the planetree together. Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves. Lucie was to be married tomorrow. She had reserved this last evening for her father, and they sat alone under the planetree. 'You are happy, my dear father? 'Quite, my child. They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When it was yet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged herself in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself in both ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time but, this time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. 'And I am very happy tonight, dear father. I am deeply happy in the love that Heaven has so blessedmy love for Charles, and Charles's love for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even by the length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy and selfreproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is Even as it was, she could not command her voice. In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face upon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself isas the light called human life isat its coming and its going. 'Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will ever interpose between us? I know it well, but do you know it? In your own heart, do you feel quite certain? Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could scarcely have assumed, 'Quite sure, my darling! More than that, he added, as he tenderly kissed her 'my future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, than it could have beennay, than it ever waswithout it. 'If I could hope that, my father! 'Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, cannot fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not be wasted She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeated the word. 'wasted, my childshould not be wasted, struck aside from the natural order of thingsfor my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirely comprehend how much my mind has gone on this but, only ask yourself, how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete? 'If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happy with you. He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappy without Charles, having seen him and replied 'My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not been Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, I should have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would have cast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you. It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing him refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and new sensation while his words were in her ears and she remembered it long afterwards. 'See! said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. 'I have looked at her from my prisonwindow, when I could not bear her light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to think of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against my prisonwalls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull and lethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number of horizontal lines I could draw across her at the full, and the number of perpendicular lines with which I could intersect them. He added in his inward and pondering manner, as he looked at the moon, 'It was twenty either way, I remember, and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in. The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, deepened as he dwelt upon it but, there was nothing to shock her in the manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his present cheerfulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over. 'I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unborn child from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether it had been born alive, or the poor mother's shock had killed it. Whether it was a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in my imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it was a son who would never know his father's story who might even live to weigh the possibility of his father's having disappeared of his own will and act. Whether it was a daughter who would grow to be a woman. She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand. 'I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful of merather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I have cast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her married to a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished from the remembrance of the living, and in the next generation my place was a blank. 'My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter who never existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child. 'You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you have brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us and the moon on this last night.What did I say just now? 'She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you. 'So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silence have touched me in a different wayhave affected me with something as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for its foundations couldI have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and leading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen her image in the moonlight often, as I now see you except that I never held her in my arms it stood between the little grated window and the door. But, you understand that that was not the child I am speaking of? 'The figure was not thetheimage the fancy? 'No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense of sight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was another and more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more than that she was like her mother. The other had that likeness tooas you havebut was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think? I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand these perplexed distinctions. His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from running cold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition. 'In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of her married life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. My picture was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was active, cheerful, useful but my poor history pervaded it all. 'I was that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my love that was I. 'And she showed me her children, said the Doctor of Beauvais, 'and they had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When they passed a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me I imagined that she always brought me back after showing me such things. But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, and blessed her. 'I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently tomorrow? 'Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have tonight for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near the happiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us. He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thanked Heaven for having bestowed her on him. Byandbye, they went into the house. There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry there was even to be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to make no change in their place of residence they had been able to extend it, by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more. Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were only three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that Charles was not there was more than half disposed to object to the loving little plot that kept him away and drank to him affectionately. So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came downstairs again, and stole into his room not free from unshaped fears, beforehand. All things, however, were in their places all was quiet and he lay asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and his hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in the shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his then, leaned over him, and looked at him. Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn but, he covered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held the mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night. She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as his sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his lips once more, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves of the planetree moved upon his face, as softly as her lips had moved in praying for him. The marriageday was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor's room, where he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to church the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Prossto whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom. 'And so, said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress 'and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring on my friend Mr. Charles! 'You didn't mean it, remarked the matteroffact Miss Pross, 'and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense! 'Really? Well but don't cry, said the gentle Mr. Lorry. 'I am not crying, said Miss Pross 'you are. 'I, my Pross? (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.) 'You were, just now I saw you do it, and I don't wonder at it. Such a present of plate as you have made 'em, is enough to bring tears into anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a spoon in the collection, said Miss Pross, 'that I didn't cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn't see it. 'I am highly gratified, said Mr. Lorry, 'though, upon my honour, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost! 'Not at all! From Miss Pross. 'You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry? asked the gentleman of that name. 'Pooh! rejoined Miss Pross 'you were a bachelor in your cradle. 'Well! observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, 'that seems probable, too. 'And you were cut out for a bachelor, pursued Miss Pross, 'before you were put in your cradle. 'Then, I think, said Mr. Lorry, 'that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie, drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, 'I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own he shall be taken every conceivable care of during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson's shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight's end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other fortnight's trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an oldfashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own. For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the wellremembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be oldfashioned, were as old as Adam. The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly palewhich had not been the case when they went in togetherthat no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold wind. He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her downstairs to the chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighbouring church, where no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, glanced on the bride's hand, which were newly released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry's pockets. They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the door at parting. It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her enfolding arms, 'Take her, Charles! She is yours! And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and she was gone. The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the preparations having been very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come over the Doctor as if the golden arm uplifted there, had struck him a poisoned blow. He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been expected in him when the occasion for repression was gone. But, it was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry and through his absent manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into his own room when they got upstairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the wineshop keeper, and the starlight ride. 'I think, he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, 'I think we had best not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson's so I will go there at once and come back presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will be well. It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson's, than to look out of Tellson's. He was detained two hours. When he came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant going thus into the Doctor's rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. 'Good God! he said, with a start. 'What's that? Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. 'O me, O me! All is lost! cried she, wringing her hands. 'What is to be told to Ladybird? He doesn't know me, and is making shoes! Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor's room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very busy. 'Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette! The Doctor looked at him for a momenthalf inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being spoken toand bent over his work again. He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked hardimpatientlyas if in some sense of having been interrupted. Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by him, and asked what it was. 'A young lady's walking shoe, he muttered, without looking up. 'It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be. 'But, Doctor Manette. Look at me! He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work. 'You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend! Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexityas though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above all others the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the same post. These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve which was, to have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on the Doctor's case. In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He therefore made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson's for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same room. He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to seeworked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said to him 'Will you go out? He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low voice 'Out? 'Yes for a walk with me. Why not? He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself, 'Why not? The sagacity of the man of business perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it. Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced up and down for a long time before he lay down but, when he did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench and to work. On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the day at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass him and it lightened Mr. Lorry's friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding him. When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before 'Dear Doctor, will you go out? As before, he repeated, 'Out? 'Yes for a walk with me. Why not? This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, returned. In the meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, and had sat there looking down at the planetree but, on Mr. Lorry's return, he slipped away to his bench. The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry's hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days, nine days. With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy but he could not fail to observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening. Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark night. He rubbed his eyes and roused himself but he doubted, when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of the Doctor's room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker's bench and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly studious and attentive. Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of his own for, did not his eyes show him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual and was there any sign within their range, that the change of which he had so strong an impression had actually happened? It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette's consultingroom, and to be debating these points outside the Doctor's bedroom door in the early morning? Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have resolved it but he was by that time clearheaded, and had none. He advised that they should let the time go by until the regular breakfasthour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfasthour in his usual white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came to breakfast. So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter's marriage had taken place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own. Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly 'My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested that is to say, it is very curious to me perhaps, to your better information it may be less so. Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already glanced at his hands more than once. 'Doctor Manette, said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, 'the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sakeand above all, for his daughter'shis daughter's, my dear Manette. 'If I understand, said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, 'some mental shock? 'Yes! 'Be explicit, said the Doctor. 'Spare no detail. Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. 'My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, of great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings, thetheas you express itthe mind. The mind. It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himselfas I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has been, he paused and took a deep breath'a slight relapse. The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, 'Of how long duration? 'Nine days and nights. 'How did it show itself? I infer, glancing at his hands again, 'in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock? 'That is the fact. 'Now, did you ever see him, asked the Doctor, distinctly and collectedly, though in the same low voice, 'engaged in that pursuit originally? 'Once. 'And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respectsor in all respectsas he was then? 'I think in all respects. 'You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse? 'No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted. The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, 'That was very kind. That was very thoughtful! Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little while. 'Now, my dear Manette, said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most considerate and most affectionate way, 'I am a mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of information necessary I do not possess the kind of intelligence I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, if I knew how. 'But I don't know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be able to do so much unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it with me pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more useful. Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him. 'I think it probable, said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, 'that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was not quite unforeseen by its subject. 'Was it dreaded by him? Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. 'Very much. He said it with an involuntary shudder. 'You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer's mind, and how difficulthow almost impossibleit is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him. 'Would he, asked Mr. Lorry, 'be sensibly relieved if he could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to any one, when it is on him? 'I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even believe itin some casesto be quite impossible. 'Now, said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor's arm again, after a short silence on both sides, 'to what would you refer this attack? 'I believe, returned Doctor Manette, 'that there had been a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations would be recalledsay, under certain circumstancessay, on a particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain perhaps the effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it. 'Would he remember what took place in the relapse? asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation. The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and answered, in a low voice, 'Not at all. 'Now, as to the future, hinted Mr. Lorry. 'As to the future, said the Doctor, recovering firmness, 'I should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope that the worst was over. 'Well, well! That's good comfort. I am thankful! said Mr. Lorry. 'I am thankful! repeated the Doctor, bending his head with reverence. 'There are two other points, said Mr. Lorry, 'on which I am anxious to be instructed. I may go on? 'You cannot do your friend a better service. The Doctor gave him his hand. 'To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does he do too much? 'I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it in part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery. 'You are sure that he is not under too great a strain? 'I think I am quite sure of it. 'My dear Manette, if he were overworked now 'My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight. 'Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment, that he was overworked it would show itself in some renewal of this disorder? 'I do not think so. I do not think, said Doctor Manette with the firmness of selfconviction, 'that anything but the one train of association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted. He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the most difficult of all but, remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the last nine days, he knew that he must face it. 'The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction so happily recovered from, said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, 'we will callBlacksmith's work, Blacksmith's work. We will say, to put a case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him? The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot nervously on the ground. 'He has always kept it by him, said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look at his friend. 'Now, would it not be better that he should let it go? Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the ground. 'You do not find it easy to advise me? said Mr. Lorry. 'I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think And there he shook his head, and stopped. 'You see, said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, 'it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings of this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental torture that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child. He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry's face. 'But may notmind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of business who only deals with such material objects as guineas, shillings, and banknotesmay not the retention of the thing involve the retention of the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the forge? There was another silence. 'You see, too, said the Doctor, tremulously, 'it is such an old companion. 'I would not keep it, said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. 'I would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no good. Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter's sake, my dear Manette! Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! 'In her name, then, let it be done I sanction it. But, I would not take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there let him miss his old companion after an absence. Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored. On the three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and she had no suspicions. On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murderfor which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime. When the newlymarried pair came home, the first person who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. They had not been at home many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in habits, or in looks, or in manner but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay. He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of speaking to him when no one overheard. 'Mr. Darnay, said Carton, 'I wish we might be friends. 'We are already friends, I hope. 'You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech but, I don't mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either. Charles Darnayas was naturalasked him, in all goodhumour and goodfellowship, what he did mean? 'Upon my life, said Carton, smiling, 'I find that easier to comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk thanthan usual? 'I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that you had been drinking. 'I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for me! Don't be alarmed I am not going to preach. 'I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but alarming to me. 'Ah! said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that away. 'On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it. 'I forgot it long ago. 'Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it. 'If it was a light answer, returned Darnay, 'I beg your forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to remember, in the great service you rendered me that day? 'As to the great service, said Carton, 'I am bound to avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap, I don't know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it.Mind! I say when I rendered it I am speaking of the past. 'You make light of the obligation, returned Darnay, 'but I will not quarrel with your light answer. 'Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he'll tell you so. 'I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his. 'Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done any good, and never will. 'I don't know that you 'never will.' 'But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here that I might be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it. 'Will you try? 'That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name? 'I think so, Carton, by this time. They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever. When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw him as he showed himself. He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked. 'We are thoughtful tonight! said Darnay, drawing his arm about her. 'Yes, dearest Charles, with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him 'we are rather thoughtful tonight, for we have something on our mind tonight. 'What is it, my Lucie? 'Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not to ask it? 'Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love? What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! 'I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and respect than you expressed for him tonight. 'Indeed, my own? Why so? 'That is what you are not to ask me. But I thinkI knowhe does. 'If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life? 'I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding. 'It is a painful reflection to me, said Charles Darnay, quite astounded, 'that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him. 'My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things. She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours. 'And, O my dearest Love! she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, 'remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery! The supplication touched him home. 'I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live. He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the nightand the words would not have parted from his lips for the first time 'God bless her for her sweet compassion! A wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years. At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and doubtshopes, of a love as yet unknown to her doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delightdivided her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave and thoughts of the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes, and broke like waves. That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny with a child's laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her. Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband's step was strong and prosperous among them her father's firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, whipcorrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the planetree in the garden! Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, 'Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister but I am called, and I must go! those were not tears all of agony that wetted his young mother's cheek, as the spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my Father's face. O Father, blessed words! Thus, the rustling of an Angel's wings got blended with the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little gardentomb were mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmurlike the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shoreas the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or dressing a doll at her mother's footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life. The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some halfdozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by all true echoes for ages and ages. No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy with himan instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, almost at the last. 'Poor Carton! Kiss him for me! Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead and he no more thought of emerging from his state of lion's jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich had married a florid widow with property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them but the straight hair of their dumpling heads. These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to Lucie's husband delicately saying 'Halloa! here are three lumps of breadandcheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay! The polite rejection of the three lumps of breadandcheese had quite bloated Mr. Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutorfellow. He was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his fullbodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to 'catch him, and on the diamondcutdiamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him 'not to be caught. Some of his King's Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to the fullbodied wine and the lie, excused him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himselfwhich is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender's being carried off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way. These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her child's tread came, and those of her own dear father's, always active and selfpossessed, and those of her dear husband's, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her 'What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do? But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising. On a night in midJuly, one thousand seven hundred and eightynine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson's, and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place. 'I began to think, said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, 'that I should have to pass the night at Tellson's. We have been so full of business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania among some of them for sending it to England. 'That has a bad look, said Darnay 'A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don't know what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson's are getting old, and we really can't be troubled out of the ordinary course without due occasion. 'Still, said Darnay, 'you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is. 'I know that, to be sure, assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, 'but I am determined to be peevish after my long day's botheration. Where is Manette? 'Here he is, said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment. 'I am quite glad you are at home for these hurries and forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous without reason. You are not going out, I hope? 'No I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like, said the Doctor. 'I don't think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be pitted against you tonight. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can't see. 'Of course, it has been kept for you. 'Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed? 'And sleeping soundly. 'That's right all safe and well! I don't know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you have your theory. 'Not a theory it was a fancy. 'A fancy, then, my wise pet, said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. 'They are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not? Only hear them! Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody's life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window. Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off. Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could have told but, muskets were being distributedso were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on highfever strain and at highfever heat. Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled round Defarge's wineshop, and every human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar. 'Keep near to me, Jacques Three, cried Defarge 'and do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife? 'Eh, well! Here you see me! said madame, composed as ever, but not knitting today. Madame's resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife. 'Where do you go, my wife? 'I go, said madame, 'with you at present. You shall see me at the head of women, byandbye. 'Come, then! cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. 'Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille! With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarmbells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack began. Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through the smokein the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonierDefarge of the wineshop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours. Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! 'Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques FiveandTwenty Thousand in the name of all the Angels or the Devilswhich you preferwork! Thus Defarge of the wineshop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot. 'To me, women! cried madame his wife. 'What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken! And to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and revenge. Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke but, still the deep ditch, the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work at neighbouring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious sounding of the living sea but, still the deep ditch, and the single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wineshop at his gun, grown doubly hot by the service of Four fierce hours. A white flag from within the fortress, and a parleythis dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in itsuddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the wineshop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight great towers surrendered! So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet furious dumbshow. 'The Prisoners! 'The Records! 'The secret cells! 'The instruments of torture! 'The Prisoners! Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, 'The Prisoners! was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these mena man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his handseparated him from the rest, and got him between himself and the wall. 'Show me the North Tower! said Defarge. 'Quick! 'I will faithfully, replied the man, 'if you will come with me. But there is no one there. 'What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower? asked Defarge. 'Quick! 'The meaning, monsieur? 'Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I shall strike you dead? 'Kill him! croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. 'Monsieur, it is a cell. 'Show it me! 'Pass this way, then. Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge's arm as he held by the turnkey's. Their three heads had been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear one another, even then so tremendous was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray. Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing. The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed in 'One hundred and five, North Tower! There was a small, heavilygrated, unglazed window high in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery woodashes on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them. 'Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them, said Defarge to the turnkey. The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes. 'Stop!Look here, Jacques! 'A. M.! croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. 'Alexandre Manette, said Defarge in his ear, following the letters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. 'And here he wrote 'a poor physician.' And it was he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me! He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the wormeaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. 'Hold the light higher! he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. 'Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is my knife, throwing it to him 'rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you! With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid and in it, and in the old woodashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch. 'Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques? 'Nothing. 'Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So! Light them, you! The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping again to come out at the lowarched door, they left it burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard seeming to recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once more. They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wineshop keeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people's blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged. In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a woman's. 'See, there is my husband! she cried, pointing him out. 'See Defarge! She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and remained immovable close to him remained immovable close to him through the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along remained immovable close to him when he was got near his destination, and began to be struck at from behind remained immovable close to him when the longgathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy was so close to him when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knifelong readyhewed off his head. The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine's blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was downdown on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor's body laydown on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. 'Lower the lamp yonder! cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new means of death 'here is one of his soldiers to be left on guard! The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on. The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them. But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faceseach seven in numberso fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high overhead all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and halfseen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with a suspendednot an abolishedexpression on them faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, 'Thou Didst It! Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken hearts,such, and suchlike, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris streets in midJuly, one thousand seven hundred and eightynine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge's wineshop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red. Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in which to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread to such extent as he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when Madame Defarge sat at her counter, as usual, presiding over the customers. Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely chary of trusting themselves to the saint's mercies. The lamps across his streets had a portentously elastic swing with them. Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and heat, contemplating the wineshop and the street. In both, there were several knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but now with a manifest sense of power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest nightcap, awry on the wretchedest head, had this crooked significance in it 'I know how hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to support life in myself but do you know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to destroy life in you? Every lean bare arm, that had been without work before, had this work always ready for it now, that it could strike. The fingers of the knitting women were vicious, with the experience that they could tear. There was a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as was to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine women. One of her sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had already earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance. 'Hark! said The Vengeance. 'Listen, then! Who comes? As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of Saint Antoine Quarter to the wineshop door, had been suddenly fired, a fastspreading murmur came rushing along. 'It is Defarge, said madame. 'Silence, patriots! Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and looked around him! 'Listen, everywhere! said madame again. 'Listen to him! Defarge stood, panting, against a background of eager eyes and open mouths, formed outside the door all those within the wineshop had sprung to their feet. 'Say then, my husband. What is it? 'News from the other world! 'How, then? cried madame, contemptuously. 'The other world? 'Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished people that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to Hell? 'Everybody! from all throats. 'The news is of him. He is among us! 'Among us! from the universal throat again. 'And dead? 'Not dead! He feared us so muchand with reasonthat he caused himself to be represented as dead, and had a grand mockfuneral. But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, and have brought him in. I have seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have said that he had reason to fear us. Say all! Had he reason? Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he had never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart of hearts if he could have heard the answering cry. A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wife looked steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter. 'Patriots! said Defarge, in a determined voice, 'are we ready? Instantly Madame Defarge's knife was in her girdle the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women. The men were terrible, in the bloodyminded anger with which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and came pouring down into the streets but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. From such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven our suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father I swear on my knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them from being trampled under foot. Nevertheless, not a moment was lost not a moment! This Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, if Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter so fast, and drew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suction, that within a quarter of an hour there was not a human creature in Saint Antoine's bosom but a few old crones and the wailing children. No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance from him in the Hall. 'See! cried madame, pointing with her knife. 'See the old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now! Madame put her knife under her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play. The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again explaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets resounded with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge's frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a distance the more readily, because certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old prisoner's head. The favour was too much to bear in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got him! It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded the miserable wretch in a deadly embraceMadame Defarge had but followed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tiedThe Vengeance and Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at the windows had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high percheswhen the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, 'Bring him out! Bring him to the lamp! Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building now, on his knees now, on his feet now, on his back dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy now full of vehement agony of action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one another back that they might see now, a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him goas a cat might have done to a mouseand silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought her the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking twice, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking then, the rope was merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of. Nor was this the end of the day's bad work, for Saint Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that it boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the soninlaw of the despatched, another of the people's enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard five hundred strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on flaring sheets of paper, seized himwould have torn him out of the breast of an army to bear Foulon companyset his head and heart on pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day, in Wolfprocession through the streets. Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children, wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers' shops were beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread and while they waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by embracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed away and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and slender fires were made in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in common, afterwards supping at their doors. Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full share in the worst of the day, played gently with their meagre children and lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and hoped. It was almost morning, when Defarge's wineshop parted with its last knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madame his wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door 'At last it is come, my dear! 'Eh well! returned madame. 'Almost. Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept even The Vengeance slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The drum's was the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. The Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon was seized not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint Antoine's bosom. There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore there were soldiers to guard it, but not many there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of them knew what his men would dobeyond this that it would probably not be what he was ordered. Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore themall worn out. Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be something shortsighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, however and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and unaccountable. But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasures of the chasenow, found in hunting the people now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beautified and beautifying features of Monseigneur. For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if he had itin these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern without surprise, that it was a shaggyhaired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods. Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail. The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just intelligible 'How goes it, Jacques? 'All well, Jacques. 'Touch then! They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones. 'No dinner? 'Nothing but supper now, said the mender of roads, with a hungry face. 'It is the fashion, growled the man. 'I meet no dinner anywhere. He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow then, suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke. 'Touch then. It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands. 'Tonight? said the mender of roads. 'Tonight, said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. 'Where? 'Here. He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village. 'Show me! said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill. 'See! returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. 'You go down here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain 'To the Devil with all that! interrupted the other, rolling his eye over the landscape. 'I go through no streets and past no fountains. Well? 'Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the village. 'Good. When do you cease to work? 'At sunset. 'Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will you wake me? 'Surely. The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. He was fast asleep directly. As the roadmender plied his dusty labour, and the hailclouds, rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red cap now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the heap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he used his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account. The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen red cap, the rough medley dress of homespun stuff and hairy skins of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding his great shoes, stuffed with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into sores. Stooping down beside him, the roadmender tried to get a peep at secret weapons in his breast or where not but, in vain, for he slept with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. Fortified towns with their stockades, guardhouses, gates, trenches, and drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as against this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tending to centres all over France. The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, the mender of roads having got his tools together and all things ready to go down into the village, roused him. 'Good! said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. 'Two leagues beyond the summit of the hill? 'About. 'About. Good! The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary of the place, became uneasy went out on his housetop alone, and looked in that direction too glanced down from behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to the sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be need to ring the tocsin byandbye. The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threatened the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within uneasy rushes of wind went through the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, four heavytreading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and all was black again. But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it were growing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front, picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the stone faces awakened, stared out of fire. A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were left there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There was spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle's door. 'Help, Gabelle! Help, every one! The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky. 'It must be forty feet high, said they, grimly and never moved. The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire removed from them, a group of soldiers. 'Help, gentlemenofficers! The chateau is on fire valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely aid! Help, help! The officers looked towards the soldiers who looked at the fire gave no orders and answered, with shrugs and biting of lips, 'It must burn. As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that posthorses would roast. The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and raging of the conflagration, a redhot wind, driving straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire. The chateau burned the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, scorched and shrivelled trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain the water ran dry the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace four fierce figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the nightenshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy. Not only that but the village, lightheaded with famine, fire, and bellringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxesthough it was but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter daysbecame impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys this time resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below. Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, combined with the joyringing, for music not to mention his having an illomened lamp slung across the road before his postinghouse gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rushcandles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while. Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across oncepeaceful streets, where they had been born and bred also, there were other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, North, and South, be that as it would and whosoever hung, fire burned. The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate successfully. In such risings of fire and risings of seathe firm earth shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on the shorethree years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the life of her home. Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted in. Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of his not being appreciated of his being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels. The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good eye to see withhad long had the mote in it of Lucifer's pride, Sardanapalus's luxury, and a mole's blindnessbut it had dropped out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together. Royalty was gone had been besieged in its Palace and 'suspended, when the last tidings came over. The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninetytwo was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide. As was natural, the headquarters and great gatheringplace of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson's Bank. Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came quickest. Again Tellson's was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again those nobles who had seen the coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident remittances to Tellson's, were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every newcomer from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson's, almost as a matter of course. For such variety of reasons, Tellson's was at that time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange and this was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson's sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read. On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the newsExchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time of closing. 'But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived, said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, 'I must still suggest to you 'I understand. That I am too old? said Mr. Lorry. 'Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you. 'My dear Charles, said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, 'you touch some of the reasons for my going not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who ought to be? 'I wish I were going myself, said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud. 'Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise! exclaimed Mr. Lorry. 'You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor. 'My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them, he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, 'that one might be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie 'When you were talking to Lucie, Mr. Lorry repeated. 'Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of day! 'However, I am not going, said Charles Darnay, with a smile. 'It is more to the purpose that you say you are. 'And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles, Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, 'you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set afire today, or sacked tomorrow! Now, a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and says thisTellson's, whose bread I have eaten these sixty yearsbecause I am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen old codgers here! 'How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry. 'Tut! Nonsense, sir!And, my dear Charles, said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again, 'you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in strict confidence it is not businesslike to whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily as in businesslike Old England but now, everything is stopped. 'And do you really go tonight? 'I really go tonight, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay. 'And do you take no one with you? 'All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bulldog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his master. 'I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youthfulness. 'I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old. This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascalpeople before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sownas if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to itas if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so. Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, and doing without them and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a particular feeling of objection and Darnay stood divided between going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out. The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the directionthe more quickly because it was his own right name. The address, turned into English, ran 'Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evrmonde, of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England. On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should beunless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligationkept inviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name his own wife had no suspicion of the fact Mr. Lorry could have none. 'No, said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House 'I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is to be found. The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry's desk. He held the letter out inquiringly and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be found. 'Nephew, I believebut in any case degenerate successorof the polished Marquis who was murdered, said one. 'Happy to say, I never knew him. 'A craven who abandoned his post, said anotherthis Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of hay'some years ago. 'Infected with the new doctrines, said a third, eyeing the direction through his glass in passing 'set himself in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves. 'Hey? cried the blatant Stryver. 'Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. Dn the fellow! Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said 'I know the fellow. 'Do you, by Jupiter? said Stryver. 'I am sorry for it. 'Why? 'Why, Mr. Darnay? D'ye hear what he did? Don't ask, why, in these times. 'But I do ask why? 'Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'll answer you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That's why. Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said 'You may not understand the gentleman. 'I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay, said Bully Stryver, 'and I'll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I don't understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gentlemen, said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, 'I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you'll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such precious protgs. No, gentlemen he'll always show 'em a clean pair of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away. With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shouldered himself into Fleetstreet, amidst the general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, in the general departure from the Bank. 'Will you take charge of the letter? said Mr. Lorry. 'You know where to deliver it? 'I do. 'Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and that it has been here some time? 'I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here? 'From here, at eight. 'I will come back, to see you off. Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its contents 'Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. 'June , . 'Monsieur Heretofore The Marquis. 'After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all my house has been destroyedrazed to the ground. 'The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay that I had collected no rent that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant? 'Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris! 'For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me! 'From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service. 'Your afflicted, 'Gabelle. The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigourous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby. He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done. The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week following made all new again he knew very well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yieldednot without disquiet, but still without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France that might impeach him for it. But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there was to givesuch fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in the summerand no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now. This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go to Paris. Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong upon that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had followed Gabelle's letter the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good name. His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock he saw hardly any danger. The intention with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence in his course. He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to return to Tellson's and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now. A carriage with posthorses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped. 'I have delivered that letter, said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. 'I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one? 'That I will, and readily, said Mr. Lorry, 'if it is not dangerous. 'Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye. 'What is his name? said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocketbook in his hand. 'Gabelle. 'Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison? 'Simply, 'that he has received the letter, and will come.' 'Any time mentioned? 'He will start upon his journey tomorrow night. 'Any person mentioned? 'No. He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleetstreet. 'My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie, said Mr. Lorry at parting, 'and take precious care of them till I come back. Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled away. That nightit was the fourteenth of Augusthe sat up late, and wrote two fervent letters one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no personal danger there the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return byandbye (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart. The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner took horse for Dover and began his journey. 'For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name! was the poor prisoner's cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock. The end of the second book. The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninetytwo. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every towngate and village taxinghouse had its band of citizenpatriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, crossquestioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone. This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris. Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the guardhouse in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. 'Emigrant, said the functionary, 'I am going to send you on to Paris, under an escort. 'Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort. 'Silence! growled a redcap, striking at the coverlet with the buttend of his musket. 'Peace, aristocrat! 'It is as the good patriot says, observed the timid functionary. 'You are an aristocrat, and must have an escortand must pay for it. 'I have no choice, said Charles Darnay. 'Choice! Listen to him! cried the same scowling redcap. 'As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lampiron! 'It is always as the good patriot says, observed the functionary. 'Rise and dress yourself, emigrant. Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guardhouse, where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a watchfire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning. The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricoloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out upon the miredeep roads. In this state they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the miredeep leagues that lay between them and the capital. They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made. But when they came to the town of Beauvaiswhich they did at eventide, when the streets were filled with peoplehe could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount of the postingyard, and many voices called out loudly, 'Down with the emigrant! He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, resuming it as his safest place, said 'Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will? 'You are a cursed emigrant, cried a farrier, making at him in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand 'and you are a cursed aristocrat! The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, 'Let him be let him be! He will be judged at Paris. 'Judged! repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. 'Ay! and condemned as a traitor. At this the crowd roared approval. Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his voice heard 'Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor. 'He lies! cried the smith. 'He is a traitor since the decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own! At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned but, no more was done. 'What is this decree that the smith spoke of? Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. 'Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants. 'When passed? 'On the fourteenth. 'The day I left England! 'Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be othersif there are not alreadybanishing all emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said your life was not your own. 'But there are no such decrees yet? 'What do I know! said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders 'there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have? They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. 'Where are the papers of this prisoner? demanded a resolutelooking man in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had paid for. 'Where, repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him whatever, 'are the papers of this prisoner? The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his eyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention. He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went into the guardroom meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former and that while ingress into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth but, the previous identification was so strict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap and tricolour cockade were universal, both among men and women. When he had sat in his saddle some halfhour, taking note of these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away without entering the city. He accompanied his conductor into a guardroom, smelling of common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The light in the guardhouse, half derived from the waning oillamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. 'Citizen Defarge, said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slip of paper to write on. 'Is this the emigrant Evrmonde? 'This is the man. 'Your age, Evrmonde? 'Thirtyseven. 'Married, Evrmonde? 'Yes. 'Where married? 'In England. 'Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evrmonde? 'In England. 'Without doubt. You are consigned, Evrmonde, to the prison of La Force. 'Just Heaven! exclaimed Darnay. 'Under what law, and for what offence? The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. 'We have new laws, Evrmonde, and new offences, since you were here. He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. 'I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response to that written appeal of a fellowcountryman which lies before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that my right? 'Emigrants have no rights, Evrmonde, was the stolid reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words 'In secret. Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended them. 'Is it you, said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, 'who married the daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more? 'Yes, replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. 'My name is Defarge, and I keep a wineshop in the Quarter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me. 'My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes! The word 'wife seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, 'In the name of that sharp female newlyborn, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France? 'You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the truth? 'A bad truth for you, said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and looking straight before him. 'Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a little help? 'None. Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. 'Will you answer me a single question? 'Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is. 'In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free communication with the world outside? 'You will see. 'I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of presenting my case? 'You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried in worse prisons, before now. 'But never by me, Citizen Defarge. Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope there wasor so Darnay thoughtof his softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste to say 'It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me? 'I will do, Defarge doggedly rejoined, 'nothing for you. My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you. Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught from this man's lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him. That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The 'sharp female newlyborn, and called La Guillotine, was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the certainty but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force. A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge presented 'The Emigrant Evrmonde. 'What the Devil! How many more of them! exclaimed the man with the bloated face. Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, with his two fellowpatriots. 'What the Devil, I say again! exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. 'How many more! The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely replied, 'One must have patience, my dear! Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, 'For the love of Liberty which sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion. The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that are ill cared for! 'In secret, too, grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. 'As if I was not already full to bursting! He stuck the paper on a file, in an illhumour, and Charles Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour sometimes, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room sometimes, resting on a stone seat in either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his subordinates. 'Come! said the chief, at length taking up his keys, 'come with me, emigrant. Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering the men were for the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room. In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and disgrace, the newcomer recoiled from this company. But the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life. So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were therewith the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bredthat the inversion of all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades! 'In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune, said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, 'I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition? Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in words as suitable as he could find. 'But I hope, said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his eyes, who moved across the room, 'that you are not in secret? 'I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them say so. 'Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage several members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted but a short time. Then he added, raising his voice, 'I grieve to inform the societyin secret. There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voicesamong which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuousgave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render the thanks of his heart it closed under the gaoler's hand and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever. The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. 'Yours, said the gaoler. 'Why am I confined alone? 'How do I know! 'I can buy pen, ink, and paper? 'Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more. There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, 'Now am I left, as if I were dead. Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, 'And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death. 'Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half. The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. 'He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. The prisoner counted the measurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. 'The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like     Let us ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villages with the people all awake!     He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes.     Five paces by four and a half. With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting and the roar of the city changed to this extentthat it still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above them. Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his own cook's dress, and got across the borders. A mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong men besides the cook in question. Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one and indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur's house had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all things moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce precipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn month of September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of Monseigneur's house, and had marked it with the tricolour, and were drinking brandy in its state apartments. A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business in Paris, would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the Gazette. For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability have said to orangetrees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson's had whitewashed the Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in Lombardstreet, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of the immortal boy, and also of a lookingglass let into the wall, and also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest provocation. Yet, a French Tellson's could get on with these things exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. What money would be drawn out of Tellson's henceforth, and what would lie there, lost and forgotten what plate and jewels would tarnish in Tellson's hidingplaces, while the depositors rusted in prisons, and when they should have violently perished how many accounts with Tellson's never to be balanced in this world, must be carried over into the next no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by a newlylighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year was prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was a deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in the room distortedly reflecta shade of horror. He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of which he had grown to be a part, like strong rootivy. It chanced that they derived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the main building, but the truehearted old gentleman never calculated about that. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he did his duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade, was extensive standingfor carriageswhere, indeed, some carriages of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened two great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the open air, was a large grindstone a roughly mounted thing which appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy, or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He had opened, not only the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, and he had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame. From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there came the usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terrible nature were going up to Heaven. 'Thank God, said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, 'that no one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town tonight. May He have mercy on all who are in danger! Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought, 'They have come back! and sat listening. But, there was no loud irruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard the gate clash again, and all was quiet. The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vague uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturally awaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up to go among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door suddenly opened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in amazement. Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and with that old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified, that it seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to give force and power to it in this one passage of her life. 'What is this? cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. 'What is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? What is it? With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted out in his arms, imploringly, 'O my dear friend! My husband! 'Your husband, Lucie? 'Charles. 'What of Charles? 'Here. 'Here, in Paris? 'Has been here some daysthree or fourI don't know how manyI can't collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought him here unknown to us he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison. The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet and voices came pouring into the courtyard. 'What is that noise? said the Doctor, turning towards the window. 'Don't look! cried Mr. Lorry. 'Don't look out! Manette, for your life, don't touch the blind! The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, and said, with a cool, bold smile 'My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Parisin Paris? In Francewho, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, would touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given me a power that has brought us through the barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I knew it would be so I knew I could help Charles out of all danger I told Lucie so.What is that noise? His hand was again upon the window. 'Don't look! cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. 'No, Lucie, my dear, nor you! He got his arm round her, and held her. 'Don't be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harm having happened to Charles that I had no suspicion even of his being in this fatal place. What prison is he in? 'La Force! 'La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in your lifeand you were always bothyou will compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you for more depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part tonight you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you to do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must not delay. 'I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are true. The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned the key then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's arm, and looked out with him into the courtyard. Looked out upon a throng of men and women not enough in number, or near enough, to fill the courtyard not more than forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to work at the grindstone it had evidently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot. But, such awful workers, and such awful work! The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise. False eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them, and their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want of sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted locks now flung forward over their eyes, now flung backward over their necks, some women held wine to their mouths that they might drink and what with dropping blood, and what with dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and fire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group free from the smear of blood. Shouldering one another to get next at the sharpeningstone, were men stripped to the waist, with the stain all over their limbs and bodies men in all sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags men devilishly set off with spoils of women's lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles through and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to the wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the stream of sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red in their frenzied eyeseyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a welldirected gun. All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or of any human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if it were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked for explanation in his friend's ashy face. 'They are, Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round at the locked room, 'murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of what you say if you really have the power you think you haveas I believe you havemake yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may be too late, I don't know, but let it not be a minute later! Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room, and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the blind. His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water, carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and the unintelligible sound of his voice and then Mr. Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all linked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with cries of'Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner's kindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Save the prisoner Evrmonde at La Force! and a thousand answering shouts. He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the window and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father was assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He found her child and Miss Pross with her but, it never occurred to him to be surprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards, when he sat watching them in such quiet as the night knew. Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on his own bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her pretty charge. O the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O the long, long night, with no return of her father and no tidings! Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered. 'What is it? cried Lucie, affrighted. 'Hush! The soldiers' swords are sharpened there, said Mr. Lorry. 'The place is national property now, and used as a kind of armoury, my love. Twice more in all but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful. Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himself from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, so besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air. Shortly, this wornout murderer descried in the imperfect light one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its dainty cushions. The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away. One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr. Lorry when business hours came round, was thisthat he had no right to imperil Tellson's by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner under the Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a moment's demur but the great trust he held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a strict man of business. At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out the wineshop again and taking counsel with its master in reference to the safest dwellingplace in the distracted state of the city. But, the same consideration that suggested him, repudiated him he lived in the most violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in its dangerous workings. Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute's delay tending to compromise Tellson's, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near the Bankinghouse. As there was no business objection to this, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high up in a removed bystreet where the closed blinds in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes. To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him. It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his name. 'Your servant, said Mr. Lorry. 'Do you know me? He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from fortyfive to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of emphasis, the words 'Do you know me? 'I have seen you somewhere. 'Perhaps at my wineshop? Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said 'You come from Doctor Manette? 'Yes. I come from Doctor Manette. 'And what says he? What does he send me? Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the words in the Doctor's writing 'Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife. It was dated from La Force, within an hour. 'Will you accompany me, said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading this note aloud, 'to where his wife resides? 'Yes, returned Defarge. Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into the courtyard. There, they found two women one, knitting. 'Madame Defarge, surely! said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago. 'It is she, observed her husband. 'Does Madame go with us? inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved as they moved. 'Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. It is for their safety. Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women followed the second woman being The Vengeance. They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his notelittle thinking what it had been doing near him in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him. 'Dearest,Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me. That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no responsedropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting again. There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare. 'My dear, said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain 'there are frequent risings in the streets and, although it is not likely they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power to protect at such times, to the end that she may know themthat she may identify them. I believe, said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself upon him more and more, 'I state the case, Citizen Defarge? Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than a gruff sound of acquiescence. 'You had better, Lucie, said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to propitiate, by tone and manner, 'have the dear child here, and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows no French. The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than a match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and, danger, appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance, whom her eyes first encountered, 'Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope you are pretty well! She also bestowed a British cough on Madame Defarge but, neither of the two took much heed of her. 'Is that his child? said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the first time, and pointing her knittingneedle at little Lucie as if it were the finger of Fate. 'Yes, madame, answered Mr. Lorry 'this is our poor prisoner's darling daughter, and only child. The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child. 'It is enough, my husband, said Madame Defarge. 'I have seen them. We may go. But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in itnot visible and presented, but indistinct and withheldto alarm Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge's dress 'You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You will help me to see him if you can? 'Your husband is not my business here, returned Madame Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure. 'It is the daughter of your father who is my business here. 'For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child's sake! She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these others. Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumbnail and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression. 'What is it that your husband says in that little letter? asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. 'Influence he says something touching influence? 'That my father, said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, 'has much influence around him. 'Surely it will release him! said Madame Defarge. 'Let it do so. 'As a wife and mother, cried Lucie, most earnestly, 'I implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sisterwoman, think of me. As a wife and mother! Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, turning to her friend The Vengeance 'The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have known their husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sisterwomen suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds? 'We have seen nothing else, returned The Vengeance. 'We have borne this a long time, said Madame Defarge, turning her eyes again upon Lucie. 'Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wife and mother would be much to us now? She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door. 'Courage, my dear Lucie, said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. 'Courage, courage! So far all goes well with usmuch, much better than it has of late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart. 'I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes. 'Tut, tut! said Mr. Lorry 'what is this despondency in the brave little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie. But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly. Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of his absence. So much of what had happened in that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed from her, that not until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did she know that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been killed by the populace that four days and nights had been darkened by this deed of horror and that the air around her had been tainted by the slain. She only knew that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in danger, and that some had been dragged out by the crowd and murdered. To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecy on which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken him through a scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in the prison he had found a selfappointed Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were brought singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be put forth to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back to their cells. That, presented by his conductors to this Tribunal, he had announced himself by name and profession as having been for eighteen years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille that, one of the body so sitting in judgment had risen and identified him, and that this man was Defarge. That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table, that his soninlaw was among the living prisoners, and had pleaded hard to the Tribunalof whom some members were asleep and some awake, some dirty with murder and some clean, some sober and some notfor his life and liberty. That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on the point of being at once released, when the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check (not intelligible to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. That, the man sitting as President had then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the interior of the prison again but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and assure himself that his soninlaw was, through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over. The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep by intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over the prisoners who were saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, who had been discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him and dress the wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and had found him in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as anything in this awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest solicitudehad made a litter for him and escorted him carefully from the spothad then caught up their weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned away in the midst of it. As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the face of his friend now sixtytwo years of age, a misgiving arose within him that such dread experiences would revive the old danger. But, he had never seen his friend in his present aspect he had never at all known him in his present character. For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time he felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could break the prison door of his daughter's husband, and deliver him. 'It all tended to a good end, my friend it was not mere waste and ruin. As my beloved child was helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself to her by the aid of Heaven I will do it! Thus, Doctor Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm strong look and bearing of the man whose life always seemed to him to have been stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then set going again with an energy which had lain dormant during the cessation of its usefulness, he believed. Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kept himself in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure Lucie that her husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the general body of prisoners he saw her husband weekly, and brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips sometimes her husband himself sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor's hand), but she was not permitted to write to him for, among the many wild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanent connections abroad. This new life of the Doctor's was an anxious life, no doubt still, the sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it. Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride it was a natural and worthy one but he observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to that time, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of his daughter and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness. Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to be invested through that old trial with forces to which they both looked for Charles's ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative positions of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he could have had no pride but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. 'All curious to see, thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, 'but all natural and right so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep it it couldn't be in better hands. But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial, the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him. The new era began the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded the Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against the world in arms the black flag waved night and day from the great towers of Notre Dame three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon's teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olivegrounds and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the seashore. What private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of Libertythe deluge rising from below, not falling from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened! There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head of the kingand now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it grey. And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing these things became the established order and nature of appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the worldthe figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It was the popular theme for jests it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied. It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toypuzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again when the occasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and good. Twentytwo friends of high public mark, twentyone living and one dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked it but, so armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God's own Temple every day. Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor walked with a steady head confident in his power, cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie's husband at last. Yet the current of the time swept by, so strong and deep, and carried the time away so fiercely, that Charles had lain in prison one year and three months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. So much more wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December month, that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares under the southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals. One year and three months. During all that time Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off her husband's head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls bright women, brownhaired, blackhaired, and grey youths stalwart men and old gentle born and peasant born all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or deaththe last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine! If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the time, had stunned the Doctor's daughter into awaiting the result in idle despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many. But, from the hour when she had taken the white head to her fresh young bosom in the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true to her duties. She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good will always be. As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband had been there. Everything had its appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie she taught, as regularly, as if they had all been united in their English home. The slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief that they would soon be reunitedthe little preparations for his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and his booksthese, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among the many unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of deathwere almost the only outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind. She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered 'Nothing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie. They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, when her father said to her, on coming home one evening 'My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. When he can get to itwhich depends on many uncertainties and incidentshe might see you in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, and even if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition. 'O show me the place, my father, and I will go there every day. From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, they went together at other times she was alone but, she never missed a single day. It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was the only house at that end all else was wall. On the third day of her being there, he noticed her. 'Good day, citizeness. 'Good day, citizen. This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been established voluntarily some time ago, among the more thorough patriots but, was now law for everybody. 'Walking here again, citizeness? 'You see me, citizen! The woodsawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture (he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face to represent bars, peeped through them jocosely. 'But it's not my business, said he. And went on sawing his wood. Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment she appeared. 'What? Walking here again, citizeness? 'Yes, citizen. 'Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little citizeness? 'Do I say yes, mamma? whispered little Lucie, drawing close to her. 'Yes, dearest. 'Yes, citizen. 'Ah! But it's not my business. My work is my business. See my saw! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la La, la, la! And off his head comes! The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket. 'I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle Pickle, pickle! And off its head comes. All the family! Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was impossible to be there while the woodsawyer was at work, and not be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good will, she always spoke to him first, and often gave him drinkmoney, which he readily received. He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite forgotten him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to herself to find him looking at her, with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its work. 'But it's not my business! he would generally say at those times, and would briskly fall to his sawing again. In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every day at this place and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in five or six times it might be twice or thrice running it might be, not for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough that he could and did see her when the chances served, and on that possibility she would have waited out the day, seven days a week. These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein her father walked among the terrors with a steady head. On a lightlysnowing afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was a day of some wild rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as she came along, decorated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them also, with tricoloured ribbons also, with the standard inscription (tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! The miserable shop of the woodsawyer was so small, that its whole surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate difficulty. On his housetop, he displayed pike and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed his saw inscribed as his 'Little Sainte Guillotinefor the great sharp female was by that time popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite alone. But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement and a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of whom was the woodsawyer hand in hand with The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other music than their own singing. They danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woollen rags but, as they filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dancefigure gone raving mad arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one another's hands, clutched at one another's heads, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round in pairs, until many of them dropped. While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round together then the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until they all stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width of the public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands high up, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so terrible as this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sporta something, once innocent, delivered over to all devilrya healthy pastime changed into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly bosom bared to this, the pretty almostchild's head thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the disjointed time. This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the woodsawyer's house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been. 'O my father! for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyes she had momentarily darkened with her hand 'such a cruel, bad sight. 'I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don't be frightened! Not one of them would harm you. 'I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of my husband, and the mercies of these people 'We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof. 'I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it! 'You cannot see him, my poor dear? 'No, father, said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her hand, 'no. A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. 'I salute you, citizeness, from the Doctor. 'I salute you, citizen. This in passing. Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white road. 'Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulness and courage, for his sake. That was well done they had left the spot 'it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for tomorrow. 'For tomorrow! 'There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are precautions to be taken, that could not be taken until he was actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet, but I know that he will presently be summoned for tomorrow, and removed to the Conciergerie I have timely information. You are not afraid? She could scarcely answer, 'I trust in you. 'Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling he shall be restored to you within a few hours I have encompassed him with every protection. I must see Lorry. He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing. They both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring away with their dread loads over the hushing snow. 'I must see Lorry, the Doctor repeated, turning her another way. The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust had never left it. He and his books were in frequent requisition as to property confiscated and made national. What he could save for the owners, he saved. No better man living to hold fast by what Tellson's had in keeping, and to hold his peace. A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denoted the approach of darkness. It was almost dark when they arrived at the Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was altogether blighted and deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! Who could that be with Mr. Lorrythe owner of the ridingcoat upon the chairwho must not be seen? From whom newly arrived, did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take his favourite in his arms? To whom did he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising his voice and turning his head towards the door of the room from which he had issued, he said 'Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for tomorrow? The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and were read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners. The standard gaolerjoke was, 'Come out and listen to the Evening Paper, you inside there! 'Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay! So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved for those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage he had seen hundreds pass away so. His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through the list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twentythree names, but only twenty were responded to for one of the prisoners so summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and two had already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted chamber where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in the massacre every human creature he had since cared for and parted with, had died on the scaffold. There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a little concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed tears there but, twenty places in the projected entertainments had to be refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lockup hour, when the common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs who kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were far from insensible or unfeeling their ways arose out of the condition of the time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a species of fervour or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some persons to brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the diseasea terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark the night in its verminhaunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles Darnay's name was called. All the fifteen were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half. 'Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay, was at length arraigned. His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats but the rough red cap and tricoloured cockade was the headdress otherwise prevailing. Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing spirits of the scene noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various ways of the women, some wore knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man whom he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice whispered in his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife but, what he most noticed in the two figures was, that although they were posted as close to himself as they could be, they never looked towards him. They seemed to be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they looked at the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse garb of the Carmagnole. Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic, under the decree which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing that the decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there was the decree he had been taken in France, and his head was demanded. 'Take off his head! cried the audience. 'An enemy to the Republic! The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in England? Undoubtedly it was. Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law. Why not? the President desired to know. Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left his countryhe submitted before the word emigrant in the present acceptation by the Tribunal was in useto live by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France. What proof had he of this? He handed in the names of two witnesses Theophile Gabelle, and Alexandre Manette. But he had married in England? the President reminded him. True, but not an English woman. A citizeness of France? Yes. By birth. Her name and family? 'Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physician who sits there. This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exaltation of the wellknown good physician rent the hall. So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him. On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot according to Doctor Manette's reiterated instructions. The same cautious counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared every inch of his road. The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, and not sooner? He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature. He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal in the eyes of the Republic? The populace cried enthusiastically, 'No! and the President rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry 'No! until they left off, of their own will. The President required the name of that citizen. The accused explained that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred with confidence to the citizen's letter, which had been taken from him at the Barrier, but which he did not doubt would be found among the papers then before the President. The Doctor had taken care that it should be therehad assured him that it would be thereand at this stage of the proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly overlooked in his prison of the Abbayein fact, had rather passed out of the Tribunal's patriotic remembranceuntil three days ago when he had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury's declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evrmonde, called Darnay. Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression but, as he proceeded, as he showed that the Accused was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile that, so far from being in favour with the Aristocrat government there, he had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of England and friend of the United Statesas he brought these circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, had been a witness on that English trial and could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that they were ready with their votes if the President were content to receive them. At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prisoner's favour, and the President declared him free. Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some setoff against their swollen account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of these motives such extraordinary scenes were referable it is probable, to a blending of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after his long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from exhaustion none the less because he knew very well, that the very same people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the very same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the streets. His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses for the moment. Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they had not assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and the nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to him before he left the place, condemned to die within twentyfour hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary prison sign of Deatha raised fingerand they all added in words, 'Long live the Republic! The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had seen in Courtexcept two, for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the bank of which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run mad, like the people on the shore. They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which they had taken either out of the Court itself, or one of its rooms or passages. Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the Doctor's entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home on men's shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and pointing him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy streets with the prevailing Republican colour, in winding and tramping through them, as they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus into the courtyard of the building where he lived. Her father had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the rest fell to dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river's bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled them away. After grasping the Doctor's hand, as he stood victorious and proud before him after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their rooms. 'Lucie! My own! I am safe. 'O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have prayed to Him. They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in his arms, he said to her 'And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France could have done what he has done for me. She laid her head upon her father's breast, as she had laid his poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he was proud of his strength. 'You must not be weak, my darling, he remonstrated 'don't tremble so. I have saved him. I have saved him. It was not another of the dreams in which he had often come back he was really here. And yet his wife trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her. All the air round was so thick and dark, the people were so passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget that many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to her, every day shared the fate from which he had been clutched, that her heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. The shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and even now the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind pursued them, looking for him among the Condemned and then she clung closer to his real presence and trembled more. Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this woman's weakness, which was wonderful to see. No garret, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had accomplished the task he had set himself, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let them all lean upon him. Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind not only because that was the safest way of life, involving the least offence to the people, but because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout his imprisonment, had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant the citizen and citizeness who acted as porters at the courtyard gate, rendered them occasional service and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to them by Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, and had his bed there every night. It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or doorpost of every house, the name of every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters of a certain size, at a certain convenient height from the ground. Mr. Jerry Cruncher's name, therefore, duly embellished the doorpost down below and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Manette had employed to add to the list the name of Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay. In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In the Doctor's little household, as in very many others, the articles of daily consumption that were wanted were purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various small shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as possible for talk and envy, was the general desire. For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had discharged the office of purveyors the former carrying the money the latter, the basket. Every afternoon at about the time when the public lamps were lighted, they fared forth on this duty, and made and brought home such purchases as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through her long association with a French family, might have known as much of their language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that direction consequently she knew no more of that 'nonsense (as she was pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing was to plump a nounsubstantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it happened not to be the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, lay hold of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was concluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding up, as a statement of its just price, one finger less than the merchant held up, whatever his number might be. 'Now, Mr. Cruncher, said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red with felicity 'if you are ready, I am. Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross's service. He had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his spiky head down. 'There's all manner of things wanted, said Miss Pross, 'and we shall have a precious time of it. We want wine, among the rest. Nice toasts these Redheads will be drinking, wherever we buy it. 'It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should think, retorted Jerry, 'whether they drink your health or the Old Un's. 'Who's he? said Miss Pross. Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as meaning 'Old Nick's. 'Ha! said Miss Pross, 'it doesn't need an interpreter to explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but one, and it's Midnight Murder, and Mischief. 'Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious! cried Lucie. 'Yes, yes, yes, I'll be cautious, said Miss Pross 'but I may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of embracings all round, going on in the streets. Now, Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back! Take care of the dear husband you have recovered, and don't move your pretty head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go? 'I think you may take that liberty, the Doctor answered, smiling. 'For gracious sake, don't talk about Liberty we have quite enough of that, said Miss Pross. 'Hush, dear! Again? Lucie remonstrated. 'Well, my sweet, said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, 'the short and the long of it is, that I am a subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third Miss Pross curtseyed at the name 'and as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God save the King! Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated the words after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. 'I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, though I wish you had never taken that cold in your voice, said Miss Pross, approvingly. 'But the question, Doctor Manette. Is thereit was the good creature's way to affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner'is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place? 'I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet. 'Heighhohum! said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as she glanced at her darling's golden hair in the light of the fire, 'then we must have patience and wait that's all. We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!Don't you move, Ladybird! They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back presently from the Banking House. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in a corner, that they might enjoy the firelight undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped through his arm and he, in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story of a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prisonwall and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a service. All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been. 'What is that? she cried, all at once. 'My dear! said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his hand on hers, 'command yourself. What a disordered state you are in! The least thingnothingstartles you! You, your father's daughter! 'I thought, my father, said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale face and in a faltering voice, 'that I heard strange feet upon the stairs. 'My love, the staircase is as still as Death. As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. 'Oh father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him! 'My child, said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her shoulder, 'I have saved him. What weakness is this, my dear! Let me go to the door. He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the floor, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room. 'The Citizen Evrmonde, called Darnay, said the first. 'Who seeks him? answered Darnay. 'I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evrmonde I saw you before the Tribunal today. You are again the prisoner of the Republic. The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging to him. 'Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner? 'It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will know tomorrow. You are summoned for tomorrow. Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that he stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue made to hold it, moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red woollen shirt, said 'You know him, you have said. Do you know me? 'Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor. 'We all know you, Citizen Doctor, said the other three. He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower voice, after a pause 'Will you answer his question to me then? How does this happen? 'Citizen Doctor, said the first, reluctantly, 'he has been denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen, pointing out the second who had entered, 'is from Saint Antoine. The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added 'He is accused by Saint Antoine. 'Of what? asked the Doctor. 'Citizen Doctor, said the first, with his former reluctance, 'ask no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, without doubt you as a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before all. The People is supreme. Evrmonde, we are pressed. 'One word, the Doctor entreated. 'Will you tell me who denounced him? 'It is against rule, answered the first 'but you can ask Him of Saint Antoine here. The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said 'Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denouncedand gravelyby the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by one other. 'What other? 'Do you ask, Citizen Doctor? 'Yes. 'Then, said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, 'you will be answered tomorrow. Now, I am dumb! Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed the river by the bridge of the PontNeuf, reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable purchases she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty river, blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with harsh noises, showed where the barges were stationed in which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the Republic. Woe to the man who played tricks with that Army, or got undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never grown, for the National Razor shaved him close. Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wineshops, she stopped at the sign of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, attended by her cavalier. Slightly observant of the smoky lights of the people, pipe in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes of the one barebreasted, barearmed, sootbegrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of the others listening to him of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be resumed of the two or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the popular highshouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, like slumbering bears or dogs the two outlandish customers approached the counter, and showed what they wanted. As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped her hands. In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but only saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other the man with all the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican the woman, evidently English. What was said in this disappointing anticlimax, by the disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but, Mr. Cruncherthough it seemed on his own separate and individual accountwas in a state of the greatest wonder. 'What is the matter? said the man who had caused Miss Pross to scream speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone), and in English. 'Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon! cried Miss Pross, clapping her hands again. 'After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so long a time, do I find you here! 'Don't call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me? asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way. 'Brother, brother! cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. 'Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such a cruel question? 'Then hold your meddlesome tongue, said Solomon, 'and come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and come out. Who's this man? Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no means affectionate brother, said through her tears, 'Mr. Cruncher. 'Let him come out too, said Solomon. 'Does he think me a ghost? Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule through her tears with great difficulty paid for her wine. As she did so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the French language, which caused them all to relapse into their former places and pursuits. 'Now, said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, 'what do you want? 'How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my love away from! cried Miss Pross, 'to give me such a greeting, and show me no affection. 'There. Confound it! There, said Solomon, making a dab at Miss Pross's lips with his own. 'Now are you content? Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. 'If you expect me to be surprised, said her brother Solomon, 'I am not surprised I knew you were here I know of most people who are here. If you really don't want to endanger my existencewhich I half believe you dogo your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I am an official. 'My English brother Solomon, mourned Miss Pross, casting up her tearfraught eyes, 'that had the makings in him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his 'I said so! cried her brother, interrupting. 'I knew it. You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on! 'The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid! cried Miss Pross. 'Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, and tell me there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will detain you no longer. Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother had spent her money and left her! He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging condescension and patronage than he could have shown if their relative merits and positions had been reversed (which is invariably the case, all the world over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular question 'I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your name is John Solomon, or Solomon John? The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not previously uttered a word. 'Come! said Mr. Cruncher. 'Speak out, you know. (Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.) 'John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. And I know you're John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regarding that name of Pross, likewise. That warn't your name over the water. 'What do you mean? 'Well, I don't know all I mean, for I can't call to mind what your name was, over the water. 'No? 'No. But I'll swear it was a name of two syllables. 'Indeed? 'Yes. T'other one's was one syllable. I know you. You was a spywitness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that time? 'Barsad, said another voice, striking in. 'That's the name for a thousand pound! cried Jerry. The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind him under the skirts of his ridingcoat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher's elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself. 'Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his surprise, yesterday evening we agreed that I would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful I present myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad was not a Sheep of the Prisons. Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared 'I'll tell you, said Sydney. 'I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your direction. I walked into the wineshop here, close after you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad. 'What purpose? the spy asked. 'It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some minutes of your companyat the office of Tellson's Bank, for instance? 'Under a threat? 'Oh! Did I say that? 'Then, why should I go there? 'Really, Mr. Barsad, I can't say, if you can't. 'Do you mean that you won't say, sir? the spy irresolutely asked. 'You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won't. Carton's negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and made the most of it. 'Now, I told you so, said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his sister 'if any trouble comes of this, it's your doing. 'Come, come, Mr. Barsad! exclaimed Sydney. 'Don't be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank? 'I'll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I'll go with you. 'I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry's with us. Are we ready? Come then! Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved her affection, and with Sydney's friendly reassurances, adequately to heed what she observed. They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. Lorry's, which was within a few minutes' walk. John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side. Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery little log or two of fireperhaps looking into their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson's, who had looked into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with which he saw a stranger. 'Miss Pross's brother, sir, said Sydney. 'Mr. Barsad. 'Barsad? repeated the old gentleman, 'Barsad? I have an association with the nameand with the face. 'I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad, observed Carton, coolly. 'Pray sit down. As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, 'Witness at that trial. Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised look of abhorrence. 'Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate brother you have heard of, said Sydney, 'and has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again. Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, 'What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am about to return to him! 'Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad? 'Just now, if at all. 'Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir, said Sydney, 'and I have it from Mr. Barsad's communication to a friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that he is retaken. Mr. Lorry's business eye read in the speaker's face that it was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was silently attentive. 'Now, I trust, said Sydney to him, 'that the name and influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead tomorrowyou said he would be before the Tribunal again tomorrow, Mr. Barsad? 'Yes I believe so. 'In as good stead tomorrow as today. But it may not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette's not having had the power to prevent this arrest. 'He may not have known of it beforehand, said Mr. Lorry. 'But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how identified he is with his soninlaw. 'That's true, Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. 'In short, said Sydney, 'this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game I will play the losing one. No man's life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by the people today, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad. 'You need have good cards, sir, said the spy. 'I'll run them over. I'll see what I hold,Mr. Lorry, you know what a brute I am I wish you'd give me a little brandy. It was put before him, and he drank off a glassfuldrank off another glassfulpushed the bottle thoughtfully away. 'Mr. Barsad, he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards 'Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That's a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad? 'Not to understand your play, returned the spy, somewhat uneasily. 'I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't hurry. He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank another glassful. 'Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time. It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing therenot because he was not wanted there our English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern datehe knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in France first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen there gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge's wineshop had received from the watchful police such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment, release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation with the Defarges and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with them signally. He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as he was did, that he was never safe that flight was impossible that he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and on such grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and would quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men soon terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. 'You scarcely seem to like your hand, said Sydney, with the greatest composure. 'Do you play? 'I think, sir, said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. Lorry, 'I may appeal to a gentleman of your years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he can under any circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has spoken. I admit that I am a spy, and that it is considered a discreditable stationthough it must be filled by somebody but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean himself as to make himself one? 'I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad, said Carton, taking the answer on himself, and looking at his watch, 'without any scruple, in a very few minutes. 'I should have hoped, gentlemen both, said the spy, always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, 'that your respect for my sister 'I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally relieving her of her brother, said Sydney Carton. 'You think not, sir? 'I have thoroughly made up my mind about it. The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual demeanour, received such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,who was a mystery to wiser and honester men than he,that it faltered here and failed him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contemplating cards 'And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That friend and fellowSheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons who was he? 'French. You don't know him, said the spy, quickly. 'French, eh? repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to notice him at all, though he echoed his word. 'Well he may be. 'Is, I assure you, said the spy 'though it's not important. 'Though it's not important, repeated Carton, in the same mechanical way'though it's not importantNo, it's not important. No. Yet I know the face. 'I think not. I am sure not. It can't be, said the spy. 'Itcan'tbe, muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. 'Can'tbe. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought? 'Provincial, said the spy. 'No. Foreign! cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. 'Cly! Disguised, but the same man. We had that man before us at the Old Bailey. 'Now, there you are hasty, sir, said Barsad, with a smile that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side 'there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the church of Saint PancrasintheFields. His unpopularity with the blackguard multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped to lay him in his coffin. Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher's head. 'Let us be reasonable, said the spy, 'and let us be fair. To show you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded assumption yours is, I will lay before you a certificate of Cly's burial, which I happened to have carried in my pocketbook, with a hurried hand he produced and opened it, 'ever since. There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take it in your hand it's no forgery. Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair could not have been more violently on end, if it had been that moment dressed by the Cow with the crumpled horn in the house that Jack built. Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. 'That there Roger Cly, master, said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn and ironbound visage. 'So you put him in his coffin? 'I did. 'Who took him out of it? Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, 'What do you mean? 'I mean, said Mr. Cruncher, 'that he warn't never in it. No! Not he! I'll have my head took off, if he was ever in it. The spy looked round at the two gentlemen they both looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. 'I tell you, said Jerry, 'that you buried pavingstones and earth in that there coffin. Don't go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a take in. Me and two more knows it. 'How do you know it? 'What's that to you? Ecod! growled Mr. Cruncher, 'it's you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your shameful impositions upon tradesmen! I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea. Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amazement at this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to moderate and explain himself. 'At another time, sir, he returned, evasively, 'the present time is illconwenient for explainin'. What I stand to, is, that he knows well wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as a word of one syllable, and I'll either catch hold of his throat and choke him for half a guinea Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as quite a liberal offer 'or I'll out and announce him. 'Humph! I see one thing, said Carton. 'I hold another card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication with another aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has the mystery about him of having feigned death and come to life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong carda certain Guillotine card! Do you play? 'No! returned the spy. 'I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this man knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me. 'Never you trouble your head about this man, retorted the contentious Mr. Cruncher 'you'll have trouble enough with giving your attention to that gentleman. And look here! Once more!Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his liberality'I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea. The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said, with more decision, 'It has come to a point. I go on duty soon, and can't overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal what is it? Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with me? 'Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie? 'I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible, said the spy, firmly. 'Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie? 'I am sometimes. 'You can be when you choose? 'I can pass in and out when I choose. Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he said, rising 'So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone. While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman's manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all he examined his fingernails with a very questionable closeness of attention and whenever Mr. Lorry's eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness of character. 'Jerry, said Mr. Lorry. 'Come here. Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance of him. 'What have you been, besides a messenger? After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of replying, 'Agicultooral character. 'My mind misgives me much, said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger at him, 'that you have used the respectable and great house of Tellson's as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. If you have, don't expect me to befriend you when you get back to England. If you have, don't expect me to keep your secret. Tellson's shall not be imposed upon. 'I hope, sir, pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, 'that a gentleman like yourself wot I've had the honour of odd jobbing till I'm grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos soI don't say it is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be all o' one side. There'd be two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don't pick up his fardensfardens! no, nor yet his half fardenshalf fardens! no, nor yet his quartera banking away like smoke at Tellson's, and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to their own carriagesah! equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that 'ud be imposing, too, on Tellson's. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander. And here's Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be tomorrow, if cause given, a floppin' again the business to that degree as is ruinatingstark ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors' wives don't flopcatch 'em at it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of more patients, and how can you rightly have one without t'other? Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn't get much by it, even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He'd never have no good of it he'd want all along to be out of the line, if he, could see his way out, being once ineven if it wos so. 'Ugh! cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, 'I am shocked at the sight of you. 'Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir, pursued Mr. Cruncher, 'even if it wos so, which I don't say it is 'Don't prevaricate, said Mr. Lorry. 'No, I will not, sir, returned Mr. Crunches as if nothing were further from his thoughts or practice'which I don't say it iswot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, wot will errand you, message you, generallightjob you, till your heels is where your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it wos so, which I still don't say it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep his father's place, and take care of his mother don't blow upon that boy's fatherdo not do it, sirand let that father go into the line of the reg'lar diggin', and make amends for what he would have undugif it wos soby diggin' of 'em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin' the futur' keepin' of 'em safe. That, Mr. Lorry, said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his discourse, 'is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don't see all this here a goin' on dreadful round him, in the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to bring the price down to porterage and hardly that, without havin' his serious thoughts of things. And these here would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin' of you fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good cause when I might have kep' it back. 'That at least is true, said Mr. Lorry. 'Say no more now. It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and repent in actionnot in words. I want no more words. Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room. 'Adieu, Mr. Barsad, said the former 'our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me. He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? 'Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access to him, once. Mr. Lorry's countenance fell. 'It is all I could do, said Carton. 'To propose too much, would be to put this man's head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it. 'But access to him, said Mr. Lorry, 'if it should go ill before the Tribunal, will not save him. 'I never said it would. Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire his sympathy with his darling, and the heavy disappointment of his second arrest, gradually weakened them he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell. 'You are a good man and a true friend, said Carton, in an altered voice. 'Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, however. Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. 'To return to poor Darnay, said Carton. 'Don't tell Her of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence. Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be he returned the look, and evidently understood it. 'She might think a thousand things, Carton said, 'and any of them would only add to her trouble. Don't speak of me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any little helpful work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She must be very desolate tonight. 'I am going now, directly. 'I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance on you. How does she look? 'Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful. 'Ah! It was a long, grieving sound, like a sighalmost like a sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face, which was turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hillside on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white ridingcoat and topboots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of his foot. 'I forgot it, he said. Mr. Lorry's eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome features, and having the expression of prisoners' faces fresh in his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression. 'And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir? said Carton, turning to him. 'Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here. I hoped to have left them in perfect safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I have my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go. They were both silent. 'Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir? said Carton, wistfully. 'I am in my seventyeighth year. 'You have been useful all your life steadily and constantly occupied trusted, respected, and looked up to? 'I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. Indeed, I may say that I was a man of business when a boy. 'See what a place you fill at seventyeight. How many people will miss you when you leave it empty! 'A solitary old bachelor, answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. 'There is nobody to weep for me. 'How can you say that? Wouldn't She weep for you? Wouldn't her child? 'Yes, yes, thank God. I didn't quite mean what I said. 'It is a thing to thank God for is it not? 'Surely, surely. 'If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, tonight, 'I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature I have won myself a tender place in no regard I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!' your seventyeight years would be seventyeight heavy curses would they not? 'You say truly, Mr. Carton I think they would be. Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a few moments, said 'I should like to ask youDoes your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother's knee, seem days of very long ago? Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered 'Twenty years back, yes at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me. 'I understand the feeling! exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. 'And you are the better for it? 'I hope so. Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on with his outer coat 'But you, said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, 'you are young. 'Yes, said Carton. 'I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age. Enough of me. 'And of me, I am sure, said Mr. Lorry. 'Are you going out? 'I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don't be uneasy I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the Court tomorrow? 'Yes, unhappily. 'I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir. Mr. Lorry did so, and they went downstairs and out in the streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry's destination. Carton left him there but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to the prison every day. 'She came out here, he said, looking about him, 'turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her steps. It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before the prison of La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little woodsawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shopdoor. 'Good night, citizen, said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by for, the man eyed him inquisitively. 'Good night, citizen. 'How goes the Republic? 'You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixtythree today. We shall mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber! 'Do you often go to see him 'Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You have seen him at work? 'Never. 'Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself, citizen he shaved the sixtythree today, in less than two pipes! Less than two pipes. Word of honour! As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton was so sensible of a rising desire to strike the life out of him, that he turned away. 'But you are not English, said the woodsawyer, 'though you wear English dress? 'Yes, said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his shoulder. 'You speak like a Frenchman. 'I am an old student here. 'Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman. 'Good night, citizen. 'But go and see that droll dog, the little man persisted, calling after him. 'And take a pipe with you! Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the middle of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his pencil on a scrap of paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered the way well, several dark and dirty streetsmuch dirtier than usual, for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of terrorhe stopped at a chemist's shop, which the owner was closing with his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, uphill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. 'Whew! the chemist whistled softly, as he read it. 'Hi! hi! hi! Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said 'For you, citizen? 'For me. 'You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the consequences of mixing them? 'Perfectly. Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out the money for them, and deliberately left the shop. 'There is nothing more to do, said he, glancing upward at the moon, 'until tomorrow. I can't sleep. It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words aloud under the fastsailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end. Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been read at his father's grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above him. 'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural sorrow rising in him for the sixtythree who had been that day put to death, and for tomorrow's victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, and still of tomorrow's and tomorrow's, the chain of association that brought the words home, like a rusty old ship's anchor from the deep, might have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and went on. With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of the horrors surrounding them in the towers of the churches, where no prayers were said, for the popular revulsion had even travelled that length of selfdestruction from years of priestly impostors, plunderers, and profligates in the distant burialplaces, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates, for Eternal Sleep in the abounding gaols and in the streets along which the sixties rolled to a death which had become so common and material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever arose among the people out of all the working of the Guillotine with a solemn interest in the whole life and death of the city settling down to its short nightly pause in fury Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the lighter streets. Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to be suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, and put on heavy shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres were all well filled, and the people poured cheerfully out as he passed, and went chatting home. At one of the theatre doors, there was a little girl with a mother, looking for a way across the street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss. 'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked but, he heard them always. The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the riverwalls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's dominion. But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it. The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.'Like me. A tradingboat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy to surmise where the good old man was gone. Sydney Carton drank nothing but a little coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed to refresh himself, went out to the place of trial. The court was all astir and abuzz, when the black sheepwhom many fell away from in dreadpressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was there, sitting beside her father. When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy blood into his face, brightened his glance, and animated his heart. If there had been any eyes to notice the influence of her look, on Sydney Carton, it would have been seen to be the same influence exactly. Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of procedure, ensuring to any accused person any reasonable hearing. There could have been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds. Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the day before, and tomorrow and the day after. Eager and prominent among them, one man with a craving face, and his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance gave great satisfaction to the spectators. A lifethirsting, canniballooking, bloodyminded juryman, the Jacques Three of St. Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled to try the deer. Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor. No favourable leaning in that quarter today. A fell, uncompromising, murderous businessmeaning there. Every eye then sought some other eye in the crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly and heads nodded at one another, before bending forward with a strained attention. Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Reaccused and retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to him last night. Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evrmonde, called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law. To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prosecutor. The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced or secretly? 'Openly, President. 'By whom? 'Three voices. Ernest Defarge, winevendor of St. Antoine. 'Good. 'Thrse Defarge, his wife. 'Good. 'Alexandre Manette, physician. A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of it, Doctor Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing where he had been seated. 'President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery and a fraud. You know the accused to be the husband of my daughter. My daughter, and those dear to her, are far dearer to me than my life. Who and where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband of my child! 'Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the authority of the Tribunal would be to put yourself out of Law. As to what is dearer to you than life, nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as the Republic. Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang his bell, and with warmth resumed. 'If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her. Listen to what is to follow. In the meanwhile, be silent! Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat down, with his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling his daughter drew closer to him. The craving man on the jury rubbed his hands together, and restored the usual hand to his mouth. Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough to admit of his being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of the imprisonment, and of his having been a mere boy in the Doctor's service, and of the release, and of the state of the prisoner when released and delivered to him. This short examination followed, for the court was quick with its work. 'You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen? 'I believe so. Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd 'You were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so? You were a cannonier that day there, and you were among the first to enter the accursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I speak the truth! It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The President rang his bell but, The Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, 'I defy that bell! wherein she was likewise much commended. 'Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the Bastille, citizen. 'I knew, said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood at the bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking steadily up at him 'I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined in a cell known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellowcitizen who is one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is that written paper. I have made it my business to examine some specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is the writing of Doctor Manette. I confide this paper, in the writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of the President. 'Let it be read. In a dead silence and stillnessthe prisoner under trial looking lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge never taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other eyes there intent upon the Doctor, who saw none of themthe paper was read, as follows. I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year, . I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust. 'These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity. Hope has quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I have noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unimpaired, but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right mindthat my memory is exact and circumstantialand that I write the truth as I shall answer for these my last recorded words, whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judgmentseat. 'One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think the twentysecond of the month) in the year , I was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour's distance from my place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind me, driven very fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and a voice called to the driver to stop. 'The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time to open the door and alight before I came up with it. 'I observed that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. As they stood side by side near the carriage door, I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far as I could see) face too. ''You are Doctor Manette?' said one. 'I am. ''Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,' said the other 'the young physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or two has made a rising reputation in Paris?' ''Gentlemen,' I returned, 'I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak so graciously.' ''We have been to your residence,' said the first, 'and not being so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of overtaking you. Will you please to enter the carriage?' 'The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these words were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the carriage door. They were armed. I was not. ''Gentlemen,' said I, 'pardon me but I usually inquire who does me the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case to which I am summoned.' 'The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. 'Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As to the nature of the case, our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it for yourself better than we can describe it. Enough. Will you please to enter the carriage?' 'I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They both entered after methe last springing in, after putting up the steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed. 'I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my paper in its hidingplace. 'The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and emerged upon the country road. At twothirds of a league from the BarrierI did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards when I traversed itit struck out of the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary house, We all three alighted, and walked, by a damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the face. 'There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like manner with his arm the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers. 'From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, lying on a bed. 'The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were all portions of a gentleman's dress. On one of them, which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of a Noble, and the letter E. 'I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the corner caught my sight. 'I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the words, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' and then counted up to twelve, and said, 'Hush!' For an instant, and no more, she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she would repeat the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' and would count up to twelve, and say, 'Hush!' There was no variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment's pause, in the utterance of these sounds. ''How long,' I asked, 'has this lasted?' 'To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the younger by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority. It was the elder who replied, 'Since about this hour last night.' ''She has a husband, a father, and a brother?' ''A brother.' ''I do not address her brother?' 'He answered with great contempt, 'No.' ''She has some recent association with the number twelve?' 'The younger brother impatiently rejoined, 'With twelve o'clock?' ''See, gentlemen,' said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, 'how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.' 'The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, 'There is a case of medicines here' and brought it from a closet, and put it on the table. 'I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those. ''Do you doubt them?' asked the younger brother. ''You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,' I replied, and said no more. 'I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man downstairs), who had retreated into a corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnishedevidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular succession, with the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' the counting up to twelve, and 'Hush!' The frenzy was so violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer's breast had this much soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. It had no effect upon the cries no pendulum could be more regular. 'For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, before the elder said ''There is another patient.' 'I was startled, and asked, 'Is it a pressing case?' ''You had better see,' he carelessly answered and took up a light. 'The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night. 'On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant boya boy of not more than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him but, I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. ''I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I. 'Let me examine it.' ''I do not want it examined,' he answered 'let it be.' 'It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. The wound was a swordthrust, received from twenty to twentyfour hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit not at all as if he were a fellowcreature. ''How has this been done, monsieur?' said I. ''A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother's swordlike a gentleman.' 'There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about the boy, or about his fate. 'The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved to me. ''Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us but we have a little pride left, sometimes. Shehave you seen her, Doctor?' 'The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence. 'I said, 'I have seen her.' ''She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years, but we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too a tenant of his. We were all tenants of histhat man's who stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.' 'It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force to speak but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis. ''We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs are by those superior Beingstaxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his people should not see it and take it from usI say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable race die out!' 'I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people somewhere but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying boy. ''Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort him in our cottageour doghut, as that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to himfor what are husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing?' 'The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the lookeron, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this Bastille the gentleman's, all negligent indifference the peasant's, all troddendown sentiment, and passionate revenge. ''You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feedif he could find foodhe sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.' 'Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his wound. ''Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his brother took her away in spite of what I know she must have told his brotherand what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if it is nowhis brother took her awayfor his pleasure and diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the tidings home, our father's heart burst he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be his vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed ina common dog, but sword in hand.Where is the loft window? It was somewhere here?' 'The room was darkening to his sight the world was narrowing around him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there had been a struggle. ''She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he was dead. He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money then struck at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck at him as to make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword that he stained with my common blood he drew to defend himselfthrust at me with all his skill for his life.' 'My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of a broken sword, lying among the hay. That weapon was a gentleman's. In another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier's. ''Now, lift me up, Doctor lift me up. Where is he?' ''He is not here,' I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he referred to the brother. ''He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the man who was here? Turn my face to him.' 'I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee. But, invested for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him. ''Marquis,' said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide, and his right hand raised, 'in the days when all these things are to be answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do it.' 'Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him down dead. 'When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her raving in precisely the same order of continuity. I knew that this might last for many hours, and that it would probably end in the silence of the grave. 'I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of the bed until the night was far advanced. She never abated the piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness or the order of her words. They were always 'My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Hush!' 'This lasted twentysix hours from the time when I first saw her. I had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began to falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity, and byandbye she sank into a lethargy, and lay like the dead. 'It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the woman to assist me to compose her figure and the dress she had torn. It was then that I knew her condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations of being a mother have arisen and it was then that I lost the little hope I had had of her. ''Is she dead?' asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse. ''Not dead,' said I 'but like to die.' ''What strength there is in these common bodies!' he said, looking down at her with some curiosity. ''There is prodigious strength,' I answered him, 'in sorrow and despair.' 'He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and said in a subdued voice, ''Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I recommended that your aid should be invited. Your reputation is high, and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably mindful of your interest. The things that you see here, are things to be seen, and not spoken of.' 'I listened to the patient's breathing, and avoided answering. ''Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?' ''Monsieur,' said I, 'in my profession, the communications of patients are always received in confidence.' I was guarded in my answer, for I was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen. 'Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. Looking round as I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me. 'I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is no confusion or failure in my memory it can recall, and could detail, every word that was ever spoken between me and those brothers. 'She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand some few syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her who I was, and I told her. It was in vain that I asked her for her family name. She faintly shook her head upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done. 'I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day. Until then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness save the woman and myself, one or other of them had always jealously sat behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it came to that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold with her as ifthe thought passed through my mindI were dying too. 'I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger brother's (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and that peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect the mind of either of them was the consideration that this was highly degrading to the family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to me than the elder but I saw this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance in the mind of the elder, too. 'My patient died, two hours before midnightat a time, by my watch, answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her. I was alone with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one side, and all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended. 'The brothers were waiting in a room downstairs, impatient to ride away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots with their ridingwhips, and loitering up and down. ''At last she is dead?' said the elder, when I went in. ''She is dead,' said I. ''I congratulate you, my brother,' were his words as he turned round. 'He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. He now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from his hand, but laid it on the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to accept nothing. ''Pray excuse me,' said I. 'Under the circumstances, no.' 'They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to them, and we parted without another word on either side. 'I am weary, weary, wearyworn down by misery. I cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand. 'Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had been summoned, and the place to which I had gone in effect, stating all the circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never be heard of but, I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from my wife and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger but I was conscious that there might be danger for others, if others were compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. 'I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me. 'I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself. It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon me is so dreadful. 'The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long life. She was in great agitation. She presented herself to me as the wife of the Marquis St. Evrmonde. I connected the title by which the boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial letter embroidered on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that I had seen that nobleman very lately. 'My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was, and I know not at what times I may be watched. She had in part suspected, and in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story, of her husband's share in it, and my being resorted to. She did not know that the girl was dead. Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to show her, in secret, a woman's sympathy. Her hope had been to avert the wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been hateful to the suffering many. 'She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living, and her greatest desire was, to help that sister. I could tell her nothing but that there was such a sister beyond that, I knew nothing. Her inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had been the hope that I could tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas, to this wretched hour I am ignorant of both. 'These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a warning, yesterday. I must finish my record today. 'She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her marriage. How could she be! The brother distrusted and disliked her, and his influence was all opposed to her she stood in dread of him, and in dread of her husband too. When I handed her down to the door, there was a child, a pretty boy from two to three years old, in her carriage. ''For his sake, Doctor,' she said, pointing to him in tears, 'I would do all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will never prosper in his inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other innocent atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of him. What I have left to call my ownit is little beyond the worth of a few jewelsI will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, with the compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this injured family, if the sister can be discovered.' 'She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, 'It is for thine own dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?' The child answered her bravely, 'Yes!' I kissed her hand, and she took him in her arms, and went away caressing him. I never saw her more. 'As she had mentioned her husband's name in the faith that I knew it, I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my letter, and, not trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day. 'That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o'clock, a man in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, upstairs. When my servant came into the room where I sat with my wifeO my wife, beloved of my heart! My fair young English wife!we saw the man, who was supposed to be at the gate, standing silent behind him. 'An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would not detain me, he had a coach in waiting. 'It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I was clear of the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from behind, and my arms were pinioned. The two brothers crossed the road from a dark corner, and identified me with a single gesture. The Marquis took from his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me, burnt it in the light of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the ashes with his foot. Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I was brought to my living grave. 'If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either of the brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of my dearest wifeso much as to let me know by a word whether alive or deadI might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them. But, now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that they have no part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last night of the year , in my unbearable agony, denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth. A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. A sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the time, and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped before it. Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to show how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the other captured Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had kept it, biding their time. Little need to show that this detested family name had long been anathematised by Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register. The man never trod ground whose virtues and services would have sustained him in that place that day, against such denunciation. And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a wellknown citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his wife. One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for imitations of the questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for sacrifices and selfimmolations on the people's altar. Therefore when the President said (else had his own head quivered on his shoulders), that the good physician of the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow and her child an orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic fervour, not a touch of human sympathy. 'Much influence around him, has that Doctor? murmured Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. 'Save him now, my Doctor, save him! At every juryman's vote, there was a roar. Another and another. Roar and roar. Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within fourandtwenty hours! The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, she uttered no sound and so strong was the voice within her, representing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. The Judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors, the Tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the court's emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her husband, with nothing in her face but love and consolation. 'If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us! There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, 'Let her embrace him then it is but a moment. It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. 'Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest! They were her husband's words, as he held her to his bosom. 'I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above don't suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child. 'I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her by you. 'My husband. No! A moment! He was tearing himself apart from her. 'We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart byandbye but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me. Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying 'No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you! Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. 'It could not be otherwise, said the prisoner. 'All things have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the alwaysvain endeavour to discharge my poor mother's trust that first brought my fatal presence near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven bless you! As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting smile. As he went out at the prisoners' door, she turned, laid her head lovingly on her father's breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet. Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and supported her head. Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of pitythat had a flush of pride in it. 'Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight. He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his seat beside the driver. When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried her up the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where her child and Miss Pross wept over her. 'Don't recall her to herself, he said, softly, to the latter, 'she is better so. Don't revive her to consciousness, while she only faints. 'Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton! cried little Lucie, springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. 'Now that you have come, I think you will do something to help mamma, something to save papa! O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who love her, bear to see her so? He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. He put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. 'Before I go, he said, and paused'I may kiss her? It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, 'A life you love. When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and said to the latter 'You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette let it at least be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly to you, and very recognisant of your services are they not? 'Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the strongest assurances that I should save him and I did. He returned the answer in great trouble, and very slowly. 'Try them again. The hours between this and tomorrow afternoon are few and short, but try. 'I intend to try. I will not rest a moment. 'That's well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before nowthough never, he added, with a smile and a sigh together, 'such great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not. 'I will go, said Doctor Manette, 'to the Prosecutor and the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I will write too, andBut stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no one will be accessible until dark. 'That's true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you speed though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, Doctor Manette? 'Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two from this. 'It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. If I go to Mr. Lorry's at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either from our friend or from yourself? 'Yes. 'May you prosper! Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. 'I have no hope, said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. 'Nor have I. 'If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare himwhich is a large supposition for what is his life, or any man's to them!I doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the court. 'And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound. Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the doorpost, and bowed his face upon it. 'Don't despond, said Carton, very gently 'don't grieve. I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think 'his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,' and that might trouble her. 'Yes, yes, yes, returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, 'you are right. But he will perish there is no real hope. 'Yes. He will perish there is no real hope, echoed Carton. And walked with a settled step, downstairs. Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided where to go. 'At Tellson's bankinghouse at nine, he said, with a musing face. 'Shall I do well, in the mean time, to show myself? I think so. It is best that these people should know there is such a man as I here it is a sound precaution, and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care! Let me think it out! Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object, he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced the thought in his mind to its possible consequences. His first impression was confirmed. 'It is best, he said, finally resolved, 'that these people should know there is such a man as I here. And he turned his face towards Saint Antoine. Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wineshop in the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for one who knew the city well, to find his house without asking any question. Having ascertained its situation, Carton came out of those closer streets again, and dined at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the first time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night he had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he had dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry's hearth like a man who had done with it. It was as late as seven o'clock when he awoke refreshed, and went out into the streets again. As he passed along towards Saint Antoine, he stopped at a shopwindow where there was a mirror, and slightly altered the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat, and his coatcollar, and his wild hair. This done, he went on direct to Defarge's, and went in. There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of the restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had seen upon the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation with the Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like a regular member of the establishment. As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very indifferent French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast a careless glance at him, and then a keener, and then a keener, and then advanced to him herself, and asked him what it was he had ordered. He repeated what he had already said. 'English? asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her dark eyebrows. After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French word were slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his former strong foreign accent. 'Yes, madame, yes. I am English! Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, as he took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puzzling out its meaning, he heard her say, 'I swear to you, like Evrmonde! Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good Evening. 'How? 'Good evening. 'Oh! Good evening, citizen, filling his glass. 'Ah! and good wine. I drink to the Republic. Defarge went back to the counter, and said, 'Certainly, a little like. Madame sternly retorted, 'I tell you a good deal like. Jacques Three pacifically remarked, 'He is so much in your mind, see you, madame. The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh, 'Yes, my faith! And you are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more tomorrow! Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were all leaning their arms on the counter close together, speaking low. After a silence of a few moments, during which they all looked towards him without disturbing his outward attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed their conversation. 'It is true what madame says, observed Jacques Three. 'Why stop? There is great force in that. Why stop? 'Well, well, reasoned Defarge, 'but one must stop somewhere. After all, the question is still where? 'At extermination, said madame. 'Magnificent! croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, also, highly approved. 'Extermination is good doctrine, my wife, said Defarge, rather troubled 'in general, I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has suffered much you have seen him today you have observed his face when the paper was read. 'I have observed his face! repeated madame, contemptuously and angrily. 'Yes. I have observed his face. I have observed his face to be not the face of a true friend of the Republic. Let him take care of his face! 'And you have observed, my wife, said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, 'the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish to him! 'I have observed his daughter, repeated madame 'yes, I have observed his daughter, more times than one. I have observed her today, and I have observed her other days. I have observed her in the court, and I have observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but lift my finger! She seemed to raise it (the listener's eyes were always on his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as if the axe had dropped. 'The citizeness is superb! croaked the Juryman. 'She is an Angel! said The Vengeance, and embraced her. 'As to thee, pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, 'if it depended on theewhich, happily, it does notthou wouldst rescue this man even now. 'No! protested Defarge. 'Not if to lift this glass would do it! But I would leave the matter there. I say, stop there. 'See you then, Jacques, said Madame Defarge, wrathfully 'and see you, too, my little Vengeance see you both! Listen! For other crimes as tyrants and oppressors, I have this race a long time on my register, doomed to destruction and extermination. Ask my husband, is that so. 'It is so, assented Defarge, without being asked. 'In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds this paper of today, and he brings it home, and in the middle of the night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot, by the light of this lamp. Ask him, is that so. 'It is so, assented Defarge. 'That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the lamp is burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those shutters and between those iron bars, that I have now a secret to communicate. Ask him, is that so. 'It is so, assented Defarge again. 'I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom with these two hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, 'Defarge, I was brought up among the fishermen of the seashore, and that peasant family so injured by the two Evrmonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sister's husband, that unborn child was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me!' Ask him, is that so. 'It is so, assented Defarge once more. 'Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop, returned madame 'but don't tell me. Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature of her wraththe listener could feel how white she was, without seeing herand both highly commended it. Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis but only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. 'Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop not me! Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The English customer paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted his change, and asked, as a stranger, to be directed towards the National Palace. Madame Defarge took him to the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing out the road. The English customer was not without his reflections then, that it might be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp and deep. But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the prison wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged from it to present himself in Mr. Lorry's room again, where he found the old gentleman walking to and fro in restless anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie until just now, and had only left her for a few minutes, to come and keep his appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted the bankinghouse towards four o'clock. She had some faint hopes that his mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He had been more than five hours gone where could he be? Mr. Lorry waited until ten but, Doctor Manette not returning, and he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was arranged that he should go back to her, and come to the bankinghouse again at midnight. In the meanwhile, Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor. He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve but Doctor Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings of him, and brought none. Where could he be? They were discussing this question, and were almost building up some weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when they heard him on the stairs. The instant he entered the room, it was plain that all was lost. Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had been all that time traversing the streets, was never known. As he stood staring at them, they asked him no question, for his face told them everything. 'I cannot find it, said he, 'and I must have it. Where is it? His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor. 'Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I can't find it. What have they done with my work? Time presses I must finish those shoes. They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them. 'Come, come! said he, in a whimpering miserable way 'let me get to work. Give me my work. Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon the ground, like a distracted child. 'Don't torture a poor forlorn wretch, he implored them, with a dreadful cry 'but give me my work! What is to become of us, if those shoes are not done tonight? Lost, utterly lost! It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore him, thatas if by agreementthey each put a hand upon his shoulder, and soothed him to sit down before the fire, with a promise that he should have his work presently. He sank into the chair, and brooded over the embers, and shed tears. As if all that had happened since the garret time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping. Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by this spectacle of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. His lonely daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with one meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak 'The last chance is gone it was not much. Yes he had better be taken to her. But, before you go, will you, for a moment, steadily attend to me? Don't ask me why I make the stipulations I am going to make, and exact the promise I am going to exact I have a reasona good one. 'I do not doubt it, answered Mr. Lorry. 'Say on. The figure in the chair between them, was all the time monotonously rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke in such a tone as they would have used if they had been watching by a sickbed in the night. Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost entangling his feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor was accustomed to carry the lists of his day's duties, fell lightly on the floor. Carton took it up, and there was a folded paper in it. 'We should look at this! he said. Mr. Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and exclaimed, 'Thank God! 'What is it? asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly. 'A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First, he put his hand in his coat, and took another paper from it, 'that is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You seeSydney Carton, an Englishman? Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest face. 'Keep it for me until tomorrow. I shall see him tomorrow, you remember, and I had better not take it into the prison. 'Why not? 'I don't know I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper that Doctor Manette has carried about him. It is a similar certificate, enabling him and his daughter and her child, at any time, to pass the barrier and the frontier! You see? 'Yes! 'Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution against evil, yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter don't stay to look put it up carefully with mine and your own. Now, observe! I never doubted until within this hour or two, that he had, or could have such a paper. It is good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have reason to think, will be. 'They are not in danger? 'They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunciation by Madame Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I have overheard words of that woman's, tonight, which have presented their danger to me in strong colours. I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He confirms me. He knows that a woodsawyer, living by the prison wall, is under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by Madame Defarge as to his having seen Herhe never mentioned Lucie's name'making signs and signals to prisoners. It is easy to foresee that the pretence will be the common one, a prison plot, and that it will involve her lifeand perhaps her child'sand perhaps her father'sfor both have been seen with her at that place. Don't look so horrified. You will save them all. 'Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how? 'I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place until after tomorrow probably not until two or three days afterwards more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to add that strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure. You follow me? 'So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that for the moment I lose sight, touching the back of the Doctor's chair, 'even of this distress. 'You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to the seacoast as quickly as the journey can be made. Your preparations have been completed for some days, to return to England. Early tomorrow have your horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two o'clock in the afternoon. 'It shall be done! His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry caught the flame, and was as quick as youth. 'You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon no better man? Tell her, tonight, what you know of her danger as involving her child and her father. Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own fair head beside her husband's cheerfully. He faltered for an instant then went on as before. 'For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that hour. Tell her that it was her husband's last arrangement. Tell her that more depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You think that her father, even in this sad state, will submit himself to her do you not? 'I am sure of it. 'I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in the courtyard here, even to the taking of your own seat in the carriage. The moment I come to you, take me in, and drive away. 'I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances? 'You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have my place occupied, and then for England! 'Why, then, said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and steady hand, 'it does not all depend on one old man, but I shall have a young and ardent man at my side. 'By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly that nothing will influence you to alter the course on which we now stand pledged to one another. 'Nothing, Carton. 'Remember these words tomorrow change the course, or delay in itfor any reasonand no life can possibly be saved, and many lives must inevitably be sacrificed. 'I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully. 'And I hope to do mine. Now, good bye! Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and though he even put the old man's hand to his lips, he did not part from him then. He helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers, as to get a cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it to the courtyard of the house where the afflicted heartso happy in the memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to itoutwatched the awful night. He entered the courtyard and remained there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and a Farewell. In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day awaited their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year. Fiftytwo were to roll that afternoon on the lifetide of the city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before their cells were quit of them, new occupants were appointed before their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that was to mingle with theirs tomorrow was already set apart. Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmergeneral of seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally without distinction. Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could avail him nothing. Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen by gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there and when he brought his strength to bear on that hand and it yielded, this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, a turbulent and heated working of his heart, that contended against resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and child who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a selfish thing. But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same road wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate him. Next followed the thought that much of the future peace of mind enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, by degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down. Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means of writing, and a light, he sat down to write until such time as the prison lamps should be extinguished. He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known nothing of her father's imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself, and that he had been as ignorant as she of his father's and uncle's responsibility for that misery, until the paper had been read. He had already explained to her that his concealment from herself of the name he had relinquished, was the one conditionfully intelligible nowthat her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated her, for her father's sake, never to seek to know whether her father had become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had had it recalled to him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the Tower, on that old Sunday under the dear old planetree in the garden. If he had preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no mention of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace had discovered there, and which had been described to all the world. He besought herthough he added that he knew it was needlessto console her father, by impressing him through every tender means she could think of, with the truth that he had done nothing for which he could justly reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her father. To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain but, he told her father that he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And he told him this, very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any despondency or dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be tending. To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly affairs. That done, with many added sentences of grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was done. He never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the others, that he never once thought of him. He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this world. But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho (though it had nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably released and light of heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had happened, until it flashed upon his mind, 'this is the day of my death! Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fiftytwo heads were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that he could meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking thoughts, which was very difficult to master. He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed red, which way his face would be turned, whether he would be the first, or might be the last these and many similar questions, in nowise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless times. Neither were they connected with fear he was conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what to do when the time came a desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments to which it referred a wondering that was more like the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own. The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for himself and for them. Twelve gone for ever. He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very different man from the prisoner, who had walked to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck away from him, without surprise. The hour had measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered selfpossession, he thought, 'There is but another now, and turned to walk again. Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped. The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in English 'He has never seen me here I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone I wait near. Lose no time! The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his features, and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton. There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of his own imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice he took the prisoner's hand, and it was his real grasp. 'Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me? he said. 'I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You are notthe apprehension came suddenly into his mind'a prisoner? 'No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from heryour wife, dear Darnay. The prisoner wrung his hand. 'I bring you a request from her. 'What is it? 'A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well remember. The prisoner turned his face partly aside. 'You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means I have no time to tell you. You must comply with ittake off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine. There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood over him, barefoot. 'Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them put your will to them. Quick! 'Carton, there is no escaping from this place it never can be done. You will only die with me. It is madness. 'It would be madness if I asked you to escape but do I? When I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. Change that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like this of mine! With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young child in his hands. 'Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accomplished, it never can be done, it has been attempted, and has always failed. I implore you not to add your death to the bitterness of mine. 'Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand steady enough to write? 'It was when you came in. 'Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick! Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him. 'Write exactly as I speak. 'To whom do I address it? 'To no one. Carton still had his hand in his breast. 'Do I date it? 'No. The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, standing over him with his hand in his breast, looked down. ''If you remember,' said Carton, dictating, ''the words that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it. You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.' He was drawing his hand from his breast the prisoner chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon something. 'Have you written 'forget them'? Carton asked. 'I have. Is that a weapon in your hand? 'No I am not armed. 'What is it in your hand? 'You shall know directly. Write on there are but a few words more. He dictated again. ''I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.' As he said these words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer's face. The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers on the table, and he looked about him vacantly. 'What vapour is that? he asked. 'Vapour? 'Something that crossed me? 'I am conscious of nothing there can be nothing here. Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry! As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Cartonhis hand again in his breastlooked steadily at him. 'Hurry, hurry! The prisoner bent over the paper, once more. ''If it had been otherwise' Carton's hand was again watchfully and softly stealing down ''I never should have used the longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise' the hand was at the prisoner's face ''I should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been otherwise' Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into unintelligible signs. Carton's hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton's hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton's left arm caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for him but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on the ground. Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he softly called, 'Enter there! Come in! and the Spy presented himself. 'You see? said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast 'is your hazard very great? 'Mr. Carton, the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, 'my hazard is not that, in the thick of business here, if you are true to the whole of your bargain. 'Don't fear me. I will be true to the death. 'You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fiftytwo is to be right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear. 'Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assistance and take me to the coach. 'You? said the Spy nervously. 'Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which you brought me in? 'Of course. 'I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now you take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands. Quick! Call assistance! 'You swear not to betray me? said the trembling Spy, as he paused for a last moment. 'Man, man! returned Carton, stamping his foot 'have I sworn by no solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the precious moments now? Take him yourself to the courtyard you know of, place him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember my words of last night, and his promise of last night, and drive away! The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men. 'How, then? said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. 'So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine? 'A good patriot, said the other, 'could hardly have been more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank. They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. 'The time is short, Evrmonde, said the Spy, in a warning voice. 'I know it well, answered Carton. 'Be careful of my friend, I entreat you, and leave me. 'Come, then, my children, said Barsad. 'Lift him, and come away! The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant passages no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, 'Follow me, Evrmonde! and he followed into a large dark room, at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were standing some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground. As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fiftytwo were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of discovery but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. 'Citizen Evrmonde, she said, touching him with her cold hand. 'I am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force. He murmured for answer 'True. I forget what you were accused of? 'Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me? The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears started from his eyes. 'I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrmonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evrmonde. Such a poor weak little creature! As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. 'I heard you were released, Citizen Evrmonde. I hoped it was true? 'It was. But, I was again taken and condemned. 'If I may ride with you, Citizen Evrmonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage. As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the workworn, hungerworn young fingers, and touched his lips. 'Are you dying for him? she whispered. 'And his wife and child. Hush! Yes. 'O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger? 'Hush! Yes, my poor sister to the last. The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined. 'Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers! The papers are handed out, and read. 'Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he? This is he this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wandering old man pointed out. 'Apparently the CitizenDoctor is not in his right mind? The Revolutionfever will have been too much for him? Greatly too much for him. 'Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which is she? This is she. 'Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evrmonde is it not? It is. 'Hah! Evrmonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English. This is she? She and no other. 'Kiss me, child of Evrmonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican something new in thy family remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. English. Which is he? He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out. 'Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon? It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is under the displeasure of the Republic. 'Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he? 'I am he. Necessarily, being the last. It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it carries on the roof the countrypeople hanging about, press nearer to the coach doors and greedily stare in a little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine. 'Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned. 'One can depart, citizen? 'One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey! 'I salute you, citizens.And the first danger passed! These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller. 'Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster? asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. 'It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much it would rouse suspicion. 'Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! 'The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued. Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dyeworks, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us sometimes, we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and runninghidingdoing anything but stopping. Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary farms, dyeworks, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! the postinghouse. Leisurely, our four horses are taken out leisurely, the coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of ever moving again leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, one by one leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pursued? 'Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then! 'What is it? asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. 'How many did they say? 'I do not understand you. 'At the last post. How many to the Guillotine today? 'Fiftytwo. 'I said so! A brave number! My fellowcitizen here would have it fortytwo ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop! The night comes on dark. He moves more he is beginning to revive, and to speak intelligibly he thinks they are still together he asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued. The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else. In that same juncture of time when the FiftyTwo awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wineshop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the woodsawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited. 'But our Defarge, said Jacques Three, 'is undoubtedly a good Republican? Eh? 'There is no better, the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill notes, 'in France. 'Peace, little Vengeance, said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant's lips, 'hear me speak. My husband, fellowcitizen, is a good Republican and a bold man he has deserved well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor. 'It is a great pity, croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth 'it is not quite like a good citizen it is a thing to regret. 'See you, said madame, 'I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him it is all one to me. But, the Evrmonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father. 'She has a fine head for it, croaked Jacques Three. 'I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held them up. Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure. Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. 'The child also, observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of his words, 'has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child there. It is a pretty sight! 'In a word, said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction, 'I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, and then they might escape. 'That must never be, croaked Jacques Three 'no one must escape. We have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day. 'In a word, Madame Defarge went on, 'my husband has not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, therefore. Come hither, little citizen. The woodsawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap. 'Touching those signals, little citizen, said Madame Defarge, sternly, 'that she made to the prisoners you are ready to bear witness to them this very day? 'Ay, ay, why not! cried the sawyer. 'Every day, in all weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen with my eyes. He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never seen. 'Clearly plots, said Jacques Three. 'Transparently! 'There is no doubt of the Jury? inquired Madame Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. 'Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my fellowJurymen. 'Now, let me see, said Madame Defarge, pondering again. 'Yet once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him? 'He would count as one head, observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. 'We really have not heads enough it would be a pity, I think. 'He was signalling with her when I saw her, argued Madame Defarge 'I cannot speak of one without the other and I must not be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a bad witness. The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness. 'He must take his chance, said Madame Defarge. 'No, I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o'clock you are going to see the batch of today executed.You? The question was addressed to the woodsawyer, who hurriedly replied in the affirmative seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of Madame Defarge's head) of having his small individual fears for his own personal safety, every hour in the day. 'I, said madame, 'am equally engaged at the same place. After it is oversay at eight tonightcome you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people at my Section. The woodsawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his confusion over the handle of his saw. Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus 'She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She will be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to impeach the justice of the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her. 'What an admirable woman what an adorable woman! exclaimed Jacques Three, rapturously. 'Ah, my cherished! cried The Vengeance and embraced her. 'Take you my knitting, said Madame Defarge, placing it in her lieutenant's hands, 'and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, for there will probably be a greater concourse than usual, today. 'I willingly obey the orders of my Chief, said The Vengeance with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. 'You will not be late? 'I shall be there before the commencement. 'And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul, said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street, 'before the tumbrils arrive! Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments. There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her. It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself nor, if she had been ordered to the axe tomorrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who sent her there. Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, barefoot and barelegged, on the brown seasand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry's attention. It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining it and its passengers, should be reduced to the utmost since their escape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and there. Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, should leave it at three o'clock in the lightestwheeled conveyance known to that period. Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded. Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had beheld the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had passed some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the elsedeserted lodging in which they held their consultation. 'Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher, said Miss Pross, whose agitation was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live 'what do you think of our not starting from this courtyard? Another carriage having already gone from here today, it might awaken suspicion. 'My opinion, miss, returned Mr. Cruncher, 'is as you're right. Likewise wot I'll stand by you, right or wrong. 'I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures, said Miss Pross, wildly crying, 'that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are you capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher? 'Respectin' a future spear o' life, miss, returned Mr. Cruncher, 'I hope so. Respectin' any present use o' this here blessed old head o' mine, I think not. Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o' two promises and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here crisis? 'Oh, for gracious sake! cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, 'record them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man. 'First, said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, 'them poor things well out o' this, never no more will I do it, never no more! 'I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher, returned Miss Pross, 'that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it necessary to mention more particularly what it is. 'No, miss, returned Jerry, 'it shall not be named to you. Second them poor things well out o' this, and never no more will I interfere with Mrs. Cruncher's flopping, never no more! 'Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be, said Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, 'I have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own superintendence.O my poor darlings! 'I go so far as to say, miss, moreover, proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit'and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourselfthat wot my opinions respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time. 'There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man, cried the distracted Miss Pross, 'and I hope she finds it answering her expectations. 'Forbid it, proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity, additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold out, 'as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! Forbid it as we shouldn't all flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get 'em out o' this here dismal risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, forbid it! This was Mr. Cruncher's conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one. And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer and nearer. 'If we ever get back to our native land, said Miss Pross, 'you may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and understand of what you have so impressively said and at all events you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr. Cruncher, let us think! Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer and nearer. 'If you were to go before, said Miss Pross, 'and stop the vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me wouldn't that be best? Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. 'Where could you wait for me? asked Miss Pross. Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame Defarge was drawing very near indeed. 'By the cathedral door, said Miss Pross. 'Would it be much out of the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two towers? 'No, miss, answered Mr. Cruncher. 'Then, like the best of men, said Miss Pross, 'go to the postinghouse straight, and make that change. 'I am doubtful, said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head, 'about leaving of you, you see. We don't know what may happen. 'Heaven knows we don't, returned Miss Pross, 'but have no fear for me. Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o'Clock, or as near it as you can, and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. I feel certain of it. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Thinknot of me, but of the lives that may depend on both of us! This exordium, and Miss Pross's two hands in quite agonised entreaty clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, he immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself to follow as she had proposed. The having originated a precaution which was already in course of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of composing her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once. Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted rooms, and of halfimagined faces peeping from behind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes, which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see that there was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure standing in the room. The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water. Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, 'The wife of Evrmonde where is she? It flashed upon Miss Pross's mind that the doors were all standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. There were four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied. Madame Defarge's dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful about her years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her appearance but, she too was a determined woman in her different way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch. 'You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer, said Miss Pross, in her breathing. 'Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman. Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of Miss Pross's own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that Miss Pross was the family's devoted friend Miss Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge was the family's malevolent enemy. 'On my way yonder, said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, 'where they reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her. 'I know that your intentions are evil, said Miss Pross, 'and you may depend upon it, I'll hold my own against them. Each spoke in her own language neither understood the other's words both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant. 'It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this moment, said Madame Defarge. 'Good patriots will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear? 'If those eyes of yours were bedwinches, returned Miss Pross, 'and I was an English fourposter, they shouldn't loose a splinter of me. No, you wicked foreign woman I am your match. Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in detail but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set at naught. 'Woman imbecile and piglike! said Madame Defarge, frowning. 'I take no answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her! This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm. 'I little thought, said Miss Pross, 'that I should ever want to understand your nonsensical language but I would give all I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it. Neither of them for a single moment released the other's eyes. Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her but, she now advanced one step. 'I am a Briton, said Miss Pross, 'I am desperate. I don't care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I'll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me! Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life. But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. 'Ha, ha! she laughed, 'you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that Doctor. Then she raised her voice and called out, 'Citizen Doctor! Wife of Evrmonde! Child of Evrmonde! Any person but this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge! Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the expression of Miss Pross's face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in. 'Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind you! Let me look. 'Never! said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer. 'If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and brought back, said Madame Defarge to herself. 'As long as you don't know whether they are in that room or not, you are uncertain what to do, said Miss Pross to herself 'and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your knowing it and know that, or not know that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you. 'I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door, said Madame Defarge. 'We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling, said Miss Pross. Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her face but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman. Soon, Madame Defarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled waist. 'It is under my arm, said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, 'you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold you till one or other of us faints or dies! Madame Defarge's hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood aloneblinded with smoke. All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground. In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door again but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of gripping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a hundred ways. In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort appeared, took her in, and took her away. 'Is there any noise in the streets? she asked him. 'The usual noises, Mr. Cruncher replied and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect. 'I don't hear you, said Miss Pross. 'What do you say? It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said Miss Pross could not hear him. 'So I'll nod my head, thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, 'at all events she'll see that. And she did. 'Is there any noise in the streets now? asked Miss Pross again, presently. Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. 'I don't hear it. 'Gone deaf in an hour? said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind much disturbed 'wot's come to her? 'I feel, said Miss Pross, 'as if there had been a flash and a crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life. 'Blest if she ain't in a queer condition! said Mr. Cruncher, more and more disturbed. 'Wot can she have been a takin', to keep her courage up? Hark! There's the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss? 'I can hear, said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, 'nothing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my life lasts. 'If she don't hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their journey's end, said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, 'it's my opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world. And indeed she never did. Along the Paris streets, the deathcarts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. 'If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God, say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, 'then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect! Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound. On the steps of a church, awaiting the comingup of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prisonsheep. He looks into the first of them not there. He looks into the second not there. He already asks himself, 'Has he sacrificed me? when his face clears, as he looks into the third. 'Which is Evrmonde? says a man behind him. 'That. At the back there. 'With his hand in the girl's? 'Yes. The man cries, 'Down, Evrmonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evrmonde! 'Hush, hush! the Spy entreats him, timidly. 'And why not, citizen? 'He is going to pay the forfeit it will be paid in five minutes more. Let him be at peace. But the man continuing to exclaim, 'Down, Evrmonde! the face of Evrmonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evrmonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the foremost chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. 'Thrse! she cries, in her shrill tones. 'Who has seen her? Thrse Defarge! 'She never missed before, says a knittingwoman of the sisterhood. 'No nor will she miss now, cries The Vengeance, petulantly. 'Thrse. 'Louder, the woman recommends. Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her! 'Bad Fortune! cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, 'and here are the tumbrils! And Evrmonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment! As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!A head is held up, and the knittingwomen who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. The second tumbril empties and moves on the third comes up. Crash!And the knittingwomen, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two. The supposed Evrmonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. 'But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here today. I think you were sent to me by Heaven. 'Or you to me, says Sydney Carton. 'Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object. 'I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid. 'They will be rapid. Fear not! The two stand in the fastthinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. 'Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles mejust a little. 'Tell me what it is. 'I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fatefor I cannot writeand if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it is. 'Yes, yes better as it is. 'What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is thisIf the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time she may even live to be old. 'What then, my gentle sister? 'Do you think the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble 'that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered? 'It cannot be, my child there is no Time there, and no trouble there. 'You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come? 'Yes. She kisses his lips he kisses hers they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before himis gone the knittingwomen count TwentyTwo. 'I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. TwentyThree. They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axea womanhad asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these 'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. 'I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. 'I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both. 'I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this placethen fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurementand I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
'The Signora had no business to do it, said Miss Bartlett, 'no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy! 'And a Cockney, besides! said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora's unexpected accent. 'It might be London. She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table at the row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the English people at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed at the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that was the only other decoration of the wall. 'Charlotte, don't you feel, too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of other things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired. 'This meat has surely been used for soup, said Miss Bartlett, laying down her fork. 'I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to do it at all. Oh, it is a shame! 'Any nook does for me, Miss Bartlett continued 'but it does seem hard that you shouldn't have a view. Lucy felt that she had been selfish. 'Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first vacant room in the front 'You must have it, said Miss Bartlett, part of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mothera piece of generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion. 'No, no. You must have it. 'I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy. 'She would never forgive me. The ladies' voices grew animated, andif the sad truth be owneda little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one of themone of the illbred people whom one does meet abroadleant forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He said 'I have a view, I have a view. Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that they would 'do till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was illbred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility. What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then said 'A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is! 'This is my son, said the old man 'his name's George. He has a view too. 'Ah, said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak. 'What I mean, he continued, 'is that you can have our rooms, and we'll have yours. We'll change. The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with the newcomers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little as possible, and said 'Thank you very much indeed that is out of the question. 'Why? said the old man, with both fists on the table. 'Because it is quite out of the question, thank you. 'You see, we don't like to take began Lucy. Her cousin again repressed her. 'But why? he persisted. 'Women like looking at a view men don't. And he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son, saying, 'George, persuade them! 'It's so obvious they should have the rooms, said the son. 'There's nothing else to say. He did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed and sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed but she saw that they were in for what is known as 'quite a scene, and she had an odd feeling that whenever these illbred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened till it dealt, not with rooms and views, but withwell, with something quite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently Why should she not change? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half an hour. Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as much as to say, 'Are you all like this? And two little old ladies, who were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating 'We are not we are genteel. 'Eat your dinner, dear, she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with the meat that she had once censured. Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite. 'Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. Tomorrow we will make a change. Hardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout but attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table, cheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming 'Oh, oh! Why, it's Mr. Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now, however bad the rooms are. Oh! Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint 'How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you helped the Vicar of St. Peter's that very cold Easter. The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember the ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by Lucy. 'I am so glad to see you, said the girl, who was in a state of spiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if her cousin had permitted it. 'Just fancy how small the world is. Summer Street, too, makes it so specially funny. 'Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street, said Miss Bartlett, filling up the gap, 'and she happened to tell me in the course of conversation that you have just accepted the living 'Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn't know that I knew you at Tunbridge Wells but I wrote back at once, and I said 'Mr. Beebe is' 'Quite right, said the clergyman. 'I move into the Rectory at Summer Street next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming neighbourhood. 'Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner. Mr. Beebe bowed. 'There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it's not often we get him to ch The church is rather far off, I mean. 'Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner. 'I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it. He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the girl whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length that she had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a newcomer, and he was first in the field. 'Don't neglect the country round, his advice concluded. 'The first fine afternoon drive up to Fiesole, and round by Settignano, or something of that sort. 'No! cried a voice from the top of the table. 'Mr. Beebe, you are wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato. 'That lady looks so clever, whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. 'We are in luck. And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People told them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how much the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had decided, almost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way they looked, kind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose the voice of the clever lady, crying 'Prato! They must go to Prato. That place is too sweetly squalid for words. I love it I revel in shaking off the trammels of respectability, as you know. The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then returned moodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do. Lucy, in the midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave her no extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold and when she rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous little bow. The father did not see it the son acknowledged it, not by another bow, but by raising his eyebrows and smiling he seemed to be smiling across something. She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the curtainscurtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing goodevening to her guests, and supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this attempt of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South. And even more curious was the drawingroom, which attempted to rival the solid comfort of a Bloomsbury boardinghouse. Was this really Italy? Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed armchair, which had the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr. Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some invisible obstacle. 'We are most grateful to you, she was saying. 'The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a peculiarly mauvais quart d'heure. He expressed his regret. 'Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us at dinner? 'Emerson. 'Is he a friend of yours? 'We are friendlyas one is in pensions. 'Then I will say no more. He pressed her very slightly, and she said more. 'I am, as it were, she concluded, 'the chaperon of my young cousin, Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate. I hope I acted for the best. 'You acted very naturally, said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after a few moments added 'All the same, I don't think much harm would have come of accepting. 'No harm, of course. But we could not be under an obligation. 'He is rather a peculiar man. Again he hesitated, and then said gently 'I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you to show gratitude. He has the meritif it is oneof saying exactly what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficultat least, I find it difficultto understand people who speak the truth. Lucy was pleased, and said 'I was hoping that he was nice I do so always hope that people will be nice. 'I think he is nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every point of any importance, and so, I expectI may say I hopeyou will differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no tact and no mannersI don't mean by that that he has bad mannersand he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of it. 'Am I to conclude, said Miss Bartlett, 'that he is a Socialist? Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching of the lips. 'And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too? 'I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist. 'Oh, you relieve me, said Miss Bartlett. 'So you think I ought to have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrowminded and suspicious? 'Not at all, he answered 'I never suggested that. 'But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness? He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary, and got up from his seat to go to the smokingroom. 'Was I a bore? said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. 'Why didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as well as all dinnertime. 'He is nice, exclaimed Lucy. 'Just what I remember. He seems to see good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman. 'My dear Lucia 'Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man. 'Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will approve of Mr. Beebe. 'I'm sure she will and so will Freddy. 'I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve it is the fashionable world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind the times. 'Yes, said Lucy despondently. There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added 'I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion. And the girl again thought 'I must have been selfish or unkind I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor. Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bedroom windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the waterbottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else. 'But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English. 'Yet our rooms smell, said poor Lucy. 'We dread going to bed. 'Ah, then you look into the court. She sighed. 'If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner. 'I think he was meaning to be kind. 'Undoubtedly he was, said Miss Bartlett. 'Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account. 'Of course, said the little old lady and they murmured that one could not be too careful with a young girl. Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No one was careful with her at home or, at all events, she had not noticed it. 'About old Mr. EmersonI hardly know. No, he is not tactful yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same timebeautiful? 'Beautiful? said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. 'Are not beauty and delicacy the same? 'So one would have thought, said the other helplessly. 'But things are so difficult, I sometimes think. She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking extremely pleasant. 'Miss Bartlett, he cried, 'it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad. Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smokingroom, and knowing what I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and ask you. He would be so pleased. 'Oh, Charlotte, cried Lucy to her cousin, 'we must have the rooms now. The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be. Miss Bartlett was silent. 'I fear, said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, 'that I have been officious. I must apologize for my interference. Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett reply 'My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then, Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally? She raised her voice as she spoke it was heard all over the drawingroom, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with her message. 'Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events. Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously 'Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead. The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the floor, so low were their chairs. 'My father, he said, 'is in his bath, so you cannot thank him personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to him as soon as he comes out. Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy. 'Poor young man! said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone. 'How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to keep polite. 'In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready, said Mr. Beebe. Then looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own rooms, to write up his philosophic diary. 'Oh, dear! breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the winds of heaven had entered the apartment. 'Gentlemen sometimes do not realize Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was reduced to literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern Italy, she committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History. For she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the halfhour crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a sigh, and said 'I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will superintend the move. 'How you do do everything, said Lucy. 'Naturally, dear. It is my affair. 'But I would like to help you. 'No, dear. Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yetthere was a rebellious spirit in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room without any feeling of joy. 'I want to explain, said Miss Bartlett, 'why it is that I have taken the largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you but I happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure your mother would not like it. Lucy was bewildered. 'If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under an obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in my small way, and I know where things lead to. However, Mr. Beebe is a guarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this. 'Mother wouldn't mind I'm sure, said Lucy, but again had the sense of larger and unsuspected issues. Miss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as she wished her goodnight. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and when she reached her own room she opened the window and breathed the clean night air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to see the lights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato, and the foothills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon. Miss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the windowshutters and locked the door, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards led, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was then that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on which was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more. 'What does it mean? she thought, and she examined it carefully by the light of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing, obnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to destroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so, since it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it carefully, and put it between two pieces of blottingpaper to keep it clean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed heavily according to her habit, and went to bed. It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road. Over the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the sandy foreshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently employed for some mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the window. No one was inside it, except one tourist but its platforms were overflowing with Italians, who preferred to stand. Children tried to hang on behind, and the conductor, with no malice, spat in their faces to make them let go. Then soldiers appearedgoodlooking, undersized menwearing each a knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a greatcoat which had been cut for some larger soldier. Beside them walked officers, looking foolish and fierce, and before them went little boys, turning somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar became entangled in their ranks, and moved on painfully, like a caterpillar in a swarm of ants. One of the little boys fell down, and some white bullocks came out of an archway. Indeed, if it had not been for the good advice of an old man who was selling buttonhooks, the road might never have got clear. Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away, and the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it. So it was as well that Miss Bartlett should tap and come in, and having commented on Lucy's leaving the door unlocked, and on her leaning out of the window before she was fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself, or the best of the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her cousin had done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady among the crumbs. A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett was, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the morning settling in unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy would rather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but, of course, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not Lucy would stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes! At this point the clever lady broke in. 'If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you can neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch will be perfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of mine, Contessa Baroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot send a maid to school with them, she lets them go in sailorhats instead. Every one takes them for English, you see, especially if their hair is strained tightly behind. Miss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa Baroncelli's daughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself, her head not being so very bad. The clever lady then said that she was going to spend a long morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy would come too, she would be delighted. 'I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and if you bring me luck, we shall have an adventure. Lucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the Baedeker, to see where Santa Croce was. 'Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true Italyhe does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by patient observation. This sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her breakfast, and started with her new friend in high spirits. Italy was coming at last. The Cockney Signora and her works had vanished like a bad dream. Miss Lavishfor that was the clever lady's nameturned to the right along the sunny Lung' Arno. How delightfully warm! But a wind down the side streets cut like a knife, didn't it? Ponte alle Grazieparticularly interesting, mentioned by Dante. San Miniatobeautiful as well as interesting the crucifix that kissed a murdererMiss Honeychurch would remember the story. The men on the river were fishing. (Untrue but then, so is most information.) Then Miss Lavish darted under the archway of the white bullocks, and she stopped, and she cried 'A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has its own smell. 'Is it a very nice smell? said Lucy, who had inherited from her mother a distaste to dirt. 'One doesn't come to Italy for niceness, was the retort 'one comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno! bowing right and left. 'Look at that adorable winecart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple soul! So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence, short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten's grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so cheerful and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears, only increased the sense of festivity. 'Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy you will never repent of a little civility to your inferiors. That is the true democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now you're shocked. 'Indeed, I'm not! exclaimed Lucy. 'We are Radicals, too, out and out. My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful about Ireland. 'I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy. 'Oh, please! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote Radical again now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the glass over our front door was broken last election, and Freddy is sure it was the Tories but mother says nonsense, a tramp. 'Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose? 'Noin the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking over the Weald. Miss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot. 'What a delightful part I know it so well. It is full of the very nicest people. Do you know Sir Harry Otwaya Radical if ever there was? 'Very well indeed. 'And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist? 'Why, she rents a field of us! How funny! Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured 'Oh, you have property in Surrey? 'Hardly any, said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. 'Only thirty acresjust the garden, all downhill, and some fields. Miss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of her aunt's Suffolk estate. Italy receded. They tried to remember the last name of Lady Louisa someone, who had taken a house near Summer Street the other year, but she had not liked it, which was odd of her. And just as Miss Lavish had got the name, she broke off and exclaimed 'Bless us! Bless us and save us! We've lost the way. Certainly they had seemed a long time in reaching Santa Croce, the tower of which had been plainly visible from the landing window. But Miss Lavish had said so much about knowing her Florence by heart, that Lucy had followed her with no misgivings. 'Lost! lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we have taken a wrong turning. How those horrid Conservatives would jeer at us! What are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown town. Now, this is what I call an adventure. Lucy, who wanted to see Santa Croce, suggested, as a possible solution, that they should ask the way there. 'Oh, but that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not, not to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me I shan't let you carry it. We will simply drift. Accordingly they drifted through a series of those greybrown streets, neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady Louisa, and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy appeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the living terracotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can ever stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from the garments of charity, and their strong white arms extended against circlets of heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more beautiful but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her forward, declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a mile. The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly of the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the great unknown. But it gave them strength to drift into another Piazza, large and dusty, on the farther side of which rose a blackandwhite faade of surpassing ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It was Santa Croce. The adventure was over. 'Stop a minute let those two people go on, or I shall have to speak to them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they are going into the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad! 'We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us their rooms. They were so very kind. 'Look at their figures! laughed Miss Lavish. 'They walk through my Italy like a pair of cows. It's very naughty of me, but I would like to set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who couldn't pass it. 'What would you ask us? Miss Lavish laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy's arm, as if to suggest that she, at all events, would get full marks. In this exalted mood they reached the steps of the great church, and were about to enter it when Miss Lavish stopped, squeaked, flung up her arms, and cried 'There goes my localcolour box! I must have a word with him! And in a moment she was away over the Piazza, her military cloak flapping in the wind nor did she slacken speed till she caught up an old man with white whiskers, and nipped him playfully upon the arm. Lucy waited for nearly ten minutes. Then she began to get tired. The beggars worried her, the dust blew in her eyes, and she remembered that a young girl ought not to loiter in public places. She descended slowly into the Piazza with the intention of rejoining Miss Lavish, who was really almost too original. But at that moment Miss Lavish and her localcolour box moved also, and disappeared down a side street, both gesticulating largely. Tears of indignation came to Lucy's eyes partly because Miss Lavish had jilted her, partly because she had taken her Baedeker. How could she find her way home? How could she find her way about in Santa Croce? Her first morning was ruined, and she might never be in Florence again. A few minutes ago she had been all high spirits, talking as a woman of culture, and half persuading herself that she was full of originality. Now she entered the church depressed and humiliated, not even able to remember whether it was built by the Franciscans or the Dominicans. Of course, it must be a wonderful building. But how like a barn! And how very cold! Of course, it contained frescoes by Giotto, in the presence of whose tactile values she was capable of feeling what was proper. But who was to tell her which they were? She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was no one even to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved the nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful, the one that had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin. Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of acquiring information, she began to be happy. She puzzled out the Italian noticesthe notices that forbade people to introduce dogs into the churchthe notice that prayed people, in the interest of health and out of respect to the sacred edifice in which they found themselves, not to spit. She watched the tourists their noses were as red as their Baedekers, so cold was Santa Croce. She beheld the horrible fate that overtook three Papiststwo hebabies and a shebabywho began their career by sousing each other with the Holy Water, and then proceeded to the Machiavelli memorial, dripping but hallowed. Advancing towards it very slowly and from immense distances, they touched the stone with their fingers, with their handkerchiefs, with their heads, and then retreated. What could this mean? They did it again and again. Then Lucy realized that they had mistaken Machiavelli for some saint, hoping to acquire virtue. Punishment followed quickly. The smallest hebaby stumbled over one of the sepulchral slabs so much admired by Mr. Ruskin, and entangled his feet in the features of a recumbent bishop. Protestant as she was, Lucy darted forward. She was too late. He fell heavily upon the prelate's upturned toes. 'Hateful bishop! exclaimed the voice of old Mr. Emerson, who had darted forward also. 'Hard in life, hard in death. Go out into the sunshine, little boy, and kiss your hand to the sun, for that is where you ought to be. Intolerable bishop! The child screamed frantically at these words, and at these dreadful people who picked him up, dusted him, rubbed his bruises, and told him not to be superstitious. 'Look at him! said Mr. Emerson to Lucy. 'Here's a mess a baby hurt, cold, and frightened! But what else can you expect from a church? The child's legs had become as melting wax. Each time that old Mr. Emerson and Lucy set it erect it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately an Italian lady, who ought to have been saying her prayers, came to the rescue. By some mysterious virtue, which mothers alone possess, she stiffened the little boy's backbone and imparted strength to his knees. He stood. Still gibbering with agitation, he walked away. 'You are a clever woman, said Mr. Emerson. 'You have done more than all the relics in the world. I am not of your creed, but I do believe in those who make their fellowcreatures happy. There is no scheme of the universe He paused for a phrase. 'Niente, said the Italian lady, and returned to her prayers. 'I'm not sure she understands English, suggested Lucy. In her chastened mood she no longer despised the Emersons. She was determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate, and, if possible, to erase Miss Bartlett's civility by some gracious reference to the pleasant rooms. 'That woman understands everything, was Mr. Emerson's reply. 'But what are you doing here? Are you doing the church? Are you through with the church? 'No, cried Lucy, remembering her grievance. 'I came here with Miss Lavish, who was to explain everything and just by the doorit is too bad!she simply ran away, and after waiting quite a time, I had to come in by myself. 'Why shouldn't you? said Mr. Emerson. 'Yes, why shouldn't you come by yourself? said the son, addressing the young lady for the first time. 'But Miss Lavish has even taken away Baedeker. 'Baedeker? said Mr. Emerson. 'I'm glad it's that you minded. It's worth minding, the loss of a Baedeker. That's worth minding. Lucy was puzzled. She was again conscious of some new idea, and was not sure whither it would lead her. 'If you've no Baedeker, said the son, 'you'd better join us. Was this where the idea would lead? She took refuge in her dignity. 'Thank you very much, but I could not think of that. I hope you do not suppose that I came to join on to you. I really came to help with the child, and to thank you for so kindly giving us your rooms last night. I hope that you have not been put to any great inconvenience. 'My dear, said the old man gently, 'I think that you are repeating what you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy but you are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead what part of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a real pleasure. Now, this was abominably impertinent, and she ought to have been furious. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one's temper as it is difficult at other times to keep it. Lucy could not get cross. Mr. Emerson was an old man, and surely a girl might humour him. On the other hand, his son was a young man, and she felt that a girl ought to be offended with him, or at all events be offended before him. It was at him that she gazed before replying. 'I am not touchy, I hope. It is the Giottos that I want to see, if you will kindly tell me which they are. The son nodded. With a look of sombre satisfaction, he led the way to the Peruzzi Chapel. There was a hint of the teacher about him. She felt like a child in school who had answered a question rightly. The chapel was already filled with an earnest congregation, and out of them rose the voice of a lecturer, directing them how to worship Giotto, not by tactful valuations, but by the standards of the spirit. 'Remember, he was saying, 'the facts about this church of Santa Croce how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism, before any taint of the Renaissance had appeared. Observe how Giotto in these frescoesnow, unhappily, ruined by restorationis untroubled by the snares of anatomy and perspective. Could anything be more majestic, more pathetic, beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge and technical cleverness against a man who truly feels! 'No! exclaimed Mr. Emerson, in much too loud a voice for church. 'Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply means the workmen weren't paid properly. And as for the frescoes, I see no truth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must weigh as much as I do, and he is shooting into the sky like an air balloon. He was referring to the fresco of the 'Ascension of St. John. Inside, the lecturer's voice faltered, as well it might. The audience shifted uneasily, and so did Lucy. She was sure that she ought not to be with these men but they had cast a spell over her. They were so serious and so strange that she could not remember how to behave. 'Now, did this happen, or didn't it? Yes or no? George replied 'It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs and if I got there I should like my friends to lean out of it, just as they do here. 'You will never go up, said his father. 'You and I, dear boy, will lie at peace in the earth that bore us, and our names will disappear as surely as our work survives. 'Some of the people can only see the empty grave, not the saint, whoever he is, going up. It did happen like that, if it happened at all. 'Pardon me, said a frigid voice. 'The chapel is somewhat small for two parties. We will incommode you no longer. The lecturer was a clergyman, and his audience must be also his flock, for they held prayerbooks as well as guidebooks in their hands. They filed out of the chapel in silence. Amongst them were the two little old ladies of the Pension BertoliniMiss Teresa and Miss Catherine Alan. 'Stop! cried Mr. Emerson. 'There's plenty of room for us all. Stop! The procession disappeared without a word. Soon the lecturer could be heard in the next chapel, describing the life of St. Francis. 'George, I do believe that clergyman is the Brixton curate. George went into the next chapel and returned, saying 'Perhaps he is. I don't remember. 'Then I had better speak to him and remind him who I am. It's that Mr. Eager. Why did he go? Did we talk too loud? How vexatious. I shall go and say we are sorry. Hadn't I better? Then perhaps he will come back. 'He will not come back, said George. But Mr. Emerson, contrite and unhappy, hurried away to apologize to the Rev. Cuthbert Eager. Lucy, apparently absorbed in a lunette, could hear the lecture again interrupted, the anxious, aggressive voice of the old man, the curt, injured replies of his opponent. The son, who took every little contretemps as if it were a tragedy, was listening also. 'My father has that effect on nearly everyone, he informed her. 'He will try to be kind. 'I hope we all try, said she, smiling nervously. 'Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to people because he loves them and they find him out, and are offended, or frightened. 'How silly of them! said Lucy, though in her heart she sympathized 'I think that a kind action done tactfully 'Tact! He threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the wrong answer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down the chapel. For a young man his face was rugged, anduntil the shadows fell upon ithard. Enshadowed, it sprang into tenderness. She saw him once again at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, carrying a burden of acorns. Healthy and muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of greyness, of tragedy that might only find solution in the night. The feeling soon passed it was unlike her to have entertained anything so subtle. Born of silence and of unknown emotion, it passed when Mr. Emerson returned, and she could reenter the world of rapid talk, which was alone familiar to her. 'Were you snubbed? asked his son tranquilly. 'But we have spoilt the pleasure of I don't know how many people. They won't come back. '...full of innate sympathy...quickness to perceive good in others...vision of the brotherhood of man... Scraps of the lecture on St. Francis came floating round the partition wall. 'Don't let us spoil yours, he continued to Lucy. 'Have you looked at those saints? 'Yes, said Lucy. 'They are lovely. Do you know which is the tombstone that is praised in Ruskin? He did not know, and suggested that they should try to guess it. George, rather to her relief, refused to move, and she and the old man wandered not unpleasantly about Santa Croce, which, though it is like a barn, has harvested many beautiful things inside its walls. There were also beggars to avoid and guides to dodge round the pillars, and an old lady with her dog, and here and there a priest modestly edging to his Mass through the groups of tourists. But Mr. Emerson was only half interested. He watched the lecturer, whose success he believed he had impaired, and then he anxiously watched his son. 'Why will he look at that fresco? he said uneasily. 'I saw nothing in it. 'I like Giotto, she replied. 'It is so wonderful what they say about his tactile values. Though I like things like the Della Robbia babies better. 'So you ought. A baby is worth a dozen saints. And my baby's worth the whole of Paradise, and as far as I can see he lives in Hell. Lucy again felt that this did not do. 'In Hell, he repeated. 'He's unhappy. 'Oh, dear! said Lucy. 'How can he be unhappy when he is strong and alive? What more is one to give him? And think how he has been brought upfree from all the superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name of God. With such an education as that, I thought he was bound to grow up happy. She was no theologian, but she felt that here was a very foolish old man, as well as a very irreligious one. She also felt that her mother might not like her talking to that kind of person, and that Charlotte would object most strongly. 'What are we to do with him? he asked. 'He comes out for his holiday to Italy, and behaveslike that like the little child who ought to have been playing, and who hurt himself upon the tombstone. Eh? What did you say? Lucy had made no suggestion. Suddenly he said 'Now don't be stupid over this. I don't require you to fall in love with my boy, but I do think you might try and understand him. You are nearer his age, and if you let yourself go I am sure you are sensible. You might help me. He has known so few women, and you have the time. You stop here several weeks, I suppose? But let yourself go. You are inclined to get muddled, if I may judge from last night. Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. It will be good for both of you. To this extraordinary speech Lucy found no answer. 'I only know what it is that's wrong with him not why it is. 'And what is it? asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale. 'The old trouble things won't fit. 'What things? 'The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don't. 'Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean? In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said ''From far, from eve and morning, And yon twelvewinded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither here am I' George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow. Miss Honeychurch assented. 'Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yesa transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes. Suddenly she laughed surely one ought to laugh. A young man melancholy because the universe wouldn't fit, because life was a tangle or a wind, or a Yes, or something! 'I'm very sorry, she cried. 'You'll think me unfeeling, butbut Then she became matronly. 'Oh, but your son wants employment. Has he no particular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can generally forget them at the piano and collecting stamps did no end of good for my brother. Perhaps Italy bores him you ought to try the Alps or the Lakes. The old man's face saddened, and he touched her gently with his hand. This did not alarm her she thought that her advice had impressed him and that he was thanking her for it. Indeed, he no longer alarmed her at all she regarded him as a kind thing, but quite silly. Her feelings were as inflated spiritually as they had been an hour ago esthetically, before she lost Baedeker. The dear George, now striding towards them over the tombstones, seemed both pitiable and absurd. He approached, his face in the shadow. He said 'Miss Bartlett. 'Oh, good gracious me! said Lucy, suddenly collapsing and again seeing the whole of life in a new perspective. 'Where? Where? 'In the nave. 'I see. Those gossiping little Miss Alans must have She checked herself. 'Poor girl! exploded Mr. Emerson. 'Poor girl! She could not let this pass, for it was just what she was feeling herself. 'Poor girl? I fail to understand the point of that remark. I think myself a very fortunate girl, I assure you. I'm thoroughly happy, and having a splendid time. Pray don't waste time mourning over me. There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it. Goodbye. Thank you both so much for all your kindness. Ah, yes! there does come my cousin. A delightful morning! Santa Croce is a wonderful church. She joined her cousin. It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy had done so never. She was no dazzling excutante her runs were not at all like strings of pearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one of her age and situation. Nor was she the passionate young lady, who performs so tragically on a summer's evening with the window open. Passion was there, but it could not be easily labelled it slipped between love and hatred and jealousy, and all the furniture of the pictorial style. And she was tragical only in the sense that she was great, for she loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what and over whatthat is more than the words of daily life can tell us. But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and Lucy had decided that they should triumph. A very wet afternoon at the Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she really liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few people lingered round and praised her playing, but finding that she made no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or to sleep. She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of Miss Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish, nor of Miss Lavish looking for her cigarettecase. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the mere feel of the notes they were fingers caressing her own and by touch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire. Mr. Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window, pondered this illogical element in Miss Honeychurch, and recalled the occasion at Tunbridge Wells when he had discovered it. It was at one of those entertainments where the upper classes entertain the lower. The seats were filled with a respectful audience, and the ladies and gentlemen of the parish, under the auspices of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the drawing of a champagne cork. Among the promised items was 'Miss Honeychurch. Piano. Beethoven, and Mr. Beebe was wondering whether it would be Adelaida, or the march of The Ruins of Athens, when his composure was disturbed by the opening bars of Opus III. He was in suspense all through the introduction, for not until the pace quickens does one know what the performer intends. With the roar of the opening theme he knew that things were going extraordinarily in the chords that herald the conclusion he heard the hammer strokes of victory. He was glad that she only played the first movement, for he could have paid no attention to the winding intricacies of the measures of ninesixteen. The audience clapped, no less respectful. It was Mr. Beebe who started the stamping it was all that one could do. 'Who is she? he asked the vicar afterwards. 'Cousin of one of my parishioners. I do not consider her choice of a piece happy. Beethoven is so usually simple and direct in his appeal that it is sheer perversity to choose a thing like that, which, if anything, disturbs. 'Introduce me. 'She will be delighted. She and Miss Bartlett are full of the praises of your sermon. 'My sermon? cried Mr. Beebe. 'Why ever did she listen to it? When he was introduced he understood why, for Miss Honeychurch, disjoined from her music stool, was only a young lady with a quantity of dark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face. She loved going to concerts, she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee and meringues. He did not doubt that she loved his sermon also. But before he left Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he now made to Lucy herself when she closed the little piano and moved dreamily towards him 'If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her. Lucy at once reentered daily life. 'Oh, what a funny thing! Some one said just the same to mother, and she said she trusted I should never live a duet. 'Doesn't Mrs. Honeychurch like music? 'She doesn't mind it. But she doesn't like one to get excited over anything she thinks I am silly about it. She thinksI can't make out. Once, you know, I said that I liked my own playing better than any one's. She has never got over it. Of course, I didn't mean that I played well I only meant 'Of course, said he, wondering why she bothered to explain. 'Music said Lucy, as if attempting some generality. She could not complete it, and looked out absently upon Italy in the wet. The whole life of the South was disorganized, and the most graceful nation in Europe had turned into formless lumps of clothes. The street and the river were dirty yellow, the bridge was dirty grey, and the hills were dirty purple. Somewhere in their folds were concealed Miss Lavish and Miss Bartlett, who had chosen this afternoon to visit the Torre del Gallo. 'What about music? said Mr. Beebe. 'Poor Charlotte will be sopped, was Lucy's reply. The expedition was typical of Miss Bartlett, who would return cold, tired, hungry, and angelic, with a ruined skirt, a pulpy Baedeker, and a tickling cough in her throat. On another day, when the whole world was singing and the air ran into the mouth, like wine, she would refuse to stir from the drawingroom, saying that she was an old thing, and no fit companion for a hearty girl. 'Miss Lavish has led your cousin astray. She hopes to find the true Italy in the wet I believe. 'Miss Lavish is so original, murmured Lucy. This was a stock remark, the supreme achievement of the Pension Bertolini in the way of definition. Miss Lavish was so original. Mr. Beebe had his doubts, but they would have been put down to clerical narrowness. For that, and for other reasons, he held his peace. 'Is it true, continued Lucy in awestruck tone, 'that Miss Lavish is writing a book? 'They do say so. 'What is it about? 'It will be a novel, replied Mr. Beebe, 'dealing with modern Italy. Let me refer you for an account to Miss Catharine Alan, who uses words herself more admirably than any one I know. 'I wish Miss Lavish would tell me herself. We started such friends. But I don't think she ought to have run away with Baedeker that morning in Santa Croce. Charlotte was most annoyed at finding me practically alone, and so I couldn't help being a little annoyed with Miss Lavish. 'The two ladies, at all events, have made it up. He was interested in the sudden friendship between women so apparently dissimilar as Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish. They were always in each other's company, with Lucy a slighted third. Miss Lavish he believed he understood, but Miss Bartlett might reveal unknown depths of strangeness, though not perhaps, of meaning. Was Italy deflecting her from the path of prim chaperon, which he had assigned to her at Tunbridge Wells? All his life he had loved to study maiden ladies they were his specialty, and his profession had provided him with ample opportunities for the work. Girls like Lucy were charming to look at, but Mr. Beebe was, from rather profound reasons, somewhat chilly in his attitude towards the other sex, and preferred to be interested rather than enthralled. Lucy, for the third time, said that poor Charlotte would be sopped. The Arno was rising in flood, washing away the traces of the little carts upon the foreshore. But in the southwest there had appeared a dull haze of yellow, which might mean better weather if it did not mean worse. She opened the window to inspect, and a cold blast entered the room, drawing a plaintive cry from Miss Catharine Alan, who entered at the same moment by the door. 'Oh, dear Miss Honeychurch, you will catch a chill! And Mr. Beebe here besides. Who would suppose this is Italy? There is my sister actually nursing the hotwater can no comforts or proper provisions. She sidled towards them and sat down, selfconscious as she always was on entering a room which contained one man, or a man and one woman. 'I could hear your beautiful playing, Miss Honeychurch, though I was in my room with the door shut. Doors shut indeed, most necessary. No one has the least idea of privacy in this country. And one person catches it from another. Lucy answered suitably. Mr. Beebe was not able to tell the ladies of his adventure at Modena, where the chambermaid burst in upon him in his bath, exclaiming cheerfully, 'Fa niente, sono vecchia. He contented himself with saying 'I quite agree with you, Miss Alan. The Italians are a most unpleasant people. They pry everywhere, they see everything, and they know what we want before we know it ourselves. We are at their mercy. They read our thoughts, they foretell our desires. From the cabdriver down toto Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent it. Yet in their heart of hearts they arehow superficial! They have no conception of the intellectual life. How right is Signora Bertolini, who exclaimed to me the other day 'Ho, Mr. Beebe, if you knew what I suffer over the children's edjucaishion. Hi won't 'ave my little Victorier taught by a hignorant Italian what can't explain nothink!' Miss Alan did not follow, but gathered that she was being mocked in an agreeable way. Her sister was a little disappointed in Mr. Beebe, having expected better things from a clergyman whose head was bald and who wore a pair of russet whiskers. Indeed, who would have supposed that tolerance, sympathy, and a sense of humour would inhabit that militant form? In the midst of her satisfaction she continued to sidle, and at last the cause was disclosed. From the chair beneath her she extracted a gunmetal cigarettecase, on which were powdered in turquoise the initials 'E. L. 'That belongs to Lavish. said the clergyman. 'A good fellow, Lavish, but I wish she'd start a pipe. 'Oh, Mr. Beebe, said Miss Alan, divided between awe and mirth. 'Indeed, though it is dreadful for her to smoke, it is not quite as dreadful as you suppose. She took to it, practically in despair, after her life's work was carried away in a landslip. Surely that makes it more excusable. 'What was that? asked Lucy. Mr. Beebe sat back complacently, and Miss Alan began as follows 'It was a noveland I am afraid, from what I can gather, not a very nice novel. It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I must say they nearly always do. Anyhow, she left it almost finished in the Grotto of the Calvary at the Capuccini Hotel at Amalfi while she went for a little ink. She said 'Can I have a little ink, please?' But you know what Italians are, and meanwhile the Grotto fell roaring on to the beach, and the saddest thing of all is that she cannot remember what she has written. The poor thing was very ill after it, and so got tempted into cigarettes. It is a great secret, but I am glad to say that she is writing another novel. She told Teresa and Miss Pole the other day that she had got up all the local colourthis novel is to be about modern Italy the other was historicalbut that she could not start till she had an idea. First she tried Perugia for an inspiration, then she came herethis must on no account get round. And so cheerful through it all! I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them. Miss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better judgement. A delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving them unexpected beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there sometimes rise odours reminiscent of spring. She felt she had made almost too many allowances, and apologized hurriedly for her toleration. 'All the same, she is a little tooI hardly like to say unwomanly, but she behaved most strangely when the Emersons arrived. Mr. Beebe smiled as Miss Alan plunged into an anecdote which he knew she would be unable to finish in the presence of a gentleman. 'I don't know, Miss Honeychurch, if you have noticed that Miss Pole, the lady who has so much yellow hair, takes lemonade. That old Mr. Emerson, who puts things very strangely Her jaw dropped. She was silent. Mr. Beebe, whose social resources were endless, went out to order some tea, and she continued to Lucy in a hasty whisper 'Stomach. He warned Miss Pole of her stomachacidity, he called itand he may have meant to be kind. I must say I forgot myself and laughed it was so sudden. As Teresa truly said, it was no laughing matter. But the point is that Miss Lavish was positively attracted by his mentioning S., and said she liked plain speaking, and meeting different grades of thought. She thought they were commercial travellers'drummers' was the word she usedand all through dinner she tried to prove that England, our great and beloved country, rests on nothing but commerce. Teresa was very much annoyed, and left the table before the cheese, saying as she did so 'There, Miss Lavish, is one who can confute you better than I,' and pointed to that beautiful picture of Lord Tennyson. Then Miss Lavish said 'Tut! The early Victorians.' Just imagine! 'Tut! The early Victorians.' My sister had gone, and I felt bound to speak. I said 'Miss Lavish, I am an early Victorian at least, that is to say, I will hear no breath of censure against our dear Queen.' It was horrible speaking. I reminded her how the Queen had been to Ireland when she did not want to go, and I must say she was dumbfounded, and made no reply. But, unluckily, Mr. Emerson overheard this part, and called in his deep voice 'Quite so, quite so! I honour the woman for her Irish visit.' The woman! I tell things so badly but you see what a tangle we were in by this time, all on account of S. having been mentioned in the first place. But that was not all. After dinner Miss Lavish actually came up and said 'Miss Alan, I am going into the smokingroom to talk to those two nice men. Come, too.' Needless to say, I refused such an unsuitable invitation, and she had the impertinence to tell me that it would broaden my ideas, and said that she had four brothers, all University men, except one who was in the army, who always made a point of talking to commercial travellers. 'Let me finish the story, said Mr. Beebe, who had returned. 'Miss Lavish tried Miss Pole, myself, everyone, and finally said 'I shall go alone.' She went. At the end of five minutes she returned unobtrusively with a green baize board, and began playing patience. 'Whatever happened? cried Lucy. 'No one knows. No one will ever know. Miss Lavish will never dare to tell, and Mr. Emerson does not think it worth telling. 'Mr. Beebeold Mr. Emerson, is he nice or not nice? I do so want to know. Mr. Beebe laughed and suggested that she should settle the question for herself. 'No but it is so difficult. Sometimes he is so silly, and then I do not mind him. Miss Alan, what do you think? Is he nice? The little old lady shook her head, and sighed disapprovingly. Mr. Beebe, whom the conversation amused, stirred her up by saying 'I consider that you are bound to class him as nice, Miss Alan, after that business of the violets. 'Violets? Oh, dear! Who told you about the violets? How do things get round? A pension is a bad place for gossips. No, I cannot forget how they behaved at Mr. Eager's lecture at Santa Croce. Oh, poor Miss Honeychurch! It really was too bad. No, I have quite changed. I do not like the Emersons. They are not nice. Mr. Beebe smiled nonchalantly. He had made a gentle effort to introduce the Emersons into Bertolini society, and the effort had failed. He was almost the only person who remained friendly to them. Miss Lavish, who represented intellect, was avowedly hostile, and now the Miss Alans, who stood for good breeding, were following her. Miss Bartlett, smarting under an obligation, would scarcely be civil. The case of Lucy was different. She had given him a hazy account of her adventures in Santa Croce, and he gathered that the two men had made a curious and possibly concerted attempt to annex her, to show her the world from their own strange standpoint, to interest her in their private sorrows and joys. This was impertinent he did not wish their cause to be championed by a young girl he would rather it should fail. After all, he knew nothing about them, and pension joys, pension sorrows, are flimsy things whereas Lucy would be his parishioner. Lucy, with one eye upon the weather, finally said that she thought the Emersons were nice not that she saw anything of them now. Even their seats at dinner had been moved. 'But aren't they always waylaying you to go out with them, dear? said the little lady inquisitively. 'Only once. Charlotte didn't like it, and said somethingquite politely, of course. 'Most right of her. They don't understand our ways. They must find their level. Mr. Beebe rather felt that they had gone under. They had given up their attemptif it was oneto conquer society, and now the father was almost as silent as the son. He wondered whether he would not plan a pleasant day for these folk before they leftsome expedition, perhaps, with Lucy well chaperoned to be nice to them. It was one of Mr. Beebe's chief pleasures to provide people with happy memories. Evening approached while they chatted the air became brighter the colours on the trees and hills were purified, and the Arno lost its muddy solidity and began to twinkle. There were a few streaks of bluishgreen among the clouds, a few patches of watery light upon the earth, and then the dripping faade of San Miniato shone brilliantly in the declining sun. 'Too late to go out, said Miss Alan in a voice of relief. 'All the galleries are shut. 'I think I shall go out, said Lucy. 'I want to go round the town in the circular tramon the platform by the driver. Her two companions looked grave. Mr. Beebe, who felt responsible for her in the absence of Miss Bartlett, ventured to say 'I wish we could. Unluckily I have letters. If you do want to go out alone, won't you be better on your feet? 'Italians, dear, you know, said Miss Alan. 'Perhaps I shall meet someone who reads me through and through! But they still looked disapproval, and she so far conceded to Mr. Beebe as to say that she would only go for a little walk, and keep to the street frequented by tourists. 'She oughtn't really to go at all, said Mr. Beebe, as they watched her from the window, 'and she knows it. I put it down to too much Beethoven. Mr. Beebe was right. Lucy never knew her desires so clearly as after music. She had not really appreciated the clergyman's wit, nor the suggestive twitterings of Miss Alan. Conversation was tedious she wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on the windswept platform of an electric tram. This she might not attempt. It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior to men it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point. There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and wara radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to it, move joyfully over the surface, having the most delightful meetings with other men, happy, not because they are masculine, but because they are alive. Before the show breaks up she would like to drop the august title of the Eternal Woman, and go there as her transitory self. Lucy does not stand for the medieval lady, who was rather an ideal to which she was bidden to lift her eyes when feeling serious. Nor has she any system of revolt. Here and there a restriction annoyed her particularly, and she would transgress it, and perhaps be sorry that she had done so. This afternoon she was peculiarly restive. She would really like to do something of which her wellwishers disapproved. As she might not go on the electric tram, she went to Alinari's shop. There she bought a photograph of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus. Venus, being a pity, spoilt the picture, otherwise so charming, and Miss Bartlett had persuaded her to do without it. (A pity in art of course signified the nude.) Giorgione's 'Tempesta, the 'Idolino, some of the Sistine frescoes and the Apoxyomenos, were added to it. She felt a little calmer then, and bought Fra Angelico's 'Coronation, Giotto's 'Ascension of St. John, some Della Robbia babies, and some Guido Reni Madonnas. For her taste was catholic, and she extended uncritical approval to every wellknown name. But though she spent nearly seven lire, the gates of liberty seemed still unopened. She was conscious of her discontent it was new to her to be conscious of it. 'The world, she thought, 'is certainly full of beautiful things, if only I could come across them. It was not surprising that Mrs. Honeychurch disapproved of music, declaring that it always left her daughter peevish, unpractical, and touchy. 'Nothing ever happens to me, she reflected, as she entered the Piazza Signoria and looked nonchalantly at its marvels, now fairly familiar to her. The great square was in shadow the sunshine had come too late to strike it. Neptune was already unsubstantial in the twilight, half god, half ghost, and his fountain plashed dreamily to the men and satyrs who idled together on its marge. The Loggia showed as the triple entrance of a cave, wherein many a deity, shadowy, but immortal, looking forth upon the arrivals and departures of mankind. It was the hour of unrealitythe hour, that is, when unfamiliar things are real. An older person at such an hour and in such a place might think that sufficient was happening to him, and rest content. Lucy desired more. She fixed her eyes wistfully on the tower of the palace, which rose out of the lower darkness like a pillar of roughened gold. It seemed no longer a tower, no longer supported by earth, but some unattainable treasure throbbing in the tranquil sky. Its brightness mesmerized her, still dancing before her eyes when she bent them to the ground and started towards home. Then something did happen. Two Italians by the Loggia had been bickering about a debt. 'Cinque lire, they had cried, 'cinque lire! They sparred at each other, and one of them was hit lightly upon the chest. He frowned he bent towards Lucy with a look of interest, as if he had an important message for her. He opened his lips to deliver it, and a stream of red came out between them and trickled down his unshaven chin. That was all. A crowd rose out of the dusk. It hid this extraordinary man from her, and bore him away to the fountain. Mr. George Emerson happened to be a few paces away, looking at her across the spot where the man had been. How very odd! Across something. Even as she caught sight of him he grew dim the palace itself grew dim, swayed above her, fell on to her softly, slowly, noiselessly, and the sky fell with it. She thought 'Oh, what have I done? 'Oh, what have I done? she murmured, and opened her eyes. George Emerson still looked at her, but not across anything. She had complained of dullness, and lo! one man was stabbed, and another held her in his arms. They were sitting on some steps in the Uffizi Arcade. He must have carried her. He rose when she spoke, and began to dust his knees. She repeated 'Oh, what have I done? 'You fainted. 'II am very sorry. 'How are you now? 'Perfectly wellabsolutely well. And she began to nod and smile. 'Then let us come home. There's no point in our stopping. He held out his hand to pull her up. She pretended not to see it. The cries from the fountainthey had never ceasedrang emptily. The whole world seemed pale and void of its original meaning. 'How very kind you have been! I might have hurt myself falling. But now I am well. I can go alone, thank you. His hand was still extended. 'Oh, my photographs! she exclaimed suddenly. 'What photographs? 'I bought some photographs at Alinari's. I must have dropped them out there in the square. She looked at him cautiously. 'Would you add to your kindness by fetching them? He added to his kindness. As soon as he had turned his back, Lucy arose with the running of a maniac and stole down the arcade towards the Arno. 'Miss Honeychurch! She stopped with her hand on her heart. 'You sit still you aren't fit to go home alone. 'Yes, I am, thank you so very much. 'No, you aren't. You'd go openly if you were. 'But I had rather 'Then I don't fetch your photographs. 'I had rather be alone. He said imperiously 'The man is deadthe man is probably dead sit down till you are rested. She was bewildered, and obeyed him. 'And don't move till I come back. In the distance she saw creatures with black hoods, such as appear in dreams. The palace tower had lost the reflection of the declining day, and joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he returned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her, 'Oh, what have I done?the thought that she, as well as the dying man, had crossed some spiritual boundary. He returned, and she talked of the murder. Oddly enough, it was an easy topic. She spoke of the Italian character she became almost garrulous over the incident that had made her faint five minutes before. Being strong physically, she soon overcame the horror of blood. She rose without his assistance, and though wings seemed to flutter inside her, she walked firmly enough towards the Arno. There a cabman signalled to them they refused him. 'And the murderer tried to kiss him, you sayhow very odd Italians are!and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that Italians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my cousin and I were at the Pitti yesterdayWhat was that? He had thrown something into the stream. 'What did you throw in? 'Things I didn't want, he said crossly. 'Mr. Emerson! 'Well? 'Where are the photographs? He was silent. 'I believe it was my photographs that you threw away. 'I didn't know what to do with them, he cried, and his voice was that of an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time. 'They were covered with blood. There! I'm glad I've told you and all the time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with them. He pointed downstream. 'They've gone. The river swirled under the bridge, 'I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed better that they should go out to the seaI don't know I may just mean that they frightened me. Then the boy verged into a man. 'For something tremendous has happened I must face it without getting muddled. It isn't exactly that a man has died. Something warned Lucy that she must stop him. 'It has happened, he repeated, 'and I mean to find out what it is. 'Mr. Emerson He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some abstract quest. 'I want to ask you something before we go in. They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying 'I have behaved ridiculously. He was following his own thoughts. 'I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life I cannot think what came over me. 'I nearly fainted myself, he said but she felt that her attitude repelled him. 'Well, I owe you a thousand apologies. 'Oh, all right. 'Andthis is the real pointyou know how silly people are gossipingladies especially, I am afraidyou understand what I mean? 'I'm afraid I don't. 'I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour? 'Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all rightall right. 'Thank you so much. And would you She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say to him, 'And would you and hope that he would complete the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she had bought in Alinari's shop. It was not exactly that a man had died something had happened to the living they had come to a situation where character tells, and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth. 'Well, thank you so much, she repeated, 'How quickly these accidents do happen, and then one returns to the old life! 'I don't. Anxiety moved her to question him. His answer was puzzling 'I shall probably want to live. 'But why, Mr. Emerson? What do you mean? 'I shall want to live, I say. Leaning her elbows on the parapet, she contemplated the River Arno, whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears. It was a family saying that 'you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlett would turn. She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy's adventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Dazio coming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent and dsuvr, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It might have been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for any one. For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. None of her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, by the embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled eyes at dinnertime, had again passed to himself the remark of 'Too much Beethoven. But he only supposed that she was ready for an adventure, not that she had encountered it. This solitude oppressed her she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events, contradicted it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong. At breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were two plans between which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to the Torre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined for herself she had been there in the rain the previous afternoon. But she thought it an admirable idea for Lucy, who hated shopping, changing money, fetching letters, and other irksome dutiesall of which Miss Bartlett must accomplish this morning and could easily accomplish alone. 'No, Charlotte! cried the girl, with real warmth. 'It's very kind of Mr. Beebe, but I am certainly coming with you. I had much rather. 'Very well, dear, said Miss Bartlett, with a faint flush of pleasure that called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of Lucy. How abominably she behaved to Charlotte, now as always! But now she should alter. All morning she would be really nice to her. She slipped her arm into her cousin's, and they started off along the Lung' Arno. The river was a lion that morning in strength, voice, and colour. Miss Bartlett insisted on leaning over the parapet to look at it. She then made her usual remark, which was 'How I do wish Freddy and your mother could see this, too! Lucy fidgeted it was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped exactly where she did. 'Look, Lucia! Oh, you are watching for the Torre del Gallo party. I feared you would repent you of your choice. Serious as the choice had been, Lucy did not repent. Yesterday had been a muddlequeer and odd, the kind of thing one could not write down easily on paperbut she had a feeling that Charlotte and her shopping were preferable to George Emerson and the summit of the Torre del Gallo. Since she could not unravel the tangle, she must take care not to reenter it. She could protest sincerely against Miss Bartlett's insinuations. But though she had avoided the chief actor, the scenery unfortunately remained. Charlotte, with the complacency of fate, led her from the river to the Piazza Signoria. She could not have believed that stones, a Loggia, a fountain, a palace tower, would have such significance. For a moment she understood the nature of ghosts. The exact site of the murder was occupied, not by a ghost, but by Miss Lavish, who had the morning newspaper in her hand. She hailed them briskly. The dreadful catastrophe of the previous day had given her an idea which she thought would work up into a book. 'Oh, let me congratulate you! said Miss Bartlett. 'After your despair of yesterday! What a fortunate thing! 'Aha! Miss Honeychurch, come you here I am in luck. Now, you are to tell me absolutely everything that you saw from the beginning. Lucy poked at the ground with her parasol. 'But perhaps you would rather not? 'I'm sorryif you could manage without it, I think I would rather not. The elder ladies exchanged glances, not of disapproval it is suitable that a girl should feel deeply. 'It is I who am sorry, said Miss Lavish 'literary hacks are shameless creatures. I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which we wouldn't pry. She marched cheerfully to the fountain and back, and did a few calculations in realism. Then she said that she had been in the Piazza since eight o'clock collecting material. A good deal of it was unsuitable, but of course one always had to adapt. The two men had quarrelled over a fivefranc note. For the fivefranc note she should substitute a young lady, which would raise the tone of the tragedy, and at the same time furnish an excellent plot. 'What is the heroine's name? asked Miss Bartlett. 'Leonora, said Miss Lavish her own name was Eleanor. 'I do hope she's nice. That desideratum would not be omitted. 'And what is the plot? Love, murder, abduction, revenge, was the plot. But it all came while the fountain plashed to the satyrs in the morning sun. 'I hope you will excuse me for boring on like this, Miss Lavish concluded. 'It is so tempting to talk to really sympathetic people. Of course, this is the barest outline. There will be a deal of local colouring, descriptions of Florence and the neighbourhood, and I shall also introduce some humorous characters. And let me give you all fair warning I intend to be unmerciful to the British tourist. 'Oh, you wicked woman, cried Miss Bartlett. 'I am sure you are thinking of the Emersons. Miss Lavish gave a Machiavellian smile. 'I confess that in Italy my sympathies are not with my own countrymen. It is the neglected Italians who attract me, and whose lives I am going to paint so far as I can. For I repeat and I insist, and I have always held most strongly, that a tragedy such as yesterday's is not the less tragic because it happened in humble life. There was a fitting silence when Miss Lavish had concluded. Then the cousins wished success to her labours, and walked slowly away across the square. 'She is my idea of a really clever woman, said Miss Bartlett. 'That last remark struck me as so particularly true. It should be a most pathetic novel. Lucy assented. At present her great aim was not to get put into it. Her perceptions this morning were curiously keen, and she believed that Miss Lavish had her on trial for an ingenu. 'She is emancipated, but only in the very best sense of the word, continued Miss Bartlett slowly. 'None but the superficial would be shocked at her. We had a long talk yesterday. She believes in justice and truth and human interest. She told me also that she has a high opinion of the destiny of womanMr. Eager! Why, how nice! What a pleasant surprise! 'Ah, not for me, said the chaplain blandly, 'for I have been watching you and Miss Honeychurch for quite a little time. 'We were chatting to Miss Lavish. His brow contracted. 'So I saw. Were you indeed? Andate via! sono occupato! The last remark was made to a vender of panoramic photographs who was approaching with a courteous smile. 'I am about to venture a suggestion. Would you and Miss Honeychurch be disposed to join me in a drive some day this weeka drive in the hills? We might go up by Fiesole and back by Settignano. There is a point on that road where we could get down and have an hour's ramble on the hillside. The view thence of Florence is most beautifulfar better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the view that Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures. That man had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who looks at it today? Ah, the world is too much for us. Miss Bartlett had not heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knew that Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of the residential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the people who never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a siesta after lunch, who took drives the pension tourists had never heard of, and saw by private influence galleries which were closed to them. Living in delicate seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in Renaissance villas on Fiesole's slope, they read, wrote, studied, and exchanged ideas, thus attaining to that intimate knowledge, or rather perception, of Florence which is denied to all who carry in their pockets the coupons of Cook. Therefore an invitation from the chaplain was something to be proud of. Between the two sections of his flock he was often the only link, and it was his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who seemed worthy, and give them a few hours in the pastures of the permanent. Tea at a Renaissance villa? Nothing had been said about it yet. But if it did come to thathow Lucy would enjoy it! A few days ago and Lucy would have felt the same. But the joys of life were grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr. Eager and Miss Bartletteven if culminating in a residential teapartywas no longer the greatest of them. She echoed the raptures of Charlotte somewhat faintly. Only when she heard that Mr. Beebe was also coming did her thanks become more sincere. 'So we shall be a partie carre, said the chaplain. 'In these days of toil and tumult one has great needs of the country and its message of purity. Andate via! andate presto, presto! Ah, the town! Beautiful as it is, it is the town. They assented. 'This very squareso I am toldwitnessed yesterday the most sordid of tragedies. To one who loves the Florence of Dante and Savonarola there is something portentous in such desecrationportentous and humiliating. 'Humiliating indeed, said Miss Bartlett. 'Miss Honeychurch happened to be passing through as it happened. She can hardly bear to speak of it. She glanced at Lucy proudly. 'And how came we to have you here? asked the chaplain paternally. Miss Bartlett's recent liberalism oozed away at the question. 'Do not blame her, please, Mr. Eager. The fault is mine I left her unchaperoned. 'So you were here alone, Miss Honeychurch? His voice suggested sympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few harrowing details would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome face drooped mournfully towards her to catch her reply. 'Practically. 'One of our pension acquaintances kindly brought her home, said Miss Bartlett, adroitly concealing the sex of the preserver. 'For her also it must have been a terrible experience. I trust that neither of you was at allthat it was not in your immediate proximity? Of the many things Lucy was noticing today, not the least remarkable was this the ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibble after blood. George Emerson had kept the subject strangely pure. 'He died by the fountain, I believe, was her reply. 'And you and your friend 'Were over at the Loggia. 'That must have saved you much. You have not, of course, seen the disgraceful illustrations which the gutter PressThis man is a public nuisance he knows that I am a resident perfectly well, and yet he goes on worrying me to buy his vulgar views. Surely the vendor of photographs was in league with Lucyin the eternal league of Italy with youth. He had suddenly extended his book before Miss Bartlett and Mr. Eager, binding their hands together by a long glossy ribbon of churches, pictures, and views. 'This is too much! cried the chaplain, striking petulantly at one of Fra Angelico's angels. She tore. A shrill cry rose from the vendor. The book it seemed, was more valuable than one would have supposed. 'Willingly would I purchase began Miss Bartlett. 'Ignore him, said Mr. Eager sharply, and they all walked rapidly away from the square. But an Italian can never be ignored, least of all when he has a grievance. His mysterious persecution of Mr. Eager became relentless the air rang with his threats and lamentations. He appealed to Lucy would not she intercede? He was poorhe sheltered a familythe tax on bread. He waited, he gibbered, he was recompensed, he was dissatisfied, he did not leave them until he had swept their minds clean of all thoughts whether pleasant or unpleasant. Shopping was the topic that now ensued. Under the chaplain's guidance they selected many hideous presents and mementoesflorid little pictureframes that seemed fashioned in gilded pastry other little frames, more severe, that stood on little easels, and were carven out of oak a blotting book of vellum a Dante of the same material cheap mosaic brooches, which the maids, next Christmas, would never tell from real pins, pots, heraldic saucers, brown artphotographs Eros and Psyche in alabaster St. Peter to matchall of which would have cost less in London. This successful morning left no pleasant impressions on Lucy. She had been a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish and by Mr. Eager, she knew not why. And as they frightened her, she had, strangely enough, ceased to respect them. She doubted that Miss Lavish was a great artist. She doubted that Mr. Eager was as full of spirituality and culture as she had been led to suppose. They were tried by some new test, and they were found wanting. As for Charlotteas for Charlotte she was exactly the same. It might be possible to be nice to her it was impossible to love her. 'The son of a labourer I happen to know it for a fact. A mechanic of some sort himself when he was young then he took to writing for the Socialistic Press. I came across him at Brixton. They were talking about the Emersons. 'How wonderfully people rise in these days! sighed Miss Bartlett, fingering a model of the leaning Tower of Pisa. 'Generally, replied Mr. Eager, 'one has only sympathy for their success. The desire for education and for social advancein these things there is something not wholly vile. There are some working men whom one would be very willing to see out here in Florencelittle as they would make of it. 'Is he a journalist now? Miss Bartlett asked. 'He is not he made an advantageous marriage. He uttered this remark with a voice full of meaning, and ended with a sigh. 'Oh, so he has a wife. 'Dead, Miss Bartlett, dead. I wonderyes I wonder how he has the effrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance with me. He was in my London parish long ago. The other day in Santa Croce, when he was with Miss Honeychurch, I snubbed him. Let him beware that he does not get more than a snub. 'What? cried Lucy, flushing. 'Exposure! hissed Mr. Eager. He tried to change the subject but in scoring a dramatic point he had interested his audience more than he had intended. Miss Bartlett was full of very natural curiosity. Lucy, though she wished never to see the Emersons again, was not disposed to condemn them on a single word. 'Do you mean, she asked, 'that he is an irreligious man? We know that already. 'Lucy, dear said Miss Bartlett, gently reproving her cousin's penetration. 'I should be astonished if you knew all. The boyan innocent child at the timeI will exclude. God knows what his education and his inherited qualities may have made him. 'Perhaps, said Miss Bartlett, 'it is something that we had better not hear. 'To speak plainly, said Mr. Eager, 'it is. I will say no more. For the first time Lucy's rebellious thoughts swept out in wordsfor the first time in her life. 'You have said very little. 'It was my intention to say very little, was his frigid reply. He gazed indignantly at the girl, who met him with equal indignation. She turned towards him from the shop counter her breast heaved quickly. He observed her brow, and the sudden strength of her lips. It was intolerable that she should disbelieve him. 'Murder, if you want to know, he cried angrily. 'That man murdered his wife! 'How? she retorted. 'To all intents and purposes he murdered her. That day in Santa Crocedid they say anything against me? 'Not a word, Mr. Eagernot a single word. 'Oh, I thought they had been libelling me to you. But I suppose it is only their personal charms that makes you defend them. 'I'm not defending them, said Lucy, losing her courage, and relapsing into the old chaotic methods. 'They're nothing to me. 'How could you think she was defending them? said Miss Bartlett, much discomfited by the unpleasant scene. The shopman was possibly listening. 'She will find it difficult. For that man has murdered his wife in the sight of God. The addition of God was striking. But the chaplain was really trying to qualify a rash remark. A silence followed which might have been impressive, but was merely awkward. Then Miss Bartlett hastily purchased the Leaning Tower, and led the way into the street. 'I must be going, said he, shutting his eyes and taking out his watch. Miss Bartlett thanked him for his kindness, and spoke with enthusiasm of the approaching drive. 'Drive? Oh, is our drive to come off? Lucy was recalled to her manners, and after a little exertion the complacency of Mr. Eager was restored. 'Bother the drive! exclaimed the girl, as soon as he had departed. 'It is just the drive we had arranged with Mr. Beebe without any fuss at all. Why should he invite us in that absurd manner? We might as well invite him. We are each paying for ourselves. Miss Bartlett, who had intended to lament over the Emersons, was launched by this remark into unexpected thoughts. 'If that is so, dearif the drive we and Mr. Beebe are going with Mr. Eager is really the same as the one we are going with Mr. Beebe, then I foresee a sad kettle of fish. 'How? 'Because Mr. Beebe has asked Eleanor Lavish to come, too. 'That will mean another carriage. 'Far worse. Mr. Eager does not like Eleanor. She knows it herself. The truth must be told she is too unconventional for him. They were now in the newspaperroom at the English bank. Lucy stood by the central table, heedless of Punch and the Graphic, trying to answer, or at all events to formulate the questions rioting in her brain. The wellknown world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things. Murder, accusations of murder, a lady clinging to one man and being rude to anotherwere these the daily incidents of her streets? Was there more in her frank beauty than met the eyethe power, perhaps, to evoke passions, good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a fulfillment? Happy Charlotte, who, though greatly troubled over things that did not matter, seemed oblivious to things that did who could conjecture with admirable delicacy 'where things might lead to, but apparently lost sight of the goal as she approached it. Now she was crouching in the corner trying to extract a circular note from a kind of linen nosebag which hung in chaste concealment round her neck. She had been told that this was the only safe way to carry money in Italy it must only be broached within the walls of the English bank. As she groped she murmured 'Whether it is Mr. Beebe who forgot to tell Mr. Eager, or Mr. Eager who forgot when he told us, or whether they have decided to leave Eleanor out altogetherwhich they could scarcely dobut in any case we must be prepared. It is you they really want I am only asked for appearances. You shall go with the two gentlemen, and I and Eleanor will follow behind. A onehorse carriage would do for us. Yet how difficult it is! 'It is indeed, replied the girl, with a gravity that sounded sympathetic. 'What do you think about it? asked Miss Bartlett, flushed from the struggle, and buttoning up her dress. 'I don't know what I think, nor what I want. 'Oh, dear, Lucy! I do hope Florence isn't boring you. Speak the word, and, as you know, I would take you to the ends of the earth tomorrow. 'Thank you, Charlotte, said Lucy, and pondered over the offer. There were letters for her at the bureauone from her brother, full of athletics and biology one from her mother, delightful as only her mother's letters could be. She had read in it of the crocuses which had been bought for yellow and were coming up puce, of the new parlourmaid, who had watered the ferns with essence of lemonade, of the semidetached cottages which were ruining Summer Street, and breaking the heart of Sir Harry Otway. She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where she was allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her. The road up through the pinewoods, the clean drawingroom, the view over the Sussex Wealdall hung before her bright and distinct, but pathetic as the pictures in a gallery to which, after much experience, a traveller returns. 'And the news? asked Miss Bartlett. 'Mrs. Vyse and her son have gone to Rome, said Lucy, giving the news that interested her least. 'Do you know the Vyses? 'Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear Piazza Signoria. 'They're nice people, the Vyses. So clevermy idea of what's really clever. Don't you long to be in Rome? 'I die for it! The Piazza Signoria is too stony to be brilliant. It has no grass, no flowers, no frescoes, no glittering walls of marble or comforting patches of ruddy brick. By an odd chanceunless we believe in a presiding genius of placesthe statues that relieve its severity suggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious bewilderment of youth, but the conscious achievements of maturity. Perseus and Judith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have done or suffered something, and though they are immortal, immortality has come to them after experience, not before. Here, not only in the solitude of Nature, might a hero meet a goddess, or a heroine a god. 'Charlotte! cried the girl suddenly. 'Here's an idea. What if we popped off to Rome tomorrowstraight to the Vyses' hotel? For I do know what I want. I'm sick of Florence. No, you said you'd go to the ends of the earth! Do! Do! Miss Bartlett, with equal vivacity, replied 'Oh, you droll person! Pray, what would become of your drive in the hills? They passed together through the gaunt beauty of the square, laughing over the unpractical suggestion. It was Phaethon who drove them to Fiesole that memorable day, a youth all irresponsibility and fire, recklessly urging his master's horses up the stony hill. Mr. Beebe recognized him at once. Neither the Ages of Faith nor the Age of Doubt had touched him he was Phaethon in Tuscany driving a cab. And it was Persephone whom he asked leave to pick up on the way, saying that she was his sisterPersephone, tall and slender and pale, returning with the Spring to her mother's cottage, and still shading her eyes from the unaccustomed light. To her Mr. Eager objected, saying that here was the thin edge of the wedge, and one must guard against imposition. But the ladies interceded, and when it had been made clear that it was a very great favour, the goddess was allowed to mount beside the god. Phaethon at once slipped the left rein over her head, thus enabling himself to drive with his arm round her waist. She did not mind. Mr. Eager, who sat with his back to the horses, saw nothing of the indecorous proceeding, and continued his conversation with Lucy. The other two occupants of the carriage were old Mr. Emerson and Miss Lavish. For a dreadful thing had happened Mr. Beebe, without consulting Mr. Eager, had doubled the size of the party. And though Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish had planned all the morning how the people were to sit, at the critical moment when the carriages came round they lost their heads, and Miss Lavish got in with Lucy, while Miss Bartlett, with George Emerson and Mr. Beebe, followed on behind. It was hard on the poor chaplain to have his partie carre thus transformed. Tea at a Renaissance villa, if he had ever meditated it, was now impossible. Lucy and Miss Bartlett had a certain style about them, and Mr. Beebe, though unreliable, was a man of parts. But a shoddy lady writer and a journalist who had murdered his wife in the sight of Godthey should enter no villa at his introduction. Lucy, elegantly dressed in white, sat erect and nervous amid these explosive ingredients, attentive to Mr. Eager, repressive towards Miss Lavish, watchful of old Mr. Emerson, hitherto fortunately asleep, thanks to a heavy lunch and the drowsy atmosphere of Spring. She looked on the expedition as the work of Fate. But for it she would have avoided George Emerson successfully. In an open manner he had shown that he wished to continue their intimacy. She had refused, not because she disliked him, but because she did not know what had happened, and suspected that he did know. And this frightened her. For the real eventwhatever it washad taken place, not in the Loggia, but by the river. To behave wildly at the sight of death is pardonable. But to discuss it afterwards, to pass from discussion into silence, and through silence into sympathy, that is an error, not of a startled emotion, but of the whole fabric. There was really something blameworthy (she thought) in their joint contemplation of the shadowy stream, in the common impulse which had turned them to the house without the passing of a look or word. This sense of wickedness had been slight at first. She had nearly joined the party to the Torre del Gallo. But each time that she avoided George it became more imperative that she should avoid him again. And now celestial irony, working through her cousin and two clergymen, did not suffer her to leave Florence till she had made this expedition with him through the hills. Meanwhile Mr. Eager held her in civil converse their little tiff was over. 'So, Miss Honeychurch, you are travelling? As a student of art? 'Oh, dear me, nooh, no! 'Perhaps as a student of human nature, interposed Miss Lavish, 'like myself? 'Oh, no. I am here as a tourist. 'Oh, indeed, said Mr. Eager. 'Are you indeed? If you will not think me rude, we residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a littlehanded about like a parcel of goods from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Rome, living herded together in pensions or hotels, quite unconscious of anything that is outside Baedeker, their one anxiety to get 'done' or 'through' and go on somewhere else. The result is, they mix up towns, rivers, palaces in one inextricable whirl. You know the American girl in Punch who says 'Say, poppa, what did we see at Rome?' And the father replies 'Why, guess Rome was the place where we saw the yaller dog.' There's travelling for you. Ha! ha! ha! 'I quite agree, said Miss Lavish, who had several times tried to interrupt his mordant wit. 'The narrowness and superficiality of the AngloSaxon tourist is nothing less than a menace. 'Quite so. Now, the English colony at Florence, Miss Honeychurchand it is of considerable size, though, of course, not all equallya few are here for trade, for example. But the greater part are students. Lady Helen Laverstock is at present busy over Fra Angelico. I mention her name because we are passing her villa on the left. No, you can only see it if you standno, do not stand you will fall. She is very proud of that thick hedge. Inside, perfect seclusion. One might have gone back six hundred years. Some critics believe that her garden was the scene of The Decameron, which lends it an additional interest, does it not? 'It does indeed! cried Miss Lavish. 'Tell me, where do they place the scene of that wonderful seventh day? But Mr. Eager proceeded to tell Miss Honeychurch that on the right lived Mr. Someone Something, an American of the best typeso rare!and that the Somebody Elses were farther down the hill. 'Doubtless you know her monographs in the series of 'Medival Byways'? He is working at Gemistus Pletho. Sometimes as I take tea in their beautiful grounds I hear, over the wall, the electric tram squealing up the new road with its loads of hot, dusty, unintelligent tourists who are going to 'do' Fiesole in an hour in order that they may say they have been there, and I thinkthinkI think how little they think what lies so near them. During this speech the two figures on the box were sporting with each other disgracefully. Lucy had a spasm of envy. Granted that they wished to misbehave, it was pleasant for them to be able to do so. They were probably the only people enjoying the expedition. The carriage swept with agonizing jolts up through the Piazza of Fiesole and into the Settignano road. 'Piano! piano! said Mr. Eager, elegantly waving his hand over his head. 'Va bene, signore, va bene, va bene, crooned the driver, and whipped his horses up again. Now Mr. Eager and Miss Lavish began to talk against each other on the subject of Alessio Baldovinetti. Was he a cause of the Renaissance, or was he one of its manifestations? The other carriage was left behind. As the pace increased to a gallop the large, slumbering form of Mr. Emerson was thrown against the chaplain with the regularity of a machine. 'Piano! piano! said he, with a martyred look at Lucy. An extra lurch made him turn angrily in his seat. Phaethon, who for some time had been endeavouring to kiss Persephone, had just succeeded. A little scene ensued, which, as Miss Bartlett said afterwards, was most unpleasant. The horses were stopped, the lovers were ordered to disentangle themselves, the boy was to lose his pourboire, the girl was immediately to get down. 'She is my sister, said he, turning round on them with piteous eyes. Mr. Eager took the trouble to tell him that he was a liar. Phaethon hung down his head, not at the matter of the accusation, but at its manner. At this point Mr. Emerson, whom the shock of stopping had awoke, declared that the lovers must on no account be separated, and patted them on the back to signify his approval. And Miss Lavish, though unwilling to ally him, felt bound to support the cause of Bohemianism. 'Most certainly I would let them be, she cried. 'But I dare say I shall receive scant support. I have always flown in the face of the conventions all my life. This is what I call an adventure. 'We must not submit, said Mr. Eager. 'I knew he was trying it on. He is treating us as if we were a party of Cook's tourists. 'Surely no! said Miss Lavish, her ardour visibly decreasing. The other carriage had drawn up behind, and sensible Mr. Beebe called out that after this warning the couple would be sure to behave themselves properly. 'Leave them alone, Mr. Emerson begged the chaplain, of whom he stood in no awe. 'Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there? To be driven by loversA king might envy us, and if we part them it's more like sacrilege than anything I know. Here the voice of Miss Bartlett was heard saying that a crowd had begun to collect. Mr. Eager, who suffered from an overfluent tongue rather than a resolute will, was determined to make himself heard. He addressed the driver again. Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deepvoiced stream, with unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony. In Mr. Eager's mouth it resembled nothing so much as an acid whistling fountain which played ever higher and higher, and quicker and quicker, and more and more shrilly, till abruptly it was turned off with a click. 'Signorina! said the man to Lucy, when the display had ceased. Why should he appeal to Lucy? 'Signorina! echoed Persephone in her glorious contralto. She pointed at the other carriage. Why? For a moment the two girls looked at each other. Then Persephone got down from the box. 'Victory at last! said Mr. Eager, smiting his hands together as the carriages started again. 'It is not victory, said Mr. Emerson. 'It is defeat. You have parted two people who were happy. Mr. Eager shut his eyes. He was obliged to sit next to Mr. Emerson, but he would not speak to him. The old man was refreshed by sleep, and took up the matter warmly. He commanded Lucy to agree with him he shouted for support to his son. 'We have tried to buy what cannot be bought with money. He has bargained to drive us, and he is doing it. We have no rights over his soul. Miss Lavish frowned. It is hard when a person you have classed as typically British speaks out of his character. 'He was not driving us well, she said. 'He jolted us. 'That I deny. It was as restful as sleeping. Aha! he is jolting us now. Can you wonder? He would like to throw us out, and most certainly he is justified. And if I were superstitious I'd be frightened of the girl, too. It doesn't do to injure young people. Have you ever heard of Lorenzo de Medici? Miss Lavish bristled. 'Most certainly I have. Do you refer to Lorenzo il Magnifico, or to Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, or to Lorenzo surnamed Lorenzino on account of his diminutive stature? 'The Lord knows. Possibly he does know, for I refer to Lorenzo the poet. He wrote a lineso I heard yesterdaywhich runs like this 'Don't go fighting against the Spring.' Mr. Eager could not resist the opportunity for erudition. 'Non fate guerra al Maggio, he murmured. ''War not with the May' would render a correct meaning. 'The point is, we have warred with it. Look. He pointed to the Val d'Arno, which was visible far below them, through the budding trees. 'Fifty miles of Spring, and we've come up to admire them. Do you suppose there's any difference between Spring in nature and Spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both. No one encouraged him to talk. Presently Mr. Eager gave a signal for the carriages to stop and marshalled the party for their ramble on the hill. A hollow like a great amphitheatre, full of terraced steps and misty olives, now lay between them and the heights of Fiesole, and the road, still following its curve, was about to sweep on to a promontory which stood out in the plain. It was this promontory, uncultivated, wet, covered with bushes and occasional trees, which had caught the fancy of Alessio Baldovinetti nearly five hundred years before. He had ascended it, that diligent and rather obscure master, possibly with an eye to business, possibly for the joy of ascending. Standing there, he had seen that view of the Val d'Arno and distant Florence, which he afterwards had introduced not very effectively into his work. But where exactly had he stood? That was the question which Mr. Eager hoped to solve now. And Miss Lavish, whose nature was attracted by anything problematical, had become equally enthusiastic. But it is not easy to carry the pictures of Alessio Baldovinetti in your head, even if you have remembered to look at them before starting. And the haze in the valley increased the difficulty of the quest. The party sprang about from tuft to tuft of grass, their anxiety to keep together being only equalled by their desire to go different directions. Finally they split into groups. Lucy clung to Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish the Emersons returned to hold laborious converse with the drivers while the two clergymen, who were expected to have topics in common, were left to each other. The two elder ladies soon threw off the mask. In the audible whisper that was now so familiar to Lucy they began to discuss, not Alessio Baldovinetti, but the drive. Miss Bartlett had asked Mr. George Emerson what his profession was, and he had answered 'the railway. She was very sorry that she had asked him. She had no idea that it would be such a dreadful answer, or she would not have asked him. Mr. Beebe had turned the conversation so cleverly, and she hoped that the young man was not very much hurt at her asking him. 'The railway! gasped Miss Lavish. 'Oh, but I shall die! Of course it was the railway! She could not control her mirth. 'He is the image of a porteron, on the SouthEastern. 'Eleanor, be quiet, plucking at her vivacious companion. 'Hush! They'll hearthe Emersons 'I can't stop. Let me go my wicked way. A porter 'Eleanor! 'I'm sure it's all right, put in Lucy. 'The Emersons won't hear, and they wouldn't mind if they did. Miss Lavish did not seem pleased at this. 'Miss Honeychurch listening! she said rather crossly. 'Pouf! Wouf! You naughty girl! Go away! 'Oh, Lucy, you ought to be with Mr. Eager, I'm sure. 'I can't find them now, and I don't want to either. 'Mr. Eager will be offended. It is your party. 'Please, I'd rather stop here with you. 'No, I agree, said Miss Lavish. 'It's like a school feast the boys have got separated from the girls. Miss Lucy, you are to go. We wish to converse on high topics unsuited for your ear. The girl was stubborn. As her time at Florence drew to its close she was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent. Such a one was Miss Lavish, and such for the moment was Charlotte. She wished she had not called attention to herself they were both annoyed at her remark and seemed determined to get rid of her. 'How tired one gets, said Miss Bartlett. 'Oh, I do wish Freddy and your mother could be here. Unselfishness with Miss Bartlett had entirely usurped the functions of enthusiasm. Lucy did not look at the view either. She would not enjoy anything till she was safe at Rome. 'Then sit you down, said Miss Lavish. 'Observe my foresight. With many a smile she produced two of those mackintosh squares that protect the frame of the tourist from damp grass or cold marble steps. She sat on one who was to sit on the other? 'Lucy without a moment's doubt, Lucy. The ground will do for me. Really I have not had rheumatism for years. If I do feel it coming on I shall stand. Imagine your mother's feelings if I let you sit in the wet in your white linen. She sat down heavily where the ground looked particularly moist. 'Here we are, all settled delightfully. Even if my dress is thinner it will not show so much, being brown. Sit down, dear you are too unselfish you don't assert yourself enough. She cleared her throat. 'Now don't be alarmed this isn't a cold. It's the tiniest cough, and I have had it three days. It's nothing to do with sitting here at all. There was only one way of treating the situation. At the end of five minutes Lucy departed in search of Mr. Beebe and Mr. Eager, vanquished by the mackintosh square. She addressed herself to the drivers, who were sprawling in the carriages, perfuming the cushions with cigars. The miscreant, a bony young man scorched black by the sun, rose to greet her with the courtesy of a host and the assurance of a relative. 'Dove? said Lucy, after much anxious thought. His face lit up. Of course he knew where. Not so far either. His arm swept threefourths of the horizon. He should just think he did know where. He pressed his fingertips to his forehead and then pushed them towards her, as if oozing with visible extract of knowledge. More seemed necessary. What was the Italian for 'clergyman? 'Dove buoni uomini? said she at last. Good? Scarcely the adjective for those noble beings! He showed her his cigar. 'Unopiupiccolo, was her next remark, implying 'Has the cigar been given to you by Mr. Beebe, the smaller of the two good men? She was correct as usual. He tied the horse to a tree, kicked it to make it stay quiet, dusted the carriage, arranged his hair, remoulded his hat, encouraged his moustache, and in rather less than a quarter of a minute was ready to conduct her. Italians are born knowing the way. It would seem that the whole earth lay before them, not as a map, but as a chessboard, whereon they continually behold the changing pieces as well as the squares. Any one can find places, but the finding of people is a gift from God. He only stopped once, to pick her some great blue violets. She thanked him with real pleasure. In the company of this common man the world was beautiful and direct. For the first time she felt the influence of Spring. His arm swept the horizon gracefully violets, like other things, existed in great profusion there 'would she like to see them? 'Ma buoni uomini. He bowed. Certainly. Good men first, violets afterwards. They proceeded briskly through the undergrowth, which became thicker and thicker. They were nearing the edge of the promontory, and the view was stealing round them, but the brown network of the bushes shattered it into countless pieces. He was occupied in his cigar, and in holding back the pliant boughs. She was rejoicing in her escape from dullness. Not a step, not a twig, was unimportant to her. 'What is that? There was a voice in the wood, in the distance behind them. The voice of Mr. Eager? He shrugged his shoulders. An Italian's ignorance is sometimes more remarkable than his knowledge. She could not make him understand that perhaps they had missed the clergymen. The view was forming at last she could discern the river, the golden plain, other hills. 'Eccolo! he exclaimed. At the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of the wood. Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end. 'Courage! cried her companion, now standing some six feet above. 'Courage and love. She did not answer. From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems collecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam. But never again were they in such profusion this terrace was the wellhead, the primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the earth. Standing at its brink, like a swimmer who prepares, was the good man. But he was not the good man that she had expected, and he was alone. George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her. Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called, 'Lucy! Lucy! Lucy! The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett who stood brown against the view. Some complicated game had been playing up and down the hillside all the afternoon. What it was and exactly how the players had sided, Lucy was slow to discover. Mr. Eager had met them with a questioning eye. Charlotte had repulsed him with much small talk. Mr. Emerson, seeking his son, was told whereabouts to find him. Mr. Beebe, who wore the heated aspect of a neutral, was bidden to collect the factions for the return home. There was a general sense of groping and bewilderment. Pan had been amongst themnot the great god Pan, who has been buried these two thousand years, but the little god Pan, who presides over social contretemps and unsuccessful picnics. Mr. Beebe had lost everyone, and had consumed in solitude the teabasket which he had brought up as a pleasant surprise. Miss Lavish had lost Miss Bartlett. Lucy had lost Mr. Eager. Mr. Emerson had lost George. Miss Bartlett had lost a mackintosh square. Phaethon had lost the game. That last fact was undeniable. He climbed on to the box shivering, with his collar up, prophesying the swift approach of bad weather. 'Let us go immediately, he told them. 'The signorino will walk. 'All the way? He will be hours, said Mr. Beebe. 'Apparently. I told him it was unwise. He would look no one in the face perhaps defeat was particularly mortifying for him. He alone had played skilfully, using the whole of his instinct, while the others had used scraps of their intelligence. He alone had divined what things were, and what he wished them to be. He alone had interpreted the message that Lucy had received five days before from the lips of a dying man. Persephone, who spends half her life in the graveshe could interpret it also. Not so these English. They gain knowledge slowly, and perhaps too late. The thoughts of a cabdriver, however just, seldom affect the lives of his employers. He was the most competent of Miss Bartlett's opponents, but infinitely the least dangerous. Once back in the town, he and his insight and his knowledge would trouble English ladies no more. Of course, it was most unpleasant she had seen his black head in the bushes he might make a tavern story out of it. But after all, what have we to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawingroom. It was of drawingroom people that Miss Bartlett thought as she journeyed downwards towards the fading sun. Lucy sat beside her Mr. Eager sat opposite, trying to catch her eye he was vaguely suspicious. They spoke of Alessio Baldovinetti. Rain and darkness came on together. The two ladies huddled together under an inadequate parasol. There was a lightning flash, and Miss Lavish who was nervous, screamed from the carriage in front. At the next flash, Lucy screamed also. Mr. Eager addressed her professionally 'Courage, Miss Honeychurch, courage and faith. If I might say so, there is something almost blasphemous in this horror of the elements. Are we seriously to suppose that all these clouds, all this immense electrical display, is simply called into existence to extinguish you or me? 'Noof course 'Even from the scientific standpoint the chances against our being struck are enormous. The steel knives, the only articles which might attract the current, are in the other carriage. And, in any case, we are infinitely safer than if we were walking. Couragecourage and faith. Under the rug, Lucy felt the kindly pressure of her cousin's hand. At times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards. Miss Bartlett, by this timely exercise of her muscles, gained more than she would have got in hours of preaching or cross examination. She renewed it when the two carriages stopped, half into Florence. 'Mr. Eager! called Mr. Beebe. 'We want your assistance. Will you interpret for us? 'George! cried Mr. Emerson. 'Ask your driver which way George went. The boy may lose his way. He may be killed. 'Go, Mr. Eager, said Miss Bartlett, 'don't ask our driver our driver is no help. Go and support poor Mr. Beebe, he is nearly demented. 'He may be killed! cried the old man. 'He may be killed! 'Typical behaviour, said the chaplain, as he quitted the carriage. 'In the presence of reality that kind of person invariably breaks down. 'What does he know? whispered Lucy as soon as they were alone. 'Charlotte, how much does Mr. Eager know? 'Nothing, dearest he knows nothing. But she pointed at the driver'he knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I? She took out her purse. 'It is dreadful to be entangled with lowclass people. He saw it all. Tapping Phaethon's back with her guidebook, she said, 'Silenzio! and offered him a franc. 'Va bene, he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day as any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him. There was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead wire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they had not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard it as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity, which fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended from the carriages they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good. The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that, even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin. 'Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And II thought I was developing. 'Do not cry, dearest. Take your time. 'I have been obstinate and sillyworse than you know, far worse. Once by the riverOh, but he isn't killedhe wouldn't be killed, would he? The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone. 'I trust not. One would always pray against that. 'He is reallyI think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a book. 'In a book? 'Heroesgodsthe nonsense of schoolgirls. 'And then? 'But, Charlotte, you know what happened then. Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which nothing could repress. 'I want to be truthful, she whispered. 'It is so hard to be absolutely truthful. 'Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it over before bedtime in my room. So they reentered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased, and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good humour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone she was sure ofCharlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and love. The luxury of selfexposure kept her almost happy through the long evening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she should describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her moments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be carefully laid before her cousin. And together in divine confidence they would disentangle and interpret them all. 'At last, thought she, 'I shall understand myself. I shan't again be troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don't know what. Miss Alan asked her to play. She refused vehemently. Music seemed to her the employment of a child. She sat close to her cousin, who, with commendable patience, was listening to a long story about lost luggage. When it was over she capped it by a story of her own. Lucy became rather hysterical with the delay. In vain she tried to check, or at all events to accelerate, the tale. It was not till a late hour that Miss Bartlett had recovered her luggage and could say in her usual tone of gentle reproach 'Well, dear, I at all events am ready for Bedfordshire. Come into my room, and I will give a good brush to your hair. With some solemnity the door was shut, and a cane chair placed for the girl. Then Miss Bartlett said 'So what is to be done? She was unprepared for the question. It had not occurred to her that she would have to do anything. A detailed exhibition of her emotions was all that she had counted upon. 'What is to be done? A point, dearest, which you alone can settle. The rain was streaming down the black windows, and the great room felt damp and chilly, One candle burnt trembling on the chest of drawers close to Miss Bartlett's toque, which cast monstrous and fantastic shadows on the bolted door. A tram roared by in the dark, and Lucy felt unaccountably sad, though she had long since dried her eyes. She lifted them to the ceiling, where the griffins and bassoons were colourless and vague, the very ghosts of joy. 'It has been raining for nearly four hours, she said at last. Miss Bartlett ignored the remark. 'How do you propose to silence him? 'The driver? 'My dear girl, no Mr. George Emerson. Lucy began to pace up and down the room. 'I don't understand, she said at last. She understood very well, but she no longer wished to be absolutely truthful. 'How are you going to stop him talking about it? 'I have a feeling that talk is a thing he will never do. 'I, too, intend to judge him charitably. But unfortunately I have met the type before. They seldom keep their exploits to themselves. 'Exploits? cried Lucy, wincing under the horrible plural. 'My poor dear, did you suppose that this was his first? Come here and listen to me. I am only gathering it from his own remarks. Do you remember that day at lunch when he argued with Miss Alan that liking one person is an extra reason for liking another? 'Yes, said Lucy, whom at the time the argument had pleased. 'Well, I am no prude. There is no need to call him a wicked young man, but obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. Let us put it down to his deplorable antecedents and education, if you wish. But we are no farther on with our question. What do you propose to do? An idea rushed across Lucy's brain, which, had she thought of it sooner and made it part of her, might have proved victorious. 'I propose to speak to him, said she. Miss Bartlett uttered a cry of genuine alarm. 'You see, Charlotte, your kindnessI shall never forget it. Butas you saidit is my affair. Mine and his. 'And you are going to implore him, to beg him to keep silence? 'Certainly not. There would be no difficulty. Whatever you ask him he answers, yes or no then it is over. I have been frightened of him. But now I am not one little bit. 'But we fear him for you, dear. You are so young and inexperienced, you have lived among such nice people, that you cannot realize what men can behow they can take a brutal pleasure in insulting a woman whom her sex does not protect and rally round. This afternoon, for example, if I had not arrived, what would have happened? 'I can't think, said Lucy gravely. Something in her voice made Miss Bartlett repeat her question, intoning it more vigorously. 'What would have happened if I hadn't arrived? 'I can't think, said Lucy again. 'When he insulted you, how would you have replied? 'I hadn't time to think. You came. 'Yes, but won't you tell me now what you would have done? 'I should have She checked herself, and broke the sentence off. She went up to the dripping window and strained her eyes into the darkness. She could not think what she would have done. 'Come away from the window, dear, said Miss Bartlett. 'You will be seen from the road. Lucy obeyed. She was in her cousin's power. She could not modulate out the key of selfabasement in which she had started. Neither of them referred again to her suggestion that she should speak to George and settle the matter, whatever it was, with him. Miss Bartlett became plaintive. 'Oh, for a real man! We are only two women, you and I. Mr. Beebe is hopeless. There is Mr. Eager, but you do not trust him. Oh, for your brother! He is young, but I know that his sister's insult would rouse in him a very lion. Thank God, chivalry is not yet dead. There are still left some men who can reverence woman. As she spoke, she pulled off her rings, of which she wore several, and ranged them upon the pin cushion. Then she blew into her gloves and said 'It will be a push to catch the morning train, but we must try. 'What train? 'The train to Rome. She looked at her gloves critically. The girl received the announcement as easily as it had been given. 'When does the train to Rome go? 'At eight. 'Signora Bertolini would be upset. 'We must face that, said Miss Bartlett, not liking to say that she had given notice already. 'She will make us pay for a whole week's pension. 'I expect she will. However, we shall be much more comfortable at the Vyses' hotel. Isn't afternoon tea given there for nothing? 'Yes, but they pay extra for wine. After this remark she remained motionless and silent. To her tired eyes Charlotte throbbed and swelled like a ghostly figure in a dream. They began to sort their clothes for packing, for there was no time to lose, if they were to catch the train to Rome. Lucy, when admonished, began to move to and fro between the rooms, more conscious of the discomforts of packing by candlelight than of a subtler ill. Charlotte, who was practical without ability, knelt by the side of an empty trunk, vainly endeavouring to pave it with books of varying thickness and size. She gave two or three sighs, for the stooping posture hurt her back, and, for all her diplomacy, she felt that she was growing old. The girl heard her as she entered the room, and was seized with one of those emotional impulses to which she could never attribute a cause. She only felt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier, the world be happier, if she could give and receive some human love. The impulse had come before today, but never so strongly. She knelt down by her cousin's side and took her in her arms. Miss Bartlett returned the embrace with tenderness and warmth. But she was not a stupid woman, and she knew perfectly well that Lucy did not love her, but needed her to love. For it was in ominous tones that she said, after a long pause 'Dearest Lucy, how will you ever forgive me? Lucy was on her guard at once, knowing by bitter experience what forgiving Miss Bartlett meant. Her emotion relaxed, she modified her embrace a little, and she said 'Charlotte dear, what do you mean? As if I have anything to forgive! 'You have a great deal, and I have a very great deal to forgive myself, too. I know well how much I vex you at every turn. 'But no Miss Bartlett assumed her favourite role, that of the prematurely aged martyr. 'Ah, but yes! I feel that our tour together is hardly the success I had hoped. I might have known it would not do. You want someone younger and stronger and more in sympathy with you. I am too uninteresting and oldfashionedonly fit to pack and unpack your things. 'Please 'My only consolation was that you found people more to your taste, and were often able to leave me at home. I had my own poor ideas of what a lady ought to do, but I hope I did not inflict them on you more than was necessary. You had your own way about these rooms, at all events. 'You mustn't say these things, said Lucy softly. She still clung to the hope that she and Charlotte loved each other, heart and soul. They continued to pack in silence. 'I have been a failure, said Miss Bartlett, as she struggled with the straps of Lucy's trunk instead of strapping her own. 'Failed to make you happy failed in my duty to your mother. She has been so generous to me I shall never face her again after this disaster. 'But mother will understand. It is not your fault, this trouble, and it isn't a disaster either. 'It is my fault, it is a disaster. She will never forgive me, and rightly. For instance, what right had I to make friends with Miss Lavish? 'Every right. 'When I was here for your sake? If I have vexed you it is equally true that I have neglected you. Your mother will see this as clearly as I do, when you tell her. Lucy, from a cowardly wish to improve the situation, said 'Why need mother hear of it? 'But you tell her everything? 'I suppose I do generally. 'I dare not break your confidence. There is something sacred in it. Unless you feel that it is a thing you could not tell her. The girl would not be degraded to this. 'Naturally I should have told her. But in case she should blame you in any way, I promise I will not, I am very willing not to. I will never speak of it either to her or to any one. Her promise brought the longdrawn interview to a sudden close. Miss Bartlett pecked her smartly on both cheeks, wished her goodnight, and sent her to her own room. For a moment the original trouble was in the background. George would seem to have behaved like a cad throughout perhaps that was the view which one would take eventually. At present she neither acquitted nor condemned him she did not pass judgement. At the moment when she was about to judge him her cousin's voice had intervened, and, ever since, it was Miss Bartlett who had dominated Miss Bartlett who, even now, could be heard sighing into a crack in the partition wall Miss Bartlett, who had really been neither pliable nor humble nor inconsistent. She had worked like a great artist for a timeindeed, for yearsshe had been meaningless, but at the end there was presented to the girl the complete picture of a cheerless, loveless world in which the young rush to destruction until they learn bettera shamefaced world of precautions and barriers which may avert evil, but which do not seem to bring good, if we may judge from those who have used them most. Lucy was suffering from the most grievous wrong which this world has yet discovered diplomatic advantage had been taken of her sincerity, of her craving for sympathy and love. Such a wrong is not easily forgotten. Never again did she expose herself without due consideration and precaution against rebuff. And such a wrong may react disastrously upon the soul. The doorbell rang, and she started to the shutters. Before she reached them she hesitated, turned, and blew out the candle. Thus it was that, though she saw someone standing in the wet below, he, though he looked up, did not see her. To reach his room he had to go by hers. She was still dressed. It struck her that she might slip into the passage and just say that she would be gone before he was up, and that their extraordinary intercourse was over. Whether she would have dared to do this was never proved. At the critical moment Miss Bartlett opened her own door, and her voice said 'I wish one word with you in the drawingroom, Mr. Emerson, please. Soon their footsteps returned, and Miss Bartlett said 'Goodnight, Mr. Emerson. His heavy, tired breathing was the only reply the chaperon had done her work. Lucy cried aloud 'It isn't true. It can't all be true. I want not to be muddled. I want to grow older quickly. Miss Bartlett tapped on the wall. 'Go to bed at once, dear. You need all the rest you can get. In the morning they left for Rome. The drawingroom curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for the carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun. They were heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light that filtered through them was subdued and varied. A poetnone was presentmight have quoted, 'Life like a dome of many coloured glass, or might have compared the curtains to sluicegates, lowered against the intolerable tides of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance within, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of man. Two pleasant people sat in the room. Onea boy of nineteenwas studying a small manual of anatomy, and peering occasionally at a bone which lay upon the piano. From time to time he bounced in his chair and puffed and groaned, for the day was hot and the print small, and the human frame fearfully made and his mother, who was writing a letter, did continually read out to him what she had written. And continually did she rise from her seat and part the curtains so that a rivulet of light fell across the carpet, and make the remark that they were still there. 'Where aren't they? said the boy, who was Freddy, Lucy's brother. 'I tell you I'm getting fairly sick. 'For goodness' sake go out of my drawingroom, then? cried Mrs. Honeychurch, who hoped to cure her children of slang by taking it literally. Freddy did not move or reply. 'I think things are coming to a head, she observed, rather wanting her son's opinion on the situation if she could obtain it without undue supplication. 'Time they did. 'I am glad that Cecil is asking her this once more. 'It's his third go, isn't it? 'Freddy I do call the way you talk unkind. 'I didn't mean to be unkind. Then he added 'But I do think Lucy might have got this off her chest in Italy. I don't know how girls manage things, but she can't have said 'No' properly before, or she wouldn't have to say it again now. Over the whole thingI can't explainI do feel so uncomfortable. 'Do you indeed, dear? How interesting! 'I feelnever mind. He returned to his work. 'Just listen to what I have written to Mrs. Vyse. I said 'Dear Mrs. Vyse.' 'Yes, mother, you told me. A jolly good letter. 'I said 'Dear Mrs. Vyse, Cecil has just asked my permission about it, and I should be delighted, if Lucy wishes it. But' She stopped reading, 'I was rather amused at Cecil asking my permission at all. He has always gone in for unconventionality, and parents nowhere, and so forth. When it comes to the point, he can't get on without me. 'Nor me. 'You? Freddy nodded. 'What do you mean? 'He asked me for my permission also. She exclaimed 'How very odd of him! 'Why so? asked the son and heir. 'Why shouldn't my permission be asked? 'What do you know about Lucy or girls or anything? What ever did you say? 'I said to Cecil, 'Take her or leave her it's no business of mine!' 'What a helpful answer! But her own answer, though more normal in its wording, had been to the same effect. 'The bother is this, began Freddy. Then he took up his work again, too shy to say what the bother was. Mrs. Honeychurch went back to the window. 'Freddy, you must come. There they still are! 'I don't see you ought to go peeping like that. 'Peeping like that! Can't I look out of my own window? But she returned to the writingtable, observing, as she passed her son, 'Still page ? Freddy snorted, and turned over two leaves. For a brief space they were silent. Close by, beyond the curtains, the gentle murmur of a long conversation had never ceased. 'The bother is this I have put my foot in it with Cecil most awfully. He gave a nervous gulp. 'Not content with 'permission', which I did givethat is to say, I said, 'I don't mind'well, not content with that, he wanted to know whether I wasn't off my head with joy. He practically put it like this Wasn't it a splendid thing for Lucy and for Windy Corner generally if he married her? And he would have an answerhe said it would strengthen his hand. 'I hope you gave a careful answer, dear. 'I answered 'No' said the boy, grinding his teeth. 'There! Fly into a stew! I can't help ithad to say it. I had to say no. He ought never to have asked me. 'Ridiculous child! cried his mother. 'You think you're so holy and truthful, but really it's only abominable conceit. Do you suppose that a man like Cecil would take the slightest notice of anything you say? I hope he boxed your ears. How dare you say no? 'Oh, do keep quiet, mother! I had to say no when I couldn't say yes. I tried to laugh as if I didn't mean what I said, and, as Cecil laughed too, and went away, it may be all right. But I feel my foot's in it. Oh, do keep quiet, though, and let a man do some work. 'No, said Mrs. Honeychurch, with the air of one who has considered the subject, 'I shall not keep quiet. You know all that has passed between them in Rome you know why he is down here, and yet you deliberately insult him, and try to turn him out of my house. 'Not a bit! he pleaded. 'I only let out I didn't like him. I don't hate him, but I don't like him. What I mind is that he'll tell Lucy. He glanced at the curtains dismally. 'Well, I like him, said Mrs. Honeychurch. 'I know his mother he's good, he's clever, he's rich, he's well connectedOh, you needn't kick the piano! He's well connectedI'll say it again if you like he's well connected. She paused, as if rehearsing her eulogy, but her face remained dissatisfied. She added 'And he has beautiful manners. 'I liked him till just now. I suppose it's having him spoiling Lucy's first week at home and it's also something that Mr. Beebe said, not knowing. 'Mr. Beebe? said his mother, trying to conceal her interest. 'I don't see how Mr. Beebe comes in. 'You know Mr. Beebe's funny way, when you never quite know what he means. He said 'Mr. Vyse is an ideal bachelor.' I was very cute, I asked him what he meant. He said 'Oh, he's like mebetter detached.' I couldn't make him say any more, but it set me thinking. Since Cecil has come after Lucy he hasn't been so pleasant, at leastI can't explain. 'You never can, dear. But I can. You are jealous of Cecil because he may stop Lucy knitting you silk ties. The explanation seemed plausible, and Freddy tried to accept it. But at the back of his brain there lurked a dim mistrust. Cecil praised one too much for being athletic. Was that it? Cecil made one talk in one's own way. This tired one. Was that it? And Cecil was the kind of fellow who would never wear another fellow's cap. Unaware of his own profundity, Freddy checked himself. He must be jealous, or he would not dislike a man for such foolish reasons. 'Will this do? called his mother. ''Dear Mrs. Vyse,Cecil has just asked my permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes it.' Then I put in at the top, 'and I have told Lucy so.' I must write the letter out again'and I have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very uncertain, and in these days young people must decide for themselves.' I said that because I didn't want Mrs. Vyse to think us oldfashioned. She goes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a thick layer of flue under the beds, and the maid's dirty thumbmarks where you turn on the electric light. She keeps that flat abominably 'Suppose Lucy marries Cecil, would she live in a flat, or in the country? 'Don't interrupt so foolishly. Where was I? Oh yes'Young people must decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your son, because she tells me everything, and she wrote to me from Rome when he asked her first.' No, I'll cross that last bit outit looks patronizing. I'll stop at 'because she tells me everything.' Or shall I cross that out, too? 'Cross it out, too, said Freddy. Mrs. Honeychurch left it in. 'Then the whole thing runs 'Dear Mrs. Vyse.Cecil has just asked my permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes it, and I have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very uncertain, and in these days young people must decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your son, because she tells me everything. But I do not know' 'Look out! cried Freddy. The curtains parted. Cecil's first movement was one of irritation. He couldn't bear the Honeychurch habit of sitting in the dark to save the furniture. Instinctively he give the curtains a twitch, and sent them swinging down their poles. Light entered. There was revealed a terrace, such as is owned by many villas with trees each side of it, and on it a little rustic seat, and two flowerbeds. But it was transfigured by the view beyond, for Windy Corner was built on the range that overlooks the Sussex Weald. Lucy, who was in the little seat, seemed on the edge of a green magic carpet which hovered in the air above the tremulous world. Cecil entered. Appearing thus late in the story, Cecil must be at once described. He was medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders that seemed braced square by an effort of the will, and a head that was tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision, he resembled those fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral. Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he remained in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as selfconsciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision, worshipped as asceticism. A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as a Greek statue implies fruition, and perhaps this was what Mr. Beebe meant. And Freddy, who ignored history and art, perhaps meant the same when he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another fellow's cap. Mrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards her young acquaintance. 'Oh, Cecil! she exclaimed'oh, Cecil, do tell me! 'I promessi sposi, said he. They stared at him anxiously. 'She has accepted me, he said, and the sound of the thing in English made him flush and smile with pleasure, and look more human. 'I am so glad, said Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy proffered a hand that was yellow with chemicals. They wished that they also knew Italian, for our phrases of approval and of amazement are so connected with little occasions that we fear to use them on great ones. We are obliged to become vaguely poetic, or to take refuge in Scriptural reminiscences. 'Welcome as one of the family! said Mrs. Honeychurch, waving her hand at the furniture. 'This is indeed a joyous day! I feel sure that you will make our dear Lucy happy. 'I hope so, replied the young man, shifting his eyes to the ceiling. 'We mothers simpered Mrs. Honeychurch, and then realized that she was affected, sentimental, bombasticall the things she hated most. Why could she not be Freddy, who stood stiff in the middle of the room looking very cross and almost handsome? 'I say, Lucy! called Cecil, for conversation seemed to flag. Lucy rose from the seat. She moved across the lawn and smiled in at them, just as if she was going to ask them to play tennis. Then she saw her brother's face. Her lips parted, and she took him in her arms. He said, 'Steady on! 'Not a kiss for me? asked her mother. Lucy kissed her also. 'Would you take them into the garden and tell Mrs. Honeychurch all about it? Cecil suggested. 'And I'd stop here and tell my mother. 'We go with Lucy? said Freddy, as if taking orders. 'Yes, you go with Lucy. They passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace, and descend out of sight by the steps. They would descendhe knew their wayspast the shrubbery, and past the tennislawn and the dahliabed, until they reached the kitchen garden, and there, in the presence of the potatoes and the peas, the great event would be discussed. Smiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette, and rehearsed the events that had led to such a happy conclusion. He had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace girl who happened to be musical. He could still remember his depression that afternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible cousin fell on him out of the blue, and demanded to be taken to St. Peter's. That day she had seemed a typical touristshrill, crude, and gaunt with travel. But Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, andwhich he held more preciousit gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci's, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us. The things are assuredly not of this life no woman of Leonardo's could have anything so vulgar as a 'story. She did develop most wonderfully day by day. So it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly passed if not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome he had hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had touched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion. Her refusal had been clear and gentle after itas the horrid phrase wentshe had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months later, on the margin of Italy, among the flowerclad Alps, he had asked her again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo more than ever her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock at his words she had turned and stood between him and the light with immeasurable plains behind her. He walked home with her unashamed, feeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really mattered were unshaken. So now he had asked her once more, and, clear and gentle as ever, she had accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply saying that she loved him and would do her best to make him happy. His mother, too, would be pleased she had counselled the step he must write her a long account. Glancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy's chemicals had come off on it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw 'Dear Mrs. Vyse, followed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more, and after a little hesitation sat down elsewhere, and pencilled a note on his knee. Then he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as the first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner drawingroom more distinctive. With that outlook it should have been a successful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it he could almost visualize the motorvans of Messrs. Shoolbred and Messrs. Maple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished bookcases, that writingtable. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch's letter. He did not want to read that letterhis temptations never lay in that direction but he worried about it none the less. It was his own fault that she was discussing him with his mother he had wanted her support in his third attempt to win Lucy he wanted to feel that others, no matter who they were, agreed with him, and so he had asked their permission. Mrs. Honeychurch had been civil, but obtuse in essentials, while as for Freddy'He is only a boy, he reflected. 'I represent all that he despises. Why should he want me for a brotherinlaw? The Honeychurches were a worthy family, but he began to realize that Lucy was of another clay and perhapshe did not put it very definitelyhe ought to introduce her into more congenial circles as soon as possible. 'Mr. Beebe! said the maid, and the new rector of Summer Street was shown in he had at once started on friendly relations, owing to Lucy's praise of him in her letters from Florence. Cecil greeted him rather critically. 'I've come for tea, Mr. Vyse. Do you suppose that I shall get it? 'I should say so. Food is the thing one does get hereDon't sit in that chair young Honeychurch has left a bone in it. 'Pfui! 'I know, said Cecil. 'I know. I can't think why Mrs. Honeychurch allows it. For Cecil considered the bone and the Maples' furniture separately he did not realize that, taken together, they kindled the room into the life that he desired. 'I've come for tea and for gossip. Isn't this news? 'News? I don't understand you, said Cecil. 'News? Mr. Beebe, whose news was of a very different nature, prattled forward. 'I met Sir Harry Otway as I came up I have every reason to hope that I am first in the field. He has bought Cissie and Albert from Mr. Flack! 'Has he indeed? said Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a grotesque mistake had he fallen! Was it likely that a clergyman and a gentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But his stiffness remained, and, though he asked who Cissie and Albert might be, he still thought Mr. Beebe rather a bounder. 'Unpardonable question! To have stopped a week at Windy Corner and not to have met Cissie and Albert, the semidetached villas that have been run up opposite the church! I'll set Mrs. Honeychurch after you. 'I'm shockingly stupid over local affairs, said the young man languidly. 'I can't even remember the difference between a Parish Council and a Local Government Board. Perhaps there is no difference, or perhaps those aren't the right names. I only go into the country to see my friends and to enjoy the scenery. It is very remiss of me. Italy and London are the only places where I don't feel to exist on sufferance. Mr. Beebe, distressed at this heavy reception of Cissie and Albert, determined to shift the subject. 'Let me see, Mr. VyseI forgetwhat is your profession? 'I have no profession, said Cecil. 'It is another example of my decadence. My attitudequite an indefensible oneis that so long as I am no trouble to any one I have a right to do as I like. I know I ought to be getting money out of people, or devoting myself to things I don't care a straw about, but somehow, I've not been able to begin. 'You are very fortunate, said Mr. Beebe. 'It is a wonderful opportunity, the possession of leisure. His voice was rather parochial, but he did not quite see his way to answering naturally. He felt, as all who have regular occupation must feel, that others should have it also. 'I am glad that you approve. I daren't face the healthy personfor example, Freddy Honeychurch. 'Oh, Freddy's a good sort, isn't he? 'Admirable. The sort who has made England what she is. Cecil wondered at himself. Why, on this day of all others, was he so hopelessly contrary? He tried to get right by inquiring effusively after Mr. Beebe's mother, an old lady for whom he had no particular regard. Then he flattered the clergyman, praised his liberalmindedness, his enlightened attitude towards philosophy and science. 'Where are the others? said Mr. Beebe at last, 'I insist on extracting tea before evening service. 'I suppose Anne never told them you were here. In this house one is so coached in the servants the day one arrives. The fault of Anne is that she begs your pardon when she hears you perfectly, and kicks the chairlegs with her feet. The faults of MaryI forget the faults of Mary, but they are very grave. Shall we look in the garden? 'I know the faults of Mary. She leaves the dustpans standing on the stairs. 'The fault of Euphemia is that she will not, simply will not, chop the suet sufficiently small. They both laughed, and things began to go better. 'The faults of Freddy Cecil continued. 'Ah, he has too many. No one but his mother can remember the faults of Freddy. Try the faults of Miss Honeychurch they are not innumerable. 'She has none, said the young man, with grave sincerity. 'I quite agree. At present she has none. 'At present? 'I'm not cynical. I'm only thinking of my pet theory about Miss Honeychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play so wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be wonderful in both. The watertight compartments in her will break down, and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good, heroically badtoo heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad. Cecil found his companion interesting. 'And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes? 'Well, I must say I've only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was not wonderful, and at Florence. Since I came to Summer Street she has been away. You saw her, didn't you, at Rome and in the Alps. Oh, I forgot of course, you knew her before. No, she wasn't wonderful in Florence either, but I kept on expecting that she would be. 'In what way? Conversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing up and down the terrace. 'I could as easily tell you what tune she'll play next. There was simply the sense that she had found wings, and meant to use them. I can show you a beautiful picture in my Italian diary Miss Honeychurch as a kite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture number two the string breaks. The sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards, when he viewed things artistically. At the time he had given surreptitious tugs to the string himself. 'But the string never broke? 'No. I mightn't have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should certainly have heard Miss Bartlett fall. 'It has broken now, said the young man in low, vibrating tones. Immediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous, contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He cursed his love of metaphor had he suggested that he was a star and that Lucy was soaring up to reach him? 'Broken? What do you mean? 'I meant, said Cecil stiffly, 'that she is going to marry me. The clergyman was conscious of some bitter disappointment which he could not keep out of his voice. 'I am sorry I must apologize. I had no idea you were intimate with her, or I should never have talked in this flippant, superficial way. Mr. Vyse, you ought to have stopped me. And down the garden he saw Lucy herself yes, he was disappointed. Cecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down his mouth at the corners. Was this the reception his action would get from the world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole every thoughtful man should it is almost a test of refinement. But he was sensitive to the successive particles of it which he encountered. Occasionally he could be quite crude. 'I am sorry I have given you a shock, he said dryly. 'I fear that Lucy's choice does not meet with your approval. 'Not that. But you ought to have stopped me. I know Miss Honeychurch only a little as time goes. Perhaps I oughtn't to have discussed her so freely with any one certainly not with you. 'You are conscious of having said something indiscreet? Mr. Beebe pulled himself together. Really, Mr. Vyse had the art of placing one in the most tiresome positions. He was driven to use the prerogatives of his profession. 'No, I have said nothing indiscreet. I foresaw at Florence that her quiet, uneventful childhood must end, and it has ended. I realized dimly enough that she might take some momentous step. She has taken it. She has learntyou will let me talk freely, as I have begun freelyshe has learnt what it is to love the greatest lesson, some people will tell you, that our earthly life provides. It was now time for him to wave his hat at the approaching trio. He did not omit to do so. 'She has learnt through you, and if his voice was still clerical, it was now also sincere 'let it be your care that her knowledge is profitable to her. 'Grazie tante! said Cecil, who did not like parsons. 'Have you heard? shouted Mrs. Honeychurch as she toiled up the sloping garden. 'Oh, Mr. Beebe, have you heard the news? Freddy, now full of geniality, whistled the wedding march. Youth seldom criticizes the accomplished fact. 'Indeed I have! he cried. He looked at Lucy. In her presence he could not act the parson any longerat all events not without apology. 'Mrs. Honeychurch, I'm going to do what I am always supposed to do, but generally I'm too shy. I want to invoke every kind of blessing on them, grave and gay, great and small. I want them all their lives to be supremely good and supremely happy as husband and wife, as father and mother. And now I want my tea. 'You only asked for it just in time, the lady retorted. 'How dare you be serious at Windy Corner? He took his tone from her. There was no more heavy beneficence, no more attempts to dignify the situation with poetry or the Scriptures. None of them dared or was able to be serious any more. An engagement is so potent a thing that sooner or later it reduces all who speak of it to this state of cheerful awe. Away from it, in the solitude of their rooms, Mr. Beebe, and even Freddy, might again be critical. But in its presence and in the presence of each other they were sincerely hilarious. It has a strange power, for it compels not only the lips, but the very heart. The chief parallel to compare one great thing with anotheris the power over us of a temple of some alien creed. Standing outside, we deride or oppose it, or at the most feel sentimental. Inside, though the saints and gods are not ours, we become true believers, in case any true believer should be present. So it was that after the gropings and the misgivings of the afternoon they pulled themselves together and settled down to a very pleasant teaparty. If they were hypocrites they did not know it, and their hypocrisy had every chance of setting and of becoming true. Anne, putting down each plate as if it were a wedding present, stimulated them greatly. They could not lag behind that smile of hers which she gave them ere she kicked the drawingroom door. Mr. Beebe chirruped. Freddy was at his wittiest, referring to Cecil as the 'Fiascofamily honoured pun on fiance. Mrs. Honeychurch, amusing and portly, promised well as a motherinlaw. As for Lucy and Cecil, for whom the temple had been built, they also joined in the merry ritual, but waited, as earnest worshippers should, for the disclosure of some holier shrine of joy. A few days after the engagement was announced Mrs. Honeychurch made Lucy and her Fiasco come to a little gardenparty in the neighbourhood, for naturally she wanted to show people that her daughter was marrying a presentable man. Cecil was more than presentable he looked distinguished, and it was very pleasant to see his slim figure keeping step with Lucy, and his long, fair face responding when Lucy spoke to him. People congratulated Mrs. Honeychurch, which is, I believe, a social blunder, but it pleased her, and she introduced Cecil rather indiscriminately to some stuffy dowagers. At tea a misfortune took place a cup of coffee was upset over Lucy's figured silk, and though Lucy feigned indifference, her mother feigned nothing of the sort but dragged her indoors to have the frock treated by a sympathetic maid. They were gone some time, and Cecil was left with the dowagers. When they returned he was not as pleasant as he had been. 'Do you go to much of this sort of thing? he asked when they were driving home. 'Oh, now and then, said Lucy, who had rather enjoyed herself. 'Is it typical of country society? 'I suppose so. Mother, would it be? 'Plenty of society, said Mrs. Honeychurch, who was trying to remember the hang of one of the dresses. Seeing that her thoughts were elsewhere, Cecil bent towards Lucy and said 'To me it seemed perfectly appalling, disastrous, portentous. 'I am so sorry that you were stranded. 'Not that, but the congratulations. It is so disgusting, the way an engagement is regarded as public propertya kind of waste place where every outsider may shoot his vulgar sentiment. All those old women smirking! 'One has to go through it, I suppose. They won't notice us so much next time. 'But my point is that their whole attitude is wrong. An engagementhorrid word in the first placeis a private matter, and should be treated as such. Yet the smirking old women, however wrong individually, were racially correct. The spirit of the generations had smiled through them, rejoicing in the engagement of Cecil and Lucy because it promised the continuance of life on earth. To Cecil and Lucy it promised something quite differentpersonal love. Hence Cecil's irritation and Lucy's belief that his irritation was just. 'How tiresome! she said. 'Couldn't you have escaped to tennis? 'I don't play tennisat least, not in public. The neighbourhood is deprived of the romance of me being athletic. Such romance as I have is that of the Inglese Italianato. 'Inglese Italianato? 'E un diavolo incarnato! You know the proverb? She did not. Nor did it seem applicable to a young man who had spent a quiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since his engagement, had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was far from possessing. 'Well, said he, 'I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me. There are certain irremovable barriers between myself and them, and I must accept them. 'We all have our limitations, I suppose, said wise Lucy. 'Sometimes they are forced on us, though, said Cecil, who saw from her remark that she did not quite understand his position. 'How? 'It makes a difference doesn't it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others? She thought a moment, and agreed that it did make a difference. 'Difference? cried Mrs. Honeychurch, suddenly alert. 'I don't see any difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same place. 'We were speaking of motives, said Cecil, on whom the interruption jarred. 'My dear Cecil, look here. She spread out her knees and perched her cardcase on her lap. 'This is me. That's Windy Corner. The rest of the pattern is the other people. Motives are all very well, but the fence comes here. 'We weren't talking of real fences, said Lucy, laughing. 'Oh, I see, dearpoetry. She leant placidly back. Cecil wondered why Lucy had been amused. 'I tell you who has no 'fences,' as you call them, she said, 'and that's Mr. Beebe. 'A parson fenceless would mean a parson defenceless. Lucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to detect what they meant. She missed Cecil's epigram, but grasped the feeling that prompted it. 'Don't you like Mr. Beebe? she asked thoughtfully. 'I never said so! he cried. 'I consider him far above the average. I only denied And he swept off on the subject of fences again, and was brilliant. 'Now, a clergyman that I do hate, said she wanting to say something sympathetic, 'a clergyman that does have fences, and the most dreadful ones, is Mr. Eager, the English chaplain at Florence. He was truly insincerenot merely the manner unfortunate. He was a snob, and so conceited, and he did say such unkind things. 'What sort of things? 'There was an old man at the Bertolini whom he said had murdered his wife. 'Perhaps he had. 'No! 'Why 'no'? 'He was such a nice old man, I'm sure. Cecil laughed at her feminine inconsequence. 'Well, I did try to sift the thing. Mr. Eager would never come to the point. He prefers it vaguesaid the old man had 'practically' murdered his wifehad murdered her in the sight of God. 'Hush, dear! said Mrs. Honeychurch absently. 'But isn't it intolerable that a person whom we're told to imitate should go round spreading slander? It was, I believe, chiefly owing to him that the old man was dropped. People pretended he was vulgar, but he certainly wasn't that. 'Poor old man! What was his name? 'Harris, said Lucy glibly. 'Let's hope that Mrs. Harris there warn't no sich person, said her mother. Cecil nodded intelligently. 'Isn't Mr. Eager a parson of the cultured type? he asked. 'I don't know. I hate him. I've heard him lecture on Giotto. I hate him. Nothing can hide a petty nature. I hate him. 'My goodness gracious me, child! said Mrs. Honeychurch. 'You'll blow my head off! Whatever is there to shout over? I forbid you and Cecil to hate any more clergymen. He smiled. There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forebore to repress the sources of youth. Naturesimplest of topics, he thoughtlay around them. He praised the pinewoods, the deep lasts of bracken, the crimson leaves that spotted the hurtbushes, the serviceable beauty of the turnpike road. The outdoor world was not very familiar to him, and occasionally he went wrong in a question of fact. Mrs. Honeychurch's mouth twitched when he spoke of the perpetual green of the larch. 'I count myself a lucky person, he concluded, 'When I'm in London I feel I could never live out of it. When I'm in the country I feel the same about the country. After all, I do believe that birds and trees and the sky are the most wonderful things in life, and that the people who live amongst them must be the best. It's true that in nine cases out of ten they don't seem to notice anything. The country gentleman and the country labourer are each in their way the most depressing of companions. Yet they may have a tacit sympathy with the workings of Nature which is denied to us of the town. Do you feel that, Mrs. Honeychurch? Mrs. Honeychurch started and smiled. She had not been attending. Cecil, who was rather crushed on the front seat of the victoria, felt irritable, and determined not to say anything interesting again. Lucy had not attended either. Her brow was wrinkled, and she still looked furiously crossthe result, he concluded, of too much moral gymnastics. It was sad to see her thus blind to the beauties of an August wood. ''Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height,' he quoted, and touched her knee with his own. She flushed again and said 'What height? ''Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height, What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang). In height and in the splendour of the hills?' Let us take Mrs. Honeychurch's advice and hate clergymen no more. What's this place? 'Summer Street, of course, said Lucy, and roused herself. The woods had opened to leave space for a sloping triangular meadow. Pretty cottages lined it on two sides, and the upper and third side was occupied by a new stone church, expensively simple, a charming shingled spire. Mr. Beebe's house was near the church. In height it scarcely exceeded the cottages. Some great mansions were at hand, but they were hidden in the trees. The scene suggested a Swiss Alp rather than the shrine and centre of a leisured world, and was marred only by two ugly little villasthe villas that had competed with Cecil's engagement, having been acquired by Sir Harry Otway the very afternoon that Lucy had been acquired by Cecil. 'Cissie was the name of one of these villas, 'Albert of the other. These titles were not only picked out in shaded Gothic on the garden gates, but appeared a second time on the porches, where they followed the semicircular curve of the entrance arch in block capitals. 'Albert was inhabited. His tortured garden was bright with geraniums and lobelias and polished shells. His little windows were chastely swathed in Nottingham lace. 'Cissie was to let. Three noticeboards, belonging to Dorking agents, lolled on her fence and announced the not surprising fact. Her paths were already weedy her pockethandkerchief of a lawn was yellow with dandelions. 'The place is ruined! said the ladies mechanically. 'Summer Street will never be the same again. As the carriage passed, 'Cissie's door opened, and a gentleman came out of her. 'Stop! cried Mrs. Honeychurch, touching the coachman with her parasol. 'Here's Sir Harry. Now we shall know. Sir Harry, pull those things down at once! Sir Harry Otwaywho need not be describedcame to the carriage and said 'Mrs. Honeychurch, I meant to. I can't, I really can't turn out Miss Flack. 'Am I not always right? She ought to have gone before the contract was signed. Does she still live rent free, as she did in her nephew's time? 'But what can I do? He lowered his voice. 'An old lady, so very vulgar, and almost bedridden. 'Turn her out, said Cecil bravely. Sir Harry sighed, and looked at the villas mournfully. He had had full warning of Mr. Flack's intentions, and might have bought the plot before building commenced but he was apathetic and dilatory. He had known Summer Street for so many years that he could not imagine it being spoilt. Not till Mrs. Flack had laid the foundation stone, and the apparition of red and cream brick began to rise did he take alarm. He called on Mr. Flack, the local builder,a most reasonable and respectful manwho agreed that tiles would have made more artistic roof, but pointed out that slates were cheaper. He ventured to differ, however, about the Corinthian columns which were to cling like leeches to the frames of the bow windows, saying that, for his part, he liked to relieve the faade by a bit of decoration. Sir Harry hinted that a column, if possible, should be structural as well as decorative. Mr. Flack replied that all the columns had been ordered, adding, 'and all the capitals differentone with dragons in the foliage, another approaching to the Ionian style, another introducing Mrs. Flack's initialsevery one different. For he had read his Ruskin. He built his villas according to his desire and not until he had inserted an immovable aunt into one of them did Sir Harry buy. This futile and unprofitable transaction filled the knight with sadness as he leant on Mrs. Honeychurch's carriage. He had failed in his duties to the countryside, and the countryside was laughing at him as well. He had spent money, and yet Summer Street was spoilt as much as ever. All he could do now was to find a desirable tenant for 'Cissiesomeone really desirable. 'The rent is absurdly low, he told them, 'and perhaps I am an easy landlord. But it is such an awkward size. It is too large for the peasant class and too small for any one the least like ourselves. Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or despise Sir Harry for despising them. The latter impulse seemed the more fruitful. 'You ought to find a tenant at once, he said maliciously. 'It would be a perfect paradise for a bank clerk. 'Exactly! said Sir Harry excitedly. 'That is exactly what I fear, Mr. Vyse. It will attract the wrong type of people. The train service has improveda fatal improvement, to my mind. And what are five miles from a station in these days of bicycles? 'Rather a strenuous clerk it would be, said Lucy. Cecil, who had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a most appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless neighbour, and roused herself to stop him. 'Sir Harry! she exclaimed, 'I have an idea. How would you like spinsters? 'My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such? 'Yes I met them abroad. 'Gentlewomen? he asked tentatively. 'Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them last weekMiss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I'm really not joking. They are quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell them to write to you? 'Indeed you may! he cried. 'Here we are with the difficulty solved already. How delightful it is! Extra facilitiesplease tell them they shall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents' fees. Oh, the agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when I wrotea tactful letter, you knowasking her to explain her social position to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As if one cares about that! And several references I took up were most unsatisfactorypeople swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit! She nodded. 'My advice, put in Mrs. Honeychurch, 'is to have nothing to do with Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them that make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather let to some one who is going up in the world than to someone who has come down. 'I think I follow you, said Sir Harry 'but it is, as you say, a very sad thing. 'The Misses Alan aren't that! cried Lucy. 'Yes, they are, said Cecil. 'I haven't met them but I should say they were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood. 'Don't listen to him, Sir Harryhe's tiresome. 'It's I who am tiresome, he replied. 'I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help. 'Then may I write to my Misses Alan? 'Please! But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed 'Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man. 'Really he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her remark. 'Men don't gossip over teacups. If they get drunk, there's an end of themthey lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar, they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a manof course, provided he's clean. Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should descend from the carriage and inspect 'Cissie for herself. She was delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they were on a small scale. Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother. 'Mrs. Honeychurch, he said, 'what if we two walk home and leave you? 'Certainly! was her cordial reply. Sir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed at them knowingly, said, 'Aha! young people, young people! and then hastened to unlock the house. 'Hopeless vulgarian! exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of earshot. 'Oh, Cecil! 'I can't help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man. 'He isn't clever, but really he is nice. 'No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and every oneeven your motheris taken in. 'All that you say is quite true, said Lucy, though she felt discouraged. 'I wonder whetherwhether it matters so very much. 'It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that gardenparty. Oh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he'll get some vulgar tenant in that villasome woman so really vulgar that he'll notice it. Gentlefolks! Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let's forget him. This Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and Mr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered to her would escape? For instance, Freddy. Freddy was neither clever, nor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any minute, 'It would be wrong not to loathe Freddy? And what would she reply? Further than Freddy she did not go, but he gave her anxiety enough. She could only assure herself that Cecil had known Freddy some time, and that they had always got on pleasantly, except, perhaps, during the last few days, which was an accident, perhaps. 'Which way shall we go? she asked him. Naturesimplest of topics, she thoughtwas around them. Summer Street lay deep in the woods, and she had stopped where a footpath diverged from the highroad. 'Are there two ways? 'Perhaps the road is more sensible, as we're got up smart. 'I'd rather go through the wood, said Cecil, With that subdued irritation that she had noticed in him all the afternoon. 'Why is it, Lucy, that you always say the road? Do you know that you have never once been with me in the fields or the wood since we were engaged? 'Haven't I? The wood, then, said Lucy, startled at his queerness, but pretty sure that he would explain later it was not his habit to leave her in doubt as to his meaning. She led the way into the whispering pines, and sure enough he did explain before they had gone a dozen yards. 'I had got an ideaI dare say wronglythat you feel more at home with me in a room. 'A room? she echoed, hopelessly bewildered. 'Yes. Or, at the most, in a garden, or on a road. Never in the real country like this. 'Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean? I have never felt anything of the sort. You talk as if I was a kind of poetess sort of person. 'I don't know that you aren't. I connect you with a viewa certain type of view. Why shouldn't you connect me with a room? She reflected a moment, and then said, laughing 'Do you know that you're right? I do. I must be a poetess after all. When I think of you it's always as in a room. How funny! To her surprise, he seemed annoyed. 'A drawingroom, pray? With no view? 'Yes, with no view, I fancy. Why not? 'I'd rather, he said reproachfully, 'that you connected me with the open air. She said again, 'Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean? As no explanation was forthcoming, she shook off the subject as too difficult for a girl, and led him further into the wood, pausing every now and then at some particularly beautiful or familiar combination of the trees. She had known the wood between Summer Street and Windy Corner ever since she could walk alone she had played at losing Freddy in it, when Freddy was a purplefaced baby and though she had been to Italy, it had lost none of its charm. Presently they came to a little clearing among the pinesanother tiny green alp, solitary this time, and holding in its bosom a shallow pool. She exclaimed, 'The Sacred Lake! 'Why do you call it that? 'I can't remember why. I suppose it comes out of some book. It's only a puddle now, but you see that stream going through it? Well, a good deal of water comes down after heavy rains, and can't get away at once, and the pool becomes quite large and beautiful. Then Freddy used to bathe there. He is very fond of it. 'And you? He meant, 'Are you fond of it? But she answered dreamily, 'I bathed here, too, till I was found out. Then there was a row. At another time he might have been shocked, for he had depths of prudishness within him. But now? with his momentary cult of the fresh air, he was delighted at her admirable simplicity. He looked at her as she stood by the pool's edge. She was got up smart, as she phrased it, and she reminded him of some brilliant flower that has no leaves of its own, but blooms abruptly out of a world of green. 'Who found you out? 'Charlotte, she murmured. 'She was stopping with us. CharlotteCharlotte. 'Poor girl! She smiled gravely. A certain scheme, from which hitherto he had shrunk, now appeared practical. 'Lucy! 'Yes, I suppose we ought to be going, was her reply. 'Lucy, I want to ask something of you that I have never asked before. At the serious note in his voice she stepped frankly and kindly towards him. 'What, Cecil? 'Hitherto nevernot even that day on the lawn when you agreed to marry me He became selfconscious and kept glancing round to see if they were observed. His courage had gone. 'Yes? 'Up to now I have never kissed you. She was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately. 'Nomore you have, she stammered. 'Then I ask youmay I now? 'Of course, you may, Cecil. You might before. I can't run at you, you know. At that supreme moment he was conscious of nothing but absurdities. Her reply was inadequate. She gave such a businesslike lift to her veil. As he approached her he found time to wish that he could recoil. As he touched her, his gold pincenez became dislodged and was flattened between them. Such was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way. Why could he not do as any labourer or navvynay, as any young man behind the counter would have done? He recast the scene. Lucy was standing flowerlike by the water, he rushed up and took her in his arms she rebuked him, permitted him and revered him ever after for his manliness. For he believed that women revere men for their manliness. They left the pool in silence, after this one salutation. He waited for her to make some remark which should show him her inmost thoughts. At last she spoke, and with fitting gravity. 'Emerson was the name, not Harris. 'What name? 'The old man's. 'What old man? 'That old man I told you about. The one Mr. Eager was so unkind to. He could not know that this was the most intimate conversation they had ever had. The society out of which Cecil proposed to rescue Lucy was perhaps no very splendid affair, yet it was more splendid than her antecedents entitled her to. Her father, a prosperous local solicitor, had built Windy Corner, as a speculation at the time the district was opening up, and, falling in love with his own creation, had ended by living there himself. Soon after his marriage the social atmosphere began to alter. Other houses were built on the brow of that steep southern slope and others, again, among the pinetrees behind, and northward on the chalk barrier of the downs. Most of these houses were larger than Windy Corner, and were filled by people who came, not from the district, but from London, and who mistook the Honeychurches for the remnants of an indigenous aristocracy. He was inclined to be frightened, but his wife accepted the situation without either pride or humility. 'I cannot think what people are doing, she would say, 'but it is extremely fortunate for the children. She called everywhere her calls were returned with enthusiasm, and by the time people found out that she was not exactly of their milieu, they liked her, and it did not seem to matter. When Mr. Honeychurch died, he had the satisfactionwhich few honest solicitors despiseof leaving his family rooted in the best society obtainable. The best obtainable. Certainly many of the immigrants were rather dull, and Lucy realized this more vividly since her return from Italy. Hitherto she had accepted their ideals without questioningtheir kindly affluence, their inexplosive religion, their dislike of paperbags, orangepeel, and broken bottles. A Radical out and out, she learnt to speak with horror of Suburbia. Life, so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the London fog tries to enter the pinewoods pouring through the gaps in the northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses may warm himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished. Her senses expanded she felt that there was no one whom she might not get to like, that social barriers were irremovable, doubtless, but not particularly high. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant's oliveyard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned with new eyes. So did Cecil but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to irritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but, instead of saying, 'Does that very much matter? he rebelled, and tried to substitute for it the society he called broad. He did not realize that Lucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities that create a tenderness in time, and that though her eyes saw its defects, her heart refused to despise it entirely. Nor did he realize a more important pointthat if she was too great for this society, she was too great for all society, and had reached the stage where personal intercourse would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the kind he understooda rebel who desired, not a wider dwellingroom, but equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessionsher own soul. Playing bumblepuppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and aged thirteenan ancient and most honourable game, which consists in striking tennisballs high into the air, so that they fall over the net and immoderately bounce some hit Mrs. Honeychurch others are lost. The sentence is confused, but the better illustrates Lucy's state of mind, for she was trying to talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time. 'Oh, it has been such a nuisancefirst he, then theyno one knowing what they wanted, and everyone so tiresome. 'But they really are coming now, said Mr. Beebe. 'I wrote to Miss Teresa a few days agoshe was wondering how often the butcher called, and my reply of once a month must have impressed her favourably. They are coming. I heard from them this morning. 'I shall hate those Miss Alans! Mrs. Honeychurch cried. 'Just because they're old and silly one's expected to say 'How sweet!' I hate their 'if'ing and 'but'ing and 'and'ing. And poor Lucyserve her rightworn to a shadow. Mr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the tenniscourt. Cecil was absentone did not play bumblepuppy when he was there. 'Well, if they are comingNo, Minnie, not Saturn. Saturn was a tennisball whose skin was partially unsewn. When in motion his orb was encircled by a ring. 'If they are coming, Sir Harry will let them move in before the twentyninth, and he will cross out the clause about whitewashing the ceilings, because it made them nervous, and put in the fair wear and tear one.That doesn't count. I told you not Saturn. 'Saturn's all right for bumblepuppy, cried Freddy, joining them. 'Minnie, don't you listen to her. 'Saturn doesn't bounce. 'Saturn bounces enough. 'No, he doesn't. 'Well he bounces better than the Beautiful White Devil. 'Hush, dear, said Mrs. Honeychurch. 'But look at Lucycomplaining of Saturn, and all the time's got the Beautiful White Devil in her hand, ready to plug it in. That's right, Minnie, go for herget her over the shins with the racquetget her over the shins! Lucy fell, the Beautiful White Devil rolled from her hand. Mr. Beebe picked it up, and said 'The name of this ball is Vittoria Corombona, please. But his correction passed unheeded. Freddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little girls to fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie from a wellmannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the house Cecil heard them, and, though he was full of entertaining news, he did not come down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He was not a coward and bore necessary pain as well as any man. But he hated the physical violence of the young. How right it was! Sure enough it ended in a cry. 'I wish the Miss Alans could see this, observed Mr. Beebe, just as Lucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted off her feet by her brother. 'Who are the Miss Alans? Freddy panted. 'They have taken Cissie Villa. 'That wasn't the name Here his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the grass. An interval elapses. 'Wasn't what name? asked Lucy, with her brother's head in her lap. 'Alan wasn't the name of the people Sir Harry's let to. 'Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it. 'Nonsense yourself! I've this minute seen him. He said to me 'Ahem! Honeychurch,'Freddy was an indifferent mimic''ahem! ahem! I have at last procured really deesirerebel tenants.' I said, 'ooray, old boy!' and slapped him on the back. 'Exactly. The Miss Alans? 'Rather not. More like Anderson. 'Oh, good gracious, there isn't going to be another muddle! Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed. 'Do you notice, Lucy, I'm always right? I said don't interfere with Cissie Villa. I'm always right. I'm quite uneasy at being always right so often. 'It's only another muddle of Freddy's. Freddy doesn't even know the name of the people he pretends have taken it instead. 'Yes, I do. I've got it. Emerson. 'What name? 'Emerson. I'll bet you anything you like. 'What a weathercock Sir Harry is, said Lucy quietly. 'I wish I had never bothered over it at all. Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe, whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that that was the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong. Meanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs. Honeychurch from the contemplation of her own abilities. 'Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are? 'I don't know whether they're any Emersons, retorted Freddy, who was democratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he was naturally attracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact that there are different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure. 'I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucyshe was sitting up again'I see you looking down your nose and thinking your mother's a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it's affectation to pretend there isn't. 'Emerson's a common enough name, Lucy remarked. She was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she could see the pineclad promontories descending one beyond another into the Weald. The further one descended the garden, the more glorious was this lateral view. 'I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were no relations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray, does that satisfy you? 'Oh, yes, he grumbled. 'And you will be satisfied, too, for they're friends of Cecil soelaborate irony'you and the other country families will be able to call in perfect safety. 'Cecil? exclaimed Lucy. 'Don't be rude, dear, said his mother placidly. 'Lucy, don't screech. It's a new bad habit you're getting into. 'But has Cecil 'Friends of Cecil's, he repeated, ''and so really deesirerebel. Ahem! Honeychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.' She got up from the grass. It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much. While she believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from Sir Harry Otway, she had borne it like a good girl. She might well 'screech when she heard that it came partly from her lover. Mr. Vyse was a teasesomething worse than a tease he took a malicious pleasure in thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing this, looked at Miss Honeychurch with more than his usual kindness. When she exclaimed, 'But Cecil's Emersonsthey can't possibly be the same onesthere is that he did not consider that the exclamation was strange, but saw in it an opportunity of diverting the conversation while she recovered her composure. He diverted it as follows 'The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don't suppose it will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends of Mr. Vyse's. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest people! For our part we liked them, didn't we? He appealed to Lucy. 'There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so pleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine's great stories. 'My dear sister loves flowers,' it began. They found the whole room a mass of bluevases and jugsand the story ends with 'So ungentlemanly and yet so beautiful.' It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those Florentine Emersons with violets. 'Fiasco's done you this time, remarked Freddy, not seeing that his sister's face was very red. She could not recover herself. Mr. Beebe saw it, and continued to divert the conversation. 'These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a sonthe son a goodly, if not a good young man not a fool, I fancy, but very immaturepessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the fathersuch a sentimental darling, and people declared he had murdered his wife. In his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such gossip, but he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble. He repeated any rubbish that came into his head. 'Murdered his wife? said Mrs. Honeychurch. 'Lucy, don't desert usgo on playing bumblepuppy. Really, the Pension Bertolini must have been the oddest place. That's the second murderer I've heard of as being there. Whatever was Charlotte doing to stop? Bytheby, we really must ask Charlotte here some time. Mr. Beebe could recall no second murderer. He suggested that his hostess was mistaken. At the hint of opposition she warmed. She was perfectly sure that there had been a second tourist of whom the same story had been told. The name escaped her. What was the name? Oh, what was the name? She clasped her knees for the name. Something in Thackeray. She struck her matronly forehead. Lucy asked her brother whether Cecil was in. 'Oh, don't go! he cried, and tried to catch her by the ankles. 'I must go, she said gravely. 'Don't be silly. You always overdo it when you play. As she left them her mother's shout of 'Harris! shivered the tranquil air, and reminded her that she had told a lie and had never put it right. Such a senseless lie, too, yet it shattered her nerves and made her connect these Emersons, friends of Cecil's, with a pair of nondescript tourists. Hitherto truth had come to her naturally. She saw that for the future she must be more vigilant, and beabsolutely truthful? Well, at all events, she must not tell lies. She hurried up the garden, still flushed with shame. A word from Cecil would soothe her, she was sure. 'Cecil! 'Hullo! he called, and leant out of the smokingroom window. He seemed in high spirits. 'I was hoping you'd come. I heard you all beargardening, but there's better fun up here. I, even I, have won a great victory for the Comic Muse. George Meredith's rightthe cause of Comedy and the cause of Truth are really the same and I, even I, have found tenants for the distressful Cissie Villa. Don't be angry! Don't be angry! You'll forgive me when you hear it all. He looked very attractive when his face was bright, and he dispelled her ridiculous forebodings at once. 'I have heard, she said. 'Freddy has told us. Naughty Cecil! I suppose I must forgive you. Just think of all the trouble I took for nothing! Certainly the Miss Alans are a little tiresome, and I'd rather have nice friends of yours. But you oughtn't to tease one so. 'Friends of mine? he laughed. 'But, Lucy, the whole joke is to come! Come here. But she remained standing where she was. 'Do you know where I met these desirable tenants? In the National Gallery, when I was up to see my mother last week. 'What an odd place to meet people! she said nervously. 'I don't quite understand. 'In the Umbrian Room. Absolute strangers. They were admiring Luca Signorelliof course, quite stupidly. However, we got talking, and they refreshed me not a little. They had been to Italy. 'But, Cecil proceeded hilariously. 'In the course of conversation they said that they wanted a country cottagethe father to live there, the son to run down for weekends. I thought, 'What a chance of scoring off Sir Harry!' and I took their address and a London reference, found they weren't actual blackguardsit was great sportand wrote to him, making out 'Cecil! No, it's not fair. I've probably met them before He bore her down. 'Perfectly fair. Anything is fair that punishes a snob. That old man will do the neighbourhood a world of good. Sir Harry is too disgusting with his 'decayed gentlewomen.' I meant to read him a lesson some time. No, Lucy, the classes ought to mix, and before long you'll agree with me. There ought to be intermarriageall sorts of things. I believe in democracy 'No, you don't, she snapped. 'You don't know what the word means. He stared at her, and felt again that she had failed to be Leonardesque. 'No, you don't! Her face was inartisticthat of a peevish virago. 'It isn't fair, Cecil. I blame youI blame you very much indeed. You had no business to undo my work about the Miss Alans, and make me look ridiculous. You call it scoring off Sir Harry, but do you realize that it is all at my expense? I consider it most disloyal of you. She left him. 'Temper! he thought, raising his eyebrows. No, it was worse than tempersnobbishness. As long as Lucy thought that his own smart friends were supplanting the Miss Alans, she had not minded. He perceived that these new tenants might be of value educationally. He would tolerate the father and draw out the son, who was silent. In the interests of the Comic Muse and of Truth, he would bring them to Windy Corner. The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons to Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through the negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement, met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were duly offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held responsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the newcomers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as soon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse's equipment that she permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his head, to be forgotten, and to die. Lucyto descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows because there are hillsLucy was at first plunged into despair, but settled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least. Now that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and were welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring whom he would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to bring the Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a little thinking, andso illogical are girlsthe event remained rather greater and rather more dreadful than it should have done. She was glad that a visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due the tenants moved into Cissie Villa while she was safe in the London flat. 'CecilCecil darling, she whispered the evening she arrived, and crept into his arms. Cecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire had been kindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a woman should, and looked up to him because he was a man. 'So you do love me, little thing? he murmured. 'Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don't know what I should do without you. Several days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett. A coolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had not corresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated from what Charlotte would call 'the flight to Rome, and in Rome it had increased amazingly. For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval world becomes exasperating in the classical. Charlotte, unselfish in the Forum, would have tried a sweeter temper than Lucy's, and once, in the Baths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue their tour. Lucy had said she would join the VysesMrs. Vyse was an acquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and Miss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned suddenly. Finally nothing happened but the coolness remained, and, for Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as follows. It had been forwarded from Windy Corner. 'TUNBRIDGE WELLS, 'September. 'DEAREST LUCIA, 'I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in your parts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome. Puncturing her tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while she sat very woebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her astonishment, a door open opposite and the younger Emerson man come out. He said his father had just taken the house. He said he did not know that you lived in the neighbourhood (?). He never suggested giving Eleanor a cup of tea. Dear Lucy, I am much worried, and I advise you to make a clean breast of his past behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who will forbid him to enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune, and I dare say you have told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I remember how I used to get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry about it all, and should not feel easy unless I warned you. 'Believe me, 'Your anxious and loving cousin, 'CHARLOTTE. Lucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows 'BEAUCHAMP MANSIONS, S.W. 'DEAR CHARLOTTE, 'Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on the mountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you said she would blame you for not being always with me. I have kept that promise, and cannot possibly tell her now. I have said both to her and Cecil that I met the Emersons at Florence, and that they are respectable peoplewhich I do thinkand the reason that he offered Miss Lavish no tea was probably that he had none himself. She should have tried at the Rectory. I cannot begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that it would be too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them, they would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they are not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him again. As for the son, I am sorry for him when we meet, rather than for myself. They are known to Cecil, who is very well and spoke of you the other day. We expect to be married in January. 'Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at Windy Corner at all, but here. Please do not put 'Private' outside your envelope again. No one opens my letters. 'Yours affectionately, 'L. M. HONEYCHURCH. Secrecy has this disadvantage we lose the sense of proportion we cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil's life if he discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother and her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained a little thing. 'Emerson, not Harris it was only that a few weeks ago. She tried to tell Cecil even now when they were laughing about some beautiful lady who had smitten his heart at school. But her body behaved so ridiculously that she stopped. She and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted Metropolis visiting the scenes they were to know so well later on. It did her no harm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of society, while society itself was absent on the golflinks or the moors. The weather was cool, and it did her no harm. In spite of the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to scrape together a dinnerparty consisting entirely of the grandchildren of famous people. The food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness that impressed the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One launched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself up amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension Bertolini and Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw that her London career would estrange her a little from all that she had loved in the past. The grandchildren asked her to play the piano. She played Schumann. 'Now some Beethoven called Cecil, when the querulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and played Schumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke it was resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The sadness of the incompletethe sadness that is often Life, but should never be Artthrobbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano at the Bertolini, and 'Too much Schumann was not the remark that Mr. Beebe had passed to himself when she returned. When the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse paced up and down the drawingroom, discussing her little party with her son. Mrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality, like many another's, had been swamped by London, for it needs a strong head to live among many people. The too vast orb of her fate had crushed her and she had seen too many seasons, too many cities, too many men, for her abilities, and even with Cecil she was mechanical, and behaved as if he was not one son, but, so to speak, a filial crowd. 'Make Lucy one of us, she said, looking round intelligently at the end of each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she spoke again. 'Lucy is becoming wonderfulwonderful. 'Her music always was wonderful. 'Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most excellent Honeychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not always quoting servants, or asking one how the pudding is made. 'Italy has done it. 'Perhaps, she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented Italy to her. 'It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her next January. She is one of us already. 'But her music! he exclaimed. 'The style of her! How she kept to Schumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was right for this evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know, mother, I shall have our children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest country folks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and thennot till thenlet them come to London. I don't believe in these London educations He broke off, remembering that he had had one himself, and concluded, 'At all events, not for women. 'Make her one of us, repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed. As she was dozing off, a crythe cry of nightmarerang from Lucy's room. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs. Vyse thought it kind to go herself. She found the girl sitting upright with her hand on her cheek. 'I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyseit is these dreams. 'Bad dreams? 'Just dreams. The elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly 'You should have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you more than ever. Dream of that. Lucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand. Mrs. Vyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke, snored. Darkness enveloped the flat. It was a Saturday afternoon, gay and brilliant after abundant rains, and the spirit of youth dwelt in it, though the season was now autumn. All that was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer Street they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon dispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or of the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life's amenities, leant over his Rectory gate. Freddy leant by him, smoking a pendant pipe. 'Suppose we go and hinder those new people opposite for a little. 'M'm. 'They might amuse you. Freddy, whom his fellowcreatures never amused, suggested that the new people might be feeling a bit busy, and so on, since they had only just moved in. 'I suggested we should hinder them, said Mr. Beebe. 'They are worth it. Unlatching the gate, he sauntered over the triangular green to Cissie Villa. 'Hullo! he cried, shouting in at the open door, through which much squalor was visible. A grave voice replied, 'Hullo! 'I've brought someone to see you. 'I'll be down in a minute. The passage was blocked by a wardrobe, which the removal men had failed to carry up the stairs. Mr. Beebe edged round it with difficulty. The sittingroom itself was blocked with books. 'Are these people great readers? Freddy whispered. 'Are they that sort? 'I fancy they know how to reada rare accomplishment. What have they got? Byron. Exactly. A Shropshire Lad. Never heard of it. The Way of All Flesh. Never heard of it. Gibbon. Hullo! dear George reads German. UmumSchopenhauer, Nietzsche, and so we go on. Well, I suppose your generation knows its own business, Honeychurch. 'Mr. Beebe, look at that, said Freddy in awestruck tones. On the cornice of the wardrobe, the hand of an amateur had painted this inscription 'Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes. 'I know. Isn't it jolly? I like that. I'm certain that's the old man's doing. 'How very odd of him! 'Surely you agree? But Freddy was his mother's son and felt that one ought not to go on spoiling the furniture. 'Pictures! the clergyman continued, scrambling about the room. 'Giottothey got that at Florence, I'll be bound. 'The same as Lucy's got. 'Oh, bytheby, did Miss Honeychurch enjoy London? 'She came back yesterday. 'I suppose she had a good time? 'Yes, very, said Freddy, taking up a book. 'She and Cecil are thicker than ever. 'That's good hearing. 'I wish I wasn't such a fool, Mr. Beebe. Mr. Beebe ignored the remark. 'Lucy used to be nearly as stupid as I am, but it'll be very different now, mother thinks. She will read all kinds of books. 'So will you. 'Only medical books. Not books that you can talk about afterwards. Cecil is teaching Lucy Italian, and he says her playing is wonderful. There are all kinds of things in it that we have never noticed. Cecil says 'What on earth are those people doing upstairs? Emersonwe think we'll come another time. George ran downstairs and pushed them into the room without speaking. 'Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, a neighbour. Then Freddy hurled one of the thunderbolts of youth. Perhaps he was shy, perhaps he was friendly, or perhaps he thought that George's face wanted washing. At all events he greeted him with, 'How d'ye do? Come and have a bathe. 'Oh, all right, said George, impassive. Mr. Beebe was highly entertained. ''How d'ye do? how d'ye do? Come and have a bathe,' he chuckled. 'That's the best conversational opening I've ever heard. But I'm afraid it will only act between men. Can you picture a lady who has been introduced to another lady by a third lady opening civilities with 'How do you do? Come and have a bathe'? And yet you will tell me that the sexes are equal. 'I tell you that they shall be, said Mr. Emerson, who had been slowly descending the stairs. 'Good afternoon, Mr. Beebe. I tell you they shall be comrades, and George thinks the same. 'We are to raise ladies to our level? the clergyman inquired. 'The Garden of Eden, pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, 'which you place in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no longer despise our bodies. Mr. Beebe disclaimed placing the Garden of Eden anywhere. 'In thisnot in other thingswe men are ahead. We despise the body less than women do. But not until we are comrades shall we enter the garden. 'I say, what about this bathe? murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of philosophy that was approaching him. 'I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to Nature when we have never been with her? Today, I believe that we must discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is our heritage. 'Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, whose sister you will remember at Florence. 'How do you do? Very glad to see you, and that you are taking George for a bathe. Very glad to hear that your sister is going to marry. Marriage is a duty. I am sure that she will be happy, for we know Mr. Vyse, too. He has been most kind. He met us by chance in the National Gallery, and arranged everything about this delightful house. Though I hope I have not vexed Sir Harry Otway. I have met so few Liberal landowners, and I was anxious to compare his attitude towards the game laws with the Conservative attitude. Ah, this wind! You do well to bathe. Yours is a glorious country, Honeychurch! 'Not a bit! mumbled Freddy. 'I mustthat is to say, I have tohave the pleasure of calling on you later on, my mother says, I hope. 'Call, my lad? Who taught us that drawingroom twaddle? Call on your grandmother! Listen to the wind among the pines! Yours is a glorious country. Mr. Beebe came to the rescue. 'Mr. Emerson, he will call, I shall call you or your son will return our calls before ten days have elapsed. I trust that you have realized about the ten days' interval. It does not count that I helped you with the staireyes yesterday. It does not count that they are going to bathe this afternoon. 'Yes, go and bathe, George. Why do you dawdle talking? Bring them back to tea. Bring back some milk, cakes, honey. The change will do you good. George has been working very hard at his office. I can't believe he's well. George bowed his head, dusty and sombre, exhaling the peculiar smell of one who has handled furniture. 'Do you really want this bathe? Freddy asked him. 'It is only a pond, don't you know. I dare say you are used to something better. 'YesI have said 'Yes' already. Mr. Beebe felt bound to assist his young friend, and led the way out of the house and into the pinewoods. How glorious it was! For a little time the voice of old Mr. Emerson pursued them dispensing good wishes and philosophy. It ceased, and they only heard the fair wind blowing the bracken and the trees. Mr. Beebe, who could be silent, but who could not bear silence, was compelled to chatter, since the expedition looked like a failure, and neither of his companions would utter a word. He spoke of Florence. George attended gravely, assenting or dissenting with slight but determined gestures that were as inexplicable as the motions of the treetops above their heads. 'And what a coincidence that you should meet Mr. Vyse! Did you realize that you would find all the Pension Bertolini down here? 'I did not. Miss Lavish told me. 'When I was a young man, I always meant to write a 'History of Coincidence.' No enthusiasm. 'Though, as a matter of fact, coincidences are much rarer than we suppose. For example, it isn't purely coincidentally that you are here now, when one comes to reflect. To his relief, George began to talk. 'It is. I have reflected. It is Fate. Everything is Fate. We are flung together by Fate, drawn apart by Fateflung together, drawn apart. The twelve winds blow uswe settle nothing 'You have not reflected at all, rapped the clergyman. 'Let me give you a useful tip, Emerson attribute nothing to Fate. Don't say, 'I didn't do this,' for you did it, ten to one. Now I'll crossquestion you. Where did you first meet Miss Honeychurch and myself? 'Italy. 'And where did you meet Mr. Vyse, who is going to marry Miss Honeychurch? 'National Gallery. 'Looking at Italian art. There you are, and yet you talk of coincidence and Fate. You naturally seek out things Italian, and so do we and our friends. This narrows the field immeasurably we meet again in it. 'It is Fate that I am here, persisted George. 'But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy. Mr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject. But he was infinitely tolerant of the young, and had no desire to snub George. 'And so for this and for other reasons my 'History of Coincidence' is still to write. Silence. Wishing to round off the episode, he added 'We are all so glad that you have come. Silence. 'Here we are! called Freddy. 'Oh, good! exclaimed Mr. Beebe, mopping his brow. 'In there's the pond. I wish it was bigger, he added apologetically. They climbed down a slippery bank of pineneedles. There lay the pond, set in its little alp of greenonly a pond, but large enough to contain the human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky. On account of the rains, the waters had flooded the surrounding grass, which showed like a beautiful emerald path, tempting these feet towards the central pool. 'It's distinctly successful, as ponds go, said Mr. Beebe. 'No apologies are necessary for the pond. George sat down where the ground was dry, and drearily unlaced his boots. 'Aren't those masses of willowherb splendid? I love willowherb in seed. What's the name of this aromatic plant? No one knew, or seemed to care. 'These abrupt changes of vegetationthis little spongeous tract of water plants, and on either side of it all the growths are tough or brittleheather, bracken, hurts, pines. Very charming, very charming. 'Mr. Beebe, aren't you bathing? called Freddy, as he stripped himself. Mr. Beebe thought he was not. 'Water's wonderful! cried Freddy, prancing in. 'Water's water, murmured George. Wetting his hair firsta sure sign of apathyhe followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were a statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds. It was necessary to use his muscles. It was necessary to keep clean. Mr. Beebe watched them, and watched the seeds of the willowherb dance chorically above their heads. 'Apooshoo, apooshoo, apooshoo, went Freddy, swimming for two strokes in either direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud. 'Is it worth it? asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded margin. The bank broke away, and he fell into the pool before he had weighed the question properly. 'HeepoofI've swallowed a pollywog, Mr. Beebe, water's wonderful, water's simply ripping. 'Water's not so bad, said George, reappearing from his plunge, and sputtering at the sun. 'Water's wonderful. Mr. Beebe, do. 'Apooshoo, kouf. Mr. Beebe, who was hot, and who always acquiesced where possible, looked around him. He could detect no parishioners except the pinetrees, rising up steeply on all sides, and gesturing to each other against the blue. How glorious it was! The world of motorcars and rural Deans receded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a windthese things not even the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the intrusion of man? 'I may as well wash too and soon his garments made a third little pile on the sward, and he too asserted the wonder of the water. It was ordinary water, nor was there very much of it, and, as Freddy said, it reminded one of swimming in a salad. The three gentlemen rotated in the pool breast high, after the fashion of the nymphs in Gtterdmmerung. But either because the rains had given a freshness or because the sun was shedding a most glorious heat, or because two of the gentlemen were young in years and the third young in spiritfor some reason or other a change came over them, and they forgot Italy and Botany and Fate. They began to play. Mr. Beebe and Freddy splashed each other. A little deferentially, they splashed George. He was quiet they feared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out. He smiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked them, muddied them, and drove them out of the pool. 'Race you round it, then, cried Freddy, and they raced in the sunshine, and George took a short cut and dirtied his shins, and had to bathe a second time. Then Mr. Beebe consented to runa memorable sight. They ran to get dry, they bathed to get cool, they played at being Indians in the willowherbs and in the bracken, they bathed to get clean. And all the time three little bundles lay discreetly on the sward, proclaiming 'No. We are what matters. Without us shall no enterprise begin. To us shall all flesh turn in the end. 'A try! A try! yelled Freddy, snatching up George's bundle and placing it beside an imaginary goalpost. 'Socker rules, George retorted, scattering Freddy's bundle with a kick. 'Goal! 'Goal! 'Pass! 'Take care my watch! cried Mr. Beebe. Clothes flew in all directions. 'Take care my hat! No, that's enough, Freddy. Dress now. No, I say! But the two young men were delirious. Away they twinkled into the trees, Freddy with a clerical waistcoat under his arm, George with a wideawake hat on his dripping hair. 'That'll do! shouted Mr. Beebe, remembering that after all he was in his own parish. Then his voice changed as if every pinetree was a Rural Dean. 'Hi! Steady on! I see people coming you fellows! Yells, and widening circles over the dappled earth. 'Hi! hi! Ladies! Neither George nor Freddy was truly refined. Still, they did not hear Mr. Beebe's last warning or they would have avoided Mrs. Honeychurch, Cecil, and Lucy, who were walking down to call on old Mrs. Butterworth. Freddy dropped the waistcoat at their feet, and dashed into some bracken. George whooped in their faces, turned and scudded away down the path to the pond, still clad in Mr. Beebe's hat. 'Gracious alive! cried Mrs. Honeychurch. 'Whoever were those unfortunate people? Oh, dears, look away! And poor Mr. Beebe, too! Whatever has happened? 'Come this way immediately, commanded Cecil, who always felt that he must lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though he knew not against what. He led them now towards the bracken where Freddy sat concealed. 'Oh, poor Mr. Beebe! Was that his waistcoat we left in the path? Cecil, Mr. Beebe's waistcoat No business of ours, said Cecil, glancing at Lucy, who was all parasol and evidently 'minded. 'I fancy Mr. Beebe jumped back into the pond. 'This way, please, Mrs. Honeychurch, this way. They followed him up the bank attempting the tense yet nonchalant expression that is suitable for ladies on such occasions. 'Well, I can't help it, said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared a freckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. 'I can't be trodden on, can I? 'Good gracious me, dear so it's you! What miserable management! Why not have a comfortable bath at home, with hot and cold laid on? 'Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow's got to dry, and if another fellow 'Dear, no doubt you're right as usual, but you are in no position to argue. Come, Lucy. They turned. 'Oh, lookdon't look! Oh, poor Mr. Beebe! How unfortunate again For Mr. Beebe was just crawling out of the pond, on whose surface garments of an intimate nature did float while George, the worldweary George, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish. 'And me, I've swallowed one, answered he of the bracken. 'I've swallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall dieEmerson you beast, you've got on my bags. 'Hush, dears, said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain shocked. 'And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first. All these colds come of not drying thoroughly. 'Mother, do come away, said Lucy. 'Oh for goodness' sake, do come. 'Hullo! cried George, so that again the ladies stopped. He regarded himself as dressed. Barefoot, barechested, radiant and personable against the shadowy woods, he called 'Hullo, Miss Honeychurch! Hullo! 'Bow, Lucy better bow. Whoever is it? I shall bow. Miss Honeychurch bowed. That evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the pool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a call to the blood and to the relaxed will, a passing benediction whose influence did not pass, a holiness, a spell, a momentary chalice for youth. How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had always rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George would meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of coats and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She had imagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or indifferent or furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these. But she had never imagined one who would be happy and greet her with the shout of the morning star. Indoors herself, partaking of tea with old Mrs. Butterworth, she reflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the scenery, a face in the audience, an irruption of the audience on to the stage, and all our carefully planned gestures mean nothing, or mean too much. 'I will bow, she had thought. 'I will not shake hands with him. That will be just the proper thing. She had bowedbut to whom? To gods, to heroes, to the nonsense of schoolgirls! She had bowed across the rubbish that cumbers the world. So ran her thoughts, while her faculties were busy with Cecil. It was another of those dreadful engagement calls. Mrs. Butterworth had wanted to see him, and he did not want to be seen. He did not want to hear about hydrangeas, why they change their colour at the seaside. He did not want to join the C. O. S. When cross he was always elaborate, and made long, clever answers where 'Yes or 'No would have done. Lucy soothed him and tinkered at the conversation in a way that promised well for their married peace. No one is perfect, and surely it is wiser to discover the imperfections before wedlock. Miss Bartlett, indeed, though not in word, had taught the girl that this our life contains nothing satisfactory. Lucy, though she disliked the teacher, regarded the teaching as profound, and applied it to her lover. 'Lucy, said her mother, when they got home, 'is anything the matter with Cecil? The question was ominous up till now Mrs. Honeychurch had behaved with charity and restraint. 'No, I don't think so, mother Cecil's all right. 'Perhaps he's tired. Lucy compromised perhaps Cecil was a little tired. 'Because otherwiseshe pulled out her bonnetpins with gathering displeasure'because otherwise I cannot account for him. 'I do think Mrs. Butterworth is rather tiresome, if you mean that. 'Cecil has told you to think so. You were devoted to her as a little girl, and nothing will describe her goodness to you through the typhoid fever. Noit is just the same thing everywhere. 'Let me just put your bonnet away, may I? 'Surely he could answer her civilly for one halfhour? 'Cecil has a very high standard for people, faltered Lucy, seeing trouble ahead. 'It's part of his idealsit is really that that makes him sometimes seem 'Oh, rubbish! If high ideals make a young man rude, the sooner he gets rid of them the better, said Mrs. Honeychurch, handing her the bonnet. 'Now, mother! I've seen you cross with Mrs. Butterworth yourself! 'Not in that way. At times I could wring her neck. But not in that way. No. It is the same with Cecil all over. 'BythebyI never told you. I had a letter from Charlotte while I was away in London. This attempt to divert the conversation was too puerile, and Mrs. Honeychurch resented it. 'Since Cecil came back from London, nothing appears to please him. Whenever I speak he wincesI see him, Lucy it is useless to contradict me. No doubt I am neither artistic nor literary nor intellectual nor musical, but I cannot help the drawingroom furniture your father bought it and we must put up with it, will Cecil kindly remember. 'II see what you mean, and certainly Cecil oughtn't to. But he does not mean to be uncivilhe once explainedit is the things that upset himhe is easily upset by ugly thingshe is not uncivil to people. 'Is it a thing or a person when Freddy sings? 'You can't expect a really musical person to enjoy comic songs as we do. 'Then why didn't he leave the room? Why sit wriggling and sneering and spoiling everyone's pleasure? 'We mustn't be unjust to people, faltered Lucy. Something had enfeebled her, and the case for Cecil, which she had mastered so perfectly in London, would not come forth in an effective form. The two civilizations had clashedCecil hinted that they mightand she was dazzled and bewildered, as though the radiance that lies behind all civilization had blinded her eyes. Good taste and bad taste were only catchwords, garments of diverse cut and music itself dissolved to a whisper through pinetrees, where the song is not distinguishable from the comic song. She remained in much embarrassment, while Mrs. Honeychurch changed her frock for dinner and every now and then she said a word, and made things no better. There was no concealing the fact, Cecil had meant to be supercilious, and he had succeeded. And Lucyshe knew not whywished that the trouble could have come at any other time. 'Go and dress, dear you'll be late. 'All right, mother 'Don't say 'All right' and stop. Go. She obeyed, but loitered disconsolately at the landing window. It faced north, so there was little view, and no view of the sky. Now, as in the winter, the pinetrees hung close to her eyes. One connected the landing window with depression. No definite problem menaced her, but she sighed to herself, 'Oh, dear, what shall I do, what shall I do? It seemed to her that everyone else was behaving very badly. And she ought not to have mentioned Miss Bartlett's letter. She must be more careful her mother was rather inquisitive, and might have asked what it was about. Oh, dear, what should she do?and then Freddy came bounding upstairs, and joined the ranks of the illbehaved. 'I say, those are topping people. 'My dear baby, how tiresome you've been! You have no business to take them bathing in the Sacred Lake it's much too public. It was all right for you but most awkward for everyone else. Do be more careful. You forget the place is growing half suburban. 'I say, is anything on tomorrow week? 'Not that I know of. 'Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis. 'Oh, I wouldn't do that, Freddy, I wouldn't do that with all this muddle. 'What's wrong with the court? They won't mind a bump or two, and I've ordered new balls. 'I meant it's better not. I really mean it. He seized her by the elbows and humorously danced her up and down the passage. She pretended not to mind, but she could have screamed with temper. Cecil glanced at them as he proceeded to his toilet and they impeded Mary with her brood of hotwater cans. Then Mrs. Honeychurch opened her door and said 'Lucy, what a noise you're making! I have something to say to you. Did you say you had had a letter from Charlotte? and Freddy ran away. 'Yes. I really can't stop. I must dress too. 'How's Charlotte? 'All right. 'Lucy! The unfortunate girl returned. 'You've a bad habit of hurrying away in the middle of one's sentences. Did Charlotte mention her boiler? 'Her what? 'Don't you remember that her boiler was to be had out in October, and her bath cistern cleaned out, and all kinds of terrible todoings? 'I can't remember all Charlotte's worries, said Lucy bitterly. 'I shall have enough of my own, now that you are not pleased with Cecil. Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said 'Come here, old ladythank you for putting away my bonnetkiss me. And, though nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and Windy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect. So the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner. At the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one member or other of the family poured in a drop of oil. Cecil despised their methodsperhaps rightly. At all events, they were not his own. Dinner was at halfpast seven. Freddy gabbled the grace, and they drew up their heavy chairs and fell to. Fortunately, the men were hungry. Nothing untoward occurred until the pudding. Then Freddy said 'Lucy, what's Emerson like? 'I saw him in Florence, said Lucy, hoping that this would pass for a reply. 'Is he the clever sort, or is he a decent chap? 'Ask Cecil it is Cecil who brought him here. 'He is the clever sort, like myself, said Cecil. Freddy looked at him doubtfully. 'How well did you know them at the Bertolini? asked Mrs. Honeychurch. 'Oh, very slightly. I mean, Charlotte knew them even less than I did. 'Oh, that reminds meyou never told me what Charlotte said in her letter. 'One thing and another, said Lucy, wondering whether she would get through the meal without a lie. 'Among other things, that an awful friend of hers had been bicycling through Summer Street, wondered if she'd come up and see us, and mercifully didn't. 'Lucy, I do call the way you talk unkind. 'She was a novelist, said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one, for nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety by print. Her attitude was 'If books must be written, let them be written by men and she developed it at great length, while Cecil yawned and Freddy played at 'This year, next year, now, never, with his plumstones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother's wrath. But soon the conflagration died down, and the ghosts began to gather in the darkness. There were too many ghosts about. The original ghostthat touch of lips on her cheekhad surely been laid long ago it could be nothing to her that a man had kissed her on a mountain once. But it had begotten a spectral familyMr. Harris, Miss Bartlett's letter, Mr. Beebe's memories of violetsand one or other of these was bound to haunt her before Cecil's very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who returned now, and with appalling vividness. 'I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte's. How is she? 'I tore the thing up. 'Didn't she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful? 'Oh, yes I suppose sononot very cheerful, I suppose. 'Then, depend upon it, it is the boiler. I know myself how water preys upon one's mind. I would rather anything elseeven a misfortune with the meat. Cecil laid his hand over his eyes. 'So would I, asserted Freddy, backing his mother upbacking up the spirit of her remark rather than the substance. 'And I have been thinking, she added rather nervously, 'surely we could squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday while the plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor Charlotte for so long. It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest violently after her mother's goodness to her upstairs. 'Mother, no! she pleaded. 'It's impossible. We can't have Charlotte on the top of the other things we're squeezed to death as it is. Freddy's got a friend coming Tuesday, there's Cecil, and you've promised to take in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can't be done. 'Nonsense! It can. 'If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise. 'Minnie can sleep with you. 'I won't have her. 'Then, if you're so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy. 'Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, moaned Cecil, again laying his hand over his eyes. 'It's impossible, repeated Lucy. 'I don't want to make difficulties, but it really isn't fair on the maids to fill up the house so. Alas! 'The truth is, dear, you don't like Charlotte. 'No, I don't. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You haven't seen her lately, and don't realize how tiresome she can be, though so good. So please, mother, don't worry us this last summer but spoil us by not asking her to come. 'Hear, hear! said Cecil. Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling than she usually permitted herself, replied 'This isn't very kind of you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of beautiful things and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are, and however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels like to grow old. Cecil crumbled his bread. 'I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on my bike, put in Freddy. 'She thanked me for coming till I felt like such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea just right. 'I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this difficulty when we try to give her some little return. But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss Bartlett. She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might lay up treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss Bartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying 'I can't help it, mother. I don't like Charlotte. I admit it's horrid of me. 'From your own account, you told her as much. 'Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried The ghosts were returning they filled Italy, they were even usurping the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real. 'I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well, said Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the admirable cooking. 'I didn't mean the egg was well boiled, corrected Freddy, 'because in point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I don't care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed. Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas, maidsof such were their lives compact. 'May me and Lucy get down from our chairs? he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence. 'We don't want no dessert. Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior spare roomsomething with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And, equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday week. Lucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to Georgethey met again almost immediately at the Rectoryhis voice moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to nerves, which love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had suffered from 'things that came out of nothing and meant she didn't know what. Now Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet afternoon, and all the troubles of youth in an unknown world could be dismissed. It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, 'She loves young Emerson. A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome 'nerves or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil George made her nervous will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed? But the external situationshe will face that bravely. The meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between Mr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy, and George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy, and was glad that he did not seem shy either. 'A nice fellow, said Mr. Beebe afterwards 'He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully. Lucy said, 'He seems in better spirits. He laughs more. 'Yes, replied the clergyman. 'He is waking up. That was all. But, as the week wore on, more of her defences fell, and she entertained an image that had physical beauty. In spite of the clearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival. She was due at the SouthEastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs. Honeychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton station, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy and his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for a solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o'clock, and these, with little Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper lawn for tea. 'I shall never forgive myself, said Miss Bartlett, who kept on rising from her seat, and had to be begged by the united company to remain. 'I have upset everything. Bursting in on young people! But I insist on paying for my cab up. Grant that, at any rate. 'Our visitors never do such dreadful things, said Lucy, while her brother, in whose memory the boiled egg had already grown unsubstantial, exclaimed in irritable tones 'Just what I've been trying to convince Cousin Charlotte of, Lucy, for the last half hour. 'I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor, said Miss Bartlett, and looked at her frayed glove. 'All right, if you'd really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to the driver. Miss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could any one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four halfcrowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said 'But who am I to give the sovereign to? 'Let's leave it all till mother comes back, suggested Lucy. 'No, dear your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not hampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the prompt settling of accounts. Here Freddy's friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need be quoted he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett's quid. A solution seemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously drinking his tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance, and turned round. But this did not do, either. 'PleasepleaseI know I am a sad spoilsport, but it would make me wretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost. 'Freddy owes me fifteen shillings, interposed Cecil. 'So it will work out right if you give the pound to me. 'Fifteen shillings, said Miss Bartlett dubiously. 'How is that, Mr. Vyse? 'Because, don't you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and we shall avoid this deplorable gambling. Miss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered up the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths. For a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his peers. Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had marred the smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle. 'But I don't see that! exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched the iniquitous transaction. 'I don't see why Mr. Vyse is to have the quid. 'Because of the fifteen shillings and the five, they said solemnly. 'Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see. 'But I don't see They tried to stifle her with cake. 'No, thank you. I'm done. I don't see whyFreddy, don't poke me. Miss Honeychurch, your brother's hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd's ten shillings? Ow! No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss What'shername shouldn't pay that bob for the driver. 'I had forgotten the driver, said Miss Bartlett, reddening. 'Thank you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change for half a crown? 'I'll get it, said the young hostess, rising with decision. 'Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get Euphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the beginning. 'LucyLucywhat a nuisance I am! protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly 'Have you told him about him yet? 'No, I haven't, replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. 'Let me seea sovereign's worth of silver. She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul. 'No, I haven't told Cecil or any one, she remarked, when she returned. 'I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your moneyall shillings, except two halfcrowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely now. Miss Bartlett was in the drawingroom, gazing at the photograph of St. John ascending, which had been framed. 'How dreadful! she murmured, 'how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source. 'Oh, no, Charlotte, said the girl, entering the battle. 'George Emerson is all right, and what other source is there? Miss Bartlett considered. 'For instance, the driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth. Lucy shuddered a little. 'We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cabdriver ever get hold of Cecil? 'We must think of every possibility. 'Oh, it's all right. 'Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know. 'I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it. 'To contradict it? 'No, to laugh at it. But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. 'Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different. 'Now, Charlotte! She struck at her playfully. 'You kind, anxious thing. What would you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell' and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick! Miss Bartlett sighed 'I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You will never forgive me. 'Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't. For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with a teaspoon. 'Dear, one momentwe may not have this chance for a chat again. Have you seen the young one yet? 'Yes, I have. 'What happened? 'We met at the Rectory. 'What line is he taking up? 'No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly? I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any nuisance, Charlotte. 'Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion. Lucy paused. 'Cecil said one dayand I thought it so profoundthat there are two kinds of cadsthe conscious and the subconscious. She paused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil's profundity. Through the window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel. It was a new one from Smith's library. Her mother must have returned from the station. 'Once a cad, always a cad, droned Miss Bartlett. 'What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into all those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don't think we ought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does it makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head he doesn't admire me, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him, and has asked him up here on Sunday, so you can judge for yourself. He has improved he doesn't always look as if he's going to burst into tears. He is a clerk in the General Manager's office at one of the big railwaysnot a porter! and runs down to his father for weekends. Papa was to do with journalism, but is rheumatic and has retired. There! Now for the garden. She took hold of her guest by the arm. 'Suppose we don't talk about this silly Italian business any more. We want you to have a nice restful visit at Windy Corner, with no worriting. Lucy thought this rather a good speech. The reader may have detected an unfortunate slip in it. Whether Miss Bartlett detected the slip one cannot say, for it is impossible to penetrate into the minds of elderly people. She might have spoken further, but they were interrupted by the entrance of her hostess. Explanations took place, and in the midst of them Lucy escaped, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her brain. The Sunday after Miss Bartlett's arrival was a glorious day, like most of the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up the green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of mist, the beechtrees with russet, the oaktrees with gold. Up on the heights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves unchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in either arose the tinkle of church bells. The garden of Windy Corners was deserted except for a red book, which lay sunning itself upon the gravel path. From the house came incoherent sounds, as of females preparing for worship. 'The men say they won't go'Well, I don't blame themMinnie says, 'need she go?'Tell her, no nonsense'Anne! Mary! Hook me behind!'Dearest Lucia, may I trespass upon you for a pin? For Miss Bartlett had announced that she at all events was one for church. The sun rose higher on its journey, guided, not by Phaethon, but by Apollo, competent, unswerving, divine. Its rays fell on the ladies whenever they advanced towards the bedroom windows on Mr. Beebe down at Summer Street as he smiled over a letter from Miss Catharine Alan on George Emerson cleaning his father's boots and lastly, to complete the catalogue of memorable things, on the red book mentioned previously. The ladies move, Mr. Beebe moves, George moves, and movement may engender shadow. But this book lies motionless, to be caressed all the morning by the sun and to raise its covers slightly, as though acknowledging the caress. Presently Lucy steps out of the drawingroom window. Her new cerise dress has been a failure, and makes her look tawdry and wan. At her throat is a garnet brooch, on her finger a ring set with rubiesan engagement ring. Her eyes are bent to the Weald. She frowns a littlenot in anger, but as a brave child frowns when he is trying not to cry. In all that expanse no human eye is looking at her, and she may frown unrebuked and measure the spaces that yet survive between Apollo and the western hills. 'Lucy! Lucy! What's that book? Who's been taking a book out of the shelf and leaving it about to spoil? 'It's only the library book that Cecil's been reading. 'But pick it up, and don't stand idling there like a flamingo. Lucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly, Under a Loggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all her spare time to solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil up. It was dreadful how little she knew, and even when she thought she knew a thing, like the Italian painters, she found she had forgotten it. Only this morning she had confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and Cecil had said, 'What! you aren't forgetting your Italy already? And this too had lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view and the dear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely conceivable elsewhere, the dear sun. 'Lucyhave you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for yourself? She hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself into a Sunday fluster. 'It's a special collectionI forget what for. I do beg, no vulgar clinking in the plate with halfpennies see that Minnie has a nice bright sixpence. Where is the child? Minnie! That book's all warped. (Gracious, how plain you look!) Put it under the Atlas to press. Minnie! 'Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch from the upper regions. 'Minnie, don't be late. Here comes the horseit was always the horse, never the carriage. 'Where's Charlotte? Run up and hurry her. Why is she so long? She had nothing to do. She never brings anything but blouses. Poor CharlotteHow I do detest blouses! Minnie! Paganism is infectiousmore infectious than diphtheria or pietyand the Rector's niece was taken to church protesting. As usual, she didn't see why. Why shouldn't she sit in the sun with the young men? The young men, who had now appeared, mocked her with ungenerous words. Mrs. Honeychurch defended orthodoxy, and in the midst of the confusion Miss Bartlett, dressed in the very height of the fashion, came strolling down the stairs. 'Dear Marian, I am very sorry, but I have no small changenothing but sovereigns and half crowns. Could any one give me 'Yes, easily. Jump in. Gracious me, how smart you look! What a lovely frock! You put us all to shame. 'If I did not wear my best rags and tatters now, when should I wear them? said Miss Bartlett reproachfully. She got into the victoria and placed herself with her back to the horse. The necessary roar ensued, and then they drove off. 'Goodbye! Be good! called out Cecil. Lucy bit her lip, for the tone was sneering. On the subject of 'church and so on they had had rather an unsatisfactory conversation. He had said that people ought to overhaul themselves, and she did not want to overhaul herself she did not know it was done. Honest orthodoxy Cecil respected, but he always assumed that honesty is the result of a spiritual crisis he could not imagine it as a natural birthright, that might grow heavenward like flowers. All that he said on this subject pained her, though he exuded tolerance from every pore somehow the Emersons were different. She saw the Emersons after church. There was a line of carriages down the road, and the Honeychurch vehicle happened to be opposite Cissie Villa. To save time, they walked over the green to it, and found father and son smoking in the garden. 'Introduce me, said her mother. 'Unless the young man considers that he knows me already. He probably did but Lucy ignored the Sacred Lake and introduced them formally. Old Mr. Emerson claimed her with much warmth, and said how glad he was that she was going to be married. She said yes, she was glad too and then, as Miss Bartlett and Minnie were lingering behind with Mr. Beebe, she turned the conversation to a less disturbing topic, and asked him how he liked his new house. 'Very much, he replied, but there was a note of offence in his voice she had never known him offended before. He added 'We find, though, that the Miss Alans were coming, and that we have turned them out. Women mind such a thing. I am very much upset about it. 'I believe that there was some misunderstanding, said Mrs. Honeychurch uneasily. 'Our landlord was told that we should be a different type of person, said George, who seemed disposed to carry the matter further. 'He thought we should be artistic. He is disappointed. 'And I wonder whether we ought to write to the Miss Alans and offer to give it up. What do you think? He appealed to Lucy. 'Oh, stop now you have come, said Lucy lightly. She must avoid censuring Cecil. For it was on Cecil that the little episode turned, though his name was never mentioned. 'So George says. He says that the Miss Alans must go to the wall. Yet it does seem so unkind. 'There is only a certain amount of kindness in the world, said George, watching the sunlight flash on the panels of the passing carriages. 'Yes! exclaimed Mrs. Honeychurch. 'That's exactly what I say. Why all this twiddling and twaddling over two Miss Alans? 'There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain amount of light, he continued in measured tones. 'We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harmyes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine. 'Oh, Mr. Emerson, I see you're clever! 'Eh? 'I see you're going to be clever. I hope you didn't go behaving like that to poor Freddy. George's eyes laughed, and Lucy suspected that he and her mother would get on rather well. 'No, I didn't, he said. 'He behaved that way to me. It is his philosophy. Only he starts life with it and I have tried the Note of Interrogation first. 'What do you mean? No, never mind what you mean. Don't explain. He looks forward to seeing you this afternoon. Do you play tennis? Do you mind tennis on Sunday? 'George mind tennis on Sunday! George, after his education, distinguish between Sunday 'Very well, George doesn't mind tennis on Sunday. No more do I. That's settled. Mr. Emerson, if you could come with your son we should be so pleased. He thanked her, but the walk sounded rather far he could only potter about in these days. She turned to George 'And then he wants to give up his house to the Miss Alans. 'I know, said George, and put his arm round his father's neck. The kindness that Mr. Beebe and Lucy had always known to exist in him came out suddenly, like sunlight touching a vast landscapea touch of the morning sun? She remembered that in all his perversities he had never spoken against affection. Miss Bartlett approached. 'You know our cousin, Miss Bartlett, said Mrs. Honeychurch pleasantly. 'You met her with my daughter in Florence. 'Yes, indeed! said the old man, and made as if he would come out of the garden to meet the lady. Miss Bartlett promptly got into the victoria. Thus entrenched, she emitted a formal bow. It was the pension Bertolini again, the diningtable with the decanters of water and wine. It was the old, old battle of the room with the view. George did not respond to the bow. Like any boy, he blushed and was ashamed he knew that the chaperon remembered. He said 'II'll come up to tennis if I can manage it, and went into the house. Perhaps anything that he did would have pleased Lucy, but his awkwardness went straight to her heart men were not gods after all, but as human and as clumsy as girls even men might suffer from unexplained desires, and need help. To one of her upbringing, and of her destination, the weakness of men was a truth unfamiliar, but she had surmised it at Florence, when George threw her photographs into the River Arno. 'George, don't go, cried his father, who thought it a great treat for people if his son would talk to them. 'George has been in such good spirits today, and I am sure he will end by coming up this afternoon. Lucy caught her cousin's eye. Something in its mute appeal made her reckless. 'Yes, she said, raising her voice, 'I do hope he will. Then she went to the carriage and murmured, 'The old man hasn't been told I knew it was all right. Mrs. Honeychurch followed her, and they drove away. Satisfactory that Mr. Emerson had not been told of the Florence escapade yet Lucy's spirits should not have leapt up as if she had sighted the ramparts of heaven. Satisfactory yet surely she greeted it with disproportionate joy. All the way home the horses' hoofs sang a tune to her 'He has not told, he has not told. Her brain expanded the melody 'He has not told his fatherto whom he tells all things. It was not an exploit. He did not laugh at me when I had gone. She raised her hand to her cheek. 'He does not love me. No. How terrible if he did! But he has not told. He will not tell. She longed to shout the words 'It is all right. It's a secret between us two for ever. Cecil will never hear. She was even glad that Miss Bartlett had made her promise secrecy, that last dark evening at Florence, when they had knelt packing in his room. The secret, big or little, was guarded. Only three English people knew of it in the world. Thus she interpreted her joy. She greeted Cecil with unusual radiance, because she felt so safe. As he helped her out of the carriage, she said 'The Emersons have been so nice. George Emerson has improved enormously. 'How are my protgs? asked Cecil, who took no real interest in them, and had long since forgotten his resolution to bring them to Windy Corner for educational purposes. 'Protgs! she exclaimed with some warmth. For the only relationship which Cecil conceived was feudal that of protector and protected. He had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl's soul yearned. 'You shall see for yourself how your protgs are. George Emerson is coming up this afternoon. He is a most interesting man to talk to. Only don't She nearly said, 'Don't protect him. But the bell was ringing for lunch, and, as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to her remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte. Lunch was a cheerful meal. Generally Lucy was depressed at meals. Some one had to be soothedeither Cecil or Miss Bartlett or a Being not visible to the mortal eyea Being who whispered to her soul 'It will not last, this cheerfulness. In January you must go to London to entertain the grandchildren of celebrated men. But today she felt she had received a guarantee. Her mother would always sit there, her brother here. The sun, though it had moved a little since the morning, would never be hidden behind the western hills. After luncheon they asked her to play. She had seen Gluck's Armide that year, and played from memory the music of the enchanted gardenthe music to which Renaud approaches, beneath the light of an eternal dawn, the music that never gains, never wanes, but ripples for ever like the tideless seas of fairyland. Such music is not for the piano, and her audience began to get restive, and Cecil, sharing the discontent, called out 'Now play us the other gardenthe one in Parsifal. She closed the instrument. 'Not very dutiful, said her mother's voice. Fearing that she had offended Cecil, she turned quickly round. There George was. He had crept in without interrupting her. 'Oh, I had no idea! she exclaimed, getting very red and then, without a word of greeting, she reopened the piano. Cecil should have the Parsifal, and anything else that he liked. 'Our performer has changed her mind, said Miss Bartlett, perhaps implying, she will play the music to Mr. Emerson. Lucy did not know what to do nor even what she wanted to do. She played a few bars of the Flower Maidens' song very badly and then she stopped. 'I vote tennis, said Freddy, disgusted at the scrappy entertainment. 'Yes, so do I. Once more she closed the unfortunate piano. 'I vote you have a men's four. 'All right. 'Not for me, thank you, said Cecil. 'I will not spoil the set. He never realized that it may be an act of kindness in a bad player to make up a fourth. 'Oh, come along Cecil. I'm bad, Floyd's rotten, and so I dare say's Emerson. George corrected him 'I am not bad. One looked down one's nose at this. 'Then certainly I won't play, said Cecil, while Miss Bartlett, under the impression that she was snubbing George, added 'I agree with you, Mr. Vyse. You had much better not play. Much better not. Minnie, rushing in where Cecil feared to tread, announced that she would play. 'I shall miss every ball anyway, so what does it matter? But Sunday intervened and stamped heavily upon the kindly suggestion. 'Then it will have to be Lucy, said Mrs. Honeychurch 'you must fall back on Lucy. There is no other way out of it. Lucy, go and change your frock. Lucy's Sabbath was generally of this amphibious nature. She kept it without hypocrisy in the morning, and broke it without reluctance in the afternoon. As she changed her frock, she wondered whether Cecil was sneering at her really she must overhaul herself and settle everything up before she married him. Mr. Floyd was her partner. She liked music, but how much better tennis seemed. How much better to run about in comfortable clothes than to sit at the piano and feel girt under the arms. Once more music appeared to her the employment of a child. George served, and surprised her by his anxiety to win. She remembered how he had sighed among the tombs at Santa Croce because things wouldn't fit how after the death of that obscure Italian he had leant over the parapet by the Arno and said to her 'I shall want to live, I tell you. He wanted to live now, to win at tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sunthe sun which had begun to decline and was shining in her eyes and he did win. Ah, how beautiful the Weald looked! The hills stood out above its radiance, as Fiesole stands above the Tuscan Plain, and the South Downs, if one chose, were the mountains of Carrara. She might be forgetting her Italy, but she was noticing more things in her England. One could play a new game with the view, and try to find in its innumerable folds some town or village that would do for Florence. Ah, how beautiful the Weald looked! But now Cecil claimed her. He chanced to be in a lucid critical mood, and would not sympathize with exaltation. He had been rather a nuisance all through the tennis, for the novel that he was reading was so bad that he was obliged to read it aloud to others. He would stroll round the precincts of the court and call out 'I say, listen to this, Lucy. Three split infinitives. 'Dreadful! said Lucy, and missed her stroke. When they had finished their set, he still went on reading there was some murder scene, and really everyone must listen to it. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were obliged to hunt for a lost ball in the laurels, but the other two acquiesced. 'The scene is laid in Florence. 'What fun, Cecil! Read away. Come, Mr. Emerson, sit down after all your energy. She had 'forgiven George, as she put it, and she made a point of being pleasant to him. He jumped over the net and sat down at her feet asking 'Youand are you tired? 'Of course I'm not! 'Do you mind being beaten? She was going to answer, 'No, when it struck her that she did mind, so she answered, 'Yes. She added merrily, 'I don't see you're such a splendid player, though. The light was behind you, and it was in my eyes. 'I never said I was. 'Why, you did! 'You didn't attend. 'You saidoh, don't go in for accuracy at this house. We all exaggerate, and we get very angry with people who don't. ''The scene is laid in Florence,' repeated Cecil, with an upward note. Lucy recollected herself. ''Sunset. Leonora was speeding' Lucy interrupted. 'Leonora? Is Leonora the heroine? Who's the book by? 'Joseph Emery Prank. 'Sunset. Leonora speeding across the square. Pray the saints she might not arrive too late. Sunsetthe sunset of Italy. Under Orcagna's Loggiathe Loggia de' Lanzi, as we sometimes call it now' Lucy burst into laughter. ''Joseph Emery Prank' indeed! Why it's Miss Lavish! It's Miss Lavish's novel, and she's publishing it under somebody else's name. 'Who may Miss Lavish be? 'Oh, a dreadful personMr. Emerson, you remember Miss Lavish? Excited by her pleasant afternoon, she clapped her hands. George looked up. 'Of course I do. I saw her the day I arrived at Summer Street. It was she who told me that you lived here. 'Weren't you pleased? She meant 'to see Miss Lavish, but when he bent down to the grass without replying, it struck her that she could mean something else. She watched his head, which was almost resting against her knee, and she thought that the ears were reddening. 'No wonder the novel's bad, she added. 'I never liked Miss Lavish. But I suppose one ought to read it as one's met her. 'All modern books are bad, said Cecil, who was annoyed at her inattention, and vented his annoyance on literature. 'Every one writes for money in these days. 'Oh, Cecil! 'It is so. I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer. Cecil, this afternoon seemed such a twittering sparrow. The ups and downs in his voice were noticeable, but they did not affect her. She had dwelt amongst melody and movement, and her nerves refused to answer to the clang of his. Leaving him to be annoyed, she gazed at the black head again. She did not want to stroke it, but she saw herself wanting to stroke it the sensation was curious. 'How do you like this view of ours, Mr. Emerson? 'I never notice much difference in views. 'What do you mean? 'Because they're all alike. Because all that matters in them is distance and air. 'H'm! said Cecil, uncertain whether the remark was striking or not. 'My fatherhe looked up at her (and he was a little flushed)'says that there is only one perfect viewthe view of the sky straight over our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of it. 'I expect your father has been reading Dante, said Cecil, fingering the novel, which alone permitted him to lead the conversation. 'He told us another day that views are really crowdscrowds of trees and houses and hillsand are bound to resemble each other, like human crowdsand that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural, for the same reason. Lucy's lips parted. 'For a crowd is more than the people who make it up. Something gets added to itno one knows howjust as something has got added to those hills. He pointed with his racquet to the South Downs. 'What a splendid idea! she murmured. 'I shall enjoy hearing your father talk again. I'm so sorry he's not so well. 'No, he isn't well. 'There's an absurd account of a view in this book, said Cecil. 'Also that men fall into two classesthose who forget views and those who remember them, even in small rooms. 'Mr. Emerson, have you any brothers or sisters? 'None. Why? 'You spoke of 'us.' 'My mother, I was meaning. Cecil closed the novel with a bang. 'Oh, Cecilhow you made me jump! 'I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer. 'I can just remember us all three going into the country for the day and seeing as far as Hindhead. It is the first thing that I remember. Cecil got up the man was illbredhe hadn't put on his coat after tennishe didn't do. He would have strolled away if Lucy had not stopped him. 'Cecil, do read the thing about the view. 'Not while Mr. Emerson is here to entertain us. 'Noread away. I think nothing's funnier than to hear silly things read out loud. If Mr. Emerson thinks us frivolous, he can go. This struck Cecil as subtle, and pleased him. It put their visitor in the position of a prig. Somewhat mollified, he sat down again. 'Mr. Emerson, go and find tennis balls. She opened the book. Cecil must have his reading and anything else that he liked. But her attention wandered to George's mother, whoaccording to Mr. Eagerhad been murdered in the sight of God andaccording to her sonhad seen as far as Hindhead. 'Am I really to go? asked George. 'No, of course not really, she answered. 'Chapter two, said Cecil, yawning. 'Find me chapter two, if it isn't bothering you. Chapter two was found, and she glanced at its opening sentences. She thought she had gone mad. 'Herehand me the book. She heard her voice saying 'It isn't worth readingit's too silly to readI never saw such rubbishit oughtn't to be allowed to be printed. He took the book from her. ''Leonora,' he read, ''sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich champaign of Tuscany, dotted over with many a smiling village. The season was spring.' Miss Lavish knew, somehow, and had printed the past in draggled prose, for Cecil to read and for George to hear. ''A golden haze,' he read. He read ''Afar off the towers of Florence, while the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All unobserved Antonio stole up behind her' Lest Cecil should see her face she turned to George and saw his face. He read ''There came from his lips no wordy protestation such as formal lovers use. No eloquence was his, nor did he suffer from the lack of it. He simply enfolded her in his manly arms.' 'This isn't the passage I wanted, he informed them, 'there is another much funnier, further on. He turned over the leaves. 'Should we go in to tea? said Lucy, whose voice remained steady. She led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She thought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery it came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had been forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it and George, who loved passionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path. 'No she gasped, and, for the second time, was kissed by him. As if no more was possible, he slipped back Cecil rejoined her they reached the upper lawn alone. But Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now better able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the world disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by deep sobs. She said to Cecil, 'I am not coming in to teatell motherI must write some letters, and went up to her room. Then she prepared for action. Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world's enemy, and she must stifle it. She sent for Miss Bartlett. The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is such a contest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and Lucy's first aim was to defeat herself. As her brain clouded over, as the memory of the views grew dim and the words of the book died away, she returned to her old shibboleth of nerves. She 'conquered her breakdown. Tampering with the truth, she forgot that the truth had ever been. Remembering that she was engaged to Cecil, she compelled herself to confused remembrances of George he was nothing to her he never had been anything he had behaved abominably she had never encouraged him. The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was equipped for battle. 'Something too awful has happened, she began, as soon as her cousin arrived. 'Do you know anything about Miss Lavish's novel? Miss Bartlett looked surprised, and said that she had not read the book, nor known that it was published Eleanor was a reticent woman at heart. 'There is a scene in it. The hero and heroine make love. Do you know about that? 'Dear? 'Do you know about it, please? she repeated. 'They are on a hillside, and Florence is in the distance. 'My good Lucia, I am all at sea. I know nothing about it whatever. 'There are violets. I cannot believe it is a coincidence. Charlotte, Charlotte, how could you have told her? I have thought before speaking it must be you. 'Told her what? she asked, with growing agitation. 'About that dreadful afternoon in February. Miss Bartlett was genuinely moved. 'Oh, Lucy, dearest girlshe hasn't put that in her book? Lucy nodded. 'Not so that one could recognize it. Yes. 'Then nevernevernever more shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine. 'So you did tell? 'I did just happenwhen I had tea with her at Romein the course of conversation 'But Charlottewhat about the promise you gave me when we were packing? Why did you tell Miss Lavish, when you wouldn't even let me tell mother? 'I will never forgive Eleanor. She has betrayed my confidence. 'Why did you tell her, though? This is a most serious thing. Why does any one tell anything? The question is eternal, and it was not surprising that Miss Bartlett should only sigh faintly in response. She had done wrongshe admitted it, she only hoped that she had not done harm she had told Eleanor in the strictest confidence. Lucy stamped with irritation. 'Cecil happened to read out the passage aloud to me and to Mr. Emerson it upset Mr. Emerson and he insulted me again. Behind Cecil's back. Ugh! Is it possible that men are such brutes? Behind Cecil's back as we were walking up the garden. Miss Bartlett burst into selfaccusations and regrets. 'What is to be done now? Can you tell me? 'Oh, LucyI shall never forgive myself, never to my dying day. Fancy if your prospects 'I know, said Lucy, wincing at the word. 'I see now why you wanted me to tell Cecil, and what you meant by 'some other source.' You knew that you had told Miss Lavish, and that she was not reliable. It was Miss Bartlett's turn to wince. 'However, said the girl, despising her cousin's shiftiness, 'What's done's done. You have put me in a most awkward position. How am I to get out of it? Miss Bartlett could not think. The days of her energy were over. She was a visitor, not a chaperon, and a discredited visitor at that. She stood with clasped hands while the girl worked herself into the necessary rage. 'He mustthat man must have such a setting down that he won't forget. And who's to give it him? I can't tell mother nowowing to you. Nor Cecil, Charlotte, owing to you. I am caught up every way. I think I shall go mad. I have no one to help me. That's why I've sent for you. What's wanted is a man with a whip. Miss Bartlett agreed one wanted a man with a whip. 'Yesbut it's no good agreeing. What's to be done? We women go maundering on. What does a girl do when she comes across a cad? 'I always said he was a cad, dear. Give me credit for that, at all events. From the very first momentwhen he said his father was having a bath. 'Oh, bother the credit and who's been right or wrong! We've both made a muddle of it. George Emerson is still down the garden there, and is he to be left unpunished, or isn't he? I want to know. Miss Bartlett was absolutely helpless. Her own exposure had unnerved her, and thoughts were colliding painfully in her brain. She moved feebly to the window, and tried to detect the cad's white flannels among the laurels. 'You were ready enough at the Bertolini when you rushed me off to Rome. Can't you speak again to him now? 'Willingly would I move heaven and earth 'I want something more definite, said Lucy contemptuously. 'Will you speak to him? It is the least you can do, surely, considering it all happened because you broke your word. 'Never again shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine. Really, Charlotte was outdoing herself. 'Yes or no, please yes or no. 'It is the kind of thing that only a gentleman can settle. George Emerson was coming up the garden with a tennis ball in his hand. 'Very well, said Lucy, with an angry gesture. 'No one will help me. I will speak to him myself. And immediately she realized that this was what her cousin had intended all along. 'Hullo, Emerson! called Freddy from below. 'Found the lost ball? Good man! Want any tea? And there was an irruption from the house on to the terrace. 'Oh, Lucy, but that is brave of you! I admire you They had gathered round George, who beckoned, she felt, over the rubbish, the sloppy thoughts, the furtive yearnings that were beginning to cumber her soul. Her anger faded at the sight of him. Ah! The Emersons were fine people in their way. She had to subdue a rush in her blood before saying 'Freddy has taken him into the diningroom. The others are going down the garden. Come. Let us get this over quickly. Come. I want you in the room, of course. 'Lucy, do you mind doing it? 'How can you ask such a ridiculous question? 'Poor Lucy She stretched out her hand. 'I seem to bring nothing but misfortune wherever I go. Lucy nodded. She remembered their last evening at Florencethe packing, the candle, the shadow of Miss Bartlett's toque on the door. She was not to be trapped by pathos a second time. Eluding her cousin's caress, she led the way downstairs. 'Try the jam, Freddy was saying. 'The jam's jolly good. George, looking big and dishevelled, was pacing up and down the diningroom. As she entered he stopped, and said 'Nonothing to eat. 'You go down to the others, said Lucy 'Charlotte and I will give Mr. Emerson all he wants. Where's mother? 'She's started on her Sunday writing. She's in the drawingroom. 'That's all right. You go away. He went off singing. Lucy sat down at the table. Miss Bartlett, who was thoroughly frightened, took up a book and pretended to read. She would not be drawn into an elaborate speech. She just said 'I can't have it, Mr. Emerson. I cannot even talk to you. Go out of this house, and never come into it again as long as I live here flushing as she spoke and pointing to the door. 'I hate a row. Go please. 'What 'No discussion. 'But I can't She shook her head. 'Go, please. I do not want to call in Mr. Vyse. 'You don't mean, he said, absolutely ignoring Miss Bartlett'you don't mean that you are going to marry that man? The line was unexpected. She shrugged her shoulders, as if his vulgarity wearied her. 'You are merely ridiculous, she said quietly. Then his words rose gravely over hers 'You cannot live with Vyse. He's only for an acquaintance. He is for society and cultivated talk. He should know no one intimately, least of all a woman. It was a new light on Cecil's character. 'Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired? 'I can scarcely discuss 'No, but have you ever? He is the sort who are all right so long as they keep to thingsbooks, picturesbut kill when they come to people. That's why I'll speak out through all this muddle even now. It's shocking enough to lose you in any case, but generally a man must deny himself joy, and I would have held back if your Cecil had been a different person. I would never have let myself go. But I saw him first in the National Gallery, when he winced because my father mispronounced the names of great painters. Then he brings us here, and we find it is to play some silly trick on a kind neighbour. That is the man all overplaying tricks on people, on the most sacred form of life that he can find. Next, I meet you together, and find him protecting and teaching you and your mother to be shocked, when it was for you to settle whether you were shocked or no. Cecil all over again. He daren't let a woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own. So it was at the Rectory, when I met you both again so it has been the whole of this afternoon. Thereforenot 'therefore I kissed you,' because the book made me do that, and I wish to goodness I had more selfcontrol. I'm not ashamed. I don't apologize. But it has frightened you, and you may not have noticed that I love you. Or would you have told me to go, and dealt with a tremendous thing so lightly? But thereforetherefore I settled to fight him. Lucy thought of a very good remark. 'You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for suggesting that you have caught the habit. And he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He said 'Yes, I have, and sank down as if suddenly weary. 'I'm the same kind of brute at bottom. This desire to govern a womanit lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the garden. But I do love you surely in a better way than he does. He thought. 'Yesreally in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms. He stretched them towards her. 'Lucy, be quickthere's no time for us to talk nowcome to me as you came in the spring, and afterwards I will be gentle and explain. I have cared for you since that man died. I cannot live without you, 'No good,' I thought 'she is marrying someone else' but I meet you again when all the world is glorious water and sun. As you came through the wood I saw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and have my chance of joy. 'And Mr. Vyse? said Lucy, who kept commendably calm. 'Does he not matter? That I love Cecil and shall be his wife shortly? A detail of no importance, I suppose? But he stretched his arms over the table towards her. 'May I ask what you intend to gain by this exhibition? He said 'It is our last chance. I shall do all that I can. And as if he had done all else, he turned to Miss Bartlett, who sat like some portent against the skies of the evening. 'You wouldn't stop us this second time if you understood, he said. 'I have been into the dark, and I am going back into it, unless you will try to understand. Her long, narrow head drove backwards and forwards, as though demolishing some invisible obstacle. She did not answer. 'It is being young, he said quietly, picking up his racquet from the floor and preparing to go. 'It is being certain that Lucy cares for me really. It is that love and youth matter intellectually. In silence the two women watched him. His last remark, they knew, was nonsense, but was he going after it or not? Would not he, the cad, the charlatan, attempt a more dramatic finish? No. He was apparently content. He left them, carefully closing the front door and when they looked through the hall window, they saw him go up the drive and begin to climb the slopes of withered fern behind the house. Their tongues were loosed, and they burst into stealthy rejoicings. 'Oh, Luciacome back hereoh, what an awful man! Lucy had no reactionat least, not yet. 'Well, he amuses me, she said. 'Either I'm mad, or else he is, and I'm inclined to think it's the latter. One more fuss through with you, Charlotte. Many thanks. I think, though, that this is the last. My admirer will hardly trouble me again. And Miss Bartlett, too, essayed the roguish 'Well, it isn't everyone who could boast such a conquest, dearest, is it? Oh, one oughtn't to laugh, really. It might have been very serious. But you were so sensible and braveso unlike the girls of my day. 'Let's go down to them. But, once in the open air, she paused. Some emotionpity, terror, love, but the emotion was strongseized her, and she was aware of autumn. Summer was ending, and the evening brought her odours of decay, the more pathetic because they were reminiscent of spring. That something or other mattered intellectually? A leaf, violently agitated, danced past her, while other leaves lay motionless. That the earth was hastening to reenter darkness, and the shadows of those trees over Windy Corner? 'Hullo, Lucy! There's still light enough for another set, if you two'll hurry. 'Mr. Emerson has had to go. 'What a nuisance! That spoils the four. I say, Cecil, do play, do, there's a good chap. It's Floyd's last day. Do play tennis with us, just this once. Cecil's voice came 'My dear Freddy, I am no athlete. As you well remarked this very morning, 'There are some chaps who are no good for anything but books' I plead guilty to being such a chap, and will not inflict myself on you. The scales fell from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment? He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her engagement. He was bewildered. He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but stood, with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what had led her to such a conclusion. She had chosen the moment before bed, when, in accordance with their bourgeois habit, she always dispensed drinks to the men. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were sure to retire with their glasses, while Cecil invariably lingered, sipping at his while she locked up the sideboard. 'I am very sorry about it, she said 'I have carefully thought things over. We are too different. I must ask you to release me, and try to forget that there ever was such a foolish girl. It was a suitable speech, but she was more angry than sorry, and her voice showed it. 'Differenthowhow 'I haven't had a really good education, for one thing, she continued, still on her knees by the sideboard. 'My Italian trip came too late, and I am forgetting all that I learnt there. I shall never be able to talk to your friends, or behave as a wife of yours should. 'I don't understand you. You aren't like yourself. You're tired, Lucy. 'Tired! she retorted, kindling at once. 'That is exactly like you. You always think women don't mean what they say. 'Well, you sound tired, as if something has worried you. 'What if I do? It doesn't prevent me from realizing the truth. I can't marry you, and you will thank me for saying so some day. 'You had that bad headache yesterdayAll rightfor she had exclaimed indignantly 'I see it's much more than headaches. But give me a moment's time. He closed his eyes. 'You must excuse me if I say stupid things, but my brain has gone to pieces. Part of it lives three minutes back, when I was sure that you loved me, and the other partI find it difficultI am likely to say the wrong thing. It struck her that he was not behaving so badly, and her irritation increased. She again desired a struggle, not a discussion. To bring on the crisis, she said 'There are days when one sees clearly, and this is one of them. Things must come to a breakingpoint some time, and it happens to be today. If you want to know, quite a little thing decided me to speak to youwhen you wouldn't play tennis with Freddy. 'I never do play tennis, said Cecil, painfully bewildered 'I never could play. I don't understand a word you say. 'You can play well enough to make up a four. I thought it abominably selfish of you. 'No, I can'twell, never mind the tennis. Why couldn't youcouldn't you have warned me if you felt anything wrong? You talked of our wedding at lunchat least, you let me talk. 'I knew you wouldn't understand, said Lucy quite crossly. 'I might have known there would have been these dreadful explanations. Of course, it isn't the tennisthat was only the last straw to all I have been feeling for weeks. Surely it was better not to speak until I felt certain. She developed this position. 'Often before I have wondered if I was fitted for your wifefor instance, in London and are you fitted to be my husband? I don't think so. You don't like Freddy, nor my mother. There was always a lot against our engagement, Cecil, but all our relations seemed pleased, and we met so often, and it was no good mentioning it untilwell, until all things came to a point. They have today. I see clearly. I must speak. That's all. 'I cannot think you were right, said Cecil gently. 'I cannot tell why, but though all that you say sounds true, I feel that you are not treating me fairly. It's all too horrible. 'What's the good of a scene? 'No good. But surely I have a right to hear a little more. He put down his glass and opened the window. From where she knelt, jangling her keys, she could see a slit of darkness, and, peering into it, as if it would tell him that 'little more, his long, thoughtful face. 'Don't open the window and you'd better draw the curtain, too Freddy or any one might be outside. He obeyed. 'I really think we had better go to bed, if you don't mind. I shall only say things that will make me unhappy afterwards. As you say it is all too horrible, and it is no good talking. But to Cecil, now that he was about to lose her, she seemed each moment more desirable. He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even eluded art. His brain recovered from the shock, and, in a burst of genuine devotion, he cried 'But I love you, and I did think you loved me! 'I did not, she said. 'I thought I did at first. I am sorry, and ought to have refused you this last time, too. He began to walk up and down the room, and she grew more and more vexed at his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his being petty. It would have made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing out all that was finest in his disposition. 'You don't love me, evidently. I dare say you are right not to. But it would hurt a little less if I knew why. 'Becausea phrase came to her, and she accepted it'you're the sort who can't know any one intimately. A horrified look came into his eyes. 'I don't mean exactly that. But you will question me, though I beg you not to, and I must say something. It is that, more or less. When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me. Her voice swelled. 'I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it secondhand through you? A woman's place! You despise my motherI know you dobecause she's conventional and bothers over puddings but, oh goodness!she rose to her feet'conventional, Cecil, you're that, for you may understand beautiful things, but you don't know how to use them and you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my engagement. You were all right as long as you kept to things, but when you came to people She stopped. There was a pause. Then Cecil said with great emotion 'It is true. 'True on the whole, she corrected, full of some vague shame. 'True, every word. It is a revelation. It isI. 'Anyhow, those are my reasons for not being your wife. He repeated ''The sort that can know no one intimately.' It is true. I fell to pieces the very first day we were engaged. I behaved like a cad to Beebe and to your brother. You are even greater than I thought. She withdrew a step. 'I'm not going to worry you. You are far too good to me. I shall never forget your insight and, dear, I only blame you for this you might have warned me in the early stages, before you felt you wouldn't marry me, and so have given me a chance to improve. I have never known you till this evening. I have just used you as a peg for my silly notions of what a woman should be. But this evening you are a different person new thoughtseven a new voice 'What do you mean by a new voice? she asked, seized with incontrollable anger. 'I mean that a new person seems speaking through you, said he. Then she lost her balance. She cried 'If you think I am in love with some one else, you are very much mistaken. 'Of course I don't think that. You are not that kind, Lucy. 'Oh, yes, you do think it. It's your old idea, the idea that has kept Europe backI mean the idea that women are always thinking of men. If a girl breaks off her engagement, everyone says 'Oh, she had someone else in her mind she hopes to get someone else.' It's disgusting, brutal! As if a girl can't break it off for the sake of freedom. He answered reverently 'I may have said that in the past. I shall never say it again. You have taught me better. She began to redden, and pretended to examine the windows again. 'Of course, there is no question of 'someone else' in this, no 'jilting' or any such nauseous stupidity. I beg your pardon most humbly if my words suggested that there was. I only meant that there was a force in you that I hadn't known of up till now. 'All right, Cecil, that will do. Don't apologize to me. It was my mistake. 'It is a question between ideals, yours and minepure abstract ideals, and yours are the nobler. I was bound up in the old vicious notions, and all the time you were splendid and new. His voice broke. 'I must actually thank you for what you have donefor showing me what I really am. Solemnly, I thank you for showing me a true woman. Will you shake hands? 'Of course I will, said Lucy, twisting up her other hand in the curtains. 'Goodnight, Cecil. Goodbye. That's all right. I'm sorry about it. Thank you very much for your gentleness. 'Let me light your candle, shall I? They went into the hall. 'Thank you. Goodnight again. God bless you, Lucy! 'Goodbye, Cecil. She watched him steal upstairs, while the shadows from three banisters passed over her face like the beat of wings. On the landing he paused strong in his renunciation, and gave her a look of memorable beauty. For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it. She could never marry. In the tumult of her soul, that stood firm. Cecil believed in her she must some day believe in herself. She must be one of the women whom she had praised so eloquently, who care for liberty and not for men she must forget that George loved her, that George had been thinking through her and gained her this honourable release, that George had gone away intowhat was it?the darkness. She put out the lamp. It did not do to think, nor, for the matter of that, to feel. She gave up trying to understand herself, and joined the vast armies of the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by catchwords. The armies are full of pleasant and pious folk. But they have yielded to the only enemy that mattersthe enemy within. They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after virtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their pleasantry and their piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism, their unselfishness hypocrisy they feel and produce discomfort wherever they go. They have sinned against Eros and against Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly intervention, but by the ordinary course of nature, those allied deities will be avenged. Lucy entered this army when she pretended to George that she did not love him, and pretended to Cecil that she loved no one. The night received her, as it had received Miss Bartlett thirty years before. Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred feet down the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great buttresses that supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow ravine, filled with ferns and pinetrees, and down the ravine on the left ran the highway into the Weald. Whenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these noble dispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of them, Windy Corner,he laughed. The situation was so glorious, the house so commonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr. Honeychurch had affected the cube, because it gave him the most accommodation for his money, and the only addition made by his widow had been a small turret, shaped like a rhinoceros' horn, where she could sit in wet weather and watch the carts going up and down the road. So impertinentand yet the house 'did, for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings honestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all these suggested the accidental, the temporary while Windy Corner seemed as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature's own creation. One might laugh at the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling over this Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from the Miss Alans. These admirable ladies, since they could not go to Cissie Villa, had changed their plans. They were going to Greece instead. 'Since Florence did my poor sister so much good, wrote Miss Catharine, 'we do not see why we should not try Athens this winter. Of course, Athens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered her special digestive bread but, after all, we can take that with us, and it is only getting first into a steamer and then into a train. But is there an English Church? And the letter went on to say 'I do not expect we shall go any further than Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable pension at Constantinople, we should be so grateful. Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe greeted Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it, and some of its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though she was hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenlyoh, that cerise frock yesterday at church!she must see some beauty in life, or she could not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was only riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies to visit Athens. A carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse, who always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him. The door opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized as Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving but he saw a trunk beside the coachman's legs. Cecil, who wore a bowler, must be going away, while Freddy (a cap)was seeing him to the station. They walked rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the summit while the carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road. They shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak. 'So you're off for a minute, Mr. Vyse? he asked. Cecil said, 'Yes, while Freddy edged away. 'I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends of Miss Honeychurch. He quoted from it. 'Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it romance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken in a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world. Cecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be amused and interested. 'Isn't Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people you do nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is dead, while the Miss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against the terrible thing. 'A really comfortable pension at Constantinople!' So they call it out of decency, but in their hearts they want a pension with magic windows opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland forlorn! No ordinary view will content the Miss Alans. They want the Pension Keats. 'I'm awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe, said Freddy, 'but have you any matches? 'I have, said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe's notice that he spoke to the boy more kindly. 'You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse? 'Never. 'Then you don't see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven't been to Greece myself, and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine any of my friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don't you think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilishI am not sure which, and in either case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, FreddyI am not being clever, upon my word I am notI took the idea from another fellow and give me those matches when you've done with them. He lit a cigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. 'I was saying, if our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian. Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But not the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price and here comes the victoria. 'You're quite right, said Cecil. 'Greece is not for our little lot and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he trusted not to be pulling one's leg, really. And before they had gone a dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse's matchbox, which had not been returned. As he took it, he said 'I'm so glad you only talked about books. Cecil's hard hit. Lucy won't marry him. If you'd gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken down. 'But when 'Late last night. I must go. 'Perhaps they won't want me down there. 'Nogo on. Goodbye. 'Thank goodness! exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle of his bicycle approvingly, 'It was the one foolish thing she ever did. Oh, what a glorious riddance! And, after a little thought, he negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was again as it ought to becut off forever from Cecil's pretentious world. He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden. In the drawingroom Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a mournful company. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and broken the dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them up, while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of assistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the 'gardenchild, a minute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass. 'Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look at my scarlet pompoms, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage having to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, whogive everyone their duedoes tie up dahlias properly. Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered. 'How do you do? said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn gales. 'Here, Lennie, the bass, cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The gardenchild, who did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror. Minnie slipped to her uncle and whispered that everyone was very disagreeable today, and that it was not her fault if dahliastrings would tear longways instead of across. 'Come for a walk with me, he told her. 'You have worried them as much as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I shall take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may. 'Oh, must you? Yes do.Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when both my hands are full alreadyI'm perfectly certain that the orange cactus will go before I can get to it. Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity. 'Yes, Charlotte, I don't want youdo go there's nothing to stop about for, either in the house or out of it. Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she had exasperated everyone, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round and exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden, the orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe's last vision was of the gardenchild clasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth of blossom. 'It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers, he remarked. 'It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a moment, enunciated Miss Bartlett. 'Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will she come with us? 'I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits. 'They're angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for breakfast, whispered Minnie, 'and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has gone, and Freddy won't play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house is not at all what it was yesterday. 'Don't be a prig, said her Uncle Arthur. 'Go and put on your boots. He stepped into the drawingroom, where Lucy was still attentively pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered. 'How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at the Beehive. Would you come too? 'I don't think I will, thank you. 'No, I didn't suppose you would care to much. Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords. 'How delicate those Sonatas are! said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom of his heart, he thought them silly little things. Lucy passed into Schumann. 'Miss Honeychurch! 'Yes. 'I met them on the hill. Your brother told me. 'Oh he did? She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had thought that she would like him to be told. 'I needn't say that it will go no further. 'Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you, said Lucy, playing a note for each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note. 'If you'll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you have done the right thing. 'So I hoped other people would think, but they don't seem to. 'I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise. 'So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully. 'I am very sorry for that, said Mr. Beebe with feeling. Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really a ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondencya ruse of which she was not herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness. 'And Freddy minds. 'Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that he disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you. 'Boys are so odd. Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr. Beebe saw that Lucyvery properlydid not wish to discuss her action, so after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, 'I have had an absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I thought it might amuse you all. 'How delightful! said Lucy, in a dull voice. For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with 'Going abroad? When do they start? 'Next week, I gather. 'Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back? 'No, he didn't. 'Because I do hope he won't go gossiping. So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a high voice, 'Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly splendid of them to go abroad! 'I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the Illyrian coast! She laughed heartily. 'Oh, delightful! I wish they'd take me. 'Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson is right. He says that 'Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.' 'Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn't it? Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, 'with Delphi, perhaps, if the roads are safe. But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had always longed to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his surprise, that she was apparently serious. 'I didn't realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends, after Cissie Villa. 'Oh, that's nothing I assure you Cissie Villa's nothing to me I would give anything to go with them. 'Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home three months. 'She must spare me! cried Lucy, in growing excitement. 'I simply must go away. I have to. She ran her fingers hysterically through her hair. 'Don't you see that I have to go away? I didn't realize at the timeand of course I want to see Constantinople so particularly. 'You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel 'Yes, yes. I knew you'd understand. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that her family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she accepted the hint eagerly. 'Yes, of course to go to Constantinople until they are used to the idea and everything has calmed down. 'I am afraid it has been a bothersome business, he said gently. 'No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed onlyI had better tell you the whole truth, since you have heard a littleit was that he is so masterful. I found that he wouldn't let me go my own way. He would improve me in places where I can't be improved. Cecil won't let a woman decide for herselfin fact, he daren't. What nonsense I do talk! But that is the kind of thing. 'It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse it is what I gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little criticism Is it worth while rushing off to Greece? 'But I must go somewhere! she cried. 'I have been worrying all the morning, and here comes the very thing. She struck her knees with clenched fists, and repeated 'I must! And the time I shall have with mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think much too highly of me. I wish you weren't so kind. At this moment Miss Bartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. 'I must get away, ever so far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go. 'Come along tea, tea, tea, said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out of the frontdoor. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat. When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the tinkling of a Mozart Sonata. 'She is playing again, he said to Miss Bartlett. 'Lucy can always play, was the acid reply. 'One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it. The marriage was so near that it must have been a hard struggle before she could wind herself up to speak. Miss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a discussion. He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself at Florence, 'she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of meaning. But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable. He assumed that much, and he had no hesitation in discussing Lucy with her. Minnie was fortunately collecting ferns. She opened the discussion with 'We had much better let the matter drop. 'I wonder. 'It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip in Summer Street. It would be death to gossip about Mr. Vyse's dismissal at the present moment. Mr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong wordsurely too strong. There was no question of tragedy. He said 'Of course, Miss Honeychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and when she chooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would not mind. 'I know, said Miss Bartlett civilly. 'Yet Freddy ought not to have told even you. One cannot be too careful. 'Quite so. 'I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering friend, and 'Exactly. He was used to these nervous old maids and to the exaggerated importance that they attach to words. A rector lives in a web of petty secrets, and confidences and warnings, and the wiser he is the less he will regard them. He will change the subject, as did Mr. Beebe, saying cheerfully 'Have you heard from any Bertolini people lately? I believe you keep up with Miss Lavish. It is odd how we of that pension, who seemed such a fortuitous collection, have been working into one another's lives. Two, three, four, six of usno, eight I had forgotten the Emersonshave kept more or less in touch. We must really give the Signora a testimonial. And, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the hill in a silence which was only broken by the rector naming some fern. On the summit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since he stood there last hour, giving to the land a tragic greatness that is rare in Surrey. Grey clouds were charging across tissues of white, which stretched and shredded and tore slowly, until through their final layers there gleamed a hint of the disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The wind roared, the trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for those vast operations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking, broken, and it is a sense of the fit rather than of the supernatural that equips such crises with the salvos of angelic artillery. Mr. Beebe's eyes rested on Windy Corner, where Lucy sat, practising Mozart. No smile came to his lips, and, changing the subject again, he said 'We shan't have rain, but we shall have darkness, so let us hurry on. The darkness last night was appalling. They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o'clock. That amiable hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would hand the child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally enabled to discuss the fortunes of Lucy. 'I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett, he said, 'and, unless you very much object, I would like to reopen that discussion. She bowed. 'Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that I am absolutely certain that it is to your cousin's credit. She has acted loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we think too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think of this Greek plan? He pulled out the letter again. 'I don't know whether you overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their mad career. It's allI can't explainit's wrong. Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to hesitate, and then read it again. 'I can't see the point of it myself. To his astonishment, she replied 'There I cannot agree with you. In it I spy Lucy's salvation. 'Really. Now, why? 'She wanted to leave Windy Corner. 'I knowbut it seems so odd, so unlike her, soI was going to sayselfish. 'It is natural, surelyafter such painful scenesthat she should desire a change. Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed 'So she says herself, and since another lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps she must have a change. I have no sisters orand I don't understand these things. But why need she go as far as Greece? 'You may well ask that, replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. 'Why Greece? (What is it, Minnie dearjam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe! I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused. Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife. 'But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on Lucy's nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence, and when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the time I felt that I was spending her mother's money. 'Let us keep to the future, though, interrupted Mr. Beebe. 'I want your advice. 'Very well, said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to him, though familiar to Lucy. 'I for one will help her to go to Greece. Will you? Mr. Beebe considered. 'It is absolutely necessary, she continued, lowering her veil and whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him. 'I knowI know. The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this odd woman really did know. 'She must not stop here a moment, and we must keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing. Afterwardsbut I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed. Otherwise 'Otherwise? 'Otherwise, she repeated as if the word held finality. 'Yes, I will help her, said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm. 'Come, let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up. Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern signa beehive trimmed evenly with beescreaked in the wind outside as she thanked him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation but then, he did not desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of 'another man that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss Bartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be delivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its very vagueness spurred him into knighterrantry. His belief in celibacy, so reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and culture, now came to the surface and expanded like some delicate flower. 'They that marry do well, but they that refrain do better. So ran his belief, and he never heard that an engagement was broken off but with a slight feeling of pleasure. In the case of Lucy, the feeling was intensified through dislike of Cecil and he was willing to go furtherto place her out of danger until she could confirm her resolution of virginity. The feeling was very subtle and quite undogmatic, and he never imparted it to any other of the characters in this entanglement. Yet it existed, and it alone explains his action subsequently, and his influence on the action of others. The compact that he made with Miss Bartlett in the tavern, was to help not only Lucy, but religion also. They hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed on indifferent topics the Emersons' need of a housekeeper servants Italian servants novels about Italy novels with a purpose could literature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered. In the garden, Mrs. Honeychurch, now helped by Freddy, still wrestled with the lives of her flowers. 'It gets too dark, she said hopelessly. 'This comes of putting off. We might have known the weather would break up soon and now Lucy wants to go to Greece. I don't know what the world's coming to. 'Mrs. Honeychurch, he said, 'go to Greece she must. Come up to the house and let's talk it over. Do you, in the first place, mind her breaking with Vyse? 'Mr. Beebe, I'm thankfulsimply thankful. 'So am I, said Freddy. 'Good. Now come up to the house. They conferred in the diningroom for half an hour. Lucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive and dramaticboth qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe. By his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergymanfor a clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatlyhe bent her to their purpose, 'I don't see why Greece is necessary, she said 'but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I can't understand. Lucy! Let's tell her. Lucy! 'She is playing the piano, Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and heard the words of a song 'Look not thou on beauty's charming. 'I didn't know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too. 'Sit thou still when kings are arming, Taste not when the winecup glistens 'It's a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are! 'What's that? called Lucy, stopping short. 'All right, dear, said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the drawingroom, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say 'I am sorry I was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias. Rather a hard voice said 'Thank you, mother that doesn't matter a bit. 'And you are right, tooGreece will be all right you can go if the Miss Alans will have you. 'Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you! Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips. Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione, in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together about noble thingsa theme neither sensual nor sensational, and therefore ignored by the art of today. Why should Lucy want either to marry or to travel when she had such friends at home? 'Taste not when the winecup glistens, Speak not when the people listens, she continued. 'Here's Mr. Beebe. 'Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways. 'It's a beautiful song and a wise one, said he. 'Go on. 'It isn't very good, she said listlessly. 'I forget whyharmony or something. 'I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful. 'The tune's right enough, said Freddy, 'but the words are rotten. Why throw up the sponge? 'How stupidly you talk! said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said goodbye. Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual felicity of phrase, said 'This has been a day and a half. 'Stop thine ear against the singer 'Wait a minute she is finishing. 'From the red gold keep thy finger Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die. 'I love weather like this, said Freddy. Mr. Beebe passed into it. The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he must acquiesce she was choosing the better part. 'Vacant heart and hand and eye Perhaps the song stated 'the better part rather too strongly. He half fancied that the soaring accompanimentwhich he did not lose in the shout of the galereally agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing the words that it adorned 'Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die. However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below himnow as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near Bloomsburya clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guidebooks, mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. 'But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a standby. Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her cardcase. 'We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you, Miss Catharine continued. 'It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on. 'Or does his work keep him in London? said Miss Teresa, the more acute and less kindly of the two sisters. 'However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see him. 'No one will see Lucy off, interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. 'She doesn't like it. 'No, I hate seeingsoff, said Lucy. 'Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case 'Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have met you! They escaped, and Lucy said with relief 'That's all right. We just got through that time. But her mother was annoyed. 'I should be told, dear, that I am unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most unpleasant. Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans' character they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would be everywhere in no time. 'But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time? 'Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I shall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in here. 'Here was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses and gods. 'Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a guidebook. 'You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this holeandcorner work. You've got rid of Cecilwell and good, and I'm thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not announce it? Why this hushing up and tiptoeing? 'It's only for a few days. 'But why at all? Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite easy to say, 'Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he hears I've given up Cecil may begin againquite easy, and it had the incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She disliked confidences, for they might lead to selfknowledge and to that king of terrorsLight. Ever since that last evening at Florence she had deemed it unwise to reveal her soul. Mrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, 'My daughter won't answer me she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids than with Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if she can leave her home. And as in her case thoughts never remained unspoken long, she burst out with 'You're tired of Windy Corner. This was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner when she escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed no longer. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought straight, but not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She did not acknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself must assist in that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very instruments of life. She only felt, 'I do not love George I broke off my engagement because I did not love George I must go to Greece because I do not love George it is more important that I should look up gods in the dictionary than that I should help my mother everyone else is behaving very badly. She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to do what she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded with the conversation. 'Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of Windy Corner. 'Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour? She laughed faintly, 'Half a minute would be nearer. 'Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether? 'Hush, mother! People will hear you for they had entered Mudie's. She bought Baedeker, and then continued 'Of course I want to live at home but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to be away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my money next year. Tears came into her mother's eyes. Driven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed 'eccentricity, Lucy determined to make this point clear. 'I've seen the world so littleI felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so little of life one ought to come up to London morenot a cheap ticket like today, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with some other girl. 'And mess with typewriters and latchkeys, exploded Mrs. Honeychurch. 'And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And call it a Missionwhen no one wants you! And call it Dutywhen it means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Workwhen thousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And then to prepare yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad with them. 'I want more independence, said Lucy lamely she knew that she wanted something, and independence is a useful cry we can always say that we have not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence those had been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather than short skirts and latchkeys. But independence was certainly her cue. 'Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down and round the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food. Despise the house that your father built and the garden that he planted, and our dear viewand then share a flat with another girl. Lucy screwed up her mouth and said 'Perhaps I spoke hastily. 'Oh, goodness! her mother flashed. 'How you do remind me of Charlotte Bartlett! 'Charlotte? flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid pain. 'More every moment. 'I don't know what you mean, mother Charlotte and I are not the very least alike. 'Well, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same taking back of words. You and Charlotte trying to divide two apples among three people last night might be sisters. 'What rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, it's rather a pity you asked her to stop. I warned you about her I begged you, implored you not to, but of course it was not listened to. 'There you go. 'I beg your pardon? 'Charlotte again, my dear that's all her very words. Lucy clenched her teeth. 'My point is that you oughtn't to have asked Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point. And the conversation died off into a wrangle. She and her mother shopped in silence, spoke little in the train, little again in the carriage, which met them at Dorking Station. It had poured all day and as they ascended through the deep Surrey lanes showers of water fell from the overhanging beechtrees and rattled on the hood. Lucy complained that the hood was stuffy. Leaning forward, she looked out into the steaming dusk, and watched the carriagelamp pass like a searchlight over mud and leaves, and reveal nothing beautiful. 'The crush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable, she remarked. For they were to pick up Miss Bartlett at Summer Street, where she had been dropped as the carriage went down, to pay a call on Mr. Beebe's old mother. 'We shall have to sit three a side, because the trees drop, and yet it isn't raining. Oh, for a little air! Then she listened to the horse's hoofs'He has not toldhe has not told. That melody was blurred by the soft road. 'Can't we have the hood down? she demanded, and her mother, with sudden tenderness, said 'Very well, old lady, stop the horse. And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and Powell wrestled with the hood, and squirted water down Mrs. Honeychurch's neck. But now that the hood was down, she did see something that she would have missedthere were no lights in the windows of Cissie Villa, and round the garden gate she fancied she saw a padlock. 'Is that house to let again, Powell? she called. 'Yes, miss, he replied. 'Have they gone? 'It is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his father's rheumatism has come on, so he can't stop on alone, so they are trying to let furnished, was the answer. 'They have gone, then? 'Yes, miss, they have gone. Lucy sank back. The carriage stopped at the Rectory. She got out to call for Miss Bartlett. So the Emersons had gone, and all this bother about Greece had been unnecessary. Waste! That word seemed to sum up the whole of life. Wasted plans, wasted money, wasted love, and she had wounded her mother. Was it possible that she had muddled things away? Quite possible. Other people had. When the maid opened the door, she was unable to speak, and stared stupidly into the hall. Miss Bartlett at once came forward, and after a long preamble asked a great favour might she go to church? Mr. Beebe and his mother had already gone, but she had refused to start until she obtained her hostess's full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting a good ten minutes more. 'Certainly, said the hostess wearily. 'I forgot it was Friday. Let's all go. Powell can go round to the stables. 'Lucy dearest 'No church for me, thank you. A sigh, and they departed. The church was invisible, but up in the darkness to the left there was a hint of colour. This was a stained window, through which some feeble light was shining, and when the door opened Lucy heard Mr. Beebe's voice running through the litany to a minute congregation. Even their church, built upon the slope of the hill so artfully, with its beautiful raised transept and its spire of silvery shingleeven their church had lost its charm and the thing one never talked aboutreligionwas fading like all the other things. She followed the maid into the Rectory. Would she object to sitting in Mr. Beebe's study? There was only that one fire. She would not object. Some one was there already, for Lucy heard the words 'A lady to wait, sir. Old Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon a goutstool. 'Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come! he quavered and Lucy saw an alteration in him since last Sunday. Not a word would come to her lips. George she had faced, and could have faced again, but she had forgotten how to treat his father. 'Miss Honeychurch, dear, we are so sorry! George is so sorry! He thought he had a right to try. I cannot blame my boy, and yet I wish he had told me first. He ought not to have tried. I knew nothing about it at all. If only she could remember how to behave! He held up his hand. 'But you must not scold him. Lucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe's books. 'I taught him, he quavered, 'to trust in love. I said 'When love comes, that is reality.' I said 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.' He sighed 'True, everlastingly true, though my day is over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry! He said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in that whatever you felt you did not mean. Yethis voice gathered strength he spoke out to make certain'Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy? Lucy selected a booka volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holding it up to her eyes, she said 'I have no wish to discuss Italy or any subject connected with your son. 'But you do remember it? 'He has misbehaved himself from the first. 'I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judge behaviour. IIsuppose he has. Feeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round to him. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they were sunken deep, gleamed with a child's courage. 'Why, he has behaved abominably, she said. 'I am glad he is sorry. Do you know what he did? 'Not 'abominably,' was the gentle correction. 'He only tried when he should not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch you are going to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George's life saying he is abominable. 'No, of course, said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil. ''Abominable' is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son. I think I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have gone. I shall not be so very late 'Especially as he has gone under, he said quietly. 'What was that? 'Gone under naturally. He beat his palms together in silence his head fell on his chest. 'I don't understand. 'As his mother did. 'But, Mr. EmersonMr. Emersonwhat are you talking about? 'When I wouldn't have George baptized, said he. Lucy was frightened. 'And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that fever when he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgement. He shuddered. 'Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing and broken away from her parents. Oh, horribleworst of allworse than death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in again! A judgement! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman had dropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shall we slip back into the darkness for ever? 'I don't know, gasped Lucy. 'I don't understand this sort of thing. I was not meant to understand it. 'But Mr. Eagerhe came when I was out, and acted according to his principles. I don't blame him or any one... but by the time George was well she was ill. He made her think about sin, and she went under thinking about it. It was thus that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife in the sight of God. 'Oh, how terrible! said Lucy, forgetting her own affairs at last. 'He was not baptized, said the old man. 'I did hold firm. And he looked with unwavering eyes at the rows of books, as ifat what cost!he had won a victory over them. 'My boy shall go back to the earth untouched. She asked whether young Mr. Emerson was ill. 'Ohlast Sunday. He started into the present. 'George last Sundayno, not ill just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son. Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful, and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and go. He will live but he will not think it worth while to live. He will never think anything worth while. You remember that church at Florence? Lucy did remember, and how she had suggested that George should collect postage stamps. 'After you left Florencehorrible. Then we took the house here, and he goes bathing with your brother, and became better. You saw him bathing? 'I am so sorry, but it is no good discussing this affair. I am deeply sorry about it. 'Then there came something about a novel. I didn't follow it at all I had to hear so much, and he minded telling me he finds me too old. Ah, well, one must have failures. George comes down tomorrow, and takes me up to his London rooms. He can't bear to be about here, and I must be where he is. 'Mr. Emerson, cried the girl, 'don't leave at least, not on my account. I am going to Greece. Don't leave your comfortable house. It was the first time her voice had been kind and he smiled. 'How good everyone is! And look at Mr. Beebe housing mecame over this morning and heard I was going! Here I am so comfortable with a fire. 'Yes, but you won't go back to London. It's absurd. 'I must be with George I must make him care to live, and down here he can't. He says the thought of seeing you and of hearing about youI am not justifying him I am only saying what has happened. 'Oh, Mr. Emersonshe took hold of his hand'you mustn't. I've been bother enough to the world by now. I can't have you moving out of your house when you like it, and perhaps losing money through itall on my account. You must stop! I am just going to Greece. 'All the way to Greece? Her manner altered. 'To Greece? 'So you must stop. You won't talk about this business, I know. I can trust you both. 'Certainly you can. We either have you in our lives, or leave you to the life that you have chosen. 'I shouldn't want 'I suppose Mr. Vyse is very angry with George? No, it was wrong of George to try. We have pushed our beliefs too far. I fancy that we deserve sorrow. She looked at the books againblack, brown, and that acrid theological blue. They surrounded the visitors on every side they were piled on the tables, they pressed against the very ceiling. To Lucy who could not see that Mr. Emerson was profoundly religious, and differed from Mr. Beebe chiefly by his acknowledgment of passionit seemed dreadful that the old man should crawl into such a sanctum, when he was unhappy, and be dependent on the bounty of a clergyman. More certain than ever that she was tired, he offered her his chair. 'No, please sit still. I think I will sit in the carriage. 'Miss Honeychurch, you do sound tired. 'Not a bit, said Lucy, with trembling lips. 'But you are, and there's a look of George about you. And what were you saying about going abroad? She was silent. 'Greeceand she saw that he was thinking the word over'Greece but you were to be married this year, I thought. 'Not till January, it wasn't, said Lucy, clasping her hands. Would she tell an actual lie when it came to the point? 'I suppose that Mr. Vyse is going with you. I hopeit isn't because George spoke that you are both going? 'No. 'I hope that you will enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse. 'Thank you. At that moment Mr. Beebe came back from church. His cassock was covered with rain. 'That's all right, he said kindly. 'I counted on you two keeping each other company. It's pouring again. The entire congregation, which consists of your cousin, your mother, and my mother, stands waiting in the church, till the carriage fetches it. Did Powell go round? 'I think so I'll see. 'Noof course, I'll see. How are the Miss Alans? 'Very well, thank you. 'Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece? 'II did. 'Don't you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake the two Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go backkeep warm. I think three is such a courageous number to go travelling. And he hurried off to the stables. 'He is not going, she said hoarsely. 'I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does stop behind in England. Somehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil, she would have lied again but he seemed so near the end of things, so dignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account, and the books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths that he had traversed, that the true chivalrynot the wornout chivalry of sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all the oldawoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil was not her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the risk became a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said 'You are leaving him? You are leaving the man you love? 'II had to. 'Why, Miss Honeychurch, why? Terror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincing speech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the world when she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her in silence, and then said 'My dear, I am worried about you. It seems to medreamily she was not alarmed'that you are in a muddle. She shook her head. 'Take an old man's word there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horroron the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this beware of muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be annoyed with me and weren't? Do you remember before, when you refused the room with the view? Those were muddleslittle, but ominousand I am fearing that you are in one now. She was silent. 'Don't trust me, Miss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult. She was still silent. ''Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.' I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes alongespecially the function of Love. Then he burst out excitedly 'That's it that's what I mean. You love George! And after his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy like waves from the open sea. 'But you do, he went on, not waiting for contradiction. 'You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it. You won't marry the other man for his sake. 'How dare you! gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears. 'Oh, how like a man!I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking about a man. 'But you are. She summoned physical disgust. 'You're shocked, but I mean to shock you. It's the only hope at times. I can reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be wasted. You have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness, and the comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that really matter, and for which you marry. I know that, with George, you will find them, and that you love him. Then be his wife. He is already part of you. Though you fly to Greece, and never see him again, or forget his very name, George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right love is eternal. Lucy began to cry with anger, and though her anger passed away soon, her tears remained. 'I only wish poets would say this, too love is of the body not the body, but of the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! Your soul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with which superstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls. I cannot say how they came nor whither they go, but we have them, and I see you ruining yours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in it is hell. Then he checked himself. 'What nonsense I have talkedhow abstract and remote! And I have made you cry! Dear girl, forgive my prosiness marry my boy. When I think what life is, and how seldom love is answered by loveMarry him it is one of the moments for which the world was made. She could not understand him the words were indeed remote. Yet as he spoke the darkness was withdrawn, veil after veil, and she saw to the bottom of her soul. 'Then, Lucy 'You've frightened me, she moaned. 'CecilMr. Beebethe ticket's boughteverything. She fell sobbing into the chair. 'I'm caught in the tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break the whole of life for his sake. They trusted me. A carriage drew up at the frontdoor. 'Give George my loveonce only. Tell him 'muddle.' Then she arranged her veil, while the tears poured over her cheeks inside. 'Lucy 'Nothey are in the halloh, please not, Mr. Emersonthey trust me 'But why should they, when you have deceived them? Mr. Beebe opened the door, saying 'Here's my mother. 'You're not worthy of their trust. 'What's that? said Mr. Beebe sharply. 'I was saying, why should you trust her when she deceived you? 'One minute, mother. He came in and shut the door. 'I don't follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom? 'I mean she has pretended to you that she did not love George. They have loved one another all along. Mr. Beebe looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet, and his white face, with its ruddy whiskers, seemed suddenly inhuman. A long black column, he stood and awaited her reply. 'I shall never marry him, quavered Lucy. A look of contempt came over him, and he said, 'Why not? 'Mr. BeebeI have misled youI have misled myself 'Oh, rubbish, Miss Honeychurch! 'It is not rubbish! said the old man hotly. 'It's the part of people that you don't understand. Mr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man's shoulder pleasantly. 'Lucy! Lucy! called voices from the carriage. 'Mr. Beebe, could you help me? He looked amazed at the request, and said in a low, stern voice 'I am more grieved than I can possibly express. It is lamentable, lamentableincredible. 'What's wrong with the boy? fired up the other again. 'Nothing, Mr. Emerson, except that he no longer interests me. Marry George, Miss Honeychurch. He will do admirably. He walked out and left them. They heard him guiding his mother upstairs. 'Lucy! the voices called. She turned to Mr. Emerson in despair. But his face revived her. It was the face of a saint who understood. 'Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed. I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah, dear, if I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave. You have to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the muddle that you have made yourself and your mother and all your friends will despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever right to despise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery without a word from him. Am I justified? Into his own eyes tears came. 'Yes, for we fight for more than Love or Pleasure there is Truth. Truth counts, Truth does count. 'You kiss me, said the girl. 'You kiss me. I will try. He gave her a sense of deities reconciled, a feeling that, in gaining the man she loved, she would gain something for the whole world. Throughout the squalor of her homeward driveshe spoke at oncehis salutation remained. He had robbed the body of its taint, the world's taunts of their sting he had shown her the holiness of direct desire. She 'never exactly understood, she would say in after years, 'how he managed to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole of everything at once. The Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They alone of this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of the Saronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either shrine of intellectual songthat upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue seas that under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze charioteer drives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious, cumbered with much digestive bread, they did proceed to Constantinople, they did go round the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair, but a less arduous, goal. Italiam petimus we return to the Pension Bertolini. George said it was his old room. 'No, it isn't, said Lucy 'because it is the room I had, and I had your father's room. I forget why Charlotte made me, for some reason. He knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap. 'George, you baby, get up. 'Why shouldn't I be a baby? murmured George. Unable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she was trying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening and again the spring. 'Oh, bother Charlotte, she said thoughtfully. 'What can such people be made of? 'Same stuff as parsons are made of. 'Nonsense! 'Quite right. It is nonsense. 'Now you get up off the cold floor, or you'll be starting rheumatism next, and you stop laughing and being so silly. 'Why shouldn't I laugh? he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and advancing his face to hers. 'What's there to cry at? Kiss me here. He indicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome. He was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she who remembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, she who knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her strangely that he should be sometimes wrong. 'Any letters? he asked. 'Just a line from Freddy. 'Now kiss me here then here. Then, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window, opened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet, there the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. The cabdriver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, might be that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelve months ago. A passion of gratitudeall feelings grow to passions in the Southcame over the husband, and he blessed the people and the things who had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself, it is true, but how stupidly! All the fighting that mattered had been done by othersby Italy, by his father, by his wife. 'Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses and the church, whatever its name is, still shows. 'San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock. 'Signorino, domani faremo uno giro, called the cabman, with engaging certainty. George told him that he was mistaken they had no money to throw away on driving. And the people who had not meant to helpthe Miss Lavishes, the Cecils, the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the forces that had swept him into this contentment. 'Anything good in Freddy's letter? 'Not yet. His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness the Honeychurches had not forgiven them they were disgusted at her past hypocrisy she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever. 'What does he say? 'Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in the springhe has known it for six monthsthat if mother wouldn't give her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy 'Signorino, domani faremo uno giro 'But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe 'You may well wish that. 'He will never forgive usI mean, he will never be interested in us again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I wish he hadn'tBut if we act the truth, the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run. 'Perhaps. Then he said more gently 'Well, I acted the truththe only thing I did doand you came back to me. So possibly you know. He turned back into the room. 'Nonsense with that sock. He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another's names. Ah! it was worth while it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. 'Signorino, domani faremo 'Oh, bother that man! But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, 'No, don't be rude to him. Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured 'Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that! 'Look at the lights going over the bridge. 'But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happyshe kissed him'I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to silly Greece, and become different for ever. 'But she did know, said George 'she did see my father, surely. He said so. 'Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so. George was obstinate again. 'My father, said he, 'saw her, and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her. Then they spoke of other thingsthe desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett, but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who disliked any darkness, said 'It's clear that she knew. Then, why did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to church. They tried to piece the thing together. As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She rejected it, and said 'How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble muddle at the last moment. But something in the dying evening, in the roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell short of life, and George whispered 'Or did she mean it? 'Mean what? 'Signorino, domani faremo uno giro Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness 'Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati. 'Scusi tanto, signora, he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his horse. 'Buona serae grazie. 'Niente. The cabman drove away singing. 'Mean what, George? He whispered 'Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you. That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we met, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like thisof course, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she hoped. I can't explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me alive in you all the summer how she gave you no peace how month after month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted heror she couldn't have described us as she did to her friend. There are detailsit burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen, Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us happy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believe that, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she is glad. 'It is impossible, murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences of her own heart, she said 'Noit is just possible. Youth enwrapped them the song of Phaethon announced passion requited, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. The song died away they heard the river, bearing down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean.